Eating Cake by the Cake Eating Committee

From a 10 minute exercise describing how to eat a piece of cake. While eating a piece of cake. At Not For the Faint Hearted 4.

Eating cake
by the Cake Eating Committee

Oh and there is the first taste of icing.

“Oh” said Eyes, “That was unexpected because I really didn’t see any icing there.”

“Oh eyes, you really do think you know it all don’t you. This is not about you. Close yourselves, eyes, let’s get to the taste.”

“Errm”, said a nasally voice “, can I have a good smell of this?”

“Biscuity. not cakey at all. I’m not even sure this is a cake. I’m definitely getting biscuit here. But you know I don’t think I’ve ever smelt a cake before. Cooking in the oven with the delicious odour wafting, but not exactly deeply sniffing a piece of cake. “

“Stop waffling, smell. Taste’s turn.”

“Point of order! To get to the taste, it’s going to pass the lips, and that about touch, texture. So, I want to have a say before taste waffles on about thing and that.”

“Oh okay. Lips, touch, what are you getting”

“Firm but crumbly edges. a bit dry in places. not a lot of lip action here. Clean but crumbly. Now, teeth, what do you make of it.”

“A little bite and it breaks, I can’t chew on this. No molar action either. all front teeth. Pleasant enough. Very suitable for wolfing down. Is there any more?”

They all looked over to taste. Taste took her time and then began to speak ecstatically, rapidly.

“Oh my, there’s sugar, definite cakeiness. This is no biscuit. It crumbles, it goes past-y, I roll around with particles of cake each one sweet and bready, bringing the saliva and I’m getting lemon and sugar and wheat and what is that flavour, it sure works for me. Ah, c’mon you lot, let’s get more of this…”

The party

From a 3 minute writing exercise at Not for the Faint Hearted 4 while looking at this picture:

the floor was sticky
but no more than usual
the broken bottles littered
the walls scrawled on
in expensive lipstick, mind you

a carousel of memories
both vague and embarassing
flickered through their minds
and stilted conversations confirmed
half forgotten details as they
started to clean up

but then the questions rose;
who was the host of this party;
and how had it come loose and
found itself roaming the streets
of brighton without a collar or
a tag or even a party microchip?

(image from flickr by AndyWilson)

My stick

This is my stick. A dry stick. To lift the electric fence.

It insulates me from the live wire.

In my mind I gracefully duck beneath the wire pushed up but in this actual universe I duck in an ungainly way and very nearly brush the wire with my back.

My fingers tingle as I raise the stick to the wire. Is this electricity in my fingers or anticipation in my nerves?

Rainbow over stone circle, Dartmoor

Land Dreams

each year

the dharma wheel turns

and we return

to the buddha field

each year

we bring a new stone

to our own stone circle

our mandala on the land

we stand in our mandala

and drink the night sky

each year

we tend our forest garden

growing our food

nurtured by rain and sunshine

growing, like us

each year

we work the ruins

rebuilding the ancient mill

until one year

the wheel turns

milling our neighbour's grain

each year

we open our hearts

grow our sangha

make our dreams real

and dream some more

Things to be grateful for on the way to morning meditation

waking
blue sky or mist
being dry and warm
wellington boots
memories of last night's ritual
a fresh breeze
sound of wellies on wet grass
a bridge
the conch
another bridge
a cup of tea
sleepy morning conversations
gentle smiles
cushions
a blanket
gentle experienced words
companions
incense
rupas candles flowers
quiet
sounds of kids waking
snatches of far off conversations carried by the wind
my breathing

Gate, Devon

Rain, Thames etc

Small. Glasses.

Small. Glasses.

Like a sports commentator. He looked like a sports commentator. He felt like a sports commentator.

To commentate, to speak continouously, rapidly without stopping to fill up the airwaves with words, whatever they were. To be so close to parody but to step back into the human form. To be so with the words, to have them arrive and be spoken before thought almost. Like channelling the noisy neighbour. Oh fuck now I’m thinking like I’m a character in literarcy fiction. Fuck that. His knew his own voice like it sounded on the radio, unnatually loud, unnaturally compressed and punchy. Excellent in a bar telling a story. A raconteur with asbergers, uncannily rounding out every sentence with artifical knowingness.

In dreams he wasn’t all words, he wasn’t all sound. He dreamt in silent, vivid, color films. Images of summer. Pebbles on the beach the waves washing gently, the musky summer smells, the quality of sunlight. Of foood, the bitterness of raddiccio washed with a fine vinegar and fragrant oil. In dreams he inhabited all these senses, quietly observing saying nothing. He grasped for this richness, trying to capture and keep these senses alive, to nurture them like

And then, every time, just when the quality of his senses began to overwhelm, he would wake suddenly, sullenly, automatically mumbling about the Romanian weightlifter, the quality of the clean and jerk and It was gold for Romania.

He turned on the radio.

---

This from a writing exercise taking ten words and using them to create a character:

Clean and jerk
Asbergers
Musk
Radio
Glasses
Radiccio
Summer
Pebble
Sample
Excrement

Resident (Music)

How much is it? Cheaper to download online. Why would I bother. You tell me. I can’t really imagine why I’d buy this.

Listen.

No, really listen.

Sounds like indie guitar whining to me. Can’t really take that seriously. Why would I want this?

Because I’m telling you, it ïs gud. Really good. It will take you places.

Sounds like bollocks. Tell me something interesting about this so called music. I can’t fin anything in here to hold on to.

Hold onto me.

A pause. Looking at the cover of the CD, slightly screatched case, somehow hidden or secret, some depth is revealed, the music opens the whilne diminishes, falling out of time for a moment.

Broken. By discography, a long tale of who what and when about this artist. I don’t care, can’t listen, all lost.

I just want that moment back please. When the cover and the sound came together and I felt held.

I buy. I take home. I listen and look and search for that moment. Again and Again.

--

This from a writing exercise by Libby Davy where we took a random receipt and wrote about it. My receipt was for a CD purchased from Resident in Brighton.

Scary

He made her feel like a bigamist

‘It will curl. It will curl. Mr Jeremy trust me it will curl.”

And it did.

With her curling iron in hand, all seemed possible. And all is possible, especially in a beauty salon. She thought she was bad. She though she was a bigmaist, she thought she would got to HELL for sure, but life had a habit of surprising her, distracting her, taking her away from all of that.

And then Jezza walked in the door. Hair a mess from this french monsoon that was wrecking the summer. He was plotting his next move in some ridiculous car race cum diplomatic incident in rural france. On the phone with out stopping. Jeering. Going on - motor mouthing - about himself and the Jaaaag.

It was yesterday. She fell in love with the big oaf almost instantly. It was certain then that she’d give him everything. All he had to do was say “Jaaaag” in the affected upper class off hand way one more time and she’d melt.

Keep on curling girl. Keep on curling. The old boy’s mashed up hair sure took some work. IT’s HOT in here.

And for every curl, she felt a deeper bond with this silly englishman. Curl once, curl twice, curl again and again.

But then. It came to it. She said no.

He made her feel like a bigamist.

---
This raw bit of quick writing comes from a writing exercise at Just Write at WestWerks where I got the following things to work with:

Who: Jeremy Clarkson
What: Ploting his next move
Why: Because she thought she was a bigamist
Where: In a beauty salon
When: Yesterday
How: With a curling iron

Seven years later, back to life

I found this old blogger blog with three posts. Last post 2002!

I'm going to re-use this as a personal art/writings blog, where I can post occasional non-work, non-family stuff.

Primary audience: me

I hope you find something you like here. But it's not really for you.

Business stuff is over at nodestone.com
Family stuff over at gravyland.net

Electronica

A brilliant source of basic information about the differences between electronica/dance music styles can be found at: The Electronica Primer.

Worth a look if you are wondering what all the different styles are.  Best explanation I've seen.  Nice one.

I Screen, You Screen - Interactive soundtrack

I Screen, You Screen
is a new digital filmmaking initiative here in Margaret River. The goals
of it are to stimulate and create a local film-making culture among the community. Our
first public showing is a number of 15 minute short films that will be shown
as a part of a multimedia display. This will first be seen at the Margaret
River Ag. show in November 2002.  The short films are on the theme of Transactions
and Laughter.  I get to do the interactive soundtrack for these.

What
do I mean by interactive soundtrack?  Something that visitors to the display
can change and work with.  So, I'm planning providing eith knobs and eight
switches. These will manipulate parts (loops, samples, levels, filtering
parameters) of the soundtrack components allowing the listener to make the
soundtrack sound their way.  So, I have some composition to do.  And I am
making the box with the knobs and switches.  These knobs and switches are
managed by a PIC microcontroller that will squirt out MIDI control changes
when the knobs are twiddled or switches flicked.

Note: the soundtrack is not sync'd to the films. That we will try later.

I'm composing using Propellerhead Reason -- this will allow realtime control
via MIDI, so this will be running along with the rest of the display, squirting
out music as required and as manipulated by the knobs.

Interesting, eh??

welcome. this is my visual, audio and word art diary. i'll talk about my art project here as i progress. including frustration, cluelessness etc.

may it give something to you as it helps me work my head out.

-gra