Alan Gibson 2012

Here and gone, the music; the mind shielding it from the winds of forgetting, holding what is partly now and partly remembered. Here and gone the whisper of the vox humana in the stones of darkness. On earth and out beyond the Hawking Threshold yesterdays and everydays in the morning mirror, the red glimmer of the Dog Nebula, the unremembrance of flicker dreams, a tawny owl flying low over the heather in the Grampians, great sea-shapen rocks at Portnockie, and the rattle of pebbles in the suck of the tidewash...

- from Fremder

These two quotes were from The Moment Under The Moment, Tottenham Court Rd. This is one of my very favourite long quotes and had to be spread over about three pages - it goes from "The moment will not stay" and continues through Tottenham Court Rd via High Fidelity, watches resistant to the suckers of giant squid, very thin calculators, to radio frequencies, symphonies to a map as large as the land it attempts to represent. A rant of longing, fallibility, want, frustration, human-ness and pure genius. There were others in the sequence but the lamination reflected the flash too much.

Blue-black shiningness, bluish-white shining on the puddles on the football pitch in the rainy night all starred with lamps and windows. Always in November there comes such a night, blue-black and shining and wild with rain and wind and brown leaves blowing. In the morning suddenly the plane trees on the far side of the common are bare winter trees.

Windowed shapes of light on the ceiling, Melanie Falsepercy asleep beside me, Luise rising in the shining dawn in the wild and rainy night.

In the dimness and the shadows of the room I breathed the novembery fragrance of Melanie Falsepercy.

- from The Medusa Frequency

These and other quotes posted around Southampton and to Facebook

Alan has written about the event on his lovely blog: http://theurbaneforager.blogspot.com/2012/02/slickman-a4-quotation-event.html

UPDATE: On 14th March Alan emailed the following:

Just thought you and other Russ readers might like this...

I was rowing on the river Itchen in Southampton yesterday when I noticed something strange in the distance; I was sure that I had just spotted the Head of Orpheus, swimming upsteam...

Fortunately I had my camera with me and managed to overcome my sense of impending strangeness and dread just enough to photograph the mysterious item...

It was quite strange when I saw it - I had seen a seal once before and thought it was a football, now I see a barnacle covered football and think of the Head of Orpheus - I always attain a heightened susceptibility to coincidence when I read Medusa Frequency ;-)