Waffle, Watery Wonders and a Workshop. Mostly Waffle.

Waffle first, I'm afraid.

I went to see Shutter Island last night, at an actual cinema on an actual night out with my husband (we don't get out much). I was so excited, and the cinema sells Cream o' Galloway ice-cream. In tubs.

But the film! Great cast (how can anything with Max Von Sydow fail?) (and why doesn't he look any older than he did in 1973?); great acting from Leonardo in the lead role; great locations; great cinematography. But it just didn't work, because it was a B-movie plot foisted onto very good actors, so that when the twists made no psychological sense (or sense at all, to be frank) you couldn't excuse it, because the actors had made the characters real, and not ciphers. Pooh. Fresh from a recent viewing of The Departed, I left disappointed and just a little bit cross. Though two tubs of ice-cream the better.

Second, the big computer is working. Here, I'm typing on it right now! Why did it fail? Get this. Alesa's diagnostic number one. DUST. Not Phillip Pullman universe-type-dust, but good old-fashioned house dust. My home is not a dirty, or even dusty, one. Yet when we eviscerated the computer it had wall-to-ceiling shag-pile carpet akin to a Soviet-era brothel (i.e. grey all over). Dust meant the fan couldn't work. The fan not working meant the CPU overheated. Which meant the computer shut down repeatedly until it just died.

As my husband said, "If I had known it was a mechanical problem, I could have dealt with it."

So ask yourself this - when you ring a help-line, how many times has anyone said "Open it up and check for dust"? Never, to my knowledge. So all hail Alesa.

Next, to SmallTerrierPress (name copyright as of today). It has been commissioned to produce a bookmark for the Moat Brae Trust by the most famous Scottish Poet in his weight division.

Cool, eh? Designing the logo at the moment. First thoughts;

So, to the Watery Wonder. A Tide Machine has been built in Kingholm Quay in Dumfries, and it's a mechanical art-installation performance platform sort of thing. I saw it today, and stupidly failed to take my camera, for I couldn't find a single picture of it anywhere on t'internet. It is brand-new, but a web-site gives its background here: http://thetidemachine.com/pages/The%20Tide%20Machine.html and it's got its own blog here: http://oceanallover.blogspot.com/

UPDATE! Photos plus dance performance by assorted tidal dwellers here: http://drumsleet.blogspot.com/2010/04/this-creative-mularky.html

Which was connected with the writing workshop I went to this morning at The Swan (pub!) in Kingholm Quay. It began with the Tide Machine's designers and builders, Alex Rigg and Mark Zygadlo, giving us an overview of their project and the natural processes that inspired it.
Quoting from the website;

Our initial task is to establish engineering concepts for the machine mechanism while developing design ideas that will involve and inspire the local community. The launch event will be a spectacular costumed performance using the power and mystery of tides as a narrative line.

... a professional orrery maker called Peter Grimwood. He has offered to design a mechanism for the Tide Machine that will show the specific relationship between sun, moon and earth. This mechanism will be powered by the tide itself.

Then Vivien Jones ran the workshop on the themes of tides, moon, myths and mermaids. Which was a blast! I did two 30-second haikus, wrote a myth to explain the red tides of Florida, a poem about a malevolent mermaid and, probably best for me, a poem that may have helped me find a writing way into my current Meso-American prehistory obsession. All in an hour! Incidentally, have you seen Apocalypto?

I am Jaguar Paw, son of Flint Sky. My Father hunted this forest before me. My name is Jaguar Paw. I am a hunter. This is my forest. And my sons will hunt it with their sons after I am gone.

Best chase scene ever featuring no wheels or horses (Meso-American cultures didn't have them). And much better than Shutter Island.

Finally, my little instant haikus and a plea to the earth's rotation. Could we have four more hours a day please, so I can get some sleep? Else work, or writing, or children are going to have to go.

Anyway, cast your minds back. Tides and Moon.

Margate is Summer;

white horses wash my bucket

out with the ebb tide.

The blood moon rises;

my menstruation Autumn,

last chance, maybe child.