Hackleys

Part 1

Sometimes we need to stop. And take a breath. And clear our heads. Completely. (Is that possible anymore?) This week has been one of those times.

Last week, I was on holiday in Crete. At the tail end of a holiday, when home and work start poking at me through the membrane of relaxation, I begin to plan for my trip back to earth. I feel fresh, rejuvenated. Opportunities for change offer themselves up, like a handful of tiny new years, waiting for my better self to grab hold and pull.

I came back to work Wednesday and immediately hit a wall. No new projects, no movement on current project. I’ve spent a good part of the past couple of days fiddling around with this site. I have other things to do, but they’re being put off and put off.

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I haven’t made work for myself for about two years. I am sore about this, and scared too to try and make inroads. Scared I won’t feel anything for the arts that i used to love.

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Having children is tiring. You give yourself, with pleasure, and you get back big time. But you lose too…that old, selfish self that could do anything, anytime, is now seriously impeded. That’s some reality, and a danger too. My daughter can’t have all of me, or there will be nothing left to surprise her with later on.

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I read my first book for a long time while in Crete. It was Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell. I took proper books in my luggage – Steinbeck, Hemingway and Fitzgerald – but opted instead to choose from a stack of tat in our villa. It was great, I ploughed through it. I laughed at first – the writing’s ridiculous. Then I settled in, and enjoyed myself, not feeling guilty at all. I’m reading some Hemingway now, and writing this. Thanks Patricia.

This is Iowa

I watched Field of Dreams for the first time in a long time this evening. I’ve been wanting to watch it for a couple of months and I’m pretty sure they only just released it on iTunes to rent as it wasn’t there the last time I checked.

I love the film. It pretty much ticks all the boxes and does well to stay on the right side of a wheel of sweating brie. I think “if you build it, he will come” is a pretty strong message. Not taken literally, of course. While hitting a deep fly ball from our back porch would likely involve breaking a shop window down the street, thinking about “if you build it he will come” in other less literal ways could still be useful.

Once again, at the local residents and traders social tonight, I found myself in a conversation revolving around the belief in making quality things and allowing interest in them to build slowly, but steadily. Watching Field of Dreams underlined that conversation and at this point in time I think it is the best thing I can remind myself of every day and a good way to stave off bitterness / laziness / low self-confidence. If you build it with quality, people will respond with quality.

The other great message of the film is that heaven can be where we are – in Ray Kinsella’s case, Iowa. It is not always necessarily waiting for us in the future, but can exist in our present. As St. Catherine said “all the way to heaven is heaven.”

Upper Big Branch

I have been following the story of the Upper Big Branch mine explosion pretty loosely, and with an emotional response rather than factual interest. For as long as I can remember mines have fascinated and frightened me. It may be due to a made-for-TV film I saw when I was young called Haunters of the Deep. Or it may just be down to the fact that, like most people, the thought of working thousands of feet underground in the dark and claustrophobic spaces of a mine sounds terrifying. And then there’s the black lung, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and all the other respiratory diseases that come with the job. Plus the notoriously low pay for those willing to put up with all the negatives already stacked high against them. All in all, it paints a picture of a pretty grim profession, for low financial return.

When I started to listen to Appalachian old-time music I came across a number of mining songs, prevalent as they are in the coal belt of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. Miners, and their plight, have been immortalised in song since early Appalachians (and diggers across the world) first struck coal and the legend of the mine and the strange, soot-covered men that risked their lives in the deep took on a whole new dimension for me. The miner is a labouring man, taking his place next to train drivers, farmers, steel workers and sailors as part of a particular folklore and legend. Miners lives have been immortalised in songs and stories of tragedy, heroism, love and hatred. Blackleg Miner, a British folk song is about hatred towards strikebreakers and the miners who continued to work throughout an industrial action. Coal Miner’s Daughter is a sentimental description of life in a poor mining family, Sixteen Tons is about the mining company (company store), and the power it wields over every aspect in the life of the miner. And there are countless songs about mining disasters and trapped miners, which are about camaraderie and the brotherhood of miners.

Anyway, as I have read about the Upper Big Branch disaster, many of these songs came to mind and I decided to compile them together as a nod to those who were killed deep in the ground and the families they left behind. This is by no means a representative selection of mining songs. It is simply every song about mining I can remember I own. Not all the songs are even specifically about mining. Swannanoa Tunnel is about digging a tunnel and The Recruiting Collier is about a miner press-ganged into service in the army. But you’ll get the idea. And finally, it seems poignant to me that the bodies of 29 miners will be pulled from the ground in West Virginia only to be buried again as this seems to sum up what is so evocative about a mining disaster, and mining in general: a human life spent underground, and eternity spent the same way.

Coal Miner’s Blues

Mediafire download: Coal Miner’s Blues

Sell your old machine

Boll Weevil by Shocking Blue is a song I wish would play on those odd occasions during a night out that I decide to get up and dance. And don’t we all love the Kinks? All of me does.

Anyhow.It has rained and been cold most of the day, but now I roll back the blind here at Chesapeake and the round and bright orb above has decided to grace us with some rays, which is lovely. Easter starts today and there is no one around. I had to let the painters into the office building today. The head painter Nick just popped his head around the door to say he was leaving. I asked if I was the only one left in the building, because the thought of being alone made me feel a little funny, and he said yes and smiled a dirty smile as if he thought I was asking for some other weird reason. It made me feel uncomfortable, at the very least.

Frea and I exchanged contracts on a house yesterday, which given the nightmare we’ve had trying to secure everything in time was a massive relief but I found that the relief only lasted about 10 seconds before the full force of the decision hit me and I realised we will probably be poor for the next 5 years! No, not really, but it certainly does seem to carry a helluva lot of responsibility. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would say I was a 6 on the “Do I feel confident in this situation?” scale. Right now, with regards to writing this post, I am an 8 on that scale. Perhaps that makes some sense to some of you. One thing I really can’t wait to do is make a start decorating the house in July. Because I hope it will be sunny and warm, and we can enjoy slapping paint on the walls with the windows open and the volume cranked.

I met with a friend of a friend today (Ted) who plans to cycle 10,000 miles around the Mediterranean next year. Wow, yeah sure. Pretty great. He’s interested in conflict resolution, and how it is represented in our visual culture. He thinks that visually we tend to focus on conflict (Robert Capa) rather than resolution (can’t think of an example of a photographer – kind of the point). I was thinking about what he was saying. Obviously, we like the end result if it represents a positive, sellable change (such as a before and after weight loss solution photo) but if it’s just human lives returning to order after a great trauma, it doesn’t seem so compelling. It makes a nice human interest story, but not a great photo shoot. Certainly not to us in the West, who expect health and happiness to pretty much exist as a given in our daily lives. But then perhaps the extension of this thought, is that there are in fact MANY people who are concerned with the happy (or certainly non-conflict) present such as photographers who shoot mundane objects, or poets who write about our day-to-day existence. Is this a celebration of conflict resolution? Perhaps lives without conflict are an ongoing testament to conflict resolution? Ted used an analogy with health and illness but I can’t remember what it was, which is annoying because it was a good one. Something like: you can’t understand peace just by looking at war, just like you can’t comprehend health by dwelling on sickness. Perhaps.