Tom Dice, Me and My Guitar

So maybe I should get a nine to five
But I don’t want to let it go, there’s so much more to life
Tom Dice, extract from Me and My Guitar

There was me, the New Zealander with dual citizenship feeling the Belgian part of my identity, watching Tom Dice, my favourite new singer, competing in Eurovision 2010. 

I ended up watching the show by accident ... only to find myself on the edge of my seat, as Tom slid up and down the placings from 1st to 6th. 

But I love this song ... the ultimate artist’s song surely.

Pearl S. Buck, Creative Minds

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…

They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.
Pearl S. Buck

Colin Monteath, Photographer, Writer, Explorer

Chance encounters change lives. Close friends, passing aquaintances and even characters who emerge from old books often leave footprints across my heart. By opening mysterious doors, the influence of others has inadvertently altered the direction of my life.
Colin Monteath,  from Under A Sheltering Sky

Genova, Bach and I

These last few days, I’ve been trying to capture the Genova I fell in love with while staying in Italy last year ...

There was a paragraph where I tried to describe the quietly sublime beauty of a Sunday morning spent alone in that city I love.

I wrote: Sunday, my first day alone and the city is emptied for football.  Slipping and tripping through the air comes the sound of the most exquisite violin ... drifting from some open window.  Delicate notes that create this perfect sound for an afternoon spent lying on a bed, behind closed shutters, reading. I am lazy on this first day spent as a solitary creature, alone in a strange city where I know no one.

I wanted that music but stopped short of shouting from my open window to whichever neighbour was playing the music. 

I came home and forgot it about mostly, just pulling the memory out in moments peace.

Yesterday I was in FNAC, thinking I might like one book to celebrate this month’s pay cheque when I had this idea about making a fool of myself and asking about a delicate solo violin ...

The shop assistant listened and then said ‘Bach!’.

She took me over to a listening post and she was right.  If this isn’t the music I heard then it’s close enough to delight and carry me back into that place in time.

Below you can hear something of the music on the cd titled Bach 6 Solo Sonatas & Partitas, Viktoria Mullova.