A bad night of earache due to a blocked left ear, which was the case all day yesterday but in the night it became increasingly painful. This morning, warm olive oil helped. The trick to heating the oil is to dip the bowl of a teaspoon into the surface of a cup of freshly boiled water. Pour the oil into it and observe it; it will visibly clear as it warms in a few seconds. Lift ther spoon, wipe off the drips of boiling water, and tip into the ear keeping a tissue handy to catch the leaks. It will be the perfect warmness.
More refinements to album art today; a change to the Arangel cover, more tweaks to the Flatspace Soundtracks, and new art for Genesis (merely a possibility) and Finnegans Judgement. These tweaks take time, as in music it's useful to take a break to see the results anew. Here are the Flatspace covers so far:
This evening I've played electric guitar to the album Hounds of Love. There aren't many guitar opportunities in there but it was good practice. It seems that Kate has a few tunes in C-minor - my favourite key. I love her more now! But I still haven't forgiven her for the awful changes in The Director's Cut.
I feel I must pause before working on more album art - and suspect the great sin of laziness! I must calculate the real reason.
I'm generally lacking in energy and am unusre why - apart from the lack of social contact, lack of exercise, and dystopian news due to Covid-19 and the Brexit; though both of these amuse more than concern me, politics is often like chickens and cocks fighting, and observers and commentators all add to the fray. Only a minority seem to heve any intelligence or idea of the philosophies involved, and history, so the result is often like something from The Keystone Kops. I know that, in the long term, all will improve and that none of the decisions, even world wars, really matter - the world will never 'end' and in a billion years, humanity and all life will still be here.
I think the darkening nights might be one cause; yet I am generally getting a lot of work done. Perhaps my ambitions are far ahead of my abilities, in speed terms. Expectations must be realistic - it's hard to know if you are doing well if this is based only on how well you feel you are doing; feelings are not reliable. Tangible, emotionless goals are always best. Emotional goals are always doomed to fail. Perhaps that's why happiness is such a stupid goal in life, it is impossible to attain because emotions are destined to change often, irrespective of circumstances.
