C.J. Stone's Blog, page 10
October 17, 2019
Review: The William Blake Exhibition at Tate Britain
The Information Revolution is upon us, and no one knows where it will lead.
Poet’s verses ring true as we face our very own revolution
I went to see the Blake exhibition at Tate Britain last week. I would love to recommend it, except for one thing. It cost £18 to get in.
The exhibition is
obviously a great success. I went on a Tuesday and it was packed.
Tens of thousands,
possibly hundreds of thousands, will go to see it. It will earn
millions for the gallery.
And yet Blake lived his
entire life in a state of poverty, dependant upon the charity of
benefactors. Were he alive today he would not have been able to
afford to go to his own exhibition.
This is only one of the
many ironies we can associate with William Blake.
For instance, his most
famous poem, Jerusalem, is virtually the English national anthem. And
yet Blake was not a nationalist.
It was played at the
wedding…
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September 24, 2019
Consciousness is King
In the beginning, before time and space, there was consciousness
a manifesto
Art is Magic. Work is Magic. Breath is Magic. Consciousness is Magic. Mind is Magic. Awareness is Magic. Time is Magic. Imagination is Magic. Application is Magic. Attention is Magic. Words are Magic. Language is Magic.
Language is the carrier
of thought through signs. Magic is the carrier of imagination through
symbols. Art is the carrier of emotion through effect. Language, art
and magic are three aspects of the same substance. The substance is
Mind.
Although we all appear
to be separate beings isolated in separate bodies we are, in fact,
all aspects of the same originating being which is consciousness.
Consciousness is the beginning of all things. Without consciousness
nothing can exist.
We don’t only share a
world, we share a Mind-Space. Mind is like an energy field that
radiates out from the core of consciousness. We can call this “the
Mind-Field”.
In the beginning,
before time…
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September 5, 2019
Brexit: which side are you on?
There’s no such thing as a no deal Brexit. We either have a deal with the EU, or we have a deal with the US
The following story
could be a parable for our times.
It’s about Eshu, an African trickster god who is always quick to exploit the limitations of the human mind.
The story goes that
there were two friends who had sworn eternal allegiance to each
other. Eshu heard about them and thought, “we’ll see about that.”
One day the friends
were working in two fields on either side of a road, when Eshu passed
between them.
He had on a hat which
was white on one side, and black on the other, and he stopped,
briefly, to wave a greeting.
Later, when the men
were taking lunch, one of them said, “did you see the stranger
wearing a while hat earlier?”
His friend said, “yes
I saw him, but he was wearing a black hat, not a white one.”
I think you can guess
the rest. The two friends fell…
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August 30, 2019
The Secret Life of Waves
Somewhere between science and mysticism the quantum universe does not forget such spirits.
In memory of David Edward Elliott (05/07/1929 – 15/01/2019) and Edward Stone (08/05/1930 – 06/07/2018)
Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing is fixed. Hericlitus
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
“We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass.”
I ask, “But how am I to join you?”
They tell me, “Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves.”
I say, “My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?”
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
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August 23, 2019
Whitstable property: Fortresses of Plenty
Wealth rules. It makes the world in its own image.
I’m sitting on one of
the benches overlooking the golf course, by the railway bridge at the
end of West Cliff, as I’m writing this. It’s a lovely late summer
morning, with just a hint of autumn in the air.
What I’m looking at are
three buildings that look like medieval fortresses.
Maybe you’ve seen them.
They sit at the junction of Island Wall and Saxon Shore, as if
guarding the entrance to the golf course, three large statements in
glass and stone, wholly out of keeping, in style and scale, with the
buildings that surround them.
They are still in the
process of being built. One is finished, and is already furnished and
decorated like a show home, the other two are in various states of
completion.
Who gave planning
permission for these monstrosities? Who thought it was appropriate,
in our little town, to allow these gross, ugly, oversized…
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August 9, 2019
Whitstable Carnival 2019: a personal view
A personal thank you to everyone who took part.
I would like to personally thank everyone who played a part in making the 122nd Whitstable Carnival one of the best ever. To be clear, while I was definitely the front man for the whole exercise, putting my face about and writing endless columns for the Whitstable Gazette – even getting on the telly at one point – really there was a whole team working with me to get this thing off the ground.
I don’t think anyone on the committee will disagree with me when I say that the most important person in our organisation is Andy Latham. Without Andy half of the things in our carnival wouldn’t have got done.
It was Andy who collected the Invicta model from the museum, placed it on a trailer, took it to its storage location and then built a shed there to protect it.
It was Andy who made
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July 25, 2019
Let’s go back to the Moon
It was the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing on Saturday, apparently, and I managed to miss it.
The only reason I got
to hear about it was through a Facebook post by a friend who was very
disparaging about the whole thing; not only the anniversary, but the
moon landings themselves.
Like a lot of people I
know, she thinks that money spent of space exploration is a waste,
when it could be spend doing more important things here on Earth.
Certainly there is a case for this. There are many urgent things that need doing. For instance, a recent study has concluded that we need to plant at least a trillion trees in the next 30 years to arrest climate change. Why spend money on exploring other planets, the argument goes, when our own planet is in such danger?
This is true, of
course, but the grave danger our planet faces isn’t really because of
space exploration.
The brief period when a
few highly privileged human beings made that epic and unbelievable
journey across the desolation of space, doesn’t account for the mess
our world is in right now.
Indeed, at the time the
moon landings were considered a contributing factor in the rise of
global ecological awareness.
The famous photograph
of the Earth taken from the Moon, showed just how small and fragile
our planet is.
As one Apollo astronaut – Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 & 13 – put it: “The fact that just from the distance of the Moon you could put your thumb up, and you could hide the Earth behind your thumb… everything that you’ve ever known… all behind your thumb… (reminded us) how insignificant we really all are…”
You see, I think the economics behind my friend’s
argument is wrong.
It’s not a case of money being better spent anywhere else. There’s a sound argument that says the economic system needs to be primed from the collective purse, and that research and development of cutting-edge technology filters down into innovations that benefit us all. It’s how computers came about, remember.
It’s also a question of what you think science is for.
At the moment the bulk of public money allocated
to science is spent on figuring out better ways of blowing people up,
while private capital is spent discovering exciting new ways of
mixing avocado oil with conditioner to make your hair more shiny.
Me, I’d rather money was spent on space
exploration and, one day maybe, going back to the moon again.
Maybe this time we can make a moon base.
There’s talk of building a telescope on the far side of the moon where Earth’s signal can’t impede it. Such a telescope could peer into the depths of time and space and see things we are unable to see from down here on Earth.
Mike Collins, who, along with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin was on the Apollo 11 mission, said: “After the flight the three of us went on an around the world trip. Wherever we went, people, instead of saying, ‘well you Americans did it’, everywhere they said, ‘we did it,’ – we human kind, we the human race, we people did it. I’d never heard people in different countries use this world ‘we’ … as emphatically as we were hearing from Europeans, Asians, Africans…. I thought that was a wonderful thing.”
That was the power the Moon landings had to bring
the people of the Earth together.
Given the amount of money currently being spent on
killing each other, don’t you think it is time we allowed ourselves
to dream again?
*************
From The Whitstable Gazette 25/07/19
The
editor welcomes letters on any topical subject, but reserves the right
to edit them. Letters must include your name and address even when
emailed and a daytime telephone number.
Send letters to: The Editor, Room B119 Canterbury College, New Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 3AJ
Phone: 01227 475985
fax: 01227 762415
email: kentishgazette@thekmgroup.co.uk
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The carnival belongs to our town and no one else
It’s a day off from the ordinary round of things. When pedestrians walk in the middle of the road and cars are made to wait. Of silly costumes, and decorated floats. Of make-believe and fantasy. Of noise and drums and whistles and music and crazy mayhem. When a little boy called Maurice, and a little girl called Mila, can be our King and Queen for the day. A day when the normal rules no longer apply.
It was our Chair, Belinda Murray, who first made me aware of the meaning of “culture”.
She said that
originally the word had referred to the organisms that people would
carry with them when they moved from place to place: their yoghurt
cultures, their sour dough, their yeast.
The idea was transposed
onto the traditions that people would also bring with them.
In other words, culture
is a living thing.
That idea has really
been brought home to me since I first became involved in Carnival
back in February this year.
Carnival doesn’t belong
to anyone. No one created it. It wasn’t imposed upon us. It’s roots
are deep in history.
The current committee are merely the custodians of a living tradition. There were people before us. There will be people after us. The carnival goes on forever.
So our thanks go out
first of all to the two Carols…
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July 11, 2019
Carnival: only three weeks to go
Carnival belongs to no one
Lino print, “May Day” by Ben Sands, signed artist’s proof, 1987, available to buy this weekend
It’s just over three
weeks to go to the Carnival, so you’ll excuse me if my next few
columns are all about the same subject. It’s all I can think about
right now.
The pressure is mounting. There’s a tonne of work to do and not much time.
We have 3,000
programmes to sell. We have to arrange medical cover. We have to
organise volunteers for the day. We still don’t have a marching band.
Neither the fire service, nor the lifeboats have confirmed if they
are coming, and we have no idea of how many floats we will have on
the day.
So many things crowding
in on my inner landscape, vying for attention, it would be easy to
forget some crucial detail.
For example, in the
programme we’ve listed all the businesses…
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June 27, 2019
Whitstable Carnival: taking possession of the Invicta model
If you’d like to make a donation, our PayPal username is the same as our email address: carnivalwhitstable@gmail.com
Photograph courtesy of Andrew Hastings
It’s been a busy fortnight for the Carnival Association.
Firstly there was the rush to get the programme finished. If it hadn’t been for my brother-in-law, Matthew Valentine, I don’t think we could have managed it. A magazine editor in a previous incarnation he taught me all about the esoteric delights of a flat plan.
This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a plan of your prospective publication, laid out flat, on a single page. Prior to seeing it I had no idea what I was doing. Once I had it in my hands I was able to easily picture what our layout should be and then find the content to fill the pages.
I did the editorial content, while my fellow committee member, Andy Latham, did the adverts. I think his job was harder than mine, having not only to fit all these…
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