Surreal Saturday

New York New York.
Back in the USA.

10 points to those who can name the songwriters.

Atlantic to Pacific in one day. Awake for 20 hours straight, from standing on the Queen Mary 2 in New York harbour to feeling the Surf spray off Santa Monica pier. Sitting in a Los Angeles apartment the natural high of exhaustion makes it's surreal impact on the emotions. Floating through the movie of life until it all comes to a crashing halt as one attempts to express the feelings of thought as words on paper.
Darkness of sleep descends upon the Spook as the muscles buzz, the teeth hum and the eyelids close. Sitting before me on the coffee table of this unknown apartment is the 'Tales of Power' by Carlos Castaneda, the book that began the journey some twenty six years ago. An event so synchronous as to send shivers up my spine.

Ahoy me hearties!

I love travelling by sea and the Queen Mary 2 is definitely a luxuriant vessel upon which to voyage the Atlantic ocean, from Southampton to New York in 132 hours. Arriving at 5am was however most unfortunate for my hard working digital camera, so no decent pictures of the Statue of Liberty, but I have chosen a few of my favourites to post on flickr. I could fill pages with details about this the largest of passenger ships, but if you are interested you will check it out for yourself. What impressed me were the 50 nationalities represented among the crew. Instead, I shall inflict the following prose that I felt compelled to write after listening to a lecture given by the author Angela Huth on the subject of synethsesia:

Watching the swelling of the gun grey waves brings a feeling of hypnotic serenity, an easy peace with life. Every wavelet big or small is unique, yet each with a life so short that one hardly notices the small triumphant splash of white foam at the apex of it's life, before falling back to death among it's brethren. Millions upon millions, so many as to be countless, merging together in chaotic harmony to create the menacing expanse that is; the Atlantic Ocean.

Jack Frost

Dawn woke at -1 degree centigrade, cold with an icy sheen upon everything, but the sun cast his bright golden glow upon the earth, bringing dew to the grassy lawn.

Ol' Jack Frost brings the season of SAD, but not for me, it will soon be time to depart for sunnier climes, but I did get to this year’s annual gathering of friends from afar … Stranger in a strange land;

Guy Fawkes bonfire night went ahead as it has for fourteen years, a bastion of mercurial sanity; and with this being the first Saturday occurrence for many years, the sky was ablaze all night with the sight and sound of Fireworks filling the horizon. http://www.bonefire.org/guy/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/15208245@N00/sets/1363722/
I am surprised there has not been a renewed fervour of calls to ban this celebration. http://www.looking-glass.co.uk/campaigns/banthebang_intro.htm
Will there be more injuries this year than in previous years? http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics1/pdf1/fireworkinjuries2004.pdf