Summa: diary (April 26-30, 2026)
April 27 (Monday). 5.30 am: Awake. 6.00 am: Writing. When in Newport, Cardiff, and the Ebbw Fach valley last week, my sinuses were uncongested, and my nose — a sneeze-free zone; I experienced no allergic reactions whatsoever. Having grown up in the area, my immune system was well-adapted to the local pollens. On my return to West Wales, I was coughing and dripping, and lurching for antihistamines once again. Perhaps I should follow my nose (as it were), and move back South someday.
I’d not achieved everything that I’d set out to do (or consider) while away from home at ‘home’ last week, but enough to see toward the horizon line. At ‘home’, I took the measure of things — from where I’d begun to where I am now. The present is the pivot between the past and the future. More lies behind me than before; it has done so for a long while. Which realisation intensifies each day. Like Job’s days, mine, these days, ‘are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle’.
8.30 am: The roofers have finished. Apart from the noise of the house-painter pacing the scaffold-boards along the top floor of the house, quiet graces my work spaces, once more. I returned to the book, and reviewed my progress. 10.30 am: The scaffolders returned to dismantle those parts of the structure that were no longer needed. ‘Clank’, ‘clang’, ‘bang’, ‘drrrrrrrrrr’. (A free-form percussion orchestra.) In 2016, I made a sound composition called ‘Show Sounds’, based upon the noises made during the construction of the BA and MA Fine Art exhibition spaces at the School of Art that year. The composition gives structure to the same types of sounds.
11.00 am (and until the end of the afternoon): I reworked the second draft of the book’s proposal. In so doing, I laid the ground for the Introduction.
April 28 (Tuesday). 6.00 am: Awake. 6.30 am: Studyology. ‘Do you know what this book is about, John?’, the inner-tutor goaded, mercilessly. ‘I certainly do’, I responded, defiantly. But I’m not so sure where emphasis should lie and, thus, the approach I’ll take. However, I know of a certainty that if I just keep on writing, then, these questions will be answered. There is no excuse for pleading ‘writer’s block’. However, solutions also present themselves by other means: on long ambulations (which is why I always take a notebook with me); or while I’m engaged with an entirely different project and medium; or at the close a communion (or reflection); or when in the shower. (I have been known to hop-out of the unit and write in the condensation on the bathroom cabinet.)
2.00 pm: ‘The Bible is a noisy book’. I’ll not write a more arresting opener to this proposal than that. My approach is to cast ideas into sentences, without any concern for where they’ll find a place in the paragraph. One sentence begets another begets another. Eventually, they’ll be shuffled like playing cards and dealt from the pack in their most appropriate order.
The experience of writing previous books doesn’t prepare me for the next. The different theme or subject matter alone, demands a contrasting approach. There is no template. The structure, development, and division of the book at hand must be allowed to evolve out of the new clay. The same principle pertains to making sound compositions and pictures.
7.30 pm: In contravention of my principle — that I ought not to spend all three work periods in a day on the same project — I pressed on with the proposal. There’d been some movement during the day. I wanted to capitalise on it.
April 29 (Wednesday). 7.00 am: Studyology. Writing. One of my heroes is problematic. Walter Ruttmann was, besides working in the German film industry, one of the pioneers of Musique Concrète. His work is remarkable, inspirational, and significant. However, during the period of National Socialism, Ruttmann was the original director of Hilter’s propagandist film, Triumph of the Will (1935). He was replaced by Leni Riefenstahl. It’s unclear whether Ruttmann was coerced into promoting the war effort. His exploration of abstract-sound would, one imagines, have been considered Degenerate Art by the Nazi Party. S0, perhaps his contribution helped keep the authorities at bay.
Throughout the morning and afternoon, I edged towards a kind of ‘poetics’ of writing, and a more conversational mode. A proposal needs to be clear and persuasive. Impenetrable academicism simply won’t do. (I’ve been on the receiving end of too many texts that had the density and obscurity of a black hole.) The ideal submission should exhibit (among other virtues) a lucid, engaging, and transparent style. ‘Explain your intent, as to your mother or father’, admonished the inner-tutor.
April 30 (Thursday). 8.00 am: Studyology. Writing. Slower progress today. I’d expected it, after yesterday’s inroads. However, an even pace over many days would prove dull. Predictability is the nemesis of invention.
Words got in each other’s way. I don’t kid myself: if I can’t find the right expression, its because I don’t understand what I want to say. However, the only way to discover my intent is by writing. Write anything. Write rubbish. But write.
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice