Saturday, September 10, 2005
38 - 69
38. There was just no need for Coffee And Cigarettes to be made. It's a nothing. It's a nowhere. Except for Cate Blanchett's bit where she plays two cousins, which would make a good short on its own. Same goes for Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina which was at least sort of about something. Iggy Pop and Tom Waits are just wrong. RZA, GZA and Bill Murray disappointing. It wants to be this stylish ode to the inconsequential but it's just. . .blank. And self-satisfied.
39. The Descent on the other hand was quite something. Made by same guy who did Dog Soldiers, which was OK but had so much of the British-film disease, horrible cod-ironic macho funnies. The dialogue in The Descent was rotten in that stilted these-are-words-on-a-page this-is-a-British-film way but it gave way to some genuinely brilliant, genuinely horrifying horror. And it somehow managed to breathe new life into the whole 'it's your FRIENDS who are the REAL scary ones, maaaaan' rigamorole. It didn't flinch from carrying that all the way through, either. Some great unabashed visual references to Carrie. Just unexpectedly really very good. And incredibly gory.
40. Land of the Dead is going to have to be very good indeed to avoid lots of people whinging very loudly and boringly. They'll whinge anyway, some of them, it's just a matter of numbers and volume.
41. Horror fans aren't quite as bad as Star Wars fans but they can be awfully pretentious AND nerdy at the same time. Ick.
42. It's terribly sad that Nick Drake is dead.
43. And Elliott Smith.
44. He did it rather more violently. Nick Drake, you get the impression, just wilted and flopped and gently decayed without the light of approval to keep him going.
45. Music by people who've committed suicide or died in some tragic or semi-self-inflicted way may carry greater emotional resonance (although perhaps not where INXS are concerned - although 'Never Tear Us Apart' can sound quite wonderful), but the music of people who shouldn't be making music at all sounds even worse in the knowledge that these others aren't there to kick their sorry arses anymore.
46. To wit, Goldie Lookin' Chain should be turned out into the Antarctic in their fucking 'ironic' boxers.
47. Just acting stupid in a vaguely knowing manner does not count for biting satire. And it does not make you The Beastie Boys. And we are quite capable of snickering at a Welsh accent without being forced to do so in some faux-multi-layred way. The joke is that there is no joke. The drama is that there is no drama. Haw! Haw! Steaming knobheads.
48. There's no sense even getting riled about this.
49. They fucked their manager over when they made it big.
50. Cunts.
51. Idiotic, inane, smirking Welsh cunts.
52. It's almost impossible to do something like this without mentioning yourself, since everything you digest is filtered through your own critical faculties and whatever else there is through which to filter.
53. This doesn't make you terminally self-centred. It makes you, like, human, man.
54. Worse if you're some sort of critic or commentator, really.
55. And if you just watched The Doors.
56. Which is flawed but appropriately so, really.
57. It's giddying making all these bold statements without qualifying it with an end bit pointing out that it's only one person's opinion. This way, it all looks like Fact.
58. Here is a fact. Sort of.
59. The spider looks pregnant.
60. Doesn't she?
61. Baby spiders are amazing, they form this perfect round golden cluster like a Fererro Rocher and then they scatter like tiny beads.
62. This country's weather is so very mean-spirited.
62.1 I'm going to have to interrupt myself here.
62.2 I don't feel very well.
62.3 Quite surreal in fact.
62.4 Disassociated and nauseous.
62.5 It's probably fucking flu or something.
62.6 Fucksakes.
62.7 I need to spend more time talking to people.
62.8 And looking after myself, and drinking water, and etc.
62.9 Never mind.
63. Tara Reid's implants are terrible, but not as bad as her liposuction which was done by a lunatic with a Dyson.
64. There really is something amazingly calming and soothing about nasty, scurrilous, dead-eyed gossip.
65. It's a modern malaise.
66. Why isn't there a band called Modern Malaise?
67. Or Modern and the Malaises?
68. Anything's better than Juliette and the Licks.
69. Yes.
39. The Descent on the other hand was quite something. Made by same guy who did Dog Soldiers, which was OK but had so much of the British-film disease, horrible cod-ironic macho funnies. The dialogue in The Descent was rotten in that stilted these-are-words-on-a-page this-is-a-British-film way but it gave way to some genuinely brilliant, genuinely horrifying horror. And it somehow managed to breathe new life into the whole 'it's your FRIENDS who are the REAL scary ones, maaaaan' rigamorole. It didn't flinch from carrying that all the way through, either. Some great unabashed visual references to Carrie. Just unexpectedly really very good. And incredibly gory.
40. Land of the Dead is going to have to be very good indeed to avoid lots of people whinging very loudly and boringly. They'll whinge anyway, some of them, it's just a matter of numbers and volume.
41. Horror fans aren't quite as bad as Star Wars fans but they can be awfully pretentious AND nerdy at the same time. Ick.
42. It's terribly sad that Nick Drake is dead.
43. And Elliott Smith.
44. He did it rather more violently. Nick Drake, you get the impression, just wilted and flopped and gently decayed without the light of approval to keep him going.
45. Music by people who've committed suicide or died in some tragic or semi-self-inflicted way may carry greater emotional resonance (although perhaps not where INXS are concerned - although 'Never Tear Us Apart' can sound quite wonderful), but the music of people who shouldn't be making music at all sounds even worse in the knowledge that these others aren't there to kick their sorry arses anymore.
46. To wit, Goldie Lookin' Chain should be turned out into the Antarctic in their fucking 'ironic' boxers.
47. Just acting stupid in a vaguely knowing manner does not count for biting satire. And it does not make you The Beastie Boys. And we are quite capable of snickering at a Welsh accent without being forced to do so in some faux-multi-layred way. The joke is that there is no joke. The drama is that there is no drama. Haw! Haw! Steaming knobheads.
48. There's no sense even getting riled about this.
49. They fucked their manager over when they made it big.
50. Cunts.
51. Idiotic, inane, smirking Welsh cunts.
52. It's almost impossible to do something like this without mentioning yourself, since everything you digest is filtered through your own critical faculties and whatever else there is through which to filter.
53. This doesn't make you terminally self-centred. It makes you, like, human, man.
54. Worse if you're some sort of critic or commentator, really.
55. And if you just watched The Doors.
56. Which is flawed but appropriately so, really.
57. It's giddying making all these bold statements without qualifying it with an end bit pointing out that it's only one person's opinion. This way, it all looks like Fact.
58. Here is a fact. Sort of.
59. The spider looks pregnant.
60. Doesn't she?
61. Baby spiders are amazing, they form this perfect round golden cluster like a Fererro Rocher and then they scatter like tiny beads.
62. This country's weather is so very mean-spirited.
62.1 I'm going to have to interrupt myself here.
62.2 I don't feel very well.
62.3 Quite surreal in fact.
62.4 Disassociated and nauseous.
62.5 It's probably fucking flu or something.
62.6 Fucksakes.
62.7 I need to spend more time talking to people.
62.8 And looking after myself, and drinking water, and etc.
62.9 Never mind.
63. Tara Reid's implants are terrible, but not as bad as her liposuction which was done by a lunatic with a Dyson.
64. There really is something amazingly calming and soothing about nasty, scurrilous, dead-eyed gossip.
65. It's a modern malaise.
66. Why isn't there a band called Modern Malaise?
67. Or Modern and the Malaises?
68. Anything's better than Juliette and the Licks.
69. Yes.
Friday, September 09, 2005
25 - 37
25. Sorry, but Jessica Simpson's arse.
26. Is a good name for a stupid band.
27. It's a good thing that Antony and the Johnsons won the Mercury, if only because on the night somewhere in England there was an ex-school bully, living in a shitty council house surrounded by horrid children, throwing stuff at the widescreen TV which provides him his only respite from the karmic misery of his existence.
28. Look at this. It is nervously brilliant. And time-consuming. And will keep you sort of sane.
29. Although QuickTime will probably bring out the homicidal maniac in you as you attempt to watch, but hey.
30. Eminem is still a genuine genius and should thus not be shot.
31. Craneflies should, though. With guns. Guns that shoot off all their horrid spindly legs one by one.
32. This week is the anniversary of the death of Tupac Shakur, and his music is as good today as it's always been.
33. The worst earworms are the ones to which you don't actually know the words.
34. It is handy to keep an earworm about your person at all times in order to override the uninvited.
35. An added bonus of the Blogger spam clean up (see no. 3) is that it will facilitate the composing of next-blog poetry.
36. All about PASADENA - pasadena maryland
Top northern virginia wedding coordinators
I'm going somewhere else for awhile. Someplace dry. I'll be away for a week.
arrow truck sales
j'aimerai bien avoir une time machine aujourd'hui....
ProjectorHome Theater ProjectorInfocus
I love you, I'm madly in love with you, so in love that this is getting ridiculous.
indiana refinance mortgage loan nprw
You mean he? As in the violinist? I think he could,
and I think he chose to play the note differently
intentionally.
You understand the Democratic machine and don't fight against it.
At this point I've completed researching our Automation candidates. Control 4 is it!
We are professional, effective, perm..
But surely this isn't the case with all like relationships, right? Can you be the weaker party and not be a masochist?
per ora non hanno bisogno, ma han voluto che lasciassi loro il mio numero per chiamarmi se han bisogno
Biggest sewing resource on the Internet
Ne faites pas attention , c'est juste un essai les kid's.
I'm appalled at my own naivete, and staggered at the breath-taking lack of scruples.
37. Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
liked to use dashes
instead of full stops.
Nowadays faced with such
Idiosyncracy
Critics and editors
send for the cops.
26. Is a good name for a stupid band.
27. It's a good thing that Antony and the Johnsons won the Mercury, if only because on the night somewhere in England there was an ex-school bully, living in a shitty council house surrounded by horrid children, throwing stuff at the widescreen TV which provides him his only respite from the karmic misery of his existence.
28. Look at this. It is nervously brilliant. And time-consuming. And will keep you sort of sane.
29. Although QuickTime will probably bring out the homicidal maniac in you as you attempt to watch, but hey.
30. Eminem is still a genuine genius and should thus not be shot.
31. Craneflies should, though. With guns. Guns that shoot off all their horrid spindly legs one by one.
32. This week is the anniversary of the death of Tupac Shakur, and his music is as good today as it's always been.
33. The worst earworms are the ones to which you don't actually know the words.
34. It is handy to keep an earworm about your person at all times in order to override the uninvited.
35. An added bonus of the Blogger spam clean up (see no. 3) is that it will facilitate the composing of next-blog poetry.
36. All about PASADENA - pasadena maryland
Top northern virginia wedding coordinators
I'm going somewhere else for awhile. Someplace dry. I'll be away for a week.
arrow truck sales
j'aimerai bien avoir une time machine aujourd'hui....
ProjectorHome Theater ProjectorInfocus
I love you, I'm madly in love with you, so in love that this is getting ridiculous.
indiana refinance mortgage loan nprw
You mean he? As in the violinist? I think he could,
and I think he chose to play the note differently
intentionally.
You understand the Democratic machine and don't fight against it.
At this point I've completed researching our Automation candidates. Control 4 is it!
We are professional, effective, perm..
But surely this isn't the case with all like relationships, right? Can you be the weaker party and not be a masochist?
per ora non hanno bisogno, ma han voluto che lasciassi loro il mio numero per chiamarmi se han bisogno
Biggest sewing resource on the Internet
Ne faites pas attention , c'est juste un essai les kid's.
I'm appalled at my own naivete, and staggered at the breath-taking lack of scruples.
37. Higgledy-piggledy
Emily Dickinson
liked to use dashes
instead of full stops.
Nowadays faced with such
Idiosyncracy
Critics and editors
send for the cops.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
23-24
100 Things Not About Me (1-22)
Bien.
(I shall welcome contributions, by the way, not because I'll be short of ideas but because It'll Be Nice. Ah those fatal words.)
1. What's not to like about the Kaiser Chiefs?
2. Patty Hearst had this great t-shirt that said 'PARDON ME'.
4. Channel 4 showed the Streetcar episode of The Simpsons tonight (complete with 'defamation' of New Orleans) because they are not especially bright like that. As offensiveness goes it's probably on a par with asking the friend of a large lady when the baby's due out of large lady's earshot, but still.
3. Blogger is planning some kind of a community spam-sweep soon - click on next blog (not here, you can't, there's a thing in the way) until you find a blog that is not about angst or drugs or life but rather curiously filled with linkslinkslinks to thingsthingsthings, and flag the motherfucker. Repeat till eyes fall out. A good idea.
4. No one seems to be able to agree on whether or not bumblebees sting.
5. Perhaps they can't tell a bumblebee from a honeybee to start with, and should not be allowed to go out without supervision.
6. This isn't cheating.
7. Nor is this.
8. This is, though.
9. The Onion is still funny but Private Eye is definitely flagging.
10. Organic fair trade hot chocolate is more expensive but worth it, since it actually tastes of chocolate and sends you wafting gently into peaceful, righteous slumber unblighted by dreams where you wake up several times convinced giant crawly things are crawling on the pillow. And Spar sells it. Which is bizarre given Spar's laughable disregard for anything approaching nice food.
11. The old butcher whose shop is next to the Spar has died of a 'brain bleed or something', according to big ole northern busybody in said Spar.
12. This is sad.
13. But was inevitable.
14. This is a bit like playing the yes-no game.
15. The yes-no game is very hard and pointless. ('The book of love is long and boring/no one can lift the damn thing', etc.)
16. Any pointings-out of glaring and ironic errors already made would be a great thing. In fact, the imposition of new rules might be fun.
17. Science has still not been able to pinpoint precisely why we need sleep.
18. But we do - the effects of not sleeping are, well, death and more death, ultimately.
19. That shit's worse than crack.
20. And ketamine. Which is all over the news this week as the newest most scariest deadly drug, but this is five years old. Ahhh, look at cutey little Conor McNicholas who now oversees publication of that crappy music mag. Il est un goof.
21. 'Ketamine' is a lovely word, isn't it? It's like a girl's name. "Ketamine, darling, would you mind popping to Waitrose for a butternut squash and some Aqua Libra?"
22. David Duchovny's son is called Kyd. Poor fucker.
(I shall welcome contributions, by the way, not because I'll be short of ideas but because It'll Be Nice. Ah those fatal words.)
1. What's not to like about the Kaiser Chiefs?
2. Patty Hearst had this great t-shirt that said 'PARDON ME'.
4. Channel 4 showed the Streetcar episode of The Simpsons tonight (complete with 'defamation' of New Orleans) because they are not especially bright like that. As offensiveness goes it's probably on a par with asking the friend of a large lady when the baby's due out of large lady's earshot, but still.
3. Blogger is planning some kind of a community spam-sweep soon - click on next blog (not here, you can't, there's a thing in the way) until you find a blog that is not about angst or drugs or life but rather curiously filled with linkslinkslinks to thingsthingsthings, and flag the motherfucker. Repeat till eyes fall out. A good idea.
4. No one seems to be able to agree on whether or not bumblebees sting.
5. Perhaps they can't tell a bumblebee from a honeybee to start with, and should not be allowed to go out without supervision.
6. This isn't cheating.
7. Nor is this.
8. This is, though.
9. The Onion is still funny but Private Eye is definitely flagging.
10. Organic fair trade hot chocolate is more expensive but worth it, since it actually tastes of chocolate and sends you wafting gently into peaceful, righteous slumber unblighted by dreams where you wake up several times convinced giant crawly things are crawling on the pillow. And Spar sells it. Which is bizarre given Spar's laughable disregard for anything approaching nice food.
11. The old butcher whose shop is next to the Spar has died of a 'brain bleed or something', according to big ole northern busybody in said Spar.
12. This is sad.
13. But was inevitable.
14. This is a bit like playing the yes-no game.
15. The yes-no game is very hard and pointless. ('The book of love is long and boring/no one can lift the damn thing', etc.)
16. Any pointings-out of glaring and ironic errors already made would be a great thing. In fact, the imposition of new rules might be fun.
17. Science has still not been able to pinpoint precisely why we need sleep.
18. But we do - the effects of not sleeping are, well, death and more death, ultimately.
19. That shit's worse than crack.
20. And ketamine. Which is all over the news this week as the newest most scariest deadly drug, but this is five years old. Ahhh, look at cutey little Conor McNicholas who now oversees publication of that crappy music mag. Il est un goof.
21. 'Ketamine' is a lovely word, isn't it? It's like a girl's name. "Ketamine, darling, would you mind popping to Waitrose for a butternut squash and some Aqua Libra?"
22. David Duchovny's son is called Kyd. Poor fucker.
(alright ONE more)
Intermission
The crappy old cinema in Lancaster still has one of these, between the trailers and the film. They last about 40 seconds. It's a nice gesture. One amazingly scratchy, noisy graphic that flashes up - screaming ENJOY THE FILM OR WE KILL ANOTHER ONE or similar - lifts its tattered hem at the end to display the fact that it was made, on a computer the size of Twickenham, in the year of my birth. It's these little things that tickle me. Everything's so fucking blandly perfect now, or striving to be blandly perfect, or slouching in doldrums at its own perfect blandness, that it's cheering to observe crappy old shit still doddering along.
Suitably clueless woman on the latest Channel 4 papfest about dog troubles (Reality Happens And Hilarity Ensues etc). Four German Spitzes - just looking for a suitable picture but every single site I find is setting my sight back another decade; why are people happy to own such ghastly-looking websites? Pixelsick. Anyway, they're like small Samoyeds or giant Pomeranians.
. . .
Like Paris Hilton's dog?
. . .
Look, they're like absurdly fluffy blow-dried overbred foxes with bright beady eyes and evil fangs, 'kay? 'Kay.
Yes, so this woman has four of these of various colours and a couple of mongrels in a semi near Birmingham + long-suffering alarmingly Deliverance-esque hubsbad and neglected teenage boy. And all of the dogs swarm constantly around, constantly barking, all the time. The woman feeds them icepops, and rushes to buy them ice-creams from the van several times a week. The dogs gather in the kitchen to shout even more at 1.30pm, because this is when she gives them tea which she makes for them, with milk and sugar. They never get walked. They are all hopped-up furry frickin freakdogs.
The trainer - who was basically the same awful spindly bint as on all the other Channel 4 "look at your life you dirty/overweight/frumpy/incompetent lump, for shame" shows in a wig - pointed out that she was a rotten dog owner. On this occasion you had to agree. I object to all the stuff about bettering yourself through public humiliation - especially the one where they tell women they look like shit and should have a little facelift, with the glacial female presenter and the jovial male voiceover, that enrages me - but here, the things that were being said actually needed to be said.
Trainer hauled ridiculous idiot woman to a Dogs Trust shelter to point out where her dogs would have to go for rehoming, if she continued to act like an arse with them and the neighbours continued to complain about the incessant noise. Woman flees the room weeping. I was surprised. The place looked lovely. There was a distinct whiff of Ikea about it. Far from where I picked up K, which was all concrete and wire and cold and forbidding. She'd obviously never been in a shelter before - odd, since she had a couple of mutts as well as the pedigrees. I did think for a second that she was one of those hoarders whose compassion blinds them to their inadequate personal circumstances, but these were expensive pedigree dogs she'd been collecting so they hadn't exactly been in dire circumstances. So fuck that.
She sort of got her shit together in the end. The trainer was pretty awful in the meantime, reminded me a lot of the behaviourist from hell who informed me that I wasn't up to adopting a dog like K. The trouble is with many of them is that, knowing they have the measure of dogs, imagine that they know human psychology just as well and proceed to patronise the living shit out of you.
Kaine has been pretty resilient, really, except for the whole murderous-intent thing. I hesitate to assume he's happy, but he isn't depressed. As a pet, he is barely viable - I don't get to enjoy taking him out for runs, which is about half the point of owning a dog and more than that for a lot of people. As a beast unto himself, though, he's fine. And I keep on checking that he is, keep on checking myself for selfishness, for hanging onto an animal that would be better off elsewhere. But whenever I imagine alternative lives for him, most of them are already over.
(I did used to give him tea dregs occasionally, but not now. Actually I do let him lick out yogurt and dessert pots. But a whole ice cream in a cone. Stupid people.)
I think I should experiment with not actually writing about the dog, or about myself, for a while. It'd be revealing. Post-rate would plummet, and so would I, into another new well of self-analytical GUILT. Heh heh. It's only what I deserve for not appreciating my own voluminous worth. I think it's a good idea. So! before I start:
- Everything people think about dogs is true, what they do for you, how staggering it is, and try as I might to stop marvelling at the purity and beauty of the relationship and to shut up about it because it's fucking nauseating, ah jist cannae.
- Bloggers do those '100 things about me' lists and they can be cute and funny or they can be mundo stupido. I don't think I could muster one, even if I were inclined. Do I pass some kind of personality test for that, or am I just crap at lists? I love a good list, though. Anyway, I could do '100 things not about me'. Although that would leave a loophole for me to write about the dog. Shit. OK, '100 things not about me nor the dog although other dogs are allowed'.
Right. Rules. Oh, it's fucking late and I meant to get an early night. But this is important.
No use of first person
Mention of friends and associates is permitted
No mention of items belonging to me or clothes or anything like that
It can't all be about television
No it can't
Non-contemporary stuff is fine
And statements in form of question
And questions that could be taken as rhetorical but don't have to be
And nonsense and seriousness
Um
That'll do it.
After this action shot, no more for 100 sentences.
Wheeee.
Suitably clueless woman on the latest Channel 4 papfest about dog troubles (Reality Happens And Hilarity Ensues etc). Four German Spitzes - just looking for a suitable picture but every single site I find is setting my sight back another decade; why are people happy to own such ghastly-looking websites? Pixelsick. Anyway, they're like small Samoyeds or giant Pomeranians.
. . .
Like Paris Hilton's dog?
. . .
Look, they're like absurdly fluffy blow-dried overbred foxes with bright beady eyes and evil fangs, 'kay? 'Kay.
Yes, so this woman has four of these of various colours and a couple of mongrels in a semi near Birmingham + long-suffering alarmingly Deliverance-esque hubsbad and neglected teenage boy. And all of the dogs swarm constantly around, constantly barking, all the time. The woman feeds them icepops, and rushes to buy them ice-creams from the van several times a week. The dogs gather in the kitchen to shout even more at 1.30pm, because this is when she gives them tea which she makes for them, with milk and sugar. They never get walked. They are all hopped-up furry frickin freakdogs.
The trainer - who was basically the same awful spindly bint as on all the other Channel 4 "look at your life you dirty/overweight/frumpy/incompetent lump, for shame" shows in a wig - pointed out that she was a rotten dog owner. On this occasion you had to agree. I object to all the stuff about bettering yourself through public humiliation - especially the one where they tell women they look like shit and should have a little facelift, with the glacial female presenter and the jovial male voiceover, that enrages me - but here, the things that were being said actually needed to be said.
Trainer hauled ridiculous idiot woman to a Dogs Trust shelter to point out where her dogs would have to go for rehoming, if she continued to act like an arse with them and the neighbours continued to complain about the incessant noise. Woman flees the room weeping. I was surprised. The place looked lovely. There was a distinct whiff of Ikea about it. Far from where I picked up K, which was all concrete and wire and cold and forbidding. She'd obviously never been in a shelter before - odd, since she had a couple of mutts as well as the pedigrees. I did think for a second that she was one of those hoarders whose compassion blinds them to their inadequate personal circumstances, but these were expensive pedigree dogs she'd been collecting so they hadn't exactly been in dire circumstances. So fuck that.
She sort of got her shit together in the end. The trainer was pretty awful in the meantime, reminded me a lot of the behaviourist from hell who informed me that I wasn't up to adopting a dog like K. The trouble is with many of them is that, knowing they have the measure of dogs, imagine that they know human psychology just as well and proceed to patronise the living shit out of you.
Kaine has been pretty resilient, really, except for the whole murderous-intent thing. I hesitate to assume he's happy, but he isn't depressed. As a pet, he is barely viable - I don't get to enjoy taking him out for runs, which is about half the point of owning a dog and more than that for a lot of people. As a beast unto himself, though, he's fine. And I keep on checking that he is, keep on checking myself for selfishness, for hanging onto an animal that would be better off elsewhere. But whenever I imagine alternative lives for him, most of them are already over.
(I did used to give him tea dregs occasionally, but not now. Actually I do let him lick out yogurt and dessert pots. But a whole ice cream in a cone. Stupid people.)
I think I should experiment with not actually writing about the dog, or about myself, for a while. It'd be revealing. Post-rate would plummet, and so would I, into another new well of self-analytical GUILT. Heh heh. It's only what I deserve for not appreciating my own voluminous worth. I think it's a good idea. So! before I start:
- Everything people think about dogs is true, what they do for you, how staggering it is, and try as I might to stop marvelling at the purity and beauty of the relationship and to shut up about it because it's fucking nauseating, ah jist cannae.
- Bloggers do those '100 things about me' lists and they can be cute and funny or they can be mundo stupido. I don't think I could muster one, even if I were inclined. Do I pass some kind of personality test for that, or am I just crap at lists? I love a good list, though. Anyway, I could do '100 things not about me'. Although that would leave a loophole for me to write about the dog. Shit. OK, '100 things not about me nor the dog although other dogs are allowed'.
Right. Rules. Oh, it's fucking late and I meant to get an early night. But this is important.
No use of first person
Mention of friends and associates is permitted
No mention of items belonging to me or clothes or anything like that
It can't all be about television
No it can't
Non-contemporary stuff is fine
And statements in form of question
And questions that could be taken as rhetorical but don't have to be
And nonsense and seriousness
Um
That'll do it.
After this action shot, no more for 100 sentences.
Wheeee.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
The things we did and didn't do
My apathy knows no bounds and is brilliantly self-perpetuating. Perhaps I've finally reached critical mass in terms of trying to look at the back of my own head. Burning out without actually doing anything, like a lazy chip pan on a crapulous hot-plate 'cooker'. I hate my cooker. It is shit. It isn't strictly speaking my cooker of course, but for the purposes of this conversation, etc. It feels more mine than its predecessors, anyway, given that I am related to its owner and have been struggling to get it to cook things adequately for two years instead of six months, which was the usual amount of time I'd spend in one place.
Two years - the anniversary has just gone, in fact, the Bank Holiday weekend. I still can't imagine leaving. It's like I think I'll somehow put the house on like an enormous coat of bricks and precipitous stairs and woodchip wallpaper and beetle off down south in it. Houses are such dictatorial things, they give context to your everyday actions in such a way as to convince you that you could no more leave them behind than you could step out of your own skin. Bastards.
I need more outward focus. It will energise me. Unfortunately, I must first muster the energy to focus outwards, but...there is no ending to this sentence.
I have all sort of things I would like to do - they have some vague hierarchy in order of likelihood but some of them seem like requisites that I will never collect sufficient mental vouchers to cash in for. There are a thousand courses I'd like to take. It almost seems worth waiting for retirement (if I could ever afford to retire) just to have the time, and the lack of pressure to be brilliant at them. More life-drawing (actually bugger that, I have no sense of perspective and can't do faces although I can etch a decent spine). More writing. Erotic writing. Screenwriting. Novel writing. Photography. Dog behaviour. Guitar. Pole-dancing, of course. Bloody HTML. Fucking car maintenance. Sodding philosophy and psychology and German or Italian. Blehhhh.
Oh yes, and the Alexander Technique, which promises to give me a whole new life, just like almost everything else.
My apathy could kick your apathy's arse, only it can't be bothered right now.
I'm not coming back here until I've got something clever or frivolous or positive or insightful to say. Or until I take a really good picture of a beetle.
Words: 0
Since experiencing a bit of conflict over the London bombings, I've mostly found myself wittering solely about my own inconsequentialities. This is partly because it seems more natural in this blog's context, and partly because other people blog about world events so much better. Despite writing about the news for money, here on the blog-sofa I find that I rarely have much I'd consider worth saying. This thing seems to have moulded itself around me in such a way that doesn't allow for it, somehow. I can't grapple with these things from this slumpy position - softened up and relaxed as I am here, taking a break from trying to break everything open with my brain, the only words that come forward are the inadequate ones about how sad and how awful, because that's how I feel about them. I can't get out the sharp tools here - I'm just left with a basic sense of tragedy, with all the arguments and blame and implication screaming away in the background.
I watched a thing last night about Rick Rescorla, security manager of Morgan Stanley who died in the south tower on September 11th having evacuated all but six of the 2000+ employees. He was a Vietnam vet, a lieutenant who hardly lost any of his platoon, but was completely broken up about every soldier who did die under his command. He was a Cornish kid who seemed to be obsessed with becoming an American - he changed his name (from Cyril, so perhaps he might have fancied doing that anyway), took on the accent, eventually went and fought as an American and then lived as one in New York.
It was oddly upsetting to me (American parentage and all) to see how he'd bought so completely into the idea of America, ended up looking like he'd died for it, hailed as an all-American hero. Of course it was what he wanted, and he saved the lives of hundreds of people, and nothing else is of consequence. But it was uncomfortable viewing - it seemed like such a betrayal. He suffered a lot for America by his own choice, participating in its most futile war, and eventually becoming a victim of what he knew damn well was its filthy foreign policy. Just seemed to me that America didn't deserve that kind of adopted loyalty.
I can't say 'America' in that way, though, it isn't literal and it means nothing. It's more than the administration but less than the people, if it's anything, but the ones who suffer for that shorthand perception are the people, which is shit. At least at the moment the delineation between the government and the citizens is clear to the world - the country seems to be united in its condemnation of Bush. He's been neglecting his own people for years, but it's taken the sight of them drowning and starving and shouting for help - and his spectacular failure to give a rat's ass, either in practical or PR terms - to flag that up. I'm too appalled by the situation to do much but gaze and sigh whenever I see the news.
I don't appreciate the way it's being reported, either - the news here is suffering a serious attack of Day Todayism, with all the journalists booming in apocalyptic tones and forming the most embarrassing and inappropriate soundbites. Go on, sink your teeth into the juicy fruitcake of tragedy. "The only survivor of this family - a classically creepy-sad and heartrendingly cheap and perfectly slightly-mangled doll. See how its eyes stare, empty of all hope, like the eyes of the thousands of people here whose lives have literally exploded in a bloody watery mess of tears. Tears - and looting." Bloody news-porn. Making some billowing Lloyd-Webber musical out of it. It's too familiar now, this kind of dramatisation, and too normalised and it intensifies my nagging feeling that news is just more entertainment, just like anything else on TV.
Having said that, it matters rather less how this is reported - the images are speaking for themselves, and people are getting very angry - and rather more how it is dealt with. I'm not anticipating great things. I just hope people are going to be alright, and that Bush is hauled over every coal there is. The despicable cunt.
Lionel Shriver wrote something good in today's Grauniad. I'm reading 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. It's very good.
I watched a thing last night about Rick Rescorla, security manager of Morgan Stanley who died in the south tower on September 11th having evacuated all but six of the 2000+ employees. He was a Vietnam vet, a lieutenant who hardly lost any of his platoon, but was completely broken up about every soldier who did die under his command. He was a Cornish kid who seemed to be obsessed with becoming an American - he changed his name (from Cyril, so perhaps he might have fancied doing that anyway), took on the accent, eventually went and fought as an American and then lived as one in New York.
It was oddly upsetting to me (American parentage and all) to see how he'd bought so completely into the idea of America, ended up looking like he'd died for it, hailed as an all-American hero. Of course it was what he wanted, and he saved the lives of hundreds of people, and nothing else is of consequence. But it was uncomfortable viewing - it seemed like such a betrayal. He suffered a lot for America by his own choice, participating in its most futile war, and eventually becoming a victim of what he knew damn well was its filthy foreign policy. Just seemed to me that America didn't deserve that kind of adopted loyalty.
I can't say 'America' in that way, though, it isn't literal and it means nothing. It's more than the administration but less than the people, if it's anything, but the ones who suffer for that shorthand perception are the people, which is shit. At least at the moment the delineation between the government and the citizens is clear to the world - the country seems to be united in its condemnation of Bush. He's been neglecting his own people for years, but it's taken the sight of them drowning and starving and shouting for help - and his spectacular failure to give a rat's ass, either in practical or PR terms - to flag that up. I'm too appalled by the situation to do much but gaze and sigh whenever I see the news.
I don't appreciate the way it's being reported, either - the news here is suffering a serious attack of Day Todayism, with all the journalists booming in apocalyptic tones and forming the most embarrassing and inappropriate soundbites. Go on, sink your teeth into the juicy fruitcake of tragedy. "The only survivor of this family - a classically creepy-sad and heartrendingly cheap and perfectly slightly-mangled doll. See how its eyes stare, empty of all hope, like the eyes of the thousands of people here whose lives have literally exploded in a bloody watery mess of tears. Tears - and looting." Bloody news-porn. Making some billowing Lloyd-Webber musical out of it. It's too familiar now, this kind of dramatisation, and too normalised and it intensifies my nagging feeling that news is just more entertainment, just like anything else on TV.
Having said that, it matters rather less how this is reported - the images are speaking for themselves, and people are getting very angry - and rather more how it is dealt with. I'm not anticipating great things. I just hope people are going to be alright, and that Bush is hauled over every coal there is. The despicable cunt.
Lionel Shriver wrote something good in today's Grauniad. I'm reading 'We Need To Talk About Kevin'. It's very good.
Monday, September 05, 2005
Go 'head git down
Where was I? Oh yes, on a boat at Westminster Pier, sober, surrounded by modelly fashionistas with cheekbones in vintage clothing. Right opposite my place of birth. Rather an inauspicious box, but right under the watchful glowing eye of that big clock, which makes me sooooooo the proper Londoner and thus able to claim a certain air of sniffy superiority. If only to myself. Ah, territoriality, how else would we have figured out where to piss.
I wasn't optimistic about the evening - I knew few, and the rest didn't seem too approachable - but I had been nicely softened up the previous night by a too-brief almost perfect time in a truly lovely pub. Me and five others, proper beer, great view, people with guitars and violins twiddling about in the corner, good conversation - I don't know, there was something simple and Christmassy about it, or like you think Christmas should be. That subtle balance of atmosphere where you're completely relaxed and content and all is as it should be. No undercurrents, no awkwardness, no social splinters to get snagged on - just copious, freely flowing human goodness. I'm surprised in my knackered state I didn't blub. I want more of that in my life, please.
Yes, so I was apprehensive when the boat set off into the encroaching darkness - I realised I wasn't going anywhere for the next six hours, and it wasn't an especially pleasant feeling. But of course it was the same for everyone else, and clearly imagining that should an old-western style chair-hurling brawl commence it might last until the end of time, they all got their friendly on. Maybe I'm just out of practice, or I'm more gregarious than I generally imagine myself to be, but it seemed particularly fertile ground for the blundering up to of strangers and the bellowing of pleasantries. (It wasn't just me, I hasten to add. I was blundered/bellowed also.)
And! We'd hardly set off before I ran into someone who was in a band at university and I knew him as a music-scene mate kinda thing and then they got a bit successful and moved to London and then I did too and I was a music journo and I did stuff about them, and then they split up in the end and I left and ah the passage of time. He's in another band now who are more successful than the first one, and seems pretty content. And he is no different. I love it when I run into people I haven't seen in years and it might as well have been last week, except for the joyful zingy element of 'aaaaahhh haven't seen you in AGES' enhancing it. One of life's little plaisirs. And! I managed another and sort of bigger one - my colleague and mucker of days of very yore, the Snapper. Snapper is one of those fairly posh well-spoken young men who parties like Beavis and Butthead would if they were transported into the body of Oliver Reed. I mean, people talk about people who party hard and it's all a bit stupid and childish, but there's something magnificent about the way some people pull it off. Y'know, they succeed in elevating the act of putting champagne bucket upon head to a minor art form.On this occasion he only managed to; tell me he didn't recognise me as I'd lost a lot of weight and then receive some kind of message from deep in his brain that made him clap a hand over his mouth and groan; consume all manner of substances in some mystic sequence; exchange shirts with someone about half his size (oddly, it was the bigger shirt that ended up rent asunder as if by angry dogs - Snapper's eyes widened at the sight, but they couldn't really have been wider to begin with, so perhaps they didn't widen at all); insist that I use my 'feminine charm' to acquire the more mundane paraphernalia; burn a small hole in my dress (I can only assume it was him); and have astonishing hair not unlike Tom Hanks' after several months conversing with Wilson on an island.
But it was more than enough.
So I drank and danced and met people and was flirty and silly and took pictures and had pictures taken of me and remembered what it's like to do all those things. Social situations to me have often been like traipses into the rocky wilderness with no compass and hopelessly inadequate footwear - how odd, though, the grim persistence of ideas even after they've been disproven. If my psyche were a religion, it would be fundamentalist Christianity as practiced by inbred rednecks in Alabama. I mean, really. "Ah buhleeve ah am uh social inadequate PRAISE-UH CHEEZIZ." I don't venture out expecting to re-enact Carrie's prom, but somehow I'm never prepared to come away going "well look at that, I met many new people and collected several propositions and nice things said". It's good, I suppose - it's good arrogance/complacency insurance, and means I'm constantly pleasantly surprised. I mean, I'd rather be entirely assured of my own personal and sexual attractiveness and waft around the place like a beautiful balloon, but then again, who wants to be a millionnaire? (Put that hand down and begone Satan.)Despite having stopped swigging before midnight and switching to water, I was still pink-cheeked enough to shout "BONGGG" as we walked beneath Big Ben going off at 2. Morning brought huge home-cooked breakfast, noisy music and easy wittering. And I was almost happy that my journey home took about 20 minutes longer than it should have, because the light was so gorgeous it was as if the sun was having an extra-long set that lasted the whole afternoon. I love the train. If I can get a backwards-facing seat by a window, no one next to me, with music on, at a time of the day when it's light, I'm fulfilled. There's not much music that isn't improved by a scrolling view of fields and trees and sheep and big sky. It makes the constant burbling thought that my brain seems to feel is necessary for it to earn its keep seem perfectly natural - in fact, it makes it go a bit more snoozy and peaceful, like a fat bee full of honey.
One of my clearest childhood memories is of my mum finding an enfeebled bumblebee in our tiny garden, and putting a knifeful of honey down for it. It sat and licked and slurped for many minutes until the stuff was all gone, by which point it had swelled noticeably. It had got its strength back, and so it turned and waddled onto the path to take off - when it did, it could hardly gain any height. It bounced in the air, dropping almost to the ground, raising an inch, dropping again, ending up on the ground, starting from scratch. It finally got about two feet up, seemed to decide that was as good as it could hope for, and flew off with this mighty low buzzzzzzzzzz. We laughed.I didn't think of this on the train home, but I might as well have done.
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Back in denim
My stepsister used to pronounce it 'demin'. Someone overheard and named their sproglet Demin, cos they thought "it were dead original". Only that's not true.
London was fairly good to me this time, except for when it concealed a pub from me for an hour and a bloody quarter, which I'm sure was calculated to make me experience a total implosion of the self. (If I'd taken one more wrong turn, all that would have been found of me in the morning would have been a virginal A-Z and a couple of blister plasters.) It paraded past me an astonishing conga-line of lecherous yet gentlemanly men. It fed me just enough to counteract the effects of all the alkyhol it tipped down my vulnerably exposed lily-white throat. And it was fucking hot. Hallelu.
I came back without one particular piece of jewellery which died in the valiant cause of drinky humour on Friday, but did find myself lugging home a variety of promotional jetsam, the bulk of which came from the Cliterati bash. This involved some inept champagne-induced poledancing on my part, meeting smashing new people, some of the most (and the least) oblique conversation imaginable, and subsequently a little light harrassment of some bemused (yet later aroused, probably) men in hard hats. And I did opt for the dubious embrace of The Garment, in the end - she did a bang-up job and, to my knowledge, kept everything appropriately covered throughout. Result.
Oh yes, and prior to all that I paid my first visit in about three years to my Little German Woman, which was actually lovely. After all the energy expended and the money spent before, all the muck dug over and spread about into a manageable layer, it seems unfair to find a whole fleet of crap-trucks still queueing. It seems like it'll go on forever, in some kind of race between available funds and teetering psyche - but you can't think like that. It's too easy to feel swamped by the convoluted stuff that persists down the decades, henceforth to be dismissed as That Old Shite (TOS). Although of course you have to take it seriously to a degree; flippancy is about as effective as booze as a long-term answer to a boringly perennial problem. Writing about it seems not the thing to do at present - I'm not in a crisis which requires an outlet, and I don't want to give it any more headspace than I have to. I feel hamstrung, but most of the time I don't feel like I have to hobble. Anxiety and apathy underpin a lot, but not everything, every waking nanosecond. So let us turn from TOS to the joys of the inconsequential. (Turn, not flinch. I am not a flincher. I was in bed when they did the lecture on Flinching: History and Practical Application. Uh huh.)
Prior to dropping in on the fragrant LGW I sat about on some grass in the sun, in that way you do when you breathe in and go "yep, really ain't that bad at all". I took photographs of a worm. And of a peaceful, inert, snoozing man.
When I went past over an hour later, he was still there.
I hope he wasn't dead.
To follow:
Publiness is next to loveliness
What the fuck was that? Something on a boat, apparently
In praise of trains
(and September)
(and that film which really was surprisingly good)
And I detest Zadie Smith and should like to slap her smug disingenuous over-privileged face with a massive Canadian salmon. (Nothing to add on that one, but it needed to be said.)
London was fairly good to me this time, except for when it concealed a pub from me for an hour and a bloody quarter, which I'm sure was calculated to make me experience a total implosion of the self. (If I'd taken one more wrong turn, all that would have been found of me in the morning would have been a virginal A-Z and a couple of blister plasters.) It paraded past me an astonishing conga-line of lecherous yet gentlemanly men. It fed me just enough to counteract the effects of all the alkyhol it tipped down my vulnerably exposed lily-white throat. And it was fucking hot. Hallelu.
I came back without one particular piece of jewellery which died in the valiant cause of drinky humour on Friday, but did find myself lugging home a variety of promotional jetsam, the bulk of which came from the Cliterati bash. This involved some inept champagne-induced poledancing on my part, meeting smashing new people, some of the most (and the least) oblique conversation imaginable, and subsequently a little light harrassment of some bemused (yet later aroused, probably) men in hard hats. And I did opt for the dubious embrace of The Garment, in the end - she did a bang-up job and, to my knowledge, kept everything appropriately covered throughout. Result.
Oh yes, and prior to all that I paid my first visit in about three years to my Little German Woman, which was actually lovely. After all the energy expended and the money spent before, all the muck dug over and spread about into a manageable layer, it seems unfair to find a whole fleet of crap-trucks still queueing. It seems like it'll go on forever, in some kind of race between available funds and teetering psyche - but you can't think like that. It's too easy to feel swamped by the convoluted stuff that persists down the decades, henceforth to be dismissed as That Old Shite (TOS). Although of course you have to take it seriously to a degree; flippancy is about as effective as booze as a long-term answer to a boringly perennial problem. Writing about it seems not the thing to do at present - I'm not in a crisis which requires an outlet, and I don't want to give it any more headspace than I have to. I feel hamstrung, but most of the time I don't feel like I have to hobble. Anxiety and apathy underpin a lot, but not everything, every waking nanosecond. So let us turn from TOS to the joys of the inconsequential. (Turn, not flinch. I am not a flincher. I was in bed when they did the lecture on Flinching: History and Practical Application. Uh huh.)
Prior to dropping in on the fragrant LGW I sat about on some grass in the sun, in that way you do when you breathe in and go "yep, really ain't that bad at all". I took photographs of a worm. And of a peaceful, inert, snoozing man.
When I went past over an hour later, he was still there.
I hope he wasn't dead.
To follow:
Publiness is next to loveliness
What the fuck was that? Something on a boat, apparently
In praise of trains
(and September)
(and that film which really was surprisingly good)
And I detest Zadie Smith and should like to slap her smug disingenuous over-privileged face with a massive Canadian salmon. (Nothing to add on that one, but it needed to be said.)
