this is the story of the girl who could drink only tears

Where's the percentage in wishful thinking?
Rain in the doorway and a night
of drinking

with the falling patter on a dirty cup left
outside, nothing astonishing blazed across its side,
just an old advert
for an old chocolate bar
in faded type.

Dinner etiquette,
a two headed boy with a flittering fastening shyness
flowing round him, slicing through the
silence in the room, with no shadow anymore - just a bear
and his loss.

Devestating derivative ditties which the big bad beautiful you
have created in a room just for two.
Cold eyes baby, and there's
a saxophone solo playing just for you,
with a cup full of dregs and a bed full of
thoughts of

transistions
of us from our past to our memories.
How strange it is to be a stranger to you,
no longer sounding the only alarm that you sleep for.
The midnight sun hides all your hopes.

our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea

"my conclusion this summer
was there was much too much rain
so i ran off on thursday
with a dance troupe from spain
where wine, dance and music
is the name of the game
from bilbao to madrid
my mind ain't been the same"

heh - was listening to radio 6 and they were playing a studio session of 'Freckles' by Gorky's Zygotic Mynchi. I love it when you're reminded of songs you were one mad about. Is fun to get reacquainted with old things like that.

oh - i'm really not up to scratch on poetry at all but i've been making a bit of an effort lately and i'm kinda getting into some of it. picked up a compedium of Larkin's books and been reading 'The North Ship' on the tube and it's really awesome stuff - i mean i'd obviously heard of 'they fuck you up...' (just looked up the proper title which is apparently 'This Be The Verse') but i don't think i'd read much else. Heh - apparently he's influenced by Thomas Hardy - I've still not forgiven him the ending of Tess or Mayor of Casterbridge. May see if his poetry is any less suicide inspiring.

anyway is cool innit? discovering stuff you really like that you'd previously not been a fan of - kinda like chutney, red wine and whisky (not all at the same time...) - used to hate them but now love 'em

oh and the perfect nightcap - a glass of whisky and a granny smiths - i dunno why but it works superbly together - something to do with the peatiness of the whisky and the acidity of the apple maybe???

and no i'm not currently enjoying either of the above. alas and alack etc.

"The northern sky rose high and black
Over the proud unfruitful sea,
East and west the ships came back
Happily or unhappily:

But the third went wide and far
Into an unforgiving sea
Under a fire-spilling star,
And it was rigged for a long journey."

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

hmm - may be too drunk to sleep at the moment.

another good song guys - please just listen to this song

"We've laid the cables and the wires
We've split the wood and stoked
the fires
We've lit our town so there is no
Place for crime to hide
Our little church is painted white
And in the safety of the night
We all go quiet as a mouse
For the word is out
God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
No cause for worry now
God is in the house

Moral sneaks in the White House
Computer geeks in the school house
Drug freaks in the crack house
We don't have that stuff here
We have a tiny little Force
But we need them of course
For the kittens in the trees
And at night we are on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
For God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
And no one's left in doubt
God is in the house

Homos roaming the streets in packs
Queer bashers with tyre-jacks
Lesbian counter-attacks
That stuff is for the big cities
Our town is very pretty
We have a pretty little square
We have a woman for a mayor
Our policy is firm but fair
Now that God is in the house
God is in the house
God is in the house
Any day now He'll come out
God is in the house

Well-meaning little therapists
Goose-stepping twelve-stepping Tetotalitarianists
The tipsy, the reeling and the drop down pissed
We got no time for that stuff here
Zero crime and no fear
We've bred all our kittens white
So you can see them in the night
And at night we're on our knees
As quiet as a mouse
Since the word got out
From the North down to the South
For no-one's left in doubt
There's no fear about
If we all hold hands and very quietly shout
Hallelujah
God is in the house
God is in the house
Oh I wish He would come out
God is in the house"

And it was hanged with gold so red

ok, now there is nothing definitive about this collection at all. it is simply what come's to mind. on the other hand most of these songs are the ones i have the greatest difficulty in trying to forget when i have been playing them all day.

so here you are, my non-essential, roughly, songs i am kinda obsessed by.

in no particular order


Jeff Buckley - Corpus Christi Carol
it's a bit of a cleche to call these ethereal but dang nabbit it's true. i know a lot of people like 'hallejuliah' but this just pips it to the post as my favourite.

The Kings of Leon - Joe's Head
'They're making silly faces and it's tasting bitter sweet'. Exactly. 'People can be so cold when they're dead'. This is seriously a good good song folks. I defy you not to like this song

Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen
'Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth. One more thin gypsy thief.' Anyone who doesn't feel moved by this song is seriously messed up. Even though you may have little idea about what LC is singing about you really feel it dammit. 'And what can I tell you my brother, my killer. What can I possibly say?'

Darker by the Day - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Is a bit personal but this song is fairly important.

Emily - Joanna Newsom
Although a bit mad, this lady is all kinds of awesome. Ignore her at your peril Mr World.

Bat For Lashes - Sad Eyes
Bit of a newer song for me to like but, Best Beloved, I really love this song. Is all kinds of pretty. If i was the ruler of a totalitatian dictatorship I would make these people my magical minstels in waiting or something

The Mama's and the Papa's - California Dreaming
Because it's important.



Anyway there you have it. A few of the songs i've been kinda obsessed over in the last few years. I'm not sure if it's particually telling but regardless they are all good music. I would recommend you listen to some of them.



"As so with that, I thought I'd take a final walk
The tide of public opinion had started to abate
The neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk
I could see their frightened faces
peering at me through the gate

I was looking for an end to this, for some kind of closure
Time moved so rapidly, I had no hope of keeping track of it
I thought of my friends who had died of exposure
And I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it

And in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street
I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd
And love followed just behind me, panting at my feet
As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Inside I sat, seeking the presence of a God
I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book
I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood
And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook

Babe
It seems so long
Since you've been gone away
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day

Back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun
It was a Good day and an Evil day and all was bright and new
And it seemed to me that most destruction was being done
By those who could not choose between the two

Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and cunts
With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
Counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts

I passed by your garden, saw you with your flowers
The Magnolias, Camellias and Azaleas so sweet
And I stood there invisible in the panicking crowds
You looked so beautiful in the rising heat
I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns
People carry on regardless, listening to their hands
Great cracks appear in the pavement, the earth yawns
Bored and disgusted, to do us down

Babe
It seems so long
Since you've been gone
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day

These streets are frozen now. I come and go
Full of a longing for something I do not know
My father sits slumped in the deepening snow
As I search, in and out, above, about, below

Babe
It seems so long
Since you went away
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day"

The Gash (Battle Hymn For The Wounded Mathematician)

'I accidentally touched my head... And noticed that I had been bleeding... For how long I didn't know'

hehe - discovered you can put pictures up on this bad boy.

this is one of my few blogs where i'm not out of my mind on something and the rather splendid ability to hit the keyboard with most of my fingers really is lovely

currently listening to a song from Thunderbox - Steaven Seagal's blues band - this is just odd, not necessarily awful, just wierd

a bit obsessed with Novalis at the moment - dunno why - i came across a quote of his (it's on my facebook profile) in a book by Roberto Callaso (incredible author - anyone who read the greek myths as a kid should read 'The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony') and really liked it but then started to read a bit about him and i just really like the stuff i've read of his although most of it isn't translated into english. sad face.


'BEFORE all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it; but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.'

As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

Words are for those with promises to keep

'Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white.

And in between the moon and you
the angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.'

is a while since i listened to the counting crows - used to be a band i liked a lot when i was a kid - however, damn it, their first album is still frickin' amazing. just heard 'round here' by chance after having media player on random and just remembered how good this song is. ooh regina spektor...

'She will kiss you til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana
Tropicana
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing "Oh Kentucky why did you forsake me
If I was meant to sail the sea why did you make me?"
It should have been another state
Oh stay... '

is looking like a stream of consciousness here - still this is what i get for going out on a tuesday - plan is to sit here writing nonsense until i sober up enough to get a decent nights sleep and not wake up with my teeth aching

had a bit of a recent zoom around the country in the last week on my week off and as well as managing to catch up with a bunch of people i also got to catch up on my reading somewhat which was nice - reread a bunch of jasper fforde's 'Thursday Next' books which are just incredibly fun and also managed to make serious inroads into 'Mill on the Floss' (i *heart* George Elliot)

also managed to read a book of Auden's which is pretty good seeing as i always find it difficult to actually sit down and seriously read poetry for any length of time (nonwithstanding drunken poetical navel-gazing whilst all buzzy and melancholy) and i really found it full of some amazing stuff

'This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early:
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It has a lover
And is another.'

i think he's the sort of poet who i like 'cos he imbues a lot of his poems with an easily recognisible rhythm and timing (i think everyone read the Night Mail at school right?) which draws you into it - plus he seems to be quite taken (at least in the early part of his life) with sorta country ballads and songs and stuff and seems to have written some poems around styles such as that - although i also love Nick Cave for his 'Murder Ballads' which did something similar

'O it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their feet are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.'

so yeah, Auden rocks, plus he just has some damn nice love poetry which is good if you're feeling sorta soppy

'Carry her over the water,
And set her down under the tree,
Where the culvers white all days and all night,
And the winds from every quarter,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

Put a gold ring on her finger,
And press her close to your heart,
While the fish in the lake snapshots take,
And the frog, that sanguine singer,
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.

The streets shall flock to your marriage,
The houses turn round to look,
The tables and chairs say suitable prayers,
And the horses drawing your carriage
Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeably of love.'

ain't that nice? plus i just love the way the poem sounds - sometimes wish i'd taken english past sixth form just so i'd have had more exposure to the english language in all it's forms

'And what could be greater fun,
Once one has chosen and paid,
Than the inexpensive delight
Of a choice one might have made?'

heh - will try not to be such a geek i guess

'The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master speech.

About a subjugated plain,
Among it's desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.'

right - think i've sobered up sufficiently so i reckon i oughta kick it - goodnight internet

We shouldn't maltreat our idols: the gilt comes off on our hands

'Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.'


just finished Madame Bovary - really damn depressing book, is not up there with good old Hardy (anyone else wanna top themselves at the end of Tess?), but still one of those books that can be quite hard to read 'cos you just know it's gonna turn out horribly

regardless tho, as much as the story is kinda unpalatable (woman's life is destroyed via her adulteries) and the protagonist generally unsympathetic (although how much is it her fault? tough call) the language is just flaming wonderful. some passages just kinda sneak up on you and stop you in your tracks by their sheer elegance


'She would come directly, charming, agitated, looking back at the glances that followed her, and with her flounced dress, her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all sorts of elegant trifles that he never enjoyed, and with the ineffable seduction of yielding virtue.'


plus he's one of those great writers who totally get the way it works inside a persons head, the way we justify our actions to ourselves and act out scenes from an idealised life we've created for ourselves. for all that Madame B is capricious and spoilt she merely represents the way we act when we're at our weakest and most self centered.


'"What's improper about it?" retorted the clerk. "Everybody does it in Paris!"
It was an irresistible and conclusive argument.'


hehe - love it

diary of a second rate mathematician

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
- Bertrand Russel


see here's the thing - is anyone else really missing their degree?

i know i was, at best, a mediocre mathematician - managed to scrape good results but this was more a case of cannily going with my strengths (quantum mech - did a module in advanced QM as well as my dissertation) as well as ridiculously easy subjects (mathematical finance - essentially recap of numerical algebra with some stocks and shares thrown in) and stuff i'd done before (partial differential equations - did a module on differential equations/numerical algebra for 2nd, 3rd and 4th year).

so yeah, i'm not a bonafide mathematical whizz, just a dumb kid who's sorta good with numbers, lacking that special connection in the head which enables you to just... see it y'know? and to do more than just see it - to go beyond that to the underlying intent - to the soul of the matter

if i may be so bold i'd like to compare the mathematical genius to an artist or poet - you get the feeling with these people that it doesn't matter what the circumstances of their life may be - they are compelled to act as they do - for them it's merely an expression of self to paint a masterpiece, compose a sonnet or deduce an insanely glorious proof.
i am not the best person to speak upon this subject, i know my weaknesses in this area, but, god dammit, sometimes you have a proof, constructed upon a line of reasoning so icy in it's clarity, so elegant in it's undertaking, so gobsmackingly audacious in it's ambitions that you can do no more than smile in awe

seriously kids, maths is cool, stay off the smack




God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world
- Paul Dirac

If I understand Dirac correctly, his meaning is this: there is no God, and Dirac is his Prophet
- Wolfgang Pauli


hehe, btw i *heart* Dirac