11pm Tuesday 9th December 1980 Booth Theatre, 222W 45th Street, New York A horrible day. One of those days where so much seems to happen, when the world seems bigger, noisier and even messier than it usually is. Some days (most days, in fact) are ordinary, normal. Each one kinda’ follows the same pattern, you almost know what’s going to happen before it does. There’s a comfort in that. For me, for the last few months, that’s been even more true than usual. It’s like that when

A huddle on the greasy street – cars stop, nose past, withdraw – dull glint on soles of tackety boots, frayed rough blue trousers, nondescript coat stretching back, head supported in strangers’ arms, a crowd collecting – ‘Whit’s wrang?’ ‘Can ye see’m?’ ‘An auld fella, he’s had it.’ On one side, a young mother in a headscarf is kneeling to comfort him, her three-year-old son stands puzzled, touching her coat, her shopping bag spills its packages that people look at as they loo

or The Odysseus we deserve - not the Odysseus we want or All the emotional range of a Hollow Horse Christoper Nolan has a problem. Stick to a faithful retelling of the epic poem, warts and all – a hero who commits deceit, murder, adultery and gross negligence, or fabricate a fantasy world, a weird, wonderful (and trippy) world of Gods and Monsters, a world where neither time nor space fly like an arrow, but bend and meld to the will of the Gods’? As it turns out, Nolan’s Odys

Crab apple tree on pier to pier, a boat to my boat Sweet, sickly diesel and sour, river air A potent, nasal note. Ahoy, Stuart, welcome aboard, and do make yourself at home away from home, 20 feet from shore. Deck creeks, water leaks, gate squeaks that needs a drop of oil on the water. Low tide now, mud exposed now Delicious it looks, school chocolate pudding, Mississipi Mud Pie, Wandsworth-style. At high tide all is hidden creek, crack, rust, mud. Inside all is golden wood G

I sit alone in a crowd, surrounded by sound Enveloped by chatter, punctuated by laughter The piercing ring of ceramic cups on marble tabletops My eyes are suddenly drawn from the proximate to the infinite In a slice of sky before me, between the awning and the parasol Something momentous is growing A silent mountain Golden glowing in the setting sunlight As I sit in quiet awe Flashes of bright, white, light emanate from within Like the laughter of the crowd Only silent, dista

What’s the point of art? What is its function? What’s the difference between art, and a picture (hint, there is one. A Big One).

Reflections on the anxiety of our Age in The Substance (2024, Coralie Fargeat) There is a scene in The Substance where the younger version of the self (the implausibly named ‘Sue’) repeatedly smashes the face of the older version of the self (Elisabeth) into a bathroom mirror – until her face is reduced to a bloody, pulpy mess, and her body drops to the hard, white tiled floor – seemingly dead. What is known is that Elisabeth and Sue are the same person – they are both, in

Reflections on a Struggle, running the Great Scottish Run 2024. This is a slog. A hard, painful, boring, slog. At times, it feels endless. Places feel endless. Will Paisley Road West never end? I see it before me, stretched out, as straight as a rule, until it disappears into the horizon. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Why do we keep on going, minute after minute, step after step, mile after mile. My whole body, my whole being, is telling me, warning me, that this isn't

The perfect idea lives in my head. Not lives, that isn't right. A living thing must exist, be made real, be born. This is more like - potential. The hot, undefined gases of a nebula swirling around in my head, with the ability, the possibility to make stars, planets, comets - to create life. A perfect embryo of an idea then. All the parts in all the right places, everything accounted for. The perfect story, with the perfect wording, a sublime story that makes the heart ache,

From Healing the Child Within (audiobook) Chapter 7, from 8 minutes in Codependence - the neurosis of our time Co-dependence is a disease of lost self-hood in a viscous cycle, it's a condition that stifles our true self - our child within. We can begin to define co-dependance as any suffering and/or dysfunction that is associated with, or results from, focusing on the needs and behaviour of others. Co-dependents become so focused upon or preoccupied with important people in t

After Brene Brown, from her RSA talk 'The Power of Vulnerability' - see links at bottom of page There's a huge, yet subtle difference between sympathy and empathy. I want your empathy. I don't want your sympathy. Sympathy, or, to give it its real, dirtier name, pity, is an unwanted gift. A gift that you give me, that I didn't ask for, and one I don't want. But it's worse than that just a superfluous, unwanted present. Your pity is not benign. Rather, it's a malignant force in

I feel as if I'm unravelling My thread of life, falling away from that thick, warm, safe, soft ball of wool. All I thought I knew and was certain of, all that I built my foundations upon, falling off my lap, onto the floor, rolling away from me. The life I thought I knew the life I had the life I was living is all there, contained within that bundle of wool. The routines, the early morning calls, the responsibilities and the self assurances of the man I thought I was Coming a

I don't want to kill myself but I don't wanna be here either. I don't want to carry on living like this because this isn't living this isn't a life It's the opposite, a living death I am numb Just waiting I'm just waiting for something to change Just waiting to feel something I feel trapped I feel trapped in my life I want to not exist I want to not be in existence anymore But I don't want to hurt the people around me I don't want to hurt the people that I love and the people

Right now, I feel very sad, I feel very down I feel hopeless I've been trying to do the right things Writing in my little book I've been trying to get up I've been exercising I've not been out in the sun as much as I should be, I know that But when I do it's just depressing, and dirty, and ugly And I don't get any joy from going out there This joy that I'm waiting for is not immediate - I have to put in the work now in the hope, faith, belief that it will pay off at some unk

In The Matrix, Morpheus gives Neo/Mr Anderson a choice of 2 pills - a red pill and a blue pill. One of these pills will allow Neo/Mr Anderson to forget everything he's learnt, and return back to his normal life -i.e. to continue living as Mr Anderson, the person he believes he has always been. The other pill allows him to remain in the Matrix as Neo - and learn all of the truths - the full truth - no matter how horrible it is. I've found myself often thinking of this scenario

Transcription from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A02Ucd6monY One of the most surprising but powerful explanations for why we may, as adults, be in trouble mentally, is that we were in our earliest years, denied the opportunity to be fully ourselves, that is, we were not allowed to be willful and difficult. We could not be as demanding, aggressive, intolerant and unrestrictedly selfish as we needed to be. Because our caregivers were preoccupied or fragile, we had to be pre

The thing that's happening, the current process, is that the deep pool of guilt - my guilt, and my parent's guilt (combined) that's built up inside of me over many, many years, has never been released - it's never been allowed to come to the surface and to be expressed for what it is. So what happens over time? That toxic soup of guilt turns into something else, it turns into anger. And it turns into hate. And it turns into rage. It becomes more toxic. It gets thicker, and st

Blink 3 Many gifted children have high expectations of themselves, and grow up to suffer from depression. We've all heard of great composers, writers or artists who were unbelievably creative, but suffered from depression throughout their lives. How could people who are so successful be so unhappy? Brilliant people often have feelings of grandiosity. Their sense of their own importance and value is what propels them to create. However, grandiosity is the first sign of a repre

Bohemians upend the social order by refusing to participate in society in a traditional way. When you hear the word 'bohemian', you might picture a young hippy-ish man or woman with messy hair, baggy clothing and the job title of poet or artist. While bohemian fashion is now a modern fad, 'bohemia' itself actually began in the early nineteenth century. The term defined a loose group of people who dressed simply, lived in cheap areas, valued art over business, and sometimes h

You just made me so upset. No. Not upset, that’s the wrong word. I sit in the pool and introspect, actually what I am feeling? Upset is passive, quiet, small. This doesn’t feel like that at all actually. What does this feel like? How does my body feel? I am shaking. I am energized. This isn’t upset. This is anger. This is rage. You didn’t make me (passive) upset. You gave me the unwanted gift of this rage. You’ve placed within my hands the radioactive, pulsing heat of rage. Y