Hugh And The Times

What Comes After

2011-12-18T13:46:00.001+11:00

One on a finger, feeling lowly, writing like I mean it: I wrote the word beauty. The U was missing. Tensely spinning from the inner lane, and coughing, some of all of the labels failed to take interest, or feigned not having any, not sure which of which is worse. By beauty I meant this:—When, in the course of entering the room, he turned his head, and mine, I noticed the pocks about his face, and how they lent the whole something. Strange--hadn't thought much previously about it. But then it all seemed very deliberately sculpted, not yer usual scattershot craters. The moment went on forever, though it didn't actually (I had to escape it to write this up). It zigged and zagged and danced like a ball of electricity.

Something red, then green, then red woke me, some hours after. I pegged the lace blind. Outside it was [weather event]. and therefore unsettling. Alone but for the other people in the room, I picked myself up — I had been carelessly strewn about the room the night before — and made myself go to the kitchen, where I ended up, having succeeded. The near-definition of beauty, outline above, and befitting both spellings, further solidified in my estimation as I watched its incarnation drape banana peels, imprecisely erotic, across its face, and dog down a fat American breakfast. I wasn't yet able to observe noiselessly, and the ensuing sound was embarrassing for all concerned. Feeling wholly holy, basted by sunlight, lips crackling with scabs, stretching partially, some of all of me made it away from temptation.

It was, to a small and slight extent, a revelation of colour. Once a monochrome rainbow drooped mechanistically from the clouds; now contrast. My eyes peeled back, as they don't usually do, and it took several hours for me to be persuaded, by the undiminished spectacle, that I had not been drugged, or had something comparable done to me, or that I was not simply in the midst of a fever dream. It turned out neither was true but the last. The heat and doona had done a number on me, or a number of numbers across the night. Everything was as was; outside was mute; the walls were the colour of dolour.

Eerie the Practice

2011-08-07T20:20:00.001+10:00

It's taken time, much of it, but I've finally woken up to my awfulness. Part of me, whatever accounts for my depth, is glad to have arrived at this point, the rest of me, abdomen and otherwise, preferred ignorance. Fitting it should happen in a hotel, with sun (streaming) and radio (blaring). When the call was patched through I was escaping through all parts of my dressing gown and not yet upright.

"It's happened," said someone in my voice.
"Hm?" replied.
"You know when you get to that point of your life when you get to that point in your life?"
He stared, maybe blinked.
"It hasn't happened to you?"
"No, I'm fat with contentment," he said, maybe shrugging.
"Well, it's happened to me." I looked down and waited.
"I feel I should offer to do something."
"Thank you."
And barely anything else was said. (For the record, there was an exchange of Goodbyes and something about it being nice to catch up.)

So I went home with it, no danger of its escaping. There, from an absence of onion, the thinner half of a carrot, two tomatoes, one large unwashed potato, two eggs, spices and cheese I fashioned a not completely inedible success.

Fellows' Bounce

2011-07-23T17:03:00.002+10:00

In greater designs the foundation upon which all else and otherwise pivots is never so inextricable as when in designs of a peculiarly organic nature, that is designs whose executions are gradual to the point of near-impercitability, and whose final appearances seem willfully to obscure their origins. In such cases as these, (of which there is an easy abundance), the question of design is only arrived at after inspired deliberation, and only unravelled after longer periods of picking-apart — hence requiring extremes of eloquence to move beyond the originating, uniquely thinking vessel. The expansive needs, therefore, of this theory where scarcely, if at all, met, and it has taken only the slow dawning of generations to facilitate its arrival as something broadly palatable to the collective intellect.

Never ones for populism, the stepping-stone individuals, insulated by peers, resisted any expansion, passing their papers in hushes and glances. But no matter how careful or secretive they were, rumours bred and circled, and soon it was decided that a coming-out-with-it would be less damaging. At first, this was in the form of succeeding hints, then, finally, a four-hour breakdown with a rapidly traded mic and an overwhelmed moderator. They began and ended on a note of deflation, that rose above the crowd as if caught and sunk again lengthwise. The reaction was surprise. Quills danced and the intake was deafening. Six hundred people would be dead before the year was out, all from unrelated conditions.

One of its legacies has never fully resolved itself. Before of which moments prior were tied to some loose philosophy of doubt, even a triumphed one, now selections had been drawn and cast just barely over without any of the and spilling that once had been understood to be in line with a feeling about which much which had that was previously before neither of the beliefs were tying over the not included feelings, feelings that were it nearly in time to believe that each had a feeling of that once before neither had included, some general overdrawn of thought pomposted wildly, and ruggedly in the middle distance.

Today More Than Ever

2011-01-29T18:59:00.004+11:00

I know: not a sole representative of twelve trying months and months of trying. It is tempting to concede the shame has brought me here. But truth being what it is— This will no longer be a home for housekeeping. Theref., as you can plainly, the above is the final on the matter, more not to follow, not even where prefaced by anticipatory I knows. I shan’t even mention, even here, my no-longer contemporaries but one, as I have been no-longer, too, for long enough. That being said — if that counts as being said —, I would like to say, briefly, and with full knowledge of the resultant failures of every of its predecessors, that this sentence marks a henceforth of effort, if not (probably) profusion. And with that last of the keeping done, I’ll commence.

Firstly, no secondly, to the business of the day, of what happened within it. I was startled awake for the fifth consecutive time by birds in my loft. My only measure of defense against the recent heat wave had been to keep my windows up overnight. And now they were perched around the bowl that housed my breakfast, and bathing gaily in my coffee. It proved an appetite-sapping sensation of feathers, bird blobs and mysterious gluten-substitute, and I ditched at least half of it in favour of a dozen singles and a hastily whisked nog. My day looked up from there, at a sky with gouacher colours than I was used to.

I had walked over three kilometres, nearly five, to an ailing sibling, the dual victim of weather and parental conspiracy. It was nearing dark when I saw the gate. The company upon arrival was agreeably ingenuous, allowing me sufficient space to tend to the bedside. I thanked them each and together. Over the next four hours I wrote twenty-six letters on borrowed stationery. Completing the last one (Z), I folded up my piece of paper and failed to contain my pride.

Four Score and Seven Somethings

2011-01-26T22:52:00.008+11:00

Quiet but for the steps up, austerely wooden and creaking their age, then the door itself, which scraped and squealed open. There was a film of dust on everything, including the man in the doorway. He looked as if he had been torn away from a life’s work, as if preparing to smash four impertinent kneecaps, but something inside him clicked and we were shown in. Silently we made our way past ancient assortments of study and long-since-inspiring busts, my companion unable to keep his eyebrows a respectable distance from his hairline. Then a small back-office, where we were beckoned faintly to sit. Which we did.

"It's, ahem, nice to see you," said the proprietor, pronouncing the throat-clear rather than bothering to affect it.
"I suppose it must be," said Ben.
"You too," I said.
He shifted slightly.
"My daughters have told me all about you."
"Lies!" said Ben, attempting to perfect the moment with a friendly punch on the arm but connecting instead with a none-too-pleased left breast.
"Quite," was (looking down) all he could manage, Ben sheepishly withdrawing as he did so.
"You too," I said.

...

"So what is it you do?"
"Well," began Ben, "there's absolutely everything to be said for not working."
The man failed to conceal his wince.
"We've attended several promising interviews," I added.
“You’re—” he started, the rest of the sentence catching in his throat. He composed himself. “You’re— not employed?”
“Unemployed, in fact,” said Ben, enjoying himself.
I smiled weakly. “Between engagements.”
“I see.” The man took four slow, seething breaths. “And you expect me to give you my blessing, to give over my daughters to— the unemployed?”
“It’s the bride’s parents who foot the bill, is it not?”
It was always difficult being tactful with Ben about.
“Excuse me?”
“Traditionally, at least,” said Ben. “And my friend and I are nothing if not traditional.”
“And what about after that?”
“Hm?”
“How will you support them after the wedding?”
“By then we’ll have finished our novels,” said Ben.
“Novels?”
“I’ve already deleted eighty pages. Can’t be far off now.”
By this time he had his chair turned completely away from us, staring down the wall for want of a window.
“Plot?” he asked, though the question mark was barely audible.
“Man wakes up one morning and suddenly realises life is cold and empty.”
“That’s a premise," he snapped. "What else happens?”
“Well, he walks about a bit, meets a few chaps, has a scrape or two. But he ends up not having changed his mind about it.”
“Good God.”
“Yours was about spies or something, wasn’t it, Hugh?”
“No. I’m not quite up to the part where you come up with a plot yet.”
“No? Which part, then?"
“Violent self-doubt.”

He shut down at that point. We were both experts at provocation but it was as if he had willed his heart to cease. Nothing would awaken inside him again.

We went home and had sex with our girlfriends.

The Interest of All, Needs at a Heart, Pillows, Fingers, Outrage!

2009-12-02T23:23:00.003+11:00

Some semi-fragile thing, peering out across the moops. I was doing my best in my best suit, covered mostly, but sick-feeling. The scene converged and I fell into another bosom. I beg your!— something like that. Hell, maybe it was Yours. But my tongue don't go backwards too well, seems almost designed that way, and she near lost her lung in bloody murder. In need of a pick-up, I muscled the former (self-appointed) DJ off the decks and slipped a disc of my own bringing. Somewhere amidst the phlegm and cheer a heart could be heard, and it spoke to me.

Perhaps partially alcohol, but the face upstairs is friendlier, homelier than you'd expect. And familiar like a stranger in a dream is. You don't expect to find it face-down, or in this state of bludgeon, yet I'm certain my eyes were correct. Light was overwhelming, backdrops were standard, everything had a dullness of purpose— I could barely hold on to being there and it didn't last. Its voice initially brought to mind lacking villains on science fiction television, artificial sonority and all, but a more palatable croon developed for the closer. I was compelled.

Further on, stumbling through the embers of the occasion, I found myself beside the wrong arm of the couch, with the hosts on the other, suddenly very interested in their watches. No music, less food. I mean to say, I'm not entirely blind to outstaying my welcome. I had a thought for them. I kissed, I danced and all was forgiven.

Stephen Malcolm Doughnut

2009-09-26T21:53:00.004+10:00

I'm almost completely unsure what edification means, only that it means something. It's a similar way with almost everything else. You fumble to present something, something uncertain, and you're sick, and you can't look it. You can't barely look, just meekly wait and murmur not. Now, flushed of colour, he narrows his eyes, a once-over, then, dismissively, "Built for a computer at best", and continues on. My neighbour sneezes, unblessed.

Usually, I wait in a café, the same most times, and my man brings 'em to me. He shoves the good ones across the table and holds the others back until I summon them, probably hoping I won't. I don't this time because he's just standing there and I know what that means. I leave, saying nothing, and have one of those tiresome walks of the soul. The experience is one of rain and few people, nice in that way but short on revelation. I feel only the looming of the auction block.

Some drummer, barely in a suit, soundtracked my arrival. I sneered my displeasure and made for the stairs, already regretting my presence. Somehow it all came together in my speech, a certain fashionable cynicism mingling with smirking dopery. I had the lion's choice of indiscretion, but went home with a headache instead.

Fifth Night

2009-07-14T23:51:00.004+10:00

This might well be worth the words— A noise here awoke me. I poured myself out of bed, then poured myself out, sliding into the bath at the bottom of the shower. The bed had yellowed somewhat, roughly where I had been. I lit one-two-three-four... twenty-six candles. Briefly, I thought of mailing it — briefly. (Fortunately) sobered by popped coffee—

It's indistinguishable sometimes. Rather than bother, I prefer to accept that. Easier, I'm sure you'll agree, than wading through six hundred or so synonyms. Easier, too, than doing. It might seem deeply, abhorrently indolent — and there I won't dispute, but it does — or rather, must — have a grain of some such that can't be too far from truth.

What must be noted, what can not not be noted, is that when all is done, and nothing undone, the older-wiser wonder is wiser and fuller of wonder, and older. Where that begins, or ends, or— sorry, I suddenly have that song in mind: "Excuse, please, excuse, please, the rat, the rat, the rat on the keys." Seems appropriate somehow. Noted?

Among Statues

2009-05-25T22:15:00.019+10:00

Having key moments of one's life reenacted by familiar-looking strangers is not something very many of us are afforded, however we might wish it. As such, the closest approximation I can manage is happening upon your doppelgänger at a bank robbery; the mere realisation that you haven't, in fact, misplaced your sanity is a struggle not easily resolved, and the guilt, unjustified though it may be, never quite leaves. It's hard, too, to avoid lapsing into solipsism at the secular wonder of it all — I won't say it's not flattering.

I admit I was a shade disappointed when I strolled through the facsimile. Everyone was either bored or on the verge of a migraine. An overweight man whom I supposed to be the director nodded faintly as I approached. No point easing into it.
"I object, foremost, to my being portrayed as infinitely more attractive than I ever was." He seemed only curious, so I continued. "At my peak I was an average mannequin with waste-bin hair, as similar to this magnetic fop as I was to a stretch of freeway. I can assure you I never turned a single head. But that crime I would be willing to overlook, if the opposite problem did not present itself with your heroine."
Perhaps it was unwise to engage him in earshot of all concerned, but it's hard to feel anything but indignant when you've been ejected by your own hack biographer. I should have noted immediately that a middle-aged man who thinks a baseball cap conceals baldness knows little about beauty, and not pressed the point.

And now I await the result. If bigger people exist, and they might well not, I'm sure they would be severely uninterested in the whole business (eschewing it in favour of, I don't know, being a c---), but — and I speak as something vaguely human — how could this not fascinate you? How could this horror not intrigue you?

Forgive my language, I was born into it.

A Winning Style

2009-03-31T23:04:00.004+11:00

Speeding ahead on a cloud of hubris, the cynic some grand figure behind, I'm reminded of earlier times, times when such things almost almost mattered. When waving to affiliates shrunken by distance was the cap of your night. When searing referrals were waged across pages in glitter and pomp. Hell, when there was a sense of c— No. I can't say it. Now, blitzed and conquered by everything from inspiration to indolence, the greatest thrill is uncertain, hiding within whatever something we've yet to try. Which isn't to distract from my central thesis: you'll need several full-time subordinates, a glut of the very best luck and another century of technological advancement to catch me.

Bearing all that in mind, zaghafte Schritte have been taken towards Wiedergeburt. What they are will have to remain a secret for the time, but know that they have followable footprints — stuff you can touch. Forgive me, it's rather difficult to express some of this in English. Was ich meine ist, dass die überwiegende unterschwellige Erotik unter mir ist Anfang bis Blase an die Oberfläche, wie so viele Gerüche. Kissen zurück, die Arme gekreuzt, ich Entleerungsvorrichtung ein Ei. Endlich, endlich!

As I streak ever further, the beguiling but bested ant stretches out in the pool, commanding the calm. Bathers beside look on in envy at a swimming suit not bursting from the body beneath and a swimmer with infallible glide. The microorganism exits the water, augustly draped in a towel, and everything else is crude, undignified. I collapse in memory. Turning back: a speck, wearing the light in the eyes of others, and infinite dots.

More on This, Some on That

2009-03-30T02:35:00.015+11:00

I've noticed a deficiency. Whenever I stroll long into the night, alone but for a thermos and a notepad, my mind resorts to the crudest of existentialisms, so much so that I soon find myself peeling back the blind and searching the visible stars for answers. I never quite fall to my knees and bellow something embarrassing, but it's an alarming development all the same. I can only pray this acne of the soul will fade. If not sorted out in one's prime, such philosophies tend to set with age, and before you know it, you're clutching a faded tome by Germany's second greatest megalomaniac and indirectly inciting your friends and family to murder you in your sleep.

Elsewhere I've been conducting an experiment in breakfasts. Instead of the usual cup of tea and crumpet, I've taken to fixing a stout bowl of porridge, sans any adornments. I haven't yet brought myself to eat it, mind you — I don't know if it's how I make it, but it always seems to resemble offcuts of wool dropped in milk and then forgotten about. My recent breakfasts have thus consisted of little more than my sneering at the bowl in front of me, my mouth only opening to gag. The experiment will only be valid if I actually consume the stuff, so for the moment I'll just have to do without. Such is the call to publish.

And now, of course, to the weather. Though at present I'm hardly what you'd call in it, I can sufficiently recall what it was like when I was, even if that isn't exactly an accurate reflection of how it's progressed since then. Actually, that's not true. I've just spent three days not noticing such things.

Peer Here

2009-03-29T00:10:00.006+11:00

Every so often, one feels obliged to organise what is worst called a "catch-up", a sort of vague precautionary measure against seeming overly asocial. The key is not to be too transparent about the whole business. The café was perfect: an informal yet refined venue, for the accidental yet considerate host. I drained the last of my coffee and shivered. Ben, toying with the Hawaiian slice I'd bought for him, laughed and reached for his hot chocolate.
"Well, it beats a walk," conceded Harry, bubbling a pocket bong.
"Must you?" I said.
"I must."
I gave Ben a look but he seemed neither to condone nor condemn.
"How's everybody been?" I ventured.

The conversation greyed and died, eventually succumbing to the noxious blend of Ben's indifference and my tiresome routines. Propped by a seemingly infinite cache of anecdotes, Harry had ultimate power but was content to let it slide. I started again.
"Are you working on anything, Harry?"
"Yes!" he yelped, betraying much. "It's about this feisty young brunette, all sex-appeal and balls. Cute, but not glamorous, you know? She's strong, too, but not so you'd notice — like, she's got muscle, but no muscles. And despite her bust she's small, petite even, and she's got these horizontal-stripe socks."
"And?"
"And she's a bounty hunter." Harry looked around for approval and found only frowns. No less confident, he continued. "And get this, she's dead but she's been brought back to life by this voodoo spell, so she's got all these cool voodoo tattoos and shit — tomboyish but sexy."
"Right."
"And there are these cool skeleton guys who are after her for some reason. Evil motherfuckers, but cool. I might do a spin-off with them."
"Right."
"And the bounties, the people she kills — they fucking deserve it, man, let me tell you. Rapists, murderers, done all sorts of shit with kids, you wouldn't believe. She's a public servant, really."
"OK—"
"And you should see the shit she carries. Two mean fucking handguns, I'll tell you — steam-powered."
"Steam-powered?"
"Yeah! Fucking steam-punk guns! They've got this sort of hand-madey, ye-olde look, with like chips in the metal, and sometimes they jam."
"I—"
"I know! Imagine that! She's standing there, in the middle of the jungle, like twenty skeleton guys around her, and the gun fucking jams! What the fuck does she do?"
"Use the other one?" offered Ben.
"Well..." Harry thought a moment. "No! She'd already lost the other one somehow. It's just that one. And these guys are closing in. And let me tell you, if there's twenty guys you don't want closing in on you, it's these twenty motherfuckers."
"So what does she do?"
"That, my friend, is where the fun really begins."
"You mean all this time we were just bored?"
Harry looked at Ben, more perplexed than offended.
"Just wait 'til you hear this."
"I'll try," said Ben.
"Right, so, they're closing in, her gun's jammed, it's all looking hopeless. This is the end. But hang on... What's this in my backpack? My swords!"
"Swords?"
"Yeah! The ten she got from this rare Japanese guy, the only ten in the world."
"Ten?"
"Yeah! Now, I know what you're thinking — how does she fight with ten swords?"
"I was thinking more along the lines of why, but go on," interjected Ben.
"Well, it's simple," began Harry. "Voodoo. The same spell that brought her back to life has given her the power to wield ten blades at once. It's this ancient power, and it's gonna have a cool name, like Sword o' Ten Tails or something."
"Please never say that again," said Ben.
"And that's how she beats 'em, skeleton shish kebabs."

I waited a few minutes before asking Ben the same.
"I'd prefer it if you didn't call me Harry, but yes."
"Care to elaborate?"
"Not really."
"Another misanthropic tale of loss and loss?"
"More or less. And how about your lovely self?"
"Me? I'm too busy writing this to do anything."

Three-Eleven Crumbs

2009-03-26T00:45:00.000+11:00

When something momentous crumbles (notice the etymological clue), more oft. than noft. the remainders lose much, if not all, of their former vitality, no matter how insistently or damn-well stubbornly they power on. Sometimes, however — sometimes the dwindlers, the individual smithereens, manage a spark that promises more than even antebellum can offer. Whether they deliver is another thing, but that small glint among the debris is so rare as to be priceless, or at least next to worthless. And it deserves its two-thirds-scale replica, complete with anachronistic mining machinery and exorbitant pricing. [For the record, the 11.32 smile continues into this secret.] Sometimes it's a cannon with a frog on top.

The above optimism owes some to timing: I'm poised before a stretch of mismatched pillows, mismatched feasts and field days, to mention nothing of the six discs of suppressed ardour that are lined up — and to mention nothing of the most important part. That last is somewhere in the ether at present, swallowing volatile logic. One hopes for a cameo. Meanwhile he makes another artefact, less direct, perhaps, but it amounts to much the same. Flying 'cross the desert in a TWA, I drop it square in the sand, for the fun of future -ologists. The present don't need it yet and I bump into a girl. [Some time past, rings creeping, I pour myself off to rest.]

Whether or not any of this manifests is academic, the spark is there. I won't yet utter the dreaded R-words, but with a certain month approaching it can't be far from my fingers. Shh, sit down. I'm just saying. Nothing more than a slightly sceptical nod at this point. Best not to plague the thing until it's more of a thing. And if it's not already clear— well, that's not likely to change. But I will say this.

As Human

2009-03-04T17:37:00.011+11:00

First, cross promotion. Before I go on, let me just verify that I do not mean to imply any anger there, either in me or the promotion itself, nor do I intend to refer you to any Christ-based religion or Easter bun giveaway. I clarify this because for twenty years of my life — the first twenty — I was under the assumption that the above term generally meant the reciprocating promoter was somewhat begrudging about the whole affair, as if he did not wish to receive any promotion in the first place. Each time I heard mention of it, I would instantly picture one of those greasy little people who do favours not out of the goodness of their hearts, but so as you can owe them something in return. Anyway, the thing.

I have been quite behind where promotion is concerned, mostly due to the deterioration of the affiliates ladder, which now* sits soulless and automated to your right. Back in the day it was a regular habit of mine to remind all those who'll listen of even the slightest alteration of order, a habit posterity was not at all keen about. Nonetheless it provided me with innumerable excuses for nattery and liberated me from the messy business of concocting something worthwhile. But, Alice, the Revolution, ironically designed to re-ignite the ladder, proved to be its downfall, with ambition finally toppling capability and woes creeping in to stifle the cheer.

So, to rectify matters, to give due to the deserving, I point you towards a somewhere that has, yes, pointed back in its time, but which rewards visits regardless. Besides, I'm sure by now you're used to my bias. It really is as simple as placing a four-pronged electronic back-massager somewhere on me, doing a few circles and waiting. Or rather, it was. The point is, it is again.

*At the time of.

Dust, I Gather

2009-02-23T23:07:00.009+11:00

A man loomed down on, I sat somewhere in the grass and pewter, where it struck: it's supposed to pour, isn't it? I had, a few moments prior, opened yet another prematurely, a picaresque epic of character and detail (blurb), and the mammoth feat of its creation indicated to me a degree, at least, of pouring, the fingers straggling behind the furiously forming mind, the author the vessel for some divine though necessarily agnostic message. Not quite Alone in the Café, but drawing the perfect line between one's mind and one's surroundings so as to drink in just enough of the latter to fuel the former. That is, the point before revelation becomes distraction.

Many a would-be would be shot through with renewed vigour were they to peek at a first draft of anything in the canon, says theory. But would not they also realise, in one terrible moment, that inspiration can never circumvent Hard Work? There the fun rushes from their face and the doubts creep solemnly in: a flash that proves fruitless is still only a flash; months, years, that's where you want to be damn sure going in. It's supposed to bloody pour— I canvased this to erstwhile author Ben and was treated to a little of his insides.
"Listen, man, you can't be thinking about that kind of thoughts. You just got to write. It's fact. People who think don't write."
"Yeah, that's good, man, I get ya, but that's like theory — not really. It's theoretics. You can say write, and you said it, and thank you, but what does it actually mean in practice?"
"No no, it's got to be real straight-off. You've got to be thinking 'This is it' all the time, you dig? Not thinking thinking, just 'This is it'."
"I see, I see. But I don't quite get what you're getting at."
"Write, plain and simple."
"Write plain and simple?"
"Yes! Put it on paper, punch it. Get it down. You got me?"
"I got you. I just don't know what you mean."
This went on for some time before we both finally agreed that the best thing to do was do.

Let's say a wave of energy whose momentum needs not the p-promise of pay or prestige to proceed. Returning, as if from a dream, the feeling-guilty translateur denies authorship and claims to be little more than a go-between; the craftsman who has fought for every word wants credit for every word, too. Is there something better betwixt the two? The K-to-the-A-to-the-Other-Five-Letters, though busy at an autoclave, did find an answer: "Maybe." And so I stayed, the truth in my heart and the weather on my face.

What Happened Today

2009-02-18T22:41:00.006+11:00

As a show of solidarity, I shall break, one time, from tradition, and speak to you from outside the bubble, desnudo. No jokes, no japes — no bloody sleeves. Tonight exclusive the gorge that divides us is bridged by hope and balsa, and we meet me in the middle. Good will, passed from his mouth to my fingers, shall prop us. Cynicism, that useless thing, will writhe unattended in the meanwhile, failing to be heard over cheers and smiles. Hm? Well, I didn't say anything about it being any clearer — part memory, and Harry will forgive the paraphrasing, but it's all in aid of the message. So let it ring.

It was one day at 5.30. The tide wandered and the sky put on a show. I sat accompanied. Tomorrow, such things will fade in the light of new hassles. So it's to be. One wonders how a girl's gonna sing all her songs when the world's gone wild, and then one wonders why one wonders that. But it's more or less plain: today's a something that won't likely repeat. It's a new world new again, and for the moment we'll care not if it goes backwards after this. Profound thoughts, about as profound as anybody's, sail neatly here, and seem for a moment the epiphany that precedes new happiness.

Sensibly footed, our heroine strolls through the celebration, sense and poise present as ever. Most have the wrong idea about what's being celebrated (please, that was months ago), but not she, the so-called, still-hot smoking gun nesting in her evidence drawer. She turns; the butterflies on itchy fabric, not pajama-like, are feared throughout the criminal world, and a car screams away. Later, in a dorm room, this:
"How do you put someone on a wolverine?" wondered Harry, when the record finished.
"It's probably Smart-Arse for something," I said.
His chin disappeared for a moment into the fat of his neck and I took it to be a nod.
"But that Datura idiot is a complete songwriting genius," he added elliptically. "Now I sleep."
And he began to. Seizing the moment, I wrote "1 Fat Australian — I fuck anything" on his bare back then retired alongside. His warmth was pleasing, in a bean-bag kind of way. But I wished to hell he was someone else.

Raw Pomp

2008-12-09T17:03:00.009+11:00

Regard this, reader, as a warcry — admittedly inspired by laziness and worry, but fixed and full-throated nonetheless. Today I fly the flag of careless halves in the face of considered wholes. And to illustrate I tumble upwards to 3am, piling piece on piece and pomp on pomp, and leaving the job of sorting the resulting jumble not to the reader — I would never impose such a fruitless task upon those kind and loyal and peculiar enough to scan beneath the title — but to the universe. To hell with craft, he cries, thumping a weak paw on the contrived disorder of his desk; then, reciting the thinnest excuse of all, Life itself is a mess! Is it my/our job to sort existence and regurgitate it into a more intelligible — not to mention palatable — form, for those most afflicted by it, or am I simply to reflect it, to effectively say, Well, I don't know any more than you do, but it's a remarkable likeness, no?

My cry is a pose, of course, but a mess does have its virtues, even when the spectre of a tidier version casts its gloom. Time spent refining could be time spent making more messes. And it is certainly easier this way, if only for the smallest party. But stifled potential does emit a uniquely foul stench, and it can be hard to focus when you discern the need for a few more drafts. Too often the Good gets lost in the What Could Be.

The Art Should Be Fun contingent are ready with the desperate-sounding but grain-of-truth-holding excuse that any ambition to create order out of what we might loosely term 'All this' is itself a fallacy; at least we — or they — are honest about that. Accompanying this view is the contention that art (no doubt refined to 'true art' in the face of contradiction) is not merely an argument told funny, nor is it a soft essay for those especially allergic to academic propositions. The delicate of disposition might well prefer such an alternative, but Art, they argue (adding the capital as they move in for the clincher), transcends. Ask of an essay what could be; ask of art what is. But calling upon the verb 'Transcend' is Patron 101 for escaping the threat of close inspection; in a critical context 'Transcend' becomes little more than a fancy substitute for "It's good, but I can't quite tell you why", but it's spongey enough to scare off would-be contrarians. The better defence, that of questioning the approach and relevance of the study of the arts, is forgotten in the haze.

It is noble, I believe, to curtail the excess of displaced theory, but noble it is not to contemn study for style — style in surface, that is, not service: suspended like a conjurer's tart and sporting an impeccable sheen, but about as transcendent as the same magic trick explained in diagram (TR is for Trope, but let me slip here). It is a funny fact of life that the effort in waxing in one corner roughly equates to the effort in working in the other, and the truly great proponents spin both plates indivisibly, putting the former most to shame. But the question of capacity does enter the picture. Do those who stick to chroming know their limitations, or are they merely too afraid to discover them? Most, I'm sure, would rather not answer that.

The ASBF camp has returned, this time with "Art is respite; life is for rubbing your nose in it." But the unfortunate truth is that this formulation is itself the formulation of those who have never had their noses rubbed in anything. Just as you have to have money before you can have contempt for it, you have to have had a truly wet beak before you can claim art exists elsewhere, and even then too many exemptions will loose the proverbial tin of bait. A suitable tome might be entitled 'Whither Frivolity?', and divide post-Auschwitz authors into cowards and noble failures. But then a suitable tome might also be 'Life From Above', where the silliest sit atop the pantheon and the soft essayists scowl indignant — and untranscedent.

What are we left with? Not enough to justify the question mark, that's for surtain. The H in Auden ain't exactly up to defending this stance by example. But if we can't counter the stinging print on its own terms — and we can't —, we can at least call on our youth, where it remains, and tell 'em to fold it five ways and put it where the moon don't shine.

Ben Ben B-Ben Ben Ben...

2008-11-14T19:09:00.019+11:00

I'm afraid this time I'm out of jumpers. Up an' Adam, on the Eve of Ben, is now and henceforth fantasy; all I can do, short of gun-point, is make sure my own bucket's filled — and so be it if I molest his memory in the process. Just as there are seven basic stories — nine, if you count more — there are but two basic stunts, both of which have been pulled to completion, and neither of which worked all that well in the first place. The ever-capitalised He, therefore, shall exist only in quotes and misquotes; the horse's mouth is shut, froze by petulant peanut-butter. Sure, his Equus asinus part may be as proud and full-assed as ever, but where himspun wisdom is concerned, you've only my word.

I'll begin with some character references, this one from a thumbing rambler he once shared an onion sandwich with: "Friendly, in a blank sort of way, but not much of a sandwich-maker." His ex, meanwhile, was a little less kind, saying that while he possessed a formidable nubility, the effect of which a malleable woman could not rightly deny, he was also a scurrilous hug-monger with a penchant for loose discharge. "Apparently he found someone smaller than he is," gossiped a crouching snoop. "She's tiny." Ignoring him, I approached his second-best friend, Ollie, with whom he is second-best friends: "He's not a bad sort, really. Well, not always."

Being as this signifies a new approach, I've decided that, rather than quote the man anew, I should start by retrieving some favourites from the archive, a sort of accustoming exercise.
"Sometimes even existence itself is a bore, and on such occasions I find worming cherished pets the perfect antidote."
From Drills In Liquid, 2006.
"All right, girls, there's boffing in the offing!"
From Dicky Darwin, 2005.
"If there's one thing to be said for man, I haven't heard it."
From Pieces Of Other People, 2007.
And unless the man in question reinstates his pen, there shall be more of this.

Frog Light

2008-10-29T01:20:00.003+11:00

Led by the dim glow of eggs on a post-it, I foot forward into the ink. What I outlined, by necessity, was the stage of divers moments, any of which would sink me by contrast were some oaf to flick the lights on. And somehow I'd rather sacrifice a toe or two. (For the books, I was twice stubbed, each foot, slight elation on the second.) I twisted the cold. The accompanying rush rang instantly familiar — I had not anticipated that. Second only to being there, I saw the figure hushed up against the sink, softly splashing while I washed my face in the doorway. One moment I was at I'm All Right, the next, I was beneath the water and the room was swathed in green. I prayed for a kind soul to press repeat.

Sally-Anne mislit her cigarette for the fourth time. Her face was everything strangers wanted: soft, sexy, lit. And she spoke with confidence, never doubling back. I followed her gazey features down her chest and feigned a smile. The lighter stuck somewhere in the bushes.
"Got a match?"
"Not this time," I said. Ha.
I began throwing bits of serviette at the back of her head as she nattered with a passing girlfriend. Most dropped short, but I got a couple of pleasing hits in. Whenever she turned to glare at me, I would simply start throwing them directly at her face. Best of all, I didn't even enjoy it. I used to, but then I used to enjoy hiding her marbles, too.

Next I sat backwards on my chair, peering over the brim like a child would. Each male passer-by I marked as my successor and glowered at. But I harboured not a thing; I only kept and held onto. Where weeping my gratitude was concerned, I was far from finished. Sally-Anne called my name sharply and I swung around. For once, she seemed to be looking at me for what I was. I had seen that look before — this time I encouraged it. Feeling the heat, I shifted. I was wearing the wrong T-shirt for this kind of weather, but it was the worst I could find.

The Decline and Fall of a Showman's Empire

2008-09-20T20:15:00.007+10:00

In diminishing paragraphs.

Some, no doubt, have already taken to grand proclamations of the "Death of—" ilk, emerging pale and preying from the shadows of no-talent; Ergo the failure³³ of this petty revolt³⁴ — for that is what History³⁵ shall prove it to be — to achieve any of its initiatives³⁶ is indicative of a greater— This, however, fails to take into account the inherent— until we're quite ready to spit ourselves clean of the matter and have those unfortunate words as the last ones. Aft. all, who's to dispute? Participants put-out, principle players played-out, and profusion off fanning itself in the shade. Add the pissed-off passers-by and you haven't a recipe for much success;— the revolution, my friend(s), is D-E-A-D (long live the revolution), and I suppose I shall have to bear the bulk of the brunt. (Lest you wonder, I suppose because my lofty predictions and assorted nonsenses are freely viewable, and shall remain so.)

Trope: from the past there is no reprieve. Right; why dwell, when something far worthier lowers itself into a late-night bath? Nonetheless, there may be remnants worth salvaging, one of which, also an R-E concept, I'm myself keen to keep in place, if less outwardly than before. (The image has proved more than a distraction; someone must have sculpted that thing!) If we, whomever that now entails, are to justify any of our idealistic exertions, we'd best hope to learn from our failings — and by that I do not mean 'know our boundaries'; boundaries should not and never be known. I mean, rather, that we should fuel future successes on past mistakes. Sure, a first-year might leave it out, focusing only on the direct lead-up to that great thing we'll do, but a third could not afford its omission, and would incur copious red pen were he-her to do so.

Even if no one has my back, even if I tumble down alone, I will tumble. (This thing ain't a ship, incidentally; it's a hill.) Grass cuts and cowards above me, I shall meet the new halfway and tumble again, bypassing once and foil the embarrassment of accidents. Stay, if you will, but I'm pressin' on. For the towel-headed harpies and clot-headed he-men. Momentum'll get me through if nothing else.

First-Hand, Kodak, Plump

2008-09-15T21:55:00.021+10:00

How to tell— Crumbling revolts, denied permissions, margarine flowers (wilting in a champagne glass, as posy would have it); mouths of black dogs, two losses —the latter street-cred — and deadly dead-night silliness. Quite the mouthful and quite the emergence. One must ask: where oh where is that slender confectionery known most as Ben? The heart is so bloody fond by now it could fuck the chrome off him without even pausing to consider its sexual orientation. Ah, but what a wangless wonder here left in his place! An alien filling those trousers? I know, I know, but it's strewth; my own eyes and all that, spied from a bush, even double-took (I dare any eye to fall upon that form and not). And though presently to fry an old dinner, it shall occupy me, as it has, in every grubby fibre, spilling out here as elation, there as idio-horizoneering, in odd beat, hoping the grease will distract the silly thing with the threat of attack. Such is such!

Milked in, I pondered this and concluded — the benefit of being milked in is that you have ample time in which to ponder —, subsquintly to lavish my gratitude on the maker of these moments, the maker of moments; a thank you whichever way forward. The parted menace, incidentally, whose name may or may not begin with a letter that may or may not sit second in the alphabet, remains departed, a whole paragraph on, no matter the reports of his presence. "Sweet me soon" was his last recorded remark, ATTOW. Prophetic? Not really. (And I did, I should point out, see him at a distance on Saturday, walking tenderly to a rotund friend across the way.) It's perhaps unfair of me to impose examination on his circumstance, but I feel the zeit has a right to know, and know now, ATTOR. At any rate, they know now.

Probably the most interesting development, in terms of literary potential, was the August encounter I had with a colleague outside my office. Weathered, possibly a little drunk, he was attempting to nail a Pogo to my door, mistaking it for his.
"You do of course realise—"
"—Yes."
Wasn't the most treasured development, granted — the clicks were firmly elsewhere, however elusive their subject — but there you have it. I have since decided that prudence can go to hell; what's the point, when one day you could wake to find someone drunkenly nailing Pogos to your office door? No snaps, either.

Blues is King

2008-07-21T05:14:00.006+10:00

Sadness and pistachios, at the worst of times. Need I, when knowing, turn off the smile, the stereo and brood, refusing (p)leisure, that is, the self, in aid of empathy? Should, moreover, a good person, a real good one, be physically incapable of merrymaking, in any guise, when there's woe afoot? Surely the thought would never even cross his (oo er) honest-to-goodness mind! Under this brand of reasoning, sound though it may be, the mere existence of temptation could well be enough to forsake you, oh my darling, regardless of give-ins or misgivings, resistance or succumbference. But, drat! Who, I ask you (other than a rival toy company), could remain poed and poffaced at Lands on my bed and sings her tune/to the light of the shining moon?

One's room, that organic collage of purchase and collection, can, in times of trouble (from without), be a positive whorehouse of temptation, damnation ground zero — the guilt of reaching for a Fantagraphics favourite! And let's not mention— Such things betray a light heart, too light, perhaps, to listen. But how can I abstain?— why should I abstain? It must be something altogether deeper, something weak and wheezing at the bottom of my soul, nearing death by distraction. And I don't hear it no more. I hear, rather, the backup singer, strolling up and down the melody, and cringing for future reference.

My eyes are suitably red, my posture slumped, my words appropriate, but that's sleep, habit and politeness, respectively. Not sick enough to forgo the gesture, but not right enough to mean it. And now I'm on the other end, all but pissing out problems, and the scarce words I've got felt as hollow as mine, tear or no. Relieved, I suppose, but unhelped — those words I knew not to seek anyhow. I await, instead, a flying fat thing with a spasmodic diaphragm and a penchant for song, rendered in her harmony. And a stronger man than I—

Something Fresh

2008-07-07T08:58:00.008+10:00

Turns out, after all, the reason for the delay, in as much as one can account (being educated, I can account), and with everything — everything relevant, that is — considered, in context, and weighed, is that although, in the first instance, it may strike the average perceptor as a case of lax, nothing more, or perhaps, dare I mention, the dreaded block (hefted to the desk by Calvin himself, no doubt), it is, in honest, an issue of self-suppression, of editing, which, while not exactly quality control, at least not in the way some might hope (vückas), is a welcoming as well as worrying sign, one which may, fingers crossed, lead to a tangible upping in output, worthy output, and maybe even extend our little revolt a finger further. Fingers crossed.

In the next, that is, second, this sort of excusal, which inescapably reeks of I, sir, am never at fault (accused by compatriot, no less!), is rather hard to pull-off, no matter how true it turns out (after all, in as much as one can account) to be, and I rather think I'm under the shovel even mentioning it. Still, it's words, i'n' it? And I dare risk the backlash — for truth. But if you — my accuser (rattling blogspot, if not face-to-face in the rain) — insist on persisting, let me first concede that this is not actually an excuse, Percy; I am not intending, or attempting, to exonerate myself in any washäpperfoam of this unfortunate lapse; an unfortunate lapse it is, and although there are factors which contributed to its being so (yah), detailing them, as I have half-done, is purely an explanatory exercise; the buck stops with me. Hum.

I dare risk, but dare I continue? I will dare. Forgive my haste, my rush; blame my everything. Here's the deal, yo—: this isn't quite my favourite waste of time. That honour, for it is an honour, goes to another trivial pursuit — Sweet is the so-hard-to-come-by melody. And it belongs to the man who so stylishly severed an umbilical cord with a bullet. I'd sit back and wait, only there are few guarantees, may as well swing in with whatever's rattling around in there and fire it repeatedly at the wall, so repeatedly it need not matter whether it actually sticks or not. Bedsides — it wouldn't be me if I didn't.

On the Level

2008-06-29T21:13:00.009+10:00

The horrified boy in the shower, on the side of his bed, locked in the toilet, fearing, more than anything else, the Sensible Thing To Do. Tense, heavy-hearted, restless, I crawled and stumbled through a few long days before I did the sensible thing. Thenceforth it had its own momentum, and I was at least spared of plotting my own course of action.
"Shall I take a look at it, then?"
"I'd rather you didn't."
I could just make out a smile forming somewhere inside his greying beard. Sighing, I climbed the patronising steps to the bed and dutifully, though hesitantly, lowered the elastic.
"The right one, just there."
"Hm."
His fingers were cold, clinical; I was numb. He rose, frowning, and I hurriedly shoved everything back into place. My family waited.
"We'll definitely need to do some tests."

The boy moved in the huddle of his family as if a ghost, suddenly detached from the present. The news had put him on autopilot and he could do little but gaze blankly at things. Everything bounced off. The murmur of the engine was the sole point of comfort; reassuring words irritated more than reassured. When it was finally black, I was still too hyped to contemplate a theoretical death with anything other than idle fascination. That hyperbolic fear didn't much weigh upon my mind in the intervening time, nor, in fact, did the more realistic fear; everything seemed to sit second to curiosity, even excitement. Consequently, I wasn't exactly sure how to feel when I received the news that the bugger was benign. Still, at least I got a consolation operation.

"I'm going under the knife tomorrow."
"Really? What for?"
I realised my mistake and stalled. Tom honed in, shattering my affected coyness. The school uniforms didn't much help matters.
"It's my knee." I pointed, vaguely. We moved for the bus.

All in all, a nice week or so of attention. I was sad to see him go.

Cause Infâme

2008-06-26T16:02:00.004+10:00

Friends, onlookers, cherished detractors, it is time. Here, in all its gory, is the long-delayed, much-hubbubed, ever-mysterious piece which the cats upstairs, in all their 'wisdom', refused to print. Weeks in the making, months in the gestating, twenty-two sodden-earth years in the coming. And it's here, at bloody. So why the wait, why the ballyhoo? Well, to quote the felines in question: Even without all the cunts, cocks and fucks which you have so unaesthetically strewn about the place, seemingly at random, this would be one of your least distinguished efforts, and considering that you are the person who once used, or rather misused, four-hundred semi-colons in a single paragraph, merely by accident of style, that's really saying something. We have no choice, sir, but to revoke your fingers for five full days and forbid you from ever reproducing any of the words you used in that piece in any context. Even the conjunctions. Good day.

A work like that, why you wouldn't give it the time of day. We don't tolerate filth for filth's sake, not even the funny stuff. A man must have scruples. I've written a poem. Would you like to hear it?

Sea of blue,
Tree of green.
One plus two
Equals threen.

Sometimes I dream my father's return. Standing at the door, barely able to hold himself up, he'd look just like me, only with ripped clothes and a fatherly moustache. He'd regale mother and I with stories of conspiracy and high adventure, how he simply had to leave us, he had no choice, otherwise the government would have gotten to us. A goodbye, even a farewell, was simply impossible, I'm sure you understand. The cuts and bruises and all round weariness would confirm the story, and we'd prepare him the first good meal he'd had since he left. Later we'd all cry around the fire, begging him never to leave again, and he'd promise he would do everything in his power to make sure we— But of course a dream it remains. As I think of it, the filth in front of me, obscured by futile corrections, winds its way back into my consciousness, most unwelcomely. Enraged, I eat it, piece by piece, and, aided by my right index, retch every half-digested morsel of it out the window. All things considered, it was quite an improvement.

Pandora's Book

2008-06-21T07:03:00.004+10:00

They look at my eyes — gorgeous, protuberant things skirted by junkie red — and wonder. I usually have my motorbike and leathers, would, in fact, have them now, only there was a slight laundering mix up, nothing serious, soon be sorted, but it means, for The Time(s), I must go without. Oh, this? Just something I threw together, no thought, didn't even catch a mirror — hardly representative, indeed not representative, probably not even mine. Hm? No, no, no. My flat burned down, bad toaster, it's a crisp, can't even go there. Just boarding at the folks' in the mean. Nice chaps, not my scene, but what can you do? Should spare me visits for a while — We never see you, sprog; I'm busy, you know, still look the same, got a life and all. But the eyes are the truth, these deep windows, not what you deduce, not what I reveal. That stuff's nothing in the scheme.

Here? Oh, sorry. No, I knew that. Just been on a sabbatical, you know — had to, would have had a bloody heart-attack. Plus, you know, don't want to completely ruin the novelty. Not there either? Christ, I am rusty. No, no, it's a good thing. Keeps me on my toes. That's— Ooh. Um, yes, a little too much build-up, probably shouldn't have taken that extra week. Guess I am human after all, ha ha, yeah, inevitable, you don't mind, of course? I— A wh—? Oh, er, I'm giving quitting a go, actually. Just for kicks. Probably won't last, need something to do with my hands. Here, generally, they smile, furrow, and try to drink it all in, reconcile the facts with the eyes. You can even see the doubts niggling their way to the mouth, which flattens into something of a paternal purse to suit. I'm at the window, something in my eye. Christ, I wish I had my wheels. But what can you do? You couldn't spare me a— Oh, you're the best, cheers. 50% interest, I promise. No, I won't hear it. As soon as I'm off leave, I'll— You're sure? Well, all right, but you must let me— No, that's fine. But at least—

Legs are open, carefree, arms behind head, weary eyes, weary mouth, pitch-perfect but for the invisible details. And, perhaps, the cold. I, uh— Well, I was clean out of tissues, you see, and I had to take something. A last resort, really, I'll burn the thing after I— (Almost genuinely weary here.) You know, people think that, but actually it's just that I tend to slouch a lot, and— I turn, affecting repressed passion and close my eyes, tired. And I stay turned. A rushing suburb, a bleak sky, white scratches on the window, suspicious smudge. 5-4-3-2-1-0-0-0-0. A slow turn, but a good one. Powerful, cinematic. No words, no details, we're all human here. Look: too weary for tears, and strong, but with a definite sadness, like windows, deep, longing, eyebally. Look.

The Usual Thing

2008-06-16T23:31:00.001+10:00

I don't bother with it, myself. And I'd advise you, whomevr, to forget about it as soon as. Yes, ye-, that sounds like some dreary hangover of Addle Essence™ — so says you, I'm off (you'll see) —, but, and this is whilst, yes, accepting that as an unavoidable Factor (I'm nothing if not naked), there's much to be said for being a little normless here and there — within reason; much to be said for slumping to the floor with another, hearing I'd walk on my hands through the jungle. Not being pricked by pressing logistic or looming troubls, or little engagements — that's what I'm meaning. Clumping about with no aim or destiny, just steps, not even steady. Howver: don't mistake me for suggesting you go all McGoohan and dash about in liberal triumph, subsisting only by virtue of your indulgence — not 'nless you're similarly prisoned, that is. Nor do I suggest we're caged by institution (ergh). I have the firmest respect for sizzleisation, truly I do. But living in it is no more phlosophical than taking care of bees-knees, you dig? It need not obscure your view. Besides, no law 'gainst slumping. It's too high to get over (yeah yeah), too low to get under (yeah yeah).

And I looked: hair attractively framing face, a small one. And like clockwork I screwed up my mouth, achingly. Then away, appearing to concentrate on something intangible. Complete conceit, mind. Even added a Thinker fist. (This is an example, by the, not a whim.) And gazing backwards to every other face that had stuck, and combing my hair with my fingers and yawning often. Catch me now: coat casually open, cap poised (still wearing it? Yes, you know, till my hair grows and that. Plus winter, you know), that look. Nothing so unusual. Nothing that'd tear open the fabric of sosososososo— sorry, can't say it. So plain, in fact, that the above conjecture seems more a foil for something far less, shall we say, romantic, something, gape, vulnebubble. That's partially the point of the example; I don't mean to deny my namesakemanity — not even to make a point. Well: my grandmother was face down in her breakfast again. I called the nurse. She smiled somehow. Mopping my grandmother's face, she even contributed to a blossoming discussion about that Canadian folk duo. I wondered what was worse: having to wipe someone else's arse, or having to have your arse wiped by someone else? She frowned at my candour, then considered. Good God, she said, realising, I hope I don't get to compare those first-hand. Laughing, I wondered if my grandmother had been dead all these weeks. It hardly seemed to make a difference. You're a vegetable (you're a vegetable). You're a vegetable.

Twosome: falling pointlessly against walls, lying in company, walking nowhere: that's where you think about it all with the right gravity, not to mention lightness. No 'free spirit' troping or blind hedoning; rather, feeling like a good dream, to no detriment to sosososososo— Not taking for granted the ability to eat a good breakfast. No? (Yeah yeah.)

Cross My Heart

2008-06-13T08:51:00.004+10:00

Train station, bullied by elements — the wind seemed genuinely intent on dislodging my delicately poised cap — I set my mind the task of solving that great imponderable. Content-wise, it's chiefly the concern of homosexual women, having hitherto been untackled, but I, with the luxury of a missed train, aim to set the record straight. It takes, after all, balls to confront this issue, particularly whilst wearing a rather ridiculous cap on a rather ridiculously windy day.* (By the way, I've moved to the sheltered part, having decided to risk the inevitable hobo stench; giggling girls, thinking it unoccupied, spy my well-sculpted head in the window and make new plans — martyr spared 'em the funk.) Some chilly minutes pass unassumingly and, despite having my formidable gaze obstructed by unaesthetic beige, I manage to score a few good thoughts. (I have now moved out of the shelter, almost to board.)

The next station is Dennis. No one's sat on me yet. Shame. As the train rumbles back to motion (not strictly true — I was too slow in writing that sentence) I find myself making some progress on my self-imposed problem. I was far from a good answer, indeed very far, but I move in obsessions; don't be surprised if I have the thing firmly wrapped by week's end. Plus, I'm a whiz at suffering obstacles. My biological mother once told me that when you hit a wall, whatever its context, go hang at Tabby's and come back tomorrow with fresh eyes. (Tabby was a childhood flame from four to fifteen: a yeasty tomboy with scarlet locks and peppered skin, she now maintains an unpleasant trans-Pacific accent somewhere in Canada, with my poor adolescent heart tucked in a shoebox beneath her bed. "Hoeniger asked about my first love. I said 'Pale, mercurial and devilish; had two loves' — how's that?", a line from her letter, May 24. That's her handwriting; that's the way she writes.) Not having Tabby at hand, I decided instead to have a particularly restful night's sleep when I got home.

Now we're forward some three hours (my errand kept me from chronicling the intervening). My roomy black notebook has given way to a squat yellow pocketbook. I'm already halfway down the page. I should mention that this marks a second journey, having returned home for approximately ten minutes before a gate-crashing opportunity presented itself and ushered me back out into the Cruel. These piling mundanities run the risk of overshadowing my ponderings, but I added a few useful observations along the way, most afforded by lulls. A brief glimpse from a fellow passenger (merely by proximity) and I'm back outside myself, noting, for no particular reason, the onlooker's green caffeinated drink. Now we pause at the neon ferris wheel, Ernst & Young high-rise to my right. I look at my watch: fifteen minutes to Crown. The evening disappears in a swamp-green haze of inferior remakes and sulky companions. Tabby infests my dreams.

*Suffering for fashion, as always.

Rhapsody

2008-06-11T14:57:00.014+10:00

All right, now this one is a little exaggerated — forgive me. The time: nearing ten-thirty. The place: here. The persons: whatshisname (Ben?), Tom and myself. With a gourmet meal — thawed fish and chips, decanted by yours truly — settling in our I Guess This'll Do bellies, we organised ourselves for a debate of sorts, filmed from the corner for posterity.
"Never until the mankind making, bird, beast and flower," I began, overflowing with righteous poesy.
Ben smirked and countered: "We are hollow men. We are stuffed men."
Before I could rebuke, Tom strode in between us.
"Drift close to me, and sideway bending, whisper delicious words," he said, punctuating with curt glances and taut fists.
"No," I cried, eyes welling with passion. "Praise that the spring time is all—"
"April is the cruelest month," interrupted Ben, calmly. "Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."
I considered. "Here in the spring, stars float along the void." Come back from that!, my smile said.

"They say that the Dead die not, but remain, near the rich heirs of their grief and mirth."
We both turned to Tom, puzzled at his addition.
"Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow up the white moon's hidden loveliness," he continued. Either he was drawing a very long bow or—
"After the torchlight red on sweaty faces [not unlike Ben's as he spoke], after the frosty silence in the gardens, after the agony in stony places. The shouting and the crying." Curses. I was behind. How could I miss the connection?
"O make me a mask and a wall to shut from your spies," I wailed desperately. They pounced.
Tom: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire of watching you, and swing me suddenly into the shade and loneliness and mire of the last land!"
Ben: "The withered root of knot of hair, slitted below and gashed with eyes; this oval O cropped out with teeth, the sickle motion from the thighs."
I could do this. "Twenty-four years remind the tears of my eyes. I advance for as long as forever is." A pause. Yes. Then:
"And so I never feared to see you wander down the street, or come across the fields to me on ordinary feet." Here Tom lighted on my lap, devilishly testing my liberalism. "For what they'd never told me of, and what I never knew; it was that all the time, my love, Love would be merely you." I shook him off.
"Not from this anger — anticlimax after refusal struck her loin and lame flower bent like a beast to lap the singular flood," I scoffed, composing myself.
"Along the reaches of the street," said Ben, determined, "held in a lunar synthesis, whispering lunar incantations."
"Creeps in half wanton, half asleep, one with a fat wide hairless face."
"And freely he goes lost in the unknown, famous light of great and fabulous, dear God."
"Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn in a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown." Ben's repetition was powerful. We steadied ourselves.

"In the beginning was the three-pointed star," I announced. "One smile of light across the empty face."
"And the dark woods grew darker still. And birds were hushed. And peace was growing. And quietness crept up the hill." Tom had lost some of his fury.
"The host with someone indistinct converses at the door apart." (For the record, I was still in the room when Ben said this — metaphor, perhaps?)
"When I see you, who were so wise and cool, gazing with silly sickness on that fool you've given your love to, your— Shit, I've got to go. It's nearly eleven." Saying this, Tom retrieved his jacket and thanked me for the evening. A premature end (Ben left, too), but a memorable evening. The issue would have to remain unresolved for the moment. For once, I did not mind.

Trite and True

2008-06-10T22:38:00.007+10:00

While on occasion I find it fit to, shall we say, contort some of the more insignificant facts of the otherwise Honest To God pieces I put before you (for the record, I always put You before any of the pieces; they are but disposable oddities, dissipating daily in a huff of ill-assembled ones and zeros; you are living, breathing, panting organisms, with like eight arms), I am always, without exception*, completely cock-in-pants faithful to the Heart Of The Matter — like all true loggers. Not for me the petty twisting of important details; not for me the sandbox realms of pure fiction; and not for me the hazy middle ground of — oog, I feel sick — ambiguity. Like all people who think they're artists, I stand for truth: the truth of experience. It's all very well and good to wave statistics and graphs and pictures of people reading controversial 20th century novels, but that does not pierce the capital-T, my plums; to do that, you need sapient fingers and bad eyes.

Case in point: my sister, Ointment (vindictive nickname rather than vindictive parents), two years my junior, wandered listlessly into the kitchen, curling her hair around a brush that for all intents and purposes was an extension of her hand. Ever the adolescent, she grimaced at me through hoary black lips and bee-lined for the coffee-grinder. For someone with such a vulgar personality, she always looked very doable first thing in the morning, before she'd had a chance to suffocate her better features beneath tragic black leather and obscene buckles. Such a waste. I wondered idly when that godawful phase would end and crossed my legs.
"Where's the milk?" she asked accusingly.
"At the shop." I relished the moment, having earlier been overly liberal in dousing my cereal, and took a sip of very white coffee. She cursed me — Brothers! or something — and I watched her leave, turning back to my paper when the door clicked.

Around lunch Tom popped round, cheerily bearing a bag of jersey caramels (our favourite). We shot down a few hours talking about sex and watching my sister sleep (no correlation; we were bored) before Tom trudged off home again and I headed to the smoke. After a successful journey, I returned and fixed a homely tuna casserole, the ingredients for which I had collected along the way. I caught the wrong train, though, so it was a little late in appearing. Still, hit the spot. I think a walk would have capped the night off perfectly but Harry had an early start. Ah well. Gives me a chance to catch up on those wacky Petries.

Beau Deadly

2008-06-09T16:52:00.013+10:00

It was Sunday; rather unlike today, which is Wednesday. We sat apart, neatly, with the mid-afternoon sun proving no match for the room's frostiness. I stole glances intermittently, she not at all. The eager faces at the window: mid-afternoon mothers. I took four requisite breaths and began.
"My mother and your mother—"
"Yes," she said, nodding wearily.
Silence. I picked up my guitar; silence. I put it down again.
"Still fits," I mumbled, trying to recover from what must have seemed rather pathetic. "So I'm Hugh, by the way."
She looked, briefly.
"Congratulations."
Ouch.
"Goals?" (A strange jump, granted, but bets were off.)
"No. You?"
"No," I lied. "No use for 'em. I would like to write a big-themed novel, though."
She nodded absently, as if dead. Evidently she had no desire to know what my big-theme was. That was a joke, too. Despite her manner, I felt a strange surge of confidence (or carelessness), which I used to position myself next to her on the bed. She was pretty, certainly, but a little severe up close. She'd probably tear me apart if she wasn't so sad.

A while passed. I was restless. Summoning up dumb courage, I closed my eyes and motioned my face to hers.
"What the hell are you doing?" she snapped, recoiling.
I flushed. "I was, uh... I was wondering what your face would feel like... if I stuck mine against it." Worst excuse yet.
"With our parents watching? What the fuck's wrong with you?"
(For the record, mine was making encouraging gestures the whole time.)
"Nothing they haven't seen before," I said. (Ergh.)
Suddenly a knock from the front door. I knew it must be Ben and said as much.
"Who?"
"Ben."
"Who's Ben?"
"He's... Ben."
"Hi, I'm Ben," said Ben, a little later in the narrative. "But you can call me..." He pretended to trail off, then added, "My number is—"
She glared.
"o-4— get about it!" He laughed to a snort. "I'm just playing wi' ja." He turned to me. "Who's the big, fat slice of All Right?"
Dazed, I said: "This is my partner, Millie."
"I'm not your partner!" she screamed, standing up. "And what's more, my name's not Millie!"
"I didn't mean it like that," I stammered.
"Oh yes? Well what did you mean by 'partner'?"
"Business partner?" I offered weakly.
"More like getting-down-to-business partner," interjected Ben.
Fuming she made for the door, then stopped, turning back.
"You're small people, you know that?"
"That's not fair."
"And that's not true," said Ben.
She surveyed us again, curling her lip. "I'll have you know I don't suffer fools gladly."
"Me either," I said, unsure whether to nod or shake. "But I quite like morons."
"You don't get it, do you?" she continued. "You're not... You've got this fixed image of the world, this small-framed way of seeing things. It's all base desires, nothing more. As if humans exist only now, you know? Lurching from one encounter to another. Love and poetry may as well be foreign languages to you."
"That's not true," I protested. "I love poetry — really. Love it."
"I very much doubt it."
"No, I swear. Look, I'll quote you one."
"Go on," she said, peering skeptically.
I had the grand total of one poem memorised — highly inappropriate but at this point suiting my mood.
"It's an old one, this, from 1704. Chap named William Byrd II, a most underrated poet in my opinion." Both looked at me curiously. I cleared my throat and began, somehow not giggling.

"Gentlest blast of ill concoction,
Reverse the high-ascending belch:
Th' only stink abhorr'd by statesmen,
Belov'd and practic'd by the Welch.

Softest notes of inward griping
Your reverences' finest part,
So fine it needs no pain of wiping
Except it prove a brewer's fart.

Swiftest ease of cholic pain,
Vapour from a secret stench,
Is rattled out by the th'unbred swain,
But whisper'd by the bashful wench."

"Called 'Upon A Fart'," I said. "Good, eh?"
"Hilarious. Good bye." She left.
Ben snickered.
"She wasn't bad," he wheezed, almost foaming.
"Diabolical," I muttered.
The sun had gone by now. Ben began to fidget.
"This has got me a bit... riled-up," he said, without his former confidence. "You don't mind if I—?"
"No, go ahead."
"And you're not, uh—"
"Nah. I think I'll just read or something over here."
Ben nodded.
"Well," he said, standing.
"Yep." I looked up at him. "Uncut?"
"Yeah."
"Good. Keep it in."
He nodded again.
"Actually, I don't feel like reading. You don't mind if I sing?"
Ben frowned. "With guitar?"
"No, a cappella."
"Hm."
"What?"
"Nothing, it's just—"
"What?"
"Well, no offence, but... I've never really been all that fond of your voice."
"Really?" I blinked. "How come?"
"Well... You can't sing."
"Oh."
"Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"No, no, it's all right. I understand."
"I knew you would."
"And it'd put you off, would it?"
"It would a bit, yes."
"Fair enough. I guess I will read after all."
"Sorry."
"Nah, you're right. I've been meaning to read."
"OK. Wish me luck."
"Will do."
I opened my book.*

*Literally. (See right.)

Draft Dodging

2008-06-09T00:33:00.002+10:00

Belly-up one morning (this one morning), breakfasted stoutly on oats & apricots, thoughts and feelin's swimming, still half-asleep, short two mouthfuls, even leaving a gulp at mug's bottom (to make a rim). Rose, rinsed, showered, scrubbed, caught glimpse, winced. Nosed in cautiously, cursed hairdresser, pulled up socks, galloped, peered again, lost in eyes, furrowed, cleared throat, spoke, monologued, singing. Lost. Smoked clean cotton-bud, loosing it smoothly from its packet. Gazed at window right, then wall left. Alarm. Rose, rinsed, breakfasted. Cracked knuckles, smoothing the page. Waited.

Lunch, lounging. Sang with great gusto and clunky plonking, the latter in tune, neither in time. Shampoo, very thorough. Perfectly dry, cracked window. Needled my way to bed, shut off the light, pulling the covers and fondling the pillow. Light flooded. Alarm. Repositioned pillow, rolled out, palming eyes. Stretched, stumbled, showered. Studied fridge. Methodically ground beans. Pleasing gurgle from stove, shook milk vainly. Black. Hovered fingers. Gazed at window right, looked deeply into the ceiling, not at. Pushed off socks. Fell. Telephone. Speaking? Did you say feelings? No, I don't have any; sorry. Replaced.

The gaggle hollering somewhere inside, I waited, eventually to knock. Hug, hug, hug, like three bullets. Escaped. Hawthorn, eating. Rose-tinted glasses framed the night (that portion of it). Water beating down, not quite warm enough. Two strangers smiled, seemingly genuine. Key shivering towards the lock, missing a third time. Sliding off shoes, suspenders. Porcelain, a brush, needled back to bed. Knuckles cracking, alarm blaring, sneezed alphabetti spaghetti triptych, conked, Michael Caine, across the page. Escaped. Soap to armpits, singing. Grimaced, winced, laughed. Propped pillow across the table, chatted (mostly me). Stood back, considered. Unsatisfied. Finished.

Ms. Rose Arrives

2008-06-06T08:29:00.013+10:00

Overcast. The Um stood soulfully on a sloshed bluff, gazing down at the cold, bleak plain as if it were a microcosm of all human endeavour. Wind-blasted bastard. Next to him, snapping a distant cliff, sat Mr. Brooke, a pale, bijou urbanite under a dense web of tan pig tails. Clicking a further two times, he slid his delicate rims back onto his nose and frowned. Not the right angle? I didn't much mind. A few yards across, Pub Sneer wandered in two-piece rag and bum-glove, looking lost and impotent. He winced at me weakly, seemingly trying to smile. I looked at him as one looks at a three-week-dead mouse circa lunchtime and continued narrating. (Myself, I hasten, clad in Brobdingnagian pants befitting his heightsake, amphibian features, capped, coated, restless; boyish.)

For the moment, that was it: a less-than-formidable four. We entertained plans of rafting to France to find our fifth, but that had more than a whiff of pipe about it, particularly in the mire of our present. I paced self-consciously, imagining the passage in a future history book. It scarcely seemed worthy of a footnote, let alone a passionate treatise. As if to illustrate my point, Sneer dry-retched himself into a ditch behind me, capping it off charmingly with an audibly exhaled orifice. A moment later, the distinct, lackadaisical scent of marijuana drifted up from the hole, ruining the carefully narrated atmosphere — the clot. The sky dimmed slightly. Then thunder. Panning across the Hm, Is It Raining?, I pretended to sigh. This was not the stuff of legend. This was not even the stuff of blogging. I slumped back on my deck chair, sighing for real. It began to rain proper. Amidst the downpour, what started as an almost imperceptible rhythm rose to a hoofed clatter, drawing intriguingly nearer until its source could (just) be made out. By this point, the non-pot-addled among us had gathered on the far side of the camp, peering attentively into the distant sheets. Obscured by rain and fog, it looked rather like a waddling town house.

The cart rolled to a stop. One of the horses snorted — sneezed? — and grumpily toyed with the mud at its feet. Silence. (Except the rain.) The purple carriage shook for a moment. A door, also purple, thudded open. After an excruciating delay, a leg stepped out, followed by a body, another leg, two arms and a head. The fetching whole was somehow even purpler than the carriage. Approaching swiftly, she smiled away the cold. In—
"Wait," she said.
Yes? I wondered.
"'Smiled away the cold'?"
Well, I—
"What am I supposed to be, a princess?"
I considered this.
"Yes," I said, quoting for emphasis. "Prince-ess. Princess! 'Prince' as in Prince, 'ess' as in... I dunno, 'dress' or something. Perfect."
"You're not calling me Princess."
"All right, how about... Ess?"
"Better."
— her hand she held one of those crass Melbourne Renaissance A4s I had sticky-taped to Flinders Street. The ink was running; I didn't blame it. Still, at least it wasn't Comic Sans or Skia. She kick-started a lantern and held it to her face.
"Hello," she beamed. She looked a little taken aback at our less-than-heroic shapes, but did a serviceable job of suppressing it.
We exchanged the same glance.

Cavity

2008-06-05T17:31:00.012+10:00

The blinds were still up, letting the dark in. This was deliberate. I lay there, watching the blue flame lick the kettle in the next room, humming, singing, sometimes shifting to favour the other ear. The stereo was telling me repeatedly to Hold it. Being so enticingly put together, I would have done just that, had I anything to hold. (Initially, I thought the insistent, harmonised command signalled a halt of sorts; only later did I discover it was a determined plea.) Gathering my thoughts into a neat, alphabetised pile, I said (to myself), Here I am, in the bounds of Experience; and though it is mine alone [still in quotes, mind you], it shall soon be the newest addition to that great communal work, What We Know (vol. MMMMCMXCIX or something). Altered, of course [still quoting...]; not merely a retelling, or this-then-this account; a bold new shape, almost irrecognisable, but unmistakably borne from Experience. [End quote.] I paused, suddenly becoming self-conscious. Did I just say that? Did I just say that out loud? The kettle bubbled. I walked over to it in something of a daze, recalling my strange outburst like a drunk recalls some hideous deed. Irrecognisable?

So no one told you that was gonna be this way... [clap, clap, clap, clap]. I frowned, my timing just right. How depressing. The blinds were still up but the effort was beyond me. I fidgeted, like a suspect. Next week's assignment is to have dinner together e-every night and see what changes in your life. I left the room to inspect my bookcase. Standing a half-metre back, not feeling the floor, I watched as titles and authors raced by, sometimes splashing me with recognition, sometimes hurling a crunched can of the altogether unfamiliar. They were eating all 52 of my bookmarks. Suddenly feeling ill, I woozed my way outside, wading through small, hyperactive dogs until I reached an aged bench in the middle of the garden. I half fell onto it, recovering only with some effort. The stars were out, of course. I couldn't resist a peek. As usual, they had nothing important to tell me, but they sure looked pretty. One even seemed to wink at me. I winked back, just in case. Feeling unaccountably motivated, I pulled my weakening body up again and pushed further outside, towards a park. I was careless; the littler dog followed me. Fearing an escape, I swiftly whisked her off her little paws and brought her to my chest. In the soft moonlight we had a moment, and I think it answered my question. She wriggled out of my hands and scurried off (back to the garden, thankfully). I laughed cornily and followed her, a little more grounded. Oo oo oo oo-oo oo oo-oo oo, said the television. Falling back on the couch, I suddenly wished I was drunk.

I slept instead.

Slight Return

2008-06-04T04:29:00.000+10:00

When one — in this case this one — poises the ol' digits over a certain old digital board, he must, as a matter (of course), come to firm grips with what's been writ hitherthen, not only by the self but by the entire conglomerate of grubby fingers out there, and if then he's not sufficiently put-off by the prospect of justifying the spotlight, he must still bear down and come through with the goods, knuckles down, eyes locked. And it was with such hubris — deeply considered hubris, but hubris nonetheless — that I tapped (surprise, surprise) Ben in the shoulder region and steered his formidable gangle my way.

Yes?" he said, glaring as per.
"Nothing," I shrugged. "I just thought, you know, we could get to having an amusing* conversation or something — like old times."
Ben sighed (also as per).
"Must we?"
"Well, I sort of promised I'd do something today, and—"
"But why me?"
"What?"
"Why not one of your other readers?"
We laughed for several minutes before Ben clarified.
"No really, why not The Other, for instance?"
"The Other?" I looked puzzled. (I was puzzled.)
"Yes, The Other."
"Oh yes," I said, puzzled no more, "The Reluctant Revolutionary."
"I prefer Pop."
"Not Pops?"
"No. Just Pop."
"I prefer... Cynthia Rose — or just Cyn."
"Um... What?"
Ben posed a handsome puzzler, all right.
"You know — Starfish And Coffee."
"No."
"Well, it's—"
"I don't care," he said, sneezing. And with that he grabbed onto the side of a van and whizzed off.

Typical. Now I had no one to have amusing* conversations with. Scowling at my shoelaces, I returned home, free from any foreseeable deadlines but burdened by a lack of Ben. I washed dishes — The Gold Experience. Sometime later I remembered. Racing back to wherever that street was, I found the conjured and subsequently abandoned Ms. Rose standing near a bakery, dramatically soaked by a recent shower. She peered down at me angrily.
"Next time," I said, and raced off.

*Adjective does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of The Times or any of its affiliates.

Vacant — See?

2008-05-28T12:42:00.012+10:00

At this stage, I feel it might be worth pointing out that there shall be a slight stifling of activity between now and next, owing to some necessary, albeit half-cooked, preparations I must complete before then. Jourth, a title somewhat less punnable than Maith (Jourth By Jourth-West? Jourthie Girl?), is thusly what I recommend setting your watch for (aside from general time-keeping, that is). It shall signify a positive plateau of opportunity (or potential, if you wish to alliterate), with no competitive mounds or alternative avenues to distract from the task at hands. Wait a minute, say you, you can't exactly halt the revolution for a week — what of the looming lackaday threat? Surely it will not lay down and wait? Well, I have no intention of halting the revolution, only the tenor of my presence therein. That is why I leave you in the capable hands of ~~Chanties himself,~~ Johnny ~~The Stirrer~~ Beehive, who today is a burden lighter, and the ~~Bedium~~ Medium. I shall also even mention ol' Halfway, although one will need a finger crossed. Nevertheless, a daily visit won't hurt and I, for one, shall be doing so. For the moment, then, the revolution is in their hands.

Perhaps you are wondering as to the nature of my non-revolutionary preparations. While not giving too much I way, I will tell you that I am intending to visiting my erstwhile sister, Alice Evens (not Evans) on the coast, to attend a matter of relocation. It's sure to involve excitingly sealed envelopes and strange moustaches. And it does, in certain ways, involve the revolution, although being personal, it will not directly aid the cause. Still, it can't be avoided, and it shall be nice to see the somewhat equivocal but always delightful Ms. Evens once more. Our last meeting was soured my considerable tension and I am hoping my task will leave room to mend our manners while I am there. So that's that. Please do not cease your letters of support. If there's one reliable thing in this entire rickety operation, it's our postal service. Ooroo.

Lotophaging

2008-05-26T23:45:00.013+10:00

A cake is sliding layer by layer off the table as a I tap. Two spindly sisters and one gangly activist are splayed unconsciously across a mound of discarded food stuffs and spent party poppers, snoring somehow. I wait for the kettle. This is going to be quite the cleanup. Not only does the host have to contend with an array of spilt food and drink, but the vomited and dribbled product of the same, which abounds gracelessly around fallen bodies. In addition to this, "Viva la revolucion!" has been crudely sprayed on nearly every visible surface, betraying Ben's presence, not to mention the room's once-loyal stylist. Most of all, though, there's the smell. A mixture of bad weed (thanks, Harry), bad alcohol (thanks, Harry) and suffocated armpits. That boy's one step away from a twelve-step.

Mingling for three weeks has more than taken its toll; I feel like sawdust. But I've fared far better than most, possibly even all. I'm awake, for starters, and quite close to sobriety. And I'm already reflecting. Somewhere along the line our common cause was blurred by beer, song and myriad other sybaritic pursuits, and I fear the extended recovery period will prove a thorn. Ben and that tall Portuguese woman (great slacks) will each need at least a week's worth of showering, I'd wager, and Johnny The Stirrer (a recent and inevitable christening) will be out of action till he finds all his fingers. But while it's a less than ideal opening*, its symbolic function, independent, as it is, from the actual goings on of the event, will be strong enough to mark this admitted indulgence as something of a success. That's a hard thing to say with the smell of purged stomachs and badly mixed liquor, but I'm optimistic. Whatever the outcome, I think we'll each emerge slightly different(ly). It certainly put whatever remained of my abstinence to the test. And I'll cease to look at Harry as a benign innocent. Still didn't get me to dance, though.

There's something wonderfully superior about surviving this, particularly with a pot of tea to rest on. If I wasn't so sober I might even murmur "spiritual". Potential hasn't been squandered, merely delayed. And that's nice. After this I'll sit outside with the rest of my tea and wait for the morning to start looking like it's supposed to.

*This will not be made a joke of.

Q. Anni

2008-05-24T08:46:00.005+10:00

To continue with this somewhat belated celebration, I shall, for one time only, answer some of the more interesting questions I've received from commenteers and e-mailers of late. But be warned: this shan't become a habit.

Dreary45 said...
When people ask my favourite colour, I always say you're my favourite Hugh.

Thank you. You may come to the picnic.

Flower said...
Do you ever consider the trail of human ruin your schoolboy provocations leave behind? To my mind, your desperate pursuit of infamy seems to stem from a deeply ingrained sense of insecurity pushing against an equally ingrained hunger for recognition. A hunger for recognition is, of course, the subtext of blogging, but you seem to aim higher and mightier, as if expecting distinction from outside the community — a Pulitzer, perhaps? Yet at the same time you seem highly self-conscious about coming across that way, and possibly even the notion itself, hence the knee-jerk callowness. What do you make of the argument that art is fundamentally an indulgence of its creator? Or that pretensions are prerequisites for all conscious art? Do you believe, as I do, that hyperselfconsciousness inhibits the creation of art?

Sometimes I look in the mirror and cry.

Petre said...
You're strange. But don't change.

I've nothing else to wear.

Jill Blomb said...
The strong erotic undercurrent in almost everything you write seems to me to be a manifestation of a repressed sexual condition. Are you impotent or just not getting any?

No, I'm just very liberated.

Kathryn said...
Does the word "apparently" carry any more weight than "allegedly"?

I think "allegedly" is the more skeptical of the two, so in terms of the speaker's belief, I'd say "apparently" would carry more weight, yes.

Big Boy said....
Best and worst post, stat.

Best: apologies, but I scrolled dutifully through the backlog (a rather dispiriting experience) and was unable to find a sole post that would warrant such a distinction. No false modesty — obviously I love myself deeply. But if you insist on pressing a gun to my head, I'd probably yelp a few of the better ones atop my head — Martha's Day, Milkhill Puppy, Herring George (on a good day), We're Not At Home To The Broke Of Heart, As Black As That, perhaps. Maybe even the sheer terribleness of the restored Things In Chairs, or the whorey clunk of The Fleshy Mexican Crowd-Pleaser. None would particularly leap out upon inspection, and my gun-totting antagonist would no doubt be disappointed, but them's the ones I dislike least.

Worst: tough one. Certainly I'd include the worst offenders of the Everyone Has An Opinion series: everyone's pretentious; boo to you, God; art rots, photos shoul' be real, film oh film et al; and, especially, It Was So Much Better Way Back When. Sickening, embarrassing, ugly jejune sludge, the lot of it. The mid-2005 one on blogging was particularly rank. If I had to pick one, though, I'd still say the first of the only two topical posts I ever did (the second is nearly as bad). Utterly detestable stab at, I dunno — irony? The sort of thing you'd paste in a very sane suicide note by way of explanation. In fact, I'm going to go back on my word and delete the two fuckers right now. No principle can sustain their existence.
And they're gone.

Roderick Summer said...
Your self-indulgence astounds me. Do you ever stop talking about yourself?

I pray the day will come, but right now it's the only subject I'm sufficiently versed in. I disguise it well, no?

Roderick Summer said...
No.

Oh.

BarBRA said...
Why is it that all the females in your posts are either prostitutes or elusive one-dimensional objects?

What can I say? I write what I don't know.

Wilbert Peach said...
What keeps you going?

The frightening realisation that I still haven't mastered punctuation.

Anni Get Your Versary

2008-05-23T15:07:00.006+10:00

In the natural course of things, one is occasionally offered the luxury of retrospect, which, depending on the circumstance — curious pride and the throes of disillusionment, respectively as follows —, will either lead to a renewed vigour in present tasks or a stultifying nostalgia for past ones. On such occasions it is important to maintain a veneer of abject objectivity, if one is to benefit from the activity, and it was with this in mind that I took to the archives to assess the journey thus far, something which, I hoped, would act as much-needed adrenalin for Phase Two.

What struck me most prominently during the delve was not, as might be expected, the sediment (the dirty stuff) or similar such juvenelia, but the sentiment. Not the wellreadiment (the qwerty stuff), not the whathesaidiment (the flirty stuff), not even the dropdeadiment (the shirty stuff). No — the sentiment. The véritable; the Dear reader, hear my heart...; the tap, tap, tap of my tears; the hhonest to ghod; the All That is Good and Proper. The point, some might say. Now, I'm not one to shoo or shy from sentiment on principle, nor do I mind, on occasion, exposing the ugly underneath, but I have found that sentiment, when expressed rawly, can sometimes bind a piece so firmly to a place and a time and a feeling that divorcing it from its context and appreciating what it has to offer is nigh on impossible, particularly as its impetus and audience drift further apart. Moreover, it often erodes ration, although admittedly that isn't always a bad thing. Take the following, from August 8th, 2006:

Tuesday. Big day. I hate people.

What are we to make of that? Nothing. It's perfunctory to the point where only its author could ever find anything of value in it, and even then he'd have to squint. It adds nothing, it gives nothing, you get nothing. It's an event horizon of callow vanity, the kind of treacle that gives literacy a bad name. Now compare it to this slight retraction posted two days later:

Errsday. I made the mistake of gibletting my ego, ergo my soul. Now I just hate myself.

While we still have the unfortunate voicing of an unfortunate sentiment, we now have a sense of craft, even humour, to fall back on, ensuring that audience pleasure is at least a possibility, if only a slight one. But it was to be a while yet before I reached the level of this decidedly unsentimental nugget from February 23rd, 2007 (the day ain't even mentioned!):

Blustered down from generation to generation in bold, steady bumps, Valentino fascism, as I've dubbed it, has inherited from the old world a certain, or rather uncertain, capricious nature which initially seems at odds with the very notion of lineage tradition, but is in fact a reflection of the underlying instability inherent in all forms of fascism, indeed the very thing which accounts for its formidable, and frankly frightening, adaptability. It almost put me off my cereal, I'll tell you.

From then on the road began to smooth out. I eased into a rhythm and found my feet, dancing steadily ever since. But those glaring stains continued (and continue) to haunt me. What could I do — delete them? No. This is a document. The assets of this medium are its rawness and immediacy — process laid bare. I considered erecting stern condemnation notices on the offending posts, but again that would be betraying the form. After all, this is not the place for discipline, or at any rate it doesn't have to be. The flaws are but facets of the whole, and often the whole is the better for it. Let us not bemoan sinking standards or, God help us, lapses of talent: they are the wasted posts, writ with a hand on the keyboard and an eye on the mirror. Let us instead bound ungracefully forward, arse-first but not looking back, and plant our fallible faces on history's asphalt. Not for the press, not for the prestige, not for the presence, but for the sheer oxen pleasure of articulation itself. It may prove the promulgation of nothing in particular, but that nothing in particular will be our nothing in particular; nay, that nothing in particular will be us.

No. It's less than that. But it sure as hell beats WoW.

Remaithance Man

2008-05-21T03:05:00.007+10:00

An intestinal horn wailed pathetically across the just-about-night, scattering the odd bird and irritating the odd bat. The scuffing of paws followed and we began to see ominous red and white flashes through the trees. Stan stuck his fist into his mouth and prayed. I kept still, looking intense. Suddenly a dirty great hound burst through the clearing and shook vast webs of saliva in furious, putrid arcs. Being a dedicated reactionist, Johnny was the first of us to load his musket and bring it up to his eye. But before he could add an inch of steel to the foaming beast, its heavily armed employers appeared from the foliage and surrounded us. Stan covered his eyes. I kept still, looking intense.

"See? What did I tell you? The dog never fails," said one of the shorter soldiers. "And you said we'd never find 'em."
The recipient shrugged.
"Well? Don't you have something to say?"
The recipient shook his head.
"Go on."
The recipient sighed.
"I'm glad we dragged the guillotine all this way," he said, rolling his eyes.
"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Johnny Beehive raised his musket defiantly.
"Vous ne nous ramènent alors que nous sommes vivants !" he cried, accidentally firing a shot in the air and killing a displaced pigeon.
"Well, of course not," said the short solider. "What the hell did you think the guillotine was for?"
Just then the unwieldy wooden structure rose into view from behind the trees, and with it three very tired looking men and a tangle of shipping rope.
"Lambinent," said Stan.
"C'est l'extrémité, garçons," I sighed. "Nous avons eu une bonne course."

Suddenly a phlegmy baritone thundered out of the darkness.
"Unhand esas comadrejas, sucios aristócratas!"
The guards turned, waving their muskets uncertainly in the diminishing light.
"Los lobos ciego no ve el travieso búho," came the voice again.
The guards began firing randomly into the trees, scattering all manner of odd birds and bats.
"No golpearás la blanco si no tienes los vidrios apropiados."
Desperately, they tore apart the foliage, scraping and scratching and musketting. Then, flashing dramatically across the moonlight, a tall, gangly silhouette swung squarely into frame and posed a bit. It was Ben, wielding six steel posts and a fetching brown vest. After distributing three of the posts to Johnny, Stan and myself, he briefly attempted to take on the guards with the remaining three, but only began to do so successfully after the awkwardness of the his methods forced him to drop two of them first. Soon, however, we realised our posts were no match for the reloaded muskets and legged it. Led by the jungle-literate Ben, we escaped our captors in no time and wound up by a secluded river with breath to spare.

"Remercier la baise de Ben !"
We raised invisible glasses.
"El ano del mono nunca se lame enteramente. No ha terminado."
We looked at our saviour and nodded sagely.
"Néanmoins," said Stan, "Nous avons léché cette soirée. Buvons loin et caressons la nuit."
And, putting our hands to our lips, we did just that.

Manifesto

2008-05-21T00:54:00.009+10:00

"Maith, such as I conceive of it, asserts our complete nonconformism clearly enough so that there can be no question of translating it, at the trial of the real world, as evidence for the defence."

1. Let no lesser scribes participate -- Maith must be meritocratic if it is to truly lead the way.

2. Let no one say anymore that they have nothing to write about - any (s)crap can be turned into a post at no cost.

3. Let no fictitious elements infiltrate your posts -- all ideas and opinions expressed must be real.

4. Let no standard of logging be created by critics -- a post inadvertently obscured by an error is equal to a post drawn explicitly by a genius.

5. Let no meals of the day, under any circumstances, be mentioned, particularly breakfast.

6. Let no detail be denied to Maith -- prolificacy is the chief objective.

7. Let no relativist ideals affect your judgement -- justification must not come from within. Posts must be valued objectively by those qualified to do so.

8. Let no considerations of truth or fact define your posts -- imagination is our greatest weapon; truth, our greatest hindrance.

9. Let no worthless banality be published. Posts must significantly add to the stockpile of human knowledge.

10. Most of all, let Maith be open to everyone, for logging must be popular art.

The Dawn of Legs

2008-05-20T21:51:00.006+10:00

Times have been good and bad to me. I'm not sure whether that makes them simply indifferent, but the balance is pleasing nonetheless. The good manifested itself most recently in the form of a relative stranger, who sat rather near me on a train. Now, I'm not one to start conversations with strangers for no good reason, but here, I thought, I had one.
"Why wake?" I asked suddenly. (One of those rare occasions where the brain tricks the mouth into speaking without properly presenting its case first.)
"Excuse me?" The gaze was indignant. He had funny eyes.
"Just, you know — why?"
"Why?"
"Yes — why?"
"I'm getting off soon," he said, turning away.
I shrugged. The next stop passed and we were both still there.

"Do you have girlfriends or what?"
He glared at me. I tried to look as genuine as I thought I was being.
"No," he enunciated coldly, still glaring.
"See that's what I mean."
After seemingly wishing me dead, he turned away again.
"Actually, you've probably got more of an advantage when it comes to meeting people," I continued.
"That's ridiculous," he snapped back.
"I'm not shitting you, man. That heart-string appeal really flips the birds. You should be up to your neck in pussy."
"Well, I'm not," he said, welling.
I made my eyebrows an arch of sympathy and started again.

"Look, I ain't messing with you. I'm just curious." I put my hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off.
"It's not all about sex," he said sourly.
"No, of course not," I agreed. "Walking along a beach with a loved one on a starry night: that's what it's about, man. Frolicking in the fields, rolling in the greens, wandering aimlessly. All that shit."
The train stopped.
"Since when was life about walking?" he called out as he wheeled off onto the platform and disappeared.
"Frolicking," I said to myself. "Life's about frolicking."
I suppose he could roll into a meadow and tip himself over, but it wouldn't be quite the same. Still, he'd made this wholly functioning man cherish his blessings, and that's got to be worth something.

Tempted though I was, I did not frolic on the way home, nor did I navigate through any sort of field or meadow. I did, however, fix myself one bitching cup of black coffee. Standing by the sink and enjoying every lick, I conceded that this pleasure was open to him, too. And that's worth something. Probably wouldn't get the view, though.

Times Are Bound

2008-05-20T10:36:00.017+10:00

I'm proud to announce that a special hardback collection of the first three years of The Times is now available from Fantagraphics Books for $62.95. With beautifully etched illustrations by E. H. Shepard and a glowing foreword by Clive James, this limited edition anthology has been lovingly hand-bound and includes bonus cut-out moustache and beret. Dig:

"Now it exists in the real world. God help us all."
-Inga Clendinnen.

"Compelling, worthwhile and readable: three things this book is..."
-Kathy Hunt.

"Rampant obscurantism done as artistic achievement. Kid needs a life."
-Bob Christgau.

It looks pretty good on a bookshelf, too. And for all those value-mongers out there, I have written fourteen new articles specifically for the book which will not be available on this website. All that in addition to a thirty-page introduction detailing the conception and development of The Times. That's 379 fully annotated pages, not including the substantial foreword, introduction and afterword sections.

I shall field as many questions as I can predict. Firstly, have I redrafted any of it? In short, no. I want this to be a living record, documenting every half-cock, soggy grouse and wheezing sentence. Obviously I've not the balls to let the weaker pages slip by without severe footnotes, but all the text has been reproduced in its entirety, punctuation and all. Secondly, why pay $62.95 for a glorified print-out of a freely accessible and frankly mediocre website supplemented with additional material I could probably exhaust in a single browse in a bookshop? Well... Good point. But if you're looking for a gift obscure enough to delay the inevitable disappointment and allow you a swift getaway, look no further. Make sure you get a guide-dog or something first, though.

A Pause for Sunday

2008-05-17T07:25:00.009+10:00

The warm glow of Maithteenth has all but faded, and with it the innocent air of possibility that surrounds the early days of revolution. Henceforth, it will be hard work and dedication, marked by the occasional guillotining and student lock-up. The momentum of the moment will not take care of the labour necessary to keep this train afloat — not now that the wooze of the night is behind us. No; it is time to clamber out of that stranger's bed, smiling wanly on the way, and salvage the remaining waking hours chiseling your renaissance prose. Maithteenth celebrations may have clogged your head somewhat, but if we are to really earn our page in history, we can not afford to underwhelm the expectant. Again.

For some among us, preparation takes an especially carnal form — in stark, quivering contrast to that of dedicated sportsmen. Not subscribing to this ritual myself, I can not, entirely, sympathise. Indeed I was more than a little irked when a breathy Ben phoned me immediately after one of these 'inspiration sessions' to talk shop, something which rapidly became an impossibility in the face of his then-pet's incessant interjections. But next to Stan, who cracks his knuckles via a room full of Scarlet Ladies and generally requires at least a week to recover, these indiscretions were small kittens indeed. Personally I think that we should forgo such distractions until this thing really gets off the tracks. That way, if it is destined never to be, it will not be for lack of effort or dedication.

I shall conclude by detailing my own set-up that others may be inspired and follow. In accordance with my lot, I am nestled among a native garden in a small, homely studio. Bookshelves line three of the four walls, with the remaining housing my desk. The typewriter on which these words were writ is suitably antiquated, and complimented by the oven-brown paper I insist on baking. Staring back at me is an etch of Voltaire or someone, inspiring and writerly. Non-glossed paper. Next to him is a nude of George Eliot I drew from a dream, and next to her one of Thackeray I drew in anticipation of sexism allegations. Manuscript paper has been deliberately strewn around the room and there is no radio. The walls are white, after Forster's metaphor. And I wear plaid. Suitable beginnings for this cultural revolution, no?

Rising Thumb

2008-05-15T19:01:00.001+10:00

It seems a shame that the bulk of communication enacted by the young & coming takes place in increasingly impersonal domains, where anonymity and illiteracy have supplanted intimacy and empathy as the new perks of interaction. Newspapers, magazines and other printed text (you know, books and shit) have been around for yonks, but they were always tempered by the rigours of editing and public demand, and were never in themselves enough to do away with the old face-to-face. Certainly letters appear to be the forerunner, but they too were kept in check by the limitations of the postage service and its relative non-immediacy compared to the modern equivalents. Thus, for the first time in our history, art, journalism and social skills will cease to be the necessities of a prosperous world. No, civilisation hasn't quite slipped into the sea yet, but with the flaky cocksores of the SMS generation poised to take over at the click of the nursing home door, how far away can it be?

I fondly recall the days when the strength of an opponent's argument was directly proportional to the amount of spit that was on your face at the end of his speech. In those days, you really had to have balls; weak arguments would simply collapse in the face of a grimacing adversary. Consequently, a decent standard was maintained and all parties were the better for it. Comparable situations today don't have this benefit. Spared of having to stare directly into the eyes of their audience, people are free to let any thought that pops into their ugly, misshapen heads out into the world. No more can the inherent humanity of a mano-a-mano or womano-a-womano or mano-a-womano change your mind about spurting off on some vitriolic rant. Now the enemy is faceless, and any impulse can be instantly gratified.

We are in for a dismal future, my Bens. A time when published opinion no longer has to comply to editorial standards of journalistic excellence, where even the numbest what-I-had-for-breakfast loggers are legitimate. It will see the crumbling of the barrier between author and audience. Criticism will be supplanted by competition. The artist, the author, will no longer be revered. Onloggers, in their peculiarly mundane way, are bringing about the destruction of a cultural system that has been in place since we split off from the other apes; that of art as sacred; that of the artist as enlightened; that of the semi-colon. With their dangerous prorogation of DIY, they will undo culture itself and level out civilisation into a meaningless, communist spread of accessibility. I call an end to them all! But what can you do when the problem is compounded by market-savvy giants like Google™ offering a wide variety of services free of charge and allowing any fucker with a pair of fingers to prattle on endlessly about his horrible life, or lack thereof? The biggest of business thriving on the smallest of people. Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow — Guess what?, So I was doing this cheek, right?, Heeeeyyyyy. Oh, I can't look.

One Stop Stop

2008-05-15T16:06:00.003+10:00

Ah, now here's a blip. With my dual miseries out of the way — the fuckers kept me till four — I am free to drip, drip, drip into the hours rejoice. What's that — thirty? Well, thirty-three. Well, thirty-five. Stop me if you've— The point being that the previous marked day, in May, was, by all accounts, severely lacking in the whelm department. In fagged, it was so piddlesome that some thought it the end of the matter, rather than what it actually was: the beginning. But thisteenth is where we really begin the begin. Ing. I'd do the dance, but I'm too into lacteal — though in a non-arrogant, 'stud in student' kind of way.

Now, I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking, 'He doesn't know what I'm thinking. He has no idea. He's just pretending to know what I'm thinking.' Well, in a way, you'd be half-right. The wording, I'm sure, would differ quite substantially. But I am a medium of substance. Like literature. I concern myself not with triffles of style or steed. I aim for the bones of the matter. The philistines can toy with the meat. Worth, then, is that peculiar substance which hones in on the skeleton, as if a dribbling, mutant X-ray. As if, hurt by the ways of the world, it shuts off its senses and drowns in the toilet bowl, a tragedy heightened by low-angle viewings and improved by vigorous editing.

Oh goody. This is not, this is not! a trumble (9ah!) or anything of that ilk, creed or ilk. It is butter deeply dodgy clutch of powder which the faintest of breezes could scatter. I thus suggest you keep your facial orifices in check, or wait for the cold to conclude if you have one. Summer, then. When the winds are low. Plus, it'll look better with the sun beating all over it and grey summer skirts nearby. Rabbits, gardenias, ugly small people. The distraction helps, believe me. Hm? Oh good, it's over. I hope you realise how much this hurts.

The 365th Postman

2008-05-09T21:24:00.002+10:00

Well here I am. Please accept the fact that this is the 365th post and I won't have anything particularly enteresting to say (also accept the fact that yesterday I breakfasted on peach and oats, mm yum). Anyway, hello — and, well, goodbye. I think I'll break a bottle on something to celebrate the occasion.

Placeholder #2

2008-05-09T20:50:00.002+10:00

Not even a yeah yet? Farg.

Placeholder #1

2008-05-09T20:27:00.002+10:00

May 15th.

A Matter of Maith

2008-05-09T17:56:00.008+10:00

Fear not, my flock. While my performance on the day in question admittedly left more than a little to be desired (I was away for most it), I feel the main issue here is one of profound misinterpretation. This is not an event that, in the words of a certain beehived contemporary, draws to a close. Rather, it is a drastic shift in practice that shall continue for as long as its exponents can sustain it. Maith, then, was merely to signify the beginning of the renaissance, not the whole of it. Renaissances are seldom confined to twenty-four little hours.

Nevertheless, my pitiful eighteen words could, with the addition of an extra letter, have spelt disaster if it were not for the efforts of a certain beehived contemporary, who gallantly stepped up to the plate in the absence of the promised one and bunted the fury of expectant fans. This semi-Herculean feat has since earned the lion-faced Limey a certain prized place on my altogether uncertain ladder, and with it the infamous platter of dubious merit. While not yet a second home, as it is with ~~Bodo~~ Yodo, it is, at the least, a favoured hotel, whose staff now know him exclusively as Oh, him again. Congratulations think sorry I are in order. Sorry, I think congratulations are in order.

But it will take more than just a few cursory nods to the eighth to bring about this cultural revolution. It will take persistence, hard work and perseverance. And it will require absolute vision — or, failing that, competent dictation software. Your propheteering narrator will not let you down. Again. Well, he may.

Umma Bathos

2008-05-08T07:43:00.003+10:00

This is a small blip to reconcile the anniversary issue. The big blip will follow. Well, it may.

5808

2008-05-05T16:45:00.005+10:00

The mushing of clouds, the flashing of lavs, the bubbling of brooks will mark the coming of something truly truly. No, not quite the Second, but something to do in the meanwhile. It promises to be as underwhelming as all the prior attempts, so you've no excuse not to hop on board. Pack now. The Beehive, the Medium, the Pervert, the Standard and yours truly truly. Real heads on blocks stuff. Renaissance, then a month of nothing much. To celebrate, to cheer, a third full year. And by full I mean negligible. Quick, quick, the train arrives late and leaves soon. Bah bah bah.

And after the inevitable throw-off near the equator (tuned, if memory serves, to G flat), we shall shrug our collective selves and unpack the picnic we'd packed in case it proved as underwhelming as all the prior attempts. That was the fun of it, we knew that. In fact we all half-secretly hoped for it not to eventuate. What fun is that work, that standard? How could it ever compete with friends, a picnic and non-oppressive desert heat? Sure, posterity may wish otherwise, but posterity can wait. For now, there is you, there is — oh wait.

Oh the anguish of effort! What worth is it? We kid — we kid week out — with the notion that we are selflessly achieving an end over the Moment; that we are sacrificing the joys of experience for the benefit of personkind; that we are, God help us, sculpting the nothingness into something tangible so as John and Jane Doe can live better, fuller lives. But we (they!) know it is not a grave weight, nor is it altruistic. That explanation, or excuse, only continues because many people do get pleasure from it. Really? says cavemonet, I thought I was the only one. But I digress: Onwards! Let us fail and rejoice in Ecuador. Pack a desert luncheon; it is pleasure in spite, not because, of the fall. 4.U.C. the failures of life are but failures of expectation. Which is not to say you should dispense with yours. It shall be the weight of 5808 that makes it — er — good. Am I right, girls?

Leapin' Limpet

2008-04-22T09:37:00.008+10:00

Twice in as many I shall indulge in shameless promotion. This time, as last, a former lower-ladder-dweller is suddenly promoted to top-dog, for reasons, primarily, of relevance. It helps, too, that it's a positive revamp — new address and all. But I should at least apologise for the severe untimeliness of this update. Just goes to prove the old adage: news is only news once. Crux to follow.

I thought a film well worth a watch, but the cashier would only accept legal tender. By which I mean the thing you should take from this experience — that of chewing down a two of blubby paragraphs — is that Mr. Mystery is back, however temporarily, on the increasingly redundant radar which I, in my finite fickledom, maintain. Those questioning his morals should keep in mind his defense:

"I didn't break it, it was already broken."

Johnny Beehive

2008-04-04T15:52:00.010+11:00

Tradition has once again reared its horribly disfigured head and plonked that once-bronze, always-bronge man back atop the increasingly unprestigious ladder to your right, booting its rightful owner to the hole that is Silver and once more allowing me to churn out a particularly pointless account thereof. Is this time any different? No — that long quote is still as apt as ever. But it does see the return of the fabled and long-overdue Bard, albeit with no mention of the notorious hotel incident. Nevertheless, here is a review of sorts of the latest instalment. Well, not here exactly, but the next paragraph.

Subtitled Sweet Jesus and The Missing Alternative Dance Troupe, the latest exploits of Detective Ainsley continues Tom's famously dyslexic use of capital letters and SMS-level punctuation in a distressingly sadistic tale of murder, lust and sexual violence. Compelling like only the most gruesome car crashes can be, Tom has topped himself yet again, although he appears to have subsequently come back to life and begun planning the next instalment. Overall it's hard to know what to make of it, but when it includes genius exchanges such as,
"I could murder a curry."
"OK, let's kill the next one who walks past."
I think there's a bright future for the little blood-nut yet.

Unlikely though it is, I'm a bit convinced this recent flourish of Tom's will lead to a resurgence of activity. It won't, but I am now.

Back in Your Life

2008-03-11T09:38:00.031+11:00

A rough approximate of a recent event, worth logging (if the wider community's anything to go by): As per formula, I was ignoring my business in a run-down recreation centre, just off the main street, when things happened. Dig: the duke-box was playing a honky-tonk song, and, perhaps inspired by its lull, I followed a stray whim to an overfamiliar presence being pressed beneath half a pound of steel and almost failing to respirate. He spotted me, and subsequently I him, and a hazy sort of conversation began. It was stunted, somewhat, by what I sensed to be a reluctance on his part to participate, owing, one presumed, to the myriad of prior occasions in which we had featured, but his reticence wasn't such that mutual conversation was impossible, and a satisfactory degree of communicative force was eventually achieved.

"How's it?" I began, somewhat cautiously.
He peered at me with vicious indifference and milked the pause between question and answer in a most uncomfortable manner.
"Mm," he eventually shrugged.
"Ah."
Another manufactured pause.
"Er, how's Nicole?"
A glint of pain flickered across his mask.
"I don't know," he said. I pressed the matter no further.
After failing to think of a suitable topic, I was eventually spared of social suicide when he reintroduced the very matter I'd vowed not to press [see above — edward.].
Something like, "Abandonment of hope equals pure sexual magnetism."
I nodded for lack of words.
"Of course," he continued, "when I had her, the hope returned, and she simply left."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Are you?"
"A bit," I said, rather too ambivalently. He seemed temporarily pleased at my honesty.
"And yourself?" he half-asked.
"Oh, the usual."
"You mean this garbage?"
"Yeah." I turned my eyes groundward and we spent a wistful moment listening to each other breathe.

"Perhaps it's time you retired," he said finally.
"Oh, I don't know," I shrugged, "I still kind of enjoy it."
"Well, at least you don't have to put it up."
"Hey, fuck you."
"Touché."
"Don't fucking say that. It makes you sound like a wanker — well, more of one."
"Coming from you, or should I say here, that's quite the insult. Congratulations."
"Hey, fuck you."
"No, you've done that one."
I attempted to insult him via a mock laugh.
"Don't laugh at that, it wasn't funny."
The fucker.
"I... I... It's not like you're any better!"
"Oh?"
"You and your nigh-emo outpourings of... withdrawn... er, pessimism! 'Here's another parable about why my life sucks.'"
It was a weak attack and he knew it.
"Well, we can't all be clot-headed obscurantists, can we? Some of us favour relative plainspeak over labyrinthine thesaurus-wanking, particularly the people who read the things. And, you know, actually coming out with it, no matter what 'it' is, is certainly preferable to burying it under an impenetrable layer of ironic detachment, don't you think? The nature of my jottings is beside the point. The only salient feature is that it's true to me. Can you say the same thing?"

I fumed intensely, feeling the age of enlightenment slide away from beneath me. This was going to be messy. Then I remembered my trump card.
"It doesn't matter what happened before, nor what will happen after," I said, unable to fully conceal my smirk.
"I'm sorry?" He looked genuinely puzzled.
"Hm? Oh, nothing." It was working. I suppressed a giggle and continued. "For now, there is you, there is me."
"What do you mean?" he said, visibly irritated.
"Only that for the moment I am here, and you are here with me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Our reason to be," I said, lingering perversely on the last syllable.
"Is this supposed to be funny?"
At this point, I wasn't quite sure if he had noticed the several bullets I'd carefully lodged in his chest, but he was certainly rattled enough to strain a look of icy indifference. I readied my flame and moved in.
"I feel it all," I said, "and you feel what I am doing to you."
"You've really outdone yourself this time," he dead-panned. "Am I supposed to slap you now or something?"
"There is strength in the tenderness we give to each other," I answered, drawing out grammatically nonexistent pauses.
"No, actually, I'll just leave. Bye."
Desperately, I fumbled for the words I'd seen so long ago.
"The pressure!" I called out. "Oh, the pressure!"
He looked back at me briefly as he pushed the door open and his eyes said more than words ever could. But since words are all we're dealing with here, something like "You're a cunt" probably wasn't far off.

To this day, I still do not know whether my somewhat pathetic japes actually registered in the way I'd intended. By tomorrow, however, the answer was clear. A handsomely decorated poster bearing the words "Fuck. You." (I've preserved the dramatic punctuation) had been affixed to my door, and there was no doubt who by. Peeling it off, as I was wont to do, I noticed a viciously rendered cliché scrawled on the back: "Truth is beauty". Trust him to make an old hat new again, or should I say true again. And it worked. For those few minutes, I felt like the most wretched aesthete who ever lived. My school-boy sneerings at words of passion only served to discredit my own lacking emotional intelligence. But Fuck, he started it.

Later that week, the phone rang, with him on the other end of it.
"I read it," he said.
"Oh."
"..."
"And?"
"Surely, if you're that bored, your time could be better spent thinking up something original?"
"But you see my plan worked. This is the only way people will pay attention."
"People will never pay attention."
"Yes but they'll at least notice him and smile once in a while."
"Smile? With these jokes?"
"OK, cringe then."

Despite its obvious shortcomings, the above incident at least parlayed the tedium of a particularly uneventful patch in my life, wherein my weekly highlights consisted of ritually watching two sitcoms I loathed (what was Elvis Costello thinking?) and not getting excess droplets on my trousers after urinating. Fortunately, in addition to an inexplicably felled tree in my garden, the following year introduced all sorts of astronaughty adventures and dog-bonding, and I was even glad for having the contrast. It pays to wait, after all.

Odds On

2007-12-01T08:08:00.000+11:00

Like clockwork, or similar such cog-based mechanisms — anything that stresses some sort of clinical inevitability (your choice, really) —, I have slunk far beneath yet another self-imposed quota, evidenced, as per norm, by a virtually unconscious article dutifully chronicling the failing, or failings, in question, one frighteningly, albeit predictably, similar to its numerous textual antecedents hereon, the combined mass of which should tell you all you need to know about this two-penny-on-the-dime operation. In short, like operation.

Infats in Fiction

2007-08-27T20:19:00.001+10:00

Sung backwoods: Can we get kinky tonight, like Cocoa? I've oft. (en) considered doing it thusly, with the dwindlings up-front like a side-two classic, but only now have I (hum). And why now? Why, I'm surprised you have to ask. In fact I'm downright disappointed. To go further into detail about the erotic and racial implications of hot chocolate would quell any remaining sense of subtlety, so answer I shall not. You must realise I've worked too long and too hard and too sweatily on embedding the clews to risk a careless tear at the behest of my slower readers. But I will say that the following sounds like a preceding for a reason — read on, Josephine!

Some non dits: Hello, blossoms, Fink Fingers here, noting the weather. What sunny potential for a time when my cultural mound has more than halved, and my first choice co-op critic has fled, leaving me with a remainder who makeshifts a therapist's couch at every op. on which to spill his sizable guts and the occasional vestige of coitus. Now I can officially recall a bigger, brighter world and paint an ever bigger, brighter picture of it, which, like all masterpieces, will be too precious to sell and too ugly to look at.

Some hum truths: a deeply familiar face sprung from a quick flick, most unexpectedly, and instigated that funny mix of the shy and the sly the best grins are made of. Though far too brief to set in stone, I got the impression that the intervening growth was pleasingly undrastic, much like yours. Consequently I was flung back to days of progress via proximity (preferable to progress via transmission) and sent into a wretched state of flutter, from which I'm yet to emerge. In effect it's a state whose true shame — measurable to within point-five millilitres — depends on future events, events rooted in effort if ever there were, and thus likely to be displaced by a prematurely resigned F—it. But he remains nonetheless vigilant, and wonders how long a smile at it all can really last.

The Fertile Present

2007-08-06T19:05:00.000+10:00

From the relative safety of retrospect, it is of course easy (often dangerously so) to dismiss outdated worldviews as failures of imagination or humanism, implying in the process that enlightenment is much more the product of the soul than of the culture. But were we swifted back to times of slightly greater ignorance by some point-proving deity, I'm certain, in as much as I can be, that we'd bugger up contact with non-agriculturalists too. Ethnocentrism, while not insurmountable, does appear to be prevalent to a certain extent in all cultures, and this could be attributive to a logical, possibly even biological, human reaction to foreign cultures of any sort, particularly when the former dominates the latter. This reaction is invariably compounded by the respective technological advances of the two cultures, with the more advanced claiming a higher place on the evolutionary ladder as a result. Consequently, they not only treat the other race as technologically inferior, but psychologically inferior as well, laying the foundations for what can only be a torturous future for interracial relations.

Phallocentrism, by comparison, goes a little deeper. The implication that womanhood is defined by manhood is widespread indeed, and still very much in effect today, often deeply ingrained in religious belief. Thus the advent of feminism relied on the assumption that manhood was a symbol of gendrical independence, and that a move towards the characteristics of masculinity would yield greater freedom. This assumption eschewed fundamental elements of the feminine psyche on the basis that they were 'weak', a further example of viewing masculinity as superiority. Of course, simply wearing pants and opening doors unassisted was hardly going to change matters, and the strong continued, and still continue, to exploit the weak. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of perpetuating the myth of phallocentrism itself, which overlooks the very reasonable argument that there could also exist a form of yonicentrism, whether subconsciously implanted by maternalism or developed as a yardstick against which a man could measure his power, similar to the notion of the savage and the civilised so often drawn upon in colonial times. In fact, I would argue that phallocentrism could not exist without some form of yonicentrism, and that its perceived power can only manifest itself in relation to the timidity behind traditional notions of womanhood.

Darwinism, or Survivalofthefitism, can be directly linked to these views, and is both the cause and effect of their continued existence. Because it is our reason for being (as we are), it is embedded deep in our behaviour, and even though so-called civilisation occasionally claims to provide equality for the muscular and meek alike, notions of inferiority stemming from power values crop up again and again, even if money has become the new benchmark. But it is also true that we now have a richer mine of knowledge than ever before, and we should not let its cumulation go to waste, biology or no biology. With this in mind, I think that now is the time for us to stumble over the vast mounds of academia in the hope of planting a brighter future on the other side, one free of war, discrimination, poverty, religion and art. You with me?

Clean Streets

2007-07-14T08:35:00.001+10:00

Where I'm from — every-everywhere —, we conceive, discuss and execute our own trouble, though not and never for lack of fun(ds), and only often for lack of trouble. But while our hands jack our own pockets, the gazes we summon are as steely and authentic as inauthenticity can be, and often this proves to be enough. For instance, when some small, graceless critter moaned (in passing) "I'm a walking contraceptive," we snapped his lids with a gaze so contemptuous that he either got lead or laid, and we knew we'd never see him again. Similarly, a beanie-clad bar boy with a reckless mouth:— the sap was spat up and chewed out before you could say a time-consuming word.

"No, no, no. It's fucking intertextuality, man — and I don't swear or man loosely. As a Yous seatzen might say, it's creating a — ahem — 'dialogue' with the past. Suddenly we have a circular history, wherein the long-forgotten has as much place, and I would argue more, as the still-remembered, and the lucky pieces get renewed, modernised, spun again. Master D-D-Darren Deano did the same (to more acclaim) with his ho-hum popcorn — Dogs nicked the plot, Kheel B., its natural, indulgent conclusion, nicked everything. Records are the instrument, just as valid as guitars. Of course, the unimaginative can lean a little heavily, but hey, there's been worthless musicians too. Most of all, however, it's a bed for the voice to lay upon, forcing you to listen, to lap up its cadence, revel in its dexterity, get what the fuck its on about. Clean melodies, by contrast, can get across message-less — the world's better for having both. Sociologically, the hook-jacking also reveals itself as Fuck You function, with some even playing up the perceived thievery. Similarly, the voice — in your f— face — and beat — in your Rs — prove to be enormously effective in getting across one's point, not to mention pissing people off, which is often the point. And—"
"Shut up," said my addressee.

Name omitted, plot lax, delay legendary, result puerile, points wayward, grade C-, too beautiful for words.

Dally en Route

2007-07-07T07:11:00.001+10:00

At my most petulant, I can be quite the chemical. One thing, usually small, perhaps misjudged, but in no way ill-willed, and I'm off the good books, losing even the chance to explain. It gets my girders, I'll tell you. The following occurrence, however, is in no way an example, nor a rule-proving exception, of that pretty proven fact. No; it's this: Yesterday (or was it tomorrow?) ubiquitous Ben (hereon) was without his ubiquitous hat, leaving his top exposed. That was wrong, I knew that (as I knew (and know) that "ubiquitous" has been mishandled — though correctly — to such an extent that I'd advocate its permanent eradication, the penultimate of which — this notwithstanding — is superfluous). Like the boogie-to-the-boogie without the boogie-bang, Ben sans hat was an incongruous spectacle, not most because he'd shrunk a little in favour of a duller altitude. His insights were still prime Ben — "Why must every tone be dulcet?" being my favourite — but the naked scalp proved to be an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of my Ben-schooled enlightenment. Unable to address the issue, I instead focused my attention on the other aspects of his person.
Thus: "Boy, you smell wonderful this evening."
"Pain me though it may to say, you ain't the first person to say that today," retorted Ben, with rhythm too good to go unnoted. Then: "Wait— Haven't you already done this with Harry?"
"Yes, but my readers' attention spans don't stretch back that far."
Ben emitted a smile-shaped grunt.
"I have to take issue with that," he said, "what with me being both your only reader and the person who reminded you of the prior post in question. And that's not even mentioning the time I caught you posting a re-run under a different title."
"But it was an ironic different title!" I protested.
"Irony isn't going to save you now, Hugh. You're going to have to face facts."
"Ironic facts?"
"Nope. Cigars though and through."
"Maybe on my death bed," I said, only half jokingly. I gazed around in that contrived, morose fashion of mine before returning to my quasi-gigantus colleague with "Tell me a story, Ben," and the cutest puppy eyes I'm capable of.
"Rightio," said Ben. "Yesterday, a dear acquaintance of mine said what I interpreted to be 'I issue profundity at ever turn' during a discussion we were having, fittingly about cigars. Consequently, I murmured an insolent 'if you do say so yourself' and stormed off to what I thought were greener pastures, only it turns out that what he actually said was 'I eschew profundity at every turn', and was, in fact, just him being coy. Now, coyness is something I certainly do not have a problem with, so naturally I hurried to patch things up."
"And did you?"
"Yes. All's well."
"Glad to hear it."
"Glad to tell it."
"Good."
"Good."

Like hair that needed it, we went our own separate ways, both looking back on the tenth step to not blow a kiss, and both regretting it later. Ben became a lawyer or a lawnmower, and moonlit as a psyche. I became mighty frank.

Words 196-211 are copyright Ben "Jay Mohr" Hansen, 2007, while 214-220 ever so slightly re-work a phrase of his origin. Any complaints regarding these portions should thus be forwarded to the Ben in question — unless, of course, you are the Ben in question, in which case I'll be gladly accepting any abuse you choose to apply to my person.

Bellydown in Blue

2007-07-02T17:36:00.001+10:00

The failings of a self-servo coffee apparatus, tackled here for its doughnut deal, shut me back out into the rain empty-handed, and it was raining. Wasn't quite the collapsing straw, but it was close enough to hurt some. My contemporary, made of a stoop and somehow not Jewish, was more affable about the circ.; he had succeeded in his whim, and was eating it. But his presence was heartening, even amidst the jealousy, and the one thing stopping me from falling to my knees and bellowing.

Crowing the road, we each reached the other side (our goal, I think) and stood down underneath the boxcar sign in some anticipation. Deduction + the timetable informed us that the dusty old people-mover was to arrive somewhere in the next ten minutes, and in exactly those words. Noting this, we slunk further downwards and chewed the in-between time. My own attempts were via the voice-box. Speed: white.

"I'm close to soaked/my throat is choked/voice broke/and near-frozen/feel like I'm dozing/and I'm supposing/you're pretty cold too/bellydown in blue," I said, blatantly.
"Yes, I guess/but you're wearing less/you know it's L-E before S-S/yes, must be a lesson/to not put less on/to listen/while I'm addressin'/no woollen vest?/no winter's best?/but I digress/I'm cold, yes," said Mr. Bee. "Incidentally/that rhyme you sent me/did it really end that way?/well, evidently/but if you want fame/like some lame teen idol/next time don't integrate the title."
"At least this is the right place for it," said Ben, hopping off a street car.
"No — it's music, man. You don't read it." (Me on the defence.)
"Damn right you don't read it/you try and defeat it/with melody and harmony and strict line metres/need a bridge/need a verse and chorus/proper syntax or you're sure to bore us/and syllables/mostly ten/those low street thugs'll never beat Ben." (Ben on the attack.)
"You're missing the beat/this ain't no speech/your small white brain don't have the reach/your mind is blind/it just can't cut it/you say it's open but you already shut it."
"If my mind's white, what the swear does that make yours?/I'd say pure light but you ain't familiar with the laws."
"Light?/swear no/more like lightning/I'm as loud as J. Thunders and thrice as frightening/this ain't no impostor/ala Hawke in Gattaca/those words'll cost ya/'cause I'm blacker than Africa/I don't know if your attempts/are a joke or not/but one thing's for sure/I'm a true reverse-coconut."
Re-enter Mr. Bee.
"Down with love/lust/and all its followers/don't pay no mind or dollars/to no spitters or swallowers/just want a pretty lady/I don't pay/she don't pay me/we go to ballet and call each other 'baby'," says he.
"I win," said Ben.
But I won instead.

Laughing over mostly non-alcoholic beverages at the adjacent inn, we straightened the whole thing out. Turns out I won.

Never the Less

2007-06-29T21:40:00.001+10:00

Incidentally, for those wondering, I do heartily apologise for the complete absence of indentation. When I began, you see, I had not the know-how to know how, nor even the thought to try, and since then I've utterly failed to rectify this, and only occasionally thought to do so. Now, I fear, it's much too late, even with the will of the world on my side. My only hope is to clench my teeth and power on, praying that mere consistency will cream over this oversight for all but the hyperpedantic, and that my gentle, loyal readers will grant me this small slack, perhaps in return for a raise in standard.

In other news (the world's most overused opening to a second paragraph), the slick mise en scène I've employed here has, for most of you, grown somewhat stale, if your fuming letters are anything to go by, so I've decided that it is time for a drastic, ne'er-to-be-completed overhaul. If you've any suggestions, please mail them to the following upside-down half-triangle:

45 Plywood Dr.
Hurstbridge,
Victoria.
3191
.

Finally, a word for the fellow scrounging around at the bottom of his trough: whatever woe weighed you down, please know that without knowing, advice is awfully hard to dish out, but that a look up every so often, and a thought to what has been achieved & experienced, presumably in the interaction stakes, will work wonders. Also note that the prior construction was ingeniously bookended with an alliterative triplet of the same letter, so if its substance is null, at least grant it the almost admiring shrug it so richly deserves and pick yourself, and your pen, up.

My Life in So Many Words

2007-06-29T17:26:00.001+10:00

A pilot, endowed with lunkhead vowels and no chin to speak of (at least not highly), somehow held my attention for a large portion of this day, although I can't yet say whether this was the beginnings of brain debilitation or simply the resigned masochism of a flat tire. I should point out, however, that the pilot's activities were witnessed while I was sitting out the rain, so it wasn't as if I had much opportunity to leap through azaleas and compare clouds anyway. Still, there was plenty to do within, and it wouldn't have required much effort to ruffle up a time-filler or two. I even had a novel in my bag. Yet there I was, aimed at the tapping window for what must have been three hours, simply gazing at an unremarkable man ready a plane for take-off (or whatever he was readying it for).

Perhaps I admired his dedication under duress, or envied his solid, workaday bread-winning. Perhaps I had only the energy to take in, and not put in. Or perhaps I was simply drowning my day. Whatever the reason, it has prompted a stern reappraisal of the self. Is this where I want to be, watching pilots fumble about in the rain for hours on end? It's not a memory I aim to cherish, at any rate. But compared to the rest of my day, which now I can hardly even recall, it was positively spectacular — and that's probably the saddest part.

Honestly, I have no idea why I'm picking over this so obsessively. Maybe this is proof that there is something to it, that it's not simply an incident my mind has landed upon by accident. Was my father a laid-off pilot? Was my mother a veritable encyclopaedia of plane-preparation trivia? No. Heck, I've never even been on more than one plane in my life, and they've never held my attention outside of that. Why, then, should this mundane task imprint itself so forcibly on my mind that it feels like all the secrets of my life and its failings are contained within it?

God, my autobiography's gonna suck.

Sexless (H. Brimage Notwithstanding)

2007-06-29T00:10:00.000+10:00

All right, first Harry says, "Hey, chaps, what time we seeing this movie? My credit's running out soon," and we're like, "I think it's around 6.30, though there is a 5.45 session, so I guess it depends on which session would be most convenient," and then he goes, "Maybe the 5.45, as I need to get back by 11," but we're like "No, we think the 6.30's better", so he's all "OK, that's cool. See ya," and we hang up. So I go to the station, right, to catch the 5.29 train, and Tom's already there but he's wearing this black beanie so I thought he was Anh Tu, but when I got close I realised it was Tom because he looked like Daniel Johns from Silverchair, and Tom looks like Daniel Johns from Silverchair, especially that time when he was wearing the same sort of white braces with nothing underneath one time when he answered the door, which is the sort of thing Daniel Johns has been wearing for the publicity shots for the new Silverchair stuff (by the way, I think "Straight Lines" is kinda OK. It's fairly mainstream, but it's nice how he uses off-kilter chords in the chorus while still being accessible).

Anyway, me and Tom get on the train which isn't late for once and we sit down and I say the moon must have eaten a lot today but Tom informs me that he doesn't think it's quite a full moon, and I say it doesn't matter if it's full or sort of full because I just said it'd eaten a lot today and that could mean sort of full. Then we arrive at the station and we go up to the cinema and we see Ben in his usual red monkey outfit wearing headphones. We go up behind him as we're not sure if he's seen us yet but we don't really surprise him and he just takes off his headphones. He tells us he's the only one there and Harry just rang him and told him that he was gonna be five minutes late and Tim isn't there. Then Tom says the big building in front of us has nothing on Ben's penis (which is apparently really, really big, although I've not seen it yet), and he says that Ben should lie down next to it so we can compare it but we don't and just get to talking about something else instead. And then Tim comes and we're still waiting for Harry but the session's sold out so when Harry comes we have to go to another cinema.

We get to the other one in time and it isn't sold out so we get our tickets and go in and sit down (from left to right, it was Harry, me, Tim, Tom and Ben on the end). Harry asked me if I'd seen the ebay ad before and I tell him no I hadn't but I laugh along with him like I had and knew how weird it was, and then Tim tells me, as he had told Tom earlier, that the Chaser should do a road test of the ad and die. Then we saw an ad for the new Die Hard movie and Harry says it looks over the top (Harry's the dumb one). I ask Tom if he brought his diary and he says no he didn't bring his diary why do I ask and I say so he can mark down Die Hard in his diary, but he says he doesn't need to as he's already written it down in his head. And then we watch the film and we finish watching the film and leave. And we go to the station and there's 23 minutes to our train so we go to a supermarket to eat dinner and I split a four-pack of doughnuts with Tom because I saw some in the movie we watched (I ate the chocolate and pineapple one, he ate the pink and normal one with jam). And we go on the train and Ben says you know how royals are biscuits in [long word I can't remember] but are basically just sugar well this is sugar in [long word] but is basically just air or something, and he says something about those old guys on the Muppet show.

To be continued...

A Million Ways

2007-06-25T20:33:00.000+10:00

Today was one of those over-familiar days marked by a noticeable absence of occurrences. Despite it being winter, the mercury was in the slightly-too-hot for most, if not all, of the day, and I was forced to sweat about in little more than a figure-hugging T-shirt and an ambiguous pair of undershorts, an outfit which departed quite drastically from yesterday's chilly wardrobe of German trench and snug Penguin leggings. But gripes with the weather soon proved to be on the extraneous side of the day's events, for early on a thing occurred (let me preserve the mystery for a sentence or two) which was to change my memoirs forever.

I had just finished work on my latest exposé, High Society, about the prevalence of drugs in modern life (I hope no one beat me to that title), when that blasted doorbell (two slugs, last June — I'm surprised it still works) startled me from my chair. Dragging myself to the front door, I was rather bemused to find myself face-to-face with a fellow author. He seemed to be holding an impressive wad of manuscript paper, the visible of which bore the unmistakable stench of laboured prose. Showing the distraught-looking penman in, I asked him the nature of his visit, to which he responded with a resigned glance at the dogged pages in his hand. Knowing all too well what this meant, I plonked him on my comfiest chair and fetched a vile of bitters. Snatching the glass from my grasp, he thanked me kindly, swug it, and passed out. I picked up his manuscript.

Hold on. He had only written two pages, and a rotten two pages at that. This was hardly the point where you go about abusing the hospitality of your contemporaries — that comes when you hit a dead-end at page 175. The nerve of the fellow. And me too tired to seek revenge.

Some minutes later, I climbed into and had a shower. Despite water restrictions, this gave me that lovely feeling that everything was going to turn out all right — provided I significantly re-worked this (the ending in particular) come memoir time.

Bound By Yore

2007-06-23T06:52:00.001+10:00

You know, it almost seems shameful. Stubbornly persevering, as evidenced hereon, is not the noblest of pursuits, nor is it worthwhile purely as an exercise in unflappability. In fact it bears a closer resemblance to pop-baiting, as if its continuation is merely a manifestation of vain hope. That being the case (he admits nothing), I'm liable to stoop further into base swipes at base targets, in a bid to appeal most broadly, and most blatantly. This, however, has not expressly occurred as of the yet, and its lack hereof (pardon?) is either a gratifying reassurance (a reassuring gratification, if you like) or the deepest damnation of this undertaking thus far — I can't decide which. But whatever the label, it must be said that the pressures of a stadium are, in that respect, a welcome absence — and horrid either way.

This led to my most controversial stain: a small number of pieces made under slight duress. It is said what's past is past, but they still seem to determine my future, at least in terms of how I'm viewed by the uninitiated. These pieces, however, were not the product of a switch in alliances, and they most certainly were not a temporary batch of propaganda I cooked up to aid my escape. Moreover, they had nothing in them, save for my ignorance, which in any way compromised my loyalty or aligned me with my captors. Though I most definitely regret them, and indeed am ashamed by them [see first sentence, remove "almost seems", replace with "is" — ed.], I do not feel I should be held accountable for my motivations unless stupidity itself has become a punishable offence in my absence. I admit that speaking of unsevere conditions was an unwise act under the circumstances, and revealing my mostly apolitical stance did not help matters. But my err was not malicious in the least, and had I known then the ramifications it would cause, I would not have gone through with it.

In the end, even my fiercest critic has to admit they were no more ill-willed than any schoolyard prank. Indeed the writings themselves, composed with a friend of mine by way of a mishandled dictionary, were intended to be realised as such. Neither of us entertained the thought of them maintaining their illusion for more than a day or so. Certainly we wanted to expose what we perceived to be a growing trend of undiscernibility among the editors that be, who were then beginning to swoon for anything that merely sounded like it could mean something, even if the thing in question was so inscrutable that there was no way of knowing. But we did not, let it be said, aim to discredit one target in particular. We simply intended to undermine that line of thinking as a whole. Thus our grotesque creations, as composite and vulgar as Frankenstein's, made no concession to meaning whatsoever, and were consequently adored by the above. Our point was proved to an extent far beyond our expectations, and by the trial we were beginning to realise that perhaps it had got out of hand. But surely by now it should no longer be relevant. All reverberations faded long ago, and only in dwelling does the event still exist in memory. The past doth not make the man. If my future is sealed, at least grant me a happy now.

A Muff is a Muff

2007-06-22T19:27:00.001+10:00

Boy, water day. Finishing my morning perusal of Harry's loopy French letters, I had set upon breakfast, only to realise that my pantry had been raided by a previous mood, most likely last night's, and was in a state of utter emptiness. Even my pantry-liners were missing. Consequently, my entire morning was spent piecing together decidedly unpalatable scraps I'd retrieved from my fridge in the hope of concocting enough fibre for the day's most important meal. Failing that, and noticing, with more than a touch of dejection, that it was forty minutes into lunch-time, I took to the asphalt and looked for a restaurant.

I found one twenty minutes further on, and it just so happened to contain Ben, who just so happened to be accompanied by a fair-haired lass of physical distinction. The place was just so happening.
"Hi, Ben and co.," I said. "Good eats?"
Ben winked into bedroom-eyes and indicated his sexier-than-thou companion. I shuddered.
"Eats as in 'eating out'," he said, still clearly in bedroom mode.
"I know, I got it."
"'Eating out' as in cunnilingus," he continued, undeterred.
"I know, Ben."
"'Cunnilingus' as in oral sex."
"Ben—"
"'Oral sex' as in the thing where I stick my tongue into her vagina and wiggle it around."
"Ben—"
"'Vagina' as in—"
"Ben!"
"—The hairy, slightly grotesque opening which—"
"All right, I'm off."
"Suit yourself."
I gave Ben an especially icy glare.
"Goodbye, Ben."
"Cheerio."
"And goodbye — uh — I don't believe I caught your name."
"No, you didn't," she said.
"Right. Bye."

The best part of the rest of the day was spent worrying about filth and how to get rid of it. I mean, what if a brilliant professor overheard my exchange with Ben? I dared not think. And when night hit, I found myself incapable of doing anything other than throwing Harry's letters at the wall and watching his handwriting ooze down to the floor. This proved to be a significant social hindrance when two unexpected guests arrived just as I had forgotten to re-kempt the room. Goodness.

The Law of the Low

2007-06-21T12:02:00.001+10:00

I was watching television the other day — one of us was perched atop my wardrobe, reaching metallically for a two-pronged reception — and I noticed, for what I deemed the first time in recent memory, a distinct lack of soul-searchers. I was thusly unable to identify with any of the preening cut-outs on offer, whose only concerns, it seemed, involved either violence or romance, and often both. Where are all the black-skivvy boohoos vainly scouring the heavens for impossible answers to impossible questions? Where are the open-mike coffee bars emitting badly articulated howls of existential contemplation? This sorry evidence led me to the conclusion that we, the What Is Life? moguls, are a dying breed.

From the carnal crux of my spiritually uncloined lap, my ever-bouncing four-eyed lass agreed, saying that she too had observed the lack of televised kindred spirits. Her explanation, however, differed from mine in that its articulation was at a higher, more feminine pitch and featured shorter, more feminine words, although in essence it was as close to mine as atheism to nihilism. Later, when my mortal coil was being twisted and her rude rhymes censored, we traded brass-knuckle blows (a profoundly humbling experience, I'll tell you) and gave the issue another thorough spray. This time we concluded that if there existed mediated role-models of our ilk, our lifestyles would be stacked and weighed against these creations, and our prided sense of individuality would be compromised. Thus, we reasoned, television's narrow-minded approach was a disguised blessing for us blessed.

Following that night and its comfortable reassurance, we engaged in a morning meeting at Twee Heads, a small but faithful town in the hills where crime has been completely eradicated. Disrobing, we quickly illuminated the circle of fellows in orbit around us, who were similarly pleased to hear about the sneaky blessing, and set about making ourselves appealing targets. Having acquired both the texture and the taste, this is something I'd recommend to all couples looking to cement their relationship. Case in point: Team Randall, winner of both 2006's Love Of The Year award and the Shower Of Power award, not to mention his recent Indirectly Lowering The Tone victory. And he's a sole-searcher to boot. We may not have TV, but we'll always have this. I mean, the innernet.

Randall & Co. (Defunct)

2007-06-20T17:14:00.000+10:00

It has come to my attention that that likely ladder of ours — cast your eyes south-east and scroll — is a matter of some contention, particularly in regards to justification and rank. One in particularly has wondered, aloud, about it, and my prompted reasoning was as far from adequate as such things can be. But, with the benefit of chewing time, I think I can explain, if not entirely justify, the process. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not slave over a hot oven, pen in hand, muttering to myself, and decide who has enhanced popular culture the most, then carefully delineate the remainders until I have an accurate assessment of the individuals' fingers. No — in actual reality (combine the two if you must), the process is far more superficial. Thus:

The easiest way to ascend is simply to be one of those rare creatures who actually devotes portions of their day — or week, as the case may be — to adding chunks of useless text to their page. Heck, at this point I'd take month — even year. If that fails (as it currently is), I am forced to resort to what I bravely refer to as Nostalgia. Hence the most notable intertextual relationship with the here and now is represented at the top of the pile, which in this case fulfils the previous criteria as well. The immediately following is more nostalgia-wallowing — a scant amount, to be sure, but its creation is synonymous with mine, so I'm due. Actually, if this logic had legs, Phan Phan Phan would be higher. Nevertheless, I'm 'ere to talk of the current Copper (fuck you, posterity), whose interrogation spawned this. His efforts show care, and the most recent shows cum. If it weren't for nigglings of the yes-but-I-doubt-he'll-update-again and compared-to-the-others-he-has-barely-written-anything ilk, maybe he'd be top dwag.

Whichever way you look, this ladder is a rare insight into what it means to be human. And what, you ask, does that mean? It means breath, it means lungs, it means Why The F— Am I Here? But most of all it means washing your clothes and using the toilet.

Bradwriaeth Am Byth

2007-06-18T20:06:00.000+10:00

Though I am yet to be dubbed a boob, I certainly felt one yesterday. Dig: I was in the smoke, scratching away the guilty tingles down my back, when the expository creature — a lady, no less — approached and set in motion the series of events I'm now in the process of articulating. She was the first. Her ears, ninety percent covered by black Welsh hair, were worth each and every attempt to engage them (Freud would have muttered "engorged", no doubt). Her mouth, undoctored and pink, was worth tenfold, for it was where those compelling Welsh vowels escaped. Viewed from afar, I think it is, for a lass, the accent you bang on churches for.

She asked for directions.
"I think that's — oh — there-ish." But the accompanying finger's scope rendered this next to useless.
"Oh. Thanks."
"It's about forty steps down that street," interjected Ben, my companion for the occasion. "Hard to miss, really."
"Oh, thanks very much," she said, turning to the gangly, nerveless créme-hunk
"Yes, it's just there," I added limply. But her gaze was gone.
"Perhaps you could show me," she said — to Ben.
"I'm sorry, I don't accept propositions from attractive Welsh strangers," replied Ben, just as I was hoping he wouldn't say anything with wit in it.
She laughed (heaven knows why) and said: "What do you know about Wales and its strangers?"
"I know Mr. Gruffudd's one, and I know Wales is England's New Zealand, as Canada is America's Wales."
"And elephants are the ground's Wales."
They turned and gaped at my addition. I turned away, liking the New Zealand accent too.

A minute later, they were the sung heroes of the White Album's fifteenth track. No one loud enough objected. In a rare moment of malice, I damn near prayed for a semi to flatten that lewd display. Worst of all, I found myself with a pitched waist after craftily obscuring the Ben half with my left hand. It was hard to go home to a bad fridge after that. I mean, Ben knew I had a thing for Welsh women. That was my only avenue of conversation whenever we spoke. The agreement was that I'd take Wales and he'd take everywhere else. That's fucking fair.

Guided By Vices

2007-06-15T00:21:00.000+10:00

Being merely superficial, the too-defined stain on his jumbo briefs was perhaps the least disheartening element in a ferociously contested field. The winner, by a king's margin, was the slyly composite Looks + Leers, which would quake even the sturdiest of timbers and give foul Chinaski a run for his whisky. But let us not underestimate gallant silver: a minuscule profile dwarfing a minuscule talent. Nor, for that matter, the unmistakable overhang of rotting attentions — attentions, mind you, that poetic justice failed to abort long ago.

And so I burnt those ugly homemade gatefolds, wiped melody from memory and detoxined the motherfucker in a long, frigid shower. If a certain lumberer had similar lackings, maybe he would have the same fate. But one hopes that one learns. Still, when pedestals prove to be a trick of the light, it's easy to overlook the cardboard that made it so, especially when the message takes a particularly grandiose guise. They are flesh and guts, after all; they dread a cold toilet seat as much as a warm one.

Yet despite my best efforts (detailed above — ed.), the image of that Is He Retarded Or What? teacher engaged in unwedlocked consolidation with the world's vilest is still firmly imprinted upon my brain. Hm —: That taller-than-the-other-tall-fellow fellow once told me that asexuality must lend a certain grace to one's life. I thought that rather boring of him.

Alone in the Master Class

2007-06-05T16:31:00.001+10:00

Angered and a little ragged, I had thrown the pile of manuscripts, acetates and watercolours at Professor X-Cow — my way of dealing with the too-discerning — and stormed off to my room, deadlineless but conflicted. At that point, I would have been content to have entered an unexitable sensory-deprivation chamber and be childishly spared of the judgement. But I persevered. Scouring the hall for a nervous minute or two, I found him and apologised. As I turned to leave, a metaphorical breeze (or something) blew open a page of my now-legendary Closed Book, and I turned back. With that nervous beating the self-censor does its best to avoid, I attempted to explain myself.
"It's my heart, poured, distilled and honed. If your life and smarts leave it lurched, where does that leave me?"
I failed.
"It's my shoes," he said, and walked off in them.
Actually, that made a whole lot of sense — and I hated him for it.

"This is what I worry about," I pined to weary Harry. "This is my book."
Harry scratched his chin, clearly not in the moment.
"All right," he said, somewhat despicably.
"All right? Is that all you can say?"
"Well, what'd you want me to say?"
"I dunno — something more articulate. I mean, I finally spill my guts to you after you've been nagging me for so long and all you can say is 'All right'."
"I haven't been nagging you. That was the real Harry."
I made an about face.
"Oh yes — so it was," I murmured. "Um—"
"Don't worry about it. It happens once in a while."
"I'm sorry. But listen, what do you think of old X-Cow?"
He laughed and shook his head.
"The smartest guy I know but for his manner," he said.
"I'm not sure if that makes sense."
"It doesn't. It's his job, not his pleasure. He may be the most qualified, but I doubt he gets the most enjoyment out of it. Heck, he doesn't pay for it — why should he?" Harry's eyes went parental. "He's a cultural superialist despite his preference for non-statement statements."
"Cultural superialism doesn't even mean anything — that's not even a word," I said.
"I know."
"Will you stop that? These arguments don't make sense."
"Undoubtedly, but at least remember King Kurt."
"Yech, no thanks."
"No, not them. The singular one."
"Oh."

Me on my top bunk, him on his bottom, the lights vanished. Not asleep, I grabbed my guitar.
"I wrote a new song, Harry."
"Mmm?"
"It goes like this: 'Fuck you, X-Cow. Fuck you, X-Cow. Fuck you, X-Cow'."
"A love song, then?"
"Yep."

I Love You, England

2007-06-04T10:30:00.000+10:00

Dear diary: I have aired you for public consumption on account of your irrepressible profundity, without which the world would be the worse. By nature, your highly personal chronicling of the dailies are written without concession to clarity, due, in most, to a then-foreseen lack of audience, but that does not make them any less worth a while in public annals than the countless minutiae-mongers already clogging the drains. Nor does it mean the obliqueness should be scrambled into shape. What it does mean, however, is that your deeply penetrating insights into this condition of ours — you know to what I refer, brothers & sisters: this condition of the human! — is becoming obscured by a sea of gunky prosé, poured daily by giddy globules outstaying their entitled fifteen minutes (already too generous for most, I say!).

But diary — my dear diary —, I'm not simply here to defend your need-not-defending position. I'm here to encoil, for good, around your sickly moist form, your slightly incorrect sentence construction, your two-thirds there grammatical ability, your strict divide between meaning and sound, your profoundly unilluminating points, your inverted ugliness. I'm here to slip, forcefully but peacefully, into your spur-of-a-bored-moment cavity, cavort, as low-res has taught me, for brief, and wile away. Then, dear, I propose (I will) a more official union — with Ben's blessing, of course. I can see it now: us, barely able to control our buttock-seeking appendages, a windy, beautiful, bleak hill, Ben clad to the nines, carefully enunciating Do You Takes — we'll be horizontal before he can even leap one foot to safety!

Oh, my dear diary. If I must share you with the world, at least it is from the inside.

Asterix in Athens

2007-06-01T16:13:00.001+10:00

Semi-returned from an unwanted brink, I've a true (I assure) tale to weave, one witnessed first-handedly. This time the setting is a palace.
"Sire?" (Here's where I caught wind of the situation, the speaker a small, bell-clad jester.)
"Ah, there you are," said a king of sorts. "Tell me, what is the nature of your relationship with Lord Yansen?"
"My relationship with Lord Yansen, sire?"
"Yourrelationshipwithlordyansensire."
"Well, he's my mentor, sire."
"Your mentor?"
"Yes, sire."
"And what exactly does that entail?"
"Well, sire, it entails him teaching me things what I don't already know."
"I see. And what things are these?"
"Usually, he starts by teaching me how to use the piano, sire."
"And after that?"
"After that he teaches me about acting."
"Pardon?"
"—Sire."
"I see. And is there more after that?"
"Um—"
"Um?"
"Yes, sire."
"Well, go on."
"Yes, sire. After that, he— He—"
"He what?"
"He—"
"He what!"
"...Handles me, sire."
"A fine piece of music, but I don't see what that has to do with Lord Yansen."

Well, you can imagine how this went down with the tour group. I mean, what are the chances? Heck, if I wasn't there myself I'd never believe it. But I was. And I do. And if I lie, may God strike me down.

The Return of Yodo

2007-05-24T12:47:00.001+10:00

Conjuring a crooning Bruce Willis is as fitting an opening as this mortal can muster, and I'm sure the subject in question (that one, not that one) has no objection to being placed on a higher than usual podium. And to what do we owe this pleasure? Transport problems, apparently. But whatever the motivation, 'twas overdue, and no amount of nothing-to-says excuse that, not least because it's a — ahem — wob leg, whose nature and practitioners dictate ill-inform and sour, or at best tasteless, nothings. Perhaps, then, this unique (though it isn't) stand is a stand of credibility, forethought, thought-about opinions and the abhorrence of slavishly jotted daily minutiae, rather than the undoubtedly truer reality of I Can't Be Stuffed. Still, the pile's a feather higher. That counts for something.

While we're vaguely on the topic, I should probably say something about the other ladder-dwellers, who invariably rest below the above. Silver downwards are, as far as the World's concerned, dead, nonexistent and defunct, respectively. At this point, the most likely person to publish another boast is Tee Eff Dee, which is an unlikely state to be (in). The reason for this is that my gut has even less faith in the alternatives, who, one feels (particularly this one), were token leggers, carried on a brief wind of hype and potential before being laid to rest back in real life. That said, Time Away is a more desirable pursuit in the end.

So, yes, he's returned, whether for good, for evil or the mean. It doesn't bear stating, and posterity will hate it, but a feather's a feather.

My Fat Heart

2007-05-23T07:42:00.000+10:00

I was recently sensitive to nonconscious pieces in this collection of ours, usually of little importance in the Scheme Of Things, usually overlooked. Hitherto, my famous sensitivity only extended as far as fleas landing on dogs — gallant compared to most meat-heads, but narrowly confined to traditional notions of consciousness. It's all very well and good to feel that Thin-Skin Sonic Boom — Poor dog, poor flea; poor you, poor me! — for things that are aware of their existence (awareness = sensitivity potential), but when it comes to things of wood and plastic, or gauche or steel, we have more than a little trouble caring. After all, our concern could never be reciprocated, or even acknowledged, were we to extend a hand of empathy their way. Now, this may be an insurmountable barrier to the image-conscious, but for me, it's an admirable challenge to rise to.

My first tentative steps into super-hypersensitivity were easy enough — I envisaged life as a plank and lay on the floor all afternoon — but when I began to think about hammers and axes and nails, I hit a wall. How can I be sensitive if I'm always being bashed by or into things? It was no good trying to convince myself that these thoughts, or indeed any thoughts, never crossed these emotionless objects — logic hath no place in heart! I was beginning to understand why this was such a criminally unexplored area. To cheer myself up, I spent the remaining daylight weeping over collarless Rex and a magnifying glass.

The breakthrough came when I attempted to get to the heart of a pane of glass — As long as I'm not broken, I'm a success! —, which yielded an improbably elating sadness distinct from my knowledge of Facts. Yes, we were both transparent (fragile, too), but I realised that a lack of emotions means that it's up to me to pick up the slack. In the eyes of the world, it matters not who's weeping, as long as someone is. Everybody — nay, everything — needs understanding, needs the feeling that it/he/her is not alone in this hurtling void, that someone is out there, shedding salt for their predicament or offering arms to fall into. And if everyone had that, hey, maybe there wouldn't be so many prob-a-lems!

Paltry in Motion

2007-05-22T19:25:00.001+10:00

Though presently archaic, that semi-abbreviated rhubarb cake, given to me by two collaborating friends, was perhaps the most enjoyable meal in a week. The enjoyment dwindled, ever so slightly, when I discovered that the joke I extracted from it was, for all intents, utterly imperceptible, but hell, I was used to that — I don't intend every sensation as fodder for my muse. Now, where was I? Nowhere was I. Apologies: for no reason I can discern, cake turns my sneer inwards. Compensating for the arrogance of temporary contentment, perhaps? No, not that cake — it's past tense for a reason. The present cake is of a different cloth entirely: chocolate, the obscenely moist variety. Scatters the brain, too. Did I mention that?

Having reached this point, you're no doubt wondering what, exactly, I'm getting at. Well, bless you: you obviously aren't from around these parts. Nevertheless, here's a gallant stab at elucidation: cake, particularly the initial rhubarb, has a way of shaking one about in ways that other foods — beef sandwiches, for instance — are incapable of doing, if only for lack of effort. And the mentioned shaking (more metaphorical than physical) encompasses a general lack of straight-down-the-line reasoning and motivation. Have a civilised discussion with cake and I'll have a fit. Case in point, here: inject what you may where you may, but don't expect to cure the fog.

So, what have we learned? Well, firstly, cake, in this context, is powerless. Well, secondly, cake, in most other contexts, isn't entirely as powerless as it may seem, it being an innocent slice of cake and all. Thirdly, the catch-up, as I now dub it, has the distinction of being utterly indistinct from non-conscious catch-ups quality-wise. The same source bears all, and little can interfere. It's either beautiful or tedious, depending on your ilk. Me, I say it's paltry in motion, twice because it actually means something.

The Myth of Divorce

2007-05-22T07:20:00.001+10:00

Gripping my jeans rather uncertainly, I shifted six degrees left. There, in the headlights, an even stretch of asphalt, disappearing somewhere out of eyeshot, revealed itself, suddenly and shockingly, along the curve, with clinically applied streaks of white paint and other cars. A sudden chill sloped down my spine, coming to rest somewhere in the rear-crotch and warming my lap, neither act disrupting my terror. Slowly, somewhat surely, I kicked the clutch to Off, and the engine followed. The ensuing silence was marked by a distinct absence of sound, notwithstanding my grimly impassioned yelps and the roar of other cars.

Newly appointed by the roadside, I made my ingenious bed and lay down peacefully, passers-by my infrequent radio, slowly lulling me with inane afternoon questions. When the moon and its minions crept inexorably into view, I found my dreams and the night was over. I was on the roadside. The next day's heat was beating up my blanket. Rising with typical morning legs, I climbed back in front of the wheel and grazed some more highway. The mood on such occasions, as all but the dimmest attest, moves towards the bleak, with highly damaging detours of unprovoked joy offering unwanted contrast. The weather, too, lowers, from sensitivity or cruelty, somehow by design. In such foul spirits, the surrounding political machinations lose their cloaks, and the love of others feels counterfeit. All we can do is drive on.

When a bad mood's rising, the arts dip. You may have noticed, at certain points, that smelling the roses along your walk is as pointless as it seems on paper. I thusly hypothesise that emotions, as they are, don't breed discrimination, as is so often thought, but lead to lower discernation. If you view such an opinion with the disinterest of distance (I'm assuming you have no connection with the person in question), you will also no doubt spot this correlation. The falsehood of the previous assumption, as I see it, has nothing to do with the opinion itself; rather, it has to do with its failure to identify the intrinsic link discrimination has with base, some would say crude, logic. Now, this logic is something we all possess, whether we admit to it or not, but the wise among us have educated it — indeed, have evolved it — to the point where its conclusions are as well-informed as we ourselves are. The discriminatory, on the other hand, have not interfered with it one iota, and its ill-informed assumptions remain at the forefront of thought. Education, then, is still the key, as it is in so many other areas. The sooner we realise this, the sooner it will be.

Bobbing For Porcelain

2007-05-21T10:22:00.000+10:00

Under uncertain amounts of ocean, reaching for something unattainable, waiting in that roundabout way. That is to say, I've woken up now. The crux, however, is decidedly more trivial, borne, as it was, from a public lavatory. Here's the mood: the sound of a successful flush had just risen from one of the stalls — to this narrator it was merely an ersatz change-room, I hasten to point out — and a gasp along with it. The former, unremarkable under the circumstances, the latter, somewhat discomforting under the same. But it is for the third sound, roughly four seconds after the second, that I'm here today: "The cistern works!". Suddenly the resentful group of uptights and perverts had common ground. The knowing among us chuckled while the baffled sped up whichever process they were currently involved in and hurried themselves out of there.

When at last the jubilant alien emerged from the miracle chamber, we were rather deflated to discover it was an attendant of sorts, holding a box of tools. The mood instantly retreated to Soiled and Uncomfortable, and every exchanged glance was promptly returned to its rightful owner. Restoring to the harsh but blessedly un-public-toilet-like sunlight of the intervening street, we scattered to from whence we came and hoped passers-by did not notice our re-entry point. For me, the whence was a grossly exaggerated elephant tusk-cum-seat, where my peers were. For the rest, I care not to know.

I'm fairly certain there's a moral here.

Ill-Expressed But Pleasingly Titled

2007-05-19T08:57:00.000+10:00

Thusly begins the retrospective false-start: there's rings beneath my perfunctorily amphibian eyes, inducing extra blinks and caffeinated rhymes therewith (I tried being explicit, but it sounded coyly convenient; you'll just have to put up), not to mention (meaningless phrase) sore gazes at the window and navel, respectively. Details dispensed, we progress: I would have certainly banked on being dwarfed by that knowingly counter-productive hate-monger, from pictures, from intuition. Not so, it turns out. Still, it's regardless in lieu of both the affecting object and the object of affection not being me. The former I diverge on often; the latter I would exchange with, if a likelihood, but not plead in the rain for — not with that fashion. A nip of television for Pub Culture enthusiasts, but not an opinion-brimming filigree for altaring. That status belongs to an unpredictably coloured head on a predictably uncoloured body, who shares a similar plus-half age gap, one guesses. That status, however, is not as a genuine reality — not in a mill. or so. More, someone to know. The difference is in the detail, and the detail makes no difference to me: neither seem really achievable. But hey, I'll take the unknown any day, along with a smile and a wistful liquid.

As a particularly outworldly supermarket drop-out once summed, there's metho in my madness. In this case, as opposed to his, it's metaphorical, representing something profoundly soulful. And I'm in agreement: if ever the 'tunity rose (nouvelle lingo), I'd go far out of my way to call beforehand, no out-blue poppings, no prompt re-stockings. This is gentlemen business. This is gallantry. The rest is down to that abstract white-board cleaner, whose lack-thereof existence is corroding, and a rather strained excuse. Oh but that won't stop good humour. I'll sing for every pleasing sigh they induce, out of key, despite or because of little help from my friends, not caring a wist for the lack of leads, and smile, too. Singing silent tribute, thankful like a good shepherd for all I've gained hitherto on those blessed grounds. Ahem.

In Swoops the Faux

2007-05-18T18:34:00.001+10:00

From this angle, last calendar's not particularly impressive total of one-hundred and thirty-three seems all but unattainable, especially in lieu of the as-of-then twelve I've amassed thus far, but, like numerous proclamations before me, none of which, you'll remember, were achieved, I'm going to throw reasonable facts to rot and have another half-arse. Theoretically, an average one-a-day henceforth will actually surpass that number, and even two-thousand and five's superior effort. Realistically, it's black-board clawing.

Incidentally, this goal, like its ancestors, has nothing whatsoever to do with quality. As I've stressed numerous times before, it really is irredeemable on those grounds. Quantity, quantity, quantity: that's how you really waste time — and yes, that verb was conjured to simultaneously evoke a bazooka and a filthy blonde's bedroom habit. Come January, and this'll delete easy.

Occasional, But Hardly Often

2007-05-06T07:46:00.000+10:00

As an awful philosopher/poet once mused, This is where mood twists in on itself, too tired to differentiate its various strands. The book itself (though I hesitate to put it in such esteemed company) elaborated along bland, broadly poetic, vaguely philosophical lines, none of which I'll be traversing, but the above introductory sentence (which took some cleaning up, I should add) does manage to inflict an inconsequential gash of rouge with its aimless stab at profundity. In the correct context, early morning emotions do woozily converge, sometimes to the point of numbness, and if you can tear yourself into the distance, it makes for a grimly amusing spectacle. That said, I don't mean the hitherto simply as context for the following, which would seem like the lowest of excuses in the circumstances. Nevertheless, it must be said that at this point, the more inroads the better.

And so we reach several hours beyond the spawning moment — quite an achievement in lieu of the majority hereon. Things of note? Well, the distant hymn of our nation's face giggling and applauding seems even more revolting from this distant vantage, although that's partly imagination's fault. And, interestingly, that bespectacled loud-shirt has advised me, indirectly, not to tinkle the ivory bowl just yet, lest it lead to problems down the tract. That was a metaphor, by the way. But despite the above's sinewy cadence, little of it links with the further above — a wooze of moods indeed. The gap has torn two distincts.

Though lacking the impressive temporal distance of the earlier two, this third helping (and at this point, I heavily stress that first syllable) has the advantage of cicularity — what an ugly word —, and here, adieu-less, it is: the evermentioned and bafflingly dog-eared edition alluded to hardly exists, particularly in a philosophical sense. But that, like Her respective parents' exporting professions, is of no importance of all.

Hip Hip

2007-04-30T09:07:00.000+10:00

As of ten twenty-fours ago, your humble narrator reached another notch on his trail — in particular, the one which allows near-guiltless debauchery at the wrong end of the Pacific. His current milestone, irrelevant though it is, grows more impressive by the hour. Physically, too, there's growth: his hair, rather like mine, has decorated itself with a few signifying wisps of white; his face, lacking last year's heavy bristles, has a certain frog about it; and his fingers, here entwined with my own, have lost a good deal of vitality. Suddenly, the excuses require even more invention.

The celebration (suppressed, of course) reminds me of my own, also around this time — give or take ten. Soon this leads me backwards towards what was nearly a year ago. Built too close to the fault-line, memories come flooding back: three parts syrup, two drops wit. Sun! Road! Rain! Temporarily shelved unease! Thank God That's Over With! Cruel me knows it's not even destined to be a footnote. In this respect, him and I are also twinney. Sometimes we even discuss it as if it were the same thing, and in kinder times we might say it's worth its weight in while. As for the rest, it's I Did What When? and assorted distaste, occasionally elevating to true, responsible so-rrow and accountability, fake or otherwise. So what's to celebrate?

As of some minutes ago, the above two narrators were fairly adamant about a lack of candles and hoo-hah, fairly adamant about the humble route.

Just Tears

2007-04-27T17:29:00.000+10:00

Rather amusingly, an acquiescent friend of mine once bemoaned the state of affairs in the world today, noting that when you're yay high in suffering neighbours, you can never be truly content. Though its heart is vaguely in the right spot, this flawed logic overlooks the simple reality that an entirely sad world is even worse than a partially sad one. Next to everyone knows that whirl piece is fundamentally impossible at this stage in evolution; happiness conflicts, and there's always going to be an angry or half-dead neighbour regardless of policy. With his (or her) reasoning, we should thus be stripping the grins from our cheeks and dourly trudging the streets with crudely fashioned apocalyptic signs, occasionally stopping to cry on a newspaper or berate a happy person. Sure, it may not make the place any nicer, but we'll be true! And maybe our guilt will by halved, too.

Whinging, by its very nature, is unproductive — or, more rightly, counter-productive. I, for one, would rather a fiercely optimistic philanthropist abroad than a grousing cynic, slipping on his or her tears when there's work to be done. And I'm sure ill-lotted Afro-kids would rather be greeted with a warm, compassionate smile than a hopeless quiver of pity. Samples: How Can I Bring A Child Into This Horrible, Horrible World! How Can I Enjoy Not Bringing A Child Into This Horrible, Horrible World? How Can I Justify This Gold Watch? Oh, the woe! It doesn't matter how bad it is, either; there are ways to make it worse — ways only the most wet-eyed bawler knows.

Despite its overexposure, smelling flora once in a while is still sage advice. I'm sure even hell can be enjoyed in the right light.

Inside a Radical

2007-04-23T20:39:00.001+10:00

Obviously, the first circumstantial words are breezy, if mildly uncomfortable, and the patient observer inside sometimes even hazards perspective with an encouraging You're Doing It!, but once these formalities run dry, the next step, highly mutual as it is, seems ridiculously out of reach, and, as the scatologist might say, the conversation stalls. The self censors anything interesting on the basis that its sensors are not nearly tuned enough to discern, to a safe degree, what the response could possibly be; outside the moment, it reasons, is a minefield too risky to navigate. The problem with such a philosophy, as all us non-afflicted can attest, is that it's rubbish.

The fairer, in all their down-trodden wisdom, can no doubt spot this error. There's Another One, they say behind hushed palms, pointing helpfully. My three exes, entirely as lewd as that makes them sound, knew this, but four, seven and two months too late, respectively. If their lewdness weren't so rewarding, perhaps I'd regret my misleadingly scintillating and ultimately peeling (if you dig) conversations. But the past's for forgetting, see, not regretting (yecch). On the other hand, you must admit that cloaking one's internal moaning in safe, cold distance is as much a manifestation of the problem as it is a symptom of it. Myself, I admit nothing but ignorance.

For Lack of Spine

2007-03-21T09:00:00.001+11:00

As a particularly thin and wispy piece of foil for Thou, I could, indeed, rasp lyrical about lacking discipline, overseeing unencounters which I, as him, presumably lean longingly for, or coal-hearted feelings, all things which inescapably drip from his fingers at the first op., but instead I shall take the podium myself for an uncharacteristic outpouring of deep sincerity.

It has come to my attention that my daily veil is infuriatingly opaque, even impenetrable, and though this revelation, if it can be called thus (one always knows, usually), was revealed under a fog of deep intoxication, where such things usually spawn, I know, from tip to toe, its worth is nonethelesser. It's true, in fact. I belong to the world of womb-wisdom.

Reasons I'll save for the appropriate In Person, but I may as well throw up a few Ern Malleyisms while I'm here, dutifully wasting your time: the guard is fiercely loyal, gladly fat and goose-like; the conscious still hold firm, as warily anticipating censors. As for the man in me, well, he needs a woman like you, obviously. La-la-la-la-la-la-la.

My Goodness

2007-03-14T09:12:00.000+11:00

Of course, all I'm trying to do is shove that vulgarity to Page Two, away from all these ripe discussions and riffs, and off into further obscurity. You see, no reply from either end of the spectrum pretty much rendered its intention useless, leaving it naked, like an ex-slave in the sun, and awaiting the lash of further scrutiny; thus this. Nevertheless, its glaring pictorial stain does help break up the monotony a tad. Oh and while I'm here: whoever's in charge, can you align certain fates — stopping lifts, delaying buses, to name two — and allow some Fancy Seeing, along with renewed verbosity, uplifted appeal, extraordinary superhuman abilities and a wad of stinking cash? Well, some of it.

It's interesting how utterly pathetic pop's favourite word is unless expressed mutually, don't you think? That quavering voice between frenzied fists on altar glass— Really, I think we should all thank God that we haven't yet roamed into such ugly situations. And possibly thank him, too, for the lion's share of skirts. For all we know he could be a very reasonable guy. Worth a shot, at any rate.

Faith and Reason Converse

2007-03-14T08:59:00.001+11:00

"There's one rather odd thing I've discovered."
"Mm?"
"What?"
"I said 'Mm?'."
"Oh yes, so you said."
"What?"
"So you said."
"So I said what?"
"So you said what."
"I said what?"
"Yes."
"Did I?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Just then."
"Really?"
"Truly."
"Huh."

"Isn't conversation funny?"
"Not really, no — more depressing."
"Thanks."
"No worries."

March Appreciated

2007-03-03T09:52:00.000+11:00

Friday: that hypocritic oaf and his sterilised stethoscope peered down at me through blatantly rimless spectacles, a foil, no doubt, for the absence of framed doctrines, and skirted, with a hint of skill, the latest diagnosis. His treatment, you see, was dealt with some confidence, almost smugly, and this latest development was a ghastly stain — must always smell of roses. When it became clear (when I finished wading through his slyly confounded consternation), I feigned a collapsing world (feign fire with fire), crumbling on the tip of the news, and sunk to my devious knees. My tears came easy, despite their artificial motivation, and I searched his sober face for a flicker of remorse.

It being post-February, I had a pleasing canvas of opportunity to brush passed, and the easiest of weather. Early on, I flirted gamely with the idea of spiteful, ugly, expansive notes, a final sprinkle of salt in the freshly opened wounds, but evil was not always my thing. Easy pleasure, after all, is next to worthless. Too, the month was still young. Beckoning buildings, peering piers and soulless sympathy bags awaited my call. Maybe I was wanted after all.

Bloggers Unite

2007-03-02T20:21:00.000+11:00

Profusion Be Damned

2007-02-17T10:10:00.000+11:00

Eyes feeling decidedly unhealthy, I talked a Ben — well, the Ben, really — off a ledge. The fact that the ledge in question was nonexistent, and consequently unthreatening, seemingly makes this achievement defunct, but I still think there's a certain pleasure to be had in clearing up befuddlements, even if I'm accepting unduly. Sleep is for suckers.

But I wasn't ready to let the B go so soonly. He is, after all, the only character I've got, and even that never extends beyond the recollection inherent in the name. So I grabbed him, gruffly, by the woollies and asked of him another existential nugget in a line too long to be merely repetitive.
"Desire's of no use, but then neither are desirables. And so, in conclusion, we must first tend our own flock before we flock around with other people's — or, if you so wish, other people. Can I go now?"
All right.

Dear boy. My one-man audience once was brimming with reaction, be it faint, stiff praise, or Never Again prayers. But the handiwork of these fingers slowed, almost to a halt, and never showed, if ever it did, a thing but faint obscurantism — almost to a fault. So the T (as in Om), must, must, must, and yet mustn't and won't, slide his data-entry fingers up the date, if only to cure the air of a two-man community which moves at perhaps the least compelling pace this side of fungi.

Life Stoops

2007-02-07T01:14:00.000+11:00

Since I last penned: the stories I could tell: number many, as with all, but all, if not most, aren't worth telling. No longer thoroughly abstemious, excluding ubiquitous tea-fuel. Perhaps being a soiled human isn't all that, although no longer can I drift, conversationless, and peer down my nose despite my height. Obviously it's Ben's fault, and, consequently, his decision as to whether to shower himself in scorn or praise. Other pastures — one in particular — remain intangibly obscure, semi-solely due to my new clock, the rest falling upon what ever. So it's limbo.

I'm not raging, and I'm still yet to pay, but should I worry? I don't care to answer that. The shame lies, or doesn't, here, but my fingers repel these ones and those zeros, and good on 'em. I prefer a box of nothing. A mulatto soul so rare, I cherish little else. Only a few more lifeless sentences, innocent, though proven guilty, and we'll be out of here. Not yet worthy of a bankroll. Not yet asleep. Failed at that. You filled in? Good.

319th Anniversary Special!

2007-01-10T03:00:00.000+11:00

The wise among us, generally appearing on the objective fringes, know there ain't no worth in being — especially if you're being nasty. Oh, how morals disappear in the wee hours! It's anniverserous to say so, but such a number is a celebration to these grubby fingers, and shall be celebrated regardless of three-in-the-morning nasticisms which a better lass than I would avoid. I can blame visionlessness, heavier than usual eyes, hitherto unused hours, but let's face it, it's my foot at fault.

Y'all wondering what's been goin' on, correct? Who am I to disavow? Thirstly the side: it remains unencumbered, strangely, even if one labels it not. That li'l' ainjil is alilt with more pressing persons, as one must guess, and this one minds less than ever. The word barrel is run, spent and dry. And t'at's all there was. Who's to object? One should not persist with those who don't exist, ay, Ben? Ayben if that person (what person?) did exist, that existence has no effect on this one — though irresistible, I can resist! I'm stronger than my frame lets on.

I can't dribble much longer, but I hope you, the proverbial, remember that number. Yes, the one at the top. It is of no importance, but I'm sure you can accommodate it. Do try.

Hail Mary

2006-12-26T00:54:00.000+11:00

Initially, I had this post branded as "Dick The Holes With Fellows' Folly", and intended to explore the average male's perspective on sex during the December holidays, but taste, morality and good judgement rallied together in favour of this most prudish of alternatives, and I was, unfortunately, outvoted. Being not one to accept defeat, I shall in actuality do neither. Cheerio.

Post Waste

2006-12-25T01:00:00.000+11:00

Season's.

Hush Music

2006-12-18T23:17:00.000+11:00

The finest strain of tea, and the finest of company, and there was I — me —, lashed between uneducated, crawling thoughts, each making an unwise break for my mouth, and chewing, as one does, on a December tart, whilst that unspecified companion of mine, clad boldly in red halves, echoed my jaw's joyous rhythm, only with a decidedly more mundane treat (and beat, while I'm at it), and, I suspected, a more workaday approach. As you will have no doubt gathered by now, this is a situation I often find myself in, but its bottoms are still, teasingly, never quite got at, despite my very sensible reach, and the only way I can inch myself closer (centremetres sound too ugly, you see) is by picking and clawing, sparing nothing in the process. So be it that I may never fully repay your patient eyes!

"It's a mystery to me," he decided, employing the least of his vocabulary.
"Oh, I know," I said. "Oh, I do!"
"You do! I know — I'm glad."
"I do! I am."
"Oh I'm sorry, what of you? I failed to ask. All this of me — unhealthy! What of you?" (This is all to the best of my recollection, mind.)
"Me? Oh, you know — you do. I rummage, I find, I get attached. And the prefix un ruins my fun. That's life, they say; yes — mine especially. There's the early heavens and the late hells, but limbo's the worst. Concrete, even the vilest, has the cool comfort of conformation as its plus; limbo has none such. Limbo is hell masquerading as two possibilities. It shows a skylight to safety and hands you a spade. Do I even mind, though? Somewhat, yes. When someone goes rueful walkabout, later citing a specious fuse, I lose kilos, and demand, quietly, a straightforward sentence. I'd much prefer a felled axe to swinging ligaments. I know, I know, I know — like a Disney lemming to a cliff, someone went off me. Yes, I went off, all right: first, like a rocket; last, like milk. What is it exactly? A smashing surface and an ugly depth? Temporarily interesting virtues? A role and nothing more? Heaven forbid great features. Curse these well-formed boobs."
"Oh, you're a woman this time?" chimed in Ben, helpfully.
"Ya-huh. Innovative spin, no?"
"Lesbian?"
"Of course — I hail from Northcote."
"Coward."
"Wilde."
"Tell me, Miss, is this she to whom you refer (or so I infer) of the earth or of the air?"
"Of the nothing."

Ben: Out of All Proportion

2006-12-10T19:38:00.001+11:00

Specifically for my gorgeous muse — named, of all things, Ben —, here is a response to mere prodding. Perhaps one day, on a quiet, earthly beach, his presence alone will set about the musing, but for now his soul purpose can only be reached through goading fists — gorgeous goading fists, granted, but still not innocent, inspirational ones. Thus, I, atop my newly artificial podium, have a question to pose out of all proportion: what shall I wreak?

Smoke! Of course! Raisin affairs —. Or does thou wish to confine his proddee to celebrity fashion criticism?: "Did you see Nickel's prairie dress? It looked as if she'd sat on an effigenic Las Vegas wedding cake at a humorist convention in Berlin.". Yes, my savoir-faire extends even that far — although I suspect my raison d'être neglects those far-flung fields. Do you, Ben? Either way, I have no Francweese tongue and have run out of clichés. But there's always the quo—

"Why do we spend so much or our time reading about fictional characters when we have so many real characters at our disposal, characters who are untainted by the laws of narrative and artistic knowledge, and with whom interaction is infinitely more fulfilling? Are we really so sheltered and hollow that we favour pale reflections of life over the real thing? We listen to other people sing aphorisms in our ears and read about other people's fictional lives on our laps in trains, buses, trams, where we are surrounded by other people, and yet no one does a thing about it — no one glances left. Christ! I mean, we're nearing the end of the last possible year where my age matches the century."
"Um, yes. Very insightful, Ben," I yawned. "Um— Happy birthday?"
"It wasn't really, but I appreciate your belateness."
"Belatedness," I corrected.
"I know; I was being smart."
"Well stop it. I'm tired."
"Fine. Goodnight, darling."
"Goodnight."
"—Darling."
"Goodnight."

Mouth to Mouth to Mine

2006-11-13T19:03:00.001+11:00

Part of a piece I may be, but at peace apart I am, regardless of wonts, vain reaches, conjured lust, l—, scenario. Yes: to extent, of cause — but likely I shan't drown self silly for lack of finger, and where it could disappear, nor shall I feel unfull for having lacked thus, and relatives. My mindset on things won't trouble! Oh yes: place thus here, that there — perfect — and end's well, but what does that ensure? Productability, me thinks. Warranty ain't guarantee.

That does not mean there's not a neck I've slunk my hands round, rung, flushed into black mudded river, washed off palms, for reasons beneath me (hello, darling!) and matters out of mine. In fact, it does not mean anything. Glass onions, apparently. Still, with each passing, I'm quite certain I'm gaining attention from clique — less to spread around, you see. Why? I ask. To answer (to whit): for the excitement, sheer guilty, stupid terror — you feel it! You see it and utter Wows — I know — and for the sake of having more talk on matters, as it seems to.
Means nothing, tho..

Dish it out, dish dish — I can take! Beneath the bedding, I'll stick my head in — then you shall experience it once, even if it is inversely.

Four Walls Deep

2006-11-11T08:34:00.000+11:00

Four fairly ordinary days in and I was starting to feel overly cautious — at least in regards to where foot meets "it". Five, and I was more or less branded (deed alive) by my auctions, as if I spoke them louder than these things. By the sixth, I was ready to pack the tent and return to Civil, the wife, something (or one) I did on the seventh. But re-integrating was not going to be as easy as that, especially since I was perhaps not as keen on re-integration as I should have been (but no personality or looks — what can you do?). Thus I was rutted therein, with neither the cash nor the will to lift my spirits.

As usual, I turned to the streets. A bottled dame, in particular. Her most arresting features were bruises. Still, she at least had the three points of interest, and I thought it only fair to put what would most likely be the only scrap of food on her table that wasn't fished from a rubbish bin, even if the reciprocation provided only temporary relief. Altruism is my vice, I suppose. And so, with skin disposed and knotted, and sin unwitnessed, I returned, half-satisfied, to the picket fences, wherein I smiled (with internal disdain) at the lawners and ghastly children, even occasionally stooping to a wave, and slipped peacefully into my abode.

Civil had her apron on, as per, and a tray lay across her mitted palms. I plucked a misshapen biscuit and promptly reduced it to wet crumbs in my mouth — someone seems to have accidentally mistaken baking soda for flour. The dear girl.

For Ben's Collection

2006-11-10T11:46:00.000+11:00

I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's famous de-closeting quip: "I have nothing to declare but my genus; that is to say, Homo."*

*Originally published by AGF, 2006 — to little applaud!