Sky on Fire

Taken recently from the deck. No colour enhancements done... this is what my camera captured. We have glorious sunsets sometimes. I love how the clouds look like brushstrokes.

Warm colours make me happy.

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Kilbirnie Community Centre

You can't tell from the photo, but as I was taking this shot I was listening to the most amazing music coming from behind this plain red door. It was a Sunday morning, and a Pacific Island church service was taking place at the Community Centre, and the entire congregation was belting out the most amazing gospel songs.

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Dizzying Heights

Can you guess what this is?

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Good Boy, Mummy!

I love watching language develop in my children.

Joshua is at a stage where everyone, male and female, is a "he" or a "him". Male is the default gender for everyone.

He knows that Tess is a girl cat, but he says "I want to pet him."

Or when I do something good, he'll say "Good boy, mummy." No, seriously, he really does. It's so cute.

Joshua's concept of time is a little vague. Anything that ever happened before now, regardless of whether it was this morning or two months ago, happened "yesterday" in Joshua's mind. "I went to the beach house yesterday," he'll say, although what he really means is that he went to the beach house a few weeks ago.

The same applies to the future. "We're going to the pool tomorrow" means that we're actually going to the pool on the weekend.


Matthew, on the other hand, understands yesterday and tomorrow perfectly well. What he doesn't understand are the concepts of "now" and "bedtime." As in "Get dressed for school NOW please" which he draws out into an endless dawdle that takes at least fifteen minutes.

And the concept of "bedtime" in his mind is always at some future time, no matter what the time is.

"It's not my bedtime now!"

"Matt, it's an hour past your bedtime."

"Noooooooo it's not..."


Matt has always been ahead of his years vocabulary-wise, and he loves to play with words. Yesterday he came to me and said "Mum, I do believe that the specimen known as the grape is really very tasty."

He really did say that. And then grinned at me and asked what a "specimen" was. Kids!

I couldn't quite explain that it was usually something you put in a little sterile plastic jar and take to the lab, so I thought quickly and said "It's an example of something. A sample". Whew! That was a good save.

Good boy, mummy.

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Primping

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M.I.A.

Okay, this is how Un-Hip and Un-Cool I am. I'm listening to a new favourite of mine, London hip-hop artist M.I.A. (from Hounslow! I used to live in Brentford, which is technically Middlesex, but Hounslow was the closest tube stop).

So, I'm listening to Amazon (Diplo mix) from the album Piracy Funds Terrorism Vol.1.

Now, I'm the mother of a three-year old, and I'm thinking, hmmmm... Diplo, is that like... Duplo? Like, is this the really easy version of the song, the big clunky version for little uncoordinated minds? I think about this for all of about one minute, and am none the wiser at the end of it. Later on, however, I'm reading a review of M.I.A. and discover that Diplo is her DJ!

It kind of made sense... but I have no idea what the DJ actually does. I thought DJs spun records at parties. Does he(she) mix all the music and sounds and vocals together? And do most artists have their own DJs? I do know people I could ask these questions of, and probably will, but as you can see, I am completely out of my generational and cultural depth here.


But back to M.I.A.

M.I.A. is Maya Arulpragasam, late twenties, female. Born in Sri Lanka, raised in London. Her father was a freedom fighter who went Missing In Action, hence the "M.I.A."

The name is not the only reference to her father. Scattered throughout her lyrics and music are images of war - fighting, ransom, capture, tyranny, bombs, and the ominous rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns.

Sometimes her songs seem lightweight, at other times the burden of her past weighs heavy: "Freedom-fightin' dad, bombed his pad, called him a terror, put him on a wanted ad". Her voice in this song, Freedom Skit, sounds fragile and old before its time, like a child who has seen too much, made to grow up too quickly.

And at the end of Amazon (Diplo Mix):

You have to wonder just who she's talking to here. Maybe a father who put political ideologies before raising a family? Maybe not. In a land so torn by conflict, political ideologies become a matter of life and death. I don't know. No answers.

I guess there's a name for this sort of music... world hip-hop? I think that fits. Worldly. Weary. Wary. World-smart. Worldliness. Whatever the word, her music transports me far from here. I like it.


Listen: Amazon (Diplo mix) [mp3, 3.3mb]

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God and Mammon Part Three

You can also see Parts One and Two

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