In Homage to a British photography great, here’s a fascinating interview with Don McCullin.  Originally recorded for the BBC. You’ll find more of these here (annoyingly realplayer is required to listen to the ones on the BBC site). Don-McCullin-BBc-Interview by mishasomerville

This is a short story by the French exporer Alexandra David-Neel (1869-1968), [taken from 'a book of travellers tales' assembled by Eric Newby].   She made a series of extraordinary journeys in Central Asia in the 19th century.  Disguising herself as a Tibetan beggar woman she is thought to have been the first European to enter Lhasa.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Lung-gom-pa runners of Tibet

Under the collective term of lung-gom Tibetans include a large number of practises which combine mental concentration with various breathing gymnastics and aim at different results either spiritual or physical…

Though the effects ascribed to lung-gom training vary considerably, the term lung-gom is especially used for a kind of training which is said to develop uncommon nimbleness and especially enables it’s adepts to take extraordinarily long tramps with amazing rapidity….It should be explained that the feat expected from the lung-gom-pa is one of a wonderful endurance rather than of momentary fleetness.  In this case, the performance does not consist in racing at full speed over a short distance as is done in our sporting matches, but of tramping at a rapid pace and without stopping during several successive days and nights….

I met the first lung-gom-pa in the Chang thang of Northern Tibet.

Towards the the end of the afternoon, Yongden, our servants and I were riding leisurely across a wide tableland, when I noticed, far away in front of us, a moving black spot which my field-glasses showed to be a man.  I felt astonished.  Meetings are not frequent in the region, for the last seven days we had not seen a human being.  Moreover, men on foot and alone do not, as a rule, wander in these solitudes.  Who could the strange traveller be?

…As I continued to observe him through the glasses, I noticed that the man proceeded at an unusual gait and, especially, with an extraordinary swiftness.  Though, with the naked eyes, my men could hardly see anything but a black speck moving over the grassy ground, they too were not long in remarking the quickness of it’s advance.  I handed them the glasses and one of them, having observed the traveller for a while, muttered:

‘Lama lung-gom-pa da.’ (It looks like a lama lung-gom-pa.)…

The man continued to advance towards us and his curious speed became more and more evident.  What was to bo done if he really was a lung-gom-pa? I wanted to observe him at close quarters, I also wished to have a talk with him, to put him some questions , to photograph him….I wanted many things.  But at the very first words I said about it, the man who had recognised him as a Lama lung-gom-pa exclaimed:

‘Your reverence will not stop the lama, nor speak to him.  This would certainly kill him.  The Lamas when travelling must not break their meditation.  The god who is in them escapes if they cease to repeat the ngags, and when thus leaving them before the proper time, he shakes them so hard that they die.’…

By that time he had reached us; I could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space.  The man did not run.  He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps.  It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity and rebounded each time his feet touched the ground.  His steps had the regularity of a pendulum.  He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged.  His left hand gripped a fold of the toga, both rather ragged.  His right hand held a phurba (magic dagger).  His right arm moved slightly at each step as if leaning on a stick, just as though the phurba, whose pointed extremity was far above the ground, had touched it and were actually a support.

My servants dismounted and bowed their heads to the ground as the Lama passed before us, but he went his way apparently unaware of our presence….

We followed him for about two miles and then he left the track, climbed a steep slope and disappeared in the mountain range that edged the steppe.  Riders could not follow that way and our observations came to an end.  We could only turn back and continue our journey.

Again something that I found and was amazed by a while back: Young C. Park, a retired dentist from Hawii, who turned his hand to making model airplanes.  His hobby obviously got a bit out of control, but the results are quite spectacular.  As my colleage Robin at the Design Hub said jokingly ‘do you think he has a girlfriend?’.  More info here.

One of my key reasons for writing a blog is to inspire me to keep reaching out, finding and sharing work which I consider to be ‘super creative’.  It doesn’t really matter to me what form it takes –  more often than not the really creative stuff defys classification.  Great things often get overlooked by the masses, simply because it’s difficult to see past the glut of mediocre productions on the TV and poor commentary on the creative world in most newspapers.  But the new revolution in connectivity means that the channels through which creative work is distributed are wider and further reaching than ever before.  Mass media is dieing – all-be-it slowly – and being replaced by something much more personal.

So this is an opportunity to share great things.  As an musical instrument maker that’s attempting to break new ground I can stand back and applaud people doing similar things in other fields.  With that in mind I’m posting this recent mix recorded by Magnetic Man (skream, Artwork and Benga) for BBC radio.  Challenging? For sure.  Creative? Definitely. Fantastic? I’d say so.  You might need some big speakers though!  >> listen

One of several books I finished reading recently is Scott Belsky’s ‘Making Ideas Happen’.  It introduces some ideas at odds with conventional thinking on turning your ideas into reality.  Highly recommended reading for Creatives.

One of the main reasons I started blogging was to form some kind of catalogue of inspirational things I come across.   Being a great believer in the emerging ‘open source’ way of working, I like the idea that keeping an open sketchbook allows much opportunity for collaborative work and solutions to come forward.  With this in mind I’m going to make more of an effort to post ‘in homage’ to the things I feel are worthy of mention, starting with the work of Jimmy Chin.

I don’t think it’ll take you long to realise why his work is worthy of mention, but for me, what comes through is his personality.  I get the impression he is never trying to impose himself on the situation, and therefore the result is something which both un-contrived and beautifully effortless.   In this day and age it’s great to see such strong content that relies so little little on digital manipulation.  Check out Jimmy’s  website and blog.

After ten years of living an almost completely urban life in the city of Glasgow, 2009, for me, was the year that I emerged from the cocoon to discover the majestic Scottish wilderness.  Perhaps it could be same for any of the world’s great wildernesses, I don’t know any of them well enough to know if they have the same depth, but something of the way the landscape and people have woven together through time,  is truly magnificent.  It is said that the Scottish mountains are amongst the oldest in the world, and the poetry, the music and the people, even to this day, move forward with echos of this ancient history.  It might be foolish to try and convey this – like describing the taste of one of the finest single malt whiskies – but here are a few things that speak to me the loudest against this backdrop.   I’ll let you peel back the layers:

Sounds

‘Walts for Hector’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett

‘Why’ on Grit by Martyn Bennett ‘

‘Blackbird’ on Grit, by Martyn Bennett

’4 Notes’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett

more info | buy Grit | buy Bothy Culture

Words

A Man In Assynt_Norman Maccaig

more info | book available here

Pictures

Having been on several trips to Assynt this year, the voice of Norman MacCaig has been stronger than ever in my head.   MacCaig’s voice resounds like no other with the landscape of the North West of Scotland.  Back at HQ in Glasgow, and looking through photos from the trips, a friend pointed out, after looking a picture I had taken of old boat near Achiltibuie earlier in the Summer, that the boat reminded her of Norman MacCaig’s poem  ’So Many Summers’.  They are words which seem to resonate with our experiences of the North West

So Many Summers

Beside one loch, a hind’s neat skeleton
Beside another, a boat pulled high and dry:
Two neat geometries drawn in the weather:
Two things already dead and still to die.

I passed them every summer, rod in hand,
Skirting the bright blue or the spitting gray,
And, every summer, saw how the bleached timbers
Gaped wider and the neat ribs fell away.

Time adds one malice to another one -
Now you’d look very close before you knew
If it’s the boat that ran, the hind went sailing.
So many summers, and I have lived them too.

You can listen to Norman himself tell it here.

I’d add, if you ever wanted an authentic insight into Scotland then there can be few better than listening to MacCaigs ‘A man in Assynt” while on a trip through Assynt….listen here, but pick the right time.

This and further recordings of Norman MacCaig can be found on the book and CD – The poems of Norman MacCaig.

I have finally succumbed to the temption to post a link to this video of Catherine Destivelle climbing in Mali.  I visited here several years ago but not to climb. This is an impressive piece of footage which melds climbing, culture, a 1970′s style narrative and tight shorts into just 10 minutes >>