and it has been a full one. Created three samples of the Hurricane Hints with intro, extro and a choice of music and FX so the sales people can try to hook up a sponsor for them. Apparently we already have two companies interested. Completed a fully produced half hour of Artform, my program with artists, also for shopping around. The theory is I use my own slot to start things, like floating a balloon as it were and then produce them fully with themes, promos the lot and turn them over to the sales force. Even if they don't sell at once we can slot them into different time periods to get listener response as the 'night owls'who have given feedback on my live slot so far want to (wait for it) date me because I sound so warm and friendly!That's even worse than going by my profile because on air I am much more outgoing than I am in person. Give me another person in the room and I get them to talk!
I just watched a really dreadfully acted, directed, and produced movie called Red Blood.And the sound was appalling (I notice, used to do that job). I think my review will say don't bother unless you like to look at guys with really long hair...no that won't do, cause I like that and it didn't help.Filled the gas tank - for some reason I got much better mileage this week (maybe it really is good to keep the tyres at the recommended pressure),cooked dinner for my mother and me. Stopped in here to read the threads and post to a couple - caught the great Muppet denouement, sent a couple of flowers and have one email to write before bedtime. well, it actually is bedtime - one email to write before I avail myself of bedtime I should say. To be precise. hate being precise all the time - all the editing and control yesterday and today make me want to dance under the full moon - preferably in the rain. Have to wait until the 30th for the blue moon then skyclad I will be! Life is like a chocolate eclair, filled, covered and surrounded with luscious scents, textures and flavours. I love chocolate eclairs!
I don't, of course, but someone that I cherish used the phrase and I am stealing it, the perfect jumping off point for today.When I met my sister-in-law for the first time she spoke to me very slowly and explained what radishes were. I blinked wide brown eyes at her, pointed to my glass of water and said 'and what is this,please?'I am not always kind; but I did bite my tongue when she proudly told me her six year old son had just started to take lessons to read. At two years old I had my own bookcase, a chair and a feather duster. Each day I would take down a book - the Noddy books by Enid Blyton - and dust it and my chair and sit to read. The worst punishment my mother could inflict was to say "no reading". I have no idea why I was fixated on dusting things first, I got over it - although I still browse by feather dusters and their like in hardware stores.
We make assumptions all the time and circumscribe our world so easily. Someone from the Caribbean could not possibly know what a radish is, and despite her english accent may not understand the spoken word so let's speak slowly. All the ways we shut ourselves down! My cousin married someone from Venezuela and because his English was sketchy would repeat to him every word we spoke... in English still but very loudly! I myself am not immune and have been heard to mutter 'but it's not rocket science!' This rough jumping to conclusions and unwillingness to listen slowly with all care leads us into squabbles, bickering and wars. We fear and hate what we don't understand but either we never listen long enough to hear the complete answer or we change the question once an answer is given because instead of trying to hear another's opinion we are chasing our agenda and if the words you say don't fit by all the gods we will find a way to twist them! And, like sheep, we let this happen because to stand up and say NO! means we might find ourselves alone.
I have lived through so much history and yet I don't feel old. JFK, I was in school, bells ringing teachers crying even Mr. Dodd - never knew a man could cry - John Kennedy is dead the cars pull up like beetles to a carcass to take us all away from school. Martin Luther King, John Lennon. I met John Lennon, I wrote a poem and he made me sign it - always sign your work love he said - and put it in his breast pocket and winked at my 14 year old heart. So many dead through Viet Nam, the other wars, so many of my friends, other dancers, falling to the modern plague...is every life paved with loss? With death? It must be and yet it doesn't show as much in the early decades, now they fall like wheat before the scythe. Singers, actors, authors, dancers, friends, saints and politicians... I wept for Isaac Asimov and John D MacDonald. No. Not for them, for myself deprived of further words from their pens my magic horizons shrinking as their world closed down, Zenna Henderson, Tom Reamy gone ...all gone and still they live and burn within my memory and I pass the torch to others: have you ever read Blind Voices? Have you ever heard this song, seen this movie..oh find Philip Wylie I recommend and so the baton passes to a new generation. Immortality exists within the minds of others.
(with apologies to Three Dog Night)the title just popped into my head as I caught myself on the verge of falling asleep. A busy and productive afternoon, always a surprise on a Saturday, my errands done I sampled the chicken fricassee I've made - seasoning needs adjusting but it is already falling-off-the-bone tender and the distinctive fragrance and flavour are there. Just needs tweaking and simmering a bit more. A perfect Sunday lunch with minimal effort, how grand!It just rained a little, just enough to drench the air with green scents and set the frogs to whistling, the breeze a gentle breath across my cheek, putting a ripple through the drapes, a gentle cat stretch before settling for the night.And I am yawning, a smile in my eyes because there is not a lawnmower to be heard. Just frogs. Why three blogs today? I'm not entirely sure. Words are stirring in my soul, jostling about and forming their lines into sentences that do not yet make sense. A dream about to happen, a poem weaving itself together from the thoughts and moments of the day, not yet coherent, not ready to flow or stumble from my fingertips tonight; but there, a presence piping its own little frog song in the night shadows of my mind. Can always tell when I get too tired, the images get baroque and clang instead of whisper as I lose my mind to sleep. Another day completed.
In a small community it is relatively easy to become a local celebrity if one works in radio & television. Years ago my mother called me and said "I promised ....you would call him. He's a big fan of yours and it is his dream to take you on a date." Fortunately sheer shock kept me silent long enough to realize that none of the words tramping through my mind would further mother/daughter closeness and I was able to ask "Do you know this...him?" She knew his mother and family so, as the promise had been given, I called and based on the conversation accepted an invitation for dinner and dancing.
He arrived bearing a single red rose and dressed to the nines; his car gleamed inside and out. Any journalist worth the name knows how to encourage the exchange of information, so conversation flowed. He had made reservations, the table was perfect and we ate and laughed and danced until the wee small hours. He drove me home, we exchanged a kiss on the cheek and I sent a thank you note the next day and it was over. Years later I ran into him in the supermarket, he was now married with children, he introduced me to his wife and I admired the new baby.
It was one of the best dates I have ever had although we had little in common and he was, in many ways, the antithesis of my instinctive taste in men.I think the magic was we were both focused on making it the best possible time for the other, it doesn't matter. It was beautiful.
is a forgotten art. It is my heart that responds to the intent of words; tests and tastes the air and speaks quietly to my gut and glands requesting and suggesting paths of action. My eyes read, my ears hear and my heart gathers information, triggers withdrawal from attack, unkindness, softens into an outpour of compassion, stiffens my spine so I can take my place in a line of defence when needed.
But I have to listen to hear the message in those tom tom beats that move me forward, carry me through life. I have to stopper intellect which dashes like a feeding bat after this idea and that, the guru phase, the magazines that know so much a five year stack will give you three hundred and four rehashes of the same tired pop psychology without committing the crime of an original concept. It must all be true; it is in print.
The root of education roughly means 'leading out' suggesting that all the knowledge that we need is already housed within and merely needs the door to be indicated, the path to be shown. I remember one school term we had a new teacher for mathematics, a subject that escaped me no matter how I read or studied. Then Mrs. Grannum spoke and wrote and my heart beat quickly, pushed blood to synapses near dry with frustration and there was the door and on the other side a new world of wonder and fascination as maths became something I knew and recognized.
So I listen to my heart and know when I am loved, when I am judged, when a fallacy is being fostered as a marvellous insight, when someone is being unkind. And when my heart says run, be silent I take a breath and when my heart says speak, I release it.
and so is my energy. Too bad as I have at least another two hours worth of editing to do - interview with an artist who works in textiles. I've don all the basic clean up edits and the main structural stuff, now it is just finetuning and inserting her music choices at the right places so the whole thing plays seamlessly.
My brain feels like taking a holiday, all except that stern little voice which keeps saying "you can do this!" So here i am playing instead because right now it is more fun to stretch and see words dance on the screen than listen to them say the same things I have been listening to for two days. I didn't even get to do a poem today, my quotidian contribution to the world of romance and unrequited passions.
ah the fantasy of love
that burns and flows
wrapping silky arms
of flame about my
languid limbs
all shaken from the
flutter of an eyelid,
tossed by the breath
of a half-heard sound
a chime in eager ears
that strain to catch
those cherished words
I love you.
That feels better! And I think if I put a short music bridge in the last section it will fix it.
My, the page has a different look this morning!
On the agenda for today: some of yesterday's tasks because the system was down at the station so I could not finish editing and assembling the new project. A new lesson learned, always burn a CD so I can edit at home in case of need. And I need to get to the gym, pitting myself against unyielding inanimate objects may burn off some adrenaline hangover, especially since my second feature last night turned out to be far from frothy. One of those strange films that makes one ask why did they make it? Oh sure the concept is pure and inviting but the execution fell short on too many levels. Back to today: phone calls that must be made and three pieces of music to track down then type up Friday's running order - I had discounted the sheer volume of music required to cover 6 hours on air even with my chat and features interspersed. Just the audition and selection process takes up several hours so I think any plans to do this more than once a week will go on hold for now. Maybe when I am not the only one involved in the process...right now it is more important that the existing drive time shows be spruced up and the general programming be shaken up a little bit. And content added. Then there's the sister station which will stay fully automated for the next few months. At least I have finally learned NOT to try to do everything at once. Whoops, kettle just boiled time to make breakfast and get the day on the road. Literally.
and it has been a long time since that has happened. I actually wrote to someone that their 'youthful arrogance is boring'. And it was. I am usually more polite but after a surfeit of labels tossed around the threads and comments over the last few days and then faced with utter, frothing-at-the-mouth nonsense in my mailbox I tossed a label myself, totally allowed my anger to reach out instead of sitting with it. It's always been a mistake to tell me what I feel and what I am thinking...there is only one authority on me and if you don't live in my skin talk about what YOU feel and think. Or ASK me what I think. Arrogance indeed.
Further, I don't care how valid a point you may be making there is never any reason to insult other posters. Especially when your premise is off topic as well. By all means say what burns in you to be said but stop trying to make apples into oranges while you are doing it; start a thread and keep negative personal remarks for email. My opinion.
Just watched Notes on a Scandal, Judi Dench & Cate Blanchett. Heartwrenchingly lonely people who are incredibly flawed. Great performances, not a great movie. Got something frothy and silly lined up for the second feature and then to sleep, perchance to dream of pillow fights. Or Hugh Jackman.
Days keep on passing or so it seems. I wake, I sleep, I wake again to another dawn, another day numbered and named so I can know when I am...as if I didn't know time is an illusion, illustration in a children's story book to keep us from the bigger questions. There are questions, are there not? I have a skin with nerves that seek to know the texture and the temperature of all things, I have eyes that blink and squeeze light - what is light?- into shapes that fit to words I know or knew or am related to. Ah so weary now - what is weary?- a buzzing behind my head, inside my head, perhaps a sneeze echoing through empty chambers in the bone, perhaps the subtle push of some invader trailing rude fingers through the private paths of my being. Maybe just a nightmare. One of us is real. I just wish I was sure it is me.
somebody's soul. Far more people read and browse the forums than ever comment. I can include my self among the number of those who circle above, reading over the shoulders of others, without a word, without a breath. Why do we hover, unconnecting? I can only speak for myself...I read threads I would never post to because the subject matter is incendiary and will lead to insults, humans being as they are.
I have not come here for the small viciousness of "I must be right" minds, nor do I believe that name calling and virtual mudslinging will solve any of the world's problems...although perhaps a soul is watching and will see how limited a view is and so will look inward to see where boundaries have been built that are not needed, that colour interactions with others. Occasionally I take a brief plunge into a pool I know will scald me, because I am responsible for the well being of others and must stand and be counted no matter what the cost might be.
Daily I take a deep breath and expose a glimpse of my innermost self to the world because until we know each other we will fear each other and fear is tied as close to hate as flesh to blood; and although I am irrelevant, a word scattered here or there, a thought, a concept may need to be seen. After my separation and divorce I had to file for bankruptcy and I spoke about it once in detail in a public forum (not on line) and two years later a woman I did not know stopped me on the street and thanked me, said my story had shown her a path to follow that had healed something. I had not spoken for her, I spoke my little truth, my experience, to own it, claim it make it part of who I am, and yet by bearing witness to the truths I live I shoulder my responsibility to my fellows and share the only thing I own.
unless I tell you,
you won't know
my skin lies
and doesn't show
the dark side
of my heritage.
And who gives a flying f*** anyway? When I was an idealistic teenager I was hell bent on righting wrongs and redressing balances. Apartheid was in full bloom then and my youthful ambition was to go to South Africa, infiltrate the white SA society and marry one of the elite, get pregnant as quickly as possible and then hold a global press conference announcing the full range of my ethnic diversity...well I was very young and thought it would be a lovely sock in the eye for those who chose discrimination.
I have been reviled (and threatened) for being "too white" and also for being "too black". Truth is I never noticed my, or anybody else's, colour until someone with racist issues pointed it out to me. They had to have issues...they were the one who saw in "colour". I am very lucky, I keep forgetting that I am anything other than a soul getting along as best it can. Of course there are plenty in the world eager to remind me and wave the flags of irrelevant details in my face. And every now and then I feel a need to hold up a mirror - that younger self still lives and burns with a warrior spirit, she would die for the disenfranchised and I hope I have the courage to live and die her dream if it ever becomes necessary...
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