Mountain*7 - for the person with nothing better to do

Sinclair at the Olympic site

Iain Sinclair shows the Today programme round parts of the new Olympic site - with an accompanying slide show

See also his piece on the subject in the LRB from a few weeks ago

Posted by poacher in place, nature, landscape at 09:08 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The Quadrant (photograph courtesy of Doilum)

A cracking Flickr set from in and around the River Wandle in South London.

Posted by poacher in photography at 21:17 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

When we started this place back in 2006 (yes, it's been around a while, but this happened), my good lady was a few days away from giving birth to our first hollering banshee. The events are a mix of the vague and the glass-shard clear: the timeless horror of the hospital; the gently bearded midwife - a remarkable woman in a building of remarkable women; the precision of the anaesthetist who so phlegmatically injected the welcome pain relief into the epidural space in L's spine, and the intense, eerie calm that followed as she fell into a blessed sleep whilst her body continued to toil; the look that passed between the surgeon and the registrar just before something gave and they lifted the boy out, lifted him clear - and so huge, so huge in the way he dragged gravity towards him, bent light: so huge that all sense of scale fell away; the purpled cone of his head where he'd been trying to work his way out, pushed by some unseen force; thinking then as she said hello to him, just that, 'hello', that despite it all she'd never been so uncontainable and so vividly beautiful; then afterwards suddenly outside, leaning against cold railings and the enormity of everything rising up - some great joining of body and mental consciousness so strong I thought I might rip apart. And what I remember so strongly is thinking: this has happened 6 or 8 times in the two days we've been here, is happening everywhere. Entirely monumental, entirely ordinary.

So now we're here again. So things may be a little quiet round here for a bit. They may not

Posted by poacher at 16:53 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

I want to be
Like the man who descends
At two milk churns
With a bulging
String bag and vanishes
Where the lane turns,
Or the man
Who drops at night
From a moving train
And strikes out over the fields
Where fireflies glow
Not knowing a word for the language.
Either way, I am
Through with history -
Who lives by the sword
Dies by the sword.
Last of the fire kings, I shall
Break with tradition and
Die by my own hand
Rather than perpetuate
The barbarous cycle.
Five years I have reigned
During which time
I have lain awake each night
And prowled by day
In the sacred grove
For fear of the usurper,
Perfecting my cold dream
Of a place out of time,
A palace of porcelain
Where the frugivorous
Inheritors recline
In their rich fabrics
Far from the sea.
But the fire-loving
People, rightly perhaps,
Will not countenance this,
Demanding that I inhabit,
Like them, a world of
Sirens, bin-lids
And bricked-up windows -
Not to release them
From the ancient curse
But to die their creature and be thankful.

Posted by poacher in poetry at 10:55 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Posted by poacher in music videos at 09:44 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

A hip-hop record review. By someone who knows little of the genre. I purchased this last Christmas & it is still on heavy rotation. I have since bought this for a Poacher’s son.

Released in August 2007, this is the hip-hop album I had always been searching for.
Sprawled over two vinyl records, this is a long player that has considerable space to explore numerous styles & excels in doing so.

I won’t bore you with any artist biography - you can explore this yourself if necessary. But suffice to say this appears to be a project of Jneiro Jarel. But then I know little of this genre of music. But how cool is this record? This is up there with my Wu-Tang, Public Enemy, De La Soul & Jurassic 5.

This is U.S. hip hop that sounds contemporary & innovative, which at times reminds me of both west & east coast styles & even at times I hear U.K. hip hop influences. A record that looks forwards in terms of its innovation & looks to the past for its confidence. Craft Of The Lost Art is not a record of violence & coarse language: Is there any swearing on this record?

Released on the Lex Records label, formerly associated with the mighty Warp.
Now listening to this record I am reminded that this genre has so much more than what I am fed by the media. I must continue to seek out rewarding & meaningful hip-hop such as this record. Craft Of The Lost Art just so happens to keep it real.

You can hear some tracks at their MySpace page

Posted by dragon chaser in music reviews at 13:25 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Some stuff to read for the evening:

Simon over at Ballardian on the putative link between Dubstep (in the guise of Kode9) and Ballard. Great piece.

The Guardian on the discovery of Kafka's writing papers

Posted by poacher in books articles at 17:14 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)