"Art is not a mirror with which to reflect the world; it is a hammer with which to shape it"

Saturday 31 October 2009

All Is Full Of Love

...and sheep may safely graze... or Cheltenham’s Ladies may safely go back to learning at any rate...

And now as SWF ’09 has already begun its pass into memory, I ought to put something down about it; just can’t think what. I managed, almost successfully, to control my crazy for nearly the whole four and a half days- the cracks did start to show on the last night- presumably due to a heady brew of zero-sleep and Strongbow. I still don’t understand or care much for networking... I find approaching anybody with my own agenda very hard.

There will now follow a couple of random opinions...

If I write nothing else about SWF there’s just one big thank you to all the good people who managed to put up with my diminishing levels of sane for the duration. The words ‘above’ and ‘beyond’ spring readily to mind. Thank you.

Here’s something you need to view, now, and throughout the next week, Girl Number 9, from the brains of Dan Turner and James Moran. It’s really rather good.

I’ve officially dumped the word ‘aspiring’ into a great big bin designed for holding ‘negative power words’*. (That should please Lord Arnopp.)

Thursday last became quite a good day- full of ups and downs, it was. Now, as I am supposed to be semi-literate I should be able to find some words to describe the feeling I’ve been left with post-Festival. Unfortunately I can’t think of any and, as I can’t share the appropriate mimes, I can only explain it with musical clips... it’s a combination of the following...

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 Mvt. 4

(Buy this version by the way.)

Bjork: All Is Full Of Love

1998, Chris Cunningham

Final thing. Tonight is Hallowe’en. I had intended to watch some appropriate films; had decided to watch through as many Blind Dead films as possible before either a) my brain cell melts or b) I doze off. As it is, I’ve noticed they’ve got a Francis Bacon night on BBC4 instead... curse you scheduler people! Still, the documentaries finish at 11 so that gives me enough time for Tombs, Return and possibly the The Ghost Galleon

And the cat’s just got into the Hallowe’en spirit by walking past the window with a large bird obscuring his mouth. Mice, I don’t mind; birds, I do.**

*I just made that up but it’s sounds very guru-speak, don’t it?
**The cat’s started eating the bird... how can creatures so soppy be so vicious?***
***And now he’s sitting at the window looking very smug.
****!!!!

6 comments:

Iain Coleman said...

It was great to see you at SWF - and I quite agree about "aspiring". In my view, there's no such thing as an "aspiring" writer. "Beginning", "unpublished", "unoptioned", even "not very good yet" - but if you write, you're a writer. If you don't you're not - and are as much an "aspiring" writer as I am an "aspiring" President of the United States of America. It sounds like an interesting job, and I dare say I may enjoy its rewards and challenges, but there is zero chance of me ever actually doing it.

Kai said...

To be honest I think you can be forgiven for sane leaving you at 5 in the morning on the last night.

Adaddinsane said...

Hey Jon - I saw the title of your blog and went "Bjork! Jon knows Bjork tunes". I knew there was a reason we got on okay.

I found your level of sane to be quite satisfactory at all times.

Jon said...

Bjork, Beethoven, Bruckner... all the greats beginning with 'B'! :)

Glad the sane appeared to be in check... I realised by 11 on the Friday morning I'd had a whole 5 hours sleep since the Wednesday morning... I promptly slept for 8 hours solid.

I think I know why people say 'aspiring'- uncertainty, unease, etc. but it seems to me a term too reliant on hope rather than hard-work. I suspect it's also because, firstly, there's no specific moment from whenceforth you are officially and unequivocally a writer; and secondly, because 'writer' is one of the few jobs I can think of where there is a significant disconnect between knowing what you're doing/ becoming qualified and actually getting paid for it. A car mechanic gets his C&G (or whatever it is now), gets a job being a mechanic and, while continuing to improve, essentially remains a mechanic- from the moment they get the qualification they are a mechanic. Writers have somewhat less definition!

Unpublished and unoptioned imply greater things to come- much more preferable.

It was great to see you all at the SWF!

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