Robbie/Portobello/non polluted beach

the journey begins

Waverley Station

~~~~~~

Weird things happening - I keep on having these odd encounters.

I started a new job today and got a bus I don't normally get. A man got on sat in front of me and had this conversation on a mobile straight out of Rebus about how nobody in his family could dive anywhere or they would be lifted by the polis. He seemed pretty drunk/under the influence to me. We were proceeding in an easterly direction towards Leith.

Then he turned around and started this long monologue about how his passport had been taken away because he was ill (!) He was supposed to have an operation but he wasn't sure if he should just go underground instead. And he hadn't told his family about being ill and yesterday 3 ambulances came to take him away but he was just thinking about skipping the country. What did I think he should do? I thought he should have the operation. Then he stood up to get off the bus showed me the scar from his last operation and lurched off the bus. Somewhere in the monologue was a mention of him not drinking. Luckily he was struggling with two boxes as he got off my stop so I was able to make my escape to the supermarket.

How to set goals....

Bad goals are ones make for other people.To curry favour or love or acceptance. Bad goals are ones made to create an identity, for the ego to preen.

Life enhancing goals are about the journey as well as the end. It doesn't mean that all parts of the goal will be easy or pleasant there will still be moments of stuckness and terror and anxiety and a need to 'do it anyway'. But looking overall in the totality of one's life the goal will be worth it. If you don't get the goal you are not worthless or diminished - things happen. Plans fail it does not mean that you have failed as a person. You were not necessarily failing to 'manifest' properly. Sometimes you need to find another way to your goal sometimes you find its something else you need all together. Sometimes we just need to set a goal and set out on the journey until we do we will not know if it is the right goal for us. We cannot always know in advance. We have to take risks in order to live.

New idea 'soft goals' not hard in stone if I don't do this I have failed but lets try this and see what happens. It may be the way or it might not. Neither is good or bad - it just is.

I'm really enjoying posting up these photos (I think from two years ago) With a bit of distance I can see them fresh and anew. I'm trying to shift a lot of things at the moment and hanging onto the small things that give pleasure like finding a stash of photos on my hard drive and clicking the jpeg numbers and seeing what comes up is a moment of pleasure.

At the same time I'm aware that I spend far too much time here at my computer and am making a concerted effort to meet people and actually gasp! speak to them on the phone!

useful Holga camera hints

here - I've got about 10 exposed rolls waiting for the funds to process them. In the meanwhile I'll keep uploading the lomos.

10 tips for great travel photos

By Sibylle Meder over at JPEG.

I've no idea what this tryptich of bomb like containers are - I see them each time I'm on the train to London and they always catch my eye.

Sign in Liberty's for the bookshop - now turned into the perfume area so the bookshop sign made out of books is gone.

Neal's Yard Courtyard London Lomo

From the Edinburgh to London train

5 ways to find inspiration

This is something I wrote over at my other blog.


Ok you want to write a script - in fact you are desperate to write a script and you sit down and stare at the computer or notepad and nothing… nada. Here's some ways of accessing the muse.

1. 
   Carry a notebook and pen with you at all times. Something which can be shoved into a pocket or a bag easily. The writer Anne Lamott keeps index cards about her person at all time. This way when you are struck by something say an overheard conversation in a bus you can quickly jot down the idea and capture it.
2. Give yourself space for the muse to visit. Ie allow yourself a bit of living and what I call noodling time. Give yourself to walk between appointments, do something you’ve always thought might be interesting or fun to do. Somehow allowing ourselves to play and have fun keeps the imagination alive.
3. 
   Don’t just go to the cinema any thing you write will then be influenced by what you see rather than being original - mix in museums, theatre, music- the off beat. In the same way vary your inputs – don’t just read film books browse the other sections of the library and bookshop. My first film came out of reading a review copy of a non-fiction book in the publisher I worked in. (Similarily if you are a poet don't just read poetry)
4. 
   Become known as a screenwriter in your circle. Once people know that you are a writer they will offer you stories – I kid you not. Again take notes (one of my short film scripts was a heavily revised and changed take on a friend’s really weird childhood).
5. 
   Do what writer/director Adrian Meade does - go through newspapers not nationals but local papers tear out all the weird and off beat and intriguing stories. 'Two brothers transport their dead dad in an ice cream van.' He puts them in a large trunk so he knows that if he runs out of ideas that he can always look in it.Strangely enough he never has. (This does't work with online papers as the serediptious factor is taken out - they must be real old fashioned paper papers).
   

tulips and blossom

Spring seems to be out in force and I'm spending time sitting on buses and admiring those garish park plantings tulips/stocks/pansies in clashing colours, the impossibly fluffy hybrid sweetie pink blossom. All quite yummy. No photies but do go out and do a little 'Cherry Blossom Admiring Time' if you can.

I like to remind myself of this occasionally!

The Lives of Others

I went last night to see this film. Its about the power of art to change people despite living in intollerable situations. I was very moved by it. I met my friend in the South African cafe Ndbele which is just oppostite the cinema - perhaps the reminder of my childhood in another authoritarian state overlaid my response to the film. Here is an interview with the director.

Jealousy

Christine Kane has a great blog about it. It uses up lots of energy so well worth engaging with rather than trying to 'over come 'it or ignore it.

Mommy effiiciency

Great post by Andrea Scher on getting down to it without the procastination.

Cool Australian food blog - makes me nostaligic for my time in Sydney.

guerilla benching....

ChavCat aka Perry now rehomed - it was that or a cat ASBO. One day I'm going to do a film about the cats in my street. I should be ashamed to say that I know more about the cats then the humans but I'm not. For example I got very worred about Miss Blott (full name Blott on the Landscape) because I hadn't seen her all winter and was very relieved to find her sitting in her garden with her human a few weeks ago. Next door has a new cat called Jess who is young and 'done' but is now ... how can I put it politely ... well I can't - sexually assaulting my little Frida. And the other day a new neighbour introduced himself and it was obvious I was known as Frida and Diego's human above all other labels.

Right now I've been sluping up amazing views. I went to the beach on Thursday it was as calm as milk and looked like mother of pearl. I was walking with my parents as my lights went out a few days earlier and my dad came to fix my circuit. I quite enjoyed watching Desperate Housewifes by the light of four candles and a string of fairy lights. Perhaps we should spend more time in candle light. . Yesterday the haar came in and as I waited for the bus the mist was so thick I couldn't see Edinburgh Castle. Just a wall of blank whiteness with occasional building looming out when the mist thinned. Very odd as the entire city is a city of vistas and views - it is what makes Edinburgh Edinburgh.

The glass roof on the escalator at the Kelvinbridge Underground in Glasgow.

I'm going through my back catalog of photos and posting them. This was taken in 2005.

Small slow steps today. I'm finding breaking things down to the tiniest part is the best for me. I get more done that way by sneaking the work in.

Ian Hamilton Finlay

There is an exhibition of his works in London at the moment.

Photography - how to draw a picture in light

instructions here

North Bridge Edinburgh looking towards the Carlton Hotel.

I don't drive so lots of the photographs I take are from bus stops I wait at or are from my way to or from a bus stop. Its by these things the fabric of our lives is fashioned.

The beach at night

another lomo of the skylights

the star shaped skylights at Portobello Turkish Baths

H a p p y E a s t e r

Sitting outside and drinking coffee with my friend, trying to stop cats eating my tulip buds.

Smalll furry cuteness for Easter here.

turkish baths and easter eggs

Last night I went to the Turkish Baths at Portobello. (Here's a history of Turkish Baths in the UK). It was fabulous. After several rounds of steaming, plunging, eating of cake, fruit and turkish coffee brought by my friend L with REAL cups we tumbled out about 9pm and sat on the promenade looking at the light houses twinkling and the waves and felt completely blissed out.

I've been neglecting my body recently I must make amends. Today its lovely and sunny and I'm thinking about my easter egg buying strategy...

don't buy it make it

article on the revival of sewing your own clothes .

walking barefoot

I went to the beach last night and its the first time this year it was warm enough to take off my woolly tights and shoes and walk with bare toes.

Bliss.

I hope that you can do the same whereever you are.

giving ourselves credit

I spoke to a friend recently. I asked her what she had been doing and she said that she drove her mother 6 and a half hours each way so her mother could visit a friend in hospital. I commended her for doing a very good deed. And she said grumpily that it was a chore and it wasn't a good deed because she felt it was like a chore. But I disagree - who was it said it doesn't matter what you think but what your actions are - Sartre? The bottom line is that she did a good deed she might have done it with bad grace but she still did it. It was shame that she couldn't give herself the credit for having done it as well.

I have a new blog!

Dear heavens another ... this one is specialised on short film making. Any requests for blogs on specific area let me know. I wanted to build up a big of a backlog of posts before spreading the word.

Artists Survival Kit

by Keri Smith. I'm sure that I've posted this before but do check it out!

Encouragement to Do More Things Badly

SARK: We’re always thinking progress is an advantage. In fact, it can be the exact opposite of what our souls need. Once again, our souls need regression as much as they need progress. I love Thomas Moore for saying that. We’re so indoctrinated that progress is the way.

ALISSA: We don’t even want to admit when we regress or that we’re not being productive.

SARK: People lie all the time. Just take television. People continually lie about it. They say they only watch a little bit and mostly public television—or the nature shows and the Discovery Channel. They’re presenting an inner critic compilation of the appropriate programming to watch. Or they go further and say, they never watch. TV’s a waste. There are better things to do with your time. Simultaneously, they judge others who watch too much TV and specifically, the wrong kind of TV. It’s another subterfuge we undertake to hide our actual experience.

I remember I was home alone sick one Thanksgiving weekend. I watched reruns of “Thirty-something” or some other show. There was a marathon. I watched 38 episodes in a row. I began living in it. I was so with these people that when they had their Thanksgiving show, that was my Thanksgiving. I confessed what I did to a friend, and to this day, the friend admits to feeling so safe when I owned up to it, because this person had done similar things and always felt really alone.

TV here is just a metaphor for a lot of other things that people don’t tell the truth about. Most of us have similar things. We have too many books we haven’t read. Most of us feel guilty about the books we haven’t read. Most of us have overflowing closets and procrastinate about ever having any order in them. On and on. Why aren’t we just admitting these things, laughing about them and then spending our energy elsewhere. There’s always going to be entropy and disorder and lack of progress. That’s going to be a constant. We can use the energy we’re spending trying to make progress in much more pleasurable pursuits or other creative endeavors. I know that was a tangent, but I had to go on it.

ALISSA: It’s an important one. We put ourselves in these rigid molds based on what we think is socially acceptable or the right approach.

Encouragement to Do More Things Badly

SARK: Please let’s invoke the spirit of my friend Rebecca who died two years ago. She said, “Please tell people to do more things badly.” For instance, meditation works even when you do it badly. And that goes for everything else. Once again, most of us aren’t just procrastinators, but we’re perfectionists, too. We don’t even try new things because we might be any good at them. Guess what? It’s fun to take dance lessons—even if you’re not good. Not everything you try may turn out to be fun, but don’t futurize to stop yourself, because of your perfectionism.

ALISSA: I loved when you wrote about taking a class in something you know you’re bad at in one of your books. How that act is freeing.

SARK: Even my speed dating experience. I was really bad at the preliminaries of that. I was a wreck. I was overfocused on my appearance and having trouble driving. I was talking to myself. I’m a meticulous person, but when I got there, I filled out all the forms and promptly lost my name tag. I don’t think it was an accident. When I went to report the loss, the person said, “I’m sorry. We can’t replace that.” I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t. He said if I’d lost it, I couldn’t participate.

He told me to talk to the organizer about whether or not he might do something. Fortunately, he had found my name tag on the floor. But he said, “Don’t lose it again or you can’t participate.” My perfectionist was going wild, saying I didn’t do the right thing. It was funny. Then, I found out that I was much better at talking to 10 people for 10 minutes each than I ever knew. I found out that in some ways, I was more comfortable than the people I was talking to. The point is I’d never know if I hadn’t tried.

more here

Finding water

I found a bloggers collective all doing Julia Camerons' new book

Interview with Julia Cameron about the Artists Way

"I think people become more comfortable in their own skin. I think people become more bold. I think people become less easily intimated by authority. I think their humor improves and all of those things tend to be reflected in daily choices."

more here