grey and blue but mainly grey

27.04.09

2009-05-17T10:47:00.003-07:00

Stereotypical one-sheet hack-blurb press release from the last two years:

"[Nationality] [artist real name] has been crafting dark, uncompromising electronics as [artist name] since the mid-nineties, with a sprawling backcatalogue under [his/her/their] belt[s] that includes releases on [label],[label] and [label]. While [his/her/their] earlier releases such as [year]'s ‘[title]’ leaned more towards [idm / breakcore / drone / jungle / techno /...] and [hardcore / experimental / concrête / industrial] electronics however, this latest download-only album on the [nationality] [label name] label ‘[LP name]’ sees the focus on dubstep and bass music in evidence."

If you're an artist who's decided to abandon years crafting dark, uncompromising electronics because you've decided that around about now (i.e. 2011) you're creatively ready to explore the new horizons offered by dubstep and bass music, why not cut & paste the blurb above? Just replace the bits in square brackets with some relevant sounding material. I take it that you're already familiar with the idea of just filling in blanks, and that you're happy to produce something rather generic and uniform. Why not do the same with your press release as you've done with your music?

23.04.09

2009-05-17T10:47:00.001-07:00

Narrative time isn't enough, it lets us down. Take this, for example. It's only a sketch, don't work too literally - I'm just going to draft the outline of a sequence of words that could be written at longer length. It goes like this: a man or woman, let's make it a man, does something for a hobby that involves writing. He writes enough words somewhere or other that someone picks up on it - let's say it's an academic. The academic has an interest in promoting the man, nothing sinister, nothing nefarious - it's just that being an academic, the academic realises that there's not that much more to what academics do over and beyond what hobbyists do, and since there's not much difference, it doesn't make much difference to promote the hobbyist. Perhaps that's naïve of the academic. For instance, if there's not much difference, it seems like the academic should invent some differences to make it clear that what happens in academia isn't just your everyday hobbyism. But perhaps it's not naïvety - perhaps the academic sincerely endorses the value of the hobbyist's writing and sees no division, no boundaries.

Here's a parallel: a guy paints things, and never wonders whether he's making art - he's painting, let the art question settle itself. Forget the perhaps of naïvety, it's not the issue. The basic set-up is all we're interested in so far.

So the hobbyist gets invited to the academic institution to present something to do with his writing. He turns up and they put on the usual works - it's a one-day workshop, there are a couple of invited speakers alongside him, no-one he's heard about, who are presenting papers with technical sounding much-hyphenated titles; there's a programme which reads like an agenda, with carefully scheduled coffee-breaks where institutional buffet finger-food will be picked at while postgraduates speculate about the scoreline so far. He gives his paper - we don't have to imagine he's awkward or embarrassed, and we shouldn't just picture him pulling hotly at his collar while struggling to explain his inchoate ideas in an inarticulate stutter. He's comfortable and confident, he explains clearly the modesty of his endeavour and admits with gentle but inoffensive clichés that he's largely a hobbyist who thought that this might be kind of, y'know, interesting.

The postgraduates are enthused but unimpressed - this is the correct temperament. They think that they see possibilities for this line of thought, they want to think about or work out or settle just how this modest idea might function if it's plugged into other thoughts that they know that other people around them already think about. And they like the imagery - plugging thoughts into one another, a mechanistic metaphor, like they're doing something substantial (which they are, but they depend upon the security that's paid by the metaphor). And if they suspected that this guy was telling the truth when he said that he's a hobbyist then they can absolve themselves by doing something substantial with the incidentally-secure stumbling of an amateur (or that's how they could see it if they needed to). As it is, his thoughts do prove to be kind of, y'know, interesting.

Perhaps he doesn't say y'know. It's a different idiom - perhaps he begins every sentence with the word "So", or maybe he runs his fingers across his head when he thinks. But it's idiomatic nonetheless. And the people at the workshop like the idiom, and don't notice whether they separate their liking of his idea from their enjoyment of his idiomatic expression of it.

The hobbyist goes back to writing, the academic goes back to being academic, and they correspond when the academic suggests that the workshop proceedings could be published as a special issue in a journal dedicated to recording the proceedings of workshops in this particular academic environment. The hobbyist is happy with the project, and is gratified and flattered to learn that his idea is being discussed by people at the workshop, and welcomes the possibility of reading a response to his idea that will be published in the special issue (which is becoming a volume). He likes what he reads, and he writes a few lines of speculative development - he sketches the outline of the sequences of words that he might write in response to the topics raised in the reply to his idea. The academic thinks that the response should be included in the volume.

Before it comes out (which takes a long time, and doesn't really matter that much anyway, since the minute it gets a DOI number or an ISBN or an ISN or some back-cover blurb it's basically published, for most specific interests) the hobbyist is invited back to another workshop, this one dedicated to the developments of his ideas. There are a couple of other speakers, academics who were postgraduates at the previous session, and this time their talks have technical much-hyphenated titles which include puns based on the hobbyist's name. The talks go well - the hobbyist finds the level of engagement gratifying and stimulating; he doesn't see it as focusing on him so much as on the idea that they've all agreed to talk about, and since he like to talk about this subject so much (it's his hobby), it's a very pleasant session.

But one thing strikes him: nearly all the participants express themselves using the idiom he'd used on the previous occasion - not that he was aware of having done so, but certainly that he is aware that it is being so done now. There's no malice or perhaps even intention, it's simply present in every talk, and since he's not been in the presence of so many people doing roughly the same idiom at every turn, he starts to notice it to the extent that it either amuses or alarms him. It's mildly distracting - at the very least, he's conscious of it, and he checks himself when he discovers that he performs it when he's talking to people during the coffee break (they don't notice - that is, they don't notice that he both speaks with the idiom and that he checks the idiomatic features of his speech).

The sketch is complete - we can imagine a couple of consequences and perhaps work them through, perhaps we work through the idea that the hobbyist might have come to suspect that he has adopted this idiom from people who adopted it from him (the recursive option); perhaps we play with the idea that he suspects that this idiom is symptomatic of a division between academia and hobbyism (otherworldlyism). Maybe we plug in a couple of further options: the academic and the hobbyist have become even more interchangeable, the divisions between them are even fewer (they even share idioms, the abstruse and recondite titles even involve him). Perhaps we can think through the consequences of the combination of occurrences, and the words used to express them.

22.04.09

2009-05-17T10:46:00.003-07:00

A series of messages, on a tender subject, to a tender subject, each a thousand words. The first suggests something. The second proposes it. The third qualifies the proposal. The fourth is worried that the suggestion and the qualified proposal have not been adequately addressed by the recipient. The fifth recommends a different strategy. The sixth modifies the strategy, complaining that the recipient has delayed too long to make it implementable. The seventh rejects the modified strategy, self-recriminating for having ever suggested anything. The eighth apologises for the tone of the seventh, and considers a possible plan for resuming association. The ninth, or eleventh, or seventeenth, attempts to quietly withdraw everything that's been said; I was confused, I misread the signals, I'm not ready, I can see now that it would never work, it was all in my head, the myth of you is better preserved intact than being broken by an encounter, I won't contact you again, please ignore it all, these are not the words we two should use, there are no words.

The messages might conjure some sort of melancholy, that of a predetermined tragedy perhaps, if we discover them all at once, and know that none of them ever received a reply. A set of thousands of words that have created, suggested, proposed, qualified, modified and planned something. Another set of thousands taking it apart, entirely in our absence, ignorant of our volition to interact, unstoppable, irredeemable.

Another mode of tragedy would be to read these messages, and to learn that every word had been matched by replies, but that the replies weren't received.

And - though far less fanciful than the other two - a third, far lesser mode of tragedy, if tragic at all, would be to know that every reply was promptly received and understood, endorsed and acted upon, but that things just didn't work out.

21.04.09

2009-05-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a single drop of a concentrated colour isolates itself. Nearby, the dye is gradually diluted as it spreads fibrous roots through the medium it's staining; but here, a rich berry sits languidly, implausibly dark - it's nearer black than red.

20.04.09

2009-05-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

The sun shines so quickly that we don't have enough time to collect up all of our shoes and skateboards and chalk and books and crosswords. When it's sunny we can think of enough things to do. Bend in the sun and do the digging and picking. Sit in the shade and watch the sun benders dig and pick. Wear shoes and chalk and use a skateboard to get to the rocks and climb and then skate to the lake to take the shoes and chalk off, to sit next to the lake and read books about crosswords.

But this is summer, when we can think of things to do. And Autumn, which looks like April but upside down, is when we can think about all of the things we thought we'd do in the sun.

04.04.09

2009-05-17T10:35:00.001-07:00

There's that tale about the author who writes the same story repeatedly, only its always different, but the same things happen. He spends his whole literary life writing this story and it becomes something like an autobiography, because some of the things are true or might have happened, and the story changes but always tells the events that have occurred. No two versions agree but everything that happens in them all is actually what the author did.

There's a tale about an author who writes the same story repeatedly, only its always different, but the same things happen. He spends his whole literary life writing these stories and it becomes something like a biography, because some of the things are true or might have happened, and all the stories differ but each tells some events that have occurred. None of them agree but everything that happens in them all is actually what happened.

26.03.09

2009-05-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

By fifteen, [name] was hurting, and drinking to ease the pain.

By [age], [name] was hurting, and drinking to ease the pain.

By [age], [name] was [verb], and [verb] to [verb] the pain.

By [age], [name] was [verb], and [verb] to [verb] [state].

[age] [name] [verb] [verb] [verb] [state]

[person][act][state]

[relation]

25.03.09

2009-03-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

Today the sun has added a drop of lemon to the proceedings - a hazy drip, sharpening the taste but clouding the clear. The sea looks on, brittle, bleaching.

24.03.09

2009-03-30T02:41:00.001-07:00

Today the horizon is an oppressive stack of manuscripts, compressed under their own weight, layers of differently finished and gauged pages gently merging, spines flattened, edges inexpertly cut. The sea is the deepest strata, where letters and words have melted into each other, diluting the black text with the white spaces in between.

20.03.09

2009-03-30T02:32:00.001-07:00

Today a man is urinating on a neighbour's car's door-handle, while the very same neighbour approaches in her second, different, very small red car, intent upon merely grazing the man mid-micturition, confident that her tiny vehicle can do no real damage. A purple sky, a puerile scene, a passer-by photographs the invisible sea and a disturbance of the peace.

19.03.09

2009-03-30T02:25:00.001-07:00

Today the dust has appeared. It happens sooner than this, usually. A few months of being pocketed in winter, a false spring, and then the dust. The sky is an indistinct dry grey. The sea is an ancient mirror, leeching black flowers at the edges, muffled under fluff.

18.03.09

2009-03-18T07:08:00.001-07:00

Today is a bright morning with long shadows, a day's early summer before the trees know what's going on, while the air is unusually cold early because it'll be unusually warm later. This time of year has the faint horror of being young and right.

17.03.09

2009-03-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

Today there's nothing to spoil the view. We're entirely focused, directed directly at everything in hand. The sea shines brightly on the sky, the sky is benign, passive - a feature in a shaded glass, like a milky tea in those smoky glass coffee cups from your childhood, where the aura of science could be demonstrated by watching the tendrils of red leech out of a teabag.

16.03.09

2009-03-16T10:00:00.001-07:00

Today we stayed away, and wouldn't say what we did. We didn't take the air. We rested. We gathered scraped hair, and whispering measured, and cooking calmed, fidgeting ate, and waiting uploaded pictures, listening waited, squinting assessed, stretching planned and unplanned and pausing planned again.

13.03.09

2009-03-13T04:48:00.001-07:00

Today the sky looks sharpened into a high definition image of the sky. It looks like a shade of blue that only looks right on a bigger screen than you're using. The sea, however, is the same size grey as before. A bit taller towards the middle, but precisely the same size overall.

12.03.09

2009-03-13T04:39:00.001-07:00

Today, the sky has a blue hesitancy. Faced with an infinite extension, it lurks in the left, veils itself decorously with a dangling bird. The sea is a shelf. Everything that falls ends up perched on its width.

11.03.09

2009-03-13T04:32:00.001-07:00

Today, the sky is a soft cheek, pillow warm, visible between crumpled clouds, thin blushed capillaries. The sea is the remnants of subtle kohl shadows on hidden eyelids.

10.03.09

2009-03-10T06:32:00.001-07:00

Today the shadows look sepia, the uninterrupted union of sky distorts towards the south, and the sea hunkers at the back of the saloon in dark confederate livery.

09.03.09

2009-03-09T14:02:00.001-07:00

Today, rosy fingered dawn.

04.03.09

2009-03-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

Today the sky looks aligned, inside as well as out. A sympathetic alignment of indistinct tones. The tones indistinctly sympathise with their allies. The cracks in the road are getting prominent, they're starting to protrude. The composition suffers as a result. The sea looks white, but an unfussy white - a white that never smelled like paint. Not an antiseptically odourless white, just a white that was never newly painted.

03.03.09

2009-03-04T11:51:00.001-08:00

Today there's an empty feeling in this place. There's no dust, and nothing itches. The wind has taken the salt away. The sky looks Canderel white and the sea looks grey like the briefcase of a salesman from elsewhere, passing through, stopping for a coffee, not sure which pocket his tickets are in, innocently collecting up a spoon along with his biro and a paper napkin he's been writing the phone numbers on.

02.03.09

2009-03-02T06:06:00.001-08:00

Today the sky looks straight. The sea is straight beneath. The sky is neither fully grey nor fully blue. The sea is the same only the other way 'round. Rather undramatic. Thank you for trying.

27.02.09

2009-02-27T08:40:00.000-08:00

Today's a uniform day. No sky, no sea, no point at which they meet.

26.02.09

2009-02-27T08:35:00.003-08:00

Today's a greyscale day. The farouche sky's hiding behind sullen clouds. The sea looks either 2H or H pencil grey, depending on how hard you press, how sharp your paper is, how flat your nib is.

25.02.09

2009-02-27T08:27:00.005-08:00

Today the sky looks skype-blue at the top and twitter blue in the middle, and white at the sea's meniscus. The sea looks de.lic.ious blue. It's an internet-themed day of colour and light.

20.02.09

2009-02-20T04:45:00.003-08:00

I had a friend, Loric, who owned a bar in France. The bar had an immaculate counter made of zinc set into dark wooden joinery, with glass shelves lined behind him. He'd put six boiled eggs with white shells into a stainless steel wire holder with a glass salt cellar set in the middle. It was often quite empty, quite still, unless we were in there. Gauloises bleu cigarette smoke could ascend without dispersing.

Today the sky looks zinc grey, and the sea has that grey-with-a-tint-of-blue that we imagine we'll find in the smoke of cigarettes being lazily ignored by French smokers.

19.02.09

2009-02-19T05:35:00.002-08:00

Today is a two-tone identity day. It's days like that this that make you want to start a blog called grey and blue dot dot dot. Today the sky looks two-tone, blue at the top, grey at the bottom. The sea looks two-tone too, grey at the bottom, blue at the top. So looking at this tiny slice of daily horizon from bottom to top we get grey-blue-grey-blue, and from top to bottom we get blue-grey-blue-grey. That's just about right. Yep, just about right.

18.02.09

2009-02-18T10:04:00.005-08:00

Today the sky won - in the watery stakes it just beat that sea outa here. Nice one sky, you ruined it for all of us who try to see the sea once in a while. Thanks a bunch.

Still. Today, the sky looks like 14ml of Humbrol matt grey #1 primer paint that's been spread quite thickly over a dirty white balloon which has been attached to a slightly-dim penlight pocket torch. The air seems moist, warm, and smells of matchsticks. All of the kids have been out in all of the streets with all of their warm wet matchsticks again. Thanks a million.

17.02.09

2009-02-17T04:11:00.001-08:00

Today the sky looks one-way-sign blue. The sea looks that milky beige-grey you get when you add yeast to tepid water.

16.02.09

2009-02-16T04:06:00.000-08:00

Today the sky looks brooding grey. The sea is ruminating out of sight.

13.03.09

2009-02-13T02:57:00.000-08:00

Today the sky looks grey-ice-water blue. The sea looks corduroy suit grey.

12.02.09

2009-02-12T10:21:00.001-08:00

Today the sky looks mainly grey. The sea is nowhere to be seen. A snowflake fell on the lens of the camera and some distortion occurred:

The nokia does not like the cold. It becomes an unreliable source of colour information about This City That Lives Next To The Sea But Looks At Its Feet Instead.

11.02.09

2009-02-11T07:32:00.003-08:00

Today the sky looks freedom blue. The sea looks navy blue. An appropriate way to look. An appropriate day. Well done.

10.02.09

2009-02-10T04:27:00.001-08:00

Today, the sky looks back-to-work blue. The sea looks business-as-usual blue. It's an oceanic and celestial recovery plan in action.

09.02.09

2009-02-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

In a town where people do not look up, anonymity is achieved by wearing different shoes

Today the sky looks like a well-spread kaleidoscope* of blue morpho didius butterflies mounted on a yellow sheet. The sea looks properly blue, an achievement all of its own doing - no taxidermic interventions involved. The ground is being reclaimed by the distribution of ground-up ground from other land. People walk by looking at where their feet fall. Or are they checking me out? I have new morpho didus blue shoes**.

* [This might be a suitable (correct?) collective noun for butterflies]

** [with a red stripe, hooray!]

07.02.09

2009-02-07T15:59:00.003-08:00

The sky gave up. The sea is visible by the lights of the milk floats that are heading out there to take midnight milk to oil-extraction consultants, who'll want it by breakfast to pour with seasonally unsteady hands on to their generic whole wheat flakes, and also overboard. White milk on oil-extraction consultants' black suits. Suits that will be poured back on to the real land by helicopters, not floats. Suits need to travel faster than milk.

06.02.09

2009-02-06T05:43:00.003-08:00

The city looks different today, perhaps it's the snow. At least the date is correct. The sky looks the elegant white of a lazy butcher. The sea looks institutionally beige, as you might expect to find on a hospital wall, on a police-station floor, inside the belly of a job centre.

06.02.09

2009-02-05T11:03:00.001-08:00

Today the sky is going in a different direction. It has granite grey clouds, but it looks wistfully blue. The sea looks a bruised-pomegranate yellow.

04.02.09

2009-02-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Today the sky looks dropped-marshmallow white, and the sea has no look at all.

03.02.09

2009-02-03T09:27:00.001-08:00

Today the world threatened snow, but instead we got sky that looks rain-down grey. The sea looks uniformly grey, except where the orange lights of loitering multi-storey car-park sized boats stud the water.

02.02.09

2009-02-02T01:56:00.001-08:00

Today the sea looks darker than the sky. The horizon is a peaceful buffer, the shadowy undersides of clouds. The sea is a thumb-smudged stripe. The sky has been sprayed-on.

30.01.09

2009-01-30T03:13:00.001-08:00

Today, the sky looks itunes grey, and the sea is either identically itunes grey, or it's invisible. I don't think it's invisible - I saw what might have been a white crest of wave. It might have been a seagull, they're sufficiently massive and white. I think it's most likely that both the sky and the sea look hex 166,166,166, so it's hard to distinguish where one begins and the other ends.

29.01.09

2009-01-29T05:29:00.001-08:00

Today the sky looks aluminium grey, and the sea looks sky blue. The top of the sky looks more steel grey.

28.01.08

2009-01-28T02:52:00.000-08:00

Today the sky looks light grey, and the sea looks light grey. They look nearly the same, it's hard to tell them apart. The top of the sky looks blue.