This, along with Roxy’s first album, were – and still are, to some extent – way ahead of their time. Haunting is the word. Lovely, evocative music. Grey lagoons just sends me, every time.
Author: dod
Exercise
I’ve been wondering how the Alexander Technique relates to exercise. Clearly, it is not enough to say that by following the principles of inhibition and direction a full and healthy life will automatically ensue. It might be fuller and healthier than beforehand; but much would depend on what that life consisted of. I imagine the vast majority of Westerners, including most Alexander teachers, lead far from ideal existences
Remembering
It always amazes me that people don’t talk more about the crucial role of ‘remembering’ in Alexander work.
When I first read about the Technique, I thought the task of learning it would depend largely on application. After I had had some lessons, I still thought this, but I had become confused about what, exactly, was being ‘applied’. I felt okay about that, since a certain amount of confusion seemed part and parcel of the learning process.
The Rack
I read this novel nearly thirty years ago sitting up all night by a wood stove in South Wales. I was about twenty five and recently married. I found it heartbreaking. The love affair Paul has with Michele moved me immeasurably, with the final pages finishing me off. Tearful throughout, I broke down, sobbing. Why this book is so often out of print I will never know. Nor can I understand why no film has been made of it. AE Ellis is not the author’s real name, and apparently wrote nothing else. I advise anyone who can get hold of a copy of The Rack to read it and then pass it on to a friend. I did. The friend never returned it; but I recently came across a first edition in a second hand bookstall for 50 pence. I don’t think I’ll ever read it again, though. It would be pointless. This book still affects me more than anything I’ve read since.
Paris 1919
This sumptious album has to be one of the best this century by any artist. John Cale is vastly underrated as a singer/songwriter; but although he has produced lashing of good music since, this second solo album of his remains my favourite.
Conscious Control
What happens when “Alexander hands” are put on a horse, as Jeremy Chance describes in Direction Volume 2 No 1? This must be a matter of interest for anyone who has ever wondered what it was they were teaching.
The question is essentially one of control.
Thinking
It was suggested to me that: “…the function of the mind is to think, think about something.” This seems a bit hard on animals, who also have minds, but who presumably don’t have the capacity to “think about” matters in the way we do. Nor would I call the ability to string a series of thoughts together an unmitigated blessing.
Weather 1
The sun shines
The rain falls
Human presence
Rests on yielding ground
Animal thinking
I have long considered the only real difference between us and other animals is our ability to consider in the abstract; and that this ability, which probably began accidentally and has become something of a curse, is all that enabled us to get and stay “on top”. However, when I kept animals some years ago I had two very strange experiences which seemed to suggest an intelligence that was almost human.