the pub life.

It's been a nice week. The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival has begun and Ray and I are attending some crazycool concerts starting this evening with a performance of John Cage's music by pianist Phillip Thomas. He'll be playing in an art gallery exhibiting some of Cage's drawings, which I've never seen and am quite looking forward to. 

On Thursday I went along with Ray to a lecture by an American composer, Evan Johnson, who's in town for the festival. It was a great lecture, well delivered and I was intrigued by the sounds of his music as well as the perspective he takes towards work and notating scores. There are many overlaps between music composition and writing, perhaps all of the arts, really, and it's nice expanding horizons like this. 

Afterwards, we walked over to the Rat and Ratchet, a pub nearby. My first English pub experience! I had a half pint of pale gold, an English brew. The atmosphere is somewhat like a hotel lobby, or a den-ish lounge, but a cozy one with low ceilings, stone (or were they wooden) floors, ornamented red carpet in some areas, lots of wooden pillars, wrought iron banisters along raised and sectioned seating areas, small upholstered chairs and little round tables, curtains, framed posters and a pinball machine in the corner of the place. Plus they have what are called beer gardens, which is essentially a patio, but even someone's backyard patio is referred to as a beer garden, unusual isn't it? I will get some pictures next time, in fact, I may make it a project to take photos of pub signs in town. (Starting with the Olde Hatte from a week or so ago.)

oyster shells and my two feet.


(an old photo from Yscloskey.)