Answer 82 - Yes, but then I forgot the question

Last night, an Australian novelist was in the audience at the show in Twickenham (South London).

Afterward, she said, 'You've given me a story.  I hope it's alright that I steal one of the lines you spoke.'

I can't tell you the line, because then I'd give away the exclusive - but suffice it to say that Dave will be the subject (strapping romantic lead, I'm assuming) of an upcoming book.  Possibly he'll be on horseback and some raven-haired heiress with a heaving bosom and whale bone corset will spurn his affections only to find that she's inexplicably drawn to his Adidas Sambas.


Er.. sorry... it's just that Dave always wears Adidas Sambas - they're a kind of sneaker/athletic shoe.  He's worn them since high school.  So, I can't imagine him without the sambas.  Even on horseback.


"Have you ever thought of writing a novel?" - someone asked the other day.

I have thought of writing a novel in the past, as a matter of fact.  And then I re-think it because I believe I lack the attention span.  Shiny objects are the bane of my existence, and they're everywhere.  Who knows.. maybe with age will come patience.. er, focus..

er... it's raining in Blackheath... shiny droplets on the window... drip drop... shiny...

Answer 81 - Road Space

Where am I?

I've entered road space now.


It's a place that exists between hyperspace and real time.  Here's a passage from my journal:

*Insert Twilight Zone Theme Music*

No sense of day or week... not much of time or place... signs appear, I ordered the fish, delivered, battered... lights, sound, hotel...  I remember.. I remember... dogs and the smell of burning wood.  What day is it?  I'm sleeping... someone's driving... lights, sound, hotel... I think there was a ghost, or maybe it wasn't a ghost but the guitar seemed to be playing itself... was it the color of money or the color of clover, that Irish Hill... the range.. the Mournes? the Mournes mountains, yes... and sheep the color of coal... lights, sound, 'is this your first time here?', I'm in the bath.. there were birds.. lights, sound, sing...

It's Sunday and I'm in south London... foxes walk down the streets in London.  Like cats.


I may be still be dreaming, because how can foxes walk down the streets like cats?

there were sheep.. now foxes.. lights, sound, sing...

Answer 80 - Strumwise

Driving in Ireland has been tricky.

For one thing, the Tom Tom (GPS, Sat Nav, box that tells us where to go) changes its mind frequently, and for another thing, Dave has taken to requesting that we stop saying, 'turn left up here' or 'turn right in about 1/2 a mile.'

Since he was a kid, left and right have been interchangeable.  Just in general.  So one of us'll say, 'turn right!' and he'll turn left.. and we'll all have a good laugh, unless we're suddenly put onto a major superhighway (none of which exist in the whole of Ireland, in this case, but England's another story) - and we end up miles out of our way, and then I'm generally not laughing.


So which direction is the right direction when you're directionally challenged?

Now, he's requested that we used the words 'strumwards' and 'chordwise.'  Because he's a guitar player who strums with his right hand and chords with his left.

You see the logic in the system.

The challenge is for us to remember the new words.  We're still ending up going the wrong direction at times, but it's good for a laugh, and possibly good for our brains to have to think in this ridiculous way.

Last night was a great show. I walked into the Bronte club (the old haunted church) - and there were figurines of Patrick Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, and a fairly angry looking man in an ascot, whom I thought maybe was Heathcliff, in his later years.  I was shocked a little bit when I saw them, all standing there looking at me.. knowing there was a ghost on the premises.

Then Andy, the promoter, took us out on the windy churchyard, in the dark, with a tiny flashlight to show us the grave of Squire Hawkins, the bad man who now haunts the place, and, indeed, a  cross had been burned into his gravestone, by lightening, as the story goes.

We didn't take pictures of it.

Don't want him following us to England.  Could be a skirmish.

Answer 79 - Yes, and the Swiss will prove it

Tonight, it's the Bronte Club in Rathfriland - about an hour south of Belfast.  Beautiful, isn't it?

The famous Bronte sisters (Charlotte & Emily) are the namesakes - though neither of the girls ever had the fortune to set foot in beautiful Ireland, the venue is an old church, and the place where their father preached his very first sermon before heading to England for the remainder of his life.

Oh, and the churchyard is haunted!  I can't find any information on line, but Andy tells us a practitioner of black magic was buried in the churchyard, when no other yard would have him.  The horses wouldn't pull the funeral carriage carrying his body - they were, quite literally, spooked.  Shortly after, a lightening bolt split his tombstone in the eerie shape of a cross.

His ghost roams the passages now...

Are they real?  Ghosts, I mean?

Mike, the bass playing organic chemist thinks not.  Dave, the engineer, thinks anything's possible.  Krista, the dramatist with a slightly analytical bent wants to believe they're real.. even it's just a tightly woven conglomerate of particles existing in hyperspace.  I want to believe the human soul/collective consciousness is real, is viable, and outlasts this mortal coil.  So maybe, when the body dies, the soul jumps into hyperspace..?

Hence, my fascination with the Higgs boson or 'God' particle.  It's not been observed, but is thought to exist in that place between matter an anti-matter.  So.. assuming the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland doesn't actually destroy the known universe in the process, it'll be interesting to see what comes of smashing the tiniest bits known into tinier bits.

Don't even ask me to do the mathematics involved in this idea.  I glaze over 10 seconds in.  But that's not the point.

The point is, yes, ghosts are real.  And the Swiss will prove it.

Meanwhile, I'm heading into town to the Crown Bar, just to look, not to drink - and then, south through the Mourne Mountains
   and to the haunted churchyard!  I'll most likely bring a talisman or two, you know, just to ward off anything menacing...

Boo!

Answer 78 - Scrambled

So. Scrambled or fried?

When you're at someone else's house, I mean?  And they ask you, 'how would you like your eggs?'  The answer is 'scrambled' - it's less pressure on the host to achieve the perfection of the fry - to whatever varying degree of fry-ness you might happen to desire and less chance that you'll be in an uncomfortable position when attempting to swallow something unpalatable.

Example:
"Wow.  Thanks for this wonderful fried egg, Marge.  I generally don't like the yolk to run off the side of the plate, but then again, when in Rome!"

or

"Umm... rubbery!  Makes the whole process of getting it to stay on the fork a fantastic adventure!"

And then, well, especially cross-culturally, feelings are injured, cooks are insulted, and, inevitably, embassies have to be called in.

At a French restaurant in London on my first trip to Europe, I was asked what I'd like to drink.  Being a health-conscious American, I asked for water.

(Insert ridiculously snotty delivery and enough attitude to sink a freighter)
"Would zat be meeneral watair?  Sparkuhling watair?  watair from ze kitchen seenk?"


At which point, I stuttered... I blanched.. I looked around the table for support and watched the eyes of all of my dinner companions avert, instantly - I was suddenly very alone, and so muttered, 'um.. sparkling?'  And when he walked away, I was insulted and angry for about 5 seconds, and then the whole table burst into hysterical laughter.

I've just insulted the entire Republic of France no doubt, with my stereotype of snotty french waiter, but this guy WAS exactly that stereotype.  And there are a zillion lovely French people out there.. But I love walking stereotypes, like I've said.  Really makes me question the whole 'art imitates life imitates art' quandry..

Anyway - point is, it's easy to insult somebody with expectations.  Especially when it comes to water and eggs.

Scrambled.  It's fool proof.  Even in French.

Answer 77 - Sadly, this answer eludes me

I sang of the dancing stars,
    I sang of the daedal Earth,
And of Heaven - and the giant wars,
    And Love, and Death, and Birth -
        And then I changed my pipings -
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
       I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!
       It breaks in our bosom and then
            we bleed:
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
      At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

I found a book of poetry by Shelley in the cabinet here at the cottage.  This stanza I find comforting, because I realize humans have always been in the throws of pining for a lost age, and assurance that the golden age is long gone, never to return.


So I'm reading through it, and realizing that, at the time, it must have been scandalous.  All that unencumbered sighing and passion and Oh Love!  Oh Misery!  and bosoms and woe...

It was a time of 'free love' - Shelley and Byron trotting around the countryside, boys with pretty faces wooing the women of England and beyond.  And even with his clubbed foot, Lord Byron could make his way into a woman's boudoir with a word.  He was a poet after all.  Fiery, tempestuous, tortured... ah... so attractive to say many ladies of leisure.

The question for me, though, is
What does it take to be a scandalous poet in the 21st Century?

I remember a comic discussing a rock&roll scandal a few years ago.  Slash had been kicked out of Guns & Roses, to which the comic quipped, "What the hell do you have to do to get kicked out of Guns & Roses?"

I won't elaborate on his speculation - because it was graphic and crude, but I think the speculation is the point.

What, exactly, do you have to do to be considered scandalous in the 21st century?  Poet, painter, performance artist?  I mean, slicing yourself up on stage while screaming or reading your poetry for that matter, consuming excrement, etc... it's all been done - it's not scandalous - it's tired, it's derivative, it's so last Tuesday.


Sadly, this answer eludes me today.  I shutter to think of what the answer might be.  (I know, I just said 'I shutter to think of it,' but give me a break - the first thing I read this morning was Shelley... "Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers.."   So I shutter, damn it.)

Still, I'll let you know.  Or maybe I won't.  At least not in polite company.

Answer 76 - D.H. Lawrence DNA

We're in the English coutryside.. West Sussex, in a converted cattle barn - it's an amazing cottage now, that came into its current incarnation at the end of the 19th century.

Shortly after its conversion, D.H. Lawrence spent 6 months here.


Says Mike, the bass player: 'Can you imagine what a CSI team might find if they came in here?'

I never think of things like that - I always imagine much more romantically where he stood when he wrote - were the daffodils in bloom like they are now.. ?  But Mike's an organic chemist.  Naturally he thinks of DNA.

The far end of the building next to us in this homestead appears on a survey from the year 1071.  So here we sit, traveling musicians who are generally fine with sleeping on a couch, nestled snuggly in a converted cottage, in a homestead that was first surveyed in the 11th century, hanging out with the ghost of D.H. Lawrence, with (and this is the truly unbelievable part) wireless internet.

Have to go take a walk down the country lane before sound check.

And there's a sentence I don't write everyday.