hum

One night in 1982, a 19-year-old club kid called Ian Griffiths, who had recently dropped out of an architecture degree because “there was just too much fun to be had in Manchester, to be honest”, was at a party in Wythenshawe. He was living on £37.50 a week benefit, and “perfectly happy. I made all my own clothes, I got into all the clubs free.” When the Haçienda nightclub opened in the city, Griffiths went every night without fail for the first six months – “and I didn’t eat anyway, so there was no requirement for food. But there we were, wasted on the sofa, and the news came on that Margaret Thatcher was considering conscription for the Falklands war for the unemployed. So I thought I’d better do something. That’s how I ended up studying fashion.”

 Jess Cartner-Morley

The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at the least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything but write.  He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try.  He can look out the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor.  But he is not to do any other positive thing, not read, write letters, glance at magazines, or write checks.  Either write or nothing … I find it works.  Two very simple rules, a: you don’t have to write. b: you can’t do anything else.  The rest comes of itself.

Raymond Chandler

A good idea that doesn’t happen is no idea at all.

Louis Kahn

So, what would our natural rhythm look like? What would our sleeping patterns be in the sort of ideal sense? Well, it turns out that when people are living without any sort of artificial light at all, they sleep twice every night. They go to bed around 8:00 p.m. until midnight and then again, they sleep from about 2:00 a.m. until sunrise. And in-between, they have a couple of hours of sort of meditative quiet in bed. And during this time, there’s a surge of prolactin, the likes of which a modern day never sees. The people in these studies report feeling so awake during the daytime, that they realize they’re experiencing true wakefulness for the first time in their lives.

Jessa Gamble

I think that movies are made from the unconscious of the filmmakers, not out of their ego. A good movie comes unconsciously to me.

Luca Guadagnino

Do your thing
Be fancy-free to call the tune you sing

Don’t give up
That’s not the way to win a loving cup

Do your best
And opportunity will do the rest

Don’t give in
Capitulation is the greatest sin

Do what’s right
What’s right for you to do with all your might

Don’t regret
What might have been you might as well forget

Stand your ground
And while you’re standing there be duty-bound

Learn to wait
And while you’re waiting learn to concentrate

Make amends
All enemies I call potential friends

Calm your fears
And hope to cope at least a hundred years

Make your mark
If need be even make it in the dark

Mum’s the word
My sage advice pretend you haven’t heard

Moondog

Leonard Cohen used to gather the members of his band and road crew together 30 minutes before showtime, and encourage a group recitation of a very humble Latin verse, “Pauper sum ego, nihil habeo,” which means, “I am poor, I have nothing.”

Fraser McAlpine

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Albert Einstein

In the dark street light
of Hornsey Lane Bridge
(aka Suicide Bridge)
a boy sits quietly
on the pavement

I tell the police

1/2 an hour later
in the bright lights of an underground train
friends laugh loudly
a ring appears
a guy proposes

I tell a friend

I have a theory that deadlines are responsible for most good art. Deadlines are good because they stop you overcooking something. Albums that take years to make are like bad French food, where it has been so long in the preparation that everything is dead by the time it reaches you, whereas my dream of how to make music is like they make food in a busy Italian restaurant. They have fantastic ingredients and they do as little to them as possible. They just get them hot, put them together and give it to you.
I once took a band that I was about to produce, after they had made a laboured and complicated album, for dinner in a very good Italian restaurant, and I arranged with the restaurant manager to take them into the kitchen. So I sat them down to dinner and said ‘Now I want to show you how we are going to make your next record’, and I took them all into the kitchen and it was just chaos with flames, and cooks and waiters doing things really quickly. It was exciting.

Brian Eno