Last Post...

This morning was the ninth, and problaby last drawing expedition of the year (sixty-three drawings, wonder what I could charge apiece...Given the fact that I can only afford 9 days a year, quite a lot, methinks).

Today, fittingly, was not a' finding' day  but a 'searching' day. "Ich erfinde nicht, ich suche" (I prefer to quote Picasso in german, I believe he would dislike that). Maybe I'll have it carved on my grave stone: "Er erfand nicht. Er hat gesucht."

Waning gibbous moon in the north-western sky. The highest tide I have seen in a long time, the incoming water reaching up to 30 cm below the jetty.
Even with the moon glittering in the flooding river, the rushing reeds, and geese flying here and there, I wasn't exactly in the mood for composing haiku, for once again I had forgotten my folding chair. Dis pros ton auton lithon proskrouein. Even mules don't do that.
In the north I faintly made out the silhouette of a ship against the myriad of twinkling lights of the portuary Kublai Khan Pleasure Dome. So I had to wait to unpack and start work, until the ship had well passed. As explained before, the wake of a fast ship can send a triple wave over the jetty at high tide (my chair would have afforded some protection). The 'Marie Theresa' hurried past, but the ensuing waves did not reach over the jetty. Just.
I still couldn't sit on the edge, as I'd have had my feet dangling well into the water. So I waited for some more ships to pass, and the tide to turn. In the south, a thin veil of cloud cover turned a pink hue of red by the rising sun, warning the early risers in the city of unsettled weather to come.

Talking of weather, it is quite impossible to find a good weather report on t' internet. None of the 364.125.254 sites seriously predict local weather in the early hours of the morning. "Chief?" - "Yes, job student?" - "Chief, what do I write in the forecast for the hours between 3 and 6 AM?" - "Oh, just write 'MIST', as usual. Noone will notice anyway..."
Am I the only one to find that the whole bloody internet is all bragging hot air, loads and loads of promise, and very, very little delivery? Recently, while researching the publications of the very excellent Alex Kerr, I stumbled across a chat room discussing his latest work ('Dogs and Demons'). I tell you, chat rooms are an ugly thing, an outlet for all the basest human instincts. In fact, the one basic feature of the internet is its universal ugliness, in content and in form. I propose we scrap it altogether.

Suggestions for further reading: this summer, I read (amongst others, and in that order) Lettres aux années de nostalgie, by Oe Kenzaburo, Alex Kerr's Lost Japan, and then Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows. I'd read all of these masterpieces before, but never in this wonderfully logical order.
Later....

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