Stuart Eglin Online

Stuart Eglin Online

Posts Tagged Books and Reading

New book by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

Jun 13

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Mahamudra Tantra

Mahamudra Tantra: The supreme heart jewel nectar
An Introduction to Meditation on Tantra
This is a new book written by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, who is the Spiritual Leader of the New Tradition of Kadampa Buddhism. He is based at the Manjushri Buddhist Centre in Ulverston, Cumbria UK. I attended a weekend meditation course there a few years ago, which was amazing. The centre is located on the shores of Morecambe Bay, and has a beautiful Buddhist Temple built in its grounds. It is well worth a visit. The books I have read by Kelsang Gyatso are beautifully written, in a clear prose and take you through the principles of buddhism in a succinct way. This new book, which I haven’t got hold of yet, looks at meditation on the tantra. From the website:

“This exciting book introduces a new world of meditation.
It explains how we can use our imagination as a powerful tool in our spiritual practice
Mahamudra is a Sanskrit word that means union of bliss and emptiness, the very essence of Buddhist Tantric meditation.
Mahamudra Tantra is a practical manual for gaining deep experience of meditation and discovering the peace and happiness that lies within.”

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Bob Dylan – Chronicles Volume One

Jun 9

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I’ve been reading Bob Dylan’s first volume of autobiography recently. I have just a few pages to go. Dylan is an artist who I have better understood as I got older. I remember first hearing so many songs that I thought were preferable as cover versions by other people – ‘All Along the Watchtower’ by Jimi Hendrix for example.

I had read a couple of reviews of this book, which encouraged me to read it. It was rated as top book to read by Mojo magazine at the end of last year.

Well I agree with the comments that the style of prose is good. Dylan’s style is unusual, reminds me a bit of the Beat writers. It takes a few pages to feel comfortable with it, and the narrative technique he uses is unusual too. Unlike many autobiographies by stars there is very little detail of dates, times, contexts etc. I’m not a huge fan of Dylan, so a lot of the subtle references were probably lost on me. As a result I often felt like the text jumped from one time to another without any clues to orientate the reader.

I did enjoy reading the book – it had a lot of interesting facts in it and some great anecdotes. I particularly liked the bit about Woody Guthrie, where Dylan visits him in the mental hospital for the last time, is offered some songs that Guthrie wrote if he goes to the family house. Dylan goes in search of the songs, but is unsuccessful. As an almost throwaway comment, he points out that these were the songs which would later be recorded by Billy Bragg and Wilco. What an amazing story!

But I wouldn’t rate this book at the top of my list, because it was just too confusing. It felt like it needed a good editing job from someone with the nerve to say to Dylan ‘this is great stuff, but it needs to be put into context so that the reader can follow where you are going’.

Ultimately the problems might be down to my lack of knowledge of the subject. I’d be really interested to hear what real Dylan fans made of the book. Feel free to post a comment and let me know.

I suppose the final test rests with the fact that I will still be keen to read the next volume when it comes out.

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The magic of metaphor

Apr 3

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews | 2 Comments

I am reading a book by Nick Owen called “The magic of metaphor”.

magic of metaphor
It is a collection of stories designed to engage, inspire and transform the listener and the reader. He looks at the whole idea of story-telling and pulls out the power of the story-teller when giving a story from memory rather than reading it out.

I found this great quote last night:

“When we begin to understand the patterns and structures of our thinking, we can start to liberate ourselves from enslavement to our limitations.”

It is one of those sentences that rattles around in your head if you let it. Give it a little time to set off sparks.

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NLP – Five Key Questions

Mar 31

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews, Personal Development | No Comments

These five key questions were suggested to me by Ben Shoshan, who is a mind set / executive coach working for Si Group. They are meant to be used when something negative happens, to reframe the situation, and change the usual reaction:

1. What could be good about this?
2. What’s not perfect, yet?
3. Who can help?
4. How can I have some fun with this?
5. What can be learnt from the whole thing?

This approach is really powerful. It draws on the learning to be found in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). I’m reading a fascinating book about this at the moment called “NLP Solutions” by Sue Knight.

I have tried it a couple of times. Taking each question in turn, and in order, I found that they create real actions that lift me out of the tendency to become negative.

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Freud’s da Vinci

Mar 22

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Stefan Beyst has been in contact with me. He has a webpage which sets out some of the shortcomings of Freud’s work on Leonardo da Vinci. It is a beautiful page, with lovely illustrations, and a well-argued set of points.

Stefan is one of a large number of people who have been looking at this weblog because they were searching for information about Freud and da Vinci. I seem to have come up high in the google search ratings on this one, thanks to the earlier post which I made when I read the book.

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Thoreau

Mar 15

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews | 2 Comments

I regularly read the weblog of Greg Perry. Today he posted a quote from Henry David Thoreau which drew me across to his weblog where does regular posts of extracts from the journals of Thoreau. Today’s quote is great – go and have a look.

This quote resonates with me, because I am just lifting out of the winter blues and trying to get the productivity levels up. Time for some ambitious goals.

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Douglas Barbour – Fragmenting Body etc

Mar 7

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews, Θ Poetry | No Comments

I recently finished reading a book of poems by Douglas Barbour called “Fragmenting Body etc”. Douglas is from Canada. The book is published by Salt which is a joint UK / Australia press (read an excerpt here) – the output from Salt over the last few years has been impressive.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Douglas used a game to devise the input lines which give the inspiration to the poems in the first section. He chose a set of random lines (with the help of a die) from a book and then used these to start the poems which were written quickly over a month. The poetry in the collection is marvellously challenging. Douglas really tears apart the language and reconstructs it. One is taken one a journey through the roots, parts and segments of words -really getting inside the language which he uses.

This poetry is probably the closest I have seen to e e cummings without descending into pastiche. Douglas takes the experimental approaches of cummings and makes the interpretation totally his own.

One is left with the feeling that every part of the syllable, the word, the line and the spacing is so carefully thought through. This is a poet totally in command of the language he works with.

These are not just poems that play with language though – they also work hard with emotions, and depict events and narrative.

All in all, a read worth making!

The project ’50 Books in 2005′, is a little behind schedule. But not irretrievable.

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Peter Riley Books – bad news

Mar 3

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Today I received the latest catalogue from Peter Riley Books, a mail order seller of poetry books, new and second-hand. He is based in Cambridge, England. I’ve been getting his catalogue for a couple of years or more now. He has an incredibly diverse choice of poetry from a wide range of presses. It’s a great way to get hold of poetry that you would never find in a book shop.

Well the bad news is this. Peter says in his latest catalogue that he plans to close down the business later this year. That will leave a big hole in the poetry world in the UK. I will be very sad to see him go – and will miss browsing through his catalogues and picking a handful of books every couple of months.

I’m not ignoring the fact that running a business like his must take an enormous amount of time and effort.

But his efforts will be really missed.

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Sigmund Freud – Leonardo da Vinci

Jan 17

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews | 3 Comments

“Leonardo da Vinci” by Sigmund Freud was a book which I bought at the local library in a sale. Every few months they clear books and sell them on at ridiculouly low prices. Amongst the stack of trashy novels and last year’s annual books there are usually some real treats.

It took me a while to settle to read this book by Freud. I’ve read a lot of the works of Carl Jung. I did a PhD thesis which drew on the work of Jung (see here for an article from the thesis). In spite of the fact that Jung and Freud diverged hugely in their respective psychologies, I am also interested in the work of Freud. As ever, it is probably the middle ground which is the most interesting, rather than a simple “either / or” argument.

Freud’s book on Leonardo da Vinci has an intriguing idea behind it. He sets out to carry out a psychoanalysis on Leonardo working only with the details of biography and the works that Leonardo left. This amounts to a significant amount of journal material as well as the paintings.

As ever with Freud, the book is beautifully written. The gist of his argument is that Leonardo was celibate and gay. Some of the arguments are stuck in their historical context. He makes some preposterous assertions about homosexuality – claiming that it can be caused by issues around bonding to parents. Ultimately the arguments put forward in the book lack coherence. They are just not entirely convincing. There is also an extended passage where Freud interprets a dream described by Leonardo in his journals, and draws some quite remarkable assertions. As so often with Freud, the sexual urge is given far too much emphasis.

However, even though the arguments don’t stand up, I am intrigued by the basic idea that an analysis can be carried out on a figure based on secondary sources.

It probably doesn’t make sense as a science, but as an art form I think it has endless possibilities.

So the book was well worth a read for the ideas it has generated even if it had shortcomings. I’m reminded of the early novels of Michael Ondaatje, particularly “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid” which combined fact and fiction really well. Many novelists have used this sort of technique.

It would be really interesting to see more of the interface between fiction and psychology in this setting.

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General malaise

Jan 12

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According to John Kao in his book “Jamming: the art and discipline of business creativity” Jimmy Carter used the word malaise to describe the state of Americans post-Watergate and Vietnam. In Kao’s view this use of language backfired, because vague psychological language does not get to the mind-set of Americans.

Well, being British I guess I can say that the period from mid-December through to mid-January is on of general malaise. Recovering from the state of exhaustion brought on by chasing some sort of job future (not yet resolved, but getting there!)

Over the coming days I have heaps of things to write about – books read (Michael Heppell, Sigmund Freud, Rupert Loydell), music listened to (Keane, The Thrills, early Japan, Harold Budd, Patti Smith etc etc) and more besides.

For now, let’s just say…I’m back!

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Margaret Wheatley & New Science

Sep 27

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Margaret J Wheatley

I’m reading “Leadership and the New Science” by Margaret Wheatley at the moment. It’s a fascinating read, taking in the breadth of new sciences from quantum physics to chaos theory. I like the way she begins and ends each chapter with a vivid image, and piece of descriptive writing.

I’ve given a web-link to her website where she has posted a whole stack of articles which she has written. I’m going to browse through these over the coming weeks. Worth a look, I think.

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John Cage

Sep 20

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Books arrived from Peter Riley this morning. They included a copy of ‘M: writings 67-72′ by John Cage. I’m really excited about getting this book. I’ve been trying to get hold of some written material by Cage for a while now (maybe 2 years!) and have had no success until now. I’m particularly keen to see his book ‘Silence’. Anyway, the book I received this morning loooks brilliant – lots of typographic tricks, visual uses of language and diary extracts. I’m really looking forward to working through it.

I also got Rupert Loydell‘s ‘The Museum of Light’. I’ll put comments about this here when I have had time to look at it. Two more books were – William Oxley’s ‘Collected Longer Poems’ and ‘Poetry with an Edge’ edited by Neil Astley. I’m looking forward to a few train journeys in the future when I can work through these.

Music in the background – ‘Tremble Peady’ by People Like Us (Vicky Bennett), brilliant and weird…

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e e cummings

Sep 17

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews, Θ Poetry | No Comments

Last night I did some more work on the booklet ‘edge of water’. Then I sat around for half an hour, listening to the ‘panthalassa’ remix album, whilst reading poetry.

I browsed through ‘The Book of Demons & Pearl’ by Barry MacSweeney. This is powerful, ranting poetry with vivid use of imagery. One to spend some more time on. Then I dipped into a book I have by e e cummings called ’95 poems’. I haven’t sat and read his work for years, and I was quickly reminded of the moments of epiphany that arrive as you decipher his poetry. My favourite from last night is set out below. Tip: look for the word wrapped around the bracket first. It’s a beautifully poignant piece of work with so little material achieving so much.

l(a

le

af

fa

ll

s)

one

l

iness

(1958)

And there’s a link on the web, where you can read 153 of his poems (don’t you just love the internet!) It is here.

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Douglas Clark – Finality

Sep 3

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Yesterday I received a copy of ‘Finality’. This beautifully produced book of poems by Douglas Clark contains some marvellous poems. I haven’t had time to look at it in depth yet, but it includes ‘Snapshots’ which Douglas posted to the Poetry etc mailing list a while ago. I thought this was a wonderful poem, a series of snapshots from the phases of a life. You can find more of the poetry of Douglas on the web at http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com/. Well worth a visit.

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Doing something with time chaos

Aug 19

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews, Music | No Comments

Having returned recently from a holiday in France, I find myself struggling to make good use of time. If I was as wasteful with other areas of my life, it would be a criminal offence!

Last weekend I went on a spending spree, and bought some of the Led Zeppelin back-catalogue which is missing from my collection. The first two albums really are something else – both released in 1969. I can’t help wondering how it was possible to produce albums of immense creativity and exploration every six months or so back at the end of the 60s, whereas these days average time is every three years or so to produce an album.

It makes me truly respect the work of bands like Led Zep and The Beatles. It wasn’t just the breadth and range of what they did, but the speed with which they did it too.

On holiday I read Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’. I know I must be the last person to read it. I really enjoyed it – no need for a review. There are already loads of them out there on the net. I also read ‘A Walk in the Woods’ by Bill Bryson which was a good read – made me laugh out loud which is unusual (maybe the wine had something to do with it). Finally I read Anthony Clare’s ‘On Men’ which was thought-provoking and infuriating too. I can’t say I entirely agreed with what he had to say in the book – but some of the points were poignant. Verdict – heavy going, but worth the effort for the arguments it can cause.

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The Tipping Point

Jul 6

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I promised a review of ‘The Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a magnificent book – one of those books that you find yourself quoting bits from to people through the course of the day. It describes the phenomenon whereby things can grow from nothing to a craze in an unbelievably short space of time. He attributes this to a number of factors, issues which are important to understand if you are interested in building communities of interest, marketing an idea or just want to understand why something goes from being unfashionable to being the ‘must have’ without any apparent involvement from ‘marketeers’ or sellers.

Gladwell covers a set of key principles and issues, looking at the roles of different types of people in building networks, communicating messages etc. He also looks at the importance of numbers – the maximum numbers for a circle of intimate friends, and for our circle of influence. He talks about the number 150 as key to manageable groups, organisations and societal sections. This is really interesting. What about the current trend towards ever bigger schools and hospitals? Is it any wonder that these organisations become dysfunctional when they are not organised around core units of 150 with strong identities for each.

The case study which looked at policing in New York, and the way they turned that city round from a lawless chaos to one where things were rapidly coming under control again, is fascinating reading. I hadn’t seen it that way – a different and convincing view is always worth looking at.

The book is light on references, and attributes for the theory underpinning the work. But I think it is a better book for that – it is so readable.

I will never look at Hush Puppies the same way again.

Go get it! And enjoy it, I’m sure you will.

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Buddhist chants

Jun 16

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I am relaxing, listening to an album of chants called ‘Om Sai Ram’ which creates a gentle state of tranquility. This is interrupted only by the occasional click of computer keypad, and the sighing of the cat. Sometimes peace is the right state of mind.

I have nearly finished reading ‘The Tipping Point’ by Malcolm Gladwell which is an absorbing book full of fascinating facts and theories. I’ll post a review of it in a couple of days.

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Focus

Jan 22

Posted by Stuart in Blog posts, Books and Book Reviews, Music, Playlists | No Comments

It is incredible just how much of our lives is spent in a vague state of day-dream. Wouldn’t it be good to be really focused, even just for a few hours each day?

Do I know what my overarching goals are for this year? Some of them, yes! But without a direction, we just wander around aimlessly.

My musical interests are broad, and widening – that is a good thing. But I do need a road map to follow sometimes.

My interests in reading and writing are also very broad – yes, that’s a good thing too. But the map needs to be set out so that I don’t disappear under a mound of books and CDs.

So, what am I reading and listening to at the moment:

Books:

1. Paul du Noyer – Liverpool: Wondrous Place

This is a marvellous book which looks at the music scene in Liverpool since the 50s. It covers all the major bands and artists that came out of Liverpool. It’s brilliant to read about the scene when I was there, and a part of it. Some of the writing also encouraged me to dip back into music that I had forgotten about. If you haven’t read this book yet, you should – it is a great read.

2. Peter Senge – The Dance of Change

This is a book about organisational change – I’ve read about 100 pages of it so far and it is packed full of interesting ideas.

Music:

1. Misha Alperin – At Home

Beautiful solo piano album by a jazz pianist. Sounds more like Debussy than jazz.

2. Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding

Yes, I know I must be virtually the last person to ‘get’ Bob Dylan. But I am now digging back into his really early stuff which is fantastic. This one has ‘All Along the Watchtower’ on it.

3. Antiopic – Allegorical Power Series Vol. 6

A series of albums for free download (www.antiopic.com) which comprise a lot of strange and wonderful noises from the world of music concrete / avant garde and just plain bizarre.

4. Julian Cope – Autogeddon

Yes, I do realise that he’s completely bonkers. But he does write great melodies, and I love all this barking mad stuff. It’s great to hear someone pursuing things to the extreme.

5. Eberhard Weber – Pendulum

An album of solo double bass sounds a bit worrying, but Eberhard Weber is in a league of his own. This album comprises a set of loops and echoes that build up into some beautiful songs.

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Creativity and Robert Fritz

Nov 6

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Some time ago I read a book by Robert Fritz called ‘The path of least resistance’. It was a marvellous exposition of uses of creativity. I thoroughly enjoyed working through it.

Well, you often find yourself going around loops and back to where you started. At the moment I am reading Peter Senge’s ‘Fifth Discipline’ and in searching through associated websites on the net (www.fieldbook.com) I noticed that Robert Fritz has worked with Senge. I then found a Fritz website (www.robertfritz.com) and reference to a couple of new books by him. One is called ‘Creating’ and sounds fascinating. There is also a recently published book called ‘Your life as art’ which I’m keen to read too.

I’ll come back to these books once I have tracked them down and read them.

Meanwhile, in a couple of weeks I am going to a Workshop which will be run by an actor, looking at applications of creative techniques in work situations. I’m looking forward to this.

Today’s music:

Miles Davis – Double Image

Jack de Johnette – Dancing with Nature Spirits

And a fair amount of quiet too – ah, the sound of silence.

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A week of ambling around

Sep 26

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It has been one of those weeks beset with a heap of work. In the midst of it all, I have waded through a range of music and a bit of poetry.

On the music front, I’m still listening with interest to () by Sigur Ros which reveals new depths each time I listen to it. I’ve also read the write up on this album at www.sigur-ros.com which really helps with an understanding of what is going on. The fact that the packaging is so beautiful and so totally without words, is explained thus. Apparently the songs have no titles, and the words to the songs are in a made up language, so the CD booklet has no words, the pages are beautifully textured and designed, with space for the listener to write their own interpretation of what the music is all about. A marvellous idea!

Earlier in the week, I dipped into The Beatles ‘White Album’ which has some real gems on it. The high point, and there are a number of peaks, has to be the long experimental track ‘Revolution 9′ which has stood the test of time really well. It’s a great example of studio experimentation meets avant-garde. Other listening includes a couple of free-to-download CDs from www.stasisfield.com which are beautiful ambient and avant sounds. One is by Thanos Chrysakis and the other by Hinterlandt.

I travelled by train to and from London earlier this week and took the recently acquired copy of ‘The Vein’ by Tom Raworth. I really like some of the lines in this book, but as a free flow ‘cut-up’ poem I failed to get the complete point of it. I think the failing is probably mine rather than the poem’s, but would like to find something which helps to explain what is going on with this text, and how to find a point of access to it.

I’ve read a review of ‘Collected Poems’ by Raworth on the www.shearsman.com website which helps a little, but there is only a passing reference to ‘The Vein’ – more help needed in this area. I’ve also found Raworth’s own site, but that didn’t really throw any more light on things. Help.

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