May 22, 2009
Everlast
On average I speak to 70 000 people a year in person, face to face, about the life expectancy of a clock or music box. Its a measure of quality; of value.
Often I am surprised by the unease of the enquirer when I mention that these artefacts will accompany quite a few generations. I guess it can be interpreted that the clock or music box is of greater value than a human life? My words are twisted to sound something like: “You will pass on my friend and when your family returns from your grave this clock will be ticking and that music box will be playing a tune when the new husband hangs his coat…”
I remember turning on my sister’s transistor radio after her death. It was unplugged and yet it played. The batteries had outlasted her! It upset me greatly and irrationally.
Or maybe we as consumers are dwarfed by these durables. We demand consumables! What will become of us if our purchases outlive us?! What will we do? There will be no need for buying! Our very indentities as consumers are threatened!
Note: All our clocks and music boxes are mechanically operated, wind up movements. Life expectancy stretches to 10 generations. Yet, without the human hand to do the winding, there is no music.
April 3, 2009
Future holds
Maybe we turn around clocks and watches because in the unconscious lives the phrase:
Is better
Than what came
Before”
Maybe that is what blows the bubbles that pop – .com; sub-prime; promises…
Yet somehow the aspiration never pops and the clock holds its value.
Promise.
Herman
March 31, 2009
One Hour
So on the same night we celebrated our Mother Earth in an hour of darkness, we moved the clocks forward one hour for British Summer Time! Look I’d love to say something about Reuge music boxes today but this moment is just shouting at me to say one thing about clocks. Unlike this very entertaining man who makes many very funny comments about a bunch of clocks. By the way I disagree with him on one point: A beautiful wrist watch is always on the arm of a beautiful person.
Anyway, Sunday morning 29 March was one confusing morning here in the UK. The previous night Earth Hour slowed everything down beautifully and later that same night we moved the clocks’ hands on by an hour!
Where’s my balance gone-help!
Think I love you all
Herman
March 18, 2009
“Too much, Too young?”
That is the question asked this morning in the Independent. The young prodigy in question is the 13 year old Faryl Smith. Maybe that is where we go off the tracks. She isn’t a prodigy. She is a young talented person living a few blocks from our Tick Tock Time offices here in Kettering.
Maybe we see in her what we wish for ourselves…
Godspeed Ms Smith! And thank you for singing at Twickenham – your voice wakes Lions!
Herman
March 16, 2009
Light Hearted
Why not ponder the joy of a light heart this Monday morning?
Yours
Herman
March 10, 2009
Metal Heart Singing Bird
Binary opposites – Metal Heart.
See how breathtaking here and here.
Herman
Lyrics to Metal Heart by Cat Power
Losing the star without a sky
Losing the reasons why
You’re losing the calling that you’ve been faking
And i’m not kidding
It’s damned if you don’t and it’s damned if you do
Be true ’cause they’ll lock you up in a sad sad zoo
Oh hidy hidy hidy what cha tryin to prove
By hidy hidy hiding you’re not worth a thing
Sew your fortunes on a string
And hold them up to light
Blue smoke will take
A very violent flight
And you will be changed
And everything
And you will be in a very sad sad zoo.
I once was lost but now i’m found was blind
But now I see you
How selfish of you to believe in the meaning of all the bad dreaming
Metal heart you’re not hiding
Metal heart you’re not worth a thing
Metal heart you’re not hiding
Metal heart you’re not worth a thing
March 5, 2009
Memory and Identity
I visited Roni Horn’s exhibit at the Tate Modern yesterday. It is said that she is interested in Identity and Memory, using presence and doubling. The exhibition is truly well executed and shows intricate thought processes.
Her work led my thoughts into the layers of memory where my identity is embedded with the sounds of Reuge mechanical music. Activate the sound on the right of the Reuge Homepage.
Herman
February 27, 2009
I see you
Are Icons of Beauty
Witnessing the Passage
Of time.
This week i’ve been turning a diamond in my hand – looking at a few angles on our relationship with clocks, watches and music boxes. In the main i have been wondering about the reciprocity of this connection in Clarity, Mystery and Imagination, Companions, Infuse and today, I see you.
Can these objects be witnesses to our lives? An “I see you”? Go to any old object in your personal space and ask it, as if it could answer: “what have you seen?” Its a powerful tool of reflection. Listen.
Psychotherapists are quick to say, Nay! You’re simply identifying a dislodged part of your psyche which has identified itself with an object out there. May i ask the sceptic: Why do i feel humbled when i walk past the floor clock in my lounge that has been ticking for 259 years?
Why is it important?
It isn’t. Just a lantern i hung in the window…
Herman
February 23, 2009
Clarity
I’ve been pre-occupied defending the castle folks. Fraudsters on ebay, Paypal and at an Expo in Johannesburg, all unrelated can you believe(!), trying to get their hands on what we hold dear. All in one week. Happy to say that they’re all driven out back to where they belong.
And this morning – Clarity, Lucidity, Purity stir in the shadows. Have a look at her – the Reuge Clara!!
“What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?”
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~
Yours
Herman
February 20, 2009
Moment
Why a Bell?
The most exceptional clocks like the Holtzhausen Everest and many of the truly awe inspiring music boxes like the Reuge Roma and the Reuge Orient Express have clear striking bells.
It announces That Moment. It alerts us to Now, doesn’t it?
But is it just a passing strike, an announcement or is there an invitation to enter the “Power of Now”?
I hold that a bell alerts, invites and if one pays attention to the ring, draws the curtain aside to the inside.
Follow the bell as it’s ring fades
Herman
