Sic Note

Paper! It has to rank as one of the greatest of man's inventions, along with the wheel, the football and the long-playing record. Already you can tell I'm in not entirely serious mood today. I'm down in London to celebrate the anniversary of my elder daughter's birth half a lifetime ago - meaning she is now the age that I was when she was born one glorious July day back in the 1980s. (I'll give you a minute to think about that one.)

I remember when she was about three, she would sit on the sofa holding the newspaper as wide as her little arms would allow - it was a broadsheet - pretending to read it just like her parents did (not that we pretended, you understand). Her ability to start reading for herself wasn't far behind and she grew up loving books and reading. She came home from Primary School one day a little indignant and upset because she and her teacher had disagreed in class about the spelling of caterpillar - the teacher had misspelled it but had insisted that she was right and my daughter (who spelled it correctly) was wrong. I think a discreet apology was offered next day.

Talking of schools, I must regale you with a few choice tales from the chalkface. I taught English and Drama in a north London comprehensive school for a number of years and as a form teacher I was accustomed to receiving notes from parents about their offspring, explaining their absence from school or requesting their exemption from certain activities. These notes arrived in a variety of guises: some were typed, some were written in florid script, some were scrawled, some came on headed notepaper, some were scented, some were laboriously spelled out in capital letters, many were in sealed envelopes, others were hastily scribbled on whatever was to hand - the back of an old envelope, a square cut out of a cereal packet, a page torn from an exercise book. Some were written by the children themselves (excusable if their parents were illiterate or non-English speaking). Occasionally the notes were very funny. I have a soft spot in my memory banks for these three:

Dear Mr Rowland, Tiffany is not to have a shower after games this week as she is suffering from mildew.

Dear Sir, would you be so kind to allow Oswald to be excused the exam today. He fell downstairs last night and has a slight brain damage.

Your honour. Humblest apologies for my daughter Samina's absence from school last week. She attended her sister's wedding and missed her plane home. 

Paper - How It Was Made/The Tools Of The Trade

Moving on. Nowadays, those of us who use paper to write or print on are accustomed to A4 pads or reams (A4 being 210 x 297cm or 8.21 x 11.7in for the Imperialists among you). A4 is the most commonly used size in the civilised world - the exception being the New World (USA, Canada and central America) where they use Letter and Legal sizes.

It wasn't always so in the Old World actually. The convergence on A4 standard came in the 19th century. Before that foolscap was widely used (along with folio and quarto); foolscap being slightly wider and considerably longer than A4 (at 200 x 330cm or 8.5 x 13.5in). What you really want to know is: Why was it called foolscap?

The answer appears to be: Because of the watermark (commonly a depiction of a jester's cap with bells) built into the paper and barely visible when dry to prove that it was genuine top quality paper stock and not some cheap substitute. I thought it was a pre-urban myth, but apparently not. The foolscap watermark is recorded as early as the 15th century and was made by pressing a mould onto not-yet-dry paper so as to almost imperceptibly vary the thickness and thus allow more light through.

And so to my own sic note (complete with BoJoker watermarking) -

Nota Bene
To whom it should be concerning,
this recycled paper is full of old news.

You'd think we'd pulped the truth
in mulching up those inky pages,
but as I diarise atrocities anew
by post-apocalyptic candlelight
faint headlines reveal themselves
like watermarks within the sheet.

I read of blind ambition,
over-weening pride, lies and deception,
a people shepherded to a precipice.

All this print was created
in an analogue age, predating micro this
and digital that, way before the waging
of cyber-wars, the death of the web
and the runaway greenhouse effect;
and yet its portentous message
is as relevant now as it ever was,
for the patterns of the human heart
are timeless till the last one
beats its last.

I append to this account
(for the day may not be far away)
my final will and testament:

To my son, my shoes - fill them well.
To my daughter, my blues - sing them loud.
Hold each other fast
for however long is left.
Remember how lovely trees were
before they were all felled.
Dream of cool breezes.

Please excuse the brevity and thanks for reading, S ;-)

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Paper - Examination

I chose a place next to the wall. I could lean my bare arm on the tiles for some cooling respite from the heat of the afternoon. The scuffed, well-worn desk reminded me of school. I put two spare pens, facing the same way, in the groove next to the empty ink-well. The hinged lid lifted easily. Well, I couldn’t resist. Who would, faced with such nostalgia? It was empty, as expected. Inside, it smelt of a classroom freshly cleansed with that disinfected brown sawdust sometimes used on floors. Eric Wright, form 3 alpha had this desk in 1959, according to the neatly scratched detail on the underside of the lid. Initials in a heart shape had been obliterated with red ink, or paint. Identity lost forever.

It was almost time. The room had filled up. A couple of desks at the front remained empty. I read and re-read the exam rules on the blackboard. Papers were given out and we had reading time. I was relieved to see the question I had hoped for. My answer to that question covered everything and amounted to two and a half sides of A4 and earned me top marks in a mock exam. I knew it word for word, including a four line quote. Apprehension began to melt as I allowed myself a tiny hint of confidence.

Time to begin. I held my favourite Parker pen with a new, fine-point refill, poised to start with my well-versed question, only I couldn’t. The answer had gone, almost every part of it, like something had erased it from my memory, paragraph by careful paragraph. I couldn’t remember the quote beyond the first word. Some self-counselling, deep breaths, don’t panic, answer something else and come back to it, this is an exam paper, not the end of the world.

I muddled through the exam. I managed other parts of it and returned to ‘my question’ praying for my brain to bring my memory back. It didn’t. I answered it in the best way I could, which proved to be enough as I passed with a good grade.

That was more than forty years ago. I still can’t remember that ‘perfect’ answer or the quote. I still have my mock exam papers showing the marking of 100%, but even now I can’t bring myself to refresh my memory. The blip didn’t hold me back.

 

Here’s something from Simon Armitage,

Paper Aeroplane

The man sitting next to me on the flight

     was reading a blank book, keen eyes
     panning left to right across empty leaves, fingers
     turning from one white space to the next.

Sometimes he’d nod agreeably or shake his head,

     or painstakingly underline some invisible text
     with red ink, or decorate the margin
     with an exclamation mark or asterisk.

It was a hefty-looking tome, hand-stitched

     but wordless front and back and down the spine.
    Coming in to land he laid the silver ribbon-marker
     between two bare pages to save his place.

I was wearing noise-cancelling headphones

     listening to fine-mist, when he leaned across
     and shouted, ‘Forgive the intrusion, but
     would you sign this for me? I think it’s your best.’

Simon Armitage.

 

 

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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The Difficulty of Finding...

I have been struggling to write for too many months now. I can just about manage a few sentences, a list of observations, the odd scribble about last night's dream, but the voice of poetry evades me.

I did find it for a moment - the early hours of Saturday morning brought poetic chorus through the darkness, as if morning was finally going to dawn. I wrote the first nine words of a line and they felt like poetry, tasted like poetry. Those nine words - which seemed to be just the right words, in the right order - were like a fix. My boyfriend watched as my eyes lit and my fingers tapped out rhythm on the air. My lips made the shapes of those nine words over and over again, producing a whisper to coax my ear and mind into uncovering another line.

On parts of the track the rain has gathered,

clear and still in mud hollows

clear and still and deep in the mud dirt.

Lakes that give the forest to us again

again. As if a dream, we are giants

as if it were a dream and we were giants

able to pick hundred year old

able to pluck ancient oaks firs from the water like reeds.

Eventually all gained momentum ceased as the stanza found its end. It had ended where I hadn't anticipated or expected. This stanza, which had been thought of as an opening, now felt more like a dead-end, like I had written myself into a corner and couldn't quite figure out how to write myself back out.

I left the poetry puzzle attached to the pad. Occasionally, throughout Saturday afternoon, I glanced at the words to check if I still liked them.

As night approached, my cat came fumbling in from the window, patrolled the perimeter of the lounge before circling inwards and stepping his damp paws across the laptop and then the paper pad.            I liked the way he caused a few of the words to have inky atmospheres - as if each were a solitary planet within a universe I still fail to truly comprehend.

*          *          *

There is a turbulence between mind and creativity. At some point the poetry puzzle was torn from the pad, squeezed between clenched hands until it was compact and circular.

I thought it had been taken by the bin men.          But it hadn't.

This morning when I found the yellow paper orb tucked behind a bookend it made me think how love will always try its hardest to preserve. I wondered how much else might have been saved if love had been there longer - imagined a mountain built from thrown away paper.

Over time, something begins to accumulate - like mercury within the bodies of hat makers - and the challenge is in remembering

                                                                       who

                                                                              am

                                                                                     I

Thank you for reading,

Lara 

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Precision Art

It just goes to show doesn't it?  That beauty, creativity and a gentle touch can bring out the best in something as simple as a piece of paper.  Typical traits of a Geisha really.  Shame that, I really don't agree with the principles.

The total of my origami experience is the paper plane and on of those boxy paper choice makers (sorry can't remember their proper name) that we used to make at school.  But the beautiful creations that I saw whilst looking for images of origami take my breath away.  Take a look on-line.  Just type in "origami" in your search engine, and see where it takes you.  Mind you I have always found people who can do intricate things like that a bit of a marvel.  ;-)

This week, I confess, I know little about this topic, and being as previous posts this week have pretty much covered what it is all about, I thought I would write a little poem from the perspective of the piece of paper.

Ode to the Origami Artist:

I was plain, 2 dimensional
Til you took me in your hands
Began to mold me with your gentle touch
Creating something new, as was your plan.

With every crease, a new edge appeared
Defining something more
But even I could not have dreamed
Of what you had in store.

Patiently you tuck and pleat
And fold and crease again
Til slowly, carefully, lovingly
I emerge as an elegant Crane.

You took something plain, 2 dimensional
Bent, tucked, folded, creased
Created depth where there was none
Gave me form, figure and release.



Sorry it's a short post this week.  Thanks for reading.

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The Magic of Origami

He drags his finger nail down the edge of the crease to sharpen the fold. This was more than just a paper bird. His pupils dilate as if had just seen his one true love for the first time. He starts the next fold.

A book entitled 'the Magic of Origami' lay open on the table next to the photo ID Simon used for work. Life as a number pusher for the local council had recently become a stone. No longer could he just sit there day after day, oblivious of the world's powers.

An impulse buy from The Works on Church Street. Something to do in the evening instead of vegetating to Coronation Street. A hobby. This was to occupy his mind, but it turned out to be so much more.

The first time he didn't understand, thought the feeling was pride at achieving something he had never done before. Soon he realised that in fact he was exhilarated, almost aroused by each new fold.

He began to imagine that he could put a little bit of his soul into these paper models, give them life. In that moment his two hundred and eighty sixth butterfly flapped its wings for the first time, the electricity surging through his body was akin to ejaculating twenty times in one go. Nothing had ever felt so good.

Soon he had created his own paper zoo. Each creature larger and more complicated than the one before. Each new life giving a bigger and bigger rush. This was all he wanted to do.  This was all he started to do. This was everything he did.

Now he only sleeps when his body can take no more. Eat cold foods that require no preparation to minimize the time he is away from his children, his creations.

He finishes the last fold on the latest section of his new wife's left hand. She will love him and share his world. She will understand more than these doctors.

He takes out a fresh sheet of paper and begins to fold.  He drags his finger nail down the edge of the crease to sharpen the fold. This was more than just a paper bird. His pupils dilate as if had just seen his one true love for the first time. He starts the next fold.

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