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