text:
But Is It Art?
Java forwarded me the petition about this sickening and despicable "thing". I must admit that I'm neither a dog or an art lover but I cannot find anything in my brain, either the left side or the right side, to justify why someone would put an animal through this.
As far as I'm concerned it doesn't "highlight the plight of stray dogs" and it doesn't do anything other than get the "artist" some cheap publicity.
There's little excuse for this sort of behaviour and there are very few who would disagree with me on that.
Over the years I've pondered on the question and issue of what is art and what isn't. I've seen many a painting, photograph or other piece that has made me wonder about the definition of art. I'm sure if I were to look up the word in a dictionary I'd easily get myself a proper explanation, proper in the way that these things can be.
I've come to my own conclusion on the subject. Which is, that if we talk about it, if we think about it and if it interests us, either in a negative or positive way, then it IS art. I like, no I love music, and in the same vein for me there is no such thing as bad music. There's lots of music I don't like, there's lots that I do like, but it's all music nevertheless, even dodgy stuff like OK Computer.
For me, the objective of art is to get our attention and to gain our interest, to stimulate the mind and to make people stop and stare. But it's entirely subjective too. Tracey Emin can put her bed on display as a work of art and people will pay good money to go and see it and stare at it for hours on end. My bed is in a similar state to hers. There's less fag butts as I don't smoke, there's less womens' clothing but I beat Tracey hands down on the number of drumming magazines and books that have something to do with Sri Lanka around the bed.
Yet somehow I doubt people will pay good money to see it. Tracey's is art, mine is a bed. It's a shame because otherwise I'd be a multi millionaire. And I hope she doesn't mind me calling her by her first name. Recently I saw a picture of a piece by Damien Hirst. It was a series of evenly space coloured circles on a white background. It looked pleasant enough and I have a strong feeling that it was worth a lot of money.
My opinion is that anything is worth the money that someone will pay for it, I'm not questioning the worth. But, the talent in coming up with the piece was clearly in Mr Hirst thinking of the idea and in being Damien Hirst. One could justifiably argue that he came up with the concept and I didn't. One would be right of course. But if we compare the talent required to paint the piece with the talent it must have taken John Constable to paint the Haywain then you can probably see what I'm getting at.
It can't have been easy for Mr Hirst to draw those perfect circles, though I'm not sure if he used a compass or perhaps a series of jam jars to do them, but the skill in creating that particular piece was in thinking of it and in being called Damien Hirst, as well as creating all his previous work, which is what has made his name so valuable now. Give me a few compasses and some jam jars and I could knock up passable copy of Mr Hirst's piece but give me a paintbrush and some cans of Dulux and there's little probability of a perfect copy of the Haywain being conjured up.
In music there's that famous piece called 4' 33" by John Cage. It's basically four minutes and thirty three seconds of the musicians playing nothing. The idea is not that it's four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence but that it's four minutes thirty three seconds of hearing the other sounds in the environment. If I remember rightly Java and Theena were the only two people in the world to buy the extended version.
It's not my kind of thing, Mimosa did once try to cover it, in a funked up style, by I kept coming in at the wrong time and the brass section overcomplicated things so we abandoned it. It's considered to be a serious piece of music by many, including myself. Simply because this chap, John Cage, came up with the idea of using a total lack of music as music. It could lead to a related post about whether he gets royalties if there is four minutes and thirty three seconds of noise without music anywhere in the world, but that's for another time and place.
Back to the original question and the original dog.
"But is it art?"
Sadly the answer's a resounding "Yes".
It's also crap art, it's sick art, it's art that should be banned, it's art that should never be bought, art that should never be celebrated. It's art that should be illegal as well as immoral and it's art that should make the artist an outcast. It also should never be written about. Because when people write about it they make the artist more famous and more successful and his work will become more valuable in the future.
I'm too smart to fall for that though.
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 5:04 AM 8 contributed with wit and intelligence
You know when you're walking towards a chap and the chap is walking towards you, it might even be a girl but they glide more than walk. Then, as you approach each other, you both veer in the same direction to avoid a collision, then you both veer the other way to overcome the problem and you make it worse. Then sometimes it happens again, you both laugh and invariably one of you cracks a joke about dancing. Something like
"Shall we dance?"
I think we're all familiar with that scenario. Well I seem to have started to do it on the phone, as weird as that sounds. It's becoming a nightmare and one of those things that just gets worse as I get more aware of it.
What happens is that I'll be having a perfectly happy and jolly conversation with someone, usually when I'm at work. Then, as we get to the end of it, that's when things go pear shaped. For so many years it's been second nature to me, this whole thing about saying goodbye, but now I'm struggling big time.
In the past I, or the other person, would have said "bye", "see you later". Then I, or the aforementioned other person, would have reciprocated. These two little bits of talking would have been done while the other on the line listened, or pretended to listen, quite happily. I suspect you get the idea, one of us talks and the other stays silent. Then the silent party talks and the talker stays silent. It's a simple concept and you may even have done it yourself.
But lately I've started going into a state of panic, as if my years and years of experience of this telephone goodbying have been forgotten and my confidence has been shattered. Frankly I'm a shadow of my former self and I don't know where to turn and how to pull myself out of the slump.
Usually the conversation goes perfectly well, unless it's my Mum of course. Then, when we go through all that is needed to go through, things like prices, giving the person a quote or saying "Mum have you tried turning off the power and turning it on again?" we get to the final few words. That traditional time to say goodbye and get on with other things.
I pause, momentarily hesitating where I used to have confidence and just go for it. That pause is fatal, like letting a dog know that you're scared. Then the other person thinks that I've paused to let them talk, so they say
"Ok bye then"
But they say it at the exact same time that I've oversome my fears and remembered my lines. At least I think so, but I'm never certain what they've said because I can only hear myself saying
"Bye then"
"Sorry" we say in unison, partly because we're both confused and partly because rule one in one of my favourite books, "How to Speak English for the British" says that it's important to use the word at least four thousand times a day.
Rule one in another of my favourites, "How to speak English for Sri Lankans" says that the word "Aaaaah" can be used as a response to almost any question, but the intonation used can give it about fifteen different meanings, ranging from "Pardon me" to "Yes that's fine" to "No darling I wasn't asleep."
Then, just like in the walking towards each other thing, we both go for the same space again, after a brief pause. What I hear is something like
"mmm I blah then"
The mishmash of sounds, the confusion and the high pressure makes the words go funny. It's bloody annoying. Usually we go through the motions once more before there's a bit of laughter and we get the phasing correct. Eventually, after much time wasting and a bit of annoyance we bid farewell. I go off and write a post about it, the other person thinks bad things about me.
It's happening more and more.
Is it just me or does this happen to you too?
PS - Brought to you from the sunny climes of Singapore.
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 2:18 PM 1 contributed with wit and intelligence
A Vacancy
Like a bit of a pillock I quite zealously guard those spaces on the left hand side of my blog, the ones that come under the "blogs I read" category. Why?
Well firstly because they genuinely have to be blogs that I read, and they are. Every day, or thereabouts I check in to see what's been happening on them. I'm not up to scratch with RSS feeds, readers and things so that, and Kottu are my main reference points. Secondly it's because I feel as if I'm providing a bit of a service to you, my reader.
If I'm reading a blog and it has a list of hundreds of other blogs down its side in the "blogs I read" section I tend to pay scant attention to those blogs. I might have a quick scan but usually I can't be bothered and the sheer volume of titles makes me lose interest. So, on my blog, though I don't have a maximum number in mind, I keep the number of blogs to a level that I think might retain a person's interest.
I also have my own policy of adding new ones to the bottom of the list, with the remainder in anything but alphabetical order. Darwin's and Cerno's go second and first respectively, though that sentence would have been much cleaner if I'd written it the other way round like this:
"Cerno's and Darwin's go first and second respectively"
But, once the linking had been done I just got lazy. Sorry about that.
Either way, they go first and second, or second and first, because they are the last two years' blogs of the year, admittedly awarded by only me, but around these parts that means something. Then we have Java, whose blog just demands to be read. After that the order gets a bit random, loosely based on a combination of how frequently they update, how sexy they are, their taste in music and what I think of their writing.
It's important that I don't have "dead" blogs or dodgy links there too. As much as I like a blog, if it's not updated regularly I, and most others, lose interest rapidly. Lady Luck seems to have gone quiet and I don't know if she's stopped blogging or is just inundated with patients or something. It's a sad and disappointing state of affairs if she's now putting her work, that whole looking after people and curing them thing, ahead of blogging.
So, after some rambling, I've got to my point. Which is that N of Tiny Little Fractures is in retirement from blogging. As much as I like reading his archives this means that my link to his blog is going to go. It's harsh but fair and it's for the greater good. I have a few ideas on which blog I'm going to add in its place.
But what do you think? I guess you know a bit about what I like. Are there any blogs out there that you think demand to be included in my sidebar? Do you even care?
Answers on a postcard please.
Or a comment.
I'll be away for a week or so but I'll check in and be back before you can say "Yes, I remember that blog"
Laters.
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 6:59 AM 13 contributed with wit and intelligence
Men, Women, All You Need To Know
I went through my usual blogs the other morning and saw Dinidu's post about girlspeak.
Sometimes the onset of age and experience is a wonderfully liberating thing. There's many a thing that just can't be taught but has to be learnt through empirical evidence, if that's the phrase.
Understanding women is one of them. As we men get older we discover things about the fairer and smarter sex every day. We occasionally learn a bit about women too. (only joking there!).
But, if you ask an older and experienced Adonis type, I reckon he'll back me up on this; that we don't really learn or get to understand women, we just learn that they're impossible to understand and we understand that we have so much more to learn.
I feel qualified to preach a little on this. As you know I'm renowned for my fearlessness and, well my lack of fear. I'm prepared to speak out on behalf of my species; men. Just don't mention it to any of the women in my life if you know or meet them.
Allow me to present my credentials; I have an ex wife, two scary almost teenage daughters (whom you know well), a Sri Lankan Mother and I once kissed a girl, not on the lips though. I think I can be safely considered as an expert.
And young Dinidu has made two big errors in his attempt to understand women, or girls as he calls them. It's understandable because he's a man.
We men operate through a simple yet beautiful system, one that can make us easy to read, easy to predict and easy to understand. The system is called "rules". We have them, we use them and we live by them. If a man says that he likes a boiled egg for breakfast then that means he's happy to eat one everyday for the rest of his life. At breakfast time too. If a fellow likes a certain pair of jeans then that means he's happy to own a wardrobe full of the exact same jeans and wear them whenever he wears jeans, which of course is all the time.
There may be different rules that apply to different men. I have heard a theory that just because Man A likes beer it doesn't necessarily mean that Man B does. I'm happy to go with it even though proof does not exist. Most men would agree. We are men. We like to eat, drink and fart. We like cars and blondes and scratching our balls. We like to watch films that are either violent or funny and we like loud music. Simple. Like us.
Dinidu, like a very talented youngster who has suddenly been called up to play cricket for his country and has dropped a crucial catch becasue he was waving to his Mum, has made a schoolboy error. He's assumed that there are rules that apply to women, that the behaviour of a female is governed by a set of laws.
Let's continue with the boiled egg scenario. As I said before, a man who says he likes an egg for breakfast will be happy with one on his breakfast plate every morning, for the rest of his life. If a woman says she likes an egg for breakfast it means nothing whatsoever. Do not base your future behaviour on her apparent liking for a breakfast egg. Ask her what she wants for breakfast before you present it to her and expect the unexpected.
Dinidu's second error was to apply logic to the female mind. As if dropping the catch because he was waving to his Mum wasn't enough he's now let the ball hit him on the head too. Logic is a man thing. We think in straight lines, we make assumptions that are correct if they're about other men. Logic is like scratching your balls, it's not a female thing. For the sake of fairness I should point out that all men are crap at cartwheels and women can do them naturally. Maybe it's because they never have to think about the pain involved if you crush your balls when you land or something.
So, just to recap. The rules for understanding women are as follows:
1. There are no rules
2. Logic doesn't apply
3. Never try to understand them.
Women, Know Your Place.
As a keen Lankaphile I pay regular attention to the available online newspapers, whether crap ones or good ones I like to read them to be able to formulate my own opinions. I have an ongoing debate with someone who tells me that a person has to live in Sri Lanka to really experience it and know about it. My side of the coin is that these days, with blogs and other online content, we can learn much about day to day life there compared to the days before the net was such a part of our lives.
Of course living on the island gives anyone a better perspective than that of someone who hasn't lived there, but a person can be pretty well informed through other means too. Enough of that, it's just padding and a bit of an introduction. And lately my padding and introductions have led to two and three part posts, which you're getting a but pissed off with I reckon.
I'm continually surprised by some people's attitude towards the roles of men and women in society, more specifically I'm often shocked when I hear people talk of women as being the home maker and the child rearer. It's not that women, or men in my opinion, shouldn't do those things or assume those roles if they want to. If people are happy then I'm all for that. I just have issues with society expecting things of the female species that the average female may not want to do.
I suppose I'm a bit of a women's libber in that sense, perhaps because of my background. My maternal grandmother was very active in that sphere and even tried to emulate Emily Davison, the woman who threw herself under the King's racehorse here in the UK in 1913. Unfortunately she attempted a copy cat thing and threw herself under a bullock cart on the Galle Road in 1948, which probably makes it a copy cow thing. The event was seen as a failure, mostly because my grandmother had forgotten that bullocks travel at about 2 mph, so the driver steered around her, shouted something in Sinhala about my grandmother's breasts and life carried on as normal. I have heard that the bullock suffered from post traumatic stress disorder and had to have several weeks off work, but cannot verify the fact. It may only have been a few days.
My thinking is also that women in Sri Lanka are less free to pursue careers and their desired paths than they are here in the UK., not because they don't want to but because of the expectations of society. There are many, many career ladies in SL but the mass media and much of Sri Lankan society expects women to fill that "wife" and "homemaker" role. Sometimes I get annoyed and angered by this and sometimes I laugh, in a dreadfully patronising and condescending way, about this specific example of Sri Lanka playing catch up with Western society.
Then I read the women's section in a Sri Lankan newspaper, like here and I realize that this is what much of Sri Lankan society expects of women. Sod the career thing, forget about an identity and any thoughts of success that don't begin with
"isn't she married to......?"
Oh no, the important things for a modern woman are to keep a house ready to receive an unexpected guest. If you'd like to save time and not read the article I'll give you some highlights:
1. Keep a jar of iced tea ready in the fridge and have a plentiful supply of lemons around.
2. Have a load of cookie dough in the fridge at all times. Then, when the doorbell rings, you can make cookies for the unexpected guest and clearing up only takes about 15 minutes.
3. Set aside a place in the house, ideally a whole room, that's always tidy and presentable for entertaining.
4. Keep a nice CD ready in the CD player at all times. Then, when that doorbell rings, you can press play as you walk towards the door and the visitor will be greeted with a nice soothing blast of Mimosa when they walk into the special room you've set aside.
I'm sure you'll agree that these tips are useful and practical for today's busy woman. After the guest leaves you'll have plenty of time to cook dinner for your husband too. Later on girls, if you're lucky, he may let you have sex with him too.
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 12:25 AM 14 contributed with wit and intelligence
The Evil Child
By now K, my eleven going on eighteen year old, is reasonably well known to you. You've heard about her antics, her liking for My Chemical Romance and similar and you know all about her advanced negotiating skills. As do I.
You'd think that I'd be ready for her to pounce at any time. A bit like Kato against Clousseau, that I'd lie in hiding in a permanent state of alert in case she attacks. That I'd be be ready for her to metaphorically jump out of a cupboard and Karate chop my head off. In fact in many ways I wish I was ready, but that would take away the element of suprise, which is fun in an "oh God what's she done now?" sort of way.
Picture the situation. I was chilling at home, having bought some new jeans and a couple of polo shirts in Kingston. In a slightly girly way I was apprehensive about buying the polo shirts but they were from Gap and the little bit of writing made me err on the side of spending the money. It said:
"Made in Sri Lanka"
I'm weak like that.
So I'd got home and was looking at the blog, publishing a few comments and browsing through some new books I'd bought. For a while I've had a Mac version of MS Office on my Macbook but haven't installed the MSN Messenger part of it. I bought the software to use Excel and Word and it came with an MSN thing. I've no real desire to begin my MSNing but there is one motivator.
K spends a lot of time on it, as do most of her friends. For some reason A, the thirteen year old, isn't that interested but K is to be seen most nights chatting away to her heart's content. Her Mother and I both try to police this activity as much as possible but it's an ongoing battle to decide where to draw the line between security and letting them do what all their friends do. A battle that I'm sure other parents have all the time, just ask Dinidu's Mum.
I know that joining up won't help a huge amount but I had thought that I'd sign up to MSN and make K a friend, so I could have a bit of an eye on what she's talking about, without prying too much. Sunday afternoon with a bit of spare time saw me installing MSN, staring at my Macbook and wondering what the fuck was going on, a normal occurrence when I install anything on anything.
Then, once the installation was done, I attempted to make K a friend, my only one. I quickly found out that this wasn't as simple as I had hoped. It involved some kind of email going in her direction and me asking her for friendship. You can imagine my trepidation. Putting K in a position of power is asking for trouble. A bit like putting your brother in charge of defence, you know it's going to cause problems but you just don't know the exact nature of them.
Well my problems came back to me within half an hour in the form of this email:
Dearest Father,
I am afraid I declined you on msn I told you I wouldn't accept you so I haven't! Mwuhahaha
Well I accepted then deleted you... Bye Bye
Evil Child x
There was a smiley in there somewhere but it hasn't come out when I copied and pasted.
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Lately In The Sri Lankan Blogosphere....
It's been a while since I wrote one of these, so here goes.
The regulars that I read have been going through mixed times. Some have been as quiet as Mervyn Silva on a stag do and others have been as loud as a churchmouse who has lost his voice.
The big news, sad and all is the blog retirement of N, of Tiny Little Fractures. He's off and I'm among the many who'll miss following his life and the adventures it holds.
A couple of posts caught my eye recently because of the sheer quality of wirting they exhibited. I'm no literary critic or expert, my English "O" level probably doesn't give me the necessary qualifications to judge writing and literature in terms of the correct use of nouns and verbs and things. But I can read a thing and like it.
The first one was Java Jones' stunning little storyette "The Ultimate Freedom?" The first time I read it I had to remember to breathe when I got to the end, it had captured me so much. Since then I've lost count of the number of times I've re read it. It's one of those clever and thought provoking pieces that I'm sure will stick in my mind for longer than a Sri Lankan Airlines flight delay.
The second little gem was this beauty by David Blacker. It's about Cologne, the city not the fragrance stuff, though I reckon he could write just as vividly about the splash on thing too.
His writing is so crisp and descriptive that I was drawn in immediately and felt as if I was out drinking with him within about three sentences. He really should write a book or something!
I often say this but I hold on board so much admiration for these writing types, their power over words and language continually amazes and delights me.
Dinudu De Alwis, everyone's favourite sexual rights activist, has been going through some heartbreak and pain. It may in part have been caused by his post on the issues he has with Islam, nicely written, well presented yet probably not one that's going to win him any awards at the next Islamic literary festival. This comment to the post seems to be an equally eloqently written and rational response. Overall though Dinidu's blog continues to pull in readers. I think it's the wide range of topics covered and the honesty he portrays that attracts us.
After many weeks of almost total blogging silence Sach has launched herself straight back into the SL blogosphere with a bit of a stunner. It's a clever move of her to head the piece with that photograph of her and Theena running through the wilds. Her review has very probably had a massive positive effect on the viewing figures for the film she's mentioned too.
One of the most read via Kottu posts had been this by Pissu Perera. It's a girly one, all about losing and gaining weight and getting fit, but the way she talks about getting to the age of forty sure as hell makes me feel old.
T, her from Dance In A Triangle, the blog that changes its name more often than a Sri Lankan politician changes parties, has got clearance from Super Dad for her trip to SL in the summer. I sure hope my girls call me Super Dad when they're older, it would make a nice change from the names I get called now. There's vague talk of some kind of Sri Lankan bloggers meet up in July or August too.
Amila Salgado, not to be confused with Amila Delgado the Spanish midfielder, has yet another of his fabulously photographed posts up. The pictures of Dragonflies and other winged beauties are truly inspiring. I asked him how he manages to take these pictures and he told me that it helps if you kill them first. That way, if you're clever, you can staple their wings and legs to the leaf and have unlimited time to get a good picture.
The Missing Sandwich put out this highly readable post. She lists some of the things she has done in her life and some that she still wants to do. Ironically she calls the post "Never been kissed", but it's clear from the things she's done that kissing has been done, even some same sex stuff. What a girl!
As for the things she wants to do I have some comments;
"Bartending in Britain" - Why?
"Understand my parents" - Impossible, particularly if they're Sri Lankan
"Be swept off my feet" - see below
"Visit a dentist" - see above
"Have sex tied up" - see above
In other parts the Rumbling Lankan continues to regale us with endless, or needless, posts on how to attract eight million readers a day to your blog and what widgets you should include if you want to be the king of the bloggers. It's not my thing but I'm sure the Rumbler gets an infinitely higher amount of readers than I do.
Finally everyone's favourite Domestic Goddess has been out giving relationship advice. This is in between mouthfuls of chocolate swirl shortbread, which looked mighty fine to me.
That's about it for now. There is this painting exhibition on at Barefoot. If I were in Colombo I'd be there checking it out. Academic bro is off there tomorrow and I'm dead jealous. If you bump into him give him a kick or something and say it's from his better looking eldest brother. Thanks.
Have a good weekend and a belated Happy New Year to all.
What's Your Slightly Embarrassing Secret?
We're not talking about big drastic ones, like confessing to the Sri Lankan blogosphere that you once had a little game of hide the sausage with your great Aunt. No, I mean "slightly" embarrassing.
I'll start the ball rolling by telling you that I can't whistle. Never have I been able to do that whole pursing of the lips, making some movement with my tongue and chucking out a pleasant sounding melody thing that Otis Elevator and all those other chaps can do without having to even think about it.
I can do one where I ram two fingers into my mouth and attract the attention of some stranger on the other side of a medium sized town, that's easy enough. It has its uses but it's no good whatsoever when I feel a need to casually get out the melody to Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, or perhaps Song Sung Blue.
But, get me to make that pointy cone shape with my mouth and, try as I might, with all the different tongue positions I can think of, it's just a stream of silent air that comes gushing out.
Goodbye Tiny Little Fractures
I genuinely feel a bit sad as I write this. Child of 25 is bidding us farewell, doing a runner and fading off into the outside world.
Why do I feel sad? It's only a blog isn't it?
Well it's because it was one of the first Sri Lankan blogs I stumbled upon and began to read regularly. I followed N's progress from pretty much his first post. I've never met him in person but we've exchanged emails and things and, even though he likes Snow Patrol and James Blunt, he strikes me as one of life's good guys.
I suppose all of us who've read his blog have been part of his life, in a funny way. We've read about him settling in the US, of his trips to the Motherland, his growing fascination with photography and of course his ongoing search to find Mrs Childof25. I've enjoyed each bit, each insight into his life and existence.
N's writing is quirky too. There are some blogs that are side splittingly funny. There are some that are hard hitting and edgy, like an Ikea bookcase. N's is one that has always made me smile, but with a warm smile and a quiet little chuckle. His way of putting things across just does that.
On top of all that his was the first ever blog to link to mine, a grand occasion that feels a bit like losing your virginity. I'd like to thank him for that, the link bit not the virginity thing.
Good luck and thanks for the words Childof25.
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 12:19 AM 2 contributed with wit and intelligence
Lovers Are For Old People?
I was engaged in a discussion the other day and the question found itself in the midst of the conversation. What is a lover?
That feeling hit me. You know when you meet someone face to face, a person you've spoken to and got to know quite well over the phone or perhaps by email. Then you meet and, if you're like me, you think to yourself
"Fucking hell, she looks nothing like I'd imagined"
Yet you hadn't built up any kind of conscious mental image in your head before the meeting. You hadn't thought that she would have blonde hair and a bum like two cats in a bag. You hadn't thought that he'd be the spitting image of Ranil Wickremesinghe only with a beard and bad acne. No, you thought that you had no preconceived notions, but on meeting the meetee, you were shocked and surprised anyway.
The feeling hit me because the definition of a lover is something I've never pondered on before, it's always existed in the back of my mind, whenever I've read the word I've understood it and carried on with life. But, all of a sudden I was sitting there and scratching my chin, wondering exactly what a lover is.
Of course it's not a word used much in everyday conversation now anyway. I can't think of many people who I can imagine saying the word. There are a few oldish Aunts who I can picture telling another oldish Aunt about two of their younger contacts who
"Used to be lovers you know"
But that's about it. It's an old fashioned word mostly bandied about in films and in print.
To me it implies a sexual relationship that was more than a one night stand. Although it's not wrong to describe two people who once had a one night stand as "ex lovers", it's also not quite right.
It also doesn't seem to apply to a married couple, even though a married couple are usually lovers too, which could open up another discussion altogether. I can't picture a husband introducing his wife to someone and labelling her as his lover. The French use of the word, or rather the British image of the French use, throws up images of a French fellow, married to some average looking middle aged woman and having a glamorous and sexy girlfriend on the side. She'd live in a plush apartment overlooking the Seine and the chap would be her only partner.
A relationship with sex, of an ongoing sort.
Black and white people in old films would have been labelled as lovers too, as would the actors who played the people. Marilyn Monroe and JKF were lovers, Antony and Cleopatra were lovers and even Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan were lovers. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were lovers for sure, but had they both been alive and married to each other now I don't think many would label them as lovers.
Whenever I hear the words "to take a lover" my mind conjurs up slightly romantic and sexy visions of a glamorous older woman deciding to "take a lover" rather like picking out a new pair of shoes or a postcard from a rack. As a younger and far more virile man it was perfectly normal for me to think along those lines but now I'm the age of the older women and still coming to terms with my loss. I'm told that many men go through this sort of phase in their life and deal with it by buying a Harley Davidson or joining a band or something. You wouldn't catch me doing that kind of thing!
But to "take a lover" gives me that older woman image. The woman would pick out some sort of stud, then use and abuse him on a regular basis. There'd be no mental connection, just ongoing physical stuff, very possibly with her paying him money or "keeping" him. It's hard to see why many young men would be attracted to this sort of thing isn't it.
What do you think? Is the word "lover" an old fashioned one that no one uses anymore? Would you describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/husband/wife as your lover? Or is it only the French who have lovers?
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 1:19 PM 10 contributed with wit and intelligence
Mixed Routes - Three Plays And A Sri Lankan Actress
(pic by Dhammika)
So there I was, sitting in Camden People's theatre, about to watch this trilogy of plays about mixed identity. I'm no great theatre lover to be honest. Obviously I've seen the classics like Lion King, Starlight Express and Mamma Mia, but plays aren't high up on my list of things I must do.
I was there because Ian's Aunt was here, the play was about mixed identity and it had Nimmi Harasgama in it, who I hadn't seen or met before, but I knew of.
On this occasion instead of being early because I was afraid of being late and had over compensated, I was early because I had intended to get the train up and do some strolling around, a bit of shopping, browsing and general mooching. My plan went pear shaped and after an hour of standing on my little local station platform I gave up, got in my car and drove. The resulting time of arrival was too late for mooching and shopping as all the shops were closed, yet still about two hours before the play started. As a man who likes adventure and trying new things out I was pleased that my excessive earliness was for a new reason.
I went to the theatre first, just to recce things. As I opened the theatre door I almost ended up slamming it into someone's face. I did the gallant thing and held it open for her, then I walked in behind her. A win win situation; I could be gallant and also check out her bum without her knowing. The girl turned out to be Nimmi, I introduced myself and said the usual Sri Lankan hello thing, that one where you say who you're a friend of and marvel at the whole six degrees of separation thing, the fact that for the average Sri Lankan it reduces to about one degree, two on rare occasions.
We went our separate ways and about an hour and a half later I was back in the foyer of the place milling around with more Sri Lankans than you can fit in a private bus. One of the first people I met was old Dhammika himself, him of Thinkfreed. We chatted and I met his wife and, in that degrees of separation way again, we found that we're half brothers or something like that.
The time came to take our seats, so all were ushered into the theatre. Camden People's Theatre is a lovely and basic feeling place, a fringe thing that is vastly underfunded but evidently doing a fine job under difficult circumstances. It's fair to say that we took our chairs, rather than seats. They were nice chairs with a little bit of padding, a back and everything. On the stage were two shopping trolleys. One was covered with bits of paper that had names of Sri Lankan specialities written on them. Things like mutton, buriyani, vadai and what nots.
The other trolley had similar pieces of paper but with names of Carribean things on them. I can't remember the things to be honest and my knowledge of those parts isn't good enough to make stuff up, but probably things like Bounty bars and the like. After about ten minutes I realised that the trolleys were most likely props for the play. My conclusion was aided by the chap, the director I think, who came on and talked a bit about the forthcoming trilogy.
You know something, I'll tell you a secret here. I've always been an ardent admirer of chaps and girls who can get up and talk confidently and calmly in front of people. As a salesperson I've done a bit of it myself but frankly I crap myself every time. This fellow got up there and chatted to the audience as coolly and calmly as if he was having a casual tete a tete with his Mum, not that I know his Mum. If she's anything like mine then the whole simile goes flying out of the window quicker than you can say "scary Sri Lankan mother". Give me a drumkit to sit behind any day.
The first play was the one with our heroine, Nimmi, in it. It began with her and the other lady, also an actress, doing some shopping in a supermarket. Cleverly they made use of the trolleys for this bit. Nimmi was very Sri Lankan in appearance. Her hair was up in a bun and she had a sari of sorts on. The other woman was wearing what I must assume is Jamaican "street" clothing and their respective acting made it clear that they were in their own separate worlds. On catching sight of each other they both took off bits of garment, changed hairstyle, shuffled around the contents of their trolley and did everything possible to make their appearance as "British" as possible for the other. They both mouthed the word "fuck" as they caught sight of the other too. A nice touch for the less educated in the audience, like me.
The ensuing twenty minutes or so was captivating and eye catching. They started and continued a dialogue that was based on their own lives. At times the dialogue became a monologue and the other person froze, or perhaps just forgot their lines, and the featured artist spoke as if in their head. One of the most captivating things for me was the way they did so many accents. Nimmi presented us with strong Sri Lankan accents, with middle class English accents, some Sinhala and some Tamil. It was all authentic but I can't claim to be an expert in Tamil and Sinhala accents.
The piece was a reflection on the mixed identity of each of the artistes, of the feelings, frustrations and many different accents each of us mixed race kids are used to and sometimes not so used to. I'm all too familiar with the feelings, being mostly a drummer but also a blogger.
It led nicely into the next piece, performed by a mixed Hong Kong Chinese English lady called Christina. This was less direct in its visual references than the trolley one. Where the trolley one showed people in a supermarket with very clear and vivid imagery this one left more to the imagination with visual metaphors and similes that forced us, the audience, to come to our own conclusions about what was going on.
It told the story of how Christina was brought up in an apartment in which her English Father and Chinese Mother would often communicate through her as they had little in common in the way of language. It was a solo piece and Christina did lots of writhing, that looked particularly painful as well as some painting on the floor. The painting on the floor was a bit of a technical issue as most of us couldn't see what was going on, only that there was some floor based crouching down activity happening.
We discovered, when it was projected up on the wall as pictured above, that she was drawing the image, half in Cantonese or Mandarin (sorry but I can't recollect which it is) and half in English. At the beginning of the piece it said "I am not English" with the equivalent and opposite statement on the other side of the image in the other language. It's confusing to explain it in writing but I reckon I just might have got there.
Towards the end of the piece as the actress talked us through her thought patterns and development she did some more crouched down floor painting. The image changed to one in which she had crossed out the word "not" and what we all assumed to be the same on the other side of the world. It hit me like a bargepole, one that hit me sideways and not just on its end. More of a resounding smack than a painful prod. It's the exact way I've been thinking for the last few years. Not the Chinese bit, the Sri Lankan and British bit.
For so long I felt I was neither a Brit nor a Sri Lankan yet now I truly feel both, with a sense of abundance that I'm proud of. It's taken me many years to get here but I like it now. I'm brown, I've got a Sarf London drawl, I'm Sri Lankan and I'm British and I'm ok with that.
There was a bit of shuffling around with the sets, though there wasn't much in the way of sets to shuffle, then the next playlet started. I must admit that it was bit too ethereal for me, but the salsa dancing performed by the leading lady was startlingly spectacular, which was good enough to keep my eyes rivetted to the stage. I was told afterwards that it was about Guantanamo Bay, which made things clearer, but it was the first two pieces that caught me.
Nimmi Harasgama's one pulled me in with its acting, its defined and vivid imagery and the feeling of lightness it left me with. Christina's piece stuck with me because it felt as if it had been written about my mind and my mindset. It felt heavy instead of light, but it was a nice heaviness I was left with. Probably like a chap would feel after eating too many shuttlecocks not like that heaviness caused by way too much rice and dhall.
A load of us ended up in a nearby pub, then an Indian restaurant, then a quick drive home after dropping Old Aunt Onetruecoolguy and her husband where they were staying. I think it's safe to say that a good night was had by all.
Maybe I could do this thespian thing a bit more!
Posted by Rhythmic Diaspora at 10:58 PM 3 contributed with wit and intelligence
23 Boxes And A Long One!
What's happening in the Rhythmic life?
With thanks to David Blacker I'm living up to the "pimped up diary" thing. It's a perfect description of LLD and has given me a strange desire to chuck out a few words now and again to tell anyone who's interested what's been happening in these parts, which of course I always did, but now it's formal.
Two things happened to me yesterday that made me smile, chuckle and laugh, a bit like a supermarket own brand of Rice Krispies. The first of the two actually happened at the supermarket too.
Lunchtime was jam packed with my usual; a stroll over to Tesco and a sandwich of some sort. Wednesdays is my night to have the girls so the lunchtime stroll also involves buying the necessary ingredients for the evening meal.
The girls at work had suggested spaghetti bolognese for dinner so I found myself standing at a checkout with the necessaries and a sweets shop's worth of chocolate biscuitish things for the girls (my home ones) to munch on in the evening. My basket had eleven items so I was of course standing in one of the longer queues, not one of the ten or less items ones that I could have so easily have smuggled myself into were I that way inclined.
Then I saw it, or him, or them. It was the contents of the trolley of the chap in front of me that caught my attention. You know Cadbury's Flakes, not the ones we eat as chocolate bars but the half sized ones that ice cream men use in 99s? Well I learned that they are available in boxes of around twenty or thirty. I learned this from the fact that the chap in front of me had twenty three of these boxes in his trolley. I knew this was the case as I surreptitiously counted them. He also had one long French bread loaf in the trolley, which tickled me, though not in that smutty way you're thinking. That was it, there was nothing else in the chap's trolley.
I studied the chap. He was a Sikh, perhaps an ice cream man, but the French Stick was the sticking point. Twenty three boxes of Cadbury's Flake and a French stick was the type of trolley content that a good episode of Miss Marple could be made out of. I was mystified. Then the lightbulb moment came. Which reminds me, I wonder if the bloke who invented lightbulbs had a light bulb moment.
He must have been one of those weird food types, the sort who can only eat jam or who live on the contents of used tea bags. Only his particular fetish was French bread sandwiches made from Cadbury's Flakes. Presumably the sandwiches had to be cut down to size, which would explain why he wasn't using full sized Flakes. 'tis indeed a funny old world and I studied his complexion. There was no vast array of acne nor any visible evidence of his strange taste in food. I guess he was just lucky. I carried on with my day, content with the knowledge that I had figured out this mystery.
Then I picked up the girls in the evening and K came out with one of those phrases that made me proud and laugh.
We were walking along my road, heading back after popping to the local shop. K and A were in seriously high spirits. I think it's partly because they are still getting used to the whole new way of life and they're often a bit over excited when I collect them or drop them back. In time I'm sure they'll calm down.
As we were walking the excitement reached a crescendo of sorts and I asked both of them to calm down. A had been skipping like a strangely jerky Kangaroo and K had been squeezing a cuddly toy thing that was making a squeeking noise, as I'm sure it was designed to do. I asked them to calm down with some choice fatherly words:
"Will you two just calm down a bit now please?"
"Ok Dad" said K. "We will"
"In fact look at us now" she continued.
"We're now as calm as two monkeys in a baby's bath"
"You what? What did you say?" I asked.
"I said we're as calm as two monkeys in a baby's bath."
"That's whatI thought you said, where on Earth did you get that from?" said I.
"You know me Dad, I'm surprisingly clever, these things just come to me sometimes." the too smart for her own good eleven year old continued.
Well I do know her, she is too smart for her own good sometimes, but she makes me smile.
And those were two of the things that happened yesterday.
Anyone Lost One Of These?
Guess whose it is and you just might win a prize.
Comment Sense
Comments on blogs are an interesting phenomenon aren't they? I'm sure we've all been through those early blogging days when we chased readership, comments and links to our blogs. I've got to a ripe old age in blog years and am at the stage when I jot words down as and when they come to me, some get published straight away and others languish in draft form for months, maybe never to be published.
I guess I think of myself as quite wise in blog knowledge too. I'm not one of those geeky fellows, the ones who can tell you all about the latest tricks and ways of getting millions of readers with every word you write. RSS feeds are a thing I know nothing about, not even which animals eat them. But, I know some basics. I can spot the cynical blogs, the ones who are chasing readership at all costs, from about half a mile away.
Most of the old regulars in the Sri Lankan blogosphere are quite mellow too. People like Java, the Domestic Goddess and Mrs Sansoni operate their blogs just as they wish to do so, without chasing readership and writing all sort of rubbish about young naked girls and ways to make money from blogging.
Yet, despite my "knowledge", a term I do use loosely, there's one nugget of wisdom that alludes me. It's the ability to predict whether a post will get no comments at all or if it will attract more interest than a quiet month on the Mihin Air balance sheet. I never can tell.
I'll happily chuck a post out thinking that it's an innocuous one that people won't react to, only to find comments coming at me quicker than tuk tuks heading towards a German tourist standing outside one of CMB's five star hotels. Or I'll type out a long thought out pseudo intellectual post and expect to kick off some serious debate among my reader and find that no one is vaguely interested.
Acceptance is a wonderful thing and I'm now content with the knowledge that I publish something and it may or may not get comments galore. I have a friend who will often tell me what will get comments and what won't, she's usually right too. But it does baffle me.
What about you? Do other bloggers know what's going to attract comments like flies or are you as clueless as me?
I suppose it would be ironic if this post got no comments too.
Sunday Morning Perusings
Here I sit on Sunday morning. Sam's Town by The Killers is blasting out at a level that only a half deaf drummer could deal with comfortably. It's a few months since I've listened to this album properly and it suits my energised mood right now.
I went to bed with a smile on my face, a feeling of excitement and discovery in my left brain and a stomach jam packed with way too much Indian food. It could have been a dangerous night but all turned out nice and peaceful.
You see old Aunt Onetruecoolguy is down here in London for a few days and I trotted off with her and her husband last night to see that play thing, Mixed Routes, with Nimmi Harasgama. I may try to do some kind of review of the play, rather that trio of plays, later in the week. For now I'll just carry on telling you "pimped up diary" kind of stuff. I will tell you that the plays were rather entertaining and seriously thought provoking.
Being a bit of a thicko I didn't really get the last one, but it did have the most sublime salsa dancing which I was quite content to sit and enjoy. That's one of the good things about being me. Luckily old Aunt Onetruecoolguy's husband explained to me afterwards that it was about Guantanamo Bay and all then became clear. I think he was in a kindly mood towards me because I had bought a packet of watermelon flavoured jelly things before the play and the two of us fairly demolished them.
Java, I passed on your regards to Nimmi, she returned them in that dramatic way that all these acting types do so well. And I finally met Dhammika of Thinkfreed. It's true, he is rather huge and had to book two seats for him and his pot belly. Nice chap though and I wanted to talk more to him afterwards but he was nowhere to be seen.
As any of us would predict the audience was largely made up of Sri Lanka Diaspora. Everyone knew each other and there were only two Sri Lankans in the theatre who weren't related to each other. I guess these things happen sometimes, rare as it is.
Then, when I woke this morning I did that lazy sarong clad trek to the bathroom for that early morning pee, you know the one when you rub the sleep out of your eyes and feel a bit curious about what the world's going to hold in store for you today, all the while trying to tie the old sarong. And, as I walked past the long window at the top of my stairs I did a double take at what I saw.
White powder, more than I've witnessed at some of the more dodgy band practices I've been to, was fluttering in a downward direction and there was lots of it. I went to another window, as my dodgy rented house has more than one of them, and saw pretty thick snow covering the ground, with a sky that looked full of it. A couple of hours later as I peer out it's still falling and still settling. I must admit it makes me a tiny bit sad. It brought back memories of the girls when they were younger. Of how a flurry like this would make them jump out of bed and run out to have a snowfight and build a snowman.
I'm not sure if they're too old for that kind of behaviour now. They may well be staring at it with wide open eyes, or they might be just blase and matter of fact about it. I might even find out when they reply to my texts!
We'll see!
Many Happy Returns To Kottu
Cerno tells us that Kottu is three years old today. I'm happy to take the esteemed blogger at his word, even though he makes a lot of things up for effect and attention! For example you probably thought all the Google Earth images he posts are real screen shots didn't you? But no, Cerno actually does a convincing job of drawing them in his front room, with a large pack of crayons that he got for his last birthday. Keep that to yourself though. If you want further proof just have another look at his posts and you'll see that none of them have got any purple in them. Well that's because he lost the purple crayon some time ago. I think we can safely consider the matter proven.
But I'd like to take this opportunity to wish Kottu the best and to thank Indi for his efforts. Like so many other bloggers Kottu is my first port of call when looking at Sri Lankan blogs and I love the way he lets it run and keeps things all smooth and slick.
So Indi, great job, turn around and give yourself a big pat on the back, and thanks from me.
I Just Can't Find The Words
I've loved music all my life. I think much of that is a Sri Lankan thing and that many of us have been brought up in an environment in which music was continually in the background. Maybe it's the same for you, maybe not.
But, I've never been a fellow who pays much attention to lyrics. I know chaps who listen to every word of a song, who can recite the vocal line to every one of their favourite songs at the drop of a hat. Then they go home and talk to other chaps about the deep and meaningful second verse of the song that they heard earlier. Well, that's not me, which could explain partly why I play the drums rather than ponce about with a microphone flicking my hair and being late for every band practice.
These days when I learn a song I often use the lyrics as signposts to get my drum part right. I pay attention to the words to learn that, when the singer says that bit, I have to go to my ride cymbal or change my part to a different groove, or whatever. Of course this is a poor substitute for learning the drum part properly, which involves ignoring the lyrics and concentrating on the feel of the song and the structure of it and whole signpost principle is only as good as the singer's ability to remember the words. Most of the singers I've played with always remember the words but aren't always sure of the order.
Yes I know that songwriters cite lyrics as being vitally important to the success of a song, but they remain something I pay little attention to. The norm in the music industry is that half of the royalties are paid to the lyricist and half to the composer, so they are clearly held in high regard by others.
I was watching a slightly fantastic jazz funk band the other night in the regular gig at my local that I told you about here. They were a bunch of twenty something guys, all brilliant musicians, the type that could easily have filled me with envy and jealousy and, well, they did. Bastards.
The drummer was a bloke that I've read about in a few of my drum magazines, quite well known in the drum world and this was the first time I'd ever seen or heard him play. He looked to be an unassuming sort of guy and walked casually aruond the pub beforehand as if he was a tad on the shy and nervous side. But, as soon as he was behind the kit, he was a changed man. I understood. He looked as if sitting behind the kit was the place that made him feel the most comfortable and not just because his drum stool had a lot of padding.
The band was great, a bit more on the jazz side than the funk side for my liking but I could appreciate their immense musicianship. The guitarist did most of the talking and introduced one song along these lines:
"This song's about a date the drummer had a while ago"
I was surprised at the whole concept of a drummer having a date but other than that all seemed normal. They played the song and I listened with baited ears, thinking that I'd ask him later how to get a date.
The next song was given another introduction by the guitarist:
"This song's called 'Dinner with Dave'. It's about a dinner that our drummer had with a famous drummer called Dave Weckl."
They kicked off, in a musical way. Another good song followed. Bastards. Again. One word sentences. More.
I decided to leave after their first set. I was a bit knackered and had made a spectacularly nice mince curry the night before. The leftovers were calling me, the rice was cooked and I strolled home with a nonchalent air and a slightly rumbling stomach. As I strolled past the Teddington kebab shop it hit me, like a raspberry jelly falling out of a plane.
What hit me was the indisputable fact that none of the songs the band played had any words. They were all instrumentals. Words were not involved, not even a random "the" chucked in or a stray "love" anywhere.
Even with my disregard for lyrics at the best of times I struggle with this concept, particularly considering the introductions and stories behind the two songs I mentioned. How the hell can a song be about a dinner that the drummer had with Dave Weckl when it's got no words? How can another be about the drummer's date with someone when it doesn't tell us anything?
Perhaps the quiet bit in the Dave Weckl song reflected the few minutes when Mr Weckl went off for a pee during dinner, maybe the loud and thrashy bit in the date song was about the argument that the drummer and his date had about the merits of BMWs compared to Mercs. Frankly I don't understand.
I understand if an instrumental is called "Song 1" or "Song 3". If one were named "Song 2" that would be a rip off because Blur have already done that and it's got words too. But the whole long story behind an instrmental, the whole "this is what it's about" thing and the plot and background are mysteries to me.
Call an instrumental "Beethoven's ninth" or even his seventh by all means but all this story stuff baffles me.
It's probably me being simplistic I'm expecting an avalanche of Javas and Theenas to come up with complex and detailed examples of instrumentals with highly involved plots and sub plots.
But I just don't get it.
Last Of The Two Parters
My recent spate of two part posts has been unplanned and unintentional. I don't want LLD to be some kind of soap opera, nor do I want my life (as wittily portrayed by me) to be one. The main reason for the flurry of two parters has been simple; I started to write each one and realised that it was going to be a huge long thing so gave up at a reasonable point with some dots and the intention of finishing later. Sorry about that, I don't want to make it a habit......
But the next episode of K, Me and the Poo has to be installed, because it was funny and because it followed where we left off, as next episodes usually do.
Remember we'd dropped off the poo infested Converse Allstar at the girls' mother's place, much to her chagrin. We headed off to Kingston, our fairly local shopping centre / town / chav's place. The only regular reader that I know for sure knows Kingston is Lady Luck, but she hasn't been heard of since about 1942.
At 11 and 13 the girls still fight for the front seat of my car. It doesn't matter if the journey is a quick half mile trip or a mammoth one, the fighting is still the same. It involves both of them arguing about who sat in it last, a run down of recent journeys and who sat where, then a furious two way sprint in the general direction of the car with some shouting paternal type things from me. Sadly the combat isn't about the pleasure of sitting in the seat next to me, it's simply about who gets control of the stereo and therefore, in theory at least, who gets to choose the music.
I've noticed something with the two of them in the last few months that I hadn't expected to be so marked and, well actually I hadn't expected it at all really. It's that they're suddenly forging out their individual identities in that big thing called life. With slightly less than two years between them they've always been best buddies as well as worst enemies and, when not at school, they've pretty much done everything together, sharing things in that way that a pair of siblings often do.
They've listened to the same music and had the same taste, they've worn clothes similar in style, though never in that Sri Lankan way when you see siblings dressed in identical clothing.
But they're now branching out on their own and finding themselves and it's quite fascinating to watch. K, the younger one who you know so well, is going down that grungey route. She's listening to the music and dressing the part. It's all angsty American bands and skinny jeans, Converse (s) and dark clothing.
A, the elder statesgirl, is more English yoof in her approach. It's one of hoodies with expensive labels, trainers and Timbaland CDs and other R+B types. More strangely she's a huge Luciano Pavarotti fan (honestly) and no one can figure out why. She's got CDs and videos of him and drives everyone around her crazy with this unusual fondness for the late tenor.
As time rolls on I know that they'll separate even more in their likes and dislikes and in their strengths and weaknesses too.
It reminds me of myself and Academic Bro, the way we have gone through similar experiences. These days he's the lucky and gifted one. He's got the intellect and sheer brainpower that I would give my right and left brain for. He writes things that people read and then they go off and write about what he's written and he's got letters after his name. I've been the one who merely got shallow and lightweight qualities, of no use in everyday life. All I have is my good looks, a brilliant sense of style, my charm and my captivating sense of humour. One has to make the most though.
K had won the battle fot the front seat this time. I think her determination had been the deciding factor and most of that was because, for the ten minute trip to Kingston, she had grabbed two CDs from her bedroom that she wanted us to listen to. It's one of those touching warming things actually, that K really wanted me to listen to the CDs and to like them, some sort of approval thing. Well we spent the journey flicking through the tracks, A already knew them inside out because they had been inflicted upon her incessantly.
The CDs? One was an old My Chemical Romance album and the other was by some American sounding band called Paramor (sp?). I listened and told K that Paramor wasn't my bag of chips, too straight sounding and not even the slightest hint of funkiness present. My pleasure at the fact that they both love music and already have a passion for it far outweighs any negatives about what either of them is currently listening to and I think they both know that. I get a dichotomous sense of satisfaction when I try to reverse out of their drive and can't get the car in gear because the front seat occupant has already got her hand on the iDrive thing and is "sorting out" the music. It makes me proud that they're so into their music and a bit pissed off that I can't get the car into gear.
We got to Kingston. The trip was littered with a selection of tracks from My Chemical Romance, Paramor and Muse, yet had only lasted about ten minutes. After being bombarded with the first two bands I had pulled rank and insisted on Muse, probably the one band all three of us like, which explains why they let me pull rank.
Our first task was to get some new school shoes for K. Her previous ones had broken, probably from moshing or something, and the requirement was urgent. As I was led into the first shop by the two of them I looked around at its customers. They were all youngish girls and women, the sort that chaps of my age feel uncomfortable looking at for fear of having "sticky" eyes and then getting arrested.
A diplomatic way of putting it would be to say that this shop didn't look like a borough approved supplier of school uniform. The first part of the shop my eyes had fallen upon was one full of bras, flimsy ones at that. I averted my gaze and peered at a bigger part of the shop. This one was full of thongs and brightly coloured G strings. You know me, I believe that pants should be subdued and kept private, so I was distinctly uncomfortable.
"Come on Dad, the shoes are over here, at the back" said a daughter, probably one of mine.
I was like one of those hypnotised people. I was fully cognisant of what was going on but I couldn't control it and I felt uneasy about it. At some level in my mind I knew I was in the middle of a scam, I just didn't know what was going to happen or how it would reveal itself.
Part 3 will follow..........
Rhythmic Diaspora
London, Lanka, drums
Some of the things in my head.
Sexy Moving Tag Cloud
The Best Blogs Around
Cerno - Blog Of The Year 07
Icarus Myth : it applies to you
see chavie run!
Some 2019 Stats
In the Lost Queen's Eyes
A Tale of Two Colombos
The Gypsy - Bohemian Like You?
Naz Sansoni - Wicked!
An Image A NazDay
Naz by Olivia
The Blacklight Arrow
Our Selective Moral Outrage
For Eve
Ephemeral Ruminations
Ephemeral Ruminations 2015 in Review
Navigating on Balance
Sri Lanka Elections : The Muslim Vote
ASOB, NQIM!
Peace and stuff
Gallicissa...The Birdman
Endmics Clean-up with Ben and Ron under Five Days
Stunning Images
Aufidius' Tableaux
Dominic Sansoni - Watch And Learn
Sebastian Posingis - Stare in wonder
Alefiya Akbarally - Gasp with awe
Pradeep Jeganathan - Eat With Rice
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Mixed Routes - Three Plays And A Sri Lankan Actres...

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Canadian degrees must be accredited by the Canadian Association for Social Work Education (CASWE) and approved by the College. Click here for a statement regarding Douglas College's BSW program.
Step 2: Once all of the required documents have been received, the College will review the application in its entirety. If it is determined that the application meets the registration requirements, the applicant will receive an email from the College notifying that they have been approved to take the licensure exam by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB). Please be advised that the ASWB charges a fee for writing the exam.


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Home/News/Why Maitland Ward switched from acting in Hollywood to porn: Know It All Here
NewsEntertainmentHollywood
Why Maitland Ward switched from acting in Hollywood to porn: Know It All Here
Manisha GAugust 26, 2022
Maitland Ward, who is 45 years old, makes no apologies about "anything" in her life.
"I'm unapologetic about sex…but I think it's me in my truth and everything," she tells reports. "When I was young, I was so apologetic for many years. I will never apologize anymore."
The actress, who got her start on The Bold and the Beautiful before appearing as Rachel in Boy Meets World in 1998, has subsequently opted to pursue a career in pornography instead of returning to Hollywood. She describes that road of regaining control of her sexuality in her upcoming book, Rated X: How Porn Liberated Me From Hollywood, which will be released on September 6.
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"I was always looked at, in my view, as the more provocative one — people were fascinated by my long legs, and that I'm so tall and I have fiery red hair and, and it was like it almost made that OK," Ward said about her experiences on TV sets. She stated that her experiences won't be "acceptable" today. "People would come up and pat you on the ass or give you a little pinch or say, 'Oh, look how hot you are. Look at your tits.'"
Ward explains that it was tough because she was expected to be "a sexualized being" for other people but not to enjoy her sexuality genuinely. She was instructed to maintain her virginity and purity while simultaneously appealing to male viewers.
"If I was on a show, like Boy Meets World, I could be sexy. I could wear a sheet with little feathers on it in nude pictures that I had for my boyfriend — that's fine," she stated of a plot point from an episode of the ABC sitcom, in which her character's friends share a risqué photo of her as a prank. "If I ever wore anything like that, or did anything suggestive like that in real life, Disney and producers and Hollywood would've come down on me. Especially the producer, Michael Jacobs — he was adamant about me being chaste and the good girl.
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According to Ward, celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears were some of Hollywood's most significant sex symbols, but they were also well-known for being virgins.
"It was just very confusing. It hindered my sexual exploration and finding out who I was for a very long time," she disclosed.
Following her 2006 marriage to Terry Baxter, Ward claims she started experimenting with adult entertainment. Shortly after creating her Patreon account, she rose to the top among adult creators, and a year and a half later, she started working on commercial pornographic productions. She claims that Baxter was "very supportive" of her choice to accept her sexuality.
Our sexual life is now much better, she says. "It was always enjoyable, close, and intimate—exactly as a marriage should be. But now, because I'm so honest with myself, I'm willing to try new things, and I don't keep anything back. I think it's extremely sexy."
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Ward claims that working in porn relieves her of the strain she experienced when performing in traditional Hollywood.
"That was a scary prospect in the early 2000s, to think, 'Oh my God, you're done. You're going to be done very soon.' So it was also kind of like a race, but men could stay around forever, which they did. And they still do," she said.
"Hollywood is very hard on ageing, but I have felt less of that stigma in porn," she says. Though she was once told that "nobody wants to see you sexy unless you're 25," she further said.
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"Interestingly enough, the audience doesn't feel that way so much," she explained. "I had more fans coming along as I've been older and been sexual…I was told nobody would come along, and now I've had major success with it. So that was bulls*** that they were feeding. I think it's all part of this Hollywood machine — they want to keep you in a certain place at a certain time."
Regardless of where they came from, Ward wants people to understand that taking charge of their lives is acceptable.
"It's scary to forge your path, but it's the only way you will be happy. It doesn't have to be porn. That's my more shady side," she says. "I didn't just switch overnight. It's about making conscious efforts and decisions over time to get to where you want to be, embracing your truth. I want people to embrace their truth and live how they want to live and be who they want to be. People are attracted to that."
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Home | Blog | Article
The forgotten third...
Written by: Geoff Barton | Published: 09 October 2019
Geoff Barton, general secretary, Association of School and College Leaders
A 'forgotten third' of students fall short of achieving a Grade 4 in GCSE English and maths because of our system of comparable outcomes. This has to change, says Geoff Barton
It is likely, probably inevitable, that we will soon be engulfed by another General Election.
We have yet to see what the political parties will promise on education. It is a fair bet that the issue of funding will feature highly, and we are in a better place on this crucial matter than we have been for some time.
The current government's commitment to an increased level of spending will not kick in until next year and, without being churlish, it is still short of what is needed (SecEd, 2019). But it is a step in the right direction.
Likewise, it is good news that the government has proposed an increase in starting salaries to £30,000. It will help make teaching more competitive and will aid recruitment at a time of an on-going recruitment crisis.
But there are a lot of unknowns. We do not know how other salary levels will be affected, how this will aid retention, or how much of the new funding will be spent on these higher salaries. These are important questions and there is fine detail to be discussed, but the direction is more positive than it has been for some years.
What we do not have, however, is a real sense of a vision for the future – big, bold thinking about how we give all our students the start they need and equip them for life in a world of great technological and social change.
Over the past few years it has felt like we have been looking backwards. The preoccupation with the EBacc and making GCSEs and A levels harder and more akin to old-style O and A levels has smacked of policy driven by nostalgia.
We thus find ourselves at the end of an unprecedented period of reform with an exam system which is harsh on students who struggle most with academic work, an accountability system which penalises schools in the most challenging circumstances, and a workforce which is exhausted, drained and demoralised.
A reasonable starting point for a brighter future is the work of a commission established by the Association of School and College Leaders to look at how we can improve the prospects of what we have termed the "forgotten third". This is the proportion of 16-year-olds who each year fall short of achieving at least a Grade 4 in GCSE English and maths, and whose opportunities for progression in education and work are therefore constrained.
The fact that such a large number of young people fall into this category each year is not an accident but a product of the mechanism of "comparable outcomes" which determines the distribution of grades largely on the basis of what similar cohorts have achieved in the past.
The forgotten third is therefore baked into the system.
The commission has proposed that GCSE English language should be replaced with a new type of qualification, a Passport in English, which would be taken at the point of readiness of the student, and which could be improved upon over time, between the ages of 15 and 19.
It has also made a series of recommendations about how to improve the learning of English, and it has suggested that a Passport in Maths could also be launched.
This proposal has the potential to liberate thousands of young people from finishing their 12 years at primary and secondary school with a sense of failure. Instead of a system which tells them what they cannot do, we could have a system which tells them what they can do. It would mean every young person would have the dignity of a qualification of which they could be proud.
The Passport would require detailed work to develop a specification and it would need to be implemented carefully with appropriate materials and support for teachers.
But we believe it begins to set the tone for a brighter, more optimistic education system which better serves our students and which is the first step in shaping a vision for the future.
Geoff Barton is general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
Funding pledge: We're not out of the woods yet, SecEd, September 2019: http://bit.ly/2krpieO
To download The Forgotten Third report and for further information (ASCL, September 2019), visit http://bit.ly/2n3wAqb
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When you hear the term "landscape photography," you probably have an image in your mind's eye that includes a large landscape with mountains, trees, prairies, beaches, or something of the sort.
What you likely don't think of is an abstract image created by honing in on one small detail of the aforementioned landscapes.
But, as you can see in the featured image above, abstract landscape images are gorgeous in their own right, and they aren't all that hard to create either! Consider these tips for changing things up a bit and creating stunning abstract landscape images.
When you're so used to trying to get the "big picture" of a landscape, it's difficult to switch gears to zeroing in on the intimate details of the landscape before you. Yet, being able to notice the little things is the first step in becoming a more adept abstract landscape photographer.
As you wander through a landscape, don't just look out; look up and down, left and right. Get down on your knees and inspect the details of the ground in front of you. Have a closer look at trees or grasses nearby. Strive to notice interesting shapes or textures, patterns or shadows. It is these kinds of elements that will allow you to create a compelling abstract image.
A simple way to hone your detail-oriented skills is to find a small area, say 20 meters square, in which you challenge yourself to take at least a dozen photos of interesting details. You'll likely have no problem with the first handful of images, but after that, the challenge begins!
Landscape photography is about portraying the scene before you in a very literal way - what you see is what you get. Abstract photography is the polar opposite - the goal is to highlight an interesting subject that could be just about anything, depending on how the viewer interprets it.
As you strive to focus on the details in a landscape, go beyond taking smaller versions of literal landscape images and look for details that are often highlighted in abstract images. Layers, lines, and curves are typical abstract subject matter, as are textures, colors, and patterns. Don't be afraid to get in close to objects in the landscape - really close, in fact - such that you can compose a shot that highlights the abstract qualities listed above.
Typically, landscape photographers work with shorter focal length lenses in the wide or ultra-wide-angle range. These lenses offer a sweeping view of the landscape that is conducive to traditional landscape photography.
However, if you're going to focus on the small details of a landscape and the abstract qualities about those details that make for great abstract subject matter, you'll need to work with a longer lens.
The great thing about using a long focal length for landscape photography is that it forces you to focus on a very small area of the larger landscape. Doing so helps you isolate intimate details that could prove to be excellent fodder for an abstract landscape image.
Get some practice by using your telephoto lens almost like a pair of binoculars - find a landscape and zoom in, surveying the scene for isolated areas that have the small details and abstract qualities noted earlier in this article. Then, it's all about working on composition such that the images you create take on the stunning beauty of the sample images in this lesson. Give it a try, and see what you can create in terms of an abstract landscape photo!


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Notch Therapeutics – a new company with a revolutionary allogeneic ("off the shelf") T cell technology
November 05, 2019 06:00 ET | Source: Notch Therapeutics Notch Therapeutics
Toronto, ON, Nov. 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Notch Therapeutics, a company in the emerging field of gene-modified T cell therapy, has been created to commercialize a revolutionary technology that creates allogeneic (donor) gene-edited T cells from stem cells on an industrial scale, efficiently making T cell therapies that are clinically robust and of a consistently high quality. Notch is actively pursuing industry partnerships.
The founders of Notch - Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto (UoT), Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners (TIAP) and CCRM, with Lumira Ventures as an additional investor - created Notch to provide a vehicle through which to further develop and bring to market the combined pioneering research, nearly ten years underway, from the labs of Drs. Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker, Senior Scientist in Biological Sciences at Sunnybrook, and Chair of the Department of Immunology at UoT; and of Peter Zandstra, Professor, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at UoT and Director, School of Biomedical engineering and Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia.
"This technology is very promising and might be used to create therapies to treat some of our greatest medical challenges, like cancer, autoimmune diseases and organ transplant rejection. It's also the first and only method that can reconstitute immune systems," says Dr. Andy Smith, President and CEO of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "Finally having options to target these high-impact areas for our patients is what we mean when we say we are inventing the future of health care."
Jennifer Fraser, Director Innovations at the University of Toronto, comments that "Dr. Zúñiga-Pflücker's allogeneic T cell therapy was one of the first projects I worked on when I joined UoT. It's very gratifying to see the technology move toward the clinic."
Even as the field for these therapies grows rapidly, major challenges have until now prevented wider adoption mainly due to a slow and expensive manufacturing process which yielded variable results. The Notch technology, however, shows promise for surmounting these issues cost-effectively and reliably. Notch, having been incubated at CCRM, will be able to leverage its in-house process development expertise and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) facility, located in downtown Toronto. It offers universally enhanced T cell therapies against high-impact diseases, using stem cells as a renewable source to expand treatment options and deliver cost-effective immunotherapies to patients. The aim of Notch is to generate T cells from multiple sources of stem cells and provide a platform for research and development, and a better way of manufacturing T cells and their applications for treating cancers or immune deficiencies.
"TIAP is pleased that, after many years of nurturing this research and investing in the risky early-stages with our co-founders, we are now seeing a truly ground-breaking new health science technology make its way through development in a very encouraging way. This is yet another example of what can be done through TIAP's unique ability within the community to bundle technologies across multiple institutions. This is a true collaboration which has resulted in development of a technology that will have significant impact", says Dr. Rafi Hofstein, President & CEO of TIAP.
"Notch Therapeutics is a star pupil in CCRM's incubation program," says Dr. Michael May, President and CEO of CCRM. "By de-risking the technology and designing Proof of Concept studies to appeal to investors, attracting experienced start-up management, and working with our ecosystem partners, we have collectively given Notch every opportunity to succeed."
Dr. Benjamin Rovinski, Managing Director of Lumira Ventures, states: "Early on, our team recognized Notch's novel and differentiated platform and its potential to produce safer, more effective, and scalable allogeneic T cell therapies. We are pleased to be part of the financing syndicate. The quality and breadth of science coming out of Canadian universities is phenomenal, and important innovators like Notch are able to access capital, knowledge and the engaged support of Lumira and other investors, to enable the development and commercialization of their technology. We are excited to work with the entire Notch team."
About TIAP
TIAP is a leading provider of venture building services, early-stage funding, and deal-brokering with industry and private investors. As a member-based organization made up of 14 member institutions – including University of Toronto and affiliated teaching hospitals – TIAP's mandate is to drive the commercialization of their most promising research breakthroughs. TIAP has an active portfolio of more than 60 companies in sectors such as therapeutics, medical devices and IT/AI, which have raised in excess of CDN$300M from global investors, and has created more than 1000 direct/indirect jobs.
For more information, please visit www.tiap.ca
About University of Toronto
Founded in 1827, the University of Toronto is Canada's leading institution of learning, discovery and knowledge creation. U of T is one of the world's top research-intensive universities, driven to invent and innovate. It is also one of the top five universities in the world for its start-up incubator programs. In the last 10 years, the U of T entrepreneurship community has created over 500 companies and raised over $1.5 billion in investment capital. www.utoronto.ca
About Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is inventing the future of health care for the 1.3 million patients the hospital cares for each year through the dedication of its more than 10,000 staff and volunteers. An internationally recognized leader in research and education and a full affiliation with the University of Toronto distinguishes Sunnybrook as one of Canada's premier academic health sciences centres. Sunnybrook specializes in caring for high-risk pregnancies, critically-ill newborns and adults, offering specialized rehabilitation and treating and preventing cancer, cardiovascular disease, neurological and psychiatric disorders, orthopaedic and arthritic conditions and traumatic injuries. The Hospital also has a unique and national leading program for the care of Canada's war veterans. For more information about how Sunnybrook is inventing the future of health care. Please visit us online at www.sunnybrook.ca
About CCRM
CCRM, a Canadian not-for-profit organization funded by the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario, and leading academic and industry partners, supports the development of regenerative medicines and associated enabling technologies, with a specific focus on cell and gene therapy. A network of researchers, leading companies, investors and entrepreneurs, CCRM accelerates the translation of scientific discovery into new companies and marketable products for patients, with specialized teams, dedicated funding, and unique infrastructure. CCRM is the commercialization partner of the Ontario Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the University of Toronto's Medicine by Design. CCRM is hosted by the University of Toronto. Visit us at ccrm.ca.
About Lumira Ventures
Lumira Ventures is Canada's leading and most active healthcare venture capital firm. Lumira invests in best-in-class North American companies developing innovative therapeutics and medical technologies whose products offer transformative improvements to patient health outcomes and provide meaningful reductions to the overall cost of healthcare delivery. Since inception, Lumira's portfolio companies have brought 50+ new therapies to market, impacting the lives of 1+ billion patients globally, generating $65+ billion in cumulative revenue.
For more information, please visit www.lumiraventures.com
TIAP University of Toronto Sunnybrook Health CCRM Lumira Ventures t cells ancer notch therapeutics biotech biotechnology
TIAP
CCRM
Lumira Ventures
Susanne Staer
Notch Therapeutics
sstaer@tiap.ca
Craig DuHamel, VP of Communications and Stakeholder Relations
craig.duhamel@sunnybrook.ca
Stacey Johnson, Director Communications and Marketing
stacey.johnson@ccrm.ca
Peter van der Velden, Managing General Partner
plv@lumira.vc
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Meet Chris and Beth Barnes, owners and winemaker of Chris James Cellars.
in the foothills of the coastal mountain range in Yamhill County.
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The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and need not be paid) on Friday, April 19, 2019 in honor of Good Friday Holiday.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and therefore need not be paid) on CHRISTMAS DAY – DECEMBER 25, 2018 AND ON NEW YEAR'S DAY - JANUARY 1, 2019.
Parking in an unlawful area or manner (bus or loading zones, yellow curb, no parking, handicap space, Fort Wood Residential District, etc.) is enforceable 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and need not be paid) on MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2018 in honor of Labor Day.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and need not be paid) on Wednesday, July 4, 2018 in honor of Independence Day Holiday. Parking in an unlawful area or manner (bus or loading zones, yellow curb, no parking, handicap space, Fort Wood Residential District, etc.) is enforceable 24 hours / 7 days a week.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and need not be paid) on MONDAY MAY 28, 2018 in honor of MEMORIAL DAY.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and need not be paid) on Friday, March 30, 2018 in honor of Good Friday Holiday.
The Chattanooga Parking Authority has announced downtown parking meters will not be enforced (and therefore need not be paid) on New Year's Day Monday, January 1, 2018.
**** Parking in an unlawful area or manner (bus or loading zones, yellow curb, no parking, handicap space, Fort Wood Residential District, etc.) is enforceable 24 hours a day / 7 days a week.


A new species of the genus Acosmeryx Boisduval, 1875, Acosmeryx akanshi sp. nov. is described from the southern Indian state of Karnataka. A comparison of the habitus and male genitalia, together with a genetic analysis of DNA barcode sequences, is made with those of Acosmeryx shervillii Boisduval, 1875, its closest relative in the genus Acosmeryx.
A new species of the genus Daphnusa Walker, 1856, Daphnusa haxairei sp. nov. is described from the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The comparison of the habitaus and male genitalia is made is with those of Daphnusa ocellaris Walker, 1856 and Daphnusa sinocontinentalis Brechlin, 2009, which were selected as comparative material because their range includes parts of continental Southeast Asia.
Hyperchiria mesonesi n. sp. (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae, Hemileucinae) is described from Amazonian Peru, and compared with H. aniris (Jordan, 1910).


Though not as visible as other public services, the wastewater treatment process is one of the most fundamental daily responsibilities. The facility normally processes 3.5 million Gallons per Day (MGD) of wastewater, but is designed to process an average daily flow of 5.26 MGD and maximum daily flow of 10.52 MGD. The facility is also designed to process an additional 21 MGD of Excess Flow during wet weather/rain conditions. The facility is permitted by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) to discharge treated wastewater to the East Branch of the DuPage River. The treated wastewater is actually cleaner than the receiving stream water! Biosolids or sludge produced by the facility is land applied on farm field as fertilizer to aid in preserving a clean environment.
The staff team works very diligently to keep the plant at peak performance and be a good neighbor. Odor control is always a top priority and part of all operation and maintenance decisions.
The WPCF staff annually conducts tours for the children of G. Stanley Hall School or other groups. Requests for specific information regarding the WPCF operations can be made to the Division Manager of WPCF, at 630.942.1963, Monday - Friday from 7:00am - 3:30pm.
The Illinois Association of Water Pollution Control has been presenting awards to deserving facilities for over 65 years. Nominees are presented to the Association by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Facilities who provide exceptional service to their community as well as the wastewater community are recognized for their efforts with a nomination for Plant of the Year. In 2012, the Glendale Heights Water Polution Control Facility was nominated, along with four other Group-1 facilities, for Plant of the Year. This is a State-wide award and encompasses over 200 Group-1 facilities. On April 17th, 2013, at the Annual IAWPCO banquet in Springfield, Illinois, Glendale Heights was selected as the Plant of the Year. This is the first time WPCF has won such an Award and the Village is extremely proud of the WPCF staff for their efforts.
In addition, the WPCF was featured in the June 2012 edition of Treatment Plant Operator (TPO) magazine.


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Lindsay Lohan Gets Marilyn Monroe Quote Tattoo
The newly single star pays homage to the Hollywood screen legend
By Brian Orloff
Credit: Anthony/Pacific Coast News
Lindsay Lohan recently got a new tattoo as part of her post-breakup makeover. But what does it say?
According to a source who has seen the new ink, Lohan, 22, got a Marilyn Monroe quote tattooed in cursive on her inner-wrist during her visit to the Shamrock Social Club in West Hollywood last week. Monroe's full quote is: "Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle." The wording is also surrounded by yellow, blue and green stars.
It's no surprise that Lohan's latest body art was inspired by the Hollywood legend. Last year, she recreated Monroe's famous nude 1962 photo shoot for New York magazine, telling the publication at the time that Monroe's life could serve as a cautionary tale. Namely, she said, Monroe was a "prime example of what this industry can do to someone."
After her split with Samantha Ronson, Lohan has been struggling, a source says, noting, "She feels alone. All of their mutual friends have turned on her; she's 22 but this would be tough to handle at any age."
But another source close to Lohan says the starlet is actually stronger than she's being made out to be. "She's being painted as this victim, but she's not," that source says. "She's a strong girl."
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