Thursday 7 August 2004

Have been listening to some great music. Bjork was live on Gilles Peterson on Sunday, featuring a bell choir from Chester! She continually amazes me. Alice Coltrane 'Transendence'. Brian Wilson 'Smile'. Tony Williams 'Life Time'. Joy Division 'Closer'. Duke Ellington 'Black, Brown and Beige'. I love finally recognising something's beauty - it smacks you round the face; it doesn't care that you didn't notice how good it was; it doesn't possess arrogance - it doesn't need to, it simply smiles and says 'Come and join us'.

Have finished the book on Picasso, one of the finest things I have read. It trod that fine line between high academia and simplicity, just perfect for a layman like myself. Perfectly summed up why he is talked about in such revered tones. I now 'get it'. I think. Moving on the Edward Hopper book. Have been looking at Masters courses. Haven't researched them all by any means but the Birmingham Uni course looks really good. Will have to research funding and such things, as it could be devastating otherwise.

I am looking to collaborate with some experimenters, people who have no regard for genre, no regard for the current crop of feted bands. No limits or barriers. That is what I need and I need to learn of course, but I'm hoping I can be a master's protégé or something. I don't know. I will send some emails off this week in the hope of meeting a few new musicians.

2305hrs. Tomorrow is my last day at work. Thought my last few days would be a breeze but no, they have merely been confirmation of my dismal last few months and the strength of desire to leave. Will be strange to leave. Had to say a few goodbyes today. Dipesh shook my hand and said that it had 'been great knowing me'. Was I classed as past tense now? Evidently. Notable show of emotion for a man's man such as he is.

I have just got off the phone to Tshepi. She is handing her resignation in tomorrow. She is a life force and I have a lot of strong feelings for her. We connect on a lot of levels like brother and sister. Have been reading this downloadable book about creative entrepeneurship that Si forwarded me. Very inspiring. Would like to talk to Tshepi about doing something. She was heavily involved in promotion work in South Africa and she knows her shit.

Also been checking out some Masters courses. The possibilities of a course like that are endless. Jim O'Rourke did a course in Composition in Chicago. So many things to consider...

I live to destroy time. I don't want to live in harmony with it. Since time is going to kill me off eventually I want to fuck it up on the way down the drain. I want to leave it with scars and a limp. I am the monkey on time's back...If you're going to write, then write. If there's plans you have made, then execute them or be damned. Time is your wings, the key. If you let it slip by, it is acid that drips upon your soul...I must maintain this urgency. It is in the rhythm of life. Life is furious. It explodes in foliage and rots in damp heat. Jump in to the river that takes you to it. Otherwise life is a pause before death. I don't comprehend how people have been able to suppress their lives enough to work in the same place year after year while the hate they had for the place that might have saved them by giving them the push they needed to get out, dissipates into complacency and they just toughen up and resolve themselves to a life they don't want. They justify it with things their father told them about responsibility. It's a strength of character I don't posess. That life reeks of death. An unhurried, languid death that doesn't walk, but ambles down the hall. Old footsteps dumbly decaying out of hearing range. The blood thickens and the world slows down. The blues fade and reds become muddy.

- Henry Rollins, 'Smile, You're Travelling'.