Ice sculptures on the retina

I just read Zhisou's excellent latest post, a series of interconnected musings which I would recommend you have a look at (hope you don't mind me linking to it, Z).

One of the themes he touches upon is that of staring at the sun despite/because/regardless of the dangers involved: this triggered a memory for me, albeit only tangentially related to the aforementioned (aforelinked?) post.

Years ago I did numerous photography courses and projects, during my art college days. I loved photography, both the creative and technical aspects of it: generally speaking I was as happy spending hours in the darkroom as I was being out and about armed with camera and rolls of film (this was, of course, in the days before digital photography).

Often there'd be two or three of us crammed into a relatively small darkroom space - either because we were collaborating on a project, because no other darkrooms were available, or because we were just dossing about for the sake of it. On one such occasion, my self and two fellow students had just wrapped up an hour or two of developing photographs, and were about to switch the main light on (since it was now safe to do so without ruining any films or light sensitive paper).

Somehow, whoever was making for the light switch managed to accidentally trigger off the camera flash unit that he'd also just picked up. At first we cursed him due to the sudden and startling (not to mention blinding) flash, the effect was very disorientating - all bright colours and amorphous shapes suddenly burned onto the retina. It was almost like being punched, and the three of us collectively spent a moment trying to compose ourselves again.

Then a most weird sensation occurred. As I was looking round the darkroom (still pitch black - we hadn't found the light switch yet), I noticed, clear as day, a pair of hands floating around the room. Wherever I looked, up or down, there they were.

I quickly realised that my hands must have been in my line of sight when the flash went off. Now, after its momentary, almost explosive visual effect had subsided, what remained seared into my retina was what the light had hit when the flash went off - the image of my hands rendered with startling, monochrome clarity.

The other two students had noticed the same thing happening, corresponding to what had been in their own respective lines of sight at the moment in question.

So we didn't switch the light on. We waited a few moments for the images to fade, and then triggered the flashgun again. The same bright burst for a fraction of a second, quickly subsiding to reveal a monochrome imprint of whatever we were looking at.

Regardless of the potential for damage to our eyesight, we carried on playing with this. For example, if you looked down at your leg when the flash went off, and then looked upwards, you'd see your leg floating right above you - or at eye level if you were looking straight ahead. The flash rendered the images like ice sculptures - beautiful and clear and black and white, which added to the eeriness of the sensation.

Sometimes it would be genuinely unsettling - triggering the flash when someone's face was about two feet away from yours was to see a horror-mask flying around the room wherever you looked. Nonetheless, there was something quite addictive about the whole thing. It was like we were creating momentary, frozen scenes - stark, other-wordly, and lasting for just a few seconds before fading away forever.

Finally - after something like half an hour - we decided to stop and head out of the darkroom, blinking. Did our eyes ache? I can't remember. We repeated the whole thing numerous times though whenever we were back in the darkroom: despite wondering about the potential for retinal damage (it was certainly headache-inducing) there was too much novelty value not to give it another go.

The space between

"Spring? I'm so over it..."

Had a few days away last week. Most welcome, they were. My passport, and some Polish paper money, are still on the kitchen table.

It was a fabulous few days, though it already seems maddeningly distant. Seems disconcertingly easy to slip away, and into a change of pace and surroundings (though the latter are now becoming very familiar) and to catch up with pleasant and engaging company.

The return to the everyday is becoming disconcertingly more difficult, though I'm sure it was aided this time by switching the clock back by an hour on my return on Friday and then back forward again by an hour just over a day later. All the necessary, albeit minor readjustments, not least sleep patterns...the space between holiday and weekday mode is, shall we say, becoming a management issue.

I've trying to find ways to express this without being downright tedious or repetitious, and struggled. So when I saw the daffodil just outside, I thought, that'll do nicely. Problem solved: post-holiday syndrome in full expression.

Waking up

In fact, while I'm on the subject of alcohol, here's something I wrote (as part of a barely audible monologue for a piece of related music) while I was in the middle of the difficulties I refer to in the previous post. I make no claims for any kind of facility with words, it might read really badly (which is fine by me), but it did seem to sum up where I was at.

Drunk again
Spitting/pissing blood
Blind to my own thoughts: blank
Bruises sustained in ways unexplained

Clothes stained
(must have eaten, fallen or worse)
Some things are lost (like whole sections of time spent)

A case of memory versus imagination
Panic at something which triggers off the merest suggestion:
A balance between what might have been/what I'm capable of;
What other people might have seen

What's the worst thing I could be guilty of (there are no signs of anything telling)?

Plenty of unturned stones ready and waiting,
Once the pain has eased and thirst has been sated

The first moments of realisation, the opening lines of a little eternity:
Nameless and shapeless, yet capable of harm more than anything else

The smallest thought, the slightest suggestion
The merest aside, the darkest elation

All the a's

I thought this was an interesting article, in some respects, on alcoholism and addiction, and whether they fit into the straitjacket of the disease model.

Some years ago I went through a phase in which, for a while, my drinking could be described as problematic. Yet it wasn't drinking that was the problem in itself, it was merely (yes feel free to raise an eyebrow at the use of the word merely) a rather poor and unhealthy coping mechanism.

The article describes things very much from a US perspective, and in terms of someone who is very much in the news at the moment, nonetheless there are plenty of worthwhile general points regardless of the specific context of the article.

Defacing the signs

No, it wasn't me.

10 years ago today

...I woke up and, before I moved, I knew it: I'd got flu. Proper flu. An attempt to roll over into a more comfortable position confirmed it - unveiled all the latent aches, pains, discomfort and downright dis-ease which had been waiting to reveal itself to my conscious person.

I'd been out with friends the previous night, to see a band play. A fantastic and rather riotous evening in full, clear recall to this day, for I was stone cold sober, and was to remain so for years. On my late-night walk to the bus stop I can remember feeling a little cold and shivery, but nothing more than minor discomfort.

Now, on waking, it must have been a Friday morning, since I was due to go and see my mother for the weekend, later that day.

I knew I wasn't well enough to go anywhere (in the event, my health kept me a virtual prisoner, in solitary confinement at that, for almost two weeks). I made two phone calls: one to my workplace to inform them that I wouldn't be going in; the other to my mother to inform her that I wouldn't be able to make it over, and that I was really sorry about it, but there was nothing I could do.

I wished her a happy 60th birthday.

Bleary eyes

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I've spent a little while trying to write a post, scrapping it, trying to write it from a slightly different angle.

I've given up for one night. See the title for more information: I'm off to bed.

Night, all.

Misreading the signs

On a public information notice:

Don't make it easy for burglars - keep tights on and lock your windows and doors.

Clearly then, people who don't wear tights are more vulnerable to being burgled.