Principles

"These are my principles. If you don't like them ...I have others."
(Groucho Marx)

courtesy of Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One Track Mind)

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Duchamp's Nu Descendant un Escalier at private view of Tate Modern's new exhibition - Duchamp . Man Ray . Picabia (someone should make it in wood)

Nightwalk from Horseferry Road to Tate Modern, especially the stretch near Gabriel's Wharf

Discovering U & I had listened to the same countryside programme on Radio 4 on early Saturday morning about the South Downs and Weald of Kent and picked up on the same stuff

Starspots #43 - arty smarties

Andrew Marr, BBC journalist - Tate Britain (Modern Painters: the Camden Town Group) 11.ii.08

Michael Nyman, composer - Tate Modern (Duchamp . Man Ray . Picabia) 19.ii.08
Joan Bakewell - ditto

Playing away - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Walk along the Thames at Fulham/Putney Bridge (with the enfants terribles)

N's first A team rugby match - versus Hammmersmith & Fulham at Hurlingham Park in cold winter sun

Strawberries off a barrow in a nostalgic old corner of Ranelagh Gardens SW6 by the railway arch

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The most beautiful Valentine's card from U

Lunchtime chat with Andy Phillips of Channel 4 Radio

A class opening goal from Berby in Prague

Track of the Day - Andy Harris

Janie Jones by The Clash

in memory of Andy Harris RIP

He's in love with rock'n'roll woaahh

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Dinner with the Enfants Terribles at our quiet spot in Highgate

Practising rugby at our 'private' field in Hampstead Garden Suburb, then rushing home to enjoy a couple of fantastic tries by England

Golden winter sun

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Winter sun

Meeting and chatting with a fella called John who was reading The Fountainhead outside in the sunshine at Amici's at lunchtime

Collecting the enfants terribles from skool armed with cakes

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing the Eric Gill sculpture inside Broadcasting House foyer

Walking from Broadcasting House to El Parador, Mornington Crescent

Walking the Enfants Terribles half-way to school

Track of the Day

A Love Supreme - Acknowledgement by John Coltrane

Track of the day

Across The Universe - The Beatles from Revolver
recorded 40 years ago today
and beamed across the universe now by NASA

Track of the Day yesterday

Eskimo - Damien Rice from O

(D was particularly taken by this one on the way to play rugby at Wanstead RFC)

Creative Accounting #3

Damien Rice = David Gray + Once

Fear factor

"Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?"

Kahlil Gibran

Nothing is neutral and neutral is less than nothing

"Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

Elie Wiesel - writer, Nobel laureate

Track of the Day

Tough choice today - could have been Bjork and Antony Hegarty (Dull Flame of Desire) or Shane MacGowan (Snake with Eyes of Garnet) - I do love my little orange Shuffle - but the award goes to...



Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto



which took me places while I was flat on my back in the gym

Bristol fashion - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Chairing a session on cross-platform commissioning with Alan Hayling of Renegade and Paul Canty of Preloaded using Picture This as a case study - at Just-B's Crossing the Void in Bristol

The rhythm of the train

Sitting by the water near the Watershed, Bristol

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Speaking on a panel chaired by Mike Bolland (original Channel 4 commissioner of shows like The Tube and The Comic Strip Presents) about the history and future of Channel 4

Encountering a Dalek at BBC Birmingham

Seeing the Selfridges pin building in Brum

Why are heads round?

"Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction."
Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching N's rugby team win 56-5 on a bright winter morn in Watford, especially his terrier-like tackles

Watching Saracens beat Bath 26-20 at Vicarage Road with N and neighbours

Watching Captain & Commander with U, reflecting on the sea and other stuff

Track of the Day

Last of the Famous International Playboys - Morrissey
as performed live at the Roundhouse

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Hearing Morrissey sing International Playboys (before he retired sick, at the Roundhouse, with Paul Miller)

An evening visit to Black Gull Books

A chat with James Cherkoff about all things blogging

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Empire's Children winning an Interactive Media Award in New York



Visiting the Arts Club in Dover Street and checking out the art round its walls



Walking through St James's and the eponymous park in the afternoon sun (with Ewan Mcintosh)

Track of the Day

FM - Steely Dan



NO STATIC AT ALL


Give her some funked up music she treats you nice
Feed her some hungry reggae she'll love you twice

Track of the Day

You've Got to have Freedom - Pharoah Saunders

Image courtesy of Lyn Rodden - www.lynrodden.com

Good medicine - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching the first episode of Medicine Men with twin docs Chris and Xand as the accompanying Medicine Chest site goes lives with tales of cobwebs and baking soda



Spurs beating the crap out of the Woolwich Wanderers



Looking in the night window of Black Gull Books + reading around (literally) Smith Square [Everything is Illuminated]

Dot Comedy

Some favourite quotes from Dorothy Parker:

* Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

* Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

* You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.

* You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

* She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

* If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

* Salary is no object - I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

* Take care of luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

* This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

* I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

* All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends.

* It serves me right for keeping all my eggs in one bastard.

* That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.

* I don't care what is written about me, so long as it isn't true.

And, to celebrate the 40th anniversary this month of the Prague Spring, a new mash-up from me:

* The two most beautiful words in the English language are “cheque enclosed”. The two most beautiful words in the Czech language are “Czech freed”.

Mac weather - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Pic: Mill Hill off The Ridgeway


Watching the B&B scene in Borat culminating in throwing the dollars at the beetles - satire of Kafkaesque proportions

Setting a shiny new iMac up for Ma and getting the little darling on-line - despite Virgin customer service in India trying to throw me off the scent

A leisurely drive home in the rain along the Ridgeway (Mill Hill) with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finishing Justin Cartwright's The Song Before It Is Sung on our new sofa

Walking down to the library and picking up a couple of books for each of the enfants terribles

Being bought a slice of cake

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Coffee with Terry and Gaby Braun, chewing the fat about sonic stuff

Dub reggae - and iPodding my way home generally

Friday evening - always loved it (since the days of Roundtable and reading comics stretched out on the carpet)

Human Behan - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Adie Dunbar's barnstorming performance as Brendan Behan in 'Brendan at the Chelsea' (at the Riverside, Hammersmith til 3rd Feb)

Outstanding vegetarian dinner (with U, Joan & Paul) at The Gate, Hammersmith -based in painter Frank Brangwyn's house

Thinking about Public Value at the Oxford Media Convention

Track of the Day

Chatti Mouth by Creation Rebel

Too much licky-licky...

Guardian Angel - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Big Art Mob has been shortlisted for the inaugural Media Guardian Innovation Awards

Finding out that Picture This has 11.5% of its users spending over half an hour per session on the site (and 4.7% over an hour!)

Meeting Zoe Margolis (Girl with a One-track Mind) in the flesh at the climax of the Cultural and Creative Leadership Mentoring Programme at the ICA

Picture This - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Hanging out at the Photographers' Gallery with Picture This folk including Martin Parr, Alan Hayling, Brett Rogers, Liz Gordon, Joy Gregory, Ed Thompson, and the Renegade posse.

Walking home in the wee small hours

Walking N half-way to skool

Photo courtesy of Lucinda Chua

Track of the Day

Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters as performed at The Last Waltz with The Band

I can make love to you woman
...in five minutes time

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Finding out that Lost Generation had the highest average pageviews per session in 2007 of any site on Channel4.com

D on being banned from DS and PSP for over 60 days: "A bit harsh."

Juno, particularly Ellen Page's performance

Track of the Day

My Generation by The Who

Creative Accounting #2

Ellen Page (Juno - b. 1987) = Jane Fonda (b. 1937) - half a century

Star spots #554

Griff Rhys Jones
Stephen Bayley, design geezer

yesterday:
Richard Hammond, Top Gear

Terminated

Notes for a movie by Albert Camus & James Cameron





We are biological machines programmed only to survive.


We are born condemned to death.


To survive we must not take that ludicrous condition lying down.


We must rebel against it with kindness (as in 'mankind').


We need to learn to live in the present to maximise our own happiness.


That happiness must be available to the whole of our kind as a context for our individual happiness.

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A chinwag with Andy Taylor of All3Media

Meeting radio drama director John Dryden of Goldhawk

Roast potatoes

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Picture This doing really well - 15.5 page views per session

lunch and chat with Steve Moore, always good craic

making up absurd versions of Quentin Blake's The Clown for the enfants terribles - all the females in New York are toy killers

Old friends - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Meeting up with Nick Golson for the first time in over two decades, over a leisurely dinner at the Wolseley in Piccadilly

Chicken soup

Walking across St James's Park at night

yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Practising drop kicks with N & D in Golder's Hill Park (on a triangle of grass where I played once with my terminally ill dad)

Chatting to an old kite man (by the duck pond where I walked once with my loving grandmother)

Chewing the fat with my old school friend Alan and my neighbour James (on the touchline of Finchley Rigby Club)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading Justin Cartwright's latest novel on the tube - The Song Before It Is Sung

Listening to Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo's Radio 5 movie review podcast in the gym (Christmas review of 2007)

Playing Shrek game with the enfants terribles

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Uncle Johnny again after a long time - shades of my dad

Talking to my mum about how she met my dad - after buying her a new Mac

Mill Hill antiques fair on the Ridgeway - finding an art deco bakelite cigarette box

Live life to a different beat - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Roy Ayers' fantastic young drummer - Jazz Cafe for John Grounds' birthday

Seeing Tanya Stone gain after over a decade - a long walk out at South Mimms

Cholla

Home life - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Putting up Pop's old bookcase

Teaching N the facts of life with U

Doing D's first chemistry experiment - making a solution of Copper Sulphate

Track of the Day

Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan - heard today in the movie I'm Not There

I ran into the fortune-teller
who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet for so long
I can't remember what it's like.
There's a lone soldier on the cross,
smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door,
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done,
in the final end he won the wars
After losin' every battle

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Rapunzel at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as produced by Cornwall's Kneehigh company and written by Annie Siddons, with the enfants terribles, U and me Ma

Listening to My City of Ruins with N and having a detailed discussion about it

Walking over Hungerford footbridge and looking downstream at dusk

Track of yesterDay

Ruby by the Kaiser Chiefs as performed in most lively fashion on Jools' Hootenanny - the first song I heard in 2008

Out of the mouths of babes...

N (age 11) on graffiti tags: "It's like dogs pissing on walls"

Goodbye 2007 - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Listening to the mayoral candidates on BBC London radio - Red Ken whilst jogging round St Pancras cemetery, Brian Paddock over a late breakfast, Boris when still sleeping in

Reading under the Translinear Light (a 1950s art deco lamp)

The tranquility over the night allotments from the balcony

Hallo 2008 - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

[RIP Reckless - still lying empty]


Robert Elms' show on BBC London Radio reviewing the best music of 2007, with the usual London slant - listening whilst clearing up the party from last night

Mooching around Islington with the enfants terribles - bumped into Technokitten Helen Keegan and Boyd Hilton

Kissing my way into the new year, alone quietly with U - ETs sleeping peacefully up above

Joke du Jour

An Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, a Rabbi and a Priest walk into a pub.

The barman says to them: Is this some kind of joke?

Stones insights

Heard on the radio in the last couple of days...

Bill Wyman on archaeology, described metal-detecting as:
Fishing on dry land

Ronnie Wood described screen-printing as:
Overdubbing with colours

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Saracens vs Newcastle Falcons with the enfants terribles - seeing Johnny Wilkinson in the flesh, especially kicking

Joking with D (in Nahling)

Watching BAFTA screeners

Review of 2007

Best Film:
The Lives of Others
Knocked Up
3:10 to Yuma

Michael Clayton
Into the Wild
There Will Be Blood
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Golden Compass
Charlie Wilson's War
In the Valley of Elah
Die Hard 4.0
American Gangster


Best TV:
Skins

Best Book:
The Song Before it is Sung - Justin Cartwright
Life Class - Pat Barker
The Ghost - Robert Harris

Best Play:
The 39 Steps (Criterion)

Best Albums:
We'll Never Turn Back - Mavis Staples
Twelve - Patti Smith

Best Single/track:
Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen & the E St Band
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
Patti Smith - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Best Gig:
1) Madcap's Last Laugh - Syd Barrett tribute at the Barbican
2) Patti Smith - Twelve Songs tour at the Roundhouse
3) The Rolling Stones - last night of their Bigger Bang tour at the O2
4) John Martyn - Solid Air at the Albert Hall

Best Exhibition:
1) Antony Gormley at the Hayward
2) Robert Capa and Gerda Taro at the IPC, New York

Best Sports Event:
1) England beating France in Rugby World Cup Semi-final in Paris
2) Start of Tour de France in London

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A run in the cemetery

D's reaction to his new chemistry set for his birthday

Watching D watching The Golden Compass (at the Empire Leicester Square), entirely absorbed

Quote of the month

D getting his birthday present from his grandma today, a chemistry set:

"I'll make myself bigger and smaller. And then I'll make my toys alive."

"I'm going to take over the world, Dad. I'm going to make something on fire! Ha ha ha!"

What does that say about young people's perception of science?!

Track of Christmas Day

Last Month of the Year by Blind Boys of Alabama from Go Tell It on the Mountain (good to see them dress up for the occasion)

Heralds the unwrapping of gifts in our house

(Then the Frank Sinatra Christmas Album swings in)

Tell me when was Jesus born
Last month of the year
Tell me when was Jesus born
Last month of the year
Tell me when was Jesus born
Last month of the year
Yeah, wasn't January, February, March, April or May
June, July, August, September, October, November
Was the 25th day of December
Was the last month of the year

The 100 Greatest Songs of all time

A christmas project/parlour game - for now, a work in progress (and not yet in order) - any suggestions more than welcome...



1 Move On Up - Curtis Mayfield
2 Inner City Blues - Marvin Gaye
3 Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen (MTV Plugged session 1992)
4 Ballad of a Thin Man - Bob Dylan
5 Atmosphere - Joy Division
6 Icon - Siouxsie and the Banshees
7 ESP- The Buzzcocks
8 Moondance - Van Morrison
9 West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys
10 Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones
11 Hyperballad - Bjork
12 Cold Water - Damien Rice
13 Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
14 A Town Like Malice - The Jam
15 No Scrubs - TLC
16 Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
17 Fruit Tree - Nick Drake
18 Across the Universe - The Beatles
19 Oh Yoko - John Lennon
20 Danny Boy - Brian Kennedy
21 Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
22 That's Alright Mama - Elvis
23 Don't Want to Know - John Martyn
24 White Man in Hammersmith Palais - The Clash
25 Anarchy in the UK - The Sex Pistols
26 In a Rut - The Ruts
27 This is the house that Jack built - Aretha Franklin
28 Ventura Highway - America
29 For What it's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
30 Eloise - The Damned
31 Sometimes - Michael Frant & Spearhead
32 Fanciness - Shabba Ranks & Lady G
33 Natty Dread - Bob Marley & the Wailers
34 That Girl - Stevie Wonder
35 My Generation - The Who
36 Freedom Suite - The Young Disciples
37 Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed - David Bowie
38 In My Time of Dying - Led Zeppelin
39 Frank Sinatra - One for my baby
40 One - U2
41 Jealousy - Geraldine MacGowan [County Clare's finest]
42 The End - The Doors
43 Raglan Road - Sinead O'Connor
44 Soul Sacrifice - Santana (from Woodstock)
45 The Wind Cries Mary - Jimi Hendrix
46 The Last Month of the Year - Blind Boys of Alabama
47 Alison - Elvis Costello
48 Down on Mississippi - Mavis Staples
49 Ninety Nine and a Half - Dorothy Love Coates
50 Winter in America - Gil Scott Heron
51 Chase the Devil - Max Romeo & the Upsetters
52 Police & Thieves - Jumior Murvin
53 You're the Best Thing - The Style Council
54 Public Image Limited - PIL
55 The House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
56 Tainted Love - Gloria Jones
57 The Stars We Are - Marc Almond
58 The Snake with Eyes of Garnet - Shane MacGowan & the Popes
59 Runaway Boy - The Stray Cats
60 If I Was a Bell - Jean Simmons (in Guys & Dolls movie)
61 What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
62 Soolimon - Neil Diamond (from Hot August Night)
63 Monkeys theme - The Monkeys
64 Fire & Rain - James Taylor
65 The Boys are Back in Town - Thin Lizzy
66 My Little Empire - Manic Street Preachers
67 Wandrin' Star - Lee Marvin
68 Everything I Own - Ken Boothe
69 Armagideon Time - Willie Williams
70 Fairytale of New York - Shane MacGowan & Kirsty MacColl
71 Harrow Road - Big Audio Dynamite
72 Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
73 Like a Prayer - Madonna
74 Jerusalem - hymn
75 Jerusalem the Golden - Effi Netzer singers
76 Batonga - Angelique Kidjo
77 In a Lifetime - Maire Brennan & Bono
78 Culture Club - Do you really want to hurt me?
79 Forbidden Colours - David Sylvian & Ruichi Sakamoto (from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence)
80 Ain't Too Proud to Beg - The Temptations
81 Neil Young - Old Man
82 My Sweet Lord - George Harrison
83 Father & Son - Cat Stevens
84 Sonny - Bobby Hebb
85 Hells Bells - AC/DC
86 Just Like Heaven - The Cure
87 Hatikvah
88 Listening Wind - Talking Heads
89 In the Sun - Blondie
90 Knowledge of Beauty - Dexy's Midnight Runners
91 Amazing - George Michael
92 Street Life - Roxy Music
93 Shot by Both Sides - Magazine
94 Reward - Teardrop Explodes
95 The Prince - Madness
96 Ghost Town - The Specials
97 Uptown Top Ranking - Althea & Donna
98 UB40 - Ivory Madonna
99 Julia Dream - Pink Floyd
100 Try a Little Tenderness - Otis Redding


Bubbling Under:
What Difference Does It Make - The Smiths
I don't know how to love him - Jesus Christ Superstar
The Look of Love- Isaac Hayes
Look of Love - ABC
Supper's Ready - Genesis
I've Got Rhythm - Gene Kelly (in An American in Paris)
Don't You Forget About Me - The Simple Minds
In the beginning there was Rhythm - The Slits
The Marseillaise (in Casablanca)
First Time ever I saw Your Face: Roberta Flack
Strange Fruit: Billie Holliday
Wish Upon a Star (not the Rose Royce version)
Picasso's Last Words - Wings


The Reservoir:
Bob Dylan - You gotta serve somebody, Corrina Corrina
The Beatles - While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven (just for the bit where John Bonham comes in)
Bob Marley & the Wailers - No Woman No Cry
Marvin Gaye - What's Going On, Abraham Martin & John
Van Morrison - Someone Like You
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Switch
The Buzzcocks - Sixteen Again
Sarah - Thin Lizzy
Since You've Been Gone - Rainbow
something by Them
The Message: Grandmaster Flash
The Torture Never Stops - Frank Zappa

Creative Accounting #1

Doobie Brothers = Steely Dan + Earth Wind and Fire


This first Creative Accounting inspired by hearing What a Fool Believes on Victoria Woods' Desert Island Discs

picture courtesy of Super Seventies

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

The 39 Steps at the Criterion theatre - our family christmas show

Salami sandwiches from Amici - tube picnic

The mysterious cloudy full moon

School's Out - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Finishing work for Christmas - end of term feeling - marked by lunch at the local Italian

Playing Risk with the enfants terribles on my old set (seems all to be there bar one dice) - haven't played since I was about N's age

A nice piece about my work by Jemima Kiss at the Guardian Media.

Magic Show - Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Breaking in to see the Boss and the E Street Band at the Millennium Dome with Rubensteen - Nils' solo on Promised Land



Lunch with the fellas from Holler in Islington, with post-prandial stroll back into Clerkenwell in the cold afternoon winter-opaque air



Finding 3 space invaders around EC1

Bruce Springsteen Magic Tour
set list (partial from memory) December 19, 2007
London, O2 Arena

Radio Nowhere **
Lonesome Day
Magic

Because the Night [he can never get it back from Patti]
She's the One
Living in the Future

Promised Land (Nils solo) ***
Waiting on a Sunny Day (great singalong)
Heart beat track from Magic – Devil’s Arcade *

The Rising
Long Walk Home
Badlands

Jungleland * (Big Man shaded face solo)
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark

America Land ** [a touch of the Pogues with a dash of Woody Guthrie]
Santa Claus is coming to town

Track of the Day

Sleep don't weep by Damien Rice from 9

Track of the Day yesterday

Radio Nowhere by Bruce Springsteen from Magic - as performed by the Boss with the E Street Band to open their show at the Millennnium Dome

Track of the Day

Cold Water by Damien Rice (with the voice of Lisa Hannigan) from O

David Gray begat Damien Rice begat Glen Hansard son of Once

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Chatting with Azka Malik at our work Christmas lunch

Shades of Oscar Wilde at the Cafe Royal

Soho to Fitrovia walk

Track of the Day

Ventura Highway by America - California sunshine vibes on a London Christmas street

Track of the Day

Echoes by Pink Floyd from Meddle

Track of the Day yesterday

'By the Rivers Dark' by Leonard Cohen from the album 'Ten new Songs'

As heard on Something Understood (Radio 4)

Play - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Playing with the Enfants Terribles in Hamleys

Sunday dinner in Highgate Village (en famille au cafe rouge)

Catching a great Leonard Cohen track by chance late night on the radio (and I don't generally like his stuff, so an even better surprise)

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Getting back to the gym

Mark Kermode + Simon Mayo Radio 5 fim review podcast

The Christmas lights on our high street, especially the new sketchy santas

Recent Happiness Experiment entries

Thurs 6/12:
Watching D watching The Snowman stage show with rapt attention

Watching N chatting to Duncan Ballantine with real confidence and insight

Family Christmassy outting

Wed 5/12:
The buzz of creativity at the first 4Talent awards

Hooking up with Mark Bowness, colourful creator of TribeWanted

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A tranquil afternoon at the James Joyce Foundation, Zurich reading about Ulysses - delighted to encounter Fritz Senn again, the man behind the Stiftung James Joyce

The garden above the old town where people play big chess

Another day of flanerie

Ulysses notes

7.Xii.07 Stiftung James Joyce



Joyce's Dublin: A walking guide to Ulysses

Jack McCarthy

Wolfhound Press, Dublin 1986



0800 at Sandycove and 7 Eccles St



1400-1445 B + S cross-paths in the National Library



1455-1600 City odyssey/wandering rocks

Odd, at sea

B + S at book stalls nr Liffey



2000-2100 B is on the beach S traversed in the morning



2200-2300 B + S cross-paths in Holles Street National Maternity Hospital (my current location - chapter 14) - B then follows S



2400-0100 Nighttown

Then known as Monto (after Montgomery St) - towards Ballybough?

B comes to S's assistance after being knocked down by a British soldier (Joyce rescued by a jew incident)



0100-0200 Cabman's shelter

B finally meets S

82 Tyrone St Lower now Railway St = Bella Cohens



0200-0245 Bloom's House

Catechism



0200-0217 Molly's bedroom



Parallels:

A/B

U/M

Irish-Jewish



Ulysses to AG as Ned Kelly to oz painter

Odyssey > Ulysses > AGwk



1 sandycove / telemachus

2 school, dalkey / nestor

3 sandymount strand / proteus

4 eccles st / calypso

5 south dublin streets / lotus eaters

6 funeral procession / hades

7 freeman's journal / aeolus

8 lunch, davy byrne's / lestrygonians

9 national library / scylla & charybdis

10 city odyssey / wandering rocks

11 ormond hotel / sirens

12 barney kiernan's /cyclops

13 sandymount strand / nausicaa

14 holles st / oxen of the sun

15 nighttown / circe

16 cabman's shelter / eumaeus

17 eccles st / ithaca

18 molly's bedroom / penelope



[ ] Table

[ ] Website

Yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Reading a murder mystery set in le Marais (my favourite part of Paris - visited en famille for the first time just a few weeks ago) - and bought at Felony & Mayhem in Greenwich Village, New York last week



Getting better - my ankle injured playing rugby yesterday



Approaching launch of Picture This

Track of the Day

Stolen Moments by Oliver Nelson from The Blues and the Abstract Truth

Fighting and Loving Irish - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Showing off Big Art Project / Big Art Mob to the World Congress of Science & Factual Producers

A route march across Manhattan to find Fighting Irish Tshirts for the enfants terribles

Chicken soup and latkes - and the lively group of brothers in the corner of Mr Broadway (old school brothers, something very Irish about their noisy chat and laughter)

Village Voice - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

The waitress at the Grey Dog in Greenwich Village which I visited with Marty Casella

Seeing Marty again after all these years and wandering around the Village with him, including the huge Picasso sculpture in the NYU residence

A chance encounter and lively chat with a fella about to do a tour of the East Village - he told me about Jim Powers' street mosaics

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

A ride in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park at the peak of its autumnal colours (the driver was from Leitrim) - the clip clop

A visit to Moma - Andrew Wyeth's painting of the girl in the pink dress de dos in the hay field (her grey gripping hands and wisps of hair like the hay)

The emergence of the NYC Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving (which BTW is a great idea for a holiday)

Reunited - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Seeing Michael + Deborah again after a few years - we reunited at the fabulous Robert Capa exhibition at the International Centre for Photography, New York

Burger & shake lunch in the sun-drenched Empire Diner - including a Spiked Nog cocktail (rum, nutmeg and stuff)

Wander through West Chelsea and the revitalised Meatpacking District with Deborah, Michael and Tara in the low autumnal sun

Track of the Day

Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaataa - played looking out over New York (albeit around Madison)

NYC - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

First view of America - a narrow long island or strip lit by the setting sun, bordered seaward by a thin wall of light sand and green/brown land, containing channels and tamed sea, meandering rivers and occasional harbours



Being a flaneur around night-time New York around Madison and 45th (having been reading Edmund White's The Flaneur)



Watching a French film on the plane to NYC - Ne le dit a Personne (Tell No-one) - a classy thriller starring Francois Cluzet who has aspects of Dustin Hoffman

Track of the Day

Poison Arrow by ABC

Track of the Day

That Girl by Stevie Wonder

Memories of Rue de Saintonge in the 3e - Paris, chez Marcelino Truong et Lara

Friday on my mind - Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Political chat with Steve Moore over lunch

The Christmassy feel of our high street at night (without any decoration)

Fridays

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Introducing N to the Fighting Irish

Setting up NYC trip

Fresh night sodium orange air

Right Charlie - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Fascinating chat with writer/director Peter Kosminsky (Britz, The Government Inspector, Warriors) about his forthcoming project

Fixing on the title of my next project - Medicine Chest - thought it up in the back of a cab in Prague

Hearing about D's talk at school about Charlie Chaplin for which he dressed up in bowler, moustache, cane and suit and demoed the funny walk to his class

Dead calm - yesterday's Happiness Experiment entry

Watching Sunday afternoon movies with the enfants terribles when the weather's rubbish

Reading crime novels

Jogging in the cemetery - now in line with government policy I understand

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Being passed on by a kind intermediary a compliment about my work which meant a lot to me

Eating while reading the newspaper

The warm smile of our local pharmacist Paresh

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Going to the revamped St Pancras station with the enfants terribles and their cousins and my bro

Watching Quentin Blake draw a train full of weird&wonderful things including a little boy in a bowler hat (D was out&about in his Chaplin hat)

Mooching about Camden Passage with D

Track of the Day

Another Girl Another Planet - The Only Ones (in the car driving back from Islington up the Holloway Road with D)

Star Spot #438

12.11.07 Bill Bailey, comedian (at C4)

Inheritance Tracks - soul train

This whole blog stems from considerations of inheritance - Simple Pleasures part 1 summarised it thus: “This blog is inspired by a sermon I heard a couple of years ago which quoted a ‘will’ left by a father for his children which was not his ‘money will’ but his ‘wisdom will’ (I can’t remember the exact terminology that was used but you get the idea) - it was his attempt to pass on some of the more useful things he’d learnt in his lifetime about what really matters and about the way people are. I’ve come to the conclusion over my forty-one years so far on the planet that Happiness is to be found primarily in the Simple Pleasures of life so I’ve decided to put some of those pleasures here for my boys to read when they’re a bit older and anyone else who cares to. And one day soon N and D can start adding their own…”

This morning I was listening to Saturday Live on Radio 4 and as always when I catch it looking forward to the Inheritance Track section (today it was Marianne Faithfull's). Now I'm as much a sucker for parlour games as the next man, especially ones to do with music, and this is a premiere league one. It works thus: The person in question choses a track which they have inherited from their parents and one which they would like to pass on to their children. Simple but sweet.

It relates very closely to an audio project I began several years ago which I'm planning to resume very shortly online (it pretty much predates the web!) - it's called Songlines. More to follow on that soon.

So I kicked off a little convo about inheritance tracks on the Donald Byrd post just before this one, and am resuming it back here in a post of its own.

I'm divided on my Inherited Track between 'Everything's Alright' from 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'Soolaimon' by Neil Diamond from 'Hot August Night' - not too cool, not too sexy - but that's not what it's about.

When I was a young teenager I spent hours at a time in our dining room colouring these huge, complex poster-size pictures on the table whilst listening to my mum's copy of the Jesus Christ Superstar stageshow soundtrack - a really dodgy old copy with a lit red candle on the slightly textured cover. Hours of good clean, godly fun. Simple pleasures.

The 1973 movie of JC Superstar directed by Norman Jewison really struck me when I saw it - almost converted me! A bunch of hippies arrive in a bus in the middle of the Israeli desert, set up some modern scenary, get into some modern-style costumes and start singing their way through one of the greatest stories ever told... Between that and Jeffrey Hunter in 1961's King of Kings and I'm a sucker for Pre-raphaelite Jesuses.

But I think I'll opt for the Neil Diamond song which comes from the 8-track in my step-dad Maurice's car. I loved the cover - some long-haired hippy in a denim jacket clutching his groin to squeeze the full power of his cahones [a technical music term from Carlos Santana] into his singing. Little did I know it was a clean-cut Jewish Brill Building songsmith (aka Noah Kaminsky) in disguise. Looking back at it it was the gospel-intensity passion of his voice that struck a chord with me.

Lord of my need, need, need
Leading me on, on, on
God of my day, day, day
Lord of my night, night, night

From this live version of Soolaimon I can see a path to a spine of spiritual songs running through the music I love from Dylan to Van to (the greatest living performer) Bruce Springsteen to Marvin Gaye to Coltrane.

Which leads my nicely to my Bequest Track: Miles Davis' 'Flamenco Sketches' from 'Kind of Blue' (which of course features Trane). Why pass it on? Because it's a transcendent piece of music that takes you to a very peaceful place.

I can number the totally transcendent musical experiences I've had on the fingers of one hand - that is, experiences of listening to recorded music (I'm not venturing into the realm of live music here) where it has taken me to Another Place. The tracks include:
* Love theme from Spartacus by Bill Evans (also on Flamenco Sketches - I was in Buckley Road, Kilburn at the time, pretty much outside the house of David Baddiel who introduced me to Kind of Blue in King's College, Cambridge)
* Hyperballad by Bjork (Junction Road, Archway)
* Into the Fire by Bruce Springsteen (Boscastle Road, Parliament Hill)
and, of course,
* Flamenco Sketches (on the road back from Ayot St Lawrence, near St Albans - coming home from George Bernard Shaw's house)

I'm not sure what GBS had to say about music beyond his definition of Dancing as "the vertical expression of a horizontal desire legalized by music."

Neil Diamond has been quite snappy on the subject: "Songs are life in 80 words or less."

But I'll leave the final word to Miles as it chimes in perfectly with the tenor of this blog: "My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life."

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Walking down to Nahling, the local Thai, with the Boyz to mark the start of the weekend

Trying to help BAFTA get its shit together on the Interactive front with Malcolm Garrett and accomplices

Buying dressing up gear from Culture Vultures, one of the weirder of our weird local shops - Charlie Chaplin moustaches and canes and moustache glue

Today's Happiness Experiment entry

Morning sun over the allotments through the freezing air

Looking at the Look & Feel for Picture This

Reading Agatha Christie (4.50 from Paddington) on the train to and from work

Track of the Day

Cristo Redendor by Donald Byrd