Jean Paul Sartre is sitting on a café going through the notes for his work: ‘Being and Nothingness’. A waiter comes over to take his order and Sartre asks for “a black coffee, no cream” to which the waiter replies: “I’m afraid we don’t have any cream, would monsieur like it with no milk instead?”
“An Englishman will burn his bed to catch a flea”
Turkish proverb
“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world”
Arthur Schopenhauer
Those of you who’ve followed my blog for a while might be wondering what’s happened to the stone of the day collected pages, these having made regular appearances until a few months ago. Well wonder no more, here’s the first of several catch up pages of them.
I’d like to say that there have been less images of stones lately because there was so much else to photograph. Indeed there is some truth to this, Brighton has been jumping with activity this summer and I’ve found myself quite carried away with so many collisions between the everyday and the picaresque. But I confess, the main reason is because it’s harder to search for interesting pebbles when the beach is covered in people. They get in the way. Some days I could hardly see the shingle for bodies.
Also, combing the beach slowly and attentively, especially if you haven’t got a metal detector, can get you labelled as a weirdo, particularly since your audience consists of people wearing next to nothing. Indeed I suspect it’s far more dangerous to hang around bathers while carrying a camera, than creeping up on policemen, drunks and scallywags; something I’ve developed a bit of a penchant for.
And of course it’s harder to run away on pebbles.
Janus, the Roman god of borders and thresholds, is traditionally represented as having two faces, each looking in the opposite direction. He is also the god of doors.
“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”
W. Somerset Maugham
Every year one of the main political parties holds its conference in Brighton. This autumn it’s the turn of the Labour party. Regardless of political affiliation, these events are an unparalleled opportunity to observe men of all ranks, from ministers to media hounds, wearing suits and striding purposefully along the promenade.
And I know that in the minds of every last one of them lurks that spectre, the cameraman’s hunger and the politician’s dread, of Neil Kinnock’s upset with the sea on that cold September afternoon of 1983. This might explain why, ever since then, you don’t see any of them any closer to the waves than the cafés on the lower path.
Mind mind brother how you walk on the cross
Your feet may slip and your soul get lost
This old ark is moverin’ moverin’ moverin’
Old ark’s a moverin’ I’m going home
The old ark she reel, the old ark she rock
The old ark’s a moving on the mountain top
The old ark a moverin’ moverin’ moverin’
Old ark a moverin’ I’m going home
The old ark a moverin’ moverin’ moverin’
Old ark a moverin’ I’m going home
You see them brother, dress so fine
They aint got Jesus on their mind
This old ark’s a moverin’ moverin’ moverin’
Old ark’s a moverin’ I’m going home
As sung by Bessie Jones, recorded by Alan Lomax, 10/12/1961
Here’s the recording:
http://research.culturalequity.org/rc-b2/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=23462
“Platonic dialectics of large and small do not suffice for us to become cognizant of the dynamic virtues of miniature thinking. One must go beyond logic in order to experience what is large in what is small.”
Gaston Bachelard, ‘The Poetics of Space’
“There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
Flannery O’Connor
Umbrellage 