Iain David Wilkinson - Lemon Yellow In The Head

24/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 22:34:57 +0000

The first post in a week or so, then. I’ve been trying to rest the injury and now things are slowly but surely on the up. The sling came off today and I can straighten my arm perhaps 85-90%. The muscles still feel pretty weak and I get shooting pains if I rotate anything to fast. My doctor tells me that it’ll be another a couple of weeks until it’s completely functional again.
Went out properly today for only about the second time in a week and a half, couldn’t decide whether wear the parka or go with the red zip-up. It looks cold out there, I reasoned, but it doesn’t look that cold. So I went for the zip-up. It was freezing. I’d forgotten that you couldn’t measure the temperature outside using your eyes alone. I mean actually I’d actually forgotten. I’m out of practice with this sort of thing.
Then at the supermarket I reached up to the top shelf of the chiller to get some orange juice. Using my right arm. I made it, too. I’m in the big boy’s league now.
Fortunately I’ve still been able to hold a book, and I read Kobo Abe’s ‘The Box Man’ over the course of last week. I read ‘The Face Of Another’ back in 2007 and was enthralled and bewildered in equal measure by it’s integration of a thriller plot with all sorts of jumbled, obtuse philosophical pearls of wisdom about the nature of identity. Well, ‘The Box Man’ is pretty much more of the same, albeit packaged in a slightly less thriller-type, erm… box. It looks into the personal and occaionally social implications of becoming a homeless guy who wanders around the streets with a modified cardboard box covering the top part of his body. For real. It’s not an easy book to read: the analogies are tenuous, the language is awkward and a tiny bit archaic, the relationships between the characters aren’t particularly consistant and the narrative viewpoint swerves all over the place. But behind all that there’s a surprising amount of method behind this novel. It’s an ideas book. Long sentances. Blotchy, indistinguishable photographic inserts. Rather nice to read after spending ages pawing over the structural formalities of one of your own short stories from your sick-bed. Someone’s even seen fit to make it into a film. I take it that this is the trailer, but since all the text is in Japanese I can’t be certain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SbrETYUsfs

17/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:23:42 +0000

Influence… yeah. It can be so subtle as to almost be comical. It’s so easy for something you’ve seen or read to sneak in through some hidden trapdoor or unlatched vent and curl up in yr. cortex completely unnoticed until one day yr. moving yr. creative furniture around and… there it is.
Anyone who knows me even just a tiny bit knows how much I like weird/nasty cinema, for example. I go crazy for Takashi Miike, Lucio Fulci, that kind of stuff. But do I ever feel the wish to write that kind of story these days? That’s playground stuff as far as influence goes. For me, influence is about an eye for detail trumping the big issues governing creativity. I mean, we’re adults. Surely we can come up with our own themes and moods? Borrowing yes, wholesale snaffling up because I’ve just seen a Female Prisoner Scorpion film and now I want to write Women In Prisoner stories… hmm.
Another example. Watching a Coffin Joe film today I saw a row of little glazed ceramic skulls lined up on a shelf in the background. I noticed these articles before I registered what the character in the shot was saying or doing, and as soon as I became aware of this it made me realise that at that point in time, perhaps just for an eyeblink, I’d forgotten about the possibility of having glazed ceramic skulls sitting on a shelf in one of my stories. And why stop there? Why not glazed ceramic lemon, porpoises or South American fertility charms? And why a shelf? Why not a trampoline or billiard table? I think what I am trying to say is that developing an aesthetic is important for a writer, and that this aesthetic can characterise our work having travelled a great distance from it’s source. I have no desire to write about murder but there’s as much Dario Argento in my writing as there is Raymond Carver.
It’s taken me fifteen mins. to type that little lot out one handed; that must be some kind of personal best! I really must try to get back into the swing of things and crack on with some writing this week…

16/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:58:41 +0000

Why do all of my new story ideas feature people breaking bones?
Some of the most nebulous advice given to new writers is the well worn adage to ‘write what you know’. Well, there’s more to this seemingly simple pointer than meets the eye. There’s ‘knowing’ and there’s, like, really knowing. So, for the sake of simplicity and a non-lecturelike blog entry let’s take this guidance at face value. I often feel compelled to write about jazz, cats and broken bones: one of these things I am drawn to through a close love, one through a distant love and the other through no love at all.
Tonight has yielded two rediscoveries: 1) Alcohol (as I’m now off the Codeine, or rather I gave it up three days ago so the last of it will be out of my system by now), and 2) ‘A Bit Of Fry And Laurie’, which like most successful British comedy is based on parodying certain types of class-specific values. And believe me these guys really know how to sock it to any attempt to discuss the arts on an academic level. According to my housemate pretty much the whole back catalogue can be snapped up for next to nothing on DVD at the moment. Not bad. And to think I’d managed to convince myself for a little while that I hated comedy! All I need to do now is track down some of that Mitch Hedberg shit…

15/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:52:20 +0000

Below is a review of Bobby Hutcheron’s ‘Patterns’ album which I downloaded yesterday evening. I-Tunes seems to have a lot of classic hard bop albums on sale for relatively cheap: I got this, Wayne Shorter’s ‘Juju’, Grachan Moncur III’s ‘Evolution’ and Andrew Hill’s ‘Black Fire’ for a total of just under twenty five pounds. It’s something I never thought I’d do as the liner notes are one of the high points of any Rudy Van Gelder Edition release (a series which three of those four albums belong to), but as it’s kind of hard for me to get out and about at the moment I though nah, what the hell. Glad I did.

Compared to Hutcherson’s other work I’d say that ‘Patterns’ falls somewhere between the mellifluousness of ‘Happenings’ and the more free-flowing dynamics of ‘Dialogue’. There’s less of an emphasis on solos, allowing the instruments to run together a little more but things never get as chaotic as they do on the latter of those two albums. The title track is first up and features Hutcherson’s vibes trading bitter-sweet melodies with James Spaulding’s slightly troubled sounding flute. This piece would have fit nicely on ‘Dialogue’ if the title of that album was the sole decider. A Reggie Workman bass solo finishes the track, the prominance of the instrument carrying over somewhat into ‘A Time To Go’ which is buttressed by Workman’s steady pulse and higher pitched plinks. Stanley Cowell’s loping piano work provides the counterpoint as subtle changes of emphasis and percussive flicks drive the piece forward. Drummer Joe Chambers takes a step back on ‘Ankara’ to foreground Spaulding’s flute, which hovers over a glacial vibes and piano accompaniment which is almost indentical to the one found on the track ‘Bouquet’ from ‘Happenings’. Chambers contributes brushed snare and cymbal embelishments but ’Ankara’ remains the most reflective and understated track on ‘Patterns’. The cantering ‘Effi’ follows with more sprightly vibes work and some quick fingered contributions from Workman. ‘Irina’ is up next, returning the album to more introspective territory. The interplay between the instruments is incredibly tight here, with Chambers once again providing just enough sighing snare brushwork in the righthand speaker to keep the piece anchored while vibes, piano, flute and bass stitch complex shapes around each other. Then it’s onto the semi oriental motifs of ‘Nocturnal’ via a characteristically poetic Cowell opening. The album closes with a more frantic alternative take of ‘Effi’ (mislisted on I-Tunes as another take on ‘Patterns’).

This is probably the best Hutcherson album I have heard thus far, and that’s saying something. I posted a link to the track ‘Aquarian Moon’ from ‘Happenings’ a couple of days ago; if yr. not familiar with Hutcherson’s work I strongly recommend that you check it out.

14/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:18:01 +0000

Note to self: you and Codeine do not get along. Whenever you take it you will be violently sick and get cramps which make yr. stomach feel as though it’s being closed up with steel staples. Even putting up with the bother of a fractured elbow is preferrable to this as said side effects will bang on for hours – even after you have stopped taking the stuff – and will stop you from getting any kind of sleep whatsoever, no matter how tired you are.
… oh well, such is life. Can’t really be helped. The worst of the physiological protest should have dissipated by tomorrow and anyway, next to some of the problems being faced by people in Haiti right now a diddy little crack in one’s radial head is what the Americans often refer to as ‘fly shit’. Still typing with one hand – which is kind of like hopping yr. way through a cross country marathon: tiring but perversely amusing – so work on the new short has slowed somewhat. In lieu of any finished extracts being available for blogging here’s another colourful jazz classic, this time from Grachan Moncur III (featuring the ever-glittering Bobby Hutcherson on vibes).
Oyasumi nasai.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9yI9ExZ00I

13/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:35:40 +0000

Well, you can tell that it’s the thirteenth of the month. I hadn’t gone ten steps out of my door this morning before my feet went out from under me on the black ice. I landed on my side, squashing my arm underneath me which resulted in a fracture of my radial head (part of the mechanism that joins up yr. forearm to yr. elbow). So now here I am lying in bed – where i’ve been for most of the post-hospital waiting room day – with the arm of my writing hand confined to a sling, prodding out todays blog entry one letter at a time with the fingers of my left one. Not ideal but it’s home sweet home for the next ten to forteen days… and I still think I got off lightly compared to some of the bizarre angles at which I saw other people’s arm bent in the waiting room. More prolific service will hence be resumed as sson as possible.
On a slightlier happier note… never realised this track had a video. A friend of mine put it on a mixtape for me about five years ago and I’ve been in love ever since. Enjoy, and be careful if you go outside anythime between now and the end of February.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWCD9EtKPAY

12/01/2010

iaindavidwilkinson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:54:41 +0000

Below, in no particular order, is a list of my five favourite jazz piano solos. These are tunes that have been guiding me, pro-social firefly style, through the foggy weekday evening which is first draft editing; hopefully they can do something of equivalent value for you. I’ve provided links where links exist and credited both the pianist and the band leader under who’s name the recording was made (a couple of them are written by performers other than the leader… the Lee Morgan track is actually a Wayne Shorter composition for example).

1. Cedar Walton on Joe Henderson’s ‘A Shade Of Jade’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r8L-9ay7uE
2. Harold Mabern on Lee Morgan’s ‘Trapped’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrWD6TLVEE
3. Herbie Hancock on Bobby Hutcherson’s ‘Aquarian Moon’ – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH5aGvoQl8 (this one gets pretty wild!)
4. Cedar Walton on Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Philly Mignon’ – There’s no link available for this one i’m afraid.
5. Thelonious Monk on his own tune ‘Locomotive’ - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60DoUQ7lF40 (check out all those speed-ups and slow-downs! And yes, they are the correct technical terms for what’s going on here).

Haiku/senryu update

iaindavidwilkinson — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:22:50 +0000

The first and the last one are new today, I found the second one in an old notebook stuck inside a box file on my desk. There are plans afoot for a photographic project involving some of the haiku I’ve been posting here recently…

prints in snow
filling emptying
filling

reading Ginsberg
in the bath
the petals clench

green shadow
fairy lights ensnare
the glass

Visit: www.twitter.com/IainDWilkinson

Amy Hempel

iaindavidwilkinson — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:41:45 +0000

Well, I may only be half way through ‘The Dog Of The Marriage’ but I think i’m already in love. I guess newspaper reviews would say things like ‘for fans of Raymond Carver et al’ and they wouldn’t be wrong… it’s just that for me Hempel has something a little different about her. The foci of her stories are pretty much the same - moments of personal revelation and tragedy - but they often orientate themselves towards a more, shall we say, middle class set of sensibilities than the majority of so-called ‘dirty realism’. We’re privy to the tiniest details of the lives of health professionals and full-time beach dwellers, but the probelms which plague these characters - loss, illness, despair, uncertainty about the future - are the same as those which dog Carver’s waitresses and postal workers. There’s something a bit Lynchian about it all to be honest. Not in a surreal way, more in a debunking-of-the-middle-class-suburban-myth kind of way. I’ve laughed out loud at a couple of points too, something which up until now I thought it was only possible for F. Scott Fitzgerald to induce. Many of the stories have a rather fragmentary feel about them which means it’s pretty tough to identify what they’re actually about, but despite this one thing that strikes me is how streamlined her prose stlye is. It’s a little annoying that I’ve come to this writer so late (that’s been happening a lot recently… I only just got my first John Cheever collection this week!). Many short story writers will be able to learn a fair amount from Hempel I think, and I certainly think that if I’d have come across her earlier I wouldn’t have had such a tough time with some of last year’s work.

Thus far then, a positive experience all round. ‘The Dog Of The Marriage is available from Quercus Fiction (ISBN 978-1-84724-132-2) For a more detailed review go here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/mar/22/featuresreviews.guardianreview36

To visit me on Twitter, go here: http://twitter.com/IainDWilkinson

Have a lovely Sunday all.

I’ll be broadsiding this as soon as possible…

iaindavidwilkinson — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:26:34 +0000

… just need to get the design arranged.

Parlour Breeze

It’s all possibility…

Please don’t forget
That electricity

I mean, what more’s the blossom
Flecking from the boughs
Than pink and white dice pitched
By an Aeolian
Mitt?