L and I visited Ta-Hwa in Amsterdam, which is a Chinese exports emporium (in practice there seems to be stuff in there from all over the far East). It’s crammed with gorgeous things from furniture to ceramics to tea. I bought a couple of gifts for Christmas while I was over there, and L bought a tin of jasmine tea. I just had about a pint of it, which may be less than wise just before bed. It’s delicious stuff, and I had fun drinking it out of one of the little earthenware bowls that I also bought there. Not my morning cuppa, of course, which will remain coffee. I think the sensibility to appreciate the delicate aroma of jasmine tea escapes me in the mornings, when I’m more likely to be stubbing my toe on something or trying to find my key.

Tomorrow we’re off to see the Be Good Tanyas at the Colston hall. Not the most preposessing venue of course. The Tanyas are probably seen to best advantage in some dim and churchy room somewhere rural, rather than the suspiciously municipal Colston Hall. Still, the Seu Jorgé concert we saw there was really great, and I enjoyed Madredeus there a few years back. This could be another eye-opener. It’s strange the way that a musician’s presence can have nothing to do with the physical magnitude of the venue.

I had hoped to start reading Marie-Laure Ryan’s Narrative as Virtual Reality tonight, but unfortunately, I left it in Lindy’s glove compartment and I was still too shaken by the torrent of bargains at Wilkinson (bought a tablet of paper, some bungies for my bike rack, and one of those astonishing devices one clips onto radiatiors to dry clothes with). However, after Elaine Scarry’s book I am looking forward to getting into it. I need some other reading though, on two fronts.

Firstly, something that handles what the aims of art practice are. What sorts of experiments can artists be undertaking in their practice (ie, not as public art, or specifically as a social interaction, but just in making)? Something, that is, towards a theory of artistic practice. How can we talk about what artists are doing while they are making? We always talk about the work and the intentions prefiguring it. What are the experimental paradigms, or grammars of success and failure, that artists use in working. What could an experiment be?

Secondly, something on the phenomenology of reading that attends to the book itself. There are some things I have encountered that treat reading and readers seriously in this regard, but more or less disregard the books themselves (though I confess that I would like to reread The Uncommon Reader for example.)

But tomorrow is another day.