Day one...
'if a man traveled through paradise in a dream and received a flower as proof of his passage. then woke to find this flower in his hands... what then? jl borges
how can we know the dancer from the dance?
w. b. yeats
southbank london
'the heaven-tree of stars, hung with humid night blue fruit'.
j. joyce
andromeda
'every seed is a longing'. k. gibran
...'the main difference between americans and the english is the desire for intensity. americans say, 'let’s do it now motherfucker, let’s go!' and the english are more like, ‘should we be intense right now, or should we wait til after dinner?’ I think anyone who stays in england long enough gets a little defanged’.
wayne coyne
'and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth'. frank o hara
'The goddess of electric guitar players is called
Helena. She looks after you when you are trying to learn a new song and if
anyone throws a bottle at you when you are going on stage, she reaches out a
graceful hand and diverts it to an amplifier. Also, if you have been assiduous
in paying tribute to her, she will prevent your guitar strings from breaking
and give you a gentle nudge if your solo is starting to bore everyone. She
brings comfort to those whose fingers are sore from trying to learn a new chord
and if the occasion merits it she will personally get inside your fuzzbox and
make it scream and shriek. A lovely goddess Helena'
Martin Millar Ruby & The Stone Age Diet
During my space flight, I came to appreciate my profound connection to my home planet and the process of life evolving in our special corner of the universe; and I grasped that I was part of a vast and mysterious dance whose outcome will be determined largely by human values and actions.
As I floated outside Apollo 9,
sunlight streaming past me, travelling over the Pacific at 17,000 miles an
hour. I realised I was there on behalf of all humanity, that it was my
responsibility to communicate this experience to my fellow beings.
By any measure, we are a
marvellous cosmic experiment. One, which we are now capable of terminating.
Anyone could trigger events that would lead to hundreds of millions of deaths,
if not planetary extinction.
Our future, indeed our survival, is closely linked to the idea of our common destiny, and we must act, individually and together out of an appreciation of that grand vision.
Many years ago I was a fighter pilot stationed in the Philippines. Every month or so it would be my turn to stand nuclear alert on an airbase on Taiwan. We would lounge inside the alert shack, waiting for the red phone to ring and hoping it never would.
About once a week each ‘plane would be exchanged for a fresh one. The ground crew would roll a cradle under the nuclear weapon. It would be lowered from the ‘plane, wheeled off to the side and the old ‘plane towed away.
Whenever it was my turn to go through this drill. I would climb on top of the nuclear weapon and lie there, looking up at the stars. My back pressed to the bomb, I would search my soul for the moral basis on which I might decide whether or not to release the bomb if called upon to do so.
I knew I would have very little knowledge of what was going on in the rest of the world in that moment. Was half of it already gone? What about my family? My hometown? I would not know of their fate.
Will mankind’s vision be of our cosmic future be large enough and clear enough to lift us beyond the uncertainties and fears of our human birth? Or will we defer to experts and impersonal systems of authority in the false belief that in them reside greater wisdom and morality?
Rusty Schweickart. Astronaut. 1987.
she'd like to clean her body out with a hoot of laughter Carol Shields - The Stone Dairies
USA water polo team 1966
I met my wife at a friend's wedding. We were in an orchard in the Wye Valley and she came running up to the groom and said, 'Here's your wedding present' and she did a cartwheel. In my book, if a girl does that in an orchard, you marry her. Ben Miller
photo: Ryan McGinley
'it’s a thing, it’s like a plan, but with more greatness' Dr Who
cartoon by Leunig