Never stare at the sun - Greenman's Blog

I came back to the town hall today, after a few years of absence. I’ve been here, but just for...

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:48:42 +0100

I came back to the town hall today, after a few years of absence. I’ve been here, but just for admin and odd jobs. Today I am back at my desk - to actually be here. It’s work, but it’s my space. I really do love this place.

Turns out that Sotheby’s are copying my style, and hiring...

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:43:31 +0000

Turns out that Sotheby’s are copying my style, and hiring my clones to do their auctioning for them! Take a look at how quickly they copied my work.

Last night I was a bit of a mercenary activist. I was given no...

Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:37:01 +0000

Last night I was a bit of a mercenary activist. I was given no more information apart from the fact that I would be an auctioneer. I arrived, and we did this.

More of the story on the guardian.

Walk without rhythm and you won’t disturb the worm. Woody...

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 22:58:10 +0000

Walk without rhythm and you won’t disturb the worm. Woody get’s his first taste of life on Arrakis.

Sharing a birthday with your first son makes everything...

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:15:58 +0000

Sharing a birthday with your first son makes everything different. Suddenly there seem to be a lot more people involved in the day!

Loolie gave birth to Woody a year ago today, and that was no small thing. Remembering our experience from this time last year brings with it some strong emotions.

Then, armed with the knowledge of what it is like to be a parent, suddenly I have to include my parents in the party too. 35 years ago they went through the same thing! I can’t leave them out of the picture…. and they have not even met Woody yet.

So, happy birthday everyone.

(Yeah, so, I did leave everyone else out of the picture. And it’s an old picture too. Looking through our photos I have decided that we have to try to get more pictures that include all three of us - because we only have a few.)

Woody in the Woods

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 21:24:00 +0100

At the beginning of September, when Woody was 7 months old, we had a celebration in the woods. About 30 people came along, there was a made up ceremony. a sacrificial beast and Loolie got naked. It felt like a holy day.

I will choose to begin in August when we drove out of London to attend a baptism. A clear day at the end of summer, a small village church and pretty white dresses. Words were read, candles lit, a little water thrown around, but I never felt even a hint of meaning. Well, I kind of got the feeling that this was all a ritual of conformity, but I don’t think that was the meaning intended. Anyway, I “borrowed” the order of service and decided we could do a bit better.

Our version took place on a Sunday afternoon in early September 2010. The weather was perfect. It rained a little in the morning, overcast and a chilly, but, just before we started, the forest filled with golden light and warmth. Around 30 people gathered under the trees in Ashdown forest for a celebration of childhood. (That was what had bugged me about the baptism, there was very little that celebrated the child for being a child.) Woody was dressed as some kind of golden gnome - fur jacket and a hat Loolie had finished sewing in the car. I wore my cyber-priest shirt, made for me before I left South Africa, and never quite used in full ceremonial capacity. Loolie’s red hair shone against a white coat. We started an hour late - when the sun was ready.

I don’t really know how long it lasted. Woody sat up front grinning and making appropriate noises. We celebrated life and death, child and adult, order and disorder. (Any good rite needs paradox). Alice opened things with a song, words from India echoing unaccompanied through the trees. Woody’s godmother and devilfather spoke , I held things together with words and made up ritual. Somewhere around the middle attempted to get people to meditate. Being still and experiencing a world without words (meditating) is something a baby does well, and adults must work hard to achieve. After the silence we spoke of death.

We lit some candles, and gave Woody his name. “Woodrow” means “passage in the woods”, and it holds an echo of Loolie’s Dad’s name “Glen”. Glen died two years before, and it would have been is birthday around the time of our feast. The candles represented the passing of the flame, the flow of life through the generations. Tears rose up in me as I realised just how much being a parent has made me respect my parents and grandparents. Family is real when you make your own.

Then we all laughed at Woody, Alice and Lottie sang a closing song and we ended with a bit of discordian apple throwing. With the ceremony done, the fire was lit and the feast began. A whole dear had given us it’s life, and it was duly gobbled. Most guests left before the sauna was populated with naked people, As they went they carried bits and pieces back to the top of the hill. The sauna gang made it back to base by nightfall.

I got bitten by an ant in my belly button. I am sure there is some symbolism there.

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Thanks to Paul Miller and Immo Klink for the photos.

Things that go bump in he night! Woody can crawl now. He is...

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:41:00 +0100

Things that go bump in he night! Woody can crawl now. He is making the most of his mobility to see just how well everything he finds is attached to the ground.

I just got spam from the Labour party ! Is there not some kind of law about this ?

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 10:55:18 +0100

Labour: I want to email you personally. We are the only progressive party in the UK. Please give us £10.
Me: What? Can you do this ? Vote for me spam ? Damn, you guys give me hope.

I quit (Wednesdays) !

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:50:15 +0100

Quitting a job is one of the best feelings ever, but just quitting one day is pretty darn good too. On my days off, I plan to hang out in the park with Woody and remember what it’s like to have friends.

So, if you also happen to not work on Wednesdays, or can manage your time in a flexible manner, I would really like to be able to spend time with people again - come visit. It has been too many years since I gave any of my time to the people around me.

If little Woody has taught me one thing ( he has taught me many ) it’s that work is not quite as important as I thought it was.

Quit - a bit.

Woody laughed for the first time. How about that ? The magic of being young and eveything new.

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:48:46 +0100

A picture of me taking a piss. Honest.

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:02:52 +0000

I never was much of a fan of art galleries, but this one I am proud of. I have always considered the bland white of a gallery to be a prison for creativity, a place to lock it away and stick a price-tag on it, but when the white cube is a toilet, it’s much more my game. In Feb 2005, the Space Hijackers set up a gallery in the loo of a pub, and had a party (as usual). It was actually our second such project, with the first one invading random toilets around london.

See more of the pics at Mike Cupcake’s flickr page.

Hmm, the birth of my son has slowed down my involvement in all sorts of projects, does this mean I am relegated to writing about things I did almost a decade ago?

Photo

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:01:31 +0000

Dorkbotlondon #67 - Gonna be a cracker. But then I always say that.

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Dorkbotlondon #67 - Gonna be a cracker. But then I always say that.

My son knew how to use the loo first time. How much more comes pre-installed ?

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:14:59 +0000

A small rant about consumerism, the story of Woody’s birth, a little bit of moralising and the obligatory baby photo.

I picked him up, help him over the loo and said “Psss”. And he did. He still does a regular bit of pooing in his nappy, but we do catch him a lot of the time. We’re getting better at recognising his signals. He knew how to drink from his mothers breast instantly, and he probably knows how to swim underwater - but we will wait a while before we test that. Instinct is amazing.

We forget how much comes for free. Our consumer society does not really want us aware of what is actually built in to who we are. Those who have worked to pull the wool over our eyes have conned too many into believing that, if it does not come wrapped in plastic it is not good enough. Food, health, entertainment, education, almost every aspect of life has been systematically dehumanised - at great cost to us all.

How do we raise a child to make the most of what he has within him ? If he knows all this stuff, what do we do to allow him to harness his abilities ? And, where is the line between encouraging a baby to do something and removing his own power to choose ? Am I helping Woody unleash his own potential by pushing him to do x or y, or am I imposing my will ? It’s so easy to become what you hate, in fact, I think it’s more than easy: You always become what you hate.

So, I don’t hate consumerism. I don’t like systems that cripple the power of the individual, but there are all sorts of good things about our western culture. I may generally rally against the medical system, but without it, Loolie would probably be dead.

Loolie’s labour began on Monday and Woody was born on Thursday morning, almost 90 hours later. We had everything set up for a home birth. Pool ready, incense, homeopathy, massage - but nothing worked. After two whole days of pain, we moved to the birth centre and we tried for another 12 hours before eventually going to hospital. Loolie was given an oxytocin drip and an epidural and then things worked… but not quite enough. Eventually the doctors booked her in to the theatre because Woody was just not out yet, and Loolie was starting to loose consciousness inbetween contractions. I was dressed in scrubs, ready for our worst nightmare, when a new shift of midwives decided that Loolie could do it without the doctors, Loolie got a second wind, joked with the small crowd around her, and pushed with everything she had. Woody arrived, eyes open, a little later.

Without the drugs, without the system I am so skeptical of, my life would be very different today. So, no, I do not hate the system, I just think there are ways it can be improved. It’s about balance, and seeing the bigger picture. Modern medicine and the society it is part of struggles to see how all the pieces fit together.

Anyway, that’s my little rant for today. In summary, Woody has been using the loo since he was a week old, I am deeply grateful to the doctors and midwives that helped us bring Woody into the world, and, the most likely reason for the three and a half day labour was the fact that Woody just wanted to share a birthday with his dad!

PS. Aneeta made woody his amazing green jumper. She is also a knitting teacher, so, maybe she could teach you!

Greenman on the BBC

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 11:30:16 +0000

Greenman on the BBC

Being born in England, my great fear was that my child would be unable to dance. Forget mozart, lets drum!

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:44:48 +0000

Please forgive my very obvious prejudice. I am an African, and I tend to pour scorn on the dancing ability of Europeans. Sure there are a few exceptions, but most struggle to bust a move without being completely out of their heads…. and even then it’s iffy. Anyway, I do feel that there are some serious disadvantages to not being born on African soil, and the lack a sense of rhythm is one of them. (Possibly the biggest.)

People say that Mozart is good for babies. I took a look on Spotify and goddamnit there are a gazillion “mozart for babies” CDs. I could not find one “drumming for babies”. This looks to me like it could be a symptom!

I actually did have a go at playing some Mozart. Unfortunately the advertising world has completely destroyed the poor fellow’s legacy and my head just becomes filled with images of washing up liquid and cars and needless household appliances. I could not take more than a few seconds.

So, instead of playing Woody Mozart, pulled out The Drummers of Burundi and we did some dancing. That felt much better anyway. As long as I am diligent, I can atone for the crime of being born a European. ;-)

I missed this @spacehijackers adventure, but, it truly is...

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:13:40 +0000

I missed this @spacehijackers adventure, but, it truly is another great work of art.

When the pupil is ready the master will appear.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 22:48:26 +0000

My main objection to having a baby was the feeling that it was a sign I was getting old. For many years I was sure that becoming a parent would mark the end of my youth, that it would mean I had forgotten all those things that only The Young know. Then, one day, I realised that the very problem itself provided the solution.

If I was worried that I would lose the knowledge of what it meant to be young and free, I would need a teacher to keep me in shape. Becoming responsible for the development of a human life is no small thing, but, the small (human) thing also has much to share.

We have a deal, I help my son navigate his path to adulthood, and he makes sure I don’t forget that not everything has to have a purpose.

What kind of birthday present is this? As life struggles to...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:20:05 +0000

What kind of birthday present is this? As life struggles to return to some level of normality, I’m left with so many questions.The kind of questions that you can’t easily answer when you are as close to exhausted as you have ever been.

We escaped hospital on Saturday. Hospitals are not places to enjoy at the best of times, but when you are super protective of a new life, and have not slept in a week, they are some kind of pseudo-sterile hell. Loolie had had enough, and they were forced to oblige.

So now we are at home, working out how to deal with poo. Loolie has to also get used to the feeding part, but I am mainly on poo duty. He is so delicate, seems so fragile, that you have to keep reminding yourself to breathe. We are slowly getting the hang of it, but there is a long road ahead.

So far sleep has been OK. Wrap him up tightly and fill his tummy, and he’s happy. He is sometimes awake, but can lie there for hours pushing against host swaddling and staring into space.

We’re happy. Tired (I think I mentioned that), but happy. But, I am just ignoring the mountain of dirty dishes.

Goodbye naughties and welcome twenteens! I’m off to spend 10 days in silence....

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:40:05 +0000

Goodbye naughties and welcome twenteens! I’m off to spend 10 days in silence. http://is.gd/5sDdM

It sounds scary at first, doing absolutely nothing for a whole ten days, but once you have been through it, it’s the best holiday ever. Ten days to actually stop and rest. When last did you get a chance to do that ?

The first time I did it, I learned to sleep for the first time since my teens. Try it. It’s amazing.