Stuart Eglin Online

Stuart Eglin Online

Posts Tagged Best of Blogs

Diaries of Robert Fripp

Jul 27

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Music, Things I found | No Comments

I have been reading Robert Fripp’s online diary for a few years now. It is a fascinating source of information about touring, making music, running a music business. Oh, and the obsessions that Fripp has developed over the years – not being photographed, having been ripped off a few years ago by his management. He also talks about the Guitar Craft Workshops which he initiated and which happen around the world.

Fripp’s rants are well worth a read. But it is also worth reading his considered thoughts on the process of living and creating. The site also generated frippisms which are good fun to read. For example:

“The question is its answer” and “Just below the surface of our everyday world lie riches”

These frippisms are randomly generated at the bottom of each page.

In recent months the number of photos he posts each day has grown, so that the site is also becoming a visual record of his day to day life.

It’s also worth giving a quick mention to Sid Smith who is the webmaster of DGM Live – which hosts the diary, as well being a download site for the work of Robert Fripp, King Crimson and associated projects.

[from the 'Things I found' archive]

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Global Ideas Blog

Jul 3

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Things I found | No Comments

I first wrote about the Global Ideas Bank on my old blog called ‘Things I found’ back in 2004. It’s great to revisit some of these things and still find the energy there. This blog, not a high frequency one, has great links to places like NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) which are well worth exploring.

The blog belongs to the Global Ideas Bank site. The bank is a place where you can find or post your own big ideas. It’s a great place to look for inspiration. Meanwhile, the blog is a good read too, and has good links to other blogs with ideas on them.

[From the 'Things I found' archive]

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Poetry silence – when to start again

Jul 24

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Θ Poetry | No Comments

I have written hardly any poetry in such a long time now – March was the last time I put anything together which might be called a poem.

I’m inspired by the daily posts on Greg Perry’s blog at the moment. He is writing a canto series. Each day sees at least one new poem, and they are well worth a read. Well done Greg – now for some words of my own…..

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Running your own race

Jan 26

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Personal Development | No Comments

Robin’s Blog: Blog Archive: “Robin, the most important thing in life is to run your own race.” Never forgotten that one. Run your own race. Don’t worry about what others are doing. Stick to your values and cling to your dreams.

This is a quote from the latest post on Robin Sharma’s weblog. It is a really thought-provoking idea. I remember being really hopeless at sport at school – and I think that was because it was always someone else’s race I was a part of, so I was always going to fail. It took a while into adulthood to realise that the way to progress was to compete with myself – to run my own race. Another way of looking at this is to see it as a process of continuing self-improvement.

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Sid Smith’s Postcards From The Yellow Room: Climate Of Hunter by Scott Walker

Jan 16

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Music | No Comments

Sid Smith’s Postcards From The Yellow Room: Climate Of Hunter by Scott Walker

The latest post on Sid Smith’s marvellous blog is a review of Scott Walker’s album ‘Climate of Hunter’. When Sid likes something he has a way of writing about it which draws you into it, and makes you want to go out and buy it. Sid’s book about King Crimson (‘In the Court of King Crimson’) achieves this with each of the albums over the band’s 40 year history. It’s a great read.

I wrote about the Scott Walker 5-CD set ‘In Five Easy Pieces’ ages ago, and also posted a link to an informative site about him. Thanks to Sid’s review, I’ll be diving back into that 5-CD set – as soon as I have finished listening to Robert Fripp’s latest album ‘Love Cannot Bear’ which has been played at least once a day since I bought it just over a week ago. I know I referred to it on the last post, but it deserves another mention. Beautiful and serene soundscapes that touch something deep into the soul and leave the listener breathless. And there’s even a track where Fripp ‘sings’ a poem – well, he does it through a heavily treated piece of electronics. It is very moving and unsettling in the way that Laurie Anderson can be.

Oh, and it’s a great CD to play whilst working too!

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Best Tool For the Job

Jun 22

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Things I found | No Comments

Best Tool For the Job

This is a site that I found for the first time today. It has a great post called “Ten Things You Can Do Today to Jump-start Success”. It is well worth a visit to read the detail, but the headlines are:

1. Read or listen to something that motivates you every single day.

2. Keep a journal of your daily progress and carry it with you wherever you go.

3. Make goals and re-write them every day.

4. Keep track of every person you meet.

5. Begin investing a portion of your income today.

6. Begin looking for opportunities to build passive income (money that you don’t have to work for once you’ve done the initial work) and write down or begin working on your ideas.

7. Only sleep as much as you need to.

8. Look for opportunities to serve.

9. Keep track of every penny that you spend or save.

10. Stop being a victim. Focus on what YOU can DO.

You really need to read the extra detail on Marcus’ website to apply these – I thought they were a great set of things to work on.

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Largehearted Boy weblog & Easytree

Apr 7

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Music | No Comments

Largehearted Boy: Bittorrent Brunch:

More about the demise of Easytree. A great weblog, Largehearted Boy, suggests some alternatives. It’s amazing that the legal community don’t realise that as fast as they track and close down these sites, others open up to replace them. Better surely to think about ways to create authorised environments for sharing live music and concerts off FM radio. Some bands do this themselves through their websites. There are far more creative ways to tackle this, rather than suing people. This then is Largehearted Boy’s comment…

“Easytree is officially gone. The successor (in my heart, at least) to Sharing The Groove now passes the baton to… who? I’ve been most impressed with The Traders’ Den, which has a Sharing The Groove feel to it, as well as a varied selection of genres and generous helping of live DVD’s.
Other bittorrent lossless live performance trackers I recommend (feel free to add more in the comments):

etree
Digital Panic
Via Chicago (Wilco and related)
PureLiveGigs
Pearl Jam”

UPDATE: I’ve posted about this again, on 10th April (link here). If you have come here looking for Easytree’s successor. Follow this link to Dimeadozen.

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Do one or two things really well – if only!

Mar 6

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Personal Development | No Comments

Advice from Dave Pollard’s weblog (How to save the world): –

Do one or two things really well!!

That focuses right in on one of the things I have real challenge with. Even at the best of times, it is a real effort to sustain focus on one thing for very long. I always have a huge list of other things which I am really keen to do.

Dave admits that he too is not exactly brilliant at this. He sets it out as a “do what I say, not what I do” item. Well, I too can realise that the focus on one or two things really does make a huge difference. People who I know who are really obsessed about a small number of things achieve incredible things.

But then I do admire the polymaths in the world – those people who excel in a wide number of areas, who dabble in all sorts of things out of interest. Look at Leonardo da Vinci.

So, just maybe the world needs a mix of specialists and polymaths.

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Been away

Feb 23

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts | 1 Comment

Well, I am back after a break of a week. I went to Austria skiing. This was the second time I had been skiing and it is now all starting to make some sense. I can now go at fair speed without falling over (too much!)

The service is now back in action. There will be posts over the next few days, on music, poetry etc.

I received an email from Norm Geras this morning. He wrote to let me know that my blogroll of links had disappeared off the site. After an exhange of emails, it seems that this is a problem in certain browsers, and not in others. How strange! If you are unable to see my “Weblogs I watch” list then please let me know, so that I can see if I can do something about it.

Whilst I was away, there was also a reference on Anny Ballardini’s site to the posting I made recently about the Creative Commons initiative. Thanks for that, Anny. This was the second time I had had feedback to the idea of inserting a Creative Commons license to the site. Greg Perry also emailed me about it. It’s interesting which posts attract attention.

Anyway, over the next few days I’ll post reactions to some of the music I have been listening to recently including David Sylvian’s “The Only Daughter”.

I’ll also be commenting on Podcasting and offering some links to podcasters. Watch this space!

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normblog: Jan Garbarek in Manchester

Nov 29

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Music | No Comments

Follow the link for a review by Norman Geras of the Jan Garbarek Group’s concert in Manchester, England. Norman was less impressed than I was. Same songs, same musicians, different reaction!

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Mike Snider’s Formal Blog and Sonnetarium

Sep 20

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Θ Poetry | No Comments

Mike Snider’s Formal Blog and Sonnetarium

Mike Snider has been looking at my weblog, and has put a link to it on his site. Well, thanks very much for that! Mike’s various sites are well worth a visit. There’s a link to his weblog over in my ‘Weblogs I Watch’ column to the right. Or you can follow the link in this entry.

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