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Kiwi
The tasting last night was Wines of New Zealand. Ingrid came along, which meant I had to reserve a bit of my attention for her as she's not a very good drinker and dominates the table after the fourth or fifth glass.
Walking home yesterday, and today, after a pleasant night at Kirsty's of shop-bought pizza en famille, (the wall of costly heat hitting me as soon as I entered even the vestibule), I was talking to myself about Mary-Ann: something like this.
What you said the other day about not being willing to live compromised has been going through my mind a great deal. I think the "lack of compromise", along with the idea of "being authentic", is a Romantic brew destined to ruin social life in the hope of discovering something magical beyond its boundaries and calling whatever results a "relationship". No doubt the idea of honesty appears prominently there too.
More practically: I sometimes feel a bit pressured into responding to you more quickly than is natural. I feel conscious of my class, in a way that I have rarely felt, since I'm normally completely at ease in both working- and middle-class codes. Some of my communication with you, apart from the sexual things, feels a bit mannered. There's a lot I can't say to you. I censor myself a lot of the time when I reach to my phone or computer to email you. I can't talk to you as I do with my friends. I can't report my life as it is, I have to reflect upon it. It's all a bit studied.
I like our physical connection, but when we're apart, I think of you more as a woman I would like to love but can't, because I am thinking too much. There are many important areas of my life which I will never be able to share with you. Drinking, dancing, going out. I sometimes don't feel relaxed with you Mary-Ann. There's no such thing as "being yourself", but the self I present to you occasionally feels something of a performance.
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looby, n.; pl. loobies. A lout; an awkward, stupid, clownish person
M / 61 / Bristol, "the most beautiful, interesting and distinguished city in England" -- John Betjeman [1961, source eludes me].
"Looby is a left-wing intellectual who is obsessed with a) women's clothes and b) tits." -- Joy of Bex.
WLTM literate woman, 40-65. Must have nice tits, a PhD, and an mdma factory in the shed, although the first on its own will do in the short term.
There are plenty of bastards who drink moderately. Of course, I don't consider them to be people. They are not our comrades.
Sergei Korovin, quoted in Pavel Krusanov, The Blue Book of the Alcoholic
I am here to change my life. I am here to force myself to change my life.
Chinese man I met during Freshers Week at Lancaster University, 2008
The more democratised art becomes, the more we recognise in it our own mediocrity.
James Meek
Tell me, why is it that even when we are enjoying music, for instance, or a beautiful evening, or a conversation in agreeable company, it all seems no more than a hint of some infinite felicity existing apart somewhere, rather than actual happiness – such, I mean, as we ourselves can really possess?
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon.
Jeremy Wagner
La vie poetique has its pleasures, and readings--ideally a long way from home--are one of them. I can pretend to be George Szirtes.
George Szirtes
Using words well is a social virtue. Use 'fortuitous' once more to
mean 'fortunate' and you move an English word another step towards
the dustbin. If your mistake took hold, no-one who valued clarity
would be able to use the word again.
John Whale
One good thing about being a Marxist is that you don't have to pretend to like work.
Terry Eagleton, What Is A Novel?, Lancaster University, 1 Feb 2010
The working man is a fucking loser.
Mick, The Golden Lion, Lancaster, 21 Mar 2011
Rummage in my drawers
The Comfort of Strangers
23.1.16: Big clearout of the defunct and dormant and dull
16.1.19: Further pruning
If your comment box looks like this, I'm afraid I sometimes can't be bothered with all that palarver just to leave a comment.
63 mago
Another Angry Voice
the asshat lounge
Clutter From The Gutter
Crinklybee Defunct
Exile on Pain Street
Fat Man On A Keyboard
gairnet provides: press of blll
George Szirtes ditto
Infomaniac [NSFW]
Laudator Temporis Acti
Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder
On The Rocks
The Most Difficult Thing Ever nothing since April
Quillette
Strange Flowers
Wonky Words
"Just sit still and listen" - woman to teenage girl at Elliott Carter weekend, London 2006
5:4Bristol New Music
Desiring Progress Collection of links only
NewMusicBox
Purposeful Listening (né The Rambler)
Resonance FM
Sequenza 21
Sound and Music
Talking Musicology defunct, but retained
