At this stage, I feel it might be worth pointing out that there shall be a slight stifling of activity between now and next, owing to some necessary, albeit half-cooked, preparations I must complete before then. Jourth, a title somewhat less punnable than Maith (Jourth By Jourthwest? Jourthie Girl?), is therefore what I recommend setting your watch for (aside from general time-keeping, that is). It shall signify a positive plateau of opportunity (or potential, if you wish to alliterate), with no competitive mounds or alternative avenues to distract from the task at hands. Wait a minute, say you, you can't exactly halt the revolution for a week—what of the looming lackaday threat? Surely it will not lay down and wait? Well, I have no intention of halting the revolution, only the tenor of my presence therein. That is why I leave you in the capable hands of Chanties himself, Johnny The Stirrer Beehive, who today is a burden lighter, and the Bedium Medium. I shall also even mention ol' Halfway, although one will need a finger crossed. Nevertheless, a daily visit won't hurt and I, for one, shall be doing so. For the moment, then, the revolution is in their hands.
Perhaps you are wondering as to the nature of my non-revolutionary preparations. While not giving too much I way, I will tell you that I am intending to visiting my erstwhile sister, Alice Evens (not Evans) on the coast, to attend a matter of relocation. It's sure to involve excitingly sealed envelopes and strange moustaches. And it does, in certain ways, involve the revolution, although being personal, it will not directly aid the cause. Still, it can't be avoided, and it shall be nice to see the somewhat equivocal but always delightful Ms. Evens once more. Our last meeting was soured my considerable tension and I am hoping my task will leave room to mend our manners while I am there. So that's that. Please do not cease your letters of support. If there's one reliable thing in this entire rickety operation, it's our postal service. Ooroo.
Lotophaging
A cake is sliding layer by layer off the table as I tap. Two spindly sisters and one gangly activist are splayed unconsciously across a mound of discarded food stuffs and spent party-poppers, snoring somehow. I wait for the kettle. This is going to be quite the cleanup. Every surface I can see has been covered in a film of vomit or equivalent discharge, some caking, others fresh and wet. In addition to this, "Viva la revolucion!" has been crudely sprayed across the walls and ceilings, betraying Ben's presence, not to mention the room's stylist. Most of all, however, there's the smell. A mixture of bad weed (thanks, Harry), bad alcohol (thanks, Harry) and suffocated armpits (thanks, all). That boy's one step from a twelve-step.
Mingling for three weeks has taken its toll; I feel like sawdust. But I've fared far better than most, possibly even all. I'm awake, for starters, and quite close to sobriety. And I'm already reflecting. Somewhere along the line our common cause was blurred by beer, song and myriad other sybaritic pursuits, and I fear the extended recovery period will prove a thorn. Ben and that tall Portuguese woman (great slacks) will each need at least a week's worth of showering, I'd wager, and Johnny The Stirrer (a recent and inevitable christening) will be out of action till he finds all his fingers. But while it's a less than ideal opening*, its symbolic function, independent, as it is, from the actual goings on of the event, will be strong enough to mark this admitted indulgence as something of a success. That's a hard thing to say amid the smell of purged stomachs and badly mixed liquor, but I'm optimistic. Whatever the outcome, I think we'll each emerge slightly different(ly). It certainly put whatever remained of my abstinence to the test. And I'll cease to look at Harry as a benign innocent. Still didn't get me to dance, though.
There's something wonderfully superior about surviving this, particularly with a pot of tea to rest on. If I wasn't so sober I might even murmur "spiritual". Potential hasn't been squandered, merely delayed. And that's nice. After this I'll sit outside with the rest of my tea and wait for the morning to start looking like it's supposed to.
*This will not be made a joke of.
Q. Anni
To continue with this somewhat belated celebration, I shall, for one time only, answer some of the more interesting questions I've received from commenteers and e-mailers of late. But be warned: this shan't become a habit.
Dreary45 said...
When people ask my favourite colour, I always say you're my favourite Hugh.
Thank you. You may come to the picnic.
Flower said...
Do you ever consider the trail of human ruin your schoolboy provocations leave behind? To my mind, your desperate pursuit of infamy seems to stem from a deeply ingrained sense of insecurity pushing against an equally ingrained hunger for recognition. A hunger for recognition is, of course, the subtext of blogging, but you seem to aim higher and mightier, as if expecting distinction from outside the community — a Pulitzer, perhaps? Yet at the same time you seem highly self-conscious about coming across that way, and possibly even the notion itself, hence the knee-jerk callowness. What do you make of the argument that art is fundamentally an indulgence of its creator? Or that pretensions are prerequisites for all conscious art? Do you believe, as I do, that hyperselfconsciousness inhibits the creation of art?
Sometimes I look in the mirror and cry.
Petre said...
You're strange. But don't change.
I've nothing else to wear.
Jill Blomb said...
The strong erotic undercurrent in almost everything you write seems to me to be a manifestation of a repressed sexual condition. Are you impotent or just not getting any?
Neither, I'm just supremely liberated.
Kathryn said...
Does the word "apparently" carry any more weight than "allegedly"?
I think "allegedly" is the more skeptical of the two, so in terms of the speaker's belief, I'd say "apparently" would carry more weight, yes.
Big Boy said....
Best and worst post, stat.
Best: apologies, but I scrolled dutifully through the backlog (a rather dispiriting experience) and was unable to find a sole post that would warrant such a distinction. No false modesty—obviously I love myself deeply.
Worst: tough one. Certainly I'd include the worst offenders of the Everyone Has An Opinion series: everyone's pretentious; boo to you, God; art rots, photos shoul' be real, film oh film et al; and, especially, It Was So Much Better Way Back When. Sickening, embarrassing, ugly jejune sludge, the lot of it. The mid-2005 one on blogging was particularly rank. If I had to pick one, though, I'd still say the first of the only two topical posts I ever did (the second is nearly as bad). Utterly detestable stab at, I dunno—irony? The sort of thing you'd paste in a very sane suicide note by way of explanation. In fact, I'm going to go back on my word and delete the two fuckers right now. No principle can sustain their existence.
And they're gone.
Roderick Summer said...
Your self-indulgence astounds me. Do you ever stop talking about yourself?
I pray the day will come, but right now it's the only subject I'm sufficiently versed in. I disguise it well, no?
Roderick Summer said...
No.
Oh.
BarBRA said...
Why is it that all the females in your posts are either prostitutes or elusive one-dimensional objects?
What can I say? I write what I don't know.
Wilbert Peach said...
What keeps you going?
The frightening realisation that I still haven't mastered punctuation.
Anni Get Your Versary
In the natural course of things, one is occasionally offered the luxury of retrospect, which, depending on the circumstance—curious pride and the throes of disillusionment, respectively as follows—, will either lead to a renewed vigour in present tasks or a stultifying nostalgia for past ones. On such occasions it is important to maintain a veneer of abject objectivity, if one is to benefit from the activity, and it was with this in mind that I took to the archives to assess the journey thus far, something which, I hoped, would act as much-needed adrenalin for Phase Two.
What struck me most prominently during the delve was not, as might be expected, the sediment (the dirty stuff) or similar such juvenilia, but the sentiment. Not the wellreadiment (the qwerty stuff), not the whathesaidiment (the flirty stuff), not even the dropdeadiment (the shirty stuff). No—the sentiment. The véritable; the Dear reader, hear my heart...; the tap, tap, tap of my tears; the hhonest to ghod; the All That is Good and Proper. The point, some might say. Now, I'm not one to shoo or shy from sentiment on principle, nor do I mind, on occasion, exposing the ugly underneath, but I have found that sentiment, when expressed rawly, can sometimes bind a piece so firmly to a place and a time and a feeling that divorcing it from its context and appreciating what it has to offer is nigh on impossible, particularly as its impetus and audience drift further apart. Moreover, it often erodes ration, although admittedly that isn't always a bad thing. Take the following, from August 8th, 2006:
Tuesday. Big day. I hate people.
What are we to make of that? Nothing. It's perfunctory to the point where only its author could ever find anything of value in it, and even then he'd have to squint. It adds nothing, it gives nothing, you get nothing. It's an event horizon of callow vanity, the kind of treacle that gives literacy a bad name. Now compare it to this slight retraction posted two days later:
Errsday. I made the mistake of gibletting my ego, ergo my soul. Now I just hate myself.
While we still have the unfortunate voicing of an unfortunate sentiment, we now have a sense of craft, even humour, to fall back on, ensuring that audience pleasure is at least a possibility, if only a slight one. But it was to be a while yet before I reached the level of this decidedly unsentimental nugget from February 23rd, 2007 (the day ain't even mentioned!):
Blustered down from generation to generation in bold, steady bumps, Valentino fascism, as I've dubbed it, has inherited from the old world a certain, or rather uncertain, capricious nature which initially seems at odds with the very notion of lineage tradition, but is in fact a reflection of the underlying instability inherent in all forms of fascism, indeed the very thing which accounts for its formidable, and frankly frightening, adaptability. It almost put me off my cereal, I'll tell you.
From then on the road began to smooth out. I eased into a rhythm and found my feet, dancing steadily ever since. But those glaring stains continued (and continue) to haunt me. What could I do—delete them? No. This is a document. The assets of this medium are its rawness and immediacy—process laid bare. I considered erecting stern condemnation notices on the offending posts, but again that would be betraying the form. After all, this is not the place for discipline, or at any rate it doesn't have to be. The flaws are but facets of the whole, and often the whole is the better for it. Let us not bemoan sinking standards or, God help us, lapses of talent: they are the wasted posts, writ with a hand on the keyboard and an eye on the mirror. Let us instead bound ungracefully forward, arse-first but not looking back, and plant our fallible faces on history's asphalt. Not for the press, not for the prestige, not for the presence, but for the sheer oxen pleasure of articulation itself. It may prove the promulgation of nothing in particular, but that nothing in particular will be our nothing in particular; nay, that nothing in particular will be us.
No. It's less than that. But it sure as hell beats WoW.
Remaithance Man
An intestinal horn wailed pathetically across the just-about-night, scattering assorted wildlife. The scuffing of paws followed and we began to see ominous red and white flashes through the columns of trees. Stan stuck his fist into his mouth and prayed. I kept still, looking intense. Suddenly a dirty great hound burst through the clearing and shook vast webs of saliva in furious, putrid arcs. Being a dedicated reactionist, Johnny was the first of us to load his musket and bring it to his eye. But before he could add an inch of steel to the foaming beast, its heavily armed owners appeared from the foliage and surrounded us. Johnny lowered his weapon. Stan covered his eyes. I kept still, looking intense.
"See? What did I tell you? The dog never fails," said one of the shorter soldiers. "And you said we'd never find 'em."
The recipient shrugged.
"Well? Don't you have something to say?"
The recipient shook his head.
"Go on."
The recipient sighed.
"I'm glad we dragged the guillotine all this way," he said, rolling his eyes.
"There. That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Johnny Beehive raised his musket defiantly.
"Vous ne nous ramènent alors que nous sommes vivants !" he cried, accidentally firing a shot in the air and killing a displaced pigeon.
"Well, of course not," said the short solider. "What the hell did you think the guillotine was for?"
Just then the unwieldy wooden structure rose into view from behind the trees, and with it three very tired looking men and a tangle of shipping rope.
"Lambinent," said Stan.
"C'est l'extrémité, garçons," I sighed. "Nous avons eu une bonne course."
Suddenly a phlegmy baritone thundered out of the darkness.
"Unhand esas comadrejas, sucios aristócratas!"
The guards turned, waving their muskets uncertainly in the diminishing light.
"Los lobos ciego no ve el travieso búho," came the voice again.
The guards began firing randomly into the trees, scattering additional wildlife.
"No golpearás la blanco si no tienes los vidrios apropiados."
Desperately, they tore apart the foliage, scraping and scratching and musketting. Then, flashing dramatically across the moonlight, a tall, gangly silhouette swung squarely into frame and—posed a bit. It was Ben, wielding six steel posts and a fetching brown vest. After distributing three of the posts to Johnny, Stan and myself, he attempted to take on the guards with the remaining three, but only began to do so successfully after the awkwardness of the his methods forced him to drop two of them first. Soon, however, we realised our posts were no match for the reloaded muskets and legged it. Led by the jungle-literate Ben, we escaped our captors in no time and wound up by a secluded river with breath to spare.
"Remercier la baise de Ben !"
We raised invisible glasses.
"El ano del mono nunca se lame enteramente. No ha terminado."
We looked at our saviour and nodded sagely.
"Néanmoins," said Stan, "Nous avons léché cette soirée. Buvons loin et caressons la nuit."
And, putting our hands to our lips, we did just that.
Manifesto
"Maith, such as I conceive of it, asserts our complete nonconformism clearly enough so that there can be no question of translating it, at the trial of the real world, as evidence for the defence."
1. Let no lesser scribes participate—Maith must be meritocratic if it is to truly lead the way.
2. Let no one say anymore that they have nothing to write about—any (s)crap can be turned into a post at no cost.
3. Let no fictitious elements infiltrate your posts—all ideas and opinions expressed must be real.
4. Let no standard of logging be created by critics—a post inadvertently obscured by an error is equal to a post drawn explicitly by a genius.
5. Let no meals of the day, under any circumstances, be mentioned, particularly breakfast.
6. Let no detail be denied to Maith—prolificacy is the chief objective.
7. Let no relativist ideals affect your judgement—justification must not come from within. Posts must be valued objectively by those qualified to do so.
8. Let no considerations of truth or fact define your posts—imagination is our greatest weapon; truth, our greatest hindrance.
9. Let no worthless banality be published. Posts must significantly add to the stockpile of human knowledge.
10. Most of all, let Maith be open to everyone, for logging must be popular art.
Times Are Bound
I'm proud to announce that a special hardback collection of the first three years of The Times is now available from Fantagraphics Books for $62.95. With beautifully etched illustrations by E. H. Shepard and a glowing foreword by Clive James, this limited edition anthology has been lovingly hand-bound and includes bonus cut-out moustache and beret. Dig:
"Now it exists in the real world. God help us all."
-Inga Clendinnen.
"Compelling, worthwhile and readable: three things this book is..."
-Kathy Hunt.
"Rampant obscurantism as artistic achievement. Kid needs a life."
-Bob Christgau.
It looks pretty good on a bookshelf, too. And for all those value-mongers out there, I have written fourteen new articles specifically for the book which will not be available on this website. All that in addition to a thirty-page introduction detailing the conception and development of The Times. That's 379 fully annotated pages, not including the substantial foreword, introduction and afterword sections.
I shall field as many questions as I can predict. Firstly, have I redrafted any of it? In short, no. I want this to be an accurate record, documenting every half-cock, soggy grouse and wheezing sentence. Obviously I've not the balls to let the weaker pages slip by without severe footnotes, but all the text has been reproduced in its entirety, punctuation and all. Secondly, why pay $62.95 for a glorified print-out of a freely accessible and frankly mediocre website supplemented with additional material I could probably exhaust in a single browse in a bookshop? Well... Good point. But if you're looking for a gift obscure enough to delay the inevitable disappointment and allow you a swift getaway, look no further. Make sure you get a guide-dog or something first, though.
A Pause for Sunday
The warm glow of Maithteenth has all but faded, and with it the innocent air of possibility that surrounds the early days of revolution. Henceforth, it will be hard work and dedication, marked by the occasional guillotining and student lock-up. The momentum of the moment will not take care of the labour necessary to keep this train afloat—not now that the wooze of the night is behind us. No; it is time to clamber out of that stranger's bed, smiling wanly on the way, and salvage the remaining waking hours chiseling your renaissance prose. Maithteenth celebrations may have clogged your head somewhat, but if we are to really earn our page in history, we can not afford to underwhelm the expectant. Again.
For some among us, preparation takes an especially carnal form—in stark, quivering contrast to that of dedicated sportsfolk. Not subscribing to this ritual myself, I can not, entirely, sympathise. Indeed I was more than a little irked when a breathy Ben phoned me immediately after one of these 'inspiration sessions' to talk shop, something which rapidly became an impossibility in the face of his then-pet's incessant interjections. But next to Stan, who cracks his knuckles via a room full of scarlet ladies and generally requires at least a week to recover, these indiscretions were small kittens indeed. Personally I think that we should forgo such distractions until this thing really gets off the tracks. That way, if it is destined never to be, it will not be for lack of effort or dedication.
I shall conclude by detailing my own set-up that others may be inspired and follow. In accordance with my lot, I am nestled among a native garden in a small, homely studio. Bookshelves line three of the four walls, with the remaining hosting my desk. The typewriter on which these words were writ is suitably antiquated, and complimented by the oven-brown paper I insist on baking. Staring back at me is an etch of Voltaire or someone, inspiring and writerly. Non-glossed paper. Next to him is a nude of George Eliot I drew from a dream, and next to her one of Thackeray I drew in anticipation of sexism allegations. Manuscript paper has been deliberately strewn around the room and there is no radio. The walls are white, after Forster's metaphor. And I wear plaid. Suitable beginnings for this cultural revolution, no?
Rising Thumb
It seems a shame that the bulk of communication enacted by the young & coming takes place in increasingly impersonal domains, where anonymity and illiteracy have supplanted intimacy and empathy as the new perks of interaction. Newspapers, magazines and other printed text (you know, books and shit) have been around for yonks, but they were always tempered by the rigours of editing and public demand, and were never in themselves enough to do away with the old face-to-face. Certainly letters appear to be the forerunner, but they too were kept in check by the limitations of the postage service and its relative non-immediacy compared to the modern equivalents. Thus, for the first time in our history, art, journalism and social skills will cease to be necessities for a prosperous world. No, civilisation hasn't quite slipped into the sea yet, but with the flaky cocksores of the SMS generation poised to take over at the click of the nursing home door, how far away can it be?
I fondly recall the days when the strength of an opponent's argument was directly proportional to the amount of spit that was on your face at its conclusion. In those days, you really had to have balls; weak arguments would simply collapse in the face of a grimacing adversary. Consequently, a decent standard was maintained and all parties were the better for it. Comparable situations today don't have this benefit. Spared of having to stare directly into the eyes of their audience, people are free to let any thought that pops into their ugly, misshapen heads out into the world. No more can the inherent humanity of a mano-a-mano or womano-a-womano or mano-a-womano change your mind about spurting off on some vitriolic rant. Now the enemy is faceless, and any impulse can be instantly gratified.
We are in for a dismal future, my Bens. A time when published opinion no longer has to comply to editorial standards of journalistic excellence, where even the numbest what-I-had-for-breakfast loggers are legitimate. It will see the crumbling of the barrier between author and audience. Criticism will be supplanted by competition. The artist, the author, will no longer be revered. Onloggers, in their peculiarly mundane way, are bringing about the destruction of a cultural system that has been in place since we split off from the other apes; that of art as sacred; that of the artist as enlightened; that of the semi-colon. With their dangerous prorogation of DIY, they will undo culture itself and level out civilisation into a meaningless, communist spread of accessibility. I call an end to them all! But what can you do when the problem is compounded by market-savvy giants like Google™ and Squarespace™ offering a wide variety of services free of charge and allowing any fucker with a pair of fingers to prattle on endlessly about his horrible life, or lack thereof? The biggest of business thriving on the smallest of people. Today, Yesterday, Tomorrow—Guess what?, So I was doing this cheek, right?, Heeeeyyyyy. Oh, I can't look.
One Stop Stop
Ah, now here's a blip. With my dual miseries out of the way—the fuckers kept me till four—I am free to drip, drip, drip into the hours rejoice. What's that—thirty? Well, thirty-three. Well, thirty-five. Stop me if you've— The point being that the previous marked day, in May, was, by all accounts, severely lacking in the whelm department. In fagged, it was so piddlesome that some thought it the end of the matter, rather than what it actually was: the beginning. But thisteenth is where we really begin the begin. Ing. I'd do the dance, but I'm too into lacteal—though in a non-arrogant, 'stud in student' kind of way.
Now, I know what you're all thinking. You're thinking, 'He doesn't know what I'm thinking. He has no idea. He's just pretending to know what I'm thinking.' Well, in a way, you'd be half-right. The wording, I'm sure, would differ quite substantially. But I am a medium of substance. Like literature. I concern myself not with triffles of style or steed. I aim for the bones of the matter. The philistines can toy with the meat. Worth, then, is that peculiar substance which hones in on the skeleton, as if a dribbling, mutant X-ray. As if, hurt by the ways of the world, it shuts off its senses and drowns in the toilet bowl, a tragedy heightened by low-angle viewings and improved by vigorous editing.
Oh goody. This is not, this is not! a trumble (9ah!) or anything of that ilk, creed or ilk. It is butter deeply dodgy clutch of powder which the faintest of breezes could scatter. I thus suggest you keep your facial orifices in check, or wait for the cold to conclude if you have one. Summer, then. When the winds are low. Plus, it'll look better with the sun beating all over it and grey summer dresses nearby. Rabbits, gardenias, ugly small people. The distraction helps, believe me. Hm? Oh good, it's over. I hope you realise how much this hurts.
A Matter of Maith
Fear not, my flock. While my performance on the day in question admittedly left more than a little to be desired (I was away for most it), I feel the main issue here is one of profound misinterpretation. This is not an event that, in the words of a certain beehived contemporary, draws to a close. Rather, it is a drastic shift in practice that shall continue for as long as its exponents can sustain it. Maith, then, was merely to signify the beginning of the renaissance, not the whole of it. Renaissances are seldom confined to twenty-four little hours.
Nevertheless, my pitiful eighteen words could, with the addition of an extra letter, have spelt disaster if it were not for the efforts of a certain beehived contemporary, who gallantly stepped up to the plate in the absence of the promised one and bunted the fury of expectant fans. This semi-Herculean feat has since earned the lion-faced Limey a certain prized place on my altogether uncertain ladder, and with it the infamous platter of dubious merit. While not yet a second home, as it is with Bodo Yodo, it is, at the least, a favoured hotel, whose staff now know him exclusively as Oh, him again. Congratulations think sorry I are in order. Sorry, I think congratulations are in order.
But it will take more than just a few cursory nods to the eighth to bring about this cultural revolution. It will take persistence, hard work and perseverance. And it will require absolute vision—or, failing that, competent dictation software. Your propheteering narrator will not let you down. Again. Well, he may.
5808
The mushing of clouds, the flashing of lavs, the bubbling of brooks will mark the coming of something truly truly. No, not quite the Second, but something to do in the meanwhile. It promises to be as underwhelming as all the prior attempts, so you've no excuse not to hop on board. Pack now. The Beehive, the Medium, the Pervert, the Standard and yours truly truly. Real heads on blocks stuff. Renaissance, then a month of nothing much. To celebrate, to cheer, a third full year. And by full I mean negligible. Quick, quick, the train arrives late and leaves soon. Bah bah bah.
And after the inevitable throw-off near the equator (tuned, if memory serves, to G flat), we shall shrug our collective selves and unpack the picnic we'd packed in case it proved as underwhelming as all the prior attempts. That was the fun of it, we knew that. In fact we all half-secretly hoped for it not to eventuate. What fun is that work, that standard? How could it ever compete with friends, a picnic and non-oppressive desert heat? Sure, posterity may wish otherwise, but posterity can wait. For now, there is you, there is—oh wait.
Oh the anguish of effort! What worth is it? We kid—we kid week out—with the notion that we are selflessly achieving an end over the Moment; that we are sacrificing the joys of experience for the benefit of personkind; that we are, God help us, sculpting the nothingness into something tangible so as John and Jane Doe can live better, fuller lives. But we (they!) know it is not a grave weight, nor is it altruistic. That explanation, or excuse, only continues because many people do get pleasure from it. Really? says cavemonet, I thought I was the only one. But I digress: Onwards! Let us fail and rejoice in Ecuador. Pack a desert luncheon; it is pleasure in spite, not because, of the fall. 4.U.C. the failures of life are but failures of expectation. Which is not to say you should dispense with yours. It shall be the weight of 5808 that makes it—er—good. Am I right, girls?
Back in Your Life
A rough approximate of a recent event, worth logging (if the wider community's anything to go by): as per formula, I was ignoring my business in a run-down recreation centre, just off the main street, when things happened. Dig: the duke-box was playing a honky-tonk song, and, perhaps inspired by its lull, I followed a stray whim to an overfamiliar presence being pressed beneath half a pound of steel and almost failing to respirate. He spotted me, and subsequently I him, and a hazy sort of conversation began. It was stunted, somewhat, by what I sensed to be a reluctance on his part to participate, owing, one presumed, to the myriad of prior occasions in which we had featured, but his reticence wasn't such that mutual conversation was impossible, and a satisfactory degree of communicative force was eventually achieved.
"How's it?" I began, somewhat cautiously.
He peered at me with vicious indifference and milked the pause between question and answer in a most uncomfortable manner.
"Mm," he eventually shrugged.
"Ah."
Another manufactured pause.
"Er, how's Nicole?"
A glint of pain flickered across his mask.
"I don't know," he said. I pressed the matter no further.
After failing to think of a suitable topic, I was eventually spared of social suicide when he reintroduced the very matter I'd vowed not to press [see above—edward.].
Something like, "Abandonment of hope equals pure sexual magnetism."
I nodded for lack of words.
"Of course," he continued, "when I had her, the hope returned, and she simply left."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Are you?"
"A bit," I said, rather too ambivalently. He seemed temporarily pleased at my honesty.
"And yourself?" he half-asked.
"Oh, the usual."
"You mean this garbage?"
"Yeah." I turned my eyes groundward and we spent a wistful moment listening to each other breathe.
"Perhaps it's time you retired," he said finally.
"Oh, I don't know," I shrugged, "I still kind of enjoy it."
"Well, at least you don't have to put it up."
"Hey, fuck you."
"Touché."
"Don't say that, it makes you sound like a wanker."
"Coming from you, or should I say here, that's quite the insult. Congratulations."
"Hey, fuck you."
"No, you've done that one."
I attempted to insult him via a mock laugh.
"Don't laugh at that, it wasn't funny."
The fucker.
"I... I... It's not like you're any better!"
"Oh?"
"You and your nigh-emo outpourings of... withdrawn... er, pessimism! 'Here's another parable about why my life sucks.'"
It was a weak attack and he knew it.
"Well, we can't all be clot-headed obscurantists, can we? Some of us favour relative plainspeak over labyrinthine thesaurus-wanking, particularly the people who read the things. And, you know, actually coming out with it, no matter what 'it' is, is certainly preferable to burying it under an impenetrable layer of ironic detachment, don't you think? The nature of my jottings is beside the point. The only salient feature is that it's true to me. Can you say the same thing?"
I fumed intensely, feeling the age of Enlightenment slide away from beneath me. This was going to be messy. Then I remembered my trump card.
"It doesn't matter what happened before, nor what will happen after," I said, unable to fully conceal my smirk.
"I'm sorry?" He looked genuinely puzzled.
"Hm? Oh, nothing." It was working. I suppressed a giggle and continued. "For now, there is you, there is me."
"What do you mean?" he said, visibly irritated.
"Only that for the moment I am here, and you are here with me."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Our reason to be," I said, lingering perversely on the last syllable.
"Is this supposed to be funny?"
At this point, I wasn't quite sure if he had noticed the several bullets I'd carefully lodged in his chest, but he was certainly rattled enough to strain a look of icy indifference. I readied my flame and moved in.
"I feel it all," I said, "and you feel what I am doing to you."
"You've really outdone yourself this time," he dead-panned. "Am I supposed to slap you now or something?"
"There is strength in the tenderness we give to each other," I answered, drawing out grammatically nonexistent pauses.
"No, actually, I'll just leave. Bye."
Desperately, I fumbled for the words I'd seen so long ago.
"The pressure!" I called out. "Oh, the pressure!"
He looked back at me briefly as he pushed the door open and his eyes said more than words ever could. But since words are all we're dealing with here, something like "You're a cunt" probably wasn't far off.
To this day, I still do not know whether my somewhat pathetic japes actually registered in the way I'd intended. By tomorrow, however, the answer was clear. A handsomely decorated poster bearing the words "Fuck. You" (I've preserved the dramatic punctuation) had been affixed to my door, and there was no doubt who by. Peeling it off, as I was wont to do, I noticed a viciously rendered cliché scrawled on the back: "Truth is beauty". Trust him to make an old hat new again, or should I say true again. And it worked. For those few minutes, I felt like the most wretched aesthete who ever lived. My school-boy sneerings at words of passion only served to discredit my own lacking emotional intelligence. But Fuck, he started it.
Later that week, the phone rang, with him on the other end of it.
"I read it," he said.
"Oh."
"..."
"And?"
"Surely, if you're that bored, your time could be better spent thinking up something original?"
"But you see my plan worked. This is the only way people will pay attention."
"People will never pay attention."
"Yes but they'll at least notice him and smile once in a while."
"Smile? With these jokes?"
"OK, cringe then."
Despite its obvious shortcomings, the above incident at least parlayed the tedium of a particularly uneventful patch in my life, wherein my weekly highlights consisted of ritually watching two sitcoms I loathed (what was Elvis Costello thinking?) and not getting excess droplets on my trousers after urinating. Fortunately, in addition to an inexplicably felled tree in my garden, the following year introduced all sorts of astronaughty adventures and dog-bonding, and I was even glad for having the contrast. It pays to wait, after all.
Odds On
Like clockwork, or similar such cog-based mechanisms—anything that stresses some sort of clinical inevitability (your choice, really)—, I have slunk far beneath yet another self-imposed quota, evidenced, as per norm, by a virtually unconscious article dutifully chronicling the failing, or failings, in question, one frighteningly, albeit predictably, similar to its numerous textual antecedents hereon, the combined mass of which should tell you all you need to know about this two-penny-on-the-dime operation. In short, like operation.
Infats in Fiction
Sung backwoods: Can we get kinky tonight, like Cocoa? I've oft. (en) considered doing it thusly, with the dwindlings up-front like a side-two classic, but only now have I (hum). And why now? Why, I'm surprised you have to ask. In fact I'm downright disappointed. To go further into detail about the implications of hot chocolate would quell any remaining sense of subtlety, so answer I shall not. You must realise I've worked too long and too hard and too sweatily on embedding the clews to risk a careless tear at the behest of my slower readers. But I will say that the following sounds like a preceding for a reason—read on, Josephine!
Some non dits: Hello, blossoms, Fink Fingers here, noting the weather. What sunny potential for a time when my cultural mound has more than halved, and my first choice co-op critic has fled, leaving me with a remainder who makeshifts a therapist's couch at every op. on which to spill his sizeable guts and the occasional vestige of coitus. Now I can officially recall a bigger, brighter world and paint an ever bigger, brighter picture of it, which, like all masterpieces, will be too precious to sell and too ugly to look at.
Some hum truths: a deeply familiar face sprung from a quick flick, most unexpectedly, and instigated that funny mix of the shy and the sly the best grins are made of. Though far too brief to set in stone, I got the impression that the intervening growth was pleasingly undrastic, much like yours. Consequently I was flung back to days of progress via proximity (preferable to progress via transmission) and sent into a wretched state of flutter, from which I'm yet to emerge. In effect it's a state whose true shame—measurable to within point-five millilitres—depends on future events, events rooted in effort if ever there were, and thus likely to be displaced by a prematurely resigned F—it. But he remains nonetheless vigilant, and wonders how long a smile at it all can really last.
The Fertile Present
From the relative safety of retrospect, it is of course easy (often dangerously so) to dismiss outdated worldviews as failures of imagination or humanism, implying in the process that enlightenment is much more the product of the soul than of the culture. But were we swifted back to times of slightly greater ignorance by some point-proving deity, I'm certain, in as much as I can be, that we'd bugger up contact with non-agriculturalists too. Ethnocentrism, while not insurmountable, does appear to be prevalent to a certain extent in all cultures, and this could be attributive to a logical, possibly even biological, human reaction to foreign cultures of any sort, particularly when the former dominates the latter. This reaction is invariably compounded by the respective technological advances of the two cultures, with the more advanced claiming a higher place on the evolutionary ladder as a result. Consequently, they not only treat the other race as technologically inferior, but psychologically inferior as well, laying the foundations for what can only be a torturous future for interracial relations.
Phallocentrism, by comparison, goes a little deeper. The implication that womanhood is defined by manhood is widespread indeed, and still very much in effect today, often deeply ingrained in religious belief. Thus the advent of feminism relied on the assumption that manhood was a symbol of gendrical independence, and that a move towards the characteristics of masculinity would yield greater freedom. This assumption eschewed fundamental elements of the feminine on the basis that they were 'weak', a further example of viewing masculinity as superiority. Of course, simply wearing pants and opening doors unassisted was hardly going to change matters, and the strong continued, and still continue, to exploit the weak. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of perpetuating the myth of phallocentrism itself, which overlooks the very reasonable argument that there could also exist a form of yonicentrism, whether subconsciously implanted by maternalism or developed as a yardstick against which a man could measure his power, similar to the notion of the savage and the civilised so often drawn upon in colonial times. In fact, I would argue that phallocentrism could not exist without some form of yonicentrism, and that its perceived power can only manifest itself in relation to the timidity behind traditional notions of womanhood.
Darwinism, or Survivalofthefitistism, can be directly linked to these views, and is both the cause and effect of their continued existence. Because it is our reason for being (as we are), it is embedded deep in our behaviour, and even though so-called civilisation occasionally claims to provide equality for the muscular and meek alike, notions of inferiority stemming from power values crop up again and again, even if money has become the new benchmark. But it is also true that we now have a richer mine of knowledge than ever before, and we should not let its cumulation go to waste, biology or no biology. With this in mind, I think that now is the time for us to stumble over the vast mounds of academia in the hope of planting a brighter future on the other side, one free of war, discrimination, poverty, religion and art. You with me?
Clean Streets
Where I'm from—every-everywhere—, we conceive, discuss and execute our own trouble, though not and never for lack of fun(ds), and only often for lack of trouble. But while our hands jack our own pockets, the gazes we summon are as steely and authentic as inauthenticity can be, and often this proves to be enough. For instance, when some small, graceless critter moaned (in passing) "I'm a walking contraceptive," we snapped his lids with a gaze so contemptuous that he either got lead or laid, and we knew we'd never see him again. Similarly, a beanie-clad bar boy with a reckless mouth:—the sap was spat up and chewed out before you could say a time-consuming word.
"No, no, no. It's fucking intertextuality, man—and I don't swear or man loosely. As a Yous seatzen might say, it's creating a—ahem—'dialogue' with the past. Suddenly we have a circular history, wherein the long-forgotten has as much place, and I would argue more, as the still-remembered, and the lucky pieces get renewed, modernised, spun again. Master D-D-Darren Deano did the same (to more acclaim) with his ho-hum popcorn—Dogs nicked the plot, Kheel B., its natural, indulgent conclusion, nicked everything. Records are the instrument, just as valid as guitars. Of course, the unimaginative can lean a little heavily, but hey, there's been worthless musicians too. Most of all, however, it's a bed for the voice to lay upon, forcing you to listen, to lap up its cadence, revel in its dexterity, get what the fuck its on about. Clean melodies, by contrast, can get across message-less—the world's better for having both. Sociologically, the hook-jacking also reveals itself as Fuck You function, with some even playing up the perceived thievery. Similarly, the voice—in your f— face—and beat—in your Rs—prove to be enormously effective in getting across one's point, not to mention pissing people off, which is often the point. And—"
"Shut up," said my addressee.
Name omitted, plot lax, delay legendary, result puerile, points wayward, grade C-, too beautiful for words.
Dally en Route
At my most petulant, I can be quite the chemical. One thing, usually small, perhaps misjudged, but in no way ill-willed, and I'm off the good books, losing even the chance to explain. It gets my girders, I'll tell you. The following occurrence, however, is in no way an example, nor a rule-proving exception, of that pretty proven fact. No; it's this: Yesterday (or was it tomorrow?) ubiquitous Ben (hereon) was without his ubiquitous hat, leaving his top exposed. That was wrong, I knew that (as I knew (and know) that 'ubiquitous' has been mishandled—though correctly—to such an extent that I'd advocate its permanent eradication, the penultimate of which—this notwithstanding—is superfluous). Like the boogie-to-the-boogie without the boogie-bang, Ben sans hat was an incongruous spectacle, not most because he'd shrunk a little in favour of a duller altitude. His insights were still prime Ben—'Why must every tone be dulcet?' being my favourite—but the naked scalp proved to be an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of my Ben-schooled enlightenment. Unable to address the issue, I instead focused my attention on the other aspects of his person.
Thus: "Boy, you smell wonderful this evening."
"Pain me though it may to say, you ain't the first person to say that today," retorted Ben, with rhythm too good to go unnoted. Then: "Wait— Haven't you already done this with Harry?"
"Yes, but my readers' attention spans don't stretch back that far."
Ben emitted a smile-shaped grunt.
"I have to take issue with that," he said, "what with me being both your only reader and the person who reminded you of the prior post in question. And that's not even mentioning the time I caught you posting a re-run under a different title."
"But it was an ironic different title!" I protested.
"Irony isn't going to save you now, Hugh. You're going to have to face facts."
"Ironic facts?"
"Nope. Cigars though and through."
"Maybe on my death bed," I said, only half jokingly. I gazed around in that contrived, morose fashion of mine before returning to my quasi-gigantus colleague with "Tell me a story, Ben," and the cutest puppy eyes I was capable of.
"Rightio," said Ben. "Yesterday, a dear acquaintance of mine said what I interpreted to be 'I issue profundity at ever turn' during a discussion we were having, fittingly about cigars. Consequently, I murmured an insolent 'if you do say so yourself' and stormed off to what I thought were greener pastures, only it turns out that what he actually said was 'I eschew profundity at every turn', and it was, in fact, just him being coy. Now, coyness is something I certainly do not have a problem with, so naturally I hurried to patch things up."
"And did you?"
"Yes. All's well."
"Glad to hear it."
"Glad to tell it."
"Good."
"Good."
Like hair that needed it, we went our own separate ways, both looking back on the tenth step to not blow a kiss, and both regretting it later. Ben became a lawyer or a lawnmower, and moonlit as a psych. I became mighty frank.
Words 196-211 are copyright Ben 'Jay Mohr' Hansen, 2007, while 214-220 ever so slightly re-work a phrase of his origin. Any complaints regarding these portions should thus be forwarded to the Ben in question—unless, of course, you are the Ben in question, in which case I'll be gladly accepting any abuse you choose to apply to my person.
Never the Less
Incidentally, for those wondering, I do heartily apologise for the complete absence of indentation. When I began, you see, I had not the know-how to know how, nor even the thought to try, and since then I've utterly failed to rectify this, and only occasionally thought to do so. Now, I fear, it's much too late, even with the will of the world on my side. My only hope is to clench my teeth and power on, praying that mere consistency will cream over this oversight for all but the hyperpedantic, and that my gentle, loyal readers will grant me this small slack, perhaps in return for a raise in standard.
In other news (the world's most overused opening to a second paragraph), the slick mise en scène I've employed here has, for most of you, grown somewhat stale, if your fuming letters are anything to go by, so I've decided that it is time for a drastic, ne'er-to-be-completed overhaul. If you've any suggestions, please mail them to the following upside-down half-triangle:
45 Plywood Dr.
Hurstbridge,
Victoria.
3191
.
Finally, a word for the fellow scrounging around at the bottom of his trough: whatever woe weighed you down, please know that without knowing, advice is awfully hard to dish out, but that a look up every so often, and a thought on what has been achieved & experienced, presumably in the interaction stakes, will work wonders. Also note that the prior construction was ingeniously bookended with an alliterative triplet of the same letter, so if its substance is null, at least grant it the almost admiring shrug it so richly deserves and pick yourself, and your pen, up.
My Life in so Many Words
A pilot, endowed with lunkhead vowels and no chin to speak of (at least not highly), somehow held my attention for a large portion of this day, although I can't yet say whether this was the beginnings of brain debilitation or simply the resigned masochism of a flat tire. I should point out, however, that the pilot's activities were witnessed while I was sitting out the rain, so it wasn't as if I had much opportunity to leap through azaleas and compare clouds anyway. Still, there was plenty to do within, and it wouldn't have required much effort to ruffle up a time-filler or two. I even had a novel in my bag. Yet there I was, aimed at the tapping window for what must have been three hours, simply gazing at an unremarkable man readying a plane for take-off (or whatever he was readying it for).
Perhaps I admired his dedication under duress, or envied his solid, workaday bread-winning. Perhaps I had only the energy to take in, and not put in. Or perhaps I was simply drowning my day. Whatever the reason, it has prompted a stern reappraisal of the self. Is this where I want to be, watching pilots fumble about in the rain for hours on end? It's not a memory I aim to cherish, at any rate. But compared to the rest of my day, which now I can hardly even recall, it was positively spectacular—and that's probably the saddest part.
Honestly, I have no idea why I'm picking over this so obsessively. Maybe this is proof that there is something to it, that it's not simply an incident my mind has fixated upon by accident. Was one of my parents a laid-off pilot, or a veritable encyclopaedia of plane-preparation trivia? No. Heck, I've never even been on more than one plane in my life, and they've never held my attention outside of that. Why, then, should this mundane task imprint itself so forcibly on my mind that it feels like all the secrets of my life and its failings are contained within it?
God, my autobiography's gonna suck.