A Human View of Current Awareness

Current awareness has been on my mind recently as I begin the New Year. Most people pick up a free newspaper on the train or bus, or listen to the radio, and it's apparent than many rely on Facebook. Not the highest quality or most reliable sources.

High quality current awareness services are only available to professionals. It’s normally provided by in-house information specialists to scholars, lawyers, doctors and others. But in my view, everyone is entitled to quality low cost alerts from a trustworthy curator.

Constellation London

Even the methodically moving moon takes on a deceptive speed

As seen from the small windows of this metal and plastic conveyance. 

As its crisp flashing harasses the dark lakes below, the benevolent moonlight

Competes with earthy sodium glow and wins in its startling blinding whiteness. 

Moonlit clouds quickly obscure the city and in cruel stargazing reversal

Eyes search the ground below for familiar constellations of motorway. 

In this topsy-turvey corruption of the heavens, glowing grey gaps appear 

Forming a jigsaw of the universe below, Becoming more complete as we climb. 

Normality returns. Moon recovers its extreme speed, needing no illusion

To impress our flight's feeble flash. Indiscernible against the street stars. 

But for that split second between land and cloud, our disinterested 

Satellight overshadowed our city's artificial Big Bang of travelling light. 

Dark and terrible: Beyond Caravaggio

Many high profile reviews of Beyond Caravaggio have criticised it because it only contains six works by the master himself. However as the exhibition title makes perfectly plain, it is looking beyond Caravaggio. The stress is clearly on the word 'beyond'. It aims to examine his legacy, critique his followers, and put him into a wider context. Given his mastery over story telling, he deserves to have his own place in the art history story, as the quality of those incredible six pieces demonstrate. 

Waiting with Magda Mozarka

Waiting. We sit on the island content to wait. Waiting weeks for the moon to be in the right quarter so we can fish. Waiting months for the fruits to ripen so we can start the harvest. Waiting hours for the heat to pass so we can work. Waiting for the time we can leave this island for provisions...the inevitable slow but steady natural clockwork marking time. An hour hand of ferries offering a smaller human scale to the wait. Just waiting. When waiting is part of a culture, patience and acceptance almost to the point of madness is inevitable.