The last day of Christmas

I started taking down some of my cards (some of them were from last year) but I got down to the essentials sweeping the kitchen floor, tidying away piles of half made New Year cards, and magazines. I've found one way to deal with holiday traditions is to institute your own. 8 years ago just before Christmas I invited friends over to my house for mulled wine, nibbles, provided cards, stamps and pens and asked them to write cards to Amnesty International Prisoners of Conscience. I've done it every year since. I now get people asking when I'm going to have my evening. I decided this year to tweak the tradition and this year held it after the main holiday period. This way things are quieter people are less frazzled and I think I'll do this again next year.

It was lovely to catch up with a bunch of people - I threw out a load of invites, on the one hand I ran out of chairs occasionally during the afternoon and on the other I saw several people who I haven't seen for months.

The Amnesty campaign carries on until the end of the month. So if you have a stash of Christmas cards left over check out the link above. Their campaigning does work. Someone I wrote to last year has been released. I and the other 5000 people who wrote did make a difference.

11 Tips to surviving a day job with your creativity intact

As the work year has started again I thought there might be someone crying out for this.

How to be free - again

Alastair Appleton has a great post on the book where he posits that meditation sets you free.

"Hodgkinson is my age and the editor of the excellent Idler magazine. His answer to this back-breaking cycle of covert feudalism that the puritan work ethic has loaded us with is idleness. Express non-action. Laziness. Loafing. Taking the time to lie in bed and not stress about ‘getting things done’. Catching the bus and staring out the window. Growing your own vegetables. Not throwing things away all the time - being thrifty, because not spending so much money mean you don’t have to work so much.
He doesn’t mention it but meditation is a form of purposeful idleness. (He’s big on a jolly sort of existentialism - the tag line of the book is: ‘Life is Absurd. Be merry. Be free.’) But Buddhism offers a different take on the whole idle question.Over the years, with my experiences in Brazil and on the meditation cushion, I’ve also learnt to step back from what we assume is the correct way to live and acually ask: does this way of living really make me and the people around me happy? Does keeping up with the Joneses keep me smiling? Does the insatiable desire for new things, different things - the radical discontent which fuels capitalism - does that ever lead to permanent peace and happiness? Clearly not.
Sitting crosslegged and just breathing is a much more radical thing that it looks. We don’t need to spend any money. We don’t need to be discontent. We can be happy with so little.
Radical idleness will dissolve everything. That’s the core of the Buddha’s teaching. Finding peace means disentangling yourself from those inherited, brainwashed patterns that we swallow wholesale from our parents, our teachers and everyone around us. Perhaps it seems mad/selfish/irresponsible to be idle. But perhaps it’s mad/selfish/irresponsible to spend your whole human life doing something that harms you, the people around you and the environment. What’s altruistic about heart-corroding stress, no time for your chidren and a scorching hole in the Ozone layer?
The Buddha was quite clear about the need to disentagle. Meditation is all about dismantling of all the constituent bits and pieces of existence - form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness - and noticing how they all work together and what they create. Sometimes what we see completely contradicts what we thought we’d see.
Just allowing ourselves a 20 minute breather twice a day is the cold-shower of reality that stops us walking sleepy-eyed into a hypnotic life of believing the hype. And those 2 lagoons of clear-sightedness also spill out into the day."

Project 365

How to take a photo a day and see your life in a whole new way. A photo project for the next year. I'd join in but as I don't do digital I think I'd fail the posting every day bit!

Tips on taking photos at the website and examples of people's work who did it last year.

Links

New independent video/film organisation/network in Scotland - FilmLive

Practice and feedback have a higher impact on performance

Prodigy or Mozart V Einstein

In praise of serendipity

Hogmanay Greetings!

I'm off to write a list of what I would like in my new year and plans for each thing....

Then I will do my 'to do' list of the minitunae I must plough through in January.

Being green can make you happier.

Makes sense. One of the greenest things you can do is slow down, work less and instead be more. Being is greener than doing. I highly recommend Tom Hodginsons book 'How to be free' its a great manifesto. I agree with almost all of it except the move to the country bit. The country is very ungreen.

Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius.Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don't divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation. - Moshe Feldenkrais

Great quote from Molly Gordon's email list

I also like what she wrote here about being whole:-

'Living a Whole Life, One Part at a Time
=======================================I
don’t know about you, but trying to live a balanced life as a self-employedperson has got me plumb wore out. (Or is that plum wore out? I suppose spellingis not a terribly serious matter when using the vernacular.)

My friend Jennifer Louden once remarked, “Balance is the new girdle.” I agree.

Balance has become, as so many good ideas do, a tyrant. I love balance; don’t get me wrong. I just don’t experience it very often. And I’ve noticed repeatedly that life is better and I am kinder when I accept myself exactly as I am rather than spending hours pre-occupied with the way I think Iought to be. So here’s a question: If everything is perfect, and it is, why are we trying so hard? And what are we trying to do?Here’s my simple answer: we’re trying to be whole. It’s the most important thing in the world, and because we usually experience this wholeness in relatively small parts, we don’t often realize that we’re already there. Wholeness doesn’t look the way you might think. Wholeness is all of it – all of you – right here, right now. You may be completely, fabulously, rampantly crazedby the holidays or some other aspect of your life. You may be blessed out or in, swimming in a current of gratitude, praise the Lord! You may be heart broken orexalted; your checkbook may be balanced or in chaos. Whatever state you and yourlife is in, it is the state of Grace.'

Mist all around

Edinburgh looks like something out of a RL Stevenson novel in places.

I'm about to return home, tidy kitchen and start my prepartions for tomorrow's lunch. We're having summer pudding as I prefer it to Christmas Pudding.

Solstice Greetings

I have a friend arriving this afternoon from London. I'm racing through a list of to do's and am feeling a little behind.

I have plans like make cranberry jam and then the other voice is saying 'be sensible'! (recipe at 101 recipies website)

I find downscaling my expectations essential for my sanity this time of year.

I've had the secret santa at work. I've been up until midnight writing cards... I'm now going to do the 'bare mimimum' even 'lower my standards even further'.

Internet access will be intermittant until the new year so posting will be light.

Pre Christmas nuttiness

I'm not sure that I can give any helpful advice on keeping ones sanity at this time of year. I seem to be keeping going with keeping going with an excessive book borrowing habit from the Edinburgh Library system coupled with going horizontal on a regular basis with cats using me as a hotwaterbottle. I'm also ditching loads of 'shoulds' and 'oughts' and am down to the bare minimum which consists of seeing people before they dash off hither and thither to relatives.

I did find the quote I wanted to use on my New Year Cards this morning so I might get those out after Christmas.

On Sunday I visited a friend but unfortuantly I was ill (it really is a sign of true friendship and sand froid that said friend could take me throwing up while she ebayed for christmas pressies!)

We agreed that finding our passion for life was the no 1 priority for 2007. Which reminds me one book I really enjoyed was Julie & Julia based on the blog by Julie Powell (I'm in an internet cafe so won't publish the link) Anyway Julie devises this crazy idea of cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's The Joy of Cooking in a tiny NY appartment on her tiny secretarial wages. (Her descriptions of being at the bottom of the office pile revived many painful memories for me). However in the midst of this insane project - at one point her husband remarks that she is so casual about meat that she would start deboning puppies without turning a hair - she rediscovers her lost passion for life and awakes from that grim plodding one foot in front of the other life I know so well as a temp.

ALSO please go to Hendrix-Cat's blog and get the info about her song which was released yesterday. It is available to buy on line. I tried to buy the Eskimo Disco record yesterday but failed in a shop... I must have been asking inthe wrong places. Anyway please buy it as she wants no needs new shoes.

A Cosmic Tantrum

Is helpful when things go completely pear shaped.

I've had a list as long as your arm of techical things not working, money 'issues', I've been dashing hither and thither doing work before the 'holidays', ground down by the dark and wet and wind. Mood not improved by receiving christmas cards from people bloasting of their immient move to 17th Century Tower houses * in the company of younger boyfriends in the new year, being escorted across the road by lollipop 'people' as if I was some kind of 3 year old with limited intellectual capacity. (I'm 38 years old, I may be on the short side but I've been able to reach up and press the crossing button for some years now).

So I really lost it yesterday. I mean really. And if the lollipop 'person' tries that again I'm off to the council.

This is a truly hideous time of year. No pratling about how you just 'love' Christmas. If you want to do that just bugger off to someonelse's blog. Every loss, every potenial loss, everything that is missing gone deleted absent thing from your life is highlighted with a huge cosmic highlighter pen. Thought you were doing ok - well shrieks the universe HA HA HA! We crawl towards the shortest day our nemises are waking up and dancing about in front of our eyes and as I wrote in an email to a friend I contemplate the ' grey dry graveyard that is my life'.

So what to do? I do not think that looking on 'the bright side of life' is the way to go. Indulge in the total shittiness of it all. Imagine becoming a hermit dressed in shapeless garments until mid January. Close the door, put on the anwering machine and INDULGE and revell in the dark side. Tell the fecking people who are annoying the hell out of you to bugger off.

THEN my friend you will feel better. Then you can imagine an outing to see a seasonal film with some friends you truly like. Then you can imagine sending a few cards, possibly even after christmas, then you can think about giving yourself the biggest fattest, most tasteless Christmas tree that was missing from your childhood, then you can go out and buy exactly what you want for Christmas, wrap it and and write 'To me love from me' on it.

Do this.

If you do it means that anything else you get is a bonus.

* A friend who formerly was in the 'heritage biz' assures me that she will have to fill out a form in triplicate if she ever wants to open a window - it cheered me up somewhat

Eskimo Disco

Remember I urged you to look at their video on You Tube? My friend HC is to be heard on their current single - well it apparently got to no 1 in the BBC chart last week!

On My Desk

Creative types working spaces via 52 Projects. Not all the pictures loaded when I looked at it - but they all looked extraordinarily tidy. My desk is 3 inches deep in paper ( it only lies in imperial measurements), a cat is sleeping on the monitor, my ikea drawer thingy has receipts peeping out the drawers, CD's of photographs lie jumbled in front of it, one dead phone in front of the keyboard, origami paper which I bought 6 years ago in Singapore awaits being sent to my friend in Germany, a 16mm film canister perches on an in tray, an old film programme for the Edinburgh International Film Festival from when I wrote a biographical essay on Margaret Tait 3 years ago, a yellow pages, a few books, my holga camera box, a purse which was lost on the beach and picked up at the police station, a copy of O magzine, Divine chocolate bar wrapping, postcards, an old passport, a box which had tulip bulbs in it (now planted) but has the number for the tree people at the council on it, a roll of fax paper still in wrapper ( I don't have a fax machine anymore) a smattering of bills, postcards. Lets not get onto what's under the desk.

Sorry about lack of updates I've been having internet connection trouble. I've been forced to frequent sleezy internet cafes on Leith Walk to check my email but things seem back to normal. I might even get my phone back tomorrow.

The Work Manifesto

by Pamela Slim, Escape from Cubicle Nation
1. Work is your real life. It is the way you translate your feelings, your thoughts, your hopes and your desires into something valuable, tangible and useful every day. You can choose to make work into a dreaded, necessary evil that you can't wait to finish so that you can get busy with your "real life." Why not just do work you love?
2. Good work will improve your sex life. Frustrated employees desperately long for excitement and release in the form of fantasy football, internet surfing, porn, and the affections of their stressed and overworked spouses. No superhero could fill the gigantic void of a passionless man or woman in a 15-minute tryst in bed. Express your passion through your work every day, all day, and find that you will be less needy, more attentive, open, giving and loving to your partner. Which makes for better sex.
3. Your secret desire holds the clue to your best work. You say that you would love to do meaningful work, but don't know how to find it. What is your secret desire? What idea are you a little embarrassed to share with someone because it is so delicate or bold or crazy or exciting? You often claim to not know what you want to do, but in fact censor yourself from what you know you want for fear of appearing ridiculous.
4. You can't fool your kids. Many of you claim passionless, dull and frustrating careers with the excuse that you must provide for your family. Providing for your family is noble; using it as an excuse to hide from your own greatness is a bad example for your kids. If you want them to grow up motivated, creative, free and enterprising, be that yourself. They are watching and emulating your every move.
5. Fear is the great inhibitor. All of the excuses that you find for not doing work you love have solutions. You do not enact them because you are afraid: of showing up too big in the world; of failing; of appearing as an imposter; of living in poverty. There is nothing wrong with fear. Feel it, talk to it, examine it and walk with it. Then step out and let yourself show up, warts and all. It will liberate you.
6. Owning is better than renting. While you may feel "safer" renting out your skills for a paycheck and benefits, you often sell all your energy this way and have nothing left at the end of the day. If you don't get what you need in this employment arrangement in terms of money, recognition, power or responsibility, you feel angry and frustrated. Own the means of production and the factory, and at least your glorious disasters will be your disasters. Accountability breeds passion and desire.

from Gaping Void's on going series of Manifestos.

Gathering Winter Cheer

Its been one of those miserable gray and off and on wet winter Sundays. I lay in bed listening to The Archers which is a cheerful mix of stalking, breaking down marriages, infertility and a spot of cow AI! I managed to start dull tasks like cleaning out the cat tray, washing up, and chucking a few things awa in the cheerful company of I'm sorry I haven't a clueI was to make dinner for a friend and meet her at the library before but she cancelled due to the inclement weather. I showed a potential lodger around my spare room and then scarpered to get essential supplies (coffee & chocolate). Dinner is now on the go and I'm comforting myself by reading an old Vogue I found. The great thing about losing things is that when you find them again its like new. I shall put on the coffee while my dinner cooks and I urge you to search google images for 'Anne Redpath' she is the painter of the image above. I wanted to find something cheerful and cozy to look at. She is a magnificent colourist. A great role model of a woman who was a single parent and still managed to rise to the top of her profession.

Also worth checking out is Skirt magazine

Balsy Blog which I'm just exploring!

Stillness is my submission to Photo Friday this week. Go to Photo Friday to check out the other great photos.

Jackson Pollock

go and have some fun!

Happy St Andrews Day!

National Day for Scotland is 30thNovember. There are a few events happening around Scotland to celebrate a sort of mini festival.

I'm going to try and make it up to the High St in Edinburgh if the weather holds tonight.

More info here.

Not Martha is a sort of upscale crafty/foodie blog. All this dark cold weather we're having makes me more crafty/ foodie minded. I've organised a Stitch & Bitch intervention for an at home single parent. We go around there and teach her to knit as she is unable to leave infant. Also cool - possibly for presents - knitted felted boxes.

The Creation Myth: Family v Creativity

Article on work life balance in the Guardian

Why Work?

I conducted my life as though it were a foregone conclusion that losing my job would mean homelessness, hunger, or complete insecurity. But the lesson here for me was that no matter how much we may want it to, security does not come from outside ourselves. Security does not come from having a job or money, despite what we may have unconsciously absorbed from living in a money-worshipping and job-focused culture. We can live in a shack and feel secure; conversely, we can live in a mansion and be filled with fear and insecurity. Real security, the kind that will last a lifetime regardless of job status or bank balance, comes from facing up to our fears and mastering them. We may have heard this before…but do we believe it? Failing that, are we willing to at least give it a try, and act as if we believe it? It couldn't hurt, and it might actually work. This is not meant to suggest that we don't need any money or support to live comfortably. It is meant to suggest that if we're afraid that we can't survive without a job, we have a perfect opportunity right now to face that fear and master it. We can use that fear to learn how to find real security!

My surface questions about how to pay the rent without a job were a red herring. They covered up my unexamined and deeply ingrained fears of scarcity and lack. Once I learned to ask myself some deeper questions, I was able to address what was keeping me feeling stuck in the daily grind regardless of whether my survival needs were met. Here are some examples of how the voice of my fears cropped up. Each is followed by the response my deeper awareness gave when the question was posed.
1) "There isn't enough wealth to go around, and if I don't work hard and strive and compete and achieve, I'll be homeless or hungry or destitute."
(Are you aware that the World Game Institute, the work of R. Buckminster Fuller, and many others have confirmed scientifically that we live in an abundant world with sufficient resources to care for every person on the planet? Are you aware that the only obstacles to all of us manifesting this abundance in our lives are personal and political - e.g. our deepest beliefs about wealth, and how the resources are distributed? Are you willing to let go of your fear of scarcity, work toward more equitable distribution of the world's abundance, and ALSO replace your fear with trust in an abundant world?)

More here at the Why Work website.

Money / workis a huge issue for people who want to be creative and well just for those who work. I've not posted a huge amount about it about it but want to explore the issue more.

Have I mentioned Supernaturale? Great crafty site - the articles and links are great and the forums are very lively.

Thankful for

The early 80's khol rimmed Marc Almond alike look on my cat's face.

My cool student for telling me about Sheila Scott Scottish Aviatrix who flew around the world in a purple flying suit with a matching skirt which could be donned when she needed to make a public appearance.

Real coffee in my moka coffee pot - though I didn't realise the link between coffee, aluminium modernism and fascism...

Finding my Holga camera after many months of it being MIA.

Delightful friends

Fabulous soap (orange & geranium best) and Lush Angels on Bare skin.

Libraries

Making Polaroid Transfers

interesting how to article here.

beta blogger

Thinking of upgrading DONT - just wasted an evening trying to turn off the annoying feature which tells you how many posts you have done in an archive month and can't - so removed the &%"$! archives wholesale. If you know how to put the archives on without the post numbering let me know....

Heaps of Books

I've been on a reading deprivation week - as perscribed by the Artists Way in order to allow a little creative outflow. Well I did start sewing up a scarf project which has been stalled for two winters.

I gobbled up Michael Chabon's The Final Solution last night which I loved - since going on the reading deprivation week books have been raining in on me and now I've been tidying the house in preparation for letting my spare room and found a ton of books to read and re-read. Please please universe send me a nice lodger.

I liked this post by Evelyn Rodrigrez of Crossroads Dispatches about only saying yes to what one has a deep internal YES to.

Portobello Arts & Crafts Christmas Market

Saturday 2nd Devember 1.30-4.00 p.m.

40+ makers selling hand crafted items - wood turning, jewellery, bags, scarves, felted textiles, paintings, cards, silver sculptures, prints, photographs, bead work, glass work, books.

For all your unique and unusual Christmas gifts.

Teas and coffees - 50p, children free.

at Portobello Community Centre - 3 Adelphi Grove, Edinburgh EH15 1AP

Together better

It really amazes me how this stuff works. I have classes where people admit to wanting things which they feel are impossible and the person next to them casually offers information to the contary. One student admitted to wanting a new job in a field that she said was very difficult to get jobs in - her neighbour offred up two potenial contacts from friends of hers in the same field who were leaving their jobs in the next few weeks. Another student confessed to a desire to go into space - a seemingly impossible wish. She wanted to be able to see the earth from the air. Another student pointed out that there are currently two supasonic planes in development to follow on from Concorde which will fly up to the edge of space above the earth and you will be able to see the curvature of the planet.

We should stop hugging our desires and dreams to ourselves and go out and broadcast them to the world because we never know someone out there may have the solution.

The Tea Leaf Oracle

Reading No. 22
Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos.
~ I Ching

Writer Anne Lamott espouses the idea of "shitty first drafts." Not quite as elegantly put, but the same thing.

Don't try to do it perfectly the first time.

Just do it.

You can refine, perfect, polish later.

Get it out.

Take the first step.

Run with it.

Chaos, then brilliance.

from www.willa.com

Newspaper bags

I'm a bit of an ecological fundie. I often wrap presents in paper ripped out of magazines and tied up with ribbon. One year I made hand decoupaged shoe boxes for all my christmas presents and nearly made myself ill with the effort. Each box was carefully designed with images which matched the recipient. Result Christmas Eve me lying on the sofa giving feeble squeeks while directing my friends B & C which item should go in each box.

One of those crafty projects which went a bit awry. However ! Last weekend for the princly sum of 50p I bought a cool 'newspaper bag' made from an Indian newspaper with a cool help handle from the shop at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art. Funky, recyled and helping street children. The label says 'The organization was started in 2004 by street children who wanted to give something back in return for the opportunties which had allowed them to escape desperate circumstances. These elder children, now married with children of their own, generate an income by making newspaper bags and juste items. This allows them to take care of thirteen street children that they have saved from the street's surrounding Delhi train station, support for this wonderful project means that these children can enjoy going to school and playing, rather than pulling rickshaws, shoe polishing, rag picking and worse.'


www.indiashop.co.uk

Do more things badly

encourages the writer Sark.

On that same theme take pleasure in the Really Terrible Orchestra who say on their website

'The Really Terrible Orchestra exists to encourage those who have been prevented from playing music, either through lack of talent or some other factor, to play music in the company of similarly afflicted players.
The policy of the orchestra is to make no distinction between the various grades of ability and the various forms of music, or time signature. The RTO looks forward to a further lowering of standards, in order to underline its commitment to accessibility and relevance.'

Stephanie Dowrick's key themes

"The thing about art that delights and confounds us is that it never happens again. This delights us if we have learned how to look because the esthetic experience allows all of our human faculties to be absorbed in the environment of the present and for a while to be fully alive without reflecting, without turning back or looking ahead. Uniqueness confounds us because there are no rules for guides. There can be no science of the particular. In a sense this confounding is a delight because it puts us in touch with that aspect of reality which is described as uniqueness--the fact that nothing ever happens twice in the same way in every respect." ~corita kent


from Keri Smith

Extreme Craft

A conversation on the intersection of craft and environment.

Very cool interview with Adrian Meade

How did you start writing?

I was 33 years old, living in New York and stressed out after 15 years working in the pressure cooker world of hairdressing and fashion shows. On the weekends I was helping out downtown in a gang's projects, persuading kids to give up their guns. I'd travelled the world, been in some VERY strange situations and people were constantly telling me that I should write about it all. A kid from Kirkby in Liverpool becoming a writer? Surely you needed a degree in English Literature to be one of these rare and exotic creatures?

Desperate for a new career I moved to Edinburgh with a plan. I would become a criminal psychologist! So I signed up for an Access course at Edinburgh University. Then that strange phenomena that I have come to love and trust kicked in. You instigate change....and totally unforeseen events begin to take over and carry you forward...in a different direction.
I was asked by some students to be a stuntman in their no-budget short film, as I had a background in Martial Arts and, more importantly, I owned a suit and tie! Once on the film set I realised that THIS was what I was meant to be doing. I'd always sketched, dabbled with music, LOVED films and was never afraid of hard graft. Making films and TV combined all those elements. I was smitten.

Now absolutely determined to to be a writer/director I planned it like a military campaign, visualising every step.
Step 1. I needed training and a calling card. I would make a short film. But first I needed a budget.
I worked 5 days a week in a Salon, 1 day a week at the Access course and 6 nights of the week as a bouncer. I snatched any time I could to write, five minutes here and there but every day I would write. On Sundays I would take out all my scraps of paper, write them up into a script and then pay a student £20 to type them into a screenplay format for me (I didn't own a computer and couldn't type.)
In nine months I'd saved £7,000 and went back to New York and made a short film on 35mm. I passed my Access course, the short won some awards and my two short scripts and feature (written mostly on the toilet in work ) secured me an agent at ICM London. I was off.

More here and a wee reminder his film Night People is on next week at the GFT and Cineworld Fountain Park

Interesting article in the FT about social networks online.

Autumn pleasures

Its suddenly gone rather cold here. Luckily yesterday I began a frantic clear out where I found my pink cashmere gloves.

I made soup from scratch. Lidle has half price veg this month. I am becoming a Lidle bore.

Autumn soup
fry one onion, chop a carrot and fry. Then put in a packet of cooked beetroot, one large potatoe, one tin of tinned tomatoes, one tin of butter beans, add some dried ginger and a spot of chili. Sloosh some water in.. Cook, food process about 3/4 of soup and serve with homemade bread.

Home made bread
500g of bread flour, one table spoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, one teaspoon of yeast, 250 g of luke warm water, one table spoon of olive oil, one egg. Mix and knead for 6 mins. Oil and leave to rise under cloth. When doubled in size knead in sunflower seeds ( a generous amount) then shape into round shape and bake about 30 mins at gas mark 6.

Finally the Archers has at last got some interesting story lines, adultery! gay marriage!

The Art of Craft is a great blog I've just rediscovered on the topic of marketing works of art and craft.

Instincts and tulips

About 5 years ago I met a person who was very successful and I ended up having a professional connection with them over a creative project. I always had a 'funny feeling' about her. Whenever I met them I felt odd, off centre, something was not quite right and I couldn't identify what it was. I eventually had a great deal of trouble completing this creative project and in order to do so found that I had to remove myself from this person as far as I possibly could.

A few days ago I got some information about this person which confirmed all my instincts that there was something off and odd about them. I had not been imagining anything all this time, I had not been 'jealous' and I had not been making it up. My instincts had been telling me the truth all the time.

The more important question is why don't I listen to the 'still small nagging voice within'. It doesn't always bear bad news - I was once standing in Marks & Spencer trying to decide on the flowers to take as a present to an interviewee. Suddenly and clearly I felt myself self thinking 'I must take the red ones'. When I got to this woman's house her kitchen was acessorised in exactly the same shade of red.

Rather than ally ourselves with outside authorities we (and I) fail to take seriously what we already know but will not give credence to.

Zoe the cat has started blogging. She lives around the corner from my cats but is an 'indoor' cat so they have never met. I don't think mine would be into blogging - it would interfere with tree climbing time.

Make yourself a virtual pumpkin!

Night People Screenings

Night People, the debut feature film from Mead Kerr Ltd, backed by Scottish Screen and SMG’s New Found Film initiative, is released in Glasgow and Edinburgh in November.

The film won the BAFTA Scotland Audience Award 2005, and has been shown on the international festival circuit, to much critical success; it will be shown at HD Fest in Los Angeles this December. Night People takes us on a journey across the city of Edinburgh, introducing a cast of characters for whom there will be no sleep. Each is faced with a dilemma that may change their lives forever.

Catch Night People now at:

Edinburgh Filmhouse
Tues 31 Oct (one night only)
8.15pm + Q&A session with Clare Kerr, Adrian Meade and cinematographer Scott Ward.
Showing as part of the Reels Scottish/Irish Film festival for one night only.

Edinburgh Cineworld (UGC)
From Friday 3 Nov – Thursday 9 Nov.

Glasgow Film Theatre
From Sunday 5 Nov - Tuesday 7 Nov.
Director Adrian Mead and producer Clare Kerr will introduce the screening on Sunday 5 November at 5.15pm.
~~~~~~~~~~

Adrian & Clare are fabulous people and I've seen the film already and would highly recommend it.

Interesting blog post on Leni Reifenstal.

Compare and contrast with the life of Ruby Grierson her contempoary in the UK.

I can hear random fireworks going off every now and again. Its open season with Halloween coming up. I rather like Halloween as a festival and am sad to see that some shops are already putting up Christmas displays before Halloween has even come and gone.

I went to a fantastic fancy dress Halloween party last night. I went as the 'Knitter of Hell' apparently a character in Heart of Darkness but I've not read the book so I'm taking that on trust! Someone else came as a professional Victorian mourner with stovepipe hat. She had a card - professionally printed and I was pleased to discover that not only would she do wailing and moaning at gravesides, she would also take on the mantle of guilt. Now I don't have guilt but I do have guilt that I don't have guilt... ie I've done somethings that previously would have me metaphorically writhing on the ground with guilt but actually I'm not... so she said that for a small fee she would be happy to take on the guilt about the lack of guilt! One of the hosts was dressed in twigs and ivy as a green man (he also had hampster grass attached to his person but that escaped the costume and was strewn around the flat). There were bats hanging everywhere and cobwebs. But the piece de resistance was a headless body lying in the bathroom which I had to veiw on arrival. The neck was a watermelon wedged into a shirt. It was amazingly realistic with blood oozing out all over the bath.

I discovered that the host was a primary school teacher by trade and I realised where this crafty excellence came from. I've seen this before offices of extreme dullitude where worksations are transfored into snow scenes with cotton wool or the three wise men trecking across the desert. All meticulously done in cardboard and paint. Somehow these festivals allow people to let out their creativity whether it be transforming a paper lampshade into an alien head making a working ghostbusters back pack for a fancy dress costume. It all shows how amazingly creative people can be with they just give themselves permission to be creative.

snickers fairy?

One has been operating in my area. I came home on Tuesday night to find two full sized bars lying in my hallway. Obviously posted through my letter box. No friends have admitted to doing good works - so I wonder is this scenario being replicated across this city?

Eskimo Disco

Yes I know you have never heard of it (some popular music combo thingy) but my friend HC made well noises on their new release and if you go here you can read about it and help her out by rating it that new fangled website for young persons - oh you know Your Tube or something...

Still here - knee deep in life - rather like standing in a flooding river. Its raining again here. My computer isn't working 'properly' so I'm unable to post links hence my lack of internet practice.

@*@*@*@

Yesterday I left the house and decided that I should do some exploring. I walked down a street normally I just whiz past on the bus. I walked past the big houses built for merchants in the 19th Centuary. Visited the cemetary and checked out cemetary fashions (photographs on gravestones, painted bears are all coming in). Then I walked off the main road an ambled around suburbia, large fluffy cats watched me from front steps, a secret collection of allotments hidden from view, mysterious houses behind high walls, high hedges and firmy shut gates. I took a few photographs and walked home. I have a confession to make .... I 've lived in this area for nearly 8 years and this is the first time that I've gone for a wander without any kind of errand or aim.

How to be creative

Hugh MacLeod's ideas which I was reminded of recently on an email list I"m on.

Artist's Way Course

I'm starting two new courses based on the book The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron.

I've facilitated these groups for over 10 years now and I'm an experinced facilitator in getting people back in touch with their creativity, discovering previously hidden creatitivity and leading people back to becoming the 'artist of their own life'.

Introductory sessions are a bargain £5 (try before you buy!). The afternoon class is 2-4pm Thursday 19th Oct and the evening class is 6-8pm Friday 20th October. Both are at Buddafield in Blackfriars St off the High St. Email me on creativevoyage at hotmail dot com to check if there are places.

sorry about lack of updates but blogger being very uncooperative

”As life goes on it becomes tiring to keep up the character you invented for yourself, and so you relapse into individuality and become more like yourself every day. This is sometimes disconcerting for those around you, but a great relief to the person concerned.” -Agatha Christie

from 37 days

Embracing Mistakes

Yesterday I got up early, dashed to Woolworths to buy a card and present for a friend's child who was turning 3 that day. I got home wrapped the present, walked to catch the bus and journied across the city. I got off the bus and luckily remememberd the instructions on finding my friend's house (I've only been there once before). As I walked up the street I saw my friend and her daughter outside her house and she said 'Hello what are you doing here?' I'd arrived a day early for the birthday party. So I abandoned the present inside the house, got into the car with them and went to the Morningside 'Festival' which consisted of a few stalls in a street. I bought a cool necklace made out of buttons, a few nice postcards and my friend and I caught up with each other over lunch. It was lovely. My friend it turns out always assumed that her childless friends were busy on a weekend so never arranged to meet any but enjoyed having some adult company. I enjoyed catching up with my friend who I'd last seen 6 months ago. We then ambled through the charity shops of Morningside and then I went to try and do publicity for my classes.

Similarily whenever I go and pick up pictures and they say 'oh they are ruined' at the processor I get more excited as I take the package of photographs. I've learned that this often means more interesting colours or even this rather mysterious picture of double exposures. What is seen as ruined and mistaken is often wonderful.

Fragmentary Glimpses

Udate on the demolishing World Heritage site

Hello SOOT Supporter

Two members went to a presentation by the council last night (only 2 from each community organisation were allowed) and were told to keep the information from the press until Trevor Davies (planning convener) could brief the press himself for Fridays Evening News!

We have therefore sent out a press release today about our reaction to the revised scheme which does little to address concerns which have been raised.

Come along to Old St Paul's Church Hall , Jeffrey St, anytime from noon till 5pm on Sat. 30th to find out more, share ideas about what can be done , hear the SOOT Song and even buy a brick!) Refreshments provided. Children are more than welcome. There is disabled access.

The revised plan looks very similar to what was put out by Mountgrange before. You can have a look at some of the document which has been scanned and posted on the Image gallery at our website www.eh8.org.uk

Latest Press on the eh8 website has today`s eve. news. letter from Sally. Keep the discussion going by writing to the Evening News and responding to their question today about the council`s consideration of the views of local people letters_en@Edinburgh's.com

Listen out to Radio Forth FM tomorrow as they are doing a piece about the revised plan (possibly early morning news bulletins)

Please spread the word, forward email on etc...about the information day on Saturday. It is also Doors Open Day (look up www.doorsopenday.org.uk ) so some interesting buildings in the area will be open to the public and there is an independence march/rally also on that day that starts at 1.30 from East Market St finishing at the Parliament about 3pm. So there will be lots of people around to hopefully come along and get involved.

Hope to see you Saturday

Julie
On behalf of the SOOT Campaign

~~~~~~~~~~~

On a slightly happier note the Cameo cinema has been saved from the hideous fate of being sold as a super pub and the for sale sign has been taken away.

Manna Bakery on Easter Road Edinburgh is a beacon of cheerfulness on a rather gloomy street. Was surprised to see it mentioned in an article in the Guardian about the use of transfats in cooking. No they don't use them.

The Knitted Garden

How come some things are just perfect?

My moka coffee pot gave up the ghost a few months ago. It became tempramental - only squishing through half of the water making almost undrinkable coffee. I handed it over to my tecchie dept (aka dad) and asked as he is an engineer to see if it could be fixed. It appears not but he gave me a new one! Why is it perfect? I can fill it up, put it on my stove on the lowest gas setting and have a shower. When I get out the coffee has bubbled through and I'm ready to face my day.

Stop the world I want to get off

happy birthday to me

I've not been terribly organised this birthday but had a lovely evening out seeing Little Miss Sunshine 'Quick everyone pretend to be Normal!' at the Cameo with 4 friends. Sunday was spent with my parents having lunch in the country - my mother's birthday is very close to mine. I've been treating myself to lunch in cafes with glossy magazines, drawing pens, stamps, and a new skirt. I've got to do a bunch of work soon but am planning a series of visits and treats for the runup to Christmas. We all need something to look forward to.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

Margaret Young

Road Dust

Don't graduate

The best directorial touch is 'I don't know'.

Arthur Penn

How and why one should upholster tree stumps.

“We have to be utterly broken before we can realize that it is impossible to better the truth. It is the truth that we deny which so tenderly and forgivingly picks up the fragments and puts them back together again.” Laurens Van der Post

from Muse to Muse Blog

“Does the sun ask itself, “Am I good? Am I worthwhile? Is there enough of me?” No, it burns and it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “What does the moon think of me? How does Mars feel about me today?” No it burns, it shines. Does the sun ask itself, “Am I as big as other suns in other galaxies?” No, it burns, it shines.”

–- Andrea Dworkin, 'From Our Blood'

Ian Rankin is interviewed in Chapman magazine on the creative process and the status of crime novels. He has some very interesting things to say - which I would repeat but no time tonight.

Day a washout went to party last night and managed a hangover on two glasses of wine plus wheezey chest from the brie... no wonder alcohol is not recommended for creative types.

I've been trying to upload pictures but its been very iffy on the upload front.

Weekend catching up with people which is lovely and meeting new babies and unexpectedly running into people. Was down at Portobello beach with a London based friends today. Lots of dogs, vast amounts of white flesh, people being buried in the sand and blue blue skies.

rain?

did I ever think I'd pray for rain?

New Australian in office from Manley Sydney -she's been here a week and recons its as hot as Oz...

Working working no time to post. I come home water plants in containers, sit on my bench and stare at the clouds and doze. I'm knackered after a day on the computer fielding emails around the world and don't want to log on at home.

More pics when I can

How to Draw by Danny Gregory

Nothing Bad Can Ever Happen at Liberty's

I've got an adorable early 20's model assistant, she's bright, well accessorised and after uttering the immortal phrase above I can see will go far in life. She even might attain the nirvana of 'Being Lovely' which is the ambition of a great friend of mine's goddaughter. I'm afraid that 'Being Lovely' is probably out of my reach now but I'm delighted to see that others can obtain it.

Hope to have a flying visit to Liberty's this weekend, in between, going to a phd begetting party, catch up with friends and go and see this play. Written my my mother's friend's mother. Julia Britten took up playwriting in her 70's and now at 92 is Australia's most performed playwright. How about that as a role model. Rock on Julia!

Anchor Close ghosts

More muscians

Stephanie's audience

The French Institute in Edinburgh holds a 'Fete du musique' on midsummer's eve. This year Stephanie Brickman who is in my Yiddish class sang some Yiddish songs.

This roll of film seems to be filled with lots of double images.

sorry about silence - internet concked out on me

started new job - nice boss came and sang a Lisa Simpson song to me on my second day - made me realise what was wrong with last job

head down on excel as a result

gorgeous weather - I keep on smelling the roses which are blooming away

lots and lots of photos taken

Manly, Sydney

"I keep a notebook with me all the time - and I scribble.... You begin to get your felt reaction in a phrase, perhaps. But, you know, I've said before that the angel doesn't sit on your shoulder unless the pencil's in your hand. ... And in truth that [is only] given after years of desiring it, being open to it, and walking toward it."
Mary Oliver

Look at me a website of found photos.

Purrrleasure

I was lying in bed this morning reading and Diego my tabby cat jumped up beside me, rolled over and was in exctacy as I rubbed his tummy. 99% of Diego's life consists of pleasure, napping, climbing trees, sniffing plants, eating, being cuddled (the other 1% is when neighbourhood cats invade his house and he has to tell them to piss off).

Last week I was trying to explain to someone how much pleasure I get from talking photos. Much of the pleasure is from how uncontrolled it is. The camera I use is famed for basically being quite crap. They might come out or not, it might be delicious deep colours or look like a faded Monet, it might superimpose 3 different images onto the same frame or the entire roll might be blank. I carry my camera in my bag or the pocket of my coat in winter and whenever I see something of interest, the light in the sky, a piece of graffiti I can take out the camera and attempt to capture it. Somehow because I have my camera I look more closely at the world and enjoy it more. Getting a roll processed is like a Christmas present. It activates my inner purr. But I've been deprived of my camera for over 3 months. It got broken in NY (on the ferry to Ellis Island) and I was afraid to try and get it fixed because I thought I'd be told the bad news that it couldn't be fixed and I couldn't afford a new one.

There deprived of pleasure for months and months for no good reason at all except fear. We just don't have enough pleasure in life! We deprive ourselves of ice creams, a quick walk in a park instead of hurrying directly to do errands, we don't slow down to smell the roses blooming near the bus stop, we don't sit in our gardens if we have them instead we do more housework, we fail to cook our favourite meals, we get cheap supermarket soap instead of splashing out an outrageous £1.45 for Australian Organics soap, we have lovely rose sented body lotian but do we use it? Like heck! Pleasure is not expensive normally it costs in time not money. So sit in that patch of sun, buy something which will give you pleasure, use what you have but have been saving for best.*

Resources

Madam Gena
Watch a cat

* One of my mother's friend's once said to me 'I don't have anything for best because I don't want my husband's next wife to enjoy it!'.

Her mother had died young and everything she'd kept for best was used by her step mother.