Rest in Peace Eta James
I have never heard such a unanimous ‘YES’ as that greeted by the ‘Live Music’ Bill in the House of Commons the day before yesterday. This will be a great boost to small venues up and down the land – and to musicians.
Live Music Bill passed through House of Commons
and the amazing story of Laura Dekker caught my eye:
The Spectacle Blog
16-Year Old Laura Dekker Completes Solo Sail Around the World
By Aaron Goldstein on 1.22.12 @ 3:52AM
Nick Ward Top Posts (the past week)
“Without meaning to imply that the impulse is essentially to get away from oneself, I think it is about losing yourself in time… I suppose it’s like when painters talk about when they begin to make marks on a canvas and then 24 hours later they’re still working and there’s no sense of the ticking clock and no sense of the self. The self takes care of itself through the work, through the impulse. And I find that intoxicating.” Daniel Day-Lewis on acting.
A dedication (to a Tibetan ‘lamrim’ practice designed to subdue your enemies)
Here goes. Imagine your ‘enemy’. Imagine you are in the same room facing each other. I am imagining her sitting in a comfortable position with her legs crossed. She is sitting on a cushion which has been embroidered with white lilies with which she identifies.
She is looking straight into my eyes and she is concentrating all her energy in a vindictive way. The hatred begins to manifest physically. She feels a congealing around her heart – emanating from her heart – it becomes liquid-air – a ball of sticky black smoke.
I smile at her – seeing her not as my enemy but as my mother in a different life. The smile provokes a greater intensity of hatred and she opens her mouth. At first nothing comes out. She opens her mouth wide. The glob of foulness removes itself from her heart chakra and begins to rise up through her throat – leaving no trace. It emerges through her mouth and leaves her body. From this point on she is no longer able to maintain her animosity – it has left her body for ever– but she can still see it! Floating just in front of her nose – and she can smell it. Imagine rotting lilies smelling far worse than weeds (that’s it…) at least she has got it out!
Next comes the dangerous stage. Very gently I use my mind to draw the foul floating gunge towards my own mouth. I open my mouth wide and with the softest of in-breaths I draw the venemous mass into my own mouth… and down my throat. It is heading for my heart. I visualise the cause and effect of this whole damned business as it is about to congeal on my heart. Then an extraordinary thing happens – if the practice has gone according to plan (and if it hasn’t you’re in big trouble) – as it touches my heart it explodes in a puff of pure white light and is no more. It just disappears.
I might try it on Pauline Neville-Jones.
Jester: What are your likes and dislikes?
What do you look like?
In the autumn of 2008 I started doing ‘coffee’ paintings: I’d pour the dregs of the Arabian gound coffee and paint into and around the result, often in semi-darkness. That was how ‘Election Day’ came about. Intention sublimated by process, if you like.
http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/election-day/
Tantric Rasta is my first ‘instant coffee’ painting. With Tantric Rasta I was put in the mood to paint with my 2 weekly ‘occupational’ cannabis use and having enjoyed a prolonged jam on the Inn on the Green balcony with, amongst others, Bob Marley’s childhood mate, Louis (who would have joined the Wailers but thought there was more of a chance to break free of a life of dynamic (sometimes listless) poverty by becoming a professional sprinter).
Louis became my friend over many months in 2007 when I’d earn my money coaching from a sculling boat in the early mornings and head up to The Inn on the Green to jam and write songs and improve.
That’s why I have so many songs from that ‘boatman’ time. Louis knew how much I love Bob Marley but didn’t mention the friendship until we’d been hanging out togther for about a year.
Some men are born cool. Hats off to Louis, a true man of ‘do it if it feels right’.
http://nickwardscenarios.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/gordon-brown-versus-scientific-truth/
Louis (self-portrait) 2010
Louis, self-portait, Inn on the Green (3/7/2010)
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