Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

Waking up with the vivid sensation of a dream that was if anything more 'real' than anything in the waking world -and in seconds it is gone; the sensation still is there but you have no memory of the dream itself, of what was happening in it or the world in it but are still kind of overwhelmed by it -not necessarily badly, not like waking up from a nightmare, but the intensity of it, the numinosity of it.

In the real world, waiting to have a couple of medical appointments at UCLH. I have many questions for them. Also worried about the summer and how much work I will have then -it normally does go quiet and I get no income from the schools for August, etc The school in Highb. still remains a source of stress but also a source of nearly half my income, so.... I'll put up with it. Trying to help my street artist homeless friend but this sometimes gets a bit tricky or prickly. Life marches on.

Merry Christmas, all!

Currently with fellow Venezuelan friends of many years, having done Christmas dinner late on the eve as is our custom. I expect we'll have a second Christmas dinner at lunch-time today....part of our traditional Xmas dinner includes Hallaca (pictured), ensalada de gallina (or, in modern times, veggie equivalent), pan de jamón, various kinds of sweets and cakes and, often, quite a bit of alcohol....

That was a good week-end, but increasingly I notice that I cannot do all-nighters and go to several clubs on the same night as I ... oh, ok, it always took me several days to recover from that sort of thing, but it doesn't get better as you get older. Still, it was all good.

On Friday I went to an exhibition of art of a Venezuelan friend -'Clay. Wallpaper. Venezuelan Scenarios' by Andrea Moreno at Craving Coffee in Tottenham Hale. The pieces had a lot of subtext related to the current Venezuelan political situation and to V'zlan popular culture. I enjoyed that. It was strange to be in a place where about 30% of the people present spoke in Spanish with Venezuelan accents -and addressed me in sort of cautious English. Surely I look and sound Venezuelan? My ex-girlfriend used to say I wrote with a Venezuelan accent....



Mondlicht was a blast, it is more or less the new incarnation of Invocation in a smaller, more central venue (the basement of the Albany in Gt Portland St). As I traditionally had a little birthday celebration at Reptile, I left at midnight and headed for Archway. Now, I like Reptile even though the choice of music is not always my cup; had a good bit of a dance, chatted with friends, but by 3:00 am I'd decided I'd had enough so headed home. Could have walked but didn't; the 134 takes me right to my doorstep from there. Had some good conversations but also discovered that somebody I quite like (beautiful, interesting woman in many respects and from every other interaction I'd had with her, intelligent and mature) turns out to be a climate change denier. As I backed off slowly, the other friend who was present was asking her about some other conspiracy theory trope 'sure you also believe then that...' and she replies 'actually, since you mention...' at which point I disappeared back into the dance floor. 

On Sunday I met with friends at the Abbey Tavern in Kentish Town for Sunday Roast -which was very good, as was the gathering. At the bar I ran into a former guitar pupil who was on his first shift as a bartender at the place. That was a little bit strange. 

* the links are to Facebook events. One or several of them may not be public.

How's this for a sweet picture of suicideally and chris_damage



(from Queen Adreena's gig at Koko, 2006)

Thursday I met with a young friend at Amorino in Covent Garden to eat fantastic ice-cream and sit at the tables outside under the leaky grey, grey skies exchanging life stories, mostly about our respective fathers.

In the evening I went to North-Nineteen for the londongothsluts meeting, this time celebrating boxcat and myz_lilith's return from their travels. After listening to very good stories of far away and having a so-so dinner (a first for the place; I won't be ordering fish and chips there again), left to go and see The Creeping Terrors at the Unicorn. Very good gig on their part, not that many people in the audience, though. Pictures of the gig, here. The band that followed was playing 'ironic' covers of hard rock and generic 'cock rock'. I'm getting tired of 'ironic' so I left with friends for a glass of wine at their place and to make the acquaintance of Luna, their visiting cat. A lot of wine and good conversation, although it is not the conversation that results in a pounding head the morning after.

Friday -I totally failed to make it to Nambucca to see Prof Elemental (I wasn't that taken with the idea of this, I must say) and the Memepunks (I was, but still didn't make it). Instead I stayed at Veronique's Goth Christmas Party and Jason's Birthday Commiserations (at Aces & Eights; no link as it was a 'private' event), which was a fantastic party. Again, pictures here. Really really lovely. More head pounding in the morning.

On Saturday, after lessons and meeting a friend for coffee and catch up at the Rustique Café, I went to the Slimelight to see DKAG and Alien Vampires' concert. Wasn't intending to stay long or drink much but people kept giving me conversation and buying me drinks and .. the morning after started lated and went rather slowly and heavily. Maybe there is a theme developing here.

Sunday didn't exist apart from some guitar practice and one lesson, this one online with my pupil in Kuala Lumpur.

Monday -ah, getting to meet lovelybug at St Pancras and spend some lovely time with her there, then joining Krisztina and yog_sthoth at the Tricycle Theatre to see _that_ movie. Which I liked. Quite a bit. May have to see it again in a larger screen, maybe in 3D.

I didn't mention the letter from the HMRC where they allude to a possible error in my tax return last year which will mean me having to magic a lot of money to pay more tax. No, one wouldn't mention that sort of thing, would one.

... and a good week-end it was.

On Thursday there was Tufguitar: (some of) my pupils met to play at the Rustique café, as they do once a month. A very good one, had five pupils present which is good going for something like this, including a new face.

On Friday there was A New Dusk at Aces and Eights; this was a lovely night of dancing to post-punk music and catching up with friends and making a few new ones. A small basement in a bar in Tufnell Park, a lovely atmosphere, a very good night.

Saturday promised to be a bit hectic: I had lessons to do and other things, then there was the Renaissance Festival at Electrowerkz and the Gothic Valley WI's Hallowe'en party. I managed to attend both, or at least the first four or five bands at the festival, a few hours at the party and then the last couple of bands at the festival again and, again, a little bit of dancing and, again again, catching up with people. Both good, in very different ways. I still missed a couple of things that were going on, mainly Shenanigans which -oops, I forgot it was that evening. Sorry Sal and Zeke... I don't think they missed me, though; all reports were of a very good night there.

This is half term week so no school. Today, a couple of lessons and meeting a friend for coffee (me, she doesn't do coffee much) and book exchange. On which topic, just finished Charlie Stross's 'Merchant Princes' trilogy -very very good, gripping story that I read almost in one sitting but with a rather rushed ending with some loose ends left. He must have had a lot of fun writing this -it takes place (and was written) in the mid 2000's in the aftermath of 9/11 and he gets to have G W Bush die in a nuclear attack, replaced by Dick Cheney who, in the story, is in league with a cartel of drug smugglers from a parallel Earth. Ok, that's kind of a spoiler but you weren't going to read it anyway, were you. And the story is much more complex than that. I don't think he can write a follow up book to the series, given all the things in it that have become anachronic. More's the pity.

Theremins! Hypnotique performing 'Vocalise' by Rachmaninoff at Susi's Atomic Powered House Warming Birthday Bash on 26-09-15

A week end of many parts, most of them good.

Friday was a strange day. I was feeling down and lonely, for various reasons but especially one which will not go in this story. Had nothing planned for that evening and wandered around for hours, walking seemingly having some sort of calming or restoring effect when I feel like that -walked past the Unicorn on Camden Road where there was a punk gig but didn't much like the environment so walked on to Big Red, which was empty -it was too early. Walked yet further down to check out the new location of the 12 Bar Club but didn't go in. Back at the Big Red, a friend turned up and chatted with her about entropy and the pointlessness of existence (maybe I'm hanging out with goths a bit too much) until at some point some other friends and people I know turned up -and it turned out an excellent evening. Made it back around 2:30 or so.

The following day brought about, apart from a couple of lessons, a visit to the Bart's Bazaar Macabre Market at St Bart's Hospital. Didn't buy anything and didn't take pictures but it was a very good outing. I do have to say that seeing all those pathology exhibits just makes me think of how much suffering they brought to their bearers, but it was very interesting -the market itself was small but interesting, full of lovely trinkets although none that really really caught me enough to buy. In the evening, it was Dylan's birthday at Garlic & Shots. There'll be pictures of that but for now, just a very short video of him extolling the virtues of a German Curry Energy Drink..

From there they went on to Decadence but I went to see the Terminal Gods at the Slimelight. Wasn't taken by the two opening bands I saw but the T Gods were very good. I heard some people criticising their music as derivative and.. well, I suppose it is, a little bit, and their influences are very very clear, but there is nothing really wrong with that when they do their stuff so well and I enjoyed it a lot. Took many pictures, I may put up some somewhere.

On Sunday met with Jennie at the Satanic Flea Market, had a browse and generally a good time (good to see mister_ed and Natasha) but again I felt that although there were lovely and interesting things none caught me enough to actually buy. We went next door to Raizes, the Brazilian restaurant next door. Had a good feijoada and arroz carreteiro and we shared a Caipirinha -it was a bit early for that sort of thing but it was nice. Later, we went for a walk down the South Bank. I always enjoy just that feeling of soaking London in, walking past the Globe or the Royal Festival Hall. We stopped at the Real Food Market for a cider and then each went home. Turned out to be a rather good week-end in the end.

Another week-end whizzed past, this one a rather quiet one as I was trying to prepare and get ready for this little gig later this week. Apart from lessons and shopping, my only outing was to the Big Red on Saturday for robot_mel's birthday drinks (Happy Birthday, Mel!), which was a lovely occasion and of which there are pictures in this FB album.

In the week, I booked train tickets for the rather complicated (and expensive, but I knew that) trip to Italy with my sister later in April when she comes over from Venezuela. I'll be worrying now about the mad dash through Paris from one train station to another and whether we'll make it on time for the connecting train in the time we have. So it goes, I s'pose -I've found something to be worried about for a while, apart from my concert.

Also, although we didn't see any snow in London this year (but there's always April, when it snows here it seems to be quite late so people can go 'oooh, look, snow falling in April...'), in one of my ancestral homes, my mother's home town of La Grita in the Venezuelan Andes and just a couple of degrees above the Equator, it was snowing for the first time in recorded history two days ago...

Acknowledging receipt of beautiful Christmas card by the very talented Mr jackdiablo, better known these days as PushingNormal

( card inside )