Musing On Grains of Sand

Very short this - really just a thought written down so I don't forget it. For some reason unknown today, Edgar Allan Poe's 'A Dream Within A Dream' came to me today. It was published in 1849: 

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow —

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone? 

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

And immediately I connected it with William Blake's 'Auguries on Innocence', the relevant text I recall from Jacob Bronowski, in 'The Ascent of Man' (btw commissioned by the then David Attenborough)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour. 

 

etc. 

 

 Blake wrote this in 1803 but it was only published after his death in 1863.

 

Both deal with life - one describing loss, the other wonder, but both use grains of sand. For myself, I was more drawn to Blake's 'Heaven in a Wild Flower' which, for someone of an evolutionary ecology leaning, sums up organic life.

 

Later ... I didn't get around to posting the above as a short blog before I ventured off to Ireland.

 

The crossing was super - flat sea and full sun made it clear just how populated the seas are with creatures. Although I'm not a birder I did work out that shearwaters were very common a few miles off the coast of Ireland, as were gannets. I put a picture on flickr which gives a little more information.

 

Blake from a Death Mask

Arriving in Ireland, the heat was not much less than that in Kent and the day after I arrived we just took things easy, in the hope that the next day might be better, but it was the same and blustery, so Pamela and I in boy mode took the train to Dublin to visit the National Gallery, one of my favourites places. I wanted to view more of Jack B Yeats' pictures as my brushwork has started to loosen and I thought I could pick up ideas, but I was waylaid by the William Blake Exhibition: 

 Only about a quarter of the art was by Blake as the exhibition covered him and his contemporaries who either inspired him, or were inspired by him, in the 'Age of Romantic Fantasy'. It was interesting in understanding how the Gothic of later years must have evolved. I have always been ambivalent about Blake's imagery, but seeing it the 'flesh' was fascinating, as well as seeing some of the contemporaneous works, including Turner.

 

 

 

 

There has been far less dressing this trip, partly because of the unseasonal temperatures, but partly also because we shall be meeting up with Jenny Turner in a couple of weeks. Tomorrow, I head off to do some sightseeing and walking in Co. Mayo, but today is the 2nd anniversary of Pauline's death and we are going out for a meal in memory of her. I said to Pamela when I wanted to do this that it wasn't to be sad and that we could have whatever we wanted as the meal was being paid for by someone who has joined the Choir Invisible (cue Monty Python Parrot Sketch). Of course, there has been another side to today as I emailed Pauline's sister today and the tears welled up.

 

I'll finish for now, not with Blake, or Poe, but Jack's brother, WB Yeats, writing of love unfulfilled:

 

Tread softly for you tread upon my dreams 

 

 

April, Came She Did ... And Then She Went!

OK, Nikki, this is a blog … why aren’t you writing anything?

As my favourite intro for any tune now is ‘Here We Go’ (Max Richter - On The Nature of  Daylight  (Entropy) | 2018 Version ) … here we go …

Who knows what lies in the subconscious? I had been hyping my trip to Dartmoor and the walking to myself for months. I had packed all my walking gear with plenty of sustenance (mars bars, frusli cereal bars and apple juice) and yet there was no impetus once I was there. It may have been because things camera-wise had gone wrong after a fraught week with laptops, or because my memory of places to visit was too strong to need refreshing. Or maybe, it was subconscious … that the trip was really just to call in on my sister and brother-in-law a couple of hours further on in Cornwall. I am acutely aware of getting old myself now, and my sister is 8 years older. At some time that familial connection will go. On top of that, because my trip home would clash with my art class, I left Devon a day early so I could get back in time for my class. Things are afoot, Nikki, life is on the move … where to next, I wonder?

My eyes. My eyes have a life of their own! The strabismus (squint) I had seems to have been due to ‘lazy eye’ as my vision appears dependent on what I’ve been looking at immediately before. So, if I move immediately from viewing the laptop straight onto trying to drive a car, there will be ‘dodgy but safe’ vision for anything up to half an hour. Then I also dive into the realm of long-sightedness with no useful near-sight, something unknown since I was about eight years old, and that confuses both my brain and face. I’m so used to the physical sensation of glasses on my head that any discomfort makes me reach to take off imaginary glasses. Add to that an increased intolerance of bright light and I thank (dare I say it) Amazon, which has supplied me with a variety of very cheap Chinese glasses from which to choose comfort. Currently, I use 2 dioptre glasses for doing what I do now – close use, and switch to 1 dioptre brown tinted sunglasses for driving and daylight use. I do also have (and very expensive they were) photochromic varifocals from the opticians for times when I don’t know what to wear. Would I have had cataract surgery, had I known the changes to the minutiae of my life? … The jury’s out. The thing I come back to, however, is if cataract surgery has had such effect now, how would I cope in several years’ time?

OK, so that covers your abortive walking on Dartmoor and your collection of spex, Nikki… what else has been happening, if anything???

Well, this is MY blog, so I could bore intensely about sorting out the Tbs of words, imagery, and links that I have stored over multiple external hard drives. This reminds me of when I was about 13 years old that all one day and night and all the following day, I sat in my bedroom using a Stanley Gibbons Catalogue to order my random collection of stamps (all worthless!) That was back in the day … it was better than staring out of the window at what was then greyness beyond, but kids didn’t get depressed in those days … it took 4 years for me to be wrongly diagnosed with neurasthenia and it took another year before an elder brother who had been seeing a shrink privately, got me to get treatment for depression. For a university student with an active brain, the treatment – talking, tablets, and a maintenance jab of antidepressant worked but left my imagination numb. I preferred the agony and ecstasy of a stressed brain, so quit the treatment after a few months. I have since lived with waves of depression my whole life.

Back to the ordinary life of a mainly stay-at-home Tgirl …

I know I have just a few weeks before heading off to Ireland for three weeks and my home is a tip, so I’m turning my efforts to at least tidying some of it …

 

 … and away!!!       

The last expression above is just a memory for ‘Gone Fishing’s’ Ted, the dog that stole the show. For me, there has been a bit of a hiatus while doing stuff – gardening, shopping, and discouraging a local squirrel, but I set today, May 1^st, aside for catching up. Back to the Tbs. I’ve scattered various old pics through this blog that might have also gone onto flickr but didn't while I await an opportunity to dress up and sort out the wardrobe for Ireland.

He knows what he’s taking, but for Nikki, who occasionally goes butch, there are challenges – a potential petticoat parade through a supermarket as well as several days and evenings out, to include two new visitors to Ireland. It’ll be interesting, especially as I’m breaking my time in Dundalk with a week in Co. Mayo, walking and coastal visiting – Inishkea, if I’m lucky.

 

Now it’s May, so I’d better sign off and as I started with some modern classical, I’ll end with a modern classic, Four Strong Winds, played by John Tams and Barry Coope, who I saw three times between 2010 and 2017. Sadly, Barry Coope passed away not so long ago.

  Update 2nd May!!!

 I alluded to lifelong periods of depression above, but nowadays these are are just ripples in my consciousness rather than the stormy seas of my youth. The curious thing after publishing the original is that I suddenly remembered the antidepressent - tryptizol - I was treated with some 58 years ago and which I thought I had forgotten forever.

Following on from that, I also realised that I had done a few other things, so while this blog is open ...

  More books for the Folkestone LBQT bookstore: I found I had lots more books that might be of interest to those in the LGBT+ world, so another package was put together and taken in. It felt good to be contributing, given that I never go to Pride events (which seem to have now come to a stop in most places anyway). There was going to be one in Deal this summer and the local U3A was encouraging members to attend. I was tempted - I'll be at home then, but it's been cancelled for lack of cash. As for the books I took in, I can't remember them all - there were about 15, although they included Edward Ball's 'Peninusla of Lies' and Francis Wheen's 'Who Was Dr Charlotte Bach?' as well as Jayne County's 'Man Enough To Be A Woman'. And, since then,  I've yet another pile being assembled!

The books that haven't gone are few and far between. I had bought a copy of Patrick White's 'The Twyborn Affair' some years ago on abe books as my original had long gone. It was the first and, perhaps only, serious novel dealing with trans-identity that I read (I did indulge in some Ed Wood potboilers). I'm keeping my replacement.

My friend, Sue, mentioned Lisetta Carmi and her book  'Travestiti', a photobook of Tgirls in Genoa during the 60's and 70's. I was able to buy a modern reprint a while ago. I had bought Byron Newman's 'The Ultimate Angels' before, photoreportage of the transsexual world of Paris in the late70's/early 80's. Both are rare, the Carmi edition I have cannot be found through its ISBN, indicating the publisher may no longer exist and it is not for sale anywhere while the original is very expensive. I can only find one copy of the Newman book for sale.

 

 

These books represent an underworld that, although still in existence, has been surpassed by a general acceptance in western society of the trans phenomenon. Life may not be easy now, especially with the 'culture wars' of the last decade, but it is better than it was.

 

Other photobooks which cover the less commercial side of the trans existence include Barry Kay's 'The Other Women' portaying Melbourne trans people in the 70's and 'Men in Frocks' by Kris Kirk and Ed Heath (1984) which covers the wider cultural and performance aspects of gay/trans/drag in the UK. Amongst these are a couple of photobooks covering the work of Nan Goldin, in the US, which move into the darker world of drugs and HIV/Aids.

 

Enough of the books.

 

(Corrections for errors later) 

 

OK, I forgot ... I've covered trans photobooks for Italy, France, UK, Australia and the US is partially covered by Nan Goldin, but I also have 'Casa Susanna' to complete the US. (3 May update).

 

 Quick 4 May Update: listening to John Tams, unaccompanied solo on BBC Radio 3 'In Tune' singing 'Only Remembered' from Warhorse, more to come.

 

May 6 Update: at this rate I should be writing a new blog!  Monday was spent removing all imagery from the microsoft cloud. Why? Well, sometimes I'm not online and I want to do stuff, like delete unwanted pics. If they're in the cloud as well, the laptop refuses me! What amazed me was how much was in the cloud, all unbidden by me: over 90Gb! Since my laptop only runs with about 12Gb free space, that meant that d'loading onto an XHD for later inspection was a long drawn out process. It's now down, as are all my HEIC pix on the phone. They've been moved simply because whenever I want to transfer a photo from phone to laptop, all the photos seem to have to open up. I'm probably missing something there, but now I can control things myself (I think???) 

 

Anyway, for all these doings, I am pleased that I can now access photos going back to the '60's quickly. The photo below is from 1974, of a coke can floating in a public pond, considerably modified in GIMP.