24/11/2017, 18:03
It has been suggested recently that I use pencil and paper rather than a pen.
The theory is that pen is too permanent, too final, and the automatic response is, therefore, to try to complete something.
Using a pencil should remove that pressure.
Conversely, I have often felt pencil to be too impermanent, transient, subject to wear and tear, and accidental erasure.
But I suppose it depends on what you're doing. If the purpose is not to create something final then the fear of transience should be unwarranted.
It's a case of retraining the mind, to break patterns, approaches and workflows.
I think the very nature of a pencil itself is symbolic: it is sharpened ready for action but wears down until it becomes unusable.
An impermanence.
We must then re-sharpen it, and with each cycle the pencil gradually disappears; the passage to an end comprising multiple mini endings.
The trick, however, is not to be afraid of them, but to embrace them. For they are markers of progress not loss.
The wind
More than a murmur. More than a whisper. The trees dance frenetically in its sway.
I long for it to calm that I may be lulled to sleep by such susurrous song.
Alas, it seems not so.
Its anger calls at me through the open window; I have no desire to close it.
But the creaks and moans of its passage become almost too much to bear.
Still I bide my time, hoping for the anger to subside.
It could be a long night.
Play on
I spent a few hours yesterday taking a trip down memory lane, falling down a YouTube rabbit hole browsing for the back catalogue of Pete Namlook (real name Peter Kuhlmann) and his label FAX records.
I still have a sizeable collection of CDs stashed away in a cupboard from the early to mid 90’s when I would fanatically hunt down each new release.
Each CD ran to only 500 or 1000 (and later 2000) copies so finding them was often a challenge. Virgin Records in Oxford Street, of all places, became one of my main sources.
A couple of staff members, realising I would buy them, always tried to order some copies in, so I would take frequent trips to London just to see if I could find anything new.
Music has always been a big part of my life but the early FAX releases have a special place in my heart as they got me through some difficult times.
While I could link the music to a hard period in my life and not want to hear it again, I prefer to remember the joy, comfort and solace it brought.
Listening to some of it again (in certain cases it has been the first time since those days) is like meeting an old friend you haven’t seen for years but instantly remembering everything you used to get up to as kids.
It’s still hard to believe, or accept, that Peter died five years ago this month. Someone I, and many others, never knew but felt a connection to through his music and the way it made me feel.
