Photographing The Stars

"Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood ". Ah yes, that was when I taught English and Drama at a comprehensive school in north London in the late 1970s.  And there and then is where I set today's somewhat fictionalised cautionary tale. Thanks, by the way, to Bob Dylan for the kick-off quote, which also opens his song "Shelter From The Storm" (from 'Blood On The Tracks', my favourite Dylan album, if you wish to check it out).

Justine (not her real name) was a student in my A-level English class. She didn't go a bundle on D.H. Lawrence ('The Rainbow') or Thackeray ('Vanity Fair'). I wondered if that was because she was Canadian, too culturally removed. Her father was on assignment in London working for some record company (EMI possibly). It did occur to me that maybe those novels were just too long for her transatlantic attention span! But she didn't much like William Blake either ('Songs of Innocence and Experience'), couldn't accept that the poet saw and conversed with angels. And as for Shakespeare...

In fact she didn't have a lot of time for English Literature, period (as she would have put it). Art was what she did have an enthusiasm for, her main subject. I think economics was the third one but I'm not sure. Her attendance and attention were sporadic at best over the course of eighteen months. She came across as a rich girl doing us a favour by filling in time in class, when what she really wanted to be doing was photographing the stars.

expensive camera gear

Mummy was said to be an actress, though she might as well have been from Arcturus, she seemed so spaced out on the occasions I saw her at parents' evenings. Daddy was clearly firmly of this planet, and concerned for his daughter's prospects, though he indulged her, bought her a load of expensive camera gear, including a home darkroom, and through his industry connections got her on the invite list for a raft of gigs in London, which had a thriving punk and new wave scene going at the time, and which proved a constant distraction from her studies.

Justine, it seemed, was fixated on becoming a rock photographer, a female Mick Rock or Anton Corbijn (two rising stars of the medium). I don't know if she'd heard of Jenny Lens who was making a name for herself in Los Angeles and New York at the same time, covering the emerging US punk scene, or Lynn Goldsmith who left Elektra Records in New York in the mid-1970s to concentrate on rock photography. 

Justine derived her simple self-belief from the DIY ethos of the punk bands she photographed and though she'd tried submitting her work to the music press, it seemed the editors were less than impressed. In truth it was (and probably still is) a highly competitive field and you have to have talent. I know personally of only one female photographer from that era who managed to establish a lasting reputation in the field, and that is Penny Smith. 

To move this story on, Justine's father apparently decided to break his daughter's cycle of rejections by arranging for her to be the official photographer for a newly signed band on the label he worked for. She was to go on tour with Slowly Boiling Frog, document their shows and offstage antics and shoot the cover for their debut long-player. This was, conveniently or otherwise, in the Easter holidays just months before A-level exams.

Hearsay is that the project didn't go well. Justine never retuned to school after Easter. I gathered from the rumour mill of her school friends that she's had some sort of breakdown, possibly involving sex and drugs, and that her father had placed her in a sanitorium in Switzerland. 

As for Slowly Boiling Frog, nothing much was ever heard again. I surfed the net for any information and all I could turn up was one very poor quality unattributed photograph. I wonder if...

Slowly Boiling Frog

The last I heard from or about Justine was a postcard that arrived addressed to me at the school bearing a Swiss stamp. It read: "The stars are very beautiful here. Their color amazes me. I have finally seen angels. I thought you would like to know. J"

I'm not sure why I decided to share all that with you. I hadn't given her any thought in nearly half a century. Of that class at least one went on to become an author and another appeared on the Christmas series of University Challenge a few years ago. I'd like to think we are all stars in our own nighttime.

the real stars

In lieu of a new poem this week, I'm linking you to something I posted seven years ago because it contains one of my favourite poems, 'Stephanie Re-Maps The Stars'. If you've not read it before (or even if you have) please take a look. The blog is hyperlinked here and is called: Saturday Night Surveillance

Finally, as a musical bonus, a beautiful song by one of my favourite bands of that long ago era. I'd happily have this played at my funeral. It's by the fabulous Plummet Airlines and it's titled: Stars Will Shine.

Thanks as ever for reading my stuff, S ;-)

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Furthest, Fairest Things

Furthest, fairest things, stars, free of our humbug,
each his own, the longer known the more alone,
wrapt in emphatic fire roaring out to a black flue.
                                                                   Basil Bunting, 'Briggflatts'

When I was was a kid, somebody bought me The Observer's Book of Astronomy, one of many books written on the subject by the late Patrick Moore. I was intrigued by the pictures of constellations, although I must admit I spent more time looking at the book than into the night sky. More than once, I must've thought it would be interesting to be an astronomer, but I was lousy at maths and just don't have the sort of mind that's good at remembering long lists of names (I tried a few times to memorise the main features on the moon, but they never stuck).

Years later, when I moved to the Yorkshire Dales, I found myself living in an area free of light pollution. For most of my life, the sky had been no more than an orange haze. All of a sudden, there was so much to see.

I got hold of a star map (the Observer's Book had disappeared a long time ago) and actually managed to memorise a few constellations: Orion, Cassiopeia, Taurus, Cygnus, Auriga, Draco, Leo. It felt good, being able to recognise them, just as it did to know the names of the local hills. And it's not just the constellations: there's a lot of other things up there you can discover without a telescope, too. Peripheral vision is more sensitive to light than central vision. You may know this trick already, but if you don't, try looking just to one side of the second star in the handle of The Plough (look at it out of the corner of your eye, in other words) and you can see there are, in fact, two stars. A binary system. (In fact, there are four stars, but only two are visible to the naked eye). 

Talking of such things, Andromeda, I discovered, is a good constellation to know: the Andromeda Nebula (M31 pictured above) is the nearest major galaxy to our own and if you can recognise the constellation, it's easy to locate the nebula from it. If you know where to look on a very dark night, you can just make it out in the corner of your eye. Binoculars reveal it to be a mysterious-looking smudge. As for seeing our own, the Milky Way Galaxy, we're in it, of course, but as everybody knows, at the right time of year on a dark night you can see the distant, inner part of it as a long, silvery band stretched out across the sky. When it's really dark in the Dales, you can even make out the dust-clouds near it's centre. It's like your standing on the outskirts of a forest, staring into its depths: the stars you see when you look up are the foreground, the individual trees that immediately surround you; the distant band of the Milky Way, the green-brown haze of the more distant trees that merge into a single mass. 

Of the constellations I learned to spot, one of the ones that most resembles the thing it's supposed to depict has to be Leo. For those who don't know it, the prominent group of stars known as the Sickle is clearly the lion's mane. Look behind it and all the other parts of the beast readily fall into place. Once seen, never forgotten.

The thing is, though, any intelligent species living on a planet orbiting the star Denebola would have no idea that their sun was, to us, a lion's back end, that the ancient Egyptians worshipped the constellation – which they called knem – or that the ancient Greeks associated it with the Nemean lion, a monster killed by Hercules. And it would never occur to them that superstitious Earthlings today think that if their sun is in the same part of the sky as our sun when someone is born, it makes that person ambitious and confident. I'm assuming here that this species has optical vision, not unlike our own, cultures, myths and languages we might recognise and are able to see the night sky much as we see it. These are big assumptions. They may, of course, have completely different ways of perceiving the presence of our star and ascribe it a significance we can't even begin to imagine. Nevertheless, it makes you wonder. It begs the question, if our sun is a visible star in the night sky of other intelligent species, what cultural significance, if any, do they attribute to our star? Are we, without knowing it, orbiting the body part of some mythological alien animal?

We might, of course, be of significance to more than one civilisation – and on more than one planet. I say 'be' but which tense we should use begins to get very complicated when we start contemplating these things. All that we do know, whichever planet we live on, is that star-light takes centuries to reach us and, whatever significance we might ascribe to each other's home-stars, all of our species probably exist for a mere blink of a cosmic eye. I say probably, because our lives are mere snapshots of evolution: we're still evolving. Who's to say what we're evolving into? And who's to say what other species elsewhere in the universe, perhaps millions of years ahead of us, have already become? As for the stars, though, as Basil Bunting put it:

Then is Now. The star you steer by is gone,
its tremulous thread spun in the hurricane
spider floss on my cheek
                                                                        Ibid.

I wrote this poem below a few years ago. It was first published in The Passionate Transitory magazine which, sadly, though passionate in its promotion of poetry, itself turned out to be transitory. I think, when I wrote it, Pluto was still a planet. Don't get me going on that.

News from Pluto

Something's about to happen. I'm not sure what.
I've watched for long enough and, yes, I get
Impatient, as the months slip by. And yet
This is important. In a way, I'm not.
Earth, erratic, crosses the ecliptic;
By day, the sun's scarce bigger than a star:
It makes you realise just how small we are.
Will I get home? I must be realistic.
Gravity's low. Perhaps my bones grow thin.
I jog the corridors, try to keep fit,
But face the fact (there's no escaping it)
I have become this waiting game I'm in.
One day, it'll happen, I've no doubt.
Exactly when, I don't know. I'll find out.

Dominic Rivron

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Light in the Darkness - Shine, Jesus, Shine

I was born into a Christian family. It was a mix of Catholic and Protestant and some had a stronger faith than others. I was baptised in a Church of England church, but my Sunday Schools were always Methodist. One was a strict Wesleyan Chapel that could not accept monetary gifts from my father, a publican. I have always had my faith, never faltering in my darkest of days, and believe me, I have pulled through some dark, hard times. I believe in ‘each to their own’, respectful of family and friends beliefs, non-beliefs, thoughts and preferences. If I have a grandchild sleeping over, they always get a ‘night-night, God bless’.

My christening gifts included a C of E Book of Common Prayer and a bible with my initials on. These were from both sets of grandparents, I think. As a child, I was fascinated by the picture inside the prayer book, ‘The Light of the World’ by Holman Hunt, and found the person, who I later learnt to be Jesus, a bit scary looking. The light in my darkness. 

Our recent stay in Dumfries and Galloway got off to a confusing start when there was a mix up concerning our accommodation. We’ve stayed in the same lodge so many times that we consider it to be our own. It took a few moments to accept that it was occupied. All turned out fine. There are only six lodges spaced between trees and shrubs, all very private and all much the same. We soon found ours. It was only tea-time, around five, but dark already. This is a recognised Dark Sky area and glancing up, I couldn’t believe my eyes, especially my peculiar eyes. The sky was full of more stars than I’d ever seen, sparkling brightly, some tiny, some big, millions of them. We stopped unloading the car and switched off the lights and torches we were using, and just stood, staring at the sky. I could actually see them, my eyes, with problem vision giving me a struggle to focus all the time, could process this wonderful night sky. The most amazing lights in the darkness.

On Christmas Eve, my daughter and I took her three children to the Christingle service at our local church. The children had been before to various services and to Christingle last year, so knew to sit quietly. After a while they were a bit fidgety. Matilda had seen a classmate across the aisle and wanted to sit with her, but was too shy to move. The boys, who had been sitting together, now had their mother between them and the threat of no Christingle orange. There was respite in the chance to sing as a well-known hymn began. As we stood, I heard one of the boys say ‘It’s Nanna’s God bless you song’ as I popped Matilda to her friend, with a ‘thank you’ to her Nanna who is a friend of mine. Shine, Jesus, Shine. I used to choose it a lot when my children were small and part of my Sunday School class. With all the children joining in the chorus, it must be a popular hymn from school assembly. A little later a loud chorus of ‘Sing Hosanna’ was raising the roof. At the end, all lights were switched off and flames from all the Christingles flickered around the church as everyone sang Away in a Manger. Beautiful lights.

A light in the darkness, a light at the end of a tunnel, a flicker of hope, that cloud with the silver lining. There is always hope for everyone, faith or not.

No poem today, sorry, but thanks for reading. A Happy New Year to everyone. Pam x

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The Night Sky - Stars

There are many things I enjoy about staying in Dumfries& Galloway. One thing, free to all in abundance is the total darkness around the vast area of Galloway Forest Park. On a clear night, the sky sparkles with millions of stars, their brilliance natural and clear, unspoilt by the pollution of town lighting. We can step out of our lodge and just look up into the night sky. This is when I wish I had better vision; so much is lost on me. For the sharper eyed or keen astronomers, the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory is situated at Dalmellington in Ayrshire at the far north east of the forest.

It is comforting to feel at-one with nature beneath this celestial blanket, listening to the owls, catching a glimpse of a deer, fox or rabbit and the smaller creatures that come out at night. This is my heavenly, happy place.

Last week was Bonfire Night. It’s not my favourite time of the year and this is the first time that my priority hasn’t been to keep our spaniel calm. I found myself agreeing to stroll down to the park with my eldest grandson, aged four, and his parents, to watch the annual firework display at the cricket ground. We live in a family-popular area so there were lots of fireworks around us. No sooner had we left the house, all of us wrapped up for the cold, than we were subjected to a barrage of bangers going off from all directions around us. My gloved hand tightened the grip on my grandson’s as I reassured  him that the bangs were only noisy fireworks, nothing scary, and if we keep looking up to the sky, we’ll see the lovely patterns and bright colours. And we did. We stood on the perimeter of the park and watched the fireworks from the surrounding neighbourhood before the cricket club started theirs.  Nearby, some people were behaving recklessly with fireworks. We kept moving out of their way until we gave up and made for home. My grandson enjoyed it, which was the main thing.

Soon I’ll be back in Dumfries & Galloway. The night sky might be cloudy, heavy with rain or possibly snow hiding the stars and moon from view. I won’t mind.

Stars by Emily Bronte

 

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
    Restored my earth to joy

Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

 All through the night, your glorious eyes

Were gazing down in mine,
And with a full heart's thankful sighs
I blessed that watch divine!

I was at peace, and drank your beams

As they were life to me
And revelled in my changeful dreams
Like petrel on the sea.

 Thought followed thought—star followed star

Through boundless regions on,
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through and proved us one.

 Why did the morning rise to break

So great, so pure a spell,
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek
Where your cool radiance fell?

 Blood-red he rose, and arrow-straight,

His fierce beams struck my brow;
The soul of Nature sprang elate,
But mine sank sad and low!

 My lids closed down—yet through their veil

I saw him blazing still;
And bathe in gold the misty dale,
And flash upon the hill.

 I turned me to the pillow then

To call back Night, and see
Your worlds of solemn light, again
Throb with my heart and me!

 It would not do—the pillow glowed

And glowed both roof and floor,
And birds sang loudly in the wood,
And fresh winds shook the door.

 The curtains waved, the wakened flies

Were murmuring round my room,
Imprisoned there, till I should rise
And give them leave to roam.

 O Stars and Dreams and Gentle Night;

O Night and Stars return!
And hide me from the hostile light
That does not warm, but burn—

 That drains the blood of suffering men;

Drinks tears, instead of dew:
Let me sleep through his blinding reign,
And only wake with you!


Emily Bronte  1818 - 1848

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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In the dark....with Jarvis

In keeping with the greyness of the day and the hopelessness of the political landscape, my mood is gloomy at the moment. Having written several blogs that amount to angry rants at the world, I determined that this week would be different and something gentler and more positive would flow from my laptop. So here we go with er… ‘dark’, the connotations of which are almost all negative – gloomy, threatening, brooding, mysterious, sombre, evil, funereal, menacing, opaque, depressed….. And yet the dark can be a backdrop, an essential foil to an explosion of scintillating light. Without the stark contrast that the dark sky provides, we could not fully appreciate the beauty of the stars, for instance.

In the 1990s I went on holiday to a farm in Ireland. Fairymount Farm in Co. Tipperary was a magical place in the Irish midlands, with a mystical history and was said to be situated on a ley line. We arrived at night and I have never forgotten glancing up at the dark cobalt sky, which seemed to be brooding just above my head. And, set against it, MILLIONS of winking, twinkling, glittering stars, so close that I felt that I could reach up and pluck one for myself, hold the scintilla in my hand. The magic could be within my grasp.

Image by Tim Hadfield - Canada at the World Fireworks Championship, Blackpool 2014

I’ve never liked fireworks. As a child I used to hide myself away from the staccato gunfire racket of bangers and rip-raps. The house felt under siege from heavy artillery and I was relieved when it was all over. Braver now, I’m possibly regressing to the child-like awe and wonder of fireworks, the explosion of life and colour against the night sky, that I never experienced as a child. Along with thousands of others, we went with our family to the World Fireworks Championship on the promenade in September and were amazed by the winning display by Canada. The grace, ingenuity, exuberance, verve and, above all, colour of the display were magnificent. An inky, expectant sky hosted a cornucopia of dazzling, dancing lights of every hue imaginable.

As dusk descends on Glastonbury festival a palpable air of expectancy and excitement envelops the Pyramid stage, reaching a crescendo as the headliners take to the stage. There is good music, and much more, to be found in the festival’s vast acres and numerous stages every minute of every day, but, as night descends, a particular frenzy takes hold of the fun-loving hordes. Once again, the darkness of the sky facilitates a magical transformation, as the pitch-black stage suddenly bursts into life.

In 1995 the Sheffield indie band, Pulp, found themselves unexpectedly propelled into super-stardom, headlining the Pyramid stage on the Saturday night. Summonsed at very short notice to replace the injured and rapidly imploding Stone Roses, Pulp lit up the Somerset sky and owned Glastonbury with their evocative songs of grubby teenage angst and longing, culminating in the magnificent anthem, ‘Common People’. Jarvis Cocker, fizzing and spitting with righteous indignation and contempt, was a wonder to behold. His spleen had never been more……splenetic!

So there, for me, are a few examples of the bright side of dark. And I’ve managed to steer clear of politics!

Thank you for reading,

Sheilagh

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OED OD - OCD?

When this theme arose last year, I imagined a dessert island.  It was a good place to get stranded.  There was custard and, legend has it, rhubarb crumble.  This year I am feeling, sadly, a little less pudding.  My partner in cake is no longer around and I'm off my tea loaf.  But enough of my soggy semolina...

I would want only one title with me on the desert island.  Currently it runs to 20 volumes, contains 22,000 pages, and weighs 140lbs.  Behold, the mighty tome which is the Oxford English Dictionary!

Blackpool Library Service has signed up to give every one of its members online access to the OED online and I feel that this fact should be advertised more often.  For me, it is worth joining the library for this feature alone.  Hours and days can be happily resigned to history while dallying among nykins (sweethearts) and babbarts (hares), kichels (small cakes (damn, they snuck in again)) and stushies (disturbances).  It's like getting to know loads of interesting people without having to feign an interest in their preoccupation with cake...

Behind every word is the story of its origin (as far as it can reasonably be traced) and a selection of uses.  To support the historical context and usage, there are excerpts from diary entries and newspaper clippings, novels, novellas and scientific journals.

For a poet, what more could you possibly need to while away your remaining days?  To take a random example, below is the partial entry for a single word, nonced into life by the exquisite Charles Dodgson:

nyctograph, n.

Pronunciation:  Brit. /ˈnɪktə(ʊ)ɡrɑːf/ 

A device invented by Charles Dodgson (‘Lewis Carroll’) with which a person can record ideas (esp. those remaining after sleep) at night in bed without fully waking up.

1891   ‘L. Carroll’ Diary 24 Oct. (1953) II. xiv. 486   Today [sc. 24 Sept.] I conceived the idea of having a series of squares, cut out in card, and devising an alphabet, of which each letter could be made of lines along the edges of the squares, and dots at the corners... I shall call it ‘The Typhlograph’. (24/10/91. Instead of ‘typhlograph’ I have adopted ‘Nyctograph’ at the suggestion of Warner).


And here is what I make of it:

Nyctograph

Nyct slips stars behind my peepers
Locks them under heavy lashes 
If I write before I wake
Those stars quick Nyct is sure to take

Straight lines to fish
Round spots for bait
Square box to store
Starlight I'll make.

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