The Small Box

The small box gets its first teeth
And its small length
Its small width and small emptiness
And all that it has got
The small box is growing bigger
And now the cupboard is in it
That it was in before
And now it grows bigger and bigger and bigger
And now has in it the room
And the house and the town and the land
And the world it was in before
The small box remembers its childhood
And by overgreat longing
It becomes a small box again
Now in the small box
Is the whole world quite tiny
You could put it in a pocket
Easily steal it easily lose it
Take care of the small box.

by Vasco Popa

This poem inspired a whole series of small ceramic pieces and drawings for me.
I'm fascinated by contradictions of scale, models in glass cases, giants and dwarves.
So is Til Nowak, maker of the movie in the post below this.

'Delivery', by Til Nowak.

Fantasy shoe day

I shall be wearing these on my voyages. They'll protect my feet from spiky things in the ocean, and leave oversized, strangely non-human footprints on your beach. In order to avoid all the Robinson Crusoe jokes, I shall NEVER land on a blogisland on a friday, unless the owner thereof has never heard of Robinson Crusoe.
RDG: Please note. These are not available with 6" pointy heels. But they are allowed on deck and in the rigging.

The Sheep Look Up

Okay, No sheep. Cow? Always look up. And double check you have the right pack.
For Steve.




This studio produces some great work.

A Dream.

This is a dream I had about a year ago, I wrote about it then, because it was so vivid.
At that time, I'd not heard the term 'Steampunk', but that dream was pure steampunk, and I can see the images now, the distant voices, the smell of woodsmoke.

It was posted on my profile at Flork.com (a site that has provided some amusement and a few true friends)... :

"In my dreams of flying, I rarely travel more than a few feet above the ground. I have to go around trees and very tall buildings, but can easily manage brief hops to clear fences and houses.
In my dreams I sometimes fly high on the sky, but more often I am close to the ground. I seem to skate, but as if my feet are about a foot above the ground, I can lean into the turns, glide, rise and swoop, and balance is never a problem, I can never fall or suffer bruises. (did we have this discussion before?) I was very tired, after a string of long working days. I did dream of flying, though, over a mythical country .
There were strange beasts, castles, villages with mediaeval-seeming life going on. Yet on a road below me, a great steam powered traction-engine was pulling a sort of road train of four heavy trailers laden with goods, sacks with spilling grain, barrels, bales of something , maybe wool. Two of the trailers were sheeted over, I swooped down for a closer look and the driver, a woman, built like a heavy-duty russian heroine of the republic, wiped her brow with a bandanna and raised a cup of coffee in greeting. Beside her, a young boy, maybe ten years old, was shovelling coals into a glowing firebox. I waved back, pedalled harder for the climb, for the first time was aware of the craft I piloted, a beautifully made airboat, made of polished wood, rattan cane, bound with copper fixings, the wings were covered in bright silks, rose and fell by force transmitted fom the pedals, I sat on a bicycle saddle, steered with handlebars, behind me, a bright silk rooster tail turned, pedal harder to rise, gently to maintain height and motion, push the bars forward to dive, pull back to climb, I heard a clanking, and below and to the left, I saw a larger flying machine, with a steam boiler, pilot at a wheel, like a ship's wheel, standing, braced. Behind him a filthy stoker leaned on a shovel, and tapped a boiler gauge. They were on an upper deck, below and behind them, were rows of seats, wooden slatted things, about ten passengers, wearing goggles and gloves. some waved. Below the control deck, and at the front was a small cabin with celluloid glazed windows, I could dimly see some people inside, bright clothes, nobles, no doubt, first class. The great wings, two sets, flapped ponderously, covered not in bright silk, but heavy duty canvas. Chuffing and clanking, the air-liner pulled ahead. I was looking for a country inn, a place to set down for a meal and a bed for the night, they were signalled by a cluster of tethered balloons about 200 feet up, the colours of balloons denoted the facilities each offered, hot food, accommodation, steam baths, minstrel gallery, air boat exchange Ah, you can exchange your airboat here? you don't own the airboat, it's a commodity, you show a wristband that seems to denote credit, i think, and you pick up a fresh, adjusted, cleaned and provisioned airboat in the morning, could be a plodder, a two or more seater, with ample luggage space, or a nimble lightweight, like mine.
I was hungry, tired. And not sure why I was there or where I was going, but a walled town, far away, on the horizon, with a great castle, seemed to be my goal. I was aware that I had entered this world as a stranger, that everything in it was new and interesting to me, I was aware that I was elsewhere at the same time, sleeping, and a little afraid that if I fell asleep at the inn, in a room above the stableyard, i might wake up back in my own, familiar world, before I had seen enough of this, before I had found my purpose here.
And so it happened.
Starcitywoman may recall this discussion of dreams. Actually, I've been reminded that the first line was in her dream, not mine, I do apologise, I'll dust it off and return it as soon as possible, but this is scarily like being married, I mean, the cds are all mine, I think that painting's one I had before flork, but fragments of my dreams, wisps of my reality, I'm no longer sure, Anyway, if anybody wants to claim the elephant, please do, soon, because it really doesn't fit in some of the recent dreams, yet it's been there. How about: each morning, before we launch ourselves into a new day, we just take a few moments to tidy up, pack away any strange artifacts? That way there'll be no strange minglings of dreams, and strange, busty, gleaming silver space-suited starship crews won't wander unannounced into my carefully crafted, late seventeenth century coaching inn dream. Whoever released them, it was most disconcerting, and my coachman was so distracted by the tactile shiny ladies that we almost missed the tide- and that would have caused havoc over the three year voyage.......... It occurred to me, where would they find electricity for their hair driers in seventeenth century Oxford? Then I realised the hairdriers were probably rayguns. Anyway, please take care, and keep your dream characters separate to mine, it confuses me so much."

It seems people like my dream. I manufacture them nightly, but with so perishable a product, few survive to be shared. How annoying, it is never possible to return to one at will, and to see the next chapter.
Trap one of yours, (keep a glass preserving-jar near your bed, seal the dream from air, I think that, and daylight, are their enemies,) mount the dream on your blog, or as a comment here, I'll be interested to compare delusions.

I Saw Eternity.

I saw Eternity the other night,
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright;
And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years,
Driv'n by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd.
The doting lover in his quaintest strain
Did there complain;
Near him, his lute, his fancy, and his flights,
Wit's sour delights,
With gloves, and knots, the silly snares of pleasure,
Yet his dear treasure
All scatter'd lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flow'r.

The darksome statesman hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight-fog mov'd there so slow,
He did not stay, nor go;
Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
Upon his soul,
And clouds of crying witnesses without
Pursued him with one shout.
Yet digg'd the mole, and lest his ways be found,
Work'd under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
That policy;
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
Were gnats and flies;
It rain'd about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.
 

The fearful miser on a heap of rust
Sate pining all his life there, did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust,
Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves;
Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugg'd each one his pelf;
The downright epicure plac'd heav'n in sense,
And scorn'd pretence,
While others, slipp'd into a wide excess,
Said little less;
The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;
And poor despised Truth sate counting by
Their victory.
 

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the ring;
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots and caves, and hate the day
Because it shews the way,
The way, which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God,
A way where you might tread the sun, and be
More bright than he.
But as I did their madness so discuss
One whisper'd thus,
"This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide,
But for his bride."

 Henry Vaughan 1621-1695

Delicious

'Matapedia' By Kate and Anna McGarrigle, from the eponymous album.


http://www.amazon.com/Matapedia-Kate-Anna-McGarrigle/dp/B00000062Z

The Blog Archipelago

An Archipelago:
That's what we are, tiny islands adrift in the great ocean of the web's wide world.
Although I'm new to the business of bloggery, I'm not new to blogs. I've been wandering, watching, reading, enthralled, for a longer time than I remember.
Long ago, I ditched my television, because there were just too many channels not worth watching.
There were some good things too, but generally I don't miss it.
I find the written word has better pictures, anyway.

I sail alone upon this imaginary ocean, I could be like Captain Joshua Slocum, the first man to sail, single handed around the earth. -In a boat he built for himself, felling the trees, forging the fittings.

I sail, making landfall at enticing islands, I stay, linger, read, sample the produce, make a new friend, perhaps, and then I row back out to my sturdy ship, hoist the anchor, set the sail.
Sometimes, at an island, I find recommendations for other islands to visit, and I mark my chart accordingly, at other times I'll sail beneath the stars, listening for surf. One day I might find your island. I'll admire your grass hut, try that hammock by the beach, read your words.
Perhaps I'll swim to my boat for ink and a quill, on your beach I'll peel a strip from the paperbark tree and write my little message. Perhaps I'll still be in the lagoon when you return, and we'll chat, become friends before the tide draws me away.
Along the way, I consign my scribbles to the waves, tight-corked in bobbing bottles. Who knows where they will find landfall, who knows what waifs or beachcombers will open and read.
In the night, my ship comes oft to my own island, or maybe my island follows. I sit at my own driftwood fire, writing my thoughts, for anyone and nobody to read. I pin them to the side of my hut, and, hearing the call of the whales, return to the sea.
When I come again to my island, I remark, with glee, your footprints in the sand. I hope you found fruit and food aplenty, refilled your casks with sweet water, rested in the hammock, sampled the wine, picked through my book-case, I hope the lamps were lit, and you left refreshed.
Perhaps you read my words, and found the pens and paper, on the table, and perhaps you left your thoughts, pinned there. Maybe you scratched graffiti on my wall. Or took a trinket. Maybe you just moved a chessman, and smiled.
I'm not sure why I am voyaging, except for the idea that there's always something to be discovered beyond the next horizon.
How about you? What calls you to the keyboard? to the little glowing box, the window into these myriad worlds? Do tell, I really really do want to know.
I'm not sure why I am here, but on my travels I've met some good friends. People who I'll never touch, but friends all the same, I've been shown new music, art, poetry, and I've read things that make me laugh, things that make tears spring in my eyes. Just as if I were truly travelling.

John Donne wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

We bloggers are not the islands, we inhabit them; also we roam, befriending some, shunning others. We are travellers in the web, interlinked, interwoven, in designs more complex than we can grasp. We can come together, on one beach, and party as a group of friends, or retire to our own island, solitary, perhaps, but never alone, for out there, we can see the twinkling lights of each other's fires, the glows of the lamps beneath which we all write.

Leave a few words, traveller, I thank you for visiting.

Update. May 30th, 2007:

"In my imagined world of the blog archipelago, the lights on a friendly island have winked out. A patch of darkness, a sense of loss."

The death of a blogger.
'Dodderyoldfart' of http://restarea300.blogspot.com/
When I wrote the post above, I never imagined this.