Older, but no wiser
Andy Borrows' musings on life and all its confusion, contradictions, richness and opportunities
Friday, November 02, 2007
One-a-day
Jean tells me its NationalBlogPostingMonth.
Maybe this is make-or-break time for this blog. I know I’m down to a number regular readers who can be counted on the fingers of one hand; heaven only knows why even those loyal few remain, as I offer them so little. Although this blog isn’t yet quite dead, it can hardly be said to be alive. So, for the next month, I plan to attempt a post a day, and see if a little exercise can’t rejuvenate those flagging blogging muscles before they waste away completely.
Write every day; write what you know; write from the heart. Okay, so I’m intending to tick off the first part of that well-known writerly advice. How about the rest?
What I know is that I feel by turns utterly weary and manically busy, flipping between the two with no space between them for the kind of observation and reflection which yields worthy blog material. The last fortnight has been something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence – by day a conventional office worker and by night a wannabe rock star - except that I don’t really want to be a rock star at all. The shows are great fun, albeit exhausting, but whilst I might put a tape of Queen songs on in the car (yes, some of us still use those quaint old magnetic-tape-cassette thingys - my car is old enough that at the time of its manufacture, in-car CD players were a distinct luxury item) such wouldn’t be my first choice for stimulating the musical corners of my brain. Mind you, there is something very satisfying about being able to feel the floor vibrate at the touch of a single finger on a bass guitar string, when played through the theatre’s 8 enormous speaker cabinets. Boy’s toys…
Last week’s trip to see the exhibition of Henry Moore's sculptures at Kew Gardens was a rare and welcome exception to that non-stop manic activity. It would qualify perfectly for one of Julia Cameron’s artist’s dates, as recommended in The Artist’s Way; it’s not hard to see the cumulative value of taking time out to stimulate the creative processes. I only took few snapshots but I could easily have spent many hours exploring the photographic possibilities.
There were notices up asking children not to climb on the sculptures. Not, I suspect, because the sculptures would come to any harm – it would take more than a child’s touch to damage monumental bronze – more to protect the proprietors from lawsuits brought by parents of children injured by using an archetypal Moore reclining form as a slide. However, not many parents or children seemed to take great deal of notice, and watching one group of 6-year-olds chase around and through the loops and crevices of yet another reclining form, I realised they were appreciating the three-dimensional forms in a way unavailable to an adult twice their size and with many times more than twice their inhibitions.
Time up. Manic-busy-time calls again. Back tomorrow.
Maybe this is make-or-break time for this blog. I know I’m down to a number regular readers who can be counted on the fingers of one hand; heaven only knows why even those loyal few remain, as I offer them so little. Although this blog isn’t yet quite dead, it can hardly be said to be alive. So, for the next month, I plan to attempt a post a day, and see if a little exercise can’t rejuvenate those flagging blogging muscles before they waste away completely.
Write every day; write what you know; write from the heart. Okay, so I’m intending to tick off the first part of that well-known writerly advice. How about the rest?
What I know is that I feel by turns utterly weary and manically busy, flipping between the two with no space between them for the kind of observation and reflection which yields worthy blog material. The last fortnight has been something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence – by day a conventional office worker and by night a wannabe rock star - except that I don’t really want to be a rock star at all. The shows are great fun, albeit exhausting, but whilst I might put a tape of Queen songs on in the car (yes, some of us still use those quaint old magnetic-tape-cassette thingys - my car is old enough that at the time of its manufacture, in-car CD players were a distinct luxury item) such wouldn’t be my first choice for stimulating the musical corners of my brain. Mind you, there is something very satisfying about being able to feel the floor vibrate at the touch of a single finger on a bass guitar string, when played through the theatre’s 8 enormous speaker cabinets. Boy’s toys…
Last week’s trip to see the exhibition of Henry Moore's sculptures at Kew Gardens was a rare and welcome exception to that non-stop manic activity. It would qualify perfectly for one of Julia Cameron’s artist’s dates, as recommended in The Artist’s Way; it’s not hard to see the cumulative value of taking time out to stimulate the creative processes. I only took few snapshots but I could easily have spent many hours exploring the photographic possibilities.
There were notices up asking children not to climb on the sculptures. Not, I suspect, because the sculptures would come to any harm – it would take more than a child’s touch to damage monumental bronze – more to protect the proprietors from lawsuits brought by parents of children injured by using an archetypal Moore reclining form as a slide. However, not many parents or children seemed to take great deal of notice, and watching one group of 6-year-olds chase around and through the loops and crevices of yet another reclining form, I realised they were appreciating the three-dimensional forms in a way unavailable to an adult twice their size and with many times more than twice their inhibitions.
Time up. Manic-busy-time calls again. Back tomorrow.
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