Chances to See Richard: LIVE

Brand Launch,
Rich Mix, Bethnal Green

Sunday 3rd May, 8.00 or so

Xing the Line,
The Leather Exchange, 15 Leathermarket Street,
London Bridge, SE1 3HN

Thursday 7th May, 7:30

Recent Developments

Today: Richard sent off three job applications and one conference proposal (another's almost there, will send tonight), rewrote the first third of the first third of his first chapter, ate salmon sandwiches, secured poems by Tom Raworth for Crater, read a bit of that endless William Carlos Williams biography, listened repeatedly to the new Jono El Grande and Zombi albums and will have prawns and spaghetti for dinner. Who needs friends?

Dangerous Desk Lamp WARNING

Please see attached picture of a desk lamp. There has recently been an
incident where a member of staff  burnt their hand on this type of lamp.

The lamp is designed with the switch at the back of the bulb holder. When
you switch the lamp off it is quite easy to burn your hand on the bulb
cover as you reach over to the switch.

I am aware that we have several of these lamps in HUMs,  so If you have a
lamp like this please be very careful when switching it off. If you would
rather we replace the lamp please bring it to the School Office. We are
currently looking to source a suitable alternative.

So-Called "pop-stars"

I have never bought a record, tape or a DVD/CD in my life. I have had a few bought for me but I refuse to give these so-called pop stars/singers any of my money. There is the radio for listening to music and that is as far as I take it.

I know of people who spend £40-£50 per month on music - quite frankly they are such sad people.

I have never even been to a music concert nor downloaded any music on the web. My money is for ME and not for others to live like lords on it.

Tasks to Achieve

These are the things I need to sort out for my life to be complete:

1. Finish thesis.
2. Get good at Scalextric.
3. Sort out hair.
4. Convince myself that sitting around reading books is fun.
5. Find job, settle down, GET PET.
6. Finish reading poems and essays of Robin Blaser.
7. Find a niche!

STUPID GOOGLE

right, the last line on that jack spicer poem should be indented but this blog thing would not recognise my indentation - great. This is 2009, buddy! Also, is there anyway of getting Firefox to accept English spelling? And to get this blog to deal with the fact that I don't and won't have a google email account.

Sporty Spicer

In lieu of relevant thesis work I have been continuing my reading of American poets who wrote a little about baseball, and am on Jack Spicer. This is one:

For Jack

Tell everyone to have guts
Do it yourself
Have guts until the guts
Come through the margins
Clear and pure
Like love is.
The word changes
grows obscure
Like someone
In the coldness of the scarey night air
Says-
Dad
I want your voice.

This is an 'admonition' from Admonitions and is addressed to Spicer himself, of course. Try rewriting this poem using a word of your own for every one of Spicer's, but without just making each its opposite or equivalent. Harder than it looks.

Recent Developments

I found my phone again, it was down a sofa, and I've had to send my laptop off to the shop as it's sprung a leak. Today I walked across the downs in the rain, was naturally disappointed by the no view from the top and when I got home had one painful foot and a huge nap. My mum's just gone home from visiting which meant lots of nice meals and stuff, and racing has continued - and is still evenly matched, which is annoying for me as I had hoped to be better than Nadja at this.

Easter eggs?

Recent Developments

Today Richard finished the current draft of the Introduction of his thesis, will go through it again tonight/tomorrow and have it in ready for Monday. For real. What next though? Read a book? Bah.

Richard buys Ford Mustang with extra magnets for grip, for Scalextric. Nadja buys Corvette. Muscle Car face-off. These cars are far better than her old Ferraris. So far racing has been pretty evenly split. The Mustang does cooler slides, the Corvette seems nippier.

PHONE GONE

Agh! I've lost my phone. If you're trying to call me and I'm not calling you back then don't worry, I'm not ignoring you. If you haven't been trying to call me then that's your look-out.

Is this fitting blog material?

These are the details for the mix I sent out:

A

i) Emeralds – Alive in the Sea of Information
ii) Ashtray Navigations – Teetotum Moan
iii) Josephine Foster – All I wanted was the moon
iv) Monopoly Child Star Searchers – Untitled
v) Marisa Nadler – Horses and their Kin
vi) Morton Feldman – Spring of Chosroes
vii) Animal Collective – No More Runnin’
viii) Animal Collective – Brother Sport

B

i) Anton Webern – Pasacalia, Opus 1
ii) Toto – Africa
iii) Sir Richard Bishop – Zurvan
iv) Peter Zummo – Song IV
v) Sonic Youth – Fire Engine Dream
vi) Lloyd Wyatt and Sparrow Durham – Andrew Pickens Resurrected / Farewell Ma Peak S
vii) John Fahey – Irish Setter

New Mastodon Album

The new mastodon album is really wet, but also fantastic - check out the weird emo bits in 'Quintessence'. It cames with a 90 minute making off documentary, from which I found out that the concept behind the record is that this disabled boy in Tsarist Russia has this out of body experience and somehow his 'golden umbilical chord' that connects him to his old body gets cut and he gets lost up in the aether (the aforementioned 'Quintessence'). Luckily, however, Rasputin (!) takes pity on the boy and allows himself to be assassinated even though he knows he could have got away and then flies up and brings the boy back to his body. Then there's this song called 'The Last Baron' which is apparently about WWI dogfights and such. Bananas.

There will never be a record as good as Leviathan but this is a weird great pop metal confection, astounding.

First Blog Post

Amazing, this is my first blogpost, as I become a blogger. The idea of this is to add a new hobby to my extensive list of hobbies that I can do while I am not writing my thesis or doing other worthwhile things. If you want you can read along and partake of the excitement in my life vicariously.