The Creation is Finished, Women's History Month and The Situation in The Ukraine

I only did one post on here in February and we are six days into March already.  I have finished "The Day of Creation" by JG Ballard and it was more difficult than I expected, being a revisit, but still drew me in completely. Not everyone's cup of petrol but an absorbing read for me.

So I need something a little easier for my next read, so I am going to go back to "Riverworld" by Philip Jose Farmer starting with "To Your Scattered Bodies go and you can read more about it by me here.

March is Women's History Month and I think I shall have to write something about some of the incredible women, marginalise by the patriarchy, without whom the world would not be as incredible as it is.

On another note I wonder if Vladimir Putin thought that Ukraine was going to be as simple a pushover as the USA and UK. He installed is puppets in the USA and UK but the USA saw sense and much to the annoyance of the idiot part of their electorate, got rid of Putin's Puppet, while the UK still has his puppet at the help, and if Putin is kicked out Johnson will welcome him with a red carpet and a Lordship.

Today's Music Choice - Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again) by The Ukrainians

I just remembered that The Wedding Present morphed into The Ukrainians to cover Smiths songs in a Ukrainian folk style , so "Batyar (Bigmouth Strikes Again)" is a perfect musical response to Putin

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

The Day Of Creation

Jonathan Aycliffe - The Talisman and The Matrix

I have finished "The Talisman" by Jonathan Aycliffe and I now rate it along with "The Matrix" by the same author as one of the most unnerving and frightening books I have read. Both end on cliffhangers, the main characters who have survived are still alive ..... for now. I think a lot of my fiction is heavily influenced by this construct. Jonathan Aycliffe is an amazing writer.

JG Ballard - The Day of Creation

This is the first time in 2500 blog posts that I have used headings, I don't know if that will pick up any more reads but we shall see. I am now revisiting "The Day of Creation" by JG Ballard. As expected this starts out fairly normally with a doctor in Africa trying to discover underground water sources to stave off the encroaching desert, while being attacked by guerrillas, abused by failed TV presenters and policemen with political ambitions, but I know something will happen out of this.

Today's Music Choice - Painter Man by The Creation

For obvious reasons, just amazed that the CD, which is part of my collection is going for £75 on Amazon but the MP3 download is far moree reasonable.

Mike Singleton - Vocal Stories

I am not sure if you are aware of my writing on Vocal but these are a few of my stories if you would like to sample them:

1. The Never Ending Story - My Directory
2. The Never Ending Music - My Music Directory
3. The Never Ending Poetry - My Poetry Directory
4. An Owl In A Towel - A Beautiful Book by Lesley and Cheryl
5. Three Reasons Why I Love Settle - Scaleber Force, The Hoffman Kiln and Castlebergh Crag
6. The Accidental Book - Helping a Great Vocal Friend Resulted In Me Publishing My First Book
7. Call Me Les - A Great Friend and An Amazing Writer

From The Perspective of an Outsider

 "Always on the outside,

Of Whatever side there was"

Is a line from Bob Dylan's "Joey" from "Desire" which has always applied to me, and I have just finished the 116 page "taraNtula" and starter "The Outsider" by Albert Camus described by JG Ballard , my favourite author , as one of the most important novels of the twentieth century "A beach murder....blood and sand" so I obviously cant resist that, and this clocks in at 118 pages and I will finish it before Goof Friday is out even though I am a slow reader. 

"The Outsider" is a far easier read that "taraNtula" because it follows a normal narrative rather than teh stream of consciousness outpouring of the Dylan novel, which although short has still taken me the best part of a week to finish. I enjoyed it, as it is anything but a normal reading experience.

"The Outsider" is moving along nicely and is a convenient point on the way to my next book, but is going along nicely and will see it it makes me want to read anything more by Mr Camus.

Today I went for a walk with my daughter Kirsty and granddaughter Alexis and on the way to the town moor I noticed the perspective of buildings that seemed to move from left to right as I walked forward in an apparently straight line. These included the Civic Centre , the RVI, St James' Park and the Freeman Hospital. It's all perfectly natural but still a little disconcerting.

While it's only a small thing it does give me an excuse to share "Perspective" by Peter Gabriel from the "Scratch" album , his second solo outing

SteppenwolfTwist

 I had my COVID injection yesterday and it physically knocked me with a lot of the symptoms but I think I am now over the worst.

"Steppenwolf" has taken a major unexpected twist, in a drug, drink and sex induced surreal scenario Harry Haller takes a step into a man vs machine world scenario worthy of JG Ballard. I really didn't see that coming , and with about twenty pages left of the book I am not sure what else will happen. If I'd known the format of the book , two breaks in the first fifty pages then two hundred pages of non stop narrative, I think I may have been put off, and it's not for everyone but I am glad I have read and got through it.

I have also decided to revisit "Tarantula" by Bob Dylan next before maybe dipping into another unread (by me) classic.

So as I am still not 100% , I am going to go left field and share "Shadow Line" by Jordan Reyne because it is the song that hooked me on her and the video is wonderful as is the song.

Not The End of The Books

I've just finished the excellent "Not The End of The World" by Christopher Brookmyre, and was very impressed , and I was right that he is in the same universe as John Niven. He also has a huge back catalogue so I have the option of buying more of his stuff.

Instead I'm revisiting "The Great and Secret Show" by Clive Barker, one of my favourite authors and these revisitations means that I have an endless supply of books because I can read and reread. As I have said before my memory is not too good so while I have a vague recollection of what the book is about the words are still a joy to consume and the lead me into a different world once more.

I have other favourites too who I need to revisit , JG Ballard and F Paul Wilson to name but two, and this could keep me going til next year or longer.

Music is the same, once you have things in your collection , you have them because you want to revisit them , usually again and again. I've sort of regressed because I play music either digitally or on vinyl with a preference for the latter because it limits you to around twenty minutes of songs, so it connects you even more closely with the music.

Today I revisited "The Lodger" by David Bowie which like all Bowie albums is full of off the wall musical directions and is over far too soon, and that is me listening to it digitally while walking. Possibly tomorrow "Gouster" (unreleased excellent album around the time of "Young Americans") may get a spin. It's only available as part of a big digital box but you can buy the tracks individually to get your own copy at a reasonable price. One of the benefits of digital downloads.

6Music have been playing "Nowhere To Hide" by Ghostpoet from the album "I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep" which has definitely caught my ear, so that's what we go with tonight.

Nine by Nine, and Three by Three

...We Shall Seek

The Skrayling Tree .....

No I don't know what this means or signifies but it's Michael Moorcock book that is my current read weaving his own universe with modernish times and touches of Jonathan Aycliffe / Daniel Easterman JG Ballard with the unease generated in the first twenty pages managing to drop inn North European and North American Indian mythology, it is a book I am looking forward to, the follow up to the excellent "The Dreamthief's Daughter".

I've just finished John Niven's "Kill 'Em All" his follow to "Kill Your Friends" bringing us into the Trump and Fake News era, though Stelfox is just an even more loathsome protagonist and the book does finish with a misogynist's nightmare sign off. Not to everyone's taste but I enjoyed it, and have loved all his proper novels.

Although you can Google Skrayling (or Skraeling) Tree , which I htink comes from some arcane poem or incantation, I will tell you when it reveals itself to me.

It is Monday morning but I don't have to go to work and am nipping to Skipton to possibly visit Skipton Sound Bar and The Huntress of Skipton Castle Woods. I am going by train so because of that I will share with you "The Last of The Steam Powered Trains" by The Kinks, Ray Davies take on Howlin' Wolf's "Smokestack Lightnin'".

Hope your Monday is good.

Tarantula

I've just finished "The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ" by Philip Pullman and in the afterword he says he thinks that people should have their own interpretation of a book, though some authors such as William Golding say there should only be one interpretaion of a book.

Personally I think this is true of all art , be it books , paintings, sculpture, installations or whatever. Often people dismiss art because "anyone could do that". For something to have value as art, the artist has to submit is as art and it has to have an effect, and that is any effect whether it is positive or negative. If you are affected by a piece of art then it has served it's purpose.

I've been mentioning inspiration and certain things this week have caused me to write posts and this is another one that has been caused by something.

When I was in Helmsley's Cut Price Bookstore I was looking for someting to buy (although I don't need any books at the moment, but when does that ever stop us buying a book) and I saw a copy of Bob Dylan's "Tarantula" and I resisted it, and left the shop, but then thought no, support local business and go and buy it. So I did.

I may have had "Tarantula" before but can't remember reading it (though that doesn't mean I haven't read it), and last night I opened and read the explanatory first page, which seemed good, this was followed by some publisher blurb about "Chronicles" , and incidentally I caught a bit of "No Direction Home" on Sky Arts which I got as a birthday present and still haven't watched, and it was quite amusing see supposedly Novocastrian folk fans dissing his electification with plummy home county BBC accents. I think that needs watching soon. Some people cannot accept change even if it benefits them, and while we need constants and conformity we also need evolution and progress.

Anyway I hit the first page of "Tarantula" proper and was hit with a block of stream of consciousness text, with no paragraphs and little punctuation and quite a few ampersands. It hit me like a brick wall. I first thought there is NO WAY I can read this. It's only 116 pages but in my mind was 116 brick walls.

I've read shorter novels, JG Ballard's "Running Wild" is only 110 pages but is a brilliant read, Ballard is my favourite author by the way. Paul Gallico's  24 page "The Snow Goose" can be read as you listen to the Camel album that was inspired it, you can finish it in forty odd minutes.

I will not be finishing "Tarantula" that quickly, though once you start reading the are interlude windows to an alternate parallel narrative which may or may not actually have a story. The book has had an immediate effect on me and I am enjoying it, and this is how all art should affect you.

I'll leave you with something from Camel's "Snow Goose" but do check out these books and then create some art yourself.

Is This A Dream Week?

I woke this morting and the lasting image from my dreams was interpretive dance versions of  Terry Pratchett's novels "Mort" and "Cardiff City vs Preston North End". Yest I know the second one is a football match and not a novel but this is one of my dreams and it wouldn't be a dream if it made any sense would it. This is the first time I mentioned Terry Pratchett on this blog although I' never got into him , though I enjoyed "Mort", that was it, but I know I was in a minority the

Last night I was feeling wrecked, I was heading towards another Diabetic hypo (3.8) and was in bed for nine. Today I am not really looking forward to work as I have an annual donkey work task that I will be lucky to finish today, but I will do it, so maybe that was on my mind.

Last night I watched Ben Wheatley's take on JG Ballard's "High Rise"  which is a flawed masterpiece in my opinion, very 1970s and the buildings look simply monstrously awesome from a distance, but the soundtrack featuseds both Can and Amon Duul II and an awesome take on Abba's "SOS" by Portishead. I can't find this officially available anywhere but found this wonderful Youtube montage from the film soundtracked by the Portishead take.

Here Comes The Weekend

Well today it rained, but I still managed to walk into work and take some videos of a vaguely disturbing area where there is a fenced school and fenced housing. It's almost a Ballardian dystopia and you can check it out here . It is probably all very pleasant but as I said in the last post, "Eden Lake" has left it's mark on me and this is reinforced by Ballard novels such a "Running Wild", "High Rise" and "Concrete Island".

I have managed 14K steps today which is about 5 miles, no great shakes, but it keeps me ahead of my game and this weekend I expect to his 40% of my Million Step Challenge. The thing is you don't realise how many steps you take in normal everyday life , but having said that as soon as you start watching it , the step counter seeps to grind to a halt.

The thing is I find gym's , exercise regimes, and atrict eating regimes incredibly tedious. Having said that I do prefer vegetarian / vegan meals to meats though I am fine with  dairy, eggs , cheese and fish. I knwo some people will boak at me for that, but I like eggs and fish, not all the time , but sometimes.

Anyway the weekend is here for us all to enjoy , so what better song that Dave Edmunds' "Here Comes The Weekend".

Sleep well my friends.

May Is Finished ......

...... June is here and we are one day away from the weekend and a week off work for me.

This is the hundredth post this year so averaging 20 a month or two every three days.

Tonight I went for a walk over the estate bordered by Two Ball Lonnen and Fenham Hall Drive and it was great weather and the were a lot of loud raucous families as I walked along Cypress Avenue.

The thing is while they were good natured and having fun , it made me feel all "Eden Lake" , no horror film has had such an effect on me.  It is Ballardian in it's turning of the normal into horrific and threatening, only Ballard could make a book that featured the bomb at Hiroshima feel mainstream.

Anyway we are into June and I think as I mentioned "Cypress Avenue"  (Cyprus Avenue  on the link)I will choose that song from Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks" , once included in every rock top ten list, which was very unusual in that there are no electric instruments on the album. The people who rated "Astral Weeks" so highly rated "Moondance" even higher, quite rightly so, and if this has got you thinking just buy both these albums, they should be in everbody's collection.

Anyway it's time for bed, so enjoy some Van Morrison before you hit the sack.

Books, Evolution and Heavy Metal at Download

A lot of my reading recently have been influenced by books I've been reading , namely "Tom Waits on Tom Waits" (I don't know if the pun was intended) edited by Paul Maher and "The Age of Bowie" by Tony Morley , so I thought my next would be fiction, possibly in the realms of Michael Moorcock, JG Ballard or John Niven. I'm amazed to find this is the first time ever in this blog that I've mentioned JG Ballard as he's my favourite author. But no, I picked up "Darwin's Armada" (another FOPP capture from Edinburgh) by Ian McCalman and very good it is, essentially the grounding for the Theory of Evolution by Charles Darwin and contemporaries. Here's the blurb:

"Darwin's Armada tells the stories of Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Joseph Hooker and Alfred Wallace, four young amateur naturalists from Britain who voyaged to the southern hemisphere during the first half of the nineteenth century in search of adventure and scientific fame. It charts their thrilling voyages to the strange and beautiful lands of the southern hemisphere that reshaped the young mariners' scientific ideas and led them, on returning to Britain, to befriend fellow voyager Charles Darwin. All three crucially influenced the publication and reception of his Origin of Species in 1859, one of the formative texts of the modern world. 

For the first time the Darwinian revolution of ideas is seen as a genuinely collective enterprise and one that had its birth in a series of gripping and human travel adventures. Many of the most urgent ecological and social issues of our times are seen to be prefigured in this compelling story of intellectual discovery."

I do find it amazing that the idiotic anti thought concept of Creationism actually exists, but when you look at how easily people are influenced , a thoughtless concept that means you don't have to think becomes attractive to some people.

I'm agnostic, there might be a God, but I have certainly seen no evidence of a God in my lifetime and doubt I will. Also the "you can't prove that God doesn't exist" is not really a valid argument. The only God I will acknowledge is on Facebook here. In fact I just this minute signed up to his mailing list.

So today's #ATuneaDayinMay obviously has to be "Charlie" by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing , who I first saw at the behest of my friend Gillian and recorded it on Spoongig here in November 2014. I found a live performance of them at Download at Donington and "Charlie" starts about three minutes in after some serious metal assault. I once described them as a cross between Anthrax and Chas and Dave. Watch the clip and you will see what I mean. Enjoy.

It's a beautiful day, so enjoy yourself and I hope to see you soon.