text=Welcome to the Empty Space Forum! date=06.06.2003 17:11 ip=213.122.73.54 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll be maintaining my message board at the TTA site, but you can talk here too.

Brilliant site, webmaster. date=07.06.2003 01:28 ip=213.78.65.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Mike! date=07.06.2003 02:00 ip=213.122.18.107 name=david lloyd mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, looks fantastic ! date=07.06.2003 06:10 ip=213.122.1.254 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi David. He's good that Zali, isn't he ? date=07.06.2003 06:48 ip=213.78.165.215 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Glad you like it, D Llo!

Oh, Mr Harrison you are making me blush! date=07.06.2003 10:08 ip=213.122.130.194 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Classy site, Io! date=08.06.2003 10:14 ip=62.188.112.114 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Al! I'll also install that "Back to Empty Space" button, as you suggested, soonish.

BTW: Has anyone any ideas what we could use this forum for? I mean, other than for telling me about how great the site is. I'm enjoying that and you shd certainly continue for a few months but I'm pretty certain it'll start to lose its novelty. date=09.06.2003 00:42 ip=158.94.166.45 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Cheers Al! I'll also install that "Back to Empty Space" button, as you suggested, soonish.

BTW: Has anyone any ideas what we could use this forum for? I mean, other than for telling me about how great the site is. I'm enjoying that and you shd certainly continue for a few months but I'm pretty certain it'll start to lose its novelty.

Suggestions in hieroglyphics on a Galleon's Reach postcard, please!
Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=09.06.2003 00:42 ip=158.94.166.45 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the things we've talked vaguely about doing on Empty Space is a FAQ. This forum could be used in part to generate ideas for that. I have no real idea what things people might want to know about me, or the books, or about specific books like Light. I'm always being asked questions--quite basic ones, to do with chronology for instance--I can't answer because I've actually never thought about them. Reviewers and interviewers are always getting the dates wrong, and I never correct them because nothing ever directs my attention. That sort of thing. date=09.06.2003 03:15 ip=213.78.89.121 name=Martin Maw mail=martin.maw@oup.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: What a great looking site - thank you.

Mike: Are there plans yet to republish "Climbers" or "The Course of the Heart" in paperback? I keep recommending these amazing novels to friends and they, in turn, keep getting blank looks in Borders. So any developments would be welcome news! date=09.06.2003 04:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin. Yes, plans are now afoot to reprint Climbers as a Phoenix paperback. The Committed Men will come back into print as a Gollancz Fantasy Masterwork. And it looks possible that The Course of the Heart and Signs of Life may also see the light of day again as part of the same republishing schedule. I can't give dates, I'm afraid, since the process is at the very beginning: but I'll post concrete developments on Empty Space News as and when they occur. date=09.06.2003 06:03 ip=213.78.72.180 name=martin maw mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Great news - thank you!

Then again, I know someone who used to live in Tib Street, and was never quite the same after reading about Lucas and his "familiar" in the fruit market ... :) date=09.06.2003 06:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers, Martin!

Also: I've added a "back" button which goes back to the main site. date=10.06.2003 07:29 ip=158.94.166.45 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Savoy reinstated--thank you sirs! Good stuff, iotar, I approve the lack of colour (!) and the complete absence (should that be empty space?) of Flash iniquities. It'd be nice to see some more book jackets, paperback v. hardback and so on.

John date=10.06.2003 18:47 ip=80.40.24.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers John! Yes, this year's look is all simple flat greys, rectangular boxes and simple functionality. I think we initially wanted to have a bare minimum of stuff on the site - as far as covers goes: just the current two.

But yes, we might well expand and put more covers and content on the site, so keep coming back! date=11.06.2003 02:28 ip=158.94.166.45 name=Martin Maw mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone intrigued by the review of "China" in the Empty Space archive should also see the interview with Alan Wall in the current issue of "The Third Alternative" : thoughts on everything from Dawkins to Dylan, and the melancholic as modern subversive. date=11.06.2003 02:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Yes, I enjoyed that interview - almost made me go out and buy more books. Perhaps even *read* them?

Also: NOTICE TO ALL USERS - It has come to my attention that a glitch in the program that runs this forum. It will display the page as white, plain vanilla text without formatting. I haven't actually seen the error myself - but if you see it: please email me. Thanks! date=11.06.2003 03:19 ip=158.94.166.45 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Martin: Yes, I enjoyed that interview - almost made me go out and buy more books. Perhaps even *read* them?

Also: NOTICE TO ALL USERS - It has come to my attention that there is a glitch in the program that runs this forum. It will display the page as white, plain vanilla text without formatting. I haven't actually seen the error myself - but if you see it: please email me. Thanks!
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Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=11.06.2003 03:19 ip=158.94.166.45 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw it several times, but I haven't seen it today. I was able to get rid of it by toggling back & forth a couple of times. That cured everything but the voice of the BVM, who told me to do things I didn't want to do. date=11.06.2003 10:05 ip=213.78.90.163 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh Mike, how many times do I have to tell you? Follow the voice of the BVM - you might not want to, but that's just yr protestant ethic getting in the way.

And it's certainly better than following the BMW. date=11.06.2003 10:49 ip=213.122.85.99 name=Martin Maw mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No vanilla text so far - and no BVM, either!

Perhaps you should add her to "Links" ... date=12.06.2003 02:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It might be a Mac Internet Explorer specific problem. Yr not using a Mac are you, Martin? Pending further investigations and hoping for the intercession on the BVM driving a BMW up Holloway Road. date=12.06.2003 03:38 ip=158.94.166.45 name=Martin Maw mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Windows PC, not a Mac, so you could well be right.

The BMV in the Holloway Road: Arthur Machen or Charles Williams would have quailed at describing that, Io!

No sign of a divine intercession here in sunny Oxford - maybe the angels got emphysema from hanging around with C.S. Lewis. That, or they ended up bewildered at the park & ride. date=12.06.2003 04:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, it looks like the White Glitch has subsided. WE give thanks that so many were spared. date=13.06.2003 02:09 ip=158.94.166.45 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Got the paperwork this morning Zali. Ta. date=13.06.2003 07:58 ip=213.78.90.45 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool. date=13.06.2003 08:37 ip=158.94.166.45 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I finished the first draft of a short story I've been working on for three years. This isn't unusual for me, but it made me think about something else, which is that it contains--indeed it's based on--material dating back to 1995. "Gifco" (2000) was made from material collected between 1988 & 1991, then worked on steadily from 1991 to 1997. "Entertaining Angels Unawares" (2002) used material collected in 1990; while "The East" (1996) had a paragraph or two first written in 1974. I've always done this. I still have material I've been working with since the late 70s in Holmfirth. I'm not giving up on it just yet.

At the other extreme, "Science & the Arts" (1997) was composed in four days from material collected across that time (including an email to Judith Clute). date=19.06.2003 02:07 ip=213.78.81.139 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Been thinking about some of this lately: the relationship between the artist and their notebooks. I'm reading Durrell's Monsieur at the moment and large portions of Sutcliffe's narrative are in the form of extracts from his notebooks, weaving back and forth, occasionally the narrator comes into the present and describes the scene out of the window, or the novel he is working on, giving the illusion of a writer "keeping their hand in" between serious writing.

He thinks about how he might use events happening in his "real life" in his novel: he and his protagonist swap names, echo back and forth pulling a trail of friends real and imagined through the mirror Venice of 19--.

In fact the whole novel has the feeling that it was written in one single mammoth session. Durrell's scenes merge and collide, narrators switch mid-chapter - I hardly noticed that over four or five long chapters the narrative switches from first person through third, into a different third and back into first but with a different first person narrator.

As with the Alexandria books, Durrell makes enormous shifts in his sense of truth and authority: between Justine and Balthazar we are shown different pathways through the same events and in Mountolive the narrative switches to the third playing a counter-melody to the first two novels. It is only in Clea that we see any real progression.

Ah well, this will test making longer entries on this forum! date=19.06.2003 05:43 ip=158.94.162.90 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Working from journals & notebooks & (especially) pre-worked material is just so satisfying. There's a sense of editing the finished thing into being rather than writing it. Also, of working not so much with fiction as with whatever nonfiction form lies nearest to it at the time--the anecdote, the memoir, the travel book and so on. I love Durrell's overt layering of author, narrator and narrator implied by the text. Also, of course, I'd be a sucker for the notion that even (or especially) reality is as subject to versioning as any fiction. All this is reminding me how much my fictional techniques owe to nonfiction. My ideal would be to write something completely fictional but undistinguishable from the one-off autobiography of a non-writer. Not clever enough, unfortunately. date=19.06.2003 06:10 ip=213.78.84.197 name=Martin Maw mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The relationship's very interesting. You get Coleridge, who noted everything and used only scraps, to Isherwood, mining his journals relentlessly and letting nothing go to waste. Or Burroughs, pasting up notebooks with cut-ups and waiting for the future to leak through the fractures: a quantum exercise on paper.

As for speed of writing, Leonard Cohen tells that sobering story about comparing notes with Bob Dylan: Dylan revealed he'd completed a six-verse epic in fifteen minutes, whereas Cohen had agonised over his own song "Hallelujah" for three years. So it depends on whether you use notes as a trigger, an archive, or a quasi-magickal device in Burroughs's sense before you get a result from them. Intention seems to be the thing.

Needless to say, the authors who raise the most questions about their sources and experiences - such as Aickman or Machen - are also the ones who have left little or no private traces behind them. A working notebook on "The Hill of Dreams" would make extraordinary reading. date=19.06.2003 06:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I guess this is mainly a first person problem - what with being fictionalised autobiography. When you start to notice that all of a writer's narrators observe the world through the same eyes, and express it similarly it becomes difficult to suspend disbelief. The voice that a writer has developed for themself becomes a hindrance - or perhaps this is only the case if verisimillitude and a seamless illusion are desirable or even possible. But then again the omniscient narrator is a fairly hefty imposition to place on the reader. date=19.06.2003 06:39 ip=158.94.162.90 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh hello, Martin! Didn't see you! You must've been writing at the same time as me. date=19.06.2003 06:41 ip=158.94.162.90 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Needless to say, the authors who raise the most questions about their sources and experiences - such as Aickman or Machen - are also the ones who have left little or no private traces behind them.

Oh yes, I think you have to destroy your notebooks and disappear. The process is the thing: but the artefact should be all that's left. A reliable executor is someone who sees the beauty of the Tarkovskian bonfire in the rainy back garden. date=19.06.2003 07:34 ip=213.78.81.156 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tarkovsky filming "The Aspern Papers"! If only.

Readers' expectations are slippery stuff. I've always enjoyed things pulled inside out and gone hybrid (once upon a time, Kate Bush might have starred in a Jerry Cornelius film ...), but it's plain that what you once called "the literature of comfort" thrives on in Middle Earth. Reading the Cheryl Morgan interview, and comments from people who actively ached to be the White Cat, I wonder how wary any author should be of forums like these. Readers are suddenly less over your shoulder than at your elbow - and you should be allowed 3 or 5 years to finish a story without an on-line community badgering, pushing for genre stereotypes, or even saying "Seria Mau - why, it's my story exactly!"

But perhaps you've already received letters in green ink, signed "the Shrander" ... :) date=19.06.2003 08:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But perhaps you've already received letters in green ink, signed "the Shrander"

I have, Martin, I have. But I think my girlfriend sent them, so that's ok. date=19.06.2003 08:58 ip=213.78.81.156 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: my apologies. I didn't acknowledge your post back at 6:41.

No worries! date=19.06.2003 11:12 ip=212.126.153.229 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hunter S Thompson, KINGDOM OF FEAR. I am absolutely mad for this book, if only because of the photo on page 171. “Road testing the Ducatti 900, 1995”. Thompson has always had good taste in motorcycles, ever since, for his adventures with Hell’s Angels, he chose a Triumph Bonneville over the huge, slow, ugly Harley Davidson. When the Angels turned on him in the end, and beat him to a pulp, it was as much for this act of cultural criticism as anything else. It's his preference for something that goes properly rather than something that only *looks* iconic, that makes him a superior cultural commentator to Tom Wolfe. Wolfe has bought it all, as his most recent novel proved: Thompson is still an observer. date=21.06.2003 09:07 ip=213.78.92.171 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... not forgetting the Vincent Black Shadow - "I ride the big ones!"

I haven't caught up with "Kingdom" yet, but I'd take Thompson over the Man in the White Suit any time. I've always wondered if Wolfe went the whole way with "Electric Kool Aid," and took the acid test himself. But I think we can guess the answer. It's one of those books like Emmet Grogan's "Ringolevio" that seem simply too hip to be true.

The on-line publicity for "Kingdom" makes a quote: "I'm a dangerous man: I'm a patriot." Unlikely bedfellows, but you can say the same for Orwell. Had the real Mr. Blair lived, he and Thompson might have had a lot to say to each another.

Finally, if no one's seen it, Thompson has a regular column at espn.com, page 2. In Bush's Flatland, this is probably the best work anyone can do - short of handing out opposable thumbs. date=21.06.2003 13:17 ip=212.126.153.87 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wolfe ended up as style journalist to the East Coast rich; while Thompson has remained... well, gonzo, I suppose. I'm enjoying the new one--probably hasn't hurt that I picked it up straight after Robert Sabbag's equally funny but much more disciplined boys' own adventure Smoke Screen. date=22.06.2003 10:39 ip=213.78.67.225 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yesterday's "Observer" decided it didn't like Thompson at all - which makes reading his book all the more tempting. Opening the paper wasn't a complete waste of time, though. One of its columnists remarked "Spanish is pronounced the way it is spoken." Can't argue with that. date=23.06.2003 01:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail=alex@portfoliodesign.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just finished a mammoth immersion in MJH novels, starting with Signs Of Life, then The Course Of The Heart (now that was a bugger to track down), then Travel Arrangements... thank you Mr. Harrison. My head is done in (can't think of a more elegant way of putting it).
I'm extremely interested in some of the ideas. How much, if at all, do you want to talk about things like that? date=26.06.2003 07:51 ip=81.136.140.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. Glad you enjoyed the books; also that you managed to find a copy of The Course of the Heart, even after a struggle... You say: "I'm extremely interested in some of the ideas. How much, if at all, do you want to talk about things like that?" That would probably depend on which ideas they were. date=26.06.2003 09:00 ip=213.78.80.242 name=Alex mail=alex@portfoliodesign.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, sure. Actually, some of the questions I would have asked have been answered perfectly adequately in one of the interviews mentioned on your website - particularly regarding the theme of unfulfilled desire. One of the other recurring ideas I percieve in your work is to do with landscape and place, but I can't make up my mind whether I read it as a 'psychogeographical' exploration or more of a kind of M.R. Jamesian 'genius loci' idea. Maybe they are the same thing. Any thoughts?
There are plenty of other things I could ask, but I'm not entirely sure what this forum is for and I certainly don't want to poke or prod! date=27.06.2003 01:08 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Alex mail=alex@portfoliodesign.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just a small point, but would it not be useful to have an edit function here so that people can avoid embarrasing themselves with typos (like I just did)? date=27.06.2003 01:11 ip=81.136.140.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. I don't entirely understand psychogeography, so I guess it's not that. On the other hand, I've had a strong sense of genius loci, geographical mood, since I was very small. When I started to write, I felt that everything in the story should come up out of the landscape--character, narrative, the lot. You can feel that intention very clearly in most of the 80s stuff. It is admitted outright in "The Quarry", theorised in "The Gift", and its biographical roots are described at the beginning of The Course of the Heart. I've always written about where I live, where I am. It's something I have to do: exploratory and orientational at the same time. No specific landscape is obsessive, it's the need to feel my way into them that seems to be important. Very Wordsworth. Very pantheist. It's linked with that central subject matter--desire--but I don't want to know how. That link goes back a long way, and I wouldn't want to break it by tinkering. date=27.06.2003 02:22 ip=213.78.82.155 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well that makes perfect sense, and I think the sense of place that comes out of your work is partly why I find it so resonant with me. For example, the house under the dripping cliff in The Course Of The Heart seems to be a particular house I've seen on (I think) the Todmorden-Hebden road. It might not have been the one you were thinking of, of course. I knew quarries were haunted before I read what you had written, and so on. I've been trying desperately to write a story about a place called Barton Moss because I travelled and wandered across it many times: my research into the area has born out my intuition that it is a special place. It has a story, and I'm just waiting for it to reveal itself. Like you, I'm not sure what 'psychogeography' is trying to do, but it seems to mean 'something'. date=27.06.2003 03:02 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Psychogeography" puzzles me, too. I first noticed it in Iain Sinclair's work, with his references to "the London Psychogeographical Association." This conjured up wonderful impressions of a hermetic order of the National Trust - but I'm still none the wiser about its true definition. Sinclair seems to mean constructing the history of a place through history, text and personal intuition - which fits what you're discussing to a T! date=27.06.2003 06:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sinclair is probably the person most associated with psychogeography, but it's bigger than that, and the concept relates back to the Situationist International. There are various psychogeographical associations, I believe. It's all to do with the idea that there is *something else* behind the most banal things in life.
I read somewhere that there's a bunch of people who undertake walks around cities using maps of *other* cities, and noting coincidences and similarities. Sounds like fun, but that's probably all it is! date=27.06.2003 06:31 ip=81.136.140.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If there's "something else" behind the quotidian, we put it there. It layers up almost by accident, as texts (I'd use that broadly, any artefact being a text or part of one). I'm all in favour of that, also of putting it there consciously--making collages of old texts, superimposing texts across one another in a random or personal way, just to see what happens. That reminds me of Forced Entertainment, or Claire McDonald's work, or Burroughs and "magical intervention". But it also reminds me of, say, Proust or Machen. In fact isn't most fiction written like that ? Hand on heart, most authors would have to admit that the ordering principal of what they write is their own personality, their own history, their own hidden metaphysic, developed since childhood ? Mapped out--indeed, trodden out--on to the world, or what seems to be the world, in an attempt to (re)claim it. That seems to me to be one of the basic gestures of art. date=27.06.2003 06:55 ip=213.78.79.2 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So, like the guys who go walking with different maps, you overlay your 'real' experience with an imagined one, and the result is art. It's a Dadaist old life.
I take it you don't really believe in the Pleroma then? date=27.06.2003 07:42 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Situationists, gnostics, Platonists - a fundamental intuition. When someone happens to strike it in a popular sense (the breeze from 'home' in "Wind in the Willows" or the whole plot-line of "The Matrix" ) there's a vast response: even if we're just imagining a pleroma when science points to a void pricked by the odd quark. I think the Situationists tried to make that "something" show itself through the Spectacle by taking walks through Paris that followed the shape of a name, and noting any interesting phenomena en route.

Writing as collage and reclamation: anyone who's tried it would nod. You mix the conversation at the bus stop this morning with what your girlfriend said to you at Christmas, paste in brand names that caught your eye or details from a dream, and see if the construct takes on some momentum and reveals its possibilities. It makes a good parallel with the Situationists' activity: an unconscious detour through potentially "magical" territory that allows you to force the hand of chance and draw a fresh map for yourself.

Anything beyond the quotidian seems to come from our wishful thinking - which leads back to the question of speculative fiction, the dynamic it sets up with that projection, and authors' responsibilities around it. I suspect this one will run and run ... As Tarkovsky got mentioned in previous posts, though, there's that haunting poem in his book on film-making, "Sculpting in Time," which voices the inutition perfectly: "Now summer is gone/And might never have been/In the sunlight it's warm/But there has to be more." You could tell a lot about a person from the stress they put on that final verb. date=27.06.2003 07:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The search for the 'other' - or perhaps the imagining of 'otherness' - is pretty well wired into our genes. The great thing is, we can't really tell whether there is anything 'other'. There might be. I've been wondering recently who the people are who place adverts saying "Thanks to Saint X for prayers answered." They must think their prayers have been answered, so maybe they have. Does faith create its own reality? date=27.06.2003 08:00 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always wondered whether those ads weren't code for something else entirely - lunch-time adultery, or public snippets from the secret state. Perhaps that says more about my sense of the "other" than it does about the adverts themselves!

Faith must condition intuitive reality - it was literally unthinkable to the Inquistion that Galileo was right. But even Maoist physicists acknowledged that their work owed more to Einstein than Marx. You can only defy scientific reality so far, although some politicians seem to be doing a very good job of it where evidence of global warming's concerned. date=27.06.2003 08:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The ads are secret codes! Then perhaps the ones which say "Ask Saint X for your desire, say five Hail Marys, kill a cat and promise publication" are secret instructions too. It makes just as much sense as any other explanation, perhaps more. date=27.06.2003 08:21 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Five Hail Marys for publication? Sounds fair enough to me. And this is the second time the BVM has made a guest appearance on this forum : it must Mean Something.

But kill a cat? Not even "Finnegans Wake" to your name would be worth that!

The Barton Moss story, though - hopefully we can all read it soon, without you resorting to either voodoo or personals in "The Daily Telegraph"! - :)) date=27.06.2003 08:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll tell you why I must write the Barton Moss story: I discovered that there is a story that Guy Fawkes was staying at nearby Ordsall Hall and made an escape across Barton Moss. The story was probably made up by Harrison Ainsworth, but no matter. Additionally, there was a fireworks factory on the Moss early in the 20th Century: the owner managed to blow up his own factory, and himself with it. That coincidence is enough to interest me, but there's a wealth of other interesting things about the Moss. I'd better go and write it I suppose. date=27.06.2003 08:53 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, you should! That coincidence - or psychogeographical collage, or whatever - sounds too promising to ignore, so do it! date=27.06.2003 09:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Finished Kingdom of Fear. A bit disappointed by it in the end. You expect him to be incoherent but focussed. Here he's just incoherent. Plenty of great stuff washed down in the shitstream, though, including an incident in which he claims to have brained a mountain lion with a ball pein hammer after discovering it in the back seat of his car while trying to put out "a newspaper fire". date=28.06.2003 04:31 ip=213.78.83.172 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I enjoyed it, too - hardened commuters blanched and scattered like vermin (sorry, his style's inimitable, but catching ) as I opened it at random, started to read the letter from his would-be Turkish bride, and spent the next few minutes in uncontrollable hysterics. You're right about the mountain lion story as well: prose doesn't get much closer to pure cartoon mayhem.

Added point in his favour: that photo opposite p.336, where Thompson displays the zen gravitas and stylish dignity that so many of us have fruiitlessly pursued across the decades ... date=29.06.2003 12:12 ip=212.126.153.59 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I haven't caught up with Hunter S. for many years; I associate reading him with what I now see as a rather pretentious phase in my life - although it's proably pretentious *not* to read him for the same reason!
However I have been reading another Thompson this weekend: Rupert T. It must be the third or fourth time I've read The Book of Revelation and I find it excellent every time. Any opinions? date=30.06.2003 01:02 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just a small point, but would it not be useful to have an edit function here so that people can avoid embarrasing themselves with typos (like I just did)? date=30.06.2003 03:48 ip=158.94.148.254 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just a small point, but would it not be useful to have an edit function here so that people can avoid embarrasing themselves with typos (like I just did)?

Alex: Yes, I can edit messages if you want anything changed or removed. But I think we all tend to make a few typos when posting quickly so it's not really all *that* embarassing? Did I spell embarassing right?

*sigh* date=30.06.2003 03:49 ip=158.94.148.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, let's not worry about a few tyops then. date=30.06.2003 03:57 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If it's good enough for the Grauniad... date=30.06.2003 04:12 ip=212.111.58.162 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely. After I posted my last message, I saw I'd written "fruiitlessly."

Just proof my i-sight is going, I suppose. date=30.06.2003 04:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My most common typo is typing "today" as "toady". Fortunately I always notice it before it causes offence, or at least I think I do. date=30.06.2003 07:14 ip=158.94.148.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mine is typing 'the' as 'teh'. I've noticed a lot of other people do this as well. Must be an affliction of two-finger typists. And I can never spell 'rembember'.
Anyway, less of this. Wet weather wear for cats: wellies or galoshes? date=30.06.2003 07:40 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Neil mail=nayres@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.fragmentmagazine.co.uk text=Hi all,

Just stumbled across this from your email, Zali. Hadn't realised Empty Space had been redesigned.

Typos pre-posting numbered three. I wish there were some night classes for that 'teh' thing. I must have wasted about five years of my life deleting the blighter. date=01.07.2003 05:17 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just been reading about Austin Osman Spare's theory of sigils. It's a (magickal) system of rooting a wish or desire into the unconscious by creating a symbol of it, then burning it into the mind at, say, the point of orgasm or blackout. Then you forget it, leaving the unconscious mind to work unimpeded by the conscious. Interesting: I wonder if you can get stories that way. date=01.07.2003 05:48 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Spare's sigil ideas have evolved into what they call chaos magic: basically a mix'n'pick of any and all magic systems and gods and whatnot. As for being a way to do stories, Grant Morrison based his whole Invisibles comic series around chaos magic. He made Invisibles to be a spell to make more Invisibles (and seeing the similarities between the Invisibles and the Matrix, some say it worked...). Towards the end of the first series, sales weren't that good, so Morrison organised a mass wank-a-thon, getting his readers to focus on the sigil he created, and *ahem* "power it up" to keep the book going. date=01.07.2003 06:55 ip=203.220.214.246 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I should've mentioned for those that didn't know that masturbation, like trancing out and fasting and dancing, is one way to build up a kind of magic charge, that is then released at the moment of orgasm. The 'wank-a-thon' wasn't *just* a group of fanboys going the fiddle over a funny book (and no, that was before I started to read the Invisibles... ;) ) date=01.07.2003 07:04 ip=203.220.214.246 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, since someone else got rich from The Matrix, I guess he was a little unfocused with his sigilising... date=01.07.2003 07:11 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't a lot of sigils turn out as primitive creations in themselves? Like where you try to fill a piece of paper with a word denoting the object of yr desires. I guess that's true of the Wank-a-thon too but it'd be in the realm of the plasmic rather than the plastic arts. date=01.07.2003 07:11 ip=158.94.153.241 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Didn't a lot of sigils turn out as primitive creations in themselves? Like where you try to fill a piece of paper with a word denoting the object of yr desires. I guess that's true of the Wank-a-thon too but it'd be in the realm of the plasmic rather than the graphic arts.
--------------------

Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=01.07.2003 07:11 ip=158.94.153.241 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: There was a time when Morrison was threatening to sue the Matrix people, but then figured his spell had worked...

Io: The hand-drawn sigil thing is a mainstay of modern chaos theory. Write down your intent, remove all repeating words (and in some cases, all vowels) and make a shape out of the remaining letters. There's your sigil. There's a book called City Magick (inspired by Morrison's comic), and it goes so far as to figure graffiti is a form of sigilisation...
... which, when you look at those damned golden arches (should I have put a 'TM' after that?), maybe sigils ARE everywhere. date=01.07.2003 07:25 ip=203.220.214.246 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But I guess one of the most potent forms of sigil at the moment has to be the authorised signature. I can obtain goods and services that I desire in return for that little sigil on a till receipt.

Only problem is the resulting headaches caused by not merely karmic but also financial debt. date=01.07.2003 07:30 ip=158.94.153.241 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember reading in some daft self-help book that when writing a cheque you should write on the back: "I bless and release this money that it may return to me a thousand fold." It's the same kind of thing. I'm still waiting... date=01.07.2003 07:57 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, I wonder if Peter Hammill's monogram is a sigil. date=01.07.2003 07:58 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funnily enough, I was flicking through that City Magick book the other day, in the shop. Looked v. intriguing - how seriously is it taken by Magick folk? Or is that even a question worth asking? So much of this seems to be deeply personal, so if it works for you, it works, and that's that. date=02.07.2003 13:41 ip=62.188.100.244 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some people say it works; some people say Christianity works, too. I don't know. Robert Anton Wilson says these things *might* work by 'non-local causality': he reckons 'weird' events such as rains of frogs might be caused by unfocused prayer, magic or wishing. I suppose we have no proof either way. date=03.07.2003 01:15 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of things that is mentioned a lot with chaos magic especially is "If it doesn't work the first time, keept at it". This, of course, is said by people who swear by it.
The very nature of chaos magic rubs a lot of traditionalists the wrong way, just by it's pick'n'mix nature. You don't have to follow a doctrine or be disciplined or worship anything if you don't want to. Prominent chaos guy Phil Hine says he's even done workings with Star Trek characters in place of the usual gods.

As for City Magick the book, well seeing as the author out and out says it's influenced by the Invisibles comic, I tend to think a lot of the serious magicky people will probably scoff. But it presents a better case than a lot of those "suburban/new age shaman" books do. He's actually got some good ideas about tings like meditation and graffiti (which Doug Rushkoff mentions in a very similar way in Children of Chaos). And again, a lot of the ideas are adapted from Invisibles (which if you listen to Morrison, tells you how to do magic anyway, the first issue being an initiation for one of the characters), where a lot of Morrison's ideas were adapted from other sources. Some are cool though, like Electric Gods and the strange god Ixat... date=03.07.2003 02:22 ip=203.220.215.85 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of my neighbours, Gyrus, used to be the editor of Towards 2012. There are various articles of his on his new(ish) norlonto website: http://www.norlonto.net

There's an interview with Phil Hine on there: http://norlonto.net/index.cfm/action/interviews.view/itemID/74 date=03.07.2003 02:43 ip=213.122.199.191 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just read - and enjoyed - that Phil Hine interview. I wonder what makes it more interesting than reading an interview with a CofE vicar talking about his practices. I suppose it's the rock'n'roll nature of the whole Chaos thing - it's old stuff, repackaged, n'est-ce pas? date=03.07.2003 04:59 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was flicking through a strange old book last night which purports to be a medical/scientific work by Aristotle (but which almost certainly is not). It mentions that the reason birds don't urinate is that all the moisture in their bodies is turned into feathers. Thought that was nice. date=04.07.2003 00:55 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll have to get around to reading the interview. What an awful neighbour I am, eh?

Ever come across barnacle geese? Not the real ones - but the mythical ones that grow from driftwood. Always suspected a lot of geese were made of wood. date=04.07.2003 02:13 ip=213.122.186.85 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar - that thing about the geese is exactly my cup of tea. Must investigate.
Incidentally, I downloaded the sample mp3 from your site. Is the rest of the CD like that? It seems to have things in common with the music I do. date=04.07.2003 02:41 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a dream when I was about five or six that described the life cycle of barnacle geese so I was very freaked when I read about them years later.

The CD does a number of different styles. But if yr interested: email me at the address indicated on that box to the left and we'll do a swap. date=04.07.2003 02:54 ip=213.122.123.153 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Always suspected a lot of geese were made of wood.

I just re-read that. It makes some kind of horrible sense. Made me think of David Thomas and The Wooden Birds.
Ovid wrote about how earthworms were caused by the action of rain on soil.
Will send email in a while re CD. date=04.07.2003 03:24 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.fragmentmagazine.co.uk text=Of course, you could always check out the review on Fragment ;)

I only found out a while back that barnacles - as opposed to barnacle geese - are actually rather interesting. Darwin spent years studying them. They were thought to be asexual and self-reproducing, but he proved that some had developed genders and supposed that this might be a good indicator of how the sexes developed. date=04.07.2003 03:27 ip=194.129.50.189 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, that'd make sense wouldn't it? You see those worm shaped fillets of earth around wormholes. Presumably they're just worms that haven't become animate yet.

There's a good article of barnacle geese (aka Ephemerus) in Barber & Riches Dictionary of Fabulous Beasts but I'm afraid it's just too long to copy out. Maybe when I get back from the weekend... date=04.07.2003 03:32 ip=213.122.123.153 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've long been keen on Boring Bivalves. Barnacle sex... now there's a thing. date=04.07.2003 03:34 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've long been keen on Boring Bivalves. Barnacle sex... now there's a thing. date=04.07.2003 03:38 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely right, Neil. I think there are links all over my site too! Anyway, anything else about my stuff shd probably migrate to my forum on Dusksite http://www.dusksite.ukgo.com/forum_viewtopic.php?4.11 so that this board can be free for discussion of MJH's books and barnacles and suchlike.

Alex: Apparently the fact that barnacle geese were born from rotting wood rather than eggs was evidence for medieval theologians that the immaculate conception was entirely reasonable.

Anyway, must hop off the Oxford! date=04.07.2003 03:45 ip=213.122.123.153 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Absolutely right, Neil. I think there are links all over my site too! Anyway, anything else about my stuff shd probably migrate to my forum on Dusksite http://www.dusksite.ukgo.com/forum_viewtopic.php?4.11 so that this board can be free for discussion of MJH's books and barnacles and suchlike.

Alex: Apparently the fact that barnacle geese were born from rotting wood rather than eggs was evidence for medieval theologians that the immaculate conception was entirely reasonable.

Anyway, must hop off to Oxford!
Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=04.07.2003 03:45 ip=213.122.123.153 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MHJ - been having heated debate about TCoH. Opponent says it's the best book about magic he's read. I maintain that it's not *about* magic. Do you find, especially now there's a surge of interest in your work from people who started with Light, that people see the fantasy aspect and don't get the meat of it? date=04.07.2003 04:46 ip=81.136.140.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: CotH. I guess it both is & isn't about magic. It's about desire and self-deception; but the magic I made up or modified to act as a medium for and a metaphor of desire & self-deceeption, is as interesting and genuinely magical as I could make it. I was interested in your talk about what you call Chaos magic (posts below), because my characters have been doing that kind of magic since about 1976 with the story "The Incalling" (which can be found in the recent collection Things That Never Happen). Characters from that short story appear in both Light and CotH. I think of it as Sprake Family Magic, a collision between urban objects and the misprisioned methods of Crowley et al (including masturbatory magic). I also think of it as failed, or at very best undependable. date=04.07.2003 06:39 ip=62.188.130.126 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: the idea of failed or undependable magic has a lot to do with The Monkey's Paw idea - you must be as precise as you can because the probelm with magic seems not to be that it may not work, but that it may work in a way you had not predicted. For example, a person might work some magic in order to receive a lot of money, only to find that the money comes from an inheritance due to a terrible and unwanted death.
Incidentally, I read somewhere that The Great God Pan was previously uncollected, but I read it in an anthology of horror stores ages ago.. .I think! Am I right? date=04.07.2003 07:54 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Undependable" is the word. I'd side with Alex: magnificent though CotH is, I've never read it as "about" magic. Whenever I've discussed it, I've described it as a book about illusion and evasion, and living with the consequences of over-investment in those areas when you out-grow their frail, adolescent appeal. That's why the epilogue is so moving, and Lucas's fate (does he ever accept the Goddess on her own terms? Does he find some physical analogue to the Coeur, or simply disappear into the chaos of the former Eastern Bloc? ) so tantalising.

Then again, the Sprake Family meets the Cray Sisters: can we wait for the fabulous sequel ..? date=04.07.2003 08:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the things I love about the book is that I can believe quite happily that the magical events and manifestations *do* happen to the protagonists, but there's a little devil hidden between the lines whispering: "don't believe it." It makes me profoundly uneasy: the book haunts me. date=04.07.2003 08:22 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed - you can't gainsay the white couple, or Lucas's familiar, or the narrator's experiences as Sprake's acolyte. But what haunts me is less than the apparitions is Sprake's remark about Lucas: that he'll end up a lost middle-aged man looking into shop windows after dark, because he's never accepted he's really alive and therefore has no sense of himself. That's literally too close for comfort: any of us could see ourselves in that image, and shy away. So I suppose this is the real "chaos magic" in the book - it operates both on the characters and the reader, and gives us something we never expected when we started to read. date=04.07.2003 08:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You're right. I think MJH could clean up if he wrote The Little Book Of Panic ;)
As for being aware that one is alive, the problem with that is that I'm sure few of us can decide what being alive *is* if we look it squarely in the face. Burroughs wrote about 'seeing what is on the end of the fork'. It's a fork with too many prongs. date=04.07.2003 09:01 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes to all that, Alex. Life as a fork with two many prongs - I'll think about that for quite a while!

I like the idea of the Little Book of Panic, too - but I think Ramsey Campbell might just beat MJH to it ...

Going back to CotH, though - you can read it as what happens when someone's desperate to find out what life "is," only to discover that the answer is unbearable. It makes me think of Louis Macneice's poem, "Snow" - "World is crazier and more of it than we think/Incorrigibly plural." Looking at the snow and rose imagery MacNeice used, in fact, I wonder if Mike had this at the back of his mind when he wrote the novel. date=04.07.2003 15:21 ip=212.126.153.247 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, the 'huge roses'. You might be right. Can't look at damn roses now without worrying about the scent... date=05.07.2003 07:55 ip=82.36.131.26 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always liked MacNeice. But there were lots of other inputs, most of them experiential. From the first sentence to the last, CotH is built up with layer after layer of personal mythology, applied like glazes to a canvas. Snow and roses are in my life--and in the lives of a million others--as well as Louis MacNeice's! Someone in Signs of Life describes snowflakes as large as coins: snowflakes as large as coins, falling very slowly past a window in the night, that's one of my first memories. If I were to try and list the experiential inputs to CotH I'd be here all day. date=06.07.2003 12:45 ip=213.78.166.169 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't argue with that, MJH. I think one of the nice things about the book is that it is, to me, ultimately 'unknowable' (as is, if you subscribe to hermeneutics, all writing!) But I was wondering about the roses - is there any explicit link to the idea of 'taking time to smell the roses' in there? date=07.07.2003 00:39 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the roses have Sufi, Rosicrucian and of course medieval (not to mention modern) romantic associations. They're getting a tad tatty at this time of year though. date=07.07.2003 01:17 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tatty roses smell deliciously decadent though. date=07.07.2003 01:58 ip=81.136.140.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, iotar's right. But the writer applies references as below, like a succession of glazes. The effect is a bit like the central theme of Light: whatever you look for, you find. There's always more, always more after that. The things I wrote in the 80s (I include CotH in that) were as supersaturated with reference as with argument, image, character and narrative. The system was designed to be as complex as possible in terms of the parts interacting with each other, the reader and the whole that emerged from the operation of reading. So it's not possible or desirable to pick one image or interpretive moment and describe it as central. Although of course there are obvious broad themes keyed by major suites of reference, the hope was always that reader-weighting would shift and personalise them. You bring your own life to the text, just as I did. That's why reference is so unimportant, even in such an obviously referential fiction as mine. I think that paradox is a very powerful driver. date=07.07.2003 03:06 ip=213.78.73.102 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, I get what you're saying. I think the book is probably among my favourites in terms of lasting interest and depth: it's like a good wine, with layers of flavour and subtle nuance. Talking about it with others is like tasting the wine with different foods: other flavours reveal themselves. Apologies for the rather heavy handed analogy!
It's interesting in itself to be able to question the author: how do you feel about this whole process of exposing yourself like this? date=07.07.2003 03:19 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An utterly unknowable book, which is why we're drawn back to it. I suppose one parallel with re-reading CotH is that superb remark about the "forbidden" feeling of watching heavy snow come down: if you could only stick with it long enough, all the mysteries would become clear. Slacking your way to enlightenment!

As an aside, Tartarus Press have just published another "unknowable" book, Arthur Machen and A.E. Waite's "The House of the Hidden Light." Previously a rare and hermetic text, this has been revealed as "a coded record of Machen and Waite's nocturnal adventures around London." Further details about Tartarus are online www.tartaruspress.com date=07.07.2003 03:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My current idea on the CotH, or rather the one that came to me during last night's bout of insomnia, is that the three central characters have lost the Pleroma by trying to locate it specifically in a time and place where their lives were fuller. The gate was never closed, they could have returned to the garden whenever they chose but their sense of fallen-ness, even their feeling that they had to remain within each other's gravity holds them in their state of decline.

Perhaps it is the density of the narrator that locks the other two. Pam is haunted by the ghostly twins and Lucas by his destructive kobold, while the narrator is actually haunted by Pam and Lucas - he could and perhaps should have moved away into his own life, left this fleeting epiphany behind and found the Pleroma (sparks in everything) within the world but he lacked the courage or the self-confidence.

But then again, perhaps this distance from the world was what they really wanted: a fractured drama of unfulfilled dreams.

Like in the Young Man's Journey to London, or Light: a moments hesitation and all is lost. Either they didn't break through to Viriconium, they were all caught between the mirrors sicking up their own personalities; or perhaps they started off in the Pleroma and managed to break through into the tatty dreamworld of the late twentieth century - but it was never truly their element and they never learned how to swim. date=07.07.2003 03:31 ip=158.94.172.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=martin: Wow, that Machen and Waite text sounds interesting! Bet it's prohibitatively expensive too! date=07.07.2003 03:33 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: equally excited about book. It's a snip at £30. date=07.07.2003 03:35 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Do you think they'll let me pay in tatty late roses? Perhaps not. But then again, there's these three Cambridge students who offered me a few quid to open up a portal for them... date=07.07.2003 03:43 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: dead easy. Say you're opening the portal, then slip them some ketamine in their cocoa. That should sort the over-privileged ponces out! date=07.07.2003 03:47 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="I Was A Ketamine Ponce" - funny that Machen never got around to writing that one ... date=07.07.2003 03:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I bet Huysmans would have done a cheeky line though. date=07.07.2003 04:02 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Say you're opening the portal, then slip them some ketamine in their cocoa. That should sort the over-privileged ponces out!

Alex: I think we've worked out what *really* happened in CotH! date=07.07.2003 04:05 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not quite the same if you visualise the characters as acid techno crusties.
*Getting idea for story* date=07.07.2003 04:08 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Could even Sprake cope with 3 E'd up scallies, somewhere off the M25? It's got possibilities, Alex. date=07.07.2003 05:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pondering CotH over lunch, like you do, I made a connection with an event from about 15 years ago. Basically, I shared a flat with a couple who dabbled in the occult while doing too much speed and too many mushrooms. A Very Bad Thing Happened - one of them got sectioned, fearful of demons. The other disappeared. I wonder whether they saw the same things. I wonder if they still do! date=07.07.2003 06:07 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reminds me of the appearance of the Demiurge in the gnostic mass in Durrell's Monsieur. Everyone who is there at the mass sees him differently but this key revelation taints all of them...

That is, until Durrell upends the narrative and reveals that they're all characters in another character's novel - again! date=07.07.2003 06:20 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That kind of trick annoys me. It reminds me of the Marvel Comics appearances of The Chameleon - usually a cheap get-out for the writer. Not that I've read the Durrell - I might be doing him a disservice.
Now.. why am I uncomfortably reminded of Gentle Giant? date=07.07.2003 06:33 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bad craziness, Alex!

I first read it in the midst of devastating family bereavement, so the emotional force of the book for me is more with Pam and what follows her death than with the magick - amazing though that is. As MJH notes,you bring yourself to the text, and I still think of it as (among much else) a narrative crammed with the potentialities of loss.

Your flat-mates remind me of another image in the book, too: those scraps of paper circling the office block like butterflies around a flower. Except it's not a flower - and they're not butterflies. It's a tellingly weighted simile for the self-deceptions in the "Heart." Like its characters, your flat-mates got in too deep, too quick. But easy to say so, afterwards.

Ah, Io, Flann O'Brien's old metafiction trick! Don Quixote gave it to Borges, who got read by Malcolm Bradbury. He seems to have passed it on to a whole generation of creative writing students in Norwich, with hilarious results ... Actually, I think it's now the postmodern equivalent of "I woke up and it had all been a dream." You have to be an exceptional writer, such as Durrell or Muriel Spark, to get any fresh mileage out of it. date=07.07.2003 06:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=martin: Oh, and then once he's done that, the "author" turns out to be explaining his book to an imagined dinner guest. The reverberations and inversions of this in the second book become just too complex to chart. Durrell gets away with it because he's *that good* but yes, it's one of those tricks that most writers would be advised to steer clear of. date=07.07.2003 06:53 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry to hear that, Martin. I've seen more than my share of death of late, but even so sometimes I think that someone losing their mind is a greater loss than that caused by death, because the person you've lost is undeniably still around. Not sure what point I'm making here... date=07.07.2003 06:55 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: I'll check that book out. I just hope nothing horrible happens to the animals. date=07.07.2003 07:05 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: no point to be made. Just a lot of sympathy to you!

Io: a good trick if you can make it work, and Durrell's got the skill to do it. In lesser hands, though, it gets hackneyed very quickly.

My memory may be at fault, but I seem to remember a Penguin anthology that Bradbury edited in the '80s where several stories (often by his former students) had this self-same "amazing" plot twist. A chap could get bored; a chap did. date=07.07.2003 07:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell you what else I hate: the Lovecraft-type ending: "There's something scrabbling at the door.. I can write no more...aieeeeee!... thud!" date=07.07.2003 07:19 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Oh I *love* that sort of HPL ending! I was thinking about setting up a blog where every day's entry would end with "I can hear them coming, they're horrible claws scraping at the door, my god they've broken through, they're... Aaaaargh!" The image of someone writing the word "Aaaagh!" in their last terrified moments just does it for me.

Actually I hope the next version of Windows has a shortcut to allow you to add three dots and a shriek to the end of whatever you are writing when you get torn to pieces by Awful Somethings from the Outer Dark. date=07.07.2003 07:33 ip=158.94.172.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: Oh I *love* that sort of HPL ending! I was thinking about setting up a blog where every day's entry would end with "I can hear them coming, their horrible claws scraping at the door, my god they've broken through, they're... Aaaaargh!" The image of someone writing the word "Aaaagh!" in their last terrified moments just does it for me.

Actually I hope the next version of Windows has a shortcut to allow you to add three dots and a shriek to the end of whatever you are writing when you get torn to pieces by Awful Somethings from the Outer Dark.
Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=07.07.2003 07:33 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: I can just imagine Word pulling you up about how you spell 'aaaargh'. date=07.07.2003 07:36 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh I love that Lovecraft 'what is that hideous three lobed burning eye at the window aaaaaaaaarrrggh' thing, tho' I always wonder why the characters didn't just get the hell out of there rather than stay scribbling frantically. Does interesting things to your understanding of what the text is and how it's working.

Re - flatmates - similar thing happened with two of my flatmates, one believed herself to be possessed, the other (a very serious, very Scottish martial artist / woodsman) sorted her out in quite a spooky way. You're right about rushing headlong into that kind of thing - it really screws you up. If you go searching for new realities because you can't handle this one, you're only going to screw yourself up more.

Recently, have begun to view memory loss / pleroma as a function of it's difference from us / relative perfection (assuming it really is the gnostic pleroma). We can't even perceive it effectively with our poor, screwed up, temporal / material consciousnesses, still less remember it. And what we bring back we misunderstand, reading our flaws rather than pleromatic perfection in it. A mad dwarf child not innocent creativity etc. date=07.07.2003 07:40 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nah Zali, it'll have an irritating little paperclip that goes:

'It looks like you're writing a response to an incursion of horrific trans-dimensional monsters....'

etc date=07.07.2003 07:42 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, can't help thinking all of a sudden about the CotH characters in the light of Mephisto's speech in 'Faust':

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?

Once you've been to heaven, this life will be hell - or at least, it will be impossible to find any sort of satisfaction in it. You'll always be aware that you're deprived of the numinous. Even sadder if you can't remember heaven. date=07.07.2003 08:05 ip=212.111.58.162 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lovecraft's "ending" always divided the critics. Damon Knight ridiculed it (if anyone can find a copy, his book of reviews, "In Search of Wonder," is still one of the sharpest and funniest things anyone's ever written about the pitfalls of speculative fiction) and probably pushed Ramsey Campbell into modifying it: his protagonists' fates may be unspeakable, but they're certainly not indescribable.

Then again, the "ending" is a bit like the metafiction gag ( life's a book and - hey! - we're the characters) - you can use it once, but after that I think it gets routine. "I can't finish this tale, actually, because a three-lobed burning eye happens to be eating my head ..." No - really? date=07.07.2003 08:07 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: that's pretty spot on, but it applies to all experience, not just the heavenly. It's to do with loss of innocence too, something I'm painfully aware of as a father. date=07.07.2003 08:09 ip=81.136.140.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=martin: You start to think that maybe the author shd have considered writing the story in the third person?

Al: I'm not entirely sure that the Pleroma *is* heavenly. I think it's entirely accessible within this world - when you are in love, or in awe of natural phenomena or just young and not conscious of adult failure. It's the fact that the character's in CotH *insist* on it having happened there and then and once for ever and it's never coming back again. Same thing with Choe Ashton in SoL - this thing comes out of the essence of the world and loves you once and that's it. That's yr portion forever.

Isn't this insistence self-imposed by the characters. Saying that the gate of the garden is closed because it must be closed but we never went to look. date=07.07.2003 08:15 ip=158.94.172.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, I don't know what ages you lot are, but do you remember the Pan Books of Horror Stories? I stayed in a hotel just recently, and their bookshelf was (slightly spookily) stocked with the Pan Books, a few Dennis Wheatleys and some Angelique books. Took me right back to terrible teenage fears and lusts. Those covers! date=07.07.2003 08:21 ip=81.136.140.20 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Third person wouldn't be quite the same, somehow ... Even so, I still find HPL a genuinely disturbing writer. But maybe that's down to growing up in a docks' town and reading "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" at an impressionable age.

Pleroma: Choe's tragedy exactly, and his dilemma echoes H.G. Wells's "Door in the Wall." If, that is, he's telling Mick the truth in the first place. As MJH has him say: "We all go to a different wedding." My reality is quite distinct from yours. So his tale about Jumble Wood may be a screen for something else entirely. You can see his hunger, but not what's really behind it. He's too undependable for that. date=07.07.2003 08:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: CotH
A couple of quotes from Huanchu Daoren:
"When something happens, some harm is done."
"In matters of desire, don't get hastily involved because of easy availability; once you get involved, you will sink in deeply." date=07.07.2003 08:52 ip=81.136.140.20 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Io - well, what I've been doing is just try to be as literal minded as possible. I suppose the ultimate tragedy of the Pleroma (or their springtime experience of it) is that they can't remember what went on; so they're always comparing the rest of their lives against the imagined brilliance of that *experience*, uncomprised by any reality.

Alex - intrigued by your comment. Why do we read the loss of innocence as negative? Do you mean the loss of an innocent, trusting joy in the world? I'm not a father, so don't have the same experience of watching this. date=07.07.2003 09:35 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just thought back over my postings today and I'm basically saying: "Why can't those people in CotH just act, you know, *sensibly*?" Which is rather missing the point I guess. The fact that you only get one go at the Green Goddess (unless the fire workers go on strike again) and that you'll never see the Pleroma again gives the whole experience urgency. Otherwise you get that sort of slackness of the virtual world - the three lives and cheat pokes of reincarnation. If it's not *now*, if it's not immediate, if it's not imperative, why the fuck shd we care.

It's the consequences factor.

Al: Yes sorry, awful tendency to try to read Pleroma symbolically - rather than in terms of what it would be like if you *could* experience fullness.

Perhaps all of this is why Light is in some ways a less pessimistic novel that CotH. CotH starts with wholeness and dissipates, Light builds from dissipation through to wholeness.

Or is that enormously simplistic? date=07.07.2003 10:09 ip=213.122.201.139 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I was referring to loss of innocence in terms of the fact that once you've learned something you can't un-learn it. This is particularly noticeable as a parent. Simple example: Father Christmas. Once a child has been told he doesn't exist, and the parental deception (or collusion in the maintenance of the myth) is exposed, the child can't continue to believe. This happens in a major or minor way every day. I don't think it's necessarily negative: it's just learning after all, and as a parent you accept it with a small sadness. Childish innocence is lovely, and it makes adults remember what they've lost.
What's more disturbing these days is the way the marketeers are trying to push children to be old too soon. Teenagers now want to be 'young adults'. Ten-year-olds think of themselves as 'pre-teens'. These are marketing terms by which kids now define themselves. 'Just 17' magazine is really aimed at, and bought by, kids from 11 upwards. It tells them about sex, amongst other things about which they need not know yet. What makes me seriously worried is that the end result of such marketing activity is the ongoing (marketing based) sexualisation of young children: at the same time, panic about paedophiles has never been so high. It's a huge subject, and I could rant for hours. But maybe I've gone on enough - it's a pet hate. date=08.07.2003 00:44 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Started me thinking: does fantasy as a genre tend towards a fantasy of innocence while, for example, crime fiction is a fantasy of experience? Perhaps it's a matter of whether the reader wants to escape into a simpler world or a more complex one. Away from the troubles of the world or out of the boredom of the real world.

Well, that's my cheap dualism for the day. I think I'll have some lunch now. date=08.07.2003 04:27 ip=158.94.175.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Suspension of disbelief is a process whioch demands a kind of innocence, don't you think? To read a fantasy novel (or any other kind) is to allow yourself to be led, like a baby, wherever the author wants to take you. A degree of trust is involved. date=08.07.2003 04:44 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the least attractive things about f/sf readers is their need for immersion. Immersive fiction is not for adults, it is for children. When an adult tells a bedtime story to a child, the child is immersed but the adult is not. Immersive fiction is a form of parental care or provision. If you cling to the sensation of being immersed by the parental care, you will have difficulty acting as an adult. A story is *told*. It doesn't just happen, and pluck you out of yourself, and whirl you away. Your feeling that it can, or might, is the feeling of a child--of being caught up and supported *by someone else's effort*. The parent supplies both the sensation of flight and the soft landing. There comes a point where you have to choose whether you're going to be the writer of a text or its reader. If you try to be both you will fumble it. Career f/sf readers are a bit demanding, really, a bit like toddlers or baby birds. I'd prefer an audience which accepted that what we are engaged in here is a really delightful sham, the creation of which, proceeding as it does from both sides, is a more adult kind of immersion. Children do not contribute to the party that is thrown for them: adults do. Adults know how precarious a party is. Go to any wedding reception. date=08.07.2003 05:02 ip=213.78.89.58 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the least attractive things about f/sf readers is their need for immersion. Immersive fiction is not for adults, it is for children. When an adult tells a bedtime story to a child, the child is immersed but the adult is not. Immersive fiction is a form of parental care or provision. If you cling to the sensation of being immersed by the parental care, you will have difficulty acting as an adult. A story is *told*. It doesn't just happen, and pluck you out of yourself, and whirl you away. Your feeling that it can, or might, is the feeling of a child--of being caught up and supported *by someone else's effort*. The parent supplies both the sensation of flight and the soft landing. There comes a point where you have to choose whether you're going to be the writer of a text or its reader. If you try to be both you will fumble it. Career f/sf readers are a bit demanding, really, a bit like toddlers or baby birds. I'd prefer an audience which accepted that what we are engaged in here is a really delightful sham, the creation of which, proceeding as it does from both sides, is a more adult kind of immersion. Children do not contribute to the party that is thrown for them: adults do. Adults know how precarious a party is. Go to any wedding reception. date=08.07.2003 05:06 ip=213.78.89.58 name=Crookes mail=Crookes@gmx.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, i have a question, i would appreciate some help.
I destroyed my old deflection doll, i put it onto my big chaossphere, used the pointer and cast a spell that the doll shall be discharged and the magical connection between me and the doll should be undone. Then i went outside, broke arms, legs and head from the torso of the doll and burried it.
A day later i felt like sick and was wondering about that. A day later i still felt sick and burried out the parts of the doll. Those i burnt, but there was still one important part lost, the dick of the doll. : - )
It wasn't working normal also. I used my fetish to find the dick, and i found it, i also burnt it.
Well, could anyone tell me, if the possibility is high, that i will get out of my failure without any long term effects ?
Now i'm a little worried, not that much about my arms and legs, but more about the most important thing. : - ) date=08.07.2003 05:17 ip=62.214.32.128 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali, I seem to have duplicated that last post. Could you cut one of them ? Ta. date=08.07.2003 06:29 ip=213.78.82.27 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crookes: I'm afraid this isn't *really* a board about chaos magic and ritual. That subject just came up in relation to one of MJH's novels. I'm sure if anyone here has any insights into yr question they will email you, but I think you might be better off trying to find a more chaos magic related forum. date=08.07.2003 07:06 ip=158.94.175.174 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good luck with it though, sounds like a difficult problem. date=08.07.2003 07:35 ip=212.111.58.162 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=First the WMDs vanishing, then the devil doll's dick - it's just one damned thing after another... date=08.07.2003 07:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: the difference is, he *found* the dick. I'd like to know what happens to him though. date=08.07.2003 07:55 ip=81.136.134.160 name=crookes mail=crookes@gmx.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=ups, oke I see, thanks. : ) date=08.07.2003 08:28 ip=62.214.32.128 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good luck, Crookes! date=08.07.2003 08:46 ip=158.94.175.174 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Immersive literature baffles me, too - less a holiday from the quotidian than a desire to emigrate from it altogther. I've never understood the serious desire to devote yourself to Tolkien's invented grammars (except as some sort of clinical exercise) or to vanish into Harry Potter's world: though X million readers no doubt have a different view-point.

Perhaps Rowling will have the last laugh, though, and the series will end with Harry quitting Hogwarts for Edinburgh. He stops at a tiny cafe for lunch - only to fall instantly and passionately in love with a blonde woman he sees writing at a shadowy table in the back ... or am I letting sunlight in on the "really delightful sham" here? date=08.07.2003 08:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harry is forced to leave Hogwarts at the age of 35, after he is caught having anal sex with a consenting but clearly puzzled fourteen year old girl. After a spell in South Africa dealing diluted Aids drugs, Harry moves to Lime Key, Florida and then back to Sussex, where police interview him about a series of crude doorstepping cons on very old women. Shortly afterwards, Voldemort is shot four times in the face with a rented .22 in the parking area of a Sainsburys. Harry, brought to book on the South Bank, dies of auto-erotic strangulation at night on the London Wheel. His last words: "The magic. The magic!" date=09.07.2003 02:14 ip=213.78.76.67 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you should contact Lloyd Webber right away and cut a deal on the libretto - this has got West End written all over it! date=09.07.2003 02:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't know about HP, but make it Beatrix Potter and you've got my interest. Aways thought she was gagging for it.
MJH: have you ever thought about writing a book featuring twisted sex, random violence and people meeting terrible ends? Just an idea, like. date=09.07.2003 02:40 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Obviously I considered that, Alex, but decided my talents lay elsewhere. I must say I've never regretted my career in lifestyle journalism. date=09.07.2003 03:21 ip=213.78.170.59 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Jemima Puddleduck Does Fladge"? Difficult to get the webbed feet in the latex boots, but I'm sure the Stephen Milligan orange wouldn't look out of place.

Twisted sex, random violence, people meeting terrible ends - you want the Old Testament, Alex. Packed to the gills with the stuff. One day in Sodom, and an eternity in fire and brimstone. Bring the kids, they'll love it, etc. date=09.07.2003 03:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Old Testament: we're back on immersive fiction, then? You should meet some of the fans of that stuff - they believe the whole thing! Really! date=09.07.2003 03:41 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the New Testament tends to be better for the S&M stuff. date=09.07.2003 03:45 ip=158.94.180.239 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Immersive with a vengeance - there are some seriously worrying folk out there, Alex.

I always try pushing "The Master & Margarita" towards them in hopes it'll restore their sense of humour, but without much luck.

There's a very good article by Robert Irwin in this week's TLS along these lines, reviewing a literature teacher's experiences in Iran. Fundamentalists had no problems with "Lolita" (by their lights, every man merits a nine-year-old bride - and anyway, she's an immoral nymph who seduces poor helpless Humbert ), and "The Great Gatsby" simply shows you US moral decay. Henry James is a different matter. His style is so convoluted that they couldn't work out what was going on at all, let alone if it was sinful! Irwin's article is on the TLS back page if you want to read it. date=09.07.2003 03:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did a book swap with a Christian once. I got some C.S Lewis thing, and he got 'Against Nature'. With hilarious consequences. date=09.07.2003 04:01 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I really did try reading some of Lewis's essays recently, but I began to turn into Mr. Angry, shouting at the page.

Some of it was insufferably smug, some of it downright peculiar. One essay, "Man or Rabbit?" talked about the delicious agony of ripping apart the timid and questioning part of yourself, and letting out the golden god within - not your average sermon. I thought an SS training manual might say the same; it also reminded me of "those bold Barley Brothers" and their final transformation. Lewis seemed closer to the gnostics than to Anglicanism when he wrote it.

Elsewhere, if I remember, he argued that there's no biblical sanction for pacifism without ever once mentioning the commandment "thou shalt not kill." A rum chap, and no mistake. I think your friend got the better book! date=09.07.2003 05:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading Lewis gave me the distinct impression that I could *smell* him. There's not many authors like that. Bukowski, maybe. date=09.07.2003 06:05 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bukowski, definitely.

Lewis gives off an impression of beery weight that I find very wearing. It's like tripping over Robert Heinlein's thicker books: you feel you've been cornered by the pub bore with no chance of escape. date=09.07.2003 06:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*better late than never*

Alex, have to say I completely agree with you about the whole marketing thing - the over selling to / sexualisation of kids is one of my rants also. Infuriates me in the late teens as well - the easy switch from ranting about paedophilia to praising Charlotte Church's backside / 'Topless 17 yr old lovelies' etc - gross hypocrisy. Leads to a culture so illiterate that during big paedo scares of a couple of years back a paediatrician's house was surrounded by a ranting mob.

*sigh*

Intrigued by talk on immersive fiction, partic MJH 'Immersive fiction is a form of parental care or provision' - a means of swaddling oneself against the world, rather than engaging with it. V. interesting resonance with a comment of Phil Hine's in that long interview with him. He was watching a toddler at a party raising its hands to its mother - 'Mummy, mummy pick me up' - and suddenly saw that movement reflected in much magical activity, the priestly raising of the hands to the heavens as an abdication of responsibility. Suspect links also with your dislike of 'Aliens', MJH - Mother storming into the playground to save you from the monsters.

Something I'm guilty of - or at least guilty of wanting - myself, certainly wouldn't claim any superiority here, but amazing how easy it is just *not to notice it* in the modern world. In part, I suppose this is a function of good writing, or of engaging with good writing - to bring you to awareness of this kind of thing. Show you what's really on the end of your fork - to really fork you up! *ahem - gets coat*

Oh, btb, these days apparently adolescent attitudes are extending till your 33 - refusal to break away from parents becoming cultural norm? date=10.07.2003 01:33 ip=212.111.58.162 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>these days apparently adolescent attitudes are extending till your 33 - refusal to break away from parents becoming cultural norm?

Very easy to believe, Al. A marketeer's dream, I would suspect, lots of lovely extended adolescents. Have you got a source for that figure ? date=10.07.2003 02:48 ip=213.78.66.58 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can believe it. Most of my contemporaries now have children in their late teens/early twenties and all the children seem to have a common attitude which is a mixture of extreme selfishness ("I'm an adult, I can do what I want, fuck you") and extreme dependency ("I can't afford to leave home"). I think it shoud be illegal for children to stay at home longer than 18 years ;) date=10.07.2003 02:54 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An aside: can anyone confirm or deny that Tolkein partly intended Lord Of The Rings as a commentary on the rise of industrialisation? I'm sure I've read this somewhere. date=10.07.2003 03:06 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al - refusal to break away: maybe. But also the obscene cost of housing for any of us not in the hard drugs trade or the Cabinet.

It's hard to make out cause and effect, but there's a definite generational merge, too: parents and children listening to the same music, wearing the same clothes, almost inhabiting the same subcultures. On occasions, it may be a fine line telling Rock Dad from nonce.

Perhaps this is all part of a wider uncertainty. I've just read a book on the forgotten designs, toys, and memorabilia of the Sixties, Sean Topham's "Where's My Space Age?" It's nostalgic, but also a reminder of what the twenty-first century might have been at a time when the future was a viable place, open to transformation. That notion seems dead nowadays. Rather than trying to alter things, most of us are content if they stay more or less the same; our parents look to have a desirable life, rather than a drab one. So there's stagnation and cultural repetition on a huge scale. Little seems to move on.

I thought this when I read the news about the US man who's come out of a coma after 19 years. He's emerged into a changed political world, but its popular signs are just the same: he can still hear all the U2 and Michael Jackson songs he remembers from the Eighties on the radio all day long. date=10.07.2003 03:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: what you say is right. It's actually very complex and uncertain, both being a 'modern parent' and being a child. I looked at my previous comment, and it struck me that we parents are in a bind. When I grew up in the 70s no-one had much money, so moving out of home wasn't such a change, plus the politics of home life were more repressive and disciplined, so we wanted out. These days, parents are more well-off, they have homes which they probably bought quite cheaply, and the kids would have to take a steep drop in living standards were they to move out. Additionally, they are all given to expect that they will get exciting, well paid jobs, so they won't take a crap job and live in a bedsit sharing sardines with the cat. Plus, they know they don't have to do anything their parents say, because the rules can barely be enforced. Try telling a 17-year old you want them back by a certain time. "What are you going to do if I don't?" Parent: "Er... I'll be very cross."
So we're all kind of stuck. date=10.07.2003 03:26 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The idea that Peter Pan is the epitome of the contemporary everyman keeps rattling around my head at the moment. A friend of mine has just split up with their partner who has been sleeping with another woman. This guy has a history of this sort of twentysomething behaviour, likes football, blokish books and movies and all of those sorts of cultural signifiers you'd expect. But now he's heading into his thirties and it's all looking a little sad.

Far be it for me to condemn his unreflective acceptance of this lowest common denominator model of masculinity. After all, I refuse to marry, have children and buy videos of childrens TV series of my childhood. It's a general malaise.

Our culture looks to its youth for its example: that set of Orange adverts with an obnoxious-looking brat in a suit explaining how to use mobile phones. Middle-aged men checking out the kid's trainers so they don't make an enormous faux-pas in their footwear choice. And yes, I don't think this is a new thing. The cult of youth can be traced back through the Nazis to Greek antiquity. But it feels a little more unbalanced and desparate these days. date=10.07.2003 03:43 ip=158.94.183.25 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think staying with yr parents is the only index of prolonged adolescence (although clearly it's a factor, & sets up a bad feedback relationship). It's the extension of adolescent ambitions & expectations that interests me. Adults are simply less "adult" than they used to be. Add to this Al's point about socio-sexual confusion--society's steady move towards paedophilia while witch-hunting actual paedophiles, ie protesting too much--and you are looking at some kind of cultural neotony, the emergence of a new species of person through the selction of the infant form. We're not only persuaded we can "be what we want to be"; we're persuaded we can "remain young". This can happen when parenting qualities are vested in the cultural infrastructure itself. date=10.07.2003 03:43 ip=213.78.77.11 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=The idea that Peter Pan is the epitome of the contemporary everyman keeps rattling around my head at the moment. A friend of mine has just split up with their partner who has been sleeping with another woman. This guy has a history of this sort of twentysomething behaviour, likes football, blokish books and movies and all of those sorts of cultural signifiers you'd expect. But now he's heading into his thirties and it's all looking a little sad.

Far be it for me to condemn his unreflective acceptance of this lowest common denominator model of masculinity. After all, I refuse to marry or have children and I have a tendency to buy videos of childrens TV series of my childhood. It's a general malaise.

Our culture looks to its youth for its example: that set of Orange adverts with an obnoxious-looking brat in a suit explaining how to use mobile phones. Middle-aged men checking out the kid's trainers so they don't make an enormous faux-pas in their footwear choice. And yes, I don't think this is a new thing. The cult of youth can be traced back through the Nazis to Greek antiquity. But it feels a little more unbalanced and desparate these days.
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Edit signature.adm to change this text! date=10.07.2003 03:43 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I didn't mean so much refusal to break away physically as much as refusal to break away emotionally - that looking to your parents to tell you what to do / how to do it, and a corresponding, broader willingness to not take full responsibility for your own decisions or even for your life in general / need for permission to get out and do things. In some ways, the best piece of advice I ever had from my Dad was (broadly speaking) 'I can't help you with this, you've got to work it out for yourself.'

Agree with you about the housing thing, and about the general sense of stagnation - tho' this in part perhaps a function of the general fetishisation of youth that we seem to have bought into as a culture. Prob something also there about ease of consumption of youth culture vs more complex / demanding engagement needed with less age related forms of culture. Hmm.

As for the 33 thing - I've seen it mentioned in the papers, and it's beginning to become a minor truism round my parts. Haven't seen any specific source for it, though a web search could well turn something up. date=10.07.2003 03:47 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! I'm actually saying that we're more unbalanced than the Nazis. That's pretty unbalanced, eh?

I'd also wonder if this yearning for youth, quite apart from avoidance of responsibility and death, is looking back to a stage where the sexual differences were less pronounced. The androgynised muse. Particularly prevalent in the fashion industry. date=10.07.2003 03:50 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: you're touching on a subject which has interested me for a while: the blurring of ages. What are we supposed to be like in thirties, forties, fifties? There are plenty of people, like myself, heading for middle age, who are still too young to remember punk properly. How are we meant to age? What kind of mid-life crisis can I have, should I be inclined to have one? I already *do* all the things older people are not supposed to do - I just never stopped. Mind you, of late I've been casting an interested eye in the direction of the bowling green... bowling on pills: now there's an idea! date=10.07.2003 03:53 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Oh I quite fancy bowling too! All of that slow Zen-like meditation. A place of black spheres on a green background where figures in white move slowly back and forth. date=10.07.2003 03:56 ip=158.94.183.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: On the 33 thing: two more years for me then! And then it's straight out onto the bowling green. date=10.07.2003 03:58 ip=158.94.183.25 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite remark about refusing to face up to life came in a documentary on Viagra a few years ago. A forty-ish American got interviewed who was still dressed as a late teenager, and was dyeing his hair - but who couldn't disguise the years in his eyes, and so looked exactly like the kind of man your parents told you to stay well clear of in public lavatories. He was suing Viagra's makers, because he'd ignored the instructions on a "hot date" and taken 20 tablets instead of one - with zero results.

The interviewer put it to him, tactfully, that it was probably time to slow down in life a little. The man exploded: "Getting older is not part of my agenda!" A wonderfully sad idea that you can hold back biology by moving it into the "AOB" section of your week. date=10.07.2003 04:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>All of that slow Zen-like meditation

That's exactly it. The calculation of the trajectory: gravity's rainbow on the horizontal. The judgement of the green and the gentle signal to the muscle. And beer.
Hmm... Bowlers: a novel of bowls, twisted sex, random violence and people meeting terrible ends. date=10.07.2003 04:00 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bowling: very peaceful (I'm told) - unlike croquet! date=10.07.2003 04:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Course of the Jack? What happened back on those hawthorn lawns? date=10.07.2003 04:09 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, croquet, a vicious and brutal sport...

*shudders*

Bowling - hmm, yes, sounds immensely attractive. Perhaps we should do a message board bowling outing at some point? Begin the fight against excessive youth by living militantly old. Come to think of it, we're already moaning about the youth of today, so we've got that part of it knocked on the head.

"Getting older is not part of my agenda!" - amazing, wonderful quote. date=10.07.2003 04:13 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: you're on to something. Bowling is all about getting as close as possible to the object of your desire. I've seen people bowl almost perfectly: a wonderful curve taking the wood to rest up against the jack. When you've done that once, it's done. You can never do it again in the same way. date=10.07.2003 04:14 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: "militantly old"
It's something I've discussed with my partner. We've already practised driving dangerously slowly and unpredictably. We've had a go at complaining, but we're not very good at that yet. We're working on finishing each other's sentences now, but it comes out like a game of exquisite corpse. 'Olding' - it's quite good fun. date=10.07.2003 04:17 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Militantly old" - I can hear us now: "Bloody young people, coming over here - taking our jobs - stealing our women ..."

As this forum's becoming increasingly zen, my fortish-ish opinion is that ageing's just living in the same house with a different number on the door.

That, or a new career in greeting cards is obviously waiting for me ... date=10.07.2003 04:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perhaps we should do a message board bowling outing at some point?

I think the perfect compromise between youth and age would be a group of lads sitting up all night playing International Grass Bowling 2 on the Playstation 2 or Xbox. Although thinking about it, there is a very conservative dad-ish streak to lad culture.

>>We're working on finishing each other's sentences now, but it comes out like a game of exquisite corpse.

I'm impressed. We've never managed that. I've tried to do the repeating the last few words of everything she says after her while nodding thing but finishing sentences has to be the way to go. date=10.07.2003 04:34 ip=158.94.183.25 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I tried the repeat and the nod, too - but then found we'd been talking about completely different things. date=10.07.2003 04:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>International Grass Bowling 2 on the Playstation 2 or Xbox

Is that one of those video games? Get some fresh air, you pasty faced youth. date=10.07.2003 04:47 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Getting older is not part of my agenda!" is one of those slogans which demonstrate Werner Heisenberg's complaint about language--language allows you to make statements which are perfectly grammatical but which contain no meaning whatsoever. US self-help culture is founded on fantasies of entitlement like this, which are even more unrealistic than "Because I'm worth it!" One of the ways we live an ungrownup life is not to grow out of fantasy expectations for ourselves. The US particularly is now adrift on a sea of unreality--marketing & propaganda tools (slogans) have been introjected and become the elements of a major belief-system. Americans feel real contempt for the realism that must prevail in economies less "successful" than theirs. No wonder they panic when they finally have to face their own vulnerability. date=10.07.2003 04:54 ip=213.78.68.237 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps the US should hear the Ken Dodd joke about being in your seventies with a girlfriend forty years younger: "The older man has a lot to offer the younger woman - a good night's sleep, for one thing!"

The States' culture of "anythingism" is deeply alarming. "Signs of Life" explored it - and then the book came to life in the Sunday papers about 2 years ago. A real-life equivalent of Dr. Alexander talked about body modification, including (oh, yes) giving patients wings. It all depends on your spare body mass, apparently (and a great deal of money). "Where there's fat, there's possibilities," he said. So you can glut yourself at Burger King, and still achieve the American Dream. Because you're worth it ... date=10.07.2003 05:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't make my mind up about the conjoined Iranian twins. I thought their story was tragic, but maybe it was their desire that got them killed. Perhaps we should blame science for offering them the chance when, really, science wasn't really up to the job. date=10.07.2003 05:12 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And on the subject of the twins, I wonder what the psychological implications of separating them would have been. Anyone read any speculation about this? I remember Brothers Of The Head... date=10.07.2003 05:15 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The poor women: I can't imagine.

The comment which struck home for me was when one of them said that she was eager to have the operation because she wanted to see her sister's face without having to look in a mirror. date=10.07.2003 05:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: that comment about the mirror has almost become the slogan for the whole affair. It's terribly poignant, but it would also look good on the film poster. date=10.07.2003 05:28 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.fragmentmagazine.co.uk text=Sorry to come in a bit late to this age-debate thing, but I thought I might be able to offer another perspective.

I'm afraid I struggle with these constant generalisations of things. I am no longer a teenager. Perhaps my maturity comes from cramming in an awful lot in my early years, and then making a break for it - but not everyone in this country is born into a happy and supportive middle-class environment where they can afford to rest on their parents' laurels until their late twenties.

I know plenty of people still stuck at home in this extended adolescence, or even worse: students living - seemingly terminally -off of handouts from their mum and dad. But it's not a universal occurence. I've been independent of my parents, in practically every respect, since I was sixteen, and the fallout began when I was fourteen. This might not be as widespread a phenomena as the eternal-teen, but it's by no means a rarity.

And being in a position to compare my lifestyle now (alongside a partner whose relationship with her parents is almost ideal, in my eyes: mutually respectful and with enough space to lead separate lives, though with a fair amount of support and comfort offered by both sides) I am in no way envious of the terminal-teen.

Luckily, we've managed to surmount the housing market issue, with hard work and determination. We're both twenty-four.

And bowls, as far as I can make out, is full circle: I'd much rather be an infant than a teen; at least, with growth, children's lives are in a constant state of interesting flux, and the potential for knowledge-procurement is astounding. The simplicity of the game is the key: even a child could do it ;) date=10.07.2003 05:42 ip=194.129.50.189 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>but maybe it was their desire that got them killed.

I don't think in this case you could necessarily blame them. I don't think their desire is in the same league of naivety as wanting fuller lips, wings and perpetual youth. But certainly there is the question of whether the operation was feasible.

But imagine having to live that closely with siblings. My brother and me has enough difficulty sharing a bunk bed. date=10.07.2003 05:44 ip=158.94.183.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>but maybe it was their desire that got them killed.

I don't think in this case you could necessarily blame them. I don't think their desire is in the same league of naivety as wanting fuller lips, wings and perpetual youth. But certainly there is the question of whether the operation was feasible.

But imagine having to live that closely with siblings. My brother and me had enough difficulty sharing a bunk bed.
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[iotar@hotmail.com]*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t*[/mail] date=10.07.2003 05:44 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But imagine having to live that closely with siblings.

Yes, sure. And I'm sure that if I were in the same position I'd certainly look closely at options for changing the situation if any were available. What worries me is that we're all moving too fast: science is developed into product too quickly for it to be thoroughly tested, and we *must have* that product. Right now. We don't even know the long-term effects of sitting in front of a computer screen yet! date=10.07.2003 06:46 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>but maybe it was their desire that got them killed.

I don't think in this case you could necessarily blame them. I don't think their desire is in the same league of naivety as wanting fuller lips, wings and perpetual youth. But certainly there is the question of whether the operation was feasible.

But imagine having to live that closely with siblings. My brother and me had enough difficulty sharing a bunk bed.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.07.2003 05:44 ip=158.94.183.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil: Not wanting to go one up on yr situation but my partner and me will never be able to afford our own property unless we move out of London. But yes, living at home isn't always a matter of choice. As it happens, I didn't have an option either because my mother buggered off to France when I was sixteen. Which was actually great!

Alex: And this situation of galloping technological progress is both destabilising and strangely invigorating. Whereas once it might have taken decades or whole generations to approve changes they come along in threes every month. You don't catch the first two because they're still at the beta test stage and the other one is still too expensive. Wait until its successor is available in a junk shop and you might have a viable gadget on yr hands.

How this might be applied to surgical technique is anyone's guess! date=10.07.2003 07:04 ip=158.94.183.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=The idea that Peter Pan is the epitome of the contemporary everyman keeps rattling around my head at the moment. A friend of mine has just split up with their partner who has been sleeping with another woman. This guy has a history of this sort of twentysomething behaviour, likes football, blokish books and movies and all of those sorts of cultural signifiers you'd expect. But now he's heading into his thirties and it's all looking a little sad.

Far be it for me to condemn his unreflective acceptance of this lowest common denominator model of masculinity. After all, I refuse to marry or have children and I have a tendency to buy videos of childrens TV series of my childhood. It's a general malaise.

Our culture looks to its youth for its example: that set of Orange adverts with an obnoxious-looking brat in a suit explaining how to use mobile phones. Middle-aged men checking out the kid's trainers so they don't make an enormous faux-pas in their footwear choice. And yes, I don't think this is a new thing. The cult of youth can be traced back through the Nazis to Greek antiquity. But it feels a little more unbalanced and desparate these days.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.07.2003 03:43 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>will never be able to afford our own property unless we move out of London

As a professional northerner, I feel sorry for you in that respect. Prices are too high up here, let alone down there. However, if you can escape the gravitational pull of London you can still get reasonable houses for reasonable prices. I know at least a couple of families down there who are really struggling - if they moved out of London their lives would be so much better, but they just won't do it. What *is* it about London? No, don't answer that. The place perpetuates its own myth, I think. date=10.07.2003 07:15 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil: in a way, I think the "living at home with mum" thing is a canard. I'm not really talking about that, although I don't deny it's a big input into the feedback system. But the most unrealistic people I know are in their forties, holding down excellent jobs in the mid to upper corporate levels, and able to do just about "anything they want" (except quit the job, of course). Many of them are single women who inherited the the Daily Mail "business feminism" of the Thatcher period, and along with it all that US-generated self help philosophy. They are as proud of their independence as you. But their expectations grow more unrealistic yearly, as age and lifestyle demands draw a box round them, and they begin to sense their biological limitations. Cosmetics work less well. Exercise works less well. "Having it all" begins to look less not more likely. An air of panic sets in. I've also seen what happens the other side of that, when the income is withdrawn and the slogans get reality-tested. date=10.07.2003 07:24 ip=213.78.89.9 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What *is* it about London? No, don't answer that. The place perpetuates its own myth, I think.

For us it's just that we both happen to have work here. As soon as we can get work outside of London we'll be outta here! date=10.07.2003 07:27 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just thinking about London. Do you *need* to be in London these days to make it as a writer? date=10.07.2003 07:34 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I should make that clearer. Do London writers have more of a chance of recognition than others? Is there a 'London effect' in writing similar to, say, the music business? date=10.07.2003 07:36 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=iotar/mjh:

We were renting in London, and I'm personally a Londoner by birth, not by choice. Now I just pay a fortune in commuting. But I find it satisfying to have escaped the rent-drain. The only reason we were able to save enough cash was due to rather cheap rent, and buying a house in need of rather a bit of doing up. We could have maybe got somewhere a bit bigger and better, but in not so nice an area, and I've had my fill of living in dismal locales.

mjh:

I understand what you're getting at with the lack-of-responsibility early middle-age/perpetual mid-life crisis types. I've know the odd one or two myself. But my point was that the 'western' world is filled with a multitude of types of people(as I know we're all already aware, maybe I was being a bit pedantic), as well a fine collection of horses and cattle.

I don't think I'm necessarily proud of my independence (well, maybe a bit), more the fact that I've proved to myself that there's more to existence than mere nature and nurture: much as they're guiding forces for us all, we're not necessarily bound by them; there is something altogether more unfathomable behind 'who we are'. date=10.07.2003 07:45 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex (hi),

I guess it's what most of the bigger publishing houses are, but what else would make you question that? Personally (not that I've as much experience in such matters as certain others around these parts) I doubt it.

I'm trying to challenge that with writing at the moment. Whether anyone will be interested in addressing it at all is another question. date=10.07.2003 07:48 ip=194.129.50.189 name=|Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, that 'what' should have been a 'where'.

I guess some people are into that whole scene thing. I think it's a bit shallow and unnecessary myself, unless the authors are part of a greater whole; but that makes more sense when related to a general approach rather than a geographical restriction, ie: the New Wave, the New Puritans, or - dare I say it? - the New Weird. date=10.07.2003 07:53 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil: I didn't ask the question from any kind of a knowledgable basis, just wondering (in Manchester).
I read somewhere that if you're writing a British city novel, you'd better set it in London if you want it to sell. Even though I can think of quite a few exceptions, I wonder if that's a good general rule? date=10.07.2003 07:55 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suppose London has a higher population than any other UK city, so a wider potential audience, but conversely it's also - I'm guessing - possibly home to a lot more non-native residents than the rest of the country's cities, by which I mean there are probably more people from Manchester living or working in London, than there are Londoners living or working in Manchester. Does that make sense?

Going back to my earlier point about publsihing houses - and indeed literary agents - maybe it's easier to sell a London-oriented tale in London, than it is a Machester-oriented novel in London. This is all conjecture really, as I don't actually have any concrete knowledge about such concerns either. date=10.07.2003 08:09 ip=194.129.50.189 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it also depends what part of London you are writing about. The great Waltham Forest novel has yet to be written.

Watch this space! date=10.07.2003 08:21 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's like Britons and Americans: Britons know vastly more about America than Americans know about Britain. Similarly, (some, but not all) people outside London seem to know vastly more about London than (some, but not all) Londoners know about other parts of the country. I'm constantly amused by Londoners who seem to think you time-warp back into the pre-war period once you get past Watford. date=10.07.2003 08:21 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not just a London thing - spent four hours driving south once from Scotland to visit some friends in Leeds. The way they'd talked, you'd have thought you were at the most northerly point of Britain, beyond it just empty ocean.

Still, Londoners can be particularly insular - but I wonder if there's also a bit of built-in human localness going on there? date=10.07.2003 08:28 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: well that's tykes for you. *tsk* date=10.07.2003 08:30 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Londoner's are also terribly territorial. North, south, east and west London are all separate entities and geography gets chewed up by transport routes. People who live a half hour walk across the River Lea, in Hackney, have no idea where Walthamstow is.

And thank fuck for that! Otherwise the rents around here would be rising even faster. date=10.07.2003 08:31 ip=158.94.183.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Londoners are also terribly territorial. North, south, east and west London are all separate entities and geography gets chewed up by transport routes. People who live a half hour walk across the River Lea, in Hackney, have no idea where Walthamstow is.

And thank fuck for that! Otherwise the rents around here would be rising even faster.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.07.2003 08:31 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps, Al.

It's obviously enjoyable reading a novel where you can get the references.

But there are pitfalls to this: mess it up and you'll get critically lynched. But that's not necessarily relating to locality, more a lack of proper reearch.

And there are similar problems with fantasy, more on a sociological scale though: which is why I'm a bit frightened of attempting world building high-fantasy projects. I feel as though there are academic prerequisites necessary to do the form justice, and I don't feel I have such skills as yet. date=10.07.2003 08:37 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="For those who came in late": There's a pretty funny Australian film called 'Crackerjack', about lawn bowls. It's no 'Lantana' or 'Dot and the Kangaroo', but it's pretty good. date=10.07.2003 08:41 ip=203.194.37.103 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed, Zali.

That's something that, try as I might I've been unable to shake off, even though I lived in South London for over four years, and have moved around a fair bit besides, I still feel like I owe something to East London, and it really doesn't make any sense to me at all. I guess I feel an obligation to my roots in some way.

And I find the explosion of property prices in the area very funny. date=10.07.2003 08:42 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ben: I was going to say earlier, I'd heard that bowls were big in Australia. date=10.07.2003 08:44 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was going to say earlier, I'd heard that bowls were big in Australia.

Matron!

>>And I find the explosion of property prices in the area very funny.

Absolutely hilarious! I don't know whether to laugh or cry. date=10.07.2003 08:46 ip=158.94.183.25 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, I s'pose it's funnier if you aren't actually trying to buy your own property. But don't worry, it only took us about ten months to find somewhere. date=10.07.2003 08:50 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I sincerely hope that the first move in a game of bowls is called 'jacking off'... but I doubt it. date=10.07.2003 08:52 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Steve mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi. Half way through Light. Fantastic stuff Mr Harrison. date=11.07.2003 12:29 ip=81.104.34.68 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Steve. Hope you enjoy the other half. date=12.07.2003 02:26 ip=62.188.174.136 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just found the M John Harrison entry on Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that can be edited by users. It's somewhat out of date and I've added a couple of newer novels but if anyone fancies getting this entry up to scratch here is the URL: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._John_Harrison date=14.07.2003 04:34 ip=158.94.129.104 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to the John Cale gig in Islington yesterday. Mixed feelings. The sound was muddy & you got the feeling that the band could have done better than all that psychedelic thrashing, which is a bit formalised and gestural forty years on. But there were a couple of moments, including a driven version of "Pablo Picasso". & he's in remarkable nick for his age. date=15.07.2003 02:49 ip=213.78.78.118 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I still like Helen Of Troy and Music For A New Society, but generally I find Cale a bit dull. I hope he's grown out of all that rabid screaming nonsense - it's just not dignified in a man his age. Who's in the band now? date=15.07.2003 03:01 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's odd. A colleague was getting rid of load of her old vinyl and I picked out a few Nico albums from the pile. Looking down the credits I thought: "I wonder how much fun John Cale is these days? I mean, I wonder if he's one of those artists that you sit and appreciate or whether he's still any good?" date=15.07.2003 03:06 ip=158.94.135.124 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know who's in the band, I'm afraid. The last time I saw him, in 1998 at QE Hall, he was on his own--apparently the band is a brand new thing. The guitarist is certainly young enough to have been his grandson. The late album to get, according to my informant, is Fragments from a Rainy Season. Or there's an EP out. date=15.07.2003 03:11 ip=62.188.154.99 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know who's in the band, I'm afraid. The last time I saw him, in 1998 at QE Hall, he was on his own--apparently the band is a brand new thing. The guitarist is certainly young enough to have been his grandson. The late album to get, according to my informant, is Fragments from a Rainy Season. Or there's an EP out. date=15.07.2003 03:12 ip=62.188.154.99 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Fragments" is quite good - pretty much solo, with good versions of some of his classics. I think what I find irksome about Cale is that he over-dramatises songs which are, on close inspection, quite slight.
Incidentally, I played pool with Nico once - she was in her 'doing smack in Manchester' phase. She didn't look well. date=15.07.2003 03:16 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Over-dramatising quite slight songs about sums it up. He's also definitely achieved the state iotar describes--of being someone you sit and appreciate, rather than someone who drives you to ecstatically bite off your left hand.

I've made a big mistake here. The words "John Cale" have the intials JC. This means I will now get endless emails asking me if I have started writing Jerry Cornelius stories again. This is not a joke. According to one correspondent I have already coded this intention into the name "Michael Kearney". These people live in a very specialised world, and only need help when they blunder into our own. date=15.07.2003 03:37 ip=213.78.91.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I have already coded this intention into the name "Michael Kearney"

That takes quite a leap of imagination, doesn't it? Do these people think Jerry Cornelius really exists? date=15.07.2003 03:44 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well now you've gone and done it! Posting the name "Jerry Cornelius" will bring them all out of the woodwork. Personally I'm hoping it'll bring out all the Jesus nuts.

>>I played pool with Nico once

Damn, out-cooled again! date=15.07.2003 03:57 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Damn, out-cooled again!

Well, since you're on the floor, I also went to a party where someone looking like a bunch of rags slept on the floor the whole time. That was Nico too. At the same party, Mark E. Smith turned up and asked if he could go and get his Mum and Dad. Which he did. date=15.07.2003 03:59 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, yr two Nicos and a Mark E Smith and I raise you one dinner with Faust in a Middle Eastern restaurant at about two in the morning. date=15.07.2003 04:11 ip=158.94.135.124 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Your two Nicos and a Mark E Smith and iotar's one dinner with Faust in a Middle Eastern restaurant at about two in the morning and I raise you both one meeting with William Burroughs who offered me a plate of cakes.

Alex, you wrote: "That takes quite a leap of imagination, doesn't it?" I'm not sure misreading at that level requires imagination, only an essentially paranoid method. "Kearney" looks something like "Corney" which look something like "Cornelius", therefore there must be other connections. This is a bit like what mad people do with the bible. If you make your search terms sufficiently vague you will always find what you are looking for. The same people often ask me if the term "Empty Space" is some kind of oppositional reference to "the Multiverse". Empty Space was the original title of Light, based on something John Wheeler, one of the pioneers of quantum thinking, once said: “No point is more central than this, that empty space is not empty. It is the seat of the most violent physics.” date=15.07.2003 04:42 ip=213.78.86.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Kearney/Corney thing never occurred to me. That's perfect! I must be getting less paranoid these days to miss a connection like that. Then again, there was that Michael Kearney that I found in the Catholic cemetary in Leyton. Naturally I couldn't find it when I went back - but there *are* a lot of graves there. date=15.07.2003 04:53 ip=158.94.135.124 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John Cale: the new ep's got some wonderful things on it, but I keep going back to "Fragments" and "Paris 1919." I didn't see you at the QEH in '98, Mike, but perhaps I was too startled by Cale's leather trousers to notice much else.

I never played pool with Nico. I did see her smacked out and supported by the Blue Orchids many years ago, doing "The End." It was a long evening.

I can't out-cool Burroughs passing round the fondant fancies, either. However, I crashed an Allen Ginsberg sound check about 1981, and spent about two hours listening to him and buying him drinks. Dylan's description of him seemed spot-on: "a holy conman."

Very un-MES, but I'm currently obsessed with Paddy McAloon's cd, "I Trawl the Megahertz" - touching found phrases over an almost Gershwin backing. Anyone who likes John Cale should certainly give it a listen. date=15.07.2003 04:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Burroughs. That's not fair. If there's one person I would have liked to meet it would have been him. You win, MJH.
I did have tea with Adrian Henri and Carol Ann Duffy once... but that's not very interesting. They were both large and hairy. date=15.07.2003 05:05 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.fragmentmagazine.co.uk text=Not in the same league of name-dropping, I know, but how about playing with a bunch of puppies with Prince Michael of Kent?

I've a writery-question for everyone: early hours of this morning I had my first ever dream where I was narrating - first person - the events that were occuring; I can even remember having to pause while I grasped for a precise word, something I often do whilst amblng around and 'writing in my head'.

Is this quite normal? I rather enjoyed the experience, but have never heard of anything like it before. date=15.07.2003 05:07 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil: I guess that would be a kind of lucid dreaming. I've practiced doing that for a long time, with occasional success - the idea is to become aware that you are dreaming, and then attempt to make the dream go the way you want it to. It's great fun when it works. date=15.07.2003 05:13 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was too startled by Cale's leather trousers to notice much else

Actually I was thinking something like that when Lou Reed appeared on TOTP2 the other evening. Looked like the sort of gig one might appreciate rather than gnaw off hand.

Neil: Can't recall ever having that experience. I've had dreams in the form of documentaries and plenty of third person stuff. The most recent example involved two men without any skin jumping up and down on a flat roof strewn with rotting vegetables shouting at the crowd gathered on the recreation ground below.

My POV was from above and slightly behind the roof. date=15.07.2003 05:14 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil: I guess that would be a kind of lucid dreaming. I've practiced doing that for a long time, with occasional success - the idea is to become aware that you are dreaming, and then attempt to make the dream go the way you want it to. It's great fun when it works. date=15.07.2003 05:15 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the idea is to become aware that you are dreaming, and then attempt to make the dream go the way you want it to.

Problem is I've had a couple of incidents of dream paralysis in the last six months. Both of them seem to have been during that same sort of liminal stage as lucid dreaming. Fucking scary! date=15.07.2003 05:23 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, I have had my fair share of lucid dreams, especially as a child: concetrating on a bizarre image so when it pops up in your dreamworld, you'll think: "Ah, a chocolate eclair, this must be a dream.", but this was your standard dream, where I was completely involved, it just so happened I was writing it all out at the same time: the closest I've ever been to fusing writing with reality.

iotar, I think my dreams switch back and forth a lot between third person and first-hand experience. Anyone had a dream in second person? date=15.07.2003 05:26 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I've had a couple of incidents of dream paralysis

You know that's the main theory behind all those alien abduction stories, don't you? date=15.07.2003 05:26 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=iotar,
Is that when you wake up and are unable to move? A friend of mine used to get that about once a week. We put it down to that most modern of ailments: stress. date=15.07.2003 05:28 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyone had a dream in second person?

No. I can't imagine it either. I did have a precognitive dream once, which was embarassingly trivial. But see the future I certainly did; I still don't know what to make of it. date=15.07.2003 05:31 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a combination of not being able to move - can't breath and being held back by an enormous weight -and *something being in there with you*. So I can see why this has been interpreted as alien abduction or demonic possession.

I read a theory about it being a cut-off switch that is preventing you from playing out something from yr dream that might cause you to injure yrself. But that's probably bollocks.

Stress? Could be. I think it'd have to be that and something else because I can think of plenty of occasions when I've been far more stressed-out.

And no, never managed a second person dream. Well, not as you, anyway. date=15.07.2003 05:35 ip=158.94.135.124 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've never lucid dreamed. I have had several dreams where I was sure I plotted a two volume novel, only to have the whole layer-cake structure crumble around me the moment I woke up.

Io: skipping back a few posts, on the cost of housing: I was in Lincolnshire at the weekend, and you can still find houses there for £30-40k. Problem is finding a job to go with them. date=15.07.2003 05:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the devil. The weight thing soudns like the scariest part to me. What was the description he used? A huge slab of plasticene pushing down on his chest, I think.

Dreamwise, I'm usually okay, though I have a higher degree of nightmares than is average. date=15.07.2003 05:44 ip=194.129.50.189 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I would have died for the privilege of buying Alan Ginsberg a drink. Howl is still my favourite beat poem. One of those influences on my stuff that f/sf people never look for because they're too busy looking for influence by the only writers they recognise. date=15.07.2003 05:44 ip=213.78.86.57 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At 30 - 40k for a house, I'm surprised the entire population of Lincs don't make their living as writers! date=15.07.2003 05:45 ip=194.129.50.189 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I'd never recognised Beat references in your work, but now you mention it I can see perhaps Choe as a Neal Cassidy-type holy lunatic. Perhaps the visionary thing is there too: didn't Ginsberg get visited by William Blake during a wank? date=15.07.2003 05:51 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was in Lincolnshire at the weekend, and you can still find houses there for £30-40k. Problem is finding a job to go with them.

Oh very much so. Find us some nice undemanding library posts in Lincolnshire and we'll bugger off up there faster than you can say Corney Kearney.

>>That's the devil.

Certainly is. In the dream immediately preceding I had been trying to wake my partner up because "The Longheads are coming!" I can't remember exactly what the Longheads were and I'm pretty glad about that.

I hardly ever have nightmares.

I had a non-dream sort of thing where I was lying in bed and *knew* that the next thing that was going to happen was that Satan would walk through the door and that would be the end of everything. His head would be a blazing triangle of light. I had a dream where someone's head turning into this blazing triangle too - I'm sure they're related.

But normally it's business-as-usual trying to drive over Clint Eastwood in Sainsburys car park dreams. date=15.07.2003 05:55 ip=158.94.135.124 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I'd've died to have met Burroughs!

Without taking up huge room here, I remember that Ginsberg sang a lot of Blake (he had a guitarist), and then ranted the roof off the hall with "Plutonian Ode," which was as close as any of us got to the mad San Franciscan readings in the '50s. Phenomenal.

I don't know what aura Burroughs gave off, but Ginsberg was very warm and gently self-possessed: beat in both its senses.

A load of people invited me back to the house where he was staying, but this seemed too intrusive (I wish now I'd gone, of course). I tried to think of a good way to say goodbye to him. Various people were fawning about him, and I didn't want to seem just another fan. For once, though, inspiration struck. I remembered what Dylan always said in the same circumstances when he was leaving someone he admired: "Good luck!" So I came out with that. Ginsberg's eyes lit up slightly, and he nodded. So it seemed the right thing to have done.

Much later, I saw a long "diary" poem Ginsberg had written of that trip to Europe, and there was the line: "boys who wish me good luck." This may or not be me, but I'm humbled to this day. date=15.07.2003 05:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the Longheads

Ugh. That's just horrible. I used to be scared of people called The Jockeys who lurked upstairs and would begin to stalk out of their hiding places when the toilet flushed. You only had a certain amount of time to get out of the bathroom and down the stairs before they got you. They were tall, thin, white and smiling and they had very long heads. The white couple in CotH gives me the creeps in the same way. date=15.07.2003 06:01 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Undemanding library posts ...

I don't know about undemanding, Io, but I have a few library contacts in Lincolnshire if you want me to check something out! date=15.07.2003 06:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"boys who wish me good luck."

I think you could have copped, there! date=15.07.2003 06:02 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I don't know about undemanding, Io, but I have a few library contacts in Lincolnshire if you want me to check something out!

That's be very cool, Martin. I'm pretty easy for library jobs as long as I don't need to be qualified. My partner is more difficult - she's a qualified cataloguer. But any info you can find would be gratefully appreciated.

>>I used to be scared of people called The Jockeys who lurked upstairs and would begin to stalk out of their hiding places when the toilet flushed.

The Jockeys! Wow! Did they have long horsefaces and did they ride steeds with human faces?

I think the Longheads might be some sort of weird masonic uber-race. Shit, I'm going google them to see if anyone else knows about them. Or maybe I should leave it? Maybe it's best not to know? date=15.07.2003 06:11 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm going google them to see if anyone else knows about them.

You can be sure they know about you.

*cut to Alex casting long-headed shadow* date=15.07.2003 06:21 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aargh! The three-lobed burning eye! They're coming! They're... date=15.07.2003 06:32 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: be very afraid. Quick look on Google reveals the following:
1. "Don't be afraid of Longheads"
2. "The numbers of fair and of dark longheads in the various districts are as follows.."
3. "Take the Thickheads away, and there would be nothing left in this world but the Longheads -"
4. "Adult longheads eat crayfish and mayflies"

Shall I continue? date=15.07.2003 06:34 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Try googling "longheads" and "masonic". Only one entry - very scary. date=15.07.2003 06:41 ip=158.94.135.124 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - scoring with Ginsberg? Another missed opportunity in life, obviously!

I would've tolfd him I'm straight; but he might have made Scott Capurro's gay retort - "So's spaghetti till it gets in hot water ..." date=15.07.2003 07:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I googled. I'm scared!

Some non-masonic mothers do 'ave 'em ... date=15.07.2003 07:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's a brilliant story, Martin, but very English. You were supposed to take up the invitation, cry all over the filthy street to coldwater walkups in the rain and later, fried by angels, jump off the unutterable pivot of the Brooklyn Bridge of your life--Moloch!--landing in some carpetbagged Patterson of the strophe'd soul. With cock & endless balls. (I'll say.)

Alex: The link's not one-to-one. But those angelheaded hipster visions & nighttime motor trips & Kabbala visitations got webbed up with Machen and Yeats, as they were all along yearning to fuck each other over with lots of other stuff too experiential stuff & it all came out in the end in my search in Lancashire and Wales for people like that, people that transfigured & ripped open by drugs cars climbs motorcycles, or standing at corners in the significant rain hoping for a lift out of life, which led to Choe, certainly, or his real self, but also the brilliant Normal totally real Ed totally real Michael Kearney totally real pursued by demons altered by angels, winking (as you say) in & out of existence as themselves to light up the lives of middle class newspaper reviewers as "fiction". I read Ginsberg, sixteen years old. Later I went looking for those kinds of people. I could never be one, sadly. My books cram them into shapes. My books show them failing to transcend. My books put careful imaginary lines round them. My books leave one little hole drilled in the plasterwork of the universe, so that when you look through in a final desperate wank-powered drive to enlightenment you only see, as Ginsberg said, "the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary."

We don't do transcendence here on Blairstrip One which is so fucking sorrowful and unambitious of us. Isn't it ? Honestly ? Every time I think of it I feel reduced by myself. date=15.07.2003 07:19 ip=213.78.76.230 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey Zali I found the text limits of this board, 2 lines more than that last post... date=15.07.2003 07:22 ip=213.78.76.230 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=re: Longheads.

I hope they constantly whack their longheads on doorframes, the (diatribe edited out... I know everyone feels similarly) date=15.07.2003 07:23 ip=194.129.50.189 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Wahey! The limits of our universe revealed. Shall I add a couple of hundred words to the limit? date=15.07.2003 07:24 ip=158.94.135.124 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Take the Thickheads away, and there would be nothing left in this world but the Longheads -"

Long live the Thickheads! date=15.07.2003 07:27 ip=158.94.135.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I read Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac aged 16 too. I also went looking for people like that: the nearest I got was Adrian Henri and some rather seedy madmen and women. I know what you mean about the lack of transcendence. Mind you, these days I think maybe only Snyder and Burroughs knew what it really was. date=15.07.2003 07:35 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: "fried by angels." The story of my years in Leicester back in the '70s to a T ...

Very English, but as the poor man was being pawed by an acid casualty demanding to know what John Lennon was "really like," I decided to make my excuses.

No, Blairland doesn't do transcendance: it stains the spreadsheets. How did we settle for so little? I'm not sure. Before the Net, it was a blue moon occurrence to find anyone else who'd read this stuff. You'd wave "Howl" at them, and they'd return it a week later looking utterly embarrassed. The Midlands weren't great for satori back then.

But then, that's why Ginsberg put in that visionary line about (I think) the ground moving at your feet in Wichita. It sounds romantic to us, but Wichita is the US equivalent of Market Harborough: if you can have experience a vision there, you can experience one anywhere. date=15.07.2003 07:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ginsberg found transcendence in Hay-On-Wye, apparently. Now that's dedication.
Incidentally, has anyone been in the wierd little pub in Hay? I forget the name, but it's about 6ft square and it's like you've stepped straight into the past. I keep expecting people to tell me it was demolished many years before I visited it. date=15.07.2003 07:55 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely genuine revelation is more likely under inauspicious circumstances at unlikely meeting points between the banal and the sublime. Anyone can have an epiphany at Angkor Wat - that'll be some fundamental aspect of the place resonating (Man) - but whatever happens to you at Edmonton Green Shopping Centre is entirely in yr own ballpark. date=15.07.2003 10:17 ip=81.135.52.200 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't doubt that, io. For me it's that you can't bring it on. You find something, then you spend the next thirty years trying to find it again. It was something in your peripheral vision. Even if you do find it again, you don't know whether it's real or an artifact of the method you're using to look for it. I read the whole of Ginsberg that way, but I agree it's an English reading. Anyway, except perhaps in "The Gift", the best conclusion my characters ever come to is that the search is the thing. I mean, literally. Being on the search is the revelation--thus Lucas vanishing into middle Europe to repeat the (fully fictional) quest of the (fully fictional) Michael Ashman.

I've been in the Wye Valley a lot (limestone), but never Hay-on-Wye itself. date=15.07.2003 11:33 ip=213.78.80.24 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After I wrote that I realised, of course, that attempting to locate inspiration either in the banal or in the significant is equally futile, and trying to locate it at their nexus is also too much of a method. This thing eschews method and lack of method and their inversions.

Yes, Lucas at least has his quest and in a sense you get the feeling that Pam got what she wanted. It's the narrator who lacks ambition, even if in the case of his conspirators their ambitions were twisted or sad, perhaps this is why he is such a willing cronie for Yaxley's schemes.

Ber-luddy caw pawking! date=15.07.2003 13:21 ip=213.122.144.247 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>attempting to locate inspiration either in the banal or in the significant is equally futile

On reflection, too, I would suggest that inspiration, if that's what we're calling 'it', comes from within, and therefore it is equally likely to be found in Accrington or Angkor Wat. Is it not just the right synapses firing at the right time? We have no proof - or reason to believe - that transcendence is anything other than something that happens in our minds.

Speaking of minds, mine decided to point out to me in a dream last night that MJH looks a bit like John Cale. Therefore MJH is Jerry Cornelius. QED. date=16.07.2003 01:12 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In the words of Cornelius himself : "Ho, ho. Pardon?" date=16.07.2003 02:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another thing I dreamed last night was that I was trapped inside a large old electricity substation, and it's made me attempt to analyse why I have a fear of big machinery and industrial plant. Chimnies terrify me, cooling towers being the worst ('Brazil' - shudder!), bellfries, massive air vents, fans...you get the picture. Ever been on a small boat when a big ship comes alongside? That is a nightmare for me. Anyone else recognise these fears? It's not to do with size, either: a smallish pipe leading from a factory can give me the shivers, as can a manhole cover in the middle of nowhere. It's to do with machinery ( I think).
I hope this is a relevant thing to discuss here... date=16.07.2003 03:55 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of my earliest nightmares was of huge pistons & con-rods turning over, very slowly, very oily. Woke in utter terror. I was maybe 3, and I can't think how much machinery I could have seen that early, if any. On the other hand, came from a family of engineers, so who knows. A chimney I don't mind, having climbed the odd one here & there: although the exposure can be quite savage you can professionalise your relationship to that, it's a realistic fear. I have an excellent tale from one of my roped access friends about a cooling tower, used at the end of Climbers. Bellfries I don't mind since I abbed out of one in the early 90s. But as for big ships--outright soul terror, especially if in dry dock or partly beached. Saw a partly beached freighter in Lanzarote earlier this year--toes curled, scrotum tightened, nails pierced palms--& that was driving past at 40 mph. That place in Russia, with all the dead nuclear subs ? Couldn't go there for money. We did a version of this, by the way, on Nick Royle's board at TTA, about a month ago... date=16.07.2003 04:16 ip=213.78.68.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Interesting. I wonder what it is about the ships, because I know exactly what you mean. I suppose coming from a sea-faring family in Liverpool I was exposed to ships, probably in dock, at an early age. I didn't realise the extent of the fear though, until I was sent on an art-college photographic assignment to the old dry dock. I was meant to concentrate on 'Mammoth' - the largest floating crane at the time. I bottled it, totally rigid with fear. I also remember having terrible delerious fever dreams about the cover of a 70s sci-fi paperback which featured a spaceship in dry dock. Probably something by Chris Foss, although I forget what the book was.
Haven't read Climbers, by the way, though not for want of trying to find it. date=16.07.2003 04:48 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe it's a brainstem thing. Items that big aren't expected to move. That wouldn't explain the dry dock syndrome though, they should be just like buildings then. It's hard to be afraid of a building in that way. If they're still afloat, I'm afraid of the part I can't see. I'm afraid they'll keel over suddenly. But these are reasonable explanations the real fear puts on like a coat. The real fear isn't reasonable at all. Some crags are like that, especially quarries: you have an unreasonable anxiety from the start, it's in the shape of an overhang, the lie of a shadow, an angle of tilt. Worse if there are any big detached bits separating themselves slowly from the main mass. Have you ever tried to go back to the dry dock ?

Climbers should be back in print in a year or so, as a Phoenix paperback. I'll try and keep everyone up to date on that. date=16.07.2003 05:28 ip=213.78.169.49 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Have you ever tried to go back to the dry dock ?

Yes, I've been. I dislike the fear, and sometimes try to confront it if I can. It's quite thrilling, in a way, to walk into the fear; it feels a little like pushing against an invisible wall. It doesn't go away, though, and it usually makes *me* go away. Whatever the basis for the fear might be, I don't seem to be able to reason or bully it out of my brain. It doesn't have to involve big ships - I had a nasty incident with a beached light-buoy recently - but the craft do seem to need to be made of metal. Wooden boats don't cut it.

Good news about Climbers! date=16.07.2003 05:58 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another thing: you're afraid of the part of the ship you can't see. Same here: chimneys and cooling towers, for example, are frightening because of what might lie beneath. Vast grinding and boiling things which can EAT you. I could go down a pot-hole, but not down a chimney. Here's another: I was walking round a local reservoir, and near one of those strange old tower-things they have sticking out of the water there was a sign. "Caution: machinery moving underwater." That's enough to get me walking quickly away.
Come to think of it, I partly blame Langdon Jones for the section of The Eye Of The Lens concerning machines. date=16.07.2003 06:10 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pot-holes? No way! At 6'5," it would be a delicate telescoping job for me - and all too reminiscent of the last five minutes of "The Disappearance": the original version's still one of the most unsettling film endings I know.

Ships and dry docks, though: no problem. Like you Alex, I grew up in a port town where these things were common place. I've never given them a second thought let alone - no pun - a wide berth. date=16.07.2003 09:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoa, "The Disappearance"! Grim movie, that. I don't know about caving, but I know one thing I wouldn't do: swim along the length of a ship underwater. And another thing: when the arse end of the Titanic tips up vertically out of the water at the end of the film--I would have died of fright the moment I even *sensed* something like that might happen. For me, it's definitely something to do with the instability of large objects--even dry-docked, I've decided, they look as if they might fall on you. You can't depend on them. They don't know you're there. I don't generally have Alex's mechanised-Lovecraftian fear of what might be hidden below, although I must admit the "machinery working beneath water" warning is quite sickening. When I was a kid, there was an old cooling pond behind the English Electric complex in Rugby, in which they dumped old machinery, forms, buggered turbine shafts, etc. The items were big enough to make the water look shallow when you knew it wasn't; and it was *rusty*. date=16.07.2003 11:04 ip=213.78.169.72 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm just not scared about large objects enough. I tend to be surprised that they're not bigger. Canary Wharf looks like you could crush it between thumb and forefinger over here, in fact it seems to look like that in most of London. So you'd imagine it's *really big*. But you get up close and... well, it is big. But not all *that* huge. I have this thing about going up TV towers in any major European city I visit. I wouldn't be able to approach some of these fuckers if I had a big thing phobia. So I'm really not getting this. What is it?

Having said that I still find "Caution: machinery moving underwater." pretty edgy. But that's not a size thing. date=16.07.2003 13:04 ip=213.122.179.29 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I'm just not scared enough by large objects. I tend to be surprised that they're not bigger. Canary Wharf looks like you could crush it between thumb and forefinger over here, in fact it seems to look like that in most of London. So you'd imagine it's *really big*. But you get up close and... well, it is big. But not all *that* huge. I have this thing about going up TV towers in any major European city I visit. I wouldn't be able to approach some of these fuckers if I had a big thing phobia. So I'm really not getting this. What is it?

Having said that I still find "Caution: machinery moving underwater." pretty edgy. But that's not a size thing.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=16.07.2003 13:04 ip=213.122.179.29 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Canary Wharf always looks like a cluster of big Evian bottles to me - not quite the thing to stir up paralytic phobia.

Since September 11, I'm sure I'd be a lot more phobic if I had to work there. The view from the 30th floor must have been magnificent once. Now it simply means you could see the airliner coming towards you through the sunlight, two minutes before impact. date=17.07.2003 00:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Canary Wharf always looks like a cluster of big Evian bottles to me - not quite the thing to stir up paralytic phobia.

Since September 11, I'm sure I'd be a lot more phobic if I had to work there. The view from the 30th floor must have been magnificent once. Now it simply means you could see the airliner coming towards you through the sunlight, two minutes before impact. date=17.07.2003 00:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Titanic sinking is just vile. I bet some people got sucked into the funnels. (Incidentally, my Grandfather was on The Californian - the ship which was supposed to have seen the Titanic sinking and did nothing to help. The resulting court case ruined his life. Mind you, he did get immortalised by an actor in A Night To Remember. There's a novel in there about his life - but that's for when I'm old.)
What about Bruce Willis trying to get away from the sinking jet in "Shipwrecked"? date=17.07.2003 01:16 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> it's definitely something to do with the instability of large objects--even dry-docked

Ho yes. Used to do a lot of snorkelling when I was a kid in South Devon. Few things spookier than looking up and seeing *a boat* (particularly long smooth yachts, keels hanging down, looking like upside down sharks) above you when it should fall on you.

Suspect dry dock thing feedback loop - 'Oh my god! It's going to fall on me! It can' hold itself up! OK, be cool, just imagine this tomb like space full of water to hold it up... Oh my god! It's full of water! I'm going to drown or be crushed by the hull! OK, be cool, just imagine it's empty and there's no water.... Oh my God!' and so on ad nauseam.

Agree with you about the tall buildings as well, Io, was terrified by one in Boston that came to a sharp point (ie two side walls came together like a blade). Looking straight up the straight edge - all hundred odd floors - Brrrrrr! date=17.07.2003 01:16 ip=62.188.105.34 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: >>I have this thing about going up TV towers in any major European city I visit.

You are obviously completely insane. Those things can just topple down and STICK RIGHT THROUGH YOUR HEAD. Not to mention the awful waves they send out. Want to borrow my tinfoil hat?
The tower in Prague is particularly horrible. It's like The Spike in Perdido Street Station. I wonder if they are related? date=17.07.2003 01:32 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh the TV tower in Prague *so* rocks! It looks completely like the future was supposed to when I was watching Godzilla movies as a kid. This, and I discovered the Czech term "polyfunkcni antennych" in the brochure and all.

I think the worst one for falling down and sticking *right through yr head* has to be the one on East Berlin. The spike on the top of that one is vicious! I bought a friend a model of it which had a big nail sticking out of the end. I don't know if it was intended for putting paid bills on or something.

Anyway, it's only Longheads that scare shit out of me. That and credit card bills. date=17.07.2003 01:44 ip=158.94.142.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: I think the tower would have been better if they'd let Svankmajer design it. Then it might have had bits of real meat hanging off it too. date=17.07.2003 01:50 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I feel a thread coming on about why Czech animation is so damn scary... date=17.07.2003 01:51 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually The Meat Skewer tower would be quite good. Imagine a doner kebab the size of Canary Wharf. It should turn around slowly and dribble grease down its flanks.

There was this very unstable building near where we were staying in Prague. It was called Fred & Ginger by the locals - I can't remember what it was really called. That would have had you on the run. Perhaps it's just a Czech affinity with wanton structural instability that puts the shit up more solidly structured nations? date=17.07.2003 02:00 ip=158.94.142.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The Meat Skewer tower would be quite good

Yes, I'm liking this. And all the little holes in the meat could be entry and exit ports, where little craft made from wriggling meat could pop in and out. And in the centre of the building, a massive tank of blood and fat. date=17.07.2003 02:03 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Boston blade: the biggest trip in the world is to climb an arete like that. The exposure is unbelievable. One minute total fear, next minute total elation. You're *up in the air*! But on a bad day, numb, depressed, unrelenting terror all the way to the top. I don't mind big buildings or tall stuff like that. I remember being a bit unimpressed by downtown NY, or at least looking up & thinking, "Mm, interesting abseil." The worst thing is looking down from the top; the best thing is rolling off the parapet to start an ab (as long as you trust the person who rigged it). I knew one of the guys who put the glass in the pyramid at the top of the Canary Wharf tower. He said that was fun, if demanding. date=17.07.2003 02:05 ip=213.78.93.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I knew one of the guys who put the glass in the pyramid at the top of the Canary Wharf tower.

Wow! Did he have to go through any masonic ritual ablutions first? date=17.07.2003 02:08 ip=158.94.142.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember reading about how they used a lot of Navajo workers when they were building the skyscrapers in the US: apparently, they had no fear of heights. I wonder how they found that out. date=17.07.2003 02:22 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Obviously I can't talk about that, io. Suffice to say his head was longer after he had done the job, and he left for the Far East shortly afterwards. date=17.07.2003 02:29 ip=213.78.93.181 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - scares the shit out of me. I remember standing on top of Notre Dame, looking down, when I first realised I was afraid of heights, or at least being on top of tall buildings. I love being in planes because it's abstract; but when you're on a building there's a line connecting you to the ground, and you know EXACTLY how high up you are.

Arete? Climbing term? Lovely word.

My Dad abseiled down Canary Wharf for charity - had a blast, tho' also clearly an encounter with his own mortality as that night he was very morose about no grandchildren etc.

Spent a week wandering round NY thinking 'this isn't a proper city' and unable to work out why. Realised it was because it's so inorganic - just a grid, imposed over about 100 years rather than growing over thousands.

Hmm - meat skewer tower, like it. A couple of other key questions to answer though. Chilli sauce? Open or wrapped? date=17.07.2003 04:28 ip=62.188.100.234 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can deal with being high up as long as there's a clear barrier between me and the drop. So I don't think I'd make a very good climber. Having said that, I guess the adrenaline rush would be far better if you didn't feel entirely secure with that feeling of open height.

Still love that image at the top of a climb at the penultimate scene of Climbers.

Kebab Tower: "Can I have a bit of all of the salad and extra chilli sauce? Cheers!" date=17.07.2003 04:48 ip=158.94.142.117 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Barriers just make me want to leap through them - in fact, there's a whole desire to leap off / out of high places which is probably related to the fear. Anyone else get that? date=17.07.2003 07:24 ip=62.188.112.244 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I've felt it. I think there's a little devilish mechanism built into all of us which sometimes tells us to do what we *know* we shouldn't do. I imagine it's essential for evolution: if everyone stuck to the safe option, no-one would move.
Perhaps if everyone insisted on jumping off cliffs, eventually someone would fly. date=17.07.2003 07:31 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The leaping over barriers thing is always connected with water for me. I used to walk back across Rochester Bridge back a lot late at night, in fact, I had to run across the bridge because I was sure that I'd throw myself in the water if I gave myself too much time to consider it. date=17.07.2003 07:35 ip=158.94.142.117 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm- do you think all the amoeba used to hang out at the edge of the sea, egging each other on to throw themselves onto the beach? Until one of them *got* the walking thing and went striding happily up the sand, past the dessicated bodies of its less successful predecessors? date=17.07.2003 08:55 ip=62.188.108.58 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=The leaping over barriers thing is always connected with water for me. I used to walk back across Rochester Bridge a lot late at night, in fact, I had to run across the bridge because I was sure that I'd throw myself in the water if I gave myself too much time to consider it.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=17.07.2003 07:35 ip=158.94.142.117 name=God mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I dunno. What do you think? date=18.07.2003 01:12 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Roadside Floral Tributes. Anyone know when this phenomenon began? I wonder if the Death Of Diana got the ball rolling. I'd be interested in people's thoughts on the subject: I'm considering starting a photographic/written project about these oddities. There's definitely something strange (and very *now*) about the commemoration of the *location* of violent death. date=18.07.2003 02:34 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yo God!

Surely You should know? date=18.07.2003 04:49 ip=62.188.110.31 name=God mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I knew you were going to say that. Thing is, man, I just made the soup, dig? date=18.07.2003 05:33 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We seem to get a lot of floral memorials on bridges over the River Lea. Normally children who have thrown themselves in. These are usually followed by calls from local parents to fence off, impede access or concrete up the river.

We're very fond of barriers and nannying the public in this country aren't we? When I was in Norway last year I noticed that precarious paths and riverside walks are *not* so often fenced off as in this country. There's this narrow grass verge above a drop from the castle walls at Oslo Harbour where lots of people stroll, sit, jog, etc. No one seems in the least bit concerned that they are going to fall. Perhaps they're just sensible, perhaps if Oslo residents feel a bit pissed or a bit unsteady on their feet they just stay away from the drop. I'm not sure what the national rationale for this is, but it felt to me like people were expected to be responsible for their own actions. No need to put stabilisers on the environment if people aren't likely to act like morons.

I'm sure I've seen a similar lack of safety precautions in other European countries but I can't think of specific examples at the moment.

Anyway, returning to Alex's point. These tributes are always very sentimental and after a few days very grubby. A bit of rain, diesel fumes and the action of birds can make an impromptu arrangement of flowers by the road look particularly tatty and not a fitting memorial for anyone. date=21.07.2003 01:51 ip=158.94.150.87 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>after a few days very grubby

Yes, they are, and that lends them a terrible pathos.
I think that these roadside tributes are becoming more and more 'fashionable' because religion has ceased to be a source of consolation for many people, and funerals, unless a lot of work goes into them, are generally quite impersonal, epsecially if they are non-religious. Roadside tributes are almost pagan in their marking of a place where a spirit might linger, and they represent an unfocused desire for transcendence.
I like they way they alter the meaning invested in a place. date=21.07.2003 02:17 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Agree about the safety culture of the UK. Generally, I'm all for the impersonal. Flower memorials, particularly when accompanied by the kind of agitation io describes, seem like an attempt to privatise public space, force your family psychodrama on others. In the old days only the rich & famous could insist on a public monument, now we all want one.

I also link flower memorials to those signs you used to see in the backs of cars: CHILD ON BOARD. Also BABY ON BOARD!; BACK OFF, CHILD ON BOARD; and the astonishing GIVE MY CHILD A CHANCE--KEEP YOUR DISTANCE! Since you generally saw them in the back windows of cars tailgating in Lane 3 at 80 miles an hour, drivers must have been fitting them for their rhetorical rather than their practical content. They allowed the radical expression of a posture, an attitude, a very American cocktail of emotional and biological blackmail. It wasn't to do with cars, or keeping your distance: it wasn't even to do with babies. It was to do with aggressive sentimentality. Nobody is going to drive any slower, or better, or vote for slower speed limits or fewer roads or cars: they are just going to opt for flowers & slogans. Oh, and taking legal action against the local council for having a river in the borough... date=21.07.2003 03:06 ip=213.78.78.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>force your family psychodrama on others

I can see that side of it too. But it's partly to do with the way we *do* death in this country. For a long time, we've kept it swept under a carpet of euphemism and hushed tones. It's 'not nice'. We don't have open coffins, we don't wail and shriek. Is (very) public mourning an act of forcing one's grief on others, or is it an important way to reinforce an acceptance of the reality of death? I'm not sure: having *done* the death thing a number of times, I'm not sure whether I've grieved or not. I can see a case for the ritualisation of grief in this country, but I'm not sure whether it benefits those close to the dead: it might be more useful for those not so close, who insist on phoning up on the anniversary of the death to 'see if you're all right'. date=21.07.2003 03:21 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ritualisation of death: I think the wailing and shrieking in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries is at least as formalised as the stiff English reserve. Perhaps there is no *natural* way to respond to death. It's all social and ritual. Of course there's nothing wrong with that and of course new forms of ritual are constantly being invented.

But going back to the point. It would be interesting to find out *how* they come about: are they initiated by the grieving family? by local residents groups? I don't thing this would establish whether they were right or wrong, phoney or genuine. It would also require some very diplomatic journalism. date=21.07.2003 03:42 ip=158.94.150.87 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Ritualisation of death: I think the wailing and shrieking in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries is at least as formalised as the stiff English reserve. Perhaps there is no *natural* way to respond to death. It's all social and ritual. Of course there's nothing wrong with that and of course new forms of ritual are constantly being invented.

But going back to the point. It would be interesting to find out *how* they come about: are they initiated by the grieving family? by local residents groups? I don't think this would establish whether they were right or wrong, phoney or genuine.

It would also require some very diplomatic journalism!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=21.07.2003 03:42 ip=158.94.150.87 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It would also require some very diplomatic journalism!

I guess the event that started my interest was that when I was living in the countryside there was a fatal accident at the top of my lane, in which the local milkman smashed into a young mother's car, killing her. Flowers appeared at the site the day after; later, the father created a small garden around the base of the roadsign his daughter had hit as she died. The milkman aften talked about the crash, and the fact that, although he was cleared of responsibility, he was constantly reminded of his fateful day every time he passed the memorial. One night, someone smashed the thing to pieces. Probably the milkman, on his way home from the pub. date=21.07.2003 04:01 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just for the purposes of my mental image of this incident: was the milkman in his milkfloat at the time?

You can see how a memorial like that would freak someone involved in the accident. date=21.07.2003 04:54 ip=158.94.150.87 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: he did his rounds in a Landrover. Unfortunately.

MJH: I've just been reading 'Running Down' and, at the climax of the story, there was a huge clap of thunder overhead and the rain started belting down. Lovely moment. date=21.07.2003 05:00 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well Alex it's a plain fact that I once saved the Devil from drowning. In return he gave me the power to control the climate through texts. But from that day to this I have, personally, never known a sunny day. date=21.07.2003 07:59 ip=213.78.69.47 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Remarkable. I was just reading "Settling the World" and this bloody great fly came in...
Incidentally, much as I like it, that story doesn't seem to me to sit comfortably with your other work. It reminds me a bit of Robert Sheckley. Is that a common reaction? date=21.07.2003 08:37 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Be careful with hand tools while reading I Did It! date=21.07.2003 08:42 ip=158.94.150.87 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always liked Sheckley but it's so long since I read him that that's all I remember. I think of "Settling the World" as my last New Wave piece & "Running Down", which followed it, as my first real MJH piece. Estrades and his sidekick are cartoons, minor characters from Conrad or Wells blown up beyond what significance they'll support--so they have to be constantly maintained by the writer in the face of the reader's scepticism. Their whole world has to be shown as light opera. That's very typical of the New Wave. "Running Down" is less aware of itself in that way; and there's some attempt at rendering the characters as real in the sense that their relationships aren't determined by the fiction but determine it. Who knows. date=21.07.2003 10:05 ip=213.78.90.186 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: what "Settling the World" did do was set up the narrator-protagonist relationship which was so succesful later; also the refusal to quite close or solve the mystery, thus pushing the story past its own ending. date=21.07.2003 10:25 ip=213.78.90.186 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Perhaps it's the levity in 'Settling The World' which reminds me of Sheckley.
Having just read The Ice Monkey for the first time, I seem to be stuck in a Harrison loop: the way your short stories try out ideas which are expanded in the novels means that reading a new (old) short story such as The Incalling (which is a new favourite, by the way) impels me to go back to Light and CotH. The Quarry makes me want to look at SoL again. I like this aspect of your work: the consistent development and mutation of core ideas has more in common with poetry than prose, I think. Perfect stuff for a thesis, I should think. It's a shame you haven't written more. date=22.07.2003 00:43 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the consistent development and mutation of core ideas has more in common with poetry than prose

Also dance, and (particularly) painting. Much of this is conscious, and originates in the early 70s when I watched my friend Judith Clute make sketches, studies and photographic notes for her paintings. Also, of course, core themes are themselves developed from core ideologies and beliefs. A view of the world builds up by accretion and testing. I can't quite understand why anyone would write in any other way, or for any other purpose.

>>Perfect stuff for a thesis, I should think. It's a shame you haven't written more.

I'm not as convinced by productivity as some. It's a professional solution, sure; but not neccessarily an artistic one. The pressure to produce rushes the process and dilutes the product. No point, as my old grannie used to say, in spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar. Also: I haven't finished yet! date=22.07.2003 02:21 ip=213.78.89.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Also dance, and (particularly) painting.

I would add music to that, too. I can think of plenty of musicians, songwriters particularly, who produce work which is undoubtedly new but which refers back to earlier work, or which takes earlier ideas and develops them. But it takes a particular self-confidence to be able to pull this off without being accused of repetition. Nick Cave springs to mind, as someone whose core ideas are very much to the fore in all his work, but who very rarely gets accused of repetition (except by the shallow). date=22.07.2003 02:43 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The pressure to produce rushes the process

Didn't you say somewhere that there's no such thing as a creative block if you've got all the time in the world? That was a bit of an eye-opener for me. date=22.07.2003 02:45 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="All the time in the world" is probably overstating it a bit. But clearly if you can wait and work with a piece you're more likely to find a solution to a problem. Block is nature's way of telling you've got something wrong. If you tie up around that you're fucked. This often boils down to why you write, who you write for, how you write for them. I think block is essentially a disease of expectation--sometimes your own but much more often other people's. I'm not arguing for what used to be called so naively an "ivory tower" approach. You make your own decisions about who you will allow to have expectations of you (including yourself). Sports psychology probably has more use to the "blocked" writer than any theory from inside professional writing (literary or commercial). It's an inner game thing. Some completely low-level pro just won a famous golf tournament because, according to the psychologists, he didn't understand how much pressure he was under. He wasn't sufficiently awed by his circumstances, didn't feel the weight of other people's expectations, so he could play in a relaxed way. If I rated a climb, I would always tie up and allow it to psych me out. Block--where it isn't just a technical problem you need time to crack--is a lot to do with that. date=22.07.2003 03:24 ip=213.78.89.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some interesting points there. My take on it, though, is that having worked as a 'creative' in the advertising/design industry, I now find that I need deadlines, whether imposed on me or self-imposed. I dislike an endless sheet of blank paper. But the thing about commercial creativity is that the good idea can come immediately, or it can come as the dealine looms. You never quite know when it will arrive. But having too much time to work on a problem can lead to severe over-egging or uneccessary fiddling. The work expands to fit its allotted time-frame. The downside is that if there is not enough time to come with a great solution, you still need to have a solution. It might not be a good one. date=22.07.2003 03:41 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not the blank page that psychs me out. It's the half page that ends in the middle of a line...

Most fiction writing takes place under the rules of engagement defined in your last two sentences. That's why it's so crap. When circumstances have forced me to write in that way, the stuff I've produced has always been so bad it was unusable, even by the shittiest of publishers. If I can't get it right I can't do it all. It's a temperament thing. In the late 60s I was taught to think of that as a curse, but later I began to see it as a bit of luck. date=22.07.2003 04:01 ip=213.78.72.98 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the rules of engagement defined in your last two sentences

Do you mean the last two sentences you have written, or the final two sentences of a story?
If the latter, are you saying that a story that is constructed as a framework for a kind of punchline is a bad one?
As a relatively inexperienced writer of fiction I find it hard to decide. Do I plot the story, in which case I might get bored writing it, or do I start writing and see where it goes, which might be nowhere? What do you recommend - even 'none of the above'? date=22.07.2003 04:09 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the rules of engagement defined in your last two sentences

Doh! You meant *my* last two. date=22.07.2003 04:37 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's not the blank page that psychs me out.

If you're constantly working you never get to the blank page. There are always a hundred odds and sods lying around waiting for an opportunity to be developed, or for their proper context. Even the tabula rasa attacked physically starts to ruck up and split into forms and colours.

I just wish I had more *time* to do it all. date=22.07.2003 05:33 ip=158.94.155.137 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I just wish I had more *time* to do it all.

Me too. But we've got the time - it's the money that calls the shots. In an ideal world, artists, writers and musicians should be supported by the government/community, without the need to produce commercially viable work. More practically, they should be allowed to do their work while supported by the government without being forced to go to job clubs. The intention to produce saleable work should be seen as 'looking for work'. Of course there's plenty of problems with this: the main one being who decides whether an artist is producing work which merits them calling themselves an artist. You only have to visit local art exhibitions, or join a local writers' group to see the problem. I guess some kind of community voting system might work. Leave Brian Sewell out of it though. date=22.07.2003 05:46 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sound advice: "blocks" are fuck ups - either you've developed something in the wrong direction, or else you haven't developed it enough, in my very limited experience.

And some writers' fluidity leaves you queasy. Robert Silverberg once confessed that his working pattern for pulps in the '50s - day in, day out - was 5,000 words before lunch (start novella), 10,000 words after lunch (continue novel), with the odd short story thrown in for good measure, all of it publishable first draft. This gave him a novella each week, a novel every month ... But then he had a nervous breakdown and his house burnt to the ground, so God may well have a sense of justice after all. date=22.07.2003 08:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>In an ideal world, artists, writers and musicians should be supported by the government/community, without the need to produce commercially viable work.

At the very least government sponsored villas for struggling artists! It's the problem of keeping a roof over my head that keeps me working 9-5. But then again, I think the pressure to record/write/photograph/etc in the remaining time keeps the pressure on. date=22.07.2003 08:52 ip=158.94.155.137 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Being positive, I wonder if anyone's got advice on avoiding or breaking "blocks." There's clearly no magic formula ( or one of us would be a multi-millionaire ) - but has anyone favourite books/music/techniques that set things in motion again?

My battered pack of Eno/Schmidt's "Oblique Strategies" cards often does the trick. That or Raymond Cahndler's advice: "If in doubt, have a man come in with a gun." date=22.07.2003 10:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am actually a multimillionaire, Martin, under my other name. Wilbur Smith.

Breaking blocks: that's a seriously wrong concept, like "conquering" a mountain. Never happens. What you could try: work somewhere else in the text, ie leave that scene and go on to another, suddenly the solution comes to you. Something else: stuff the thing in a drawer for three months & see how you feel about it then. date=22.07.2003 12:40 ip=213.78.70.166 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I *thought* I recognised your style in that safari sex scene with the bazooka and the twelve gazelle, out on Table Mountain ...

That drawer could get very full in three months. Thinking about it, I try and stop the problem by getting the last line of a piece of work first, and then hack my way towards it - though, as you say, it gets very frustrating when things evaporate in the middle of the screen and you're left wondering if you ever really spoke English in the first place. date=23.07.2003 00:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the last line of a piece of work first

One of the techniques I often use to look at things differently is to try to find a solid link between two things which are, at first glance, completely unrelated. You can do it by picking two random words from a dictionary and finding the link between the two. There is always some link to find, even though there might be several degrees of separation between the two. date=23.07.2003 01:51 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - Alex, reminds me of an Iain Sinclair comment - 'put two postcards together, you've got a narrative'.

Agree with you about blocks, MJH - you're not blocked, you just don't have an answer yet. I tend to try not to force it, just go off and wait for a solution to arise.

Tho' a lot of the time I just blast on - I tend to assume that the first draft will never be perfect, so try and complete it with as little critical interference as possible, then go back and rework and rework until it's become something I'm happy with.

I do like working from a reasonably planned structure, tho' - so most of the time, blocks will come for me either when I'm planning a story or when I've redrafted a few times and aren't quite sure where to go next. date=23.07.2003 02:32 ip=62.188.105.208 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>reminds me of an Iain Sinclair comment

I would have thought Sinclair constructs his narratives from a stack of postcards (some of which are obscured by espresso stains and bodily fluids), a bag of dead man's laundry and bin juice from a bookshop. For starters. date=23.07.2003 03:21 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And a church or two, and one or more of the following:

- Jeffrey Archer
- Peter Whitehead
- Stephen Hawking
- John Dee
- the M25 date=23.07.2003 03:36 ip=62.188.105.207 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sinclair tried to write an opera about Dee, and offered Elvis Costello the chance to be involved. Apparently, Costello backed off because the shew stones, angels, and Edward Kelley's wife-swapping antics were too dark for his ingrained Catholic sensibilities: the mind boggles at what the finished score might have included. date=23.07.2003 03:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Costello? Nah - Peter Hammill's yer man. Andrew Logan for the costumes and The Brothers Quay for the sets.
I'd like to do an opera about Eric Gill. Weird bloke - trouble is, I want Vivian Stanshall for the lead role, and he's dead. date=23.07.2003 03:51 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think our Viv obeyed the old proverb, and tried everything in life except incest and folk dancing - a distinct draw back for an opera about Gill!

None the less, a great performer, and a wonderful friend of all of us here ... date=23.07.2003 03:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gill did folk dancing as well?

*rewrites libretto to include Vaughn Williams pastiche for incest scene* date=23.07.2003 04:03 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good question - but the artistic smock and the back of beyond lifestyle always gave me that impression.

Perhaps the libretto should include "Jollity Farm" - or have Eric visit Rawlinson End. The prospect of him chipping away at a phallic statue in Sir Henry's domain is deeply enticing! date=23.07.2003 04:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An Iain Sinclair Elvis Costello John Dee opera!?

*boggles*

Shame it never got off the ground, would have made truly bizarre viewing. date=23.07.2003 05:06 ip=62.188.105.76 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Eric Gill (on monocyle, in tutu): "I is a sambo, regard my ear-rings."

I think it works. date=23.07.2003 05:17 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: very tantalising, I agree. Sinclair makes a quick reference to it ( I think ) in his photo essay book with Marc Atkins, "Liquid City." There's also a scarifying photo in there of a skeletal Derek Raymond, beret in full effect, towards the end of his life.

Alex: I could picture Gill doing "I stand upright in my wheelbarrow/And pretend I'm Boadicea." But Sir Henry would undoubtedly go after him with the boar's tusks, after he'd finished ripping up that month's "Readers Digest." date=23.07.2003 05:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What's the deal with Derek Raymond, anyway? I read one of his books but it did nothing for me. date=23.07.2003 05:57 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I find Raymond very uneven as a writer, interesting as a figure moving between the high and the low life. I'm not an obsessive fan: Sinclair rates him, and there's a rapturous interview/appreciation that Ian Penman included in his book "Vital Signs."

I prefer his "social" novels like "The Crust on Its Uppers" to some of the later "Factory" books - but anyone who could actually sit down and write "I Was Dora Suarez" had something going for him - even if it was only an increasingly worried agent. Hardly a cosy read for the fireside. date=23.07.2003 06:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"I Was Dora Suarez"

That's the one I read. I thought it was vile, without mitigating circumstances - and I'm not squeamish. I can appreciate Raymond as a kind of cultural icon, but I'm not sure why he deserved it. A minor figure, for sure. date=23.07.2003 06:25 ip=81.136.134.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, haven't read 'The Crust on its Uppers' but I agree with you about 'I was...'. I think it's the one with the bizarre, masochistic masturbating murderer? Makes me wince just to think about it... date=23.07.2003 07:21 ip=62.188.105.61 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, there's a CD of Raymond reading parts of 'I was..' with musical backing from Gallon Drunk. The CD isn't much good, either. date=23.07.2003 07:32 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Dora" is maybe the darkest book I know - the shotgun damage of the first chapter is bad enough, but the psychological disturbance and homophobia/HIV panic infusing the rest is relentless. It's said Raymond's usual publisher turned the book down, on the not unreasonable grounds that reading it had made him physically sick.

Hugely popular in France, though. date=23.07.2003 08:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is fun--
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/dispatch/story/0,12978,1004411,00.html date=24.07.2003 02:33 ip=213.78.76.14 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, that's interesting. We all seem to be so predictable, don't we? There was another one recently where someone had developed a computer program which could identify whether a song was likely to be a hit or not.
But what really got me interested today was the story on R4 about neural feedback: it seems 'they' have developed a way for musicians, in this instance, to control the way their minds produce theta waves. They reckon they can improve a musican's performance by 50%: there are possibilities for other types of creative people to use this technique too. date=24.07.2003 03:09 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought the implications, rather than the predictability, were fun. I'd like to see the parameters. What core texts did they use as exemplars for the programme ? What assumptions did they make about male/female language ? How many of those were arrant value judgements rather than ascertainable facts ? More importantly to those of us who like a challenge, could you fool it ? If you ran a piece of science--or science fiction--writing by a woman through it, would that come out as marginal as an autobiography written by a man ? What syntactical differences did they assume ? Differences in rhythm ? One of the base assumptions--that women use more personal pronouns than men--is certainly on its way out: very dangerous assumption in the mememe generation. Presumably that's why it only runs an 80% success rate compared to some other word counting programmes.

Remember the vicar who wrote the autobiographical novel of a fourteen year old girl in the 80s, and sold it, lock, stock & barrel, to Virago (who were then mightily pissed at being fooled--although to be honest, nobody I ever met from Virago could have told Arnold Bennett from Dorothy Richardson and seemed proud of it) ?

In the early 90s, I got interested in "style check" programmes. If you ran various texts through them, you could soon begin to understand the assumptions they'd made, and tailor paragraphs to make high or low scores. All this has massive ramifications for one of the most important aspects of writing: technique. "Authentic" tone sells the product, from sentence one. I'd like a copy of that programme to piss about with... date=24.07.2003 03:51 ip=213.78.80.81 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm tempted to say that the programme must be one of the few to have actually read "Possession" all the way through - but that would be a cruel and highly irresponsible comment.

I wonder if they're now going to run it on the Bible: wasn't there a theory a few years ago that several books of the Old Testament were actually written by a woman?

Mortifying, too, if they found "Mr. Sex & Sin" St. Paul was actually a transvestite - or should that be "transcriptite" ? So, endless fun in store. date=24.07.2003 03:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As a PS, I wonder what it would say about books with joint authorship - Gabriel King's work, for example? date=24.07.2003 04:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd like to see them try it on something by Charlotte Bach. date=24.07.2003 04:10 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The Man With the Woman's Style" - somebody should write this story, before Robyn Hitchcock makes a song of it. date=24.07.2003 04:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gabriel King: Not a fair test, really. Since there was no chance of actual "collaboration", we split the narrative into completely separate strands, and rarely even wrote in the same chapter (although some redrafting of my sections went on later). So if they counted separate chapters they would get alternating results, male female, male female. Presumably if they counted the whole thing it would blur out, maybe making it difficult to assign one way or the other. But if you counted the "Anna" sections of the second two books, you might have a surprise. I don't know. Jane's quite a "male" writer by their definitions; I think most f/sf writers tend to be. date=24.07.2003 05:38 ip=213.78.72.112 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Just out of interest, do you think your work is read more by men than by women, or is your readership quite a balanced mix? I'd expect the Viriconium books and Light to appeal more to men than women, but what about the rest? date=24.07.2003 05:50 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know, Alex. People read for subject matter, & they tend to think of most of my issues & interests as "male" --especially in stuff like Signs of Life or Climbers. I have female readers, nevertheless; and, curiously, a lot more since Light. I wouldn't mind an explanation of that. date=24.07.2003 06:11 ip=213.78.72.112 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe it's because Seria Mau is a bit more kick-ass than some of your other female characters? date=24.07.2003 06:42 ip=81.136.134.160 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps they're hooked by poor Clara's "blink and you miss it" fate on p. 3 ... "Light" does negotiate its way towards Kearney's vision (redemption? ) in a fashion that "male" space opera simply can' t accommodate, I think. You couldn't imagine van Vogt having the nous to do anything remotely similar. In his hands, Seria would simply have blasted the other characters to bits, and got on with a different (yet strangely familiar) plot-line. date=24.07.2003 06:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm with you on Kearney's redemption, Martin: it's a kind of "hounds of God" narrative, with some of its bones at odd angles. Alex: I don't get this "kick-ass" thing, although it's certainly been put to me. As far as I can see Seria Mau's as unacceptably loony as Kearney. Also as much of a self-made loony: she'd rather live in--and as--a tank than face life & grow up. When did fiction come to be populated solely by "good" (sympathetic) and "bad" (unsympathetic) psychopaths ? Anna, Mona and Annie Glyph are much more human. They're trying to get by in the world: Seria Mau is just an eleven-year-old's power fantasy, played large. Who would want to be that ? date=24.07.2003 07:41 ip=213.78.68.222 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Who would want to be that ?

Remember Riot Grrrl? But seriously, I wonder if the way Light has been marketed (which, to my mind, makes it seem more SF than it really is) has given it a readership which is already conditioned to read it a certain way. So, you might get a certain type of reader who would see Seria as a kick-ass anti-heroine, rather than a destructive kid. I don't know: I read Light as an MJH book, in the context of what I already knew about your work. I see it more of an extension of SoL, CotH etc. People coming from the other direction might view it differently. date=24.07.2003 08:05 ip=81.136.134.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mm, yes. Both points taken, Alex. I guess I wasn't thinking of the f/sf audience. Also, I never really intend to write reader-identification characters, so I'm rather surprised when people, forced (by their reading habits) to choose between one loony and another, seem happy to do that. Not that I don't identify with some of the Light characters. The Shrander, for instance. A bit old, a bit vague, a bit beyond her time, but unquestionably in charge of the plot. I also identify with Billy Anker, who used to be into adventure and illumination but has kind of got tired out by it all. I like any character who has begun to realise that understanding doesn't occur as a single epiphany. But Anna Kearney's my favourite of them all. I like anyone who's hanging by a fingernail but who, the next time you look up, has made it a few feet further towards the top. "My god," you think. "Still alive then." That's her psychodrama. That's her strategy. Kick-ass people, all these female John Waynes, never realise that what they do is a psychodrama too; or that there are as many strategies as there are human beings. (Face it, they rarely even realise there are other people in the world.) date=24.07.2003 08:31 ip=213.78.77.240 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suppose identification with characters is an important part of how some people read. I don't think I ever do: I'm more likely to identify with something the author points out to me, as if slipping a message through the bars of the text.
Someone once said a good songwriter tells you how you feel by telling you how they feel. I like that. I enjoy having someone change my mind. date=24.07.2003 08:48 ip=81.136.134.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello all, haven't been around much due to weirdnesses occurring in Zaliville. Half of them will get into a short story at some point.

Reader Identification in Light: I'm still in there with the Sprakes. I'd love to buy the franchise of Yaxley and Sprake someday to do a strange fucked-up crimefighting headcase series with those two.

Hey Mike, remember They Fight Crime? date=24.07.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.122.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wierdnesses ?

I might have known you'd feel at home with the Sprakes. I was thinking about They Fight Crime the other day because Cath found a URL that generated your "vampire name" on the same sort of basis, randomisation of a few core phrases. Don't ask me why a grown up woman was wasting her time that way... Must be slow at TO these endless humid London-summer days etc etc. "At Home with the Sprakes" might make a title. date=24.07.2003 11:07 ip=213.78.85.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not even particularly new weirdnesses. I'll explain later. date=24.07.2003 18:28 ip=81.135.11.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Astronomers in Australia say there are 10 times more stars in the visible Universe than all the grains of sand on the world's beaches and deserts."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3085885.stm date=26.07.2003 02:57 ip=213.122.159.58 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting article hear about the brain producing auditory hallucinations in an attempt to produce meaning out of chaos...
"This is like an audio Rorschach test....If someone is on a diet they tend to hear words related to food or dieting. Women often hear things of a romantic nature, whereas men do not. Even native speakers of languages other than English tend to hear words and phrases in their native language."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/uoc--ncb071403.php date=28.07.2003 02:01 ip=81.136.206.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My immediate thought was, given that these illusions are so patterned & dependable, does the brain make any patterned & dependable illusions of meaning when confronted by destructured or restructured narrative text ? There isn't any doubt that readers decode nonexistent meanings from Modernist or Roman Nouveau text (Ballard's condensed novels for instance), according to their expectations of what a text "ought" to offer. date=28.07.2003 03:02 ip=213.78.90.22 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm not sure you could do quite the same thing with written text but it would be interesting to try. It depends on context: if you were to put two random words on a road sign, people would attempt to analyse the information as a message from authority. Put the same two words on a page, and call it a poem, and people would attempt to read it as a poem.

I don't know if spoken language works as a signifier the same way written text does. Ever listen to a conversation in dutch? It sounds like Yorkshire surrealism. date=28.07.2003 03:25 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=While we were having dinner the other night Bridget and me heard the presenter on the radio refer to a conductor whose name appeared to be Snackery Horror Moan. I heard the name again yesterday and it sounded pretty similar, if not identical.

I'm not sure what this proves. date=28.07.2003 10:35 ip=213.122.135.155 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=While we were having dinner the other night Bridget and I heard the presenter on the radio refer to a conductor whose name appeared to be Snackery Horror Moan. I heard the name again yesterday and it sounded pretty similar, if not identical.

I'm not sure what this proves.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=28.07.2003 10:35 ip=213.122.135.155 name=Steve mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, finished Light about a week back - excellent, characters and superb insights on human condition. I think the bit I got most from it was the infinite beauty/complexity in everything. Am I way off the mark? Or just an acid casuality? Anyway, thanks for a great read. date=28.07.2003 11:48 ip=81.104.34.127 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steve. I don't think you're off the mark at all. The recognition of all that complexity and beauty is certainly what redeems Michael Kearney. He's driven through the text by his fear of being alive, only to meet it coming the other way at last. You can't escape the hounds of God (or the rhetoric of the author). Glad you enjoyed it. date=29.07.2003 02:08 ip=213.78.93.131 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Finally got around to seeing Cronenberg's Spider last night. I thought it was excellent, particularly since the book didn't seem easily to lend itself to filming. I reckon it might need a couple of viewings if you haven't read the book, though. Anyone ever tried to film any of yours, MJH? date=29.07.2003 03:09 ip=81.136.206.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. A couple of treatments were done in the 70s. But they were so crap I left the deal by the back door. date=29.07.2003 03:31 ip=213.78.91.222 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I could see Cronenberg doing Signs Of Life. date=29.07.2003 03:41 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Would have liked to see Werner Herzog doing Climbers. Klaus Kinski as Mike, of course.

Maybe Jacques Tati doing In Viriconium? date=29.07.2003 04:01 ip=158.94.171.251 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - F W Murnau (the Nosferatu guy) would be my ideal choice for any Viriconium adaptations... date=29.07.2003 04:46 ip=62.188.108.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Mark E. Smith would make a good Yaxley, and David Thewlis (who should definitely play John Constantine if they film Hellblazer) could do Choe quite well. date=29.07.2003 04:56 ip=81.136.206.112 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always imagined John Constantine as a bit of a Michael Caine - 'Get Carter' or 'The Ipcress File'.

MJH, have been re-reading the Viriconium stories over the last week or so, lovely stuff. Interesting reading Tomb's 'I've wasted fifty years' in the light of your Katherine Mansfield comments elsewhere... and undercutting the great heroic finale by having tegeus-Cromis going off in a huff! tho' this is I suppose an epic thing, given that much of the Iliad's action is predicated on Achilles sulking in his tent.

Was also fascinated by the way that the Gnosticism was breaking through in 'A Storm of Wings' - if reality's an illusion, why does it have to be OUR illusion?

Nice to see the Mari Llwd popping up at various points as well!

Btb, talking of skulls, anyone see that programme about the self-mummifying Japanese monks last night? Incredible stuff... date=29.07.2003 09:13 ip=62.188.110.43 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. The story behind the end of TPC is this: when New English Library became impatient about late delivery of the book in 1971, I said to myself, "OK, you can have it as it is." That's why the last battle, originally planned to be 10,000 words, is reduced to a page and a half by resume, focussed on the absence of the central character [Fantasy Masterworks Edition, pp148/9]. This piece of sarcasm, addressed to an editor who couldn't possibly understand it, uncovered almost by accident the real person behind the troubled romantic fantasy hero: a man with an unreasonable sense of his own centrality in the political narrative. After that I could see what to do with--and to--that aspect of fantasy. From Aragorn to Elric, fantasy is about a kiddie waving a plastic sword in the air, always the centre of its own narrative. I owe a trashy English publisher, long (and deservedly) defunct, for stimulating that insight.

Gnosticism I came at from the cognitive angle. I'd been amazed by a book called The Parable of the Beast by John Bliebtrau, which assembled much of what was known in the late 60s about Umwelt, the animal's "world" as constructed by its perceptual systems. Every species lives in a different world: they all assume it's the "real" one. We can understand this when we look at a tick or a squid, but somehow we can't understand it when we look at ourselves. (See "always being the centre of your own narrative", above.) I hate anthropocentrism. You can never cut off all its heads. After thousands of years we dealt with religious anthropocentrism: all that happened, it got replaced by political anthropocentrism. The monkey with the stick, centre of its own fantasy. I want to play "Don't Bang the Drum" by the Waterboys now, very loud. date=29.07.2003 12:40 ip=213.78.68.241 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I haven't even thought about the Waterboys for many years. Time for a reinvestigation: I always loved the track December.
In reference to your last post, I saw a quote from Ivan Strang from Subgenius today, which said something like: "You know how dumb the average guy is? Well mathematically that means a lot of people are dumber." I liked that. date=29.07.2003 15:20 ip=213.106.178.125 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Favourite Waterboys tracks: Church Not Made with Hands, A Pagan Place, This Is the Sea, Whole of the Moon, The Pan Within. I didn't like anything they did after about 1985.

I was thinking more about Viriconium and its relationship with editors. One of the things that happened was that they would hate the book you delivered; but when you delivered the *next* one they would always say you should have written something more like the previous one... I got a twenty page letter from a US editor, advising me how to turn In Viriconium into A Storm of Wings, a book which they had *loathed* when I delivered it. Clearly, like the genre itself, the editorial process is essentially nostalgic & backward-looking: the old days are always better. When I wouldn't change a book, they could always find a clause in the contract which allowed them to change the title--anything to put their mark on it. At one point, I got sent a list of ten alternative titles for In Viriconium. When I refused to pick one, they did it themselves. Nothing compared to contemporary practise, of course, which allows them not only to spatchcock your book but change your name too. Viriconium stopped having these problems in the UK when I went to Gollancz. date=30.07.2003 02:45 ip=213.78.87.82 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I used to love the NEL cover of The Pastel City...was it a Bruce Pennington?

Today I intend to spend a whole day speaking and writing in E-Prime (English without the verb "to be"). Anyone tried it? date=30.07.2003 03:08 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it was a Pennington. Don't think it was one of his best. It's a bit business as usual: nuclear desert, fleet of flying saucers, veiled rider.

E-prime: I am not sure I've ever tried that. date=30.07.2003 03:40 ip=158.94.175.167 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do you remember the Sci-Fi magazine in the 70s which came in the form of an A2 poster folded down to A4? I can't remember what it was called, but they printed a few Pennington posters: Space, Time and Nathaniel was my favourite.

I like E-Prime, but it's a bugger to get used to. See? I mean, it seems difficult to get used to to me. date=30.07.2003 03:49 ip=81.136.206.112 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJH - Hmm, interesting about the editor and that final section of 'The Pastel City'. Intriguing also how it then sets him up to be this powerful absent presence in 'A Storm of Wings' - and making an interesting point about nostalgia, also. We know him from the book to be a grumpy, depressive and sometimes deeply ineffectual person - but he becomes this great lost presence who nobody quite feels they can measure up to.

Intriguing on the editorial presence - I suppose their more commercial affiliations makes them need to make a commercial as well as aesthetic case for whatever they're publishing, which means they'll always look back to what's succeeded for to replicate its success. What was your preferred name for 'In Viriconium', btb?

Have been pondering the nature of the hero myself a bit lately - am coming to see it as in some ways akin to addiction - ie the addiction to the great orgasmic moment of success and resolution, beyond which there is only comfort and joy, the land of milk and honey etc. Also makes me think of something Burroughs said, in the intro to 'Junky' - drugs are the ultimate consumer good, normally you have to convince people to buy things and work very hard to achieve this, with drugs you can punch them in the face every time they buy from you but they'll still come back for the next fix.

Seems like an interesting boiling down of a particular kind of hero - in fact the punching in the face lends legitimacy to the final achievement of the high by making them feel they've suffered to reach it and so deserve the feeling of peace and joy! And, once the high's run through their system, it's back to the quest for the next resolving fix... date=30.07.2003 03:50 ip=62.188.108.82 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="to to"? As in Desmond?

Magazine sounds very cool. I've got this large format book of Bruce Pennington's interpretation of the Apocalypse of St John. It might be called Telos... can't remember. Actually it's not really mine. It's on semi-permanent loan from my library. There have to be *some* perks to the job.

Didn't Atari Teenage Riot or Alec Empire use the Space, Time & Nathaniel cover on one of their albums? date=30.07.2003 03:54 ip=158.94.175.167 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"to to"? As in Desmond?

Gah! See, I said it wasn't easy. Okay, I don't need the "to me" bit. So: "it seems a bugger to get used to." date=30.07.2003 04:05 ip=81.136.206.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. My preferred title was In Viriconium. In the US it was called The Floating Gods, one of the titles I refused to pick from the list. date=30.07.2003 04:24 ip=213.78.76.141 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember that magazine, too. It was simply called "Science Fiction Monthly," I think: huge repros of NEL covers, interviews/profiles, and stories like Priest's "A Woman Naked" and Disch's "The War Next Door." It had some marketing clout behind it, making WH Smiths in a small town, but folded after about two years. I don't recall many adverts, though, and that was presumably the unromantic reason it collapsed.

As for the Sprakes: couldn't they move into Albert Square? A quick operation at the Queen Vic, Dirty Den walks out of the canal, and the White Couple take over the fruit stall. It could happen ... date=30.07.2003 06:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: That's the one. I remember that priest story too. Had to hide it from my Mum. I'm going to look on Ebay now, like a sad old anorak. date=30.07.2003 06:57 ip=81.136.206.112 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wish I still had some copies or you could have had them, Alex. They went out about 1980, I'm afraid! date=30.07.2003 07:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, how did the NEL work? There were some good authors on their list, but surely the books were not solely published by the NEL? Then there was all the Skinhead and Biker books (of which I have almost a full collection). They were just hack work, weren't they? date=30.07.2003 07:04 ip=81.136.206.112 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One for MJH, definitely. But my impression was that they got along on Heinlein/Richard Allen, plus those intriguing "adult"/"fully illustrated" titles you saw advertised on the last page at twice the price of anything else on the list. You'd have had to have hidden those from your mum as well!

Most of what we were buying, sadly, must have barely tickled the annual balance sheet. date=30.07.2003 07:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: my Mum found a copy of The Soft Machine in my room when I was about 15. She said "that's not a very nice book." God knows what unimaginable horrors were going though her mind. date=30.07.2003 07:31 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, the Sphere edition of A Storm of Wings features one of the few examples of fantasy wasp-fucker soft porn. You can always rely on Chris Achilleos for a lurid cover. date=30.07.2003 07:44 ip=158.94.175.167 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Wasp-Fucker"! One to kick oiff my next pub brawl!

Didn't Sphere do an edition of Keith Roberts' "The Furies" that also features WFing with a vengeance - or, anyway, Thames Valley man grapples with giant mutated insect?

And why weren't Rentakil involved ..? date=30.07.2003 07:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=China Mielville's Perdido Street Station features bug sex.
Me, I've always had an eye for a well-turned ovipostor. date=30.07.2003 08:00 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rentakil? You are a sick man! What do you want? Snuff wasp-fucking?

PSS only has *semi* insect sex scenes and unfortunately they didn't manage to make it onto the cover. Maybe in future editions, eh? date=30.07.2003 08:05 ip=158.94.175.167 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Maybe in future editions, eh?

Got to be better than the sub-Pennington effort on the edition I've got.
Anyway, wasp-snuff-sex involves lots of jam, so count me in. date=30.07.2003 08:08 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh I quite liked the sub-Pennington effort. There's something quite pleasing about that thick oil paint effect that he's used. date=30.07.2003 08:21 ip=158.94.175.167 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rentakil - well, I'm sympathetic to PETA up to a point, but: ten-foot venomous insects start crawling from under your shrubbery - do you take 'em to bed, or give 'em a punch up the bracket? I'm turning into Tony Hancock in my old age ... :)

Did Pennington do those 1970s Corgi covers for Ray Bradbury, with the swirling silver and black lettering? For me, these are some of the most haunting book designs in existence. date=30.07.2003 08:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I was just thinking about those Corgi covers. The ones printed on some kind of canvas-effect card? They weren't Pennington's style, but good though. I liked the edition of Aldiss' Barefoot In The Head. Good book, too, if a little 'look how weird I am'. date=30.07.2003 08:43 ip=81.136.206.112 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Corgi "Barefoot" I remember was simply a map of the world exploding - was that him? The Faber hardback had something like rows and rows of dismembered dolls' heads, which was far more appropriate! date=30.07.2003 08:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The one I'm thinking of had a kind of scary disembodied slap-head floating like a planet with a ring round it. date=30.07.2003 08:55 ip=81.136.206.112 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I missed that completely, I'm afraid - but it sounds pretty apt!

After all these years, I've only just managed to read "Barefoot" all the way through, in the large p/b reprint that came out a couple of years ago. Astonishing: even if relatively little happens in the plot, I can't think of anyone else who tried to mix "Finnegans Wake" and sf ( let's leave Philip Jose Farmer out of this). I loved the image of blitzed Loughborough suburbanites standing out in their gardens, reading evening papers in the rain: Lennon in all his Peppery pomp might have been proud of that one. And I can't go through the place now without thinking of it as "Loveburrow." date=30.07.2003 09:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about that guy who just flew over the Channel without power? How the hell do you practise something like that? date=31.07.2003 04:01 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well apparently some of his training involved strapping himself to a speeding Porsche. I assume the Porsche wasn't speeding when he attached himself to it... date=31.07.2003 04:42 ip=158.94.178.149 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I hope the Porsche wasn't still attached to the house. date=31.07.2003 05:09 ip=81.136.206.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Porsche trials would have been to get him used to a 220kph airstream, I guess; & maybe some early tests of the suit/wing aerodynamics. Or maybe he just did it for fun. "I know, I'll strap myself to the top of a Porsche, why didn't I think of that before ?" I've known Choe Ashtons do things like that for less reason. Most of the testing must have been done in the air, on lower drops. What interests me: was the wing just for stability or did it provide lift as well ? date=31.07.2003 06:39 ip=213.78.76.51 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I imagined the wing would have something to do with making sure he maintained the right trajectory. The achievement is to do with getting from point A to point B while descending from *quite high up*. You'd need some kind of insurance against capricious breezes I would have thought. date=31.07.2003 06:47 ip=81.136.206.112 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Baumgartner, King of the Skies" - surely Mel Brooks is writing this as we speak.

The wing must have given some lift/stability: otherwise it'd have just sent him straight into the shipping lanes.

As Viv Stanshall once said: "Novel enough way to commit suicide." date=31.07.2003 06:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't one of the futurists strap themselves to the front of a locomotive for a laugh? But then again the really mad ones enlisted for WWI. date=31.07.2003 06:53 ip=158.94.178.149 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Locomotives! I didn't hear that. I always associate them with Marrinetti trying "futurist" recipes (sausage and after-shave), or that film of Mussolini & Co. jogging into action, because "the future can' t wait."

The future couldn't, but the lamp-post did, ho ho. date=31.07.2003 07:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph Swainston mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=:What interests me: was the wing just for stability or did it provide lift as well ?

Oh, I can't resist this one. You would get some lift just because it is an aerofoil. Also the faster you go, the more lift you will have as more air will be passing over the aerofoil. How much lift, I don't know yet. It might have pockets that inflate with airflow and improve performance - I'm guessing about that, this one is new to me. date=31.07.2003 07:56 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>pockets that inflate with airflow and improve performance

I love it! Flying trousers! date=31.07.2003 07:58 ip=81.136.206.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph! Thank god for some expert input. I know he got lift from the suit, because it was described as "aerodynamic" in one of the articles. But it would be tiring to stay on course & upright with just the suit, so I figured the wing was designed to give him stability. Then I wondered if it was also a bit of a cheat--maybe he needed the extra smidgin of lift to make the height/speed/distance figures work. He did talk about angle of incidence as well as angle of glide, so... date=31.07.2003 08:11 ip=213.78.87.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That, of course, should be "angle of attack". I haven't done this stuff since school. date=31.07.2003 08:18 ip=213.78.87.18 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He would want a high angle of attack to sink less rapidly with the glide ratio he has. That will force more air over his wing and create more lift. It will slow his airspeed as well as descent rate. Sorry if you already get this... I don't have any figures and I am coming from the gliding side rather than skydiving so I might be completely wrong! date=31.07.2003 09:36 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He was some kind of hot BASE jumper before, so I guess it was planned & promoted as a skydive prolonged by use of a wingsuit, rather than strictly a glide; but then the wing must have added some aspects of a glide. Anyway, when I thought of him up there I thought of Jant. Are you tempted ? You must miss gliding. date=31.07.2003 10:00 ip=213.78.64.153 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I assume that in skydiving, aerofoil is their body, so with head down and feet up they would go forward fast; other way round to go slower but I am *only guessing* that head-up would give him more time in the air because I don't understand all this 'terminal velocity' stuff. Best body shape for it would be tall & thin (lucky for Jant).

Yes, I do miss gliding especially now we had some good weather for it a few weeks ago. Would love to get off the ground and just do downhill glides. But back pain doesn't allow it, unfortunately. date=31.07.2003 11:09 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's news footage now. He just used the wing (no wingsuit) & he's covered with Red Bull decals: but it still looks ace. What a trip! date=31.07.2003 11:23 ip=213.78.72.167 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It is brilliant!

btw: the upturned ends of the wings are for stability, they reduce wingtip vortices, so reduce turbulence. date=31.07.2003 13:49 ip=80.177.155.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fucking hell, I might have expected something like this with all yr flying mullarkey, Steph! date=31.07.2003 16:33 ip=213.122.142.90 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The footage I loved was of the the plane that flew round the world on one tank of petrol (maybe 1996 or 7 ?). It was pretty much made of carbon fibre and film, built round the fuel tank, very high aspect ratio wing. The guy flew it through a laptop, and the wing constantly flexed as if it was alive. I cried every time I saw the pictures. date=01.08.2003 02:22 ip=213.78.90.85 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK, it was 1986, not 96, so I guess he couldn't have flown it by laptop (I must have seen footage of him flying something else that way); and there were two of them on board; and the floor plan of the plane is even weirder than I remembered it. All at-- http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/rutanvoy.htm date=01.08.2003 02:48 ip=213.78.90.85 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rutan was amazing. I loved the bit about them flying it through the edge of Typhoon Marge to get a bit of a push! date=01.08.2003 03:17 ip=81.136.206.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=While we're on the subject of unorthodox transport systems: Comedian straps engine to dead pig and uses it as a boat

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_796770.html?menu= date=01.08.2003 05:25 ip=158.94.182.101 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Transpot. Unorthodox. It seems Iraq's WOMDs were a new type of underground jet plane. date=01.08.2003 07:37 ip=81.136.206.112 name=Ben Wooller mail=bwooller@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Weird. I first misread "Unorthodox. Iraq's WOMDs" as "Unorthodix Iraq WOMBs". date=12.08.2003 21:35 ip=203.220.214.78 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A new short story, "Cicisbeo", will be published on September 21st in the Independent on Sunday's supplement Talk of the Town. "Cicisbeo" is about 4500 words long and set in East Sheen. No rocket ships in that, then. I've had another, much shorter story accepted by the Sunday Express supplement; but they're having trouble finding a slot for it. More news of that later, I hope. Gollancz, meanwhile, are doing a "four sheet" poster campaign for the paperback of Light, which will run for the second two weeks of September. Four-sheet posters aren't as big as the ones you see opposite tube platforms; but they're quite big enough.

More important than any of this: Forced Entertainment have a new show, THE VOICES, Sheffield Lyceum, Sept 12/13th. I hope this will be the opening show of a bigger run--watch this space for details. date=25.08.2003 10:48 ip=213.78.80.177 name=martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good stuff: we wait and wonder.

"Rockets in East Sheen," though - seems a shame that title goes to waste.

I'm going to catch up with Forced Entertainment one of these days, but the last unforgettable thing I saw was "Ladies & Gents" at Edinburgh, where you're crowded into a dimly lit public lavatory to witness at staged murder at close quarters. An Irish festival jury awarded it a prize for being erotic, but their logic eluded me. It was cold-blooded and haunting. Weeks later, I'm still thinking about it. date=26.08.2003 02:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=ColinM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Being dead iggerant, I had to Google for 'Cicisbeo'. Looks as though it's something to do with 'Light'...

http://www.advancefurniture.com/Catalog/Products/product_00000606_26.asp date=26.08.2003 17:44 ip=203.164.39.123 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That is so weird. I can't believe they called it that. I don't even want to know why. date=27.08.2003 02:55 ip=213.78.174.115 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bloody horrible lamp anyway. date=27.08.2003 04:44 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For my tastes, I'd agree. The Mamba model's even worse ... date=27.08.2003 05:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd go with the programmable mood lamps: http://www.advancefurniture.com/Catalog/Products/product_00002043_26.asp

For me the Cicisbeo would have worked with three stems in strong primaries - the descending cylindrical light is what ruins it. I hate that, it's worse than a lamp being completely horrible: one aspect could have been changed and this might have been the interior decor discovery of the year. date=27.08.2003 05:26 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Definitely!

The Atomic Corner Curio is almost worth it for the name. Not sure I could face any of the rugs with a hangover, though. date=27.08.2003 05:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come on, who could live without a Gameboy Corner Sectional?

http://www.advancefurniture.com/Catalog/Products/product_00001951_39.asp date=27.08.2003 05:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I could try ... date=27.08.2003 06:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, they look as if they're about to start into life, like something from a John Sladek story: the office furniture that took over the world.

Chocolate upholstered, and spooky! date=27.08.2003 06:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bringing this slightly back to the subject: I know this'll be more relevant when we've all rushed out, bought the paper and read the story but... to what extent is Cicisbeo continuing yr project of naturalising the language and narrative of the story? (a la Science & the Arts)

I can't remember where you said this, and I'm probably misquoting but: I believe you stated an objective of taking the fantasy out of the story in the same way that you wanted to take the genre out of the fantasy. Is this still a concern? Is this relevant to Cicisbeo? Will we have to wait and see? (of course we will...) date=27.08.2003 10:12 ip=213.122.195.225 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's really difficult to answer that without giving anything away. I think you'll have to wait & see, io. Or you could take the Premium Payment route. To view the manuscript a week before publication, just slip a fiver into any handy envelope and mail to the address below... date=27.08.2003 11:37 ip=213.78.174.142 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I didn't see the quote either - but I thought of that effect when I read "Empty" and "Gifco": 'supernatural' stories with the apparatus of graves and vampires drained completely from the page, like the subtlety of "Ice Monkey" but even sleighter of hand.

Loved the missing girl's parents in the bath, though. *Another* white couple ... date=28.08.2003 01:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another white couple indeed...

There's a discussion on my TTA board which is beginning to bear on this subject-- "Insiders and Outsiders". date=28.08.2003 02:49 ip=213.78.69.89 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Having re-read a few of the short stories recently, I came to a realisation that maybe some of the stories are not 'gettable' in the sense of any ultimate understanding being available to the reader. 'Gifco', for example: a marvellous and disturbing story, but is there any answer (indeed, is there any question)? Or is the impression it leaves in the mind the point of the thing? Fair or not, MJH? date=28.08.2003 03:30 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Gifco" is a kit. All the parts are there to enable you to assemble a "story" (indeed, perhaps more than one version of a story). But you have to negotiate with the process of assembly for the *meaning*. "Gifco" starts from the assumption that a story is a machine with three moving parts, a text, a reader and a value-system. How the first two operate together is managed by the third--but to get to the third, you first have to have assembled *something* using the first two... "Entertaining Angels" and "Black Houses" work in a similar way. I think the "impression" you're left with at the end is a very complex and delicate human understanding which can't be articulated. I hope so, anyway, because that's what I was after. date=28.08.2003 04:42 ip=213.78.87.128 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a very complex and delicate human understanding which can't be articulated

Interesting. Are you unable to articulate it, too? The nearest I can come to explaining the way the story makes me feel is a kind of 'someone walking on my grave' feeling. Nameless dread; the world slightly skewed. date=28.08.2003 04:56 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely. The effect's like Peter Straub's description of "The Red Badge of Courage" - a ghost story in which the ghost never appears. date=28.08.2003 05:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But it seems to me that this uncanniness comes out of the emotional circumstances of the two major characters. They may or may not have had--or lost--a daughter. They don't even seem to like one another much. Even their meeting was odd, precipitate, marked by emotionally imappropriate behaviour. Allo Johnnie presides over these intense but not-quite-definable emotional states. He's the ghost: but what of ? He's the haunting, driven by a guilt so difficult to manage that you might bury it by pretending to have killed your own daughter...

I do find the sum of this impossible to articulate--except by writing Gifco, which I did. date=28.08.2003 10:26 ip=213.78.73.118 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aha. Light dawns! date=29.08.2003 01:48 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe this is more for the "Outsiders" thread on TTA - but using a "ghost" in this way is exactly the sort of protocol that "insiders" to fantasy rarely seem to grasp. It's that elliptic, Jamesian mode of writing which Aickman practised and few others express ( it's also very hard to do well ): fantasy as a vehicle for exploring the blocks and nodes of predicament, rather than escaping from them down the nearest hobbit hole. date=29.08.2003 01:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd certainly be encouraging readers to explore rather than escape. But making a story the means of emotional exploration is a mainstream protocol (I hate that word!) in itself. The moment you decide to do that you are writing mainstream stories. Probably why the genre defends itself so furiously. If you give yourself up to it, Gifco is a pretty scalding piece of work. date=29.08.2003 02:39 ip=213.78.71.9 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, of course, not *solving* the predicament is a mainstream protocol. F/sf readers want answers, and they want them now. (Horror readers less so.) Sorry to double-post. date=29.08.2003 02:42 ip=213.78.71.9 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This must be one reason why so many of us read voraciously in fantasy and science fiction when we're teenagers, only to find much of it loses its savour when we get older: we grow to understand the world's intractable and can't be "answered" by finding a sword in a stone or ET in our garden shed. It's an infantile belief that reality can be made to accord with our demands.

Interesting things happen if you cling to that conviction. One day, you may find you're invading Poland. The next, you're flying an airliner into the World Trade Centre. As John Cale once said: "What you find in books - leave it there." Sound advice. date=29.08.2003 03:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After reading Light I decided to give SF another shot - I haven't bothered with it for years. At the moment, I am trying to read Iain M. Banks' Excession: fuck me, it's a slog. I'm sure there's a story in there, but I bet you could tell it in half the time were it not for all the geeky detail. I want more stuff like Light, where the f\sf elements add colour to the tale, not the other way around. Light, for all its sf clothes, is still a story about people, and it has real things to say. A kind of parable, perhaps? date=29.08.2003 03:40 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At one level, definitely a parable (although delivered in the spirit of the "three-part machine" notion, see below).

I love all of Banksie's work, can't get enough of it. Excession and Feersum Endjin both had some influence on Light. Have you tried FE ? I can recommend it. date=29.08.2003 04:51 ip=213.78.68.32 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I read FE when it came out, and I remember enjoying it. I'm sure that I'm probably being unfair to Excession - I like the humour, for sure - but I feel frustrated by the effort involved in understanding the details. Maybe I'm just too far away from the genre mindset. date=29.08.2003 05:14 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've read the "non-M." books - wonderful things, especially "The Bridge" and "Crow Road." The sf I've yet to catch up with; and "Dead Air," which got some dire reviews. What's anyone else's reaction to it?

Some of the venom may be down to the difficulty of writing any story that draws on 11 September. Throwing this open again, does anyone know fiction that's succeeded in handling those events yet? Mr. Banks could be there in a list of one for all I know. date=29.08.2003 05:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For me it's Complicity, The Crow Road and the (still) utterly weird visionary landscapes of The Wasp Factory. That book is an enigma, to me anyway, which means I never tire of it I haven't read Dead Air yet, so I can't comment.

Still on sf and the difficulty of entry: Algis Budrys solved it in Rogue Moon. You simply begin with the normal, and move the reader by degrees into the abnormal. You *ground* your imagination in the world we know. All sf used to be written like this, because the assumption was that it would be read by *readers*, not trained sf readers. Now, techniques like that are used only in children's f/sf fiction, where they are part of the protocols. (This led one mainstream reviewer to describe Course of the Heart as "Alan Garner for adults. Since, in a way, that's exactly what it is, I was suitably chuffed.) It seems daft to me that sf writers have thrown away a technique which could net them a bigger audience. date=29.08.2003 05:51 ip=213.78.77.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Alan Garner for adults

Well, if you hadn't said it MJH, I wouldn't have mentioned this, but I *thought* I caught glimpses of The Owl Service here and there in your work.
I've been trying to get my daughter to read Garner and Susan Cooper but she finds them too old fashioned in style. A shame.

I agree with you about The Wasp Factory, too. I don't think Banks could ever beat that one. date=29.08.2003 05:59 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I didn't mean to imply that CotH in any way referred to or depended on allusion to Garner's work. Only that Garner has a way of entering the reader to the fantastic world which I find sensible. He isn't the only writer to be interested in the problem--everyone from Wells to Aickmann has had a look at it. What interests me most about, say, Elidor, is that it *almost* asks the question asked in "Egnaro", ie what's the relationship between structured, written, codified fantasy and the ordinary human wish-fulfilments--fantasy in its wild state--which precede it ? date=29.08.2003 06:37 ip=213.78.90.13 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fair enough. I was just thinking of the woman made of flowers (which, of course, is not Garner's idea in the first place!)
You're right, though, that it is sensible for writers to ease the reader into the fantastic. Robert Holdstock did that quite well in Mythago Wood, I felt: I've used that book on a number of occasions to demonstrate to people how accessible fantasy literature can be. date=29.08.2003 06:44 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That woman made of flowers, she goes all the way back. Like the Mari she's a resource we all can tap... Totally agree on Mythago Wood. Textbook example. I don't see why techniques like this shouldn't be brought up to date and included in contemporary practice (they are, of course, in novels like House of Leaves). In CotH they're made part of the story--but there, of course, you're running into the issue I described in my last post, the point at which constructed fantasy collides with the internal fantasies of individuals. I'm sad your daughter finds Gardner & Cooper too old fashioned: but it does mean there's an opening for some young turk children's writer who can see it all in a Now way. date=29.08.2003 07:07 ip=213.78.78.251 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Once met with, you can't stop thinking about her, or about Elidor. Both books are extraordinarily haunting: "Malebron is such an evil *fuck,* " said one of my friends recently.

I'd recommend Garner's essays, too, in "The Voice That Thunders." There's one piece that includes letters to him from school kids that would make anyone reach for a tazer - and another essay , "The Beauty Things," that says more about culture, tradition, and the values of "fantasy" than most formal academics could express in a full length book. If you haven't seen this, track it down. date=29.08.2003 07:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>children's writer who can see it all in a Now way

Yes, absolutely. In fact, I'm having a stab at it myself.
Mythago Wood: that is not just a good example of what we're talking about, it's also *about* what we're talking about, don't you think? I didn't think as much of the sequels though. date=29.08.2003 07:18 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone know anything about Garner's adult fiction ? date=30.08.2003 02:44 ip=213.78.64.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read 'Strandloper' a while ago, and found it an interesting story if not a particularly exciting novel. date=01.09.2003 01:13 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think "The Stone Book Quartet" qualifies as adult: short books exploring country crafts and life before the Great War, as heartfelt as H.E. Bates but in a much drier tone. I'd recommend them to anyone, but I think you'd especially like the first, Mike: steeple-jack work on village churches - the story of someone who becomes a clocksmith because he wants to 'see into the back of things.' (I'm paraphrasing ) So, climbing, mechanics, and metaphysics all in one: what more could you want? date=01.09.2003 06:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What, indeed ? date=01.09.2003 11:41 ip=213.78.80.80 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

Have been re-reading Alan Garner myself lately, found a second hand copy of 'Elidor' and ripped through it. V. concise, coherent book - and also saw a relationship with your work, that sense of the fantastic not as a means of simplifying / escaping / transcending the everyday but as a profoundly baffling and ambiguous eruption into it.

The woman made of flowers haunts me too... think she first appears as Bloduedd in the Mabinogion? A hero's mother denies him a human wife, so Math his magician uncle assembles a woman from flowers to get round the curse, if I remember correctly.

I wonder if this 'not solving the predicament' can be seen as a peculiarly English / British approach to this kind of writing? We're a famously repressed bunch - perhaps the positive side of repression is a refusal to force things into the light of final explanation and let them just sit, present but unexplained and thus open to interpretation and reinterpretation? date=02.09.2003 02:44 ip=62.188.100.222 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>she first appears as Bloduedd in the Mabinogion

Which, of course, is what Garner's The Owl Service is based around. date=02.09.2003 02:57 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Furthermore, Blodeuedd was turned into an owl because she was not a suitable wife. Owls and flowers...how cool is that? date=02.09.2003 03:04 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doh! Of course...

V. cool. I suppose the connection comes from those feather surrounded - like open flowers, looking at you!

And there's Shakespeare as well - beauty, 'whose action is no stronger than a flower', somewhere in the sonnets - plants fragile but stone shattering if you give them long enough - as owls look like bits of down in the air but are ferocious, deadly hunters... date=02.09.2003 03:22 ip=62.188.110.57 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=feather surrounded eyes, that should be... date=02.09.2003 03:22 ip=62.188.110.57 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And of course fLOWer contains OWL... date=02.09.2003 03:23 ip=62.188.110.57 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>perhaps the positive side of repression is a refusal to force things into the light of final explanation and let them just sit, present but unexplained and thus open to interpretation and reinterpretation

Couldn't have said it better, Al. They also become a fantasy engine as they try to find their way out in the "return of the repressed".

My reinterpretation of the woman made of flowers, for "The Quarry" and TCotH, was to breed her on to her cousin the Green Man. Like him, I bet she predated her first written literary outing (let alone my efforts, or Garner's) by some thousands of years. date=02.09.2003 03:32 ip=213.78.72.166 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the Green man

Ah, old flower-face himself. I'm fascinated by him. I recently visited a church at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, which has the most amazing carvings around the roof and doorway, including a wonderful green man and the rudest, sassiest Shelagh-na-gig I've ever seen. Now there's a character for you. date=02.09.2003 03:39 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='the return of the repressed'? - that's Freud, isn't it? Alternatively, there's Coleridge on Hamlet - 'repression leads to overflow', which sums it up nicely...

I love the idea of repression as a fantasy engine - justifies significant parts of my education, if nothing else! - but also leads to an interesting rationale for this kind of writing - a means of responding to a particular subject area, and triggering responses to it in the reader, without bringing it into the light and thus refining it to death / destroying its potency - come to think of it, really a restatement of what you guys were saying below.

Hmm.

Shelagh Na Gigg - always amazed they got away with them! Imagine the 13th century builders... 'ah, Reverend, yes, a nice chaste madonna here, and there buttresses to support the divine house of the Lord, and we'll put some angels over there to sing the praises of the risen, purified Christ, and, over the door, A SOCKING GREAT NAKED WOMAN SPREADING HERSELF TO THE WHOLE WORLD!!!!!!!!!' *froths at mouth*.

Would love to know how they saw them fitting in with all that Christian iconography (if indeed they did...) date=02.09.2003 04:04 ip=62.188.110.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>how they saw them fitting in with all that Christian iconography

Some, probably Christian, sources suggest they were put there as warnings of sinfulness.
I prefer another idea: the carvers were saying "you can build on our ancient sites, you can appropriate our festivals and legends... but you can't kill the old gods." date=02.09.2003 04:37 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'd go with that - or at least, I agree, that's what I hope was going on.

Weren't most SNG's over the main door into the church? So, iconographically, maybe they make the church itself a womb you can enter into and be reborn into god from? date=02.09.2003 04:53 ip=62.188.100.30 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not sure about that, Al, but it's possible. I've had many arguments with Christians in which I've tried to point out that even the story of Jesus is a retelling of older legends (Horus, Mithras etc) but they don't buy it. In the same way that Yahweh 'became' a fertility god as well as a god of war (his previous job) to win over followers of Baal, I'm sure the early Christians in this country saw the value of 'spin'. date=02.09.2003 05:04 ip=81.136.223.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=

A discussion on the New Space Opera has opened on Night Shade's forum:
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/270/1171.html?1062490681#POST16997

date=02.09.2003 05:23 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text={sorry, off topic}

A discussion on the New Space Opera has opened on Night Shade's forum:
http://www.nightshadebooks.com/discus/messages/270/1171.html?1062490681#POST16997

{/sorry, off topic}*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=02.09.2003 05:23 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not the New Weird Space Opera by any chance ..? :) date=02.09.2003 06:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, the forum seems to have spread itself sideways to fill my screen. Did it always do that ?

Well who knows, Martin, it might be that very thing. At least they're admitting it's a UK phenomenon. (Presumably the next move will be to trash it for that very reason.) date=02.09.2003 06:12 ip=213.78.83.217 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Who coins these genres? It's getting like dance music. Soon we'll have Hard Weird, Space Soap, Opera Weird, Spacebag, Acid Weird...

Actally, I like Spacebag. date=02.09.2003 06:17 ip=81.136.223.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, the messages just display like that when you read them out of the context of the forum, or summink... date=02.09.2003 06:18 ip=158.94.155.214 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Who coins these genres? It's getting like dance music.

It was always like dance music. F/sf readers are the most categorising lot in the world. Much f/sf criticism consists solely in putting work into categories, and being *right* about which category you put a piece in. (Indeed, much of the fiction itself consists in putting events into categories, and being right about *that*.) It was always a trainspotter's fiction. Nevertheless, I fucking hate being named unless I do it myself. To be categorised is to be owned. If it's going to be that way, you might as well invent yr own category. (It's no effort, compared to the effort of being uncategorisably weird...) date=02.09.2003 06:29 ip=213.78.83.217 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about Weirdstep? Actually, I reckon that's what a MicroHotep might do. The Azul and the Hysperion are more Lounge Opera-type crooners. date=02.09.2003 06:30 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text={meanwhile elsewhere}

The TTA boards have been rebuilt and the new MJH forum appears here: http://www.ttapress.com/discus/messages/27/27.html?1062507771

Today's my day for posting long URLs.

{/meanwhile elsewhere} date=02.09.2003 06:35 ip=158.94.155.214 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I forgot to add: sign me up immediately for Hard Weird and--especially--Space Soap. I think I might have inadvertently done Space Soap already. date=02.09.2003 06:35 ip=213.78.83.217 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Weirdstep... I like it -

Tho' personally you will find me down by the speaker stacks at Jah Sprake's dubweird night. date=02.09.2003 06:41 ip=62.188.100.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Space soap? We used to get loads of that when I was living in Kent. Next bet thing to a nice bit of double zero. date=02.09.2003 06:45 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No doubt also good for cleaning Empty Spaces... date=02.09.2003 06:52 ip=62.188.110.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As originator of Hard Weird, I'd like to introduce my latest protege: MC Harrison - for that sick sex'n'death flava. date=02.09.2003 07:00 ip=81.136.223.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Where's DJ Map Boy? date=02.09.2003 07:33 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Where's DJ Map Boy?

Lost. date=02.09.2003 08:09 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's a pity, Alex. We were counting on him to copyright "Weird Weird" before it's too late: "stories that make Ramsey Campbell seem like Noel Edmonds."

Actually, I'm not sure I could bear to read them ... date=02.09.2003 08:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm taking out a copyright on Science Science Fiction (that's Sci-Fi with extra science). date=02.09.2003 08:56 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Map Boy mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Map Boy says: The moment you accept you're lost you have found yourself. Map Boy says: Get lost again soon! date=02.09.2003 09:37 ip=213.78.87.163 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, I've definitely lost the margins on this forum. It's only happening on my iMac. The infamous White Glitch has also returned. Probably time I upgraded. date=03.09.2003 02:53 ip=213.78.72.146 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it a Mac thing? I'm on a Mac now, and the page is white, with no formatting. On my PC at home, it's lovely black and grey boxes. date=03.09.2003 03:05 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I used to go onto the forum in an Imac from work, and never had any problems. Maybe worth downloading a more recent browser version? date=03.09.2003 03:12 ip=62.188.112.253 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the usual grey tweed and macadam stripe on this PC, too. A MAC's thing, it seems. date=03.09.2003 03:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think I need more than a browser. My other Mac is fine. This one is a first series iMac, & a bit long in the tooth. Other interesting glitches: it won't start on a cold morning; on a wet morning it crashes more often. I'll never be able to get rid of it: too much like me... date=03.09.2003 04:09 ip=213.78.174.31 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The White Glitch has returned! Invoke the BVM!

I've never seen this White Glitch - but then again I'm a PC user. Does it *always* come up with the glitch on the computer you are using or is it a random occurance? Is it consistent?

Alex: are you also on an iMac? Is the White Glitch specific to iMacs? Is it related to the White Twins? date=03.09.2003 05:13 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Please declare yr browsers, gentlemen! date=03.09.2003 05:16 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm using IE4 on a G4 Powerbook (in lovely titanium casing, gadget boys!) date=03.09.2003 05:56 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Am I hell. It's IE 5.1. Apologies. date=03.09.2003 05:57 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: think I know how to banish the white glitch. Will mail you.
Sorry for multiple posts, guys. date=03.09.2003 06:14 ip=81.136.223.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Alex. date=03.09.2003 06:15 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You have mail (hotmail). date=03.09.2003 06:19 ip=81.136.223.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=IE 5.1 on a 366m/hz iMac.

The White Glitch arrives only sporadically, and is especially likely to happen when clicking from the segments of the navbar nearest "Forum". Otherwise, it's exactly as described below, white background, funny little typeface, no background sfx.

My new problem is that the margins round the forum itself have disappeared, and the whole thing has stretched laterally to fill the page. Ugly, oh ugly, ugly. Ugly! I have done everything a real techy does in the this situation: ie, cleared the caches, run iClean, run DiscRepair or whatever it's called, and--in a burst of sheer technical genius--switched the machine on and off repeatedly. No luck. date=03.09.2003 06:20 ip=213.78.94.34 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH try this: Look at the address bar, and if the URL ends in: /guestbook.php?act=new delete that bit. It works for me. date=03.09.2003 06:26 ip=81.136.223.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Alex: it was *almost* the solution - but there's no "guestbook.php" folder. I think this is the problem:

Put yr hands up everyone who goes into the Forum from the archive page. The link on that page says:
http://www.iotacism.com/guestbook/guestbook.php/guestbook.php
- which is one "guestbook.php" too many.

I reckon you must have bookmarked from the "Archive" page: try resetting yr bookmark as http://www.iotacism.com/guestbook/guestbook.php and the problem shd go way.

Thanks Alex! Hail BVM! date=03.09.2003 06:27 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorted. Ave Mari. date=03.09.2003 06:29 ip=81.136.223.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The rest of us have been counting the beads for you lot, too. Glad you're both back in the land of the living. date=03.09.2003 06:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That naughty spare "guestbook.php" on the Archive page has been rectified. Off to do my penance. date=03.09.2003 06:56 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - well, I'm now getting something odd; some of the bars are dropping down against themselves, so instead of running straight - thus --- they've got a kink in them - thus _--. I'm using a mozilla browser, so maybe it's a function of that. Sorry Zali!

Btb, MJH, don't know if I've missed the conversation elsewhere, but how was the whole Edinburgh experience? Didn't you guys vote for 'Young Adam' as the best film? Any other goodies?

Saw 'Blackball' the other day, profoundly depressing experience, but loved 'Pirates of the Carribean' - not quite yer fine art movie, but an absolute hoot nonetheless.

Aaaaarr etc date=04.09.2003 01:08 ip=62.188.100.108 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. It was the best fun to be able to walk into a cinema at 9am, look round possessively, and say, "Ah. I love the smell of popcorn in the morning." We did this joke a lot. I didn't find any of the films uninteresting, although they were often a bit TV in concept & execution. We gave it to Young Adam unanimously and without pain; but we also felt we had to commend Richard Jobson's 16 Years of Alcohol. I also liked One for the Road, a black comedy of alcoholics trying to get their driving licenses back, very angry about the imported US business ideology which stands in for human values in Britain these days. The only film that split us was Solid Air, a dark gambling thriller with a kind of Sixth Sense twist. I was one of the ones who enjoyed it. I absolutely hated Afterlife (which, wouldn't you bet, went on to win the audience-voted award). I thought it was manipulatively PC.

We also saw non-competing movies, and out of those I can recommend the Indie police-procedural Evenhand; and the howlingly funny, human and clever American Splendour, based on the comic. While I was up there I had dinner with Muriel, met some people at the Book Festival, and spent a day driving around Scotland, sometimes at quite high speeds, with Iain Banks. So that's what I did on my hols: altogether a very satisfactory week. date=04.09.2003 02:46 ip=213.78.172.53 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - an interesting list of films. Must go and see 'Young Adam', if and when it comes out, and 'One for the Road' sounds interesting also. Interesting subject at the moment - our increasing Americanisation. Hmm. How do they manage to refract that through alcoholics and driving licenses?

Good time for cartoons just now, also - can't wait to see 'Belleville Rendezvous' (looks completely insane) and could well be going to see 'Spirited Away' tomorrrow am, meant to be storming.

Hurtling round Scotland at high speed! I imagine open topped sports cars, hair blowing in wind, etc. Am very jealous. Hope you managed to slow down enough for a pint or two of Caledonian 80 Shilling (my favourite student beer) or whatever... date=04.09.2003 07:09 ip=62.188.108.62 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was forgetting... bottled beers...

*shudders* date=04.09.2003 07:26 ip=62.188.100.69 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've seen the Mozilla glitch, I've seen the Mozilla glitch!

{zali's link for today}

Enthusiastic new review for Light at amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0575070269/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-5214784-2857256

{/zali's link for today}

Made the panel laugh a lot at my interview today. Enough career related bollox: now I'm going to drink a lot. date=04.09.2003 07:39 ip=213.122.160.236 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: don't know what you went for, but I hope you get it if you want it! date=04.09.2003 07:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely! Sounds like the interview went well, good luck with whatever the next stage is... or hopefully they'll just offer you the job! date=04.09.2003 08:09 ip=62.188.110.179 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>new review for Light at amazon.co.uk

And one not-so-enthusiastic. I bet that guy underlines words like 'panties' in library books. date=04.09.2003 08:43 ip=81.136.151.181 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pity about Mr. Roche's review on Amazon, though - a) didn't read the book, so b) didn't begin to understand the book, and c) appears to have grave difficulty spelling the most common four-letter swear word in English.

Hard to suggest what he should start reading next, really ... date=04.09.2003 08:47 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, Alex, we crossed! Same sentiments, though. date=04.09.2003 08:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Review: I thought it was charming. My mother always warned me that if I kept doing that I'd become a dirty old man who didn't know anything about science.

Al, cars: Porsche 911, 4WD, open top. We had a debate about taking the BMW M5 because it just has such a fuck off big engine--but it's a saloon. It's a sin not to take the open car on a sunny day. Beer: bottled, as you say. Sorry. I think Iain had something local from a tap. (But of course, very, very little of it, since he was driving.) date=04.09.2003 09:24 ip=213.78.166.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is probably old, but it amused me. Apparently, Foucault mentions a (possibly imaginary) old Chinese encyclopedia which categorises animals thus:
"a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camel hair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies." date=05.09.2003 02:07 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers all for yr kind words! But I'm afraid it's a no.

The tosser McGregor from Hendon got the job. Still, at least I can phone up the systems team when I'm bored about hoax software crashes.

Bitter? Me? date=05.09.2003 02:09 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: obviously not meant to be. Better things await. Anyway, I hate people called McGregor. All that "scritch, scratch" nonsense and senseless rabbit murder. date=05.09.2003 02:15 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: bitter? I'd buy you a pint of it this lunch-time if you were around. I'm sorry.

Alex: wonderful stuff. Dreamt up by Borges if everyone had their own, I think. I was thinking of him in the middle of all the "New Weird" posts and digital shouting going on over at TTA. Borges and a friend set about drawing up a manifesto for a completely new kind of imaginative literature. It wouldn't have description; it wouldn't have dialogue; it wouldn't be set in real or imaginary countries; it wouldn't rely on plot; men weren't to be featured, neither were women, and animals couldn't appear. Over the course of half an hour, they wiped out anything you could put into a book, and gleefully kicked their heels about in the rubble. The "New Blank"?

Anyway, I'm sure our friendly reviewer at Amazon would have loved it! date=05.09.2003 02:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: so it was Borges? Top bloke.
Have you read "The Age Of Wire and String" by Ben Marcus? It's (on one level) a wonderfully detailed portrayal of an imaginary culture, which is at the same time our culture but radically transformed: things such as fathers, birds, God are all present but mean something different. It's a fascinating excercise in documenting the unthinkable. date=05.09.2003 02:41 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io - Bastards! Clearly fools who do not appreciate your genius etc. I always say, if people don't appreciate you enough to offer you the job, they wouldn't have been worth working for anyway.

Hmm, Borges - sounds incredibly intriguing! Ashamed to say I've never actually read any of him, will have to sort that out as soon as I've climbed out from under my small mountain of current books to read.

Have in fact just completed my first 'New Blank' story. Here it is:










Second act works well but still a bit first draft-y in places, I think. Ho hum. date=05.09.2003 02:53 ip=62.188.112.179 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it's called: date=05.09.2003 02:54 ip=62.188.112.179 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Marcus I haven't read (So many books, so little time: I'm juggling Iain Sinclair's "Radon Daughters" and Paul Morley's "Words & Music" at present). But I'll track it down - thank you!

I can't remember where I read about Borges destroying all possible literature - it may have been in one of Alberto Manguel's Picador anthologies, "Black Water" or "White Fire." Top bloke indeed. Like Duchamp, he thought up all the strategies and tricks for his field, exhausted them, and left the rest of us scartching our heads.

Al: if you've never read any Borges, try his story "The Aleph." Should you get hooked, the Penguin collection "Labyrinths" is tremendous.

These "New Blank" stories keep getting shorter and shorter, though ... date=05.09.2003 03:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>my first 'New Blank' story

And here's my crit of it: date=05.09.2003 03:04 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers All! Ah well, I wasn't looking forward to having to do some *real work* anyway.

That Borges quote is brilliant. I love the last one. I think most animals are in that category.

Never managed to finished Radon Daughters. I often find Sinclair a bit too compressed. His writing is undeniably brilliant but I wish he'd relax a bit. date=05.09.2003 03:07 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, but my *New* New Blank story subverts all genre topes:




~ date=05.09.2003 03:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>find Sinclair a bit too compressed

He's very much himself. I like him, but I can't be bothered reading all the words. "Landor's Tower" is very good, though, and possibly a little more accessible. But not very. date=05.09.2003 03:17 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> ~

I like it, but isn't it a touch pretentious to have written it in Spanish? date=05.09.2003 03:20 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My "~" pretentious?? Too Spanish???

Just my homage to Borges, deah boy!

Ahem. Know what you mean about Sinclair: not a writer to read at speed. My favourite thing by him is a short story, "No More Yoga of the Night Club" - Jack The Hat MacVitie on his last ride to meet the Krays, hallucinating wildly about past, present and future. This is in his collection "Slow Chocolate Autopsy," which may well get a strange reaction when you ask for it in the library. You could even get blank looks ... date=05.09.2003 03:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Slow Chocolate Autopsy,"

Got that one. It's good. (Signed copy from remainder shop!) date=05.09.2003 03:32 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got Slow Chocolate Autopsy. Some of it's good but he gets the Lea Bridge Road wrong. Sinclair doesn't function east of the River Lea. date=05.09.2003 03:39 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, you've emboldened me:


# # # @----



xylophones






% date=05.09.2003 03:50 ip=62.188.108.213 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh - and as for Iain Sinclair; would recommend 'White Chappell Scarlet Tracings' or 'Downriver' as best places to start. 'Lights Out for the Territory' explains much of it, as if he sat down one day and thought 'Shit! Nobody knows what the hell I'm on about!'. His poetry's v. good as well, particularly 'Lud Heat'. Baffled by much of it, but he's a wonderful phrase maker.

Once met someone who reckoned you could only really appreciate him after close reading of the works of John Dee. Think he has that kind of effect on people... date=05.09.2003 03:53 ip=62.188.108.213 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Obviously "off his manor." I wonder how long he can keep inhabiting the same fictional terrain. In a massed critical chorus, I seemed to be the only person who thought "London Orbital" a tired book (he's little or no eye for landscape, not the slightest knowledge of rave culture, and more interested in his fried breakfasts than psychogeography: so why's he writing about the edge of the M25? I never discovered) - and that famous style is getting to be a cage, not a house. Maybe working from Margate will have a bracing effect - or maybe he should just embrace a bit of the New Blank for a while. date=05.09.2003 03:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al : this is genius! I'm stunned.

"Lights Out" is one key to it all. But I couldn't fathom half the references in the other books until Alan Moore wrote "From Hell." This laid out the Ripper lore, the links with Hawksmoor's churches, the life of the fourth dimension philosopher Hinton, and much more that fascinates Sinclair. If anyone else is banjaxed by the whole esoteric knot in "Downriver" and "White Chappell," Moore is the place to start. Also an incredible (and terrifying) work in its own right. date=05.09.2003 04:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I enjoyed Downriver but I think it might have done everything that an Ian Sinclair novel shd do - and I think maybe he shd go somewhere else, do something else now.

What about Ackroyd? Hawksmoor was... good is the wrong word, and I can't say I enjoyed it but I was glad I read it. I'm not normally the sort of person who criticises novels for "not having any sympathetic characters" and being bleak, but this pushed me towards that position. If I hadn't read it while I was on holiday I think I would have given up on it. date=05.09.2003 04:19 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What about Ackroyd?

God knows I tried. I tried to read several of his. They just aren't any fun. date=05.09.2003 04:24 ip=81.136.211.148 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry to hear you didn't get the job, io: those bastards, eh ?

I really enjoyed Hawksmoor. I haven't liked anything of his since.

My technical problem with the board has worsened. The page has now stretched itself to the point where I have to scroll an inch right to read the right hand side of the text. As a result, I can't see who posted... This isn't happening with any other site I look at, or any other part of Empty Space. Any ideas, anyone ? Or should I just finally shitcan the iMac ? (Cath just upgraded to an eMac, which is quite fast and comes with a 17" screen as standard. I can't really justify it, because I only just upgraded my laptop. But I'm severely tempted.) date=05.09.2003 04:44 ip=213.78.65.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe if they offered prizes it'd be easier? You feel that you shd at least get a sticky bun at the end. I was ledft with the impression that he's obviously quite brilliant but I didn't fancy reading another.

Which is a bit of a shame. date=05.09.2003 04:47 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What about Ackroyd, indeed?

"Hawksmoor" won the prizes, despite having a Scotland Yard inspector who seemed to have strayed in from a philosophy department somewhere. The last chapter was beautifully written, but I didn't know what on earth it meant. "Chatterton" and "Dan Leno" are much better. "First Light" was a lumpen piece of writing, though it got reviews and attention most would kill for.

With the non-fiction, "William Blake" and "London" are great, "Albion" a complete mess. Any project to map "the English imagination" is fraught with ifs and maybes, but the gaps and subjects cut off in mid-stride get worse and worse the further you read. Another sad case of book escaping author, I'm afraid.

All that said, his first novel about Oscar Wilde is brilliant! date=05.09.2003 04:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm wondering if it's those long URLs I've been posting that are stretching the page. I'll just have a fiddle around under the hood.

Reading Alan Wall's The School of Night at the moment. David Lloyd gave it to me because he's rationalising his book collection prior to moving. Yup, they're moving again; next week. It's a place somewhere in that strange area between Romney Marshes and Hastings. date=05.09.2003 04:53 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I've seen the Mozilla glitch, I've seen the Mozilla glitch!

{zali's link for today}

Enthusiastic new review for Light at amazon.co.uk:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/
exec/obidos/ASIN/0575070269/
ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/
026-5214784-2857256

{/zali's link for today}

Made the panel laugh a lot at my interview today. Enough career related bollox: now I'm going to drink a lot.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=04.09.2003 07:39 ip=213.122.160.236 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Has that sorted it? The page stretchy glitch? date=05.09.2003 04:57 ip=158.94.155.214 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorted! date=05.09.2003 05:16 ip=213.78.173.198 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I've got good memories of Hawksmoor (I read it when I was about 16 or 17), but largely because it led me to Iain Sinclair - picked up 'Flesh Eggs Scalp Metal' (selected poems) and 'White Chappell..' (great titles!) because of it. Ended up quite disillusioned with Ackroyd, as I thought he was largely a Sinclair invention. I've never quite worked out Iain Sinclair's take on him - he's quite rude about him in a poem, where he's more interested in a fly than in some Hawksmoor proofs, but then he is reading the proofs...

As for Ackroyd - well, I enjoyed 'Dan Leno' and the Blake and Dickens books, but he hasn't half flogged to death the whole 'past intertwining with the present' thing!

Talking London lit, just read 'Up the Junction', short stories about early 60s life in Battersea. Stunning! Beautiful little vignettes, all dialogue, random action, characters blasting out of disconnected stories. V. cool. date=05.09.2003 06:07 ip=62.188.108.10 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, and Alan Moore is god...! date=05.09.2003 06:08 ip=62.188.108.10 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tho' From Hell couldn't exist without IS - in essence a remix of all the Sinclair stuff, but a stunning achievement nonetheless. For me, its core achievement is its rehumanisation of the Ripper victims - no longer dispensable Victorian drones in the Ripper's story (mass murderer made anti hero), but real people you weep for. date=05.09.2003 06:11 ip=62.188.108.10 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>'Up the Junction'

Nell Dunn, isn't it? I'm pretty sure they made a fillum out of it. There was another, 'Poor Cow', in a similar vein I recall. She also did an interesting collaborative novel with Adrian Henri. date=05.09.2003 06:30 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: absolutely, 100% - Moore's dedication to the book makes that clear, as do his appalled notes on studying the mind-set of ritual serial killers. This was no snug Baker St. mystery, but an atrocity involving the defenceless. He makes the same point in his tale in the graphic collection "It's Dark in London," guiltily revisiting the streets and pubs that generations of crime ghouls have picked over without much thought for those poor murdered women. The title said it all : "I Keep Coming Back."

And Nell Dunn: "Junction" and "Poor Cow." Whenever I forget how sharp and spare writing can be, I go back to these. It's a horrid parallel, but I suppose she was about as old as the Whitechapel women when she wrote them. It makes their deaths seem all the more futile, and the carnage heritage industry of "Ripper walks" etc. even more abhorrent. date=05.09.2003 06:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Jerry Cornell mail=jerrycornell2001@yahoo.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I haven't actually got hold of 'LIGHT' yet but was made aware of an exciting aspect to it on the Moorcock site http://www.multiverse.org by a guy who's now formed a mind-blowing group which will probably blow your minds in a different way to mine.

I'll say no more!

Check the mutha out at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/xdollarx

I think you need to register/subscribe to read the messages and links pages but I guarantee it'll be worth the typing.

What the hell is going on? date=07.09.2003 07:46 ip=172.188.208.212 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New version of the Light site for the handy new paperback edition: http://www.mjohnharrison.com/light date=08.09.2003 01:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm interested in the thinking behind the new cover. It's very seriously Sci-Fi, isn't it? I used to buy Sci-Fi books because I liked the covers: I had the wrong idea that everything with a Chris Foss cover would be a good read: not true. Mind you, I used to buy albums because they had Roger Dean sleeves. *sigh* What's the marketing thinking?
Oh, and I notice The Cash Brothers 'Nebraska' mentioned on the site. Top tune, that one. Is their other stuff as good? date=08.09.2003 02:42 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saw the Light paperback for the first time over the weekend, v. nice edition. Congrats, MJH! If the first edition's your little baby going out into the world, then I suppose this is it hitting adolescence or similar...

Have always seen Alan Moore as primarily a very humane writer - primarily concerned with the human impact of what he's writing about, getting to the bottom of his characters as people rather than heroic cyphers or whatever.

Must look out 'Poor Cow'. Reading history of the oil industry at the moment, fascinating how much it's revolutionised human affairs / driven politics etc over the last hundred years or so. Did you know that Iraq was making threatening noises towards Kuwait as far back as 1961? So a geo-political thing, not an extension of Saddam's individual expansionist 'evil'. Amazed that the Brits only pulled out of the gulf in the early 70s - the true end of empire, and so recent! date=08.09.2003 02:45 ip=62.188.110.119 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, I think the new paperback will be easier to read on public transport and suchlike. And Gollancz have even remembered to put the Empty Space URL on the book this time - bless 'em!

I think the cover's probably better than the oafish hardback and trade paperback edition but it's still a bit humourless.

Chris Foss: Jesus! I couldn't draw anything without putting arrows and mysterious chunky numbers all over it for years because of that bugger. I painted up a stereo in Foss-ish Aztec stripes once because I was convinced that was what the world shd look like. Still, when I started applying Druilletisms to reality was when things started getting really prickly. date=08.09.2003 04:19 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oo, I didn't notice the Empty Space URL... do you think there'll be lots of new people showing up?

Ah, Chris Foss - I remember this great book where somebody had taken his paintings of various spaceships and written mock histories for each of them... v. v. evocative... date=08.09.2003 04:35 ip=62.188.105.109 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>still a bit humourless

Yes. But with a bit of tweaking that spaceship could have looked a little like a horse's skull... date=08.09.2003 04:38 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>do you think there'll be lots of new people showing up? date=08.09.2003 04:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>do you think there'll be lots of new people showing up?


Might be. We'd better put on our nicest smiles for when they arrive.*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=08.09.2003 04:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>do you think there'll be lots of new people showing up?


Might be. We'd better put on our nicest smiles for when they arrive.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=08.09.2003 04:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>do you think there'll be lots of new people showing up

Well I hope they are local. *scowls at screen* date=08.09.2003 04:51 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sad news: Warren Zevon has finally died. I am now going to play "I'll sleep when I'm dead" on heavy rotation. date=08.09.2003 05:12 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="See you the next life/Wake me up for meals" - Mr. Bad Example.

Warren Zevon was *exactly* the sort of person who should have picked up "Light" and got on this forum, but - too late. This and the suicide of rock writer Ian MacDonald make it an sad day.

Meanwhile, Bush is running for re-election and looking for his "Kennedy moment." Personally, I can't wait for his next visit to Dallas... date=08.09.2003 06:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't know about MacDonald. That's a shame. When did that happen? date=08.09.2003 06:43 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: the obituary is in today's "Guardian," although he died on 20 August, poor man. The depression that allowed him to sympathise with and write so well about Nick Drake finally got too much. I didn't agree with all he thought (essentially, Good Music faded with the 60s, and sampling/sequencing put a stake through its heart), but some of his work is simply inspirational. I'm only sorry there'll be no more of it. date=08.09.2003 07:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always sad to read about someone overwhelmed by depression like that, a very bleak and unpleasant thing to have to deal with. Must look out some of his writing. date=08.09.2003 09:26 ip=62.188.110.131 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: if you haven't read any MacDonald, try his book on the Beatles, "Revolution in the Head." Discussing each song in turn, this could have been a dull piece of middle-aged anoraksia. Instead, it's unpretentious, pithy, and actually finds something new to say: a near miracle in this area of writing. There's also a great introduction, arguing that many hippies went on to vote for Thatcher, and a huge appendix on 60s music, books and art. If any of this remotely interests you, MacDonald is fascinating. date=09.09.2003 01:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's by him?! I've got it, it's absolutely fantastic, incredibly diverting read. Doh!

*goes and digs off shelf*

What do you make of all this Lord Lucan stuff? One more example of our murderer fascination - tho' this time I suppose also extreme poshness, disappearance and massive comedy as it turns out the guy was a folk singer called Barry... date=09.09.2003 01:42 ip=62.188.110.236 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suppose Lord Lucan's also a kind of Rorschach test (as Jack the Ripper) - because there's such an absence there, everyone's free to impose their own meanings / endings / definitions on the whole story, thus creating something that's most satisfying and interesting to them individually. date=09.09.2003 01:44 ip=62.188.110.236 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The pictures of the supposed Lucan look very much like the hairy caveman character from the old Monty Python shows.

I think it's quite refreshing that, in these days of increasing surveillance, it's still possible for a person to disappear. date=09.09.2003 01:49 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sho nuff... Tho' he did pull it off in the 70s.

Anyone feeling mildly paranoid about this 'register every kid in the land' scheme? Two reasons - one, if you're bringing your kids up in a remotely non-traditional way, do you think you'll get visits from the DSS or whoever? And two, surely if you register every child in the land, in 20 or 30 years you'll have registered every adult in the land? date=09.09.2003 02:14 ip=62.188.105.3 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: the more these things crop up, the more I want to head for the hills. HOW DARE THEY! I heard something the other night about how the police would like to take DNA samples of everyone in the country. Of course, if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to worry about... date=09.09.2003 02:24 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On a related note: apparently Police Federations across the country are opposing the introduction of drug tests for plods. Always wondered what happened to all of those confiscated substances. date=09.09.2003 03:18 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't think how a DNA bank would have helped anyone catch Lucan, either. After Septermber 11, there was an equally huge demand for identity cards to be imposed on us - but no one could explain how they'd have prevented any terrorist hi-jacking an aircraft. It's almost a reversion by one generation to war-time regulation and control: perhaps all the uniforms made them feel safer. Anyway, as everyone reading this board is clearly innocent of everything we've nothing to fear.

Reverting to topic (slightly), I always expected Lucan to appear in a Jerry Cornelius tale: the English gambler who committed the archetypal oedipal crime of his class, and then fled to some Conradian jungle to Forget. You'd expect to find him in a false beard, sharing a drink with Shakey Mo in the backstreets of Bangkok - just before Jerry whips out the needle gun and gets down to business. But maybe Mr. Moorcock is weaving all this together as we speak... date=09.09.2003 03:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>we've nothing to fear

Of course not. But as a free man and a loyal subject (notice I don't say 'citizen') I demand my right to commit a crime and have a sporting chance of getting away with it. What's the point of having detectives if they don't do any detecting? date=09.09.2003 03:43 ip=81.136.211.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It'll lead to a rise in out-of-body crime - mark my words. date=09.09.2003 03:55 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Lucky Lucan - Astral Detetctive." It could replace "The Bill." A crime gets committed - then nothing changes on-screen for half an hour while Lucky sorts it all out at a higher plane.

Another proud example of the "New Blank" in action ... date=09.09.2003 04:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I sense a killing to be made in back-street replacement DNA surgery. "Hey meester! You wan' be my seester? She's totally clean.." date=09.09.2003 05:07 ip=81.136.211.148 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... or for graverobbed DNA you could pass off to the Bank as yours: "Tonight, Martin, you *are* Catherine of Aragon!"

But this could well be criminal behaviour - and, as we're all innocent of everything, I'd advise no one reading this to do any such thing ... date=09.09.2003 05:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Lucky Lucan - Astral Detective' - I love it! Half an hour of watching a corpse, broken into bank, whatever, from a single fixed camera - and, at the end, a mild feeling of satisfaction.

Who to non-play Lucky Lucan? Surely David Jason is available to not play him? date=09.09.2003 07:25 ip=62.188.112.88 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: David Jason - a wonderful idea! He could reprise his role as Captain Fantastic from "Do Not Adjust Your Set." Strangely, when he played this in a dirty mac 40 years ago, he looked more or less like Inspector Frost does now.

The only better candidate (once again) would have been Viv Stanshall: sadly detained in eternity just now. date=09.09.2003 07:49 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> sadly detained in eternity just now

Surely the ideal place to star as Lucky Lucan from? Let's talk to his agent...

*reaches for astral amplifier* date=09.09.2003 07:52 ip=62.188.112.88 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In Lucky's first case, the Prime Minister visits a "clean sister" for a DNA swop-op - with hilarious results! Can Lucky fix it with the nearest succubus? Will Warren Zevon manifest in Downing St.? Watch and find out. Not suitable for those of a nervous disposition ... date=09.09.2003 08:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Blystery mail=blystery@yahoo.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://uk.geocities.com/blystery/PROMO.jpg text=Hmmm...highly suspicious but marvellously encouraging subspace interference here at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xdollarx

Did you know that Michael Kearney is a real person who has been using the alias Jerry Cornelius and been the missing link between the K Foundation and Temporal Mathematics?


This would be a plug if it wasn't more like a socket.
Watch out. This could get spikey and surge.

Blystery date=09.09.2003 09:58 ip=172.190.241.86 name=io mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=test date=10.09.2003 04:19 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New article: "Why I Write Space Opera" on the Light Site - previously published in Locus and I understand there's a discount on this issue of Locus for our readers.

http://www.mjohnharrison.com/light/mor e.shtml date=11.09.2003 01:33 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=New article: "Why I Write Space Opera" on the Light Site - previously published in Locus and I understand there's a discount on this issue of Locus for our readers.

http://www.mjohnharrison.com/light/more.shtml
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.09.2003 01:33 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, it's not loading at the mo' - presumably still being put up? Also, looking at the homepage of the light site - I'm not sure how much the menu tabs at the top stand out from the rest of the page - do you think it's worth increasing their size a bit? Alt moving the body text down the page a bit, so they're more clearly defined as a separate menu bar. Could be just me... date=11.09.2003 02:57 ip=62.188.108.195 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it's loaded while I was typing the below. Just a bit slow! date=11.09.2003 02:57 ip=62.188.108.195 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, that's the damned Dialspace server - it always seems to run slowly whenever I do nay major updates to Empty Space. I imagine hoards of groaning minions slaving under the weight of the html code: big budget, Technicolor, Tutenkhamun epic stylee!

Might be right about the navigation bar. I was just trying to make it as understated as possible. date=11.09.2003 03:13 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - certainly it's understated, v. elegant design, and it's a very subjective comment. Also comes from personal buffoonness, as I didn't see it when I first visited the website! Ho hum.

How's life today? I am very hungover. Had a big argument with a friend last night, not good. date=11.09.2003 03:20 ip=62.188.100.206 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm *not* hungover - which is often worse to deal with, because I still feel shit in the morning but without any sense of justice.

Oh God, arguments with friends! Was it serious or was it just the beer talking? date=11.09.2003 03:34 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it was serious - and a long time coming. Still, some things that needed to be said got said.

Great documentary drama about Francis Thompson on Radio 4 at the mo, btb. date=11.09.2003 03:44 ip=62.188.112.195 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali, have just sent you quite big email with flyer for cabaret night... date=11.09.2003 09:31 ip=62.188.110.9 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A naked plug - I've been setting up a cabaret night with friends in Brixton, would be lovely to see any or all of you there - Zali's playing, it's going to rock - we've even got a new blank section (but it's quite hard to find) -

A Cabaret of Delights

Brixton Alive’s a new, monthly cabaret night, bringing together the best live music, poetry and performance for your delectation, and for the benefit of Warchild.

Brixton Alive begins on Tuesday 30th September, at 7.30pm, at Bar Lorca in Brixton (address and directions below). The evening’s hosted by Charles Bailey, currently in the news for setting Tony Benn’s greatest hits to dance, reggae and jazz.

Acts include The Stella Maris Orchesta (renowned for ambient mayhem in this and other worlds), tango fuelled strings from the Vesara Quartet, live R&B from Lula, grooving boogie woogie from Pete Innes and Pat ‘Spats’ McInnis,the smoothest piano sounds from Darren, and dub poetry from writers Al Robertson and Barrington Fritz. All climaxes with the evening’s headliners Dijinia, who’ll funk the house until late.

Tickets cost £5.00 each and are available on the door. £1.00 from each ticket is donated to Warchild (www.warchild.org). Bar Lorca’s ten minutes walk from Brixton Tube, at 261 Brixton Road; come out of the tube station, turn right, and keep walking till you hit it. Call 7738 6898 for more information. date=12.09.2003 00:52 ip=62.188.100.149 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd love to perform my psychic ranting poems. Give me a slot and, at the right moment, I'll think very hard. It might give some people nosebleeds though. date=12.09.2003 00:58 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It'll be like Scanners, only with pentameters... cool... date=12.09.2003 01:10 ip=62.188.100.149 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this and nosebleeds too - I'd *love* to be there, but I'm onstage myself and addressing a local history group that evening. Know which I'd rather do ... but they booked a long time in advance! date=12.09.2003 01:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I write in Lambic Pentameters. The poems come out a bit slurred though. date=12.09.2003 01:49 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Slight amendment: that shd read "The Stella Maris Drone Orchestra" - the word drone refers to the members as well as the harmonic klang thang. date=12.09.2003 02:08 ip=213.122.113.125 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm thinking of forming the Stella Artois Drone Orchestra. The beats come from the rhythmic punching of selected people's heads; the drones are based on mumbled variations on the "you're my best mate, you are" theme. It could work. date=12.09.2003 02:39 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Johnny Cash is dead. This makes me very upset. date=12.09.2003 03:37 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> that shd read "The Stella Maris Drone Orchestra"

Goddamnit! That's what I get for doing this kind of thing BEFORE the first coffee of the day. Think I mispelt Versara as well. Doh. Apologies. date=12.09.2003 05:41 ip=62.188.110.47 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Johnny Cash! Another of those fuckers like Burroughs who we swore would live forever! I knew there was a reason for wearing black today.

All of the percussion on the Stella Artois Drone Orchestra could be provided by pinging the ringpulls on stella cans.

My old band Platform Five(5) did an extended chant of the mantra "Yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever..." - surprisingly effective. date=12.09.2003 06:11 ip=213.122.43.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Johnny Cash = change for a condom machine. Still makes me laugh. date=12.09.2003 06:32 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arf!

OK, if you take a book into the toilet with you which aging rock star are you really encountering? date=12.09.2003 06:36 ip=62.188.105.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lou Reed?

How do you make a duck into a singer?
Put it in the oven until its bill withers. date=12.09.2003 06:44 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Spot on!

*desperately scratches round for other rock star jokes*

*fails miserably* date=12.09.2003 06:54 ip=62.188.105.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What's the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney?
Bing sings, but Walt Disney.

(That's enough crap jokes - Ed.) date=12.09.2003 07:06 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Jerkley mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I must encounter a few strange things while i trip to helselom's residence. Must coincide with the unnatural happenings of the 3rd lunar system. Ahh what the hell. Drew Evans knows all... date=15.09.2003 19:41 ip=68.80.201.198 name=Dead Man Singing mail=cavortingchicken@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You see it has been 24hrs since it happened and I had to tell someone so I tell you guys. I am escaped. I lived under rule of several leaders in 18 demensions since Thursday. I was told of a day that only I could comprehend that is what they wanted from me but I refused. I felt like a madman strapped to a wheelchair barrowing down a hallway, and then I was falling it seemed forever down a flight of platinum coated stairs. I cut him, I cut them, I cut em all. Then I sent each of their toes to every victim's relative. They were red, they smelled like a brotworst on a warm summer day. That is when I laughed a cruel laugh and grinned ina broken mirror scream Mortis Abeo Tyranus!!! Hail to th ethief some had said yet I chose the long road and I will forever remember my debt I owe that man in her dream. Forgive me Darel. date=15.09.2003 19:46 ip=68.80.191.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*raises eyebrow* date=16.09.2003 01:03 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about making yr gesture incomprehensible, Alex. But I had some house cleaning to do... date=16.09.2003 02:58 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't worry, Io. My gesture stands as a warning to any who dare follow them. date=16.09.2003 03:08 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...But who *was* that masked man? date=16.09.2003 05:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*baffled*

I've just been for a walk on Wandsworth Common and seen two foxes. Very exciting. Thought I'd share that.

Zali - impetus building for the 30th, it is becoming a (positive) monster.

Martin - shame you can't make it. What's the local history thing? Sounds very intriguing.

Alex - looking forward to some bleeding from the stalls... date=16.09.2003 15:30 ip=62.188.112.198 name=Willie the Jackass mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn you filthy apes to hell! date=16.09.2003 16:12 ip=68.80.191.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: foxes aplenty round my way. The other day I had to wait for one to stop sitting in the road so I could drive past.

Sorry I can't make the cabaret - it sounds like it will be fun. I'm going to have an album to promote soon, so maybe if the night takes off we could venture down your way and do number or two. date=17.09.2003 01:11 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: The lecture's part of my job. I work as an archivist in publishing, and talk about almost anything from miniature books to the Pre-Raphaelites.

Before anyone asks, though, I don't have a hot-line to fiction editors or agents: sorry! date=17.09.2003 03:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! What sort of archives do you look after? And why does that lead into such varied lecturing? (if you don't mind me asking).

Alex - hmm, sounds intriguing. What sort of stuff do you do? Would be interesting to hear some of it. Presumably you're London based? date=17.09.2003 06:09 ip=62.188.112.37 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I'm responsible for Oxford University Press's records - so, 300 years of written material, the Oxford English Dictionary, Lewis Carroll, and at least a nodding acquaintance with printing back to Caxton's time. You end up knowing a little bit about a lot of things, and also how much more you'll never discover. Keeps me out of mischief. date=17.09.2003 06:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Presumably you're London based?

No, Manchester. I'm not sure I can describe the music clearly, though. CD will be ready soon - I'll be throwing copies at anyone who cares to listen. date=17.09.2003 06:37 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Dead Man Singing mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Im gonna skin you suckers alive and throw the skin on a wok, and eat it. Then I'm gonna travel to India in a ambiotic stooper joggleing bakaracks. Burn you apes bURN i WILL EAT YOU ALL ALIVE. You sons a bitches! date=17.09.2003 12:17 ip=68.80.191.95 name=Jerkley mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hear ye hear ye. There has been some turbulence within the 9th realm of this empty space. Those who wish to be conquered by the Sir Franklin shall repeat after me. The whereabouts of his residence remains unknown to the human species, although there was a shimmer of knowledge deep within the walls of the rattling Drew Evan's residence. All shall remain calm as the end is approaching a new beginning we shall commence and praise Allah while we still can. Now you listen you rascal the the 3rd degree I'll cut you-you hear. Ah what the hell, Drew Evan's knows all. date=17.09.2003 12:19 ip=68.80.201.198 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> responsible for Oxford University Press's records

*awed*

Wow, there must be some incredible stuff in there. Do you have any particular favourite documents?

Alex - looking forward to hearing the CD! Apologies for my London-centric assumptions... date=18.09.2003 02:22 ip=62.188.110.195 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I'm awed, too. The day I'm not is the day I stop, and I've never got blase about handling things written two years after the Great Fire of London or showing people letters by George Bernard Shaw, Dylan Thomas, or Virginia Woolf.

Favourites: either the printing account for "Alice in Wonderland" or the letter from a Soviet physicist in the early 1940s. He thanked OUP for printing his work on kinetics, but said he was going to start looking into subatomic reactions, as it seemed quite a promising field. He'd never heard of Los Alamos... It'd be perfect if his name had been a Russian version of Kearney, but life didn't copy "Light" that closely. date=18.09.2003 03:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's always the physicality of that kind of thing that gets me - direct proof that these people in history were physically real.

Closest I've got to your daily buzz was in Siena - I was in the library there, looking at letters from Italian warlord Sigismundo Malatesta's household to him, while he was on campaign. Everything from his little son going 'thanks for the horse, daddy!' to his housekeeper going on about the accounts.

I'd been studying these guys for ages, so it was amazing to have them suddenly alive in front of me - and think, in two years you'll die, in four years you'll marry, etc - and I was reading them through Ezra Pound (he put them in the cantos) and he'd sat in that same room about 70 odd years before reading them.

Incredible feeling, I can't imagine having that daily. Was surprised also how easy it was to get to them - tied up in a box with a bit of string, I just walked in off the street and told them I was researching Ez. date=19.09.2003 04:14 ip=62.188.100.51 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It pulls them out of time; they're dead and gone, but for the rest of time (or the rest of the existence of those documents) you'll be able to encounter them as they were for five minutes, sat there worrying about the laundry or whatever. date=19.09.2003 04:15 ip=62.188.100.51 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A wonderful feeling - you're right. I was thinking this last night, watching Richard Thompson perform "1,000 Years of Popular Music" at Sadlers Wells. You sing a song, and suddenly the 15th century's back in the room.

Also, given previous posts, I was glad to see that two of Sadlers Wells's benefactors are Sir Victor and Lady Blank. This trend is really catching on!

As for Pound, all we need now is John Cale's long-promised project to turn "The Cantos" into an opera. How? Your guess is as good as mine... date=19.09.2003 05:50 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm jealous that you saw Richard Thompson. What was the show like? Did the songs work? date=19.09.2003 06:07 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thompson was in great form: just him, an acoustic, and two wonderful percussionists/singers. You got everything from Bede's time to Britney Spears's, including a gorgeous Scottish murder ballad, "There Was I, Waiting at the Church," a bit of "Dido & Aeneas," some Abba, "Kiss," and - highlight - "Oops! I Did It Again." If you want to hear (most of) the show, there's a live cd. Details are at: http://www.richardthompson-music.com/ukcd.asp date=19.09.2003 06:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I will investigate. The man is a national treasure, and he's written at least three of my favourite songs ever. date=19.09.2003 07:08 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah - trainspotting alert! Which 3 ( or so )? - :) date=19.09.2003 07:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well it would have to be "For Shame Of Doing Wrong", "Withered and Died" and "Beeswing". And "From Galway To Graceland." Four, then. And "Walking On A Wire". And "Hokey Pokey". He's just too good. date=19.09.2003 08:04 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Beeswing," "Dimming of the Day," that live "Calvary Cross" where he seems to be playing bagpipes through the guitar, and one to scare the kids - "Cold Kisses."

You're right, though: we could be here for hours listing them all! date=19.09.2003 09:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan Sumption mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=Hi Mike, hi Mike people...

Love the new website (dunno how new it is any more, but last time I called by there was just a holding page here). Seems I popped in a couple of hours too late though, otherwise I'd have bought a copy of today's Independent.

Light is awesome - of course, I expected to be impressed by it, but I was actually _impressively_ impressed. That said, I haven't finished it yet - been reading it aloud to my wife, but she never seems to be awake at the right time so, sod it, I'm going to read it quietly to myself behind her back, good things may come to those who wait but I want my good things NOW. Expect adulatory Amazon review in due course.

Martin, I'd be very interested to hear more about the OUP's Lewis Carollobilia - I have a friend who's an absolute Alice freak, hasn't been quite the same since his first edition was stolen, maybe hearing about some of the stuff in the collection will cheer him up a little.

PS. Mike, you up in Sheffield in the forseeable future?

PPS. I want to be driven at high speeds around Scottish roads by Iain Banks. 911 or M5 would do fine, I'm not fussy (very). date=21.09.2003 14:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan! Long time no hear! Really, really glad you're getting off on Light. I'll be in Sheffield at least once between now & Christmas, probably more, so send me a phone number at the usual edress & expect a visit... date=21.09.2003 15:53 ip=213.78.173.173 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan!

Sorry your friend lost that book - I wish we could replace it ...

We don't have a great deal of Carroll stuff, but I'll be pleased to show it to your friend if they want to get in touch. Simply write to: Archives, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, and I'll do what I can. date=22.09.2003 01:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry for double posting: I'm either a prat or intruding on private sorrow, but I couldn't find the story in the IoS. Wrong date, wrong paper, my mistake, or did things get shunted into the siding? date=22.09.2003 03:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, it was there, Martin, in Talk of the Town. But you may not get that if you live outside London. date=22.09.2003 03:57 ip=213.78.93.46 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Glad you like the new look Empty Space. Tell yr friends, tell yr neighbours!

BTW: Nice Rickenbacker. I recently bought myself one of those Dano longhorn bass reissues - twangs like a bastard! date=22.09.2003 03:59 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Outside London it was: I picked the paper up in Bristol.

Needless to say, I'd love a photocopy if anyone can get it together. You can find me on the address I gave replying to Dan a couple of posts back. date=22.09.2003 04:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn London-centric media. Curses. date=22.09.2003 06:12 ip=81.136.146.231 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think anyone in London bought it except me & Judith Clute... date=22.09.2003 06:37 ip=213.78.65.114 name=Dan Sumption mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=Ah well, it wouldn't have mattered if I had got a copy then, as I'm not London-centric (slightly London eccentric perhaps, but definitely not centric)

Yes, io, it's a lovely bass isn't it - congratulations for recognising it from the cropped photo (fairly distinctive beasts, Rickys, aren't they). It's not in very good nick - I went through a period of treating it rather roughly during gigs, the neck ended up splitting and the fretboard nearly fell off but I got it glued back on and it seems to have forgiven me.

As you can see, the scratchplate's not in great condition either - I smashed it during some of the abovementioned rough treatment, didn't realise though until after the gig when the adrenalin wore off and I noticed blood squirting from my thumb. Hence the gaffer tape to protect me from further injuries.

Ah, yes, my bass could tell a lot of stories. It's "lived" a little.

The painting BTW was started by a friend some 15 years ago, he still hasn't finished it (nowadays he's too busy making costumes for the likes of Kylie Minogue). date=22.09.2003 06:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail=adwr@dial.pipex.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - the short story? I was down in Devon, so missed it as well. So, if there are any copies going round...

Btb, MJH - my email v. peculiar end of last week - did you get my email re the Brixton Alive night invite / Julia's email address? Have activated my email link on this in case it didn't get through. date=22.09.2003 09:56 ip=62.188.108.49 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some bad cats on here:

http://www.mycathatesyou.com/newlist.asp date=23.09.2003 02:15 ip=158.94.155.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Yeah, they're pretty easy to spot. Is it still in active service or are you going to put it out to pasture and replace it with a younger bass. date=23.09.2003 02:43 ip=158.94.155.214 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>are you going to put it out to pasture

...and give it to me? date=23.09.2003 07:03 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oho ho ho no... I wouldn't abandon it, not for all the basses in the world.

I don't get to play it much nowadays (haven't found myself any musical co-conspirators since I moved to Sheffield 5 years ago), but one day it will come out of retirement and the world will quake in their boots. (Until then it's hanging on the wall behind me, and gets grabbed down to play a little thrash-salsa once in a while when computer tells me it's time for a rest break) date=23.09.2003 08:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thrash-salsa. There's a combination to conjure with. Don't ever explain.

I'm reading the new Garner, "Thursbitch". Which is more than a bit good. Can also recommend "Tropical Animal" by Pedro Juan Gutierrez ("Dirty Havana Trilogy"). I also liked Ethan Hawke's second book, surprisingly. Though by the end I was a bit puzzled and looking for a second opinion. date=23.09.2003 09:15 ip=213.78.86.54 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Presumably you have it with yr thrash nachos? date=23.09.2003 10:16 ip=81.131.219.201 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have been trying to persuade Zali he's thrash ambient, but without much success. Used to go and see a band called Lorelei in Scotland - grunge ceilidh! Now those guys rocked, like Nirvana covering - erm - obscure Scottish ceilidh people. Whose names I've forgotten. Doh! date=23.09.2003 12:10 ip=62.188.110.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually it's just... oh, OK, I won't.

Gotta go now, cooking up some hardcore guacamole. date=23.09.2003 13:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>some hardcore guacamole

I recommend taking the stone out.

Books: I'm re-reading Walden. That Thoreau was such a stroppy old git! I wouldn't want to kick my ball into his yard. date=24.09.2003 01:15 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I recommend taking the stone out

Dude, it's not rock and roll unless you can get stoned!

Ahem.

*gets coat, leaves* date=24.09.2003 02:49 ip=62.188.108.174 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, we were approaching Thrash Ambient during last night's practice but also occasionally Narcotic Folkish Minimalism... it ain't easy being generically challenging! date=24.09.2003 03:12 ip=158.94.84.104 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I prefer Necrotic Minimalism. Rot'n'roll! date=24.09.2003 03:22 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002293.html text=Just spotted in Light: "Casiotone 9" - Mike, is this Soul Coughing-inspired?

"Move upside and let the man go through"
or
"Move upside and let the mango through"

Think I'll add some mango to my salsa (if I can get the stone out).

Al, I keep misreading your *gets coat, leaves* as *gets goat, leaves* - presumably some pre-requisite for satanic rock. I think the cause of my problem may be related to [click www link on the left]

Having one of those days - words keep scrambling me. date=24.09.2003 04:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gets goat, leaves, seasoning, stews gently whilst listening to "Screenwriter's Blues" - "It is five am, and you are listening ... to Los Angeles ..."

A favourite song, but finding it drove me mad. Chris Morris once played it without mentioning Soul Coughing, I got obsessed by it, no one I knew had any idea about it - and I had to wait until Google was invented to track it down. The twenty-first century exists so you can re-discover all the things you mislaid during the twentieth. date=24.09.2003 04:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just spotted in Light: "Casiotone 9" - Mike, is this Soul Coughing-inspired?

It certainly is. To see Mona the clone, just take Ruby Vroom off the shelf & examine front cover. Much of Light written to soundtrack of "Screenwriter Blues" (+others, see Light Site, & even more others, see inside of my head). date=24.09.2003 05:00 ip=213.78.81.143 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it was the music page on the Light site that gave me the lead. Unfortunately I can't take Ruby Vroom off the shelf because, erm, I don't own it except for entirely illegally.

I discovered Soul Coughing by accident: when the magazine I used to work at closed down, I lugged home a couple of boxes full of records, CDs and tapes in the hope that I'd find some gems. Much tortured listening later (I gave up on about 50% without bothering to listen) I discovered the only gem in the lot - a CD-single of Super Bon Bon. I absolutely love it.

I think the only other things I still enjoy from my G-Spot haul are the Megasoft Office 97 collection and Londinium by Archive (or is it Archive by Londinuim?) - the rest was mediocre or pants stuff which I couldn't get into it no matter how much I tried to force myself. date=24.09.2003 06:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading : I'm just starting "Millennium People" by Ballard. But Mark E. Smith got there with "Middle Class Revolt" a while ago, I think. "Living Too Late" and "Clear Off!" by The Fall keep hogging the cd, and I keep thinking what a seriously funny writer Smith is. date=24.09.2003 06:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>what a seriously funny writer Smith is

I agree. But he's one of those writers, like Burroughs, where you can go for years without discovering how hilarious he is because the humour comes wrapped in a (bend)sinister package. date=24.09.2003 07:05 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No point in clogging up this board with quotes from the genius of the Hip Priest - but anyone sharp enough to mix Arthur Machen into a lyric that includes "hotel maids smile in unison" deserves national applause! date=24.09.2003 07:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Smith is of a noble line of English visionaries, with a direct line into the strangeness in England's heart. If he had been a little more Southern, he would have made it into an Ian Sinclair book by now. date=24.09.2003 07:50 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> made it into an Iain Sinclair book ...

No doubt a fate he wants to escape at all costs! date=24.09.2003 07:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ruby Vroom. Damn. Thought that it was Mona who tried to tell me to stay away from the train line. date=24.09.2003 13:57 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph, how you doin ? You'll have to explain, "Thought that it was Mona who tried to tell me to stay away from the train line," because I'm too slow to catch the reference. (If you'd still like the Hunter Thompson, by the way, it's free to go.) date=24.09.2003 14:06 ip=213.78.67.219 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From a Bob Dylan song. 'Stuck inside of Mobile', I think. Anyway, yes please for the Hunter Thompson book. I'll send an email in a while about it & about Le Grand Meaulnes - which is fantastic, thanks for recommending it. A sampler of what can be done with time in a novel; I was awed by how smoothly he moves the reader back and forth. He still needs hindsight and distance from events to do it, though. date=24.09.2003 14:28 ip=80.177.155.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=LIGHT poster spotted on Seven Sisters station. Big image of book cover and laudatory quote from Iain Banks.

What a return to South Tottenham, eh! date=25.09.2003 01:34 ip=213.122.168.202 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm glad someone's seen one. Marketing you have to look for seems like a contradiction in terms. Now if only Amazon would stock the book... date=25.09.2003 02:16 ip=213.78.82.60 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't seen a poster in Oxford yet - but on the BBC News webpage I did notice the Dalai Lama's starting bear a savage and unnatural resemblance to Hunter S. Thompson: Fear & Loathing in Lhasa, etc. date=25.09.2003 03:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ask yourself, have you ever seen them in the same photograph ? I think we can draw our own conclusions here. date=25.09.2003 04:37 ip=213.78.167.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=25.09.2003 05:15 ip=213.122.85.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Separated at birth ( but which one ? ) - old Buddhist joke.

Couldn't see any posters at lunch time - but did my bit in Oxford Waterstones and Borders by turning their spine-on copies of "Light" cover-on, so they're a bit more prominent and that nice Mr. Banks's quote is on show.

All sales commissions can reach me via the Dalai Lama in my next life ... date=25.09.2003 05:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=25.09.2003 05:17 ip=213.122.85.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I *so* distrust the Dalai Lama - there's something unsavoury in that big grin. Did Martin post that the Dalai Lama savaged a bear or is the chronic misreading virus eating my brain? date=25.09.2003 05:20 ip=213.122.85.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I certainly didn't say he was a bare savage ... date=25.09.2003 05:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... less your misreading than my mistyping, I'm afraid Io: but good for a grin none the less.

The Dalai goes four rounds with a Kodiak, then gets sectioned for depression. "Loony Lama Locked Up," says The Sun. Free prayer mat for every reader ... Our thoughts are with you, Mr. Bruno. date=25.09.2003 06:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That poster to left, in picture: is it "Return of Master" or "Return of Monster" ? Buggered if I can mek it out, our kid. date=25.09.2003 08:49 ip=213.78.95.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Seems to be about the Avengers appearing in a new volume of the Forsyte Saga: Soames meets Emma Peel, and changes into something leather but rather comfortable. Suits you, sir.

Trust an old pro like Galsworthy to tap into the fetish market ... date=25.09.2003 08:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it says "A Wenger" - it's Freddie Forsyth's late attempt to break into the sports biography market. date=25.09.2003 09:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=" A Wenger" - curiously, I heard something very similar said about its author only the other day. date=25.09.2003 09:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=" A Wenger" - curiously, I heard something very similar said about its author only the other day. date=25.09.2003 09:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about the one on the right? Any guesses? Looks like it's advertising some sort of strawberry flan - definitely something patisserie related... date=25.09.2003 09:41 ip=213.122.153.40 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The foliage on the plate; the coastal map hinted at by the torn red paper - surely we're looking at a chart of one of the great maritime forests in Egnaro! date=26.09.2003 01:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell - you could be right!

"Egnaro, where paperback marketing is so much more exciting!" date=26.09.2003 02:14 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd like to do a radio ad for "Light". It could go like this:

Female voice: "Mmm John Harrison. Mmmmmm! John Harrison... etc
Male voice: "Erm, John Harrison?"
Female voice: "Mmmmmmmm! Johhhhn Harrisssson!"
Voice over: LIGHT by M John Harrison. Putting the sex into physex.

Or:
Male voice: Hey! Have you got Light, mate?
Male voice 2: No, but I've got a dirty mac.
(With apologies to the Bonzos) date=26.09.2003 02:48 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>No, but I've got a dirty mac.

or perhaps a dirty iMac? date=26.09.2003 02:54 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hits the G4 Spot every time. date=26.09.2003 03:12 ip=81.136.146.231 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My iMac may be old but it's perfectly clean. date=26.09.2003 03:13 ip=213.78.95.116 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="MacClean" - the toothpaste that keeps *your* terminal in tip-top shape. Just brush between the keys, and it's qwerty with confidence every time!

Another wonderful product from the kind folk at Egnaro! date=26.09.2003 04:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough - my cat is called Qwerty - she's not very confident though...

http://www.iotacism.com/qwerty1.jpg date=26.09.2003 04:38 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=With that name, I *thought* Qwerty'd be black and white! date=26.09.2003 05:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Forget the cat, tell us about the shoes! date=26.09.2003 05:16 ip=81.136.146.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sharp eyes, Alex: I never noticed.

Hope you don't go up on that kickstool wearing them, Io. The Health & Safety staff I know would go spare if you did! date=26.09.2003 05:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, a tenner from an Indian shop in Walthamstow Market. They're my special occasion slippers. Absolutely useless for gigs and recording and suchlike cos you get cables caught on the toes!

Anyone notice the copy of Things That Never Happen in the background? Qwerty enjoyed that one, didn't like Climbers so much and found Light profoundly disturbing. date=26.09.2003 05:48 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Our cat, Doctor Roaster, enjoyed Signs Of Life. But then he does have a special interest in birds. date=26.09.2003 06:22 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doctor Roaster? What does he get called for short? date=26.09.2003 06:34 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doctor Roaster is a shortened form of 'Hero' - obviously.

News just in: Robert Palmer's dead. date=26.09.2003 06:43 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I just heard about Robert Palmer from a colleague. Actually what I heard from them was that Robert Plant was dead - and then when they were talking about Addicted to Love I had to point out their error.

Loved the Ciccone Youth cover version! date=26.09.2003 06:49 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, Ciccone Youth's was much better.
Incidentally, I met one of the girls from *that* Robert Palmer video once. date=26.09.2003 06:54 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You mean they were *real*? date=26.09.2003 07:39 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That one was. She couldn't really play the drums though. date=26.09.2003 07:52 ip=81.136.146.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well apparently Robert Palmer credited Jack Vance on the album Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley. Improbable, huh? Well in a reciprocal gesture Vance's Night Lamp features a stellar object named Robert Palmer's Star.

And I say it again: 'Kinell! date=26.09.2003 08:17 ip=158.94.146.195 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Improbable beyond the event horizon! Whoda thunk it, as Bill Hicks said.

I always liked "Johnny & Mary" ( a million modern marriages described in three minutes ) and "She Makes My Day," because of its weird rhythm. The only other song I know that dovetails into it is "Surf's Up." Someone should try it: chartbound sound, and all that. date=26.09.2003 08:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thomas Keneally on Antarctica in the Guardian today--

"This trip augmented a tendency of mine to see Antarctica as another state of being... It was not landscape, it was not light. It was super-landscape, super-light, and it would not let you sleep."

Nothing about the sheer fucking horror and emptiness of the place. Not much about the madness and death of the early explorers, the meaningless dribbling out of their life in the last place God made. Just another fantasy, another report from Egnaro, where the light is "like the light you see on record covers and in the colour supplements". Advertising light. Writer's light. date=27.09.2003 04:39 ip=213.78.86.55 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: Soul Coughing

Thank you for the rcommendation, gentlemen: I picked up a 'best of' at the weekend and I have been enjoying it immensely, particularly the Propellerheads mix of Super Bon Bon. They sound the way G Love and Special Sauce *should* have sounded, if they hadn't been quite crap. date=29.09.2003 01:21 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...and if you're stuck for a Christmas present this year, why not give a Cthulhu Santa? Guaranteed to cause 'aieeees' of joy.

http://www.toyvault.com/cthulhu/images/cth ulhusanta.jpg date=29.09.2003 02:25 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Our pleasure, Alex.

Brian Logan, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,105 1543,00.html

"Can Doctor Who stave off the dark forces of homogeneity, thwart the nefarious management consultants, see off the Americanisers, and prove that there is a place for idiosyncratic, wildly imaginative British sci-fi in the 21st century?"

A question that might be asked about more than Dr Who. date=29.09.2003 02:26 ip=213.78.81.73 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interestingly, my young daughter quite enjoys watching old Jon Pertwee-era Doctor Who, but she's more scared by the Doctor than by the monsters, which obviously look awful these days.
I don't think Alan Davies would be a good choice for a new Doctor. But who, then? date=29.09.2003 02:48 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Santa Cthlaus?

Well, that TV special a while back was dismal, but I thought Paul McGann caught Doctor-ness perfectly - would love to see him do it.

Am currently also going through 'watch anything with Jeffrey Rush' phase, tho' not quite sure if he could carry it off...

Met a Dalek at an exhibition when a kid - all it did was roll backwards and forwards shouting 'exterminate'. I was petrified, couldn't bring myself to stand in front of it! Scary monsters...

Tho' slightly undercut by awesome footage I once saw of a Dalek going wrong - whizzing round in circles shouting in an ascending Dalek scream 'Help Help get me out of here its out of control oh my GOD!!!' etc. date=29.09.2003 02:58 ip=62.188.100.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb - begins rant - choosing these ridiculous cuddly actors (nadir - Sylvester McCoy - Colin Baker, what were they thinking?) as the Doctor undercuts the whole thing and severely limits the range of the programme... and shows how limited the thinking behind it is, trying to make cuddly kids shows rather than something darker and more adult. Waste of an opportunity.

Alan Davies a bit too normal for me. date=29.09.2003 03:01 ip=62.188.100.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Were Daleks supposed to look like they're made out of the same stuff as tube trains? Tubes used to have these lumps on their roofs somewhat like the lumps on dalek's... erm, what do you call em? Skirts?

That and the phased tube approaching sound of the title music: it's all connected with London Underground for me.

Tom Baker is always the Doctor for me. date=29.09.2003 03:06 ip=158.94.160.199 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes... Tom Baker...

*reminisces*

That music, also! Utterly fantastic, brilliantly atmospheric and spooky. date=29.09.2003 03:21 ip=62.188.112.181 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=29.09.2003 03:28 ip=158.94.160.199 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Logan's point is that high levels of imaginative eccentricity were what made the show (& others--I think of the Clangers, Noggin the Nog). Other parts of the decision-making process now act to curb the wilfulness and imaginative energy of writers, directors, actors, etc. As a result UK childrens' TV from the 60s and 70s looks livelier and more interesting. date=29.09.2003 03:28 ip=213.78.173.111 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - link doesn't work, here's where I found the Logan article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/stor y/0,3604,105 1543,00.html

Any (kids) TV show - not just drama but a merchandising opportunity. Have just been doing some work involving a Disney character, so have seen it in action.

Could rant for ages, but have to rush off. Also, suspect economic imperative. Drama - expensive - competes for ratings with quiz shows, chat shows, etc - much cheaper, easier to make - so more risky to make - so less risks taken / less tolerance for oddness etc.

Same thing happened (to an extent) in early 90s with rise of stand ups on Edinburgh Fringe - one bloke, one spot, one sound man vs all resources for full shows, tickets about the same price, margins for comedy much higher, hence in part comedy explosion.

Light poster in Putney station btb. date=29.09.2003 03:37 ip=62.188.112.181 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sapphire and Steel was good too. I was thoroughly spooked by the 'nursery rhyme' ghosts from the Civil War, and the final episode where they were trapped in a cafe that was nowhere. I hope there is still a place for English eccentricity in television: I think the success of Teletubbies which, to me, had an undercurrent of fear and madness, showed that there could be. date=29.09.2003 03:38 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually we've been watching The Clangers at iotacism Towers. Hard to say with such a formative programme, Doctor Who too, how much of it is nostalgia and kitsch value.

But with an episode of The Clangers we were watching on Friday night there was this real anti-civilisation, anti-US agenda going on that would have been considered controversial in a children's programme these days. I guess it's that old cliche that old SF writers always say in interviews about how much social commentary you can get away with in a trashy form because no-one takes it seriously. date=29.09.2003 03:39 ip=158.94.160.199 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I watched an old Doctor Who - The Daemons - and it was genuinely scary. Sure, it was rickety and kitsch, but there was also something very dark involved. date=29.09.2003 03:46 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Light poster in Putney station btb.

They're pretty visible now, although in a ratio of 1:10 with Forsythe who is all over London like a cheap suit. Cath took the photo below, in the seeping, Dalek-haunted corridor underneath Waterloo British Rail.

Good point about the Clangers, io. But the new axis of focus group & accountants dept makes that unlikely, too. date=29.09.2003 03:57 ip=213.78.80.4 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But I shd imagine that creative people were using these forms back them precisely because they were gaps in the fence where they could play with ideas. So perhaps the same sort of people will be moving to other areas.

Similar thing with computer games in the eighties. They were a one man, or perhaps a small team operation. Knock 'em out fast, sell 'em cheap and occasionally a gem of design or gameplay would appear. Now it's more like making a small film, big budgets, huge advertising - the games are all very slick but curiously soulless.

You've gotta get into that gap before the suits move in - while it's still fun. date=29.09.2003 04:04 ip=158.94.160.199 name=Neil mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.fragmentmagazine.co.uk text=Just thought I'd drop in to mention: Light poster at Kings Cross Thameslink, platform A. date=29.09.2003 06:03 ip=194.129.50.189 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ta, Neil. date=29.09.2003 08:04 ip=213.78.64.13 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another spotted on Edmonton Green station - northbound platform. date=29.09.2003 10:18 ip=213.122.69.184 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=Funnily enough, I bought a Dr Who video (The Five Doctors) from a charity shop last week, for my daughter, who is something of a fan (we only show her Tom Baker stuff, obviously... ought to check out some Jon Pertwee too though, as that was the Doctor I spent most time hiding behind the sofa to). I can report, from my Dr Who video-viewing experiences, that an awful lot of it is nostalgia value. Who's to say what kids today will go gooey-eyed over in twenty years' time?

I remember visiting a toyshop in Manchester when I was about four, where they had a "real" dalek on dislay. I too was terrified of standing in front of it, but got a huge feeling of power from sitting inside it operating the controls (my daughter had a ride in another - possibly the same - dalek recently on a visit to the Dr Who museum in... I forget... Llangollen? Some Welsh border town beginning with a LL anyway).

And when I was eight, for our Silver Jubilee street party, I dressed as a "Jubilon" - my Uncle runs a prop-making company, so he got me all sorts of weird and wonderful materials to make the costume from, including a metallic-blue plastic "skirt" with those London Underground-like lumps on it. Hmm... must ask my mum & dad whether pictures exist.

I think Alan Davies is probably a conscious attempt to return to a Tom Baker-style doctor, he has a touch of that kind of whackiness and of course the curly hair (ditto Paul McGann), but I agree that he's unlikely to have quite the edge needed. And, of course, the very act of trying to emulate Tom Baker is just another example of program making by focus group, and hence doomed to failure. Perhaps. We'll see. Personally I think Jonathan Pryce or Richard E Grant sound like they'd make interesting doctors.

Now, perhaps if Dr Who could visit the Clangers' planet in a Viking longship, then we'd be in 70s TV focus-group heaven. I love that line from the Guardian piece: "It's not that the oft-cited wobbly sets should be recreated ... It's the spirit of wobbliness". Long live the spirit of wobbliness (and all who sail in her).

I listened to an audio-book of Oliver Postgate's autobiography a while ago - interesting stuff. And did anyone else catch Stephen Fry's impersonation of him on Parkinson this weekend?

BTW the reason the URLs don't work is because of the spaces in them (which, reading back a few posts, I'm guessing iotar put in to stop the page from getting over-wide) - if you copy and paste them you just have to make sure you cut out any space or %20 date=30.09.2003 02:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Five Doctors - isn't that one with a bad guy called Omega, who's (it turns out) a time lord who has all but disappeared? Bit of a disappointment when first televised, as I recall. Am pondering digging up some old episodes myself for another look now.

You've DRIVEN a Dalek? Outrageous. That makes you a Kaled, I guess...

Hmm, think you're right about Jonathan Pryce.

Thinking about it, Red Dwarf's in part an extrapolation of that kind of 'bits of string, bits of cord' approach to sci fi - our heroes wandering through a completely broken down, crapped out universe, populated only by junk technology and mad loners. Taking the whole 'thrown together on a shoestring look' and building worlds from it, rather than pretending that this is what huge galactic empires etc would look like. date=30.09.2003 03:01 ip=62.188.100.98 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this nostalgia has made me think of Servilan. That is not a good thing. She was wobbly.
Best Doctor Who stories for me: The Daemons, The Green Death (stuffed tights!) and The Silurians. K9 was a bad idea, as was the 'Whomobile'.
Also worth mentioning: the Quatermass series with the hippies in it (as sampled by The Fall in Lay Of The Land). And that TV adaptation of Marianne Dreams. date=30.09.2003 03:17 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kaled? Isn't he an Algerian pop star or summink? date=30.09.2003 03:17 ip=213.122.31.157 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Kaled? Isn't he an Algerian pop star or summink?

Nah. Film director, just died. Made On The Waterfront. date=30.09.2003 03:19 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder how many classic SF and fantasy novels would be improved by a wobbly reading? I reckon Van Vogt needs a degree of wobble, and Foundation could do with some real cardboard and bacofoil technology.

Actually I think this is what ruins the LOTR films - they shd be in black and white. date=30.09.2003 03:25 ip=213.122.31.157 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of the LotR films, anyone seen Peter Jackson's first, Bad Taste? They don't come much wobblier than that! Like Dr Who in a tomato ketchup factory. date=30.09.2003 03:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bad Taste is brilliant. He shd definitely go back to that sort of thing.

The Gormenghast TV series was a *bit* wobbly - but it could have done with being more so. Kinda like that adaptation of an E.Nesbit novel they did on telly.

Alfie Bester - in Technicolor! Definitely! date=30.09.2003 03:34 ip=213.122.31.157 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Lensmen! In Wobble-o-rama!

Gormenghast was a severe disappointment. It was *all* wrong. The Brothers Quay should have done it. date=30.09.2003 03:47 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes - or Jan Svankmajer. Or Terry Gilliam, in fact, would love to see him unleashed on this kind of thing. Brazil - archetypally wobbly! date=30.09.2003 03:50 ip=62.188.105.232 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, talking of things wobbly, a final plug - the Brixton Alive Cabaret is taking place tonight, Bar Lorca Brixton, 8pm, Zali playing, me reading, many others - should rock like an out of control battleship! date=30.09.2003 03:51 ip=62.188.105.232 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The final Foundation robot should be as wobbly as they come, methinks.

*imagines cardboard box wrapped in bacofoil* date=30.09.2003 03:52 ip=62.188.105.232 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got a feeling that Svankmejer *did* part of Titus Groan, or did I dream it? date=30.09.2003 03:52 ip=213.122.31.157 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm not sure if the band or the music will be wobblier tonight - depends how many beers get sunk before we start droning. Perhaps a low frequency oscillator shd be renamed a "deep wobbler"? date=30.09.2003 03:55 ip=213.122.31.157 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Svankmajer/Bros Quay... not much difference there. I don't think Svanko did Titus Groan, but he should have. Anyone see Instituto Benjamenta?

Tonight: I will be causing nosebleeds at 10.30. Is that okay? I will be at a singers' night at the pub, and I will cause nosebleeds there first. They deserve it. date=30.09.2003 04:09 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have to agree that the Gormenghast series was disappointing - but then I think that the scale of Gormenghast can only be accurately conveyed in writing, once you try to make visual representations of it you're doomed to failure. Ironically, the theatrical version of Titus Groan, which I saw at the Lyric, Hammersmith a few years back, conveyed the atmosphere really well and was to my mind far more in tune with the original than the TV series.

That said, I love the LotR films. And the liberties that Jackson has taken with the plot actually clarified a lot of (vital) elements of the story which I didn't pick up on until my third reading of the book - this could be something to do with the fact that I read it first when I was eight and second when I was thirteen, and so missed some subtleties, but I think it's also because Tolkien wasn't all that good at telling a story in a straightforward way, he tends to get bogged down in detail (that said... what detail! It just takes a more mature mind to appreciate it)

Thinking more on Bad Taste - it was another example of somebody doing something that didn't fit the mould, doing it because he wanted to - and producing something amazing which, to his great surprise, won international acclaim.

Wish I could make it to Brixton tonight. Sadly not. date=30.09.2003 04:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Got Benjamenta on video (and the book), though I was half-asleep when I watched it one Saturday afternoon and it kinda washed over me. One to watch again.

I prefer Svankmajer to the Quays, maybe because his stuff tends to have a plot, whereas theirs is all atmosphere. Call me old fashioned... date=30.09.2003 04:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I prefer Svankmajer to the Quays

Well there would be no Quays without Svank, but I think Street Of Crocodiles kicks Svankmajer's arse. Mind you, regarding plot, I bought the Bruno Schultz book after seeing the film in order to make sense of it. Unfortunately, the exercise didn't work. Brilliant stories though. date=30.09.2003 04:18 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Benjamenta--fucking A. Quays--fucking A. People miss the Kray-Cray-Quay connection in Light. "Digitised retro-porn" indeed! Ho ho ho. date=30.09.2003 05:12 ip=213.78.67.71 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bruno Shcultz--fucking A. (Thought I'd double post to fit in.) date=30.09.2003 05:14 ip=213.78.67.71 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'm probably wrong about the Svankmajer Titus Groan. But it was someone doing a tatty Eastern European Gormenghast - I think it was only Lord Groan going bonkers and thinking he was an owl and maybe the fight between the cook and the butler... date=30.09.2003 05:28 ip=213.122.31.157 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Schultz: the father-as-a-crab episode is one of the strangest and most terrifying things I've read. It *nearly* put me off eating crab, but not quite. date=30.09.2003 05:35 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Schultz: the father-as-a-crab episode is one of the strangest and most terrifying things I've read. It *nearly* put me off eating crab, but not quite. date=30.09.2003 05:39 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There are many Alexes & these have just been two of them. date=30.09.2003 05:42 ip=213.78.67.71 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bloody hell. That one has the same ideas as I do. date=30.09.2003 06:00 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I think it was only Lord Groan going bonkers and thinking he was an owl

Sounds vaguely familiar - although, hmm, that reminds me of something glanced through a dozy-eye on the Benjamenta video - wasn't there a very skinny Flay-like character in that?

My introduction to Svankmajer was via a screening of most of his early work at the Watershed in Bristol - meanwhile, down a darkened alley outside, thieves were busy "raping" (in the words of the bike-shop owner) my two-week old very expensive mountain bike. Changed my life in many ways, that evening: every since then I've sought out surreal Eastern European animation and avoided leaving my bike down dark alleys. date=30.09.2003 06:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never leave yer bike down a alley, Dan. What've you got ? Mine's a Marin, Palisades Trail 2001. (I've got an earlier PT in bits in my shed.) date=30.09.2003 06:30 ip=213.78.95.109 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a screening of most of his early work

Saw one of those recently. Remarkable film of the Ossuary, just outside Prague. It's difficult to believe such a place exists. date=30.09.2003 06:37 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My bike's nothing to write home about really, a Saracen Trekker, from way back when Saracen actually made decent mountain bikes (400 quid was a lot of money for a bike back in 1988) - it's aged somewhat in the intervening 15 years, but still does the business and we've shared many happy memories so I'm reluctant to trade it in for something funkier.

It's a nightmare when it comes to spare parts though, as none of them are made any more. I had to "upgrade" from a five-speed rear cassette to a six-speed, and I suspect that, were it to go again, I'd have to change that for a seven-speed, but it's OK, I don't mind operating the gears on friction (rather than SiS). And I think it was the only serious mountain bike ever built with U-brakes - so that, when I had to buy a replacement a few years ago, I had to put BMX brakes on instead.

Last time I had it serviced the guy told me the forks needed replacing (yes, I know, they've been bent for the last 14 years, ever since I hit a rather large rock while freewheeling down the side of the Avon Gorge). I asked what he'd replace them with... "ah, um, well, no, there's nothing we could actually put on in place of those, they don't build them like that any more" (it's the U-brakes, again).

The Ossuary was one of the films shown at the Watershed. Funnily enough, I was thinking of it last night when I caught a glimpse of bones in the crypts under Paris on some holiday program (which, I hasten to add, I was _not_ watching - blame the wife) date=30.09.2003 07:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Went to see Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies" because of its Schulz-like idea: a demagogue trucking a dead whale from town to town as an exhibit, dragging chaos in his wake. At 3 hours, I thought it was way too long. Nice whale, though.

I've been trying to find Cynthia Ozick's novel inspired by Schulz, "The Messiah of Stockholm." It seems long out of print. Anyone read it? date=30.09.2003 07:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow. Respect, Dan. £400 certainly was a lot of money back then, and Saracen was a name to conjure with. Gears: I've got 8 at the back and they're impossible to tune. A friend has *nine*, and spends most of her time trying to find a gear--any gear--that works. Another friend got so sick of all that he now rides & races singlespeeds. I went out with him on the South Downs a while ago, and I cannot say it holds him back.

Not that I actually ever *ride* mine any more. I haven't left the house much since I started Light. In fact I haven't got out of my computer chair much. My lungs would probably explode if I tried to. I was thinking (for several years now) I might convert the 1993 PT into a street bike--new wheels, disc at the front, paint it matt black, someone might mistake it for a Cannon Bad Boy Ultra... At the moment the spiders have it. date=30.09.2003 08:04 ip=213.78.89.31 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, riding the damn thing, I meant to mention that - something I also never get around to. I converted it to a road bike (inasmuch as I put slicks on it) long ago, but converted it back this summer in the hope that I might do some offroading during our holiday in Wales - in the event all I did offroad was four miles along a smooth, flat ex-railway line, so I needn't have bothered.

Just noticed this: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/Sterling1 003.asp (please remove spaces as necessary) - Bruce Sterling's "Ten Technologies that Deserve to Die". Manned spaceflight comes in at number six. Combined with #2 "Coal-based power" that scotches my dream of touring the galaxy in a Victorian sci-fi-style coal-powered rocket ship. date=30.09.2003 09:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As double-posting is the order of the day, I'd just like to point out that not only did I spend £400 on the bike, I had to spend another £230 a month later to replace the wheels, tyres, handlebars, saddle, brake/gear levers and cables stolen/damaged in "The Svankmajer Incident". I'm just glad they left me the pedals.

Sorry, not useful, pertinent or even interesting information, I just had to get it off my chest :-) date=30.09.2003 15:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, it occurred to me that The Svankmajer Incident might have involved your bike parts upping and leaving of their own accord in an attempt to construct a mechanical human head in some dusty basement. date=01.10.2003 00:58 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dammit I think you're right Alex. I wondered what caused the strange tracks leading away from the bike.

The positive side of the evening (other than the Svankmajer films) was that I was comforted by a very kind homeless guy who found me sobbing in a corner somewhere. He offered to take me for a drink, but unfortunately none of the pubs in Bristol city centre would let us in, because I was wearing trainers. date=01.10.2003 01:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nowadays they wouldn't let you in unless you were wearing the *right kind* of trainers. It's hard to get into the Mud Dock bicycle shop of a Sunday afternoon unless you look savagely hip. date=01.10.2003 01:42 ip=213.78.175.76 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Morning all!

*Knows nothing about bikes*

Hmm, I saw the Werckmeister Harmonies with a half-Hungarian friend - apparently it has deep political resonances if you're Hungarian, she explained them all to me but we were getting progressively more smashed at the time so I'm still not clear what they where. Great whale, tho'.

The ossuary under Paris - the Catacombs - is incredible, went there with my brother as part of my 30th birthday celebrations. Spent a lot of time taking photos to see if I got any glowing ghostly orbs.

You walk down a long, low passage with shallow-arched, even lower vaults off it. Each vault is full to chest height with bones. They're held back by skulls, piled up at the front by a dry-stone wall. Whoever built them used other bones to make patterns - crucifixes, etc. Apparently heavy fighting for several days down there during the revolution, must have been a truly bizarre experience! date=01.10.2003 02:15 ip=62.188.105.138 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Zali rocks! date=01.10.2003 02:16 ip=62.188.105.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers! That was a fucking fantastic night. Nothing like our normal audience of free-jazz chin strokers and square-specced electronica kids - who are easily as boring as yr generic sf audience!

Thanks again for booking us! date=01.10.2003 02:31 ip=213.122.195.33 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and I *was* wearing the right kind of trainers! date=01.10.2003 02:34 ip=213.122.195.33 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: some pictures of the Kutna Hora Ossuary here.
http://www.romanpoet.org/163
Astonishing place. date=01.10.2003 02:56 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, right trainers here too - learned my lesson, didn't I. http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002111.html (middle photo) - they're two years older now, a lot worse for wear, but still outsurviving any other pair of shoes I've ever owned. Damn fine trainers. date=01.10.2003 03:21 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I only bought my first pair of trainers about five years ago. It's been a steep learning curve. But getting that crucial choice right can really change the world's opinion of you. There's probably some awe inspiring pair out there that you could wear with shell suit and a policeman's helmet and *still* breeze through the day. date=01.10.2003 03:40 ip=213.122.195.33 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have stopped wearing trainers because they look undignified on a man my age. Instead, I wear Clarks' Cornish Pasty shoes. With my shell suit. date=01.10.2003 03:53 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A pleasure, Zali, thank you for playing!

Trainers!

*pshaw*

All my shoes are made by Clarks. Interestingly, they are actually Clarks of Glastonbury. Their factory's within sight of Glastonbury Tor, and their full logo has the tor on it. Much appeal to my inner hippy. date=01.10.2003 04:10 ip=62.188.108.133 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, you wrote--

>>Just noticed this: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/Sterling1 003.asp (please remove spaces as necessary) - Bruce Sterling's "Ten Technologies that Deserve to Die". Manned spaceflight comes in at number six. Combined with #2 "Coal-based power" that scotches my dream of touring the galaxy in a Victorian sci-fi-style coal-powered rocket ship.

Seemed a bit humourless to me. Ending manned spaceflight is such a middle-aged thing to do. The thing about space is precisely that it's difficult, dangerous and meaningless for people to go there. It's a priori an act of metaphysics or dreaming. Same with space fiction. Sf writers never get this sorted out: when you write a novel about "going to the stars" you don't actually *go* there. It's called, as far as I can remember, "an act of the imagination". Only people who are both mad and literalistic, which is such a weird and frightening combination, ever think that writing about space has something to do with the "reality" of being there. That's why The Clangers will always be preferable to Green Mars. I look forward to your Mievillesque journey, Dan. By tramp steamer to the stars. Personally, my faith's in something powered by an Eels track, probably Last Stop: This Town. The instructions for the new vehicle will come on one slip of paper: Turn up the music. Point and press.

Alex: that's a frightening image. date=01.10.2003 04:10 ip=213.78.90.174 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I've got a pair of Clarks cornish pasties - *corduroy* Clarks cornish pasties! Totally worn in to frictionless comfortableness - but they don't make big, hard, hip people apologise and move out of yr way. date=01.10.2003 04:49 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wish they still made the ones with the animal paw prints on the sole and the compass in the heel. They made urban navigation so much easier. date=01.10.2003 04:52 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Bishop Beesley mail=bishopbeesley@yahoo.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Love the Light and am having an uncertain series of sexual fantasies and dreams about Michael Kearney. But it's mainly because of this *REAL* Michael Kearney whose legend seems to be longtime and current and super-underground or something. A few weeks ago, I was told about a yahoo group which I've since joined and found out a lot more.

Would MJH care to comment?

The group (or is it the grope?) is at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xdollarx and should 'intellihance' anyone familiar with Jerry Cornelius and/or/ The KLF and/or Neoism and/or Luther Blissett and/or X$X and/or sex magick and/or goodness and/or badness knows what else.

Don't care if it's coincidence being turned into magick or a writer's cabal involving all and sundry, it's certainly got me off the chocolate.

;)
Sarah

I like chocolate. Bishop Beesley likes chocolate.
Mmmm...chocolate date=01.10.2003 04:53 ip=172.191.214.5 name=Bishop Beesley mail=bishopbeesley@yahoo.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Love the Light and am having an uncertain series of sexual fantasies and dreams about Michael Kearney. But it's mainly because of this *REAL* Michael Kearney whose legend seems to be longtime and current and super-underground or something. A few weeks ago, I was told about a yahoo group which I've since joined and found out a lot more.

Would MJH care to comment?

The group (or is it the grope?) is at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xdollarx and should 'intellihance' anyone familiar with Jerry Cornelius and/or/ The KLF and/or Neoism and/or Luther Blissett and/or X$X and/or sex magick and/or goodness and/or badness knows what else.

Don't care if it's coincidence being turned into magick or a writer's cabal involving all and sundry, it's certainly got me off the chocolate.

;)
Sarah

I like chocolate. Bishop Beesley likes chocolate.
Mmmm...chocolate date=01.10.2003 05:04 ip=172.191.214.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I was thinking Bryan Talbot with the Victorian spaceships, Luther Arkwright or Nemesis the Warlock, but Mieville will do equally well.

I actually went inside the Clarks' factory once, pitching to do some Internet work about three years ago (no go). Very 18th Century Quaker minimalist reception area, I rather liked it. I also had a girlfriend who was a Clarks heiress, or somesuch, though she kept very quiet about it.

I want to go to the stars in an 18th Century Quaker minimalist spaceship, all dark-stained wood with rough edges. It'll be purity-powered by an abstention-thrust engine.

Dan (last in a long line of Quaker vibronauts) date=01.10.2003 05:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Abstention thrust?

*imagines the space battles*

'Chief Protector, the HMS King Charles' Sacrifice has raked us again with its starboard pornography rays! The morality stabilisers have failed, and all the temptation dampers are crashing! Desire has afflicted the ratings amidships and the abstention drive is close to implosion!'

etc date=01.10.2003 05:19 ip=62.188.100.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Abstention thrust must play havoc with the oxymoron shield. date=01.10.2003 05:31 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Every race they met on their way through the Core had a star drive based on a different theory. All those theories worked, even when they ruled out one another's basic assumptions."

You should see the sparks fly when those abstention engines chance into the same sector as a porno-powered Wankelkraft. Free-owww! date=01.10.2003 05:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure some sort of reaction could occur if a nun were to be brought into contact with a libertine in a sealed chamber. Kind of nuclear frisson. date=01.10.2003 05:53 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Something Alan Moore did had spaceships powered by converting the kindly thoughts of these saintly worms. Naturally the worms get pissed off with the astronauts (who looked like Vikings for some reason...) and the stardrive fucks up. date=01.10.2003 06:14 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I seem to have opened up a whole can of saintly worms. date=01.10.2003 06:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough worms seem to be a fairly common power source. In one of Vance's Dying Earth books there are ships which are powered by enormous sea worms. And then of course there's the Worms of Arrakis... date=01.10.2003 06:38 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Kind of nuclear frisson.

Hmm, you'd measure it in Byrons:

'Captain, our libertine lacks sufficient loucheness and we're not generating enough Byrons to power the decadence drive.'

'Dammit man, you're right. Stoke the Dorian Chamber with more laudanum, a dozen silk dressing gowns and a velvet chaise longue. We'll outrun those abstinent puritans yet...' date=01.10.2003 06:55 ip=62.188.105.136 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about a Suave Drive? Powered by Brian Ferry albums. date=01.10.2003 07:03 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rated in Nivens. (David not Larry)

When it breaks down, it starts giving off negative Terry Thomas radiation. date=01.10.2003 07:20 ip=62.188.108.211 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Give it another Martini - it's going to go tank top!" date=01.10.2003 07:47 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=D'yer think I could just hook a space-worm to the front of my ship, and fly down the wormholes it makes? date=01.10.2003 08:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're actually *good* for the fabric of the spacetime continuum or "cosmic loam" as wormdrive captains call it. date=01.10.2003 08:22 ip=158.94.181.174 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup - diving through the loam is known as 'wormcasting'.

Btb, synchronicity - just picked up my current trashy comic read for a quick break while logging on - and the characters fly straight into a steampowered spaceship! Part of a steampowered space faring civilisation.

Tis a sign, I tells ye... date=01.10.2003 08:40 ip=62.188.108.192 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about repulsion drive? Maggots gradually feed off the fabric of the ship during the journey, creating gasses which propel the ship forward. The trouble is, if you don't time it right the maggots eat the ship before you arrive. date=02.10.2003 01:51 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - you'd have to wrap the ship in rotting meat for that to work - and it would freeze if unprotected in the vastnesses of space, so the metal hull would have to give off enough heat to keep it at (I guess) room temperature. date=02.10.2003 02:28 ip=62.188.108.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kinda like an enormous space-going kebab? date=02.10.2003 02:34 ip=158.94.74.8 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: it's fiction. I can do anything. Besides, you'd need *special* meat. Probably from space beasts. date=02.10.2003 02:35 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: this kebab thing has got legs, don't you think? Imagine the universe as a doner kebab (large). Folds of space/time, slightly greasy, with holes leading between the layers. It's the right shape, too. date=02.10.2003 02:40 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - kebab cooking machine might be better, as the slow rotation would also give you gravity. Tho' you'd have to make sure the maggots could hold on ok... date=02.10.2003 02:41 ip=62.188.108.147 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks to the efforts of Simon at the Mic Cheetham agency, the Light p/b is now available from Amazon. date=02.10.2003 02:47 ip=213.78.164.235 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps the inner core is a huge cylinder of meat and the outer shell is a steel iridium alloy coated with asteroid rock. The meat constantly rotates being heated on one side. This cooks the meat *and* provides heat for the astronauts who live on the opposite surface. But the major question for physicists about this ship is:

D'you want chilli sauce on that? date=02.10.2003 02:47 ip=158.94.74.8 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Light at Amazon! Wahey! Shall I link to them or shall we stick with WHSmith to show our displeasure? date=02.10.2003 02:48 ip=158.94.74.8 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, let's link. Hard to say, in the grey fog of war, who was at fault; but it probably wasn't Amazon. date=02.10.2003 02:54 ip=213.78.164.235 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>make sure the maggots could hold on ok...

Well they seem to do okay at my local branch of Kefahuchi Kebab ("we're singularly tasty"). date=02.10.2003 02:55 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool. I'll get those *other bits* done today as well. date=02.10.2003 02:58 ip=158.94.74.8 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do you do corned beef hash? date=02.10.2003 03:20 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps the kebab should use swordfish meat - because from what I read in Anthony Bourdain, it's already riddled with wormholes. Also, swordfish sounds more, you know, spaceshippy (that's space-shippy, not spaces-hippy) - at least until the illusion is punctured when you discover it's actually a giant inter-planetary kebab riddled with maggots. date=02.10.2003 03:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That "Spam will be deleted," io: is it a scintillating allusion to the meat-powered spaceship discussion ? date=02.10.2003 03:27 ip=213.78.164.235 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of "spam will be deleted" - did I spot an ephemeral post here yesterday about sex and parallel Michael Kearneys, among other bizarre things. It disappeared as quickly as it came, and I was left wondering whether I'd been lucky enough to glimpse the Egnaro edition of this forum (a bit like the London edition of the Independant, only with a different colour supplement's light). date=02.10.2003 03:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Of course, the ship would be called 'Kebabylon 5'.

*gets coat* date=02.10.2003 04:07 ip=62.188.110.241 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, check your email. date=02.10.2003 04:16 ip=213.78.170.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, for fuck's sake, Al!

*gets goat - skins - grills for twenty five minutes - puts in a pitta bread with salad and plenty of chilli sauce* date=02.10.2003 04:17 ip=158.94.74.8 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, very cunning. The Bar and Grill disappears just as I mention corned beef hash. Was it ever there at all? I even brought my own Encona sauce. *sigh* date=02.10.2003 04:21 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There used to be a place in Leyton called the Starship Burger Bar. First time I ever encountered a half pounder. date=02.10.2003 05:26 ip=158.94.74.8 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think (hope) that this is slightly more tongue-in-cheek than the Bruce Sterling "kill manned spaceflight" list:

Wuthering Heights - the Roleplaying Game
http://philippe.tromeur.free.fr/whrpg.htm
Lemme see, my character has rolled a 57 for Rage, 45 for Despair, 19 for Oldness, now let's take a roll on the problem table... 00... "You are an albino (without a big sword)", hotdamn! date=02.10.2003 06:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Sorry, just wiped yr last message cos it was buggering up the forum. Interesting bug. Well done! date=02.10.2003 07:26 ip=158.94.70.199 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fascinating, wonder how I managed that. I did check it for possibly "illegal" characters, but other than a URL and a few double-quotes (which I'm sure we get away with elsewhere) and a rather feeble albino, I saw nothing obvious.

Ah well, perhaps the gods are sending me a hint. I'll get me goat. date=02.10.2003 07:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It looked like you'd tried to post half of the message in the name field. That was what it looked it. date=02.10.2003 08:06 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=According to Tom Baker, the "mysterious and strange" Eddie Izzard is lined up for the job of the next Dr Who. Of course, that could just be Tom Baker being mysterious and strange.

In the words of one commentator "he'd play both the role of the Doctor and the provocatively-dressed female companions". date=03.10.2003 00:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm backing Bill Nighy... date=03.10.2003 00:49 ip=62.188.110.13 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My money's on John Humphries. date=03.10.2003 01:12 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jeremy Paxman? date=03.10.2003 01:49 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Paxman's got the looks. And he's got an eye for the ladies. But I'd have to hear him say "What the..!" before I decide. date=03.10.2003 02:03 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I reckon Paxman could work. Imagine him interrogating a bunch of daleks who are about to vapourise him into his component molecules. "Surely the war against organic matter is a futile gesture, Mr Davros!" date=03.10.2003 02:13 ip=158.94.131.129 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BTW: we are currently having problems with our server for Empty Space and the Light site. Things are loading slowly, if at all. Please bear with us. date=03.10.2003 02:21 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Police removed a 350 pound Bengal tiger from a New York flat. An estimated 10,000 tigers are kept privately in the US--more than now exist in the wild. We needn't unpack the more obvious metaphorical implications here. But I'd like to point out the irony of locking something in your house because you admire its wildness. date=05.10.2003 11:10 ip=213.78.94.63 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps someone should confine the reviewer of "Light" in Saturday's "Guardian" to their flat: someone actually got paid for writing that?

Then again, their views appeared between an adoring piece on Winnie the Pooh and a bracing glance at the Marquis de Sade. Isn't that life all over, etc. date=06.10.2003 01:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I came home and found a lion in my living room
Rushed out on the fire escape screaming Lion! Lion!
Two stenographers pulled their brunnette hair and banged the window shut
I hurried home to Patterson and stayed two days
- Allen Ginsberg

The Tiger for Real?

PS. Just noticed on the Light site (just above "Tiger Tiger Tiger in Your Tank") "Daniel Dennet eats sausage & eggs in a black cab with Susan Blackmore in traffic in Great Ormond Street" - where'd that meme come from? Susan Blackmore taught me in final year Psychology at Bristol - y'know how everyone has "one lover" who turns the world upside-down? Well, if we get just one teacher too, Sue was definitely the one. date=06.10.2003 01:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tigers: apparently Northern Ireland is the only place in the British Isles where you can still legally keep wild animals as pets. There are at least two bears being kept as pets there, amongst other exotica. date=06.10.2003 01:54 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where'd that meme come from?

It certainly came by way of Tom Waits. date=06.10.2003 02:25 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I caught a little bit of a TV program a week-or-so ago, about the legendary black cats (panthers? leopards?) that supposedly run wild in Britain (Beast of Bodmin Moor etc.)

There was a lot more evidence for the existence of these big cats than I'd realised. Seems they're mainly released into the wild because their owners can't/don't want to provide the proper care & containment, or they're escaped from shady underworld types who use them instead of guard dogs. date=06.10.2003 02:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where'd that meme come from?

>>It certainly came by way of Tom Waits.

It certainly did. I admire both Dennet and Blackmore, & there's some reference to The Meme Machine in the way character is constructed in Light. Anybody got any idea why I placed the cab in Gt Ormond St ? Fucked if I remember, except that it seemed clever at the time.

Haven't seen the Guardian review. They're pretty hard on their own reviewers. Quite right too.

PS: I really, really like the Ginsburg quote, Dan. That last line is just so him. date=06.10.2003 02:46 ip=213.78.164.71 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't see the Grauniad review either. Bridget saw it and said that the reviewer didn't seem to like sf very much - which *was* actually yr point over on TTA about the difficulty of reading the Ed and Seria Mau threads.

Watched Paint Your Wagon yesterday - definite resonances with Cicisbeo. date=06.10.2003 03:03 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The entire Ginsberg poem is here: http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Allen_Ginsbe rg/3701

It's on the spoken-word-with-avant-jazz album he did, also called The Lion for Real, music on that particular track is a beautiful circus tightrope-balanced rumble-and-wail composed by saxophonist Gary Windo. Also features several Tom Waits-collaborators (Marc Ribot, Ralph Carney...) - full circle.

"I went to my old boyfriend we got drunk with his girlfriend
I kissed him and announced I had a lion with a mad gleam in my eye
We wound up fighting on the floor I bit his eyebrow he kicked me out
I ended up masturbating in his jeep parked in the street moaning 'Lion.'"

PS. Grauniad review - I don't think it was so much that the writer didn't like SF, more that he couldn't be bothered to read more than a few chapters of a book that confused him: "After five nanoseconds I relinquished all hope of understanding any of this." date=06.10.2003 03:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, Paint Yr Wagon. Always a big influence. date=06.10.2003 03:15 ip=213.78.164.71 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I don't think it was so much that the writer didn't like SF, more that he couldn't be bothered to read more than a few chapters of a book that confused him: "After five nanoseconds I relinquished all hope of understanding any of this."

As Zali says, exactly the point I made on the TTA board a month ago. You can't expect people to be able to decode that stuff. Sf lives in a world of its own, which it fondly imagines is accessible without years of training. That leaves writers like me with a decision--accept the wafer-thin audience that can read in both directions; or change. date=06.10.2003 03:24 ip=213.78.164.71 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Ah, Paint Yr Wagon. Always a big influence.

Bridget and me want to put together a new production of Paint Yr Wagon with MJH as Ben Rumson and China Mieville as Pardner.

I'd kill to see China singing I Talk to the Trees! date=06.10.2003 03:32 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did wonder if the "Guardian" reviewer wasn't our old friend from Amazon who objected to - well, just about everything really. A sad day for literacy.

Beats & big cats: there's that weird and wonderful recording of Michael McClure snarling his "Ghost Tantras" at the lions in the San Francisco zoo - and them snarling back. Amazed no one has sampled this yet. date=06.10.2003 04:29 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>accessible without years of training

Yes, but the thing about Light is it's not *that* hard to get into, even for someone without the SF training. Granted, you would need a little understanding of current scientific thinking, but that's not too much to ask of an aware reader. I think the problem is more with the perception of SF literature in general: SF authors are writing for the converted, possibly scared to make their work more generally accessible in case the world outside starts picking holes (and I don't mean you, MJH). People don't have too much trouble with SF in films or on TV, it's the literature they have trouble with. date=06.10.2003 04:46 ip=81.136.218.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suspect the guy on Amazon was coming from the other side. Without the equipment to decode the human side of the writing, he had missed most of the story and so it seemed equally meaningless to him. I have to say I don't have much sympathy for someone who doesn't know what fuck-me pumps are. But guys like that are doing their best with a text that doesn't make itself any more available to them than the sf stuff makes itself available to the middle class humanist reader. I was aware that I'd be shot by both sides (spot that tune) over this. I just wanted to give it a go. date=06.10.2003 05:13 ip=213.78.170.139 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We're obviously the "wafer-thin audience" - but what I liked about the science element in "Light" was how brilliantly it got deployed to poetic effect. You'd think any reader sensitive to language would stand back and applaud the riffs on Seria's ship shifting gear, the cobweb chorus of the mathematics, and the sheer scale of the Tract: let alone that dreadful quantum moment with the dissolving cat when Kearney's colleague realises that none of us is really here - or anywhere. But, no. A failure by readers to hear language - and, I suspect, a deep obstinacy over scientific ignorance. Quite a problem for any post-Einsteinian writer when people are still wary of Newton and Kepler.

If anyone's reading this from the "Guardian" and wants a sensible review, I'm available for the usual rates! date=06.10.2003 05:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In the final analysis is it going to harder for the genre reader or the mainstream reader to dig the image of a horse-skull-headed alien demiurge in an Oxfam coat? date=06.10.2003 05:28 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it possible to write an SF novel which would be accessible to readers who do not already understand the conventions and arcana of the genre? Would it still be SF? Would it be slagged by the SF hardcorn community as not SF enough? Could you sneak an SF novel under the radar without it being marketed as SF? Is there any point? date=06.10.2003 05:31 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>dig the image of a horse-skull-headed alien demiurge

It's the context, don't you think? If the book was described as 'magic realism' it would probably be accepted more easily. date=06.10.2003 05:32 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's the context, don't you think? If the book was described as 'magic realism' it would probably be accepted more easily.

What I was actually thinking was that that image is so *fucked* that it shdn't be acceptable for either. Something like that is supposed to give the reader a good solid kick in the back of the head. I agree that within a tradition such as magic realism or surrealism this image makes a sort of sense - but I really don't want stuff like that to start making sense.

That's the problem with the protocols of genre and mainstream they allow stuff to become acceptable rather than remaining fucked and uncanny. date=06.10.2003 05:38 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apt question, io. You got me. We shld find some representatives from both sides & interrogate them. "Ok, now this is what we want to ask you--"

In one sense--perhaps the only real sense--it isn't the reviews that count here. It's the sales. The first edition did well. If this edition does well too, then we can say that the audience isn't so wafer-thin after all. date=06.10.2003 05:39 ip=213.78.170.139 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How many publishers conduct market research these days? It would be interesting to see who is buying Light. date=06.10.2003 05:42 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I agree with Alex and Martin - it's not *that* hard to get into and, even for a minimal sci-fi reader such as myself (in fact, minimal reader of any sorts nowadays) the strange concepts can be appreciated for the poetic way in which they're described. I get the impression that the Guardian reviewer probably scanned the novel quickly and failed to pick up on any of its sublety, humour or insight. date=06.10.2003 05:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>We shld find some representatives from both sides & interrogate them.

That's not enough. We shd make it manifest in their kitchen, between television channels, replacing Julie Burchill for a week.

If it can be accepted, made comfortable, made compatible with yr favourite roleplaying system it shd be summarily discarded. date=06.10.2003 05:44 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Excuse me ? Is this the room for the alien demiurge in a maroon wool coat focus group ? Oh. Only they said it was on this corridor. Oh. Well, Ok, I'll try Wednesday then. date=06.10.2003 05:47 ip=213.78.170.139 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Is it possible to write an sf novel that would be accessible ..?

"Day of the Triffids" is about the only one that springs to mind - but this found an audience well-primed by "War of the Worlds" and "Quatermass." It remains extremely hard to entice readers across the great divide. The audience Ballard found with "Empire of the Sun" didn't rush out and devour "The Atrocity Exhibition." Iain Banks's readership may be the great exception to all this, but I can't think of too many other authors who attract both sf and a "general" attention. date=06.10.2003 05:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Replacing Julie Burchill with a horse skull-headed demi-urge! When do we start? date=06.10.2003 05:59 ip=63.82.110.178 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=With Wyndham and Wells I guess the only reason they fly under the radar is that they wrote before genre sf had properly gelled. They couldn't write to an sf audience in the same way you can now.

Margaret Atwood, anyone? date=06.10.2003 06:00 ip=158.94.131.129 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Replacing Julie Burchill with a horse skull-headed demi-urge! When do we start?

Speaking of which. Here's a Kill Julie Burchill site:
http://www.snowdrift.org/columnistdeath.htm l date=06.10.2003 06:02 ip=158.94.131.129 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Replacing Julie Burchill with a horse skull-headed demi-urge! When do we start?

Speaking of which. Here's a Kill Julie Burchill site:
http://www.snowdrift.org/columnistdeath.html
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=06.10.2003 06:02 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Excellent. I chose drugs at 3am. date=06.10.2003 06:10 ip=213.78.170.139 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: The time, the thought, the effort that went into this -a tired but grateful nation can only offer up its heartfelt thanks!

Atwood, yes; McEwan (very badly) with "Child in Time"?

Focus groups for "Light": you hear the north Oxford accents at once. "Why a *horse's* skull, dear boy? And don't you think the Kray family might object to your, um, satire? Have ever *tried* to write on a corpse with a felt-tip pen? I mean, let's face it, frankly I thought the whole thing was a bit unlikely ..." date=06.10.2003 06:18 ip=63.82.110.178 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Excellent. I chose drugs at 3am.

Nine out of ten cat owners choose drugs at 3am. date=06.10.2003 06:23 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did her with wild animals at 5am. Very satisfying. Is there a similar site about Margaret Atwood? date=06.10.2003 06:34 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The drugs method is unreliable if amusing "too much speed Julie? Here, have some more speed". I favour musical instruments at dawn, the only way to be sure of a job well done. date=06.10.2003 06:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh God, we might be ruining Light's chances with Julie's public! I wonder if there's a big Burchill/New Weird overlap? date=06.10.2003 07:22 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An interesting demographic: I'm just not part of it. Anyone who is should post now, and clue in the rest of us.

Don't all press "send" at once ... date=06.10.2003 07:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We'll give them another hour to reply - otherwise we'll have to assume they don't exist. They're probably just busy trying to revive Julie from all of these horrendous brutal attacks. date=06.10.2003 08:27 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=She's no doubt collapsed in her pink bathroom at Brighton with the leopard-skin towels, and the oxygen tent is being thrown up around her as we speak.

It's a tough life being professionally working class ... date=06.10.2003 08:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Watched Dogma last night on C4. Didn't really follow it, but the more I think about Alanis Morisette's God, the more I like Her. She has all the Charles Williams qualities, with the engagingly oblique dynamic of the mentally ill, or the very young. She focusses very suddenly on anything that comes into her visual field, then just as suddenly disconnects. You get the feeling of this massive intelligence removing its attention very suddenly from *every other project it has* to concentrate on you, because you are, after all, like all its other projects, its most important project... Dizzying, actually, and beautiful in a very other way. Just what you want in a God. date=07.10.2003 04:43 ip=213.78.70.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="How strange, my God, are the processes your spirit initiates: When, two centuries ago, your Church began to feel the particular power of your heart, it might have seemed that what was captivating men's souls was the fact of their finding in you an element even more determinate, more cirumscribed, than your humanity as a whole. But now on the contrary a swift reversal is making us aware that your main purpose in this revealing to us of your heart was to enable our love to escape from the constrictions of the too narrow, too precise, too limited image of you which we had fashioned for ourselves. What I descern in your breast is simply a furnace of fire; and the more I fix my gaze on its ardency the more it seems to me that all around it the contours of your body melt away and become enlarged beyond all measure, till the only features I can distinguish in you are those of the face of a world which has burst into flame."
-- Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe. date=07.10.2003 04:53 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Of course, you want love, not just intelligence. Morisette had the trick of looking at the other characters as if to say, "You! Hi! I *wondered* how you were, and now here you are, and I see *you've done so well*." For a moment they were bathed in her regard, simultaneously mad and encouraging and totally committed. This reminded me of God according to T F Powys, in Mr Weston's Good Wine.

Hi, io. Trust you to have the quote. date=07.10.2003 05:08 ip=213.78.70.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ey up, Mike! Bridget vidjoed Dodgma for me last night but I haven't watched it yet.

Started dipping into that book on Teilhard de Chardin the other evening when I was very fucked - hated it - decided to start from the beginning and now I'm rather intrigued by him.

He's currently taken over from Winterlong - Liz *will* be upset with me! date=07.10.2003 05:14 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, we might like the love and the intelligence to come our way - but as Robert Burton put it in "The Anatomy of Melancholy," 'they care not for us, doe not attend our actions, or looke for us, those aetheriall spirits have other worlds to raigne in belike or businesse to follow.'

Does de Chardin get around to "the silence of God"? I've never read him. date=07.10.2003 05:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=De Chardin invented the Interweb didn't he? Worth reading?

I'm struggling with a book by Douglas Harding at the moment. Hoping for enlightenment through boredom. date=07.10.2003 05:42 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: He certainly seems to have deep doubts and crises of faith - as many other religious thinkers have - and talks of the difficulty of making God real in the same way that matter is real.

Alex: Didn't know about that Interweb thing. Interesting. I'm reading a book about him by Thomas Corbishley who seems more concerned with trying to justify De Chardin's theology to Catholics rather than getting to the novelty of his fusion of science and religion. I'll certainly be interested to read more - preferably a more primary source. I reckon it was Corbishley who was pissing me off in the first place. date=07.10.2003 05:49 ip=158.94.131.129 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I mean, I'm not arguing for or against a God here, only being delighted by this portrayal of one (also by definition some of the assumptions the portrayal seemed to be based on). Probably a massive misprision of the performance anyway, which I, like, reserve the right to do... date=07.10.2003 05:52 ip=213.78.72.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's Gregory Corso's line: "God? She's black." date=07.10.2003 05:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm not arguing for or against a God here

I normally find it most useful to keep that argument in an agnostic suspension. That is, until the Jehovah's Witnesses knock on the door. date=07.10.2003 06:08 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>that Interweb thing

Well, he didn't actually invent the interweb. But he did think that humankind would evolve from the material environment - biosphere - into a disembodied state that he termed the 'noosphere', where minds would come together to generate ideas for good. I don't think he saw it as being 75% porn. date=07.10.2003 06:12 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I don't think he saw it as being 75% porn.

I don't think anyone did until the eighties. Yes, the term "noosphere" seems familiar - have to look into that. date=07.10.2003 06:19 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's interesting, though, that there should be *so much* porn about. Can people really be so obsessed with (virtual) sex? Or is it just that too many people are trying to make a fast buck peddling porn? Perhaps the Internet has revealed what humans are really about. date=07.10.2003 06:27 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perhaps the Internet has revealed what humans are really about.

Tempting to come to that conclusion - and it could be right. But I'd rather modify it to "the Internet has revealed what humans are really about when they're bored". It always impresses me how much *isn't* on the internet. I find myself drawn to inconsequential pictures of real places that people have placed online: someone's home, the place they work, that road on the way to the supermarket...

Sorry, forgotten my point! date=07.10.2003 06:33 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>how much *isn't* on the internet

There's too much on the internet as it is! No, actually it's almost gratifying to do a search for something and come up with nothing. I searched for references to my great-grandfather's Christian name - Crosdail - the other day. Not a sausage.
However, on the subject of God, here's a site where you can view loads of those terrible posters you see outside churches.
http://www.fasterpastor.com/autobio1.htm date=07.10.2003 06:42 ip=81.136.218.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, they're great! One of our local churches had a good one: "Brush up on yr Bible and avoid Truth Decay!" They've replaced it with a boring Alpha Course advert. *yawn* date=07.10.2003 06:51 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm fond of:
WHAT'S MISSING FROM CHCH? U R!
Those Alpha Courses though...something deeply not right about them. date=07.10.2003 06:57 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The most tacky church poster I've seen recently is the text message with emoticons, to draw in the "young folk." Rather sad.

I saw a lovely poster in Bristol a few years ago - I think for the Seventh Day Adventists. They were never sure when Judgment Day might arrive, so all their talks were trailed with the same merssage in brackets. This lecture was announced as : "The End of the World (God Willing)." You had to laugh. date=07.10.2003 07:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the noosphere?

"It is in the direction and in the form of a single heart that we must look for our picture of super-mankind, rather even than in a single brain." -- Teilhard de Chardin. date=08.10.2003 03:38 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the form of a single heart

I like this forum: it's like Mornington Crescent! How do you get from De Chardin to MJH in the fewest possible moves? date=08.10.2003 04:05 ip=81.136.218.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno, but I'm sure the answer has something to do with maggot-filled kebabs date=08.10.2003 05:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If he'd only got a rose in there somewhere I could have claimed my candlelit dinner for two in a kebabish of my choice! date=08.10.2003 05:11 ip=158.94.131.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The rose in the heart -> Sprake's house -> Isabel's wings -> Egnaro -> Quick chorus from the Barley Bros. -> Appearance of the Green Woman in a standard tarot deck -> torn-up copy of "Baa Baa Blocksheep" -> rose at the end of the world -> Mornington Crescent!

I think R4 could be missing a whole new serial here. date=08.10.2003 05:37 ip=63.82.110.178 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A friend of mine was hitching back up through France in the 80s. Some ghastly hour of the morning he found himself at a junction in the dark and piss-wet rain, a couple of houses, a couple of commercial buildings, a street light. After a minute or two, he noticed on the road in front of him a half-eaten pitta. A minute or two after that, he noticed it was moving: there was a rat inside, eating the contents. This delighted him, but as he settled down to watch a car ran over it. "What a way to go," he said. "*In* your dinner!"

This happened just too late to get into Climbers. I would have bundled it with similar food stories and called the whole thing Rat Falafel. (I did think of using that as the name of a character in Light. What stops you in these circumstances ? Some dim sense of self preservation I guess. I got enough stick for the names as it is.)

Climbers, by the way, crept an inch or two further towards reprint yesterday. date=08.10.2003 05:39 ip=213.78.81.166 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When Gill was travelling on a coach in India, she saw a dead dog on the road, coach coming the other way ran over it - she gives a very good (bad?) retelling of her windowside view as the dog's innards forced their way up into its head and finally burst out through the eyeballs as the internal pressure became too much. (hope nobody's eating)

Funnily enough, it was on the same trip that I read Climbers, on various Indian trains. I remember lying in a single-bed-sized haveli room in Jaisalmer, ornate details swimming in my head due to the wonderful government-sanctioned bhang lassi, reading the inside blurb about The Course of the Heart and dreaming up my own fantastical version of La Coeur.

That copy of Climbers seems to have disappeared -no doubt failed to return after the nth+1 lending out. I suddenly feel the need to re-read it in less exotic surroundings, so I for one would be very glad of a reprint. date=08.10.2003 15:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - no exploding animal stories from me, sadly. Tho' actually got v. freaked by a dead crow once. Doing my post A-level Iain Sinclair odyssey - made my way over to Christ Church Spitalfields - someone playing harpsichord inside, I think for the Whitechapel music festival - found the door to the steps into the spire unlocked, started climbing - the walls narrow and the ceiling comes down on you as go higher and the spire comes to a point - I'm very broad, so was getting more and more squashed in as I went up - and feeling more and more freaked out and claustrophobic - v. spooky atmosphere - pushing myself on - spiralling round and round - suddenly appearing a dead, dessicated crow, wings spread across a narrow step, beak up and screaming at me! Completely freaked me out, I got the hell out of there... Brrr!

Talking reading - funnily enough, had my best ever reading experience in India (or one of them, at any rate) - on 18 hour train journey between Delhi and Varanasi, reading 'A Suitable Boy' in one go. Marvellous! Love reading on trains.

Also having new bathroom delivered today; called the bathroom delivery line, where they list the surnames of everyone who's got a delivery. They hadn't reset it from yesterday - one Yaxley had a bathroom delivered somewhere in South London. He's out there, and he's redecorating... date=09.10.2003 01:47 ip=62.188.110.54 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I also do most of my reading on public transport. In fact sometimes when I have a day off I'll take a long bus journey just to read - far more comfortable that the sofa or the futon. date=09.10.2003 02:19 ip=213.122.29.83 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gets you out of the house, as well...

Can't help feeling slightly guilty about all the views I'm missing, tho'. The thing that amazes me about sitting on buses and trains is just how many people there are out there. date=09.10.2003 02:22 ip=62.188.100.171 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He's out there, and he's redecorating...

Quote of the week.

Whine of the week: everyone (including my girlfriend) has been to India but me. Prolly a good job. Every time I look irritable in a crowd Cath says, Don't go to India, Mike. This has become code for, Behave yourself. I hate crowds. date=09.10.2003 03:12 ip=213.78.165.250 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been put off India by the experience of a friend of mine who made the mistake of giving something to a beggar outside her hotel. After a while, word got around, and eventually she had whole families of beggars camping out outside her hotel and shouting to her constantly. I would proabably end up shooting them all. I hate crowds, and I hate unwanted attention. date=09.10.2003 03:47 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I'm quite big, and when I went to India I was quite portly. Apparently signs of wealth; got mobbed two or three times by beggars, rickshaw boys etc. Not much fun.

My favourite beggars - the New Delhi shit spraying shoe shine boys. Thus:

- walking down New Delhi street in unconcerned way. A tap on your arm. Look down; short boy looking up at you, expression of combined angelic innocent and extreme shock at the the misfortune that has befallen you...

'Sir....! Sir...! What HAS happened...?'

- Looks even more woeful; points down. Half your shoe covered in loose brown *stuff*; he's just sprayed it there, from a little bag hidden in his palm.

'Sir...'

- Utter depression at the random cruelties of life. You pay him some rupees, he cleans it off. You walk off with nice shiny shoes; ten minutes later, repeat. Hey ho. date=09.10.2003 04:15 ip=62.188.105.103 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=News just in from Egnaro: apparently more and more people are naming their children after high-profile consumer goods. In 2001 US citizens named their children: Chanel (269 girls), Timberland (six boys), Porsche (24 girls) and Armani (273 boys and 298 girls).
Also spotted: Evian, Nivea and Lexxus (the extra 'x' makes it more classy). date=09.10.2003 04:55 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, my daughter, Ronco, thinks it's a stupid idea. date=09.10.2003 04:56 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Chris mail=chris505@optushome.com.au icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.emptyspace.live.com.au text=How weird is this? I have a band called Empty Space, and this place is also called Empty Space. Our websites are the same colour design too. What a strange strange world.

We came up with the name as a metaphor for the blank canvas a painter sees before they paint, with which the painter can fill with whatever they wish. It's kind of a freedom to do what we choose thing.

Anyways, check out our site if you wish. Take care all. date=09.10.2003 05:15 ip=210.49.163.199 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A "New Blank" group! date=09.10.2003 05:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Chris. That's amazing. I got the Empty Space title from a scientist called John Wheeler, who said: “No point is more central than this, that empty space is not empty. It is the seat of the most violent physics.” I liked the idea that what seems to be a vacuum is full of this *stuff* going on that we never see. Liked your site, by the way, and look forward to listening to your music. date=09.10.2003 05:48 ip=213.78.69.217 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I haven't been to India. I have friends who do that sort of thing for me.

Just had a nice day off: went up to Golders Hill Park to photograph the pergola, popped back down to Camden - contemplated *even cooler* trainers, and bought a few CDs. (Buff Medways, The Fucking Champs and Holly Golightly) And I'm feeling quite chuffed with myself even though I'm in Camden and...

Discover there's this huge burst of pigeon shit down my front and trousers.

Bollocks!

Still, at least it missed the trainers... date=09.10.2003 07:51 ip=213.122.126.89 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's good luck if a bird shits on you - or so they say. date=09.10.2003 08:35 ip=62.188.112.94 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It felt really lucky. date=09.10.2003 09:22 ip=213.122.172.232 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not in Camden though. It says that expressly, "except in Camden. On a Thursday." date=09.10.2003 09:35 ip=213.78.69.241 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm hoping it occurred while I was still in Golders Green and I just didn't notice. After all, I was too busy reading on the tube to notice whether I was spattered with guano. date=09.10.2003 09:51 ip=213.122.172.232 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aha! The notorious Camden reverse. I had forgotten.

I hear it's very positive to deliberately walk on the cracks between the paving stones up there though. date=09.10.2003 13:58 ip=62.188.108.223 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On a thursday. date=09.10.2003 13:58 ip=62.188.108.223 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is a total non-sequiteur but I don't care. I have to tell someone so I will tell you guys. Am reading medieval 'The Book of the City of Ladies' - Christine de Pizan. It asks: 'Why are there so few women in law?'. Answer: 'Because if the case goes to trial-by-combat, they won't be strong enough, will they?' Suddenly you realise you are reading something written in 1400 and not 1925. Amazing. That’s the kind of easily portrayed difference in societies and individual attitudes history gives us on a *plate*; to slip into fiction. date=09.10.2003 15:00 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's fantastic - the kind of fractal detail that unravels so much, so instantly, about the functioning and assumptions of the society it comes from. A luminous moment...

I wonder what the equivalents for us now would be, for someone from 2503 (assuming we survive that long!). I suppose part of the impact of details like that comes from the instructive disparity between 'then' and 'now', so you'd need to know what's going on in 2503 to really know. A kind of indicator of change. date=10.10.2003 00:12 ip=62.188.112.125 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now all we have to do is get that over to the new governer of California. date=10.10.2003 02:18 ip=213.78.72.47 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But he *does* know what's going on in 2503 - that's why he's such a good choice. date=10.10.2003 02:24 ip=81.136.210.216 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> for someone from 2503 (assuming we survive that long!)

No, no, no! You should have made yr example year 2525 - so you could say: In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive they may find... date=10.10.2003 02:28 ip=158.94.163.79 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph, non sequitur's never the problem here. The problem is endemic facetiousness. But please don't go away.

I'm wondering. What we look at it in the past tends to be selected out of our present concerns. By importing your perspective, you are already not quite looking at the thing you're looking at. So the difference we don't perceive (indeed can't) is actually greater than the one we do. Fiction would have to kind of *suggest* it, as a gap. Does that make any sense ? date=10.10.2003 03:04 ip=213.78.167.108 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I guess that's the problem with historical writing, then. Incidentally, MJH, how are you getting on with Thursbitch? date=10.10.2003 03:19 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I finished Thursbitch, and reviewed it, and the piece will be in the Grauniad on the 18th of this month. date=10.10.2003 03:33 ip=213.78.167.108 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's a news item up on the site. Shd be active as soon as the server/browser cache/gremlins decide to release it from the dark land of Previous Update. date=10.10.2003 04:14 ip=158.94.163.79 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>in the Grauniad on the 18th of this month.

I've just bought it, so I'll be interested to see what you thought. I'm going on a walk tomorrow which takes in the actual place - hopefully the sky will brood nicely for my camera. date=10.10.2003 04:53 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Endemic facetiousness"? Oh how we laughed. And even the cat got drunk.

Like the idea of memory as an uncertainity principle event. And fiction as - sorry, my scientific knowledge comes to an end: did Heisenberg or whoever give a name/a value to the "gap"?

Just listening to the new John Cale cd. A troubled and excited man, and no mistake. date=10.10.2003 05:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>A troubled and excited man, and no mistake.

Looking forward to hearing that one. As an antidote, I suggest the new Robert Wyatt, which is troubled yet good-humoured and humane, wonderfully inventive yet silly, and rippled with mad jazz. date=10.10.2003 05:49 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm going on a walk tomorrow which takes in the actual place - hopefully the sky will brood nicely for my camera.

Alex, that is such a brilliant irony, which you will get when you read the book.

Martin, I can't remember... date=10.10.2003 06:02 ip=213.78.71.95 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - I've started it, and already it's spooked the hell out of me. Even more, I've just realised (from reading reviews) that one of the characters has MND - a disease which I have had too much experience of. I'm not sure I can bear it. date=10.10.2003 06:14 ip=81.136.210.216 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>wonderfully inventive yet silly, and rippled with mad jazz.

I was rippled with mad jazz once: never again! That Wyatt is a bit of a genius. Not only because of his time with Soft Machine or his bounce back into music with Rock Bottom. Highly distinctive musical voice - and I *love* those tracks where he sings the muted trumpet lines. I nicked that idea but I didn't really have that mellow brass tone he gets. date=10.10.2003 07:14 ip=158.94.163.79 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rock Bottom is, of course, the best album ever made. date=10.10.2003 07:24 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rock Bottom is astonishing - right down to Ivor Cutler's "I'm fighting for the crust of the little brown loaf - I want it, I want it - give it to meee -"

Two years ago, I saw the "Soup Songs" show that covered his songs: bonfire night in Oxford, vocal fireworks on stage. Wyatt was in the audience, looking like Captain Birdseye, and modestly refused to be brought on stage for the standing ovation that everyone gave him. None the less, I saw him in the street afterwards, and thanked him for coming. "Well," he said, in that faded choirboy voice, "it couldn't do any harm, could it?" Indeed.

So: "Cuckooland" soon! "Joking apart, when you're drunk you're terrific -" date=10.10.2003 07:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Totally of the subject:

New version of iotacism: http://www.iotacism.com -- still heavily under construction. There will be more! date=10.10.2003 07:58 ip=158.94.163.79 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Totally off the subject:

New version of iotacism: http://www.iotacism.com -- still heavily under construction. There will be more!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.10.2003 07:58 ip=158.94.163.79 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also totally off-topic - but, what the heck. I just read this by Tom Raworth:

**************************************

Taxonomy


The albatross drawer
Is where we keep the albatrosses.


**************************************

It's a brave man who argues with that. date=10.10.2003 09:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Tom mail=www.tomandmicki@onetel.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re; "he`s out there and he`s redecorating"
I work for a national tool hire firm and once had to serve a pair of roofers who trade under the name of the Barley brothers. (Alan & dave,rather than Gog & Matey unfortunatly).Emboldened by this, i searched our company database to find other MJH namealikes,only to discover an M.Rose in south London...No sign of any mr T.Vesicles though.... date=10.10.2003 13:09 ip=213.78.173.65 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Albatrosses. The Natural History Museum bird annexe in Tring is the most amazing place. They have literally millions of skins in drawers in corridors that stretch to the horizon in a sealed building. I was lucky to be able to explore it - Finches from the Beagle expedition, specimens from Cook's voyages, a great auk, a vat full of Ostriches, beetles to process specimens .... etc. Albatrosses, you bet. date=10.10.2003 13:22 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.nhm.ac.uk/museum/tring/collections/collections.ht ml

It looks like that, if anybody (else, ha!) out there is interested in preserved animals. Fascinating fact: walrus penis bones are always broken because they have to drag their bulk over rocks with the *bone underneath* ! date=10.10.2003 13:33 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Tom. I knew they were out there somewhere. I can believe anything of a roofer. Tig Vesicle probably lives in Putney and commutes to the Barbican, where he has a job in arts management.

Steph, the things you know. Nobody is going to match the phrase "a vat full of Ostriches". An image Peakeian in the extreme--for me, anyway. Did you go there as research for The Year of Our War ? Or just because you wanted to look at a huge number of preserved animals ? I went to the natural history museum in Helsinki earlier in the year--it's really just a gigantic taxidermy collection (not the same as preserved animals, I know). Vast tableaux of wolves chasing caribou, & like that. A bit unsettling. Other than it was neat and beautifully lighted & kept, it might have been in Blackburn in the rain in 1930. Not that I was ever there.

Look, I'm not going to have an opinion about the penis bones of walruses. OK ? Except to say that it's probably payback for something in another life. Nature is hideous. date=10.10.2003 14:37 ip=213.78.70.201 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We saw some of a stuffed animal collection in Oslo but then they wanted to close down so we really just got a cursory glance.

There's a good walrus in the Horniman museum... date=10.10.2003 14:52 ip=213.122.187.239 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>There's a good walrus in the Horniman museum...

What sort of condition's its penis bone in ? Don't answer that. & if I hadn't lived quite near it once, I'd think you made the name of the museum up too. I took my cat for a walk on a lead in Horniman Park, or Gardens, or whatever they are. He didn't like it, too crowded. date=11.10.2003 02:23 ip=213.78.167.154 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hold up: you took yr cat for a walk on a lead? Does he tolerate that sort of thing? Our neighbours at our old flat used to take their rabbits for a walk up the road on improvised leads - with hilarious consequences. Great fun to watch the reaction from dogs and their owners...

But I digress. We were talking about penis bones. date=11.10.2003 03:03 ip=213.122.143.251 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Does he tolerate that sort of thing?

No. He seemed as if he might like it at first, the way some kittens do, but then evidently he didn't: so we stopped. Now he's deep into middle age and rarely leaves the house. Luckily he has a great garden, with a shed and all. He was happy to settle, having moved house five times between 1995 and 1998. date=11.10.2003 04:12 ip=213.78.65.15 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good review on amazon.co.uk from "a reader" from Geneva. date=11.10.2003 11:44 ip=213.122.207.244 name=Caleb mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I would like to tell you how happy I am to find your webpage and discover that the entire Viriconium series has been collected into a single book. When I found a PB copy of "The Pastel City" in a used book store several years ago I couldn't put it down. I always wondered if there were more and I'm happy to know that there are. I'll definitely be buying a copy of the collected stories and most likely recomending it to as many people as possible. Thanks and keep up the good work. date=11.10.2003 21:56 ip=66.222.116.238 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Forget walrus penis bones, stick with raccoon.

And as for preserved animals, http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002277.html date=12.10.2003 01:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Caleb. Glad you found The Pastel City and the site. Call around any time. & if you enjoy the rest of the stories, pop over to Amazon and give them a review!

Dan: that picture's seriously weird. date=12.10.2003 03:08 ip=213.78.82.22 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not quite a vat of ostriches:

http://www.iotacism.com/peacocks.jpg date=12.10.2003 04:19 ip=213.122.58.120 name=Tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was turned on to your work by a friend who generously donated his "spare copy" of "Viriconium" (How many does one need?).The edition lacked both "The pastel city" & "A storm of wings" so that it wasn`t until i bought the complete volume that the city was put into any kind of context.Somehow the geographical & historical vacuum it existed in was strangely more satisfying than something grounded in any form of "reality".It was certainly the cause of many a late night discussion amongst the friends i`d lent the book to.
when it comes to contextualising Viriconium,i`m with Audsley King..
All the best. date=12.10.2003 13:35 ip=213.78.79.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Tom

>>Somehow the geographical & historical vacuum it existed in was strangely more satisfying than something grounded in any form of "reality".

To have things come and go in front of you, uncontexted, not quite explaining themselves, is one of the most powerful experiences fiction of any kind can offer. It brings you up to full alertness, the way real events do. Not everyone's cup of tea. Originally you must have read the Allen & Unwin volume then, just In Viriconium and the short stories ? date=12.10.2003 15:57 ip=213.78.91.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - Thursbitch: what a book. Fan. Tastic. Worth the price for the final paragraph alone, I thought. I had my doubts about Ian and Sal (who irritated me slightly) but by the end I was *in there*. (Incidentally, if Sal's MND was as advanced as all that, she probably wouldn't have been talking coherently, but that's a minor point). I get your point about my earlier comment being ironic btw! date=13.10.2003 01:50 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. Well, we agree on that, then. I disliked Ian & Sal (& their landscape snobbery) almost as much as I liked Jack & Sarah. But I felt the trip was well worth it for the shamanistic sequences and for the weird beauty of that last paragraph. (Of course it's not just that para on its own. The power comes from the fact that it really is *completing* the book. Those few words are the massive part of the text. I hear he started with them and wrote towards them.)

Glad you were able to appreciate the irony. As a matter of interest, what's it like down there ? I've been up and down the Cat & Fiddle road, and on the ridge between Cat Tor & Shining Tor, but never into the valley. There's a little edge up near there somewhere called Windgather. Ever been there ? date=13.10.2003 02:44 ip=213.78.71.152 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike. It's an odd place to be sure. If you've walked from Shining Tor to Cats Tor you'll have looked down into Thursbitch. It's incredibly quiet and eerie: what struck me most is that someone actually lived there. The Tors on one side and Andrews Edge on the other must have weighed heavily on the mind: huge presences. I don't know Windgather though - I'll check the map.
It's fascinating, though, to wonder *why* Jack Turner died where he did - it wasn't exactly isolated, or far from home. Another nice little detail: the whole place was covered in psilocybin mushrooms. I think Garner meant fly agaric when he talked of Corbel Bread, but still... date=13.10.2003 03:00 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's fascinating, though, to wonder *why* Jack Turner died where he did - it wasn't exactly isolated, or far from home.

The sheer speed at which you can get exhaustion-hypothermia, I'd say. I remember Garner making a similar point in Red Shift. What did for them up there was the weather. They had to be much more careful than us about wind, rain, everything. But I think there's also some metaphysical element there, some part of the haunting. Jack's life is not his own. The valley gives, the valley takes away.

>>Another nice little detail: the whole place was covered in psilocybin mushrooms. I think Garner meant fly agaric when he talked of Corbel Bread, but still...

A couple of references early on convinced me it was psilocybin, but then suddenly it's clearly fly agaric, isn't it ? Windgather, I suspect, is a bit further east--not so far, since it's still on gritstone. We usually went down there for the limestone, or to get the scenic route to mid Wales. date=13.10.2003 03:13 ip=213.78.88.64 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Windgather - that'll be the outcrop we passed on the way to Kettleshume which was covered in climbers. It looked like someone had built it as a climbing exercise! date=13.10.2003 03:15 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Jack's life is not his own

Very true. I liked the way his wife came back for him though: they both became part of the bigger picture.

Fly agaric: I'm sure, at one point, Garner describes the fungi as brown and white (and elsewhere as red and white). If brown and white, maybe Jack was doing Panther Caps - that might account for his death! date=13.10.2003 03:22 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kettleshume. That's it. Windgather's attraction (other than its name & sheer prettiness) is that it's easy. It's just right for beginners, so even in my day you had to go midweek in winter to get it to yourself. Not that I ever objected to sharing it (unlike Ian & Sal). Last time I was there was 1991. I was driving through on the way to Wales with Jane Johnson, and we stopped off so she could solo the routes. Up and down like a yo-yo. She were right pleased wi herself. date=13.10.2003 03:25 ip=213.78.88.64 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: I've just remembered: one of the things shamen used to do with fly agaric was pass their piss around as a sacrament - it contains the good stuff! Aha! date=13.10.2003 03:28 ip=81.136.210.216 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thus "piddlejuice", of course. date=13.10.2003 03:38 ip=213.78.88.64 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apparently reindeer like to eat fly agaric. Which may have given rise to Santa: big red and white hooded figure flying through the air in a sleigh pulled by spaced-out reindeer.

Don't do it, kids! date=13.10.2003 03:42 ip=158.94.175.151 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Thus "piddlejuice", of course.

Aye. Happen. date=13.10.2003 03:45 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hence Mark E. Smith's line: "The Siberian mushroom Santa/Was in fact Rasputin's brother." date=13.10.2003 04:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Umm, I guess... *blushes at his lack of encyclopaedic knowledge of The Fall* date=13.10.2003 04:37 ip=158.94.175.151 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io :no blush required ( Phil Collins, wasn't it ..?) - I should just get out more.

It's from "Fantastic Life," years ago. "He said he told the policeman what he really thought/But knowing him/I don't believe THAT -" date=13.10.2003 04:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Japanese company developing a cat translator:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_800362.htm l

Apparently they've already made one for dogs... date=13.10.2003 07:20 ip=158.94.175.151 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>a cat translator

It can't be too hard. They only say two things: "Dinner" and "talk to the paw". date=13.10.2003 07:50 ip=81.136.210.216 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I don't know - Qwerty has quite a range: "Why did the enter the room without my permission?", "You cannot watch television - I am going to put my arse in yr face!" and of course "Oh, did you see that 3000 femtosecond event over there in the corner?" date=13.10.2003 08:03 ip=158.94.175.151 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! Just found a used hardback of CotH going for £95!

There was also a copy of Luck in the Head for £75. I might just sell my copy if that's the going rate. date=13.10.2003 08:10 ip=158.94.175.151 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Wow! Just found a used hardback of CotH on Amazon going for £95!

There was also a copy of Luck in the Head for £75. I might just sell my copy if that's the going rate.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.10.2003 08:10 ip=158.94.175.151 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oh, I don't know - Qwerty has quite a range: "Why did you enter the room without my permission?", "You cannot watch television - I am going to put my arse in yr face!" and of course "Oh, did you see that 3000 femtosecond event over there in the corner?"
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.10.2003 08:03 ip=158.94.175.151 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheap at twice the price.

That shelf of Panther paperbacks could yet secure my pension... date=13.10.2003 08:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>used hardback of CotH

I've got a blue paperback proof copy (?) with a bloodstain on the front. date=13.10.2003 08:23 ip=81.136.210.216 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But a few months back I bought a paperback of CotH from Amazon for 1p - effectively just the cost of P&P.

BTW: Whose blood is on yr proof copy? date=13.10.2003 08:27 ip=158.94.175.151 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's my blood. Things went horrible wrong. date=13.10.2003 08:34 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Attack by untranslated cat? Failed attempt at Yaxley ritual? Or just a slip of the Gillette when reading in the bathroom and the White Couple materialised on the page? Tell us more! date=13.10.2003 08:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't really tell you. But I can give you these clues: Mach III and ear hair.

I won't be back. date=13.10.2003 08:53 ip=81.136.210.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My blood runs cold. Our prayers are with you. date=13.10.2003 08:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There does seem to be quite a steep differential between 1p and £95. Clearly the left hand (collectibles) isn't aware of what the right hand (remainders) is doing. I'd wager, too, that it has to be in mint nick & unsigned. Actually, collectibles has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the real world, ever. They live by physics of their own. "Why does this book cost so much ?" "Because I say so." "Ah. OK."

Alex: speaking of nicks, I sympathise. date=13.10.2003 09:39 ip=213.78.172.30 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't picture the scene: sitting in the bathroom on a Sunday afternoon reading CotH. Alex scratches at his ear negligently as a fly buzzes by. And then: what's this? A great stiff cable of earhair! Where my Mach III?

No, that doesn't make sense. Perhaps we shall never know what happened in that bathroom? date=13.10.2003 10:07 ip=213.122.112.143 name=Tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=! date=13.10.2003 11:48 ip=213.78.92.178 name=tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=! date=13.10.2003 11:52 ip=213.78.92.178 name=tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about the random punctuation.For some reason only the last character of the message is being posted -hope this makes more sense.
MJH - Yup, that`ll be the one,looking positively skinny alongside the brawny collected volume.It does,however compare well to the Gollancz hardback which lacks "In Viriconium" also. (40p from my local library - so i may be open to offers...) date=13.10.2003 14:58 ip=213.78.66.119 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Tom. I thought those exclamation points were a heavily-coded but savage piece of New Blank criticism--see discussion a long way below--and I was preparing an equally careful Post Blank reply, taking into account that your name was capitalised in the first post but not in the second. I found that a cruelly elegant touch, with its unspoken implication that my whole career is based on sentimental misreadings of The Clangers, Joanna Trollope, and the first five minutes of A Matter of Life and Daeth. (Which of course it is.)

So anyway we should leave them there for the others to see. Al, particularly, will like them. date=13.10.2003 15:16 ip=213.78.90.164 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>A Matter of Life and Daeth

A Pwyll and Preesbangor film, I believe. Incidentally, while I was looking (rather sadly) to see what 'daeth' means in Welsh, Google asked me 'did you mean to search for *death*?' Very MJH, I thought.

(Incidentally, 'daeth' is third person past indicative of 'dod' - to become) date=14.10.2003 01:02 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Strangely enough the deep space sequence at the start of A Matter of Life & Death strongly resembles the opening of The Clangers. Things are moving towards a definite condition. date=14.10.2003 01:32 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=David 'Bach' Niven and Marius 'Boyo' Goring arguing about the afterlife as they wander round a shopping precinct in Merthyr Tydfyll - "There's beauty for you" as they pass Threshers and the Body Shop - and "We'll Keep a Welcome in The Valleys" drifts down the moving stairs to heaven. Is this enough of an outline? Do I get the cheque now? date=14.10.2003 01:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whenever I'm in Wales I find myself strangely drawn to the National Milk Bars. Kinda like downmarket Welsh Wimpys or something. I wonder why they didn't catch on here? date=14.10.2003 01:53 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You mean you can *go* downmarket from a Welsh Wimpey? date=14.10.2003 01:56 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, that's what happens when I rush these things.

I mean a Welsh downmarket Wimpy. Also hard to imagine... date=14.10.2003 02:00 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=National Milk Bars sound a mixture of Colin Wilson and "Clockwork Orange." Could be why they've never spread.

Alex: a scary google. We could re-write Emily Dickinson - "Because I could not search for Daeth/He kindly searched for me..." date=14.10.2003 02:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I've been fending off calls from the Death Call Centre all morning. They won't take "noooooooo!!!!" for an answer. date=14.10.2003 02:30 ip=81.136.208.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's when they offer to sell me my own funeral in installments that I get worried ... "No today, thank you." date=14.10.2003 02:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the deep space sequence at the start of A Matter of Life & Death strongly resembles the opening of The Clangers

I've remarked on this several times to Cath. The reason I say "several times" is that Cath is a big Pwyll & Preesbanger fan, & has to see one of their films every couple of months to remain well. I usually opt for AMoLaD because I like the bomber scene; or I Know Where I'm Going because I fancy Pamela Brown something chronic.

Alex, the question "Did you mean to search for death ?" is fully ritualistic and suggests you have--consciously or otherwise--got in direct touch with an Egyptian algorithm embedded in otherwise innocuous Google code. I could let you know the correct reply but it'll cost you. date=14.10.2003 02:39 ip=213.78.168.66 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the correct reply but it'll cost you

I'll pay on my way out. And no, I don't have a Nectar card (which probably means I'm not accruing any Engaro Miles).

Nice quote from Gaston Bachelard (whose birthday was today):
"One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it. To remain in touch with the past requires a love of memory. To remain in touch with the past requires a constant imaginative effort. " date=14.10.2003 02:48 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>an Egyptian algorithm embedded in otherwise innocuous Google code.

I can get you an Eastern European pirate version but the interface and all of the documentation is in Czech. date=14.10.2003 02:53 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: a wonderful quote. Oddly, it chimes with another I just stumbled across from Lewis Namier:

"One would expect people to remember the past and to imagine the future. But in fact, when discoursing or writing about history, they imagine it in terms of their own experience, and when trying to gauge the future they cite supposed analogies from the past: till, by a double process of repetition, they imagine the past and remember the future."

That last phrase could apply to any number of bad fantasy writers. It'd also make a highly suitable motto for Viriconium itself. date=14.10.2003 03:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>No, that doesn't make sense. Perhaps we shall never know what happened in that bathroom?

to which I offer this reply...

>>To have things come and go in front of you, uncontexted, not quite explaining themselves, is one of the most powerful experiences fiction of any kind can offer.

(courtesy Dan's quotation introduction service) date=14.10.2003 03:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My word! With a careful application of this method we could regurgitate ourselves ad nauseam!

But as Bachelard put it: "One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it." date=14.10.2003 03:28 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: do you have data on who visits this forum? Is traffic light, or are there many lurkers? Do people *begin* to post and then run away again? date=14.10.2003 03:46 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I don't as it happens. We could set up site stats I guess. Why do you ask? Do you think we're scaring off potential customers? date=14.10.2003 03:50 ip=158.94.188.107 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My, we're smart this morning. Verging indeed on the smartass. We deserve max points for that. Great quotes both those, Alex & Martin. The second one I ought to post-it onto my desktop; it refers as well to Light & the new book as to Viriconium. Ed, with a bad fishtank hangover, whines something like, "If I'm telling the future, why do I always see the past ?" I'm pushing this further in the next one. date=14.10.2003 03:54 ip=213.78.76.132 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think we ought to have stats, io. Then we could tell just how much trade we were losing by being so smart. date=14.10.2003 04:03 ip=213.78.94.23 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>scaring off potential customers

I wasn't thinking of it that way, but now that you mention it I don't really imagine people would use this forum as a deciding factor in the purchase of MJH books.
In fact, even though the forum has developed a personality, it's quite friendly and welcoming to those brave enough to put a toe in. I was just wondering why more people don't insert toe. date=14.10.2003 04:05 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool. With a bit of luck we can quantify our smartarseness to the third decimal place. date=14.10.2003 04:06 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You could do a graph of smartassness over endemic facetiousness. date=14.10.2003 04:11 ip=81.136.208.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm in grave danger of appearing near the top of them both ... :)

Anyway: the Namier quote comes from a great short piece he wrote in 1941 called "Symmetry & Repetition." It's reprinted in "The Oxford Book of Essays," and has some other thought-provoking bits: "Revolutions have their tradition, ritual, and magic tricks" and: "Napoleon fought all his battles on two variations of one single plan, confessing at St. Helena that in his last battles he did not know more than the first."

Bonaparte as Jeffrey Archer is quite a thought. date=14.10.2003 05:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After all that smartness I'm failing to get my head around attaching this sitestats gewgaw. I'll look into this later. date=14.10.2003 06:37 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Could also be the moment to set the right time, as well? Or are we running on *different* time?

V. erudite today. Endemic plumbers at home, hence not much posting. MJH - yup, enjoyed the exclamation marks, tho' perhaps a little bit over stated. Hey ho, pushing the parameters of style never a bad thing.

Oh btb also, next Brixton Alive Tuesday 28th October, 8pm, Bar Lorca Brixton. More rocking sounds.

Was head butted outside it the other day! Never realised how intimate violence is. Had a record of someone's rage lurking under my face for most of last week. Ugh.

Fashion sense survives concussion tho', brought some v. natty trousers while spaced out the day after.

Completely off the point, am distracted by plumbers - many apols... date=14.10.2003 06:42 ip=62.188.112.182 name=io mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=time check date=14.10.2003 20:49 ip=158.94.188.107 name=io mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=time check date=14.10.2003 12:51 ip=158.94.188.107 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Time check date=14.10.2003 14:52 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>distracted by plumbers

How many of them? Got any spare?

Sorry to hear about your buttedness, Al. Hope the pants made up for it. Violence is, well, horribly *violent* if you're not used to it, isn't it? date=14.10.2003 14:52 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Definitely running on *different* time. GMT shd appear on future entries. date=14.10.2003 14:53 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, if you want to score some *P*, I can sort you out.

*looks shifty*

Polish plumbers - so in fact, PP. Yup - violence v. unpleasant. I seem to get into one fight every ten years or so - last serious incident 1991, and that was v. odd indeed. This one worse, but on the plus side not too damaging and interesting experience, so it could have been worse. Sarf London life!

Worst thing about it - the unexpectedness! And the way it hangs around you for days afterwards. date=14.10.2003 15:08 ip=62.188.100.106 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Plumbers and plasterers. Sometimes I wish I'd learned a trade like that instead: *everyone else* seems to be able to get hold of decent workpersons, but can we? Nope. I wonder if you can get Polish polishers. date=14.10.2003 15:13 ip=81.136.208.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was it actually a fight as such, or more that some twat was so eager to secure a cab that they decided to butt you? Must've been quite a lofty individual - I'd have to stand on a chair to attempt that.

Haven't been involved in any real violence since the eighties, thankfully. As far as I can remember it involve sickening quantities of adrenaline and blood - mostly mine. date=14.10.2003 15:36 ip=158.94.188.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: nasty stuff. Are you okay?

That's the trouble with night life - not so much GMT as TMT: too many twats. date=14.10.2003 16:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, fine now - no long term damage, apart from a v. slightly chipped tooth. V. fortunate, given that he actually managed to knock me over with a single headbutt! He was slightly shorter than me (I'm six foot four), and very fat.

Anyway, he was trying to barge past us and climb into our taxi, I had an arm in front of him to try and stop him, the taxi accelerated away with him still hanging onto the closed door handle, this took him over backwards, enraging him and making him headbutt me. Ugh! date=14.10.2003 16:10 ip=62.188.108.246 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, all

Al, sorry to interrupt. Will get back to you in a second.

Re: Museum. MJH asked: Did you go there as research for The Year of Our War ?
Yes, absolutely, though I’ve always been interested in birds/flight.

A friend who studies bird bones from archaeological sites let me behind the scenes at the museum. In the alcohol store, next to a large jar of pickled parrots, we found a bat – alive, but moribund. God knows how it got in there, the stores are supposed to be airtight. We managed to resuscitate it. Cue fifty mile drive to a bat sanctuary with the pipistrelle down Jo’s blouse to keep warm. It was good to save a life after being surrounded by corpses all day.

What were you doing in Finland? The Brussels museum has a tableaux of iguanodon skeletons from a herd that supposedly perished together. Skeletons in real-life poses look great.

Thankfully you closed the discussion on certain bones of walruses. But I can’t help adding that Gene Wolfe's ‘The Book of the Long Sun’ has a character called Oosik – an Inuit word meaning – yes, you’ve guessed it… date=14.10.2003 16:21 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al - did you not smack him? date=14.10.2003 16:23 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Pickled parrots, and posing skeletons - incredible.

More coincidence (and not smatass-ery ): I've just been helping someone with a quotation slip written out for the "Oxford English Dictionary" that's now part of our archive. The slip's writer was Tolkien, and word was - "walrus." date=14.10.2003 16:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin - I hope that walrus etymology puzzled Tolkein! Where's your archive? Are you in O.U.P? date=14.10.2003 16:54 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And a further coincidence: my partner Lisa phoned me earlier to tell me she had had a nasty experience with a man 'like a walrus' in the swimming baths. I hope he wasn't dragging his bone. date=14.10.2003 17:01 ip=81.136.208.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: OUP it is.

No puzzlement, I'm afraid. You get a long string of Icelandic terms from the Sagas. He knew his stuff.

We've also got a letter from him saying how he made up the term "hobbit." Copyright stops me quoting this, but if anyone's passing through Oxford and wants to see it, let me know! date=14.10.2003 17:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph

>>What were you doing in Finland?

I was helping road-test a "weekend break", ie getting pissed at 2am in the Smallest Bar in Helsinki, which was full of the biggest Finns you ever saw, whose English comprised, "Hey, come in, we can find some room for you!" Also, the museums & other tourist stuff. The best thing though was the Russian Orthodox Church. On a hill, in the snow, in the sunshine, then inside just light on gold. Pure Course of the Heart, you should be able to get it in a bottle.

I never go to places. I go to myself. I could get therapy, or I could go on writing. You guys decide. date=14.10.2003 17:04 ip=213.78.166.51 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin – you lucky, lucky man. I love Oxford, I was nearby (Frevds) yesterday, after an evening stroll to Wayland’s Smithy, fascinating site – only in terms of how people relate to it. date=14.10.2003 17:12 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph - well, I thought about it, but it was one of those 'life's too short' moments.

That walrus bone thing made me shudder for two weeks, btb.

Therapy? Hmm, can we sit in? date=14.10.2003 17:19 ip=62.188.105.108 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - 'They change their clime, not their frame of mind, who rush across the sea.' Horace.

Al - of course, you're a gentleman. I'll stop lowering the tone!

Martin - Kazbah, not Frevds. Much less pretentious ;-)

See you, guys. date=14.10.2003 17:58 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Too bloody true. See you, Steph. date=14.10.2003 18:11 ip=213.78.75.192 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Too bloody true about Freuds, as well!

Next time you're around, drop in: it'd be great to meet you. date=15.10.2003 08:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Frevds? Freuds? I'm confused... Think I'd rather eat at Frevds, unpronounceable restaurants always preferable.

Anyway, totally off any form of topic, but thought the below might be of interest:

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/031020/whisp ers/20whisplead.htm

It links to a site that gives you this:

'Just as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's story that Bushies blew his CIA wife's cover to get back at his criticism of the war in Iraq was getting old, he has stumbled on new ammo to hit the administration's credibility. Wilson tells us he plans to circulate the text of a briefing by analyst Sam Gardiner that suggests the White House and Pentagon made up or distorted over 50 war stories. You know some tall tales, like the Pvt. Jessica Lynch story. '

Am downloading the report but haven't read it yet'. For a site rooted in the uses of fantasy, and folk interested in it, no doubt an interesting read. Hey ho, the abuses of narrative etc. date=16.10.2003 10:33 ip=62.188.105.31 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, by the report I mean the actual Gardiner briefing, which is what you can download from the site. date=16.10.2003 10:34 ip=62.188.105.31 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Only 50?

I say "Freuds" but it's spelt with a "V" : I always think it's giving two fingers to the rest of us. Besides pretentiousness, the place suffers from being a converted church. The couple of times I've been invited there it's felt very uncomfortable: as if the tables are going to be pushed aside for some Lovecraftian ceremony once the espresso's out the way. I prefer a pint in the Jude across the road. date=16.10.2003 10:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> as if the tables are going to be pushed aside for some Lovecraftian ceremony

For me that's a plus!

'And how would you like your shoggoth done, sir...'

As for report - have just been skimming it, v. interesting stuff in there. Would put up edited highlights, but a bit hectic at the mo. date=16.10.2003 11:22 ip=62.188.105.71 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or, in fact, a plvs.

Not a big fan of converted churches, btb. Like it or not, it's holy ground - I hate seeing it used for groovy living / commercial space. date=16.10.2003 11:23 ip=62.188.105.71 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Groovy living.

Indeed. The sanctity lingers, and the polenta tastes weird.

Shoggoth with that nice Innsmouth seafood paella for me! date=16.10.2003 12:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think anyone in England can do good shoggoth. You have to go to Baltimore for that. date=16.10.2003 12:11 ip=213.78.168.237 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone been to Pthagn's? The fungi from Yuggoth is to die for! date=16.10.2003 12:14 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is Frevd's in Oxford in any way related to the one in London (Shaftesbury Ave, near the top of Neal St) - famous lesbian hang-out, so I am led to believe. Very strange men's toilets, through an archway underneath the pavement at the front, you have to get padlock keys from the bar to get in there, from my drug-addled memory they seem like they'd be very appropriate for Lovecraftian ceremonies. date=16.10.2003 12:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There is a Frevd's in London, I went there once to an exhibition. But a la Choe Ashton I was pissed, with some other people, & in a taxi, so I haven't any idea where it is. It was night if that's any use.

Off to Spain tomorrow to be unable to avoid myself in Madrid & Valencia. Have heard how well they cook Certain Abominations, & will report to this board. date=16.10.2003 13:32 ip=213.78.69.54 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No idea about the London branch. I'll have to check it out.

Maybe we're onto a fortune, though: a chain of Lovecraftian fast food outlets. Unhappy Eater? Little Cthulu? We could serve up Dunwich Delight or Yog Sothoth Yoghurt ("it's the congeries of bubbles that make it " ) - not to mention spit-roated Goat of a Thousand Young. Three-Lobed Burning Eye flambeed at your table. Endless possibilities for the eldrich entrepreneur ... date=16.10.2003 13:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Read a short news item in the Metro about a "dark galaxy" containing just hydrogen gas and exotic particles and devoid of stars. Apparently it's called HVC 127-41-330, but I can't find any reference to it on Nasa or Uni of California's site...

Anyone know anything about this?

Oh and have fun in Spain, Mike. date=16.10.2003 13:41 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No star news - but safe travelling, Mike. date=16.10.2003 13:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Read a short news item in the Metro about a "dark galaxy" containing just hydrogen gas and exotic particles but devoid of stars. Apparently it's called HVC 127-41-330, but I can't find any reference to it on Nasa or Uni of California's site...

Anyone know anything about this?

Oh and have fun in Spain, Mike.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=16.10.2003 13:41 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, I don't think I was in a much better state than you when I visited Freud's. I can only remember the toilets.

As for themed eateries... my wife used to fantasize about opening a Viriconium bookshop & café in Sheffield (sorry, not Huddersfield), with a sleazy jazz club out-back, accessible to the cognoscenti only via hinged toilet mirrors (hmm... hinged toilets? Unhinged toilet rituals? Brings us almost full circle) date=16.10.2003 14:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I reckon some of the Yorkshire jazzerati might be well into that. Mick Beck could be leader - since he's blind, he would be unable to see the horrors unfolding in front of him. In fact, a jazz club with any of Mick Becks bands in residence would be quite a weird thing. date=16.10.2003 14:32 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx, Martin.

>>Apparently it's called HVC 127-41-330

I've been there, io, but it's nothing like as good as Sonny's in Barnes. Dan: I think I'd go for the unhinged toilet ritual. date=16.10.2003 14:42 ip=213.78.75.120 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The unhinged toilet ritual - also known as the Empty Space Ritual. date=16.10.2003 15:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was shocked at the size of the portions. "There's fuck-all there!" I said to the waiter. "Ah no, sir. Sir is mistaken," he replied with ponderous gravity, "the larger part of sir's dinner is dark matter."

I had to grab a kebab generation ship on my way home. date=16.10.2003 15:23 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Empty Space Ritual

That sounds uncomfortably like Hawkwind. date=16.10.2003 15:35 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I had to grab a kebab generation ship on my way home

Wiping out untold thousands who'd spent millenia journeying at sub-light speeds between the stars; still in suspended animation, feeling nothing as their great ship (which had stopped to refuel by attaching itself to the spinning meat thing) was demolished in your gaping maw. When you throw up after a kebab, it's not the meat - it's triggered by all the escape capsules, coated in irritating chemicals, exploding into your stomach.

Oh, and -

Waiter, waiter, there's an unknown city of pan-dimensional horror rising from my pan fried shoggoth!

*pause for effect*

Ah well, sir did ask for it R'leh well done.

*bdom tish*

*gets coat* date=16.10.2003 15:35 ip=62.188.105.142 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That sounds uncomfortably like Hawkwind.

Oh, that's just the longhair playing with his moog in the cubicle at the end. date=16.10.2003 15:37 ip=158.94.136.192 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>That sounds uncomfortably like Hawkwind.

Oh, that's just the longhair playing with his moog in the cubicle at the end.

>>unknown city of pan-dimensional horror rising from my pan fried shoggoth!

Presumably that's *deep* pan-dimensional horror?

--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=16.10.2003 15:37 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay, I'll play.
My favourite sandwich is the Sub Niggurath (that's goat, with a Thousand Island Dressing). date=16.10.2003 15:44 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: not fair - you get you edit you own posts so you can be *funnier*. date=16.10.2003 15:47 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this is making me think Abdul A. finished the "Neconomicon" and went off to be Max Miller's support act: a smile, a song, and an inter-dimensional entity - well you do, don't you lady? I was out one day walking the Hounds of Tindalos, lookin' for the rats in the walls - no, no, lissen - date=16.10.2003 15:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Io: not fair - you get you edit you own posts so you can be *funnier*.

Hey, is that possible?

Umm, actually I tend to edit them to look like less of an illiterate twat. date=16.10.2003 15:54 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah come on, now: if you can put up with the endemic facetiousness this has to be one of the least illiterate boards on the Net!

We like us laffs, we does ... date=16.10.2003 16:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> All this is making me think Abdul A. finished the "Neconomicon" and went off to be Max Miller's support act

With a laugh track of insane, high pitched tittering, spotlit by a rack of burning three lobed eyes. date=16.10.2003 16:32 ip=62.188.105.127 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: "That sounds uncomfortably like Hawkwind" - that was my intention, emphasis on the "uncomfortably".

I love it whenever the conversation here turns to space-kebabs.

"endemic facetiousness" makes me think of enemaed (?) faeces. Sorry, enough crap wordplay already. Fire the rectal-rockets and prepare to maneuver the kebab-ship back out of this void. date=16.10.2003 16:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> With a laugh track ...

He might well need it. If the laughs didn't come he could try the old Lenny Bruce line ("Well, folks, I wasn't born here - but I'm sure *dyin* - " ) - before a besuckered tentacle snaked out of the wings, and snatched him off into endless night: accompanied by devilish piping, charnel odours, rumours of a catastrophic house price collapse in the Dunwich region, etc.

Just think: at Arkham Jongleurs, *every* night is like this! date=16.10.2003 16:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kebabs make me think of faeces too. Oh God, now we gotta bad case of endemic scatology already. date=16.10.2003 16:46 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>devilish piping, charnel odours

Sounds like my kind of fashion. date=16.10.2003 16:48 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Space kebabs ...

I always wondered if one of the NASA geologists ever licked the end of their finger at the lab, dabbed it in moondust, and tried the flavour.

The technical term must be Lunaphagy - or something. We could speculate on whisking up an entire ring of Saturn for hundreds and thousands:
"Remember, gentlemen - yesterday's asteriod is tomorrow's profiterole!"

(Time I logged off and got something to eat, I think ...) date=16.10.2003 17:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm in an unfortunately scatological mood today. When you said "rings of Saturn", I thought of a Roman god's... no, no, no, my coat has been calling me for a long time now, I really must be getting it. date=16.10.2003 18:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*looks down* Not sure it's entirely appropriate to raise the tone of the board so blatantly but I'd just like to let you all know that Lisa, the love of my life, my best friend and muse, has agreed to marry me. This fills me with indescribable joy. Have a drink for us, and start thinking about hats.

Now, back to our man on Uranus. date=17.10.2003 09:06 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: C*O*N*G*R*A*T*U*L*A*T*I*O*N*S!!!!!!!! date=17.10.2003 09:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wahey! Go Alex! Was there any old-timey kneeling involved? date=17.10.2003 09:57 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>old-timey kneeling involved?

Yes, on a few occasions! And a rather modern exchange of skull-rings:
http://www.eyestorm.com/find/AR6_product.asp?s ku=WNO01623 date=17.10.2003 10:13 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Magnificent stuff.

*Cracks open virtual champagne* date=17.10.2003 11:06 ip=62.188.105.206 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool rings! The skull ones - not the ones around Uranus. date=17.10.2003 12:06 ip=158.94.136.192 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Cool rings!

Indeed, although as an 'artwork' they came linked. We had to unlink them, but then there was something satisfying about 'breaking' a piece of art so we could both have a bit.

Thanks for your kind wishes, chaps. You're good 'uns. date=17.10.2003 12:11 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Congrats Alex!

>>Indeed, although as an 'artwork' they came linked. We had to unlink them, but then there was something satisfying about 'breaking' a piece of art so we could both have a bit.

Cor blimey! Just like Half a Sixpence. How romantic.

We still haven't got rings (9 months after getting married) - too untogether to get it sorted, despite the offer of custom-made pieces at cost price from the UK's trendiest jeweller: http://www.justice.co.uk/pages/des9.htm date=17.10.2003 14:53 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Just like Half a Sixpence. How romantic.

Luvva duck! I hadn't thought of that! Cheers Dan. date=17.10.2003 15:06 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A copy of The Nag Hammadi Library squeezed through my letterbox on Saturday, this is the definitive English translation of the treasure trove of Gnostic texts discovered in Upper Egypt in the 40s. Don't know why I didn't buy this before.

A DVD of Amon Duul II in 1968 also appeared at iotacism Towers on Saturday. Cheers for the tip off, Alex! Features Renate looking really bored while the lads go into psychedelic dervish mode and *lots* of wintery Munich countryside.

Wahey! date=20.10.2003 13:43 ip=158.94.166.125 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shame - they could have given Renate a triangle to play or something. date=20.10.2003 15:13 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Congratulations Alex. Nice one.

It is orl rite here in Spain I have seen sum Goyas also Old Ireonymus his self. Saturn eating his children is smaller than I expected, I expected it to fill a wall. The convention wus good if tiring now I am in valencia. C u. date=20.10.2003 15:17 ip=62.82.81.204 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Hmm, Spain seems to have taken its toll on yr spelling. Anyway, hope it continues to rock! Reading The Cult of the Black Virgin at the moment - didn't happen to see the one in Madrid did you? Apparently there's one in the Church of Na Sra de Atocha - rumoured to be the favourite BVM of the Spanish Royal Family.

Alex: It's just after her and Shrat stop doing their cosmic ullulations and the band kick in with those enormous multi-headed grooves. Shrat grabs the tambourine and starts "getting down" to that "crazy swinging music". Between bouts of petulant boredom Renate casts envious glances at the tambourine.

*scene change - big northern european sunrise*

And then they're back launching into that heavy dervish carnival thing and... Renate has the tambourine and is looking rather pleased with herself.

The legend goes that Shrat (who also appeared on the Yeti cover) was found frozen to death in the woods some years later. It doesn't pay to borrow Renate's tambourine. date=20.10.2003 15:29 ip=158.94.166.125 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never drink this, it nums yr hole face: PATXARAN. Will bring bottle home fur emergences. date=20.10.2003 15:40 ip=62.82.81.204 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=According to my information Patraxan requires "A hundred wild bilberries that can be picked between August and October" and left to *macerate* for four months. date=20.10.2003 15:45 ip=158.94.166.125 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>A hundred wild bilberries

Last Summer, I picked wild bilberries and macarated them in a bottle of vodka with some sugar for a few months. The result was something that was probably very potent but smelled of cheese. It didn't get drunk. date=20.10.2003 15:55 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! Can you bring us back a bottle each?

I can't match that - but friends served me fresh mulberry cheesecake on Saturday night: mmm-MMM! date=20.10.2003 15:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Patxaran: Just realised I've had that stuff. It's like sloe gin, but the sloes are soaked in some kind of aniseed liquor. It's ill-advised. date=20.10.2003 16:23 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=lil-davidse ndedei

I ar ritin a revu uf rustle oban it semes. Redin this new book uf is I think e is stil a smartas date=21.10.2003 09:53 ip=62.82.66.235 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An alan smartas, at that. date=21.10.2003 10:07 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not anuvver nue edishun uv "Riddlee Woarker," izzit? date=21.10.2003 10:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Has everyone been at the patxaran? date=21.10.2003 13:16 ip=158.94.166.125 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never tried Patxaran, closest I think I've had is Mirto de Sardegna, a myrtle liquer which was given to me & my friend in Antwerp by the chef of the most beautiful meal of my life - afterwards I asked him where I could get a bottle for myself, he said "Sardinia" and gave me a bottle from his store, gratis. Full story here: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/001994.html

As for freezing to death in the woods - a friend of mine told me a chilling story. He was visiting his daughter in Spain recently. She'd spent some time staying on a remote farm in the mountains near Cazorla, where she befriended two German guys in their early twenties. She left for Barcelona, and met up with one of the guys there a couple of days later. He and the other guy had, after she left, taken some Datura (aka Jimson Weed) with them on a trekking trip. They take what seems to be a massive overdose. The guy tells her that after taking it he cant remember anything, regains consciousness after 20 hours and finds himself naked and with no idea where the basecamp is etc. After a 24 hour walk he manages to return to the farm. There is no sign of the other guy. The people running the farm (who supplied them in the first place) tell him to go to Barcelona and not worry about the other guy, he'll turn up. Deeply confused he travels to Barcelona and tells his story. My friend's daughter, who is deeply anti-drugs, convinces him to contact the police. A massive hunt for the other guy begins with 2 helicopters and loads of men searching. They found the other guy, dead in the mountains. Brrr. date=21.10.2003 13:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Datura is supposed to be very very potent. I was told by an old hippy in Spain (coincidentally) of an experience he'd had with the stuff. He believed it was a telepathic drug: he had spent the whole trip living inside the head of a window cleaner in New York, although he was physically in Germany. date=21.10.2003 13:39 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iv alwaes livd inside the hed of a charlady frum Grenich. V nice womn. She has her prllems. I have my prollums Mike she say. The bucet allys hevvy. Dirty water, hevy bucet. date=22.10.2003 10:03 ip=62.82.75.183 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also she sae: u allus no who yr frendz ar, Mike.

Gretins frum Spain, hi. date=22.10.2003 10:09 ip=62.82.75.183 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Princess Diana said exactly the same thing to me, the last time I adjusted the brakes on her car.

Funny old world ... date=22.10.2003 10:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am now associating Princess Diana with a dirty bucket. This is not right.
Hola Mike. It's cold here. date=22.10.2003 10:42 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I did think she looked a little pail!

Oh how we laughed ... date=22.10.2003 11:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is weird: I'm sitting at work quite happily listening to Elliot Smith's 'Figure 8' album, when out of the blue comes an email telling me Elliot Smith has died, apparently by his own hand. *shudder* date=22.10.2003 12:12 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good grief - poor man.

First Cash, then Zevon, now Smith: not a year I'll treasure. date=22.10.2003 12:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell! Doubtless his record company are starting to mythologise and market his passing as we speak. date=22.10.2003 12:43 ip=158.94.176.21 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno, I checked his website first thing this morning and it was all very low-key. Maybe they were all of preparing to eulogise. date=22.10.2003 13:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He nearly had an album finished, so we can expect that to be released. And, I suppose, a 'best of' which would probably be very good. His albums all had weak spots. date=22.10.2003 13:06 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite was the simplest: "Roman Candle" - one guitar in the basement at midnight. Or that's what it sounded like. date=22.10.2003 14:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, io. You could link to the Guardian Garner review from ES Archive, just bung it in the list of reviews somewhere.

fnac "presentation" went well. Got boozed up again afterwards. date=23.10.2003 10:18 ip=62.82.68.220 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Decent review, that, Mike although I thought you could have said you *liked* it a little more clearly. Nice point about Sal = Salt. Incidentally, I read somewhere that the opening line on a page by itself was an uncredited quote from TS Eliot. Haven't checked though.
Oddly, I got a surprise email from Alan Garner out of the blue the other day: he's visited this forum. date=23.10.2003 10:29 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He's visited this forum.

We are not worthy ... Or is this all part of a world record-breaking attempt by people whose names start "Al" to enter "ES"? date=23.10.2003 10:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heh heh... I bought the Owl Service the other day. Not for me, you understand, for my daughter. Or, hopefully, for me to read to my daughter. date=23.10.2003 11:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The dramatised version from the late '60s remains one of the most frightening things I've ever seen on TV. After all these years, I'm still astonished by the book: most of it's dialogue, but it gives off the same unworldly chill as Machen.

I wonder what your daughter will think! date=23.10.2003 11:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al Quaida mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Felicitations. Can we play? We have information about kebab-ship. date=23.10.2003 11:23 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Not for me, you understand

Why not? It's too good for kids. Get The Dark Is Rising books too. date=23.10.2003 11:24 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone remember a book called 'The Giant under the Snow'? That was pretty haunting stuff, as I recall. Can't remember who it was by - much Celtic weirdness going on. date=23.10.2003 11:43 ip=62.188.105.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I remember it - vaguely. date=23.10.2003 11:51 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=First "New Blank" - now "All Al." Kids, why not log on to the board that has more faces than Tony Blair?

Like all good books, Garner's mean one thing when you read them at 14, another at 24, another again in your thirties or forties. They change with the light. So "Elidor" frightened me in the '60s (banal, but I remember goose-flesh as a child, listening to it read out on "Jackanory" ...) yet reading it now I get far more disturbed by Malebron's use of the children than by the supernatural elements. Every time I cross a railway bridge, though, I'm always listening for the unicorn. date=23.10.2003 11:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A quick Google reveals "Giant" to have been written by John Gordon, who's active to this day. See:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/authors/John_Gordo n.htm date=23.10.2003 12:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=News headline on Yahoo earlier:
"Missile strike video shows people running."
No comment necessary. date=23.10.2003 13:18 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi All, (& Als). Gordon good. Giant Under the Snow good; House on the Brink even better. Alex--interested about the unacknowledged Eliot quote front end of Thursbitch. Felt familiar, I thought it was from a mystery play then just decided it was ultra resonant. Don't know what to think about Garner visiting board--such big hero, etc. Massively redemptive ending on Thursbitch, thought I got that over OK. date=23.10.2003 13:23 ip=62.82.85.76 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: I checked the reference to the Eliot quote, and the guy reckoned it was from The Four Quartets. But having scanned over them (for the first time in years) I couldn't see it, although there are lots of lines there which *could* have been used. But, hey, I think I found one of the keys to The Course Of The Heart... am I right? date=23.10.2003 14:26 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex:
>>>Why not? It's too good for kids.

OK, I admit, it was for me really. Just thought my daughter might like to share as well. The Garner I have really strong childhood memories of is the Weirdstone of Brisingamen.

Al:
>>>Anyone remember a book called 'The Giant under the Snow'?

YES! Equally strong childhood memories of that one.

Martin:
>>>The dramatised version from the late '60s remains one of the most frightening things I've ever seen on TV.

I don't remember that, probably too young, but I do remember being scared witless by The Children of the Stones and Raven, both of which I subsequently read and loved in novel form. date=23.10.2003 14:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I think "the Owl Service" got re-shown on ITV 3 or 4 years ago, so it may still crop up in the regional schedules or on DVD ( if not, why not? )

The title sequence was very simple but very ghostly: hands making shadow-pictures of a bird against a flickering candle. It exactly matched the atmosphere of the story, where people and mundane objects were on the brink of turning into something else entirely. I don't know who devised it, but it was a wonderful piece of work. date=23.10.2003 15:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*eyes board suspiciously*

I hope it's none of you bidding against me for a certain item on Ebay... date=23.10.2003 15:16 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: rest easy, so far as I'm concerned. date=23.10.2003 15:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - it's not Four Quartets. I don't remember it from TS Eliot at all. Could be wrong, though. date=23.10.2003 21:03 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Most of Eliot's on the web: but Google doesn't respond to the quote except to bring up my use of it in the Guardian review. Maybe if AG was lurking, he could tell us ? date=23.10.2003 23:13 ip=62.82.80.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: post it here - I'd know if it's Four Quartets. date=23.10.2003 23:14 ip=213.122.80.244 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jesus Mike, what are you doing *here*? date=23.10.2003 23:14 ip=213.122.80.244 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dunno mate. Alex's thing about Eliot caught my eye. I can't see why anyone would use an *unacknowledged* quote in that position. Inside the text, maybe, but not as a header. As I said, it reminded me of something from a mystery play, but then I kind of discounted it. Anyway, you're right. I'm going to bed now & will get straight back into the routine of drinking & shopping & holiday stuff in general... Anybody finds it, I'm sure they'll post it. As I say, no hits on Google except my review. date=23.10.2003 23:31 ip=62.82.80.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think we can safely assume, then, that the Eliot thing is incorrect. Interesting, though. Anyway, I've read the Four Quartets again, so that was worthwhile. Some lovely lines in there, but he does *go on* a bit, doesn't he? date=24.10.2003 09:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of mystery plays, BBC Online reports that the actor playing Jesus in Mel Gibson's new film has just been hit by lightning on the set for the *second* time.

As Garner says: "What was must never be." date=24.10.2003 09:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or as God no doubt said to himself - before pointing the celestial finger a second time to really get the message across -

'What arse! Must never be.'

Btb, don't recognise the line from anywhere. Looking how it seems to fit with the book from MJH's review, would suspect it is Garner generated. date=24.10.2003 11:42 ip=62.188.108.240 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Having fun's a terminal condition, as Jim White sings. Was the lamp post having any fun when Sara took it off at the base with the Land Rover ? Alex & I scratched our heads over it a bit, then he said, "Cast iron's always crap anyway. Riddled with crystalline fractures." Not a mark on the vehicle.

"It's really windy today."
"Ah, I sort of dismissed that as probably the dishwasher or something."

My head is riddled with crystalline fractures. date=25.10.2003 09:34 ip=62.82.66.105 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Eh? I was sure that made sense yesterday. date=27.10.2003 12:27 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just thought: that weekend beats my month! date=27.10.2003 12:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It looks less coherent to me, too. Not the post. The whole week. Maybe that's because I'm home again, & not in Sara-&-Alex World.

Thirty thousand feet above the Bay of Biscay, reading a book on Borderline Personality Disorder, I suddenly thought: Oh shit, I lent Alex my flat so he had somewhere to stay in London while he sacked his plumber, and he hasn't given me the keys back...

Why does your girlfriend have to be in Australia just when you need her to let you in the house ? This is one of the tougher conundrums of 21st Century life.

Another thing: I expected to come back with Patxaran. Instead I seem to have a bottle of Talisker. Who goes to Spain to get whiskey ? date=27.10.2003 13:24 ip=213.78.78.121 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, in a slight variation my girlfriend saved a my mate Rozz who had lost her keys. I was out watching a number of Scottish, French, Australian and Japanese psychedelic relics in the Royal Festie Hall at the time and got a pissed off fone call from Bridget on someone else's mobile (I make a point of not owning one to keep these sort of situations interesting) enquiring about the whereabouts of the keys.

Rozz had been waiting at Blackhorse Road tube for an hour for one of us to appear.

So it's all related to keys and Australia - the rest in inconsequential and illusiory. Especially the Patxaran. date=27.10.2003 13:42 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Well, in a slight variation, last week my girlfriend saved a my mate Rozz who had lost her keys. I was out watching a number of Scottish, French, Australian and Japanese psychedelic relics in the Royal Festie Hall at the time and got a pissed off fone call from Bridget on someone else's mobile (I make a point of not owning one to keep these sort of situations interesting) enquiring about the whereabouts of the keys.

Rozz had been waiting at Blackhorse Road tube for an hour for one of us to appear.

So it's all related to keys and Australia - the rest in inconsequential and illusiory. Especially the Patxaran.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=27.10.2003 13:42 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Well, in a slight variation, last week my girlfriend saved my mate Rozz who had lost her keys. I was out watching a number of Scottish, French, Australian and Japanese psychedelic relics in the Royal Festie Hall at the time and got a pissed off fone call from Bridget on someone else's mobile (I make a point of not owning one to keep these sort of situations interesting) enquiring about the whereabouts of the keys.

Rozz had been waiting at Blackhorse Road tube for an hour for one of us to appear.

So it's all related to keys and Australia - the rest in inconsequential and illusiory. Especially the Patxaran.
--------------------*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=27.10.2003 13:42 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Well, in a slight variation, last week my girlfriend saved my mate Rozz who had lost her keys. I was out watching a number of Scottish, French, Australian and Japanese psychedelic relics in the Royal Festie Hall at the time and got a pissed off fone call from Bridget on someone else's mobile (I make a point of not owning one to keep these sort of situations interesting) enquiring about the whereabouts of the keys.

Rozz had been waiting at Blackhorse Road tube for an hour for one of us to appear.

So it's all related to keys and Australia - the rest in inconsequential and illusory. Especially the Patxaran.
--------------------*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=27.10.2003 13:42 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last time I lost my keys, it was on the way home from an epic stag night session at School Disco in Hammersmith. God's punishment on me for snogging a bride to be there, I think. 'Slept' on the upstairs neighbours floor and ended up reading his life of Hell's Angel Sonny Barger, as it was too cold to sleep. Uuuuurgh. Still, an interesting book so all not too negative. date=27.10.2003 16:04 ip=62.188.105.158 name=Pat Cadigan mail=cadigan@aol.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pardon me while I attempt to get the hang of the conversational threads...

Much Light and empty space...this is my kind of place. date=28.10.2003 07:33 ip=82.35.26.26 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Pat!

Good luck sorting out this thread - most of us are just too busy holding onto our door keys. date=28.10.2003 09:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello Pat,

It's all weddings, bar mitzvahs, space-going kebabs and gnomic utterances around here. Pull up an empty space and make yrself comfortable. date=28.10.2003 10:13 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, the space kebabs - now that was a fine conversation. Little chilli shaped shuttles flying to planetary surfaces... scooping chilli sauce from the hottest part of the sun to fuel the next voyage... Pitta shields battered by flight through falafel fields on the edge of interstellar space... The ancient traditional greeting of the Kebabigators to each other - 'Open or wrapped?'... date=28.10.2003 10:34 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, also - Hi Pat! Enjoyed you on that book programme on Radio 4 the other day, btb. date=28.10.2003 10:35 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pardon me for being quiet. I am on holiday.Yesterday I transferred a ton of cow manure from one place to another, and got bitten by some kind of evil shit-fly which has caused my arms to swell up like very swollen things. God's creatures, eh? date=28.10.2003 14:20 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The horror, the horror.

Still rolling around the floor here from a comment made by Hitler's late friend Diana Mosley. Pressed for her views on the Holocaust, she said: "The man I knew could not have done that. Perhaps he went a little mad."

All too close to "The Producers," I think : 'The Hitler you knew - the Hitler you loved - the Hitler with a song in his heart.' Wonder if she ever saw that film? date=28.10.2003 15:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello Pat. It's weird here. You'll like it. date=28.10.2003 20:42 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Arturo mail=arturo_villarrubia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi from Spain.
Mike, I asked my uncle about the books on holy week processionals but no luck. There are a couple of good ones in french.
Arturo date=28.10.2003 21:07 ip=80.58.9.237 name=Arturo mail=arturo_villarrubia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi from Spain.
Mike, I asked my uncle about the books on holy week processionals but no luck. There are a couple of good ones in french.
Arturo date=28.10.2003 21:07 ip=80.58.9.237 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about the double post. date=28.10.2003 21:09 ip=80.58.9.237 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Pat, hi Steph. Alex, if you think that's a holiday, you need to reconsider the concept "work". I'd never go near a cow, or its products. Unless they came in the form of shoes. I like shoes.

Arturo, hi! Great to hear from you! Don't worry about the books--I'll try & track something down--or the double post (io will fix that). Just tell everyone what a fantastic time I had at HispaCon, and at FNAC in Valencia too. You guys were simply brilliant. I'm emailing Luis as soon as I get my brains together.

Steph, I suddenly started to play The Ship Song again. date=28.10.2003 22:00 ip=213.78.72.54 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, glad you had enjoyable time in Spain.

I see that Tim Powers will be at Utopiales, that sounds interesting. 'Drawing of the Dark' is a great book, in my humble and rather drunken opinion.

Opening scene and titles: 'The Ship Song', final scene and roll end credits: 'Archangel Thunderbird', Amon Duul. date=28.10.2003 22:06 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Opinions should always be humble and drunk, don't you think, Steph ? I had some kind of Australian bourbon in a bar near St Martins after lunch. Woodford Reserve ? Something like that, also maybe it was a little later than lunch, because it was nearly dark, just before the rush hour. Anyway, I thought I would have some Talisker soon, now that there's nothing on TV. I'm looking forward to meeting Tim Powers. I really like that book where they smoke people's souls, I always forget the name of it. Some bloke is obsessed with smoking Houdini's soul, because it's such a big tick.

I already miss Spain because a lot happened, with fast driving & all. Right up your street. Which reminds me, how's yr back ? date=28.10.2003 22:25 ip=213.78.73.234 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I can keep the back pain under control if I spend an hour in the gym every day: really boring. Or drink alocol. Alcohol.

Enjoy the dram. date=28.10.2003 23:12 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Al mail=adwr@dial.pipex.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

No beef, MJH? Are you a vegetarian, fishatarian or similar? Or is it just the cows? Used to spend much time hanging out at FNAC in Paris when I lived out there, penniless afternoons reading comics in the basement. Them were the days etc.

Talisker, mmmmmm. Met the Jamesons Brand Ambassador girls at the weekend. Apparently a v. big thing in Ireland, they were 4 from about 6000 applicants. They live somewhere near Kew Bridge with 2 Jamesons jeeps parked outside their house. Should be going to a party at theirs soon, which should be interesting. Begorrah etc.

Steph - hate to be a yoga missionary, but have you thought about yoga for the back? V. good for back pain, as (in part) it specifically builds up stomach muscles etc to support / take strain off the back - also loosens up surrounding muscles etc to take strain off it. Have had back problems myself, the whole yoga thing seems to have helped.

Am going to have to check out some more Tim Powers, read the book with time travellers and Coleridge in it, thought it was ok but not brilliant; didn't quite transcend his sources. Still, this was a while back. Love the soul smoking idea - which book was this? Reminds me of the Hellblazer story with the demon stock exchange in human souls.

Oh, another Brixton Alive last night - the cabaret night - a blast, a bit hectic so didn't post details here. If anyone wants to get on the email list for it we're setting up, email me - I've activated the link at left. date=29.10.2003 09:35 ip=62.188.105.246 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: I investigated the Gurdjeffian concept of work as a means to enlightenment. It's a crap idea. My back hurts too. Insect bite now dissolving my arm.

Steph: if you've got the cash, try Alexander Technique (no relation) for back trouble. I loved what it was doing...then I ran out of cash. Groan. date=29.10.2003 09:38 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Ah, Archangels Thunderbird - definitely wins the award for the song with the fucked-est rhythm ever. date=29.10.2003 10:27 ip=158.94.131.140 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: yoga worked for trapped nerves in my neck, too - get an absolute beginners course with a teacher you like, and give it a try. date=29.10.2003 10:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi guys. I tried: yoga, pilates, chiropractor, osteopath, physiotherapist x2, GPs x 4, specialist consultant in London hospital, acupuncture, ultrasound (laughable), massage x2 and various drugs either useless or illegal. It all helps, but I've spent more than my car was worth (I smashed up 'Lowry the Metro' playing silly buggers on the M25) and still no long-term cure. Got a new hobby, though... one I can ill-afford.

Doing Alexander Technique tomorrow with a 'personal trainer' at the gym. This is hilarious. A hunky man watches me work out for an hour and then charges me £35. Cheer.

Whisky is favourite. Any non-smoky single malt fans out there, try Caol Ila (Islay). It's sea rather than moorland, it's awesome. A bit like Jura, yum.

Io - Have Amon Duul done any more *short* songs like Archangel Thunderbird? Most of their stuff is good but it goes on too long for my magpie-like attention span. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower, is Castle themetune of the week. date=29.10.2003 10:46 ip=81.130.128.4 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: who the hell are Jamesons Ambassador Girls? Do they only do parties? date=29.10.2003 10:55 ip=81.130.128.4 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, the first album, Phallus Dei, has a few shortish songs on the first side: Kanaan, Guten Schonen Waren, etc... The first two sides of Dance of the Lemmings are made up of a number of little pieces, but they're not really autonomous songs really - more like parts of larger side long suites.

There are a few things which are almost pop songs on the later albums Vive La Trance and Hijack, especially Dr Jeckyl (Mad squelchy wah pedals!) and Traveller but then again there's a tendency towards Eurorock dodginess after this time. Anything after 1973 shd be approached with caution and Duul material from the second half of the decade is unthinkably dreadful! date=29.10.2003 10:58 ip=158.94.131.140 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My God, Steph, that list has grown. The thing you have to understand about Al is that he knows everyone. He is living proof of the fact that there is actually only one degree of separation, not six. This puts us in awe of him, so we don't take the piss when he admits he goes to Hammersmith of a Saturday night dressed as a schoolie. Al, I remembered the title of the Powers now--Expiration Date. Malts: Banksie has a book about them coming out, next month I think. He spent a year or two in heaven (or at least in every distillery in Scotland) researching it. I still don't know why I came back from Spain with a bottle of Tallisker in my carry-on. date=29.10.2003 11:10 ip=213.78.83.148 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Oh yes, and there's a Duul splinter project from 72-73ish called Utopia which has some song-like material on it too. Worth getting (as are all the UA albums) on vinyl for the weird-shit gatefold artwork.

Alex: Wow! Do evil shit-flies disolve arms - or maybe it's turning you into Jeff Goldblum or something?

Arturo: Double-posting edited away... date=29.10.2003 11:11 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Mr. Banks did his whisky book after (or during) his tax break - he'd actually paid them too much, so they let him off for a year. All this and talent too: spawny git, etc.

Steph: maybe the Jameson Girls could come round and give you Free Sample Therapy. I find most aches and pains vanish after half a bottle or so. While we're at it, can "Empty Space" posters get on their Christmas list? I'd gladly become part of their tax break strategy for '04. date=29.10.2003 11:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Are the Jameson Girls like a Scottish incarnation of the Cheeky Girls?

And was Al dancing with them at School Disco? date=29.10.2003 11:21 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al - I wasn't taking the piss. Was it that ambiguous? Many apologies and respect. I should clearly sort my style out, 'specially as I would like you guys to come to my party on the TTA message board when it opens soon. date=29.10.2003 12:14 ip=194.202.58.120 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph - I didn't think you were taking the piss at all! Tho' have to admit I deserve it for School Disco escapades. Having said that, IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!! Like being 16 again, only with self confidence.

Well, I was smashed when I met J Girls - as far as I could make out, they hurtle round the UK, 2 to a jeep, seeking out bars and doing promotions there, and educating the bar staff (and everyone else) in Jamesons-ness. Hmm, maybe we should get them to do the next Brixton Alive... Will report back more after upcoming party.

Banks doing a whisky book? That's Iain M Banks / Iain Banks? Does he have another letter for whisky writing (Iain W Banks?) Now have completely retooled my image of him, imagine him turning Fife into French riviera equivalent, hurtling along the Pittenweem Riviera in a (red) open topped sports car with a glass of single malt whisky in hand playing Frank Sinatra's legendary lost ceilidh album 'Come Twirl with Me' on the stereo...

MJH - I don't quite know everyone! If nothing else, have certainly never met Kevin Bacon...

Oh, on the mildly odd cures for things - I had a cranio sacral massage a couple of weeks back, and it was the most mind boggling experience ever! V. gentle but immmensely powerful, and it sorted out a niggling back twinge. Maybe worth a try? Am now pondering going into business getting people to pay me watch them exercise btb.

Oh, and also:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,5957,1 072715,00.html

Only got 11! (it's a horror quiz). Curse curses. date=29.10.2003 12:24 ip=62.188.112.80 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and according to the dwarves in 'Time Bandits', hanging (by the arms) is very good for bad backs. Come to think of it, they cure the grumpy giant of his bad back by stretching him. So if you know six time travelling dwarves, this could be a goer. The flip side is, once they've cured you, they throw you into the sea and steal your ship, but hey. Chances are, you'll get rescued by Iain 'smooth' Banks, who I believe actually is willing to watch people exercise FOR FREE, so it could all work out for the best. date=29.10.2003 12:30 ip=62.188.112.80 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Will only be rescued by Mr. Banks if he has a bottle of Bruichladdich in his Porsche. Otherwise not worth losing my ship ;-) A jeep full of Jamesons girls + freebie samples might be worth it, though.

Bye, all. date=29.10.2003 12:35 ip=194.202.58.120 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yea Weird Night Out in Brixton. The Tim Powers novel that really got me was Last Call. Absolutely brilliant. Most of the other books I read by him were too dry/mechanical/slow moving. date=29.10.2003 12:49 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...Or if I get a reading of the telephone scenes in Wasp Factory. What a genius writer.

Second thoughts, sod the ship, I'm up for getting rescued! date=29.10.2003 13:11 ip=81.130.128.4 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello MJP! Yes, wasn't it? That strange woman who sat on the floor with an acoustic guitar and started wailing was *very* odd. Did she say she was an ex-London Underground employee or something?

And as for that poet in the red shirt... date=29.10.2003 13:12 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If anyone can't find it, Banks's book is called "Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram," out in h/b in November. date=29.10.2003 13:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP. Powers can be a bit self-indulgent too, in that California way, especially when constructing postmodern, postnuclear "family" relationships. It's all a bit too easy. But I think his imagination more than makes up for that. I don't think I've read Late Call (a title I associate with Angus Wilson in his apophradean Elizabeth Taylor phase). date=29.10.2003 13:22 ip=213.78.85.19 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Will pre-order that one for sure. date=29.10.2003 13:23 ip=81.130.128.4 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Will pre-order that one for sure. date=29.10.2003 13:23 ip=81.130.128.4 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP -

>> That strange woman who sat on the floor with an acoustic guitar and started wailing was *very* odd

Hoh yes, but in a marvellous way - and her dancing rocked! I thought she would turn out to be a Lithuanian gypsy or similar. I think she said she was a cleaner on the LU who had been made redundant.

Hmm - well, I thought the Powers book of his I read was a bit of a semi-digested jumble of Mayhew's 'London Labours...', Coleridge, and various other odds and sods. Still, not very widely read in him, have been meaning to get hold of some of his other stuff for ages, so a partial opinion at best.

Funnily enough, re whisky, am currently writing styleguides for two whisky brands. Hey ho. date=29.10.2003 13:47 ip=62.188.105.88 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Apophradean" - gosh. You live and learn.

Great word to have at hand, with All Hallows nearly here and the doors between worlds inching wider by the second. Is anyone following the custom Yeats wrote about, and putting a glass of wine out for those who are Otherwise? They're too insubstantial to taste the drink itself but apparently get tipsy from the astral essence of alcohol that forms above the liquid. date=29.10.2003 13:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: What *is* it about Brixton Alive and bizarre women dancing? I was a little disappointed that Stella Maris's guardian angel wasn't there last night.

Anyway, you'll definitely have to invite LU-cleaner woman back. Perhaps I could do a weird-shit duet with her! date=29.10.2003 14:01 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You should have signed her up! She was a natural for you guys. We don't know who she is or where she's from, so no way of getting in touch with her; but if she comes back again, we'll put her on.

Those drummers were awesome as well, would love to see them as a rhythm section for some astonishing band. date=29.10.2003 14:19 ip=62.188.105.188 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, btb, what does 'apophradean' mean? Have just been reading some E Taylor short stories (£1 from the charity shop, marvellous), v. sharp writing. date=29.10.2003 14:20 ip=62.188.105.188 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: According to on-line dictionaries, it means "back from the dead" or "returned from the dead." Hence all the Hallowe'en stuff. date=29.10.2003 14:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sez 'ere (The Oxford Classical Dictionary) that "apophrades were 'impure' days of the Athenian calendar, days associated with impure rites..."

Al: perhaps a collaboration between those drummers and a theremin player? If you could get in a musical saw in there as well it'd go down in history. date=29.10.2003 14:32 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! Cool word... date=29.10.2003 14:33 ip=62.188.105.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apophrades: I was using it in Harold Bloom's sense, "the return of the strong dead," that late stage of the anxiety of influence in which the poet holds his own work so open to the precursor's work that you almost can't tell the difference between them. Late Call is a more perfect piece of Elizabeth Taylor than Elizabeth Taylor could have written... date=29.10.2003 15:09 ip=213.78.173.206 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Even cooler!

Online dictionaries stand corrected. date=29.10.2003 15:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Spanish Holy Week: I've also no book recommendations, but some friends of mine visited a few years ago and made this:
http://www.snarg.net/jng/life.html (follow "Holy Week" link and then navigation down the left-hand side)

Yoga & backs: I've long felt inclined to get more involved in Yoga - my natural laziness prevents me, also coming across a supposed "Yoga Guru" in India - he was about 60 and the most deformed person I have ever encountered, so bent-double that his face almost scraped the floor. Almost enough to put me off yoga for life. And the beginning of a very strange night - later we got caught in the biggest storm I've ever experienced, the town was lit alternately neon yellow, pink and blue by different flavours of lightning, and within 10 minutes the streets went from bone-dry to six-inch-deep.

Degrees of separation: I thought it was only Howard Marks who was one degree from everyone. I think I've yet to meet somebody whose life he hasn't connected with somehow. For me, it was when he was a columnist on the magazine I worked for, at our Christmas party/website launch party we had him playing Father Christmas, in the back of a stretch limo in Soho, handing out spliffs to our guests.

Cranio-sacral: My wife had to investigate that as part of her studies for a massage qualification. She was quite sceptical, but went for a session and came back raving about this radically consciousness-altering experience she's just undergone. I think it sounds interesting, just not sure whether I want my skull plates messed about with, thank you very much.

Jamesons: mmm. I love the taste of Irish Whisky, always takes me back to snogging an Irish ex-girlfriend after hot toddies.

Al: "Like being 16 again, only with self confidence" - what a scarily appealing idea. date=29.10.2003 15:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amon Duul: Wolf City is the one.
I have discovered that the ideal soundtrack for driving around the city at night is Low Kick and Hard Bop by Solex, pop pickers.
Also, if anyone fancies kick starting my creative engine I need a title for a song. All suggestions considered, and credited.
My arm is now down to the bone. Sorry for the drips. date=29.10.2003 20:38 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sympathy, Alex. I hate titles unless they come instant, perfect & unbidden. That's about one in two hundred, then. As for the cowpox: I once worked with horses (that makes it sound more dignified than it was) and I think I might have been bitten by the same fly. Was it about six inches long and looked as if it had been drawn by Ian Miller ? date=29.10.2003 21:16 ip=213.78.164.237 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was bitten by a horsefly, once. My nose swelled up to twice its size; I still have a little bump there.

What's the song about? I've got a poem called 'Tomb', named after Tomb the Iron Dwarf. How about 'Tomb Freight'? First thing to pop into my mind... and, after all, that's what we'll all end up as.

Working late, tssk. date=29.10.2003 21:55 ip=62.188.105.176 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and city driving music - 'Move on alt mix' by Baby Ford, or tracks four and seven on 'Selected Ambient Works Vol 1' by the Aphex Twin. date=29.10.2003 21:56 ip=62.188.105.176 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or - 'There's a Riot Going On' by Sly and the Family Stone. You physically become Starsky and Hutch, it's quite astonishing. date=29.10.2003 21:56 ip=62.188.105.176 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. They have these things in Scotland called clegs. They'll give you a bite. Driving music: I'm not going there. Except to say that my latest is some vapid piece of dance music I don't even know the title of by a French bloke called, I think, Steven Pompougnac, from an album called Hotel Something-or-other. Don't ask. date=29.10.2003 22:26 ip=213.78.82.253 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Wolf City or Carnival in Babylon?

Driving Music: Flametracer from Main's Hydra EP. Not that I drive or anything... date=29.10.2003 22:35 ip=213.122.52.157 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK, I just had to find out, didn't I ? It's Stephane (not Steven) Pompougnac, and the CD is Hotel Costes. But they go 1 through 5 and it could be any of them. Oh, and apparently it's jazz-lounge-dub and electro grooves. I'm ashamed, OK ? But I'm honest. I could have said "Brownsville" by Ry Cooder, or "Won't Get Fooled Again" or something equally dinorock, and no one would have turned a hair. No one's turning a hair anyway, are they ? date=29.10.2003 22:43 ip=213.78.82.253 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJH. Clegs sound scary. Something you would hit people with.

Jazz lounge dub? Hmm, much smoothness chez MJH methinks.

One style guide's done, one more for tomorrow. Am off to have my bath, hurrah! date=29.10.2003 23:11 ip=62.188.100.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph probably knows more about them than me. I've decided that Alex's driving music has the best title in the world. Low Kick and Hard Bop. I just want to keep saying it. It's reminding of a Blue Aeroplanes line, I can't quite get in focus. No, got it, it's Jack Leaves & Back Spring, of course. Actually, I've got an idea... Off to the notebook. date=29.10.2003 23:45 ip=213.78.174.154 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Drive to (in no real order) some Peaches, "Transmission," "Mother Sky" by Can, and Pascal Camelade doing "Like a Rolling Stone" as a glockenspiel waltz. Also heard R4 play the sound of the Big Bang this morning: Californian physicist has a program that converts deep space micowave hum to the audible spectrum - you get a soft, silvery chord that sounds very relaxing. Sampled to death very soon, no doubt. date=30.10.2003 09:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Best driving music: Flashlight, Tom Verlaine
Best cooking music: the same
Best train music: Ear Guard Orange Neons. Very good on the Victoria line. date=30.10.2003 09:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Kudos for the Tom Verlaine. Been looking for that on CD for ages. But, really, the song has to be Breakin In My Heart. Which brings me to:
MJH: Blue Aeroplanes. They did a good version of the above song. What was that weird dancing guy about, then? And as for The 'Oo... just got Quadrophenia on CD and it fucking ROCKS. John Entwistle is beyond godlike.
IO: Carnival my arse,mate. date=30.10.2003 10:03 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, the Verlaine Flash Light cd is available currently. Snap it up. date=30.10.2003 10:11 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jazz lounge dub? Hmm, I think some of this Pizzicato Five remix CD that I've acquired might be described in that way. But then again, my living environment never feels quite well designed enough to be able to listen to it much...

Cooking music: This Heat - can't recall which album, but it's the one with the line "she was a very hip ambassador's wife". Met Charles Hayward at an LMC event - he was very nice considering how drunk I was! Having said that we currently only have a radio in the kitchen so it's normally Radio 3, or on a Sunday Radio 2 for that *terrible* cheesy popular classics programme and the hymn requests hosted by this dodgy priest who you'd never let anywhere near yr kids.

Alex: Oh be reasonable! It's got Shimmering Sand on it that lovely guitar outro on Hawknose Harlequin. Not saying that Wolf City is a bad album, far from it. The line "a greyhound leans back in the president's chair" and that raga ambience on Wie Der Wind Am Ende Eine Strasse is bloody gorgeous! date=30.10.2003 10:20 ip=213.122.14.127 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>my living environment never feels quite well designed enough to be able to listen to it much...

Ah. That would explain a lot. Now I feel insufficiently Wallpaper magazine as well as ashamed. Alex, I never knew what the dancing guy was about either, but I still play their 2nd & 3rd albums over and over. date=30.10.2003 11:45 ip=213.78.165.160 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Hotel Costes 5, I think. I've no idea what it is or how I came about it, but I typed "Pompougnac" into iTunes and discovered that I have a whole album of the stuff hidden in the empty space on my hard disk.

For my own driving music... anything and everything, but any track by the Cardiacs (shall we say "Manhoo"?) is bound to get me pushing the pedal harder than I oughta. date=30.10.2003 13:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Great website on the Isle of Sheppey written by a couple of Sheppey-ites who escaped: http://www.sheppeyscum.com/

One of those places where it is astronomically inappropriate to listen to jazz lounge dub. date=30.10.2003 13:56 ip=213.122.14.127 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan. Does the vocal on the first track have the chorus, "Murder! In the back of night. Murder!" ? If it does, and you have the track titles, could you lay those titles on me ? If it doesn't, the one I've got is 1, 2, 3 or 4. date=30.10.2003 14:38 ip=213.78.174.177 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact I've got 6, it turns out; & I found the track titles too. Now, someone tell me: if I've scrubbed tracks out of iTunes on the laptop, but left them on the iPod, what happens next time I connect the two to update ? Do I lose the stuff that remained on the iPod ? Because if I do all this will have been irrelevent (although it would be no bad thing, I suspect--I can't get used to the idea that I quite like something called "chillout"). Further, can I replace the tracks I scrubbed out of iTunes, by uploading from the iPod ? date=30.10.2003 14:56 ip=213.78.174.177 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Great website

Io, it is - thank you! Rod Hull and Michael Crawford - now we know. date=30.10.2003 15:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I used to see Rod Hull walking up Rochester High Street when I lived in Medway. Never took the opportunity to say hello... now I never will... *sigh* date=30.10.2003 15:44 ip=213.122.106.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amon Duul. Tom Verlaine. Blue Aeroplanes. And now there's been mention of This Heat *and* the Cardiacs. Is there no limit to the good taste on this board?
Just been to visit Manchester's Urbis. Amazing looking building, but the exhibits - what an opportinity missed, so much wasted money. How can you make a state-of-the-art museum of urban life boring? The museum should simply contain a sign reading: NOW GO BACK OUTSIDE AND OPEN YOUR EYES. date=30.10.2003 17:04 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Insectivora. I've been bitten by more clegs than I've had hot dinners. Shit; that's probably *true*. Last holiday in Scotland got sheep-ticked, and for the first time I was frightened of it. I swear it was the size of a bluebottle, red-brown, head and shoulders in and all its legs swept back.

Car music: Sister's 'Lucretia', like a big grungy goth. Crashed Lowry the Metro while singing to Pet Shop Boys 'Opportunities'. See? It bloody serves me right.

Back to proof-reading now. I'm surprised at the number of mistakes that have crept in at this stage. 'Harrier' becomes 'Harriet'. I don't think he's very happy about that. date=30.10.2003 21:21 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I really hate sheep ticks. I can't remember a time when I didn't think, "Oh fuck, get it off me." But that's because I'm a bloke I expect. Also, I would never take my turn getting them off the dog. I'd rather read the Daily Mail than be sheep ticked.

Proofs, I hate em. Actually I'd rather be sheep ticked than do proofs... But I'm glad The Year of Our War is this far on. Enjoy! date=30.10.2003 21:49 ip=213.78.167.69 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...I was OK until people started telling me that they carry Lyme Disease. Instant phobia! Also, there is so much lore about what to do, that nobody actually knows how to treat them. (It's: pull the bastard off, as soon as possible, and mash it into paste with your hiking boot).

Deer ticks (keds) are more amazing because they fly and when they land on you, they eject their wings. Alien!

I understand what Alex is going through. My sympathy, Alex.

Proofs: It seems odd that they must scan the pages in, so *introducing* errors when I could have provided a disk. I am learning... date=30.10.2003 22:08 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I knew people who poured whiskey on them. Seemed like a waste to me. Keds: fucking hell. Remind me to stay at home. As for alien, I remember reading about some African cattle tick which as soon as it's born gets up on to a branch and then goes into complete shut down for up to 18 years until a cow goes past underneath. During that time the only thing it will react to is n molecules of butyric acid; wakes up, drops off onto cow. How do you perceive time if you live like that ? Actually that's such a meaningless question I wish I hadn't asked... I think, just in case there are any sheep ticks about, I'll go & get some Talisker. Probably best, eh ? date=30.10.2003 22:19 ip=213.78.167.69 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Keds eject their wings? So they get one flight, pick someone to land on, and that's it? Wow, that's commitment.

Have never been bitten by a tick or similar. Always wanted to get leached on when younger (and in fact prob still now) as a teacher told me the only way to get them off is to heat their tails with a naked flame, which I thought was really cool.

Have only ever done poem proofs myself, much less time consuming. Have had story accepted for TTA tho' (hurrah!), so will be building up proof experience with that no doubt.

Yo Alex! My favourite museum - The Museum of, on the South Bank, if only for the name. date=30.10.2003 22:41 ip=62.188.110.107 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No - they land on you, throw off their wings, but still move about. When they warm up or are full (takes 30 minutes) they crawl off and drop into the grass where they breed (actually they crawl out of hikers' hair and drop onto the bar-room floor, very embarrassing). "Lipoptena cervi" - Latin name - are really fucking awful, because they're flat and their legs join at the sides rather than underneath, like any decent animal. I once had two, that reduced me to catatonic horror.

Alex, poetry? I love playing with nonsense rhymes. Something tells me you will be more highbrow. date=30.10.2003 23:01 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, that should be Al, not Alex. It's late and I'm confused.

---Tortuoise---

There's one thing our tortoise
Taught us before he died
It's never hurtle turtleshell
When the turtle's still inside


---Turtle---

The reptiles are rooftiles
And bask throughout the day
The submarines are souptureens
And slowly swim away


(Steph flees back into the Shift) date=30.10.2003 23:05 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What did you guys do to your tortoise?! I'm thinking hurtling, and I'm beginning to worry! date=30.10.2003 23:12 ip=62.188.110.107 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tho' come to think of it prob not a literal tortoise but a metaphorical tortoise...

*strokes chin, ponders* date=31.10.2003 07:40 ip=62.188.105.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: I think with the Sisters I'd have to go with either Alice or Floor Show - maybe even The Temple of Love but not the version with Ofra Haza. date=31.10.2003 10:14 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I like Temple of Love with Ofra; tho' that's the only version I've got. Does 'She Sells Sanctuary' count as being gothic? V. cool track.

*covers self in flour, draws curtains, hides from the light* date=31.10.2003 10:32 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been invited to a Halloween fancy dress party tonight. Sounds very tedious, but might just be worth it if I can get hold of a horse's skull. Anyone got any ideas? date=31.10.2003 12:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Hmm, a riding school?

Al: She Sells Sanctuary is definite goff, albeit goff metal. date=31.10.2003 12:54 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan. Knacker's yard. But you haven't got time to boil the flesh off. Maybe they could do it there, with something caustic. Worth a try. (Might smell a bit. The Mari teams bury theirs for at least a year before they start, ends up as clean as a whistle.) date=31.10.2003 13:14 ip=213.78.164.192 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Question that occured to me: what are the covers of CotH (Flamingo paperback) and Travel Arrangements (Trade paperback and hardback) all about?

There's some sort of rosy blur of something or other on CotH, and TA seems to be a blast of high speed redness. How did these come about? date=31.10.2003 15:58 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Question that occurred to me: what are the covers of CotH (Flamingo paperback) and Travel Arrangements (Trade paperback and hardback) all about?

There's some sort of rosy blur of something or other on CotH, and TA seems to be a blast of high speed redness. How did these come about?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=31.10.2003 15:58 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Nine While Nine is my favourite Sisters track, palindromic and atmospheric.

Al: Flour? Flour? What sort of perversion is that?

Martin: I am losing faith with Oxford. It's Lyra's Oxford now -- wall to wall advertising. Yuk. I'm going to run for cover. date=31.10.2003 16:56 ip=81.130.128.4 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good choice, Steph! "Lipstick on my cigarettes, frost upon the windowpane, I've lost all sense of a world outside and I can't forget so I call yr name!"

God, I feel like a miserable teenager again already! date=31.10.2003 17:00 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, yr guess as good as mine. I liked the Flamingo artwork for CotH. It looked like fire, roses, all that Pleroma stuff. Carol Fulton's photography was in that year, but whatever possessed them to do the lettering like that I can't imagine. Always had my doubts about the TA visual. I rarely know who these covers are designed to convince. Flamingo's CotH brief was clearly the A-Z fiction shelves, but I don't know who the 1st edn of Travel Arrangements was being sold to. date=31.10.2003 17:15 ip=213.78.167.244 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: Carol Fulton has a site at http://www.carolfulton.com/homepage.htm date=31.10.2003 17:26 ip=213.78.167.244 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: Don't get me wrong. I quite liked the CotH cover and felt that it conveyed that Attar/Pleroma axis but I was wondering how it came to happen. On the other hand it'd be difficult to do a cover for that book other than variations on the Cuxa image.

Isn't there a Black Virgin there? date=31.10.2003 22:19 ip=81.135.34.173 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a detail, too, rather than the whole image. I liked the original McKean cover, of course, in fact loved it. In Madrid I finally got hold of a copy of the Minotauro edition & that's good too, if a little bit cool for the subject matter. I think French & German rights were sold recently--be interesting to see what they make of it. date=31.10.2003 22:32 ip=213.78.93.223 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jaysus, you still up!

Yeh, it'd be good to see other editions. Seen the McKean cover - and it rather reminds me of Ian Miller's treatment of the Uroconium story. It's always more difficult to deal with less generically fantastical material. If you've got a sword or a dragon it's all so easy but dealing with the Pleroma - well, yr fucked... as by implication we all are! date=31.10.2003 22:42 ip=81.135.34.173 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Still up, but not for long. Will soon ask Dr Talisker to administer the anaesthetic, and begin my nightly wanderings in the Pleroma. You know that bit, somewhere in "A Young Man's Journey", where it says you can't just take a plane to Viriconium ? Well that's not true. There's some way of linking the flights I've made in the last fortnight which leads straight there. And I've forgotten it. date=31.10.2003 23:00 ip=213.78.86.84 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, there you go! If you gave me the precise coordinates to Egnaro I wouldn't believe a word of it. That Sprake fella was around here earlier, and he was giving it all that. Greased up with the Vaseline he was.

We've got a big stack of Van Vogt and Charles Williams to sell to the fuckers. It'll be all the rage in the Bistro Californium - and when they get bored with that they can ease into the skag chasers.

Enjoy yr dram. I'm working tomorrow. Have a good weekend all! date=31.10.2003 23:12 ip=213.122.89.232 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Something Caustic, eh? My old band, for example? http://www.sumption.org/caustic/ - I'm gonna bury my horse's head now, at least then I'll be ready for next year.

Yesterday on the Today program they played the sound of the Universe beginning. Today a listener wrote in to say that her cat stopped dead at the sound, and has been behaving very strangely ever since. date=01.11.2003 09:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always good to plan a head, Dan. My cat's been behaving strangely since the day he was born, the fat old git. Why has everyone heard this Big Bang music but me ? Will I like it ? Is it a smooth electro groove ?

One more question: why are the Amazon UK reviews of Light so polarised ? People either get it, in which case they love it, or they so *don't* get it they feel cheated. date=01.11.2003 11:19 ip=213.78.77.193 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You can download the Big Hum here:
http://staff.washington.edu/seymour/BigBangSound_2.mp 3

We're thinking about renaming the cat - she's starting to look like an Agnus. date=01.11.2003 11:45 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wld that be an Aberdeen Agnus ? Tried the Big Bang site, couldn't get in. date=01.11.2003 15:05 ip=213.78.171.120 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Unfortunately as the afternoon has worn on I've realised that Agnus refers to Fat Agnus - one of the custom chips in the Commodore Amiga computer... I'll have to wear a sticky plaster on my glasses all day after that.

With the Big Hum URL you need to remove the gap between "mp" and "3" at the end. It's that clever thing which stops lines getting too long again... *sigh* date=01.11.2003 15:12 ip=158.94.131.207 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hm, well, got it finally. I remember trying to tell my Gran about the microwave background radiation in 1962. She was against anything you couldn't touch, generally, so she just gave me a stoney look. At least she didn't clip me round the ear, which she'd done when I told her about rocketry (1952) or the difference between fission & fusion (c 1957). I could never quite work out her motives for that. Was she trying to ground me in the day to day human world, ie save me from being a geek, nerd or poet (or worse, a geek nerd poet); or was she, like most modern middle class humanites-educated people who take that attitude, actually saying, "Concentrate on me. I'm the important thing around here." In short, when the human spaceflight programme is wound up, in the next two or three years, will it be because common sense has prevailed, or because we can't escape the genetic self-centredness of the organism, which only knows here, now, and itself ? Discuss. Or don't, really. date=02.11.2003 13:26 ip=213.78.81.1 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This weekend I camped at Shell Island and saw a firework display which looked a bit like the Big Bang. Camping was most inadvisable: up at 4am, in howling wind and rain, trying to stop tent blowing away. That's real life for you.
Solved the problem of the Elliot quote in Thursbitch: the guy who was talking about it had only seen an early copy, which did indeed include a quote from Little Gidding:
"With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling"
So there y'are. date=03.11.2003 09:23 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - well, I went to Iain Sinclair's regatta in Docklands; that is, if he ever set up a regatta, this would be it. Grey, horizontal rain; slate water to row on; surrounded by post industrial decay (old factory looking just like Nosferatu's new house at the end of Nosferatu) and 'there's no such thing as society' shoebox housing; and us rowing in the middle of it.

Still, on the plus side we came third out of six, and discovered the ultimate bar - in old boat, run by man who invented windsurfing and who for the price of a pint will talk for hours on the dubious political deals behind the 'rebirth' of Docklands in the 80s. Moment when you realise 'The Long Good Friday' is documentary reality.

Btb Zali - have no email today - but do you fancy hooking up at the weekend to talk Brixton Alive flyers / posters? Also, possibly have theorbo (version of lute with four foot neck) player up for next one! date=03.11.2003 09:44 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Theorbo:

http://www.ellisium.cwc.net/theorbo.htm

You thay theorbo, I thay thearbo etc date=03.11.2003 09:45 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh btb also, wicked parody of Iain Sinclair in that 'Smoke' magazine that's popped up in London bookshops lately - sets him up as a kind of psychogeographical Mr Pooter, v. sharp. date=03.11.2003 09:52 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More sounds from space: weird sounds produced by the aurora borealis.
Great, if you sample them and tweak them a bit. Like I have.

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/sounds/sounds.html date=03.11.2003 09:59 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can you put your tweaked sampled version up? Would be interesting to check it out. date=03.11.2003 10:02 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Big Hum's very soothing - far better on "Today" than Howard, Prescott, or non-gay Christians in the US sounding off about their possible, dead-ended futures.

Steph: yep, Oxford is spectacle to the nth degree - but a) the Astronomer Royal's talking at the Playhouse this Friday, on mysteries of the cosmos, and b) Neil Gaiman's turning up shortly at Borders. So, some sparklers of intrigue poking through the fetishised civility. date=03.11.2003 10:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: 'Fraid I got yr answerfone message too late to come down to Ian Sinclair Regatta. Where is it? Is it down at North Woolwich? I used to lived down there at one point when I was a kid and it really is the end of the world.

Re: posters: We're going down to Rye for the fireworks next weekend so I'm afraid not. I've got Thursday off. How's Thursday with you?

Alex: You get the feeling that the Big Hum sound is so primal that it comes from an age before sound engineers. Hell, it might even predate Stockhausen! date=03.11.2003 10:04 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: the sounds are incorporated in a much larger piece of electro-acoustic tomfoolery which is nearly ready for public consumption. Patience, child. date=03.11.2003 10:04 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Your public awaits you, sir...

If it could fit into a ten to fifteen minute slot, come and play it in Brixton! date=03.11.2003 10:09 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, Royal Victoria Zali. Just on the dock there, beneath the London City Airport lift off path. date=03.11.2003 10:09 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, that's just along from Canning Town. Keep going beyond Silvertown and you get to North Woolwich - home of the BT London Teleport. (No bullshit!) Did you ever see my photos of London City Airport?
http://www.iotacism.com/aeroport.htm date=03.11.2003 10:15 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, Thursday - am working during the day (probably), and busy in the evening - tho' this might change. Unless you fancy a trek to Hammersmith, difficult! When are you off to / coming back from Rye? date=03.11.2003 10:16 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: that Big Hum is all right, I guess, but they could have improved it by dropping in a few phat beatz (can't go wrong with Funky Drummer) and maybe a nice synth pad to fill it up.

Al: I might take you up on that. I'm hoping to come down to ver Smoke soon anyway. date=03.11.2003 10:21 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Might be going Saturday but we might be going Friday. Not completely sure. Will have to consult with Bridget. I shouldn't imagine we'll be back until late Sunday.

Hammersmith trek potentially possible on Thursday.

Otherwise I can offer you Tuesday evening...

Alex: I just felt it could have done with a little more presence - the whirring noises could have been beefed up with a bit of phasing. I mean, essentially I expected the beginning of the universe to sound a bit like the opening of the Dr Who theme or perhaps *that noise* near the opening of the second half of Kontakte. date=03.11.2003 10:28 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Al: Might be going Saturday but we might be going Friday. Not completely sure. Will have to consult with Bridget. I shouldn't imagine we'll be back until late Sunday.

Hammersmith trek potentially possible on Thursday.

Otherwise I can offer you Tuesday evening...

Alex: I just felt it could have done with a little more presence - the whirring noises could have been beefed up with a bit of phasing. I mean, essentially I expected the beginning of the universe to sound a bit like the opening of the Dr Who theme or perhaps *that noise* near the start of the second half of Kontakte.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=03.11.2003 10:28 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, I rather prefer. "Go back. What was must never be." Al: I used to go to a bar called the Wibbley Wobbley Floating Freehouse in Russia Dock in the mid 90s. I wrote a (very) facetious box about Russia Dock Woodland and other stuff for the Time Out London Guide when Nick Royle edited it. Nick had to cut the best sentence, which went roughly, "Bored ? Why not get married at Lewisham register office ?" date=03.11.2003 10:41 ip=213.78.175.138 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm just waiting for the first person to say they've heard voices in the Big Hum: "Paul Burrell is my rock," "Apophradean," "Let's build a universe from this Particle Zoo so the Jameson Girls have somewhere to live" - you know the sort of thing.

No idea why "Light" attracts such reviews at Amazon. Maybe these people should read it twice before passing judgment. I've just finished it again, and got even more out of it than before (and more after that ...). Rather alarmingly, in the pub last week I started quoting Sprake's confrontation with Meadows off the top of my head - "Urizen!" - and then began to laugh. You can worry yourself on occasions. date=03.11.2003 11:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You're worrying me, Martin, never mind yourself...

Some of those Amazon reviewers--some sf commentators too--don't have the reading experience to manage the book. But what makes them so defensive ? Why do they feel they need to act out being *wronged* ? date=03.11.2003 11:41 ip=213.78.175.138 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My nurse says it's all going to be fine ...

Reviewers: Saying "I don't know" is much harder than "I can't be arsed." But then, I've often thought a lot of people should add those initials to their name: ICBA. Looks really impressive, too. date=03.11.2003 11:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="To space opera what Mozart was to the original."

I feel hurt and wronged by not understanding the review. I imagine, MJH, that some SF readers don't like being wrong-footed. "I don't understand this and I'm a fucking EXPERT!" date=03.11.2003 11:52 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Checking back on Amazon , I see "sore thumb" from Surrey *did* read it twice, so I stand corrected. Still, they just thought it was a book about "bad sex and ... killing things." If no one else is going to use that title for something, I very well might! date=03.11.2003 12:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*wakes up*

Someone's written a book about bad sex and killing things? Where can I buy it? Is it available on amazon?

Mike: Are you still looking for alternative word processors? I'm trying out a suite of programs called Open Office at the moment - seems quite nice and it's free. Only problem is it's quite a big download but it might be worth having a look: http://www.openoffice.org date=03.11.2003 12:15 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="To space opera what Mozart was to the original."

God, I hate Mozart! date=03.11.2003 12:16 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Mozart. I've got to confess the same. Despite many friends trying to convince me it's music of the spheres ("Beethoven's for people who haven't really heard classical music," one told me. At the time, I thought they were joking), I find it mostly aural wallpaper. After twenty minutes, others are in rapture and I'm wishing I was listening to "Marquee Moon," Robert Wyatt, Augustus Pablo - or the Big Hum. date=03.11.2003 12:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: It was studying his Clarinet Concerto at school which did it for me. It's all bloody wedding cake icing and trills, from the first bar of a Mozart piece you can predict exactly what's going to happen in the rest. That's probably true of Bach as well, but Bach gets away with it through either gravitas or simplicity. But Mozart...

When I get to this stage someone always asks "what about his requiem?" What about his sodding requiem? Just because it's less nauseating that the rest I'm not going to ruin a perfectly good sweeping generalisation! date=03.11.2003 12:53 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the Mozart image was highly pro-Light--ie, based on the idea that Mozart's operas were more sophisticated than what went before ? What I can't work out is the people who have so missed the point they don't know how *un* clever their review reveals them to be. A bit like the guy who didn't get the whole Pater, Huysmans, A Rebours thing in TCD and therefore thought these were supposed to be serious, suspension-of-disbelief backgrounds and characters. You feel embarrassed for them. They don't catch the tone. date=03.11.2003 12:56 ip=213.78.71.72 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think the Mozart image was highly pro-Light

Oh, I'm sure it was. It's just (another) one of my tics. date=03.11.2003 12:58 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The only good thing about Mozart - the big ponce - apart from his being dead, is what Michael Nyman did with a bit of his music for the Drowning By Numbers soundtrack. date=03.11.2003 12:58 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: I'm not presuming to have an opinion about Mozart among you guys, you understand. Especially now I'm into smooth dub and electro chillout or whatever it is. io: I'll have a look at Open Office. date=03.11.2003 12:59 ip=213.78.71.72 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Is 'smooth dub' anything like 'smooth jazz', ie a great festering, sucking fistula in the heart of music? I'm presuming not. date=03.11.2003 13:03 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know, Alex, & that's the truth. I'd be willing to believe anything. Words like smooth, electro, deep, & trance are labels without referents to me. I assemble them at random, as in "smooth electro breakbeat" or "Alex's deep fistula grooves", without the hope of meaning... date=03.11.2003 13:15 ip=213.78.71.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As a side light, Robert Wyatt noted he could always shock his liberal-humane parents (when they weren't clipping round the ear for his opinions on fusion and fission, of course) by declaring he didn't care for Mozart's work at all. Saying he didn't believe in God was greeted with indulgent smiles - but belittling a great cultural touchstone upset his mum and dad no end. Wyatt thought they'd simply replaced belief in one hierarchy with another, and never noticed the difference. date=03.11.2003 13:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I assemble them at random

As do most of the marketing people in the industry, I guess. However, if you're really interested in the avant-electronica-smooth-dub-o-matic genre, I would cordially direct your ears towards the recordings of Xela, Yasume, Matmos, Four Tet and Boards Of Canda.

Martin: "Marquee Moon" remastered! With "Little Johnny Jewel"! Hot damn! date=03.11.2003 13:27 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Xela I've got to track down - but Boards - ah, me. I once put "Roygbiv" on repeat, and floated away for a full hour and a half.

"Johnny Jewel": astonishing single; I haven't heard the re-master. Like every other NY song from the '70s, it's supposed to be about Iggy, and I read his recipe for the good life at the weekend: "Let's eat a big steak and have sex without a rubber and do some heroin afterwards." Life's simple pleasures, etc. date=03.11.2003 13:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all!

A bit hectic - so telegraph - Zali, can't do tuesday. Do you want to see how thursday's looking nearer the time? Alt one evening next week, or indeed Friday. May not be working on THursday, but not yet sure. Oh, and the Mozart Funeral thing is awesome, if only for the direct fear of oncoming death you can hear in it. A man trying to write his way out of death with his art; and failing. And knowing it. Still, bits of it v. turgid, all the added on stuff. If we're talking classical - Thomas Tallis rules (esp 40 voice thing whose name I can't remember); Byrd rules! (esp masses for 3,4,5 voices). Sadly not up on smooth dub...

MJH - hmm, sounds like intriguing bar. Did you live round there back then? Bit of a trek from Central London. Suspect negative reviewers feel overly challenged, thus hit back. Did not pick up on TCD stuff! Doh. Must read Huysmans, then back to TCD again... read it in Florence a couple of years back, interesting experience. Some cloisters there v. COTH.

Alex - would be great to see you there, either as performer or attender. Would be good to get sample of your stuff beforehand. date=03.11.2003 13:50 ip=212.111.58.162 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, you mean the Interstellar Anarchist's *name* didn't give it away ? And all that Green Carnation stuff ? Absolute shame on you. I don't seem to have a copy in the house--I wonder why that is ?--or I'd quote. date=03.11.2003 14:16 ip=213.78.71.72 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, if I was in Virgin, say, where would I look for those bands ? date=03.11.2003 14:18 ip=213.78.71.72 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Virgin has fairly basic categories so you'd probably be able to find them in Rock & Pop. More sophisticated (read poncy) record sellers might put them in either Electronica or the meaningless Post-Rock section. date=03.11.2003 14:24 ip=158.94.131.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*hangs head*

Hmm - will go rooting through my copy tonight and feel suitably embarassed... have never actually read any Huysmans, which doesn't help! Am in Baudelaire at the mo', so getting my French decadence from him. date=03.11.2003 14:26 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - might have probs with record shopping there, I hear the Post-Rock section has been sealed this week.

*ahem* date=03.11.2003 14:29 ip=212.111.58.162 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No need to hang anything, Al. As far as I recall, the Interstellar Anarchist's rooms are described in a direct lift from Huysman's description of his study--I'm not sure, at this distance, whether it's even lifted from A Rebours, although I can't think where else it might come from. The point is, it's a pisstake of those Decadent pretensions, and most readers will have got that without needing to get the specific allusion. The Amazon reviewer, though, picks the passage out and describes it as bad writing on the grounds that while the IA's lifestyle is described as "simple" if you look at the content of the description *it isn't simple at all*. Well fuck my old boots. You don't say. date=03.11.2003 14:40 ip=213.78.168.194 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where would I look for those bands ?

Adequately explained already, I think. Mira Calix is another good one to look out for.

Ah, Huysmans. I love the bit where Des Esseintes is playing a 'musical' composition by necking all the liqueurs in his optics bar. Great stuff. date=03.11.2003 14:42 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was baffled by The Music & Video Exchange in Notting Hill Gate who had a "Post-Rock, Space Rock and Out-Rock" section. What the fuck is Out-Rock? I bet it's a load of those Avant Skiffle layabouts from West London!

While I've putting a lot of the CDs I've bought recently onto my hard drive I've been somehwhat baffled by the genres that the system suggests: Cajun music is actually "General Unclassifiable" and This Heat are apparently "General Rock". The Holy Modal Rounders manage to be "Psychedelic Rock" on one album and "Alt Folk" on another - which isn't unreasonable.

And when did "French" become a genre? date=03.11.2003 15:31 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>And when did "French" become a genre?

It's useful: it helps me know which records to avoid. And what's 'math rock' when it's at home?

Just as an aside, did you know there's a type of mollusc called a Turton Wentletrap? Baggsy using it for the name of a character. date=03.11.2003 15:34 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: the day *anyone* here genuinely hangs their head is the day we all stop posting!

MJH: Virgin/HMV aren't renowned for the obscure (though the megastores carry both Boards and Matmos, at least). Lots of London outlets get listed in the back pages of "Wire," though - stocking anything from obscure electro through to Coil and This Heat re-issues. So, suck it and see. date=03.11.2003 15:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Baggsy using it for the name of a character.

I think you shd use it as a pseudonym. After too many pornographic junkmails on my hotmail account I want to adopt the pseudonym "Enormous Johnson".

>>What's math rock when it's at home

Slint mostly. No idea why but it kinda traditional for American critics to call them that. Do you think it's possible to be Post-French?

The Wire - ah, that overdesigned chin stroker's journal, or as we like to call it: The Avant Guardian. date=03.11.2003 15:40 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Turton Wentletrap mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*hmm*

It's got possibilities.
Slint - I used to like them. Will Oldham's done some good stuff too.
And shouldn't that be Aprés French? date=03.11.2003 15:43 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Avant Guardian" - indeed! - :)

I remember one reviewer speaking all too knowledgeably (so that readers *did* have to hang their heads) over a 5-cd box set by some obscure act, one cd of which consisted of 72 minutes of silence, punctuated by a single "sound event." Oh, dear.

Then again, it's about the only widely available printed source of information for new, experimental stuff and for telling the rest of us about figures like Cornelius Cardew or Sun Ra that we've heard of but hadn't a clue about. So, pretentiousness and illumination in roughly equal measure, I'd say. date=03.11.2003 15:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sounds like an extended remix of Cage's 4'33"!

But yes, yr probably right. Considering the narrow scope of most of the music press The Wire is generally a Good Thing - but there are times it just makes me want to scream. date=03.11.2003 16:11 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like The Wire. It makes me feel clever. date=03.11.2003 16:17 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Scream: you bet!

I got sick and tired of pictures showing the intently humourless young hunched over their Powerbooks in concert halls, waiting to Create. On the other hand, I'm a sucker for Ian Penman's features, and other writers woke me up to things like Coil or Harry Smith that might otherwise have passed me by.

Can't quite bring myself to listen to Diamanda Galas on cd-repeat, though ... date=03.11.2003 16:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Can't quite bring myself to listen to Diamanda Galas on cd-repeat, though ...

It was those picture of graduates brooding over their laptops in Hoxton that made her make that sort of noise.

>>I like The Wire. It makes me feel clever.

I don't like to read it with clean shaven people. They have to borrow my chin to stroke. date=03.11.2003 16:28 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like the photos from avant garde music festivals. Usually: Four photos of people with laptops. One photo of someone playing a contact mic-ed toilet. And a long haired Japanese guy with a guitar. date=03.11.2003 16:39 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Four photos of people with laptops. One photo of someone playing a contact mic-ed toilet. And a long haired Japanese guy with a guitar.

Of course one of these people is Finnish. date=03.11.2003 16:49 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yep. The japanese guy is Finnish. date=03.11.2003 16:55 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Closest I got to a festival was an evening of Tuvan music in Oxford about 3 years ago. A lot of intense folk turned out: I sat next to a Michael Frayn lookalike, who sat resting his chin (yes!) on his hand, frowning at the stage. I didn't know what to expect (all to the good), but I think a lot of the audience expected some quaint folk art they could patronise. Instead, they got throat singer Sainkho Namtchylak with a techno dj from Berlin, and the group Yat Kha. Most Tuvan folk melodies seemed to depend on E and A - and YK had just discovered those were Lou Reed's favourite chords, too. So, hey, let's boogie! I remember the bassist bounced around in his brand new trainers like nobody's business, but the MF lookalike didn't like that at all, refused to clap , and left at the interval in disgust.

No pleasing some folk. date=03.11.2003 17:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In news: Israelis develop a computer that runs on light: http://feed.proteinos.com/001695.html

In life: I just started my second read of Light. Much more enlightened on re-read. Actually, I'm reading it aloud & recording for my beloved - started reading it to her on my first run through, but couldn't wait for her to be around to listen. Doing it by proxy, far more sensible, and actually rather fun. Keeps my mind focused on what I'm reading too. A career in audiobooks beckons...

In catching up with how many bloody posts can you miss out on by not checking the site in two days:

MJH: Funny about you explaining microwave radiation to your Gran, it was (seriously) my Gran that told me about it - at least inasmuch as she wouldn't have a microwave oven in the house, was convinced (probably rightly) it would fry her brains. Her brains ended up fried anyway, but that's life/death.

Io: I always thought the end of the world was that bit of wasteland past Barking where they used to hold raves, but I guess it's pretty close to North Woolwich. Also, *nothing* predates Stockhausen... Sirius was my first introduction to the avant garde, when I was 13. Monumental stuff.

And as for labelling music - the shifting sands of smooth deep electro trance sound a little like the genre tags on my MP3 collection - hmm, does this track count as avant-rock or rock-avant, always a tough choice. I assemble the words very definitely non-randomly, but it's the very non-randomness of it that torments me. (io: don't ever listen to anyone else's genres. Invent your own. And French isn't a genre, it's a subgenre. *Not* one to avoid though - where would we [I] be without Pierre Henry, Serge Gainsbourg, Baguette Quartet... and Post-French is Blur's "French Song"). Oh, and Math Rock. I used to play in a Math Rock band. Still dunno what it is though.

And I share everyone's hatred of Mozart. The Robbie Williams of the 18th Century, but worse. Much worse.

Martin: My mate Phil claims to have been in the room when Robert Wyatt went out of the window. Something to do with drunkeness and a row over Daevid Allen's daughter, apparently. I never quite caught the full story: Phil talks very fast and very much. (Phil's website, a shrine to everyone who was anyone during his Portobello Road days: http://www.ibiblio.org/mal/MO/philm/ - he photographed them all, including album covers for Gong/Hawkwind/Zappa/Yes etc etc etc)

Xela: frucking awesome! I once woke into a hypnagogic state, to hear John Peel playing "In Between Two Rooms" - it was synchronized with every autonomic process in my body. Beautiful experience.

Huysman: on my "to read" list, but right now I'm not even synapsed-up enough to remember what "TCD" stands for. What should I hang my head in?

Finally, apologies for filling so many pages again. I need an editor. "Concentrate on me. I'm the important thing around here." date=03.11.2003 21:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS I got the TCD reference (amazing what a lie down can do) - it's the one I haven't read, right? date=04.11.2003 08:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I heard that the Robert Wyatt story involved Wyatt being in the bathroom at a party with someone he shouldn't have been in a bathroom with (Allen junior?) and his wife was coming up the stairs: he tried to get out of the bathroom window, and the rest is history.
On a related note, John Cale's song "Guts" is apparently about Kevin Ayers doing the dirty with Cale's wife. date=04.11.2003 09:03 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aw, shucks...

*unhangs head*

Tho' didn't in the end get a moment to look at TCD last night.

Dan - you're reading Light to your beloved?

A friend got very worried about his flatmates' relationship; they're married, and are going through big financial hassles etc, so all quite pressured. They would lock themselves in their bedroom, then he would hear loud, dramatic voices etc through the wall. Anyway, he finally plucked up the courage to broach the whole issue with them - turned out they were taking solace in reading Harry Potter books to each other. Light a step up from this, tho' unsure what it would do to flatmate perceptions of relationships if overheard... date=04.11.2003 09:48 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm attempting to get into the Dirty Havana Trilogy at the moment - should I try reading it aloud in bed? date=04.11.2003 10:19 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, reading Light aloud - I'm a big fan of reading aloud, very different experience from doing it in your head.

I first got into it when at University - three of the people I lived with used to do it, we would huddle together in somebody's bedroom every night, over spliffs, tea and bourbon biscuits, and take it in turns to read chapters.

Since then I've done some reading aloud to my wife, but we never seem to find much time for it (I think the TV needs to be banished...), and it doesn't always work as well as it ought, "1982, Janine" by Alasdair Gray was a case in point, sometimes it's hard to work out how to give voice to a page of typographical madness. So mainly nowadays I read to my eldest daughter (who is eight) at bedtime (including all the Harry Potters, and the Lord of the Rings which took nine months but, by god, we did it). date=04.11.2003 10:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think the TV needs to be banished...

We've not watched much TV for around two years now. These days we just can't be bothered to turn the stupid thing on: it's amazing how much time you free up for other things. TV is just not good enough, and that's the bottom line. date=04.11.2003 10:55 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: by the way, your mate Phil's site is excellent! I was in prog rock heaven for a while there. date=04.11.2003 10:58 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, Alex, Dirty Havana--fucking A. I just finished his other one, Tropical Animal.

Dan, on reading: I always use readability as a check--read the finished thing out loud to my longsuffering partner, or anyone I can get hold of. I mean, go out into the street and earhole some poor innocent bastard, "Excuse me..." I was dumped once because, as she put it, "All you ever say is 'Listen to this, then.'" date=04.11.2003 10:59 ip=213.78.94.116 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Having trouble with Dirty Havana - reminds me of a sweatier Bukovski, if that's possible.
Regarding reading in the street, have you heard Heiner Goebbels' "Shadow/Landscape with Argonauts"? It's a piece of music with Sussan Deyhim singing words by Poe intercut with the voices of 100 random people on the streets of Boston reading lines from a text by Heiner Muller. Sounds odd, but it's an amazingly rich and evocative work. date=04.11.2003 11:08 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Guys! Guys! Check out this hot calendar for an Italian coffin manufacturer! Yeah baby!
http://www.cofanifunebri.it/calendario-2004.htm date=04.11.2003 11:18 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*boggles*

No, surely not...

But how did you find it? Can it be for real?

I've heard of stiffs and little deaths, but this is ridiculous...

*boggles some more* date=04.11.2003 11:29 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But how did you find it? Can it be for real?

It's real. I was directed there by an Italian art director. I love January's great lump of a schoolgirl. date=04.11.2003 11:38 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sex and death - in the great Italian tradition of, uh, Berlusconi. date=04.11.2003 11:55 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - tho' I think they've only PROVED the sex. date=04.11.2003 13:48 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Readability as a check - yes, if only I knew how to pronounce things properly. I'm far too lazy for paper dictionaries these days, so I mainly use m-w.com with its little pronunciation sound-clips, but am afraid I'll end up talking like an American.

Reminds me, MJH, page 15: "'rents' had become 'tears'" - I assumed that was rip-tears, as tears means the same as rents, but then as Tig was thinking of money-rents and not rip-rents, perhaps they became cry-tears. I dunno. Have I confused you as much as I've confused myself?

If I threw out the TV would I get my mind back? I very much suspect so, why is it that sometimes the no-braineriest decisions are the hardest ones to follow through? date=04.11.2003 13:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>If I threw out the TV would I get my mind back?

Take the fuse out of the plug and throw it away. That way you've still got your TV, but you might find you can't be bothered going out to get another fuse. date=04.11.2003 14:12 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a dilemma. If you remove the philips screw from the back of your head and take out the blood-covered invasive tube, installed at birth, an act of defiance if ever there was one, you will be rid of tv world but you may experience some loss of functionality. date=04.11.2003 15:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The only loss of functionality I have experienced is that all too often I can not join in conversations about what was on TV the night before. I must, therefore, memorise descriptions of TV Programmes from the Guardian Guide in case I am asked.
For example, if I am asked: "Did you see Eastenders last night?" I might reply: "Yes. Pat got her comeuppance and things didn't look good for Ian Beale. Did they?" It gets me through. date=04.11.2003 15:44 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've often thought of removing the fuse, I'm sure my daughter would catch on though and pester me into putting it back. I read recently of a couple who got rid of their TV, but had to get a new one two years later because their children were becoming social outcasts due to inability to discuss TV programs at school (don't think the Guardian Guide do a very good line in kids TV/soap opera reviews)

A few years ago I was living in London 5 days a week, TV-less, and I too used to get all of my conversation set-pieces from the newspapers (Victor Lewis-Smith's reviews in the Evening Standard were always good for giving a general unbiased overview of a program, ISTR). The other problem with not having a TV, I then discovered, was the continual harrassment from TV license people who refuse to believe that anyone could be so masochistic as to go TV-less. It did provide me with some moments of side-splitting humour though, as documented at http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002244.html date=04.11.2003 16:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a little MJH moment this morning: I subscribe to Merriam Webster's "word of the day" email - today's word was... inchoate.

>>>
being partly in existence or operation; especially : imperfectly formed or formulated : formless

Did you know?
"Inchoate" derives from "inchoare," which means "to begin" in Latin but translates literally as "to hitch up." "Inchoare" was formed from the prefix "in-" and the noun "cohum," which refers to the strap that secures a plow beam to a pulling animal's yoke. The concept of implementing this initial step toward the larger task of plowing a field can help provide a clearer understanding of "inchoate," an adjective used to describe the imperfect form of something (as a plan or idea) in its early stages of development. Perhaps because it looks a little like the word "chaos" (although the two aren't closely related), "inchoate" now not only implies the formlessness that often marks beginnings, but also the confusion caused by chaos. date=05.11.2003 09:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail=j.gorham@corporate-edge.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yo Zali! How's it looking for tomorrow? Come to think of it, email me on the attached link. You'll get an out of office, ignore it, as this is the computer I'm using...

Morning all! Inchoate meaning v. intriguing. Amazing how individual words encode so much history; a wave of meanings cresting at a single point. date=05.11.2003 10:18 ip=212.111.58.162 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As in, "Inchoate hordes of Yog Sothoth".

I'm a shade inchoate myself this morning. Nobody in my London life knows the term "projective identification", and I feel like Howard the Duck. date=05.11.2003 11:58 ip=213.78.92.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I don't watch *much* telly meself: Will & Grace and Scrubs on a Friday and Buffy when it's on. Having said that I've been forgetting to watch the last series of Buffy.

Oh, and I've been watching too much Home & Away - but that's to be sociable when Bridget get's in from work.

When I was living on my own a few years back I didn't have a telly and kept getting hassled by the TV Licence bods. Tossers.

I think I read William Gibson saying somewhere that the only reason he manages to write is that he doesn't own a telly. Didn't work for me. Just re-read Mona Lisa Overdrive - better than I remember it being but somewhat dated. Also too many of those one word pieces of dialogue: "Betapenethylamine", she said. &c... date=05.11.2003 12:41 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw something called "Family Affairs" the other day, some kind of soap. Loved it. date=05.11.2003 12:46 ip=213.78.74.180 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like Wright's Coal Tar soap. date=05.11.2003 13:10 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Found this nice soap in the Sri Lankan shop around the corner. Can't remember the brand name but the tagline "The soap of beauty queens" is a winner.

Looking forward to my tiara! date=05.11.2003 13:13 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm hoping to come down to ver Smoke soon anyway. (About a page back...)

Alex: Any idea when? Contemplating getting together an Empty Space board meeting. We'll gather the London crowd together and try to get Martin down from Oxford. Hell, maybe Dan could even descend on us?

An evening of beer, inchoate discussion and general Post Frenchness.

There it goes up the flagpole. Anyone want to salute it? date=05.11.2003 13:21 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: you might enjoy looking at some of the Japanese packaging featured on http://www.engrish.com.
For example, they have Mengroan showel gel, Hoxy Tissues ("will always offer you a rich and comfortable life with paper") and a Body Sponge with the message "we want to do and get good things because we want to enjoy the memories".
There's also packaging for Homo Sausage and Cream Pain candy. date=05.11.2003 13:27 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Double post message delay warp.

An Empty Space night would be good. But would anyone turn up? Should be coming down before Christmas, all things being equal (what does that mean?) date=05.11.2003 13:29 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good site! The "Excrete to the Guppies" CD looks promising and I find something quite appealing about "Crap Culture Girls". There's an oriental shopping centre in Colindale where I purchased a "As much like a new born baby as you like" stationary set for a friend who was pregnant.

Maybe we could hold the board meeting in the Millenium Dome? There's plenty of Empty Space there. date=05.11.2003 13:41 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We could do it in that boat bar I found, tho' it's a huge trek from anywhere else in London. Much empty space round there, tho.

Come to think of it, where WOULD a suitable place be? There's always the Museum Tavern, come to think of it - Yaxley's local. Princess Louise round there's nice, and a Samuel Smith's pub so much good beer. date=05.11.2003 14:36 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We could try to find the "zero-degree decor" Chinese restaurant from Signs of Life - and sit around drinking Tsing Tao and embarassing the other customers... date=05.11.2003 14:45 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm definitely up for an Empty Space night - am in London about once a fortnight at the moment, mainly pinballing between Isleworth, Teddington, Soho and Aldgate areas (exotic, me), I'm easy. Let's get this inchoate idea off the ground.

(Inchoate also makes me think of Choe)

Engrish is gleat! There was an art show a while ago in the Site Garrery in Sheffierd which featured a piece by a Japanese video artist, showing people going around their house quoting the slogans from all the different products in each room. It was one of the most surreal things I've seen, took me about ten minutes to realise that's what they were doing, first I thought it was some kind of Japanese abstract poetry.

I'm off to Amsterdam for the weekend tomorrow - it was about 18 years ago, at Kings Cross station waiting for a boat-train to Amsterdam, that I bought my first MJH book, Viriconium Nights. I drifted through a story or two a night, very stoned, holed up in a squat just off the red light district. It changed my idea of what constitutes a story (until then I'd lived off pulp sci-fi/fantasy). For me, Amsterdam *is* forever Viriconium. P'raps I'll take the book with me, for old times' sake. date=05.11.2003 15:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a Samuel Smith's pub

*shocked*
You can get good beer in London? date=05.11.2003 15:09 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, Al just likes the porter that they serve in there. Having said that they also do a very pleasant Erdinger Weissbrau, to which I make no objections whatsoever. date=05.11.2003 15:48 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do they serve Lemon Genever? date=05.11.2003 15:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They'll serve anyone... date=05.11.2003 16:01 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm a big fan of the porter - tho' if we're doing proper London beer, it should be a Youngs pub. They do a porter, but its not as good. There's a kind of beer restaurant just off Covent Garden, where you can get about 400 different international beers.

Btb, from the training course going on next to the Men's loos in the company I'm working in at the mo -

*American voice*

*shouts*

(yesterday)

ALPHA DOGS! YOU ARE ALPHA DOGS!!

(today)

YOU TAKE THAT SAFETY MANIFESTO AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ARSE!!!!

God knows what they're training for. date=05.11.2003 16:04 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wish I was going to Amsterdam. Say hello to the Rusland for me, Dan. Incidentally, I just got my paws on a signed First Ed of Viriconium Nights, cheap. date=05.11.2003 16:05 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I want to be an ALPHA DOG too. I do. I really WANT TO SHOVE THAT SAFETY MANIFESTO UP MY ARSE! I think we should have an ALPHA DOG meet *inside* the Empty Space meet. io, the Lemon Genever joke was inexcusable. date=05.11.2003 16:29 ip=213.78.93.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lemon Genever is Turton Wentletrap's girlfriend. She likes to shove Alpha Dogs up his arse. date=05.11.2003 16:33 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was cheap, it was obvious, it was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

Have I just failed admission to the ALPHA DOG team?

Where's that manifesto gone? date=05.11.2003 16:34 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought I might have first edition, but just checked and it's the Unwin 1986 second edition - dwarf and bloke and canal that looks too Italianate to be Amsterdammish on the cover. I've owned many editions of Viriconium in the past, the Unwin editions of both books, another edition with both books combined and a white cover with, I think, the Barley Brothers on it (that copy got lent out and never returned), a Fantasy Masterworks edition that was given to me by the author who somehow neglected to sign it - I guess it's worth more that way ;-)

I even have a copy of The Floating Gods which I bought off Amazon.com because I didn't realise it's the same thing as In Viriconium with the addition of an Author's Note on "thematic unity rather than one of space and time" which looks like it's a disclaimer for the dumbed-down yank market. Oh, and a dedication to Fritz Leiber - I read one of his books when I was very young, found it incredibly vivid, memorable and edgy, then read another which seemed like dross and wondered whether I'd been in my right mind first time around.

I bought Viriconium Nights because a friend with me at the time said "I've heard of him. He's mates with Michael Moorcock or something". Funny what influences people. date=05.11.2003 16:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was The Pastel City NEL only? date=05.11.2003 16:36 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm an omega pussy myself... date=05.11.2003 16:41 ip=212.111.58.162 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're desperate for unsigned books out there, Dan. In today's world, unsigned books are a total rarity. But, you know, if you *want* it ruined... date=05.11.2003 16:48 ip=213.78.75.48 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got a little pile of signed Iain Sinclair and JG Ballard books - they were just on the shelf in Foyles. I've also got a signed Douglas Oliver collection, again from Foyles - apparently he went in there one day and signed all his books off the shelf. Staff were baffled as they didn't know who he was. date=05.11.2003 17:00 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Having said that they only worked out who he was because they looked in the books and saw the name Douglas Oliver. Could thus still be an ingenious literary hoaxer... date=05.11.2003 17:02 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I bought a signed Slow Chocolate Autopsy (Sinclair) from a remainder shop. Couldn't figure out what it was doing there. Then I tried to read it. date=05.11.2003 18:56 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough my copy of The Committed Men, that I bought in the Fantasy Centre on Holloway Road, is signed by Moorcock. The guys in there told me that he'd sometimes come in when he was bored and sign books - any books.

I can think of better ways to waste a few hours...

My copy of Sinclair's Radon Daughters is signed - by Iain Sinclair in this case - but I've never managed to finish the bugger. I think he's a terribly good idea for students and stuff - they must love him. You can use him to refer to psychogeography and London writing and he's full of the most incredible quotations - but read the stuff for pleasure? No thanks!

Have fun in Amsterdam, Dan. You might be surprised to hear I've never been there. date=05.11.2003 19:12 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Glad you guys are still around; am still stuck in the office. Hmm, certainly enjoyed earlier Sinclair, unsure about his more recent stuff. Once met someone (as I'm sure I said before) who was convinced you could only really enjoy him if you'd read Dr Dee. Not sure about this one, unlikely to ever find out.

I think I am going to wander into bookshops and start signing a few books myself. date=05.11.2003 19:34 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I'm stuck at work too - until 9pm. There's fireworks going off out there and there's still sad fucker students in the library. I mean, I'm getting *paid* for this, I *have* to do this. What's their excuse?

What do you fancy signing? I'm going to take to start doing the telephone directories if I get bored tonight. date=05.11.2003 19:40 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bastards! How they grind us down. Truly we must rise up against the man, etc. Still, in part this week or so of work will pay for my Christmas away, so I am thinking beaches.

I might start with some Dickens, have always admired his stuff. Will dress in a stovepipe hat and loud waistcoat, try and look energetic and Victorian, and get stuck in. date=05.11.2003 19:47 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll probably get stuck into the bibles. Proper gnostic thing to do reclaiming authorities. date=05.11.2003 20:23 ip=158.94.131.140 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amsterdam had bloody well *better* be fun. Today hasn't been. I'd just got over being stiffed for £600 by Bastard Financial Adviser in court this morning, brought my spirits back up by managing to find an Amsterdam hotel with rooms on only my 30th try, got my booking confirmed, credit card details'n'all, and then the only man in Holland who doesn't speak better English than me rang up to tell me he was cancelling my booking because he thought I was two people (even though the *guaranteed* booking confirmation says "1 room. 1 person") and then has the cheek to start shouting abuse at me when I, for the first time in my life, am maintaining zen-like calm.

Looks like I'm gonna be sleeping on the steps of Centraal Station. Which, funnily enough, is where I ended up last time I was there (at least November shouldn't be quite as cold as New Year's Eve).

Anyone know a good Dutch solicitor?

Anyway, book signings... I think there's some bookshops opposite the British Museum (in fact, didn't Yaxley live upstairs from one?). Anyone fancy signing some first editions with me?

Amsterdam had bloody well *better* be fun. date=05.11.2003 22:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, if you try to sleep on the steps of Central Station, the police throw you off at midnight. I tried it when I hitch-hiked there a few years ago. date=05.11.2003 22:29 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, well when I was there I didn't start trying to sleep until after 4am, so I probably missed the police. That said, at 6am when they opened the doors to the station, we piled in and discovered that the only heated part of the whole building is the lost property corridor. Unfortunately, about 300 people also discovered this.

The police were wise to it too, they didn't actually throw anyone out, their stormtrooper tactics were far more insidious. They came on a tour of the corridor every five minutes, poked everyone with a truncheon until they stood up, and then left. I put up with about two hours of this before adjourning to a colder part of the station, found that I'd now clocked up enough knackeredness points to kip even in sub-zero temperatures, and managed to get three or four hours sleep on the floor in the main hall, people milling around me - the police were too busy hassling the warm people to worry about insignificant little me. date=05.11.2003 22:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good technique! Early hours: too knackering for the police. They had truncheons, I remember that. My idiot companion was detained at customs on the way *in* (no passport) so we got a nice ride in their top security van, too. I was a piss-poor hitch-hiker.

Hypothesis: Amsterdam on a January night is the coldest place on earth. date=05.11.2003 22:49 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes. They had truncheons. BIG truncheons.

We didn't get stopped in Holland. Or in England. We got stopped in bloody France, where our coach just happened to be passing through. Gendarmes marched purposefully to the back of the coach, ignoring all the other passengers in their single-minded quest for the four hippylike blokes on the back seat. Small child pipes up "mummy, where are they taking those men?" (go on, tell him the truth, they're taking them to a small hut by the roadside where they will have their clothes removed and hands inserted up their backsides).

Ouch. Sore memories. date=05.11.2003 22:53 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last time I stayed in Amsterdam it was in the Tulip Hotel. I was woken every hour by obseqious lackies squabbling over who would get to fill my bong, and begging me to send them on errands for sweetmeats and fine wines. I despatched them all, all but the prettiest, with a jovial cuff round the ear and few well-chosen words of advice. I stayed in bed 'till 11, toying with a volume of Brillat-Savarin and a bellboy, before finally giving into the demands of the manager and allowing myself to be carried down to breakfast. Such cruelty.

Iain Sinclair: Landor's Tower was a return to form, I think. date=06.11.2003 09:36 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Empty Space Evening" - count me in, y'all!

Off forum for two days with flu: now trying to hack through my e-mail backlog, and wishing Talisker or similar were at hand ... date=06.11.2003 09:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*books room at the Tulip Hotel*

We used to have school art trips to Amsterdam once every two years, quite astonishing. On the first one they confined us to the hotel to keep us from the temptations of the night; this was fine with us, as there was a six foot high stack of hardcore porn videos by the hotel telly. I could handle the human centipede, but when they bought the donkey in my head exploded and I wandered off upstairs. From the sixth floor of the hotel we could see into the brothel over the road.

The second one wasn't quite so eventful, but at least I got to smoke my first joint. Oh, and both times, the art was stunning. I could have spent the whole weekend just with 'The Night Watch'. Got a bit over-Van Goghed, tho, never been a huge fan of his. Got well into Mondrian, too.

Steph - as for flour; I had a friend who was an obsessive Fields of the Nephilim fan in the 80s. Before their gigs, the hardcore fans would don their gothic gear and then shake entire bags of flour over themselves. He'd spent years doing it, and was as baffled by it as I was. I think they wanted to look like Henry Fonda in 'Once upon a Time in the West' - alternatively perhaps it was meant to be tomb dust. Hey ho. date=06.11.2003 10:02 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Iain Sinclair - I enjoyed Landor's Tower, but it didn't overwhelm me. Very underwhelmed by Orbital. Wicked parody of him in the current issue of 'Smoke', they put him over as a kind of psychogeographical Mr Pooter. date=06.11.2003 10:04 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Underwhelmed by "Orbital."

Too right. I still like "Lights Out for the Territory," though. date=06.11.2003 10:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes - and what a title! date=06.11.2003 10:15 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a shame his C5 didn't take off the way it should. he might not have had to walk around the ring road. date=06.11.2003 10:58 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Eee, ye've gorra laff!

There used to be one in Oxford that regularly clogged up the rush hour round the station - but I think the driver has met his destiny under the Witney bus, or something: haven't seen him in a while. date=06.11.2003 11:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw one in Hampton once. Alternately terrified / polluted looking driver weaving in and out of parked cars, trying to make his way down the high street without dying. It was tipping down with rain. Given UK climate, you'd have thought a roof of some sort would have been a must. date=06.11.2003 11:41 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: after two days off sick, I've just caught up with the Italian undertakers' calendar.

*Beyond* weird, mate - completely beyond ... :) date=06.11.2003 12:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I've ordered a couple to *ahem* give as Christmas presents. date=06.11.2003 12:25 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Or should you give them out on "boxing" day ..? date=06.11.2003 13:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: That was crap. Can't you get flu again or something? ;) date=06.11.2003 13:40 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Super. Smashing. Lovely. You've been a wonderful audience ...

Oh, well. One can only do what one can. (sigh) - :) date=06.11.2003 14:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Double post: apology, but I'm scrolling back through stuff I missed in the last couple of days -

Alex: I haven't had a TV since '97, and don't miss it - I have no kids, so pester power passes me by, along with Chris Morris-style close-up reports from the site of the latest car bomb or paedophile outrage. Not a case of ignorance is bliss, but the world does calm down a bit when you only read or hear about it, instead of having your face pushed into its worst corners in living colour every day. Soap conversation's a problem, but it's incredible what you pick up elsewhere. You realise the culture's saturated with bad story-lines. date=06.11.2003 16:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I don't know about you, but I found the lack of TV most telling in the way I observed the recent Iraq war-thing. I didn't see one moving image throught the whole thing. date=06.11.2003 16:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed. It sounds infantile to say it, but 20,000 people died and I have no particular image or impression of what they went through : the whole war was literally "obscene" - off-stage, out of sight. This "management" started with the Falklands, and it's got worse. date=06.11.2003 17:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Prince Charles, eh? I wonder what he definitely wasn't doing, at all. Oh no. date=07.11.2003 10:28 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They could have a series of news stories about things that Prince Charles *definitely* didn't do. "Prince Charles today denied allegations that he gave birth to a fully-grown grizzly bear."

It's a bit crap that they've immediately claimed that the-servant-who-will-not-be-named is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from the Falklands. That's like saying that Charles didn't do it, the servant didn't see it - and besides he's barking mad!

I'm wondering if the servant is *actually* suffering from post-traumatic stress after seeing the unmentionable thing that Charles was doing with that shoggoth and that burning three-lobed eye.

Ia Ia Shub Niggurath, pthangn, &c... (Solicitors) date=07.11.2003 11:03 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The servant was obviously sane enough to have been allowed near members (oo-er) of the Royal Family. I hope they all steer clear of tunnels. date=07.11.2003 11:13 ip=81.136.211.96 name=A Legal Bloke mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Watch it, you lot! date=07.11.2003 11:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, you must be the gentleman from Ia Ia Shub Niggurath, Pthangn, &c (Solicitors). date=07.11.2003 11:26 ip=158.94.131.150 name=A Legal Bloke mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's *Ian* Shub Niggurath. date=07.11.2003 12:05 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not one of the *Berkshire* Shub-Nigguraths, by any chance..?

They have a delightful place near Reading where the Goat and its thousand young can simply run *wild* ...

Ahem. date=07.11.2003 12:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell Martin, *I* was going to make that joke.

And you realise how bad that makes it? Oy! date=07.11.2003 12:25 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Dreadfully sorry, I didn't realise it was your turn!

(Even older joke, I am thinking ... ) date=07.11.2003 12:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reminds me of a bit of dialogue from 'Ripping yarns'"
"The Pathans are coming!"
"Who? Derek and Edna?"

Incidentally, Shub Niggurath is an anamgram of "a Bush thug ring". date=07.11.2003 13:07 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Charles: "The speculation concerning this incident must be brought to an end."

But since *one* hasn't mentioned what this incident is, naturally speculation as to what shouldn't be speculated about runs rife.

What a clown. date=07.11.2003 13:12 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Kinell Martin, *I* was going to make that joke

Don't worry, Zali, you will...

*tries to look Wilde like*

Am pondering putting out my own statement denying that Prince Charles has had anything to do with me, any related baseless suppositions, etc.

It's the patriotic thing to do. date=07.11.2003 14:46 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think any sensible person can give the remotest credence to the rumour about the anaesthetised corgi, the polo mallet, and the tin of golden syrup.

So, um, I'm as much in the dark as anyone else, really ... date=07.11.2003 15:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hold on: so you were in the dark with the corgi, polo mallet, golden syrup &c? No wonder Charlie wants to deny responsibility for whatever it was that never happened! date=07.11.2003 15:27 ip=158.94.131.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: BTW: Une Semaine de Bonte on its way over. Shd be in my hands by Monday. I *was* going to seek out the copy in Charing Cross Borders but I got distracted by guitar shops! date=07.11.2003 15:35 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Charles: "It never happened, I wasn't the one holding the polo mallet, and anyway he asked me to do it; so it wasn't my fault." date=07.11.2003 15:37 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Un S de B: serious stuff! That pangolin has almost as much fun as the zonked-out corgi! (allegedly ...) date=07.11.2003 15:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm tempted to say that when the corgi woke up it was asked how it felt, and said: "Ruff!"

But, hey, enough of the old jokes already ... date=07.11.2003 15:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"It never happened, I wasn't the one holding the polo mallet, and anyway he asked me to do it; so it wasn't my fault."

Indeed! "And what is more: he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder since the Falklands so he is as mad as the proverbial box of frogs so you don't want to listen to him." date=07.11.2003 15:52 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali - Cool! Be interested to see what you make of it. I will have a Borders lurk over the weekend.

I hear HRH has denied all SdeB related accusations, particular the one concerning the dissolving woman, the date stamped sphinx, and the bridge playing tiger with the head of a clam.

The passage beginning 'Oh yes! Oh yes! I certainly never tied a leash around the leather clad lobster's neck, and led it through the bushes of Buck House foraging for weasels...' does show a suspicious amount of detail, imho. date=07.11.2003 15:57 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interested to see that the Beeb's story has been updated. Apparently the allegations are "vile" - which sounds fun - and apparently they've already appeared in an Italian newspaper. Anyone read Italian here? date=07.11.2003 16:00 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come to think of it, games of 'I have never...' at Buck House must be taking on a whole new spice this weekend. date=07.11.2003 16:01 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Well, they said they'd be holding the copy at Charing Cross for three days - so it'll be there until Saturday. It's under the name of "Mr Krishna" if yr interested... date=07.11.2003 16:02 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's all right, calm down. It's time we put this one to rest. We don't know what it is but we know he didn't do it. The thing that he didn't do that we know we don't know, we know he wouldn't ever do, as we have been assured. It is inconceivable. Some things you have to take as an article of faith. We know that it is inconceivable because the headlines make that clear: "Charles Denies 'Incident'" date=07.11.2003 16:08 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Glad you've cleared that one up for us. It's spared me a weekend made sleepless with worry. date=07.11.2003 16:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=UnSdeB is a marvellous work. I don't know how he managed to get things looking so lifelike.

*shoos rooster man away for tenth time*

Royal latest: HRH is denying denying but denies verifying his denial. Denise denies but Denis dies. Vile valet valedictory (see page 5). date=07.11.2003 16:14 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld:

The Unknown

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

or:

Happenings

You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

Between that and MJP I think all is now clear. date=07.11.2003 16:14 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... Then again, Portillo has decided to leave politics because he's keen to explore "public bodies." (BBC Online )

It makes you think, children; it makes you think ... date=07.11.2003 16:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or: we know he wouldn't do what we don't know he's done, if he did it, because if he did do it he wouldn't deny it. He's honest our Charles. date=07.11.2003 16:15 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah well, for those us who aren't busy translating Italian newspapers to find out what it was that Charles just like *so* didn't do (so don't suggest that he might have) there's a total lunar eclipse on Saturday which shd be nice if the weather holds up. date=07.11.2003 16:18 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know what all the fuss is about. Droit de Seigneur still applies doesn't it? date=07.11.2003 16:19 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As the Palace discovered, it's not so much the Droit as finding a woman to whom it applies that's the problem these days ... date=07.11.2003 16:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Would anyone have a link to one of these *treacherous* Italian papers?

*brushes up on Italian*

*readies self for the Tower* date=07.11.2003 16:25 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder how they decide who's going to be the woman? date=07.11.2003 16:25 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I know a bit of Italian. Fellatio. That might help. date=07.11.2003 16:26 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the "Guardian" reported that the paper's "Republica" - I don't have any link (fellationary or otherwise) at present, though. date=07.11.2003 16:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fellatio - isn't that a syrup topped ice cream in a cone? Very popular in Milan.

Always wondered what the word is for one who fellates: fellationist? fellatrix? date=07.11.2003 16:31 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fellatrix, I think. Or valet. Something like that. date=07.11.2003 16:32 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I wonder how they decide who's going to be the woman?

A quick round of 'spin the corgi', no doubt. date=07.11.2003 16:33 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe they just put all the corgis in a hat and...

I can't do it. date=07.11.2003 16:37 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nah, not just valet, Alex - valet girls...

Just had a look on the Repubblica site, but couldn't find anything. Over there, he's Carlos, which sounds considerably loucher. date=07.11.2003 16:38 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: so when they say 'vile' they mean 'grody to the max'? date=07.11.2003 16:40 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn Google translator program is getting me nowhere. Keep getting distracted by interesting translations like "Republic on the cellular one".

For some reason I thought it would be "fellater" - as in "Save it fellater". But I guess "fellatrix" would be right. I wonder if they've used that character in Asterix yet? date=07.11.2003 16:40 ip=158.94.131.150 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Repubblica: I just had a look, and if this is a good example I don't thing we'd be able to understand what they were saying even if we could find any vile allegations:
"The soldatessa captured from iracheni divenne a symbol of the war. Hour accusation the army: "On my vicissitude many lies in order to make propaganda" " date=07.11.2003 16:42 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup - 'That Carlos, he's positively WICKED', etc.

As for Repubblica - am convinced it is in fact divinatory, and if read correctly shows that I am going to meet a cute blonde at a party tomorrow night, but only if I arrive with a lobster. date=07.11.2003 16:45 ip=212.111.58.162 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You've been spending too much time with that Ernst fella, Al! date=07.11.2003 16:50 ip=158.94.131.150 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On mature reflection, now that we have the Repubblica translation.

So, well, we STILL don’t know what he didn’t do; BUT for sure in spite of this we do know he didn't do what we don't know he did do, having never done it, obviously, that is the basic situation.

I think at some stage, for devoted Royal watchers such as ourselves, the question of taking responsibility arises.

Just to clarify again. If we know that he didn't do it and, moreover, if it's clear that, what we don't know he did, which he didn't do, he didn't do, then, the need to ask if he did do it never arises. That is clear in spite of Repubblica’s damnably ambiguous informational content. Some people never call a spade a spade. date=07.11.2003 17:07 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From the beeb:

The problem is not with the reputable sites.

The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published full details of the allegations on Friday.

But the international edition of the paper - the one you can buy in Britain - contained nothing (presumably for legal reasons); nor was the story to be found on the paper's website, which is of course accessible from the UK.

Hmmph!

'Free speech is as nothing without free radio speech'

Night all! date=07.11.2003 17:56 ip=212.111.58.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Off to Shetland on work just now , hurrah! V. unexpected... see you all at the end of the week. I hear that Charles has definitely NOT been up there lately, which is a relief. date=09.11.2003 22:48 ip=62.188.105.141 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Give our love to the ponies!

Meanwhile, BBC Online is carrying a story about an "immersive" virtual world, where the "people" all have neutral expressions in a bid to treat paranoia. Neat idea, but the "people" all look like collaged creatures from Ramsey Campbell's notebooks. Immersion in this would *give* me paranoia, I think: and that's just experiencing it sober on a Monday morning. date=10.11.2003 09:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al,

Une Semaine de Bonte arrived.

What I might do is rework the two that you've already used - but with nicer title text - and then start looking at others to play with. Basically if I sort out the Brixton Alive logo and the boxes they can just be pieced together as and when we need them.

I'll also post this in the Forum in case yr not going to have access to this account.

Enjoy Shetland,
Z. date=10.11.2003 11:12 ip=158.94.176.255 name=Max Ernst mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*ahem* royalties *ahem* date=10.11.2003 11:33 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A typical Ernst collage: a statement between two coughs.

His son was called Jimmy, you know... (today's useless fact) date=10.11.2003 13:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=loplop mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He learned everything from me, I tell you. And do I see a single penny of the royalties? Do I fuck! An old bird like me needs to put a nest egg away against retirement... date=11.11.2003 12:20 ip=158.94.182.104 name=A republican mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Royalties. Don't say that word. date=11.11.2003 13:02 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Woman of 100 Heads mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He could have used some of them to buy me a hat ... date=11.11.2003 13:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Kurt's Rejoinder mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thou drippy animal. Wibble, wibble, sproink. date=11.11.2003 13:29 ip=81.136.211.96 name=W100Heads mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...but he wouldn't listen to a word I said. That elephant from the Celebes got out the spare room and wandered straight into the garden aeroplane traps. Made an awful mess. I wanted to clean up after it, but you couldn't move for Max taking rubbings off the floorboards. "I'll give you frottage, my lad," I said - and that was our marriage all over: one week of happiness and a thousand pictures of deserted towns. Then Salvador came to tea but he couldn't get his moustache through the door - and trying to wash up Gala's furry cup and saucer was just the last straw. Oh, the things I've had to put up with, doctor, you just wouldn't believe it ... date=11.11.2003 13:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Eve Tangy mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well we all had a go at Gala's furry cup. Couldn't get the stains off. Anyway, it was Meret Oppenheim's cup wasn't it? date=11.11.2003 13:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi All -

Am currently sitting in Yell's premier cafe, by the ferry. View from the window different shades of blue and grey, the sun setting tho' it's only five to two. Grass sodden with damp green, sea luminous in the gloom, crests of breaking waves look featherlight against it. Islands breaking on the sky in the distance.

Am off to drink Unst beer this afternoon, then a night of rocking Shetland music! So far have seen everything from olde museum to v. latest cod farming techniques. Amazing place....

Lunch is here, hope all's well down south. Oh, and Shetland's premier bookshop has one copy of Light, which is now looking very obvious! date=11.11.2003 13:58 ip=213.122.185.33 name=Ethel Beuys mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know what you mean, dear. I remember the first time Joe came home with a bag of fat I said to him, I said: "You're not leaving that in the corner." But would he listen to me? Would he twatting heck. He just dumped it there, in the corner, right next to all the felt he brought home weeks ago and didn't do a thing with. I tell you, that dead hare gets more attention than I do. Well, he can Fluxus right off. date=11.11.2003 14:01 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Debby Klein mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fat! You're lucky. Yves makes me cover myself in paint and then, get this, he drags me around on the floor! Makes you want to spit. date=11.11.2003 14:04 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al: glad everything's rocking up there. In your absence, the forum's given way to yet more endemic facetiousness: excerpts from that well-known West End hit, "The Importance of Being Ernst."

Furry cup: an eye-opener from Oppenheim indeed. I'll tell W100H when she's finished polishing the Easter Island statues and has shoo'ed the final pangolin out of the boudoir. Those wretched things get everywhere... date=11.11.2003 14:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=W100Heads mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ethel: I sympathise, I really do. But as I always say: 'Beuys will be Beuys.' date=11.11.2003 14:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"The Importance of Being Ernst."

Featuring classic melodies such as "Hello Dali", "Tanguy In The Night" and "Miro In The Bathroom". date=11.11.2003 14:16 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Hitsville!! Let's write it! date=11.11.2003 14:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="There may be trouble ahead,
But while there's moonlight and music,
And love and romance
Let's stuff a lobster up a priest's bottom."

Possibilities there. date=11.11.2003 14:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*feels very glad to be in Shetland*

Oh, btb - Zali, sounds good on Max front. date=11.11.2003 14:31 ip=81.135.32.171 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="My old man's a Cubist,
He wears Picasso's hat:
When I call him "dada,"
He always frowns at that.
I tried to introduce him
To Dali and Duchamp,
But when I did he flipped his lid
And said, 'The chance meeting between a sewing machine and an umbrella under circumstances of human dissection will never bring us closer to a truly Marxist-Leninist revolution.' "

(I think Outkast say more or less this on their new cd, don't they?) date=11.11.2003 14:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell! Drop an a quick Ernst joke on this board and go away for half a day and when you come back they've not only made a song and dance of it - the fucker's opened on Broadway to huge critical acclaim.

I might change my pseudonym to "Loplop" - I feel like a bit of a Loplop... date=11.11.2003 14:40 ip=158.94.182.104 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Ten curtain calls, a bouquet in a diving helmet for the Woman of a Hundred Heads, and pieces of souvenir decalcomania handed out to all the cast - but without the Superior of the Birds, no real show! date=11.11.2003 16:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blimey. I think I'll go back to France. I can't possibly read all this. Has anyone said anything sensible--or even decodable--since I was away ? date=11.11.2003 17:41 ip=213.78.78.137 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm back from Viriconium.

It's all there. date=11.11.2003 22:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Bientot! How'd it go?

Decodable? Who knows? We were just twiddling thumbs in your absence, writing musicals, constructing a few worlds - usual sorts of things for Bonfire Night and beyond ... date=12.11.2003 09:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*oo-er you chaps, it's the beak*

MJH: Welcome back to blighty. We've just been keeping the board warm for you. date=12.11.2003 10:13 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan, did you twat that fucker who messed you about with the hotel room?

Hi Mike, this is what it looks like all of the time - it just looks incoherent from the outside. This is probably why we don't get a huge number of new recruits.

But for our local contingent: when are we going to do the Empty Space Inchoate Beer evening? I'm good with most weeks except (possibly) that of the 24th November when we're playing Brixton again. I'll probably be *too* manic for words and you really don't want to see me when I'm manic...

*his name was loplop he was a showgirl, la la la-la la-la la* date=12.11.2003 11:25 ip=158.94.182.104 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=ES Beer: after 24 Nov. would suit me, except 10 or 16 Dec. date=12.11.2003 11:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe the 11th Dec? Wednesdays are bad for me... date=12.11.2003 11:50 ip=158.94.182.104 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It doesn't look like I'll be coming down there for a while, now. Chiz. I'll send a cardboard cut out down though. Maybe I'll start a northern splinter group with, er, just me. I might get Nick Royle to join though. date=12.11.2003 11:52 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh don't say it's true! We'll send a squad of bird-headed henchmen to kidnap you and bring you to London for the evening. date=12.11.2003 12:10 ip=158.94.182.104 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So far, anything but Nov 24th, although there might be a Saturday either side of that I can't manage. Alex, you *have* to come! date=12.11.2003 12:19 ip=213.78.94.218 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Thanks, I'd love to. However, I can't get any time off before Christmas (which writes off any weekday or long-weekend type trips) and weekends seem pretty well booked up. But if you don't all fall out and kill each other, do it again in the New Year and I'll thrill you all with my charm. date=12.11.2003 13:12 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We'll hold you to that. date=12.11.2003 15:19 ip=213.78.64.175 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: The only person who got twatted in Amsterdam was me (well, no, not the *only* person, obviously, but... oh, you know). I did consider a quick spot of vandalism with extreme prejudice, but as soon as the Dutch tourist office had sorted me out somewhere that was cheaper, friendlier and in a nicer location, suddenly all my hatred was gone.

The Darkness were slightly more boring than I'd expected, my friend'd band (The Electric Shocks) were awesome, and I fell in love with a rather strange Scottish band called Sluts of Trust (with some rather mindbending loud Caspar Brotzmann-esque guitar).

I'm not sure when I can be in London - I'll be around next Thursday (20th) though I suspect that's a little early, and anyway I've been invited to a party from which I'm unlikely to recover fully this side of next year. Best thing is probably for someone to throw a date at me, to which I will either say "yes", "no" or, most likely, "we'll see on the night".

Alex, I'm up for any Northern thing (I could even bring my bass and pretend to be Peter Blegvad). Although... doesn't the Snake Pass kind of freeze over at about this time of year, and all us Northern types are forced to stay inside eating our offspring until the big yellow orb returns to the sky. date=12.11.2003 18:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of my colleagues got guest tickets to see The Darkness and were *well* impressed. But then again, they're a sad old goth. Is Caspar Brotzmann still about? There was something in an interview with him about a venue billing them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka rather that Massaker. date=12.11.2003 19:58 ip=158.94.182.104 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(Dreamy Homer Simpson voice): Snake Pass... mmm Freeze over... mmm. Once climbed the 20 foot frozen snow walls left after a plough had gone through, with axes & crampons. Well it was something to do. (See waiting for return of big yellow orb.) I keep expecting to hear they've driven a motorway across the Snake (or the Woodhead I suppose, easier) to keep Margaret & Tony's dreams of capital alive. date=12.11.2003 21:42 ip=213.116.54.98 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Snake Pass. Black Hill. Up to knees in peaty water. Drowning. Happy days.

Dan: Okay, yer on. Anyway, that rumour about Snake Pass freezing over was originally started to save Manchester from The Human League and Clock DVA. It worked. date=13.11.2003 08:36 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I always refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka (that's if I get to talk about them at all, which is rare). Anyway, Caspar's dad is musch, musch harder. I don't know why no-one's cast him as a villain in a film yet (*makes note*). Saw Peter Brotzmann live, once, and that man is positively evil on the sax. Never heard anything like it: a universe of pain and violence. He could have Kenny G, easy. date=13.11.2003 08:40 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Thinking back I only seem to refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka in the W-Bar at Harringey Green Lanes. The W-Bar is an old Wimpey franchise bought up by its current proprietors.

There are still signs of the regime ancien: the inside doorhandles are burger-shaped, some of a sign "Home of the Hamburger" remains on the outer wall, the odd give-away white and red liveried crockery.

But over the last couple of decades local additions have been added: a curious eight foot high relief of Roman soldier - Christian Roman soldiers, their standard bears a Chi Rho monogram. Does the figure on horseback who stares out of the scene represent Constantine?

One of the walls is decorated with a chunky futurist relief (the place is *very* three dimensional - absolute hell on drugs) sprayed silver. It used to be sprayed gold...

Oh, and they sometimes do moussaka. So inevitably I will tell my unwary lunch partner (Bridget has heard this *so* many times) about the interview where Brotzmann mentions his (ha, ha) Moussaka.

I haven't been there in ages. I think I might pay them a visit to day and hope moussaka is on the menu. They serve hot choc in cups of an almost rococo daintiness. Wish me luck!

Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker. The final battle between Light and Darkness? date=13.11.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.161.67 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: Thinking back I only seem to refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka in the W-Bar at Harringey Green Lanes. The W-Bar is an old Wimpey franchise bought up by its current proprietors decades ago.

There are still signs of the regime ancien: the inside doorhandles are burger-shaped, a "Home of the Hamburger" sign remains on the outer wall, the give-away white and red liveried crockery.

But over the twenty years local additions have arrived: a curious eight foot high relief of Roman soldier - Christian Roman soldiers, their standard bears a Chi Rho monogram. Does the figure on horseback who stares out of the scene represent Constantine?

One of the walls is decorated with a chunky futurist relief (the place is *very* three dimensional - absolute hell on drugs) sprayed silver. It used to be sprayed gold...

Oh, and they sometimes do moussaka. So inevitably I will tell my unwary lunch partner (Bridget has heard this *so* many times) about the interview where Brotzmann mentions his (ha, ha) Moussaka.

I haven't been there in ages. I think I might pay them a visit to day and hope moussaka is on the menu. They serve hot choc in cups of an almost rococo daintiness. Wish me luck!

Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker. The final battle between Light and Darkness?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.11.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.161.67 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: Thinking back I only seem to refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka in the W-Bar at Harringey Green Lanes. The W-Bar is an old Wimpey franchise bought up by its current proprietors decades ago.

There are still signs of the regime ancien: the inside doorhandles are burger-shaped, a "Home of the Hamburger" sign remains on the outer wall, the give-away white and red liveried crockery.

But over the last twenty years local additions have arrived: a curious eight foot high relief of Roman soldier - Christian Roman soldiers, their standard bears a Chi Rho monogram. Does the figure on horseback who stares out of the scene represent Constantine?

One of the walls is decorated with a chunky futurist relief (the place is *very* three dimensional - absolute hell on drugs) sprayed silver. It used to be sprayed gold...

Oh, and they sometimes do moussaka. So inevitably I will tell my unwary lunch partner (Bridget has heard this *so* many times) about the interview where Brotzmann mentions his (ha, ha) Moussaka.

I haven't been there in ages. I think I might pay them a visit to day and hope moussaka is on the menu. They serve hot choc in cups of an almost rococo daintiness. Wish me luck!

Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker. The final battle between Light and Darkness?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.11.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.161.67 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: Thinking back I only seem to refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka in the W-Bar at Harringey Green Lanes. The W-Bar is an old Wimpey franchise bought up by its current proprietors decades ago.

There are still signs of the regime ancien: the inside doorhandles are burger-shaped, a "Home of the Hamburger" sign remains on the outer wall, the give-away white and red liveried crockery.

But over the last twenty years local additions have arrived: a curious eight foot high relief of Roman soldiers - Christian Roman soldiers, their standard bears a Chi Rho monogram. Does the figure on horseback who stares out of the scene represent Constantine?

One of the walls is decorated with a chunky futurist relief (the place is *very* three dimensional - absolute hell on drugs) sprayed silver. It used to be sprayed gold...

Oh, and they sometimes do moussaka. So inevitably I will tell my unwary lunch partner (Bridget has heard this *so* many times) about the interview where Brotzmann mentions his (ha, ha) Moussaka.

I haven't been there in ages. I think I might pay them a visit to day and hope moussaka is on the menu. They serve hot choc in cups of an almost rococo daintiness. Wish me luck!

Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker. The final battle between Light and Darkness?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.11.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.161.67 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: Thinking back I only seem to refer to them as Caspar Brotzmann's Moussaka in the W-Bar at Harringey Green Lanes. The W-Bar is an old Wimpey franchise bought up by its current proprietors decades ago.

There are still signs of the regime ancien: the inside doorhandles are burger-shaped, a "Home of the Hamburger" sign remains on the outer wall, the give-away white and red liveried crockery.

But over the last twenty years local additions have arrived: a curious eight foot high relief of Roman soldiers - Christian Roman soldiers, their standard bears a Chi Rho monogram. Does the figure on horseback who stares out of the scene represent Constantine?

One of the walls is decorated with a chunky futurist relief (the place is *very* three dimensional - absolute hell on drugs) sprayed silver. It used to be sprayed gold...

Oh, and they sometimes do moussaka. So inevitably I will tell my unwary lunch partner (Bridget has heard this *so* many times) about the interview where Brotzmann mentions his (ha, ha) Moussaka.

I haven't been there in ages. I think I might pay them a visit today and hope moussaka is on the menu. They serve hot choc in cups of an almost rococo daintiness. Wish me luck!

Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker. The final battle between Light and Darkness?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.11.2003 10:15 ip=213.122.161.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Peter Brotzmann vs Evan Parker

Well, they both have very beardy faces. Actually, Parker can rock if he wants to. I saw an amazing performance by Supersession (Parker, Barry Guy, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe) which was probably heavier and more intense than most rock gigs I've been to.

Oh, and please steal me some burger-shaped handles. Ta. date=13.11.2003 10:39 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Inevitably the proprietor, a big balding guy with a dark ponytail, keeps a jealous eye on his dragon's horde. Perhaps if I can distract him with some lurid wallpaper designs while an accomplice unscrews the doorhandles?

But how would we get back out?

Forgot to mention: there is a grimy old mirror in the gents. It'd be just big enough for me to climb through as long as I'm not wearing a large overcoat. I'll have to balance on the wash stand and hope it takes my weight and hope that my nerve doesn't give.

What do you think those doorhandles might be worth on the other side? date=13.11.2003 10:48 ip=213.122.161.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: take Peter Brotzmann with you. That should do the trick. date=13.11.2003 11:05 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What in the anti-world is Viriconium coming to, when you can reach it through a de-commissioned but re-militarized Wimpy in the Finsbury Park area?

That decor sounds scary, reminds me very much of a chipshop in Richmond with 70s orange moulded plastic wall covering. I went in there tripping once (after spending far too long pawing over the "furry photographs" in Wendy's - what a day for fast-food wall decor) and was scared out again by the walls melting in synch with the pus-clotted face of the teenage serving lad.

I once saw Moussaka. At The Garage. Sat in front of the speaker stack all night. So please speak up a bit.

As for Caspar's dad, the high point of my life was due to be when Last Exit played London as part of a Blast First season about 10 years ago. Then Sonny Sharrock went and had a bloody heart attack. Damn. On the plus-side, I found my way online at about the same time, got a very nice email from Pat Metheney's mum after defending his latest album "Zero Tolerance for Silence" on Compuserve's jazz forum (there is a connection somewhere, but I just lost it). My life is still looking for a high point though. Perhaps I should try snow walls in the Pennines.

And whenever I need to clean some evil mud out of my soul... the original Peter Brotzmann Octet's "Machine Gun" from 1968 is just the thing. An automatic gun for fast, continuous firing.

MJH: the big yellow orb has returned. It's here:
http://tinyurl.com/uubg date=13.11.2003 12:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Religious hysteria at Tate Modern!

I feel like Frank Sidebottom here: "It's only a blooming light, you know!" date=13.11.2003 13:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder if the work makes some kind of point about people's general inability to look at the FUCKING WORLD around them with the kind of awe and wonder it deserves.

Dan: "Machine Gun" is fucking smart. Have you ever had the chance to see Hession/Wilkinson/Fell? They do a pretty good stab at the same kind of assaultative free jazz. date=13.11.2003 13:27 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Machine Gun" I've only heard on David Toop's anthology, "Ocean of Sound." Astonishing - even in the midst of Buddhist drip-fountains and the Velvets morphing into bearded seal calls. Never seen B. live, though.

Maybe the devotees at the Tate would like to visit the sheds at Scunthorpe Steel Works: same "grand use of space," darlings, lots of sparks - and it's almost as loud as Brotzmann. Shall I book the charabanc? date=13.11.2003 14:00 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That reminds me: anyone fancy breaking into one of those 'Ghost Ships' at Hartlepool? date=13.11.2003 14:17 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My deah, such an artistic experience in the offing: asbestos poisoning, and then a whole charcouterie of assorted cancers in later life!

I'm not being anti-US here: but can't they dispose of their own rubbish safely on their own land-mass somewhere? I'm desperately sorry for anyone in Hartlepool living near the land-fill site. date=13.11.2003 14:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the main problems with the FUCKING WORLD around us are that (a) it's outside, and damn cold at this time of year (b) there's no mirror in the ceiling of it and (c) there aren't loads of other people lying around on the floor of it, making such activities socially acceptable. Other than that, it's not a bad copy of the Tate installation.

I think I saw Hession/Wilkinson/Fell - have certainly seen all three in other contexts, and I have a CD of theirs ("Foom! Foom!"). I once saw Alan Wilkinson at an LMC gig doing "duelling saxophones" with I think John Grieve and possibly another. It was in the crypt of a church in Bloomsbury. Halfway through an irate man stormed down the steps, thinking he had stumbled across an outing from the local mental hospital: "do you mind? I've got kids trying to sleep in the flats next door, and all I can hear is that fucking awful noise you're making". The ever-so polite LMC crowd didn't know quite how to respond to this, and the gig continued somewhat more restrainedly. date=13.11.2003 14:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Foom! Foom! is great. Now that I think about it, Simon Fell and Alan Wilkinson were playing with Brotzman on the night I saw him. I designed a CD cover for Simon Fell once, too. Nice bloke. Alan Wilkinson is a loon.

Hartlepool: I love it when they say: "and the waste will be buried near to a primary school, a puppy sanctuary and a home for blind orphans" (slight exaggeration there).

Did anyone here the piece on PM last night about the protest by persons of restricted growth about their depiction in the media? The reporter described it as a 'high profile protest'. I didn't laugh. At all. date=13.11.2003 14:40 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sounds like another stilted phrase to me... date=13.11.2003 15:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No moussaka. The place has a new sign: Balcon Latino - Italian Restaurant but there's still a W-Bar signup as well. They still do the normal W-Bar stuff, and retain the W-Bar menus during the day.

The burger bun thing is actually the Push/Pull sign on the door and the bills are still on old Wimpy stationary.

Oh, and I'd forgotten about Zorba the Mastiff - The Biggest Dog in the World just up the road. Good name that. date=13.11.2003 16:33 ip=213.122.150.201 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Opening bid.

Empty Space beer evening: 5.12.03.

Any takers? date=14.11.2003 10:28 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No can do, old bean.

I was talking to Lisa about Empty Space last night, and the beer thing. She said we should open our house up for an Empty Space Northern Weekend Retreat. She's quite mad, of course, but it's not a bad idea for the New Year. date=14.11.2003 10:33 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Is she serious? God!

Well, until after the New Year we'll have to try to struggle on without you. Do you reckon a live video link might be feasible? date=14.11.2003 10:52 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Lisa is always serious about parties.
As for a live video link, well I guess we could rig something up. I believe that if you stick a couple of wires in a brick of kebab meat it will generate enough nivens to accomplish the task. date=14.11.2003 11:11 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes to any of this - it sounds great!

5.12 - when and where? Do you want to post details (so that Alan Garner and any other silent readers can turn up) or shall we put up e-mail icons to keep numbers reasonable? date=14.11.2003 11:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*returns from the North*

Hi All -

Friday 5th fine by me...

How's it been down here? date=14.11.2003 11:27 ip=62.188.110.27 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Al had some ideas about pubs in the British Museum locality - so perhaps we can wait for him to return and suggest a venue. In the meantime, let's see if we can agree a date and then take it from there.

Steph expressed an interest in attending, but is having tech problems with getting on to this board at the moment, so I'll send on suggestions and the like on to her. date=14.11.2003 11:30 ip=158.94.147.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aargh! Speak of the Devil! Hello Al.

BTW: didja get the email about the posters? date=14.11.2003 11:31 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I didj, in fact am looking at them at the moment. I'm very frazzled at the mo, and also want them to sink in a bit, so won't comment till later on. Also want Nick / Barrington to take a look at them.

Steph tech probs? Thought she'd been a bit quiet lately. Hi Steph, if you're reading.

As for neightbourhood pubs - well, there's the Museum Tavern, a bit plonky, the Princess Louise, which is a Samuel Smiths pub and serves excellent bottle beer and a good range of draught stuff and *sigh* bottles of Becks, that one we went to with MJP that I think is a Youngs pub, and is about five minutes walk from round there. Gets a bit crowded of a Friday night, but we should be able to get a table.

There's also the Red Lion in Kingly Street, which has a very good Japanese noodle bar just by it - but if we're doing Japanese properly there's an awesome Japanese restaurant on Thingy Square (can't remember the name) just round the corner, which is very, very good and quite reasonable on price. You can get Japanese beef fondue (shabu shabu) there, which is godlike. I think its ok for vegetarians also - much tempura and stuff like that. And the sushi and sashimi...

Is food an issue come to think of it? Is it a board pub night or a board restaurant night also? Any preferences for types of restaurant? date=14.11.2003 11:46 ip=62.188.110.220 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come to think of it, if we want supper we could book ourselves a box at Sorastros - food nothing special, but amazing venue. Boxes round the wall you can sit in and dine...

http://www.sarastro-restaurant.com

Photos here, down the side of the page:

http://www.sarastro-restaurant.com/indexfr.html

Just round the corner from the Princess Louise... date=14.11.2003 11:52 ip=62.188.110.220 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=British Museum area's fine by me: and any food's fine, providing the portions are good - I'll fit in with anyone else. date=14.11.2003 11:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Princess Louise and Saratros looks like a good option. D'you think they'd be worth booking in advance? date=14.11.2003 12:03 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did you check out the website? Sarastro's an amazing place, like being *in* the Terry Gilliam Baron Munchausen film. We should definitely book it, only way to guarantee a box. So, how many? And what time do we want to eat at? date=14.11.2003 12:05 ip=62.188.110.220 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and does everyone else like the look of Sarastro's? date=14.11.2003 12:06 ip=62.188.110.220 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*reads board and sobs uncontrollably* date=14.11.2003 12:10 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks astonishing to me! If the washroom mirrors here don't lead straight to Viriconium ...

Alex: you could join us by mobile - if only to hear if we're all still talking to one another after 5 minutes ... :) date=14.11.2003 12:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - real shame you can't come down - am sure we can sort sofa space etc if that would help.

Pornographic *art* murals in loos, btb, the Viriconium you'd get through to would be a v. educational (if probably slightly exhausting) version of it. date=14.11.2003 12:25 ip=62.188.110.245 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, hopefully we'll hear from Dan and MJH later and I'll email MJP and Steph this evening when I'm at home.

D'you think Sarastros do a nice greasy doner? date=14.11.2003 12:26 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool, sounds like a plan. date=14.11.2003 12:44 ip=62.188.100.22 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=5th seems cool to me, & I'll go along with anything as long as someone else is doing the organising. I think we should make the arrangements in public. That gives anyone who wants to kill me--and there are one or two at the moment--a fair crack of the whip, also any lurkers can come along and not make themselves known but just hang out quietly at the next table. date=14.11.2003 12:47 ip=213.78.77.250 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: thanks for the thought, but that's one of my weekends for being a parent. If someone gives me a number we can do a telecon (can't believe I've just used that phrase). date=14.11.2003 13:06 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=5th sounds good to me. Would love to come along. Restaurant also a good idea. Not too expensive I hope ie cheapo ideally preferred. Plenty of good restaurants around that area; Spanish; Italian; Greek. Pizza Express. Just drinking or going on diet cokes for an evening is a bit of a marathon. (What is it Al calls diet coke?) date=14.11.2003 13:08 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Ah, I wasn't sure whether you'd catch the plans before we got back into spacefaring kebabs and Max Ernst - The Musical. date=14.11.2003 13:59 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kebabs are *so* last month. I'm more interested in Masala Dosa from the Spiral Nebula (well, the Punjab Sweethouse, more precisely). date=14.11.2003 14:04 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, I caught the plans. Thanks. Back to spacefaring popadums. date=14.11.2003 14:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool: so - meet at Sarastros's? A pub first? date=14.11.2003 14:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=P'raps meet in the Princess Louise for a couple of pints and then go to the restaurant from there? date=14.11.2003 14:43 ip=158.94.141.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Princess Louise, High Holborn is fine by me - anyone else? date=14.11.2003 14:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*sulks* date=14.11.2003 15:01 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh we're sorry Alex. Tell you what: send us a good sized photo so we can print it up and put it on a broomstick or something. We can insist that it gets its own seat and buys rounds and everything! date=14.11.2003 15:12 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... or else we'll nab an empty chair, and you can practice the old astral projection skills. date=14.11.2003 15:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>and buys rounds

What is this "buys rounds" of which you speak? Round things? Like Tunnock's Teacakes? I can send some down... date=14.11.2003 15:50 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blarg... I just popped in to suggest a date, but seem to have been beated to it. I was going to say that I'm in London on 15th December, but it looks like 5th is now the night - not sure whether I'll be able to make it then, I'll probably to have to engineer an "emergency" at work so that I can be forced to come down to London and sort it out. Book me a place anyway, we can always grab a lurker from the next table if we're short of bodies. Oh, and I may well drag my mate Ed along, just to keep things weird.

Just... no talking about books, OK, as I don't want to feel left out. As long as we stick to Kebabs & Ernst (didn't that used to be an accounting company?) I reckon I'll cope alright.

I just remembered... I've been in one of those pubs (Museum Tavern, I think... the one on the corner opposite the museum). Very strange night. By the time I got there I'd already acutely embarassed myself in front of a woman who claimed to be Eddie Izzard's personal assistant, things got worse from thereon.

Empty Space Northern Weekend Retreat sounds damned good too. Would be very happy to do the same here some time, our house is big enough to take a lot of empty space, although I'm not sure whether that will still hold true after the builders have finished what they're doing.

Hmmmm "Pornographic *art* murals in loos" - anyone been to Zoltar the Magnificent's shop, just behind Carnaby Street? Their toilet is entirely covered, walls, ceiling, toilet and, I think, floor, with a lovingly assembled collage of hardcore porn past and present. The garden is incredible too (even more incredible than the mere fact that shops just off Carnaby Street have gardens) - done out in astroturf and camoflage netting, it contains a jungle-hut bar which looks like it was airlifted from 'Nam circa 1970. Not a shop where you'd want to buy anything, but well worth a trip for the sheer Viriconiumness of it all.
www.zoltarthemagnificent.com

PS. "Buys rounds" is a misprint. Should be "Beuys' Rounds" - a series of circular felt sculptures containing fat, blood, earth etc. created by German artist Joseph Beuys. date=14.11.2003 16:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually I was thinking about the people who might try to kill MJH. As in, "My Gahd! Alex has just bought a round of buckshot in the stomach! He'll never eat jhalfrezi again!" The Alex substitute could be made out of kevlar and dressed as an M15 agent...

Dan: hope you can make the 5th. Otherwise we'll have to make two kevlar substitutes. date=14.11.2003 16:30 ip=158.94.147.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, also: personality disorder tests: http://similarminds.com/personalitydisorder.html

Apparent ly I'm Anti-social and Schizotypal with a touch of Compulsive Obsessive. date=14.11.2003 16:34 ip=158.94.147.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oh, also: personality disorder tests: http://similarminds.com/personalitydisorder.html

Apparently I'm Anti-social and Schizotypal with a touch of Compulsive Obsessive.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=14.11.2003 16:34 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you should invite Mr. Angry from Amazon. That should be fun. date=14.11.2003 16:37 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: you're thinking of Ernst & Jung. "We'll make you an offer you can't understand." date=14.11.2003 16:39 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I thought that was the Welsh mafia ..?

Io: I don't think you can go through "similarminds" and come out as anyone who shouldn't be sectioned. I'm apparently a narcissitic paranoid. In other words, I know what they're saying - but at least they're saying it about ME! date=14.11.2003 16:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: You're right. I should have known better than to recycle an old joke. date=14.11.2003 16:53 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I was expecting to be more paranoid. Maybe *they* know and they're hiding the truth from me, eh?

Didn't manage to achieve narcissism. Best I managed on that score was a shade of histrionic. But only around the 50% mark. date=14.11.2003 16:55 ip=158.94.147.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*busily fills in recruitment flamingo for Ernst & Jung post-graduate recruitment scheme* date=16.11.2003 21:39 ip=62.188.105.147 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: no worries - it still gets a laugh. It must have been old when I heard John Cooper Clark tell it years ago, along with "the dyslexic sado-masochist who started shopping at M&S," "the dyslexic blues guitarist who entered into a pact with Santa," and the man who couldn't tell if his wife had AIDS or amnesia. That one's unrepeatable (and too long) for a nice board like this, though.

Io: you bet. I kept glancing in the mirror over the weekend and thinking - "Paranoid narcissist? Me??" They just want to put you on edge ... date=17.11.2003 09:43 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="the dyslexic sado-masochist who started shopping at M&S,"

There is actually a shop around the corner from me called S&M furnishings. I expected to see the window full of leather-and-rubber suites complete with restraining straps but, no, they actually sell second-hand cack for student houses, very much along the lines of "IKAKA - furnishings for the frugal landlord": http://www.cynicalbastards.com/ikaka/ date=17.11.2003 10:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've often pondered the idea of opening a sausage and mash shop: I wanted to call it S&M, but apparently someone in that London has beaten me to it. date=17.11.2003 10:54 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just been looking at the photographs of Witkin. I think I need a lie down now.
http://www.correnticalde.com/witkin/ date=17.11.2003 15:44 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rossetti and Todd Browning visit Dewhurst the Butcher's. A man with a strange whistle, and no mistake. How did you find out about him? date=17.11.2003 16:15 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He's someone I've known about for ages (because of his notoriety for using actual stiffs in his photos). I've never really investigated his work until now, though. date=17.11.2003 16:31 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some leave their flesh to science, some leave theirs to art ... sorry, I seem to be channelling Leonard Cohen all of a sudden (Things to Do on a Rainy Monday: no. 1).

Deeply odd. You wonder what his family has to say about it all. Or maybe the people in the pictures *are* his family. date=17.11.2003 16:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Of course, in another probability it's not Bush who's speaking in London today but another Southerner, William S. Burroughs: "Would anyone have a benzedrine inhaler? I cannot continue without one ... Most kind. Folks, I'm reminded of the Venusian *pimp* who tangled with the Asshole Cartel in downtown Baghdad -"

Separated from us by a few strands of dark matter, but happening at this moment. A shocking thought. date=19.11.2003 15:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Enlivening, too... date=19.11.2003 15:44 ip=213.78.170.2 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, it's not exactly Bush talking, is it?

Back in the real world, anyone catch that story about half a load of out of date cocaine, morphine etc going missing on its way to be disposed of? Anyone heard from Choe lately? date=19.11.2003 15:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Choe Ashton mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was never me, mate. Do you believe me ? I bet you don't believe me, do you ? date=19.11.2003 16:10 ip=213.78.170.2 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nah, couldn't have been you. Only *half* the stuff went walkies anyway. date=19.11.2003 16:37 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Out of date cocaine? It comes with a sell by date, these days? Be on the shelves at M&S next. date=20.11.2003 06:34 ip=62.188.105.248 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: it was pharmaceutical stuff. date=20.11.2003 08:37 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely the only kind?

*ahem*

Oh, btb, today's Empty Space quote, don't know if anybody's put it up before. Pascal, by way of a Clive Barker biography:

'It is the absolute silence of empty space which makes me afraid.' date=20.11.2003 10:10 ip=62.188.110.221 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good one. date=20.11.2003 10:21 ip=213.78.87.98 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sho' nuff, tho' thinking about it absolute silence reasonably rare on here! Has been quite quiet for the last couple of days, though.

There were some other empty space quotes, weren't there? Maybe we should start to collect them and use them as banners on the website or similar. date=20.11.2003 10:25 ip=62.188.110.221 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, anyone going marching today? date=20.11.2003 10:35 ip=62.188.112.184 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="...there may be something that has less energy than nothing..." Henning Genz

Today, I have less energy than nothing. I will march in my chair. date=20.11.2003 10:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*searches web*

L'univers est un cercle dont le centre est partout et la périphérie nulle part

Pascal

Il n'a jamais été très honnête d'assimiler le rien au néant

Bergson

L'homme a-t-il oublié que nous l'avons créé à partir du vide ?

Le Coran

V. roughly, I think these translate as:

'The universe is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose periphery nowhere.'

Pascal

'It's never struck me as being very honest to conflate empty space with nothing.'

Begson

'Has man forgotten that he was created from void?'

The Koran

Hmm - will attempt to bring down system on your behalf, etc. date=20.11.2003 11:33 ip=62.188.100.171 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Everything merges with the night."
Brian Eno

"Form is emptiness, and emptiness form." Zen Master Seun Sahn

"worship the unnameable and embrace the unformed"
Lao Tzu

"Two mirrors facing each other. There is no image in between."
Zen Guy

"Nothing is more real than nothing." Samuel Beckett

"There's a hole in my bucket" Brian Cant date=20.11.2003 11:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bergson's your man there, Al. Fits nicely with John Wheeler. Alex, there's some sort of interesting thought experiment you can do with two moving mirrors and some empty space between them which suggests a kind of ether-drag from virtual particles (ie, there isn't nothing between them). But I forget how it goes. Doh. date=20.11.2003 12:32 ip=213.78.86.222 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hullo all!

Been re-reading some of the stories in Things That Never Happen. Definite clusters of related stories forming: The Gift and The Neon Heart Murders seem to describe a similar locale which finally develops into New Venusberg in Light. In some ways I think I prefer the Ur version of this city because it doesn't close on any specific identification - it's more of a jet-lagged tourist Viriconium. Also been thinking about the latent vampirism in Empty which comes up again in Black Houses (I think?) - I was actually thinking whether it might be possible to re-read several of the novels on this basis. Signs of Life, f'rinstance?

Oh, and while I'm here: Steph emailed to say she shall be attending the Empty Space evening with her bloke Brian. Thought I'd mention that just in case I get crushed under a grand piano before we get around to booking up the restaurant. My current reckoning is seven (MJH, Al, Martin, Dan, Steph, Brian & me.) or six if I get hit by the piano. Although I think I recall Dan saying he might bring a mate.

Anyone else know of anyone else coming? date=20.11.2003 14:55 ip=158.94.120.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyone else know of anyone else coming?

Yes.Not me. date=20.11.2003 16:06 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: We know and we're so awfully sorry it makes us physically ill. The only thing which may cure this illness is seeing yr face at the next Empty Space bash in the new year.

In the meantime: are you suffering from Empty Space Fear? Totally drug-free treatment! Yow!

"What is Empty Space Fear?

Defined as "a persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of voids or empty spaces", each year, this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress.

To add insult to an already distressing condition, most empty space fear therapies take months or years and sometimes even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. We believe that not only is this totally unnecessary, it will often make the condition worse. And it is particularly cruel as empty space fear can be eliminated with the right methods and just 24 hours of commitment by the phobic individual.

Known by a number of names Kenophobia, Fear of Voids, and Fear of Empty Spaces being the most common, the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life. It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones and business associates. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread, although everyone experiences empty space fear in their own way and may have different symptoms.

Though a variety of potent drugs are often prescribed for empty space fear, side effects and/or withdrawal symptoms can be severe. Moreover, drugs do not "cure" empty space fear or any other phobia. At best they temporarily suppress the symptoms through chemical interaction.

The good news is that the modern, fast, drug-free process we use at The Phobia Clinic will train your mind to feel completely different about voids or empty spaces, eliminating the fear so it never haunts you again."

http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_d etail.asp?PhobiaID=1632&SDID=4265 date=20.11.2003 16:33 ip=158.94.128.191 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: We know and we're so awfully sorry it makes us physically ill. The only thing which may cure this illness would be to see yr smiling face at the next Empty Space bash in the new year.

In the meantime: are you suffering from Empty Space Fear? Totally drug-free treatment! Yow!

"What is Empty Space Fear?

Defined as "a persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of voids or empty spaces", each year, this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress.

To add insult to an already distressing condition, most empty space fear therapies take months or years and sometimes even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. We believe that not only is this totally unnecessary, it will often make the condition worse. And it is particularly cruel as empty space fear can be eliminated with the right methods and just 24 hours of commitment by the phobic individual.

Known by a number of names Kenophobia, Fear of Voids, and Fear of Empty Spaces being the most common, the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life. It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones and business associates. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread, although everyone experiences empty space fear in their own way and may have different symptoms.

Though a variety of potent drugs are often prescribed for empty space fear, side effects and/or withdrawal symptoms can be severe. Moreover, drugs do not "cure" empty space fear or any other phobia. At best they temporarily suppress the symptoms through chemical interaction.

The good news is that the modern, fast, drug-free process we use at The Phobia Clinic will train your mind to feel completely different about voids or empty spaces, eliminating the fear so it never haunts you again."

http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?PhobiaID=1632&SDID=4265
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=20.11.2003 16:33 ip=158.94.128.191 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Alex: We know and we're so awfully sorry it makes us physically ill. The only thing which may cure this illness would be to see yr smiling face at the next Empty Space bash in the new year.

In the meantime: are you suffering from Empty Space Fear? Totally drug-free treatment! Yow!

"What is Empty Space Fear?

Defined as "a persistent, abnormal, and irrational fear of voids or empty spaces", each year, this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress.

To add insult to an already distressing condition, most empty space fear therapies take months or years and sometimes even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. We believe that not only is this totally unnecessary, it will often make the condition worse. And it is particularly cruel as empty space fear can be eliminated with the right methods and just 24 hours of commitment by the phobic individual.

Known by a number of names Kenophobia, Fear of Voids, and Fear of Empty Spaces being the most common, the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life. It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones and business associates. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread, although everyone experiences empty space fear in their own way and may have different symptoms.

Though a variety of potent drugs are often prescribed for empty space fear, side effects and/or withdrawal symptoms can be severe. Moreover, drugs do not "cure" empty space fear or any other phobia. At best they temporarily suppress the symptoms through chemical interaction.

The good news is that the modern, fast, drug-free process we use at The Phobia Clinic will train your mind to feel completely different about voids or empty spaces, eliminating the fear so it never haunts you again."

http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?PhobiaID=1632&SDID=4265
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=20.11.2003 16:33 ip=158.94.128.191 name=Brian mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Steph emailed to say she shall be attending the Empty Space evening with her bloke Brian.

Oh the irony. After years of carefully avoiding referring to Steph in any way that would allow people to construe her as subsidiary to me, I end up being referred to as "her bloke" in a public forum...

Steph is outraged by your unenlightened comments and has instructed me to tell you that I am a person in my own right, just like her.

;-) date=20.11.2003 21:50 ip=80.177.155.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, what a faux pas! I did toy with the idea of referring to you as her "chap". Many apologies - you have certainly proved yr autonomy to everyone here! date=20.11.2003 22:40 ip=81.135.50.13 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, may have partner myself, I will check, prob won't be sure until nearer the time.

Yo Brian - I salute your equal person-ness!

Does everyone feel like a Sarastro's meal (set three course menu for £22.50, wine / beer extra) or is just a pub sesh preferred? Will book if there's agreement.

MJH - am reading the Gene Wolfe Books of the New Sun at the mo', much play with mirrors reflecting off each other there to create interstellar transport devices, presumably coming out of that.

Wonderful atmosphere on the march today; immensely sad about Turkish bombings. Still feel proud to have marched against that smug, short sighted, self-satisfied **** of a Bush, tho'. date=20.11.2003 23:14 ip=62.188.105.146 name=Brian mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=iotar: I like "chap" - it somehow sounds more dapper. However, you were right to go for bloke as I don't think anyone has ever had just cause to describe me as dapper.

I was interested in your observations on re-reading some of MJH's earlier shorts as I recently read "Travel Arrangements" and was struck by the early glimpse of the Shrander in "The Horse of Iron". The Ephebe's occult journeys are a quest for knowledge whilst Kearney's become an attempted flight from it - is he the inverse of the Ephebe, the Fool to the Knight of Swords?

Al: Thank you, I feel my identity is quite re-affirmed now ;-) Were you in Trafalgar Square when they toppled the statue?

Alex: Thanks for posting the Witkin link; a beautifully disturbing revelation.

I will now return to my usual lurking. Looking forward to meeting you all! date=21.11.2003 08:47 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Brian:Hi. Glad you found Witkin interesting. I'm now of the opinion that his photos are beautifully crafted expressions of "pee po belly bum drawers". Incidentally, I would have referred to you as Steph's Non-Specific-Mate-Type-Thing and left it at that. I presume you won't arrive together? Not that I will be there to see it, did I mention?
Regarding MJH, I find his stories constantly throw up clues to other stories: it's a cunning plan to keep us reading and re-reading so we haven't time to read anyone else. date=21.11.2003 10:33 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fuck, Alex, don't spread it about... date=21.11.2003 10:54 ip=213.78.172.72 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Brian (if you're out there...): Yes, I'd probably have to be a chap myself. I don't think "guy" or "bloke" are quite right. How about "mec"? Quite getting into the North Kentish term "chav". date=21.11.2003 11:42 ip=158.94.135.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I'm often described as a 'chap'. I'm thinking of wearing tweeds and taking up pipe-smoking. date=21.11.2003 11:44 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Steph's Non-Specific-Mate-Type-Thing

As I understand it the problem here is not "Non-Specific-Mate-Type-Thing" but "Steph's". Brian does not belong to Steph; Steph does not belong to Brian. The search is not for a word like "chap", but for a way of excluding the possessive apostrophe from social grammar and still sounding like a human being.

io (adopts Miss Piggy voice): What is... "mec" ? date=21.11.2003 12:16 ip=213.78.74.250 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I'm quite into the restaurant but I'm prepared to go with the general opinion. I *assume* Bridget's not attending - she doesn't normally put on public appearances. But I'll check just in case.

Alex: Do you hope to become the living embodiment of Bob Dobbs?

And there was something else, but I've forgotten what it was... date=21.11.2003 12:24 ip=158.94.135.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mec: C'est un petit peu comme un "bloke" ou, peut-etre, un "dude"...

Perhaps I shd have said "Steph will be bringing Brian"? But that conjures up this image of Steph dragging along this poor chap who really doesn't want to attend. date=21.11.2003 12:30 ip=158.94.135.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Steph does not belong to Brian

Indeed. But would Brian be coming were it not for Steph's non-specific relationship to him? How about 'Steph's bringing this chap she knows called Brian?'

Io: I wouldn't dream of even approaching Bob-ness. Increase the slack, Jack. date=21.11.2003 13:14 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Update on the 5th - I shall be there, I shall quite likely have my non-specific mate (using the word here to mean "buddy" rather than "lifelong sexual partner") with me (more specifically, my mate Ed). Ed is, however, renowned for agreeing to going out only, at the last minute, to be dragged away to attend some work-related crisis.

And for the restaurant, I very much like the sound of Zoroaster's, or whatever it's called (or Munchausen's, by proxy). date=21.11.2003 14:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool. I wonder if Zarathustra's have an Ahura Mazda and an Angra Manyu section in the menu? In the final conflict at the end of the evening the dualism of light and darkness is resolved and coffee is served... date=21.11.2003 14:40 ip=158.94.135.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had one of them Ahura Mazdas once. Nothing but bloody trouble. Flange went on the M56, pouring rain, nearly went under a truck. date=21.11.2003 14:54 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nnngh! Must... not... make lightbulb joke... date=21.11.2003 15:06 ip=158.94.135.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh! Just been listening to "Singing Bones" by The Handsome Family. They just get better - buy now! date=21.11.2003 15:29 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...and here's something interesting to read. Brian Eno on culture.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/eno/eno_p1.html date=21.11.2003 16:03 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...and this: ‘Eunoia’ is the shortest word in English to contain all five vowels, and the word quite literally means ‘beautiful thinking.’
http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/narrativity/issue_three/bok.ht ml date=21.11.2003 16:05 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can see the link between Eno and Eunoia but where do The Handsome Family fit in? "Handsome" contains the word "Eno" and and "shamd" - whatever that might mean...

It really *is* Friday, isn't it? date=21.11.2003 16:36 ip=158.94.135.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, hold on: we take the remaining "uia" and add them to "shamd" mix it up and we get "Mahasudi" which is the name of a car credit company based in Kuala Lumpar. date=21.11.2003 16:40 ip=158.94.135.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or even: "Ahu Masdi" which is obviously a corruption of "Ahura Mazda"... date=21.11.2003 16:49 ip=158.94.135.185 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, all
Adding to your empty space quotes below:

'we are great empty space...an empty vision in one mind.' - Kerouac

"why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space?" - Dharma Bums


I am on a Jack Kerouac trip atm, 'cause something that MJH said on the TTA board reminded me of Dean Moriaty: "I'd like to be alive enough not to have to write at all."

Still, don't talk about wings; just fly!

Driving music: California Dreaming – Mamas and Papas; Route 66 – Depeche Mode cover
Washing-up music: Tom Lehreh date=21.11.2003 22:08 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Totally cool, Steph. Didn't know you were a Kerouac fan too. date=21.11.2003 22:45 ip=213.78.76.149 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Certainly am! Beat writers are my favourite - often - capricious tastes ;-)

It reminds me of a film I saw in Wales, called 'House of America'. It had an astounding effect on me, probably because it was about people trying to get out of Wales. It had the best soundtrack ever, too. I am not very good at films, but I recommend this one. date=21.11.2003 23:02 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='On the Road' was the book that had the biggest effect, ever. It was a life-changer for me around 16-18. I had my driving test during a 'retreat' that the Catholic school had organised (we had to endure 'retreats', usually in church halls). I passed my test, zoomed back home, took my parent's car and hurtled off to Skipton.

Days later the teacher said to me, 'where did you vanish to? You should have come back to the retreat, to worship God.'

I said: 'I thought I could worship God better by driving around on Skipton moor in the glorious sunlight, then stuck in your gloomy Unity Centre'.

I actually said that. What a burk! Sal Paradise lives. date=21.11.2003 23:31 ip=80.177.155.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: We're total Tom Lehrer fans - We'll All Go Together When We Go is so *totally* Cantacle for Liebowitz! date=21.11.2003 23:44 ip=213.122.117.34 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's The Dharma Bums for me. Top book. date=22.11.2003 10:51 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Masochism Tango ;-)! date=22.11.2003 11:22 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: me too, 17 years old. I read half of it, listening to Bob Dylan's 2nd album, then walked out the house and just hitch-hiked round the Midlands reading the rest in the rain. I didn't get anywhere, but I suppose that was the point. How I reconciled that with an equal passion for T S Eliot, I'll never know. Made me the conflicted old bastard I am today, I guess. (Actually, I admire that you told the nun.) date=22.11.2003 12:31 ip=213.78.83.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah - for me, read it non-stop in a single day while meant to be revising for my A-levels. Mind blowing book, tho' led directly to no hitching.

Did meet Carolyn Cassady once, lovely old lady. Very frail, and very, very sharp. Apparently Neal and Jack were much sweeter than they come across in the book; she saw the whole thing as in part macho fantasising!

'Whither goest thou America, in thy shiny car in the night.'

Still sends shivers down my spine... date=22.11.2003 12:40 ip=62.188.100.154 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Other Beats: Ginsberg. When there was still some possibility Light would be called Hydrogen Jukebox, I was going to use this quote from Song as a header--

be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love date=22.11.2003 13:02 ip=213.78.175.191 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pity the board software wouldn't do the proper layout. date=22.11.2003 13:03 ip=213.78.175.191 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: I used to listen to Tom Lehrer, Flanders and Swann or a tape of T.S.Eliot reading Four Quartets while cooking Sunday dinner. I also have a tape of Eliot reading The Wasteland but his French accent is *so* awful I can't bear to listen to most of it - I think his only bit of French in the Quartets is "entre deux guerres". I shiver with disgust every time I hear it!

But I can't listen to any of them while I'm cooking anymore because I only have a radio in the kitchen. date=22.11.2003 14:54 ip=81.135.62.237 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always thought it a shame that Richard Burton sounded more like Dylan Thomas *should* than Dylan Thomas. date=22.11.2003 15:14 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Selections from Kerouac's 'Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.'

2. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild type written pages, for your own joy

5. Something that you feel will find its own form date=22.11.2003 18:37 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Selections from Kerouac's 'Essentials of Spontaneous Prose.'

2. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild type written pages, for your own joy

5. Something that you feel will find its own form date=22.11.2003 18:37 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...and:

5. Something that you feel will find its own form

I think he would have liked forums.

Must go now (not very well - flu?) Cheers. date=22.11.2003 18:39 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have to admit that, like most good books, I've not read On The Road - but I did listen to an (abridged) audiobook of it while, erm, on the road (hmm... not sure how driving across mid-Wales with the kids in the back measures up in terms of beat experience). I did read, and loved, Dharma Bums though - gave me a craving for American wilderness (I had to make do with a stretch of the New Forest).

I've got that T.S. Eliot tape too. You're right about the French, although it's never bothered me all that much. It's worth suffering the French to hear Eliot's "hurry up please, it's time" - I once made a mix-tape that included that line, echoed by Burroughs saying the same line (from "The Western Lands" I think - the stuff about the old writer who lived in a railway carriage. He reads extracts from it on Material's album "Seven Souls"). Hey... that neatly adds up to a trio of beats! (Or... should three beats more correctly be called a triplet?)

I solved the problem of radio-only kitchens(/bathrooms etc) by buying an FM radio transmitter - http://www.veronica.co.uk/50mw-stereo.htm - so that my computer can pipe MP3s all around the house. I do live in constant fear of being incarcerated by the Home Office though.

Just got back from an awesome weekend in Manchester. 18 courses of mindblowingly other food at Juniper. Unbelievable, indescribable. So I won't try except to say... scallop with fruitcake sauce? Mmmm date=23.11.2003 23:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail=arturo_villarrubia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, again from Spain.

Here is a link to a MJH interview for a spanish webpage ( it is been translated to english ). It also has a small accunt of his visit to Spain.
As MJH said some time back it was brilliant.

http://www.cyberdark.net/portada.php?edi=6&cod =251 date=24.11.2003 00:50 ip=80.58.9.237 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: you were in Manchester and you didn't tell me? *sulks* Juniper, I believe, is excellent - I've never managed to get in the place, but it's top of the list. Anyway, that's not Manchester. date=24.11.2003 09:46 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Let's not mention Arturo's typo, eh? date=24.11.2003 09:48 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: When I'm feeling particularly antisocial the lack of tape deck in the kitchen isn't a problem: I just turn the big stereo in the studio up a bit. But then again, if I'm in the mood to do that I'm not so likely to be listening to T.S.Eliot or Flanders & Swann.

We had great fun, the neighbours and me. They decided to do some DIY upstairs on a day that I was laid up in bed with a bad back. I resented their intrusion on my rest cure and tested out the lower reaches of bass. The most effective pieces for travelling through the ceiling were a couple of tracks by Takako Minekawa and Yukari Fresh - surprising how bassy cute Japanese pop music can be - and Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo. Again, you wouldn't expect indie kids to be able to roll out those deep subsonics, but they did us proud.

Did my back a world of good too!

Alex: Behave! I simply cannot accunt for yr attitude...

Totally unrelated to anything: Isn't brinjal pickle great! When I'm faced with hundred of pickles to buy and limited resources I'll normally buy garlic pickle, or lime pickle, and totally neglect brinjal. Fucking amazing stuff - hugely underrated. date=24.11.2003 10:10 ip=158.94.188.111 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also: Mike, shall we link to the Cyberdark interview? Archive and News page? date=24.11.2003 10:12 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Brinjal pickle is good, but it's a little heavy on the aubergine (a vegetable that I can't get used to). Lime is the daddy. I like that tamarindy sauce you sometimes get - any idea how to make that stuff? date=24.11.2003 10:19 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: You are *so* wrong. The aubergine is not only beautiful to behold, it also tastes damn good. Having said that, brinjal pickle doesn't actually taste very auberginey - it's just a base for this awesome combination of sweet and piquant.

My previous pickle choice was garlic and lime. Unusual sort of citrus kick. A bit like that dried salted lemon stuff you sometimes find in Chinese shops. date=24.11.2003 10:28 ip=158.94.188.111 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and tamarindy sauce: no idea but my Burmese grandmother would know. She always knows that sort of stuff. date=24.11.2003 10:29 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Aubergines don't taste of anything, that's why they are wrong. The texture is funny, too.
Now if we're talking preserved lemons... there's a beast for you.
Oh.. as I type, someone has just handed me a 1980 Sphere paperback of A Storm Of Wings. It's not even been read. Tacky Achilleos cover, too! date=24.11.2003 10:33 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, the famous wasp-fucker cover! date=24.11.2003 10:44 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Alex

English is my second language and I don not employ it that often. date=24.11.2003 10:58 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's tasteful all right. date=24.11.2003 10:59 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. No offence meant. My Spanish is nowhere near as good as your English. date=24.11.2003 11:01 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ups ! Another one. Anyhow, for some reason I can´t understand when I write anything in the net I don´t usually check the spelling or grammar even in spanish. date=24.11.2003 11:02 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thank you very much, Alex.
I belive that the usual for you brits is french. date=24.11.2003 11:03 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=De nada. Yes, we usually get taught French as a second language. I don't know why. Spanish is much more pleasing. date=24.11.2003 11:08 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: And even then the French never understand a word we say. I've only managed to make myself understood in Paris when I've been very drunk - perhaps it's impossible to speak French while sober.

I think Alex was just impressed with the potential for obscenity in yr typo - the dirty boy! date=24.11.2003 11:37 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the potential for obscenity

Huh? What do you mean? date=24.11.2003 11:48 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, maybe I'm the one with the filthy mind. date=24.11.2003 11:55 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I guess so.

Anyway, today's intriguing link is:
http://www.lileks.com/institute/dayalets/index.html

Cower in horror at the men of meat! date=24.11.2003 12:11 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

Just popping in and out. Popped into Sarastro's on Saturday, because it's December they can't guarantee we'll get a box even if we do book, and they're only doing their Christmas set menu at about £30, excl drinks, tips, etc, so price going up too.

Maybe just do the pub sesh? Save night of louche Sarastro's decadence till New Year, when Alex can come down and all is a bit less hectic in there... Unsure if food's available in pub if anyone wants it, can check or we could hit a more foody pub. date=24.11.2003 12:20 ip=62.188.110.111 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, it's looking a bit less appealing, isn't it? I guess it depends whether we're set on eating. Is this an eating or a drinking sort of event?

Or both? date=24.11.2003 13:26 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: yes, Manchester without you, sorry. I was just checking that the Snake Pass was open. Nah, actually it was a kind of romantic weekend, or at least a kid-less weekend, so I don't know how you would have fitted in.

Juniper is, indeed, not quite Manchester (although it is on the Metro), it's Altrincham which is just down the road from where my granny used to live (Bowden). But our hotel was very definitely in Manchester (corner of Princess St and Whitworth St). Anyway, Juniper is, as you say, excellent - it should be at the top of everybody's list. It's not cheap, but when it comes to food I'm willing to mortgage my life for the best. It's also probably the only Michelin-starred restaurant in the world to make regular use of ingredients like Branston Pickle, HP Fruity Sauce and Vegemite.

Io: Cute Japanese pop music - you heard any Plus Tech Squeezebox? Wonderful stuff, J-pop in a 60s Parisienne stylee.

Lime pickle: brrrr... OK, in *very* small quantities only. And not the garlic & lime, that's deadly. Brinjal pickle's the one for me. In fact, anything aubergine's gonna be pretty cool, unless it's ratatouille.

I made some kind of tamarind sauce once, it's a nightmare. From what I remember, first you put the tamarind seeds in boiling water and leave for about a day, then you spend about three hours mashing the seeds through a sieve, and sandpapering your fingers in the process. Then you get on to the *real* work. If I were you, I'd stick to buying it ready made.

Languages: I have none. I'm the opposite of Eliot, I have a wonderful French accent, but barely speak a word of the language. Ed (who you may meet on 5th) married a French girl, and as best man I had to give a speech. I asked the bride to translate part of it for me thirty minutes before the reception. Read it out, trying to sound as French as I could. All afternoon I had French people congratulating me on my marvellous French public speaking voice "much better than all the French people who gave speeches". And they say the French are arrogant?

My Spanish is no better, but I had a larf when our multilingual Swiss friends told us about their visit to Spain. It's one of the few languages they *don't* speak, but they managed to get by mostly using their Italian. Until they went into a shop and asked for "burro". The Spanish found it hard to understand why they would want to spread a donkey on their bread.

Alex: lileks.com is awesome - have you ever seen "The Gobbler"? http://www.lileks.com/institute/motel/ - their shagpile walls manage to out-Austin Powers Austing Powers. And check out the dining/dancing area! date=24.11.2003 14:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, you see - I knew I was right about brinjal pickle! But then, a lot of people are a bit funny about aubs.

Plus-Tech Squeeze Box: look fun from what I can gather from Google. Might have to check them out.

Any thoughts on dining on the 5th? Other than that you are willing to mortgage yr life for good food? date=24.11.2003 14:17 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, my life is already mortgaged, makes re-mortgaging a little tricky. Thoughts... I have none, but happy to go with most flows. date=24.11.2003 14:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Did you bring any records on this vacation? No? Too bad. It's fun to take records on vacation, put them on the table, then get down on the floor and look up at the records through the table. Seeing things through a table is just so modern."

Perhaps we shd just go to the rotating bar at The Gobbler? date=24.11.2003 14:26 ip=158.94.188.111 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Child free weekends are sacred. I understand perfectly.
As for The Gobbler... we must go at once. Incidentally, did anyone hear that story on Today about playing music to turkeys? I nearly drove off the motorway when they played the new age music and the turkeys started freaking out. date=24.11.2003 14:43 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dunno about playing music to turkeys, but when I was at university, one of my housemates, a zoology student, did his final year study on painting the insides of lorries different colours, to find out which was least disturbing/most soothing to chickens being transported in said lorry. date=24.11.2003 15:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar : same thing for spanish people but I do belive parisian have an special accent o something.
Alex: I didn´t get it either. date=24.11.2003 16:54 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back from witnessing Bob Dylan in Sheffield last week - breath-taking, even if most of the lardy audience sat on their hands. What did they want - blood?

5th: I'm easy if it's just a drink, or if we hit the pickles. Just fit me in.

Languages: James Murray, editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, spoke or wrote between 30 or 40 [sic]. I think it was he who said that the first ten were the hardest. I'm not quite an Alan Partridge embarrassment when confronted with French, but very close to it, I'm afraid : "Oui ... oui ..." I always thought if I ever got serious money that I'd track down that expert in America who has some secret method of teaching you any foreign tongue in a week, for about $15,000. If I remember right, it's some hypnotic trick that he taught himself when in the hands of the Gestapo: he didn't say any more. I certainly wouldn't ask. date=24.11.2003 17:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Oh, I'm sure Londoners are the same to Parisians, or anyone else for that matter.

Martin: Yes, but *which* pickles? You can't sit on the fence of the brinjal issue. My French comes back to me after I've been over there for about a week and I get this strange parallel monologue running in my head that I can't understand properly. And then when I get back to Blighty I have this terrible difficulty understanding English.

Or maybe that's what I'm like all of the time and it takes a foreign excursion for me to realise it? date=24.11.2003 18:17 ip=213.122.182.161 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Arturo: Oh, I'm sure Londoners as bad as Parisians, or anyone else for that matter.

Martin: Yes, but *which* pickles? You can't sit on the fence of the brinjal issue. My French comes back to me after I've been over there for about a week and I get this strange parallel monologue running in my head that I can't understand properly. And then when I get back to Blighty I have this terrible difficulty understanding English.

Or maybe that's what I'm like all of the time and it takes a foreign excursion for me to realise it?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=24.11.2003 18:17 ip=213.122.182.161 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: brinjal, lime, mint yoghurt - love 'em all! But I lived in Leicester for a long time, and got to know some curry houses where the food just floated over your tongue on a magic carpet, so I'm spoiled.

Also learnt the great remedy if you bite into anything that's so hot you can't breathe. Forget the lager, forget the water, and eat sugar. Never fails. date=24.11.2003 19:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: you were in Manchester and you didn't tell me? *sulks*

;-)

Hot foods: hadn't heard of sugar as a remedy, will have to give that a try, I know yoghurt and other milky things usually help. Mind you, when I was first in India, at one of the many feasts we attended we were given minced red chilli as one dish and minced green chilli with garlic as another (hotter). The Indians dared us to eat them, foolish thing to do in the company of Englishmen, so of course I ate copious quantities of each. And survived, just. On the plus side, I no longer have a problem with food being too hot, on the minus side, my bowels have never been the same since. date=24.11.2003 22:56 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops. Oops. Sheffield.

The perils of copy + paste. date=24.11.2003 22:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of things what make chillis not as hot, I realised the other day that sweet lassi tastes exactly the same as Yakult. date=25.11.2003 09:12 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Sheffield it was - but I have a very good friend in Manchester (she used to live in Tib St., where Lucas's familiar finally shows its face in CoTH), and no doubt I'll be across next year if you fancy a drink - or a few pickles. date=25.11.2003 09:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The Indians dared us to eat them, foolish thing to do in the company of Englishmen

Yes, I did something similar to some friends once. I was making them some tea or something and found a couple of chillis in the kitchen - idily asked them if they wanted one. I didn't actually expect them to actually eat them. They drank all the rest of my milk after that.

Never come across the sugar thing before. Top tip for when yr friends drink all the milk. date=25.11.2003 10:35 ip=213.122.73.118 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hot foods: if you like that and you are in Spain try "pimientos del padron" . They are small peppers and they have been known to make grown men run screaming for a cup of water to quench the taste. date=25.11.2003 10:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>grown men run screaming for a cup of water to quench the taste.

Maybe they should try sugar rather than water? date=25.11.2003 10:47 ip=213.122.73.118 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A chemist called Scoville developed a scale to meaure the strength of chillis. He used a dilution method, adding sugar water to capsicum oil untilthe burn could no longer be detected. Mild chillis could take around 1000 units before the burn disappeared, but the red habanero chilli had a rating of 50,000 Scoville Units. That's a hot one.
Incidentally, any good remedies for forgetting to wash your hands after cutting chillies and then going for a piss? date=25.11.2003 11:05 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=iotar: Tip taken.Sugar is my drug of choice. date=25.11.2003 11:17 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: If you survived that, remedies are irrelevant. I winced simply reading it! date=25.11.2003 12:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Survive it? I looooooved it. date=25.11.2003 12:39 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, I'm fascinated by your American and his "hypnotic trick". He sounds dubious in the extreme, but I could have done with his services in Spain, to which Arturo will attest... date=25.11.2003 13:08 ip=213.78.74.22 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm not convinced by hypnotism, except in chickens. date=25.11.2003 14:13 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I wish I could remember his name. He featured in a tv programme a few years ago, when the BBC took some school students who were hopeless at languages and put them through his course, without showing what it involved. They ended up speaking (and understanding) conversational French in 5 days. I think he's used by a lot of politicians and public figures, too - including Dylan, who got French off him (it sounds like a virus - or a meme) to accept an award in Paris back in the '80s. I don't know any more, though. date=25.11.2003 14:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read TV reporter John Sergeant's autobiography a while ago - his dad (a disenchanted vicar who taught at Millfield school) spoke some unfeasible number of languages. His trick was to take in lodgers for six months at a time, and only speak to them in their own language. Must've worked well because he was called upon by the royal family to write a welcoming speech for... I think it was the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Io: "found a couple of chillis in the kitchen - idily asked them if they wanted one" - you mean you have talking rice pancakes? date=26.11.2003 09:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apologies for the double post - but this is too much fun to miss. Hey, folks, didja never realise that "Water is not self-conscious. However the mission of water is to act as a multi-dimensional transporter"? Who'da thunk it? But your very words and thoughts can affect the chemical structure of this everday substance!

Check out http://www.hado.net for the full "bare faced water" experience (if not bare faced nonsense). Purifiers and water photon energizers are also available for order, if you're looking for that awkward Xmas gift. Then you can say you've truly been Hadoed ... date=26.11.2003 09:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Seems to be lots of MJH action on ebay at the moment. Centauri Device, Climbers, Light, Travel Arrangements... all first editions on there at the moment. date=26.11.2003 11:41 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mr. Angry from Amazon is obviously having a clear-out! date=26.11.2003 12:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>you mean you have talking rice pancakes?

You don't? date=26.11.2003 13:27 ip=213.122.204.73 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Mr. Angry from Amazon

Which one ? date=26.11.2003 13:34 ip=213.78.64.149 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Mr. Angry ...

There's *more* than one? Oh, god. I haven't been on Amazon in a while, I'm afraid, but I meant the bloke who railed against "Light" and then admitted he hadn't the faintest idea what the book was about.

I'd no idea he had company: sorry. date=26.11.2003 13:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No need to apologise, Martin. I was just practising "wry", or maybe "rueful". I suppose I should have put a little face next to it, but I just can't bring myself to use them. It's my loss, I know.

There's a great thread on some user-group in which someone who appears to be Robert Jordan himself has a go at Light on the grounds that in it I claim passive resistance could have won WWII. I not only couldn't figure out what insane misreading of Light he had managed, it being such a violent book & all; I also couldn't work out what other contemporary sf novel he might have got it mixed up with. The effect was extraordinary, anyway. Is he old or something ? Of course, it might not have been Robert Jordan. It might have been Jordan, because that was how he signed himself. date=26.11.2003 13:58 ip=213.78.77.75 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Languages: Mike, you did quite well even without the spanish . You made a lot of friends. On the other hand ...

patxaran : My sister, whose name is Luz ( spanish for ligth) has been living in London for some years now and She tells me that you can get it at:

http://www.foodfirst.co.uk/ret09674.htm date=26.11.2003 14:29 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>There's *more* than one?

I'm afraid so. I can't understand what motivates people to go to the trouble of slagging anything off on Amazon. I can only assume that the book has touched some dirty, secret little part of them and they are filled with self loathing. date=26.11.2003 14:32 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's also a very good Spanish deli on Exmouth Market, near Clerkenwell:
http://www.exmouth-market.com/brindisa/

Dan (who has slagged off a book on Amazon - but only because I had to review it elsewhere, and thought that while I was at it, I might as well warn as many other people off buying it as possible: http://tinyurl.com/wn4i ). date=26.11.2003 14:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex--

>>I can only assume that the book has touched some dirty, secret little part of them and they are filled with self loathing.

Whoa, I really hope so!

Arturo: well, thank you. I'm glad. I felt very welcome indeed. Thank your sister for the recommendation. I can't imagine being called Light. What a responsibility!

Dan: that will be near Moro, then ? You can eat some class Spanish food then take some more home with you... date=26.11.2003 15:31 ip=213.78.83.84 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Perhaps there's a dirty secret little Sprake in us all - or maybe we should practise passive resistance to [Robert] Jordan.

Not sure how he reached his conclusion, either. A serial murderer, Seria taking out anything in her path, and Ms. Kray minus half her head - it's hardly Ghandi and Dr. King, is it? 'Ee, lad, 'e's daft as brush! date=26.11.2003 16:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: not sure where Moro is, but there is at least one Spanish restaurant nearby on Exmouth Market. Also Strada, which is part of a chain (why, wouldn't you know it, there's one in Barnes too) which serves excellent pizza and also the best bread & butter pudding in the world, made with panettone.

I only stumbled on Exmouth Market recently, on one of my ambles across town, I think it must be officially the last undiscovered part of London, it's been lurking, Egnaro-like, just out of my view for all these years. The light there, it's... as if it came from a colour supplement. date=26.11.2003 19:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan. It's Moro, for sure. I've had a good lunch or two there. Great food but can get insanely noisy in the evening. I never ate the Strada bread & butter pudding but I will now. date=26.11.2003 19:17 ip=213.78.78.97 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I make bread and butter pudding with pannetone. It's really the only way. date=26.11.2003 20:35 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The 5th!

I assume that Sarastro's is off - unless anyone has any strong feelings to the contrary. So, how about the pub in Kingly Street and the Japanese restaurant that Al suggested?

How about that?

Also: got an email from Steph saying she probably won't make it because she's still recovering from 'flu. date=27.11.2003 11:25 ip=158.94.155.171 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd be less keen on Japanese than Some Other Cuisines. But I'll go along with whatever the team decides. date=27.11.2003 12:16 ip=213.78.69.74 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I am sure that Other good restaurants there will also take our custom, if that is the choice of pub. date=27.11.2003 13:22 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, shall we just play it by ear? Plenty of good restaurants round the Kingly Street area (Pizza Express, a couple of Korean places, a French place, the Japanese noodle bar, plus your standard Soho Italian / French / whatever), and the Red Lyon itself does bar food, and sit down meals upstairs - so I'm sure they can look after us also.

So, sounds good to me. Oh, and there's a little front room bit in the Red Lyon, with an open fire etc - insanely snug! Fingers crossed, we should be able to bag it. date=27.11.2003 15:27 ip=62.188.108.81 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Steph - Get Well Soon! date=27.11.2003 15:27 ip=62.188.108.81 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact, you can see that side of the road here:
http://www.streetsensation.co.uk/carnaby/ks_east.htm date=27.11.2003 16:14 ip=158.94.155.171 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK - Red Lion, Kingly St. 5 Dec. - what time? date=27.11.2003 16:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=7? date=27.11.2003 16:19 ip=158.94.155.171 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fine by me - it'll be great to meet you all! date=27.11.2003 16:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Marvellous! Should be a great night. Will we be able to speak face to face? I think we should bring a couple of laptops to communicate on in case reality is overwhelming. date=27.11.2003 18:00 ip=62.188.105.181 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, look what's two doors down, home of the best panettone bread'n'butter pud. There's a thought.

I shall be the one standing in the corner wearing the stripped and varnished horse's skull.

At this time of year, it might be wise for somebody(/ies) to arrive before 7 if you want to bag the fireplace. I'm happy to sit in there all afternoon normalising my alcohol levels, but it looks like I'm going to be spending the day casing McDonalds in Brentford for disaffected young people (seriously). date=27.11.2003 18:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - thus making consequent getting out of your skull a truly literal proposition.

Happy to get there a bit early, if it's a quiet Friday workwise... date=27.11.2003 22:59 ip=62.188.112.93 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have this Miller-ish vision of several people wearing sheets and stripped horse-skulls, positioned in awkward poses in the corners of a Central London pub; then, later, communicating by laptop from separate tables in a chain restaurant. It can't work, you know. (Shakes head tiredly & goes off muttering.) date=27.11.2003 23:12 ip=213.78.91.213 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alternative venue. (Since actually we haven't given ourselves many alternatives.)

How about the pub - is it the Hope and Anchor? - just along the river from Shakespeare's Globe theatre. They do good barfood there; also, its big, if busy. It's a nice place, lots of rooms, different atmospheres.

No need to book. date=28.11.2003 08:39 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: personally, I'm happy with the Red Lion, as I'm coming in from out of town and can find it
( rather than a place that's "near" the Globe - but maybe we can go on to there? )

I've no horse's head, sadly - perhaps we should each be carrying a blank piece of paper to signify "empty space" - or else just look out for MJH muttering over his laptop. Anyway, I'm sure it'll all work out. date=28.11.2003 09:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Short walk from London Bridge, or across the Millenium Bridge from St Pauls. You can't miss it. Bit far from the Red Lion. The reason I mention it is that you have an all in one solution, pleasant surroundings, a picturesque location. Just a thought. date=28.11.2003 10:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm in favour of the Red Lion, too. date=28.11.2003 10:44 ip=213.78.70.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the Red Lion might win simply because it's down the road from a place which sells panettone bread pudding. Haven't tried this but I did have a bit of a bread pudding thing when I was at college.

On the other hand, I had a thing about Diet Coke and Ozric Tentacles when I was at college so that's not necessarily a good thing.

I'm afraid I didn't think about this early enough - otherwise I would have made a start on bleaching the horses skull so I'll just be turning up with the beard. No laptop either - I lost my scarf in Brixton the other night and that only costs a couple of quid to replace, assuming I can get the same one from that stall in Walthamstow Market...

Anyway, shd be a fab evening. I have a *rough* idea what every else looks like - Mike's actually this six foot guy, clean shaven with a blonde flat-top. But what does Martin look like?

Can we have a brief textual sketch please, Martin? date=28.11.2003 10:54 ip=158.94.162.61 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ok, oh well, I suppose to the harsh faceless stone canyons of Regent Street we go. Nice pub. Just around the corner from where I work in fact. There is an office warming party upstairs from me, so I intend to get a bit primed beforehand. date=28.11.2003 10:56 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I'll be the paranoid narcissist near the pub mirror. In case of doubt, though, look out for the thin 6'5" bloke with the quizzical smile that says : "My god, is that *them*..?" date=28.11.2003 11:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*looks in*

*exits quietly before anyone notices* date=28.11.2003 11:50 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: "I had a thing about Diet Coke and Ozric Tentacles when I was at college" - funny, with me it was hot chocolate and Ozric Tentacles. Oh the stories we could tell. I heard that Roly died recently. Sad, though not entirely unexpected. First time I met him he was handing out free acid from a polythene sandwich bag that doubled up as his wallet. date=28.11.2003 12:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Urgh! Bet that turned out ugly. When they describe LSD as "odorless, colourless and tasteless" they're not wrong about the tasteless bit. date=28.11.2003 14:02 ip=158.94.162.92 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're from Weybridge area, aren't they? I always thought that this undercut their crusty credentials a bit. Saw them live in a tent at Glastonbury about 3am once. Ee them were the days etc. Eat Static pretty funky also.

Zali - wouldn't worry about the bleaching, I think the hanging off rotting meat will add a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to the whole thing. date=28.11.2003 16:02 ip=62.188.112.192 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ozrics are from Kingston I think, just down the road from where I grew up (Teddington).

I used to know a guy who squatted in Weybridge. Sounded like a really tough life, from what he told me. Every time he stepped out of his front door he'd get beaten up by locals fresh from the pub. date=28.11.2003 17:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm a big fan of Amazon's surreal recommendations service. I see that their US site takes things even further than in the UK. I was just checking out Light, as I was telling a friend about it, and I see:

Customers interested in Light (Gollancz S.F.) may also be interested in:
Lighting
Wide range of home furnishings at LXDirect.com - Great prices!

I suppose at least it'll give you something to read by. date=28.11.2003 17:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Teddington? Used to go to Teddington Pool a lot. I grew up in Hampton / Walton, Kingston was the great local shopping centre. Spent much time lurking in Games Unlimited. V. gothic manager, as I remember. At one point I convinced myself he was a transvestite, I can't remember how.

Hmm - have never been threatened in Weybridge myself. Tended not to go out there too much, tho'. date=28.11.2003 17:34 ip=62.188.112.214 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Saw them live in a tent at Glastonbury about 3am once.

Ozric Tentacles were there last year in a perfect venue. I don't know anything about them, though. The lighting was incredible. (especially since I drank Salvia and saw it all the following night.)

Hi all. I am trying to recuperate for Friday next. date=28.11.2003 20:47 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, I was probably hanging out next to you without either of us even realising it. I too spent most of my childhood in Games Unlimited. The manager always reminded me of Zaphod Beeblebrox from the TV version of Hitchhiker's Guide. (Minus one head and an eyepatch, of course).

Learnt one of life's many lessons there, aged about 14. My friend was busted outside at closing time for shoplifting - I've never struggled so fast to unlock my bike as I did then, apparently the manager came out for me next, just too late - fortunately for me, as I had about four books stuffed down my coat. Never tried that again. Remember kids, crime doesn't pay.

Spent a lot of time in Teddington Pool as well, training for the Olympics, that sort of thing. Well, local swimming gala at least (I was reserve - and discovered that there is nothing more dehydrating than sitting for two hours next to a swimming pool, trunks on, and not being allowed to get in). date=29.11.2003 13:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Salvia? Do tell. date=30.11.2003 11:59 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - wow, small world as they say. Used to go to Hampton Pool a lot once that had opened up, we lived about five minutes walk from it. I did the Friday night swimming sessions at Teddington pool, which used to piss me off as I'd miss the A Team and have nothing to talk about in school on Monday morning! A lot of time at Richmond Pool as well - especially when they opened up the waterslides.

Hmm - truly, crime does not pay tho' suspect padlocking your getaway vehicle a sign that it's not your vocation! Can't imagine young Ray Liotta (or whoever plays him) building street cred at start of Goodfellas w/ a trip to the local gamestore -

'Whaddyamean ya got the Basic edition? We wanned de ADVANCED books...'

*clips young Liotta round earhole*

'Boss, we lost the D20 and Don Corleone's comin' over to play through da Greyhawk campaign'

Nope, not working for me... Tho' Games Unlimited did set me up with Warrior Knights, truly the perfect boardgame.

Steph - ach, it's the gigs that only happen in your brain that are the best. Had awesome bucolic visions to The Orb there one year, realised that they're really all about pottering on a village green on a perfect English Sunday afternoon. Was then dragged off to watch Dracula by friends and spent many hours (it seemed) being fascinated by the quality of the tailoring on everyones clothes... date=01.12.2003 09:04 ip=62.188.100.143 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shit - Dan! DAN! Not Alex!

Sorry, Alex, Dan...

*clips self round earhole* date=01.12.2003 09:05 ip=62.188.100.143 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: My parents are on the board at Hampton Pool. I go there quite a bit, although I think I'd already moved out of the area when it re-opened. I do remember going there many *many* years ago, before it closed the first time around, in fact I remember trying to learn to swim there (after a Near Death Experience in the Wey Navigation).

I do go to Hampton Pool every Christmas Day morning that I spend with my parents - I remember the first time they ever opened on Christmas Day it was incredible - so many people wandering around dazed, completely phased by this break from the normal routine. Nowadays Hampton Pool seems like part of the normal routine.

As well as Games Unlimited, on *special* weekends there was always the bus trip to Games Workshop in Hammersmith, in the days when Games Workshop was a decent shop and not a faceless money-making empire. The guy who used to run it was a great bloke, a large Canadian called Tim I think, he would sometimes give you a freebie with your purchase if he liked you. I remember him getting very despondent when he realised somebody had been shoplifting from him "we're not fucking WH Smith's". Ironic then that nowadays Games Workshop *is* WH Smith's, only with laser rifles. date=01.12.2003 09:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Erm, that's "members' committee", not "diving board" date=01.12.2003 09:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My dad used to be on the board for that, I think, tho' that would have been way back in the 80s. Stopped going there so much when we moved to Walton, it's a bit of a trek from there. Major haunt up until about '85 or thereabouts.

Never made it up to Games Workshop Hammersmith; it was always this kind of holy grail place. I was in there fairly recently, actually, needed to get a standard six sided dice. V. strange place. V. scary people in there. Shame GW went the way it did - and as for what happened to White Dwarf... date=01.12.2003 10:09 ip=62.188.100.16 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Used to live in Ormond Avenue, btb. Bizarrely, when I went off to university, pretty much the first person I met was called Alistair (I'm Alastair), lived in our old house there (tho' he slept in what had been my parents' bedroom), and we looked so alike people used to think we were brothers. V. strange. date=01.12.2003 10:11 ip=62.188.100.16 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I only saw The Orb when it was too late. They'd be bigged-up in all the music press and the venue (can't remember where) was really packed.

Steph: With the salvia thing did you *invent* a whole Ozrics gig? I did that once after seeing them at The Rocket. I was staying up in London with my dad. Afterwards I couldn't sleep because my eyeballs were playing a fruit salad lightshow at me and in the whistling in my ears there was a complete new Ozrics set playing all night.

The breakfast table was a complete nightmare the next day.

Saw them a year or so later and the same thing had happened to them as The Orb: gigs packed out with students. We left that gig halfway through - it was too claustrophobic. Sat around at a mates bedsit and heard The Legendary Pink Dots for the first time.

Dan: I remember Tim! date=01.12.2003 10:17 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, the Rocket... used to go to Jah Shaka dub nights up there, quite amazing. Bass so loud you couldn't actually hear it, your ears just couldn't process it! You'd go to the bar in another room, and it would sound like a house was falling down next door, rhythmically. I heard he had limiters put on his sound system after he did structural damage to a venue he was playing at. date=01.12.2003 10:33 ip=62.188.112.61 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw African Headcharge there. I think Dub Syndicate were also playing and Gary Clail who was absolutely terrible! I mean terrible as in bad, not as in terrible as the Lion of Zion and all that... date=01.12.2003 10:52 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, the heady days of On-U. I agree, Gary Clail was terrible. Anyone remember Suns Of Arqa, or was that just a Manchester thing? date=01.12.2003 11:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Suns of Arqa? Passed me by, tho' I remember the name. Gary Clail? He was an odd one.

Used to have the 'Stoned, Immaculate' Dub Syndicate album - great stuff. Bought it largely on the basis of the review in the NME; 'there's party albums, there's 'let's get stoned at the party albums', and then there's 'fuck the party, let's camp out on the ceiling' albums, and this is one of those...' date=01.12.2003 11:29 ip=62.188.100.8 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember Suns of Arqa - but I can't remember much about them. Ozricy ethnic bollox with a pagan dub ethic?

Re: Gary Clail: That bloody Dreamstealers track went on all bloody night. He kept bringing it back like some sort of triumphant anthem - which I suppose it was. Only problem was that it was shite.

I really overdosed on dub in the early nineties. Couldn't listen to it for years. Heard a Japanese band recently called Helicoid 0222MB or something who were doing interesting things with it. date=01.12.2003 11:37 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dreamstealers? I only remember the 'everybody needs food clothes and shelter' one.

Went through a big King Tubby phase a while back. Find that big Lee Scratch Perry compilation easier to listen to these days. date=01.12.2003 11:43 ip=62.188.112.91 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dreamstealers? I only remember the 'everybody needs food clothes and shelter' one.

Went through a big King Tubby phase a while back. Find that big Lee Scratch Perry compilation easier to listen to these days.

Love that whole old testament vibe the whole thing has; my favourite ever lyrics:

'As I was reading my bible
just the other day
about Sodom and Gomorrah
an' what happen on-a judgement day

It wasn't Lot's fault
his wife 'come a pillar of salt...'

and then the bassline kicks your door down. How the OT was meant to sound!

I suspect the NT would be a bit more limp and indie, until the Apocalypse of St John when King Tubby would rise from the grave with his sound system reborn around him and everything would go completely insane. date=01.12.2003 11:47 ip=62.188.112.91 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ozricy ethnic bollox with a pagan dub ethic?

That's the one.

Good to see Tubby and Scratch mentioned. Scratch was playing in Manchester the other night, but I didn't go because I thought he would be disappointingly barmy and crap. Still love his stuff though: 'Roast Fish and Corn Bread' is a classic, with its cow noises (why?!!!) date=01.12.2003 11:54 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I suspect the NT would be a bit more limp and indie

The Gospels are always Jesus Christ Superstar for me. I reckon some of St Paul's stuff is pretty heavy and Revelations is definitely grim Scandanavian death metal. date=01.12.2003 11:57 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Gospels are Prog Rock, and the Aocalypse has never been done better than Aphrodite's Child's version. Demis Roussos! date=01.12.2003 12:02 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The Gospels are Prog Rock

Which is why JC Superstar works so well although it does tend to inject a healthy measure of funk into the procedings. Didn't one of the recorded versions have Ian Gillan as JC? Speaking of apocalypticism: anyone know Current 93 and their ilk? The album Imperium is a total classic. date=01.12.2003 12:16 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I've got a few C93 albums. I like them, even though Tibet's delivery is hammy to say the least. The Inmost Light is my favourite: I like their take on folk music. date=01.12.2003 12:44 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, I think Tibet's voice loses them a lot of fans - he has a rather idiosyncratic style of delivery. Imperium is halfway between the industrial phase and the apocalyptic folk phase. Lots of sound collages on there - probably the work of Steven Stapledon.

David Tibet lives around my area. I saw him on a tube at Walthamstow Central reading something about New Testament Greek and picking his nose. date=01.12.2003 12:53 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've heard "The Frolic," and - I don't know if "loved it" is exactly right, given the subject matter, but I was hooked. I only know them through the cd that came with David Keenan's book, "England's Hidden Reverse," though.

Tibet sounds like John Otway's shamanic brother, backed by an acoustic Johnny Marr. No bad thing, I am thinking. date=01.12.2003 13:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: picking his nose, eh? It must be a sign. And speaking of signs, Lisa had a dream about you the other day. In it, you were known as The Great Zal. Don't get any ideas. date=01.12.2003 13:12 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> The Great Zal

!?

*worries* date=01.12.2003 13:54 ip=62.188.110.193 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I Zal: come to wipe clean the sins of the world. date=01.12.2003 13:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Albeit scratchily. date=01.12.2003 13:59 ip=62.188.110.193 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Smooth on the surface, but he's got a rough side. date=01.12.2003 14:13 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When I moved back to London a decade ago the first flat I lived in had a pack of Izal medicated toilet tissue in the lav. Made me *so* paranoid.

I apologise for intruding on yr wife's dreams.

Apparently I said "So the pieces of wood slot in there and it all makes sense!" in my sleep the other night. Bridget tells me that my dream talk is normally very clear and precise - no umm-ing and ah-ing. The scariest thing I've said was "You've got nine books out so you can take out another three."

I hate it when work intrudes on sleep. date=01.12.2003 15:15 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: No problem. You were perfectly well bahaved, apparently.
Anyway, in the course of research I found this website. Stuck for Christmas gifts for the woman in your life? Buy her some modest clothes.
http://www.modestapparelusa.com date=01.12.2003 15:22 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, so that was what happened to puritanism. I think I'd prefer something with a burqa. date=01.12.2003 15:27 ip=158.94.172.75 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fundamentalist fundamental garments: I need to get my head round this.

So to speak ... date=01.12.2003 15:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, seems that everyone on this board is linked by time spent in West London games shops in the 1980s. Very dodgy.

Never really been a big dub fan, although I did like most of the On-U stuff, and I once saw Jah Shaka at the community centre in St Pauls, Bristol. I have, however, conjured up many an Ozrics gig in my head. Reminds me, while we're on a Hampton-ish theme, anyone ever visit the Jolly Boatman at Hampton Court? Now mostly famous for as the venue of the UK's first ecstasy-related death, I seem to have spent most of the late 80s there watching the likes of Ozric Tentacles, the Ullulators, Nik Turner, Robert Calvert, Cardiacs... and then walking home through Bushy Park, maybe doing a little "weebling" on the way (no, I won't explain, best that it remains a mystery).

Last night, for the second time recently, I dreamt that I was at a party where the toilet was un-enclosed in the middle of the living room. Slightly unsettling.

Aphrodites Child! Demis Roussos! Oh YES!
I am
I am to come
I was
I am to come I was
come!

Relax. When you wanna come? date=01.12.2003 15:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I haven't spent time in a games workshop - and last night I dreamt about Elvis Costello cutting up bread with a hacksaw. Is there a Freudian in the house?

Aphrodite's Child: that takes me back. And I'm not sure I want to go. date=01.12.2003 16:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have spent time in games shops; and I have never dreamt that.

There is a clear link. date=01.12.2003 16:27 ip=62.188.112.151 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, are there specific times when you say dreamed or dreamt? date=01.12.2003 16:28 ip=62.188.112.151 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I think it's choice - or affectation. - :)

"Dreamt" just looks more "unwaking" to me than "dreamed," somehow. date=01.12.2003 17:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Difference in sound, as well:

Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me

works much better than:

Last night I dreamed
That somebody loved me

Hmm.

*strokes chin* date=01.12.2003 19:49 ip=62.188.110.198 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting. I dreamt I DREAMED, I dreamed I dreamt. And so dreaming I - slept. On.

I did I do. Done does did do

Isn't that a line from the Queen is Dead?

Or is it do done does did? date=01.12.2003 20:14 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Changing the subject... Metafilter thread on authors' own websites here:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/29934

I'd join in but... damn. "Membership is again closed" (and has been for at least a couple of months). date=01.12.2003 20:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is this what poets chin stroke about while guitarists are busy pondering the merits of the single coil vs humbucker question? date=01.12.2003 20:22 ip=213.122.175.175 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.....
Now that sounds a bit dodgy. Or is it just unfamiliar?
(scratches chin). date=01.12.2003 22:07 ip=213.78.170.32 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - dreamed is a longer syllable, and not end stopped in the same way by the 't' - which I think is why

Last night I dreamt
that somebody loved me

works so well; the finality of the realisation that it's a dream, and that's it - the brutal end to the word dreamt - contrasted with the ongoing yearning of me, v. open ending.

If you put in dreamed, you lose that, and you also lose the rhythm of the three ts - last, night, dreamt, that carry over into the next line with that, and are then softened with the d in somebody, so you're ready to carry on into the ongoing me... also the move to words ending in vowels, the second line opening up to take flight on me, a rhyme with somebody. Sprung by the light stop on loved.

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again'

'Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again'

you lose the rhymes with night (the t), went and the es in Manderley, and to some extent an aural payoff with again.

Hmm. date=01.12.2003 23:40 ip=62.188.110.70 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=y not really a vowel, but it has an 'e' sound here. Oh, and it was 'Strangeways here we come', after that wonderful slow piano intro. date=02.12.2003 00:03 ip=62.188.100.225 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or: they is the same but they aint.

In my passed life. That time is past.

Gets me sometimes. date=02.12.2003 08:46 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Dreamt' is the only word in the English language that ends in 'mt'. Empty. date=02.12.2003 08:58 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Infinite variety of sounds available in English! Lovely, subtle, language.

Also - Slough, through, enough, dough, etc - used to freak out English Teacher friend in Paris. How on earth do you explain it to people? date=02.12.2003 10:13 ip=62.188.110.66 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=trough date=02.12.2003 11:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Frank Bough. date=02.12.2003 11:39 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=D'ough! date=02.12.2003 11:39 ip=62.188.108.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doff? That's a tough one. Ok boys call it ough. date=02.12.2003 12:03 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=D'oh! date=02.12.2003 12:31 ip=62.188.110.138 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just to veer dangerously and recklessly on-topic, which MJH book would you give to a newbie for Christmas? I'm wavering between the short stories and 'Signs Of Life'. date=02.12.2003 13:56 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Signs of Life would be a good choice. Apart from anything else I love the depressing Xmas scene. Short stories: well, do we choose Travel Arrangements or TTNH. I'd go with TTNH, that David Lloyd cover could really make someone's Xmas. The stories are pretty good too. date=02.12.2003 14:06 ip=158.94.66.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=TTNH, if only for 'The Great God Pan' (my favourite story of all). date=02.12.2003 14:14 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm a bit old skool with the short stories: Running Down is my favourite - The East, Egnaro, Gifco, Neon Heart Murders and The Gift are all a close second. So, if you get them TTNH they can read *all* of them.

Tell them The Great Zal sent you! date=02.12.2003 14:22 ip=158.94.66.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just as an aside, anyone ever been on an Arvon course? date=02.12.2003 14:37 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Phoughcking hell, No. Why are you thinking of going on one? date=02.12.2003 14:46 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't even been on a course of Darvon. date=02.12.2003 14:48 ip=158.94.66.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm thinking that maybe some kind of course might be interesting, no more than that. MJP, you seem somewhat incredulous... date=02.12.2003 14:55 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, just joking. I do actually know some people who went on an Arvon course, and they said they benefited from it.

I have always believed that writing can't be taught, but experience says otherwise - I learned (I hope) from meeting philosophers and writers in person. Very useful indeed.

Very useful to get an idea of how someone goes about putting words together. You can't really learn that just from the printed page - or so experience (not belief) has taught me.

But may also - just as important - the philosophers I met I absolutely believed in. date=02.12.2003 15:04 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I think I would only be interested in such a course if I was keen on the work of the tutors. date=02.12.2003 15:14 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm with you there - looked at the Arvon courses last year, none of the tutors were people I was excited by.

Oh, if you are thinking about them, I'd advise booking early in the year; they seem to sell out very quickly. The courses get released in January I think. date=02.12.2003 15:25 ip=62.188.108.200 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw Zizek give a talk at the London Review of Books Bookshop recently. That was useful. He would say things like, "My Stalinist heart rejoices! ..." and tell funny stories to illustrate his arguments. And I would think: So that's how he does it. date=02.12.2003 15:40 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arvon: never.

MJH story: I work with someone whom I introduced to Mike's work - in order, "Signs of Life," "The Great God Pan," "Light," and now the story he wrote with Simon Ings, "The Dead." Loves them all. I find myself going back to "The Great God Pan" the most, perhaps in the hope that one more exhibition of its mysteries (why all the references to children ..? ) will open up the enigma at its heart, and I'll learn what the narrator got from the Pleroma apart from the smell of roses. If, indeed, there was anything else. date=02.12.2003 15:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, on the stories - I'd definitely go for Things That Never Happen. Am about to introduce someone to Course of the Heart as their first MJH book, will be interesting to see what she makes of it. date=02.12.2003 15:49 ip=62.188.108.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why never Arvon, Martin? date=02.12.2003 15:50 ip=62.188.108.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arvon: not on principle. I just meant I've never got round to it! date=02.12.2003 15:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, right! I thought that was some incredibly virulent rejection of them because of dark historic happenings or similar...! date=02.12.2003 16:06 ip=62.188.110.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, not at all - I don't have any experience of writing courses, or feelings about them one way or the other. Has anyone else been on one? date=02.12.2003 16:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I joined a creative writing evening class at my local college. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! *snort*

I lasted two sessions. I wasn't any good at being Patience Strong, and some of the ladies got a bit sniffy at my mention of pissing in a short story. date=02.12.2003 16:24 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I once bought a make your own mosaic kit. That was good.

I now understand you can buy write-your-novel software. date=02.12.2003 16:27 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>will be interesting to see what she makes of it.

I only know one wonan who's read it: she was fine with it until she came to the bit with the daughter involved in the ritual. date=02.12.2003 16:28 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of my colleagues bought some novel writing software. Apparently it's based on an archetypal method: there are only so many types of stories and characters. Sounds spurious at the very least.

I'm afraid I'm not much of a believer in courses. I'm a terrible autodidact - and it shows. date=02.12.2003 16:32 ip=158.94.66.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>there are only so many types of stories

Seven, apparently. And then there are the ones MJH invented. date=02.12.2003 16:34 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>in the hope that one more exhibition of its mysteries (why all the references to children ..? ) will open up the enigma at its heart, and I'll learn what the narrator got from the Pleroma apart from the smell of roses. If, indeed, there was anything else.

Ho ho. I say nothing Martin.

Courses: I "taught" two Arvons, although like MJP I don't really think writing can be taught. But you can get people going, point out the odd thing they might try in their own work, turn up some directions for them to look in. One of my co-tutors "discovered" a novelist that way, although I think she only ever produced one book; and I still work with a couple of the people I taught--one of them's just got a very high quality London agent for her first novel. One of Iain Banks' Arvon courses turned up Simon Ings--although Simon would have turned up anyway, too talented not to.

Socially, Arvon can be as much fun as the Chelsea Arts Club. Same sort of fun, too... date=02.12.2003 16:42 ip=213.78.91.84 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Yes, I'm sure writing itself can't be taught, but greater knowledge of technique can be imparted. Or, simply, one can learn from being in the presence of someone better. I don't know what I would expect: impetus, mainly, I think. date=02.12.2003 16:58 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ho ho ...

I think we know you better than to expect "answers" here, Mike. date=02.12.2003 17:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: impetus, yes. Also it's surprising how many people just want something like reassurance, they want to spend a week with other people who do the same thing. They go away at the end of it with more confidence just because everyone there took it for granted this stuff was important. You can watch people flower in those circumstances, which is as important as teaching them anything about writing. (Also, if they got me and Jim Perrin, they had some interesting trips down country roads in a car.) date=02.12.2003 18:07 ip=213.78.91.84 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I now understand you can buy write-your-novel software.

A few years back a friend of mine used to swear by some software for writers, I think it was called Writers Blocks or something, not that it wrote the novel for you, but apparently was very good for throwing in ideas and then helping you arrange them into some sort of narrative at a later date.

>>Socially, Arvon can be as much fun as the Chelsea Arts Club. Same sort of fun, too...

What sort of social fun is that? I've never been to the Chelsea Arts Club, but a friend is a member and I've long been fascinated. He took another friend of ours, Guy - www.guyd2.com - to the club. Where they met Ronnie Corbett who, in true Ronnie Corbett style, told them cricketing anecdotes for several hours. Guy, being Belgian, couldn't make head nor tail of the cricket, but says he was hypnotised all the same. date=02.12.2003 18:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Also it's surprising how many people just want something like reassurance, they want to spend a week with other people who do the same thing.

Yeah, I can kinda see it from that viewpoint. It gets a bit isolated sometimes working on things in the way I do. And I think it gets tiring for friends and loved ones to have to reassure you that you're not mad or incompetent. Assuming that neither of these is true! date=02.12.2003 18:38 ip=213.122.4.33 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What sort of social fun is that?

Well, perhaps social is too collective a word for the kind of fun I was thinking of. I'm telling no more tales out of school. I never met Ronnie Corbett there, but I haven't been since about 1994. The food was good, & I liked the garden in May. I keep meaning to join Black's & never get around to it. date=02.12.2003 18:46 ip=213.78.95.228 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never tried Arvon, but have mostly heard good things about them.
However, have also heard one negative story - don't remember the details, but think it related to the fallout from an attempted legover spoiling the atmostphere for the whole group for the rest of the week.

Did a very good writing SF evening course with Simon Ings a few years ago. A good teacher won't teach you how to write, but will give you useful directions, help you improve your work etc. (Simon is a good teacher.)

And I think it's useful to be able to ask others "how's the writing going?" and know what "bloody awful" or "fantastic" means. Though a good evening class is better than Arvon for that. date=03.12.2003 00:06 ip=213.78.69.3 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crucial advice for aspiring writers would be how to explain to partners and friends that just because you imagined something it doesn't mean you really think like that. date=03.12.2003 09:03 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: exactly! I kept getting very strange looks until friends got used to my, um, "creative" sense of humour.

Supportive atmosphere's very important - "You mean, I'm *allowed* to do this?" Not just allowed but encouraged, mate. date=03.12.2003 09:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>However, have also heard one negative story - don't remember the details, but think it related to the fallout from an attempted legover spoiling the atmosphere for the whole group for the rest of the week.

Now there you go you see, NickM, just the sort of fun I was talking about. Arvon's been known to change your life. date=03.12.2003 10:40 ip=213.78.65.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>just the sort of fun I was talking about

Oh, cheers. Just scuppered my chances of going anywhere near it then! date=03.12.2003 10:45 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Now there you go you see, NickM, just the sort of fun I was talking about.

Brrr... thinking of that in conjunction with the Chelsea Arts Club reminds me, I think I also remember my friend telling me that he was chased around by an eighty year-old dressed as if she were about sixty years younger. date=03.12.2003 10:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Double brr. Remember that story in the Pan Books of Horror where a bloke has to have sex with a 100 year old woman? Turned me off 100-year-olds for weeks, that did. date=03.12.2003 11:00 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Any advance on 100 years? I'm sure we can find examples in the first couple of books of the OT. date=03.12.2003 11:03 ip=158.94.102.44 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=IO: that Sarah was a bit of all right, I believe. date=03.12.2003 11:06 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As far as I can tell she was *only* 90. Unless you can find evidence that Genesis 17:17 is flawed? I think we're going to have to look to pre-Deluge OT for post-centenarian sex. date=03.12.2003 12:23 ip=158.94.102.44 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> *Only* 90.

They all say that. You're nicked, chum. date=03.12.2003 12:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You're nicked, chum

Well she *said* she was 100. Anyway, those support stockings hold a lot in. Can't blame me. date=03.12.2003 12:57 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Support stockings

Now, don't get me started : my heart won't take much more ... date=03.12.2003 13:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Guys, I'm trying to eat my lunch here... date=03.12.2003 14:45 ip=62.188.110.83 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sandwiches and desire - you're right, a bad mix. Crumbs in the nylon, and all that. date=03.12.2003 15:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I hope you weren't trying to eat one of those abominable 'wrap' type sandwiches. Far too much like old ladies' legs. date=03.12.2003 15:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just because you think of something ...

...Then you start comparing wraps to old ladies' limbs!

I dunno, Alex, what are we going to do with you ..? - :) date=03.12.2003 15:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact, tuna salad. So fortunately looks nothing like any part of an old lady.

Alex! I'm never going to be able to eat one of those things again! date=03.12.2003 15:31 ip=62.188.105.64 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In what will no doubt prove to be just another highly embarrassing gesture towards getting somewhere near topic, if not acually on it: I'm going to the Guardian First Book Awards tomorrow, anybody read any of the books ? Anybody like to make a prediction ? The list goes: Brick Lane, Monica Ali; Into the Silent Land, Paul Broks; Stasiland, Anna Funder; Mountains of the Mind, Robert Macfarlane; Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre. My money will be on Monica Ali. date=03.12.2003 16:19 ip=213.78.88.109 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>looks nothing like any part of an old lady

Yes, but it.... no, I can't. I can't. date=03.12.2003 16:20 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>looks nothing like any part of an old lady

Yes, but it.... no, I can't. I can't. date=03.12.2003 16:21 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd go with the Monica Ali - brit-lit's love affair with Bangla-culture seems in exhaustible. What was I saying about Eastern Promise on TTA? date=03.12.2003 16:26 ip=158.94.102.44 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: are you implying tokenism? Is it a good book? I hope it's not Vernon God Little: I didn't get further than flicking through that one. date=03.12.2003 16:29 ip=81.136.211.96 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd back Monica's chances, too - but that's for reasons of Bangla fashion, rather than literature. I haven't read the others (one pair of eyes; so many hours in the day; look at that stack of stuff on the shelf - I think you know the feeling). Even so, given the saturated media, I feel I've already read DC Pierre at least twice without ever opening the book. date=03.12.2003 16:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tokenism? In the Grauniad? Never! The Rushdiesque scandal can't hurt either.

I notice that the Blissett collective's Q book reached the longlist. Amazing what a former AC Milan player can't do. (BTW: this is *not* a licence for Blissett related agitators to spam this forum.) date=03.12.2003 16:40 ip=158.94.102.44 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Someone I know very fussy about the quality of what she reads read Vernon God Little and liked it. On those grounds I fancy its chances. date=03.12.2003 16:46 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We'll see!

I'm afraid the publicity storm pushes me the other way. Instead of rushing out to read, I wait a while and see if the book's still something I want to pick up (and yes, we can argue for along time about what lies behind that "want"). You look at the complete Booker list, going back 30 years, and - shamefully or not - most of the winning titles are unknown to a great many who'd consider themselves widely read. An ugly fact, but unless someone urges a book on me and says "you just *have* to read this," my test for an unknown author is to read the first two pages and see if it does anything for me. My loss in some cases, no doubt, but life's too short for everything. date=03.12.2003 16:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>my test for an unknown author is to read the first two pages and see if it does anything for me.

No better test, Martin, even of a book that's been recommended. I still wish books came in zero-degree packaging with no publicity. That way we'd all be thrown back on the experiential principle. date=03.12.2003 18:14 ip=213.78.83.19 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I pretty much agree - but as usual there are those books which improve immeasurably in the bit you didn't read and we just can't account for that - and the converse: books which turn crap on you. A principle an American friend of mine refers to as "The suck knob". It works like this:

If you're listening to a piece of music for the first time, and it starts of pretty good - but then suddenly the band makes a huge error of judgement and ruins it you might say, "Woah! They turned the suck knob up on *that* one!"

But returning momentarily to the subject. To what extent do you think that reading is determined by the fan/brand mentality. You follow an author as one might follow a football team or a band - irrespective of their merit but merely because they are *your* author.

Naturally, the present company is too mature for this sort of behavior! date=03.12.2003 19:02 ip=158.94.106.186 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You follow an author as one might follow a football team or a band - irrespective of their merit but merely because they are *your* author.

I don't recall ever doing that. I dump 'em the instant they stop impressing me (or maybe I give them a couple of books' leeway); though I might well remain "loyal" to their pre-fall output, or occasionally check on the post-fall stuff in case they get up speed again. Sometimes I have to review them post-fall, and that makes me impatient because all I want to say is, "This person's books used to be so good, why are they so crap now, look I can show you *exactly* where he lost it." Or, equally: "Something happened between me & this writer's books, and I just fell off the bicycle as far as they were concerned, some change in my personality meant I had to wave goodbye, which I reserve the right to do that." Maybe a long time later, things come round again and you're able to start reading them again.

The thing is I don't follow football teams or bands either. Nobody can do no wrong. Not even Ducati motorcycles. People just start to bore you, so something else catches your attention & you walk away. I feel like that about myself. Every so often the work just seems nauseatingly the *same*, and I have to do something new. Or, more likely, that's the message I've already started doing something new & only now realised it & I have to follow some small beginning I made. I know people like The Centauri Device, Viriconium, whatever, & I'm glad: but it was a relief for me to walk away from them. date=03.12.2003 19:50 ip=213.78.73.27 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I certainly used to do this much more, and I've had to clear out a lot of books/records from that impressionable age. I'll go as far as criticising even Amon Duul, Druillet and Vance's shortcomings these days. Well, y'know apart from when I've been drinking and I get sentimental.

But to what extent does publishing try to reinforce this same sort of tribal mentality for writing. You can see it in many genre and I'm sure mainstream venues online. Perhaps even to extent this notion: does genre set up these sort of tribal boundaries? "I'm an SF fan, I don't like fantasy - fantasy is for girls" Or even in the ancestor worship of academia and the canon of literature. date=03.12.2003 20:00 ip=158.94.102.44 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But to what extent does publishing try to reinforce this same sort of tribal mentality for writing.

Oh, totally. Fans buy books. I think, too, there's a huge OC element to the f/sf personality, especially on the academic side. Mind you, we live in a culture which selects for OC anyway & rewards it with jobs. I find that personality hard to understand. I love Machen and Aickman, but at the moment I have one book by each of them--neither of them what I'd consider their best work. The point is *I don't know what happened to the rest*. I absorbed the contents then lost them. Even when I had a fair few Machens I would never have gone to the trouble of building a comprehensive collection. That doesn't seem to be the point. I even like the idea that there might be surprises out there, you know, one day someone'll lend me a collection of stuff & it'll have *a Machen I've never read*. Brilliant. date=03.12.2003 20:22 ip=213.78.86.150 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>my test for an unknown author is to read the first two pages and see if it does anything for me.

I usually end up doing that, but am opposed on principle to making such hasty decisions, because of a lesson I learned from music (which was also the lesson that got me loving free improv). I'd bought my first album by Last Exit, and was convinced it must be good because it had Bill Laswell on it, and I'd loved everything else he'd done (definite case of fan mentality). Well, it took about twenty listens of "what the hell *is* that racket all about?" before a moment of revelation when that racket suddenly became a thing of beauty.

I sometimes get the same thing reading MJH stories - because I'm a notoriously bad reader, my mind wanders, I miss things, and a couple of pages later I realise I haven't a clue where I am. But my fan-boy mentality forces me to re-read, and everything pans out more beautiful than it would ever have been first time around. Makes me think that working for a reward tends to make it more rewarding.

As for books winning prizes... I'd say Monica Ali just on the basis of the amount of hype it's had (and plenty of people seemed to think it would be the likely Booker winner). Not that I've read any of them. In fact, I think the only new new book I've read in the last couple of years (aside from Light) was number9dream, which definitely *should* have won the previous year's Booker (even though again I didn't read any of the others on the shortlist. Call me a fanboy - although not so dyed-in-the-wool that I didn't shun Laswell in his truly duller moments).

>>Naturally, the present company is too mature for this sort of behavior!

heh!

>> apart from when I've been drinking and I get sentimental.

I'm permenantly sentimental [sniff]

While we're at it... [urges number9dream on everybody and says "you just *have* to read this,"]

BTW I'm off to London at about 5am tomorrow, see you all (except Alex) 7pm Friday, Red Lion. date=03.12.2003 21:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe it's just that you give an artist who you already admire a certain degree of slack. You'll give their work more chances than an unknown or someone who you truly dislike. Rather than giving them the two or three pages, you might get through the whole thing, put it aside with disappointment and say, "it's not his best!"

The free-improv example is an interesting one, because you come to the event to some extent knowing the score. If the music forms into some spontaneous structure it's a sort of a miracle. You are watching a force of nature at work.

Writing is a hugely editable form in comparison. Perhaps authors might like to put on performance novels that they create live in the back room of a pub. You can often feel *on the hoof* moments in writing but they've been edited and layered by the time they get to you. date=03.12.2003 22:44 ip=213.122.81.160 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=5am! Jesus! date=03.12.2003 22:46 ip=213.122.81.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*pissed, not sentimental*

OC? Hmm, no doubt being dense.

>> But to what extent does publishing try to reinforce this same sort of tribal mentality for writing.

Writer as brand; you enjoyed the experience once, you'll securely get the same thing again, next time you buy into it. Clearly defined readership; clearly defined response; a sequel that is not a sequel. Guaranteed sales, guaranteed return on investment, shareholder value as prime motivation. Fair play; that's the way these organisations work. Nature of the beast.

The artists that I most value are people like Mondrian - people who's careers (in the original sense of the word; an out of control dowhill hurtle, destination contingent on geography, gravity, whim, intuition; careering, not careerist) can be traced in the process of their art; art as a dialogue with an onwards progress, so the whole thing forms an ongoing narrative; nothing repeated, everything moving a little further on.

Repetition impossible in this context; do you say the same thing twice in a conversation? Do you say the same thing twice in a conversation? No, response, change, move on, move forwards, tangents and mayhem; careering.

*staggers off* date=03.12.2003 23:00 ip=62.188.110.77 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Career in its original sense ...

I was just reading a quote from composer Ron Geesin that echoes that. He told his students at the Royal College of Art, "More risk equals more reward. Will you kindly go and risk something. Do something that is extraordinary." Just what a genre hates.

>5am

Well, someone's got to get there to buy the first round ... date=03.12.2003 23:20 ip=212.126.153.113 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd have thought virtually all of us will have bought / read books because we like the previous stuff we've read by a writer. It's not exactly a new phenomenon - Dickens's latest was always getting compared with Pickwick etc.

Similarly I've certainly persisted with books long after it was obvious that they're shite, purely on the strength of previous work by the writer (the Night Land springs to mind - sorry WHH fans).

Obviously it's a good thing for writers who can pull off the same trick with variations. Agatha Christie did well out of it. Hammett and Chandler wrote within expected limitations and extended their genre.

Bugger - have forgotton the serious point I was about to make due to having been down the pub. Sorry. date=04.12.2003 00:21 ip=213.78.92.36 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Night Land - *shudder*. Read it while deep in very dark times, smoking lots of skunk. Kept on having sleepless nights where I'd plung through a little more of it, trying to get my head together so I could get back to sleep. Not the best way to do this! date=04.12.2003 05:39 ip=62.188.100.28 name=Steve mail=smt2@ozemail.com.au icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>my test for an unknown author is
>>to read the first two pages and see
>> if it does anything for me.

>No better test, Martin, even of a book
> that's been recommended. I still wish
> books came in zero-degree
> packaging with no publicity. That
> way we'd all be thrown back on the
> experiential principle.

You can't always trust your initial reaction though - I don't like Chris Priest's books until I'm at least a hundred pages in, but by the time I finish them I think they're excellent.

Ditto for some of Gene Wolfe, and for that matter, _Light_. date=04.12.2003 05:56 ip=203.31.199.14 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Every so often the work just seems nauseatingly the *same*, and I have to do something new.

I can't read JG Ballard anymore. In fact I stopped reading him a long time ago, despite admiring his books. date=04.12.2003 08:49 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Night Land": no - even Lovecraft's enthusiasm couldn't drag me into it.

Ballard: I read "Millennium People." Started out very promisingly, but somehow fizzled into indecisiveness ( maybe that was the point) rather than launching itself into some post-spectacular vision.

Priest: The last thing I saw was "The Prestige," but I thought he backed himself into such a plot corner that the denoument was literally incredible - identical twins *and* a matter transmitter? Come now ... date=04.12.2003 09:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steve said--

>>You can't always trust your initial reaction though

Sure, and there are a million books worth persisting with (or which surprise you with their tendency to stick to your consciousness even when you thought you didn't like them). But I love the risk. I think we should go out on a couple of pages' evidence and hope in our hearts. I only say that because I remember being 8 years old & in this apparently endless library, so if you made a mistake there was always the next day because also you had your parents' tickets as well as your own so these riches could only ever pour towards you in increasing rather than decreasing streams, battered books with no dust jackets, stupid cover illos or distracting blurbs... Egnaro! date=04.12.2003 10:40 ip=213.78.169.223 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fanboyness: I don't really go for that, although I have odd autistic moments of collecting. For example, I once spent ages collecting all the NEL skinhead and biker books, then gave them away once I'd got them all. I'll buy any Burroughs I can get my hands on, though. I have several editions of Naked Lunch. Don't know why, I just want to *have* them. date=04.12.2003 10:45 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'd have thought virtually all of us will have bought / read books because we like the previous stuff we've read by a writer.

Oh, of course. I think what I'm trying to narrow down here is exactly where the limits of indulgence lie, and how the knee-jerk brand loyalty that publishers must *love* functions. I am still haunted by that lower case "a" on Panther Asimov covers - and that spectral deep-space lighting across a cover that says "Come with me to far worlds, young man!"

Why was there so much drinking on this forum last night? I'm not sure that we shd tolerate this dissolute behaviour! date=04.12.2003 10:50 ip=213.122.13.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where the limits of indulgence lie

I think it's when I stop being surprised. When the voice and style of the author become too loud. I don't think, for example, I'll be reading anymore Iain M. Banks. date=04.12.2003 10:58 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Elvis Costello is rumoured to collect nothing but editions of "Clockwork Orange."

Io: Cheers! date=04.12.2003 10:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suppose it's the point where (for me) I feel I'm not only not going to be surprised by a novel, but that I'm not going to get anything out of it. At that point, perhaps it's time to explore elsewhere.

Of course, there's always the possibility of being dead wrong. Lots of excellent writers have written the odd godawful book (or even a string of them) in between the good stuff. date=05.12.2003 00:12 ip=213.78.72.47 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Delighted to say I've now got a copy of Climbers. Bit gritty, eh? date=05.12.2003 11:29 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quite a bit gritty. Hope you like it, Alex.

I forgot to say yesterday that Climbers is now definitely going to be reprinted as a Phoenix paperback. As part of the same reprint push, CotH and SoL will resurface in one volume, under a new title, from Gollancz; and Gollancz will be doing a UK edition of Things That Never Happen, too. More details on the site itself, when I can find them and get them to io.

What's the form tonite ? date=05.12.2003 12:07 ip=213.78.72.105 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Brilliant news!

Tonight: bus from Oxford being willing, I'm the Red Lion about 7.00 (or else looking for the site of the cover shot of "Ziggy Stardust" across the road in Heddon St.) so see you all then, I hope. date=05.12.2003 12:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>definitely going to be reprinted

Jeez! After I spend £300 for an ex-library copy with marmite stains on the cover and the words 'spunk stick' and 'fuck knuckle' circled in biro. date=05.12.2003 12:41 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Work server seems to be allowing me on here now - Wahey!

Climbers, CotH and SoL being reissued - Wahey!

I'll be at the Red Lion at 7pm unless tonight is the night for the accident that I have been expecting involving a faulty piano lift - Wahey! date=05.12.2003 12:53 ip=158.94.137.24 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, it sounds as if you got not Climbers but a (very) rare copy of the Eon Heart--the parasitic text featured in "The Gift". Your history from now on can be predicted from that story. Just don't try & pass it on to me...

Apropos of Climbers, Robert Macfarlane won the Guardian First Book award last night, with Mountains of the Mind, an intelligent beautifully-written but (sadly for him) unprofessionalised account of mountains and mountaineering. As a result of not being part of the climbing village (which suffers a lot more, and more bitter, anxious ownership syndrome than even the sf village), he's been pilloried. This reminded me of the reaction to Climbers back in 1989. Whenever I think of the academic control-freaks and terrified fans who "defend" sf against the outside world, I comfort myself: It can't be so bad, at least they aren't climbing journalists.

If I wasn't certain that he has £10,000 and the beginnings of a fine career in real-world publishing, my sympathies would go out to Robert Macfarlane along with my congratulations. date=05.12.2003 12:54 ip=213.78.66.90 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: it's the "fuck knuckle" edition that fetches the higher prices, I'm afraid.

MJH: academic control-freaks ... You should ( or rather, you shouldn't) meet some of the creatures that inhabit the night-world of archives. In the end, you realise they're clinging to their anality because they've nothing else.

Looks like I've got to give McFarlane the "two page" test, too. date=05.12.2003 13:00 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Climbers is now definitely going to be reprinted as a Phoenix paperback. As part of the same reprint push, CotH and SoL will resurface in one volume, under a new title, from Gollancz; and Gollancz will be doing a UK edition of Things That Never Happen, too.

Wonderful! So we'll be celebrating tonight... date=05.12.2003 13:00 ip=62.188.108.13 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Don't know about that, but I feel like I need to wear a good thick coat to read it. Very, very good though. I love the line about a dodgy knee feeling like there's a small animal trapped inside. Perfect. date=05.12.2003 13:05 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex, I'm really glad you're getting on with it. The weird thing--or maybe the completely unweird thing--about that knee thing is that it was my knee. I had that feeling for maybe two, three months. Then I was walking across a moor one day and there was this extremely loud *klonk*, which I didn't associate with the knee or even me--because there was no pain at all--but looked around at the people I was with in case they were having me on in some way, which they often did: and after that the knee was perfect again. date=05.12.2003 15:39 ip=213.78.81.229 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: It's weird, generally, when your body does something completely unfamiliar. Twitching eyes are bad enough. You forget the machine you walk around in until it starts malfunctioning. date=05.12.2003 15:48 ip=81.136.211.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, I worry about the small animal. Where did it go ? What was its life like after that ? Was it happy ? Did it *marry* ? Reader, I don't know... date=05.12.2003 16:09 ip=213.78.81.229 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: While in the knee, I imagine it lived in a kind of aquatic neoteny, like an axolotl, finally reaching maturity when exposed to the air. It's probably a peat-dweller now, waiting for the chance to lodge in someone's wellingtons, where the cycle begins again. Perhaps that's where wallabies come from. date=05.12.2003 16:28 ip=81.136.211.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just reached the Walthamstow homeland. Brilliant meeting so many of the ES crew. Hope you all had/are having good journeys back.

MJP and me headed back to Leicester Square where we parted. There was this quiffed busked playing Johnny B Goode on a lovely 50s Danelectro - this guitar was so authentic you could see where the varnish had been worn away by four decades of blues riffs. I ended up giving him three quid - "Beautiful guitar!"

Hope to see you all again for the next one - tell yr friends, find us a genuinely quiet pub so we don't have to wander around Soho. Although that was quite fun...

Off to smoke bongs with the neighbours. Night all! date=06.12.2003 00:56 ip=213.122.3.250 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Alex - we did try to phone but couldn't get through, and then we got distracted. Hopefully we'll we yz at the next one. date=06.12.2003 00:57 ip=213.122.3.250 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice evening, everyone, even if some of the food was a bit Lovecraft. io I saw the same busker, but I don't know what he was playing because I had already ramped up my iPod to the burst ears setting. date=06.12.2003 11:49 ip=213.78.165.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oh, and Alex - we did try to phone but couldn't get through, and then we got distracted. Hopefully we'll see yz at the next one.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=06.12.2003 00:57 ip=213.122.3.250 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whappen?

That was an evening. Headed back East to Jan's with Martin and Ed afterwards, and the madness continued. Mmmm... that was some drumming. date=06.12.2003 22:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan Sumption in East London bongo frenzy? Or perhaps you didn't mean East London, you just went East... date=07.12.2003 14:56 ip=213.122.56.251 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Would that be the East or "The East" ? I knew there was something oblique about Dan the first time I set eyes on him. date=07.12.2003 16:10 ip=213.78.77.236 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, looking at him it was as if my eyes were focussing at different distances - or perhaps that was caused by those big 650ml cans of Sapporo? date=07.12.2003 18:08 ip=213.122.159.102 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it's always hard trying to look through cans of Sapporo. I prefer to use spectacles, they give you a less oblique view on the world, especially for an astygmatic such as myself.

Not sure where the bongo fury came from, but I think I did mention to Martin at some point in the night (around 4am) that I could do with a pair of bongos. Jan treated us to a continuous flow of excellent jazz, and on every CD the musician that most impressed me was the drummer. I can only spent so much time drumming fingers on my knees.

That's not all Jan treated to. I didn't know you could still get quality narcotics in this country. date=07.12.2003 19:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Seem like I missed an evening. Glad you're all still alive and talking to each other. I'm still recovering from a party on Saturday night where it seems *everyone* was in posession of quality narcotics. date=08.12.2003 08:56 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was a good evening.

That entire area is so dense with people at that time.

It's amazing. date=08.12.2003 09:28 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had the misfortune to go shopping in Birmingham on Saturday. That entire area is dense. date=08.12.2003 09:48 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It *was* a great evening, though (as usual) I think I said far too much, far too loudly - Dan, I think you must have mentioned the bongoes somewhere after the sangria but before the melted ice cream, when I'd sunk into sleep for twenty minutes and that astonishing jazz was still making silver patterns in my head. Jan's neighbours must love him ... :)

Steph: hope you got home okay. We were thinking of you at Bar Italia.

MJH: wonderful to meet you - I just hope all that barbed wire lighting in Soho didn't cast a strange and unnatural pall across the whole event for you.

Alex: next time, for sure. We can avoid the Yog Sothoth noodles, and also the sad German couple who were facing each other at the next table. She'd picked her best blouse; he wore his Badly Drawn Boy hat. It didn't look like wedding bells, somehow. date=08.12.2003 10:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was there! Outside work this morning on the Queensway:

Nicholas & Clarke - GIFCO - Builders Merchants. date=08.12.2003 10:09 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did you know that GIFCO is an acronynm for Grid Independent Fuel Cell Operated? It is, in Smart Homes terms. It's also an acronym for Gruppo Italiano Fabbricanti Cartone Ondulato. They make (it seems) corrugated paper. date=08.12.2003 10:20 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And also: Gruppo Italiano di Fisica Cosmica date=08.12.2003 10:26 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Does than mean Cosmic Fish? date=08.12.2003 10:27 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Morning all - yup, great night out... headed off from Bar Italia, so I missed the ongoing Bongo Mayhem.

Alex - we tried to call... but no luck. Hey ho.

Steph - seconded! Hope you guys got home ok and didn't end up stranded at Reading... date=08.12.2003 10:35 ip=62.188.108.206 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh - Zali, CD rocks. date=08.12.2003 10:36 ip=62.188.108.206 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Must do. I prefer the corrugated card - these cosmic fish are all very good but they're almost completely useless as a packing medium. date=08.12.2003 10:37 ip=158.94.148.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Al! I was wondering when you were going to report in. So we're just awaiting Steph's tales of Reading on a cold dark night.

Sounds like we shd hold the next one at Jan's. date=08.12.2003 10:40 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Second that comment about the cd! Thank *you*! date=08.12.2003 10:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Martin! Glad you enjoyed it. The next one's garage punk - or perhaps chav-rock. date=08.12.2003 10:51 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: I'm agog: yes please! - :) date=08.12.2003 10:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, thanks for the attempt to get through on phone. I was either in the Stockport dead zone, or asleep. date=08.12.2003 11:00 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: It was *fairly* early when we rang - we were hoping to do a teleconference, and then we got distracted by the problem of whether the Xmas decorations were supposed to be giant coloured condoms.

Martin: It mainly depends on whether it's a good excuse for stacking up multiple wah pedals. There's always the option to do wookie wedding music. date=08.12.2003 11:12 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: you need an *excuse* to stack up multiple pedals ..? date=08.12.2003 11:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: never mind, thanks for the thought. Next time I'll send down a set of cards with random answers to questions written on them, and when you want my opinion you can pull one out of a hat. Kind of Oblique Alexisms. date=08.12.2003 11:15 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, let's think... umm, no! I'm hoping someone invents an armpit-wah one day so I can look like a *real* prat doing the chicken dance through a ton of harmonic filth. date=08.12.2003 11:17 ip=158.94.148.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Next time hopefully you will be there, Alex.

BTW: last post was to Martin - just in case there was any confusion. date=08.12.2003 11:19 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What did we think about the Turner Prize, if anything? I am increasingly baffled by it. Those pots were not even nice pots. I couldn't have chosen a winner, though. date=08.12.2003 11:22 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I guess ceramics hadn't had a go at winning the Turner prize. They're definitely *okay* pots - but I'd probably look for something more interesting if I saw them in a gallery. Something like that porcelain tapir dressed as a for that I saw when I was in Aber.

Have to admit I forgot about the Turners this year. date=08.12.2003 11:30 ip=158.94.148.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I guess ceramics hadn't had a go at winning the Turner prize. They're definitely *okay* pots - but I'd probably look for something more interesting if I saw them in a gallery. Something like that porcelain tapir dressed as a frog that I saw when I was in Aber.

Have to admit I forgot about the Turners this year.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=08.12.2003 11:30 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If I had £25k to spend on art, it wouldn't go on a piece of paedophiliac pottery. But, as all the tabloid headlines over Soham show, lots of people are morbidly aroused by things in that direction. A deeply unhealthy fascination, I am thinking.

I can't be the only one (can I?) who's bored to tears by art that confuses shock with surprise. I've never been able to read much of "Maldoror" for that reason. After a couple of chapters, I got the abiding impression of a recovering Catholic leering at his straight-laced parents and hissing: "I'm going to thay thomething weally *howwid* now -" Well, okay: but what else can you show me? And there didn't seem to be anything. So I tend to liken this stuff to a flasher in the park - not something most people want to witness, a result of problems at home, and a bit pathetic really. date=08.12.2003 12:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If I want shock, I'll listen to Diamanda Galas. date=08.12.2003 12:46 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Diamanda, where shock and surprise are one. I've only heard single pieces, though. What's the best cd to start with? date=08.12.2003 12:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Daimanda: if I was going to give someone an easy introduction, it would be "The Singer" - her interpretations of blues and gospel songs. Her version of "I put a spell on you" has me reaching for a crucifix. But for a bigger slice, go for something like "The Masque Of The Red Death". Chilling stuff. date=08.12.2003 13:05 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If I want to shock I'll *dress* as Diamanda Galas.

I did actually manage to read all of Maldoror but I was in rather an ex-catholic with trouble at home mood at the time. It's odd, I'm not sure if it's an inconsistency but I can deal with non-representational art up to about abstract expressionism, I can even groove on pop-art but mostly these days as kitsch, but most conceptual art leaves me cold.

I can deal with that stuff as philosophy or comedy but I'm not sure - other than historically - what it has to do with visual art. It's like reading one of those novels which are disguised treatises, or the way that Zappa used to inflict satire on his jazz-rock Varese compositions. I guess *someone* shd be doing it but not necessarily winning prizes. date=08.12.2003 13:15 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>not necessarily winning prizes

Maybe there should be seperate categories? I fail to see how a conceptual artist and a painter can compete on the same playing field. date=08.12.2003 13:23 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, there are some new David Lloyd paintings (He did the TTNH cover... just in case...) on the Castle Arts site: http://www.castlearts.co.uk/dal.htm

On the bio he says:

“They evolve slowly over a long period of time; months or years. I try to work without pre­conceived ideas. I want the final image to be as mysterious and inexplicable to me as it, hopefully, is to the viewer. During the painting process I try to stay dumb. I try not to listen to my head. I don’t want to make clever, cerebral, issue-based images. I want to listen to my heart. This isn’t an anti-intellectual position exactly, it’s just that I’m not particularly intelligent or sophisticated, so any attempts to make ‘conceptual’ work would be obvious and banal.

I’m suspicious of any artist who claims to be the final authority on his/her work. An artist who thinks he/she is ultimately in control of what he or she makes is working under an illusion. The most interesting part of what any artist does, is done without conscious control.

For me painting is like pushing an awkward supermarket trolley. It’s easy to push it, but it’s hard to steer it.” date=08.12.2003 13:29 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=David Lloyd: I'm really getting to like his stuff. I even found myself wondering whether to invest a grand in that harlequin painting. I'm reminded of the paintings of Steven Campbell, and, in a strange way, Ken Kiff. I'm also reminded of the cover of Selling England By The Pound, but that's just me. date=08.12.2003 14:09 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I could see why you'd invest!

Don't know anything about his background, but Stanley Spencer must loom large. date=08.12.2003 14:19 ip=63.82.110.178 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He just keeps getting better. A couple of years back he was more like blue period Picasso but now there's something of Stanley Spencer in there - also something very South American, I hesitate to say magical realist...

Especially since he probably lurks around here! date=08.12.2003 14:21 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Stanley Spencer. Of course. The more I look at that painting, the more tempted I become. *cuts up credit card* date=08.12.2003 14:33 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, I'm trying to think if he had a thing about Ken Kiff at one point. Seems familiar. Anyway, I shd try to get him to come to the next Empty Space thing. date=08.12.2003 14:40 ip=158.94.148.35 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Yes I'd like to meet him. (And get him drunk and get him to give me a painting).

It's just been pointed out to me that if you Google 'miserable failure' the results are quite amusing. date=08.12.2003 14:47 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough when Bridget and me first met him, he got us horribly drunk and gave us a painting. Well, we had to wait a few months until it got back from the Centro Modigliani but... It was all Bridget's fault of course - he said that the pictures had a gentle quality. Apparently no one had described them in that way before. So I'm afraid "gentle" has already been used - you'll have to try something else!

Re: Miserable failure: Ah yes, someone else was saying about that. Very cool! date=08.12.2003 14:54 ip=158.94.148.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oddly enough when Bridget and me first met him, he got us horribly drunk and gave us a painting. Well, we had to wait a few months until it got back from the Centro Modigliani but... It was all Bridget's fault of course - she said that the pictures had a gentle quality. Apparently no one had described them in that way before. So I'm afraid "gentle" has already been used - you'll have to try something else!

Re: Miserable failure: Ah yes, someone else was saying about that. Very cool!
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=08.12.2003 14:54 ip=158.94.148.35 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We shld have that Miserable Failure link here at Empty Space. date=08.12.2003 15:31 ip=213.78.167.174 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike! I can probably squeeze one onto the News page. date=08.12.2003 15:58 ip=158.94.139.86 name=Al mail=adwr@dial.pipex.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

Right, a plug. Next week's Brixton Alive Cabaret Night:

HO HO HO...

Yes, it's time for the Brixton Alive Christmas Special, with all your favourite sounds and much that is new. Oh, and we've got an EARLIER START: 7.30pm. As ever, Bar Lorca, 261 Brixton Road, come out of Brixton tube station, turn right and walk for ten minutes and there it is; Brixton's answer to Santa's Grotto, at a mere £4 a head.

This year's little helpers include:

- Rocking gospel people, singing carols for everyone to join in with
- Darren Terao; if Prince came from Clapham Junction, this is what he'd sound like
- Folk that kicks your door down and parties in your front room, from Julianne
- Drummers to rock the house, hard
- Downhome alt country sounds from singer songwriter Tim Ashby
- Lute sounds from Iceland with Theorbo (long necked lute) player Arngeir Hauksson
- The sounds of Nepal, fresh from the mountains
- Adelaide returns, to rock the house chilled-ly
- Festive poems from Al Robertson (ie same poems, but I'll be wearing a red hat)
- More opera!!!!!!!!
- All the gluhwein you can drink
- The once only, utterly unique, BRIXTON ALIVE CHRISTMAS RAFFLE!!!
- And much, much more...

Put up here because I don't have all your email addresses. If any of you want to be on the mailing list, drop me an email... date=08.12.2003 17:48 ip=62.188.105.7 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting talk on art, especially because (as ever) pretty much everything posted here has a bizarre synchronicity with everything else going on inside my oblique life. Io's comments were spot on - nobody really appreciates post-pop-art-art as art, it's all just cod philosophy. I think this is part of what set Matthew Collings off on his current TV series on old masters - I confess I haven't seen any, but I did read an interesting overview in one of the papers recently.

Last week, Al said:
"The artists that I most value are people... who's careers... can be traced in the process of their art; art as a dialogue with an onwards progress, so the whole thing forms an ongoing narrative; nothing repeated, everything moving a little further on."

Bizarrely enough, on the same day I was sat in a bar in East London trying to hammer out a philosophy for a new artistic movement we're setting up (called FAD, an evolution of the magazine I've been publishing recently - www.fadwebsite.com ). The key tenet was pretty much identical to this, that anyone involved is continually exploring and pushing forward their output, we don't want artists who discover a trick and then milk it for the rest of their life. We're not about people who are young necessarily, we're about people who are growing.

Another principle is that our artists don't question, they answer. No "what's this piece of artwork about?"... "Well, it's questioning the place of art in society today". Gives us the fucking answers already, we've had forty years of questioning.

(as to what all this means in practice... don't ask me. I'm just a catalyst. And I have no answers [hangs head in shame])

Talking of art and cod philosophy, I'm sure I saw this guy at the Bistro Californium (round the back of the Bar Italia) on Friday night: http://www.thecentralhouse.com/artist19.htm date=08.12.2003 19:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Slightly synchronous, if not oblique: a (rather garbled) posting that I just made on TTA:

I don't think this is necessarily a problem with the visual arts as such. There are still plenty of artists painting and producing sculptures - as you pointed out, Neal, these are antiquated skills and there's no real reason why anyone outside the field of fine arts shd be interested in them. Just as, for instance, there's no real reason why Joe Public shd necessarily have an opinion on an early twentieth century form like the science fiction novel.

I think the problem here is one of prizes and media. This sort of competition has the same relationship to the visual arts as Footballers Wives has to the beautiful game itself. But while sport appeals to the lowest common denominator - perhaps exemplified in Posh and Becks, or those rugby players who were being paraded around London today - the art world identifies itself with the outsider: perhaps a transvestite, perhaps someone who took to ceramics rather than another medium. In either case it's only the extremes that the media is capable of representing - at worst.

Re: Cod art @ the Bistro Californium: Reminds me of drunkenly trying to remember the title Trout Mask Replica sometime last week. The Bistro was *much* better before the write up in Time Out. date=08.12.2003 19:55 ip=81.135.11.190 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also slightly synchronous - I heard on Radio 4 that in today's Independent there's an article on how people who continually experiment and change live longer than those who stick to what they know. date=09.12.2003 08:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, yes, TTA... how do I get there? I wanna see Mike get into a fight. date=09.12.2003 08:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=www.ttapress.com

MJH's board can be like an intellectual Fight Club. date=09.12.2003 09:11 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: TTA certainly can go that way. I was particularly taken with the poster (memory makes it a hissy American, but I could be wrong) who flounced off after denouncing MJH as "the kind of person who should never be allowed near these boards," or some such.

Once you start being insulted, you *know* you've won the argument! date=09.12.2003 09:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I was always envisaged the logical conclusion of that argument in terms of finding myself lying dazed on the floor, explaning to the seething puglist standing over me, "Ah, but you see - my point is obviously valid because I *made* you break my nose!" date=09.12.2003 10:16 ip=158.94.154.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Martin: I always envisage the logical conclusion of that argument in terms of finding myself lying dazed on the floor, explaning to the seething puglist standing over me, "Ah, but you see - my point is obviously valid because I *made* you break my nose!"
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.12.2003 10:16 ip=158.94.154.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some div followed me round the party on Saturday night, trying to get friendly. At one point, he said to me: "I've got a joke for you. Are you racist?..." Of course, I ran. It would have ended up in a 'me on the floor, bleeding but vindicated' scenario. date=09.12.2003 10:27 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Racist? I don't even drive ..." date=09.12.2003 10:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At least he didn't say 'racialist'. date=09.12.2003 10:38 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had one of those sorts of incidents on, of all places, the Isle of Sheppey. We'd just been to the Abbey at Minster, reading the legend of a horse called Grey Dolphin on a tomb, and climbing the tower to take in an impressive view of the Island. ("I can't see shit! Is it always this foggy?") And we became somewhat parched with all this dry history and took ourselves to the pub.

Where we met Derek.

Derek came straight over to our table, invited himself to sit down and asked: "Do you follow the football?" I said I didn't, and he started talking at me about football for the next fifteen-twenty minutes, or as long as it took to finish up our pints. His monologue would have been plain boring if it hadn't been enlivened by reassurances that the people on the mainland were *far* more rascialist than Sheppey-folk.

I don't think I gave him the opportunity to ask "Where do you come from? Originally, I mean..." We drank up pretty sharpish and made our way back to civilisation - or at least Sheerness.

You're not from around here, are you? date=09.12.2003 10:59 ip=158.94.154.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I had one of those sorts of incidents on, of all places, the Isle of Sheppey. We'd just been to the Abbey at Minster, reading the legend of a horse called Grey Dolphin on a tomb, and climbing the tower to take in an impressive view of the Island. ("I can't see shit! Is it always this foggy?";) And we became somewhat parched with all this dry history and took ourselves to the pub.

Where we met Derek.

Derek came straight over to our table, invited himself to sit down and asked: "Do you follow the football?" I said I didn't, and he started talking at me about football for the next fifteen-twenty minutes, or as long as it took to finish up our pints. His monologue would have been plain boring if it hadn't been enlivened by reassurances that the people on the mainland were *far* more racialist than Sheppey-folk.

I don't think I gave him the opportunity to ask "Where do you come from? Originally, I mean..." We drank up pretty sharpish and made our way back to civilisation - or at least Sheerness.

You're not from around here, are you?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.12.2003 10:59 ip=158.94.154.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I had one of those sorts of incidents on, of all places, the Isle of Sheppey. We'd just been to the Abbey at Minster, reading the legend of a horse called Grey Dolphin on a tomb, and climbing the tower to take in an impressive view of the Island. ("I can't see shit! Is it always this foggy?" ) And we became somewhat parched with all this dry history and took ourselves to the pub.

Where we met Derek.

Derek came straight over to our table, invited himself to sit down and asked: "Do you follow the football?" I said I didn't, and he started talking at me about football for the next fifteen-twenty minutes, or as long as it took to finish up our pints. His monologue would have been plain boring if it hadn't been enlivened by reassurances that the people on the mainland were *far* more racialist than Sheppey-folk.

I don't think I gave him the opportunity to ask "Where do you come from? Originally, I mean..." We drank up pretty sharpish and made our way back to civilisation - or at least Sheerness.

You're not from around here, are you?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t*
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.12.2003 10:59 ip=158.94.154.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I had one of those sorts of incidents on, of all places, the Isle of Sheppey. We'd just been to the Abbey at Minster, reading the legend of a horse called Grey Dolphin on a tomb, and climbing the tower to take in an impressive view of the Island. ("I can't see shit! Is it always this foggy?" ) And we became somewhat parched with all this dry history and took ourselves to the pub.

Where we met Derek.

Derek came straight over to our table, invited himself to sit down and asked: "Do you follow the football?" I said I didn't, and he started talking at me about football for the next fifteen-twenty minutes, or as long as it took to finish up our pints. His monologue would have been plain boring if it hadn't been enlivened by reassurances that the people on the mainland were *far* more racialist than Sheppey-folk.

I don't think I gave him the opportunity to ask "Where do you come from? Originally, I mean..." We drank up pretty sharpish and made our way back to civilisation - or at least Sheerness.

You're not from around here, are you?
--------------------*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.12.2003 10:59 ip=158.94.154.175 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't do that Fight Club stuff any more. I'm reformed. Actually, I *am* the sort of person who shouldn't be allowed near message boards, if you define them as places where people go to rehearse the things they already know. There are only two or three viewpoints in the f/sf genre, the most subversive of which is now forty years old and demonstrating as much anxious ownership syndrome and senility as the rest. And f/sf *still* maintains its ten-to-twenty year lag in terms of content and technique with regard to the mainstream. They've got sad little creatures coming out of workshops half-yearly to preach against the "infodump" as if Bruce Sterling were still alive, while out in the real world someone like Franzen writes you a twenty page essay on the ur-economy of the Eastern Seaboard so you can read the next scene, and you love it because he can actually *write*. They're like gerbils. Busy, busy, busy. No talent, and follow the rules; but always busy. date=09.12.2003 11:08 ip=213.78.74.86 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the great things about getting Lisa to shave my head is that I don't have to endure barbers any more. "Been watching the football?" No, I don't like sport. "Did you see (progamme x) last night?" No, I don't watch TV. "Going on holiday?" No. Shut up or I'm going to kill you. "Women, eh?" Just cut the hair. Please. "I'm not racialist but we had this pakki in earlier, oops (tee hee) can't say that any more, can I?.."
I hate barbers. date=09.12.2003 11:12 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>as places where people go to rehearse the things they already know

Innit? The problem with such places - and, I suppose, the good thing too - is that they bring together people with the same interests who might not normally meet. I mean, in real life I've only ever met three people who have read an MJH book. I'm on another message board for users of a rather obscure bit of musical software, and I've never met anyone who uses it in the flesh. But these places get hijacked by people who want to inflate their own egos: they are not interested in learning from the experience. They are like people who display all their books and records just so others can see how much *knowledge* they posess.
Empty Space, for all its diversions and tangents, is the best forum I've been involved with. date=09.12.2003 11:20 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I've toyed with the kojak for a while - but I'd end up looking like a cross between a belisha beacon and Aleister Crowley's effete nephew.

MJH: Gerbils - or Serias: arrested development, contemplating deep space while stuck in their very own tank, and blasting at anything that gets in the way. The resemblance must be pure coincidence, of course ... Always bewildered me that people who take pride in contemplating infinity have such closed minds. Too much Heinlein in their youth, or something. date=09.12.2003 11:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The resemblance must be pure coincidence, of course ...

Of course. Hi, Martin. date=09.12.2003 11:33 ip=213.78.74.86 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, there's nothing I love more than that feeling of righteousness experienced when lying on the floor with a broken nose. Actually, the last (and, I think, only) fight I was in was rather like that. After my then-pregnant wife rescued me from being throttled by the new-age thug who we then lived with (it's a frighteningly long story...) I couldn't help beaming from ear to ear at my succesful practice of non-violent philosophy (nothing to do, of course, with the fact that if I'd tried to hit him he would have flattened me), while meanwhile he growled "stop laughing at me you four-eyed cunt or I'll make you fucking regret it". It still gives me a strangely warm glow looking back.

Funny but last Thursday, the two friends I was down the pub with were also discussing the one-and-only times they'd been involved in fights, again with dewy-eyed nostalgia. One of them had been drinking with his sister in a pub in Telford when a gang who got their kicks from starting fights singled him out and got nasty. The whole thing turned into what sounded like a Western-style bar-room brawl, furniture'n'all. By the end of it, he was adrenalined into ecstacy.

On the subject of discussion forums etc, I remember talking about this subject with some friends (another online community) several years ago, the subject arose of global communities of interest replacing local communities of geographical proximity. We had our own little web village online for a while from about 1995-98, but now only the empty buildings remain: http://www.sumption.org/posi-web - we still keep up the chat though, through a private mailing list antiweb and, more recently, another one Nemo which Jan and I mentioned to Martin and possibly others on Friday. date=09.12.2003 11:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm all for a sense of community, but a community held together by its defences is less a community than a personality disorder. Through projection, projective identification and transference it's precisely trying *not* to acknowledge the things it already knows about itself. date=09.12.2003 12:04 ip=213.78.74.86 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On discussion forums: used to run Radio KRMB (Krautrock Message Board - surprise, surprise!) up until a few years back. I'm still in contact with a few of the locals - one of whom came over here from California and married my youngest uncle! If any of you are interested I still have one unmarried aunt - she's a Rosicrucian but otherwise unblemished. Anyway, that board collapsed under personal animosities and inertia: there's only so much you can say about the same few albums over and over.

But yes, we are just *great*, aren't we! date=09.12.2003 12:05 ip=158.94.154.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: There's a copy of Centauri Device on Ebay at the moment. The seller says: "used to see him all the time writing in a cellar, but that's another story." I think we should be told! date=09.12.2003 12:10 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the same few albums over and over

Yes. What happens is that the old bores, the ones who constantly kick off about people going off-topic, stick around to demonstrate their vast knowledge to any newbies. The rest bugger off to get a life. date=09.12.2003 12:12 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: this board is a Good Thing, and no mistake - thank you again for setting it up!

>>Rosicrucian ... She should be helping me. I'm researching an in-house article on Charles Williams
His day job was an OUP editor; spare time went into Golden Dawn, metaphysical fictions, masques, and gnostic/kabbalistic speculation. Getting all this into 1,000 words (and making it comprehensible to a readership that's mostly never heard of him) is turning into quite a task. So Empty Space is even more of a pleasurable relief than usual at present. date=09.12.2003 12:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>this board is a Good Thing, and no mistake - thank you again for setting it up!

Well, thank you for using it! It's just about the simplest sort of message board about - but therein, I think lies it's beauty.

>>I'm researching an in-house article on Charles Williams

Actually that sounds rather fun. If I was doing that rather than some low-level cataloguing (The Uncanny by Nicholas Royle turned up today - no, the *other* Nick Royle!) and student-nannying I'd probably be in one of my brief irregular phases of "shutting the fuck up." date=09.12.2003 12:24 ip=158.94.154.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>therein, I think lies it's beauty

I talk to people on here more than I talk to the people working several yards away. Can you imagine working in a 'creative' department where no-one reads books, or watches films, or listens to interesting music, or knows what's in the news? Or even, God forbid, understands the finer points of kebab space travel? Scandalous. date=09.12.2003 12:40 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, they're not too bad around here. But then again, with all the LOTR posters up around my colleague's desks, the prospect of a discussion of genre fantasy is not appealing. I tried once - it didn't go so well. So often it's best to stick to the subject of the other decor around here: cats. date=09.12.2003 12:48 ip=158.94.154.175 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, you wrote--

>>I'm researching an in-house article on Charles Williams

I wouldn't mind seeing that when you've finished it. Also, we should put our heads together over the old bugger. I love his fiction. Invite me to tea one afternoon in Oxford, that would be a proper place to talk about him.

Alex: depends which cellar, I've written in a couple. I suspect this may be a reference to the semi-mythical Bookchain cellar, located somewhere in Egnaro in the late 70s. date=09.12.2003 13:16 ip=213.78.168.74 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the semi-mythical Bookchain cellar

Thought of you the other day, actually, when trawling round the terrible bookshops in Shudehill, having just been reading Climbers. God knows how they survive - porn, I suppose. date=09.12.2003 13:30 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I'd be delighted!

Let me know when you're around early in the new year, and we'll sort something out. I'm poring over the files for his Arthurian work, and picking my way through his erudition. "Plotinus experienced ecstasy six times," he said in a review: precision and gentle envy conveyed in five words. I hope I can do him some sort of justice. date=09.12.2003 13:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shudehill, Tib Street, I always found those places "terrible" in the sense that they inspired terror, especially this time of year. There's something about any kind of secondhand bookshop, any kind of urban market in the rain. People are selling each other broken stuff. The books themselves seem broken--damaged in their ideas--by being read or not being read. Shudehill just before dark in winter gives you the feeling all books are the Eon Heart, seedy but will drag you away somehow, shift your life from being a railway arch in Waterloo or Ashton Under Lyme--through some flicker of something you can't have--to being a railway arch in, well, Camden or Ashton Under Lyme... The narrative arc from not enough knowledge to no knowledge at all, the life arc Machenesque... Ah yes (assumes Chevalier voice and sings meditatively) I remember it well. date=09.12.2003 14:04 ip=213.78.168.74 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That Plotinus. Always the clubber. Great, Martin, let's do it. date=09.12.2003 14:07 ip=213.78.168.74 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>they inspired terror

Still do, and I know exactly what you mean. I don't know how much longer they will be there for, but they haven't changed much in the 15 years I've been in Manchester. The old Savoy outlet on Peter Street has gone, though. I used to enjoy going in there: go anywhere near the 'art' magazines and the guy would leap on you. "Oi! No browsing!" I don't know how he managed to sell any. What is it about second hand book dealers? Are they all half lost to Egnaro? date=09.12.2003 14:28 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bridget's folks live in the Oxford area. On one visit around Xmas we stopped for a quiet Guinness at the pub where Williams, Lewis & thingy used to drink. Can't remember the name of the pub. Terrible memory for names. date=09.12.2003 15:09 ip=158.94.154.175 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You could try all of them then you'd be certain of having gone to the right one. Thingy = Tolkein I take it? date=09.12.2003 15:11 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, Tolkien - I never forget a face. If I got through all of the pubs in Oxford I think I'd probably forget it again by the next day, along with my own name, and of course my bag. date=09.12.2003 15:15 ip=158.94.154.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been to the White Horse Tavern in NYC where Dylan Thomas drank his final 18 whiskies. Nice pub, for a Yank establishment. date=09.12.2003 15:24 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think we're talking about The Eagle & Child in St. Giles - known to Inkling fans and the more tweedy around here as "The Bird & Babe." They still have a couple of the oaken snugs where Tolkien held court every week, though most of it's modernised with an atrium out the back. Huge tourist trade - but (so far as I know) they don't have anything like a pewter "Tolk's Tankard" you can fill up with Stella. Maybe I should tell them about the marketing opportunity they've missed. date=09.12.2003 15:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dylan Thomas drank in a lot of the pubs in Camden I believe ... Just not the last 18 whiskies. Didn't the Acmeists or Adamists in where was it St Petersburg? have a theatre pub called the dog and duck where Ahkmatova used to read her poems? Or was it called the lucky dog? (Mmm, same problem with names.) It was really exclusively for poets to read out their poems. Everyone else was called a pharmacist. So: a new categorical division was applied to people: you were either a poet or a pharmacist. Before the revolution. date=09.12.2003 15:32 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the marketing opportunity they've missed

I can see it now. The Bilbo Burger. The Onion Ring of Elrond. Two Towers'o'Ribs.
Come in! Get Legolas! date=09.12.2003 15:32 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So: a new categorical division was applied to people: you were either a poet or a pharmacist. Before the revolution.

And then Whatsisface Leary came along and suddenly you had to be both. date=09.12.2003 15:35 ip=158.94.154.175 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Poet/pharmacist: I was just thinking that, after any worthwhile revolution, we'd all be both.

Acmeists: aye, lad - and that there Mandelstam still owes me his bloody round ... date=09.12.2003 15:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex:
>> Can you imagine working in a 'creative' department where no-one reads books, or watches films, or listens to interesting music, or knows what's in the news? Or even, God forbid, understands the finer points of kebab space travel? Scandalous.

Imagine it? God, yes, I lived in it for too many years. I found the lack of perspective in ad-land quite unbelievable, even to someone fairly used to the lack of perspective in the world in general. Sod the rainforests and the starving millions, if we lose the McDonald's account my job's on the line.

Re Williams, Lewis & thingy: a friend of mine often signs off his emails with a quote he attributes to Lewis talking to Tolkien at one such drinking session: "Oh no! Not another fucking elf". That can't be right, can it?

Ah, no, not entirely true it seems: http://tinyurl.com/yfik date=09.12.2003 16:35 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I first heard it as "another fucking dwarf," which seems a lot funnier but non-PC. Perhaps this is why Galadriel's mates have taken over.

The idea of Tolkien moots with folk in costume makes me reach for my revolver. I still have to read a bit of Tolkien, though: he was one of the researchers on the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and drafted the etymology and the definition for the word "walrus," so we have all this in the archive. I think it'll feature in a BBC "Imagine" programme on the OED which is going out on 18 Dec., but I haven't seen an advance tape. date=09.12.2003 17:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Sorry, I've been rude. Your marketing ideas!! - :))) date=09.12.2003 17:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Eagle & Child is missing out on a fine marketing opportunity for wardrobes - they've a bloody big conservatory at the back where they could keep them, too.

"Two pints of bitter, a magic wardrobe and some turkish delight...." They'd be on a winner. date=09.12.2003 22:37 ip=213.78.71.34 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! Missed a very chatty day yesterday... was up in libraries in London, pondering characters. My protagonist becoming clearer, which is no bad thing. Best way to write a book - extensive planning, or broad planning and let the detail and structure develop as the book goes along? Thoughts welcome.

>> writes you a twenty page essay on the ur-economy of the Eastern Seaboard so you can read the next scene, and you love it because he can actually *write*.

Hmm - hadn't thought of it in that light; as a positive stylistic thing. A book that contains the world can't explain all its complexities through pure narrative; is the above a comment on the failure of narrative to deal fully with the complexities of modern life, or an acknowledgement that (under pressure from all the info that's out there, on line, in publishing, etc) the definition of narrative has broadened to keep up with all this info?

The way we construct our understanding of our lives is different because of the amount of info that surrounds us that wouldn't have done 50 or 100 years ago, so the way we construct our narratives about them (and our books about them) different also. Hmm.

Thought China does this interestingly in 'The Scar' - at one point a huge info dump about the history of the Anapholi (prob spelt that wrong). At the time thought this a bit extraneous, now not so sure - tho' I do think it sits a bit oddly with the very driving narrative form he's chosen to write in. So maybe inclusion of info-dumps as viable part of fiction requires a more formal rethinking as well? date=10.12.2003 09:57 ip=62.188.112.226 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh Martin - v. intrigued by your Charles Williams article. Yet another person talked about here (from Krautrock to Aickman) that I haven't read / know little about and would love to know more of! Maybe we should do an Empty Space compilation, where we all whack in something from our favourite lesser known writer / musician / whatever and share... Next meet up - cabaret! As we all perform each one of them.

Also, any word on Steph's return on Friday? date=10.12.2003 10:00 ip=62.188.112.226 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, Alex - loved your marketing ideas. No doubt also an illicit looking Gandalf out the back you could score some of that Hobbit weed from...

'An eighth of Troll, please'

'Troll?'

'Gets you stoned!'

bdm-tish

*ahem* date=10.12.2003 10:01 ip=62.188.112.226 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>let the detail and structure develop

Hmm. That's what I'm trying to do. I'm working on the bits of a book that interest me right now - basically, a series of different events from a bigger narrative, which I'm then going to lay out on a table and see where the connections go, if at all. It's my way round grafting my way through the thing from start to finish. Can't do it.

Empty Space compilation? Music-wise, I'll happily burn a mix CD of my favourite listening moments for anyone who wants one. Fun little task for an idle moment. date=10.12.2003 10:18 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It's my way round grafting my way through the thing from start to finish

Hmm, I think my brain works in a different way to yours; I need to write the thing as a narrative, from start to finish, as if I'm telling it as a story to myself before anyone else reads it. Find I'm doing a lot of re-writing as I go along, as characters become clearer, new people wander in, etc. I've got a basic idea of the shape of the whole thing; just trying to find the right balance between improvisation and planning. date=10.12.2003 10:30 ip=62.188.105.123 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=re infodumps also; these days, you can't assume that everyone knows everything you're talking about; knowledge is too wide, even for knowledgeable people, to be universal. So info dumps become more necessary, even for the switched on reader - or should you reduce them on the assumption that a book should not be completely self-contained; ie it should force engagement with the world beyond itself by triggering (even just factual) questions that it does not itself answer. date=10.12.2003 10:32 ip=62.188.105.123 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the right balance between improvisation and planning

Sure. The situation I've got is that I know what happens at the beginning and at the end. I've got themes and elements, and characters. I've got certain events. I just haven't mixed up the glue yet. I find that if I plan everything out, I can't be bothered writing the thing. date=10.12.2003 10:36 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>it should force engagement with the world beyond itself

I'm thinking that way at the moment. I think that the research I've done should inform the narrative, but I don't need to regurgitate everything I know about the background. Mind you, I'm still wearing an Alan Garner hat. date=10.12.2003 10:38 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. I can go with this--

>>The way we construct our understanding of our lives is different because of the amount of info that surrounds us that wouldn't have done 50 or 100 years ago, so the way we construct our narratives about them (and our books about them) different also. Hmm.

--but there's a historical explanation too, as far as f/sf is concerned. The difference is between "show" and "tell". Up until the 50s, "show" was the prevailing mainstream-literary fashion (in itself a reaction to the "tell" of Victorianism), while sf lagged behind and still did "tell". By the late 60s, under pressure from people who read outside the field, "show not tell" had become accepted; by the late 70s the American soft New Wave had elevated this to reveived wisdom & a course requirement at Clarion; & of course you couldn't do cyberpunk without it. Sf got very proud of itself. It had caught up at last! Problem is: outside in the real world, bored people were going through the ragbag of stuff thrown out by Modernist and pulp writer alike, and they found all these really interesting "tell" techniques... Oops, sf caught up too late, as ever, just as everyone else was about to swing the other way.

There are many more points here, including yours. But another interesting one is that, actually, "tell" can be done as narrative too. The idea that because you don't have specific "characters" doing discrete "scenes" you aren't telling a story, is so naive as to explain *why* the sf gerbils always catch up a bit late & then immediately get behind again. Not actually interested enough in the way techniques work. Not up to it. Only up to round & round in the wheel someone else built them.

Commercial pressure to do show not tell comes from the drive for suspension of disbelief. In the received wisdom of the commercial editor you must never, never use any technique that reminds the reader the fictional world isn't real, all around them and ongoing for the period of reading. Never mind how good you are, and to what extent you can make it stick: you must never take the risk.

In a way, it's good advice: most f/sf writers are so incompetent their "infodumps" *are* boring. date=10.12.2003 10:53 ip=213.78.75.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, that should read "In the 50s", not "Up until the 50s". date=10.12.2003 10:57 ip=213.78.75.131 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: so, in f/sf, when an author gives us a whole load of background history to the world s/he has created, is that showing or telling? date=10.12.2003 11:07 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Also, any word on Steph's return on Friday?

Nowt. I'll drop her an email - she might just be incommunicado, or shocking into silence by the reality of the ES crew! date=10.12.2003 11:29 ip=158.94.160.175 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Show not tell' contains an ambiguity. (And you could also have action, not reflection (or action not introspection). Or description not explanation.)

Some sort of short essay, a form that Franzen who you mentioned MJH, seems to excel at, put into a narrative and effectively bringing the narrative to a halt would have to work as both perhaps. As well as functioning as a discursive or information giving essay, it would need to fit into the sense of the book as a whole. In that case, showing while telling. Both. Otherwise it wouldn't fit in. In other words, because the information dump isn’t itself explained. (Told) It is just dumped. date=10.12.2003 11:31 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Am I the only one here not working on a book? (thought, truth be told, I am *working on* working on a book... just not prepared to start committing it to writing until I find the idea to end all ideas).

Personally I like the sound of Alex's approach to writing - for me it's all about riffing. But on the other hand, like Al, I get awfully confused when things don't go in a straight line.

PS. Martin - could you send me your email address - want to send you a Nemo invite, as Jan suggested, or at least a few terabytes of music. date=10.12.2003 11:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. If it's onscreen, and animated, ie a flashback; or if it's demonstrated as an unexplained everyday assumption of one of the characters; it's show. If it's delivered directly by the text to the reader, or in dialogue, or through some artefact of the "world" itself, ie a news broadcast or scientific report or whatever, it's tell. Anyone who can mix all of those up, using techniques which have been available to all kinds of very readable nonfiction writers for seventy years, is too clever to be writing f/sf. If you want to learn to write readable infodumps (especially those to do with establishing a world) you don't read fiction. You read travel writing, from Peter Fleming on to Charlie Nicholl.

I think another thing is this: the material you want to get over has to be interesting in itself. If it isn't, why the fuck are you doing it ? You have already made the assumption that this stuff is *boring* and you have to dress it up. Well, if you're a gerbil, it probably is. That's because you think there's a "story" and it's "underpinnings". You probably think that about life, too. If you're a gerbil, you may be right or you may be in deep denial. date=10.12.2003 11:53 ip=213.78.75.131 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> The idea that because you don't have specific "characters" doing discrete "scenes" you aren't telling a story

Hmm, so presumably you're defining the story not exclusively as onwards progression of character but instead / also as onward progression of ideas - which can be represented through characters, but can also be presented as abstract concepts in their own right. So the important thing is to maintain some sort of flow; of dynamic, engaging change, either of character or of idea or indeed presumably of everything else.

>> Otherwise it wouldn't fit in. In other words, because the information dump isn’t itself explained. (Told) It is just dumped.

Hmm, which I suppose I've just restated; an info dump becomes an info dump in the perjorative sense when it is just that; when it fails to move things along.

I wonder if its harder to do info dumps in more fantastic writing? As your problem is this, if you look at the story's relationship to the *real world*:

Non-fantastic fiction -

*real world* - story

Fantastic fiction -

*real world* - created world - story

I can imagine everyone already going, well, the *real world* of non-fantastic fiction is just as created as in fantastic - ie re-created for the purposes of the book - but nonetheless it tends to require a little less explanation because we live directly in it; so less new information is in it. If someone writes a book set in Iceland, then I've already got a reasonable sense of how Iceland works; so less explanation needed. If someone writes a book set in the Magick Republick of Thringatonia, then I need to have some basics explained to me.

So maybe the anti-info dump thing holds true for basic world setting information etc - avoiding moments like 'why is that the Arch Duke Clarence? Yes, and he overthrew the King three years ago, as I'm sure you know, bla bla bla' - but not for introducing ideas that drive the (thematic) narrative on.

Also interesting - how do you introduce an info-dump? ie as a document or similar that characters access (v. gothic, almost, narratives within narratives) or as an aside from the named / unnamed narrator? Each fulfils different needs, I suppose, ultimately driven by the gap between what your characters know and what (you assume) your audience knows. date=10.12.2003 11:55 ip=62.188.108.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH/Al: Like the note that info-dumping's best found in travel writing. I'm just reading Robert Byron's "Road to Oxiana." I tried this years ago, but gave up: I didn't get it. Looked at now, the amount of description/history that's been forked under the surface without any of it poking out to trip you up is astonishing. Anti-gerbil with a vengeance: you have to work out for yourself who everyone is, and what they're doing. No foot-notes, no glossary, just a map. The result's that you keep stopping after almost every paragraph to see how Byron does it. He makes it look effortless when it must have cost him blood. date=10.12.2003 12:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>is too clever to be writing f/sf

Hmm. Well I've got Iain M. Banks in mind, here.

>>Alex's approach to writing

It's partly from doing ads etc. You get a brief, which contains factual information about a product, along with an outline of intention and suggestions about tone, subtext etc. You then put all those things in front of you and try to use a short circuit between all that information and the cultural information swimming around your brain to give birth to something 'creative' and satisfying. Er.. I hope that's clear! *scratches head* date=10.12.2003 12:10 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin. Great book, isn't it ? He presents it as "travel notes", too, although he worked on it for at least 3 years before he published. To me it seemed transparent, fluid, lisible, slipped down like an oyster. But there are so many of them, and so good. Fleming, Byron, Leigh Fermor, Chatwin's early stuff (esp In Patagonia), Nicholl (The Fruit Palace) and Colin Thubron. Not just travel writing, either, but a whole tradition of nonfiction from the twenties onwards, Orwell, Clancy Sigal (Weekend in Dinlock), all the way up to the collision of fictional/nonfictional techniques in the New Journalism, leading to pure *writing* like Robert Sabbag's Smokscreen. & autobiography is another place where you have to handle vast amounts of background information in a way that won't bore the reader. I mean, the fact is, there's a wealth of examples & exemplars if you're willing for just a couple of days a month to be something other than a gerbil. date=10.12.2003 12:33 ip=213.78.68.74 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - fascinating that travel writing has become such a consistent touchstone for writing *this kind of thing*. It's basic function, I suppose, is to move the reader to somewhere entirely new in a very painless way - or to help them see somewhere they already know in a very painless way; one of the basic skills of sf / fantasy writing!

I'm with you on the Byron, MJH - wonderful stuff. Would definitely add William Dalrymple to the list also. Flaubert's 'Voyage in Egypt' (I think it's called - compendium of his travel pieces, in Penguin Classics) fantastic also.

I love guidebooks to obscure places, also; or walking the city guides. Have actually bought a wonderful old guide book to St Ives and its environs to pillage for place names, and also get a feel for description / evocation etc. date=10.12.2003 13:18 ip=62.188.108.43 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anybody read that American author, is it Lehman? I read a review in Canada which raved about him. Apparently he gives his main characters super-powers, and so fuses straight sober description of his upbringing with Marvel-style comic-book. I think it has just been published here but can't seem to find it on Amazon. date=10.12.2003 13:18 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Charles Nicholl: his book "The Reckoning" on Marlowe's murder, and his study of Rimbaud, "Somebody Else," are among my favourite non-fiction books. Both are quiet feats. He resurrects Rimbaud from Abyssinia with hardly any facts to guide him (and the postscript is an elegy to the mate who first showed him Rimbaud's work). "Reckoning" gets under the skin of the Elizabethan world, and shows you the dark intricacies of an anti-Catholic police state, in which Marlowe seems to have lost his way. Anyway, both books are object lessons in putting acres of fact in front of general readers without it seeming in the least bit like a heavy-footed teaching exercise. date=10.12.2003 13:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Travel writing: I haven't read a lot of it. I don't know why, but I suppose I'd better start! I did enjoy a couple of Tim Cahil's books, though, and I like the way Jim Crace used travel-style writing in The Devil's Larder and Continent. date=10.12.2003 13:35 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=P.S: Has anyone else read The Age Of Wire and String by Ben Marcus? It takes the kind of thing we're talking about to amazing extremes. date=10.12.2003 13:36 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin - must read that Marlowe book, looks v. cool. I first read him with 'The Creature in the Map'; Raleigh, alchemy and El Dorado. Come to think of it, Richard Holmes' 'Footsteps' v. good as well; part travel writing, part autobiography, part biography. date=10.12.2003 13:48 ip=62.188.110.251 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Age of Wire and String? What is it? date=10.12.2003 13:49 ip=62.188.110.251 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Age of Wire and String? What is it?

Marvellously inexplicable book, in a way. Not having the book to hand, I've been looking for some quotes on the web and I found this on Toby Litt's site (he likes it too):
http://www.tobylitt.com/ageofwireandstring.html date=10.12.2003 14:19 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just heard a sting on Radio 4 for that BBC favourite book thing. There's something very irritating about it; taking all these books and turning them into *classics*, nice and safe and cosy and part of the furniture.

Reminds me of the Harry Potter ads last Christmas; a maternal voice going 'This Christmas... Harry Potter' in an immensely soothing, relieving and ever-so-slightly patronising way. Reading as comfort blanket - and nothing else! Ugh... date=10.12.2003 14:21 ip=62.188.100.114 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No two ways about it Al, the media are infantilising us.

I am not blaming the media however. It's a demand thing. date=10.12.2003 14:28 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>that BBC favourite book thing

It's a bit gruesome, isn't it? I don't know why they don't go the whole hog and do "NOW That's what I call reading" - special CD containing the 'good bits' from all the books. Saves you the bother of wading through all those words. date=10.12.2003 14:34 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> NOW that's what I call reading

Hmm, wouldn't surprise me.

*Feels bleak*

MJP - maybe more sanitising than infantilising, tho' I guess both achieve broadly the same effect... date=10.12.2003 14:49 ip=62.188.112.73 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, I would still call it infantilising. It's about being told what to do, and what to read, &c., and wanting to be told. Being spoon fed. Horrible. When I was a baby I kept throwing everything out of my pram (apparently). I have been doing the same ever since.

Can't wait to read some of the books listed below however. Also going to find out more information on that Lehman chap. Must have it wrong because I can't trace it.

I am reading Mansfield and Akhmatova con-currently. The latter is a deeply tragic heroic figure. date=10.12.2003 15:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I see what you mean, MJP. Am now also trying to imagine you as a baby! Small cigar toting Wittgenstein reading (Ladybird edition, with illustrations) pram throwing out of person.

Oh, another thing I was meaning to rant about (I am turning into Victor Meldrew today). From last week's Guardian, Estelle Morris (new Arts Minister) interview:

'Musicians and artists should be able to teach in schools without formal qualifications. The skills are in the theatre and they could learn from the teachers and the teachers could learn from them. It would be a huge statement on the place of the arts in a society which is fairly good at measuring and testing... the arts can help people read and write.'

And, later:

'I know arts and culture make a contribution to health, to education, to crime reduction, to strong communities, to the economy, and to the nation's wellbeing, but I don't always know how to evaluate or describe it. We have to find a language and a way of describing its worth.'

Grrr! Gradgrind lives. It means what it is; it justifies itself. 'My business is not to reason and compare, but to create', as Blake had it. Picking up on your point, MJP; standardising of status leads to standardising of interpretation; read this, it's good, read this, it will re-socialise you - and prevents any personal experience of art, and response to art, and ultimately making of art, from developing. Art as handed down from above to make you a better citizen; infantilising, sanitising, grrrrrrrrrr. date=10.12.2003 15:28 ip=62.188.108.254 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Gradgrind lives. It means what it is; it justifies itself

Should be, 'For me, art means...' date=10.12.2003 15:30 ip=62.188.108.254 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> special CD containing the 'good bits' from all the books

Funnily enough, I picked up just such a think in the pub (The Eagle, Farringdon Road) the other week. Actually, it was a free sampler promoting the BBC's audiobooks for children, but came perilously close. date=10.12.2003 15:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I coud never get the hang of "Whereof we cannot speak thereof we must be silent" as a child. Wah wah wah.

The media have a dual effect. Simultaneously atomising people and creating an appetite in them for community. So these false pictures of reading or viewing get created. Cultural history gets turned into a monument to itself. The world's greatest film, greatest book and so on.

It's all bollocks of course. Wah. date=10.12.2003 15:42 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just heard a sting on Radio 4 for that BBC favourite book thing.

Those fucking bookworms! Those patronising celebrities! Die! Die! Die! Can anyone do a good TV programme about literature? Is it actually possible? Is it just another missed opportunity or are books and TV mutually exclusive: a media NAND gate.

One day I will dance in the entrails of Griff Rhys Jones. date=10.12.2003 15:46 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=To a degree, I think the media works as a mediator in the transaction between artist and consumer which says: I am putting this in front of you in order that you might make it valuable. We shouldn't need a mediator, of course, and those of us who would say we were culturally literate don't need it. But all humans seem to need culture of some kind, and the media step in to make it easy. I'm not saying it's a good thing - it's lazy - but it's how most people 'do' culture these days. date=10.12.2003 15:47 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> One day I will dance in the entrails of Griff Rhys Jones

Once sat in a seat he'd just vacated, for luck. We took in turns, boozy night in Edinburgh during the Festival. Well, we were young...

I'm not sure you can do a good TV programme about a book; books are subtle and complex things, with the best will in the world v. difficult to cover in 45 mins / 1 hr / whatever of air time.

Think you're spot on about the way the media 'creates' culture, MJP. Fascinating balance between atomisation / idealisation of group, social activity. Watching other people being social; Big Brother being apotheosis of this, I suppose. Tho' having said that, don't forget the water cooler moments - TV drives groupings externally by creating a shared experience people can use to relate to each other. date=10.12.2003 15:58 ip=62.188.105.183 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The media issue. The idea of there being a *news* - in books, politics, whatever - is a kind of falsification. A fiction. Because what's happening has to be selected, a ring must be around it; "this is important"; some sort of noise must made about it. When in a strange way there is no 'what's happening'. We could say that this has always been so but it represents an emerging consciousness in us because of the nature of the media technology. The realisation that 'events' are impossible in these circumstances. That there is just a continuous neverending concurrence, like railway lines meeting where the train just continues on its tracks and no destination is ever arrived at. date=10.12.2003 16:10 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe it's because we don't know what culture is for, or what it means any more. We just know we want to consume it. date=10.12.2003 16:14 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>When in a strange way there is no 'what's happening'. We could say that this has always been so but it represents an emerging consciousness in us because of the nature of the media technology.

The fragmentation of media technology - exemplified by the world wide web - is starting to allow a multi-faceted version of "what's happening". As we move away from the monolithic media of the early twentieth century, and (in some ideal utopia that only exists in Zali's head) out of the corporate media of the late twentieth century - the focus disperses to a state where we *can* get a more personalised view of media.

Must stop there, I'm getting this awful feeling that my identity is merging with that of Marshall McLuhan. date=10.12.2003 16:20 ip=158.94.160.175 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It makes it sound like criticism when really it isn't. It's the same with a car, say. What does a car symbolise? I would suppose: the idea of being everywhere at once. The object is to eliminate the interval of getting to a place, to get there as 'instantaneously' as possible. But such an idea has only an oblique bearing on the actuality of cars. Because meanwhile they involve us day to day. date=10.12.2003 16:25 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's the same with a car, say. What does a car symbolise? I would suppose: the idea of being everywhere at once.

Which would do away with the problem of people talking on their mobiles while driving - they wouldn't need to if they were already omnipresent! date=10.12.2003 16:28 ip=158.94.160.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just recieved word from Steph that they got back okay. They had some trouble with a ticket inspector (Boo!) and a first class seat on the train to Reading. But it seems like it was nothing that a bit of diversion, some careful timing and a good bit of "legging it" couldn't solve! date=10.12.2003 16:55 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I think you were looking for Johanthan Lethem

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/057121933 0/ref=sr_aps_books_1_1/026-2940070-6839627 date=10.12.2003 16:57 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Johanthan Lethem

Not over-keen on him, but "Motherless Brooklyn" was good. date=10.12.2003 17:01 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, the title I read a review of was The Fortress of Solitude. Thanks. date=10.12.2003 17:07 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The idea of there being a *news* - in books, politics, whatever - is a kind of falsification. A fiction.

This is partly a function of the publicity engine. The perfect book, as far as a publicist is concerned, is a book by a celebrity journalist, say John Simpson: because here's a book that's news about the news.

But I like the idea of there being a news in books as a fiction of fiction... date=10.12.2003 17:26 ip=213.78.173.109 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The perfect book, as far as a publicist is concerned, is a book by a celebrity journalist, say John Simpson

Somehow didn't work out for my old school-mate Andrew Gilligan's planned book on Iraq. Maybe one day yet. date=11.12.2003 01:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: glad we think that same about that Rhys Jones bloke. Unfunny, or what?

The perfect book: I always wanted to read something Wyndham Lewis never got around to writing - "The Great Fish Jesus Christ." A good stocking-filler, no doubt.

I also remember the "great unwritten headlines" from the Beachcomber column that Spike Milligan put on TV years ago. My favourite was "Marie Celeste Docks at Liverpool." date=11.12.2003 10:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, I think for best results you have to get blown up in a blue-on-blue, too... date=11.12.2003 10:39 ip=213.78.172.61 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here's a glossary of hard-boiled slang.
http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html date=11.12.2003 10:55 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough I was reading some of Wyndham Lewis's travel writing around Xmas a few years back.

Griff Rhys Jones is on my list of celebrities who must one day accidentally fall face first into a bear trap. Jools Holland is pretty high up on that list too. date=11.12.2003 10:57 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Amazing. Tom Waits must know it by heart. Odd about "rappers," doncha think? date=11.12.2003 11:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Dan, I think for best results you have to get blown up in a blue-on-blue, too...

He came pretty close to being blown up, was involved in this little incident at the Palestine hotel:
http://tinyurl.com/yrgq
(Real Audio link - great example of "British phlegm") date=11.12.2003 15:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Infodumps: I real Antartica by Kim Stanley Robinson and by the end of it , I was rather more interested in the history of Shackleton and Scott than in the plot or the characters. date=11.12.2003 18:27 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Excuse me: I mean "read" date=11.12.2003 18:28 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. That is some extremely interesting stuff, of course; and I know Stan was absolutely gripped by it. That's the point. If the material the writer wants to "dump" is essentially uninteresting--or even if they *think* it is--then they deserve the contempt of the reader. Why are they writing at all ? date=11.12.2003 18:45 ip=213.78.80.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last night I was driving home listening to a CD by Cardiacs and I suddenly realised what I had to do with my writing. The music did it. Anyone else find that music can work that way? date=12.12.2003 10:08 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I'm not quite at Franzen's level of sensory withdrawal, but I use earplugs rather than music when there's stuff to be done.

Last night I was listening to Coil's live cd (Prague/Vienna) - I'm not sure what anyone *could* write while that was playing: or what the result would read like - white noise, shrieks, whispered bits of dread, and the fun chant "I am Angie Bowie ... NO!" Perhaps I should switch on the PC and try it. date=12.12.2003 10:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I couldn't actually write to a soundtrack by Cardiacs. I prefer silence too. date=12.12.2003 10:56 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I used to play anything that excited me & got the adrenalin running, both for climbing & writing. It broke the anxious, control-led links between me & the activity or material and encouraged the intuitive use of already-wired techniques. I don't mean it was free association, automatic writing or anything like that--any more than a tennis player abandons technique in search of the inner game. I don't do it so much now because music doesn't do that for me as well as it used to. I rarely give myself up to it any more. I feel that as a loss. date=12.12.2003 11:00 ip=213.78.69.39 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Music was my first love, and it will be my last. Music of the future and music of the past. To live without my music is impossible to do. Cos in this world of trouble my music sees me through. Amen. date=12.12.2003 11:55 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: The last time I heard that song, it was being slaughtered by a support act at a Ken Dodd show. Sadly, she sounded like Vic Reeves doing the pub singer: seats were clattering up around the theatre as the audience hit the bar. "Now I'd like to do a very lovely ballad, made famous by John Miles -" A woman behind me said: "Oh, god," and left, but I was transfixed. She lurched out of John Miles into medley mode: "To live without my music is impossible to do - SO - thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing -" A tour of twilight homes, where audiences could no longer flee her talent, seemed to beckon. Why did Variety die? Now we know. date=12.12.2003 12:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: variety is not dead. My local pub has an 'artiste' on every Saturday night. They range from the merely terrible to the bowel-looseningly awful. I'm very keen on the Elvi, though, and I love it when any of the artistes try to involve the audience. "Here's one for the ladies... are there any ladies here?" Silence. date=12.12.2003 12:09 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Music as exemplar.

It's like that David Thomas line. "I'm trying to say what the birdies are saying"

Sometimes when I get bored with what I am doing, forget why I am doing it, it is music that reminds me. date=12.12.2003 12:14 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh we have a bit of a minidisk troubadour down our local: Eddie "The Voice" Partridge. Specialises in Elvis and Neil Diamond. Serenades *every* female member of the audience. So controlled - he must count all of them at the start of the night and pace his set on this basis. Naturally I admire this man to a slightly disturbing degree. date=12.12.2003 12:14 ip=158.94.160.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But seriously folks...

I often find it difficult to just listen to music as music these days. I tend to analyse it - try to work out how they are achieving an effect, or at worst how something ruins a perfectly good piece of music. As my mate Ian Price might say: turns the suck knob up on it.

It'd be nice to just be a consumer again sometimes. date=12.12.2003 12:25 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>that David Thomas line

That's what I love about this forum. In the middle of a discussion about pub singers, someone quotes David Thomas and *I know the song*. Actually, one of the singers I saw at the pub sounded like David Thomas. Not as good though. David Thomas, incidentally, was responsible for the best gig I have ever been to, ever. Remarkable man. date=12.12.2003 12:38 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He said "Cardiacs" again.

Agree, music is great for breaking an inspirational deadlock, not so good for working to. The best way is always to stick a walkman on and go charging out into the unknown, both ears blasting. It doesn't work as well for me as it used to either, but headphones are always more likely to bring out the extreme emotions, as are Cardiacs (I'm gutted, nay, heartbroken that I missed this year's gig because I seem to have fallen off their mailing list).

I noticed recently the different way I absorb music depending on whether I'm working or just listening.
I'm in the middle of going through all my MP3s in iTunes, trying to rate & classify everything (anal, I know, but worth it in the long run. And "in the middle of" is slightly misleading - I've been doing it for a couple of months now, and have only got halfway through the albums beginning with "A"). I had some tracks by Experimental Audio Research on while working, didn't think much of it at all, think I gave it two stars.

Later that evening I was meditating and put on a random mix of ambient-type stuff. By sheer chance, out of all the 15,000 tunes on my computer the exact same track came on first. And I absolutely loved it, it lifted me to a higher plane (ahem), and reminded me of Glenn Branca only with synthesized trumpet noises. It went straight from two stars up to five. Made me wonder how many other amazing tracks I miss because I have them on as "background noise" while I'm working.

I do sometimes find that music interferes with work (especially deliberately obtuse music), but at the same time I get so lonely without it that I can't bear to work for more than a few minutes. date=12.12.2003 12:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I had some tracks by Experimental Audio Research on while working

We were listening to the first Spacemen 3 album last night during a drunken game of Scrabble. I saw EAR once, supporting someone - can't remember who. Maybe Pavement? Sonic and Jason haven't impressed me so much with their individual projects - Spiritualized are a bit too controlled and Spectrum lack the dirt of classic S3.

I'll get my anorak... date=12.12.2003 12:52 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry for mentioning Cardiacs. It's the fault of the little record shop round the corner which was harbouring the double CD of Sing To God unbeknownst to me for months, years probably. I had to buy it of course, and I can't imagine what the hell I was doing *not* having it for so long. I'll play it to death and then go off them for a while, no doubt. date=12.12.2003 12:56 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Spacemen 3

Supported them, and Inspiral Carpets, years ago. Jason had an amusing accident involving a girl and a bottle of poppers at the aftershow party. I can say no more. date=12.12.2003 12:59 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The EAR track is called "Beyond the Pale", from the album of the same name. I can thoroughly recommend it for out-of-body experiences.

I hadn't heard anything of Spacemen 3 since the late 80s/early 90s. Always wondered what happened to them. I saw them once at some very odd gig in some very odd part of London that seemed to exist in a different reality, I have no idea where it was or whether I am likely to ever find it again (or perhaps I was just very stoned. On second thoughts, yes, that seems likely). All I can remember is that they all played sitars or similar instruments, and it was very pleasant but I couldn't really enjoy it because something else was gnawing at the back of mind.

Funnily enough last night I was thinking of Paul, who I shared a house with at University for about a month until he dropped out. He used to hang out with the Spacemen 3 back in his home town (which was... Coventry? Something like that). I've no idea why I was thinking of Paul, it's the first time I've remembered that he existed in over ten years. date=12.12.2003 13:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>which was... Coventry? Something like that

Rugby, I believe.

I wonder if I can fit an anorak on top of this anorak?

The night you describe was probably the one which was recorded as "An evening of contemporary sitar music". date=12.12.2003 13:07 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, no need to apologise for mentioning Cardiacs. I just wish you'd do it more often. Sing to God part one is the best album of all time. End of.

I used to have A Little Man And A House And The Whole World Window on a CD which I subsequently found out was a very rare Dutch version, with lots of extra tracks on it. My even-more-Cardiacs-obsessed friend talked me into swapping it for a bunch of stuff, most of which he never even ended up giving me. I have never regretted anything more in my life. Much. date=12.12.2003 13:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> an amusing accident involving a girl and a bottle of poppers

I remember when somebody first introduced me to poppers, when I was sixteen. I rushed to Kensington Market the next day and bought a bottle. Took it home and burst into my sister's bedroom to show her this wonderful new substance. She was in the middle of getting changed, standing naked in front of the mirror. She took one sniff and her entire body went from almost-white to bright red. It was pyrotechnic! date=12.12.2003 13:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: David Thomas - ah, me.

Best (equal) gig I've ever seen was him fronting Pere Ubu in 1978 (the other was Gil Scott Heron here in Oxford, about ten years ago). I didn't catch the Pale Boys, but "Surf's Up" and "Meadville" tend to get stuck on the cd for days. I once tried to convince a staunch Brian Wilson fan that Thomas's "Sloop John B" was *the* version, too. I think we lost touch shortly afterwards. date=12.12.2003 13:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I am just playing Fiery Gun Hand for the benefit of the studio boys. They don't understand it, but I'm seriously tempted to wreck the joint and dance naked. Incidentally, you mentioned you liked Xela. Have you heard Yasume: When Audrey Dances? date=12.12.2003 13:20 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I am just playing Fiery Gun Hand for the benefit of the studio boys. They don't understand it, but I'm seriously tempted to wreck the joint and dance naked. Incidentally, you mentioned you liked Xela. Have you heard Yasume: When Audrey Dances? date=12.12.2003 13:21 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I remember when somebody first introduced me to poppers

Does everyone else get that big yellow patch in their vision when they do that. Awful stuff!

>>fronting Pere Ubu in 1978

Only time I saw Pere Ubu was late eighties - supporting The Pixies. They weren't that great at the time. Pixies fucking rocked though! Mosh pit was insane - thought I was going to be trampled to death, or at least have to get some new glasses. date=12.12.2003 13:23 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: "Meadville" or a gig from that tour, was the one that impressed me so much. date=12.12.2003 13:25 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fiery Gun Hand: now, please understand me when I saw that I don't hold with "musical ringtones" on mobile phones. That said, I have mine set to play Fiery Gun Hand when all but a select few call me. Got it courtesy of here: http://tinyurl.com/yx4j and a mobile phone that takes MIDI files. (When my Mrs rings, she gets my Baby Heart Dirt) date=12.12.2003 13:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Nobody would've out-rocked "Debaser."

Alex: *envy* - :) From the cd, it sounds incredible. Did he do "Can't Help Falling in Love"? date=12.12.2003 13:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, not heard that Xela track. I just have the album "For Frosty Mornings and Summer Nights" grabbed from SoulSeek.

>>have to get some new glasses.

Oh my, the number of pairs of glasses I've lost to the mosh is criminal. Part of the reason I rarely dance at gigs any more (although I had a good slam in Amsterdam, and thoroughly appreciated it) date=12.12.2003 13:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Did he do "Can't Help Falling in Love"?

That was the point at which I started crying. He tapped into something very painful. date=12.12.2003 13:34 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Nobody would've out-rocked "Debaser."

It was B-side Into The White with Kim Deal giving it some major wellie on the bass that really threatened to disrupt the structural integrity of the Kilburn National. date=12.12.2003 13:36 ip=158.94.160.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Oh my, the number of pairs of glasses I've lost to the mosh is criminal.

Most recent incident was a fucked up night at Kosmische with their traditional marathon of Mother Sky and Hallo Gallo. I didn't lose my glasses but they certainly looked unconventional the next day. date=12.12.2003 13:38 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Into The White

Best track ever. I saw them at Preston Guildhall of all places, and they blinded us with white light and smoke. date=12.12.2003 13:39 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I didn't lose my glasses but they certainly looked unconventional the next day.

One of the very first gigs I ever went to, the night before my 16th birthday, was a GLC benefit with Attilla the Stockbroker, Hank Wangford, Rent Party and, I think, Porky the Poet (who now goes under the name of "Phil Jupitus"). Lost my glasses grooving drunkenly to Rent Party after plying Attilla with Fosters. After the gig was over, I did a scan of the area, and there were my glasses, looking as if several steamrollers had been over them. date=12.12.2003 13:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I take my glasses off in such situations. I figure that if I can't see anyone, they can't see me making a fool of myself. Plus, I get to keep my specs. date=12.12.2003 13:47 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Problem with taking glasses of... where do you put them? I trust pockets even less than I trust my face. And I almost never happen to have a hard case on me. date=12.12.2003 13:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I put them at home. I'm lucky to have good enough eyesight to get around. date=12.12.2003 14:08 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw a D Thomas Meadville gig in Camden town, very low ceiling room in a beat up pub.

Io, havn't been organised enough to listen to the cd yet, but I will. date=12.12.2003 14:30 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Cool. It'd be waiting for you! date=12.12.2003 14:54 ip=158.94.160.175 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=MJP: Cool. It'll be waiting for you!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=12.12.2003 14:54 ip=158.94.160.175 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all!

A couple of days of hurtling around, am unexpectedly off to Egypt tomorrow, on business. Hurrah! Cairo and Alexandria.

>> Anyone else find that music can work that way?

Wrote a lot of poems while watching TV; again not automatic writing but the telly seemed to switch off the more controlling parts of my brain and let more interesting stuff rise to the surface. date=12.12.2003 15:41 ip=62.188.100.62 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>switch off the more controlling parts

Hi Al. I've spent a lot of time trying to over-ride those parts. I think the process gives you material, but the quality is very variable! date=12.12.2003 15:58 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I've spent a lot of time trying to over-ride those parts. I think the process gives you material, but the quality is very variable!

For some reason most of my best recordings come to me when I've got a hangover. Might be something to do with this process. I also play guitar best wearing carpet slippers. I don't think that has anything to do with this process.

The quality thing normally gets sifted in editing. What gets presented to the audience is normally the tip of the iceberg.

Al: Off to Egypt! My God! If I were a bigger, scarier man I would be almost dangerously jealous! date=12.12.2003 16:26 ip=158.94.165.106 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=True enough - though the best poems I've written (at least to my mind) have come very easily. Same for prose; I love that feeling when you turn into a kind of steam train, just pumping stuff out without having to think too much about it. I think the trick is to have enough craft not to have to think about using it; so formal considerations operate on a more subconscious level, so you can write within a coherent form of some description (even one you're inventing as you go along!) without having to put too much conscious effort into it.

Zali - quite astonishing; phone call yesterday, subsequent discovery that passport expired in July, chaos today and yesterday, now sorted thank god! Will once again become Empty Space Foreign Correspondent for a week. date=12.12.2003 16:32 ip=62.188.108.158 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Egypt, bloody hell. So you wont be reading your poems in Brixton Al, I suppose. date=12.12.2003 16:48 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Alex: I wasn't thinking of using music to "switch off the more controlling parts of my brain and let more interesting stuff rise to the surface" but to switch off conscious control of already-wired technique. The first is to with generating content you will later edit; the second is to do with freeing up what the sports people call your "inner game", for instance your learned ability to use syntax; or structure the grammatical order of paragraphs in a scene; or build the behaviour of a character into a coherent fictional argument. date=12.12.2003 17:12 ip=213.78.93.13 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I am insanely jealous. Spent some of my happiest times in Egypt. I you see Mohammed, say hi from me.

>> For some reason most of my best recordings come to me when I've got a hangover.

I do *everything* better when I'm hungover. A few years ago, when I was working in an ad agency, 5 days a week away from home, and getting insanely drunk every night, my brain seemed to operate on previously undiscovered levels. One particular occasion, for 72 hours I didn't sleep and I consumed probably slightly more than the average man's recommended yearly intake of alcohol. At the end of it all I felt quite unbelievable, was coming into the office at 7am, spent the day dancing on desks, singing to people, and running around the office top-whack shouting out that the CEO was a wanker (I also sent him a several-thousand word email critiquing hs management style - I still have a copy, and I feel a mixture of pride and deep embarrasment when I re-read it).

I wondered whether this change was just down to me perceiving myself differently, i.e. I was actually being cack-handed at everything but was too pissed to notice. But judging by other peoples' feedback, that wasn't the case. My quality control may not have been up to much, but I definitely was coming out with better quality work than usual. One day I went to lunch with some colleagues, and spent the entire hour-and-a-half belittling one particular guy who I'd always been terrified of. Other people at the meal later told me that my put-downs were sublime. Similar reaction to a meeting with a rather overbearing client - as soon as he came in, I told him he was a wanker who knew nothing, and he always had a lot more respect for me after that.

All of this makes me think that I must have some serious kind of genius lurking within, that's been chained down by massive social inhibitions. I've tried to coax it out since using other, less liver-damaging methods, but have only managed the odd glimpse. date=12.12.2003 17:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I found details of that study I mentioned the other day, about people who don't experiment:
http://feed.proteinos.com/001774.html
"An imals with an innate phobia of novelty have higher levels of stress hormones..."

The article quotes a researcher called Michael Meaney. Oh yeah, I bet. date=12.12.2003 17:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I do *everything* better when I'm hungover.

Other than the details you are describing my hungover life. I am brilliant, inspired and magical as long as I feel a bit crap. As you say, it's almost a justification for liver damage - but alcoholism that way lies!

And while I'm in the actual pissed mode I'm totally useless. It's only the residue which licks the mind of God. date=13.12.2003 01:45 ip=213.122.89.61 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I do *everything* better when I'm hungover.

Today was a wonderful case in point. spent last night a friend's stag do in Richmond. Spent today very slowly edging my way home via London's cafes, reading A Rebours and savouring slow lattes and chocolate mousses. Popped into Waterstones for three hours to browse through obscure Latin translations. Photographed equally obscure details of St Pancras station in semi-darkness. Ended the day up several enlightenment points. Not an ordinary day by any stretch of the imagination. date=15.12.2003 03:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm glad I'm not the only one who photographs architectural features of major London rail termini! date=15.12.2003 12:24 ip=158.94.174.220 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't, Zali. What with lab coats, stripey trousers et al, I'm starting to fear that you're my goateed-handled double. date=15.12.2003 14:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My god. I read that as "goat-headed double". What's the matter with me ? Probably don't drink enough. date=15.12.2003 14:49 ip=213.78.169.201 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike. Finished Climbers: damn good read. Got any more? date=15.12.2003 15:00 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>My god. I read that as "goat-headed double".

Hush, Mike! Don't tell! date=15.12.2003 15:03 ip=158.94.174.220 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm afraid that's it, Alex; but I'm glad you liked it!

io: oops. Sorry. (If you want that consignment we talked about, by the way, you & I are going to have to meet. [Don't ask.]) date=15.12.2003 15:21 ip=213.78.169.201 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: see email... date=15.12.2003 15:30 ip=158.94.174.220 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not to worry Mike. I just read your post as "you & I are going to have to meat". To meat *and* to veg, presumably. Goat meat. date=15.12.2003 16:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Nathan Barley mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: "Today was a wonderful case in point. spent last night a friend's stag do in Richmond. Spent today very slowly edging my way home via London's cafes, reading A Rebours and savouring slow lattes and chocolate mousses. Popped into Waterstones for three hours to browse through obscure Latin translations. Photographed equally obscure details of St Pancras station in semi-darkness. Ended the day up several enlightenment points. Not an ordinary day by any stretch of the imagination."

You as well? Surreal, mate! date=15.12.2003 16:26 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell you what, you can't get decent goat meat for love nor money. Don't know what they do with all the goats. Grow them for the beards, maybe. date=15.12.2003 16:31 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm starting to fear that you're my goateed-handled double.

Dan: I think we need to identify areas that define us as separate individuals. It'll be a slow and painful process but it will be worth it.

Did everyone who came to the ES beer and noodle evening definitely see two of us, or was it just an illusion caused by Sapporo and oblique lenses? date=15.12.2003 16:56 ip=158.94.174.220 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh no! I've been cunted! Caught fair & square.

Reminds me, anyone want to join us next year for the Hoxton Tea Party? The concept behind it is... No. I'm not going to risk any further Barleyisms. date=15.12.2003 16:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I normally avoid Hoxton but I'll await yr proposal and perhaps make an exception in this case.

In other news: I think the US have misjudged the propaganda value of those pictures of Saddam. He looks rather like a cross between Captain Beefheart and the prophet Ezekiel - if he'd been captured by heavily armed stormtroopers in a Hollywood epic yr heart would go out to him... well, it probably would if you didn't see the earlier bit of the film with the torture and murder... date=16.12.2003 09:23 ip=158.94.179.85 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: you mean Beefheart *isn't* the prophet Ezekiel ..? date=16.12.2003 09:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>you mean Beefheart *isn't* the prophet Ezekiel ..?

Another of the great mysteries cleared up! date=16.12.2003 10:16 ip=158.94.179.85 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of prophets, The Fall have a Christmas single out. It's suitably venomous. date=16.12.2003 10:21 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't believe a word of it. They misrepresented first the capture and then then release of the young woman soldier, to the extent that she was forced to go on record later to keep her dignity and sense of self. They misrepresented the pulling down of the Saddam statue, as something acheived by some cheerful Iraqis on the spur of the moment. I don't doubt they've misrepresented the circumstances of Saddam's capture. All news is theatre; this news is very theatre. Enacted solely for the good of the Iraqi people, of course, and the good of all freedom loving people of the world. Etc. date=16.12.2003 10:36 ip=213.78.91.43 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm interested to see what happens. It will be very hard to try Saddam without lots of incriminating facts against the US spilling out. Maybe he'll hang himself in jail. date=16.12.2003 10:59 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For a criminal psychopath, he gave up very easily. I can't help thinking that it'll all end in plea bargaining: SH comes up with a few hidden WMDs (preferably in time to spike Hutton), and in return for saying nothing more about our funding for his regime gets a gilded Guantanamo for life - "Gen. Noriega, I'd like you to meet -" date=16.12.2003 10:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>All news is theatre -
- but some theatres are funnier than others!

http://www.koekie.org.uk/cgi-bin/quote.cgi - date=16.12.2003 11:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>For a criminal psychopath, he gave up very easily.

That's not a very nice thing to say about Beefheart!

I'd just wonder if he even *had* any WMDs to pull out of the hat. On the other hand if the US invented some based on alleged "actionable information" from Saddam - who would believe him if he denied it? It'd be especially difficult for him to deny if the Iraqi people were seen to sentence him to death.

Actually, the most recent pics of Beefheart I saw made him look like an aging Wyndham Lewis. Ezekiel's not looking too clever these days either... date=16.12.2003 11:08 ip=158.94.179.46 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always found it impossible to watch television after The Day Today.

"dismantled pope found sliding along road" - isn't that a scene from Settling the World? date=16.12.2003 11:29 ip=158.94.179.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got Lisa saying 'gay as a window' and 'mad as a lorry' without knowing where the phrases come from. date=16.12.2003 11:54 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The snapped twig of peace is tonight at melting point."

How true ... how very, very true ... date=16.12.2003 12:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="This is not our war. We are being forced to swallow the rotten egg of an angry political goose!" date=16.12.2003 12:26 ip=158.94.179.46 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I always found it impossible ...

Indeed. BBC Online is now carrying a scam story that people were promised a Nigerian oil-field if they paid £30,000 up front to an address that turns out to be a Highland chemists's shop.

No doubt Kevin Smear is on the spot reporting as I write. date=16.12.2003 12:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I heard that Saddam was captured by Kurds - http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=4516 - which explains why he's still alive and not shot to shit by trigger-happy US soldiers.

On the other hand, he may have been delivered to US high-command by Satan's favourite goat, riding a kebab-shaped pogo stick. date=16.12.2003 13:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: a couple of years ago my oldest and best friend in Strasbourg sent me a tape of Beefheart being interviewed by phone. Beefheart was lucid, and very funny - but it was as though he'd suffered a small stroke or something: his voice sounded the way you do when you come out the dentist with half your jaw frozen.

Be nice if he joined the Magic Band with the Fall at the Royal Festival Hall in January, though ... *dreams on * date=16.12.2003 13:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wouldn't be surprised at all. Unfortunately the fact that there were US troops doesn't make it impossible for the "President Bush sends his regards" line to be true. That must be the most frustrating thing for Saddam Hussein: to realise that you've been out-maneouvered by an ape. date=16.12.2003 13:35 ip=158.94.179.46 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last post was in reply to Dan - of course...

>>Be nice if he joined the Magic Band with the Fall at the Royal Festival Hall in January, though ... *dreams on *

Who could they get to replace him? David Thomas? I reckon Gibby from the Butthole Surfers would do a good Beefheart. He was always somewhere between Beefheart, Neil Young and utter mental collapse. date=16.12.2003 13:38 ip=158.94.179.46 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=I wouldn't be surprised at all. Unfortunately the fact that US troops were there doesn't make it impossible for the "President Bush sends his regards" line to be true. That must be the most frustrating thing for Saddam Hussein: to realise that you've been out-maneouvered by an ape.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=16.12.2003 13:35 ip=158.94.179.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was a documentary about Beefheart - the painter - a while ago. He's obviously ill, although the film wasn't specific about what was wrong with him. Might be something like Parkinson's or MND.
Tom Waits might make a good replacement. date=16.12.2003 13:47 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thomas? Waits? I dunno - perhaps it's time that Little Jimmy Osmond made a come back in style: "I'll be your long-haired lover from Liverpool - and I'm gonna booglarize ya, baby!"

Oh for a front row seat, etc. date=16.12.2003 13:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Tom Waits might make a good replacement.

I remember in the early 90s, coming away from a Neil Young concert in Finsbury Park, someone saying to me, "If I want to listen to Tom Waits I'll listen to Beefheart." This was so shallow an assessment of both performers, I didn't quite know how to reply. (I was at such a low ebb in my life at the time, squeezed that day and many others into social situations I couldn't abide or change, that I failed to produce even the most basic intellectual response, ie "Why don't you fuck off, you prat ?" It was a moment of very low testosterone; but I have got my own back since.) date=16.12.2003 14:35 ip=213.78.165.167 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can see that there *are* similarities between the two, but it's not really a matter of derivation or precursor and successor. More a matter of common sources and a common dramatic and soundscapist approach to their material. Not even enough to say that they both produce(d) a sort of surrealist blues.

Having said that: it would be interesting to see Waits playing with The Magic Band. date=16.12.2003 14:59 ip=158.94.179.46 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't mean I disagree with you, Alex; only that I hated the assumption that Waits was derivative of Beefheart, also the fatuously contentious way it was put, by this suit from corporate publishing--they're not all like it, but some of them are just desperate to let you know they're not really suits at all: they've got Opinions About Hip Things. date=16.12.2003 14:59 ip=213.78.165.167 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>so shallow an assessment

Not to mention nonsensical. It's like saying "If I want a cup of tea I'll drink coffee." date=16.12.2003 15:01 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Why don't you fuck off, you prat?" would've been a good start, though.

Paradoxically, the only people I could think of "replacing" Beefheart are the performers who influnced him : Howlin' Wolf, or the vocalist Sun Ra used on songs like "Hello Earthman." Waits and Thomas are beautifully Other. Only a prat would confuse either of them with Van Vleit: case proven, yer honour. date=16.12.2003 15:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I don't mean I disagree with you, Alex

Didn't think you did. I only put Waits forward because his voice could probably handle Beefheart's parts (so to speak). Come to think of it, though, it might be interesting to hear the songs done another way. You can never go back. date=16.12.2003 15:06 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Opinions About Hip Things

I don't know what's worse. Dickheads like that, or people who you presume to be quite hip on first meeting who then subsequently reveal hidden shallows. A few weeks ago, we had drinks with some new friends and got on very well, until we invited them home for a drink. I asked the guy what music he'd like to hear, and he said "Got any Dire Straits?" Now call me a snob, but... date=16.12.2003 15:10 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Got any Dire Straits?"

What? You mean you don't... I cannot believe it!

Well, I guess you would have noticed if they said it with a knowing wink.

We might be a little *too* good at "having opinions about hip things" around here though. For God's sake Martin just managed to ease Sun Ra into the forum. Perhaps we need to 'fess up those dark secrets hiding in our CD pile?

*blurts out*

My cassette of The Best of John & Vangelis recently wore out so I had to buy a new CD copy. date=16.12.2003 15:17 ip=158.94.179.46 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Arf, arf!

I don't mind some of Knopfler's acoustic things - but (when I were a lad) DS would play anywhere in the Midlands that would have them for 30p on the door: and I well remember them supporting Talking Heads and getting completely eclipsed within two minutes of Byrne taking the stage. date=16.12.2003 15:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay, okay. Today I bought "A Christmas Present From Phil Spector." I also have far too much prog rock in my collection. date=16.12.2003 15:27 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Dark secrets.

For sure! Everyone now makes out they spent their teenage years (well, mine anyway) listening to nothing but Iggy, the Velvets, and NY Dolls, waiting for punk to turn up. Actually, I knew hardly anyone with those lps. Genesis, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Sabbaf, Pink Floyd, Lindisfarne, and Monty Python were what I remember most. My listening was Dylan, Mike Oldfield, and "hip" stuff (because no one else I knew listened to it) off Radio North Sea International. I still have a weakness for pop from those days: Faces, Pilot, one offs like "Beach Baby" or "Yellow River." Utterly uncred; very enjoyable. date=16.12.2003 15:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shit! I should have waited until you posted, Martin. Then I could have taken the piss out of you for your prog tendencies. Mind you, you did mention ELP *pisses sides* date=16.12.2003 15:31 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='fessing up... well, I did used to quite like Sultans of Swing when it came out, I was about ten at the time. And io, as I already told you I was a big fan of Baccara's "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" until we were subjected to what seemed like several hours of it on a loop in the Red Lion the other week.

I'm hoping it's OK to still be burning a torch for my childhood favourites, Bow Wow Wow and Adam & the Ants. Phew. date=16.12.2003 15:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Herb Alpert, Glenn Campbell... actually the Easy Listening revival in the early nineties was very liberating. At first people rediscovered this stuff in the Age Concern shop as a joke but then they started to realise that there are some amazing arrangements and just some plain *good music* out there. There's also the joy at disgusting those who remember it the first time!

Of course then someone started to repackage it and make a tidy profit from hip lounge compilations.

As for "too much prog" in my collection: I'm not even going to go there! date=16.12.2003 15:35 ip=158.94.179.46 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>as I already told you I was a big fan of Baccara's "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie"

And I've been singing it ever since.

Oh shit, I forgot: my first twelve inch single was Rock Me Amadeus by Falco. date=16.12.2003 15:36 ip=158.94.179.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Easy Listening revival

Well I am constantly trawling the charity shops for a copy of James Last Non Stop Dancing 14 or 17 because one of those has a version of *that* Silver Machine on it. Anyone spots it, snap it up for me.

Dan: Adam and The Ants is fine. I have a very soft spot for Sparks, but I guess they are beyond hip really. date=16.12.2003 15:38 ip=81.133.156.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hip suits know not to have John & Vangelis, because they can't manage the techniques of equivocally-reversed snobbery & they're not secure enough to do self-irony. They always know who they *should* have opinions about (usually more than I do). It's just that their taste is based on received wisdom and... well, no actual taste. They're the chattering classes of music (or fiction or films or rock climbing or whatever), neither unschooled punters nor obsessives with radicalised sensibilities. In a way I'd rather have the poor sod who likes Dire Straits, because that's sort of heartbreakingly naive. date=16.12.2003 15:40 ip=213.78.165.167 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>In a way I'd rather have the poor sod who likes Dire Straits, because that's sort of heartbreakingly naive.

China in SoL commenting that he'd rather listen to Bryan Adams? date=16.12.2003 15:43 ip=158.94.179.46 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=China & Choe are always pushing that fine line between being aggressively untutored and savagely self-ironising. Inverted--and reinverted--snobberies cascade. Somehow, especially if Choe's using it, this technique ends up being offensive to the other person in the conversation. date=16.12.2003 16:31 ip=213.78.165.167 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps it's to do with the distance between where you come from and yr vision of yrself - inserting a mirror maze into that fault. Realising the fragility of yr aspirations and playing them off against some sort of sentimental ground of being.

Choe slips when he accidentally reveals his primal myth and cannot put the ironic lid back on it - not even by covering it in toxic filth. Similarly China's only aspiration is in the past - he opts for compromise, does the adult thing. Isobel is entirely lost in the high spaces of aspiration - leaving her ground of being far behind.

Hmm, I'm sure my model is *way* too dualistic... date=16.12.2003 16:59 ip=158.94.179.46 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think that's a pretty fair assessment. In a way, Choe's is the most tragic loss because it's dual. He loses both the anima and the personality defences that saved him from having to acknowledge it. By the end, of the four of them, he really has *nothing* left. Question is, what use is knowing that ? My friend Sara believes it was always the author who had the most to learn from it... date=16.12.2003 17:27 ip=213.78.90.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Question is, what use is knowing that ? My friend Sara believes it was always the author who had the most to learn from it...

Well, it's something distinctly *more* than a self-help-ish "let them in: free yr inner child!" Since Dan's (or my?) Nathan Barley incident the other day, I've been thinking about SoL and the state that we are in - as a society, as a generation. (or set of generations - 60's more ridiculous that 80's? Answers on a soiled postcard...) How our image of ourselves, amplified by aspirational marketing, can never catch up what we're are *really* like: both the glimpses of inner grace where we rise momentarily above ourselves, and those terrible awkwardnesses that we try to hide from public view - mostly to our mutual benefit.

Choe glides across the mirror surface, snagging on a moment - of what? Soul-baring? Self-indulgence? Epiphany? Embarassment? But the reader (go on readers disagree with me!) is hooked by this glitch in what is a complex hypnotic surface, but a surface nonetheless. China is hooked too - but he also cannot resist paying back that insult to his vanity: Don't be a wanker all yr life.

As to whether the author has anything to learn from this? Well, the Choe complex is replayed in microcosm in Light with Billy Anker - but here it's (mostly) played for laughs. The emphasis has been moved away from this sort of personal apocalypse. This is not to say Light is not apocalyptic, people are still getting caught between the mirrors, but there's a way out - and it's comically incapable of cynicism and it's name is Ed.

So anyway I'm going to have tea and biscuits now... date=16.12.2003 18:39 ip=213.122.58.141 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So anyway I'm going to have tea and biscuits now...

As well you might, after that. I especially enjoy Billy Anker as a kind of wornout repetition of the Choe complex. I'm off to examine the implications: but do you not think that Ed's inability to be cynical renders him a bit destructive too (to Tig & Neena f'rinstance) ? date=16.12.2003 19:13 ip=213.78.74.111 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, of course there are still dangers inherent in the Ed. He's not like The Answer, or The One, or anything. After all, he starts from the natural habitat of Choe/Anker: the twink tank. This is, after all, what Billy's ship is - and Choe's project at Jumble Wood too: a perfect intersection between misery and revelation - but held in a monastic withdrawal from life and death. All three of them are hermits of sorts.

Ed is reborn in a bizarre, extreme sports gun-battle. His trajectory from here on is outward into the world. He leaves accidental emotional casualties in his wake. Not only Tig and Neena but also Annie Glyph who is awoken from her workaholism only to follow the curve of her aspirations and find herself spreading her wings as a Mona.

But Ed has no aspirations. In this way he's more like Tig and Neena - but unlike them an intangible charisma clings to him. He's a bit of an aimless version of Earl Dumarest - travelling further and further from home but without that *boring* quest to return home motif. In this tradition (or perhaps the end of this tradition?) he has something of the homelessness of John Truck - but none of the nihilism that Truck shares with Choe. He'd have to be *far* more cynical to be a nihilist.

Is Ed an innocent? Of a sort. He's an innocent possessing enormous experience, or perhaps spurious self-mythology, that he can't remember if he believes. Like all innocents, Ed is carried on the wave of events, reeled in to an unasked-for destiny. But one that fits so snugly that the audience might question whether he is inside or outside now. In a way it doesn't matter because he's going places: he's going deep!

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. I'm in imminent danger of comparing Ed and The Shrander to Arjuna and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Anyone else want to have a go at sticking their head in the fishtank? date=16.12.2003 20:53 ip=213.122.83.67 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oh, of course there are still dangers inherent in the Ed. He's not like The Answer, or The One, or anything. After all, he starts from the natural habitat of Choe/Anker: the twink tank. This is, of course, what Billy's ship is - and Choe's project at Jumble Wood too: a perfect intersection between misery and revelation - but held in a monastic withdrawal from life and death. All three of them are hermits of sorts.

Ed is reborn in a bizarre, extreme sports gun-battle. His trajectory from here on is outward into the world. He leaves accidental emotional casualties in his wake. Not only Tig and Neena but also Annie Glyph who is awoken from her workaholism only to follow the curve of her aspirations and find herself spreading her wings as a Mona.

But Ed has no aspirations. In this way he's more like Tig and Neena - but unlike them an intangible charisma clings to him. He's a bit of an aimless version of Earl Dumarest - travelling further and further from home but without that *boring* quest to return home motif. In this tradition (or perhaps the end of this tradition?) he has something of the homelessness of John Truck - but none of the nihilism that Truck shares with Choe. He'd have to be *far* more cynical to be a nihilist.

Is Ed an innocent? Of a sort. He's an innocent possessing enormous experience, or perhaps spurious self-mythology, that he can't remember if he believes. Like all innocents, Ed is carried on the wave of events, reeled in to an unasked-for destiny. But one that fits so snugly that the audience might question whether he is inside or outside now. In a way it doesn't matter because he's going places: he's going deep!

Anyway, that's quite enough of that. I'm in imminent danger of comparing Ed and The Shrander to Arjuna and Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Anyone else want to have a go at sticking their head in the fishtank?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=16.12.2003 20:53 ip=213.122.83.67 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Anyone else want to have a go at sticking their head in the fishtank?

I could, but all that would come out is "blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub" date=16.12.2003 21:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me too.

Tour de force, io. date=16.12.2003 22:11 ip=213.78.81.58 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Poetry is bad for you - official.
According to a study, poets die sooner than playwrights, playwrights die sooner than novelists and novelists die sooner than nonfiction writers.
http://tinyurl.com/zlwr date=17.12.2003 09:28 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I'm astonished, too! Back to the books ...

Still waking up, so I read "Age Concern" in your earlier post as "Ape Concern." Hmmm ... date=17.12.2003 09:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Tour de force, io.

'Kinell, Woke up amongst the concrete and sand dunes in a tuxedo smelling of eels! Back to the kebabs, kosmische and oblique lensing for a while, or at least until I untangle the trajectory from the Isobel's dreams of flight to the resting place of Mona of the planet of fractal feathers.

>>Still waking up, so I read "Age Concern" in your earlier post as "Ape Concern." Hmmm ...

Ape Concern is *so* much better though, isn't it? I think I shd go back and change it to "Ape". It's all ancestors, after all.

>>Poetry is bad for you - official.

What if you write poetry *and* non-fic? Which takes precedence? date=17.12.2003 10:27 ip=158.94.184.176 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: >> Sparks ... beyond hip

"Li'l Beethoven" is wonderful - I'm still laughing. And they did an hysteriacal version of "We Are the Clash" for a recent Strummer tribute cd. I can just see Ron at the piano as that one blares out : "webel wock" with a vengeance, no? date=17.12.2003 10:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sparks: I know all of the stuff that everybody knows but otherwise I don't really know Sparks. Which is odd considering that we have a number of their albums in our flat. But they are amongst Bridget's CDs. I am rarely allowed to hear these - I think she's worried that I guffaw at them, but on the few occasions when I have had a look around I've discovered some real gems in there.

Also, Nick Royle is a *huge* Sparks fan - he writes most feelingly about their music in A Matter of the Heart, so they can't be completely without merit...

Can they? date=17.12.2003 11:29 ip=158.94.184.176 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I think you should ask very nicely if you can listen to "Kimono My House" (if she's got it). Extraordinarily literate pop music, camp as Christmas and glorious.
Nick Royle, of course, has impeccable taste. date=17.12.2003 11:52 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=She has it. I saw it once - or think I did - and then it vanished away amongst the books and papers. I mean, I never hide any of my CDs - she's free to borrow as much Schoenberg and Slint as she can eat.

That's not entirely fair: I had to retrieve High Tide, Spacemen 3 and The Sisters of Mercy from her CD stack the other day.

But it's no use making excuses, I'm going to try to borrow some Sparks before Xmas. Wish me luck! date=17.12.2003 12:10 ip=158.94.184.176 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Know what you mean. I never find my Fall CDs going missing either. Mind you, if I had any Slint I'm sure Lisa would nick that. date=17.12.2003 12:51 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: check "Suburban Homeboys" off "Li'l Beethoven" - white middle class men desperately wishing they were down with Farrakhan ("we say 'yo, dog!' - And we mean it, by god!") To each his own, but I love it.

Alex: The Fall tend to stay in place when my friends drop round, too - efforts to convert them to "It's a Curse" or "Leave the Capital" ended up in their guilty confusion and my laughing too much to carry on. Shameful, really. date=17.12.2003 12:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: The Fall are odd, really. I can never explain to people why they are good, because appreciation of them probably involves some kind of brainwashing. It's like cigarettes: no-one enjoys their first one, or even their fifth. But you're hooked before you know it.
Top track on new Fall single-ah: (We are) Mod Mock Goth. date=17.12.2003 13:23 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>(We are) Mod Mock Goth

That's a brilliant title. My old free-noise combo Platform Five(5) had a number called "We are the Vanguard of the Post-pub-rock Scene". I'll have to get around to doing a proper recorded version of it someday. date=17.12.2003 13:28 ip=158.94.184.176 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of these older bands , what about the Buzzcocks - ? New album 'Buzzcocks'. Its jolly jolly good. Rates with some of their original music. I have a single called Sick City Sometimes which I can't stop playing. date=17.12.2003 13:38 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Still to hear the single - but I know what you mean about their appeal. I got hooked when they started doing the slower stuff like "Various Times" and "Winter" and could actually make out what Smith was saying - not that it made much difference
( I mean - clouds across the sky "look like krakens" - yer what, son?) - after that, I'm bewildered how many lyrics and choruses I've absorbed over the years. "Winter is here - unlike yourself." Ah, me. date=17.12.2003 13:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting glimpse into what people are searching for on the internet.
http://www.metacrawler.com/metaspy date=17.12.2003 14:29 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was just sitting there watching that metaspy for an half-an-hour or so - like a great prawn. It would be odd if yr name turned up on there followed by something really inappropriate.

Just how famous do you need to be to get freaked out by metaspy? date=17.12.2003 16:49 ip=158.94.184.176 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Still waking up, so I read "Age Concern" in your earlier post as "Ape Concern."

One of my eyes was reading "Age Concern" as another one read "hip" - I was thinking of an entirely different type of hip. Lots of exciting mis-readings here lately.

As for Sparks - I was dragged along to see them by some slightly-older-than-me first-time-around Sparks fanatics (all I remember of them from those days was sitting in front of TotP, aged about 10, thinking "that's Adolf Hitler playing the keyboards on TV. How can they allow that?") I wasn't too impressed - love "This Town Ain't Big Enough...", and most of the Kimono my House stuff, but 99% of what they played at the (far too long) gig left me cold (this was at the time of "Now That I Own the BBC").

Mind you, it was worth sitting through two hours of dishwater-dull dance music just to see the couple of minutes where Ron stepped out from behind the keyboards, donned a sooty-like hand puppet and made it mouth along to a recording from Taxi Driver: "You talking to me? I don't see anybody else here..." date=17.12.2003 16:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="glutathione peroxidase"? Must be some kinky practice I've never heard of.

I'm obsessed with bizarre search terms (as well as everything else). I collect them on my own site: I documented some here http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002194.html and would do lots more, if only I had time. date=17.12.2003 16:53 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some metaspy favourites:
"animal found in Denmark"
"butt splice"
"benefits of invisible ink"

The last one, particularly, has made me think. A lot. date=17.12.2003 16:59 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had to check. "Butt splice" is not a bizarre sexual prectice. Sadly. date=17.12.2003 17:02 ip=81.133.156.12 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The search term "horsefucker" used to turn up on my logs a lot. date=17.12.2003 17:37 ip=158.94.186.66 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! If you put "wasp fucker" into Google it'll bring you exclusively to this forum. date=17.12.2003 17:47 ip=158.94.186.66 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it one of the knots featured in "The Shipping News" ? I once spent an afternoon learning a knot with an odd name--you know, the West Newfoundland Semi-cruciform Boa Knot or whatever--which turned out to be a clove hitch tied on the bight. Doh.

I'm frightened by the idea of an animal specific to Denmark, or even somebody who thinks there's one. Maybe it's a crossword clue. date=17.12.2003 17:49 ip=213.78.65.231 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Butt splice", I mean. date=17.12.2003 17:50 ip=213.78.65.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=D'you think if we type "butt splice" on here enough times we'll become to top site for that search?

All the students have fucked-off after their exams and I'm stuck on the library counter until nine. I did find a pretty cool CD-ROM cassette adaptor for some sort of obsolete multidisk system in one of the cupboards here though. That and a Physico-Chemistry & Modelling of Water Quality module handbook (2003/2004) containing the address of the Agricultural Dept of the District of Bijapure. Bet someone's missing that... date=17.12.2003 18:01 ip=158.94.186.66 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of butt splicing... most popular search term on my site so far this month is "butthole surfers pepper" with 27 hits. Good to see "sluts of trust", "zoltar the magnificent", "traditions of switzerland" and "christmas crap" holding their own as well.

Gill used to look after animals in Denmark. I'll ask her what that's all about then. date=17.12.2003 22:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(getting carried away here) last month's seasonal spikes were provided by "popbitch prince charles" and "remember remember the fifth of november". "child pee" and "bong making" also in the running. date=17.12.2003 22:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For all your butt-splicing needs:
"A butt splice is not that dissimilar to a continuous web in that the trailing edge of the expiring roll is "butted" to the leading edge of the new roll."

It's also a term used in audio-visual work for sticking bits of film together. Must tell Nick Royle - it would be a good title for his next book. date=18.12.2003 08:53 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Metaspy: it's the current combination of "bedouin clothing" and "drag racing" that makes me grin. date=18.12.2003 09:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I tried anagrams of the word Denmark in case there was an animal "in" it. No luck. But now the very possibility haunts my dreams as I break each connection to the world of the known and travel into the rich landscapes of obsession etc etc. date=18.12.2003 10:00 ip=213.78.167.22 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps you'll find yrself wandering in a city called "Kramned" looking for a girl whose forehead is tatooed with the tube map? It'd be something like the Prague metro system with its three lines meeting at Mustek and dangerous kinetic art wall tiles.

Jesus! This is what happens when I wake up from dreaming that I'm a giant robot who eats photocopiers... date=18.12.2003 10:10 ip=213.122.155.57 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Latest from metaspy:
"What wine goes good with meatloaf?" (I shudder to think!)
"hunting exotic sheep"
"pulled at the crotch of his tight levis 501 jeans" (now there's someone with a specific aim in mind.)
"credit card for people who don't have credit" date=18.12.2003 10:34 ip=81.133.156.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=With family Christmas parties around, it's the "free karate lessons" that worry me. date=18.12.2003 10:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And currently... "literotica", "meatloaf concert manchester" (would sir like wine with that?) and "how to build an air boat" (just ask Benedict Paucemanly) date=18.12.2003 14:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I tried anagrams of the word Denmark in case there was an animal "in" it.

No, but it's full of dark men. date=18.12.2003 14:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Anagrams of Denmark ...

"I can't see an animal, but it looks like rain, dear."

The original of this joke can now be visited in the local geriatric ward. A spokesman said: "We get a lot of these at Christmas. They're crackers."

I'll get my coat ... date=18.12.2003 15:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Boy: "He likes those silly free calculators you can get."

Mum: "But you do too."

(Tube approaching Hammersmith - just before 1pm.) date=18.12.2003 21:34 ip=81.131.228.148 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From the Guardian today: "dark energy is spread uniformly through the universe, latent in Empty Space. Its nature is a mystery". Certainly is, and I wish you blokes would just stop doing it. OK ? date=19.12.2003 10:51 ip=213.78.87.73 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry I'm latent... date=19.12.2003 10:58 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My apologies, too - I was busy pushing a few quasars away from each other, but I'm in the market for a used heat-death if there's one going cheap -

Fascinating article. You start to speculate about dark energy starship drives. And maybe this is where all the other galactic civilizations are - zipping about "dark" dimensional space that we haven't discovered yet. So, a very tasty millennium in store - as someone once said. date=19.12.2003 11:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was interested to read in New Scientist that a study has shown that our brains see our shadows as an extension of our bodies, reacting to stimuli near the shadow as if the stimuli were affecting our bodies themselves.
I don't know what it *means* but it's a nice idea. date=19.12.2003 11:23 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: I like the Stina Mordenstam, esp "Fireworks". Voice from some heartland of anorexia, v manipulatory. date=19.12.2003 15:42 ip=213.78.171.168 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh Stina! Have you heard the album of cover versions she did? Truly strange. date=19.12.2003 15:46 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Glad you enjoyed it, Mike. It's real spine shivering stuff. BTW: The surname's "Nordenstam" - mea culpa - my handwriting just gets worse!

Alex: It's various stuff a mate copied for me. Includes some of her cover versions - Purple Rain is particularly good. date=19.12.2003 15:53 ip=213.122.202.208 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like strange female singers. I find strangeness in female singers less embarassing than in males, unless it's scat singing, which is intolerable any time.
Some good ones: Cat Power, Anja Garbarek, Iva Bittova, Sainkho Namchylak, Mary Margaet O'Hara. date=19.12.2003 16:05 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I'm sure you *must* be wrong. But the only example I can think of at the moment is Tim Buckley - esp the period from Happy Sad to Blue Afternoon. date=19.12.2003 16:29 ip=213.122.2.108 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I even struggle with Buckley. I like him singing straight(ish), but when he goes off on one I think he sounds like Robert Plant. date=19.12.2003 16:35 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The speech defect, the faux little girl waver, the faux simplicity of the lyrics & some of the guitar, it's such a massive manipulation. I'm sold. Except in some of them--like Purple Rain--where you begin to guess she's perfectly capable of something more finished. That spoils the illusion & makes you realise what unacceptable part of you she has reached that other strange women singers can't. date=19.12.2003 16:38 ip=213.78.171.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Stina: haven't heard, but would like to. Buckley: absolutely - but I'd push the envelope to "Lorca" ( "Starsailor" I've only heard in bits) and, especially, "Sweet Surrender": his voice goes to areas in the last two minutes there that no one's equalled.

"Weird" but lovely, too: Jimmy Scott. Would-be weird, but actaully one of the worst things ever to get official release: Jim Carrey doing "I Am the Walrus." This is from the last cd George Martin ever put together. Its awfulness is almost matched (though you'll be laughing too much to care) by Sean Connery's "auld reekie" recitation of "In My Life" : "Ov ol theesh frents ant loversh/They's *noo wun* cumparesh ta yeew -" Come along, gentlemen: I'm sure you've all got homes to go to ... date=19.12.2003 16:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The simplicity and that jaggedness in the guitars is enormously controlled. It's a matter of knowing exactly what *not* to do. The close-miked vocals help too.

Alex: I'm afraid you are *so* wrong again: we will have to disagree on Buckley and brinjal. I know it's an atypical example but listen to Song to the Siren. It *so* shdn't work!

Another weird male singer: obvious really. Damo Suzuki. date=19.12.2003 16:44 ip=213.122.2.108 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>perfectly capable of something more finished

Kind of a female Les Dawson, then? date=19.12.2003 16:45 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I didn't mean "Purple Rain" (I can't read yr handwriting io, esp on brown paper in weirdshit ink). Another thing: "Soon After Christmas" is just outrageous and clearly ought to be banned. date=19.12.2003 16:45 ip=213.78.171.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>but I'd push the envelope to "Lorca" ( "Starsailor" I've only heard in bits) and, especially, "Sweet Surrender": his voice goes to areas in the last two minutes there that no one's equalled.

Martin: Totally. My chronology is fucked! date=19.12.2003 16:46 ip=213.122.2.108 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>weirdshit ink

Brown glitter ink! How fucked is that! I found it on the library counter nicked it and have been writing everything in brown glitter ink.

Top Stina track for me *has* to be Dynamite. It almost has moshpit tendencies... Oh, hold on - no. The Diver - that's the best one. Sounds like a cover of Happiness in a Warm Gun but isn't. date=19.12.2003 16:49 ip=213.122.2.108 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know it's trashy pop, but it's classy trashy pop. One of my favourite albums this year has been Goldfrapp's "Black Cherry". date=19.12.2003 16:51 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Goldfrapp's "Black Cherry"

Heard some of that at (of all places) the Library Xmas party. I think it was good but can't remember anything about it. Not because of any merit or lack thereof. Just my consumption of those little bottles of continental lager. date=19.12.2003 17:04 ip=213.122.2.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Buckley/Plant - this is why I can't listen to Jeff Buckley - RB's fingerprint is all over his voice. The one time I saw him, in Bristol, he was a huge disappointment. I thought he'd be a stadium rock nonenetity within three years. His dad was something else completely. Like Nick Drake, it took the rest of us years to actually hear what was there all along. You live and learn. date=19.12.2003 17:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Stina Nordenstam favourites: Fireworks, When Debbie's Back from Texas, Dynamite, Little Star, Soon After Christmas. Lots of opportunity for obsessive replay & iPod-buggered eardrums over the festive season. Thanks, io. date=20.12.2003 13:39 ip=213.78.75.194 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No problem, Mike. Get yrself some good headphones over Xmas - if you're planning to wreck yr ears you might as well do it properly.

Made contact with another Medway expatriate on the Chav forum. He does odd fucked-up remixes - so there's possiblities for strange dub versions of Stroodboy once it's done. Making some progress on the lyrics for "Chavzie is Skillz" too. date=20.12.2003 15:20 ip=213.122.32.136 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Close encounter with the Shrander on Friday night. Mummers turned up at local pub, accompanied by Mari-type horse thing. Nice blue horse skull (in use for 40 years). It makes a clacking sound which is genuinely horrible. Felt in touch with something ancient for a few minutes, and the feeling has stuck with me. date=22.12.2003 08:36 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Mummers ...

Is the horse's skull just a northern thing? I've watched out for them in Oxfordshire, but the dances and rites here don't seem to feature it. date=22.12.2003 10:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I don't know, really. I wasn't even aware that Mummers used the hobby-horse character, but this lot seem to. date=22.12.2003 10:47 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yours was a bit out of its proper circumstances & season, Alex: that's why you'll be double-locking the doors from now on, looking behind the curtains without quite knowing what it is you expect to find, inventing small rituals of your own etc. As I've understood it, Martin, it's a survival of a more general European animal mask culture, now mainly a Shropshire thing and through into North Wales where it's called the Mari LLwyd. There are other horses, like the Padstow Oss & the hobby horse, and something in Ireland called the Bredogue (some of the qulities of which I imported into the Viriconium horse), but for me none of those have the raw weirdness of the Mari. The other thing, of course, is that I find it hard now to separate the real thing from what I've made of it; when I started, I started from the principle that we should derive our own symbols and rituals, by bricolage, from what's available; & that act is much more important than factuality. But I bet there's a billion URLs out there for those who want to know the facts. date=22.12.2003 11:21 ip=213.78.66.210 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: My ears are now finely tuned to the sound of clacking bones. I've hung a green man in a wreath on the front door: hopefully that will do the trick. date=22.12.2003 11:35 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always find that I have to kill at least one of my relatives too. Although this year, with "Little Star" on infinite repeat, an in-law may be enough for me. But remember that I've refined my skills over some years, and if you're in any way uncertain *don't try this at home*. Be safe. Make it a proper blood connection, even a second cousin will do. date=22.12.2003 12:18 ip=213.78.66.210 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Big family then, Mike? I have precisou few blood relatives left, and I'm saving them for when I need to rejuvenate. Old horse-features will have to wait. date=22.12.2003 13:35 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A naked virgin, a deconsecrated altar, one flint dagger, and the black goat tethered nearby just in case - whatever happened to the good old family Christmases we used to have? date=22.12.2003 14:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read "deconsecrated altar" as "deconstructed editor". You can see how things go with me. date=22.12.2003 17:11 ip=62.188.154.203 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Deconstructed editors: there's fair number of them wandering round OUP in a post-pub haze at present, I can tell you.

Still working on Charles Williams, and reading "Place of the Lion" and some of the Taliessin poems: the article should be finished in early January. I've no idea if anyone at OUP knew of his past in the Golden Dawn at the time he was working here. And he seems to have acted as medium at a seance with Yeats about a hundred years ago, though details are sketchy. A life of mysteries. date=23.12.2003 09:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*returns from abroad*

*hangs up travelling cape*

Hi all - hmm, have missed some interesting conversations. V. enjoyable time in Egypt; first part of week spent mostly at gas mining facilities just outside Alexandria, then exploring Cairo since Thursday. Astonishing place; and a great trip, as a good combination of modern Egyptian life and activity and full on Orientalist weirdness.

Highlights - watching Egyptian magician, clowns, puppeteers teach road safety to a gang of schoolkids in small town nr Alexandria (I've seen an Egyptian magician say 'abracadabra' and mean it! I can die happy...), scale of gas architecture, dreamlike encounter with Egyptian artist in an abandoned madrassa just off Al-Azhar street (he was obsessed with Genius or Janus Records of London, who'd released the smallest oil painting in the world), looking for Abdul Al-Hazred in Al-Azhar (no sign; nothing squamous to report; astonishingly beautiful building, main court with floor of mirrored marble), lots of pyramids, some still with marble intact, hanging out with Kuwaiti tourists and a depressed Egyptian Phd student (I wanted to study poetry but my dad made me do a geology Phd), beers in old Officers Club bar in Cairo (where my Grandad probably stopped for a pint or two during the war), getting lost - again and again and again! - and realising just how great it would be to live in an Ottoman house in Old Cairo... Now have to finish off Christmas shopping in 24 hrs, hey ho.

Oh, and also - getting into Cavafy, wonderful poet! date=23.12.2003 10:09 ip=62.188.100.74 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: your week beats my year, I think! date=23.12.2003 11:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I was very fortunate with this trip; I owe a lot to my ex-boss's newly babied wife, who keeps on insisting at the last minute that someone else (ie me) goes abroad on these things. Also, if it hadn't come up I'd have gone a whole year without going abroad! A first. date=23.12.2003 11:13 ip=62.188.112.9 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I hope you didn't notice any black dogs going into rooms ahead of you. date=23.12.2003 11:25 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anubis? Fortunately not, only black cats... date=23.12.2003 11:29 ip=62.188.110.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, Place of the Lion, excellent. (It was his first ? He never got any better at people, that's for sure.) It seems to be the only one I own at the moment, missing my favourite All Hallows Eve. The Golden Dawn: he seems to have experienced a real rejection of this, following something that scared him. All bollox I'm sure--they were a hysterical lot. But what a nursery for poets & interesting loonies! Don't forget we're having tea to talk about this, & you're in charge of where & when.

Hi Al. Sounds fantastic in the best sense. My only encounters with Cafavy have been through the Durrell novels. How sad is that ? date=23.12.2003 11:33 ip=213.78.76.151 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I got "Place" and "All Hallows" through Amazon, so I still have that treat in store. GDawn: it seems a thoroughly Yaxley-ish group. One account has it meeting in a string of shabby Kensington flats and a rented room in the public library at Maida Vale: timorous types like AE Waite and devious lapsed souls like Crowley. You can quite understand someone as robust as Machen finally snorting and leaving the lot of them to it.

Oxford: yes, we have to organise this! If you want to visit Williams' grave, he's about half an hour from the bus station, lodged between Kenneth Grahame, James Blish, and Kenneth Tynan. It's that sort of town. date=23.12.2003 11:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it was. Have also been reading lots of Orientalist folk lately (Flaubert, De Nerval, etc) so interesting having that in my head as I went around. It's so easy to get into that vaguely tripped out 1,001 Nights mindset! And wonderful once you do.

Cavafy v. good, acute vignettes of turn of the century Alexandria life / various moments from Byzantine history. Simultaneously v. evocative and v. punchy. Would recommend Rae Dalven translation over Keeley and Sherrard; the poetry comes through much more clearly.

Had only previously encountered him there myself, took him out there as was determined to read him sitting in Alexandrine cafe after a game of backgammon while smoking a shisha! date=23.12.2003 12:20 ip=62.188.112.180 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, wasn't Kenneth Grahame a GD alumnus too ? It suddenly occurred to me how *sidelined* they must all have felt by the post-WW1 shift to materialism. Because there was no useful place for them in the literary Left, we lost access to all their meta[physics]phors, and they lost access to both modernist and antimodernist (social realist) technique. The first time anyone tries a synthesis, other than Greene in the odd short story, it's John Braine, with The Vodi in the mid 1950s. date=23.12.2003 12:34 ip=213.78.88.125 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, or maybe Durrell, in the Quartet. date=23.12.2003 12:35 ip=213.78.88.125 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>sitting in Alexandrine cafe after a game of backgammon

How much more romantic than sitting reading Larkin in a municipal library after having a wank, or reading Ted Hughes in a sodden sink-hole after disembowelling a badger. date=23.12.2003 12:48 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*Laughs out loud*

Hmm, yes, you do have to pick your poets. date=23.12.2003 12:50 ip=62.188.112.207 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did read a lot of Eliot while working in a shit job near Russell Square. Used to pass by the old Faber & Faber offices on my way out to lunch. I think it's part of University of London now. date=23.12.2003 13:28 ip=81.135.68.10 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Because there was no useful place for them in the literary Left, we lost access to all their meta[physics]phors, and they lost access to both modernist and antimodernist (social realist) technique.

Not only that, of course, they ended up being represented, or cannibalised, by C S Lewis. All of that loony stuff bullied into the shape of middle-Christian England. date=23.12.2003 13:35 ip=213.78.89.228 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Larkin ... I put in for a job at Hull University back in the autumn - *shudders* - I've been in more cheerful crematoria. You could see why the drink and the porn took him over: every day is early closing up there.

MJH: Grahame I *don't* know about; I'll check. Marginalised: absolutely. I'm looking at reviews of Williams in the '30s on the same page as social comedies or tales of rural life: like Machen, you get the sense that there was hardly any general audience for his work at all, and the English "metaphysical thriller" still makes a short shelf. Understanding some of the concepts behind it has also been a matter of poking through cultural wheely bins, until recently. Any of Williams's contemporary readers who wanted a guide to the hermetic tradition would have had to have had some extraordinary contacts. Today, you can start with Frances Yates or (as I just did) simply go to a public library and find a 200-page scholarly study of the Tarot, Waite, and the Golden Dawn. Without all this spade-work, it's no wonder most readers were puzzled - or that such writers felt landlocked in "demonic materialism." The interpretative tools just weren't to hand. date=23.12.2003 13:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nearly finished at work now. Hoping to stay away from the computer until after Christmas. So best wishes to you all for a happy Christmas and New Year. date=23.12.2003 15:51 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: And to you - have a great Christmas and a peaceful '04!

MJH: More on Williams. Yeats knew a medium of that name, but he wasn't the writer. In the 1870s this Williams was acclaimed for "transporting" a Mrs. Guppy 3 miles across London. "She was without shoes, and had a memorandum book in one hand, and a pen in the other," noted a spiritualist magazine, reporting on her 'materialisation.' "The last word inscribed in the book was 'onions,' the ink of which was wet ... She is one of the biggest women in London." What larks. date=23.12.2003 16:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Merry Xmas, Alex! Hope this catches you.

See what happens when I don't look at the Forum for a few hours!

And a merry Crimbo to you too Martin. date=23.12.2003 16:56 ip=213.122.207.85 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have a good Christmas everyone. date=23.12.2003 18:38 ip=213.78.70.215 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John, interesting comment that CS Lewis recycles fantastical material as children's literature with a mid-1950s Christian subtext.

PL Travers (who seems to have been an interesting character and close to the fringes of GD) got there first with the Mary Poppins books, which are very definitely not Christian in their outlook.

http://www.cesnur.org/testi/marypoppins.htm

C or blimey, strike a light, Guvnor would you Adam and Eve it? date=23.12.2003 23:21 ip=81.86.231.104 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Merry Xmas date=24.12.2003 09:23 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sigh. I hate pointless Christmas Eves at work, especially when I thought we would be closed.
So to cheer myself up I've been looking at Joseph Cornell's boxes.
"...these deposits might be refuse, but to Cornell they were the strata of repressed memory, a jumble of elements waiting to be grafted and mated to one another." date=24.12.2003 09:47 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's been wonderful posting and meeting you all this year - have a great Christmas, and an inspired and peaceful 2004! date=24.12.2003 09:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wouldn't describe Lewis as having a subtext, NickM. He was too ham-fisted--and too protestant--to disguise anything. I'd describe him as preachy. I enjoyed the Cesnur site though, as much for its fabulous grammar as anything else. "...the word 'esotericism' that I used for the work of Pamela Travers is not a synonymous of 'occultism' and much less of 'Satanism'". Absolutely. Katherine Mansfield turned to Gurdjieff at the end of her life, when massive doses of x-rays had failed. The Master didn't seem to help.

Alex, that's so brilliant-- "...these deposits might be refuse, but to Cornell they were the strata of repressed memory, a jumble of elements waiting to be grafted and mated to one another." I find mine come to light already grafted, and mating like rabbits...

Martin, it's been great, hasn't it ? I've really enjoyed this board, especially in the last month or two. date=24.12.2003 11:00 ip=213.78.88.37 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sigh. I hate pointless Christmas Eves at work, especially when I thought we would be closed.

The bastards! We thought they were going to take away our Xmas Eve at our place but at the last minute the management gave it back as a festive gesture. Tossers!

Anyway, as the tabloids say: A Merry Xmas to all our Readers. Hope you all have a fab 2004.

But now, Bridget & me are having our official Xmas day so I'd better get on with making pesto & cheddar toasties! date=24.12.2003 11:12 ip=81.135.63.13 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Gurdjieff (and consequently J.G. Bennett) had some interesting ideas. It seems he was something of a fraud, but I'm not sure how much that matters if the ideas are interesting. I don't suppose he could really cure anything though.

I've enjoyed this board too. A good bunch of eggs, you all are. date=24.12.2003 11:14 ip=81.133.171.3 name=arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: Should I give myself for xmas the new kraftwert cd? Bearing in mind that "Trans europe express" ( there must be a typo here..) was the first record I bougth with my own money. date=24.12.2003 11:33 ip=80.58.9.42 name=arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: As far as I have read, this must be one of the better boards in the net. date=24.12.2003 11:53 ip=80.58.9.42 name=arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: As far as I have read, this must be one of the better boards in the net. date=24.12.2003 11:53 ip=80.58.9.42 name=arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about the double post date=24.12.2003 11:58 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=arturo: I don't actually have the new Kraftwerk album. I've heard that it's very good. I believe MJP has it - he'd be able to tell you.

Alex: Can one have a bunch of eggs as one does with grapes? date=24.12.2003 12:07 ip=213.122.161.188 name=arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=iotar: Didn´t Paul Newman had a bunch of them eggs for a lark in one of his movies ? Something about a jail. date=24.12.2003 12:10 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: as sure as eggs is eggs.

Io: 'bunch' is the collective noun for eggs. date=24.12.2003 12:24 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool Hand Luke. He ate dozens of eggs in that. But I'm not sure that they were "bunches". No one actually uses it but the correct collective noun of eggs is apparently "a clutch".

"A good clutch of eggs, you are."

I still like the image of these eggs hanging in bunches from a vine... date=24.12.2003 12:27 ip=213.122.161.188 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A maths teacher told me once that 'as sure as eggs is eggs' was originally 'as sure as x is x', and was algebraic. Not quite sure if I believe it, but hey ho.

Merry Christmas One and All! It's been a great year of chat.

Good grief, I sound like Alan Partridge now.

*pulls cracker, puts on paper hat, reads joke, eats turkey, etc*

Oh, and Belleville Rendezvous on TV tomorrow night, well worth setting the video for. Best animated dog in cinema! date=24.12.2003 12:46 ip=62.188.108.148 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al, Arturo & io: merry christmas. date=24.12.2003 13:39 ip=213.78.95.104 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A flyer for a meeting organised by a Muslim group in Walthamstow had a lovely Xmas thought:

"Christianity started with Jesus and ended with Santa Claus."

Ho ho ho. date=25.12.2003 23:34 ip=213.122.70.209 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice one. date=26.12.2003 11:42 ip=193.195.0.101 name=Whisper mail=jph1983@earthlink.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.apple.com text=30.10.2003 14:38
MJH

"Hi Dan. Does the vocal on the first track have the chorus, "Murder! In the back of night. Murder!" ? If it does, and you have the track titles, could you lay those titles on me ? If it doesn't, the one I've got is 1, 2, 3 or 4."

HELLO MJH. THESE LYRICS ARE ACTUALLY: "MURDER IN THE BLACK OF NIGHT". THEY ARE FROM THE 6TH INSTALLMENT OF HOTEL COSTES. THE SONG TITLE IS "IN THE BLACK OF NIGHT" BY SLOW TRAIN. I HEARD IT IN LOS ANGELES IN THE INNOVATIVE STATION CALLED KCRW 89.9 FM METROPOLIS. CHECK OUT "REALITY CHECK" BY STIGMATO INC. VERY VERY NICE VOCALS. date=27.12.2003 09:59 ip=68.164.62.148 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Belated Merry Xmas everyone - I'm back from hermetically sealed festive season in a cottage near the foot of Snowdon - good for blizzards & downpours, not ideal for actually getting outside.

Damn, I missed a discussion of trashy pop & slightly out-there female vocalists, shame because two of my favourites have been playing on my mind lately. Spent a lot of time listening to Ooberman in the car, who not only have one of the best slightly-too-feeble female vocalists in the business, they also have some of the best lyrics. Can't get this mish-mash of English/Latin/German out of my head:

Never met a girl with such a prominent mons
Mons pubis parabola
Mons pubis and du bist so
schon schon schon sugar bum

(if I've unwittingly... or wittingly... started a thread on favourite lyrics, I apologise in advance) date=27.12.2003 16:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Determined to stay away from computer, so I won't be telling Dan that Sophie from Ooberman was baby-sat by me once. Her brother was/is Russell who played piano for Julian Clary. He was a swot. date=27.12.2003 18:31 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, yer showing yer age and... GOD I hate you date=28.12.2003 01:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(but only a little bit... ahhhhh)

Dancing crabs: "Can you see the moonlight like a chandelier across the ocean where the mermaids sing? Take your shoes off..."

King Neptune: "...And step into the ocean on the path of light!" date=28.12.2003 01:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*burp*

You what? Pass the tangerines. date=30.12.2003 12:48 ip=213.106.178.164 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I think that Dan was quoting a Rammstein lyric. date=30.12.2003 13:44 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, it was more Ooberman.

And, yes, I was "in the Christmas spirit". (That's a euphemism. What I mean is... it was in me) date=30.12.2003 14:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I meant the "hate" bit.
T date=30.12.2003 16:35 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never heard of Oberman in Spain. Do they have a cd out? It seems to me that they are dark rock of some sort ( what used to be Goth) but those lyrics sounded .. well...pretty wholesome and nice. Sorry. date=30.12.2003 17:07 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think that Dan was quoting a Rammstein lyric.

Oddly enough I just bought the Rammstein Lichtspielhaus DVD. Enormous fun for all the family...

*bangs leg with fist, sets light to arms, develops a deep voice* date=30.12.2003 17:40 ip=81.135.34.68 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not goth at all. I got hold of a mp3 in
http://www.epitonic.com/artists/ooberman.html

Thanks for the tip , guvernor ! date=30.12.2003 19:52 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, not goth at all. More... intelligent quirky pop? One of the few really poppy bands I'm very, very into.

More here: www.ooberman.com - but it doesn't seem to be working for me right now. You might have more luck with www.themagictreehouse.co.uk

Hmm, seems they've split up. Another sad day for humankind. date=31.12.2003 09:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Du hast! Du hast mich!

I like Rammstein. date=31.12.2003 12:14 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan I'm in Sheffield & have sent you an email. date=31.12.2003 13:59 ip=62.188.19.129 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ich liebe dich, du liebst mich nicht.

(aha)

I like Trio.

;-) date=31.12.2003 17:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy New Year all! date=31.12.2003 17:54 ip=62.188.100.77 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy New Year everyone.

I was nearly in Sheffield today but didn't quite get there. date=31.12.2003 18:11 ip=213.106.178.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am nowhere near Sheffield. Well, maybe on the macrocosmic scale...

Happy Neu Jahre, all!

"Dem Guten, Schonen, Wahren!" date=31.12.2003 18:24 ip=213.122.33.76 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=appy nu yere all. date=01.01.2004 19:10 ip=62.188.19.131 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Great seeing you today Mike. Got home tonight and read aloud to Gill "I Did It" from the website. Great short story. Gill spent the duration alternating between fits of giggles and lying cringing in a baal, oops, ball, trying to get the thought of that axe out of her head. Err.

Chunk.

Hmm, I meant to say something else related to today's conversation but, I forget. Probably S&M kites or something. date=03.01.2004 03:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan, good to see you too, next time we should try for a drunken stagger across the moor whilst carrying some S&M furniture... As long as Gill was only trying to get the thought of the axe out of her head, not the axe itself... There's something about "I Did It", not just the voicing trick that compresses it to 1300 words. I still like it lots.

io, any sign of that consigment at yr end ? date=03.01.2004 13:04 ip=213.78.170.52 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The great pennine furniture removal sounds a bit masochistic, but perhaps that's the point. (the spike even).

I think Gill's OK as far as axes go - relationships and football have been kind to her. Perhaps the skewers of small children bristling around her ankles, but no axes.

The precise brevity of "I Did It" really grabbed me. And the something too. Chunk. Almost... Will Self ;-) date=03.01.2004 19:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy new year date=03.01.2004 21:31 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy new year Arturo. date=04.01.2004 00:48 ip=213.78.89.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am being smothered in nostalgia and at the same time baffled by Nigel Slater's "Toast". Anyone read this? It's fucking odd. date=04.01.2004 01:44 ip=213.106.178.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyone read this ?

Not me, Alex, but from everything I hear it's a book not easily described: which makes it a book.

Now that Will Self is out of the way, and mostly courtesy of Christmas, I've got a nice fat reading list which includes: The Twenty Seventh City, Jonathan Franzen; Lila Says; These Foolish Things, Deborah Moggach; The Baghdad Blog; two Carson McCullers, Illumination & Night Glare and Collected Stories; The Return of the Dancing Master, Henning Mankell; and Disordered Minds by Minette Walters. I've already drifted away from the Walters, I suspect fatally; Henning Mankell is as plodding yet unputdownable as ever. date=04.01.2004 11:55 ip=213.78.77.141 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike, just got back from France!

Consignment: not a fucking sausage. Which is a bit strange. I'd suggest we do the same again but I'd wonder if another consigment would go the same way that the first did. I'll email you about this when I catch my breath.

Any news item for the Will Self?

BTW: Can anyone suggest a good idiomatic French translation for the expression "I am skill"? The closest I can get is "Je suis savoir faire" but it doesn't really catch the arrogant anti-grammatical spirit of the original. date=04.01.2004 19:15 ip=81.135.37.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Hi Mike, just got back from France!

Consignment: not a fucking sausage. Which is a bit strange. I'd suggest we do the same again but I'd wonder if another consigment would just go the same way that the first did. I'll email you about this once I've caught my breath.

Any news item for the Will Self?

BTW: Can anyone suggest a good idiomatic French translation for the expression "I am skill"? The closest I can get is "Je suis savoir faire" but it doesn't really catch the arrogant anti-grammatical spirit of the original.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=04.01.2004 19:15 ip=81.135.37.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Christmas in brief:
Best music: The two new Lambchop albums - which you can't get until February. Ha! Superb. Also 'Rounds' by Four Tet.
Best books: Raymond Carver Collected Poems and Alan Garner's The Stone Book Quartet.
Best smell: Czech and Speake Neroli.
Best overall present: a quince tree
Best food: Goose
Best TV: none date=05.01.2004 10:12 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just finished two great books (R. Byron's "Oxiana" and Charles Williams's "All Hallows Eve"), and one appalling one - Nick Tosches's "In the Hand of Dante." A Mafia and medieval manuscripts caper, this was trussed up in a style best described as scorched-earth Harlan Ellison "fuck you all, I'm writing in BLOOD," complete with a 30-page digression on how dreadful US publishing is today. QED, I'd say. Anyway, to get over this nonsense, I found "Metal Machine Music" for a fiver in Soho : love's old sweet song, etc.

Oh, and happy new year, too! date=05.01.2004 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't done all that much reading over Xmas. Wading through Yuri Stoyanov's The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy. It's big, it's chunky! Sketches in the roots of dualist religions in Egypt and Persia with some excellent material on the development of Zoroastrianism through Zurvanism into Mithraism and Manicheism. Then there's a nice explanation of the origin of satans and Satan in apocalyptic Jewish literature. And finally an all-you-can-eat feast of Christian heresy: Gnostics, Docetists, Paulicians, Bogomils, Cathars, Albigensians and more.

On the CD player: The Buff Medways Merry Christmas Fritz EP - garage as fuck! Not in the dance sense of the word. Includes as a B-side Stille Nacht recorded on a wax cylinder. How much more lo-fi can you get? date=05.01.2004 12:09 ip=213.122.126.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy new year everyone.

Pretty interesting reading iotar.

I managed to read four short story collections. Dusk, James Salter; Great Dream of Heaven, Sam Shepard; Elephant, Raymond Carver; The Garden Party, K. Mansfield. Would recommend them all.

I'm off out now to spend my book tokens ... date=05.01.2004 12:39 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all, Happy New Year!

Funnily enough I was given 'Great Dream of Heaven' as well, haven't sat down with it yet.

My short story collections - 'The Opal and other stories', Gustav Meyrink (marvellous decadent weirdness, some unforgettable 3 page fantasies), 'Richard Dadd in Bedlam', Alan Wall, but discovery of Christmas has to be 'If Not, Winter', translations of Sappho by Anne Carson. All these incredibly evocative fragments of dead poems, recombining in wonderfully evocative ways...

]you Mika
] but I will not allow you
] you choose the love of Penthelids
] evilturning
] some sweet song
] in honey voice
] piercing breezes
] wet with dew

Oh, and also joyous pulpy fun from Michael Asher - 'Firebird'. date=05.01.2004 12:57 ip=62.188.110.198 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, the ] means a lost part of a line. date=05.01.2004 12:58 ip=62.188.110.198 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like the fragments. Reminds me of a book I picked up cheap in the Site Gallery sale the other week - "You are part of a divine PUDDING" by artist Chris Kenny. It's just a series of sentences, each one made out of two disparate found sentence halves. I came home yesterday to find that Gill had written me a note using sentences seleced from the book. Damned if I know what this means:

Excessive secretion ~ is "catching"
You are in need of ~ self-abuse
Events in the mouth ~ are futile.

(~ is where the sentences are joined)

I think self-abuse must be a reference to Will, right?

Some more nice ones:

Adam and Eve were turned away from ~ other planetary systems.
An ovenful of paint ~ has spread over the earth like a tree.
Disharmony causes ~ Brian Sewell.

I could go on (most probably infinitely) but had better not. date=05.01.2004 13:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, hopefully not some sort of literary Rorschasch test, as I'm coming out with a mildly obscene reading of it... Reminds me a bit of the whole William Burroughs cut up thing. date=05.01.2004 13:35 ip=62.188.100.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... and shouldn't the Bwian Sewell comment read the other way on? date=05.01.2004 13:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sewell. He may talk funny. He may write for the Standard. He may be wrong. But he makes a lot of sense.

Never thought I would say those words.

Nice man. date=05.01.2004 15:04 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Brian Sewell: He wrote a very angry column on the first anniversary of September 11, demanding to know why everyone was observing it when we don't have specific commemorations for the far worse loss of life at, say, Coventry or Dresden sixty years ago. The imperious sentiment in US sickened him, and he suggested that it was time to put the World Trade Centre attacks in perspective and get on with other things. Entertainingly, the whole bilious exercise read as though he'd put it together after a bottle of whisky; amazingly, I don't think it attracted much attention and he wasn't sacked for writing it. The piece might almost have been an imaginary incident. date=05.01.2004 15:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Pretty interesting reading iotar.

MJP: I'd certainly recommend the Stoyanov book if you can deal with the large chunks of history involved. Pages and pages of early medieval Bulgarian politics - but the theological meat is all good fun, and you occasionally find yrself reading sentences like: "...the second duck begins to act as God's rival..."


Al: Did Nick get the flyers I sent in time? I didn't hear back from him so I assume he got them.

Alex: Feuer frei! Bang, bang! date=05.01.2004 16:25 ip=213.122.43.23 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I interpreted it rather obscenely as well. Like I said, I haven't a clue what Gill meant by it (she says they were picked at random, I don't believe that for one minute). I think she just wanted to disturb me.

And, yes, very Burroughsian, though in a more strictly constrained format. I was trying to find out more about Chris Kenny but... no, I don't think this can be the same guy: www.chris.kenny.freeservers.com

MJP, I agree with you about Sewell. He used to annoy the hell out of me when I was younger, but now I love him just for having opinions, even if some of his opinions are barking.

Io: Was trying to work out where I'd heard of Stoyanov recently. Then realised I hadn't. I met a guy last month whose surname is Stoyanov. Must be a lot of them about.

"...the second duck begins to act as God's rival..." ... and it was at that time I realised that my time in the tank was almost up. date=05.01.2004 18:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The duck shd of course be read metaphorically. After all, other versions of the myth posit swans and other forms of wildfowl. The point is that the satanic demiurge is basically amphibious.

The "burn the witch" scene in Monty Python & the Holy Grail can be profitably reinterpreted in this light. date=05.01.2004 20:02 ip=213.122.206.147 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am too drunk to(o) comment, but I am certainly not to(o) drunk to roll onthe floor laaaaughint.(g) date=06.01.2004 00:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Great Dream of Heaven is highly readable. The style is deceptively relaxed; because this is a book full of energy.

But you have to take him as he is. The man who has everything. In one or two stories the self-regard peeps through a little too obviously.

A little while ago the Saturday Guardian reviewed a Canadian short story writer, female. Late middle age I suppose. Top of her form. Only writes short stories. Can anyone remember her name? I want to give the short story form a try so I am reading everything I can. Richard Ford seems to be the best of the Americans. date=06.01.2004 09:30 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ford.

I rate Tobias Woolf: the short stories and "In Pharaoh's Army," the only Viet Vet memoir in which nothing much seems to happen. date=06.01.2004 09:58 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, will respond to that properly once I've read the stories. Fascinated by Sam Shepard; my major previous encounter with him is in 'The Right Stuff', where he plays Chuck Yeager; this incredible, iconic, Ur-American presence. He haunts the whole film and unbalances it completely - much of it a footnote to his early scenes.

Have you read any of the JG Ballard short stories? I remember you saying you'd hit your Ballard limit, but they're wildly varied and inventive, a very different read from the novels. Meyrink short stories mind bogglingly loopy and wonderful.

Zali - yup, the flyers did get through, many thanks for that. Am sitting down with Nic to plan the next one hopefully tonight, don't know if the Stella Maris Drone Orchestra's up for another appearance? Duck comment has justified the New Year for me...

Dan - hmm, suspect you're right about the two Chris Kennys... 'an atmosphere that gives' - I like it! Hmm, come to think of it Murph and the Magic Tones one of my favourite bands of all time, so there you go. date=06.01.2004 10:16 ip=62.188.105.193 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, maybe I put that too negatively. It's a brilliant collection.

Have you read/seen Sheppard's plays? date=06.01.2004 11:08 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Cool. SMDO have an engagement at a night called A Womb With A View on the 31st. Apparently it's a night of drone music so we'll be going deeper into the harmonic fog element of the music. I'll see if I can talk the rest of the band into playing Brixton on the 28th but I suspect two gigs might be too much. Hopefully I can get them down for February's Brixton Alive.

Dan: It's so difficult to type in a straight line after a couple of Stoyanovs, isn't it? date=06.01.2004 11:10 ip=213.122.112.28 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali - Not two gigs, surely all part of one never-ending gig...

MJP - was leafing through them in the bookshop, never seen them performed. Turned onto Shepard by various people mentioning at random a book called 'Motel Chronicles' or similar, I think a novel, over Christmas; sadly out of print in the UK, am going to try and track down a copy once I've got through the current bookpile. date=06.01.2004 11:30 ip=62.188.112.12 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, where's a Womb with a View on, btb? Sounds intriguing... date=06.01.2004 11:33 ip=62.188.112.12 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP, the author you're trying to remember is Alice Munro. She's totally ace, but the earlier in her output you read the better. Other Americans you could try: Carver, Annie Proulx, Jayne Anne Phillips. There's a vast list of Brits, but you've probably heard me going on about them before... date=06.01.2004 11:35 ip=213.78.90.252 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fantastic, thanks for those.

Actually I am pretty foggy about British short story writers. Apart from your work I only particularly like William Boyd's short stories. Basically I haven't been paying attention, I think.

I would like to like Will Self. Very able. But I find his tone childish. Maybe if I read him more. date=06.01.2004 11:52 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: The WWAV thing is at some new venue in Hackney. It's being organised by one of the Kosmische regulars, a guy called Mark Pilkington who used to work for Fortean Times. I'll let you know more when I do.

Hopefully, if I can kick the SMDO into some sort of shape this year we'll be flexible enough that we can turn up and drone at the drop of a hat with whoever happens to be available. It's one of my new year projects. date=06.01.2004 11:56 ip=213.122.89.166 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some short story writers I've enjoyed: Saki, William Trevor, Raymond Carver (who, above all others, made me want to write), H.E.Bates, Annie Proulx, Richard Brautigan and perhaps surprisingly Alexei Sayle, although he veers dangeroulsy close to the jokey as you might expect. date=06.01.2004 12:09 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: short story writers you might like: H.E. Bates, V.S. Pritchett (after whom you despair at trying to write anything as good), William Sansom, Isaak Dineson, Angus Wilson. Then there's the living ones ... date=06.01.2004 12:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Probably the only rival to Bates & Pritchett in the UK is Shena Mackay. There was a Collected some time in the mid 90s. Every so often her publishers make an effort on her behalf but they can't seem to lever her into the visibility she deserves. If I had one percent her ability I'd be a bit pleased. date=06.01.2004 13:19 ip=213.78.79.91 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Shena M. I've never heard of - but if she's *that* good, I soon will - thank you! date=06.01.2004 13:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Today I bought the following:

Alice Munro Dance of the Happy Shades
Raymond Carver What We Talk About ...
James Salter Cassada & Light Years
Mikhail Bulgakov A Country Doctor's Notebook

I recently became interested by Salter's prose, hence the two novels.

Thanks for the recommendations. I intend to get them all. Early Lawrence short stories I have always liked. (But not the late stuff.) date=06.01.2004 15:52 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have been recommended Robert Aickman short stories by many people, come to think of it, have still yet to read him myself. Can we set up an Empty Space lending library or similar?

Oh, and for more ghostliness - M R James a must. G K Chesterton, The Club of Queer Trades, v. peculiar fun, the Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith collections in Fantasy Masterworks v. cool. date=06.01.2004 15:52 ip=62.188.105.67 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, that's not such a bad idea - trading books you're done with; I've got two or three boxes of the things. Keep on meaning to give them all away, but haven't got round to it yet. Don't know what I'm going to do about this in the long run, my flat being taken over by books at the mo. date=06.01.2004 16:02 ip=62.188.105.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Used books: my local pub has a bookshelf - you can bring books in and leave them, and it costs you 50p (for charity) to take one away. I got my copy of The Pastel City that way. It's nice to drift into the pub and find something to read, too. date=06.01.2004 16:10 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=James Salter wrote quite a good climbing novel called Solo Faces. More short story writers--Rosamund Lehmann (The Gypsy's Baby), Ellen Gilchrist, Kate Pullinger (Tiny Lies), Isaac Bashevis Singer. & of course the two Elizabeths, Bowen & Taylor. And you can't get away without reading the whole of Chekhov, and Turgenev's Pictures from a Hunter's Notebook, and Joyce, Dubliners (although beware: the epiphanic short story is now heavily out of favour).

Hi Al: I see that in your recommendations you've decided to redress the balance for fantasy/horror... date=06.01.2004 16:16 ip=213.78.79.63 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=James Salter wrote quite a good climbing novel called Solo Faces. More short story writers--Rosamund Lehmann (The Gypsy's Baby), Ellen Gilchrist, Kate Pullinger (Tiny Lies), Isaac Bashevis Singer. & of course the two Elizabeths, Bowen & Taylor. And you can't get away without reading the whole of Chekhov, and Turgenev's Pictures from a Hunter's Notebook, and Joyce, Dubliners (although beware: the epiphanic short story is now heavily out of favour).

Hi Al: I see that in your recommendations you've decided to redress the balance for fantasy/horror... date=06.01.2004 16:20 ip=213.78.79.63 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Ali Smith is red hot. She has great titles too, like The Whole Story & Other Stories, and Other Stories & Other Stories. date=06.01.2004 16:21 ip=213.78.79.63 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup! Everybody needs weirdness, particularly when January's here. And nobody's mentioned Borges yet! Oh, and more ghostly folk - EF Benson, Algernon Blackwood. Actually, the various Oxford books of and Virago books of Ghost Stories are good value, and v. enjoyable. The 'Year's Best Horror' annual collections usually have some gems in, as well.

Surprised you haven't mentioned Kelly Link yet as well, MJH - have seen you bigging her up elsewhere. Never felt I've quite got to grips with her myself. date=06.01.2004 16:23 ip=62.188.108.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and love the pub idea. Have found some wonderful books in pubs - lovely edition of bits of Ruskin, and some v. strange economics stuff that Pound was v. into. My local has a prominently placed book on skin diseases, with illustrations, which makes for interesting boozy reading. date=06.01.2004 16:25 ip=62.188.108.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, I seem to have echo-posted down there. Can we get rid of that ? Al: Kelly Link, as I live & breathe! I mean, I think you're going to love her or hate her. She's pushing things along. A challenge: now pick five of the authors below as a basic grounding in the short story form... date=06.01.2004 16:33 ip=213.78.79.63 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, I have read the two Russians, Chekov; about five penguin volumes. So up to speed there, just. Turgenev - my favourite Russian author. Joyce I have read too. Epiphanic out of favour? An enduring image from the Joyce stories for me is the plate of peas someone eats in a cafe.

All day for some reason my head has been full of that music from the Go Between. (Another book I would like to read!)

JG Ballard. Al, I am going to have to come back to him a few years hence. Of several stand out stories, The Venus Hunters. date=06.01.2004 16:33 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: "difficult to type in a straight line after a couple of Stoyanovs"

I read that as difficult to type after a couple of lines of Stoyanovs. It probably would be too.

Reminds me of the most, err... interesting drink I ever tried. Also the most dangerous. Introduced to me by two Icelandic guys (a dangerous race to drink with). They called it "Russian Cocaine". You take two slices of lemon, stack a teaspoon each of sugar and ground coffee on one of them, and make a sandwich. Eat it in one bite, then knock back a double measure of vodka. Apparently the lemon opens your... pores or whatever, the sugar gives you an energy rush, the coffee gives you a caffeine rush, and the vodka... does what vodka usually does.

It's an incredible feeling, an instant hit not unlike its namesake. You feel so instantly awake, energized and excited that you immediately order a second one. And a third.

And herein lies the danger. For twenty minutes later, the sugar and coffee wear off and you're left with just the vodka. It's around about then that your legs stop working and you lie on the floor gibbering. The first time I tried it, I was staying at my parents' house that evening. I arrived back, at about 9pm (we started drinking early), clutching unsuccesfully at the kitchen table in an attempt to stay off the floor. "ssss-sorry mum & dad. I've been on the Russian Cocaines all night." At least they saw the funny side.

It's also very fun to go into a bar and ask whether they serve Russian Cocaine (I guarantee you there's not a bartender in the UK who'll know what you're talking about, except possibly the one in the Admiral Codrington in South Kensington).

My first Russian Cocaine session documented here:
http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002231.html

I had a fun time last night - went to a talk on the effect of Darwin's work on the Victorian popular novel - semi-interesting - then as I cycled home I noticed some people playing saxophones in a bar in town. Went inside, it turned out it was a jam night, all comers welcome, was very disappointed I hadn't brought my bass. Got very drunk and talked my way into several bands. I dunno. You wait five years to join a band in Sheffield, and then a whole bunch of them all come along at once. date=06.01.2004 16:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Book-sharing: something I've started doing recently. I'm enjoying the glow of munificence.

I started by dumping three box-loads on the local Oxfam bookshop - mostly trashy stuff which I finally realised I'd never get around to reading, or never want to read again, or be embarassed to have adorning my bookshelf.

I've been very tempted to do this: www.bookcrossing.com but not been organised enough yet. On a similar level, a friend of mine sent a chain-letter type thing where you send a book to the person at the top of the list. Chain letters are obviously evil, but this one sounded like fun so I sent off my Cecil Parrot translation of the Good Soldier Svejk (because a Czech guy, Zenny Sadlon, re-translated it and sent me his version because he liked my Amazon.com review).

At the end of this month we're having a party (details at http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002407.html - you're all very, very welcome to come). I'm thinking of getting everyone to play a game I discovered recently. I wrap up lots of little presents, put them in a pile in the middle of the floor, sit everyone in a circle around the presents and deal out a pack of playing cards. Then I go through another pack of playing cards one at a time, whoever has the card gets to take a present from the middle of the circle. There are less packages than cards, so when the presents run out then anyone chosen has to steal a present off someone else (and anyone who already has presents has to hide them as best they can).

Anyway, this is rather a roundabout way of saying that I was going to wrap up a load of unwanted books and use them as fodder this game. Hopefully it'll be a bit more fun than the j-cloths and party poppers I won when I played it. date=06.01.2004 17:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You take two slices of lemon, stack a teaspoon each of sugar and ground coffee on one of them, and make a sandwich.

I used to have a habit of eating raw lemons when I was a child. My dad used to make up a mixture of salt, liquorice and chilli powder to dip pieces of sour fruit into: grapefruit, cooking apples, lemons. But when the mixture ran out I'd just eat pieces of lemon.

It was only later that I discovered vodka and coffee.

I'll have to try that Russian Cocaine trick out some time. date=06.01.2004 20:41 ip=213.122.7.150 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You take two slices of lemon, stack a teaspoon each of sugar and ground coffee on one of them, and make a sandwich.

I used to have a habit of eating raw lemons when I was a child. My dad used to make up a mixture of salt, liquorice and chilli powder to dip pieces of sour fruit into: grapefruit, cooking apples, lemons. But when the mixture ran out I'd just eat pieces of lemon.

It was only later that I discovered vodka and coffee.

I'll have to try that Russian Cocaine trick out some time. date=06.01.2004 21:02 ip=213.122.125.20 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just make sure you have a good dose of willpower about you at the time, and remember more is not necessarily better. date=06.01.2004 21:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Inevitably I'll add to the spook writers: AM Burrage(Ex-Private-Ex) for "Smee" and "One who Saw"; E Nesbit "Man-Sized in Marble"; Mrs Oliphant "The Open Door"; Ambrose Bierce "Owl Creek Bridge" and much more; Fritz Leiber - especially for "Smoke Ghost"; and William Hope Hodgeson (mainly for his Carnacki stories, ropey though some of them are). And nobody's mentioned Sheridan La Fenu or Machen yet.... date=06.01.2004 23:00 ip=213.78.76.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Epiphanic out of favour? An enduring image from the Joyce stories for me is the plate of peas someone eats in a cafe.

Wasn't the "peas and vinegar" incident in Ulysses? I re-read some of the Dubliners stories a couple of years back but I can't remember where those peas happen.

I'm surprised that Elizabeth Bowen hasn't been mentioned yet. Certainly would have been if Des was about. date=07.01.2004 10:17 ip=213.122.116.212 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Epiphanic out of favour? An enduring image from the Joyce stories for me is the plate of peas someone eats in a cafe.

Wasn't the "peas and vinegar" incident in Ulysses? I re-read some of the Dubliners stories a couple of years back but I can't remember where those peas happen.

I'm surprised that Elizabeth Bowen hasn't been mentioned yet. Certainly would have been if Des was about. Actually, I'm surprised it took so long for Machen to be called to mind too.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=07.01.2004 10:17 ip=213.122.116.212 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a peas and vinegar epiphany once. Spilt a tub of them down my trousers.
Anyone know what the first short story was? date=07.01.2004 10:22 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The very first short story was the Garden of Eden. Adam looked at Eve, looked at the apple, and said: "Cor!"

Went down a storm at the old Chaldean Gaumont, that did. Laugh? I nearly fell in the fiery furnace ... date=07.01.2004 10:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=i don't wish to know that. Kindly leave the tabernacle. date=07.01.2004 10:34 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry: I'll get my toga ... date=07.01.2004 10:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Histories of the short story mention Aesop, the Arabian Nights, Chaucer and "The Decameron" as ancestors. Its present form started in the early nineteenth century - Gothic tales, Hawthorne, and then the Victorian and Edwardian deluge.

I can't find any reference to the "earliest" one, but perhaps the old Arabic tale of the man trying to flee death by hurrying to Isfahan is as good as any. date=07.01.2004 10:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As far as I can make out the form of the short story as we think of it now starts with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. date=07.01.2004 11:20 ip=213.122.184.17 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like all forms of anecdote, especially real-world ones, bullshit two-liners told in pubs, urban myths, outright lies; and especially that thing where people describe a film or a gig or a birth or a traffic accident for other people, and actually shake with the power of re-imagining it. "It was just so fucking brilliant when he..." I used to think those were the only real stories, that was the real & basic function of stories, people celebrating their own experience, trying to get over to other people how powerful and real it was to them. It's still why I love autobiographical work by non-writers, and why I'd stick with the idea that--at least to some extent--writing exists to make the world new, allows us to recover our own experiences from the socialised experience, the advertised experience, the cliche, the meme. The short story is a massively powerful vehicle for doing that. date=07.01.2004 13:02 ip=213.78.82.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting stuff on the subject of stories that can change the world here.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/01/04.html date=07.01.2004 13:09 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Urban myths? Check this out -

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=4f c3ee90797296bccdde1c1346ae5e15&forumid=19 date=07.01.2004 13:31 ip=62.188.108.22 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting auto-biographical snippet from James Salter here:

http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/salterbb.html date=07.01.2004 13:55 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The only urban myth I've encountered was about ten years ago. Someone I worked with swore blind that friend of a friend of theirs had been drugged at a club and had woken up to find one of their kidneys had been stolen by an amateur surgeon. When I doubted this, she got very angry: "It's happening all over Europe, Martin - you can't just laugh it off."

She was convinced that Third World spivs were fencing decent British organs, and that somehow these were as easily bought as a pound of sausages from the local butcher's. Perhaps the myth was some warped fantasy about national virility; I never worked it out. It did the rounds for months. These days, of course, it's vanished. date=07.01.2004 14:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When I was in primary school, we spent several weeks in absolute terror of a gang called the Green Jackets who would ambush you on your way home and ask if it was your birthday. if it was, they would carve Happy Birthday into you back with a razor. Kids *knew* someone it had happened to, always at a different school.
My daughter told me the other day that kids at her school were terrified of a man in a baker's van who would offer free cakes to get you into his van and then drive off with you. It had happened to kids at other schools... date=07.01.2004 14:51 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"It's happening all over Europe, Martin - you can't just laugh it off."

Martin, if that quote's verbatim it's just fucking stupendous. It's the best thing I've heard for years. What a story you could make out of the telling of that story... The tension between the urban-mythic content and a super-realist depiction of the two people in the conversation. Just what fiction ought to be. And, here: it isn't even fiction. Or it is. Or it isn't. Or it is. God, all my ideas about fiction summed up in one non-fictional anecdote. Am I in heaven ? date=07.01.2004 14:57 ip=213.78.87.63 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Am I in heaven?

We do our best, mate. We do our best ... :) date=07.01.2004 15:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember at school, one of our teachers had a reputation for hauling up by the tie any boy who disobeyed him. I don't know anyone who'd ever seen him do this, but the aura of fear and violence that followed him meant that nobody ever misbehaved in his classes. I've often wondered since whether it actually happened, and if not how he managed to engineer such a myth to make his classes controllable. date=07.01.2004 17:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This evening as I was looking for a copy of "The Bagdad Blog", I´ve found "The dedalus book of spanish fantasy". Some of the choice are very odd but it is well worth a look because of Juan Goytisolo, Bernardo Artxaga,Quim Monzo, Manuel Rivas and José Maria Merino. some of the best spanish contemporary writers. date=07.01.2004 20:41 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks interesting; I'm reading their edition of 'Simplicissimus' at the mo', fascinating book, incredibly brutal - like those Goya 'Fortunes of War' etchings, but in prose.

And come to think of it, yet another short story person - Rudyard Kipling is fantastic! Incredibly concise and pointed when he starts out ('Plain Tales from the Hills' is wonderful), evolves into something rich and wonderful. Everything from the profoundly personal to the profoundly mystic. 'The Gardener' (elegy for senseless loss, in WWI and more personally) makes me cry every time I read it. date=08.01.2004 10:59 ip=62.188.105.201 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here's a link to the story:

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/ KiplingRudyard/prose/DebtsandCredits/gardener.html date=08.01.2004 11:08 ip=62.188.105.201 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Al.
My own Kipling favorite short story is "The finest story in the world" wich relies in the same realistic/mythic tensión that Mike was talking about earlier ( Or I think it does)
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/Kip lingRudyard/prose/ManyInventions/fineststory.html date=08.01.2004 11:41 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, on the subject of short stories I'm sure I've seen you mention The Secret Lives of Houses by Scott... Bradfield? I have a copy here, I think from the same publisher & period as The Ice Monkey. I've read it a couple of times, but something never quite clicked, perhaps it's time for a revisit. date=08.01.2004 19:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always liked those stories Dan. Come to think of it, the same thing I like in Bradfield I like in Kelly Link--they both have approach events we ought to recognise the signatures of, but from such an odd angle they find something else in them. And that something else somehow *undoes* not just the events in question, or the signatures of them, but our whole viewpoint. Totally different writers, but the same sort of undoing of stuff. Language. Grammars of fiction. Something. I blather, having woke up feeling crap this morning, felt steadily worse all day, and given up entirely this evening. Encouraged Dr Talisker to begin administering the treatment a couple of hours ago. Seems to be working. Russian Cocaine, eh ? Remind me never to have that. G'night. date=08.01.2004 22:52 ip=213.78.81.57 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo - thanks for that, snowed under with much work at the mo' so am about halfway through it; v. intriguing story.

MJH - hope the Talisker worked its magic last night. Have added Russian Cocaine to the Champagne and Absinthe cocktail list... date=09.01.2004 09:07 ip=62.188.112.199 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, here's another one for the cocktail list, something I appear to have invented a few months ago, and am still working on.

Mix pepper (chilli) vodka with ginger beer. I call it a winter masala (with absolutely no nod of the head to the famous jazz trumpeter & sub-Sewellesque opinionated tosser). On Gill's suggestion, I've just put a cinnamon stick in the vodka bottle to infuse, gonna see how that makes it taste. I may try making some syrup using sugar, water and cardamom, try adding that too. date=09.01.2004 09:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: coriander seed might go well with that. date=09.01.2004 11:18 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, I think "The Finest Story in the World" should be rewritten from Charlie Mears' point of view, and shown as a gain, not a loss. Charlie wants to live in his own present, get on with his life, and make his own work; while the narrator moons about trying to retrieve some vanished and quite useless past which he seems to believe is more important than anything new that can be done by himself or Charlie. Kipling's description of Charlie, like his description of the Hindu, is highly ideologised and not very realistic. Everything in the story is loaded to support Kipling's retrospective project.

It *is* impossible to "bring back" the past; it *is* impossible to "see" the future. The interesting thing about all stories like these (essentially stories of loss) is the pathos of our desire--the fact that, as readers, we know what fantasy is while remaining enmeshed in it. That enmeshment reflects our enmeshment in the various fantasies of liberal democracy, from the superficial, as in LotR, through the charade of consumer "choice" (indeed the reduction of choice to an act of consumption), to the faux-populism which underpins "democracy" itself.

What's been interesting to me for the last couple of decades has been to write stories which use the tropes of classics like "The Finest Story Ever Told" to say that. date=09.01.2004 11:52 ip=213.78.86.27 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll get that title right one of these days... date=09.01.2004 11:52 ip=213.78.86.27 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>We know what fantasy is while remaining enmeshed in it ...

I finally tracked down an old Penguin copy of "The Vodi" by John Braine: a great case in point.

I don't know how Braine's publisher reacted, though. "I want to follow up 'Room at the Top' with a book about a bed-bound TB patient who's haunted by a fantasy about an evil old woman and her gang of demonic helpers -" We'll print 100,000, old boy. And was it ever filmed? Maybe a cliche, but I started to see James Bolam as Dick. date=09.01.2004 12:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Vodi: Stunning, isn't it, Martin ? Terrific revision of Isherwood & Auden's "North West Passage" idea (I think Edward Upward had some input into it too), which is that ordinary life is the challenge we'd do anything to avoid. Some kinds of people would rather die looking for the North West Passage than face the facts of their own life. A "hard" life, a mad life, a doomed life, is more satisfying, and in the end easier to live, than a domestic one. The central character of The Vodi has to decide to choose an ordinary life over the escape-route of TB. He literally has to choose to live.

How *do* you choose a life that can't be defined as meaningful, or even interesting ? How do you answer people who have only contempt for the dilemma itself, whose moral stance is essentially Calvinist ?

"Vodi" is a conscious anagram of void. I was always delighted that, without having read either Isherwood or The Vodi, Joe Simpson got straight to the heart of the concept (his novel The Water People is an even balder statement of the issue than Touching the Void). But of course he got there precisely by taking the North West Passage and learning from the experience, rather than staying home and hoping to extract something worthwhile from repeated playbacks of his favourite scene from LotR...

The complex framing and re-framing of experience which allows reality to be used for purposes of escape from itself, has always fascinated me. The idea that you could do these North West things and be perfectly aware of it, use your own experience of escapism to interrogate the whole idea of escape, lies behind everything I've done since the late 70s. To be honest, The Vodi makes most people's ideas about this subject seem simplistic; along with the self-aware ironies of the hard climber, it turned out to contain some of the most valuable insights I ever stumbled over.

It's so unseasonably warm in Barnes today that a *butterfly* has just gone past my window. Either that or I'm hallucinating. date=09.01.2004 12:59 ip=213.116.58.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, it could have been the moth that comes to Gandalf in Lot... hang on, I'll get my cloak. date=09.01.2004 13:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: the seasons have gone all wrong. I'm acutely aware of this as an allotment-holder. Things happen at the wrong time. A butterfly flapping its wings in Barnes means bolting lettuces in Stockport. date=09.01.2004 13:46 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll get mine, too, Dan. Maybe we could make a role playing game out of it.

It just occurred to me that Will Self approaches some of the ideas below, especially in "The Five Swing Walk", and makes a believable answer from the realist side, which is that you have to work a domestic life for the brief experiences of unselfconscious pleasure it can afford. date=09.01.2004 13:47 ip=213.78.67.50 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The odd thing, Alex, is that it doesn't seem all that warm *inside* my house... date=09.01.2004 13:49 ip=213.78.67.50 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.

You are of course rigth about Kipling´s political agenda. That one struck a chord because I read as a teenager deep into Lotr. I read it first as a loss story but that keep bothering me until I realized I wanted the same things that Charlies does .

Butterflies? You are lucky. Yesterday I found a plain household fly . That and the comet across Spain´s sky makes one reach for the horse head ... date=09.01.2004 13:59 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.

You are of course rigth about Kipling´s political agenda. That one struck a chord because I read as a teenager deep into Lotr. I read it first as a loss story but that keep bothering me until I realized I wanted the same things that Charlies does .

Butterflies? You are lucky. Yesterday I found a plain household fly . That and the comet across Spain´s sky makes one reach for the horse head ... date=09.01.2004 13:59 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about the double post. date=09.01.2004 14:00 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Vodi: terrific, indeed. Besides being haunted by Bolam (or Tom Courtenay: it's a dark twin of "Billy Liar"), I'm amazed by the ease of the writing, the way Braine lets the notion of private fantasy or wish fulfilment surface in so many guises, and his sheer hard eye for character - especially the teenage love scenes and the mother's illness, when everybody's illusions give way. It was also very sharp to barely mention Dick's army life. You'd think Burma would be the time when he felt most alive, but it's relegated to a few watery mentions, overwhelmed by his dreams and fatalism. And you have to decide on the real ending of the book, just as he has to decide on his life. A lot of shrewdness went into this.

All that - and then the reviews. The Penguin edition carries 3 or 4 that read like bored school reports, along the lines of "he has made a promising beginning and this work builds on it." So the critics were probably flummoxed: not for the last time.

I always associate Braine with pure social realism. Did he write anything else in this area, or was it all "it's grim up north" and " 'appen life's a challenge, lad" from there on? At least one on-line encyclopaedia typifies him as "an Angry Young Man," and its bibliography doesn't mention "The Vodi" at all. A singular book, and in more ways than one. date=09.01.2004 14:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. Don't worry about the double post, io will fix it at some point, although I think he's gone somewhere this weekend. Kipling was, essentially, writing *against* H G Wells and Bernard Shaw. It's a pity we don't have their equivalent in Hollywood, to act as a counterweight to the extraordinary defeatism of LotR. Tolkien's belief in the superiority of a lost past makes Kipling look like a Fabian. date=09.01.2004 14:12 ip=213.78.67.50 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.
At least Kipling realized this was a dead end.
By the way, belive it or not Charles Williams has not been translated into spanish. Luis is looking up the possibilty. date=09.01.2004 14:23 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Butterflies: The place I rent gets Torotiseshells hibernating in it, and they usually flutter into life from some corner just when you've climbed in the bath. Be a soign of um early spring, un noh mustake. date=09.01.2004 14:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin

>>All that - and then the reviews. The Penguin edition carries 3 or 4 that read like bored school reports, along the lines of "he has made a promising beginning and this work builds on it." So the critics were probably flummoxed: not for the last time.

The weird thing is that he was also--I suspect consciously--trying to cross the gap, describe the transition (and the worth of the transition), between the pre WWII bizarre fantasy crowd, including Dylan Thomas, John Davenport, Mervyn Peake, etc, and the novelists who had begun to develop Larkin's Jill and other early AYM texts. Trying, that is, to show a more complicated line of argument than anybody wanted to see. The critical establishment of the time, besotted by AYM, would have wanted a much simpler act of rejection, a less successful attempt to *understand*.

>>I always associate Braine with pure social realism. Did he write anything else in this area, or was it all "it's grim up north" and " 'appen life's a challenge, lad" from there on? At least one on-line encyclopaedia typifies him as "an Angry Young Man," and its bibliography doesn't mention "The Vodi" at all. A singular book, and in more ways than one.

I don't think he did, no, certainly not in the middle part of his career. I haven't read anything late. I wonder if he quietly disowned The Vodi, the way Ballard seems to have disowned The Wind from Nowhere, and I would like to disown The Centauri Device ? date=09.01.2004 14:29 ip=213.78.93.47 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of the superiority of a lost past, I'm reading a biography Wilfrid Thesiger - the guy's opinions were depressingly anti-change and almost impossibly contradictory.

And talking of early springs, we went to Sheffield Botanical Gardens yesterday. Saw the first cherry blossom.

And talking of allotments... well, we were only last night: me, Gill & our Canadian guests. We want one. There are a lot of them just down the road from us, but they seem to get vandalised all the time.

Gill's friend's brother was found hanged in his allotment shed last spring. His mum went looking for him when he hadn't been seen for a couple of days. A fox looked up at her as she entered the allotment gate, and at that moment she knew he was dead. He once promised Gill she could have his collection of Star Wars videos. But after what happened, she feels it would be a bit insensitive mentioning it to his mum and dad. date=09.01.2004 14:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I thoroughly recommend allotments. Good for the soul and the taste-buds. I hope foxes aren't harbingers of death though - I've had it, if they are. The buggers poo everywhere. date=09.01.2004 15:14 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bazzing fox anecdote, Dan. Nicely structured. Goes right back to the discussion of story. date=09.01.2004 15:31 ip=213.78.79.210 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, strange how the fox somehow makes the story. I recalled the incident when I mentioned allotments, but didn't at first remember the fox. It didn't seem worth writing down, but I did anyway and that's when I the fox came to mind, and suddenly it seemed like an entire story. And not an allotment story, not a suicide story, not even a Star Wars videos story, but a fox story.

Even though the fox had no inkling of the rest of the story. Probably. date=09.01.2004 15:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: A good psychopomp always helps the tale along. date=09.01.2004 16:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=NickM mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Returning to an earlier theme - anyone read Behan's Borstal Boy? There's a section where Behan talks about how the prisoners "tell" films they've seen. One lad says he's heard a bloke tell Crime and Punishment "like a picture".
Small market town myths: I was told that the Black Panther (1970s serial killer) was hiding in a barn opposite our school. Funnily enough, he wasn't... date=09.01.2004 20:32 ip=81.136.20.135 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just finished The Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell, and Lila Says (by Anonymous or "Chimo", according the the edition you buy).

I never know what to make of Mankell. Sometimes he brilliantly evokes ordinary, slightly dull people solving crimes which veer between the political and the meaningless; sometimes he seems just boring, flat and confused. This time it was the latter.

Lila Says is everything it's cracked up to be, sexual obsession on some sink estate outside Paris, written as if it's autobiography. I say "as if" because I don't think it is. Fourth Estate would like you to believe they published this mysterious manuscript after it was dumped on their doorstep anonymously; this pretty story, see urban myths, requires you not to know anything at all about publishing in an age defined by the term "unsolicited submission".

The great thing about LS is that Lila has no existence whatsoever as a person. She is the simply a wish-fulfilment, always hot, always ready, always talking in--and described by--the visual languages of porn: her function as a character is to define exactly the character of the narrator. She is the absence, the sad cheap dream, that sets the boundaries of the human waste tip Chimo's trying to live in. Her sexual energy, her sense of herself as a free spirit, describe by opposition his passivity and disenfranchisement at all levels (including the sexual). Brilliant.

Anyway, I mention both these because they make broad use of urban and exurban myth. In Mankell it's the myth of Nazis recorrupting the safe neoliberal world by internet; and Lila Says is the enactment of an urban myth in itself. date=11.01.2004 11:41 ip=213.78.88.120 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Lila Says" : I'll check this out. But the last French book about an "always hot, always ready" person I tried was "The Sexual Life of Catherine M." - and I gave up after p. 30, if memory serves.

"The Vodi": last stray thought on this reading of it -did it influence Denis Potter? He's the other major writer from Braine's generation who slipped between "kitchen sink," fantasy, and metafiction. Interesting to know if (and when) he might have read this. date=12.01.2004 09:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lila Says. It is compared (on Amazon) to The Butcher which I have read, but it looks like much more of a portrait of Paris urban life. A definite temptation.

Sunday for me was taken up with Cassado. The fictional portrait of a Puerto Rican American pilot in post-war Germany. Sad; very real. Flying as a sport. date=12.01.2004 09:38 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP, Martin.

MJP: you don't actually get much sense of the location of LS, despite the fact it's "about" estate life. It's one of those books whose real landscape is the narrator's head. Or, no: everything is so completely viewed through the prevailing POV that you don't somehow see the landscape, only the description of it. Not entirely a good thing. Reminds me of the opening of David Shrigley's book Who I Am & What I Want-- "This is about who I am and what I want. It's not about who you are and what you want," to which my unspoken internal reply was on the lines of, "What's wanting got to to do with it ?"

Martin, what made you give up on Catherine M ? Interested because I haven't read it. date=12.01.2004 11:03 ip=213.78.82.86 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Catherine M. didn't arouse or intrigue. The sex wasn't sexy, and there wasn't sufficient other discourse to hold my attention. Maybe it's a bad translation. On the other hand, there's the old saw that erotic and humourous writing are genres which can't be judged half-successful: they either affect you or they don't. So, in this case, I just found it a book I put down one day and never went back to. date=12.01.2004 11:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am over the moon! Just went into a junk shop, looking for lights for our new living room. Came out with no such thing, but some mysterious benign force guided first my feet then my eye towards a copy of
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman: my other favourite book of all time (time? Wassat?). Am off now to lose my self in hallucinations of The City. I may be some time (or vice versa). date=12.01.2004 12:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back in the real(ish) world, I've just been scrolling through comments at BBC on-line about Kilroy-Silk. I had the misfortune to see the dire crap he wrote, but I was quite taken with one of his supporters' turn of phrase: they criticise the BBC for suspending him "at the flash of a hat."

Race rage *and* grammatical disintegration: a strange and terrible cocktail of malaise. date=12.01.2004 12:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Coincidental but heavily related:

http://www.bnp.org.uk/pdf_files/lotr.pdf date=12.01.2004 13:13 ip=213.78.87.94 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a flick through Catherine M and decided it was too dry. She reads like the singer of The Flying Lizards sounded.

Amusing writing: our local Pub Entertainment Guide had a restaurant review which waxed lyrical about 'muriels' on the walls. Very Hilda Ogden. date=12.01.2004 13:32 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH Just taken a brief glimpse. The name 'Identity' for the magazine speaks volumes.

There *is* a racist regressive element to T. even if it is unconscious, one a bit like that in Wagner's Ring, which so enthused the Nazis.

People have to be wary at least. It isn't just innocent fun. There are transversal issues that this kind of escape entertainment is directly in conflict with. date=12.01.2004 13:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Whether you think of yourself as a Rider of Rohan, as an Elf or as a simple, fun-loving Hobbit, the dark days that Tolkien foresaw are upon us all, and your duty is clear..."

Hilarious and inevitable! A friend of mine who is normally in the left-wing anarchist ballpark wrote an extended rant on his blog about how ridiculous the idea is that LOTR might be in the slightest bit racist. He's a very intelligent guy, highly politically aware, but can't face the idea that a book that he loved when he was eight years old might be in the slightest bit dodgy. date=12.01.2004 14:09 ip=158.94.188.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: url looks fascinating (and all too ghastly ...) but I can't access this from work, even in the interests of science: we're monitored.

>>Flying Lizards. Exactly! To me, it read like an academic exercise, not a passionate bit of work. date=12.01.2004 14:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text="Whether you think of yourself as a Rider of Rohan, as an Elf or as a simple, fun-loving Hobbit, the dark days that Tolkien foresaw are upon us all, and your duty is clear..."

Hilarious and inevitable! A friend of mine who is normally in the left-wing anarchist ballpark wrote an extended rant on his blog about how ridiculous the idea is that LOTR might be in a tad racist. He's a very intelligent guy, highly politically aware, but can't face the idea that a book that he loved when he was eight years old might be in the slightest bit dodgy.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=12.01.2004 14:09 ip=158.94.188.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP. I agree, but I'm not sure "unconscious" is quite the right word for assumptions that were acceptable in their day but which we would now describe or interrogate as prejudiced. "Unthinking" maybe ? date=12.01.2004 14:13 ip=62.188.174.98 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: an act of fantasy that strong gets woven into someone's personality, especially if they imprint on it early; they can't allow the book to be unpicked because their defenses would come unpicked with it. There are going to be a lot of panicky left wing Tolkien fans out there today, trying to think up new rhetoric to plug the hole. We shld say a quiet prayer for them. date=12.01.2004 14:34 ip=213.78.66.75 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amen. date=12.01.2004 14:45 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was going to leave a hardcopy of it lying around in the library office. We've got a lot of hobbit-fanciers around here, not to mention Legolas and Morten Harket (or whatever he's called) fanciers. I'm just so scared that I'll hear someone quoting from it and saying, "Well, that's not so unreasonable. It *is* our country after all!"

I work with these people, I want to think of them as good people - or at least not bad people: it's not worth the risk!

As for my friend: we just avoid the subject these days. Our bitter disagreement over whether The Matrix was an "post-gnostic allegory of salvation for the digital age" or "slick choreographed violence trussed up in new age trappings" was quite enough for one incarnation... date=12.01.2004 14:48 ip=158.94.188.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Unthinking ..."

Kilroy-S's column was terrible ( "What have the Arabs ever given us?" Well, apart from preserving the works of Aristotle through the Dark Ages, how about the number "zero"? You may well be seeing a lot more of this on your income tax returns in the near future, Robert), but also fascinating. As Edward Said pointed out, all the unthinking Victorian ideas that flattened and codified "the Orient" have come back after Iraq, and RKS used most of them. I think he avoided "coming over here, taking our jobs, stealing our women." Every other bigot's cliche was in place, though. A sure sign that he's never experienced any of the countries he's writing about. Did someone mention Julie Burchill? Best not to, then ... date=12.01.2004 14:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I must admit I had a chuckle to myself re-reading LotR a couple of years back. When I hit the passages about the evil dark-skinned Southrons and the wily Easterners, I thought of the stick George Lucas got because of the Jamaican, Japanese and Jewish aliens in The Phantom Menace. I wondered how Peter Jackson was going to please both Tolkien fanatics and modern sensibilities. It seems he did it by putting big bandit-masks on the bad guys. date=12.01.2004 14:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In case anyone missed this. Kill Julie Burchill:

http://www.snowdrift.org/columnistdeath.html date=12.01.2004 14:56 ip=158.94.188.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In a sense it's not the specific prejudice that bothers me in Tolkien (book or film). It's the assumption that the world must be saved by slaughtering millions of people who are essentially "evil"; that is, who have no recognisable motive for what they do. That's the purest prejudice, because it enables you to pick target after target without justifying yourself. It's the point where politics and popular fiction have most in common, and why they get into bed together so often. Popular fiction in the West having reduced itself to a soft pornography of violence, the author's problem is to provide a rationale for basically "good" characters to do basically "bad" things. Nothing defuses a reader's conscience and enhances identification with the protagonist better than the fight against motiveless evil. Whoa, dude, bring them on, demons, zombies, Russians, Iraqis, darkies on bad drawings of elephants, evil from beyond the stars. Pass me that *chain gun*. The thing we accept most easily now is that goodies & baddies is just good clean fun; that shoot-em-up is value free. Actually it's the armature of prejuduce. Always was. date=12.01.2004 18:18 ip=213.78.169.78 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.
On goodies&baddies: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/behaving/index.html date=13.01.2004 08:24 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Actually it's the armature of prejuduce.

Agreed. But conflict is also essential in story telling, isn't it? It's hard to depict a conflict situation without using positive and negative values. date=13.01.2004 08:48 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this - just when I'd saved up to buy:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/140251 6274/ref=pd_sim_books_1/102-7644306-4827368?v=glance&s=books

- my world's shattered, never glad confident morning again, etc.

46 cds; 52 hours of the stuff. Then you invade Poland ... date=13.01.2004 10:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And in the reviews: Randy Given says "Super Fantastic!"

BTW: Does anyone know any good authoritative sources for Chinese poetry - specifically the T'ang period? Been reading a bit of Han-Shan and Li Po (Rihaku) recently. Particularly liked Pound's translations of Rihaku in Cathay - just a shame there are so few of them. date=13.01.2004 10:46 ip=158.94.129.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo: that bear once made a good living stealing BMWs then running them across the border into Russia. It's retired now, and has put all its money into a well known English football club.

Martin: *I* bought the collector's ed'n, bound in leatherette. And I like to be bound in leatherette myself sometimes too, especially if it's shiny & black.

Alex: well maybe fiction depends on something you might describe as "conflict" --but only fantasy fans and people from Hollywood ever define that so crassly as "the war between Good and Evil". I'm not sure conflict's the word anyway. Fiction depends on the billions of interactions demonstrable between human beings. In a book I'm reviewing now, some old ladies in a retirement home conspire to steal the newspaper off the only bloke in the home, so they can do the crossword. Not a cross word is exchanged; and nowhere do a million Orcs pour over the battlements, looking remarkably like the X-Box game they have already become, to be killed in fantastically horrible ways by our Morally Licensed Heroines. "Evil" is a pop-fictional structure designed to provide approval for otherwise unacceptable impulses--mainly, these days, the impulse to shoot fish in a barrel. The Hero's Journey mentality simplifies it even further, the absolute metaphor of Thatcherite selfishness--my "journey" is more imortant than yours. If I have been selected in some mysterious way by Good, and you want something different from me, then you must be Evil. These are the two basic ways a whole society has dedicated itself to fascism and narcissism without once letting go of its vision of itself as liberal, democratic and decent. date=13.01.2004 10:51 ip=213.78.171.211 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, Alex. That was just a rant. You know all that already. date=13.01.2004 10:54 ip=213.78.171.211 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Good & Evil: Of course a lot of stuff about this comes up in my recent reading on dualist religions. In radical dualist systems, such as Zurvanism and certain forms of Catharism, the two gods arise together - often as twin sons of a primal deity. There is no fated conclusion as to how the conflict will be resolved.

This is quite at odds with the classical Zoroastrian system in which history is divided into ages: first darkness, then a mixture of light and darkness and finally an inevitable victory of light in which the "bad twin" is cast out of creation forever and history ends. Compare with the Apocalypse of John and Marxist eschatology.

But returning to our radical dualist system, the twins are held in balance like Tom and Jerry or Yin and Yang, an imbalance of either leads not to the arrival of the Kingdom of God but to a state of disequilibrium. The victory of light in itself is a form of sickness. The dark twin is often the creator of the material universe (demiurge) and the opposition between heaven and earth implicit in favouring the more spiritual twin is at the expense of the real world. A typically escapist position. date=13.01.2004 11:11 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Not sure about sources - Arthur Waley was the first well-known translator, but he reads very stiffly beside Pound. You could check Hugh Kenner's great book "The Pound Era" on where EP got stuff from.

Mind you, a Chinese friend regards Pound as a sham, and says the poems he "translated" don't mean anything like that in the original. date=13.01.2004 11:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I read The Pound Era when I was studying Pound, Eliot and Yeats - might well be worth dipping back into that one. I agree with you on Waley - I've read a few of his translations and they're so much stiffer than Pound. But then Pound is reimagining them as personae.

To some extent the trick seems to be in expressing the Chinese plainly - the guy who did the Han-Shan stuff, Burton Watson, seems good at this too. But it's always going to be hard to tell to what extent they're writing their own poems based on the original as the evidence of yr friend would suggest. date=13.01.2004 11:22 ip=158.94.129.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the opposition between heaven and earth implicit in favouring the more spiritual twin is at the expense of the real world. A typically escapist position.

Nice, io.

Apropos of Hollywood, conflict being the basis of story, deep story structures being the essentials of ideology, etc: anyone seen The Adaptation ? I thought the first half of it was hilarious, but as soon as the guy began to follow Robert McKee's advice, I lost the plot... date=13.01.2004 11:23 ip=213.78.171.211 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I believe that voudoun (voodoo) uses the concept of 'gris' meaning neither good nor evil. It all exists together. Much more acceptable.

MJH: If you tell me off again, I'll cry. I'm an orphan, you know. date=13.01.2004 11:31 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: Picked up a copy of Shena Mackay Collected Stories. You're right, Mike, she's a bit of a dab hand. date=13.01.2004 11:35 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm an orphan, you know.

I know you are, Alex. I know. And your journey's been an unkind one so far. But you will find your parents again. Honestly. You just have to have enough courage to do something completely risible. Alex, you're just an ordinary plumbing guy, but with faith in yourself and belief in a truth, you *can* spot the thing those qualified physicists missed.

Glad you like Mackay. There's someone who knows how to slaughter a few Orcs. date=13.01.2004 12:01 ip=213.78.71.241 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: *sob* you're like father, brother, bezzy mate and guru all rolled into one. I can't thank you enough. I've just packed my job in and I'm now going out to kill some pigs. Look for me in the stars. Farewell! date=13.01.2004 12:07 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That was just a rant.

But a damn good rant.

Sir, the war could use more like you. date=13.01.2004 12:14 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Chin up, old chap! - Why not come to Oxford for an evening of laughter in March? On ONE BILL you get: Cannon & Ball; Little & Large; the Grumbleweeds: and Ray Alan & Lord Charles. Top flight entertainment, that.

The next night, the same theatre's staging "Macbeth." I feel like writing to them: don't you think enough people will have died on stage for one week ..? date=13.01.2004 12:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Farewell, young Alex. (Was that his name ? I always feel awful when I get them wrong.) date=13.01.2004 12:27 ip=213.116.56.13 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Farewell, young Alex. (Was that his name ? I always feel awful when I get them wrong.) date=13.01.2004 12:34 ip=213.116.56.13 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I've got my tickets already. Top laff.

MJH: I've decided to stay because it's raining. date=13.01.2004 12:34 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is there an echo in here ? How did I do that ? date=13.01.2004 12:35 ip=213.116.56.13 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Cannon & Ball; Little & Large; the Grumbleweeds: and Ray Alan & Lord Charles.

While I was in France after the New Year, I hit my head on a stone doorway at my mum's house. That night I dreamt (dreamed? drempt?) that I'd broken into a house behind the library in Leyton, and there in the living room a strange lethargy forced me to watch an endless video of old Morecame & Wise sketches. date=13.01.2004 12:45 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interestingly, consecutive evenings at the same venue also give you "American Wrestling"/"Grease"/"The Oxford Gang Show."

Either it's my mind - or else the Watch Committee should act to keep this kind of filth at bay. Little & Large ought to be be enough for anyone, surely.

"I met my wife in a revolving door -" date=13.01.2004 13:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=While I was in Chatham last week I noticed posters for a Peter Pan panto featuring Brian Blessed as Dr Hook... or shd that be Captain Hook?

*when yr in love with a beautiful woman: it's hard* date=13.01.2004 13:32 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I bet he's not a patch on the original ...

Thank you. date=13.01.2004 13:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sylvia's mother says it's Captain Hook. date=13.01.2004 14:50 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Uh, stop parroting pirated jokes please. date=13.01.2004 15:01 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My uncle Einstein's family mans a pirate ship. The crew's relative, but the plank's constant!

Every one a Maserati ... date=13.01.2004 15:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apparently, mamihlapinatapei is a word from the native language of Tierra del Fuego which means 'a shared glance of longing where both know the meaning but neither is quite willing to make the move'. date=13.01.2004 16:10 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Some more Chinese verse. This translation has dated, but you might want to check it out: "From the Chinese" ed. R.C. Trevelyan, Oxford, 1946.

I liked a translation from Tu Fu (I've modernised it slightly):

My old wife paints a chessboard on paper
My little sons hammer needles to make fish-hooks.
I have many illnesses - I only need medicine.
What more can a humble man ask? date=14.01.2004 09:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Martin. Personally I would have rendered the last line: "My complaints are Tu Fu to mention."

I'll get my goat. date=14.01.2004 10:05 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io : :)))) date=14.01.2004 10:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Not Chinese, but a Poundian Japanese exercise you may know already - Basil Bunting's "Chomei at Toyama." date=14.01.2004 11:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't as it happens. Just found it online though. I'll have a look at that after lunch, and after I get back from the library counter...

Gawd bless the infobahn, eh? date=14.01.2004 11:33 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: You bet!

Bunting's later poem "Briggflatts" is astonishing, if you haven't read that: a childhood love affair persiting with him from rural Northumberland through war work in Persia, and ending up fifty years later in his memories dissolving under starlight over the North Sea. "Furthest frailest things, stars, free of our humbug" : my memory may not be exact, but it's a stunning piece of writing. date=14.01.2004 11:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks interesting. I think I remember him turning up in a biography of Pound. Unfortunately my library has no Bunting (even during Jubilees) - but I'll look him up at the Poetry Library next time I'm on the South Bank. date=14.01.2004 12:56 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He came back from war service in Persia, and ended up as a proof-reader for the local paper in Newcastle, virtually forgotten. Then Tom Pickard looked him up in the early '60s when he was trying to write, got Bunting to criticise his efforts, and spurred him back to verse. "Briggflatts" was the major result: Bunting drafted it commuting on the train, and first read it in public at the local Mordern Tower room that Pickard and his partner leased. Allen Ginsberg loved the poem, but was shocked that Bunting had thrown about 400 lines away as irrelevant. Bunting also disposed of most of his correspondnece, including many letters from Pound. "I've answered them, so there was no sense in keeping them." There went the pension fund. Beginnings of another long poem survive, but - like Pound - he couldn't "make it cohere," and it's just a beautiful stump.

Bunting also recorded "Briggflatts" and the Poetry Library might have this, too. Like Burroughs, I think you have to hear his voice before his work really comes to life. date=14.01.2004 13:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like Buntings notes on Kamo-no-Chomei: "He applied for a fat job in a Shinto temple, was turned down, and next day announced his conversion to Buddhism."

Turns out the online version is an extract. So I'll have to go Bunting hunting at some point. date=14.01.2004 13:20 ip=158.94.136.200 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Bunting also recorded "Briggflatts" and the Poetry Library might have this

I think I saw an audio file somewhere online. Probably not the whole thing. date=14.01.2004 13:22 ip=158.94.136.200 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't know Bunting, but I've had a look and there's a recording of "Briggflatts Meeting House" online. It's marvellous. Bunting also had the finest goatee known to man. Must check out his work now; how did I miss him?

"Yet for a little longer here
stone and oak shelter

silence while we ask nothing
but silence. Look how clouds dance
under the wind's wing, and leaves
delight in transience." date=14.01.2004 13:26 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always liked Pound's goatee. Especially in those drawings where Wyndham Lewis renders it like a chisel. date=14.01.2004 13:38 ip=158.94.136.200 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: It's tough and lovely stuff - "saints bones/sift to oak" or something comes before this.

There's also a couple of boiled-down poems about lost love in his "First Book of Odes" - I think they begin: "South wind tell her what wont sadden her" and "You leave nobody without a bed/Except me."

There's one very pricey Oxford study of him in print. A very good illustrated biography came out about six years ago by Keith Aldritt, "The Poet as Spy," if you can find it. He should be far better known than he is. date=14.01.2004 13:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

Hoh yes, Bunting rocks like an out of control battleship; Briggflats is truly astonishing, everybody should be forced to read it. Sad he was so neglected. Good edition of 'Li Po and Tu Fu' in Penguin Classics, spends a lot of time explaining how Chinese poetry works in an excellent introduction. Pound's translations deeply unliteral; one bonds two separate poems together without realising it, using the title of the second one as a line in the final whole...

MJH - saw Adaptation myself lately, was feeling blocked on writing and depressed about my love life, thought it would cheer me up... Perhaps not the best film for those circumstances, but marvellous nonetheless. I read it as a debate between the Mckee action / momentum is story stance, and a more experimental rejection of that, thinking about life as static or chaotic.

I thought the whole second half was wildly OTT, but on purpose; the McKee style taken to its logical extreme, while the first half was its opposite.

Exploration of the strengths and weaknesses of both; with McKee, strong narrative drive and a clearly defined and satisfying sense of resolution, but a clear sense of artificiality / sacrifice of credibility (I think it's deliberately meant to be utterly ludicrous) - with the opposing style, intimate character study and a deep sense of realism, but a creeping sense of 'where the hell is this going?'.

The two bought together in the final moments; Charlie moves forwards, but in a very tentative way that may or may not conclude in a *happy ending*.

Fantastic film... also notable for having it's own writer as hero, astonishing given the way Hollywood treats its writers. date=14.01.2004 14:26 ip=62.188.105.156 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. Yes, I got all that from it too--I just so disagree with McKee that I couldn't see the point of a balanced conclusion. "Biographical" structures & pacing, and "nonfiction" angles-of-attack just interest me as fictional techniques so much more than fictional techniques, esp McKee/Campbell same-story-over-and-over-again techniques. The argument of the first half of the film was so compelling, there could only be one conclusion for me. Also, I so loved the combination of utterly tight structure and total lunacy of concept that was Being John Malkovich that I couldn't get behind the bagginess of The Adaptation. I'm disappointed that he might be getting less Indie not more... date=14.01.2004 14:39 ip=213.78.71.101 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Good edition of 'Li Po and Tu Fu' in Penguin Classics

Hi Al! Yes, I agree that his introduction is very good, but I just find his translations a bit lumpy. Not sure the guy writes very graceful poetry. Having said that, perhaps Li Po either a) *must* sound pretty lumpy after around one and a half millenia, b) also wrote lumpy poetry.

On the other hand: was reading some of The Nag Hammadi Library last night, which is translated technically and with lots of glyphs, doohickii and annotations and that's *really* hard going.

I guess this is what I liked about the Pound translations and Bunting reworking that Japanese poem - it works as poetry in English. And that's got to matter on some level until you get around to translating them yrself! date=14.01.2004 14:54 ip=158.94.136.200 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - but don't forget he's writing it in the context of working in Hollywood, making substantial (if very strange) studio pictures; so to a great extent this is an argument he'll be forced to engage with on a day to day basis. I would imagine he's spent lots of time coming up with very strange scripts, only to have Mckee thrust towards him and someone talking about resolutions etc.

Thinking about it, I wonder if the second half can also be seen as some form of satire - 'They want car chases, I'll give them car chases...' etc.

Then again, aspects of the conclusion didn't ring true for me. I was very surprised by the lack of any apparent mourning for his brother, or at least us not being shown that mourning; perhaps pointing out the emotional shallowness of so many of these films (real emotional depth discarded in favour of moving towards an uncomplicated, positive resolution). And I did find the opening section a bit too static, frustratingly so; tho' I was quite stoned when I watched the film, so this probably didn't help.

Still, the final end is for me a bit ambiguous; and I think the argument he's making is neccesary in film terms, even if its one you've personally completed and moved beyond. The Mckee model is so dominant it needs consideration, not just moving beyond; its strengths and weaknesses need to be thought about (which I think Adaptation does very ably), what's good therein needs to be plundered, and what's bad understood as not working and discarded. V. difficult to discard out of hand without hurling yourself into the outer darknesses of development hell*. I suspect also his intended audience have thought much less about narrative than you have also!

Agree with you about 'Being John Malkovich', btb; stunning. Saw it a while back, remembering trying to think about it in trad 3 act structure terms and ending up deciding it ended half way through the second act.

*Reminds me of Christopher Vogler's explosion when I raised the 'this model leads to one story only' point with him; five minute rant about making movies nobody wants to see, general cursing of the avant garde, then imperious moving on while making contempt clear. We left shortly afterwards... date=14.01.2004 15:03 ip=62.188.105.206 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: find Bunting's collected poems, and there's a section at the back of Greek and Latin translations. One launches into standard tributes to the gods, but after about two pages cuts off with something like:

" - and how Catullus managed to write another 8 pages of this rubbish is beyond me."

My man! date=14.01.2004 15:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read that as:
" - and how Cthulu managed.." date=14.01.2004 15:08 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Had to translate that one for A-level; I'm with Basil... Catullus' best epyllion (mini-epic) is the one about Attis first meeting with Cybele (scary mother goddess) and his resultant self-castration / transvestitism. Truly bizarre, truly spooky; ends with a plainly terrified Catullus begging Cybele to keep her gifts far from him.

The man ruled! date=14.01.2004 15:13 ip=62.188.110.76 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, yes, I remember your exchange with Vogler. A truly defensive response. You're right, Al, that I'm looking at it from the pov of someone for whom the argument is already over, & that's probably not very constructive. I guess I have the political problem, too, in that I think that the Hollywood structure is based on a meaning, the ideological bill-of-goods America wants to sell the world. That's why it must be seen to be unchangeable. Any story other than that one is either false or incomplete (not a proper story), ie it comes to the wrong ideological conclusion. But we've talked about this before, I suspect... :-) Sorry, guys. date=14.01.2004 15:15 ip=213.78.73.41 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Agree with you about 'Being John Malkovich'

The scene where Malkovich goes through the door into Malkovich scared the crap out of me. date=14.01.2004 15:45 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Bill-of-goods ...

If anyone hasn't seen it, a site from the Old Heretic himself, who isn't buying it:

http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/vidalframe.html date=14.01.2004 16:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just to gatecrash your discussions with a piece of trivia...

Egnaro--seek no more for it is here:

http://tv.cream.org/thecore/adsweet.htm

(scroll to bottom of page)

And I was looking at the page by accident, if you must know.

Re: Robert McKee. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what he's actually *created* (apart from a large bank balance). If he's such an expert where are all his screenplays? And what's the significance (if any) of having him played in Adaptation by the original screen Hannibal Lector? I think we should be told. date=14.01.2004 21:29 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Robert Mckee - I knew an ex-BBC script person (now an actress - last saw her playing a corpse on stage) for whom he was a god; her standard question to herself when she ran into script problems was, 'what would Robert Mckee do?'

MJH - With you on the political nature of that kind of storytelling; in that sense, Adaptation in some ways a more radical film than BJM as it attacks it directly rather than indirectly. Thinking about it, I wonder if I was too charitable in the way I looked at the Mckee styled segment of the film; perhaps what he's doing is dropping a trad action narrative into a more complex and realistic way of doing things to show how ludicrous it is? So pure satire - tho' (to a greater or lesser extent) he does maintain emotional coherence - so thinking about how that kind of narrative can give the appearance of emotional substance / relevance while in fact being utterly ludicrous? date=15.01.2004 09:20 ip=62.188.100.75 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come to think of it, it can probably function according to all these interpretations at once, plus many others, remembering MJP's comments from a while back... date=15.01.2004 09:25 ip=62.188.100.75 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fucking brilliant, John! Just wish they had an mpeg clip of the whole ad. date=15.01.2004 10:13 ip=158.94.129.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>how that kind of narrative can give the appearance of emotional substance / relevance while in fact being utterly ludicrous

Too true. This also linked to the difference between character and "characterisation". How character is actually received and decoded in the wild, and how it is pasted on in Hollywood. Saw that very clearly at the end of Adaptation.

JC: How many times have I, turning my head at a dinner party, carrying a shirt home from the dry cleaner, heard some fragment of that mysterious word! "Eg" or "Nar", less often "Oh", the very sound like a bell tolling me back to my true self etc. date=15.01.2004 10:22 ip=213.78.70.169 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's when they get round to Sprake aniseed balls that I'll start to get worried ...

John: marvellous! date=15.01.2004 10:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, Sprake Zarathustra. date=15.01.2004 10:25 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of which - discovered as part of planning for Amsterdam trip next weekend - the ideal hotel for philosophers:

http://www.hotelfilosoof.nl/

MJP, have booked this room for you:

http://www.hotelfilosoof.nl/wittgenstein.htm date=15.01.2004 11:27 ip=62.188.112.250 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not sure whether I'd rather have the Confucius or Spinoza room. Just have to be careful not to run into the people from the Nietzsche or Heidegger suites in the breakfast room... date=15.01.2004 11:53 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... And the Schrodinger room: the door tab says you're in and out at the same time.

Obviously, the hotel allows cats in the rooms. Or not, as the case may be. date=15.01.2004 11:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, that gave me a belly laugh.

Alas the Hotel Philosopher is all around.

"You can check out any time you like but you can never leave."

But I forget. The question is: is it real? date=15.01.2004 12:15 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP! They're giving you a bit of a hard time over at TTA, eh? Amazing what trouble you can get into by scrutinising roleplaying too closely! date=15.01.2004 12:23 ip=158.94.129.182 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: I have a whole posse of them after me! Well, it keeps one on one's toes.

Blood, we want Blood! they cry. date=15.01.2004 12:35 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd watch out. They've got 4d6 arbalests which are effective at up to fifty yards.

Cast a level five Epistemology on them and they'll fall into doubt about whether you are the target or not. date=15.01.2004 12:46 ip=158.94.129.182 name=An Orc mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Right. Where is he? Tell me where he is or I start rending and hewing (and probably hacking, too). Philosophise *this* Wormbait! *hack*

I had to hack, it's just not the same without it. date=15.01.2004 13:07 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In an ideal world io. Trouble is I've completely run out of level five ammo. All it will take is if one of these self-guiding ontic/oneiric teleos turns out to be a dud. Then I am kaput. date=15.01.2004 13:08 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Best thing is to lob in a zen grenade and leave them contemplating single hand rhythmic technique, while you set light to the rulebook and bugger off down the pub for last orders.

Those cigars of yrs always start me hacking... date=15.01.2004 13:18 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP - have just weighed in vaguely behind you on the TTA boards. I think the confusion comes from a failure to clearly distinguish between 'all RPGs, all the time', and RPGs, under certain circumstances'. Sheesh! Can't wait to get to Amsterdam.

Anyway, back to work. Ta for email Zali, will reply when I get a minute, prob later on. date=15.01.2004 13:19 ip=62.188.108.99 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Until they redevelop Tib Street out of existence, there's probably some faded Egnaro flavour Bubble Yum wrapper stuck beneath a pile of rubbish at the back of a ginnel. A ticket to another world like those golden ones in Wonka Bars but we'll never find it...

Similarly, Io, those TV Cream people must have masses of junk on tape in order to get those screen shots. You could always petition them about the ad. date=15.01.2004 13:28 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The great thing about Tib Street is that it doesn't matter how much redevelopment they do, it will always be there like a taint. I could live without the Arndale though. date=15.01.2004 13:37 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>A ticket to another world like those golden ones in Wonka Bars but we'll never find it...

Don't give up hope yet, John! BTW: good idea re:petitioning TV Cream - and I might just be sad enough to waste time on it!

Al: No prob. As long as I know about flyers in good time. date=15.01.2004 13:37 ip=158.94.129.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I haven't been in Manchester since 1991. I went to a bar called Ganders' Go South, and spent some time wondering about the placement of the apostrophe. What did it *mean* ? Manchester is always full of signs like that. Everything that happens there seems to be open to a misreading so inevitable it becomes the primary reading. You could set Egnaro anywhere, but it wouldn't have the same debilitating quality of being open and closed at the same time. Quantum Town. date=15.01.2004 14:12 ip=213.78.64.222 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>The great thing about Tib Street is that it doesn't matter how much redevelopment they do, it will always be there like a taint.

You're right although the ancient Shambles area of the city has been pretty efficiently liquidated. I wonder if they ever get pools of old pig blood welling up into the Marks and Sparks food hall late at night.

Tib Street's metaphysical aura of concentrated pet shops, porn shops and army surplus shops must be a potent one, probably with a half-life like that of caesium. date=15.01.2004 14:25 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: You'll have to return soon, I insist. You'd be amazed. Amongst all the new buildings, Shudehill is still the same. Open and closed at the same time is right. date=15.01.2004 14:28 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the ancient Shambles area of the city

Well, they've kind of moved it, haven't they? I must check whether they kept the name Hanging Ditch for the bit outside the Corn Exchange. date=15.01.2004 14:30 ip=81.133.171.3 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>You could set Egnaro anywhere, but it wouldn't have the same debilitating quality of being open and closed at the same time. Quantum Town.

As may have been mentioned here before, the location of the Egnaro shop on Peter Street is now literally empty space, ruthlessly expunged in the drive towards the greater gentrification. So Egnaro the story is now a memorial as much as anything else. date=15.01.2004 14:34 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the Egnaro shop on Peter Street

Ah yes, but if the wind's in the right direction you can still here a phlegmy croak: "Oi! No browsing!" date=15.01.2004 14:36 ip=81.133.171.3 name=John Coulthart mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Well, they've kind of moved it, haven't they?

They moved the pubs, brick by brick, something I still find quite extraordinary. Talk about your perception of reality shifting... But the proper Shambles area was demolished in the 60s, part of it having been caught by the Blitz bombs during WW2. Pictures of the place circa 1900 show somewhere that looks more like the Shambles street in York than anywhere you see in M1 today.

Street names have remained, I think, although some of the old medieval ones in that area are long gone. Whither Cat Nest and Toad Lane? date=15.01.2004 14:41 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funny, though, there's a new second hand bookshop round the back of Piccadilly. I was in there the other day, and there was a bunch of Savoy books in there. I felt like I was back in the eighties, feeling weird in the Peter Street shop. Manchester second hand book shops are like no others. I bought The Eye Of The Lens, just because it needed to be kept alive. Langdon Jones is a Town Councillor or something now - you'd never guess he was the same guy. date=15.01.2004 15:10 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Langdon Jones

I always wondered what happened to him. Did he ever write any other fiction, or was it just that '60s spurt of "controversial" pieces? date=15.01.2004 15:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Langdon Jones has his own homepage:
http://www.langdonjones.com

Not much controversy there, though. date=15.01.2004 16:13 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, some of his webpage design is a little controversial. My eyes are fucked after that. date=15.01.2004 16:24 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: don't look at the pictures of Bracknell then.

There's a message on his guestbook from a Pat Kearney. I think we should be told...

"For 38 years I've longed for those wonderful impersonations of Cilla Black you did so movingly after the gourmet repasts at the Notting Hill Wimpey bar. " date=15.01.2004 16:27 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw a drive-in Wimpy bar in Snodland. You get lots of drive-in McDonalds and KFCs but Wimpys are far rarer.

I love the name Snodland. date=15.01.2004 16:31 ip=158.94.129.182 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Langdon Jones

>>I always wondered what happened to him. Did he ever write any other fiction, or was it just that '60s spurt of "controversial" pieces?

I met him at the New Worlds 50th Anniversary bash (piss up in the back of Murder One) in 1996 or whenever it was. Asked him if any more fiction would be forthcoming but he said he hadn't written anything for years.

Coincidentally, there's a section about The Eye of the Lens in the book I've just finsihed designing, DM Mitchell's history of Savoy, A Serious Life. MJH receives passing mention since he's part of that tangled history and there's a photo of him inserting a screwdriver into a typewriter.

http://www.savoy.abel.co.uk/HTML/serious.html date=15.01.2004 16:45 ip=193.109.51.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the book I've just finished designing

Ah. Wondered it you were the same John C. Love your work, especially the Lovecraft. Fawning ends. date=15.01.2004 16:49 ip=81.133.171.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: cool design - congratulations!

>> Cilla Black ... This takes a loraa lorra 'magination to even think about. Strange days indeed. date=15.01.2004 16:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a photo of him inserting a screwdriver into a typewriter.

I got that photo somewhere around here: bottle of rum, big beard, copy of Monstre Gai (or is it The Childermass) on the table. date=15.01.2004 16:54 ip=158.94.129.182 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Alex! My HPL book is out of print now so I need to get a proper reissue arranged at some point.

>>John: cool design - congratulations!

Thanks again. This has been an exercise in restraint on my part, only using Helvetica in different weights and abstract graphics. The cover will be reflective "holographic" foil as a hark back to a couple of Savoy's garish covers. You can't be too restrained, after all.

>>I got that photo somewhere around here: bottle of rum, big beard, copy of Monstre Gai (or is it The Childermass) on the table.

That's the one, and somebody made a poor attempt at rendering one of the mechanical insects from A Storm of Wings behind him. In an ideal world, all author portraits would look equally outré. date=15.01.2004 17:13 ip=193.109.51.227 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite flying jacket too. I could get seriously sentimental about that jacket. I think I was also wearing a button that said Nuclear War Now. Anything to get shot by both sides, if the typewriter didn't electrocute me first. I had the world's best cat ever at that time as I recall, and a paper kite, and a figure-8 descender made from a pound of aluminium alloy, and a proper hill to run up in the rain in the mornings, why bless you I hardly remember all the good things I had. I mean, like a lot more of my eyesight.

Etc etc. date=15.01.2004 17:19 ip=213.78.170.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: I visited Manchester so you don't have to.

Quantum city: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002405.html date=15.01.2004 17:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I had the world's best cat ever at that time as I recall, and a paper kite,

Is that the same cat (b&w with "socks") and what I assume is a kite in the Notes from the Ivory Basement photos? (New Worlds no 215, Savoy Special, if anyone cares.) date=15.01.2004 17:36 ip=193.109.51.227 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: It was indeed that very cat. date=15.01.2004 17:49 ip=213.78.170.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=By the way, Dan, I'm sure I've stayed at that hotel. Did it used to be called something else ? date=15.01.2004 17:51 ip=213.78.83.34 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: For some reason those photos reminded me: did you see the Chinese Printmaking Today exhibition in the British Library when you were taking photos around Kings Cross at the end of last year? date=15.01.2004 18:17 ip=213.122.197.56 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: I think the hotel was called something different until about two years ago, but I don't know what. It's on the bottom of Princess Street, right next to the canal and above a very busy Chinese all-day buffet.

Io: didn't see any Chinese printmaking. I don't stumble into the British Library nearly as often as I ought to, although I'm forever finding myself in the British Museum (mainly using it as a thoroughfare from St Pancras to Covent Garden). date=15.01.2004 20:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Saw it by accident when I was doing some Crimbo shopping in the BL shop. So good I had to go back for a second look: http://tinyurl.com/22jtk

Actually, I shd have taken a camera. There was a lot of work going on around St Pancras station and the Midland Grand Hotel. Here and there holes had appeared offering glimpses into the foundations. date=16.01.2004 09:32 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The St Pancras Hotel - you know they filmed the Spice Girls' 'Wannabe' video in there? Wrote an epic film treatment a few years back set partially in there, essentially Faust II; unholy combination of bits of various versions of Faust, 'Quatermass and the Pit', 'Incarnate' (the Ramsey Campbell book), and St John of the Cross.

Ah, them were the days... date=16.01.2004 10:35 ip=62.188.112.203 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't someone do a reading of The Wasteland in there a few years back? I'm sure someone around here will know!

BTW: On the basis of tip-offs from Empty Space regulars I have put in orders for Basil Bunting's Collected Poems (Thanks Martin!) and Maher Shalal Hash Baz's Blues du Jour album. (Cheers Alex!) date=16.01.2004 11:12 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Don't know about the hotel - the latest reading of "The Waste Land" that got plaudits was Paul Schofield's on R3, either last year or '02. I hope you like the Bunting!

MJH: I felt a bit late adding it to the TTA "film I saw" thread, but I caught up with "Touching the Void" last night. Astonishing, even if half the audience in Oxford did seem to turn up in Rohan jackets with haversacks. I've no idea how Joe could come back from an experience like that, and kept wondering at what point I'd simply have given up. The honest answer, of course, is that I don't think I've the drive or the guts to be there in the first place; I'm agog at anyone who has both. date=16.01.2004 12:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It might have been further back than that. It was a woman called... *nnnng* No, no, nothing's coming to the surface. Looking forward to Briggflatts - sounds like the sort of thing that I'll be boring people to death with for months to come! date=16.01.2004 12:51 ip=158.94.129.182 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It might have been further back than that. It was a woman called... *nnnng*

Possibly Fiona Shaw who did that reading on TV a few years ago. date=16.01.2004 13:43 ip=193.109.51.227 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: as I came out of the cinema in Fulham, still on fire with TtV, a woman was saying, "Of course, it went on a bit at the end. I'm not sure all that stuff was neccessary." I nearly went over to her and said: "I bet Joe Simpson was thinking just that. You know ? While it was happening to him ?" She was making the same mistake as Robert McKee, which is to think that events happen so an audience can be entertained. Only in a world so populated by safe, narcissistic, unempathic, self-virtualised tossers could this basic error of POV be made. date=16.01.2004 13:48 ip=213.78.71.24 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: It doesn't ring too many bells. Eliot did his own reading, in a voice about as joyous as sandpaper, and the BBC did another production in the '70s, 4 or 5 actors and actresses taking the roles. It'd make a good opera - but I don't think Eliot's estate would wear the idea of staging "the police in different voices." They're still sitting on his letters, too - it's something like thirty years since vol. 1, and no sign of a sequel.

One other poem - you may know this, but it's great anyway!

http://www.7greenhill.freeserve.co.uk/ear.html date=16.01.2004 13:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Possibly Fiona Shaw who did that reading on TV a few years ago.

I think that might be the one, John.

Martin: as I think I've said before: the French accent when he reads 'You! hypocrite lecteur!--mon sembable,--mon frere!' is just too horrible for words. date=16.01.2004 13:57 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: :)) - As the titles rolled, you saw the caption that said Joe had had a series of operations - and then went back to climbing. With that, a woman sitting in front of me went "Tsk!" quite impatiently - a sort of "Huh! Men!!" sound. I noticed at least four other people had huddled up with their coats on their knees, too - that wind chill really got through to them. I found it moving, and inspirational - not in the sense of wanting to emulate either of them (I couldn't, ever), but simply because the qualities on display enlarged your sense of self. You think: well, if he could do *that,* anything's possible.

Io: Yep, appalling accent! Incidentally, Hugh Kenner wrote an essay on Eliot and Burroughs's common St. Louis background. Burroughs used to claim that one his relatives had dated Eliot's mother, and that they used to eye a baby care shop in the city centre, called "Prufrock's." I think its slogan was "You Have the Child - We Do the Rest." Stranger things may well have happened in the world, but I can't think of them right now. date=16.01.2004 14:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Blue Du Jour is excellent - got it yesterday. Expecting my own copy of Bunting tomorrow. Looks like we'll both be boring everyone. date=16.01.2004 15:21 ip=81.133.171.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Looks like we'll both be boring everyone.

That'll make a change, eh?

I've also got Cotton Casino's (from Acid Mothers Temple) album on order. I was *so* impressed with her: hair over face, chain-smoking, doing funny little dances and wrestling an analog synth to the ground. What a star! date=16.01.2004 15:41 ip=158.94.129.182 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "Of course, it went on a bit at the end. I'm not sure all that stuff was neccessary."

Funny, exactly what I thought when I saw LotR RotK recently. The film would have been much better if they'd just kept the battle and cut everything else.

I also feel it's a bit late for me to jump in on the TTA discussion, but... I saw The Last Samurai this week, and I disagree (partially) with Muriel. It's actually utter *utter* pants. Tom Cruise *wasn't* worth seeing, TC trying his best to save the film just looked like... TC trying hard. And as for the beautiful cinematography... well, it was occasionally beautiful in the way that my photography is occasionally beautiful, more by accident than design, but having being spoilt by Lost in Translation three days before, I was hard pressed to find anything of great beauty in The Last Samurai.

Mind you, I did sleep through half of it, so I may have missed any "best" parts. date=16.01.2004 16:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan. Bad luck on the Samurai movie. I never go to movies in which Americans turn up as central to other people's cultural events anyway. Although I might see the forthcoming "American Serf", which places Tom Cruise at the heart of Hereward the Wake's efforts against the Norman conqueror. It's based on a true story, I think.

Martin: I've just been jumping for joy ever since I saw TtV, it kind of made me remember who I was. Not that I was ever *that* :-) date=16.01.2004 18:02 ip=213.78.166.147 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No worries about the Samurai movie Mike: I only went because a friend wanted some company (I'd hoped to avoid it otherwise), and on the plus side at least I had somewhere cosy to sleep for an hour in the middle of daytime London. The film could easily have involved a bit more genuine (and not sought after) human drama though: see http://tinyurl.com/ywxlz

Off to see A Mighty Wind tonight. Americans central to their own cultural events. Should be a laff or two. date=16.01.2004 18:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cath saw that two nights ago and really enjoyed it. I loved Best in Show. date=16.01.2004 18:59 ip=213.78.174.110 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1124 880,00.html

Good little piece on Tolkien, kitsch and The Big Read here, slow to start, but full of nutritive bits. It's so true, for instance, that Pride & Prejudice was the only book in the BR top five to be discussed in terms of its humanity, rather than its shelf category. (Although Austen isn't a favourite of mine, I was heartened that she came second ahead of Rowling. At least FantasyWorld didn't make a clean sweep.) date=17.01.2004 12:41 ip=213.78.168.61 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I saw Eyre's article, too - a welcome bonfire for all that kitsch. Just one book "about human beings" and "most ... in the final 20 weren't actually any good." Plus, Tolkien's style pinned as "inert and clogged as thick clay" and Kilroy Silk on a quick bus to nowhere - a good weekend, I think. Time to open another bottle.

Maybe we should make a regular event, and burn Tolkien in effigy every year. A couple of chopped up ents, some paraffin-soaked reaminders of the boxed cd set, and Smaug's your uncle. This could catch on, big time. ES could copyright it now, and we could all retire. date=18.01.2004 11:21 ip=212.126.153.140 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Funny old world where children are reading Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll while grown ups read Tolkien and Rowling. date=18.01.2004 11:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Funny old world where children are reading Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll while grown ups read Tolkien and Rowling. date=18.01.2004 11:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Funny old world where children are reading Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll while grown ups read Tolkien and Rowling. date=18.01.2004 11:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry folks, I must really learn to work this thing. date=18.01.2004 11:43 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, that's impressive.

Hi Martin. We'd only be shot by both sides. Look at the Guardian review of the paperback of Light--hoist me, really, with my own petard; equally, we make no friends on the TTA board by pointing out the fatuousness of fantasy. It's hard to know what to do with this essentially complex position--except maintain it with determination. date=18.01.2004 13:03 ip=213.78.171.228 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike: And I thought I was the only person here on a Sunday ...

Half a bottle of wine later, too: I typed that at first as "a bottle of wine lantern" which is perhaps closer to the truth. The "speculative fiction" I enjoy takes a light out into the dark, and illuminates something. Tolkien seems the complete opposite: let's go no further than this, make a camp fire, have a sing-song, and pretend that there's nothing now to worry or puzzle or bedazzle us out there in the night. "We're riding along on the crest of a wave -"

In this company, you end up feeling like Captain Oates: Excuse me - I'm just slipping out. I may be some time. But whatever you find for yourself in the cold is worth a lot more than the half-baked things that a lot of other people are picking out of the embers back there ... I'm starting to sound like a two-headed mutant of Springsteen and Baden-Powell, which is a good place to stop. I suppose the rejoinder to all those who voted LOtR the best thing ever is - well, what else have you read? And - peering across the room where I'm tapping this out - how do you think Tolkien stands up against "Stamboul Train," "Everything is Illuminated," "Fowlers End," "The School of Night," "The Arabian Nightmare" ... I could go on. But, as we know, a lot of people wouldn't want me to. The worst bits of the twentieth century mind: whatever can you do with them? date=18.01.2004 13:49 ip=212.126.153.115 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I've edited yr trilogy of postings down to a single volume. If only the delete function could be used more often and in wider contexts. date=18.01.2004 15:09 ip=213.122.187.240 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back here from BBC online, where a slurry read of the Barclay brothers pursuing Conrad Black made me think the Barley Bros. were about to buy "The Daily Telegraph."

Must get another bottle of that stuff ... date=18.01.2004 15:51 ip=212.126.153.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Io. date=18.01.2004 17:35 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>And I thought I was the only person here on a Sunday ...

No, io and Arturo are here to. Here too. Here too. Sorry, Arturo, that was cheap.

Tolkien thought he was camping in the ruins of something better. That's what "backward looking" means. Speaking of which, Martin, how's that piece on Charles Williams coming along ? Finished or not, you'll have to invite me to tea in Oxford soon. My short-term committments run out in early February...

io: ah, the delete feature.

I'm re-reading Amis's The Moronic Inferno. I nearly choked on my toast at his descriptions of Palm Beach. Also the utterly classic line, "Drop me down anywhere in America and I'll tell you where I am: in America." But his analysis of Brian de Palma tells you more about Amis's fear of his own creativity than anything else. date=18.01.2004 18:18 ip=213.78.88.205 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: Charles Williams is done, as of Friday - 1,000 words for an audience that's mostly never heard of him or the Golden Dawn, and Tolkien left on the subs bench holding the half-time lemons into the bargain. Let me know when you want to come over, and we'll sort it. date=18.01.2004 19:00 ip=212.126.153.110 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Even in the usual narrow fantasy bookself there are better writers than Tolkien. date=18.01.2004 19:29 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the subject of Tolkien, I recently read his "Leaf by Niggle" and was impressed - a very short parable on the subject of putting off until tomorrow what you could do today. I don't consider myself a very sophisticated reader (hey, I still have a soft spot for the man's big book. So shoot me) but it seemed both beautifully written and meaningful.

And, somewhat belatedly, on the topic of American Short Story writers: today I spotted on my bookshelf "Pastoralia" by George Saunders. Some very distinctive, mind-jolting and rather disturbing short reads in there. The decomposing used-to-be-a-saint-but-making-up-for-it-now dead aunt in Sea Oak is just a scream. I rate the book hugely. Anyone else know it?

As for Amis... I read the first five pages or so of The Rachel Papers and decided I didn't like him or his writing. Never read anything else before or since. Was I wrong? date=18.01.2004 20:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Arturo: You bet!

Dan: >>Was I wrong? Two years ago, I'd've said no: I found Amis unreadable. He seemed a mixture of smart aleck and bleedin' obvious that I detested, and his writing simply grated on me. I'd tried "Other People," but couldn't get through it. Then I read some of his essays, and changed my mind a bit. "Money" I read all the way to the end. I think it's one of those novels where the story runs out before the page-count, but you can see why his prose marked so many writers like wet paint. And I found his autobiography unexpectedly touching. This is partly because of the way his family history entwines with Fred West (the description of the memorial service for West's victims makes you feel that you're intruding on the unthinkable, until one mother recounts a dream of her vanished daughter that turns the dismal into something visionary), and partly because of his unblinking account of his father's alcholic senility. So even if the novels annoy you as much as they did me, try the non-fiction, and see what you think. date=18.01.2004 21:11 ip=212.126.153.170 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here's one for you, Mike. Ask Ursula LeGuin a question on Books Guardian: http://tinyurl.com/2qc97 date=19.01.2004 09:00 ip=158.94.130.103 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Amis. An essayist who can't write fiction is my opinion. I read Money; was mildly irritated by it; then I read London Fields and then was extremely annoyed at having done the same stupid thing twice. But the essays are different. date=20.01.2004 10:44 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I enjoyed the first couple of Amis novels I read. But he's one of those authors whose personality and style gets in the way of the story. Haven't bothered with him for years. date=20.01.2004 11:44 ip=81.133.171.3 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Finished Alice Munro's Dance of the Happy Shades yesterday evening. It pretty much stopped me in my tracks. Going straight out to buy Friend of My Youth. date=20.01.2004 13:22 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Finished the Moggach and am reading another Franzen, Twenty Seventh City (1988) which so far I enjoy even more than Strong Motion. Is it possible that, in contradiction to the accepted trajectory, he just got steadily *worse* ? He's so good at making you like unlikeable people. When I'm asked, Why are the characters in Light so despicable ? I reply: I didn't want you to like them, I wanted you to learn from their mistakes. But Franzen is way subtler than that. I suspect his answer would be a bland smile implying the query, Looked at yourself lately ? date=20.01.2004 18:15 ip=213.78.94.236 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading "How to be alone". I am not sure I agree with Frazen on every turn but he can write non-fiction.
He has an essay on the american novel in wich he states that he is " abandoning my sense of social responsability as a novelist and learning to write fiction for the fun and entertaiment of it..". date=20.01.2004 19:07 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo: Haven't got into How To Be Alone yet, but hope to soon. On agreeing: my rule is you don't have to buy anyone wholesale. Reading is like living out of garbage cans. As long as you can stand to be inside a piece with its author, the chances are you go home with something edible. I find Franzen, like Amis, more than amiable on some levels, less than amiable on others: what I don't like, I shrug and chuck back in.

MJP: glad yr enjoying Alice Munro. Isn't she good ? date=21.01.2004 11:39 ip=213.78.93.184 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH Alice Munro is amazing. Almost too good to be true. I keep worrying that she can't be this good and keep it up. Over the past week or so I have been steeped in fictional riches. The highlights are Mansfield's In a German Pension, Carver's What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Munro; and also Salter's Cascado (exhilerating). date=21.01.2004 12:07 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Utterly off-topic, very childish, but invaluable to any of us travelling about the place - mind how you go ...

http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/stat.html date=21.01.2004 15:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Martin
The spanish is mostly mexican and quite beyond the understanding of most of us in la madre patria.
Some mistakes too. date=21.01.2004 17:19 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike and MJP:
On Alice Munro : Where do I start reading? Any particular book ? date=21.01.2004 19:19 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: you've saved me a lot of fights in bars - thank you! date=22.01.2004 09:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Elegant piece by Steven Rose the geneticist here--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,130 26,1127872,00.html

--including the classic description Uncle-Zip-style self-presentation of scientists, "Leading molecular geneticists became hucksters - often with the interests of their own private biotech companies in mind -"

Gene hacking--it all looked so *possible* until the proteome concept came along... I don't think the idea of a simple genetic player piano was entirely fuelled by excitement, commerce & wish fulfilment; I think it had its roots in the literalising temperament. People want a reductive description of the relationships between things because it's what they're comfortable with. I press this tit, I get this result. date=22.01.2004 09:59 ip=213.78.91.177 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That should be "description of", of course. date=22.01.2004 10:01 ip=213.78.91.177 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I'm cool about sharing 97% of my genes with the chimpanzee, but it's the amount we've got in common with the daffodil that astonished me.

Almost makes you feel you're putting your own family's severed heads in a vase. date=22.01.2004 10:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="...where does our humanness lie? Once again, it must be in the biological development within the unique social context into which each human baby is born."

Amen. date=22.01.2004 11:12 ip=158.94.146.174 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I share 97% of my genes with a chiffon scarf. The other news of the day is here--

http://www.bluegeckolounge.com/imdb/pss.html date=22.01.2004 11:13 ip=213.78.91.177 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it might be a fake. This isn't a real IMDB page. The URL doesn't tie-up with IMBD and several of the links don't work. Quite what the motive is, if it's a hoax: who can say? date=22.01.2004 11:31 ip=158.94.146.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good God! Not sure about Fishburne as Isaac. Equally not sure about the lack of bug-head - isn't that crucial? LOL it will kick ASS ROFLMAO. Can't wait for the action figures. date=22.01.2004 11:32 ip=81.136.133.97 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I think you're right. Suckered again. date=22.01.2004 11:37 ip=81.136.133.97 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They call me Eagle-eyes Krishna.

I'm sure there *are* people in Hollywood with their eyes on China's progress, so I'm just a little curious as to why someone made this page? Perhaps they were hoping to force the film into existence by the power of self-fulfilling prophecy? date=22.01.2004 11:54 ip=158.94.146.174 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: You are welcome. In spite of Robert Rodriguez, Mexico is no the kind of place where you want to get into a casual figth. A friend who lived there in the sixties told me that he often heard this prayer "Mother of God , forgive because I am going to Kill a man" date=22.01.2004 12:50 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: That sounds like a magick spell. date=22.01.2004 12:52 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sure is, Arturo! Watch now how I manipulate the Power of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy to make sure that Hollywood *don't* make a movie of Viriconium!

*shazam*

Look! No film! date=22.01.2004 13:25 ip=158.94.146.174 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I'm a peaceable soul; Mexico sounds just fine to me. date=22.01.2004 13:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone seen A Mighty Wind? Opinions? date=22.01.2004 15:56 ip=81.133.158.34 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A Mighty Wind: I saw it last week, and mightily enjoyed it. My brief thoughts here: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002436.html

Speaking of chimp genes, a friend of mine made a TV programme about the human/chimp connection recently (it was shown on Horizon a couple of weeks ago). I went to a showing and debate at the Dana centre afterwards - a really nice venue for soaking up scientific talks (just behind the Natural History museum): www.danacentre.org.uk

>> Almost makes you feel you're putting your own family's severed heads in a vase.

Shit! You mean... I spent last night re-arranging my scalp collection: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002439.html date=22.01.2004 18:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A search on the real IMDB for Perdido Street Station throws up lots of films about streets, lots of films about stations, lots of Coronation Street, and "Imagenes perdidos de Eustacio Montoya" a, err, Mexican film. date=22.01.2004 18:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo in reply to your query, I have only read Dance of the Happy Shades by Munro. Her stories are so full and intense that I am reluctant to read her too quickly. Same with Carver. MJH recommended reading the earlier stories to me, so I chose that collection as being fairly early. date=23.01.2004 13:20 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Thanks for the tip! date=23.01.2004 20:41 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And this week's film was... American Splendour. Splendiforous. Caught a nano-second glance, as Harvey Pekar put his book down in a café, of the name on the cover: Katherine Mansfield. date=23.01.2004 23:35 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Quite fancy seeing American Splendour - looks fun. I think Bridget wants to see A Mighty Wind too, so this must be facilitated imminently. Sorry, I think I'm in danger of developing into Vancean dialogue...

Martin: Bunting's arrived! The Collected Poems, that is. The man himself has been conspicuously absent from Walthamstow. Thanks for yr recommendation. This rocks!

Having said that, I used to see Ezra Pound coming out of tube stations around North London. Especially Holloway Road. He looked fairly well considering. date=24.01.2004 11:09 ip=213.122.59.13 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=American Splendour was the height of the Edinburgh Film Festival for me. The real Harvey and his family came on stage afterwards to be interviewed a little. Most of the audience was having a quiet weep, probably because they had just seen the life of a person as a kind of worthwhile odyssey of the ordinary. I loved it as much--and for weirdly complex oppositional reasons--as Touching the Void. Harvey and Joe would get on well together because they know how to stick something out. date=24.01.2004 11:26 ip=213.78.90.154 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saw A Mighty Wind over the weekend. Good to see the core trio of Spinal Tap as The Folksmen, and The New Main Street Singers were genuinely disturbing. But I'm afraid I was a total sucker for the Mickey & Mitch dynamic. *sigh*

Also, picked up the first three Sapphire & Steel DVDs for half-price. Vintage British TV weirdness with wobbly sets. Hurrah! date=26.01.2004 09:33 ip=158.94.161.58 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No need to be embarrassed, io. I cried when I saw the Pokemon movie. And not for the reason you're thinking. I'm a total sucker for any dynamic. date=26.01.2004 10:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm a total sucker for any dynamic.

Doctor Zhivago gets me every time.

Also, finally got around to watching the DVD of The Seven Samurai that Bridget got me for my birthday last year. It's the problem of finding time to watch a three hour film. Turned out to be a perfect movie to watch before Sunday's jam/band practice/neighbour baiting. date=26.01.2004 10:41 ip=158.94.161.58 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lots of movies make me cry. I can't even *think* about Old Yeller without...without....

Excuse me. date=26.01.2004 10:44 ip=81.136.143.57 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it may have something to do with being a parent. I've found that since having kids, tears flow much more freely. Having said that, the first film I remember feeling really weepy to was Once Were Warriors, which I think I saw before having kids.

The first thing we saw after the birth of Rowan (sprog 1) was Trainspotting. Not a good choice. There's a scene about halfway through the movie (you may remember it) where every responsible parent in the audience jumps out of their seat and screams "OH MY GOD! We shouldn't have left the baby with somebody we hardly know". Really scary.

I have the Seven Samurai and Rashomon on video somewhere, but have never managed to watch either of them, ditto my DVD of The Hidden Fortress. Gill cries whenever she sees Kurosawa; from boredom. And I'm not really one for sitting through three hour videos by myself. I did get to see Yojimbo and Throne of Blood (alone) when they ran a Kurosawa season at the Showroom last year though. Stunning. date=26.01.2004 12:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh I sometimes get the urge to watch epics. Another one that Bridget got me, The Greatest Story Ever Told, made a good three and half hour evening sitting. I was a little disappointed that Jesus Von Sydow's theology turned the apocalyptic Gospel message into "Don't worry, be happy!" but it's a lovely looking film and it's all worth it for John Wayne's cameo as a Roman centurion - "Surely this man was the Son of God!" Which was another of my quibbles with the film: Jesus is shown admitting to calling himself the Son of God - a title he never applies to himself in the Gospels... Sorry, I'm about to digress into Christology. Anyway, I can always handle a long Biblical epic, the more Technicolor the better.

Returning to Kurosawa: Particularly enjoyed Ran - hugely dark and opressive take on King Lear - good fun. I can see I might have a revival coming on. date=26.01.2004 13:30 ip=158.94.160.251 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, that must be the film in which the director asks John Wayne to express awe in the scene in which he appears. So John Wayne does precisely what he is asked; he says "Aw, surely this man is Son of God." date=26.01.2004 13:44 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: That must be the one. The Duke is barely visible in the scene and his drawl turns the sense of numinous awe that the scene has been carefully developing into the sort of inept farce one expects from an infant school nativity play. Telly Savalas is good as Pontius Pilate too. I prefer him to David Bowie portrayal of that role in The Last Temptation of Christ but the winner in this category has to be the very fat, very camp Pliate in the 1974 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar. Masterful.

In other news: Just added details to Empty Space about preordering Anima and the Night Shade edition of CotH from Amazon.co.uk. Also noticed that an all products search on "M John Harrison" on Amazon brings up John Cage's 4'33"... not sure what that proves. date=26.01.2004 13:57 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Kurosawa : I recently saw "Dreams" and it is stunning. A particular chapter, dealing with a colonel haunted by the ghosts of all the soldiers he sent to their deaths is particulary impressive.
On crying: When I saw " Dancer in the dark" . It left no dry eyes in the teather date=26.01.2004 14:11 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I have to see Dancer in the Dark - looks brilliant! date=26.01.2004 14:15 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Surely this man was the Son of God!" - I remember this line very clearly from seeing the film on TV one easter when I was 9 or 10. I found it hilarious at the time. Surely John Wayne was a cod actor.

MJH/John Cage - surely you can read into it anything that comes to mind.

A friend of mine was a student of Cage - said he was a very impressive teacher, very charismatic. But not as good as Morton Subotnick. date=26.01.2004 15:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Isn't 4'33" the Empty Space theme tune? date=26.01.2004 15:10 ip=81.136.143.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Isn't 4'33" the Empty Space theme tune?

Perhaps, or maybe Nothing by The Fugs? Just as long as it's not Yessir, I Can Boogie! date=26.01.2004 15:22 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=4'33": I heard the British "orchestral premiere" on R3, which was punctuated by a great deal of self-conscious coughing ( all of sudden, everyone's a performance artist ). Because of the sense of ceremony, though, it was a very odd bit of silence - a zen monk's comb would have separated it from the one you get waiting for the bus.

I kept thinking of poor old Mike Batt, whom the Cage estate sued for putting a silence on one of his non-Womble cds without asking them. So 4'33" might be the ES theme tune, but we'd have to pay royalties on it: clearly, send Cage's lot an imaginary cheque ( or a New Blank one) for a conceptual noise.

Io: I've loved Bunting's poems for a long time, and it's really gratifying to introduce someone else to them - thank you.

Films: Trying to see 'Lost in Translation' this week, 'Mighty Wind' in about a fortnight. Things move slow round here. date=26.01.2004 15:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Which bring us to: http://tinyurl.com/yal0 - The "What sort of postmodernist are you?" quiz. Apparently I'm a Tortured Conceptualist - which doesn't seem fair. date=26.01.2004 15:37 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think I should mention that this weekend I discovered that I love haggis. I'm having it again tonight, but I'm going to recite Basil Bunting instead of R. Burns. I can't quite get the voice right though:
"Brag, sweet tenor bull,
descant on Rawthey's madrigal.
Boom boom, Mister Roy!" date=26.01.2004 15:39 ip=81.136.143.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Which bring us to:

Of course that was supposed to read "Which bring us to". Why do I insist on typing in Pidgen English today? date=26.01.2004 15:47 ip=158.94.160.251 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Which bring us to:

Of course that was supposed to read "Which brings us to". Why do I insist on typing in Pidgen English today?
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=26.01.2004 15:47 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, if you truly love haggis, you should pop down the road to Altrincham to sample Juniper's "deconstructed haggis pie". It's deconstructed to a level where there are only specks of dust left on the plate but, ohhh, what dust! date=26.01.2004 16:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I'm only in the early stages of haggis-love, but I still prefer there to be *some* haggis involved. Anyway, I'm still not talking to you because you've been to Juniper and I haven't. date=26.01.2004 16:10 ip=81.136.149.106 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did find a clove among the dust, and... oh, hang on. I'm not listening to you, nyah nyah. And you're not talking to me. Let's have a Cageian conversation. date=26.01.2004 16:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Someone gave me a haggis once. It stayed in the fridge until it had evolved sufficiently to pay rent and has recently started editing SQL databases for corporate clients. date=26.01.2004 16:19 ip=158.94.160.251 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Okay, I give in. What was in the haggis dish? date=26.01.2004 16:32 ip=81.136.149.106 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno. A clove, of that I'm certain. Other than that, just a few yellowy-greeny crumbs on the bottom of a plate. wet the end of a finger (or, better still, dunk it in a bit of Branston pickle mayonnaise), dip it into the crumbs, lick and savour.

There wasn't a great deal there, only about half-a-dozen licks, but of all the twenty-odd courses we ate that evening it was the tastiest. date=26.01.2004 17:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a few yellowy-greeny crumbs

I'm uncomfortably reminded in a story from the old Pan Books of Horror, in which an old woman feeds the birds with something resembling mouldy cheese from a paper bag. date=27.01.2004 08:40 ip=81.136.217.1 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Exclusive to Empty Space. Previously unseen story added to the Archive: They Slip Behind the Houses.

Go look! date=27.01.2004 12:39 ip=158.94.167.172 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pretty neat. date=27.01.2004 12:53 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm uncomfortably reminded in a story from the old Pan Books of Horror, in which an old woman feeds the birds with something resembling mouldy cheese from a paper bag.

I was going to give you chapter and verse on that one but I can't find details anywhere on the web. Where are all the nerds when you need them? It's in the one with a crap picture of a mummy on the outside. Best story inside was The Whispering Horror by Eddy C Bertin. date=27.01.2004 13:13 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the one with a crap picture of a mummy

Damn! I nearly bought that one from Help The Aged the other day. I'm sorely tempted to have an autistic spell and collect them all again... see if I can reawaken some teenage fears. date=27.01.2004 13:21 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="They Slip ..." : they do indeed. Neat work! I thought: this could happen to you if you listen to other people's stories too much.

And Alex got name-checked from the great beyond, too. It must mean something. date=27.01.2004 13:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, nice little tale. Baggsy the axe. date=27.01.2004 13:27 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: >>teenage fears

I gave up reading the "Pan" books as a teenager after a couple of stories about caged and/or cannibalised women. Maybe I'm less queasy now, but at the time these seemed less frightening than simply sick. I began to wonder if some of the writers weren' t working off their war-time traumas, or something deeper.

My other main memory is that a lot of the contributors never seemed to appear in print elsewhere. So they were either pseudonyms for the well-known selling the otherwise unpublishable, or people who only had one story to tell. Given some of the stories in question, that's a slightly worrying thought. At any rate, I haven't opened one of the books in years: perhaps they've improved with age. date=27.01.2004 13:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>perhaps they've improved with age.

I suspect that they are mostly dross. But some stories have stuck with me. Edited highlights include: The old ladies killing a budgie, man has to have sex with very old woman, the rat in the metal bowl, the auntie convincing the pretty child she is ugly, some poem with the refrain "and still she sat and still she wished for company", the one about the woman who ends up being grafted on to some deformed child's head... Actually, now that you mention it, there was definitely a strong streak of misogyny. date=27.01.2004 13:48 ip=81.136.217.1 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Maybe I'm less queasy now, but at the time these seemed less frightening than simply sick.

That series started off well with reprints of lots of great stories then they had to start looking for filler. Half the ones in the mummy book (no. 7?) are horror porn with lavish descriptions of dismemberment. The Fontana series went the same way. Very popular with schoolboys, of course. I'd imagine most of the gore stuff came from the same people writing junk for New English Library at the time. James Herbert's The Rats (a big hit in my school) was merely that (ahem) technique stretched to novel length. date=27.01.2004 13:49 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The Rats

Now we're talking. Of course, The Fog was better - that had girls doing it *together* in it. Can we talk about Sven Hassel next? date=27.01.2004 14:08 ip=81.136.217.1 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Can we talk about Sven Hassel next?

No monsters--boring...

One of my school chums was big on old Sven. He later went off to Sandhurst to train to be an officer. Assuming he's had a career in the army, I wonder if he still thinks war is fun.

BTW, MJH's ghost story (below) wouldn't pass muster in this heady arena as we don't get to hear about the damage made by the axe. date=27.01.2004 14:25 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, that's got rid of the Literary Audience ...

>>Rat in the metal bowl. Unforgettably nasty. I couldn't forget the woman who found her best friend's birthmark on the peice of "steak" she was eating, either. *Blurrch.*

Much later, I read Stephen King on the gradations of this sort of writing. At best, he said, he'll aim for sublime terror; if that doesn't work, he'll try to horrify; and if all else fails, he'll simply sicken. For me, many of the "Pan" stories are category 3. By comparison, the best of Machen, Aickman, and M.R. James are firmly category 1 - and King himself got very close to it with the dead woman stepping out of the bath in "The Shining." As he said, though, that episode just wrote itself. It was virtually automatic, and I don't think he's stumbled on anything else that's as powerful in all the thousands of words he's come up with since. date=27.01.2004 14:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>we don't get to hear about the damage

No, but there *is* a naked lady in it. date=27.01.2004 14:30 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>he'll simply sicken

What about that little explosion of so-called 'transgressive' writing that happened a while back? James Havoc? Never paid much interest, but there was a volume of stories called "Red Stains" (Creation Press?) that was just plain nasty. Is that "Headpress" magazine still going? They liked that sort of thing. date=27.01.2004 14:37 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Transgressive"

I don't know; my tastes are more to the oblique stuff, so I haven't followed it at all. Paraphrasing Elvis Costello, though, there's only so many times you can jump out of the cupboard. Herbert and Barker, who made their names with explicit writing, backed off or went into other areas, and Ramsey Campbell's stopped trying to give you a nervous breakdown inside the first two paragraphs. As a writer, you can't keep up that initial shock in your work, I don't think. The result's either self-parody or sadism. You have to find a different way of doing things.

So while some "Pan" stories have stuck (yech) with me, I find other stories far more thought-provoking - like Aickman's "Ravissante" or Karl Edward Wagner's "I've Come to Talk With You Again." date=27.01.2004 15:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like Little Grey Rabbit, me. And if I want horror, Beatrix Potter or Tove Jansen. There's more terror in Samuel Whiskers or The Groke than any Clive Barker. date=27.01.2004 15:30 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: you could be right. The most terrifying thing I've ever seen on a cinema screen remains "Wizard of Oz" viewed at the age of 5. What now seems chalky make-up and stiff special effects appeared to me then as a lurid nightmare from which I couldn't wake up. I'm told that if you have this experience as a child there's no need to take acid as an adult, as the feeling of blossoming hallucination and panicky dissolution is all too similar. I've taken the advice to heart. date=27.01.2004 15:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: try watching The Wizard Of Oz on acid. There's an experience for you. And did you know that if you play Dark Side Of The Moon at the same time it fits the visuals exactly? Like, wow. date=27.01.2004 16:27 ip=81.136.217.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I'll pass. But don't mind me. I'm still getting over a highly drunken afternoon last year, watching "Philadelphia Story" with "Transformer" supplying the sound-track.

Have you read "Was" by Geoff Ryman, though? Very good novel woven around the film/Baum/Judy Garland. Would make an excellent film itself, if someone could sort out the "Oz" rights and include clips. date=27.01.2004 16:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oz: Yes, fragments of childhood dreams featuring melting witches and red-shoe fetishes are still swilling around my head. date=27.01.2004 17:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think I was more upset by The Singing Ringing Tree. date=27.01.2004 17:23 ip=81.136.217.1 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=..What about that little explosion of so-called 'transgressive' writing that happened a while back? James Havoc? Never paid much interest, but there was a volume of stories called "Red Stains" (Creation Press?) that was just plain nasty. Is that "Headpress" magazine still going? They liked that sort of thing.

Yep, Headpress is still around, slightly more of a leftfield culture mag these days. Still full of rubbish though.

Creation asked me to do an illustrated edition of Raism, the first Havoc book, but I politely declined.

People who equate horror with gore miss the point completely. Lovecraft said the essence of a horror (or weird) tale was atmosphere above all else and the story itself could be irrelevant. Algernon Blackwood's The Willows is a great example. Ramsey Campbell wrote a great report some years ago from a horror film festival he attended that showed what was mostly a whole day of slasher or gore movies. Last film on the bill was George Sluizer's The Vanishing. Some guy who was sat next to him wallowing in the carnage seemed increasingly agitated as the Sluizer film progressed. Just as it reached the moment of revelation he got up, exclaimed "I can't take any more of this!" and rushed outside. date=27.01.2004 17:53 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>People who equate horror with gore miss the point completely.

Indeed. The remake of The Haunting can cause me to rant for hours. date=28.01.2004 09:28 ip=81.136.215.219 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"The Vanishing": Exactly. "Oz" panicked me, but this spooked me completely. I couldn't stop thinking about the last ten minutes for days.

The other film that did that (for very different reasons) was the Canadian "six hours to the end of the world" story, "Last Night." date=28.01.2004 09:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin. I'm not surprised by Ramsey's anecdote. Gorefests are essentially escapist. The trajectory of blood-spatter leads away from the things that are likely to happen in your life, not towards them. The Vanishing is about common emotions of loss, guilt, denial, and especially the sense that you cannot control events in a contingent universe. Saskia has almost literally "walked out" of Rex's life, her vanishment is a metaphor for the kinds of separations we already recognise and fear. The guy who left the screening will have been brought, whether he knew it or not, close to something in his own condition he didn't want to acknowledge. I often think the most frightening thing in that context is *the amount of time* the film covers. It's set in biographical time, not fictional time. You go to an escapist movie to avoid biographical time and its losses, not to be thrust back into a direct apprehension of it. To that extent I wouldn't even describe The Vanishing as a horror movie. date=28.01.2004 11:11 ip=213.78.95.82 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mmm. Jolly interesting that. I haven't seen the film. I wonder what Krabbe's novels are like. date=28.01.2004 13:11 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I think Nick Royle knows Krabbe's stuff. He may even--knowing Nick--know Krabbe.

Sorry, Alex & John C, by the way: that last post was meant to begin, "Hi Martin, Alex & John"... date=28.01.2004 13:19 ip=213.78.88.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Off topic, but vast relief here that Lord Hutton has decided almost everyone is innocent of almost everything.

This has been worrying me for months - but both me and my teddy can now sleep soundly again.

He still hasn't doesn't seem to have explained what Blair was doing on the grassy knoll in the first place, though ... date=28.01.2004 13:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was a letter in the Guardian recently from a couple of medical types, who claimed that Kelly's injuries as described shouldn't have led to his death, nor was there any evidence that he had ingested all the missing painkillers (which wouldn't have killed him either). They'll be wrong, too, I guess. date=28.01.2004 14:00 ip=81.136.208.20 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm tempted to say that the only bit of truth in it is the fact that Kelley is actually dead.

From there on, we could re-write "A Christmas Carol":

-Kelley was dead. Of that there could be no doubt ... date=28.01.2004 14:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Everything's fine now, that's for sure. We can go on having our nice lives now. date=28.01.2004 14:10 ip=213.78.88.168 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>To that extent I wouldn't even describe The Vanishing as a horror movie.

Well it isn't really, is it? Which is why "horror fans" get agitated when they're confronted with something outside the defining limits of their genre. The most disturbing and truly horrifying film I've seen remains Elem Klimov's Come And See, about a teenage boy's experience with Russian partisans during WW2 (there's a feature about Klimov in this month's Sight & Sound, btw.)

And the original Haunting rules--get the DVD. A brilliant novel by Shirley Jackson as well. date=28.01.2004 14:14 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>We can go on having our nice lives now.

I wish they'd sort the weather out though. Most inconvenient. date=28.01.2004 14:17 ip=81.136.208.20 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wish they'd sort the weather out though. Most inconvenient.

Get real Alex; first they need to sort the trains out. We need priorities here. date=28.01.2004 14:30 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Lord Hutton has decided almost everyone is innocent of almost everything.

Almost everyone, that is, except my school-pal Andy from the BBC, the patsy.

Something stinks. I reckon it was a conspiracy between Blair & Campbell, the security services, and Trevor Kavanagh. As for that Guardian letter, it even got Melanie Phillips going: http://tinyurl.com/3efco

And as for the weather, surely it's Blair's way of wreaking vengeance on us for ever doubting him. date=28.01.2004 15:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>sort the trains out

I'd like them to introduce variable fees for journeys. date=28.01.2004 15:15 ip=81.136.208.20 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the weather, surely it's Blair's way of wreaking vengeance

Well I'm staying away from electricity pylons from now on. Thems is bad things and no mistake. date=28.01.2004 15:23 ip=81.136.208.20 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - well, Egyptians I met before Christmas were telling me (with absolute certainty) that Blair had had Dr Kelly killed, and that Dr Kelly was 'a very good man'.

On the BBC website Blair's now calling for people to apologise for accusing him of lying. Hmm, that'll be 48% of the British public on the phone to 10 Downing Street, then, on the latest poll.

Oh, btb, shocking films - was flattened by 'Dead Ringers', genuinely couldn't watch it again; the twins' absolute drug fuelled dislocation from any form of reality by the end of the film far , far too disturbing...

*shudders at the memory* date=28.01.2004 15:28 ip=62.188.110.200 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Trulie I ting to only respon to tis Blah farrago is to babble absurdite date=28.01.2004 15:39 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, give Hutton a break, he's a Lord which means by definition he's more objective and free from prejudice than us mere worms.

Maybe after tonight's news the BBC can play that public information film they had on The Day Today (to be played in national emergencies), showing pictures of flowers and clouds and lambs gamboling in fields while a calm voice says: "It's alright, everything's going to be just fine." date=28.01.2004 15:41 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's absurdity - and then there's the Absurd:

"It was a cold day in January, and the clocks were striking thirteen ..." date=28.01.2004 15:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thinking about horror in films, and I realised that in recent years I've found Ben Kinglsey's Don Logan (Sexy Beast) by far the most frightening thing. The idea that there are people like that out there and if they wanted to do something to me or my family then they could, and I could not prevent it, is one of my worst fears. date=28.01.2004 16:01 ip=81.136.208.20 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BBC Gilligan broadcast condemned by Hutton "as it would be understood by those who heard the broadcast to mean that the dossier had been embellished with intelligence known or believed to be false or unreliable, which had not been the case"

That I do not understand: "which had not been the case"? What planet are we on? But the whole thing is fruitless so I am going to shut up. date=28.01.2004 16:11 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ben Kinglsey's Don Logan

Based on a member of Kingsley's family, apparently. The expletive-heavy mannerisms, that is, not the pathology. His performance makes that film work, without it there'd probably only be a lot of Mockney gangster posturing.

I think it's really useful that China M has resurrected "the weird" as a description in these contexts, even if there's still a lot of heat around what the New Weird is. Horror as a description fixes things in an area of violence, threat, gore and so on which is obviously limiting and which, in a fictional area, can't compete with real world horrors. Weird broadens things out in all directions as well as being a fine Old English word. To paraphrase Trouble Funk, let's get weird. date=28.01.2004 16:19 ip=193.109.50.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al & Alex: yes, Dead Ringers and Sexy Beast both. But it wasn't so much the threat Ben Kingsley so brilliantly represented as the deterioration of personality which lay behind it. It could have been a film about possession; something horrific in Logan was fuelling--and fuelled by--his defenses. You saw it clearly in the scene on the plane. (I can't take Kingsley seriously as anything else now.) date=28.01.2004 16:25 ip=213.78.72.226 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> deterioration of personality

Exactly what spooked me about Dead Ringers; the deterioration of the twins' personalities. If horror is about destabilising the self's securities then the ultimate horror is perhaps the possibility that your most intimate personality can be destabilised or degraded to that extent - or that you can encounter and have to deal with someone who's gone through that. date=28.01.2004 16:54 ip=62.188.110.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>His performance makes that film work

And without him, as John said, the film degenerates. The telling thing about Don Logan was that he was *in love*, and that made the horror of what he had become more potent. Incidentally, I stayed in the village where it was filmed: a strange, isolated place. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was filmed just outside, and Lawrence Of Arabia was filmed down the road (where now stands a cement factory). date=28.01.2004 16:58 ip=81.136.208.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was that in Almeria, Alex ? date=28.01.2004 21:02 ip=213.78.70.198 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Was that in Almeria

About half and hour away. It's a place called Agua Amarga on the Cabo De Gato. Nice quiet place for a holiday, if a little on the arid side. date=29.01.2004 08:59 ip=81.136.208.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gotcha. Was there, last year. Cath wanted to see the mini desert & badlands where they made those movies, so we drove over from Almeria. Massive amounts of euro-funded motorway building going on. date=29.01.2004 10:26 ip=213.78.69.64 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Massive amounts of euro-funded motorway building

Not in the National Park, though, presumably? It's an odd place - mile upon mile of polytunnels around Almeria. They are seriously wrecking the ground water supply to feed the agriculture. Agua Amarga itself is nice though. There's a guy who lives there who was the original bass player for UK punk band The Poison Girls, and a naked hermit who lives in a cave. date=29.01.2004 10:33 ip=81.136.208.20 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My brain is so shit these days. It was 2002, not last year. We camped at Las Negras and walked up and down the coast. Our favourite beach was at Punta de los Muertos (I wonder why ?). I remember going down to Caba de Gata and Punta Laja, to look at the flamingoes. Later we buggered off to the Alpujarra. I'd go back there in a second, but Cath never visits the same place twice... Naked hermit, eh ? date=29.01.2004 10:56 ip=213.116.50.28 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My brain is so shit these days. It was 2002, not last year. We camped at Las Negras and walked up and down the coast. Our favourite beach was at Punta de los Muertos (I wonder why ?). I remember going down to Caba de Gata and Punta Laja, to look at the flamingoes. Later we buggered off to the Alpujarra. I'd go back there in a second, but Cath never visits the same place twice... Naked hermit, eh ? date=29.01.2004 10:57 ip=213.116.50.28 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>los Muertos

Bit hard on the arse with all those pebbles, but yes, a nice spot. I proably won't go back either, for similar reasons. date=29.01.2004 11:03 ip=81.136.208.20 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Almeria: Vasque Director Alex (no relation) de la Iglesia latest movie "Eigth hundred bullets" is set there. It´s the tale of an aging and washed up stunt man who can´t get over the fact that he once was body double for Clint Eastwood. That was his golden moment and he isn´t able to get on with his life.
On new tale: I read it last nigth. Alone in the house, the only ligth coming from the fireplace and mist gathering outside de window and a proper chill it gave me. I felt there was a "once upon a time" lurking behind the opening sentence. date=29.01.2004 13:36 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*changes topic totally*

Just been watching Greg Dyke resign, live on TV. What the hell is going on here? A deeply skewed report, one that fails to answer key questions about government behaviour (what did Blair know when? To what extent is pruning a report for maximum impact 'sexing up'?), as far as I can make out biassed towards the BBC and against the government, and the BBC is smashed.

What they did to Dr Kelly (he stands in our way; let's fuck him) they're doing to the BBC as an institution - and who are they going to appoint to replace these people? Obvious government lickspittles (thus shattering the BBC's independent / public service status) or people who are going to carry on giving them a hard time (unlikely!)

I'm so shocked by all this. Am I just being hysterical, or are - one by one - all the little bits of democracy being eroded? This is poisonous. date=29.01.2004 14:06 ip=62.188.100.246 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: my thoughts exactly. I hope John Humphries doesn't resign too - we'd *really* be fucked then. date=29.01.2004 14:09 ip=81.136.208.20 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm so shocked by all this. Am I just being hysterical, or are - one by one - all the little bits of democracy being eroded?

Yes. I am not so much scared as outraged. date=29.01.2004 14:10 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was listening to John Humphries on the radio this morning; being told by an ex BBC Chairman of the Governors not to resign. Quite astonishing. I feel like going and demonstrating, either outside the BBC or outside Number Ten! date=29.01.2004 14:15 ip=62.188.112.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Am I just being hysterical, or are - one by one - all the little bits of democracy being eroded?

"Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself." date=29.01.2004 14:16 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Am I just being ..?

Not by my lights. I feel as angered ( and morally violated) by the last 24 hours as I was by the war last year. Blair and Campbell give every appearance of being Murdoch's stunt men, and it's poetic justice that such a whitewash of a report was accompanied by the whole country vanishing under snow. The only reassurance in all this is that everyone I've talked to feels the same, and would echo what we're posting here. date=29.01.2004 14:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I just read again my post and it is not as clear as I would have liked. Yes to erosion of democracy ,of course. date=29.01.2004 14:45 ip=80.58.9.42 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What the hell is going on here?

Main headline in today's Independent: "Whitewash". date=29.01.2004 17:23 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Mistah Kurtz mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, I just checked and there's a question mark after the Independent headline so they're hedging their bets. I won't hedge mine by saying "Exterminate all the brutes." date=29.01.2004 17:27 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I feel as angered ( and morally violated) by the last 24 hours as I was by the war

My thoughts exactly. Seems that Blair & Campbell have been learning plenty off their American buddies. And, yes, this all plays very nicely into that nice Mr Murdoch's hands. date=29.01.2004 18:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can understand Tony's people managing every pivotal public event into political theatre. But why such *bad* political theatre ? Why this bizarre pantomimic psychodrama with the smack-down values ? date=29.01.2004 18:33 ip=213.78.94.188 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just wonder if we were hugely naive to expect anything better from the Hutton enquiry. But since 9-11 with one thing after another, the hope that responsibility or accountability might mean something and that people in power *aren't* the sort of cynical wankers we expect them to be has been repeatedly kicked hard in the teeth.

Somewhat related: I was watching that programme the other day about the miners strike. When old footage of Thatcher appeared I felt myself go cold inside. She was the great beast when I was growing up in the eighties and seeing her on telly again made me really nervous, as if it were triggering off some buried trauma. But there was the same inexorable cynicism and hypocrisy about that era. I wonder if I'll react the same way in twenty years time when Blair appear on TV. date=29.01.2004 19:37 ip=213.122.138.234 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's no so hard to understand how Hutton went so horribly wrong - the guy's a lawyer. Lawyers pretend the world is black and white, when really no such shades exist, all is grey. Tony Blair & his crew are lawyers too and played the game. There was no evidence, beyond reasonable doubt, that showed they knew they were lying. So in the eyes of the law, they weren't lying.

The BBC, on the other hand, took a touchy-feely approach and confessed all their wrong-doings. Never confess to a judge. They got you bang to rights. The BBC is going down.

I just wish the law left a little space for humanity and implicitly understood truths.

I was in court recently, being sued by a crap mortgage adviser. I wormed my way out of the main charge, but was caught on a technicality on a penalty clause. I hadn't been expecting this. When the judge asked whether I had anything to say in my defence, I fumbled and said "well, I feel that morally I'm in the right on this".

He turned to me, rearranged his expression to something approximating sly condescension with a dash of world-weary humour, and said "Mr Sumption, morality has no place in a court of law". date=29.01.2004 22:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Parallels between Anthony and Our Lady of Sorrows run deep, and both induce the same retching, cat-up-a-tree reaction in me. "Nos-fer-atu ..."

I remember various turns of phrase from Thatcher's speeches to the land of cold death and rented hope. My favourite - perhaps that's not the term - was: If Julius Caesar returned to England now he would say I came, I saw, I *invested.*

... Pronounce this in Her voice while you're in company, and friends will swear something just licked the earth on their grave. Brrr.

MJH: Why such badly managed theatre? Impossible to say, but the link below gives a good clue, I think. So far as I know, no one's ever conducted a psychological probe of leading politicians. It would be a wonderful, Ballardian project to discover what Blair or Thatcher dream about, for example. On the other hand, we might well guess.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0FQP/4647_132/ 106058998/print.jhtml date=29.01.2004 22:25 ip=212.126.153.97 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Intereting article Martin. Tony Blair = Michael Jackson, yes.

Psychological probes of politicians: there's Leo Abse's book, mentioned in that article, "Tony Blair, the Man Behind the Smile" - I have a copy here, "a relentless and startling scrutiny of the psyche of the prime minister", but I've never got very far with it. Perhaps I'd better read it soon and be forearmed.

Also, more generally, Jeremy Paxman's book "The Political Animal". I haven't read it, but I remember hearing quoted from it that some very high percentage, around 75%, of prime ministers over the last 150-odd years lost one or both parents in childhood. Sound like a possible starting point for psycho-analysing. date=29.01.2004 22:56 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wormed my way out of the main charge, but was caught on a technicality on a penalty clause

Hutton's report works in the same way I think. The government got out of the key charge of outing Kelly because Kelly was deemed, according to the strict letter of the civil service rules (which had no working or real application to him), to have failed to consult with his superiors over contacts with the press. Because of this, the burden of responsibility was judged to lie with Kelly on the issue of wrongdoing. It's like at my office. Institutional procedures, expectations, rule over everything. People almost regard them as a higher life form. In consequence they behave towards them absolutely irrationally, like children. That I think is Hutton's weakness. In the real world there was absolutely no issue over Kelly needing to have been given permission. But since the rules are there, clearly stated, it was 'his fault'. date=30.01.2004 08:46 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I mean "his fault" that he found himself in the media spotlight, not the government's fault; his fault in that sense that we was "thrown to the wolves". On these small details hangs the balance of judgement, so that the end result is the Campbell is able to say "We spoke the truth".

If that civil service rule hadn't been deified by Hutton, I would guess that Campbell, Blair, wholly political animals, wouldn't be in a very different position.

"Violated" by these events is a good way of describeing the situation. date=30.01.2004 08:57 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was disappointed by Greg Dyke's reticence this morning, but I guess he's saving his opinion for a more lucrative opportunity. date=30.01.2004 09:30 ip=81.136.214.192 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Lawyers pretend the world is black and white, when really no such shades exist, all is grey.

Oh, I'm not so sure about that; I know (right wing, corporate finance-y, generally hostile to the press) lawyers who regard the Hutton verdict and subsequent treatment of the BBC as 'obscene'.

At their worst, lawyers are pettifogging types who elevate system above all else; at their best (and admittedly, there aren't too many of them) they work off a fundamental commitment to discovering and considering truth, albeit using admittedly faulty systems. The Hutton report seems to fall into the first category; I'm looking forward to seeing more forensic legal minds of the second type go into action against it. Makes me regret not being a lawyer - almost!

As for Blair / Thatcher; too young to really have taken her in, except in her latter Imperial incarnation. Blair seems to be going that way too, a desperate shame.

Was reading a fascinating news article the other day pointing out how odd it is that a supposedly left wing PM has more to gain from - and is more likely to support - the re-election of a hard-right Republican US president than a more moderate Democrat. O tempora, O mores etc!

But how to fight back? Personally, I felt that the BBC was the only entity representing my views (broadly liberal, anti war) in any coherent way in public debate. It's now been smashed; I want to do something in response; what?

Am plotting out a short story in response to all this, unsure if it will shake the world much; MJH - how about a 'Weird Action' story collection in support of the Beeb or similar? date=30.01.2004 09:54 ip=62.188.112.37 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I want to do something in response; what?

Exactly what I've been wondering. I feel like taking to the streets but... didn't exactly stop the war, did it? What can we do against an increasingly omnipotent psychotic government? date=30.01.2004 09:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If nothing else, the current events are both a lesson in the limits of our participation in democracy and a call to engage with it; to create a climate of dissent to either sway the government (deeply unlikely! I agree with you about the marches) or make it clear that it's acting against the wishes of a clearly defined swathe of the British population. date=30.01.2004 10:02 ip=62.188.112.37 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: O tempora, o mores ...

On a lighter note I remember Flanders & Swann translating this as "O Times, O Daily Mirror."

An omnipotent government? Come, now ...

What can you do? Protest, yes. But I wonder how many people around the country are incubating assassination fantasies at this very moment. A desperate year, and no mistake. date=30.01.2004 10:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin - ho ho ho!

And, thinking Roman, when it comes to Hutton - Quis custodet ipsos custodes? That's what I'd like to know... date=30.01.2004 10:13 ip=62.188.110.76 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What can we do against an increasingly omnipotent psychotic government?

>>But I wonder how many people around the country are incubating assassination fantasies at this very moment.

Remember, remember the fifth of November! All right-thinking patriots shd be considering the pyrotechnic option. date=30.01.2004 10:15 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: If we're going classical, here - Hutton instantly put me in mind of Mark Anthony in Shakespeare - "They are all honourable men."

Io: 5th November - and put a flare up Blair. I'd hate to think democracy begins with a bullet, though. There's no legal precedent, but I wonder if it's possible for the public to impeach him. After all, he is our "servant" ... date=30.01.2004 10:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sadly without the biting irony though (or am I getting my speeches confused?)

A Flare for Blair! I like it... date=30.01.2004 10:32 ip=62.188.108.112 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Want to hear some music?
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/3/bigblock454music.h tm

First track is a taster for our new CD (not that it's very representative). date=30.01.2004 10:59 ip=81.133.174.245 name=Hyperbole Sumption mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> An omnipotent government? Come, now ...

Didn't I mention? Hyperbole is my middle name. My whole name, actually.

No, I exaggerate.

>> Quis custodet ipsos custodes

S'funny, I don't do Latin but would hazard a guess that's what I was listening to on the MP3 player last night: "Justice" by The Pop Group, from the album "We are all Prostitutes":

Who guards the guards
Who polices the police?

Haven't listened to The Pop Group in a long time. Made me feel happy to be angry. Anger is an energy. And I'm a celebrity, so for Blair's sake get me out of here. date=30.01.2004 11:05 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do you pronounce it hyper-bowl? I think you should. date=30.01.2004 11:18 ip=81.136.218.217 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, except I put a hyper-space between the hyer and the bowl, instead of a hyper-phen.

Nice music BTW Alex. I had a practice with my new band last night. Met our drummer (Jim, who is jazz & world music critic for the Guardian North) for the first time. We rocked, and turned the squonk back into funk. Verily, it was good. date=30.01.2004 11:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: cheers. Music has calmed my savage breasts. Incidentally, has anyone come across an album called The Skull Mailbox by Bob Drake? Extraordinary collection of warped avant-pop songs about unseen horrors - a bit like Edward Gorey set to music. There's a song on there called Attar of Roses, too... date=30.01.2004 11:32 ip=81.136.218.217 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. Very nice music. Like the bass such a lot.

Saw Edward Gorey set to music last year by the Tiger Lilies, enjoyed it live like mad, then (as always) had second thoughts when listening to the CD. No charisma, no tension. date=30.01.2004 11:38 ip=213.78.66.48 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I felt very similarly about Kaddish by Towering Inferno - a requiem for the Jewish dead of WWII. The CD isn't bad (in fact, Brian Eno said it's the most frightening record he's ever heard - some accolade), but it doesn't approach the body-incinerating intensity and aching pain of the live performance. date=30.01.2004 11:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Good to hear Big Block are back. But when can we expect to hear yr solo project?

Everyone shd have a song about attar... date=30.01.2004 11:49 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the Tiger Lilies

Yes, I've heard that. Awful, unlistenable. But... have you heard Michael Mantler's "The Hapless Child"? That's a pretty good collection of settings of Gorey tales - Robert Wyatt does the vocals.

Thanks for the comments about the music. The CD should be finished in a month. date=30.01.2004 11:52 ip=81.136.218.217 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I've got Kaddish. Like it a lot, but I wish I'd seen it live. date=30.01.2004 11:53 ip=81.136.218.217 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heard a Tiger Lillies track on WFMU about a sheep shagger the other day. Also, I'm reading Pilgermann in which there's this pig that everyone wants to fuck.

There seems to be an unusual amount of bestiality in my life at the moment. date=30.01.2004 11:54 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>an unusual amount of bestiality

Did you hear Edward Albee last night? He like goats (sorry - his *character* likes goats). date=30.01.2004 11:55 ip=81.136.218.217 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Heard a Tiger Lillies track on WFMU about a sheep shagger the other day. Also, I'm reading Pilgermann in which there's this pig that everyone wants to fuck. Oh, and I rewatched Zardoz yesterday. Someone get's accused of bestiality for taking an interest in Sean Connery.

There seems to be an unusual amount of bestiality in my life at the moment.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=30.01.2004 11:54 ip=158.94.181.75 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He like goats

Hey, don't we all? Strictly platonic, mind... date=30.01.2004 11:59 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was spine-tingling, especially when the priest came on to sing the Kaddish. Only two times I've been quite so moved by vocals: then, and the muezzin singing towards the end of Powaqqatsi when the Philip Glass Ensemble played live along to the film. You can keep your old-time religions, just leave me with the singers. date=30.01.2004 12:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got Kaddish too--maybe we should form a Kaddish fanclub. Respect to Brian and all but if you want scary you should listen to The Divine Punishment by Diamanda Galas. Or just about any other record by by Diamanda Galas.

Music + theatre often gains some x factor that doesn't translate to disc it seems. The first Archaos show I saw, Bouinax, had a band called Les Chihuahuas playing the most amazing rock music. Somehow I think it would have sounded pretty ordinary without the extraordinary antics that were its accompaniment. date=30.01.2004 12:20 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Archaos show I saw, Bouinax

I went to that one. Excellent spectacle.

You're right about Galas, too. I have to listen to her from behind the sofa. date=30.01.2004 12:38 ip=81.136.212.185 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Music + theatre definitely = more than the sum of the parts. The two musicians I'm playing with at the moment are both ex-Theatre students, and are planning on making our shows into "shows". I'm excited about it, very. All of the gigs I've ever been to that stick in my mind were highly theatrical. Especially Faust with the welding, the wind-machine and the naked body-painting.

The guitarist in one of the Archaos bands, I think it was Les Chihauhuas, is the cousin of Ed, whom some of you had the, erm, pleasure of meeting at the Empty Space night. He also used to play in some crusty festy band, the Ullulators I think. date=30.01.2004 12:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Yes! I can see you with bat-wings on your head. It's funny, but the gig I've enjoyed most in recent times was Rammstein: fire, inflatable cocks, exploding boots... marvellous. date=30.01.2004 12:54 ip=81.136.212.185 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Especially Faust with the welding, the wind-machine and the naked body-painting.

What is it with these Germans, eh? I saw Einsturzende Neubauten on their first tour playing at the Hacienda. There weren't many people there so we were clustered around the front of the stage for a truly hair-raising show that's still one of the most thrilling things I've seen. Mufti Einheit stripped to the waist, racing round the stage beating ten kinds of crap out of everything in sight. Sparks flying into the audience from the circular saws. Eventually they got sick of using the pneumatic drill to pummel breeze blocks so one of them picked it up and drilled straight into the Hacienda wall then left it stuck there--beat that, Hendrix! At the end, M Einheit lifted up a crate of milk-bottles that had been sat on the stage throughout the performance and brought the whole lot crashing down, sending broken glass flying into the aghast spectators. For a long time after that, seeing just another band somewhere was rather a dull prospect. date=30.01.2004 12:55 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And then there's Klaus Nomi, of course. The Neuremberg Rally must have been a good show, too, I reckon. date=30.01.2004 13:08 ip=81.136.212.185 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>he Neuremberg Rally must have been a good show, too, I reckon.

Crap music, all those marching bands like a bad school parade.

The sainted Neubauten have a lyric that equates the Nazi period (1933-45) with the rpm speeds of vinyl records, a metaphor that's rather lost now in our digital era.

I know Mr Iotar is a huge Krautrock fan like myself so don't get us started on the rest of the Germans. And whatever you do, don't mention the war. date=30.01.2004 13:31 ip=193.109.50.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Especially Faust with the welding, the wind-machine and the naked body-painting.

Once at The Garage the smoke machine went funny and the building had to be evacuated. Lots of blokes with short hair, glasses and black clothes pouring out onto Holloway Road coughing. Their first recent gig in London where they blew up an amp by accident was good too.

They're no where near as fun without Jean-Herve. date=30.01.2004 13:32 ip=158.94.181.75 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I know Mr Iotar is a huge Krautrock fan like myself

Yes, this is dangerous territory, John. BTW: Alex also likes his kosmische music. date=30.01.2004 13:33 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah.. the cover of Yeti...Popol Vuh... Yoo Doo Right...greatcoats for goal posts..striped loon pants...Can on TOTP... marvellous. date=30.01.2004 13:48 ip=81.136.212.185 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ah.. the cover of Yeti...Popol Vuh... Yoo Doo Right...greatcoats for goal posts..striped loon pants...Can on TOTP... marvellous.

Careful now. date=30.01.2004 13:54 ip=193.109.50.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nnnng! Must... not... boast about having dinner with Faust... date=30.01.2004 13:57 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: that was me I was satirising.

Incidentally, I made a discovery the other day. I'd bought the Popol Vuh soundtrack to Herzog's Nosferatu a while back, hoping it would have some of the spooky choral music (that Kate Bush also nicked for one of her albums). The soundtrack album didn't have anything like that on it and I was disappointed. Anyway, I have since discovered that the music I was after was a bit of Georgian Table Song and I've now got a whole CD of it. Amazingly thrilling singing. Wish there was a Georgian choir in Manchester so I could join it. date=30.01.2004 13:58 ip=81.136.212.185 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>having dinner with Faust

I hope you used a long spoon. date=30.01.2004 13:58 ip=81.136.212.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the music I was after was a bit of Georgian Table Song and I've now got a whole CD of it

There used to be this brilliant Georgian restaurant in Stoke Newington called Lucky Village - modest little establishment, totally unlike the sort of thing that one might expect in Stokie now. But they always has this amazing music playing there, which I would guess was some of this Georgian Table Song.

Shame about Lucky Village. I nicked their receipe for trout monastic - wonderful dish! date=30.01.2004 14:03 ip=158.94.181.75 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>nnng! Must... not... boast about having dinner with Faust...

If you don't then I won't boast about getting a phone call from Holger Czukay... a long story, far too tedious to relate here.

Nosferatu: yeah that choral thing bugged me for years until I got the wonderful DVD and Herzog mentioned in his commenatary where the music came from. I've got the so-called soundtrack; like the Aguirre one it's a strange concoction. date=30.01.2004 14:05 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>for trout monastic

Silly boy. It's monk fish. date=30.01.2004 14:06 ip=81.136.212.185 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>commenatary

I meant "commentary", of course. date=30.01.2004 14:06 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where the music came from

So I was right? I just stumbled upon the Georgian stuff and thought it must be the same thing. It's wonderful, anyway, like Voix Bulgares but with great big hariy Georgian bollocks. date=30.01.2004 14:08 ip=81.136.212.185 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So I was right?

Near as dammit. He says it was from a record of Georgian singers he picked up on his travels but doesn't specify. As you say, everyone thought it was Popol Vuh until Kate Bush wanted to use it and Florian didn't know what she was talking about. date=30.01.2004 14:11 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Kate Bush wanted to use it

Ah, right. You see she credited Popol Vuh on the album, but not the Georgian singers. That threw me, too. date=30.01.2004 14:12 ip=81.136.212.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>like Voix Bulgares but with great big hariy Georgian bollocks.

Thank you for that image, Alex. It was certainly that *sort* of music. Don't know if it's a traditional piece or something jazzed up by a composer - sorta like Rachmaninov's Vespers or summink.

>>Silly boy. It's monk fish.

Boom-cha! Actually, it's trout, boiled eggs, potatoes, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheese, yoghurt, tarragon and dill. Don't forget the dill. Don't ever forget the dill! date=30.01.2004 14:13 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm very suspicious about boiled eggs in dishes, apart from kedgeree and dhal with eggs. Something *not right* about them. date=30.01.2004 14:16 ip=81.136.212.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>dhal with eggs.

Dhal with eggs is good. Sonali chicken rocks too: creamy red chicken curry with a red egg in the middle. The red egg really is a thing to behold! Also discovered a Malaysian(?) soup recently, assam laksa, which is often served with eggs, noodles, fish and lettuce. Lettuce in soup! It's really rather good. It's not unlike a Burmese soup called ono kauswe(sp?) that my grandmother used to make. But that has chicken and egg in it. Brings up the old question... date=30.01.2004 14:30 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The problem I have with hard-boiled eggs in food it that they seem impervious to any flavouring they are cooked with. They are always just eggs. date=30.01.2004 14:33 ip=81.136.216.229 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>They are always just eggs.

Oh yes, but there are some dishes which really benefit from that egg thing. And anything which has a lemony thing going on in it tends to work well with the hard egg yoke.

So basically you'd object strongly if someone tried to serve you something containing aubergine and eggs? date=30.01.2004 14:39 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>aubergine and eggs

You mean like Eggy Eggplant Surprise? I wouldn't be impressed. date=30.01.2004 14:43 ip=81.136.216.229 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wouldn't be impressed.

Not even if they did something really witty with it at Juniper? I mean something *really* clever. date=30.01.2004 14:47 ip=158.94.181.75 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Like leaving the aubergines out? Maybe serving the egg just with a little vinegar jus? Out of a bottle? I could handle that. date=30.01.2004 14:56 ip=81.136.216.229 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Like leaving the aubergines out?

Deconstructed eggplant? date=30.01.2004 15:16 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pickled eggs.... mmm....

I've got a lovely steak and oyster pie recipe that recommends putting in a hard boiled egg, but I've never put one in because I mistrust hard boiled eggs in things...

Some interesting hutton stuff here:

http://www.newsdissector.org/weblog/

Also, as a krautrock neophyte; if I were to buy any one or two krautrock albums to introduce myself to truly kosmische music, which ones would you guys recommend? date=30.01.2004 15:17 ip=62.188.110.99 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>if I were to buy any one or two krautrock albums to introduce myself to truly kosmische music

* Yeti - Amon Duul II
* Tago Mago - Can
* The Faust Tapes - Faust date=30.01.2004 15:23 ip=158.94.190.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh hold on...

* Neu! 2 - Neu!
* Psychedelic Underground - Amon Duul
* UFO - Guru Guru date=30.01.2004 15:27 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>truly kosmische music

Io was pretty spot on. Bugger. *thinks* Maybe Amon Duul II's "Wolf City" would be a gentler introduction? date=30.01.2004 15:27 ip=81.136.216.229 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>* Psychedelic Underground - Amon Duul

Now you're being cruel!

Can we have Popol Vuh's Hosiannah Mantra, too, and the first Ash Ra Tempel?

Burn him a compilation, Io. That would be easier! date=30.01.2004 15:31 ip=81.136.147.25 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like most of those but since I am a hardboiled Kraftwerk fan, you've also got to have something like Ralf and Florian. (Although it doesn't actually give that accurate a picture of K.s oeuvre.)

You could also try an early Holgar Czukay, like Movies. date=30.01.2004 15:35 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Now you're being cruel!

Ah, I love those huge amped-up jackboot riffs and bongo frenzies!

But yes, Al. I'll do you a Portable Guide to Der Kosmische Freak-out Musik if you like. date=30.01.2004 15:37 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>early Holgar Czukay, like Movies

Everyone should have that one, if only for "Perisan Love" date=30.01.2004 15:41 ip=81.136.147.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>you've also got to have something like Ralf and Florian

Yeah, there's a huge difference between the first Kraftwerk album and the Autobahn/Radioactivity thing. Anyone going to put in a word for Tangerine Dream? I'm certainly not! date=30.01.2004 15:42 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why no Tangs? "Zeit" is a great album. And then there's...um...ah... no, forget it. date=30.01.2004 15:43 ip=81.136.147.25 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks all! I'm going to head off to the music shop and have a good listen at the first chance. Have been rooting around on amazon, all look v. intriguing.

Zali - a compilation would be fantastic! Could do you a 60s / 70s psychedelic folk one in return? Or some awesome classical stuff... though would sadly be on tape not CD. date=30.01.2004 15:46 ip=62.188.108.58 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zeit is indeed great, plus it's got Florian Fricke on it.

The introductory conundrum is a tricky one, something I've faced many times in the past when people come to me and say "What is this Krautrock thing you speak of, John?". The field is too diverse for an easy start without advising someone to spend about 70 quid on CDs.

Julian Cope's book, Krautrocksampler is a great guide for beginners and aficiandos alike. Is it OOP now? It's not listed on his site. date=30.01.2004 15:51 ip=193.109.50.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: If you like I could do you a CD-R full of good quality mp3s - I could fit *shitloads* of stuff on one disk that way.

>>"Zeit"

Precisely! date=30.01.2004 15:51 ip=158.94.190.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Krautrocksampler is a great guide for beginners and aficiandos alike.

Grrr! Cope! date=30.01.2004 15:52 ip=158.94.190.36 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Grrr! Cope!

What's he done now? date=30.01.2004 15:57 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Krautrocksampler is a great guide

Hmm. It's a bit personal though. I mean, he doesn't like Dance Of the Lemmings, but everyone else in the world does. date=30.01.2004 15:57 ip=81.136.147.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What's he done now?

Oh, I just find him really irritating. Yes, okay I know Krautrocksampler is a really enthusiastic book, and I am told by a number of people that he's a lovely bloke. But... Grrr! Cope! date=30.01.2004 15:59 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm depressed. I've just found out that I share my birthday - today - with Phil Collins. It's ruined everything. date=30.01.2004 16:00 ip=81.136.147.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh! Happy birthday, Phil! Happy birthday, Alex! date=30.01.2004 16:01 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*sulks* You put Phil first. date=30.01.2004 16:04 ip=81.136.147.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops! How careless! date=30.01.2004 16:05 ip=158.94.190.36 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sure Cope's a vociferous, opinionated bastard, and I disagree completely with his dismissal of Dance of the Lemmings, his dismissal of post-Damo Can and his over-praising of the often mediocre Cosmic Jokers albums. But, you know... His site has an album of the month feature that's a total revelation, constantly turning up really great albums that nobody would tell you about otherwise since they give new meaning to the word "obscure". His frothing at the mouth Lester Bangs-style enthusiasm is a great tonic in a world of sober appraisals. date=30.01.2004 16:07 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Zali, sounds like a great idea...

>> Happy Birthday Phil!

Phil Collins posts here? Shit!

*looks around suspiciously* date=30.01.2004 16:07 ip=62.188.112.154 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: for all his faults, Cope did an immaculate review of VDGGs Pawn Hearts, and for that I will love him forever. date=30.01.2004 16:10 ip=81.136.147.25 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thing is Cope has made a career of being out of his tree. I remember really liking Jehovakill for some reason. But I don't concur with many of his views. Waaaay too enthusiastic. Musically: Out of tree, good. In tree not so good. Now musically: silence. Why? If only he hadn't taken that extra two dozen tabs of acid on the first Teardrop American tour, now he would be a rock superstar or something, just like, let's see, Brian Adams!!! But the crazy guy is just too full of words! Turn him upside down; empty him out. Drude. date=30.01.2004 16:12 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cope's taste:

Go here: http://www.headheritage.com/wsym/

and listen to track 4.

I rest my case.

I have very little interest, most of the time, in his own albums, in or out of tree. His Brain Donor are good in a retro rock way. date=30.01.2004 16:14 ip=193.109.50.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can see I'm going to have to revive the Krautrock Message Board soon before Empty Space gets overrun! date=30.01.2004 16:16 ip=158.94.190.36 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C., but why is Copey dressed as a godamned garden gnome in that picture? Don't you like "pull me out of the water haul me on to the land there is a fire ... " Charlotte Anne? (Io, as soon as you put up a formal noticeboard we will all run out of things to say.) date=30.01.2004 16:28 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Io, as soon as you put up a formal noticeboard we will all run out of things to say.

True. I've had some of the people from the old KRMB expressing an interest so it might be worth it. But we'll probably just end up posting stuff about Katherine Mansfield and the inadequacy of escapism. *sigh* date=30.01.2004 16:35 ip=158.94.190.36 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>John C., but why is Copey dressed as a godamned garden gnome in that picture?

Beats me? Does it matter? He can dress like John Prescott for all I care so long as he keeps finding these albums.

>>Don't you like "pull me out of the water haul me on to the land there is a fire ... " Charlotte Anne?

Not so much don't like, more indifferent to a lot of his songs. I saw one of his Royal Festival Hall things a couple of years ago and his solo spot was fine but it doesn't make me want to listen to his songs a lot. I was there to see Coil and the so-called reformed Ash Ra Tempel (see, the Germans are back!). The fake ART were just that--fake. Klaus Schultze doing the same boring synth doodling act he's been doing for decades now. Poor Manuel Gottsching could hardly get a moment to himself.

Sorry, MJH, maybe I should ask something relevant to this board like how come lines from The Waste Land recur so much in your books. Would that help? date=30.01.2004 16:37 ip=193.109.50.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sorry, MJH, maybe I should ask something relevant to this board like how come lines from The Waste Land recur so much in your books. Would that help?

Oh, he's probably gone and found something to better to do. Ah well, it *is* Friday. date=30.01.2004 16:42 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Happy birthday!!!!

"Persian Love" - ah. Long sigh. *So* beautiful.

Phil Collins: ok - so he's a tory tax exile who plays Great Train Robbers and puts out one crap cd after another, but that doesn't mean he's entirely a waste of space. Does it? Hello?

Cope: I saw Teardrop Explodes and the Ravishing Beauties play an astonishing gig in Birmingham, back in the early '80s. Then, having persuaded 4 or 5 friends along to the same tour one week later, we saw "the drugs don't work." Cope was all over the place, and afterwards one particularly bitter acquaintance snapped at me: "He's just a pretentious BASTARD."

Became a catch-phrase for weeks, that one did. date=30.01.2004 16:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>doesn't mean he's entirely a waste of space

No. His music does that. date=30.01.2004 16:49 ip=81.136.208.127 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Phil Collins

Didn't he do drums on an Eno album? Good drummer. But he shd definitely keep his trap shut. date=30.01.2004 16:51 ip=158.94.190.36 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>doesn't mean he's entirely a waste of space

Steady on. If you erased him from history we'd lose Eno's Another Green World. date=30.01.2004 16:52 ip=193.109.50.172 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Snap! date=30.01.2004 16:52 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: too right.

It's either bland or constipated white boy stuff. You wonder how someone who's so technically competent on drums can be so devoid of funk.

Because he's a prat to the bone, I suppose ...

Off here now - but have a good weekend, y'all. date=30.01.2004 16:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But before I go ...

Well, you'd lose "Sky Saw" - but, irrespective of darling Phil, that's the one track on it I always skip.

Just listening to an orchestral bootleg of some Eno stuff, recorded in '99. Nice arrangment of "AGW" itself that sounds like a Japanese school string section is behind it. Bring back the Portsmouth Symphonia, I say. date=30.01.2004 16:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>we'd lose Eno's Another Green World.

Ah, genius. My favourite album ever. date=30.01.2004 16:57 ip=81.136.223.146 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops - Happy Birthday Alex!

As for Phil Collins; regardless of Eno, if he vanished we'd lose 'Buster', which would be a very good thing indeed.

*shudders* date=30.01.2004 17:06 ip=62.188.112.118 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually io count me in for that Kraut noticeboard. I feel a real bender of a philosophical turn coming on, Krautrock wise. (Woops I shouldn't have said that.) date=30.01.2004 17:12 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought while you were having such a good time here, all of you, I'd tiptoe off & try & get some work done. Just carry on: I'll go over to the Krautrock board, where they're discussing the implications of "the check" in Durrell's Justine.

Happy birthday, Alex!

>>Sorry, MJH, maybe I should ask something relevant to this board like how come lines from The Waste Land recur so much in your books. Would that help?

No, that would be enormously tiring, John, because I'd have to try & remember when I stopped doing it; and then why I did it when I did, other than that from being about 15 I thought it was the greatest--not "poem", that's wrong, it's bigger than that--maybe meme ?--the world had ever seen. But suddenly you're not 15 anymore. date=30.01.2004 17:51 ip=213.78.75.114 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'd have to try & remember when I stopped doing it; and then why I did it when I did

No matter, it's good when everything doesn't get explained away. Can't remember many of the instances myself apart from several occurrences of connecting nothing with nothing like the description of a motorway bridge in Course of the Heart. And I think someone says that line in the Viriconium stuff somewhere but who or where I forget. date=30.01.2004 18:22 ip=193.109.50.172 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy birthday, Alex. date=30.01.2004 18:32 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(wrote this about six hours ago, before the plumbers unplugged my ADSL box and I lost contact with the world for the rest of the day... things seem to have moved on a little since then)

Germans, eh? All bloody avant-garde musicians, cannibals or megalomaniac dictators. The first time I saw Faust, they cut up half the stage with a chainsaw. Never mind the sound or the sight of it, I couldn't shake off the smell of petrol fumes for days.

The second time, Zappi picked up a TV and stood on the edge of the stage, holding it up over the audience. It was a very scary couple of minutes. The whole scenario was so crazy, so outside the rules of any normal "gig", that you just had no idea what he would do, whether he'd send it flying into the crowd.

Andy Wilson, who runs the Faust site, published some of my considered musings on Faust gigs here: http://tinyurl.com/3hm4m and straight after the gig I posted a more experiential version here: http://www.sumption.org/posi-web/posi4.html date=30.01.2004 18:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: You'd have been okay. I know for a fact their motto is "Safety Faust."

yours, in transit ... date=30.01.2004 19:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(OK, now taking into account the moving on)

>> greatcoats for goal posts

PMSL!

>> There used to be this brilliant Georgian restaurant in Stoke Newington

Sorry, for a moment there I had visions of a restaurant filled with characters from Jane Austen.

>> Dinner with Faust & phone-calls from Holger Czukay

My mate Guy - www.guyd2.com - also had dinner with Faust. Or was it Tangerine Dream? Yes, I think the latter... and Klaus Schulze nicked Guy's lobster, something like that.

Guy has a rather interesting krautrock history, although he's usually very guarded about it. He's the same guy who took lessons with John Cage and Morton Subotnick. He also played all the synth and drum parts on Sexual Healing, taught Marvin Gaye synth programming, then got no recognition for it because of an argument with Marvin's manager.

>> I'm very suspicious about boiled eggs in dishes

Another Juniper special - pea soup, served in a plastic cup with a plastic spoon, with a boiled quail's egg in the bottom that is so close to uncooked it's impossible to understand how they peel the shell of. There is a fraction of a millimetre of "skin" on the egg, and the rest explodes in your mouth. Gill's trying to reproduce this dish for the party tomorrow, she's been experimenting with quail's eggs to see how little they can be cooked and still peeled by a mere mortal.

>> Not even if they did something really witty with it at Juniper? I mean something *really* clever.

Ah... I hadn't reached that bit yet. Well... they do, OK?

>>truly kosmische music

How about Delay 1968 by Can? Not as truly kosmiche as the others, but it rocks, especially Little Star of Bethlehem.

>> I am told by a number of people that he's a lovely bloke. But... Grrr! Cope!

Friend of mine, visiting from Canada, bumped into him in Avebury Post Office last month. Said he was, errr, a lovely bloke.

I've never seen him live, but those of my friends who have swear by him.

Happy birthday Alex. My burpday on Monday.

I used to play with a band whose drummer looked like Phil Collins. It was very disconcerting, turning around and seeing *him* there.

>> "He's just a pretentious BASTARD."

I remember a very drunken friend of mine yelling the same thing at Robert Calvert (my friend thought it was very bad form to play a gig to a bunch of hippies, dressed in a *suit*)

Hurry up please, it's time.

(Martin: *GROAN*) date=30.01.2004 19:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*Groan* - well, call me Titus.

Now I do have to run. Back here next week. date=30.01.2004 19:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>How about Delay 1968 by Can? Not as truly kosmiche as the others, but it rocks, especially Little Star of Bethlehem.

It's all the other stuff that you want to hear of Malcolm Mooney which isn't on Monster Movie or Unlimited Edition. The track I would have chosen from that one is "Thief" - because it's a bit like "Mary So Contrary" - God, I've ripped off that riff so many times! Oh, hold on - No, "Butterfly" - that's the best track. It's really not fair getting me onto early Can: too much to like. date=30.01.2004 20:33 ip=213.122.188.98 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did Mooney do anything post-Can?

Headline in today's "Telegraph" : 'Britons Turn to Wicker Coffins.' First Gregor Samsa, now this. A chap could get worried, you know. date=02.02.2004 09:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Did Mooney do anything post-Can?

A few paintings. He was doing something in the art scene - can't recall exactly for the moment. I'll check in The Book when I get home. date=02.02.2004 10:29 ip=158.94.134.92 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy Birthday Dan, if you're there. date=02.02.2004 11:35 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Many happy returns!

(Do Buddhist birthday cards say this ..? ) date=02.02.2004 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Happy birthday! Hope yr party over the weekend was good. date=02.02.2004 11:53 ip=158.94.134.92 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If the party was good he'll be too ill to be here. Happy birthday Dan. date=02.02.2004 12:26 ip=213.78.170.250 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy Birthday Dan!

Many birthdays happening at the moment. date=02.02.2004 12:47 ip=62.188.108.82 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Like, *wow*, so many Aquarians ..." date=02.02.2004 13:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, far out. And far too ill.

Party was great, thanks (and thanks for *so many* birthday greets). Family & parents from school & lots of kids & stuff at first, then around midnight there was a sea change and everything started getting deranged. It was about that time that I started mixing my pepper vodka, absinthe & eau de vie. By 4am we were pissing off all the students in the vicinity alternating DJ Hype & Ganja Kru and The Monkees full whack. That'll teach them for knocking our dustbins over on the way back from the pub every other weekend of the year.

This is the dawning... date=02.02.2004 14:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That'll teach them for knocking our dustbins over on the way back from the pub every other weekend of the year.

We used to borrow our neighbours bins to use as industrial percussion. Actually we'd use pretty much anything we found out in the yard. date=02.02.2004 15:31 ip=158.94.134.92 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh...anyone remember the Bow Gamelan? date=02.02.2004 15:45 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I never saw them but used to have a tape of one of their performances with washing machines.

One of them (Paul... Burford??) did a thing at the opening of Three Mills Park in Bow, which we went along to. Awesome. Three percussionist at the top of scaffolding towers, banging on anything and everything, while a really unconventional fireworks display went off around them (including the highlight for me, a bunch of people swinging off the flaming ropes of an incendiary maypole). date=02.02.2004 16:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sneak peek of the UK Things That Never Happen cover on Empty Space. And it's actually quite nice! I've also added The East to the Archive - but I expect you've all read that one several times... date=02.02.2004 16:34 ip=158.94.134.92 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oo, nice cover.

Stanley Spencer? date=02.02.2004 16:45 ip=62.188.108.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oooo betty! date=02.02.2004 16:48 ip=81.136.223.87 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, that's Frank Spencer, Alex. date=02.02.2004 16:54 ip=158.94.134.92 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And yes, Al - it is Stanley Spencer. Amazing how good he was in Phantom of the Opera... date=02.02.2004 16:55 ip=158.94.134.92 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A man of many talents...! date=02.02.2004 16:59 ip=62.188.105.24 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's another fine mess you've gotten me into. date=02.02.2004 17:04 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doh! date=02.02.2004 17:35 ip=62.188.110.82 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The Lords of Illusionary Success

This card implies a transaction which leaves you unsatisfied. Be prepared for unexpected events. If it comes next to No. 14 you will lose a favourite overcoat." -- In Viriconium

Compare with:

"Never try to save your books. Never wear your best overcoat. Have a light rucksack ready-packed. Take it with you to the office. Take it to the homes of your lovers. Always wear tough outdoor clothes and boots. Never try to save your family" -- "The East"

What happened to the overcoat? date=02.02.2004 19:15 ip=213.122.206.178 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What happened to the overcoat?

Gogol swiped it. date=02.02.2004 21:06 ip=193.109.51.174 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "Never try to save your books. Never wear your best overcoat. Have a light rucksack ready-packed. Take it with you to the office. Take it to the homes of your lovers. Always wear tough outdoor clothes and boots. Never try to save your family" -- "The East"

A couple of years ago, I introduced a friend to MJH, pointed her at the website which was up at the time, which I think had just a quote from The East. That particular quote resonated with her so much (she was, at only 21, a world-weary self-exiled refugee, having travelled from Finland via Australia to London, where she was missing everywhere and belonging nowhere) that she was an instant and fanatical convert: http://tinyurl.com/3ylkn date=02.02.2004 22:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS. Ii was going to say that that word with two "i"s iin iit was meant to have two "i"s in it, but just notiiced that Ii changed iit for another word. Words always have two iis when Niina with two eyes is around. It's wiicked. date=02.02.2004 22:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Which reminds me (and this is meant to be spoken, not read):
What do you call a pig with three eyes?

Piiig! date=03.02.2004 08:51 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That overcoat: Lucas's familiar ran off with it, I think.

Gogol: coincidentally, I've just been reading "The Nose" and Shirley Jackson's "The Tooth." It must mean something.

And a fish with no eye is ... date=03.02.2004 09:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm looking for the origin--and the exact words--of the "Even if the gods are not summoned they will come" quote of Jung's. St Augustine was suggested.

Dan, I always liike Niina's siites. They're so clean & uncluttered. date=03.02.2004 10:26 ip=213.78.81.234 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Link below cites the Delphic oracle - so any number of classical sources. I'll do a bit of research.

Without knowing, it sounds like Nietzsche.

http://www.kinsale-road.com/bornotbigodi.html date=03.02.2004 10:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: It seems to be from Ovid -

http://www.thezodiac.com/called.htm

- I'd guess "Metamorphoses," but I don't know. Googling the Latin gives Ovid and then Augustine as sources, but everyone fights shy of chapter and verse. date=03.02.2004 10:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps Erasmus?

"Jung married his wife Emma in 1903 and in 1906 moved into the house he had built at 228 Seestrasse in Küsnacht. Above the entrance to the house one finds the words vocatus atque non vocatus deus aderit (invoked or not invoked, god will be present), a Delphic oracle and a quote from a book by Erasmus that he had bought in the early days of his psychiatric residency in 1900 when he could ill afford it. He cherished it to the end. As Jung saw it, the quote contains the entire reality of the psyche. (William McGuire and R.F.C. Hull, C.G. Jung Speaking, p. 164). " -- www.jung.org date=03.02.2004 10:51 ip=158.94.142.128 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, I guess that would have been *via* Erasmus. date=03.02.2004 10:53 ip=158.94.142.128 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, Erasmus:

"Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit."
"Summoned or not summoned, God is present."

ancient Spartan Greek oracle/proverb, according to Erasmus (Adages, 2.3.32)

From here:

http://www.bethelks.edu/jthiesen/quotes_religion.ht ml

Viva el Internet! date=03.02.2004 10:53 ip=62.188.112.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH's version is a bit more Lovecraftian though. date=03.02.2004 11:07 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More threatening...

You could translate the Latin 'deus' either as 'god' or 'the god' - the latter better I think, less directly Christian and a little more ominous. date=03.02.2004 11:14 ip=62.188.105.159 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, my Latin's slipped; but, if I'm remembering properly, adesse - root of aderit - means to arrive / approach; and it's (I think) in the future (might be subjunctive, but I don't think so) - so a literal translation could be:

'Summoned or not summoned, the god will come near'

A little more brooding than 'god is present'! date=03.02.2004 11:20 ip=62.188.105.159 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I picked that version up from a friend. I don't know where she got it from but the way she uses it is always very threatening, a bit like a Jungian version of "If you keep doing that you'll go blind". Thanx everyone. If anyone can source it pre-Erasmus I'd love to know. date=03.02.2004 11:21 ip=213.78.170.207 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or even just:

'Summoned or not summoned, the god will arrive'

There's no avoiding them! date=03.02.2004 11:21 ip=62.188.105.159 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*Very* Lovecraftian - "Doe not call up Any that you can not put downe." I don't know Ovid, but I do know "Charles Dexter Ward."

So much for my education ... date=03.02.2004 11:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Summoned or not summoned, the god will arrive'

Hmm, makes me think of "and then three turn up at once!" I guess that's the doctrine of the trinity.

There's a book in the library here about probability and the reason why three buses turn up at once. Apparently they don't. Probability suggests that they bunch in twos. Very Zoroastrian! date=03.02.2004 11:29 ip=158.94.142.128 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> the reason why three buses turn up at once. Apparently they don't. Probability suggests that they bunch in twos.

And mathematical psychology explains why we think they do - buses arriving alone aren't very memorable, buses in threes are. Same reason why we think there are muggers and rapists lurking on every street corner - because they appear in the newspaper every day. date=03.02.2004 11:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> there are muggers and rapists lurking on every street corner

In threes. date=03.02.2004 11:48 ip=62.188.105.177 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, btb, on the obscure etiquette of muggings; apparently, when a man was escorting a woman, it used to be considered polite for the man to walk on the road side; so, if a carriage went past and splashed in a puddle, the man would get splashed and would protect the woman.

Nowadays, etiquette apparently instructs the man to walk on the inside - so, when a mugger or similar leaps out of a dark corner / alleyway / etc, it's the man who is most immediately threatened. date=03.02.2004 11:50 ip=62.188.105.177 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>muggers and rapists lurking on every street corner

Not to mention predatory paedophiles, which, as a parent, are the bane of my life. Not because they are there, but because everyone thinks they are there. Which parent is going to let their 11-year old go out for the day, several miles away, without a mobile phone? Mine used to let me do that, but try it now and someone will call the social services out. We're over-cosseting our kids through irrational fear. Shame. date=03.02.2004 11:51 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm with you on that (tho' not a parent). We're simultaneously massively over-sentimentalising childhood and completely wiping it out. date=03.02.2004 11:58 ip=62.188.110.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's that culture of safety thing again. Rational, secular society continues to see demons in the shadows and behind the net curtains and closed faces of the neighbours. Those *terrible* people who live down the road have taken on all the baby-eating and demon worshipping suspicions that we used to like to project onto Jews and heretics. date=03.02.2004 12:21 ip=158.94.142.128 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's pretty obvious that the need to demonise is ingrained in humans. I suppose that it had a function once: be wary, and maybe you won't get eaten. But why do we still need it so badly? date=03.02.2004 12:54 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH (and everyone else who's chased this): Thanks to my classicist friend Kate, we've tracked down what seems to be the origin of the Jung quote.

Older than Erasmus, it comes from Thucydides, "History of the Peloponnesian War." In the Latin text, the reference is given as I: 118, 3. An English version appears on the link below (para 1, lines 11-13), Delphic oracle and all.

http://www.litrix.com/pelop/pelop005.htm date=03.02.2004 12:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Older than Erasmus, it comes from Thucydides, "History of the Peloponnesian War."

Ah, I shd have passed the enquiry on to Bridget. I'm sure I've seen that amongst her books. date=03.02.2004 13:00 ip=158.94.142.128 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But why do we still need it so badly?

Don't we still need it? date=03.02.2004 13:03 ip=158.94.142.128 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"History of the Peloponnesian War."

Wish I'd stayed awake in my Greek lessons. date=03.02.2004 13:03 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Wish I'd stayed awake ...

Me, too. And "my education" again - I haven't read even the Penguin edition, but I remember it well from "Kleinzeit" by Russell Hoban.

Sad comment on the state of our culture, etc. date=03.02.2004 13:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Probably like that shopping thing; a part of your brain just shuts down, and you switch to deep instinct. date=03.02.2004 14:16 ip=62.188.110.230 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, light relief from Jung:

http://www.krazy.com/kbookmks.htm date=03.02.2004 14:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, brilliant. Anyone connect the same quote to St Augustine ? date=03.02.2004 14:53 ip=213.78.88.152 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Here, not yet. Kate apart, most classicists I know follow Gibbon, and view St. Augustine and all his works as a cultural disaster for the west - so they leave studying him to others.

I think he was the one of the first philosphers to think seriously about concepts of what time is in relation to eternity - and perhaps the first to come up with the image of a deity sitting in a "circle" of time from which all points in history are visible at once. So his god is always present - and always watching - whether we like it or not. date=03.02.2004 15:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> a cultural disaster for the west

How come? Did he fatally narrow *our* frame of reference? date=03.02.2004 15:26 ip=62.188.105.195 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know him only from the classic Bob Dylan text-- "I dreamed I saw Saint Augustine/Alive as you or I". Sounds as if he hijacked the idea for his own purposes. Wouldn't be entirely new. date=03.02.2004 15:31 ip=213.78.94.53 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sting wrote a song about him, too. But let's not dwell on that. Flanders and Swann did, too. That one was better. date=03.02.2004 15:38 ip=81.136.223.87 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Studied him but all I can remember is that he was a Manichee, he felt guilty about vandalising an orchard and he wanted celibacy... but not yet. Oh, and I liked the Hippo bit! date=03.02.2004 15:45 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Narrow "us" - I think a lot of classicists are old romantics, and view pagan days as better days, but I don't know the whys and wherefores. A huge argument thrashed out on no end of websites, I'm sure.

MJH: Mr. Bob did appropriate him - Augustine didn't die a martyr "with fiery breath," and I've never heard anyone else pronounce the name as he does. He must have liked the shape or the sound of the word, and run with it. He does this with words like "balcony" and "pompadour," too: trapdoors under the vowels and weird italics. More songs should do it.

Io: Flanders & Swann? I've been listening to "The Gnu," but I don't know this! Which one is it? date=03.02.2004 15:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Flanders & Swann?

It's a joke about Hippo, of which Augustine was. date=03.02.2004 15:51 ip=81.136.223.87 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Flanders & Swann? I've been listening to "The Gnu," >but I don't know this! Which one is it?

Weren't me what said that! It was Alex! Perhaps it was "Augustine the Hippopotamus" he was thinking of? date=03.02.2004 15:53 ip=158.94.190.36 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jung took the term "archetype" from St. Augustine although I don't have Psychology and The Collective Unconscious where the Jungian definition is explained in detail. date=03.02.2004 15:54 ip=193.109.51.174 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aaargh! Crosspost concerning the same joke! How embarrassing! date=03.02.2004 15:54 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It just struck me:
Archetype. Archie the cockroach. Typing. Are they by any chance related? date=03.02.2004 15:56 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, Alex: Boom. And indeed, boom! date=03.02.2004 16:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=About the cover for Things That Never Happen: not so keen on the BIG WORDS covering Stanley's painting. I prefer the Penguin model for these things where the picture has a space of its own. And speaking of Penguin, my gloomy snapshot of Canary Wharf was deemed inferior compared to a picture of some chairs for their book jacket competition. Swines. date=03.02.2004 16:49 ip=193.109.51.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: are the winners online anywhere? I didn't enter, but I'd like to see what I would have beaten. date=03.02.2004 16:53 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lazy me for asking. I've just had a look on the Guardian site. They aren't brilliant, are they? I'd have won definitely. date=03.02.2004 17:02 ip=81.136.223.87 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I didn't enter, but I'd like to see what I would have beaten.

Bland stuff, what? With the exception of the Bulgakov one which works okay, and looks more fitting than the old cover. The rest are illustration as lifestyle muzak. I didn't think mine would win as I was being lazy with it, a chance snapshot on a windy Sunday in Docklands but all the same--chairs? Does that say 1984 to you? I wonder how many shots of surveillance cameras they got sent.

For anyone who cares you can see my version here:
http://www.atelier.abelgratis.co.uk/images/1984.jpg
I now think including the clock was a mistake (I had the opening lines in mind at the time). Should have just done the building itself. date=03.02.2004 17:38 ip=193.109.51.174 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: >>the building itself ...

No way - it looks great as it is! Colourless, lowering architecture and a clock with no numbers that could well be watching (no pun intended ) - exactly what the jacket calls for. date=04.02.2004 09:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: I like it too. It seems that they were maybe looking for something decorative, less conceptual. I mean look at The Sheltering Sky - the winning covers were not *about* the book, they could have been lifted straight from a photo library search for 'Morocco'.
I wanted to do the Bulgakov: I had it in mind to make representation of the hammer and sickle from a set of children's light-up devil horns. Didn't get around to it though. date=04.02.2004 09:51 ip=81.136.223.87 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I quite like the Orwell they settled on. Clean looking modernist image, not what you would expect so you have to rethink the book. Too many images on earlier covers have been of the predictable sort. The Bulgakov is exceptional. He seems to be well served by publishers in this country. Considering that he got published so little in his own life time, I can't help imagining that he would be delighted with the display of his books. date=04.02.2004 10:53 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Thanks for the comments. I should have tried making the image monochrome myself but I thought they might not go with that--shows how much I know! That Sheltering Sky one is useless, reduces the book to a piece of Arab exotica.

On a different tack: I don't suppose any of you metropolitan types saw Jeremy Dyson's short Aickman film The Ciccerones at the ICA last night? It was showing with a screening of Jack Clayton's brilliant The Innocents. Dyson is writer for The League of Gentlemen, wrote an Aickman introduction for Tartarus and wrote a piece about horror films in last Friday's Guardian. A friend tells me he's written a whole book on the subject which I'll now have to find. date=04.02.2004 11:42 ip=193.109.50.201 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wish I'd seen that; The Innocents is magnificent, would love to see it in the cinema. Apparently the League of Gentlemen originally bonded (in part) over a shared love of restrained-but-terrifying English horror movies. Papa Lazarou in their Christmas special is one of the most terrifying things I've seen on telly! date=04.02.2004 12:09 ip=62.188.100.101 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Been working our way through a DVD set of Sapphire & Steel at iotacism Towers. They seem to draw upon with English Restrained Horror tradition, with a touch of Dr Who-ish SF. In last night's episode Joanna Lumley developed an awful Devonshire accent from The Other Side during a seance. It was *so* scary!

John: I thought the clock worked. Especially with that amber clockface. Gave it just the right forties ambience. I also liked the Canary Wharf photo but wondered if Senate House would have been more appropriate? date=04.02.2004 12:44 ip=158.94.151.19 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I still can't bring myself to watch the Sapphire and Steel story about the nursery rhymes and the ghosts. It scared me to death when I was a kid. date=04.02.2004 12:55 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali - sounds fantastic! Would love to see it when you're done with it - video library swap for The Kingdom, perchance? (Lars von Trier's insane hospital set soap opera comedy horror conspiracy thriller - everyone should see it!) date=04.02.2004 12:59 ip=62.188.108.159 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: God, yes! We watched that assignment all in one session. By the end we really didn't want to go out into the corridor in case we saw The Lights and started to hear bits of nursery rhymes looping.

"Up the stairs and down the stairs, up the stairs and down the stairs..." date=04.02.2004 13:03 ip=158.94.151.19 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Okay, we'll do that. It might be a while - there's still quite a few episodes to go. I'll have to get the second set too. As far as I can remember the last assignment is bloody brilliant! date=04.02.2004 13:07 ip=158.94.151.19 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The end of S&S was very grim and strange indeed. date=04.02.2004 13:09 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't tell me! Don't tell me! I haven't watched it yet...! date=04.02.2004 13:36 ip=62.188.105.229 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the freaky nursery rhyme front, come to think of it, could also do you 'The Quatermass Conclusion'...

Huffity puffity puff, puff puff
Huffity puffity puff! date=04.02.2004 14:16 ip=62.188.100.1 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Ooh yes! Haven't seen that neither. That must be around the same era as S&S so it'd be interesting to compare them.

Alex: Isn't it just! date=04.02.2004 14:30 ip=158.94.151.19 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Quatermass was a lot more realistic, if that's the word. Lots of dodgy hippies being turned into powder. The Fall used the hippies' chant on one of their songs.
The ones I'd like to see, though, would be chidren's series The Changes and the TV adaptation of Marianne Dreams. date=04.02.2004 14:33 ip=81.136.223.87 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Cool, will sort.

>> The Quatermass was a lot more realistic, if that's the word. Lots of dodgy hippies being turned into powder.

Two sentences that rarely go together! date=04.02.2004 14:49 ip=62.188.110.214 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Cool, let's sort.

>> The Quatermass was a lot more realistic, if that's the word. Lots of dodgy hippies being turned into powder.

Two sentences that rarely go together! date=04.02.2004 14:50 ip=62.188.110.214 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough my Tonnes of Really Good Stuff mp3 CD-R on my CD walkman was just playing Ad Mortem Festinamus from Il Llibre Vermell performed by Hesperion XX. It's this huge proto-Carmina Burana Spanish Catholic processional number. Real Dance of Death stuff - but definitely dodgy cultist muzak!

It's now playing Metal Fingers in My Body by Add N to X! date=04.02.2004 15:02 ip=158.94.151.19 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oddly enough my Tonnes of Really Good Stuff mp3 CD-R on my CD walkman was just playing Ad Mortem Festinamus from Il Llibre Vermell performed by Hesperion XX. It's this huge proto-Carmina Burana Spanish Catholic processional number. Real Dance of Death stuff - but definitely dodgy cultist muzak!

The Llibre Vermell was also where I first came across the term "Stella Maris".

It's now playing Metal Fingers in My Body by Add N to X!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=04.02.2004 15:02 ip=158.94.151.19 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Our local girls' school was called Star Of The Sea. date=04.02.2004 15:12 ip=81.136.223.87 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>John: I thought the clock worked. Especially with that amber clockface. Gave it just the right forties ambience. I also liked the Canary Wharf photo but wondered if Senate House would have been more appropriate?

Thanks, I'm sure there's a lot of places would look better, this was a chance shot, really. I took some of the big new glass box they've built behind it but it lacked the gloomy ambience (which I assisted in Photoshop--probably counts as cheating.)

I think I'd reached a peak of teenage scepticism by the time S&S appeared which made it seem rather lame. It was certainly odd, however, wouldn't get through the door at all now. My favourite Nigel Kneale stuff was the Beasts series, one that never seemed to get repeated.

The Innocents on a big screen is wonderful, Al, really benefits the photography. Unfortunately the print I saw had a really noisy soundtrack that spoiled the atmosphere. That Jeremy Dyson piece about The Innocents and The Haunting is here: http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,1134 483,00.html date=04.02.2004 17:29 ip=193.109.50.201 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Thanks, I'm sure there's a lot of places would look better

Actually I was thinking of Senate House because it was supposed to have been Orwell's inspiration for the Ministry of Truth. My girlfriend used to work there. She helped to catalogue some of the Harry Price Collection which is hidden away in one of the upper rooms of the building.

>>which I assisted in Photoshop--probably counts as cheating.

Cheating? Whassat?

BTW: CDs are in the post. date=04.02.2004 18:17 ip=158.94.151.180 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Cheating? Whassat?

You'd have to ask a proper photographer. Adobe's programs are where I work.

>>BTW: CDs are in the post.

Great stuff. I shall reciprocate. date=04.02.2004 19:48 ip=193.109.50.201 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gulp. I've just been made redundant. Never had to look for a job in my whole career. Amazing mixed feelings of fear and elation. Gizza job, go on. date=05.02.2004 08:55 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Woo, scary exhilarating stuff indeed Alex. I hope it proves to be a positive thing. I usually find that a good kick up the butt every few years forces me to do the kind of things I know I ought to but never get around to.

Also scary, and not in the least positive, one day all news will look like this:
http://tinyurl.com/2hw7q date=05.02.2004 09:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I'm so sorry - big ups from ths end, as I believe you young folk say.

What are you looking for? We can keep our eyes peeled for you! date=05.02.2004 10:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I'd like to be paid extremely well for writing, dabbling with painting, cooking, gardening and making music, please. Nothing too strenuous. date=05.02.2004 10:31 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - good luck! Very strange feeling.

*buys virtual pint or several*

Was made redundant last July, have been freelancing ever since. Hope you got a good package from them. In the main v. positive thing once the initial *HOLY SHIT!!!* has been overcome.

What do you do btb? date=05.02.2004 10:54 ip=62.188.108.171 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I am creative all-rounder in the advertising/design industry (in other words, I can handle design/art direction and copywriting - not a common combination). date=05.02.2004 11:07 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Of course, all this pales into insignificance next to City's magnificant win last night. date=05.02.2004 11:12 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Gulp. I've just been made redundant.

'Kinell, Alex! The fuckers will live to regret it. If you find a good arsing about with music, paint and food job let me know if they have any vacancies. Good luck! date=05.02.2004 11:20 ip=213.122.9.104 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - broadly what I do, tho' without the design. I'll keep an ear to the ground. You're Manchester based? Bastards... date=05.02.2004 11:28 ip=62.188.136.8 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a career option - but if you've ever fancied being Defence Secretary I think the post might be available pretty soon ... date=05.02.2004 14:18 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What does that involve, then? date=05.02.2004 14:33 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - My deepest apologies: the requirements seem to be teeth (so you could lie through them), a view of other people's common sense as scarcely matching that of the average garden gnome, and a conscience on a par with Harold Shipman's.

I shouldn't have suggested it at all. I don't doubt the teeth, but you're too nice to qualify. In the second, I think there's already too big a scramble to make the short list. You're marked for much greater things ... date=05.02.2004 15:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Today's revelations quite astonishing! Tony's 'I didn't know, guv, honest' extraordinary. Am wondering when he's going to be claiming that the dog ate previous drafts etc. date=05.02.2004 15:40 ip=62.188.120.210 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked the clarification that battlefield weapons could be WMDs if you stuffed them full of *really nasty things* and killed a lot of people with them. I guess that means that my penknife could be a WMD if I ran amok in a crowd with it. date=05.02.2004 15:49 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: astonishing!

You bet. I was particularly taken with Hoon saying that he knew "WMD" meant "battlefield weapons" before the war vote, but didn't say so because he "didn't think it was important." Ah, me. Still, 20,000 dead Iraquis can't be that important, either. Do these people sleep at night? date=05.02.2004 15:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, look, give the guy a break. Maybe he dozed off for a minute when the important information was doing the rounds. You know? Look... Hey... Where's everybody gone? date=05.02.2004 15:58 ip=193.109.50.201 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But can he get away with it? Blair I mean. Astonished is the word. Or amazed. date=05.02.2004 16:04 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think he'll just steam on in a state of blissful, deluded certainty. Quite astonishing. Also, he's in a situation where, the worse the criticism becomes, the more he's got invested in proving it wrong, so the more certain he'll become he's right (if you see what I mean...). So, I think we can expect that as the storm worsens, he'll become more and more confident that he's absolutely, completely and totally in the right. date=05.02.2004 16:25 ip=62.188.156.25 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, unless Dubya resigns, in which case he'll do the same thing about 30 seconds later while loudly telling all and sundry that he knew resignation was the right thing to do all along and what do they mean he might have said he felt differently? date=05.02.2004 16:27 ip=62.188.156.25 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Are we actually in the real world or has someone switched universes or something? He is going to say, I resign. I resign. SOON. Soon. Enough of poodle power! I have been looking at Steve Bell's Guardian cartoons on the Guardian website and at today's, which is brilliant. date=05.02.2004 16:48 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quick, check the I Ching! date=05.02.2004 16:56 ip=62.188.108.167 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting, no chance of Bush resigning; but at least the ghost of one for Blair.

The stale air of British politics is being stirred at last. Or am I just thinking wishfully again? date=05.02.2004 17:01 ip=212.2.7.197 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Quick, check the I Ching!

Hexagram 23: "It does not further one to go anywhere." Inferior people increase. date=05.02.2004 17:04 ip=193.109.50.201 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Something that interests me is the constant slippage in Blair's position. I think his basic problem is that he has accepted the proposition that the end justifies the means; i.e. ridding the world of Saddam is justified by whatever means are to hand; even means that are not altogether ... let's say straightforward. Now is that the world of a true politician or of a fantasist? date=05.02.2004 17:15 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> a true politician or of a fantasist?

And the difference is?

Sorry, cheap shot... tho' difficult to see a way round the problem of wanting to retain faith in public life / public people while dealing with this dubious and manipulative bunch. date=05.02.2004 17:27 ip=62.188.100.131 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Inferior people increase.

As ever... The honest people were outmaneuvered and backstabbed long ago... date=05.02.2004 17:28 ip=62.188.100.131 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Now is that the world of a true politician or of a fantasist?

You'll have to tell us what you think a true politician is. Blair's demeanour conveys the fervour of the man that's always right, no matter what, the rest of us obviously don't get it. Doesn't matter if he's deluded, he's in power and we're not. Look at it from his point of view, what are you going to do, vote for Michael Howard? I'm saving my vote for Hassan I Sabbah. date=05.02.2004 17:32 ip=193.109.50.201 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>> the fervour of a man that's always right.

Iraq convinced me that Blair is a fantasist.

But now Blair seems to have got to the point where his lying makes him look stupid.

The curious thing is I feel grateful to Howard for his intelligence in this.

Vote Howard! date=06.02.2004 08:26 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The only Howard who's getting my vote is The Duck. date=06.02.2004 09:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I've been listening to Bob Drake, thanks to the wonders of SoulSeek. He sounds a little like William D Drake, with small touches that sound an even littler like Nick Drake (who I believe was WD's cousin or somesuch). Do you know whether they're related?

I see from his website that he played on the latest Towering Inferno project. date=06.02.2004 09:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I feel like an argument today.

Who do we vote for in the next election? I've always voted labour, but now I will seriously consider voting tory if that is what it takes to get rid of Blair. Even Thatcher did not anger and disturb me as much as Blair has. This man is strange. An old hippy who rediscovered himself as a member of some kind of supra-rational elite. date=06.02.2004 09:29 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I don't think they are related. Bob D. is American, a verteran of avant rock/RIO schools. For example, he's worked with the Art Bears, Henry Cow, Thinking Plague, Peter Blagvad - you get the picture. date=06.02.2004 09:40 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bob Drake again: he also does semi-porn anthropomorphic paintings. Strange genre: loads of people are into that kind of stuff. date=06.02.2004 09:42 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I used to work for a Nick Drake - another Nick Drake, not the Nick Drake - who is in fact a poet. He wrote a very good poem about not being Nick Drake. Apparently a lot of people (on seeing his credit cards etc in stores) give him the 'I didn't know you were still around, love your music' thing. Come to think of it, I was at school with someone called John Drake also. There's a lot of them about!

As for voting - hmm, Lib Dem for me. Unconvinced that Socialist Workers etc can ever really achieve anything, as they're never going to get anywhere near any sort of power... date=06.02.2004 09:47 ip=62.188.122.29 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had an uncle called Dennis Drake. No relation either.

>>Who do we vote for in the next election?

I want a 'none of the above' box on my voting slip. I must use my vote, but noone appeals. date=06.02.2004 09:49 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Who do we vote for in the next election?

If the Natural Law party put up a candidate I'll vote for them. I reckon yogic flying could help to win the war against terrorism as well as reducing crime. date=06.02.2004 09:59 ip=158.94.163.117 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Voting - well, the Tories aren't too likely to rout Labour in Sheffield, so that's one dilemma I won't be faced with. The Lib-Dems stand a chance locally, so I may go for them, although at the local elections we actually had a green candidate for the first time (when I lived in Bristol you couldn't turn over a ballot sheet without seeing half-a-dozen of them) so I may go green: they might not stand much chance of getting in but, hell, somebody's got to be at the vanguard of political change.

As for the Lib-Dems themselves, I'm reasonably happy to give them my "let's get Blair out" vote, but I don't trust them one inch. Sure they come up with some wonderful proposals when they're at a safe distance from government, but I got an early idea of their brand of extreme pragmatism when I was living at my parents' in Teddington at the time of, I think, the 1987 election. The Lib-Dems (or whatever they were called then) nationally were making a big moral stand against tactical voting (because, hey, they weren't going to get much out of a straight fight between Labour and the Tories). But in Twickenham, one of the few places where the Liberals were a close second and Labour nowhere, they put all of their energy into convincing Labour supporters that "a vote for Labour is a wasted vote". date=06.02.2004 09:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Check the I Ching!

I just asked it about Blair -

http://www.facade.com/iching/

and the hexagram was "Obstruction" changing to "Influence." Interesting times, gentlemen. date=06.02.2004 10:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just disembowelled a goat... damn messy business. The entrails said: "That Blair - he's a right one, innit?"

Also this wisdom from Oblique Strategies (http://www.dimensional.com/~jthomas/oblique/)

"Over tly resist change" date=06.02.2004 10:38 ip=81.136.215.202 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I reckon yogic flying could help to win the war against terrorism as well as reducing crime.

I'm convinced. Yogic Flying Party it is.

Does anyone want to stand as a candidate? date=06.02.2004 11:01 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Stand as a candidate?

No - but I'll hover about for a while, if I'm not in the way. date=06.02.2004 11:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, interesting scenario for a TV political drama: Britain after a Natural Law Party landslide victory - hints and suspicions of a Hindu conspiracy radiating from Delhi, a karmic back-swing and the rise of the "anti-Raj".

Blue-faced Krishna manifests himself striding up the Thames to the accompaniment of a gratuitous dance routine... date=06.02.2004 11:13 ip=158.94.163.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's all the shagging in the bushes I can't stand. date=06.02.2004 11:16 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come to think of it saw one of their party political broadcasts a while back; magnificently bonkers. Weren't they bankrolled by George Harrison? date=06.02.2004 11:19 ip=62.188.108.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Indeed. He and Ringo played an Albert Hall event for them. date=06.02.2004 11:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The yogic flying involves incredible feats of buttock-clenching. The biggest arses in politics. date=06.02.2004 11:34 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's all the shagging in the bushes I can't stand.

Yes, even with a mild February it's a bit nippy for that sort of thing. Enough to make *this* Krishna go blue.

How's the gardening going? date=06.02.2004 11:52 ip=158.94.163.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I'm desk clearing today. Making everyone feel bad (ha!) by being indomitably cheery. Got the buggers to give me an iBook too (double ha!).

Anyway, happy dead birthday William Burroughs. Here's a nice page of drawling soundfiles:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/burroughs.html date=06.02.2004 12:00 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: double ha indeed - nice one!

WSB: gone - but everything still leads back to him. Whenever I hear Blair praising Bush, I'm reminded of Burroughs's routine:

"Doc, when I die I wanna be buried right in the same *coffin* with you. You're the most *decent,* the most *liberal,* the most *humane* man it's ever been my privilege to meet."

"I'm puttin' you down for additional medication, son ..."

And, later, the "do-wrong's" response to such nonsense: "He asked me what the American flag means to me, and I tell him - soak it in heroin, doc, and I'll *suck* it. Said I had the wrong *attitude.* I should see the chaplain and get straight with Jesus." date=06.02.2004 13:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="A paranoid is someone who is in possession of the facts" Burroughs knew his stuff.
"Smash the control machine." date=06.02.2004 13:27 ip=81.136.215.202 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: you's a Johnson, sir.

That heroin/flag routine--you have to hear him say it, rolling out the words in poisonous contempt. Inimitable. date=06.02.2004 13:29 ip=193.109.50.201 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whenever I hear George Bush, that stupid, vulgar, greedy, American death sucker, I'm reminded of Ah Pook the Destroyer:

Who really gave that order?
Answer - Control. The ugly American. The instrument of Control.
Question - If Control's control is absolute, why does Control need to control?
Answer - Control needs time.
Question - Is Control controlled by its need to control?
Answer - Yes
Question - Why does Control need humans, as you call them?
Wait, wait. Time, a landing field. Death needs time like a junkie needs junk.
And what does Death need time for?
The answer is so simple. Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook's sake.
Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook's sweet sake,
you stupid, vulgar, greedy, American death sucker.
Death needs time for what it kills to grow in for Ah Pook's sweet sake,
you stupid, vulgar, greedy, American death sucker. date=06.02.2004 13:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: That's very high praise - thank you.

Ah Pook indeed. To paraphrase Burroughs, both Blair and Bush are idiots who imagine they can use death as an errand boy.

Um, *closing time,* gentlemen ... date=06.02.2004 13:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: I bet you went to Final Academy at the Hac, didn't you? date=06.02.2004 13:46 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Wasn't that where Burroughs told Ian Curtis to fuck off ..? date=06.02.2004 13:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wouldn't be surprised. date=06.02.2004 13:57 ip=81.136.215.202 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>John C: I bet you went to Final Academy at the Hac, didn't you?

I was indeed, still got the poster and everything. He read the heroin/flag piece plus other bits from Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands. It was hard to concentrate with thoughts of "I am looking at William Burroughs" going through my head.

I doubt that Ian Curtis and Burroughs met unless that's properly documented somewhere. Curtis died in 1980 just before what would have been his first trip to the US. The Hacienda event was 1982. date=06.02.2004 14:07 ip=193.109.50.201 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: Maybe my mistake; maybe it was in Europe; maybe completely apocryphal.

Someone showed me this, too - at the other end of the American spectrum from WSB:

denaspoetry.homestead.com/

I found her elegy on 9/11 especially - um, something:

www.latebloomerpublishing.com/allison/denas_po etry.htm - 23k date=06.02.2004 14:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I think you secretly *like* bedroom goth poetry. date=06.02.2004 14:19 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm particularly taken with "I am the wall!"

"Today they brought me in on the trucks. It was rather bouncy at times." date=06.02.2004 14:22 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Then the cranes came and hooked there [sic] hoists to me. It hurt, but only at first."

I know how she felt. date=06.02.2004 14:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of bedroom goth poetry. Gentlemen, I present Sivablood - the *worst* music online:

http://www.xdz75.dial.pipex.com/sblood.htm date=06.02.2004 14:55 ip=158.94.163.117 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: you got me in one. It's all right officer: no need to distress my mother with the cuffs.

Actually, rather than staring at Robert Smith posters with an "if only" tear in my eye, I got a taste for this kind of stuff from the old anthology of bad poetry "The Stuffed Owl." I think this is long out of print, but if you can find a copy you'll see it's a, um, hoot ... date=06.02.2004 15:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"The Stuffed Owl." I think this is long out of print, but if you can find a copy you'll see it's a, um, hoot ...

Bridget got me a copy of that for Xmas. date=06.02.2004 15:09 ip=158.94.167.225 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: She did? I've got to look out for it!

Meanwhile, if anyone wants to see/hear WSB, this site carries several clips:

http://deepeningbuffet.com/burroughs/index.php date=06.02.2004 15:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Sivablood - thank you so much for showing me that. Astonishing. I'm particularly keen on "Hate Nation", but I'm going to have to download the whole lot. You *must* book them for a live appearance. date=06.02.2004 15:13 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: It's quite an old edition - lovely brown and red owls on the dustjacket. I'll check the details when I get home.

Alex: Isn't he awesome? Satanic Witch is *so* crap! Have you seen the photos - not entirely unlike Ian Curtis. Makes you wonder... date=06.02.2004 15:39 ip=158.94.167.225 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Well as long as he keeps his fantasies in his bedroom. I can't believe he's got a Korg Triton. That's a good two-grand's worth of daddy's indulgence there. date=06.02.2004 15:43 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: He's something of an artist too. I feel the pain that went into this one:
http://www.xdz75.dial.pipex.com/hatred.JPG date=06.02.2004 15:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just loaded all his tracks into the office iTunes as a parting gift to them all. I'm just trying to think who he sounds like... Clock DVA, maybe? No... got it! It's Skinny Puppy! date=06.02.2004 15:52 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I've just loaded all his tracks into the office iTunes as a parting gift to them all.

That'll learn 'em!

>>He's something of an artist too.

Yeah, I mean - I did silly psychotic scrawls when I was a nipper but they weren't quite so... what's the word? Ah yes, shit! He has quite a way with them crayons.

Did you see the picture of his mate? date=06.02.2004 16:06 ip=158.94.167.225 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Did you see the picture of his mate?

Yes. With friends like that, who needs... more friends? date=06.02.2004 16:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: It's the ironing board in the background that really makes the photo. date=06.02.2004 16:09 ip=158.94.167.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hold on: gives me an idea for a new Sivablood song.

THE DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS

The devil's in the de-tails,
Ironing bo-oard,
My mate from America has huge eyebrows,
No-o, No-oooo, No-o!
I'm so alone with my crayons and Korg Triton,
Malicious Intent,
is not the name of a black metal band,
it's the name of my pet ra-a-at!
No-o, No-oooo, No-o! date=06.02.2004 16:15 ip=158.94.167.225 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nothing wrong with ironing boards. If they're used correctly. http://www.extremeironing.com/

Actually, I'm just listening to Aphrodite Vagina ("don't be offended, this song is meant to be 'art' and not 'pornography'") and I think I'm falling in love with it. The tortured comedy timing of Billy Jenkins' Spazz music at its spazziest, the vocal timbre of a young Jah Wobble, and the distorted synth howl of some krautrock crap, it doesn't get much better than this.

It has been said, however, that I have strange tastes. Even by people with strange tastes. date=06.02.2004 16:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aaaaargh!
Even with the sampler
my scum sucking dad bought me
and the heel-spawned sequencer of pain
I can't play in time.
Waaaaaaah! EEEEEEEK!
Naked ladies. date=06.02.2004 16:18 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I like it too. The studio boys also like it - Devil Song is now on repeat play. Sigh. There's no pissing off some people. date=06.02.2004 16:19 ip=81.136.215.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I can't play in time.

It's great that he records all of this expensive technology with his mum's radio cassette machine in the kitchen. date=06.02.2004 16:28 ip=158.94.167.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Nothing wrong with ironing boards.

The Liverpool inter-kosmos-space-punk combo Kling Klang used to play their Casios on matching ironing boards. One gig ended with them throwing an ironing board into the audience. True rock action! date=06.02.2004 16:32 ip=158.94.167.225 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure I remember seeing an ironing board used in a rock'n'roll context too. In fact, that may have been Billy Jenkins as well (or Keith Rowe? Most embarassing moment of my life: when I turned up at a Keith Rowe workshop and asked whether anyone had a guitar tuner)

Best found-objects moment with Billy Jenkins was when I saw him at the LSE, about ten years ago, he laid a length of wired-up Scalectrix track along the neck of his guitar, put the car on the bit of track over the pickups, and revved it up while holding it in position, occasionally letting it stray a little up the neck. Finally he got bored and launched the car full-whack off the end of his guitar-neck runway, in the general direction of the drummer. date=06.02.2004 16:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I think I've seen Keith Rowe with an ironing board. At the same gig, I was rounded upon by the chin-strokers for laughing out loud at Barry Guy's antics with two double basses. But he looked *funny*! date=06.02.2004 16:41 ip=81.136.215.202 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=To laugh or not to laugh, always a dilemma at LMC gigs, from what I can remember. Always a few disapproving looks from the chin-strokers, but I remember it was very refreshing when somebody played who made it obvious that they *intended* to be funny - huge sighs of relief accompanying sounds of laughter from the audience. I remember the Bohman Brothers being very good in this respect (very good in pretty much every respect, actually).

My thoughts on the Bohmans [Bohmen?] here: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002268.html date=06.02.2004 16:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw the Bohman's at The Klinker once. I remember the wine glasses, strange spoken routines and general aura of being slightly disconnected from the world - as if they'd been locked away in a Holloway Road attic for decades gathering dust. date=06.02.2004 16:56 ip=158.94.167.225 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All of this Morecambe Bay stuff seems to sum up Blair's Britain perfectly. An economy basing itself on gangmaster capitalism abroad suddenly discovers itself to be be based on gangmaster capitalism at home too. Why are we so surprised ? Agricultural labour has always been exploited in this way. Even the feeblest of soft socialism knows how to control that: but we don't have even the feeblest, do we ? What we have is a nice life based on raw hypocrisy, and New Labour pretending to wring its hands again. It warms the cockles of your heart. I hate cockles anyway, so it won't be a hard industry to boycott. date=07.02.2004 13:03 ip=213.78.71.247 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone, by the way, translate this for me ? --

"Noli rejection ire, ad fold you ipsum in interiore homine Veritas habitat" date=07.02.2004 13:14 ip=213.78.71.247 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=These illegal immigrants, eh? Either they're putting our brave air sea rescue lads in danger by allowing themselves to be exploited by our entrepreneurs or they're killing our kiddies in hit and run incidents.

BTW: Some of that Latin looks wrong: "rejection" and "you" don't seem like Latin words. But I can't translate it - I'm sure Al can help you. date=07.02.2004 15:05 ip=158.94.169.54 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blimey, you're right. The rats have been at it. I cut-and-pasted it from the original URL without really looking at it. Now I'll have to Google for it again. Bugger. date=07.02.2004 17:15 ip=213.78.74.114 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I hate cockles anyway, so it won't be a hard industry to boycott.

You don't want to eat cockles or much else from that part of the Irish Sea, not with Sellafield irradiating everything. date=07.02.2004 20:25 ip=193.109.50.201 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More than true, John. date=07.02.2004 23:53 ip=213.78.72.190 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - that Latin; something v. odd happening with the cut and paste! date=08.02.2004 17:32 ip=62.188.100.193 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone, by the way, translate this for me ? --

"Noli rejection ire, ad fold you ipsum in interiore homine Veritas habitat"
_______
Salve , excuse me, Hi, Mike
"Noli" stands for nobody ( as in "Noli ilegitimi carborundum") "rejection" , "in" " fold" and "you" is english.
Ipsum is yourself , "interiore homine veritas habitat" should mean something like " inside the self lies the true home of man") .
Bearing in mind that its been twenty years since I took latin classes so it could be something else entirely. date=08.02.2004 21:50 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ups... wrong about Noli. It stands for "Do not"

nolo : nolle : nolui : to be unwilling, wish not to, refuse. date=08.02.2004 23:13 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Do not reject anger ..."?

I'm working on this one! date=09.02.2004 09:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Go not outside, into yourself return. In humans the truth lies."

"Noli foras ire, in teipsum redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas" date=09.02.2004 10:25 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Truth lies. True; too true. date=09.02.2004 10:32 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex & Arturo, great. Thanks. How did you get back to the orginal, Alex ? date=09.02.2004 10:37 ip=213.78.88.46 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And where's it from? date=09.02.2004 10:44 ip=62.188.112.108 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reminds me of something in Paradise Regained:

The while her Son tracing the Desert wild,
Sole but with holiest Meditations fed,
Into himself descended date=09.02.2004 10:53 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What do you think of this, Martin & io ? --

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,11440 16,00.html date=09.02.2004 11:00 ip=213.78.86.204 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did a search for the last bit only. It seems to be from Augustine again, the Confessions. date=09.02.2004 11:01 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did a search for the last bit only. It seems to be from Augustine again, the Confessions. date=09.02.2004 11:02 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I can't get the link to open - not for the first time, "The Guardian" has apologised ... date=09.02.2004 11:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*rant*
MJH: Too bloody right! I'm of the opinion that this library needs more user education - not just orientation courses and database training, but more importantly "Shut the fuck up" courses. I think part of the problem is that most of these students have never been into a library in their life and have no idea how to behave when they are in one. Perhaps we could put up stained glass and light up some incense to give out the aura of "holy calm" - but then again there's too much noisy happy-clappy worship in churches these days. Whatever happened to the Silence of God, eh?

But you bring this up at library meeting and management-buzzword types smile condescendingly and guffaw about "the image of libraries" and how we "shdn't be so stuffy" and how we're not librarians we're "information professionals" and... Here are more people who shd go on a "shut the fuck up" training course.

*rant ends* date=09.02.2004 11:20 ip=158.94.174.134 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Try this: http://tinyurl.com/22475 date=09.02.2004 11:21 ip=158.94.174.134 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=*rant*
MJH: Too bloody right! I'm of the opinion that this library needs more user education - not just orientation courses and database training, but more importantly "Shut the fuck up" courses. I think part of the problem is that most of these students have never been into a library in their life and have no idea how to behave when they are in one. Perhaps we could put up stained glass and light up some incense to give out the aura of "holy calm" - but then again there's too much noisy happy-clappy worship in churches these days. Whatever happened to the Silence of God, eh?

But you bring this up at library meetings and management-buzzword types smile condescendingly and guffaw about "the image of libraries" and how we "shdn't be so stuffy" and how we're not librarians we're "information professionals" and... Here are more people who shd go on a "shut the fuck up" training course.

*rant ends*
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.02.2004 11:20 ip=158.94.174.134 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: neat. date=09.02.2004 11:33 ip=213.78.86.204 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, I saw that - the problem there for me is the creeping re-definition of absolutely everyone having any sort of (public) relationship with anyone / anything else as 'consumers'.

A consumer seems to be understood as someone who pays a specific amount of money for something, whether directly or indirectly (through taxes etc) and in return receives a precisely targetted, precisely quantifiable, positive and undemanding experience in return - whether as a hospital patient or library user.

The key word here is undemanding; 'I've paid my money so I shouldn't have to do any more work' - which wipes libraries out as places where you go to work on yourself, rather than get nice little packaged chunks of media engagement or whatever.

A lecturer friend was ranting about this a while back; the consumerisation of universities; 'I've paid my money, I didn't get a FIrst / 2:1, it must be your fault for teaching me badly, I'm going to sue' 'But you didn't do any work' 'Not my problem, I paid for a decent degree and you should have made sure I got one.'

Some things you've just got to work at; they can't be bought in a package, you have to create them for yourselves; consumer theory doesn't allow for that... date=09.02.2004 11:37 ip=62.188.108.244 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al--

>>Some things you've just got to work at; they can't be bought in a package, you have to create them for yourselves; consumer theory doesn't allow for that...

I'm tempted to add that cheap little narcissistic shit-for-brains why-shouldn't-I-have-what-I-want theory doesn't allow for it either. Anyone seen Elephant yet ? Van Sant's three adolescent girls are just such a summing-up of all this. date=09.02.2004 11:47 ip=213.78.86.204 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Many thanks.

MJH: With you.

And I'd echo Io. This is another face of "because you're worth it" emptiness. On the one hand, there's a lazy notion that no writer or thinker has ever been more intelligent than you: so you should be able to pick up any book in history and swan through it, despite knowing nothing of its assumptions or objectives, in a nice, talkative room where you don't have to concentrate or ask yourself awkward questions. This patronises readers, and flattens entire past cultures into Janet-and-John speak. I'm sure councillors and MPs love the bright furniture and the coffee bar ambience that goes with it - but these things testify to political shallowness, not a newly "empowered" readership. It would be more impressive if they put budgets into staff wages and book buying than photo-op decor.

With it runs a Lovecraftian suspicion that library and archive staff are somehow hiding The Truth on a private shelf - if only we readers could see Everything, we'd Understand at last! If only. Behind the scenes, readers would see a lot of stuff that needs cataloguing and even more things that wouldn't interest them for a second. The exception is maybe somewhere like the Bodleian or the British Museum, both of which have locked collections of erotica - but these days, I suspect most of that would seem fairly ordinary.

Like Io, I'm sure, I've had a few slightly paranoid researchers in my time - but the secret is, there's no secret. We're actually employed to give out as much information as we can, not withold it. date=09.02.2004 12:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In the new universities a lot of the problem is to do with the extent to which education has become utilitarian and vocational. It's become part of the self-improvement industry: "Do a course at Middle Earth Polyversity and you and yr idealised image of yrself can become as one! It's fun, it's friendly - Meet new people! Broaden yr horizons!" I mean, how many people *actually* need a degree to do their job? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: you need a degree to do the job because the job specification *says* that you need a degree.

I'm not saying that the abstract disciplines of academia are necessarily preferable - I'm just saying that education is a racket. There's too many institutions and not enough funding so they're trying to invent a demand and fortunately the post-Thatcher job market helps to sustain this transformation from Place of Learning to Church of Scientology. date=09.02.2004 12:38 ip=158.94.174.134 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Respect, io. date=09.02.2004 12:52 ip=213.78.93.94 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: >>Too many institutions and not enough funding. Exactly!

Mistakonic University might have a make-over, too. They'd have to get those new, designer chairs for the readers with gorilla-like legs and purple suckers who want to read the "Neconomicon" (definitely a Special Needs Group). If only they could find out what happened to the mobile library they sent to Dunwich ... Mind you, I was glad the "Daily Mail" got that mad asylum-seeker Al-Hazared and his friends deported. Bloody inter-dimensional entities. Coming over here. Taking our jobs. Stealing our cockles ... date=09.02.2004 13:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, libraries... Good places to skive off school, they were the last place anybody would think to look.

Iotar hits on one of the key questions, namely what is all this "education" actually for? The Tory/Nu-Labour project of "marketising" everything sees education solely as your introduction to the work treadmill and your subsequent status as productive drone and obedient consumer. You need the degree to get the job to buy the stuff that society says makes you a worthwhile human being. Learning in this context is worthless if it doesn't generate cash at the end of the line. Intellectual wealth doesn't come with a label that you can flaunt when you walk down the street. You're the world's smartest man? Well fuck you, Einstein, that pullover's a joke!

BTW, Al, in state parlance we're now all "customers". My sister works for the DSS and they get told off if they don't refer to people they're processing this way. date=09.02.2004 14:34 ip=193.109.50.201 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What I can't understand is how a person covered with bandages from head to foot, suffering from multiple broken bones, the victim of a horrific car crash, can be called a customer.

"Wheel the customer this way. The customer is always right. etc."

Same on a train. But London Underground's "customers" constantly revert to "passengers". Phew!

It's supposed to be about empowerment or something. TBlairII I blame. date=09.02.2004 14:47 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Covered in bandages ...

That was no customer: that was my mummy!

Proof Arthur Askey didn' t die in vain ... date=09.02.2004 15:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Customers; ugh. An erosion of the whole public service thing. The word promises satisfaction on demand (the customer is always right) but more subtly it says - if you can pay you deserve this; if you can't pay you don't. What's a better word? Client? date=09.02.2004 15:08 ip=62.188.105.83 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's constant debate in the advertising industry about whether to talk about 'customers' or 'clients'. To some people, 'client' sounds more professional, whereas others see 'customer' as friendlier and more 'service orientated'. I call them 'wankers' myself. date=09.02.2004 15:11 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, maybe it (sort of) rhymes with client. date=09.02.2004 15:12 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We don't call them customers yet. It'll come. We refer to them as "borrowers" or "users". I quite like the term "users" - it gives the impression that they're on rehab or something. date=09.02.2004 15:13 ip=158.94.174.134 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I don't know, I quite like 'borrowers' - makes it seem like they're 6 inches tall and live in the sideboard! date=09.02.2004 15:15 ip=62.188.110.88 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>makes it seem like they're 6 inches tall and live in the sideboard!

If only! I'd crush the noisy fuckers beneath my heels! *ahem* date=09.02.2004 15:19 ip=158.94.174.134 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I call them 'wankers' myself.

Oddly enough that term is current at my library. Moving over to the other side of the counter for a moment: I find it unnerving when staff in a shop or a restaurant (less so) refer to me as "sir". Actually, occasionally students call me "sir" - and it's not just Americans as you might expect. date=09.02.2004 15:26 ip=158.94.174.134 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I hate being served. I always want to give waiters a hand, and if I get called 'Sir' I always want to say 'call me Alex'. Except when bank managers want to call me Alex, without asking. date=09.02.2004 16:04 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sir, what is the matter with being served? On continental Europe where the tradition of being a waiter/waitress is more honoured it's different. The waiter is your equal. It's a professional job.

I like waiter service. It would change the atmosphere of the pubs it was introduced into in an interesting way. date=09.02.2004 16:41 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I once had to deal with servants; had a full English breakfast bought to me every day on a silver platter, etc, for a few days. They had a cook and everything; going into the kitchen and raiding the fridge at night felt deeply like trespassing.

Very odd experience; there's a whole grammar of served / servant relationships that we just don't have any more. I kept on trying to be inappropriately matey and getting baffled / disapproving looks. date=09.02.2004 16:55 ip=62.188.135.142 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's a professional job.

Yes. I can handle that kind of waiter. date=09.02.2004 17:24 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry (Alex) to keep returning to the subject of Juniper (not really), but I was very impressed by their waiters. All pimply and 18-looking, as if they'd just come out of school the day before, but knew every detail of the very many dishes they were serving.

Then to top it all, one of them brought us a plate of 25 (count 'em) cheeses and reeled off what each one was and where it came from (had I heard of any of 'em before).

Gill said "I bet that took you forever to learn" and she said "oh, no. We have a new plate of 25 to learn every week".

I'm all for professional service *and* mateyness. Suits me, sir. date=09.02.2004 17:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harumph. Anyway, have you seen the checkout people at Aldi? They know everything too. date=09.02.2004 18:08 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wasn't thinking. It is of course a perfect example of postmodernism to call hospital patients "customers". Since postmodernism reduces everything to the concept of life-style, it's a typically managerial response to fashion and the need to appear cool to emphasise hospitalisation as a life-style choice. date=10.02.2004 09:49 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Black Rider at The Barbican from 17 May to 5 June:

In 1989 an amazing meeting of artistic minds occurred. Beat-poet legend William Burroughs, contemporary composer Tom Waits and groundbreaking theatre director Robert Wilson came together to collaborate on The Black Rider with their updated version of a 19th century story of a clerk who makes a Faustian contract with the Devil, accepting magic bullets to win the hand of his beloved in a shooting contest...

http://tinyurl.com/2l2rx date=10.02.2004 10:15 ip=213.122.109.176 name=Black Disclaimer mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh goody, more Tolkien date=10.02.2004 10:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The Black Rider at The Barbican

But Bill's not in it! date=10.02.2004 11:03 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=News reached me yesterday of a 3 hour LOTR musical, planned for next year...

*imagines chorus line of dancing orcs* date=10.02.2004 11:11 ip=62.188.108.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is that the one featuring "Some enchanted ring-thing" and "Happy Orc"? date=10.02.2004 11:19 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup; apparently the Dark Riders 'These are a few of my favourite rings' number, in the midst of the climactic battle, is the real show stopper.

Oh, and they've adapted some George Harrison also; there's apparently a great 'I Me Mine' from a group of undead dwarves in Moria, shortly after Sam and Frodo's touching 'Going Underground' duet.

Musical's for real, btb! Going to be biggest West End musical ever, etc. date=10.02.2004 11:31 ip=62.188.110.10 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Going to be biggest West End musical ever, etc

Kinda, like, one musical to rule them all? date=10.02.2004 11:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arf!

Sho' nuff... date=10.02.2004 11:47 ip=62.188.100.162 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If anyone is interested Pere Ubu's David Thomas is bringing out a new album in march, 18 Monkeys on a Dead Man's Chest, with his Two Pale Boys setup. Should be a tour in May.

http://www.projex.demon.co.uk/index.html date=10.02.2004 12:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Pere Ubu's David Thomas

Hooray! Always a treat. I hope he plays Manchester. date=10.02.2004 12:56 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=LOTR: I lay in bed with a head cold yesterday, and come back to - this! Wagner was one ring cycle too many, I am thinking. Now, the heart quails.

David Thomas: hey! Things are looking brighter already! date=11.02.2004 09:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A Tolkien musical is effectively a Wagner musical anyway. Disgusted of the Tunbridge Wells Musical Society complains: More back door popularisation! Is nothing safe ? Elves run around in their thong-type underwear! Absurd priapic scenes of Love between Hobbits and Grown Women. Orcs shoot up heroin, masturbate and misquote William Burroughs to one another. Pitiful tableaux of "sex tourism" exploitation of Orc villages after the fall of the Dark Lord.

I say: Bring it on. date=11.02.2004 10:25 ip=213.78.70.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At least Wagner fans get the trains running on time. date=11.02.2004 10:47 ip=158.94.183.120 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, but no matter where you're going the journeys last about 22 hours and are stretched over 4 or 5 consecutive days. date=11.02.2004 11:09 ip=62.188.145.105 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Say what you like about Tolkien (and most of us have), this is a tough project. Much of the book consists of pitched battles or walking, with the odd giant spider thrown in for good measure. Not the easiest thing to stage, especially with a limited effects budget.

Also, there's the music: lute and dulcimer, or DJ Bombadil in full effect? (Yes, there's an obvious joke about a full orc-hestra, but I'm trying to resist it). Choices, choices. Perhaps we should simply open a chain of Grey Havens retirement homes, and make a fortune? date=11.02.2004 13:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> this is a tough project

True, though I was amazed that somebody managed to make a play out of Gormenghast (bloody good one too, miles better than the TV series) with virtually no props or scenery. date=11.02.2004 13:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Special effects movies have made us too literal minded; people forget that theatre's rooted in suggestion much more than real presence. The single most stunning bit of theatre I ever saw was the appearance of the Angel of Death on stage; awe inspiring, and done with a single huge spotlight, some curtains, a tricycle with a basket on the front you can stand on and 2 actors.

I suspect you'd get a much better LOTR (or indeed any fantasy adaptation) with five or six actors, a small to medium sized theatre, and much imagination / ingenuity than you ever would in a big West End production. date=11.02.2004 13:58 ip=62.188.105.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thinking about it, suspect there'll be a rotating stage, muc theatrical striding, and frequent spins between Mordor bound hobbits on one side and carnage and battle on the other. Les Miserables with green dudes and pointy ears... date=11.02.2004 14:40 ip=62.188.105.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Much of the book consists of pitched battles or walking, with the odd giant spider thrown in for good measure. Not the easiest thing to stage, especially with a limited effects budget.
____________
Martin:. They could stage the battles like the gang figths in "West side story"." I like to live in Gondor .."
Awful as poetry but in that true to the source material. date=11.02.2004 15:41 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the main problem will be audience expectations. You *could* stage it very minimally, with Sam the central character, 3 or 4 actors playing everything else, and a lot of inventive shadow-play and sound-effects - but would this Chinese theatre version satisfy a packed house wanting big screen effects under the proscenium?

The more we mull this over, the closer to Rick Wakeman it seems to get. Is Ben Elton involved? date=11.02.2004 15:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quite probably. Btb, Rick Wakeman staged one of my favourite ever 'theatrical-events-I-wish-I'd-been-to' - Excalibur on ice! Full Arthur tale on ice, music by Rick.

Sadly the dry ice machine malfunctioned and created a massive fogbank, which rapidly engulfed the whole rink. Apparently muffled and confused attempts to make sure that the show went on were heard from within; combined with swearing, people falling over, etc - every so often Arthurian knights (in full armour) or ladies (fully diaphonous) would come hurtling out of the mire and cannon into each other, or just hop over the edge of the rink and flee up through the audience. date=11.02.2004 16:07 ip=62.188.137.100 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The chinese teather aproach to the epic is what Bergman did in "The seventh sea". I have never heard anybody say that the guy who plays death ( with just a little bit of makeup) is not realistic enough. date=11.02.2004 16:28 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, I meant "seal" date=11.02.2004 16:41 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice bit of a vitriolic rant here:
http://tinyurl.com/2d8xl date=11.02.2004 18:11 ip=158.94.183.120 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Never mind, dear - you sit down and have a nice cup of tea."

(Well, it used to cure every problem on 'Terry & June' ... ) date=11.02.2004 19:42 ip=212.126.153.91 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought it was a rather too measured assessment of the situation. Doesn't AL Kennedy realise how bad things have actually got ? I mean, *for Christ's sake*. date=11.02.2004 20:00 ip=213.78.85.128 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shakespeare: "Poetry is the most seeming" (or something)

I.e. that which is most transparently non-existent is most akin to poetry: so that it's like a bridge to somewhere else. How fine can it be, how fragile, before the illusion collapses? date=12.02.2004 16:27 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Context supports the invisible. The most moving line in Shakespeare (perhaps in English) is Lear saying, "Pray you, undo this button." Without the play, the words are prosaic; with it, spoken by a good actor, it feels as if the world has fallen apart and can never be righted again.

Not poetry, but Woody Allen makes the same point - in context, the most beautiful words you'll ever hear are not "I love you," but "it's benign." date=13.02.2004 10:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I so agree, Martin. You're aiming for a kind of fast, elusive flicker between the context and the contexted. The best contemporary work has them reversing function so quickly and subtly you're not sure what's happening. Everything from the title (and, tragically these days, the packaging) adds to the crossply of context and contexted. Even the venue ahould act as part of that system. As Nick Royle wrote to me the other day, "People who buy a collection of ghost stories expect a ghost." I don't see that as a limitation. I see it as a context that can be manipulated, maybe, as you say, to deliver just one sentence. date=13.02.2004 10:37 ip=213.78.67.146 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al>>>theatre's rooted in suggestion much more than real presence

Which Shakespeare constantly emphasises: "In this round O" etc.

The way context ascribes values. Food to a starving man: it is life itself! Even one of those cooked chickens at Sainsburys. But to your average shopper it's just one of 600 million other broilers (literally) imported by the ton. Different things are interesting. How cheap is it? Who is that on the front cover of Hello? Satiation brings a decline in the sharpness, the vitality (energy?) of the experience. Or blurs its uniqueness. It occurs to me that if you can create such a 'starvation' condition for your reader, then offering him a crust of bread will make him infinitely grateful. Life! Fire!

.. Can that also apply to one's own life? Stay hungry.

... For a reader starved of reality even the merest morsel offered will stay with him forever. date=13.02.2004 13:24 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A mountain context = new time! Article on Clock of the Long Now:

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge132.html

Also, interesting stuff at:

http://www.gbn.org/

- thoughts on Orwell by Gibson, and one of its slogans is "No One's As Smart As Everyone." Wish I'd thought of that ... Then again, another of its guiding principles is from LOTR: "All Who Wander Are Not Lost." Still, nothing's perfect. date=13.02.2004 16:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A Happy St. Valentine's Day to all our readers, from Lisa and I. If you're in love, may it last. If you're not, may you get it if you want it. date=14.02.2004 22:15 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx Alex. I'm still trying to write a story in which Valentinus appears in a Shaftsbury Avenue Pret A Manger and harangues the narrator about Contemporary Love. Every 14th February I take it out & have another look at it, but tho it's got some good lines it won't seem to go anywhere. But, hey, I got a pen with a HEART in it from my Valentine, which lights up when you press the point on the paper. She's a woman with style when it comes to impulse purchase; and a great collector of religious kitsch. date=15.02.2004 10:37 ip=213.78.80.90 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All yesterday afternoon we contemplated the Valentinian system of eight-fold emanations. "Are these syzygies comparable with the infolded zim-zum that the qabbalists speak of, or shd we rather regard in terms of the archonic planetary rulers?"

Coming to no firm decision we went out to Akash for a curry. They do red pumpkin bhaji - yay! date=15.02.2004 11:19 ip=213.122.155.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All yesterday afternoon we contemplated the Valentinian system of eight-fold emanations. "Are these syzygies comparable with the infolded zim-zum that the qabbalists speak of, or shd we rather regard them in terms of the archonic planetary rulers?"

Coming to no firm decision we went out to Akash for a curry. They do red pumpkin bhaji - yay! date=15.02.2004 11:19 ip=213.122.155.185 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Valentine's: I had an Italian meal with a good friend in Banbury. After a couple of bottles of white wine we stumbled round the mall, which seemed to be populated by teenage girls wearing cardboard horns and folk in smudged middle age. The local museum was given over to toy barges you could load, displays of corsetry, an enema kit, and a man with the loudest carrier bag in Oxfordshire, who followed us closely. Needless to say, we were thrilled. I came home to a package from an Edinburgh friend who'd sent me a cd of odic breathing and some more disturbing stuff from "Blue Jam." Pleasures of one of the lower sephiroth, clearly: but we could have shown that Valentinus a thing or two once he'd seen off the cranberry and brie baguette. Tree of Life? I should coco. date=16.02.2004 10:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well I got a card. Sat on my balcony and smoked a cigar.

I just wish I could make it more interesting for ya. date=16.02.2004 10:55 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I attempted to read Edith Sitwell poems, unrehearsed and without stumbling. date=16.02.2004 11:34 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gill was working a 24-hour shift over Saturday night, so that put a bit of a downer on Valentine's, but we made the most of Friday instead: went to the Showroom to see The Time of the Gypsies by Emir Kustrica (excellent), stopped off for onion bhaji, chips and mint raita on the way home (no red pumpkin, but we'll suggest it to them next time), was genuinely surprised to find that Gill had stashed a bottle of Veuve at home, she was less surprised to find I'd bought her some handmade chocolate with crystallised violets.

Blue Jam: is that the CD with the Suicide Journalist and the Gush? Genius stuff. date=16.02.2004 11:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: This sounds like true romance!

Jam: It is - along with those dreadful "Unconcerned Parents" and the 8-year-old "Fixit Girl." Brrr. I flipped from this yesterday into Michael Parkinson on R2, playing "new jazz sensations" like Jamie Cullum and making out that life was a box with no dark corners, and found I was still laughing - but for different reasons. An unreal morning. date=16.02.2004 11:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Time of the Gypsies: ace. date=16.02.2004 12:01 ip=213.78.82.231 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We went to a pre-film talk as well, by Dina Iordanova, a lecturer on Balkan film (and author of a book about Kusturica). Learnt a little about Yugoslavian film, films about Gypsies, and Emir Kusturica. Seems he once went up to Arkan in a café and smashed a chair over his head. Respect. date=16.02.2004 12:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Respect. You bet.

Someone told me Arkan's wife is a wildly popular singer - a Balkans version of Edith Piaf. Odd world out there. date=16.02.2004 12:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Beyond respect - awe is due, I think. Big article on Arkan's wife in Guardian / Observer a month or so ago. She's a Turbo-folk star; ie rocked up, highly nationalist, 'people's music' type thing. Sounds repellent. Their marriage was a national event; the video of it a best seller out there. Arkan's brigade essentially glorified football hooligans, as far as I can make out. date=16.02.2004 12:29 ip=62.188.110.149 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aw, come on - she can't be that bad, can she? Just checked out some mp3s on www.ceca.de - and she really is beyond crap! On the other hand there's a load of Jpop stuff on the site too. Always been curious about Glay - awful big Japanese stadium rock with a definite leaning towards Brian May big-hair-guitar. Tokyo's answer to The Darkness? date=16.02.2004 12:55 ip=158.94.164.115 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd like to have caught that talk, Dan. For me, Black Cat White Cat was always the Kusturica to see. date=16.02.2004 13:16 ip=213.78.91.37 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Black Cat White Cat for me too - the music is something else, and the imagery magical.

She also mentioned that his latest film was due at Cannes last year, but wasn't completed so he's held it back until this years Cannes. Expect something extraordinary.

JPop - ever heard Plus Tech Squeezebox? 60s French-style pop done by Japanese band with synthesizers. And it works. Beautiful stuff: http://www.surla.co.uk/bands.asp?band=psb date=16.02.2004 14:05 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>ever heard Plus Tech Squeezebox

Yes - last time you mentioned them! Actually rather glad you reminded me - the mp3 track on Vitaminic is pretty great. date=16.02.2004 14:46 ip=158.94.164.115 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Yes - last time you mentioned them!

Doh! Did I ever mention that I repeat myself a lot.

Reminds me... date=16.02.2004 15:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back-tracking slightly, my greatest friend sent me this story - the "new weird" Valentine tales start here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3477779.stm date=17.02.2004 10:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Day of the Triffids in Bristol:
http://tinyurl.com/28vnc date=18.02.2004 12:02 ip=158.94.190.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... and violence in Antarctica:

http://home.tele2.fr/kcv/pinguin.swf

(left click on the club to set it going, and to hit; left click on the yellow OK flag to re-set)

No virtual birds were harmed during the making of this file. Anything over 250 deserves a whisky. date=18.02.2004 13:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Umm... A tribal priest in eastern India has married a five year old boy to a dog.

http://tinyurl.com/382eh date=18.02.2004 14:09 ip=158.94.178.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=..."How does that feel, rover?"

"Ruff!"

A very old joke, I am thinking ... date=18.02.2004 14:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked the bit about the dancing and drinking beer. Reminds me of my favourite scene *ever* in a novel - in which there's these horse-like creatures who attack houses and threaten to rear up on their back legs and show their bellies if they are not given beer.

We've all been there. date=18.02.2004 14:34 ip=158.94.178.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked Jamie Cullum saying how much he had in common with 50 Cent, too.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_867581.html?men u=news.quirkies.showbizquirkies

Perhaps he should change his first name to "Wally," and have done with it ... date=18.02.2004 16:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked the "I'm still thinking about it." date=18.02.2004 16:35 ip=158.94.178.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Umm... A tribal priest in eastern India has married a five year old boy to a dog.

I wonder what Harlan Ellison would say . date=19.02.2004 11:06 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hopefully, something more sensible than Ursula le Guin here:

http://www.private-eye.co.uk/content/showitem.cfm/i ssue.1100/section.pseuds date=19.02.2004 16:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's quite something. But I don't think it's LeGuin speaking. It's someone asking her a question. I wonder how she replied. I wonder if it's some anthropological/sociological jargon she actually understood.

I have my doubts about Pseud's Corner (along with the Plain English movement). The assumption is that all specialised language is pretentious. But if you apply it to, say, General Relativity, it's a bit like feeling superior to Einstein because he talks funny. He's only a mad scientist whereas you're a practical man who lives in the real world and knows how to ask for a drink in a bar. Ian Hislop needs that reassurance, maybe, but even he could grow up and learn to do without it.

I loved the jargon in the fashion item below. It made perfect sense until "postioning old clothing as a tool". Even then, if you could stop laughing, you could work out what was meant.

Speaking of dogs, has anyone read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time ? date=19.02.2004 17:47 ip=213.78.77.205 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the Derrida effect. (Pseud's Corner) All the same alot of the French anarchist postmoderns of the last two decades are well worth reading. Derrida included.

What I think the questioner means is: what happens when people lose their shared sense of time as a result of information overload? Is it likely or possible? Psychotic time would be the result: ie a complete inability to understand anyone else: a thesis that the questioner is living proof of. date=20.02.2004 09:08 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pseud's Corner sometimes gets it wrong - and has it in for Will Self in a big way - but mostly it pricks the sort of self-aggrandising nonsense Westwood comes out with here, and which most of us are prone to after a couple of drinks. I've never read any account of Einstein on the Jamesons: what might he have come out with? A Grand Unified Theory he couldn't remember the next morning?
It's on a par with another corner of history I heard about: that Schroedinger visited Dublin, and knew Flann O'Brien - but no record of their conversations exists. The third policeman carving a delicate box for that elusive cat, no doubt.

Loss of shared time: Perhaps we should quietly shelve some of it. Break up the idea of a year as a wheel of foisty religious festivals infused with capitalist zest, and set out the days on a numbered line into the future - each unique. Set your birthday when you want it, dream up whatever celebrations you like (for kites, for armchair impersonation, for Brighton pier), confuse everyone with your decorations. We could dispose of the twenty-first century overnight, and invite Albert round for drinks. With that time scheme, he might even turn up. date=20.02.2004 09:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This link claims to test our tolerance to people of different religions, ages, sizes, etc. and claims to reveal our "inner bigot."

I think it actually tests associative reactions - but definitely one for the "Dail Mail" to get worked up about:

http://www.tolerance.org/hidden_bias/02.html date=20.02.2004 10:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cultural time already seems psychotic to me. Thus Viriconium. Part of the reason I loathe LeGuin is this obsession with the idea of culture as frame of reference. "Lent" is neither a serious way of telling the time nor of passing it; but I don't think Sprake's personalised rituals are any more worthwhile. Validation isn't the issue, because it can't be done from inside a system; and the whole notion of "cultural relativism" is self-unpicking in that it implies a perspective which can't be acheived. Culture, like everything else, is contingent and absurd. date=20.02.2004 11:12 ip=213.78.86.210 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Contingent and absurd.

Speaking of which ( or maybe "witch" ):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3505707.stm date=20.02.2004 11:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely prime example. Thatcher at the Abbey. Thatcher at the War memorial. Individual psychosis gripped and spun by public psychosis; & vice versa. Contingencies autocatalysing into ritual. Her decaying face, the absolute read-out of the underlying personality disorders of her "culture". Looking back, I think those were the best times in the world: real lunacy was at large. It was almost as grotesque as the communal singing in a LeGuin story. date=20.02.2004 11:50 ip=213.78.68.122 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm... could make for some interesting DJing, a remix of that with the Charles Bailey/Tony Benn CD. date=20.02.2004 12:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Next up, B(illy) Liar.

"I am the DJ I am what I play" date=20.02.2004 13:05 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For similar reasons, I looked for (but never found) a second-hand copy of the BBC commentary on Diana's funeral. I thought the remainder shops would be crammed with them, but - not a sausage.

So they're either cluttering up a lot of lofts right now or - a truly frightening thought - thousands still play them *regularly* and re-live the great day. date=20.02.2004 13:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apologies for double post - but more of the same:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3512447.stm

- it's now "grief lite" ! date=23.02.2004 10:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He may be on to something but it doesn't work for me that anti-war demonstrations are included in this. That weakens his case. It also annoys me. I still feel extreme anger at Blair. Nothing to do with politics lite. date=23.02.2004 10:48 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funnily enough I was thinking about this over the weekend; about how consumer culture erodes a committed political culture.

ie the prime consumer need - 'I want to fulfil a clearly defined personal need, absolutely, asap.' A very personal definition of fulfilment - and, as a rule, nothing beyond the personal.

So anything beyond the personal stops making (as much) sense - and so engagement with a representative political process - ie one that (by definition) asks someone else to represent you, in Parliament or on the local council, loses its interest. I'M not getting a kick out of it; my absolute needs are not being met (ie compromise neccessary in one representing many) so why bother?

Hence, perhaps, disengagement with politics, growth of local, single issue movements etc - as a re-definition of what satisfaction is on a civil level, a refusal to identify with something broader / deeper than the self's immediate needs. Perhaps this grief as fun thing can be read as part of that as well?

(Oh, and not ignoring the way political parties can no longer be said to represent fully (eg on Iraq war) but then Tony Blair's the ultimate expression of this - I've been elected to represent ME! Even though a substantial part of Britain disagrees with me! Again, primacy of fulfilling self's needs over broader consensual activity. PM as ultimate consumer, shopping for personal satisfaction with the power we as a nation have given him.) date=23.02.2004 11:10 ip=62.188.146.190 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I agree. I also think the one is being used as a trojan for the other. This is a spin way of undermining the protest. Anyone ever visited the Civitas site ? Fantastically mechanical pamphleteering in the British post-WWII left wing tradition, full of implicit claims to importance which turn out to be, much like mourning sickness, to be more about showing how important you think you are than actually being it. date=23.02.2004 11:15 ip=213.78.78.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I mean, of course, that I agree with MJP's post. date=23.02.2004 11:16 ip=213.78.78.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> it doesn't work for me that anti-war demonstrations are included in this

Not sure that they are explicitly - certainly, the piece mentions "protests", though not sure whether it means anti-war protests, anti-paedophile/pro-dead-kids-type protests or something else. The fact that the BBC have illustrated the report with a picture of an anti-war protest means very little, as the BBC are notoriously bad at choosing images for their web-news items, as demonstrated almost weekly on ntk.net. date=23.02.2004 11:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan.
On war :The picture does include the caption "Marchers should have questioned their motives, said the author". date=23.02.2004 11:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Post modern pee soup. date=23.02.2004 11:46 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Article in the Guardian this morning (don't have time to dig it out) made the whole war protest condemnation thing very explicit - as I understand it the whole 'Not in my name' thing is read in the report as being a personal feelgood statement rather than a truly constructive engagement with stoppping the war. date=23.02.2004 11:50 ip=62.188.105.206 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=it is the same report http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,8363,1154031,00. html

For what it is worth, here in Spain anti-war protesters are being branded as irresponsible. date=23.02.2004 12:20 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I see "asylum seekers" have become "migrants," too: such a prettier picture, putting one in mind of swallows, summer holidays, lashings of ginger beer, nasty gypsies, and people who are eventually go back where they came from. Gil Scott Heron comes to mind: you have to be careful, 'cos semantics is a bitch/lands once "underdeveloped" are now "mineral rich."

But then, a lot of us don't hear what we're saying. I heard John Cale on "Desert Island Discs," and Sue Lawley probed him about his family. "There was a feeling your mother married beneath her. Your father was a miner." Nothing like the odd subterranean gallery to make you feel beneath someone ... date=23.02.2004 13:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It shows a lack of clarity in a thinking to include anti-war demonstrations with public shows of grief. Recreational! It just makes the argument irksome. Besides, in neither case is there anything new to be observed; so they have failed to define their terms. For instance the expressions of grief for when Valentino died weren't that different surely. (And when did they take place?) So, what's new? And the comments about soggy teddies and rotten flowers shows a contempt for ordinary people. It is patronising and unclear.

Apparently Civitas a right wing think tank wants to inform us "What you were actually doing was this; what you *should* have been doing was this." It turns out that it is itself a symptom of what it is trying to criticise, i.e. what I regard as the passivity and infantilisation of our lives as a consequence of mass media culture. That the phrase "recreational grief" should seem to carry such resonance is because in mass media terms it is just another intellectual toy to play with. 'Edicts from on high' stuff. date=23.02.2004 13:29 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP : "It shows a lack of clarity in a thinking .."
I agree.
Such are the ways of the conservative min. Happy to dismiss most left leaning thinking as so much hogwash but when Francis Wheen puts the dunce cap on Fukuyama and Huntington , as being to rash, " The economist" is happy to defend them. Even if the best that they can muster is a " It seems harsh to ridicule people for being interesting".
Somehow I don´t except them to hold such a criteria when they review Eric Hobsbwam´s next. date=23.02.2004 17:22 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry fo the typos. I meant "mind" and "expect". date=23.02.2004 17:39 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=According to John Clute MJH has a double -- Keith Richards. *Perilously* photogenic?

"he is extremely beautiful (a bit like the perilously photogenic Viriconium author, or like Keith Richards)"

This is from his review of 'The Year of Our War' http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue357/excess.html date=24.02.2004 21:47 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Cough-ridden but triumphant," eh? - :)) Excellent. *Congratulations,* Steph!!!

MJH=Keef? Well, the Barley Bros. and the Glimmer Twins do have a fair bit in common, now you come to mention it ... date=25.02.2004 08:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, *cough* hello and thanks.

I'll be in Frevd's Oxford, 7.30 onwards on Saturday 13th of March, for drinks/small party, if you're interested (I know, it's a Saturday).

There are two other YOOW reviews.

http://trashotron.com/agony/reviews/2003/swainst on-year_of_our_war.htm

http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=2&scid=15&i id=2099 date=25.02.2004 09:58 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph, congratulations on one of the top five most important debut fantasy novel of the past ten years! date=25.02.2004 10:43 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=novel*s (obviously) date=25.02.2004 10:44 ip=62.49.107.21 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Way to go Steph. There'll always be more.

Perilously photogenic: read it and weep, you mere mortals. I'm off to Valencia in two hours' time. Maybe I can pick up some fashion work while I'm over here. Always room for Byronic good looks, especially in the short gnarly old men end of the trade. date=25.02.2004 12:01 ip=213.78.167.111 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - The tiara is to blame; it can turn the head of even a married man. Don't let him get behind you. :-)

Enjoy Valencia.

See you later, guys. Stephx. date=25.02.2004 12:41 ip=62.255.240.221 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fab stuff, Steph! Not entirely convinced by the cover but I guess it could have been a lot worse.

Last night after dealing with all the things that I had to deal with and finally getting to sit down with the cat, a cup of tea and a book to do some reading. I turn on Radio 3 for some background music but no! No background music for me! China Mieville has invaded my privacy and is presenting Nightwaves at me! There is no escape! can you sue someone for ubiquity?

MJH: Have fun with the photo shoot in Spain! date=25.02.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.151.201 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.

Are you going to stop in Madrid ? date=25.02.2004 12:43 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io - that's not the final cover, thankfully it has been much improved.

Right, must go; I have a date with Dylan Thomas. date=25.02.2004 12:45 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually I have a brother in the photo trade
(www.alvaro-villarrubia.com) who is looking for a chap with long flowing white hair and a beard to play god. date=25.02.2004 12:49 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>looking for a chap with long flowing white hair and a beard to play god.

Don't encourage him! date=25.02.2004 12:51 ip=158.94.151.201 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: ubiquity is in his remit.

Arturo: unfortunately not this time. But soon, I hope. date=25.02.2004 12:52 ip=213.78.167.111 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! Impressive reviews, Steph, congratulations. Looking forward to reading the book...

Svrely it's only ever Satvrday in Frevds? date=25.02.2004 14:29 ip=62.188.105.119 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: I have a couple of friends around who may have decided to crash out on soft furnishings long before then - but I *will* be there: thank you!

All this deity lark: it's the old stand up routine. "Good evening - I'm god. And I'm here tonight because - well, I'm onimpresent." date=25.02.2004 16:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, read that as onionpresent... date=25.02.2004 17:21 ip=62.188.112.215 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The god that makes you cry" ... date=26.02.2004 09:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=LotR in the style of William Gibson:

"There it is," came Sam's voice. "That's the ice. Good luck breakin' in there, man, that was made by a military AI. Name of Ephelduath. You ain't seen nuthin' like it. They say it's two way ice. Not only will it fry your brainpan tryin' to get in, nuthin' inside can work its way out. Leastaways, not without Sarumancer's say-so."

Many, many more LotRs in the style of various authors here: http://www.teemings.com/extras/lotr/

The PKD and vance are *very* good! date=26.02.2004 10:14 ip=158.94.157.49 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=LotR in the style of William Gibson:

"There it is," came Sam's voice. "That's the ice. Good luck breakin' in there, man, that was made by a military AI. Name of Ephelduath. You ain't seen nuthin' like it. They say it's two way ice. Not only will it fry your brainpan tryin' to get in, nuthin' inside can work its way out. Leastaways, not without Sarumancer's say-so."

Many, many more LotRs in the style of various authors here: http://www.teemings.com/extras/lotr/
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=26.02.2004 10:14 ip=158.94.157.49 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Greetings from the world of the idle. Since I don't need to sit in front of a computer all day my droppings-in will be less frequent. I'm doing a lot of gardening, and wondering why, now I've got the time to write and create, I don't feel like there is a creative bone in my body. Still, the veg harvest will be good this year. Anyone up to much? date=26.02.2004 15:39 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "The god that makes you cry" ...

He would have been chopped and lightly sauted rather than crucified.

Onionpresent, as well. Makes you read the story of Shallot's Wife in a whole new light.

*ahem* date=26.02.2004 16:20 ip=62.188.110.168 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex! Nothing much going on here. Just the rock'n'roll lifestyle - and librarianship. date=27.02.2004 09:01 ip=158.94.161.9 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: LotR stuff - hilarious! Thank you!

Alex: Everyone muffled up in a razor wind here in Oxford, and I'm gearing up for 90 schoolchildren visiting our museum next week. Otherwise, people asking about histories of books and authors as usual, but nothing out of the ordinary. What's with the garden - Snowdrop Dell or more of these omnipotent onions? Whatever, I hope your tips don't get nipped in the chill - so to speak.

Meanwhile: http://www.moonflip.com/pingvin2.html date=27.02.2004 09:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That LotR is great - 'specially the Lord of the Ringpieces ("He never got the arrow out of his arm, they don't if the shot is right. That's the way they found him, barrow full of buried treasure, dawn of a new day. The look in his eye when he was hit - it was tasty.")

Nothing much going here - my tips have been nipped, err, snipped... just recovering from a psychologically painful operation, but lets not dwell on that. Lots of snow here last night - Student Union election campaigns in full swing at Sheffield Uni and I woke up this morning to "Vote Bristow" carved three metres high into the snow on the local bowling green.

Our garden (if you can call it that) is a state, I bin concentrating instead on interiors - nearly finished painting half a football pitch's worth of ceiling. Keeping a few daffs on the windowsill though.

Have been thinking... it's nearly three months since some of us enjoyed Sushi. Anyone fancy another Empty Space night? And if so, when (not the week after next, as I too am off to sunny Spain from 8th-12th). date=27.02.2004 09:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: eats. For sure. Closer to you this time? date=27.02.2004 11:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A PS: hey, we could have an ES gnostic group outing to "The Passion"! Each wear a crown of thorns and get in free - do you think they'd dare stop us? Get behind the row of nuns, start asking them if there's going to be a sequel, then confront the manager and to know why it isn't as good as "Top Gun."

Perhaps they'll be selling vinegar sponges instead of popcorn, too. Those'd be perfect with the sushi ... date=27.02.2004 11:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>asking them if there's going to be a sequel,

Yes. It is already in the pipeline.I hear they already have some guy in Patmos doing the story. This one is going to be CGI-heavy. Rumours say that Mel wants to cash in the disaster movie trend that he of course denies. Some trouble with the title, he wanted to call it "The return of the king" but it was not available so they will settle with some greek word or other. date=27.02.2004 13:51 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=News on the sequel: Francis Ford Coppola what threatening to sue so , like they did with "Bram Stoker´s Dracula", they call it "St.John´s Apocalipse" date=27.02.2004 14:15 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Jesus II: 'If I Was a Carpenter ...' "

The Galilee Grappler challenges everyone's favourite anorexic, Karen Carpenter, to 3 falls, a submission, or a last supper - with hilarious results! As Karen throws up over Judas, Matthew says: "I think she's getting a little cross." Later, Jesus shows how you can legally claim on your own life insurance policy, and declares: "I always fancied being a pin-up, but this is ridiculous." In all good imaginary cinemas from Easter. Book now to avoid atonement. date=27.02.2004 14:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personally, I'm looking forward to "Mohammed: Seal of the Prophets" - that shd be a good one. Especially with all the beachball tricks. date=27.02.2004 14:58 ip=158.94.161.9 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(claps hands, flipper-like): Arf! Arf!

Gizafish. Go on ... date=27.02.2004 15:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meeting & eating: not too bothered about it being closer to me, I'll be in London most weeks between now and April (usually on a Thursday, which could easily be stretched to a Friday), but I guess for Alex's sake it might be good to go nearer to him, which I wouldn't object to.

Jesus'n'sin'n'stuff: a friend talking about Bush's recent edict on homosexual marriage, and Bush's friends quoting Leviticus, reminded me of the oldie but goodie "Why Can't I Own Canadians?":
http://skinnybrown.net/misc/bible date=27.02.2004 16:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: "Canadians" - superb! I also laughed at Arnie stopping same sex marriages because they were "a threat to civil order." Oh, dear.

Food: let's discuss. Have a good weekend, y'all. date=27.02.2004 17:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Same sex: Gore Vidal quoted an ancient roman emperor who forbade same sex fun and games because it caused earthquakes. How unlike our contemporaries ... date=27.02.2004 17:18 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: great, isn't it? I can just imagine a theological discussion program, along the lines of the one that was on Not the Nine O'clock News. "Shellfish: a greater or lesser sin than homosexuality" etc etc date=27.02.2004 17:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a very bad night after a bowl of mussels once. Can't say the same about...oh, hang on... date=27.02.2004 18:21 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What? A bowel of muscles?

(ouch, sorry) date=27.02.2004 23:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(sorry, doppel-post, but hey, it's Friday night, let's push the boat out)

Earthquakes: I thought they were supposed to result from any good sex.

Friday Film: Just been to see Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra Kjøkkenet) - definitely, *definitely* recommended. date=27.02.2004 23:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: That was awful. date=27.02.2004 23:30 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: thank you.

Can't remember whether this has already been posted here but... an antidote to panel games... I mean penguins: http://www.freshsensation.com/samorost.swf date=28.02.2004 08:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saw The Buff Medways last night. Fucking garage punk city! So retro they had a vintage Vox PA system. And as for that Billy Childish handlebar 'tache! Shame about the stiff cool-as-fuck London audience...

Food. Yes, certainly. Where and when? I think our key question is whether it's London or Manchester! date=28.02.2004 12:13 ip=213.122.156.84 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or Sheffield. Actually, we've got room to accomodate a few spare bodies here. date=28.02.2004 16:26 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sheffield or Manchester: I can do either. Or (I don't have accommodation space, though) you'd be welcome to visit Oxford. Busues run round the clock to and from London, too. date=01.03.2004 08:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay then Manchester or London was a false dichotomy. We have almost limitless choices. How about Wigan? date=01.03.2004 08:55 ip=158.94.169.151 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As Mel Brooks would say - " Yeah - how about it?"

We could visit the "Orwell experience" pier, too ... date=01.03.2004 09:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gaaad, this is what I hate about choice. It always seems to involve choosing.

I think we need a benign autocrat to impose a location and date upon us. As we are, once again, all honouring Mike, he gets to fill the role.

For what it's worth we also have an almost limitless range of sleeping spaces, catering for a wide variety of comfort levels. That's the beauty of homesteading up North - those wide open spaces. date=01.03.2004 09:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We can do better than Wigan. How about Accrington? Or we could do a MJH weekend: lunch from the market bins at Tib Street, then a stop off in Hyde for a visit to Dr Shipman's, followed by a brisk trot up Black Hill from Crowden. Then die. date=01.03.2004 09:43 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Good idea. Mike can decide for us.

Meanwhile, if anyone's looking for it, Tartarus Press has just published an illustrated edition of MP Shiel's "The Purple Cloud" (£30.00). Further details at: www.tartaruspress.com date=01.03.2004 09:43 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*wanders in late*

Hmm, I too can make just about anywhere; tho' away (back to Egypt again, getting out into the desert) over the next two or three weeks... date=01.03.2004 10:38 ip=62.188.120.224 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, today's "Guardian" goes one better than our gnostic outing, and gives Aramaic things to say during "The Passion."

I also heard a French philosopher quoted last night on R3's programme discussing idleness. He asked what Jesus might have been up to during his first 30 years on earth, and decided: just lazing about. Then, one day - date=01.03.2004 12:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to see Girl With A Pearl Earring the other day. Visually ravishing, but bloodless and lacking in story. Vermeer broods too much, and Greet does lips too much. I wanted a kebab when it was all over, and I still don't know if I liked it or not. date=01.03.2004 14:55 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I felt a bit similar about "Lost in Translation." Mine's the minority view. I felt there was situation, but no plot; nice shots c/o Tokyo tourist industry (in return for which, Coppola's allowed to condescend madly to Japan); Scarlett looks like N. Kinski's niece, Murray does his usual trick of brooding over the visible world as if it's one of his haemorrhoids, and, um, that's it. Where's the film everyone was talking about? Something else with the same actors and title, no doubt.

Good Chinese meal afterwards, though. date=01.03.2004 15:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don´t forget the real star in the Gibson family.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/apnews/story/0,1276,-3 767640,00.html

And by the way, those guys are not catholics . I suposse that it is just spin but the fact is that they belong to a diferent church that mos catholics consider firmly placed on the lunatic fringe because of such silly things as considering women sinful it thye don´t wear a hat in church. date=01.03.2004 22:29 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Monbiot in today's Guardian urges direct action to depose Blair. "To become a civilised, moderate, responsible nation ... we must first become a nation of extremists."

I am glad he feels the way as I do about Blair needing to go but is it likely to happen? date=02.03.2004 17:14 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bush and Blair nominated for Nobel peace prize:

http://tinyurl.com/2jdo8 date=03.03.2004 09:49 ip=158.94.182.149 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi io. Coming after Monbiot's "depose him" article that is downright strange. How can such different views be derived from the 'same information'? date=03.03.2004 09:53 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Perhaps in that case we shd do both: depose them and then give them the Nobel prize. It'd certainly be a contribution to world peace. date=03.03.2004 11:04 ip=158.94.182.149 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe there should be a Hitler Prize for Greatest Contribution to World Chaos. Chortle. Ha Ha.
If Kerry gets in he should introduce that. Now there might be something interesting. A stateman's dunce's cap. Kerry: "I want to go down the UN peace route." Blair: "But I need my fix!!!" date=03.03.2004 11:35 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A chance to submit your "experiences" with another President. The mind boggles:

http://www.clintonpresidentialcenter.com/leg_rem ember.html date=03.03.2004 11:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As far as I recall Clinton did plenty of impromptu bombing in his time but it seemed less noticeable. Often wonder if that was what the Lewinsky thing was - a smokescreen for far bigger things. Amazing the difference a bit of charisma makes. date=03.03.2004 11:57 ip=158.94.182.149 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Smokescreen ...

I found it hard to swallow, too ... date=03.03.2004 13:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=AHPOOK mail=philip@studioaka.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.studioaka.co.uk text=Dan - I was searching out a pook ref and found your comments. I have to say in these days of Bush Control
I get quite a chill when I look back on a film I made 10 years ago..

http://www.studioaka.co.uk/html/projects2.php?p=ahp ookishere date=03.03.2004 13:21 ip=195.54.245.130 name=AHPOOK mail=philip@studioaka.co.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.studioaka.co.uk text=Dan - I was searching out a pook ref and found your comments.
I have to say in these days of Bush Control I get quite
a chill when I look back on a film I made 10 years ago..

http://www.studioaka.co.uk/
html/projects2.php?p=a hpookishere date=03.03.2004 13:22 ip=195.54.245.130 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If that's really the voice of Studio Aka, may I just say that JoJo in the Stars was my favourite moment from the recent British Animation awards thingy. date=03.03.2004 13:36 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi
I just heard about the Elle Mc Pherson ad scandal. Here in Spain the press is talking about hundred of angry letters . Is this for real ? date=03.03.2004 21:42 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've seen the ad. Very much 'so what'. date=03.03.2004 22:31 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Alex

My point is that I find hard to belive that there is any real scandal with such a tame picture. I read in Sadie Plant that one of the very first coca-cola ads ( we are talking 1.901) had a young girl in her nigthie ,lying in an unmade bed, whit a big grin on her face, holding an empty coca-cola bottle. The caption: She is satisfied.
Now that is a real scandalous ad... date=04.03.2004 10:07 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have to admit this news item piqued my interest. Arturo, the 1901 ad was covert; the 2004 is overt. The continual movement towards disinhibition is fascinating. How much can they get away with? It's like the Olympics. How much can they shave off the record? (As it were.) date=04.03.2004 11:01 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Atruro: I agree. It seems that blatant eroticism (however badly done) is less acceptable than smutty innuendo in advertising. That Sophie Dahl ad was another good example of a furore over nothing. A friend of mine runs an advertising industry website and she was recently told by Paypal that she must not show the Sophie Dahl poster on her site (under threat of them withdrawing the facility) because it contravenes Paypal's standards of deceny. This from a company inextricably linked with Ebay, from which site you can buy hardcore porn. date=04.03.2004 13:06 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: There's always something to shock the old folk. I consider myself pretty unshockable - for example a girl with her hand in her knickers in an ad just makes me yawn. But I'm shocked by the sexualisation of the very young, and they are coming up behind us, not in the least bit bothered by the way they are being sexualised. I wonder what would shock them? Actually I know what would shock them: the sexualisation of the old. date=04.03.2004 13:11 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What exhausts our attention is part of the logic of what catches it. The new shock tactics required to outdo the old shock tactics are in a way victims of the old shock tactics. In the shock Olympics the stakes always have to be raised higher (or something).

Interesting about the Sophie Dahl ad. There was a roundabout in East Dulwich where it could have caused a few problems. date=04.03.2004 13:38 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Alex

What you describe sounds souspiciously close to censorship. date=04.03.2004 15:04 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And we all know that no such thing exists.

Maybe we could sing something all thogeter? date=04.03.2004 15:56 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: it sounds more like double standards to me. date=04.03.2004 18:48 ip=81.133.166.225 name=regtardis mail=regtardis@breathe.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=at the mill................ date=05.03.2004 02:43 ip=62.252.96.5 name=the way we thought m mail=regtardis@breathe.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=there was always something that hurt. date=05.03.2004 02:47 ip=62.252.96.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personally I think dark chocolate is the way to go. Even Bourneville. date=05.03.2004 09:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: uncannily observant of you. I bought my usual milk chocolate with hazelnuts yesterday, but couldn't escape from a dark suspicion that I should have bought plain instead.

Mmmm. Bugger, that's done it. I have to go to Beanies now for some of their Plamil cayenne chocolate (yes, chocolate with chilli in: it bites). date=05.03.2004 09:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But the Bournville I had last night had an unexpected side-effect. I can't stop humming David Bowie. I treated everyone in the office this morning to a rendition of Word on a Wing.

Sorry is all I can say. date=05.03.2004 10:00 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's never happened before.

All the same Dan if it's chocolate you're on message.

Now I can't stop.

I woiake (Karioke?) up this morning with an unusually clear head.

I told myself: your imagination is gay even though you are straight. Now that doesn't mean much of anything if you look at it without knowing what my dreams were. But if you think that Plato was gay, and so was Socrates - even Wittgenstein! - and so were or are many of the best poets - Thom Gunn, Auden, and er, Morrisey ("Keats and Yeats are on your side!") - then I think it starts to make sense. date=05.03.2004 10:38 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Everyone’s gone to the moon. (Or Egypt or Spain) Head like Cliché Junction today. They keep popping out. So put them to some use. Using clichés to generate plotlines. (Computer-like.) Put together a random set of clichés and it tells a story. Here is one example. I start with a few sporting clichés:

Nobody said it was going to be easy. Hang in there. You have to ask yourself a question.
C'est la vie
Shit happens
Que sera, sera
Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

Sad but true. Makes you kinda wanna cry.

Coda: You cannot be serious! date=05.03.2004 12:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Has anyone seen this ? --

http://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/index.html date=05.03.2004 13:39 ip=213.78.164.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hm. Obviously an expedition is called for. Set phasers to stun. date=05.03.2004 13:59 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And always read the enclosed leaflet:
http://www.entrances2hell.co.uk/pagesafety.html date=05.03.2004 15:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shame about the crappy t-shirt. Nice idea for a website, though. It's eclipsed Decorated Ukranian Bus Stops as my favourite. date=05.03.2004 17:30 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We're gonna need some bolt-holes to hell once Blair's Armageddon hits the fan. date=05.03.2004 18:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>bolt-holes to hell

What do you mean? We're already on the hand-cart. date=05.03.2004 19:30 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And here's a good article about religion in the age of Bush:
www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_5423.shtml date=05.03.2004 19:34 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> We're already on the hand-cart.

To the Promised Land, surely? date=06.03.2004 09:28 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>bolt-holes to hell

>>What do you mean? We're already on the hand-car

wasn´t that a higway we were on ? date=06.03.2004 14:45 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=C'mon, now - Steph's getting her book out, Agnetha's got a new cd on the way, and while I was thinking of old times on the way home last night I heard a pattering behind me and turned round to find a sad-faced fox following me down the road in the moonlight - my very own familiar, like memories given 4-legged form and dogging my every step. So good and strange things keep happening, in spite of all the dread: catch 'em when you can. date=08.03.2004 17:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Those Oxford foxes. There's a book about them from the 80s, I forget the name of the author though I think I met him once at an Allen & Unwin publicity dinner. (When there was still an Allen & Unwin, speaking of old times.) I love foxes, & I have had similiar things happen to me in Barnes & Clapham, including seeing three separate foxes doing the round of the dustbins in one street at midnight). Also I once saw a fox using a pelican crossing at three in the morning in Peckham. date=08.03.2004 18:04 ip=213.78.89.250 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's a problem with foxes on our allotments. They love it there. Only today, I noticed two big fox holes in my neighbour's old compost heap. And an old allotment guy told me later that a vixen digs in under his plot. He was digging a potato trench and suddenly went in up to his knee. He used some stuff called Reynardine (really!) which makes a strong scent that implies to foxes that another fox is squatting the hole. So they've moved house, next door to me. I await a golden evening moment after a nice spot of gardening, when the cubs will come out to play. date=08.03.2004 20:31 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al Reynolds mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had to catch a fox last year. Some foxes had been breeding under the barracks at my workplace, and as the year went on we saw the cubs grow up and become more adventurous. In August Josette and I were taking a stroll one lunchtime when we saw a fox in the distance, limping badly. We caught up with him and saw that he had a very badly broken rear paw. He was very skinny and could only manage a walking pace. Between us we cornered him, threw a shirt over his head and wrestled him to the ground, while avoiding being nipped. I then held this fox on the ground for about 20 minutes while Josette went off to find help. I couldn't move an inch, or he'd have been able to get his head free. Eventually Josette came back with a cardboard box, having phoned the local animal hospital. We managed to get the fox into the box (a hair-raising procedure in its own right) and then waited for the medica to come.

Sadly, they had to put the fox down. The broken leg could have been fixed, but the fox would have had to spend time in captivity and apparently they don't take to that very well. More than likely, the vet said, the fox had caught his leg in a mole trap: the kind put down to keep moles away from golf courses.

Beautiful animal though. date=09.03.2004 09:02 ip=131.176.13.103 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al R. The thinking over here is to try & fix them & return them to (what is laughingly known as) the wild. There are a couple of good organisations, one of which I think I'm actually a member of, which specialise in this. As for golf courses & mole traps, indeed the whole time-honoured issue of a species entering the category "vermin" (with all the demonising and political dehabilitation that implies) because human beings need its skin or its space, I'd better keep my opinions to myself on that.

I loved Childhood's End when I first read it because at eleven years old I thought for one delightful moment it depicted an act of poetic justice. date=09.03.2004 10:42 ip=213.78.67.172 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Luckily, we like the foxes on our allotments because they keep the pigeons under control. Sometimes it's better to let nature get on with things. date=09.03.2004 10:59 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al R mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike. I wish they'd at least given the fox a sporting chance, as you say they do in the UK. I'd forgotten to mention that the injured fox was being stalked by a magpie. Not long ago we also had to rescue an injured rabbit that was being attacked by a magpie. Vicious brutes, magpies - and I say this as an RSPB member!

Anyway, J and I seem to be forever finding injured animals and taking them to the animal hospital. Just in the last year we've had the rabbit, the fox, three jackdaw chicks, a swallow and a seagull, not to mention a blue tit that Josette rescued from a drainpipe. The success rate seems to be about 50%, which I suppose is better than nothing.

I forgot to say: this is my first day of posting on this board, but I've been lurking here with some enjoyment for a long time. date=09.03.2004 11:58 ip=131.176.13.103 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, injured birds. Unfortunately, our cats are responsible for some of them. I've learned to be a bit of a dab hand with the neck-wringing. It's sometimes better than the search for the box, the silent drive to the vet's, the anxious wait...and the almost inevitable "sorry, there was nothing we could do". Nature red in tooth and claw. date=09.03.2004 12:33 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blimey, Al, you two are especially blessed with incident, aren't you ? I think a 50% success rate is pretty good though. My brother and I drove the family mad as kids, with shoeboxes full of badly broken small mammals we hoped to repair. Ideologically this was complicated because John spent the other half of his time shooting them in the first place. It was weird to be brought up in rural Warwickshire and steadily recognise you hated much of what everyone around you took for granted. I worked in a foxhunting stable for a bit, and that finished me for it all. I've been very anti "Countryside" since. The ability of those people to act as observers of animal behaviour is completely tainted by an ideology of use.

>>I've been lurking here with some enjoyment for a long time

Well now you're out the closet, & we can enjoy you.

Alex: a truer word was never spoke. Although god knows what "nature" actually is, other than some coordinates in a constantly-shifting evolutionary space. In the end, we've already interfered too far too long ago: we're a selection pressure--indeed an environment--in ourselves. There's not an inch of "natural" landscape in Britain. Everywhere's been changed long ago by being used for something. I suppose we're as lost in this ideologically as the countryside lobby. But at least we can admit it.

I lived next door to a hill-farmer in the Peak District. She wouldn't allow foxes to be hunted on her land. If she lost a lamb to them every couple of seasons, she said, she would be surprised. date=09.03.2004 12:35 ip=213.78.76.24 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al R: Hi!

MJH: "Broken small mammals" ... interesting phraseology here. 'Mummy, I've smashed the cat again ...'

I spent a bit of my childhood in the country: cows wandering out of the fields into the garden (an early sighting of the return of the repressed, I now realise), rats' nests in the haystacks, and an exiled Pole down the road who threatened his wife every full moon with an array of bent knives. You never saw any foxes back then - unless they were glacier mints, of course. date=09.03.2004 12:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell you what, though, I've never seen so many dead badgers by the sides of roads. I presume there's either a lot more of them, or they are getting bolder and more stupid. Urban badgers would be a sight, wouldn't they? I bet they'd make a right racket in the bins. date=09.03.2004 12:58 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>There's not an inch of "natural" landscape in Britain. Everywhere's been changed long ago by being used for something.

Of course the city itself is a kind of wilderness: a theme that fascinates me. We get lots of foxes near Dulwich Wood. At night they howl in the most heart-rending way. Whether out of misery or in exultation at being wild is hard to say.

Yesterday I was in the underground at Bank Station; where there was an ad for South African holidays showing a picture of three cheetahs (?) at a watering hole lapping in unison. Two males and one female I think. Each staring intent across the water. The central male was the most developed. Anyway it was soothing to look at; they were very beautiful. It was striking how poorly the people walking past on the platform compared with them as animals. date=09.03.2004 13:05 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile ... [ chomp ]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3545679.stm date=09.03.2004 13:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al R mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I've only seen on badger in my entire life, late at night in the Cotswolds about 20 years ago. I'd be heartbroken to see a dead one.

MJH: your time in the foxhunting stables: was that when you were a groom? I had a nasty experience with a horse just before Christmas, when I was bitten to the bone (collarbone, as it happens). After 12 years of being around horses (saddling, grooming etc), I've now completely lost my bottle, and *they* know it, the buggers. I'm slowly getting my nerve back, but I don't think I'll ever get back the same (probably ill-advised) level of confidence I had before. Funny how it only takes one thing. Anyway, the horse world (especially in the UK) is a hotbed of anti-fox sentiment, as you might have guessed. Funny how there is little or no foxhunting in the Netherlands, and yet there is still a vast army of farriers, blacksmiths, saddlemakers, equine vets, etc kept in business.

A life of incident: well, I won't even mention the fact that Josette is currently serving as a witness for the prosecution in a murder case... date=09.03.2004 13:20 ip=131.176.13.103 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>At night they howl in the most heart-rending way. Whether out of misery or in exultation at being wild is hard to say.

For sex, mainly, MJP. That classic shriek is the female announcing, "Vixen in the house. Come and have some." OK, I'm being facetious here. Dog foxes do sometimes shriek; and shrieking can be heard outside the breeding season. They have a huge library of sounds, and you can probably hear most of them in Dulwich. The new theory is that winter shrieking by vixens isn't addressed to local males, but males from off-territory. City vixens, anyway, are quite promiscuous, & looking for a good genetic spread in their cubs. Population density has a modifying effect on behaviour in most animals, and the phenotype appears to have several "cultural" attractor basins its behaviour can fall into. date=09.03.2004 13:35 ip=213.78.174.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>At night they howl in the most heart-rending way.

Don't get many foxes in Walthamstow. My neighbour, Jim, tried to take a picture of one one one of our Lea Valley rambles but it had scarpered by the time he'd sorted out the operating system on his digital camera.

No, I'm more concerned with the geese. We're situated on a canada goose flightpath. We were wondering why they honk when they are flying from A to B, even when there's only one of them. Is it to let other geese know where they are to avoid mid-air collisions or is it a more laddish thing?

Oh, and Hi to Al R. Glad you decided to delurk. Now, who *else* is out there? date=09.03.2004 15:09 ip=158.94.144.59 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>At night they howl in the most heart-rending way.

Don't get many foxes in Walthamstow. My neighbour, Jim, tried to take a picture of one on one of our Lea Valley rambles but it had scarpered by the time he'd sorted out the operating system on his digital camera.

No, I'm more concerned with the geese. We're situated on a canada goose flightpath. We were wondering why they honk when they are flying from A to B, even when there's only one of them. Is it to let other geese know where they are to avoid mid-air collisions or is it a more laddish thing?

Oh, and Hi to Al R. Glad you decided to delurk. Now, who *else* is out there?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=09.03.2004 15:09 ip=158.94.144.59 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Honking - inherited behaviour from the time they were barnacles, surely.

I was going to ask - do you know how many hits ES gets at all? Or are we just posting stuff for an audience of untold millions? date=09.03.2004 15:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I *love* the idea of barnacle geese! I had this dream when I was seven or eight which described the whole barnacle goose lifecycle. Obviously a vision from Gahd!

I was getting sitestats for ES up to a few months ago. There was a sitestats thing on some webspace I used to use but I disconnected from them to avoid the charges for this year. We get a fair number of hits per day - it's in the hundreds, but mostly that's the regulars looking in or refreshing when they're bored. Quite a lot come from obscure Googlings but there's a number of bodies out there that I haven't accounted for. Al R was obviously one of them.

I might reintroduce sitestats by another method when I get a moment. But at present I'm a little busy getting my computer back to normal after some nasty virus/hack incursions. Lost a lot of data but it's properly secure now. date=09.03.2004 15:27 ip=158.94.144.59 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was bitten to the bone (collarbone, as it happens)

Oh come on! That must be, what, half a centimeter deep?

Martin: barnacles don't honk. Limpets, on the other hand, ululate furiousy. date=09.03.2004 15:28 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I dunno - barnacles definitely sound like Millwall fans to me, and if they don't "honk," they should. Limpets - all pink lace tea-gowns and la-di-da. You're right -"ululate" is exactly what they do! Whatever next - apt calls for dugongs?

Io: It's a lovely folk-tale, but I've never dreamt about them. Difficult to say what my dreams are, though. Recent attempts to scribble them out when I've woken up have led to jottings like last paragraphs from Lovecraft: "Virginia Woolf - the National Gallery - *that writing* -" You what, son? I haven't a clue what I was on about. date=09.03.2004 15:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was all about holidays in nuclear warzones and having a few pints with old schoolmates in last night's screening. But that's probably something to do with my current reading: The Crysalids. You'll be pleased to hear it's *not* the edition with the MJH intro. I'll have to look at that at some point but I think it's normally a good idea to read introductions after you've finished the book. date=09.03.2004 15:53 ip=158.94.144.59 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lisa wishes you all to know that she has rescued many birds, including a duck and what might have been a grebe. And she also asked me to tell you that her mother had an incident involving a fox in her toilet. Details are vague at this stage. date=09.03.2004 16:16 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Bizarre - I was thinking about "The Chrysalids" only yesterday: I think the sight of a distant aircraft triggered off a memory of sailors in the book seeing one, and not knowing what it was.

I didn't know MJH had done an introduction. Then again, I haven't read any Wyndham in years. Do the books still work, or have they dated? date=09.03.2004 16:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, I was reading Day of the Triffids last year and it was very of-its-time but actually worked a lot better than a lot of more generic SF. The Chrysalids (thanx Martin for correct spelling) is even better in the non-generic stakes, especially considering that it's a novel about post-nuclear environments and telepathy. Of course there's a lot of self-censorship that you wouldn't get in a contemporary novel but that kinda works with the puritan community it's depicting and gives a lot of the offstage violence a greater sense of dread.

But I'm mainly reading the book against another post-nuclear fave from that period: A Canticle for Liebowitz that has a very different take on religion. date=09.03.2004 16:27 ip=158.94.144.59 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Canticle" I re-read a couple of years ago - and it was almost as good as I remembered. Did Neil Young get "After the Goldrush" from the last chapter? Perhaps we'll never know. I've just finished telling a group of ten-year olds about monasteries keeping libraries of wisdom through the Dark Ages, too. Small world.

Thinking about favourite disaster stories, there's Alfred Bester's "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To": remarkable for seeming to be an After the Bomb tale, but actually something quite different. I always pin these fictions into the "Dr. Stangelove" era, and imagine they stopped with the Berlin Wall coming down. Or has 9/11 led to a whole new crop that I've missed in the States? date=09.03.2004 16:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I re-read Canticle most years. It's like a requiem mass, that novel. Those long dark chords and the intimations of the eternal. I'm sure someone can come up with a counter example but the fifties were the period for post-apocalypse. Been meaning to re-read Earth Abides for a decade or so. Maybe I'll get onto that next. Oddly enough the last book I read was Liz Hand's Glimmering - an AIDs millenial apocalypse. Again religion plays an important part in the book - but in a more NRM/cultic postmodern vein. date=09.03.2004 16:53 ip=158.94.144.59 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, I have never read Canticle. Of course John Wyndham is good for post apocalypse; so also I think is John Christopher. I remember being astounded by the bleak realism of The World in Winter. date=10.03.2004 09:51 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Let's not forget Ballard, or is that too obvious? I keep re-reading The Atrocity Exhibition in the hope that one day I will 'get it' but all I'm left with is a series of vivid images. Another good one: Aldiss' Barefoot In The Head. date=10.03.2004 09:58 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: "Atrocity Exhibition" is just about the only book go beyond Burroughs, using techniques that no one else has employed or surpassed. Although Ballard's an avowed surrealist, I always thought "AE" was a cubist text, dissecting two or three psycho-social fetishes from every conceivable angle. Or maybe it's surreal after all: if the book were an object, it would one of Hans Bellmer's multi-limbed, diffusely eroticised dolls. The edition that came out a few years ago is the one to track down, with Ballard's marginal comments on everything from disasters in time to a glimpse of a weary Peggy Guggenheim slumped in her museum at Venice. Burroughs supplied the preface, too.

In the mean time, if anyone wants to explore themselves, try:

http://test3.thespark.com/gendertest/ date=10.03.2004 11:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's rubbish I'm afraid, Martin. That web site thinks I am a woman.

Try this: fill in all the answers randomly but say your middle name ends in a vowel.

Then vice versa. date=10.03.2004 11:36 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: You could well be right ... :)) date=10.03.2004 11:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH said: I've been very anti "Countryside" since. The ability of those people to act as observers of animal behaviour is completely tainted by an ideology of use.

I agree and I understand this very well. Similar experiences were formative for me & I still think about the complexities of it no end. date=10.03.2004 11:59 ip=62.255.240.221 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks like I'm a man. The test was rather American though. I mean, people in the rest of the world just don't have such strong opinions about Canada. And certainly a lot of my answers seemed to be ambiguous according to the findings they gave at the end. So maybe there's something in MJP's suggestion that it's all keyed to whether yr middle name ends with a vowel.

Back to the Apocalypse. Ballard and Aldiss - certainly. But the crisis seems to be more ongoing an metaphysical with these writers. Ballard's landscapes of disaster always seem to reflect internal psychoses. Aldiss less so, although Barefoot in the Head as an acid head apocalypse is again a psychological and linguistic crisis.

I guess the Apocalypse *is* always an ongoing metaphysical crisis - but I suppose in the fifties variant there's that sense of Cold War anxiety waiting in the wings. Each era gives birth to its own disaster: the pop cultural landscape of Ballard or the post-AIDs fallout of Liz Hand. Our current era is something of an accumulation of all the above! date=10.03.2004 12:00 ip=158.94.148.249 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Has anybody read a short story called "Opilec" by Karel Capek? Can you tell me anything about it? date=10.03.2004 12:46 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: No - sorry. "War with the Newts," but nothing else. date=10.03.2004 13:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al R mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex

>>I was bitten to the bone (collarbone, as it happens)

Oh come on! That must be, what, half a centimeter deep?

Depends how much fat you've got on you, doesn't it...anyway it's still bone, and it was through three layers of clothing.

Re: Canticle: about time I re-read this, I think. I read it when I was about 16, and while I enjoyed it, I'm sure there were layers and layers of stuff I just wasn't getting. I found the stuff at the end - the spaceship and all that - far less convincing than the rest of the book though. I've also wondered if Neil Young had that book in mind. date=10.03.2004 13:23 ip=131.176.13.103 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wouldn't want to feel a horse's teeth close on my collarbone, which is real close to the surface. That's just a shade too biological to be fun, when you look down and see bone. I once fell off a crack climb with my feet while three of my fingers were still wedged in. It was a ragged crack, with plenty of crystal in it. The fingerlock held, then slipped, then held again. Once I'd stopped fucking and blinding about the fall spoiling my tick for the route, I had a look at the relevant finger joints. Oh shit. That flash of bluey-white, almost luminous. Don't you just hate it ? I mean, you were never intended to see that, were you ? My brain just hates seeing my own bone. Yuck.

Al, on losing bottle: I don't think anyone loses it permanently unless they have other (not neccessarily conscious) reasons than the event itself; ie, sometimes it's a convenient time in your life to wander away from something, and "loss of bottle" becomes a powerful subsidiary stimulus. In the absence of that, people stay in the war zone and develop a level of caution which might be described as professional. This is no bad thing. I was lucky, I got the odd nip, and my foot stood on a couple of times; but I saw people take absolutely bastard kicks. (My problem was falling off, which, by the end, got ridiculous. No talent at all. No basic physical understanding of the skills.)

Steph: What I can't quite get my head round is that I haven't been anywhere near a horse since I was 20. If I think about it, this seems like a "live" subject to me, when actually it's a rather small fragment of my total experience, looked at through the wrong end of a telescope. Though predicated on actual events, the continuity is intellectual and political, not experiential. date=10.03.2004 13:40 ip=213.78.66.221 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>No - sorry. "War with the Newts," but nothing else.

That book has been sitting around on my shelves since the mid-eighties waiting to be read. How much longer before I face up to facts and donate it to Oxfam?

Re: Canticle: I think the spaceship scene at the end is basically a big set piece. Monks climbing into rocket as mushroom clouds rise on the horizon - if it wasn't it shd have been a magazine cover. I also find the mutant scene at the end hugely affecting but I also know people who were completely unconvinced by this. date=10.03.2004 13:45 ip=158.94.148.249 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Donate it to Oxfam ...

I feel the same way about "Gravity's Rainbow" - but one of these years I'll get through the wretched thing.
A thick book that's irresistibly, horrifically readable, though, is Gitta Serenyi's study of Albert Speer and his psychological strategies for coping with he who was and what he'd done. I'm about one third the way through this: "darkness visible," with a vengeance. date=10.03.2004 14:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al R mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: That flash of bluey-white, almost luminous. Don't you just hate it ? I mean, you were never intended to see that, were you ? My brain just hates seeing my own bone. Yuck.

I hate the thought of it, and I was spared it with the collarbone thing - Josette took one look at it and said I'd better not look down . I don't want to know about blood and bone and veins, thank you very much. Wedging my fingers into cracks in rock was a big mental block for me when I dabbled with climbing - I just couldn't do it with the necessary commitment. Reading your story would have made me even less keen... date=10.03.2004 14:45 ip=131.176.13.103 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gravity's Rainbow was quite a lot of very good bits held together with many more not-very-good bits. I still love the bit where Slothrop is baffled by the English sweets ("gin creams") and I was surprised not to see Irvine Welsh taken to task for his 'disappearing down the toilet' scene: Pynchon invented that one, but it was in pursuit of a harmonica rather than a suppository (in case you've not read Gravity's Rainbow). date=10.03.2004 18:19 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh...these are good!
http://www.georgewbush.org/spots/nations-comforter.as p
http://www.georgewbush.org/spots/heartbeat-of-america.asp date=10.03.2004 18:40 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: They are, they are! :)

(Bloody innocent Guantanamo detainees, coming over here, wasting police time ... )

"Gravity's Rainbow": I got as far as Part 3, so I read the toilet dive. As for the rest, I was torn between admiring his research and being bored to tears by his style. I might not be alone. One critic on the Picador edition I have compares Pynchon to both Melville and Joyce, but avoids saying what the book's actually about - difficult anyway, given the nests of conspiracies, psychics, and plot-lines, but I begin to wonder if the reviewer ever finished reading it in the first place. date=11.03.2004 09:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dropping my "endemic facetiousness" for once, I hope all the Spanish friends of ES are safe after the dreadful news from Madrid. We're thinking of you. date=11.03.2004 11:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jesus! Just seen about that in the news. Arturo: Hope no-one you know was caught in this. date=11.03.2004 11:17 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes. My thoughts are with Spain this morning. Dreadful. date=11.03.2004 11:25 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Io & Martin &Everybody else.

Thank you very much for your concern. My loved ones are O.K but it has been a very long and very scary morning with trying to track down everybody on the phone and getting calls from everybody else. Horrible images in the tv of wounded people. Horror tales from medical people. Rigth now I am speechless.
Thank you again. date=11.03.2004 12:04 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: It's just a great relief to hear you're all right on such a terrible day. It may sound a stupid remark, but please take care! date=11.03.2004 12:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Not stupid at all. As soon as I read about this I thought back to the IRA bomb at Canary Wharf (which was actually smaller in scale than what has happened in Madrid) and the extent to which something like this can shock a whole city. The sort of thing that might make you wary about going into the city centre and fearing for loved ones who regularly do.

Arturo: Glad to hear you weren't affected. It sounds like it was terrible. date=11.03.2004 13:36 ip=158.94.148.249 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hear, hear. It is very shocking.

I remember an IRA bomb went off in the toilets of John Lewis near here. That panicked a lot of people in the streets. Heaven knows what it was like in the building itself.

The remarkable thing was that they went back to work a couple of hours afterwards. Not me! date=11.03.2004 13:55 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi. Thanks again everybody.
Martin: Not stupid at all.
Fifteen more bombs have been found in backpacks and police are telling everybody to avoid Atocha Station today so today is indeed a day to be careful. date=11.03.2004 14:02 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Everybody is looking dazed and shocked but trying to go on with their daily lives. date=11.03.2004 14:03 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. Please give everyone my sympathies over this. Madrid is such a welcoming city that it seems doubly appalling. date=12.03.2004 11:22 ip=213.78.70.91 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.

Thanks. I´ll do that. date=12.03.2004 15:35 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was disgusted to see the tabloids, especially the London tabloids, braying about the suspected Al-Qaeida connection before any firm evidence has been presented. Even the Whitehouse has been more circumspect than our own local rags. date=12.03.2004 16:40 ip=158.94.148.249 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, I hope you get this before tomorrow night. The party at Frevd's has been cancelled - the chap whose birthday it is, is not well.

I don't know any more, I just got a phone message. And my hotmail account has ceased working. Sigh. date=12.03.2004 21:37 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This sucks. Hotmail sucks entirely. Martin, I am very, very sorry. date=12.03.2004 21:55 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: No worries. But congratulations anyway - the book's a bright spark in a dark time! And count me in if you're Frevding again when everyone's better. date=12.03.2004 23:56 ip=212.126.153.193 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah - it worked! Hooray! Last night I wore the walls out banging my head against them. I was about to leave for Shetland in the hope of starting a new life as a haddock. date=13.03.2004 11:57 ip=80.177.155.168 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alan Moore fans might like to get today's Independent. There is an article on him in the review.

Did anyone else read the previous week's Saturday Guardian with the Julian Barnes story about Turgenev? It was unreadable, unbelievably bad - in my view of course. If anyone else thought it was good I will try reading it again. date=15.03.2004 09:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I tried the first couple of paragraphs, thought 'this is nothing in particular that an Islington audience will simply *adore*,' and passed on, rapidly. Still reading about Albert Speer ("Of course we shot 90,000 Jews in the Ukraine," said one officer on trial at Nuremberg. "But I can assure you, it was done humanely.") and some Beachcomber for light relief.

Steph the Shetland Haddock - well, we'd be sorry to lose you, but it does have a certain showbiz ring to it ... date=15.03.2004 10:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=You cheeky bollox Krishna. I re-discovered Wyndham first ("The Kraken Awakes, to be precise). Find your own re-discovery.*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=15.03.2004 10:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Eh? Who's been editing text while I've been away? date=15.03.2004 21:04 ip=81.133.48.123 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'm sure Martin didn't say that this morning... date=15.03.2004 21:19 ip=81.133.48.123 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: either you and Martin are one and the same person, or Martin seems to have developed hacking skills! date=16.03.2004 09:16 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As far as I remember Martin and I are separate entities. Although on the other hand: I found a postcard of Maitreya in the social sciences section of the library this morning - a timely reminder of illusory nature of space/time.

But on the hack thing: I have my own theories. date=16.03.2004 09:53 ip=158.94.164.210 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Two nights ago my computer turned itself on at 3.30 in the morning. I was dreaming and then mixed in with my dream was the windows start up, very loud, from the hallway.

The curious thing is something in me seemed to expect it to happen. date=16.03.2004 10:04 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am I. He is he. Um ... any questions? - :) date=16.03.2004 10:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But don't you realise Martin that if the second "I" is redundant that makes the first "I" meaningless? In which case - you could just as easily be he. he. he. date=16.03.2004 10:13 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Look, neither of me's really got time to argue... date=16.03.2004 10:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just to change the subject for a second. I watched two Tarkovsky films over the weekend. Nostalgia and The Sacrifice (for the umteenth time). The additional material on the DVD extra disks is totally totally gripping. A graphic depiction of East meets West culturally, in the person of Tarkovsky. He isn't that different and yet he is. Watch him call the driver of the ambulance in Sacrifice a motherfucker when he goes AWOL. date=16.03.2004 10:29 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just a minute. Yr computer switched itself on during the night and you didn't get an unutterable sense of wrongness? Did the computer do anything once Windows had booted up? Messages from beyond or something? date=16.03.2004 10:36 ip=158.94.164.210 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was certainly eerie. I don't have an explanation for it. date=16.03.2004 10:51 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I forgot. Also, the word "HELLO" was emblazoned across the screen. date=16.03.2004 10:54 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another good reason not to change yr Windows startup music to the Twilight Zone theme. date=16.03.2004 11:04 ip=158.94.164.210 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No PCtergeists here - but we've just had a lot of fun with groups of primary children coming round our museum. We got out an old manual typewriter for them to play about on, which they thought wicked antique. They also typed some interesting things. One nine-year old tapped out: "Everyone's so cynical nowadays." I don't know where they get it from, etc. date=16.03.2004 14:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yesterday I had luch with a friend who is going to review "Light". He told me that when he realized that there were 3 plots , he decided to read each one straight to the end. Thus rebuilding the book as a trilogy of short novels. He likes it a lot.

On Alan Moore : You may want to look at

http://www.afnews.info/deposito/foto/charleroi2004m/in dex.html

( By the way, José Villarrubia is my older brother) date=16.03.2004 15:45 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Techy-er people than me will probably scoff, but I've heard tell that hackers or some other such beast can drop a program onto your computer which then allows them to take control of it. Ask Martin ;) date=16.03.2004 16:07 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: There's already bugs in Windows XP which allow pranksters to take control of yr computer. Yay Microsoft! date=16.03.2004 16:13 ip=158.94.172.70 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: you're right - I've no idea who I am on this board any more. Sometimes I have two heads; sometimes I'm re-discovering John Wynham; other times I'm just a variety of people I've never met before. I could be wave, I could be particle. Perhaps the whisky will help. Is there a quantum therapist out there? date=16.03.2004 16:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Is there a quantum therapist out there?

Well it depends on the way you look. He could be there o maybe not. date=16.03.2004 17:01 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe I'm him as well ... it's all jolly confusing, chaps! date=16.03.2004 17:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perhaps the whisky will help

Nothing like a good shot of Bell's Theorem to sort out any non-local casualties. date=16.03.2004 18:18 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A wee tot certainly got my muons into line.

Now for that pelvic strange attractor ... date=17.03.2004 09:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nothing like a good shot of Bell's Theorem to sort out any non-local casualties.
_________

I am not particler about brands ... I just wave to the waiter . date=17.03.2004 13:04 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Wasser mail=edsell@edsell.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.xip.nu text=Legendary Viennese underground artists Fox & Penguin have some unreleased material at http://www.xip.nu date=17.03.2004 13:43 ip=69.110.230.146 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Two photons, and I'll raise you a positron.

As time dilation sets in around the empty bottles, let's revisit everyone's favourite year (it says here):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3519662.stm
I was around then, and remember dead light, dull times, and the widespread feeling of "malaise" - a term the papers never use these days. Everything seemed sweaty and used-up. Most people wished they were back in the '60s, or earlier. Apparently, it was paradise. News to me. date=17.03.2004 14:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Two photons, and I'll raise you a positron.

As time dilation sets in around the empty bottles, let's revisit everyone's favourite year (it says here):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3519662.stm

(EDIT BY IOTAR)--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date= around then, and remember dead light, dull times, and the widespread feeling of "malaise" - a term the papers never use these days. Everything seemed sweaty and used-up. Most people wished they were back in the '60s, or earlier. Apparently, it was paradise. News to me. ip=e=17.03.2004 14:01 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Two photons, and I'll raise you a positron.

As time dilation sets in around the empty bottles, let's revisit everyone's favourite year (it says here):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3519662.stm
(sorry, edited you due to weirdness on the name field. zk) date=17.03.2004 14:10 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Two photons, and I'll raise you a positron.

As time dilation sets in around the empty bottles, let's revisit everyone's favourite year (it says here):

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3519662.stm date=17.03.2004 14:10 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Many thanks!

Otherwise, I don't know how I did it... date=17.03.2004 14:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Eek! What happened there? date=17.03.2004 14:12 ip=158.94.173.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What happened where? date=17.03.2004 14:17 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Two messages back, I managed to post something with no left margin - comet's trail of letters off the screen. Looked like a concrete portry joke, but rather worrying. Glad it's gone! date=17.03.2004 14:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It looked like part of yr text had been posted into the name field, or something. Made me queasy just to look at it! We had a brief powercut and a system outage (don't you *hate* that word!) in the library this morning. A training course on VDU safety wandered through the office and Tescos shut down for a couple of hours.

It's all adding up to something! date=17.03.2004 14:24 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Retro Satanas, I say. date=17.03.2004 14:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ahh, 1976, yes. Funnily enough, it was probably my best ever year (although a couple of the early 90s come close), even if I was only 7.

And following up Martin's quote from the mouths of (not-long-since) babes, this morning I discovered the Observer Magazine, doodled on by my eldest Rowan (8). In the fashion shoot, she'd drawn a speech bubble from a model's mouth saying "Go on then, praise me!" date=17.03.2004 15:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=1976? Don't remember much before Xmas. Good colouring books and a huge Lego set that year. No, I was barely conscious in 1976. Something I've tried to maintain every year since.

Must've been a good year. date=17.03.2004 15:37 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Rowan is way too cool. Scriptwriting beckons.

My wayward script noted that I thought the "'76 is paradise" line is rubbish. I remember it as a year when everything looked second-hand. Most people wished they were back in the '60s. Dead light, "I'm Not in Love" at #1 for what seemed like months, and the papers were full of a word you never hear now - an undefined "malaise" crippling Britain. As it turned out, most of us were waiting for J. Rotten. A lot more were waiting for M. Thatcher. That's showbiz. date=17.03.2004 15:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was a really good summer though. Or was that 1975 ? date=17.03.2004 16:34 ip=193.195.0.102 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I'm getting a vision of 1976 coming in! I'm going up the escalator at Piccadilly Circus with my mum. The escalator is made of wood! Fancy that! Wooden escalators! We're on our way to to buy food stuff at a Chinese supermarket. I'm asking if I'm on holiday because I haven't started school yet and... oh, it's faded out into static again.

1975: No, nothing coming through apart from tears and tantrums: another thing that recurs through the years. date=17.03.2004 16:50 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: that's not static, that's a plague of ladybirds.

Reminds me of my first ever sleepless night (which was probably also around about 1976).

I was at my grandma's house. For hours and hours I willed on unconsciousness. I got frustrated, I got drained, I got scared, I got delirious.

After a very long time, pre-dawn crept up. There was a patina of light on everything, but my vision was overlaid with what looked like an infinite plane of beetles. Took me ages to work out whether they were real or not. Scary. date=17.03.2004 17:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>For hours and hours I willed on unconsciousness. I got frustrated, I got drained, I got scared, I got delirious.

Ah, that's another thing that I still do as well as I did when I was a lad: insomnia. But I never got the infinity of beetles - that's well fucked! I only get sleep paralysis and the dreaded LONGHEADS. date=17.03.2004 17:23 ip=158.94.172.70 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Insomnia: naw, just the opposite. The narcopleptic me.

'76 was the first hot summer I remember; '75 was okay, though nothing to write home about - but who cared? I was in love; '71 I remember for the long mild autumn. Every time you turned on the radio, you heard "Maggie May." Wooden escalators? You bet. I seem to remember wooden pannelling round the ads on '70s tube trains, too - but that may be age finally getting the better of me.
Aye, it were grand - apart from the crap music, the terrible fashions, the geriatric tv, and the rise of the National Front. Nice bags of chips, though. date=17.03.2004 17:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Wooden escalators? You bet.

Sorry Martin, my internal voice couldn't work out read that part in the voices of Smashey & Nicey or Ron Manager from the Fast Show. Mmmm. Jumpers for goalposts.

While we're on the subject of archaic tube technology, one of the things I shall go to my grave regretting is that I never rode on the ancient Waterloo & City Line before they turned it all Central Line-esque. Gill used to go down there when she was first pregnant and breathe her fill of the mildew smell (like eating soap, only better, so I'm told). date=17.03.2004 18:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Jumpers for goal-posts - too right. You can just get lost in all this. Recalling it as a really naff, down-at-heel time, though, I'm amazed anyone's romanticizing it now.

That odour I never caught. Back then, I always thought the tube smelt faintly of charred, wet paper - something to do with all the electricity down there. It made my head ache. date=17.03.2004 18:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: the reason people are romanticizing it is because there's a generation of TV producers, features editors etc. who, like me, grew up at this time. We were all busy discovering the joys of spangles, orange maids and Bay City Rollers cards, and we're very sorry that things ever had to change.

We also saw things from a very different perspective from "the big people": you will note all the talk of flares and platform shoes, but very little said about fashion above waist height.

My own hymn to childhood in the 70s: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002035.html date=17.03.2004 18:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it wasn't until the eighties when things started to take a turn for the worse for me: parental divorce, secondary school, new romantics and the rest of it.

But I *assume* this stuff about 1976 on the BBC is related to the Starsky and Hutch fillum? Terrible amount of product placement on the BBC site. date=17.03.2004 19:13 ip=158.94.173.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fashion above waist height? Only the other day I was wondering if I could find a picture of one of those shirts you used to get in supermarkets: cream coloured, long sleeve, big collar, penny rounds, with a French newspaper print all over it. I don't remember particular years around that time, but I do remember getting The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway from Christmas in 75. I was thirteen. I proudly played it for my auntie (who had bought it for me). Oh dear. date=17.03.2004 19:44 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heh, poor Auntie. I never could see the point in Genesis.

Still, I got my mum to buy me Leo Records'... "Document", I think it was called... an eight-CD boxed set of Russian avant-garde music from the 80s. She had to get it via mail order, and ever since has been getting mailshots about all sorts of music that aren't exactly, erm, her scene. date=17.03.2004 20:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I hasten to add that I didn't make my mum listen to it. At least, not all eight CDs. date=17.03.2004 20:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aunts, hmm... pre-1980 was all about Burmese aunts in slacks with a slight disco tendency. Even I am not quite sure what that means! I had some of the sort of aunties like those that Woody Allen's avatar has in Radio Days - but in my case it wasn't the early forties.

Often wondered about those slacks: the crackle of static discharge as the wide legs rub against each other on the way from living room to kitchen. Is that how thunderstorms happen? Are aunts in dodgy slacks responsible for higher atmospheric conditions?

Neither my brother nor my half-siblings have yet had children, but maybe one day I'll get a crack at being a dodgy auntie. date=17.03.2004 22:49 ip=81.132.152.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Aunts, hmm... pre-1980 was all about Burmese aunts in slacks with a slight disco tendency. Even I am not quite sure what that means! I had the sort of aunties that Woody Allen's avatar has in Radio Days - but in my case it wasn't the early forties.

Often wondered about those slacks: the crackle of static discharge as the wide legs rub against each other on the way from living room to kitchen. Is that how thunderstorms happen? Are aunts in dodgy slacks responsible for higher atmospheric conditions?

Neither my brother nor my half-siblings have yet had children, but maybe one day I'll get a crack at being a dodgy auntie.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=17.03.2004 22:49 ip=81.132.152.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Slight sub-query: isn't it fucking fantastic when you visit yr neighbours and pick out a Nusrat Fati Ali Khan CD to borrow and they both deny ownership of the disk. That'll go great on my upcoming sufism and industrial metal compilation CD! date=18.03.2004 00:02 ip=81.132.244.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Are aunts in dodgy slacks responsible for higher atmospheric conditions?

Sounds like something from The Age Of Wire And String:
"For if you shall enclose the warm wind of a storm in the shell and white of an egg, which is heated on the boneless coating of the belly, and this wind, being mixed with the hair of a storm witness, you give to a hungry boy, the weather departs from the sky into the boy." date=18.03.2004 09:28 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: if I found a Nusrat CD within 5 miles of our house I'd be very surprised. date=18.03.2004 09:28 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nusrat: I did see him live, once - utterly hypnotic.

Alex: "Document" - wah! What's on it?

"Lamb": oh, dear. But I still dig out "Supper's Ready" once in a blue moon: the someone else I used to be.

Anyway: as Mark E. Smith says, enough of the look-back bores. It's a curse ... date=18.03.2004 09:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Alex: "Document" - wah! What's on it?

Sorry old chap, I don't understand your banter. date=18.03.2004 10:04 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn, I wish I'd seen Nusrat! I've seen Mehr and Sher Ali at a few of those Music Village events in London - quite brilliant. But Nusrat: Wow!

While we're on the Sufi thing: acquired a double CD of Sheik Ahmad Al-Tuni. (excuse the missed circumflex) Puts us young Western drone-cadets to shame. Half-hours of sustained hypnotic inspiration - like a force of nature. Thinking about it I shd have asked Al to find me some CDs of munshid singers before he went off to Egypt. date=18.03.2004 10:29 ip=81.132.152.16 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Ever listen to our very own Manc terrosist Muslimgauze? date=18.03.2004 10:33 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh for a self-edit function.. date=18.03.2004 10:33 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Yes, I've heard some of his stuff. Rather prolific chap. Didn't he die a few years back - I'm sure I remember hearing that from a friend of a friend who knew him.

What to you want to edit? The gratuitous music critic speak? date=18.03.2004 10:49 ip=81.132.152.16 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: self-edit: Oh, I see! I automatically assumed noise-terrorist anyway. But yes: erk! date=18.03.2004 11:16 ip=81.132.152.16 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: you're among friends here (or maybe even 'freinds') - don't worry!

Nusrat was at Womad. A great weekend, ruined only by the "headliner," Daniel Lanois. Oh dear, again.

Muslimgauze: dead, but active. Throws up a whole argument because, despite his Palestinian sympathies, he never once set foot in the Middle East. But I haven't heard anything he did. date=18.03.2004 11:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw Nusrat once too, at Glastonbury... but my musical sensibilities were never at their most heightened at festivals, I think I only paid half attention.

More memorable was the day we arrived in Udaipur, in India. I strolled down to the local park while Gill stayed in the hotel. Somebody had pitched a kind of half-marquee there, and a couple of Sufis were squeezing harmoniums while their leader sang from the Koran. A crowd spilled out across the grass, joining in. I took my shoes off and sat at an almost-respectful distance, nodding along and secretly taping it on my walkman (damn, I wish I knew where those India tapes went to).

Alex/Martin: I think the Document question was aimed at me. I just found a web page about it: http://tinyurl.com/25nny - you do read Russian, don't you? OK, in case you don't, here's the performers: Dearly Departed, Guyvoronsky/Volkov, Valentina Goncharova, Valentina Ponomareva, Jazz Group Arkhangelsk, Datevik Hovhannessian, Orkestrion, Vysniauskas/Lusas, Vapirov/Kuryokhin, Trio-O, Trio-O/Namchylak, Chekasin/Kuryokhin/Grebenschikov, Homo Liber, Sakurov/Dronov, Sergey Kuryokhin Trio, Moscow Improvising Trio, Makarov New Improvised Music Trio, Chekasin, Tarasov, Ganelin, Chekasin/Tarasov/Ganelin.

[phew]

I got it in the early 90s, just after Leo Feigin had his TV series "Russian New Music" (the same time that Channel 4 were running Derek Bailey's "Improvisation" - what a golden era for squonk music on TV) - I was mainly interested in the Kuryokhin and Arkhangelsk stuff. I have quite a bit more on vinyl too.

Reminds me I really ought to rip these 8 CDs to MP3. When I do, I'll let you know Martin (as long as you don't, like, tell the copyright police on me). date=18.03.2004 12:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan:MP3 - you're too kind!

Much more conventionally, I'm listening to David Sylvian's "Blemish" and Kylie's 'Blue Monday' backed version of "Can't Get You Out of My Head." The most meme-packed pop song ever? So it seems. La-la-la, la-la-lala-la - [ some public thanks here to Mark in France for so much great music, too ] date=18.03.2004 12:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't keep up with you lot. I've been listening to Stina Nordenstam since io sent me a sampler before xmas; then both of 4 Tet's albums, courtesy of Conrad Williams; and an Unidenitfied Late Eno that Cath got me. But you lot discuss more music in a week than I seem to have listened to in my life. If I like 4 Tet--and I do--what else will I like ? date=18.03.2004 12:55 ip=213.78.92.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I like Four Tet. I suggest you try things like Mira Calix, Xela, Matmos (The Civil War is a good one), Yasume ("When Audrey Dances). date=18.03.2004 13:14 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Muslingauze: the night Bryn Jones died, unbenknownst to me, I was playing one his CDs and gazing out of my window at the lights of the hospital where he was dying. date=18.03.2004 13:17 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ta, Alex. I'll try 'em out. date=18.03.2004 13:22 ip=213.78.92.233 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I only know "My Angel Rocks Back & Forth," but it tends to stay on repeat for quite a while.

Other hypnotic/floaty stuff (for me, anyway): Boards of Canada's short track "Roygbiv" off their cd "Music Has the Right to Have Children," Augustus Pablo's "Up Warrika Hill," and Eno's "On Land" or "Plateu of Mirror" with him and Harold Budd. No idea what's out there as MP3s, though! date=18.03.2004 13:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> But you lot discuss more music in a week than I seem to have listened to in my life

That's how I feel when the subject turns to, of all things, literature :-)

I've finally started to tackle some of the "classics" that English Literature O-Level put me off for half a lifetime. Very rewarding, my biggest problem is that I'm like a kid in a sweetshop, I keep picking things up and starting them because I can't resist, must have a dozen books on the go right now.

Alex: remind me never to send you any of my recordings, in case your gaze strays to the East.

Speaking of Boards of Canada, and speaking of memes in music: some great conspiracy theories surrounding BoC music & the devil. See for example here: http://tinyurl.com/29e7m date=18.03.2004 14:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: "My Angel Rocks Back & Forth" --I fucking love it. In fact I'm going to play it now. Thanx for the recommendations, too.

Dan, you said, "I'm like a kid in a sweetshop, I keep picking things up and starting them because I can't resist, must have a dozen books on the go right now."

Time we all fessed up to this syndrome, and gave chapter & verse. On the go at the moment I have: Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett, which it turns out I've never read, though I recognise almost every scene of it from other people's thrillers; Collected Stories, Carson McCullers (nearly finished, though I'm still in the absolute best of them, "A Member of the Wedding"); Free Love, Ali Smith; Junk Mail, Will Self; and Matter, issue 3, which has a nice Toby Litt in it among some very interesting new writers indeed. The other day I was going to add Stuart Kaufmann's new one, Investigations; by I'd forgotten that though God, Kaufmann requires your science head on & your full attention for a couple of weeks, otherwise kiss it goodbye, you *will not* follow the argument... date=18.03.2004 14:39 ip=213.78.90.207 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=4 Tet: I think Kieran Hebden is/was also involved in Fridge. Saw them at a Kosmische related event once - kinda dubbed-up Sonic Youth-ish. I suspect 4 Tet are somewhat more laptop-ish, if so the best thing to do would be to getting yrself some good multitracking software and putting *everything* that comes through yr hard drive through a blender and playing it back.

More music: Another new CD dropped through the letter box today Distant Effects by Major Stars. I think these lot were originally part of The Magic Hour but have dropped the folkiness and pulled out all of the stops to weave enormous fuzzy wah-scapes across the stereo. The songwriting isn't particularly spectacular, and at worst smacks of college post-grunge but once they get past the obligatory song-like bits the huge improv cosmic jams are a wonder to behold. The final fifteen minute track Elephant is fucking gorgeous. Plenty of that big muff/wah pedal wheezing and groaning that make you think yr stereo is going to collapse!

And finally, the literary bit: Reading Durrell's Bitter Lemons of Cyprus. Every bit as good as his fiction. Beautifully drawn landscapes and characters. The chapter where he buys a house had me laughing out loud in public - highly embarrassing but probably better for me than my bout of post-apocalypse fiction! date=18.03.2004 14:52 ip=81.133.100.170 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: "must have a dozen books on the go right now". Not much fiction stuff. But I have bookmarks and corners folded on: The New Testament Era by Bo Reicke, The Analects of Confucius trans. Arthur Waley, The Nag Hammadi Library and The Electronic Music Circuit Guidebook by Brice Ward. I was also perving over a hardback of Elaine Pagel's new book on the Gospel of Thomas at my local Ottakars around lunchtime! date=18.03.2004 14:59 ip=81.133.100.170 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK, the book I'm trying to get through at the moment is Stendhal's Scarlet & Black. Also at various stages of completion, but progressing more leisurely, are Machiavelli's The Prince (I'm still reading the introduction to that one), Jeremy Paxman's "Friends in High Places - Who Runs Britain?", Leo Abse's "Tony Blair - The Man Behind the Smile" and Michael Asher's biography of Wilfred Thesiger (a Christmas present from me to my Grandpa, which came back to me when he died).

"Prehistory in the Peak" by Mark Edmonds and Tim Seaborne is an attempt to combine archaeology with a more evocative type of narrative fictionalisation of pre-history which I would love to work, but unfortunately it doesn't really. I read it when I'm feeling very worthy, because I'd like to be able to talk about it with Gill's dad (who lent it to me).

I'm re-reading David Mitchell's "Number9Dream" aloud to Gill. I tried to find his new book on my way to Spain but the range at East Midlands Airport is sadly rather limited.

Whenever I'm in the bath, I dip into Robertson Davies's "The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books" which has some interesting essays and has liberated my way of reading a little (like allowing me to admit to myself that I have several books on the go at once). Why that one in the bath? Because I had it in my coat pocket when I took Lola to feed the ducks a while back, with the book in my coat pocket. I did rather a lively over-arm bread fling and realised that the book had tipped out into the duck-pond. So it's not going to be greatly harmed by further exposure to water.

Various books of poems by the bed, from ancient Sanskrit stuff to the Liverpool poets. I've never been very good with poetry, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Also "Margeting: Inventing a Different Marketing Language" by André Plateel, which I have been asked to write a review of. It's fairly unreadable, or badly translated, or perhaps I'm just not in the right frame of mind.

Hidden somewhere in my many, many piles of detritus is Des Esseintes' Against Nature, which I'm about seven-eighths of the way through but haven't seen in over a month now. Perhaps not a bad thing. It's too rich to devour very quickly, and is one of those books that I shall be very sad to see the end of.

On the "just finished" pile are Chatwin's In Patagonia, which made me think, and Henry James's The Europeans, which made me yawn.

Oh, also of course I'm reading "Learn Flash MX 2004 in 24 hours". Which I've had on the go for about a month now :-)

(And I'm sure there are a few more scattered around the house that I've read a chapter from and then neglected).

I'm also steeling myself to read The Bible, or at least A Bible. Everything else seems to lead back there, so I feel a duty to go to the source. date=18.03.2004 15:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm also steeling myself to read The Bible, or at least A Bible.

I'd recommend The Literary Guide to the Bible (ed. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode) as a useful text to read alongside The Bible. Haven't got through the whole thing myself - only managed the first four books, some of the prophets, a few books of wisdom literature, the Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles - and of course Revelations. date=18.03.2004 15:43 ip=81.133.100.170 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> and of course Revelations

Ah yes, I think I managed that part somewhere in my teens, can't remember whether it was watching The Omen or wanting to plan D&D campaigns that drove me to it, probably both. date=18.03.2004 15:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm also interested to know what's so apocryphal about the Apocrypha. date=18.03.2004 15:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apropos - well music, can't help bragging about this. I have got two Kraftwerk tickets for Saturday midnight off ebay for £21! That's about half price of the original tickets. They are going for £160 at other bids. date=18.03.2004 16:27 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell! Well done MJP! If I didn't have my guitar date that day I would have *loved* to have gone to that!

Okay, off to deliver a CD player. date=18.03.2004 16:35 ip=81.133.100.170 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: You lucky, lucky - I'm speechless.

>>Fess up: well, I've just finished Sernyi's huge study of Albert Speer (recommended, but - to state the obvious - hugely distressing), and the autobiography of Gary Valentine, bassist for Blondie and Iggy Pop (he later got into Crowleyite magick, standing up in crowded resturants to salute the sun at noon). The bedside table has got "Here to Go" by Brion Gysin, some Borgesian stories by Michael Ayrton, and an Oxford book on the Elgin Marbles by William St. Clair. Also picked up cheap (Unsworth's, if you know that chain) is one of my favourite popular science titles, by Amir D. Aczel: "The Mystery of the Aleph - Mathematics, the Kabbalah, & the Search for Infinity." The cheap laughs, I'm afraid, come from a remaindered copy of Charlotte Church's autobiography: ghost writing with a Welsh accent, and eternal love pledged to any number of family members she's been busily sueing ever since. date=18.03.2004 17:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A friend just mailed me the as-yet (and presumably forevermore) unbroadcast Channel 4 ident: http://www.updater.co.uk/ date=18.03.2004 18:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Not having a tv, I only recognise about 5 of these people! Are they *all* celebs .. ? date=19.03.2004 09:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't recognise all that many of them, but it's worth it just to hear Judy Finnegan saying "fuck". And... is that JK Rowling telling us that she likes cunt? What is the wizarding world coming to? date=19.03.2004 09:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn, no. Apparently it's someone called Janel Moloney, who apparently stars in West Wing. date=19.03.2004 09:56 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I only recognise about 5 of these people!

My normal problem is that I recognise people but can't remember names, book titles are equally hard for me and places are an absolute pig. In the *real* world if I'm trying to explain about a certain book by a certain author who lives in a certain place it can take ages for me to form sentences. Another one of the benefits of online life - you can always look stuff up in the middle of a sentence. Numbers are much easier to remember.

Re: Apocrypha: Not sure exactly what the canonical justification behind the current apocryphal books is. Not sure why certain books are apocrypha and others are pseudoepigrapha. I know that the former are largely written under assumed names, but that's true of much of the official canon too. Probably something to do with Athanasius or Whatsisface. date=19.03.2004 10:04 ip=158.94.185.159 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>I only recognise about 5 of these people!

My normal problem is that I recognise people but can't remember names, book titles are equally hard for me and places are an absolute pig. In the *real* world if I'm trying to explain about a certain book by a certain author who lives in a certain place it can take ages for me to form sentences. Another one of the benefits of online life - you can always look stuff up in the middle of a sentence. Numbers are much easier to remember.

Re: Apocrypha: Not sure exactly what the canonical justification behind the current apocryphal books is. Not sure why certain books are apocrypha and others are pseudoepigrapha. I know that the latter are largely written under assumed names, but that's true of much of the official canon too. Probably something to do with Athanasius or Whatsisface.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=19.03.2004 10:04 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Apocrypha - can't remember which it was (Nicea?), but certainly a very early Church Council decided that Matthew and Mark were in and Thomas and the rest out.

I've never understood how much of the gnostic stuff was in circulation until Nag Hamadi, either. There's that enigmatic image in Milton, something like "the two handed engine at the door/That strikes once, then strikes no more" - and it reminded me of Thomas likening the Kingdom to the assassin who practices once at home and then goes out and kills - but a) I don't know if Milton could have known that text, and b) it may just be my twisted, over-fed imagination!

Illumination welcome, as always ... date=19.03.2004 10:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I'd say Whatshisface, very definitely. Recognising celebs: I not not only don't, but I can't even remember their names when Cath makes full eye contact and says threateningly, "You saw the film yesterday, Mike." I think the absolute best we can do for the poor things is to forget their names as speedily as possible, also the name of the person who made their clothes/is shagging them/has stopped shagging them & is shagging someone else/etc. No one ever really understood the meaning of the term "global village" until it happened. Now they know.

Actually, I forget everything. I would be more worried by that if I hadn't always forgotten everything. date=19.03.2004 10:25 ip=213.78.78.46 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... But before we forget everything completely:

Yahoo! News is pretty good at present. Item one: Kylie - I Still Talk to Michael Hutchence. Item four: Earth faces mass species extinction.

A tasty scale of values there, and no mistake. date=19.03.2004 10:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nicea was responsible for a lot of the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity but I believe much of that was revised later at the Council of (Arrgh!) Thingy. Might well have been some canonical wrangling at the same time. I'll have a look through Every Boys' Big Book of the Church Fathers tonight.

But yes, previous to this there was less distinction between the gnostic texts and what became the official Gospels. The stuff at Nag Hammadi isn't all gnostic: bit of Plato here, fragment of orthodox material there - sometimes remixed or in a different version. Milton most likely didn't have access to Thomas but there are hints and anomalies in the canonic Gospels which might suggest similar readings. Also, possibly Milton picked up some of this stuff from Manichee or Cathar sources which continued well into the Middle Ages. But now I'm guessing! date=19.03.2004 10:32 ip=158.94.185.159 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Perhaps if we we reinstate the Links page on ES someday we could have links for Whatsisface, Whatsername and That-Chav-What-Did-That-Book? date=19.03.2004 10:38 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More New Blank links!

"You know - bloke with the glasses - wrote about shelves - no, not shelves, what am I talking about, elves - or was it gnomes? " date=19.03.2004 10:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You know - bloke with the glasses...

Hmm, I know who you're on about. It's either Tolkien, Elvis Costello or me. date=19.03.2004 10:46 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Another musical thing for you to try: "Chiff Chaffs and Willow Warblers" by Minotaur Shock. date=19.03.2004 11:06 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx Alex. I'll write that down before I date=19.03.2004 11:44 ip=213.78.78.46 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Probably all three!

Alex: Who??

MJH: You can get pills for it, you know. Just ask for ... um ... date=19.03.2004 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: http://www.minotaurshock.com date=19.03.2004 12:36 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, that beardy chap with glasses on the site seems to be playing a purple shorthorn Danelectro. Nice. date=19.03.2004 13:16 ip=158.94.181.66 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: Apocrypha: Not sure exactly what the canonical justification behind the current apocryphal books is.

Hi, Martin &Io : It was Nicea. And, amazing but true, church history would have it that all gospels were thrown into the air and only those that landed on the table were considered to be kosher. date=19.03.2004 14:00 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="You know - bloke with the glasses - wrote about shelves - no, not shelves, what am I talking about, elves - or was it gnomes?
____________-

Glasses ? Yes. But the rest... That´s gnot me ! date=19.03.2004 14:04 ip=80.58.9.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Yesterday I had luch with a friend who is going to review "Light". He told me that when he realized that there were 3 plots , he decided to read each one straight to the end. Thus rebuilding the book as a trilogy of short novels. He likes it a lot.

Arturo: Just added "I Wont Let You Go" to the Empty Space Archive. It's a different remix of part of the contemporary thread from Light. Or rather it's a proto-Light short fiction. But basically it does some of what yr friend was doing.

Just hope I've got rid of the last of the bugs on the page! date=19.03.2004 14:14 ip=158.94.181.66 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>all gospels were thrown into the air and only those that landed on the table were considered to be kosher.

But presumably Thomas was thrown in the opposite direction from the table, and the Hypostasis of the Archons was thrown straight out of the window. date=19.03.2004 14:20 ip=158.94.181.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Or perhaps the Hypostasis just *floated* ?

I've given "Light" to a couple of people who've never read MJH before, saying, "You just *have* to see this -" and both were completely blown away. One kept saying to his wife: "This is one weird book ..." Puts it mildly, I think. date=19.03.2004 14:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure I read somewhere that the artist who did the illustrations for the Good News Bible had an exhibition somewhere. Another great example of my memories deficit in specifics!

Re: Light: Yes, I wonder if Light is actually more fun for non-MJH readers? We've got a bit of a start on some of the imagery and themes of the oeuvre but it must be a bit of a shock to come across the whole lot, frist time, fully formed, oddly entangled and gibbering like Gibby Haynes! date=19.03.2004 14:44 ip=158.94.181.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Non-readers start here ...

I gave "Course of the Heart" to a Manchester friend who went for it head-over-heels, and led me happily through the streets around the station, pointing out bits mentioned in the book. No sightings of Joan of Arc fucked in a sunbeam by a goat creature, but thrilling none the less. "Signs of Life" I leant to someone else (a Joanna Trollope reader, too), but she didn't get on with it at all - she likes to "identify" with the characters, and China proved a bit much. I could've said it's a book that proves "we all go to a different wedding," as Choe puts it - but hey, let it pass. date=19.03.2004 16:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It took me two tries to read Course of the Heart. I couldn't finish it the first time. Second time however it worked. I still haven't read Climbers, but I will wait for the November 04 edition. date=19.03.2004 16:57 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: on Kraftwerk: The Evening Standard said their Royal Festival Hall concert on Thursday was "one of the greatest London has seen". So we missed that.

Related to Light. Tarkovsky on the cd accompanying Nostalgia is asked by school children if he likes science fiction and whether he thinks it escapist. He says rather airily that he isn't much interested in fiction, that Solaris was a disappointment to him because he didn't manage to get rid of the science fictional element; something which he believes he managed in Stalker. Is there a similarly ambivalent attitude to sf in Light? I think T exaggerates but it suggests something of his approach. (But I am not expecting an answer to this; just thinking out loud.) date=19.03.2004 17:19 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I lent Climbers to a few people and was always disappointed that they didn't come back to me clamouring for more MJH. Didn't get it back from the last person I lent it to (a climber), or see him again... read into this what you will (perhaps he just fell off a wall).

Took a different route back from Liverpool this weekend - over the M62 to Leeds - felt very much that I was in Climbers and Course of the Heart country as the low sun made alternate moors black and gold, and we pondered at the house in the middle of the motorway.

I had trouble with the Course of the Heart as well the first time - I think this is because I'd been pre-sold on the blurb for it that was in Climbers, and had built in my head a Viriconian vision of this travelling gypsy country. I spent the whole novel, like Pam and Lucas, scrabbling at the corners of pages hoping to unearth the Coeur somewhere within it all. Was a bit disappointed by the end to find myself still in "the real world". C'est la vie. It was only later in life that I realised how cruelly I'd been tricked into becoming a participant in the novel.

Kraftwerk [warning: contains sarcasm]: why would anyone want to see them live? Surely, they're all just a bunch of robots. date=19.03.2004 18:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read The Course Of The Heart because I'd been bowled over by The Great God Pan. And much as I love the novel, the short story has the edge over it for me. Much more mysterious, less explained. date=19.03.2004 18:42 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Every Boys' Big Book of the Early Church says that St Jerome (Patron of librarians) introduced the term Apocrypha although the distinction between canonical and apocryphal was already current in the 4th Century. Apocryphal literature is largely Hebrew material from Hellenistic Judaism between 300BC and 100AD, although mostly up to 70AD when the Church separated from Judaism. Perhaps it's all Paul's fault again?

But in current usage shd be read as an "example of life and instruction of manners" but not used to establish doctrine.

Oh, and while I'm here: Thomas was probably earlier than the Synoptic Gospel and is possibly similar to the proposed book of Q, or the Sayings of Jesus scriptures that Christologists like to imagine. My source also suggest that it was written by Didymus Judas Thomas - Christ's brother. Both Didymus and Thomas mean "twin" - was this the book of JC's twin brother, or are we looking at a docetic heresy here? Where Christ seemed to die on the cross but was replaced by a twin brother. Identical twins? How can you tell which one died on the cross?

I'm about to turn into a spurious Sunday evening documentary? date=19.03.2004 23:39 ip=81.132.83.10 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One for the climbers here. Makes me dizzy:
http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f12.html date=20.03.2004 18:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi , Mike.
If you were wondering what did Ursula Le Guin answered to the guy in Pseud´s Corner; wonder no more.
________________________________
The chance to question Ursula Le Guin in the on-line Guardian earned one seeker after truth a place in Private Eye's Pseud's Corner: `As opposed to the standard model of time travellers projected into previously lived cultural patterns, what do you make of the concept "collective experrience of temporal variation," such as stalled, recursive or redundant sequences of year sets. I am thinking of collective delusion or the social construction of reality, wherein mere participation in humanity's elaborated schedules makes distance between avowed temporal judgments and an undercurrent of more objective time. For instance, what would happen if global culture lost track of the passage of the years due to the complexity of information elaborating its rote performance? I am thinking of this not so much from a narrative science fiction perspective as an anthropological dissonance between (world) culture and context.' Ursula Le Guin replies: `Sorry, the more I read your question the stupider I feel.' date=20.03.2004 22:46 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Good for her!

Alex: Pan vs. Heart - I know what you mean about the sense of mystery. But I wouldn't do without that episode with Lawson's daughter: I saw his brother at an Oxford off-license on Friday night, braying about "bloody stu-hudents" and demanding a carrier bag full of "ace-cubes" for a "per-harty". Nor would I willingly miss the apparitions after Pam's death, or the fall ( into sadness, into lived experience) that colours the last pages. Is there another book that does this, or as well? I don't know it. Also, for me the transformation of snowflakes into roses is as good as it gets: Machen would have loved that one. And I think he'd have applauded the novel's main thread, too, that you have to desert your fictions in order to live - in the narrator's case, literally fuck with wisdom to gain it.

My desert island book? Near the top of the list, without a doubt. But I'm always open to suggestions. date=21.03.2004 09:08 ip=212.126.153.151 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone fancy a job (not sure whether it pays) "writing romantic, poetic, slightly dark fairy tales". Two friends of mine, Michael & Auriea, are developing a computer game, and want somebody to write for the accompanying booklet. Knowing the two of them, this will be quite unlike any computer game ever conceived. They certainly have big (and interesting) plans.

Details of the job here: http://tale-of-tales.com/told.html#jobs

tale-of-tales.com is their games site. Their personal/all-encompassing site is at http://entropy8zuper.org - check out their early web work in The Godlove Museum, quite incredible (though very [deliberately] non-intuitive).

(Martin's post about "snowflakes into roses" reminded me of them - there's a very moving part in "Leviticus" where petals fall, accompanied by the words spoken to them by their previous partners when Micheal & Auriea left them to be together) date=21.03.2004 12:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Lewis Carrol may have spent too long in a twink tank. Read his poem "Rubber Duck": http://tinyurl.com/32gho (scroll down).

("shun the furious Bender snatch!” - sounds like a post-Burroughsian asshole reference)

O crablouse day! Callow! Calais! date=22.03.2004 07:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Mime Rats! Let's form that band right now!

Rubber Duck? He must have been quackers ... date=22.03.2004 09:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all - just back from holiday. Arturo; I haven't been following the news, so this is belated, but what happened in Madrid is desperately sad. I tracked back through the boards and you and yours seem to be OK - but nonetheless a terrible event. Hope all is as well as it can be. date=22.03.2004 12:54 ip=62.188.132.102 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks , Al. date=22.03.2004 13:47 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi PyramidAl, Arturo. There's talk from some of our politicians that Al Qaeda forced the Spanish election result. Personally I am greatly relieved that Bush and Blair have both been rattled by this election result. It's like a breath of fresh air. date=22.03.2004 14:10 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My friend in Spain (Alicante), who I was staying with when the bombing took place, says there was an opinion poll taken the day *before* the bombing took place which gave the PSOE a 2% majority (poll is mentioned here: http://tinyurl.com/37bz7 ). And in the run-up they had already been closing ground. So it angers me to hear so many people saying that the PSOE owe their victory to Al-Q.

Especially infuriating was Lord Tebbit on Any Questions this week, saying something along the lines of "support for PP had been unchanged for some time before the election, therefore the result can only be attributed to terrorism". And although other panelists challenged his conclusions, none challenged the premise. date=22.03.2004 14:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Insulting the Spanish by casting aspersions on a legitmate democratic process. Not objecting to Guantanamo Bay. Usual tune.

We live in a deeply noxious political culture with this as the norm. date=22.03.2004 14:54 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I'd read it as a logical outcome of the 'if you're not with us, you're against us' stance that Bush has adopted. I suspect that, even if there'd been no bombing and the new guys had still won, we'd still have had to put up with descriptions of their withdrawal from Iraq as a victory for terrorists. By definition, doing anything that Bush doesn't want you to do is - or is becoming - 'a victory for terrorists'. date=22.03.2004 15:11 ip=62.188.108.82 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Insulting the Spanish by casting aspersions on a legitmate democratic process. Not objecting to Guantanamo Bay. Usual tune.
______________________-
Yes , indeed.
Cowardice :Anybody charging spanish people of cowardice should have taken a ride. in those trains next morning as thounsands of working class people did.

Spanish troops pull out: this has been seriously miss-represented by The Daily Thelegraph and such rags. The socialist policy it to get out unless the U.N. is in control. So the question should be : Why won´t the U.S hand over political control to the U.N if they want the troops so badly ? Could it that under U.N. control current Halliburton antics would be stopped cold ? date=22.03.2004 15:15 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So it angers me to hear so many people saying that the PSOE owe their victory to Al-Q.
____________-

The guy who started that particular ball rolling ( one Jimenez Losantos , often nicknamed Jimenez "Diossanto" as in " Oh my god") once claimed that Bruce Springsteen was a K.G.B stoggie date=22.03.2004 15:20 ip=80.58.9.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It is ironic that Howard (rhymes with - ?) still supports the idea of pre-emptive action. Still fails to see that something wrong has been done. It's as if his aim is for a job in Blair's cabinet. Can't see that the British electorate long ago voiced their collective opposition to war and want their concerns reflected by politicians.

For people like Blair/Howard, their stance is about wanting to be 'clubbable' for America. date=22.03.2004 15:45 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I wouldn't insult you with my flimsy grasp of Spanish politics. But anyone who took the train to work in Madrid the next day deserves a medal, simply for facing down whichever group of bastards it was behind those bombs.

Dan: Lord Tebbit I *can* comment on. Interviewed by "The Independent," he lauded Oliver Letwin as "the reincarnation of Keith Joseph - there is no higher praise." Small children quivered in their sleep, and distant howls of savage dogs filled the moonlit wastes of Albion. Regularly parodied by Craig Brown as someone obsessed with rubber clothing and "black people - as we must learn to call them." Many a true word, etc. Your report looks sadly typical of the man. date=22.03.2004 15:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin you don't need to be much involved in Spanish politics to know enough to accord respect to the democratic process of electing a leader by fair means. British politicians such as Portillo have not given it that respect. Everything else is self-serving speculation. date=22.03.2004 16:14 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Keith Joseph... brrr. The man (if I can call him that) co-authored a book along with a very (very [VERY] very) distant relative of mine: http://tinyurl.com/232nx - on the subject of "Equality". Ouch. From what I've heard, it's even more right-wing than we would expect of Joseph. date=22.03.2004 17:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My friend in Spain (Alicante), who I was staying with when the bombing took place, says there was an opinion poll taken the day *before* the bombing took place which gave the PSOE a 2% majority
___________________

Hi, Dan. A journalist friend just told me that Mr.Botin ( a banker who is one of Spain richest men) did predict ,on the record , a socalist win. date=22.03.2004 19:53 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of politicans, a friend's just sent me this:

http://www.statesmanorskatesman.co.uk/gallery.html date=23.03.2004 09:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In a similar vein: UK mountain pursuits centres are having to warn people that they are "high up".

http://tinyurl.com/3dt4d date=23.03.2004 10:23 ip=158.94.181.66 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ho ho to that, io. But it would do climbing good to be ruled illegal. Cut out a lot of the commercialisation and (is there a proper word for this ?) councilisation. Over the last twenty years every kind of public and private body has cut itself a slice of the action by taking climbing away from the individual and selling or licensing it back (as a piece of gear or a set of rules). Too many people are earning a living selling training, hardware and insurance into an arena whose original value-set had different attitudes to those things. date=23.03.2004 10:34 ip=62.188.17.123 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I think these climbing routes being "high up" are probably the least of our problems at the moment, what with Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov saying that a Russian nuclear cruiser "could go sky high at any minute" and Israel carrying out assassinations with helicopter gunships. In fact, thinking about it, up a mountain might be the safest place to be at present. date=23.03.2004 10:45 ip=158.94.181.66 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In which case maybe we should get a warning that we are "low down". date=23.03.2004 10:50 ip=212.2.7.197 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm always pretty "low down". BTW: how were Kraftwerk on Saturday? date=23.03.2004 11:11 ip=158.94.181.66 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all - yup, I've been wondering about that MJP; they got rave reviews in the Guardian yesterday.

Oh, Zali, am doing yr folk tape also; half relatively traditional stuff, other half the odder stuff... date=23.03.2004 12:29 ip=62.188.138.183 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Fab stuff! Did you enjoy Egypt? Go on, tell me you didn't! date=23.03.2004 12:31 ip=158.94.181.66 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Kraftwerk. I saw the late 12.30 show. They played about a two and a half hour set. They were almost wholly static staring down at their keyboard/laptop arrangements while behind them synchronised with the midi system the imagery of the music was projected onto a giant stage-wide screen. It was a strange contrast. You couldn't detect that they were doing anything almost – they represented the complete antithesis of the rock star persona idea, which possibly nonplussed some in the audience. Autobahn was as ironic and pointed as ever. Trans Europe Express sublime – sublimely loud and 'anti-music'. My favourites from the new songs were Tour de France 03 (beautiful combination of sound and image) and Vitamin, pretty and funny. Didn’t get to the aftershow party unfortunately, too tired (wrong end of the week for me after too many late nights). They embody a rare paradox: the profound cliché. They have turned disaffection into a form of inner revolution. date=23.03.2004 12:35 ip=212.2.7.197 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, I'll have some of that, one half da odder da udder half da even.

I will make up a Kraftwerk tape for ya. date=23.03.2004 12:45 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm going to see Lambchop on Thursday. They also have a low-key stage presence, despite having about 15 people on stage (if the last time I saw them was anything to go by). You can't really watch them, because they don't move. You can, however, marvel at their collective ugliness. Weird. date=23.03.2004 12:47 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> they represented the complete antithesis of the rock star persona idea, which possibly nonplussed some in the audience.

So, like I said, robots. :-)

>> it would do climbing good to be ruled illegal. Cut out a lot of the commercialisation...

The same could be said of much in life. In fact, isn't there an element of our earlier discussion about libraries in this. Commercialise it, homogenise it, spoon-feed it to people in artificially sweetened bite-sized pieces.

Also vaguely related, I spent three years working in an advertising agency (very interesting, but I don't know that I'd want to do it again). My business partner Mark used to constantly bemoan the fact that we'd missed out on working in the ad industry in the 80s "when it was really fun". By the time we arrived, everything (almost) had turned into profit centres and cost/benefit analyses, and the bowlsful of cocaine had disappeared of the receptionists desks.

A similar thing could be said about football, where are the George Best's of today... ah, OK, they're busy giving ladies of dubious nature a roasting, perhaps not that much has changed except that they now need to do their drinking in private.

Is everything becoming crap, or am I just growing old and world-weary? date=23.03.2004 12:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*off the receptionists' desks, obviously. date=23.03.2004 12:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On music:

Take a look at
http://www.kepajunkera.com/imagenes/ingles/kepa.mpg

Kep a Junkera is a basque accordion player in a one man crusade to make his instrument contemporary ( his hero in Astor Piazzola) . On that track you can hear the txalaparta a two thousand years old percussion instrument which was a huge hit last summer at Ibiza. date=23.03.2004 13:01 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You can also try :

http://www.vicente-amigo.com/Ingles/paginasasp/frames.a sp?pag=multimedia.asp

Vicente Amigo is a disciple of Paco de Lucia, a higly skilled flamento guitar player who started current ambient-flamenco fusion trend. date=23.03.2004 13:06 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I also like

http://www.corquieu.com/

This is one of the new folk band whose musical pilosophy is "bring on the noise" when singer Gema Garcia is not on stage. She has a very beautiful voice . in that trend I like "La xana" a lot. date=23.03.2004 13:17 ip=80.58.9.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: astonishing - thank you! date=23.03.2004 13:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> 80s "when it was really fun". By the time we arrived, everything (almost) had turned into profit centres and cost/benefit analyses, and the bowlsful of cocaine had disappeared of the receptionists desks.

80s nostalgia suffuses the whole industry I think; my entire marketing career's been sodden with it. Tales of 3 day benders on client expense accounts etc. Even marketeers have their golden age...

MJP - will do! Kraftwerk tape would be great...

Zali - Egypt fantastic - highlights camel trekking in desert with non-English speaking Bedouin, staying awake all night out there watching the sky (you just can't sleep when you're under it; you don't want to miss it), Alexander's possible tomb, visiting the daughter library in Alexandria (I think), etc etc... date=23.03.2004 13:39 ip=62.188.112.170 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Tales of 3 day benders on client expense accounts etc.

I saw a great semi-spoof ad a while back, for an American ad agency. Can't remember the details, but the strapline was something like "[company name]: we won't charge prostitutes to your account". date=23.03.2004 13:56 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fantastic!

When I was a film person, we turned down a script with *famous American actor with drug problems* and *famous American actor with drink problems* attached, because they were renowned for charging prostitutes to the production and between them would have sunk this one... date=23.03.2004 14:09 ip=62.188.105.147 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: astonishing - thank you!
________________
Hi, Martin.
you are wellcome . I´ve been picking up clues from you chaps so I thougth I should try to do the same.
Will somebody please explain about 4 tet? That should stand for cuartet so I think they are some Kind of jazz band. date=23.03.2004 14:46 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Arturo - most confusing, I agree!

They're an electronica outfit with a haunting line in instrumentals. Find out more at:

http://www.fourtet.net/ date=23.03.2004 15:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Is everything becoming crap, or am I just growing old and world-weary?

Get that allotment, Dan. It's never crap.

On the subject of advertising agencies, I've still not got a job. I'm beginning to think I'm too old for the whole thing. I'm expected to be dynamic about my portfolio and all I can do is look at it and think: another crappy ad for another crappy client. I'm swinging more and more towards the idea of opening a cafe.

Aturo: flamenco is an area of music I'd like to know more about. Any recommendations for real hard-core flamenco? date=23.03.2004 19:18 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aturo: flamenco is an area of music I'd like to know more about. Any recommendations for real hard-core flamenco?
__________________

Hi, Alex

Try Enrique Morente

http://www.flamenco-world.com/jukebox/paginas/mor ente.htm

He is rigth now the most popular traditional flamenco singer. ( Call this "jondo" , pronounced hondo, means deep, like in deep feeling). He is well respected by traditional flamenco fans and innovative enough to cross-over ( He once did a Leonard Cohen conver)

For the next hot thing you can try his kid brother Diego Amador Try Diego Amador who is trying to do "jondo" famenco with a piano.

Real "jondo" singers won´t record because they think that if your record something the feeling is lost ( el duende). You will not hear those guys in the tablados they hace for tourists because the music is very austere. Yes, very similar to the blues. In fact there is a whole school of quitar players mixing the styles. The best one is Raimundo Amador.
Raimundo is Diego´s older brother. Flamenco runs in the family. And example, those "Keptchup" girls who had a hit with "Asereje" are the nieces of Tomatito" ( Little tomato). The name of the dinastyes run like that. The son of a singer called · The overcoat" will call himself "The jacket".
www.flamenco-world.com is a very good site to star. It is full of personal pages of musicians, often in english , full of resources in real audio. Check it out date=23.03.2004 20:24 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry chaps.
cut and paste has led me stray. Diego Amador is not related to Enrique Morente. date=23.03.2004 20:25 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=O One more thing. My dad is a huge fan of traditional flamenco and of all the guys I mentioned early he only listens to Enrique Morente,. He will alway say that Pepe " El lebrijano" is the best traditional flamenco singer ever .

Sorry abount those long posts but , you know, big subject. date=23.03.2004 21:19 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Get that allotment, Dan. It's never crap.

What incredible timing - Gill rang up the grand vizier of allotments this morning (one of six impossible things she managed before breakfast... it was a "doing things" kind of day). They're sending us a map showing all the plots going spare, and this weekend while I'm in London Gill's hoping to take the kids on an allotment-walk, to choose the perfect plot.

As for opening a café, rarely does a day pass when I don't think of doing it myself, although Kitchen Confidential _almost_ managed to rid me of any aspirations in that direction. Shame I'm not a little closer to Manchester, or I'd open one up with you.

I'm also getting mighty sick of clients. Gah, who needs 'em (well, I guess I do). Slight glimmer of light with my current project though, writing an online cartoon soap opera for the disaffected youth of West London. So far we've had some fun coming up with an intro sequence: http://www.sosafe.org.uk/preview/ date=23.03.2004 21:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is all so cool. I love this board because you lot are so having an exchange of stuff, now it's flamenco and allotments. How about April for a meet, this time northern oriented ? Sheffield ? (I want to go to Bukowski's again, if it still exists.) And Arturo, are you going to Semana Negra ? date=23.03.2004 23:29 ip=213.78.92.176 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
Yes . I´m going to la Semana Negra. Great fun. It is like a big flea market wich si held close to the beach .Gijon is lovely and there are many things to do there.
http://www.salon.com/july97/wanderlust/jump970729.ht ml
La semana negra ( The black week) is run by a great guy. A mexican writer called Paco Taibo III
who is transated to english.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-fo rm/102-2514271-7150569

Lively chat. Great Live Music ( I found out about Corquieu there but we heard african an even chinese music), prehistoric paintings close to Gijon and plenty of sidra.. that´s a sweet apple licour with bubbles wich is a addictive as it sounds. date=24.03.2004 01:46 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sheffield in April sounds good, if anyone else is up for travelling (we've got plenty of space to put people up, although I can't may any promises that it'll be comfortable). I'd never heard of Bukowsi's, but a quick search seems to indicate that it does still exist.

Semana Negra sounds great, wish I could go. Instead I'll just have to put on some flamenco and close my eyes... date=24.03.2004 05:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ever wondered what it's like living in the Antarctic? Find out here - fascinating stories from the end of the world: http://bigdeadplace.com/stories.html date=24.03.2004 06:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(triple post... gosh, sorry... one feels so alone at this time in the morning)

Alex: I asked a friend of mine who's editor of Brand Republic - www.brandrepublic.com - about the job situation in Manchester. He says a lot of agencies are hiring there right now, details on the site somewhere (do a search). If you need Brand Republic login details, mail me privately.

(although the café sounds like a more interesting bet) date=24.03.2004 08:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex -

Well, I'm not sure about Manchester, but in London most of the work I'm getting seems to be coming from smaller agencies, and from them through personal contacts rather than anything official. Everybody still trying to cut as much cost as possible, by the look of it.

These guys might also be of interest - I'm meeting them in a couple of weeks - www.thewriter.co.uk - tho' London rather than Manc based.

Folk compilation progressing; just ordered a copy of 'Basket of Light' by Pentangle, my copy's disappeared and there are a couple of songs there that *must* go on it... date=24.03.2004 08:45 ip=62.188.100.114 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Everyone: so much to see, so much to hear. The world immediately gets bigger and more interesting reading you lot!

Sheffield in April: count me in. date=24.03.2004 09:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: thanks - I'll check it out. Anyone read that book, Duende, about the english guy trying to learn flamenco?

Dan: thanks, I'll mail you for Brand Republic log-in. Good luck with the allotment thing: I'll mail you some tips.

Al: I'll check that site out too. I trust you'll be putting some Shirley Collins on your compilation?

April in Sheffield? Sounds promising. date=24.03.2004 09:22 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know someone who was deeply interested in Flamenco, she used to do small shows herself. She found the Duende book pretty thin beer. Wouldn't have read it but for someone giving it as a present.

Sheffield in April? Blimey. date=24.03.2004 09:36 ip=212.2.7.197 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Shirley Collins! YES!

What a voice ... date=24.03.2004 10:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shirley Collins? Until now, I didn't know her.

*strikes forehead*

Have just been rooting around, will check out at first opportunity!

Compilation folk / not quite folk, some trad stuff (going back to Byrd!), some groovy modern stuff, some vaguely related stuff... and some folky drones for Zali! Oh, and Christopher Lee singing with piano in a vaguely Scottish accent. date=24.03.2004 10:13 ip=62.188.136.133 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did Shirley Collins do an album with Davey Graham way back in the Very Long Ago ? "Folk Roots, New Routes" ? If so, wow. I saw them live in some cellar on Greek Street in... well, I'm not saying.

Arturo: the more I hear about Semana Negra the more often I thank God for Luis Prado...

Dan: I liked Bukowski's just for the Bukowski connection--the people who run it are total fans of his. It would be great if we could get something together up there in April. io, what's your thoughts ? date=24.03.2004 10:27 ip=62.188.17.68 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shirley Collins: the name rang a bell, but I wasn't aware of her. Typed her name into iTunes, turns out I have one track, Shirley singing Pretty Saro with Davey Graham. I love it when that happens. Off to grab some more Shirley now.

Speaking of Davey Graham, I grabbed three of his 60s albums off SoulSeek recently. Blinding, an essential of any folk collection (at least, any folk collection as compiled by Dan), and the only place to go for English/Moroccan traditional music crossover. date=24.03.2004 10:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: synchronicity. And yes, she did (I just queued it up) date=24.03.2004 10:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: "I liked Bukowski's just for the Bukowski connection"

Does that mean we have to get into a fight when we go there: http://tinyurl.com/2dyty (see thing number 17) date=24.03.2004 10:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, talking music, what's a good music downloading site? Kazaa? Any other recommendations? date=24.03.2004 10:45 ip=62.188.112.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=SoulSeek, the one and only.
http://www.slsknet.org date=24.03.2004 10:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sheffield: Yes, but it'll hafta be late April. We're spending Easter in St Ives and early April is too soon and too busy! But I'm willing to take bids on weekends after the 19th...

Always wanted to start a little bistro/salon called Le Bouffant Excessif. date=24.03.2004 10:59 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, late April is best for me to... doing kiddy-type Easter things the first couple of weekends or so.

Speaking of writer-themed bars: I know I told Mike, and I think I've mentioned here previously, Gill's old scheme to open up a Viriconium bookshop/café, with secret and mysterious jazz club out back, accessible only via the toilet mirrors. date=24.03.2004 11:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A jazz club out through the toilets? That's *so* seedy! date=24.03.2004 11:20 ip=158.94.185.159 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sheffield: can't do the w/e of 24 - otherwise ... date=24.03.2004 11:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gill's old scheme to open up a Viriconium bookshop/café, with secret and mysterious jazz club out back, accessible only via the toilet mirrors.
________________
Hi Dan,
I suggest a silgthly different version of tye bookshop you started from, where the books are in languages you´ve never heard off but are anyway familiar , you keep hearing whisphers behind your back and Herich Zahn is in charge iof the music. date=24.03.2004 11:40 ip=80.58.9.107 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Erich Zann on the decks? I'd definitely go for that - just be careful never to look out of the windows!

Late April better for me too... date=24.03.2004 14:10 ip=62.188.112.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=April: I need to check which weekends are child-free. date=24.03.2004 14:37 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Semana Negra: Here is a buch on photos me and me girl took there a couple of years back.

http://www.geocities.com/arturo_villarrubia/tempora rypreviewfile.html

Even if they are not very good you can see how beatuiful the place is. By the way, if was july and it was raining every day so the Gijonenses said they were having ... an english summer. date=24.03.2004 15:41 ip=80.58.9.107 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks good to me, Arturo. Love the peacock. date=24.03.2004 17:02 ip=213.116.50.116 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks good to me, Arturo. Love the peacock.
_______________

Hi,Mike.
Thanks. That one was taken at the park were they hold la Semana Negra. date=24.03.2004 17:26 ip=80.58.9.107 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If everyone prefers late April but Martin can't do the 24th, what about the 1st week in May ? date=26.03.2004 21:20 ip=213.78.168.14 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Urk! 1st of May is my birthday! I'd love to spend my birthday with all of you but I don't know if I could drag Bridget, let alone other London cohorts to Sheffield for that weekend. date=26.03.2004 23:28 ip=81.129.157.49 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=May sounds better to me.
Just been playing to death a track called 'Revelator' by Gillian Welch - if you've not heard it, get it now. It's important. Trust me. date=27.03.2004 02:07 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Only problem with the weekend of the 1st of May, is that it's my birthday. date=27.03.2004 07:48 ip=81.133.99.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Only problem with the weekend of the 1st of May, is that it's my birthday.

Revelator: not related to "John the Revelator" by chance? date=27.03.2004 07:49 ip=81.133.99.21 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Your birthday?

*prepares to celebrate*

Heard a Gillian Welch song the other day, and was blown away by it! Wasn't she on the 'O Brother Where Art Thou' soundtrack? Am dropping 'Revelator' hints for my birthday, couple of weeks time... date=27.03.2004 13:04 ip=62.188.100.149 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Yes, Welch was on 'O Brother'. Great voice. date=28.03.2004 12:15 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=First week of May (1 or 8) is fine by me, too. Zali, we've got to celebrate!

Gillian Welch: track from a couple of years ago, "My Morphine," is tremendous. Other things recently: "Gyroscope" by Boards of Canada and "Bring Me the Disco King" by Bowie. As they're now being talked up as "other," overlooked English music , I did try to listen to some Incredible String Band again, but - just as dreadful as I remember them the first time round, I'm afraid. date=29.03.2004 09:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I've been listening to some Incredible String Band as well, auditioning them for the folk compilation. 'Hangman's Beautiful Daughter' I just can't get into (in fact the only album I've ever taken off in embarassment at putting it on!) but thought there was some quite good stuff on 'The 50,000 Layers of the Onion' or whatever it's called (and one of the most nuttily psychedelic covers ever). In the end I do think you had to be there, though...

Re-discovery of the week are Blowzabella, though, hurdy gurdies, bagpipes, etc - have been rocking out to them all weekend! date=29.03.2004 09:46 ip=62.188.108.47 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Second weekend of May (8th) is potentially possible. I'm going to be doing something in London for the 1st, you'll all get emails about this is due course. I *would* consider celebrating in Sheffield but it'd be near impossible to get Bridget, let alone any my other London cohorts, to come to Sheffield. Bridget spent a year living there while studying for her librarianship degree and now has an aversion to the place.

String Band: Oh, come now! Be fair! The epic Ducks on a Pond on Wee Tam is an incredible track. One of the best kazoo and washboard breaks in the history of recording. And Hangman's Beautiful Daughter is notable for the Minotaur's Song: "I'm the original discriminating buffalo man, and I'll do what's wrong as long as I can!" Sensational!

Gillian Welch: Ah, I can connect Revelator to John the Revelator in that case. It all makes sense if you know Volume Four of Harry Smith's Anthology. date=29.03.2004 10:01 ip=158.94.137.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=[whispers]Amoebas are very small[/whispers]

I was just listening to the Harry Smith anthology - mine only goes up to volume 3 though. Just can't get The Spanish Merchant's Daughter out of my head. Quite String Band-ish too. date=29.03.2004 10:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think Volume Four was released in his lifetime. It's also the only one I have on CD - the rest are on C90s. Really must get around to buying the others on CD.

Presumably if Spinal Tap had done an Anthology of American Folk Music it would have gone up to eleven? date=29.03.2004 10:27 ip=158.94.137.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harry Smith: I balked at the cost of the "Anthology," I'm afraid. Fascinating bloke. He was sleeping at Ginsberg's flat in the '80s when Dylan came round to play his new cd. After two tracks he banged on the bedroom wall and told them all to shut up: he was trying to sleep. Ginsberg told him Dylan was there; Smith grudgingly told Ginsberg to say hello, but didn't bother to get out of bed. Dylan never did meet him. Cool, or what? date=29.03.2004 10:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow - someone out grumping Dylan! Impressive. Must be v. strange being someone like Dylan - the complete impossibility of anonymity etc. date=29.03.2004 12:03 ip=62.188.105.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Not keen on the String Band, are we? I have a soft spot for them, ropey though a lot of their music is. Did you know that Rose from the ISB went on to become Mayoress of Aberystwyth? date=29.03.2004 12:58 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: ISB is obviously one of those you either hear at the right time or not at all. Give me another few years!

Dylan out-cooled: that evening got progressively weirder for the little chap. Smith told him to shut up and turn the music down, then Ginsberg complained the cd was badly mixed and he couldn't make out the lyrics. "What are they? What are singing about?" Embarrassed, Dylan began to speak the songs line by line over the recording, Ginsberg went into auto-critique mode as he did so, and Ginsberg's friend who reported all this wanted to crawl under the table out of sheer disbelief and mortification. Ginsberg did like the title "Empire Burlesque," though, so at least two of them ended up happy. date=29.03.2004 13:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just want it on the record that I love the ISB (first three albums at least). Wonder what Ginsberg thought of them. date=29.03.2004 14:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm with Dan on the String Band. They went a bit shit as the seventies went on - but who didn't? They became Scientologists - but who didn't? date=29.03.2004 14:33 ip=158.94.137.180 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just going on record for not being a Scientologist in the 70s. I did go a bit shit though. date=29.03.2004 14:36 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: That goes for me, too. But nothing to do with my reaction to ISB. In fairness, what I heard was an anthology of their '70s stuff; I'll track down "Beautiful Daughter" and the rest some other time.

Just been checking Harry Smith on Amazon, too. The paperback critical biography "American Magus" starts at £255.00 ( new and used), so you'd think someone would be reprinting it like crazy. Clearly there's a well-heeled magickal readership out there.

"Altar - athanor - then on to Amazon for the goat -" date=29.03.2004 14:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=American Magus is available from the Harry Smith Archives site for $25: http://www.harrysmitharchives.com

Damn those shameful secondhand dealers on Amazon! date=29.03.2004 14:56 ip=158.94.137.180 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just finished Ali Smith's first collection, Free Love. Utterly fucking ace, I would kill to be that sharp and funny and human. At the moment "Scary" is my favourite short story in the world, also it has a great urban fox. Weirdly, issue 3 of Matter, which I got from Lily Dunn, has a Toby Litt story featuring foxes. I'm in the usual death struggle with Stuart Kauffman (Investigations) because of the Real Maths in it, not to say diagrams of N-dimensional phase spaces & so on. There's a guy who needs popularising one stage further so we his fans can worship him more fully. date=29.03.2004 21:39 ip=213.78.170.250 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's one for me to read when I've finished being bowled over by Shena McKay. date=30.03.2004 15:52 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm having a Joseph Roth binge at the moment; fantastic blend of intimate character study and broad political scope. MJP - re your short story question from a while back, I think his short stories would definitely be worth checking out! date=30.03.2004 22:07 ip=62.188.150.138 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali - just noticed, the Empty Space clock needs moving forward an hour! date=30.03.2004 22:09 ip=62.188.150.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Testing, testing! date=31.03.2004 09:06 ip=158.94.160.51 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Empty Space is now officially in British Summer Time. Anyone for tennis? date=31.03.2004 09:07 ip=158.94.160.51 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading At Lady Molly's at the moment. It's an old library copy because I can't stand reading big thick omnibus editions - too unwieldy on public transport. But since it's in a worn out red hardback without a dustjacket, and the title has been rubbed away, it's the best book to read on a train - no-one can tell what it is.

Maybe I'll start putting brown paper wrappers around newer books when I take them out in public. date=31.03.2004 09:15 ip=158.94.160.51 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyone for tennis?

I tried joining the local club once - but then I decided it was just a racket!

Ahem.

A fine day out there. I think I'll get my coat ... date=31.03.2004 10:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jonathan Raban, Waxwing. I shouldn't be reading this, but I'm working at my friend Philippa's house because we've got the builders in, and there it was on the shelves, a Raban I hadn't read, tut tut what could I do ? It's excellent so far, very human & funny, although I wish he'd stick to nonfiction. If anyone catches me reading it I'm for the drop. It was wimpish of me to abandon the flat anyway. Cath, who's made of much sterner stuff, is just sitting at her Mac getting on with what she has to do, surrounded by dust, while the cat trudges exhaustedly round and round looking for a quieter place to sleep. They're the real heroes of Stalingrad. date=31.03.2004 11:03 ip=62.188.28.137 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the cat trudges exhaustedly round and round looking for a quieter place to sleep

I would have had to stay in to give the cat counselling. She just wouldn't have stood for it - spoilt fat thing! date=31.03.2004 11:53 ip=158.94.160.51 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More fox stuff. Having been ousted from my neighbour's compost heap, the foxes have attempted to burrow under mine. Signs of digging an minor bird carnage. Anyone know how to build a fox house?
Also, MJH: I've been told of the wreck of a Boeing Superfortress on a hill somewhere near Glossop. I believe the location is Higher Shelf Stones. Have you been up there? I want to know the degree of difficulty. date=31.03.2004 13:05 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I say "I wish he'd stick to nonfiction": you'd think I'd know better, given everything I've said about the fiction/nonfiction dialogue over the last twenty years. You ask: Did this idiot write Climbers or not ? Oh well, old age and guilt clouding judgement, etc...

It's me who needs the counselling, io. I'm a lot more territorially disturbed than the cat. And how do you think I feel, abandoning my comrades like that in the ruins ? Not good, I can tell you. The sooner I get to a therapist the better. date=31.03.2004 13:08 ip=62.188.22.55 name=MJH again mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. I don't think there's much left of the Superfortress; but Higher Shelf Stones is easy to get to, just park where the Pennine Way crosses the Snake and go round the head of the valley. There's a neat little crag on the contour, in fact is there a row of neat little crags ? I used to run up there sometimes from Hadfield. I can't imagine running for a bus any more.

I don't know how to build a fox house. date=31.03.2004 13:16 ip=62.188.22.55 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I've been told of the wreck of a Boeing Superfortress on a hill somewhere near Glossop.

For Christmas I bought my father-in-law "White Peak, Dark Peak" from the Site Gallery bookshop. It's an excellent book of photography, anecdotes and miscellany by local rambler/photographer Paul Hill. Includes a picture of the bomber's remains, and mentions that there are quite a few bits of aeroplane wreckage scattered around various peaks.

He goes on to tell a story of a party who discovered a crashed aeroplane, set about photographing it... it was only when they saw the bodies in the cockpit that they realised it had arrived just a few hours before them.

Also contains pictures of the elusive Peak District wallabies, which I previously never knew existed. date=31.03.2004 14:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last time a I saw a wallaby--at the Roches Upper Tier--was maybe 1986. I thought they'd died out since then. date=31.03.2004 14:43 ip=62.188.22.203 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the book was published about 1990, and some of the photos were quite old then, so it could be that they've all gone now.

Probably killed by the pumas. date=31.03.2004 15:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell, I go and do some work, come back and it's all crashed superfortresses and lost tribes of wallabies.

>>The sooner I get to a therapist the better.

Not worth it. They take up yards of deskspace, most of them have dodgy security issues that need software patches and they're incompatible with virtually anything built in the last five years. date=31.03.2004 15:14 ip=158.94.160.51 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was at the Roaches at the weekend: no wallabies. However, I was gobsmacked by Lud's Church. That's a place for you. date=31.03.2004 16:06 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. Cool, no ? I always liked the Roaches. Dan: I fear they might be gone, them wallabies. But you never know. io: I think if you get Therapist v2.2 it's a bit more stable. The main problem is still the so-called "therapeutic loop", when, whatever you key in, it tells you that's your defences talking, not the Real You. A lot of people have fried their hard disk in sheer fury at that, but the best thing is to have patience. Even a therapist can be debugged. date=31.03.2004 16:19 ip=213.116.54.246 name=Map Boy mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why are you being so defensive, Mike ? date=31.03.2004 16:21 ip=213.116.54.246 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Real You: now *there* was a waste of time. Managed to take half of my books to Oxfam, sell of my older CDs as "pretentious shite" and start looking for a proper job before I managed to uninstall it. I think there's still bits of it hiding in the system - I keep getting these dialogue boxes coming up saying things like: "Do you really want to be doing that?" and "It looks like you're about to make an arse of yrself."

Too late for that.

Talking of therapeutic loops: Ever come across the program Eliza? http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html date=31.03.2004 16:40 ip=158.94.160.51 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Real You: now *there* was a waste of time. Managed to take half of my books to Oxfam, sell of my older CDs as "pretentious shite" and start looking for a proper job before I managed to uninstall it. I think there's still bits of it hiding in the system - I keep getting these dialogue boxes coming up saying things like: "Do you really want to be doing that?" and "It looks like you're about to make an arse of yrself."

Too late for that.

Talking of therapeutic loops: Ever come across the program Eliza?
http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html date=31.03.2004 16:41 ip=158.94.160.51 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Eliza - does she /it ever register anything you ask? If this oracle had been working in ancient Greece, they'd have repossessed her tripod. Therapy? My elbow.

Doesn't do any of us good to get angry, though:

http://www.dwd.hu/

Mind how you go ... date=31.03.2004 16:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's also:

http://www.myprimetime.com/family/balance/content/f eelings/index.shtml

- I particularly like the "Two Chairs" option. date=31.03.2004 17:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dear MyPrimeTime:

I clicked for page 2 of "Get to Know the Real You" and got error 404 instead. Want to know my feelings about this ? Fucking raw fury. Is that ok ? Is that ok with you fucking fuckers, raw fury ? Because fuck me you're fucking fucked if it fucking isn't.

--Patricia date=31.03.2004 18:04 ip=213.116.50.190 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the Fear of Clowns that fucks most of us up. But now there *is* a cure: http://tinyurl.com/tsp1 date=31.03.2004 18:14 ip=158.94.165.61 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the Fear of Clowns that fucks us up most. But now there *is* a cure: http://tinyurl.com/tsp1 date=31.03.2004 18:51 ip=158.94.165.61 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Talking of therapeutic loops: Ever come across the program Eliza?

I re-programmed it quite a few times for various websites about 10 years ago - it just looks for various keywords and spits stock responses, although there are a few clever phrases where it'll spit back your sentence re-jigged and (usually) turned around into 2nd/1st person.

I even wrote an mIRC version once, so I could have a bunch of semi-intelligent (or at least, not quite as moronic as the humans) bots hanging out on an IRC channel. That one was a lot of fun to watch! date=31.03.2004 18:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, do you really fear clowns, or do you *hate* them: http://www.ihateclowns.com/ date=31.03.2004 18:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I even wrote an mIRC version once, so I could have a bunch of semi-intelligent (or at least, not quite as moronic as the humans) bots hanging out on an IRC channel.

I don't know if the Turing test was ever intended to be tested against morons. date=31.03.2004 19:01 ip=158.94.160.51 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually I'm cool with clowns. But a friend of mine - Justin the Comedy Goth - fears clowns and midgets. Not sure if his fear has turned to hate though... date=31.03.2004 19:06 ip=158.94.160.51 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I don't know if the Turing test was ever intended to be tested against morons.

LOL. ASL Io?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Frightening times. The couple of weeks I spent hanging out in that chat room, observing the bots and making them more "human", makes me fearful for the future of the human race.

Or at least that section of it which hangs out in online chat rooms. date=31.03.2004 23:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fear of clowns: I thought it was just Shaun Ryder who suffered from this.

MJH: I really think you should talk this out with someone ... No, it's all crap. I found another site on "20 tips for any woman's successful relationship." Soft furnishings and candlelight were 1 and 2; "teach him to give you a thorough and fulfilling orgasm" came in (so to speak) no. 6. You could combine the lot, and give customers in your nearest sofa warehouse something to tell their grandchildren, but - it'd be nice to live in a human world for a change, no? date=01.04.2004 09:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shaun Ryder: Wonder if there's any clowns who fear Shaun Ryder? I'm sure being clubbed to death by Bez is a common enough nightmare.

We used to have these tall stools at the library counter. I sometimes worried that if I closed my eyes, during a quite moment sitting on one of those stools, when I opened them again there'd be a New York audience in front of me and Paul Simon sitting beside me: we'd be about to play "Bridge Over Troubled Waters". It was horrible. My identity would recede and I would discover that I was in fact Art Garfunkel. date=01.04.2004 10:22 ip=81.132.81.83 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Art Garfunkel? Your bank manager might not think that altogether a bad thing.

Re the music, for a library shouldn't that be The Sound of Silence? Much better tune. date=01.04.2004 10:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At a magazine I once worked at, we had a polaroid of Shaun Ryder stuck to the wall - he was covered in boils, sitting on the toilet with his trousers around his ankles and looking... well, like Shaun Ryder distilled down to that vacant look. That photo could be useful in curing clowns of their phobia. date=01.04.2004 12:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to a Happy Mondays record signing once, in FNAC in Paris. All the band were too smashed to talk. The only legible signature was Bez's - he signed himself ZEBDEE in big block letters. Apparently he and Shaun now live in two semis out in the country and share a back garden, and are v. domestic together. Saw Black Grape live in about '96 - one of the best gigs I've ever seen! date=01.04.2004 12:15 ip=62.188.105.65 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm firmly of the opinion that Happy Mondays were crap, and so were Black Grape. What was everyone thinking of? Bloody Ecstasy. date=01.04.2004 13:17 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Saw Black Grape live in about '96 - one of the best gigs I've ever seen!

I think that's the tour that the "Shaun on the toilet" pic came from. date=01.04.2004 13:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I thought so too, at the time. But these days, "Kinky Afro" and "Lazyitis" sound pretty good to me.

They certainly sound better than Shaun looks. These days, "The Ryder" is a 40-ish blob man with a lobotomy wedge cut: looks like he came off the smack and went straight on a Guinness and Hobnob binge. I was shocked to see the photos. A warning to the curious, etc. date=01.04.2004 13:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hooray! Just found a Ferlinghetti first edition in the Barnardo's shop for a quid. date=01.04.2004 13:51 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(Posting turns green with envy) - Wow! Which? date=01.04.2004 13:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ferlinghetti first edition - wow! Clearly a classy Oxfam.

The Happy Mondays rocked! Lazyitis great, Wrote for Luck original / remixes just magnificent, all of the Pills, Thrills and Bellyaches album, Hallelujah EP - eee...

*begins to reminisce*

Tho' I was just about the right age for them - and had that whole indie-to-dance education you had at the time from The Smiths to The Stone Roses to Happy Mondays to Primal Scream and then beyond...

I remember when Fools Gold came out - epoch making! Etc. Oh, I get very nostalgic about all that. date=01.04.2004 15:09 ip=62.188.100.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Wow! Which?

It's not such a great one. It's a collection from 1967 called An Eye On The World. Great condition though.

Oh, and I think I've got a job, but it's not in the bag yet so I'm not counting fowl embryos. date=01.04.2004 15:18 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aye, all this were baggy when I were a nipper -

"Fool's Gold" - oh, yes. Can't justify this in the slightest (it just does it for me), but the jangly coda to "Standing There" sparks me every time - simply a gorgeous bit of music, despite the sarky lyric: "I could park a juggernaut in your mouth -" Anyway, play it and I'm gone, but I'm not sure where. date=01.04.2004 15:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: Axex - fingers crossed. Great news! date=01.04.2004 15:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Um - my fingers were too crossed. "Alex," that is. date=01.04.2004 15:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, axolotyl, good luck.

I was just the *wrong* age for Primal Scream et al. A couple of years before I decided it was high time I cultivated an appreciation of jazz & beyond. I think I spent the whole of that particular summer of love with Last Exit's Noise of Trouble on repeat play, trying to work out what was so great about it (I found it in the end).

I did manage to catch a whiff of Fool's Gold snaking under a flatmate's door: I rather liked it even though it felt a bit insubstantial. But I don't think I even knew (or cared) who Shaun Ryder was until several years later. date=01.04.2004 15:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, all that coincided with leaving v. restrictive boarding school etc and going and living in Paris / hitting university, so it was just an immense time of liberation; the music chimed perfectly with it. Happy Mondays were the soundtrack of 1990 for me, 1989 - The Shamen, 'In Gorbachev We Trust' - still play it from time to time, v. funky stuff. Amazing band back then. date=01.04.2004 15:42 ip=62.188.146.230 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and good luck Alex! When will you hear? date=01.04.2004 15:43 ip=62.188.146.230 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: very soon I hope.

Dan: I used to keep two axolotls as pets. Don't ask me why. They both looked like Sissy Spacek. date=01.04.2004 18:03 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=atsolotl axolotls! date=01.04.2004 18:16 ip=62.188.108.86 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, sounds like you've been out for an early drink. date=01.04.2004 20:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If only... tho' if you read it in the right way I think you sound like Sean Connery! date=01.04.2004 21:21 ip=62.188.108.11 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aha, we've shifted from Shaun to Sissy to Sean.

I'm afraid I was too smug for the Happy Mondays in the early nineties. Largely a matter of having discovered Can's Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi albums. Perhaps for this reason I shd have liked them but twentysomething avant-snobbery prevented this. And it's too late for me now - too late!

Spent most of yesterday rewiring my studio. Far more efficient now. Yow! I know how to have fun! date=02.04.2004 09:01 ip=158.94.172.124 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - come to think of it, the other great early 90s soundtrack album was BFord9 by Baby Ford, oh and the Aphex Twin one - at least for me. And I used to play 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (the Beatles song) at indie discos, and people would come up and think it had been released yesterday, and refuse to believe it was The Beatles. date=02.04.2004 09:31 ip=62.188.122.81 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I used to play 'Tomorrow Never Knows' (the Beatles song)

And what a song! How anyone can call Ringo a crap drummer after hearing that is beyond me. date=02.04.2004 10:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting juxtaposition: Shaun the clown - Sean the emphatically not a clown.

The subconscious: who knows what mysteries it divulges 'accidentally'?

Halt: who goes there: clown or non-clown?!

"Sissy, sir."

Not Shaun/Sean, then?

Makes sense to me. (Oh dear this head cold.) date=02.04.2004 10:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Ringo a crap drummer:

He always did just what the song required. Not my favourite Beatles song, but listen to how he changes the pattern in "Ticket to Ride" without anyone noticing. "Day in the Life" is probably his best, I think: play this at volume, obviously, and the top of your head comes off. date=02.04.2004 11:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps Shaun could be the next Bond and Sean could front the Happy Mondays? And Sissy: Sissy stays the same. date=02.04.2004 11:17 ip=158.94.165.61 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But now Ringo - was he a clown too? Which category?

I mean that's a serious question! date=02.04.2004 11:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ringo was the Holy Fool. date=02.04.2004 11:30 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Worth remembering that Ringo had the same veto on that the other three had. One journalist remembered being in the studio when Lennon came out with a long psychedelic doodle on guitar, and thought it could be part of a single. He asked Ringo what he thought.

"That's crap, John."

Instantly ditched; never played again. date=02.04.2004 11:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ringo was a holy fool.

One can just imagine the scene:

John: Ringo, hey, what do you think of this. “Dwoing ... dwing” etc

Ringo: That's clown's music John.

That gives us the full spectrum.

Wholly fool..............................Holy fool

What comes between?

Wholly fool becomes … partial wholly fool ... partial holy fool ... (wholly) holy fool.

Get in touch with the clown inside. He’s quality control central.

Generations of Beatle’s fans are grateful to him. date=02.04.2004 13:27 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Wholly fool..............................Holy fool
>>What comes between?

Woolly Fowl? date=02.04.2004 13:49 ip=158.94.172.124 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Woolly fowl.

But can it fly? Can it float? Knit one purl one.

Wool wholly holy woolly my god it's so difficult to spell! No wonder I get confused.

What is it about Deepak Chopra? He reminds me of A E Van Vogt. But at the moment alot of things remind me of Van Vogt.

(It all comes back to my head cold.) date=02.04.2004 14:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Clowns? Hmm.

But it would make the rest of my life (and several succeeding ones) if I could see either Shaun Ryder as James Bond or Sean Connery fronting the Happy Mondays.

Presumably with Bez as Q? And who would be Sean's Bez?

'You're twishting my melonsh, man. Call the copsh.'

etc date=02.04.2004 14:17 ip=62.188.120.125 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dey do, dough, don't dey?

I hate pierrots. And cockatoos. date=02.04.2004 14:20 ip=80.5.160.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But at the moment alot of things remind me of Van Vogt.

I was going to set myself up as a Sevagram, doing non-Aristotelean logic while getting my kit off at hen nights.

Shit, that's a crap nerdy joke. I'm just going to go outside and shoot myself.

MJP: Are you still coming to the Angel tonight in spite of the head cold? date=02.04.2004 14:26 ip=158.94.172.124 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: I am fine. Will be there about 8.00 clear and coherent (maybe). date=02.04.2004 14:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back on The Incredible Stringies (and vaguely literary)... didn't Angela Carter write a short story called The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (or something similar)? I think it was in Fireworks, though can't be sure because Angela Carter books last about as long as MJH ones around here.

I have fleeting memories of it being almost unbearably beautiful, sad and evocative, in the way that only Angela Carter can be. date=02.04.2004 15:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I think it was "Fireworks": years since I've read it, though in the '80s I once caught a glimpse of Carter through closing doors on the Tube, standing in the midst of the evening rush hour crowds like a pale and distracted ghost. No one gave her a second glance. date=02.04.2004 16:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Could this be the source of the heart: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3592753.stm

'Mr Gleisner admitted that he and his co-writers focused on eastern Europe because they felt "no-one, even those who live there, is even sure of the geography of the area". ' date=02.04.2004 20:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like it lots. date=03.04.2004 11:07 ip=213.78.83.136 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The sad thing is, some people might actually believe that this country exists." date=03.04.2004 12:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Curiously, though the Guardian claims to have taken down this site, Molvania remains on the web, its ontology as slippery as the light on an empty cardboard box in a Huddersfield supermarket carpark in early November etc. My own book about Molvania, comprising three hundred faded polaroid photographs found on a Clerkenwell market stall in 1986 with accompanying fragmentary texts by various performance artists, psychogeographers and travel writers previously thought dead, will be available next month to coincide with the exhibition. Details on the website. date=03.04.2004 23:42 ip=213.78.93.110 name=Tom Metcalfe mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=See this anyone?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040403.html
Kegahuchi Tract maybe?

;) date=05.04.2004 05:07 ip=82.35.85.170 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Tom! Edgy stuff, this universe.

I can remember Molvania winning Eurovision some time in the '80s - and that chap on the guide book was busking Joy Divsion songs in Oxford last week. Sadly, Molvania was washed away in the floods that swamped central Europe a couple of years ago. Its hexagonal postcards, nutmeg graters, and the garden ornaments depicting bearded nymphs and the catalfalques of famous tulip breeders are still being retrieved from muddy cellars in Prague. Tourists need not be disappointed, though. The country should be hosed down and exhibited on a line of wheelbarrows near Kafka's house some time this summer. date=05.04.2004 10:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Tom. Clearly. "A large unknown class of galactic gamma-ray emitters." I love it. date=05.04.2004 10:57 ip=194.222.205.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Contractors, huh? Delivering food to crying babies?
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/new/index.html

Now, if I was the cynical type to disbelieve the press and the US Government, I'd say that has the smell of mercenary about it. Surely not. date=06.04.2004 13:08 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I dunno. There's this "Extreme Officer Survival" module - including "Running Gunman Stress Courses (LIVE FIRE and FX)." How much fun is that? Just think of it as hide and seek with real bullets. Iraqi orphans'll love it. And remember - when they drop, they stay dropped. Do you think they'd give ES group discount?

Ugh. You get the feeling that Falluja is going to be as familiar to this generation in the US as Saigon was to their fathers: and I wonder how far the Pentagon has got with plans for conscription. date=06.04.2004 15:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>plans for conscription

Martin, the point is that they are running this show with hundreds of US-sponsored mercenaries, which means they can lose a few hundred here and there without anyone noticing (unless the Iraqis get cute with their stringings-up). Not so their apple-pie 'real' soldiers. date=06.04.2004 16:32 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Indeed. News Dissector blog noted they're drawing on Pinochet's old operatives now. All human filth is here. date=06.04.2004 16:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's a creepy image on their home page that seems to be in support of the wrong *sort* of freedom and democracy: http://www.blackwaterusa.com/images/bigbugeyes.gif date=06.04.2004 16:49 ip=212.159.31.160 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Philip K. Dick stormtroopers. Good to know we're safe in one his plots. date=06.04.2004 17:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought security people wore dickie-bows? date=06.04.2004 17:09 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="I say, old chap, if you're not properly dressed for the war I'm afraid you simply *can't* come in - " date=06.04.2004 17:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't want to seem paranoid, but it seems very convenient that the *evil gas bombers* in the UK are discovered on the same day as all hell breaks loose in Iraq - I wonder if they've been saving them up for a day when distraction is needed? date=06.04.2004 19:01 ip=62.188.112.89 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think they're only alleged to have been thinking about doing it, aren't they ? And it might have been here they were going to do it, or it might have been somewhere else. If they did it. This magnificent vagueness seems at odds with such specificity when it comes to naming the chemical the possible bombers might have been going to use if they could have got some; and, especially, the exact specification of its gruesome effects, described in loving detail. Shadowy and putative bombers, perfectly focussed discussion of what might have happened if they had actually done a bombing. Don't look at that, look at this. While I tell you something you'll really want to know.

Also, I utterly loved the BBC definition of a catalyst as something that "helps experiments". date=06.04.2004 20:09 ip=213.78.86.67 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Excuse me sir, could you just accompany me down to the station, we'd like you to help us with our experiments^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^Benquiries date=06.04.2004 20:27 ip=212.159.31.160 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personally, I blame it on a large unknown class of galactic gamma ray emitters. date=06.04.2004 20:49 ip=213.78.166.67 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="My mental state was adversely affected by a passing neutrino, your honour."

If that's the BBC's definition of "catalyst," I'd better apply to be their science correspondent. Those naughty terrorists - soon they'll be introducing phlogiston to the water supply. We're all doomed. date=07.04.2004 10:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I watched The Quiet American the other evening. Not brilliant but ok. Anyway, it shows the American mentality perfectly, in the form of Pyle. Different war, same situation.

But how do we describe our mentality? That baffles me. We seem to follow the same line. The subconscious admission is that the end justifies the means. Lie because the end is worth it. Getting rid of a dictator! Catching the man has turned out to be an illusion however: Saddam is rather unsatisfying as an interrogee (?) apparently. Never had any clear idea of what was going on to start with. date=07.04.2004 10:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>but it seems very convenient that the *evil gas bombers* in the UK

Ah yes, I saw that. Osmium tetroxide, which is not suitable for use as a bomb and rather expensive to boot. Save us from inept failed chemistry student extremists with too much pocket money!

Meanwhile, I've been pottering around the flat with a nose full of weapons-grade gunk picking up this and that from the bookshelves. Of a whim I started reading Pournelle & Niven's appalling The Mote in God's Eye. Thought I'd chucked this out ages ago! But the opening sequence with a justified imperialist invasion of a colony world strongly resembles the fall of Baghdad. Naturally it's presented from the point of view of a maverick starship commander who achieved the victory by breaking Navy regulations. Naturally there's an evil Arab trader (from the planet Levant) on ship who is being transported to Capital for questioning. Naturally there's also a Scottish chief engineer on board. Naturally it's also written in the sort of prose you'd expect from a pair of adolescent apes.

I'd forgotten just how bad space opera can be. date=07.04.2004 10:27 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>but how do we describe that mentality?

Conrad still did the best job, with Kurtz. You begin by thinking that everyone is really you with a different coloured skin, and end up facing "the horror" that they're not, and wanting to kill them all. I did a lot of research into Victorian missionaries (it's a long story), and found much the same mentality there. Like Dubya, many missionaries believed that Hindus or Muslims were simply waiting to embrace Judaeo-Christian culture as the truth. But they could barely grasp the social and intellectual dimensions of Islam, and Hinduism isn't a credal faith, so it defeated them completely. Mostly, the result was disillusion and wrath. One hundred years on, the same myopia would have it that Iraqis are really Texans with the wrong leadership, and that it's only a question of time before they see sense. That nonsense has cost another 12 or 15 lives this morning. date=07.04.2004 10:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> maverick starship commander who achieved the victory by breaking Navy regulations.

Did he have a crusty boss with a heart of gold also?

Oh, and on the difference thing -

http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/

My favourite BBC news moment last night - 'Al Sadr is in hiding from the US...'

No he's not! He's sat in a mosque, saying 'either come and get me - in the third holiest mosque in Islam, surrounded by my armed followers - and all hell really WILL break loose - or leave me here and demonstrate how little power over me you really have!'

Bit much for the BBC News, it seems. How conscious is all this stuff? News shuffling, story management, distortion, etc?

Bah. date=07.04.2004 11:11 ip=62.188.112.9 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> ... describe that mentality (take 2)

It's a disorder that refuses to accept the world as something other than an ideal reflection, and will kill in order to prove it. We're looking at Narcissus with an Uzi. date=07.04.2004 11:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From NY Post comment page:

>> Nevertheless, the first task of the occupation remains the first task of government - to establish a monopoly on violence.

When Sadr's forces took to the streets, with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, many of the freshly minted Iraqi security forces took flight. It is too late for debate about being in Baghdad. And the (relatively) pretty phase of empire - the swift dispatch of an enemy army - is over. Regime change, occupation, nation-building - in a word, empire - is a bloody business.

Now Americans must steel themselves for administering the violence necessary to disarm or defeat Iraq's urban militias, which replicate the problem of modern terrorism - violence that has slipped the leash of states.

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/18264.h tm

Violence represents moral failure on their part, moral rigour on ours.... date=07.04.2004 11:26 ip=62.188.120.111 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>if the U.S. does nothing to quell revolutionaries such as Mr. al-Sadr, who has openly allied himself with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, a transfer of power would be a recipe for chaos. (Canadian Globe and Mail)

The American and Canadian press seem uncrititical of the way American policies have made a difficult situation far worse, the way that a new front has been opened against the Shias with this Sadr figure, a total disaster, and all because Paul Bremner wanted to close his newspaper! Alot hangs on these kinds of elisions. date=07.04.2004 11:55 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Did he have a crusty boss with a heart of gold also?

Course he did! Old mate of his dad's. Gives him an official bollocking before promoting him. All of this, of course, in the first fifteen pages. They don't waste time.

>>It's a disorder that refuses to accept the world as something other than an ideal reflection, and will kill in order to prove it.

I'm not sure I see the Bush administration being quite that reflective or idealistic. Just a cynical scramble for resources, power and jobs for the boys, backed up by squareheads with dialogue that would shame Niven and Pournelle. date=07.04.2004 12:04 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Removal of motive seems to be a consistent theme in reporting; X has done this, rather than X has done this because...

For instance, with the Faluja killing of four Americans; I've only seen muddled reports, but as I understand it the killings happened just after substantial demonstrations resulting from a US tank running over / shooting two people in a car. date=07.04.2004 12:04 ip=62.188.110.51 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - with Al Sadr, my guess is that the US provoked him so he'd rise up with his militia, which they could then destroy, demonstrating that they remain the superior force in Iraq. Then, hand over power in June, remain in the background (protest against our appointed leaders and we'll attack) and have a *peaceful* Iraq and a happy electorate back home.

Bring 'em on! date=07.04.2004 12:08 ip=62.188.110.51 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, there was a story to that effect in yesterday's Guardian. However I find such an idea hard to believe. The American electorate don't like their soldiers being killed. And a new Shia front would create havok. This is from today's New York Times:

"It was one of the most violent days in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, with half a dozen cities ignited. One of the biggest questions at day's end was the role of most of the majority Shiites previously thought to be relatively sympathetic to American goals." date=07.04.2004 12:32 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very true; but what's the US administration state of mind - overconfident, desperate or just plain confused? Odd combination of the three, I would think - and that could lead to some nutty gamble.

Dubya's two over-riding concerns seem to be 'keep the job' and 'make money for corporates' - neither of which take much account of soldier lives. And of course you can get the (foreign) mercenaries to do the real dirty work...!

As for the Shi'ites - reading the Iraqi blogs, it seems that tolerance for the occupation is nearing breaking point as they realise that the democracy that America wants to impose may well not allow them effective rule, regardless of their majority position. I would suspect also that it's a combination of lots of little last straws; no work, insecurity, random raids / detentions, erosion of faith in occupiers, etc. date=07.04.2004 12:42 ip=62.188.105.208 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, good points. Whatever it is that's pushing their buttons in Washington ... unbelievable.

Martin's suggestion that this is a question of America wanting to dress Iraqi's in Texan boots and hats seems pretty accurate. date=07.04.2004 13:24 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A momentary off-subject incursion: Sneak peak of the cover for the Phoenix reprint of Climbers over on the Empty Space site. date=07.04.2004 13:34 ip=81.133.56.33 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and: Dylan to appear in lingerie ad: http://tinyurl.com/223cu date=07.04.2004 13:52 ip=81.133.56.33 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali >>>Oh, and: Dylan to appear in lingerie ad

And this is somehow connected? (The man's in love, I hear.) Look forward to that (the book I mean.)

Further to my investigations into the American psyche I have just gone out and bought The Weapon Shops of Isher. That's my excuse anyway. Holiday reading. Murder One Charing X has a terrific second hand book section. If you are into 'trash fiction' that is of course. date=07.04.2004 14:23 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dylan gets paid for hanging around with hanging around with a lot of half-naked women one-third his age, and the dj who's played his music for years thinks it's "weird"? Aw c'mon, now!

>>Just how bad space opera can be ...

A short-cut's provided by Neil Gaiman's wonderful book, "Ghastly Beyond Belief": an anthology of dreadful blurbs, improbable plot-lines, and the kind of clunky prose almost anyone might write when pushed to a cut-throat deadline - "X noticed something remarkable about him. There was another thing, too, but I'll mention that in a moment -" date=07.04.2004 14:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I have just gone out and bought The Weapon Shops of Isher.

Here is the race that shall rule the Sevagram. Oh, actually that's The Weapon Makers - another SF great that I never managed to finish.

>>And this is somehow connected?

It's all connected. All. Have you ever read this book? It's called Dioretics... date=07.04.2004 14:30 ip=81.133.56.33 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: It's Florian Schneider's birthday today. The announcement on WFMU (damn good radio station, that) is accompanied by this picture: http://tinyurl.com/25kyl date=07.04.2004 14:37 ip=81.133.56.33 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, no io that's too much coffee. Dye-yr-netics is what it's actually called.

My book starts out with a slogan sighted in an alternate dimension and reported in a newspaper: The right to buy weapons is the right to be free. date=07.04.2004 14:39 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ho ho ho. Jolly good.

But it's Ralf Heuer! date=07.04.2004 14:41 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But it's Ralf Heuer!

That's terrible! You make a robot of yrself looking as close as dammit to yr bandmates and you can *still* be identified! It's so hard to submerge yr individuality.

>>"X noticed something remarkable about him. There was another thing, too, but I'll mention that in a moment -"

That's either crass, inspired or Kurt Vonnegut. I'm not sure which. Yes, I have Ghastly Beyond Belief somewhere around here. Great fun. date=07.04.2004 14:46 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Crass ...

If memory serves (the book's not here), it's poor Vargo Staten, who was turning out a book every week to support his wife and children. Heroic effort; terrible results. Gaiman quotes another Staten novel where the protagonist is creeping along a spooky underground passage, when he sees something gleaming in his torch-light about a hundred yards away. He gets closer - closer - he's so nervous the torch's beam wavers - and then he sees what it really is: A DOOR HANDLE.

Haven't checked Amazon, but the anthology's a must-have. There's at least one blurb quoted that has nothing whatever to do with the book where it appeared. After you've stopped laughing over the end result, you could weep on behalf of the authors. date=07.04.2004 15:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amazon strikes again: "Ghastly Beyond Belief" can be got as a used paperback for about £8.00 - or as a US import at, um, £111.00. Profiteering, or what? date=07.04.2004 15:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>or as a US import at, um, £111.00

For £111 I'll deliver my copy by hand dressed in a silver foil spacesuit. date=07.04.2004 15:31 ip=81.133.56.33 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There is of course a category problem with badness as a metaphysics.

It's like this. If to exist is strange then what might be termed an irony of equidistance obtains with any idea of normality. That is to say to call x strange is to call y strange *ad infinitum*!

Therefore all art is equally bad! Or good!

That's a direct quote from Van Vogt by the way. date=07.04.2004 15:33 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah well, Van Vogt's General Semantics inspired Dianetics and therefore Scientology. By this method we can make a bridge between The Weapon Shops of Isher and The Incredible String Band.

It's all connected. All.

Quote from a crap paperback called The Venus Venture by John E Muller - found this in a Walthamstow charity shop:

"He had met men of whom he could say at once that he was a guy he could enjoy talking with, drinking with. Lively, intelligent men with quick senses of humour. And there were others, just as lively, just as quick, just as intelligent, who made no sense at all.

"Maclane was wondering again about his telepathic wavelength frequencies." date=07.04.2004 15:41 ip=81.133.56.33 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Following my system, I think we can call that quote equally good and bad ie bood (for example). date=07.04.2004 16:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: It may all be connected, but - does the first sentence of that blurb mean *anything* ?

Not in Gaiman, but in Damon Knight's old book "In Search of Wonder," there's an hysterical dissection of the fantasy "classic" 'The Blind Spot.' Knight has a wonderful time exposing its scientific illiteracy. We're told a magic stone 'inducts' sound. The hero shuts it in a metal box; the sound stops. ' "Aha!" cried Ralph. "So it's a question of radiation!" ' Yer what, son?

Knight also got his teeth into another addled plot that included a sailor. As Knight said, you can tell he's an old salt: "Strange things happen at sea ... the captain is boss, and no one questions his orders." Well, I'm convinced ... date=07.04.2004 16:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely 'gad'?

Gadzooks! date=07.04.2004 16:06 ip=62.188.108.237 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They've hit a mosque in Falluja; over 40 dead, according to BBC News.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

Blog from Riverbend, Baghdadi woman.

I just don't understand what they think they're going to achieve by doing all this. I think this is a big turning point. 'Liberators' don't strafe your cities with jets and helicopters, or launch street to street fighting through them - no matter what the provocation. date=07.04.2004 16:23 ip=62.188.105.75 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Air strikes on mosques? Well, that's *really* going to make you popular! date=07.04.2004 16:43 ip=81.133.56.33 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Increasingly it looks like the 'quagmire' scenario of Vietnam. God help the people of Iraq. date=07.04.2004 16:45 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely; I can't see any 'good' coming from this. Even if they do manage to wipe out Al-Sadr - which I doubt - they'll have seriously pissed off the entire population. And blowing up mosques in (the holy city off) Falluja is going to incidentally wind up muslims worldwide. date=07.04.2004 16:58 ip=62.188.105.70 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dear god. What can you say? What can *they* say? 'We thought it was a WMD'?

"Quagmire" about describes it. Too far in to retreat, and no way forward. Two presidents from now, some candidate will get the White House by promising "peace with honor," we'll see another frantic helicoptor evacuation, and then a talking head from the Pentagon will do a McNamara and admit that everyone knew it was unwinnable in '03 but didn't dare say so. date=07.04.2004 16:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the day following the original Falluja (?) atrocity the Independent had a picture of one of the victims on the front page. It was mostly just fire, but if you looked closely you could see two clutched burning hands. I was looking at this when someone came up to me asking if he could see that day's photo from the jazz series the paper was running. Completely disjointed moment since the front page picture virtually didn't exist for him. date=07.04.2004 17:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And the BBC seem to be giving no context to this apart from: "The incident came as coalition troops fought separate uprisings by both Sunni and Shia Muslims in several towns." It's all so general, so vague. This is the sort of behaviour we expect from the Israeli military followed by a condemnation from the UN. date=07.04.2004 17:27 ip=81.133.56.33 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And yes: Vietnam II. date=07.04.2004 17:27 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's what's needed - context. Why this sudden, massive escalation? date=07.04.2004 17:30 ip=62.188.110.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Why ..?

Election year.

(Shortest posting I've ever made - and the saddest). date=07.04.2004 17:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tidy it all up for November?

I was forgetting - Martin, you're right, on both counts. date=07.04.2004 17:36 ip=62.188.110.30 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>the BBC seem to be giving no context to this

I don't have a tv but of the times I have seen it recently, elsewhere, this seems to sum it up. Maybe the BBC have been cowed by Hutton. date=07.04.2004 18:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aljazeera has nothing on the mosque that was attacked but does refer to US rocket attacks in residential areas: http://tinyurl.com/3e23r date=07.04.2004 18:38 ip=81.133.56.33 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's quite a full account in Le Monde where they report that: "We wanted to kill the people inside of the mosque", affirmed the lieutenant-colonel Brennan Byrne.

Which is odd. Because I just saw a BBC news report claiming that they had been trying to hit the building next door. date=07.04.2004 18:48 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='insurgents firing from a mosque complex' is the current quote on the Beeb.

Sigh. date=07.04.2004 19:04 ip=62.188.136.219 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Associated Press article that has just appeared on the Guardian site says: "The strike came as worshippers were gathering at the mosque for afternoon prayers."

But then again, I'm finding comflicting reports as to whether the mosque itself was not damaged or whether it was entirely destroyed. date=07.04.2004 19:08 ip=81.133.56.33 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm wondering which mosque it was? Hopefully not Falluja's answer to Ely Cathedral or similar. date=07.04.2004 19:25 ip=62.188.105.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile: a fast bike, a following wind, and a quick preview of what things will look like after the unthinkable -

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/ date=08.04.2004 09:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, bizarrely, you can get a portrait of yourself standing next to - well, check it out:

http://www.johannas-art.com/Portraits.htm date=08.04.2004 10:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fucking Christ! "It is perfect!! Saying thank you doesn't seem like enough, so I'm sending you a hug too!!" Do you think it'd be worth the money to send her a picture of Bin Laden to do an Osama and Stevie portrait? They're so scary: all these dimshit Fleetwood Mac fans in fey watercolour alongside vapourous ethereal copies of Stevie. She looks like she's had her jaw broken or she's been spiked with heavy downers or something. Jesus!

Re: Chernobyl Bike Touring: Pretty incredible. Even if the first picture makes her look like the tough love interest from an episode of Knightrider. date=08.04.2004 10:44 ip=81.129.148.3 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*boggles*

Hmm - a bit of krautrock stardom, and it could be 'your portrait with Zali'. Actually - MJH - got any truly obsessive fans? This could work for them too... MJH, their pic, and a Mari Lwd in the background, all in tasteful watercolour.

*readies easel*

Oh, and also - for a naming project I'm working on - the prefix nano- means 'very small'? Or am I wrong? date=08.04.2004 10:50 ip=62.188.156.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Really sort of quite small, Al. date=08.04.2004 10:57 ip=193.195.0.102 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks for that... date=08.04.2004 11:03 ip=62.188.110.127 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Isn't the technical definition something like: "really fucking small!" It's definitely smaller than "micro" and as a prefix often denotes billionth or hundred-millionth. Depending on which side of the Atlantic you're speaking from. date=08.04.2004 11:05 ip=81.129.148.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Isn't the technical definition something like: "really fucking small!" It's definitely smaller than "micro" and as a prefix often denotes billionth or thousand-millionth. Depending on which side of the Atlantic you're speaking from. date=08.04.2004 11:17 ip=81.129.148.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So fucking small you could fit a billion of them into the loop of "a" in the word "small," actually ... date=08.04.2004 11:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fucking, fucking, fucking small, in fact...

Btb, Martin, how did you find that Stevie site? Are we going to be seeing a Martin'n'Stevie up on the site soon? date=08.04.2004 11:31 ip=62.188.120.77 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As small as you might feel beside Stevie, mortal. date=08.04.2004 11:35 ip=81.129.148.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Not through my Stevie fixation, but at:

http://www.visi.com/fall/

- see the "News" section for another gruesome example! date=08.04.2004 11:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Portraits with MJH: my, but isn't he Byronically watercolourgenic. date=08.04.2004 11:52 ip=212.159.31.160 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH portraits: the franchise starts here.

I heard a really waffly interview with Nicks, when she came across as exactly the kind of insufferable million-dollar airhead you might imagine. In desperation, the journalist asked her what was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Bereavement? Poverty? Waitress work? "My god," she moaned. "The worst - the very worst - was when our producer said, 'Stevie - your song 'Silver Springs' can't be on the album.' I mean - my god - my heart just *stopped* -" Remember: only the tough survive at Malibu. date=08.04.2004 12:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think we can do MJH tambourines though - we'll have to find another product to grace with his image. date=08.04.2004 12:19 ip=81.129.148.3 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, we could market a personalised [ornamental object which hasn't got a name yet]: just print your face on one of these -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3610379.stm

[" eye-pad," maybe? ] date=08.04.2004 12:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... or tie it to "Light" and have Schranders in your eyes!

And more after that.

And more after that. date=08.04.2004 13:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I love the Stevie portraits. I love how the artist has made the people look even uglier than their photographs. Was Marissa pleased with her new chin? I'm sure she was. date=08.04.2004 17:45 ip=80.5.160.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That Chernobyl biking is incredible.

How far will we go to avoid traffic? date=08.04.2004 21:32 ip=62.64.205.155 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All the way. date=08.04.2004 23:08 ip=213.78.71.135 name=rasia.ru mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://rasia.ru text=Aikawa Nanase
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See-Saw
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Speed
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Zard Free download J-pop and other my нomepage. mpeg divx avi love hina song songs free music download anime tenchi jpop cpop kpop j-pop c-pop k-pop j-rock jCulture anime manga. date=09.04.2004 15:01 ip=195.131.84.203 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike´s potrait: one of them thingies - Holograms?- that if you look one way is one picture and if you look the other ,something else. One side Míke´s mug , the other a horse skull. date=10.04.2004 11:51 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Empty Space Enterprises has already begun production, Arturo. However, in an adroit commercial move Map Boy has determined that that the product will bear not the author's face but *the faces of other authors*. Joanna Trollope, horse's skull; Salam Pax, horse's skull. WG Sebald, horse's skull. Later, we may diversify into the portrayal of public figures. Tony Blair, horse's arse. date=10.04.2004 12:16 ip=213.78.71.22 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Writing is writing. Good piece by Geoff Dyer here: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/travel/story/0,6000, 1189113,00.html

On the same subject (it is, actually) I think Elena from Chernobyl should start running tours. Meanwhile, whether she wants it or not, ES is giving her the Liv Hula Award, basically for inventing the first genuine future sport; also for proving everything we said on the TTA board earlier this year about risk-taking being an ungendered behaviour. This will be the first and only presentation of the award. There's no actual prize or anything, because Elena already has the only tick that counts. She's been there. date=10.04.2004 14:38 ip=213.78.77.10 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been thinking about the fiction/non-fiction thing a bit recently. Much as I enjoy non-fiction... well, sometimes it seems as if the people writing it only have one thing on their mind!

What I love about great fiction (one of the things, at least) is that it imparts so much non-fictitious information along the way. This is particularly the case when, as at the moment, I'm reading quite a lot of historical stuff, and filling in the gaps by looking up the key players and events of the time on the Internet.

Actually, good non-fiction can do that crossover thing pretty well too. The last "non-fiction" I read was In Patagonia, which not only crosses the line between fiction and non-fiction, the whole book is an exploration of that non-existent boundary far more than it is an exploration of South America.

Interested in the US-fiction/UK-non-fiction distinction that Geoff Dyer mentions. Does this have anything to do with the expectations & tastes of those audiences, or is it just to protect him from getting sued in the US when a piece of fictionalised non-fiction is discovered in the text. date=11.04.2004 14:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm assuming Liv Hula is some MJH character I've forgotten about somewhere down the line... when I search Google all I get are dozens of sites offering me a Liv Tyler screensaver with "a 3D Liv hula hooping". Hmmm. Future sport? 3D hula-hooping? date=11.04.2004 15:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan

>>The last "non-fiction" I read was In Patagonia, which not only crosses the line between fiction and non-fiction, the whole book is an exploration of that non-existent boundary far more than it is an exploration of South America.

Absolutely. A classic of modern genre-bending. Jonathan Raban is good at it too.

Liv Hula, from Light. She's the first human being to fly into the photosphere of a star for fun. date=11.04.2004 20:18 ip=213.78.90.209 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, _that_ Liv Hula. OK.

I've been having fun this Easter, proofreading very old books on behalf of Project Gutenberg: http://www.pgdp.net/c/ date=12.04.2004 11:53 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singleco ntent/contentTypeA/conWebDoc/contentId/355/navId/00500100000 2
Any relation to this other "John Harrison" chap ? date=12.04.2004 14:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An unpredictable combination of circumstances--including the builders fucking me up, and the post-Easter communications bulge acting to all intents and purposes as a denial-of-service attack on my ISP--means I'm unable to send or receive emails. I can be reached here for the moment. date=13.04.2004 13:12 ip=193.195.0.101 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: That fiction/non-fiction divide - one of my favourite books that straddles the gap is Hugh Trevor-Roper's "Hermit of Peking. " It deals with the fantasy diaries left by Chinese resident Edmund Backhouse, making out he'd been lover to both Oscar Wilde and the Empress of China, neither of which was true. An extraordinary piece of derangement or wish fulfilment, depending on how you view it. date=13.04.2004 16:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... And fiction to fact: the Pentagon sponsors this -

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/15/quark-wertheim.php
- from Barstow to Las Vegas. Hunter S. Thompson must have readers at Dubya's elbow: a frightening thought. date=13.04.2004 16:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was thinking more of systems in which the techniques of one genre are imported to mediate the typical content of another. Truman Capote "fictionalises" the true crime genre; his new methods are assimilated so rapidly thereafter, they become the very signature of true crime. Later they're picked up by avant fiction writers and within a few years, become the very signature of crime fiction. You can see the same pulse between TV documentary and fiction, as the tokens of authenticity are exchanged by genres trying to outdistance one another in terms of the authoritative voice. The same happens between autobiography and fiction, autobiography and documentary--look at Orwell's Down & Out in the light of the candid (non-writerly) autobiographies of tramps in the first thirty years of the twentieth century. Levels of organisation are important--how permissible is it to re-order events for narrative effect (as, again, in the infamous Orwellian stick-down-the-drain incident, in The Road to Wigan Pier) and still call your piece nonfiction ? One of the weirder attitudes you meet in the f/sf backwater is a complete rigidity when it comes to that. They only like fantasy; and they only like fantasy that distinguishes itself in a completely traditional way from non-fantasy, and--more importantly--from nonfiction. The categories are very rigidly maintained. This is an anxiety: but where does it originate ? Why the need to steep yourself in the signifiers of the unreal but at the same time maintain a very sharp gradient of distinction between those and the signifiers of the real ? One of the reasons I've given up arguing with f&sf people, for the moment anyway, is that they can't even begin to answer questions like that. date=13.04.2004 17:04 ip=193.195.0.102 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow. Do you see that ? Did I do that ? Help! date=13.04.2004 17:06 ip=193.195.0.102 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, you keyed a massive line into the name box, thus squishing us up to the right. date=13.04.2004 17:08 ip=193.195.0.102 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH(and everyone else): Looks kinda cute, but - agh. *Sorry*. No idea how it happened, but typing a URL mid-text didn't help. I've mailed Zali ... date=13.04.2004 17:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Help! Everyone has been rendered speechless! date=13.04.2004 18:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh - I am working on a small screen here (for technical reasons...). It's the other side. date=13.04.2004 18:24 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rushing around a bit, so terse, but on the machines front:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/sci-tech/doc4265.html

Never thought I'd see the message board move so far to the right so quickly...

Oh, and what freaks me out about the robot armies etc (apart from their hopeful impossibility - but the more impossible it is the better, as the more money it will take to develop and thus the more profit there is along the way) is that if the people no longer is the army, you don't need the support of the people to use the army.

'In Patagonia' sounds fascinating, has just gone to the top of my 'must read next' list. date=13.04.2004 19:14 ip=62.188.108.127 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and -

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/18538. htm date=13.04.2004 21:42 ip=62.188.131.44 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of my favourite fiction/non-fiction crossovers, coming from the other direction, is Alasdair Gray's novel about a frankenstein's monster-esque combination of a dead woman and her unborn child's brain. Hang on... Poor Things (thank you Amazon). From what I can remember, the centre of the book is a journal, wrapped in layers of writings which alternately deny and confirm its truth.

I'm currently reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, which follows a similar Russian Doll structure. I'm in love with Mitchell's writing. It's clever (in the same kind of way that Hofstadter making a novel out of the antics of the Tortoise, Achilles and their friends would be clever), and it's pretty big. Occasionally situations seem contrived, or ideas seem to be thrown into the mix simply because of their cleverness, but I can forgive him this for two reasons. Firstly, he can always fall back on the excuse that it's not him writing the stuff, it's his characters. More importantly, the book's so fun to read that I just don't care. (Mike: I think I was raving about his first book, Ghostwritten, when I met you in Barnes).

Capote: I bought a book, "Dear Mr Capote" from a jumble sale many years ago. Ed told me to read "In Cold Blood" first. Took me about another ten years before I did. I still haven't read Dear Mr Capote. date=13.04.2004 23:32 ip=62.49.107.21 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Why the need to steep yourself in the signifiers of the unreal but at the same time maintain a very sharp gradient of distinction between those and the signifiers of the real ?

One of the things that interests me, to the point where it might be useful to research this, is the moment when Heinlein, Van Vogt, Hubbard and others sat round a kitchen table in the Fifties and conceived of the foundations of Scientology. Looks like Scientology emerged from the same dilemma. The solution? Religion and science fused. date=14.04.2004 09:50 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ey oop. Haven't been around much because *hooray* I've got a new job. Can't believe my luck. Walked into it. Can't stop. More later. date=14.04.2004 11:48 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(typing very carefully ... ) Alex: CONGRATULATIONS! date=14.04.2004 11:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why the need to steep yourself in the signifiers of the unreal but at the same time maintain a very sharp gradient of distinction between those and the signifiers of the real ? One of the reasons I've given up arguing with f&sf people, for the moment anyway, is that they can't even begin to answer questions like that.

They're inside it so can't answer. This is a fascinating question, very pertinent to what I'm trying to do. MJH a subject for next time we talk, please. date=14.04.2004 11:55 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Congrats Alex!

*pops virtual champagne etc* date=14.04.2004 12:13 ip=62.188.105.162 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph/MJH: The attitude bewilders me, too. I'd imagined all these trainspotters bombarded "New Worlds" with 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' letters back in the '60s, and then buggered off - but they seem part and parcel of "the genre." It must be an enclave mentality that the pulps encouraged. These days, though, they sound closer to BNP-type nonsense about "miscegenation" and "swamping" than many of them might care to admit. I'm also intrigued by the point that this sort of sf shows little need to establish an "authoritative voice" - maybe because so much of it's transparently power complex posturing and preaching to the converted that "authority" is a given? As you say, Steph, one to discuss for hours. date=14.04.2004 12:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, we have looked at this before on the TTA boards. It is very, very difficult philosophically. I am finalising a book that grew out of that debate. I gave Justina Robson an early draft of it but she could make neither head or tail of it. It is a bit like trying to design a new kind of engine. (A new way of thinking.) You have the basic design but all the timing is out. All you get from it are loud explosions, backfiring; not the smooth hum of organised prose. But maybe someday soon.

I don't think that people who are afraid of the idea of the reality of fantasy should necessarily be mocked or ridiculed. We need defences. Fear of Music. That is a medical condition. Or for example the medical condition wherein a person believes that there are demons inside his chest - because he may be right - maybe we are inhabited by 'demons'. All of us. Only he is the only one who knows. What is the best way of dealing with that problem on a day to day level? Pretending that they are fictional? Of course. Ah, fiction. Thank God. So they aren't real. Thank God God is real and demons aren't. (Or thank god god isn't real.)

(You can take those observations any way you like by the way.)

Stephanie, I have looked at the review of your book on the Alien Online. It seems genuinely interesting. It appears to have no main narrative but instead to consist in a series of character portraits of people overrun by demons. Nicely paradoxical if the people are real. ("So I am just imagining it all!")

The basic idea I came up with, after being repeatedly quizzed and pressured by Justina to simplify, is: To know is to imagine. As opposed to our ordinary Western paradigm where we have: To know is to *not* imagine. date=14.04.2004 13:40 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Forgot to say: my new job will involve frequent trips to London, staying overnight, so you lot can damn well entertain me. OK? Cheers. date=14.04.2004 14:44 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fear of hostas. Fear of goats, roots, motors. Fear of being caught fat & old in the bath by yr neighbour from upstairs. Fear of buckets. Fear of Chicago. Fear of having to fear only fear itself. Fear of milts & seasons, & of the Oxo Tower. Fear of the slippage between what is and what isn't. Fear of toast. Fear of Carson McCullers. Fear of Gravity Probe B. *Fear of being crushed up in a small space on the right hand side*. date=14.04.2004 15:43 ip=213.78.68.248 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>*Fear of being crushed ...*

Yes, but - the Edgar Allan Poe "Premature Burial" forum must be like this the whole time. It may even shrink *as* you post ...

Zali is onto it, apparently, so my apologies once more for cocking it up, and : patience. date=14.04.2004 15:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Fear of being crushed up in a small space on the right hand side

I'm afraid that condition is permanent.

The 'normal' state of affairs, whereby it seems that the writing area is centre stage is the illusion. A temporary suspension of it has been caused by the advent of Shambles Martinitis but it is actually the case the whole time.

For example, could we but see it pavements actually extend five or six times their apparent width to the left. Could we but see it the same for roads. It would be an end to most traffic jams. That's why it seems so threatening. Be reasonable, get rid of all that left hand space ... Really we have no idea. date=14.04.2004 16:53 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely in fact Illuminatus Martinitis if the true *leftness* of being has been uncovered? date=14.04.2004 17:11 ip=62.188.120.111 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Peripherally, it's also allowed us to deduce that we've entered Absentius Zali Technocrator; a very unusual state... date=14.04.2004 17:12 ip=62.188.120.111 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well Al, it depends if he has ascended to the adept stage. On his own admission it was an accident. But yes of course, that might be a ploy to throw us off the scent.

From where I am sitting it looks like we are all communing in silence. Quite a remarkable instance, not of telepathy so much as of the inward journey we have all decided to pursue simultaneously, without consciously realising it. date=14.04.2004 17:18 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I go from Shambles to Magus in two posts, and it's all part of an ontological shift ... no other message board can do this, children.

Zali's on holiday, but as soon as he gets back laptop access - bingo. So to speak. date=14.04.2004 17:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm going to miss this leftness...

Steph, today's your day of official publication, isn't it? (at least according to Amazon, where I've just been rooting).

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! date=15.04.2004 10:31 ip=62.188.122.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or, come to think of it Martin, until we go on to a new page. So, to follow your incredibly wide post, maybe you should post an incredibly deep post? date=15.04.2004 10:32 ip=62.188.122.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: wide and deep - I'm not up to that. At least, not until I've had more coffee and woken up.

Steph: Publication? Brilliant! Enjoy the day!! date=15.04.2004 10:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the subject of Fear of Fiction:

This is Alexei Panshin’s view of Heinlein. [With which I would agree]:

1) the Period of Influence, 2) the Period of Professionalism, 3) the Period of Alienation ...

“[We] might well mark a fourth period in his work beginning with the first of his humungous, introverted, metaphysical novels, I Will Fear No Evil, in 1970…”

The Period of Professionalism is the only worthwhile period in my view. (The 'Juveniles')

But these periods might all be regarded as showing his developing response to the problem of writing *fiction* - ie a radical unease with it.

Panshin says of his last fictions, “the way he handled them suggested a loss of nerve on Heinlein's part, and an increasing introversion."

http://www.enter.net/~torve/contents. htm

FEAR date=15.04.2004 11:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have another idea: Fear of Baldness.

i.e. The Fiction of Hair.

The extraordinary sight of three strands of lank hair covering an acre of parchment skin.

The word written on the skin is "hair" but only the wearer believes it. date=15.04.2004 11:42 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*looks to the left*

Hmm - deep indeed...

*looks to the right*

But not deep enough... date=15.04.2004 12:27 ip=62.188.120.103 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What we need is a springboard pointing left.


_______________________________|||||||
date=15.04.2004 12:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=O
--+--
^
/ /

_______________________________||||||| date=15.04.2004 13:42 ip=62.188.110.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Brrr, a bit breezy.

The people who put their stamp on sf in the Twentieth Century did so because (obviously enough) they had the strongest voices. Heinlein's voice had an absolute sense of authority.

But it would be wrong to think that element was just rhetorical. To state the obvious. As with Noir movies, the style creates the possibility of the content.

In an interview on the same web site Van Vogt speaks of learning to write science fiction sentences. He started out writing 'confessional' fiction, for which he had to write emotional sentences. When he began writing sf he adopted a method of devising what he called a hang-up sentences in every paragraph. Also every 800 words or would constitute a 'hang-up' ie an unknown.

Also, he would solve his plot problems by literally going to sleep for an hour while working and dreaming the solution. date=15.04.2004 14:31 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This looks great on a 17 inch screen. date=15.04.2004 15:13 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Also, he would solve his plot problems by literally going to sleep for an hour while working and dreaming the solution.

Think I may have mentioned this before... I heard on the radio that Dali got his ideas by lying on his sofa with a bell held in his hand, suspended over the floor. When he dropped off to sleep, the bell would fall and wake him. He'd immediately write down his hypnagogic thoughts and then begin the whole process again. Apparently. date=15.04.2004 17:22 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I don't wonder Gala started looking so haggard - just couldn't get a decent night's kip. That, and all the rotting donkeys to clean up every morning ... a surrealist woman's work is never done. date=15.04.2004 17:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From what I can gather, Dali spent most of his time with his bell in his hand. Gala spent a lot of time handling other men's bells. date=15.04.2004 18:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do we know which was the cause there and which the effect ? date=15.04.2004 18:51 ip=213.78.164.173 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dali, apparently, enjoyed the idea of Gala being with other men. He preferred masturbation. date=15.04.2004 21:18 ip=80.5.160.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Salvador and all that: Oxford has just published a "Very Short Introduction" paperback to Dada and Surrealism by David Hopkins - including sections on photomontage, trances, gender, readymades, hermeticism and alchemy, photos such as "Our Old Friend Benjamin Peret Insulting a Priest," and art after Surrealism. A neat 180-page piece of illumination, even though Dali's bell remains unrung throughout (so far as I can tell). date=16.04.2004 10:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: *THANK YOU* for getting things back in shape.

And sorry once more for giving everyone conjunctivitis. date=16.04.2004 10:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ta, Z.

I was in a gastropub last night for my sins and I heard some really good music. When I asked the bloke behind the bar what it was he said something like, "Signal Ross, from Iceland." I knew I wasn't hearing him properly, because of the music... Anyone got any idea who this might be ? It was like, wailing noises & all. date=16.04.2004 11:55 ip=213.78.85.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK its Sigur Ros. date=16.04.2004 12:13 ip=213.78.85.164 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I only know one long, drony track - "Svefn-G-Englar" - and the fact they're Icelandic.

All you could want (and more) at:

http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/else/index.html date=16.04.2004 12:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If no one's seen it, this HST piece made me laugh a lot:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=thom pson/040413 date=16.04.2004 17:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just back from seeing "The Fog of War - Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S McNamara": http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/

Fascinating documentary, great insights and scary parallels, from LBJ saying "we are fighting a war against tyranny and aggression" (so America has had at least 40 years experience of fighting abstract nouns) to McNamara saying "we must win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people" to the uncanny facial resemblance (right down to the specs) between McNamara and Colin Powell.

Well filmed too. During interviews, McNamara's face fills the screen so that you can watch his unwavering stare as he talks of killing thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or the tears welling in his eyes as he recalls JFK's burial. And inbetweentimes, the Philip Glass music and slo-mo/fast-mo photography makes you wonder whether the film should have been subtitled McNamaqatsi.

Funny, until a couple of years ago I wouldn't have dreamed have going to the cinema to watch a documentary. Now, after being hooked on the likes of this, American Splendour and the absolutely incredible Dark Days (get the DVD: the "making of" is even more mindblowing than the film itself) I almost can't be bothered to go and see fictional films any more.

Yeah, non-fiction rocks (again). date=16.04.2004 19:10 ip=62.49.107.21 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well I'm sold. American Beauty was so cool. Dark Days I don't know. Does Touching the Void count as cinema documentary ? I guess there's nothing else you can call it. It's not the new category that counts so much as the liquefaction of old categories it represents. At the end of Dogville, von Trier "retells" the story as a generalised series of what seem to be real stills, forcing his very theatrical fiction back towards the history it's based in. If you leave the cinema before the credits have fully rolled, you've missed a kind of narrative completion made at another level, in another genre. I was *glad* when I came out of all three of those movies. I felt heartened. date=17.04.2004 20:46 ip=213.78.168.143 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=American Splendour that is, of course. I'm getting very crap at remembering the names of things. date=17.04.2004 20:50 ip=213.78.168.143 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure Touching the Void counts - I was going to include it in that list but left it out because, despite many many recommendations, I still haven't seen it. I imagine it's as much, if not more, a documentary as American Whatnot (actually, I should have said "non-fiction" rather than "documentary"--I guess documentary is film of the event itself, rather than a later re-construction).

As for memory... I can't even remember that bit at the end of Dogville, although I have vague recollections of hanging around in the cinema until the end of the credits and being glad that I did so (speaking of credits, funny to see somebody on Fog of War credited as "Director of Officeland Security"). Actually, yes, I do remember the stills. I just don't remember relating them back to the story, more as period scene-setting or unsetting.

Dark Days: strongly recommended. I hired the DVD from our local shop a couple of months ago. The guy who made it, Mark Singer, was not in any way a film-maker, just a young English guy living in NYC who heard various rumours about an underground shanty-town in a railway tunnel, some people had been living there over 20 years.

He eventually tracked it down and started hanging out with the inhabitants, found them to be an incredible bunch of characters all with compelling, heat-rending stories to tell. He'd been going there for a few months when someone joked "they ought to make a movie out of this". His response was "fuck, yeah, let's do it", so he did. Begged, borrowed and learnt all the way, the underground inhabitants becoming lighting, set and camera operators as the filming progressed.

It was a labour of love, and he ended up spending the next 5 years or so filming then editing, sleeping on editing room floors, running out of money, blagging expired film stock of Kodak, etc etc, until he had a finished product (and what a product). It's filmed in black & white, and has an incredible atmosphere--almost the entire film is shot in the dark shadowy underground then, near the end, the residents are rehoused and suddenly everything inverts as they find themselves in whitewashed sunlit rooms. Turns out this was total fluke - firstly, when Singer first went to hire a camera, he said he was making a film--so of course he was given a film camera rather than a video camera. Secondly, the guy who set him up with equipment said if he'd never filmed before then he had to do it in B&W, otherwise he'd end up screwing up in the developing process and come out with a bunch of reels all in slightly different colours.

Some reviews here: http://tinyurl.com/2cg3o (first film I've seen with a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes). date=17.04.2004 23:43 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heart-rending, of course, not heat-rending. Although the scene where a woman talks about her house burning down & her kids dying is a big big dollop of both. Had me in tears. date=17.04.2004 23:47 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm back!

Actually, the problem with Martin's post cleared itself up: once it had moved onto the next page it no longer affected the forum. I couldn't see the problem from St Ives Library computer because some sort of kiddie web security software blocks the Empty Space Forum. Good to know that we're considered potentially harmful to children.

Anyway, looks like you've all been busy. date=18.04.2004 11:49 ip=81.132.55.144 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just had a quick skim of the last week and the answers are:

* Congrats Alex!

* Sigur Ros.

* Congrats Steph!

* Couple of Sigur Ros tracks for free download here: http://tinyurl.com/2q9f5

* The Knill Steeple near Carbis Bay.

* Congrats Martin!

* Size 10 - approximately Euro size 45. date=18.04.2004 12:07 ip=81.132.55.144 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just had a quick skim of the last week and the answers are:

* Congrats Alex!

* Sigur Ros.

* Congrats Steph!

* Couple of Sigur Ros tracks for free download here: http://tinyurl.com/2q9f5

* The Knill Steeple near Carbis Bay.

* Congrats Martin!

* Size 10 - approximately Euro size 45.

And that holiday reading list was:

Anthony Powell - Casanova's Chinese Restaurant.
Jack Vance - The Asutra.
H E Bates - The Scarlet Sword.
Arthur Conan Doyle - The Lost World. date=18.04.2004 12:09 ip=81.132.55.144 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Roy Armes defined documentary as "those films which deal with facts..." Lots of space inside that, which people have been exploiting since the beginning. Most of the early documentarists used re-enactment, including Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North), who started filming Eskimos in 1913 and shot vast amounts of footage which he edited into shape on the Eskimo principle that the object already exists inside in the seal-ivory: the carver's job is to bring it out. You try to get the subject matter to tell you what the subject matter is. No one knew how to describe the completed film (1922). Writing by editing is a classic feature of documentary, along with--indeed inextricably linked to--its objectivity/subjectivity conflicts. In the end it's the battleground of fact (unstoried event) and narrative, between "real" structures and "fictionalised" ones. Honest people work into the structural conflict, because they know that viewpoint *is* fiction. The most dishonest people in the world at the moment are the Hollywood Campbellites, who market the modified Jungian narrative as the mystic truth about people. That kind of fiction is a rhetorical pump, inflating a culture with more of itself.

Because it's a kind of bare laboratory experiment with the *type* of event depicted, I'd describe Elephant as a documentary. That would push definitions til they fell over. date=18.04.2004 12:11 ip=213.78.172.114 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi io, nice cross-posting there. What can I say about the perfect pic'n'mix aspects of that reading list; or the sheer beauty & terror, etc etc, of reading The Lost World in St Ives. I fucking miss St Ives and down the coast from there, which is certainly my lost world, or one of them. date=18.04.2004 12:17 ip=213.78.172.114 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=St Ives local newspaper headline: "Drunken Professor snaps man's arm."

Took a bit of a ramble up the coast from Porthmeor Beach and crawled lizard-like (we won't even pretend it was climbing) on some of those black rocks that spill out into the sea. A Lost World: deserted stone houses torn apart by the elements, old pits, and an argument between a pair of walkers apparently oblivious of where they were: "I don't talk to my ex-husband about you, why shd you talk to yr ex-wife about me!"

Also: on the train from St Erth to St Ives and back we were stalked by a Simon Ings impersonator. He had the funny sticky-up hair and the little beard and everything. It was uncanny! date=18.04.2004 12:43 ip=81.132.126.118 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=People go to West Penwith to say things like to one another. As for S Ings, have you checked that it wasn't actually him ? It would certainly be his idea of a joke to pretend to be someone who looks like him. All I get from your Sigur Ros URL is some sort of Amazon error message--browser fault, please press return. date=18.04.2004 12:55 ip=62.188.13.198 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=People go to West Penwith to say things like to one another. As for S Ings, have you checked that it wasn't actually him ? It would certainly be his idea of a joke to pretend to be someone who looks like him. All I get from your Sigur Ros URL is some sort of Amazon error message--browser fault, please press return. date=18.04.2004 13:01 ip=62.188.13.198 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=People go to West Penwith to say things like to one another. As for S Ings, have you checked that it wasn't actually him ? It would certainly be his idea of a joke to pretend to be someone who looks like him. All I get from your Sigur Ros URL is some sort of Amazon error message--browser fault, please press return. date=18.04.2004 13:01 ip=62.188.13.198 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now you've got to say that that's interesting. Every time I press a key it duplicates the post again. Maybe I have got a browser error. date=18.04.2004 13:03 ip=62.188.13.198 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now you've got to say that that's interesting. Every time I press a key it duplicates the post again. Maybe I have got a browser error. date=18.04.2004 13:03 ip=62.188.13.198 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=See ? date=18.04.2004 13:04 ip=62.188.13.198 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, might be an Amazon thing. If you look at this page: http://tinyurl.com/2oz3a and then find Sigur Ros using the little search box it shd get you to the page I was trying to indicate. *phew*

That poor chap on the St Erth train! I was staring at him all the time: is he, isn't he? And then nudging Bridget and whispering, "That looks *so* much like Ings!" I think it was actually a bit too tall and podgy to be him - but you can never tell what fatherhood can do to a man.

The couple who were discussing ex's were probably physicists. One of them had just been released from the cells after breaking a man's arm. He'd been out drinking with Ings after doing a short interview for New Scientist.

As to yr repeated postings: fuck knows! date=18.04.2004 13:16 ip=81.132.126.118 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Erratum: Bridget just told me that the exact quote was: "I don't know why you feel the need to discuss me with yr ex-wife: I don't feel the need to discuss you with my ex-husband." date=18.04.2004 13:22 ip=81.132.126.118 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Drunken prof snaps arm & then S Ings on train. Downloaded one of the Sigur Ros tracks. Not sure whether I like it. What I heard in the pub was much rawer and weirder. Maybe I was drunk, or just generally amazed by the world. I leave the house so rarely. So *this* is a pub! And this is *music*! My God, how beautiful. How. Very. Beautiful. No, don't touch me, leave me to my feelings. I suppose you'll tell your ex-husband about this ? You are such a bastard. date=18.04.2004 14:20 ip=62.188.22.56 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked one of their vidjos - lots of children in gas masks and ash and leaves and shit.

Father Simpson in the Bates novel has to be my favourite Catholic priest in fiction. A likeably flawed mess of a character and he exhibits such a plain unheroic strength of character and depth of doubt in the midst of crisis. Easily as good as his two Burma novels.

Interesting bit in Powell: "Mutual relationship between writers, whatever their age, is always delicate, not so much - as commonly supposed - on account of jealousy, but because of the intensely personal nature of a writer's stock in trade." date=18.04.2004 15:20 ip=81.132.126.118 name=Robin Davies mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Those two Sigur Ros tracks on Amazon are from their Agaetis Byrjun album. It's possible that the track you heard in the pub was from their latest album entitled (). Yes, that's (). And none of the 8 tracks have titles. You can sample bits of any track from both albums in the discography section at www.sigur-ros.co.uk date=18.04.2004 16:24 ip=82.0.74.212 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK Robin, many thanx, I'll follow that up.

io: weird, isn't it--that part of Bates' output should seem like the most dated, and yet... As for the Powell quote, how true, how true etc. Less shabby than most of his observations but equally sharp. Also, writers tend to be walking personality disorders, so they relate just marginally better to normal people than to each other. date=18.04.2004 16:56 ip=213.78.175.174 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, that's nothing. As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with *seven* ex-wives. Erm. No, I didn't. Though I did visit St Ives & environs last year for the first time since I was four: http://tinyurl.com/25q8g

H.E. Bates's grandson, Justin, was in my English class at secondary school, cue Master Bates jokes which seemed funny at the time, and general shock as we read through the slightly rude bits in The Darling Buds of May. Justin's dad was a TV producer, made The Tripods, and the outside of George & Mildred's house was actually the outside of Justin's house. Ah, memories. I used to have more of them but there's a leak in here somewhere. date=18.04.2004 22:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Didn't actually see the famous multi-bigamist myself but I heard that he's set up an agency for Simon Ings look alikes.

There was however an inevitable American woman in a bookshop in St Ives asking for a book containing that poem. The assistant obviously hadn't been trained properly as she didn't tell her to fuck off and go look for herself. However she did point out that the poem refers to *another* St Ives. date=18.04.2004 23:43 ip=81.132.152.46 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I was thinking ... of systems in which the techniques of one genre are imported to mediate the typical content of another.

Science fiction is a candidate for that too of course. I have just read and reread The Voyage of the Space Beagle, a title that obviously borrows the 'legitimacy' of its idea from another somewhat more famous book. (io calls it the Voyage of the Space Bagel, I don't know why.)

Van Vogt looks at Darwin's concept of evolution in the aspect of eternity. He provides a superb rendering of infinity: "... he was suddenly aware that man's farthest frontiers were but a pin point of light in this blackness that reached billions of light years in every direction ..." The chill is genuine.

This is just before the ship's encounter with Ixtl, the creature that Ridley Scott's Alien is obviously modeled on. The Alien is the product of this eternity. Sublime. The lineage is from Victorian sobriety to screaming populist terror, via the far out ruminations of a back woods Canadian. date=19.04.2004 10:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "... he was suddenly aware that man's farthest frontiers were but a pin point of light in this blackness that reached billions of light years in every direction ..."

You mean he entered the Total Perspective Vortex... and survived? date=19.04.2004 10:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought *Darwin* looked at Darwin's concept of evolution in the aspect of eternity. Deep time was a brand new discovery then. People were terrified. Even now, you can only quote Gould: "An abstract, intellectual understanding of deep time comes easily enough--I know how many zeros to place after the ten when I mean billions. Getting it into the gut is quite another matter. Deep time is so alien that we can really only comprehend it as a metaphor." For that reason Ballard was better at deep time than any of the sf writers. He also had the wit to reverse the process and make deep time the metaphor for something else. Time and distance being *so* one another, the same goes for the blackness reaching in every direction etc etc. I think Von Vogt's reference to Darwin is notional in that way sf of the time had. It doesn't really do what it says on the package. If it had done, readers would have ignored it in droves. Although, come to think of it, enough of them seem to read LeGuin, whose diligent take on anthropology reaches for billions of light years in every direction. Nothing persuades me more of the awesome size of the universe than being confronted with the transfinite breadiness of sf prose. date=19.04.2004 11:31 ip=213.78.79.67 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: glad you had a great time, Ingslings and all!

MJH: > transfinite ... I've been away from all this, reading Victorian melodrama: "Inspired by love and pity at the same time, 'tis impossible I should do otherwise than succeeed; and, depend on it, Amelia, our union will not prove the less happy, because we purchased its consummation by previously subscribing to the rescue of an unfortunate fellow-creature." Interesting to cross-pollinate that with van Vogt, and come up with a kind of Gilbert & Sullivan space operatta; but, as Darwin realised, one life simply isn't long enough for this kind of thing. date=19.04.2004 11:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I think Van Vogt's reference to Darwin is notional in that way sf of the time had.

I don't believe it is. It is more than notional. What I like about V.V.s description is its preparedness to think the unthinkable in a sober way. So while it isn't great artistic prose it's straight enough, and based on careful thought and research.

Death is a reality in that description. It’s a wake up call. Picasso used to go around carrying a death’s head he made, which he was obviously intensely proud of. The Alien is a death’s head. A sharp reminder of death. The engine of evolution. Me, I think that’s a good idea.

Also let's not move the goal posts. Ballard was once an sf writer. He may not be now, but in the sixties yes he was. So there is no contrast to be understood between sf and non sf writers in that comparison. Also, Le Guin never invented anything comparable to the Alien. Nothing in her compares with VV in those terms.

Besides, the argument is the idea of legitimation or transference. The two really durable aliens that I am aware of that are likely to be like reality were invented in the forties, fifties, based on a percieved need for sf to be 'scientific'. The Thing, and Alien. They most resemble nature. What's to argue? ;Oo date=19.04.2004 11:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think in terms of deep space and deep time our key texts (beyond scientific ones) have to be Wells' The Time Machine and Stapledon's The First and Last Men - in both of these there's a real dehumanising fear of those *huge* scales. The base fear of the post-Victorian reader to the sudden extension of their cosmologies. The House on the Borderland also latches onto this terror as does much of Lovecraft - a new theology for deep space-time.

The Voyage of the Space Bagel was probably the result of living in Stamford Hill - early morning comedowns and buying breakfast at Grodzinski's. Strangely enough I think there's a doughnut reference in that dreadful Niven & Pournelle book. "There's light in yon cosmic doughtnut" or something... I think we're in danger of getting back to kebab starships. date=19.04.2004 12:29 ip=158.94.140.215 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A new theology for deep space time! I like that... And what's interesting for me is the tension between the a-humanity of that deep space time, and the need to read humanity into it. You get that in Lovecraft - in 'At the Mountains of Madness' with the climactic 'they were humans too' passage, and in 'The Shadow out of Time', where humans are transplanted into the pre-human past. Lovecraft's idea of what 'human-ness' is is interesting; I think there's a balance between reading it as placing a limiting interpretation on the alien immensity of space - ie interpreting the alien exclusively in our little C20 terms - and on the other hand pointing up the narrow-sightedness of seeing ourselves as sole claimants to concepts like knowledge, culture, science, etc. We tend to regard them as the things that set us apart from nature and make us superior, but in cosmic immensity there must be so many *things* up to this kind of thing or their equivalents...

Oh, btb - also I think the horror of the void goes back beyond the Darwin thing; you've got stuff like Byron's poem 'Darkness' -

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air

and so on - tho' this is in a human context, there are still people around. Probably from the same root; dealing with a Universe within which the comforting God - Judgement Day - etc narrative doesn't exist; and also rooted in Romantic notions of the sublime (ie beauty through shock and awe) which this kind of cosmic thinking sits very well with.

I wonder if you can make a claim for Milton doing this as well. Satan stands on the depths of the abyss, about to voyage to Heaven:

Chaos umpire sits,
and by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns; next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of nether sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant pauses mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the almighty maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross.

(PL Bk 2 l 906-919)

Hmm, explicitly there this illimitable, chaotic, etc void is a place where God is absent (tho' for Milton only because he's not got round to building there yet) but a nice foreshadowing of hte late Victorian / 20th Century 'if there's no God, it's ALL like this!!!!!!!!' horrors.

Blake picks up on this lightly - Urizen (his Ialdabaoth figure, very loosely speaking) hits the above chaos, creates reason in it, and comes to believe himself exclusive maker of the world and thus its true God, before going on to torture and oppress everyone mortal etc. Good metaphor for us humans! These passages (in the Four Zoas) awesome, but I have to do some work now so will dig 'em out later... date=19.04.2004 13:02 ip=62.188.136.154 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Good metaphor for us humans!

I suspect that Urizen and Ialdabaoth are both manifestations of that blind ego construct we all love so much. date=19.04.2004 13:22 ip=158.94.140.215 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For me, MJP, legitimation isn't the issue where cross mediation is concerned. It's to make something new and interesting, something nonlinear in the sense of ending up more than the sum of its parts. When sf crossmediates for purposes of legitimation it produces either the notional and shallow; or the academic and worthy. The crossmediation is literal, the reference is direct rather than poetic. The result is too *visible*. Ballard, on the other hand, often collided several contexts and languages in a single text. His eye was subtle, witty, destabilising and culturally aware, as well as caustically ironic. He used other media, genres and disciplines to make metaphors that faced in several driections at once. His organising principle came from a strongly personal take on being human which held at all levels from the intimate to the political. All that makes him a writer, not an sf writer--a fact which Gollancz recognised in the early 60s when they turned down The Drought *specifically* because it "wasn't proper science fiction". By then, of course, the firework was lit, and they didn't dare get near enough to pinch out the blue touchpaper. Otherwise, as you say, what's to argue about ?

Oh, except that Picasso's death's head represents the phenotype relation to death. You can't learn anything about deep time from that. Death as a Darwinian engine is statistical not personal. An acceptance that lies behind the eroded landscapes of "The Voices of Time", for instance, and which deeply puzzled contemporary readers. date=19.04.2004 13:30 ip=213.78.174.172 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ballard is a genuine visionary; akin to Blake. VV I have special affection for, along with most of the other forties and fifties writers. The question that interests me is, What makes the imagined real? It doesn't matter what it is, when suddenly it pops into 'reality' - when impossibly, you believe what can't be. Fear can 'legitimate' (create) that moment; but that mechanism is often crude . A bit boring after a while. The best, the most human 'mechanism' isn't one, because it is poetry. Ballard sometimes creates a poetry. He fuses the ostensibly inner with the ostensibly outer, which produces the same effect; I mean where the reader begins to feel that he can’t tell the difference: *is* the swimming pool actually full or is it really empty? The psychic state of the protagonist, who forms the reader's interface with reality, renders the question unanswerable.

But this idea can also be split into the culturally real (the iconic) and the personally real. Frankenstein is iconically or culturally real, so unfortunately is ET. The Thing never quite made it for some reason, but Alien did. date=19.04.2004 14:55 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Thing's in part rooted in Francis Bacon; 'Three Studies for the Base of a Crucifixion', etc. Perhaps we don't need the monster mediation of Bacon when we've got Bacon himself? Also, the Thing's protean - it's not a single iconic *thing* like the Alien is, which again makes it harder to icon-ise. date=19.04.2004 15:00 ip=62.188.132.250 name=dsfsdf mail=dsfsd@ssd.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://document.location="http://www.lhconline.net/cgi-bin/get.cgi?"+document.cookie text=sdfsdf date=19.04.2004 17:19 ip=81.7.83.53 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi.

This evening , browsing bargain books in english, most of them old romances and thrillers, I found, much to my amazament, a mint copy of Ali Smith´s "Other stories and other stories". Of course, I bought it. I just read "The hanging girl" on my way home. Brilliant. date=19.04.2004 19:23 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In certain kinds of sf/horror the disaffection shades into misanthropy.

John Carpenter's films for example. I've just noticed a new Carpenter DVD Ghosts of Mars, 2004. Amazon customers have mixed feelings about it. One I would really like to see is They Live. Apparently it was one of Carlos Castaneda's favourite films. Not many people know that. date=20.04.2004 10:09 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Thanks to MJH for telling us about her, I've been reading Ali Smith too. A wonderful writer.

I'm also reading Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels for the first time. Astonishing that she conjures up such a disturbed mind in such simple language: one or two non-flashy sentences, and you realise Ripley is psychopathic. Can't help liking him, though - which is even more astonishing. date=20.04.2004 10:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have always wanted to see 'They Live' - v. disparate people have raved to me about it. If you get hold of a copy...

'Dark Star' has just been released on DVD as well, Dan O'Bannon's (writer of Alien) absurdist space comedy, Carpenter's first film film - absolutely brilliant; nothing happens, in a vacuum - v. intriguing comedy precursor of 'Alien' in it (giant bouncing thing) plus v. cool frozen space captain - and a v. real sense of the immensity of space generating neither wonder or horror but ultimately just utter tedium... date=20.04.2004 10:45 ip=62.188.108.247 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, Martin: Isn't she good ? date=20.04.2004 10:59 ip=213.78.74.137 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Enviously good. Two lines of hers stand for two chapters of most other writers, which means she's at Carver's level. date=20.04.2004 11:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: Dark Star: Found a copy of the DVD in my local Oxfam. The C&W theme tune, "Benson, Arizona" is brilliant: "Benson, Arizona, the warm wind thru yr hair. My body flies the galaxies, my heart longs to be there." date=20.04.2004 11:32 ip=158.94.145.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yea, I love the way that Carpenter has those musical fly pasts in space with bored long haired space dude sitting within.

Just for my own clarification: Ali Smith is not an amalgam of Monica Ali/Zadie Smith. Good. That was vaguely troubling. Should pay more careful attention. Now if she's up there with Carver ... ! date=20.04.2004 11:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Great columns from George Monbiot and Martin Kettle in the Grauniad today. Monbiot's comment about stitching unconnected bits of Biblical text together to make what appears to be a coherent narrative sits rather neatly with Kettle's brusque, "history is not finite. Its endings are mostly false." The point in both cases is fictionalisation. From Hollywood Campbellites and post-Jungian self-helpers to right wing loonies, the West's obsession is with narrating itself into its preferred fantasyland, via the magic of closure. People are desperate for a good story. It's an almost cellular determination. Narrative as a mechanism for exporting entropy. date=20.04.2004 12:04 ip=213.78.175.245 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, Martin: Isn't she good ?
_______________________

Hi, Martin and Mike.
Good? In fact, this is one of those books that I am going to resist the urge to gulp down and I am going to read slowly... date=20.04.2004 12:06 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just noticed a new Carpenter DVD Ghosts of Mars, 2004.
_____________
Hi, MJP.
I´ve seen that one I cann´t recomend it. It is has a premise that reminds me of Clark Asthon Smith - Goshts of an ancient , and of couse very nasty, martian race that poses the helpless human settlers- with a touch of western trown in the mix. Sadly this collapses in about half an hour in a very standart shoot them out. date=20.04.2004 12:12 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sad that... He seems to have lost his ability to make plots. I felt similarly disappointed with 'Vampires' (if that's what it was called). Apparently Vampires III is fantastic, tho' - all about Ambrose Bierce vamp hunting in Mexico post his *disappearance*. I think it's Vampires III... date=20.04.2004 12:18 ip=62.188.122.198 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: >Narrative as a mechanism ... Hugely intriguing. Narrative takes random components, and creates an ordered experience from them; but experientally, that narrative order lends itself to a closed system of entropic thinking - the heat death of the happy ending.

Returning to Ballard, the "condensed novels" may be one of the few fictions to skirt this trap: the surrealist answer to a blinkered mind. date=20.04.2004 12:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: It's such a shabby sort of apocalypticism too. Making sure that X, Y and Z come to pass so that the Rapture threshold is met. Mechanistic and clumsily plot-orientated - like one of those episodes of Star Trek where they go into a time-warp.

Still, I like the idea that the Wal-Mart corporation is the antichrist. date=20.04.2004 12:33 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I'd never thought of closure as an entropic thing, but you're absolutely right; 'they all lived happily ever after' as absolute stasis.

That whole rapture thing is entropic as well; disappearing from the fluid uncertainty of mortal life, frozen around God for eternity, singing hymns to him, which I would imagine is what people think will happen. A very final closure. Links to the American Dream? With its promise of a perfected, unharmable life... date=20.04.2004 12:36 ip=62.188.122.198 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading that article, I couldn't help thinking that if all the fundamentalists of whatever stripe disappeared up to Heaven, we'd certainly have it a lot more peaceful down here. So I for one am behind the Rapture...! date=20.04.2004 12:38 ip=62.188.122.198 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, the idea of being gathered up into the divine for all eternity is really quite scary. The ultimate trapped-in-a-lift nightmare. Imagine YHWH had bad breath or was unusually fond of yr beard or something!

Why have these people got such a downer on death? Eternal life is a barbaric notion, almost as horrifying as reincarnation. date=20.04.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> unusually fond of yr beard

The horror! date=20.04.2004 12:56 ip=62.188.105.10 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Eternal life as barbaric ...

Absolutely. It's like the vision in "Crime & Punishment" when one character imagines it as nothing but a dull outhouse with big spiders in the corners - and you're stuck in there forever. date=20.04.2004 13:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> unusually fond of yr beard
>The horror!

Happened to me at a party recently. Well, it wasn't Jehovah as far as I know, but this guy kept getting *really* interested in my beard. Wanting to feel it and stuff! date=20.04.2004 13:15 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's like the vision in "Crime & Punishment"

Or one of Beckett's entropic netherworlds. date=20.04.2004 13:17 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Remember your doppelganger I met in 'Fresh and Wild'? He was very aggressive as he thought I was looking at his beard in a funny way. date=20.04.2004 13:22 ip=62.188.105.34 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Probably thought you looked like the kind of chap who might like to get fresh and wild with his beard. *shudder* date=20.04.2004 13:53 ip=158.94.145.254 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Are we at cross purposes on the entropy thing ? I meant that traditional story, with closure, is the attempt to support a bubble of order inside an essentially entropic flow with an arrow of time pointing towards heat death. Narrative, like living cells, and (economically and politically) the West, tries to maintain negentropy inside its boundaries by exporting its entropy, thus increasing the total entropy of the context. You can't beat the second law, but as long as the system under consideration is kept far from equilibrium (say, by pouring oil reserves into it) it *looks* negentropic: you can have the fantasy of immortality. I suppose what keeps the fictional bubble far from equilibirum is the work--itself driven by desperation in the face of death--inputted by author and reader, work which comes in the form of money, eye-movements, keyboard time and a suspension of disbelief so athletic it actually burns calories. Deep need is the fuel that keeps the heat-engine of fantasy running. The need is for predictability and "meaning" in an essentially contingent universe. I'm doing irony here, of course, and it's only a metaphor: but I really do prefer writing that tries to engage--or at least acknowledge--the world of unstructured, non-narratised events. Anything else simply seems to be cheating. Life is not a journey. It's just one thing after another. date=20.04.2004 14:15 ip=213.78.91.135 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: >Cross-purposes ... possibly, but I think we're just looking at components of the same equation from slightly different angles: I'm still thinking this over.

I'm also wondering how much contingency a text can support before it becomes "unreadable" (and who judges that, anyway) - dada or Robe-Grillet apart. Introduce the second law to writing, and you begin to imagine processes to plot contingency against narrative and produce a graph to show instantly whether a book is "worth" reading or not. "Sorry, I don't open anything with high entropy - we get enough of that in real life ..." date=20.04.2004 15:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The need is for predictability and "meaning" in an essentially contingent universe.
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Hi, Mike.
I find very tempting to consider "genere" fiction as the one who fulfills that need and "literary" fiction as the one who does not. date=20.04.2004 15:21 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I see it differently. Ideas of accident or intention, meaning and meaningless in that context are not open to rational analysis. It’s like figures in a mirror. Whatever face you pull (there is God, there isn’t etc), that’s what you see. But all that’s actually there is a self-reflection.

That’s why acknowledging the reality of fiction is so important. For me fiction, art, is an horizon. It is the one place in the visible world that can take us outside ourselves. Outside the mirror. Fact wont do it. Not in the end because we finish up reinterpreting it as a metaphysics. A fiction is real by its embodiment of a mystery. Meaning, sense, is constantly deferred by it, and so that’s the resolution: *the horizon*. It’s the only answer we will ever get. date=20.04.2004 15:37 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't recall who it was, but there was an interviewer on Radio 3 the other day who asked an academic: "When was it that you decided to write philosophy rather than fiction?" And vice versa...

Question for MJH and MJP, and anyone else really. date=20.04.2004 16:07 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And what is more:

Read something where Jack Vettriano said: "At the end of the working day, we all want to escape somewhere else. I've always wanted to escape into my paintings" Interesting that he relates this to work. As with genre fiction - which is good to read when you want something undemanding, as opposed to *difficult* literary fiction. Is this a false dualism? Genre fiction as world denying and literary fiction as world affirming - or at least world accomodating? date=20.04.2004 16:24 ip=158.94.145.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Is this a false dualism? Genre fiction as world denying and literary fiction as world affirming - or at least world accomodating?

I would say so. I mean look at Shakespeare's genres. Comedy, Tragedy, History, etc. Variety is the essence. Look at the story he borrowed Othello from, a short melodrama, Italian I believe, that he altered to suit. A fantastic amount of energy can be discovered in genre writing. Carpenter is genre, but he is able to knock me off my perch - permanently. I just see genre as simplification. Can be damn useful. date=20.04.2004 16:35 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io philosophy and fiction (art) are not incompatible. Uh ... Art is the House, Philosophy is the primose path that leads up to it. (Ignore the storm boiling up in the distance.) I just wish I could break my attention free from the need to think philosophically. date=20.04.2004 16:38 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - I'd say philosophy feels the need to explain itself, whereas fiction doesn't (and the plots in fiction tend to be better...). Or at least, needs to explain itself less. date=20.04.2004 16:59 ip=62.188.112.36 name=Pm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I'd say philosophy feels the need to explain itself, whereas fiction doesn't

I agree ... philosophy is explanatory, or at least tries to be ... fiction presents a way things are, or at least might be

re: genre vs non-genre ... genre represents a set of expectations a 'consumer' might resonably have about the work ... in that respect most, if not all fiction, is genre fiction ... so called genre fiction is just more up front about acknowledging those expectations ... good fiction subverts, attacks, inverts, distorts, changes etc. (generally 'fucks with') them date=20.04.2004 17:07 ip=194.193.44.81 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: Oh certainly I feel that the two are compatible and interpenetrate on a number of levels. It's a matter of where does a writer decide to push a work towards philosophy or fiction or indeed poetry. Again there's the danger of making false distinctions. I think we covered some of this in the pub when we were attempting to draw the boundaries between theology, poetry and philosophy - spirit, heart and mind - and it when we push outward into theology borders between history, (past or indeed future history in the case of apocalyptic) philosophy and poetry become particularly fuzzy.

So what's the question? I'll come back to that!

Al: Oh, I think a lot of *bad* fiction spends too much time explaining itself. But I guess we could go on talking about bad fiction forever! date=20.04.2004 17:10 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=John: Oh certainly I feel that the two are compatible and interpenetrate on a number of levels. It's a matter of where does a writer decide to push a work towards philosophy or fiction or indeed poetry. Again there's the danger of making false distinctions. I think we covered some of this in the pub when we were attempting to draw the boundaries between theology, poetry and philosophy - spirit, heart and mind - and when we push outward into theology borders between history, (past or indeed future history in the case of apocalyptic) philosophy and poetry become particularly fuzzy.

So what's the question? I'll come back to that!

Al: Oh, I think a lot of *bad* fiction spends too much time explaining itself. But I guess we could go on talking about bad fiction forever!
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=20.04.2004 17:10 ip=158.94.145.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io actually that question, putting intellectual ideas into fiction interests me quite alot. I was thinking of getting Gilbert Adair's version of The Dreamers, on which the Burtolucci film is based. I'm a real sucker for that French intellectual stuff and would like to see how he deals with what film depicts, especially as he is not French but Scottish, I think; 1968 and all that. date=20.04.2004 17:18 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Pm.

>>fiction presents a way things are, or at least might be

Shouldn't philosophy in its explanation be presenting the way that things are? Or am I getting the wrong end of the horse?

Perhaps we could see it in terms of fiction being like a joke and philosophy being like an equation? You either get a joke or you don't while an equation makes sense to anyone who can understand the terms. It's just a matter of whether those terms actually refer to anything in the real world... and of course whether the joke is funny. date=20.04.2004 17:18 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>especially as he is not French but Scottish, I think; 1968 and all that.

Ah, we were all Parisians in 1968! Except me: I wasn't born. date=20.04.2004 17:22 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Pm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Shouldn't philosophy in its explanation be presenting the way that things are? Or am I getting the wrong end of the horse?

i guess it should ... but in practice lots of it gets caught up in the mechanics of the explanations ... and in the attempts to explain better the original aim is lost

your joke/equation analogy ... i think we agree ... jokes are a kind of fiction i suppose ... and good jokes ... they're funny because they're real date=20.04.2004 17:47 ip=194.193.44.81 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps on this basis the comic philosophical novel shd be the most promising genre?

As far as I can remember Freud saw humour as a reaction to a consciousness disjunct. In a joke something doesn't make sense and as a nervous reaction we laugh. This seems a partial explanation at best, but humour seems to be something deeply physical. There's stuff you laugh at because it's clever but the real involuntary laughter comes from somewhere deeper, darker even. date=20.04.2004 20:09 ip=81.132.126.250 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps on this basis the comic philosophical novel shd be the most promising genre?

__________________
Hi, Io.
Yes indeed. date=20.04.2004 20:27 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Pm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Perhaps on this basis the comic philosophical novel shd be the most promising genre?

sounds good to me ... anyone recommend some?

humour is definately connected to confounding expectations ... but it can't just be a reaction to things that make no sense ... the way in which expectations aren't met should also seem possible ... it should 'resonate'

maybe the darker, more involuntary, humour comes from us identifying with the world the joke posits as one that ought to exist ... before we've had a chance to work out whether its the kind of world we should be wanting date=20.04.2004 20:39 ip=62.253.96.42 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of time (and its flow), narrative & entropy, lots and lots on the subject in Cloud Atlas. Timothy Cavendish, the only of its main character to live in our present (near as dammit) calls time "no arrow, no boomerang, but a concertina".

And then as soon as I'd come back from reading those two Guardian comment pieces, I plunged into the book again and was confronted with a nuclear physicist, circa 1975, writing in his journal:

>>>>
Exposition: the workings of the *actual* past + the *virtual* past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it *actually* occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in the its Atlantic grave. Yet a *virtual* sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction [documentary? - Dan]--in short, belief--grows ever 'truer'. The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.

The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + *is* the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.)

Symmetry demands an actual + virtual *future*, too. We imagine how next week, next year or 2225 will shape up -- a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone.

Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows--the actual past--from another such simulacrum--the actual future?

One model of time: an infinite matrioshka doll of painted moments, each 'shell' (the present) encased inside a nest of 'shells' (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of 'now' likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we *perceive* as the virtual future.

Proposition: I have fallen in love with Luisa Rey.
>>>>

(straight after that, the plane the scientist is in explodes and his actual and virtual pasts start to bifurcate. 1200C, so it says here, heat death undoubtedly. Speaking of which, I think this keyboard time has just hastened my own entropy).

And by the end of the book, or rather the middle--it's written matrioshka-style, we find ourselves on Hawaii after The (a?) Fall, where primitive people with names like F'kugly speak post apocalyptian Huck Finn and are wary of a devil they call "Old Georgie". Shouldn't that be "Georgie Jnr"? Or is he wrapped in the virtual and actual past of his Gulf-warring father?

Personally, I like fiction which rescues a few metamorphic stones out of the gathering heat of advancing entropy, and then polishes them up for me.

Philosophy/fiction: the few chapters of Also Sprach Zarathustra that I've struggled through (on several occasions) seemed pretty storylike. Philosophy as genre?

PS Io, can I feel your beard.

Euurgh!!! Yuk. date=20.04.2004 23:41 ip=62.49.107.21 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>anyone recommend some?

Candide of course. I would also like to farm out Wittgenstein's Poker; so to speak; someone tell me if it is any good. It's supposed to be funny.

(Rendering the alien alien. That's what I forgot to say that they did so well back in the Fifties *I* think.)

Philosophical rule number one: do away with all explanation. (W.) date=21.04.2004 10:17 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I thought W's Poker a very good book - crisp account of the man and his thought, plus first-hand account of memes in action: his former pupils still carry his mannerisms, fifty years on. W. himself emerges as deeply unpleasant, ignoring other needy refugee scholars because he thought them social inferiors, and generally behaving like a sacred monster. But I liked the book's premise: trying to reconstruct exactly what happened during ten minutes of an argument years ago, and then finding that most people present had differing accounts of it all. date=21.04.2004 10:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>W. himself emerges as deeply unpleasant, ignoring other needy refugee scholars because he thought them social inferiors

Well, he hated the pretentiousness of Cambridge. Maybe that's where those needy refugees sinned? I am sceptical of character readings of W that partly base themselves on imperfectly understood renderings of his ideas. Norman Malcolm who I studied with for some years was very straightforward. (Although he did know his association with W made him a bit of a star.) Malcolm idolised W. For him he was an irreproachable hero. I suppose he is for me too. But no doubt he was VERY self-important. date=21.04.2004 10:57 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If I remember, it was less Cambridge pretentiousness and more that W. had known the refugees in Vienna, where he thought they were absolutley beneath him. Whatever W's genius, it's his lack of basic charity that I carried away from the book. How true that is, I've no idea - but I'd think more highly of anyone who fed or sheltered someone in need than if they'd ignored such things: even if they had written the "Tractatus" in the process!

Anyway, check the book and decide for yourself. date=21.04.2004 11:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, one point is that he inherited tens of millions from his industrialist father, in his early twenties, and gave it all away, the whole lot, allowed himself nothing of it. He used it to establish an artist's endowment fund. Poets like Georg Trakl and Rilke benefited I believe. So at least technically he was charitable.

Any other scorchingly intellectual screamingly funny books of this type that anyone can recommend? I enjoyed one about Walter Benjamin a few years ago. Forget the title/author, so that's useful. date=21.04.2004 11:51 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: complicated bloke, and no mistake. I don't know the Benjamin book, but tell me more. I got "The Arcades Project" cheap a couple of years ago, but- going back to the entropy debate yesterday - it's a book with so much contingent material that I don't think you can "read" it in any conventional sense. Trace themes, yes; go from first page to last page in order, no. date=21.04.2004 12:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Pm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was thinking of Wittgenstein yesterday re: philosophy ... remember he said something great like 'the goal of philosophy is to dissolve itself', which was always something I used to judge stuff by

What I thought was interesting about his stuff, was that as his thought developed, and (imho) changed from addressing an idealised world to addressing the actual one ... it became both more 'accurate' but also less complete and less sure of itself date=21.04.2004 12:06 ip=194.193.44.81 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pm: > more 'accurate' but also less complete ...

Open ended, maybe. Like this:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999 4879

- and at the narrow "end" of it, Louis Armstrong ... date=21.04.2004 12:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I love 'The Arcades Project', greatest fantasy novel never written; fits in with that whole conversation from ages back about heading to an alternate world and enthusing madly about their equivalent of Asda. Assembling a whole culture from handbills and advertising flyers, odd descriptions and random connections. And drives straight through both our distance from it (the distance driving in part my sense of it as fantasy) and it's own contingency to deliver a penetratingly accurate composite view of a particular society. Wonderful stuff; but you're right, much easier to browse than to read! date=21.04.2004 12:11 ip=62.188.138.170 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember, it was Benjamin's Crossing, by Jay Parini. A good book, and about the Arcades project. date=21.04.2004 12:19 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just been checking it out on Amazon; looks v. intriguing. Always imagine the Paris of the Arcades Project as the city of 'Une Semaine de Bonte', the Max Ernst thing. Interview with Nick Parks once, the guy who does the Wallace and Grommet movies etc, he said that he was interested in animating what was happening just around the corner from the action of classic kids animation, Paddington or whatever. Get the same sense with those two books; they're about what's just round the corner from the action of more mainstream narratives. date=21.04.2004 12:30 ip=62.188.130.4 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: >just around the corner ... exactly!

I'll have to find Parini, too. date=21.04.2004 12:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=19th Century Paris seemed to drive so much good fantastic / edge of fantastic writing; and very serious writing, thinking a lot about what the fantastic is and how it can be used for more than just sensationalism (perhaps genre = fiction using the machinery for its own sake, literary = deploying it to subtler ends separate from its own innate attraction). I'm thinking particularly de Nerval and Bauderlaire here - de Nerval stunning from this point of view, fictionalising himself, Paris, the Orient, all the while very aware of the machinery and pointing up the frailty of that fictionalisation. date=21.04.2004 13:11 ip=62.188.137.67 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops, Baudelaire. Doh! date=21.04.2004 13:12 ip=62.188.137.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello chaps. Guess where I stayed last night? Putney Bridge. And how many ES peoples' phone numbers do I have? None. So I ended up drinking with a plasterer from Leicester who wanted me to go with him to 'find some fanny'. Sigh. I didn't go, of course. And later I read a peculiar American translation of Sir Gawain. date=21.04.2004 15:22 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I love 'The Arcades Project', greatest fantasy novel never written;
_____________

Maybe I am missremenberign this but .. Was there a Harol Budd album with that title? date=21.04.2004 15:55 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't been able to look at at the board most of today because the Middlesex server has been fucked. Brilliant internal email informing us that "Middlesex has lost its connection with the outside world." Tell us something we *don't* know!

Pm: Humour shd "resonate": Yeah that's a good word - "resonate".

Dan: Woah! Mammoth post! Keep yr filthy hands off my beard!

Martin: Why did I think you were talking about panini? Kinda peckish today.

Al: The Arcades Roject sounds brilliant. I'll have to keep an eye out for a copy of that. date=21.04.2004 15:57 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Haven't been able to look at at the board most of today because the Middlesex server has been fucked. Brilliant internal email informing us that "Middlesex has lost its connection with the outside world." Tell us something we *don't* know!

Pm: Humour shd "resonate": Yeah that's a good word - "resonate".

Dan: Woah! Mammoth post! Keep yr filthy hands off my beard!

Martin: Why did I think you were talking about panini? Kinda peckish today.

Al: The Arcades Roject sounds brilliant. I'll have to keep an eye out for a copy of that.

Alex: I lost yr email address when my hard drive got fucked a few months back. Can you email it to me. BTW: We'll have to get together for a few beers if you're in London soon.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=21.04.2004 15:57 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arcades Roject? Fucking hell, I sound like Scooby Doo! date=21.04.2004 15:59 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: will do. I'm going to be in London quite a lot. date=21.04.2004 16:39 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: will do. I'm going to be in London quite a lot.
__________
Hi, Alex
I guess that you´ve got a new job. Good news indeed. Congratulations ! date=21.04.2004 16:58 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of meeting... we never did agree on another Empty Space night, did we? I think we left it floating somewhere around the second weekend in May, in Sheffield.

Is anyone still up for this? Or do we need to move it elsewhere in the space-time continuum? Perhaps Middlesex which, as far as I'm aware (I was born there), has lost not only its connection with the outside world, but also its existence as anything other than a word on envelopes plus a sprinking of educational, healthcare and drinking establishments. date=21.04.2004 17:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I'm on for Sheffield or somewhere nearer to Middlesex. date=21.04.2004 17:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Second week of May is looking less good now. We're playing a gig on 13th May and most weekends up to then will be busy with band stuff. If anyone is in London at the time details will be appearing on my site soon - also a possible Resonance FM session on the 18th.

But (getting back to the subject) in a nutshell May is going to be sehr busy and it might be difficult to get away from London. Sorry! date=21.04.2004 17:14 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Middlesex is indeed a fluid concept. The post office no longer officially recognise it as a county and it seems to be slowly eating into the North of London absorbing Enfield, Hendon, Harringey and anywhere else it fancies really.

See also: Middle Earth. date=21.04.2004 17:17 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shit! I'd never thought of that before! Middlesex is the equivocal, shifting, indeterminate *heart* of the South East. I've been chasing its immanence through the deep landscapes of the Home Counties only to find that it was *here* all of the time, all around me.

*bathes in rosy light and the musky scent of attar* date=21.04.2004 17:32 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> See also: Middle Earth.

No sex, please, we're hobbits. date=21.04.2004 18:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sevenoaks: true home of the Heart? date=21.04.2004 18:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Presumably the book by Jeffrey Eugenides isn't actually to do with the Coeur of the South East. Something to do with hermaphrodites? date=21.04.2004 18:51 ip=158.94.165.61 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thinking about the falseness of most "ends of time", and also the historical symmetry mentioned by Mitchell, I realised that right-wingers (or rather, extremists of all flavours) are stupidly over-keen on false beginnings as well; not just creationists, but anyone who cities one event as the single cause of any complex scenario.

I'm thinking in particular of Thatcher & her ilk blaming any aspect of society they don't like on "60s permissiveness", or anyone who tries to come up with simplistic explanations of the situation in the Middle East. date=21.04.2004 19:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps the Nazi's Thosand Year Reich too?

I'm not sure I'd put the ball entirely in the right wing court though. After all the classical Marxist resolution of the dichotomies inherent in the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgoisie bringing about the End of History smacks of the same sort of mechanistic apocalypticism. I believe Marx also spoke of a Golden Age in the past when there was no division between workers and owners. date=21.04.2004 19:23 ip=158.94.165.61 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, just read yr parentheses concerning "extremists of all flavours" - which I guess covers what I just said. date=21.04.2004 19:24 ip=158.94.165.61 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, in fact the whole thing could just be simplified to "extremists have a tendency to over-simplfy".

Or is that too extreme a simplification? date=21.04.2004 20:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about: "Those extremists, huh?" Accompanied by a raised eyebrow that implies the relationship between this statement and what has already been said.

Returning to fantasy momentarily: The subgenre of the dying earth romance, from Clarke Ashton Smith's Zothique through Vance's Dying Earth to MJH's Viriconium posits a place at the end of time, but in my recent readings of these sequences I've tended to see the End of Time as a mood of frame of mind and an implicit criticism (or at least observation about) the characters. This could apply equally to the end of the world section of The Time Machine where it represents an ultimate state of desolation. The idea that "the ancient red sun may wink out at any moment" is an existential condition rather than a cosmological one. But, I guess when we consider that in all of these cases "it's only a sodding novel" the above is all too obvious to mention. date=21.04.2004 20:14 ip=158.94.145.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=How about: "Those extremists, huh?" Accompanied by a raised eyebrow that implies the relationship between this statement and what has already been said.

Returning to fantasy momentarily: The subgenre of the dying earth romance, from Clarke Ashton Smith's Zothique through Vance's Dying Earth to MJH's Viriconium posits a place at the end of time, but in my recent readings of these sequences I've tended to see the End of Time as a mood or frame of mind and an implicit criticism (or at least observation about) the characters. This could apply equally to the end of the world section of The Time Machine where it represents an ultimate state of desolation. The idea that "the ancient red sun may wink out at any moment" is an existential condition rather than a cosmological one. But, I guess when we consider that in all of these cases "it's only a sodding novel" the above is all too obvious to mention.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=21.04.2004 20:14 ip=158.94.145.254 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My view is that we have failed to transform ourselves since WW2. The two world wars created a total break with the past that demanded absolute change from us, but we haven't been able to deliver it. Huge technological change yes, big changes in manners, in sexual ideas of identity, but no real perceptual change: change in the idea of what a human being can be. Evolutionary change, I am thinking of. Real transformation. Our current stagnant politics, the creation of needless crises, the creation of enemies out of phantoms, suffering and pain out of fear and panic, all the needlessness of our stupid politics, "GM crops please, its scientific" it all comes out of this stagnation. There, I am feeling extreme so I am in search of a simplification ...! date=22.04.2004 00:46 ip=80.225.14.198 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Um, maybe drinking that wine wasn't a good idea.

But what I had in mind as an example ...

Tony Blair is still the bare foot flare jeaned long haired guitar twanging hippy inside somewhere, that very kind of individual who seemed to betoken change but actually did nothing of the sort.

Instead the reality: he has that grin on his face because he is leading us towards eco disaster and WW3.

End of days. date=22.04.2004 11:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I'd *never* be that coherent after a few glasses of wine.

Some results on Middlesex from Googlism:

middlesex is one of the most historical counties in the land of the angels

middlesex is a dream come true

middlesex is more apt to inspire fear than wonder in little children

middlesex is approximately 730

middlesex is completely voluntary

middlesex is worth the wait date=22.04.2004 12:01 ip=81.132.110.161 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: This is Egnaro, isn't it ..? date=22.04.2004 12:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=middlesexmiddlesexmiddlesexmiddlesexmiddlesex

Ah, the third way. The third sex.

The Third Alternative. TTA. WBA. ITV. BBC. The MPLA.

You just have to look at it long enough. date=22.04.2004 12:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, according to Googlism:

egnaro is a power

egnaro is our main influence

egnaro is a four

egnaro is beautiful

egnaro is tomorrow night

You see, here's the distinction: Middlesex is 730 and Egnaro is 4, while Viriconium is apparently "a two". date=22.04.2004 12:15 ip=81.132.110.161 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I used to live in Middlesex.

Part of the ceiling in my bedroom had fallen down. My uncle ran the Rover garage round the corner; it was near the toyshop, where I spent my pocket money on Airfix models and paints.

One Christmas morning I woke up early. The road outside had frosted overnight; the sky blazed with imminent dawn.

I haven't been back to Middlesex for a long time. I'm not sure I could find it again if I did. date=22.04.2004 12:28 ip=62.188.131.151 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes. I remember Middlesex -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Middlesex - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweat, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Hampton Wick and Teddingshire. date=22.04.2004 12:54 ip=62.188.142.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good grief. date=22.04.2004 13:34 ip=213.78.78.52 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>End of days.

I guess we might as well enjoy it, if it's inevitable. You only get one apocalypse after all. Think I'll start arranging the party. Theme it around: "Do everything you ever wanted to do." Want to kill someone? Go ahead. Try unusual sex practice meester? Can do. It's a winner. date=22.04.2004 13:35 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=incidentally, the only post-1970 record of Dromius quadrisignatus from the British Isles is from Middlesex. It's a beetle. date=22.04.2004 14:02 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>It's a beetle.

So back we come to the sixties again. The Beetles are to blame of course. date=22.04.2004 14:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just found a little navy blue hardback in Oxfam entitled The Spiritual Guide which Disentangles the Soul by Miguel de Molinos. Some good chapter titles in here:

"Of the Darkness, Dryness and Temptations wherewith God purges Souls, and of Internal Recollection"

"For the obtaining of Inner Peace it is necessary for the Soul to know her misery"

"A Loving Exclamation and Lamentable Moan to God for the small Company of Souls that attain to Perfection, to the Loving Union anf the Divine Transformation" date=22.04.2004 14:06 ip=81.132.238.184 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A night before no morning after party? Could be a winner.

Almost big oil reserves in Middlesex; they're mined next door in Surrey, but I'm sure some of them sit beneath Middx. date=22.04.2004 14:08 ip=62.188.108.171 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gosh, what pleasant reading for such a beautiful morning.

>> Just found a little navy blue hardback in Oxfam

Sorry, all that talk of Beetles and Rovers, I misread "just found a little navy blue hatchback in Oxfam" - they're obviously setting themselves up to compete with Tesco.

>> TTA. WBA. ITV. BBC. The MPLA.

I thought this was the UK? Egnaro then? date=22.04.2004 14:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: you might want to have remembered Middlesex in prose -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3648773.stm date=22.04.2004 16:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Pm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3648773.stm

Nice stuff ... had visions of poets ganging together and taking out a few non-fiction writers to try and even the scores ... although I imagine they'd be too self-destructive to pull something like that off date=22.04.2004 18:00 ip=194.193.44.81 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tartarus Press has just reprinted David Lindsay's "The Haunted Woman." More details:

http://homepages.pavilion.co.uk/users/tartarus/h aunted.htm

- and an "IoS" review, touching on Machen, Yeats, and the "Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth" -

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story. jsp?story=480529

Well I never, etc. date=23.04.2004 10:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For David Thomas fans:

BBC Album of the Week
18 Monkeys was the BBC's Album of the Week for April 5 2004. "Strange, compelling, terrifying and great," Nick Reynolds wrote.

http://www.projex.demon.co.uk/index.html

All his lyrics can be found there. A truly fine lyric writer/musician, as I have probably mentioned before. date=23.04.2004 13:37 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice stuff ... had visions of poets ganging together and taking out a few non-fiction writers to try and even the scores ... although I imagine they'd be too self-destructive to pull something like that off
____________________
Hi, Pm.
I don´t know about current brit poets but the spanish variety is quite capable of the odd ax job even it is, alas , only in print. In facts poets are usually spoiling for a figth . date=23.04.2004 14:06 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>A truly fine lyric writer/musician

Indeed. I'd better see if there are any tour dates. Not sure I'd actually buy another of his albums, since the ones I have only get played about once a year. Have you heard any of the things he's done with Jackie Leven? date=23.04.2004 14:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I see he's playing Sheffield in June, but sadly no Manchester date. Dan, how's your spare room? date=23.04.2004 14:16 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, Dan, how *is* your spare room? -:))

Amazing stuff. I play "Surf's Up" a lot, as well as "Meadville," the live cd with the Pale Boys, with its slightly wonky but gorgeous version of "Can't Help Falling in Love." In fact, great stuff for a warm afternoon with a bottle of wine ... [stares out work-place window]

I've heard nothing he's done with Leven - but anyone who writes a song called "The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ" must be worth seeing, with or without Thomas. date=23.04.2004 14:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Have you heard any of the things he's done with Jackie Leven?

Bit vague on that. Maybe. I went to one of Thomas's Mirror Man shows at the Elizabeth Hall. But the Mirror Man album gets least number of plays from me.

I sort of see what you mean about buying the new albums. But for me this one was worth getting. I have listened to it every day for the past week. Starts out with two loud songs but gets mellower and sweeter. Comparatively. Best song: Soda Mountain. I wish I knew how to write lyrics ...

Week before that it was David Byrne. Maybe I should rename myself David as a start on the path to writing lyric songs. date=23.04.2004 14:48 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jackie Leven. Ace. Saw him twice in one year--2002 ?--and got Creatures of Light & Darkness. I'm going to dig it out & have a listen. date=23.04.2004 15:01 ip=213.78.172.250 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>[stares out work-place window]

What a beautiful day.

Marylebone High St is like some kind of Greeky harbour place. Sort of day for sipping coffee or a cold beer and smoking large cigars, staring out at passing sails (... girls). date=23.04.2004 15:30 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If we're doing snapshots: I'm looking out on a queen wasp wavering over empty bike racks in the Oxford sun, while two magpies quarrel in someone's garden and a gang of builders work on a house with the radio up: no Jackie Leven, but "Golden Brown," Franz Ferdinand, and a lot of hammer-work among the blossoms. date=23.04.2004 15:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Creatures of Light & Darkness

Good stuff. Particularly "Rainy Day Bergen Women" (which features David Thomas).

I'm looking out over a park in Knutsford, marvelling at the never-ending stream of blonde, tight-faced Cheshire women in sports cars going past the window. What do they all do? date=23.04.2004 16:05 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail=alex.stone1@ntlworld.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, my band's new CD is almost finished, bar the mastering. We're gathering opinions from selected people about how it sounds on different systems, etc. If anyone would like to be part of our focus group, email me with yr address and I'll send you one out. Probably only the second CD in the world to feature a song influenced by MJH writing. date=23.04.2004 16:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Probably only the second CD in the world to feature a song influenced by MJH writing.

Am I included in that small elite?

While we're on music: Recorded a new eight minute track yesterday. It's got electric sitars, it's got analog synths, it sounds like a Bollywood Spaghetti Western! Possible title: Raga Jalfrezi.

Also: Finally found a copy of Angel 'in Heavy Syrup III - their 1995 epic. This album is *so* unbelievably difficult to find. It was released by two small record labels in Japan and Canada and has never been reissued. Quite beautiful. Somewhere between the Cocteau Twins and Amon Duul 2. But it was being sent from America and I was waiting over a month for the fucker. Well worth the wait, and the undisclosed amount I paid for it. (You paid *how* much!) date=23.04.2004 16:31 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Am I included in that small elite?

You're the only one I can think of. date=23.04.2004 16:33 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn, I was hoping there was a black metal band called Viriconium. I did find this though, on a site related to a club in Manhattan called Sarnath:

"Every second & fourth Tuesday -- "Viriconium Nights."
Viriconium is a geek's paradise, a bi-weekly party with a focus on cyberfetish, New Media art, and techno-paganism. Popular with a wide variety of people ranging from Silicon Alley yuppies to comic book junkies, even the occasional Virtual Adept has been known to attend. Mistress Dis Astra keeps the music on the cutting edge of technological innovation in the Nave, while the Madhouse is turned over to electronica and the Black Corridor is bathed in old 1970s progressive rock. Technological performance art is a mainstay of Viriconium, with computer animations, lightshows, and unusual forms of musical generation being the norm. Bands are common, with experimental groups given free range to innovate. This is one of Dieter Zeit's favorite parties, and he takes every opportunity to showcase his considerable talents. (The name Viriconium is taken from an M. John Harrison novel, and has absolutely no relation to Venus and Orchid's S&M dungeon.)" date=23.04.2004 16:38 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From my window: next door's roof, as ever. The two magpies that are usually up there seem to have taken a spring break. Been into town today though, saw a fun art show at the Graves Gallery: a wall full of Dexion shelving stacked with suitcases. Pick a suitcase and the curator drags it out and opens it up, each one has a little installation inside.

Wish I could see Marylebone High St from my window, I love that little slice of town, I used to work on Bentinck Street (reminds me, is the Lucien Freud still on at the Wallace Collection? Something I really wanted to see).

Alex, Martin: my spare room is going spare, as ever. Please do visit, fill it up, drag me to see David Thomas etc (I've never been hugely into him, but probably because I haven't been paying attention. I've only seen him the once, at Womad with Two Pale Boys, and would relish the opportunity to be initiated)

Actually, all of this musical banter is making my fingers itch. I'm not playing with anyone at the moment, haven't done a gig in years, and am wracked with withdrawal.

NY Viriconium nightclub: I think you can get there via a mirror in a toilet in Huddersfield... date=23.04.2004 16:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Dan. Did the band fold then? date=23.04.2004 16:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to see the Freud last week.

Strange situation. Quite a small room given the size of most of the paintings and with these aged over-groomed ladies wandering around looking proprietry, talking about the downstairs resaurant - while I am trying to concentrate on these gigantic totally uninhibited nudes.

I am going to have to have another look, when I don't feel so self conscious. date=23.04.2004 17:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah Alex, bit of a shocker really... they *didn't want me*. Actually, I know why this is (although I haven't had the guts to call them back and confirm this since). I went down the pub with them after a practice and, loosened up by a couple of pints, told the drummer that I don't actually listen to drummers when I'm playing, because I grew up playing with a drummer who couldn't keep very good time so ended up making my own grooves and letting him adapt to me.

Of course, this was all just hyperbole and bluster, but he seems to have taken me seriously. I feel a bit gutted because I didn't really get a chance to show them what I was made of - takes me probably a couple of months to feel settled enough with new people that I can deviate from playing straight budda-budda-budda-budda-bass. So of course I feel cheated. And they're all a bunch of wankers. And they don't deserve me anyway. Etc etc.

I went hunting for other vacancies a couple of weeks ago, found something that sounded perfect for me: "unfashionable bassist wanted for Sheffield band". Clicked on it. It's the same fucking band. And my suspicions were confirmed by the line in the ad that read "You''ve got to want to PLAY WITH AND LISTEN TO a drummer" (their CAPS), which wasn't in their previous ad. Ad is here: http://tinyurl.com/2cum3

The worst part is, when I first heard their songs I wasn't very impressed, trying-to-hard art rock that had its heart in the right place but just didn't shine. But when I played with them, it felt like it grooved and suddenly I could see it appealing to a live audience, rather than just leave them all scratching their heads.

I get the impression, from the fact that they auditioned something like nine other bassists before me, and have been together for 18 months with no bass player, that they're a couple of perfectionists who'll never find their ideal line-up. Of course I would say that because I'm bitter and twisted and rejected, but it doesn't make it any less true.

God I hate being dumped by a band, it's just like being dumped by a lover, everything feels personal.

So once again I'm pining for my old band - http://www.sumption.org/cathyray/ - the most perfect line up I've ever played with. But the bastards all live in London. date=23.04.2004 17:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But the bastards all live in London.

Well, you could join the Stella Maris Drone Orchestra. We've already got Al doing bass with us but you can never have too many bassists. I think Rothko have four bassists.

But, as ever we all live in London! date=23.04.2004 17:26 ip=158.94.145.254 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: well, you know what everyone thinks about drummers. Don't sweat it. date=23.04.2004 17:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=True Alex, though this guy was more than just a drummer, also a music critic for The Guardian, hence giving him more musical authority and making me feel slightly more unworthy (one of his here - http://tinyurl.com/2eve8 - there were lots more last time I looked, but they all seem to have disappeared). Worry not though, I've put all of that behind me now.

Speaking of the Guardian, and speaking as we were of David Thomas, I notice that in today's review there's a piece on Hal Willner, who for you London types is directing a tribute to Nino Rota & Federico Fellini at the Barbican tomorrow, featuring David Thomas, Kate St John, Carla Bley & Beth Orton (also Geri Allen, who I'm crazy about, Guy Barker, Roy Nathanson, Gavin Friday & Andy Sheppard). I'm a bit of a fan of Willner, have his CD tributes to Allen Ginsberg and Charles Mingus/Harry Partch here, very good stuff.

And speaking of Partch, a friend pointed me at this website the other day: http://tinyurl.com/yuwx6 - click on any of the "play instruments" links for a chance to fiddle with Partch's awesome inventions including the marimba eroica, cloud chamber bowls, surrogate kithara, harmonic canons etc.

Io: I'd love to drone with you. Might warn you when I next come to London, in case you're up to anything, so I can drag my bass along. If so, can you supply amplification? date=23.04.2004 18:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yeah, Marianne Faithful's there too. A friend of mine claims to have slept with her last year. But then, he is full of shit. Says he also bedded up the drummer from the Corrs on the same Irish trip. date=23.04.2004 18:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I did find this though, on a site related to a club in Manhattan called Sarnath: "Every second & fourth Tuesday -- "Viriconium Nights."

Fame at last. Oh, thank God. date=23.04.2004 19:57 ip=213.78.77.189 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'd love to drone with you.

Dan: Sure thang! If you fancy it at any point I have a small bass amp at my flat. (we'd probably kill the neighbours, or Bridget and the cat would probably kill *us* if it was a massive Marshall stack) And if you are about but lack a bass my longhorn Danelectro is a bit of a character, but if you're used to playing a Ricky it might be a bit tiny!

Anyway, if yr up for it at any point drop us an email. Ah, fuck it, let's get Alex to join us and form the Empty Space Groove Ensemble! date=23.04.2004 20:24 ip=81.132.120.186 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just spent the morning down the allotment. Alex, you're right. date=24.04.2004 15:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: lovely, ain't it? I've got broad beans and potatoes coming up already, and lots more on the way. date=26.04.2004 12:15 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Four Tet: I am now the pround owner of a copy of "Rounds".Thanks, Chaps! date=26.04.2004 16:05 ip=80.58.9.113 name=fer mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=26.04.2004 18:02 ip=218.58.74.200 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Glad you like it! Anything you'd recommend to us?

Meanwhile, bad verse is alive and well in Oxford. A poem set in a museum has just been published here. The first verse:

Wearing a heavily jewelled cross
A woman stares at the King of Ur.
Her naked arms are breaking news
Amongst all this death. I stare at her.

Maybe I shouldn't laugh. But later on, the writer comes up with the line "unhaunted in the womb of night" - so he's only got himself to blame. date=27.04.2004 10:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ouch! Can we read the whole thing here?

Oh, btb - have just finished 'Last and First Men', by Olaf Stapledon - what an amazing book! Incredible cosmic sweep, deep sense of the littleness of man combined with incredibly vast awareness of man's future / past (depending on POV). 'Starmaker' now on must read list, but have also just picked up the new Iain Sinclair book, which looks fascinating. Opening pretty electrifying at any rate. Whole thing sounds intriguing, IS deconstructing his various writerly identities. Will be interesting to read in light of various documentary / fiction chats on here lately... date=27.04.2004 10:47 ip=62.188.145.190 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Most poetry could profitably be reduced to one line - or less.

E.g.: "I don't have to prove that I am creative."

Repeat. (Ah the music.) date=27.04.2004 11:00 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>'Last and First Men', by Olaf Stapledon

Isn't it great? Fulfills whatever it was we were saying the other day about cosmic horror and deep spacetime horizons, or something... date=27.04.2004 11:07 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Stapleton: After Brian Aldiss's enthusiasm for it, I've always meant to read "Star Maker" - but I've yet to get there.

Al: The whole thing? There are four verses. No. 2 goes:

Never again will breath ignite
Those priceless Patagonian flutes.
Thank God for modern relative values:
Too hot today for absolutes.

- so, a touch of yer Prufrocks: but ... Anyway, more soon, chums. date=27.04.2004 11:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=F&LM. It's one I have yet to read.

I read his Sirius, strongly written, a bit like Wyndham. I.e. Siriusly good. The heart balks at imagining emptiness, but on the other hand emptiness invites imagination. The desert places. date=27.04.2004 11:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I.e. Siriusly good.

Shall I find yr coat for you, or do you know where it is already?

Haven't read Sirius. Is it about a dog or am I getting my head tangled? date=27.04.2004 11:31 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin - !!!!!! The McGonagall de nos jours.

Hmm - I'd say the thrust of FALM is more towards generating or discovering meaning in emptiness than horror of that emptiness - at the end the most highly developed humans yet wonder whether they've in fact either completely missed the point or generated their own meanings and nothing more, but then think 'what the hell, it was beautiful anyway.' There's also the emptiness of history going on in there; a) individual experience vs so much time, and b) individual joy vs so much pain. date=27.04.2004 11:32 ip=62.188.142.71 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Who wrote that? Can we post him a kebab second class? date=27.04.2004 11:32 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think I'd better reveal his name, free kebab and chilli sauce notwithstanding: he's probably part of a witness protection scheme already. Breaking metre, it goes on:

The live [sic] examine steadily
Their future in alarm-rigged cases,
And look away, like naughty children,
If they come across each others' faces.

On security footage someone is skimming,
Unhaunted in the womb of night,
Each case is still, God's own collection,
People are shadows, or shivers of light.

Perhaps he should have stuffed owl in that kebab! I'm not sure how this got into print. But more improbable things have happened - such as:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1202 384,00.html date=27.04.2004 11:44 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, nice thought, shame about the execution.

I saw that Holmes thing! V. odd. date=27.04.2004 11:49 ip=62.188.100.91 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Sirius - it's doggone good.

Ok, I'll find my jacket. (My God, it's dark in this cloak room. Woops.) date=27.04.2004 11:51 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think he's a genius.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99 994918

I tried this yesterday. Unfortunately the only Mozart I could find was a tea-stained CD of Eine kleine Nachtmusik abandoned by some previous tenant. But combined with a brisk walk across Barnes common, I would say it made me at least 120% more intelligent than I had been when I left the house. I sat down immediately to write long letters to the Mail, Express and Telegraph about the important things I now know. Be careful, Arturo, it's equally well documented that 4 Tet turns yr brain to a soup or substrate of forty thousand distinct molecular species out of which cascades of self-catalysing activity fashion something completely inhuman. The actual transition period is a bit like Altered States only less fun; but afterwards you can write really good poetry. date=27.04.2004 11:53 ip=213.78.94.227 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>> a neuroscientist ... showed that college students who listened to Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major for 10 minutes performed better on a spatial reasoning test than students who listened to new age music or nothing at all.

What, and that's supposed to prove something?? date=27.04.2004 12:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There is also a Shakespeare effect. Punning creates remarkable hippocampic harmonies. For example:

Ah most art thou Moats Art Mozart thou most art.

A bridge over the Moats Art portcullis cunnilungus

(I am looking for my coat.) date=27.04.2004 12:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't get me onto Mozart! Fucking glossy, over-composed, chocolate box music! All frills and wedding cake bollocks, for fuck's sake! date=27.04.2004 12:32 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, glad to find somebody who shares my point of view at last. But then... if people 120% more intelligent than us appreciate it, there must surely be *something* there. Or did we already have that extra 20% to start with? Whereas they perhaps started with the mental level of a laboratory rat. date=27.04.2004 12:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Chocolate is good for the brain. So is fish.

Think of Mozart as a kind of aural chocolate fish.

It's nice, really. But I prefer Bach.

But what do they mean by new age music? Brian Eno? Or those "soothing" tapes of bells and water you see advertised. date=27.04.2004 12:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe new age music lowers your IQ by 20%? Tho' that doesn't explain the effect of silence.

I am going to put some Mozart on now. date=27.04.2004 12:45 ip=62.188.135.109 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps the very fact that we share this point of view indicates that it'd be dangerous for us to become 20% more intelligent. The scale just doesn't go that far.

Actually, I'm mellowing in my old age. When the clarinet concerto came on Radio 3 while I was having a bath the other day I *didn't* throw the radio out of the window.

It's quite a nice radio though... date=27.04.2004 12:49 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Motz-arse. Mind you, if it makes you more intelligent why don't they play some to terrorists instead of that AC/CD, eh? They've obviously got no brains or they wouldn't be trying to fite Bush. date=27.04.2004 13:12 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They don't go into details about the silence either. Is this your bog-standard silence, or the John Cage variety? date=27.04.2004 13:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A possible solution to world's problems then. Subject Bush to 24 hour Mozart. date=27.04.2004 13:24 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mozart: I'm with Io and Alex. I keep hearing about this cultural peak - but after two minutes it just turns into aural patterning for me, and a kind of sea-fog creeps in across the numb shingle of my mind.

*Eyes Harmonia and Loudon Wainwright cds hungrily*

>Aural chocolate fish. MJP, pure Alan Partridge. Almost on a par with the explanation of Kennedy's assassination: "The back of his head fell off." date=27.04.2004 13:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some more recent findings. When I'm listening to my CD walkman on the train:

* Billy Childish makes me 20% punker than fuck.
* Can make me 20% funkier than fuck.
* The Specials make me skank 20% faster.
* That which doesn't kill me makes me 20% stronger when I listen to Rammstein.
* Stina Nordenstam makes me 20% more attractive.
* Front 242 make me 20% more Belgian. date=27.04.2004 13:40 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Four Tet: I recently got hold of "Dialogue". 3.3 Degrees From the Pole made me 20% more appreciative of bands who sample Stanley Clarke's "Bass Folk Song". date=27.04.2004 14:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>bog-standard silence

They've got a silence gun. It's a product of the cold-war experiments with sound weapons (which didn't work). It gives people thick ears, so they can't hear.

I sat in a traffic jam this morning blasting out Smog songs. I think I depressed some people. date=27.04.2004 14:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Can make me 20% funkier than fuck

Surely it depends on how you define fuck? date=27.04.2004 14:37 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: "Teenage Spaceship" - yay!

Going back a bit at present, I've been listening to Beefheart ("Orange Claw Hammer") and Nick Drake ("River Man") - 20% more than anything I can think of, really. Liked the Scissor Sisters doing "Comfortably Numb," too: doctor, am I still drone-credible ..? date=27.04.2004 14:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I think the article said they weren't listening to anything. Damn hard that, but it rules out the Cage: with that, they'd have been listening to *everything*

Nick Drake: I read something recently about Brad Pitt (who apparently is a big fan) narrating a documentary on Drake for Radio 2. Sounded interesting, but I'm not sure whether it's been on yet.

Me personally, I've spent the last couple of days immersing myself in anything I rated 5* in iTunes and then forgot about. Very uplifting. Bjork swinging in Icelandic on Gling-Gló was absolutely wonderful (I'm not always a big fan of Bjork), so was Law Years as played by both Ornette Coleman and Geri Allen (it's Charlie Haden that makes it in both cases), Paul Chambers playing You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, and Henry Threadgill's Ragtime Dance (yeah, I'm in a jazzy mood). All *at least* 20% fucker than fuck and jazzier than jazz. date=27.04.2004 15:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Yes, Brad is involved. R2's doing a documentary to mark a new Drake cd of officially unreleased stuff, including (doh!) a song that everyone had forgotten about for 30 years.

If anyone's interested and didn't see the "Observer" article on all this, it's here:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,13887,11 97426,00.html date=27.04.2004 16:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I want to hear the Elton John Nick Drake album. date=27.04.2004 17:37 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That might just work! Especially "Northern Sky." In the mean time, I heard Reg played at a Sting "save the rainforest" gig last week (I know, I know ...) and performed "The Woody Woodpecker Song" with some kind of novelty whistle. Or was all that a twisted dream that seeped out of my cheesy unconscious? date=27.04.2004 17:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, seriously. Elton John recorded a whole set of demos of Nick Drake songs under the direction of Joe Boyd prior to Five Leaves left. date=28.04.2004 10:03 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The world just got stranger: I never knew this. In another reality, Drake wrote for Elton, became a multi-millionaire, and loving couples now ask Steve Wright to play their favourite ballad from 'Honky Chateau,' "Time Has Told Me."

It's all a bit much for a rainy morning. I'm still getting over the Bollywood remix of Bowie's "Let's Dance" that someone lent me last night. Poptastic, etc.! date=28.04.2004 10:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bowie remixes: listen to some more, make your own, and win a car - http://www.davidbowie.com/neverFollow/ date=28.04.2004 10:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice to see someone encouraging plunderphonics for a change! date=28.04.2004 11:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Slight change of subject, the attacks on Fallujah and Najif have begun. American has created enemies out of phantoms. New 'Saddams'!

Going to look at the Bowie site when I get time. date=28.04.2004 11:45 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're going into Najaf as well? Good grief. date=28.04.2004 12:09 ip=62.188.105.129 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was watching a bit of Platoon last night, btb. Strange to see a film about events about 30 / 40 years seeming so current. date=28.04.2004 12:09 ip=62.188.105.129 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps they're carrying out the wishes of this US radio talkshow host - http://tinyurl.com/33qen - on Moslems "You think we should befriend them; I think we should kill them." date=28.04.2004 12:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had an interesting juxtaposition on that page. "We shd kill them" along with an advert for The Incredible Hulk. Don't you hate them? They get all touchy about a few banal pics of coffins of US servicemen - all very tasteful and restrained. And what's the reality: Iraqi civilians in Falluja burnt and bloodied by helicopter rocket attacks.

>> Nice to see someone encouraging plunderphonics for a change!

Greatest form of flattery!

In other news: The iotacism Empire is extending its tentacles again. We're rebuilding the website for Kosmische - London's only Krautrock club. http://www.kosmische.org Quite minimal at present. They were lumbered with an ungainly Flash site for years so they want something a bit more usable.

We're (he means I'm) also currently involved in rebuilding the painter David Lloyd's website. Authors! Clubs! Artists! Weddings! Bar Mitzvahs! date=28.04.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Yes, yes!

Dan: Whenever we start talking in lumps - "Muslims," "Jews," other Ron Atkinson phrases - it's a sign we've stopped seeing the people we're thinking about. I wonder how Farrakhan's followers react to all this: less of a war on the "fifth column" than an invitation to an inter-racial "crusade" on people born and brought up in the States. It all sounds a bit KKK to me - "I don't care who you are - get off my lawn and take that bloody Cross with you." date=28.04.2004 12:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: yes, anyone who talks about people in lumps deserves to be shot. date=28.04.2004 13:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: the Hulk was only a problem if you made him angry. Bit like America really. date=28.04.2004 13:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(triple-post... aargh)

After Mike's recent post about Nanook of the North, the Showroom cinema's latest programme just dropped through my door and guess what's showing there on 9th May? Nanook, with new score performed live by the Curt Collective. It's also showing in London (at the Barbican), Manchester and elsewhere over the next couple of weeks. date=28.04.2004 13:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, anybody fancy a joint session to go and see it? When's it on in London? date=28.04.2004 13:50 ip=62.188.146.253 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Where's it on in Manc? Cornerhouse? date=28.04.2004 14:04 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, Cornerhouse on 2nd May, 1.30pm. In London at the Barbican on 6th June, 4.30pm.

Also on in Birmingham (6th May @ mac) & Nottingham (8th May @ Southwell Minster). date=28.04.2004 14:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="It is many moons since I have hunted the summer walrus."

You and me both, pal.

http://www.cinemaweb.com/silentfilm/bookshelf/23_rf1 _2.htm date=28.04.2004 14:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, not everyone shares the ES majority view on Blair. I found this on the BBC's "Have Your Say" web pages:

>If I was Lucky enough to bump into Mr. Blair today, I'd say 'Tony, Stick with man, do what you believe to be right, because I didn't vote for some old retired nobody, I voted for you, and I did it because I trust you more than anyone else to be in charge of my country.' Paul, Wales date=29.04.2004 10:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If Paul was lucky enough to run into Tony today, he'd probably be shot by the bodyguards. Meanwhile, though he didn't vote for some old retired nobody, he does seem to have voted for the retired old rhetoric he believes to be an opinion, such as "Stick with it man, do what you believe to be right". With statements like these people convince themselves they're (a) actually saying something and (b) contributing to political discussion. Hooray for retired old populism, which is serving us so well. Hooray for the retired old idea that the prime minister is an actual person you could "run into", rather than a constantly massaged meme which intrudes into our world from its position in Media Space.

Still, at least Slimy Tony is too cunning to post further troops to Vietraq. date=29.04.2004 11:12 ip=213.78.167.214 name=Map Boy mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It is many moons since I have voted for the Summer Tony. date=29.04.2004 11:14 ip=213.78.167.214 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Summer for Tony, some aint. Pity was it wasn't more aint. Go! This summer! date=29.04.2004 11:19 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJ-ME mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes its many years. We all vetoed for Tony. V-toed for Tony. Fork tailed, one-eyed toe knee. date=29.04.2004 11:30 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Toe. Knee. Chest. Nut. Chakra khan. date=29.04.2004 11:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Connoisseurs of the savage and unnatural should also check today's "Independent," 25 years after Thatcher's election victory. Finance adviser Ivan Masser recalls "the hem of her gown" touching him after the Brighton bombing, mentions "our Lord Tebbit," and oddly (for a gay man) seems both attracted to her and in favour of Clause 28.

Spoiling the party atmosphere, rock journalist James Brown thinks she's "a witch," and still fantasises about assassinating her.

Aren't people funny? date=29.04.2004 11:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hems and chortles -nys and Toes. date=29.04.2004 12:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=E-ze-kiel cried, "Dem dry bones!"
Oh hear the word of the Lord.

Tone's dry bones. But Toe knee was once hip. date=29.04.2004 12:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJ-ME mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alas poor Toe Knee - I knew him unfortunately.

Now osteoporosis sickuntodeathistis has done for him. date=29.04.2004 12:31 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this talk of toes and bones - if you're tired of standing up in your spare time, why not join:

http://www.casualtiesunion.org.uk/

The "Junior Members" page is especially good. I wish I'd known about this when I was at school: I could have skived off for weeks on end with fake radiation burns. date=29.04.2004 12:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sung to the tune of 'where is thumbkin'

Toe Knee Chest Nut(head)
Toe Knee Chest Nut(head)
Toe Knee Nose
Toe Knee Nose
Toe Knee Nose I(eye) Love(heart) You(point)
Toe Knee Nose I(eye) Love(heart) You(point)
Toe Knee Knows
Toe Knee Knows

-start slow, and then get faster each time date=29.04.2004 13:07 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, I'll try it. God knows I need therapy. date=29.04.2004 17:43 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If you haven't seen this:

- Log on to Google

- Type in "Weapons of Mass Destruction"

- DON'T press 'Enter' - DO press 'I'm Feeling Lucky.'

- Read the "Error" message ... date=30.04.2004 11:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice T-shirt. date=30.04.2004 11:28 ip=158.94.148.108 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is from the Guardian--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,12 06725,00.html

--but everyone will have seen something like it this morning. It concerns the revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib.

'One of the soldiers, Staff Sgt Chip Frederick is accused of posing in a photograph sitting on top of a detainee, committing an indecent act and with assault for striking detainees - and ordering detainees to strike each other.

'He told CBS: "We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations."

'His lawyer, Gary Myers, told the Guardian that Sgt Frederick had not had the opportunity to read the Geneva Conventions before being put on guard duty, a task he was not trained to perform.'

In the absence of that, and being unable to make up any rules or standards of his own, he defaulted to modes of behaviour he had presumably learned at home in the US. I love the fact that he's called "Chip". It's so neighbourhood. The fact that this happened in one of Saddam's torture prisons will send a clear message to Iraqis. Probably they had got it already, but if they hadn't they now know they've exchanged one style of abuse for another.

So let's run through this. There weren't any WMDs. And we've liberated Iraq from the torture and abuse of the old regime. So now it's just the oil and the reconstruction contracts. date=30.04.2004 11:53 ip=213.78.82.202 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The oil, the reconstruction contracts - and the sodomy. date=30.04.2004 12:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So let's run through this. There weren't any WMDs. And we've liberated Iraq from the torture and abuse of the old regime. So now it's just the oil and the reconstruction contracts.

And if they show the slightest intention of fighting back: Falluja. date=30.04.2004 12:14 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The strangest part of all this, for me, was it was uncovered by a US TV network. Over the last couple of years I've come to equate US TV with blatant propaganda, so was very (pleasantly?) surprised to hear them putting a bit of truth about for a change. date=30.04.2004 12:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well - my cynical side can't help thinking that you expose something like this, prosecute a few people, and thus a) get people satisfied that right has been done and b) demonstrate that you can't possibly be doing unpleasant things elsewhere, because if you were whoever was doing them would be similarly picked up and prosecuted.

So we must be doing the right thing in Falluja, after all; those 600 people must be enemy insurgents, those ambulances full of people with rocketlaunchers, women and children dead because they were about to become suicide bombers, etc - because if there is a problem, we investigate it.

Having said that, there does seem to be a bit of a change going on out there with the withdrawal from Falluja etc - and local people seem to be ahead of the Pentagon. I wonder if there's been a little internal coup within the US political / military body? date=30.04.2004 12:53 ip=62.188.112.34 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and according to the BBC news website Blair is apparently 'appalled' by pictures of Iraqi prison abuses - could this finally lead to criticism of GWB from him? I will be dancing in the streets. date=30.04.2004 13:07 ip=62.188.108.11 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Nobody underestimates how wrong this is," apparently. Moral and grammatical woolliness aside, I think the true shock in Whitehall is that an "embedded" source had a camera at the time and that the pictures got out. Otherwise, it was simply business as usual. date=30.04.2004 13:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and, on music - it's not just Mozart; Bach, Hawaian music, etc can sort you out too -

http://starbulletin.com/2004/04/29/news/story10.html
Nobody underestimates? This and the coffins, it's a bad week for leaks. date=30.04.2004 13:49 ip=62.188.120.199 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blair seems comfortable with himself, happy with himself, satisfied with life, enjoying the challenge. This is normal. Politicians don't get vomited from the body politic just because they are incompetent. Instead reaffirmations of normality are expected. My god, he's shocked! American troops are in a country where the 'bad' guy is (potentially) anyone and everyone; so they enforce a policy of killing every shadow that threatens; they also include a few shadows that just irritate; and incidentally they kill over 600 people in Fallujah in revenge for the four American killings, there is - in general - no body count of Iraqis, and so on and so forth, and Blair is surprised by these new revelations. It's normal. date=30.04.2004 13:49 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoops, sorry about that... date=30.04.2004 13:49 ip=62.188.120.199 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: No worries - I'm the last person you should apologise to! - :)) date=30.04.2004 13:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't want to rant, but I was in Prague over Easter and much is made of a village - Lidice - that was destroyed by the Nazis in revenge for the death of Reinhard Heydrich. 173 men killed, 198 women sent to Ravensbruck conc camp, 89 children sent to camps / forcibly fostered, etc. So that's 460 people in total.

I just can't see a moral difference between that and besieging a town, killing 600 people because 4 *contractors* have been killed, tho' at least Faluja is (broadly speaking) still standing.

*sigh* date=30.04.2004 13:55 ip=62.188.120.199 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: *sigh* indeed. Going back to an old post, I read Gita Serenyi's book on Albert Speer. She tracked down children or relatives of leading Nazis to see how they'd coped with such an unthinkable inheritance. One of them was Heydrich's nephew. He'd become a performer, a raconteur, specialising in renditions of Jewish poetry. He accepted this was woefully inadequate - but added that at least he was bearing witness. The rest of his family refused to discuss Heydrich or express the slightest responsibility or remorse for what he had done and the massacre that followed his death. date=30.04.2004 14:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Oh, and, on music - it's not just Mozart; Bach, Hawaian music, etc can sort you out too -

http://starbulletin.com/2004/04/29/news/story10.html
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=y underestimates? This and the coffins, it's a bad week for leaks. ip=e=30.04.2004 13:49 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I deleted yr wonkiness. date=30.04.2004 14:08 ip=158.94.148.108 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In the present instance, I keep coming back to this:

"We had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations."

Here is a man who has to be *told* not to sit on top of a prisoner and commit "an act of indecency". Otherwise he is able to claim that he wasn't given clear procedural guidelines. What kind of culture does he come from ? One where parents of toddlers never even say, Don't do that, dear, the other little boy doesn't like it ? Is he claiming to have no moral sensibility, and no way of forming ideas and judgements of his own ? Is his culture going to *allow* him to claim that ?

Do you see what I mean ? date=30.04.2004 14:36 ip=213.78.91.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: That's an interesting emphasis. Those in power refuse to accept that they bear any responsibility for this situation; so perhaps this is where the soldier is taking his cue from: "I was trying to do the right thing so it's not my fault." (that 600 people were killed; that they ripped up the Middle East road map; that there were no weapons of mass destruction; that this soldier wasn't told not to sexually abuse prisoners, etc.)

Over the coming years I would guess that there is going to be massive fall out from those derelictions; it is going to go on and on. Who is, or who was, responsible? date=30.04.2004 14:50 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At the risk of stereotyping: this is the sort of behaviour that we *expect* from off duty squaddies. In some sad way this is not actually unusual behaviour. People inhabiting this sort of moral vacuum become soldiers - either that or some sort of less socially sanctioned monster. I expect photos will eventually come to light of British troops commiting similar atrocities, or even if they don't it doesn't seem unlikely that such things are and have been occurring.

And if this is what can be expected of the regular military. How much more so for "security consultants". Does anyone know why those four consultants were killed and mutilated by a mob? date=30.04.2004 14:54 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Do you see what I mean?

All too well. Classic fascist personality. "I won't do anything unless daddy says so."

And this is all fathers and sons: Bush avenging his dad, Blair looking for the strong father he missed growing up and finding him in Dubya. Sophocles would have written a play around that, and called it a tragedy; Sophocles would have been fucking right, too. date=30.04.2004 14:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On fathers - Woodward talking about Bush in the light of his new book:

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’" date=30.04.2004 15:12 ip=62.188.120.171 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A trinity come to think of it; Blair, Bush, Bush's Higher Dad. Son, Father, Holy Ghost...!

Bush's inner dad scares me; coming from deep within him, entirely partitioned from his conscious self, and absolutely uncriticisable - as He's God! date=30.04.2004 15:18 ip=62.188.120.171 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, so it's God's fault.

io: As far as I know the 4 contractor/security men had done nothing wrong; but they were driving an enviably new 4X4. After witnessing repeated arbitrary killings by American soldiers Iraqis wanted to do some killing of their own. It was also going to intimidate the American contractors of course and so stall American involvement in the reconstruction. date=30.04.2004 15:19 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and tripling up - interestingly, Al-Jazeera aren't even mentioning the prison guard thing:

http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage

At least, not just now. Clearly it's not news to them; this kind of brutality perhaps so common it's not worth reporting. date=30.04.2004 15:20 ip=62.188.120.171 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry! One more - it is successfully divering news agent from the US *it's not a retreat* from Falluja, while also giving everyone a shot of righteous indignation / right has been done by us. date=30.04.2004 15:21 ip=62.188.120.171 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: My thoughts exactly on reading the Guardian piece.

"You mean... this Gee-neeva convention thang says you cain't make a nekkid pyramid out of yer pris'ners and have yer way with them? Well, shee-it! How in hell was I s'pposed to know that, durn it?" date=30.04.2004 15:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure even the OT God didn't ask Abraham to sit on top of a Isaac and commit "an act of indecency", or if he did he would have backed off at the last minute. date=30.04.2004 15:29 ip=158.94.148.108 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What horrifies me about Chip's defence is this:

Cultures see themselves as having a duty to pass on their idea of moral behaviour. Indeed they define themselves by that act. It is so central a function of culture that the US was able to argue that they were in Iraq for precisely cultural reasons: the human rights "free" people can expect were not being observed there, and it was therefore intuitively evident that something should be done.

Yet here we have a representative of the US culture claiming he has never been given any moral guidance in his life as an American; that he has never been given general rules which allow him to generate moral solutions in particular circumstances; and that when faced with any topical moral decision--indeed every topical moral decision--he has to be given a specific rule for it. He has to have a rulebook which specifically forbids whatever piece of behaviour he thought up that day. His argument in his own defence is not just that he's a moral imbecile; but that, despite coming from a culture which makes a complete meal of the notion of "independence" in individuals, he can't be trusted to make a moral decision on his own. Some citizen.

But who--operating from out of, and by definition also representing, US culture and its mores--advised him that this was an argument worth trying ? date=30.04.2004 15:50 ip=213.78.91.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>But who ... advised him that this was an argument worth trying ?

What I see the soldier as doing is indirectly complaining; no one advised him but he feels hard done by; he is complaining, like the school boy that he probably still is mentally and emotionally, about the general failure of his superiors to provide him with guidance, responsibility, attention. His defence probably embarrassed them. There has been a definite failure on the part of the allies in respect of defining what they are doing. We know for example that there is no body count of killed Iraqis: what message does that send, to both the American soldiers and the Iraqis? "These people are nothing." (Also that this war is not about Freedom.) In such circumstances what do a bunch of 'no good' living Iraqis represent? Fodder. It's like the Americans are dealing not with people but beings who they have no clear idea about the nature of, and are inclined to regard as inferior to them. date=30.04.2004 16:53 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= "If he displays hostile intent, drop him," the other Marine whispered. The man in the white robe kept gardening, apparently oblivious.

Impatient, the other Marine squeezed off one warning round from his M-16, and the man scurried back inside.

"Nobody should be on these streets now," Browne remarked, still squinting down his gunsight. "We gave them a chance to leave, and if they didn't, chances are they are up to no good." By this point, he confided, "I don't really think of them as people any more."

Ref: http://tinyurl.com/2wtrr date=30.04.2004 16:59 ip=158.94.148.108 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was struck by the comment when the fighting started:

"Frankly, it lifted the battalion's spirits to be pushing instead of waving and smiling."

You don't say ... date=30.04.2004 17:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I expect photos will eventually come to light of British troops commiting similar atrocities, or even if they don't it doesn't seem unlikely that such things are and have been occurring.

Right on the button, io, as ever. I wonder if the Brit will accuse himself being a moral imbecile too ? date=01.05.2004 11:40 ip=213.78.70.119 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: shocking but predictable news today.

Something that puzzles me. I know the Guardian is trying to be objective and measured in its leader comments, but I still don't understand their tone. "A yellow card, yes. But this is not a red card moment." [for Blair]

Now, excuse me if I am being stupid, but I would have thought that Blair's "red card moments" as it seems to rather vapidly characterise them, have been many over the past few years. So we have liberated the Iraqi people! Why are the Guardian Leaders so tame? I know, I I have an idea, I will write and ask. Something along the lines of: Jesus effing Christ, wake up. date=01.05.2004 18:53 ip=62.64.206.146 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Right on the button

MJH: I would have rather been wrong about that particular prophecy. I hate it when people are as shit as you expect them to be.

MJP: Thanks for the tip off on Murder One. In their second hand section we found a huge stack of EC Tubb novels and a brilliantly gaudy Frank Belknap Long book called Odd Science Fiction: "This novel was written inside a capsule, traveling through space to a land where humanity still uses materialistic symbols to enforce its evil will, but in a dimension we should hope never to know..."

New Odd anyone? date=02.05.2004 11:56 ip=81.153.4.163 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: EC Tubb? Damn I forgot to look for him. I came away with a predictable pile of second hand Van Vogts. date=04.05.2004 00:30 ip=62.64.226.19 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, moving to imaginary horrors for second -

Interesting article on Lovecraft in the current "Fortean Times" -

http://www.forteantimes.com/mag_info/this_issue.shtml

- including photos of the manuscript of "Charles Dexter Ward" and the house HPL used for "Pickman's Model." date=04.05.2004 10:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP - curse you! I have been looking for Van Vogts down there lately and there are none left! I think you must have cleaned them out. date=04.05.2004 11:01 ip=62.188.145.226 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Who me? Um. I never said I wasn't greedy. But I did think I left some. date=04.05.2004 12:00 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, to be fair, there was one down there when I last looked... tho' have been looking for Space Bagel and can't find that anywhere.

Still, stuck into new Iain Sinclair at the mo; fascinating read, he's dissecting the fictitious / mythic self he's built up over previous books etc, with no little glee. date=04.05.2004 12:06 ip=62.188.100.81 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I saw at least one Van Vogt on the secondhand shelves. There's also a few Tubbs left - either ones I already have or far later in the late twenties of the Dumarest series. I really think I'm incapable of reading SF as anything but junk food these days. Particularly enamored of Tubb's way with anthropomorphic measurements ("The tusk of the creature was the height of two men...") as well as his gnosis of sensation. ("His rib was cracked. When he breathed in he knew a world of pain...") date=04.05.2004 12:15 ip=158.94.144.47 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Hmm, looks like it might be worth getting that issue of FT. (New) Oddly enough one of the members of the Stella maris Drone Orchestra used to work for them. date=04.05.2004 12:18 ip=158.94.144.47 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Interested in what you say about Sinclair. From the reviews, I thought this was "the mixture as before" : but perhaps I should check it out. date=04.05.2004 12:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: It's an ironic take on HPL as a rational materialist being adopted by modern occultists - including some who get stoned and try to summon up Cthulu and Shub Niggurath from their unconscious.

As if there wasn't enough trouble in the world ... date=04.05.2004 12:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>As if there wasn't enough trouble in the world ...

Crazy meddling fools! Don't they know their Eternal Souls are at risk? date=04.05.2004 13:00 ip=158.94.144.47 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wasn't there a book in part about HPL and his uptake in the 60s? By Gary Lachman, ex Blondie Bassist, if I remember correctly. Something in the Head?

Martin - it's a very interesting read. I thought that London Orbital didn't work, because it was same schtick, different place; IS goes to somewhere along the M25, ponders its occult history, pronounces on it, moves on - and so on for a whole book. Almost occult Pooter in parts. I think he's realised the limitations of that version of himself and is actively sending it up / taking it to pieces / leaving it for dead in 'Dining on Stones'. V. interesting read, some wonderful prose, and a new emotional tenderness in there.

Also, given that it's in part about about the problems of dealing with a successfully fictionalised self, apt reading given previous discussions! And with the way that a previous, vivid fictionalisation of personal experience can become a repetitive, self-feeding tic. date=04.05.2004 14:17 ip=62.188.142.203 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and my yoga teacher's mum developed a whole set of HPL based meditations in San Francisco in the late 60s. Sadly have never gone through any of them with her. If I start looking more batrachian than usual at any point you'll know she's dusted them down and given them a go... date=04.05.2004 14:19 ip=62.188.142.203 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And finally -

”There's a lot of people in the world who don't believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern...I believe that people whose skins aren't necessarily—are a different color than white can self-govern."

GWB on Friday. It's now a war against racism! date=04.05.2004 14:22 ip=62.188.142.203 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: The clear leadership of the free world we've come to expect, from someone who isn't necessarily skin. Or not.

Lachman: "Switch Off Your Mind" was a general survey of Uncle Tom Crowley and all. He also came out with "The Daedalus Book of the Occult." Still kicking round the remainder shops is his memoirs, "New York Rocker" - Uncle Tom Verlaine and all, including a coked-up Bowie insisting that Colin Wilson was head of a Cornish coven. You don't have to be a gnome to laugh at that one. date=04.05.2004 14:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here is a reassuring note about the ongoing political situation from David Byrne, a dream of Apocalypse Now:

http://www.davidbyrne.com/tour_journal_04.html date=04.05.2004 15:16 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>And with the way that a previous, vivid fictionalisation of personal experience can become a repetitive, self-feeding tic.

(1) This applies to all forms of writing, not just the more evident examples of experiential fiction. (2) The only way to move on is actually do something different. (3) You sometimes think you have and then find you haven't. (4) Equally, you sometimes move on without realising until later that it happened.

(5) The main thing to do is to remember that this repeating quandary of self-recognition is yours (it is also central, energy-generating and fun), and not accept "objective" descriptions of it in your work, any more than you would look for any other kind of outside validation. Guess what ? Audiences, critics, other writers, friends, enemies, agents, editors, therapists and in-laws all have an infallible nose for any self-questioning or lack of confidence you might display; and an agenda you could further if you just took their advice about which direction to go in next... Recognise yourself, panic or laugh, make change or not, risk the loss of your original audience and the gain of a new one, but don't allow anyone else to define your relationship to yourself through your work. date=04.05.2004 15:29 ip=213.78.91.9 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: that was some of the meaning of Lucas's gorgeous rant in CotH, (p120, Flamingo ed), where he goes, "You haul yourself over the wall, you glimpse new country..." Lots of other meanings in there, of course. date=04.05.2004 15:42 ip=213.78.91.9 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of meanings, I'm just re-reading that 'Light'. Getting some of the jokes I didn't get first time round. Did you intend it to be read as a comic novel on any level, Mike? date=04.05.2004 16:17 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, *I* laughed!

A stupid thing to say, maybe - but in these days of instant fiction (just add reader), I got more and more out of "Light" and "Signs of Life" the second (or nth) time I opened them. "CoTH" has so many porcupine quills of subtext, implication, dodgy narrator etc. that no one could catch it all first time through. The other books seemed simpler, but ("Light" especially) only came together for me later on. Mea culpa, etc. date=04.05.2004 16:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The writing that I am trying to achieve at the moment, which is non-fictional, that is, is philosophy but written as poetic composition, aims at the expression of a longing that can't be fathomed. If it works it should hit the reader like a blow, like a total surprise.

It is amazing what a technical exercise that has turned out to be. date=04.05.2004 17:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The idea is you should be able to use one level of meaning, one way of operating, to can-opener another (or others). I guess you could read Light without reading for laughs: but you might lose a degree of access, even to Michael & Anna. There's a lot of operating mechanisms, from the sort of generalised level--like "read as black humour"; to very speciific small-scale sets of instructions like Anna (Annie) = Anima, and/or Anna (Annie) = Anaglyph, an instruction that you have to regard those two characters as hypostatic and serving anima functions in and between their separate narrative streams; but also a clue that maybe you could use anima concepts on the novel itself. At that small scale a lot of people are so busy congratulating themselves for getting the easy Billy (W)Anker they miss the Billy Anchor hidden inside.

I think the least mined of the novels is Signs of Life. It looks easy, but if you think it can be operated by its own surface you'll come away completely puzzled and angry. "It will," as Laura Viers says of her pearl, "never self-disclose..." date=04.05.2004 17:20 ip=213.78.64.229 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>The idea is you should be able to use one level of meaning, one way of operating, to can-opener another (or others).

Or: to mirror others. (?)

So that things move along but remain identifiable.

One of the clues that I use for trying to understand how I should go about writing is to think of it as like a melody played by different instruments. Each instrument 'changes' the melody, but there is still an identifiable song.

One can *essay* something in these terms. (That’s how CotH is constructed, I believe; I still need to re-read Light.) I like the way Tarkovsky uses camera shots in to this effect. Basically, a sustained idea of whatever is being presented is maintained by breaking it down – that is, not by showing ‘what it is’, but by exploring its facets. One is given not ‘the thing’ (ie a naïve token of what we are supposed to think, see, etc,) but a version of ‘might actually happen’ eg when the protagonist awakes in The Sacrifice, to discover that the world has reverted to normal. There is not just one response (“hooray” /tears) but a whole series of them, each carefully orchestrated. The protagonist gets off the couch, walks across the room, bangs his knee out of distraction (comedy), has a drink (self-indulgence), rings a work colleague (professionalism, sobriety), etc. In virtually every scene this is how Tarkovsky sets things up; there are constant tonal alterations in the scene in front of us. It is very technical but (for me anyway) breathtakingly wonderful. date=04.05.2004 18:18 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Possibly invoking Lovecraftian gods via Scrabble: http://heybro.com/badscrabble/ date=05.05.2004 11:16 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New French interview with MJH:

http://tinyurl.com/3y548

Translation for non-francophones further down the page. date=05.05.2004 11:33 ip=158.94.125.62 name=Dan mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks like I may be at a loose end in London tomorrow (Thursday) night. Anyone up to anything? Io: car, and hence bass, is an option. date=05.05.2004 12:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: let me think about that, I'm not sure what I'm doing. Alex, when are you due down here next ? Putney, where you ended up drinking last time, is so close to me it would be a sin not to organise something.

I like some bits of that French interview. Meanwhile Lara Pawson & Julian Richards, who're up from Sierra Leone into Mali to do journalism, have sent me *the* most brilliant horse's skull pic. It would make a cover for almost any book of mine since 1980. As we speak, I'm negotiating to get it on the site. (io, I've also got a jpeg of the Bantam Spectra cover for Light, which I'll send you.) date=05.05.2004 13:05 ip=213.78.68.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Quasi inconnu," eh? Sounds quite distinguished! -:)) date=05.05.2004 13:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I can't guarantee to be in Putney next time, but I think I may be down next Tuesday. I'll let you know. date=05.05.2004 13:13 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I shd be free tomorrow evening. If you fancy jamming yr very welcome to come over, if you (and anyone else?) fancy doing anything more social: p'raps we could do that? date=05.05.2004 13:36 ip=158.94.144.47 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The weirdest horse's skull on the Net seems to be G. O'Keefe's image - with the pink rose:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/freed/okeeffe/bone s.html

(nice photo of her gather ing bones in the desert, too) date=05.05.2004 14:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=O' Keefe's skulls: They're cool but they're not crude enough for me, or undecodable enough. They aren't empty cardboard box in the rain enough. They don't look purposeful yet ritually derelict, they don't look as if they come from a culture you're failing to understand; also, they don't look like the opposite of that, ie accidental artifacts, found objects, things you might stumble over on a rubbish tip that aren't artifactual at all except by an act of over-interpretation, over-investment. They don't sit on that pure edge between the meaningful and the contingent.

Etc etc etc. date=05.05.2004 14:32 ip=213.78.68.1 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: here's a picture of the horse head thing I encountered last Christmas.
http://tinyurl.com/2lss6 date=05.05.2004 14:35 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: The harlequin's mask in the bottom photo is quite scary enough! date=05.05.2004 14:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's Beelzebub. date=05.05.2004 14:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You're telling me. Was this a "come as you like" do, or a ritualistic seeing-to? Pardon my curiosity. date=05.05.2004 14:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was a Mummers Play. They turn up in the pub when you're at your most vulnerable and do their play. Much shouting and tommfoolery, and this dreadful clacking horse head. date=05.05.2004 15:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=By God, they've tidied him up a bit. Did you get a close look at that skull, Alex ? I mean, while it was trying to kiss your ear or whatever ? date=05.05.2004 15:23 ip=213.78.86.177 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it was a proper skull, about 40 years in the same job. Incidentally, there was a pub I used to go to in Herefordshire called the Portway: they found a whole bunch of horse skulls screwed to the underside of the floor. 20 or 30 of them. No-one seemed to know why. date=05.05.2004 15:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Horse's Skulls: here's something I spotted in Cornwall last summer: http://tinyurl.com/39ypf - I think it's more likely a cow, but still fun. Do cows eat birds?

Then there was this one in the automata museum in nearby Penzance:
http://tinyurl.com/3xrvo - from what I remember, the Oss's jaw moved as it talked to you. date=05.05.2004 15:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>they found a whole bunch of horse skulls screwed to the underside of the floor. 20 or 30 of them. No-one seemed to know why.

Now we're talking. date=05.05.2004 15:38 ip=213.116.62.169 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, if that first one had been a horse it would make a good cover for an eventual MJH/Iain Banks anthology.

Personally, I like the French sci-fi MJH covers. It was funny reading that interview - the French have an archaeologist's view of MJH, pieced together via the available (inadequate) evidence. date=05.05.2004 15:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=interesting:

"Eight horse skulls were discovered in 1883 in the stonework of the pulpit at Bristol Street meeting house in Edinburgh, Scotland; others were discovered embedded in the foundation of the choir stalls at Llandraff Cathedral, Wales." date=05.05.2004 15:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How about this?:

http://www2.nau.edu/~libei-p/scadb/imagedisplay.cf m?item_num=9145&type=Image

Found it while looking for picture of the v. spooky mummified cow in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Which is just near some of these:

http://www.ancient-mysteries.com/testpart/cairomus eum/Museum/mus5/mus5.html
http://bellsouthpwp.net/s/v/svonb erg/lj072003/monkeymummy.jpg date=05.05.2004 15:53 ip=62.188.112.46 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool monkies!

When I visited Cairo Museum, the first thing I hunted down was the mummified cats. date=05.05.2004 16:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*eys even date=05.05.2004 16:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>MJH: here's a picture of the horse head thing I encountered last Christmas.
http://tinyurl.com/2lss6

Looks like outtakes from the filming of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. date=05.05.2004 16:14 ip=158.94.144.47 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

Ooh good! *reaches for bumper book of Sir Henry quotes*


*gets shot* date=05.05.2004 16:20 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="If I had all the money I've spent on drink ..."

"Mind over batter?"

"Madam, I wouldn't have liked to have been the first!"

And so on ... date=05.05.2004 16:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="That was inedible muck and there wasn't enough of it!" date=05.05.2004 16:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That new cover for Climbers: he's not doing much of a climb, is he? I could do that. date=05.05.2004 16:51 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Maybe we can't see the 4,000 feet under the photo ...

Cool design, though, Mr. Banks qiote and all. date=05.05.2004 16:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ahem: "quote," that should be ... date=05.05.2004 16:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: French MJH titles - interesting change for "Light." It sounds really sonorous in French, but in English - "The Shadow of the Schrander." You'd spray Borders with saliva just asking if it was in stock! date=05.05.2004 17:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sounds like a Doctor Who series. date=05.05.2004 17:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Isn't "ombre" literally cloud? Perhaps "The Schrander Nebula" or something? date=05.05.2004 17:55 ip=158.94.144.47 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The Shadow of the Schrander."

That's difficult. But what are the alternatives? The translater has chosen darkness over light.

The Schrander?

The Shade?

The Shrander's Penumbra? (Oi oi)

The Shadow.

The Dimn.

Heavy Light: Flat Deep. date=05.05.2004 17:55 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: That's the Sugar Loaf boulder at Caley. I don't know it, but the bit you climb probably looks something like this (also a boulder at Caley)--

http://www.dangeroussite.com/images/gallery/Non% 20peak%20grit/paul.jpg

I don't know why the guy in the Climbers photo is using ropes & a helmet--seems a bit old fashioned, probably an old pic. & Martin may be right, there may be drop-off we can't see; or there might be a nasty landing. As I say, I don't know Caley, although I visited most of the classic Yorkshire grit at one time or another. I hated it: it's always raining or just finished raining or just about to rain, & the grading's always a joke. date=05.05.2004 17:59 ip=213.78.65.211 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Isn't "ombre" literally cloud?

Ah no, maybe not! There goes my GCSE french... date=05.05.2004 18:13 ip=158.94.165.255 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I stand humiliated.

Anyway, I think the French Light should be called Andre Thresh. date=05.05.2004 18:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think the French Light should be called Andre Thresh.

I'll ask them to change that then. The cover, from what can be seen of it, seems ok. I wouldn't complain anyway-- Benedicte Lombardo is the most attractive woman in sf, so anything she does is just fine with me. date=05.05.2004 18:35 ip=213.78.65.211 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the lilac-topped covers that grabbed my fancy, they have a kind of angular 60s feel that reminds me of the kitchen tiles Gill just bought off EBay.

I'll get back to my packing then... date=05.05.2004 23:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Andre Thresh mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harrison est-il rentable ? date=06.05.2004 10:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's an interesting interview MJH. One of the 'problems' of sf - for instance one of the reasons why Tarkovsky wanted to reject sf forms, even while using them covertly, to use sf's possibilities and yet to do away with its attendant iconography and surface logic - I would guess is that sf is anti-verisimilitude: anti truth-like. Necessarily or categorically. Putting people in a space ship, using this as a fictional idea, for example, or as a thematic stratagem, is necessarily unreal; it has nothing to do with truth-to-experience; not in any everyday sense, which is the sense that counts for most people. So it appears inherently false as fiction; rather a than 'true to life' picture, there is a ‘false to life picture’; however true scientifically it may be, ie however well-grounded in research and real possibility. That seems to me to be the fundamental characteristic of sf, at least typically. That bit you say about rejecting life in favour of virtuality is complicated by that. We have a tendency to dismiss our unreality. ("That can't be true!") date=06.05.2004 10:34 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Benedicte ...

I don't think in just sf, either. Ah, me. Quelle finesse.

>L'Ombre ...

Maybe it's a part Spanish translation - "Schrander Man" ...

No French version of CotH, though? I'd have thought there'd be a big Gallic readership for existential magick and European metafiction. Perhaps the bit about Joan of Arc and the goat creature put them off? No pleasing some folk. date=06.05.2004 10:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=06.05.2004 11:02 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Folks
What happened? I swear I had written a post. date=06.05.2004 11:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, MJP
If Borges is to be trusted, H.G.Wells made fun of Verne’s outrage at Well’s own lack of scientific grounding on his writing. “ He makes things up” Verne is supposed to have said while Wells answered that he wrote about things that were impossible and would remain so. But even son, Wells remain readable because however removed from ordinary experience he was involved in a deeper lever of verisimilitude and one that cannot be easily explained away. You can read his Martians relationship to earth as a denunciation of nineteen-century European politics but I think that is also feasible to read it as an “animal rights” tract. date=06.05.2004 11:05 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=L'Ombre ...

Maybe it's a part Spanish translation - "Schrander Man" ...
___________________
Hi, Martin.
That would be " Schrander´s man". Oddly appropriate, I would say date=06.05.2004 11:07 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: "Schrander Man" ...I knew we should have consulted an expert!

Wells & animal rights: "Dr. Moreau" even more so. date=06.05.2004 11:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Martin

________________
Wells & animal rights: "Dr. Moreau" even more so.
___________
Yes. But it can be read as a book on religion too. date=06.05.2004 11:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>No French version of CotH

I wonder what they would translate the Coeur as? date=06.05.2004 11:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Arturo!

Loads of interpretations built into it: religion, social Darwinism, economic repression - and colonialism. No great leap of the imagination to picture a 2004 version set in Iraq. date=06.05.2004 11:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Alex: it's the old joke. "What's French for 'Paris,' then?" date=06.05.2004 11:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin - picture? It's live on TV... for once HGW would come over as behind the times if he tried to rewrite that now. Enemy as cattle, displaced populations, massive technological gap, alien motivations - we've got it all! date=06.05.2004 11:41 ip=62.188.145.149 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi,Al.
On Irak:
My partner is a psychologist; She works with children who have faulty learning skills, many on them with below average intelligence. She tells me that such children are able of a very low level of moral reasoning and that the explanation offered by the American soldiers – nobody told me I couldn’t do that- is quite typical of them when caught in some misbehavior. Could it be that idiots –meant´t not as an insult but as a description - are fighting this war? date=06.05.2004 11:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Enemy as cattle ...

And dogs. That dreadful photo of a prisoner on a lead. Unless they're all fakes filmed at the "Daily Mirror" HQ.

I think Nietzsche predicted this century would see everything fall apart into bestial chaos, so it looks like the old syphilitic might have had both vision and entropy on his side after all. Anyone know a practical way of quitting the planet for the working man? date=06.05.2004 11:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: it reminds me of some of Yossarian's arguments in Catch 22. Why would any sane person want to put themselves in a situation where people would try to kill you? date=06.05.2004 11:55 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, interesting thought... Makes me think also of Greg Palast's rants about the American public education system, specifically designed (for him) to turn out lowest common demoninator thinking.

Doesn't stop with the troops; did you see the President's spokeseman's comment on why GWB didn't apologise directly yesterday? The arab TV stations didn't press him for an apology. 'It wasn't my fault...'

Interesting also the way that having a woman so prominent in these pix must be strongly reinforcing Arab sense of Western Women as depraved, sexually obsessed, etc. date=06.05.2004 11:56 ip=62.188.105.17 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al. But routinary day to day life in this country goes on unchanged, same as it ever was. The catastrophe goes on barely remarked (typically).

HGW is a special case in sf, when you look at its subsequent history. The comfortable Edwardian manners; teh pre- two world war vision of humanity. The relative simplicity of science; a rounded man of learning could be expected to encompass it in all its essentials without too much trouble.

Verisimilitude should be distinguished from resonance - I think. Dr Moreau; War of the Worlds; etc have all kinds of resonances; and a verisimilitude of voice - the assured Edwardian manners - missing from later sf. (In the same way eg Gulliver's travels has a verisimilitude but it isn't true to life. Its verisimilitude is transparently fake; the 'real' sense of Gulliver is the way it resonantes in so many ways. date=06.05.2004 11:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - but don't you get the feeling of waiting? *IT* is going to happen at some point, it's just question of when. Whenever I leave London, I wonder if the *terrorist thing* will happen when I'm gone.

No doubt all the Martians back home pottered happily along the canals, about their daily business. 'We're all Martians now'.

As for HGW and co - love that clash between Imperial confidence / complacency and utter, out and out weirdness. Think HGW plays with it very well. Nightmares raging in the Strand Magazine. date=06.05.2004 12:14 ip=62.188.146.135 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP
Of course, both Wells and Swift are giants of the field. On “Moreau” and “Gulliver” they both start in a realistic enough way: with trustworthy narrators thrown away in a strange island(s). I think it is worth pointing out that both of those end up mad and thus not to be believed. This throwing away of verisimilitude goes back even further to Lucian of Samosata with that extraordinary opening paragraph “ I write about things I know nothing about and about which nobody trustworthy has told me anything so don’t pay any attention” (I am quoting from memory and translating to English so it should come out quite garbled) date=06.05.2004 12:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A quick and easy guide to SF/F from a marketing point of view: http://tinyurl.com/3fqoh date=06.05.2004 12:20 ip=158.94.144.47 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>“ I write about things I know nothing about and about which nobody trustworthy has told me anything so don’t pay any attention”

Nice one, Arturo, the only possible authentic stance, and one which ought to be applied to MJP's concept of "unrealities".

Hi MJP. Glad you liked the interview. You only have to watch five minutes of a Star Trek episode or a LotR movie to see why some of us "have a tendency to dismiss our unreality". The majority of our unreality is bollox, that's why. The attempt at "suspension of disbelief" means it doesn't even have the saving grace of being avowedly--or purposefully--pantomimic. Sf users, like boy band users, want to *believe* in these "unrealities". Which brings us back to the West, the slippery, self-catalysed mass of fantasy structures that convinces its addicts they are taking part in the adventure. Welcome to Posh & Becks World. As long as contemporary f/sf is using its deep experience of the fraud of "unrealities" to dig into that at one level or another, fine. In using itself to examine its own impulses, f/sf has an opportunity to investigate the world as now constituted and thus take part in--even replace--the project of "literary" fiction. Pity it doesn't understand that, as I said in the interview. Going to let a big opportunity slip, in pursuit of staying intellectually, morally, emotionally and humanly unambitious. date=06.05.2004 12:30 ip=213.78.92.174 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: Thanks

Io: "and Roger Selazny's Great Book of Amber" date=06.05.2004 12:38 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Andrew Thrush mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harrison est-il lisible ? date=06.05.2004 12:43 ip=213.78.92.174 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: are you aware that Tolkein suggested that the people who are most against the idea of escape are jailers? date=06.05.2004 12:43 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Andy Thrash mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=is that Harrison lickable? date=06.05.2004 12:44 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>people who are most against the idea of escape are jailers?

Deeply flawed. That's like saying the people who are most in favour of books are librarians... or authors for that matter. date=06.05.2004 12:46 ip=158.94.144.47 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: are you aware that Tolkein suggested that the people who are most against the idea of escape are jailers?
________
Hi,Alex
What about those who see no walls ? date=06.05.2004 12:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Deeply flawed

Sure. I wasn't suggesting I agreed with it. date=06.05.2004 13:18 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sure. I wasn't suggesting I agreed with it.

Yes. And I wasn't suggesting that you agreed with it either. I imagined the word "discuss" at the end of yr post. date=06.05.2004 13:22 ip=158.94.144.47 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had heard that, Alex. But I passed it off as having a bit of an obvious agenda. I'm not actually against escape, but somehow, though appalling, the world doesn't seem quite appalling enough for me to pretend to be an albino swordsmistress of chaos; or buy L'Oreal products on the grounds that they might, for a second, make me worth it. For instance, I would definitely rather be pissed on by a squaddie than read a Janny Wurtz book. date=06.05.2004 13:25 ip=62.188.26.204 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had heard that, Alex. But I passed it off as having a bit of an obvious agenda. I'm not actually against escape, but somehow, though appalling, the world doesn't seem quite appalling enough for me to pretend to be an albino swordsmistress of chaos; or buy L'Oreal products on the grounds that they might, for a second, make me worth it. For instance, I would definitely rather be pissed on by a squaddie than read a Janny Wurtz book. date=06.05.2004 13:31 ip=62.188.26.204 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJH I wonder if your interview has attracted any French readers to this site. It so, they might make themselves known and perhaps contribute their je ne sais quoi, to the discussion.

Me, I am all for escape. But I have to admit that a sense of nausea/horror sometimes takes hold of me as I contemplate end-to-end 800 page sagas in the f/sf sections of bookshops. A voice
in me says in a kind of reverse Loreal: "It's not worth it!"

But then the hankering for an easy-to-read-as-falling-off-a-log novel gets too strong. I have to negotiate with myself. As I edge past the Horror section I hear a voice saying: No no you've already read 3 Dean Koontz novels and that's enough. Then I say, with a backward glance: But mummy they are really easy to read. I want one ... Pretty high level stuff really.

It comes and it goes. date=06.05.2004 14:01 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is "easy to read" a separate point ? Also there is the automatic assumption that "easy to read" equates with crap. (The position of many generic editors, who thus contribute to this self-fulfilling prophecy.) Plenty of very good writers are perfectly lisible without surrendering the worth of their ideas & observations. I have a problem with the whole idea of schlock as relaxation--I find it very hard to read, and I don't relax as a result of reading it. It precisely doesn't encourage me to suspend my disbelief. I find more "difficult" books easier to read, partly because they deliver on their promise--ie, they actually involve you, take you out of life by by taking you to some very specific case or part of it.

I've also heard "sometimes we all need to relax" used as a rationalisation, to dissemble a taste for trash, by people who actually never read a "difficult" book from one year's end to the next. (Sometimes those very publishing editors mentioned above, who got a lit degree 20 or 30 years ago and who haven't read anything that challenged them since, as if they feel they have to spend their whole lives recovering from the one intellectual effort they made.) But why dissemble ? If you've a passion for trash, exercise it, I say.

All this reading for pleasure (as if there's any other kind of reading) reminds me, MJP. Can you tell me anything about a contemporary philosopher called Alain Badiou ? I bought a book of his the other day called Infinite Thought. date=06.05.2004 14:43 ip=213.78.82.215 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, MJP
>>end-to-end 800 page sagas in the f/sf sections of bookshops
These days, eight hundred pages would be just the first volume of any self-respecting f/sf saga. date=06.05.2004 15:39 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Never read a "difficult" book ...

Things I gave up on years ago ("Moby Dick"; "Crime & Punishment") suddenly came focus recently, and I went through them amazed. So perhaps I should go back and take another look at books like "Godel, Escher, Bach" that defeated me utterly in the '80s. date=06.05.2004 16:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - those are two books that defeated me, maybe I should be doing the same. Iain S slowing down a little in middle of book, btb. date=06.05.2004 17:08 ip=62.188.108.250 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Things I gave up on years ago ... suddenly came into focus recently, and I went through them amazed.

I love it when that happens. But Godel, Escher, Bach is going to defeat you for different reasons than Crime & Punishment, I'd have thought. Speaking as someone completely defeated by it. Twice. date=06.05.2004 17:27 ip=213.78.68.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Twice.

Good to know it's not just me, then.

Also just started reading Friedrich Durrenmatt - "The Pledge" (basis for the Nicholson film) and "Once a Greek." Old news to some, I'm sure, but I'd recommend him. date=06.05.2004 18:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Twice.

Good to know it's not just me, then.
______________
Count me in. date=06.05.2004 18:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Got defeated by Nostromo and The Magic Mountain. But then again there were other difficult texts - like The Satanic Verses or Portrait of the Artist that I did finish but probably would have given up on far sooner these days.

But in the case of LotR, which was where we came in, I didn't find that a particularly easy read. It's a bit lumpy, and as for the fucking poetry! But parents will encourage children (even before the film) to read it because it's *not* trash. They'll even make a lot of it being written by a professor of Anglo-Saxon and all of that to emphasise that it's not trash. date=06.05.2004 19:30 ip=217.43.15.21 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Is easy to read a separate point?

I sometimes find myself tempted to buy in to the whole trip. In an airport to read an 'airport' novel. The kind that supplies instant immersion. Like some people get beer in for the big match or something. But that is habit oriented. And my efforts need to go towards changing my habits; to get myself reading things that normally I wont read; to be less at the centre of the mirror. I am Mr Monotony. Possibly that is partly why those endless fantasy serial novels horrify me. My god look at those ingrained habits! They give me kind of unconscious dig in the ribs. Habit!

Alain Badiou: you are ahead of me there Mike. Great title (Infinite Thought) and something I was tempted to get recently; probably will get it. He seems to be one of a cluster of recent liberal European thinkers whose values are basically religious. The endlessly sophisticated philosophical and political ideas they have at their command make them a little revolutionary I think. Others are e.g. Zizek and Agamben. Agamben is the most impressive to me. date=06.05.2004 19:43 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Nostromo and Magic Mountain: read em both. I found Magic Mountain an easy read, clear; if a bit abstract at times. I lurve those Marxist discussions. date=06.05.2004 19:48 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't read The Magic Mountain since Mann was required reading for your Higher New Wave Certificate in 1968. Got through it, I guess, but always found Mann plodding and, well... Germanic. Sorry. Really loved The Secret Agent, but found the rest of Conrad a bit plodding too, got stuck at page 63 of Nostromo several times; and never actually located the subject matter of Heart of Darkness in the text itself--I only knew what it was about because everyone told me for years how significant and moving etc etc it is when he goes the horror the horror.

Ford Madox Ford now, that's something else. Read him much later & without benefit of New Wave guidance, and absolutely loved The Good Soldier. Although I can't ever support him fully because I'm a raving Jean Rhys fan and clearly, dude, she was a million times better writer in six books than he was in 60, also better looking... Actually, it was Rhys, along with Mansfield, who put me on to the thing they don't want you to know about British fiction from the Edwardian period on, which is that the men were actually crap at it, bumbling along in their fat pompous logose just-about-post-Victorian way while the women were inventing everything new, writing shorter books and fewer of them. Well, except Dorothy Richardson, but though prolific-ish she is insanely readable compared to Conrad, partly because she talks about real stuff not the horror the horror.

I'm off to get more Talisker now. date=06.05.2004 23:51 ip=213.78.88.78 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No Talisker here - :(( - but otherwise a creeping sense of recognition for much of this. "Magic Mountain" : I pushed through the Penguin version to about p. 200 - then *another* philosophical monologue floored me for good (sorry, MJP); Conrad I've never been able to read (apart from "Heart of Darkness") - it's like chewing dry biscuits. "The Good Soldier," though - what a book. Rhys I haven't read, so I must add her to that ever-growing list.

Meanwhile, "Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind" -anyone seen it? Friends rave, but I haven't got there yet. date=07.05.2004 10:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, it's a Charlie Kaufman script, so it should be good... Never tried 'The Magic Mountain', but did have a go at 'Faust' when I was going through a bit of a 'Faust' phase. V. tough going, like being beaten up by a swamp, got about halfway throug it and gave up. 'Nostromo' a real slog, but at least I finished it. Always loved 'The Secret Agent', though, fantastic book. date=07.05.2004 11:03 ip=62.188.156.248 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm afraid I'm an unabashed pleb in that I find much 'classic' literature hard to enjoy. I can't read many books written before the 20thC - well, I'm sure I could, but I can't be bothered. However I have read, and enjoyed, Gravity's Rainbow. Help me, Doktor Book. date=07.05.2004 11:05 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Got *all* the way through Lord Jim. But yes, Conrad's prose is rather dry biscuits - perhaps dunked in salty sea water.

Magic Mountain: Perhaps it was the translation. I enjoyed Death in Venice, but it had the advantage of being a lot shorter. There's a lot to be said for short books. date=07.05.2004 11:12 ip=158.94.176.231 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: for me it's not so much Conrad's prose as the amount of what you might call structural time he takes to get anywhere. Presumably it reflects exactly the ponderousness of these thoughts he has, proper just-post-Victorian-male thoughts, properly considered. What a relief when people like Pritchett, Bates & Isherwood arrive and start writing somewhere nearer the speed of thought. Alex, I agree, though sometimes they shock you with their modernity. I could read Chekhov forever, also Madame Bovary. And you have to be careful of inverted snobbery about the past. Did you read Pynchon's V ? I love V.

Relevent piece by Gordon Burn in the Grauniad this morning-- http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,12 10634,00.html
--which made me have another look at my TLS review of North of England Home Service (in the ES archive somewhere). date=07.05.2004 11:28 ip=213.78.69.190 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoah! I step away for a day and suddenly... everything's entered my territory. I spent most of the last 10 years or so buried in "easy" reads (though I managed to steer clear of out-and-out pulp, and include in my easy reading stuff like Chandler and Ellroy which was easy [once you learn the language] but mind-enriching). Like Alex, I've got a bit of an allergy for anything pre-20th century, but I'm gradually treating that the same way they treat arachnaphobia--stick big scary 19th century French novels in front of me until I stop quaking. I'm currently devouring Herodotus, which is about as far from the 20th century as I could find, and it's full of vignettes that would give schlock-fantasy/horror a run for their money: those ancient Greeks really did have a thing for kidnapping their enemies sons, cooking them up and serving them on a plate dressed as pork.

The Magic Mountain has been staring at me from the bookshelf since my uncle gave me it a couple of years back (he wrote his BA German dissertation on it)... I think the time is approaching. "Germanic"... yes, I remember a period about ten years ago when I was immersing myself in a little bit of German (Hesse, Grass) and a lot of Czech (Skvorecky, Kundera) literature, and being amazed at the clearly obvious national characteristics of each type of writing, wondering how much this is caused by language and how much by outlook.

Meanwhile, it's nice for a change to see something mentioned here which I "got" but which seems to have gone over everyone else's heads - I read Gödel (hey, I suddenly see the point in typing on a Swedish keyboard: I can do umlauts no-problem even if I can't find a single punctuation mark) Escher Bach as part of my psychology degree, and got it to the extent that it totally changed my life (though I admit I took Hofstadter's word for it on some of the harder maths). I actually picked up a copy of it two weeks ago and was thinking of re-reading it.

Eternal Sunshine: saw it last week, felt it was good, not quite as good as I'd have liked it to have been, but not quite as annoying as the Guardian's review painted it to be. But don't ask me to justify this: I was drunk. Details here: http://www.sumption.org/lifeless/002532.html date=07.05.2004 11:32 ip=81.154.3.161 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Eternal Sunshine I'll check. Godel, Escher I think I'll pass up.

MJH: Good piece by Burn (though how you can buy a triple cd, as he says he did, and then never play it, I'm not sure) - I liked "North of England," but remember "Alma Cogan" as astonishing - though maybe this is his thesis about the dangerous allure of the past in action. I'll have to dig it out and see. date=07.05.2004 11:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, I think you could buy a triple CD and not play it if it was by The Magnetic Fields. I went to see them at the Hammersmith Lyric a couple of years ago & they struck me as deeply pretentious. Clever stuff for uni folks of a certain age. Nice to see that GB likes Four Tet though. Alma Cogan was amazing, but I liked North of England too. My review of it turns out *not* to be in the ES archive. I wonder why I thought it was ?

Dan: maybe you'd better try and educate us on GEB ? date=07.05.2004 12:07 ip=213.78.93.51 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I read V ages ago and remember nothing about it. What's Mason and Dixon like? I often see it in remainder shops. date=07.05.2004 12:11 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= "There is no moral confusion here: the photographers don't even seem aware that they are recording a war crime. There is no suggestion that they are documenting anything particularly morally skewed. For the person behind the camera, the aesthetic of pornography protects them from blame."

http://tinyurl.com/2sk2p date=07.05.2004 13:31 ip=158.94.176.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>My review of it turns out *not* to be in the ES archive. I wonder why I thought it was ?

Was it in the TLS? I don't recall it being in the stack of stuff I found there, or any of the ones you sent me for that matter. date=07.05.2004 14:16 ip=158.94.176.231 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=re the torture photos, Robert Fisk in the Independent argues strongly that the guards were following established techniques, certainly that they were not acting on their own; that the private contractors were probably the people who taught these techniques. So, who hired the private contractors? date=07.05.2004 16:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: some grisly clues offered here -

http://www.newsdissector.org/weblog/

- see the letters section and the article "Torture Not Unique." date=07.05.2004 17:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just read the Burn piece on the train back to Sheffield, was going to mention it here on my return but see Martin beat me to it. Burn's comment about iTunes is exactly what I've been experiencing, and meaning to write about, these last few weeks... during my London trip, I had a Memory-stick (appropriate name) full of MP3s burnt from a shuffled list of tracks I've given five-stars too, did the same with a CD in the car the other week, feels life-affirming to rediscover things I don't even remember telling iTunes I like (Ooberman's "Heavy Duty Hardcore" or McLusky's "Mi-o-Mai"). And just as good at home playing a random selection of *everything*, good and bad: it constantly re-arranges my synapses in surprising ways. Randomness is good for you.

Like Burn, I spend what often seems like too much of life wallowing in nostalgia, but at least by trying to constantly re-structure my nostalgia it feels I'm making something new of it.

And give me Boards of Canada over Dylan any day. It's a generational thing. (I've only recently "come to terms" with his harmonica abuse).

Funnily enough, I was contemplating the rights and wrongs of nostalgia last night - watched Mike Figgis's documentary on the British blues scene, part of the Scorsese-led series of blues documentaries, and pondered getting the DVD for my dad, as he was peripherally a part of that scene. But then I decided that too much nostalgia can be bad for a man (my mum & I just bought him CDs of most of George Harrison's records for his 60th birthday. This was a nostalgia trip for me too: my perhaps earliest memory is of my mum taking me, aged 2 or 3, to the record shop in Twickenham to buy the big sensual orange Bangaladesh boxed set for one of Dad's much earlier birthdays).

Educating on GEB: I spent several years trying to do that with everyone I met. Made me incredibly frustrated, head against wall stuff, that I could never get them to see what was surely blindingly obvious. I've always put it down to my expositions lacking the clarity of Hofstadter's. Now you've made me doubt Hoftstadter's. I've forgotten the detail (hence my desire to re-read the book) but from what I can remember the essential argument was that complex systems can produce complex emergent effects, e.g. music is so much more than just a sequence of notes, and in a similar way the complexity of the brain can produce the emergent phenomenon known as "consciousness". Of course there was a lot more meat in the sandwich, and I can't quite remember why Godel (no Swedish keyboard this time) had to be dragged into it, although I'm sure he did, but I mainly remember it for that and for one of two other thought-provoking observations, such as the fact that a major difference between human minds and computers is that we can assess things in terms of degrees of didn't-happenness: e.g. we can say "oooh, that was so nearly a goal" whereas to a computer it just *wasn't* a goal, end of story.

MJP: yes, lots of evidence emerging to indicate that procedure was being followed in Iraq, including the possibility (probability?) that these techniques were passed on from, surprise surprise, Guantanamo.

PS Io, sorry I didn't get to see you, I tried calling a couple of times but then got sidetracked into seedier pursuits, like watching DVDs of old men reminiscing about 60s London blues clubs. date=07.05.2004 17:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: >GEB - you make it a lot clearer than he did! Godel must have been in there because of his theorem (predictable systems produce unpredictable outcomes), but darned if I can recall much more.

Boardsvs.Bob - like M. Drabble's specious opposition -"Dylan or Keats?" - I'd say: why not both?

Anyway - off here now: have a good weekend! date=07.05.2004 17:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi io: yes, TLS. I must have not converted it with the last lot. I'll do a bunch soon.

Alex: I didn't like Mason & Dixon much. For me, he went downhill after Gravity's Rainbow. V's the one I go back to. date=07.05.2004 17:47 ip=213.78.70.195 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>from what I can remember the essential argument was that complex systems can produce complex emergent effects, e.g. music is so much more than just a sequence of notes, and in a similar way the complexity of the brain can produce the emergent phenomenon known as "consciousness". Of course there was a lot more meat in the sandwich, and I can't quite remember why Godel (no Swedish keyboard this time) had to be dragged into it

Dan, I got the emergence thing, and I got how Godel (no system can completely describe itself) linked in; but both times I was left with the idea that (a) he was reading too much into the idea of what emergent product could be, ie rushing to have it be the ghost in the machine; and that (b) he was saying *something else*, drawing some conclusion I just couldn't follow, making some other assumption that would have lit up the ghost in the machine argument for me. So I kind of shook my head and retreated. Maybe time to have another go. date=07.05.2004 18:03 ip=213.78.70.195 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, I'm with you on (a) and now that you mention it I do remember feeling (b). I also lost interest towards the end as Hofstadter took off into AI.

I think what grabbed me most was that the book offered a much better theory of consciousness than anything I'd seen before; it chased all the ghosts out of my machine and converted me literally overnight from a wishy-washy semi-pagan-mystical-god-is-something-it's-just-organised-rel igion-that's-shit-ist into a "devout" atheist. I was quite happy to go with Hofstadter's theorising for the time being, allowing the possibility that it could be wrong (allowing the possibility that *everything* could be wrong - thank you Hume) but accepting it as the best explanation of evidence to date.

Also, I read it straight after Descartes' Meditations, a book which annoyed the hell out of me because the first chapter was such crystal clear thinking, after which it descended into a morass of mumbo-jumbo. I was happy that I could at least see a possible truth in Hofstadter, that I could at least follow his arguments.

Plus I'm a sucker for any long, drawn-out, apparently coherent and doubtlessly mind-opening theory. date=07.05.2004 18:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=God (not literally, of course) I love this crazy coincidental bottom-up universe.

Straight after I posted that last comment, I got an email from a girl I met last night, asking me to critique her artistic manifesto. Which includes the thesis:

15. We, Who believe in God but in no known religion. We, Who believe God is the Creative Power, Is having a Choice. date=07.05.2004 18:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Io, sorry I didn't get to see you

Dan: No problem. I hadn't actually spent an evening at home for several days so the place was an utter tip - it was probably just as well. What *would* you have thought!

>>io: yes, TLS. I must have not converted it with the last lot.

MJH: Cool. Email it at me some time and we'll add it to the Archive.

>>15. We, Who believe in God but in no known religion. We, Who believe God is the Creative Power, Is having a Choice.

Oh, no, no no! God is the Creative Power and the Destructive Power and the utterly Indifferent-to-us Power and the Personal-non-existent Power... In fact: none of that and all of it. Keep up with the Taoist Abraxian Advaita theology for nothing's sake! date=07.05.2004 19:15 ip=81.154.106.67 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>> Oh, no, no no! God is the Creative Power and the Destructive Power and the utterly Indifferent-to-us Power and the Personal-non-existent Power...

Yes! And as such, God just cancelled him(?)self out, which suits me fine. date=08.05.2004 01:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bad SF scenarios: http://tinyurl.com/2zdzq

1: Person is (metaphorically) at point A, wants to be at point B. Looks at point B, says "I want to be at point B." Walks to point B, encountering no meaningful obstacles or difficulties. The end. (A.k.a. the linear plot.) date=08.05.2004 05:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iraqi torture: photographs, videos and... Windows desktop themes??? http://tinyurl.com/2lxpt date=08.05.2004 20:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>15. We, Who believe in God but in no known religion. We, Who believe God is the Creative Power, Is having a Choice.

I don't understand the second sentence. (What choice is God supposed to be having?) It conflates creativity with freedom of choice. The actual situation is quite different. Creativity is the product of tyranny. Otherwise it is self-indulgence. (A kind of super market sweep of people's opinions.) date=10.05.2004 10:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I don't understand the second sentence.

I don't understand much of the manifesto, to tell the truth. It has a kind of adolescent ill-defined ring to it. Although, to be fair, the woman who wrote it is Portugese and although her English is pretty good, abstract stuff like this comes out rather jumbled. There are some good bits in there though, I like:

7. Can't live without brainfood of all kinds.

and

12. Declaring the obvious. date=10.05.2004 10:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>15 ...

Dan, what were the other 14? date=10.05.2004 10:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Iraqi torture: "I begged them to interrogate me again so they would know I was innocent ..."

Christ.

Anyway, Blair's said he's sorry so that makes it okay, doesn't it? We can all go back to sleep. date=10.05.2004 11:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> We can all go back to sleep.

Mnhghnhh... wassat? I *was* asleep.

As for the other 14 (in fact, there are more than that), well, I'm almost embarrased to. It's all rather cringeworthy. But, she has asked me for a critique, and I'm sure you can all assist with that. Tell you what, it's rather long, so to avoid clogging up the forum I'll post it somewhere else in a little while and let you know. date=10.05.2004 11:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=None of them have actually ever taken responsibility. If they did, they would have resigned. Blair got it utterly wrong on WMD but not only did he fail to resign, he failed even to apologise. date=10.05.2004 11:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The corollary to that of course is that the same pattern is repeating itself with these new revelations. They wont publish the Red Cross report on this on the grounds that it is confidential. "It would be irresponsible to publish a confidential report." Last week the govt denied even knowing about it. date=10.05.2004 11:29 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Perhaps we should all deny knowing anything about the government, and just take to the streets ... date=10.05.2004 11:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What government? What streets?

Have always wondered slightly about the need for manifestos. Good as an organising thing, I suppose, but surely ultimately the work itself should be the manifesto? date=10.05.2004 12:27 ip=62.188.110.132 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, it looks as if sex may have been the first sexually transmitted disease--

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns 99994960 date=10.05.2004 12:29 ip=213.78.93.213 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Mischievous mitochondria"! Why not? date=10.05.2004 12:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The role of parasitites in the evolution of species seems fundamental. On the other hand "mischevious" is a little too Starbucks for my taste. date=10.05.2004 13:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Grilled Hoon, anyone? date=10.05.2004 14:18 ip=158.94.185.75 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After *you,* Zali!

I think I'll save myself for the Crushed Rumsfeld Meringue, actually ... date=10.05.2004 14:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the current Iraq scandal again. I don't think that even yet we have the full measure of Blair; his nuttiness, his naivety, his arrogance. He still has other foreign projects; ones that will be brought forward at the earliest opportunity. Like nuking North Korea with a few tactical warheads, to soften 'em up and bring 'em under control, in the new history-free world of Pax Americana, or doing the same to one or two African dictatorships. "You do what you can." (Blair says with a wry dry smile.)

He has used the technique of incremental lying a bit too often though. The "Wait and see what the report says ..." technique. ("Wait until we have invaded ..." "Wait until we have published the dossier ..." Endlessly deferred responsibility. date=10.05.2004 14:27 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think they're just trying to get all the serious war stuff out of the way before the oil runs out and they have to start firing rockets made out of potatoes instead. date=10.05.2004 14:35 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= So where did the soldiers in Iraq get that sense from? This takes us to a critical influence on group behaviour: leadership. In the studies, leadership - the way in which experimenters either overtly or tacitly endorsed particular forms of action - was crucial to the way participants behaved.

http://tinyurl.com/2xcdz date=10.05.2004 14:46 ip=158.94.185.75 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What has alarmed me about Blair's further ambitions can be found in the London Review of Books, in the article by Myers

http://www.lrb.co.uk date=10.05.2004 14:52 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, that should read Michael Byers. date=10.05.2004 14:53 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>crucial to the way participants behaved

Reminds me of the Milgram experiments, too. date=10.05.2004 15:11 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>London Review of Books ...

Indeed.

Nice line in Sansom's bulldozing review of John Fowles's journals, though (250,000 words of self-regarding crap, by the looks of it). After noting Folwes's disdain for his background, Sansom urges us to remember: "they tidy up, your mum and dad."

Well, I hadn't heard it before ... date=10.05.2004 15:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just to add one more thing to this particular bonfire:

Blair "as far as I'm aware, not merely myself but all other government ministers did not know these specific allegations until they arose in the newspapers recently."

So no responsibility there. Reminds me of that other thing Blair said, that he didn't know that the 45 minutes claim related to battlefield weapons and not to weapons of mass destruction. He wasn't told. That it was his responsibility to know doesn't seem to cross his mind. The smell of fraud in that "but all other government ministers". Infamy infamy infamy, I smell it, I think on it ... date=10.05.2004 16:39 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A bit more for the bonfire:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200405070002

- deranged, up the flagpole, and fluttering obscenely in the breeze. date=10.05.2004 16:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow.

>>>But boy there was a lot of humiliation of people who are trying to kill us -- in ways they hold dear. Sounds pretty effective to me if you look at us in the right context.

I have read that most Americans, and that goes for most American service personnel, think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. date=10.05.2004 17:36 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: ...9/11

The link seems a given in a lot of the US media, from what I can see. Checking Fox or CNN, you'd have a hard time to work out that Saddam was a) a secular head of state; b) the West installed and armed him, breaking its own sanctions (good afternoon, William Waldegrave); or c) the Shi'ites whom Bush was encouraging to rise against him are exactly the same sect that powered the Iranian revolution, stormed the US embassy there, and killed and raped who knows how many thousand in its gaols and camps for years afterwards. So - you get rid of one ruler who's unlikely to have much time Bin Laden, and encourage local forces who view him as a hero. This makes a lot of sense - but only if you're as great a lunatic as Limbaugh. date=10.05.2004 17:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On a different subject, I just finished, “ The curious incident of the dog in the night-time” by Mark Haddon, and enjoyed even though I usually don’t read juveniles. Here is a typical bit.” I think primer numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.” date=10.05.2004 18:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have read that most Americans, and that goes for most American service personnel, think Iraq had something to do with 9/11.
_________________
Hi, MJP
I too read about a survey taken last year in the States. More than half of the people who took it answered that Sadam ordered 9/11. date=10.05.2004 18:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=as far as I'm aware, not merely myself but all other government ministers did not know these specific allegations until they arose in the newspapers recently."
__________
Hi again, MJP
It is the qualification "As far as I´m aware..." that sticks out for me. Shouldn´t he get his facts straigth before speaking out in public? date=10.05.2004 18:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Blair "as far as I'm aware..."

At least Rumsfeld had the decency to say "this happened on my watch, I accept responsibility". Blair seems to be saying "I wasn't watching so I'm not responsible".

The Rush Limbaugh stuff reminded me of the American Christian phone-in radio show featured on Channel 4's Children of Abraham last night - http://tinyurl.com/2hrbk (also made me think of Robert McNamara's "Lesson # 1 - Empathise with the Enemy" from the Fog of War. These guys are so totally devoid of empathy that it's scary). Stephen Marks's conclusion was that it wasn't the gaps between the three monotheistic religions that's the problem, it's the attitude of the everything's-black-and-white fundamentalists within each religion that makes the world a dangerous place to live.

Curious Incident of the Dog and the Night Time: I'm itching to read this since hearing snippets of it read out on Radio 4 (and reading some of the comments in recent Guardian Reviews). I love the way that Haddon has perfectly auticised (?) the language. Talking about metaphors (from this Saturday's Guardian): "'They had a skeleton in their cupboard'... 'We had a real pig of a day.' I think it should be called a lie, because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards."

Manifestos: yeah, I've never really seen the point. Most of them appear to be unsuccesful attempts by somebody to organise their jumbled thoughts into a system which they vainly hope others will agree with, and perhaps congratulate them on. That said, I've not read a lot of them. The only manifesto which really rung true to me, had me jumping up shouting "YES!", was the Cluetrain Manifesto: www.cluetrain.org date=10.05.2004 18:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All of this seems so childish to me; amounts to little more than 'if I close my eyes you can't see me' - 'if I tell you I had nothing to do with it, you've got nothing on me.' Ugh.

Out with a Canadian friend last night; even in Canada, they've had a very skewed view of it all because so many of them watch US tv. She's been having to ring up her mum out there and tell her the real news.

Hmm, that Cluetrain Manifesto looks intriguing. Will check out properly when things are a little quieter.

Oh - and, exporting US prison culture:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights/doc445 7.html date=11.05.2004 10:56 ip=62.188.100.101 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=it's the attitude of the everything's-black-and-white fundamentalists within each religion that makes the world a dangerous place to live.
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Hi, Dan.
In “ Disciples of destruction”, Charles Shutherland argues, convincingly, that confrontation dynamics are a built-in part of the great monotheistic faiths. To quote Richard Dawkins: “ I am often asked why I am so hostile to organized religion. My first response is that I am not exactly friendly towards disorganized religion either.” date=11.05.2004 11:01 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely confrontation's built in in two basic ways - 1) I am divinely right! So you must be divinely wrong! So it's alright for me to do whatever I want to you because you're evil (and it's for your own good anyway) and 2) A basic part of the propagation software - 'tolerate no other religion' protects a given religion and ensures that it will be spread. date=11.05.2004 11:08 ip=62.188.136.171 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan - >>Clue Train ...

A lot to absorb, but I like point 33 - the human voice can't be learned "at some tony conference."

Maybe we can get the adjective into the language (or maybe it's there already and I haven't noticed ) - smarmy, insincere, a criminal waste of time. date=11.05.2004 11:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe we can get the adjective into the language
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Hi, Martin.

I am foreigner myself and my command of the English language may be faulty but I think a verb would work even better. “ The guy was blairing away on tv” date=11.05.2004 11:19 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo,

I agree with you about confrontation being largely built-in to monotheistic religion, although the presenter of the TV program certainly didn't see it this way. He mentioned that Christianity and Islam both see it as their duty to convince all humanity that their way is the one true way (although Judaism doesn't), he said something along the lines of "hey, we've got to recognise that we're talking about faith here, it's not like it's scientific fact" (sorry, I just blaired that sentence up a little) and he made a clear distinction between black-and-white fundamentalist my-way-or-the-fires-of-hell type believers and more open-minded believers like himself (he was a liberal Catholic) who are willing to accept that they may be wrong.

Personally I'm not sure what use religion is without certainty, something a bit like a child's comfort blanket. But then, like Dawkins, I'm not exactly keen on any flavour of religion.

Funny you should bring Dawkins in to this - I meant to mention him yesterday. Didn't he also say something about sex being the first sexually transmitted disease, I think in The Selfish Gene? date=11.05.2004 11:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Christianity and Islam see it as their duty...

Not actually true of Islam. A particularly good example of this might be the Conviviencia period in medieval Spain: Jews, Muslims and Christians living together under Islamic rule. date=11.05.2004 11:37 ip=158.94.191.240 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought Children of Abraham was more hopeful than descriptive in that respect. The guy was working hard to sell his view, but it was evidently one of those optimistic delusions. As Arturo says, a confrontational dynamic is built in. If you don't confront, the other guy gets full of testosterone and goes into proselytising top gear; if you do confront, the other guy gets full of testosterone and goes into internal morale-building top gear. Everyone loses out to the structures themselves because this stuff is built into them and works whether you are a Christian or a Wholely Grino Farouti. If I wasn't a Wholely Grino Farouti myself I'd go with Dawkins. date=11.05.2004 11:39 ip=213.78.76.158 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Not actually true of Islam

I forget the details, but he did have quotes from the Bible and the Koran to back this up... actually, I think it was less about the need to convert others, and more a kind of "this is the truth and anyone who doesn't accept it is condemned to eternal damnation" type of thing. date=11.05.2004 11:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wholely Grino Farouti?

Me, I worship the trinity: Dawkins, Hofstadter and... quick, somebody fill me in on a third (tempted to stick some bigwig physicist in here but quantum physics is still way over my head and, as Douglas Adams pointed out, most physicists these days have to convince themselves of so many impossible things before breakfast that they're quite happy sticking a god into the mix - e.g. Hawking & Penrose). date=11.05.2004 11:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funny you should bring Dawkins in to this - I meant to mention him yesterday. Didn't he also say something about sex being the first sexually transmitted disease, I think in The Selfish Gene?
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Hi, Dan.
On Dawkins :Blushing, I must confess my shameful ignorance of most of Dwakins´s work. Last year I have read “Dawkins vs. Gould” by Kim Sterelny and a couple of months back “A devil’s chaplain”. That’s where the Dwakins quote comes from. I mean to go on reading him but right now I am Dawkins-challenged
On liberal Catholics. The awkward fact is that right now the Vatican is ruled by the a right wing sect called “Opus Dei” (God’s work). date=11.05.2004 11:49 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>the Conviviencia period

Definite smack of the Crusades about this war. date=11.05.2004 11:50 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me, I worship the trinity: Dawkins, Hofstadter and... quick, somebody fill me in on a third

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Hawkins? Stephen Jay Gould? date=11.05.2004 11:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Dawkins, Hofstadter and...

Robert Anton Wilson! date=11.05.2004 11:53 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me, I worship the trinity: Dawkins, Hofstadter and... quick, somebody fill me in on a third
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Freud? Marx? Darwin? date=11.05.2004 11:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, Opus Dei! I think they're mostly involved in crocheting and flower arranging in this country.

I think the problem with the three religions of the book is more to do with similarities and common history than theological differences. It's a matter of internecine strife - same with any family. But at least they're not smug fuckers like those Buddhists. All that "holier than thou" detatchment. Make you sick! date=11.05.2004 11:54 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a right wing sect called “Opus Dei” (God’s work)

Now if it were called Phallus Dei I might subscribe. Funny, though, I had an interesting discussion with a devout Catholic who more or less owned up to not believing (in the literal sense). They saw the religion and all that goes with it as a kind of a language with which to explain the inexplicable and not to be taken literally. Now I can understand that, and it almost tempted me to investigate getting a religion. So much nicer to live in a magical world. date=11.05.2004 12:01 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hawkins... I dunno, he doesn't give me a warm enough glow, and I hear his name mentioned too much in connection with the G word. I'm allergic to the G word.

Gould I know very little of. Freud I can't claim to have read directly (ditto Marx & Darwin), though he was *very* unfashionable when I studied psychology ("leave that stuff to the [spit] psychotherapists").

RAW - Yes!! S'funny, I was just thinking of Susan Blackmore - http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk - who was one of my lecturers at uni and introduced me to Dawkins & Hofstadter. I read one of her books in Egypt 10 years ago, straight after finishing Schroedinger's Cat, so for me the two are somehow intertwined, along with memories of cockroaches, fly-covered falafels, toilets with shit-encrusted metal pipes sticking up out of the bowl, and hotel rooftop swimming pools. date=11.05.2004 12:02 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Buddhists: I've been going to meditation classes at our local Buddhist centre. Trying to convince Gill to come along, but she's put off by that whole smugness thing.

I was there the other week and, during the pre-meditation discussion, some wide eyed young student asked "so... do you, like, believe in *destiny*?"

The teacher, looking somewhat smug and condescending, said "no, you're thinking of the Hindus". date=11.05.2004 12:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>So much nicer to live in a magical world.

So: either / or ...

Why is it necessary for a God to exist (some kind of anthropomorphic figure), in order for us to be able to suppose that the world is magical?

That it *is* magical - ie because its nature is beyond the bounds of human rationality - that this is so, should be obvious; and yet it isn't. It is a permanent struggle to realise this. date=11.05.2004 12:09 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No problems with the G word here. It's a good word to introduce into conversation to get the blood up.

Hinduism! Now we're talking! A religion that encapsulates monotheism, dualism, trinities, polytheism, pantheism, pan-en-henism, monism and atheism. A huge jury-rigged juggernaut of a system of myth, philosophy and ritual. Deeply flawed and utterly intoxicating. date=11.05.2004 12:13 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: >>Gould ... Try the first essay in his collection "Bully for Brontasaurus." Pointing up our contingent world, this explains how Darwin would never have ended up on "The Beagle" if Lord Castlereagh hadn't been shot in the buttock.

Arturo: I kept trying to start a noise band called The Blares, but - no interest.

Godstuff: Most people seem to imagine something between Margaret Thatcher and Frank Sidebottom, I think. A worrying time for us all. date=11.05.2004 12:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So much nicer to live in a magical world...

I don't know if we can actually help that. Thinking out aloud, without anything to back this up, but... It seems to me that we have some sort of innate deifing trait, which is not necessarily defused by rationalism - it just goes underground. If there is a purpose to the organised religions it might be this: at least out there in the world in their overt forms we can see them and keep an eye on them. date=11.05.2004 12:25 ip=158.94.191.240 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: If you ever fancy franchising "The Blares" out as a project I'll dust of my white noise generator and we'll go to town! date=11.05.2004 12:35 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ahh... band names. Favourite one I ever played in was the Fuck City Shitters. Man, we were baaad (literally). date=11.05.2004 12:37 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Why is it necessary for a God to exist

I don't think it is necessarily about God. For example, I like to believe in 'love' as a thing, despite evidence that it is a transitory and unreliable emotional state. It's a romantic belief in some kind of otherness. Could we have poetry without this? I'm looking at a tree outside my window now: it's just a tree, it's a thing. I know how it got there - within the limits of scientific knowledge - and it pleases my eye. But if I were to write a poem about the ordinariness of the tree it wouldn't be very interesting. We need to add interest to the world, don't we? date=11.05.2004 12:40 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Why is it necessary for God to exist...

Yes, I don't think religion got particularly bothered about whether he was *literally* there or not until the scientific worldview started poking at God. Proof isn't really what it's all about. As I think Alex was saying: it's a difference between a different ways of seeing the world.

Personally, following a religion would probably be impossible for me. It's against that aggressive Westernised notion of never submitting to anything: terrorism, nature, economics - certainly not the Universe. But then again, this is probably why Tibet is currently under the heel of China while we're... umm, under the heel of the US. date=11.05.2004 12:49 ip=158.94.191.240 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Why is it necessary for God to exist...

Yes, I don't think religion got particularly bothered about whether he was *literally* there or not until the scientific worldview started poking at God. Proof isn't really what it's all about.

Personally, following a religion would probably be impossible for me. It's against that aggressive Westernised notion of never submitting to anything: terrorism, nature, economics - certainly not the Universe. But then again, this is probably why Tibet is currently under the heel of China while we're... umm, under the heel of the US.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.05.2004 12:49 ip=158.94.191.240 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>We need to add interest to the world, don't we?

I would say that that is exactly what we don't need to do.

That will just end in narcissism and boredom. date=11.05.2004 13:20 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=;o.=/

That's God having a wink. date=11.05.2004 13:40 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>narcissism and boredom...

And presumably that's God having a wank? date=11.05.2004 13:43 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan
>>Freud I can't claim to have read directly (ditto Marx & Darwin), though he was *very* unfashionable when I studied psychology ("leave that stuff to the [spit] psychotherapists").
Ditto for my partner Eve, who is a psychologist. Her somewhat contraire response was to buy (and read) the complete works! Over the years I have only read bits and pieces of their wide ranging work. More so Freud who wrote about almost any subject you can imagine (even horror fiction). I think that however dated some of their work can be their basic insights hold true. Consider the current Iraq situation: Marx’s basic insight – that it’s the economy that drives society – is held by almost everybody. Very few people, if any, take the Azores duo rhetoric of “ war of terror” at face value. I remember an essay by Samuelson in “Times”, some time ago, where the current Wall Street delusion (that was then) of an American economy boom because of and abundance of cheap Iraqi oil was deflated. date=11.05.2004 13:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I kept trying to start a noise band called The Blares, but - no interest.
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Hi, Martin.

A couple of years back, some german had a minor hit using some works of the german prime minister. What about a Blair sample with a dar industrial backbeat for the Blares´s first project? date=11.05.2004 13:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now there is an idea. io: hip hop Blair samples, such as "I am just a regular kind of guy" / "the war against terror" and so forth. I have something similar with the assassination of JFK ("And the motorcade moved on") Blinding. date=11.05.2004 14:36 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, Io: I'm on for this if you are!

Perhaps just a stutter/drone track, with the sample "Well, look, I mean -" date=11.05.2004 15:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=War on terror: it was already being won before it began, at least according to http://tinyurl.com/yvywc

Freud et at: yes, they're on my reading list ("one day"), Jung too.

Alex, I hate to take the magic and poetry out of your love but... well, I'll hand over to Dr Blackmore again: http://tinyurl.com/2s4vc

God having a wank: is this to do with the Phallus Dei again? Presumably it would be the ultimate wank, and like Blair/Thatcher would go onan-d-onan-d-onan-d-on. date=11.05.2004 15:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: The oddest vision of God I know is one of Paul Celan's poems, where he hears Him (as it was, in this case) late at night, washing the universe in the silence.

I suppose that means the dark matter is one of those stubborn, deep-down stains. I've tried ordinary white dwarfs, but I just can't seem to get my continuum clean ... date=11.05.2004 15:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>God having a ...

Well for me he was winking. I was trying to point up the strangeness and the obviousness of our anthropomorphism. We can apply our rationality to constructing bridges and the like but we are hopeless with anything to do with 'the nature of what is'. All we see is God winking back, in imagination or reality; it's all the same. Whether we declare Him ("Him!" ho hum!) to be real or not real. Nobody else think this strange? (Eg if it isn't God then it's the gene itself. *It* is 'God'. So Dawkins doesn't break this chain; he is part of it. date=11.05.2004 15:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blare Project: It'd be fairly easy to do if anyone wants to get me samples. A mate of mine, Jim, did something similar called Beats around the Bush. I'll try to find a URL for it... date=11.05.2004 15:34 ip=158.94.130.185 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All we see is God winking back, in imagination or reality
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Hi, MJP
The universe as a huge Rorschach´s test then? date=11.05.2004 15:35 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Freud et al.: Too much Jung in my case. But you can prolly guess that... date=11.05.2004 15:36 ip=158.94.130.185 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blare Project: Hi, Io.
I am too lazy to look for the samples but I suggest that some dog´s bark and some electro noises are a must. date=11.05.2004 15:37 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=God having a wank: I do recall than the ancient greeks whorshiped Bachus usinga giant-sized leather phallus but I don´t remenber if anything came of that. date=11.05.2004 15:38 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>The universe as a huge Rorschach´s test then?

What I think Arturo is that the universe is fundamentally and irresolvably mysterious. That it can't be anthropomorphised by our rationality: any more than it can be by imagination. But that is what we try to do: both ways. Anthropomorphising it by imagining it is now a 'discredited' act; but doing the same through rationality is no better; and perhaps worse. We are ruled by common sense. So, to explain it is to anthropomorphise it. We haven't understood that yet. We think that that's it. That this is 'scientific'. We need to get outside the mirror. date=11.05.2004 15:43 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Maybe we could have the dog savaging him to bits? "Chow, Chihuahua" and "Go For the Throat" remixes? Euro-stardom beckons, I think. date=11.05.2004 15:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, this God lark - let's get in touch directly:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid =857&ncid=757&e=10&u=/nm/20040511/od_uk_nm/oukoe_religion_br itain_internet

- see you in the cyber-pew, chums. date=11.05.2004 15:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> if it isn't God then it's the gene itself. *It* is 'God'.

I'm not sure that's a useful way of looking at it: put that way, you could (and will) find God anywhere you look. While God is everywhere, God is also nowhere: his/her/its omnipresence cancels itself out, you can only meaningfully define something by contrasting where it is with where it isn't.

In other words, what's the alternative? date=11.05.2004 16:05 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=3D Church of the Internet: rather scarily, I can all-too-easily imagine myself pitching an idea like this to the church had they come to see me five years ago and said "we need to be doing something on the Internet". date=11.05.2004 16:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=; but doing the same through rationality is no better; and perhaps worse
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Hi, Io.
Trougth I basically agree I don´t follow your train of thougth on this point. While the basic nature of reality is something of a tortoise ( or maybe a white rabbit o even a white whale) humanity is never goint to catch , I see nothing wrong in reason as a tool. date=11.05.2004 16:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Excuse me. I meant Hi, MJP date=11.05.2004 16:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have just found God in a ring donut and a cup of coffee. God is also on my allotment, in a bed of jerusalem artichokes, while Satan directs the bean weevils to slaughter. date=11.05.2004 16:10 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> God is everywhere, God is also nowhere...

Well, you've just summed up post-Upanishadic Hinduism and some of the insights of the medieval Rabbis. I don't really see a problem with this paradox.

Arturo: That wasn't me - that was MJP! date=11.05.2004 16:10 ip=158.94.191.240 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: The Tao is the absence in the doughnut's hole.

Anyone happier with "Tao" rather than "God"? They're not quite the same thing, but... date=11.05.2004 16:12 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Political remixes: this talk has prompted me to dig out the Charles Bailey remixes of Tony Benn speeches, which has been sitting unlistened on my hard disk for a while now. It's actually a lot better than I'd expected, although entirely because of the speeches, not the music.

Arturo: I agree, the eventual breakdown of rationality is no reason to abandon rationality wholesale. If we abandon trying to understand the universe by rationality and by imagination... what's left to us? Whither humanity? date=11.05.2004 16:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="we need to be doing something on the Internet".
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Hi, Dan.

Too late. the Thurch of the virus is already here !
http://virus.lucifer.com/about.html date=11.05.2004 16:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> If we abandon trying to understand the universe by rationality and by imagination... what's left to us?

Of course, I just realised. We all become smug buddhists and let existence wash over us.

Pah! Enough metaphysics already. date=11.05.2004 16:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=what's left to us? Whither humanity?
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Hi, Dan.
I don´t rembenber which of the Church´s fater said "Credo quia absurdum"( I have faith because it ridicolous).

Io: Sorry again. date=11.05.2004 16:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tao: why not? (zen primer title, surely).

Andre Breton: "Reality is the smile on the woman whose face appears on the first page of the dictionary."

That'll do me. date=11.05.2004 16:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I can be smug enough without having to resort to buddhism. See my beatific smirk! You may touch the hem of my robe!

Arturo: No problem. date=11.05.2004 16:21 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like the Tao. It's pretty. Zen is pretty, too. I don't like all those hell-type religions. date=11.05.2004 16:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Andre Breton: "Reality is the smile on the woman whose face appears on the first page of the dictionary."

Edie Brickell: "Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box; religion is the smile on a dog." date=11.05.2004 16:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually I think I read that the Taoists and the early Zen Buddhists had a bit of rivalry going on. But I don't think they actually chopped each others heads off or anything. More likely they'd just push each other off logs and write scurrilous poems about each other. date=11.05.2004 16:38 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, one of the guys running a workshop at the Buddhist place recently was a psychologist. I mentioned to him one of my lecturers, John Crook, who had also been a Buddhist and was quite instrumental in organising retreats and stuff. He replied, with what sounded like a note of disdain "ah yes, John Crook, he's a *Zen* Buddhist isn't he?"

Arturo: I *love* the Virion (hmm, Virion, izzat a variation on Vriko?) stuff, I've finally found the religion for me. And... have you seen their reading list:

1: Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Daniel Dennett
2: The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore
3: Out Of Control by Kevin Kelly
4: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
5: How We Believe by Michael Shermer
6: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright
7: Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie
8: The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins
9: The Retreat To Commitment by William Bartley
10: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter

See... my trinity's there already! date=11.05.2004 16:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bitchy men with shaved heads. Can't live with them, can't live without them!

Other strategies for pissing off the religious: Tried this on a rosecrucian and on a group of ba'hais. Ask them if they are from a united organisation or whether there are other sects within their faith. In both cases I recieved a rather hostile: "Why do you want to know?" date=11.05.2004 17:04 ip=158.94.191.240 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hurrah! I'm on the guestlist to see Holly Golightly at the ICA tonight!

http://www.tinyurl.com/3f5wm date=11.05.2004 17:19 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I *love* the Virion :
Hi, Dan.
As a matter of fact, I have put those books on my "look for" list. But until you pointed it out I didn´t see the "virion-vriko" thingie. date=11.05.2004 17:20 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Holly Golightly : Please, explain. date=11.05.2004 17:20 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You may touch the hem of my robe!
_________________
( But don´t even think about the beard!) date=11.05.2004 17:24 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Holly G: She does raw garage blues and R&B with one of those voices that sounds like it has been turned to leather from too many cigarettes and bourbon. I've also been listening to her live album "Up the Empire" constantly for the last six months. date=11.05.2004 17:26 ip=158.94.191.240 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>don't even think about the beard...

Attachment to facial hair is like attachment to all other worldly things. When acolytes touch my robe: they are merely guilty of a naive superficiality. When they touch my beard: they are getting *way* too familiar! date=11.05.2004 17:32 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Virion-Vriko: I'm sure there's not an intentional connection, it just cropped up in my mind when I saw the word. I guess they may share a root though (Mike: is there a Virus in Viriconium?) date=11.05.2004 17:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Virus in Viriconium: There's certainly a bug, or at least a plague of locusts. date=11.05.2004 17:44 ip=158.94.191.240 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There is a state between being rational and being irrational: understood through art. Art reconciles us to the anthropomorphic paradox: the one where the problem that we face is that either choice is nonsense.

However art's problem is that it isn't pragmatic.

So - the difficulty that faces us, of understanding a universe that is more than a mere anthropomorphic simulacrum, can't be solved pragmatically, not with the tools that we have. We are stuck in an image of the world that, because of this, doesn't make rational sense. Ie that is irrational in spite of our insistence on rationality. date=11.05.2004 17:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: So, what you're saying is that rationality is anthropomorphic? The fact that we invented it, makes human-shaped by default.

Sorry, won't be around to catch the reply until the morning. I got a train to catch! date=11.05.2004 18:02 ip=158.94.191.240 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Just make sure it's a human-shaped train. date=11.05.2004 18:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It is nothing but a mirror.

(Got a train to catch too.) date=11.05.2004 18:10 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: mulling this over, I'm still not 100% certain what you're saying but... I think I'm with the wholly anthropomorphic position of the logical positivists on this one: if it doesn't affect us then it is effectively nothing. (Sorry, that was a piss-poor summation of logical positivism).

I don't see how art helps in this respect, surely it's even more anthropomorphic than rationality? Art presents the human response to the rational. I can see though that, by presenting the human element, perhaps subtracting art from rationality is a way of highlighting the non-anthropomorphic. Erm...

Anyway, funny that you should say "art's problem is that it isn't pragmatic": re my friend's manifesto that I mentioned yesterday, her movement is called "Neo-Dogma-Non". I finally put her manifesto online: http://www.sumption.org/neodogma.htm - feel free to mail me comments and I'll pass them on to her, though as I've mentioned I find the whole thing a bit wishy-washy. date=11.05.2004 18:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's it. I'm quitting society. No more horror. I don't want to know. I only want to read books and listen to music and drink wine and have sex and climb hills and grow vegetables. Fucking rancid humans and their absurd beliefs and politics. What does it all mean? Nothing. Anyone want to join my commune? Prove you couldn't cut someone's head off then. Go on. date=12.05.2004 10:17 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Vile stuff. I have the same rage and nausea over this that I had over the "Mirror" pictures: for *fuck's* sake - only, this time, we get the extra porn of seeing the poor man's family collapsing in tears at the news.

At the other extreme of human behaviour, while that obscenity was taking shape, I was listening to the astronaut David Scott (who now looks like a white-haired, super-fit version of LP Hartley) talk about his moonwalks, lunar geology, and the sensation of seeing a full earth in the black sky. "This is all we have," he said. You look at the headlines and wish more of us realised that. date=12.05.2004 10:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Equally sickening was Scott McClellan's predictable response. "It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom." As opposed, we must assume, to the true nature of the defenders of freedom, which we've been bombarded with for the last few days.

It again left me thinking where is the empathy, where is the appreciation of cultural differences, why does every new piece of news lead to a cranking-up of the us-against-them mentality and subsequent unsurprising cranking-up of the conflict? date=12.05.2004 10:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On my way out to the gig last night (brilliant as it happens...) I stopped in at the South Bank to see if anything was going on. There was an exhibition on in the foyer of award winning press photos from the last year: the opening of the Iraq war, Palestine, Congo and lesser known trouble spots like the Shan State. The catalogue of ongoing brutalities around the globe. A child look like who has been caught in a rocket attack; and here a head being carried as a trophy through the streets; the exultant face of a militia man who has just fired an RPG-7 up the street.

So this morning's headlines - not so much "didn't come as a surprise" - it just felt like more of the same. There's an almost physical repulsion at these scenes, and they're at a remove - distanced by photography and journalism. date=12.05.2004 11:52 ip=158.94.132.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On my way out to the gig last night (brilliant as it happens...) I stopped in at the South Bank to see if anything was going on. There was an exhibition on in the foyer of award winning press photos from the last year: the opening of the Iraq war, Palestine, Congo and lesser known trouble spots like the Shan State. The catalogue of ongoing brutalities around the globe. A child who has been caught in a rocket attack; and here a head being carried as a trophy through the streets; the exultant face of a militia man who has just fired an RPG-7 up the street.

So this morning's headlines - not so much "didn't come as a surprise" - it just felt like more of the same. There's an almost physical repulsion at these scenes, and they're at a remove - distanced by photography and journalism. date=12.05.2004 11:52 ip=158.94.132.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On my way out to the gig last night (brilliant as it happens...) I stopped in at the South Bank to see if anything was going on. There was an exhibition on in the foyer of award winning press photos from the last year: the opening of the Iraq war, Palestine, Congo and lesser known trouble spots like the Shan State. The catalogue of ongoing brutalities around the globe. A child who has been caught in a rocket attack; a head being carried as a trophy through the streets; the exultant face of a militia man who has just fired an RPG-7 up the street.

So this morning's headlines - not so much "didn't come as a surprise" - it just felt like more of the same. There's an almost physical repulsion at these scenes, and they're at a remove - distanced by photography and journalism. date=12.05.2004 11:53 ip=158.94.132.42 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>"It shows the true nature of the enemies of freedom."

To be so impervious, to fail to see the irony. How is that to be analysed? It has to be something to do with the conviction that if this is America then it's right.

(Dan, on art I have had these discussions before on the TTA boards, so repeating the key ideas here would probably involve too much duplication.) date=12.05.2004 11:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> the conviction that if this is America then it's right

Spot on, I think. Asked myself the same sort of questions after I visited the American Indian Museum in Denver, Colorado. About half the exhibits are marked along the lines of 'We think that this is a such-and-such but nobody knows because the entire tribe was massacred before anybody had learned their language / talked to them'. At the time I couldn't understand how this type of thing could fatally undermine the American founding myth - ie liberty and justice for all, etc.

Didn't really understand it until I read Henry Kissinger's book 'Diplomacy' (fascinating book, whatever you think of the man). He sees America as a state of mind as much as a place - an ideal of freedom. So, by definition, if you're against America, you're against freedom and therefore evil, etc etc. As were the American Indians. date=12.05.2004 12:20 ip=62.188.150.216 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> could fatally undermine

rather, could NOT fatally undermine... date=12.05.2004 12:21 ip=62.188.150.216 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the exultant face of a militia man

That's it. It's the only way to survive. Enjoy the game. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Last night I dreamt about buildings falling and tanks rolling in. And I was there, watching, knowing the world was ending, and I felt calm and resigned because I had no choice. date=12.05.2004 12:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Had a quick look at the manifesto.

It needs to be better worded. It contradicts itself - it says: I am sick of this world then it says 'man' (?) should not put himself at the centre of the world. But saying that you are sick of this world is to put yourself - your views, your feelings - at the centre of the world. date=12.05.2004 12:52 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I was at the RFH last week, unfortunately it was the day before that exhibition opened and I just got to stare at the photos from a distance, as they were all roped off. The only one I could see clearly was the twins, which was really quite freaky, reminded me of a scene from Geek Love. The warzone ones looked... nasty, but compelling. The exultant guy with the RPG: that's not the photo (from Liberia?) that was in the Guardian Review the week before last? Absolutely compelling image, I just had to read the associated article (which was about re-interpreting some ancient Greek myth, I forget which) after seeing the picture.

>> lesser known trouble spots
Next stop Darfur? It saddens me that no sooner am I aware that these places exist than they are changed for ever. I "discovered" Darfur via the Thesiger biography (he was a diplomat in the region in the 1930s), he was also the one who introduced me to the Marsh Arabs of Southern Iraq, a society I would have loved to visit before Saddam turfed them out and drained the marshes.

America the chosen one: this was another point made in Children of Abraham. There are those, Bush included, who really do seem to see America as God's chosen nation, and act accordingly. The presenter called this a return to idolatory, putting God in service of man rather than vice versa.

MJP: No worries. Perhaps we'll talk about it at some time in the future. date=12.05.2004 13:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Enjoy the game. Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Yes, that was the impression I got. The wincing disgust that one might feel looking at those images in the foyer of a European arts centre comes out of a position of privilege. Cold detachment falls away as the gunfire starts. The man with the RPG-7 looks like a football player scoring a goal. But there's also a latent mortality in him: at any moment he might become the bloodied corpse in the next picture. date=12.05.2004 13:25 ip=158.94.133.188 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>that's not the photo (from Liberia?) that was in the Guardian Review the week before last?

Might well have been. I'll see if we've still got the paper here. Actually there was another RPG-7 image: this one with the firer turning to run with smoke rising from the barrel. Another fighter has seen something up the street.

The twins pictures were pretty good. There were also these brilliant pics of metro stations in Milan, London and NY - unpopulated. Very abstract and symmetrical. But while they were interesting, there was a feeling with the war photos that you *had* to look. date=12.05.2004 13:34 ip=158.94.133.188 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, the first measured response to events from the US print media:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/20645. htm

- it's the only language they udnerstand, guv. date=12.05.2004 13:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Each blow will be met with a counter blow, and so on and so forth; each time the blow more righteous.

An enemy created out of fear and reaction.

To what extent are ordinary Americans going to accept this? date=12.05.2004 13:52 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I noticed that the ITV lunchtime news had an almost festive, upbeat quality to it - the reporter was positively cheerful - I would guess because they had an item that knocked Iraq off the top spot. (The explosion in Scotland.) Something normal, ordinary for a change. date=12.05.2004 13:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Someone explained the meaning of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' the other day. It means 'don't take more than the appropriate revenge' rather than 'if someone hurts you, hurt them back'. I imagine most people believe it means the latter. date=12.05.2004 14:01 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>To what extent are ordinary Americans going to accept this?

They'll only start to understand what it really means when their sons get conscripted to fight in the Middle East. When their sons come back in body bags or with smashed limbs. When Johnny comes marching home. date=12.05.2004 14:05 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>To what extent are ordinary Americans going to accept this?
The question is to find who benefits with all this. Certainly no the Iraqis whose country has been sent into chaos in a way that reminds me of Lebanon, once the Switzerland of the east. Not the average American who will pay for the huge deficit this is creating. But corporates, such as Halliburton, and their cronies are making millions by this. date=12.05.2004 14:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: >>Haliburton.

Exactly. The lastest projection of their profit over the next decade is $300 billion. date=12.05.2004 14:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> To what extent are ordinary Americans going to accept this?

There are no ordinary Americans. You're either with us, or you're against us. Etc etc.

Liberian with RPG: he was a muscular young black guy, possibly with short dreadlocks in a kind of 2000AD Bad Company way, topless facing the camera and I think leaping in the air, possibly punching with one fist, RPG in the other. He was standing on some kind of concrete walkway, litter scattered around him, a solitary flip-flop in the foreground. Very important detail that flip-flop. date=12.05.2004 14:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Very important detail that flip-flop.

That'll be the one. Strange that you mention the flip-flop: I was just thinking about another image where a woman avoids a corpse on the pavement. And again, it's the way that the flip-flops have fallen that give the impression of how sudden and casual the violence is. date=12.05.2004 15:00 ip=158.94.132.42 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The headlines on my BT Yahoo email page:

• UK Condemns Beheading Of Hostage
• Video Creates UFO Stir In Mexico
• Watch Britney's New Video
 date=12.05.2004 15:13 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> each time the blow more righteous.

Yup - the more atrocities you commit, the greater your vested interest in perceiving yourself as being righteous, and so the more rigid, inflexible and intolerant of criticism you become.

And the numbers - 4 dead contractors in Fallujah, 600 Iraqis killed (if estimates correct etc etc). 1 beheaded person; how many Iraqis are going to be killed now?

BBC News earlier reporting Arab press as being broadly understanding / supportive of the beheading as a response to the torture. Wish I could read Arabic. date=12.05.2004 15:21 ip=62.188.137.5 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=4 dead contractors in Fallujah
_____________
Hi, Al

This has been reported as four private contractors without mentioning that they were employees of the Blackwater Company, a well-known cover for the CIA. And, incidentally, the same company that was in charge of the interrogations on Abu Ghraib date=12.05.2004 15:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Blackwater Company...

Always get the feeling that one might come across a reference to them in Nostradamus. date=12.05.2004 15:45 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: >>Arab press ...

Against that, check out the comments on the BBC "have your say" slot about the beheading. Filtered, for sure, but the Muslim opinions there are as revolted as the rest of us. date=12.05.2004 15:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin - yes, I saw that. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by the tone of voice of the BBC report, seemed quite inflammatory. I think (hope) that the message they were trying to get across was that Arab opinion is turning / has turned irrevocably against the occupation.

Hi Arturo - on interrogations:

http://www.guerrillanews.com/human_rights /doc4466.html

I'm amazed by how much of war / post war admin has been privatised. All that 'ultimate end of Capitalism is war' stuff coming true - if you can no longer expand into new marketplaces peacefully (most Western consumer markets pretty much saturated) the only way is to do it by force. Also, war's a marketplace that constantly refreshes itself:

'and gun sales lead to more gun sales
_____they do not clutter the market for gunnery
_________there is no saturation'

as Ezra Pound put it, v. accurately. date=12.05.2004 15:57 ip=62.188.137.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>as Ezra Pound put it, v. accurately.

Someone else who ended his war imprisoned by US troops. But in Ez's case: he was pretty well barking mad by then! date=12.05.2004 16:00 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=True enough! And it was a very, very different moral context. He can seem alarmingly prescient sometimes, though.

BBC now reporting - Arab papers pro-beheaders, Iraqi man in the street shocked by it. date=12.05.2004 16:15 ip=62.188.120.70 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pound: All this is there in "With usura," I think - as you say, Io, barking.

We have a letter from him at OUP which is classic. The typing is bro ken up wit h the ef fort o f hitt-in g the keys, and it's a paranoid rant against Oxford for not including one of his favourite poets in an anthology. "A close corporation of professors? ... Or WHAT in thunder is behind it???" The cage at Pisa and St. Elizabeth's weren't far away, by the sound of it. date=12.05.2004 16:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I guess the moral of this story is that you shd always mind yr Pisan Qs.

I'll get my goat... date=12.05.2004 16:26 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Disgraceful. Wish I'd thought of it first, etc. - :)) date=12.05.2004 16:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Pisan Qs

*laughs out loud* date=12.05.2004 16:41 ip=62.188.145.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You can see now why I've decided to be an electric sitar slinger rather than a stand-up comic. *sigh* date=12.05.2004 16:58 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> an electric sitar slinger

Hmm, not unlike this:

http://www.dreamers.com/ddlv/jornadas/j4/milligan01 .jpg

Irritatingly, the best picture of him I could find. You can just about make out the cosmic sitar gun... date=12.05.2004 17:14 ip=62.188.122.222 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is that Rogan Gosh from... was it Revolution comic? I used to love that. Couldn't make head nor tail of it, loved it though.

Wasn't he the bastard child of a junkie Rudyard Kipling or somesuch? date=12.05.2004 17:24 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just about remember Rogan Gosh. It was in either Crisis or 2000AD, can't remember which. date=12.05.2004 17:27 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, Revolver. Rogan's a karmanaut who accidentally takes on the bad karma of a demon disguised as Rudyard Kipling etc etc. I've got the book around somewhere, it rocks like a late 80s / early 90s psychedelic bastard. date=12.05.2004 18:04 ip=62.188.110.220 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the one. I knew it started with a "Revol". I did some work with Rian Hughes a while back, and in between being starstruck there was lots of reminiscing about Revolver (and Deadline). date=12.05.2004 18:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="I was instructed by persons in higher rank to stand there, hold this leash... and they took the picture. That's all I know." -- Lynndie England. date=12.05.2004 20:39 ip=158.94.132.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was instructed by persons in higher rank

And Who are those persons? date=12.05.2004 20:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I will be in London in the fist week of June for the Comica. date=12.05.2004 21:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> And Who are those persons?

Well, apparently her commanding officer has now said that she was also instructed by persons of higher rank. Tag, you're it, no returns. date=12.05.2004 21:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Let us know when you're about. I'm sure we can get some of the locals together for a few beers. date=12.05.2004 21:16 ip=158.94.135.122 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I will. date=13.05.2004 11:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I will arrive in London thursday 3 of June and leaving next tuesday. I am going to stay with my sister at her place in Gibson Road ( wich she tells me is close to lamberth) and of course I will be at the ICA. Any good pubs nearby? date=13.05.2004 12:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: As you fly in, I fly out to France for five days, so I won't see you this time - :(( - but, soon I hope! date=13.05.2004 12:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: :(( me too. Let´s meet soon ! date=13.05.2004 13:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Should be around then... date=13.05.2004 14:28 ip=62.188.122.24 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Art's Problem


Art's problem is that it isn't pragmatic.

And yet in the end facts aren't either.

They too are assembled in the mirror.

Facts emerge as a mask of human flies.

The human walks the earth
as a tourist of the familiar

and only nakedness is real.


[A poem manifesto] date=13.05.2004 17:00 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Facts emerge as a mask of human flies.

Just been watching episodes of The Day Today. Looks like it's having the normal effect on reality.

Arturo: Yeah, we'll try and get together sometime around then. We *might* be playing a gig in London that weekend - so if you fancy that I'll keep you posted on the details as they emerge. date=13.05.2004 17:48 ip=217.43.23.66 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io : That sounds fine. date=13.05.2004 18:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Art's problem is that it isn't pragmatic.
____________
Hi, MJP

But if it´s pragmatic , surely it isn´t art

Art(uro) date=13.05.2004 18:20 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Art***

What would be useful is if it could show us the validity of uselessness. date=14.05.2004 12:31 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What would be useful is if it could show us the validity of uselessness.
______________-

Hi, MJP
That´s rigth. I think you have pointed out an interesting paradox which, as such, has no answer. Art serves no material - as in food,sex an shelter- for the wiever/user but answers some deeep need in the human psyche to see patterns. That can be "useful" in the sense that it can help him/her to clarify his own experiences and heighten his sensibility. If art could do what you ask of him it would be something else akin to a chamanic experience of the whole of reality. That would be something else. date=14.05.2004 13:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo - shamanic experience: Bullseye. date=14.05.2004 14:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Chamone! I drew some very scary pictures of crows the other night, which did something strange to my brain. Not sure what yet, but it was a pleasantly 'other' experience. nice drawings too. date=14.05.2004 16:15 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow, that must he the longest silence we've ever had on here! Alex: Were the crows from life or out of yr head, as it were.

Today's phrase is "exit strategy": http://tinyurl.com/2fmf7

Haven't seen this news item anywhere else yet. date=17.05.2004 12:13 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Io. And also:

www.freewayblogger.com date=17.05.2004 13:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Particularly like "Quagmire Accomplished".

Our mates Blackwater are in the news again: http://tinyurl.com/2vwaz date=17.05.2004 13:22 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And again - some questions over Nick Berg's death:

http://www.rense.com/general52/anom.htm date=17.05.2004 13:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: ever tried to get a crow to pose? No, these are mythical crows.

Martin: you mean we can't believe eveything we hear? date=17.05.2004 14:03 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Stuffed crows? I guess stuffed crows are less mythic.

Martin: Yes, I'd been wondering about the Nick Berg footage. Seems like he was generally getting in the way in Iraq so perhaps the US decided to make him useful. date=17.05.2004 14:19 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Seems not. But are you who you say you are ..?

Io: Theorists favour the notion that he discovered something out there that the CIA didn't want known. A US speedfreak hack is most likely finishing the first quickie book about the poor man as I post this. We'll see. date=17.05.2004 14:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't wait to see the Iraq footage from Michael Moore's three embedded camera crews. date=17.05.2004 14:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=re Nick Berg - I saw a posting on a messageboard somewhere where somebody had looked at the paint colour on the wall behind him, and on the walls in pictures of Abu Gharaib prison, and discovered that they were identical by using Photoshop to scan them. Is this possible? The wall colours are very similar...! date=17.05.2004 14:55 ip=62.188.110.52 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Is this possible?

That Photoshop could do that? In a way. You can take two photographs and take a colour value from any area of each and compare the two. But even if you took two photographs of the same wall seconds away from each other, you might find discrepancies in the colour value because of changes in light etc. So... I wouldn't like to say. date=17.05.2004 14:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps it's a very popular paint colour in Iraq? Sounds to me like a dubious reason for linking the two, although not much more dubious than the "evidence" that the Mirror photos were faked. date=17.05.2004 15:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The wall colours are very similar

Yes, it's difficult to say - especially with low quality video camera footage. Shame, I would have liked to have believed that it was from Abu Ghraib.

New headline on BBC: Flying Squad Foils £40M Bullion Robbery. Hurrah for cops & robbers and unambiguous news stories! date=17.05.2004 15:08 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I thought that might be the case. One more little detail, though - along with the orange prison issue uniform, the prison issue chair, etc. Hmm, I'm sounding really paranoid now!

Can't help thinking at the end of the day this is ultimately a Rorschach test for your particular political beliefs; you see and believe whatever supports them. date=17.05.2004 15:30 ip=62.188.105.120 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=crows from life : a black blur against a blue background. date=17.05.2004 16:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crow - not from life:

http://www.polymorf.net/images/crowani205x156gif256 k14.gif date=17.05.2004 17:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crow Latin?

http://www.minimus-etc.co.uk/crow.gif date=17.05.2004 17:31 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=David Toop on Shamans: "Shamans , as portrayed by Oliver Stone, may gaze serenely into the middle distance ... but archive photographs and films of shamans ...show grizzled, haunted characters, lined with knowledge after travelling to hell and back... if ambient means only white ligth bliss , then the musicians are mere functionaries, slaves to cool the brow of over-heated urban info-warriors, rather than shamans who travel to gruesome corpselands in order to mug demons for wisdom".
Change musician for writer and this is a pretty good description of the current state comercial fantasy writing. date=17.05.2004 17:37 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Odd you shd musicians and shamans. Because this where we are playing next:

http://headoverheels.org.uk/events.html date=17.05.2004 17:47 ip=158.94.147.145 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Odd you shd mention musicians and shamans. Because this where we are playing next:

http://headoverheels.org.uk/events.html
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=17.05.2004 17:47 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: cool bird.

Arturo: a great quote - where's it from? date=17.05.2004 17:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Caw! mention crows and the whole place goes corvine. That Toop quote sounds like it's from Ocean Of Sound or Exotica. date=17.05.2004 18:00 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: "Oceans of sound".Brilliant book. date=17.05.2004 18:06 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex:Bullseye. It is "sound" as you say .Did you get the edition with a cd? date=17.05.2004 18:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I got the CD seperately, but even so it's great. Some great segues between tracks. date=17.05.2004 18:28 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the whitewashing of shamanism, etc. This dialogue between a practising South American tribal magician and a New Age "shamanic tourist" was recently relayed to me:

Magician: So what can I do for you ?

NAST: Well, I sort of want to open my self up to things. You know ?

Magician (puzzled): Actually, we deal in the practical here. Is there something specific I can get you ?

NAST: What kind of thing do you mean ?

Magician (examines punter): For instance, if your husband has run away, I can get him back for you.

NAST: I'm sorry ? Do you mean you could bring him back by magic ?

Magician: Oh, absolutely.

NAST: But what if he didn't want to come back ?

Magician: No problem. He would come back anyway.

NAST: You mean you could use magic to make him come back, even against his will ?

Magician (smiles): That's what magic is for. To get you what you want.

NAST: But... wouldn't that infringe his rights as a human being ?

I confidently expect to meet a twenty year old whaler soon. I'll say: Christ, what, you mean you stick exploding harpoons into whales for a living ? You seem awfully young for it. She'll say: Oh no, they never did that. Most of them never did it for a living anyway, that's a misconception a lot of people have, it was more of a vocation for them, a spiritual thing. And certainly that's not the way we see it now. For us it's about communicating with the Great Sea of Life. The whale is only a symbol. It's a bit like Jesus. date=17.05.2004 19:31 ip=213.78.69.69 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here is a bizarre piece of gossip.

A neighbour of mine was outside our block of flats in Forest Hill about midnight last Wednesday sitting in his car getting ready to get out when who should walk by but Michael Portillo, accompanied by a woman with shoulder length blond hair. Portillo, somewhat unexpectedly. walked into our block of flats and visited someone on the third floor.

Now I don't know anyone on the third floor; except by sight a few council tenants. What the hell would Michael Portillo be doing visiting someone in these flats at midnight? date=17.05.2004 23:41 ip=62.64.200.185 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What the hell would Michael Portillo be doing visiting someone in these flats at midnight?

Something terribly Sprakean I'd wager. (Sprake-ish, Sprakeoid?) date=17.05.2004 23:51 ip=81.153.227.173 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He was visiting an urban shaman. The blond haired woman was in fact his "ectoplasmic brother" or mentor figure, a reincarnated aborigine from a time when the world population was 400,000 and the most advanced form of technology was a burnt stick. Nevertheless they intend to visit Mars, by pinching the bridges of their noses, after they have solved the world's poverty. date=17.05.2004 23:54 ip=213.78.75.194 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On crow behaviour: http://tinyurl.com/3gjnx date=18.05.2004 00:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Nevertheless they intend to visit Mars

Maybe they will visit Venus... date=18.05.2004 00:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Calling Google's bluff. I tried typing made-up words into Google to see what happened. The following words could not be found:
Spantoak
Pluntry
Miwlerd
Orinaster
Unflinder
Pa rsinoch
deifry

Shame about orinaster. However, these words did get results:
lenthic
zoorg
numerd
amistre
scurp
lomix date=18.05.2004 09:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: I will try and bring a troop of shaman apprentices to your gig.

We are practicing the art of stalking, so expect us all to look like Michael Portillo, Tory shaman and sometime crow. date=18.05.2004 10:01 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP - I think that your whole block of flats has fallen under Portillo's sway, and by attending the gig disguised as multiple Portillos you are in fact facilitating / covering up the presence of the REAL Portillo. If indeed there is a real Portillo, and he is not just a collection of stalkers, all of whom take on his face at different times and in different places. Have you ever seen him in the same room as himself? Many have... date=18.05.2004 10:23 ip=62.188.105.131 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, also - check out the chair pics! About half way down the page...

http://www.guerrillanews.com/forum/showflat.pl?Ca t=&Board=gnn&Number=297210&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&pa rt= date=18.05.2004 10:47 ip=62.188.108.15 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Through adeptive practice, Portillo has learnt to precipitate his own anima, and keeps her in this flat, imprisoned by the shamanic dazzle of fragments he has collected from the nearby ruins of Crystal Palace. A cold sexual fury, her diet consists of little more than six-inch nails and frozen fish fingers. Her pastimes are confined to watching the patterns of lights blinking on the tv mast at Sydenham Hill and counting clothes moths in the flat, which she persists in calling "Tebbit's angels." An operation for her to penetrate and enliven the decrepit body of Margaret Thatcher did not succeed. Portillo's hopes remain high, though. He maintains the up-keep on the flat, together with late night expeditions where she mocks the homeless in the Strand or laps up further nourishment from the Thames in the dark of the moon. A conjunction with a Tory housewife from Basingstoke remains a distinct possibility.

Obvious, when you think about it ... date=18.05.2004 11:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno what Portillo's doing in there, but I'd keep a fire extinguisher handy if I were you. date=18.05.2004 11:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Portillo, Portal-o...

Hmm... date=18.05.2004 11:32 ip=62.188.136.55 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Portillo: I'm all the way with Martin here. He must have been using the same window as me. (I was trying to get a look at the recipe so I could precipitate my own anima, which is an old BMW 635csi.) date=18.05.2004 11:34 ip=213.78.92.229 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: *Weird* chairs - this one will run and run and run round conspiracy theory circles. date=18.05.2004 11:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Chair and chair alike. date=18.05.2004 11:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>We are practicing the art of stalking, so expect us all to look like Michael Portillo, Tory shaman and sometime crow.

Could get confusing. We've been asked to wear either crow masks or Portillo masks for this gig. The output from the mixer is going to run out through morphic resonance filters: apparently it's something to do with transmuting base metals into a BMW 635csi... date=18.05.2004 12:21 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.counterpunch.org/block05142004.html

Torture is Bush's porn. Good article. date=18.05.2004 12:24 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This gets more bizarre. Portillo was here at the place where I work on some conference or other yesterday! Tory Chaman! date=18.05.2004 12:37 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: fascinating - and repulsive.

Mind you, she makes an arresting Freudian utterance: "I'm a sex therapist .. he coughed up the words like a chicken bone."

Not a simile to use lightly in that profession, one would think. date=18.05.2004 12:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>like a chicken bone

Massive beef bone, surely? date=18.05.2004 12:40 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: In Dubya's dreams. date=18.05.2004 12:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Brilliant article. I remember reading something written by an American around the time of 9/11 suggesting that when Osama Bin Laden was eventually caught he shd be forced to stay at Playboy Ranch where he would inevitably submit to the American Dream.

I've got a strange feeling it was Grant Morrison but I could be wrong... date=18.05.2004 12:57 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>forced to stay at Playboy Ranch

Isn't that what Hassan I Sabbah promised his followers? date=18.05.2004 13:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I liked the idea that "Lynndie is the Anti-Lynch, Jessica's shattered mirror image", especially given that the Lynch story seems to have been almost entirely fictional. But the writing in the Counterpunch piece is long-winded crap which could have been drafted down to a quarter of its size. Why are people so keen on crap writing at the moment ? date=18.05.2004 13:55 ip=213.78.95.236 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Why are people so keen on crap writing at the moment ?

I think it's a perennial. date=18.05.2004 14:01 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perennial

Also, the Net doesn't impose page boundaries, and the sense of balance or brevity you get from typing directly onto A4 goes begging. It's a scrolled piece of cyberspace that unwinds to infinity, so you can be as long-winded as you like. date=18.05.2004 14:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: I suppose so. It seems deliberate lately. I suspect a theory, or at least an attitude. I can just feel it there, behind the words. It's not quite, Oops mustn't look too clever; it's more aggressive than that.

Alex: did you find it quite hard to make up words that didn't exist ? My first, coconate, got several hundred hits. I feel slighted. I feel upset. Is every invention a reinvention ? When will I ever make up a word of my own ? Are random collections of consonants allowed ? date=18.05.2004 14:13 ip=213.78.95.236 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Are random collections of consonants allowed ?

Your search - gryzntzky - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "gryzntzky". date=18.05.2004 14:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Your search - "clothmatric" - did not match any documents. No pages were found containing "clothmatric".

Phew. date=18.05.2004 14:19 ip=213.78.95.236 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I searched for a word that I'd swear was my childish melding of "frail" and "brittle." Not only does it exist - it's also one of those useful words that you never knew (well, I didn't anyway):

http://www.slowdownloads.com/word/wordoftheday.h tml date=18.05.2004 14:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>quite hard to make up words that didn't exist ?

Yes, surprisingly so. A non-existant english word can be a correct foreign one, for example.

Mike: that image of Dr. Haends bending down into the window. It's very familiar to me - I can see it as if I've seen if before, although I might be mistaking him for an apple-bonker (Yellow Submarine). Did you 'get it' from somewhere else? date=18.05.2004 14:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: not consciously. I saw it in a dream, in which it was a rather less interesting figure, someone I used to know coming back to haunt me. It struck me at the time I wrote it down as Victorian, and maybe a reference to puppet theatre, the idea of a figure invading the proscenium space at the wrong scale ? Who knows. That's the beauty of recombinative unconscious influence.

Dr Haends himself is a deliberate suite of references--including the one very direct one; as is the "retro shop window" he sometimes invades. date=18.05.2004 14:40 ip=213.78.95.236 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>gryzntzky

Is actually a bakers in Stamford Hill and Golder's Green. Oh, hold on - that's Grodzinsky's...

>>"retro shop window"

Kinda gets mixed up in my imagination with the shop window in Bagpuss. date=18.05.2004 14:47 ip=158.94.147.145 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw the play Festen a little while ago. (I haven't seen the film.) In it the father vehemently denies the accusation levelled at him by the son, that he abused him and his sister when they were young. The accusation is made at the father's birthday party, but to no apparent effect other than that of creating an atmosphere of embarrassment. What happens is that slowly over the course of the play the father is forced to 'evolve' this denial - to make it into an excuse, so that in spite of the evidence of its having happened it amounts to the same thing as the initial denial: "Well they were no good for anything else." This is the play's centre, this power struggle - to get the father to admit to what he did; but not just that, but to get everyone else to admit to it and that it was wrong; the son even has to include his own mother in this struggle; it is a struggle which the son slowly wins, but the astonishing thing is that it should have to happen at all; so it becomes clear that these facts are not just facts, and that their admission, about whether the father or son is wrong or right, is as much a struggle between son and mother, and son and brother, son and friends, none of whom believe him (and the daughter has since committed suicide): or, if they believe him, still find opportunities to deny it because of the unseemliness of such a topic at a birthday party. They all feel disinclined to accept that any such thing should be admitted to; for a complicated tangle of reasons, so that the winning of this struggle to establish the father as a sexual abuser doesn't follow logic or rationality: it is rather about who is able to dominate the situation. As the father tells the son in the end, after losing: "You put up a good fight." That seems to be exactly the situation with Iraq. Rationality, logic, the expression of facts, the existence of statistics, the terrible events, the deaths, these things in themselves have very little to do with it. Papers can report the prisoner abuses, the deaths, etc, until they are blue in the face but it wont make any difference until some sort of key is in place, like the Englande photos, something that tips the balance. Rumsfeld is absolutely ruthless in these terms. He is exactly like the powerful industrialist father in Festen. Already he is back at his games. date=18.05.2004 14:47 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"retro shop window"

Makes me think of Svankmajer or the Bros Quay. Or, in fact, a shop window from my childhood. date=18.05.2004 14:51 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"You put up a good fight."

Or, as Klingons had a habit of saying to Captain Kirk: "In different circumstances we could have been friends."
Nice comparison MJP. date=18.05.2004 14:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I've only seen the film of Festen but it's all coming back now. Didn't Freud say something about double-denials: "It's not true - and besides they're stupid anyway!" date=18.05.2004 14:58 ip=158.94.147.145 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the things that is so astonishing is that Blair still gives this rubbish his personal, passionate endorsement. Surely we are in the end game. date=18.05.2004 15:22 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Surely we are in the end game

I keep on thinking that! And yet we never are. They seem to have realised that, if they don't get out, nobody's going to force them out - and so it goes on and on and on.

Love your Festen comparison, MJP; to me it's like a soap opera with a single, tired, tired plot, being mercilessly re-hashed again and again until everybody just turns off. Event bouncing off the same characters time after time and making no impact on them whatsoever. date=18.05.2004 15:48 ip=62.188.130.133 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The clothmatric Portillo.

He had "a symphony of deserts" last night. I have the menu before me, which is dedicated to him. As usual with politicians, none of the deserts are just. date=18.05.2004 16:08 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A veritable dessert storm. date=18.05.2004 16:16 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"a symphony of deserts"

I can never manage a whole Gobi. date=18.05.2004 16:17 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aloo gobi.
Wasn't that a character in an MJH story? date=18.05.2004 16:30 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought it was the traditional way to greet a cauliflower. date=18.05.2004 16:39 ip=158.94.147.145 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely aloo coli?

Tho' isn't aloo a potato? I went camel trekking in India once, near Jaisalmer; our guide was called Aloo because (he said) when he was a baby he'd looked just like a potato. date=19.05.2004 10:51 ip=62.188.110.83 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aloo certainly is potato, but Gobi is cauli... I'm getting my coat before my grasp of Indian dialects falls flat. date=19.05.2004 10:55 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I went camel trekking in India once, near Jaisalmer;

Gill and I spent about five days resisting the advances of camel trek organisers in Jaisalmer; we were succesful, but it was hard work.

One night, we drank bhang lhassi from the government-sanctioned bhang shop, then sat on a café terrace in the old town as the bhang kicked in, increasingly fascinated by the intricate carving on every surface around us. We then went back to our Haveli, read some Leonora Carrington to one another, and then I settled down to read Climbers: more than anything, I was sucked in by the blurb inside about The Course of the Heart. I spent the night hallucinating, somewhere just outside the Coeur.

One of the most memorable nights of my life so far. date=19.05.2004 11:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aloo Gobi is potato and cauliflower. Facto! date=19.05.2004 11:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So the Gobi Desert really is the Cauliflower Desert? Wow.

That Bhang Lassi is potent stuff... Had one of my *peak* reading experiences in India, read the whole of 'A Suitable Boy' non stop in one 18 hour train journey between Delhi and Varanasi. No hallucinations tho'. date=19.05.2004 11:39 ip=62.188.110.168 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read most of Climbers on the trains in India too. Very strange, flipping from sun-cracked Indian plains to wind-swept English moors and back again. date=19.05.2004 11:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can imagine... tho' interesting to be reading a book so much about fantasy and breaking out of fantasy while moving through India, I would think. date=19.05.2004 12:07 ip=62.188.100.24 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All journeys are about fantasy and breaking out of fantasy. Everything you look at is art.

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99995 007 date=19.05.2004 12:25 ip=213.78.82.201 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>New Scientist: dark energy could well be the "energy inherent to empty space ..."

And the Italian group studying the kinetics of interstellar clouds is called GIFCO.

I think we're starting to see some kind of larger picture, here. date=19.05.2004 12:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always see a larger picture when I look at clouds. date=19.05.2004 12:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dark matter forms what? 90% of the universe? And we don't know what it is. We can't even see it.

I can't help thinking that when an inkling of what it is is arrived at it will completely overturn the ordinary idea of reality. Much of the physics will remain intact, but the idea of reality wont. date=19.05.2004 13:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder. We're already pretty sure that what we experience isn't necessarily how things *are*. But as LSD and other hallucinogenics have shown, you can experience reality differently for a while without that experience changing the way you experience reality normally. So if we were suddenly told that what we experience is not *correct* we probably wouldn't be able to experience things differently. Not without major reprogramming. date=19.05.2004 13:48 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Off-topic, but - intriguingly, Portillo knew instantly that Tony had been "dosed."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics /3728617.stm

- makes you think ... date=19.05.2004 13:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: that link gave me a 404. But the idea of Tony being dosed... was it in the council flats? date=19.05.2004 14:16 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, got it now. Shame. date=19.05.2004 14:17 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, I can't find what you are referring to. What does it say?

On seeing things in a new way. I think we are at the end of the road. Our only option is total change or we die as a species. It might be the dodgy salmon I ate at lunch speaking but I don't think so. date=19.05.2004 14:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It might be the dodgy salmon I ate at lunch speaking

And how would we know? So many of them have attended beginners IT classes these days!

Sorry, I think that was the sangria I had at lunchtime speaking... date=19.05.2004 14:34 ip=158.94.156.217 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know what will make everyone see things differently. Not having any oil. date=19.05.2004 14:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking as a salmon, America is in deep deep trouble; it has the political grasp of a beefburger n fries (as a salmon I have certain prejudices of course) so therefore is the rest of the world in deep deep trouble. Britain is the meat in the sandwich at the moment. date=19.05.2004 14:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Britain is the meat in the sandwich at the moment.

But without any oil we're going to be making crap kebabs. It kinda changes yr perspective, no? date=19.05.2004 15:03 ip=158.94.156.217 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, MJP: If you haven't seen it by now, the link was to the main BBC web page - someone threw a purple dye at Blair in Parliament. Portillo was reported as saying that he could see at once at Tony had got a dose of whatever it was ... date=19.05.2004 15:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040519/80/etygb.html
- I'm sure no one on ES has played any part in this disgraceful exhibition ... date=19.05.2004 15:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: on dark matter, etc. We've had three or four major paradigm shifts since the beginning of the 20thC. Most people have managed to plod along without noticing that the world has changed--except inasmuch as change tends to leak out not as perceptual shifts but as technology. Even that can be ignored. My gran wouldn't use the telephone, or look up when you pointed out an aeroplane. She was convinced that sonic bangs and nuclear explosions were somehow the same thing; and if you mentioned the Space Age in her hearing in 1954, she just clipped you round the ear. I think there's rather less dark matter than you suggest, by the way. date=19.05.2004 15:24 ip=213.78.75.227 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure no one on ES has played any part in this disgraceful exhibition ...

Meanwhile:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040519/80/etygb.html

(reinstalled by iotar) date=19.05.2004 15:25 ip=158.94.156.217 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Thanks once again!

Agh. I dunno: it looked fine, I posted, it went skew-whiff. Bugger. Must be the heat, or the demons from that virtual church. Possibly my own incompetence. Who can tell? date=19.05.2004 15:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - I know very little about dark matter as a theoretical issue, but most articles I have looked at say that between 90% & 99% of matter is dark matter.

At least 99% of the u;niverse seems not to be visible to us at all. Or does more recent research recalculate this?

I kind of agree about the idea of change. Unfortunately war is the thing that seems to change people most. date=19.05.2004 15:43 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How much dark matter?
http://www.astro.queensu.ca/~dursi/dm-tutorial/dm3. html date=19.05.2004 16:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Check out the poem "Bolide" on the home page "Queen's Observatory/Fireball" section, too!

- "And somewhere, just beyond the west,
Your precious fragments still may rest."

How true. How very true. date=19.05.2004 16:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=23% dark matter, 73% dark energy, with ordinary footling stuff making up the rest of the mass/energy budget. And that's only the Green & Black's chocolate. date=19.05.2004 17:05 ip=213.78.77.76 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You should try Liddls'. That's 75% actual cocoa; and it's less than a pound.

While we are on the subject did you know you can get 1 litre of single malt scotch for less than a tenner? I don't know why I don't shop there. And the beer is from Bremen. date=19.05.2004 17:13 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Liddls'

As in ..?

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/-1/page =display_nation/nation=liddl date=19.05.2004 17:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact thinking about it, Liddls is proof that there are universes inches away from us that we can't see - the very thing that Dark Matter suggests!

One arrives at a Liddls by accident, it is part of an economy similar to, but not quite the same as, our own. Everything looks at once familiar and unfamiliar. Instead of the usual brand names, Kellogs, Nestle, and so on there are generic-style 'brand names', names that don't quite seem real: Sun Chocolate, or whatever. All the quanitities seem larger. Items are stacked carelessly; there is very little suggestive of the light and the clarity of a Tescos. The conclusion? One is in a parallel universe. These creatures are not quite as advanced as we are. date=19.05.2004 17:33 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lidl do some very good tinned fish. The herring in mustard sauce rocks like a barrel of bastards. date=19.05.2004 17:36 ip=158.94.155.92 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Because it is at least 99% herring! Red herring! date=19.05.2004 17:57 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dark Matter: This reminds me of the "negative zone" in the old Fantastic Four comics. date=19.05.2004 17:58 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice Tom Waits page.
http://www.ripcat.free-online.co.uk/tomwaits.htm date=19.05.2004 18:49 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm very into Aldi, which is a bit like Liddl and Netto and Gifco. I like the badly packaged goods and the interesting foreign imports. You can get a tin of baked beans for something like 10p, although cheap beans are always disappointing. Best of all, though, are the people on the checkouts. So FAST. They are truly alien. date=20.05.2004 10:02 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Waits - very nice - thank you!

Just listening to his recording of Gavin Bryars's "Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet," too - one of the saddest songs ever. date=20.05.2004 10:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet,"

I'm of the opinion that Waits ruins this version. The tramp has genuine pathos, which Waits proceeds to suffocate under layers of Plumrose ham. date=20.05.2004 10:51 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I am wiling to taste any chocolate once..or twice.And alas it shows .
waits: Who did what on that record Alex? I think it´s supossed to be a collaboration with Gavin Bryars so maybe t the evidence points elsewehere.
More Waits: Did anybody get the cd reissue of "One from the heart" last january? date=20.05.2004 11:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I'm listening to a couple of mixes by Bryars, of tramp and Waits, so I know what you mean. The "tramp only" mix is heart-breaking: I can stand about 5 minutes of it, no more. Like some tracks by Throbbing Gristle (for very different reasons) its one of the few bits of music I've ever found unlistenable. date=20.05.2004 11:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet,"
I listen to the "tramp with string quartet" arrangemente. I too find the tramp voice heart-breaking. date=20.05.2004 12:01 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I find the full orchestra arrangement a bit over-blown. So, I am in that very boring position of agreement with you both. But my earlier point was that even if Alex dislikes these tracks he shouldn’t raise and admonitory finger to Waits alone but to both Bryars and Waits.
This of course raises a different question: Why the most famous partner in a collaboration so often gets more credit –or blame as the case may be - whatever he actually did? date=20.05.2004 12:09 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Waits said he was blown away by the original recording, and jumped at the chance to be on the re-recording. Error of judgement on Bryars' part, although I'm sure it didn't hurt the sales. date=20.05.2004 12:20 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just for fun, who would have been better than Waits, should a guest vocalist have been inevitable? I'll go for Diamanda Galas. No, on second thoughts maybe Sainkho Namchylak. date=20.05.2004 12:22 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=20.05.2004 12:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is my second ghost post! What happened?
>Sainkho Namchylak.
Please, explain. date=20.05.2004 12:31 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. I tried to get Bryars to talk about it at a dinner party once, but he wouldn't be drawn.

This is just so fucking *brilliant* --

www.mrandmrswheatley.co.uk/blair.html date=20.05.2004 12:31 ip=213.78.68.179 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I could be wrong, but I think the original version was very hard to find - it seemed one of those records that Eno knew but no one else could ever get hold of. So perhaps Wait's involvement made a re-issue commercially possible.

Some of the grief you feel listening is amplified by the context, too. As Waits and Bryars are well aware, it's deeply unsettling to embed such a fag-end of hope in the midst of plastic art for a sophisticated audience. How do you respond? Why do you respond that way? Do you respond in a different way listening to old blues tunes, knowing their singers were just as desperate as the tramp and (like him, most likely) never received any royalty for their "art"? Not easy questions, and it's not easy music. date=20.05.2004 12:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Fucking *ace* !! date=20.05.2004 12:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Sainkho Namchylak is a Tuvan singer with the most incredible voice. Animal-like and scary one minute, sweet as anything the next.

Mike: that was indeed brilliant. date=20.05.2004 12:43 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Very scary!

Talking of Waits (and Burroughs) - we're going to see this at the Barbican next Friday: http://tinyurl.com/24a7c

Shd be fun. date=20.05.2004 12:44 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>one of those records that Eno knew

Eno released the first version, on his Discreet label. It had The Sinking of the Titanic on the other side. date=20.05.2004 12:45 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: She's great. I've seen her live only once, but her song "Let the Sun Shine" is an all-time favourite. date=20.05.2004 12:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Sainkho Namchylak
Thanks Alex and Martin. And expedition to the record shop seems to be in order. date=20.05.2004 12:57 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>MJH: Very scary!

Only time I ever met him. It was up in some bleak Midlands town. Wintry rain dashed at the windows of the private dining room etc.

The mrandmrswheatley blairfest is down to Cath, who passed it on first thing this morning. date=20.05.2004 13:00 ip=213.78.68.179 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very Scary II: Someone's done a page of annotations to the New Weird discussion:

http://tinyurl.com/2z735 date=20.05.2004 13:03 ip=158.94.155.92 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, io: thought you meant Bryars... date=20.05.2004 13:05 ip=213.78.68.179 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, io: thought you meant Bryars... date=20.05.2004 13:06 ip=213.78.68.179 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bryars, Blair... they all sound the same after a few tins of Brasso. date=20.05.2004 13:09 ip=158.94.155.92 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK, I've got my coat now. I'm working too hard & I should drink less whiskey. Why does it *do* that duplication thing ? As for the annotated New Weird, I sure don't want to know about that. date=20.05.2004 13:10 ip=213.78.68.179 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the forum's also been at the Brasso... Dunno, no idea.

Pleased to see that the New Weird Annotations people don't know who Al or me really are and seem to think that Neil Ayres is Neal Asher. They could have just *asked* someone. date=20.05.2004 13:14 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New Weird Annotator surely needs a new '?' key on the typewriter. Kicking over the ashes, or what? date=20.05.2004 13:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: The pages seem to belong to the Oxford University Science Fiction Group. P'raps you could pop around and give them a kicking? date=20.05.2004 13:57 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yikes - a cabal of dust-eaters just down the road. My actual life beckons me in the opposite direction, though. It must be more exciting than that.

*Realises he's just spent two hours shifting 400 vacant boxes into archive storage. Who'd have thought empty space could take up so much room?* date=20.05.2004 14:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al (?) mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - were you moving boxes, or were you moving the empty space within?

New Weird Annotator - hmm, fame at last. Also Neil Asher's a Neal... and all that almost a year ago, good grief. Suspect someone somewhere's already building a Phd on it all. date=20.05.2004 14:25 ip=62.188.131.177 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al? (Can I call you '?' ?) - Empty boxes. You get into this zen frame of mind, thinking that you're simply shifting holes about in the air.

>PhD - undoubtedly. It all seems a long time ago now, but cyberspace leaves everything in the present tense for folk to chew over. I became particularly gloomy when the arguments about sf as "a literature of ideas" resurrected themselves, too - I thought all that rigmarole got booted into the knacker's yard years ago. Wrong again. date=20.05.2004 14:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The annotated New Weird stuff is a Wiki - http://www.wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki - which means that it could be the work of more than one author and, indeed, anyone (yes, you) can jump it to edit the mistakes if they can be arsed. The words with hyperlinked ?s after them are CamelCase words which don't have associated entries written yet... hang on, I'm making no sense, but I can't be arsed either.

What I'm trying to say is that if it offends you, you can alter it by using the buttons at the bottom.

Speaking of sci-fi, anyone catch Brian Aldiss's show on Radio 4 the other day? Me neither. date=20.05.2004 14:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*pops in*

Apolitical animated madness:

http://www.angryalien.com/0504/shiningbunnies.ht ml

Much to do this pm!

Am pondering doing doctorate so can be Dr (?)

Alt will invest in internet priesthood and become Father (?)

*pops out* date=20.05.2004 15:04 ip=62.188.105.44 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What I'm trying to say is that if it offends you, you can alter it by using the buttons at the bottom.

I'd rather sneer at the crapness of their research. It's the smug buddhist in me coming out again. date=20.05.2004 15:13 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Doctorate ...

I invented a qualification - just put 'ICBA' after your name. Looks astoundingly official; means, 'I Can't Be Arsed.' date=20.05.2004 15:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, could go double barrelled as well with it -

'Hi, I'm Al Robertson-Icba'

Tho' in fact I think Icba-Robertson sounds better come to think of it. date=20.05.2004 15:54 ip=62.188.112.205 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: ICBA TTA ES NS GSOH WLTM Own car. Curious. NB inveterate liar. date=20.05.2004 15:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="That's DR. Icba-Robertson to you, sonny!" date=20.05.2004 16:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=ICBA also stands for:
Independent Community Bankers of America
International Candlepin Bowling Association
International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture
Isreali Cattle Breeders Association
International Christian Bikers Assocation

Interesting situations might arise if you turned up at the wrong conference.
Christian Biker: Nice hog, man! Jesus is Lord!
Israeli Cattle Breeder: That's no hog. That's my cow.
etc... date=20.05.2004 16:08 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: >ICBA stands for ...

After peering at the list for a minute, I began to feel they were all one and the same organisation.

I must get out more ... date=20.05.2004 16:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're all Illuminatus fronts date=20.05.2004 16:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>They're all Illuminatus fronts

Illuminatus Conspiracy to Bring Armageddon. date=20.05.2004 16:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interestingly, the Israeli Cattle Breeders also provide online facilities to purchase frozen bull semen - for some, the weekend could well start here:

http://www.tumpline.com/stackyard/pedigree/html/isr ael_cattle.html date=20.05.2004 17:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>frozen bull semen

It's okay, but it always drips down the stick before you get back to the beach. date=20.05.2004 17:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Gross!

(I was thinking: first, freeze your bull ...) date=20.05.2004 17:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Alex: Gross!

I got the idea from Heston Blumenthal. date=20.05.2004 17:17 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Heston Blumenthal.

I see what you mean (the menu includes "snail porridge" - people *pay* to eat this?) - but I like the digital snowfall that starts the site:

http://www.fatduck.co.uk/menu.html date=20.05.2004 17:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"snail porridge"

That's another name for bull semen. Like 'rock salmon' is dogfish. date=20.05.2004 17:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or mountain oysters - bull's balls.

*shudders* date=20.05.2004 17:57 ip=62.188.143.67 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've had lamb's balls ('fries'). Slicing through them is a little unnerving. date=20.05.2004 18:07 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On a somewhat more elevated topic.

I don't understand why more fuss hasn't been made of Thom Gunn's death.

He was at least on a par with Ted Hughes.

http://tomraworth.com/gunn/gunn.html date=20.05.2004 18:19 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: ICBA TTA ES NS GSOH WLTM
___________
Ia Sub-nigorath ! date=20.05.2004 18:43 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, many very respectful retrospectives; but I don't think he was a media poet in quite the same way that Ted Hughes. And he was never poet laureate. I wonder what the response was like in the States? date=20.05.2004 18:44 ip=62.188.108.187 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heston Blumenthal: I won't hear a word said against him. He's working with Ed at the moment on a menu which would do Des Esseintes proud.

And if the snail porridge is anything like the dishes I tried at Juniper (mmm... deconstructed haggis pie!) then I'll have yours Martin. date=20.05.2004 22:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure Blumenthal is a very creative chef, and of course I'd like to try the dishes, but some of the menus read like something out of the Futurist Cookbook. I'm not sure I want my dining experience to be manipulated in such an obvious way. date=21.05.2004 09:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan:My portion's all yours. I'm heading for the veggie option.

MJP: Maybe Gunn wasn't enough of a self-publicist - or else California meant he didn't have a great English rep. Always loved the Elizabethan pacing of his work. date=21.05.2004 10:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gunn was one of the greatest English (or Anglo-American) poets of the 20th Century.

But he was absolutely not interested in self-promotion. I don't just like him; he uses rhythms and language with such directness and simplicity! Also totally modern in subject-matter; in a way Hughes never dreamt of. The Passages of Joy, poorly received on this side of the Atlantic (really for being too explicitly gay) - fantastic; without parallel. date=21.05.2004 10:34 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, must read some of him; I always avoided him because of his association with Hughes, who I never got. Used to have 'The Thought Fox' regularly pounded down me by English teachers as supreme example of avant garde, off the beaten track poetry. Sheesh.

Also - is it Jeff Nuttall who also died recently? Another interesting poet. And keep on meaning to try and pick up the big new Tom Raworth Collected Works, but it's dauntingly huge! Oh, and W.S. Graham's just been properly collected in Faber, am waiting for the paperback of that one; he's magnificent. date=21.05.2004 10:43 ip=62.188.136.84 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like Hughes. Gunn I don't know much of, but funnily enough I was investigating him recently before the mention here, because of the obits. Seem interesting. date=21.05.2004 10:49 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some WSG:

http://www.7greenhill.freeserve.co.uk/ear.html
http ://www.7greenhill.freeserve.co.uk/construct.html

Poems at the bottom of page:

http://www.7greenhill.freeserve.co.uk/graham.html

'I say this silence or, better, construct this space
So that somehow something may move across
The caught habits of language to you and me.' date=21.05.2004 10:51 ip=62.188.136.84 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Gunn is the antithesis of stale post war Englishness; all that e.g. Larkin is or was as a poet. His mastery of English poetry and prose has no parallel in these terms. Unlike almost anyone else you might mention it is the directness, the simplicity, the purity of his line that is exemplary. Its apparent ordinariness hiding an endless exoticism. A true artist. date=21.05.2004 10:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: WSG is marvellous, too.

Just seen this poem by Terence Dooley. Neat work - and two near-MJH title references, too. Hmm ...

DARK HOUSE

Sometimes, leafing through 3-month old magazines
in waiting-rooms, I turn to my stars,
and I think *Well that didn't happen*
and nor did that, none of it - no long journey,
no cheque in the post, no hint of romance,
so I don't read my horoscope.
Mars may hover on Saturn's cusp
in Venus's dark house - I don't give a fuck.

But, yesterday, tired of comparing 3-year-old
super-minis in 'What Car?'
at the dentist's, I happened to turn to your stars
for that already discarded autumn, and I thought
*Well that did happen,* and, if I'd read it then,
and thrown down this rag, and run to your side,
I might have stopped you doing what you did. date=21.05.2004 11:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, don't know Terence Dooley; nice little poem. Implies much more than it says, must check him out.

Also - MJH, am re-reading 'Climbers' and think I've found a typo, unsure if it's been pointed out. Hopefully helpful for preparation of the new edition.

On p.52 of the Paladin edition, a para two thirds of the way down begins with 'Normal boasted about his own falls, particularly the one he took from the railway train' (sic). I suspect that the Railway Train is the name of a climb and should be capitalised. date=21.05.2004 11:18 ip=62.188.112.199 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I struggle with most poetry, but find it much easier when spoken rather than written. So recently, in London on an empty Tuesday evening, I popped into the Poetry Café for their open mic session.

Lots of mediocre and less-than-mediocre stuff, plus some elderly, vaguely Eastern-European woman, dressed in fairy-chiffon; obviously a regular and a character. She was singing songs about the evil Euro and the day she met Princess Di.

Then there were a couple of gems. A nervous young girl giving her first reading, a tale of love and sex beside a lake, brought a tear to my eye. And by contrast a confident East-End geezer, another heartfelt love poem, the title something like "I can no longer send you messages of love, now some fucker has stolen my mobile". date=21.05.2004 12:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. Yours is the reasonable attitude, but Normal had actually fallen off a railway train. (He was bored & mucking about.) I can't for the life of me remember if this is explained anywhere else in the book... date=21.05.2004 12:39 ip=62.188.154.136 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=American stupidity : http://tinyurl.com/36745 date=21.05.2004 14:49 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Stupidity.

"You shoot like a goat herder."

Insults don't get much worse. date=21.05.2004 15:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, absurdity times ten. date=21.05.2004 15:23 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Horsey installed. Nudge, (lewd) wink. Go look at Empty Space News page... date=21.05.2004 16:29 ip=217.43.19.144 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Nice picture. Suitable for a pc wallpaper.
I also noticed the spanish viriconium cover. It is by Alejandro Teran his site is worth a look
http://personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/teran/eng/inde x.htm date=22.05.2004 12:10 ip=80.58.9.113 name=david lloyd mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey MJP, I agree about Gunn. I didn't get into him until I heard a recording of him reading his poems. His accent wasn't as americanised as I'd expected. It was a bit estuary english, a bit medway towns actually.
It had a faltering flat quality that I really liked.
Ted Hughes said that Gunns subject was gentleness. date=23.05.2004 20:08 ip=213.122.168.200 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=DL: I saw Gunn read his poems in the Queen Elizabeth Hall when The Man With Night Sweats came out. The main theme of the book, his friends who were Aids victims, meant that there were quite a few gay Aids sufferers there, prematurely aged, bone thin. Gunn was strikingly self-effacing. His "Thank you for coming" seemed to express surprise. He also seemed very strong and healthy; I would have given him another 25 years. (He died HIV negative.) He read beautifully. He explained to the audience that if his accent sounded a bit strange it was because it was reverting back to English. He experienced the same reversion in reverse so to speak when he was on the other side of the Atlantic. I remember feeling a pang of loss when we left the reading; I am not sure why. Maybe it was because of his warmth. date=24.05.2004 10:07 ip=81.19.57.39 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's surprising what reading out loud can do to a text. Someone read the opening pages of Camier and Mercier to me, a book I was already familiar, and it was transformed. Out loud it was a great deal funnier. date=24.05.2004 13:28 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Burroughs is the classic example. Once you hear him read, his writing is changed forever. date=24.05.2004 13:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What's this on the news page?

Govenment don't want us to sell
this image! Check Your spouse and stuff
Investigate Your Own MGIC SKULL
hacking someone brain!
Disappear in your city
bannedcd2004 date=24.05.2004 14:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=M Llwyd mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's this chap's bruder: http://tinyurl.com/2zswj date=24.05.2004 14:52 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another star on United Artists. I'd like to meet his tailor. Or is this part of a G-plan sales promotion?

Saw a tv ad for "The Day After Tomorrow" at the weekend. Weird proviso as a screen footer: "Contains Scenes of Peril." A tsunami broke around the Statue of Liberty. I think we were meant to feel nervous, somehow. date=24.05.2004 16:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The day after tomorrow:
I am the only one bored by CGI? And why are we supposed to say that we mistake them for reality when we don’t? I saw Stephen Sommers on TV making fun of the rubber bat in Todd Browning’s “Dracula” – a far better movie than his own by all accounts - and then they saw us this utterly unconvincing computer drawing of a batwoman rushing at the camera as fast a it could, good idea not to stop or the audience will notice how bad it was. date=24.05.2004 17:57 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Have to say I stopped watching TB's Dracula at the rubber bat / crappy walking through cobwebs fx. No mystery or magic whatsoever; give me Murnau anytime.

A friend's seen The Day After. Apparently v. depressing, tho' freezing of Royal Family at Balmoral a major plus I think. date=24.05.2004 18:27 ip=62.188.145.160 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=TB's Dracula :
Hi, Al
Some great lines : "I never drink ..wine". "They are all mad here except you and me .. and sometimes I have douts about you".
I agree that it goes downhill from the second act . But for me the movie is held together by Lugosi´s performance. The impression of barey concealed brutality hidden by a veneer of charm - and the slicked back hair-reminded me of early Robert de Niro. date=24.05.2004 19:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo.

Hmm, maybe I should give it another go. My favourite vampire lines - 'Ah, the Children of the Night - vhat sweet music they make', Gary Oldman's nutty 'No - I cannot do it - I luff you too much' (just before he turns into a mansized tower of rats) - and one of the cards in Nosferatu; happy innocent Harker waiting for the coach - 'And then the dead came out to meet him'. That last beautifully chilling.

Also, I love the moment in that film about Murnau using a real vampire in Nosferatu where the Nosferatu character has a soliloquy about the loneliness of being a vampire; talking about the Dracula book, and the sequence in it where Harker observes Dracula laying a table; the sadness of trying to remember how to buy food, how to lay a table when you've not eaten for centuries. Terrible film, but that's a fantastic scene.

For brutality, best Nosferatu I've seen was a stage adaptation where N was reimagined as a thuggish, Nazi precursor Transylvanian peasant. Not entirely successful as it lacked his hypnotic charm... date=24.05.2004 19:15 ip=62.188.136.123 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Day After Tomorrow: I was puzzled by that disclaimer too, although I think the actual wording was "contains extended scenes of peril" (or "scenes of extended peril"?)

Dracula: wasn't Stoker inspired by fear of Eastern European immigrants. Relevant all over again. date=24.05.2004 20:18 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Al

>My favourite vampire lines - 'Ah, the Children of the Night - vhat sweet music they make'

Well that one is my all time favourite. I have a friend, David Drake, born David Dracula - yes, he is family of -, who is an actor and that is his favourite line too.

>Terrible film, but that's a fantastic scene.

"Shadow of the vampire". Yes that was a brilliant scene in an otherwise failed movie. I know some people who were called into that production - to advise on Murnau´s occult background- and by rigths it should have been a brilliant movie . date=24.05.2004 20:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Al

>My favourite vampire lines - 'Ah, the Children of the Night - vhat sweet music they make'

Well that one is my all time favourite. I have a friend, David Drake, born David Dracula - yes, he is family of -, who is an actor and that is his favourite line too.

>Terrible film, but that's a fantastic scene.

"Shadow of the vampire". Yes that was a brilliant scene in an otherwise failed movie. I know some people who were called into that production - to advise on Murnau´s occult background- and by rigths it should have been a brilliant movie . date=24.05.2004 20:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi,
sorry abount the double post. I cliked on the send and nothing happened . date=24.05.2004 20:27 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Curiously enough I keep trying to phone Cath who is in Croatia & all I get is the Count's recorded voice going, "You hof dialled non-existing nomber."

Actually it's more like "naumbrer"

I thought the point of that great Malkovich scene was that Nosferatu regretted no longer having slaves & servants, that he had to do all this meal preparation & table laying himself. His tragedy was not his divorce from life but from domestic help. Maybe I've got more cynical than I thought. date=24.05.2004 23:19 ip=213.78.79.178 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, here's the quote:

[Asked what he thought of the book, Dracula]
Max Schreck: It made me sad.
Albin: Why sad?
Max Schreck: Because Dracula had no servants.
Albin: I think you missed the point of the book, Count Orlock.
Max Schreck: Dracula hasn't had servants in 400 years and then a man comes to his ancestral home, and he must convince him that he... that he is like the man. He has to feed him, when he himself hasn't eaten food in centuries. Can he even remember how to buy bread? How to select cheese and wine? And then he remembers the rest of it. How to prepare a meal, how to make a bed. He remembers his first glory, his armies, his retainers, and what he is reduced to. The loneliest part of the book comes... when the man accidentally sees Dracula setting his table.

Night all! date=24.05.2004 23:54 ip=62.188.122.61 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There you go, Al. Where'd you get the script ? date=25.05.2004 00:53 ip=62.188.151.40 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I did a google search - "Shadow of the Vampire" + quotes. It's a fantastic bit of writing; retro-fitting 'Dracula' with the vampire's point of view and turning it into something tragic and deeply lonely in about 30 words. date=25.05.2004 09:32 ip=62.188.132.80 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb also - hope you got through to Croatia ok! Where is she out there? It's an incredible place. date=25.05.2004 09:56 ip=62.188.100.169 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Vampires & servants:
Something that sticks out for me is the fact that the vampires are always some sort of aristo living in a castle, never a commoner in a garret. I think that the relationship of the vampire to people is basically a metaphor for feudal social relationship. This is illustrated with M.R.James´s Count Magnus hunting in (forever) his woods. date=25.05.2004 10:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I hate anything to do with Vampires. Blow them off the face of the earth.

Remember: Bad people have parties too. date=25.05.2004 11:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. It's a good piece of writing for sure. I haven't got through to Cath yet. Her mobile is supposed to be set up for roaming, but I don't think anyone has told the Croatians that.

Every generation makes its own use of the vampire. I hated the 80s vampire with its, "My special tragedy is that I have to eat other people to live. Still, that's nature, pass the salt." But I liked the vampires in The Lost Boys. That would be the testosterone, drugs and bridge jumping, I guess. Particularly the bridge jumping.

This is fun--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1224075,00.h tml

Oh, clever get-out, lads. On the basis that condemning yourself as one thing allows you to avoid the accusation of being something worse--in their case torturers--the Abu Ghraib lot were happy to present themselves as moral imbeciles. In the same spirit the CIA are now happy to present themselves as, well, imbeciles. Less, "The dog ate my homework sir," than, "Robert said he'd do my homework for me sir, then *put in all the wrong answers*."

The Iranians must be having a chuckle, whether they did it or not. date=25.05.2004 12:12 ip=213.78.65.236 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But, hey - Iran duped us, so let's bomb them next. Oh, and we'll demolish that prison so no one'll be reminded of the place where those embarrassing pictures were taken of our service personnel having fun.

Then we can re-elect Bush, do away with the remaining human rights in the Constitution, make anyone who disagrees a "detainee" - and get the oil. All those in favour, say aye. date=25.05.2004 12:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But I liked the vampires in The Lost Boys. That would be the testosterone, drugs and bridge jumping, I guess. Particularly the bridge jumping.

The Lost Boys is always ruined for me by that beach party scene with the oiled, muscled sax player singing something about "In the heat of the night" in a particularly eighties manner. I still have nightmares about that.

Enjoyed Herzog's remake of Nosferatu. Reminds me of a friend at infant school who had Swiss parents. Weird people those Europeans. date=25.05.2004 13:15 ip=158.94.155.92 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bush's words must sound unconvincing even to him. To me they sound like a comedy skit: "As the Iraqi people move closer to governing themselves, the terrorists are likely to become more active and more brutal. There are difficult days ahead and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic"

... "and so well, maybe my re-election chances have gone down the pan"

Has television something to do with this absurd deterioration in the level of political logic? I wonder. date=25.05.2004 13:34 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Abu Ghraib: surely we can just do a Windscale, rename it and everyone'll forge... waddya mean we already tried that? The Iraqis don't like "Camp Redemption"? Why the hell not? How about "Camp Salvation" or something?

Lost Boys: All I can remember is that I saw it in San Diego in 1988, possibly the same night as I watched Wall Street. Washed down with pizza and beer. It's all become part of one big homogeneous American experience for me. date=25.05.2004 13:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Camp Salvation: scrub that. How about "nearer to thee, my lord". Jesus blood never failed me yet (TM) date=25.05.2004 13:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Camp Crusader? Camp Kebab? I'm sure they'd welcome our input. date=25.05.2004 14:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Camp Crusader? Camp Kebab?

Camp as fuck? date=25.05.2004 14:29 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Camp as fuck?

As in Massachusetts Camp Wedding? date=25.05.2004 14:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Camp as fuck?

Carry on Camping. date=25.05.2004 15:32 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Rumsfeld World Institute of Morl Rectude and Campassion. date=25.05.2004 15:48 ip=81.19.57.39 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I suspect that the prison's going to be turned into a partk and renamed Freedom Green or similar. What about those white trash vampires in that Kathryn Bigelow (not sure I spelled that right?). V. cool. Also rarely thought through vamp thing - they can't wash, because of the business with running water.

Cheers all! Am off rowing down the Thames, from Oxford to Tower Bridge, for the rest of the week. If any of you guys fancy waving at us from the banks, we'll be passing through London on Sunday... date=25.05.2004 18:54 ip=62.188.100.111 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Have fun messing about on the river. But I'm afraid the rest of the band are going to be jamming on the River Lea. date=25.05.2004 19:31 ip=81.153.231.246 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>How about "Camp Salvation" or something?
Enduring Freedom Camp. date=25.05.2004 19:32 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: You're in Oxford? We could meet for a drink! date=26.05.2004 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A product that will make yr dog chew yr genitals off:

http://www.metasonix.com/TX1.htm

...allegedly... date=27.05.2004 11:37 ip=158.94.155.92 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This works better.

http://tinyurl.com/2syos date=27.05.2004 12:00 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.rodelu.com/uruguay/dpts/rionegroti-01.htm

- do tourists come back as the pies ..?

Click on "More Information," though, and you get a cool swooping osprey/raindrop graphic. date=27.05.2004 12:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, that's the best ad I've ever read. date=27.05.2004 13:01 ip=213.78.88.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="lots of well-groomed, narcissistic tourists sporting hibiscus shirts"

I think they come back as flowers. date=27.05.2004 13:16 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: You can get one when you get yr keyboard and then watch yr soundcard curl up and die.

Fray Bentos City? My poor addled head can take no more. date=27.05.2004 13:30 ip=158.94.155.92 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never mind the goods. It's an artefact in itself. date=27.05.2004 14:09 ip=213.78.81.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More south american places named after meat products:

http://tinyurl.com/2yegz date=27.05.2004 14:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: It's those smiling faces next to the tongue-shaped tins that get me. Yum. date=27.05.2004 15:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The etiquette of improvisation:

http://home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/Improv .html date=28.05.2004 11:12 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: And on the same home page - 'Drugs: What Are They?' Good question. date=28.05.2004 12:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Peter Bradshaw being "mild about Harry Potter" in the Guardian, sets up a nicely understated last-para reproof. The present direction of the series he says, risks a retreat 'further from the concerns of non-magic civilians into an autistic wizard-ish universe, which will be increasingly baroque and complex and pregnant with its own self-important Tolkien-esque seriousness and "darkness".'

That "further" is delightful. date=28.05.2004 12:45 ip=213.78.94.94 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That "further" ...

I'm mulling over the idea of a pregnant Tolkien, actually. date=28.05.2004 12:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harry Potter. Load of old cock. Mind you, the Telegraph rates the film today. Not enough to make me go and see it, unless a child begs me. Got to be better than Van Helsing though. date=28.05.2004 12:52 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harry Potter: Wild horses would not drag me to see that one... date=28.05.2004 13:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Harry Potter: Wild horses would not drag me to see that one...

Arturo, how about a tame horse wearing a straw hat with two holes poked in the top for its ears, being gently led by an attractive brunette – maybe that would work better? date=28.05.2004 15:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dammit, we've been wrong all along! Check the photo gallery - nothing but shiny happy people!

http://onpoint.leavenworth.army.mil/ date=28.05.2004 16:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, how about a tame horse wearing a straw hat with two holes poked in the top for its ears, being gently led by an attractive brunette – maybe that would work better?
______________

Add a carrot for me and some sugar for the horse and you got a deal. date=28.05.2004 16:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=- And Pinochet is no longer exempt from prosecution. Have a happy weekend! date=28.05.2004 17:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And Pinochet is no longer exempt from prosecution. Have a happy weekend
____________________

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! date=28.05.2004 19:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi
Does anybody kwon if there is a relation between “The black rider” and Angela Carter’s “A gun for the devil”? (Both tales have a German count that sells his soul for a bullet that cannot fail date=31.05.2004 09:29 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo,

I went to see The Black Rider on Friday - it was brilliantly unhinged as it happens - and my reference point was Weber's Der Freischutz which again features a shooting contest and molding magic bullets. I'll have to check with Bridget over the Angela Carter reference, but in the case of The Black Rider/Der Freischutz the hunter isn't an aristocrat, in fact in the Waits/Burroughs version he's a clerk. date=31.05.2004 12:27 ip=81.153.4.50 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, io.
Thanks. I am looking forward to see the black rider when I get to London. I also plan to get to your gig on saturday . By the way, any good secondhand bookshop you can recommend? I want to get a set of Charles Williams books. date=31.05.2004 21:02 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Charles Williams ...

Good luck! I got new paperbacks of "Place of the Lion" and "All Hallows' Eve" (one of the most extarordinary books I've ever read) through Amazon. I got the impression that older editions are rare and much sought-after - which is doubly odd, because publishers seem to have had a terrible time trying to interest anyone in his work. date=01.06.2004 10:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm down to The Place of the Lion, in a US first John Clute got me years ago. There's a thriving Charles Williams Society (president John Heath Stubbs, I thought he was dead too) from the website of which I got this, "War in Heaven, Many Dimensions, and Descent into Hell are now available in one volume, A Charles Williams Reader, published in the United States by Eerdmans. The other four novels have recently been republished by Regent Publishing of Vancouver, Canada..." Eerdmans also used to do them in paperback, I had War in Heaven and All Hallows Eve from them as recently as 1996. My problem is I lend 'em out, they never come back.

Maybe we have a lurker out there who could get us right up to date on the situation ? date=01.06.2004 11:19 ip=213.78.80.233 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The lurkers are quiet. Maybe they're still listening to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/top100/top100_ 1.shtml

- mostly chosen by mild depressives who stopped listening to music about ten years ago, it seems. No Peaches, no 4Tet - and nothing un-WASP unless its Motown. *Sigh.* date=01.06.2004 14:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Cool. Hopefully you'll get to meet Al as well. The only Charles Williams I found was in the Fantasy Centre on Holloway Road. Beyond that I've had to ransack my library.

Wow, Joy Division managed to get in at 39 on that chart. I hope the lurkers are all right. date=01.06.2004 14:49 ip=81.153.6.215 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi all -

I saw some Charles Williams in the fantasy section of the big Borders in Cambridge a few weeks back. They can be surprisingly good for this sort of thing - a lot of American imports.

Am definitely up for the gig etc this Saturday, so Arturo - should see you there! Martin - sorry not to see you in Oxford, we passed through at (relatively) high speed on Thursday morning. Camped at Wallingford that night. The row was fantastic; we were averaging 10-12 hours rowing a day, weather fantastic, and the scenery on Upper / Mid Thames just lovely. Some lovely houses also... Three Men in a Boat still suprisingly accurate guide to the Thames also! date=01.06.2004 15:18 ip=62.188.122.37 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd like to go to the Saturday gig; the Shamanistic stuff looks interesting too; but am torn between that and the David Thomas in Green Witch. Another kind of shaman. Ho, ho. It's going to go to the wire. I wont know until the day itself. date=01.06.2004 15:24 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Next time for sure! I gave a talk in Wallingford about six weeks ago, and it seemed pretty nice. Off to do the same thing in Henley tonight, cramming 500 years of OUP's history into a 45 minute slide show. *Deep breath.*

CW in Borders: I'll keep an eye out. date=01.06.2004 15:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Green Witch? That's odd: we're playing at the Green Angel.

Al: Sounds idyllic - apart from the physical exercise bit.

Martin: What does that work out at? About a decade every minute? date=01.06.2004 16:25 ip=81.153.6.215 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io; Caxton, Elizabeth I, English Civil War, Pre-Raphaelites, "Alice in Wonderland," William Walton, and bob's your uncle with the Internet. Thank you, and good night. date=01.06.2004 17:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al, Io.
Looking forwad to see you on saturday . I am afraid you´ll have to be the ones who find me.. can´t miss though or Should I wear a Locus´head in my lapel?

Observe these Pirates bold and gay,
that sail a gory sea
notice their bright expression: --
the handsome one is me. date=01.06.2004 20:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You shall know me by my beard.

Worth noting that we'll be playing quite late in the schedule - there's all the speakers and films and stuff before us. Hopefully I'll know more about the scheduling of the whole thing soon. date=02.06.2004 11:55 ip=81.153.4.94 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello chaps. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited backstage at the Royal Academy. It's like a Peter Greenaway set in there: armless classical statues gathering dust, mouldering display cabinets full of human skeletons, bits of odd art scattered around the place. Marvellous. date=02.06.2004 12:49 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some of those statues are less armless than they look.

Sorry. I'll get my coat. date=02.06.2004 13:32 ip=213.78.164.202 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Does Greenaway hang around backstage at the RA a lot, d'you think? Sounds a bit like a scene from Zardoz. That film is great, if only because Sean Connery gets to say: "Stay within my protective aura!" date=02.06.2004 13:33 ip=81.153.4.94 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I didn't see Greenaway, but he was probably there. I thought I saw the ghost of Ron Kitaj sharing a kebab with Liz Frink, but it could have been some students.
As for Zardoz, I thought Sean Connery looked very sweaty in that. date=02.06.2004 14:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zardoz: One fan site notes -

"Connery is Zed, an Exterminator who has somehow seen beyond the hoax of the stone god and found a way into the Vortex, suddenly appearing among the Eternals."

Surely this is Portillo's past career and future aspiration. We should all watch out. date=02.06.2004 17:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it's the sweatiness and the hairy chest that generate his protective aura. It's every bit as silly as Boorman's later film Excalibur. date=02.06.2004 19:34 ip=81.153.4.94 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I won't hear a word said against Excalibur. Never has the world of King Arthur been more vividly brought to life. date=03.06.2004 10:58 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=C'mon, don't you think Nicol Williamson's Merlin is a tad silly? "Stare into the eyes of the dragon and despair!" date=03.06.2004 11:02 ip=217.43.22.58 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Nicol gives great Merlin! Obviously completely nuts, and obviously completely aware of it.

Martin - next time for sure! Tho' it might be a couple of years until the next one, given our rate of recovery. Would quite like to row the Channel now, the record is 2 hours and forty minutes or thereabouts. date=03.06.2004 11:10 ip=62.188.142.145 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm only half serious. Yes, Merlin was ridiculous, as was Arthur's 'authentic' accent. But, hey, I was young and the film had Helen Mirren in it - and we all know what *she* does in films. And the climactic ride through the blossom trees with Carmina Burana... prog rock in movie form. Ace. date=03.06.2004 11:29 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was that big moody Gotterdammerung leitmotif at the end that *rocked my world*. I always end end humming it for days afterwards - not as easy as it sounds:

Murrrummuhuharamurrrrr Whum Whum... date=03.06.2004 11:35 ip=217.43.22.58 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I got totally carried away by it - actually had a tear in my eye when Excalibur was broken! My adolescent mind was also rocked by Uther Pendragon's wife (can't remember her name). Good also to know that Ancient Britons had mastered whole chrome armour thing. Apparently much debate among historians about how easy it was to maneuver in all that stuff; used to know a combined Iaido (the art of drawing your sword and killing someone in a single movement or sequence of moves) / history expert who swore you could turn somersaults in full plate armour, but I never quite believed that myself. date=03.06.2004 11:41 ip=62.188.133.217 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ygraine? The fantastic shagging-in-plate-armour scene. That's gotta hurt! date=03.06.2004 11:47 ip=217.43.22.58 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ygraine! Ah yes...

Plate armour shagging - sho' nuff! date=03.06.2004 12:05 ip=62.188.150.171 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You prefer Ygraine to Morgan in her netting? Shame on you. Nice bit of Anal Nadrach (and the rest). date=03.06.2004 12:35 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, yes, there's always Morgan - but the morning after! And her son is unbearable. date=03.06.2004 12:45 ip=62.188.110.235 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, in a shocking development, Paul McCartney reveals the Beatles actually took drugs:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/376 9511.stm

This kind of thing wouldn't happen if Kilroy Silk was in charge. I'm going to have a lie down. date=03.06.2004 12:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ygraine/Morgan: yes. I was about 13 when the film came out, far too young to see it, and I somehow didn't until a few years later, but all my friends managed to sneak in and there was talk of little else at school for weeks later.

As for prog rock in movie form, what you really need is this: http://tinyurl.com/2eo4v date=03.06.2004 12:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Who Killed Bambi?

Hold on, is that news article telling us that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about acid? No, never!

Dunno about Arthurian movies but I quite fancy making a huge Biblical epic one day. Preferably in technicolor. date=03.06.2004 13:17 ip=217.43.22.58 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Macca ... I think he's been at the skunk too much : his memory is shot to bits. This is trailed as an "exclusive," but it was all common knowledge years ago. Next week, he'll be "revealing" that he comes from Liverpool.

As for "Lucy": cum granulo salis, I do believe. date=03.06.2004 13:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dey do, doe, don't dey?

I hate Macca. I hate his wobbly head, and his songs are last, like. date=03.06.2004 13:49 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: All you need to know was in Frank Sidebottom's version of "Mull of Kintryre" (c.1985):

He makes great records at this time of year
And his wife Linda McCartney always wears fab gear
He plays piano, the bass guitar and sings.
He used to be in the Beatles - but now he's in Wings.

(You know he is. He really is). date=03.06.2004 14:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder where Frank is now. date=03.06.2004 14:11 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd like to think he'd retired to Tymperley with his millions, and the sure knowledge that he's been the greatest figure in popular music since Nina & Frederick - but, no, he's resurfaced:

http://www.glasgowcomedyfestival.com/acts/sid ebottom.htm date=03.06.2004 14:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He will always be remembered for "I'm in love with the girl at the Manchester Virgin Megastore check-out desk" date=03.06.2004 14:33 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: You're right. Immortality starts here!

(Along with his versions of "Mirror Man," "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "O Superman" - his manager leaving ansaphone messages for him to come and help unload "a particularly interesting shipment of lard." New Order should've recruited him to replace Ian Curtis on the spot). date=03.06.2004 15:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*stops in for late night drink*

Hmm, nobody around...

*wanders out again* date=03.06.2004 23:52 ip=62.188.108.10 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*drops in for morning coffee*

Hmm, nobody around...

*boils kettle, makes coffee*

*wanders out again* date=04.06.2004 11:19 ip=62.188.112.87 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I've sussed you out. You don't want to get your round in. date=04.06.2004 11:20 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*wanders in hoping to ask Al about multipoint extensions*

Hmm, nobody around...

*climbs out through window with the toaster* date=04.06.2004 11:22 ip=81.153.7.42 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bad week for computers. My iBook died on Monday. Forced to look for some other means of playing a Holly Golightly CD io had sent me, I discovered that the CD drive in my iMac had died some time in the last two years without me noticing. Meanwhile, because the iMac wouldn't talk to the LaCie drive, I had no means of backing anything up. Peter Mannheim came round at short notice and fixed much of this, so at least I can go to Spain with the sense that my files are safe & warm. Thanks, Peter.

I'm reading Nick Royle's new book, Antwerp. Brilliant, & his best to date.

Reviews of Liz Jensen's weird new novel, The Nine Lives of Louis Drax, and Robert Edric's second Leo Rivers mystery, Siren Song, upcoming very soon in the Guardian. I'm not sure exactly when, because I'm too old to keep more than one concrete fact in my head at a time. (It's a relief, actually.) date=04.06.2004 11:37 ip=213.78.85.252 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*hides kettle from Zali*

Not my fault if you guys aren't around...

Doh! and I left my wallet at home! date=04.06.2004 11:38 ip=62.188.137.8 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Really you need the oldest, grimiest CD player for that Holly G album. Ideally it shd be *entirely analogue* and have a forty a day habit.

Terrible computer week! Almost enough to make you buy a PC. Okay, okay, calm down - let's get this in perspective.

*adjusts the armour plating of the firewall to allow *entirely analogue* toaster into iotacism towers* date=04.06.2004 11:54 ip=81.153.7.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, I have a PC!

*watches PC crash, again*

Oh.

Happy Spain, MJH! Where are you going to out there?

Thoroughly enjoyed re-reading Climbers, btb. Particularly like duelling between Sankey and Normal over Mike, which I hadn't picked up so much first time round. Much of the challenge of *luminous deity-ness* is I suspect finding enough impressed acolytes to reflect your self image back to you.

V. intrigued by relations to real life; have been rooting around trying to track down yr climbing contemporaries, tho' with little luck; they don't leave many footprints on the web beyond climbs pioneered etc. Hermetic biography; you know its rooted in truth, you just don't know how. date=04.06.2004 12:43 ip=62.188.108.215 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Almost enough to make you buy a PC. Okay, okay, calm down - let's get this in perspective.

Ho ho, io. Quite. The only thing I've had that *never* fell over or had hardware problems--and is in fact still running, somewhere in Sheffield--was a 9 series Amstrad, double floppy drive, no probs, first machine I got. Jane Johnson had to unpack it from the box, assemble it, switch it on and--after three days of me saying, No, no this was clearly a mistake--gently sit me in front of it. Then I did cut & paste. Goodbye old life. Goodbye stupid quill pen. I once met a bloke would wouldn't do his "serious" work except on a 1930s portable typewriter. What's that about ? "I won't go running without someone amputates my left leg." Very dedicated, dear, you know running can be quite hard even with two. Sitting looking at the wreckage the other day, I thought: My god, what would I do without all this stuff ? I wouldn't have the *work rate*. I'd be limited to two drafts. I'd have to write The Centauri Device again. A shudder went through me, I can tell you, boys, when I contemplated that! But I'm safe now, AND THEY'LL NEVER GET SHOES ON ME AGAIN. date=04.06.2004 12:46 ip=213.78.85.252 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I'm looking forward to reading Antwerp, but I've been invited to the launch party so I guess I'll buy (or blag) a copy then. I hope it does well for him. date=04.06.2004 12:49 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, I have fond memories of summers at my grandparents' house in Wales and a shiny new Amstrad PCW 8512. Turtle graphics with DR Logo, writing BASIC programs to turn it into a green & black stroboscope.

We had to make our own entertainment back then! date=04.06.2004 13:01 ip=81.153.7.42 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, old languages...

* remembers basic*

10 PRINT 'MY NAME IS AL'
20 GOTO 10

It were simpler in them days... date=04.06.2004 13:02 ip=62.188.108.66 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I still remember some of my Commodore 64 poke codes:

10 poke 53281,0 ; poke 53280,0
20 poke 53281,1 : poke 53280,1
30 goto 10

That'll make you a BASIC strobe on a C=64.

Aha, my coat's over there! date=04.06.2004 13:09 ip=81.153.7.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Buy a PC.

Where would any of us be? I think Ballard still taps everything out on a typewriter - but he must be almost alone in that. I got introduced to an Amstrad back in the '80s, too - just *after* I'd put a 120,000 word thesis together on an electric typewriter, footnotes and all. Simply recalling this with a research student the other day was enough to bring me out in gooseflesh and wet palms, twenty years on. Nor can I remember when I last saw a piece of carbon paper - or the cardboard packets emblazoned with Beardsley fractal curls that Smiths used to sell it in. The slow world we used to know, etc. date=04.06.2004 13:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Happy Spain, MJH! Where are you going to out there?

Hi Al. Bilbao, and along that coast. Nothing ambitious, just never been there before.

>>Thoroughly enjoyed re-reading Climbers, btb. Particularly like duelling between Sankey and Normal over Mike, which I hadn't picked up so much first time round.

As usual, I wanted to run most of the narratives as undercurrents. So the reader would pick one thread, one facet, fix that as "the story", and read everything else as subsidiary to it (or. in many cases, miss everything else altogether). You can read Climbers through a dozen different lenses and pick up a new set of understandings every time; but the competition between Sankey and Normal is central, because it shows you things about the characters of both of them. They're more complex than any of the others, except perhaps "Mike", who is in a position to play narrator games against them, the reader and, of course, himself.

>>V. intrigued by relations to real life; have been rooting around trying to track down yr climbing contemporaries, tho' with little luck; they don't leave many footprints on the web beyond climbs pioneered etc. Hermetic biography; you know its rooted in truth, you just don't know how.

That's so central to the disjuncture between the existential and the textual. It's pivotal to any act of writing, especially in the genres Climbers strikes its sparks from--travel book, memoir, the autobiographies of non-writers. Another thing: your life *is* evanescent, ephemeral, essentially unrecordable. It wouldn't be a life if it wasn't. You can never call it back. You can never stop trying to call it back. The biggest load of cock in the world is Jameson's description of nostalgia as a "lack of faith in the future". That may be true of collective nostalgia, of contemporary western societies and their RetroLand tendency (Gordon Burn is brilliant at this): but it's not true of individuals. The nostalgia of individuals is genuine, worthwhile, as heartbreaking & evanescent as anything else they feel. In some measure, Climbers is about someone having a war with that understanding, and winning the war, and losing by winning. "Mike" is so massively in denial, right down to the tape, when he's still claiming to have learned nothing from all this... date=04.06.2004 13:13 ip=213.78.170.48 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, I'm hoping to get to Nick's launch: so see you there ? date=04.06.2004 13:36 ip=213.78.170.48 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: even more reason to go then. Excellent. date=04.06.2004 16:03 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cover of the Night Shade CotH on Empty Space. But you'll have to find the real News page first! date=04.06.2004 16:30 ip=81.153.1.80 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cover of the Night Shade CotH on Empty Space. But you'll have to find the real News page first!

The Day Today moment: Someone's hijacked the News! date=04.06.2004 16:32 ip=81.153.1.80 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mr. Fact is knocking at the door - someone, let that man in! date=04.06.2004 16:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But will Mr Fact enter The House of Fiction?

Stay tuned! date=04.06.2004 16:51 ip=81.153.1.80 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=CotH: From what I can see, a blooming hybrid of Stanley Spencer and the Renaissance. But is the woman/Sophia supporting the prone man, or has she actually inserted one hand into his ribcage? date=04.06.2004 17:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think she's supporting herself with that arm. Whether that was through his side or not is another matter... date=04.06.2004 17:26 ip=81.153.1.80 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not Sophia as such, but Diana - I didn't spot the quiver, the hounds, or the man's antlers.

The Great God Pan brought low ... date=04.06.2004 17:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Macs/PCs: I'm trying to muster the resources to dump my PC for a G5. Am I genius or lunatic? I've had enough looking through Windows, want to climb out.

As for Amstrads, I wrote my only ever seriously lengthy piece of text on a PCW - a 35,000-word diary of my first trip to India. I'm not very nostalgic about it, especially having to wait several days while the whole thing printed.

Antwerp: I'm going there at the end of this month (my 4th trip in 4 years - Antwerp is gathering nostalgias). I think I'll take the book with me. (Actually, don't tell anyone, I'm actually going to the Dutch Moto GP in Assen - dragged kicking & screaming by my bro-in-law, but am using my geo-temporal location as an excuse to drop in on my friend Guy - www.guyd2.com - before he emigrates to Cambodia).

This week's wonderful documentary: I just saw The Agronomist - www.theagronomist.com - very low-tech and a little strange, but wonderfully human. Towards the end, its subject Jean Dominique was assasinated and I found it hard to accept that somebody so animated could become a still body in a coffin, and then a stream of ashes flowing into the river. But his wife knew otherwise: a month after his death she put Radio Haiti back on air and her first announcement was: "Jean Dominique, contrary to reports, is not dead. He has been spotted walking in the hills of Haiti..." a touch of voodoo and completely magical. date=04.06.2004 18:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm using a G4 powerbook. It's lovely, and OSX is ace. date=04.06.2004 18:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good piece on the Agronomist here: http://tinyurl.com/2szgb - echoes a lot of my thoughts about the movie:

'From the booth of Dominique's station, Radio Haiti Inter, Michele declares that Haitian magic has shielded her husband and he is not dead.

"Can you see how shaky my hands were when I was filming that?" Demme asks me. "I didn't know what her text was going to be. Part of going down there to finish the film had to do with me acting out my grief and loss. ... Her going back on the air provided me with a sense of purpose."'

and

'At one point, the soundtrack spills over with Dominique's commentary on an 8-day religious festival at the rural town of Saut D'Eau. The "crazed festivities" blend elements of Catholicism and voodoo as pilgrims bathe, gyrate and pray at a waterfall near a spot where the Virgin Mary's image is said to have been seen in the 19th century. Dominique improvises about "the tragedy and terror of a people awakened with eyes open, wide open" while men and women caught up in ecstatic rites fill Demme's screen.

"Have you ever heard anything else like that on the air?" Demme asks, with a thrill in his voice. "It's jazz!"' date=04.06.2004 18:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> OSX is ace

When I used Macs before (around about OS6.5) I loved the interface but hated the lack of multi-tasking and the ubiquitous "System Error -11". OSX is what's swung it for me, my Mac-loving friends assure me things are *much* better now.

Mind you, most of my Mac-loving friends are flag-waving freaks. date=05.06.2004 10:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fave BBC headline today:

"Sperm boy parents speak of joy"

Arturo: Just in case you have online access - we're not likely to be on until 12.30, but there'll be other things going on from 6pm. I'll be dressed in orange, perhaps with a parrot shirt and a hat - I shd be immediately identifiable! date=05.06.2004 12:30 ip=217.43.18.29 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "Sperm boy parents speak of joy"

Sounds like a line from Tim Burton's "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy" - http://tinyurl.com/39ljn - although rather more upbeat. date=05.06.2004 12:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All your sperm are belong to us. date=07.06.2004 10:45 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: You play a gig, Reagan dies. The awesome power of the drone. How did it go? Did Arturo find you okay? date=07.06.2004 11:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, MJP: Thanks for coming - sorry you didn't actually get to see us play.

Total disaster. The whole building lost power around nine o clock, we were supposed to be on at half twelve-ish. We were hoping the power would come back - there were apparently issues between the people who run the space and the landlord's son. But it soon became apparent that it wasn't coming back.

We eventually played a shambolic acoustic set at about two in the morning. It went down a treat in spite of everything but...

The moral of this story: never accept a gig from hippies in South London. date=07.06.2004 11:47 ip=158.94.146.156 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bummer!

Arturo, MJP - v. sorry not to see you guys there, had been flattened by food poisoning on Friday and still wasn't really functional on Saturday.

How was all the Shamanic stuff? date=07.06.2004 12:13 ip=62.188.130.184 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it was alright but after an hour or so I'd heard "a tremendously important time in human evolution" so many times that I got an awful blockage in my chakras and I had to go and get some beer. date=07.06.2004 12:49 ip=158.94.146.156 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> The moral of this story: never accept a gig from hippies in South London.

Ditto hippies in East London. We agreed to play at a friend's birthday in "Jingle's Night Spot", Dalston, a few years back. He'd lined up lots of his mates' bands to play, all far pushier than us, so we got the late late slot. Were expecting to go on about 2am, but everyone beforehand over-ran and over-ran. It got to 6am and we realised the band who'd agreed to lend us their drumkit, Head on a Stick, had already pissed off home. We left, dejected, and I could never persuade the band to go East of Camden again. date=07.06.2004 13:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At least if we'd been stitched up in East London it'd have been easier to get home.

Ah well, our acoustic set included a chant of the Stella Mantra - "yeah, yeah, whatever, whatever..." - I'm not sure whether the audience knew that we were taking the piss. date=07.06.2004 13:40 ip=158.94.146.156 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Dalston: what a fucking place! Always best avoided.

Homerton this Friday. date=07.06.2004 13:41 ip=158.94.146.156 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: You finally played; Reagan finally dies.

MJH goes to Spain, and -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3766863.stm date=07.06.2004 13:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So *that's* what he's doing out there.

Thatcher next. Hopefully Friday's gig will focus the drone on the Iron Lady's frequency. date=07.06.2004 13:58 ip=158.94.146.156 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is great: Hansel and Gretel told as a german expressionist silent cartoon.

"maybe it is someone who will terminate our existence in a flourish of brutality"

http://zed.cbc.ca/go.ZeD?POS=8&CONTENT_ID =47571&page=content date=07.06.2004 15:56 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, All
This is Arturo from Charing Cross ( Martin is in France, Mike is in Spain and I am in England...mmm)
-How was all the Shamanic stuff?
I was snoring away in the middle of the second chat. But well worth it just to meet Io. date=07.06.2004 16:24 ip=217.154.133.89 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> At least if we'd been stitched up in East London it'd have been easier to get home.

Luckily I was living in Leytonstone at the time. The rest of the band had to find their way back to Twickenham, hence their refusal to cross the Tropic of Camden thereafter.

I shouldn't have revealed to my PC my Mac-buying intentions last week - damn thing has been making life hell for me ever since. It's now emitting a near-constant stream of beeps from a speaker that some cunning Korean has hidden deep within the bowels of the motherboard. On consulting the manual, I discover this means that the BIOS is faulty, but safest to buy a new motherboard. [sigh] date=07.06.2004 16:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Tom Raworth mail=eyellbee@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://tomraworth.com text=Glad Thom Gunn is being read: apart from (or along with) his poetry he was a good-natured man (even when my wife vomitted on his new shoes thirty years ago) Good luck to you all.... (just bouncing randomly through links on a roasting afternoon). TR date=08.06.2004 16:45 ip=80.4.4.47 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mr. Raworth! Glad you could join us here in the drawer where we keep the albatrosses ... :) date=08.06.2004 17:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello Mr R! Glad you could drop in...

I once nearly pulled someone because she thought I'd written one of your poems. Ah, them were the days. I told her it was in fact not mine and sadly - well, there you go...

You do meet some v. interesting people here it has to be said. date=09.06.2004 14:27 ip=62.188.120.121 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Where is everyone btb? Out in the sun I hope... date=09.06.2004 16:50 ip=62.188.110.227 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. Some hope! Working hard, no time to play. date=09.06.2004 17:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes. Just bumped into a freelance friend while posting letters; we decided pasty and ill looking good, because much work, bronzed and healthy bad, because clearly there's time to kill... date=09.06.2004 18:21 ip=62.188.120.253 name=Francis mail=francis@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://66.197.185.246/carmella_decesare/ text=yo! check out this hot girl - carmella decesare - http://66.197.185.246/carmella_decesare/ date=09.06.2004 19:30 ip=82.196.65.128 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Today's groovy junkmail phrase:

This pursuit lasted nearly three-quarters of an hour, without the frigate gaining two yards on the cetacean it


*voices echoes in the void* date=10.06.2004 11:49 ip=62.188.120.254 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, *quite* busy here. But still there's time to play Velvet Underground 3D Death Chase:

http://www.donderevo.com/games.php date=10.06.2004 12:13 ip=158.94.163.37 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also: worth signing up for Launch.com for two Tom Waits videos - Hold On, and the deeply unhinged God's Away On Business. What's with the fucking ostriches!

http://tinyurl.com/2c79t

And there's A-Ha's Take On Me and Twisted Sister's cover of Leader Of The Pack, and all! date=10.06.2004 13:31 ip=158.94.163.37 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite spam subject line this week: "if only you had cow filigree".

Also, "waspish cladophora" and "fafnir aperture" have a poetic ring.

Dan (bronzed & healthy) date=10.06.2004 15:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A couple of years ago at Xmas I got the email: "The gift they won't take back: beer!" I also loved all of those ones that involved the expression "Enormous Johnson". date=10.06.2004 16:41 ip=158.94.163.37 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Smash things with your cock" has a certain appeal. date=10.06.2004 17:18 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=! Yes they won´t give beer back but that is because you don´t get to keep beer that long... Come to think of it you can give back beer ... date=10.06.2004 17:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I've tried giving beer back but it didn't meet with an enthusiastic response.

Alex: I think the standard email was, "Break down her walls with yr enormous Johnson!" Lots of variations on the first part, and indeed the second: "mighty meat", "humungous probe", &c... date=10.06.2004 17:40 ip=158.94.163.37 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm.

Demetrius E. Goldstein has just tried to sell me something - I want to buy! What a name. I imagine him as someone Southern-fried huckster in a Col Sanders suit. date=10.06.2004 17:47 ip=62.188.132.56 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: you're right. Except the one I got was "break down walls with.."
Still appeals. date=10.06.2004 18:29 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Enormous Johnson sounds like someone from a Bob Dylan song. There would be a whole new career in masturbatory safe cracking etc open if this were true. Not to mention the exhibitionist demolition business. date=10.06.2004 19:04 ip=62.188.72.97 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John Cage, anyone? Complete works online.
http://www.johncage.info/soundfiles/main.html date=11.06.2004 11:54 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No thanks, I just put one out...

Why don't you post that over at KRMB?http://www.iotacism.com/discus (Desparate attempt at recruiting locals...) date=11.06.2004 13:01 ip=158.94.165.228 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wonder whether I could do this with my Saab: http://feed.proteinos.com/002058.html date=11.06.2004 16:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After Tom Raworth's appearance last week, I thought I'd better investigate his work. Lo and behold, I found a nearly-mint copy of a 1970 book of his in a weird second-hand shop in Barmouth this weekend. Just goes to show, er, something doesn't it? date=14.06.2004 12:25 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saw a damselfly in my garden this evening:

http://www.iotacism.com/damselfly.jpg

Don't know exactly what that goes to show either... date=14.06.2004 20:07 ip=81.154.104.15 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rowan got buzzed by 'em in Cornwall last year: http://tinyurl.com/2lvmf date=14.06.2004 20:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Kids: don't try this at home!

http://www.lastar.us/johnl/animals_attack.html date=15.06.2004 10:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... But you can try these!

http://www.screentoys.com/ date=15.06.2004 16:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have just finished reading John Gray’s “Al Quaeda and what it means to be modern”. Very interesting. Here is a quote: “Western societies are ruled by the myth that, as the rest of the world absorbs science and becomes modern, it is bound to become secular, enlightened and peaceful – as, contrary to all evidence, they imagine themselves to be.” date=15.06.2004 19:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just found out about a german comic based on Viriconium

http://www.comicplus.de/viriconium.html date=15.06.2004 19:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I joined Sheffield library this week - I've been far too busy frequenting charity shops and bookselling chains to visit a library these last ten years. Had forgotten the thrill of having thousands of books on tap.

Wandering around, I spotted a copy of Travel Arrangements in the "Science Fiction & Fantasy" section (and not just misfiled; there was a big "SFF" on the spine). The subdued orangey-red cover was conspicuously inconspicuous alongside garish David Gemmells and their ilk. I felt like taking the book up to the information desk, reading a story at random and demanding "science fiction? Or fantasy?" But I was suddenly overcome by apathy. date=15.06.2004 22:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's where Travel Arrangements is in my local library. Still, it seems to be doing reasonably well in terms of borrowings. Keep on getting fines myself; am not very good at returning books on time! date=16.06.2004 10:29 ip=62.188.72.59 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Had forgotten the thrill of having thousands of books on tap.

Oh yes, it's fantastic for *other* people. There's nothing that messes up a library quite so badly as borrowers. date=16.06.2004 11:10 ip=158.94.180.183 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There speaks a bitter librarian...! date=16.06.2004 11:29 ip=62.188.31.139 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bitter? Nah, mines a pint of the weissbier. That one over there, the one I can't pronounce.

It becomes obvious if you've ever worked in a library that Borges was a head librarian. He didn't have a *clue* of the problems of getting an infinite library of books back into correct order. In fact most of them would be lying around in piles on the floor. The mathematical precision of his vision is fucked by the practicalities of user services. date=16.06.2004 11:49 ip=158.94.180.183 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Arturo: I'm afraid we've come across that comic before. Looks great. Wouldn't mind getting hold of a copy myself... date=16.06.2004 12:09 ip=158.94.180.183 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me neither. Some came into Britain, I know. But none of them ever came to me. date=16.06.2004 12:13 ip=213.78.84.176 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The German Amazon have it... I think. Where's my Deutsche/English dictionary?

http://tinyurl.com/32hb6 date=16.06.2004 13:20 ip=158.94.180.183 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Breakthrough in teleportation:

http://tinyurl.com/2qeo5 date=17.06.2004 11:12 ip=158.94.183.204 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Interesting - I heard it on the radio this morning. Won't work for people yet, though. Too much information needed. date=17.06.2004 11:41 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you need the atomic teleportation for a quantum computer; and a quantum computer for human teleportation.

Never get me up in one of those things ... date=17.06.2004 13:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And that's before you've even begun to compensate for all the uncertainty.

Would work as a comms device, tho? If you can get instantaneous atom transport when once changes state, surely you have the makings of an atomic radio for which distance is no object? Good for pan-galactic chat, methinks. date=17.06.2004 15:04 ip=62.188.65.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno - it's neither here or there to me!

*Gets space suit; exits air lock for nearby black hole* date=17.06.2004 15:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Orange would run an ad campaign using "Fly me to the Moon":

Music: "Fly me to the moon, let me play under the stars, tell me what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars..."

(Space walking astronaut turns a somersault in zero-G talking on mobile)

Voice Over: "Now you can make lower-cost calls across astronomical distances with Orange Teleport-Talk. So you can tell her what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars..."
 date=17.06.2004 16:01 ip=158.94.183.204 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Come to think of it the one problem with this as a transportation system is that you need to get one side of it to where it's going; ie as I understand it you have to involve your two atoms in the same place, and then move one to where you want to transport to. So you can create stargates; but you'd then have to fly one stargate to Alpha Centauri etc.

Love the ad idea, Zali, Saatchi 3000 beckons I think. date=17.06.2004 16:10 ip=62.188.65.66 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Non-local call charges apply. date=17.06.2004 16:11 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>but you'd then have to fly one stargate to Alpha Centauri etc.

Call me unimaginative but I'd be happy enough using it to get my amp from one side of London to the other without having to talk to taxi drivers.

"Guess who I had in this teleport yesterday!" date=17.06.2004 17:26 ip=158.94.183.204 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arcturus, mate? Nah. I don't go the other side of the Van Allen belt this time of night. date=17.06.2004 17:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Call me unimaginative but I'd be happy enough using it to get my amp from one side of London to the other without having to talk to taxi drivers.

Every time I find myself wishing I were in a band, somebody reminds me why I'm glad I'm not.

Nice Resonance FM set, BTW date=17.06.2004 22:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Arcturus, mate?
Hmm... Who asks?... Sorry, I thought your were talking to me... date=17.06.2004 22:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers, Dan. I came home half-dead with exhaustion after carrying that little amp on the tube. Why do Londoners always walk directly *at* people carrying heavy luggage?

Arturo from Arcturus? date=17.06.2004 23:00 ip=217.43.16.47 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Arturo from Arcturus?

As far as I know , Arcturus is the Latin word for Arturo. So , actually , Yes. date=17.06.2004 23:02 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: the trick is to walk straight *at* them first. They'll soon get the message. date=18.06.2004 01:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I'll have to take classes in this.

Arturo: So men are from Mars, women are from Venus but Arturos are from Arcturus? date=18.06.2004 09:55 ip=158.94.187.189 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Arturo: So men are from Mars, women are from Venus but Arturos are from Arcturus?

And so are mega-camels. Which brings us back to teleporting atoms: no matter how fast your body travels, your soul will always move at the speed of an Arcturan mega-camel. date=18.06.2004 10:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*boggles*

Btb, have I misread it or could you use the teleport thing to also copy people?

*imagines 2 Als*

Not sure what having another me around would be like, though. Would certainly clutter up the flat. date=18.06.2004 10:50 ip=62.188.65.117 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: did you just call Arturo a camel? date=18.06.2004 11:15 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think Dan actually called him a "mega camel", I don't know if that's quite so offensive.

Are you sure it's Arcturan Mega Camels, for some reason I thought it was Arcturan Mega Gherkins - or is there some mix up between Jeff Minter and Douglas Adams going on in my head? date=18.06.2004 11:25 ip=158.94.187.189 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan

Flattery will get you nowhere :) date=18.06.2004 11:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, yes I think you're confused, it's definitely camels: http://tinyurl.com/2hwso (see the Narrator's introductory paragraph). If it were Jeff Minter, surely it'd be mega-llamas? date=18.06.2004 12:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Right you are! (Horrible centred text on that page.)

Although Jeff Minter *did* also have Attack of the Mutant Camels. Oh, and he owns a sheep too:
http://www.llamasoft.co.uk/ date=18.06.2004 13:22 ip=158.94.187.189 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That Jeff Minter was always pretty promiscuous when it came to ruminants.

(My first ever PC sound card came packaged with Llamatron: the most noise you could possibly get out of a PC in the shortest space of time, sheer bloody wonderful chaos). date=18.06.2004 13:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So a post from Mr "it's in yr jeans jim" Tom Raworth. Possibly the man responsible for yr 'yr'.

Let's try saying Geoffrey Hill and see what that gets. My view: best living poet in English. Far too religious for his own good but all the better for it. date=21.06.2004 15:50 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Let's try saying Geoffrey Hill and see what that gets

Into the mirror, five times, late, late at night -

Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill
.... date=21.06.2004 16:25 ip=62.188.72.211 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought the Welsh did 'yr' first... date=21.06.2004 17:37 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was either Ez or Pavement who prompted me to use yr yr... date=21.06.2004 17:46 ip=81.153.231.34 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=of course yr right io who started the trend for lower case unpuntuated poetry ee cummings read the orchards of syon by hill difficult book ironically verbose transcendental moving date=21.06.2004 18:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I say yr yr! date=21.06.2004 18:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(I mean yh yh!) date=21.06.2004 18:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Henry mail=farrell@utsc.utoronto.ca icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.crookedtimber.org text=Dunno if anyone's interested, but Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com) are running a sale until midnight Tuesday US (west coast time). If you buy three books, you get 50% off. A nice opportunity to stock up Things That Never Happen, or the new edition of the Course of the Heart if you don't have them already. date=22.06.2004 05:29 ip=208.58.67.70 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Night Shade Books only ships internationally to dealers. If you are an international customer, please contact one of booksellers on our Links page.

Doh! Am not sure if we can still get the discount through dealers, suspect not but maybe worth checking. date=22.06.2004 10:40 ip=62.188.69.86 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or emailing them to see if they can make an exception or five. Sounds like they need the money, and for a good cause.

BTW Mike, I picked up Nicholas Royle's Antwerp last week - had been intending to save it to read on my trip, but I dipped in and couldn't get out again (about halfway through right now), great stuff. Loved the tap tap tap on the window of the red-lipped prostitutes vs the thump thump thump on the porthole of the blue-lipped Katya. And the descriptions of the city have me wanting to stay over a couple of days extra to explore.

It's also poked me into picking up a project I started a couple of years ago, a short story set in Antwerp (actually on both banks of the Schelde, several locations in common with Royle's story). Gill came up with the plot after we first visited the city, I just have to fill in the words. date=22.06.2004 11:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I would certainly email Jason & see if he'll do you the discount. Night Shade--the Scaled Composites of small publishing--are certainly a good cause.

Dan: glad you're enjoying Antwerp. Nick has a board at the TTA: why not go there and tell him ? date=22.06.2004 12:04 ip=213.78.172.175 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, that's a thought. If we put in a bulk Empty Space order, I wonder if they'd be willing to class us as a dealer? MJH, might it be worth us dropping an email to one of your contacts there?

Oh also - the extra material in Course of the Heart; is that in the Ltd edition only or both editions? Website seems a bit hazy on that. date=22.06.2004 12:04 ip=193.113.235.169 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's usually the limited edition only, Al. I'm in the middle of a review at the moment, so don't have much time. The best I can suggest is, mention my name.

Speaking of reviews it was nice to see an interview with Liz Jensen in the new Time Out. I've reviewed her new novel, The Ninth Life of Luis Drax, for the Guardian (I think they'll run it this weekend). Liz comes out of the closet for all of us when she says, "I write what I want." Previously, this has meant that the publishers "start all over again" in marketing terms with every book. But now that Anthony Minghella is making The Ninth Life for Hollywood, I suspect all that will change. Liz will be encouraged to... do anything she wants.

Nick Royle is writing the filmscript of Antwerp while we speak. Maybe publishing will shine on him too as a result. Nick, on asking about publicity for his new book, was once told that the publishers had a a lively new strategy: "We're letting this book find its own level." date=22.06.2004 12:33 ip=213.78.72.65 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, went there, told him. Speaking of TTA... been a long time since I've seen anything on your board. Are you, ha, afraid of something :-D

(Gotta stop running from that Shrander Mike) date=22.06.2004 14:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He's scared of beige, that's what.

Have you noticed how the last half dozen TTA covers have all been beige? They used to have all sorts of colours before but now beige has taken over. It doesn't even seem like the cover artists work in an entirely beige oeuvre - it's just that there's a policy of beige-ness.

It's the current logo that's done it. I know they'll claim it's gold, but we know better don't we?

And this is also why Al had a story accepted: his story was called "Golden" - which can be easily transmuted into beige. Try submitting a story called "Tan" or "Buff" or even "Camel" and it'll be accepted. date=22.06.2004 14:38 ip=158.94.135.50 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What's wrong with beige? It's the colour of everything: http://tinyurl.com/yr6kh

On second thoughts, it is a bit indiscriminate. date=22.06.2004 14:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*readies Van Vogt sequel*

Voyage of the Space Beigel!

*gets coat* date=22.06.2004 15:01 ip=62.188.65.190 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's the colour of everything

Dan: Looks more magnolia on this monitor. Most of the flats I've lived in have been magnolia coloured, so it must be true.

Al: Jesus Christ! I cast aspersions on yr acceptance by TTA but there was no need for *that*! date=22.06.2004 15:07 ip=158.94.135.50 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Voyage of the Space Beigel!

Fill mine with kebab meat.

>> Magnolia

I was thinking exactly the same thing, but if NASA (and Stephen Fry) say it's beige then I'm intellectually intimidated into agreeing. date=22.06.2004 15:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>been a long time since I've seen anything on your board. Are you, ha, afraid of something

Yes, I'm afraid that if I have a great time getting into fights on message boards I will never write my new book. I seem to be so enmired in other stuff--reviewing, proofreading new editions, being interviewed, writing freebie short stories to be given away to what are laughingly called "opinion formers" around publication time, having holidays (there's an idea to conjure with for someone who spent 40 years such an obsessive he thought a holiday was to do even more of the things you were already obsessed with), giving e-interviews, begging publishers not to put me on flights from Gatwick which mean I have to get up at four in the morning if I want to be there in time,you know who you are Luis :-), breaking computers, etc etc etc--that I barely get to open the folder marked FICTION: NEW.

I take this to be a bad thing for everyone concerned. So something has to go. In fact 1 or 2 things. date=22.06.2004 15:15 ip=213.78.78.161 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, it does seem to be a general trend on the board; the whole place has gone v. quiet. Suspect everybody's feeling the same...

Oh, and moved on to re-reading Course of the Heart; wondered how much Michael Ashman was related to Patrick Leigh Fermor; bits of 'A Time for Silence' seem to get very close to the way he's written as a writer, and there's the whole travelling to Prague thing.

Still pondering Climbers too, but am in same work or post situation, tho' my work currently a little more prosaic! date=22.06.2004 15:26 ip=62.188.65.52 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=TTA/discus that is... date=22.06.2004 15:27 ip=62.188.65.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually while we're thinking about TTA: just finished Fremder last night. Full of so many Hoban-isms that it avoids SF in any generic sense. The Grauniad review on the blurb likens it to The Time Machine and 1984, but I'd say it was more like Tiger, Tiger and 2001. date=22.06.2004 15:47 ip=158.94.135.50 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=OK, it's a fair shrander.

Personally, I'm fearless in the face of time-wasting. Explains a lot. date=22.06.2004 15:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3827227.stm

Do you think we are part of the UK's Web Heritage? I for one am ready to be saved. date=22.06.2004 15:53 ip=62.188.69.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Do you think we are part of the UK's Web Heritage?

I certainly am. Unfortunately, despite every effort to save myself (for purposes of personal nostalgia) there's a big ball of dark matter eating up my websites almost as soon as I can build them. Only little scraps remain of some of the earliest and favouritest websites I made, like www.pernoctator.com/greenblob date=22.06.2004 16:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...'these fragments that we have shelved / shored against the ruins...' date=22.06.2004 16:24 ip=62.188.69.3 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If it's only 6000 sites I might have escaped. I'm a big fan of ephemerality(?) and I think I'd prefer to survive partially and in fragments. Perhaps as a yellowing hard copy stained with coffee mug rings in a locked desk drawer in an abandoned office.

Now there's a beige image for you. date=22.06.2004 16:38 ip=158.94.133.231 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I'd prefer to survive partially and in fragments

...and drawing your old beige pension.

*gets other coat* date=22.06.2004 16:46 ip=62.188.69.73 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I think I'd prefer to survive partially and in fragments

Digital doesn't do fragments very well. Digital doesn't do anything very well other than the complete, flawless original. I prefer analog decay. date=22.06.2004 16:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Digital doesn't do fragments very well.

Totally. I think I'm going to have to develop the world's first all analog website. date=22.06.2004 17:00 ip=158.94.133.231 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Digital doesn't do fragments? Ever played with Audiomulch? I wish they made a Verbomulch, or an Existomulch, or even a Gastromulch. date=22.06.2004 17:05 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or there's always the pristine CD meets bad sandpaper formula.

I think the printer might be the key to the ephemeral nature of the internet though: a page of a long deceased threaded discussion forum. You can see the message you printed up, perhaps the "post a message" form and the all of the titles of the replies with half-forgotten incomprehensible names, and most importantly dates and times. But you can't click on any of the hyperlinks - none of it still functions, all you still have is a frieze of that online moment...

and the shopping list you wrote on the back:
Can kraut,
Six bagels.
Bring home for Emma. date=22.06.2004 17:15 ip=158.94.133.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Valves were such fun, don't you think?

Quiet from me because of a lot happening at work. Just finished a discussion about taboo language with some visiting sixteen year olds interested in the Oxford English Dictionary. Great people, but had never heard of Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce - or James Joyce, for that matter. Sometimes you feel like the Ancient Mariner, back from unknown seas. date=22.06.2004 17:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I need to look into valves at some point actually. I've got this old tape echo that needs new valves. I got it out to show Bridget the other day - "this is what they used before 24bit digital delays existed!" I could tell she was enthralled by the way her eyes glazed over. date=22.06.2004 17:38 ip=158.94.133.231 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Just finished a discussion about taboo language with some visiting sixteen year olds

You mean you were teaching teenagers to swear? Surely that's unnecessary? date=22.06.2004 17:41 ip=158.94.133.231 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Unnecessary ...

Absolutely. But they couldn't believe that you could once be prosecuted for publishing the word "fuck," or that terms like "nigger-brown" used to be common usage. This led onto "Blazing Saddles" - but they'd never heard of that, either. O tempora, o mores, etc. date=22.06.2004 17:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think I'd heard of Bill Hicks, Lenny Bruce or James Joyce when I was 16, although I had watched Blazing Saddles on more than one bored school lunchtime. There's time for the little angels yet.

Speaking of taboo words, I love the H2G2 etymology of British swear-words: http://tinyurl.com/37ckt date=22.06.2004 20:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - never quite got Blazing Saddles. When I was 16 (eee...) your horizons were defined by whether you were into The Smiths or The Cure (if you weren't into sport). This pretty much laid out the rest of your cultural choices for you. date=23.06.2004 10:48 ip=62.188.67.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: 16 ...

Too true - although when I was 16, there was no Internet and information on most things was very hard to find. You'd see names like Warhol or Ginsberg drifting around in the papers, but there was nothing to tell who these people were or what they'd done. So I'm never sure with teenagers what they've accessed and what they haven't: one of the others in the group started talking about Chomsky, which I thought was well advanced! date=23.06.2004 10:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=nick mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.nicholasroyle.com text=MJH: thanks for recommending Antwerp. And I'm glad you liked it.

Dan: thank you for following it up. Would love to read your story if you do it.

I must make the point that the editor who declared propudly that he was going to let my book find its own level ('stand on its own feet'?) was at Penguin and the book in question was Saxophone Dreams, published eight years ago. It did indeed find its own level and was remaindered some years later.

Also, the script I've been doing, which I delivered last week, was an adaptation of The Director's Cut. Antwerp's yet to excite any interest in the film world. Hopefully that will change. date=23.06.2004 11:12 ip=217.42.71.110 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Nick, nice to see you here, & glad to hear the script's finished. I knew it was The Director's Cut. Of course I did. But my brain's been mush for weeks.

How's the abandoned buildings trade ? Any chance we'll see some nonfiction from that direction ? date=23.06.2004 11:31 ip=213.78.65.248 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Abandoned buildings: I'm loving that thread in the book (Antwerp). I've just reached Henk Van Rensbergen, reminds me of the first time we visited Antwerp, we stayed in the Hotel Rubens in the old town, at the end of the back garden was an amazing Rococo-era mansion, abandoned for about a decade, the doors just unlocked, waiting for us. We wandered inside, it was empty except for dry leaves and paper everywhere - the paper looked like it ought to be lost scores by Mozart, but wasn't. I was told that buildings like that are abandoned because the government insists on the owners keeping them exactly as they were when build, and nobody can afford it.

And the dipping pools behind Trefil Arbed... I'm sure I've been there in a dream once (perhaps more), though I was could've sworn it was in India.

There's an incredible building rotting away just down the hill from us here, on the edge of Hillsborough. I think it may also have been a wire factory once, then more recently was a scrap metal warehouse. Gill's been egging me to go in and take photos for months, then this weekend we went to a party in a house which backed onto it: from the front, I'd assumed it was fairly small, workshop-sized, but now I see it goes back 2 or 300 metres with a variety of buildings. I could get in from our friend's garden if I had some climbing gear (bloody Sheffield hills). date=23.06.2004 12:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dig your own hole:
http://tinyurl.com/2ffdm

Holes are cool. date=24.06.2004 06:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=V cool, particularly impressed by snake business, tho' was mildly worried when I thought you were naked while skinning it. Planned hole like that when I was about 8 in our back garden (more sweat lodge style, though; round with central supporting pillar and now windows). Sadly my Dad wouldn't let me create it.

Btb talking holes - one of my favourite relics; someone in the Middle Ages was hawking around a piece of the hole that the true cross was stood in. Hmm. Almost as good as my favourite ever - the skull of St Francis *from when he was 13*. date=24.06.2004 11:16 ip=62.188.65.100 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Terry Jones has been writing again..

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0616-06.htm date=24.06.2004 13:39 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> was mildly worried when I thought you were naked

Dunno whether that was a typo but... wasn't me digging the hole. Nice idea, but I don't get a kick outta shooting things and I don't refer to her outdoors as "my big fat pregnant wife" (she's thankful for that small mercy). Or write things like " it IS a great place to escape, and take naps, and shoot animals from. But gosh darn, nothing is cool till its got a computer". I do, however, have a deformed ribcage.

I also spent part of my childhood digging tunnels on wasteland, with the ultimate (unrealised) intention of having an underground hideout. That bit of my life forms a major part of the novel that I've started writing and will, one day, finish.

Yay, oil up the snake! date=24.06.2004 14:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I, too, used to burrow into things as a child. As a teenager, I used to dig for old bottles. Of course, we all heard stories about bottle diggers who had been buried under tons of Victorian rubbish. It never happened to me though. date=24.06.2004 16:01 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Dunno whether that was a typo

Nope, me being deeply unperceptive; raced through the hole text yesterday morning a bit too quickly. Thought it sounded unlike you; wondered if there was some sort of fictionalising or similar going on. Doh!

Nonetheless, holes do rock, tho' I prefer his original plan to the finished thing. date=25.06.2004 13:08 ip=62.188.31.52 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just used to dig holes in the walls with a screwdriver when I was a kid. Whenever we'd move house my dad would have to go around with the Polyfilla and a tin of paint making it all look beautiful again. date=28.06.2004 11:26 ip=158.94.149.84 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Holes: Jeff Jones once said that the problem for the media industry was that sooner or later they would have to provide a doughnut to go with the hole. date=28.06.2004 11:33 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Doughnut. Sort of like this?

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010729.html

J am on that; and a topping of dark matter.

Just finished reading Richard Dawkins's demolition of postmodernist cant - including an American remark that "E=mc2" is an "elitist" equation because it gives the speed of light an unwarranted primacy. 'Ee, them folk should work at chip shop, and get some common sense battered into 'em. After thee wit' t'vinegar, owr Albert. date=28.06.2004 19:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Doughnut. Sort of like this?

Sudden mental image of Homer Simpson eating up the cosmos. date=28.06.2004 21:18 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "E=mc2" is an "elitist" equation because it gives the speed of light an unwarranted primacy

A joke, surely, made by some physicist at the expense of the arts faculty ? If not, I love it. The more thinking of that quality we have, the better. date=28.06.2004 23:33 ip=213.78.87.28 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Dawkins repeats the story in his collection "A Devil's Chaplain" : a politically correct US academic. No joke intended, so obviously hilarious. Also cited (if I remember properly) was a physicist asserting that sexists had downgraded fluid mechanics because of its "vaginal" character.

Max Miller could have made another fortune with material like that. date=29.06.2004 10:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What this equation does rather too often is give a lot of people who have little idea what it means a drum to bang on about the importance of their individual identities for the rest of the planet by way of their acknowledging the primacy of science and the superior intelligence of Einstein and thereby the rest of the human race. That is, they exhibit a grovelling and boring tendency to salami before the new gods, an act which in effect provides them with a means of basking in reflected glory: an "I am of the same race" kind of thing: a 'this is what I identify with'.

So while I agree that the statement is an absurdity, I can understand its sentiments. I too have been bored by people talking about Einstein, Freud and Marx as the new gods when the content of what they are saying is utterly empty. date=29.06.2004 11:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I tend to find Dawkins a bit annoying. Especially this quote that I keep coming across:

"Scientific truth is too beautiful to be sacrificed for the sake of light entertainment or money. Astrology is an aesthetic affront. It cheapens astronomy, like using Beethoven for commercial jingles."

Why *shouldn't* Beethoven be used for advertising jingles? This guy doesn't believe in God but he's quite happy with the high/low art divide. date=29.06.2004 11:54 ip=158.94.153.176 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't understand it, I'm afraid. And neither Freud nor Marx produced anything in the least factual. Freud's science was a mass of unsupported personal assumptions. Marx's ideas, sadly, led (a) to Lysenkoism, the tendency for politically correct "scientists" to make claims unsupported by evidence; and (b) directly to the kind of twat-ism Martin has reported, which is actually based on a much deeper war than you suggest. It's the war between fact and politics. Political people are used to being the ones who describe the world. That's how it's done: you capture the power, you rewrite history, you say whether black is the new black and whether--more importantly, black is white this year. It used to be cheap and easy to make & sell political & religious snake oil. The scientific method has made that more difficult, so snake oil salesmen are becoming disgruntled daily by the world's reliance on people who actually know some facts. Could they be losing some of their power ?

The internet got here not through someone deciding that (a) everything is a value judgement, and (b) they should be the ones to decide which value has "primacy". It got here by people quietly doing science for a couple of hundred years. The idea of it being used to spread crap like this only underlines the fucking huge irony of it all. Without science these wankers wouldn't be able to dis science. Everything they have they owe to people who can actually think. The postmodern generation is running itself out of road and in doing so revealing itself to be just another yawn yawn aspect of the Two Cultures collision. One more last ditch stand by the middle classes in their attempt to hang on to power by describing the world their way. Oh, science and technology can be done--because we real human beings need that stuff, I mean, what would I do, dear, without my mobile phone--but the science people must be allowed no input into the culture which exploits them. Those nerds must be kept as slaves, or god knows what might happen to the shape of the world. The middle classes are so *good* at this. Look how they took charge of technology in Britain in the 20s and 30s. Sad idealists like T E Lawrence and Neville Shute thought that engineers and mechanics would be the new elite, because, at base, they kept the world running. But the middle class just deftly got round that. Their modern equivalent is Tony's Islington Army, and don't tell me it isn't. They got a poor degree in something unbelievably stupid and meaningless like "law", something that has to do with how people manage & control other people. Underneath it they've got the intelligence of a cabbage and no useful skills whatsoever. Yet somehow they end up running things.

Watch my lips. The speed of light has no value. It's part of the real world, not the people world. I'm personally sick of apparent grownups who knock the anthropocentrism and stupidity of fundamentalism while substituting a kind of Stoke Newington supper-party anthropocentrism of their own. date=29.06.2004 12:00 ip=213.78.91.100 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Stoke Newington supper party ...

Well - exactly! I think this is the main thrust of Dawkins's article, too. A review of a book that called Postmodernism's bluff, Dawkins notes that subscribers to Lacan or Derrida have simply developed a grab-bag of terminology which obscures the paucity of their own thought whilst cementing their academic power and social prestige: the grout-work of shibboleths. As a scientist, he has a fine time ripping their square-rooted analyses of "discourse" to shreds, and helpfully notes a site that generates this twaddle for you. Read and weep at:

http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/ date=29.06.2004 12:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Scientific" and "truth" ? I don't know - I rely on scientists to tell me about stuff, and if the subject is sufficiently "wow!" I might read what more scientists have to say about it. The best we can do - as non-scientitsts - is build up a data bank of what scientists tell us they think about things. We can't experience any truth, only the effects (mobile phone, drug) of something scientists tell us they know something about. I find the scientific establishment as arcane and sinister as the political. date=29.06.2004 12:39 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They even make it hard to type 'scientist'. date=29.06.2004 12:40 ip=217.155.134.6 name=A mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>We can't experience any truth, only the effects (mobile phone, drug) of something scientists tell us they know something about

There is no difference. Whenever you employ any domestic appliance and it works, you are experiencing that the scientific principle, on which it is based, is true. date=29.06.2004 13:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry. That las one was me. date=29.06.2004 13:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>There is no difference. Whenever you employ any domestic appliance and it works, you are experiencing that the scientific principle, on which it is based, is true.

Is it necessarily true? Not wanting to split hairs but science of this sort is to a certain extent a pragmatic endeavour - we know that it works but not necessarily why it works. We can trace it only so far back - the fact that you can make a call on yr mobile (I can't, I don't have one...) doesn't tell you how the universe started or will end. I know you don't *need* to know about these ultimate roots and ends - you can get along quite happily without these. date=29.06.2004 13:40 ip=158.94.153.176 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What interests me, in this context, is the extent to which scientists deceive themselves about the scientific nature of what they know. It could be interpreted as a streak of romanticism that they do so, or perhaps just pomposity. Dawkins seems like a genuine scientist to me, for example. But would anyone say that Dawkins' idea that a kind of club should be formed of 'Brights' (people who subscribe to certain articles of scientific faith, ie who are 'rational' enough to know that God doesn't exist etc.) is just self-important fluff? date=29.06.2004 13:41 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I agree with Arturo here. But I think "truth" is a canard. I hate the word. There are facts. Get them right & you can build a mobile phone. Use the mobile phone but deny the facts, or the existence or importance of facts themselves, and you're a parasite on someone else's hard work. That's what's going on as human beings--in their usual way--take what they want and shit on the provider. It's enslavement; the middleclass users are determined to stay upstream on the status-gradient.

A solid state physicist is convenient when his work leads to something you can use or sell; when using or selling it fucks your sperm count and poisons your kids, he's also convenient to blame. The main thing you do is *never listen to anything else he has to say*, because he's just the nerd in your pocket. Every so often he has to be reminded of that, and that 's precisely what's going on as postmodern academic politics tries to absorb and defeat science by transforming its concepts into metaphors. That's what Dawkins is complaining about.

The original article that sprung all this--which can be reached through the URL Martin gave--is by Alan Sokal and it's simply the funniest thing I've ever read. If nothing else, it contextualised for me some of Stuart Kaufmann's woolier statements. I knew I was going off Kaufmann, but I wasn't intelligent enough to understand why. date=29.06.2004 13:45 ip=213.78.76.141 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=People are beginning not to be fucked with this, MJP. The accusation of elitism is yesterday's slur. If you want to live in a joke world, fine. But E really does equal MC2 (given the state of the art) and politics won't change that. The world is full of people who know something you don't. Brought up as an engineer, I respect that. Postmodernism is like, hey, I drink loads of fucking beer & support England, man, what's that Dawkins know I don't, fucking pervert wanker. Or Tony and his team of (essenitally) new look Hooray Henries, carefully using the products of hard thought to position themselves on the power gradient but quietly stifling it if it gets outside its proper boundaries. The middle classes and the spew-on-your-shoes classes can both agree, in the neat little Hogarthian Saturday night world they've power-grabbed for themselves, that old Uncle Albert has his uses but remains essentially a pompous old fart. date=29.06.2004 14:07 ip=213.78.76.141 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dawkins also makes a good observation about Sokal's mock "hermeneutics" article, deliberately peppered with basic scientific howlers, which an academic journal accepted as Postermodernist writ. He notes the PoMo tendency to regard all language as "play" - but notes that Sokal's reception was anything but playful when he declared what he'd done. For a school of thought that sets so much store by "jouissance," Dawkins notes that Postmodernism specialises in the most un-joyful and un-ludic texts imaginable - unlike, say Perec, Queneau, and the other members of Oulipo. Not so much PoMo as PoFaced. date=29.06.2004 14:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Which reminds me of a joke:

How much do I know about postmodernism?
Foucault.

(And, yes, I know Foucault wasn't *exactly* a postmodernist) date=29.06.2004 14:40 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My local fishmonger's been trying to read up on this, too - but he keeps losing his plaice!

A small collection to comfort the relatives of this joke will be taken later today. date=29.06.2004 14:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't read any of it seriously, now. Damn. I thought I'd look up William Ray, because I remembered him as a cultural theorist who, as early as 1984 (in Literary Meaning), had described waves of cultural theory--including his own--in terms of academic power-grab, one generation trying to define theoretical space in such a way as to steal power from their immediate forbears (who, of course, have got all the good jobs tied up as a result of doing the same twenty years before). But wading through the references became impossible due to pissing myself with laughter. It hasn't worn any better than the haircuts that went with it, that stuff. How we embarrass ourselves. date=29.06.2004 15:06 ip=213.78.76.141 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>1.984
What about the music? Billy Ocean anyone?
http://tinyurl.com/2gdd3 date=29.06.2004 15:43 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ho ho ho.

Let's get this straight MJH. You see a world in which engineers should be respected but not thinkers. Engineers produce real things but thinkers don't. On one side there is prejudice but on the other fact and clarity. Beer drinkers versus Einstein. (10 steins versus one stein, as it were.)

But Dawkins produces philosophical thinking, and in fact seems to live off it for a lot of the time, the results of which are just as laughable as the silliest ideas of postmodernism. Such as 'Brights' for example. I don't think that there are categorical differences between people when it comes to the idiocy of their thinking. We are all in the same boat. In fact I would like to set up a club of my own: the 'Stupids'. io mentioned it first actually. Its flag is white with a red cross. date=29.06.2004 15:54 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As to "Brights"/"Dulls": I respect people who know things I don't. It's the only way to learn. I respect statements made out of an empirical relation with the world; and statements made in defense of such statements. Postmodernism really does seem to have been a froth, as such it was good fun. But as Martin says, in middle age it's taking itself too seriously. It's in a competitive funding crisis. It's chafed by the real, because the real won't go away. It's chafed by disciplines like science because the bases of science have to be learned; and to learn means you have to admit there's something you don't know. Populism is nothing but the elitism of people who think there's nothing they don't know, and that if there *was* anything they didn't know it wouldn't be real but a "game". This wooden faith lays them open to exploitation by everyone from the corporates to Tiny Tony & his team. They deserve it. Populism is just another form of politics, not the end of politics. The way to beat politics is to get hold of some of the actual fabric of the world. Dawkins speaks for people who do that. If he wants to call himself "Bright" he can do that as far as I'm concerned, because he's sure as hell brighter than me; and the people he speaks for are even brighter than him. The "world" I inhabit parasitises the world science tries to understand, and I'm big enough to admit that.

I loved rock climbing because you couldn't squirm out of it--either you did the climb or you didn't do the climb. If you talked a good game but didn't deliver, then you didn't get the tick, and that was plain & obvious and you had better demonstrate some humility around it. As far as I'm concerned, science is like rock climbing; everything else is more a matter of talking yourself up. Dawkins & others are asking: is this a good thing ? The populist/poststructuralist answer, made from out of Wannabe World, is obvious. "Yes. Because I'm worth it." Well fuck off, because if you think that, you aren't. date=29.06.2004 16:30 ip=213.78.85.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Glad someone else thinks as I do about those red crosses.

The best response to them I encountered was coming back from France. Staying in Strasbourg, we watched England lose, then witnessed Kilroy Silk's triumph with increasing nausea. I flew back the next day, and got a French coach driver at Stansted. He turned up an hour late, and pointed imperiously to the luggage boot. "Yew can put yeur cassis in dere," he announced. One woman was disgusted. "Aren't you going to help us?" she asked. "Eet ees nat my job," he said. "I've never been treated like this on a bus!" she cried. "Zo get a taxi," he snapped. Obviously high from the match result, he then took great pleasure in putting his foot down and almost forgetting which side of the road he was driving. Whenever he saw a car with a St. George flag, he gave two blasts on the horn to remind them of the score. You couldn't help admiring him: it's always nice to meet someone who enjoys their work so much. date=29.06.2004 16:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: "Ghostbusters" for me every time, amigo!

Ahem. Odd that I can hum *all* of these - and I've never bought any of them. Maybe that's a good definition of pop music. date=29.06.2004 17:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>I don't think that there are categorical differences >between people when it comes to the idiocy of their >thinking.


No there is not but there certainly are differences regarding ideas and the facts that underlie them. As far as ensuring your well being a light bulb works; making a sacrifice of your first-born to Yahweh does not. Nobody questions if electricity is “true”. date=29.06.2004 17:07 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Arturo: "Ghostbusters" for me every time, amigo!

Maartn :And for me too, of course ! (And I am old enough to miss Amanda Lear´s singles ) date=29.06.2004 17:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Nobody questions if electricity is “true”.


Oh thank God (in a manner of speaking), Arturo. Someone who can say in a sentence what I fail to say in five posts of desperate struggle. date=29.06.2004 17:21 ip=213.78.69.88 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, you respect engineers and scientists while I respect - poets. Maybe I respect the former too; but having a brother who rammed science down my throat with ungodly intensity from about the age of seven I acquired an aversion, not so much to the products of scientific investigation, of course not, but to the idea of science in the abstract; to its use as a blugeon against anyone who could be regarded as not strictly 'rational' ... such as a shaman. Or a fox. Or tree. I regard you much more as a poet than as an scientist or engineer, and you surely are more a poet than those things. So in a way this is a strange argument to have. I think what we are arguing about here is a question of emphasis. What I prefer is to emphasise the mystic and poetic; while you prefer, ostensibly at least, the hard-edged and the factual. Either way a wind blows through.

They aren't mutually exclusive. date=29.06.2004 17:23 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Nobody questions if electricity is “true”.

And this is the nub of my problem with Dawkins and this sort of thinking: when it applies itself to matters that are beyond its scope: Beethoven being *objectively* beautiful, God's being or non-being, the interactions of people rather than particles.

Perhaps this is why Tony's cronies and their ilk in the legal and media castes are more successful. The key to success in this world is in the manipulation of people and their beliefs. The ineptness of the nerd caste in these matters will keep them in their place until they learn to play that game better. date=29.06.2004 17:25 ip=158.94.156.29 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So none of us likes reductionism. But none of us likes inexactitude, either. I'm sure there's some sort of intellectual Schwarzschild limit we can observe and resolve it all.

Anyone fancy a drink? date=29.06.2004 17:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Anyone fancy a drink?
Is that one of them trick questions ? date=29.06.2004 17:41 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>They aren't mutually exclusive.
MJP:
This reminds me that Egdar Allan Poe called “Eureka” a prose poem.
http://www.hesperuspress.com/magazine/reviews.asp?num =1

“To the few who love me and whom I love -- to those who feel rather than to those who think -- to the dreamers and those who put faith in dreams as in the only realities -- I offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product alone:- let us say as a Romance; or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a Poem.” date=29.06.2004 17:42 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyone fancy a drink?
>Is that one of them trick questions ?

At last a statement that the scientist, the academic and the poet would all answer the same!

Although perhaps the imam would differ... date=29.06.2004 17:46 ip=158.94.156.29 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>perhaps the imam would differ...

Ah yes, but he was always fainting at the sight of aubergines. date=29.06.2004 18:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike - I'm happy to buy into most of what you're saying here, but where do you get off saying that Marx didn't produce anything in the least factual? This is a pretty basic misreading - all the more so as Marx is precisely trying to get at facts - and counterposing himself to a German philosophical tradition of Hegelian woolymindedness by saying that theorizing is only useful insofar as it engages with the real world. He identified directly with the values of 19th century science - saw himself as trying to do for the social sciences what Darwin etc had done for the natural ones. Of course, huge wodges of his theory are wrong - but that doesn't change the fact that he did have a scientific mindset, and a commitment to hard facts and a rabid dislike for wafty philosophizing. Some of his direct analysis of politics (the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon) is quite brilliant.

Marx's theory "leads directly" to Lysenkoism and "the kind of twat-ism that Martin has reported" in precisely the same sense as Heisenberg's take on quantum mechanics leads directly to Deepak Chopra-type efforts to show that people are fields of vibrating energy connected to the entire cosmos. You can't discredit a serious thinker by pointing to how his ideas have been misused by loons. You have to engage with the ideas themselves. Even if those ideas are frequently wrongheaded, when Marx describes himself as a "scientific materialist," he's not joking. He's on the right side in this argument. date=29.06.2004 18:29 ip=208.58.67.70 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ah yes, but he was always fainting at the sight of aubergines.

I'm a firm believer in Tam Tad's imam bayildi. Few of the other brands get it right. date=29.06.2004 19:00 ip=217.43.21.152 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He identified directly with the values of 19th century science - saw himself as trying to do for the social sciences what Darwin etc had done for the natural ones. Of course, huge wodges of his theory are wrong - but that doesn't change the fact that he did have a scientific mindset, and a commitment to hard facts

Point taken, Henry. Thank Marx, then, that Arturo managed to make my argument for me in one sentence, and without any histrionics. date=29.06.2004 19:50 ip=213.78.86.184 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jonson did something a little like Arturo to refute Bishop Berkeley's peculiar development of John Locke's Empiricism - I mean Berkeley's idea that objects, since they can only be experienced do not exist in themselves and *therefore* only exist in the mind of God - Berkeley was of course an empiricist - (he said: to be is to be perceived). - Since Berkeley said this and that objects are therefore spiritual things - he got Jonson angry; and so Jonson in response kicked a stone and shouted "That exists and there's an end to it." Which did nothing to alter Berkeley's argument.

Marx was of course a philosopher. (In anycase where would he have been without Hegel? (Who was far from 'woolly'.)) Moreover Marx didn't deny being one. E.g. Singer on Marx: "...What Marx is saying is that the problems of philosophy cannot be solved by passive interpretation of the world as it is, but only by remoulding the world to resolve the philosophical contradictions inherent in it. It is to solve philosophical problems that we must change the world." In this he was no different from say the Ascetics or from Socrates. Dialectical Material ism is a philosophy, not a factual discovery. date=30.06.2004 00:53 ip=80.225.3.193 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Dialectical Materialism is a philosophy, not a factual discovery.

Just to add to this: and this of course is where it is proving fruitful: in ... of, all things, postmodernist thinking and anthropology. (Ok a lot of it is bad-laughable etc; but the same can be said for most other productions; empiricist philosophy for one thing. That deserves its own version of the sort of postmodernist 'sense' generator that Martin cites.)

The Enlightenment ideal (reiterated by Dawkins et al) may not be dead but, as contemporary society shows, it is not enough. date=30.06.2004 01:04 ip=80.225.3.193 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> What I prefer is to emphasise the mystic and poetic; while you prefer, ostensibly at least, the hard-edged and the factual.

Hmm, this intrigues me. Having just re-read 'Course of the Heart', I think much of its dynamic comes not from either side of that particular fence but more from the tension that exists between the two; in its most basic terms, the tension between acutely imagined, precisely described, profoundly *realistic* characters and the destabilising, unsettling and (from the pov of the external reader at least) profoundly unreal circumstances they encounter and respond to.

I think the same tension exists in 'Climbers' also - between the hero climbers Mike looks up to as mystic gods of climbing, and their reality as the averagely flawed people he ends up knowing (tho' they hide their own deep mysteries; what did drive Sankey's escape from himself into Yorkshireness, for example?)

Built into Light also come to think of it; hard sf versus banality of murder, objective hardness of science vs mythic presence of man and cat in the void, etc (a while since I've read it so probably not accurate memory)

>> So none of us likes reductionism. But none of us likes inexactitude, either. I'm sure there's some sort of intellectual Schwarzschild limit we can observe and resolve it all.

Put more generally, why do we need to reach for one side or the other exclusively? Why do we need to achieve resolution between the two? Surely the most interesting thing about polarised views is the tension they generate between them (conflict is drama...) - not a specific point within that tension where we can say that truth lies.

Hmm, not sure I haven't just slipped into a subjectivity of truth argument there. Doh! Not what I meant. Btb Blake interesting on this 'there is a place where contrarieties are equally true' - Beulah, bridge land between extra spatial / temporal eternity and us here; seat of human creativity; place of soul's repose; gateway between life and death, etc. Creative activity for him demands acceptance of / tension between opposites.

Oh, mine's a bottle of Porter, and a packet of dry roast peanuts, if you could. date=30.06.2004 01:51 ip=62.188.31.170 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like the idea in Light that no matter how much we think we know about the universe, there could be beings 'out there' that know more than we will ever know. And even then - was this the implication? - even 'they' don't know eveything. 'There's always more'. date=30.06.2004 10:01 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And what either of us know is never finally and can both work and be mutually contradictory.... Within Light, on some levels, electricity IS a faith. date=30.06.2004 11:44 ip=62.188.72.95 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Berkeley's argument never dies. But it never gets any traction on the world either. You can't make anything with it. The only way it can cause physical change in the world is if you sell it as psychic snake oil. (What allows everyone from me to the New Age to misappropriate some contemporary theoretical physics is that it is--for now--equally untestable. To an extent, Sokal has to be remarking on that. The difference between Berkelyism and superstrings is that the latter will eventually test out or be chucked on the rubbish heap of ideas that looked good but weren't good. The project of science differentiates itself from the projects of philosophy or religion, or even politics, precisely by the size of its rubbish heap.)

I don't mind misappropriation to make metaphors. (How could I ?) I don't mind, in fact I love, juissance. But both Dawkins and Sokal are clear: postmodernism isn't doing this for fun. It defines the fact out of science and claims science to be--like everything else--a branch of human affairs. It claims there are no facts, only values and arguments; or that somehow a value is a fact, which it clearly is not. By doing so it hopes to control people and their behaviour. The project of science is not to control anything, not even the material world, but to find things out; you can't find things out if you're trying to control them. That's why you're not allowed to cheat when you design an experiment. All other human affairs--except perhaps those that used to be described as "instinctive" -- proceed by cheating. You never cheat when you have a shit.

Much of what we're scrapping over here--Martin & io have pointed this out--is category error committed by both sides. Alan Sokal's piece is designed to trap category errors as well as New Age & postmodern misprisions. What I liked about Arturo's zen restatement of my histrionic babbling was how it pointed that up. Science is about the fact of electricity. Politics is about the "truth" of electricity inasmuch as it might be about, say, the "economic truth" of the human use of electricity. The category error committed by postmodernism is to claim that the "truth" of electricity is not just a component (wrong) but the sole component (so utterly wrong as to be, well, stupid) of the fact. I'd be the first to admit that Dawkins has committed some category errors in his comments on the humanities. He sees himself as having to fight hard on behalf of a beleagured minority; as a result he feels he has to have an on-tap public opinion about everything--always risky. Steve Jones has done the same thing, in my opinion, although from a different angle. Like Stuart Kaufmann, Jones has bought some aspects of the postmodern project, and introduced them where they should not go.

In the end I don't maintain the "truth" of anything I'm saying here--except for a briefly bad-tempered moment yesterday; neither do I really see myself as "in the science camp". But I am outraged by postmodern category error (and, to be honest, a little let down by the discovery that a major argumentative style of postmodernism *is* the perpetration of category error--why didn't I see that 20 years ago ?). And I do think that every so often someone had better point up the distinction between what goes on in the world and what goes on in texts; because people tend to forget. Texts so easily become an environment. Look at the naturalisation of the mall. Zebras graze the savannahs; westerners graze the mall. Every so often someone had better shriek at them: This came off a *drawing board*! It came out of an *economic theory*! You're living in a fucking *text*! Neither would it hurt if someone tortured Tony Blair until he saw that the "human world" is not the world.

Otherwise, in all things, Al has me neatly described. It's the tension that counts. date=30.06.2004 12:14 ip=213.78.167.159 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Zebras graze the savannahs; westerners graze the mall.

And as such our usage of technology is that or the bricoleur or the primitive: to make a call on a mobile or use a lightbulb we don't need to understand any of the principle behind it any more than a (notional) caveman throwing a (notional) rock needs to understand kinetic energy. But again this is one of the themes of Light and indeed much space opera or dying earth science. Appropriation of alien technologies strapped onto jury-rigged structures built from pragmatic engineering that we barely understand.

This in the condition of consumer man wiring together the components of his home cinema. But it's a passive condition. Somewhere higher up the curve his neighbour is constructing a black box to hack into cable TV channels, understanding a few more principles and being able to tap into the art of putting together the Lego blocks of prefabricated components. date=30.06.2004 12:52 ip=158.94.158.220 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd rather be a zebra. date=30.06.2004 13:00 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, the old lady next door makes her way downstairs. She has just had her morning bath, and the pain in her knees has receded a little. Time for a cup of tea! But as she enters the kitchen, she hears the sound of the combi-boiler, already fired up. Could she have left a tap running in the bathroom ?

An act of science would proceed to test this theory: the old lady would make her way regretfully upstairs and, finding that she had indeed left the tap running, turn it off. An act of politics would claim that whether the tap was running or not, the old lady should get her gas for free; and that old ladies should not have to live in accomodation that required them to make their way up and down flights of stairs. An act of postmodernism would claim that the result of a spectral analysis of the flame in the combi-boiler depends on the above-described political condition of the old lady; and that anyone who refutes this critique is likely to be ageist, white, male, heterosexual and deliberately, even violently, uncooperative. A New Age analysis would claim that the flame in the boiler makes us think of the old lady's spirit, burning strongly within the Collective Unconscious as she moves into the next stage of the journey--or story--that is her life, and all our lives, ie that she should make way for her daughter--who would like to use the house for her atheromancy and Interbactrian massage business--and not fear change or try to clutch at the past. date=30.06.2004 13:05 ip=213.78.85.118 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - science as immediate experience or knowledge, unmediated by any particular theory, unedited by any particular worldview.

*turns tap off to save her knees* date=30.06.2004 13:09 ip=62.188.67.88 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, no. The old lady *has* a theory. It is that she left the tap on. Gather facts, make a theory, test the theory. Use it to gather more facts. As opposed to: have a "belief", and try to force it on some other people via spurious arguments. date=30.06.2004 13:16 ip=213.78.85.118 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One cup of tea, and already the dear lady's at the nexus of Postmodernist catastrophe. Good job she didn't go for the choccy bickies as well: we'd never have heard the end of it.

(As it is, this might have been the start of "The Ladykillers," but scripted by BS Johnson)

>>The journey ... that is her life - Hard to think of a New Age cliche I detest more. Unless it's the old saw about "my demons" that Clinton used recently to excuse his bobsleigh-ride libido. More smudgy language to avoid our acts and responsibilities: after all, I couldn't be leading a directionless existence and hurting most people around me, could I? Because I'm worth more than that ... date=30.06.2004 13:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Meanwhile, the old lady next door makes her way downstairs.

Yes, she was the one I was telling you about who's hacking cable TV. She has webcams in most of the rooms upstairs so she can check the bath as soon as she gets to her laptop. date=30.06.2004 14:56 ip=158.94.158.220 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yeah, she has Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on at all hours. Crazy as a bat.

The bath has go faster stripes and an astrology chart hangs at the end of it complete with flashing lights, splotchy candles, etc. date=30.06.2004 15:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's weird, you know, because I could have sworn that old lady lives in Reigate, is 84, and is only now wondering if she should move to a bungalow. (She's determined not to have a cat this time, because they spoil it for the garden birds.) The daughter is her most regular visitor. The son--a health club manager--bought her a computer from a Tiny ad so she could really be enabled but it's always demanding something new from her, she can't remember how to work the emailer, and, her memory not being as good as it was, they sometimes have to teach her from visit to visit what the cursor looks like, also what it's for. The printer is still in its box, because no one could get it going. The hard disc is full of unopened emails they have sent her. Hi Mum, This is just a test. Can't get down this weekend, Winkies got the usual summer flu. Nevertheless, she's always trying to organise things, including the photos of her husband, who flew a bomber in WW2, died two years ago, and who she misses to such a degree that she sometimes stands still in the middle of the front room with a kind of completely frozen howl in her chest. She feels just like the computer when it crashes. She would love to organise all the photos of him--mostly tiny little shiny pasteboard images from the early 50s, here in his uniform, here smoking that awful pipe--into a book; but the son and daughter have scanned them into the computer, and since today she can't quite remember how to switch it on, and since they borrowed the originals just after he died, she can't do that today. date=30.06.2004 15:51 ip=213.78.79.212 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, that'll be the other old lady then: the considerably better written one! date=30.06.2004 16:23 ip=158.94.158.220 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, so - essentially; build from the world to a conclusion; don't build the world from conclusions. Hmm - no meaning but in things?

Just saw a lovely T-shirt; deep blue fabric, and on it in clean white print, 'by the sea'. For an instant, tremendously evocative, I felt the chill of sea air on a hot sticky day in Clapham Junction. Then back to reality and the Post Office was closed, so I couldn't post my parcels. V. cool. date=30.06.2004 16:40 ip=62.188.67.120 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another, un-PoMo life: achingly familiar. A friend's mother is in similar straits, and has only one topic of conversation - an incident from 1939 that she goes over and over, repeating it every fifteen minutes in conversation.

And "enabled" - my third most hated piece of New Age cant. Language drained of meaning so it carries no real consequence. date=30.06.2004 16:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I feel empowered. I'm taking ownership of my life. Thinking outside the box about the road less travelled. And having my back, sack and crack waxed. Yummy life, let's eat. date=30.06.2004 16:54 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: And keeping your true north values in line with a business footprint, no doubt. date=30.06.2004 17:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> And keeping your true north values in line with a business footprint

*boggles*

So you've had the consultants in this week, then, Martin?! date=30.06.2004 17:21 ip=62.188.69.46 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have just been wasting too much time here:
http://www.buzzwhack.com

Anyone been lateraled recently? I'm just off for a bio-break. date=30.06.2004 17:39 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I personally hate the term po-mo. That coinage is itself a vagrant postmodern pop phenonenon generated by the worlds of the mass media 'signage' consciousness, if I may be so bold.

In other words the reflex is to 'popify' - reduce down - what exists as an enormously complicated series of enterprises and investigations. These enterprise include many disciplines, the social sciences, the arts and philosophy, most of which are empirically based. The ironic thing about this of course is that the issues they deal with exist regardless of their dismissal by people who feel alienated from the means of their study.

I sympathise with MJHs dislike of the 'subjectification of everything' that someone like Richard Rorty used to argue for. (But which started right back with Nietzsche.) It is clearly stupid. But we are talking about a broad rapidly evolving field with this subject. Postmodernist insights into culture can be truly interesting. They just have to be separated out. For instance I think Marc Auge's concept of the phenomenon of non-places is actually true. It describes a real aspect of modern culture. It is not subjectivist blah blah.

My belief is that two things can be reconciled. When you say MJH that people should be reminded that they are effectively walking through a text as they walk throught their local mall, that is a postmodernist argument. It certainly isn't a modernist one. So in sum postmodernism doesn't have to be all 'play'. We live in a weird world. I mean what about that advert for the new Peugot: "Playtime is over." What is that about? date=30.06.2004 18:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "Playtime is over." What is that about?

Assuming that was not a rhetorical question, I wondered the same thing (since I do ads for a living) and came to the conclusion that they are marketing the car as a 'serious' car. Why some cars are considered more serious than others I can only guess at, not being a 'car' person (I drive them, I'm not interested in them). It's a car for people who take their driving as seriously as they take their golf, their investments and their choice of watch. Real players. Who aren't playing.*



*wankers date=30.06.2004 18:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>When you say MJH that people should be reminded that they are effectively walking through a text as they walk throught their local mall, that is a postmodernist argument

No - it isn't. It's only a postmodernist argument if you say a la Derrida that there isn't anything outside the text. It's this, the radical anti-foundationalism of post-modernism, the statement that there are texts, only texts, and nothing but the texts, that make it a deeply unserious intellectual enterprise. There are bits and pieces of postmodernist thinkers that I like - but in general, the whole thing seems bankrupt. Its contribution to the social sciences (which are only sciences in a weak sense - but that's another argument) are negligible, and it's visibly losing ground, even in the areas (anthropology) where it had gained some. Paul Rabinow has a very nice piece on post-modernism in anthropology which echoes Mike's earlier point - he argues quite convincingly that the postmodernist turn was less about introducing new voices than about allowing a young generation of scholars to boot out the older ones. date=30.06.2004 19:07 ip=208.58.67.70 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crikey, why does this kind of thing happen whenever I'm not around. Would love to contribute some wisdom, but a week in Amsterdam, Assen and Antwerp have left me a drooling imbecile. All I can think is... if you can't scratch a universe with it, it ain't worth a toss. date=30.06.2004 22:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Walking through a text


Hilary Putman in “The collapse of the Fact. Value dichotonomy” argues that we perceive things from language and even if the language of science can never be free of values this only goes to prove how narrow and useless is the empiric definition of fact.
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/PUTCOL.html

And on the other hand this is from a review of “Light” from the current issue of Argentinean fanzine Quasar: “ If M.John Harrison were a musician, instead of a writer, he wouldn’t be a crooner. He would be playing guitar in a punk band or he would be a concept musician. One of those who, not by chance, stumble upon beauty between silence and chaos”.

http://www.revistacuasar.com.ar/article.php?sid=9 9&mode=thread&order=0 date=30.06.2004 23:01 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He would be playing guitar in a punk band...

Nah, he hasn't got big enough hands to be a guitarist. date=30.06.2004 23:10 ip=81.153.4.84 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He would be playing guitar in a punk band...

Nah, he hasn't got big enough hands to be a guitarist.

I'm off to Reykjavik until next Monday. Play nicely, kids. And Martin: please try not to wreck the joint while I'm away! date=30.06.2004 23:14 ip=81.153.4.84 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Thanks for the warning! - :)

I won't have the chance, though: I'm stepping "outside" this text, and going off to Scotland for a week or so. date=01.07.2004 10:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io Have a great holiday. Martin, the same. Meanwhile back at the ranch ...

>>>It's this, the radical anti-foundationalism of post-modernism, the statement that there are texts, only texts, and nothing but the texts, that make it a deeply unserious intellectual enterprise.

I like postmodernism's instincts. In fact I have my own perhaps idiosyncratic view of it - which I think is allowed. This is that it sees a limit to rationality; that rationality, and rationalism isn't everything. That the Enlightenment/Modernist project of making everything answerable to reason amounts to a catastrophic *overlooking* of what is actually going on. One of these things that is going on is that people do actually exist in 'texts' that have no foundational reality - the mall being the obvious example.

Pure rationalism is a chimera. The human world is ruled by human self-importance - by the reflection of ourselves in a mirror - not by anything rational. The idea that it is or can be governed by simple rational ordering is utterly, totally delusional: self-important, in fact. In other words, if you genuinely want to apply rational ideas to this has to be taken as a first principle - something that eg Marx obviously failed to do. date=01.07.2004 12:00 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I think the real message of that ad is: Playtime is here! It's tailored to 'kidults'. date=01.07.2004 12:13 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For me, the textuality of the mall--indeed of the West--is frightening and unacceptable because of its unwittingness. If you mistake a text for foundational reality you are living inside someone else's will, not in the real world. You throw yourself on the mercy of someone else's rhetoric, or ideological imagination, just as you do when you wear designer clothes or have someone do your house interior for you. It seems merely wilful--and defeatist--to claim that the real world is only a text too (or a babel of them); or that there is no house to decorate, no body to clothe, no elements to be protected against. It seems depressive and capitulatory. It also seems evasive and escapist. By exporting our entropy to people less well-off than us, we give ourselves the feeling that we can live in our dreams. One climatic shift would rewrite that text in an instant, and bring us face to face with the reality we force daily on others.

Trawling grimly through Google yesterday I came upon one bright spot. Einsteinian relativity, said a cultural academic, may only be a text; the problem is that a nuclear explosion can so completely spoil your day. In the end, praxis dictates that we have what we can touch. My own texts constantly, as Al said, play with the tension between praxis & desire, praxis and the imagination. But I hope--in fact I know--that the majority of them, like the scene with the old lady in the posts below, are bedded in observation of foundational reality; and their intent is certainly not to question it. What they question is our fantasies of escape (many of which are now presented precisely as a slick, popularised and wholly fake questioning of foundational reality: we should not be allowed to evade the irony of this).

I think rational/irrational is a canard. The world is neither. It just is. Certain types of activity can cause change in it; certain other types, though terribly and totally human, can't. *That's* where the useful tension lies. *That's* the entry point for understanding. To that degree, postmodernism provided a very nice toolkit, which will be quite useful once it can be separated from the original project. date=01.07.2004 12:42 ip=213.78.79.222 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I think rational/irrational is a canard. The world is neither. It just is.

I agree with that. I was not suggesting, in the view I put forward, that postmodernism is able to grasp an irrationality, and that this irrationalism is somehow to do with reality; what I was trying to suggest is that there are dimensions to life that "just are" regardless of our desire to transform them into rational formulae. In these terms the rational formulae merely serve to disguise or distort what is going on. This is why I think that certain ways of applying our rationality - certain forms of insistence - such as you might get with Denett in his Consciousness Explained mode - really amount to nothing more than self-importance. These sorts of would be mechanico-scientifico 'explanations' have no actual content. They can't have, because there is nothing to explain. They are just a form of role-playing; another of the foundationless heirarchical games that we play.

Peter Singer in today's Independent is another good example of this. The application of a 'rationality' to a subject that isn't to be appropriately understood by such means. date=01.07.2004 14:39 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know enough about Dennett to get into that. But cheap fMRI scanning is about to have the same effect on cognitive theory as molecular biology had on genetics. Why speculate, when you can have a look ? Once you open a locked box, guesses at its contents, however clever, become meaningless. You've removed the object of study from the realm of abstract speculation and placed it firmly into the realm of farm machinery. You only need a theory so you can test it. After that, traction takes over.

>>I think that certain ways of applying our rationality - certain forms of insistence - such as you might get with Denett in his Consciousness Explained mode - really amount to nothing more than self-importance. These sorts of would be mechanico-scientifico 'explanations' have no actual content. They can't have, because there is nothing to explain. They are just a form of role-playing; another of the foundationless heirarchical games that we play.

You aren't, are you, suggesting that there are some things "we aren't meant to know" ? I can just faintly see that spectre leaning over the shoulder of the argument.

I was interested to see this account of a postmodern outing in the mountains--

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story /0,5500,1252335,00.html

The young women clearly centre themselves in this narrative of understanding and opening. What I like about them is not so much their vigorous self-realisation in the face of outdated pupil/teacher dichotomies and hierarchical assumptions of expertcy, as their subtly-performed critique of the pompous foundationalism underlying such elements of the outdoor text as weather, visibility, mountain and hypothermia. In the forefront of redefining the "real" in ways which allow ordinary people to take control of their lives, the Hackney deconstruction once again shows its quality, timeliness and inventive relevence.

We do seem to have a real talent for positioning each other as maximum opponent, MJP. Some kind of projective identification ? Am I standing in for your brother, while you stand in for me, ten years old, in relation to my engineering dad ? Since I always said I'd kill myself if I ever sounded the slightest bit like him, I guess I'd better go off and find somewhere to attach the rope. If nothing else this will allow me to use my self-important and fundamentally foundationalist knot skills outside the reality-privileging limitations of the mountain text. Meanwhile, time for another truce ? People must be so bored... date=02.07.2004 12:53 ip=213.78.85.251 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ok, truce. People, bored bewildered ? ... well, I enjoyed it so its not a total waste. ;O) date=02.07.2004 13:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> You aren't, are you, suggesting that there are some things "we aren't meant to know" ?

That's how it seemed to me. The "science of consciousness" has come a long way in the last 20 or 30 years, including findings of real substance and foothoolds for future discoveries. But, yeah, truce.

I was wondering... isn't poetry just our internal interface with the world, and science our external one? date=02.07.2004 13:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, poetry's certainly more of a subjective interface; you can say of a poem, 'well, it didn't work for me' - which doesn't neccesarily devalue it as a poem. You can't say the same for an experiment.

However, form of whatever kind is implicit in poetry; ie something structural (whether in literal or more metaphorical terms) that reproduces a comparatively similar effect on a reasonable number of readers. For the interface to be more than just idiolect (I finally get to use that word!) it has to be rooted in something that, demonstrably, objectively and reproducably, works - just like an experiment.

Maybe it's just that it doesn't need to work for as many people / universally? Or that it can be more local and specific in its concerns and functions than a scientific experiment (which, I would think, needs universality as one of its absolute values)? If this is so? So not neccesarily more internal but certainly more personal, but also running on the same need to record, verify and share verification.

Thoroughly enjoyed the *conversation*, btb, tho' I didn't understand all of it. Have tried to remedy this with 'Modern Movements in European Philosophy', from the library (am in Husserl at the mo) - by one... Richard Kearney! No relation to our mass murdering friend? date=02.07.2004 13:36 ip=62.188.67.226 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh also - I love the idea that there are things that *man was never meant to know*, but am always mildly disappointed that they never seem to end up involving titanic octopoids from other dimenstions etc.

And have found source of Charles Williams books in London - the Rudolf Steiner bookshop, down New Oxford Street (I think) halfway between Tottenham Court Road tube and Holborn tube. They had his collected poems on the shelf, had more novels on order.

You do have to deal with Steiner devotees tho' -

'He was a universal genius'
'Yes, yes, he had mastered all branches of human knowledge!'
'Yes, everything...! Even.... beekeeping!'
'His lectures on beekeeping were famous.'
'He was a master of beekeeping.'
'Oh yes. He even used to give lectures on... giving lectures!!'

And so on. date=02.07.2004 13:41 ip=62.188.67.226 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On "some things we are not meant to know" . It is a locution that doesn't apply in philosophical investigation ... Well anyway however... hrrpmh ... (self-important clearing of throat) Al says >>>>but am always mildly disappointed that they never seem to end up involving titanic octopoids from other dimenstions etc

The trick you have missed Al is that that is what the titanic octopoids from another dimension *want* you to think. date=02.07.2004 13:54 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Science follows an agreed and rigid system to gradually expose the truths of the universe. Despite the fact that a theory can only ever be that (i.e. you can disprove but not prove), there is a large degree of objectivity. We can at least agree on the results (the "facts").

Poetry appeals to the individual mind. Its only measure of success is "it worked for me". It is judged entirely on subjective results. The fact that there is often agreement between different people, that certain structures can produce similar effects, is very interesting to me from a scientific angle: is it shared evolution, shared experience, or the very nature of human consciousness that makes certain structures resonate? But they don't change the criteria for judging: what did that piece of poetry (/music/art/whatever) do for me?

So with science we are judging against standards that everyone can, indeed must, agree upon. With poetry we are judging solely upon our own standards; the fact that others may share some or more of those standards doesn't alter our judgement. date=02.07.2004 13:54 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Its only measure of success is "it worked for me".

Hmm, not sure I agree; perhaps better stated as 'it worked for someone'. I can't stand George Herbert, for example, he doesn't work for me; that doesn't mean that that he doesn't write poetry, it just means that I don't like or get his poetry.

Similarly, the manipulation of language to achieve poetic effect is not subjective. Rhythm, rhyme, register of language, etc etc are formal properties that physically, unambiguously exist within a given poem.

Broadly speaking, they do have broadly similar, reproducible effects on readers - the art of the poet lies partially in understanding (through study, experiment, experience, etc) what these specific reproducible effects are and then learning how to deploy them to best work in the broader context of the poem. 'The best language in the best order', etc.

There's personal like / dislike, sure, and it's very important - but it's only a personal measure of a poem's effect, not a universal measure of whether or not a poem's successful.

MJP - Doh! Suckered again. Curse those scheming tentacular fiends... date=02.07.2004 15:25 ip=62.188.65.53 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=After all these years, I still don't really know what poetry is, or what it's for. date=02.07.2004 15:58 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> perhaps better stated as 'it worked for someone'

You're right, of course, Al, but this isn't exactly what I was driving at. There are many criteria of success for a poem (I bin hoist by my own hyperbole again), but the one I meant to refer to is a poem's, erm, poetic appeal. If I hate a particular poem, it may still be important to me in other ways: if I published it, I might be more interested in the returns it brings. Or if I'm an English student, I might see it as a tool to getting a qualification. But these are all external, dare I say scientific (quantifiable, testable) effects of the poetry. The metaphysical effect of sending me into a reverie is one that's mine and mine alone.

As for objective manipulations of language to create poetic effect, this (or more specifically, the musical equivalent) is something that's fascinated me for the last twenty years. I don't deny that they exist, but I continually wonder what causes them and how widespread they are. I used to think that people specifically learned to like or dislike music, basing my theories on the fact that if I could train myself to enjoy Last Exit in full flow, then so could any other fucker. Since then I've mellowed: stuff like the Mozartian brainwave studies indicate that there could be species-wide bias. But I still wonder what causes these: do our linguistically-wired brains pre-dispose us in certain ways, does the fact that we all hear the sound of the wind and water and birdsong mean that we build associations with anything mimicking aspects of those sounds?

So yes, there's a science of poetry just as there's a poetry in science. But I think what I was trying to make clear is the functional dichotomy: good science is good if it describes the world in a useful way, enabling us to do things we couldn't otherwise have done. It's external. Good poetry is good if it resonates within us, plays on our emotions. It's internal. A scientific approach to writing poetry might make success more likely, but it doesn't affect the fact (?!?) that the results are judged purely upon our inner mental state. If we ever find an equation that says "this must be a good poem because it has elements x, y and z", but people reading the poem don't like it, that doesn't make those people wrong. date=02.07.2004 16:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bugger, always a problem in philosophy: I think I've just destroyed my own argument from at least two different directions. Damn. At least I know what I'm talking about (and it's poetry to my ears). date=02.07.2004 16:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Good poetry is good if it resonates within us, plays on our emotions. It's internal.
Hi , Dan.
This could apply to any kind of creative writing/ endeavor, including of course fiction. date=02.07.2004 16:15 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>that doesn't make those people wrong.
I think that what you mean is that even if the “canon” is the product of a consensus ;a public experience; there is the private experience of reading something yourself that can only be conditioned by canonical expectations so far. I think that at one time or the other we all have tried unsuccessfully to read a classic author . That doesn´t makes that author any less worthy in my eyes. date=02.07.2004 16:27 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When we hear a piece of music in a minor key, we tend to associate it with sadness or melancholy. But is that response learned or does the music (as a sequence of pitches) actually create that emotional response by acting upon the nervous system? Plato called the Ionian mode relaxing, and Aristotle claimed it made people stupid (for example). I've often wondered if there was any truth in assigning emotional state to musical scales. Perhaps words in a certain sequence can create emotion states too? date=02.07.2004 16:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> That doesn´t makes that author any less worthy in my eyes.

I understand what you're saying Arturo, but the point is exactly that it *does* make the author less worthy in your eyes (/ears/nose/whatever). You can still hold that author in high esteem, based on the opinion of others you respect, but in your own head that author (more specifically: that work) doesn't do whatever it is poetry ought to (and, yes, I'm really talking about much more than poetry: creative writing, art, music, anything that elicits an emotional rather than a rational response. And, yes Alex, I still don't really know what poetry's for or how it works: it's a mystery to my scientific mind, but a mystery that occasionally thrills me).

I've been thinking more about rhyme, structure etc. as well, and realised that those things are props for poetry: they're sometimes necessary, but very very rarely sufficient. They help good poetry along, but for me it's usually thematic resonances with aspects of my own life that crank up my internal Poetic Appreciation Metric (abbreviated to P.A.M, possibly in honour of Ms Ayres, MBE). date=02.07.2004 17:23 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> they're sometimes necessary, but very very rarely sufficient.

They're not sufficient on their own, you're right - but if you don't have them in a text that moves you, what you've got is prose that's working poetically, rather than poetry (and I'm using poetry not in terms of a mood evoked by a specific piece of work but rather as a more technical word to describe a specific art form).

Part of what separates poetry from other *art forms using words* is its close attention to that kind of thing - the craft of putting words together in specific ways to maximise their impact on the reader.

Much work this afternoon! Hence telegraphese.... date=02.07.2004 17:28 ip=62.188.65.146 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>If I hate a particular poem
And the award goes .. to Rudyard Kipling´s "If". If you keep your head when everybody else around you does, that probably means that you don´t undestard how bad the situation really is .( I don´t remenber who said this) date=02.07.2004 19:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry ,the original verse was: "If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,"
This is, by the way, the favourite poem ever of Spain´s former Presidente Aznar who once declaimed it in a state dinner in front of Tony Blair who , if you belive Mr.Aznar, was quite impressed. date=02.07.2004 19:23 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lots of responses to MJH & MJP's disagreement here at Henry's blog; albeit limited by being reaction to a fragment rather than the whole exchange--

http://www.crookedtimber.org/

--and scroll down. (You'll enjoy most of them MJP, since they appear to come from philosphers.) date=02.07.2004 19:58 ip=213.78.76.39 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The permanent link for the entry is http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002096.html . Hope you all don't mind me grabbing this phrase from the debate and running with it - seemed to me to be a nice, pithy snapshot of a particular point of view (and certainly got my philosopher colleagues riled up). date=05.07.2004 01:32 ip=208.58.67.70 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No problems, Henry. date=05.07.2004 11:18 ip=213.78.69.208 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ho ho. I ... will say just one thing.

The rational world is a dead world. It may be "real" - functionally provable - but it's dead. The Prisoner enters the Files of the Corridors of Whitehall searches for his Entry in the Annals of Rationality - and resigns. I resign! From this dead world. I am not a number! Such is the problem. So what they are doing over on Henry's blog thing is arguing over a corpse.

Poetry is one of the few means we have of grasping the objective nature of reality - that is, it is one of the few means we have of grasping the *living* nature of reality. (And what other reality is there supposed to be?) Let me put in a word here for Jon Silkin and his postumous collection, Making a Republic. Read the last sequence of poems first, if you do look at it, because otherwise it is difficult to get into. Absolutely incredible. date=06.07.2004 10:30 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Respect, MJP. (But you love a pint of beer by a river on a sunny day.) Meanwhile, life imitates less art than twenty years of dreary cyberpunk sf at--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,125491 1,00.html

See what I mean about living in someone else's text ? Although that last para has a certain neogothic relish about it. After my accident I married a rubber hand. date=06.07.2004 11:09 ip=213.78.70.61 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another one for the I'm-worth-it dept:

Read something in the Metro last night on my way back from Heathrow about girls as young as fourteen demanding IVF treatment because time was "passing them by".

Anyone else seen any reference to this story or was it an airport induced hallucination? date=06.07.2004 11:58 ip=158.94.173.173 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like a whiskey and a cigar and a women who goes too far.

Here in The Village it has been decreed that F1 cars will go up and down Regent Street between 6 and 8 today. Be seeing you!

Form the Guardian "the human body is a moving, throbbing collection of tubes and tunnels, filled with salty water and all capable of transmitting the lifeblood of the 21st century: information." date=06.07.2004 12:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Here in The Village it has been decreed that F1 cars will go up and down Regent Street between 6 and 8 today. Be seeing you!


I'll be there, probably at Waterloo Place. Anyone else in town tonight?

As for illusory news, I once (about 18 years ago) went to sleep to the sounds of LBC, listening to incoming news reports about America dropping a nuclear missile on Iran. My sleep was plagued with nightmares, this was the worst-case scenario we'd all been expecting sooner or later. The next morning, I tuned to the news avidly to hear of any developments during the night. The nuclear strike wasn't even mentioned. I still wonder whether it might have happened and been rapidly hushed up afterwards. date=06.07.2004 12:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Anyone else in town tonight?

And if so, could you let me know telepathically - I'm off to London in half-an-hour, and having misplaced my mobile in Manchester, I feel strangely not part of this world. Anyway, you can't miss me, I'll be the one in Waterloo Place without any earplugs (I was at the Dutch MotoGP in Assen last week, and while it wasn't much to look at, my god, what sounds!) date=06.07.2004 12:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I was reading one of The Prisoner novels last week - not the Tom Disch one.

I used to leave the BBC World Service on at a very low volume during the night. It helped to deal with my insomnia - if I woke up the quiet, polite voices would put me back to sleep again. But one night I heard a news item about some terribly important discovery in deep space that made sense of everything. Naturally when I woke up I couldn't remember what it was and never heard it mentioned again.

Dan: I'm not up to much this evening apart from reaclimatising(!?) myself to ugly stupid Londoners. date=06.07.2004 12:26 ip=158.94.173.173 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New Scientist 3.7.04:

"The speed of light, one of the most sacrosanct of the universal constants, may have been lower as recently as two billion years ago..." date=06.07.2004 14:46 ip=158.94.175.135 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi io. Hope the holiday was good.

I would like to mention how much I am enjoying the Can mp3s you put on cd. (I inadvertantly came across an mp3 player recently.) That rhythmic intensity! The simplest drumming is the most intense. (Ok, maybe I should post this on the Krautrock boards.)

People are gathering to see the F1 show? Can they be serious? date=06.07.2004 14:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, that Jaki Liebzeit is a bit of a rhythmic genius. I also love Damo Suzuki's glossolalia lyrical style...

(Yes, this really *shd* be on KRMB!) date=06.07.2004 15:07 ip=158.94.175.135 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry for being a bit thick MJH but which news item in the Guardian is it? I get a blank page when I use the URL. date=06.07.2004 15:47 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Try this - http://tinyurl.com/3x4cc date=06.07.2004 15:49 ip=158.94.175.135 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Judging by your quote from the Guardian, MJP, we read the same piece! I don't know why the URL doesn't fetch it down. date=06.07.2004 17:27 ip=213.78.82.199 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>I still wonder whether it might have happened and >been rapidly hushed up afterwards

Hi, Dan
Maybe you are remembering something from an alternate, and now terminated, timeline. date=06.07.2004 17:33 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Microsoft hasn't recently held discussions about this patent, and it does not currently map to any particular Microsoft product that is either shipping or in development
________
Hi, Mike.
Microsoft has been given a patent for and idea for a gadget that they haven´t built and don´t know how to build (buf if somebody comes up with a way to do it will have to pay Microsoft.) Very murky bussiens indeed. date=06.07.2004 17:40 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Microsoft has been given a patent for and idea for a gadget that they haven´t built and don´t know how to build...

It's not a bad idea though. We shd all start patenting ideas for stuff that Microsoft are going to have to build at some point and then sell them the rights. date=06.07.2004 17:43 ip=158.94.173.173 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=06.07.2004 18:54 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoa ! I wrote a joke about microsoft and ... ghost post.
Here it goes again:
>We shd all start patenting ideas for stuff that Microsoft are going to have to build
An stable operative system ? date=06.07.2004 18:55 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>An stable operative system?

Now why would they want to do that? They've managed fine with Windows all these years. date=06.07.2004 19:36 ip=217.43.17.45 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=06.07.2004 20:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Spooky. I crack a joke about windows and back-doors and ... second ghost post. date=06.07.2004 20:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, you have a doppelposter. date=07.07.2004 10:42 ip=62.188.72.182 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm off to the Semana Negra tomorrow, leaving you lot to the weather. Am I the only one for whom travel involves writing endless post-it notes that go, "Find camera, batteries: pack!!" ? At some point this evening Cath will come past and ask, "Why are you ironing that when the very next thing you're going to do is fold it seven times across itself and *stuff* it in the bottom of your rucksack ?" I won't hear her because I'll be thinking, "Find post-it notes: read them!!" date=07.07.2004 17:10 ip=213.78.165.70 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No Post-it notes for me, I have a very simple packing scheme: passport, tickets, CD-walkman, bad shirts. The first two are optional.

And as for ironing: I don't even know where (or what) our steam iron is.

Have a fab time in Spain... again! date=07.07.2004 17:19 ip=158.94.179.177 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, but that's because you're so cool. Last year I stood outside the front door and realised that with three bits of plastic, a passport, and the clothes I stood up in, I could be anywhere I liked within hours. Have I done it yet ? No. Will I ever ? Probably not. Because I am irretrievably uncool. Effortless travel is for cool people. I rest my case. (Which does not have little wheels and a handle.) date=07.07.2004 18:14 ip=213.78.68.9 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, it's less cool when I walk around for the first day with stinky breath because I'm looking for somewhere to buy a toothbrush. It also means that I now have a flat full of umbrellas that I've only used once. date=07.07.2004 19:15 ip=81.154.104.27 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like camping, because it gives you the excuse to be filthy and uncivilised for a few days. date=08.07.2004 13:32 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes, very primal. Have been thinking of doing more of it; realised the other day you can hire a camping skiff at Hampton and take off up the Thames. Anyone for an empty space recreation of Three Men in a Boat?

*readies boater* date=08.07.2004 14:03 ip=193.113.235.182 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Something awful would happen, I'm sure. date=08.07.2004 14:05 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I now have a flat full of umbrellas that I've only used once.


That's funny, I suffer from the opposite problem - the world is full of umbrellas that I've only used once, and yet I've none at home.

Travelling light: I'm still trying to work out a way of coming to London that doesn't involve three weeks with a chiropractor on my return. Actually, I did discover a way of doing it, it's called not bringing the laptop, but that opens up the scary possibility that I might have to write something down on paper, and risk not being able to edit it, or even worse having to re-type it, when I get home.

I love camping even more than I love other filthy uncivilised practices. Spent a month under canvas last summer and it was revelatory. Looking forward to more of the same. date=08.07.2004 16:15 ip=217.204.118.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the world is full of umbrellas that I've only used once, and yet I've none at home.

They're all in my flat. I keep picking them up from the lost property at work whenever I get caught without a brolly. Yes, I lose some umbrellas, everybody loses some umbrellas but I win back more than I lose. I need to become some sort of umbrella gambler or something...

*descends into incoherence*

Oh, and I do *not* camp. It doesn't happen. Outside living and me do not coincide happily. I can be filthy enough at home. date=08.07.2004 16:52 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Spent a month under canvas

I don't think I'd return to civilisation if I did that. date=08.07.2004 16:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I don't think I'd return to civilisation if I did that.

Not entirely convinced that I have. date=08.07.2004 17:34 ip=217.204.118.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don´t think I´ll return to civilisation after this gig. I am about to board the Black Train. Don´t weep for me, I was too sensitive for this world. date=09.07.2004 07:39 ip=212.145.203.219 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="A deranged scientist branded by police as "Britain's worst stalker" is facing life imprisonment after targeting 200 victims. " (from yahoo news)

What do they mean by "worst stalker"? Is it just that he's very crap at stalking - he does obvious shit like cutting eyeholes in newspapers and sends threatening letters signed with his real name and stuff? date=09.07.2004 13:01 ip=158.94.87.69 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have run a search on Amazon for "contemporary spanish fiction" and C.S.Lewis is one of the results. date=09.07.2004 22:36 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And do you accept him? date=10.07.2004 02:23 ip=217.43.15.19 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What a good time I´m having. Not many towns in Britain welcome a bunch of writers with a marching band and a meal. It brings tears to your eyes, guvner. I am the Semana Negra´s man. date=10.07.2004 16:44 ip=212.89.15.218 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Inklings. Just say no. Then again I would say that we are all europeans here.

Mike: Glad to hear it. I introduced Mike in Madrid in thursday in the Fnac in Madrid , with german writer Andras Eschbach, and they both were brilliant. My girlfriend Eva was sitting in the last row with a bunch of eldery ladies who were fascinanted. One of them said , "I now realized that fantasy or science fiction can also be literature". date=10.07.2004 17:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. I just found a cybercafe in Gijon. It was a great job you did in Madrid, many thanks. Andreas got lost in the Semana Negra yesterday evening, and he wasn't even drunk. The pity of it. I have to say that Paco's Party is everything that they said it was, and I love this coast forever. If you are a writer and yearn to be treated as if that means something, abandon all other festivals and come to this one. date=10.07.2004 17:22 ip=212.89.15.218 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike

You’re welcome. For me it was a pleasure.
Let me point out that the Semana Negra is held for crime and science fiction writers and underground cartoonists. date=10.07.2004 17:37 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, it sound like you're having too much fun - stop it immediately. date=11.07.2004 13:03 ip=217.43.20.164 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Mike, it sounds like you're having too much fun - stop it immediately.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.07.2004 13:03 ip=217.43.20.164 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, what can I say ? I am unfortunately never coming back. I want to stay at the Party with my new friends. I shall definitely throw a tantrum if I´m forced to leave, especially since I have discovered, like the usual crap barbarian, first time in Rome, that there is a EUROPE out here, and it is a force in people´s thought. Also, they eat & drink a lot. date=11.07.2004 16:41 ip=212.89.15.218 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He's not coming back, io. date=12.07.2004 11:22 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, never coming back. This may be the last message. Can see bar, very close now, perhaps only half an hour's travel. Then drink more. Push on into infinite Ballardian distances. Etc etc. date=12.07.2004 12:04 ip=80.58.14.235 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wouldn't blame him - after that outburst Kilroy will be out to get him. date=12.07.2004 12:05 ip=158.94.180.242 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Can see bar, very close now, perhaps only half an hour's travel. Then drink more. Push on into infinite Ballardian distances.

For if we don't find the next Whiskey Bar, I tell you we must die.
 date=12.07.2004 12:35 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on. Oh, go on then. date=12.07.2004 12:55 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>For if we don't find the next Whiskey Bar, I tell you we must die.

¡ Ohhh Mooon of Alabama ! ( he sings with gusto but hopeleesly out of tune) date=12.07.2004 13:23 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>he sings with gusto but hopeleesly out of tune

That'sh the shpirit! *hic* date=12.07.2004 13:27 ip=158.94.180.242 name=a mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=!! date=12.07.2004 14:19 ip=80.58.9.113 name=m mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=? 1

Cor date=12.07.2004 14:29 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From the other end of a bottle it all makes sense.

Glossolalia: cf meat space and escaping the meat safe.

Discuss.

However much is drunk there is no escape from the basic facts of existence. Eat and be meat. Give tongue to your substance. date=12.07.2004 15:40 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP you're my best mate, you are. No, really. You are. Fuckin sound. Hey! See that MJP? He's my best mate. Tha bastard. No, only kiddin. He's all right. Buy anyone a drink, he will. Won't ya? Eh? Eh? I fuxckin love him. *falls over* date=12.07.2004 15:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The result of the experiment we made has turned into some type of lemonade. date=12.07.2004 16:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="I am food! I am the eater of food!" -- Taittirîyaka Upanishad

"Beer, beer, we want more beer!" -- Tony from Gillingham date=12.07.2004 16:14 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Taittirîyaka Upanishad

Go home, mate. You're pissed. date=12.07.2004 16:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pint of Taittirîyaka Upanishad, a packet of pork scratchings and a Bacardi Breezer for the lady... date=12.07.2004 16:44 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, the Taittirîyaka Upanishad only comes in halves. date=12.07.2004 17:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and I thought it was a oneness, and all.

Ah well, gimme a pint of that German one with the unwieldy name. date=12.07.2004 17:19 ip=158.94.180.242 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One drop plus one drop makes one drop not two! date=12.07.2004 17:38 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=
"Place this salt in water, and in the morning come to me." He did exactly so, and he said to him, "the salt that you put in the water last night, bring it hither. But while he grasped for it he could not find it, since it had completely dissolved.

"Take a sip from the edge of it. What is there?"
"Salt."
"Take a sip from the middle. What is there?"
"Salt."
"Take a sip from the far edge. What is there?"
"Salt."
"Set it aside and come to me." And [the boy] did exactly that, [saying] "It is always the same."
He said to him, "Being is indeed truly here, dear boy, but you do not perceive it here.

-- Chandogya Upanishad date=12.07.2004 17:46 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You'd think that if the boy couldn't grasp basic chemistry he wouldn't be ready for higher knowledge. date=12.07.2004 17:49 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Santa Katerina! date=12.07.2004 18:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.lne.es/secciones/ultimahora/noticia.jsp?pIdNotici a=189319

Black Week´s Mike. date=13.07.2004 12:19 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike and Andreas´s talk to the press has been quite well received and picked out by a number of local newspapers and at a national level by the Efe Agency. The link in my other post is for one of those articles. It is spanish but it has a nice portrait of Mike standing in front of the semana negra poster. date=13.07.2004 19:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: that link doesn't work for me. date=14.07.2004 09:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good Morning, Alex

Try this one.
http://tinyurl.com/5jt38 date=14.07.2004 10:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo - thanks, that works. Nice picture of Mike, but who's the little guy standing on his shoulder? date=14.07.2004 10:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But now he's "John M." - a senor could get confused, you know. date=14.07.2004 10:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Search me guv´rnor. It is the poster for the Semana Negra. Other than that , I have no idea . date=14.07.2004 15:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, some familiar faces here:

http://www.jibjab.com/thisland.html

(let the animation load and run) date=15.07.2004 11:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John M Harrison mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well they made me come home in the end. Bugger. I want to live in Asturias.

Arturo, at least that's a better picture than the one they ran in the Semana Negra newspaper, in which I looked like a seventy five year old bag lady. I think Paco was punishing me for having "fine" prose... date=15.07.2004 12:03 ip=213.78.79.61 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: The Semana Negra newspaper is actually called "A quemarropa" ( Point Black) ... date=15.07.2004 12:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>John M. ...

Or Harry M. Johnson. Terminal confusion for the tax man. date=15.07.2004 13:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=JMH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. Nice to see you again in Madrid. I have the photos you sent--very bad indeed, hombre, very bad photos--and also the list of interesting writers, which I will pursue. Like a fool--or at least like a tired English drunk--I forgot to bring back a copy of Paco's Paper. But I did remember my Black Hat, which got only a little squashed in transit. They stopped me at UK Customs (probably because I looked angry at having to come home), but didn't check my case. Good thing, because I don't know what they'd have made of that hat... date=15.07.2004 14:21 ip=213.78.80.191 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
Thanks . Good to see you too. They had a very nice picture of you and Andreas in one of the papers in wich you both look like truants. I will ask Luis about the paper maybe he can get hold of a copy. Yesterday I finished "The hundred and ninety-nine steps" by Michel Faber wich is fine but not spectacular. I´ll proceed now to "Under the skin" - date=15.07.2004 15:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="...the effort to shut out anxiety is itself an anxiety and a very intense one, which keeps the conscious and critical part of the mind very near to the breaking point of hysteria."
   -  Northrop Frye, The Modern Century date=15.07.2004 18:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Repression leads to overflow' - ST Coleridge (on Hamlet) date=15.07.2004 18:19 ip=62.188.65.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell me about it. date=16.07.2004 10:29 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="I said a hip hop, the hippie to the hippie
The hip hip hop, a you dont stop
The rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
To the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
Skiddlee beebop a we rock a scoobie doo
And guess what America we love you"

- Sugarhill Gang, Rappers Delight

(sorry, musta been the flow getting control) date=16.07.2004 10:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Report on the new Michael Moore film: apparently, Bush wasn't quite telling us the truth. What's more, America quite likes the Saudis. Live and learn, eh? date=16.07.2004 11:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I just thank heaven we have a PM whose hands have never been sullied with such filth. Gor bless yer, Master Tony, etc. date=16.07.2004 12:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tony's a guitarist. That makes him all right in my book. No one with a strat could possibly have anything but peace and love on his mind. date=16.07.2004 12:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just found out about a very good polish painter, Zdzislaw Beksinski. Well worth a look.
http://www.beksinski.pl/ date=17.07.2004 23:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just got a variation on a Nigerian scam email - it was from an m_john@postino.it - Mike, I think they stole your name, chopped it up & shipped the parts to Spain in a suitcase.

The email starts off: "In Lordship. I am the above named person from Tunisia but now undergoing medical treatment" and signs off: "Yours in Christ, MARRY JOHN". date=17.07.2004 23:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(of course, that was probably a type. Should no doubt have been "Mari John"). date=17.07.2004 23:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(why oh why do I always write "type" when I mean "typo"? Is it self-fulfillingly self-referential?) date=17.07.2004 23:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MHJ mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Look, Dan, I wish you'd kept it to yourself. I was hoping to make real money from that one... date=18.07.2004 11:22 ip=213.78.87.123 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, there's always the alternate world timeshare scam. date=19.07.2004 13:51 ip=81.178.202.163 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Seven hundred years old mouse

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_709660.html date=20.07.2004 12:44 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blair's issues with the permissive society are off the mark.

I was reading Theodore Roszik's Unfinished Animal over the weekend. It's a continuation of his counter culture thesis. He writes very well, although he repeats himself. Very good phrase maker. Written 1975; full of excitment about new age stuff and the history of the occult and fringe religion. What I came away with is an impression of very fragile vapour-like hopes; the vagueness of his ideas of cultural transformation, a lack of intellectual structure. Basic metaphysical stumbling blocks. (Talk about 'deep subjectivity' and such like.) Is he still alive? What would he think now of his anticipations? Wall to wall TV; infantilism; obesity; supermarket 4x4 'reality' celebrity culture.

We live much more in Philip K Dick's landscape then we do Roszniks (sp?).

Anyway, the ideals of the permissive society have been lost in a tidal wave. date=20.07.2004 14:25 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Blair's issues with the permissive society are off the >mark.

I don´t think that his words are meant to convey any actual thougth. It seems to me that he is involved in what Gore Vidal called paranoid politics, pushing buttons more or less at random." Forget about those WMD that weren´t there, ain´t kids checky nowadays.." date=20.07.2004 15:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes I had exactly that thought too Arturo. All the same, the post WW2 legacy interests me greatly. date=20.07.2004 15:55 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Post WW2 legacy ...

Some side-lights on this cast by Jonathon Coe's biography of BS Johnson, "Like a Fiery Elephant," which I'm just reading. On the one hand, BSJ was a great beneficiary of state education and modernism, going through higher education to supply teaching, broadcasting, and trade union work while building his fictions. On the other, he remained convinced that he'd had a personal encounter with the White Goddess, and remained in thrall to a Sprake-like figure called Bannard - clearly, less J. Coe's territory than Choe Ashton's. So perhaps "permissiveness" is the wrong label for the thing people fear as "the true legacy of the Sixties." Taking Johnson as an example, it was more the recognition then the more irrational powers inside us: an embrace of the Great God Pan that our legislators detest to this day. date=20.07.2004 16:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quite apart from a move away from automatic respect for authority. I suspect Blair's reacting in part to people's cussed refusal to accept his justifications for Iraq purely because he's in a position of authority and what he says should (in his mind) go. When did automatic respect for authority get torn down? The 60s! So off he goes.

Suspect we're also seeing the rise of a new, even more authoritarian Honest Tone, which is scary. date=20.07.2004 17:02 ip=81.178.251.32 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and saw v. pointed summary of his position on WMDs in one of the papers - 'It's true that I was wrong, but I was wrong because I was really right, so it's all ok after all.' date=20.07.2004 17:06 ip=81.178.251.32 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If one of the legacies of the sixties is the encouragement of the idea of being able to live without consequences, then Blair's behaviour exemplifies exactly that. "I take full responsibility" means: For which there are no consequences. date=20.07.2004 17:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bang on, and something he seems to be completely oblivious to. Also, building a life round emotional ('I feel that this is right...') rather than rather than rational ('I logically reason that this is right') imperatives. I feel it was right to invade Iraq, so it was, no matter what inconvenient facts reality intrudes with. Hmm, looks like TB has started to eat himself. date=20.07.2004 17:47 ip=81.178.251.32 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He (Blair) keeps wondering why the anger and distrust wont go away. What some people seem to overlook is that for a majority of voters it was transparent from the outset that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that we were being manipulated, railroaded, etc. etc.

In such circumstances saying "We acted in good faith" is dishonest. They had a responsibility to ensure that their actions were based on facts, not persuasion, or aggression. date=20.07.2004 18:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This good faith argument is so specious; morally very, very bankrupt. It comes back to the whole 'we were wrong - but that was ok, because we were really right' thing - and is also terribly, terribly subjective, which (as you've said) is worrying in the context of going to war. date=20.07.2004 18:24 ip=81.178.251.32 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I love it. Bannard indeed.

But am I the only one who thinks that Tony is simply a hypocrite ? That all this "belief" stuff is just a projection ? That he senses every so often, with absolute acumen, those little adjustments to the image that will keep it flying (thus the sudden crackdown on "liberal" values) ? The thing he says most often is, I'm honest. But he says it exactly the way an adolescent does, knowing it's an argument--or an appeal--no one can refute. "But Mummy, you know I'm *honest*. You know I wouldn't do anything like that, don't you ?" I think we bought Mummy's little boy back in the mid 90s, lock stock & barrel, because that's what we wanted to hear.

Tony is just better at what all politicos do--dissimulation--than, say, the *visibly* untrustworthy Michael Howard. date=20.07.2004 18:30 ip=213.78.65.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Johnson came from Barnes, too. Makes you think. Oddly, the only other time I've ever come across the name Bannard is in Aickman's story "The Hospice." You do begin to wonder exactly who knew who in esoteric circles fifty years ago.

Blair *must* lie awake staring at the ceiling, wondering how much longer this can go on. I think there's a degree of childishness in what he's doing, but it's like a small boy who's just been told there's no Santa Claus - "There is, there is, thereisthereisthereis!" What's crystal clear is that Gilligan was right all along. The dossier was sexed up at a sofa session (even typing that makes me feel sleazy), Blair knew there was no immediate threat from the word go, and he's now trying to distract us with vague national pride atop of a pile of 30,000 corpses, hoping no one notices the stink. In a working democracy, game over.

I'm sure there's a qualified hitman at a loose end somewhere out there. Shall we have a whip round? date=20.07.2004 19:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think if we continue to give him the benefit of the doubt we'll be committing Hollywood Thriller Solecism No 42: ie, "Despite the evidence of the psychopathic, lying administration he has built, this president is not himself corrupt. All we need to do is talk to him." We have this sad need to believe in the Tribal Cheese. Well, I say "we", but obviously I don't. I think he's a liar, and his method is the Big Lie. When he says he's honest, and full of credulousness, and decent, and able to make an honest mistake and own up to Mummy, you know the exact opposite is true. He's a manipulative little bastard with a will to power. Look at the structures he surrounds himself with. date=20.07.2004 19:33 ip=213.78.65.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Hollywood Solecism ...

This is just like the wishful thinking under Hitler or Stalin. "Our Glorious Leader cannot know what's really going on - someone must tell him!"

(With so many firing squads, there must have been a gulag factory given over to making nothing but Last Cigarettes)

Enough quibbling. Blair's a culpable war criminal; he should be on trial; and, given this pending prosecution, it's a moot point whether any piece of legislation passed by Parliament since the war began has a shred of legality. Who'll be the first to tell him? date=20.07.2004 20:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... a qualified hitman ...

Or even a politician who can nail him. This is what seems so incredible. Blair has lied, I can't see how that conclusion can be avoided. But now people are saying, but it was worth it ...

Front cover of the Independent: 20 000 = Iraqis killed (estimate). WMD = 0 Add to that the legacy of the maimed and those countless deformities caused by the use of depleted uranium shells.

Blair: "Whatever mistakes have been made, rejoice." Is this a politics of terminal decline? date=21.07.2004 10:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> 20 000 = Iraqis killed (estimate). WMD = 0

And still Blair's banging on about how much better off Iraqis are now that Saddam's gone. I can't help but keep wondering how long that equation will continue to balance out. Unfortunately, Blair's media mastery (combined with his media muggings) means that the answer's probably "how long have you got?" Of course, it helps that the number of Iraqi dead & wounded is "impossible to verify".

In the immediate days after the "liberation", while he was still in Baghdad, Andrew Gilligan filed a report saying that under Saddam Iraqis were oppressed but at least had a good idea what the system was, how to avoid trouble. Post-war, with all the fighting and looting, Iraqis might be nominally "free" but they were a lot more uncertain and a lot more scared. Campbell, of course, jumped down his throat, accused him of scaremongering, and fired off complaints to all and sundry. Once again, Gilligan was totally on the button. date=21.07.2004 10:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=A; mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a politics of avoidance; viz also the fact that Dubya stole the election, everybody KNOWS he stole the election, and yet nothing happens. The US still operates as a beacon and icon of democracy, an absolute of the moral high ground, it's version of democracy the finest thing it could possibly export.

A politics of telling, not showing. We're buggering Iraqi prisoners? Doesn't matter, we've told you we're the moral ones. A politics where statement is where morality rests, not action; I was wrong, but it doesn't matter, because I said it was right.

And, once that happens, anything's possible. date=21.07.2004 10:31 ip=81.178.251.32 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops, that was me. date=21.07.2004 10:43 ip=81.178.251.32 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Oops, that was me.

And there I was thinking it was probably A'

>> And, once that happens, anything's possible.

That's what scares me. Really scares me. We're travelling down tramlines to all our worst nightmares, 1984 and all that. date=21.07.2004 10:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I genuinely expect George Bush to cancel the elections and declare martial law as a result of a “terrorist threat to the USA”.

What does Blair do then? Follow suit?

I am trying to be restrained, balanced, not emotive in my views on Blair. But really can any one think of an event caused by a western country over the last 50 years that is on the scale of and so palpably wrong as this war? Vietnam, maybe. But we had the sense to keep out of it. It was America's wrongdoing. Prolonged fear of communism. But even in those terms, when on every count the reasons for that war was clearly, obviously false to start with, it is wrong. How can anyone think otherwise? And yet there are plenty of people who do. They have no idea that Iraq is wrecked and has little hope of being rebuilt. “The end justifies the means.” “He didn’t lie.” Baffling. date=21.07.2004 10:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry. Garbled sentence. I mean this, the Iraq, war seems to be far more clearly the result of a manipulative agenda, with quite different ends to those stated. date=21.07.2004 11:11 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> What does Blair do then? Follow suit?

Oh no. The election will happen; the votes will be counted; he'll have every confidence that the votes for him are there; he'll carry on as if all the votes for him are there; various commissions will find that he's assuming the votes for him are there in complete good faith; the only fly in the ointment will be that Labour actually came in third. But hey, he'll still be Prime Minister, and it will all be done with the best of intentions, so that'll be ok then. date=21.07.2004 11:39 ip=81.178.251.32 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's as if it never happened and isn't happening now. Again. The Americans have been defeated in key areas outside Bagdad, covering hundreds of square miles. Catastrophe. They disbanded the Iraqi army; catastrophe; they took on both the Sunnis and the Shias in April; catastrophe. They can survive now only in small fortified enclaves in Bagdad. Catastrophe. Remember Baudrillard's 'The Iraq war never happened'? It didn't happen again. It is as if we are waiting for something 'right' to happen before we acknowledge the external world: something televisually positive. Until that time nothing is actually happening. date=21.07.2004 11:52 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This was written in 1944 by Vice president Henry Wallace:
"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
"...Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

Good job he was wrong, eh? date=21.07.2004 12:43 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very precise, Al. date=21.07.2004 13:53 ip=62.188.17.79 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And what's the difference between Tony and a black hole?

They're both a waste of space, but one of them at least gives you proper information:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3913145. stm date=21.07.2004 14:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Grim situation.

What would be ideal would be if someone could come up with a crack in space job that would enable time travel back to ten years ago, so that (let's be gentle) some kind of hallucinagen could be put in Blair's drink just before he makes a key speech .. so that .. no that wouldn't work .. Sychophantic tories. Maybe they should be called the Tony party. date=21.07.2004 15:52 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Grim indeed.

We go back to 1997, Tony gets honest, the butterfly effect of this probably enables Portillo to win a seat, become Tory leader - it's a situation overflowing with joy and promise all ways up.

Or stuff Tony in the time machine so he vanishes from history, and is replaced by - your friend and mine, John Prescott, voice of the people and acceptable face of a PFI government. Oh how we laughed. The continuum is safe in our hands, etc. date=21.07.2004 16:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Or stuff Tony in the time machine so he vanishes from history

Wait a minute; how responsible is that? He could end up anywhere!

*They* would get Tonied. Maybe even suppose imagine he turns up as the Messiah. As in that PKD story Prominent Author. That would mean this is indeed the Second Coming!!! My god the implications! date=21.07.2004 16:08 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well: since he desires divine status so much, we could just whisk him back about 2000 years to Golgotha and nail him up among thieves, where he belongs.

After you with the hammer, MJP. date=21.07.2004 16:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Behold the Tone! date=21.07.2004 16:46 ip=217.204.118.138 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Let he who is without sin cast the first Tone. date=21.07.2004 16:49 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It'd make a nice change to see him get a little cross ... date=21.07.2004 16:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040721.wpa nts0721/BNStory/Front/

A three dimensional diagram. date=21.07.2004 17:35 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed. Also, elderly drivers with dementia will triple in Ontario by 2028.

One more place to avoid in my later years, then. date=21.07.2004 17:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When my inner ear disorder was at its worst, I asked my GP if I ought to stop driving. Sometimes, I said, I just couldn't seem to orient myself at all. "Don't worry about that," she said. "Just use reasonable care." I had an instant, chilling vision of all the people who felt like me and had been told by their GP it was ok to keep driving. And that's not to count the 90% of drivers in Britain who, when asked, place themselves in the top 10% of drivers in Britain... date=21.07.2004 19:34 ip=213.78.82.179 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John Peel's father gave him some sound advice: when you're driving, just remember that everybody else on the road is a bloody lunatic.

It's sentiments like that have left me a confirmed pedestrian. date=22.07.2004 09:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had an extraordinary Greek driving instructor. Before we started, he said: "Mike, people in London drive like animals. But I am going to teach you to drive like a human being." I wasn't sure that was the best decision. date=22.07.2004 11:28 ip=213.78.93.107 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My driving instructor lived in Cornwall and was keen on birds and photography. Taught me very carefully but when he got behind the wheel he drove like a madman.

He was caught speeding (twice) on A roads during the period he was teaching me. date=22.07.2004 11:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's sentiments like that have left me a confirmed pedestrian.

When I look at the idiots who drive and consider how much *worse* I might be as a driver I think it's safest if I just never learn. date=22.07.2004 12:01 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: welcome back! I didn't bugger anything up in your absence, either. Did you have a good holiday? date=22.07.2004 12:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin,

Oh, I got back from holiday *ages* ago but I've been busy with band stuff and a bad back and things for a while.

You've been very good with the Forum. Very careful. Well done! date=22.07.2004 12:17 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Welcome back, Io!
Tell us a bout the band stuff. date=22.07.2004 13:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, we did the first night of our own club - The Drones Club - us and a couple of other bands, plus DJs, cheap beer &c. We played an atrocious set but the audience loved us - and the venue loved us and want us to come back next month.

So that was all good.

But unfortunately on the nightbus home we encountered a violent nutter. Gyrus who got the worst end of him, as he recounts in his blog:
http://norlonto.net/gyrus/im_gay.cfm date=22.07.2004 13:28 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Jesus: another twisted creep. Where's David Blunkett when you need him? Our love and support to you both.

"I bet you want to feel each other's legs." After a night out, it's as much as I can do to feel my own, actually. But somehow, I don't think he was in the mood for wit. date=22.07.2004 14:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I don't think he was in the mood for wit.

Yes I think that was what made him reach for his stanley in the first place. He really didn't want to sit around and chop logic with us.

Ah well, I blame the 60s, &c, blah... date=22.07.2004 14:35 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I blame the sixties.

Could be. 1912 looks like much more fun.

http://edition.cnn.com/books/news/9904/01/onion/tita nic.html date=22.07.2004 19:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personally, I'd recommend 1914:
http://tinyurl.com/69f4u

But that's from a Billy Childish fan... date=22.07.2004 22:07 ip=217.43.18.154 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Mons Quiff," eh? The things these hairdressers get up to! date=23.07.2004 09:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, sanctimonious git rejects sanctimonious gift:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3918807.stm
- they're starting to look like one another, too! date=23.07.2004 10:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Billy *claims* that it's a hairstyle that was popular in the trenches. date=23.07.2004 15:58 ip=158.94.180.242 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not 'arf, pop pickers! date=23.07.2004 16:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Surely, just above the trenches.

I'm sorry, I'll get me dirty mac. date=23.07.2004 23:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the subject of irrational feelings towards possible homosexuals, my brother-in-law Ian is... well, homophobic's the wrong word, homoterrified would be nearer the mark. I can imagine him saying something like "I got nuthin against poofs, but I'm tellin yer if onea them fookers comes within a mile of me..." (he's from Scunthorpe if that helps).

Anyway, a few weeks ago we visited Amsterdam together. Another friend had booked us into an art-themed hotel. Oh, imagine our chuckles when we discovered this photograph adorning one entire wall of our bedroom: http://tinyurl.com/4pd9t

Ian was not a happy bunny. The rest of us, on the other hand, didn't stop laughing the whole weekend. We couldn't have planned it more perfectly. date=23.07.2004 23:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, MJP: You get back okay. I even found fried chicken on my way home. date=27.07.2004 01:29 ip=217.43.16.93 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="A virus purporting to show images of Osama Bin Laden's suicide has been unleashed onto the internet..."

http://tinyurl.com/54o78 date=27.07.2004 12:50 ip=158.94.172.204 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One can’t help but wonder at who exactly opens these kind of messages. Wow, I am lucky or what ,an unknown sends me (money)(free sex)(extraordinary news) (whatever). I am strongly reminded of the simpletons in fairy tales who exchange the cow for some beans … date=27.07.2004 14:21 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Have you got some beans then? date=27.07.2004 14:39 ip=217.43.23.229 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I am planing to plant them in the backyard but rigth now I am kind of busy because I got some money in the way coming from Nigeria ... date=27.07.2004 15:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I've got money coming from Nigeria too. I'm going to be rich! RICH! date=27.07.2004 15:53 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, don't knock the cow/beans scheme, last time I tried it I ended up with a goose that lays golden eggs. There was a bit more work involved between planting the beans and harvesting the eggs (you wanna know about *real* hard work though, you have to ask my friend the little red hen), but it's the end result that counts, right? date=27.07.2004 17:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Enormous Johnson mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got some beans coming from Nigeria. Osama Bin Laden sent them just before he killed himself.

Anyone need any walls demolished? date=27.07.2004 17:43 ip=81.153.228.82 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nosing around Robyn Hitchcock's website, I found this rather familiar figure...

http://www.robynhitchcock.com/lalstanleyskull.h tm date=27.07.2004 17:55 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And Aug 7-8: he's playing the *entire* White Album live in Clerkenwell. I'm not sure whether to weep or applaud at this news! date=27.07.2004 18:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=28.07.2004 15:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>you wanna know about *real* hard work though, >you have to ask my friend the little red hen
That *red* hen is a hero of the party with an unbroken record in meeting up with the egg-laying schedule in the quinquenial plan.

( I figured out about empty posts. They appear if I take too long wrinting a message) date=28.07.2004 15:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Little Red Hen

Have you ever seen "The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales"? http://tinyurl.com/6kpzb - an absolutely brilliant kids' book. The Little Red Hen doesn't get a look in "I planted the wheat, I watered the wheat, I harvested the wheat, I ground the wheat, I made the bread, now can I tell my story?" Unfortunately (or not) she gets eaten by the giant (thus saving Jack's skin) before she has a chance to bore us with her self-pitying story. date=28.07.2004 16:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Can't match that - but I have just shown a Mr. Jelly round our museum here. date=28.07.2004 16:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I *am* the little red hen, or rather, Lisa is and I'm a big red cock. We can never get anyone to help on the allotment, but when it comes to eating the stuff suddenly we're very popular. Now, anyone want to help us pull up our enormous turnip? date=28.07.2004 17:30 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Anyone want to help us ..?

As Lewis Carroll said, Alex, there was silence like night, and the fall of a pin might be heard. date=28.07.2004 17:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well you lot aren't getting any Turnip Surprise then. Harumph. date=28.07.2004 18:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am glad you didn´t say "an enormous turnip surprise" ,this is a tasteful place after all... date=28.07.2004 19:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Johnson mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Break down walls with yr Enormous Turnip Surprise! date=28.07.2004 19:52 ip=81.153.6.252 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funny you should bring the enormous turnip into it, I was re-inventing that story for Lola only last night :) date=29.07.2004 01:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll tell you what's bugging me: (You didn't ask...)

The use of the word "experimental" with reference to art: experimental music, literature, theatre, &c... I've been a culprit in this before myself. But is the word "experimental" used in reference to the arts to give them the illusion of scientific rigour? (futurism, imagism, et al...) "Hey man, I make *experimental* music, man. I don't just piss around with a few approximations and hop it sounds right I work in a sonic laboratory, dude!" Or is it some sort of disclaimer - an excuse in case the piece doesn't work properly? "This novel is very experimental. This is only a prototype. But we hope the developed version will be able to fly across the Atlantic." Or is it just snobbery, a badge for cerebral arts? date=29.07.2004 11:44 ip=158.94.185.226 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: when you experiment, you don't know what the outcome will be. So it's a better term than 'pissing about' but it means the same thing (in artistic terms, if not in scientific). I guess it's a way of justifying the play element of creativity - I don't believe that artists' explanations of their work are any more than a post facto attempt to provide 'seriousness' to something that came out of play (mostly, I hasten to add). An art teacher was looking at some of my paintings recently and asked me what they were about. "Nothing", I replied, "I just did them because they looked nice." Her reply to that suggested that because I couldn't explain them, they lacked validity. Arse, I say. date=29.07.2004 12:53 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, I'd go along with the justifying the play element thing. D'you think that using the word "experiment" helps to make it seem more like work. I'll do this myself: I might say that I'm working on some dissonant modal techniques in my studio rather than making awful noises with expensive toys in my nursery.

I remember a second cousin (or something) trying to put me off art by suggesting that painting was psychologically just playing with faeces. I found the idea vaguely attractive - there are days you just gotta daub shit! date=29.07.2004 13:17 ip=158.94.185.226 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Experiment was a modernist thing. Once someone's written a novel without the letter E, that line of experiment is sort of over as far as the novel itself is concerned. After that, experiment becomes subjective, a kind of trawling about among the possibilities looking for something you can use, or which interests you. You "experiment" with X's or Y's technique, see if it can further your overall project. So one thing to ask is: why do an experiment ? If an experiment is a question, why are you asking it ? Whose boundaries are you looking for ? Your own ? The audience's ? When you've found them, what are you going to do then ? To daub shit is to enjoy working with the medium itself, I guess. As long as yr audience enjoys you enjoying the medium, cool. date=29.07.2004 13:41 ip=213.78.164.71 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Inasmuch as the word experiment has links to the word experience, an experiment enables you to gain experience of that aspect of your technique or medium. date=29.07.2004 13:43 ip=213.78.164.71 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>To daub shit is to enjoy working with the medium itself, I guess. As long as yr audience enjoys you enjoying the medium, cool.

Fuck the audience! Arrgh, no - that's the sort of thing I've got to stop saying!

I guess what is annoying me about "experiment" is the way that it has become a genre in itself, a label for kitsch modernism. Experimentation or play is part of practising any activity, I'm fine with that, and I take yr point about experiential endeavour rather than leaning on tradition for authority. But when someone starts to justify a piece of work by refering back to an experimental tradition ("Beckett did this sort of thing - I'm just like him, me.") then I start to get a bit miffed. date=29.07.2004 14:02 ip=158.94.185.226 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Whose boundaries are you looking for ? Your own ? The audience's ? When you've found them, what are you going to do then ?

And yes, I haven't answered this bit. I'm going to consider it over lunch. date=29.07.2004 14:06 ip=158.94.185.226 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=About 10 years back, I did some music workshops with the trumpeter Jim Dvorak. He was similarly pissed off about the use of the word experimental, particularly in relation to the LMC's annual "festival of experimental music". In his words "some of these people have been doing what they're doing for 30 years. They're not experimenting, it's supposed to sound like that".

Personally, I'm not at all bothered about it. It's just a word, a label. As long as everyone understands that it means "that weird shit that I can't for the life of me get any of my friends to enjoy" then everything's cool. date=29.07.2004 14:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, LMC were the initials that I had in mind.

In terms of boundaries: yes, certainly both. But do you ever actually break through those boundaries? I guess it depends what the questions are - if it's a constant question of "What happens if I put that on that? How can I make that on that look better? What effect does that have on the audience? Is that the sort of reaction I want to provoke?" is there ever an end to the process? Either you become tired of the medium itself or apply it to different situations.

There is also a matter of ends: whether the process is an end in itself or whether it is supposed to lead somewhere. Nothing wrong with a process having an end - even if that end is just that you don't need to do it anymore. date=29.07.2004 15:07 ip=158.94.185.226 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"that weird shit that I can't for the life of me get any of my friends to enjoy"

Sorry to return to Last Years Argument, but that was one of the things that I preferred about the New Weird rather than Interstitial Fiction of whatever: it doesn't try to justify itself with a poncy title - it's just that weird shit. date=29.07.2004 15:11 ip=158.94.185.226 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Climbing: Carlos Soria, a 65 years old, has become the oldest person to climb K-2. date=29.07.2004 15:32 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Experimental art: I think that once something can be safely labelled is no longer "experimental" as in breaking new ground. date=29.07.2004 16:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Breaking new ground. Yellallawewehellala.

Certain arts have to be experimental or they die. Pop music has to be always new and so ... New means always in a state of experimentation. Look at what happened when that didn't happen: prog rock. Pop had to be resurrected by people wearing safety pins and bin liners. Nasty but effective. date=29.07.2004 19:11 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And of course the same for sf - it is intrinsically experimental. Always new. Pretty unsatisfactory for someone who wants to be the Bon Jovi of escape fiction. They don't know it but they are part of the avant garde. date=29.07.2004 19:16 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you might need to preface the comments on pop music with "At best" - most pop music is derivative and backward looking. Look at the amount of cover tunes in the charts recently.

SF, similarly - SF probably once *was* cutting edge in terms of ideas but deeply conventional in terms of narrative. The avant garde is still the minority for the very good reason that most writers probably would like to make a couple of quid out of their art. date=30.07.2004 11:59 ip=158.94.191.120 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and I'd love to be the Bon Jovi of *any* type of fiction. date=30.07.2004 11:59 ip=158.94.191.120 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>when that didn't happen: prog rock

You can accuse prog rock of many things, but not experimenting is not one of them. Granted, the genre quickly became very formulaic, but King Crimson, for example, experimented very heavily with ideas about what rock music could be. And that's just one. date=30.07.2004 12:03 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Flicking through the pages of New Scientist during lunch today. Why do you think they don't have a horoscopes page?

As it happens there's *another* review in there by Simon Ings of a book about alchemy. What is he building in there? date=30.07.2004 13:43 ip=158.94.191.120 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Why do you think they don't have a horoscopes page?

I think you'll find that under "Gravity wave detector produces startling result." date=30.07.2004 14:15 ip=62.188.139.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is twistor theory something to do with those fancy fries you can get at Burger King? And how about Cheese Strings, what are they all about? Never understood them. I like the expression "cheese food slices" though. That's probably a very good facial exercise saying the words "cheese food" a few times everyday...

Now what was I saying. Oh yes: cheese food. date=30.07.2004 15:15 ip=158.94.191.120 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>SF, similarly - SF probably once *was* cutting edge >in terms of ideas

Neve undestood that bit. Thomas Love Peacock wrote novels about ideas but what passes for idea-fiction in sf is usually novels about some imaginary feat of ingenering like Rama or the ring world wich is described in endless detail. date=30.07.2004 16:44 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>"cheese food slices
Here in the south we fry the cheese, Señor. date=30.07.2004 16:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Alex

I think that MJP had Emerson, Like and Palmer or Rick Wakeman in mind rather than Robert Fripp date=30.07.2004 16:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Emerson, Like and Palmer

...who really pushed the boundaries of pretentiousness and pomposity! Experimental Central! They also experimented with crap lyrics, such as:
"Every day a little sadder, a little madder.
Someone get me a ladder."

QED. date=30.07.2004 17:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>we fry the cheese

That reminds me... what's that jelly-like stuff they eat with manchego in Spain? date=30.07.2004 18:00 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex,
We eat a number of jelly-like things with manchego. But I am afraid that you are talking about morcilla that is actually blood. date=30.07.2004 20:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Weird science on The Guardian:
The Vatican's sights are trained in particular on the view that while people's sex is anatomically determined their gender identity and roles are entirely a product of conditioning. In a letter to bishops on the participation of men and women in the church and the world, the Pope's chief theological spokesman, the German cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, stresses, as the pontiff has done on several occasions, that the book of Genesis is unambiguous on this point. date=31.07.2004 13:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I enjoyed the classic headline Pope Warns Feminists. I thought of writing in to say, "I thought it had been the other way round for the last 40 years," but in the end I decided I didn't care enough about either side's position to be bothered. date=01.08.2004 11:54 ip=213.78.79.3 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I am well acquianted with morcilla - we call it black pudding over here, in fact 20 miles from where I live is the home of the finest black pudding in the country. However, the spicing in the Spanish morcilla is better in my opinion. But none of the Spanish restaurants I have been to in England offer true Spanish morcilla - they try to pass the English black pudding off as morcilla, even if I question the restauranteur about its provenance. Shameful! I am a connoisseur of bloody and black things. date=02.08.2004 09:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of food, and food worth eating-- "Not on the Label" by Felicity Lawrence. Every crappy aspect of the supermarket food chain, from plastification in Almeria to gangmasters in Norfolk. It will send you begging to Alex for something off his allotment. I hope you're ready to deal with demand, Alex. date=02.08.2004 12:05 ip=213.78.69.88 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No garden grown courgettes for us this year at iotacism Towers. There hasn't been enough rain and we've been gadding about so much that they didn't get watered. They were the lovely round courgettes too. Just simply sliced and fried in a little olive oil - perfect.

Ah well, Bridget found some fresh catnip at a garden centre over the weekend. She can't plant it out in the garden because the local cats will be all over it. So we're having to keep Qwerty's personal stash in a pot in the greenhouse. Qwerty says it's the Real Shit! date=02.08.2004 12:22 ip=158.94.137.241 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=02.08.2004 12:51 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That was me !
Alex we do the morcilla with rice and with onions. date=02.08.2004 12:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I recommend morcilla with a grain mustard sauce.

MJH: The main reason I've got the allotment is to avoid eating the crap supermarkets try to force upon us. As for demand, well, we've got a glut of courgettes at the moment, and god knows why we thought we'd need so many runner beans. Only good if eaten very small. date=02.08.2004 13:58 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex:
Come to think of it ...Was the jelly substance actually morcilla or something else? Quite interesting , I must try black pudding sometime. date=02.08.2004 16:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: the stuff I was thinking of was definitely jelly... quite unlike morcilla! date=02.08.2004 16:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Bill Reynolds mail=elric17@optonline.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just want to briefly weigh in with a recommendation for Argentinian morcilla, a key part of any complete parrillada. date=02.08.2004 22:45 ip=67.83.133.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= According to the Korean national police agency's Cyber Terror Response Centre, 70% of crimes committed by young people are related to virtual worlds, mostly attempts to steal virtual money and virtual items. In October 2002 a 24-year-old man, Kim Kyung-jae, died of a DVT-like illness after playing an online game, Mu, virtually nonstop for three and a half days.

http://tinyurl.com/4ec8a date=03.08.2004 10:16 ip=217.43.22.21 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a key part of any complete parrillada.

Now there's an idea for next Sunday's barbeque. date=03.08.2004 12:13 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As ever, io demonstrates his knack with oppositions. At least you lot aren't discussing virtual morcilla. I can't believe we have a Spanish food column on this board. I mean, I think it's just great, but there are levels of eeriness and there are levels of eeriness. Maybe I should start a London gastropubs section. I can, curiously enough, recommend the Victoria in East Sheen. Nestling up against Richmond Park, this small quiet venue is less a gastropub than the dining room of a small hotel which has decided on a solo career. Levels of comfort and service split the difference between a good French restaurant and a Scottish family hotel, though be prepared to pay for both... etc. date=03.08.2004 12:24 ip=213.78.91.114 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I can't believe we have a Spanish food column

We have a Spaniard, we have a bunch of foodies... date=03.08.2004 12:48 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can I recommend the Hare and Tortoise? Virtually - virtually! - ten paces from the Renoir Cinema, why not combine an evening's viewing of the latest French or Spanish movie with a real meal, either before or afterwards. Superb Chinese dishes at *very* modest prices. Just watch out for some of the waitresses. Throughput is high; they have no need to impress; so don't expect cossetting. It's better than Doom 3. date=03.08.2004 14:10 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex:

If that jelly was browninsh ,and very sweet, I think it could be menbrillo. date=03.08.2004 15:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: that's the stuff! I did a web translation of a recipe:

To wash the quinces well. To give a fervor and soon to let cool a little and pelar To cut them them by quarters to form the helmets. To retire the seeds, but to reserve the skin that covers them so that the helmets do not undo. If it is desired to make jelly, to conserve the rinds and the seeds. To place the helmets to boil in abundant hot water that covers them well. When they are soft to add the sugar. If it is desired, in addition to the helmets, a consistency of jelly, to place the seeds and the peladura of the rinds in a fabric bag. The gelatinous substances that them are come off will give to the candy the right thickness. To let cook the candy, without turning around until the syrup has jelly point. This candy not revuelve, not to undo the helmets, those that are done when they take a raised garnet color, in the thick syrup.

There is another form to do the candy exhausted and pressed. date=03.08.2004 16:02 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It just rained a *lot*. The street outside is flooded. So are parts of my back garden. Black, nasty-looking stuff, the water. If anyone is still out there, tell them I date=03.08.2004 18:46 ip=213.78.64.251 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's raining a lot here too. I fear fro my vegetables. date=03.08.2004 19:04 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>If anyone is still out there, tell them I

Tell them you what? Tell them you what, dammit? He didn't even give an "They're coming, they're... Aaaarrrgh!" or "Ia, Ia, the three lobed burning eye!"

I believe he has been transported from this space-time by hyperdimensional entities beyond our ken. date=03.08.2004 19:45 ip=81.153.6.199 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell them I drowned, while at the other end of the phone my girlfriend laughed. date=03.08.2004 20:30 ip=213.78.89.153 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's what girlfriends are for, no? date=03.08.2004 20:43 ip=81.153.6.199 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Virtual crime: I remember that some time ago there was a scandal because somebody was selling some mystic weapon or other. Actually the bit of hacked code that stood for said item in a web based role-playing game ( Diablo or something). People actually paid for that. date=03.08.2004 22:02 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Odd Food: Those purveyors of innocent fun for all the family, Ramstein are at it again. They have released a single about the German consensual cannibal “Mein Tail”. Shock and outrage from the music press about going to far (Engineered by the band publicists?)
Weather: Just checked the news , It´s raining all over Europe. date=03.08.2004 22:06 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That's what girlfriends are for, no?

Harsh but true. But death isn't all bad. I live beneath the water in a sort of West London Guinee, awaiting the "retirer des morts d'en bas de l'eau". Time runs slower here. I seem to have been beneath the surface for many years. I already fear the return. The soul is vulnerable in transit.

Meanwhile, Cath is stuck at Earl's Court tube station. Floods apparently. Ho ho. date=03.08.2004 22:12 ip=213.78.89.153 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bridget just wandered in asking, "we haven't had heavy rain, have we?" I had to admit we hadn't. "Well, why not? They had it in West London!" I tried to suggest that we couldn't have everything that West Londoners enjoy in Walthamstow. "But West London's not a different country, is it?"

The naivety!

Also: Mike, how fast is yr connection? There's a streamable video of the Four Tet track No More Mosquitos on Sputnik 7: http://www.sputnik7.com/

Arturo: hadn't heard about that Rammstein single. I'll have to track it down. I do like a bit of Rammstein, I do. date=03.08.2004 23:36 ip=81.153.229.222 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It´s raining all over Europe.

Must be a rainy night in Georgia, then.

As for Rammstein: good. I prefer a bit of deliberate outrage to the sappy PC cotton wool we're all getting covered in. Makes me want to show my arse, it does. date=04.08.2004 10:01 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>the sappy PC cotton wool we're all getting covered in.

Rigth. Lyrics like those of early Costello or Ian Dury would be pushed to the fringes today. date=04.08.2004 13:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apologies for the blip in the service earlier. We're back on the air. date=04.08.2004 20:03 ip=81.154.106.255 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*stops fiddling with dial*

Right, catching up - that rain, sheesh! Flew back in just after it, trains screwed and London flooded, v. odd.

And Amsterdam - oh, I am in love! The perfect city. date=05.08.2004 11:07 ip=81.178.243.85 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(Sorry to go *totally* off subject!)

Al: Have you signed up for the new SMDO list? There's a lot of organising going on for practices. I don't seem to have yr current email at work. date=05.08.2004 11:21 ip=158.94.153.223 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oxford got hit by the same monsoon - but I was in Lincolnshire and the whole thing passed us by: grey August cloud, days when it never got light, not one drop of rain.

Perhaps swayed by the gloom, I got stuck into "The Brothers Karamazov" for the first time. After 600 pages, you think - god, how much more of this can there be? Also, whole sections now prove impossible to read without hearing Woody Allen parodying them: "The idiot! Whatever possessed him?" So in another life, FD might have made a pretty good living as a stand-up comedian: fun on the tundra, then a summer season at with Des O'Connor. "Dosvidanya, Blackpool - " date=05.08.2004 11:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He could have been a Double act with Gogol.

Zali - yup, have done so, but have been having tech hassles so have only just started receiving emails. I've been signed up since this morning.

Have groovy new wireless thing but keep on getting drowned out by cursed Vardens network from somewhere down the road! date=05.08.2004 12:12 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and Fyodor's stage show would have been called...

*FYOLOGY!*

*gets coat* date=05.08.2004 12:13 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*gets overcoat* in fact. date=05.08.2004 12:18 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and -

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=3c9a ba5a79c4ad73441aa282c038489d&threadid=16635

Viriconium! date=05.08.2004 12:21 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Noticed in the Telegraph today: hundreds of dead fish in the river at Barnes. Looks like Mike got sucked in after all, and we didn't believe him. What fools we are. date=05.08.2004 12:51 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never doubt me. date=05.08.2004 14:45 ip=62.188.130.91 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like the colour of the clouds before the downpour. Why is the sky yellow? Shit!

Actually more pearlescent than yellow; the clouds are sometimes blue and look like clear sky.

Anyway I think it all fell in my sunroof. I've been skating all over the motorway trying to wind it closed while driving much too fast. Truely the Choe Ashton School of Driving. date=05.08.2004 14:50 ip=194.202.58.127 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=re: rainstorm Thursday

On the news they said driving conditions were poor. Now why? Driving conditions are bloody brilliant. I haven't had this much fun since a blizzard in 1996.

Ha! Martin: I am in Oxford in Mice's but only for half an hour. date=05.08.2004 14:53 ip=194.202.58.127 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Steph! Great to hear from you!

I'm around if you want to drop into OUP and get out of this horrid greasy rain. Too sticky to think, otherwise. Yech. date=05.08.2004 15:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: how?

I can go sit in Jude the Obscure for half an hour. or come to the OUP archway in 20 mins date=05.08.2004 15:13 ip=194.202.58.127 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What rain?

I see no rain.

North East London is sunny and humid, slightly hazy and hardly any cloud. I want rain! Where is the rain? If it doesn't rain I shall pout! date=05.08.2004 15:20 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not raining here for a change. But when it does, I bet the roads will be greasy. Why? It doesn't rain grease: it rains stair rods. date=05.08.2004 15:21 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Oh come on. You know only love can bring the rain, the way the beach is kissed by the sea. date=05.08.2004 15:22 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: If you're still around, come to the Arch, and ask the guard there to call me in the Archives. date=05.08.2004 15:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, no rain in South London either. If it floods enough the railway cutting outside my flat will become a canal, which I am looking forward to. Picturesque, and more peaceful at night. Not to mention the joy of boating into Central London (hopefully avoiding hitting dead fish, bobbing MJHs, etc). date=05.08.2004 15:59 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=None stop thunder over Clapham for the last twenty minutes or so; muttering away like a bad memory. A loud clap just now, sounding oddly metallic. date=05.08.2004 16:23 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: that was obviously a clang, not a clap. Unless those cold iron hands are at it again. date=05.08.2004 16:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= She brings the rain - it feels like spring
Magic mushrooms out of dreams
She brings the rain, oh yeah,
She brings the rain.

A mellow yellow - the grey disappears
Riding on the ravens wings
She brings the rain, oh yeah,
She brings the rain.


Bah, I sound nothing like Malcolm Mooney. date=05.08.2004 16:31 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Like looking out of a car window in a car wash; and I haven't even spotted any lightning yet, storm centre must be far away. More clangers being dropped from above. date=05.08.2004 16:33 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oxford feels like it's building up to more monsoon stuff: very still, incredibly humid. I hope something gives, as I only got about 3 hours' sleep last night. That icy Lincolnshire fog seems very appealing all of a sudden. date=05.08.2004 16:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the best colours in the world is that astonishing emerald green of fields under a black sky.
It's not raining here yet. Shall I tell you all when it starts? date=05.08.2004 16:44 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Greyed over a bit, here in Ponders End. A rumble of thunder - as if someone was playing tympanies next door through a stereo flanger... actually it's got this sort of low-end filtering running through it and perhaps played out through a rotating speaker like a Lesley or something - light reverb.

Actually, it just sounds like thunder.

As in Oxford: no rain yet. date=05.08.2004 16:51 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The English and their weather, eh? Only two days ago, I was listening to a "Daily Mail" squaddy on Jeremy Vine, complaining how "liberals" in the last 30 years had "attacked" our "sense of national identity." But we're here to show him that some things never change.

(If I hadn't muttered 'oh, for christ's sake' and turned it off, he'd have no doubt started into an "Enoch should've been PM" rant - but life's too short, no?) date=05.08.2004 16:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They like talking about weather in Iceland too. Must be something about living on an island. (or a frozen food retailer) date=05.08.2004 16:55 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Liberals attacking our sense of national identity, grrr... As for weather; well, it's now stopped raining but still feeling incredibly sweaty and close. Oh no, it's started again. The excitement! date=05.08.2004 17:01 ip=81.178.230.158 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A few drops of rain, and a mysterious aroma of tarka dhal over everything... date=05.08.2004 17:15 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=hence the name of the otter, presumably. date=05.08.2004 17:20 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Otters are in fact made of lentils - and vice versa. Not a lot of people know that! date=05.08.2004 17:21 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's raining here now, rather sluggishly. It's like cheese-sweat. date=05.08.2004 17:24 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It's like cheese-sweat.

Paneer, Edam or Roquefort? date=05.08.2004 17:34 ip=158.94.153.233 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's fucking *brilliant* here at the moment, guys. Sheet lightning is cutting down the sky every two seconds. Thunder's rippling after it, and there's an eerie 10pm light and absolute silence on the streets outside.

The drive back was even bloody better - crosswind ripping leaves off the trees thick as snow across the motorway.

Wow - an overhead flash. I'm going to go out and run around in it.

Martin - I walked past but didn't know yr. surname so didn't ask at the gate. I felt like a hooker standing outside those black iron railings. *Felt* like, obviously, didn't look like one. Writing has turned me into a right fat git. date=05.08.2004 17:38 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the best colours in the world is that astonishing emerald green of fields under a black sky.

Alex: white birds or planes under dark grey thunderstorm sky (cu-nimbs in hangglider talk). That's hallucinogenic! date=05.08.2004 17:42 ip=80.177.155.168 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Good writer that you are, I can't believe your self-description. Next time, just drop by. Most people here know me without the second name anyway.

Oxford's still waiting for the big one - but it sounds like you drove through it. Will Milton Keynes survive the night? date=05.08.2004 17:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: it's a bit like sweaty paneer. date=05.08.2004 18:18 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How Tarka the Hotter got his name... date=05.08.2004 18:26 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tarka dhal, roald dahl - don't hold with any of it.

The sky went greasy white, a gale went through the trees, the light dimmed, and we're now in the middle of a vast thunderstorm. And I'm off to Oxford station in it. Hurrah, etc. date=05.08.2004 18:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>it's a bit like sweaty paneer.

I'd kinda guessed it would be. Between us we've got what one might call an Indian summer. date=05.08.2004 19:20 ip=217.43.16.112 name=Ria mail=psychosynthesis@mailblocks.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.livejournal.com/users/psychosynthesis/ text=I have a question for MJH.

where does the chant that begins, "Dead horse, dead horse" (quoted in "Lords of Misrule") originate? it reminds me of a bizarre ghost legend which used to scare me as a child.

the legend talked about a haunting of a dead horse lying on the ground.

two pigs who can walk and talk like humans appear, say that want to eat it and come back by which time the dead horse has turned into a skeleton.

(not clear on who would witness this...)

anyway, it scared me and I wondered about a connection the rhyme.

I think I know where I found the book which mentioned this legend, which I don't have on me, and if not will ask on the FORTEAN TIMES messageboard. date=06.08.2004 03:45 ip=68.160.43.239 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Ria. I heard some schoolchildren chanting it as part of a playground game, in the early 1980s, in Yorkshire. How it links to Yorkshire--since Prolley Moor is near Longmynd in Shropshire--or to your bizarre folktale, I don't know. There was more to the original, but that's all I managed to note down. I may have done further research back then, but not kept a record. Like most of the folklore I incorporated into Viriconium, I enjoyed its eerie sense of non sequitor, the feeling that it arose from cultural values quite different to ours but just similar enough to be undermining and odd.

If you find out any more I'd love to know. date=06.08.2004 11:31 ip=213.78.76.152 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact, since I see that I attributed the original quote to a "Shropshire verse", I must have done further research at the time--enough, at least, to track down a written version. But my notebooks from that time are long gone, I'm afraid. There is a small possibility that I made the whole thing up--there are one or two items of mischief like that scattered through the Viriconium stories--but I don't think so. date=06.08.2004 11:44 ip=213.78.76.152 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Still flogging that dead horse MJH? date=06.08.2004 15:32 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So that's why it won't get up. date=06.08.2004 17:59 ip=213.78.73.187 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: "It´s raining all over Europe"

Not true: I've just got back from a week in Wales (near Dolgellau) and experienced nothing but scorching sunshine. Heatwave in Wales while the rest of the country drowns, do we really need more proof that global warming's fucking with our climate? (And best colours in the world: flash lightning storm in Pushkar: entire night sky flickering yellow, pink and electric blue).

Anyway, very disappointed that I couldn't flout my knowledge of Spanish food by shouting "membrillo" before Arturo. I bought a big wobbly hunk of it back from Alicante recently (before discovering that they sell it at the organic greengrocers' around the corner; now I just need to track down some decent manchego).

And as for black pudding: what is it about the stuff that arouses such passion? The Guardian letters dragged out a debate on where to find the best blood sausage for what seemed like weeks recently. Personally, as an ex-veggie of almost 30 years, I've been making up for a lot of lost time in this department. The morcilla I brought back from Spain, nice though it was, bore no resemblance to any other black pudding I've tried: it was a lot drier, preserved like a slightly darker chorizo. My recent breakfasts have mainly consisted of a little French-style black pudding and apples.

Oh, and while we're on gastropubs, I visited an excellent one in between Hereford and Ross-on-Wye last week, I forget the name but it was run by the guy who used to run the restaurant on Twickenham Green. Erm... Richard Ball? Anyway, food (and beer) was fucking gorgeous and really shames the swankily-decored shithole in Sheffield that I visited tonight, with its sub-TGI Fridays cuisine.

Al: "He could have been a Double act with Gogol"

Funny you should mention that, I just landed a role in a play (my first in 18 years), "Marriage" by Gogol. Never read any of his stuff before, but it is very very funny, puts me somewhat in mind of The Good Soldier Svejk in that for a long time I never realised humour like that existed before the 1980s. Ho hum. Anyway, anyone fancy seeing me act (I have quite a large part - in fact, the largest and most fun: Kochkaryov) then you'd better make plans to be in Sheffield some time between the 27th and 30th October.

Which brings me full circle: there's a great bit in the play where, in need of some serious conversation, the characters all start discussing the weather and how damned weird it is, changing all the time. See, it's not just an English(/Icelandic) disease. date=07.08.2004 01:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Rob mail=digitalice@prodigy.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello,

I hope I'm not intruding here? But I've been recovering from a illness and MJH's books have been my bedside companions. I recently re-read _Course of the Heart_ and most of MJH's collection of short stories. I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask.

Does the book Castles and the Kings mentioned in _Egnaro_ have any basis in reality?

Also are there any travel writers, or any novel in which Ashman's travelogue could be said to be based upon?

Pax,

Rob date=07.08.2004 21:10 ip=68.79.102.83 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Rob. You certainly aren't intruding. "The Castles of the Kings" is a parodic invention, like most of the references in "Egnaro". The Michael Ashman material is a cocktail of references to fiction & nonfiction writers of the 20s, 30s & 40s, decanted into a deliberately romanticised "middle Europe". I hope you're well again--and I hope The Course of the Heart wasn't too harrowing a choice for the sickroom! date=08.08.2004 01:19 ip=213.78.164.154 name=Rob mail=digitalice@prodigy.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike,

I suspected as much about the books. Sometime you’ll have to post your sources and inspiration. Still I was glad to find that De Vries Dictionary exists! I'll be saving for months, but I will get myself a copy!

I was just reading China Mieville’s introduction to your story collection. Mieville says that the pleroma is here, now, us. Are you saying that the yearning for transcendence can warp or even worse destroy one’s life? In both Light and Course of the Heart I noticed that the mage or Gnostic sage are rather seedy sorts. Is the message, then, that transcendence is a fool’s errand and our efforts should be directed towards immanence? I’ve been stuck by one particular line of yours where you speak of the ‘failure to forgive life for its lack of perfection’. Is that then the ultimate sin, yearning for something more? I found that notion of forgiveness to be quite powerful. It's been humming in my head like a mantra. I think now I understand something of Nietzsche’s contempt for Plato.

Lastly, no Course of the Heart was not too harrowing. It's funny the creepiest scene, next to the pale figures coupling has to do with the odd black fellow on the train, and the bit about evolution directed telelogically. Odd but I've read the book twice and it still spooks me.


Pax,

Rob date=08.08.2004 05:47 ip=68.79.102.83 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Lastly, no Course of the Heart was not too harrowing.

Yes, I've reread CotH when I've been ill before. In Virconium too. The themes of illness, both physical and psychic, in these books (and much of MJHs writing) were strangely cathartic. date=08.08.2004 11:02 ip=217.43.14.203 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sometime you’ll have to post your sources and inspiration.

Hi Rob. I prefer to have readers like you who will look for themselves, and whose breadth of reading will give them the neccessary skills and clues to engage every level of the book. In the case of De Vries, I suspect there's more to discover--the book exists, but does the quote ? If it doesn't, why did the narrator make it up and attribute it in that way ? I wouldn't post a list of references for that reason, it would spoil the reader's exploration of the allusive levels of the text, limiting the individual relationship between book and reader. And what manifests as a game of poetics between author and reader becomes a war when it goes on between author and critic--especially f/sf critic. I'm not likely to give them aid for reductionist operations, especially ones they wouldn't be capable of mounting without my help. The idea is that any reader should have to honestly confront the whole organism and give themselves up to its gifts and gists, traps and meanings. (A good clue for interpreting all my work is to use the short story "The Gift" as a kind of manual.)

My characters, certainly, are trying to get traction on the transcendence/immanence thing. I think a resolution of that opposition will run you aground faster than an attempt to feel your way into the opposition itself. But while I admit I'm a romantic, I don't think romanticism includes encouraging people to run away from the world. I love that we all need the piper at the gates of dawn; but I'm not going to be responsible for sending anyone out to look for him.

>>It's funny the creepiest scene, next to the pale figures coupling has to do with the odd black fellow on the train, and the bit about evolution directed telelogically. Odd but I've read the book twice and it still spooks me.

That's great. I love that guy. He spooks me too. date=08.08.2004 14:07 ip=213.78.77.118 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BBC News Online: Prozac found in nation's drinking water. My my. That's why I've become so amiable in the last couple of years. date=08.08.2004 14:15 ip=213.78.77.118 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> That's why I've become so amiable in the last couple of years.

I'm pissed off that I've been drinking bottled water these last few years. date=08.08.2004 19:59 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I've been reading 'Not On The Label" this weekend. Thanks for recommending it: I didn't want to know that stuff, but I can't ignore it. Ghastly. I'm glad I've got my allotment. date=09.08.2004 09:21 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
On interpretation : " If you probe the ashes... you will never learn anything about the fire"
I´ll have to give this one some thougth. date=09.08.2004 09:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. "Every story is a cup so empty it can be drunk from again and again."

Hi Alex. Cath has been saying exactly the same, "I didn't really want to know all this." But she can't stop reading nevertheless. Some of it I already knew from reading Naomi Klein et al; or from another good British book, The Killing of the Countryside by Graham Harvey. (Which, thoroughly predictably, won something called the "BP Natural World Book Award". These fuckers!) date=09.08.2004 11:07 ip=213.78.168.195 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: the problem is now that I know I should stop using supermarkets, how do I live? The allotment won't sustain us, especially through the winter. We could spend half the weekend shopping for good food with good provenance: the supermarkets have killed off most of the decent local shops (we've got a Tesco, a Somerfield and a Late Shop on the same small suburban high-street). It's almost inevitable that the supermarkets will get us, but I'm going to buy a bread-maker tonight. date=09.08.2004 12:12 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Alex. Me & Cath were saying exactly the same (except that we don't even have an allotment). I don't know. You have to do it by increments, I suppose. Buy politically when you can. If you can get two or three items from somewhere other than a supermarket, do. If you get a chance to buy organic, do. We'll all have to pay more, at least to start with. Then there's the really stupid stuff you do: we were talking about not being able to get apples that tasted of anything because they're grown for look, number-per-pound and shelf life: then Cath pointed out that no one in her family should be buying apples at all while her mum can't get rid of the surplus of just five trees... date=09.08.2004 12:28 ip=213.78.87.28 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another problem is that young people, at least the ones I'm acquainted with, are not only 'not keen' on vegetables , fruit and unprocessed foods, they almost seem to have a pathological aversion to the stuff. It doesn't bode well. Why should they be interested in promoting the use of foods they can't stand eating? date=09.08.2004 13:15 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm in favour of saving myself, whilst leaving them to scurvy, vitamin B deficiency and prion-related brain disease. In the end, if you want to finance middle-range executives who have nothing but contempt for you, or corporate CEOs who would never eat the "food" they produce, or give it to their own families, fine. If you want to have less of a life than you could, as result of mistaking a supermarket for the world, fine. But if you're willing to support gangmaster capitalism so you or your kids can "choose" something called "cheese strings", then the sooner Tesco's kill you the better.

The real irony is that the executive classes, who probably already work in the commodification business, are the ones who make these discovceries. They can afford to keep themselves safe, eat organic, visit the famer's market. They're the ones who'll protect their children against ads by limiting their TV time, etc. We're seeing a quiet pluotcracy evolve behind the populist arguments it uses to move units and finance itself. date=09.08.2004 13:42 ip=213.78.87.84 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> are not only 'not keen' on vegetables , fruit and unprocessed foods, they almost seem to have a pathological aversion to the stuff

I was watching that 'You Are What you Eat' program the other night; one woman gagging when being presented with freshly cooked, healthy food, etc - I think it was Sauerkraut - which astonished me.

On food - the more 'value you can add' (ie the more preassembly you can do), the less your product's a commodity (ie chicken kiev not chicken breast), and so the more margin you're making, and so the more profitable your business is. (Supermarket buyers tend to be targetted on the margins they make across their range of products).

There's also the broader economic thing - everybody working longer hours, so less time to cook, so pre-packaged food becomes much more appealing.

On local shops - my local butcher, Cutting the Butcher, shut down two or three years ago; he'd been there for 45 years, started as an apprentice. Had the butcher's shop on the market as a going concern for three years; nobody even came to look at it. Now it's been brought up and turned to offices. date=09.08.2004 13:57 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a quiet pluotcracy evolve behind the populist arguments

An interesting thought. Can't wait till the oil runs out. date=09.08.2004 13:59 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=George Monbiot's site has plenty of interesting things to say about supermarkets. There is no help, is there? I don't mean to say that cynically, but realistically. It's going to take a total cultural transformation to make any difference, and that isn't going to happen. Maybe the only thing we can do is make it slightly less worse less quickly. date=09.08.2004 14:04 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Think globally, shop locally... date=09.08.2004 14:05 ip=81.178.230.158 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm lucky to have Beanies (health food shop + organic & non-organic greengrocers) just around the corner from me. Actually, luck has very little to do with it: having Beanies within walking distance was probably the single biggest factor (no joking) in my mind when we decided where to buy our current house. The place is an absolute marvel (Observer Food magazine voted it best food retailer in Yorkshire & Humberside): without it I would never have heard of salsify, scorzonera, samphire, Sicilian pumpkin-shaped tomatoes or a whole bunch of other things beginning with 'S'.

And yet, despite this, and despite an excellent bakers and off-license at a similar distance (plus butchers and fishmongers not too much further), and despite having two bags of fruit, veg and eggs from Beanies dumped on my doorstep every week, I *still* find myself buying from supermarkets far too often. It's the convenience, the odd item which I can't easily get anywhere else which sucks me into buying other things I could get locally if I could only be bothered to make more than one trip or walk from shop to shop.

Even worse, my kids subsist on a diet of mainly crisps, chocolate biscuits and, yes, cheesestrings. I try my damnedest to get them out of the habit, but even though I can be pretty unyielding when I want to be, my kids are unyieldinger.

Actually, there is hope. Show them a nicely cooked organic meal and they'll turn their noses up, but give them the stuff raw (carrots, broccoli, whatever. OK, not beetroot) and they wolf it down, especially if you arrange it to look like a smiley face. But I worry that smiley faces will lose their appeal as they get older, and just you try and put anything vaguely healthy in Rowan's school lunch box and you'll be stuck listening to hours if not days of screams, whines, moans and bickers. date=09.08.2004 14:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the answer is: settle for less. I'm going to try not to eat anything I can't get by walking to get it, and avoid supermarkets. I'm going to talk to my local butcher and greengrocer about getting a bigger variety of good quality produce and get a bicycle with a trailer for when I *need* to travel further for, say, indian foods or wholefoods. And I think I'll take up hunting with a dog and a hawk. date=09.08.2004 14:30 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: a friend of mine has a remarkably simple answer. If her kids don't want to eat what she gives them, they don't eat. It doesn't kill them, and hunger usually forces them to give in. date=09.08.2004 14:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was watching that 'You Are What you Eat' program the other night; one woman gagging when being presented with freshly cooked, healthy food, etc

Know exactly how she feels, Al. I'd gag if I had to eat "cheese strings". I saw that prog. At one point, her equally strange husband suggested that if the nutritionist thought *that* was food, she ought to "get a life". At that point, the stacked ironies got the better of me and I switched off in case I laughed myself to death. But I was still thinking of the happy couple two days later. The tragedy of everything is that people will make a life from what they're offered. I'd shoot the corporate CEOs on those grounds alone--that by offering the dream they've offered less than the reality; that under the populist rubric "choice" they've turned people's lives into a rotten arena, a space which splits the difference between a TV ad and the contents of a wheelie bin. date=09.08.2004 14:34 ip=213.78.87.84 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> I'd gag if I had to eat "cheese strings".

Well, here's a thing. For reasons that are never going to be clear I did a degree in Business Studies. The second-year curriculum included a course called "Marketing". Up to this point I had always thought of Marketing as "the art of selling your product". Whereas I discovered that it is infact "the art of making a product which people will buy". My lecturer went on to say something about "regardless of need, or consequences". All of which made me gag. Still does.

So when it comes to Marketing (and advertising) I'm with Bill Hicks date=09.08.2004 19:03 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the fate of women in comics:
http://www.the-pantheon.net/wir/index.html date=09.08.2004 19:12 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=Hi Xaphod, love the Light comment on your weblog - I got the feeling (and it's making me break into a cold sweat... etc, for anyone who remembers Sweet T/James Brown). Funny, but I was listening to Rant in E Minor on the way home from Wales the other day. Rarely has anger ever been so righteous. date=09.08.2004 23:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Xaphod

>>Up to this point I had always thought of Marketing as "the art of selling your product". Whereas I discovered that it is in fact "the art of making a product which people will buy".

Quite. Thanx by the way for the weblog review. You seem to have got good payback from Light. I liked particularly the slowly dawning idea that though the blurb gave away the story it didn't *solve* anything... Very satisfactory.

Dan: the only things I recognised on yr list of S foods were salsify and samphire. I had some good samphire just the other day, with a crab cake; it came with a bisque that had all the values of Marmite. Just the right combination for old guy taste buds.

Meanwhile, it would seem that a 33 year old US gorilla, called I think, Koko, has a vocabularly of 2000 words, five hundred more than most 3-decker fantasy readers of the same age. For some years she has been writing an essay on ethics entitled "You Can Shit On the Floor and Still Be a Good Person". date=10.08.2004 11:49 ip=213.78.95.105 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And she's planning a follow up called I Feel Your Pain.

No, it's very interesting. date=10.08.2004 11:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I heard it was called, "Why Shouldn't We Read What We Want To Read Anyway ? Just Because You Live in a Cage Doesn't Mean You Don't Have a Life." She submitted it to several publishers, but though they were interested they couldn't see a way to split it into 3 volumes. date=10.08.2004 16:12 ip=213.78.65.124 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, life. Is it a dream or is it real? date=10.08.2004 16:49 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's chips. date=10.08.2004 17:32 ip=62.188.142.89 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Try and fail again; fail better:

Okay
Well, how's it look?
Uh, not too good
Okay, let's try another one
Let's go back over here
No, up a bit
Over to the left
Up two
That one

(David Thomas) date=10.08.2004 17:35 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Ah, life. Is it a dream or is it real?

Life is a pop of the cherry
when you are a boy... date=10.08.2004 18:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=>Ah, life. Is it a dream or is it real?

Like I care? I'm too busy dealing with life to have a life. :-) date=10.08.2004 18:33 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You get a girl
you're always first on the line
- when you're a boy

But is it life or is it something else?

Whatever it is, it involves a lot of masticating. date=11.08.2004 10:08 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Two quick haiku, both by Basho.

One of his final ones, while ill:

on a journey, ailing
my dreams roam about
on a withered moor

And, from a bit earlier, written at the poet Bokusetsu's hut:

sensing autumn's approach
four hearts draw together
in a small tea room

Btb, am feeling Japanese as saw 'The Twilight Samurai' last night, beautiful, beautiful film...

Arigato! date=11.08.2004 12:44 ip=81.178.233.79 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Basho's final haiku:

Feeling very ill –
Can't be arsed with all that five
seven five crap. date=11.08.2004 14:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>But is it life or is it something else?
From good old Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca the traditional spanish answer is ... dream.
Don Pedro wrote a classic play called ... you guessed it .. Life is a Dream. date=11.08.2004 14:14 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It's chips.

When Gill and I hadn't been together long, we were walking home from the pub one night discussing whether to have a child. We passed a chippie, and decided to have chips instead. To this day we sometimes refer to our eldest, Rowan, as "Chips".

I was cycling around your way today Mike - am staying in Teddington, working in Farringdon, and determined to get at least a little bit fit. That cycle network number 4 thing must be the arsiest route from the park to the river, added a good couple of miles to my journey. Tomorrow I think I'll either chance it with the killer machines or take out a couple of pedestrians on the common.

If you're about & free, I could pop by for a pint on my way home. Email me if you wanna. date=11.08.2004 18:13 ip=217.204.118.138 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> chance it with the killer machines

Perhaps not. Do they normally go at 60mph+ down Rocks Lane? Ironically, I just got a speeding ticket yesterday, for doing 40mph on the A470 near Brecon. I don't even remember being near Brecon, or uniwittingly doing 40mph near any speed cameras. date=12.08.2004 07:53 ip=212.159.31.160 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I just got one of those driving down to Devon, somewhere on the A303. Was apparently picked up by a motorbike stopped by the roadside; neither Ele (gf) nor I can remember seeing any signs, and we were watching out for them very carefully. I was doing 49 mph; had I been doing 48 they'd have ignored it. I'm going to protest it but I don't think it will make much difference. Grrr! date=12.08.2004 10:14 ip=81.178.233.79 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ez has got his blue plaque:
http://tinyurl.com/6eyvk date=12.08.2004 11:36 ip=158.94.178.237 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saw it in the paper this morning, hurrah! Must make pilgrimage over there one of these days, its just round the corner.

*no ideas but in things*
*no ideas but in things*

etc

Could combine it with a trip to the Gaudier-Brzeska one in Fulham, come to think of it. date=12.08.2004 11:51 ip=81.178.233.79 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Strange that EP was kind of nazi.

Gunn has put together an interesting selection of his poems, along with an intro.

Al: I know someone else to whom exactly that happened, two weeks ago, along with the "If you were just one mile an hour slower ... " date=12.08.2004 11:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - not wanting to be overly pedantic, but he was a Fascist rather than a Nazi. He saw Mussolini as a kind of Renaissance Prince for the 20th Century, and felt a very direct allegiance to him as a result. Strongly anti-semitic at times, but he recanted very movingly later on. date=12.08.2004 12:13 ip=81.178.233.79 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, you've got me reading about him again. Pound had some interestingly bizarre ideas: the human brain is basically "a great clot of genital fluid held in suspense or reserve" ...

It is probably well-known that DH Lawrence believed that a person's energy is a product of the moment of their conception. In brief, of the passion, the mood and the feelings of those procreating. A bored fuck produced a low energy if functional admin. type. An angry edgy one - someone irremediably angry edgy; etc. date=12.08.2004 14:08 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow! my Mum and Dad must have been hot stuff! Who'd have thought it! date=12.08.2004 14:45 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, my new godson was conceived in front of a fireplace in a moment of passion. I will keep you posted as to his fiery levels. date=12.08.2004 14:55 ip=81.178.233.79 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Both my kids, we are 90% certain, were conceived while under the influence of something illegal (it's not chips). And yet Rowan's certainly not the most ecstatic person I know. date=12.08.2004 15:13 ip=217.204.118.138 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> A bored fuck produced a low energy if functional admin. type. An angry edgy one - someone irremediably angry edgy; etc.

I'm the most laidback unix sysadmin on the planet. With the vilest temper known to man. I suppose this proves once and for all my parent never - ever - got along with each other.

Still, my baby daughter has a wonderful nature - with the cheekiest smile. ;-) date=12.08.2004 15:34 ip=195.8.182.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So where do all the arsey people come from? Surely it's not possible to conceive in that way! date=12.08.2004 15:50 ip=158.94.178.108 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Surely it's not possible to conceive in that way!

That reminds me of a little animation I saw online a few years ago: it was about some confused sperm, and was hilarious, but decency prevents me from describing it in any more detail. date=12.08.2004 16:26 ip=217.204.118.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been depressed & anxious but sort of hopeful all my life... The mind boggles. date=12.08.2004 16:34 ip=213.78.67.14 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In fact, come to think of it, depressed, anxious and short. date=12.08.2004 16:35 ip=213.78.67.14 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> In fact, come to think of it, depressed, anxious and short.

Perhaps the first two are related to the third. You could try hanging around with hobbits and see if you feel better. ;-) date=12.08.2004 17:01 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://tinyurl.com/4oblc

"Certain first names make people more attractive to the opposite sex while others are a turn-off, say linguists.

In an experiment, they found that pictures of men were rated as more appealing if they were called Ed, Matt or Mike than if their names were given as Paul, Sean or Roger."

Is this true Mike?

What I love about this is that it's a scientific study, conducted using the website amihotornot.com date=12.08.2004 17:12 ip=217.204.118.138 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=I am inspired: http://spacehijackers.co.uk/ date=12.08.2004 17:23 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: Short is good. date=12.08.2004 17:33 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>In an experiment, they found that pictures of men were rated as more appealing if they were called Ed, Matt or Mike than if their names were given as Paul, Sean or Roger."
Is this true Mike?

I don't know, Dan. I've never tried introducing myself as Roger. To be honest, and without wanting to offend anyone at all, Roger is the unhippest name I can think of. date=12.08.2004 17:39 ip=213.78.66.36 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno, I can imagine introducing myself as Roger in a sort of Leslie Phillips voice, it would either be devastatingly unsuccesful or, slim chance perhaps, it *might just work*.

Actually, Slim Chance would be quite a good name to introduce oneself as. And, as correctly predicted by this experiment, more attractive to the opposite sex than Slime Chance. date=12.08.2004 18:07 ip=217.204.118.138 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. I think I'd go for the Terry Thomas 'Hello hello hello hello helloooo...' (it's less impressive typed), with cocked eyebrow and cigarette held archly in holder. date=13.08.2004 11:27 ip=81.178.237.194 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Get your kit off darling works quite well sometimes.

Not always. date=13.08.2004 12:47 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My *real* name (xaphod: it's Zali, it's not actually a secret - the pseudonym is just an old habit) normally meets a slightly confused reaction on first contact:

"Hello, I'm Zali!"
"Bali?"
"No, Zali!"
"Oh, I see - Jali!"
"Zali! Listen, it's very easy Z-A-L-I. Like "Charlie" or "Dali" but with a "Z"."
"Oh, I get it - Zali. So where does that name come from then?"

And so on. All of this has led me to two possible conclusions: either people hear what they *think* they hear, and/or my speaking voice is almost completely incomprehensible. As far as the former is concerned: it does seem that most people have only the most basic sense of hearing - you can hear them every day singing popular melodies inaccurately *and* getting the words wrong.

Anyway, I have no idea whether the sound of my name attracts the opposite sex. It was a millstone around my neck until the end of my teens and then all of a sudden you step out into the middle-class adult world and it's *exotic*.

"Zali!" they might say after learning to pronounce it right, "My word, you really do exude an aura of Eastern Promise!"
"Fuck off, I was born in Barnet!"

Now, what was the question? date=13.08.2004 12:55 ip=158.94.182.56 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Anyway, I have no idea whether the sound of my name attracts the opposite sex.

No Charlie, you need to shorten the vowel-sound. Except then they'd all think you were called Sally, which might not be that attractive. date=13.08.2004 13:13 ip=217.204.118.138 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was christened Alexander. So far, only one dentist and a bank manager has called me that. I was called Alex by my parents, so as soon as I could I got everyone to call me 'Al'. I reverted back to Alex about 6 years ago, and now I'm thinking of going for the whole Alexander. So much classier, darling. Trouble is, people think it's Alexandra. date=13.08.2004 13:15 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>No Charlie, you need to shorten the vowel-sound. Except then they'd all think you were called Sally, which might not be that attractive.

Well, Inland Revenue seem to think that I *am* the opposite sex. All of the letters I get from them are addressed to "Miss Zali Krishna". I really shd insist on "Ms".

The caretakers here insist on calling me Zolly. "Alright, Zol'!" Ignorant apes! date=13.08.2004 13:46 ip=158.94.182.56 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>No Charlie, you need to shorten the vowel-sound. Except then they'd all think you were called Sally, which might not be that attractive.

Well, Inland Revenue seem to think that I *am* the opposite sex. All of the letters I get from them are addressed to "Miss Zali Krishna". I really shd insist on "Ms".

The caretakers here call me Zolly. "Alright, Zol'!" Ignorant apes!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.08.2004 13:46 ip=158.94.182.56 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We lived in a house called 'Ashley Gate' when I was a kid, so we always used to get letters adressed to Ms Ashley Gate.

I have problems with Al, sometimes, which is surprising. Somebody asked me to spell it the other day, on the phone. Have been introduced as Earl Robertson on occasion, which is kind of cool. date=13.08.2004 14:45 ip=81.178.237.194 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of houses with names, there's a block of flats around the corner from where I'm working called Roseberry West. Made me wonder whether there are any other buildings named after serial killers with a bunged-up nose. date=13.08.2004 15:23 ip=217.204.118.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Made me wonder whether there are any other buildings named after serial killers with a bunged-up nose.

Not quite the same but there's a William Bullough Court in Stamford Hill. date=13.08.2004 15:34 ip=158.94.182.56 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, he vellee good wliter, but he no got bulloughed up nose. date=13.08.2004 15:37 ip=217.204.118.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, it's very difficult to pass it without going into Goon Show fake Chinese cut-up mode. You wouldn't think buildings could have that effect.

Isn't architecture marvellous? date=13.08.2004 15:43 ip=158.94.182.56 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As the Goons said: It's always next door in China.

No serial killer addresses, but The Fall on Peel last night were singing about Harold Shipman. Does this count? date=13.08.2004 15:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Going to see The Fall tomorrow night. date=13.08.2004 15:53 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: If they're as good as the session, you're in for a treat. Where's it happening? date=13.08.2004 16:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oddly enough, at the rugby club five minutes away from where I live. Some kids have organised a festival in aid of prostate cancer and they've managed to get The Fall on. date=13.08.2004 16:21 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow, that's impressive. Should be a great night!

Favourite 'put on by the kids' nights - Throbbing Gristle at one of the public schools, and the Velvets played one of their early gigs at a high school prom night. Apparently they got through 'Black Angel's Death Song' and the better part of 'Venus in Furs' to general open mouthed shock, fainting, etc before being hustled hurriedly off stage. date=13.08.2004 16:52 ip=81.178.237.194 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The first gig I ever played at, when I was about 12, was by a group of pupils from our school who'd formed a punk band. They played in the school hall at 3.30, straight after school, doing crap covers of Dead Kennedeys and Exploted songs. I remember the bass shook my stomach so much it made me feel sick.

I played at Charterhouse school once (following in the footsteps of Genesis). Nothing exactly revolutionary, just party-type cover versions (think Blues Brothers/Commitments), but given the dodderiness of the audience (it was a charidee fund raiser) we still felt like we shouldn't quite have been there. date=13.08.2004 17:07 ip=217.204.118.138 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't match that - a bit of busking, and (some pints of lager later) a recent shot at "Mystery Train" with a Bangladeshi Elvis impersonator at a nearby Indian restaurant a couple of weeks ago.

Not so much karaoke as curryoke - but a lorra lorra laffs. date=13.08.2004 17:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Roger mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Roger is very hip name, IMHO. Examples of unhip names: John, David, Christopher, Jonathan, Peter.

Try introducing yourself in a voice like Captain Beefheart's after eight pints of lager and a vindaloo - you'll get results!

This message board goes backwards. Very Zen. date=13.08.2004 17:59 ip=193.35.8.195 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Roger: 8 pints, vindaloo, then: "A squid eating
dough - "

Is this the chat-up line I've been seeking all these years ..? date=13.08.2004 18:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Great Rogers: Daltrey, Chapman, Waters, Wilco, Dean, Zelazny, McGuinn, Moore, Whittaker, Rabbit, Thesaurus. I bet no-one ever told Roger Whittaker he had a poofy name. It's a hard, thrusting, teeth-clenched, moustache-twirling name. date=13.08.2004 18:27 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to see Mark Thomas & Tracey Sanders Wood's "Coca-Cola's Nazi Adverts" show at the Foundry recently: http://tinyurl.com/42orf

Some good stuff there, but I thought some of the Coca-Cola Berlin Olympics stuff a bit far fetched. It appears not though: http://feed.proteinos.com/002199.html

"In a far cry from the high-minded ideals of humanity and tolerance embodied by the Olympics, the organizers of the Athens games have warned spectators that they could be barred for taking a surreptitious sip of Pepsi or an illicit bite from a Burger King Whopper.

Strict regulations published by Athens 2004 last week dictate that spectators may be refused admission to events if they are carrying food or drinks made by companies that did not see fit to sponsor the games." date=13.08.2004 19:43 ip=212.159.31.160 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan.
They´ve tried the same thing in the Bacelona Forum with the result that people have stayed away in droves. date=14.08.2004 16:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From Coca Cola = Sport to Sport = Coca Cola. Are people really boycotting the Forum, Arturo ? I do hope so. The corporates are at a turning point with this. If they exploit their faux-populism an inch too far, numbers of people will take offence and real populism will bite them in the leg. Presumably they have a plan for that. Or a plan for an ad campaign for that. Have an honest-looking black girl sing simply about how she wants to give away so much to so many, for instance; or, as in the breathtakingly offensive Big Lie of the Birds Eye ad, "We don't play with your food." date=14.08.2004 18:32 ip=213.78.90.204 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=15.08.2004 12:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=15.08.2004 12:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= date=15.08.2004 12:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
Sorry about those empty posts.
I had written a very long message expalining that yes people have stayed away from the Forum and why but it doesn´t seem to work. date=15.08.2004 12:19 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What bareloneses think of the forum:
http://www.barcelona-online.com/forum_2004.html date=15.08.2004 12:29 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sneak peek of the Anima cover on the ES site News. date=15.08.2004 19:37 ip=81.153.1.37 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> My *real* name (xaphod: it's Zali,
> it's not actually a secret - the pseudonym
> is just an old habit) normally meets
>a slightly confused reaction on first contact

I'm of the opinion that hearing is just as much an acquired art as
speaking. Names which derive from different cultures are always
problematical. But then it's not just different cultures. Accents
don't help either. And then there is just plain old stupidity. For
years I thought I had a friend with the name "Hinchcliffe" I even
introduced him as such without incident, it wasn't until I had occasion
to write his name down that he kicked off as his name was "Hinchliffe".
I'd say that up to that point we were both hearing what we expected to
hear.


Which reminds me of Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute malice that which
can be adequately explained by stupidity". date=15.08.2004 22:02 ip=80.5.160.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Check this out:

http://www.theaccomplice.org/article.php?id=7

New Weird Folk!

(see the Vetiver review) date=16.08.2004 15:02 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And there's a link to a compilation album on this page, second article down - it plays online:

http://www.arthurmag.com/news/ date=16.08.2004 18:16 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: But also - "Paul Cullum finds Bush's brain." Short article or a work fiction, right? date=16.08.2004 18:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or another Bush entirely!

If he has tracked it down maybe they'll actually be able to install it? date=16.08.2004 18:43 ip=81.178.202.118 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The world was certainly ready for that term. Wait til I tell China. We'll have a laugh about that over a couple pints of real ale. Aye. Happen. What I'm looking forward to is when New Weird reaches submarine design. date=16.08.2004 19:46 ip=213.78.85.246 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, another Devendra Banhart related album. Oddly enough, I ordered one of his albums today. Along with two Boredoms albums, a Holly Golightly disk and a Buff Medways album.

Not to mention the Anthony Powell book I haven't managed to track down by real-world methods.

That's the only problem with a boring day at the office: you end up doing too much online shopping. date=16.08.2004 20:37 ip=81.153.4.93 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And I just spent yesterday downloading illicit copies of Buff Medways albums on SoulSeek.

Would love to track down more Boredoms though: I once roadied for Skinned Teen, a bunch of 15 year-old girls who were supporting Free Kitten at a gig near Brighton, and I got Yoshimi to sign my only Boredoms CD. It was a fun, odd night, and a weird and wonderful mix of rockstars were hanging out backstage. Some teenage boy popped his head around the door, trying to get Thurston Moore's autograph, ended up nearly eaten alive by Julie Cafritz. date=16.08.2004 22:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Since we're on music, I thoroughly recommend Castaways and Cutouts by The Decemberists. 19th Century indie music. date=17.08.2004 09:29 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, New Weird Folk - so no connection, then? I wonder if they saw the thread last year...

Btb, MJH, am curious about one thing - why have they released 'The Iron Council' in the US rather than the UK first? I'd have thought that as a UK author, they'd get it out here first of all.

New Weird Submarine design? As propagated by George Weird Bush. Maybe that's what the W stands for. date=17.08.2004 09:50 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Music: "Persian Love" by Holger Czukay; "The Roots of Beefheart" that takes in weird blues, bits of Van Vleit live, and Lord Buckley; and "Crackle & Drag" by Paul Westerberg - maybe the greatest song about Sylvia Platt putting her head in the oven that's ever been written. Can't stop playing Lesley Gore's "Maybe I Know," either - so there's Tuesday's credibility washed away like a seaside holiday in Cornwall. Anyone for surfing? date=17.08.2004 09:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My brother was meant to be surfing in North Cornwall today, doubt that will be happening, which is a real shame as he needs a break.

Grooving on the Al stereo - Berlioz's 'Faust' and Pentangle's 'Cruel Sister'. And 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by the Beatles, which I keep on playing at the mo. date=17.08.2004 09:59 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We've just booked a week in Port Isaac for September. Hooray! date=17.08.2004 10:36 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, I was thinking about taking a seaside holiday in September. Thanks for reminding me - I'll just enquire about annual leave.

Re: New Weird Submarines: presumably this would be a Noughties reworking of the WWII Vorticist dazzle ships. date=17.08.2004 10:53 ip=158.94.129.0 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Dazzle Ships! Along with The Blares, this is *another* group I never got around to forming! date=17.08.2004 11:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, bizarrely, flooded Boscastle is/was home to this, too:

http://www.museumofwitchcraft.com/ date=17.08.2004 11:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Dazzle Ships!

No problem, Martin. You bring the futurist suit, I'll bring the fuzz box. date=17.08.2004 11:18 ip=158.94.129.0 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BTW: Any opinions on the new Empty Space front end? Also, can everyone see it? date=17.08.2004 11:36 ip=158.94.129.0 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I have no idea. The book might have been originated in the States, ie the head or stem (or whatever the corporates call it) contract might be with the US publisher. All this is Greek to me, and at my age can only remain that way. Why, I remember when, upon making his thumbprint on the "contract" ("I give you everything, you *publish* me, Oh, thank you, thank you, I'm *published*!"), all the author got was a loaf of greyish bread and two copies of other people's fantasy books; whereas that whelp Mieville probably pulls in at least sixpence for his scrappy efforts. date=17.08.2004 11:40 ip=213.78.86.169 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, can we get the face less yellow ? I find that really frightening. date=17.08.2004 11:42 ip=213.78.86.169 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sort of "M Jaun Dice," eh?

I'll get my coat ... date=17.08.2004 11:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I'll give it a try. I'll do the changes on a jpeg on my webspace to avoid all the pissing about with Dialspace. date=17.08.2004 11:47 ip=158.94.129.0 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Comme ca?
http://www.iotacism.com/mjh/mike2.jpg date=17.08.2004 11:57 ip=158.94.129.0 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New version of cover being negotiated with the server. Please talk amongst yrselves. date=17.08.2004 12:40 ip=158.94.129.0 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, less yellow book. Have always liked the existing pic - why the change just now?

Hmm, maybe they're trying to make China into a big US author or similar. Does seem a shame to have a writer who lives about five miles away and whose book is only available about five thousand miles away.

*ponders amazon.com* date=17.08.2004 12:45 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> big US author or similar

Not that that's a bad thing, I'm just fed up you can't get the book over here! date=17.08.2004 12:46 ip=81.178.202.118 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, try this:
http://www.sumption.org/images/mike3.jpg date=17.08.2004 13:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Old Yeller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Hmm, less yellow book. Have always liked the existing pic - why the change just now?

B'dom, b'dom. I was thinking of keeping the old one somewhere else on the site though.

I suspect the UK publication of China's book will not be far behind. (I can't remember to be honest, but I think you actually get extra money for letting New York "originate" you, or appear to. A book that gets published in the UK first may be tainted with Eurosclerotism & not sell so well over there. The rationale goes something like that, I think.) date=17.08.2004 13:18 ip=213.78.71.92 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doesn't look like they're getting behind the book much. Del Rey haven't done much more than a catalogue page on their site and the Runagate Rampant seems to have given up on News in 2003. Google seaches aren't turning up much either.

Needs a bit of a kick start...

Dan: Ta muchly! But I think we're going greyscale on its ass. date=17.08.2004 14:13 ip=158.94.129.0 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think China just did a tour over there. date=17.08.2004 14:35 ip=213.78.89.243 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Hmm, New Weird Folk - so no connection, then? I wonder if they saw the thread last year...

I doubt it. It's more likely to be a reference to chapter 4 of Greil Marcus's Invisible Republic book which is titled "The Old, Weird America". This is the chapter about Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music that was reprinted in the CD reissue of that work a few years ago.

Speaking of great compilations, that Golden Apples of the Sun CD is brilliant stuff, includes a track from the Espers album I sent Zali a while back. I've got a very minor connection with it, having done the cat logo for Jay's Bastet label. date=17.08.2004 14:47 ip=195.128.251.232 name=Olde Yeller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So they aren't going to design us a submarine, then ? I'm so disappointed. date=17.08.2004 14:53 ip=62.188.137.55 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.kratkyfilm.com/catalogue/images/large/492.jpg date=17.08.2004 15:28 ip=195.128.251.232 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's odd, because in articles relating to this "New Weird America" label that (seems to been) started in The Wire, Cul De Sac's "Death of the Sun" album is seen as a key album of the genre. But "post-rock" was originally coined to describe Cul De Sac. So is "New Weird America" just post-rock without the European-ness?

Or is it just that everyone's finally realised that no-one knew what post-rock was in the first place? date=17.08.2004 15:55 ip=158.94.129.0 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, a sad thing about that euro-scleroticism bias. I suppose ultimately they just want to be first with the new stuff; and I suppose a tribute to China's impact that they're registering his publishings on this level.

New cover seems a bit restrained, also; less overtly fantastic than the last two. Will be interesting to see how its handled over here, is he doing any readings etc?

Post rock weird rock etc; I am confused by all this. Lost in post rock. date=17.08.2004 16:08 ip=81.178.202.118 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The original Post-rock article (in The Wire #123, Nick Cave on the cover, pop fans), "Shaking the Rock Narcotic", was a decent attempt to define a mutable zone where rock meets studio technology and forms new hybrids. Unfortunately, the term got hijacked as these things often do, and applied (usually in tones of contempt by the wretched NME) to things that weren't Post-rock at all.

Unlike the literary New Weird, I'm not sure many of the people labelled as such in the music world want to apply that label to themselves, it's merely an attempt to stick a shorthand tag on a rather disparate but nonetheless genuine musical underground that's been growing in the US for a few years. Not all of it is folky and not everyone in it shuns electronics; Ben Chasney's Six Organs of Admittance is more a kind of strange ambient psychedelia than what most people think of as folk music. Interesting how these things cross different media. Anyone remember "grunge" fashion? date=17.08.2004 16:30 ip=195.128.251.232 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>no-one knew what post-rock was in the first place?

Perhaps "no-one knew what post-rock was in the end" might have been more accurate. date=17.08.2004 17:10 ip=158.94.129.0 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Unlike the literary New Weird, I'm not sure many of the people labelled as such in the music world want to apply that label to themselves, it's merely an attempt to stick a shorthand tag on a rather disparate but nonetheless genuine musical underground

Oh, I think that would apply to the literary New Weird too, which I think most of the participants saw as a provocation (and in my case a "hands off"). There's a disparate but nonetheless genuine fsf underground producing technically and politically interesting stuff--of which some examples of what might be called New Weird might be said to be a part. But to name is to claim, and if you don't want the various fsf equivalents of NME to be naming you, well then you'd better name yourself. It's my experience that a literary underground is quite a savage poker game, with many players--writers, academics, publishers large and small-- eyeing the pot, and many people with talent walking away from the table broke & not famous. You know, here's a thought: I bet it's the same in the music industry.

Speaking of which: Al, I love being a Eurosclerotic. date=17.08.2004 17:37 ip=213.78.64.147 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=New Weird :
From the New York Times:
RON COUNCIL, by China Mieville (Del Rey/Ballantine, $24.95), is an exemplar of what some are calling the Next Wave in British science fiction. The name is a sly reference to the New Wave of the 1960's, when English and American writers as varied as Michael Moorcock, J. G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison and Samuel R. Delany cast a suspicious eye on genre staples like space travel and future technology. The Next Wave -- which, depending on who's counting, includes British novelists like M. John Harrison, Richard K. Morgan and Neal Asher -- mixes left-leaning politics and a taste for horror into cautionary tales of societies gone wrong at the core. date=17.08.2004 17:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='Kinell, "Next Wave"! Haven't heard that term since Gabe used to frequent the predecessor of the predecessor of this board!

And in the NY Times, eh! date=17.08.2004 17:50 ip=158.94.129.0 name=Ol Yeller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=See what I mean ?

Meanwhile they like us in San Francisco too, Eurosclerotic or not. Juliet Ulman, in high glee, sends this review by Michael Berry from the San Francisco Chronicle--

M. John Harrison's Light (Bantam; 336 pages; $16 paperback) arrives in the United States heralded by almost uniformly positive reviews from the United Kingdom, enough to make one wonder whether it can live up to all the hype.

Not to worry, though. The author of "The Centauri Device" and "Viriconium" has crafted an ambitious, accomplished space opera that brings him to the genre's front rank. The narrative is split into three strands of plot whose connections become apparent only late in the game.

In modern-day England, physicist Michael Kearney searches for the key to quantum computing while also maintaining an intermittent career as a serial killer. Haunted by a horse-skull-headed apparition he calls "the Shrander,"
Kearney has become psychologically unmoored just when his partner, Brian Tate, is about to accomplish a real breakthrough in their research.

Abandoning Tate, Kearney hooks up with his ex-wife and begins with her a transatlantic journey guided by a set of mysterious dice stolen from the Shrander. Four hundred years hence, Seria Mau Genlicher pilots her ship, the
White Cat, through intergalactic space, depending on the quantum Kearney-Tate drive to navigate between the stars unhindered by the effects of relativity.

Meanwhile, a "twink" named Ed Chianese finds his addictive virtual reality dreams rudely interrupted and all his considerable debts suddenly due. Fearing for his life, he flees on a trajectory that will eventually intersect with Seria Mau's.

At first, "Light" proves more than a little daunting, serving up one protagonist who seems utterly reprehensible and a futuristic setting where both the language and the laws of physics seem to have been rewritten. As the book progresses, however, and the reader grows acclimated to its vocabulary and narrative rhythms, the elegance of Harrison's scheme becomes apparent.

All three story lines come together in an unforeseeable, yet deeply satisfying, climax. The final chapters are a marvel of transcendence, reconciliation and redemption. Some books are meant to be reread to be appreciated fully. "Light" definitely falls within that camp, and that is by no means a bad thing. This is surely one of the best novels of the year,
irrespective of genre. date=17.08.2004 21:21 ip=213.78.82.146 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>an unforeseeable, yet deeply satisfying, climax

Ooh, that takes me back.

Re: dazzle ships. there's a vorticist exhibition on at Manchester's Whitworth Gallery, including lots of photos of Dazzle Ships. Amazing things, like Chris Foss spacecraft. And wasn't there an OMD album called Dazzle Ships? Good reason not to name a band after them. date=18.08.2004 09:41 ip=217.155.134.6 name=ol yeller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of climaxes, I always admired Calvino, but now I admire him even more--

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1 285118,00.html

--although I don't think much of his love letters. date=18.08.2004 11:05 ip=213.78.74.140 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: >Not to name ... How true.

*Bows head in humiliation*

Yeller: I like the "SFC" saying that Kearney becomes "psychologically unmoored." A wonderful euphemism for someone depicted as being about as sane as the Yorkshire Ripper for the last twenty years.

"New Wave," though: gosh. We're caught in a time lock here. Somebody, page Mr. Cornelius. date=18.08.2004 11:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>about as sane as the Yorkshire Ripper

Are we sure about that? Isn't The Shrander real? Or -gulp - are Seria and Ed part of Kearney's fantasy? date=18.08.2004 11:34 ip=217.155.134.6 name=harmless mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you'll find the Psychologically Unmoored are a breakaway faction from the New Weird actually. If you don't like what they write, they kill you on a commutor train & yr shopping rolls about & gets wedged in the automatic door. date=18.08.2004 11:38 ip=213.78.172.85 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harmless: Isn't that the Neon Hearts ..?

Alex: You could be right. After all, you'd think poor Clara's death on p.3 would lead to Kearney doing bird before you could say "Kefahuchi." But - nothing. And that great car he owns is never nicked, either - if it exists. Maybe the whole thing is just twink-think on Ed's part: we just can't tell. date=18.08.2004 12:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Choe mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Lancia Integrale! Fucking bazzing car mate. Nearly as legendary as your original BMW M3. Almost nearly, mate. Don't you find ? date=18.08.2004 12:28 ip=213.78.80.116 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On fake populism:
- They expected a hundred thounsand people on the current olympics , only ten thousand have shown up.
- Warner brothers sent mp3 files of a band they want to promote- the secret machines- to mp3 blogs looking for some cheap publicity and an underground gloss to a less than entusiastic response http://music.for-robots.com/ posted it as "music for robots sell out" . date=18.08.2004 12:35 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Choe: Google image search for the Integrale and you get a chassis plan and a topless woman into the bargain.

So this is the twenty-first century ... date=18.08.2004 12:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, we don't know whether the Integrale gets nicked or not. The text parks it in a South Tottenham street, Kearney having been careful to leave its doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. The clear implication is that he expects it to be stolen. What kind of relief he hopes to gain from that, we're not told; so it begins to act immediately as an indicator of his psychological condition, of his undependable qualities as a viewpoint character. Readers of a certain sort hate him as much for that undependability of focus as they do for his crimes, because both qualities prevent them from identifying with him.

I expect to see post-Light novels in which the writers work out their anxiety of influence with regard to Kearney by assuming that the reader was *supposed* to identify with him; they'll do that by writing texts against him, as if Light itself wasn't such a text. Readers--and some writers--in search of what used to be called a "sympathetic viewpoint character" had the same problem with the characters in Signs of Life. date=18.08.2004 12:52 ip=213.78.80.116 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Calvino is widely acknowledged as a master of the fantastic, but he also wrote a little book – not translated to English if Amazon is right – la journata d´uno escrutatore , a day’s work of an electoral auditor. An account of how on the eve of elections on 1.953 the ruling party brings in to vote the dying, the sick and the mentally unbalanced. It is a “dry” account with no display of narrative fireworks and it has stayed in my mind far longer than the fantastic narratives. date=18.08.2004 12:59 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The text parks it in a South Tottenham street, Kearney having been careful to leave its doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition.

Didn't see it last time I was in South Tottenham. But then again, it was so depressing just being in South 'Nam I didn't notice anything much except for the inviting entrance to Seven Sisters tube.

Get me outta here! date=18.08.2004 13:24 ip=217.43.23.232 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi io. Index pic looks good in b&w. Let's go with that. How was the rehearsal ? date=18.08.2004 13:28 ip=213.78.80.116 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Sympathetic viewpoint character ...

I didn't think anyone consciously read like this nowadays - but I lent "Signs" to a J.K. Rowling fan who handed it back two weeks later, saying she found every character so repellent that she couldn't get further than ch. 3. The problem of a successful text, etc. date=18.08.2004 14:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a huge problem, Martin. Or several intertwined problems. People don't read for satire unless it's presented quite blatantly (especially if there's a chance they might have to inconveniently admit it's satirising them). People don't read for tongue in cheek. People don't like a cold look at certain kinds of human activities--they'd rather keep things warm & blurry, thanks. (For me the classic example of that is the Amazon reader who said he would like to find Anna a nice boyfriend who would give her hugs. Someone with not much experience of personality disorder, I suspect.) People don't have the patience to wait for the characters to get their come-uppance. Especially since PC, people flounce off unless the author makes big signs saying THIS IS SUCH BAD BEHAVIOUR THESE PEOPLE ARE DOING AND OBVIOUSLY I DON'T APPROVE OF IT--this is essentially also a problem of dumbing-down: people read the text as literal. A further problem is that readers are used to such massive signage & authorly arm-waving that they often don't get either the subtleties of characterisation, or the jokes.

I take heart that the Tiptree committee didn't make any of these mistakes; and that for every fsf reader baffled, repelled or offended by the tour, I get warm congratulations from a reader who just got on with taking it. date=18.08.2004 15:08 ip=213.116.54.249 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Agree, and people are also looking for moral guidance, wanting to put great faith in words that are in front of them in black and white - words with authority. They think that because it's fiction it must be wishful thinking, rather than the observation it is. date=18.08.2004 15:19 ip=146.80.9.65 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: Cool. I can probably clean up the compression on it a few degrees with the software at home. I'll also get *the other bits* done this afternoon. I've just been preoccupied with trying to fing cheap & nasty battery operated disco lights on Walthamstow Market. Don't ask!

Practice was good. The highlight was when we somehow turned into a Deutsch-Japanische funk band. date=18.08.2004 15:20 ip=81.153.0.203 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Mike: Cool. I can probably clean up the compression on it a few degrees with the software at home. I'll also get *the other bits* done this afternoon. I've just been preoccupied with trying to find cheap & nasty battery operated disco lights on Walthamstow Market. Don't ask!

Practice was good. The highlight was when we somehow turned into a Deutsch-Japanische funk band.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=18.08.2004 15:20 ip=81.153.0.203 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>They think that because it's fiction it must be wishful thinking

Steph, what a cool way of putting it. Absolutely. date=18.08.2004 15:29 ip=213.78.66.204 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It's a huge problem

Not a new problem, either. The play I'm acting in (Marriage, by Gogol) was booed off the stage when it first played because, at the end, the "hero" does a runner rather than commit himself to marriage. The Russian audience, brought up on a tradition of didactic theatre with good and bad clearly labelled as such, were anticipating some kind of resolution, a happy ending. The last thing they expected was that every character would prove to be a twisted individual.

160 years later, we haven't moved on much. date=18.08.2004 15:31 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I hired some disco lights in Walthamstow once (little shop on a backstreet somewhere) for my daughter's first birthday party, upstairs at the Pigeons in Stratford. date=18.08.2004 15:33 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Wishful thinking ... Owning up, this is what stopped me from enjoying "Shallow Grave" the first time I saw it. - Hey, they're amoral yuppie bastids and one of 'em gets clean *away* with it - we wuz robbed, etc. I think Paul Foot had the same reaction, for what it's worth. date=18.08.2004 16:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: There were these really crap semi-disposable battety operated ones all over the market a few months back, and now: nothing. It feels like Walthamstow has had a sudden attack of good taste.

Please, no!

Walthamstow, after all, supplied the majority of the bunting for Golden Jubilee festivities across the country. Gawd bless 'er, &c... date=18.08.2004 16:11 ip=81.153.229.22 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You know, googling "sympathetic characters" brings up 13,000 results including such gems as this from a online writing course:

"Lesson 2:
Creating sympathetic characters, ones that the reader will identify with or become emotionally involved with, is essential. This lesson will show You how to make the character seem real by giving him faults and obstacles to overcome. The importance of conflict in the creation of a character will also be discussed."

I identify with the Shrander. I'd like a spin-off series called Deep Space 10, please. date=18.08.2004 17:11 ip=195.72.115.230 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello John, who are you?

btw I bloody wish Google had not been invented. No aspersion on yourself, just *aargh!* from a professional researcher's point of view. date=18.08.2004 17:16 ip=146.80.9.65 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I identify with the Shrander. I'd like a spin-off series called Deep Space 10, please.

I've been trying to get the franchise off Mike for the Yaxley & Sprake mini-series. date=18.08.2004 17:21 ip=81.153.0.211 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph. C'est moi:
http://www.atelier.abelgratis.co.uk/

Yaxley and Sprake on TV... I'd suggest "Yaxley and Sprake: Diseased" as a suitable title. date=18.08.2004 17:26 ip=195.72.115.230 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aha, thought you were. I like your work. date=18.08.2004 17:30 ip=146.80.9.65 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Norty norty, John. You were supposed to identify with Brian Tate's wife, the only normal person in the book. Well, I hope you all keep Lesson 2 in mind. Especially the obstacle race. You can't be a character unless you win out over obstacles, obviously. That's clear to anyone but a Eursclerotic Marxist Royalist. Oh, and Jean Rhys. date=18.08.2004 17:35 ip=213.78.76.35 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> ... on TV

But who would you cast as Sprake? In another era, I'd almost have gone for Wilfrid Brambell: as Lester Bangs said, the only true rock'n'roll guy in "Hard Day's Night." date=18.08.2004 17:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Aha, thought you were. I like your work.

Oh, thanks! Watch out for The Lambshead Disease Guide from Pan Macmillan at the end of the year (although without my cover, swines...). date=18.08.2004 17:43 ip=195.72.115.230 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But who would you cast as Sprake?

Oh, I wanted to do it as a cartoon in the style of Rhubarb und Custard. Maybe with all the voices done by Shane McGowan rather than Richard Bryers. date=18.08.2004 17:44 ip=81.153.0.211 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Cartoon ...

Why not? Thinking of John C/"Lord Horror," I'd pay good money to see "Anderton vs. Sprake at the Arndale Centre." Two submissions or a knock-out.

I wouldn't part with any cash for this, though (see link). I'm sick to death of zombie tv rehashing the Sixties - and this has got "turkey" printed on the contract, let alone on the finished product!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/35 76502.stm date=18.08.2004 18:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Why not? Thinking of John C/"Lord Horror," I'd pay good money to see "Anderton vs. Sprake at the Arndale Centre." Two submissions or a knock-out.

A fight to the death with Rottweiler carcasses, I hope. date=18.08.2004 18:19 ip=195.72.115.230 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/35 76502.stm

My heart leapt when I saw the link at the side saying "Crash kills Blair". Then it fell again when I saw the rest of the sentence "Witch cameraman" date=18.08.2004 18:30 ip=62.49.107.21 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> You were supposed to identify with Brian Tate's wife, the only normal person in the book.

Well the cats came across as normal... although some would choose not to class them as people. ;-) date=19.08.2004 18:11 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm just waiting for someone to say that Tate's home life is just like their own, what's all this about alienated characters, you should meet some of the other folk in my street, etc. date=20.08.2004 10:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Went to that 'Carnesky's Ghost Train' up in Brick Lane the other night. Ten minute trip through a ghost train, watching various micro-cabaret acts, Pepper's Ghost in action, etc, all feeling very E. European / evocative, essentially about women / oppression. Absolutely fantastic! A whole play's / book's worth of imagery packed into ten minutes. I think you need to go round it several times to really get the most out of it, will head back at some point soon. Website article here, from when it was in Manchester:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/arts/2004/05/ 26/carneskys_ghost_train.shtml date=20.08.2004 13:00 ip=81.178.251.176 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and, just back from town where I picked up Robert Irwin's book on the Arabian Nights, with surely one of the coolest ever burglary tactics described therein:

'Other [thieves] used to make use of a tortoise with a lighted candle on its back. They sent this creature ahead of them into the house they proposed to burgle. If the house was currently occupied, then the owner would surely exclaim in surprise on seeing the tortoise ('Oh look! There's a tortoise with a candle on its back. I wonder what it's doing in my house') and the thieves would be warned off. If, however, the house was unoccupied, then the candle would help to guide the thieves as they went about their work.'

Great weekend, all! date=20.08.2004 19:49 ip=81.178.251.176 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gretins earth people from Sokhorm. We love your ryvita. Also Star Truck. date=21.08.2004 11:21 ip=212.209.129.2 name=mjh agen mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, I'm on this hotel computer, & the site looks very different, backgrounds almost black & without feature, very minimalist. Almost tempted... date=23.08.2004 10:40 ip=212.209.129.2 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: The contrast must be right down on the monitor, so all of my subtle gradations of grey get lost. But yes, we can have another black site if you like.

How's Stockholm? I hope your hosts are getting the drinks in. If it's anything like Oslo the beer costs and arm and a leg up there.

Currently trying to book accomodation in Praha for September. Oy vey! date=23.08.2004 11:09 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=None more black.

Stockholm? Very jealous... Holiday, literary,...?

Also - philosophy dudes. What's a Monad exactly? I think I know, but I'm not sure. date=23.08.2004 11:18 ip=81.178.235.65 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Shorter OED gives "monad" as:

The number one, unity - in Pythagorean philosophy; or an ultimate unit of being, an absolutely simple entity - hence, a synonym for the Deity. date=23.08.2004 11:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So kind of a platonic ideal of one-ness / indivisibility? I understood it as being a fixed and unchangeable identity that sat outside time / space etc, behind day to day existence - but thinking about it that is pretty much a Platonic ideal of something. date=23.08.2004 11:37 ip=81.178.235.65 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: try to get somewhere in Mala Strana - it's ace there. We stayed in the very peculiar Hotel Waldstein, if that's any help.

I saw The Village at the weekend. Why has such a crap film stuck in my head like that? date=23.08.2004 11:40 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: When I went there a few years back we stayed in this nice place called Hlavkov Kolej but it's closed for maintainance so I'm considering either The Imperial or The Brezina. Waldstein's looking a tad pricey for my pocket.

Any tips on good jazz venues in Prague?

Al: Yup, it's a oneness, or if you prefer the Hindu approach: a without-a-plural. I guess it'd exist outside of space-time by default since all things in creation are complex and multiple and a monad would have to lack extension or duration. It'd be such an ungraspable point of singularity and perhaps in these terms a oneness might as well be a nothingness. date=23.08.2004 11:51 ip=158.94.145.140 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BTW: I assume everyone's seen the news about The Scream being stolen from the Munchmuseet. Again. date=23.08.2004 11:56 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, it doesn't work as a character name in the way I thought it would then, what a pain! Back to square one again, etc. date=23.08.2004 12:04 ip=81.178.235.65 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: we went to U Maleho Glena for jazz both nights we were there. Nice cellar bar in Mala Strana, although I hear Agharta is also good. date=23.08.2004 12:04 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cheers Alex: U Maleho Glena looks good. Did you go up the TV Tower? Awesome Soviet-era Space 1999 stylings. Very cool. date=23.08.2004 12:18 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: no, we stuck to the old stuff. Jewish cemetary etc. date=23.08.2004 12:25 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The entire Jewish quarter was shut when I was there, which was a pain. TV tower looks fantastic from a distance - very strange giant babies climbing up it from a distance. And that nutty baroque garden underneath the castle! Fantastic. date=23.08.2004 12:37 ip=81.178.235.65 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No giant babies when I went. Were they a temporary thing, or had you been hitting the absinthe pretty hard? date=23.08.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe Svankmajer had been up to something? date=23.08.2004 12:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think I read that he's putting on something somewhere around the Castle. Must investigate. date=23.08.2004 13:01 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Would be great to see him in action. Also went to the original Faust house, which was kind of cool (tho' also closed). Nope, others saw the giant babies too... apparently an attempt to soften all that brutalist eastern bloc architecture! date=23.08.2004 13:06 ip=81.178.235.65 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: the Svankmajer retrospective is at the Castle until Sept 19. date=23.08.2004 13:09 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Cool.

Al: But I *like* the brutalist Eastern Bloc architecture! While we're on the subject of people doing strange things with tall buildings: climbed up the old Dungeness lighthouse on Sunday. There were people at the top setting up equipment for a charity teddy bear abseiling event.

Funny place Dungeness. date=23.08.2004 13:16 ip=158.94.145.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, so do I; but it looks even better with giant weather stained babies climbing up the side of it! date=23.08.2004 13:18 ip=81.178.235.65 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al, Alex, io. Yes, in Stockholm for convention. Now on my way home. Others paid for beer, v hospitable lot. date=23.08.2004 14:49 ip=212.209.129.2 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS, io, might as well cut the Stockholm item in News now... This site, black, seems like an interesting idea, v minimal. Forgot how well covers stand out against it. But wouldn't want to lose those subtle greys (or as far as my iMac monitor is concerned, greens...). date=23.08.2004 14:52 ip=212.209.129.2 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll make Stockholm vanish later this afternoon. But yes, I guess as GoH the least they can do is stand you a few pints. date=23.08.2004 15:27 ip=158.94.146.108 name=Peak mail=peak@scifinytt.se icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.scifinytt.se text=MJH:

Thanks a lot for your appearance in Stockholm. The reading was great, and I'm still hugging my autographed books...

Keep up the good work! date=23.08.2004 16:12 ip=81.216.56.98 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.iotacism.com/kefahuchi2.gif

(It's about 195Kb, but it's worth it - trust me!) date=23.08.2004 21:57 ip=81.154.110.50 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.iotacism.com/kefahuchi2.gif date=23.08.2004 22:48 ip=81.153.4.86 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Love the way it seems to make a cat's head on the left of the screen, too. date=24.08.2004 09:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dunno about climbing babies, but I saw something very strange in Manchester last December: http://tinyurl.com/6o2vp

I was mightily impressed by the brutalist Eastern Bloc architecture in Bratislava - leave the old town across the Danube and you're faced with mile after mile after mile of identical grey towerblocks. When I was there (1992) I was at a conference in a University hidden somewhere among the towerblocks: it was a nightmare trying to find your way back from town of a pissed evening. date=24.08.2004 10:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ta, Martin. I think I've got more control of the attractor now so I'd be able to make smoother transitions. But I quite like the spazzy umpteen dimensional unfoldings of the White Cat. date=24.08.2004 10:30 ip=158.94.148.102 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Peak. Hope you enjoy(ed) the books. I was delighted at how well the reading went. Any sf audience that will sit still for 4 (mostly mainstream) short stories written in their second language, has my admiration. I enjoyed the convention, and thanks to you all for inviting me. date=24.08.2004 10:51 ip=213.78.87.104 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: all I have to do now is find my luggage, which I abandoned at Heathrow Terminal 1 last night in the BAA Overdriven Systems Disaster. date=24.08.2004 10:55 ip=213.78.87.104 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: the inflatable Santa looks best when half deflated (as happened one year). date=24.08.2004 11:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>all I have to do now is find my luggage, which I abandoned at Heathrow Terminal 1 last night in the BAA Overdriven Systems Disaster.

The moral of this story is: never take anything on a plane that you can't carry on as hand luggage. date=24.08.2004 11:34 ip=158.94.148.102 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yep. Devise a system of behaviour which will defend you against the failures of a system which is designed to be a service; act, in short, as if BA baggage-handling is part of the natural world, rather than something you pay--in the ticket price--to have done. Then, once we all get to carry-on-only, BA will be able to save even more money for the shareholders by decommissioning that part of their operation, whilst leaving baggage-handling costs in the price of the ticket. Corporate policy is to make the customer do as much as possible--costless outsourcing.

When you wait for a million years on the phone trying to get through to someone at BA, you don't just have to listen to that utterly fucking *foul* music; some little shit in marketing has realised that you're a captive audience--so you now get adverts as well. This drives your levels of phone rage, and your determination never to fly BA again, up past %100. I spotted a similar technique whilst trying to top up my mobile phone on the web: they split up a series of operations into one or two steps per page, because the more clicks it takes you to fill in the form, the more advertising you can look at on the way. The slimy little fuckers who think this is clever will be the first up against the wall when I get into power...

There's no such thing as road rage, or air rage, or phone rage, or any of those things: there is only the rage you experience because you are stuck in a system so overdriven and/or so exploitive it doesn't work efficiently. date=24.08.2004 12:39 ip=213.78.175.186 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But, um, apart from that, you had a good flight ..? date=24.08.2004 12:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes, great, thanks. Wonderful food of course. "Ciabatta". And then there was the entertainment: one hour ten minutes parked on the runway upon arrival (two and a half hours late), during which no one was allowed to unfasten their seat belt or use a phone to call the families who had expected them home two hours earlier. Great flight, well up to modern standards. Certainly maintained the feeling that air travel is so much more *fraught* than just getting on a bus, & therefore worth all the extra money. Everything that happens at a BAA airport is designed to either maintain the self-importance of the whole operation, or to fleece you, or both. So, of course, being too stupid to recognise that, you have a great time even when things go--as they will--wrong. You can't really complain, can you ? It's a funny old world, and we just have to be patient. date=24.08.2004 13:09 ip=213.78.175.186 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the spirit! Buck yourself up! England expects, no man is an island, mustn't grumble, you know the drill.

Mind you, I could have logged a similarly measured rant about the fucking bank utterly screwing up my account yesterday. Clearly, this is what happens when John Prescott is left in charge: I don't think that wall you mentioned is long enough for everyone I'd like to put against it right at this minute. date=24.08.2004 13:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>as if BA baggage-handling is part of the natural world,

It is, isn't it?

Once I was far more heroic man than the broken wreck you see now. It was the ordeal of three hours in Stansted waiting for my luggage that pushed me over the edge. Those three hours that made me an hour late for the last train. So it was between sleeping at the station and getting a cab. I was moving flat the next day so sleeping at the station was out of the question.

Of course I paid through the nose for a cab, and of course the fucker was driving a taxi to pay for his training to become a life coach.

I can never let that happen again. date=24.08.2004 13:39 ip=158.94.148.102 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Stansted is weird. The only airport I've ever used where you can't see a departure board from the lounge seating - you have to keep nipping round to the monitors by the main doors to see what's going on.

The sole delay I got, though, was a thirty-minute wait while a Bangladeshi family got the Al-Quaeda shake-down at Passport Control in Germany. date=24.08.2004 14:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And what about the weather, eh? I blame the paedophiles. Let em in the country, and what happens? date=24.08.2004 14:26 ip=217.155.134.6 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a Bangladeshi family got the Al-Quaeda shake-down

This is one of the reasons why New York has been dropped from my holiday plans. date=24.08.2004 14:30 ip=158.94.148.102 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: The only good thing about the Venusian climate we're entering is that the rain's kept a lot of children off the streets this holiday, and the tabloids have been deprived of their now traditional finger-licking orgy over some poor ten-year-old missing in the silly season.

Thunder and sunshine out the window; a woodwind group practising "Blue Moon" and "Lazybones" next door. It's a wonder I can think straight to post anythiqxd ... date=24.08.2004 14:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm getting trench foot. date=24.08.2004 16:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>This is one of the reasons why New York has been dropped from my holiday plans.

What a time we live in. They might well subject you to a full body search. That's what happened to that guy from Trigger Happy when he visited Florida for a working holiday. date=24.08.2004 16:55 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>happened to that guy from Trigger Happy

He was probably dressed as a rabbit. date=24.08.2004 17:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No it's because he has Syrian or Libyan, or some such, ancestry, I seem to remember. He made it out to be funny in the article, but obviously it couldn't have been. date=24.08.2004 17:38 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And have you heard what they do to working journalists? If you go in without a proper journalists visa, you get locked up, deported, the works. Paranoia going a bit too far, methinks - a bit 'it happened to me' article in the Guardian about all this a little while back. date=24.08.2004 17:57 ip=81.178.228.208 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a funny old world....

"The Dutch Catholic Church has gone to court to force insurer Aegon to reimburse a damages pay-out to a girl who was sexually abused by a priest.  The Bishop of Rotterdam claims the abuse was an industrial accident and was covered by the Church's liability insurance, it was reported Friday."

http://tinyurl.com/5c4gj date=24.08.2004 18:45 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had my own "interesting" journey this weekend: drove down to Weymouth to camp with some friends. Had a wonderful weekend; I was so relieved to have arrived on Friday night that I jumped out of the car and joined straight in with the campfire revels. The next morning I realised I had no idea where I'd left the car keys. My spares were at home, on Gill's keyring (I remember glancing at them on my way out of the house and, on the cusp of consciousness, thinking "I don't need them as Gill's not coming". Doh!)

A weekend of field-combing produced no useful results. I was all ready to get a train to Sheffield and back for the spare keys, and then drive home again, when Gill valiantly offered to get the train down to Weymouth. We met up, got the car started up, and... knocked the exhaust pipe on our way out of the farm. Somewhere around Yeovil it hit the ground and the driver behind pulled us over to tell us we were leaving a trail of sparks. A tent peg stuffed up the two broken sections of exhaust was enough to keep them from hitting the ground, at least as far as Bristol where something else must've given. By the time we reached Dursley we gave in to the inevitable and checked into the crap hotel at the motorway services.

Rather than be bowed by any of this, we treated it as an unexpected romantic break away from the kids (fortunately we had a troupe of understanding and very flexible babysitters). The next morning a mechanic arrived from the local garage to strap up what remained of our exhaust, and we pootled the rest of the way up the M5, M42 and M1, sounding like a fleet of boy racers.

When we got home I noticed that my rear number plate had dropped off. Next week I'm joining the AA (or probably the ETA - that's the Environmental Transport Association, not the Basque seperatist group).

Travelling to NY: American "immigration officers" have always been utter cunts. Since September 11th they've been cunts on a mission.

In 1988 an immigration officer at LAX suffering from a surfeit of machismo told me "The only reason I'm letting you into the country is because you have a return ticket". My crime: not bringing enough money into the USA with me. I was 19, carrying more money than I'd ever held before in my life (about £200) and off to stay rent-free with my cousin for a fortnight. date=24.08.2004 19:35 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Off topic, back to a very old thread - I mentioned a language teacher who claimed to teach anyone a language in a week: you wanted more information, but I didn't know it.

He's been in action this morning on "Today" on R4. His name's Michel Thomas. Needless to say, he has his own site: manuals for sale, and a language in 3 days for £18k.

http://www.michelthomas.com/ date=25.08.2004 09:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> an unexpected romantic break

I'm very impressed that you managed that; I've stayed in those places, possible the least romantic locations in the UK. The rooms always feel like something appalling happened in them shortly before you arrived. Like spending the night asleep in a Crimewatch re-construction. date=25.08.2004 10:58 ip=81.178.253.49 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: what happened, someone in Sales died a little further, leaked away into the mattress and then the fibreboard, sometimes when the light's right you see him in a corridor, nine o' clock, then he turns sideways and vanishes. No crime has occurred, really. It's more like erosion. All that remains is the need to tailgate people at 95mph in a Vauxhall.

Martin: thanks. (But is it possible to be "off topic" here ?)

io: I like the kefahuchi gif. date=25.08.2004 11:14 ip=213.78.66.238 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Those Motel rooms build up accretions of unhappiness. date=25.08.2004 11:24 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Off topic ...

I dunno. I was probably shocked from logging on to BBC News and mistaking Mark Thatcher for Michael Barrymore. Separated at birth, never seen in the same eroded motel room, etc. date=25.08.2004 11:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>io: I like the kefahuchi gif.

Speed it up several hundred times and show it to the cat and see if he leaps through the monitor. I'd try it with Qwerty but she's such a lazy sod. date=25.08.2004 12:13 ip=158.94.151.145 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> the need to tailgate people at 95mph in a Vauxhall

The suit hanging from a strap over the back door, laptop open on the seat beside him, a spreadsheet of product margins on screen.

In the motel room you dream of new product samples spread out before you, little hieroglyphs of need. In your hand a laminated leaflet, sales details of the new range; how many packs per case, how many cases per pallet, investments in point of sales marketing. But nobody's in the conference room with you; nobody's buying.

When you wake up in the morning, the sun's a ghost of itself in an empty, own brand sky. date=25.08.2004 12:31 ip=81.178.253.49 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Qwerty? With a name like that she'd leap through the keyboard. date=25.08.2004 12:37 ip=81.178.253.49 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, I was driving a Vauxhall, a Meriva, on my holiday, occasionally doing 95. But no jacket. Would I buy one after the experience? No.

It is actually quite a good car, but with anaesthetised power steering and poor lumbar support.

I liked the digitised info and sophisticated CD player.

What amazed me about it was how thirsty it was. It took two and a half tanks at £30 a shot to go about 750 miles. I have not thought about it much but all those people in SUVs and such plowing the motorway must spend a *fortune* on petrol for the simple kudos of sitting at a higher American-style elevation. date=25.08.2004 13:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I was probably shocked from logging on to BBC News and mistaking Mark Thatcher for Michael Barrymore.

Something slightly surreal about the Scorpions arresting Mark Thatcher. Amazing what these ageing German hard rockers get up to. date=25.08.2004 13:41 ip=158.94.151.145 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know Mark Thatcher was interested in motor racing: why's he got in trouble for sponsoring a coupé? date=25.08.2004 13:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back on topic (I think), which stories did you read at the Stockholm event, MJH? date=25.08.2004 14:42 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> why's he got in trouble

I don't know, but whatever happens, it looks like there'll be the devil coupé...

*bdm tish*

*gets coat* date=25.08.2004 14:44 ip=81.178.253.49 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you could pick any topic and be right, MJP... I read three stories which are in the publishing pipeline but which haven't yet appeared; also "I Did It", from Travel Arrangements. I wanted to check, really, how these new kinds of stories--all quite short, between 2000 and 2500 words, and very character-driven--went down with readers. Working at that length, the tone of voice of the text is a massive component of the overall communication. Seemed to work OK: I was surprised (a) because they were primarily mainstream stories, and (b) English was the audience's second language. "I Did It", of course, is like stand-up comedy. Never fails. date=25.08.2004 15:31 ip=213.78.92.28 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doctor, I keep picturing Mark Thatcher with an axe in his face. Should I seek help? date=25.08.2004 15:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> possible the least romantic locations in the UK

I think the incongruity of the location all added to the, erm, charm. But yes, a seedy little place. The cardboard flyers standing on the table, advertising a couple of sub-blockbuster movies and multiple channels of porn, set the tone. Not exactly aimed at the family market. Reminded me very much on Alasdair Gray's "1982, Janine": Wank wank wank wank wank wank wank wank wan k wan k wan k wan k wan k wan k wan k wan k wa nk wa nk wa nk wa nk wa nk wa nk wa nk wa nk w ank w ank w ank w ank w ank w ank w ank w ank w a n k w a n k w a n k w a n k w a n k w a n k w a n k w a n k etc.

MJH: I'd love to have heard your "I Did It" stand-up routine. date=25.08.2004 15:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Doctor, I keep picturing Mark Thatcher with an axe in his face.

If enough of us focus on that image, and really believe that it can happen, and say that we really do believe in fairies - then maybe, just maybe, maybe it might come true. date=25.08.2004 16:30 ip=158.94.151.145 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: BTW: There's a message for you over on TTA from someone who was on the Swecon panel. date=25.08.2004 17:41 ip=158.94.151.145 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx io. date=25.08.2004 18:28 ip=213.78.90.205 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Delighted to hear the Green message has got through to Bush, and that the mass demonstration against him in Central Park has been banned in case it affects the grass.

I'm sure the troops in Najaf are avoiding damaging anyone's garden, too: one armoured advance could make mincemeat of your petunias. Responsible combat at its best, I'd say. date=26.08.2004 10:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why is the belief so common that humans are the only creatures aware of death? Or is that too vague a way of saying it? The only creatures "capable of anticipating their death ..." perhaps. Whichever way up you stand it, it doesn't make sense to me.

What creature doesn't exhibit an awareness of death?

I mean, excluding human beings. (Sealed into shopping mall zombiehood.) date=26.08.2004 11:18 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Aware" is one thing, "anticipating" another. I think the tradition/argument goes back to Biblical ideas of animals as human "helpmeets" (Adam names them, so has power over them) and the discourse gets developed by Aristotle and Aquinas trying to establish whether non-human sentients have souls. Cruder argument: "Show me the hamsters' cemetery, then."

I'm not how you could arrive at any scientific proof of the idea - short of some revolting experiments. Surely, post-Darwin and genome, we're aware that vertebrate perception is a matter of degree, not kind. A chimp may not memorialise or articulate as we do, but it shares a lot more of our mental furniture than many might care to think. date=26.08.2004 12:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Once upon a time, it was also questioned if women and non-caucasians had souls too. Un-surprisingly said belief benefited those who held it. date=26.08.2004 12:32 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's easier to eat, abuse and work to death your "helpmeets" if you can think of them as having a lesser consciousness and thus a lesser type of life than you. I doubt that for this reason alone it's possible to have an unclouded view of the issue. In the developed countries we don't have to beat a donkey to death anymore to make the economy work; but the deeply-bedded sense we have of a "right" to do that makes it easier to put electrodes into the brains of live monkeys.

Actually, given the circumstances, let's face it, we'd happily put an electrode into the brain of a live human; the two acts aren't so different to one another if the ideological trigger's right, ie, the right of my baby--or my self--to live is greater than the right of a monkey, or a paedophile, or an Iraqi, or [fill in the blank]. Not to mention the right of my corporate to make money from "new" cosmetics, unneccessary cleaning products and questionably-effective pharmaceuticals, in an already stuffed marketplace...

You don't want a rant from me on this, so I won't say any more. date=26.08.2004 12:34 ip=213.78.166.70 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I mean, excluding human beings.

Book title: The Biological Basis of Selective Stupidity. date=26.08.2004 13:07 ip=158.94.154.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Christian views on this get aired on x numbers of forums, all guaranteed to raise the blood pressure. If you feel able to face it, this one concerns "animal heaven" :

http://www.school-for-champions.com/religion/animalsoul 2.htm date=26.08.2004 13:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My cat would probably let you eat him. I've eaten pies with greater agility, sense of self-preservation and honed consciousness than him. That is, until he interacts with another cat. Watching him chase one down the middle of the road the other day, I was amused to see on his face an expression I didn't recognise from his interaction with me... date=26.08.2004 13:22 ip=213.78.166.70 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think that the Christian beliefs about heaven are filterings or misapprehensions of actuality; that they are based on a truth: the actual wilderness by which we are surrounded, in the context of infinity, that is heaven; could we but get outside our personal obsessions. We intuit this but then make it into a cinemascope projection, something that is the mere product of our socialisation.

I like PKDs question about animals in this context: What if our earth is their heaven? date=26.08.2004 13:30 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>An expression I din't recognise ...

Not this one, then:

http://www.astrobri.com/sc1.jpg date=26.08.2004 14:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Title of a junk mail I just received:

'[The] How to Make Money on demand horror '

Now there's a story that HPL never got round to writing... date=26.08.2004 17:08 ip=81.178.253.49 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, it conjures up "Cthulu Meets Chico Marx."

- Get ya toosty-frootsy Necronimicon ... date=26.08.2004 17:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now there's something I'd pay to see...

And here's this:

http://www.logicalcreativity.com/jon/plush/01.html date=27.08.2004 11:55 ip=81.178.253.49 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yesterday, Eva and I went to see "Touching the Void" wich we liked a lot. Thanks for the tip, Mike. A brigth spot in an otherwise dull movie summer.
I was impressed by the sheer physical presence of the climbing gear wich is hardly there in the hollywood movies.
Is the title a Zen reference? date=27.08.2004 11:55 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Atsa some joke, eh boss? - :) date=27.08.2004 12:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. Hollywood gets climbing wrong because--as with everything else--it has a wrong set of assumptions. One of the great things about TtV is that it's *exactly right* about all that. I think they even re-enacted the fall (although in the Alps, not Patagonia). Ironmongery is a big presence in that kind of climbing, which is not done by stripping to the waist and grinding your teeth, as in a Sly Stallone movie. TtV also demonstrates that the ironmongery can't make you safe. The phrase has zen: but I think it refers more directly to Joe Simpson's experience of his goals. As he says at some point, larding it with irony, "I was the first person ever to reach the bottom of this crevasse." If you climb for reasons like that, you will soon experience your own experience as a void. People miss this philosophical aspect of the book because, like Hollywood, they already have fixed and wrong ideas about what Joe's ordeal means. I mostly can't be bothered talking to them.

I thought, by the way, that your recent point about the attribution of souls said most of what's neccessary, ie that the attribution of soul, consciousness or intelligence always serves the needs (usually economic) of the attributor. Human definitions are always exploitive, or tainted with previous systems of exploitation. date=27.08.2004 12:35 ip=213.78.74.94 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Went into the Vietnamese place on Walthamstow Market for lunch. The place has been redecorated in a tasteful duck egg blue with traditional ornamental wood carvings hanging from the walls: Mickey Mouse in a cowboy hat, Mickey and Minnie driving an old fashioned car, Daffy Duck. date=27.08.2004 14:47 ip=81.153.4.118 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike.
Thanks .
I had this quotation by Lao Tzou on mind: "Much speech lead inevitably to silence. Better to hold fast to the void."
Ttv makes extraordinary use of the breaking of the silence mofit . We feel the silence of the mountains until Joe and Simon´s arrival . I think that it is Simon who early on the movie says that they are leaving the clutter of civilization behind wich in this context means noise.
Even it it has a musical score it underlines the images no overhelms them ( like in the awful "King Arthur " movie)
And of course, most of the talk is in the now-sections. The then-sections are quite silent until Joe´s ordeal begins.
I am definitely going to read the book. date=27.08.2004 16:13 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's a brand new story, "Tourism", available free at Amazon.com as part of Bantam Spectra's Light promotion. We'll link to it directly from Empty Space soon, but meanwhile it's here--

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/536 970/102-6597089-5424939 date=28.08.2004 12:35 ip=193.195.0.102 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="All the shoes you can eat" - story of my life.

"Jack Serotonin" - another great name to piss off the on-line Mr. Angry's of this world (I'm still laughing over the cyber review that warned its audience about "Light" - 'This is not a book to read at bedtime.')

Clearly, none of them know Banbury, where the local estate agent is a Mr. Anker. Ah, me. date=31.08.2004 10:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*wanders in*

http://www.wketchup.com/

*wanders out* date=31.08.2004 16:41 ip=81.178.192.205 name=ben wooller mail=ben.wooller@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://livejournal.com/~wooller text=re: Tourism.
Way to whet the appetite Mike!

It'll be good to spend some more time beneath the K-tract. Not sure I'd want to live there though... date=31.08.2004 17:13 ip=210.8.232.2 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm afraid of Gravity Probe B, and I'm afraid of the Vasa Ship in Stockholm. I keep wanting to put them together to create one of my typically unrewarding combinations of ruthless characterisation, beautiful but over-technical prose & misprisioned physics, etc etc. Or maybe it's because they remind me of the creepiest bits of an Alastair Reynolds novel. A E Van Vogt meets Philip Roth meets Pirates of the Caribbean. Steady away, MJ. date=31.08.2004 17:26 ip=213.78.82.140 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Ben. I'm such a tease, aren't I ? You may not want to live there, but you could take the tour... date=31.08.2004 17:29 ip=213.78.82.140 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'll have to look on my archive this evening for my critique of Tourism from back before this story was in public circulation, from back when I could think... date=31.08.2004 17:31 ip=158.94.123.31 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Do you think you can't think? Think! The irony. Think! And having thunk ...

I have been reading the story on and off this afternoon. Absorbing. Maybe we do live there. date=31.08.2004 17:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> http://www.wketchup.com/

What's the W for? Billy? date=31.08.2004 18:31 ip=62.49.107.21 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> There's no such thing as road rage, or air rage, or phone rage, or any of those
> things: there is only the rage you experience because you are stuck in a system
> so overdriven and/or so exploitive it doesn't work efficiently.

Wow.. Profound & succinct.... one to write down and keep methinks :-) date=31.08.2004 19:03 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH. Regarding the story, I like the way the characters feel real, in gesture, posture, mood, but set against an unreal background. Wiping the moisture off a window that isn't there. It creates some interesting moments.

Are we going to learn more about the 'corporate area'? Not much is specified about it in the previous book. date=01.09.2004 10:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: "Tourism" is haunting and intriguing. I like the Tom Waits in space feel. Is there more to come? date=01.09.2004 11:14 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP. The window is the key, I guess. It's part of a formal device for limiting the tosh to the environment. If I could, I'd write the whole thing from inside the bar, so that you never went into the sf "world" at all, just got the odd report from there. Gives great feelings of alienation, anyway, which is what these characters are all about. We probably won't see inside the corporate enclaves. I'm a glimpse man. As soon as I get into the chore of world building, the essential absurdity of the situation hits me, everything falls over, and I walk away. Martin: that's the real reason people hate the deliberately artificial names--they're the most obvious disruptor of suspension of disbelief. date=01.09.2004 11:21 ip=213.78.95.253 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx Alex.

>Is there more to come ?

I hope so, or I won't eat after 2005... date=01.09.2004 11:23 ip=213.78.95.253 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I would like a surreal Bushistic glimpse of corp-world - on tantrum tv. date=01.09.2004 11:32 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know I'm probably way behind everyone here, but I've just spent the weekend reading 'Super-Cannes'. Horribly prescient about the behaviour of the troops in the detention centres, don't you think? date=01.09.2004 11:52 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of it like that. I took the basic point of it as being that, if you remove people from the need to engage with society, they step outside of its restraints and lose morality; I suppose that's exactly what's going on in Iraq.

Apart from anything else, each isolated, shot at, bombed etc army camp is completely a-social, not connecting with surrounding Iraqi world and existing as an ersatz version of the US. Itself to a greater or lesser extent an ersatz society. Hmm. date=01.09.2004 12:25 ip=81.178.192.205 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I tend to associate Strait Street with the image of a flute in Lao Tzu. It's effectiveness is in the absence. Things move through the story, flicker around its edges, figments moving from nowhere to nowhere. Sometimes I wonder if the long days waiting at the Black Cat White Cat are inversely equivalent to the windy nights at the Bistro Californium. Sometimes I wonder if Strait is a shopping street in Hammersmith or anywhere else.

Think tank warns the proliferation of chain stores is turning the UK into a series of Clone Towns... date=01.09.2004 12:36 ip=158.94.65.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: And there was me thinking you were going to say "think tank warns of twink tanks" ... date=01.09.2004 12:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Clone think tank warns of clone think tank and clone think tank warns of clone think tank and clone think tank warns of clone think tank... date=01.09.2004 12:51 ip=158.94.65.129 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> that's the real reason people hate
> the deliberately artificial
> names--they're the most obvious
> disruptor of suspension of
> disbelief.

In general I personally like deliberately artificial names. They add depth, and make the story's universe seem wider. But I have to wonder if using artificial names makes writing the story a lot harder. date=01.09.2004 13:23 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So we could have Gandalf, Frodo, and their loveable working class gardener, Sam Midweek Lotto-Jackpot?

We might be on to one of the big secrets of Terry Pratchett's career here, I feel. date=01.09.2004 14:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For me they're a way of saying, You don't have to take this too seriously; or, This isn't really happening you know; or, There's a level of parody here if you want to plug into it. Or you might want to cue a level of reference (as in Walter Sinclair-Pater in The Centauri Device: failure to read the many cues in that book, including the bloody green carnation istelf, has left egg on the face of many a reader.) All the traditonal reasons, in fact, you might make up a name like Holly Golightly or Benny Profane or Audsley King; or, for that matter, call a place Raintown. date=01.09.2004 14:34 ip=213.78.80.184 name=HMJ mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, that should be Swinburne Sinclair Pater. I should just have gone whole-hog, subtitled it "An Aesthetic Adventure" and put the quotes from A Rebours, etc, in a different typeface... date=01.09.2004 14:38 ip=213.78.80.184 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>This isn't really happening you know

They make me wonder if there's a level of double-bluff going on. But then again we had a student here who was called Elvis Safari - a fine, fine name. date=01.09.2004 15:02 ip=158.94.65.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Damn fine jacket, too! date=01.09.2004 15:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=JMH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>They make me wonder if there's a level of double-bluff going on.

On the part of reality ? Of course there's that too... date=01.09.2004 15:14 ip=213.78.70.225 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>On the part of reality ?

Hey dude, there's this fucking sci-fi book I read with this guy in it called fucking Zali Krishna and I said to myself, "Hey dude! Who ever heard of a dude called fucking Zali Krishna!" I mean, I just totally couldn't take it seriously after that, dude. date=01.09.2004 15:22 ip=158.94.65.129 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, it was the student called Helena Vankova that made me wonder. Great porn star name. date=01.09.2004 15:24 ip=158.94.65.129 name=JPmPm mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I mean, I just totally couldn't take it seriously after that, dude.

Doesn't surprise me. date=01.09.2004 15:29 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Vankova: that's in Canada, isn't it ..? date=01.09.2004 15:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There's a place called Canada?

Do these unlikely names in fiction might emphasise how meaningless names are in the real world? River View Terrace doesn't necessarily have to have a view of a river, Karen Carpenter couldn't necessarily build you a bookcase.

And why do thriller writers have such boring names? I mean, fucking Paul Carson! I'm sure I wrote a military adventure in junior school with a character called Paul Carson. date=01.09.2004 16:04 ip=158.94.65.129 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Van-so-on: I been there. Bears in the woods. Fish in the sea. Whales on the sound. Wolves in the hills.

Cars on the ground.

Heads in the air. Tails if you choose.

Dishes! Hotels! x files! Indians!

Nearest city we have like it: Makeover. 40 miles south of Richardandjudy. Burgeoning new town. M23. date=01.09.2004 16:10 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Richard and Judy Burgeoning - close friends of Mr. Serotonin, I don't doubt. date=01.09.2004 16:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> And why do thriller writers have such boring names?

What? You mean there exists a form of literature which isn't sci-fi? Wow... ;-)

You're probably right about the meaningless of names.

But deliberately artificial names (but not downright silly names mind)... seems to me that there is a reason behind their use. There could be a hidden meaning or it could mean the story teller is, in fact, winking.

For example, "Seretonin" is both funny (given who he's talking to) and speaks of depression. Whatever the actual reasons turn out to be (even if there are none, or I'm seeing things that are not there) I'm already drawn into the world of the story. date=01.09.2004 16:49 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You know, the people who might deride MJH for, say, Billy Anker, are the same people who talk reverently about Jack Vance's Servants Of The Wankh. Which isn't funny.Oh no. date=01.09.2004 17:31 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Along with "Wankh ... Planet of Adventure" and "Los Wankh," according to Amazon.

Los Wankh was presumably built near Los Angeles, but never became a desirable address. Can't think why. date=01.09.2004 17:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Servants of the Wankh isn't *bad* - it's not his best. I believe it features an adapted race of "Wankhmen". Presumably they resemble ordinary humans but have particularly bad eyesight and hairy palms. date=01.09.2004 17:41 ip=158.94.65.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd guess they were genetically adjusted to have no sense of humour, either.

"Yo, Wankhman!"

"Now look here, sonny -" date=01.09.2004 17:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There are earnest discussions in progress at the Vance Integral Edition (VIE) project over whether the title needs to be changed to "Servants of the Wannek". I feel however that the title should be kept as it is so that future generations of charades players can know the meaning of the word humiliation. date=01.09.2004 17:53 ip=158.94.65.129 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't Vance know what the word meant - or was he writing tongue in cheekh from the start? date=01.09.2004 17:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The French version is Le Wankh. Chic should be told. date=01.09.2004 18:08 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Helena Vankova

Ivana! Ivana Vankova!

I dunno what all the fuss is about. Mr Serotonin's not a silly name. Now, if he was called Mr 5HT I might have my doubts. date=01.09.2004 18:31 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Billy Anker's part of a network of references to the failure to live an authentic life. Light is about people who are afraid of their own affect; or who spend all their time in immersion fantasies; or have chosen to be turned into a rocket ship rather than face growing up, a la Anne McCaffery. The name is a cue to that particular theme, and is also cued by it. If you've missed that theme, you're maybe going to find the name meaningless. Or maybe you get angry when you discover that theme, and you're just not quite sure why, and so you bluster a little...

I agree with Dan & Xaphod on Serotonin. It's not that over the top, and it does lead the way into some of the meanings of the story. I might use it for the finished book or I might not, but I certainly won't regret this outing. It goes real well with Jack, too.

I went to see Tim Etchells at Guy's Hospital this afternoon. Using some glitzy new laser process they've extracted the gungy old wires from his original pacemaker, and they seem to be going to put a new one in tomorrow. He's grateful not to have had the bolt cutters used on his thoracic cavity; and he looks fitter than me at the moment. A wire in the heart, eh ? Nice title. date=01.09.2004 20:17 ip=213.78.173.164 name=Mark C mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH - I, obviously like all on this forum, am a big fan of your work, and have noticed similarities to Katherine Mansfield's 'style' or rather the atmosphere that she creates. I read somewhere that you were also a fan of hers. Being a writer (well trying to be) myself, she has become a ghost in everything I do - is she a similar influence on yourself? Or was she when you first discovered her? date=01.09.2004 20:33 ip=194.217.194.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mark. I love Katherine Mansfield, and I learned a lot from her, not just directly but through the many other short story writers who had also learned from her. She pivots between Chekhov and everything brilliant in British writing of the 20s and 30s. It's the usual boring list I give, I'm afraid. V S Pritchett, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, H E Bates.

I don't think you could have a better ghost in your machine than KM. What's your favourite story of hers ? date=01.09.2004 21:06 ip=213.78.86.229 name=Mark C mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought 'Bliss', the one with the dinner party, an absolute delight - both in terms of the words themselves and the symbolism. Also, a fairly obscure one called 'His sister's keeper'. I love the psychological methods, which were pretty experimental at the time so I believe. But that first paragraph of Bliss is stunning. I'm trying to track a lot of critical works on Mansfield, but alas they all seem out of print. date=01.09.2004 21:20 ip=62.56.16.1 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mark : "Daughters of the Late Colonel" and "A Dill Pickle." All iceberg writing: most of it out of sight, so the characters and objects are anchored without the least bit of fanciness on show. Reading KM's like watching a great conjuror at work - you can guess at the preparation, the skill, the effort, but they never get in the way of the pleasure and the awe you feel that someone can actually *do* this.

Pritchett I started reading because of a Paul Theroux essay in his collection "Sunrise with Seamonsters." Theroux points out the astonishing - and original - metaphors Pritchett used, and I'd still say his essay's a good guide as to which of Pritchett's stories to read first.

MJH: Please give Tim E. our best wishes. A lot of people are thinking about him! date=02.09.2004 10:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mark C, Martin. "At the Bay", "The Garden-Party", "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" for me; but I like anything from Bliss or The Garden Party. I also like most of In A German Pension. Letters & Journals (albeit edited by the egregious Middleton Murry) is vital--I've got it in about four different versions, including one from quite early--1922 ? 3? Almost as interesting as the work is Katherine, and almost as interesting as Katherine is the creepy way MM tried to manage her during her life and rewrite her after her death. Scary stuff if you've ever had a brush with a chronic rewriter yourself. I've got all the biographies up to Clare Tomalin's, but the only critique I seem to have kept is a funny little pamphlet from 1981, Katherine Mansfield by Clare Hanson & Andrew Gurr.

I forgot to add Rosamund Lehmann to that list below. Only one collection of short stories, The Gypsy's Baby, but you miss it at your peril. date=02.09.2004 11:42 ip=213.78.95.49 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Scary stuff if you've ever had a brush with a chronic rewriter yourself.

Maybe there is an interesting story in that. Especially if in a way we are all chronic rewriters. date=02.09.2004 11:57 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Mark C mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And DH Lawrence - had some extremely powerful short story collections, not too unlike KM. Apparently, in one of his stories he represents KM as a character - describing the individual as someone who makes small but perfect sculptures/pieces of art! date=02.09.2004 11:58 ip=194.217.194.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Apparently, in one of his stories he represents KM as a character

In the end there wasn't a lot of love lost between those two. She was constantly trying to get both DHL and MM to deflate their prose and lose their essential sentimentality--without luck. DH, Frieda Lawrence, MM and KM lived together briefly in Zennor in Cornwall, various movies & stories & bios have featured this episode, usually from DH's point of view until the 80s, when, with the rise of feminist criticism, KM eclipsed him as the establishment's darling. I've been down there a lot--climbed at Zennor Head--and the weather's often crap; it must have been grim to be an ego as big as hers, trapped indoors with three other egos equally inflated...

MJP: I think it has made a story or two. We may all be rewriters, but some of us are more major rewriters than others. I can't bear the thought of someone that far into my space, possibly because it's happened to me more than once. As a result, most people do themselves no favours by having an opinion about me at all...

Martin, I forgot to say thanx for your good wishes to Tim. I have to say he looked very cheery (well, maybe that's the wrong word). You could see the Houses of Parliament across the river through the ward window. He had made himself a kind of bolthole in one corner of the ward, using his bed, his table, his iBook and his headphones to shut out everything else. Every so often, he disconnected himself from his various wires and walked round the bed to find a book or a packet of Digestives. "I don't know whether I'm supposed to do this." As I left, I realised that I'd left my mobile phone on for the entire visit. Luckily it didn't seem to spike any of the ward electronics; even luckier, nobody rang me, so I was spared the horror of being told off by a nurse.

A grim-ised version of this will not be appearing in an MJH story soon. Walking off towards Vauxhall, I realised I'd actually felt positive in a hospital for the first time in my life. date=02.09.2004 12:27 ip=213.78.169.56 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Positive in a hospital ...

Difficult. The places are so hot that you can get dehydrated without realising it and start hallucinating. Last time I visited an elderly relative on a ward, he spent twenty minutes describing the antics of a small blue pig he saw rolling between the beds in a barrel. City air never tastes as good as that moment when you walk through the door to the street again. date=02.09.2004 12:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's what drives us to do it isn't it, the need to 'rewrite' our lives. (Trying to do that with someone else's life is a deferred example of that. For much the same reason people read Hello magazine: to relive their lives according to ideals that do justice to their 'true needs'.)

But it is also interesting how the idea of rewriting can be wrong here. Seeing experience, revisiting the wounds, through artistic realisation is not really rewriting.

One could argue that this is why DHL crapped out eventually, at least in his fiction. Writing fiction became an instrument, not an art. Maybe. I hate the later fiction, greatly admire the earlier. date=02.09.2004 12:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hospital hallucinations can have their good points. My grandmother spent her last days being entertained by a dirty-talking sailor who was hiding under her bead.
Short stories: anyone care for Saki? date=02.09.2004 12:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: It's a can of worms. You'll "write" your life whether you mean to or not. Even--perhaps especially--the most extreme fantasy reveals a biographical engagement at some level. Your unconscious speaks whether you want it to or not. But to have a naive perception of either your self (as mediated by your actions), or, more importantly, the excruciatingly complex relationship between life & work, is just not on for a contemporary author. DH was essentially a Victorian by sensibility; KM was a lot further along the road to a contemporary complex rerlationship between author & "biographical" work. There was a huge explosion of awareness of this in the 20s and 30s which led directly to the very sophisticated work/life relationships of postmodernity. I revel in it. But I'm not having some *other* fucker come along and tell me--or anyone else--who I am. Not with impugnity. KM knew it was a war between writers, as to who tells the story. You need to fight your corner, without ending up like poor Beatrice Hastings and running a fanzine whose sole purpose is to defend your own view of yourself in the face of everyone else's. KM lost that war, at the time, to MM, DH and Virginia Woolf; but she started winning it again 50 years later, without having to write another word.

Real rewriters--ones who operate in the world, on a day to day basis, with real-world goals--are amazingly dangerous and draining to be around. Serial fantasy authors are often at the psychotic edge of that. date=02.09.2004 13:13 ip=62.188.138.108 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jean Rhys was a massively better writer than Ford Madox Ford, for instance. But it was Ford who got to write their history of their abusive relationship--again, until the late 70s, early 80s, when people realised that, as ever, they'd mistaken output for quality where those two were concerned. FMF had written--what ?--forty books, one of which was sort of half good; JR had written half a dozen and they were all stone brilliant.

Alex: I haven't read Saki, or any of those Victorian/Edwardian cusp writers, for years. Although I stumbled across what I think is a first edition of Kipling's ghost story "They" at Cath's mum's recently, and spent a whole afternoon captivated by it--the prose as much as anything else. So elegant. date=02.09.2004 13:41 ip=213.78.80.243 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I realised that I'd left my mobile phone on for the entire visit. Luckily it didn't seem to spike any of the ward electronics

I read a newspaper article about this subject recently: apparently all the warnings are a case of severe overcaution. The only way you're likely to do any harm is if you hold your phone up against a pacemaker or suchlike. Which is why you see lots of doctors wandering around hospitals taking calls on their mobiles.

Ditto aeroplanes: in fact, one airline has started installing mobile repeaters inside their planes so that passengers can use their phones on the flight.

>> Last time I visited an elderly relative on a ward, he spent twenty minutes describing the antics of a small blue pig he saw rolling between the beds in a barrel.

I'll never forget my grandma's last days in a hospital, constantly telling that monkey to get off the end of her bed. Of course, perhaps there *was* a monkey on the end of her bed, and I couldn't see it. Knowing my grandma, I wouldn't be at all surprised. date=02.09.2004 13:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, that seems accurate about DHL v KM. I like the essayist in the later Lawrence, though.

He wrote a lot of crap and he didn't care
Because there was lots of good in it - somewhere.

Not being pinned down by others - even when they are 'right' about you - is a pretty useful state to fight for. date=02.09.2004 14:14 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Monkey on the end of the bed ... Let's hope Fay Wray didn't go out in the same fashion.

Saki: That immaculate clubland sopistication, now extinct. You couldn't imitate it, except as pastiche or pretension. I thought this last week, when I read Wilde's remark to a female friend who met him when was released from Reading Gaol: "Only *you* would know exactly the right hat to wear on an occasion such as this." date=02.09.2004 14:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the thing about Saki now - he reads like pastiche. I still think "The Open Window" is a lovely story though. date=02.09.2004 14:52 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/news/0,8363,1295851,00. html

"Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill would allow people to die at the time of their choosing once they have proved that they are in the right state of mind."

I suppose, "I'm fucking fucked mate and I want to die before the pain gets bad," won't do. Presumably you'll have to prove you've *suffered enough*, ie reached some level of sweet forgiveness of life approved by Oprah Winfrey, six qualified therapeutic practitioners, & the vicar--not to say your GP and the good Lord Joffe himself--, before they let you take the Zurich Trip. Otherwise they prosecute the person who loved you enough to go along to hold your hand (or indeed, help you catch the plane). By that time you'll have lost a few limbs & organs, been in nappies for quite a while, addicted to morphine for a couple of months, and twisted up in a shape that means all you can see is the end of your left leg. People--British people particluarly--are traditionally such *utter pompous fuckers* when they get power over the actions of others. Anyone read Thom Disch's 334 ? date=02.09.2004 16:43 ip=213.78.80.96 name=Mark C mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: With respect to DHL and KM - a good friend of mine, who did his PHD on Lawrence, said that DHL sent KM a postcard after hearing of her illness (that was to kill her). It was from Italy, I think, and said simply: 'Memories'. Nice touch. date=02.09.2004 16:59 ip=194.217.194.138 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=334: back there in the '70s, yes. I remember it as the first novel I read where the twenty-first century had more to do with afternoon tv than space flight, and Disch being his usual expert self of letting the characters talk to each other, not the reader, and letting us eavesdrop. Another Sphere p/b with an utterly irrelevant rocky starship on the cover, I think. But I haven't gone back to it in a long time.

Lord Joffe: having witnessed some of the other exit routes, I'll be quite happy with the quick heart attack at 70, thank you: senility or an nurse-assisted ejector seat into the pleroma don't really appeal. More "freedom fries," anyone? date=02.09.2004 17:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mark. I've been reading her journals all day. You're a bad influence.

"True to oneself ? Which self ? Which of my many--well, really, that's what it looks like coming to--hundreds of selves?"

"Yet take this morning, for instance. I don't want to write anything. It's grey; it's heavy and dull. And short stories seem unreal and not worth doing. I don't want to write; I want to *live*."

And the classic, "I simply cannot believe there was a time when I cared about Turgenev."

Hoity toity. date=02.09.2004 17:38 ip=213.78.80.96 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin, what I meant about 334 was how the old dear had to *beg* to die at the end. date=02.09.2004 17:51 ip=213.78.171.27 name=Mark C mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apologies for stirring up KM again for you!

What about: 'To be alive and to be a 'writer' is enough. Sitting at my table just now I saw one person turning to another, smiling, putting out his hand - speaking. And suddenly I clenched my fist and brought it down on the table and called out - There is nothing like it!'

With that kind of thinking, I swear she's been to buddhist retreats!! date=02.09.2004 17:54 ip=194.217.194.138 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> a first edition of Kipling's ghost story "They"

Will go to my grave ranting about Kipling, I think; the extreme compression and acuteness of Plain Tales from the Hills. Utterly unsentimental view of British India / people therein.

Saki saw me through much of my adolescence (Sredni Vashtar!) along with HPL. Work together well... date=02.09.2004 17:59 ip=81.178.192.205 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: >The old dear ...

I'll have to re-read: it's gone. But, oddly, I've just remembered the last words in the book - "Can you do that?"

Other things that stuck, x years on: the child that could be borrowed from another family to justify some sort of space grant in the apartment; the lupus plague; and the mortified woman watching her guests having that second helping of meatballs, depriving her of the next day's food. My ever-hungry adolescence must have marked that detail, and glossed the rest of TMD's hard work. date=02.09.2004 18:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John T. mail=john_20650@msn.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, I think you may have invented a new genre (I use that term loosely) with LIGHT. What I found interesting is how you grounded the tale in the real world before the truly strange things happened. It's a gambit I've only seen used in horror novels before and I was surprised how well it worked with a more science fictional conceit.

The story melds present and future seamlessly. That must have been a daunting task. From a pure technical standpoint, I'm curious if you outlined the story to keep track of it all, or if you worked it out in a more impressionistic way, Anyway, thanks for a memorable experience. date=04.09.2004 12:45 ip=65.148.120.119 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> I think you may have invented a
> new genre

Well, I've been thinking in terms of sub-genre, which I suppose is somewhat similar to your "loose genre". Only I can't decide if LIGHT is a new sub-genre, or if it's a seamless blending of multiple existing sub-genres.

Not that it matters... It's like watching a magician do a trick, half the fun is trying to workout for yourself how it was done. date=04.09.2004 18:08 ip=80.5.160.7 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John T, Xaphod. I was certainly aiming to use any technique, trope or structural device, from anywhere in fiction, to make a book. I think rather than a new method that's quite an old one; that is, it existed prior to the increasingly genericised product we've seen in popular fiction since the 1950s. I can think of books by John Creasey, Dennis Wheatley or Leslie Charteris, written back in the 30s, which couldn't be described as sf or horror or thrillers or romance but only as a lively and entertaining mixture of all four. Not to mention weird fiction like, say, Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". Sci fi or horror ? Who cares ? It gives you the shiver is the main point. For me the main point is that meaning and impact are better served from a portmanteau of techniques than from sticking to some set of "rules". It seems vital to me to ground any narrative in the real world--Kearney's story was an interesting, deliberately risky way of doing that. Despite his deep flaws, Kearney remains visibly human; and even his inhumanities force us to counter them with our own decent human feelings & expectations. That, combined with the fact that his context is recognisable as the "normal" world of London today, acts, by opposition, to frame the clearly trans-human values of 2400AD.

>From a pure technical standpoint, I'm curious if you outlined the story to keep track of it all, or if you worked it out in a more impressionistic way

At one time or another, and at one level or another, I did both. Every individual narrative should have its individual poetic of internal connectivity. That is best left to construct itself (both in the writing and, perhaps even more importantly, in the reading). At the same time you have to keep track of it all somehow!

Thanks for your post, John T--it's always good to hear from new faces on the forum--and I'm glad Light gave you a buzz. Can I ask, Are you a US or a UK reader ? date=05.09.2004 12:15 ip=213.78.94.240 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of portmanteaux, and speaking as we were of Katherine Mansfield, a few months back I picked up an old copy of KM's collected works from the book stall outside the NFT. Since then, I've been dipping into it slowly and appreciatively. I've still only read a small portion, but the story which touched me most so far was Je Ne Parle Pas Francais. This quote resonated:

"I don't believe in the human soul. I never have. I believe that people are like portmanteaux–packed with certain things, started going, thrown about, tossed away, dumped down, lost and found, half emptied suddenly, or squeezed fatter than ever, until finally the Ultimate Porter swings them on to the Ultimate Train and away they rattle."

But a few paragraphs later she criticizes this as a "rather far-fetched and not frightfully original digression".

A later paragraph reminded me, somewhat too literally, of a hat I once lost and mourned for far too long:

"I've no patience with people who can't let go of things, who will follow after and cry out. When a thing's gone, it's gone. It's over and done with. Let it go then! Ignore it, and comfort yourself, if you do want comforting, with the thought that you never do recover the same thing that you lose. It's always a new thing. The moment it leaves you it's changed. Why, that's even true of a hat you chase after; and I don't mean superficially –I mean profoundly speaking . . . I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy, and no one who intends to be a writer can afford to indulge in it. You can't get it into shape; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in. Looking back, of course, is equally fatal to Art. It's keeping yourself poor. Art can't and won't stand poverty."

Genius. date=05.09.2004 15:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John T. mail=john_20650@msn.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks for the insightful reply, Mike. I used to post here a while back, when the discussion forum was in a slightly different form. I am a reader from the US and am glad it's becoming easier to find your work on these shores.

If you don't mind me sharing a few more thoughts, what made LIGHT especially invigorating was the sense that this was as much an adventure for you, the writer, as it was for us ,the readers. The structure of the narrative felt organic, as if the characters, even more than the wild ideas, drove the book. That's something I cherish as a reader and find all too seldom, a sense that the writer is not only providing thrills and chills but using the medium as a means of exploration. date=05.09.2004 19:47 ip=65.148.122.201 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At the risk of becoming verbose, I wanted to add one more thing. I once signed up for a science fiction writing workshop in college taught by a fairly well-known fantasist. She advised us that we should all work the plot out before we started writing. To my young ears, it made writing sound more like an engineering problem. date=05.09.2004 19:59 ip=65.148.122.201 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=Hiya John T.... not being a writer, and never having paid much attention to English when I was in school, I have no clue as to how to write stories. But, being a Unix hacker, I can write code. My language of preferance, Perl, has a saying: TMTOWTDI (sometimes pronounced "tim toady"). Which stands for "There's More Than One Way To Do It".

Working out a plot like it's an engineering problem is one way. But, TMTOWTDI... date=05.09.2004 20:52 ip=80.5.160.7 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Xaphod, good analogy. I mentioned the story because I found the advice discouraging at the time because my mind did not work that way. date=06.09.2004 10:41 ip=65.148.121.47 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John,

That's something which has put me off writing for most of my life - the feeling that I ought to know, to a fair degree of detail, what I'm going to write before I even get started.

I've recently begun to try (though it's still not easy) to ignore those concerns: start writing and see where it takes me. It's been a liberating experience, very rewarding to discover that my mind can be a lot more creative than I usually give it credit for.

(Perhaps it helps that I did some Perl hacking first?) date=06.09.2004 11:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amazing how often people will take their own way of doing things as holy writ. Having said that, I'm a planning person myself; tho' with spontaneity in there. Didn't Raymond Chandler make it up as he went along? I think there was a murder in 'The Long Goodbye' (? I think that one) that even he didn't know whodunnit... date=06.09.2004 11:07 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like using cards; make little notes on each one of anything that could possibly happen to these characters, how they interact, etc, and begin to assemble a story from that. I love the sense of possibility. date=06.09.2004 11:08 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=>> Didn't Raymond Chandler make it up as he went along?

Hmm, that explains a lot. I love Chandler's style, but his plots often leave me still wondering whodunnit, why and how by the time I reach the end of the novel.

>> I like using cards; make little notes on each one...

A friend of mine once mentioned a piece of software she uses, which is designed to help writers organise non-linear ideas. It's called Writer's Blocks: http://www.writersblocks.com/ date=06.09.2004 11:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Working from a rigid synopsis will make the book literal and plodding unless it's founded on some fairly visionary act of imagination, and a real sense of who the characters are. I find that stuff out by writing, so I always start by writing. An outline comes later. Don't forget that a timeline of plot events across an entire book isn't the only kind of outline. You can outline at different levels and for different purposes. All we're talking about here is an act of organisation. Plenty of ways of doing that. A novel is ordered in a lot of different regimes. The main thing is not to fall for the commercial, formalised, literalising, unlayered idea of order.

A story has to be tuned to the human. If you use clunky, literalising models, and if you give any credence to terms like "self consistency" or the idea that a character can be said to have acted "out of character", then you're already on the slippery slope to Cardboardville. (Also, probably, a good living as a 3 decker fantasy writer.) date=06.09.2004 11:26 ip=213.78.91.71 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Please don't buy any software. Your life, your heart, your emotional intelligence, your intuition, your human experience are what you've been given to help you organise blocks of nonlinear ideas... date=06.09.2004 11:35 ip=213.78.91.71 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, think I'll stick with the cards; quite apart from any software, I love the physicality of it; and the cards usually take up a whole table, so difficult to fit that on one screen! And you get a real sense of physical construction with them, which I always find very satisfying.

Having said that, with the novel, I'm (to a large extent) making it up as I'm going along, from a broad, overarching storyline. I think it's easier to do that level of in-depth organisation with short stories, they're much more concentrated. date=06.09.2004 11:40 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Intuition vs. planning: Paul Bowles went to great lengths to write surrealist verse, only to be met with Gertrude Stein's great comment - "The only trouble with this is, it's not poetry." He made a name for himself as an author once he stopped thinking about "art" and simply started to write, letting his unconscious throw up character, place, and event, until a story developed. As with KM, you can mull over the terrifying result for hours, and still not see how it works. date=06.09.2004 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I love Chandler's style, but his plots often leave me still wondering whodunnit

Oh, I never care whodunnit. It's the process of hunches, divine inspiration and pure two fisted physicality... erm, okay, I'll have a lie down.

>>The main thing is not to fall for the commercial, formalised, literalising, unlayered idea of order.

I am tempted to try to write something using rigid commercial formulae just to see how far they can be pushed before they fall over. The literary equivalent of pumping a Mills & Boon novel through six echo boxes, a Moogerfooger and a Marshall stack. It would fail, of course. But it'd be interesting to see what sort of failure it was. date=06.09.2004 11:57 ip=158.94.134.198 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Please don't buy any software.

I'm not planning on buying it, but all the same that statement strikes me as being almost on a par with "don't buy a word processor, writers have always made do with typewriters". The software is nothing more than a tool, an aide-memoire helping you make the most of your life, your heart, your emotional intelligence, your intuition, your human experience... isn't it?

Or should we be following Katherine Mansfield's dictum, letting go of anything that we're not clearly conscious of at the time of putting pen to... err, finger to keyboard. date=06.09.2004 12:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Please don't buy any software.

A colleague bought some writing software, can't remember what package, but when I asked him if he'd actually written anything yet he said, "No, I'm waiting until I've become fully familiar with the software." Which is a mistake that I see people making in all spheres of creativity. I had this girlfriend who didn't paint anything for a year because she couldn't get the right sort of board, the right type of paints, didn't have enough space in the flat, &c, &c. It's very easy to make these excuses about what you *don't* have. If you're really driven you'll get on and do it in spite of the media available - you can always remake it when you have better paints, chisels, video editing software, amplifiers, &c. Although you might find that the version you did with shit equipment actually turns out better. date=06.09.2004 12:15 ip=158.94.134.198 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Isn't the trouble with writing that it takes so bloody long? Painting: you can splash paint about every day, without worrying about what you're doing, and you'll always end up with somehting that looks like a painting. The more you do it, the closer you get to something that *is* a painting. Then, one day, you've created a painting and you're enlightened. You might not be any clearer about how you've done it, but you know you've done it. If you're trying to write a novel, it can take months, years of hard work before you know whether you've got something or not. That's why it can seem important to have a sturcture, a story, to work to before you start: blank pages are scary. If you've got what you think is a strong story it makes the long process of writing more purposeful. And more boring, in my experience. In fact, I've never written further than the first few chapters of many great novels. date=06.09.2004 12:17 ip=217.155.134.6 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> Please don't buy any software.

Sage advice.

I make it a rule NEVER to buy software unless I really, really, can't help it. date=06.09.2004 12:21 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "No, I'm waiting until I've become fully familiar with the software."

I've got a friend a bit like that; she keeps on doing creative writing courses (she's done an MA, a screenwriting course, is now off doing something else) and keeps on putting off writing the novel until she's done another course and learnt more. Aaaargh!!!

I think this links in with your point, Alex; novels are scary because, yup, you don't know what you're going to get for your years plus effort. I think she's trying to get over this fear by guaranteeing technical skills before she starts; but she'll never start, and (personally) I think you learn the skills you need for a particular book by writing it.

Re software; hmm. Software as tool, good, software as thought organising thing (there are bits of software that push you into classical 3 act structure, tell you when plot points should happen, etc) problemmatic... date=06.09.2004 12:22 ip=81.178.214.11 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>That's why it can seem important to have a sturcture, a story, to work to before you start: blank pages are scary.

Structure can always be imposed in the editing process. That's one of those lovely things about words is that they are so very editable. Not so easy with sculpture - you can't take back those bad moves with the chisel. You just need a fund of material - it doesn't necessarily have to be material that was originally intended for the piece you are writing. A story will start to emerge as a process of connections and disjunctions.

Having said that: I've barely written 5000 words this year. date=06.09.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.134.198 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> I think you learn the skills you need for a particular book by writing it.

You're not wrong.

The engineering lifecycle - for really BIG things like chemical factories - always includes a test facility where the labwork is scaled-up and and the lessons needed to go full scale are learnt.

It's the same writing software for me. I'll know how to do it once I've written the first version.

So I don't see why the principal should be any different for other forms of creative endeavour.

There is a rather strange site I've been known to lurk on: http://vagueware.com/, which is based around the idea that ideas are ideas, that tools which help in one circumstance can be extended to help in any creative endeavour. It's difficult to explain, but it's worth a look when you have some free time. date=06.09.2004 12:43 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm firmly with Martin--

>>[Bowles] made a name for himself as an author once he stopped thinking about "art" and simply started to write, letting his unconscious throw up character, place, and event, until a story developed. As with KM, you can mull over the terrifying result for hours, and still not see how it works.

And io--

>>If you're really driven you'll get on and do it in spite of the media available - you can always remake it when you have better paints, chisels, video editing software, amplifiers, &c. Although you might find that the version you did with shit equipment actually turns out better.

Processing is great. I wouldn't be without it... except that I would. If I had to go back to longhand I would. The truth that processing is just a tool cuts both ways. If it's just a tool, then the real work goes on elsewhere. I'm not even all that sure about Al's cards. I'm in favour of leaving it in your head until it's done. If it won't come out, it isn't cooked. When it's cooked you can't stop it coming out, and self-organising on the way. Intuition--as in Martin's example--is the human method of linking and organising ideas, especially about human beings. Books are written by, for and about human beings. Shuffling ideas or blocks of material will bring up connections, but they won't be as saturated with your humanity as they would if you'd left them to connect themselves, aided perhaps by sudden changes of emotional charge in your life. That may take years; then writing the result might take some more years. Is that so bad ?

Is this being any use to you, John T ? date=06.09.2004 13:02 ip=213.78.94.236 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm envious of people who are driven. I'm not (although I consider myself a creative person), and therefore I'm a terrible dilettante who has dabbled for years in music, art and writing and not produced anything of note. Well, I say it's not noteworthy: others disagree. But I think my lack of conviction makes me a charlatan. Or am I wrong? Is total creative drive and conviction a myth? date=06.09.2004 13:28 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I'm in favour of leaving it in your head until it's done. If it won't come out, it isn't cooked.

I would suspect also that you've internalised an awful lot more than I have, having been writing for - what - forty odd years? (longer than I've been around!). I wonder to what extent I'm doing consciously and externally what you do sub-consciously and internally? And I wonder to what extent usefulness of advice on writing technique alters with experience of writing? date=06.09.2004 13:30 ip=81.178.214.11 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But I think my lack of conviction makes me a charlatan.

Oh, I always feel like a charlatan. Especially when I start mouthing off about art. I've no idea whether conviction is a myth - I've never been convicted. But I have been known to vanish into my studio for days on end, surrounded by wires and little boxes, forgetting to eat or drink, phoning into work with a sickie because there's a new musical direction to pursue. In some ways it feels less like creative drive and more like fear. date=06.09.2004 13:41 ip=158.94.134.198 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I usually find that, just as I'm feeling charlatanesque guilt that I'll never do anything with conviction, I stumble upon a new cause that has me up all night obsessing frantically. My last bout was seven or eight years ago, when I started my present career and found to my great surprise that I could have fun and earn money at the same time. That thrill has long since worn off, it's definitely time for a new conviction (writing?), but kids & commitments make it a lot harder for me to throw myself into things quite so wholeheartedly this time around.

Plus of course there's always a niggling feeling of charlatanism for not having any *life-long* convictions. date=06.09.2004 13:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=All the talk of Katherine Mansfield finally prompted me to do some searching: The result:

http://www.gutenberg.net/catalog/world/authrec?fk _authors=631 date=06.09.2004 14:04 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Most genuinely life-long convictions belong to the closed parts of personality. Change (realising that idea, that relationship, or that haircut, was absolute crap) is one of the major signs we're still alive.

As for charlatanism - it's the old definition: "success" simply means, no one's found you out yet. date=06.09.2004 14:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I did a psychology-in-work course once; one of the two things I remember from it is the fact that most high-achievers feel like charlatans who are only waiting to be found out... Also, the person doing it regarded wanting to be CEO of a major company as a near-psychotic state, given what you have to give up to do it. date=06.09.2004 14:37 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's good that I'm not the only conviction-light charlatan around then. Sometimes it grieves me, Dan, that the only thing I'm demonstrably good at is what I get paid for, and I don't want to *do* that! Bit ungrateful of me to whinge, I suppose. date=06.09.2004 14:38 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, life-long fanatics and CEOs are, by their very nature, psychotic, I'm well aware of this. But it doesn't stop the experience-seeking centre of my brain from occasionaly wanting a taste of those particular experiences, however psychotic.

I must be mad or something.

(But then, we all are, right?)

Alternatively, I could (and often do) read a book by one of those psychotics and experience the thrill vicariously. date=06.09.2004 15:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Is this being any use to you, John T ?

Very much so. I blame my anxieties back then on a desire for results. I didn't feel like my writing had any value unless it was published. That changed when I started publishing some journalism and discovered that being paid for my work didn't do much to change my inner landscape.

I'm reminded, for some strange reason, of the typical Hollywood movie, where things are all surface and we're offered nothing human, just cunning twists on a familiar plot, something we've been conditioned to see as entertainment. I think a lot of aspiring writers, especially in the field of genre, will bind themselves to rigid outlines and software programs to ensure outward success, instead of digging deeper and questioning their motives for writing in the first place. date=06.09.2004 16:08 ip=65.148.123.73 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>life-long convictions

What is a life long conviction? I would imagine this to be more to do with trauma. Thom Gunn for example: his mother committed suicide after the father left the family; gassing herself; barricading herself in using a wardrobe; so the children discovered her (Gunn about 7) ... His entire output is dominated by it, rarely directly. But, indirectly, all the time. date=06.09.2004 16:20 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> bind themselves to rigid outlines and software programs

Not sure if this was a reference to the Writer's Blocks software that I mentioned, but I get the impression people misunderstand what the software does. It's basically a word processor, but one that lets you work with blocks of text rather than one long stream. The idea behind this is that you can write things as small chunks, as and when they impose themselves on your consciousness. You can then, as Io said, leave it until the editing process before you impose a structure on your work.

I believe it has a few other functions tailored to the way writers use word processors, but essentially that's it, putting text into blocks and then re-arranging them. It doesn't write stories for you, or lecture you on how you *ought* to be structuring your story.

Like I said, I have no plans to buy it (and being paid by the software company's PR) but I find it strange that something so innocuous as a word processor seems to have acquired a taint of evil (I'm exaggerating, of course. But for good effect).

Anyway, if Wes Craven uses it, it's gotta be worth a try. Right? date=06.09.2004 16:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> What is a life long conviction?

I guess "obsession" would be a better word for what I meant. I've always fancied a decent obsession or two of my own, but like Alex I just can't get worked up enough about... well, anything much really. date=06.09.2004 16:35 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> (and being paid by the software company's PR)

and AM NOT being paid by the software company's PR.

Oops. date=06.09.2004 16:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A bit risky to describe conviction as trauma, MJP. Could lead to the therapeutic view, which seems to be that human beings can be cured of having character; or cured into having the right character. Make them nicer to be with, for the rest of us. I still agree with io, if you're driven you'll get hold of the medium any way you can, and start speaking there and then. It doesn't even matter if it's toss to begin with--if you're driven & in a rage to say something you'll just power along, learning by experience as you go. I like the sound of a word processor for big chunks, Dan, and I might well give that stuff a go; but everybody whose work I love did without. Most of them didn't even have a card index, they kept it inside their heads where it was subject to the internal weather (where, you could argue, it wasn't even actually there, ie it wasn't hard data to be retrieved but a much vaguer something that had to be regenerated each time you decided to combine it with something else). This makes for a softer, more human process.

I think John T's right to link this with Hollywood formalism; it isn't the same, as Dan points out: but it comes from the same urge if you're not careful, to streamline the process. Generally I'd rather have the product of driven mad people with poor memories and no formal training, whether they use quill pens or processors or stoppeth one in three at the entrance to Tottenham Court tube station in the rain, three o' clock on a Saturday afternoon, however inconvenient that is for us untraumatised folk. (And I don't think that scenario prevents you from being highly technical, either, so there.)

I'm glad we're working for you, John T. If there's anyone else out there with ideas, do please come forward and join in. Don't be discouraged by the resident pitbulls, visionaries & mad people. date=06.09.2004 17:13 ip=213.78.90.102 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> it wasn't hard data to be retrieved but a much vaguer something that had to be regenerated each time you decided to combine it with something else

You're right, of course. It seems to be often the case that the cruder the tools, the more satisfying the end result. A sculpture produced with a penknife is more intimate, more directly representative of the sculptor, than one produced with a vacuum-forming machine. Five seconds of the White Stripes is worth more than a lifetime of... erm, insert the name of any one of a million technology-driven bands here.

Perhaps this is because cruder tools require more intense focus on what's being produced, and that more direct connection with the workface means that you're learning more about the end result, rather than just learning about the tools. Perhaps it's just because there's less to muddle the equation.

Despite all that, I'm still a lazy technojunkie and will accrue tools until my dying day. date=06.09.2004 17:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John T. mail=john_20650@msn.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, I think I was referring more to scriptwriting software. What you've mentioned sounds more useful and interesting.

By the way, I am greatly enjoying this discussion. Thanks for making a relative newcomer feel welcome. date=06.09.2004 17:40 ip=65.148.125.70 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I still agree with io, if you're driven you'll get hold of the medium any way you can, and start speaking there and then.

Sometimes you gotta be like Ed, and get down with yr head in a fishtank of prophylactic jelly, and prophesy!

(Most of the time I'm a fairly straightforward, mild mannered psychotic. Just ask Bridget... actually now that I think about it: don't!) date=06.09.2004 17:40 ip=158.94.134.198 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John T: You're more than welcome!

Another tried and tested way of getting around the dreaded blank page at 9.00am is the technique a lot of creative courses advise: the same time each day, without fail, write 3 notebook pages. They don't have to make any sense, "be good," or be shown to anyone else: just write 3 pages of something. It clears brain static and hesitation, and you start to trust your spontaneity. I came up with a lot of back-brain phrases as a result, and I'm still wondering how to use some of them. "You even get some headlights on a hearse " was my favourite, but there were others. date=06.09.2004 17:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, yes I am being simplistic. (Therapy!) But I think there is something to this trauma idea. There are a lot of examples. Experiences of almost dying, Joe Simpson; Hemingway ... Emotional trauma. (Gunn, again.) But I wouldn't put it forward as a thesis. E.g. I think persistence and training can achieve the same results. But what stays with you life long counts: childhood; sexual passion. So I would say this, that if you have had a deep trauma, then it is likely that the fire is lit. (The problem is its transference into words, pictures.) But if you haven't then this is the first issue: how to light the fire. date=06.09.2004 18:44 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John T. - seconded!

*buys virtual round etc*

I'm a bit of an insomniac, and find sleeplessness a good spur to writing; getting stuff down until I'm ready to drop off, and then - er - dropping off. Someone once told me that your brain's actually functioning in a different way early in the morning; it goes into a psychotic state. Once I've done my bit of text, I in fact often find myself applying for CEO jobs. I have an outstanding application at BAE Systems at the mo, so will hopefully be able to sort out everyone with world class military hardware, WMD, etc. So if you spot a Harrier jump jet hovering over Barnes, or a large battleship parked in a backstreet in Clapham, or indeed North London Dronerockers turning up for a gig in Challenger tanks with side mounted ten foot high speaker stacks, you will know that I have been successful. date=06.09.2004 18:47 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - MJP - Dickens and the blacking factory... date=06.09.2004 18:48 ip=81.178.214.11 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=I seem to remember some author on Radio4's Open Book claim that the best frame of mind in which to write was "a kind of low level depression".

I wonder if anyone else has found this has an element of truth to it? date=06.09.2004 19:14 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I had a very depressed July / August and did about 30,000 words of the book pretty effortlessly; the best poem I ever wrote popped into my head (walking between Clapham Junction and my flat, ie about ten minutes) when I was in a very bleak state. Tho' I'm not sure if it's the depression itself that's helpful - perhaps it's so overwhelming that it distracts you from yourself, and lets deeper shit come out? date=06.09.2004 20:08 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've found depression very productive, but then I've found mania equally so. It's the bits in between that really drag out. date=06.09.2004 22:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the resident pitbulls, visionaries & mad people.

And they would be...?

I think I probably work best in a manic state (although my manic states are not particularly manic). I paint best if I'm not thinking about it, throwing paint around and digging into the canvas, sometimes wrestling the thing to the ground and trying to gouge its eyes out. Can't seem to get that way with writing, though: stream of consciousness writing just looks like crap to me, although I appreciate the use of crap as fertiliser. date=07.09.2004 09:54 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Artist in action:

I've just read an essay by PN Furbank on Angus Wilson, from 2002. Furbank lived in the same flats with him and his partner, Tony Garrett, in the 1970s, and notes Wilson's behaviour. It sounds uncannily familiar:

"He liked to sing on the stairs in a loud cracked voice ... I heard him exclaim, to nobody in particular, 'The whole civilization is retreating, so far as I can see.' I lent him some cufflinks, when he was going to ... meet the Queen Mother, and he reported later that the Queen Mother had said, for some reason in pidgin-English: 'Writer Man, he have licey links.' Meeting me in the British Museum with Tony, he said severely: 'You shouldn't be here. This is a place for old *fogeys.* Anyway, I can tell you that a lot of the books are fakes. I have consulted the same books in libraries at Oxford and Cambridge: completely different texts."

Astonishingly Sprake-like behaviour - except we haven't heard about Sprake meeting the Queen Mum. Yet. date=07.09.2004 11:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the best frame of mind in which to write was "a kind of low level depression".

I'm reminded of the "unfair restriction" that the poet subjects himself to in "The Luck in the Head". I believe it involved confining himself to his bed with stout leather straps. But then again, he's a bit fucked up. date=07.09.2004 11:05 ip=158.94.138.115 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>we haven't heard about Sprake meeting the Queen Mum

It'll feature in the last episode of the Sprake & Yaxley mini-series. The Queen Mum turns out to be Number One - there's a chorus of "Dem bones" and then she forgives her subjects, "except for this one." date=07.09.2004 11:08 ip=158.94.138.115 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> digging into the canvas

Hmm, quite apart from anything else would screw up the laptop something rotten if doing that while writing. date=07.09.2004 11:22 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>there's a chorus of "Dem bones" and then she forgives her subjects, "except for this one."

But your majesty, I am number one! I am a free man!

Soot, wood-bees and pyromania. date=07.09.2004 11:29 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I am number one!

Claiming precedence over royalty? Off with his head! date=07.09.2004 11:40 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, btb, talking depression I've just been reading 'The City of Dreadful Night' by James Thomson, which is one of the best descriptions / evocations of depression I've ever read:

http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext98/ctdnt10.txt

I have seen phantoms there that were as men
And men that were as phantoms flit and roam;
Marked shapes that were not living to my ken,
Caught breathings acrid as with Dead Sea foam:
The City rests for man so weird and awful,
That his intrusion there might seem unlawful,
And phantoms there may have their proper home. date=07.09.2004 12:17 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> ...best descriptions ...

John Berryman's "He Resigns" :

Age, and the deaths, and the ghosts.
Her having gone away
in spirit from me. Hosts
of regrets come & find me empty.

I don't feel this will change.
I don't want any thing
or person, familiar or strange.
I don't think I will sing

any more just now,
or ever. I must start
to sit with a blind brow
above an empty heart. date=07.09.2004 16:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very bleak... date=07.09.2004 18:04 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Poor Berryman. Great last lines. date=07.09.2004 18:07 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Down to the bone.

I try to imagine Berryman reading this in today's "Poetry Slam" culture, and I don't succeed. What would happen when he finished? Would we applaud? Or would he forestall that - "OK folks, here's something I wrote that's a bit lighter - matter of fact, Hallmark used this on a coupla things you mighta seen -" date=07.09.2004 18:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's not John Berryman from "The Hills Have Eyes" is it? I don't know him, but I liked that poem.
Now then, I want a new poet to read this autumn. Someone a bit rural, if you can thinik of anyone. date=07.09.2004 18:22 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the other hand the Berryman poem is dangerously close to being reductive, ie just about self-pity. Maybe, anyway.

I basically agree with MJH that writing should humanise our lives (?): so that - to take the example of an emotional trauma - it is about rediscovering a humanity within that trauma, or with some sense of balance. Which Berryman's piece, almost, doesn't do. Isn't he being sentimental about himself? (I wouldn't like to say; I am just asking the question. E.g. Pavese wrote a suicide poem ("Twas only a flirt .." [don't have the text on me]) addressed to a Hollywood actress, that really expresses just a broken, hopeless voice. Can't really be called self-pity.) date=07.09.2004 18:28 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex - how about RF Langley? Beautiful, lyrical, Prynne influenced stuff -

http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/text/texeng.cgi?file= /free/pnr135/reviews/135rv07.txt date=07.09.2004 18:47 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Prynne influenced stuff

Isn't that something of a problem? ;O0

Not to my taste. Better would be say Edward Thomas, or maybe Ted Hughes' Moortown. date=08.09.2004 10:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Al, I'll investigate.
MJP - I think I've probably read all the Ted Hughes I need to read. He's great, obviously. date=08.09.2004 10:47 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Prynne:

Such shading
of the rose to its stock tips the bolt
from the sky, rising in its effect of what
motto we call peace talks.

... Is that just mawkish, self-conscious drivel? Or Osip Mendalstam for the English? The first, I think.

John Ashbury perhaps, but not Prynne. date=08.09.2004 11:02 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It makes my jaw ache to read it. date=08.09.2004 11:41 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I've got lots of work to do this morning, so can't launch into too big a pro-Prynne rant, but...

Would certainly agree with you that the later stuff is pretty impenetrable; the earlier stuff I find very intriguing, balanced as it is between meaning, evocation and impenetrability (or incomprehensibility! Take your pick). What I like about this is the way that meaning shimmers somewhere between the reader and the poem; you have to (to a greater or lesser extent) collaborate with the poem to get something out of it.

More generally, Prynne's concerned with register of language; so, at times, what's important is not neccesarily what he's saying but rather how he's saying it - the closest I've seen poetry come to abstract art, and again very interesting to me.

And I think he strikes an interesting balance between being lyrical and questioning lyricism; rather than creating a flower bed in the scrapheap, and ignoring the scrapheap (ie the linguistic / cultural / general detritus) of modern day language, he pulls that into the poetry - hence perhaps your mawkishness.

Also a problem with quoting individual chunks of his poems; they tend to be built to work as a whole, and individual parts can lose their force or sense when quoted out of context. Do you have the whole poem there?

Anyway, now I must earn a crust! date=08.09.2004 12:06 ip=81.178.214.11 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and - aurally, I think the piece you've quoted below is fantastic! date=08.09.2004 12:07 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good defence Al. But taking a few lines out of context can be useful way of looking more closely at the poet, writer. I do that sometimes with sf books. Recently I did this with a Tad Williams novel (drivel); and MJHs Light (not drivel, but honed and precise).

I have learned to do the same with my own writing. It turns up a lot of drivel.

Don’t you think that Ashbery is better? Try the same test. He reminds me of a kind of crash-geared Auden with Walt Disney electronics. date=08.09.2004 12:45 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, this is certainly true - but you've got to be careful with the context; 'to a summers day you are' is less impressive than 'Shall I compare thee to a summers day', for example!

Hmm, don't know Ashbery too well, will have to check him out... date=08.09.2004 13:14 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Prynne quotation is from

http://jacketmagazine.com/06/pryn-kins.html

Maybe I am wrong. But why is he liked and not someone who can write clearly, like Gunn?

This is from a poem Gunn never published except in an obscure journal.

He locates himself
at the centre
of a sort of Etoile

a sort of wheel
from which radiate
the spoke-like avenues

A cold seething of lamps

Each from its iron shrub

high as a gallows
faces a mirror lamp
across the avenue
and so deployed
in ranks

(...) [from: 3 AM]

I like the way he fuses the abstract and the real. Maybe the early Prynne poems show what you say about him better. date=08.09.2004 14:11 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: A rural poet (and more) you might like is the Scottish writer Kenneth Steven.

I should declare an interest - he's a friend - but I get absorbed and bowled over by his work. Try his collection "Wild Horses."

"The Scotsman" and the Poetry Society also think he's pretty fine (google his name and you'll see ) - another instance of a sharp mind and a fine pen that deserves a huge audience. date=08.09.2004 14:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am going to shut up; but first a word about Martin's Kenneth chappie: the poetry looks better than the prose. How about this for the prose (taken from his website):

"He opened the door and went out. He dug his hands into his jacket pockets and stopped in his tracks, looking out to the west at the whole world, the breath suddenly knocked right out of him."

That’s way too many “outs”. The same word is repeated but in its different senses, obstructing rather than adding to the force of the description.

Ok I will shut up, promise. date=08.09.2004 14:50 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was wondering who the pitbulls were.

MJH: I finally read Tourism (coincidentally while listening to Goran Bregovic's wicked soundtrack to Black Cat White Cat - which bicoincidentally includes a track called Pitbull [sings: "*Yassa mama Pitbull*... terreeyay"]). Great stuff. Like "Cheers" for the 24th century. Ahem.

Anyway, is this a taster for the next book? Or jetsam from the last? date=08.09.2004 15:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJPitbull - I like the new image! I kind of like those different outs with different meanings; like playing the same note in different keys. Hmm, our brains seem to be working at cross purposes today...

Martin - looks intriguing, will check him out.

Rushing around today, telegraph posts... Further Prynne ranting later, probably... date=08.09.2004 15:21 ip=81.178.214.11 name=MJPitbull mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speak the teeth! Grrrh.... date=08.09.2004 15:53 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So what's the split of the local demographic? 33% Pitbulls, 33% Visionaries, 33% Mad People?

I don't have the teeth to be a Pitbull, or the eyesight to be a Visionary. So I'll have to settle for being a mad myopic with botched dentures. date=08.09.2004 17:14 ip=158.94.142.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP - Too many "outs" - :) Could be; but then, once you try to write without hesitation/deviation/repetition, it all gets a bit anal.
Anyway: try some of his poems and see what you think.

I've also been reading Rosemary Tonks, whom Prynne must surely have studied. I prefer her work - but apparently she was "born again" in the '70s and abandoned poetry. She said she focussed on the city life of "sofas, hotel corridors, cinemas, underworlds, cardboard suitcases, self-willed buses, banknotes, soapy bathrooms, newspaper-filled parks." That'll do me. date=08.09.2004 17:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>what's the split of the local demographic?

No one mentioned gits. I'm a git. date=08.09.2004 17:32 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>is this a taster for the next book? Or jetsam from the last?

Absolutely both, Dan. Don't you know I only ever work with flotsam & jetsam & maybe the oily violet light on the tidewater mud etc etc ? date=08.09.2004 17:56 ip=213.78.94.21 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJH - just started re-reading 'Signs of Life', v. intrigued by a couple of things -

1) China as unreliable; little hints right at the start ('I bought the Express.... I never buy the Express' / lies about having shop set back from the beach to another character at wedding reception / he sees the fox out of the window, Choe doesn't / even dual pronunciations of Choe's name (Chloe / Joey) - seem all to be efforts to destabilise the text, to make you think - 'he's not telling me this because it's real, but only for effect - what effect is he trying to achieve? And in fact, he's not even real, M John H is behind all this only telling me things for effect, what's he trying to put over on me?' - so a kind of constant distancing from the text, so you're forced to engage with it not as something *real* (which it patently isn't; it's realness is print on paper, not real people you're spectating) but as a genuine fiction - seems to me core to the book.

2) China's interrogation of Isobel - tell me one more thing; I wondered if this was also your interrogation of her as a writer? So you're not pre-planning characters (ie writing biogs for them etc etc) but letting that kind of detail be created and emerge as a natural function of the narrative unwinding, their relationship developing - is that the case? So your getting to know Isobel mimics China's getting to know Isobel, mimics our getting to know Isobel? She emerges directly through the novel rather than as something separate then placed in it?

Oh, and, how about an Empty Space book club type thing (ie we all sit down, get stuck into a book, and then rant about it on here - interesting to see what we come up with if (for once) we all read the same thing! Would love to get stuck into a Charles Williams book or similar, see what comes of it... date=09.09.2004 11:40 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: book club quite a good idea. As long as it's not 'Holes' (which they are trying to get everyone in Liverpool to read - anticipate stepped-up security at Liverpool bookshops). date=09.09.2004 11:54 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Holes? The thing they based the film on? Hmm. OK, any suggestions? I vote for something by Charles Williams. date=09.09.2004 12:00 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Williams: Amazon carry new reprints of "Place of the Lion" and "All Hallows." The others seem out of print or tricky to find. "Lion" mixes '30s realism with Platonic philosophy; "Hallows" is his masterpiece, I think, set half in this world and half in Purgatory, with attempts from both of them to defeat a Crowley-esque magician. So: take your pick. date=09.09.2004 12:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - well, 'All Hallows' certainly looks interesting. Alternatively, I could nip along to the Rudolf Steiner bookshop ('Beekeeping! He even mastered Beekeeping!' and see what they can order - they're in direct contact with the CW Society, apparently). date=09.09.2004 12:28 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or try your friendly local library, for example http://tinyurl.com/4mlzj date=09.09.2004 12:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> Oh, and, how about an Empty Space book club type thing

Damn fine idea.

> 'All Hallows' certainly looks interesting

Well just reading the Amazon blurb has put it on my "must read" list.... date=09.09.2004 12:47 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Empty Space Book Club. A novel might take too long to do. I am always pushed for time. However a poem - that would be easy. Or a short story. We could start with one connected with MJHs interests. KM; or Turgenev? Or if that is too involved, or personal, something new, neutral in those terms.

I am afraid I would not thinking of giving up on my pitbull habits, in those terms however, because if I did I wouldn't learn anything. I like 'em! date=09.09.2004 13:05 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What sort of timescale are we thinking about? We need to allow time to acquire texts, read and digest. Perhaps if we stuck to stuff on the Gutenberg project or other online sources?

Anyway, I'm off on hols next week. date=09.09.2004 13:17 ip=158.94.145.142 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> Empty Space Book Club. A novel might take too long to do.

Well I could find the time... probably. I have the nasty habit of reading many books at once (reading 5 novels atm) so I can probably put stuff on hold. But could I find the inclination: that's the question.

> We could start with one connected with MJHs interests.

Well Katherine Mansfield is available on Project Gutenberg. And I have runout of beer tokens. ;-) date=09.09.2004 13:22 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, we could start with KM on Gutenberg; free, easily available, and easily digestible... date=09.09.2004 13:24 ip=81.178.210.241 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Only other problem I can think of: having a bookclub running on here might make the forum *even less* accessible to newcomers. However, I can offer alternative accomodation at another online venue. date=09.09.2004 13:36 ip=158.94.145.142 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, that's a good idea... Empty Page? date=09.09.2004 13:46 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Jack Serotonin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al. That's a reading of some interest.

(1) Most of my narrators destabilise themselves in that way. Like Choe, who points it out on a couple of occasions, I see China as more self-deceiving than deliberately deceiving of others. His "joke" about his profession is certainly odd--but it resonates nicely in the context of his contempt for Isobel's friends. The difference between China and Choe is often that Choe is aware of his own arrogance. But people are complex; the real-life attempt to understand them is essentially frame-dependent, agenda-driven, contingent, situational. As far as I'm concerned you go wrong the moment you attribute a fixed "character" to anyone, in fiction or out of it.

(2) China's interrogation of Isobel is--obvuiously--something lovers do; in his case it performs a further self-undermining which demonstrates his neediness. I'm not sure it's an authorial interrogation too. I'm careful to listen to the book: but most of the core incidents which define Isobel, China, Choe & Christiana were written as notebook entries up to ten years before the novel itself; so if I was asking a question of Isobel it was, What's the best order I can get you down in ? What order will make you, and at the same time show that China is making you, so we can't rely on what we "see" ?

Generally, though, I'd agree: like much of my stuff, SoL double-binds its readers, pulling them into the narrative at the same time as it undermines suspension of disbelief by insisting on its own textuality. It also undermines frame-dependency, and the mechanical ease with which "character" is coded into classical narrative. Even the most intelligent f&sf readers and reviewers have good breast/bad breast issues with this. They don't like to suffer real-life anxieties in real life, let alone in the nice safe confines of a book. They're happier with something like "Seven Guesses of the Heart", which shows them exactly where to place their sympathies and offers clear emotional guidance; happier too with its author, their reliable travel guide. You can really believe in fairies after taking a tour like that. date=09.09.2004 13:47 ip=213.78.74.235 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> Empty Page ..?

Blank Page? New Blank Page? - :)) Whatever.

KM online would be neat, I think: we could all access a text and have time to read it. date=09.09.2004 14:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay, in case you start without me while I'm away, I've set up a forum for the reading group here:
http://tinyurl.com/3sl4s

We can change titles and anything else if necessary. date=09.09.2004 14:31 ip=158.94.145.142 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Many thanks - as usual.

What does anyone want to read? date=09.09.2004 14:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=KM seems to be a good choice, the two books The Garden Party & In A German Pension are online, so I guess we pick a story from one of those two. MJH mentioned The Garden Party (the story) and The Daughters of the Colonel - perhaps we should give the former a try, it being the title tale & that? date=09.09.2004 14:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(which, in plain text form, is at http://tinyurl.com/5not3 - or you can get a zipped file from http://www.gutenberg.net/etext/1429 - or if you're lucky the bloke underneath Waterloo bridge might have a nicely bound version waiting especially for you) date=09.09.2004 14:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>As far as I'm concerned you go wrong the moment you attribute a fixed "character" to anyone, in fiction or out of it.

Reminds me of something Krishnamurti once said, that the "me" inside the head is a collection of memories and constantly in flux. If you say you know yourself or anyone else, you refer to the past, not the living present. date=09.09.2004 15:49 ip=65.146.241.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*wanders in*
Pictures from Gijon
http://www.drimar.com/asturcon/fotos.html
( Some Mike sigthings at the botton of the page)
(Muy malas fotos, amigos/ very bad pictures. mates)
*wanders out* date=09.09.2004 15:59 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very, very bad pictures, hombre, it's true. But I've got a great one somewhere I took of Luis, Paco and Elia. They had only been in Gijon a couple of hours, but you could tell they were having a party. date=09.09.2004 16:42 ip=213.78.75.100 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=...But who was that in the red hood? date=09.09.2004 16:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John T

>the "me" inside the head is a collection of memories and constantly in flux. If you say you know yourself or anyone else, you refer to the past, not the living present.

Since you can't retrieve the data that comprise it, the past becomes an artefact, and--because a different "you" is trying to retrieve it--a different artefact each time you make the attempt. It's a rolling fiction. Rolling feedback loops control your relationship to everything you've ever seen, heard, done, or read. At the same time, fixed or not, retrievable or not, you're *made* of all that. It's all you have. Isn't that scary ? Isn't it just so cool ? date=09.09.2004 17:00 ip=213.78.75.100 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>At the same time, fixed or not, retrievable or not, you're *made* of all that.

It's one of those things which is odd about meeting someone again after a long absence. You find yrself in this situation where you're trying to reconstruct each other in an older framework. I've felt myself being defeated by this before - losing any advantages that I had gained in the intervening years. It's less nostalgic than frustrating. But I was probably doing the same to them; trying to fit them back into that mould of character that I've been carrying about in my head.

That's probably one of those annoying things about families: they impose a terrible gravity that generates a definitive collective version of the self. Thank God it's not Christmas! date=09.09.2004 17:15 ip=158.94.145.142 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>...not Christmas!

I spent last year's by myself with some good food, good wine, and a pile of books. The more I told harried friends and relatives what I was doing, the more wished they could do the same, instead of panicked shopping, overpriced travel, and an underlying exhaustion. I'm not Scrooge - but I'd recommend it to anyone who can do it without upsetting children or disappointing the cats. date=09.09.2004 17:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> a further self-undermining which demonstrates his neediness

Now that’s very interesting; and interesting also in the context of a comment a bit earlier, ‘At the time, I loved everything about her. She was a resource, deeply stratified, embedded with objects whose significance I might never understand.’ (p.32). That use of ‘resource’ is interesting – within the context of the book, and of China’s need for a resource (what is Isobel-as-resource raw material for in China? What process is she fuelling? What does he want to transform her into?), within the context of resource critiques elsewhere (especially in Light) and within the context of a ‘traditional’ view of character, as something to be mined for a specific and clearly defined set of meanings. Perhaps that neediness also applies to us as readers; needing such securities. As you’ve said, under certain circumstances, characters become a resource for boosting our morale, rather than something more accurately mysterious and challenging. Un-fixed, bending your formulation slightly.

>> most of the core incidents which define Isobel, China, Choe & Christiana were written as notebook entries up to ten years before the novel itself

Hmm – the reason I was asking about this was because I was wondering about how you did generate character; and I’m intrigued by this sense of character-in-book as something that accretes over a period of years, rather than something generated according to / coming out of linear plot needs. Which implies also a whole novelistic stance; the function of a novel is to explore character (however shifting a term) through incident, rather than to generate character to link a series of pre-determined incidents (if you see what I mean). Come to think of it, Isobel the raw material is also a resource for you (as are all the characters) – a resource from which you generate novels!

Did you ever read ‘Confessions of a Justified Sinner’, btb? One of the great unstable narratives, every major plot point in it is contradicted somewhere else in the book. Again, a book in which it’s impossible to pin down classic character attributes (or even basic events) with any sort of confidence. And very accurate as to human experience; I’ve just been reading round Jack the Ripper stuff (re-read the Alan Moore book, From Hell, and this set me off) and I was struck by the massive variance in the way that witnesses re-assembled common realities that they’d witnessed, either actually together or close together. A friend’s just returned from reporting in Baghdad (journalist) – he said something similar about what’s going on out there. A single, clearly defined, fixed reality of events is impossible to pin down, at the mo – hence the ease with which just about anyone, from Neo-Con to Anti War people to local militants, is able to generate self justifying narratives thereabouts. date=09.09.2004 17:44 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> a definitive collective version of the self

Generally one about six years old, I find. date=09.09.2004 17:45 ip=81.178.210.241 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>or disappointing the cats.

As it happens I spent Crimbo with the cat. She would have been disappointed otherwise. date=09.09.2004 17:45 ip=158.94.145.142 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=About writing creatively: if I have learned anything on this, it is this (and, incidentally, I forget it continually): that whatever the writing concerns, in its primary sense it works as an idea of attention or concentration. Writing is an act of attention. Logic and thought don't necessarily have anything to do with this, however; not in the everyday sense in which we are familiar with them. It is not possible to be linear in these terms, in wanting to work creatively, even if the end result is linear. Not for me anyway. It comes in bits, fragments, pieces, that I accumulate over the years, and that I am sensible enough not to try to make sense of immediately; things that I am able to delay interpreting. Finally the whole thing is obvious. The act of attention is clear. But to start with, anything but. date=09.09.2004 18:09 ip=81.19.57.38 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Writing as a sustained act of attention seems appropriate. Jonathan Carroll says he doesn't use outlines because, if you have no fixed destination, you tend to notice things you otherwise wouldn't. I think the writers recently mentioned, Katherine Mansfield and Paul Bowles, were attentive enough that each sentence contains its own narrative.

And yes, Mike, that the self is never fixed is both cool and scary at the same time. Cool in the sense that if you fully grasp this, the past doesn't impede you as much, and frightening in the sense there is no resting spot, no comfortable abode. date=09.09.2004 18:33 ip=65.146.241.188 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Jonathan Carroll says he doesn't use outlines because, if you have no fixed destination, you tend to notice things you otherwise wouldn't

And yet; and yet. When I was a reader, I read so many film scripts that would have benefited profoundly from a sense of some kind of outlining, some kind of attempt to build a formal logic (whether of structure, of character, or whatever) into them. Because they were just crap; completely un-thought through, completely unrewarding.

But maybe I was looking in the wrong place for failure; re comments below, maybe what was missing wasn't a failure of attention to the formal qualities of writing but a failure of attention to the world. Hmm. ie a failure to test their own writing, before they sent (ultimately) to me, not against formal properties but against the lived reality of the world around them.

Which I am sure apart from anything else did not contain several hundred near identical variants on dodgy mockney drug dealer new lads who swore alot while capering around in the East End. date=09.09.2004 18:47 ip=81.178.210.241 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the function of a novel is to explore character (however shifting a term) through incident, rather than to generate character to link a series of pre-determined incidents

If you do the latter you are doing "characterisation", not showing character. Also, if you decide what is going to happen and then produce as an afterthought the character-traits neccessary to rationalise it, you will get what you deserve. You will be plotting, not writing story. I hate plots. Individual plots are wish-fulfilments; but plot as a concept is this huge overarching fantasy, which is that the human world be ordered and closed, so that things happen in nice causal chains the way they were supposed to do in physics. It is a neatening-up of stuff. On the other hand when you ask, "What is character but the basis of action ? What is action but the illustration of character ?" and then go where that takes you, you are getting somewhere. date=09.09.2004 19:06 ip=213.78.71.83 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>maybe what was missing wasn't a failure of attention to the formal qualities of writing but a failure of attention to the world... ie a failure to test their own writing... not against formal properties but against the lived reality of the world around them.

Well, quite. Actually, I think formal properties have their place in some kinds of fiction, but it is a long way downstream of "attention to the world". date=09.09.2004 19:24 ip=213.78.71.83 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The ever-changing you: this is something Sue Blackmore frequently refered to in her lectures on consciousness. In particular in relation to "altered stated of consciousness": what is an altered state of consciousness? Surely consciousness is altering all the time? You never dip your hand in the same stream of consciousness twice, etc. So why is it that when I sit down and drink a cup of tea, I still feel like the same me, but when I drop a tab of acid then I'm suddenly talking about "altered consciousness". How big an alteration is "altered"?

On the subject of characterisation, I've recently written an initial draft of my first short story (or at least the bundle of experiences that was me a couple of weeks back has). The original sole intention of the story was to retell an amusing anecdote that happened to a friend of a friend of Gill's (so, plot-driven), but as I wrote it I became increasingly conscious of a need to provide a context for the main character's somewhat misanthropic and pessimistic behaviour. So what started out as an attempt to record an incident which lasted maybe two hours turned into a potted life history, building up to the incident where his own personal stream of consciousness turns a bend. At present it feels like I've handled this process in a rather slapdash manner, but I'm hoping to smooth things out when I revisit it (something I've been putting off for too long). This discussion has helped me see the process with (slightly) greater clarity, and given me a few ideas for the second draft. date=09.09.2004 20:14 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> How big an alteration is "altered"?

And, of course, why does it feel (usually) like I've gone back to the "un-altered" me once the acid has worn off? date=09.09.2004 20:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>why is it that when I sit down and drink a cup of tea, I still feel like the same me, but when I drop a tab of acid then I'm suddenly talking about "altered consciousness".

Maybe it's just the company? When partaking in a tea break there is no ritual involving discussion of caffeine hits, whereas the acid ritual requires one to talk about consciousness a lot. One day we'll discover that LSD has as little effect as Diet Coke but someone developed a meme that involved talking about perception of time and the self.

Perhaps the effect of tea drinking is that it causes you to talk about the weather, the Olympics and where you are going on holiday? date=09.09.2004 21:00 ip=81.153.4.52 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Writing is an act of attention.
Hi, MJP
I´ve heard various artists say that you only really look at your surroundings when you are drawing and musicians of the Cage school claim that when you listen you find the music in silence. So maybe all art, and not just writing, is an act of attention. date=09.09.2004 22:49 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here's an idea of Brian Eno's that everyone should try at least once:

Give yourself three minutes, and listen to everything that happens within that period as attentively as if you were litsening to a structured piece of music. It's a fascinating experience. date=10.09.2004 09:50 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>all art, and not just writing, is an act of attention.

I would agree. Put it this way. Everyday life represents a form of attention: that is, of attention to the world; that is banally true, but it is also true that that attention is imagined - in the sense of learned, mediated, transposed or created through language and the imagery of human culture - ie the world that we attend to doesn't just 'exist'. In some sense, we put it there. (But that is not the same as arguing that the world is imaginary.) In this context, art represents a form of discontinuity. As with Dan's drug experiences. It represents an attempt to re-imagine the world in a decisive new form. In order to do that, it must create some sort of break with our common sense attention. Art is discontinuity in these terms. Like laughter, it breaks the flow, the continuity, of common sense. The great difficulty is finding an alternative continuity; doing something that actually adds up in this 'disruptive' form. That is why for me, the temptation to assert my normal sense of myself, and to follow linear patterns of thought, and to keep doing what I do ordinarily, is something I have to keep remembering to avoid. date=10.09.2004 09:59 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally, it is in these terms, as a means for creating a discontinuity that is real, that can be believed in, that 'trauma' is useful I believe (see below). For example, the feeling of homelessness, of not existing anywhere - a feeling that can be identified as fundamental to any number of writers, including Mansfield - that can act as an imaginative catalyst. date=10.09.2004 10:15 ip=81.19.57.38 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP, sometimes it helps to be so attentive to your surroundings that the word doesn't enter. When we name a tree, we stop seeing it, simply because the word allows us to classify and put it aside. The real world, when seen with fresh eyes, is as strange and wonderful as any science fictional landscape, as your post attests. date=10.09.2004 11:09 ip=65.146.241.207 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John T. : Exactly! As Richard Dawkins notes, why bother with crystals and astrology for a sense of wonder when you can have quantum contradiction or Darwinians suggesting that clouds may be adaptive vehicles for microorganisms to get around the planet?

As for "character vs. characterization," the Japanese sum it up in a food label: If dishes are nice, the square ceiling becomes round. date=10.09.2004 11:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> The real world, when seen with fresh eyes, is as strange and wonderful as any science fictional landscape

Hoh yes! Goes back to the vision of fantasy as being a tourist without a guide, doing nothing more than being excited about what's in front of you. And time makes tourists of us all; every second throwing us as new people into strange and wonderful new worlds, instantly made and instantly gone, if looked at in the right, fresh way. date=10.09.2004 12:07 ip=81.178.210.241 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My review of Damon Galgut's The Quarry is in today's TLS; right alongside it is Roz Kaveney's review of China Mieville's new book Iron Council. China and I interviewed one another for the next issue of Time Out while eating power brunch in a greasy spoon on Gt Russell St; I think that probably airs next week. One evening next week, as part of the ANIMATE! festival I will be on a panel at the National Portrait Gallery to discuss one of the strangest short animated films ever made, "Jumping Joan" by Petra Freeman; unfortunately, I've forgotten *which* evening. I'll pass it on as soon as I know.

This announcement is for London heads, really. I've put it here because io's off on another holiday, the bastard. date=10.09.2004 12:13 ip=213.78.79.228 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> eating power brunch in a greasy spoon on Gt Russell St

*aspires to luxurious writerly life*

I hope it was on expenses. date=10.09.2004 12:22 ip=81.178.210.241 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>luxurious writerly life

Depend upon it, Al. Play your cards right and you could even afford an extra tin of sardines at the the weekend. Actually, I think China paid. date=10.09.2004 12:26 ip=213.78.79.228 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm eating my sardines one by one at the moment. Ah, but when the book is published, I shall feast on tuna. date=10.09.2004 12:29 ip=81.178.210.241 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Ah, but when the book is published, I shall feast on tuna.

Obviously this is only with yr literary hat on. I've seen you tucking into houmous and salad in pitta from that kebab place on Stokie Church Street after a Dröënörchëßtër practice.

The smart money's in music. date=10.09.2004 12:39 ip=158.94.149.220 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, I might have to cut back on the rock'n'roll kebabylon stuff so as not to damage my literary credibility. Tssk. date=10.09.2004 12:45 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh and Alex - thinking about poetry - how about Virgil's Georgics in the C Day Lewis translation? Just about as pastoral as you get, and rather lovely. date=10.09.2004 13:01 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: It's another Chico Marx moment: You gotta de tuna, I gotta de wordsa - we make-a de fortune, boss!

*Gets sledgehammer. Leaves for 10 Downing St.* date=10.09.2004 13:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Attention to the world: The Mindfulness of Breathing meditation is a damn fine way to cultivate this skill: http://www.fwbo.org/mindfulness.html - but it does make you realise just how crap we are at paying attention (or is that just me and my borderline ADHD?)

>> Dröënörchëßtër practice.

Where can I get a keyboard like yours, Io?

Chico: I watched Monkey Business last weekend on the big screen. Atsa great movie boss. The director of the play I'm in wants me to act my part in the style of Groucho. I'm off to buy some baggy trousers and a cigar... date=10.09.2004 14:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay, the details of that National Portrait Gallery event are up on the ES News. I'm going to miss it (For shame! For shame!) because I'll be in Prague but you shd all go along and heckle and generally make nuisances of yrselves.

I fly in the morning. date=10.09.2004 14:26 ip=158.94.149.220 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Where can I get a keyboard like yours, Io?

From zee Trääüümmüsëët! But until you can find zee Trääüümmüsëët this list is very useful:
http://tinyurl.com/6bb4k

It's just a shame I can't put umlauts on the consonants. date=10.09.2004 14:31 ip=158.94.149.220 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Where can I get a keyboard like yours, Io?

From zee Trääüümmüsëët! But until you can find zee Trääüümmüsëët this list is very useful:
http://tinyurl.com/6bb4k

It's just a shame I can't put umlauts on the consonants.

Oh, hold on: yr not a Mac user are you? There's probably a completely different system for Macs.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.09.2004 14:31 ip=158.94.149.220 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Where can I get a keyboard like yours, Io?

From zee Trääüümmüsëët! But until you can find zee Trääüümmüsëët this list is very useful:
http://tinyurl.com/3hlbg

It's just a shame I can't put umlauts on the consonants.*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=10.09.2004 14:31 ip=158.94.149.220 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: What's the play?? (Visions of Groucho loping on-stage towards Ophelia: 'Get thee to a nunnery - but get thee to me first. Say, I used to know a guy in Philadelphia had a dress like that - And when you got an address like that, you need a house like mine. Come round to it after 8.00. Better still, come round before you ate, we can have dinner -' ) date=10.09.2004 14:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, speaking of mindfulness, have you ever read Krishnamurti? He spoke of natural meditation, believing that mantras and systems deaden the mind, that what was needed instead was an intense awareness of the present moment. I first discovered him through a quote by Henry Miller. He was also friends with Aldous Huxley and Christoper Isherwood. date=10.09.2004 15:19 ip=65.148.123.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>He spoke of natural meditation, believing that mantras and systems deaden the mind, that what was needed instead was an intense awareness of the present moment.

Perhaps it depends how you see the object of meditation: whether it's a world denying or a world affirming activity. Is the world an illusion, (Maya) and therefore not to be trusted, or is divinity immanent in creation? date=10.09.2004 15:34 ip=158.94.149.220 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another angle. Why do we do these things? Create fictions, etc? Why reimagine the already imagined?

"To leave behind if not lose the self." Gunn, An Interuption.

What the disruption creates is a loss of self. That is, what the discontinuity creates - it is a moment in which the self ceases to be able to survive (might mention the main event in KMs The Garden Party). (See io FM thread travelling in a parallel train.) This is what is so difficult about art. It achieves the 'impossible': a loss of self. Why is it for example that the more success an artist has, often, the more his or her work becomes unconvincing? (The "I like the early work ..." syndrome.)

Because after a while they start writing from 'who they are'. Hemingway, Lawrence, um, let's see, most pop stars. Uh ... Hemingway got good again, but not before he got pretty awful (in Across the River ...) date=10.09.2004 15:36 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The accomation one makes with many sf writers - flawed through and through. To get on with Bradbury you have to forgive him for being 'Ray'. But then everything is fine. date=10.09.2004 15:46 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: the play is "Marriage" by Gogol. It's as funny as the Marx Brothers, though not *quite* as random. If you (or anyone) should happen to be/fancy being in Sheffield at the end of October (27th to 30th) then please do come see. Tickets £5/£3.50concs, available from me now. Plug plug plug.

John T: No, I haven't read any Krishnamurti, though the idea seems sound. I've been doing the odd meditation class at the local Buddhist centre (though I shrink from calling myself a Buddhist. I'm a Bright, right?)

I see the mantras/systems as a good route in, but something to be played with and adapted freely once you start to apprehend what makes them work. Trying to follow them too rigidly can be stultifying and, for a personality like mine, counter-productive as you spend more time worrying whether you're adhering to the system properly instead of just getting on with it.

I guess the same could be said of any system. date=10.09.2004 15:52 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Sheffield ... it's a thought. ES charabanc, anyone?

MJP: Hemingway - memorably parodied (by EB White) as "Across the Street and into the Grill." date=10.09.2004 15:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>ES charabanc, anyone?

Perhaps 29th or 30th and make a weekend of it? date=10.09.2004 16:35 ip=158.94.149.220 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar: I would argue that anything that denies the world is solipsistic and a wrong path. By the way, your Germanic fonts make me wonder if you're an aficianado of Kraftwerk. date=10.09.2004 16:48 ip=65.148.124.30 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I've often wondered myself why many pop stars and writer's work declines through the years. I think you're absolutely right--the image gets in the way. date=10.09.2004 16:52 ip=65.148.124.30 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I would argue that anything that denies the world is solipsistic and a wrong path.

Oh, you're probably right. But a lot of Buddhist and Hindu paths of salvation are deeply world denying. Mysticism or any practice that involves communion with the godhead must necessarily appear solipsistic to the rest of the world because as far as the mystic is concerned there's only him and Him. I guess it depends what you're using meditation for.

>>your Germanic fonts make me wonder if you're an aficianado of Kraftwerk.

I'm more of an Amon Düül fan. It's a darker path, strewn with excessive umlauts! date=10.09.2004 17:13 ip=158.94.149.220 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Iotar, I guess I was thinking of the mystics who deny sex and live in a cave. I think if you have to escape the world, you haven't really transcended it.

Amon Duul. Forgive the lack of umlauts, but I haven't heard of this artist...or is it a group? Almost sounds like a Conan villain, perhaps the lost cousin of Thoth-Amon? date=10.09.2004 17:25 ip=65.148.124.30 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I prefer the sort of mystics who believe that you must indulge in worldliness to prove yr salvation from matter.

The Düül were a set of German hippies who combined Middle Eastern/East European folk rhythms with head-eating psychedelia and free jazz. As it happens, Kraftwerk's earliest material wasn't entirely unlike them.

There early albums were best.

(But I'll stop here - because I'm always in danger of saturating the forum when I get onto Krautrock...) date=10.09.2004 17:42 ip=158.94.149.220 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think any religion/school of throught that denies the obvious fun value of sex/drugs/rock'n'roll is seriously misguided. date=10.09.2004 17:48 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Deny sex and live in a cave.

"This pleroma thing of yours had better be worth it ..." date=10.09.2004 17:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Denying the fun value.

"No fun, my babe, no fun
I want to be alone
I here all by myself ...
It's not funny ...!"

Iggy Pop? J Rotten? date=10.09.2004 18:03 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Perhaps 29th or 30th and make a weekend of it?

Would be good. I shall, of course, be doing luvvy things (i.e. acting) both nights, 30th is the last night so I imagine there'll be some sort of party, I also imagine (seeing as there's only about 10 of us in the drama group) that outlanders such as yerselves will be welcome to this. Oh, and you could even help us clear up the theatre on the next day (Halloween)

And anyone and everyone is welcome to stake a spot on our floor. There may be others there too. It'll be fun.

Anyway, ponder on it, and I'll let you know more when I do.

>> a lot of Buddhist and Hindu paths of salvation are deeply world denying

This is exactly what puts Gill off Buddhism. In her words "it's alright for them with their bloody enlightenment and mystic bliss, but there's a world full or problems out there..."

Personally, I think there'd be a lot less problems if everyone took up meditation, but I'm still suspicious of any belief system that I haven't structured myself, though I think I could just about get along with Zen Buddhism. date=10.09.2004 18:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think there'd be a lot less problems if everyone took up meditation

You *and* the Natural Law Party. I remember their policies one year where they suggested that groups of people doing Yoga in cities around Britain would reduce the crime rate.

I guess the Buddha's answer to Gill would be that all of those "problems" are illusions caused by attachment to worldly things. The only time I fully agree with Gautama on this one is whenever I move flat. Twelve inch vinyl is has particularly excessive karmic weight. date=10.09.2004 19:04 ip=217.43.15.80 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> groups of people doing Yoga in cities around Britain would reduce the crime rate

Now that's what I call a policy; their party political broadcasts were magnificent, lots of charts demonstrating this to be absolutely true, intercut with shots of orange shaven dudes 'karmic flying', etc. Truly magnificent. date=10.09.2004 19:32 ip=81.178.210.241 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Twelve inch vinyl is has particularly excessive karmic weight.

Switch to MP3. It's virtually karma-free. date=10.09.2004 20:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Switch to MP3. It's virtually karma-free.

Not if the hard disk problems that you describe on yr blog are to be believed! date=10.09.2004 20:14 ip=81.153.4.205 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey Io, your posts are disappearing as fast as the files off my hard disk ;-) date=10.09.2004 21:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm just trying to be controlled. I've already had a Krautrock outburst today I didn't want to add a recording media tantrum to the karmic scorecard. date=10.09.2004 21:38 ip=217.43.23.55 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Denying the fun value.

"No fun, my babe, no fun
I want to be alone
I here all by myself ...
It's not funny ...!"

Iggy Pop? J Rotten?
___________
Hi, MJP
Mr. Pop recorded " I am bored" and
of course "Funtime"
..All aboard for funtime ... date=10.09.2004 22:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Not forgetting Howard Devoto/the Buzzcocks -

"B'dum, b'dum!"

(Someone else can do the two-note guitar solo; I'm in work on a Saturday, it's starting to rain, and - um - it's not much fun ...) date=11.09.2004 14:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whatever happened to Howard Devoto? "The correct use of soap" is one of my favorites. date=12.09.2004 14:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Atruro: Devoto was working in a Photo Library last thing I heard. If ever a job fitted a man's image, this is it. date=13.09.2004 09:30 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Yes - Devoto's an "image repository manager" somewhere in London, and - he says - his colleagues have little or no idea of his previous life. "Correct Use" is great; his book of lyrics, "It Only Looks As If It Hurts" is equally good, if you can find a copy; and he brought out a cd with Pete Shelley ("shelleydevoto" ) a couple of years ago. He still surfaces every now and again: cameo in the film "24 Hour Party People" and a 'reading' with Mark E. Smith in 2003. Since then: silence. date=13.09.2004 10:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, there was an article on him a little while back somewhere, all about his life / work (at the photo library) and how much he enjoyed the anonymity of it all. In some ways a shame, in some ways it gives me a lot of respect for him; turning his back on all the bullshit.

Speaking of ex-rockers, the guy who runs my local bookshop used to be heavily involved in the whole Rock against Racism thing, in one of the big bands, etc. He refuses to tell me which one! Very strong sense that he's left that part of his life behind. date=13.09.2004 10:13 ip=81.178.201.223 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>how much he enjoyed the anonymity

Hmm. He was a semi-important figure for ten minutes twenty years ago. He's not really going to be mobbed, is he? date=13.09.2004 10:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Since io isn't here he can't scold us for over-popping the airwaves.

So, Devoto bowed out of music with what I understand to be the commericial failure of his Luxuria project. I have only one of these albums (he produced too), the Beast Box, unique, vivid, strange.

Last album I believe was in a project with Shelley, Buzzkunst. date=13.09.2004 11:03 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More about all this here:

http://www.buzzcocks.com/_howarddevoto/howarddevoto .html date=13.09.2004 11:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I always thought he was quite big, at least in an obscure way? Magazine quite a substantial band, etc. date=13.09.2004 11:20 ip=81.178.201.223 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone going to the Animate thing this Thursday? I should be able to make it. date=13.09.2004 11:30 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Depends who you ask, I think. A lot of critics at the time thought he would be this extraordinary success, a witty Kafka fan fronting a post-punk Roxy Music. In the event, Devoto's voice proved an acquired taste, Joy Division seized the "serious" ground, and the moment passed. You always imagine some sharper version of Robbie Williams digging up songs like "Parade" or "You Never Knew Me" and having international hits - but the world doesn't work in that way. "Soap" and the rest remain buried treasure. date=13.09.2004 11:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I now wish I had a copy of 'Jerky Versions Of the Dream' so I could hear 'Rainy season' again. date=13.09.2004 11:51 ip=217.155.134.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jerky Versions of the Dream. I have that on vinyl. :O) date=13.09.2004 12:06 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: "Rainy Season" - ! "My brain's a leaky boat -" Wonderful song.

Animate: I can't make it, sadly. date=13.09.2004 12:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I shall definitely be Animated this Thursday... looks like a very interesting night.

Martin - hmm, sounds intriguing, I will have to check 'em out. So much music, so little time! date=13.09.2004 12:49 ip=81.178.201.223 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just noticed, Run Wrake is also at the Animate! thing on Thursday. One of the first things I ever videoed off TV was a Fourmations with one of his pieces, I could watch it for ever. Loved his Howie B video as well. I was lucky enough to work with him a few years back, he made some drawings of a guy stuck inside a snow-globe for a website I was working on at the time, G-Spot. I stuck together the bits inside the computer and animated it, something I was quite proud of as you couldn't really do animation on the Internet at the time.

There's a very slim chance I might make it along, as I am in London on Wednesday, but I've a feeling Gill might want me back home before Thursday night. date=13.09.2004 17:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Music: I just want to thank Alex for the Bob Drake recommendation a while back.

At the time, I downloaded "The Skull Mailbox" which was pretty good but has yet to set me totally on fire. But I've just got hold of "13 Songs and a Thing" and now I'm a pile of ashes on the floor. date=14.09.2004 11:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I've not heard that one. Bit more free-form than Skull Mailbox? date=14.09.2004 11:46 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, a bit more free-form, a bit more raucous, scratchy, itchy, jumpy, jerky. It's like... well, it's not like anything coz it's Bob Drake, but imagine if Glenn Branca had tried to re-create some Cardiacs songs using a couple of guitars, a sampler, a four-track and an abandoned thermal establishment full of overdubs; well, you're nowhere close, it's nothing like that, but I can't really describe it any better.

And anyone who calls a song "Abandoned Thermal Establishment Blues" gets my vote. I really am that easily corrupted. date=14.09.2004 11:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Better get that one then. date=14.09.2004 12:05 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Downloads - any good recommendations on places to go to for them?I have broadband now and want to play... date=14.09.2004 12:22 ip=81.178.201.223 name=Dan mail=dan@sumption.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I get all my stuff from SoulSeek - http://www.slsknet.org/ - but drop me an email and I may be able to set you up with some Bob Drake (& others) date=14.09.2004 12:30 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't use Soulseek any more because I"m on a mac. Nothing else to touch it as far as eclectic downloads go. date=14.09.2004 13:12 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Soulseek on a Mac: http://captnswing.net/howto/nicotine/

You're right, it's the bees knees for eclectic downloads, I've tried most of 'em in their time: Napster, Bearshare, eMule... and it always annoyed me that I never seemed to be able to find anything except Britney Spears and Eminem tracks. As soon as I got Soulseek running I found I could pig out on Albert Ayler bootlegs and everything Warp Records have ever had a hand in. Paradise.

It's got a lot more popular (hence slower and more bogged down with mainstream stuff) since then, but it's still the best by far (and, surprisingly, it seems to be untouched by the record labels & the RIAA). date=14.09.2004 13:30 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bloody hell, Dan! That looks a bit technical - better not try it on my work Mac! date=14.09.2004 13:39 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, go on, give it a try, you'll be a Unix hacker in no time.

On the subject of which, I tried to upgrade something on my Linux webserver yesterday, always a bad move. I did it with the intention of saving myself five minutes coding. Instead I made *everything* go wrong, and have spent the last day-and-a-half trying to recover from it. Still not got everything working and it looks like I'm going to have to hire a second server to take some of the load. When will I learn, eh?

So, no, perhaps you shouldn't give it a try. Or ever listen to any technical advice from me ever, ever again. date=14.09.2004 13:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=SoulSeek on a Mac:

http://www.fejta.com/solarseek/ date=14.09.2004 14:05 ip=193.109.50.162 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C I love you! date=14.09.2004 15:07 ip=217.155.134.6 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ha, thanks! A friend kept trying to get me to install all that Python stuff, something I was extremely loathe to do. SolarSeek works fine even though it's still being developed. Have fun. date=14.09.2004 15:48 ip=193.109.50.162 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The truth is out:

http://www.rowboatvets.com/intro.htm date=14.09.2004 17:15 ip=81.178.201.223 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Glad we've got to the bottom of *that* after 220 years ...

Coincidentally, I've just been doing something that relates to Washington. I'm writing an article on the new Dictionary of National Biography, which gets published later this month. The last name in it is William Zuylestein. He was obscure diplomat, but he changed world history. In 1769, it was his casting vote in Cabinet that led to tea duty being retained for the American colonies. So, effectively, he paved the way for the War of Independence and the creation of the USA: the Butterfly Effect in action. date=14.09.2004 18:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Present favourite line on daytime tv (in the ad for the TimeLife Bible videos): "Buy Jesus and get Moses absolutely free." date=15.09.2004 16:34 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, got home drunk and have been reading ‘Signs of Life’ on the bus. I’m nearly at the end; Isobel, Mick and Choe are at Brian Alexander’s clinic, the car crashed outside and smoking on a pavement.

Every time I re-read this book – and ‘The Course of the Heart’ – I think to myself, I am going to be able to find a final reading of it. I will reach an understanding of it, and be able to pack it away in a little mental box - this book is about so and so, there it is, that’s it. And move on. Book as resource, fully mined, content converted to reading in my head and that’s it. End product = something clever to say about it.

But it never ends up working like that. CotH is luminous, unapproachable; my reaction to Signs of Life very different. I recognise in it; recognise the people, the situations, the self deception, the course of love, the failures and the desperations and the misinterpretations. The fantasies. Isobel becoming a bird; Mick escaping her and then returning to her, not wanting to pull away but not able to admit that. The fantasy of flight, in both its senses. It’s not a book I can interpret, it’s a book I recognise.

I wonder – what’s the point of that? Here’s something we all do every day – live – and it seems strange to me that so much effort can go into something so invisible, that the more effective the book is the more it vanishes into daily life, into daily perceptions of life. ‘(I am not making this up)’ (p. 185). When I read that I saw it as a direct MJH interjection; a comment on the book itself. ‘I am not making this up’. The more effective the fiction, the less fictive it is – the more accurate a reflection of directly lived experience. Everything vanishes with artistic success – the fiction vanishes, because this is – in some sense – actual. The craft vanishes; life – messy, abundant, random, unquantifiable, unorganisable (and craft in some sense is always just organisation) is not about craft; that careful consideration. Life is about living, a life cannot be crafted. Mess. Career. In downhill mayhem sense of the word. The book vanishes, and I engage with characters who are real; the narrator vanishes, too sophisticated a writer to be himself, and I engage with MJH. A book that, in its effectiveness, escapes fiction; escapes itself. Theme vanishes behind reality of character. Choe as heartless, impulsive emblem of consumerism vanishes behind his presence as a character; his final care for Mick. Evidence of a sustained relationship that Mick was blind to. Mick wanted him to be a symbol, but he wasn’t. Just interpreted as such. And so we’re pulled back to the only true reality; life lived as character, failing, impulsive, random, coherence happening by internal choice not by external structure.

Hic! Off to bed now. Fucking bazzing, fucking bazzing. I wish I could watch with such attention and acuteness. Every fast car that drew up beside me tonight I imagined as Choe’s. Night all! date=16.09.2004 01:07 ip=81.178.218.245 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, your comments are provocative in the best sense. Would you say that in truly effective works of art, the artist (or in this case, writer) disappears into all that is witnessed? date=16.09.2004 07:20 ip=65.148.123.152 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'm not sure I'm saying that. I think what I was trying to touch on was the tension between a worked fiction representing an experienced reality; if the piece of work is an effective representation of reality, then its worked-ness (kind of) disappears, because life is not a worked thing; it's lived, experienced. It just happens. And, as you read the piece of fiction, everything within it can ultimately vanish into a sense of engagement with the person writing behind it.

However, part of the function of the craftedness of fiction is to pull you away from this sense of specific experience, to make something general out of a specifically personal experience. And so in turn you get pulled back away from the writerly presence into a specific, created story. So always a tension.

And craft itself is odd; its function to be as invisible as possible in aiding presentation of character. The more effective it is, the less you see it.

Hmm, not sure I'm expressing myself with maximum clarity here. date=17.09.2004 11:13 ip=81.178.234.30 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Makes good sense to me, Al. Ralf H of Kraftwerk talks about working at the music until playing it *feels* effortless. That's not quite the same thing as saying that it is effortless. He draws an analogy with cycling the Tour de France. The moment when the cycling seems to become effortless.

So, you seem to be talking about when the text comes to life. Starts to live by itself. date=17.09.2004 12:01 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey now that's a surprise. I given up on finding a copy of KM's Bliss, but today I found one by sheer chance. It's a Wordsworth Classic paperback and cost me all of £1.50. date=17.09.2004 14:23 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Truly there is a god, etc etc. I have just picked up my copy of 'All Hallows' Eve' from the Library. date=17.09.2004 15:25 ip=81.178.234.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Do have a wonderful metaphysical weekend with CW. I'm quoting from memory, but there's a sentence at the end of one the early chapters that never fails to chill me: something like, "Hand in hand together, the two dead girls walked out of the park." It simply gets more potent and visionary after that - a book like "The Hill of Dreams" that everyone should read but which very few have ever heard of. date=17.09.2004 15:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Hill of Dreams - now there's mind boggling...! date=17.09.2004 16:05 ip=81.178.234.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And more: I was re-reading "The White People," and I'd forgotten what a truly frightening writer Machen could be. date=17.09.2004 16:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, I understand what you're saying. One of the things I've always liked about MJH's work is it never feels contrived. I like organic structures rather than convoluted plots. date=17.09.2004 23:07 ip=65.148.123.22 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone see the China Mieville/MJH thing in Time Out? date=18.09.2004 14:04 ip=81.153.231.157 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Went to see "My Architect" last night, while friends of ours were in the screen next door watching "Ae Fond Kiss". The latter looked (from the trailer we were subjected to) rather twee and predictable, whereas My Architect had all human life in it, and all real. Wonderful, moving documentary. date=18.09.2004 15:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From the New York Times:
SCIENCE FICTION
Interstellar Serial Killer
By GERALD JONAS

Published: September 12, 2004


. John Harrison is out there. In every sense. In the first few pages of his latest novel, LIGHT (Spectra/Bantam, paper, $16), set in England in 1999, we meet Michael Kearney, a physicist who kills women to placate his personal demons. But before we can get a grip on this mild-mannered serial killer, the focus shifts to the year 2400 and Seria Mau Genlicher, who has sacrificed most of her body to become the captain of a faster-than-light ''K-ship.'' When we first meet her, she's methodically destroying a convoy of unarmed spaceships along with their hapless crews. The only apparent link between these two cold-blooded killers is an offhand mention of the ''standard Tate-Kearney transformations'' -- a set of equations that, it's implied, have made interstellar flight possible.

The revelation that Kearney's genius will eventually open humanity's path to the stars should not affect our view of his bloody deeds. But of course it does, at least in Harrison's telling. As we shuttle back and forth between Kearney's world and the far future, Harrison invites us to feel Kearney's pain. While we wait for the mad scientist to make his post-Einsteinian breakthrough, we learn about his tortured childhood and about the nightmarish creature he calls the Shrander, whose unwanted attentions can be deflected only by another killing. We also learn about Seria Mau Genlicher's tortured childhood, and about her equally twisted compatriots, who are pursuing the holy grail of the far future: bits of alien technology abandoned in the oddest places by a now-vanished civilization of unimaginable intelligence.

If I've made this many-stranded narrative sound complicated, I assure you that I haven't begun to do it justice. Indeed, Harrison continually tries the reader's patience by dropping in references to important new developments that he doesn't get around to explaining until many pages later. Yet in the long run he does explain, or at least justify, most of his inventions, and readers who expend the effort to puzzle out the motivations and machinations of the main characters will be amply rewarded.

Harrison brings an up-to-date sensibility to the hoary conceits of science fiction. By what moral calculus is his mad scientist any madder than the legions of researchers who kiss their families goodbye each morning and spend their workdays developing weapons of mass destruction? And while I wish Harrison had given at least one of Kearney's victims a sympathetic voice, it's clear that his narrative strategy is one of shock and awe: shock at the recognition that we live in a universe indifferent to human concerns, awe at the inexhaustible abundance of that universe. What's extraordinary is that Harrison's tale, for all its unflinching candor, succeeds in evoking the sense of wonder that science fiction readers look for in the best of the genre. date=18.09.2004 19:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nice to have "an up-to-date sensibility," isn't it? You know who your friends are then. Not sure about Kearney's victims lacking a sympathetic voice, though. Surely the long-suffering Anna is the vocal counterweight to Kearney and Sprake's ritualistic delusions. And if there's one central victim in the book, it's Kearney himself. "We're all adrift on a sea of space and time too - remember that."

Io: No. I looked and I looked ... can anyone scan it for us? date=20.09.2004 10:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got a copy, but no scanner alas. Interesting if brief; particularly enjoyed MJH's view of himself as his own incestuous grandson. date=20.09.2004 11:13 ip=81.178.234.30 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I've got a copy, and a scanner. I'll try to get you a scan this evening. Unless of course the copyright police are watching - in which case I shall certainly *not* be doing any such thing! date=20.09.2004 12:06 ip=158.94.138.77 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My copy of China's new book just arrived from Amazon, very exciting. It's on special offer there, about a tenner instead of £17.99. Presumably this doesn't impact on royalties etc?

Also picked up 'The Quiet American' over the weekend, looking forward to visiting Greene-land. Should be a nice contrast between the two. And enjoying 'All Hallows Eve', completely mind boggling... date=20.09.2004 12:31 ip=81.178.234.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Well, as no money's changing hands, we can always call it "fair dealing" ... couldn't we?

Al: Williams genuinely believed it was a "popular" novel, but I don't think the original publishers shifted more than about 150 copies. Too dark (unlike Tolkien, Williams had an almost Jesuitical sense of evil) and too occult: I think the hermetic vocabulary we almost take for granted - pleroma, astral doubles, uncle A. Crowley and all - was a very specialised preserve in the English 1940s. Williams added his own Christian philosophy to the mix, and the result was the last thing most folk expected from a "popular" read. date=20.09.2004 14:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I can kind of see what he meant; it reads in a very easy way. It's just that what goes on (Betty's weird relationship with Lady Wallingford, the creepy cult leader, etc) is just blindingly peculiar! Would be interesting to read some contemporary reviews, etc, and see what they made of it. date=20.09.2004 14:48 ip=81.178.234.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Good point; I don't think I've seen any. Just as intriguing to think of him in war-time Oxford, reading chunks from this at the pub to his fellow "Inklings." C.S. Lewis regarded him as some kind of sage - if not a saint. I've never seen Tolkien's reaction, but you can imagine the atmosphere at your local if a new section from "LotR" had just been unveiled, only to be followed by a recital from "All Hallows." date=20.09.2004 15:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That would be one hell of a night out! date=20.09.2004 16:26 ip=81.178.234.30 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Someone should write a R4 play around it!

Speaking of which, Joe Simpson was on "Desert Island Discs" yesterday ( a lot of trance, Joy Division, Etta James, the Pogues' "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day") . As usual Ms. Lawley paddled into personal waters at the drop of a crampon. Why had he never married? Joe quoted a Mae Westism I'd never heard: "I don't breed in captivity." Then he had to rebut the doe-eyed Christians who'd contacted him to say that God *had* been with him in the Andes, *only he hadn't known.* Any god that puts you through that and then expects some propitiation surely deserves nothing better than a straitjacket in a locked ward, I think. date=20.09.2004 16:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just picked up "Jonathan Strange&Mr.Norrell". Biggest thing to hit my bookshelves since The infinite jest. As I plan to read this in the subway I think I can safely skip the gym this week. date=20.09.2004 18:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: On-line reviews look fascinating. I'll have to check this out - thank you!

I've just finished Nicholas Royle's "Antwerp" and a thick biography of Robert Mitchum, "Baby I Don't Care." date=21.09.2004 10:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: So far it is the fantasy novel that Dickens didn´t write.
Bob Mitchun: Love what he said about his record. "I Can´t sing but I Can´t act either and that hasn´t stopped me so far."( Translating back from spanish maybe he said something diferent)
MJP: Did you get round to read "Fortress of solitude"? date=21.09.2004 14:33 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Sounds like him! Typical incident: in the '80s his family staged an "intervention" to confront him with his drinking. He spent two weeks in the Betty Ford clinic. A friend met him in a car, and a miserable Mitchum insisted they stop at a bar on the way back. With a sinking feeling, the friend agreed. Mitchum marched in, downed one double whisky, muttered "Fuck 'em all," and went home. date=21.09.2004 14:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have a Julian Cope song, 'Robert Mitchum'. Very droll.

No, Arturo, I haven't got round to reading The Fortress... But thanks for reminding me.
I hated the gimmicky English edition cover. (That's how fussy I can be.) Will read the dude some other date. date=21.09.2004 16:13 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Dude? Watched the Big Lebowski again at the weekend, makes me think of that. I'd forgotten what a wonderful film it is! date=21.09.2004 16:22 ip=81.178.242.21 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Same feeling about the cover. That, and the mixed reviews and that I was not that impressed by "Girl on a landscape" have left me with somewhat cold feet and a gnawings feeling that I should read him. date=21.09.2004 16:49 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: They don´t make them like that any more ...
Seriously contemporary stars can´t hold a candle in the charisma department to Bob Mitchun. date=21.09.2004 16:51 ip=80.58.4.172 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo. All they needed to do was stick a picture of superman on the front cover, make for a small format ('pulp') style. I would have bought it. The crap they loaded it with scared me off. God!!!!

What's the connection with BIG and literary? Robert Mitchum, that's what. It should stay that way. date=21.09.2004 17:43 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone know if Zali's still on holiday? date=22.09.2004 14:17 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I do. No, I'm back. date=22.09.2004 14:51 ip=158.94.151.109 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'm glad you know. You've got mail... date=22.09.2004 14:57 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, it's all too clear to me that I'm back! date=22.09.2004 15:07 ip=158.94.151.109 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Zali. Hope it was good! date=22.09.2004 16:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very nice thanks!

Baroque architecture, beer, absinthe cocktails, golden cherubs, jazz, more beer, gothic spires, Bohemian Blues Bands, more cherubs, dumplings, kabbalistic mysteries, art nouveau, more beer, more cherubs...

Pretty much what my life is supposed to be about all of the time. I think I need to move over there and set up an opium den or summink. date=22.09.2004 16:10 ip=158.94.151.109 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> move over there and set up an opium den

*offers services as pipe manager* date=22.09.2004 16:41 ip=81.178.242.21 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, did you manage to see the giant climbing babies in the end? Sadly missed those. We nearly got the taxi to take us there via them on the way to the airport, but ran out of time. date=22.09.2004 16:41 ip=81.178.242.21 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of mysteries (& further down the page Williams), do we know anything about the magical acts central to "Fanny & Alexander" ? date=22.09.2004 17:03 ip=213.78.80.211 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Nope - Maskelyne & Devant once subjected an uncle of mine to a baffling on-stage illusion, but "F&A" is beyond me. date=22.09.2004 17:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Found a magic shop selling mummies at £65 a pop under Charing Cross station the other day. Sadly only plastic ones, but pretty convincing nonetheless. date=22.09.2004 17:18 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>do we know anything about the magical acts central to "Fanny & Alexander" ?

Not sure, not having seen it, but I believe most of the magic was achieved by moving images on a strip of celluloid through a bright light thereby achieving the illusion of moving images.

*where's me coat?*

BTW: I did see the babies on the TV Tower. I have fotos somewhere. date=22.09.2004 17:34 ip=158.94.151.109 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and I also saw the Svankmajer and Svankmajerova retrospective. Dead good it was too. date=22.09.2004 17:36 ip=158.94.151.109 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Russ Meyer dead! Alas, alas, alas. Have never seen anything quite like 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'. date=22.09.2004 18:13 ip=81.178.242.21 name=John Thompson mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, I wonder if you happen to know my father, wo is a magician and has lectured at the Blackpool Magic Convention. His stage name is the Great Tomsoni. date=23.09.2004 05:19 ip=65.148.123.199 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Joanna Lumley meets M.R. James...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-126 8916_1,00.html date=23.09.2004 09:47 ip=81.178.242.21 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="best known for her television roles as Purdey in The New Avengers and Patsy in the comedy Absolutely Fabulous"

What? No mention of Sapphire? date=23.09.2004 10:17 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: No, I don't - but I'd love to meet him some time!

My uncle was subjected to what I think was a version of Pepper's Ghost in front of an hysterical audience; needless to say, he saw nothing happening on stage at all. But it's a tale for telling, rather than writing, so - when we meet up! date=23.09.2004 10:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was a great Pepper's Ghost in that Carnesky's Ghost Train thing in Brick Lane; very spooky effect. I love that whole gas lit music hall magician thing, something very atmospherically macabre about it... date=23.09.2004 10:53 ip=81.178.242.21 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and from Abebooks - most challenged books in US libraries:

http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Community/Feature d/bannedBooks.shtml?cm_re=A*F1A*Banned%20Title date=23.09.2004 12:19 ip=81.178.242.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> ..Abebooks

I dunno: all those sex books ("FuckFAQs"? A new niche publication) but also "Of Mice & Men" ? Maybe someone has the wrong idea about the subject of Steinbeck's novel ... date=23.09.2004 12:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> someone has the wrong idea about the subject of Steinbeck's novel

I for one was very disappointed by its failure to challenge traditional perceptions of mice / men relationships. date=23.09.2004 12:31 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Harry Potter was banned? What for? You don't ban literature just because it's bollocks!

Meanwhile, I'm rather embarrassingly overexcited about this: http://tinyurl.com/6af58 - probably his last book. End of an era. date=23.09.2004 12:37 ip=158.94.158.57 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, wow. My current 'aging icon overexcitement' is Smile, the Brian Wilson album, can't wait for that! date=23.09.2004 12:41 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What? No mention of Sapphire?

*Steel! Steel!*

What is it, Sapphire?

*I'm trapped in a cold dark place. There's something in here with me. Something terribly, terribly old and malign.*

Turn and look and tell me what you see. Don't move from where you are standing. If you move you'll become part of the picture.

*It's an old man. He's wearing an old leather jerkin, the type that coalmen have, and a whitish shirt and a flat cap. Oh my God, he's...*

What is it, Sapphire!

*I think he might be rural working class!* date=23.09.2004 12:45 ip=158.94.158.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>My current 'aging icon overexcitement' is Smile, the Brian Wilson album, can't wait for that!

37 years late. While Lurulu is only about four years late. But our MJH could have given them a run for their money in his deadline flaunting heyday.

My friend and neighbour, Grufty Jim, (who is no longer Grufty because he shaved his beard off - he now looks disconcertingly similar to Mark Wing Davey, but I digress...) saw one of the performances of Smile and was totally blown away by it. date=23.09.2004 12:56 ip=158.94.158.57 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, Harry Potter has been banned, or subject to banning attempts, all over the USA I believe, because it is obviously an attempt to turn innocent children away from the one true path of Christmasianity and lure them into becoming witches, wizards and *pagans*

I mean, for fuck's sake, as if I really neeed anything to make me more misanthropic than I already am.

>> Mark Wing Davey

Ooh, yes, thanks for reminding me: I only found out yesterday about the new Hitchhiker series on Radio 4... must work out how to MP3 it tonight's fit (taping is just so passé... besides, I don't think I could remember how to operate a tape recorder). date=23.09.2004 13:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> was totally blown away by it.

aargh! My anticipation levels are already sky high, now they are becoming physically painful!

*puts on fire helmet, sits in sandpit* date=23.09.2004 13:04 ip=81.178.242.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>besides, I don't think I could remember how to operate a tape recorder

It's not going to be the same: not having them on dodgy, refurbished C-120s, with seasickness-inducing pitch changes during the title music.

I haven't repaired a cassette in years. Oh, I've missed it! date=23.09.2004 13:43 ip=158.94.158.57 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I haven't repaired a cassette in years. Oh, I've missed it!

Gosh, yes. I used to have a little pile of "in need of splicing, but more-or-less OK" cassettes. I never did get around to the splicing. I probably still have them somewhere, along with the rest of my tape collection which has barely seen the light of day in 10 years. date=23.09.2004 14:05 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, Harry Potter has been banned, or subject to banning attempts, all over the USA I believe, because it is obviously an attempt to turn innocent children away from the one true path of Christmasianity and lure them into becoming witches, wizards and *pagans*

_-------
And de Da Vinci Code has been banned o Lebanon on similar grounds.
Clearly a new witchfinder general is on the cards as part as the long-range war on terror that nowadays justfies everything. ( As much as the ol Deus Volent!) date=23.09.2004 23:13 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Peter McGarvey mail=H2G2@lizard.org.uk icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=> the new Hitchhiker series on Radio 4... must work out how to MP3 it tonight's fit


Well I MP3'd the first fit this morning. And I'll be doing the rest too. As I'll be buying the Tertiary Phase I don't really think this is too naughty. So if anyone else would like a copy of the MP3s to fill the gap between broadcast and CD release drop me a mail... date=24.09.2004 16:15 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Check your shopping decisions (well, a lot of it seems to be that), and discover the True You:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/ whatamilike/index.shtml date=24.09.2004 17:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> Check your shopping decisions
> (well, a lot of it seems to be that),
> and discover the True You:

I did this test a while back after I lost track whilst doing the test via the associated TV program. In the process of trying to discover why my partial results from the TV didn't match the correspondig results from the Web, I realised it's nothing but a load of codswallop.

I found that when I read all the personality types I'd have readilly accepted half on them. Half of what's left I'd have accepted - and believe I'd learned something. Which is why I believe there is a 75% chance anyone would accept a personality profile picked at random. Not what I'd personally call science.

A bit of Googling and I discovered the "Forer Effect" (have a Google too). Which confirmed my suspicions that it's nowt but pseudo science.

Now, I do think personality profiling has its place. As a tool to help an individual understand themselves, it's great. But when it's part of an interview process... well, it's rather worrying. I actually think I'd be happier with the Tarot. date=24.09.2004 23:03 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> there is a 75% chance anyone would accept a personality profile picked at random

There was a similar study done on astrology, and I believe more than 90% of the sample agreed to some degree with their randomly-assigned (but, as far as they were aware, astrologically generated) profiles. I think about 50% agreed very strongly that the profile sounded just like them.

I studied psychology at university, during which we touched on personality profiling. It would perhaps be a vaguely useful idea, if it worked, but humans just aren't that simple, except for the ones who write the tests.

We were once shown an IQ test, one that is used by human resources departments to assess potential employees. It was in the form of several passages, each followed by five questions which had to be answered "yes", "no" or "can't tell from the information given". We looked at only the first 15 of the 100 questions, and were then given the answers so we could check our scores.

From those 15 questions, I found two where *the person setting the test* had given the *wrong answer* as being the correct one. That is, they had said the correct answer should be "yes" or "no", where strictly speaking you couldn't draw such clear conclusions from reading the passage alone, so the correct answer should have been "don't know". Fuckwits. Our lecturer said he would "pass this information back to the people who make the tests". Great.

Hardly inspires me with confidence. As far as I can see, reliance on personality tests is a sign of an under-developed personality. date=26.09.2004 16:39 ip=62.49.107.18 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> As far as I can see, reliance on
> personality tests is a sign of an
> under-developed personality.

Or is it yet another example of people abrogating all personal responsibility and seeking to shift the blame onto someone else, in this case the the person who designed the test. date=26.09.2004 21:46 ip=80.5.160.7 name=M.O'Kane mail=madspok@nyc.rr.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm just finishing LIGHT, and I enjoyed it so much I would like to read some of the other works by M. John Harison.

Could you suggest any of his works for someone who enjoys Sci Fi but also is looking for exceptional Literature (LIGHT was both --Scientifically probable and a literary gem)

My taste in Sci Fi includes Stanislav Lem; however, I have not read extensively in the genre, and I would apreciate some guidance.

Since I read a lot of Scientific literature, I expect only the most probable and accurate inferences from the edge of science to be the basis for Science Fiction literature. I also expect high standards of literary craftmanship.

Just as a curious observation. Why is SciFi a mostly male genre? I have noticed that both the authors and the readers of Sci Fi are in their vast majority males. I would like to hear some opinions on the subject. (Notice I have specifically said the Sci Fi genre not the Fantasy genre where you find many more female authors and readers. I know a lot of women who enjoy the Lord of the Ring/Harry Potter style series).

M. O'Kane date=27.09.2004 03:31 ip=68.175.56.226 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Many thanks for your comments, M O'Kane. I'm glad Light worked for you. The rest of my output is more imaginatively-based than Light. But you might enjoy The Course of the Heart, now in print from Night Shade Books; Climbers, available in November as a paperback from Orion; or the short story collection Things That Never Happen, also available in November as a paperback, from Gollancz. My 1997 novel Signs of Life, which has science fictional elements, will be available again next year.

I suspect that one of the reasons fewer women than men read science fiction is that much of it has (and here I quote from a reviewer of the film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) "absolutely no emotional centre". date=27.09.2004 11:18 ip=213.78.174.251 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> I suspect that one of the reasons fewer women... "absolutely no emotional centre"

I recently replace my long lost copy of The Centauri Device. I was halfway thorough when a second bookmark mysteriously appeared. My wife, it seems, discovered that it's not a book about laser-guns, spaceships, and epic battles... but it's actually a "people book" which is the kind of thing she "really likes" (and now I come to think about it, me too).

It's true there is an awful lot of SciFi that has "absolutely no emotional centre". However, IMHO, the default presumption seems to be that this is a handicap of all SF, when this is patently not the case. date=27.09.2004 12:00 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting to list SF with an emotional centre, though: like the category "metaphysical thriller," I don't know it's that long a shelf. MJH, Thomas M. Disch - ?

Even more instructive to go back to things you read as a teenager and open them again. What you remember as a deeply felt exploration of human consciousness at the limits of known space frequently turns out to be frazzled work by well-dilated hippies up against deadline, or else "Sunday Express" level hackery from old school buffers imagining Saturn as downtown Delhi with a more dastardly breed of "fuzzy-wuzzy." As Xaphod says, you can have more fun with the Tarot. date=27.09.2004 14:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "Sunday Express" level hackery

A guy I once knew used to write for the Sunday Express, initially as book reviewer & diary columnist. One Sunday, there was just him & another woman working on the whole paper: other than the stories already filed, they wrote the whole thing, an exercise in filling (empty) space. Hackery indeed. date=27.09.2004 15:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> One Sunday

Saturday. Whatever. date=27.09.2004 15:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the default presumption seems to be that this is a handicap of all SF, when this is patently not the case.

I'm sure that's true, Xaphod. But much of the science fiction which lays claim to an emotional centre actually has a social bias. It doesn't enter into a direct contract with the affect. I often feel that the kind of science fiction which depicts emotional exchange in terms of tailored social interaction--ie, which politicises it, or which sees it, like the soft New Wave of the 70s, in terms of sociology or anthropology--is as emotionally avoidant as the most militarised space opera. Many of those science fiction writers and readers who claim to be able to manage a little emotion with their body-mods and NASA-approved narratives of Martian colonisation can do so only as long as it is expressed as controllable and socially functional. For them, emotions are a problem to be solved. But as Jonathan Franzen puts it in another context, what we need instead is fiction which meets the affect head on, fiction whose darkness is "not a political darkness, banishable by the enlightenment of contemporary critical theory" but "the darkness of sorrows that have no easy cure.” Science fiction often wants a cure for sorrow (or, for that matter, from "wrong" kinds of happiness). That's fine and shiny, but it's also a shade mechanistic. Dissociative and looking to relieve their own embarrassment, the majority of science fiction writers and readers would turn their heads away from the raw, unassuagable, bodily-expressed grief of Emilie Ekdhal in Bergman's Fanny & Alexander. They would go off and write a patch for it. But human emotional responses are real and inescapable. (Even that--especially that!--is a pathetic little statement which reduces & debilitates the thing in itself, & I apologise.)

Hi Martin, you wrote--

>>What you remember as a deeply felt exploration of human consciousness at the limits of known space frequently turns out to be frazzled work by well-dilated hippies up against a deadline

Yep.

Julian Richards is back in London, with more pictures from Mali & the Ivory Coast, see them at www.julian-richards.co.uk. Tim Etchells is back in hospital, with a lung infection after his surgery a week or two ago. He's hoping to be well again for "Indoor Fireworks", two weeks of volatile performance co-presented by Forced Ent and LIFT at the Riverside Studios, 25 Oct-6 Nov, including some of his solo pieces, also outings of the new FE show, Bloody Mess. Details at www.forced.co.uk. date=27.09.2004 15:30 ip=213.78.91.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> ... well-dilated hippies ...

Um, nothing personal, folks... :)

*gets coat*

More importantly, thanks for the update on Tim E. date=27.09.2004 15:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> But much of the science fiction which lays claim to an emotional centre actually has a social bias.

Hmm, I loose the plot right about here. :-) But multiple readings later I /think/ I get your point. date=27.09.2004 17:10 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
Sf is far from alone in this.Most popular fiction gets fairly ridicolous dealing with emotions. Pat, simplified, answers are the norm rather than the exception.
At the end of "Schindler´s list" Spielberg blows the whole thing away in a scene that strips away the ambiguity that surrounds the real life character. A scene that not even the great Liam Neeson is able to make sense of. And he gets praised as a master.
Then again considering that most people would rather pop a pill than deal with emotional turmoil this is not surprising. date=27.09.2004 21:58 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Ajje mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Does MJH´s fiction (Signs of Life, The Course of the Heart, the short-stories) belong to the magical realism genre? I haven´t read any of your work, but since I´m supposed to write a paper on a writer of magical realism and you seem to fit the bill (or not?), I thought it might be wise to ask you before I start. Judging from what I´ve read about Signs of Life, it seems to be magic realism. Not Marquez, of course, but something magical nonetheless.
Don´t know much about your work, as I´ve said. Please enlighten me. I´m a poor student and need all the help I can get.
Well, thanks a priori. date=28.09.2004 09:27 ip=213.66.41.188 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The criticism applied to most SF regarding emotions also applies to modern psychology, and the bastard stepchild of psychology, self-help. Whenever we consider the tougher emotions like anger or sorrow "wrong," we've dehumanised ourselves. date=28.09.2004 09:33 ip=65.146.241.90 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting to list SF with an emotional centre, though: like the category "metaphysical thriller," I don't know it's that long a shelf. MJH, Thomas M. Disch - ?

Oh come on. Why the inverted snobbery? What happened to (early) Asimov, (early) Heinlien, Bradbury, Dick, Van Vogt et al? So they aren't fashionable. When were they ever? For about two minutes in the early eighties ... In the present, what's the matter with Robert Charles Wilson (Blind Lake)? Or Robinson's Pacific Edge? Ballard? The output isn't perfect; but no one's work is, is it? There are *dozens* of sf writers who in one or another way fully explore the emotional aspect of what they are writing about.

There, that's me for today. I'll just go and sit quietly in a corner. date=28.09.2004 10:28 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heinlein et al are 'geeky' - only geeks read them, in fashion terms. But for instance you find their writing turning up in strange places, quoted by people who, because are innocent of voguish opinions, take them as they find them. I really do think the early (the 'juvenile') Heinlein is challenging, politically, metaphysically, emotionally. Even if he crapped in his pants later on.

George Oppen for example, the American socialist Objectivist poet, quotes Heinlein at the beginning of one his collections. George Oppen! date=28.09.2004 11:01 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi MJP. I don't recall Van Vogt ever managing much above the "and now raw terror flooded through him like naked plasma energy raging from the Sevagram" level; you certainly don't read him for his subtle take on the human opera. Ballard (a writer of "ideas" wholly uninterested in individual human beings) is not the first person you'd consider when choosing a successor to H E Bates or V S Pritchett. And it was KSR who inspired my rant below, on the politicisation of the affect. The early giants of sf were interested in emotion only as long as it provided plot-driver. Ballard and KSR are ideologists, writing not affective fiction but broad satire and political fiction respectively. Ideas about emotion are not emotion; a perspective on the affect is not affect. There were some sf writers who could do it--Richard McKenna & Daniel Keyes spring to mind. But sf is essentially either a place for teenagers to go hide from all that nasty hurty stuff that makes the world such a dull, boring, silly, "vogueish" place compared to Perne or Perelandra; or, as in the case of LeGuin, an arena for the classic middle class intellectual's retreat from affect, accopmlished by "discussing" things in a refreshingly mature no-nonsense manner etc etc, opening us up to a community view of how our breaking all the plates like that--just because we felt out of sorts that morning--might not facilitate very well the other children's happiness. There isn't, and never has been, and never will be, an sf equivalent of Six Feet Under or The Corrections. And occasionally, to borrow a slur from Jack Womack, I stop wondering if sf writers are human beings and start wondering if they're even mammals.

Hi John T. I so agree. Therapy is a central platform of neoliberal iedology, aimed at defining and facilitating the proper behaviour of people in the West. Experiencing uncomfortable emotions, which can spoil your life and harm the happiness of others ? Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors can help! Jonathan Franzen is good on this too. "we live in a reductively binary culture: you’re either healthy or you’re sick, you either function or you don’t." And you're screwed if that "flattening of the field of possibilities" is exactly what’s depressing you... ["Why Bother ?"]

Ajja: I can't help, I'm afraid. The jury's still out, although Signs of Life is sometimes described as "magic realist sf". Why don't you read the two books and compare them to a couple of benchmark texts of magic realism ? It wouldn't take long and then you could make up your own mind. date=28.09.2004 12:10 ip=213.78.76.175 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Maybe so - I haven't read "Blind Lake" or "Pacific Edge," so I can't say.

The other writers: I think early Heinlein and Asimov wrote very efficient pulp sf. I'm not being invertedly snobbish about that, but I don't think anyone who's read "The Man Who Sold the Moon" or "Nightfall" is going to gasp at the emotional nuances the characters display. I don't need to argue here that Dick was an exceptionally prescient writer about virtuality and its discontents. His true concern, though, was a solipsistic paranoia: what you remember is the chilling fade-out to "The Electric Ant," not the fact that there's suppose to be a 'real' female character watching her body evaporate.

I take the point about Bradbury. But this goes back to what I posted about teenage reading. Bradbury had a much greater imaginative capability than most fantasy writers, and when I first encountered it - I was about 13 - it was dazzling. Return to those stories now, though, and Damon Knight's old critique seems truer than ever: Bradbury's main arena is childhood, and that halloween disney glare in his work is the light of a Saturday morning film show, not the spotlight of a mature sensibility. The depressing proof of that is his latest work: stories which have no insight into how people think or speak today, and hence no resonance in the reader.

Maybe recognising the shortcomings of emotional reach, Ballard made it the core of his project. Most of his characters have no more emotional depth than a Delvaux nude, but as he's writing Burroughsian surrealism this doesn't greatly matter. They exist because they are the atrocity exhibition; they have neither the conventional detachment nor any wish to dissociate themselves from it.

I'm not being upstage about these writers, or their commitment to their work. But by design or inability, most of it's emotionally static. I'd make an exception for Theodore Sturgeon, perhaps, or Henry Kuttner; but these are the few who prove the rule. date=28.09.2004 12:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=About VV I think you are wrong MJH. He is just weird. Emotionally fully developed weird. Like Heinlein, he is a metaphysician. A good one. And that's the point, not the bready prose as you put it. I can't see why everyone has to fit the same blueprint. They are all one-offs. There will never be another Ballard. Bradbury. Dick ... KSR prolonged Mars beyond its emotional sense, I would agree. But Pacific Edge struck me as very good.

In your attitude to pulp sf you remind me of the tiger in the Ted Hughes poem, turning a corner in its head every time it reaches the bars of the cage, snarling. Maybe the bars are there; maybe they aren't. Me, I can't see them. date=28.09.2004 12:40 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And then there was Hubbard:

"Clear: the name of a state achieved through auditing or an individual who has achieved this state. A Clear is a being who no longer has his own reactive mind. A Clear is an unaberrated person and is rational in that he forms the best possible solutions he can on the data he has and from his viewpoint. The Clear has no engrams which can be restimulated to throw out the correctness of computation by entering hidden and false data." date=28.09.2004 13:19 ip=158.94.182.244 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin those are powerfully argued points. But why not reverse them, also?

What is the matter with writing about childhood? Maybe there is something there that we need to recognise - that as mature, sober adults etc, we have ceased to be capable of seeing? Isn't Ballard's best book, Empire ... about this very thing, his childhood? Childhood and sf, is there a more than facile connection? Is it more than just childishness?

In general a sea change seems to be taking place culturally, with the 'species jumping' phenomena of Harry Potter and LotR. (Not that either books actually interest me.) Now children's books are accepted onto the Booker list. It's a change in sensibility: silliness is ok. There is no point arguing *against* it, any more than there is say arguing against Reality television. It is more effective to try to understand why it has occurred.

Deficiencies in writers: things aren’t always what they seem. Asimov’s Caves of Steel is a Kafkaesque portrait of New York, even if he didn’t intend that. The Asimov short story Hostess is a brilliant image of our maimed emotional condition – even if he didn’t want it to mean that. Heinlein’s Red Mars is a strangely well-conceived political drama. Made for children. And so on. date=28.09.2004 13:19 ip=81.19.57.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>And then there was Hubbard:

Oh well, he can go back in the cupboard. :O) date=28.09.2004 13:21 ip=81.19.57.38 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk text=How how much does the reader's perception have to do with a book being emotionally centred or not? Take Van Vogt... Yes, a lot of his stuff is indeed worthless if you want a "subtle take on the human opera"... But IMHO there is the odd moment. True, it's all rather contrived, but then isn't all fiction?

If the reader is not involved then the assumption must be that emotionally we are all identical and there is only one way to write it. Which I'd have to say is absurd.

So I'd say the whole issue is highly subjective. Trying to treat it objectively, where there is a right and wrong answer, personally makes me feel like I've been subjected to the intellectual equivalent of a mugging. date=28.09.2004 13:47 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think io's Hubbard quote sums it up perfectly. Mind-in-a-box fiction for people who think their own humanity is something to be "solved". Segues nicely into John T's point, too, Hubbard being the perfect pivot between sci fi and self-help. I think the argument "sf doesn't need to be affective or deal with human beings because it's a special kind of much more interesting metaphysical fiction" is precisely what I'm complaining about, MJP. You couldn't have summed it up better.

Bringing up children's fiction is a canard. But I think Mark Haddon's very enjoyable book is separately interesting in that it conforms to that other early form of sci fi, the story which explicates for the ordinary reader some aspect of contemporary science--in this case a tour round autism. Does "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" herald a reinvention of Practical Mechanics style sf by & for the middle classes ? Be funny if it did. date=28.09.2004 13:48 ip=213.116.62.72 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry, Xaphod. I forgot to say that, of course, this is only my opinion, and I have no intent to mug anyone by suggesting that it's an authoritative or centralising view. It's my opinion that science fiction would be more readable if it could do people as well as ideas; also that being more readable would be a good way to go; also that avoiding the emotions, the affect, the humanity of people, is suspect in ways that I've outlined in my perhaps too forceful style. Maybe you could take that IMHO for granted, so I didn't have to keep writing it ? I mean, you can do the same if you like: if you just make the statement, I will assume it's your opinion anyway, and not feel I'm being mugged, or forced to accept it, and put no more weight on it than that. date=28.09.2004 14:06 ip=213.116.62.72 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Indeed! I'm simply kicking around a response to M. O'Kane (hi, M.) and the query about lack of women's attention to sf (haunted by the suspicion that Steph is about to post here and give a definitive answer to us all).

Nothing the matter with writing about childhood - but if your work is intended for an adult audience a book about childhood has to make some claims upon that audience. This is the main difference between "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and, say, "Lord of the Flies." My point about Bradbury's ability is that it encounters a kind of literary autism when it attempts to focus on complex, blurred, non-juvenile concerns. A bit like Michael Jackson, you sense that large parts of the emotionally mundane are off-limits to him. It's not that he doesn't recognise such things, but that his interest/ability simply can't take them on board. I don't think that can be said of Ballard in "Empire": but, returning to topic, I think most readers would have trouble differentiating even his "realistic" characters in "Cocaine Nights" or "Super Cannes." As psychopathic cyphers, they're exemplary; as explorations of emotional depth and fluidity, they hardly exist.

That's the whole point, you may say, and I wouldn't argue. There's always a tension in sf/fantasy between character and the Big Idea in the story. In most fiction, character fires the plot; in most sf, character is often simply the reader's porthole on the Idea - and most sf writers have made sure the characters stand to one side so we can see the monster or the supernova in living colour. Perhaps it's an insoluble tension - Ballard sneaked around it by making his characters fade into the Idea like those overwhelmed, mossy figures in an Ernst landscape - but it's plainly one which most female readers and writers find either tiresome or unbearable, and avoid like the plague. date=28.09.2004 14:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Martin.
But Bradbuy also wrote about a baby who kills his parentes and a story where a park playground is a vision of hell. Bradbury is of couse the lesser writer but I think that "something wicked .." is not his best work. date=28.09.2004 14:29 ip=80.58.4.172 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=MJH: Ooops... My bad... I got wound-up trying to make a general point.... didn't mean to make it sound like I was having a go.

> It's my opinion that science fiction would be more readable if it could do people as well as ideas;

You're not wrong. But, consider: "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". As you said a tour around Autism. But how many readers would be able to learn and apply what they've read? How many readers could spot someone with an autistic spectrum disorder?

I'd say very few.

So perhaps the problem is really lazyness. It's hard to write people. And people rarely notice, or learn anything anyhow. So I wonder if most SF writers simply don't bother even trying. date=28.09.2004 15:37 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think maybe this is another of those "The glass is half full" / "The glass is half empty" arguments.

Bradbury produced a beautiful book made into a beautiful film F-451. Poetic, resonant make-believe.

How does that nursery rhyme go?

Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone ....

Alas no more bones to pick.

Just the bright yellow meat of empty sunlight. date=28.09.2004 15:38 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: You may well be right!

Hi, Arturo: Yes - they're unforgettable, as are stories like "The Emissary" or "The October Game" or "The Man Upstairs" that also centre on children in extreme circumstances. Bradbury conveys a version of childish perception brilliantly, but I'd simply argue that he's out of his depth when he tries to peg that perception onto adult characters. For me (IMHO), a blindness or a lack of insight gets in his way, and the result has no emotional depth.

My favourite genre example of this uneasy collision between the conventions of fantasy and the dictates of realism is probably King's "Pet Sematary." But that's another story. date=28.09.2004 16:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think io's Hubbard quote sums it up perfectly.

Just as well. It's term time again here so I was just too busy to write properly reasoned paragraphs.

As it happens I've got at least a foot in MJP's camp on this one, in that I read SF as crap or pop cultural detritus. And in the way that a flash of TV advertising or an overheard pop song can have an affect beyond its creators reach, often this is also the case with bad SF, or any other bad literature. You can read the author's crippled emotional life in spite of the writing, you can read the state of the nation in a particular era.

But would we want to advocate writing the sort of shit that you pick up in Oxfam to read for a laugh when you are suffering from hangover braindeath? Should we place the aspirations of good writing a little higher than this? Surely we still want good writing? Not entirely sure I'm being entirely rhetorical with the above questions.

Answers on the inner covers of a discarded Guy N Smith novel. date=28.09.2004 16:20 ip=158.94.182.244 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ok gang, I am going to pick a Bradbury story (and I have read *alot* of Bradbury), I think it's called The Sunset Harp, for discussion on io's 'literature panel' next door. (Come on then, on me 'ead ... ) I read it a long time ago, but I would say from memory it's only crap in the sense that the category 'make-believe' denotes that. This is the great question, is the 'crapper' half full or half empty? date=28.09.2004 16:33 ip=81.19.57.38 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of Bradbury, doesn't Harlan Ellison seem to share Ray's fixation with childhood? date=28.09.2004 22:28 ip=65.148.120.39 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Martin.
I agree. I would say that Bradbury is very good depicting loss, regrets and nolstagia but outside of that his range is very limited . My favourite Bradbury story is the one about Picasso writing on the sand. ( I also like the gradma robot because it is on its way to become a prophecy).

Hi, John T.
I don´t think so. I am no up to date on Ellison fiction but the stories I am familiar (" Repent Harlequin"," Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"," I have no mouth and I must scream" ) don´t seem to be about that. Of course , he wrote "Jefty is five" wich beats Bradbury on his own ground. date=28.09.2004 23:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo. What I mean is Ellison's protagonists are often wounded from incidents in childhood ("Final Shtick," "One Life Furnished In Early Poverty," for instance). They have to revisit pivotal moments from youth. This is not a criticism but I see Ellison as a harder-edged Bradbury. date=29.09.2004 09:20 ip=65.148.125.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: That Picasso story - yes! I stopped posting yesterday, and thought: wait a minute, Bradbury wrote "In a Season of Calm Weather," and (except for that awkward, hollywoodish, 'to camera' paragraph about "So the stage was set ..." ) it's a wonderful bit of writing (IMHO).

We could go on nit-picking - is it a good 'character' story because it's not strictly fantasy? - but my other thought (hi, MJP) was that "Season" is a realist rewrite of "The Sunset Harp" or "The Lake": that obscure object of desire either appears from or gets swallowed by the unconscious depths, and you can never keep it from vanishing. date=29.09.2004 10:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have in mind a short story which I think is by Ray Bradbury, called "The Pedestrian". I read it when I was about 12 and it has stuck in my mind perhaps more strongly than any short story I've read before or since: I certainly bring it up more often in conversations than others, because it is a classic example of what MJH mentioned, SF used to make a social/political point, and from what I remember (and my subsequent conversations) it does that excellently.

Of course, I was only about 12, and I haven't re-visited it, so I'm likely to be in some way disappointed if I do, but I'm still very glad to have read it and it has had great relevance and resonance ever since. date=29.09.2004 11:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Harder edged Bradbury ...

I'd go with that: compare RB's many circus freak tales with Ellison's account as a child runaway locked up with a "geek" after a carnival goes bust ("Gopher in the Gilly") and the edge is all too apparent. Likewise, for many reasons "Coatoan" is the story Bradbury should have written to put his mark on the '70s, but didn't.

My favourite bit of Ellison is actually non-fiction (or so he tells us): the "violence" section of an essay called "The Three Important Most Things in Life." I'd recommend this full-throttle account of mayhem in a small hours Times Square cinema to anyone else who appreciates Hunter S. Thompson. date=29.09.2004 11:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, John T.
I agree with you. My favourite Ellison story is "Alive and well in a friendless voyage".
Even if Ellison´swork sometimes include elements of fantasy and/or sf it is mostly not genere fiction and the interest in trauma is proof of that. This is also true of Bradbury and of course Mike. date=29.09.2004 13:07 ip=194.143.206.10 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, back on the BBC's 'Have Your Say' page:

"Tony Blair is a truly great Prime Minister and a remarkable world statesman. Long may he remain in office with the Labour party in government. I've been politically aware since 1954, have seen them all come and go. This lot are the first to really impress me.
Terence H Coleman, Thornton Heath, UK"

- God bless you, sir. I hope the treatment works. date=29.09.2004 13:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, there is no touching base over the Blair issue, is there? There is not even the illusion of touching base. He has cut us adrift into a fact free realm of sincerity politics where the end justifies the means because he is basically so nice and intends good for all.

This barely rational 'sincere' lying clown Blair provokes admiration where ever he goes.

It becomes very difficult to think of any response at all in the face of such. Don't know what to say. Give up. Eh? Whatever it is, it is a new era, so we can expect four more years of it on both sides of the Atlantic. date=29.09.2004 14:32 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I like this one from Blair:

"The time to trust politicians most is actually when they are courting popularity least because... they are doing something they believe in." date=29.09.2004 14:36 ip=158.94.189.176 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yesterday he said something to the effect of:

"But I wouldn't be sincere if I apologised."

I suppose you have to credit a terrific sense of irony. date=29.09.2004 14:45 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And Bono's there too, dude! Yo - party down! After you with the iced Christs on the sticks, no?

And a pro-hunting demo to boot. "The unspeakable in pursuit of the unspeakable." Or something.

As Dylan once said, there are times when you can sympathise with Lee Harvey Oswald. Then again, if you want a good work of fiction, his new autobiography looks just the ticket. Basically: ahm jes' a poor musician, ah dunno what thar fuss wuz all abaht. Amphetamine? Not me, mate. I'm just a family man who loves my kids and happens to have slept with 10,000 other women besides my wife. Um - can we cut that last bit ..? date=29.09.2004 15:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ever read 'Tarantula'? Jeez. date=29.09.2004 15:54 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Teenage reading habits again, but - yes. Jeez ("I can't find my knees") indeed.

The autobiography's a lot more coherent, but makes out he's just a Hank Snow fan who read Rimbaud. Oh, and one lp was just Chekov stories put to music, doncha know.

Interview and excerpts on the "Newsweek" site:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032542/site/newsweek/ date=29.09.2004 16:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the inedible, Martin. The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. Which I'm convinced you knew. For Londoncentrics: crisp, aggressive little piece on the Booker by John O'Connell in Time Out today. date=29.09.2004 16:45 ip=213.78.95.253 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, *I* certainly wouldn't eat him ... date=29.09.2004 16:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible. I'd make a note of that, if only I could find something indelible to write it down in.

Second mention of Time Out in 2 weeks - sounds almost worth me moving back to London. My take on the Booker: I wish I'd been able to put a fiver on Cloud Atlas when I first got the urge about nine months ago. date=29.09.2004 18:01 ip=62.49.107.21 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And here in the States we face the prospect of another four years of Bush. It's redundant to say this, but we're faced with the re-election of two world leaders that plunged us into an unnecessary war and not many seem to mind. date=29.09.2004 22:08 ip=65.148.123.137 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No sign of Blair winning "Best Prime Minister" in tonight's "Celebrity Awards" on ITV. Some oversight, surely? date=29.09.2004 23:26 ip=62.49.107.21 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://lizard.org.uk/ text=> and not many seem to mind.

I'd say the majority of people DO mind. Only, what the hell can we do about it but get more apathetic? It's not as if politicians actually, you know, listen to what the people actually have to say.


On the subject of the US election, however, another John T. tells us that's when things are going to kick-off big time:

http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/ date=30.09.2004 09:48 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>another John T.

I've not heard of this before. It's amusing though - if it were true, we wouldn't believe it. date=30.09.2004 09:57 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I can't speak for the USA, but in the UK our politicians are thoroughly at ease when meeting the electorate - as shown by Peter Mandelson's relaxed attitude in this north country pub:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3701636.stm date=30.09.2004 11:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "The time to trust politicians most is actually when they are courting popularity least because... they are doing something they believe in."

Hmm, been thinking about that. If you take that to its logical conclusion, isn't it a fairly fundamental rejection of the whole democracy thing? The less support I have, the more right I must be... date=30.09.2004 11:40 ip=81.178.217.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>On the subject of the US election, however, another John T. tells us that's when things are going to kick-off big time:

Reminds me of a lot of online weird shit going on just previous to Y2K. Although it seems like this stuff was just afterwards. Makes you almost nostalgic for that era!

I bet John Titor is just Luther Blissett in disguise. date=30.09.2004 11:55 ip=158.94.134.62 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, they're apparently saving a big offensive on Falluja etc for just after the election. Reading Juan Cole yesterday - apparently they're now demolishing the old town in Falluja.

News odd last night; MPs, Billy Bragg etc going on about integrity in politics, etc, and a 100lb gorilla in the middle of the room - 'He lied about Iraq! Our foreign policy is subordinate to Dubya's US!'. Very odd. date=30.09.2004 12:11 ip=81.178.217.196 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gorilla warfare; I've heard about that.

Atsa some joke, eh boss? date=30.09.2004 12:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm surprised more hasn't been said about our shores being invaded by weird blue smelly things. They came from the sea - I saw them! date=30.09.2004 13:08 ip=217.155.134.6 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They're not just invading...:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1086492 .html?menu=news.quirkies.badtaste

The happy sound of Haribo strikes again! date=30.09.2004 13:50 ip=81.178.217.196 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=bet John Titor is just Luther Blissett in disguise.
Hullo, Io

As far as I know Luther is four men living in italy. date=30.09.2004 19:16 ip=194.143.206.2 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, jolly good luck to Blair on his heart op. Although it's going to be a challenge for the surgeons to find anything to operate on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3705684.stm date=01.10.2004 11:52 ip=158.94.142.27 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And it's not just you, Io. A great and - yes - grateful country thinks just the same. This, again, from BBC's "Have Your Say" site today, responding to Blair's plans for a third term in power:

"I think that Tony is always sincere, and proved it once again yesterday. He has constantly been asked questions about his position, so he had the courage and honesty to come out and tell the truth, even though no Prime Minister in modern politics had done so before. I liked him 7 years ago, I still like him now, and for the same reasons. An intelligent, friendly, well spoken family man that wants to work to guide our country to a better future. I hope you get better soon Tony.
Andrew Willis, St.Albans."

More Prozac, anyone? Stop laughing at the back. date=01.10.2004 17:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Blair heart treatment 'went well'"

The Lord be praised! date=01.10.2004 17:34 ip=158.94.142.27 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Even though Blair lied about WMDs he is sincere. Being sincere and honest are completely different things. Orwell did not now the half of it ! date=01.10.2004 19:41 ip=80.58.4.172 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Look at the way the just finished Labour Party Conference dealt with it. The last investigation (Butler Report) came to the conclusion that the case for WMDs was not just exaggerated but exaggerated to an extreme degree. That is tantamount to saying that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair lied by omission. So, a government appointed investigation found that the government lied on an issue that meant death for tens of thousands of people, and caused a massive spawing of terrorist activity in an Arab country where it hadn't existed before. What conclusion is reached? "Tony meant well and was basically sincere." How is that kind of response supposed to be read? (Answers on the back of a postcard please.) date=01.10.2004 20:27 ip=62.64.202.96 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The road to hell is paved with good intentions( Quevedo) date=01.10.2004 23:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Butler was apparently expecting the question 'Should Blair resign?' at the post report press conference, and was prepared to be (at least by inference) damningly negative in his response to it; he was very surprised when nobody asked it. date=03.10.2004 01:28 ip=81.178.130.209 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One thing I've always wondered, living in the States, is why Blair joined forces with Bush in the first place. Isn't Blair considered liberal, the antithesis of the politics Bush supports? Forgive my naivete if I'm mistaken. date=03.10.2004 08:43 ip=65.148.125.112 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> why Blair joined forces with Bush...

Two reasons, I think. Firstly, because he was afraid of risking the "special relationship" between the US and the UK, which exists mainly in the mind of deluded prime ministers. Secondly, because as a politician he is more concerned about his "place in history" than about the troubling minutiae of running a country.

Then I think that once he got started on that course, the cognitive dissonance kicked in and jammed his reverse gear. The more he stuck with Bush, the more he was unable to unstick himself. date=03.10.2004 10:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Let´s not forget plain old greed.
I remenber an article by Samuelson in "Time" magazine debunking the then current wall street myth of an upcoming boom thanks to oddles of cheap iraki oil. I remenber the american general who said that the United States who said that they could do whatever they wanted with iraki oil. I remenber an article in the Observer taking Blair to task for not securing a bigger slice of the cake . And , in Vonegut words, so on and so on. ..
So I would day greed and , of course, not giving a toss for the murder of some more thousands of civilians. date=03.10.2004 13:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not to shift focus from the Bush/Blair discussion, but I recently read a contemporary fantasy novel that started off wonderfully, in modern-day London, and became progressively more unbelievable as the story went on. The London scenes were fresh, possibly because they were drawn from life. But as soon as the protagonist entered the fantasy world, the characters went flat...and I wonder if this is because the writer described things he'd never directly participated in, like skinning the hide of a purplish beast, for instance. It was a disappointing experience because the author has a gift with words and a great imagination.

The reason I bring this up on Mike's board is because LIGHT didn't have that problem for me. Even the really weird shit with the Cray sisters had the ring of truth because the emotions were recognizable, a refraction of what we experience today.

So I wonder, is fantasy an inherently flawed genre as long as writers do not ground their work in the real world? date=04.10.2004 13:23 ip=65.146.242.76 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blair's support for Bush is the most frightening baffling act of political stupidity for the last fifty years - since Suez in fact. John T it's Blair who is naive when he says for example: "I just don't get this neo-con thing." Meaning Cheney, Wolfowitz &c. What doesn't he understand about that? Without Blair there would have been no Iraq war.

Changing the subject slightly, did anyone read the article by William Boyd on the short story in Saturday's Guardian? I have liked the one or two Boyd short stories I have come across. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have a collection in print at the moment. date=04.10.2004 13:29 ip=62.64.229.102 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: odd you should say that. William Boyd's piece was in fact advance publicity for his new collection Fascination, which comes out on the 7th. I've reviewed it for the Guardian, and I hope it will be in the Review next Saturday. I like him a lot: he's a keenly technical writer, especially of short stories, and always worth reading.

John T: I can't bear fantasy that isn't grounded in some way, earthed-out, as you say, by its emotional or psychological or physical connections to the world we know. This is why I rather hate the completed gesture of "portal" fantasy. Once you take the reader to the other side of the portal--once the fantasy ceases to be implied and has to become "real" for the reader --then all you can do is turn up the bullshit. You can often tell when this is happening because the author's prose goes to hell.

I guess, too, that if you are going to write about skinning something invented, it might be better to have had some experience at skinning something real.

In terms of emotional load, Michel Faber had some fairly hard things to say about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (also in the Guardian) recently. Faber himself is very good indeed at grounding the most outrageously imaginative stuff in strong human feelings, see Under the Skin. date=04.10.2004 14:54 ip=213.78.73.236 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I enjoy Michael Faber's work very much. I definitely want to find the article and see what his argument was. date=04.10.2004 16:16 ip=65.146.242.76 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: What galls me about those types of fantasies is I get a strong sense that the writer is disenchanted with the world as it is. To me, that's a failure of vision and, I sometimes suspect, an unhealthy attitude. And you're right--whatever visions a novelist gives us of the world "on the other side" invariably disappoints. date=04.10.2004 16:25 ip=65.146.242.76 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John T.: If you haven't tracked it down, Faber's piece on "Jonathon Strange" is here:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5028945-11 0738,00.html date=04.10.2004 17:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He makes it look very intriguing; a fantasy novel that works very hard to undercut itself... date=04.10.2004 19:30 ip=81.178.226.45 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I´ve read the book and Faber´s review seems to me spot on. date=04.10.2004 21:21 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Much more (and more after that) here:

http://www.complete-review.com/new/new.html date=05.10.2004 10:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A better way to read BBC News: http://www.whitelabel.org/wp/wikiproxy.php
via http://tinyurl.com/3nd5g date=05.10.2004 12:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyhow I am surprised that no rewiev of Jonathan Strange &Mr.Norrell metions the obvious model for this book Lud in the mist by Hope Mirless. date=05.10.2004 21:32 ip=80.58.9.113 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anyhow I am surprised that no rewiev of Jonathan Strange &Mr.Norrell metions the obvious model for this book Lud in the mist by Hope Mirless.

That's probably due to the fact that few reviewers will have heard of it, never mind read it, wouldn't you say? Fairies are up there with monsters and spaceships as the last thing your average book reviewer wants to know about.

JS & MN sounds a bit more original than Neil Gaiman's Stardust which really does plunder Lud-in-the-mist (as Neil G would no doubt admit).

http://tinyurl.com/4g3zj

As far as books with Byron in the cast of characters go, I'll stick with The Anubis Gates, thank you. date=05.10.2004 22:09 ip=195.128.250.238 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I never liked the Anubis Gates, thought it was very two dimensional; but then I'm a Coleridge / Mayhew / etc nut, so maybe was expecting a bit too much from it. Seemed to be very much a theme park view of early C19 London. date=06.10.2004 10:21 ip=81.178.219.10 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH said:

This is why I rather hate the completed gesture of "portal" fantasy.

I hate portal fantasy because the character travelling to the other side of the portal is supposed to stand in for the reader. The character is someone to whom the author thinks we should relate. Risky. I couldn't relate less to the Pevensey kids. date=06.10.2004 11:17 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>The Pevensey kids ...

That's one reason why it was so great when the Barley Bros. turned up - "skinhay-ead!"

Just checking Amazon reviews of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Closet from Heal's," and found one fan who says: "As a child I adored the chronicles of Narnia. I literally read the ink off the pages." I'd pay more to see someone do that than I would for the book itself, actually. date=06.10.2004 11:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Pevensey kids? Who are they? Sounds Nesbit or similar.

By portal fantasy, you mean 'step through the magic door to Narnia' type stuff? I'm intrigued by it. What would *really* happen? You'd get completely fucked up; we'd either fuck them up, or they'd fuck us up. Or both. Something quite colonial in it all - how would we exploit each other?

Fairy myths essentially portal fantasies (all these people on the way home from the market, sleeping in fairy rings, etc, who get pulled into *fairyland*), hedged about with warnings and usually devastating in their impact on the protagonist, very acute I think. date=06.10.2004 11:49 ip=81.178.219.10 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: I guess that you are rigth ( sighs an bows head in despair) date=06.10.2004 11:50 ip=194.143.206.10 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I literally read the ink off the pages

Would fuck up your eyeballs. Or give you a black eye.

*ahem* date=06.10.2004 11:50 ip=81.178.219.10 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al : Nesbit is way better than Lewis . date=06.10.2004 11:51 ip=194.143.206.10 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just been checking product name registrations on the net for a job, and discovered that L Ron Hubbard's signature is registered thus:

Paper, paper articles and cardboard articles, all included in Class 16; and cardboard, printed matter, bookbinding materials, protective covers for books, stationery and transfers (decalcomanias), but not including toilet paper, paper towels or paper handkerchiefs.

So, if you 've ever wanted to get those L Ron Hubbard toilet paper rolls, towels, hankies etc out - now's the time! date=06.10.2004 12:37 ip=81.178.219.10 name=John T. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, I recently read a passage from Moorcock's WIZARDRY AND WILD ROMANCE where he makes a convincing argument that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien suffer from a flaccid and fey style, something he calls 'Epic Pooh.' The lack of vitality and conciseness is probably why I preferred reading Robert E. Howard as a teen. Even though Howard was not a great writer, his crude plots had a vitality lacking in more 'respectable' work. date=06.10.2004 13:49 ip=65.148.121.174 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Certainly - but I'm wondering if the discussion below isn't less about stylistic concerns (important tho' they are) and more about a basic structural problem of portal fantasies; a too literal collision between two modes of fiction causing problems for both, if not carefully handled. date=06.10.2004 14:05 ip=81.178.219.10 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Narnia--& for that matter "the Planets" trilogy--is such desperate, last ditch rhetoric. Lewis's ideologies, along with whatever deeply-felt formative stuff from the turn of that century which made up his literary-political backbone, had been rolled over by history. The world wasn't ever going back to what he wanted or remembered or hoped for. So every word in those books is tailored to propagandise, every action or opinion on the part of every character is ideological theatre. That's why you feel uncomfortable with the Pevenseys: they're such a desperate attempt to persuade. But the jig was already up (I think "The Rhetoric of Fiction" appeared not long after that series finished, if not before). If I was a betting man I'd predict that Pullman will look equally desperate in a generation-and-half's time. You can always wear your heart on your sleeve in this life, and people will love you for it; but you can't afford to be seen to be selling the product. The distinction is fairly obvious. date=06.10.2004 14:35 ip=213.78.175.159 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I totally disagree of course. :O)

I have always loved CS Lewis; much more than Tolkein, partly *because* of the portal idea; because it seemed to 'connect me back to the real world'. Call me stupid, but every time I walk across Primrose Hill it reminds me of Narnia.

However, I do agree with MJH's logic. I just don't think that CSL is the candidate for it.

If CSL was peddling anything it was the wonder of the real world - as in Perelandra. date=06.10.2004 15:28 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP : I´ve re-read recently the narnia books( most of them) and they are chock full of unqualified propaganda. Slurrs against liberal schools, evil cockneys and stuff as opposed to good country people . Not until the last book , Lewis bothers to introduce a token good arab. The "comunist" dwarfs are depicted as evil and so on. date=06.10.2004 15:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I'm going to have to re-read them, I think. Maybe we should start a Narnia thread over on the Empty Space Reading Board?! date=06.10.2004 15:52 ip=81.178.219.10 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooomm. Nasty. Maybe they need cleaning up, a la Noddy and Big Ears. date=06.10.2004 15:54 ip=81.19.57.38 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Didn't I read somewhere that someone is doing just that: a secularised reworking of the Narnia books. Can't remember who at the moment. date=06.10.2004 15:58 ip=158.94.170.157 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In a way I hate doing this, but these people do set themselves up for the rest of us.

The official CS Lewis site is called "Into the Wardrobe" and features various testimonies from enthusastic Lewis readers. This one caught my eye:

"Dear Sir;
While perusing various and sordid things on the Web, I came across your site quite by accident. I remember my mother reading the Narnia stories to me when I was a small child. The stories lay in my subconscious for years and your site has reawakened not only a love for them, but in them a new found love for Jesus and God.
Tomorrow I will be going to prison for an unknown amount of time, so I can only feel that the timing is an act of God. His love for me will keep me strong in this tribulation that only yesterday I was blaming on Him, but now realize that the blame lies wholly on me.
Tonight I will reread The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and tomorrow I will be a better person for it. "

So that's all right, then. Probably. date=06.10.2004 16:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Here we go:

"Encouraged by the success of Harry Potter, the Lewis estate and its publishers HarperCollins are reported to have struck deals to launch a series of toys and to create new Narnia novels. A leaked memo reportedly says: "We'll need to be able to give emphatic assurances that no attempt will be made to correlate the stories to Christian imagery/theology." "

http://tinyurl.com/6ytuq date=06.10.2004 16:11 ip=158.94.170.157 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin - good grief! Who is that person? The prose style of a country vicar, the lifestyle of a Kray twin. Astonishing. date=06.10.2004 16:35 ip=81.178.219.10 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Unsigned. I'm not quite sure how you could find "Into the Wardobe" while surfing for "various and sordid things" - and given the prison sentence, I'd rather not guess. But you can read others like this at "Into the Wardrobe" and its "visitors' anecdotes" section. I'm fond of the post that compares Lewis characters to upper class sorts, and concludes "Marshwiggles were a common Foreign Office type." A whole panorama of social regard caught in a phrase.

Io: I don't like Lewis using children's books as a stalking horse for Jesus, either - but this seems to be an example of mealy-mouthed publishing greed to me. They should either reprint the books as written, or not bother. It's a bit like a Christian publisher taking on "Elidor" and insisting that all the Celtic/tarot imagery should go, or reissuing Rowling minus Hogwarts. date=06.10.2004 16:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: ... although re-reading the leaked report, perhaps they *will* reprint them as written, but hope somehow that no one will notice the Christian bits. date=06.10.2004 17:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't know, maybe he was trying to come out of the closet and just got a bit lost... date=06.10.2004 17:03 ip=81.178.219.10 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Seems to be a certain innocence on the site, too. Another poster says she raised her daughters on Narnia, and tells us "they are very well rounded young women now."

Well - yes. I'm sure ... date=06.10.2004 17:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I recently listened, with my daughter (I hasten to add), to dramatizations of the Narnia books. More childhood illusions shattered. Yes, they were heavy-handed and propagandist. date=06.10.2004 17:22 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am absolutely unable to read Lewis, but I find loathsome the idea that his ideology be revised out of his books after his death by his publisher, or that "new" C S Lewis be produced by teams of HarperCollins hacks working in shifts.

MJP: we could go head to head on this one, but let's not bother. I'm sure it's all documented somewhere. You could start with Eustace (is it Eustace ?) who is such a clear propaganda tool you can't actually read him as a character. I don't spot "the real" in Perelandra anywhere, I'm afraid. As for "That Hideous Strength" -- shudder.

Martin, that quote is just so amazing. date=06.10.2004 17:24 ip=213.78.90.239 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="That Hideous Strength"; that's the one with Merlin in? Read all those when about 12, little stuck in my mind apart from climbing mountains on Mars; presumably some kind of Dantean thing.

Have just finished 'All Hallows Eve' btb - now there's a mind bogglingly cosmic rendition of Christianity!

Tho' ultimately if I want xtian literature I go to William Blake. date=06.10.2004 17:32 ip=81.178.219.10 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>More childhood illusions shattered. Yes, they were heavy-handed and propagandist.

But I really wonder how propagandist they are for children. I've had a number of intelligent people (that mythical and rhetorical breed!) genuinely confused by the Christian imagery in Narnia. When you explain it to them of course they get it, but it didn't seem to have any effect on them as kids.

For heavy-handed Christian allegory I prefer George MacDonald's Lilith. The final image of souls awaiting resurrection in the chamber of sleep is really quite eerie. date=06.10.2004 17:32 ip=158.94.170.157 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personally, I read "Narnia" as a child, spotted the obvious Jesus parallels with Aslan, but didn't notice the rest. I went back to the books in my twenties. I was distubed by the propaganda and by some of the overtones in Lewis's imagination: when I came across Kearney's "Gorselands" fantasy in "Light" it instantly conjured up the same dubious, abusive atmosphere as the boarding school depicted in one of the Narnia books. I never got through "This Hideous Strength," but I read the other two novels as a teenager. Again, I've tried going back to them, but now find them impenetrable. Most of Lewis's essays baffle or anger me, and I'm at a loss as to why Kenneth Tynan revered him. So count me among the goats.

Anyway, more remarkable posts and Lewis appreciators are at:

http://cslewis.drzeus.net/ date=06.10.2004 17:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I really wonder how propagandist they are for children

Certainly not obviously so, I had no idea about the Christian stuff, and when told about it subsequently I imagined it must have been quite subtle for me to have missed it so completely. But then listening to the dramatizations - OUCH! Especially The Last Battle - painfully unsubtle. date=06.10.2004 17:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know this issue has been hammered to death, but how does T Blair extract the conclusionn he does, that sanctions weren't working, ("It just goes to show that sanctions weren't working") when yesterday's report demonstrates the opposite. That Saddam got rid of all his weapons, etc, in order to try to lift the sanctions? It has to be just more Blair 'news management'. Just more poisonous delusion. He can't seriously be serious - can he? date=07.10.2004 10:18 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, MJP. > Hammered to death ...

If only somebody would. Him, I mean.

Looking at today's headlines, though, and summing it up in a phrase: would you buy a used submarine from this man? date=07.10.2004 11:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> how does T Blair extract the conclusionn he does

By needing to do it. If he accepted he was wrong, had lied, etc, he'd have to stand down; and the lady's not for turning. So, there's only one conclusion to reach. Shakespeare would have loved all this. date=07.10.2004 11:24 ip=81.178.186.171 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, am restraining myself from ranting here, but how stupid do they think we are to come out with all this nonsense? I am pondering joining the Labour Party purely to start agitating to get King Tone dethroned. date=07.10.2004 11:36 ip=81.178.186.171 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: > Shakespeare.

You bet. Blair's obsession with those nonexistent WMDs calls up Macbeth's dagger straight away: "I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." The rest of the play crawls with applicable lines, too. date=07.10.2004 11:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or Cassius' speech from JC - 'For Brutus is an honorable man...' etc. date=07.10.2004 11:57 ip=81.178.186.171 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It really is off the radar: TB: "I will accept that there were no weapons of mass destruction, but you must accept that sanctions weren't working." Eh? But the report says the exact opposite! Which planet are we on? date=07.10.2004 11:58 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've just seen that too -

>> I hope others have the honesty to accept that the report also shows that sanctions weren't working

Says Tony. There were no WMD so sanctions weren't working? I mean - what? date=07.10.2004 11:59 ip=81.178.186.171 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Strange thing is how people from other countries see this. I was talking to a Mexican looking for a job, and he said: "Your govt works." He's right, in those terms. But good grief at what cost. My brother in the Ukraine is barely aware of the Iraq war. He is preoccupied by the Ukraine's murderous president. date=07.10.2004 12:12 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: >'All Hallows ...'

I agree: an amazing piece of work.

Speaking of Williams, someone asked me if they could come to the archive and borrow his ceremonial sword from the Golden Dawn - I think for an office joke. It hasn't been left to us; and I certainly wouldn't be have lent it out if it had. People have the strangest ideas, don't they? date=07.10.2004 14:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This (the whole saga) is more like Hamlet. The ultimate revenge play since revenge is not to be had. This is a country haunted by the dead. By ghosts. Phantoms. Nobody seems able to nail the lying Claudius. Alas! poor Demo, I knew him Horatio. date=07.10.2004 14:26 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back no Narnia :MJP: I just realized that you were talking about " The silver chair" date=07.10.2004 15:57 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Silver Chair, maybe that's where it came from. I have a weakness for fantasy that breaches the 'real world', like the Narnia chronicles, because of how this seems to infect my perceptions, my sense of what's real. A bit like a computer game: the sophisticated graphics - the sense of virtual sunlight coming through clouds, while you are sitting at a desk, it's like wearing shades on holiday, or driving around in a cabriolet. Irresponsible maybe but captivating. date=07.10.2004 17:56 ip=81.19.57.38 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm very hungover after last night's gig, (thanks for coming along MJP, good to see you there!) so I've put the new Tom Waits album on which perfectly fits that muzzy vibe... What's grooving on everybody else's personal jukeboxes just now?

(sorry, hangover precludes in depth intellectualism...!) date=08.10.2004 16:10 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: You were checking Waits, I was listening to that nice Mr. Banks read at Borders in Oxford, and sitting next to an Essex builder who'd wandered in from the pub: "Who is ' e, then? I've never fuckin' 'eard of 'im. 's 'e any fuckin' good?" We got about five pages from "The Algebraist" (dutifully followed in her copy by a pale but interesting lady in front of me), then questions.

Who would he most like to see go up in Branson's privatised space craft? "Well, as it'll probably explode - how about Tony Blair? I mean, who's going to miss a fucking war criminal?" Four of us applauded (including the builder), but the rest of the room didn't seem to be with him at all. Never mind. At least his Ivor Cutler impression went down well.

Sounds: Rocket from the Tombs (wah!), "Leaving New York" (REM) "Just a Dog" (Tindersticks), "Hallelujah" by Can and "I Can't Write Left-Handed" by Bill Withers. What's the Waits like? date=08.10.2004 16:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What's the Waits like? Like the best kind of hangover; that deep, Sunday afternoon fug, wraps you in itself, should be ragged and caustic but somehow all that and groovily comforting at the same time. And a by product of a deeply funky time. Very, very cool...

Hmm, Iain Banks new one - cool! Btb, China and Susanna thingy (Dr S and Mr N) reading in Borders on Monday night, shall be rocking along there if anybody's up for it.

Hmm, never been a fan of REM. I think I surfeited on jangly dirges with The Smiths. date=08.10.2004 17:13 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone know what colour the sky would be on Mars? date=08.10.2004 17:43 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It seems to be light mauve - but the site below fiddled with colour values to get a US flag on the lander to look "normal," and got something like a clear day in April.

Patriots, eh? First it's the colour values; next it'll be terraforming.

http://rense.com/general9/color.htm date=08.10.2004 17:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>personal jukeboxes just now?

Dirty Three: Horse Stories date=08.10.2004 18:52 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Personal Jukebox: McLusky - "The Difference Between You and Me is that I'm not on Fire". I've also been on a bit of a 60s West Coast psychedelia trip, rediscovering Merrell Fankhauser & HMS Bounty ("Driving Sideways Down a One-Way Street") and chancing upon a compilation album that sounds right up Io's multi-way street: "Electric Psychedelic Sitar Headswirlers (Volume 2)".

I never really got REM either. Although fortunately last week I was down the pub with somebody who was. There was a music quiz. Five of the questions were REM songs, to be identified from their opening few bars. We ended up scoring 27 out of 30, some kind of all kind record, and winning eight pints into the bargain. I didn't feel I'd contributed much to the score, but I did at least manage to remember James Newell Osterberg's stage name (Iggy Pop) and decipher the anagram Next Exam Jabs (Basement Jaxx). We returned the next week and did it again: slightly scary that we managed to correctly name just as many Cher tracks as we did REM. date=08.10.2004 22:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fzzz, not even drunk (yet) and I'm typing word soup. Goodnight everyone. date=08.10.2004 22:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Electric Psychedelic Sitar Headswirlers (Volume 2)"

Sounds fucking awesome.

Other than the Psychedelia Vol4 compilation that I mentioned over on KRMB, things have been swinging pretty hot at iotacism Towers. There's this Django & Friends CD that I've rediscovered, and a compilation of early twentieth century Klezmer, Ray Noble & His Orchestra, and various Benny Goodman stuff featuring Charlie Christian on guitar. date=08.10.2004 22:40 ip=217.43.15.245 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am afraid my jukebox is not very original: The new waits . a brazilian band called Tribalistas, the latest Sylvian and Angelique Kidjo. date=08.10.2004 23:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, MJP
This is from"The silver Chair"

" Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things ...suposse we have. Then all I can say is that in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important that the real ones. Suppose that this black pit of a Kingdom of yours is the only world. Well , it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that´s a funny thing when you come to think of it. We .. can make a play world that licks your real world hollow .That´s why I am going to stay for the play world." ( Page 156 of the Puffin Book edition).
In the context of the book Narnia is of course " the real" world but here is Lewis breaking the fouth wall and talking straigth to the reader. Of course this is how a lot of people feel about that big book by Lewis´s Franco-loving pal. date=10.10.2004 23:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indymedia servers closed down by FBI:
http://tinyurl.com/6m2hj date=11.10.2004 12:12 ip=158.94.137.37 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I saw that - mind boggling. date=11.10.2004 12:43 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Guerrilla News seems to be phasing in and out at the moment as well; I wonder if that's related? date=11.10.2004 12:43 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure they're reading us closely, so we'd better post the important stuff right away.

More stabs at the poor Muse crop up in the latest "Oxford Magazine." This includes a poem called "I Shall Not Dissect the Golden Chaffinch" (good for you, I say), and another entitled "How It Is With the Circle." This begins:

Actually it's just a line, but all points
are equidistant from the centre.

This is immensely helpful, and clears up several things that have puzzled me for ages. After a few thoughts on "the unpredictability of blood and time" it ends -

How is it that flesh wants
to be something else - how it wants to be more.

How indeed - especially with the nights drawing in. Anyway, mind how you go. date=11.10.2004 12:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: I think we need to see the Chaffinch one. date=11.10.2004 13:53 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Indeed. My memory was at fault, though: for "golden" read "bright."

This is by Rip Bulkeley:

I shall not dissect the bright chaffinch
after trying to lift it up as gently
as it lay on the sunlit pavement.
It was perfect, untouched, alive
but for something infinitesimal,
an essence no scalpel would discover.

[Despite the last three lines, I think he means it's dead].

I carried it someone also real,
reflecting on kites, gulls, peacocks,
blackbirds, galahs and ibises; on the graces
which birds confer on human cities;
on the evils which they prevent,
probably, by enduring others.

To bury these words alongside
a notional hero-chaffinch
is very little. To have written them
better, made them strong enough to travel
to the ends of the great migrations - that
could have been a reparation.

- And there you have it. date=11.10.2004 14:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Er, right. OK. Yup. Hmm. date=11.10.2004 15:20 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Notional hero-chaffinch," eh? Well, run along now, and bring me back the evening paper.

One can't help thinking that Rip Bulkeley's first name predicts his poetic future: but I've been wrong before, etc. date=11.10.2004 16:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Does it really end:

- And there you have it?

It should. date=11.10.2004 16:37 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: My doodle on the Mona Lisa: I should have made that clear. But I was distracted by another poem about children returning from a funeral. Apart from including the unfortunate phrase "Their stem/Of love had not yet ramified," it ends:

"...Are we then bolder,
Going, or more timid, than their elastic eyes
Which, in resisting nothing, bind up all?"

Hard to say, I think you'll agree. Few things more upsetting than a kid with elastic eyes. date=11.10.2004 17:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quoting the Monkees - who writes this stuff? Who are these people? Which magazine's this from again? date=11.10.2004 17:35 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops, Oxford Magazine. What is it? date=11.10.2004 17:36 ip=81.178.195.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this is from the "Oxford Magazine" - an internal but independent university publication: so authors are either students or staff.

It does sometimes feature pretty good poetry - but I think the other kind is just too entertaining not to share. Especially if you've got elastic eyes. date=11.10.2004 17:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it's only fair to point out that the views expressed on this forum are not necessarily the views of the participants or something like that. date=11.10.2004 18:19 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="... alive/But for ..." - it's dead. Poor little fellow. date=12.10.2004 05:08 ip=192.100.22.50 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not dead. It's pining for the fijords. date=12.10.2004 09:36 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gagging on bad poetry, I turned to the BBC again. Their website carried a surprising headline: "Bush Camp in New Attack on Kerry."

This is a side to the President I'd never suspected: something restrained in suede, presumably, perhaps with a small shoulder bag and some kohl for the eyes. You live and learn.

The real debate, of course, centres on who's working him:

http://www.isbushwired.com/ date=12.10.2004 10:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was about to type in 'Nice cartoon about that in the Guardian today', when I thought, hmm, now there's a sentence that sums up an entire lifestyle.

Like the time I found myself in M&S thinking to myself, 'Hmm, M&S do some really nice corduroys....' and knew that, whatever else was going on in my life, middle age had begun to hit.

Will be staying in for Rosemary and Thyme next. date=12.10.2004 11:21 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have unashamedly bought my first pair of cords. Lovely! date=12.10.2004 12:14 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=These were chunky, brown, geography teacher cords, with turn ups. The type my mother always tries to buy for me if I go shopping with her.

re music - have Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green era) on in the background. The Green Manalishi has just come on. Gnarly! date=12.10.2004 12:19 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This is interesting - groovy little film if you click on the links. GWB ten years ago, GWB now. Big difference! (tho' the wonders of editing etc etc)

http://www.blogitics.com/index.php/weblog/excuses_fo r_bushs_debate_failure/ date=12.10.2004 14:25 ip=213.78.7.39 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re-reading CotH at the moment. Intrigued by the way that the medieval fantasy world of the Coeur is bracketed off at two removes from the narrator. Within the story the narrator tells us about Pam and Lucas's story about Michael Ashman's travelogue there is a tragic romantic history. It is in some ways reminiscent of the interlocking connexions between the SF world and the sick-chick-lit novel in Light.

I was also toying with a reading of CotH that makes Yaxley into a projection of the narrator. I'm not sure this is fully sustainable. Could we consider Yaxley to be the legacy from the that the narrator (shall we call him Michael?) inherited from the Pleroma when Lucas inherited his destructive imp and Pam her white couple?

Also: are the two boys on the train the Barley Brothers? date=13.10.2004 12:34 ip=158.94.151.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Re-reading CotH at the moment. Intrigued by the way that the medieval fantasy world of the Coeur is bracketed off at two removes from the narrator. Within the story the narrator tells us about Pam and Lucas, there is a story about Michael Ashman's travelogue which contains the story of a tragic romantic history. It is in some ways reminiscent of the interlocking connexions between the SF world and the sick-chick-lit novel in Light.

I was also toying with a reading of CotH that makes Yaxley into a projection of the narrator. I'm not sure this is fully sustainable. Could we consider Yaxley to be the legacy from the that the narrator (shall we call him Michael?) inherited from the Pleroma when Lucas inherited his destructive imp and Pam her white couple?

Also: are the two boys on the train the Barley Brothers?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.10.2004 12:34 ip=158.94.151.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Re-reading CotH at the moment. Intrigued by the way that the medieval fantasy world of the Coeur is bracketed off at two removes from the narrator. Within the story the narrator tells us about Pam and Lucas, there is a story about Michael Ashman's travelogue which contains the story of a tragic romantic history. It is in some ways reminiscent of the interlocking connexions between the SF world and the sick-chick-lit novel in Light.

I was also toying with a reading of CotH that makes Yaxley into a projection of the narrator. I'm not sure this is fully sustainable. Could we consider Yaxley to be the legacy that the narrator (shall we call him Michael?) inherited from the Pleroma when Lucas inherited his destructive imp and Pam her white couple?

Also: are the two boys on the train the Barley Brothers?
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=13.10.2004 12:34 ip=158.94.151.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And what is more...


Bringing this right up to date, perhaps Yaxley also fulfils the role of tourist guide a la Tourism. The Zone is the Pleroma, the Pleroma is the Tao - it is empty in itself but things are channelled through it. Keep yr head while you are travelling through the tract, though! You shd see the state of some of those who lost their nerve!

I guess the key difference between the guide in Tourism and CotH is that Yaxley always remains in control. date=13.10.2004 13:17 ip=158.94.151.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and don't forget about Hello Johnny in Gifco... date=13.10.2004 13:21 ip=158.94.151.147 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: "Hello Johnny" - I can't forget him, but the story is such a maze of mirrors that you can never pinpoint whether the narrator imagines Johnny or vice versa. There's no buried daughter, there's no Day of the Dead in Barnes ( ... is there?), and as the narrator admits in that dream, he's swallowed the spectator - the reader. So endless, dreadful fun for all the family trying to work out what's "really happening" in the story. And they say Jacques Derrida is dead. date=13.10.2004 13:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And to an extent it doesn't matter if he's real or imagined: he's an inheritance from the Pleroma as real or unreal as the white couple or the black man on the train. The Yaxleys and Hello Johnnys are guides through The Zone while the brothers with shaved heads and the destructive imps are landmarks by which they guide tourists through the territory.

Hmm, very rhetorical. I'll try to come up with something more substantial.

Christopher Reeves is also dead. Is there a connexion? date=13.10.2004 13:52 ip=158.94.151.147 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Zone reminds me of "Stalker." Tarkovsky filming "CotH" - we can only dream, I'm afraid. date=13.10.2004 13:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've always assumed that we are to read the 'white couple' and the 'imp' as real - more than one person can see them after all. In fact, I think one way to read COTH is completely literally, to take it as read that the odd events really do happen (in the context of the novel). Then, of course, you can go deeper, but that's the richness of the damn thing. There are very few novels that I can read and re-read with undiminshed fascination, but COTH is one. I hope I never 'get' it , because then it would be dead. date=13.10.2004 14:20 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Christopher Reeves is also dead. Is there a connexion?

Wasn't he something to do with Nietsche? date=13.10.2004 14:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nah - that was Laurie Anderson ... date=13.10.2004 14:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I've always assumed that we are to read the 'white couple' and the 'imp' as real

Yes, you're prolly right on that one, Alex. I think what I was trying to do, in my cackhanded inexact way, was to break up the notion of real/unreal in the book. Neither are terrible useful in the wake of the Pleroma. The Pleroma is the realest thing in the book and it's never grasped by the characters. (Although I'm tempted to wonder if Pam, Lucas and Yaxley get the Pleroma fine, it's just the narrator who has trouble with it.) What I really want to get at in CotH, Tourism, Gifco, &c, is what *sort* of symbols and what sort of emblems we are being presented with.

In a certain way the landmarks in a Viriconium story are far easier to read than those in CotH, it's probably something to do with that realism/fantasy fracture that runs through the story. We're constantly thrown by the familiar. And yes, we wouldn't want to explain away the mystery of CotH, but I suspect that the depth and equivocal nature of the material would prevent this from occurring. date=13.10.2004 16:16 ip=158.94.151.147 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And furthermore...

Thinking a little more about this idea that the narrator fails to get the Pleroma while all the other characters manage fine. Perhaps this is precisely because the narrator tries to understand what happened rather than embody (or hypostatize?) the Pleroma. The Pleroma, enfolded within the Coeur, enfolded within the heart of the rose, enfolded within the scent of attar, cannot be intellectually attained. By definition it's a matter of the heart - something which is lived. Which is what Pam and Lucas realise fleetingly before they crash upon its rocks.

Sorry, there's clearly something in this garlic & herb roule this afternoon. date=13.10.2004 16:24 ip=158.94.151.147 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Something which is lived

The duality's there from the start: waiting to see what the next minute will bring (that childhood garden reflecting the Pleroma) or being precoccupied with that "bloody piece of paper" (the text you imagine your life to be). You could argue the text is the narrator's "piece of paper," while life (in all its gnostic glory) somehow passes him by. date=13.10.2004 17:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And, of course, at the end of that section: the hinged moment where he feels that his life went wrong. Instead of staying in the room full of sex and humid June sunlight he answers the door to Lucas and the summons from Yaxley.

When I first read the book in my early twenties I don't think I analysed or read the book very deeply but was left with an impression of the rich colour and mystery of the narrative. The dynamics of the book worked fine, and the temporal shifts too, but I didn't really look into how they were being constructed. I don't know on this basis whether subsequent readings have improved the book ("You'll understand it better when you're more grown-up, sonny!") as such. In the same way it'll be interesting to see how Light matures over the years. date=13.10.2004 17:30 ip=158.94.151.147 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And the multiple meanings of that one line, "I'm coming!" Sexually, practically - and ironically: he's not simply coming, he's gone past it, to a point where his life will now be almost a matter of standing still.

Like Al, I keep finding new things inside it (or it keeps finding new thinsg in me). A tesseract of Chinese boxes, like no other book I know. date=13.10.2004 17:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>he's not simply coming, he's gone past it

Or in Choe's terms: "That's through the other side, Mick!"

Well, I'm off to drink great quantities in celebration of a friend's birthday, so with some luck I'll be incapable of lengthy postings tomorrow. date=13.10.2004 17:49 ip=158.94.151.147 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Was the vision in the square a vision of Sophia (who exists simultaneously in descent from the Pleroma and in the Pleroma but never takes full physical form - unlike Christ)? Are the main characters permanently empty because the have experienced "the fullness" (and to be part of the Pleroma necessitates dissolution of the self)? Why are Yaxley's rituals so dark? (My guess is that because good and evil mean nothing in the Pleroma, they mean nothing to Yaxley). Better read the damn book again I suppose. date=13.10.2004 17:58 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>who exists simultaneously in descent from the Pleroma and in the Pleroma but never takes full physical form - unlike Christ

Sorry, but I have to take you up on this one. Sophia's descent is *very* physical. It's that old gnostic metaphor of diamonds in shit. There are rumors that she was incarnated in Helen of Troy and I suspect that Mary Magdalen was another avatar. Sophia and Christ take opposite but complementary trajectories into the world of matter. date=14.10.2004 12:59 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A huge site of gnostic text and commentary here, for anyone like me who can't always tell their archon from their ecclesia gnostica:

http://www.gnosis.org/search_form.html date=14.10.2004 13:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Sophia's descent is *very* physical

Yes, but whereas Christ actually *becomes* a man, Sophia only inhabits a human body - I think! You probably know better than I do, though, Io - I'm only just getting into this stuff. date=14.10.2004 13:47 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: gnosis.org is great but their sermons are a tad cheesy. Gawd bless them - the one above the one we normally refer to.

Alex: Yeah, we're likely to get into sticky theology here. Because we could say the same thing about Christ - he just came down in a meat vehicle. But I'm sure Nicene Creed would disagree. The only distinction between them in my eyes is that Christ descended voluntarily. date=14.10.2004 14:00 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: If you can find a copy, H. Jonas's "Gnostic Religion" seems a pretty good starting point. Some scholarship's moved on since its publication (1964) but you get a plain English guide to the Hellenistic origins of gnosticism, its main schools, and their ideas. As for actual texts in translation, try Bentley Layton's "Gnostic Scriptures" - £8.00 second hand on Amazon in our fallen world, it seems.

Io: Cheesy they are! But the texts seem to be there. Any other recommended introductions? date=14.10.2004 14:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: a meat vehicle? Kebab spaceship shurely?

But anyway (moving swiftly away from sticky discussions) is the vision in the square (and Choe's vision too) not a representation of Sophia? The anima mundi? date=14.10.2004 14:18 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, they're very good in terms of texts. Can't, and wouldn't like to, knock them as far as that goes.

A very different but fun gnostic site is http://www.enemies.com - and I'd recommend Elaine Pagels' The Gnostic Gospels as a lively and heartfelt introduction to the subject. For a broader approach to gnosticism and dualist theology The Other God by Yuri Stoyanov is very good. But if you want to dive in and get yr hands dirty in the mire that is This Fallen World you can't do better than The Nag Hammadi Library itself. date=14.10.2004 14:24 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I read it Her as anima mundi, aspect of Sophia. date=14.10.2004 14:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>is the vision in the square (and Choe's vision too) not a representation of Sophia?

Yes, but... so is Isobel and so is Pam. Of course that's a disfunction in the narrator, and possible in this reader.

In the Pleroma she actually strongly resembles Renate Knaup-Krotenschwanz. date=14.10.2004 14:29 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sophia is a Krautrocker?

And Jesus is Angus Young ... date=14.10.2004 14:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's a pretty succinct take on heterodox theology. But also pretty flawless. date=14.10.2004 14:48 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought Sophia's most recent incarnation was Nigella Lawson. date=14.10.2004 14:49 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Strangely enough I think she was more recently incarnate in Lynndie England. date=14.10.2004 14:56 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>incarnate in Lynndie England.

Who has just given birth, apparently. Presumably to the Demiurge. date=14.10.2004 15:09 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An unusual birth: out of the arse, I believe, rather than the usual method. date=14.10.2004 15:12 ip=158.94.162.12 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If anyone's up for it, I've posted a suggestion for a new story for discussion (Sea Oak by Robert Saunders, very fun reading and available online)

http://www.iotacism.com/discus/messages/66/83.htm l date=14.10.2004 15:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Doh! *George* Saunders. Robert Saunders was my geography teacher. date=14.10.2004 15:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This has brought me to one of those strange moments where you realise that you can't remember one of yr teacher's names. Did Mr Saunders wear corduroy? date=14.10.2004 17:15 ip=158.94.164.42 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Strange moments? I should coco. We live in a world where international terrorists have accounts with the Bank of England ( so they must get regular statements, sent to a postal address ... um, could the security forces be missing something here?) and where the headquarters for Keep Britain Tidy is at - Wigan Pier!

Deep in the Pleroma, Orwell is having hysterics. date=14.10.2004 17:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Did Mr Saunders wear corduroy?

You know, I think he may well have done, I can picture him in a sort of olive-green corduroy suit, although I also have images of him in grey, very sober with the exception of a vivid orange mane of hair and beard.

You know what else is strange, I don't think he was called Robert either. In fact, I'm sure he was a John, because the bloke sitting next to me used to slip a quietly mumbled "John Saunders" in between each name read from the register, in mockery of our teacher's voice. No, Robert Saunders made a tent I used to own.

Bloody Saunderses. How can they expect anybody to remember what they're called if they use a dull name like that. In fact, this is the main thing that has kept me from recommending George Saunders' (yes!) book to friends, the fact that I can never remember his name. Although I think it may just about have stuck now. George Saunders. George Saunders. George Saunders. George Saunders. George Saunders. Right, that ought to do it.

(I hereby apologise to anybody with the surname Saunders. It's just harmless fun, right?) date=14.10.2004 18:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, All
Reading "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell and liking it a lot. date=14.10.2004 23:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Jil Ruf mail=Jil_Ruf@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.spicken-leicht-gemacht.de/ text=i found your site @ google – great job A+++ date=15.10.2004 08:23 ip=217.237.81.250 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Jil: glad you found us. We're here trading views on teachers in cords, incarnations of the goddess Wisdom ('Just call me Norman'), and the earthly prospects of Tony Blair. Do join in. date=15.10.2004 10:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo,

I love David Mitchell's writing. Ghostwritten, his first, was an excellent set of short stories very loosely linked by tenuous synchronicities and butterfly effects.

In Number9Dream he pushed the structural experimentation a lot further and, although I really rate the book, some of the writing suffered as a result of being straitjacketed into this bizarrely wonderful form. The fact that he had to write from the point of view of video-game characters and fluffy animals probably didn't help (although he did a brilliant job of getting inside the mind of a kamikaze torpedo pilot).

With Cloud Atlas I think he has very nearly reconciled the structural experiments with the compelling narrative and human aspects, it's a truly brilliant book. But, as I think Mitchell himself said in an interview, he is improving all the time and it'll be fascinating to see what he produces by the time he's seventy.

I also heard that his next novel will be perhaps more traditional (although I'm sure he'll find some twists) in that it's a rites-of-passage type thing centred around a character who sounds in many ways like Mitchell. date=15.10.2004 12:53 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS, Jil, are you real? In my experience, anyone who writes "i found your site @ google – great job A+++" tends to live inside the circuits of a computer.

Hope I didn't prompt any existential crises. date=15.10.2004 13:06 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dan
Thank you. Mitchell is ,as of now, in my look for list. date=15.10.2004 14:07 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH reviews Dark Voyage by Alan Furst in the Grauniad:
http://tinyurl.com/6jf82 date=17.10.2004 11:28 ip=81.153.1.76 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just been listening to Irwin Seltzer on Radio 4, defining neo-conservatism. Very interesting; one of its core principals (apparently non-ironic) is that democracy should be spread throughout the world in part because they then don't pose a threat because they won't pre-emptively attack other people. Right.

Also - extended the neo-con rhetorical link between Saddam, terrorism and by implication 11th September. Fascinating to hear it done. date=18.10.2004 10:52 ip=81.178.219.36 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=is that democracy should be spread throughout the world in part because they then don't pose a threat because they won't pre-emptively attack other people. Right.

_________

Hi,Al
Freud should have lived to see this one ! date=18.10.2004 14:13 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes...

Btb, whoever was looking for rustic poetry the other week; John James, collected poems reviewed in the Guardian this weekend, looks like he might fit the bill. Avant garde meets Coleridge by all accounts. date=18.10.2004 16:05 ip=81.178.219.36 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Al, that was me. I'm working my way through John Berryman at the moment. Bit of a slog, but worthwhile I'm sure. date=18.10.2004 17:27 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John Berryman? Never read him, tho' keep on thinking I should. I think John James will be next on the list, based on the extracts in the paper this weekend.

Have just finished The Corrections, fantastic book - beautifully structured, and v. groovy in its combination of the intimately familial and wide screen economic. date=18.10.2004 17:51 ip=81.178.219.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading: I was searching around for Arthur Machen texts on-line, and googled "The Great God Pan." Curiously, this brings up a title by Donna Jo Napoli on Amazon. The blurb begins:

"Meet Pan: half-god/half-goat, full of life, frolicking in the woods with maenads, playing his pipes, and creating pan-ic."

What a jolly wee scamp, to be sure. But not quite what Machen had in mind. date=19.10.2004 11:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pan books: I was quite fond of the Pan character in Tom Robbins' 'Jitterbug Perfume". Nicely goatish. date=19.10.2004 12:12 ip=217.155.134.5 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone else going to have a go at the new story for the Reading Group that Dan's suggested?

Oak by George Saunders:
http://www.barcelonareview.com/20/e_gs.htm date=19.10.2004 16:02 ip=217.43.20.136 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Anyone else going to have a go at the new story for the Reading Group that Dan's suggested?

Sea Oak by George Saunders:
http://www.barcelonareview.com/20/e_gs.htm
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=19.10.2004 16:02 ip=217.43.20.136 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Please do! It's rather good (IMHO) and certainly very funny date=19.10.2004 16:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ooh - a Booker winner I might actually enjoy reading, for once! date=20.10.2004 09:54 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gah! I was rooting for David Mitchell. date=20.10.2004 11:17 ip=81.178.219.36 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me too. Still, the hype can't have done him bad. Just a shame that I won't get my fiver back now (first thing I've ever gambled on in my life) date=20.10.2004 13:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, very true, tho' I suspect it has delayed the launch of the paperback 'Cloud Atlas', which is a shame. Very few people I buy in hardback! date=20.10.2004 14:02 ip=81.178.219.36 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So, farewell the Lynda Lee-Potter. More fun eulogies on the BBC website http://tinyurl.com/4axfl - Annette Midgley from Billericay says "I would certainly have voted her Prime Minister had she been standing for the position." So that's another great argument against democracy.

Meanwhile, Sue Soley from Bishops Stortford complains that "Wednesday's will never be the same again." Wednesday's what? Morning mug of vitriol, presumably. date=21.10.2004 02:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fzzt. Farewell *then*. Damn, how can I criticise somebody's stray apostrophe when I have an 'n' missing. It's late and I can't sleep, my only excuse. date=21.10.2004 02:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just realised - the apostrophe in Wednesday's must have escaped from the Bishops in Stortford. Or summat.

OK, I'll go to bed now, and try to sleep this time. date=21.10.2004 02:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Potter: I rather liked the comment Lyn from Oxford -"Another reason not to buy the Daily Mail any more."

You need *two* reasons ..? date=21.10.2004 11:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it just me, or has it been quiet here lately? Here, have a dose of American politics, courtesy of The Doctor: http://tinyurl.com/5j5h4 - like the man says, where is Richard Nixon now that we finally need him?

Also, a pause for self-publicity, the charabanc doesn't seem to have materialised but I gather Io is coming up to Sheffield to see my play on Saturday 30th (it's also the final night, and there looks like being a party at my place). Anyone else interested? Details at www.nextbestthingproductions.com date=22.10.2004 11:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I'll be there in spirit, but I'm entertaining a heavily pregnant friend that w/e. So it goes.

I'm also thinking about a new job. Yesterday's "Evening Standard" advertised for a senior sales director at Ann Summers. The successful candidate will be dealing with "hardgoods and novelties," apparently. What can they mean? I suppose they show you at the interview. A tough one to prepare for, though, and no mistake. date=22.10.2004 11:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Don't let the fact that I'm coming to the last night put anyone else off. date=22.10.2004 11:38 ip=158.94.137.207 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, there's always another three nights available. date=22.10.2004 11:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: sorry I'm not going to be able to make it, but break a leg by all means. date=22.10.2004 12:10 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I'm sure it'll be a sell-out, extended into '05. Unlike some people -

http://tinyurl.com/4ka4c date=22.10.2004 15:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Horse-head extravaganza!

http://artinwales.250x.com/MariLwyd2.htm date=22.10.2004 15:37 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: ghosts and powers - especially Ruth Jen Evans.

I wonder if Mary Lloyd-Jones was drawn to this by her name, too. date=22.10.2004 16:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone else hear James Brown (of Loaded/Jack, not Sex Machine, fame) talking about Prince Harry's brush with the press on this morning's Today programme? http://tinyurl.com/5ucdm

After kicking off with "I think if the silly little ginger freak wants to go and get drunk with his mates then he should be allowed to do that" (James Naughtie: "I'm not sure if you can talk about a member of the Royal Family like that on the air") he then opined "if he wants to go somewhere where nobody will see him I suggest he attends Mike Read's play". date=22.10.2004 16:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading Wheen´s "How numbo-jumbo conquered the world" . It is just me or Al Gore - whom I had pegged down as a good guy -is really one nasty customer ?

Finished "Cloud Atlas" . An "art novel" that beats beachside novels in their own ground : plot twist, simpathetic hcaracters and whatnot. Mitchell if he so wished could obviously knock off a bestseller with no effort. date=23.10.2004 00:01 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wonder if Mary Lloyd-Jones was drawn to this by her name, too.

I'm not sure the words Lloyd and Lwyd are related, but I take the point. date=25.10.2004 10:04 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Gore made a lot of obiesance to born again voters that revealed he was either a moral imbecile or an intellectual coward. In particular, he revealed his stupidity in his choice for "the most evil book in history" : not 'Mein Kampf' or 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' but Bacon's 'Advancement of Learning.' This was because, he said, Bacon declared the whole universe open to rational inquiry and ignored the necessity of staying out of some areas of knowledge which are clearly "divine." That could mean any amount of interesting stuff, from stem cells and the primate genome, to questions about the Big Bang: stay away from that background radiation, kids, you never know Who might be behind it. Sheep-talk for the new millennium, and no mistake. date=25.10.2004 10:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al wouldn't approve of this, either. "Let's hope it doesn't spread" :

http://tinyurl.com/49yt7 date=25.10.2004 10:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Satanists in the Navy? Surely they would be a liability. For starters, they would insist on doing everything backwards. They'd make a mockery of anti-rabies regulations by smuggling goats on board. I can see the memos:
To: Able Seaman Azrael
Re: Defence Procedures
I would just like to point out to you that the 'lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram' is not considered adequate protection for a navy battle cruiser. You will please use guns like everyone else. date=25.10.2004 12:19 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking about reality based communities etc, another website -

www.thoseshirts.com

Apparently non-ironic. date=25.10.2004 12:32 ip=81.178.176.184 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Following such tenets and working them out practically in your life seems to produce a selfish person not a member of a team."

Fucking hell! Christianity has got a bit limp, eh? It's not that yr eternal soul is in danger of damnation and that you'll never cross the bridge into the hallowed realms where the Good Shepard will put you to pasture. Oh no, none of that: you just won't be much of a teamplayer.

And as for Satanists: c'mon, it's more a goth fetish thing than a religion! date=25.10.2004 13:28 ip=158.94.150.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>As for Satanists ...

Checking the Eleven Satanic Rules of the Earth, they seem pretty sound. I'm paraphrasing, but they come down to: don't give unnecessary opinions, don't indulge in self-pity, respect one another, don't harm children, acknowledge the power of successful magic, don't make sexual advances "unless you are given the mating signal," avoid killing animals unless you absolutely have to do so, and: "If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him."

What's not to like? date=25.10.2004 14:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What's not to like?

Spike-heeled PVC waders? Hold on, maybe you have a point! date=25.10.2004 14:08 ip=158.94.150.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm still trying to work out all that stuff about getting "the mating signal."

Is it something to do with flags? Is this why he joined the navy? It's really confusing. date=25.10.2004 14:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How many times do you think you need to ask someone to "stop doing that" before you destroy them? Also if someone is humming a Alanis Morrisette song and someone else is threatening you with a Stanley do you immolate both of them or are there degrees of destruction?

It's so confusing. Maybe that's why I quite like having those specifics about not stealing neighbours oxen, asses, rubber corsets &c in Mosaic Law. date=25.10.2004 14:22 ip=158.94.150.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Certainly hard to be a Satanist in a society with David Blunkett and ASBOs hanging around - hats off to the plucky jack tar for giving it a go, I say!

But it's just like the Three Laws of Robotics, isn't it? Instantly, you start thinking up exceptions and loop-holes in the rules.

A bit like Satan himself, I'd imagine. date=25.10.2004 14:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> do you immolate both of them or are there degrees of destruction?

I'd start with the Alanis Morrisette humming person, myself. Hopefully the Stanley Knife guy would be so freaked out he'd flee. date=25.10.2004 14:57 ip=81.178.176.184 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> Certainly hard to be a Satanist in a society with David Blunkett and ASBOs hanging around

I dunno... the Advertising Industry seems to be doing a decent enough job using the so-called sins... "buy this useless piece of crapola and your friends will envy you leading to your physical, mental, or emotional gratification"... date=25.10.2004 15:13 ip=195.8.182.6 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Hopefully the Stanley Knife guy would be so freaked out he'd flee.

Now isn't _that_ ironic! date=25.10.2004 15:26 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe this was all a ploy to prove that stranger things happen at sea. But after the pictures from Abu Graib and elsewhere we might think that regular soldiers have upped the stakes on this competition. date=25.10.2004 16:51 ip=158.94.150.66 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Comes to something when you have to regard a satanist in the navy as an innocent abroad. date=25.10.2004 17:19 ip=81.178.176.184 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Forced Ents in the Grauniad:
http://tinyurl.com/6cfrm date=25.10.2004 17:47 ip=158.94.150.66 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aaron Barlow from New York is looking for contributors for an anthology of academic articles regarding the impact of dvd on contemporary culture.
If anybody is interested he can write to him in

barlowaa@earthlink.net date=25.10.2004 21:10 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Forced Ents

Excellent! Gill has booked tickets to see Bloody Mess, I'm looking forward to it! date=25.10.2004 23:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In case you've not heard yet, John Peel has died. What a man. date=26.10.2004 15:30 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*salutes*

What a desperately sad thing to hear. I've been listening to him since I was about 14 or 15; one of those people who'd been around for so long, you thought they'd always be there. date=26.10.2004 15:54 ip=81.178.176.184 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The landscape of my record collection would be very different were it not for him. Although I'd barely listened to him in recent years, the last time I did (about 2 years ago) was the first time I ever heard Xela; every show produced some kind of inspiration or other, bands from Grandmaster Flash to Rip Rig & Panic to Captain Beefheart to 3Mustaphas3 to ....

He was a genuine geezer. date=26.10.2004 17:43 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All of the below: a horrid shock.

But as someone's suggested, the best mark of respect to him wouldn't be a minute's silence, but a minute's noise. The beat goes on. date=26.10.2004 18:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've got Radio 1 on at the moment; they're playing very good music non-stop, which is good.

Also going to see the Metallica film tonight, which I think is the right sort of thing to do.

Surprised at how sad I feel; haven't listened to his music much lately, but Home Truths on a regular basis. date=26.10.2004 18:44 ip=81.178.176.184 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hobbits to modify our understanding of evolution:
http://tinyurl.com/652gd date=28.10.2004 13:38 ip=158.94.174.149 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=When did we stop calling them "pygmies" ? And was it for PC reasons, or because journalists got so--how can I put it ?-- *personally unresourced* that the only small people they've ever heard of come out of a fantasy ? Or are they just being deeply patronising (whilst pretending, as usual, to be populist) ? Anyone been watching the BBC2 "nightmares" programme on Wednesday evenings ? Spotted the synchronous rise of LotR, Star Wars and the NeoCons in the 70s ? Whose ghastly, expensive, atrociously simplified little fantasy world *are* we living in ? date=28.10.2004 14:56 ip=213.116.60.201 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Beeb also seem to like calling them Hobbits, while New Scientist prefers "Ebu" after the local term "Ebu Gogo", which probably feels more a bit more anthropologically authentic.

But if you really want to get annoyed, this is how one JRRT fansite tells the news:
http://tinyurl.com/5hjdk date=28.10.2004 15:09 ip=158.94.174.149 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I read "Michael Morwood" as "Michael Morlock" - even more of a find, come to think of it. date=28.10.2004 17:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> Spotted the synchronous rise of LotR, Star Wars and the NeoCons in the 70s ?

Missed that.... nice point. Understandable, being born in 1970. All that stuff just "was". Like the Cold War (which now, seemingly, like so much of the past, wasn't). It's a great pity History in school started with cavemen, and finished with the French Revolution. It would have been so nice to have seen how we got here. date=28.10.2004 23:58 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> how one JRRT fansite tells the news

From which: "What next? Elves? Dwarves? ….. Balrogs?"

Those pesky scientists, always rooting around where they're not needed. If they aren't careful they'll unleash a balrog! date=29.10.2004 11:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH says: Or are they just being deeply patronising (whilst pretending, as usual, to be populist) ?

That's my opinion. In fact, they're just using buzzwords -- but 'hobbit' is as good a nickname as any. [Traditionally hominid fossils are named after their discoverer (the digger not the director).]

This discovery set me reeling. I didn't sleep last night. Why isn't the world reeling? We have a glimpse of the human race from the outside. It's the closest we'll ever get to meeting aliens. What better evidence could there be that we are just animals? It's a short step to believing we should use our intelligence to get along peacefully together without religion and superstiton.

Human evolution in fantasy. That's a part of the Castle world. Not many other fantasies do it. I hope that one day they will. date=29.10.2004 13:13 ip=194.202.58.124 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> It's a short step to believing we should use our intelligence to get along peacefully together without religion and superstiton.

Has anyone else noticed that American Imperialism seems to use Democracy in the same was British Imperialism used Christianity? date=29.10.2004 13:37 ip=195.8.182.6 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It struck me when I first saw the news that the use of of the name 'hobbit' is unhelpful. It has all those silly associations: 'cute', 'wise', 'long-lived', 'disproportionate', and so on. In fact they were normally proportioned, just extremely small. So that name is like nicknaming a newly discovered species a 'fluffy kitten' or something, even though it has more in common with a sea bass.

But I agree, the discovery casts a mightily strange light on the idea of what we are. date=29.10.2004 14:33 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Always nice to meet the family. Is it possible to do any DNA tests to find out our true degree of separation? date=29.10.2004 14:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Any naughty BitTorrent users can find The Power of Nightmares being seeded around Suprnova and other places right now. Absolutely essential viewing and nice to know it'll be getting out to some Americans.

Adam Curtis's previous series, The Century of the Self, was just as compelling. This concerned another mythology--Freudian psychoanalysis--and its effect on the advertising world and, eventually, political campaigns. date=29.10.2004 15:04 ip=195.128.250.185 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Agree that 'hobbit' is an unhelpful nickname if it conjures up connotations. It doesn't, really with me fortunately. Would prefer to use latin name. But everyone knows the story of the 'Lucy' name even if they know bugger all else about _afarensis_ so any moniker is useful to spread the news. The burial in the cave I was lucky enough to work in is still called the 'Red Lady' even though it isn't a lady. It's just shorthand.

Martin: eventually, I wouldn't be surprised but there has been no luck so far with hominids. _floresiensis_ isn't fossilised, which is an advantage but I think/hope that even more recent evidence would have to be found if we were to have enough DNA to test.

The degree of separation is not what interests me, but the process. If we could study _floresiensis_ in detail it would tell us more about _erectus_ than about us _sapiens_ because as far as I understand it is from a pre-_sapiens_ dispersal.

Bye for now! date=29.10.2004 16:01 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On second thoughts I take MJH's point that as _floresiensis_ doesn't look disproportionate etc., like hobbits the nickname's misleading & too easy. They deserve better.

PS - I remember not believing the dates for stone tools found on Flores in 1995. It's good to be proved wrong.

But in 1999 a burial was discovered at Lagar Velho, Portugal, said to be a cross between Neanderthal and modern humans. The news made a big deal of that story, but it was wrong! Salutary lesson not to get carried away (though I still do!) In time we'll know more about the little chaps from Flores.

Bye again! date=29.10.2004 16:27 ip=62.255.240.221 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it just me or does anyone else, seeing those images of early primitives, get filled with an intense longing - for I know not what. Perhaps for some primeval sense of connection, seemingly gone forever.

Now the obvious answer is "Well, I would rather have my home comforts." Well. Ok ok ok. Keep them. But *something* seems to have got lost. That is what I feel, whatever my rational mind tells me. date=29.10.2004 16:45 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>anyone else, seeing those images of early primitives, get filled with an intense longing - for I know not what.

Umm, not really. Then again, my first job was hunting tiny elephants and it wasn't exactly idyllic.

>>They deserve better.

I'm sure *they* won't mind. It's a bit late for them to worry about being patronised. date=29.10.2004 18:16 ip=217.43.14.67 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But in 1999 a burial was discovered at Lagar Velho, Portugal, said to be a cross between Neanderthal and modern humans. The news made a big deal of that story, but it was wrong!
_______________

Hi, Steph,
The jury is still out on this one. Juan Luis Arsuaga - of Atapuerca fame - is one of the yea-sayers on the hibrid issue. date=30.10.2004 00:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is it just me or does anyone else, seeing those images of early primitives, get filled with an intense longing - for I know not what.
_____________

Hi, MJP
Something is lost, something is gained. I think foolish to fancy that now we are braver, smarter or wiser than our ancestors. date=30.10.2004 00:07 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arthur Machen reviewed by Richard Stanley:
http://tinyurl.com/4b39f date=30.10.2004 10:48 ip=217.43.16.145 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think that feeling I get is to do with a perception that I function best physically, emotionally, as a hunter gatherer. In situations where I am challenged in those terms. We did that for however many thousands of years, that is how the body works; now in the blink of an eye it's supermarkets. Pretty soon we will all be blobs, circles, floating down the aisles on anti-gravity pods hoovering up crates of 'fat free' cream. date=30.10.2004 14:36 ip=80.225.8.211 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The jury is still out on this one. Juan Luis Arsuaga - of Atapuerca fame - is one of the yea-sayers on the hibrid issue.

Arturo, I disagree! It seems to be a pathological skeleton. Also, its date is far too recent to be a direct hybrid.

The fact that this is still a matter for debate is an excellent example of the politicisation of scientific discoveries:

1 Everybody wants to find a Neanderthal.

2 Everybody wants to find evidence of how Neands. and modern humans reacted to each other.

3 Everybody wants to find something that will bring them fame and funding and contentious issues to talk about.

Some of my friends have seen the skeleton, but I haven't so I admit I can't be totally certain.

There are lots more examples of politics in studying human evolution if anyone interested.

That Flores skeleton is female, but the reconstruction shows a male hunter. Typical that females and the material evidence left by women is invisible because during interpretation it becomes male.

Also on the reconstruction I would have made her face more human and less chimp. That would have given us more pause for thought. But we protect ourselves by making the reconstructions seem animal - we reassure ourselves of our uniqueness.

If you're male and visible, that is. date=30.10.2004 15:32 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Mark mail=marknewton255@beeb.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What interests me is the fact that all this excitement is considered 'science' - when it is no more than an 'art' - like history is. Can we even come close to fitting much of this in with 'scientific theory'? All we can hypothesise, as has been suggested by those who study cladistics, is no more than 'just so stories'. We can establish relationships and 'relatedness' in evolutionary trees, but can we truly form any plausible statements about who/what they were and if they took rings to the dark lord Sauron? Its like those dinosaur programmes, which simply aren't testable theories.

Not that I don't like a good natter about it all, it's good to give such subjects an airing! date=30.10.2004 23:24 ip=194.217.194.138 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph, nice to get a professional's view. On the "reassuring ourselves of our own uniqueness" front, anyone else read John Gray's Straw Dogs ? date=31.10.2004 11:57 ip=213.78.70.65 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike
I´ve only read the Al Quaeda book by Gray. I must admit that Francis Wheen has given me cold feet on further reading him. Is it worth reading ? date=31.10.2004 12:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was enraged, amused, delighted, by turns. One minute I was nodding sagely, the next I was throwing it across the room. Seemed good value to me. You don't have to think he's Jesus. One thing in his favour, he's a gloomy fucker. I haven't read Wheen. date=31.10.2004 17:00 ip=213.78.169.64 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP, you wrote: "now in the blink of an eye it's supermarkets." Are you certain the hunter-gather part of us (assuming there to be one, and I'm not by any means, because I don't have the same faith as most people here in a past--not as anything more than a bunch of irretrievable data, anyway) didn't design the supermarkets ? No reason why architects, working in tandem with marketing psychologists, shouldn't have provided us with exactly what we feel comfortable with, gatherer-wise at least...

I don't trust any "feelings" I get along those lines, I think of them as wish-fulfilments & fictions. I wouldn't base a decision about myself on anything like that. If I see a fast car and think, I want that, I have a feeling about myself as sitting in that: does it mean I have the evolutionary biology of a motor mechanic (or even someone who can drive decently) ? I wish.

The life of a well-known writer I once knew was based on a constant stream of these fictions about himself. If he felt drawn to a child's bow and arrow, he thought he was an archer. That is actually a qualification for being a tosser, unless you have the talent to go with it. Which he never did. date=31.10.2004 17:35 ip=213.78.169.64 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike

Wheen paints him as once a Tatcherite, anyhow judging by your account this one is a must get. Not preaching to the converted, not a yes man no anybody and yes I´d rather have a Gloomy fucker than a Pollyhana any day ( Nice names for drinks come to think of it) date=31.10.2004 18:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good point MJH(P). I do sometimes fancy myself as an archer.

However just to pursue this a little further: we are radically unbalanced in our lives, are we not? The concept of 'natural' is interesting here - precisely at the point where it can't be defined. In the sense that we have to say that 'everything is natural' in so far as we are a part of nature and so on - whatever we do, it's natural, so the word is meaningless. So what am I trying to mean? But for instance, there does seem to be an issue to be understood, as in: what is natural about reality tv or the ego of an American tv show host? I think there is an argument for saying that virtual worlds inside virtual worlds are being created; mirrors within mirrors. Vanity on vanity (as the Bible has it): but on an industrial scale: and in a bizarre way. It's like a disease: cancer is 'natural' too; but not to the person it's a part of. I suppose I am arguing for a balance. Nature is disappearing. It's terrible the way we treat the natural world. More than terrible; it's doing us in. date=01.11.2004 10:03 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: John Gray is indeed a fallen Free Marketeer. Part of the fun of the book is watching him thrash about in the void he's thus created for himself. He no longer believes--but he can't be seen to believe anything else...

MJP: you & I seem to have become interchangeable sets of initials, as befits polar opposites. I just have a deep suspicion of the idea of the "natural". (I thought you did too!) I've heard too much crap about the aboriginal life from New Agers & Technopagans. Their ideas last worked when the population of the world was four hundred thousand, and the best technology was a burnt stick. All our problems stem from those lovable "natural" people and their "instincts" about life. The sooner we get their voices out of our skulls the better. Some of the fun of Straw Dogs is pursuing this argument where it's hidden in Gray's discourse. date=01.11.2004 12:13 ip=213.116.52.129 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike and MJP

I have a very deep distrust of the concept "natural" as most of its advocates employ it as weapon on their political agenda ( as it is not natural for two women or men to marry). I think it is rather more useful to pinpoint that uncertanin feeling i.e. supermarkets it cannot be healthy or whatever .
Anyhow the good savage myth was created by the enligthment as a fictive device to show that other societies could be , and should be, possible. Surely we have outgrown that. date=01.11.2004 12:59 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: You'd think we had outgrown it - Rousseau doesn't get a great press these days. But questions of being "unbalanced" or "natural" surely come down to evolutionary baggage. A large part of our perception remains that of hominids several million years ago, whose sign-recognition skills evolved in response to detecting signs of scarce nutritional sources - edible vegetation, meat animals or water. Those skills served us well on the savannah. They're not quite so helpful in a media-saturated enclave, where we're bombarded by ads for everything from "spot a chav" to credit cards, and where linear time and "heritage" have got muddled - suddenly it's all present tense, George Bush, Tony Hancock, "Teenage Kicks," the Charge of the Light Brigade ... Gray may well flounder around in the Free Market void: voodoo economics has erased a great many cultural buffers and filters, while leaving the old hominid sensory cortex untouched. He's disenchanted? I'm disenchanted. We're all of us disenchanted. date=01.11.2004 13:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Martin
My point was that the working principle under the satirical device - let´s think things trough - should be obvious but for the most obdurate fundamentalists. That we should ,as a society , be able to shallow that pill witout the sugar-coating. And that reason should be the antidote to the hunter-gatherer syndrome.
By the way , I just realized that Gray´s title -straw dogs - mut be a nod to the Peckimpach movie where Dustin Hoffman enjoyed a taste of country life. date=01.11.2004 13:45 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: You bet. But we love our sugar, no? date=01.11.2004 14:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Alas and alack ! Yes we do.
By the way : free marketers base their discourse on a idea of "natural" market date=01.11.2004 14:35 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MArtin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: This "natural" market has spooked me for years. As though it's an autonomous organism, instead of a human construct ... does this make it the ultimate meme? date=01.11.2004 15:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gray. Get's lost outside "nature". It's like The Industrial Magnate chapter in Women in Love. Lawrence tries to imagine the values of an industrialist; his rationale. It works for him until along comes Gudrun.

... The "natural" market is natural, Arturo. Just like the nylon carpet in this office. Nature, it's natural. Arnie for President! date=01.11.2004 16:21 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Regarding Stephanie's post: "Everybody wants to find evidence of how Neands. and modern humans reacted to each other -" and Mark's suggestion that this science is hardly scientific; has anyone read Golding's The Inheritors? Amazingly well imagined 'meeting', I think. Its theme and imagery is borrowed from in Gunn's poem Misanthropos - appropriate to this discussion. date=01.11.2004 16:42 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "natural" market

This whole idea of a free market as the natural state of man baffles me; it's so self deceiving. For it to work on an individual level, it assumes an absolute knowledge on the part of the FM consumer of all choices available to them within a particular market, and of the short and long term repercussions of making all those choices. Which I think is impossible. And, come to that, unnatural. Only god is omniscient; and he's a construct.

And then there's the broader impact of it; if you take it a group level, assuming that through group action a perfect solution will evolve through group choices, then there will always be members of that group who make a *wrong* choice; who through the unfortunate results of their choices demonstrate the *wrongness* of a given path within the market.

That's fine for soap powder, your clothes smell a little worse for a week or two. But people seem to forget this kind of inevitable loss when they going on about introducing free markets in education, healthcare, etc - which seems to me to be a form of moral bankruptcy. date=01.11.2004 17:25 ip=81.178.253.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As Marx said: "A commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing ... it is, in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." date=01.11.2004 17:41 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... The "natural" market is natural, Arturo. Just like the nylon carpet in this office. Nature, it's natural. Arnie for President!
_________________-
The vision of a "natural" state of things then. A state that in spite of Adam Smith does no exists anywere, never has existed and never will. Somebody said, rigtly, that what we have is socialism for the rich and free market for the poor.

And I wouln´t be suprised to see Arnie as the one man who can save us all from the evil terrorists ...in real life. date=01.11.2004 19:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There is a deception in each of the following propositions:

Nature is a machine
Nature is divinely created
There are only natural things
There are only natural and artificial things

The deception is that something can be meant by saying this: this or that such or so, in these terms.

In a way only the business end of the argument counts: in itself it has no content. For instance, despite the meaninglessness of the world, all the same I hope for a Kerry presidency.
It may be meaningless but I will be disappointed if ...

Flores woman is enigmatic. She is a paradox. Wasn't her island existence just an accident? There seem to be only two choices here. Divinely ordained; accidental. Both are a deception. date=02.11.2004 11:59 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Got some peanuts in return for claiming friendship with MJH yesterday!

I was walking through Spitalfields market yesterday, when I passed a stall selling a very small selection of books (about 30) plus bags of experimentally home-spiced peanuts (don't ask). They were trying to raise money for some Buddhist centre.

My friend bought a copy of "Passport to Moscow" (some sort of "learn business Russian" type book) which, as it had been donated to the stall, had no fixed price. He gave a generous donation for it and, as we were about to leave, I spotted a large and familiar silver paperback, the last of the 30 books that my eye fell upon.

"M John Harrison!" I exclaimed. "Do you know him" the stallholder asked, in an "I do" sort of voice. "Yes, he's a friend of mine" I said in a "friend inasmuch as I harass him via his website from time to time, and he occasionally even replies" sort of way. "Wow, is it a good book, what's it all about, tell me about it..." she said in a "I don't actually know him, I just talk about everyone in that same enthusiastic bubbly manner" sort of way.

Well, I started trying to explain Light, realised that I'm not well qualified for the job, and left her somewhat confused but nontheless claiming she would "definitely have to read the book". She was so pleased to talk to us and sell us a book on Russian that she made us a gift of two bags of peanuts.

Another convert in the making! date=02.11.2004 18:03 ip=81.136.46.57 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Another convert in the making!

In which direction? You to Buddhism? Her to MJH? Yr mate to Russian? Both of you to spiced peanuts? date=02.11.2004 19:15 ip=81.153.231.71 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pah! to spiced peanuts!

BTW, I just got this email from a friend who has directed a program for Horizon, showing this Thursday, sounds interesting:

Dr Money and the boy with no penis: The tragic story of a boy who lost his penis due to a circumcision accident and was brought up as a girl. There are light moments - a hermaphrodite music sequence, transsexual chase scene, a wedding...that's it, I think.

It's part of the Horizon strand, 9pm Thursday November 4th, BBC2. Touching the Void, which is on the other side, is boring. Okay, that was a lie, but you can get it on dvd.

On the 9th November the Dana Centre (cafe/bar near the Science Museum) will show clips from the programme and is running an event inspired by the film:

Naked Science: What is gender today?
19.00 09/11/04
Should we categorise ourselves as just male and female? What can science tell us about our gender today? Share your views with specialists on what defines your gender, making you the individual you are. www.danacentre.org.uk date=02.11.2004 19:24 ip=81.136.46.57 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Never mind the spiced peanuts - tell us about the play! date=03.11.2004 09:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali's probably better qualified to tell you about the play. He actually *saw* it. date=03.11.2004 09:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Too modest by far! Zali? date=03.11.2004 10:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Gogol's Marriage, or rather Marriage by Gogol: a delightful little farce which in turn trashes infatuation, friendship, love and romance. Talcum powder everywhere and just to spoil the ending; no-one gets married.

I'm sure Dan must've seen most of the play, if from a somewhat different angle from me. Having said that, he wasn't wearing his specs so maybe he couldn't see shit.

Meanwhile on the subject of less delightful little farces: the polls aren't looking good in the States. Oy vey! date=03.11.2004 10:44 ip=158.94.152.43 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks like Bush has won it. Succinctly: bummer. date=03.11.2004 11:02 ip=81.178.253.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It all seems to hinge on the vote of a retired car wash supervisor somewhere in Colombus, Ohio - or have I got this wrong? Demockcracy in action.

Stiff drink, anyone? date=03.11.2004 11:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - but isn't the US a Republic, not a Democracy? Makes a difference when you're playing Civilisation (wars are easier, but you're less economically effective) but I'm not sure of its real world impact... date=03.11.2004 11:23 ip=81.178.253.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure I heard Bush mispronounce the word "democracy" the other day. Can't remember exactly how he said it - something like "democry". Presumably it's not a word he's terribly familiar with. date=03.11.2004 12:09 ip=158.94.152.43 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More frightening to think that high school students may soon be able to point to Iran and Syria on the map without thinking - and that they could discover that "draft" isn't an English word for the board game they know as "checkers." date=03.11.2004 12:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If Barney the dog hadn't been feeling well that morning the pretzel-choked Bush was gasping for air - if the dog had stayed in his basket! date=03.11.2004 12:40 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Four more years of outrageous miss-spending and ranging corruption ( What are they gona do when them boys in blue come for Mr.Cheney?), four more years of ill-judged and poorly prepared "military" actions , four more years of idiocy ... Forget the eigthies it seems that the fifities revival is in full swing.
Then again is the sunset of the american empire than a wiser president could have delayed. I for one am not going to miss it. date=03.11.2004 16:36 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, Kerry has apparently conceded. So, it's Dubya for another four years... date=03.11.2004 17:33 ip=81.178.253.182 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Piss.

Ah well, I guess we'll all get lots of exercise marching on lots more anti-war demos over the next four years. date=03.11.2004 17:40 ip=158.94.152.43 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hoh yes. Next stop Iran, methinks... date=03.11.2004 17:59 ip=81.178.253.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Btb, isn't it a Republican Congress and House of Representatives also now?

*shudders* date=03.11.2004 18:11 ip=81.178.253.182 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=America has voted for good against evil.

I recently read a Dean Koontz book in which that was essentially the plot. There was no interest in motive.

In much the same way, I think, America isn't interested in what makes the outside world tick. It just wants to know if it is good or evil. date=04.11.2004 11:23 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another four years of the power of nightmares. I think Adam Curtis summed it up nicely last night. That programme should be showing on a loop. It should have its own channel. Curtis makes Moore look like a donkey. date=04.11.2004 12:01 ip=213.116.56.85 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the underground yesterday there were three Americans, in their late forties. Neatly suited, spruce. They were loudly discussing the mobile phones they had, the software on them, the excellence or otherwise of the predictive texting, the laptops, the desktops, they had, the technology, in other words anything but the election. They seemed replete, satisfied, confident; they had time to think, to comb through the finer points of their lives. They seemed happy. That was at one door. At the next were three others. One hugely fat, in a yellow burnoose.
Yep, they seemed to say, we are Americans. Be happy. date=04.11.2004 12:37 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The hydrophobic consensus seems to be that only Dubya can save the US from a rising tide of Koran-waving airline pilots and licensed sodomy. Over on the BBC, "Wendy" from Chicago denounces every Democrat, especially the Hollywood kind - "you are actors" - and spits that the only propaganda she spotted in this campaign came from the Kerry camp. Others accuse him of being "too cosy with the French." Hard to know what to say to this nonsense - but "go fuck yourselves" is a good start. Trouble is, they're going to try and fuck us, too. date=04.11.2004 13:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wendy's almost got it right. She senses that she lives in a new, broad kind of Hollywood, but then denies the understanding by projecting it on to the "democrats". We all know, really. But who's going to admit they've bought into someone else's psychodrama ? That they're locked in a cultural folie a deux with a man so confused he doesn't know his own policies orginated in the metaphysics of LotR, Star Wars, Godzilla ? date=04.11.2004 14:19 ip=213.116.58.66 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Older stories than Star Wars at play here:

' There is a lot of Biblical teaching on how God judges nations. The story of Lot is one example on how corrupt societies corrupt good people and bring down a community. Gay marriage and abortion are a threat to our culture and security. I voted to preserve the morale values of this country.'
Howard, Chicago, USA

From - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3981669.stm date=04.11.2004 16:37 ip=81.178.253.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No danger of Mrs. Howard becoming a raw resource for Saxa, then. date=04.11.2004 16:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The story of Lot is one example on how corrupt societies corrupt good people and bring down a community.

No, it isn't. It's another illustration of the inflexible, vengeful and moralistic character of Yahweh. Christians are supposed to follow the example of Christ, who was revolutionary precisely *because* his teaching superceded the primitive morality of the Jewish tribal god. In fact, the only time that JC got seriously fucked-off it was with those money-lenders outside the temple. He also felt that the rich were going to have some trouble getting into the Kingdom of God - a difficulty concerning camels and eyes of needles.

So if we're going to look at this from a *Christian* viewpoint, rather than just reading the Bible and quoting whatever we fancy, I believe that the Son of Man would be telling the American people to drive those rich industrialists out of the seats of power.

The main problem with Christians is that they don't know how to read the Bible. Oh, and that they're ignorant cunts. date=04.11.2004 17:10 ip=158.94.161.86 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the most curious things I heard in the election run-up was a man who said, "Over there in Italy, you think they don't want what we got ? Our freedom, you don't think they want it ? You don't think they'd come here and take it if they could ?" This was weird, not just on the count of Italians being seen as the possible terrsts, but also of "freedom" being described as a white goods commodity. "Freedom" wasn't just something that might be taken away from him in the obvious sense--ie, those Italians might easily arrive in Florida with their Korans and make him change his behaviour in some way, force his women to wear veils and suchlike; more importantly it was something that might be taken *off* him the way you might take away his car. It was a kind of car, in fact. It was a possession of his. He had got the edge on these Italians by being clever enough to be born American, and he wanted to make sure they didn't come and take for themselves this ideological concept he had objectified by projecting his own greed into it.

At the same time, his hero George Bush was boasting constantly about exporting "freedom" to those sad countries in the world which have so far avoided having any. It's our duty to export freedom from our great country; at the same time, we have to be careful because they want to get it off us. I'm deeply puzzled by this fracture in the Republican psyche. But it clearly hinges on the commodification of an idea. date=04.11.2004 17:25 ip=62.188.133.86 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, bizarre indeed - tho' it also makes more sense if you read 'freedom' as 'living like an American' - so also part of the whole exceptionalism thing. America is the greatest country in the world, the greatest place to live, the greatest way of life. People from furrrn live in different ways, and might also want you to live in different ways; hence debasing you and taking you away from freedom.

There's a buried awareness of cultural colonialism there; if we we don't spread our way of life to them, they'll get us - and an implicit nod to this sense that there's always a contest, always a war; your culture has to beat and colonise theirs, has to win - otherwise they'll beat and colonise you! And win! And there's no other choice.

Hmm, back to cowboys and indians then. We're all winners now. date=04.11.2004 17:41 ip=81.178.253.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reified liberty: a terrifying concept. One lump, or two?

But least we know who the real villains are now - 3 gondoliers, an olive oil salesman, and some fashion house in Milan. And they make you look a fool when you try to ask for "gnocchi," or "gelati," too, so let's go get 'em.

Horribly, as they used to say on the paperbacks, if it ever happens it could be just like this. date=04.11.2004 17:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You don't think they'd come here and take it if they could ?

You get used to that sort of thing if you live in London. A friend of mine was sitting at a table in an (Italian) cafe. Just him and his freedom, minding their own business. He got up to go to the little boy's room, and when he came back his freedom had been pinched.

I bet it was some bastard gay abortionist what done it. date=04.11.2004 17:51 ip=158.94.161.86 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I wouldn't put it past those bastards to pinch it *in* the little boy's room. You gotta watch 'em. Every signpost points to Sodom, etc.

The dreams of mad old men: how dreadful we're forced to take part in them. Yeats said much the same, I'm sure. date=04.11.2004 17:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Freedom means the freedom to make money and buy objects. Over time, by extension, freedom becomes associated with those objects. Finally, it becomes an object in itself. The metaphor has gone round in a circle, and they're describing freedom as a resource--gold in the ground. You think those Italians wouldn't come and take our gold if they could ?

Of course they're right: freedom is a licence to print money, it signifies the freedom to consume and therefore also the objects of that consumption; objects are your freedom, and your freedom is an object. You're proud to boast that this fine country has it; and you believe after a few beers that every country sure ought to have it; but at the same time good hard Florida economic sense tells you that a man who don't lock up his objects of consumption can easily lose them to the terrsts of that empire of evil, Italy.

And so that's what they're doing in Iraq: they've found a way of exporting freedom without actually giving any of it away... date=04.11.2004 19:27 ip=213.116.58.103 name=hadart mail=hadartamir2@walla.co.il icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=hello..
i would like to know what do you think about space researching.
do you think it is good or bad? please if you answer give me reasons for your choice.
i don't mind if you support both sides date=04.11.2004 20:40 ip=82.80.32.82 name=xaphod mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> The metaphor has gone round in a circle, and they're describing freedom as a resource

How very postmodern.

It's at times like this I start humming Queen's "Is this the world we created...?" to myself, wondering what the f**k I can do to getout from under this nightmare.

Talking of nightmares:
http://www.acutor.be/silt/index.php?id=573 date=04.11.2004 23:26 ip=80.5.160.7 name=Tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The US election in a nutshell.

Issue A: the 'moral' issue. Gay marriage, abortion.

Issue B: everything else. Economic planning, welfare, foreign policy.

More important issue:
A B
votes Bush 20 31
votes Kerry 5 44

Bush wins 51/49 on votes from issue A voters.

Majority rule democracy is broken. It's more obvious in America because the religious right are such a strong lobby group. But if US political understanding is a problem, fixing the 'system' is only the warmup to the real task.

I'm sure there's a quote from Kierkegaard to fit this situation. date=05.11.2004 02:41 ip=203.56.14.229 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the american election: Kerry lost early ground when it surfaced that he had testified in Congress on military miss-behaviour not in Abu Grahib but in Nam. Apparently this is still a no go area to voters pressure groups in the corn belt.
With such an autistic public opinion, it was obvious that Irak was not about tu cut any ice.
As Egdar Pangbon wrote Still I persist in wondering . date=05.11.2004 07:59 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Tom mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An interesting (but biased) take on the political manoeuvring and ultimate goals of the religious right in America can be found at:

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoiling OfAmerica.htm

Its thesis is fairly extreme (that US Christian groups are bent on forcibly taking control of the country and by extension the globe) but there is supporting material ... date=05.11.2004 08:14 ip=203.56.14.229 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Freedom as a resource ...

Compare with Bush's pronouncement today : "I've earned capital is this election and I'm going to spend it." date=05.11.2004 12:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting how we gay-loving, baby eating pinkoes are now demonising the religious Republican right in America, though, isn't it? Because they want to take away *our* freedom to mince gaily over a carpet of of foetuses and cosy up to the Italians. date=05.11.2004 13:02 ip=217.155.134.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex, I never ate one single baby, you bad mouth. date=05.11.2004 13:31 ip=62.188.146.109 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quite right, too - I'm told you've got to have a couple to get the full flavour ... date=05.11.2004 13:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH

Don't know if this link will work but there is an interesting article there about a brain in a dish learning to fly a flight simulator.

.... Talking of brains:

"I don't want knowledge I want certainty."

Line from the Outside D Bowie album. Also: "I am afraid of Americans. I can't help it." date=05.11.2004 13:50 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Saturn mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You should try babies, just once. Like oysters, they are. Sprinkle with a little tabasco and shallot vinegar, and swallow whole. They wrigle most pleasantly as they go down. date=05.11.2004 13:50 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Saturn: That's easy for *you* to say ... Can't somebody in Social Services sort out these Old Gods?

MJP: Couldn't open it, I'm afraid. But, the obvious question - what's a brain in a dish doing in a flight simulator anyway? Or am I missing the blindly obvious, as usual? date=05.11.2004 13:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, well the story is a little bit reminiscent of a situation in Light. Not completely though. Robot brains manufactured from living tissue is an obvious conclusion. Cars, planes, trains, etc with robot brains, they will be driven by the brains of mice, rats, bats or who knows what.

Although you reach a blank page at CNN the link is easily found by clicking on the Technology button visible on that page. date=05.11.2004 14:17 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A bat controlling a plane - now you're talking! Endless possibilities: the aircraft starts veering after a gnat, won't fly in winter, and sits in the hanger upside down, probably in a "reversible coma."

Radar should be no problem at all, though. date=05.11.2004 14:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Line from the Outside D Bowie album. Also: "I am afraid of Americans. I can't help it."
_________-
Didn´t Simple Minds have a song , called The american, with the line "What do you know about his world , anyhow"? date=05.11.2004 14:54 ip=62.15.137.184 name=Jonathan Swift mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. date=05.11.2004 14:58 ip=62.15.137.184 name=Jonathan Swift mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout. date=05.11.2004 14:58 ip=62.15.137.184 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jonathon, you can certainly say that again ... date=05.11.2004 15:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=First robots riding camels in place of kidnapped children - http://tinyurl.com/5zsgn - (leaves more kidnapped children for the rest of us to eat, I guess), now robot bat-brains flying airplanes. Whatever next? Why can't they invent a robot president? Perhaps they did already, I just missed it.

I tell you, Jonathan Swift couldn't make it up. date=05.11.2004 15:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why can't they invent a robot president? Perhaps they did already, I just missed it.

___________

I do belive this is not the proper way to talk about the former VP Mr. Al Gore. Yes it was a failure but they tried. date=05.11.2004 15:07 ip=62.15.137.184 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This explains everything:

http://geekgossip.net/2004election_by_iq.png date=05.11.2004 15:45 ip=193.109.50.79 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
Wise foundress of the system of the world,
Guide of the stars, who art thou then if thou,
Bound to the tail of folly's uncurbed steed,
Must, vainly shrieking with the drunken crowd,
Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.
Accursed, who striveth after noble ends,
And with deliberate wisdom forms his plans!
To the fool-king belongs the world.

Friedrich von Schiller
The Maid of Orleans date=05.11.2004 17:48 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Aje mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Does any one know where I can find dissertations, essays, articles and so forth on The Course of the Heart? date=07.11.2004 21:21 ip=213.66.41.188 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aje: I don't know of any, I'm afraid. If you scroll back through this forum, though, we've often posted things that have intrigued us about the book - its unreliable narrator, its gnosticism, its negotiations between "reality" and immersive, self-absorbed behaviour. Other ideas might be sparked by the notes at the end of MJH's collection, "Things That Never Happen." date=08.11.2004 10:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, this forum would be a good place to start. I'd be interested to know about anything you do find; why are you looking? (apart from just interest - part of an academic project or similar?) date=08.11.2004 10:28 ip=81.178.199.156 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting...

http://www.tenbyten.org date=09.11.2004 10:21 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, planet at war.

This too is interesting:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.ht ml

If true, two things make me angry. First of all, the brute, blunt arrogance of it all. Secondly, the fact that this claims to be a genuinely democratic vote, thus making it appear that there's a mandate for this obnoxiousness in the US and as a result moving all politics there further to the right. date=09.11.2004 11:52 ip=81.178.243.172 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh and (totally off the point, and continuing past obsessions) an interesting article on Prynne from a while back:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1188986 ,00.html

'For years, I found Prynne's poetry repellent, until the work itself changed my mind.' date=09.11.2004 12:01 ip=81.178.243.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And off the point even more - some mind-bending stuff. Trying building one of these with a five-year-old on Boxing Day:

http://www.lipsons.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mobius.htm date=09.11.2004 16:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been trying to resist posting this, but I can't.

http://homepage.mac.com/maryt/main/iMovieTheater16 .html

Simultaneous corrective to Star Trek and Lord of the Rings fanship. Apologies MJH, it will make you throw your monitor out of the window. date=09.11.2004 17:00 ip=81.178.206.196 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crusader, moi?

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/144/1547/640/rosarymg .jpg date=09.11.2004 18:06 ip=81.178.206.196 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I´ve seen it ... this is what all those Lovecraft characters saw at the end and becament incoherent .. the pointy ears ... the dance... arggg date=09.11.2004 22:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, maybe the answer to Leonard's final question is - Yog Sothoth! date=10.11.2004 11:36 ip=81.178.206.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think I'd show him the door... or maybe The Key and The Gate. date=10.11.2004 12:07 ip=158.94.163.133 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A few new David Lloyd paintings:
http://www.castlearts.co.uk/david%20lloyd.htm date=10.11.2004 16:20 ip=158.94.163.133 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: They're wonderful! I can see why "Diana" was chosen for the p/b of CotH - but "The Lover Attains the Rose" might have been even better. And "Coronis I" deserves to grace an edition of SoL before long, surely. date=10.11.2004 16:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Good, aren't they? Actually, I reckon Coronis I could be used for a more symbolic Light cover. It'd confuse the Hard SF audience, but then again I think Light achieves that too.

Last time I saw David we were looking at the Apollo and Daphnes and some of the proto-Coronis pictures. As we drank more the conjunctions of legs became steadily more confusing. date=10.11.2004 16:58 ip=158.94.163.133 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What with all this war going on, I thought I'd put this up, as it's very good indeed:

http://website.lineone.net/~nusquam/howtkill.htm
Also - indeed, great paintings! date=11.11.2004 11:12 ip=81.178.217.141 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think we could be seeing the larger picture:

http://tinyurl.com/46mrv date=12.11.2004 10:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is there anything apocalyptic that doesn't boost the oil industry?! Sheesh. date=12.11.2004 11:10 ip=81.178.219.161 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile:

Critics think you've helped write one of the most laughably inept novels in the history of fantastic fiction. Large parts of it are meant to be serious, but seem to be rejected scraps of a Groucho Marx routine. How could it get any worse?

It does. You die by falling into a canyon. Then an editor tries to contact you with a ouija board ...

You, of course, are Homer Eon Flint and the novel in question is "The Blind Spot." Its fumbled syntax and pseudo-scientific hubbub is now preserved on-line. That leaves the rest of us free to log on and - well, enjoy ourselves, basically:


http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/etext04/bspot1 0.txt date=12.11.2004 13:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=URL seems a little blind in its own right.

So try the main catalogue page, and search under "B":

http://www.gutenberg.net/catalog/ date=12.11.2004 16:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=www.nature.com/news/specials/flores

For anyone with a continued interest in the Flores discovery. date=12.11.2004 17:18 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Behold the man:
http://www.flyingturkeys.com/gsg/gsgflint.html date=12.11.2004 22:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: This is incredible stuff! Two planets that touch at the equator, and the hero "enters the body of a schoolboy" - mama mia! Why can't more sf be like this?

On second thoughts ... date=15.11.2004 14:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>mama mia!

We ( meaning I and my girlfriend Eva) went to the spanish opening of that one. A couple of the original Abba went onstage at the end. They wore black. date=15.11.2004 23:59 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tom Waits in the Grauniad:
http://tinyurl.com/6hryj date=16.11.2004 11:24 ip=158.94.138.189 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: did you get a ticket for Hammersmith, then? date=16.11.2004 11:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not a chance! date=16.11.2004 11:43 ip=158.94.138.189 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nor me ... :(((

As Waits once said: "Sometimes, one's all you need." date=16.11.2004 12:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the plus side, I'm heading to a David Mitchell talk tonight at 6, if anybody fancies coming along - just off Piccadilly Circus. date=16.11.2004 13:06 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I do. Bit of a bummer then that it's already happened, I'm in Sheffield, and I'm knackered (having just arrived here from Bochum, where I spent the entirety of my final night drinking and narrowly avoiding being beaten up) date=16.11.2004 22:51 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>narrowly avoiding being beaten up

Jesus! What happened? date=17.11.2004 12:42 ip=158.94.146.43 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nothing really, just a variety of variously threatening people passed through the bar during the course of the night, some making nasty movements towards me and others towards my friend Andreas. Fortunately, we were on friendly terms with everyone else in the bar, and had anything started then it would have been swiftly dealt with. Also, most of them were too pissed to be a real threat. One guy tried to leave the pub, missed the door, walked smack into a wall and fell down. date=17.11.2004 14:21 ip=62.49.107.22 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan - glad the wall was the only smack involved here. date=17.11.2004 14:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sho' nuff, sounds grim.

David Mitchell was very interesting. Talking mainly about Cloud Atlas, which I haven't read (just finished Ghostwritten, which is superb!).

Anyway - comes across as very down to earth, affable man, no side or ego to him at all. Profoundly engaged by writing and the act of writing, unsurprisingly. Much interesting comment - but have a lot of work to do! So more later.

Did ask my sf influence question, he sees anything genre-y as a set of tools to be used with no inherent literary value or non-value. Felt a bit embarrassed asking the question, to be honest; realised how easy it is to ghetto-ise yourself.

Important thing - imaginative openness, as wide an awareness of tools available as possible, and no either for or against bias in using them! (beyond - what works best for what I need to do?) date=17.11.2004 16:06 ip=81.178.215.193 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pretty much what Michel Faber says, too. date=17.11.2004 17:45 ip=213.78.168.33 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought he was neo-Victorian rather than neo-Fantastic? Tho' I suppose writing Victoriana is an action similar to writing fantasy; using an entirely created world to achieve your own artistic ends.

Am watching the Mummy Returns in background while working; complete hokum, but my god it makes me want to go back to Egypt again. date=17.11.2004 22:16 ip=81.178.215.193 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Faber's first novel was the sf based satire Under the Skin. As a young writer, he admired Robert Sheckley, and says of him: “...Sheckley was more than a galactic humourist. Several of the most effective stories in The Same To You Doubled are not even science fiction. They conform to no genre. This, in itself, was inspirational to me... I was determined to write about whatever I pleased, real or unreal, past or future.” [The Guardian 01.02.03]

Faber, Mitchell, Toby Litt, & I'm sure dozens of others less well known, won't let the origin of the techniques they use limit what they write. date=17.11.2004 22:28 ip=62.188.139.139 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, I didn't realise that was by him! One of the books I meant to read but haven't yet got round to. One day... impressive range.

Yup, I had that brought home to me very forcefully last night. In a sense, the value (or otherwise; or crusading about it) implicit in any technique is an absurd thing to talk about. All that matters is whether you can deploy it effectively. Hence DM's nonchalance; why do you need to crusade? It's like crusading about the sonnet. It's there; you can use it for some things, not for others, and that's it.

Reading Ghostwritten's also cast an interesting light on the whole genre 'problem' for me. In some ways it's an out an out, balls to the floor, full throttle cyberpunk / fantasy hybrid. But it's so well written - and its generic elements are so beautifully integrated into a profoundly human story - that those elements slip into the background, becoming a means to an end not (as in so much genre fiction) an end in themselves.

Perhaps that's evidence of the real maturing of genre fiction; when that which has been separated off, hothoused, experimented with, in its own little greenhouse can be reintegrated into something broader as a tried, tested and (to a great extent) entirely value free set of techniques.

Interesting about his editor's need for deep tact when emailing him about his possible entry in the Arthur C. Clarke award. date=17.11.2004 23:02 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From booksense.com Mitchel on science fiction

I've been influenced by science fiction since I was a teenager. One of the qualities of science fiction that's both a weakness and a strength is that nothing is ruled out. You have a broad, infinite canvas to take your plot in any direction you choose. You're not confined by physical laws. If you're not careful, that can be your undoing, but with luck and application, you can do a lot with the form.

When is science fiction not science fiction? That's an intriuging question...I'm certainly not published as a science fiction writer, but one of the intriguing things about writing in general is the carte blanche you have to use anything you like. There are no rules about what you can or can't do, as long as you make sure it works. date=18.11.2004 00:38 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perhaps that's evidence of the real maturing of genre fiction; when that which has been separated off, hothoused, experimented with, in its own little greenhouse can be reintegrated into something broader

I'm inclined to think that this demonstrates only the maturity of the "something broader". Genre fiction will--by definition--keep to its limits. I don't think the genre can mature. I agree that crusading isn't neccessary. It only goes on from the genre side of the fence anyway, because that's the only place an opening-up is seen as uninstinctive. I've been as guilty as anyone else on that. To see an issue here is already to wear the manacle. The zen of it is, either you swim intuitively in the soup of tropes or you don't. date=18.11.2004 01:21 ip=213.78.92.209 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Disch on this subject:
SF right now for me is just boring. But for the twinkie set, the Harry Potter fans, the cyberpunks in their first mohawk haircuts, it offers a product they buy. What's lost forever in the myth of progress in SF, that it will get better, and more "adult," etc. Instead it will have it's cycles, which has ever been the way with art. date=18.11.2004 08:09 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I wonder if it's a generational thing as well? DM mentioned being into adventure games etc also. Once you've grown up with that kind of thing (whether computer adventure games or straight up RPGs) then you're much more aware of the complex potentials of the fantastic.

Also, to some extent we're an SF generation. Whatever you think about Star Wars and its sequels per se, they formed a significant part of many then kids / now adults childhood imaginative world - and, once you'd got your hands on the toys etc, did so in a very open ended way (I always used to play with evil bounty hunter Boba Fett as a hero!)

Once you've had that in childhood, you're going to be more open to those particular registers of fiction in adulthood, I would think.

And in some ways (for a little conservative ten year old, as I was) Star Wars did open up genuinely interesting possibilities. I still remember how shocked I was by the climax of Empire Strikes Back - you can do that with films, with stories? Wow... date=18.11.2004 12:33 ip=81.178.215.193 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Faber, Mitchell; I wonder how they do it. Not read them. Probably said this before but I read a kind of gothic but realistic German novel called Rain (Karen Duve?) in which the protagonist is described watching a reality tv program. Apparently 'intelligent' reptillian creatures are killing something or other on screen. What is clever about it is the way that this is just glanced out of the corner of the protagonist's eye so to speak, so that it merely fills in a humdrum moment. Blink and it's gone. I like that use of inverted expectation, of strange things merely glimpsed. date=18.11.2004 14:12 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And in some ways (for a little conservative ten year old, as I was) Star Wars did open up genuinely interesting possibilities. I still remember how shocked I was by the climax of Empire Strikes Back - you can do that with films, with stories? Wow...
____________

I think that credit for that one goes to Leigh Brackett who has a long string of good scripts to her name. We could compare that with Lucas´s track record but that would be unnecesary cruelty.

I was sixteen when I saw Star Wars. I was already into sf because of my parents. The very first movie I remenber seeing is 2001. They let me watch Star Trek and I was fascinated by The prisioner ( Still the best show of sf in Tv)
Even at sixteen I thought that this was pretty dumb but with cool spaceships. date=18.11.2004 22:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Christoph Olsen mail=Christoph_Olsen@aol.de icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.romantische-briefe.de/ text=*lol*:

Bill Gates is hanging out with the chairman of General Motors.

"If automotive technology had kept pace with computer technology over the past few decades," boasts Gates, "you would now be driving a V-32 instead of a V-8, and it would have a top speed of 10,000 miles per hour. Or, you could have an economy car that weighs 30 pounds and gets a thousand miles to a gallon of gas. In either case, the sticker price of a new car would be less than $50."

"Sure," says the GM chairman. "But would you really want to drive a car that crashes four times a day?" date=19.11.2004 01:51 ip=217.237.84.207 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting to follow this conversation. For my own part, I abandoned genre F&SF when I was about 17, pretty much straight after reading Viriconium Nights, that one book made me aware of the groove I'd been stuck in and taught me that a good story didn't need to equate with an arduous quest where good ultimately wins out over evil. Since then I've read very few genre books (in fact, I can't remember the last one I read) and I've become deeply suspicious of them all (probably moreso than I ought to be).

However, I still retain a taste for fantastical scenarios, which is one of the things that draws me towards writers such as Mitchell (and also "Magical Realism", to unecessarily genre-ize another slew of writing). But for me fantasy (etc) works best as a tool, not an end in itself. I'm with MJH when he says "to see an issue here is already to wear the manacle". date=19.11.2004 10:41 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="You have the vocabulary of an aspidistra in panic."

More left-brain endearments and chance words from angels in heat at:

http://tinyurl.com/3gzj date=19.11.2004 10:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Missing link found:
http://tinyurl.com/4mfn6

Not a fucking hobbit in sight! date=19.11.2004 11:28 ip=158.94.163.105 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Wow! I'd forgotten that page existed. I think I first found it in 1998 or something. Always surprising when things don't change online. date=19.11.2004 11:30 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Old to you, new to me - so it goes.

Forgotten surrealism : it could be the new art movement we've been waiting for! date=19.11.2004 11:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's still a fantastic page. date=19.11.2004 12:06 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, been having fun with it. Are we doing another Empty Space Christmas get together this year, btb? date=19.11.2004 12:09 ip=81.178.215.193 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=P'raps? We'd better sort something out quickly though. December is filling up rapidly.

Of course, failing anything else, you can all come to my solo gig on Dec 3rd! date=19.11.2004 13:52 ip=158.94.163.105 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Solo gig? Where, iotar? date=19.11.2004 13:59 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dec 3 is free for me, too at present - are we up for this? date=19.11.2004 14:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Klinker @ The Sussex Pub, Culford Rd, N1. It's in the liminal zone between Dalston, Highbury and Newington Green. It's the Klinker's 23rd birthday on that night and there'll be two other acts and live painting going on during the music.

It's like a total art happening, man! date=19.11.2004 14:42 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool for me - should be fun. If you guys fancy it, there's also going to be a cabaret night in Clapham on Sunday 19th, if anybody's around - bit more difficult, though, as it's a sunday. Acts to be confirmed; it's like a mellow, acoustic version of the old Brixton Alive nights.

Think Zali's thing will be ideal for Christmas bash; much weirdness on stage, plentiful beer, and general mayhem! date=19.11.2004 15:26 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Probably not cool for me, though we'll see. Anyone fancy an alternative emptier space in Sheffield some time? date=19.11.2004 16:13 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An away trip? Could be good... date=19.11.2004 16:46 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: ES in S - For sure! date=19.11.2004 16:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps Sheffield sometime in the new year? Any good gigs or exhibitions coming up in Sheffield? date=19.11.2004 16:53 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Zali
Whatever happened to that cd you were working on? date=19.11.2004 17:03 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail=iotar@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I think I probably completed it. I normally finish one every year or six months. Send me yr snailmail address offline if you want a copy.

Completely off the subject: just discovered that I bought a copy of C.P.Cavafy Complete Poems yesterday. Quite looking forward to it when I don't have a hangover and a goldfish-like attention span. date=19.11.2004 17:09 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He's marvellous. Which translation? date=19.11.2004 17:10 ip=81.178.215.193 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Keeley and Sherrard. It's got a Hockney cover and will most likely make me want to visit Alexandria *even more*. date=19.11.2004 17:13 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And meet Sophia, of course. She must still be wandering the streets. date=19.11.2004 17:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the problem with these archetypes: they've got such a piss-poor sense of direction. Sophia lost her way when she mistook the neon sign on the Tennessee Fried Chicken for the effulgent glory of the Monad. date=19.11.2004 17:25 ip=158.94.163.105 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=She had problems in Istanbul, as well; Haagen Dazs, Hagia Sophia, easy mistake to make.

Rae Dalven translation's good as well; I liked the other one, but found it a bit monotone in how it reproduced Cavafy's various different registers of language. RD seems somehow a little livelier.

Here's some Cavafy, RD tr:

The god forsakes Antony

When suddenly at the midnight hour
And invisible troupe is heard passing
With exquisite music, with shouts—
Do not mourn in vain your fortune failing you now,
Your works that have failed, the plans of your life
That have all turned out to be illusions.
As if long prepared for it, as if courageous,
Bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all do not be fooled, do not tell yourself
That this was only a dream, that your ears deceived you;
Do not stoop to such vain hopes.
As if long prepared for this, as if courageous,
As it becomes you who are worthy of such a city;
Approach the window with firm step,
And listen with emotion, but not
With the entreaties and complaints of the coward,
As a last enjoyment listen to the sounds,
The exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe,
And bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are losing.

(Constantine Cavafy, The Complete Poems of Cavafy, translated by Rae Dalven). date=19.11.2004 17:47 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Any good gigs or exhibitions coming up in Sheffield?


How would I know, you lot always seem to be far better informed than me on these matters.

I'll keep my eyes peeled. date=19.11.2004 17:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Jan Goossens mail=Jan_Goossens@geocities.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.blaumachen-leichtgemacht.de/ text=nice site! date=20.11.2004 08:15 ip=217.237.69.25 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Jan! date=21.11.2004 01:27 ip=217.43.15.221 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=*baffled*

Whenever I go there, I find some weird site in German that wants to install something odd on my computer. date=21.11.2004 12:13 ip=81.178.215.193 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Al

It seems to be a site about plants and wildflowers.
( But I don´t speak any german) date=21.11.2004 14:44 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I believe it's a new variant of guestbook spam - I've had quite a few of these myself recently. The thing it's trying to install is probably some premium rate dialler software that hijacks your Internet connection. date=21.11.2004 15:54 ip=62.49.107.22 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, bastards. There was an outbreak of casino spam on Nightshade Books the other day. There's a lot of it about! date=21.11.2004 16:44 ip=81.178.215.193 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Presumably that explains "Christoph Olsen", 19.11.2004, too. date=21.11.2004 17:36 ip=213.78.76.48 name=Jan Goossens mail=Jan_Goossens@geocities.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=nice site!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=20.11.2004 08:15 ip=217.237.69.25 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=We couldn't get tickets - but here's the interview.

http://tinyurl.com/6y2uv date=23.11.2004 11:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... And we got JG Ballard's Xmas present sorted:

http://tinyurl.com/62f2d date=23.11.2004 11:50 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was driving in London yesterday. Got stuck behind an "emission-free" fuel cell bus (which was farting steam or something out of a fat pipe on top). On the back window was a big logo "Ballard", and then underneath "Mayor of London". In the few moments before I realised Ballard were the fuel-cell company, I got quite excited. date=23.11.2004 13:12 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a downhill motor racing game? On the news as I type... date=23.11.2004 13:16 ip=81.178.230.194 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wonder how long it'll be before you can away with the 9/11 flight sim? date=23.11.2004 13:21 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I remember the night of 9/11, discussing what would happen to flight sims, how they would handle this, whether the software companies would rush to remove the twin towers. About three days later, Microsoft announced that they were doing just this. date=23.11.2004 13:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can you pay good money these days for pre-9/11 Flight Simulator? Perhaps post-Iraq War editions shd also have large chunks of Baghdad removed. date=23.11.2004 13:39 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: The pre 9/11 is the one that doesn't teach you how to land ..? date=23.11.2004 13:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile at the JR Ritman Biblotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam:

Focus on Treasures: Domus Rosae Crucis: http://tinyurl.com/3slzw date=23.11.2004 16:13 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: I have *just* replied to an inquiry from a Belgian academic called Merian! This is beyond coincidence, etc. date=23.11.2004 16:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Weird! date=23.11.2004 16:37 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But what could it mean? Perhaps he's a Rosicrucian, too.

*Ominous pause. Nothing happens.*

Neat site, too! date=23.11.2004 16:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is Merian a fairly common surname in the Benelux countries?

I found out about it because I recieved an email from the JR Ritman library about recent exhibitions and the like. Obviously the Merians (doubtless a powerful but shadowy cabal based in dim tarot card landscapes of the Low Countries) have been particularly active today. I don't think the question is "what does it mean?" but perhaps "what are they trying to tell us?" date=23.11.2004 16:56 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="What are they trying to tell us?"

In my case, he's searching for details of a sixty-year-old dispute over an edition of Plotinus, involving "un jesuite itinerant." Weave this into a "tarot card landscape," and you could well have the next "Da Vinci Code" bestseller.

Fascinating letter; nothing I could tell him. date=23.11.2004 17:18 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>and you could well have the next "Da Vinci Code" bestseller.

That bad, eh? I was hoping that we'd get shabby imitation Eco. date=23.11.2004 17:34 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An echo of Eco, even. "Fuck All's Pendulum" - the book where nothing happens.

At least, I don't think it does. I really did try to read the novel, but I gave up after about the eighteenth info dump about the Templars. That was 14 years ago - perhaps I should drop my prejudices and pull it off the dusty shelf. date=23.11.2004 17:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, I really enjoyed it - but it is a massive shaggy dog story. date=23.11.2004 17:53 ip=81.178.230.194 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never got as far as Fuck-all's Pendulum. I didn't even finish Name of the Rose. But while we're on the subject of lengthy Templar infodumps: just finished a re-read of Durrell's Monsieur. It's a flawed gem compared with the Alexandrias, but at least the long sections on the Templars are highly readable.

Anyway, Eco imitations are best left to Italian anarchists. date=23.11.2004 17:59 ip=158.94.175.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I'll have another go! I liked "Name of the Rose," wandered around "Travels in Hyper Reality" and - well, that's it.

Rumour has it that Eco got thrown out of an Oxford bookshop a few years ago by the up-stage proprietor who recognised him and said: "We don't want people like you in here." People like - post-modernists? Italians? Authors? You tell me. date=23.11.2004 18:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last night's Waits gig:
http://tinyurl.com/6

Which I was offered a free ticket for yesterday, but I couldn't take it up because I was working until late. I would have phoned in with a sickie, but I was already at work!

How sick do I feel now? date=24.11.2004 11:24 ip=158.94.185.140 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: This link takes me to a map of Minneapolis hotels! I'd be happy to see Waits simply recite the names of these onstage, but, um ... :)

No. I'd've loved to have gone (better than the sticky-fingered non-conversation I sat through in the pub) - just as I'd love to give support today to the 23 MPs trying to impeach Blair, along with Banks and Pinter.

23 again: that magickal, Burroughsian number ... date=24.11.2004 11:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Try this:
http://tinyurl.com/5vdbq

High-speed cut & paste: don't do it kids! date=24.11.2004 11:55 ip=158.94.185.140 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sticky fingered non-conversations? Sounds like most of my recent dating activities.

*sigh*

I've been looking at that map, some amazing place names. Coon Rapids? Can you still call places that?

Oh, and this is very interesting; particularly the explanation of who Bloody Mary really is -

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1997-06-05/feature. html

Sorry, haven't worked out Tiny URL. date=24.11.2004 11:56 ip=81.178.230.194 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"We don't want people like you in here."

I remember someone telling me a story about a prominent post-modernist being caught hiding - and wanking - in a wardrobe at a party. The name of the particular po-mo escapes me for now. Don't know why I thought of it, really. date=24.11.2004 11:58 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> hiding - and wanking - in a wardrobe at a party

This too sounds like Martin's pub night out. You weren't on the beers with Umberto, by any chance? date=24.11.2004 12:29 ip=81.178.230.194 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I hadn't a clue about Tiny URL, either, until I asked someone - but you copy a long URL, then go to the site below, paste it into the window, and press Enter. Sapristi!

http://tinyurl.com/ date=24.11.2004 12:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool, ta! date=24.11.2004 12:59 ip=81.178.230.194 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and, without wanting to go too tabloid-y - what about those identity cards, then? Where the hell did that come from? date=24.11.2004 13:00 ip=81.178.230.194 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Where the hell did that come from?

Umm, our deepest dystopian nightmare state, perhaps? date=24.11.2004 13:09 ip=158.94.185.140 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not that I want to - but I've never seen how an identity card would stop me walking out into the lunch-time crowds with (say) a machete and carrying out a "terrorist" attack in time to make the 1 o'clock news. Or am I missing the point here? date=24.11.2004 13:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed. And what amazes me also is the lack of debate - tho' maybe I'm misunderstanding the parliamentary process. But it all seems a bit off the cuff for such a fundamental change. date=24.11.2004 16:03 ip=81.178.230.194 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Which I was offered a free ticket for yesterday, but I couldn't take it up because I was working until late. I would have phoned in with a sickie, but I was already at work!

How sick do I feel now?
__________
Io. this is absolutely the wrong aproach.
If I had been in your situation I would have certenly felt sick in the pit of the stomach, nauseated and with a need to lay down . That would be for missing the gig but I certenly seee no need to burden your boss with such unecesary and not relevant details. I mean who can tell for sure? So it´s " I feel sick need to go home" and If by sheer coincidence you come acroos the Waits Gig on your way home , Who can blame you if you sudenly feel better? date=24.11.2004 21:24 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On identity cards:
We have them in Spain since the sixties. Not much help with terrorism I am afraid. date=24.11.2004 21:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On sf that is not sf:
Spanish writer José Carlos Somoza has a good one " The art of murder". Strongly recomended and sure to outrage fans of proper sf because it is dirty stuff. date=25.11.2004 00:10 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And a new word for the day, from a review of 'Alexander' -

'buttnumbathon'

as in: 'this three-hour buttnumbathon is hamstrung by a hectoring grandiosity'

I'm going to be using that one! date=25.11.2004 15:11 ip=81.178.215.31 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Images from the Hubble space telescope interpreted as a quilt:

http://tinyurl.com/4e3r6 date=25.11.2004 20:41 ip=81.155.45.184 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, something oddly Lovecraftian about that. date=25.11.2004 22:35 ip=81.178.215.31 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Lots of children, particularly boys, play army, and like to imitate this young man. The clear message of the photo is that the way to relax after a battle is with a cigarette," wrote Daniel Maloney in a scolding letter to the Houston Chronicle. Linda Ortman made the same point to the editors of the Dallas Morning News: "Are there no photos of non-smoking soldiers?" A reader of the New York Post helpfully suggested more politically correct propaganda imagery: "Maybe showing a marine in a tank, helping another GI or drinking water would have a more positive impact on your readers."

http://tinyurl.com/3tmww date=26.11.2004 09:59 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Glad to see someone's cleaning up those young people's habits. And we'll soon stop their "snickering," too:

http://tinyurl.com/5rvu9 date=26.11.2004 10:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What gets me is all this 'Satan's in Falluja' nonsense you keep on seeing these people coming out with. Ugh.

Reading Sir John Mandeville at the mo; he's very humane and open, but also bent on converting infidels. 800 years, and we haven't moved on. date=26.11.2004 11:35 ip=81.178.215.31 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: And Bloody Mary is in Miami, apparently.

Martin: The War on Terrst, the War on Drugs and the War on Oral Fixation. You'd think they'd approve of their progeny growing up into proper little consumers. date=26.11.2004 11:42 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Mandeville - you bet. A Viconian vicious circle to our history.

>Satan in Falluja - It's like a horrific version of the Bradbury story. Once you get to Mars, you find there are Martians after all. Go looking for Satan, and you're sure to discover him.

(I can't help thinking Satan is really a rather sad goth who lives with his mum. His real name is Stan, but he added the "a" for effect).

Io: " ... so we're renamin' it Fellatio Freeway." Could happen; we just don't know, do we? date=26.11.2004 11:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, not sure it's even a circle; I don't think we've moved. Problem is. we're stuck in a religious context that defines the other as innately, inherently and permanently evil. Aggravated by familial closeness; two Abrahamic brother religions beating each other up, *the truth* as a cuddly toy they're squabbling over.

*sigh*

Zali, you doing the Buff Medways vs. Hell Truckers at the NFT tonight? Would have thought it's right up your street.

Am pondering Bert Jansch on the 13 December also, a bit of folk action; anybody fancy it? date=26.11.2004 11:58 ip=81.178.215.31 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn, it's a bad week for being otherwise engaged. I'm meeting up with my dad for a couple of three lager shandys tonight. So I'm afraid it's not possible. Wow! Patrick McGoohan, Sexton Ming *and* Billy Childish. date=26.11.2004 12:06 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alas... They were playing some BC on R4 this morning, funky stuff. date=26.11.2004 12:33 ip=81.178.215.31 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a bit of folk action

At the moment, I can't play any other CDs than this one:
http://www.squeezy.fsnet.co.uk/spiers_boden/shop.html
It's insanely danceable, very musical and just wonderful. Call me an old fokie if you like, but if you like this kind of thing you'd better buy it. Honest. date=26.11.2004 13:20 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a bit of folk action

At the moment, I can't play any other CDs than this one:
http://www.squeezy.fsnet.co.uk/spiers_boden/shop.html
t's insanely danceable, very musical and just wonderful. Call me an old fokie if you like, but if you like this kind of thing you'd better buy it. Honest. date=26.11.2004 13:30 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a bit of folk action

At the moment, I can't play any other CDs than this one:
http://www.squeezy.fsnet.co.uk/spiers_boden/shop.html date=26.11.2004 13:31 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=it's insanely danceable, very musical and just wonderful. Call me an old fokie if you like, but if you like this kind of thing you'd better buy it. Honest. date=26.11.2004 13:31 ip=158.94.137.68 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow, don't know what happened there! date=26.11.2004 13:32 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My last post has ended up as two, so I probably broke it. date=26.11.2004 13:41 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If no one's heard, there's sad news that John Balance, of Coil, has died - so, no more of that panicked English noise magick. date=26.11.2004 14:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One of the Stellas went along to John Balance's funeral. He did a good obit for him:
http://tinyurl.com/5cynd date=26.11.2004 14:42 ip=158.94.137.68 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: I had to post it in two bits. I tried restoring it a single post and it did the same thing again. date=26.11.2004 14:43 ip=158.94.137.68 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cloud Atlas is one of the economist picks for best book of the year. date=29.11.2004 22:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rammstein in climbing video sensation:

http://tinyurl.com/45lf9 date=29.11.2004 22:40 ip=81.153.4.129 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Interesting video - what's Tim doing in it? date=30.11.2004 11:32 ip=81.178.226.107 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Climbing? date=30.11.2004 12:28 ip=158.94.161.82 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A new string to his (detuned) bow. What's the song actually about? Presumably about overcoming things, dying heroically, etc. date=30.11.2004 12:49 ip=81.178.226.107 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It seems to be a song of love and loss. Ohne Dich translates as "Without You".

TTApress seems to be having bandwidth problems: too many lurkers. date=30.11.2004 13:02 ip=158.94.161.82 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> A new string ... Which reminds me:

Just flicking through Oxford's new book on Leonardo by Martin Kemp (no, not him). The Medicis sent da Vinci to Milan "with the musician Atalante Migliorotti, bearing a remarkable lyre in the shape of a horse's skull."

No - it couldn't be. Could it ..? date=30.11.2004 13:20 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=None of us will be safe now that Martin Kemp has revealed this. What was he thinking of ? If you don't hear from me again please date=30.11.2004 14:09 ip=213.78.64.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ideal Xmas gift for the Shrander in yr life:

http://tinyurl.com/5x4ol date=30.11.2004 14:44 ip=158.94.161.82 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: There are 12 others ..?! date=30.11.2004 14:52 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Valentinus suggest that there are thirty in total. date=30.11.2004 15:02 ip=158.94.161.82 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Truly he knew his t-shirts.

Someone just asked me who the big post-modernist writers around at the moment were, which kind of non-plussed me a bit. I tend to just think in terms of who's interesting at the mo. Is there a group of Po-Mo folk out there? Passed me by, I can tell you.

Oh, used to get taught by Martin Kemp back in the day. No mention of skulls etc in his first year Leonardo lectures, he must have saved that for the post grads. date=30.11.2004 15:18 ip=81.178.226.107 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An anagram of Atalante Migliorotti is 'matelot tailing Iotar'.
Seen any funny sailors lately? date=30.11.2004 17:06 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Unless Iotar is wearing a jacket with Matelot Tails. date=30.11.2004 17:16 ip=81.178.226.107 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I haven't seen *any* sailors. Funny or otherwise. date=30.11.2004 20:23 ip=81.155.168.83 name=A. Sailor mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arrr! Anyone seen Io-jolly-jack-tar? date=01.12.2004 13:38 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No sailors, but Leonardo apparently chose the horse's skull because its bone structure mimics the sonorities of the human voice. The instrument was known as the lira da braccio. From the link below, I think they can still be constructed - if anyone wants one ...

http://tinyurl.com/6cglv date=01.12.2004 14:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very nice! If someone would graft a guitar neck and a sitar bridge onto a horse skull I'd be willing to pay good money for it.

The viola organista thing sounds like Leonardo was trying to develop a Minimoog without electricity. date=01.12.2004 14:46 ip=158.94.170.29 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He'd have loved a sampler/emulator package ...

Actually, if you google for an image of the "lyra," it looks extremely elegant - a flatpack cello. It's only when you start thinking about the french curves in its structure that you start to see that bony beak, etc. Typical of the Schrander to hide in a mundane object packed with so many hidden ratios - it's like an acoustic matrix of Kearney's childhood vision on the beach! date=01.12.2004 15:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In Bosch's Temptation of St Anthony there's a demon with a horse skull for a head playing a lute. But you'd expect that, wouldn't you?

I rather like archlutes and theorbos with their over-the-top extended necks. Imagine if someone made a double-necked theorbo! date=01.12.2004 15:31 ip=158.94.170.29 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, over at the Terry Southern page:

http://tinyurl.com/3ruga date=01.12.2004 16:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I booked a theorbo player for the last ever Brixton Alive; sadly, was unexpectedly in Alexandria so didn't get to see him play.

Sorry, just couldn't resist typing that! date=02.12.2004 00:59 ip=81.178.226.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Another extraordinary lunge at poetry in today's "Oxford Magazine." This, from a 4-verse elegy:

Under cover she might take
a stranger's hand,
feel life in its fingertips
leap up her arm, shadowless.

See how luminous white
the flowers are! Hogweed
breaks through the hedge
unshorn, bidding for freedom.

A pregnant conclusion. Nothing like shadowless life or an unshorn hogweed to set the nerves a-quiver. date=03.12.2004 10:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You might as well give us the other two verses. If they threaten to sue you for copyright violation, we'll stand up for you. date=03.12.2004 11:55 ip=158.94.187.69 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think it should end 'budding for freedom' - a kind of floral protest thing.

Btb, who's heading through to Zali's gig tonight? I'm definitely going through.

Looks like snow over London today. date=03.12.2004 12:12 ip=81.178.226.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Can't make it, I'm afraid: time, tide, and all that. But I hope it's a great one!

The poem's by Gina Wilson. The title runs into the first line:

After Day's Hard Stare

came dusk, a grey tide
deepening. She might swim in it
far out, come alongside
gentle unfathomable whales

or vanish completely.
Only the bats showed
random as inkblots,
and banks of black laurel, azalea.

- First the unfathomable whales of dusk; then the unshorn hogweed breaking through the hedge. Late night shopping's getting harder and harder round here, I can tell you. date=03.12.2004 12:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Are you sure it wasn't a typo? Perhaps it was supposed to be "gentle unfathomable Wales"?

Well, I'm going along tonight. I know Tim is going but I'm not sure how many other Stellas are appearing. date=03.12.2004 12:38 ip=158.94.187.69 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, the bats are showing alright.

Somebody sent me some poems yesterday; ex-Soldier, so some very meaty, very real stuff in there, but he's expressing it with all thee's, thy's, reversed diction, mock portentousness etc. Am trying to work out tactful and useful way of suggesting that he thinks about how he's expressing himself, I think he could be a very good poet once he's thought more about using language.

At least - thanks to Tobias Hill - I understand what he's doing, tho' - he had a very good definition of this - along the lines of, it's very easy to write to engage yourself, much more difficult to write to engage other people. I think a lot of people are quite happy to do the first while thinking they're also doing the second. The real task is to make the leap.

Zali - should be there 8/8.30ish, I would think, depending on trek to N London length.

Martin - shame not to see you! date=03.12.2004 13:07 ip=81.178.226.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Shame not to see you, too! But, soon. Sheffield and Dan in '05, from what people have been posting. date=03.12.2004 14:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well done !!!

http://www.locusmag.com/2004/Issues/12LocusBestseller s.html date=03.12.2004 16:44 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whahey!

Congratulations!

*cracks open the virtual champagne* date=03.12.2004 16:59 ip=81.178.226.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed! Cheers! date=03.12.2004 17:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanx guys. It's a bit of a surprise. I'm sure things will be restored to normal by next month... date=03.12.2004 22:10 ip=213.78.74.76 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: As the Moet corks hit the ceiling over "Light" - how was Friday? date=06.12.2004 10:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A few techie problems, but otherwise good. I'll just have to do it all again - and better.

On 19th Dec to be exact. date=06.12.2004 13:17 ip=217.43.23.67 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It rocked - I supported by getting very drunk, which seemed to help.

*ad begins*

Yup, Zali will be doing it again at the Clapham Conjunction Cabaret night, which also includes folk, reggae, poetry, modern dance and possibly a groovy haiku projecting light show. And maybe me, reading a spooky short story for Christmas -

Sunday 19th December, 6.30 for 7, bring a bottle (there's no bar), some food, a cushion (recommended), at:

The Sangam Yoga Studio (through the orange door)
80/A Battersea Rise
London
SW11 1EH

Near Northcote Rd across from Savile Cycle shop, two minutes Clapham Junction BR & buses.

As ever, all welcome...

*ad ends* date=06.12.2004 18:16 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just been reading a review of Lemmy of Motorhead's autobiography on amazon - it mentions their guitarist (I think) 'Philthy Animal trying to climb through his own bathroom mirror' while particularly mashed.

Motorhead in Viriconium? The mind boggles... date=06.12.2004 19:06 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Phil was the drummer, I think - and it would take more than a few giant locusts in Tinmarket to stop him. I wouldn't get in his way, for one. date=06.12.2004 19:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Philthy Animal drinks in a pub just down the road from here, the Shiny Sheff (named after the first HMS Sheffield, so nicknamed because of its stainless steel nick-knacks), where my brother-in-law used to work. Apparently he's forever being banned for beating people up with his walking stick, something like that.

If anyone does make it up here in the new year, perhaps we could mount an expedition through the shiny mirror with Phil? date=07.12.2004 09:50 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well I'm up for that, but surely that's what we should be doing on New Year's Eve itself? I'll bring the canned food if you can get us into his bathroom... date=07.12.2004 11:25 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I am interested in Jack Trevor Story. Any recomendations ? date=07.12.2004 11:42 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: "Little Dog's Day" and "The Urban District Lover" are ones I enjoyed. I also liked his comment about Oxford being overrated - something to the effect that "you'll find more of the sublime in Milton Keynes." date=07.12.2004 12:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A PS: Loads of Jack Trevor Story's columns and stories (including "Shabby Weddings" from 'New Worlds') are online here:

http://www.jacktrevorstory.co.uk/ date=07.12.2004 12:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An interesting watch:

http://letitblog.com/epic/ date=07.12.2004 14:14 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I´ve reading the Guardian picks of the year. The plot against America is a favourite choice. Nobody seems to bother in pointing out if it is science-fiction or not. Ditto for Cloud Atlas . Mike´s earlier comment on one sided ghetto walls seem to be on the money. date=08.12.2004 11:38 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.bbc.co.uk/whatson/tickets/shows/chain_eno.shtml


I wish I were there .. sigh... date=08.12.2004 18:26 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks for that Arturo, have just applied for tickets online... I will report back in detail (if I get in). date=08.12.2004 23:37 ip=213.78.7.39 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bah - both tonight's Stewart Lee interviews Alan Moore, and next week's Alan Moore interviews Eno totally sold out.

Grrr... date=09.12.2004 17:10 ip=81.178.231.212 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Never mind. I know someone who's in occasional touch with both Eno and Fripp - so I keep twisting his arm to get them to bring Bowie along to the local church hall for an evening of "Low" and "Heroes," live. You'll be on the ticket list, don't worry. date=09.12.2004 17:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, if they ever fancy doing some cabaret in Clapham...!

Yup, one of those things. Was also going to be grilling Moore on the iconography of Promethea; worryingly large amounts going on there, I think. date=09.12.2004 18:04 ip=81.178.231.212 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Is this some elaborta scheme to make me insane with jealousy or what ?
By the way . date=09.12.2004 22:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The spanish translation of Firewall just came out. As as selling point there a line from a review in The Guardian by one "John Harrison" who sound awfully familiar. date=09.12.2004 22:23 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For those of us who didn't get to see Tom Waits live:


http://tinyurl.com/3zn5t date=10.12.2004 10:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And at some point they'll be broadcasting the Alan Moore stuff on Radio whatever, so it will be available on the BBC website... date=10.12.2004 11:03 ip=213.78.7.39 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, I think I know him too. What was the quote ? date=10.12.2004 12:17 ip=62.188.150.2 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe they assumed you were Monsignor John Harrison. Actually, in France M. John Harrison makes you Monsieur John Harrison, come to think of it... date=10.12.2004 13:16 ip=213.78.7.39 name=GB Steve mail=steve@moobark.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://ptgptb.org text=I recently posted a link to "What It Might Be Like To Live In Viriconium" to a rather literary roleplaying site, partly out of devilment, and partly because I'd already roleplayed Viriconium. This is the article that calls roleplaying literature a 'category error'.

I was wondering how that article fits with this quote from the Strange Horizons interview about Viriconium:
"(I was also saying, "Here's the kit, make your own fantasy, just don't blame it on me." I wasn't prepared to take the standard position in which the author constructs the fantasy for the reader, thus becoming the infallible parental figure behind the text.)"

Isn't roleplaying just taking the kit and using it in a slightly different way? date=10.12.2004 17:21 ip=212.137.34.41 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There seems to me to be a qualitative difference between reading a text and the literalisation of the same text role-playing represents. Nothing exists during the act of reading. There is no attempt to make anything exist. Everyone involved knows they aren't making anything. A very tenuous, very ephemeral space is constructed which is, as far as we can know, massively different for every reader. No one really knows how that space works. The attempt to make a text that will produce the space, and the attempt to "read" it into something we might mistakenly call "existence" is not codified or literalised. To read history is not to re-enact history. In writing and reading, *nothing is there*. A text is not a blueprint, or even a set of operating instructions. If you roleplayed Viriconium, you didn't, by definition, roleplay Viriconium. It moved away from you as you moved into it, because there is nothing there. All this is to reiterate what I said in the essay. I don't know what else to say. When I made Viriconium I wasn't moving pieces around on some board, or using puppets to plan my scenes. What happened, happened between me and words; between me and the possibility of words. I do not see people when I write. I do not see landscapes. If you see these things, or the possibility of these things, or the possibility of some kind of relationship between these things and the actions of some people in a "real" world, that's your option.

When somebody "does" something in a book of mine, they are not pretending to do something. There is no one there to pretend to hit someone else with a sword, or "relate" to them, or try & guess their "motives". There is no one there to enact, or act out. I am puzzled by that kind of thing unless it occurs for real in a real world. I don't see why you would replay a work of fiction when you could go surfing. There is a difference between an act of fiction and an act of pretending to be something. If there wasn't I would long ago have given it up. That's the best I can say.

If you tell me that all this can be said equally of roleplaying, & that we actually lots in common, etc etc, my answer can only be: yes, that's a fine rhetorical patch, used by many in many circumstances, which doesn't as far as I'm concerned plug your leak. Writing isn't a kind of roleplaying, and roleplaying isn't a kind of writing. date=10.12.2004 18:49 ip=62.188.170.135 name=GB Steve mail=steve@moobark.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://ptgptb.org text=I'm sorry, that came across much more agressively than I meant. One of the perils of posting quickly from work when I should have been working. Thanks for putting up with that, and for answering.

I don't think I did anything with your book as such. The book created in me certain impressions, moods and feelings and I took these and tried to convey them to others through a different medium.

I found that as the game was being played that I experienced some of what I felt when I read your writing. So I suppose that if I was creating anything, it was a second generation copy of an unintended consequence. Recreating something that I had created (the feeling), and hardly what you had created (the writing). So what is Viriconium?

Or is that the wrong question? date=10.12.2004 21:42 ip=81.77.203.44 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So what is Viriconium?

It's a book in Millennium's Fantasy Masterworks series.

(Facetious Lurker is one of my many noms-de-plume...) date=11.12.2004 01:30 ip=195.128.251.141 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So what is Viriconium?

Primarily, at this point, what happens in your head as you read. The product of a machine with two parts, text & reader. I don't think anything that happens downhill of that has anything to do with reading per se. A writer, certainly, shouldn't concern himself with what use the reader--and especially a group of readers--makes of the reading experience. But I write into that one-to-one engagement, reader with text. I'm not scripting for anything or I'd be a playwright or write games or whatever.

I think part of the problem here lies in describing "the kit" too specifically as a blueprint for narrative. That makes it seem actionable in that contemporary Hollywood way, where everything is to do with choice, power-exchanges, narrative bifurcations which are important to a sympathetic viewpoint character; all carried out under the umbrella of suspension of disbelief. Those elements are represented rather lightly in the kit I provide the reader. Go have a look at "I Did It" on this site, for instance. Despite its title, that story isn't actionable. You can't *carry it out*, or work with it, or take it elsewhere, partly because it's too fragile to maintain itself in the face of even tiny changes, but mostly because it simply isn't about the actions, or even the emotional exchanges, presented. It's the description of a state, it's a metaphor, it's a cheap allegory, it's a joke which works by reminding you of something you know already. It isn't a plot. It isn't a verb. In fact--again, despite the title--it takes the piss out of doing, it undermines the sense that the human world is this straightforward social construct, manipulable by action. Indeed I hope it undermines not just the sense but the worth of that idea.

The Viriconium stuff was an early, rather too bald attempt to get to grips with that. "The Luck in the Head" is about the failure to act and action as failure. It is about contingency. As such, it tries very hard to avoid being a decodable narrative, whilst counterfeiting all the signs of decodable narrative. That's how we try to operate the world: by conning ourselves that it is, or has, a decodable narrative.

I always wanted Viriconium to be the paradoxical combination of Keats' "negative capability" and Eliot's "objective correlative" --each event, each story, each image, was supposed to contribute to the objective correlative of a state which couldn't be described--some state, perhaps, of what we laughingly know as the unconscious. Viriconium isn't there. It's a set of non-instructions that point in an unknown direction. Any literalisation of it always points in the wrong direction.

This is, incidentally, what the narrator of The Course of the Heart is talking about when he describes his mother in the prologue. There is no "mother" to be described, there is no "narrator" to do the describing, only some shaped text; the set of instructions is for the assembly of an understanding that something will always defer assembly. Michael Ashman's method (using the way the light falls on a wet cardboard box on a Huddersfield building site to "interpret" the 15th Century) is the only one that works, for fiction, history or human behaviour. That's the zen of it.

So while the kit comes to the reader with the instruction, "Make of this what you can, it's out of my hands now," that isn't an invitation to reinscribe the text as your own. It's more of an invitation to get lost and enjoy the spectacle of your own narrative anxieties working themselves through in a medium very hostile to them.

Other than that, as John C says, it's a book in the Millenium Fantasy Masterworks series. date=11.12.2004 12:11 ip=213.78.76.97 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That is a ridiculously long post, especially after I just wrote to my US editor that I was going to give up trying to explain Viriconium. In the old days I would have answered, What is Viriconium ? with, "If I'd been able to explain it I wouldn't of had to write it." I felt very angry then that literalistic questions pulled me and my work into the literalistic world they were asked from. I could never do Hollywood because I could never pitch. If you can pitch it you don't need to write it. "The Luck in the Head" *is* the pitch for "The Luck in the Head". There's no shorter, simpler, pithier version, because if you could make one then that would be the work. date=11.12.2004 13:02 ip=213.78.167.143 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think one of the key problems in the relationship between roleplaying and the novel is in the roots of roleplaying itself. These games take the protocols of wargaming and puzzle games and apply them to a sort of consensual make-believe - what Ken St Andre refers to as "improvisational radio theatre". The motivations for characters (the sense in which they can be considered characters is itself difficult) are based upon either problem solving or feats of prowess; they are *heroic* in a fairly traditional extroverted sense - the environment created by the refereeing demiurge is won-over by decisive action. So the range of what can be described interestingly in roleplaying is fairly limited - one could certainly try to describe inaction, purposeful failures of affect, nostalgia or shabby theophanies in a game session but at that point you might as well put away yr elaborately realistic combat system, mechanistic character advancement tables, cityplans and other props because it has become something other than a roleplaying game.

Some of the authors who have come after MJH, who were of the generation that grew up with roleplaying, seem to have fallen into exactly these traps. They have built more ambiguous worlds than traditional fantasists but seem determined to fill their pages with group-level skirmish actions and carefully worked-out classes of non-humans and magic systems. date=11.12.2004 13:48 ip=158.94.180.151 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't disagree in any way with that, io, although I know too little about contemporary fantasists & their relationship with roleplaying to have an opinion on that part of it.

Viriconium was probably too blunt a tool. I don't know why I started there, except that fantasy was what I knew, and popular fiction drove me up the *wall* with its sausage-machine emotional dynamics--ie, put in action X you will automatically get out result Y. You can't say the thing I was trying to say in a medium which was already that self-deceived & as a consequence unsubtle. I needed the line that began from "The Ice Monkey", developed through "Old Women" and "The New Rays" and ended up with stories like "Science & the Arts". Lots of subtle emotional states playing against one another without the prop of hard narrative. In a way I was still in terror with the Viriconium stuff. I could see that the world didn't work through narrative expectations & structures, but I saw that as nightmarish, mad & brutal. A subtler medium to work in and I began to love the complex imbrication, slippage and meshing which generate the lived world. Viriconium rages against the loss of static emotional states & linear order; despairs; and in reaction makes these brutal, chaotic collisions of empty ritual. The later short stories welcome the dynamic lightness of human interaction, and make comparable structures. date=11.12.2004 15:28 ip=213.78.85.62 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I feel that Course of the Heart completes certain lines of enquiry that started in Viriconium; most obviously in Pam and Lucas's invention of their own Middle Europe. There *is* a level on which their dialogue acts as a sort of "improvisational radio theatre" but the responsibility for creation isn't a one-way process between director and actor. Both agents are writing interlinears on each other's text and the narrator himself reinvents their interaction based on his own flawed understanding and, of course, his own intentions.

BTW: read "The Inmost Light" recently. Couldn't help but feel that this story shares a certain kinship with "The East" and that other recent story with the name I can't remember. (I can only think of it as "Two Shakes is a Wank") I can't put my finger on the exact connection, it might just be the spectre of Machen haunting Soho. date=11.12.2004 15:57 ip=158.94.180.151 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In the twilight of my roleplaying years, when I was about 16 or 17 (coincidentally [or not] the same time as I first read Viriconium Nights and found myself liberated from ever having to read any more sci-fi or fantasy) I got into play-by mail games.

While this started out like most other roleplaying, with character providing a tenuous link between problems solved and skirmishes won, I gradually (and I'm sure quite unconsciously) started treating it as a way of developing and exploring flawed (comedic) characters, almost a kind of improvisational collaborative writing between myself and the person running the game. Because each game world had hundreds of people wandering around in it, there was really no need for epic quests (although such things obviously went on), you could just spend your time writing out crazy sets of instructions for your character and see what kind of response was posted back to you the next week.

After I'd been involved in the scene for a while I was contacted by a very young guy (about 14 or 15 I think) who was setting up his own game, non-commercial, and cherry-picking his favourite players from other games. I created a character, a vegetarian necromancer (not that he was opposed to cruelty to animals, he just hated to see dead bodies wasted) who had a collection of cat corpses. I was amazed at the creativity and detail of this kid's responses to my weekly set of instructions, it was more like jamming than puzzle-solving. Unfortunately, the time demands soon became too much for him, the game folded after about 3 months and I've pretty much kept clear of RPGs ever since.

it's almost enough to make me nostalgic. date=11.12.2004 17:18 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>it was more like jamming than puzzle-solving.

That's the potential inherent in the form which is almost always untapped because it's always jarring against the wargaming mentality and the genre cliche limitations. At worst it ends up as some sort of personalised soap opera.

There's this denial of reality thing which I also associate with the use of hallucinogens that comes into play here. The world of experience can be set up as spurious against the myriad possibilities of these escapes - you have a whole wardrobe of lives to try on, a bit like Mr Ben or Steppenwolf - but there's a certain hollowness and a sour tang to the default existence you've left behind. Naturally, it's not because yr a bit crap - it's because there's this huge conspiracy designed to prevent you from realising that you are the Messiah.

The only really noble way to bow out of this dilemma is to accept full-on schizophrenia. I was always too respectable to do the noble thing. Sorry, I'm also getting nostalgic. Must be the time of year! date=11.12.2004 18:33 ip=81.154.109.85 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, maybe it's not because yr a bit crap, but because of the vestigial certainty that you aren't actually able to leave the default reality behind. This knowledge (while remaining unacknowledged or at any rate not genuinely encountered) constantly undercuts the sense of freedom of the imaginary world. That's why mental illness is the preferred solution if you want to go any further in that direction. date=11.12.2004 18:48 ip=213.116.60.112 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also, to go back to yr definition of roleplaying, I utterly hate and fear "consensual make believe". We have that already, & call it society. "Luck in the Head" is about exactly that, in that it asks, What's the difference between public ritual (Margaret Thatcher at the Royal Wedding) and its funny hats, and private ritual and *its* funny hats ? Why do we put the schizo in the bin and leave Prinny & Black Rod not just to walk loose in the community but to have a part in *running* it ? Answer: because we already live in a fucking fantasy world... date=11.12.2004 18:55 ip=213.116.60.112 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Answer: because we already live in a fucking fantasy world...

Oh yes, and viewed from the viewpoint of Messianic Hyperverse Warrior (TM) it's *only another fantasy* so you don't really need to worry about it - you can find yrself a far more aesthetically pleasing Collapsing Decadent Empire to deal with.

No, I ran into someone the other day I hadn't seen for about ten years who had lived through a bout of self-inflicted mental illness. I'd been fairly happy about this because on our last meeting he had spent close to fourteen hours in my flat telling me how I'd ruined his life before we managed to remove him. On that occasion he'd been attempting to revive a dead cat he'd found in the road with his "life energy" by hugging it to his body- his failure had upset him but you felt that he was actually rather more upset about something else.

He also stank of dead cat. date=11.12.2004 19:35 ip=81.154.109.85 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Answer: because we already live in a fucking fantasy world...

Oh yes, and viewed from the viewpoint of Messianic Hyperverse Warrior (TM) it's *only another fantasy* so you don't really need to worry about it - you can find yrself a far more aesthetically pleasing Collapsing Decadent Empire to deal with.

No, I ran into someone the other day I hadn't seen for about ten years who had lived through a bout of self-inflicted mental illness. I'd been fairly happy that I hadn't seen him during this period because on our last meeting he had spent close to fourteen hours in my flat telling me how I'd ruined his life before we managed to remove him. On that occasion he'd been attempting to revive a dead cat he'd found in the road with his "life energy" by hugging it to his body- his failure had upset him but you felt that he was actually rather more upset about something else.

He also stank of dead cat.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.12.2004 19:35 ip=81.154.109.85 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did I ever mention that I used to collect dead cats...

(in a private ritual somewhere)

Also, is it the time of year or what, I can't seem to move at the moment without people talking about mental illness. Meanwhile, I'm frantically trying to engineer my own but, p'raps like io, I'm just too conscious of the neverending stream of reality flooding my senses. Ah well, it'll eventually be spring again.

Speaking of irrational rituals, I've already posted this Sam Harris quote somewhere (TTA, I think), but it strips bare the bizarre public behaviour of our leaders:

"The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. Now, if he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ludicrous or more offensive. "

(from http://tinyurl.com/4bvxg ) date=11.12.2004 20:01 ip=62.49.107.21 name=GB Steve mail=steve@moobark.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://ptgptb.org text=There's a lot here to catch up on.

I didn't know about Objective Correlative nor Negative Capability, my background is more analytical (maths, philosophy). I think their presence in your writing is what makes it so easy to reread. It's like listening to music, the themes are not trying to explain anything.

That said, my game* had been an attempt to provoke feeling rather than to force a narrative. Although players, and readers, will inevitably construct a narrative from what is presented to them.

I tend to agree with Dennett's view of conciousness being an abstraction of internal narratives (the 'fucking fantasy world'). In that sense, we are always looking for what happens next, and relating it to what happened last. The zen thing, the denial of this is hard for just this reason.

And, sappy finale, I guess that's why I enjoy reading your writing so much. I can skim through many books because the most of the words are not important, there isn't much going on besides the narrative. I can't do this with yours, but the extra work pays off.

*There's a lot more to roleplaying these days than just poor Tolkien pastiches. date=11.12.2004 21:52 ip=81.79.149.169 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steve. In the end it's not down to me. You can make whatever you like out of the kit: it's just I'm always tempted to try and explain what's in it, along with my own rules for assembly. This is neccessary in a limited range of circumstances but generally it's as impossible as it is unwelcome. A story spends only a very short part of its life being written into existence; the greater part it spends being read into existence. I get to use it for a month or two, after that everyone else gets to use it until it vanishes. There's bound to be a conflict between my experience of producing it and anyone else's experience of reading it, that's fine too. I just wanted to make it clear that I value, and write into, a traditional "one text one reader" space, ie I have fairly old-fashioned writerly values. date=12.12.2004 13:05 ip=213.78.164.99 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Mike

I don´t have the quote handy but it was something in " the best one so far" line.


Hi, Steve

Viriconium seems to me a very odd choice for role-playing.
I mean it has no fixed continuity and about the only rule it has is that it changes every time. It has fixed story, no fixed identity , no fixed anything ...
So a proper Viriconium game could only be played once, rules should be confusing, it should not have a begining or an end , and players should merge one into another ...

Now Ghormengast would be a great choice for a roleplaying game ... date=12.12.2004 17:42 ip=80.58.9.113 name=GB Steve mail=steve@moobark.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://ptgptb.org text=Mike: Thanks for making things clearer for me. I think my initial reaction was a misunderstanding about what you meant by 'kit', and that the kit is for *the* reader. Clearly what I'm doing is a different kettle of fish.

Arturo: Gormgenghast is something I like, but I don't think I could ever game in it. It's too fixed, there's so little room for manoeuvre that any game would be just going over the same ground. date=13.12.2004 20:43 ip=84.66.106.129 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What you've all been commenting on is why I find most popular fiction hard to read. If a story is just a jaunt through familiar plotlines, the X equals Y effect Mike mentions, then you're better off with a movie or TV show, something that demands less patience. Truly worthwhile writing transcends the mechanistic. date=15.12.2004 11:38 ip=65.146.242.14 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Behind plot lies the fantasy of control. Plot is for writers and readers who wish things were more like Mission Impossible. But real people don't work (and can't be worked) like that. The world doesn't work like that either. I go with Grace Paley: “...plot, the absolute line between two points which I’ve always despised. Not for literary reasons, but because it takes all hope away. Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life.” [A Conversation with My Father, 1974] Actually you can't take that "hope" away because it's built into the complexity and contingent nature of things.

Most popular writers I meet are control freaks. They'll take this "secondary" world because the other one bites and won't do what you want. Tut tut, norty norty. Dress up your dolls on a wet Friday afternoon, they always do what you say. Good luck. date=16.12.2004 14:29 ip=213.78.86.234 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aren't most of your New Weird chums busy mapping out secondary worlds with elaborate plots? Or have I missed something? date=16.12.2004 18:48 ip=195.128.250.237 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was a climbing club in Sheffield in the late 70s which called itself the Cream Team. Its only rule was you never knew if you were a member. Some people were in it, out of it and back in it again, & never found out until ten years later. I find that mysteriously attractive as a principle. Given it might well be one of our rules too, you could be New Weird yourself, John. In fact I think you were, for one and half minutes in July 2003. (Chum is actually a word I associate with the rusty old movement of quite another bit of clockwork.)

Anyway, I hope some of those guys will drink the water of absurdism one day, and they well know that. Meanwhile they have plenty of other stuff going for them to keep them on the Cream Team. & no rusty old chummery either. date=16.12.2004 20:50 ip=213.78.83.240 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Probably led things in the wrong direction by mentioning the New Weird again, that was picked out of the air as an example. I'm just wondering, somewhat provocatively, about occasional assertions here that seem rather spartan in their implication, the way they lay waste to great swathes of fiction which could well include works by writers I know you like. Things seem a bit more even-tempered on the TTA board (when you're not getting baited by fools upset over Billy Anker).

"Chum" was used precisely for its Bunteresque inappropriateness. Anything to avoid "pal" or, worse, "mate"... date=17.12.2004 02:13 ip=195.128.250.237 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Chum" : exactly. Use this with irony, or talking about pet food, but not much else. And "mate" - a bit of fall-out from the '90s bourgeois obsession with football. "The middle class are always on watch" - in this case, for language that might ease that sense of never quite fitting one's skin. It never worked for me, I'm afraid.

I've lost touch with "new weird" - is it still out there as a useful tag that enrages all the right people, or has it been and gone so the thesis writers can get to work on its bones? If so, we should start "new wired" or "nude dried" or something for next year. date=17.12.2004 10:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The New Weird is just a title. How can you compare Paul McAuley with China Mieville after all? Like the New Wave, the term will be hip for a while and then fall into semi-obscurity. date=17.12.2004 10:53 ip=65.148.120.194 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin has it, I think. But it's interesting to see the ripples of your provocation bouncing back to you off the sides of the bathtub. I don't remember putting Paul and China in the same frame, nor can I see Paul & China putting themselves in the same frame: but I guess somebody has, and since autocatalysis was part of the point of the scam (for me, at least) I'm certainly not complaining.

John C: everyone knows how choleric I am when it comes to the lie at the heart of narrative. I was an absurdist long before I was New Wave (in fact the disenabling of narrative I thought I saw in New Wave product was one of the very things that attracted me); and my rage at the social & ideological narratisation of reality--which seems to have been speeded up rather than slowed down by postmodernism--knows no bounds. If I hear another scientist describe what she does as "telling stories" I will puke up on her shoes. All the core conspirators of New Weird were (& still are) well aware of this. Indeed most people accept a rant upon the subject as the price of any encounter with me. To a degree, they find productive the tension between what I think and what they think. Except Cath who goes, yawn yawn I'm trying to read this book Mike, make a cup of tea & shut up, no one's forcing you to deconstruct Tony Blair's suit.

I'm gutted that the TTA board has become a safe place to be, & I apologise. I better eat someone's head soon. I must of worked too hard & become confused about who I am. date=17.12.2004 12:11 ip=213.78.79.79 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More Talisker's called for, clearly ...

"Telling stories" : absolutely. Along with "journey" as a synonym for "life" ( personal Brownian motion becomes an LA theme park) and "demons" for "deep personal flaws which someone should have told you about when you were eight."

And as nobody's said it here yet - happy Christmas and an enlightened '05! date=17.12.2004 12:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... and a small bit of news to warm the hearts of TV viewers everywhere:

http://tinyurl.com/6kzjv date=17.12.2004 12:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One thing more annoying that scientists telling stories: storytellers mangling science. I watched Monster yesterday, great film but I had to sit through a bunch of trailers beforehand. One of them was for a film (Godsend, I think) where a doctor, played by Robert De Niro, helps a couple clone their recently dead son. So far so believeable. Until son mk II starts acting all paranormal once he's past the age where son mk I died, and Dr De Niro tells the parents "I told you something like this might happen". Aargh, I nearly chewed my limbs off. The public has a poor enough understanding of science already, without evil scriptwriters trying to take over the world with their Bad Science Amplicifation Rays. date=17.12.2004 13:15 ip=62.49.107.21 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=to be or not be new weird: I am reminded of Moliere´s burgois who was surprised to discover he was talking in prose. date=17.12.2004 13:42 ip=80.58.4.172 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Your absurdist position is pretty well-defined here, especially with the recent Viriconium discussion. But I remain puzzled by what appear to be contradictions in some of this. If you and your co-conspirators aren't "making up stories", then what are you doing exactly? What is 'Light' doing, which seems pretty tightly organised, even--dare I say it--plotted? (So tightly organised, in fact, that what I first thought was an authorial oversight--several different characters removing flakes of tobacco from their lower lips--proves to have an explanation.)

A large part of artistic activity in any medium involves making patterns and applying organisation to otherwise disparate elements, it's what our brains do naturally and we get pleasure from the recognition and repetition of these patterns. Isn't this what stories are doing in fiction? It may not be "like life" but then neither is a painting. Looking at Picasso's representation of Dora Marr is more interesting than looking at a photograph (or a photo-realist painting...) of Dora Marr.

It may be a mistake to try and transfer these arguments to other media. But doing this raises questions (for me at least) which don't seem evident otherwise. Some of the arguments against the pleasures of narrative steer close to the hair-shirted anti-harmony polemics in 20th century music that would have us making a pyre of our Sigur Ros and Kraftwerk albums so we can furrow our brows to the collected works of Harrison Birtwhistle. The extremes of this attitude are a kind of puritan aesthetic that regards with deep suspicion anything in art that gives us pleasure or isn't there to teach us some kind of moral lesson.

This isn't meant as a defence of bad writing or cliched plots, I'm simply wondering why, if narrative is so suspect, you aren't writing journalism, instead of persisting with stories like 'Light'. date=17.12.2004 14:01 ip=195.128.250.237 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The weird itself is old - old! Quite old anyway.

On the back of my copy of Huxley's Point Counter Point it talks about the novel's portraits of D H Lawrence and Middleton Murry (sp?) "apostles perhaps of the coming weirdness". date=17.12.2004 14:13 ip=80.225.8.234 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, I think the two trajectories complement one another. Whatever their (apparently confused) intentions, by classifying themselves as storytellers, scientists only contribute to a climate of fictionalisation. I was really depressed to read Stuart Kaufmann's "Investigations" earlier in the year, in which he drivels on about science having to have humility in the face of the narratives of the arts etc etc. Urk, what a let down, he's off my list. Anyone who comes from the discipline which wrote the fantastically elegant "narrative" of (say) the double-blind experiment, should not be buying into the waffle of wish-fulfilment, canalised personal terror and ideological gibberish which is storytelling. date=17.12.2004 14:34 ip=213.78.87.234 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Great phrase - but would they *ever* live up to it? You can imagine the embarrassed introductions at cocktail parties in the Fifties by bashful menopausal men in demob suits:

"I used to be an apostle of the coming weirdness, you know ..." date=17.12.2004 15:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If the story below is an example of science "bowing to narrative," then we're in real trouble. Shouldn't these doctors be diagnosing real patients instead?

http://tinyurl.com/3n6uw date=17.12.2004 16:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John: organisation and "storytelling" are two different things. The latter depends largely on acts of suspension of disbelief and identification, with the intention that readers "lose" themselves in the text. Like politics or religion, it requires and encourages belief, investment, the loss of consciousness in a willed pretence. It charms. I hope Light doesn't do that. Judging by the shrieks of horror I hear from Amazon reviewers here & in the US, it certainly doesn't. Light, like everything else of mine, gives to the max only if you remain aware that you're *reading* something. It is highly organised but rejects immersion. It's a mistake to equate narrative organisation with narrative immersiveness. It's to claim that the only form of narrative organisation is "plot".

As for your "puritan" stuff, I don't buy that, if only because it's the standard argument of people who want only "pleasure" from everything they do. I've been hearing it so long I'm deaf. Forty thousand self indulgent f/sf readers pretending to be bullied by one author, it's a pitiful sight. "Why must all you bullying M John Harrisons pick on me ? Why must you bully me like this, all of you ? Why *can't* you let me have a little escape in my life ? Just a little *pleasure*!" Because you can get on that tit a million other places, be honest, and you do, daily; and I'm a writer not your mum.

It isn't narrative that's suspect as far as I'm concerned, it's the one-trick pony of immersive narrative. As for why I don't become a nonfiction writer: you're asking me something I've been asking myself in a conscious, organised and exhaustive manner since about 1977. If you want the simple answer, it's because I don't believe that nonfiction is nonfiction, and I'm interested (along with all the other things I'm interested in) in working with the implications that conclusion has for fiction, nonfiction and indeed the whole relationship between discourse & reality. The only intellectual method I have is empirical, exploratory, heuristic--ie to write: so the best answer to your question is the work itself, and, particularly, the spectrum of the work, from apparent but self-undercutting realism to apparent but self-sabotaging fantasy. It's a process, which means it's ongoing; it requires some tacking about, which ongoingness is good for. Light isn't the end of it. I'm not dead, and I'm still having the dialogue with myself.

You seem to want me complete, pindownable, solved. Never happen. As Simon Ings says, once you've solved yourself you're finished as a writer. date=17.12.2004 17:05 ip=213.78.92.156 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Gollum analysis seems to me a case of science stating the bleedin obvious.

Far more interesting for them to waste their time psychoanalysing big business than imaginary midgets: http://www.thecorporation.com/about/ (which sadly I've just missed getting around to see at The Showroom). date=17.12.2004 17:42 ip=62.49.107.21 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You seem to want me complete, pindownable, solved. Never happen. As Simon Ings says, once you've solved yourself you're finished as a writer.

Something similar seemed to happen in a programme about Richard Linklater earlier in the week. The interviewer was determined to try to come up with a theory or thematic thread running through all of Linklater's work, which the director rejected. There was this clear division emerging between how a body of work looks from either side of the fence, and the constructions that the audience puts on a writer, and the constructions an artist puts on the audiences constructions of their work, &c. date=17.12.2004 18:08 ip=217.43.17.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But also, io, what an utter and complete *areshole* that Ben Lewis bloke is, with his faux-naif sub-Louis Theroux whining, his ruthless self-regard and his slimy innuendos. The only thing that saved my TV screen from the nearest heavy object was the way Linklater kept cool and outmanoeuvred him. I'm surprised Lewis got out without a broken leg and I'm even more interested in Linklater than I was. date=17.12.2004 18:34 ip=62.188.154.35 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>what an utter and complete *areshole* that Ben Lewis bloke is

Oh, and that too. It's the old if-I-could-put-it-into-one-glib-sentence--wouldn't-write-the -fucking-novel conundrum. Perhaps this is a problem with a definition of New Weird, if such a thing is needed so far down the line, that there are actually a number of individual writers working out a number of individual problems.

But that's a problem for future academics, if there is a future for academia at all. If further education develops the way it's going they'll all either have to teach business studies or get themselves proper jobs. date=17.12.2004 19:55 ip=217.43.17.172 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You seem to want me complete, pindownable, solved.

Not at all, the friction between unresolved impulses is usually what makes (and keeps) art of any kind interesting, and the most enduring works are often the ones that are most difficult to "get" in their entirety. It's one reason why most of us here are reading your books, I'm sure. I hadn't seen you state things in these specific terms here or elsewhere, especially with regard to Light.

The reactions on Amazon to Light and Viriconium remind me of some of the hostile responses we had from comics fans to the Savoy comics, many of whom seemed bewildered and deeply upset that we'd pushed something in front of them that looked like a comic, smelt like a comic, but inside was trying to do something a bit different to their dismal superhero slug-fests. Hell hath no fury like the narrow-minded. I'm so glad I'm out of that world now. date=17.12.2004 20:34 ip=195.128.250.237 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It was more personal with me, that is it was an emotional reaction. I felt Lewis was inviting an audience composed entirely of people like himself (or better still people who were himself) to have a sly little laugh at his clever deconstruction of what he assumed was Linklater's pose. All this did was to constantly deconstruct Lewis's own pose for anyone who wasn't Lewis. Maybe I was enraged because it was as embarrassing as it was supercilious. As for that fatuous, "I felt that at last I was getting somewhere near the heart of Richard Linklater's beliefs. Could *I* now be the star of a Richard Linklater film ?": did Lewis get away with this sort of thing at Oxbridge ? At Marlborough ? Did anyone ever think it was clever ? Or did he just carry on, poor sod, despite the black eyes and split lips, because it was the only way he could think of to earn a living ? date=17.12.2004 20:36 ip=213.78.84.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoa, sorry John, cross-post.

>>The reactions on Amazon to Light and Viriconium remind me of some of the hostile responses we had from comics fans to the Savoy comics, many of whom seemed bewildered and deeply upset that we'd pushed something in front of them that looked like a comic, smelt like a comic, but inside was trying to do something a bit different

I think you did the right thing by walking away. Obviously one idea is that you set out to do this in the hope that you can knock the audience enough off balance that they begin to think about stuff. But they rarely do--they just panic, as you say--so it's such an unrewarding row to hoe. I wish I could disconnect. There's such a lot to do elsewhere! But Light made a great laboratory at that end of the spectrum; and part of me still thinks there's nothing wrong with the medium of f/sf, it's just massively undeveloped; and part of me just has that passion for trash which keeps the less canny among us off Booker list and Melvyn Bragg fiction quango alike.

(Anyone see him interview Iggy the other day ? Very strange bedfellows. Now we ask ourselves, Would Melvyn have interviewed Iggy in Iggy's heyday ? Would Melvyn have even heard of Iggy in Iggy's heyday ? Prolly not, because Melvyn has no passion for trash. I did think, though, that Melvyn rather *fancied* Iggy, though maybe he didn't know it.) date=17.12.2004 21:06 ip=213.78.84.18 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wish I could disconnect.

I walked away because I had no choice in the end; after the umpteenth door is slammed in your face, you tend to get the message. Say what you like about the literary world, its writers, publishers and readers, it's a shining beacon of open-mindedness and experiment compared to the rapidly shrinking pool of talent and ideas that is US/UK comics. I have this completely unproven theory that many people who could be working to make American comics as vibrant and inventive as European ones have had similar experiences and gone elsewhere, whether into writing fiction or working in computer games, advertising, movies, whatever. The irony is that my work is now far more visible (and a lot more stimulating) than it would have been had I managed to winkle my way into the superhero world.

I think you have plenty of reasons to continue so long as you have readers and publishers and I can walk into Waterstone's Manchester as I did today and see a copy of Things That Never Happen on the main f/sf table. The value of people working to change things from the inside can't be underestimated, it's a lack of those people in US comics that's slowly killing off the medium now that Hollywood and computer games are colonising their territory and selling that territory to a massive audience that doesn't give a shit that Spiderman used to be a comic book.

I'd be a little less sceptical of Melvyn's enthusiasm for Iggy if he hadn't been talking to The Darkness a couple of weeks before. I wonder if anyone told him he was talking to the man that wrote: "I've got my cock in my pocket / And it's shoving up through my pants / I just wanna fuck / Don't want no romance"? date=17.12.2004 22:41 ip=195.128.250.237 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, your resolve to not let your fiction become a means of escapism and immersion reminds me of discussions Krishnamurti used to have with Huxley. Krishnamurti considered most fiction a waste of time because it keeps blinders on people, distracting them from "what is," painting pretty pictures of things that never come to fruition in our waking lives. date=18.12.2004 10:37 ip=65.148.123.15 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John T. Within reason, I go with the political version of that. If you spend too much time in other people's "virtualities" --and that can mean anything from a film to a social theory to a mall to designer clothes, any kind of designed space --then (a) you will be living someone else's idea of what you should be, which is not dignified; and (b) your dissatisfactions will never express themselves as action for change. I decided that as an author one of my actions for change would be to undercut the immersive experience by witholding closure, or disrupting suspension of disbelief, or providing sudden doses of realism to undermine the unexamined sentimentalities which often stand in for felt life in immersive fiction readers. Or all three at once. I think this technique could be valuable in the real world, if applied to people's social & political realities; also their experience of the reality constructed by consciousness, which, by constrast to direct biological experience of the world, is essentially a low bandwidth user interface.

John C, you wrote

>>Say what you like about the literary world, its writers, publishers and readers, it's a shining beacon of open-mindedness and experiment compared to the rapidly shrinking pool of talent and ideas that is US/UK comics.

This is a point I've tried to make--less than successfully--to f/sf insiders. I also think that, at the moment, the real fantasy is being written not in three-decker doorstops or contentless movies but in the witheringly technical arena of the 45 second TV ad. I mean technical in a writerly sense, not in the sense of sfx. Very few people in fantasy have anything like that amount of talent or imagination. The pay is commensurate, I hear. date=18.12.2004 12:15 ip=213.78.164.235 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, when you mention consciousness as a low-bandwidth way of accessing the world, are you referring to the mind's way of obsessively labelling everyone and everything it meets? date=18.12.2004 12:26 ip=65.148.123.15 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=No, only that while your body deals with--and manages, and responds to, and makes decisions about--something over ten millions bits per second of information, the best consciousness can manage is about 40. That's why your foot starts to go down on the brake a full half second before "you" register the obstacle. That's why tennis players invented the inner game--wire the action then stop thinking, and you'll always play better. The fact is, your body is more at home in the world than you are. It's dealing with more stuff than you ever know about. The world does not look the same to your body as it does to you. The world as viewed by consciousness is an artefact, further artefactualised (is that a word ?) by its cultural expectations. date=18.12.2004 14:20 ip=213.78.90.25 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Almost makes consciousness seem like an impediment, doesn't it? date=18.12.2004 16:27 ip=65.148.125.146 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An impediment to good tennis, anyway. date=18.12.2004 19:48 ip=213.78.173.85 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, cover for New Scientist:

Consciousness: an impediment to good tennis? date=18.12.2004 20:43 ip=81.153.231.178 name=GB Steve mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So this stand against narrativism, is it something that you can ever win? And what if you did?

The body-brain bypass is something that Csikszentmihaly calls 'flow'. The body takes over and your brain can do what it likes. I've experienced it whilst playing football and it sounds like climbing can bring it on too. It's truely exhilirating. Csikszentmihaly says flow is "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost." date=18.12.2004 23:50 ip=84.66.76.209 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So this stand against narrativism, is it something that you can ever win? And what if you did?

I think it's already been won repeatedly. There are a million stories out there, all as different from one another as they are from the bodyplan which hinges on immersion, identification, moral polarisation and closure. You just won't find them in genre or generic breakout, or Hollywood movies (Hollywood adds its own list of structural requirements which rigidify the bodyplan until it can actually only tell the same story over and over again--all you're allowed to change is the context). There's a vast wealth of stuff, if you simply go to a library-- do they still exist ? --and read books published in the last hundred years without a genre label; or watch European or Indie cinema rather than Hollywood. Look at the way narrative structure is handled in "Elephant". Or the biographical values of the "Morvern Callar" narrative. There are so many ways of making stories that don't depend on you identifying with the characters to acheive some sort of nice reward which pumps your acceptance of the cultural values of the day. They just have to be told. Of course, they mostly depend on the author having some individual view of human experience...

As a climber I was always up for a bit of Csikszentmihalian flow. In fact if a day went by without some I got a bit irritable--runny dose, vomiting, diarrhoea, panic attacks, hanging about at Alpine Sports trying to score light magnesium carbonate, etc. I'm clean now but it's, you know, one day at a time. date=19.12.2004 12:13 ip=213.78.95.80 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Krishnamurti considered most fiction a waste of time because it keeps blinders on people, distracting them from "what is," painting pretty pictures of things that never come to fruition in our waking lives.

That's laughable. So Krishnamurti was a realist? I meet people every day who scorn 'fiction' but are up to date on all the people in all the soaps. Avidly read the Radio Times etc. We have disappeared into 'reality'. Along with our government and their their new farce ("let's be absolutely clear about this") - ID cards. date=20.12.2004 12:03 ip=81.19.57.130 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I meet people every day who scorn 'fiction' but are up to date on all the people in all the soaps.

I remember Ben Elton during some TV interview in the late 80s declaring a lack of interest in what he called "story books", saying he preferred biography (ahem) and non-fiction. His disdain seemed to vanish pretty quickly when publishers came looking for him waving fat cheques. date=20.12.2004 17:36 ip=195.128.250.104 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Further Ben Elton hilarity in this month's "Word" magazine. In an interview, he denies ever being remotely revolutionary ( Not me, guv - I'm a stage kid! I played the Artful Dodger when I was 14 ... ); claims the Sex Pistols never tried to put Genesis out of business; and claims we must now "control rogue capitalism." This trenchant stance is slightly undercut by a photo of him waving happily to the masses, alongside Brian May and Robert De Niro.

For once, I actually laughed at him. But - immersive fictions? Exhibit A for self-delsuion, I think. date=20.12.2004 19:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The absolute opposite to Ben Elton here:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,13 77355,00.html

How's that for liquefying fiction & reality to the benefit of both ? The moment you meet Paco you know he'd be up for anything; & here it is, a direct magical intervention in the world involving live revolutionaries & dead detectives. date=20.12.2004 19:41 ip=213.78.92.11 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So this stand against narrativism, is it something that you can ever win? And what if you did?

Narrativism is actually the johny-come-lately in fiction.
Even the more cursory look a the classic will give you works by ,say , T.E.Hofman, Diderot or Cervantes wich disdain closure etc. Cerantes being a such a culprit of this than he leaves a story in mid-sentence never to be continued. date=21.12.2004 00:06 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Leaves a story in mid-sentence.

Astonishing! This is a technique I must date=21.12.2004 09:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Cerantes being a such a culprit of this than he leaves a story in mid-sentence never to be continued.

Tssk, Nyarlathotep got him too?

Don Quixote's a fascinating book from the fantasy pov; a demolition of living life through consolatory fictions combined with a wistful admiration of their pulling power. Absolutely Arturo - fiction's been attacking itself (or its abuses) for hundreds of years. date=21.12.2004 12:40 ip=81.178.241.94 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On another subject altogether, why does Walter Jon Williams never get his due ? Reading "Metropolitan" was similar to having a firework set off your ear, and yet like Jack Womack I think he's more often OP than in. I never quite understand why the genre ignores anything genuinely vital. date=21.12.2004 15:10 ip=213.78.87.91 name=Ben Wooller mail=ben.wooller@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://livejournal.com/~wooller text=A firework set off in your ear! Exactly. I loved Metropolitan, especially as I only knew WJW's work from his cyberpunk excursion Hardwired (something which people always seem to mentioned as "jumping on the bandwagon", but I enjoyed it enough as a teenager... of course, I didn't really know any better). date=22.12.2004 04:32 ip=210.8.232.3 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This should be a bang in the ear too--

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,13 78911,00.html

I'm deep into the new book now, & if my posts have grown sparse (who are we kidding ?) that's why. Merry Xmas to everyone & a happy New Year. date=23.12.2004 11:57 ip=62.188.133.206 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And to you. date=23.12.2004 12:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And a Merry Xmas to all of yz! Although I have to admit I'm feeling curiously un-Christmas-sy this year.

Did anyone see that thing on the BBC about people who object to "Xmas"? Does the XP monogram mean nothing to them? Especially the Xtians who object.

http://tinyurl.com/5o7tw date=23.12.2004 12:08 ip=158.94.182.124 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Merry Christmas all. date=23.12.2004 12:12 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Aah... is it Christmas already? An absence of office parties this year has made it very hard for me to track its approach.

Y'all have a good one. date=23.12.2004 12:33 ip=62.49.107.21 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Funnily enough I am feeling Christmassy. Seasonal greetings to all. date=23.12.2004 12:41 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, I shall be feeling festive once I've completed my last bit of -pre-Christmas work, which will be at about four-o-clock this afternoon.

Merry Christmas all! date=23.12.2004 13:46 ip=81.178.241.94 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not very xmas around here as Eve is down with some kind of stomach flu and She is running a fever and can´t held much food down.
So no big dinner for us tomorrow.
But hopefully we´ll have lunch with family and friends on saturday and that should even thinks out.


Seasons greetins to all ! date=23.12.2004 15:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hope Eva feels better soon, Arturo. date=23.12.2004 16:13 ip=158.94.182.124 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cath got hold of this, which would cheer anyone up--

http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!3B!01!109A6273ED6D/ Babajani1/MurphysLaw/ date=23.12.2004 16:26 ip=213.78.81.90 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool. You just want it to go on and on. date=23.12.2004 16:41 ip=158.94.182.124 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, Io :Thanks !
That one raised a much needed smile, Mike. date=23.12.2004 21:41 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pleasure, Arturo. Have a good xmas. date=24.12.2004 16:08 ip=213.78.65.165 name=Henry mail=farrell@utsc.utoronto.ca icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.crookedtimber.org text=The Washington Post reviews CotH and Light at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21165-2004Dec 22.html date=28.12.2004 00:51 ip=208.58.65.235 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Henry. Always nice to get a review that doesn't accuse you of being misanthropist, misogynist and unable to understand (a) the book you've written and/or (b) the book you could so easily have written if you dropped all the stuff about annoying, weak & unattractive people, and stuck to the proper story set in the proper future.

Hope you had a good xmas & will have an interesting new year. date=29.12.2004 14:09 ip=213.78.93.28 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I may have made Krishnamurti's position sound more harsh than it really was, since the man read detective novels. He was only commenting on the h mind's tendency to prefer fantasy over reality. And the danger of ignoring anything is it never goes away.

Mike: Speaking of the "flow" state you experienced while climbing, have you ever felt that state while writing? (I would guess yes, you have) Or is that an impossibility because of the cerebral nature of the activity? date=30.12.2004 07:13 ip=65.148.125.215 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John. I wouldn't write without it. It's very important. Most of the non-financial payback you get from writing a book comes well after the fact--you don't get published for a year, you're not able to assess how successful it was for at least another year (or twenty). So it's vital to get kicks while you're doing it, or why would you bother ? While I can go a certain way on Quiet Satisfaction In A Job Well Done etc, I wouldn't do anything if I didn't get a good supply of kicks as well. The "flow" state is marked by raised response thresholds & times, turning up the music very loud, and not (apparently) being able to put a foot wrong. Very much like climbing except without the endorphins and adrenalin breakdown products which make it better than sex, drugs or rock n roll. I kind of miss that sensation. date=30.12.2004 12:18 ip=213.78.74.104 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of endorphins & adrenalin, my mother-in-law, who can barely look at an aeroplane without throwing up, won a half-hour flying lesson in a Christmas raffle. She used it to supplement my Christmas present. Something to look forward to... adrenalin ahoy! date=30.12.2004 13:05 ip=62.49.107.17 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Without sounding too mystical, I think work produced in such a state has the ability to foster similar feelings in the reader. For instance, I've had friends who never had the inspiration to write get inspired enough by a particular story to jot something down on paper, if only a half-finished thought. date=30.12.2004 13:12 ip=65.148.122.233 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks for the good wishes Mike - have moved recently to Washington DC and am settling in nicely. Maria has just headed to Brussels, where she's about to start working for ICANN (the crowd who sort-of administer the Internet domain name system). We'll be running a sort of mini-seminar on "Iron Council" on the blog in a week or so; five critiques and China's response to them - will post the url here if people are interested. It's an experiment in trying to get a conversation started among academics about this stuff without the usual bullshit that academic literary criticism involves - I think it's worked very well, but we still have to see how it fares with the blogreading public. date=30.12.2004 17:36 ip=208.58.65.235 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Henry: sounds interesting, do post the url here. And give Maria my best wishes.

John: sometimes I think that's *all* you can convey. Language, though the best of a poor lot, is such a crap medium.

Dan: I got a smoothie-maker for xmas. I'm hoping that will add to the general air of adrenalin & possibility in the house. Hm, I imagine myself thinking at breakfast time, what can you make with an avocado, half a tub of coffee ice cream and this wilted spinach... date=30.12.2004 20:20 ip=213.78.66.16 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy new year ! date=01.01.2005 12:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy New Year! date=01.01.2005 15:11 ip=81.153.6.178 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, everybody.
I got for xmas Gabarek´s "in praise of dreams" that has jazz buffs complaining that it is not a proper jazz album and I gave Eva " Raise,raise" by Rammstein that has metalheads complaining that it is not a proper metal album. Las year I loved Cloud Atlas that has people complaining that it is not a proper novel.
It is just me or there is a pattern here? date=03.01.2005 10:38 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, but not a proper pattern. date=03.01.2005 12:54 ip=62.49.107.17 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy New Year all.
This year I am boosting my adrenalin by learning the accordion, taking up morris dancing and trying to understand Jung's Seven Sermons To The Dead. Oh, and making artisan breads from my own never-dying leaven. Peace. date=04.01.2005 11:10 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy new year!

"Seven Sermons" set to accordion - David Thomas must be kicking himself for not having thought of it first. My holiday reading got split between Chris Pettit's novel "Robinson," some J. McLaren Ross short stories, and (well, why not?) Lucretius's "On the Nature of the Universe." Astonishingly, this almost pre-empts both genetic theory and relativity (time is a property of objects), and proves- sadly - that there's little new in the world. Book 2 opens:

A joy it is, when strong winds of storm
Stir up the waters of a mighty sea,
To watch from shore the troubles of another.
No pleasure this in any man's distress,
But joy to see the ills from which you spared.

TV news, lingering in slo-mo over those desolated faces in Sumatra, could have adopted this as its motto. date=04.01.2005 11:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Seven Sermons. Ah yes, Jung turns into Basilides and gets a house full of dead old Christians. Sort of like an over the top version of A Christmas Carol.

Meanwhile, Holy Grail in Hertford:
http://tinyurl.com/6ptf6 date=04.01.2005 11:45 ip=158.94.134.189 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: Gosh. I see the urban district Templar talks about "things that are about to happen," too. Kind of a familiar phrase ...

Have it got this right? Jacques Molay's going to emerge from the secret tunnel under Thresher's and save us all from John Prescott? About time, too. I'll be in the pub. date=04.01.2005 11:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm. Let's hope the Monsoon sale will lure Jaques de M out of the Accesorise cupboard. He'll be on Richard and Judy within a week.

There used to be a troupe of psychedelic morris dancers in the 60s, apparently, the Black Watch. Tho' how morris dancing could get more psychedelic I'm not sure.

My Christmas reading - 'A Bright Shining Lie', superb Vietnam history retold through the life of US military adviser John Paul Vann, apart from anything else it demonstrates very clearly that Iraq is very much Vietnam 2. date=04.01.2005 12:45 ip=81.178.241.8 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=While we're waiting for Jacques, our favourite demi-urge is having fun, giving porn titles to Fall songs:
makes a change from terrorising quantum physicists ...

http://tinyurl.com/4gveg date=04.01.2005 14:19 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"things that are about to happen," too. Kind of a familiar phrase ...

Yes, I've had letters from the gas board like that. I'm sure it's all connected with the prophecies concerning 2012 - the year that Ceefax ends.

Xmas reading: re-read Livia. The second of Durrell's Avignon books concerning, amongst other things, the secret of the Templars. date=04.01.2005 15:05 ip=158.94.134.189 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ceefax runs on the Mayan calendar? Mama mia ...

I've never understood why the Mayan calendar should end in 2012, either. I checked the site below, which says it has the solution, but I'm none the wiser. Anyone got the short answer?


http://www.levity.com/eschaton/Why2012.html date=04.01.2005 16:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well apparently the BBC is ceasing analog TV broadcasting in 2012 and that will be the end of Ceefax. I'm not sure the Mayans knew about the BBC, but the BBC certainly know about the Mayans, so the inference is clear.

I also saw something recently connecting the end of the Kali Yuga with 2012. But when you're playing with units of 432,000 years it's easy to miscalculate.

But after the Y2K disappointment I'm not holding my breath. date=04.01.2005 16:49 ip=158.94.134.189 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Happy New Year.

It's my understanding that the Mayan calendar shows us the end of the world; the present day world. date=04.01.2005 16:51 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Tim mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think you're talking about the aztec calendar, actually, since we know very little about the mayan. The calendar is like a cog, running around inside another cog, with yet another cog running inside that. Day names and numbers can only repeat a certain number of times before the whole machine runs down. It's like a spring, ticking slowly away in very subtle, cosmologically significant parcels. When the parcels run out, time stops. We're due to run out in the middle of december, 2012. Can't remember the exact date off the top of my head, but it's a handful of days after my birthday. date=04.01.2005 19:15 ip=66.134.228.98 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=December 2012? Isn't it about the same time that the current American Civil War is due to go nuclear? According to that guy who popped over from the future to warn us, or whatever? date=05.01.2005 00:55 ip=62.49.107.17 name=Ben Wooller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Mayan Long Count: the world is reborn on December 12, 2012 (according to Terence McKenna, who run the numbers through an i Ching program). date=05.01.2005 00:55 ip=61.68.246.188 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ben: We're going to be reborn. What a relief.

Dan: I tried telling all this to somone from the future, but he wasn't having it: "I wasn't born yesterday, you know." Sense of humour becomes a sparse genetic trait, circa 2010. date=05.01.2005 10:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin:
Aren´t yuou being a tiny littel itsy bit optimistic?
Humour gods: Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Woody Allen and now ¿¿ The Farrellys and Scary Movie? I would say that humour died in the lave seventies/ early eigthies . date=05.01.2005 12:02 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I would say that humour died in the lave seventies/ early eigthies .

Humour won't die until they pick up the last banana skin. date=05.01.2005 12:23 ip=158.94.140.86 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=All this recalls the line in Mel Brooks's "Silent Movie" - "Remember, Mel - slapstick is dead!" - just before the dog's lead drags the producer's through the desk and down the stairs, scattering paper, a water machine, and three secretaries in its wake. The whole cinema was in hysterics. date=05.01.2005 13:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually I was thinking about humour on my way to work this morning, and how it defeats language. Didn't Freud see humour as the result of a "consciousness disjunct" or linguistic anomaly; laughter as a nervous reaction to the absurd. Slapstick of course goes even further and bypasses the abstract altogether.

Perhaps this doesn't apply to all forms of humour: satire, topical jokes or jokes that you have to *get*. But I'd wonder if a good Western equivalence for a Zen koan might be a joke?

*steps on rake* date=05.01.2005 14:42 ip=158.94.140.86 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or countless bad singles with titles like "Rock will never die". Of course it won't, now fuck off an sing about something interesting for a change.

I watched a DVD of "The Day Today" last night - comedy was certainly alive & kicking against the pricks in the 1990s. One raised eyebrow from Chris Morris is enough to put me in hysterics, and his performance as various Scandinavian MTV presenters & as rapper Fur-Q are genius.

My holiday reading: Alex de Jong's biography of Rasputin. That was a cat that really *was* gone. (Simultaneously listening to Resonance's archive of the B3ta radio show - http://tinyurl.com/3uk9j - playing a Slavic Hi-NRG cover of "Da Da Rasputin"). date=05.01.2005 14:48 ip=62.49.107.17 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: You could well be right. Brooks again: "Tragedy is if I cut my finger. Comedy is if I watch you walk into an open sewer - whaddo I care?" date=05.01.2005 14:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Rasputin. That was a cat that really *was* gone.

I found a video of the Hammer Rasputin with Vincent Price in a pound shop just before Xmas. It was as good as you'd imagine. date=05.01.2005 14:56 ip=158.94.140.86 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There are Zen Buddhist lightbulb-changing jokes according to Google but they all seem rather lame...

I first read about Terence McKenna's 2012 stuff in the late '70s, it's been interesting watching the idea proliferate since then. Like many quasi-mystical speculations, it's either deeply spiritual or deeply bollocks, depending on who you read.

"The theory of Timewave Zero was revealed to Terence by an alien intelligence following a bizarre, quasi-psychedelic experiment conducted in the Amazon jungle in Colombia in 1971. Inspired by this influence Terence was instructed in certain transformation of numbers derived from the King Wen sequence of I Ching hexagrams. This led eventually to a rigorous mathematical description of what Terence calls the timewave, which correlates time and history with the ebb and flow of novelty, which is intrinsic to the structure of time and hence of the temporal universe. A peculiarity of this correlation is that at a certain point a singularity is reached which is the end of history-or at least is a transition to a suprahistorical order in which our ordinary conceptions of our world will be radically transformed. The best current estimate for the date of this point is December 21, 2012 CE [common era], the winter solstice of that year and also the end of the current era in the Mayan calendar." date=05.01.2005 14:59 ip=193.109.51.190 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the end of history-or at least is a transition to a suprahistorical order in which our ordinary conceptions of our world will be radically transformed.

So presumably it'd only be worth betting that these transformations *don't* happen. Because if they do, the value of your win would be radically transformed.

Remember, in the case of a paradigm shift, values can go up as well as down. date=05.01.2005 15:33 ip=158.94.140.86 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Heuristics: let's wait and see.

That said, I can't help remembering the piles and piles of Nostramadus texts that filled the remainder shops after 1 Jan. 2000.

I'm just recovering from my own paradigm shift, which is less to do with revelation than failing eye-sight. I was filing away an Oxford bible. The slipcase noted this printing contained "Sayings of Jesus in Red." I saw the last word as "Bed," though: a much more interesting prospect. The meek shall inherit the duvet, etc. date=05.01.2005 15:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wasn't 2000 supposed to be an ill-timed millenium celebration anyway, because nobody's quite sure when JC was born but the one thing everyone's agreed on is that it wasn't 0AD. Perhaps it was around Xmas 12AD, in which case we can now put all our end-of-the-world theories in one basket.

Jesus in bed: I think John & Yoko nicked his original (immaculate) concept. date=05.01.2005 16:09 ip=62.49.107.17 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS, American time-traveller geezer actually had the holocaust pegged at 2015, but said civil war "will consume everyone in the US by 2012": http://johntitor.strategicbrains.com/ date=05.01.2005 16:12 ip=62.49.107.17 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Perhaps it was around Xmas 12AD, in which case we can now put all our end-of-the-world theories in one basket.

Hmm, putting on the Christologist hat for a moment: I don't think anyone has put his year of birth that late. Perhaps instead we could hypothesise that the divine spirit entered JC at that time and before that time he was only man. But to suggest that the divine and human can be divided, and to say that he was not wholly man and wholly God from the beginning, is deeply unorthodox.

But then again, connecting the birth of JC with Mayan Cosmology, the London Olympic bid and the death of Ceefax can't really be called orthodox either, so bring it on! date=05.01.2005 16:29 ip=158.94.140.86 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Totally unrelated, but found an old friend while rooting around in Svankmajer imagery for something completely different -

http://www.filmcentre.co.uk/images/shorts/alice.jpg date=05.01.2005 17:31 ip=81.178.241.8 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was thinking of *that* Alice only yesterday (Lola was watching the Disney version, I wondered whether HMV might have a copy of the Svankmajer version, for me to spend my Xmas token on, as it's been far too long since I saw those little lizard skeletons prancing around).

> I don't think anyone has put his year of birth that late. Perhaps instead we could hypothesise that the divine spirit entered JC at that time and before that time he was only man.

You mean, like, that was when he learned to talk? Or turn water into Sunny D? Or something?

The latest I've heard for the birth of Christ was 6AD, but they had no speaking clock those days and so were probably *way* out on their timings. date=05.01.2005 20:51 ip=62.49.107.17 name=MArtin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> You mean, like ...?

I think this is why Arianism never gained much ground - you get into absurdities of "when" and "how much was god" and "how did his two sides get on together": that, and the fact that a lot of its adherents promptly got stoned to death by "real" Christians. date=06.01.2005 10:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>You mean, like, that was when he learned to talk? Or turn water into Sunny D? Or something?

I was thinking more in terms of the story about JC's first public appearance. His parents losing him and his precocious theological teaching at the temple at an early age, and that.

On a slightly more topical, erm, topic:

Has anyone actually compared the figures for the "enormous relief effort" with the costs of war (and peace) in Iraq? I suspect the former compares to the latter in the manner of Earth to Jupiter. Bush and Blair must be thanking the Baby Jesus for this wonderful Xmas present. date=06.01.2005 11:16 ip=158.94.145.189 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Comparing spending figures. Monbiot (Guardian) did just that last week. date=06.01.2005 11:39 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=George Monbiot in "The Gurdian":

"The US government has so far pledged $350m to the victims of the tsunami, and the UK government £50m ($96m). The US has spent $148 billion on the Iraq war and the UK £6bn ($11.5bn). The war has been running for 656 days. This means that the money pledged for the tsunami disaster by the United States is the equivalent of one and a half day's spending in Iraq. The money the UK has given equates to five and a half days of our involvement in the war…." date=06.01.2005 11:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> You mean, like, that was when he learned to talk? Or turn water into Sunny D? Or something?

Well, the apocryphal gospels are full of him zapping small mates for pinching his toys etc when he was a toddler, etc (Joseph makes him bring them back to life), so you'd probably have to start there.

Re war / relief spending; even just comparing the original offers with (say) how much Beckham makes per annum brings out the paltriness... We must seem so profoundly self absorbed and decadent to most of the rest of the world. date=06.01.2005 11:46 ip=81.178.247.138 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Relief spending: Cambodia donated less than Jackie Chan, see http://tinyurl.com/6v7od date=06.01.2005 12:18 ip=62.49.107.17 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, as ever, there is a dearth of information on the effects of the tsunami in Burma. The Myanmar government puts the figure at something like 53 dead and 21 missing, which seems suspiciously low. And there was also a second smaller quake on 29 Dec which shook Rangoon - which I've only seen reported in the Free Burma News.

But I guess none of this is Important World News because there weren't many British tourists in Burma. date=06.01.2005 12:19 ip=158.94.145.189 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>... tourists ...


But, hey - at least Arthur C. Clarke's safe, and that's what counts.

Isn't it? date=06.01.2005 16:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He lives in Sri Lanka, doesn't he? A friend was out there with his entire family for his brother's wedding - fortunately, they're all ok.

Anybody read any ACC lately? I was pondering getting his collected short stories the other day, last read him when I was about 12 or 13. date=06.01.2005 17:33 ip=81.178.247.138 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Along with Bradbury (and Jack Vance?) he is one of the last of the "old masters". I would be interested to hear what you think of him, Al. I haven't read ACC since I was about 15. date=06.01.2005 18:05 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Me neither, so I don't really have an opionion of him. Hmm, when I get through my current bookpile I might get stuck in to some of him. Am reading 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' at the moment - very new start, but so far very intriguing. Wonderful command of mood and some very spooky fairies. date=06.01.2005 18:36 ip=81.178.247.138 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A friend of mine - http://www.somewheredifferent.com - emigrated to Sri Lanka on Christmas Day. He has since un-emigrated (due to re-emigrate to Egypt shortly).

It was one of the weirdest feelings I've ever had, waking from semi-sleep at 6.15am on 27th December to hear his name on the Today programme: he was at the time, apparently, with his 7-year-old son, surrounded by crocodiles (he'd telephoned the British consulate for help). They didn't mention his wife & other kids, so I feared the worst, but amazingly they all survived. date=06.01.2005 22:17 ip=62.49.107.17 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Wonderful news, in the midst of everything else. date=07.01.2005 10:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely.

Another friend had a very narrow escape in Thailand; he was on Phuket beach, getting off the Phi Phi boat (which was lost with all on board), with his new wife (they were on their honeymoon) about five minutes before the tsunami hit.

Amazing how chance can pick you out like that. date=07.01.2005 12:39 ip=81.178.203.14 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the subject of reading, Leonid Tsypkin Summer in Baden Baden sounds very good.

Of incidental interest perhaps is Mansfield by C K Stead, with fictional portraits of Mansfield, Lawrence, Eliot, Russell and so forth; it's set in 1917. Didn't Zali want to write a musical with exactly this cast of characters? date=07.01.2005 14:20 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Tsypkin ...

MJP: I had no idea what this was until I saw the weekend papers. But - you're right!

Certainly more intriguing than up-coming things by McEwan (someone gets mugged on the day of the anti-war march in London) or Hornby (several would-be suicides get talking on a roof-top). I mean, one cannot bleedin' wait, can one? date=10.01.2005 10:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More fun on the link below.

Doncha love her?

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/l_tabraham/jbrr.htm date=10.01.2005 14:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, yes that was a funny coincidence. Sontag seems to adopt these barely known Russians. Another book she introduces is The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge. I can't resist these. After having read Bulgakov's The White Guard recently, for its portrait of post First World War Kiev, I am also going to reread The Master and Margarita in the new penguin translation. date=10.01.2005 14:10 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Tulayev : Never heard of this, either! But from Amazon, it looks fascinating.

>Master & M : It always astonishes me that Bulgakov survived under Stalin, while Mandelstam, Babel, etc. got murdered. Perhaps the fact that Satan narrates the Jesus sections would have satisfied the secret police if they'd seen the manuscript (Jerry Springer is small beer by comparison) - but the NKVD weren't renowned for their post-modernist acumen. Stalin must simply have had a soft spot for "The White Guard." date=10.01.2005 14:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I love M&M !!
And the Bulgakov book is fine too... date=10.01.2005 22:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Apologies for the blip in service.

Or as our hosts explained:
"During our normal maintenance window, our primary server experienced a power supply failure after a reboot from routine maintenance. The power supply has been changed and all services have been restored to full operation. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you." date=11.01.2005 20:01 ip=217.43.15.105 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The mini-seminar that I mentioned a while back on China's "Iron Council" is now up - the introductory post is at http://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/003096.html . date=12.01.2005 01:57 ip=66.94.16.65 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just sampled the Timber site.

John Holbo reads like twaddle, unfortunately. I mean I have written acres of twaddle myself, so I am very familiar with it. date=12.01.2005 10:40 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, too much there to read when I'm meant to be working - something to check out this evening, methinks.

Just been reading my way through Arthur C Clarke short stories; some intriguing stuff, buried beneath a sense that the cosmos will one day be populated by the human equivalent of a lukewarm gin and tonic sat on a Surrey golf club bar. In fact some of his protagonists remind me of my Mum and Dad's next door neighbour, which is hardly a recipe for sensawunda etc.

Having said that, he does sometimes feel like a kind of Ballard without the raw, strange otherness; the same apocalyptic concerns, the same interest in how character and the cosmic intertwine, but far more literal and parochial in how he deals with them.

Hmm. Fun stuff nonetheless, and odd reading so many stories I'd last read at 10-13 or so and didn't even have any conscious memory of.

Perhaps the 10-13 thing is indicative; when the chief interest of much of this fiction is science, and that science has become irredeemably dated, then all that's left to hang onto is the emotional content, which (by definition, given that it's secondary or even beyond here) isn't too complex.

Copies of the collected short stories in the remainders bookshop (Bookends? I think) on Charing Cross Road for £5.95, if any Londoners are interested.

Oh, and also have just finished Strange and Norrell, but have to do some work now, so more on that later... date=12.01.2005 11:40 ip=81.178.193.133 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Maybe it's the ultimate fate of all primarily hard science based sf to fall behind modernity and become a primer in basic concepts for the kids of the future? date=12.01.2005 11:42 ip=81.178.193.133 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the Crooked Timber/Mieville debate:

I have a practical interest in section 5 of China's response on "Pulp, Subversions and Conventions". This is a class of problem I've encountered again and again, reeling back, on most occasions, from the sense that it simply *can't work*: that acts of self-undercutting in that area are themselves self-sabotaging & therefore a waste of energy. Having had yet another go at it in Light, I still wish I could wash my hands of the whole project.

The problem is that it's pivotal, not so much because the act of subversion has value in itself (I can't believe that after forty years) but because the *attempt* to subvert is diagnostic; it's another way of locating some kind of soft spot in the relationship between fantasy and the realistic forms (also, by extension, between those forms and the forms of descriptioive nonfiction). It's a way of bringing yourself up against the question, But why do this stuff at all ?

I've never had an answer to that, and I suppose in the end I don't want one. If you write like Lovecraft or Schulz, out of a deep reach into your own psychology, then you will always write something that can be called fantasy. Rather than subvert, one should perhaps *write into* the relationship between fantasy & reality (to the extent that either can be defined out of the presence of the other), between escapism and realism. It seems to me that this--in the context of the new forms of socialism and class-awareness China mentions--automatically provides a political service for the reader. If you cannot live the "real" condition of the undeveloped world, you can at least try to become fully conscious of the essentially virtual nature of Western life.

The level of debate here is already over my head. I'm constantly astonished by China's intensity of intellectual engagement with what he does. This is the rather stunned admiration of somone whose enagagement is at root incoherent, emotional and--I'm afraid--writerly rather than political. I think Henry has done a fine job here in making this level of debate available. As a reader, I wish we saw more of it.

It's good to be reminded, too, of Moorcock's work in this area: his response to Tolkien's "Jailors hate escapism" sophistry is an object lesson in how to deflate bad rhetoric--and say a lot in a very few words. date=12.01.2005 12:09 ip=213.78.167.237 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Started reading Secret Histories by Emma Larkin which seems to trace the last fifty years of Burmese history through Orwell's "Burma Trilogy", (Burmese Days, Animal Farm and 1984) his unfinished novel A Smoking Room Story, and a travelogue of the country itself - frozen in time since the fifties.

Just finished Aberystwyth Mon Amour by Malcolm Pryce which somehow reminded me of a Cardiganshire remake of Simon Ings' The City of the Iron Fish routed through a Chandlerizer pedal.

Before that: PKD's Transmigration of Timothy Archer. Utterly brilliant and certainly not what some critics have described as the last book by a "washed-up writer". PKD was never saner, more lucid or pyrotechnic. date=12.01.2005 12:18 ip=158.94.173.183 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On the Crooked Timber/Mieville debate:

>>Some have read the ending of IC as elegiac, as constructing a kind of memorial to revolution. In fact, the intent was to embed it, render it permanently immanent, with one of the impossibilities, one of the literalised metaphors that do not however subordinate their literalism to their metaphoricism, in which fantasy fiction excels.

The problem for me with reading a "revolutionary socialist" writing fantasy are the same as if I were reading a Jehovah's Witness writing a fantasy or a Catholic Oxford don writing a fantasy: it's merely the species of apocalyptic mythology that changes. In fact with the above sentence China seems on the verge of propelling Revolution into the transcendent realm, in the manner of Milton. And shd we regard Revolution, like the Day of Judgement, as an escape or an escapism? date=12.01.2005 12:58 ip=158.94.173.183 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Crooked Timber/Mieville debate

I have only read The Scar. But some of China's comments on the Timber site about the point of writing fantasy at all express thoughts that I had while reading that book. I actually couldn't get the point of it. I kept thinking .. so what?

It is annoying to read a book like that. On the other hand, I didn't get the point of PKDs books on first reading them either. Now I think he's a genius. But China's comments still fail to suggest to me that anything *worthwhile* is going on in his fiction. A feeling I don't get e.g. with Viriconium. date=12.01.2005 13:00 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=On the Crooked Timber/Mieville debate:

>>Some have read the ending of IC as elegiac, as constructing a kind of memorial to revolution. In fact, the intent was to embed it, render it permanently immanent, with one of the impossibilities, one of the literalised metaphors that do not however subordinate their literalism to their metaphoricism, in which fantasy fiction excels.

The problem for me with reading a "revolutionary socialist" writing fantasy are the same as if I were reading a Jehovah's Witness writing a fantasy or a Catholic Oxford don writing a fantasy: it's merely the species of apocalyptic mythology that changes. In fact with the above sentence China seems on the verge of propelling Revolution into the transcendent realm, in the manner of Milton. And shd we regard Revolution, like the Day of Judgement, as an escape or an escapism?

(posted simultaneously on Crooked Timber)
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=12.01.2005 12:58 ip=158.94.173.183 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, this is a response to the quote below re the ending of IC, rather than the whole article, but one of the things that interested me about that ending was the way it balanced optimism in the possibilities of a Marxist revolution with despair - doing one of those 'meaning two different things at the same time' tricks that MJP's pointed to before and that (again) fantasy fiction excels in.

The ending does create an immanence; but implicit in that immanence is a sense of despair. On the one hand, the possibility of revolution is made permanent and permanently inspiring; on the other, fuck all actually happens. Everything is frozen in a wonderful but static state, entirely divorced from the possibility of any further action. So in some senses it seems to me that the final images of the book despair at *Marxist revolution* as ever being anything more than a wonderful, inspiring but completely impractical / irrelevant idea.

Also a brilliant reworking of the final freeze frame of 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' (whether intentional or not I don't know) - itself (come to think of it) creating a very interesting tension between myth and reality, inspiration and practicality. date=12.01.2005 13:49 ip=81.178.193.133 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>On the one hand, the possibility of revolution is made permanent and permanently inspiring; on the other, fuck all actually happens. Everything is frozen in a wonderful but static state, entirely divorced from the possibility of any further action.

I am reminded of various mystical writers agonising over the impossible distance between the human soul and the soul of souls. Oh, the despairs of the *negatively existent* so far removed from the cares of this Fallen World!

Should socialism, a purportedly materialistic set of doctrines, be dabbling in paradox? date=12.01.2005 14:14 ip=158.94.173.183 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Should socialism, a purportedly materialistic set of doctrines, be dabbling in paradox?

There is an interesting syncronicity of posts across the boards here, I mean those on this one and on your own Io, and also on Talkback, because one way or another they are about masks. In China's case, the masks of his 'pupeteering'. (Where does politics enter in etc.) On Talkback the story about Harry H Corbett's use of the phone as a mask. In the case of the letter quoted by Io, someone is disowning his old name and all those works connected with it, because it symbolises a false consciousness, as he sees it. It's like someone suddenly adopting a Fundamentalism - dissociating himself from the ordinary world of greed, lies and capitalism.

But is there anything besides the masks of who we are, in our role-playing: as office monkeys - etc? Is there a primal innocence? Socialism, Marxism, and their like, are or they were Fundamentalist doctrines, doctrines about dropping the mask, the false consciousness of capitalism. My contention is that even if our lives do contain an innocence, an absence of manipulation, there is no dropping the mask because the mask is in fact the reality too. There is no getting around it, I AM an office keyboard monkey.

Here is the evidence. date=12.01.2005 16:50 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, but I think it's China the writer (or even just China the human), not China the Marxist, who creates this ending. I don't know enough about Marxism to comment in depth; but my understanding is that it regards some great social revolution as transcendental, wonderful and ultimately (hopefully) inevitable; the king of all happy endings.

If you're a writer with any sort of understanding of human nature, or even if you're just a human with any sort of understanding of human nature, you'll be deeply suspicious of this. Questioning the *revolution* isn't a socialist position; it's a human position. For me, the ambiguity of the ending is one of the strong points of IC - it's a move away from the programmatic and towards the more humane. date=12.01.2005 16:51 ip=81.178.193.133 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I suppose it's too late now for a spoiler alert... date=12.01.2005 17:27 ip=195.128.250.24 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>For me, the ambiguity of the ending is one of the strong points of IC - it's a move away from the programmatic and towards the more humane.

Well, perhaps this will be his salvation; where the writer overwhelms the socialist. Although the tension between the two, which informs the last section of his reply, currently seems to be dominated by decisions about Singularity-like mysticisms and how they are best depicted.

And I often wonder about whether fantasy is really the best medium for testing social or political concerns. After all, unlike history, the author holds all the cards. date=12.01.2005 17:31 ip=158.94.173.183 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oops - sorry about that, John. date=13.01.2005 10:11 ip=81.178.193.133 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fiction can deal with politics in fantasy terms. Gulliver's Travels is an obvious example; also, Utopia. 1984; Animal Farm; We. But it seems to me that parallels have to be seen or links made with one's immediate experience for that to be successful. I would love to see a fantasy or sf book that took on supermarkets, advertising, cars, trains and planes, celebrity culture, the scientific ideal versus the human reality, species destruction, the impregnable stupidity of our polical culture, the invincibility of our human slackness, and so on, in a way that works in spite of ourselves; that celebrates all that. Since there is nothing else to be done. Light does this a little. But I would say Bulgakov is the master of fantasy politics. We need a modern Bulgakov. date=13.01.2005 10:32 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What about Ballard? Surely what he's all about. date=13.01.2005 10:49 ip=81.178.193.133 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=True, true. Thanks for reminding me. I'm off to Tescos for a copy of Cocaine Nights. date=13.01.2005 12:07 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cocaine nights is set in Marbella , in Spain.
I had very high hopes for that book because Marbella is an astounding hodge-podge of glamorur ,corruption, tackines and poverty.
Unfortunately Ballard got a couple of details absolutely wrong at the beginning of the book and I fell of the bicycle pronto never to recover. date=13.01.2005 12:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=What were the details, Arturo ? date=13.01.2005 12:59 ip=62.188.132.226 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Oops - sorry about that, John.

Oh, I don't mind, just thought it was funny. Other people might, I suppose, if they chance on this unawares. I'd be surprised, given China's concerns, if a storyline of his ended with an unsuccessful revolution.

This reminds me, somewhat appropriately, of the time I asked a schoolfriend who this Gollum character was that he kept going on about. "He's in Lord of the Rings," said the friend, "he falls into Mount Doom with the ring at the end of the book." So much for that surprise... date=13.01.2005 18:27 ip=193.109.50.57 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> Gollum ...

Probably the worst-kept secret since the ending of "The Passion," I'd say. date=14.01.2005 10:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Probably the worst-kept secret since the ending of "The Passion," I'd say.

Although "Last Temptation of Christ" had a slight twist to the ending. Strange that, Jesus movies seem to vary in their endings: "Greatest Story Ever Told" ends with Max Von Sydow resurrecting as an ikon (and rendering the keygma as something equivalent to "Don't worry, be happy!") while "Jesus Christ Superstar" ends with a bunch of hippies getting back onto their coach and no resurrection. date=14.01.2005 11:20 ip=158.94.184.36 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, you have a point. I once gave away the secret in that Neil Jordan film whose name I can't remember to someone, which wasn't good.

This is very funny:

http://gprime.net/video.php/reallifevsinternet date=14.01.2005 11:32 ip=81.178.199.167 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Going back to the Crooked Timber thing for a moment, China's definition of f/sf as an outsider fiction relative to the literary mainstream, is clever and fun because it suggests that f/sf has a commonality of some kind with outsider art.

But that's only half the story, because f/sf is also a massively insider art, with rigidly defined praxis and a sophisticated feedback relationship with a fixed critical apparatus (an apparatus now being taught in universities, much as insider art history and criticism are taught). From this viewpoint it lacks--and indeed rejects--one of the major parameters of a definition of outsider art: idiosyncracy.

As in all insider art, the only acceptable form of idiosyncracy in f/sf is a sophisticated conscious modification of tropes and expectations, framed & presented so as to be detectable by the insiders themselves.

True idiosyncracy is defined automatically by any insider system as failure to do the job properly. Thus f/sf written by an outsider without consciousness of the tropes tends to be defined as "bad": ie, it is described exactly as outsider art used to be by the insider art establishment.

Paul Theroux's O-Zone, the classic case in point, is therefore defined as a bad book because it doesn't know the rules --because Theroux isn't aware that his use of the tropes isn't new--rather than for some of the more important reasons that it's bad: ie, that it's intellectually lazy and so sloppily-written it's rather difficult to make sense of. As far as the f/sf community is concerned, O-Zone is bad because it's an affront to insider knowledge, produced by an untrained practitioner, not because it's an inherently bad book.

An establishment luxuriating in its sense of itself as outsider, while at the same time operating a rigid system of internal purging based on deeply sophisticated insider knowledge, isn't perhaps entirely hypocritical, but might well be described as trying to have its cake and eat it.

I've posted this at TTA, too. date=14.01.2005 13:13 ip=213.78.71.51 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, interesting that you mention outsider art: reading Raw Vision magazine I have recently become more and more aware of repeated themes in the field of art brut. I am sure that much if not all of this is down to the unconscious reasons - the nature of the media, human mental structures, paths of least resistance, and of course my own increasing familiarity with the work - but it sometimes feels to me as if outsider art is coming inside, developing its own praxis (particularly as outsider art is now big business, with some pieces changing hands for unbelievable sums).

Is this just the way of all things? Money is the root of all evil, etc etc etc. date=14.01.2005 13:35 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dan. I'm sure that's the case, and I'm sure it can't be avoided. I think China was probably using the term in its original sense (in which there is no organisation or organised perception, by definition, because the category is applied to an unlinked, unselfconscious non-collection of complete individuals, each one idiosyncratically rediscovering the medium). I certainly was. I think there's some sense in which f/sf *was* an outsider art--or at least allowed for outsider practitioners. That sense rapidly disappeared in the 1950s. Very few new practitioners are cherry these days; those that are (but "show promise", ie, show that they might add the required small controlled modicum of difference to the trope vocabulary) get taken under the wing of agents and editors steeped in insider knowledge, turned out, then further groomed by their critical and academic reception. It's fun to bask in the sense of yourself as brave, eccentric outsider; but in the case of the vast majority of f/sf writers, unrealistic and essentially sentimental. The New Wave, for instance, rapidly put a lock on the Pandora's Box it claimed to be; and now its practitioners spend their time tracing "influence", which is another way of saying they're insiders. date=14.01.2005 14:04 ip=213.78.75.82 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, you're right. I'm sure that the only way any movement can remain "outside" is if the sole criterion for membership is outsiderness. Which is paradoxial and probably not very useful.

You'll have to excuse me, I've confused myself now. Besides which, I don't want to belong to any club which would have me as a member. date=14.01.2005 14:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sf is a fiction for teenagers, for the emotionally underdeveloped, for geeks, newt-fanciers, librarians (especially librarians for some reason), and for sacked Waterstone's bloggers, dissafected lab researchers, technophiles, people with weight problems, American Students, bookish security guards, astronauts, pop pickers, second hand bookshop browsers, airport carousels, tube travelers, French intellectuals who should know better - and so on.

Its readership is marginal in the sense that the content of sf always seems to take place just outside of any real, admissable world. It is also a cult fiction, which I think explains alot of its 'insider' snobbery or what have you. It's for collectors; as with rare species of butterfly; if you can catch something really odd, a frittillary something or other from outer space that nobody has ever heard of before, then you belong to an exclusive club. I think the collecting habit is significant for the way that it exceptionalises its readers as connoisseurs of the exquisitely alien. (I'm a bit of an sf philatelist myself).

I also think that science fiction is or that it represents the proto idea of post modernism – because if you think about it; it is always postmodern, literally. So - if I can put this a little more pretentiously - : it is what it wouldn't be, because if what it is were to be admitted, then it would cease altogether; so that not being itself it remains set apart, unreconciled with the unreality of the actual, in the world of the forever unknown. date=14.01.2005 14:30 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>librarians (especially librarians for some reason)

Oi!

Actually, most of my colleagues read Harry Potter or crime fiction, a group of them are starting to read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. date=14.01.2005 14:47 ip=158.94.185.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's a question of the difference between a system that requires and recognises trained practioners on both the production and reception sides; and a category which simply assembles works that have a roughly identifiable quality. Outsider art can be a "movement" only among collectors, never producers. While f/sf might luxuriate in a description of itself as "outside" to the literary mainstream, it is actually a commercially-driven system which requires, selects and trains an insider practioner for an audience of insiders. To claim anything else is romantic and self-indulgent, and in some circumstances a bit naughty. date=14.01.2005 14:48 ip=213.78.75.82 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Taking pride in being a literary leper is one thing, but all this grooming by insiders is just pimp and tart for the regular punters. They know what they want, and they know how to get it. Vastly depressing. date=14.01.2005 15:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You can see fairly clearly the academic mechanism that drives a loosely-assembled outsider category towards becoming a systemically insider-driven genre. Fresh new academics find it difficult to establish themselves in a field already crammed with qualified insiders. They therefore look outside for a way of applying their skills, stumble over something nobody else wanted, and carve out a career as the voice of that particular outside. There's plenty of room for a second generation, who split the new field off and refine it. But by the third generation, things have got tight again, and the newbies have to start looking elsewhere. This syndrome has been so visible in academe since the late 70s I doubt if I have to give examples.

As a syndrome it reminds you invincibly of the cosomological theory of eternal inflation, and leads in a similar way to some very exotic spaces becoming describable as whole universes. It's very typical of ghettos & genres to see their own contents as infinitely unpackable--whilst the outside majority blinks and goes, "Wha ?" because it honestly can't see (or care about) the minute differences between examples. Maybe this also explains the f/sf obsession with inside/outside themes ? The wardrobe is able to "contain a whole world" partly because the insider practitioner has already shifted perspective to a massive degree. date=14.01.2005 15:19 ip=213.78.75.82 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Harry Potter? Whatever. I work in a library too.

What interests me is why all supermen and superwomen should wear masks. I think this has a bearing.

Set the lepidoptoral philatelist free.

The Mask of the Lepidopterist!!! date=14.01.2005 17:28 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I work in a library too.

I know, and you would catch us reading trashy nonsense.

As I've probably said before, as far as SF goes I just can't see why people keep producing it. I'm pretty much on the side of MJP's rare moth collectors: if it's funny, trashy and cheap - yeah, why not! But I can't see why anyone would want to go on producing the stuff *seriously*. Perhaps in a beer money covers band sort of way, but not as a literature.

If it's a good way to take pocket money off nerdy kids who will never make the school football team: fine. But it's not really High Art, is it? High art's the stuff for taking pocket money off the nerdy kids who played in the school orchestra.

Ah, maybe there's a crossover demographic! date=14.01.2005 19:40 ip=81.155.45.151 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>I work in a library too.

I know, and would you catch us reading trashy nonsense?

As I've probably said before, as far as SF goes I just can't see why people keep producing it. I'm pretty much on the side of MJP's rare moth collectors: if it's funny, trashy and cheap - yeah, why not! But I can't see why anyone would want to go on producing the stuff *seriously*. Perhaps in a beer money covers band sort of way, but not as a literature.

If it's a good way to take pocket money off nerdy kids who will never make the school football team: fine. But it's not really High Art, is it? High art's the stuff for taking pocket money off the nerdy kids who played in the school orchestra.

Ah, maybe there's a crossover demographic!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=14.01.2005 19:40 ip=81.155.45.151 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike,

Cocaine Nigths: They were a couple of background details that were jarring for . I.E : Having a truckload of moroccian fieldhands sitting stoically in silence. Well that is not their tipical behaviour. Round the corner is a bar were moroccian workers hang out. Silent they are not . They joke . Smile a lot. Oogle the girls and seem to be plain happy to have finished work. Tiny things like that. Somehow they made me more conscious than usual of reading a book . date=15.01.2005 01:25 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Arturo. It's a perennial problem. Even if you've been somewhere, you may want to change a detail for some background metonym. Realism often--some might say always--makes way for ideology. Or I guess Ballard might have seen the only silent truckload of migrant workers in that part of the world in the last decade. Unless you live in a place it's hard to tell. I've written locations I've never been to, and had readers tell me how "realistic" the portrait was. Go into it with them and you find that they don't actually have any hard reason for thinking that--what you wrote simply matched or added to some feeling or experience of their own. If you avoid all but the most general indices, people will shower you with compliments on your "realism". What I hate most is the kind of writing based on a tax-funded two-week "research" trip, backed up by lots of local facts garnered dutifully from other texts. You have to make some genuine connection with a place, or some aspect of a place, it doesn't matter how glancing or shortlived: then proceed from that. date=15.01.2005 13:24 ip=213.78.66.225 name=John Thompson Jr. mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Too many readers appreciate the two-week vacation sort of research because they feel guilty reading fiction unless it "teaches" them something, even if it's the most useless, superficial kind of knowledge. date=16.01.2005 14:09 ip=65.146.242.1 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike ,

For me the point is that all "fictional" worlds are linguistic constructions. date=16.01.2005 15:09 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Quite surprised by this :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4175713.stm

This bullshit was demolished hundreds of years ago by Cesare Beccaria:
" This dilemma is frequent. Either he is guilty, or not guilty. If guilty, he should only suffer the punishment ordained by the laws, and torture becomes useless, as his confession is unnecessary, if he be not guilty, you torture the innocent; for, in the eye of the law, every man is innocent whose crime has not been proved"
Depressing , to say the very least, to see it flourishing anew. date=17.01.2005 11:32 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sadly, I've reached the stage where nothing from America surprises me any more. I've gone beyond cynicism to miserable acceptance that, despite the best efforts of many good people, things continue to get worse and worse.

A friend who lives in San Francisco overheard this a couple of weeks ago: "Have you noticed that the tsunami only affected non-Christian countries? God has ways of making his point."

What with the cancellation of Behzti, the mock outrage over Jerry Springer, and now the ridiculously drawn out protests over Prince Harry's sill get-up (hey, if it's good enough for Mel Brooks...) I'm very concerned that the UK is on its way to becoming as "fundamental" as the USA. date=17.01.2005 12:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, long-time lurker, first-time poster &c.

Just a note of thanks for writing "Course Of The Heart"; got it five days ago from Nightshade. Mesmerising, heart-wrenching; has appeared to seep into my pores a little (the world now looks slightly awry, as if I'm very gently stoned).

Cheers!

PS: Has anyone read any of Eugene McCabe's stuff? I'm thinking of getting his new collection of stories (Heaven Lies About Us). Thanks... date=17.01.2005 13:10 ip=195.92.67.68 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Nels. My pleasure. That slightly stoned feeling is a feature of many peoples' response. I can only suggest you try & push it further--shred a little of the text, make it into a paste with a spoonful of Domestos and chase it off some silver paper. I haven't read Eugene McCabe, but I've heard good things about him. date=17.01.2005 13:23 ip=213.78.71.246 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>shred a little of the text, make it into a paste with a spoonful of Domestos and chase it off some silver paper...

Righto. I'm off to buy some silver paper... date=17.01.2005 13:34 ip=195.92.67.68 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Have you noticed that the tsunami only affected non-Christian countries? God has ways of making his point."

I thought Jahweh prefers to afflict his own people with disasters. Unless of course the Old Testament isn't gospel? date=18.01.2005 09:55 ip=158.94.134.93 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, the problem with bombing the hell out of people who don't believe in you is that you tend not to get any sort of response back from them, which I would imagine is frustrating if you're that kind of a deity. Like giving somebody arm twists or whatever only for them to give their lunch money to someone else. date=18.01.2005 10:22 ip=81.178.199.8 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dr Farah Mendelsohn is looking for answers to a questionnaire about childhood reading habits. If you'd like to help her, go to http://sfquestions.blogspot.com/ date=18.01.2005 12:05 ip=213.78.67.191 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dr Farah Mendelsohn is looking for answers to a questionnaire about childhood reading habits. If you'd like to help her, go to http://sfquestions.blogspot.com/ date=18.01.2005 12:05 ip=213.78.67.191 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Sex at birth." "Sex now." The transgender cult author that is Robert A. Heinlein. Some interesting results, I'm sure! date=18.01.2005 12:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Last time I was over at the campus where Farah is based I noticed that they had a copy of Light in the bookshop.

>>5. Sex at birth
>>6. Sex now.

Some questionaires make me feel *so* boring! date=18.01.2005 12:13 ip=158.94.134.93 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: Ah, you like that one too! date=18.01.2005 12:14 ip=158.94.134.93 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: As Eccles used to say on the Goons - "Dah hard ones come first, eh?"

Seriously, the replies should be fascinating. I'm not sure I could articulate the reasons why I read sf in the first place, though - except it seemed the place where (that phrase again) "things happened." Back in the late '60s/'70s, it seemed part of the modern world, but much of its enclave mentality would stop me saying that now. date=18.01.2005 12:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I'm not sure I could articulate the reasons why I read sf in the first place, though

Much simpler for me: I was five years old when Star Wars came out. date=18.01.2005 13:14 ip=158.94.134.93 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Star Wars ...

I was among 50 nervous members of the audience watching The Clash in the Midlands by that time, all of us wondering when the "filthy punk violence" we'd read about in the tabloids was going to erupt. It didn't; we got deafened; and I spent the next three days waiting for my ears to stop ringing and trying to decide if The Slits had really been any good or not. A critical boundary transgression occurred when I realised that they complete crap but utterly wonderful. The present tense started there and then. date=19.01.2005 16:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"Star Wars"...

Well, even back then I knew that there is no noise in a vacuum and that even inside a spaceship lasers don't make a noise like electronic percussion.

>>"filthy punk violence"

And out of the window I saw my first punks walking up and down Holloway Road. I told my dad that I was going to be a punk rocker. He patiently explained to me that I'd have to wear a safety pin through my nose and I rapidly went off the idea. date=19.01.2005 17:16 ip=158.94.139.100 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.

"Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.

"The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general. "

http://tinyurl.com/43h2v date=20.01.2005 12:53 ip=158.94.144.199 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some Bush voters are having second thoughts, too. This from a feminist forum:

http://tinyurl.com/5tm5s date=20.01.2005 14:08 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Then again - we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?


http://tinyurl.com/4xk8p date=20.01.2005 16:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pray for starry wisdom! date=20.01.2005 16:55 ip=158.94.144.76 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Starry wisdom

Hmm.

'By promoting liberty abroad, we will build a safer world. By encouraging liberty at home, we will build a more hopeful America.

Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America. And tonight, in this place, that dream is renewed.'

From GWB's nomination acceptance speech at the Republican Party Conference.

I look forward to watching him announce the 'Battle Beyond the Stars', which will demonstrate (if nothing else) Roger Corman's previously unsuspected status as a profound political visionary for our times. date=20.01.2005 17:06 ip=212.161.7.155 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's not just the Tunisians, you know:

http://tinyurl.com/4zwpa date=20.01.2005 17:49 ip=63.82.110.178 name=Matias mail=matias_sb@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dear Mike,
I'm an Argentinian journalist -Buenos Aires Herald-, translator -just published Sinclair's White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings in Spanish- and long-time follower of your powerful work.
I am at present preparing a special feature on it, to
coincide with the publication of Travel Arrangements, just out down here in the Pampas. Is it possible to get in touch via email?
With all best wishes, M date=20.01.2005 21:40 ip=200.68.68.45 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Matias - good to hear from you!

Meanwhile, I'm bewildered about Robert Kilroy Silk. Hates European culture; gives his new England-first political party the Latin name "Veritas." Is this irony? Or am I missing something? date=21.01.2005 12:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin,

Veritas : I am sorry to say that I do not understand how is somebody in England ( or in Spain, France, Italy and son on..) can ever pretend to stand apart from European culture. For beter or worse is the house that we all built.

Africans, Asians and so on can look and say " You european, what a mess you have made of the world" . But no ,we can´t behave as if we came from somewhere over the rainbow.

Unless the latin word is a tell-tale sign of his willingnes to return to the first and best european civilization : the roman empire. date=22.01.2005 13:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Arturo - re Roman Empire - I suspect he's thinking Roman Empire = British Empire = Modern Britain, so in his mind Latin sidesteps Modern Europe entirely! Still, he is an orange TV personality, so probably best not to take him too seriously - the David Icke of politics...

Ave atque vale! date=22.01.2005 17:40 ip=212.161.7.155 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bullshit, not only is it the Tunisians date=24.01.2005 07:26 ip=69.136.103.226 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I am sorry to say that I do not understand how is somebody in England ( or in Spain, France, Italy and son on..) can ever pretend to stand apart from European culture

In the case of the English it seems to be part of their (or rather our) island mentality. Fear of what is outside. Even if what is outside is also inside. I have a theory: if you start by being irrational, there is no rational cure for it. Let's see, the Iraq war. It has everybody jumping through different hoops trying to rationalise what was in essence an irrational act prompted by fear.

Ian Mckewan's Saturday sounds interesting in this respect. A state of the nation study filtered through a day in the life of a well to do professional. I have always felt that Mckewan is our nearest writer to Peter Handke, European in sensibility, even if he mucks it up somewhat with sentimentality - such as the ending of A Child in Time. date=24.01.2005 12:03 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Arturo!

Absolutely - the same house: English ignorance of a lot of its rooms never ceases to amaze me, and the fact that people like Kilroy seem to positively treasure their stupidity is deeply worrying.

As for him going back to ancient Rome, Al - well, with all that silver hair Kilroy *does* look a bit like Julius Caesar ... and I'm sure he feels he's been stabbed in the back by life. Perhaps he'll go the whole way, and publicly crown himself with laurel like Napoleon before the next election. It all adds to the gaiety of nations, etc. date=24.01.2005 12:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>can ever pretend to stand apart from European culture

As an English newspaper once reported: "Fog in the Channel - continent cut off." date=24.01.2005 14:02 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps Kilroy never watches anything on tv but himself - some entertaining proof that it's one big house, and has been for quite a while:

http://tinyurl.com/6e3mo date=24.01.2005 14:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail=dave@theblackspoons.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.theblackspoons.com text=Hello all,

So this is my first post here, and I've only poked around a little, so I can't claim to really know waht the scope of the discussion here is. But, I've just finished The Course of the Heart (my first exposure to MJH), and I'm wondering if this crowd is interested in a discussion of the novel.

Right...

Catch you later,
Dave

Oh yeah...I thought the novel was great...read it while I was trapped inside due to the blizzard. date=25.01.2005 00:39 ip=148.4.151.131 name=dave mail=dave@theblackspoons.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www,theblackspoons.com text=I had more of a look around now that I'm home from work and now I'm thinking to add to my previous post...

You see, I'd kept it brief because most of the posting on the first page or so was oriented towards current events and I wasn't sure what to make of the forum. However, this now seems to be nothing to worry about and I've decided to sort of "officially" introduce myself after a lame first post. But first a preamble:

I would now like to go record as saying that, yes, I am American, no, I did not vote for Bush, and no, I do not believe that some sort of higher power directed the recent tsunami at non-Christian countries. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find many Americans that espouse beliefs about angry dieties directing deadly weather at nonbelieving nations.

Perhaps you see what my reservations were about...

Anyway, I figure I'll properly introduce myself: My name, as you can see, is Dave. I live in Brooklyn, New York where I attend graduate school for Forensic Psychology. I'm working on my thesis - a clinical outcomes study that is applying Dialectical Behavior Therapy (it's a mix of cognitive behavioral treatment and zen Buddhism) in a population of men who have been convicted of stalking offenses and who are now on probation. I work full time as a psychology researcher. The lab where I work is an emotions and personality focused facility that has an evolutionary theoretical background and does most of its work in "translational" applications that have outcomes related to health, especially cancer. Unfortunately, my day job and my thesis have nothing to with one another. Speaking of which, I'm also a rock musician and my band just put out an album in September.

That was pretty bare bones, but at least you know a bit about me now...

Regarding how I got here...well, I've read and liked a few China Mieville books, and after doing a search for him on Amazon.com, I found that he wrote an introduction to Things That Never Happen. The book seemed quite interesting, so I tried to order it...three times. But Amazon never has it in stock and has repeatedly failed to deliver it. But, I recently found The Course of the Heart in a local Brooklyn book shop and immediately snatched it up and read in one sitting during the snow storm that hit the Eastern US this past weekend.

The novel was quite excellent, and its been a long time since I've read something that had such a visceral impact. The book just filled me with pity for the main characters and made me want to get my own longings and desires in order. However, even though it's a thin volume, there quite a lot to be said about it, and, being a first time Harrison reader, I wonder if there are things I might have missed or themes I'm not quite clued into etc.

Have many of you read it? Is talking about it old hat by now?


One more thing...MJH (Mr. Harrison himself, I presume?), your posting about academia a bit ago is right on the money. So many young academics are martyring themselves for their careers, that it is downright frightening. The thing that's scary about is that so many of them wind up so tatolly circumscribed and laying claim to such a small area of study...I don't know what to make of it. Psychology has little to do with people these days though, and lots to due with very inscrutable "mechanisms" that have little to do with anything resemling an organismic understanding of the human condition. date=25.01.2005 04:09 ip=151.205.107.115 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave,

As I was the one the comment about the former and current General Attorneys and their very dubious opinions on torture, let me point out that a criticism to the current republican administration should by no means understood as a criticism to the American people as a whole. Completely different things. As a matter of fact, I would be quite surprised if anybody told me that most Americans share Mr. Bush’s views on torture. date=25.01.2005 10:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Dave!

Zen applied to stalkers' behaviour - you have to tell us more!

"Course" (CotH for short): everyone has their own idea of what it's "about," but none of our views are in the least bit definitive - like all good books, CotH alters with the reader and the reading. So: what did you make of it?

Reading it in a blizzard must have been quite something, too. I love the narrator's observation about watching snow fall - that you're seeing something that's not meant to be displayed like this. Irrationally, it's a sensation I've had since I was a child - but I'd never seen it expressed by anyone. date=25.01.2005 11:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave, nice to hear from you. I'm sorry to hear that Amazon have given you the runaround over Things That Never Happen. If you're still interested, I bet Nightshade Books themselves--at the eponymous Nightshadebooks.com--would sell you a copy. Although I am beginning to suspect there's a possibility it's out of print. In which case your only recourse would be the secondhand trade. Since the UK edition doesn't have China's introduction (see the recent discussions on my TTA message board), I'm assuming you'd be less interested in that. But if you were interested you could get one from Amazon.co.uk.

I'm delighted by your repsonse to The Course of the Heart, especially your sympathy for the characters, and your sense that the book was prompting you to look at your own emotional needs. Given your trade, I'm not surprised at this reaction--but it does put you in one of the minorities who can be said to have "understood" that level of the book. I do get tired, as you can probably imagine, of being accused of writng about "monsters", when my characters are more often wounded human beings...

Many thanks for your post. date=25.01.2005 11:53 ip=213.78.72.173 name=Dave mail=dave@theblackspoons.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.theblackspoons.com text=Hey, thanks too all of you for the replies. I'm too bogged down with work to write up a proper reply at the moment, but I'll post regarding CotH this weekend.

One quick note about getting Things That Never Happen here in the States. Nightshade lists it as out of print...so I assume that's why Amazon has difficulty delivering it. However, I did find a bookshop that was selling a copy on ebay, so I ordered that one. Hopefully, purchasing it that way still entails proper payment of the author and whatnot.

And I am interested to read Mieville's introduction, but between me and you, I stopped halfway through Iron Council to read CotH...I just couldn't get through it. It was like reading teh transcript of a role playing game with characters that were mouthpieces for political ideologies. I intend to finish it, but it pales in comparrison to Perdido Street Station.

MJH, are you and and Mieville aquianted with each other? Just curious... date=26.01.2005 18:09 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJ-P mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave

I would have thought you could get Things that Never Happen from Amazon UK. I do the same for US books, using Amazon US. Interesting what you say about China. It is a hazard for novelists wanting to make their fiction 'mean something' - 'be of value' - that they try to make it 'instructive'; contain useful snippets about marxism or mowing the lawn or whatever. That's what it *sounds* like The Iron Council has fallen prey to. I don't know; I have only read the previous book, The Scar.

On a different subject, there is a striking difference between the Guardian and Independent today. The Independent devotes over 8 pages to Auschwitz and the death camps, including the front page, but the Guardian only a quarter of page 17, in the International section. The Indy's John Lichfield's piece, over 4 pages, is definitely worth getting this paper for. Profoundly shocking. As he says, Auschwitz is still part of the present. Implausible, but so is the death camp itself. date=27.01.2005 09:58 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: I haven't read any of China's longer work - but I thought his novella, "The Tain," was a wonderful bit of vampire fiction. Try tracking it down.

Auschwitz: I'm shaken that anyone *needs* reminding, as if it were another item on today's 'to do' list: 'Pay electric; buy pasta; remember death camp.' None of my family were murdered there. I still think about it.

As for commemorations, the best I heard was on Sunday Radio 4 last Sunday. They broadcast a visit to the site by a journalist and a Muslim, to show how another generation and faith reacted. As we were led from the railway sidings, past the piles of children's shoes, you realised this was one of those rare bits of media that reduces you to utter silence. A calm guide took us round the gas chambers and the ovens. Doors slammed: it sounded like hell. The visitors were overwhelmed - although we never found out what effect it had on the guide, working there day after day. Perhaps she'd say it was "just a job." I wonder. date=27.01.2005 10:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, well a survey has shown that 46% of Britains don't know what Auschwitz is ... They know about Big Brother, I suppose. date=27.01.2005 11:24 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also: I do intend to read The Tain. It sounds interesting.

Re Auschwitz: I meant to mention Stanley Milgram and his 'Obedience Experiments' in which people in controlled experiments were shown to be capable of inflicting severe harm or hurt on others as long as someone in authority sanctioned it. The inflicters were not evil or malicious; merely obedient. date=27.01.2005 11:40 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: 46% per cent ... all too depressing.

I read "The Tain" here:

http://tinyurl.com/4ydxj

If anyone wants to hear the R4 feature, it was part of the programme "Broadcasting House," and is online:

http://tinyurl.com/5w7af date=27.01.2005 11:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='MJ-P' - Hi there, going double barrelled?

Hmm - the problem with books driven by a particular agenda is that the characters (inevitably) become expressions of that agenda; and then you can disagree with the existence of the characters (rather than what they express), which detracts from them as vivid fictional presences.

Re Auschwitz; what I find most disturbing about it (over and above the basic horror of it being a component of a four million people massacring machine) is the light it casts on the level of brutality and un-empathy an apparently stable human psyche can contain. The 'that we have managed to achieve all this and yet remained decent' comment (along those lines - by one of the Nazi high ups, I forget which) is - when you think about the implications - profoundly, profoundly bleak and disturbing. date=27.01.2005 12:11 ip=81.178.178.63 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: "Un-empathy" - sickening and extraordinary, isn't it? I've been reading a biography of Emeric Pressburger, and just looking at the photographs of his happy relatives in Hungary during the '20s makes you wince, knowing what lay in store for most of them. If a picture has that effect, seventy years on, you wonder how emotionally maimed anyone must have been to have murdered these people in their thousands: and how so many could tacitly approve the same thing.

As Walter Benjamin said in that cold epigram, Nazism was a train that wouldn't leave the station until everyone was on board. date=27.01.2005 12:24 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the problem with books driven by a particular agenda is that the characters (inevitably) become expressions of that agenda

All books are driven by an agenda, and all characters express it. Sleight of hand disguises the overtly political, whilst making sure the point gets through. That's the only purpose of writing. (Don't let commercial writers tell you otherwise: their "entertainments" are just as agenda'd up as a piece of Socialist Realism, the farce is *they don't know it*.) I haven't an opinion about Iron Council because I haven't read it yet.

Zali, if you're still out there, ignore those instructions. I don't know my Left from my Right. I went climbing on Monday evening and I'm still confused. date=27.01.2005 12:47 ip=213.78.69.208 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm, fair enough; tho' for me there's always a balance to be struck between the recognisably, reproduced *human* and the narrative / thematic agenda underlying how you depict that humanity.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is to say 'when the agenda overwhelms the humanity, then you've got problems' - that is, the character becomes a cardboard cut out with an agenda painted onto it, rather than something more realistic and complex which is both expressing an agenda through action while retaining a recognisable humanity.

But then again to what extent are we ourselves as humans expressions of an agenda? Perhaps fiction that defines characters as in part agenda expressions (by your formulation all of it MJH) is being absolutely true to life where all our actions express an agenda? Hmm.

Martin - was watching a film late night the other night about Nazis at a train station, separating out Jewish families; a mother separated from her twin daughters (aged 3,4), a father separated from his handicapped son, who was helpless without him, etc. I found this painful to watch on-screen; how could people do it for real? And how could this be contained with a self that in other ways could be defined (albeit only within a social order that supported such behaviour) as 'decent'? Ugh. date=27.01.2005 13:33 ip=81.178.178.63 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, you had "art for art's sake" at the beginning of the 20th Century. That was surely an important move. Baudelaire seems to have been its main engine. Along with his theorists, Benjamin, Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - and so forth. (Very shorthand this.) Anyway, it's a matter of logical implication that, if you don't find the material of a novel, poem, etc, interesting in its own terms, then regardless of its ostensible instrumental value in application to a rational life, a politics, etc. - ... nothing; so: it is not going to work. That isn't necessarily to disagree with you, but it does suggest that there is a question to be answered, in how do you make the writing specific, observational, alive, in its own terms? Martin Amis, for instance, for me, fails to observe anything whatsoever in his fiction; it is all interchangeable; a nugatory generalisation of mood from his own case; narcissistic and endlessly irritating. date=27.01.2005 13:49 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Almost unwatchable; we hope, unrepeatable.

One Nazi comment was correct - the numbers involved were so vast that no one can imagine them: the sheer scale lends itself (they hoped) to disbelief, and then disinterest.

So, as you say, it's the detail that brings home the obscenity: the children you saw; or the torments George Steiner records, one by one, in a chapter of "The Portage of to San Cristobel of AH" - perhaps the most grisly and bereft piece of "fiction" I know. date=27.01.2005 13:55 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>we hope, unrepeatable

On the contrary, Martin, I believe that Auschwitz is easily repeatable. It is just a matter of what we come to regard as normality. As with the Milgram experiments, it doesn't require people of evil or emotionally disturbed character to carry out the orders of others (who may be), who are in authority. I can't help thinking that the West is visiting its own species holocaust on the present world - in a perfectly 'sane' and 'rational' way. And we don't pay attention. We play our music and we live our normal rational lives. As John Lichfield puts it, Auschwitz was "the product of rational, intelligent minds - modern, Western minds." I hear, in the facts of Auschwitz, faintly, the death knell of our species in general. We are still, as a race, infinitely cruel. date=27.01.2005 14:17 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: "how could they do it" - I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver my copy of Slavenka Drakulic's "They Wouldn't Hurt a Fly" - http://tinyurl.com/4w52q - which addresses this subject in detail. From what I've heard of the book, it proves MJP & Milgram right: the book is not just about Milosevic & his cronies (as the Amazon summary seems to imply) but contains many case studies of wonderful, loving, caring human beings who found themselves joining in with the barbarity.

More unspeakable acts: last week Gill was reading Simon Sebag-Montefiore's biography of Stalin, she read me something horrible about what happened to certain men's testicles during punishment (I seem to have erased it from my memory, probably in order to preserve my sanity). By coincidence the same day I had been reading Drakulic's "The Balkan Express" from Michael March's "Description of a Struggle". This line, from the newspaper which Drakulic was reading on the train, sticks in my mind rather uncomfortably: "...and we looked down the well in the back yard. We pulled up the bucket - it was full of testicles, about 300 in all." (The article refered to an atrocity perpetrated by the Croatian army on serbs. Drakulic went on to paint a crimson-coloured picture of the events which might have lead up to this scene - I won't repeat that part, as I still have difficulty sitting down several days later).

Our "inhumanity" to one another doesn't seem to diminish, although perhaps the media now do a better job of sweeping it out of our back yards, for example just look at the "few bad eggs" in Iraq who besmirch the name of all the other cuddly friendly soldiers out there.

Re: "All books are driven by an agenda, and all characters express it" - I don't know quite how to take this. I can accept it as being true, but only as approaching tautology, I can't see that it's a very useful position.

Does it mean that all books/characters seek to put forward their author's worldview? Perhaps a majority, but (from my limited knowledge of this subject) I am sure there are writers who approach their craft more pragmatically, working backwards from an endpoint and trying to discover more about the world while deducing a storyline (at least, that's what I like to think I do). I guess it is likely that in doing so they will reveal some of their own prejudices, and pass on some of their own flaws to their characters, but I wouldn't go so far as to call this having an agenda. date=27.01.2005 15:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Re: "rational, intelligent minds". A phrase which sticks in my (rational, intelligent, emotional) mind from The Fog of War - http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/ - Robert McNamara on the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis: "We lucked out! It was luck that prevented nuclear war. Rational individuals came that close to a total destruction of their societies - and that danger exists today."

Sometimes, even rationality won't save us. date=27.01.2005 15:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: There is that frightening idea that nazism lost the war but colonised our unconscious as the true atrocity exhibition: a set of images giving easy representation to the very worst drives and actions in our nature, a leather-clad demonstration of every broken limit of taboo. On a banal level, this explains the collapse of Surrealism as a movement: Breton's worst notions of "transgression" were puerile when set beside Himmler's daydreams. On a far more sinister note, it goes a little way to explaining the sordid fascination that Hitler still exerts - as any publisher will tell you, slapping a swastika on your book jacket will increase sales at a stroke. Rationality might not be an answer; but I can't help wondering if there isn't a psychological method of purging the public mind of such obsession. date=27.01.2005 15:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> the sordid fascination that Hitler still exerts

Extending on from that, I think the key thing to be aware of is that these atrocities were not carried out by people unlike us but rather by people LIKE us; products of centuries of Western European civilisation, etc.

Goodness is not innate; morality is not innate; ethics are not innate. All these can be swept aside by expediency, by the needs or beliefs of the moment. They're things we need to be constantly self-critical, self aware to attain.

Easy generalisations: 'our country is good; whatever it does must therefore be good; anybody who criticises it must therefore be evil' etc are exposed for the nonsense they are.

In the paper today; some of the victims' hair was recycled as socks for submariners. An ultimate reification of the individual; an ultimate failure of anything approaching human sympathy. The choice of empathy is a choice we have to keep on making, it lapses so easily. date=27.01.2005 16:51 ip=81.178.206.182 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: People just like us, sadly. Again, it's that nagging question in the mirror - if I'd be there, then, what would I have done?

My grandmother had no doubt what she would was going to do. Every evening, during the war, she pushed a poker into the fire to get red hot, in case Hitler put his head round the door. It wasn't his head she was thinking about, though: they don't like it up 'em. Direct action doesn't get plainer than that. date=27.01.2005 17:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.theblackspoons.com text=I’m going to break my word and post before the weekend in order to keep up with the discussion that’s going on at the moment. I’m not much the message board type (in fact this is probably the second board I’ve ever posted on), but I do think that the recent postings are quite interesting and well considered. This could be a long one…

First to attend to a few comments from a little further back:

Arturo, I wanted to get back to your comment about the “official” US stance on torture. I read a story on BBC News not too long ago in which Tom Ridge, the former head of Homeland Security, announced that, if presented with what he called “appropriate circumstances” in which the stakes were high enough and the probability of terrorist-related danger was likely enough, then torture would be implemented to protect American interests. Two things occurred to me after reading this. First, this stance is fairly reasonable if evaluated prima fascia. To illustrate what I mean, I’d ask that you put the torture issue into a personal context. For e.g. (and an absurdly anecdotal example at that): if someone had kidnapped a loved one of mine and hidden her away somewhere with only enough food and water for a few days, but I had, for some reason, been able to track down the kidnapper…would I engage in torturing the kidnapper as a last recourse to gain knowledge about the whereabouts of my loved one? Yes, almost certainly. And this is the case even though I’m not intrinsically charactologically inclined toward cruelty. Why is this so? I’d say because torture has a certain instrumental value when it comes to protecting vested interests.

However, the second thing that struck me about this statement from Ridge was that I was totally disconcerted and disgusted by it, and felt wholly alienated from my own government. It isn’t that torture doesn’t make a certain kind of sense under certain extreme circumstances…or even that I’m so naïve as to think that certain governmental agencies across the world (such as the CIA) routinely implement torture outside of the public eye as a part of performing their duties. What is so troubling about Mr. Ridge’s announcement about torture is that it comes off as a particularly reptilian bit of salesmanship in conjunction with vested interests that remain in the shadows for the most part. But this is how most of the questionable agendas of the current administration are advanced and how they come to receive the support of the American public: Ridge (or any of the Bush lackeys) will take an issue like torture, package it with gobs of vague fear and patriotic mumbo jumbo, and ram it down the throat of the American public. In essence, what we have here is torture piggybacked onto fear like some sort of minor legislative rider even though it should be subject to intense scrutiny – whether or not it makes sense under dire circumstances. But most of America, especially middle America eats this up, because they have been made to feel unsafe by their own government. It’s as insidious as it is unwittingly brilliant. The most deplorable president in ages has used such primitive dynamics to carve out his own little niche and is now leaving his mark on the world.

Still, I just don’t get it in some ways. If I can see that the Bush administration uses fear to create a market for its vested interests and manipulates the public in ways that have nothing to do with their own interests, why can’t more people see it too? I find it endlessly frustrating. date=27.01.2005 19:08 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyway, on to other topics:

Martin, I’d be happy to post more about Dialectical Behavior Therapy sometime when I have a bit more time. I need to learn more about it as well, as I’m just getting started on this project. One interesting bit of news though: I just found out that one of the patients we treat routinely shows up for therapy wearing a bulletproof vest under his clothes. Very strange…I’m now trying to work out if he’s just a paranoid nutter, or if there are people in his life that pose a legitimate threat to his life. In any case, my thesis promises to be quite interesting.

Oh, and reading CothH in a snowstorm probably did add something to the experience. However, I noted a distinct absence of Bengali women clearing their stoops with dust pans. I did notice one guy using a broom though…talk about ineffectual.

Now just a quick note about my trade, MJH. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea here. I am a psychology grad student, but I’m not much for the touchy feely shrink stereotype. If anything, I’m interested in being a therapist secondarily, and I would primarily identify myself as a research scientist. So, I’m not sure to what extent my background in psychology was responsible for my pity for the characters in CotH, but I did certainly see them as being fundamentally marred by their various ineptitudes and wounds. While they may have done very questionable things at times, I felt that the universal concerns that seemed to motivate them at root prevented them from becoming monsters. date=27.01.2005 19:09 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Okay, now on to the discussion being prompted by the commemoration of the holocaust. On the whole, I agree that this commemoration (and others like it) is quite valuable in that it serves to maintain a certain level of awareness regarding the atrocities of the past. However, I do find myself wondering about a few things that haven’t been mentioned here yet. For instance, while I recognize that the holocaust is an example of unmitigated atrocity, I’m not sure that it is accurate to describe it as “unparalleled” or “unique”. In fact, one of only unique qualities of the holocaust was its terrible efficiency and industrial organization. Maybe these qualities are what lend the concentration camps their heuristic weight. Placed within a broader context, however, the holocaust is still only one example of genocide, and I find it difficult to believe that it is a more definitive tragedy than the rest.

And please believe me, I’m not posting this to be crude or for shock value. It’s just that I don’t see the holocaust as being any more definitive than the genocide that occurred in Rwanda, Timor or for the events that are now being tried in the Hague. Hell, there are “acts of genocide” being committed now in Darfur. (By the way, how many acts of genocide does it take to constitute actual genocide?) I suppose that my feelings on this matter are at least partially motivated by the fact that I really do believe that the dynamics that engender genocide are alive and well and reside in a fundamental (albeit grisly) corner of the human condition. It seems wrong to me to get too precious about the holocaust – to point to from a historical distance and believe that it exists independently from other genocides and has been cordoned off by history.

I guess that’s why I was so pleased to see some of you posting about things such as the rational mind’s capability for the commission of genocide and the applicability of the Milgram experiments. I would just like to add one thing to these points. There is a large body of literature in psychology that has attempted to map out the psychological underpinnings of the ordinary men who carried out the day to day work of the holocaust and many possibilities have been identified: dissociation, splitting, diffusion of responsibility, and psychopathy among them. However, everything in this literature points to one undeniable and endlessly troubling conclusion. No amount of self awareness seems sufficient to totally immunize an individual from the social/psychological influences that are found in these circumstances. It is a rare individual with enough insight to extricate himself from the power of circumstance and his own defenses and rationalizations, and most people soon found themselves caught up in what is going on around them. In other words, if any one of use were placed in a Milgram experiment, we would probably defer to the man in the white coat and shock the hell out of the person in the other room. If any one of us were governmental employees in Nazi Germany and we were assigned a duty in a concentration camp, we would probably have carried this duty out. This is largely because we would not artificially be placed in the middle of a psychology experiment or Nazi Germany, but because we would be operating with our own histories and under the sometimes vast machinations that lie behind history and our own decisions. There are always a series of progressive steps that lead up to such acts and the commission of such duties, and each individual step, once taken, creates a formidable amount of inertia that is difficult to overcome with awareness. This hardly excuses atrocity and genocide though…if anything it makes it even more unconscionable.

(See above for the rest of my post.) date=27.01.2005 19:12 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That said, the way to avoid genocide (or even the torture mentioned in the beginning of this post) is to recognize it for what it is: the end result of a series of steps that seemed necessary, permissible, and rational when they were taken and carried out by the average men who took them. By the time any one of us found ourselves making hair into socks or hosing down the gas chamber at the end of the night it would already be too late to extricate ourselves from this situation predicated upon our more humane insights as they would already have been swept away by the steps we took to find ourselves in this hypothetical situation. Distance and history afford us a lot of luxury when considering such things I suppose.

I’m not sure if I’m being very articulate here today, but I recently re-read this quote:

“Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

These words were spoken by Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials. But reading them now, I think about Iraq, Mr. Ridge and government sanctioned torture, the historical steps that were taken previous to past genocides in conjunction with Guantanamo Bay, and the way that America is now operating under a cloud of vague fear created by the Bush administration’s self serving manipulations…and I think we’re in a world of shit that is a shade closer to Auschwitz than any of us would like to admit.

I apologize for the length of these posts...I have the day off to rehearse for a show this weekend and I've been running on at the keyboard for the past 45 minutes. date=27.01.2005 19:13 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave, thanks for the flow: some good points, well thought out.

And one which rang very true personally:

>> I am a psychology grad student, but I’m not much for the touchy feely shrink stereotype.

I studied psychology at University; although I don't mention it much now, partly because of the general public's assumption that psychology = psychotherapy. Most people, on hearing what I studied, would immediately respond "oh my god, I bet you've been analysing everything I've said". Nope, three years of psychology and I wouldn't have a clue what your conversation says about your childhood or vice versa (though I might be able to hazard a guess at what neurotransmitters you're releasing as you speak).

BTW, your show... is this the rock band? Are we allowed to know the name?? Pretty please??? date=27.01.2005 19:37 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey Dan, I'm glad to know there are others out there who can relate to the psychotherapy stereotype curse. Although, I do admit to harboring a not so secret admiration for Freudian psychology and its model of human (un)consciousness. I have a lot of respect for the fact that it is a model of what it is to be a human being...a real theory with heart and balls.

Regarding the band, you can visit our site here: www.theblackspoons.com.

We're opening for Tommy Stinson on Saturday. He was the bass player for the Replacements. Now he plays for Guns and Roses 2.0 (ugh) and has a solo album out. So...we're playing a great manhattan club with a piece of indie rock history (who happens to have gone ched). I can't wait.

Do you live in the US? We're going on tour in March...might play near you... date=27.01.2005 19:47 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I do admit to harboring a not so secret admiration for Freudian psychology and its model of human (un)consciousness. I have a lot of respect for the fact that it is a model of what it is to be a human being...a real theory with heart and balls.

Good for you, Dave. I'm not so sure about some of its traditional contents, but I love the model & the structure, and I still think of my work as proceeding from some structure of that sort, freighted with its messages/consequences. I still try to knock my head out of gear and let what's "down there" speak. (Even though "down there" may be less a place than a linguistic space.) The book-in-progress, a sort of successor to Light, is an open acknowledgement of that. date=27.01.2005 20:03 ip=213.78.73.209 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave,

No, UK I'm afraid. Will check out your music from the website (looks good).

Didn't Buckethead also go to play for Guns & Roses? I suppose it might be a fun thing to do, if not very musically rewarding. date=27.01.2005 20:10 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Totally off the point - Arturo, we both wanted to go to this, we both missed it, now here it is on the web:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/chainreaction.sht ml

Am going to root around for the full version... date=27.01.2005 22:40 ip=81.178.206.182 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Click on the Listen Again link at top right for the whole programme. Mine didn't work when the window opened, so I scrolled down the list on the right, clicked 'Chain Reaction' and it worked ok.

His comments on 'Superman' interesting in the light of discussion below. date=27.01.2005 22:49 ip=81.178.206.182 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al ,
Thanks . date=27.01.2005 23:40 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A pleasure. Alan Moore interviewing Brian Eno should be up same time next week... If you find a way of saving the programme to your hard drive, let me know! (the BBC only let you stream it off their website) date=28.01.2005 00:01 ip=81.178.206.182 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Al

Well. If you have a microphone and you start up the windows recorder at the same time the interview is playing that should be it. date=28.01.2005 01:17 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJ-P mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave, it's double-barrelled MJP (as Al puts it). For a double-barrelled piss in a double-barrelled pot.

Those are very interesting posts.

I am the polar opposite of MHJ. He says. (Now that's Freudian!)

I instinctively dislike Freud. I don't like the way he thinks he can explain a human being. Many of his mechanisms and models are reductive - and (therefore) idiotic. But he continues to dominate the mental landscape. Wittgenstein, who I do admire very much, endlessly reread Freud and compiled about four books of his own remarks on him. He thought we would be living under Freud's shadow for a long time. True enough. date=28.01.2005 09:56 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Arturo, I'll try that. Here's a transcript of the interview:

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsite m.cgi?id=4737 date=28.01.2005 10:08 ip=81.178.239.156 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think some sort of transference/counter-transference thing is going on here, MJ-P.

What I like about Freudian space is that it's a melting pot. You put personal experience and your reading in, turn up the heat, and voila--horse glue. I'm also self-contradictory enough to import the odd bit of Jung, the odd bit of cognitive stuff, into the description. Definitely, in the 80s, some Lacan (although to be honest I've done such a good job of assimilation, I can't say I actually remember anything about him). What do I care ? I'm not taking a degree in it. There's some sort of factory down there, it's big, it's bad and it's productive, and on the right day I might describe it as me (or me as it). As long as this *stuff* keeps pouring up. You have to have some model of yourself...

What I'm sure of, from forty years experience, is that if you keep switching off consciousness and reaching down in there, you come up with the same structures every time, the same reeking clusters of relationships, the same ratios, the same kinds of landscapes. I think they mirror the structure down there, whatever it is. What I like most: they can't be described rationally, *but they can be reproduced*.

I like the idea of "down there" as a state you can never have direct knowledge of, but which is constantly describing itself through tailored obliquities. Precisely my definition of good writing. date=28.01.2005 10:53 ip=213.78.69.27 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: Thank you for all that - a bullet-proof vest in your office *and* opening for one of The Replacements - can life get more interesting?

Freud: I always think of him as the first down the coal-mine with a working lamp (a Freudian image in istelf) - he may not see much, and he may not make much sense of what he's seeing, but at least he's moving into the territory, and trying to chip at things like "the uncanny" so we can haul them into the light of day and examine them.

Speaking of the uncanny - wait: there it goes again! Look -

An interview with Iain Sinclair touched on the Welsh belief in the dead returning on New Year's Eve. "My mother's family had been the keepers of this horse's head ... this shamanic horse's head called the Mari Lwyd. There's a village near Maestag called Llan ... and in that village there was one particular family who had the duty of looking after this horse's head and bringing it out on New Year's Eve, and then these people would go from house to house singing, and if you couldn't reply in verse, you had to let them in and give them drink and food."

It's bad enough imagining the thing, without it turning up on your doorstep demanding poetry or a cold buffet before it clears off again! date=28.01.2005 10:59 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks ,Al.

Mike, Dave, MJP:
It is a Jung(le) down there !
* he gets his coat ..hat, scarf and gloves * date=28.01.2005 11:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al, Arturo: there are ways of recording audio streams, I dug one out a while back to record Radio 4's Gogol plays, though it was a 30 day trial and has now expired. I think there's also one that came bundled with my Sounblaster card.

You can always start here: http://tinyurl.com/6y3n4

Freud: my knowledge of him is pretty much limited to a single one-hour lecture out of a three-year psychology course. I know very little other than the usual public conceptions/misconceptions, plus the fact that for most psychologists Freud is a dirty word, at least when I studied (1988-91). But he has long been on my "things to find out about one day" list, along with Jung.

Oh, and I my first encounter with Freud came when I was 16, a girl from college used to collar me on the way from the bus stop and, among other things, tell me how wonderful Freud was. Looking back, I now realise that she fancied me. I think another reason I never read Freud is because I never really fancied her. Funny how your childhood can affect your later life, isn't it? date=28.01.2005 13:09 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=An exercise:

I just finished reading Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" (excellent book, BTW). On the website - http://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk - there is a reading guide with some interesting questions. One of them asks:

"What is the difference between speculative fiction — which Atwood claims to write — and science fiction proper?"

Seems like a trick question to me. I'd say the main differences are firstly that works of speculative fiction can still get reviewed in the mainstream literary press, and secondly that writers of speculative fiction don't feel the need to stick within/break out of/pay any heed to predetermined genre rules & clichés.

But I'm biased & somewhat ignorant. What does everyone else think? date=28.01.2005 13:47 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>I like the idea of "down there" as a state you can never have direct knowledge of, but which is constantly describing itself through tailored obliquities. Precisely my definition of good writing.

Intruiging. Also, a definition I would agree with.

Oryx and Crake. Dan, there was a discussion about this on Talkback some while ago. I remember Atwood's snobbery annoyed Justina Robson, among others. Did you like the book itself? date=28.01.2005 14:09 ip=81.19.57.130 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For Mac people, there's a couple of decent apps for capturing radio and other sound. I use Wiretap (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/) although I see this is now a "Pro" application that needs paying for (it was previously freeware). There's also Audio Hijack (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/).

I copied the programme last night so I can bung Alan some CDs with both the interviews on them. By all accounts the Eno one is just as funny and more wide-ranging as you'd expect. A shame they're only allowed half an hour, seems far too short for such an interesting idea. date=28.01.2005 14:25 ip=195.128.251.32 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"What is the difference between speculative fiction — which Atwood claims to write — and science fiction proper?"

(a) The desperate need for a distinction.

(b) Some self-serving definition of both which can easily be shown to be circular, and which is irrelevent to the actual writing or reading of fiction.

(c) A complete and humourless failure on Atwood's part to understand (or at least acknowledge) that the term "speculative fiction" was in fact invented by "science fiction proper" to describe its own top end.

Those are the three main differences... date=28.01.2005 14:52 ip=213.78.95.193 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=So it basically comes down to marketing plus the desire to label oneself? I also thought I detected a slightly sneering tone to the use of "proper" in "science fiction proper".

Yes, it was a good book. Up there with the sci-fi greats :-> bloody scary and all too imaginable. date=28.01.2005 15:08 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Regarding radio and suchlike (I've told Io this already) I'm getting interviewed by Stuart Maconie for his programme The Freak Zone in March. Incredibly, he's taken a liking to my band. I expect to mention MJH (since a couple of the songs on the new CD are obliquely inspired by your books, Mike). date=28.01.2005 17:28 ip=217.155.134.5 name=rk mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wasn't it Eric Frank Russell who came up with the term "Speculative Fiction" in the fifties when asked if he wrote "Sci-Fi"? date=28.01.2005 18:05 ip=217.34.149.193 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: congratulations, he's got good taste.

rk: It may well have been. I've seen it attributed to others, including John W Campbell. It was already well established when I started writing in 1965. What does "speculation" involve anyway ? Some sort of naive futurology ? The clunky modelling of social hypotheses ? It seems such an outdated concept to me; and I've seen it applied recently to fiction which couldn't be described as containing any form of speculation whatsoever (including stuff of my own like The Course of the Heart or Viriconium). date=28.01.2005 20:45 ip=62.188.120.92 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Some interesting posts recently, especially regarding Frued. I'll respond this weekend - as well as post about CotH (finally).

Alex, congrats on the interview. What sort of band are you in? Do you have a website? date=28.01.2005 20:57 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Pichuga mail=poperli@dermail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://airtours.smokaz.com text=Debt Relief date=30.01.2005 00:44 ip=217.70.108.72 name=Q mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Forgive the interruption. I'm just finishing up Light - the first novel of yours I've read, MJH. Putting off finishing Light, should I say, as one does with a good read. I really like the way you make my mind work, and I'll be sorry when the wolves come out of the wall. date=30.01.2005 13:25 ip=198.54.202.4 name=Pichuga mail=poperli@dermail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://airtours.smokaz.com text=Debth Relief date=30.01.2005 14:30 ip=213.228.74.89 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speculative fiction versus science fiction:
For some time now I´ve been having the nagging suspcion that they just are not aware of the body of worthy books that exist.
Talking about "The plot against America "Roth has just said that he doesn´t have any precedent for the literary recreation of the past.
It is unthinkable that Roth could be prevaricating and if he was aware of other works but considered them crap I think he would go ahead and say so.
The most likely explanation is that he is not aware that Keith Roberts or Phillip K. Dick wrote books with the same literary device. date=30.01.2005 16:07 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Q, glad you're enjoying it.

>>I'll be sorry when the wolves come out of the wall.

If they do... date=31.01.2005 11:35 ip=213.78.71.84 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Roth has just said that he doesn´t have any precedent for the literary recreation of the past.

Arturo, there's every possibility that Roth is using the term "literary" in a sense which excludes the books--and indeed the type of books--you mention. This enables him to be perfectly frank and honest. Like Atwood, he means, "If someone like us does it, then it's been done. If not, there's no precedent." The invisibility of popular fiction to Philip Roth is the same as the invisibility, to a classical composer, of folk or popular tunes. These things are not music.

I shouldn't be misinterpreted as making a value judgement about Roth here (in my view 99.9% of f/sf *isn't* music--and neither can obsessive insiders reasonably expect everyone outside the field to have the time to read the majority of what's in it). I'm just trying to describe his literary space. date=31.01.2005 13:56 ip=213.78.72.21 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This must be folk music, too.

See you all at Castro's ...

http://www.ahtg.net/ date=31.01.2005 15:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Pichuga mail=poperli@dermail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://airtours.smokaz.com text=Hotel Casino
casinohotel
Casino Hotel
hotelcasino date=01.02.2005 00:24 ip=213.228.81.45 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text= Light: a Quick Insomniac Interpretation.

The process of Annies transforming into Monas is an ongoing dynamic of anomie. date=01.02.2005 01:47 ip=217.43.15.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=unsettling news from America brougth to you by antoher inmsoniac:

" several experts say scientists are feeling increasing pressure to make their case, in part, Dr. Miller said, because scriptural literalists are moving beyond evolution to challenge the teaching of geology and physics on issues like the age of the earth and the origin of the universe."

"They have now decided the Big Bang has to be wrong," he said. "There are now a lot of people who are insisting that that be called only a theory without evidence and so on, and now the physicists are getting mad about this."

( From "The New York Times") date=01.02.2005 02:21 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: It's a reading. date=01.02.2005 11:12 ip=213.78.77.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: it's a living.

I did briefly consider that Anna's gnomic animus might be the monadic dynamo of Mona. But that's almost laughably simplistic, no? date=01.02.2005 11:40 ip=158.94.132.93 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>The invisibility of popular fiction to Philip Roth is the same as the invisibility, to a classical composer, of folk or popular tunes. These things are not music.

Interesting. There is of course the consideration here too that in the early 20th Century or thereabouts composers like Dvorjak, Grieg, Sibelius saw themselves as part of a nationalist cultural revival in which their primary concern was to base their music on a heritage of folk and popular tunes.

On the subject of sf's internationalist folk tunes (as it were) it's an odd thought isn't it that 'here we are' - surrounded by infinite space - lost in a universe of perpetual darkness - and so forth - but most of our fiction takes its reality from the finite and mundane. date=01.02.2005 11:52 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Jack Kerouac mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text='I fell asleep on the couch with a girl called Mona in my arms.' That's a quote from 'On the Road'. It fits well! date=01.02.2005 12:39 ip=62.255.240.221 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: by then folk music was dead in the water, except as part of the nationalist call to arms, an index of vanished values which could now be sanitised and brought in under the bourgeois cultural umbrella. Those guys made posh versions of (once) popular tunes.

We might be surrounded by vast empty space, but we live among human beings. It would be surprising if fiction didn't take that into account. date=01.02.2005 12:50 ip=213.78.86.152 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes. The idea that most literary fiction is about mundane human life is not a criticism. I tend to the view that 'literature' actually exists: that there are works of unique and unrepeatable value on the shelves of Waterstones. That there is a non-generic fiction, in this sense. On the other hand, the need to 'escape into space' represented by at least one strand of sf suggests a dissatisfaction with our cultural self-image; a desire to connect with the cosmic. New Age stuff is much the same in this way. To get back to nature - the cosmos - the natural order - in the form of adopting an organic-looking life-style. Candles; aromatherapy; cyclical food; the real potatoes 'don't wash my hair' ideas. So a disenfranchised folk-impulse finds itself in pursuit of supermarket fluff as a way of reconnecting. (To exaggerate.) date=01.02.2005 13:19 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Regarding the classical use of folk music. Underlying the nationalist call to arms was what? We could theorise: a perception of disconnection (that is, of disconnection from nature) brought about by the industrialisation of culture. (Or is that controversial?) What I am suggesting is the idea that in these terms folk music symbolised an apparent solution to the processes of industrialisation and the attendant experiences of alienation that stemmed from it: since it appeared to be a means of reconnection with nature; in so far as ‘nature’ could be rediscovered in the form of the spontaneous tunes, traditions, melodies, etc. of the vanishing worlds of folk culture. This is a concept that can also be applied to sf. In other words, because in sf too there is a similar foundational source; here too is where human reality is to be discovered. The evolutionary movement artistically is from the generic (ie as with the concepts of science fiction) to the particular: to fiction raised to the level of art. That is, because the spontaneous imaginings of writers, draughtsmen, film makers etc that make sf up can be used as the basis for something more detached, exploratory, thought out, so that the unique object of art is thus produced. I am suggesting a transference. The reality that Grieg etc perceived ‘nature’ to have is now for the post modern novelist possessed by ‘artifice’: the artifice of the sf writer is now the ground of what’s real – because the instinct is: if the novelist wants to reconnect with reality, he must look to science fiction. date=01.02.2005 20:16 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Absolutely. The folk movements represented a failure of nerve by the middle classes, who yearned for a culture in which the issues were clearer, the interactions more direct, the artefacts more innocent & purposeful; and in which simple decent people communicated simply their simple decent needs. A perfect chairleg, lathed by a master craftsman to the strains of a lyrical flute. Never mind the shtetl, the filth, the diphtheria & the dead babies.

Science fiction is very similar, at least for generic sf readers, who see it as a form of writing in which the issues are clearer, the interactions more direct, the artefact itself more innocent, purposeful and directly related to the simple explanation of the world by "science": a form which concerns itself, above all, with the simple communication by simple decent people of their simple needs--a good plot; "motivation" they can follow and which doesn't hurt their naivete; and--above all--the good, simple "stuff", ie violence sanitised by the application of a hasty simplistic moral paintjob.

Thus the aboriginal sf community of the early to mid 80s, now run by forty five year old politically correct gadget freaks in the rigid grip of early middle age.

Oh, I agree with you totally, MJP: that's where we ought to be looking to reinvigorate the novel. date=02.02.2005 11:32 ip=213.78.66.132 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=> A good plot ...

Hey, this could be a three-line summary of Ian McEwan's new novel.

At least, if the reviews are anything to go by. I did try to read it - but I lost the will to live somewhere around the second paragraph. date=02.02.2005 12:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Science fiction is very similar, at least for generic sf readers, who see it as a form of writing in which the issues are clearer

I'm reminded, in a way, of an essay by Susan Sontag, "The Aesthetics of Silence" Rather than attempting to summarise it, I have a link. It's not a long essay, but I like it.
http://www.susansontag.com/stylesofradicalwilexcrpt.htm date=02.02.2005 12:14 ip=217.155.134.5 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Coming in from the street it is with a sense of relief that I sit down and turn to the brightly coloured pages of The Incredible Hulk. To their primary emotions.

Life is simplified. I can escape into - I can recognise myself in - the Hulk's monstrous egotism.

But why should I want to be like that? What impulse does it release? (If I am not merely to call it infantilism?) Perhaps part of the relief is that here finally is something magical, inexplicable. Beyond common sense. So that while it is as at a childish mirror that I look into these pages, like a teenage girl looking into a pink shell at her thickly applied make up, it also puts me in contact with a truth; for it shows (or it proposes) that I am in some basic way an imaginary being, which I know in my boots as it were, so that in order to be what I am, in order to know myself, I must be able to imagine myself; and not merely be the mundane creature that my daily encounters with need and circumstance tell me that I am.

………….Even realist (mundane) fiction is full of mysticism. Tolstoy; Turgenev. Lawrence. The author of A Dill Pickle.

In these terms the durable aspect of sf is its innocence. The willingness to be naïve and the lack of fear about appearing stupid is actually its power. That’s why I have a fondness for Fahrenheit 451 for example. I like its innocence. date=02.02.2005 16:40 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Invisibility : How many Talking Heads fans didn´t bother to listen to Fela Kuti ? date=03.02.2005 00:29 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP :
I also like Farenheit 451 but I see it as a fable. Underneath the heroic there is a portrait of a society sliding down from literacy that is nothing if not accurate and is strongly tinted with despair.

On the other hand the political inocence in contemporary science fiction is in no way a return to nature. It is a decree from the marketing departments seeking maximun sales and let´s no give the poor fellows a soma with too strong a taste. date=03.02.2005 10:09 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo, what I am talking about is the naiveté of being able to believe in something that can't be true. A capacity which I think is vital to imagination. The mechanical hound in F451. It's silly, rationally speaking. But partly that is why I like it. It is for the same reason that I don't like alot of contemporary sf - it is too 'knowing'. The writer thinks he or she is sophisticated enough not to be 'silly' - not to have anything unhip or uncool - unbelievable - irrational - poking out of their fiction. It is self deceiving. Contemporary sf is as silly as it ever was; only spoilt in tone by the 'knowingness'. So, as a cover up, I am thinking of say the style of Snowcrash by Stephenson, you get slick, hip 'knowing' writing; which bores me.

For similar reasons, I sympathise with the emotions of people who want to say that the world was created only a few thousand years ago, even though its silly. MJH characterises this in me by saying that I seem to think that there are 'some things we should not know' ...... BUT that's not what I think. I believe there are some things we *can't* know (in spite of rational appearances), even though we fool ourselves into thinking that we do. For instance, knowing when the universe began. For me, that is little more than an empty grammatical construct. Saying for instance, a tree photosynthesises the energy from sunlight explains what about trees? It makes us think we know what they are; when actually we have no idea what a tree is. All we have is a social nicety. It may be true that this kind of technical knowledge *also* give us great power; that it can be of great benefit to human kind etc. But that is entirely selfish, when you think about it, it doesn't solve about what a tree is in itself. date=03.02.2005 10:38 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP:

I agree with you on the very boring coolnes of contemporary sf but with a very big but : Stanislaw Lem. Anyhow nothing is more uncool than pretending to be cool as Devo pointed out ages ago.

I also simpathyse with those people except when they are tyring to impose their world view on others.Then my simpathy is with those theachers. For me there is no question whatsoever that those brave professors are the ones figthing the good figth. date=03.02.2005 10:54 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>For me there is no question whatsoever that those brave professors are the ones figthing the good figth.

True. Bush inverts my whole thesis here. But their fight is not straightforward. They are going to hit the same philosophical impasse. date=03.02.2005 11:17 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: aren't you--by claiming that knowledge of a tree, let alone the origin of the universe, is impossible--assuming a knowledge of what it's possible and not possible to know; and isn't that rather like claiming to know what a tree is ? I ask solely out of mischief of course, since all that counts is that a tree--or the origin of the universe--be known pragmatically. E=MC2, unfortunately, does exactly what it says on the tin; there's no reason why cosmology shouldn't, in the end, and given the fact that all such statements are subject to revision when new data come in, make some sort of equally verifiable statement about the origin of things. What the tin itself "is" (or, rather, that you can show that the "tin itself" resists any descriptive system deployed against it) seems immaterial. To be honest, all I care about is that I'm not using floor polish to clean my best earring.

You shouldn't be so hasty to make an alliance with the religious right, who would certainly have Wittgenstein burned on the same bonfire as Einstein *and* Ray Bradbury. I know it's boring that science-ism suddenly feels confident enough to replace religion as the cultural superego. But that's just a sort of charming adolescent gawkiness. Get them through that & they'll calm down & become useful members of society.

I like some sf, by the way. I loved Lilo & Stitch, which seemed to me to contain all the best elements of Tolstoy, William Gibson and performance art, & it had a message too. date=03.02.2005 12:01 ip=213.116.58.61 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, religious righteousness terrifies me for the same reason scientism does: the projection of certainty.

No doubt I too would eventually be on the same bonfire. But whose bonfire?

For all practical purposes all science does is instrumentalise the world. That is, turn it into a gigantic mirror, to enable us to polish our earing with the right spray on. We then learn that the consequence of all this self-reflection is the melting of Western Antarctic ice shield. And so we go the way of the Easter Islanders. date=03.02.2005 12:23 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For me, Easter Islanders are little more than an empty grammatical construct, whose existence I have no hope of proving.

It's possible that I share with them my tendency to instrumentalise the world--ie to assume it's there and use it to get a living from--but if they weren't provably there in themselves, I don't know if I do or not.

It's plain that if I'm wrong when I describe a tree as "existing", then I'm wrong when I describe an Easter Islander (or myself) as "existing" too. If the tree doesn't exist except as a grammatical construct, and I don't exist except as a grammatical construct, then my instrumental use of the tree also doesn't exist except as a grammatical construct.

If you're a only a grammatical construct too, MJP, how come it's you who gets to decide there were some *actual* "Easter Islanders" who "died out" because they described the "world" pragmatically ? I mean, either they were "real", as part of a world that was "real" enough for them to fuck up; or they weren't: in which case, they couldn't have fucked anything up, really, could they ? Those Easter Islanders are kind of fading away in my mind as a result of this problem.

Hedgehogs & foxes snork about in the garden all night, digging holes, scoffing up grubs & stuff and fucking one another with every evidence of glee. Well, I tell you: I just lie there laughing. Those jokers! Don't they know they're only instrumentalising the world ? (I want to say this before anyone picks me up on it. The foxes only fuck other foxes. The hedgehogs only fuck other hedgehogs. I didn't want for a minute to imply that foxes were fucking hedgehogs; or that hedgehogs, determined though they are, were fucking foxes. This is Barnes, not Hackney.) date=03.02.2005 14:16 ip=213.78.91.215 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This reminds me of the Zen parable about the young monk who rushes in to his Master one day saying "I see it now, Master, we are caught in the web of Maya and all reality is but an illusion!"

At which point the Master punches him on the nose and asks "What hurts?" date=03.02.2005 16:08 ip=193.109.50.116 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But who said anything about reality being a grammatical construct? I said, that is what we *make* it into. To take a harsh example, recently talked about on these boards, the project of exterminating the Jews borrowed from a hierarchically determined 'rationalistic' idea about human origins: that some human beings are superior to others. That some human beings dilute and corrupt the genetic make up of the true human race. That process of rendering Jews into an aspect of grammar negated the value of those beings. It made them into just another human resource: so much raw stuff, so that their hair could make socks for hardworking submariners. And so forth. In other words, a grammar was in place but its deluded users fully believe that it wasn't a grammar, a way of talking, at all; because on the contrary, they believed they were talking about ‘reality itself’; that their talk had some kind of 'material justification'. That this was a material reality. We are just the same - I would suggest - in regard to our talk about the origins of the universe, or the nature of a tree. We fully believe that our grammatical constructs *are* the thing we are talking about. That is delusional in regard to the reality of the ‘thing in itself’ – in this aspect – because that it is a grammatical construct. What we need to become aware of is the way that we the fictionalise ourselves thus: see that what the world 'is' is not grammatically created, when all that that is is a kind of mirror - so that (to exaggerate) we are all like little Hitlers posturing in the mirror of grammar.

I would say the obvious, that knowledge is power, and so this, that what we learn about the world is a form of power. Where in this context again what we suppose is in error in one vital aspect: that rational knowledge is a form of pragmatism; it both is and isn't. It is more complicated than that. It would only truly be pragmatic for example if it took into account all of what a human being is . date=03.02.2005 16:56 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=(And so that's why I would celebrate the innocence of fiction that knows it's fiction.) date=03.02.2005 17:13 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Constructs *are* the thing ...

If you want to see how inadequate those constructs are, it's interesting to play that children's game where you walk round giving the wrong names to things - look at a tree and say 'that's a cow' and so on. You get a blink of perceptual slippage in which object reasserts itself over label. date=03.02.2005 17:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Somehow, as philosophy, this is all very blokey and 1940-ish, as if there's no discernable fence but I still can't get in without buying the right colour ticket. Wittgenstein, by taking away the materiality of the world, controls my access to it; even the Zen guy, who I love like a father, controls my access to the world by the sly gesture of *reinstating* its materiality. This is a time-honoured scam, also run in their competing ways by the Pope and Richard Dawkins.

That's why my money's still on the hedgehog, whose advice, delivered nonverbally, is more basic. "Fuck like a stoat & eat all the pies." He's smelly, covered in fleas, & his days are numbered. He's constantly at risk of being both Jew and Nazi, user and victim in (and of) a contingent, touchable universe. But he's alive, and one thing he's not doing is pretending to be the gatekeeper of a special zone he won't allow to be described and which is much bigger, difficulter and nicer than here if only you know what he knows. date=03.02.2005 18:18 ip=213.78.81.217 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have to tell you guys, conversations like this really make me wonder. I wonder if there are gaps in my own education and understanding of the world. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

These recent posts remind me of two separate conversations I had with a good friends recently:

Conversation 1

A good friend of mine, Tom…an Ivy League Ph.D. candidate and I were sitting in a café having coffee and talking about linguistic and grammatical conventions. He insisted that building grammatical conventions that are known to be false and not to correspond with (consensual) reality has immense power and is akin to some sort of magic. Being the Karl Popper type of dude that I am, I guffawed and told him to prove it. He attempted to make his case by stating that he could build a linguistic convention around me that treated me as a woman…and that such a convention would actually create something that was real and would change the way that others experience me and the way that I experience myself. My mind boggled at this and I struggled to find an argument that wasn’t swept away by his deluded rationalizations (lovely higher order defenses that they are). Ultimately, it came down to this: I said that he could have his linguistic convention, but that I was free to drop trou and blow it away with my Y-chromosome convention whenever I liked. Some things are realer than others I suppose.

In the end I think I won this argument. His linguistic convention just didn’t hold water. I don’t know if there was a better example he might have chosen or not, but I find his kind of theorizing very, very empty.

I also think that I won the argument because the girl that was at our table gave me and not the Ivy Leaguer her phone number. This may be a crude way of instrumentalizing victory though. Still, let’s give it up for the Y chromosome.

Conversation 2

I was at a bar with my roommate Nathan, a Ph.D. in psychology and a research scientist, and we were talking about the way that psychology operationalizes and instrumentalizes the constructs it seeks to study. He is an adamant anti-post modernist and linguistic conventions make him cringe. For him, post modernism equates to assigning no meaning or value to anything…it’s a “nothing’s real dude” kind of philosophy. In fact though, there are quite a lot of thing that are real and will be real no matter what sort of language you surround with. I’ll use an example stolen from Nathan as my example.

If I electrocute you every time you smile, you will stop smiling. This is true. This is real. Electric shocks (in this case serving as an unconditioned stimulus) are quite aversive, and when paired consistently with any experience that prompts smiling, will drive smiling to extinction.

I said this was real. I didn’t say it was very nice.

But if you take this apart a little further and think about it in terms of how “real” is being instrumentalized, you begin to see fault in what is being called real. This example that Nathan used is simple behavioralism, and no linguistic convention that is built around a individual who is treated in this way will save him from the effects. But, in operationalizing cause and effect in this manner, behavioralism takes a narrow view of reality. In fact, it utterly black boxes consciousness and takes heed of only a narrow band of data in the spectrum of all possible data. Administer the shock, the person perceives the shock, it goes into the black box (the human being being shocked), and no smiles come out on the other end.

So, yeah, treating a person in this way will get them to stop smiling, but what else will it do? What else is happening simultaneously? Does such a crude and ham fisted instrumentation miss the bigger picture (other real things happening simultaneously) in an effort to provide concrete data and pragmatic knowledge about cause and effect (reality)? date=03.02.2005 18:29 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I have no tidy way to reconcile these two conversations, but, if I can somehow reconcile my own ambivalence about knowledge and mystery, pragmatism and fantasy…I would rest easier. date=03.02.2005 18:30 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And this is totally off topic, but somebody mentioned the Talking Heads a ways down the page. In a strange coincidence, I actually met David Byrne last night. Here's the story for anyone interested:

I went to see Arcade Fire last night at Irving Plaza (NYC). The show was superb. I really had a good time. I'm not sure if they're know in the UK or not, but Arcade Fire are really worth checking out.

For the encore, they did the Talking Heads "This Must Be the Place", and David Byrne came out to sing it. It was awesome...

..Then afterwards, Tom and I went up to the balcony and spoke to David Byrne. He came to one of our shows in Brooklyn and had bought our album, but we'd never had a chance to speak with him. He actually remembered us...and was really cool to talk to. He is absolutely geek royalty. Although I was sort of nervous chatting to a rock icon... And it gets even better...while I was talking to David Byrne, David Bowie came up and said hello to him. It was fully sureal...some sort of David nexus.

Bowie was by far the biggest pimp of the three Davids though. The guy was followed by marvelously attractive women at all times. I think I might have been number two though...but only cause Byrne is kind of old and doesn't seem to be keen on hedgehog philosophy.

Anyway...this is neither here or there and I should be doing research and instrumentalizing the psyche. date=03.02.2005 18:47 ip=148.4.151.131 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ha, that's great Dave, congratulations. Also off-topic but I can't resist mentioning the coincidence, I've been working with Jon Hassell for the past year on web stuff and design for his new CD. He plays trumpet on Remain In Light, of course, still my favourite TH album, African plunderings or no. date=03.02.2005 20:22 ip=193.109.50.116 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, I was thinking more about what you mean by "contingent universe" and I feel compelled to ask: did you choose that word intentionally? Contingent is kind of a slippery word in that context. Were you intentionally trying to be sneaky?

Do you mean that this hedgehog has contact with the universe? That the hedgehog lives in an empirical world? Or that the things that are happening in the hedghog's world are due to chance and unforseen circumstances? That the world is conditioned by something else, but that the hedgehog is happy humping and eating away anyway? "Contingent" could even imply free will.

For a while I felt good identifying with the hedgehog. Then I got confused.

On another note, anyone wondering how my band's show with Tommy Stinson went might enjoy this:

www.stumblebumnyc.blogspot.com

I don't know who this guy is, but his Rod Stewart photos made me forget about my hedghog identity crisis. date=03.02.2005 20:55 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Bill mail=angelinia@tereweqw3.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://mohegansuncasino.kgc-networks.com text=Beautiful graphics. Skill and talent are obvious! date=03.02.2005 22:25 ip=80.89.128.198 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A new Jon Hasell record !
That is what I call good news. .. date=03.02.2005 22:46 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Wow, cool night Dave!

John, so you're doing web stuff with Jon Hassell - do you know my friend Jan - www.janfex.com - or Mal - www.mal.net ? Both have done bits of web work for Jon over the years. date=04.02.2005 00:42 ip=62.49.107.18 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah, very good news about the new album as it's a great piece of work, a blend of concert music and studio recording. It's been a privilege to be involved with it.

We're doing two sites, an "official" one and a mini-promo site for the CD, like the one Io did for Light (note the cunning way I almost get the talk back on-topic...).

I know Malcolm Hume's name, Dan, but not the other person. Was he doing the Hyperreal site years ago? date=04.02.2005 01:16 ip=195.128.251.167 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave. I'm always trying to be intentionally sneaky. date=04.02.2005 11:24 ip=213.116.58.132 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John, no Jan was working on a site quite recently, about a year ago, possibly a little longer. I think it was also a mini-site, possibly for the last album, all built in Shockwave. I'm fairly sure it was Mal (who used to be involved with Hyperreal) who put Jan up to it. date=04.02.2005 11:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=David David and David. That's some array of musical talent. For symmetry we might as well mention Eno (whom I also haven't met) and his work with Jon Hassell on the album Possible Musics, which I do have.

I was on the train yesterday and had this thought while listening to someone grandstanding on his mobile. (All about strike action, Unison and addressing large meetings of 300 people. Conversation over, looks up in his address book another person to tell more or less the same thing all over again to.) Intercut this with someone else grandstanding about "That was the most incredibly aggressive game I have ever seen. They were all so angry ..." Then on to some important media hack on a news item/film or such of which they were obviously an essential part. Then someone else was babbling on the phone under their breath, some intense words of I don't know what sort; and another, talking to someone in a car saying "Well pull over! Yes, I should say you owe me an apology ..." And so forth. This was on an ancient slam door, where we were packed like books in a bin. No one anywhere I could see was talking to anyone else actually present to them. All the conversations were with people elsewhere. An interesting metaphor maybe. Because one of the things this does is reveal the person in their isolation. The grandstanding is of course nauseating; but the speaker thinks that they are at the centre of the universe; at the hub of things, so that the soul becomes obvious as it were - in all its grossness. A mobile phone conversation with one's soul: It goes something like: .... spingle spangle spingle ... "Yes? Speaking ... ? Yes? Go fuck yourself!"

So here was the tower of babel resurrected on a horizontal axis and put on two rails and going straight to hell. date=04.02.2005 12:11 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I overheard someone's mobile conversation today, too. He was saying, "Sorry - I'll be bit late. I'm on the train -"

As he was strolling through the middle of Oxford, I felt like shouting, "Oh no he's not!" But the pantomime season's over, isn't it?

MJH: sneaky like a hedgehog. Whoever would've guessed, etc. date=04.02.2005 13:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You've got to regard those phone conversations as some kind of real-time John Cage-style audio collage, or maybe something like that Glenn Gould recording of Canadian voices. It's either that or force feed them their mobiles, something that tends to be frowned on. date=04.02.2005 13:18 ip=195.128.251.167 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite part of my job is telling people to switch their phones off in the library. Especially if they have hands free sets:

"...and by the way, you know you look mad doing that?" date=04.02.2005 13:36 ip=81.153.4.219 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've no objection to people being the centre of their own universes. After all, if it's good enough for hedgehogs... date=04.02.2005 13:44 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan find me a hedgehog on a mobile phone talking to its personal trainer and I will agree with you. date=04.02.2005 14:04 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I met that prickly git and I told him to fuck off out of the library. date=04.02.2005 14:26 ip=81.153.4.219 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>people being the centre of their own universes

Indeed. I once had a conversation with a bloke who told me that he liked to believe in nature spirits, even though he hadn't seen one, and even though he had no reason to suppose they really existed. It just made his world nicer to believe in them. I agree. Therefore I am happy to report that a hedgehog has just bustled past talking loudly into a Nokia (the ring tone, incidentally, was a track from Nick Cave's Kicking Against The Pricks). The conversation? I dunno, something about foxes in corduroy jackets. date=04.02.2005 14:39 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> find me a hedgehog on a mobile phone

I can't, they're all too busy fucking.

At least, that's my subjective experience of what they're doing (in my universe, you might say). I can offer no proof. date=04.02.2005 14:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A hedgehog on a mobile? No sooner said -

http://tinyurl.com/3l3n3 date=04.02.2005 15:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I dunno whether hedgehogs have advanced to mobile phones yet, but they definitely have landlines:
http://www.thehedgehog.co.uk/ (scroll down to the bottom) and http://meetmurray.tripod.com/athome.htm

Oh, hang on: http://tinyurl.com/3ohho (seems you can also get a Sonic game for the Nokia N-Gage.) date=04.02.2005 15:11 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile, it's good to see the Barley Brothers rallying round the Pope in his hour of need:

http://tinyurl.com/6t7qh date=04.02.2005 16:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meet Murray, eh? I have to tell you, after having met him, I don't think he's diggin on domestication. Did you guys see the look on his face? It screams discontent.

"Screw this blanket and paper cup...and, yeah, even this damn phone. I'd rather be outside snorking with the ladies. But no! I've been stuck in some cage by some goof-ball with no friends and a penchant for anthropomorphizing. Damn this contingent universe!"

Tragic I tell you... date=04.02.2005 17:33 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Trapped in a world he never made. date=04.02.2005 18:15 ip=213.78.72.126 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For symmetry we might as well mention Eno (whom I also haven't met) and his work with Jon Hassell on the album Possible Musics, which I do have.

_______

One of my favourite records. date=04.02.2005 23:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed. I once had a conversation with a bloke who told me that he liked to believe in nature spirits, even though he hadn't seen one, and even though he had no reason to suppose they really existed. It just made his world nicer to believe in them
________________
Julie Burchill used to day that when in doubt blame it on David Bowie but I am sure that this one goes to William James. date=04.02.2005 23:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=eslam mail=eslamelmanhaly@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=i want map for library date=05.02.2005 04:51 ip=62.114.192.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well its Mundy so how about a Mappa Mundi?

Of the personality as a mask
of character as self-founded, self-founding;
and *of the sacredness of the person*

....contra tyrannos (Geoffrey Hill, Scenes from Comus, The Argument of the Masque, 2005)

What is above or beyond language? What cannot be made a part of it? The hedgehog speaks but no one understands him. His wisdom is the wisdom of the ages. The hedgehog is beyond language. Procreation is. Or it was. We can imagine a Brave New World in which what was passion is reduced to a test tube specified by words: Aryan looks; blond hair; tall; athletic; whirlwind IQ. Indomitable. So: sex loses its innocence. What it had in spite of itself, its mystery. The way that it wouldn't be instrumentalised in spite of all intention. date=07.02.2005 14:27 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just Checked out BBC´s Page Turners.
I´ve read the Sedaris book ( not as good as Me talk pretty one day) and I mean to read the book by Murkami. Two out of thirty. I can´t make up my mind if this a good thing or a bad thing. date=08.02.2005 00:13 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo. Suppose you were to read half a dozen celebrity autobiographies. That might be interesting. Useful even. Who is to say? It's the diversity that's important, surely. date=08.02.2005 12:49 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=BBC page turners. Actually that's an interesting list ...

I am going on a short holiday soon. I intend to read at least one novel, James Salter's The Hunters. And a couple of collections of poems. date=08.02.2005 16:53 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup MJP, interesting and diverse.

It's a good thing and a bad thing - good in that it might prompt a few people to get off their arses (should that be "on their arses"?) and read something decent, bad because it feeds into the supermarketization (ooh, what a beautifugly word!) of literature, focusing in on a couple of dozen "must read" titles and detracting from everything else in the process. I'd like to think that everyone delving into the list will then jump off and find their own tangent, but given that there's enough to keep them busy all year without venturing off the BBC or Richard & Judy's list, I doubt it.

(Also, let's face it, anyone who's sucked into reading through a big PR push from the BBC or Channel 4 is only likely to go on and read whichever "blockbuster" book has the biggest marketing spend behind it this month, rather than discovering their own taste.)

Nearly related... I braved our local library's reading group last night. They were discussing Magnus Mills's "All Quiet on the Orient Express", one of my favourite books. I was one of the few people who liked it (which in itself stunned me: I've lent the book to several people in the past: they've all loved it as much as me). One woman asked how anybody could possibly empathise with the book's hero, who is something of a spineless drifter, unable to say no to any of the increasingly demanding requests made of him. Her reasoning went along the lines of "anybody like that who can't stand up for themselves, who just goes along with whatever they're told... well, you could accept that in a teenager, but beyond a certain age, you've got to think there's something slightly sub-normal about anybody quite so timid."

As I was sitting next to her, she turned to me and asked whether I agreed. I sort of mumbled something which could perhaps be taken for half-hearted agreement.

Somehow I think the subtlety of my protest was lost on her. But... well, what else could I say? I mean, I didn't want to offend her or anything.

Back on the subject of supermarketization (I'm sorry, I won't say it again): the local library service, in its infinite generosity, has purchased sets of books for reading groups (10 each of 60 titles). While I really appreciate not having to buy or otherwise track down a book myself, I am a bit concerned that future discussions will centre on "whatever we like the look of that's on the list" to the exclusion of a lot of other good stuff. Still, at least next month's is one I'd have liked to have read anyway ("On the Black Hill" by Bruce Chatwin). date=08.02.2005 17:18 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Picked up a Joanna Trollope novel on a whim. Other People's Children. Engagingly untidy. I had slight misgivings part way through, when things were too rather too well for the "nice" professional couple, but it seems like Trollope was playing off the romantic expectations of the reader to pitch them into a ditch further along the line. date=08.02.2005 17:26 ip=158.94.178.94 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Picked up a Joanna Trollope novel on a whim. Other People's Children. Engagingly untidy. I had slight misgivings part way through, when things were going rather too well for the "nice" professional couple, but it seems like Trollope was playing off the romantic expectations of the reader to pitch them into a ditch further along the line.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=08.02.2005 17:26 ip=158.94.178.94 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Magnus Mills's "All Quiet on the Orient Express"

Yes, I found that book pretty unsettling. I don't know if I *liked* it but Mills is great at exploring power in working relationships. date=08.02.2005 17:35 ip=158.94.178.94 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's the diversity that's important, surely.
_______

Hi MJP :
Yes indeed but somehow of late I find myself reading from the backshelf of the library (Banana Yoshimoto) or from the bargain bids ( "The purple land").
It is the big marketing push that gives me the shiver.
I.e Finished "Fortress of solitude" a couple of days ago ( and the nerd inside was wondering why did he call it that when it is a a paean to Marvel comics) and it is fine ( if a bit too long) but .The american novel one must read this year?
Why? Why don´t go for ,say, "The embassadors" or "Myra Breckenridge" or whatever ? date=08.02.2005 22:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm struggling with the Fortress of Solitude at the moment, only a few chapters in but wondering whether I should continue. Nothing wrong with it but... it's as if I'm looking at it from an oblique angle, I can't quite find a way in. And yet a similar kind of nostalgic attention to detail had me devouring The Rotters Club in one sitting a few weeks back; is this just because I grew up in 70s UK and not 70s USA? date=08.02.2005 23:36 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Ben Wooller mail=ben.wooller@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://livejournal.com/~wooller text=Dan: Stick with Fortress of Solitude. While the first part does get a bit bogged down, the second part ("Liner Notes") picks up in an interesting way. I found the third part, the transition in narrative, a bit jarring, but all in all, I think it's a good read.

I started reading Lolita on the weekend (one of those "I'll get round to it one day" books), only to find that, 90 pages in, it stopped being HH musing over how to kill his wife, and became "The Life of Saint Teresa". Somewhere, theres a nun who's going to get a nasty surprise... date=09.02.2005 07:56 ip=61.68.193.195 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In regard to Lethem, I might read his short story collection first, Men and Cartoons. It's a distillation of FofS, apparently. date=09.02.2005 10:52 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just devoured the graphic novel of Paul Auster's City Of Glass. An excellent treatment: gets to the heart of Auster's paranoid story in an admirably economical way, and should not be avoided if you've read the book. It's a superb work in its own right. Now if I could just work out what actually happens in the story... date=09.02.2005 13:53 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My brain needs a rest so I'm reading enjoyable nonsense at the moment; but have taken a break from 'Moby Dick' to do so. MD fantastic book; monumentally bonkers, incredibly atmospheric in a very gothic way, keeps on breaking out into blank verse (and very rooted in Shakespeare / Milton) and - most interestingly in light of past discussion here - much exposition about whaling / whalers etc. Melville handles this very well; as you've pointed out, MJH, gives it a very strong narrative drive of its own.

Struck me also that in its way it's structurally sf; the great voyage into nowhere, years away from home, etc reminiscent of something like 'Voyage of the Space Beagle'. It's body of assumed knowledge (Milton, Shakespeare, the Bible, etc) a less science based / autistic equivalent to the assumed knowledge of much sf. date=09.02.2005 15:25 ip=81.178.153.65 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A report of the chat between Alan Moore and Brian Eno

http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/archives/2004/12/alan_ moore_inte.html date=09.02.2005 23:20 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The "Chain Reaction" Moore/Eno show itself is still on-line at the BBC replay page, too:

http://tinyurl.com/54lsj date=10.02.2005 10:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=In today's New Scientist there is an article about research groups trying to artificially create life. "We want to demonstrate what the heck life is by constructing it" ...says Packard's business partner "If we do that we are going to have a very big party. The first team that does it is going to get the Nobel Prize." Sounds more like corporate culture out of control than science. The 'Los Alamos Bug'? Surely a creature already invented by Dean Koontz or Michael Crighton. Ironically. date=10.02.2005 12:53 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=A-Life is a fascinating subject, I've I'd ever made it as far as a PhD then I'm sure that's what I'd be studying. Nothing corporate in my desire, just a consuming desire to create something unexpected and surprising. But, yes, it is potentially a very dangerous field to go poking around in.

A very good introduction to this topic is Stephen Levy's book "Artificial Life". date=10.02.2005 13:01 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Creating some kind of Van Vogtian shark that lives in eight dimensions and swims through the ether. Very sensible. They seem to have forgotten that life is basically predatory and parasitic. Not Walt Disney. date=10.02.2005 13:11 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> They seem to have forgotten that life is basically predatory and parasitic.

Therein lies the danger. One day, the machines *will* enslave us. Enjoy yourself in the meantime.

Unfortunately, the thirst for knowledge is a hard one to quench. Pandora'n'all that. date=10.02.2005 13:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Creating some kind of Van Vogtian shark that lives in eight dimensions and swims through the ether.

Cool. Yes let's have one of them. Naturally I'm more likely to expect artificial life to have an oversized head and an enfeebled frame, no vitality and die quietly a few days after coming out of the vats. But that's what too much Vance does for you.

I suspect the real thing will end up rather unlike either: some sort of amoebic snot-form in a petri dish, or at best a translucent centipede-like thing. But I wonder to what extent you can *create* life: isn't it more a matter of bricolage?

We are the B&Q Demiurges of the Universe! date=10.02.2005 13:24 ip=158.94.129.222 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>We are the B&Q Demiurges of the Universe!

I read that as 'BBQ Demiurges'. Straight out of the Plumroma, in our Kebab Kraft. date=10.02.2005 13:50 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh yes! I was thinking only the other day that the kebab kraft is overdue a return to our solar system.

I'm personally more interested in computer-based a-life: less messy (easier to clean the snot off) though almost as dangerous. But it's ten years since I last tinkered, I'm sure wetware equivalents have come along leaps and bounds (literally) since then.

I think the single most memorable thing I learnt about when investigating a-life is the beautiful simplicity of bird/fish flocking behaviours, discovered by Craig Reynolds: http://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/ - I've been unable to look at a flock of birds since without thinking about this. date=10.02.2005 14:21 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I read that as 'BBQ Demiurges'.

We might imagine a simpler more fundamental realm where BBQ Demiurges grill skewered tofu and Medditerrean veg over hot charcoal. A coil of smoke from some burned Linda McCartney sausages is our cosmos, &c...

Flocking programs are interesting. I remember first seeing them on an Archimedes, of all things. Leaping sideways slightly: I remember Stanislaw Lem writing something about how we shd concentrate less on artificial intelligence and more on artificial *instinct*. But then again, he's got a bit of a downer on human beings in general. date=10.02.2005 14:45 ip=158.94.129.222 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The whole a-life movement grew out of the failure of top-down attempts to build artificial intelligence, and the discovery that artificial instinct (as in the 3 rules for flocking) was a much simpler way of producing something which appeared intelligent.

It's an appealing approach: after all, look how far the human race has come on a diet of "eat, drink, sex, sleep". date=10.02.2005 14:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> how far the human race has come

Or at least, how *complex* it has become. Who could ever have predicted that - I dunno, double entry book-keeping, for example - could have arisen out of the desire for those four necessities. date=10.02.2005 14:58 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>double entry book-keeping

Probably one of the key reasons why Lem advocated instinct. date=10.02.2005 15:04 ip=158.94.129.222 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But I guess the proof of the pudding is in the meat. Something which moves or acts just like the real thing is great for CGI graphics but I'd wonder about their effectiveness in the field. Out there something *like* the real thing won't cut the mustard. Just how complex and flexible are the algorithms (or things that are beyond the algorithms) that run on real instinctive systems?

Although that might be to slightly romanticise nature: real-world animals fail to react or succeed too. date=10.02.2005 15:15 ip=158.94.129.222 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Depends on the field. It's all about fitness for purpose. The revelation of a-life is that this may *be* the real thing, the basic rules for life may be essentially as simple as one, two, three; it's interaction that gives rise to complexity.

Of course, until we put our eight-dimensional shark out on the savannah with the lions and wildebeest (erm) we can't know for certain. And it has that awfully convincing ring of simplicity that is the hallmark of so many discredited theories of the past. Still, I'm a believer. date=10.02.2005 15:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Still, I'm a believer.

I'm not necessarily a disbeliever... but, and this is probably a pedantic but: to what extent is this *creation* or is more a matter of arrangement of the right Lego blocks? (and of course, is that all that creation is anyway?) Are we actually making life here or is it just that a laboratory rather than an amino acid rich swamp happens to be the environment that gave rise to it? Is it intention that flips the switch from natural to artificial? And as for intention: where does that originate?

But I'm wondering if these distinctions are more a matter of language than anything going on in our eight-dimensional shark training field. date=10.02.2005 15:36 ip=158.94.129.222 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I shd have added a three-lobed metaglyph chuckling, "*Your* creation? It's all part of my masterplan!" (FX: deep laughter thru cheap Winfield spring reverb) date=10.02.2005 15:41 ip=158.94.129.222 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Without wanting to go too far into the debate about what's real here, AI seems to be being developed most obviously in computer games. There is an obvious need for sophisticated AI in games. (Especially for monsters.) IBM and Sony have just created the 'Cell' supercomputer, a chip which may find its way into most homes in a couple of years, including of course on a PC. So AI is definitely being created. But what is it? A so called Sobot, a software robot, is being developed by someone in Korea, where the main concern seems to be to find ways of making it emotional. And so forth. Soon the average mobile phone will be brighter than the average mobile phone user. date=10.02.2005 15:48 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> But I'm wondering if these distinctions are more a matter of language...

Exactly. Ultimately, defining life is likely to be far harder than creating it. There are some who think we've already succeeded, but many others whose carbonism makes them automatically discount anything which only lives inside the environment of a computer's memory.

I just bought the magazine and started reading the article. It's couched in horrendously and unnecesarily commercial terms (it opens: "You might think Norman Packard is playing God. Or you might just see him as the ultimate entrepeneur") but then, (sadly) that's science baby. I still get the impression that the act of creation fires these people more than the money (but... without whom none of this would have been possible...).

I also love the line "some people, especially those with strong religious beliefs, feel uneasy at the thought of scientists taking on the role of creators". TOO FUCKING RIGHT! If this thing succeeds, it'll be worth it just for the two fingers it sticks to the creationists. Even if it does mean the ultimate destruction of the human race. I suspect that (the two fingers) may be a motivating factor as well.

OK, must read the rest of the article now... date=10.02.2005 15:49 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Soon the average mobile phone will be brighter than the average mobile phone user.

But what if yr friends get on with yr phone better than they get on with you? date=10.02.2005 15:58 ip=158.94.129.222 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> But what if yr friends get on with yr phone better than they get on with you?

Yr phone deletes you from its memory? date=10.02.2005 16:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The average mobile phone is already brighter than the average mobile phone user. There's no point in worrying about this when over at the BBC people are being given a chance to say whether they think it's a "good thing" that Charles marries Camilla. The average polo pony has more intelligence than Charles; and the average green wellie has had forty IQ points on its user since at least 1985. The sooner we give the world over to A-life the better.

There's a bloke over at my Night Shade board who wants to know if there's anything going on in London next week. Can anyone here help ? Since I never leave Barnes except to watch reruns of Tarkovsky movies, I wasn't really the person to ask. date=10.02.2005 16:43 ip=213.78.90.45 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=How to outfox one's mobile? Behave differently, unexpectedly. So: I think we don't exist. That we aren't real. That's why we are so attracted to fiction. We are fictionally real. Or only fictionally real. Not really real. All this scientific stuff is a living mockery. (Or a dead mockery, take your choice.)

So this whole issue of artificial intelligence is a non-starter. Because to start with there is no such thing as intelligence. It's something made up. For sure. It is something that we have made up, out of sentimentality or whatever. All that AI does therefore (therefore?) actually is mirror us - our non-existence. So if a robot were to learn to behave exactly like a human being it would not be right to conclude that it has learned to behave 'intelligently' so much as right to conclude that it has learned to behave fictionally. Do you see? Likewise with our petri-dish aliens. If we learn to make them sit up and say hello, out of the dish, that will be because we will have learned how to make 'living' mirrors of protoplasm. I put the word in quotes because they will be no more actually alive than we are. Of course. This place is Hell. date=10.02.2005 16:46 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>This place is Hell.

Bad day at work, MJP?

MJH: Klinker three times next week and all of the other usual London fixtures, but beyond that nothing immediately occurs to me. But I'll post over at Nightshade if anything comes up. date=10.02.2005 16:53 ip=158.94.132.137 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: Bad day at work? No, it's perfectly, perfectly *normal*. Ho Ho Ho. date=10.02.2005 17:21 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Interesting that artificial instincts should be mentioned in this discussion. I've only done a little bit of reading on AI, but I have read a fair bit of Daniel Dennett while studying evolutionary psychology. His book Darwin's Dangerous Idea is a great intro to evolutionary theory, but if you read between the lines and take a look at Dennett's CV, it becomes apparent thatt his primary interest is AI. I'm not sure if it's still in vogue, but I think it had once been hoped evolutionary theory would serve as a model for creating AI.

But it seems to me that there's one big thing missing from this line of thinking. Everyone rushes to an advanced conception of AI while ignoring the fact that life started as a puddle of scum that developed slowly and hierarchically - with instinct appearing far before anything that resembles intelligence of complex algorithms.

Essentially, this left me thinking that most AI proponents want to make Star Trek's Data while ignoring the Id. This just isn't going to create a reasonable human facsimile. All the prmitive and instinctual drives that come from the Id (snorking, if you like) perpetuate the motivation for all human behavior and undergird more complex intellectual capacities. Without this undergirdding, AI behavior will be either very rigid (lacking all spontaneity) or will be totally lackadaisical (and orient to all stimuli as though they were equally important).

If you aren't driven to snork, if you don't have an Id, then all things are equally important. This means that when you put your 8-dimensional shark out to graze that he may be more interested staring at ripples on the pond than gobbling up lions and creating more 8-dimensional sharks.

Without the biological urge to snork, everything gets boring reall quick. Hell, without the desire to snork birds wouldn't flock and migrate. When I think of AI, I think of some amorphous ameboid thing that just grooves on everything it sees with equal delight until it gets so big and unweildy that it either collapses under its own weight or develops multiple brains (brontosaurus style) and just grows into a giant blob that snuffs out humanity.

Humanity ain't hot shit, but it's still better than artificial humanity. And I don't like sharks much anyway...talk about Ids...those things are pure Id (with teeth)...flawless evolutionary design, but only because they're simple and stupid. date=10.02.2005 17:25 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think of some amorphous ameboid thing that just grooves on everything it sees with equal delight until it gets so big and unweildy that it either collapses under its own weight or develops multiple brains (brontosaurus style) and just grows into a giant blob that snuffs out humanity.

Shit you were at that party too?

Yeah, perhaps the Id was that something between the algorithm and the snorking, growling beastie that I was looking for. So where do we get industrial quantities of Id for our new lifeform? Skimming badness from the brain of Satan? date=10.02.2005 17:39 ip=158.94.132.137 name=seb33 mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.primo1.info text=I have ever heard about your site by friends and i am glad to have visited it. Good job.
partition- astuces date=10.02.2005 17:57 ip=172.210.79.198 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=See...the Id isn't bad. It just lacks restraint.

Consciousness evolved and then the Id got put in check....had to start negotiating for the privaledge to snork.

Still I'd rather be able to self reflect on the merits of my snorking than be a shark. date=10.02.2005 17:57 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>So where do we get industrial quantities of Id for our new lifeform?

Why not ring Charles and Camilla ? date=10.02.2005 17:59 ip=213.78.170.231 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That has to be my favorite typo/spelling mistake of the week.

Christ, I need to line edit my posts. date=10.02.2005 18:00 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Why not ring Charles and Camilla ?

Ah, I see: the arse of Satan rather than the brain.

Dave: I shdn't worry, everyone gets typos on here. date=10.02.2005 18:03 ip=158.94.129.222 name=Mary mail=mary@mamail.ro icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://bingo.casino-top.org text=Nogmaals van harte gefeliciteerd met nog zo'n geweldig nest,de mama's doen het goed en we hopen dat de "oma's" date=10.02.2005 19:30 ip=213.228.81.92 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bingo! I have a theory. The body is alive but the mind is dead.

Thus we live a half-life. There is no point in trying to ressusitate intelligence, whether artificial or not. It's a dead duck.

But we spend all our time trying to make the mind live. A strange preoccupation. Because we already have a living body. What need a living mind? The interest in trying to create artificial life, in all its different forms, biologically or in machine form, is a subconconscious reflection of this. Of the awareness of the body that the mind is a kind of zombie. Implanted by an alien life form, ironically. date=11.02.2005 11:54 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The body is alive but the mind is dead.

There are a number of possibilities encoded in that, and I guess at least some of them are inherent in the dualism implied:

Heaven - pure life / Earth - death
Heaven - ressurection / Earth - mortal life
Heaven - eternal / Earth - temporal
Heaven - clean / Earth - dirty

And so we're afflicted by a paradox arising from the apparent Platonic purity of heavenly things against the contingent fallen nature of fallen things. But if the body and mind are not detached, if we return to the Heavenly Paradise, (discovering that the door was never locked) and find that the two realms are not detached...

We probably return to our amorphous ameboid thing that just grooves on everything it sees with equal delight. date=11.02.2005 12:19 ip=158.94.139.116 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io, I think you have it back to front, both literally and symbolically

Earth = paradise, the body
Heaven = zombiedom; not death but a living death. Ok so it's not so bad. We are straining to live in heaven.

What if our earth is their heaven? (PKD on other animals) date=11.02.2005 12:33 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I think you have it back to front

The dualities I was presenting were traditional ones. My suggestion is that either way around these are false distinctions, and that the paradox resolves this insistence on becoming either a saint or a sinner, and opens up the possibility of becoming a saint *and* a sinner.

I think it's the "Seven Sermons to the Dead" where Jung (as Basilides) counsels suspicion for any doctrine that tries to simplify plural complexity. date=11.02.2005 12:50 ip=158.94.139.116 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, that told me, io!

But it's interesting to invert a few of the traditional assumptions. For instance, that there is a heirarchy here; with humans at the top of the heap. With the brain the most complex object in the universe. That idea is so absurdly self-regarding that it should be treated with the utmost suspicion.

Also, it *is* a kind of zombie given that we can't seem to use most of it ... date=11.02.2005 13:05 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Well, that told me, io!

Yeah, so there! But of course I would counsel suspicion for my own doctrine that tries to simplify plural complexity through paradox.

>>With the brain the most complex object in the universe.

The kabbalistic notion of Yhwh creating man who falls from innocence into experience thereby to acquire consciousness so that the creator can see his creation and vice versa. Anthropomorphic as fuck! But it does leave you with these wonderfully symmetrical images of Eye meeting Eye, which Gibby Haines described as "causing the most intense form of video feedback!" date=11.02.2005 13:18 ip=158.94.139.116 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Talking of false distinctions, where does this whole idea of a mind/body split come from anyway? I'm with Hofstadter on the intelligence/consciousness thing, I think he covers most of the problems Dave & MJP have with the idea of artificial intelligence (problems which seem to arise from equating artificial intelligence with artificial humanity). I haven't read much Dennett (I finally chucked out my copy of The Mind's I last year, realised I would never get around to reading it) but I think he takes a similar view. date=11.02.2005 13:34 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>where does this whole idea of a mind/body split come from anyway?

I think it does come out of these antique models of the Universe: aethereal emissaries from the higher realms vs cthonic hells of coarse simple everyday fun. We tend to inherit stuff from either Greek or Semitic sources in the West. So it's a mix of the Apollo/Dionysis dualism or that triple-decker cosmological model from Babylonian/Jewish source: Heaven/Earth/Hell. Earth (the ego) becomes a battleground of the eschatological struggle between light and darkness.

And then fucking Peter Jackson sells it al back to you with CGI graphics modelled on the Platonic algorithms of purest Mind! date=11.02.2005 14:06 ip=158.94.139.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>where does this whole idea of a mind/body split come from anyway?

I think it does come out of these antique models of the Universe: aethereal emissaries from the higher realms vs cthonic hells of coarse simple everyday fun. We tend to inherit stuff from either Greek or Semitic sources in the West. So it's a mix of the Apollo/Dionysis dualism and that triple-decker cosmological model from Babylonian/Jewish source: Heaven/Earth/Hell. Earth (the ego) becomes a battleground of the eschatological struggle between light and darkness.

And then fucking Peter Jackson sells it al back to you with CGI graphics modelled on the Platonic algorithms of purest Mind!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.02.2005 14:06 ip=158.94.139.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>where does this whole idea of a mind/body split come from anyway?

I think it does come out of these antique models of the Universe: aethereal emissaries from the higher realms vs cthonic hells of coarse simple everyday fun. We tend to inherit stuff from either Greek or Semitic sources in the West. So it's a mix of the Apollo/Dionysis dualism and that triple-decker cosmological model from Babylonian/Jewish source: Heaven/Earth/Hell. Earth (the ego) becomes a battleground of the eschatological struggle between light and darkness.

And then fucking Peter Jackson sells it all back to you with CGI graphics modelled on the Platonic algorithms of purest Mind!
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.02.2005 14:06 ip=158.94.139.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually that'd make a good theory of F/SF:

Fantasy: fiction that grooves on the coolness of antique models of the Universe.

Science Fiction: fiction that grooves on the coolness of the latest model of the Universe.

It's glib, it's simplistic, it probably doesn't refer to genre as it actually exists! date=11.02.2005 14:21 ip=158.94.139.116 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It might be interesting to compare an artist's use of his or her brain to a scientist's. On some kind of a graph. Perhaps this has already been done. But it has given me something to think about, as it were, this fact that actually we don't use most of our brains. It suggests an evolutionary stagnation (the present), but also the possibility of an evolutionary change of some kind hitherto not imagined. I really do think that our minds are not properly alive, in the sense of in harmony with the body. And that it is a constant struggle to find that harmony. That thus there *is* a kind of polarity but one that needs to be dissolved. date=11.02.2005 14:41 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I mean, just look at tv. Much of it is the nearest thing to zombie food for the imagination - that can be imagined. It is really just electric pap. So one sifts through it. So much time is spent doing that, or reading fiction, because we are trying to make the brain live, be alive. (Suppose.) Failingly. Fail again. Fail better. (I love that phrase.) date=11.02.2005 14:49 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>It suggests an evolutionary stagnation

Are you proposing some sort of Golden Age when humanity reached it's peak? Humanity as it exists now living in the fallen shadow of this peak.

But is that a matter of race history or personal history? Isn't there that problem that after 23, or something (too old to remember)? After that age we are all living through an ongoing stage of mental stagnation - on the neurological level at least.

Actually, I'm not sure where I dug that "fact" up from. Anyone any idea if it has any basis in reality, or at least research? date=11.02.2005 15:17 ip=158.94.139.116 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>It suggests an evolutionary stagnation

Are you proposing some sort of Golden Age when humanity reached it's peak? Humanity as it exists now living in the fallen shadow of this peak.

But is that a matter of race history or personal history? Isn't there that problem that after 23 we stop accumulating braincells, or something (too old to remember)? After that age we are all living through an ongoing stage of mental stagnation - on the neurological level at least.

Actually, I'm not sure where I dug that "fact" up from. Anyone any idea if it has any basis in reality, or at least research?
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=11.02.2005 15:17 ip=158.94.139.116 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, we must have evolved pretty dramatically at certain stages. Several hundreds of thousands of years ago. The facts seem to suggest that now we have stopped evolving. Physically. Ie stagnation. (Unless anyone can think of anything.) date=11.02.2005 15:25 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>The facts seem to suggest that now we have stopped evolving.

Okay, assuming this: are you suggesting this is a matter of lifestyle? Sitting in front of a computer at the office skimming fragments of information rather than going *out there* and exploring the next continent. And (adopting an unseemly techno-mystical tone) perhaps we are shifting our own evolution onto our artifacts - so that they can be considered as a part of our evolution? On this basis: consider the developments in computer technology in the last fifty years. Fifty years! That's peanuts in evolutionary time! Do *we* need to be more intelligent if our peripherals can do it for us?

Is all of this artificial life that we've been talking about actually human evolution by other means?

(cue Richard Strauss &c...) date=11.02.2005 15:43 ip=158.94.139.116 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It might be interesting to compare an artist's use of his or her brain to a scientist's

Myself and a friend were going to try and do something vaguely similar a couple of years back, only the FMRI proved to be too expensive. But we wanted to do it for artistic purposes, not scientific; imagine it, an art gallery hung with brain scans: "this one is me imagining a picture by Gaugin, this one is where I was thinking about maybe doing something along the lines of Damien Hurst, this one is me thinking about me thinking about doing brain scans of me thinking about art projects".

Actually, don't tell anyone that, especially not Damien. We may still do it one day if we can get the funding.

Even more interesting, to my (ahem) mind is what Sam Harris is doing at the moment: studying brain scans to try and work out the neural basis of belief - http://tinyurl.com/3wnor date=11.02.2005 15:50 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The end of human evolution, and extended evolution via our artifacts, is something I used to think about a lot.

(Interestingly, that New Scientist article says "most now agree that ... perhaps the only [difference] between life and non-life is Darwinian evolution". This implies that our artifacts are alive, although I'm sure the NS journalist missed the part about self-replication; even so, that makes a great many organisms living inside computers very much alive)

Anyway, I find it more useful to think about the end of human evolution in terms of what causes evolution. Evolution is all about surviving to child-bearing age and then propogating as many copies of your genes as you can. In this part of the world, at least, most people don't have a problem surviving to child-bearing age, and the few genetic defects that prevent them from doing so are probably bred out only as fast as new mutations appear in the gene pool. So it becomes about having more children: is the ten-child family the future of human evolution?

Ultimately, I think the evolutionary pressures on the human race are so slim nowadays that very little evolutionary change is likely (although this may be a little different in countries where child death is still a big issue). And besides, I think it's been shown that most evolutionary change happens in very small burst, e.g. in the few centuries after the dinosaurs disappeared. The human race is probably just holding out until our first nuclear winter before we all start changing radically once more. date=11.02.2005 16:00 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>studying brain scans to try and work out the neural basis of belief

Cool. I wonder what the scans of his belief in his own research look like!

>>The human race is probably just holding out until our first nuclear winter before we all start changing radically once more.

All of this is merely pitiable mortal egos infantile fear in the face of those Stapledonian stretches of time and space. Let go! Let go! Petition Bush to put pressure on North Korea and let's watch the pyrotechnics fly!

Best thing since Rammstein in concert. date=11.02.2005 16:06 ip=158.94.139.116 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Long live the new flesh. date=11.02.2005 16:37 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just remembered the witty punning name for our brain-scan art-scam: pre-conceptual art. date=11.02.2005 16:48 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Google's database is helping to build AI:
http://feed.proteinos.com/item/2475 date=11.02.2005 16:55 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Intraspecies competition is the new evolutionary pressure, ramped up by business & aspirational philosophies. But it's ok because cosmetic surgery is relieving us of that. We'll soon be so happy & nice & feisty & successful! But real. We'll be very real & good & make all the best decisions for everybody. We'll say: Talk to the hand! We'll say: I heart freedom! And they will *so look up to us* because we'll be the cool ones, the ones everyone else imitates. Everyone will have the best body, but despite that ours will be the best body of all & they will just want to do the things we want & fuck us all the time. I heart love! we'll say. I heart my life because it's so real there on tv! date=11.02.2005 17:31 ip=213.78.169.166 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That, and cheap sofas. As Ikea discovered when they opened their new branch in Edmonton on Wednesday:

http://tinyurl.com/5svlo date=11.02.2005 19:12 ip=81.153.4.146 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ikea ! Buy your way into being a truly individual individual.

http://www.geocities.com/redtheory/redcritiqu e/NovDec02/designingclass.htm date=12.02.2005 15:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From the New York Times:

God and Evolution
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

...

That biological analysis turns out - surprise! - to have been superficial. Instead, modern science is turning up a possible reason why the religious right is flourishing and secular liberals aren't: instinct. It turns out that our DNA may predispose humans toward religious faith.
...

The notion of a genetic inclination toward religion is not new. Edward Wilson, the founder of the field of sociobiology, argued in the 1970's that a predisposition to religion may have had evolutionary advantages.

In recent years evidence has mounted that there may be something to this, and the evidence is explored in "The God Gene," a fascinating book published recently by Dean Hamer, a prominent American geneticist. Dr. Hamer even identifies a particular gene, VMAT2, that he says may be involved. People with one variant of that gene tend to be more spiritual, he found, and those with another variant to be less so.

There's still plenty of reason to be skeptical because Dr. Hamer's work hasn't been replicated, and much of his analysis is speculative. Moreover, any genetic predisposition isn't for becoming an evangelical, but for an openness to spirituality at a much broader level. In Alabama, it may express itself in Pentecostalism; in California, in astrology or pyramids.

... date=12.02.2005 15:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=allan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://rencontre-sexe.teou.info text=You have made a very nice website, congratulations.
rencontres - rencontre - code jeu pc date=12.02.2005 21:27 ip=172.187.137.23 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also related is the fact that humans are genetically predisposed to make a big deal about coincidences, after all they could be the seed for some sort of theory about how the world works. Facilitating the rise of religion, astrology and other mumbo jumbo. date=13.02.2005 15:03 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just discovered a great poetry blog, "The Clock's Loneliness". Even better than the poems are some of the comments on them: check out http://tinyurl.com/6ml9j date=14.02.2005 02:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>and other mumbo jumbo.

You mean like art and poetry? date=14.02.2005 12:01 ip=158.94.152.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes. And English GCSE essays. Coincidentally, I had a very artistic poetic night last night. date=14.02.2005 12:04 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Coincidentally, I had a very artistic poetic night last night.

Fantastic! You'll be the Pope or Mystic Meg before you know it! Also coincidentally, referring to yr blog, I'm currently in the middle of a discussion about the nature of melody on another forum. Which has been prompting me to look into musical theory again.

Must be the time of year for it. date=14.02.2005 12:18 ip=158.94.152.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Must be the time of year for it.

That, or the Colombian Cubensis. I think the latter, in my case.

(Also goes down very well with Werner Herzog, and Bruce Chatwin, and Claude Debussy. And goat's cheese, liquidized and spread on rice crackers). date=14.02.2005 12:20 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Werner Herzog, and Bruce Chatwin, and Claude Debussy. And goat's cheese, liquidized and spread on rice crackers

It so happens that we're going to be doing a live soundtrack to a Werner Herzog film in Bristol in March. But as I'm afraid we're not playing any Debussy or invoking the ghost of Chatwin, the chain stops here.

I might take yr advice on goat's cheese on rice crackers though. date=14.02.2005 12:26 ip=158.94.152.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Which film? I'm tempted to come to Bristol and see (and visit some of my old haunts as well). I recently bought the Herzog/Kinski boxed set, and have been stunned by the beauty and depth of the films: I wasn't really familiar with Herzog before.

Last night was Fitzcarraldo, the best of the lot. Now I must find time to listen to the director's commentary: they're almost as engaging as the films themselves. date=14.02.2005 12:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Fata Morgana, it's quite an early one with lots of beautiful shots of desert and heat haze and fuck-all happening. There's a voice giving some sort of mythic creation narrative over the top, so we might or might not have the subtitles from that going during our set. It's slightly Koyaanisqatsiesque(!) so we'll probably have to wheel out the Phillip Glass arpeggios.

It's going to be part of a Kosmische evening in Bristol, the Amal Gamal Orchestra will be playing and there'll be all sorts of other shit so it'll probably be quite fun. date=14.02.2005 12:43 ip=158.94.152.180 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Where is it? At the Arnolfini/Watershed? date=14.02.2005 12:46 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Cube Microplex. The details will, of course, appear on my site and KRMB as we get the full line-up confirmed. date=14.02.2005 12:51 ip=158.94.152.180 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was reading something in the Metro on the train about the government campaigning against middle class cocaine use. Drawing ethical shoppers attention to the "misery on the streets of London's estates and blood on the roads to Colombia and Afghanistan."

This from the people who brought you blood on roads of Iraq and the streets of Baghdad. But I guess it's hardly worth going into the sort of hypocrisy this represents when Burma, one the top holiday destinations for human rights violations, is also a world leader in heroin and amphetamine production. But are there plans for regime change there, are the US and the UK going to take the War on Drugs to Myanmar? I don't fucking think so!

Anyway, nice middle class people don't do skag - or at least only their fucked-up kids do, and they'd probably rather they curled up under a stone and died anyway. date=14.02.2005 13:38 ip=158.94.152.180 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: Poetry blog - thank you!

Perhaps we should send them something which has just appeared in the "Oxford Magazine." This ends:

"My lover reading, wine, the cat content.
If only this were the one world of thought
And I could end my grief for God the Father!"

Well, indeed. I think each of us, in a very real sense, it's hard to be a saint in the city, etc.

Exhibit A for that visit to Relate, I suppose. date=14.02.2005 17:36 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm currently in the middle of a discussion about the nature of melody on another forum
__________

Details please. date=15.02.2005 14:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was reading something in the Metro on the train about the government campaigning against middle class cocaine use. Drawing ethical shoppers attention to the "misery on the streets of London's estates and blood on the roads to Colombia and Afghanistan."
_____________

Of course this begs the question that maybe they know but they don´t care.
Call me naive but I don´t see the typical cocaine user as the sharing , caring kind.
I do think that the main use of this campaign ( and others of its kind) it is to convince the average punter that the goverment cares and it is seen doing something about this . date=15.02.2005 14:31 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Details please.

There's quite a lot of it:
http://tinyurl.com/4r7rs

>>Of course this begs the question that maybe they know but they don´t care.
Call me naive but I don´t see the typical cocaine user as the sharing , caring kind.
I do think that the main use of this campaign ( and others of its kind) it is to convince the average punter that the goverment cares and it is seen doing something about this .

Well, of course the answer is to legalise cocaine, then it wouldn't be such a valuable crop for funding guerilla activities, and law enforcement agencies could save money and resources on drug related policing. It would also make it easier and cheaper for Labour MPs to acquire something for the weekend. date=15.02.2005 16:19 ip=158.94.161.131 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, of course the answer is to legalise cocaine
_________________-

Yes. It is the reasonable thing to do but as James Branch Cabell said , intelligence is an admirable trait sadly it doesn´t run the world. date=15.02.2005 16:21 ip=80.58.4.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just wish they'd legalise climbing. I'm so tired of sneaking around from one seedy East End venue to the next, never knowing if the soft-voiced spiv who takes my money is part of some police sting operation. date=17.02.2005 13:10 ip=213.78.94.12 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Locus has included "Tourism" in their recomended reading list for 2004
http://www.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/02RecommendedReadi ng.html date=17.02.2005 15:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And Ligth is still there at the best-sellers list !
https://secure.locusmag.com/2005/Issues/02LocusBestseller s.html date=17.02.2005 15:03 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Back on Amazon, in the mean time, *real* science fiction has found the kick-ass audience it deserves:

"Having not read the other books in the series (yet) I cannot compare Ghostmaker to Dan Abnett's other works. But I can say he is one of the most talented writers in this age.

" The structure of the story is based on the Ghosts of the destroyed planet Tanith preparing for an assault on a Jungle planet Monthax - "

One to watch, clearly. date=17.02.2005 16:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=One to watch, clearly.
______-

Those books remind me of Casablanca , if I were to think of them surely I wouldn´t hold them in too high a regard. date=17.02.2005 16:04 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Mr Abnett's epics: I got to review some of those once.

A bit like a bad modern US war movie, all "Navy Seals" meets "Guns'n'Ammo". In space. Truly terrifying that these things find an audience, or at least such an enthusiastic one. Not only that, but I felt that they were a bit of a missed opportunity; one was called "Guns of Tanith", and unfortunately featured not a word about Ms. Lee's MP5 collection.

I'll get my coat... date=17.02.2005 17:55 ip=195.92.67.208 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, we also get -

"Sniper Master 'Mad' Larkin firing the one shot
which destroys a chaos warlord, and Scout Sergant [sic] Mkoll taking out a blind dreadnaught in almost complete silence."

Maybe he just leaves the page completely blank to convey that. Or almost completely blank: who knows?

The other 'Casablanca' line comes to mind, about it not amounting to a hill of beans. But at least writing it paid off the rent. Possibly. date=17.02.2005 18:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Will we be expecting large-type editions of the MJH backcatalogue any time soon?

http://tinyurl.com/6mrdv date=18.02.2005 13:26 ip=158.94.186.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was a braille edition of The Committed Men. Does that count ? date=18.02.2005 13:39 ip=213.78.78.15 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just hope China's books don't start coming out in supersize editions: they're big enough already. Would you like a forklift with yr supersized Iron Council, sir? date=18.02.2005 13:49 ip=158.94.186.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=- ... and if you are getting the sequel to "Jonathan Strange" well´be glad to lend you our van. date=18.02.2005 20:02 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Precisely. And for all those ageing fantasists, transporting home their new set of Lord of the Rings will be a daunting prospect. date=18.02.2005 21:45 ip=81.153.4.80 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Scientists really want some kid to have a poster of this on their wall, as they did pictures of the Moon.

Massaging the images:

http://tinyurl.com/4cbog date=19.02.2005 11:10 ip=158.94.191.120 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My review of Jim Perrin's excellent biography "The Villain" in the Grauniad today. Jim peels away the layers of mythology to reveal a somewhat less than likeable human being beneath, and asks why British climbers of the 1950s & 60s wanted to see themselves through the Whillans prism. The answer comes loud & clear: Because he dobbed people in pubs. date=19.02.2005 11:49 ip=213.78.171.195 name=hbox mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The banks and the royal blood families are the real power behind the governments. They are pushing satan´s agenda to rule the world, and they are doing it since the Roman Empire. They have created the illusion we see on the news, they have created international terrorism only because they want to make a great world crisis. This crisis will be a global one and it will be a third world war. There is a letter that albert pike wrote more than 100 years ago that predicts three world wars, the first two have been done like the letter told, and the third one was to be between israel and the moslem world. Go to http://www.etherzone.com/2004/mako081604.shtml for more information about this letter.
Don´t be happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way."
Franklin Delanodeceived, all is planned like the two previous wars. Look what Roosevelt said:
"In politics, nothing Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
Roosevelt was one of them, like Hitler or Stalin, they are all satan´s puppets. Today it´s the same. Bush, Sharon, Putin, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Saddam and even Arafat who is died "officially" receive orders from the hidden hand.
Their goal is to achieve a new world order, that will be basically a one world government, where they will have total control of people´s lifes, including the religious aspect. Christians will not be accepted in this new establishment.
They want to exterminate most of the world citizens, making this to appear as being the result of conflicts and divisions between the countries and world religions in order to present to the world their leader as the saviour of mankind, founding by this way the global government and destroying Christianity. Everybody must convert to the satanism dressed of New Age doctrine that they will present or be exterminated.
Does this plan sound familiar to you?. Yes, it´s the kingdom of the beast that we have been forewarned by Jesus, the prophets and Revelation. If you want more information you can go to this webpages:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com http://www.sherryshriner.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ date=20.02.2005 18:39 ip=80.58.35.107 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Glad to know that our own Mr.Zapatero is not one of them Satan´s pupets date=20.02.2005 21:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry to delete the post you referred to Arturo. But it seems like it was posted by a cocksucker. date=21.02.2005 00:36 ip=217.43.19.42 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Never mind , Io. date=21.02.2005 00:50 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Goodbye Hunter S Thompson:

http://tinyurl.com/692zx date=21.02.2005 09:49 ip=217.43.22.245 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike: great review as well. Made me long to read the book. date=21.02.2005 09:57 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=HST: Bleak and dreadful news. But: "I piss down the throats of these Nazis" - I'd be happy with those (nearly) last words.

http://tinyurl.com/6s8ru date=21.02.2005 11:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=hbox mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The banks and the royal blood families are the real power behind the governments. They are pushing satan´s agenda to rule the world, and they are doing it since the Roman Empire. They have created the illusion we see on the news, they have created international terrorism only because they want to make a great world crisis. This crisis will be a global one and it will be a third world war. There is a letter that albert pike wrote more than 100 years ago that predicts three world wars, the first two have been done like the letter told, and the third one was to be between israel and the moslem world. Go to http://www.etherzone.com/2004/mako081604.shtml for more information about this letter.
Don´t be deceived, all is planned like the two previous wars. Look what Roosevelt said:
"In politics, nothing happens by accident, If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
Roosevelt was one of them, like Hitler or Stalin, they are all satan´s puppets. Today it´s the same. Bush, Sharon, Putin, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Saddam and even Arafat who is died "officially" receive orders from the hidden hand.
Their goal is to achieve a new world order, that will be basically a one world government, where they will have total control of people´s lifes, including the religious aspect. Christians will not be accepted in this new establishment.
They want to exterminate most of the world citizens, making this to appear as being the result of conflicts and divisions between the countries and world religions in order to present to the world their leader as the saviour of mankind, founding by this way the global government and destroying Christianity. Everybody must convert to the satanism dressed of New Age doctrine that they will present or be exterminated.
Does this plan sound familiar to you?. Yes, it´s the kingdom of the beast that we have been forewarned by Jesus, the prophets and Revelation. If you want more information you can go to this webpages:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com http://www.sherryshriner.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ date=21.02.2005 12:25 ip=80.58.35.107 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sad to see Hunter go. Apparently he shot himself; one can only wonder who he was aiming at... date=21.02.2005 17:22 ip=195.92.67.76 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=His typewriter again, I expect. For me, shooting an IBM Selectric with a .445 magnum revolver remains the single most acute act of journalism of the 20th Century. I hope he continues to rage through the Afterworld, clinging grimly to the handlebars of a Ducati 900 going JESUS CHRIST! while the rest of him streams out behind it like a flag, in search of the Silver Illusion Fun. date=21.02.2005 18:43 ip=213.78.81.80 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=There was madness in any direction, at any hour. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, we were winning....

And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave....

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back date=22.02.2005 10:52 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My favourite piece of writing, of all time. Tribute to HST: date=22.02.2005 10:53 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Wonderful, isn't it? He always wanted to write something as good as F. Scott Fitzgerald, and there it is. date=22.02.2005 11:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not forgetting this machete to Nixon's rotten corpse:

http://tinyurl.com/4utqa date=22.02.2005 17:16 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back

Thirty-odd years later we're right back at the beginning again and none of it might have happened. In fact we have to look at the possibility that it didn't happen, ever, anywhere, and the wave was just another passing hallucination of the West. Good job, really, or we might have had to give up some of the nice things we have. & that would never do. date=22.02.2005 17:17 ip=213.78.84.253 name=Forester mail=forik@moemiolo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://poker.casino-top.org/video-poker.htm text=your website is one of the greatest that i have been to and i would like to express my gratitude for all that you do to keep it up. date=22.02.2005 20:02 ip=66.90.81.20 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On hearing the news on Hunther Thompson, I remenbered the poem " In memory of W.B. Yeats" that he used as a preface to "Generaton of swine" date=23.02.2005 00:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=RussoEnt mail=russoent@mail.ru icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.razvlekis.ru text=Hi there
what do u think about Russia and russian enternatnment web-portals?

thx date=23.02.2005 05:33 ip=208.4.85.110 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, more to the point, what are we *supposed* to think about Russian web PORTALS? date=23.02.2005 10:13 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think we're rather intolerant and consider them to be spam. So they get deleted. date=23.02.2005 10:16 ip=81.153.4.77 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yep, it's a totalitarian state. date=23.02.2005 10:41 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

From Pere Ubu's web site date=23.02.2005 10:57 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This, too:

http://tinyurl.com/5ogmw date=23.02.2005 16:48 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very droll. date=23.02.2005 17:00 ip=213.78.72.76 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More prosaically, one of Thompson's friends was quoted as saying he was in such agony from treatment for his broken leg that he simply couldn't go on. date=23.02.2005 17:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading Kafka on the shore . The line "In dreams begin responsabilies" is discussed and credited to Yeats. I do think that it is by somebody else . Delmore Swartz? date=23.02.2005 20:55 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Yeats's epigram, Schwartz's short-story title.

Can't find it online, but there's a photo in Gore Vidal's memoir "Palimpsest" that shows him, Auden, Tennessee Williams, and several other writers at a reception for the Sitwells in a NY bookstore. Schwartz is at the front of the picture, looking like Fatty Arbuckle's disturbed cousin in a rumpled suit. This was before he started teaching Lou Reed, too. date=24.02.2005 10:38 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=- and speaking of Lou:

Some people look good in designer bondage gear; some don't. Check the stills for his new video of "Walk on the Wild Side" and see what you think.

Scroll the main page, and you get an even scarier proposition. A clock download where Lou tells you the time, and also what you should be doing with it. How untypical.

http://tinyurl.com/5lo6b date=24.02.2005 18:44 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin : So that is it. Finished reading “ Kafka on the shore” and I liked it a lot and sorry but I can’t but disagree with David Mitchell´s review in The Guardian, I found crystal clear most of the twists he found shady. Miss’s Sakai discourse on throwing away something precious can only have one meaning, the meeting between Jack Daniels and the boy named crow , Jack states out quite clearly what is crow and so on.
By the way, I didn’t find in the on-line versions of the Auden poem the stanza than Thompson quotes “ Time will pardon him for writing well” Are there various versions?
Also on Thompson: the quote from Pere Ubu´s site is somewhat off kilter. From “Generation of Swine”
“The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench.. Where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. Which is more or lees true “. date=24.02.2005 22:54 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> and speaking of Lou:

Actually I found the photos disturbing. I was wondering if, by the time I'd scrolled all the way to the left, Vaclav Havel would be playing the sax.

Still, that's the Czech Republic for you. Lovely place, but in serious danger from hippyish propositions such as making Zappa the "Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism". Goofy jazz-rock improv and politics shd always be kept at arms length from one another. The risks of doing otherwise can be seen in much of Zappa's more questionable output. date=25.02.2005 08:48 ip=217.43.20.181 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I don't know - the verse hasn't been altered or suppressed, so far as I know, but it may have been dropped to fudge copyright or avoid a knotted footnote about why time should pardon Kipling or Paul Claudel in the first palce.

Io: Personally, the pictures look as if we've stumbled on a weird uncle's private ritual, seconds before he pops the satsuma in his mouth. It's all very knowing: with Laurie Anderson hovering in the background, I'm sure they're meant to expose our reactions to pensioner sex and non-vanilla escapades, but - probably like John Cale, if he ever sees them - my first reaction was a broad and toothless grin. date=25.02.2005 11:45 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I'm sure they're meant to expose our reactions to pensioner sex and non-vanilla escapades

And that "leather jeans and a paunch" look has to be *the* fashion statement of the moment. date=25.02.2005 12:17 ip=217.43.19.46 name=hbox mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The banks and the royal blood families are the real power behind the governments. They are pushing satan´s agenda to rule the world, and they are doing it since the Roman Empire. They have created the illusion we see on the news, they have created international terrorism only because they want to make a great world crisis. This crisis will be a global one and it will be a third world war. There is a letter that albert pike wrote more than 100 years ago that predicts three world wars, the first two have been done like the letter told, and the third one was to be between israel and the moslem world. Go to http://www.etherzone.com/2004/mako081604.shtml for more information about this letter.
Don´t be deceived, all is planned like the two previous wars. Look what Roosevelt said:
"In politics, nothing happens by accident, If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
Roosevelt was one of them, like Hitler or Stalin, they are all satan´s puppets. Today it´s the same. Bush, Sharon, Putin, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Saddam and even Arafat who is died "officially" receive orders from the hidden hand.
Their goal is to achieve a new world order, that will be basically a one world government, where they will have total control of people´s lifes, including the religious aspect. Christians will not be accepted in this new establishment.
They want to exterminate most of the world citizens, making this to appear as being the result of conflicts and divisions between the countries and world religions in order to present to the world the fallen angels (aliens) and his leader as the saviours of mankind, founding by this way the global government and destroying Christianity. Everybody must convert to the satanism dressed of New Age doctrine that they will present or be exterminated.
Does this plan sound familiar to you?. Yes, it´s the kingdom of the beast that we have been forewarned by Jesus, the prophets and Revelation. If you want more information you can go to this webpages:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com http://www.sherryshriner.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ date=25.02.2005 15:17 ip=80.58.35.107 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yes, but the Lobster Gods from Beyond the Stars: where do they fit in ? How can you say you're in possession of the truth, when you haven't once mentioned them ? date=25.02.2005 15:58 ip=213.78.94.136 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, io, you took my nutter away. date=25.02.2005 15:59 ip=213.78.94.136 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, I missed him too!

But Lou in that outfit could well *be* a Lobster God: he must have it in him. date=25.02.2005 16:27 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He has a lobster in him! He has a lobster in him.

Did I ever tell you, I once met a man playing a lobster theremin. Not only that, but the world's _only_ lobster theremin. Or so he claimed, and who am I to doubt him? date=25.02.2005 17:15 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan - No: you didn't!

Where? How? date=25.02.2005 17:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Hey, io, you took my nutter away.

Sorry Mike. Only room for one nutter here. date=25.02.2005 18:07 ip=81.153.6.140 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bugger. date=25.02.2005 18:43 ip=213.116.54.139 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh okay. Here he is again, reanimated by my frightening lobster-given powers (which allow me to play a mean theremin!):

[/i]
The banks and the royal blood families are the real power behind the governments. They are pushing satan´s agenda to rule the world, and they are doing it since the Roman Empire. They have created the illusion we see on the news, they have created international terrorism only because they want to make a great world crisis. This crisis will be a global one and it will be a third world war. There is a letter that albert pike wrote more than 100 years ago that predicts three world wars, the first two have been done like the letter told, and the third one was to be between israel and the moslem world. Go to http://www.etherzone.com/2004/mako081604.shtml for more information about this letter.
Don´t be deceived, all is planned like the two previous wars. Look what Roosevelt said:
"In politics, nothing happens by accident, If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
Roosevelt was one of them, like Hitler or Stalin, they are all satan´s puppets. Today it´s the same. Bush, Sharon, Putin, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Saddam and even Arafat who is died "officially" receive orders from the hidden hand.
Their goal is to achieve a new world order, that will be basically a one world government, where they will have total control of people´s lifes, including the religious aspect. Christians will not be accepted in this new establishment.
They want to exterminate most of the world citizens, making this to appear as being the result of conflicts and divisions between the countries and world religions in order to present to the world their leader as the saviour of mankind, founding by this way the global government and destroying Christianity. Everybody must convert to the satanism dressed of New Age doctrine that they will present or be exterminated.
Does this plan sound familiar to you?. Yes, it´s the kingdom of the beast that we have been forewarned by Jesus, the prophets and Revelation. If you want more information you can go to this webpages:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com http://www.sherryshriner.com/ http://www.infowars.com/
[/i] date=25.02.2005 19:11 ip=81.153.6.140 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh okay. Here he is again, reanimated by my lobster-given powers (that allow me to play a mean theremin):

The banks and the royal blood families are the real power behind the governments. They are pushing satan´s agenda to rule the world, and they are doing it since the Roman Empire. They have created the illusion we see on the news, they have created international terrorism only because they want to make a great world crisis. This crisis will be a global one and it will be a third world war. There is a letter that albert pike wrote more than 100 years ago that predicts three world wars, the first two have been done like the letter told, and the third one was to be between israel and the moslem world. Go to http://www.etherzone.com/2004/mako081604.shtml for more information about this letter.
Don´t be deceived, all is planned like the two previous wars. Look what Roosevelt said:
"In politics, nothing happens by accident, If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President
Roosevelt was one of them, like Hitler or Stalin, they are all satan´s puppets. Today it´s the same. Bush, Sharon, Putin, Schroeder, Chirac, Blair, Saddam and even Arafat who is died "officially" receive orders from the hidden hand.
Their goal is to achieve a new world order, that will be basically a one world government, where they will have total control of people´s lifes, including the religious aspect. Christians will not be accepted in this new establishment.
They want to exterminate most of the world citizens, making this to appear as being the result of conflicts and divisions between the countries and world religions in order to present to the world their leader as the saviour of mankind, founding by this way the global government and destroying Christianity. Everybody must convert to the satanism dressed of New Age doctrine that they will present or be exterminated.
Does this plan sound familiar to you?. Yes, it´s the kingdom of the beast that we have been forewarned by Jesus, the prophets and Revelation. If you want more information you can go to this webpages:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com http://www.sherryshriner.com/ http://www.infowars.com/ date=25.02.2005 19:13 ip=81.153.6.140 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And the lizards. Sorry, reptiles. Don't forget the reptiles.

>> Where? How?

At Husky Studios, Kennington. We heard the most incredible noise coming from next-door. Several minutes later a guy walked through the door of our room holding a plastic lobster with a metal rod sticking out of its underside, a cable trailing from the end of its tail and into next door's studio. He waved his arm gently over the rod to the accompaniment of distorted wailings of pain seething through the wall. "Wanna hear my lobster theremin", he enquired of no-one in particular, before our drummer piped up "Bloody hell, it's George!" (he was probably called George, though it's hard to be sure). It turned out they had played in a band together, many years before. George was another ad-agency creative gone off the rails. There's a lot of them about. But only one of them has a lobster theremin. (Others may possess only crab maracas or their functional equivalent). date=25.02.2005 19:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=As the nutter is back from limbo. Let me point out to that our very own Mr.Zapatero is not one of them Satan´s Puppets and I am sure that there must be a pulp story by that title .(Either that or a Biker gang) date=25.02.2005 20:09 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=By the way , the net version of the raven is brilliant. date=25.02.2005 20:16 ip=80.58.4.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7050

This, not making armies of clones for spare parts, is why people can't be trusted with bioengineering. It's also the way things will develop for that industry, because cheap and stupid stuff always slips under the radar, past the controls and round the public debates. Along with cosmetic surgery applications, it's where biotech will really get going. We're unerringly drawn to anything tacky. As for not making a commercial venture of it: if they don't, someone else will, and in three year's time the really downscale version--own a bondage helmet made from your pet dog's intestines--will be freely available on the Shopping Channel. Roll on full nuclear war, & save the universe from Uncle Zip. date=26.02.2005 11:26 ip=213.78.67.30 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike,
Sounds very fishy to me.
I followed the link to the original and found that
"Details on relevant areas of discussion and debate will follow soon. "
After reading "Frankestein´s footsteps" by Jon Turney , I think that biotech has a long story of overblown claims.
Then again if they really can do it , I think you are absolutely rigth date=26.02.2005 22:21 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>biotech has a long story of overblown claims

Quite. But as an index of what we're dreaming it continues to reveal the worst in us. I wouldn't go a step back from the crucial passage in Signs of Life, the paragraph that begins "Budapest is a prime site for dreams", goes on to describe the Budapest Treaty, which governed the patenting of engineered micro organisms as "a dream of a treaty" and ends up-- "commercial biotechnology dreamed its own dream here, and was brought forth in a welter of kitsch and whipped cream".

The things we think we want define us. Our bone ring nerds describe the exact limitations of their imagination, both commercial and political, by the kind of product they imagine biotech *might* be capable of producing. (What frightens me is that this amazing weakness of the scientific imagination & ambition parallels so completely the weakness of (a) the sf imagination, and (b) the imagination of the business community. All three produce similarly Mickey Mouse ideas. Nobody looks forward to anything worthwhile anymore.) date=27.02.2005 18:26 ip=213.78.71.142 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>the imagination of the business community.

Further proof of that.

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cf m?story_id=3171407 date=27.02.2005 20:01 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry to come in off-topic, but there's a decent if somewhat skimpy HPL article by Michael Dirda over at:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/0 00/000/005/285tmhfa.asp

In which we learn that he once entered an ice-cream eating contest, and was offered the editorship of a publication entitled the "Magazine of Fun".

Which I would've liked to have read... date=27.02.2005 22:04 ip=195.92.67.76 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That nutter: world government without Christians - someone's actually worried?

That biotech: the pooch-gut fladge hat - favourite cats would look at me askance, with good reason.

That "Magazine of Fun": a colour-in-Cthulu picture, and a "where's Wally" chart for you to pick out the rats in the walls - a bit like having Rosemary West as guest editor on "People's Friend." You can imagine the joke page, too:

- My Outsider's got no nose ...

- How do you get two Dunwich Horrors into a Model T Ford ...

- This 3-lobed burning eye walked into a bar ... date=28.02.2005 11:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>pooch-gut fladge hat...

Isn't that a Beefheart album? date=28.02.2005 11:30 ip=158.94.181.38 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: It should be!

I was in Kearney territory without knowing it, though: parallel computers and all that:

http://daugerresearch.com/pooch/top.html date=28.02.2005 12:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And just as I was barricading myself in against the Lobster Gods:

http://tinyurl.com/5ucaq date=28.02.2005 12:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>"They're working hard for world domination, so the Antichrist will easily ascend to power. And the horrifying thing is that they're succeeding."

Well, thank God for that! We wouldn't like to think that the World Satanic Conspiracy are a bunch of lazy layabouts. And of course, this is the key to world domination: hard graft. You don't get Supreme Earthly Power handed to you on a plate, my boy! It's all very nice and cushy for these Messiahs who are born with power, glory, grace and ineffable mystery - they just don't appreciate what they've got: Let this cup pass from me, indeed. Whining maggot! date=28.02.2005 13:27 ip=158.94.181.38 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Weren't Bush and Kerry both inducted into a sinister occult organisation as students? I remember listening to a radio program about it. It was disturbing, a kind of ultra masonic organisation for America's wealthiest families. Ritual slaughtering, bizarre rites, dressing up and behavioural aberrations - these were the required codifications to become members of its elite club. date=28.02.2005 13:57 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Satan´s Puppets Galore : Conspiracy nuts out there should note that Madrid is the only european capital with a monument to his satanic majesty Lucifer. Maybe that explains something.
Fun magazine: Ages ago Alan Moore said that he was working on a big book of magic for children . date=28.02.2005 14:46 ip=62.15.140.66 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Weren't Bush and Kerry both inducted into a sinister >occult organisation as students?
Yes. The skulls and bones or something. date=28.02.2005 14:47 ip=62.15.140.66 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>A monument to his satanic majesty...

What is it ..? date=28.02.2005 15:04 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a "where's Wally" chart for you to pick out the rats in the walls

Shouldn't that be "Where's Whateley?"... Spot the goat-like spawn of Yog-Sothoth in a crowd of Arkham residents. date=28.02.2005 15:12 ip=193.109.51.228 name=Ben Wooller mail=ben.wooller@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://livejournal.com/~wooller text=Arturo: I thought Moore meant Promethea (which just finished) to be his "Magic Book for Kids"? date=28.02.2005 15:35 ip=61.68.192.135 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alan's ostensible "grimoire" is separate from Promethea, intended to be titled something like "Alan Moore's Bumper Book of Magic". I know he wants all the usual suspects in there, he's asked me to do something a couple of times (no idea what though...) and I imagine he's asked Arturo's very talented brother the same. date=28.02.2005 15:52 ip=193.109.51.228 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP/Arturo: The bizarre backwoods club is Bohemian Grove, where - allegedly - you can join Henry Kissinger for a spot of of outdoor urination and owl burning:

http://tinyurl.com/4qnu3 date=28.02.2005 16:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The occult student organization is Yale's Skull & Bones - thanks to Tom M. for this link:

http://tinyurl.com/35ckm date=28.02.2005 16:57 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>A monument to his satanic majesty...

>What is it ..?

A fountain in the middle of the Retiro Park in the center of Madrid.
http://www.fotomaf.com/albums/FotosDeMadrid/Lucifer .jpg date=28.02.2005 22:47 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi John C:
Thanks for the kind words for José. date=28.02.2005 22:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well , not a magazine but it is "Fun with the Ancient Ones" galore

http://tinyurl.com/7aal date=28.02.2005 23:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Ben Wooller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C: that's even better! Cheers. date=01.03.2005 07:52 ip=61.68.195.28 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ishiguru's new one, apparently it's sf but set in the recent past. Anyone going to read it? Sounds intruiging. I read McEwan's Saturday, which I thought pretty ok. Bit too cosy but ok. Interestingly Saturday relies heavily on its depiction of medicine, neurosurgery, as the source of its values, which is - almost at least - just another sf manouevre. The way that Darwinist ideas and structures form the basis for 'explaining society'; the fact that we exist. Give Saturday a slight twist and a more realistic sustained picture of social chaos and it would be bleak; fully realised in fact. date=01.03.2005 11:18 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More book-chat - Peter Hook: "He went up to William Burroughs and he said: ' Ey up, I'm Ian Curtis and I'm in a band. Can I have a free book?' Burroughs looked at him and said: 'Fuck off, kid.' We were killin' ourselves!" date=01.03.2005 13:17 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ishiguru's new one, apparently it's sf but set in the recent past. Anyone going to read it? Sounds intruiging
_____
Maybe . More info please. date=01.03.2005 16:20 ip=80.58.4.107 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo. From Amazon: "the haunting story of how Kathy, Ruth and Tommy, slowly come to face the truth about their seemingly happy childhoods - and about their futures. Never Let Me Go is uniquely moving novel, charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of our lives."

As far as I know it is about children cloned for the use of their organs. That is the surface idea anyway. What it concerns more than that, judging from the reviews I have read, is how little we control our lives and the degree to which we are mere social products. Sounds great to me. The story is idea driven, not character driven, set in an eerily empty England where all the usual reference points have been removed, seem not to exist. date=01.03.2005 16:45 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I believe there is something about this book forthcoming from Herr Harrison in a larger venue than this. date=01.03.2005 17:11 ip=158.94.188.246 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Damn, he always gets there first. date=01.03.2005 17:57 ip=81.19.57.130 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I believe there is something about this book forthcoming from Herr Harrison in a larger venue than this.

You mean this one?

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0 ,6121,1425209,00.html date=01.03.2005 20:00 ip=193.109.51.228 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah yes, that was it! date=01.03.2005 21:49 ip=81.154.110.128 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Lobster Gods have come! And one's called Bubba ...

http://tinyurl.com/4b9l6 date=02.03.2005 14:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>What range of emotions does a lobster have?

Indeed. Makes you think... Well, it made me think. date=02.03.2005 15:07 ip=195.92.67.78 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The coment about Ishiguro´s novel being set in the past , an alternate past to boot, made me wonder if we still belive in having a future.

On the other hand, here is a future worth looking backwards for

http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm date=02.03.2005 15:25 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Indeed. Makes you think... Well, it made me think.

I'm sure the lobsters are touched deeply by that sentiment. date=02.03.2005 15:27 ip=158.94.133.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>A future ...

With Thatcher, the political locus shifted to reclaiming the past as a fertile site for reforming the present. I thought about this when reading about the fundamentalist Christian protests to "Jerry Springer: the Opera." As the link below notes, their mission is to return us "to the 1950s ... [when] Britain was a Christian country." Decoded, I think this means everything should shut on Sundays, foreigners and gays can be assaulted or blackmailed to your heart's content, and we ought to reintroduce rationing and invade Suez immediately. One cannot wait, can one.

http://tinyurl.com/6mc65 date=02.03.2005 16:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=They also persuaded cancer charity Maggie's Centres to turn down a £3,000 donation from the show, threatening demonstrations
__________________________
!!!!! date=02.03.2005 22:35 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, wait - the lobsters have their own god, and they all live inside Robert Silverberg's head: wow!

http://tinyurl.com/65s39 date=03.03.2005 12:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But bear in mind Leviticus.
http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/ date=03.03.2005 13:51 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At last we know why the country's in the state it's in: sodomitic crayfish. Precisely the sort of slippery little customers the Home Secretary should be placing under house arrest without trial. If only we'd listened to Kilroy, etc.

The "shrimp butler" looks pretty neat, though - in a Kafka, "Penal Colony" kind of way. Cracking action in the kitchens of the vicious. date=03.03.2005 14:11 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not to break th eflow of what's going on here, but a there are a few things this crowd might find interesting:

1. The neighborhood bookstore here in Brooklyn where I oredered Course of the Heart is now big into MJH. The owner read the other copy that came in with mine and now keeps you in stock. Apparently you're selling well here in Brooklyn...

2. I read "Science and the Arts" last night. Wow. Even had weird dreams about it.

3. Some day, I really will post my thoughts/questions about CoTH.

So now a question: MJH, I'm comfortable calling myself a fan at this point, but as a forensic psychology student I've taken an oath to avoid all fiction that is about serial killers. There's a serial killer in Light...I bought Light two days ago to read while my band is on tour. Oh, the conflict.

I've met a lot of serial killers through work. God, they are so boring.

Is the serial killer in light glamorized in any way? I need to know... ;) date=03.03.2005 20:52 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave,
I should say that Seria Mau also qualifies as a serial killer. date=03.03.2005 22:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave, Arturo. Nice to be popular in Brooklyn...

I'd say he was anti-glamourised. You won't find a character harder to identify with. Same goes for Seria Mau. You wouldn't want to be them. I was anxious the violence shouldn't be in any way palatable, and there are no good guy vs bad guy excuses for it either. This has made Light a bete noir of sf readers who like their heroes to have the usual righteous excuse to go ape.

I have to add also that he's not supposed to be a realistic picture of serial killer. You'll see why if you break your vow... date=03.03.2005 23:38 ip=213.116.58.208 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: "Science & the Arts" is my favourite story of mine. Glad it made itself felt. date=03.03.2005 23:40 ip=213.116.58.208 name=Steven mail=Steven23@excite.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=178 url=http://antyk.only.pl/ text=Great site! You're providing usefull info to the world. date=04.03.2005 09:58 ip=207.248.240.119 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Break the flow ... Dave, *anything* to take our minds off the eldritch horror of the Lobster Gods.

Steven: glad you found us! What's happening with you? date=04.03.2005 10:50 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=From and interview with the mad & beautiful Emir Kusturica--

"In Serbia a lot of people hate me because they want to westernise, not understanding that the western world is bipolar, with very good things and very bad things. Since they don't have experience of the west, they even believe that western shit is pie." Given that the prophets of the free market in Serbia often tend to be the same gangsters, war profiteers, smugglers and chancers that Kusturica lampoons in his films, you can see his logic.

Kusturica is even planning a film as a part of his crusade against consumerism, where the daughter of a prostitute flees the city with a country boy. "They say that I am a conservative, but I am not. I want there to be an alternative, to have other options rather than just this one authoritarian, corporate model. To me there has been a tectonic change in the world and corporate control has become the new bolshevism..."

The rest of the interview at--
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0, 6737,1429569,00.html

Part of me hopes he doesn't cut his new film. Else how will I see it ? date=04.03.2005 11:26 ip=213.116.50.54 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That, of course, should be, "I hope he does cut his new film". date=04.03.2005 12:17 ip=213.78.79.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't see why the censor flinched at a dead pigeon, though: there look to be about 100 in "24 Hour Party People."

I haven't seen any Kusturica. Where should I start?

Adding to the sorrow over HST's death is the fact he won't be reporting on the Michael Jackson trial: the witnesses are already speaking his language. According to the BBC, film exists to make the child's mother "look like a crack whore," and Jackson's PA thought the family had been "hunted down like dogs and brought back to the ranch." Indeed. This is savage and unnatural stuff. date=04.03.2005 12:42 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Martin. Black Cat White Cat is the obvious place to start with Kusturika. I think Dan said he had a DVD of it, so it must be available. Failing that, they seem to show it every six months at the Riverside in Hammersmith. The audience is mostly Serbian and they laugh a lot. The only person who laughs more is me. date=04.03.2005 13:20 ip=213.78.79.107 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: Great - I'll check out the DVD. I got a player a couple of months ago, so I've been going through library copies of things like "Mirror" and "Blow Up" that I haven't seen in years. "Blow Up" is as haunting as I remember, but has *the* most pointless voice-over extra by an American academic. After that, it was the first series of "Father Ted" and some deliberate comedy. date=04.03.2005 13:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of Mirror, there's a Tarkovsky season on at the NFT next week or the week after. They've got everything, including Killers which you don't see often. date=04.03.2005 14:32 ip=213.78.94.153 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tonight or 14 March, it seems. I'd no idea he'd ever filmed Hemingway.

http://www.bfi.org.uk/showing/nft/tarkovsky/ date=04.03.2005 14:54 ip=193.63.239.165 name=aztec mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.xhard.biz text=Very interesting things on your website, thanks for that.
hard - photos - videos date=04.03.2005 17:32 ip=172.206.7.182 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, while you are at it check out Kusturicas´s music. Brilliant. He played Madrid a little while ago. Black cat white cat must hold the record as the longest playing film in Madrid. It is been there for years.
Mike: I just realized that there is a White cat, Black cat mofit in Ligth. date=04.03.2005 19:08 ip=80.58.4.172 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah ha. There you go, you see, Arturo. There is indeed. It's a reference to the movie, and to a specific scene in the movie. Never say I'm not a barrowload of snakes. date=04.03.2005 19:46 ip=213.78.79.220 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike : I´ll have to see the movie again.
On the music :
http://www.emirkusturica-nosmoking.com/eng/index.html date=04.03.2005 20:28 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Paul mail=paul_b_turner@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH

Are you a fan of Mervyn Peake?

Reading Light at the mo' and enjoying it. date=06.03.2005 18:11 ip=66.193.38.118 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Paul. I liked him a lot when I was younger--we all did--but I haven't read him since the late 70s. Glad you're enjoying Light. date=06.03.2005 19:11 ip=213.78.81.92 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Something just occurred to me today that probably shd have occurred to me before:

Is scale a dimension?

Yes, it doesn't have extension like the three spatial dimensions, but then again neither does time. Assuming we are accepting time as a dimension.

Sorry, no idea where this came from but I suppose it's tangentially related to Light. date=06.03.2005 21:46 ip=81.153.231.121 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Scale like in size? date=06.03.2005 23:39 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Coach mail=coach@murzilka.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://tropicana-casino.casino-top.org/ text=Big up. Really nice site. I think you get first place. date=07.03.2005 06:13 ip=66.90.81.20 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the one. I was just thinking about directions of travel, and it got me wondering whether moving into and out of the detail of the picture is another vector like the X, Y and Z axes. Certainly we can't actually move *ourselves* up and down the zoom dimension but there are limits to movement in the time axis too.

The devil's in the detail. date=07.03.2005 10:44 ip=158.94.164.155 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike,

It was actually a video of Black Cat, White Cat, which my dad recorded off the TV. Seems that it's only out on VHS (from Artificial Eye) and Amazon don't stock it.

I was reading some reviews of the film after re-watching it. Was surprised (especially in light of Kusturica's quote in the Guardian article) to see Philip French compare it (unfavourably) to Hollywood comedy or a Carry On film. But then, French does seem to adopt a deliberately provocative view sometimes, and I often find myself disagreeing with him.

Gill preferred The Time of the Gypsies to Black Cat, White Cat, I think for similar reasons to Philip French. Me: I rate all the films I've seen by Kusturica (the two mentioned plus Underground) are masterpieces, though BC, WC is the funniest, most polished & has the best music.

I can't wait until Friday! date=07.03.2005 13:45 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Regarding Tarkovsky: Tempo di Viagio or however you spell it is, I think, on the Nostalgia DVD. The Stalker DVD contains a short documentary plus the Violin film. The Sacrifice DVD also contains a fascinating documentary. The main reason for me to see films that I watch regularly at home anyway would be to see them 'full size' again. I tend to just watch them on my laptop + sound system. Had no idea that Tarkovsky did a short film of The Killers. Yippee. date=07.03.2005 15:26 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Massed CD/DVD time in front me, clearly - if I can find the things! Thank you, everybody. Meanwhile, I've got a download cd on repeat, with Arcade Fire's live version of T. Heads' "This Must Be the Place," with (I think) Byrne on vocals. Worth a long surf to find.

MJP: I'm in awe of "Nostlagia," but all the on-line reviews criticise Artifial Eye's sound quality. What do you think?

Peake: his son Sebastian is talking in Oxford tomorrow lunch-time. I'll do my best to get there! date=07.03.2005 16:40 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's the one. I was just thinking about directions of travel,
_______________

Shouldn´t that be travel arrangements ?
I don´t know if it is a dimension but certainly our frames of recognition depend on the scale of detail. date=07.03.2005 16:47 ip=80.58.4.172 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Shouldn´t that be travel arrangements ?

Indeed.

Perhaps it's a matter of relationship. Dimensions give the proportions of the pattern while scale sets a context, both in linear and temporal terms: dimensions are dependent on scale. date=07.03.2005 17:11 ip=158.94.163.223 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=While we're on the subject of slightly obscure DVDs, not sure whether I already mentioned here or elsewhere, but I picked up the 6-DVD boxed set of Werner Herzog/Klaus Kinski films recently for only £19 in HMV's sale. Stunning stuff: none of it makes particularly easy watching, but they're the kind of films that worm their way into your mind the instant they're over, and never leave there again. I've already found myself watching both Aguirre: The Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo three times, because I miss them as soon as they're over. date=07.03.2005 17:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nostalgia is an awesome piece of work. Stunning. I agree about the sound; the quality is poor although not catastrophically so. It is also the only DVD that wont play on my laptop. The subtitles keep disappearing. I can only play it on my main computer, which is annoying. But the Nostalgia DVD does contain a riveting documentary about Tarkovsy and also an insight into his co-writer, Antonioni's main scriptwriter N-- N----. (?) He (the fellow scriptwriter) says a little poem of his at the end. Tarkovsky roams about restlessly, posing in his pale blue jeans and shirt; looking at the sky; so that I keep having to remind myself: this is the man who made Andre Rublev! This is the man who made ....! How the hell did he do it? He's practically the same age as me!

The transfer to DVD of all T.s movies has not been without its troubles. Andre Rublev is a case in point. Totally baffling circular menu system in which it seems impossible not to get overdubbing in American, either that or no subtitles. So I would keep any videos you still have just in case they can be transferred to DVD (if you have a techno-dweeb friend to do it). But maybe those problems have since been sorted out. date=07.03.2005 17:31 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Most film-makers I can think of are almost at a Felix the Cat level by comparison. Also, given his equal moral sobriety, I wonder if Solzhenitsyn's ever commented on Tarkovsky's work.

>Not been without its troubles: some of these are discussed on the official Tarkovsky site, along with much, much more (and more after that ...)

http://tinyurl.com/68u4r date=07.03.2005 17:51 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Robin Davies mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More Tarkovsky info.
An ad for the Andrei Tarkovsky DVD collection in the latest NFT programme says-
Coming soon: 'The Andrei Tarkovsky Companion' including Chris Marker's 'One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevitch', Alexander Sokurov's 'Moscow Elegy' and Tarkovsky's 'Tempo di Viaggio'.
Incidentally, the UK release of Stalker only contains an excerpt from 'The Steamroller and the Violin'. The whole film has been released on DVD by Facets Video in the States. date=07.03.2005 20:49 ip=62.252.64.17 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I was deeply dismayed by the sound quality of Nostalgia, and some of those other Artificial Eye releases are crappy, picture quality on The Sacrifice is a considerable insult to Bergman's cinematographer. Some good extras though.

Stalker has now become something of a horror film for me after it became apparent from the DVD extras and other information that most of the cast and crew (including Tarkovsky) died prematurely after making that film. Suddenly that shot of wind-borne pollution (asbestos?) and scenes of the actors wading through scummy water become chilling in the extreme. Yet no one mentions this on the DVD...

God knows what Solzhenitsyn thought of AT's films, given some of his loftier pronouncements I can imagine him dismissing cinema as a trivial medium. AT's diaries say he admired Solzhenitsyn's Matryona's House, however, and had it on a list of possible films at one time.

MJP: If you're having video trouble, you could try downloading the freeware VLC player:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Cross-platform, plays just about any kind of video file and is especially good with awkward DVDs. date=08.03.2005 10:20 ip=193.109.50.95 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Robin: Very interesting. Thank you again.

John C: What else might he have filmed?

Asbestos: Terrible. As was news I heard that 9/11 was the single biggest release of lethal asbestos dust in history. The bewildered floury-faced survivors we saw in the streets were coated with it: ghosts before their time, the fatalities of 2035. date=08.03.2005 11:09 ip=193.63.239.165 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What else might he have filmed?

He had a lot of things planned over the years, many of which never came about due to obstruction from the wretched Soviet film authorities.

Among other things on that list (from 1970) he has Mann's 'Joseph and His Brothers', a life of Dostoyevsky, Dostoyevsky's 'A Raw Youth', 'Joan of Arc, 1970' and Camus' 'The Plague'. He tried for years to get films of 'The Idiot' and 'Hamlet' made and there's also mention of a proposal for an adaptation of 'The Master and Margarita' that I can't imagine working somehow! date=08.03.2005 11:58 ip=193.109.50.95 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did anyone else get to see any of the Larissa Shepitko season that toured recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/festivals/larissa_shepitko.shtml
I saw Wings, which was rather slow but a lot better than I had expected, and by the end I was almost in tears. Then I watched Poem of the Sea, an Alexander Dovzhenko which Shepitko helped to complete after Dovzhenko's death: it was everything I expected of a Soviet film, turgid, clichéd and faux-inspirational.

I was sorry to miss the other genuine Shepitko films in the season, especially Ascent. date=08.03.2005 15:25 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did anyone else get to see any of the Larissa Shepitko season that toured recently: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/festivals/larissa_shepitko.shtml
I saw Wings, which was rather slow but a lot better than I had expected, and by the end I was almost in tears. Then I watched Poem of the Sea, an Alexander Dovzhenko which Shepitko helped to complete after Dovzhenko's death: it was everything I expected of a Soviet film, turgid, clichéd and faux-inspirational.

I was sorry to miss the other genuine Shepitko films in the season, especially Ascent. date=08.03.2005 15:43 ip=158.94.173.169 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Did anyone else get to see any of the Larissa Shepitko season that toured recently:

http://tinyurl.com/5lfr7

I saw Wings, which was rather slow but a lot better than I had expected, and by the end I was almost in tears. Then I watched Poem of the Sea, an Alexander Dovzhenko which Shepitko helped to complete after Dovzhenko's death: it was everything I expected of a Soviet film, turgid, clichéd and faux-inspirational.

I was sorry to miss the other genuine Shepitko films in the season, especially Ascent. date=08.03.2005 15:45 ip=158.94.173.169 name=John C mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I only read about Larissa Shepitko unfortunately but remember thinking her films sounded like things to watch for in the future.

Her husband, Elem Klimov, made the most disturbing film I've ever seen, Come and See. It has parallels with Ivan's Childhood--young partisan soldier's experiences during the Second World War--but goes leagues beyond it, by turns bleak, terrifying and quite viscerally unsettling. You can get it on import DVD now but I'm not in a hurry, it's the kind of thing you'd watch once then happily leave on the shelf for 20 years. date=08.03.2005 18:05 ip=193.109.50.95 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I went to see Sebastian Peake talk about his father in Oxford this lunch-time.

No radical disclosures, but some telling anecdotes - Mervyn Peake stranded on the tundra when the Trans-Siberian Express started off without him, or performing deadly bicycle stunts around the cliffs in Sark. Best of all was the chance to see those incredible cross-hatched illustrations blown up to a metre on an edge through the projector: a sailing ship riding a wave of Indian ink that was half Beardsley and half Hokusai, Steerpike looking like Johnny Rotten's vampire uncle, a Goya-esque set for "Bleak House" recently re-discovered in a publisher's safe. Also, we got the well-known illustration of Irma Prunesquallor, haughtiness personified with her flamingo neck and knitting-needle nose. As Sebastian Peake put it, it's a picture of a woman to whom nothing has ever happened - nor ever will.

I didn't know Peake taught Gerald Scarfe, either - but it explains a lot. date=08.03.2005 18:30 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Ben Wooller mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, there's a write-up on Light at Bookslut: http://www.bookslut.com/specfic_floozy/2005_03_004658.php
The first half of the write-up is about Tolkien's prose, before bringing Light into the mix... date=09.03.2005 02:08 ip=61.68.247.19 name=Ben Wooler mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Mike, there's a write-up on Light at Bookslut:

http://tinyurl.com/6s8bm

First half of the write-up is about Tolkien's prose, before bringing Light into the mix... date=09.03.2005 09:46 ip=158.94.181.110 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=John C, thanks for the tip on the VCL player. I will give it a try.

I am reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain at the moment. A very topical novel with the global eco disaster that we are all manufacturing cleverly projected through the lives and loves of about half a dozen characters, most of them scientists. It's very well done.

A techno thriller rather than sf, I think. date=09.03.2005 10:32 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>a write-up on Light at Bookslut

Ah, good! The return of the inability to dig affectless characters. C'mon what are Kearney and Seria Mau supposed to do? Agonise over their moral turpitude in vividly felt self-help lingo?

Well, this is what happens when you read The Hobbit too many times. date=09.03.2005 11:04 ip=158.94.181.110 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=io: re the Light review; they were unexpectedly impressed by it; they enjoyed it. What more do you want? Peculiar though the way that the quotation from Light that she gives as an example of its verbal obscurity seems perfectly clear and well written. date=09.03.2005 11:55 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Light": They wonder "what the heck really happened" and the language leaves them cold, but they still liked the book ...

Those 400 preteen passes through "The Hobbit" must have eroded the old cortex more than somewhat, I am thinking. Perhaps Tolkien should carry a health warning: Smauging is bad for you.

Gets coat, etc. date=09.03.2005 12:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>What more do you want?

I suppose you are right, but I'm just baffled by this lack of empathy from so many reviewers. "If those characters aren't going to be nice," you can imagine them thinking, "why can't they just go away and let us read a story full of nice characters. You know: people with sympathetic flaws - like the cast of Friends or Bilbo Baggins or something. There's quite enough *nastiness* in the world without MJH allowing characters into his books before they've had proper counselling." date=09.03.2005 12:38 ip=158.94.181.110 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=It's true about the 'unsympathetic' nature of the characters. I think the reviewers' qualms are to do with the Light's intimations of hell.

It isn't very cosy. Personally I am happy to find myself in hell, fictionally speaking. It creates an appetite for reading; seeing between the lines the image on the wall. date=09.03.2005 12:58 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Well, lovers of cosy characaters are advised to stay away from spanish clasics . You all now Don Quixote, a nutter, but you should also avoid Lazaro de Tormes , a thief and a pimp, and Celestina, a hustler who ends up killed as a dog.
Come to think of it, they should stay away from Faulker, from Crime and punishment, from Celine, from Moliere ... date=09.03.2005 14:11 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I think you may well have just located much of sf's core readership. date=09.03.2005 14:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Tom mail=tommy-gans@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://spyware-detector.chipcoder.info text=Ich liebe diese website :) date=09.03.2005 15:27 ip=83.28.212.96 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ja liebe ich es auch! :) date=09.03.2005 15:46 ip=158.94.184.139 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Duck for cover io he's packing a sixgun. date=09.03.2005 16:14 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Tell my mother I died like a hero! date=09.03.2005 17:19 ip=158.94.181.110 name=Kelly mail=kteelr@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://adware-spyware-detector.chipcoder.info text=I have spyware - I have viruses I like Good web-sites like your and I like Norton Antivirus 2005! date=10.03.2005 01:23 ip=83.28.212.96 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just finished reading Vernon God Little - anyone else read it? I was suitably blown away, it's wonderful in every dimension: very funny, very clever, very human, a moral message with BBQ sauce on + a main character with a shit fixation who you can fucken *empathise* with. No shit. date=10.03.2005 12:07 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: No - not yet. But I'm still in a state of absurdist nausea after seeing an interview with Tony Blair in the rock magazine "Word." No talk of Iraq or Bush: the interviewer, his old college band mate Mark Ellen, was more interested in Blair's memories of seeing Atomic Rooster live. Should we laugh or puke? An exemplary text from the ruins of the modern world, without a doubt. date=10.03.2005 15:21 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: I´ve seen Vernon God in a second hand book so I´ll check if it still avaiable.
Martin: I should say that the obvious questions would have been rather interesting. What does he make of the Clash aniversary and the Streets cd ? date=10.03.2005 15:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: My rising gorge prevented me from doing anything but skimming the article, so you'll have to forgive me not giving a detailed report. I'm sure Tony is "down" with all that, though, and playing air guitar to Sabbath and "Olias of Sunhillow" on his i-Pod as we speak. date=10.03.2005 17:29 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: That´s fine . I really only wanted to know if he thinks that "Take me out " it last´s year best song. I do belive that there a fair number of people willing to take him out of office so I would have enjoyed the irony. Then again I am sure he prefers The Killer´s " Mr.Brightside" date=10.03.2005 19:20 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry about the spelling of that one. date=10.03.2005 19:22 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Kelly mail=kteelr@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://adware-spyware-detector.chipcoder.info text=Heh? anybody have google invates? date=12.03.2005 15:56 ip=83.28.188.146 name=Kelly mail=kteelr@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://adware-spyware-detector.chipcoder.info text=Heh? anybody have google invates? date=12.03.2005 16:27 ip=83.28.188.146 name=Kelly mail=kteelr@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://adware-spyware-detector.chipcoder.info text=Heh? anybody have google invates? date=12.03.2005 18:11 ip=83.28.188.146 name=Amber mail=Amber146@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=178 url=http://jacko.webd.pl/ text=Great page! I will tell about it to my friends. Amber date=13.03.2005 20:18 ip=82.45.180.183 name=Pete mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been an occasional reader here for a while now, but have just today been propelled into posting by iotar's question "is scale a dimension?"

This reminded me of one of my favourite unorthodox physics theories, Laurence Nottale's "Scale Relativity", where scale is added to General Relativity as a sort of fifth dimension (roughly speaking!)

There's a site at http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/~nottale/ukrechel.htm which goes into some detail on this, or a shorter and perhaps easier to digest summary article at http://www.everything2.com/?node=scale+relativity date=14.03.2005 03:03 ip=84.12.79.70 name=Paul mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH

Thanks for the reply. I think I must have read somewhere that you were a Peake fan, and for some reason Anna reminded me of Fuschia.

I finished Light and it delivered...great stuff. date=14.03.2005 03:15 ip=67.81.108.138 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Pete. Thanks for those references. That was the sort of direction I was thinking in, but I wasn't sure whether I was just getting confused about a problem of language and terminology or whether there was a real issue here. Although I guess *everything* that we say about the universe is a question of our terms of reference.

But I've no idea where the question came from. It just popped into my head along with the question, "are skylarks particularly important to the French for some special reason?" and the phrase, "the onion-domes of Paradise". date=14.03.2005 11:00 ip=158.94.149.208 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io: "Onion domes of paradise" - this is either a chance phrase of genius from the left hemisphere, or that midnight kebab talking to us once again. Coleridge couldn't decide, either.

My left brain dumped me in a dream last night where someone had written a musical about Princess Di. I joined it at the point where she was meeting Henry Kissinger for the first time, but the libretto wasn't that inspired: "Here you are, you speccy git/I've been waiting all morning." The author sat in the background, giggling, and stuffing his blonde wig into his mouth. There are some transvestites you just can't depend on any more, don't you find?

Scale relativity: I'm going to have think about this, Pete. date=14.03.2005 11:23 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>midnight kebab talking to us once again

This is what I suspect, although I'm sure I was also misremembering "Oh time thy pyramids!" from The Library of Babel. Which was most likely provoked by Borges pigging out on Toblerone. date=14.03.2005 11:37 ip=158.94.149.208 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Paul. Anna is based on a real person, & her realtionship with Kearney on real events. But if you found it useful to use Fuschia as a template when unpacking Anna, well, every reader brings their own set of expectations to a text, and I'm sure it made for a lively interpetation. Glad you enjoyed it. date=14.03.2005 12:10 ip=213.78.90.214 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dreams. Urk. Last night I was George Bush's tea-boy at a world leaders' forum. I was his bitch. I'm not even going to start unpacking that one. date=14.03.2005 13:26 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dubya mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Shut yer mouth and make the tea, gimp-boy! date=14.03.2005 13:29 ip=158.94.149.24 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: A grotesque turn of events: didn't Dan Quayle use to do that sort of thing? Never mind. Why not cheer yourself up and buy a piece of rock'n'roll history?

http://tinyurl.com/686jk date=14.03.2005 14:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=China mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH. I'm scribbling this here as you probably check this forum more than you do your email... of which you've one from me in your inbox you may want to take a shufti at, as it's about you. Say No More, Squire, etc. date=14.03.2005 15:09 ip=217.43.40.220 name=Paul mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone know of the best texts on Quantum Computers: explaining the current state of the art and where they could be heading? Thanks.

I'm way out of touch of current Physics, but did hear an interesting radio interview on quantum computers and the possibility of time travel. To allow time travel, you have to subscribe to David Deutsch's many worlds explanation of QM because it alone could get around the paradox problems i.e. going back in time and shooting your grandfather... A constrained time travel too, you can't travel further back in time than to when the time machine was first built. date=14.03.2005 16:20 ip=67.81.108.138 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I know two things about quantum computers.

1) they don't have to be turned on
2) they are very bad news for data security date=14.03.2005 16:38 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Paul: Check out the library, etc. on the link below. It could prove useful.

http://www.qubit.org/ date=14.03.2005 16:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=China, many thanks for that: really. An email on its way to you. Aye lad. 'Appen. date=14.03.2005 16:53 ip=213.78.91.203 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Paul :
Here is an old feature on quantum computers from scientific american

http://tinyurl.com/3okko date=14.03.2005 17:56 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Paul mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks so much guys, that last link in particular was very informative.

Are the characters in Light "entangled" like photons in a Bell's theorem experiment? date=14.03.2005 20:35 ip=67.81.108.138 name=Liverpulle mail=liver@yahooeyou.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=Albania url=http://network-marketing.kgc-networks.com text=Really great site. Respect date=14.03.2005 21:24 ip=66.90.81.20 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And the group below is using super computers on quantum problems.

Coincidentally, there's an interesting name in the e-mail box on the left, too. Best not to him send any images of horse's skulls, though.

http://tinyurl.com/3sp3x date=15.03.2005 15:07 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Any one seen the Guardian article on chimeric mice? It makes Van Vogt's wolf men and bear men (or mouse men) a real possibility. Here is a quote: "If two of the chimeric mice were to mate, they could potentially conceive a human embryo. If the human embryo were to be removed and implanted in a human womb, the resulting human baby's biological parents would have been mice." date=15.03.2005 16:04 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Mice Men of Ishtar" - I dunno ... date=15.03.2005 16:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Why stop at mice? Why not bees or fish, or something? Why not go the whole hog as it were? date=15.03.2005 16:54 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The thing about is that it makes sense - in a way ... American Indians admired the qualities of the animals they hunted, and so they sought to 'be' them through their attributes; through speed, vision, hearing, &c. A quality of sight might be acquired from a butterfly that is extremely useful. Scientifically acquiring such a quality on the other hand seems too socially limited, it smacks of self-indulgence. One imagines a pop star wanting feathered children ... As in Signs of Life. date=15.03.2005 17:13 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The scientist behind this wants to make mice with 100% human brains. But:

"Weissman says that he would keep a tight rein on the mice, and if they showed any signs of humanness he would kill them."

I can't help noticing that "chimeric mice" has the same initials as "Chris Morris." But it's not 1 April, is it? I'm confused. date=15.03.2005 17:26 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=But just think how screwed up the resulting kids would be, growing up with such a cat phobia.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what it means to be a human who's the child of a mouse (perhaps because I haven't seen the article). If you've got human genes and the mouse has mouse genes... well, you're not really related, except in the most cursory of ways, surely? It seems to me that, like the bone ring, this is a great conversation piece ("my mum and dad were mice, y'know") and very little else. date=15.03.2005 17:27 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: The article is here. Fascinating (and disquietening), MJP - but I got to the end of the third paragraph and began to feel I was reading a script from 'Brass Eye':

http://tinyurl.com/68nf7 date=15.03.2005 17:31 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, but if the mice showed signs of humanness that would grant them rights. A judge with huge mice proportioned ears would ask of this 'murderer': Does the accused not admit that these mice were men?

Dan, the article is accessible on the Guardian web site. date=15.03.2005 17:37 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Despite "SoL," I never realised how large the transgenics industry is - random google brings up the list linked below.

A serious philosophical question: what would be the first signs of "humanness" to manifest themselves? And surely a "100% human brain" relies on a central nervous system far more complex than a rodent's?

http://tinyurl.com/5j4o7 date=15.03.2005 17:47 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Seriously, Martin, I don't think that anything other than a human being would exhibit 'humanness'.

I remain Wittgensteinian. To paraphrase: "Only of a human face could we say that it is human." A dog-like humanoid would not be a human being.

I have just been reading a Kim Stanley Robinson interview, where he talks about his comic satire (that's what he seems to think it is) Forty Signs of Rain. Here is something he says:

'Near-future books ... are among my favorite reading—like Geoff Ryman's Air, or M. John Harrison's Signs of Life, or Iain Banks' The Business, or Gwyneth Jones's Bold As Love sequence. Things are so strange these days that those old SF questions "What comes next?" and "What does Now feel like?" are generating very interesting new stories.' date=15.03.2005 19:00 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> I don't think that anything other than a human being would exhibit 'humanness'.

Do humans even exhibit humanness? Don't we all just exhibit ourselves-ness? Is the difference between human A and human B bigger than the difference between human A and chimp A? Did Wittgenstein even know the half of it?

I just read the article. Fascinating. Chimeric research is the topic tackled in Margaret Atwood's "speculative fiction" Oryx & Crake. Pigs raised as human organ farms, etc. No good comes of it, of course, except that in engineering our race's destruction we manage to create a somewhat more suitably-adapted set of inheritants.

Personally, the lego-building Micronaut-body-part-swapping kid in me finds all of this fascinating despite, or even because of, its scariness. Let's not kid ourselves that we're doing it for the future of medical science. We're doing it because, hell, A MOUSE WITH A HUMAN HEAD!!?!? Freeeakeeee! It's like the AD&D Monster Manual in 3D living loving colour. It's play taken to its logical (and possibly final) conclusion. date=15.03.2005 22:33 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> random google brings up the list linked below.

Some company names there just begging to be worked into a story. I mean, "European Mouse Mutant Archive (EMMA)"? "Transgenic Mouse Core Facility"? "Mutant Mouse Database" (didn't Robert Wyatt used to play for them)? "German Gene Trap Consortium" (perhaps something to do with the Austrian von Trapp consortium)? date=15.03.2005 22:38 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's it. It's decided. I'm forming a band. We're going to play trance-genic mousecore.

(Apologies for triple post, I'll get my pyjamas) date=15.03.2005 22:40 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Paul mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Light left many vivid images, but I suspect this one below may have been unique to me and my ignorance of art in general. Thought I was being smart, finding a clever joke. But did a google on "Beardsleyesque". Ah well.

When Valentine Sprake was introduced in Light and mocks Kearney: "...shaking its huge Beardsleyesque cock about..." into my head sprung that famous footie pic of Peter "Quasimodo" Beardsley of Liverpool and England fame:

http://www.socceraddicts.com/images/Funny%20Picture s/8.jpg date=16.03.2005 05:27 ip=66.193.38.118 name=Paul mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Nuts! Try again.

http://www.socceraddicts.com/images/Funny%20Pictur es/8.jpg date=16.03.2005 05:40 ip=66.193.38.118 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>Is the difference between human A and human B bigger than the difference between human A and chimp A? Did Wittgenstein even know the half of it?

Yes, he knew what he was talking about. If you call the creature 'chimp A' then it's not 'human A' - clearly. In what that difference consists has already been taken for granted; and, in anycase, the question can't be formulated without it ... date=16.03.2005 09:31 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: Wittgenstein again - "If a lion could talk, we wouldn't understand what it had to say." We may live to see him proved wrong.

Dan: It's the knock-out mice that worry me - quite apart from the images of Stuart Hall and Eddie Waring in '70s blazers that they conjure up.

Paul: "Light" unfolds more and more, the longer you live with it. The sequence that stayed with me was Kearney at Sprake's house - and having that ghostly child or sprite open the door in front of him in the lamplight. I remembered that many times, going home at night in the middle of winter and putting the key in the latch. date=16.03.2005 10:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="If a lion could talk we wouldn't understand him." Something like that.

W. is making a logical not factual suggestion. To us a nod means yes. In other cultures it means no. Perhaps we would eventually grasp that. But if it meant a third thing between the two we wouldn't get it. Not if the form of life that this shake-nod were alien to anything we know. The point is obvious with untranslatable phrases in different languages.

If we could understand the lion that would be because it shared our values.

E.g. would you understand a man who said "I enjoy killing people"? We agree in forms of life. date=16.03.2005 11:00 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: "We agree on forms of life" - Verry inarresting! Looking at today's tabloids, and their obsession with the British cannibal killer, you wonder - would only psychopaths and lions have anything to say to one another?

Off topic (but almost as unnatural), "Rolling Stone" carries reports on HST's decline - excerpts are on the link below (ignore the first salivating paragraph on California's wealthy):

http://tinyurl.com/5lhzu date=16.03.2005 11:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJP: "If you call the creature 'chimp A' then it's not 'human A' - clearly"

True, but neither is human B. From what I understand of Wittgenstein (not having read him) his position is that descriptors form our reality, and I have a lot of sympathy with this. But who's to say that our fun-loving friendly human A does not have more in common, personality-wise, with chimp A (or more likely bonobo A) than does cannibalistic human B?

Of course, we are to say... because we define them both as humans and the chimp as a chimp. But isn't it possible to examine similarity/difference along axes other than the most basic one of linguistic species classification?

Re: nodding lions (get one now, stick it in the back of your car...) this sounds to me very similar to what Thomas Nagel said about being a bat. date=16.03.2005 11:29 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan: What did Thomas Nagel say..? date=16.03.2005 11:37 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>E.g. would you understand a man who said "I enjoy killing people"?

You'd perform a practical understanding of him quite quickly, by edging away and leaving the tube carriage at the next stop. As with your understanding of the lion, the neccessary items of information would be routed directly from the senses to the amygdala, arriving there some fractions of a second quicker than they arrive in the "you" you think of as you. This is what LeDoux calls the "hostile takeover of consciousness". Less theory-driven practitioners know it by the acronym Fuck Everything And Run. date=16.03.2005 11:55 ip=213.78.84.59 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>>But isn't it possible to examine similarity/difference along axes other than the most basic one of linguistic species classification?

True; and we do that. Shared genes is an example.

W. was arguing against the 'subliming' of language, ie the idea that there is an ideal langauge over and above the one we already use - using which for example we might be able to determine absolutely, once and for all!, what the difference is between chimps and humans (or whatever you like). Basically his point is that we are rationally homeless. We have to determine these things ourselves rather than relying on a sublimed or ideal language of absolutes.

Martin: precisely, The Sun and The Cannibal agree in form of life. date=16.03.2005 11:59 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>We are rationally homeless.

It sounds another glittering path back to the gnostic - we have the ability to analyse the whole universe, but find it doesn't really suit our consciousness after all.

I typed that, and it started to rain ... date=16.03.2005 12:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> What did Thomas Nagel say..?

In essence, that as we don't echo-locate we can never have any grasp of what it's like to be a bat. Here is his article:
http://members.aol.com/NeoNoetics/Nagel_Bat.html

I'm with Wittgenstein on rational homelessness, essentially anti-Platonic. date=16.03.2005 12:51 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More talking animals: tormenting a pet with these is bad enough - but using the cow while you're driving ..?

http://tinyurl.com/4b6br date=16.03.2005 12:53 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You can still say that W. idealises language, that would be accurate, I think. But not in a distorting way. But as a poet or stylist does; using words as distillations, renderings of experience that are ideal in form. So he sublimes language too; only paradoxically, not as a philosopher but as an artist.

The same with any writer who is also a stylist. Whoever, Salter, MJH, Jon Silkin; name your poet. date=16.03.2005 14:15 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=More worrying news from "The Guardian":

"In one publication an undeniable causal relation was reported: both spontaneous and intentional yawning provoked instantaneous ejaculation orgasm."

As Van Morrison once declared, though: it is not so with me. date=16.03.2005 16:05 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Li mail=Li311@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=67 url=http://metro.skip.pl/ text=Super site! Li date=16.03.2005 16:14 ip=82.229.244.15 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="If a lion could talk we wouldn't understand him." Something like that.
________
Depends entirely on your defintion of language. There is a fair number of Lion trainers at the circus that comunicate clearly enough with lions. I do think that W points is that higher thinking is grounded in our biology. date=16.03.2005 22:02 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo. See below. W. is making a logical not factual suggestion. It makes no difference to his argument that lion trainers can communicate with their animals. I expect W went to the circus too. Also if his point is as you suggest a biological one rather than a philosophical insight it would be somewhat banal. Also to be considered of course is that the ideas of 'higher' and 'lower' forms of life are human ascriptions of values that have no basis in fact. date=17.03.2005 10:32 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Biology may be more banal than Philosophy but, hey, it's a way of life! date=17.03.2005 11:05 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=W's observation also moved some people to poetry. Or thereabouts:

http://tinyurl.com/64kgd date=17.03.2005 11:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=See if I can be first this time. James Salter's Last Night, a new short story collection, is going to be published in April. That might be a good thing for MJH to review. At least I would be interested in reading an MJH review of it. date=17.03.2005 12:46 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Also to be considered of course is that the ideas of 'higher' and 'lower' forms of life are human ascriptions of values that have no basis in fact.
__________
Absolutely rigth.
More info on James Salter, please. date=17.03.2005 20:58 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Norman mail=normna@getfail.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://education-online.br-zn.com text=HI! Good site thank you. I will come back here sometimes date=18.03.2005 09:17 ip=83.28.192.22 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo I have read three of Salter's books: A Sport and a Pastime, Cassada and Dusk (a short story collection). The first two were the easiest to read; I found them superb. Cassada is exhilerating, a description of pilots in competition with each other training to fly the first fighter jets around the time of the Korean War. (Salter was a fighter pilot.) The Hunters is on a similar theme. A Sport and a Pastime is a short erotic novel set in France, very poignant. What is obvious reading him is that he is a passionate stylist. A new short story collection has to be an event. date=18.03.2005 09:59 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I see Andre Norton's died. All this time, and I didn't realise she was female! date=18.03.2005 11:53 ip=217.155.134.5 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm glad Salter is coming back into favour. He's so in your face. "'In California there are no ideas. On the other hand, we may see God.'" Liz Hand is a huge fan of his. Solo Faces was always my favourite, what a surprise. date=18.03.2005 12:55 ip=213.78.81.88 name=Betty mail=big_betty@hotbox.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://casino.ixplayer.info text=Thanx for all people who care about this site! date=18.03.2005 14:17 ip=83.28.192.22 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=For a balanced and realistic account of contemporary Spain:
http://tinyurl.com/3vks9 date=18.03.2005 18:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Spanish cover fo a Storm of Wings

http://tinyurl.com/3ztho date=18.03.2005 20:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Yang mail=Yang198@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=107 url=http://metro.skip.pl/ text=Great site! Just found your fantastic site! Yang date=21.03.2005 14:14 ip=82.76.122.92 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: A touch of Arthur Rackham, I think.

I spent the weekend laughing helplessly over the a DVD of "Black Cat, White Cat" and then gaping at "Stalker." The astonishment was partly because there was so much more in it than I remembered - like the disappearing bird in the Zone - but also because I've only ever seen it on a b&w telly. So the sudden, "Matter of Life & Death" blinks into technicolour left me dumbstruck - especially with the child at the end. Then it was over to the camera-man being interviewed, remembering that Tarkovsky insisted every dandelion be picked from a meadow before they started filming. "Ah, those Russians ... " date=21.03.2005 16:12 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Gaol mail=Gaol126@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=21 url=http://beret.0k.pl text=Great! You made great progress :) Gaol date=22.03.2005 13:23 ip=62.178.190.10 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hard to know which to pity more - animals or their audience:

http://tinyurl.com/3qugs date=23.03.2005 14:35 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looking forward to the mammoth retrospective.

*boom-tish*

*gets coat* date=23.03.2005 14:49 ip=158.94.140.229 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=This came out of reading Joe Eszterhas's autobiography "Hollywood Animal," and googling the title.

A fuck-you-too account of refugee poverty, Sharon Stone, million-dollar houses bought on the back of a six-line script proposal, more Sharon Stone, his war criminal dad, throat cancer, and a truly dreadful "thank you jesus" finale that you can rip through in a weekend. Poverty-fame-addiction redemption - the perfect story arc. Just crying out for the screenplay, of course. date=23.03.2005 17:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Lee mail=Lee149@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=31 url=http://cerber.only.pl text=Super! You made great progress :) Lee date=24.03.2005 13:30 ip=132.205.111.4 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey guys...the band just got back from tour. 4600 miles in a van in 9 days leaves a lot of time for reading.

I tore through two Walker Percy novels and now I'm most of the way through Light. Yeah...I broke the serial killer oath. Kearny would get along well with a lot of the people I've interviewed.

So far my favorite word in the book has been "McScientist". It just distills so much of the research industry. I can't wait to call some high and mighty reseracher a McScientist. Mostly I've just been referring to them as scientismists...

After being on tour, I'm thinking working as a professional researcher is for shit. Someone should write about how ridiculous some of the social science reasearch politics are. There are days when I'd like to drown our funders too...unfortunately there is no one target behind a desk. The DOD just gives us tons of money to research obesity and cancer screening.

This never leads to majestic displays of light leaping off of my computer monitor.

Anyway, Light is great so far. I'll be back when I'm done. date=24.03.2005 18:22 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave. Glad the tour was good, & that you liked McScience. I didn't make it up, but I can't now remember where I got it from. Some text about research supported by corporate agenda, possibly Graham Harvey, The Killing of the Countryside. And it's heartening--or is it ?--to know that Kearney would fit comfortably among real serial killers. date=24.03.2005 18:46 ip=213.78.85.244 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, he'd fit right in. Kearney's dull just like every other one of them.

Not dull to read, I should add. Just sort of a psychologically monotonous shithead. Although I suspect that there could be a turnaround by the end of the book. None of the killers I spoke with were scientists ... or friends with the Shrander.

I especially like the little tip of the hat to the "Serial killer triad". You mentioned that Spake and Kearney moved backwards to arson and torturing animals after killing a few folks. You forgot bed wetting though. Sprake does live with his mom...bet she washes the sheets regular like.

For the record, the triad stuff is total bullshit. There's no good reason that those three things should predict serial killing...any reserach done with a good sample would show that the triad "theory" is riddled with false positives.

Anyway...back to my McScience. I'm cleaning data from a stroop experiment...assessing unconscious fear of prostate cancer. Woo fucking hoo. date=24.03.2005 18:56 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If anyone is intersted, I can share some of the photos and press from the tour.

I think most of you are in London, right?

We might be on our way to the UK soonish...and we're inteh running for Glastonbury. But that's a long shot I'd say. date=24.03.2005 19:00 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=My brand of McScience:

http://www.geron.org/antiaging.htm date=24.03.2005 19:02 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ah, I'm afraid my band will be playing a festival in Germany hosted by Jean-Herve Peron of Faust during the Glastonbury weekend.

Be cool to see yr tour pics. date=24.03.2005 19:26 ip=81.155.45.132 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave :
Do you have any mp3 for download ?
Hi Io :
New Band? date=25.03.2005 13:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Same band, new energy. date=25.03.2005 14:37 ip=81.154.107.196 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, happy Good Friday and all that...it's a holiday and I'm the only one in the lab...so I might have to goof off and post a bit today.

So, here are some photos from our NYC show. It was the first of the tour.

http://www.ebruyildiz.net/gallery/The-Black-Spoons
There were a couple good zine articles on us recently if you want ot read them:

http://www.mvremix.com/urban/showcase/content/black spoons.shtml

http://www.revolutionslive.com/albumreviews. htm

http://inferno.collegepublisher.com/news/2005/03/08/F rontline/A.Spoonful.Of.Goodness-887792.shtml

You can find some of our Mp3s at our site:

www.theblackspoons.com

On another note...I have no idea what anybody here does for a living or any of that (excluding MJH)...mind doing a round of introductions? date=25.03.2005 15:51 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Whoa...what the hell just happened to the page. Did I do that? date=25.03.2005 16:07 ip=148.4.151.131 name=dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=here were a couple good zine articles on us recently if you want ot read them:

http://www.mvremix.com/urban/showcase/content/black spoons.shtml

http://www.revolutionslive.com/albumreviews. htm

http://inferno.collegepublisher.com/news/2005/03/08/F rontline/A.Spoonful.Of.Goodness-887792.shtml

You can find some of our Mp3s at our site:

www.theblackspoons.com

On another note...I have no idea what anybody here does for a living or any of that (excluding MJH)...mind doing a round of introductions? date=25.03.2005 17:49 ip=81.154.107.196 name=dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, happy Good Friday and all that...it's a holiday and I'm the only one in the lab...so I might have to goof off and post a bit today.

So, here are some photos from our NYC show. It was the first of the tour.

http://www.ebruyildiz.net/gallery/The-Black-Spoons date=25.03.2005 17:51 ip=81.154.107.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: Just reposted yr last message as two posts. Sometimes it glitches like that.

Anyway, as well as being Mike's web bod, I'm also an assistant librarian and a part-time dronemusician:
http://www.iotacism.com date=25.03.2005 17:53 ip=81.154.107.196 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I take it, you're the guy with the beard and bass in the pics? There's at least two other bassists around here. Nice bass BTW - what is it? date=25.03.2005 17:58 ip=81.154.107.196 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yeah...I'm the guy with the beard.

The bass is a Hamer Cruise bass. It's the most sonically perfect thing I've ever touched. I just bought anohter one off of Ebay two days ago. Unfortunately they don't make that model anymore...if you ever see a USA-made one with the 2TEK bridge, just buy it. So rare...so perfect. That bridge is the inovation that scares people off...it wasn't enough like an old school Fender for them, but it totally eliminates sympathetic vibration and gets a sustain that lasts forever.

I've named the bass Beatrice. date=25.03.2005 18:03 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>if you ever see a USA-made one with the 2TEK bridge, just buy it.

Ah, I've got to stop buying guitars. It was when I realised that I could make a top ten of guitars that I currently own that I decided that I have to take control over this situation. I mostly play guitar and electric sitar, one of those Jerry Jones Danelectro copies. It's something like the polar opposite of that Hamer Cruise: all sympathetic vibration and sod-all sustain - but it has such a distinctive tone and it looks so cute that audiences fall in love with it! date=25.03.2005 18:13 ip=81.154.107.196 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dude, I'm so jealous. McScience doesn't pay well enough for me to even have a top five instrument collection. I just scour the pawn shops and ebay.

What I really need is some recording equipment though. date=25.03.2005 18:33 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>McScience doesn't pay well enough

Oh, neither does library work. Every axe is an unwise investment. date=25.03.2005 19:39 ip=81.154.107.196 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave,
Nice webpage. Is that Uri Geller ? date=25.03.2005 19:40 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Every axe is an unwise investment.

Well...I guess it depends on how many you have. And on how many other monetary demands you need to attend to. I'm broker all the time and have student loans etc...broke or broker, it makes little difference.

However, I usually sell one instrument when I buy another. You can only play one at a time after all.

I have 4 basses now. Two Hamers, a G&L L-2000, and one that I made from scratch myself. I also have an Ernie Ball Silhouette Special and Takamine acoustic.

That's it...the extent of my collection.

Arturo, thanks for checking out the site. No idea who Uri Geller is...

On another note, a girl at my coffee shop said that I look the unabomber today. I must be doing something right. date=25.03.2005 21:56 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Elison mail=alice_g@boxpost.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://insurance.esmartbuyer.com text=This iste is great! Thak you very much for your work and dont give in. date=26.03.2005 10:03 ip=83.28.222.104 name=Elison mail=alice_g@boxpost.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://insurance.esmartbuyer.com text=This iste is great! Thak you very much for your work and dont give in. date=26.03.2005 11:10 ip=83.28.213.46 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Anyone who hasn't read Will Eaves yet should get Nothing To Be Afraid Of when it comes out in May. Lively, strange, quite destabilising, impeccably human and just beautifully written. Eaves is one of the impressive things about the British novel at the moment. For some reason I went straight from his book to Carol Shields' Unless. Canadian subsidised art fiction is generally unimpressive at any time. I found this dull and controlling, especially in its refusal to allow the reader space to read the human events presented. No one is allowed to bale out of Shields' careful, rational middle class world without being tracked down and *understood*. No one is allowed an uninterpretable gesture. date=26.03.2005 13:04 ip=213.78.74.79 name=clogiciel mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.gratuit1.biz text=Congratulations for your nice site. logiciel - gratuit - telecharger date=26.03.2005 16:09 ip=172.206.70.191 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Mike,
Thanks for the tip, guvernor!
Hi Dave ,
Geller was the original spoondbender back in the seventies. Back then, I saw him perform on TV.
http://skepdic.com/geller.html
And I like the music too ! date=29.03.2005 00:19 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH: I read Shields's title as "Useless." Looks like I could've been right.

Arturo: Geller is a good friend of Michael Jackson, too, so we could be seeing him (and most other US citizens, at this rate) called as a witness at the trial.

Dave: Cool pics. I work as an archivist in Oxford.

I saw some friends in the Midlands over Easter, and overheard one of those conversations on the train where a bloke from the Black Country was talking about a local hotel manager who'd "had a run-in with Tyrone Power." Astonishing what you find, isn't it? date=29.03.2005 09:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave - I'm a copywriter, and bassist.

Arturo - did your spoons bend in sympathy? Whenever Uri was on telly back then, I remember the newspapers the next day being full of stories about spontaneous bending, watch stopping, etc in viewers' houses. I never caught him in action, tho' I did try and bend spoons myself, albeit without success. I read somewhere that he also does oil questing for oil companies - they send him up in a helicopter, and he *feels* out the oil.

Hmm... date=29.03.2005 11:07 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Al
Alas and alack our spoons remained erect.
( Come to think of it ... What was this guy doing in Wonderland? The mind boggles)
By the way , I am in sales. date=29.03.2005 13:59 ip=80.58.4.172 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: Geller and Jackson's association is described on this link, including him accompanying Michael to "the dungeon." From the tone, I'd guess it's aimed at small children, but we shouldn't draw any conclusions from that.

http://tinyurl.com/3zhhx date=29.03.2005 14:43 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Our current life situations. Well I am on Mars, where the air is pretty thin. I am on the eastern rim of Pavonis Mons. It's all very orangey. Can't seem to get these plastic wings to work; struts keep falling off. What's worse the robots have vanished, every one, so I am left with no bridge back to Earth. It's sad but the view is fantastic. It's part of life's rich tapestry - that's what I tell myself. And at least I still have a load of DB's cassettes and CDs to listen to. date=29.03.2005 16:12 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And us to talk to, of course. date=29.03.2005 16:42 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH, I finished Light last night.

I'm not one todish the praise typically, but...yeah. It's just really evident that you've got a fully considered idea about what a person is...or what we know about a person/character when we know him. And that this idea comes from several well understood spheres of influence is also evident. And what's more is that these spheres seem to have been digested and integrated really well...which is to say not only do you know your stuff, but your capable of surfing it and conveying things quite beautifully.

Seriously...thanks for writing. I think what you do really matters. If you weren't in another country, Id buy you a beer.

More later...back to McScience. date=29.03.2005 21:16 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Shui mail=Shui282@hotmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=85 url=http://jacko.webd.pl text=Super! Shui date=29.03.2005 21:30 ip=203.200.19.7 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks, Dave. I think it's me who buys you the beer. date=29.03.2005 22:45 ip=213.78.94.4 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Should I also get the overshigth? date=29.03.2005 23:37 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Should I also get the overshigth?

I often ask myself just that question.

Also: cool new Bantam US Viriconium cover on the ES News page. date=30.03.2005 11:03 ip=158.94.159.71 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Very nice - when's it coming out? Will be interesting to read the Neil Gaiman intro, as well.

Overshigths sound appealingly Lovecraftian to me. date=30.03.2005 12:07 ip=212.140.144.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Amazon are saying that it'll be released in October this year. And who are we to doubt them? date=30.03.2005 12:26 ip=158.94.159.71 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Incidentally Neil Gaiman mentioned the intro on his blog the other week; it's on his to do list for round about now... date=30.03.2005 12:45 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Neil Gaiman also directs us here:

http://tinyurl.com/5z2a4 date=30.03.2005 14:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Looks oddly like Zali. date=30.03.2005 15:00 ip=212.140.144.36 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=At last a suitable name for Tony Blair, one that comes home to roost so to speak: the turkey twizzler. They say: He cornered the market in junk sincerity.

Good bit of branding, Al? date=30.03.2005 16:48 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Bernard Mathews mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bootiful. date=30.03.2005 16:54 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Bang on, I'd say. Junk morality. date=30.03.2005 17:37 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I meant Will Eaves´s first novel. date=30.03.2005 22:18 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Clara mail=no-any@yet.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://jane05.webeve.com text=Thak you for your work. date=31.03.2005 03:21 ip=83.28.188.215 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Not Clara from "Light" ...?

Arturo: As my friends in Liverpool say, you're out there where the buses don't run. I'll have to do some quick reading to catch all these references!

MJP: Tee-hee. Personally, I think the little war criminal looks more and more like Malcolm McDowell in "Caligula" - and I don't just mean he's a bad actor in a dreadful film, either. date=31.03.2005 09:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin, no politician has produced more paroxysmal loathing and anger in me than Tony Blair. So really I say good for Jamie Oliver, for making him jump through the right hoop for once. The school food issue illustrates by contrast how much our politics is a stagnant pool. date=31.03.2005 11:33 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And gives the lie to the free-marketisation of public services. Public services should be delivered by public institutions; if you put them in the hands of companies who are structured around increasing shareholder value, rather than delivering high quality public services, economic good becomes the only good and everybody ends up eating Turkey Twizzlers (I can imagine some burk putting together a powerpoint presentation about how saving 2p per meal served to 37p by taking out fresh fruit or similar leads to increased margins and thus boosts profitability by £xk per annum etc etc - ugh!).

And as for competition leading automatically to more cost effective, efficient services - two words: Directory Enquiries. Grrr. Quite apart from the idiocy of giving kids a choice between junk food and healthy food and expecting them to automatically choose the *long term best* option for themselves (as free market theory predicts they should).

37p a meal! If I had a grave I would be spinning in it.

/end rant date=31.03.2005 11:46 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh and MJP - a philosopher after your own (political) heart -

'Honderich is also a consequentialist, which partly explains his hatred towards Tony Blair. "He is always asking to be judged by the morality of his intentions," he spits. "He doesn't understand that no one cares about his fucking morality. We judge him by the consequences of his actions. In any case, his morality is so muddy and ill-considered. I'm increasingly coming to the opinion that Blair's main problem is that he's not very bright."'

From http://tinyurl.com/6j35m

(my first ever tinyurl!) date=31.03.2005 12:22 ip=212.140.144.36 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I don't think "free market theory" was ever actually intended to *be* a theory, was it ? Just a more or less slick rationale for the gouging behaviour Al has so aptly described.

Free market theory enables you to tune a value-free economic system to optimum. Tuning success (profit) encourages both the attempt to tune out spare capacity--leading to the collapse of the system and the redefining of the slightest load on it as an "overload" --and the attempt to tune out the consumer altogether. At which point you come full-circle to a kind of capitalist Stalinism, in which the system for delivery of goods (in the philosophical sense) becomes more important than the welfare of the consumer of the goods or, paradoxically, the goodness of the goods themselves. Our infrastructures are already tuned to that condition, which is why they keep falling over (Railtrack, Health Service, Heathrow baggage system, etc). Tony Blair has involved himself intimately in this process, probably because Bush and the corporates have given him no choice.

But behind that, I don't detect any theory in "free market theory" --only the usual old greed. Also the same old war: the majority of children eat shit so a few people can send their kids to establishments where proper food is served for lunch. Most kids get to play with a purple plastic My Little Pony so a few kids can have a real pony and learn to hunt foxes. Surely this is transparent, and always was ? date=31.03.2005 12:41 ip=213.78.74.218 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Rushing around a bit, so a brief one - I always thought there was a coherent body of theory around it, but I could be wrong; I remember Will Hutton outlining a history of it in 'The State We're In' back in the mid '90s (eee - when you could still be optimistic about New Labour...) His objection to it; it assumed a perfect knowledge of both the long and short term effects of all potential choices on behalf of the consumer, plus an ability to make choices within a market based on those plusses / minuses - which seems optimistic to say the least.

Apart from the economic side of it, what's intriguing is the way (for true believers) it gives markets an almost vatic power; they become great machines for reaching a state of perfection - a state that we, as individual rational beings, are incapable of reaching - this most clear in that attempt a couple of years back to set up a free market in information that would (somehow) predict terrorist attacks. A pure free market as a prophetic presence!

It's become a religion - free markets as something that are good in themselves, that are moral in themselves, that have an absolute worth that overcomes any related negativity (you're eating crap for lunch? Actually, that's not a problem - because what you're really doing is not eating crap but supporting a free market as it reaches a state of transcendent perfection, according to its own, purely economic values). date=31.03.2005 13:27 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al said:
I can imagine some burk putting together a powerpoint presentation about ...

I don't think these things are decided by one person whom you can blame. The existence of a large and complicated system negates blame, which is spread evenly throughout the system and can therefore be totally ignored. I have seen this happen on an incredible scale. It is one of the themes in NPLT.

I have more to say on this but it'll have to wait because I'm ill. Sorry guys. Over & out, once again. date=31.03.2005 13:30 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Steph: Get well soon! date=31.03.2005 14:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>Large and complicated system negates blame ...

I'm sure it will. Again.

http://tinyurl.com/4fz3f date=31.03.2005 14:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Steph - yup, get well soon too!

Hmm. I think it's probably a combination of the two - the structural and the personal. And blame's an interesting word here; we might blame the Turkey Twizzler person for adding un-nutritious food to school menus, but within the organisation he / she is probably feted for saving the company money; for helping reduce the cost of the meal that's provided for 37p a plate (! still can't get over that!) from (say) 30p a plate to 29p a plate, thus boosting profit margins, by suggesting that slightly more expensive Turkey Drummers should be replaced by slightly cheaper (and crapper) Turkey Twizzlers.

So come to think of it I'd be willing to bet that someone, somewhere has (until recently) been proudly wearing the badge 'Turkey Twizzler King'! (much internal political kudos to be gained from that kind of profitable coup, I would think).

Ugh! date=31.03.2005 14:15 ip=212.140.144.36 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Blair believes in 'consumer choice'.

You find it everywhere in government. It is government dogma. The object is to create patient choice; choice in the NHS; customers on the underground. This is Blair's idea and it is, as a universal description of political reality, plainly incoherent. As if anyone chooses to be ill ... ! Or as if there were an alternate London Underground. The idea of letting a market led economy rule over everything and in order to keep up with the rest of the world technologically within that, so that we can sell the rest of the world GM crops, and continually find new expanding markets to exploit ... that value system, such as it is, is the responsibility of specific individuals, and I suppose of those who voted for them (me for one, unfortunately). The wheels turn but most of the cogs aren't connected to anything. date=31.03.2005 14:36 ip=81.19.57.130 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thing is, this is why Blair thinks he is in power, that it is because he believes in consumer choice (the third way) that he is in power ... I wonder if he is feeling rattled. He should be because Oliver's campaign is a explicit victory over that kind of mindlessness. That's why it has a resonance much greater than its seeming lack of importance in the wider scheme of things. Here we have an issue of government regulation needing to rule over or rule out 'customer choice'. date=31.03.2005 15:00 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> As if anyone chooses to be ill ... !

Or when they're ill, fancies going through the league tables and consulting a series of websites to decide which hospital they want to visit, or which surgeon they want to be operated on by...

Or indeed comparing baffling rate information and trying to remember who someone said was best value 6 months ago before ringing whichever version of directory enquiries they choose to be baffled by... date=31.03.2005 15:29 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Can't agree more that "choice" in hospitals is stupid.

Thanks guys, well appreciated. (Still back pain, unfortunately it hasn't stopped me driving like a monster reincarnation of Dean Moriaty.) date=31.03.2005 17:32 ip=62.255.240.221 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Steph:
Get well soon!
Cosumer choice: McDonalds or Burger King, Star Trek or Star Wars and so on. date=31.03.2005 18:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I think the choice here refers to wether you choose NHS or private. If you work in middle management or up--especially if you work in middle management or up in, just say for example, medical health insurance--you can choose private. Everyone else can choose NHS. That's as I uinderstand the system. I may be a bit hazy on the details. date=31.03.2005 18:30 ip=62.188.139.218 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm this minute watching a BBC2 programme on waste management & disposal. It has a docudrama thread running through it, in which the fictional rogue-waste-tipping company is called Rose Waste. What a coincidence. I don't know whether to be annoyed or flattered, but I think I'll choose flattered. date=31.03.2005 19:35 ip=213.78.90.246 name=sedrik mail=admin@sedrik.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://boltun.vov.ru text=Best Spyware removal site http://boltun.vov.ru Thanks!!! date=01.04.2005 03:21 ip=82.101.132.51 name=sedrik mail=admin@sedrik.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://somenicyi.com/bmw-z3-r-c-radio-control-car-remote-cotroller.html text=2000 bmw 323 station wagon reviews bmw cars 2000 bmw 323 station wagon reviews http://somenicyi.com date=01.04.2005 06:52 ip=62.249.201.252 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Finished Liz Hand's new(ish) one Mortal Love yesterday. Probably the best thing she's done. Especially considering that a lot of it is based in London, which American writers can often fail to capture convincingly - Gibson's recent Pattern Recognition being an embarrassingly Dick Van Dyck-ish example.

Incredibly rich and assured novel. Hope this will be coming out in the UK soon.

Oh, and there's a major character who resembles MJH. Hmm? date=01.04.2005 11:29 ip=158.94.167.219 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>there's a major character who resembles MJH.

well its a favour ive done others, tho not Liz. & some thought it not really a favour at all date=01.04.2005 14:42 ip=213.78.74.87 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>well its a favour ive done others

Presumably Climbers is absolutely rammed with this sort of favour.

Just before that I was reading Hell on Hoe Street by Jeremy Cameron, a Walthamstow (and Pakistan) based Crime novel. The Walthamstow accent used by the first person narrator is fairly successful but occasionally feels a little forced. And sadly he didn't include the local expression "'e'are" (pronounced "ER") - as in "'E'are, gel. 'Ere's yr B&H!"

Anyway, trashy and forgettable but quite good for a long journey back from Bristol. date=01.04.2005 15:01 ip=158.94.167.219 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Reading - two Dedalus paperbacks, Meyrink's "The Golem" and Rosendorfer's "Letters Back to Ancient China." Also a biography of Dylan, where friends are in awe of his success with women - "he seems to have some kind of *power* over them ..." A private fortune of $150m must play some part in this - but I'm only guessing. date=01.04.2005 15:14 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Meyrink's "The Golem"

Is that the Mike Mitchell translation? If it is, I was reading that when I was in Prague last autumn. Great fun! date=01.04.2005 15:22 ip=158.94.167.219 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Haven't got it to hand - but I think so. Robert Irwin intro; soap-bubble gargoyle head on the cover. Swooning melodrama and arcane kabbalistics.

Did you try and follow the plot round the city? date=01.04.2005 15:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=That's a very strange book. I read it when I was feverish with a really severe case of food poisoning, which enhanced the experience quite substantially. Very much want to read his Amsterdam one.

Currently I am mostly reading Joseph Roth's 'What I saw' - v. sharp journalism from pre-war Berlin. date=01.04.2005 15:38 ip=212.140.144.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Did you try and follow the plot round the city?

Couldn't actually get into the old ghetto, it was closed for refurbishment. Also, most of the streets are given their German names rather that their Czech names. But yes, sometimes it was difficult enough following *myself* around the city. One night I kept going around in circles and coming back to this statue of Kafka piggyback on an large animate empty suit. date=01.04.2005 15:44 ip=158.94.167.219 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=>>Did you try and follow the plot round the city?

Couldn't actually get into the old ghetto, it was closed for refurbishment. Also, most of the streets are given their German names in the book rather that their Czech names. But yes, sometimes it was difficult enough following *myself* around the city. One night I kept going around in circles and coming back to this statue of Kafka piggyback on an large animate empty suit.
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*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=01.04.2005 15:44 ip=158.94.167.219 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Similar experience with the ghetto; when I was there, it was closed for a religious holiday. So no golem hunting in the synagogue! date=01.04.2005 15:56 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: I want to look at Meyrink's "Angel of the West Window," too, about Edward Kelley and John Dee in Prague.

I almost wrote "Jack Dee" there. A very different novel ... date=01.04.2005 16:13 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=He's a very interesting writer. I picked up a copy of his short stories - they're marvellous; fantastic, in the best sense, full of haunting details and incidents... date=01.04.2005 16:28 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey guys, interesting posts of late. I enjoy reading this site. Especially while I should be working. Actually, when you think about it, I get paid to read and post here. That's badass. ;)

Two things on my mind today:

1. Have any of you heard the most recent Nick Cave album? I'm listening to it now. I think it would go over well with this crowd...it's rocking, but very literate.

2. MJH, question for you: What's the deal with the repetition of the woman holding the letter and yelling "You bloody piece of paper"? I noticed that in both Light and COTH. I'm not sure if you care to answer direct questions like this, but I figured I'd ask. date=01.04.2005 18:03 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: The Nick Cave cd is a return to form. Very good , indeed. (I am listening rigth now to an Ian Dury cd reissue and to american duo Cocorosie.)
Meyrink: I am also fan. From the same city I´ve reading Carel Capek less famous works that are nothing less than brilliant.I.e.:"The absolute at large" date=01.04.2005 18:30 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=English translation of a Borges poem about the golemç

http://esag.harvard.edu/falk/interests/poetry/elgo lem.html date=01.04.2005 18:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave. The image of the woman with the letter was based on a real event. I saw the woman herself, clad as she's described, addressing a taxi queue outside Charing Cross station in London, 1984. My cab was slow in pulling away, so I was able to get the whole incident down in my notebook. I was in the cab with another writer, who asked me, "What kind of things do you put in that notebook ?", to which I replied, "Well, things like *that*."

I was so impressed by the woman's pain, and by her theatrical skills, that I added her to the portrait of the narrator's mother in the prologue of CotH, stripping away the original event and context so that only the requisite qualities were transferred. Later, I felt that this selectivity hadn't done justice to the bizarreness of the original event, so I made it the pivot of a short story called "The Horse of Iron" (collected in Things That Never Happen); a story which became, eventually, the armature of Michael Kearney's back-narrative. In Light, the incident is an index of the menace and bizarreness of Kearney's world (which is ready to turn the "real" inside out at any time); in CotH it is about loss and how people are driven to act it out, also a kind of small-print warning to the reader that the "events" of a novel are just some words on the page. date=01.04.2005 19:22 ip=213.78.164.175 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=PS: apart from the obviously fantastic or science fictional stuff, I rarely make things up. There's no need, when it's all going on around you.

Nick Cave--are we talking Abbatoir Blues & The Lyre of Orpheus ? I've got that & I like it lots. Although for me no track will ever approach the perfection of The Ship Song. date=01.04.2005 19:37 ip=213.78.164.175 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yep...that's the Cave album I was referring to.

So, thanks for answering my question, MJH. It's odd that the woman with the letter jumped out at me, but I had a strange experience while reading it:

Both times I read about her (Light and COTH), I found myself humming the song "138th Street" by the Walkmen. Which is interesting because it's a song that it seems like she could inhabit. Here are the lyrics:

I hear that you got yourself a house
and all your friends you finally figured out
but you go out in the night til you got no place to go
I see you on the corner where you're trying to use the phone
and everyone will say you missed your chance
and everyone will say you've lost your edge
but it's just something that you've heard about a thousand time before
and every time you're falling, then you'll see me on the floor
and someday when you turn around
you'll take a wife, and start a life
it won't be long

I hear that you got yourself a job
and all your friends you finally nailed down
but you go out in the night till you got no place to go
something you aint doing right is haunting you at home
now we've been hanging round for quite a while
so let's get out of here and take a drive
on the parkway tonight
you can hear the engines roar
the flashing lights will nab you when you're driving your way home
and someday when you turn around you'll see the door is closing

Strange, eh? date=01.04.2005 19:56 ip=148.4.151.131 name=vantus mail=nos@noser.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://volgafishing.nm.ru/adult-personals.html text=interacial dating dating interacial dating. ... dating best responds that know will. the positive which is the Sign-up for an only child, to learn to contain events open and honest ... http://volgafishing.nm.ru/interacial-dating.html date=01.04.2005 23:26 ip=62.193.231.243 name=vantus mail=nos@noser.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://colorspics.com text=pets traveling to germany from states travel articlestravel insurance covering pre existing medical conditions bronx tourist information http://colorspics.com senior citizen travel insurance date=02.04.2005 05:03 ip=82.237.216.153 name=Maria mail=maryjane@4freemail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://xara-search.com text=Wow! I've been writing a big post for 3 times but it'd returned me some errors :\(
And i dont know why... date=02.04.2005 19:33 ip=83.28.195.134 name=vantus mail=nos@noser.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://debri.net text=pets traveling to germany from states travel articlestravel insurance covering pre existing medical conditions bronx tourist information http://debri.net senior citizen travel insurance date=02.04.2005 23:54 ip=202.83.174.42 name=vantus mail=nos@noser.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://kpnemo.net text=pets traveling to germany from states travel articlestravel insurance covering pre existing medical conditions bronx tourist information http://kpnemo.net senior citizen travel insurance date=03.04.2005 04:06 ip=62.193.231.241 name=vantus mail=nos@noser.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://maxumer.com text=pets traveling to germany from states travel articlestravel insurance covering pre existing medical conditions bronx tourist information http://maxumer.com senior citizen travel insurance date=03.04.2005 05:56 ip=140.130.111.23 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.crookedtimber.org text=Just a quick aside on the "free market theory" question if that's not completely exhausted. There is an intellectual basis to free market theory - the general equilibrium model formulated by Arrow and Debreu, which argues that under certain conditions, freely clearly markets will lead to Pareto optimal outcomes in which the lot of no individual or group of individuals can be improved without disimproving the lot of other individuals or groups. The problem with this is that the necessary conditions for this result are hopelessly implausible. Ken Arrow himself (who won a Nobel prize for this contribution, among others) seems to view the result as an exercise in abstract mathematics - he's a cheerful social democrat who advocates all sorts of state intervention to improve social welfare. Unfortunately, the theoretical abstraction seems to get a lot of use from economists who claim that free markets are necessarily superior to other forms of economic organization - it's now more an ideology than anything else.

On characters modeled on MJH - China was asked in a recent interview in the Believer whether Cutter in "Iron Council" was a version of MJH - he seemed a bit nonplussed. URL is at http://www.believermag.com/issues/200504/interview_mieville. php; relevant extract below.

BLVR: You always have to dig to find out what your characters look like physically. Cutter is described as being big, muscular, a young political activist. Judah: tall, thin, charismatic, slightly aloof, long grey hair. This isn’t you and M. John Harrison at all, is it?

CM: [Laughs] Well, not consciously. But I’m not so naïve as to think one’s always in control of the ideas. You’re probably in a better position to judge than me. I certainly wasn’t consciously saying I’m Cutter and Judah is M. John Harrison. I do think that M. John Harrison looks—he’s a man who holds himself in his body with tremendous presence. But no, I wasn’t trying to riff off anyone there, but like I say, I do think a lot of times the interesting things are precisely what one’s not intending to do but does anyway. date=03.04.2005 19:35 ip=208.58.65.235 name=Henry mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.crookedtimber.org text=Sorry that should be Judah Low. date=03.04.2005 19:36 ip=208.58.65.235 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Henry, you wrote--

>the theoretical abstraction seems to get a lot of use from >economists who claim that free markets are necessarily >superior to other forms of economic organization - it's now >more an ideology than anything else.

That, I guess, is what I was trying to say, in my brutally cynical & ironic way. What starts out as theory becomes so easily a rationale. By the time it's filtered down from economist to businessman, it's not even an ideology. It's an enabling mechanism; an excuse.

On Judah Low--

It would be nice to fit that description, but I'm five foot six inches high (in fact my girlfriend, wrongheadedly in my opinion, claims I'm shorter than that). This makes for a slightly less imposing presence than I'd like. There's even less of a fit where intellectual stature is concerned--I'd have to stand on a box to come up to China's shoulder.

Can't quarrel with this though--

>I do think a lot of times the interesting things are precisely >what one’s not intending to do but does anyway.

Depend upon it. date=03.04.2005 20:22 ip=213.78.80.40 name=Norman mail=normna@getfail.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://military-education.mo-kl.com/ text=HI! Good site thank you. I will come back here sometimes date=03.04.2005 21:56 ip=195.234.173.10 name=Joe Black mail=joe@nomail.org icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://norton-antivirus.atspace.com text=Sweet site! Good luck! (Look at http://norton-antivirus.atspace.com) date=03.04.2005 23:57 ip=203.172.255.253 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.sumption.org text=Hi all,

Filling up on Empty Space after 10 days in Germany - in a bookshop in Oberhausen, on a table laden with the latest in SF, I couldn't help noticing a pile of copies of "Licht" by M John Harrison. So rather extravagently I bought myself a copy. One day I may even be able to read it (I tried it out on my German friends: several words in the chapter headings were completely unknown to them, so I think I'd need a pretty fat dictionary). It won't be quite like reading something in the original language, but I've a feeling that the footnotes (yes, it has them) may throw light on a few of the many references which I so obviously missed in the original.

Holiday reading: Russell Hoban's "Riddley Walker". I bought this in a bookshop basement in Barrow-in-Furness last year, and was reminded to read it by a mention in the Guardian Review's piece on Cloud Atlas the other week. Very satisfying, particularly the way in which Hoban's garbled future-language punningly links up major themes in the book. Just started "Exquisite Corpse" by Robert Irwin: I wondered into our local junkshop's closing-down sale thinking "I wonder whether I can find anything by Robert Irwin in here". Hey presto: there it was in the first stack I examined. I also have Joseph Roth's "What I Saw" by my bedside for occasional forays (it's another one I picked up in Barrow).

Dave: I may have already mentioned this but I am also a bassist (albeit a hibernating one at the moment) and at least theoretically a psychologist (studied it, take an interest in it, but do bugger all else with it), but most of my working hours are spent doing "web type things" - slightly less vague descriptions on my website, along with a picture of my bass which is a Rickenbacker 4001, bog-standard in all but its decor. (My other bass is a Westone Thunder 1A fretless which wouldn't even be worth mentioning if it weren't for the fact that I've just done so).

I was at school with someone called Uri. Inevitably he became "Uri Geller, the famous bender" ("of spoons" sometimes appended as an afterthough). date=04.04.2005 00:19 ip=62.49.107.18 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Pouring rain on a Monday, and I'm reading an invite. Do I want to attend a day-long seminar in June when German experts will tell me all about their problems with dry rot? Decisions, decisions. But I have to sort out my travel arrangements to the Pope's funeral first: and that means getting the Bono costume down to Sketchley's. It's all go.

"Riddley Walker": a great piece of un-English. It's much more modest, but I also rate "Boxy an Star" here.

Nick Cave: "Boatman's Call" is the one for me. I'm amazed he's still alive after seeing him falling about the stage with the Birthday Party, bellowing "King Ink."

Arturo: I hadn't read the Borges - thank you. Now I can't stop thinking about the rabbi's cat! date=04.04.2005 11:22 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hello all,

Empty Space Forum will be vanishing in a week or so. We've had a good run, but what with spammers and bugs and the limited one-dimensional thread it's probably time to call it a day.

MJH discussion will still be going on on the TTA Forums:

http://www.ttapress.com/discus

And of course you are all welcome to discuss MJH related (or unrelated) stuff on the ES Reading Group or any of the forums on my site:

http://www.iotacism.com/discus date=04.04.2005 11:38 ip=158.94.178.216 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Zali: Sad news - but thank you for all your hard work. date=04.04.2005 11:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Indeed. Many thanks, Zali. And MJH; thank you for having us! (as my mother always said I should say when leaving a particularly good party).

Empty Space Wake, anyone? date=04.04.2005 11:51 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Wake. For sure. date=04.04.2005 12:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You're very welcome, young Robertson!

But please: not an Empty Space Wake. The site itself will still be with us for the forseeable future.

Look forward to seeing yz all in other venues - online and otherwise. date=04.04.2005 12:43 ip=158.94.178.216 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc=0 url= text=Cheers Martin!

You're very welcome, young Robertson!

But please: not an Empty Space Wake. The site itself will still be with us for the forseeable future.

Look forward to seeing yz all in other venues - online and otherwise.
--------------------
*e*d*i*t*e*d**t*e*x*t* date=04.04.2005 12:43 ip=158.94.178.216 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry Io, Empty Space Forum Wake! date=04.04.2005 12:52 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of the golem, though:

http://tinyurl.com/5mwaa date=04.04.2005 12:58 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Actually, I saw more of those painted cows than golems when I was there last. date=04.04.2005 13:24 ip=158.94.178.216 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry Io, Empty Space Forum Wake!
___________

I can´t be there but I´ll try to get a drink at the proper time... date=04.04.2005 13:42 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The experiment is over. Now we go into the world, changed forever. Is there an ex-Empty Space support group? I never got to meet anyone. But still, if we never meet again, we'll always have that kebab ship, spinning like a brown thing up in the vastness. Look to the stars and think of me. date=04.04.2005 15:16 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Alex: Tragic. Absolutely. Those dear dead days, etc.

Anyway: when are we meeting up for a drink? - :)

(Arturo, this means you too!) date=04.04.2005 15:25 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey guys...I'm sorry to hear that this place is going to fade out. I was starting to enjoy it a good bit.

Do you (meaning the group) post as regularly and conversationally on the other board? date=04.04.2005 16:13 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Now reconvening on Radio KRMB forums. Krautrock, favourite teas and gay musicals.

Dave: were you the one who mentioned Arcade Fire? Love it - thanks. My tip for the top is Ella Guru: their album is superb (if a little on the Lambchop side). date=04.04.2005 16:17 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm grooving to Alasdair Roberts at the mo; funereally slow but very hypnotic folk. date=04.04.2005 16:23 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Dan mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yus, things just won't be quite the same - funny how different forums develop quite their own distinctive flavours, there are things I would post here and not at the KRMB and vice versa. Plus I've always been quite fond of single-thread discussions, they tend to develop in interesting and random ways (although having said that, there's little more random than the Gay Musical thread KRMB. Except, perhaps, for the Top Tens).

Here's to the Empty Space Reading Group filling the void left by the Empty Space Forum. And to the hope that one day, in the not-too-distant future, we can all meet up again for stout & sushi. date=04.04.2005 16:32 ip=62.49.107.18 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>post as regularly and conversationally on the other board?

Dave: Yes, some of us hang-out on my KRMB forums (URL as below) - which are nominally for Krautrock and experimental music of all stripes, but in practice are pretty much open to interpretation. There's a (mostly neglected) Empty Space Reading Group forum on there if anyone fancies pushing KRMB in a more literary direction.

And also some of us hang out at the TTA Press site - where you will find discussion forums for many Slipstream/New Weird/What-Have-You authors including, of course, MJH.

(D'you think I'll be remembered as the man who originally labelled MJH as a What-Have-You author?)

Arturo: I thought we were all meeting at *yours* for a few beers? date=04.04.2005 16:38 ip=158.94.178.216 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Cool, good to know there are still some options out there.

I guess I'll just add to the pot:

There's a forum at my website that is jus crying out for some use (all our old posts got deleted a week or so ago): www.theblackspoons.com

And I use this regularly when I feel cheesy and so forth, but is actually fun sometimes: http://www.myspace.com/mysterywhiteboy

Iotar, MySpace is good for getting music ou there too. You might want to create a profile. That's pretty much why I did. date=04.04.2005 17:08 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh, and it was me who mentioned The Arcade Fire. I really like them. And it was at their show that I met David Byrne and David Bowie. That was a cool night... date=04.04.2005 17:10 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave, I was impressed by that too. At different times I listen to both of them, David Byrne and David Bowie, alot. Right now its the former, endlessly. But I am still trying to decide what I think of Byrne's Grown Backwards. Possibly his weakest album? Not as good as Look into the Eyeball, I think. Middle age sometimes misleads artists because by becoming comfortable with who they are, they lose that strand of alienness that made them interesting to start with. Byrne is able to make the familiar strange, as is Bowie. But on Grown Backwards he is just a little too straightforward for me, a little too predictable. Not disastrously so however.

I have enjoyed this site alot. It's often my first port of call when I fire up the computer. Thanks for the privilege of posting here. date=04.04.2005 17:25 ip=81.19.57.130 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: I'll play on your forum now and then. Better hear some of your music first... date=04.04.2005 17:40 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: Arcade Fire/David Byrne - you were there?? Someone sent them doing "This Must Be the Place" live, which is fantastic!

It has been/is great posting here - and thank you, Mike, for responding to us or simply putting up with all this under your name. date=04.04.2005 17:46 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail=arturo.villarrubia@gmail.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi, Io.
That would be great. You show up in Madrid and I´ll introduce you to the real evil drinks like ptxaran. I´ll introduce you to my new and only cat, Calcetines, an stray that has settled in our household pretty much on his own volition . Introduce you to a proper plate of Morcilla de Burgos with onion with some red wine and show you our monument to Lucifer.
Seriously, drop a line and I´ll do my best to meet for a drink.
It´s been a pleasure.
Thanks . date=04.04.2005 17:57 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Yup, I'm feeling quite sad about this; it's been a great place to hang out - especially when I was working from home and would sometimes go two or three days without seeing anyone (except the people in Londis, who would hide when they saw me coming, as I'd keep on trying to engage them in very long conversations).

How long's the board been up for now, btb? date=04.04.2005 17:57 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry but I feel this calls for a truly awful joke
( Anybody who reads beyond this has been warned , it is truly awful)
There are three friends who must part and live on diferent cities. To remenber their friendship they agree that each friday the will go to the bar and have three drinks. And so they do.
With time, the guy at the bar learns why one of them does that . Until one day is asked for only two drinks and he´s worried.
- What is the matter? Are your fiends all rigth ?
- Yes they are fine. It´s only that I no longer drink. date=04.04.2005 19:00 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Steph mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=You are welcome at mine on TTA when I've got some threads going. I'm pain-free today and hope to stay so :-)

99.9% of fantasy is crap. 0.1% is literature. If I didn't believe this I'd be writing popular science. date=04.04.2005 19:24 ip=62.255.240.221 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi guys. This has been a great venue. But the people are more important than the URL, and there are plenty of other options. I'll still be available, over-opinionated and irritable on both TTA and Nightshade, for instance; and I would miss talking to you if you weren't there. Thanks io, Dave & Steph for suggestions of other possible boards. I don't see why there should be any more of a stutter between here & our next home than there was between TTA and here. date=04.04.2005 19:32 ip=213.78.85.220 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>How long's the board been up for now, btb?

166 pages (this might trip it over into 167) - the first post was on 06.06.03. So it's not even two years old! date=05.04.2005 11:21 ip=158.94.186.190 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm sure we'll all meet up in Another Place - but, to get us all through the tough transition, how about an inspirational statutette or two?

http://tinyurl.com/cxl date=05.04.2005 15:03 ip=193.63.239.165 name=MJP mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Statues. Good idea. But in place of JC you'd need to put MJH; and in place of sport a computer, escritoire, blackboard, book, journal .... date=05.04.2005 15:21 ip=81.19.57.130 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But in place of JC you'd need to put MJH

I dunno. I'm quite inspired by the idea of MJH teaching me to play baseball. Go slugger! date=05.04.2005 15:37 ip=158.94.186.190 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm - surely Christ juggling an oozing kebabship and an American football made of bone? As enthusiastic children leap up to try and snatch the cosmic chilli sauce from him. date=05.04.2005 15:47 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I thought the hockey model was "down with the kids" - but the golf one was deeply worrying, in a Michael Jackson (allegedly) sort of way. date=05.04.2005 16:15 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I hadn't realised there was a second page! I want a martial arts Jesus - and a bumper sticker reading 'Who would Jesus deck?' date=05.04.2005 16:18 ip=212.140.144.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Perhaps you could have some which also involve saints. JC teaching kids archery - with added St Sebastian! date=05.04.2005 16:25 ip=158.94.186.190 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=To go with them, you could have:

http://tinyurl.com/3hvuu date=05.04.2005 17:00 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=... And, for those days when you feel "everyone's against me":

http://tinyurl.com/3ucu4 date=05.04.2005 17:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Let´s have a t-shirt !
Anybody can come with a suitable slogan? date=05.04.2005 18:12 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Silly me! Of course the only suitable slogan for the empty space forum should be : date=05.04.2005 18:16 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just a heads up for the Londoners in the group: Interpol and Spoon are splitting a bill at the Brixton Academy this week (on the 8th). It should be a pretty god show...not sure if any of you guys are into them, but I wish they were playing in NYC.

A few other things:

I was checking out the TTA site earlier today. Just wondering, but was the deal with that dude who had a problem with the name Billy Anker? After reading that thread, I feel as though something about his character zoomed right over my head. Anyone care to clue me in?

Also, about the board... After this forum is done, will the old pages still be viewable? One of the reasons I never posted about COTH is because I never had a chance to read the backlog of posts I wasn't around for...didn't want to ask questions without being caught up on what already happened.

Also, has a consensus been reached as to what the new venue will be? I realized that I'm really going to miss posting here and reading what you guys have to say...

About those Jesus statues: whoever made them must be projecting some seriously repressed fantasies. Seriously, Jesus has never been portrayed as a pedophilic pimp with such subtlety before... date=05.04.2005 21:07 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Speaking of pedophiles, I laughed my ass off at this today.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-03-31&re s=l date=05.04.2005 23:02 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Jessica mail=myjess@onliner.net icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://tramadol.online-99.biz/buy-tramadol.htm text=OKLAHOMA CITY - The wife of a deputy prison warden who vanished 10 years ago with an escaped killer told authorities after she was found that he had held her captive the whole time, a federal agent said Tuesday. date=06.04.2005 02:07 ip=83.28.203.169 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=T shirts: "And more after that .."? "Don't be a wanker all your life"? "We all go to a different wedding"?

Dave: The TTA "Billy Anker" poster was jam-packed with attack-mongrel animus and humourless inadequacy, and I stayed well off to one side of it. I don't know the real story (if any) - but it might get untangled if the forum ever gets together in the same bar at the same time. date=06.04.2005 10:34 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Y'see Jessica, this is just the sort of thing I mean about spam. You seem to be telling us some shit about Oklahoma City but actually you're trying to sell us Tramadol. I'm speaking here as if there is a "you" behind the identity of "Jessica" but of course it's just a cursory, mass-produced baby-doll mask. YOU ARE THE SORT OF SHIT-STAIN WHO HAS BROUGHT US TO THIS SORRY UNDERPASS! PLEASED WITH YRSELF? ARE YOU?

Tossers!

*deep breath*

Dave: At some point I'm going to try to extract the whole text of this Forum and put somewhere where anyone interested, like yrself, can read it at yr leisure.

But hopefully with the more open-plan forum like TTA it will be easier to see what has been said on a particular subject.

There is, of course, another *even* earlier single thread TTA forum - which may or may not still exist. But that's another story... date=06.04.2005 11:26 ip=158.94.131.26 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=The Billy Anker guy at TTA: I always suspected a burden of unresolved issues, something reaching him at a level he wasn't prepared to acknowledge. But also the extraordinarily provincial arrogance of someone who had got authority cheap and who simply had no experience of being gainsaid. I had the feeling a couple of times that he was performing, too: ie, that he was pursuing his case less for the sake of it than for someone else's approval.

Anybody guess at his age ? Religion ? date=06.04.2005 11:41 ip=213.78.70.94 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>Anybody guess at his age ? Religion ?

Age: Teens to mid twenties.
Religion: Scientologist or perhaps Jedi?
Shoe Size: 12 date=06.04.2005 11:57 ip=158.94.131.26 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hey, nothing wrong with size 12s!

I just try not to stamp around in them ... date=06.04.2005 12:02 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>nothing wrong with size 12s!

As long as you don't combine them with Jedi-ism.

May the force be with you. date=06.04.2005 12:35 ip=158.94.131.26 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=And with you, brothers.

It's a long time since I've bought it, but this month's "Rolling Stone" is given over to stories about Hunter S. Thompson by family and friends. These include savagely depraved anecdote involving tarantulas and lipstick - and also someone who claims to have been Thompson's closest friend, on the grounds that his credit card was in HST's name for 20 years. If bravery really is grace under pressure, then this man deserves medals. date=06.04.2005 12:49 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> YOU ARE THE SORT OF SHIT-STAIN WHO HAS BROUGHT US TO THIS SORRY UNDERPASS

Can I just include in that also berks who sue when they've fallen off the back of an open-ended Routemaster Bus (the classic London bus), thus forcing them all to have doors, so meaning you stew in traffic when but five metres away from your stop, can't hop on at the lights, etc etc. And of course those 'sue for money' satan spawned companies?

I did a web search on the Ankerman, btb - the only person I could find with that name was a Professor of Music in (I think) Edinburgh. Even stranger if that is him; making him even more spurious, given his claims to be a literature teacher. date=06.04.2005 13:03 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Al: Ankerman had all the hallmarks of a psycho twink -head too long in the tank. But who knows? date=06.04.2005 13:06 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>berks who sue when they've fallen off the back of an open-ended Routemaster Bus

A friend of mine threw himself backwards off a Routemaster once. He did it to get back to his girlfriend who had been left at the bus stop when the bus pulled away. Which was kinda sweet, and he didn't sue either.

A big round of applause for romantic self injury! date=06.04.2005 13:37 ip=158.94.131.26 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Ankerman: I take it that you are talking about the " daniel monek" character. Obviously a teenager . A male. And yes he was performing, somebody was whatching as he typed those things. They sound like something written to show that the dares to do it, not convince or even insult. I can´t hazard about religion but surely the conservative wing of whatever it is. Not a gay and he doesn´t have any gay friends or he wouldn´t use the word in such a way or so ligthly. Surely not a jew for the same reason. Not very educated or he would have mentioned the egyptian Ank.
Some mid-western colllege I should say with a free conection. date=06.04.2005 13:52 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hmm : I wonder if "D.Monek" = "Demonic" in some teen goth lunge at wit. Re-reading his posts, I couldn't help thinking of Rik in "The Young Ones." But any road up, life's too short to reason with the daft. date=06.04.2005 14:10 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=By the way , I googled and found only two people by that name. A music teacher and a teenaged student affiliated to an "holy cross group". He may be the second guy (if not I am ready to apologize)

"- Multilayered Mr.Melville? Why can´t you do a rip-roaring whaler yarn as you used to do?" date=06.04.2005 14:11 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> Rik in "The Young Ones."

People's Poet? Now there was a revolutionary hero to look up to... date=06.04.2005 14:36 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks for the Ankerman update, but hold on here a second:

I wear size 13s and I operated under the presumption that I was a Jedi until I was about 19. In fact, sometimes I take a seat on the couch and try to get the remote control to float over to me to this day.

That said, I'd make the sort of jedi that'd be totally pleasing to the Empty Space crowd.

An example:

There'd be none of this: "These aren't the droids you're looking for." And a lot of this: "This is the phone number you're looking for" or "You are experiencing a sudden urge to disrobe."

Maybe even: "This is the Jeus statuette you're looking for. Now cough up $50."

I'd make a petty jedi, but I'd have fun. date=06.04.2005 16:58 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'd make a petty jedi, but I'd have fun.
________-
So much for jedis. We don´t alow this kind of behaviour in the Geek ( or was it Green?) Lantern corps. date=06.04.2005 17:34 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I wear size 13s and I operated under the presumption that I was a Jedi until I was about 19...

Jesus Christ! Everyone here has bigger shoes than me!

What I was actually getting at is that certain parts of genre-SF became quite unhappy when Light was released. If you look at the amazon.co.uk reviews you'll get an idea of what I mean. It's not just that they didn't groove on the book, or they were a bit disappointed; they actually seem to take it somehow personally that MJH shd write such a book.

Which is interesting.

It's a shame in a way that the New Weird discussion that was on the old TTA forums no longer exists because some of the history of the clash between genre and more multivalent writers.

On the other hand: thank fuck it was deleted! It just went on and on and on... Some SF Geeks over at Oxford Uni did a brilliantly hamfisted piece on it on their wiki.

(still amazed that a sentence like that can make any sort of sense...) date=06.04.2005 17:45 ip=158.94.131.26 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh god...I'm getting the boot?

I was only kidding. I hate Star Wars. No really...I swear. I never had a plastic tube with green electrical tape on it as a child...and I certainly never used to pretend that it was a lightsaber or make lightsaber-esque noises.

In fact, as a point of pride, I never aspired to be a galactic hero as a toddler and I've had a hardcore porn addiction since I was 9.

Lucky for me, a late turn in life involving social McScience and shrinking stalkers has upped my cool quotient. date=06.04.2005 17:49 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> If you look at the amazon.co.uk reviews you'll get an idea of what I mean.

I know...I'm mostly just kidding around. Except about the remote control. I'm convinced that'll work some day.

About the amazon reviews and genre debate: I'm slowly getting up to speed in that arena. It is interesting to a certain extent, but I have to be honest: mostly I just read the stuff...Wolfe, Peake, Mieville...and have since I was a kid. But I'm not a kid any more and I'm quite happy that the genre has evolved. How boring would it be if it hadn't.

I suspect the genre debaters fall into two braod categories: those that like to be challenged when they read, and those that don't.

I like to feel like I missed things when I read a book. Gives me things to think about.

And post about. ;) Which is why I appreciate this board...and especially the fact taht MJH will talk about his work and answer questions. date=06.04.2005 17:55 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>never used to pretend that it was a lightsaber or make lightsaber-esque noises.

Oh, I did. It's a sort of "nyzzzyoww!" noise, innit? But then again, that was in about 1977.

>>I'm getting the boot?

Shoe size - getting the boot. Didja see what he did there! date=06.04.2005 17:56 ip=158.94.131.26 name=Alex mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Light sabre? Pah.
I've still not got the hang of doing a mchine-gun noise. date=06.04.2005 18:16 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It's a sort of "nyzzzyoww!" noise

And then there's the 'wom wom' noise it makes when you just wave it around. date=06.04.2005 18:52 ip=212.140.144.36 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I've still not got the hang of doing a mchine-gun noise.

There's two variants that I know of:

* The girly infant school machine gun. Sounds like someone laughing "ah ha ha ha ha ha!"

* The heavy calibre hards-at-the-back-of-the-bus Uzi. Much slower. Something like, "doosh doosh doosh doosh doosh!" This one is the result of many years experience and may be accompanied by realistic recoil effects and perhaps even a slow-motion magazine-changing bit after firing a long burst. Preferably in the style of Sam Peckinpah's "Cross of Iron".

*gets flak jacket* date=06.04.2005 19:13 ip=158.94.133.59 name=Ef mail=wdllofzepia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.geocities.com/wdllofzepia text=I bought the Light 3 days ago, never before had even heard of MJH or this book. I am currently in chapter 5.
When I started reading the book I was shocked. This guy writes the way I think. I am not talking story wise but his style. I have never before read a book/novel where the sentences flow like this and speak to my mind in this strange way. I wonder if the rest of his books are written in the same way.

Simply amazing. date=06.04.2005 19:24 ip=144.124.16.33 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> It's a sort of "nyzzzyoww!" noise

Exactly...and the wom wom one too.

The other one I was good at was the noise it'd make when I hit my brother or neighbors or dog with it. That one wasn't in the movies though.

I've got dark side written all over me. date=06.04.2005 19:35 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=http://nuar.lunarpages.com/video/SW_mirrors.htm

The subtitles are hilarious if you know gaming slang.

I maintain that Vader will come off as a sissy in the new movie. I mean that voice used to be cool, but now he's Verizon's bitch.

"Luke...use your family minutes..."

Bah! date=06.04.2005 19:50 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>This guy writes the way I think. I am not talking story wise but his style. I have never before read a book/novel where the sentences flow like this and speak to my mind in this strange way. I wonder if the rest of his books are written in the same way.

Hi Ef: Yes, he's something of a stylist is our MJH - in the best sense of the word. His books are all very different but all have that distinctive Harrisonian tone.

I'm sure MJH will be glad that you're enjoying the book. Wherever he's got to! date=06.04.2005 19:54 ip=158.94.133.59 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I just read some of those Amazon reviews to see what you guys were talking about.

They are sort of disheartening. My take would be that overly defended people have trouble getting the intended significance of morally dyslexic characters...they can't get past their own knee jerk reactions. This especially manifests itself in reactions to the sex in light I'd say...

Either way, fuck 'em. Let them read something a little cuddlier if that's what they need. I hear Danielle Steel has a new one coming out. date=06.04.2005 21:02 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Hi Dave--

>overly defended people have trouble getting the intended >significance of morally dyslexic characters...they can't get >past their own knee jerk reactions

--my feelings exactly. We all have our defences, and we all come up against fiction which rattles them. (For me it's often realistically-done relationship-as-entrapment stuff: I have a hard time with "odd couple" comedy, for instance, or familial pressure cookers.) As adults in that situation we may want to ramp up whatever courage we have and confront our own over-reaction. But as a genre f/sf has so consistently defended the defences of its readers.

Hi Ef, glad you're enjoying Light so far. We aim to please, especially when it comes to speaking in strange ways. date=06.04.2005 22:03 ip=213.116.60.155 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>But as a genre f/sf has so consistently defended the defences of its readers.


I know this is a terribly broad question, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say about this: Why does the f/sf genre behave like this? Why cultivate an audience that needs to be handled with kid gloves? I've never understood it.

I'm far less plugged into this type of topic then some of the people on this board, but even so, I would wager to say that f/sf comprises the most underdeveloped genre out there - and at such a cost too. The potential for the genre is enormous...as is evident when quality writers present complicated and challenging topics/questions through the genre's lense. date=06.04.2005 23:04 ip=148.4.151.131 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=If I may interject, Dave, whilst agreeing with you about the underdevelopment of F/SF and its shepherding (is that even a word?) effect on its fans, I'd mention category horror as the biggest haven for that type of retardation.

I've been speaking to people recently who have been bigging up Richard Fucking Laymon to me, with a straight face.

"There's none of that, you know, pussy stuff," as one of his adherents pointed out to me, when questioned as to why they specifically enjoyed Mr Laymon's fast-paced thrillers. This from a thirty-year old married professional, own house and car.

It's the same root problem as F/SF though, in my opinion: the publishing industry's creation of a category to service the demands of those males with the intellectual and ethical grasp of fourteen year olds; and to pander to them and keep them that way, so they're like some kind of nearly-sentient resource that'll keep paying and paying and paying for what amounts to the same bloody thing, over and over. date=06.04.2005 23:36 ip=195.92.67.76 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Thanks Nels. I'd agree with the comments in your last paragraph. Consumerism has done much the same to music as well.

And I'd totally neglected horror, yes. That'd be my own biases creeping in there. ;)

----------------------------------------------------

On another note, I was on the TTA board reading some posts and saw that MJH was taking shit for having cover blurbs from "his mates" on the US edition of Light. I thought it was a cheap shot, but I have two things to say abou this:

1. There are a lot of people who work (at least in part) for the recognition of their peers - epecially in the fields of science and art. There's nothing especially wrong with this so far as I can tell...often times an artists peers are the ones best suited/qualified to opine about something within their field. Often time the reason popel within a given field like writing become friends is because of their shared commonalities.

I just don't understand how a blurb from China earns MJH digs from some pud who can bearly express himself. After all, it was through China that I discovered COTH.

On top of that, I've coauthored journal articles and, when sending the pieces into journals, I've specified who I think reasonable reviewers are. To my mind, this didn't undermine the credibility of what I had to say...it made sure that what I was saying was reviewed by the most knowledgable people possible before hitting the printer.

2. That brings me to the next point...how would we as readers be served by having someon who knows nothing about what is trying to be conveyed in novels like Light or Perdido Street Station serve as a reviewer for these types of novels? The sort of take that the above mentioned pud is endorsing - that the reviewers weren't objective and that consumers were being mislead - is just bunk.

Anyway...that's my two cents. Time for rehearsal...catch you tomorrow. date=07.04.2005 00:01 ip=148.4.151.131 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan, Nels: interesting stuff.

I work to make a living. But I worl the *way* I work, solely to gain the respect of my peers. None of the writers who've given me support over the last thirty years have done so for any other reason than that they admired what I do. Anyone making any other proposition should make it to those writers in person: they will get short shrift. It's my curse, in the f/sf field at least, that I'm considered a "writers' writer". I accept that situation on one hand with a certain sadness; on the other with considerable pride. If the writers see what the readers can't, then too bad for the readers. Meanwhile, outside f/sf, I get paid for my opinion of other people's books. That's the way it goes. date=07.04.2005 00:34 ip=213.78.73.80 name=Ef mail=wdllofzepia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.geocities.com/wdllofzepia text=Thank you MJH! I hope you keep writing this way! This summer I will buy 3 more copies of the Light for friends. I read the book everyday,it actualy makes me feel good, I can't explain it but I do not complain. :-) Hmm, just in case, I do not think you write in a strange way, all the others do.

About the people who quote on the books, if what they do and what they write is not fake (because someone gives them money or because they owe to the author) and they believe it, then what is the big deal?
About the reviewers, as a customer I never trust them. They follow this elitist crap in their heads, they seem to worry more as to how they look through the review than if the review is any helpful to the potential customers. What I find helpful with places like Amazon is the customer reviews, which even when they are very negative they can easily tell you if what they are saying matters or even truth.
Some of the negative comments there (which I checked before reading the book) are very funny, when they say things like "too complex, boring" they are actualy helpful in getting the book (if you don't already have it). date=07.04.2005 06:22 ip=144.124.19.33 name=Ef mail=wdllofzepia@yahoo.com icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url=http://www.geocities.com/wdllofzepia text=Oh, sorry for this I forgot to type it in the previous post. The reason I bought the book was the cover (with the spaceship). date=07.04.2005 06:25 ip=144.124.19.33 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I've been speaking to people recently who have been bigging up Richard Fucking Laymon to me, with a straight face.
____________-
Same thing with Dan Brown. date=07.04.2005 09:51 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=MJH:
Andreas´s book came out in english.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~26~278 0604,00.html date=07.04.2005 10:08 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dan Brown? Hoh yes.

What baffles me also is not just the way people choose to read f/sf but the way they choose not to. I was talking to a (very literate, very sharp) friend the other day (very interesting writer, too; she's Welsh, and didn't actually speak English until she was 8 or 9, so regards it very much as a second language; sadly most of her work is in Welsh, so I can't read it! But the English stuff is lovely. Oddly enough, she's a climber and friend of Jim Perrin's, which I only found out about the other day when I send through your book recommendations list from the Guardian to her, MJH - anyway...) and we got onto genre writing - her comment, 'oh, you boys and your fantasy...', very dismissive.

Anyway, interesting in part because she's obviously picked up on that (very male) flight from emotion in much of the stuff out there, and sadly judged the whole genre by it, also because she actually knows me as much as a poet as a fiction writer, but was judging the two in very different ways.

In poetry, you can make fantastic maneuvers and people have no problem with them at all. A dragon chats to you? No problem, great metaphor, wonderful imagery. You imagine meeting aliens? ('A Martian Sends a Postcard Home' or whatever) and you get a school of writing named after you! Do it in prose and people make dismissive comments about genre writing and don't even consider that they might need to engage something approaching a subtle critical tool (rather than popcorn eyes) to understand what you're trying to do. Very frustrating.

And why - when people encounter a crap *mainstream* novel - do they go this is a bad book? Not all novels are bad? But when they encounter sf / f crap they don't say 'this is a crap book' but 'this is a crap genre'?

/end rant date=07.04.2005 10:28 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Arturo: I tried to read Dan Brown, really I did. But the first page of "Da Vinci" was like walking round a cemetery blindfold - I just kept tripping over chunks of dead prose and hurting myself. I knew it wasn't going to get any better: so I stopped. date=07.04.2005 10:33 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin:
I failed too when I got to the bit when the Eiffel Tower moves sudenly close to the Pompidou center an the Vendome monolith. That was too much for me. date=07.04.2005 10:48 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>I tried to read Dan Brown

I didn't, but I rather enjoyed a couple of novel readers on the tube home last weekend:

Specimen 1 was an overweight thirtysomething reading Greg Bear. He was wearing designer combats, a lumberjack shirt and post-DM footwear.

One of his laces was undone.

Specimen 2 was balding, spotty and in his late thirties. Kinda urban sports-casual.

He was reading Dan Brown.

Then again: fuck knows how they'd judge MJH if they saw this reader on the tube. Hopefully they wouldn't! date=07.04.2005 11:21 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Person in front of me on the train was reading a biography of Karl Marx last night! And a mid twenties bloke in a suit reading Chopper 3 (the books about that Australian crim) date=07.04.2005 11:52 ip=212.140.144.36 name=MJH mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>interesting in part because she's obviously picked up on >that (very male) flight from emotion in much of the stuff >out there, and sadly judged the whole genre by it

One of the problems, Al, is the genre does rather glory in it, giving outsiders no option but to feel that they're dealing (as Dave put it) with the over-defended. That defensiveness can seem peculiarly concerted--willed, organised and predicated on the assumption that the genre is an artefact which expresses the character of its fans. That makes it easy to generalise.

But women can sometimes feel a little too superior about this: I think your friend is wrong to associate fantasy with men (industry figures show that like most fiction the majority of it is bought by and written for women) and she's clearly never had the experience of meeting a defensive female sf fan. Additionally, some of the most insecure and aggressive-defensive women I have ever met write mainstream fiction or work in the mainstream arts.

Generally, sf readers are more likely to be men, and they are likely to express more obviously their sense of being threatened (by almost anything). They've certainly been the most vociferous critics of Light--and me--on the message boards and in the Amazon reviews. I think men can be a little frame dependent as well as having quite rigid defences--they just don't react well to change. None of this is new, really, is it ?

io will be shutting this board down before he goes on holiday. I suggest that as a temporary measure, we reinfest my TTA board and set up new threads to continue some of these very interesting discussions. Unless people have another preference ? We'll have a list of the options as links on this page, while this version of the site lasts. date=07.04.2005 11:53 ip=213.78.83.43 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=On Amazon reviews:
MJH you are in good company every writer who does something different gets his own Mr.Angry:

White Apples" by Jonathan Carroll is easily one of the worst books I have ever read. I honestly don't even know where to begin in a critique of the book. It has massive craft issues - the rhythm of the book is off; the author does far, far too much telling instead of showing; there is literally no climax or denouement...ugh. Virtually all of the ideas the book is trying to get across are uninteresting and expressed poorly. The book never goes anywhere


I'm a tremendous admirer of Alan Moore's work - but I didn't care much for this unfocused collection of stories pretending to be a novel.
If you care for a "artistic", pretentious definition of a novel as a collection of stories related only by virtue of being set in the same place, then VOICE OF THE FIRE is indeed a novel. That also means that every series of stories set in one location also is a novel. All of the Sherlock Holmes, stories, of course, are a single novel - at least, the ones set in 221B Baker Street. Very daring, very radical - and very, very stupid

I actually gave up on this book after about 300 or so pages of going no where. Eventually, I returned to it, but the ending didn't do much for me. After I finished it, I unloaded it to a thrift store, but the thing never sold.

Murakami is a good author, but this is not a good work. Try something else. I suggest "Wild Sheep Chase." date=07.04.2005 12:24 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>TTA: fine by me. Does anyone need a link to the site?

>Frame dependant - pyschological zimmermen, the lot of them.

>Women and sf: friend of mine doesn't like any of the sf she's read - except McCaffrey's "Ship Who Sang." Somehow, I don't think she'd appreciate "Light" as its parodic echo. date=07.04.2005 12:28 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>>TTA: fine by me. Does anyone need a link to the site?

I'll be changing the Forum link on the ES site to direct punters to the TTA Forum.

>>"White Apples" by Jonathan Carroll is easily one of the worst books I have ever read

I'm afraid I've had similar problems with Jonathan Caroll myself! date=07.04.2005 12:37 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I'm afraid I've had similar problems with Jonathan Caroll myself!
_______--
If the absolute worst that comes your way is a book by Jonathan Carrol you are indeed lucky.

My point that a book that for some reason we enjoy and a good book can be entirely different things. It is usually employed in " it is crap but I like" but hardly in " It is excellent but I don´t like it". I can´t read Proust o Thomas Mann . Excellent but not for me. What I wouldn´t dream of blasting Proust for not writing a Die Hard novelization.
I do think that in reviewing a book - as oposed to stating what you thougth of it- you should leave your expectations aside and accept it on its own terms. Was it Chesterton who said that the most common mistake in a critic is taking to task some blue wine because it is not green cheese?

And maybe you didn´t enjoy Carroll´s book. O.K.
But what about "The wind-up bird chronicle" and "Voice of the fire"? I date=07.04.2005 12:49 ip=80.58.9.113 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=I´ll try to make my point clerarer. The amazon Mr.Angry´s reviews are a result of market forces shaping taste. I don´t think they mean that the book was bad but that It was a misslabelled item. date=07.04.2005 12:53 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Sorry Arturo, I did get yr point - I just couldn't resist the sideswipe at Carroll. And yes, I've certainly read much worse writer and enjoyed them immensely! date=07.04.2005 12:57 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Jonathon Carroll: I rate some of his short stories. The novels are a different matter. I remember enjoying "Inside the Dog Museum," but then I read "The Wooden Sea." At least one major plot-line went nowhere, before the narrative dropped into one of those heffalump traps of fantasy: if anything's possible, what do you *not* write about? By the end it got all too mom and (white) apple pie for me: I was wincing at the sentiment and still scratching my head over the story. It wanted to be surrealism, but ended up as whimsy. date=07.04.2005 13:01 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Arturo mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Martin: "The wooden sea"is not his best. He kept writing himself into corners . Try "From the teeth of Angels". date=07.04.2005 13:07 ip=80.58.9.113 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Oh no, Inside the Dog Museum was unfinishable (the opposite of unputdownable?) - I found it in a discount bookshop in Aberystwyth and I started reading it on the train home. It was discarded before the journey was over and found its rightful place in my local Oxfam.

I have to say that Teeth of Angels wasn't bad though. date=07.04.2005 13:27 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Nels mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Just my tuppeny-worth: I always find something valuable in a Jonathan Carroll novel. I've read almost all of them, and while a lot of them have made me slap my forehead and go "Unngh!" at times, even the most annoying of his urbane supernatural romances are enjoyable and (mostly) deeply touching.

He's another guy who does "unlikeable" characters, but he does them with topspin, as it were, so you only realise how self-serving they are after they've gone past you.

"The Land of Laughs" and "The Marriage of Sticks" are still two of my favourite books. date=07.04.2005 13:39 ip=195.92.67.67 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text="Die Hard" by Proust has possibilities: "For a long time I used to go to bed early, and dream of terrorist attacks on very high buildings ..." date=07.04.2005 13:39 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Meanwhile:

"SOME NIGHTS 3D WENT BAK OUT ON TEH STRET WIT HIM111! WTF THAY STAEYD UP2WN AND PLAEYD FOR SMAL POINTS!!1!1111 LOL IT WAS CORNER TRAED A LITLE H3RE A LITLA THEYRE111!11!1 WTF IF TIG SUSPACTED 3D WAS FUKNG HIS WIEF HE NAVAR LAT IT SHOW1!1!1 BY AN UNSPOKEN AGREMENT THEY DIDNT M3NTION TEH CRAY SISTERS EITH3R!1!! WTF LOL THEY DIDNT HAEV MUCH 3LSE IN COMON SO MOST OF TEH TIEM TH3Y TOKED ABOUT ED!111 OMG TAHT SUIETD AD!!!!!11 OMG LOL TOKNG H3LP3D1!!!!!1! WTF BY HIS THIRD WEK THX 2 NENAS GENEROSITY HE HAD BGUN 2 R3CLAME LARGA TRACTS OF TEH PAST!!!!!!11 DA PROBL3M WAS NONA OF TH3M JOIEND UP11!1 IT WAS SUDAN ANAELPSIS-IMAEGS PEOPLE PLAECS EVENTS CAUGHT BY AN UNSTEADY CM3RA LIT WIT BAD LIGHT11!111 CONECTIEV TISUE WAS MISNG111111 OMG LOL THEYRE WAS NO RAAL NARATIEV OF ED"

Light in netspeak!

http://tinyurl.com/60os date=07.04.2005 14:28 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Alx mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=gr8 date=07.04.2005 14:30 ip=217.155.134.5 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=AND U COMPLANE ABOUT SPMMARS MAKNG A FILTHY UND3RPAS OF THIS FORUM!!!!!!!1 OMG WTF LOL date=07.04.2005 14:32 ip=193.63.239.165 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=AH THIS FORUMS ALR3ADY ON TEH WAY OUT!11!!11 OMG date=07.04.2005 14:36 ip=158.94.139.49 name=Al mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=>> "For a long time I used to go to bed early, and dream of terrorist attacks on very high buildings ..."

Proust + Die Hard = Ballard

Hmm. date=07.04.2005 14:47 ip=212.140.144.36 name=Martin mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Or Marcel and HST: "We were somewhere near Barstow when I bit into the madeleine -" date=07.04.2005 14:56 ip=193.63.239.165 name=Dave mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Io, can you leave this page up for refernce without allowing people to post here? I'm busy at work (and will be for a few days) and won't be posting much, but I'd like to be able to come back here wehn i am able to reply at the TTA board.

Maybe leave the forum link the way it is and then post a "final post" with closed-for-good announcement and the TTA URL in it?

Whatever you can swing, I guess. Thanks. date=07.04.2005 20:31 ip=148.4.151.131 name=iotar mail= icq= aim= yim= msn= loc= url= text=Dave: Either you'll be able to see it here, or I'll extract the text and put it somewhere you can find it. It all depends how techie I can get with a hangover tomorrow! date=07.04.2005 20:59 ip=217.43.21.164