Jan Phillips

from nun to photographer, muscian and teacher.

people listening to speeches, music and a live link to London's concert

people queuing to get on the march

Discardia - a new holiday

On Discardia

Need some inspiration to get you through the weekend's nesting projects? Dinah Sanders invites you to celebrate Discardia, a floating holiday which, in her words, "doesn't involve obligations or expense or overblown expectations of specialness. It does not require you to interact with people whom you do not wish to interact with. In fact, it doesn't require you to do anything."

Instead, Discardia, like Apartment Therapy, is about getting rid of the stuff you don't need in order to make room for the stuff you do love. "Discardia," Dinah says ,"is the time to get rid of things that no longer add value to your life, shed bad habits, let go of emotional baggage and generally lighten your load." Happily, this iteration of the holiday runs until October 3rd.

More info at Apartment Therapy

Sychronistically enough I'd already decided to put some unwanted books for sale at Amazon

I liked the wide age range of protesters.

Welsh Dragon against poverty

Reading Frenzy

This looks like fun and while supporting a great cause (unsung heroines who keep spaces alive for artists and writers) can get a stash of reading for the dark nights ahead.

Free Film event - Ideas Factory

My friend Stuart is hosting the evening devoted to films made with Machinima technology (gaming programmes) on the 22nd Sept 7pm at the Cameo Cinema Edinburgh.

more pictures of Make Poverty History

over on Street Photography. I like this one in particular.

banners tied to railings on Princes St Gardens

the G8 leaders came on the march as well!

there in all their glory

the end of the march

sumptuous adventuring

I'd sent out an email inviting friends to go and see a film with me on the evening of my birthday.

4 people turned up but the evening was so lovely none of us could bear to be stuck in doors. We opted for a walk instead.

We went to Arthurs Seat* and walked for about an hour around its middle circumference, admiring the views to the city, sea and hills. A large fat half moon hung like in a Chinese watercolour to the East.

After an hour it got a bit chilly so we went to Prestonfield House Hotel for tea and had a wonderful time sitting by candlelight in a room with 17th Centuary wallpaper made from leather and using the pinkest powder room I've ever been in.

* a hill casually left in the midst of my city

Calling all Petes

Peter Trainer is starting a blog project called the petecollective

yay !

Laurie R King one of my favourite detective fiction writers has a blog.

On Friday I met Michael Nobbs for coffee at Spoon Cafe.

Nay !

2 days trying and I've still failed to upload my pics of the Make Poverty History march ...

tomorrow is my birthday

I used to ignore my birthday and drift along expecting 'something to happen' on it. Usually by my poor mother. Now I know this is a ridiculous atttitude to have towards ones birthday. It is up to ourselves to make sure its celebrated in the manner best suited to ourselves.

I've developed a determination that the birthday celebrations should be spread out over several days and that one should TELL people its your birthday. There is no point in not telling people and then having a strop about them forgetting. Let us give up being passive and become active participants in our lives.

So yesterday I went to Glasgow for the day - I did a whole series of activities 'just for me' lunch at the Czech Tea room (yummy moroccan soup) drawing in my notebook, browsing in second hand bookshops, browsing in gifite shops, giving myself full permission to buy magazines at Borders, very expensive cleaning cream at Neal's Yard. Finally I was fitted for two new PRETTY bras. I came home and had dinner with three friends (Roast chicken - sadly its roast chicken weather)watched a documentary with them. Today I'm off to see an exhibition with a friend, then go and have dinner with my parents (my mother has a birthday close to mine) and I've invited 10 friends to join me in watching a film on monday night. I'll go early catch a film before the one I've planned to see with them, have dinner in my favourite Edinburgh cafe inbetween.

All these activities may not be to your taste but they are to mine. Life is too short not to make the most of it.

the world's oldest photograph?

here via kottke

You don't want to have to answer to the past, right? It's a waste of time. Nor do you even feel like rebelling against the way things used to be or rejecting the stale old expectations people would like to hold you to. I don't blame you, Virgo--especially now, as you enter the frontier zone where the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. The way I see it, it's your sacred duty to shake off all the sacred duties from yesteryear as you go forth to create the future.



*

If I ever produce a self-help manual called The Reverse Psychology of Getting Everything You Want, it will discuss the following paradoxes:
a. People are more willing to accommodate your longings if you’re not greedy or grasping.
b. A good way to achieve your desires is to cultivate the feeling that you’ve already achieved them.
c. Whatever you’re longing for has been changed by your pursuit of it. It’s not the same as it was when you felt the first pangs of desire. In order to make it yours, then, you will have to modify your ideas about it.
d. Be careful what you wish for because if your wish does materialize it will require you to change in ways you didn’t foresee.

from 'FreeWillAstrology'

~~~~~

This blog has changed its purpose... bet you didn't know it had one any way? I originally started it as a place where I could direct students to interesting links. Ah ! that's why she links to things she has no interest in.... and in the long run build a market for my courses without having to do the hard work of tramping around putting out leaflets. Well obviously that didn't happen in that I found that I still had to do the hard work of putting out leaflets and never quite got the hang of promoting this blog. The only time this blog has had a traffic spike is courtesy of 'Photo Friday'!

Well its September the rains are lashing down my kittens refused to leave the house this morning when they saw the wet and I'm not about to promote a class this Autumn. I've decided not to teach again for the time being. As soon as I took that decision someone phoned me from Glasgow asking me if I was going to do a course. I'm not entirely sure why I don't want to teach anymore. Perhaps because I need to teach myself, perhaps because I don't need the status of being a teacher perhaps because folding 2000 leaflets and distributing them makes me want to curl up on the sofa.

I've also changed in the last year or so... and its been hard to reconcile those changes with being a 'teacher'.

What has changed? I'm much more aware of the gaping holes within people and am so aware that people are in the mindset that somehow being creative will solve their career problems, make their mother love them and finally finally make them comfortable.Were as once you have created your thing - you are the same person with the same hang ups but you have a few songs under your belt.

Or they can't be creative because then their parents won't love them any more (pretty conditional love in the first place?)

The idea that there is the one thing you will do and be instanteously brilliant at - if only you could find out what it is. Yes there is flow sometimes but also all those shots were the horizon was wonky (not in a good way) the entire rolls came back blank and kept on happening. Things only got better after about 100 x 36 exposures...

Its hard even when you have built in support (producer) you still have to go out and push and prod to make things happen. Yes YOU have to Make Things Happpen. (I've always wanted SomeOne Else to make things happen).

Do what you love and the money will probably not flow in but you will have to work out a way to get money to do what you want. Yes you might want to do a series on Gypsies in Romania but you will also have to do weddings to support it. The time I would have spent marketing my class will be spent filling in applications so I can have a decently paid job which will give me paid holidays so I can do what I want and pay off my debts.


So my blog has turned from a marketing tool to an assemblage of links about creativity and other stuff and my photos when 'hello' allows.

Now I don't have to keep it up every day perhaps I can relax. Offf to get some breakfast.

quick round up

My friend Hendrix-Cat sang on a pop record!

I went to Skye for the night to show my friend from London the West Coast of Scotland and to take the train from Glasgow to Mallaig 'one of the great train journeys of the world'. The 6 hour trip much elivened by taking a flask to make real coffee with those individual coffee makers which you pour hot water through and 'mini bottles' ie 1/3 sized wine bottles which we knocked back in tin mugs while whizzing through the spectacular scenery. The return trip to Mallaig with an apex ticket cost us a ridiculous £35 and the ferry was £5 return and we shared a room in a bunkhouse for £14 each - great value.

If we could bottle island air we could make a fortune.

I've got photos but I've not been to process them yet.

When we were at Waverly station we stocked up on newspapers for the journey - terrified I would be without reading matter I picked up Orhan Pamuk's 'Snow' on the basis of the blurb and cover. A beautiful, poetic, haunting and political book filled with images and characters what will stay with me a long time.

I saw John Adams Opera The Death of Klinghoffer done by Scottish Opera as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Superb and very moving.

Bicycle Film Festival

How else could one possibly go to London's first Bicycle Film Festival than by bike?
I wasn't the only one. By 7pm last Saturday the stands and railings outside the Cochrane Theatre, next to Central St Martin's College in Holborn, were chock-full with bicycles. But, apparently, this particular location is notorious for bike theft. So it wasn't very reassuring that one of the first films up that evening was a short called Bike Thief.

full article here

Official Website