I am the grit in the gears, the missing bolt, I am the poker of sticks into spokes.
I like to know how things work, but sometimes when I take them apart and rebuild them, I have a few pieces left over.
I am a man, so I tend to leave reading the instructions until after it goes wrong.
And like all men I have a comprehensive mental map of the world and never need to ask directions.
I never get lost, only sometimes I'm late, or end up in the wrong place entirely.
It's what we do.
Today's activity was bottle forms, 6-8" most of the time was spent wedging and reclaiming clay. Oh, and making turning tools. At the weekend, I'll make a heap of glaze test pieces, even though I've got no glazes as yet. Nor a kiln power supply. And I'll clean the wheel and throw some white stoneware test pieces. I've got a selection of clays to try. And teapots, I must make more teapots, and... teacups, and saucers. Ohhhhhhh, I need a huge lottery win or a mystery millionaire benefactor, so I can buy some old farm buildings in an idyllic setting, build a woodfire kiln, and settle down to making pots. I wouldn't bother with selling them, I just like making......
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, - While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Our esteemed Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, made a speech to the United Nations this week, in which he outlined Britain's commitment to reducing the world's arsenal of nuclear missiles. Britain has, hm, so far as the country will admit, about 160 nuclear weapons. Some of those are always at sea, in our nuclear submarine fleet, in the Vanguard class, designed to launch Trident missiles. However, its replacement is in development, how many will we need? Current plans are for a fleet of four submarines, but mister Brown said we might be prepared to get by with just three. Of course, this largesse would have nothing to do with the fact that these things cost billions, and the country's broke?
And of course, as the nature of world politics changes, nuclear weapons seem less of a deterrent. So if we Brits buy one less megasub, the world can breathe a sigh of relief. Whilst trying not to think of the 2,200 nuclear surprises that the U.S. holds, or the 2,800 the russians have, or the israeli ones, the pakistani ones, the indian, the north korean, the chinese..... Or the 300 in France.
However, Yerba Mater also play bhangra inspired music, with throatsinging overtones not dissimilar to those of Tuva.
After a week of being attacked by some nasty virus (not the computer kind, the one that makes you cough, sweat, feel as if your head's stuffed with porridge, and so on), I'm promising myself clay time tomorrow.
I needed to get up on top of a roof, to fix a leak, but it was a long way up, and having tried it off the big ladder, and discovered there was no way to secure the ladder, so it kept sliding sideways as I tried to step off the top, onto the parapet, I'd almost abandoned the job... But Steve, driver of the big green thing, happened along and said "I can put you where you need to be".
I've worked off various sizes of cherrypickers, and I'm used to a set of controls in the basket, being able to control it from above. This thing's more of a sixty foot reach loader, with a platform on the forks. Lots of twirly pointy hand-signals are the way to control it. And trust in the driver. Thanks, Steve.
I used to fairly regularly hire 120 foot platforms. Currently the world's biggest platform lifters are built by Bronto Skylift in Finland, and can extent to 104 metres 341ft above the ground..
From Wikipedia: While searching for a Korean language lesson on shortwave radio on December 29, 1984, Pena was intrigued by an example of Tuvan throat-singing he heard on a Radio Moscow broadcast. Seven years later he found a Tuvan record at a local record store called Tuva: Voices From the Center of Asia. Based on that record and extended experimentation, he was able to teach himself the vocal techniques called Khoomei, Sygyt and Kargyraa: " After playing the CD continuously for several months and driving many of my friends away by making weird noises while experimenting with my voice, I finally learned a few of the basic techniques of this fascinating group of vocal styles by remembering the styles of some of the blues greats of the past — especially Charlie Patton, Tommy McClennan, and Chester "Howlin' Wolf" Burnett. " Pena also taught himself Tuvan. There were no Tuvan to English translation dictionaries, so Pena used two dictionaries: a Tuvan to Russian and Russian to English. He used a device called an Optacon to scan the pages and convert the printed words into tactile sensations he could read with his finger. Pena attended a performance of Tuvan throat-singing at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco on February 6, 1993. He performed an impromptu Tuvan song in the kargyraa style, which impressed famous Tuvan throatsinger Kongar-ool Ondar. Ondar invited Pena to sing in the second international Khoomei Symposium in 1995 in Kyzyl, Tuva. Pena travelled to Tuva and was the first westerner to compete in the Symposium. He placed first in the Kargyraa contest and also won the "audience favorite" category. Tuvans affectionately call him "Cher Shimjer" (Earthquake), because of the deepness of his voice. Pena said "My voice is lower than most Tuvans. They have a style that makes your voice lower. When I use that, there's a slow song when I hit a note that's four white keys from the left of the piano." The 1999 film Genghis Blues documented Pena's journey to Tuva. It won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for a Documentary. "
Paul Pena died on the 1st October, 2005, of pancreatic cancer. His life was not without difficulty, he was born with congenital glaucoma, and attended a school for the blind. By age twenty he had no sight at all.
A Joy Division number, as covered by Outer Mongolia's Tuvan punk-rock throat singing star, Albert Kuvezin, and his band, Yat-Kha. From the album Re-Covers.
Listen to the other albums... If you ever get accused of having only mundane music tastes, Yat-Kha is the antidote!
