Poetry & Parades

Things have been so busy, and I have been writing so much lately (work mostly, with some poetry thrown in), that preparing a blog entry has started to seem like an increasingly daunting prospect. I'm not giving up just yet, but I will take the easy way out right now and instead of writing up a bunch of stories, link to a bunch of pictures.

So, I performed at the Freshblood Cabaret in Leamington the other day, where Karolina snapped this awesome picture of Brighton-based poet Ashley ffrench:



On the very next day, I went to St Andrews university to feature at their third slam. (run by Harry Giles, winner of the Pencilfest we organised last year and all-round cool guy). Scotland is spectacular, and never let anyone tell you otherwise. St Andrews itself is a wonderful place, with a mere 20 000 inhabitants (7000 of whom are students), a university just a smidge less ancient than Oxbridge. It claims to be the birthplace of golf, and so throngs of American golfers dutifully performs the pilgrimage. It also boasts a beach where Chariots of Fire was filmed, and an awful lot of sky.



And finally, the St Patrick's Day parade went right past our place today, and as all manifestations of Irish cultures should, it featured a samba band, Indian drummers, and a troupe of fan-wielding Chinese dancers. We still got Irish jigging, though:

Just A Quick Plug

My capoeira group now has their own photostream on Flickr - check it out here.

18-55 AF-S DX VR

The wide angle lens came in the mail today! So, we took the camera along when we went to the post office this morning. Samples below.

Like The Thunder

Here's what I found in one of my work mailboxes:

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Merit hereafter by killing (this creature), even of the sun,
the moon, or the fire, that is the is almost adored. He
has learned to excel them watercresses in the street or
by stitching in diadem adorned with many gems, like the
thunder.

God I wish I could write like that.

Pierre Bourdieu on the Sociology of Translation

I'm sitting in the Wolfson Research Exchange, a part of the Library reserved for PhDs. Every place is taken, but an uncanny silence reigns over the room, as everyone pretends as hard as they can to be working on their dissertation. The fact is that we all believe that the others are well-organised, self-disciplined researchers, who are just now ticking off items off their daily, weekly and monthly to-do lists, and so we all do what researchers do best: keep up appearances.
Me, I can tell you right now that the Humanities Building I can see through the window has no less than four parabolic antennae on its roof, versus two old-school bent-wire affairs and two brave, but rather mangy-looking bushes. Also, a strech limo version of a Hummer just drove by on University road, which begs the question, who has their hen night on campus, in the middle of a sunny Wednesday. Or which Department Head decided to show that the power of positive thinking can overcome the recession.
The Humanities building has a sad little Japanese garden in its patio, and it seems the cherry tree has gotten into its mind that blossoming time will be any day now: it's covered in little pale pink buds, upon which some very happy birds are feasting as I write.
There is also, you'll be happy to know, a cloud shaped very much like a Fedora in the sky.