Sunday Morning

It is this morning.
We sit across the table from each other
breakfast over
the coffee steaming in the china mugs
as you read from the magazine
and I work on the crossword puzzle
sections of the news paper spread everywhere.

You look up, smile at me
and lean across the table for a kiss,
happy for no reason but it is Sunday,
we have all day to do with as we choose.

You are so sure of me
I am afraid enough for both of us.
In my life I never imagined
a morning like this morning;
the bed unmade
me in this ragged robe
all my senses singing:
This is what we share with one another.
This is the place I keep my promises.

Jaimes Alsop

Time Past

The internet still surprises me. I went looking for some more of my old friend Jaimes Alsop's poems, as he doesn't appear to have collected them anywhere, and I found him writing on a board/forum about something I did all those decades ago!

"Years ago (late sixties) someone handed me a packet of Rizla cigarette papers (a popular brand in England). Inside was a folded cigarette paper on which was typed "Autumn Poem". When I unfolded the cigarette paper inside was the little slip that Rizla put in all the packets near the bottom as a warning the packet was getting low: "Only Five Leaves Left"

Thirty years later and I still smile over that one."


Of course, Nick Drake had also noticed that poetic phrase, and name his album Five Leaves Left.

When I returned to the UK (after a couple of years away) the little coloured slip popped up as I removed three cigarette papers. It read "Time to buy another packet" and I knew The Sixties were finally over.

Something to do with visions

I had a good friend called Jaimes, in the mid-Sixties, who let me sleep on his sofa, inspired me with pranks and poetry, and made me laugh a lot.

It was the era of the singer/songwriter, and he was a poet, but he didn't make a living as a musician.
Later he went to the USA and a couple of years later, when I got my own adventure legs under me, I decided to drop in for coffee (in Palo Alto) without warning him I was on the way. He dealt with a hippie ghost turning up from a previous life really graciously, and again sheltered me until I got my second wind - then launched me out.

He just died a couple of days ago. We had made some internet contact in the last year or two, through his daughter.

I found this poem of his from 1969, in an old folder of writings...

Something to do with visions

It was something I had to tell you
Diane, it was all caught up with the morning
Something to do with visions

There were no visions today
I noticed particularly
There were no visions today, Diane
Perhaps they had all gone home

Today I was not deceived by your arteries
And though I searched your shoes and comb
I found no traces of gold
Even when I investigated my fingernails
There was no gold
Today love, you must have walked upon the ground

It was something to do with me
Today I was older than my generation
I refused to protect you from your virtue
There are too many, I said, too many already
in chains of flowers and April

They didn’t know about your perfume
They thought I was talking about seasons

It was something I had to tell you
I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget
Something to do with visions
My eyes are rimmed with a fine and precious dust.

Home Made, Hand Made

I just watched Be Kind, Rewind - and enjoyed it. It may not be a classy film, it has a low budget look to it (stars and all) but the idea behind it seems cool.

Sweding - making your own stuff. In the world of Internet and YouTube almost everyone can get their hands on tools and stuff for their own creativity - you don't have to always buy 'corporate'. We all like quality, of course, but the 'punk' aesthetic of do-it-yerself has a lot going for it.
Not that I consider the idea new. My dad made and used puppets throughout his life, with any old raw materials. A shortage of stuff after WWII made him ingenious about using anything that came to hand. His 'den' (where he ran workshops) had dozens of shoe boxes lining the shelves, with anything anyone chose to give him - cotton reels, toilet roll tubes, scraps of fabric, buttons, ping-pong balls, springs, etc.

He had a treasure trove of stuff. Like many artists he would sometimes seek out something to fit, but as often as not would allow the object itself to suggest a use.

The whole 'tv for kids' thing of making puppets with bits and pieces emerged from that work. After our extravagant and affluent wave, we have returned to the idea of recycling and reusing stuff - and getting creative on a budget.

I have nothing against people improving the quality of their product if the feedback of their creativity finds a big audience throwing money in the hat. I worked with Jim Henson at his peak, and that green sock and half ping-pongs that made Kermit had ended up with him able to employ whole teams of creatives, with access to the best tools and materials in the world. State-of-the-art experimentation. No problem. Employment for other creatives. Excellent!

I couldn't wait to get discovered, or pass an audition though - so I had started performing in the streets with what I had. It worked for me - through the thin times of the 70s - as punk emerged as yet another wave of 'homemade'. It doesn't have to look cheap - you can create style with attitude. I ended up in the movies for a while!

The NoFit State crew came out of a workshop I ran when on the dole (that £15 a week raised my income by a third!) No-one had any money. After 20 years of sweding, they now tour an award-winning show - tabú, with about 40 people on the road - getting reviews like this:

'Cirque Du Soleil without the Disney and the disinfectant… this is the future of British Circus.’- The Guardian

Tabu
Uploaded by nofitstate

Gee, gosh - it makes me proud - but they did it with whatever came to hand, lots of attitude and enthusiasm - and getting other people involved. Arts Councils didn't think of 'circus' as an 'art'. It's a lot of work, putting up and taking down your own theatre...


So - I have started making books for the same reason - because I can. Because anyone can get pen and paper (or access to a word processor). Because I don't have a video camera to make YouTube movies for my friends' amusement, (although I have put tiny clips up, I like to try everything). And because Lulu offer me the chance to actually make hard copies - like a book mocked up for a movie - see my Lulu storefront.

I am sweding books right now. My mate Mick had only just started into computers when he died (in 1994) and he would have loved it. I started tidying the house, and really have to throw out all the books and papers of his that I hoarded...what I haven't made digital has to go. I already made up short runs of some of his writing back in the days of photocopying .

I now edited a final (?) version of 'the book that nobody could write' - Another Kinda Time by Mick Swain - (I leave you to decide if that is 'kinder' or 'kind of') - as one last tribute. He got me writing in the first place, and he might have loved the creative outlets in the modern world. You do this stuff for your own pleasure. If others take it up, amplify it, or put you in the spotlight, fine - but you should have fun, just in case you fail to give up the day job. Fun seems infectious, and gives you the best shot.

Oh, and just for a synchronicity (Mick's favourite model) the DVD extras include a 'mosaic of Passaic' (where they shot the movie with the help of local people). Just last night I used his own phrase to describe his method of turning diary writing into fiction - a mosaic of the prosaic. Spooky, huh?

And we now have hard copies of the Maybe Quarterly in circulation, too.

Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind on Director's File

More Flashbacks

Geoff Felix just sent me a picture of the two us hilariously soaked after hours under a toilet while filming Roger Rabbit!

Our tracksuits got soaked, and all they could come up with was paper suits (which got soaked - and anyway the water was running right up my sleeve!) OK, OK, it wasn't a real toilet, but the cold water that splashed every time 'Roger fell through the window' hit me every time!

Here's the story as I told it to T-Bone, a Star Wars fan:

T: What exactly did you do on Roger Rabbit? Tell me about that experience as a whole. It must have been quite exciting.

TP: Dave Barclay called me back from the top of a mountain in Spain, with yet another "state-of-the-art" job. He was the chief puppeteer, and put together a great puppet team of six versatile people whose job was to improvise solutions on the set. The SFX department had time and budget to work on effects. What we did was to dive in and find simple but effective methods of getting the shot. This is not the same as making a consistent method for live shows: get it in the can, and move on. Sometimes I would be above the set, manipulating live objects on "invisible" strings; sometimes hidden under a box, wobbling it when Roger jumped on; or in the ceiling (revolving a fan) when Roger was playing on it.


At one point Geoff Felix and I spent an afternoon with the second unit under a toilet! Roger came through the window, fell in, came up with a gun, then grabbed the toilet chain to pull himself up, and flushed himself away! Geoff had the gun on a wire, I had to spin and pull the chain with an invisible string. It’s been cut very short in the movie, but we spent hours down there, getting soaked. The crew gave us a round of applause at the end of that day!

Other days the puppeteers would be all together. The octopus barman is on screen for a split second, but all his props are real, and operated by marionette strings. Not having a reputation to lose (with string puppets) I was the first to try pouring real liquid from a bottle to a glass, but once I proved it could be done, that job went to the real marionette people. I lit the actress’s cigarette with a lighter (the supporting wires ran up to a battery, so I could both manipulate it AND light it!) My mixed background as puppeteer, juggler, acrobat and magician made me the go-for-it member of the team. The others were serious puppeteers – with specialized skills.

interviews

If interviews and such amuse you, you can find a compilation here, which is simply a tidied up version of the old interview page on the website.

To brighter things

I still don't feel terrific, (see previous post) and now Julie seems to have acquired the same bug - but I have to say I still delight in some of the possibilities of the Internet.

I just received an 'email out of the blue' from Kate Partridge, who I knew back in the 60s/70s. In spite of all the ups and downs, comings and goings and strangeness of the time (my own personal stuff, which I won't expand on right now) we must have met around the Soho music scene (as she worked at Ronnie Scott's and I worked at Les Cousins). She has just found a photo of me which had my complete name, Googled me, et voilà!

Like magic.

I can't say I vividly remember the specific event in detail (although I do remember going to meet her parents, as her father made these wonderful 'nailie' sculptures).

I may have felt a bit over-awed (my self-esteem wavers at times) but I do remember loving the sculptures, and feeling welcomed and comfortable with the family.

My own father's love of crafts and arts meant I often felt more at home around studios than ordinary houses...

I was sad to hear that David Partridge died a couple of years ago. My father died in 1978, so any scars have healed as well as they ever may...

Isn't life strange?

I don't cultivate these events, as so many people seem to do with social networking sites, etc. I have known such a wide range of people that (for someone quite private) I would feel overwhelmed by constant 'catch-up'. My various sub-personalities have different circles of friends, different types of interests, and having found myself on the move a lot of the time, I have never had a really big party to throw them all together and see if they like each other. Everyone seems too scattered.

So I kinda like the randomness factor, and haphazard connections.

A birthday greeting from friends from the juggling days (Hi Anne and Roland!), a recent halloo from Bob Le Chevalier, a guy I hung out with in San Francisco back in 1971, chatting to Sunshine Gray about web design, and now a hello from the old days in London. Such fun!

Hi Kate!

Heading for 62 times around the sun

I get a 'birthday' next week (and I'll probably be at the 'day job') but what keeps me going (and pretty healthy and happy) are Julie, Dandy the dog, my children: Keili Olsen (Pentaphobe), Yolande Philpott and Matilda (my daughter and grand-daughter 'Tilda'), my daughter Finlay Pearl, my fellow conspirator in creativity Bobby Campbell, my fellow juggling madman Mr Jules, all the NoFit State crew (past and present), all the other Illuminauts, any fellow jugglers and magicians, the Cardiff Library crew (you know who you are), my sisters Julia (and all her children, and new grandchild) and Judith (& her son Luke), and all the people who gave me fun, hope, cheerfulness and optimism over the last few years...

Much thanks to my parents (long gone) and to anyone who touched my life and encouraged me to keep going...you know who you are...



For amusement - in reverse order (what else?)

The Mighty Boosh, Shameless, Skins, Spaced, Black Books, George Carlin, Monty Python, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, W.C.Fields, Buster Keaton, and so on and so on, back through all the fools in history....

And all the contemporary manifestations of such, from Crissie Trigger and the Raree Show to Franki Anderson and her Fool projects, Robert Anton Wilson and all the Maybe Logicians, from DJ Fly Agaric to Borsky the 'pataphysician, to anyone who doubts the simple realities they got offered in childhood...

Let's keep going with the 'blessings' of Bucky Fuller, and Bob Wilson, R.D.Laing and Maslow, Korzybski and all the weird Quantum Physicists - the passivist anarchists, the revolutionary pacifists of non-violence and non-resistance... all the crazy optimists and dreamers and futurists...

Peace.

Last of the Dog Days

Well, today's the last of the Dog Days (something to do with Sirius, and Egypt, and the hot summer days, etc - do yer own research) and at least I don't have to go to work.

Yesterday I struggled back into work (still coughing) only to find the library had been broken into, and we had to sit around waiting for a forensic bloke before we could go into our office, or open up the cybercafe. That made it a long morning.

This cough (tickly throat) still keeps me awake at nights (and probably Julie, too) and exhausts me...after two weeks!

Anyway - try to see the Perseids shower of shooting stars, if you get half a chance this weekend. You don't often get the chance to know which way to look (the radiant point in Perseus), and to see several in minutes! (up to a hundred per hour - Do yer own research). NASA website on Perseids for 2007 - with New Moon making the show particularly good...especially if you can get away from light pollution.


Oh, yeah, and Mars will be right there in the firing line, as a bonus.

Bear in mind this goes on for days, so you get more than one chance...Judith just reminded me that looking below Cassiopia (the giant letter W constellation) and to the left will find the radiant...Click on this Jodrell Bank image, to see it larger...

A Delightful Day!

I had a really enjoyable email this morning, from an old buddy I haven't seen for something like 35 years.

Hi Jaimes!

I won't do the stories here yet, as I haven't even had time to exchange stories with him, but we were friends through 1966 - 1969 or so, before he went to start a new life in the USA.

A year or so later I turned up on his doorstep in California, thinking it would amuse him if I dropped around for coffee. This was possibly funnier in the conception than execution, as he had already put up with me sleeping on his sofa in London...but he sheltered me for the first few months before easing me out into the big wide world to have my own adventures. I have never looked back, and owe him more than I can say.

I never have had that many men friends, or buddies, but he remains one of them in my memories at least - so, even if I may often say cynical things about Friends Reunited, etc (I certainly have little desire to meet old school friends, say) - this put a real spring in my step.

Check out the poetry website he set up and/or inspired. The Alsop Review

Happy Birthday to The Great Man!

W.C.Fields remains one of my heroes. Several of my friends have spent dull times watching him with me, and not 'getting it'. Julie positively dislikes him.

I love the body language, the juggling comedy, the wonderful vocal delivery, etc.

Admittedly, he comes from the 19th Century, and if you don't like the history of comedy, or black and white films, then he may leave you cold (he certainly seems completely out of fashion - try buying anything other than a couple of DVDs).

I got this lovely picture from Doctor Macro’s High Quality Movie Scans. If you follow the link you can see another few high quality prints, and even some film clips. For a tiny glimpse of his wonderful mime, try the clip from Sally of The Sawdust. I don't think D.W.Griffiths (director) quite knew what to do with him... If you want to know more, I recommend "W.C.Fields - Straight Up" - a special made for US television by one of the men behind "Curb Your Enthusiasm" - which you can buy from Whyaduck Productions here. Check out his other productions, too, on the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, his film of Mother Night (Kurt Vonnegut). Robert B. Weide seems like a class act, to me.

And a Happy Birthday, too, to the fabulous Nelly Gareau - two weeks older than me, and now back in France, after many years in the USA. She and I travelled around Paris, the USA and Mexico together (for better or worse) in the early 1970s. We seemed like astrological twins (Aquarians), and people often mistook us for brother and sister (it confused them to find out I came from England, and she from France). I heard from her last year, but we may not get to meet up again. I just feel better when I realise that ex-partners can bear no ill-will, in fact can wish each other well - the way it should be, but all too rarely is.

Old Timer

After admitting to acting like a hysterical child the other day [see previous post], and getting all in a panic, I felt very amused to receive this old picture of me from the 70s, trying to look cool.

Yeh, as a street performer I could do what I liked (or whatever worked) so I always had lots of hair (often with henna) rather than a wig, and whenever I shaved off my beard I would take it through various moustaches! Actually, I quite like this one (the third eyebrow).

I still have that ludicrous tie somewhere...as a souvenir...I'd forgotten about the collar!

I was delighted also to hear from Nelly, a very old friend and virtual twin, who witnessed the 'birth of the juggler' when we hitched around Mexico for 6 months, back in the early 70s (a few years before this picture).

The World Wide Web continues to surprise me with old friends, old pictures, and other strange spacetime warps. How things have changed in just the last few years.

I never meant to do you any harm...

I woke up this morning to presents from the postman, so big thanks to everyone who timed it so well - to Julia and Elle, Yo and Matilda and Dieter, to Clare and Finlay and Nicky, to Emma, to Judith (perhaps my dearest friend) - and for electronic greetings hello and thanks to Ms Noh and Crissie and Hadass.

I feel honoured that people take the time and thought to do these things (I feel fairly notorious for either missing, or ignoring significant dates in people's lives).

I put on a saffron shirt today, both for the spring sunshine colour, and for the Buddhist monk robe colouring. I do not consider myself a Buddhist, but have a lot of empathy for their world-view. And now I get to go to Japan tomorrow, for a week, so I will experience a Buddhist culture firsthand, for the first time in my life. What a great present from the universe!

I think of the essence of Buddhism (and perhaps all true spiritual practice) as harmlessness. I may have hurt people at times through my clumsiness, ignorance or stupidity, but never through malice. I would like to take this opportunity to wish a peaceful day to all sentient beings. You can find a Tibetan take on harmlessness, here.

May all sentient beings become free of suffering. May peace, joy, wisdom, and compassion consume us all. May all beings find the path to enlightenment that lays within the core of each individual as well as in the whole of humanity.

That's just the way it was...

I have neglected additions to the autobiography I call my website - and even the updates (this here blog) because I have been doing online courses with the most magnificent bunch of people at the Maybe Logic Academy. Mostly younger than me, though Bob himself has reached 70+ years.

I don't suppose anyone younger can really quite understand how I hitched all over the USA for 18 months without a penny in my pocket (followed by 6 months in Mexico, busking). We have become a much despised 'hippie' generation, but we helped each other out, that's how. These Country Joe lyrics might give you a glimpse of how me and Nelly got from place to place, as like-minded people helped us on our way, and protected us from rednecks and other bizarre people...

Flying High

I'm stuck on the L.A. freeway,Got rain water in my boots,
My thumbs done froze, can't feel my toes,I feel a little destitute.
Wheels throwing water all over my axe
And Mr. Jones won't lend me a hand.
Up come two cats in a Cadillac
And they say, "Won't you hop in, man ?"

I went flying high
All the way — all the way.

The one that's driving's got a bowler hat,
The other's got a fez on his head.
They turn around and grin and I grin back
But not a word was said.

So I took out my harp and I played 'em a tune,
I could see they were diggin' it,
Then the one with the fez, well he turns and he sez,
"We'd like to help you make your trip."

And I went flying high
All the way — all the way.

He said, "We can't leave him out in the rain,
He just might freeze and die,
So why not put him on a plane
And send him home in the sky ?"

So they took me to the L.A. airport,
Laid twenty dollars in my hand.
Well, I paid my fare, I'm in the air
Flying back home again.

And I went flying high
All the way, yeah, all the way, all the way,
You know I went flying high all the way,
Don't you know I went flying high all the...

the mad old, bad old daze....

And one last big hello to Nelly Gareau (wherever you are - is it really Kentucky?) who took me away from 'all this' when we ended up squatting an atélier in Alesia for a few months in 1970 - and LOOK, it's still there!

As it happens, I usually try not to mention people on this site without their permission, because it seems only fair (not everyone is delighted to have their past brought up!) but I have already used photos of Nelly on our Mexican trip (without giving her full name), and she was always much further out than me, so if the only reference I can find to her is as a reclusive old hippie mother in Kentucky, living in an old house on God's Land (no rent) it isn't really a surprise.

I assume that she and her kids may forgive me, showing the two of us happy back in the 'mad' days of the late 60s and early 70s.



Click pic to see larger

Some kind of genius - JOHN FAHEY

Back in the 60s Judith played me an extraordinary record on her (then unusual) big stereo system. Spacious, hypnotic, mystical guitar. Nothing like anything that even the folk crowd I hung out with were playing. It was called "The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death". John Fahey was his own man, completely uncompromising. He wasn't a trippy hippie, but a drunk, hated the hippie scene who adopted him. Nothing new there - look at Kurt Vonnegut with his alcohol and 6o ciggies a day. Fahey had a difficult time later (which I can empathise with - without self-pity) but was doing what he wanted to do.

'He divorced his third wife, Melody, and lost his house; he contracted chronic fatigue syndrome; he entered a new phase of alcoholism by drinking beer compulsively for the energy it gave him; he discovered that he had diabetes. For a time, he was homeless and lived in a men's shelter in Salem, Ore. Sober now, he lives in a motel in Salem, where he recorded "City of Refuge," on equipment in his room.

During the down years, he supported himself by scouring second-hand stores and flea markets for used classical records, which he sells to collectors. Mr. Fahey still draws a few of his old fans to his concerts, and they occasionally request his old music. "I don't talk to them," he explains in a coffee shop near his Chicago hotel two days after the concert. "If they keep it up, I tell them: 'Look, if you want to live in the past, go live in the past. But don't try and take us with you.' " '

In later years he was, apparently, more interested in new music - noisy stuff, Bang on a Can, punk, and the big guns like Stockhausen.

On this website you will also find some of his words and writings:

"Therefore remember what I, the Great Koonaklaster taught you through my magic apples:
1. The official is appearance only. In the long run, the strongest are the weakest.
2. The official exists for the sole purpose of your edification, and making your edification
the more actual, enduring and real.
3. He who has ears let him hear.
4. The humorous cynicism I taught you in reason, science, and music----that the exercise
of this organ alone or in concert, is the greatest source of joy and wisdom short of the
forthcoming all-in-the-all and the altogether in the altogether, when we shall all be one.
5. Finally the source of daily strength and joy comes by chanting the mantras I have given
you in "John Fahey"’s book SPANK.
OM SRI, JAI SRI, KELVITRONAYA NAMAH
OM SRI, JAI SRI, KOONAKLASTERAYA NAMAH
And finally--- the strongest of all:
OM MA "

Tickets for Bob

Yeeeehaa! Yahoo! Yippee!

Bob's starting the European leg of his tour in Cardiff, and I have managed to jump in on the first day and get seats for me and Judith. The CIA (no, not them) is not a great gig. The standing tickets just let you mill around on the ground floor like a mosh pit, and although you can get closer to the stage, if you are not tall you will not see a lot. Of course, I'd far prefer to catch him in (say) Barcelona, but hey....

Last time (looking in the archive I see it mentioned on Wednesday, May 15, 2002) we ended up in the centre of the balcony by chance (or the kindness of the gods) because everything else had been sold. It was a little far away from the stage (I'll remember my binoculars this time) but it was right behind the mixing desk, so the sound was as good as it's going to get in that kind of venue...

Anyway - for those of you for whom this is not exciting news, or is, indeed, baffling - just allow me this one indulgence...Ta.

yahoo, yippee, etc (fades...........)

Yesterday I played the Ry Cooder CD that Judith gave me, and remembered that great song "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?" Dates from the 1920s (Depression/Prohibition, etc)

There once was a time when everything was cheap,
But now prices nearly puts a man to sleep.
When we pay our grocery bill,
We just feel like making our will --
I remember when dry goods were cheap as dirt,
We could take two bits and buy a dandy shirt.
Now we pay three bucks or more,
Maybe get a shirt that another man wore --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?
Well, I used to trade with a man by the name of Gray,
Flour was fifty cents for a twenty-four pound bag.
Now it's a dollar and a half beside,
Just like a-skinning off a flea for the hide --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, the schools we have today ain't worth a cent,
But they see to it that every child is sent.
If we don't send everyday,
We have a heavy fine to pay --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Prohibition's good if 'tis conducted right,
There's no sense in shooting a man 'til he shows fight.
Officers kill without a cause,
They complain about funny laws --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls,
That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole.
We can hardly get our breath,
Taxed and schooled and preached to death --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, it's time for every man to be awake,
We pay fifty cents a pound when we ask for steak.
When we get our package home,
A little wad of paper with gristle and a bone --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Well, the doctor comes around with a face all bright,
And he says in a little while you'll be all right.
All he gives is a humbug pill,
A dose of dope and a great big bill --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Blind Alfred Reed 1929

Sorry about the 'poor mouth' on Sunday - I could go back and delete it (I do occasionally rewrite history) - it happens that my opticians have reminded me I got all this stuff two years ago, anyway, and should re-test and get new ones, so I don't feel so bad at losing stuff...

It's been a great week - can't go into it now, but I saw my sister and my niece on Monday (in Reading), then caught Nicole and Volker from DSC in London (with John Coppinger) for a day out (including filming a clip for a vampire movie in an alley in Soho!). I was back here a couple of days, and then Julie and I went to see Judith in Somerset, sort out some computer stuff and walk along the beach with the dog, then go up to Bristol and see the fabulous Franki Anderson (last seen several years ago)and Ray and hear about some wonderful plans for putting together a Fool Space in Cornwall - and have a delicious meal. Isabella, too, was looking great...

What a fantastic week off!

The other night I brought home the film "Henry and June" - about Henry Miller, Anäis Nin and Henry's wife June. I have long been a fan of Miller's (even though that wasn't terribly popular with several friends who had him down as a misogynist and pornographer, etc).

Somewhere in the 70s, some people ran The Village Bookshop in Piccadilly, with the express intent of publishing EVERYTHING by their favourite authors, of which Miller was one. I got to read some of the treasures, and obscurities.

Being a clown, at the time, I love "The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder"; there was "Stand Still Like the Hummingbird"; his amazing piece on Rimbaud; essays like "Money, and how it gets that way" - just so many wonders which he had a hard time publishing in his life, and which have fallen back out of print, since. So that all you find in our library are the Tropics, and bits of porn. At least, out in the stacks, I found his letters to Anäis Nin, and a biography of her, too - although I am ambivalent about her myself (she may have been his Muse, but she is not mine). He introduced me to Knut Hamsun and Blaise Cendrars, too. If you are curious, check out the Memorial Library @ Big Sur

What I have in common with Miller is the opiniated enthusiasm (I can talk forever on any subject which enthuses me, but am totally dismissive or completely silent, about things I do not consider important or interesting). Arrogance and self-absorption?

He was one of the writers who told me I should "go for it" whatever "it" was - so I did. He warned me I might often be hungry and desperate, that I might have to swallow my pride, accept humiliation and disappointment - that there would be times when I was the only one with any faith in myself. (He was right!)

He also reminded me that that was the only way I was going to have real ecstatic highs (he was right about that, too!)

When I stayed in Paris in 1970, I lived near the Villa Seurat (same metro station, Alésia, in the 14th Arrondisement), and occupied a squatted artist's studio for several months, earning money on the street (selling jewellery) and generally feeling daring and romantic. It was Nelly Gareau who got me there, and gave me the courage, and we travelled for a couple of years after, but I haven't heard from her since. In a Google search the only person of that name/age group I can see is in Kentucky. Could that be her? Ah, it's so hard to tell. I don't pursue old friends any more than I dig back through ancestors. If they emerge again from the world, fine, but I always preferred the serendipitious meeting to the appointment.

And I write in this blog, as he wrote letters to all his friends, because people can only take so much babbling conversation. Does it take away the head of steam that would allow one to write a book? Or is it a necessary preparation and priming of the pump? At least it makes me write a minimum of a few hundred words almost every day....

Had a lovely moment yesterday. We went to a Superstore to get wild bird seed, and stuff, for our sparrows (we have a cluster of sparrows living in the holly tree in the garden) - who we like to feed in the winter months.

Julie mentioned seeing a Robin in the garden, so I said we should try to encourage it, and as they are a bit carnivorous I was looking at the special birdmix which had insects in it, also a little Robin nesting box, etc.

Over Julie's shoulder I saw a flurry of wings. Now sometimes you get birds in the garden sections of big stores....but this was a Robin! It landed a few feet from us, and nibbled at a little pile of seeds some staff member must have put out. Then it flew a little closer, and sang to us. All this in a noisy, crowded Sunday shopping superstore under fluorescent lights! I was so sorry I didn't have my camera...

It was such a great synchronous moment that we HAD to buy all the robin stuff, of course. Best salesperson in the building.

It's been a year for Robins. One cheekily approached me when Judith and I were looking around a castle in Somerset with Bill and Thomas - and Julie and I saw another by the path when we went to West Wales.

And after I put out the seeds and fat balls I saw a blue tit. More garden news as time passes.