Feeding Nicely

The butterfly is still going well. Here it is feeding nicely.

As mentioned before, I give it a solution of honey and sugar in water, on a tissue. It's not a flower but the butterfly seems to like it!

The butterfly is still considering being released into the wild but we were waiting until the weather got warmer. Yesterday there was a lot of snow, so I'm quite glad we're still waiting. Both quite glad, I would think!

Big Pudding Project

It's a bit late for making Christmas Puddings...but I think it's best to do things rather than not. So they will have at least one month to mature before any eating happens. That's something!

What is alarming is how long it takes to make them.

I have finally gathered all the ingredients after about four days of scouring the streets of London for currants (they don't have them on the streets, you have to look in shops - maybe that's why it took so long?) and have the bowls etc. Now I have read the recipe. I thought I could have them finished by tomorrow night but the mixture has to rest for two days before it can be cooked.

Do you think that's long? Every aspect of this recipe requires great patience. Here are some further figures:

Cooking time: Eight hours!

Heating time: yes, HEATING, how long it takes just to get them hot when you want to eat them - two and a half hours!!

Preparation time, as it says in the book: "two hours, to be done one to five years in advance"

I didn't put a "!" at the end of the last sentence. I think you probably put your own one in there...

!!!

The recipe is from my excellent book, "The Roux Brothers on Patisserie". They say the recipe came from a "superb English cook" called Mrs. Bradbrook about 50 years ago. I don't know, there's something about the word "superb" there. Is it "superb" and "English"? Would a Frenchman normally use both in the same sentence? It certainly has some sort of unusual air about it.

Right so they should hopefully be done by Friday. I'm making four!

How to Cook Chicken

OK here's a cookery tip for you.

Chicken (if you eat it) is one of the most difficult things to cook because it easily gets into an upsettingly dry, tough, squeaky condition which nobody wants but many people don't know how to avoid.

Here is the secret.

OK assuming you have cut it into small pieces, and you are frying it in a frying pan, all you have to do is: leave it. Yes, you read me correctly. Do nothing!

The side of the chicken pieces that is in contact with the pan is the side that is cooking. Turning it over now will make it cook faster (two hot sides). If you have other ingredients to add, and often there are lots of things to add and not enough time, then you don't want the chicken to be cooked before you start the other bits. No you don't, because the chicken will be over-cooked then. So just leave it in its initial position. THEN, when everything is cooked right, and the plates are ready, etc, then and only then should you turn it over. This way, it will be ready when you want to eat it and not before.

Remember that hot food continues to cook while it's on the plate. So stop cooking the chicken just before it looks ready. This means, if you cut a piece or split one with the cooking implement, it should be, well, not exactly pink in the middle, but certainly not quite white yet ("cooked chicken colour"). Yes, stop BEFORE it is ready. Stop when it is NEARLY ready.

So when it is on the plate in front of your guest or customer (or you) it will be the right colour inside. Because it is hot, and is still cooking itself as you watch!

Does that make sense?

To summarise:
1. in the pan, leave the top side of the chicken raw until you are ready to go.
2. turn it over to complete the cooking but stop just before it is cooked all the way through.

Now please tell me it worked.

The Great Interpreters

People think they have to discover something about themselves that they then put into the music they play. They think they have to have something to say, or some special way of saying it.

Maybe they think that because they see "the great interpreters" playing and see that it's very distinctive. There is some unique character there that you would recognise immediately no matter what they were playing.

Now, a good player has learned how to play well - they were not always able to play as well as that, they had to learn - but the basic character you hear was always in them from the beginning.

So what does somebody do who thinks they are not one of the great interpreters? How can they improve?

As I said, one way people try to do it is by "putting themselves into the music". But is that really what Glenn Gould or Sviatoslav Richter were doing? It's obviously them playing, you know immediately with no doubt. And the uniqueness comes from them. But the reason for it is that that's the way the music flows through their system. It's not something they add, it's a live connection to the music direct. On a bad day, they would tell you they were not connected, but on a good day the difference is that there is less of "them" and more of the music.

So the answer is not to add more of yourself. That is adding more ego. What is important, you or what you are playing? What is more important, telling the audience something you already know or discovering something new? Showing your heart or just pretending?

If you don't feel you are great, don't worry because the great people weren't great either. They thought they were rubbish. I'm telling you.

If you think you are good, you are wrong. If you think you are bad, you are wrong too. The only answer is to keep looking. Even if it's going well, there is still more to find. And if it is going badly, that's an excellent sign because you know you have got somewhere to go.

How to get better? How to get great?

Don't try to add things. Take things away. The more you put in, the less of the composer we are hearing.

Can you control your beating heart and the allocation of hormones and adrenalin and blood and electric communications in your body? I don't think so. So don't interfere.

The little "I" is not much help. All it can do is be selfish, which gets it a few advantages but only in the short term. The big "I" is a genius and you find it by being interested in what is not you.

For example the music. You have the score - read it! Enjoy it! The composer had a special reason for writing it and that reason still exists but we have to discover it. He saw something special and important. Now you have to show people where to look to find it themselves. Point in the direction. Or even carry them there. It's all in the music. READ IT!

And you know if you get it right or wrong, and you know if you don't know enough, and you know what you have to practise. You are the one who learns to get better, nobody can tell you how to be good. But people will help you. Everybody knows something nobody else knows - that's why there's more than one person in the world. That's why we need you!

Don't try so hard, try LESS HARD! But try your best! Your improvement will depend on how hard you look for the answers. Plus, bear in mind that you already know all the answers....if you look....

Chain of Command

Godowsky was a genius. A self-taught genius - the only kind there is, of course.

He learned how to do anything at all on the piano, and invented some new things too. If you want to have a lesson with Godowsky, try playing any of his music. It has lots of fingerings and helpful comments written in, so it's very instructive as playing music by a great pianist always is. Of particular note are his Studies on the Etudes of Chopin, which, since they are more difficult than Chopin's originals, raise the standard of piano playing in a rather helpful way.

Heinrich Neuhaus was Godowsky's student. There was a great teacher for you. And he was a great player too, though he spent most of his time teaching. You can learn a lot from his book The Art of Piano Playing. What he says seems obvious though, so you have to keep coming back to the book over many years to appreciate its value.

Then Neuhaus had a student called Sviatoslav Richter. He was good too!

Each of these people had their own talent, but it was helped by meeting one of the others. Destiny somehow allows people to look after each other.

Godowsky set off one day to find out how to play the piano, and look what happened!

Richter wasn't really a teacher but look what he did for us. If you can't learn from any of that, there's a problem somewhere!

Thanks very much to those three men, then. Thank you!

Fear

The things you fear are like shadows in the half of the room that you don't want to see. Your half is not in shadow, because you have chosen to look at it. But what's in the other half?

There is a monster under the bed, and one in the wardrobe too. Dark things come out at night and we clothe them in our own fear.

But in the daylight we can see what is there.

The things we fear are everywhere because we don't want to look at them. So when there is darkness - under the bed, in the wardrobe, or somewhere else we are not sure about - our fears appear. Whenever you sense some unknown thing coming towards you (in space or in time), you shape it into the thing you are afraid of.

The only question is, what is really there?

I think the answer has to be, there is something there. Or, there appears to be something there. What though? It's our choice whether we look closely or not.

Let's think of a situation. General fears around this area (where I am now) are: being robbed, being attacked somehow, losing things, or fear of a general disaster (of whatever type is popular in the media at the moment). Let's take fear of non-specific attack or robbery. OK, so you are afraid of that happening. When it is dark you are more afraid. That may be reasonable because there are fewer people around in the dark. However, that's rather the product of the fear of the dark that we talked about before. If it's dark then you put something there. If you can't see what is there, you imagine what could be there.

As uncertainty increases, this hypothetical person we are talking about gets more afraid. He creates more threats as his knowledge decreases. We can see that fear of attack gets worse when we have less information: if it's dark; if the place is unfamiliar; if we are alone.

However! We can do better than that!

Let's forget about the BlockbusterAttackMode way out. This approach says that the more prepared I am for attack, the less I will be affected by it. Look at these people, they learn a million-and-one-ways of defending themselves, nine-and-a-half exotic martial arts, carry six guns, a knife, and a flamethrower. And that's just for looking out of the window! Are they less afraid? No, and I think they are becoming a bit of a threat themselves actually. Yes, they did get more prepared, that's sort of taking a step, but they did not solve the problem.

The only problem was the original fear, fear created by the darkness we mentioned at the beginning. Then we were talking about a real darkness (the one under the bed, for example), but it's really the same thing if it is physical or a kind of mental darkness which comes from the unknown.

So given that we are afraid of something, we can see the following. First, we are creating more threats wherever we are unsure about something. We talked of a fear of attack but it can really be anything. There are plenty of uncertainties so there are plenty of fears to choose from!

Have you noticed that now? Whenever there is uncertainty, you turn it into a threat. Yes, I agree, the accident could happen now, your job could disappear this week, that heart attack you've been expecting could have happened five minutes ago. But does it make sense to be on panic alert all the time? OK, statistically there is probably a chance of these things happening. Probably each of them happened to somebody in the world yesterday. But you are not a supercomputer. The human mind is very powerful (or capable of being) but you are not helping matters by using that power to imagine how badly things could go wrong. Getting a scratch that goes septic and you die - chances are 2,987,453 to one. A chance. Yes, every second. Even twice a second! All the same...I don't want to upset your reasoning process, but it may not be your day for misfortune. Sorry, it must just be bad luck, I guess.

First of all, you are seeing your fears when you cannot see clearly. You can solve that by: recognising what you are afraid of, and trying to be objective (learning to see other sides of a situation, not just the one you are used to seeing). Low Grade Panic Alert is rather a vague state so it helps to identify what the perceived threat is. What are you afraid of? Write it down. Ok I think it is slightly less frightening already. Slightly is a good start. Then by learning to "see through other eyes" you can see where you went wrong before. Illusion is the product of isolation. "I'm afraid of..." is already wrong because it starts with "I". You think you are separate and you have your own problems. But you must be connected to someone else in some way. You have seen another person before, right? Right, so you are not really alone. Then who is this "I"? It is the fearing part. The part that does not fear is called "We" or "Us". Learn about it.

Finding ways to attack a problem will never solve it. Because you are afraid of attack, you are always attacking. Don't fight, invite! Your hostility makes hostility outside you. If you welcome the world and its chances of...failure or...success, then you are shining a bit of light on your fear and you will have more chance of seeing what is really there.

What is really there? A few naughty people doing naughty things. But not all the time. They want things the easy way and can't be bothered to put much effort in. And accidents do happen, but not to everbody and not every day, and when they do we have to stop and think how we got into that situation and maybe learn how to avoid it next time. Health problems do occur but not every minute. A system under stress has to release the stress somehow, and the results can seem unpleasant. But symptoms that come out are the product of something called health. If you are worried about your health then you must know why you are worried. Is it something you are doing wrong? If it is then you can change it. Your body is the only one you have and looking after it will help you a lot. Your life is your life and can change this world for the better. Our world is our world, too, though we are supposed to look after it rather than drain it of goodness. These are all good things. The bad things exist but they are not everywhere. They may not even be bad! They are probably just "things" until you decide they are going to be bad.

We should be afraid. There is a lot to be afraid of. But it is not meant to freeze us in our steps before we have started the race. We are not meant to stop climbing before the first peak has come into view. Fear is allied with caution, respect, care, and guides experiment. Each of those ensures the harvest comes in safe next year. They may mean the ship gets into port safe and sound. The eggs all get back from market in one piece. But where do the plans come from? What makes experiment? Total caution would have zero result. Now I have a message for you. You are not the victim of a dice game, neither coldly and without intent, nor maliciously twisting the threads of your fate. You are not the victim. You have the power to imagine danger for a very good reason - because of the power to imagine. Why do you have that power? To stop? To shut the shop and sink the ship, to shatter and fail and founder and grind to a halt? Or to see in your mind's eye what lies behind the hill, what lives on the other side of the world, what breathes where there is no air and swims without water?

What crawls in the morning, stands upright at noon, and crawls again at evening? The answer is man, from baby to adult to old age, but we should rather ask: What asks riddles? Who invents the impossible? The answer is the mind of man but what that really means is something we are still learning. Don't expect to read about it in the newspaper. With these things, it's better to try and find out for yourself. Believe me.

Now you are brave again!

You only got to be brave by admitting that fear exists. Well done. Now do more!

Sincerely

Was this a useful letter to write?

Ian Henderson
Transport for London
PO Box 33
Ross-on-Wye
HR9 9WA

Dear Mr Henderson

RE: Maximum Cash Fare Charged, Sat. 20th January 2007

Thank you for your letter (undated) letting me know that I have been charged
the maximum cash fare for my travel on 20th January.

On 20th January the Northern Line was not operating from Warren Street
Station. When I found (at the entrance to the Northern Line platform) it was
not possible to continue my journey by Tube the ticket barrier supervisor
let me out of the station and told me what bus to get and where to get it. I
asked him if I would be charged for a journey I had not made, and he said,
"no". I believed him, though I noticed he said it rather quietly. Now I see
why.

Since I was acting according to instructions, I wish you would give me the
money back. If not, I will probably survive. I'll have to remember to pay
less attention to what the staff on the Underground are telling me, though. That
would be a bit sad, wouldn't it? Especially in an emergency.

Yours Sincerely
etc

Precise

Often, when I hear a pianist playing, on the radio or somewhere, I notice that they are trying very hard to make the notes absolutely even. Not exactly like a robot, but certainly not like something natural - because natural things, while they can be similar, always are a little bit different from each other. Don't they say no two snowflakes are the same?

I think this kind of playing is the result of a bit of a misunderstanding. You see, when people learn the piano they get the idea that to play evenly is a good thing. Certainly, to play unevenly can be a bad thing. But what I think is really wanted is the ability to play evenly. That means that it is good to be able to control the sound you are making. Since the hardest thing is to play absolutely evenly, everyone tries to do that. But then the problem is that when you get to play some actual music, it doesn't sound good that way. It sounds clean - but that's not good enough!

You see, music flows and moves in a natural way. The sea washes up the beach and on to the rocks but the tide isn't the same height each time. Wouldn't it be a bit weird if it were? Would it make sense if actors pro nounced ev e ry word abso lute ly even ly?

It's the same with music.

Believe It!

Instead of looking around desperately trying to think of something to take a picture of, I have lately been working on calming down and believing that I will find a picture if there is one to be had.

I was a bit disheartened because all I had were a few over-exposed squirrels not doing anything, so I sat under a tree to eat my bagel (bagel, smoked salmon, lemon juice, cracked black pepper, you can put butter on the bread or use olive oil). Then after that I looked up and what should I see? Exactly, it was something I thought looked interesting. It was the scene you can see above.

And you know another thing? I'm telling you (and myself) that we should all have faith that the right opportunities will come our way when we need them to. Seeing my picture was evidence of that. But the next thing I saw, it had got a bit darker, and there was the moon! A crescent moon right in front of me. I hadn't even moved my position.

You can see the moon more easily in a large size version of the picture. It's on the left, near the church. Of course, to the naked eye it appeared much bigger, because the eye is sort of the best camera ever and focuses and zooms without us realising it.

I hope you can see there is a lesson to learn from this, wherever and whenever you wish to apply it. Right?

Surf Rescue

Johann Weißmüller was born in Freidorf which at the time was in Austria-Hungary but is now near Timişoara in Romania. Very soon he moved with his family to America. He was a good swimmer and trained hard while he worked as a bell hop at the Plaza Hotel in Chicago. It all worked out very well when he won his first Olympic swimming title in 1924 (Paris). In all, throughout his career he won five Olympic Gold medals and one Bronze, and broke sixty-seven world records. He never lost a race.

And then he became Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle.

Johnny Weissmuller was the Tarzan I remember from the films. They were black and white, and had lots of interesting things happening. I remember the Elephants' Graveyard, trains of native bearers carrying the white man's luggage, Cheeta the chimpanzee, giant spiders and their deadly webs, and the strange fauna of the jungle. There was always a dinosaur somewhere in the jungle for some reason. It was a Dimetrodon, I seem to remember. And don't forget that Tarzan could speak to the animals too. "Ungawa!" meant something. "Simba!" meant something too. It is Swahili for Lion and he said it to lions so that makes sense.

Let's go back in time and find out something else.

When Johnny won his first Olympic medal, he beat someone. That person was called Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku and he came from Hawaii. When you hear the phrase "The Big Kahuna", you now know that it originally referred to him.

Duke (named after Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh) had set the world record that Johnny broke in 1922 (that was before they met at the Olympics). He won many medals himself, but is more famous as the inventor of modern surfing. He experimented with many improvements and alterations to surfboard design but his best-remembered board was the one he called his "papa nui". It was 16 feet long and weighed 114 pounds (4.8m, 52 kg). That was the board he was using on the day the big waves came, one of which would take him from surf zone to surf zone in the longest ride of his life. Let's hear him tell about it now.

But the day I caught 'The Big One' was a day when I was not thinking in terms of awing any tourists or kamaainas (old-timers) on Waikiki Beach. It was simply an early morning when mammoth ground swells were rolling in sporadically from the horizon, and I saw that no one was paddling out to try them. Frankly, they were the largest I'd ever seen. The yell of 'The surf is up!' was the understatement of the century.

In fact, it was that rare morning when the word was out that the big 'Bluebirds' were rolling in; this is the name for gigantic waves that sweep in from the horizon on extra-ordinary occasions. Sometimes years elapse with no evidence of them. They are spawned far out at sea and are the result of cataclysms of nature -- either great atmospheric disturbances or subterranean agitation like underwater earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The danger lay in the proneout or wipeout. Studying the waves made me wonder if any man's body could withstand the unbelievable force of a thirty- to fifty-foot wall of water when it crashes. And, too, could even a top swimmer like myself manage to battle the currents and explosive water that would necessarily accompany the aftermath of such a wave? Well, the answer seemed to be simply -- don't get wiped out!

From the shore you could see those high glassy ridges building up in the outer Diamond Head region. The Bluebirds were swarming across the bay in a solid line as far northwest as Honolulu Harbor. They were tall, steep and fast. The closer-in ones crumbled and showed their teeth with a fury that I had never seen before. I wondered if I could even push through the acres of white water to get to the outer area where the buildups were taking place.

...Bushed from the long fight to get seaward, I sat my board and watched the long humps of water peaking into ridges that marched like animated foothills. I let a slew of them lift and drop me with their silent, threatening glide. I could hardly believe that such perpendicular walls of water could be built up like that. The troughs between the swells had the depth of elevator shafts, and I wondered again what it would be like to be buried under tons of water when it curled and detonated. There was something eerie about watching the shimmering backs of the ridges as they passed me and rolled on toward Waikiki.

I let a lot of them careen by, wondering in my own heart if I was passing them up because of their unholy height, or whether I was really waiting for the big, right one. A man begins to doubt himself at a time like that. Then I was suddenly wheeling and turning to catch the towering blue ridge bearing toward me. I was prone and stroking hard at the water with my hands.

Strangely, it was more as though the wave had selected me, rather than I had chosen it. It seemed like a very personal and special wave -- the kind I had seen in my mind's eye during a night of tangled dreaming. There was no backing out on this one; the two of us had something to settle between us. The rioting breakers between me and shore no longer bugged me. There was just this one ridge and myself -- no more. Could I master it? I doubted it, but I was willing to die in the attempt to harness it.

Instinctively I got to my feet when the pitch, slant and speed seemed right. Left foot forward, knees slightly bent, I rode the board down the precipitous slope like a man tobogganing down a glacier. Sliding left along the watery monster's face, I didn't know I was at the beginning of a ride that would become a celebrated and memoried thing. All I knew was that I had come to grips with the tallest, bulkiest, fastest wave I had ever seen. I realized, too, more than ever, that to be trapped under its curling bulk would be the same as letting a factory cave in upon you.

This lethal avalanche of water swept shoreward swiftly and spookily. The board began hissing from the traction as the wave leaned forward with greater and more incredible speed and power. I shifted my weight, cut left at more of an angle and shot into the big Castle Surf which was building and adding to the wave I was on. Spray was spuming up wildly from my rails, and I had never before seen it spout up like that. I rode it for city-long blocks, the wind almost sucking the breath out of me. Diamond Head itself seemed to have come alive and was leaping in at me from the right.

Then I was slamming into Elk's Club Surf, still sliding left, and still fighting for balance, for position, for everything and anything that would keep me upright. The drumming of the water under the board had become a madman's tattoo. Elk's Surf rioted me along, high and steep, until I skidded and slanted through into Public Baths Surf. By then it amounted to three surfs combined into one; big, rumbling and exploding. I was not sure I could make it on this ever-steepening ridge. A curl broke to my right and almost engulfed me, so I swung even farther left, shuffled back a little on the board to keep from pearling (nose-diving).

Left it was; left and more left, with the board veeing a jet of water on both sides and making a snarl that told of speed and stress and thrust. The wind was tugging my hair with frantic hands. Then suddenly it looked as if I might, with more luck, make it into the back of Queen's Surf! The build-up had developed into something approximating what I had heard of tidal waves, and I wondered if it would ever flatten out at all. White water was pounding to my right, so I angled farther from it to avoid its wiping me out and burying me in the sudsy depths.

Borrowing on the Cunha Surf for all it was worth -- and it was worth several hundred yards -- I managed to manipulate the board into the now towering Queen's Surf. One mistake -- just one small one -- could well spill me into the maelstrom to my right. I teetered for some panic-ridden seconds, caught control again, and made it down on that last forward rush, sliding and bouncing through lunatic water. The breaker gave me all the tossing of a bucking bronco. Still luckily erect, I could see the people standing there on the beach, their hands shading their eyes against the sun, and watching me complete this crazy, unbelievable one-and-three-quarter-mile ride.

I made it into the shallows in one last surging flood. A little dazedly I wound up in hip-deep water, where I stepped off and pushed my board shoreward through the bubbly surf. That improbable ride gave me the sense of being an unlickable guy for the moment. I hoisted my board to my hip, locked both arms around it and lugged it up the beach.

Without looking at the people clustered around, I walked on, hearing them murmur fine, exciting things which I wanted to remember in days to come. I told myself this was the ride to end all rides. I grinned my thanks to those who stepped close and slapped me on the shoulders, and I smiled to those who told me this was the greatest. I trudged on and on, knowing this would be a shining memory for me that I could take out in years to come, and relive it in all its full glory. This had been it.

I never caught another wave anything like that one. And now with the birthdays piled up on my back, I know I never shall. But they cannot take that memory away from me. It is a golden one that I treasure, and I'm grateful that God gave it to me.

Duke appeared in 13 films in various parts, and in 1925 he used his surfboard to rescue eight men from a capsized fishing boat in heavy weather in Newport Beach, California.

It's nice to know that exciting things happen sometimes. Also that fun can be useful. Playing is not just a waste of time!

Boy

I like this one. By Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Local Colour

I have been wondering about the colour in my photographs. It often seems a bit pale, making me wonder what's going on here when I think of the vibrant colour you sometimes see in glossy panoramic travel photographs and the like. What is the cause of it, I am not sure but I'm confident I will get to the bottom of the situation. Nevertheless, I had a look at some highly thought-of colour photography just to see what the difference was between that and my deckchairs from yesterday (see below).

The colour deckchairs is a picture I like, speaking for myself. I suppose it reminds me of light-hearted seaside England a little bit, as well as being on the other hand part of my view of nature - a conflict between the natural world and what we use it for, more gently considered than cynical, I think. Now the weather was not able to decide what it was doing, alternately a sunny day breaking out of the dark chrysalis of night (as you might say) and the typical English approach that turns an August day a different colour by liberal applications of November rain showers. So in fact the in situ colour was not particularly bright, so in a way this is reflected in the colour you see in the picture. But the point is I am trying to understand how to control the colour: I am happy to have colour-feeling X, Y, or Z but would like to achieve it deliberately, thanks! (Apart from that we might be a little bit over-exposed in the sky at top left, also.)

The issue of controlling the image will become clear, I am sure (I already know you can't fully control anything! That's what makes good pictures a surprise - though you should be able to have technical facility and preparation just as with any artistic endeavour - thinking of the piano here, for one). Whatever is causing whatever-it-is, it will be possible to find out about it, like with anything. Now let's look at what I felt was missing - deep, vibrant colour.

I already know that things that on the surface are rather alluring are not always of much interest once you start thinking about them (all that glisters is not gold, as the saying goes). Again, think of the piano: it's easy to get a particular sound that people love (there are several styles) and keep going for it, but what happens to the music? What music, I'm an artist, comes the answer. So in other words let's not be too worried about making beautiful photographs that are widely admired, and try to show the beauty that already exists in the world rather than adding a more instantly attractive coating.

Let's have a look at a colourful picture. Steve McCurry is a photographer well-known for his use of colour. Here is one of his pictures:



You can see more at the website.

Well there is colour here and it is deep and attractive! And we can look at lots of similar pictures with more or less colour in and have a similar feeling about them. I notice from the website that the pictures they show are from all over the world - well, when I say all over, I mean of course all over except for where "we" live. That means where Steve McCurry lives, and I presume that is North America. The pictures will be consumed by "the West" and will largely be images of things that are outside that. I mean, this is not so bad. Photographs are only worthwhile if they show something nobody has seen before, so that makes sense. Look at his biography too - this is a serious person! My feeling about the colour is that it is telling us that the world outside the cities of the West has something we lack: mystery, the famous exotic magic of far-away places that people have been getting so excited about for so long. Where there is colour, there is life, and city life lacks something that we are trying to find when we say "wow" on seeing one of these pictures. They all have an internal consistency of image, too - the colour is deep and lets deeper levels of association catch on the film grains and their prints. They are good pictures. But basically I felt that colour is here too, that "over there" in India or wherever, the local people do not find their lives so strange or exotic, and that while the strong-coloured pictures will inevitably draw the attention more and sell the photobooks, we shouldn't be distracted by all that. It's bright, alright, but it's not the only kind of life an image can have.

What I think is this: we could go to Afghanistan or on a similar adventure, but we shouldn't forget that it is not the same level of adventure for the people who already live there. Is that to say that it is not really interesting in foreign places? Maybe - most places are mostly the same as each other except for some superficial differences. But on the other hand, there really could be the same level of adventure here as there. It's not less exciting over there, it's more exciting over here! We should be making travel pictures of our own street.

With their own appropriate level of colour of course!

Anyway, colour is good and I'm glad to see some for once. I don't see a lot round here!

NOTE: now I know the sky was simply overexposed! The eye can adjust to wide differences in contrast (bright to dark) but the camera has a more limited range. (November 06)

A Lot On Your Mind

Some people have a lot to think about. They have problems.

One person writes from Germany that her friends and some of her family are stuck in Lebanon, with no access to the outside. The only things coming in are missiles. She says her friend has put up a blog - you can see it here. I don't know if it helps, but it is there, so you can see what it is. (I didn't like it the first time but it made more sense when I looked again.)

That sort of anxiety, the kind that comes from having bits of your city explode all night, is a higher level than most of us are used to. Fear of imminent and unpredictable death is very exacting. I cannot deny that they have a lot on their minds.

Coincidentally, another person writes from Germany to say that she has problems. The future is uncertain, and she can't sleep at night. She has a lot on her mind. But at least she is not in a war situation.

People need help but what help can we give?

And you cannot help them because you too have a lot on your mind.

---

When someone says they are afraid because the future is uncertain, that seems OK to me. I mean the second part is OK: that the future is uncertain. I agree, it is.

What you see coming towards you out of the shadows is unknown. That is more or less given. But to be afraid of this, while understandable, is...not helpful. I am glad that the future is not a given, because that way it can throw anything at me that it wants to. If I could control it totally it would not be as interesting. Even my imagination is not enough for that.

There is uncertainty, but of that one thing at least we can be certain. It isn't a joke! It just shows you that you have nothing to worry about - you KNOW that something surprising is going to happen, sometime. And once you get your life under control you can start to plan things, so it is not a total gamble.

There is still a risk, though! But chance enough that you might win.

----

And in Java they have problems too. Also see my list.

----

So, as you can see, many people need help. In many different ways.

But I think you can see that your problems are not as bad as you thought.

Except they sort of are, because if there is a big problem somewhere in the world then it is our problem. Yet, problems are not as bad as you think. If there were never any problem then nothing would ever improve. Do you see?

The future is never certain, even when we have reached it. That is worth remembering too.

The past? We forgot it. If we remember it, we may have got it wrong but not know.

We only have now. It's a good now. I wonder where it will go next?

Reader Response Reply

Andrew writes in a comment to "Teaching and Learning":

This is very wise and true. But if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, what should you do? Can you (ie. Philip) make enough money from doing what you really want to do, and if you can't, what else do you do to earn it?

3:33 PM GMT+01:0

Hi Andrew, thanks for asking! Although your question is rather penetrating as it involves interrogating me about my finances! :)

There is (as usual) more than one way of looking at this.

1) If I can't make money out of my chosen job, is it really useful to people? People pay for useful things...(of course they pay for useless things too!)

2) Creativity and imagination are very important in helping you find a good job. For example, if I say I want to be an acrobat, then that's fine. I could be a) mad or b) a talented acrobat. OK let's say I am a good acrobat. I could stop there and say, oh, but there is no work for acrobats, so I have to do something else. Or somehow my imagination and creativity could help me see a way to make it work.

Saying

you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do

...means just that so far you haven't made money from it. Or that you have decided it is not possible and stopped trying - perhaps even before you started!

Now, it is also true that some jobs are not very lucrative. Perhaps they are not useful? But if someone has a helpful talent and they have developed it then there must be a place for it in the world. And you know you are doing the right thing when it makes you feel happy.

So, how to get your dream job: dream it, define your goals, train for it, discover who wants you to do it, aim at them, get money. (Very simple, eh?)

3) OR you can say, look, I love doing this thing, so I'm just going to do it, and not try to get any money from it. But you will have to get money from something, and the other thing you do to survive on needs to be something you enjoy as well...so it is a similar situation.

We all had dreams once, but school often teaches us that we are not good enough to do anything, that we have to make the best of what we have, and living in Britain often teaches us that everything is awful and grey and nobody wants you! (AAArggh!)

Not a pretty picture. And if it is not pretty, leave it! Paint your own!

It might be very daunting to imagine leaving your present path to find a more fun one. You have to be brave. But it will be more colourful and lively! I recommend it.

Myself, I know that everyone has talent. I also know that it could turn to genius with enough commitment. Anyway, regardless of that, we're just looking at talent here, skills, aptitudes, abilities. We all have skills - if there were really people without any skills it would be STUPID. I can't believe it's possible. Perhaps that is more a philosophical-type question - here we are just talking about the people reading this now. Hopefully some skills to be had among them...

If something is valuable then it is needed, somewhere. If I thought I had no value then I would admit it and either live in a hole in the ground eating stones or try to get more useful fast.

It is easier, at the time of writing, for me to make money as a pianist than as a composer because people recognise e.g. a Beethoven sonata or a Xenakis piece. They do not know what a piece by me is like (since I generally do not know either!) so it is harder to get them to "buy" it. It takes a bit longer to develop as a composer so I am not expecting to earn millions out of that yet! If I never get money for composing that's OK (actually I already did get a bit) because I will still get paid to use my skills. But I have not finished yet so it is possibly not the end of the story for me as a composer...

I recognise where there is a demand, and that plays some part in the way I direct myself. Somehow I can think of marketing potential yet still stick to my own interests. Odd. Strangely though, anyone can reproduce existing success, but something really distinctive is rather more memorable, and that's what I am going for. It is me, my personality, doing the things I am interested in. Even if I play a piece by Chopin, I know that it is potentially popular (people have done it many times before) but I also know that I am meant to play it (if I decide to) and that my way is different from the other ways. So that's what makes me think there could be some demand.

The other point is about "making enough money". What is enough? Perhaps some lifestyles have very high costs. It could be nicer to sell the 35 sports cars and grow apples instead. If you see what I mean. Doesn't mean you have to set lower standards. But it is worth thinking about.

And if you can't make enough money yet at your chosen thing, it's OK to try other things for now. You need to eat. But, one step at a time, you are learning how to make some money being you. It might not be ultra-profitable, but you will have enough.

Being rich is easy anyway (I'm not telling you how to do it!) although it is not very nice sometimes.

To answer the question, if you can't make enough money from doing what you really want to do, you should

Admit it.
or
Do something else.
or
Try harder.

Even to pick something a bit more common like banker, solicitor, etc., they all require training and so on, so success would not be instant. To get a good job you need to be good though. That's probably the key.

Thanks!

Teaching and Learning

People often ask me, "So what are you doing now, teaching?", and the answer is always no. I never have done any teaching. It seemed to me that many college-leavers who teach do it because they have to do something to make money and not particularly because they have a calling to be teachers. Of course, I think it's fine to do a bit of teaching to see what it's like, if you haven't thought about it. It's difficult! Also, people who want to become teachers will have to learn how to teach, and I suppose a good way to do that is to start practising.

But the idea of teaching instead of doing what you really want to do is not very appealing to me. Or you, I hope!

So, who is a teacher? Someone who can help.

Someone who can help a bit is a bit of a teacher. Someone who can help a lot is a better teacher. Someone who can guide you and help you find your way home is truly a teacher. I said find your way home because I feel that while learning is partly about gathering new techniques and bits of information (like a jigsaw puzzle), the important part of learning is finding out how to be really creative in the way that only you can be. All of that was always in you, as a potential, and somehow you have to find it. When you find it, it is not something new. It is you, the real you. (After that, perhaps you can make something new...)

Anyway, that is your genius. A real teacher knows that you have it, even though you may doubt this, and may even laugh if you hear about it.

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him.

He who knows not, and knows that he knows not is simple. Teach him.

He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep. Wake him.

He who knows, and knows that he knows is wise. Follow him.

(Persian proverb, translated by Richard Francis Burton)

Nocturnal Activities

The night is very useful for concentration. All the distractions have gone to sleep with the sun, leaving us free to consider and toil. Daytime toil is hard work, but night-time endeavours are of a different sort. Think of sewing on buttons, mending socks, all the quiet labours of the nocturnal home.

You could also practise the piano.

Last night I found that the hours up to and after midnight were ideal for getting familiar with the many difficulties of Judith Weir's An Mein Klavier. When I say 'many' I mean it in the fullest sense of the word!

Now I have to go and do it again! Because it must be the best it can be for tomorrow's concert.

Thievery

I've been reading about Stradivarius violins.

They are famous for their sound, but I suppose they are more famous for their value. Of course they have a musical value as great instruments, but because of this they also have a monetary value.

There are up to about 700 Strads around in the world today.

First I read about one of the instruments David Oistrakh (1908-1974) played. He had others but this one is referred to as the "Oistrakh". It was made in 1671.

What did I read next? "Stolen in 1996 and still missing".

Yes, it was stolen and has not come to light.

Read on.

Le Maurien (1714) - stolen in 2002, still missing
Lipinski (1715) - missing since 1962
Colossus (1716) - stolen in 1998, still missing
Davidov-Morini (1727) - stolen in 1995, still missing
Herkules (1732) - this belonged to Ysaÿe, was stolen in 1908 and is still missing
The Ames (1734) and Lamoureux (1735) are still missing

Some thieves know how to steal but do not know how to look after what they steal. Sometimes things go wrong. Other types of accidents can happen too.

Can you believe that very valuable objects can be sold to private collectors, regardless of where they came from, and can be kept hidden?

That's another possibility.

I'm sorry to say that all kinds of things go on in the world, and some of them are not nice.

I'm not just talking about "owners" of stolen property. There are other kinds of illegal hobbies, I would imagine.

There are people alive today who are not nice people. We do not know them, I'm glad to say.

Some people are selfish. And some people are very selfish indeed.

How silly to take things for yourself. Does a fish try to keep its own private water, does an eagle breathe only its own private air? No, they are each free to travel where they can. They share it with many others.

Everything we have on this earth is for us. Not mine, not yours. We can't keep it, we can't just do what we like with it, we don't own it, we have to take care of it all. But it is for us. All of us! Together.

So when you take something and hide it for yourself, you are taking it from...yourself.

It was yours anyway! But you took it and concealed it. And then you couldn't share it with anyone, and that was no fun.

A bit sad.

But we don't have to be sad if we share!

You see? The violins can come out of their cupboards, and be heard. And then we can all hear them, and they will be ours again. Because a human made them. A human just like us. He made them from wood, which was living just like we are now. All part of our world, all knitted together like old clothes. Our world.

Not "me" and "them".

We, us!