For Reuben

I think you will like this.

It's Bill Hicks, aged 18

He died 15 years ago yesterday.

Feeling groovy/Feeling hoovy

So they've discovered a 'bright side' gene, which, if plentiful, ie. 2 are present, can lead to a life of greater wellbeing. The presence or absence of this gene is being attributed as a key factor in "resilience to general life stress", deciding whether a person is "neurotic and anxious" or able to take things as they come and not worry too much about the future.

Genetic tests on the participants showed that a tendency to ignore negative images and dwell on the positive ones was strongly linked to a variation in a gene that controls serotonin, the brain's main feelgood chemical.

Each of us inherits two versions of the gene, either two short ones, two long ones, or one of each. People who had two longs versions were most likely to focus on the positives, according to the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

I wonder, though, how much other parts of the system aswell as cultural factors, come into play in ultimately deciding behaviour. Is it really that bald? A question of 'ignoring negative images'? I mean, humans are so much more complex than that. An artist, storyteller or forensic detective may, for instance, have a tremendous interest in the 'negative', as a source of wildly interesting human behaviour. Anyone who wants to explore life at all will have to jump into a sea of what in certain company would be called 'negative'. We are not exclusively positive entitites! Sure if we didn't 'dwell on the negative' sometimes, we'd be glossing over images of horror in the world, without a care in the world, wouldn't we? Or would our two optimism genes actually make it easier for us to gaze into those caverns of dark humanity?

Gene stories are the old wives tales of our time. They are stories we are told about our condition, stories that we have no way of verifying objectively, but which can be interesting entry points yet again into exploring this wild human nature. Or they can make you feel very very depressed indeed. And nervous. And anxious.

I wonder if Ireland is a classic example of an entire country of people firing ahead on two full bright side genes. You'd need them, every time you listen to the radio these days.

So. Which one are you, do you think? Two longs, two short genes or one of each? The glass half full, or empty? The glass being fucking addled with poison either way, or grand sure, lovely, delighted to be here?

That time of the night

I believe this is called commenting outside the box. That, or drunk off my arse. Thing is, I wasn't.

Emailing the past

That seems to be part of my job for the next while.

Clusterbook #1

Clusterbook #1 from Lucy Foley on Vimeo.

This is a project I have going on over at my other home, Clusterflock, where I have made a bookclub, and the first book we are discussing is one written by another of our tribe, Daryl Scroggins. A bunch of us have read it, talked about it, and are now opening the floor to anyone who has read it and wants to talk about it, to come and talk about it some more in the comments area.

We're going to make the post a feature on sunday, so if you have read Daryl Scroggins' book This Is Not The Way We Came In, then you might want to come on over and chat on sunday. We'd be delighted to have you.

Boney M, Belfast

This song was roaring through the charts at the brutal height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, by a band originally from Monsterrat and Jamaica, who were then based in West Germany. It would be easy to wonder how this didn't actually end the troubles once and for all in a rainbow coalition of glitter and sequins, but really, the mind boggles at how a 15 year old living on either side of the Peace Line would have processed the information on their tellies, watching this video in Belfast in 1977.

And weird too, because this band came from West Germany, which had its own Wall at the time. I suppose it was easier for them to sing about Belfast than Berlin, but only goes to show that disco and raw politics don't blend incredibly well. I do think they meant well and their outfits - not to mention lipgloss - are fucking incredible.

The song was originally called "Londonderry". I guess they chose "Belfast" because it was less partisan, but you know, Londonderry probably had more of a ring to it, rhyming wise.

Wombat: a journey

I have just heard about a creature in Australia that would appear to be currently extinct (ahem) known as (ahem) the prodigiously girthed mega-wombat.

I am googling the mega wombat and finding 26 year old Seattle men. However, apparently there are models of the mega wombat in Sydney N.H. Museum. Here you can find a picture of the head of a common wombat. This is what the common wombat does when it is cranky, apparently. It would be hard to be aggravated by this, I think.

If you scroll down to the second item on this page, you will find a cute picture of wombat-human love, and also a story of a WOMBAT THE SIZE OF A CAR WHAT LIVED A LONG TIME AGO.

This is an artist's impression of a female mega wombat and her young, which is not cute but truly, awesome.

I don't know what you think about this, but I find it kind of mixed message, frankly. Many layered. Please don't get mixed up and barbecue your wombat.

Alright, it's time for you to meet Jody, the cutest thing that ever lived. Check her out scratching at the end. I try to keep this blog clear of excessive cute, but you know, when you do it, you've got to do it right.

Eamon

There is another reason for turning the volume down on one of your facebook friends. It is because their status updates and comments and links and posts drive you crazy and you don't understand it but they make you feel tired, just to read them.

One such is a man I met in a garden in New York, on my last day in the city in 2003, until I returned almost four years later. He turned out to be my third cousin. Pretty remarkably closely related, his father and my grandmother were first cousins. This kind of detail matters to me, a lot. I have found a long-lost cousin in remarkable circumstances, in every place I have lived in, now.

My cousin in Denmark I had not met since we were both 2, in Limerick. I met him again when I performed at an arts festival in Denmark. As I left the stage, and the venue, he came running after me, shouting, "Lucy come back! It's your cousin, Brian!" He said I hadn't changed much since I was 2. He recognised me. Fucking Nora (Nora was the name of a grandaunt to both of us).

And this one in New York, we met in a garden, as I said, in the east village. He started talking to me, asking about where in Ireland I was from. His surname and my grandmother's were the same, and they came from the same place. That was an epiphany, a kinship made in the city, a sign to return. I have made some overtures toward contact, facebook being one of them. But he doesn't seem able to say hello. It is easier, I suppose, to click 'confirm' on a friend request in your inbox, from the safety of the distance of your familiar computer, than to meet the unknown yet blood related, in another human being.

He is a rocknroll musician and I think he is probably very lonely.

This is a video of a fox who has clearly fallen in love with this trampoline

There's been some talk of animals on trampolines lately over on my other home, clusterflock, which sent me in search of this. I think you will understand it was worth the quest.

We come in peace

Michael Bosanko's light paintings.

Bosanko is a photographer who uses long exposures, coloured torches and deserted landscapes to literally paint with light, on his Canon digital. It's great to see something made with the potential of all those squiggly lined images you invariably get when you shoot flashless at night, especially with digital.

The Facebook Post

I'm up to 15 people I've turned the volume down on, but do not want to unfriend, on facebook. I've muted them for different reasons. Some because I think it's just plain weird to be getting daily feeds about banalities from lives of people I don't know very well/am not hugely interested in, but there are also some I've detuned because they endlessly post soppy/sentimental status messages, and there are a couple of people I have initiated some kind of direct communication with, who haven't responded, so it seems weird to keep hearing about them in an exclusively passive way.

Kind of like that friend you had once with whom you used to have Very Long Phonecalls, where they talked Endlessly about their personal life, family, thoughts, random passing bullshit, and never really thought to ask you how you were, or allow any space between the inhalations to listen. But the cutesy messages probably bother me more. You know? It's like living in a world where people are really really tired all the time, but they think that if they are 'positive' about everything, that some of the bad shit will go away. I can't dig it.

And then there are the people who treat facebook like it is their personal sitcom and everybody is there to be their canned laughter. That's alright though, I mean facebook is not exactly Tolstoy.

I've only ever unfriended one person on facebook, in the 10 months I've had a profile on it. That was a dude who was always acting out his relationship on facebook. You know the sort of thing? Like the whole relationship was this fantasic fantasy of amazingness that had to be validated and posted about in a plethora of ways, daily. Mwa mwa my gorgeous darling girlfriend who I love love love mwa mwa so much every day I see you I think how gorgeous you are and you are the light of my life kind of thing. Nasty. I tried turning the volume down on him, but he still showed up in my feed. It was just a drag. It's also a lot to do with how many people you've friended. The fewer, the more they feature individually. You can also turn volume up on people. I haven't done that yet.

But the main thing about facebook is my vibe with it. I just can't seem to get enthusiastic about their status messages, which is reasonable enough when you get even slightly meta about it, but you know, I seem happy to ramble on on Twitter when the mood takes me. See, the thing is that the mood does take me on Twitter. It's just more of a conversation, an interaction. It's actually moderately interesting, sometimes. Though I'm still in Twitter for the potential rather than the actual yet, and I've been tweeting for a year now. But it's more chilled, more fun, less shouty.

But let's be honest. The whole thing is, of course, a load of bollocks.

Female title options in London

I bought some tickets for various shows in London a couple of weeks ago, and they all had a variety of interesting title options, you know, the mr/mrs/miss genre of name prefixes, but this list from the ENO (the opera) set my imagination on fire a bit.

Tickets for the Very Reverend Lucytakesoff, please.

Mushroom Love

More pics on the theme of kissing. It was a photo competition at the guardian, and as usual they picked the predictable cliche as the winner. I think this one should have won. It's the most fun of the bunch, but these mushrooms made my heart sing.

Falling in love at 76 and 77

A brief story of two people who found love together late in life.

Within a week he made the 245-mile round trip from his home in Perth up to me in the Highlands for our first date. He's such a romantic that he'd arranged for a big bouquet of flowers to arrive before him. When I saw him I felt I'd known him all my life. He had lost an eye and part of his leg in the Korean war, but he's a fine man. Instead, I was worried he wouldn't find me attractive. As soon as I opened the door to him, I said, "If you don't like me, I'd rather you just said so now and turned away", but he didn't. As we talked, we knew we were meant for each other.

Stuart's very different from my first husband - he's half bald, but he reminds me that he once was a young thing with a full head of hair. It's strange looking at pictures of each other when we were younger. We wish we'd met earlier, but at least we've met each other now.

It is Valentine's day

and I have been wombatted. Also, dogloved. Oh. ♥

Tar on a wet path

Kiss The Frog Only If You Really Mean It

An article about the science and alchemy of kissing:

In a recent study, Fisher's team used a medical scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 49 men and women who said they were deeply in love. Of the volunteers, 17 had just fallen in love, 15 had been rejected and 17 said they were still in love after an average of 21 years of marriage. They concluded that romantic love can become long-term "if you kiss the right person", Fisher said.

A London Quintet

Hey baby, let's devolve together

Lucy, half a million years ago. Go on, you'd have wanted to evolve with me, wouldn't you?

This is a variation on the high school prom picture site that was doing the rounds 6 months ago. It's quite fun. You upload a photo of yourself, and watch yourself devolve (using a somewhat primitive reimaging system but it's fun enough for your next five minutes) and find out how you looked up to 3.7 million years ago. Funnily enough, the 500,000 year old species that was used to inspire the above photo was found in Heidelberg, Germany, which is the native home of Oliver, my friend the species historian, whose specialism is the homos throughout time. His facebook profile image features him holding a skull of a pre-homo sapiens human from a Long Time Ago.

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin!