Last night I had the worst nightmare I can remember ever having. I woke up terrified and shaking at 6:00am, and was still agitated at around 7:45am as I watched the dawn.
The nightmare took place in the third person; I was not part of events but rather just watched them happen. At times I saw events through the eyes of those involved, but I always felt as though it was other people this was happening to.
I grew up near a certain wood, Knott Wood, and as a young child I did not know what was on the far side of it. I had been told there was a river down there somewhere but had not seen it. In my dreams I filled in the landscape beyond the wood with creative recombinations of aspects of places I was familiar with. This fictional landscape is still available to me in my dreams and I visit it at least once every few months. It is a place of great comfort, a nostalgic expression of lost childhood, of idealised England, and of a perfect past before the hand of mankind interfered with nature. There is an almost autistic absence of other people.
In my dream, the men and company of the Dangerous Ideas wood were holding a summer celebration with a bonfire in Knott Wood. Three teenage boys were trying to organise to take a girl swimming in the river beyond the wood (this felt like William Morris' "beyond the world"). She was a real person I used to know. It got later and later and the swimming trip turned to a camping trip and the girl dropped out but the boys were determined to continue. Eventually they got permission from one of their fathers, but he was drunk and not from the area. Anyone else would have forbidden them from doing so.
So they went down to the river, and to their surprise they found an abandoned hamlet built along the river. I had never visited this location in my dreams before, being slightly upstream of where I had explored before this point. I have a vague recollection of not being able to explore in this direction perhaps fifteen or twenty years ago and of there being something vaguely sinister about it. The three boys were a little disturbed that the first abandoned house they came to had been broken into, but had not been looted or touched in any way despite containing valuable and useful items. Nonetheless, there was a pleasant grassy sward outside which was flatter than any other available spot, and they decided to lie there in their sleeping bags. I think this location was inspired by a house in the alps whose driveway I turned around in once.
As darkness fell, a dog appeared and one of the boys began to make a fuss over it. For the rest of the night the other two boys were unable to get him to do anything but play with the dog.
Then the narrative changed to one of the boys reading back what he had written in a book he had taken from the house. It was a two-page form printed in the front of a book, to be filled in to record the details of the location and registrar filling in the book. The boy had filled it in with a plain childish account of their camping expedition, ignoring the prompts on the form. Then he turned to the next page and each page contained a filled-in record of secret mass burials that had occured in the parish. Two of the dates were 1932 and March 1935. I felt that the present in the dream was the late 50s or early 60s.
This was the third boy who was occupied with the book, the first having the dog. The second boy was asleep but was being irritated by something in the dark. It was just irritating enough for him to wish it would stop but not irritating enough for him to get up and investigate. What was happening was that he was being gently poked in the feet with two sharp implements. I have shivers running all over my body writing this.
Then a second "dog" came to the third boy, who was by now also half-asleep. He was aware that this wasn't really a dog and that something was badly wrong. I feel utterly terrified recounting this; I am shivering and have to pause frequently. I do not want to go on; I will not proof-read this. The boy could not bring himself to recognise that it was not a dog, because it would be too terrible to acknowledge the truth. And so he played with it, half-asleep, as though it were a dog. Slowly he came round as far as he could allow himself to: he could not acknowledge the truth, it must remain a dog for the time being in order to preserve his sanity, but he could accept that something was wrong and that he had to get the three of them together to leave that place.
He looked at the first boy, and all of this was written over his face. He had been trapped for some time, not brave enough to bring himself as far as the point the third boy had reached. They looked at the second boy, but were unable to allow themselves to take in what they saw, so they just grabbed him and pulled him with them.
They walked together up the slope back to the main party of adults, but when they were almost there they realised that what they were dragging was not the second boy, but was something else they could not acknowledge. They had left him asleep and alone down there. With heavy hearts they turned and went back for him, knowing that they likely did not have enough willpower to succeed.
The narrative changed to the next day. A few parents were in a helicopter searching for the boys. The helicopter swept over the forest, and closed in on the river. One of the boys was in the river. At first he appeared to be a floating corpse, but then it became clear he was struggling. Underneath him were - two sheep? - two inflated sacks providing buoyancy. He was using the sacks to keep himself apart from something that was underneath the water, trying to drown whatever was there.
Then it surfaced, the face of a man, or something very similar, three times the size of a man and much flatter and more cartoony. The face was surrounded by thick dark-brown matted hair and the expression was one of manic friendship. The long tongue hung out like a dog's, and it seemed to be playing with the boy, making the boy think there was a chance of drowning the fiend, but all the time the monster was in complete control. The thing rolled around the bottom of the sacks and came up, showing himself to be hairy all over, looking like a wild brown version of Sulley from Monsters Inc. It had two horns like Desperate Dan had on his cow pie, which had been tickling the second boy the previous night. It sounds ridiculous but it was most real and terrifying and I am scared now writing.
The helicopter pilot recoiled and flew away as fast as he could. He would forever be a broken man, and the parents would not argue that this terror was too large to be faced, even at whatever the cost to their sons would be. There was a sense that the boys were far beyond help, and that the best anyone could do would be to get as far away as possible.
And then I woke up.
13 Dec 2010
1 Nov 2010
Review of Halldor Laxness' The Fish Can Sing
I have recently, very slowly, read nobel prize winning Icelandic author Halldor Laxness' novel The Fish Can Sing (Brekkukotsannáll). This was a very important experience for me, and I would like to document my reactions to it, if you will indulge me.
For a long while it has been my intention to read some of his work, but I had a strong sense that I should wait until the time was right. A few weeks ago my subconscious informed me that it was time. I selected The Fish Can Sing on the basis that it was the cheapest of his English translations available on Amazon, and was delighted to discover that it had been translated by (mastermind presenter) Magnus Magnusson. I have read a number of sagas translated by him and consider him to have done a very fine job of them.
At its best, the novel is beautifully written, with each phrase dripping with devastatingly understated emotional power. This work contains some of the very best prose poetry I have encountered: I found myself haunted by certain passages and sentences, particularly by the stoic humanity of the nostalgic Iceland presented as the foil to the tainted petty bourgeois present in the book. In this I was reminded very strongly of the Orcadian author George Mackay Brown, and I was ecstatic to be able to draw such strong comparisons across the Norwegian sea.
To a certain degree this book has a similar sentimentality for a lost past to Cider With Rosie, which was published in the same year (1959). That this book treats this idea at face value dated it somewhat for me. I need my cultural nostalgia to be a little more disguised.
It's hard to be certain working from the English translation, but at times the novel uses Icelandic, Danish, Nynorsk, French, German and Latin, all for different effects. This must have been a struggle to render for a language-illiterate english speakers. At times Magnusson has to resort to "...they prayed in Nynorsk" or "more in Danish than Icelandic", whereas presumably the original Icelandic assumes the reader can interpret the different languages used. The short French, German and Latin passages are left in their original forms, which is appropriate to their use in the novel to highlight certain character's naivety, both positively and negatively.
I enjoyed the Icelandic setting, which is a particular interest of mine, and picked up on a number of cultural references and nuances (undoubtedly I missed many more), such as unflagged references to sagas, that perhaps would be prohibitive rather than enhancing for a casual reader with no knowledge of the setting.
At times I felt physically stunned by cunning revelations in the structure of the threads running through the book. But I also felt little compulsion to carry on reading. These were characters that I related to, but that I felt perhaps deserved respect and privacy. The sympathetic characters were not the sort of people who would naturally have placed themselves in the spotlight and I felt presumptuous demanding and explanation of their world. The novel is almost entirely devoid of plot (plenty of fate, but little causality) and I did not feel like there was any question I wanted answered or any narrative idea to see through to the conclusion. In this respect it was like a long description interspersed with discourse. Each morsel was as rich as a five-aurar cake, but nothing beyond gluttony and work ethic drove me on.
Another strong criticism I have is that the writing standard was very variable. Chapter 15 was a sophisticated maelstrom of poetry and ideas, but Chapter 16 read like something written by a self-important university student on a wet afternoon. I found it hard to believe it was the same writer. The last third of the book read like it had been written before the earlier passages, as things which were already introduced were reintroduced and other subtle changes occurred without explanation.
This is a great book that I highly recommend. But had I written it myself, I would have seen only its shortcomings. There are glorious, heart-stopping moments, but it does perhaps add up to less than the sum of its parts. I'll read more Laxness in the future, but Mackay Brown's Greenvoe is possibly a better example of this class of novel.
For a long while it has been my intention to read some of his work, but I had a strong sense that I should wait until the time was right. A few weeks ago my subconscious informed me that it was time. I selected The Fish Can Sing on the basis that it was the cheapest of his English translations available on Amazon, and was delighted to discover that it had been translated by (mastermind presenter) Magnus Magnusson. I have read a number of sagas translated by him and consider him to have done a very fine job of them.
At its best, the novel is beautifully written, with each phrase dripping with devastatingly understated emotional power. This work contains some of the very best prose poetry I have encountered: I found myself haunted by certain passages and sentences, particularly by the stoic humanity of the nostalgic Iceland presented as the foil to the tainted petty bourgeois present in the book. In this I was reminded very strongly of the Orcadian author George Mackay Brown, and I was ecstatic to be able to draw such strong comparisons across the Norwegian sea.
To a certain degree this book has a similar sentimentality for a lost past to Cider With Rosie, which was published in the same year (1959). That this book treats this idea at face value dated it somewhat for me. I need my cultural nostalgia to be a little more disguised.
It's hard to be certain working from the English translation, but at times the novel uses Icelandic, Danish, Nynorsk, French, German and Latin, all for different effects. This must have been a struggle to render for a language-illiterate english speakers. At times Magnusson has to resort to "...they prayed in Nynorsk" or "more in Danish than Icelandic", whereas presumably the original Icelandic assumes the reader can interpret the different languages used. The short French, German and Latin passages are left in their original forms, which is appropriate to their use in the novel to highlight certain character's naivety, both positively and negatively.
I enjoyed the Icelandic setting, which is a particular interest of mine, and picked up on a number of cultural references and nuances (undoubtedly I missed many more), such as unflagged references to sagas, that perhaps would be prohibitive rather than enhancing for a casual reader with no knowledge of the setting.
At times I felt physically stunned by cunning revelations in the structure of the threads running through the book. But I also felt little compulsion to carry on reading. These were characters that I related to, but that I felt perhaps deserved respect and privacy. The sympathetic characters were not the sort of people who would naturally have placed themselves in the spotlight and I felt presumptuous demanding and explanation of their world. The novel is almost entirely devoid of plot (plenty of fate, but little causality) and I did not feel like there was any question I wanted answered or any narrative idea to see through to the conclusion. In this respect it was like a long description interspersed with discourse. Each morsel was as rich as a five-aurar cake, but nothing beyond gluttony and work ethic drove me on.
Another strong criticism I have is that the writing standard was very variable. Chapter 15 was a sophisticated maelstrom of poetry and ideas, but Chapter 16 read like something written by a self-important university student on a wet afternoon. I found it hard to believe it was the same writer. The last third of the book read like it had been written before the earlier passages, as things which were already introduced were reintroduced and other subtle changes occurred without explanation.
This is a great book that I highly recommend. But had I written it myself, I would have seen only its shortcomings. There are glorious, heart-stopping moments, but it does perhaps add up to less than the sum of its parts. I'll read more Laxness in the future, but Mackay Brown's Greenvoe is possibly a better example of this class of novel.
26 Sept 2010
Space
Once again, I have been asking myself "what is to be done?" In 2006 I set myself a complex agenda which is now 100% complete and achieved. From time to time I added various small goals and extensions to that plan, and sometimes succeeded in kidding myself that I had a new set of goals and had reached a new stage in my life. With the Isle Martin Plan and its modifications complete, I have been once again asking myself "what is to be done?"
Whilst I am very happy where I currently live in the short term, what I would most like to do is inhabit a space where I would not be disturbed by the rules and expectations of those around me. Just as moving out of my parent's house was liberating when I was 18, I would like to move beyond the confines of 20-something shared housing into a world where I can define the parameters more freely. I do not wish to replace these rules with another set of rules, such as "living on a council estate", "living in a commune" or enforced nomadism.
Recently, I have found myself deeply regretting not being able to take various dead animals (roadkill fox and badger, two ravens) home and process them. I would like to spend a winter sleeping on a mattress of rotting bracken. I would like to be able to fill my attic with straw without anyone saying "planning permission" or "housing code". I would like to collect plants into a garden, and no, I am not at all interested in most of the plants you keep in yours. I would like to be able to dig a hole when I feel like it, and leave an open pit around for people to fall into. I would like to build furniture in ways no one but Syd Barrett would approve of. I would like to leave a brick on a synthesizer turned up loud for several hours whilst I cook meals you would not eat. I would like to be able to mess up the mains electrics and I would like to paint and texture things in ways that would reveal your aesthetic conservatism.
These are my goals. I believe that to achieve them I have to take control of a unit of geography. This seems vile to me, an affront to nature and a denial of "love thy neighbour". But in the cost/benefit analysis, it becomes clear that I must make myself look big and threaten trespassers with violence.
For some months now, I have been looking at houses for sale. They seem ill equipped for my needs. What I would like is a large garden with a shed in it. Whilst I take my responsibilities seriously with regard to eutrophication in an overcrowded world, there are very few parts of a "house" that I am interested in retaining. Roofs seem useful. But what is the boiler for, other than the socially-dictated generation of debt?
One solution would be to acquire a ruin and live in a shed in the garden. I do not know how to achieve this. Another would be to get a wood and hide in it. Here I am vexed by availability.
It is clear to me that the price of a house is dependent upon the availability of land. Bricks and mortar are cheap, and anyway I'm not bothered if they're all there (although you seem to need me to be concerned, and I suspect will force me to be so). Land is highly available in areas where the hand of the king is weak. The more slummy an area is, the less invested both the inhabitants and the authorities are, and the cheaper land becomes. A lack of investment leads to a weakening and diversification of polities (modelled continuously), and a greater concern for defining the boundaries and setting the rules I wish to escape. Or, in short, I would not go down very well on a council estate.
Secondly, the things you value in a house, the heuristic you call "well presented" has no value to me. "Well presented" is a burden, and entanglement of denial and a demand disguised as a duty to curate somebody else's ideological subjectivism. It is a threat against John Stuart Mill's property, and I bet there's magnolia in there somewhere.
I am spoilt by the freedoms of a rural middle class youth. It occurred to me only months ago that I was waiting for the large suburban house everyone around me had had growing up to fall into my lap. Unknown consciously, I had an expectation that I was due such a thing and that it was only a matter of time before I was burdened with such. The slow lumbering approach of home ownership felt like an unavoidable onerous task, something moderately irritating like having to clean your teeth or waiting for a train, coming towards me immalleably through the semi-accessible mists of the future. Now I have identified this misconception, perhaps it will allow me to move on.
I want to slip through the holes in the fabric of your social paradigm. I don't want to cheat or take shortcuts, I just have different expectations and have a closer relationship with fate than you do. The whole tangled ball of this system is only tenable because each of us sees only a few facets, distracted as we are with our egotisms and opiates. For better or for worse, the parts I am looking at don't add up. There is great narrative truth in several million small agents working selfishly, but in order to sustain the journeys we are on, we require a million small fibs and unnecessary regulations and abstractions.
I suppose what I want is to be left alone, to select what elements of culture and humanity I come into contact with. When feeding my ego, I would describe this desire as a true, pure liberalism. But it is truer to say that I don't want my million small fibs to be challenged any more than you do.
This is why I am living in my friend's attic.
Whilst I am very happy where I currently live in the short term, what I would most like to do is inhabit a space where I would not be disturbed by the rules and expectations of those around me. Just as moving out of my parent's house was liberating when I was 18, I would like to move beyond the confines of 20-something shared housing into a world where I can define the parameters more freely. I do not wish to replace these rules with another set of rules, such as "living on a council estate", "living in a commune" or enforced nomadism.
Recently, I have found myself deeply regretting not being able to take various dead animals (roadkill fox and badger, two ravens) home and process them. I would like to spend a winter sleeping on a mattress of rotting bracken. I would like to be able to fill my attic with straw without anyone saying "planning permission" or "housing code". I would like to collect plants into a garden, and no, I am not at all interested in most of the plants you keep in yours. I would like to be able to dig a hole when I feel like it, and leave an open pit around for people to fall into. I would like to build furniture in ways no one but Syd Barrett would approve of. I would like to leave a brick on a synthesizer turned up loud for several hours whilst I cook meals you would not eat. I would like to be able to mess up the mains electrics and I would like to paint and texture things in ways that would reveal your aesthetic conservatism.
These are my goals. I believe that to achieve them I have to take control of a unit of geography. This seems vile to me, an affront to nature and a denial of "love thy neighbour". But in the cost/benefit analysis, it becomes clear that I must make myself look big and threaten trespassers with violence.
For some months now, I have been looking at houses for sale. They seem ill equipped for my needs. What I would like is a large garden with a shed in it. Whilst I take my responsibilities seriously with regard to eutrophication in an overcrowded world, there are very few parts of a "house" that I am interested in retaining. Roofs seem useful. But what is the boiler for, other than the socially-dictated generation of debt?
One solution would be to acquire a ruin and live in a shed in the garden. I do not know how to achieve this. Another would be to get a wood and hide in it. Here I am vexed by availability.
It is clear to me that the price of a house is dependent upon the availability of land. Bricks and mortar are cheap, and anyway I'm not bothered if they're all there (although you seem to need me to be concerned, and I suspect will force me to be so). Land is highly available in areas where the hand of the king is weak. The more slummy an area is, the less invested both the inhabitants and the authorities are, and the cheaper land becomes. A lack of investment leads to a weakening and diversification of polities (modelled continuously), and a greater concern for defining the boundaries and setting the rules I wish to escape. Or, in short, I would not go down very well on a council estate.
Secondly, the things you value in a house, the heuristic you call "well presented" has no value to me. "Well presented" is a burden, and entanglement of denial and a demand disguised as a duty to curate somebody else's ideological subjectivism. It is a threat against John Stuart Mill's property, and I bet there's magnolia in there somewhere.
I am spoilt by the freedoms of a rural middle class youth. It occurred to me only months ago that I was waiting for the large suburban house everyone around me had had growing up to fall into my lap. Unknown consciously, I had an expectation that I was due such a thing and that it was only a matter of time before I was burdened with such. The slow lumbering approach of home ownership felt like an unavoidable onerous task, something moderately irritating like having to clean your teeth or waiting for a train, coming towards me immalleably through the semi-accessible mists of the future. Now I have identified this misconception, perhaps it will allow me to move on.
I want to slip through the holes in the fabric of your social paradigm. I don't want to cheat or take shortcuts, I just have different expectations and have a closer relationship with fate than you do. The whole tangled ball of this system is only tenable because each of us sees only a few facets, distracted as we are with our egotisms and opiates. For better or for worse, the parts I am looking at don't add up. There is great narrative truth in several million small agents working selfishly, but in order to sustain the journeys we are on, we require a million small fibs and unnecessary regulations and abstractions.
I suppose what I want is to be left alone, to select what elements of culture and humanity I come into contact with. When feeding my ego, I would describe this desire as a true, pure liberalism. But it is truer to say that I don't want my million small fibs to be challenged any more than you do.
This is why I am living in my friend's attic.
24 Aug 2010
Cheese Experiments
Thought I'd give cheesemaking a go. I've ordered some proper cultures and rennet off of the webnet but for now here's some small experiments. I've been using live yoghurt as the culture and spirit vinegar in the place of rennet. The yoghurt in question contains three bacterial cultures, including the Streptococcus used in cheesemaking as well as the two normally found in yoghurt. No idea why the cheese culture is in there, but I've seen it a few times so must be fairly standard practice?
Experiment 1
Three tablespoons of live yoghurt were gently heated. Three capfuls of vinegar were gradually added stepwise. The yoghurt became thinner. No curds were formed. The experiment was halted and the ingredients thrown away.
Experiment 2
A small quantity of ordinary homogenised semi-skimmed milk was gently heated. A capful and a half of vinegar was added stepwise. A couple of tablespoons of curds precipitated, but only fully after the stated quantity of vinegar was used. The whey tasted strongly of vinegar and was discarded. The curds were drained, and tasted noticeably of vinegar. They were washed with cold water, reducing the vinegar flavour, although the taint remained. Eaten with salt.
Experiment 3
A tablespoon of live yoghurt was added to a small quantity of ordinary semi-skimmed milk, and the mixture left to stand at room temperature for thirty minutes. After this time the mixture tasted noticeably "cultured". It was gently heated and only half a cap of vinegar was needed to precipitate the curds. The whey remained pleasant and was retained for experiment 4. The curds were washed in cold water, yet retained a very slight vinegar taint. Eaten with salt. Yield was similar to experiment 2. This method is similar to the normal recipe for mexican Queso Blanco.
Experiment 4
A teaspoon of live yoghurt was added to the hot whey and left to stand for a couple of hours. The whey was then reheated and a tiny amount of vinegar added. A very slight precipitate formed, which when collected in a muslin cloth and washed with cold water. A further yield of a tablespoon of curds was recovered. Ricotta is an example of a whey cheese made by methods similar to this.
The curds produced in Experiment 2-4 were indistinguishable to my uneducated mouth.
Experiment 1
Three tablespoons of live yoghurt were gently heated. Three capfuls of vinegar were gradually added stepwise. The yoghurt became thinner. No curds were formed. The experiment was halted and the ingredients thrown away.
Experiment 2
A small quantity of ordinary homogenised semi-skimmed milk was gently heated. A capful and a half of vinegar was added stepwise. A couple of tablespoons of curds precipitated, but only fully after the stated quantity of vinegar was used. The whey tasted strongly of vinegar and was discarded. The curds were drained, and tasted noticeably of vinegar. They were washed with cold water, reducing the vinegar flavour, although the taint remained. Eaten with salt.
Experiment 3
A tablespoon of live yoghurt was added to a small quantity of ordinary semi-skimmed milk, and the mixture left to stand at room temperature for thirty minutes. After this time the mixture tasted noticeably "cultured". It was gently heated and only half a cap of vinegar was needed to precipitate the curds. The whey remained pleasant and was retained for experiment 4. The curds were washed in cold water, yet retained a very slight vinegar taint. Eaten with salt. Yield was similar to experiment 2. This method is similar to the normal recipe for mexican Queso Blanco.
Experiment 4
A teaspoon of live yoghurt was added to the hot whey and left to stand for a couple of hours. The whey was then reheated and a tiny amount of vinegar added. A very slight precipitate formed, which when collected in a muslin cloth and washed with cold water. A further yield of a tablespoon of curds was recovered. Ricotta is an example of a whey cheese made by methods similar to this.
The curds produced in Experiment 2-4 were indistinguishable to my uneducated mouth.
25 May 2010
Glimpses
My mind is still milling over the DIftW. I'm not even sure it's made of words any more. Every now and again I catch glimpses of how I felt about the world when I wrote them. It's just below the surface, this feeling that I can't communicate, but I can't access it reliably. I have narratives - sophisticated joyful understandings in flow and rhythm - but it is the craft of turning them into something communicable that I do not care for.
I caught a glimpse looking at a workman today as he threw bricks and swore, his arm tattooed with his daughter's name and his eyes desperate: there is nothing slight or passing in the tautology that the world is created in the image of the world. I heard it last night as we walked by the Salvation Army hall and the distant buzzing of the brass switched on my mind. There was the celestial music again, the quest object, the sound more beautiful than anything external could ever be. I have heard music more beautiful than anyone has ever been able to describe. But it is not enough that it is so; it is my unshoulderable duty to externalise it, to codify the colour of creation. This is why I could not make small talk when you were drunk.
I have been dead for six months, maybe more. This winter was an impossible struggle against seemingly nothing. I had to numb myself against the weight. Now I can allow myself to scratch again at it, and I find the colour occasionally under my fingernails. Today and tomorrow I must be as I am now, but today I can once again hope for the day after tomorrow.
It would be easy to fall into hatred for the banality of it all, but I am too calm and too patient for that. So much is rotten.
I guess this attempt proves that it's too early to try to write again.
I caught a glimpse looking at a workman today as he threw bricks and swore, his arm tattooed with his daughter's name and his eyes desperate: there is nothing slight or passing in the tautology that the world is created in the image of the world. I heard it last night as we walked by the Salvation Army hall and the distant buzzing of the brass switched on my mind. There was the celestial music again, the quest object, the sound more beautiful than anything external could ever be. I have heard music more beautiful than anyone has ever been able to describe. But it is not enough that it is so; it is my unshoulderable duty to externalise it, to codify the colour of creation. This is why I could not make small talk when you were drunk.
I have been dead for six months, maybe more. This winter was an impossible struggle against seemingly nothing. I had to numb myself against the weight. Now I can allow myself to scratch again at it, and I find the colour occasionally under my fingernails. Today and tomorrow I must be as I am now, but today I can once again hope for the day after tomorrow.
It would be easy to fall into hatred for the banality of it all, but I am too calm and too patient for that. So much is rotten.
I guess this attempt proves that it's too early to try to write again.
25 Apr 2010
List 2
Ozone and hydrocarbons when a mattock hits industrial slag.
The certainty and precision of technical drawings.
A lungfull of cement dust.
Builders.
Silence at lunchtime when the machines stop.
Talking all day, more exhausting than shovelling.
Sheet-metal buildings felled, revealing pristine green slopes behind.
Evening vegetation.
A day in the office, a day wasted.
A picnic by the sheaf.
Celandine, anenome, every plant a friend.
A carrier bag full of ramsons and ground elder.
Every glance a potential meal: how could you ever starve here?
Bicycling against time, patience exhausted.
A tour of secret art galleries.
Pathetic expressions of privilege and wasted opportunities.
A room full of pure magic.
St. George's day on Devonshire Green: a perfection of blandness.
Waiting, waiting, waiting in a bar.
Reaching exhaustion behind a drum set.
Too little sleep.
The smell of rain at dawn.
Bicycling empty 6am sunday morning city arteries.
Hull.
Mud further than the eye can see.
Mist over spurn head, the end of the world, the threshold. (Song for Our Ancestors)
Plastic pollution in the seas.
The certainty and precision of technical drawings.
A lungfull of cement dust.
Builders.
Silence at lunchtime when the machines stop.
Talking all day, more exhausting than shovelling.
Sheet-metal buildings felled, revealing pristine green slopes behind.
Evening vegetation.
A day in the office, a day wasted.
A picnic by the sheaf.
Celandine, anenome, every plant a friend.
A carrier bag full of ramsons and ground elder.
Every glance a potential meal: how could you ever starve here?
Bicycling against time, patience exhausted.
A tour of secret art galleries.
Pathetic expressions of privilege and wasted opportunities.
A room full of pure magic.
St. George's day on Devonshire Green: a perfection of blandness.
Waiting, waiting, waiting in a bar.
Reaching exhaustion behind a drum set.
Too little sleep.
The smell of rain at dawn.
Bicycling empty 6am sunday morning city arteries.
Hull.
Mud further than the eye can see.
Mist over spurn head, the end of the world, the threshold. (Song for Our Ancestors)
Plastic pollution in the seas.
18 Apr 2010
Eating Dock
I heard that dock leaves were edible if cooked twice. So, when collecting ground elder to eat (highly recommended) I picked some fresh spring dock leaves to experiment with. There seems to be a lack of reliable information on this subject, so I present my results here. I am not an expert when it comes to the complex Rumex genus so no identification to species level was attempted. However, this specimen seems like a fairly standard English dock to my country eyes.
Raw, the leaves were acceptable, bland, and slightly acidic.
I chopped the leaves into approx. 7mm strips and boiled them in water in a small saucepan on a hob for about 5 minutes.
The resulting liquid was green, pungent and reminiscent of stinging nettle juice (these two plants are often considered to have some sort of affinity, growing in similar habitats. The dock is considered in folklore to be the antidote to the nettle). The liquid tasted acidic, bitter and dangerous. Adding dock to a sauce would make the sauce unpleasantly bitter and acid, and possibly introduce harmful chemicals (I do not know if there is anything harmful in dock) so I recommend firmly against doing this.
After pressing the cooking juice out of the leaves, they were tasted and found to be bland and unremarkable. All traces of acidity were removed to the taste: in fact, all traces of taste were removed entirely. The structure and thickness of the leaf had also been destroyed, and the remnants brought to mind thin seaweed in terms of appearance and texture. These leaves could be used as a spinach substitute, but as it is likely that most of the vitamins have gone down the sink and due to the availability of many tastier alternatives in the English countryside (not least of which nettles), I do not think dock worthwhile eating.
On final comment, the famous Lancashire dish of "dock pudding" is made using bistort, Persicaria bistorta, which, whilst closely related to the true docks, is a different plant.
Raw, the leaves were acceptable, bland, and slightly acidic.
I chopped the leaves into approx. 7mm strips and boiled them in water in a small saucepan on a hob for about 5 minutes.
The resulting liquid was green, pungent and reminiscent of stinging nettle juice (these two plants are often considered to have some sort of affinity, growing in similar habitats. The dock is considered in folklore to be the antidote to the nettle). The liquid tasted acidic, bitter and dangerous. Adding dock to a sauce would make the sauce unpleasantly bitter and acid, and possibly introduce harmful chemicals (I do not know if there is anything harmful in dock) so I recommend firmly against doing this.
After pressing the cooking juice out of the leaves, they were tasted and found to be bland and unremarkable. All traces of acidity were removed to the taste: in fact, all traces of taste were removed entirely. The structure and thickness of the leaf had also been destroyed, and the remnants brought to mind thin seaweed in terms of appearance and texture. These leaves could be used as a spinach substitute, but as it is likely that most of the vitamins have gone down the sink and due to the availability of many tastier alternatives in the English countryside (not least of which nettles), I do not think dock worthwhile eating.
On final comment, the famous Lancashire dish of "dock pudding" is made using bistort, Persicaria bistorta, which, whilst closely related to the true docks, is a different plant.
5 Apr 2010
List
A woman losing control of her heavily-set pony.
The smell of the rain on the moors.
Standing in the sleet.
The frozen heather rubbing my bare calves raw.
A moorland stream in spate.
The perfect camping spot: a patch of flat dry grass: the head of a silted up pond on the moor.
A two centimetre partially articulated bird claw inside an owl pellet.
The threat of the giant dread owl eating hawks.
Two hawthorns: lurking sentinels in the threshold of the city.
Diseased larches thick overgrown with extra branches bending down to the soil and creating rooms underneath.
Two magnificent venerable red deer stags well within the city limits.
A harpist performing in a pub.
Mother of Vinegar.
Conversation.
Storm Cats.
Driving all night.
Arriving at dawn.
Sleeping at a festival.
Setting up the cake stall.
Spiral Navigators.
Dreaming that I was turning left at a junction. A little girl steps out in front of me and I sound my horn. She dashes forwards into the path of a tram and I see her body ripped apart and her flesh ground into the tarmac.
Incestuous space rock bands.
A barbecue on the beach.
Other people's drugs.
Trying to think of more interesting things to do than sleep.
I love my granny.
Spring in Hertfordshire.
Driving to Sheffield on autopilot.
A woman losing control of her slight arab horse as she crosses the motorway bridge.
Arriving home and wondering what it is I do here.
Back up to 12 stone 7.
Having absolutely no idea what to do next.
The smell of the rain on the moors.
Standing in the sleet.
The frozen heather rubbing my bare calves raw.
A moorland stream in spate.
The perfect camping spot: a patch of flat dry grass: the head of a silted up pond on the moor.
A two centimetre partially articulated bird claw inside an owl pellet.
The threat of the giant dread owl eating hawks.
Two hawthorns: lurking sentinels in the threshold of the city.
Diseased larches thick overgrown with extra branches bending down to the soil and creating rooms underneath.
Two magnificent venerable red deer stags well within the city limits.
A harpist performing in a pub.
Mother of Vinegar.
Conversation.
Storm Cats.
Driving all night.
Arriving at dawn.
Sleeping at a festival.
Setting up the cake stall.
Spiral Navigators.
Dreaming that I was turning left at a junction. A little girl steps out in front of me and I sound my horn. She dashes forwards into the path of a tram and I see her body ripped apart and her flesh ground into the tarmac.
Incestuous space rock bands.
A barbecue on the beach.
Other people's drugs.
Trying to think of more interesting things to do than sleep.
I love my granny.
Spring in Hertfordshire.
Driving to Sheffield on autopilot.
A woman losing control of her slight arab horse as she crosses the motorway bridge.
Arriving home and wondering what it is I do here.
Back up to 12 stone 7.
Having absolutely no idea what to do next.
27 Mar 2010
Nightmares
Recently, when I have been trying to write, all I have been able to produce is ugly, dark and boring. I don't want to share what I've been working on both because it is not of sufficient quality and because it is greatly lacking in generosity.
When I write the good DIftW I get myself into a special mental state. This is the great effort of the writing. So long as I have an idea I am at least slightly interested in, if I can get myself feeling like that then it just comes. Now, when I try to write I find myself in falling into a pit of despair. So, I have stopped writing.
I have been troubled by nightmares. The simplest ones are when I am a kid again and either at home or at my grandmother's or in Wales. "Last night I dreamt I went to Collye Grove again." These places are perfect, joyful wonderful memories, but I find something about it deeply upsetting. Perhaps it is the contrast between then and now? I am yearning to regain my childhood.
I have dreamt twice that I was tricked into going to South America to play some gigs. Slowly, all the other musicians drop out until only I am left with the duty to show people round an old mine. It's in a dangerous, abandoned remote village. I travel up there and try to make the shack inhabitable. Then my co-workers turn up but there's something sinister about them. They say "you've been here two hours and you haven't even put the kettle on?" and so I have to go outside to the standpipe to get water. It's night, and creepily there are lights on in the other buildings even though they are abandoned. A crazy hairy man appears from one of the huts and starts throwing hatchets at me. I run back into my shack and then I wake up. This has happened twice.
I found myself in a sleepwalking state in a tent recently (this is not something I often experience). I was neither awake nor asleep. I was conscious but still dreaming. I was able to open my eyes but it was unpleasant so I kept them shut. I found myself searching along the seams of the tent, desperately trying to find the secret door. I knew where the actual door was, but I had to find another one. Then I went back to sleep.
The worst dream of all was that I was in a house I owned with a wife and a three year old boy. The boy had a certain name that was significant but I don't recall it. I didn't know anything about the boy, it was as if I had ignored him his entire life. There was more detail, but it's gone.
These are just a selection of the nightmares I have been having. Last night I was in South America for the second time. The night before I think I slept soundly. Every other night from Wednesday back about two weeks I have had a bad dream.
When I write the good DIftW I get myself into a special mental state. This is the great effort of the writing. So long as I have an idea I am at least slightly interested in, if I can get myself feeling like that then it just comes. Now, when I try to write I find myself in falling into a pit of despair. So, I have stopped writing.
I have been troubled by nightmares. The simplest ones are when I am a kid again and either at home or at my grandmother's or in Wales. "Last night I dreamt I went to Collye Grove again." These places are perfect, joyful wonderful memories, but I find something about it deeply upsetting. Perhaps it is the contrast between then and now? I am yearning to regain my childhood.
I have dreamt twice that I was tricked into going to South America to play some gigs. Slowly, all the other musicians drop out until only I am left with the duty to show people round an old mine. It's in a dangerous, abandoned remote village. I travel up there and try to make the shack inhabitable. Then my co-workers turn up but there's something sinister about them. They say "you've been here two hours and you haven't even put the kettle on?" and so I have to go outside to the standpipe to get water. It's night, and creepily there are lights on in the other buildings even though they are abandoned. A crazy hairy man appears from one of the huts and starts throwing hatchets at me. I run back into my shack and then I wake up. This has happened twice.
I found myself in a sleepwalking state in a tent recently (this is not something I often experience). I was neither awake nor asleep. I was conscious but still dreaming. I was able to open my eyes but it was unpleasant so I kept them shut. I found myself searching along the seams of the tent, desperately trying to find the secret door. I knew where the actual door was, but I had to find another one. Then I went back to sleep.
The worst dream of all was that I was in a house I owned with a wife and a three year old boy. The boy had a certain name that was significant but I don't recall it. I didn't know anything about the boy, it was as if I had ignored him his entire life. There was more detail, but it's gone.
These are just a selection of the nightmares I have been having. Last night I was in South America for the second time. The night before I think I slept soundly. Every other night from Wednesday back about two weeks I have had a bad dream.
23 Mar 2010
Music
I have moved my musical postings to a sister blog, Dangerous Ideas in Music. I wish to keep this blog more purely dedicated to words and woods.
21 Feb 2010
DIftW Progress
The main document file for Dangerous Ideas from the Wood is now at 35,000 words. I keep finding stuff that needs to be fixed and I'm really happy about that because it means it's improving. There's another 7.5k in the House of Cornus thread and another 7.5k or so that I can't fit in with the story in any meaningful way. I've got gaps and bridging bits and so on that will probably require another 5k words to be written. And then there's the ending. I've sketched it out but it really needs to be three or four times larger than it is. I imagine the final afternoon of the story will take up about 20k words once it's finished. I know what's going to happen but it's going to be very hard to control it all in a believable way. Along the way no doubt I'll spring a few more cunning ideas that will fit nicely into it.
I know It's pointless counting words but I need some way of marking my progress so there we go. Once I've done all the work I should end up with the first draft of something large enough to be considered a novel. That would be exciting.
I know It's pointless counting words but I need some way of marking my progress so there we go. Once I've done all the work I should end up with the first draft of something large enough to be considered a novel. That would be exciting.
15 Feb 2010
Dangerous Ideas from the Wood: The Pretender
The old captain had always been very kind to the boy prince. He was a canny man, the captain, with something deeper in his eye than most and scars on his body from combat. He was bald at this stage in life and as often as not wore his mail shirt, though he reserved his greaves and spalders for special occasions.
“Now, young prince,” the captain would say, “this stuffed shirt is your uncle. I want you to prove your accuracy. Let's go! Now!”
The captain hated the prince's uncle. The prince's father should have been the legitimate king; his uncle had only won the throne by fratricide. They had fought, the two brothers, and torn the country apart with war. For five years every villager hid his crops away and buried his coin-hoard on his land. For five years every wife had slept uneasily in her bed, her mind running round and round with the idea of her sons and her husband and daughters and the memory of burning torches and a horse burnt alive in the stables the last time the war had reached their village.
The old captain knew whose fault it was: the captain knew a thing or two about history and the story of their people. It was the King's fault, that vile evil man: he was one who had started this war. The very man that now sat on the throne of the kingdom and claimed to protect it was the man that had wrecked it.
The captain had fought in the civil war. He had opposed the evil king. They had struggled, his comrades and he, struggled against hunger and cold and mud and blades tearing roughly through meat and skulls crushed by the reverse point of a axe or a hammer. He'd seen a thing or two, and he'd been one of the few that had seen it clearly. It's one thing having your opinions and ideas sat back at your hearth, sleeping in a bed with your woman and living off the fat of the land: that was all well and good, but if you've not been to war how can you begin to understand it? He hated war, the old captain, in that pure true way that only someone who has murdered for the king can understand.
“It's a vile business,” he said on one of the days he wore all the armour he owned. He was kneeling in front of a soldier's grave, medals dripping from his chest and tears of pride weeping from his eyes. “Vile. Best pay tribute, young prince, in remembrance of all those brave servants of the cause who struggled to maintain civilisation when all around them fell into barbarism.”
“Never forget, lad, the things those bastards did. They'd come early in the morning and take whole families away. They'd line them up in front of a pit and” - the captain slapped his palms together - “that was it. They took the foreigners. And their political opponents, and anyone who said anything against their false church. I myself had a Jewish grandmother; perhaps they would have tried to take me? See, they'd take anyone, didn't matter what sort of person you were if you fell into a category they didn't like. Those murderers. I tell you what I'd do if one of them walked in here now. He wouldn't walk out again, I tell you.”
At the start, the civil war had seemed to be simple. The old king, the prince's grandfather, had been murdered. A man was hanged for the murder, but that is about all we may say with any certainty on the matter. Soon, the old queen, the wife of the murdered king, was firmly in control. Her son, our prince's father, was the heir, but he was not yet of age and she and her loyal courtiers had been elected to the regency council.
Then people began to talk. They said that the old queen had arranged her husband's demise. She was certainly more powerful than she had been, and the king had had a number of mistresses. It was not thought that his infidelities were motive enough to provoke regicide - after all, what is a king without a number of women to lord over? - but it would certainly have made things easier in the mind of a woman drunk on the acquisition and enjoyment of power. That she was a royal consort was proof enough that she was a grasping climber.
Soon the younger son, the current king, found himself surrounded with men eager to wrestle control from the regency council. They soon found that there were just as many titles and estates to go round as their were eager politicising men. It is true that men like that like to appear to be self-satisfied and important, but no matter how far they climb or how much importance they believe they have attained, they are never satisfied and always demand more. Occasionally these men see the errors of the ways, but usually the only balance on this runaway system is death, either natural or unnatural.
The pot boiled for fourteen years, and the man who had been a boy king found himself with a young son of his own. But then the greed of men exceeded the elasticity in the system and the suffering spilt over from those whom it belonged to into the lives of all those they touched.
Today, twelve years hence and seven years since the end of the first civil war, the old captain and the prince found themselves together on the evening after a battle which had been neither decisive nor short. Now the men on both sides had returned to their lines, sentries were posted and they tried to sleep.
“You know,” said the prince, who suddenly found himself on the cusp of becoming a man, “you know... it seems to me... it's one of those things...”
The proud captain had one hand on the shoulder of his protege. He felt sure the prince was about to say something that military historians would proudly quote for centuries.
The prince stammered, and then began to spit it out. “Since my father died,” he said, “I have been so alone.”
The boy looked up at the man who had taken his father's place. He saw the pores on the powerful man's face, and the quality of the shave the captain had had perhaps an hour before. The prince saw a thousand meals of rich meat and the thoroughness of the nutrition that had built the captain's features.
“Please, sir,” said the prince, “there are men laid dying as we speak. There are harvests uncut in the fields and old women who will find, come February, that there is no more flour in the sack.
“There are men who otherwise would be poets and scientists and doctors all bleeding to death. I met a man once, I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but do you know he felt such an affinity with water? When he dreamed he felt himself draining through the moss into rivers and flowing down and out to the sea. He said he'd spent a month in the blood vessels of an otter. Can you imagine? Sir?”
The captain shook his head. “I always knew you were simple,” he said, “but I had to try. Soft, that's what you are. You don't know what's good for you. Bleeding heart. What would you do if they were here now? What would you do if your father was still alive and you were there as they were torturing him?”
“Please.”
“Would you stand by? No, you'd fight like anyone else.”
“Of course I'd fight, just like you did. And then I'd be as bad as you.”
In the morning, the prince rode out alone across the lines. He had tied a token of parlay to his personal standard and was quickly picked up by the enemy knights and taken to the King's tent.
The young prince was almost thrown into his Uncle's presence. The King turned and faced the boy, taking his crown from his head and wiping the sweat of concentration from his brow. But there was such a look upon the young man's face. It made everyone in the area stop. No one spoke. The boy did not hate his Uncle. The boy did not forgive his Uncle; they were beyond forgiveness.
A tear formed on the King's cheek. The warlord offered his hand, and they shook, and they embraced, and the King fell to his knee and cradled the boy in his arms.
“Now, young prince,” the captain would say, “this stuffed shirt is your uncle. I want you to prove your accuracy. Let's go! Now!”
The captain hated the prince's uncle. The prince's father should have been the legitimate king; his uncle had only won the throne by fratricide. They had fought, the two brothers, and torn the country apart with war. For five years every villager hid his crops away and buried his coin-hoard on his land. For five years every wife had slept uneasily in her bed, her mind running round and round with the idea of her sons and her husband and daughters and the memory of burning torches and a horse burnt alive in the stables the last time the war had reached their village.
The old captain knew whose fault it was: the captain knew a thing or two about history and the story of their people. It was the King's fault, that vile evil man: he was one who had started this war. The very man that now sat on the throne of the kingdom and claimed to protect it was the man that had wrecked it.
The captain had fought in the civil war. He had opposed the evil king. They had struggled, his comrades and he, struggled against hunger and cold and mud and blades tearing roughly through meat and skulls crushed by the reverse point of a axe or a hammer. He'd seen a thing or two, and he'd been one of the few that had seen it clearly. It's one thing having your opinions and ideas sat back at your hearth, sleeping in a bed with your woman and living off the fat of the land: that was all well and good, but if you've not been to war how can you begin to understand it? He hated war, the old captain, in that pure true way that only someone who has murdered for the king can understand.
“It's a vile business,” he said on one of the days he wore all the armour he owned. He was kneeling in front of a soldier's grave, medals dripping from his chest and tears of pride weeping from his eyes. “Vile. Best pay tribute, young prince, in remembrance of all those brave servants of the cause who struggled to maintain civilisation when all around them fell into barbarism.”
“Never forget, lad, the things those bastards did. They'd come early in the morning and take whole families away. They'd line them up in front of a pit and” - the captain slapped his palms together - “that was it. They took the foreigners. And their political opponents, and anyone who said anything against their false church. I myself had a Jewish grandmother; perhaps they would have tried to take me? See, they'd take anyone, didn't matter what sort of person you were if you fell into a category they didn't like. Those murderers. I tell you what I'd do if one of them walked in here now. He wouldn't walk out again, I tell you.”
At the start, the civil war had seemed to be simple. The old king, the prince's grandfather, had been murdered. A man was hanged for the murder, but that is about all we may say with any certainty on the matter. Soon, the old queen, the wife of the murdered king, was firmly in control. Her son, our prince's father, was the heir, but he was not yet of age and she and her loyal courtiers had been elected to the regency council.
Then people began to talk. They said that the old queen had arranged her husband's demise. She was certainly more powerful than she had been, and the king had had a number of mistresses. It was not thought that his infidelities were motive enough to provoke regicide - after all, what is a king without a number of women to lord over? - but it would certainly have made things easier in the mind of a woman drunk on the acquisition and enjoyment of power. That she was a royal consort was proof enough that she was a grasping climber.
Soon the younger son, the current king, found himself surrounded with men eager to wrestle control from the regency council. They soon found that there were just as many titles and estates to go round as their were eager politicising men. It is true that men like that like to appear to be self-satisfied and important, but no matter how far they climb or how much importance they believe they have attained, they are never satisfied and always demand more. Occasionally these men see the errors of the ways, but usually the only balance on this runaway system is death, either natural or unnatural.
The pot boiled for fourteen years, and the man who had been a boy king found himself with a young son of his own. But then the greed of men exceeded the elasticity in the system and the suffering spilt over from those whom it belonged to into the lives of all those they touched.
Today, twelve years hence and seven years since the end of the first civil war, the old captain and the prince found themselves together on the evening after a battle which had been neither decisive nor short. Now the men on both sides had returned to their lines, sentries were posted and they tried to sleep.
“You know,” said the prince, who suddenly found himself on the cusp of becoming a man, “you know... it seems to me... it's one of those things...”
The proud captain had one hand on the shoulder of his protege. He felt sure the prince was about to say something that military historians would proudly quote for centuries.
The prince stammered, and then began to spit it out. “Since my father died,” he said, “I have been so alone.”
The boy looked up at the man who had taken his father's place. He saw the pores on the powerful man's face, and the quality of the shave the captain had had perhaps an hour before. The prince saw a thousand meals of rich meat and the thoroughness of the nutrition that had built the captain's features.
“Please, sir,” said the prince, “there are men laid dying as we speak. There are harvests uncut in the fields and old women who will find, come February, that there is no more flour in the sack.
“There are men who otherwise would be poets and scientists and doctors all bleeding to death. I met a man once, I only spoke to him for a few minutes, but do you know he felt such an affinity with water? When he dreamed he felt himself draining through the moss into rivers and flowing down and out to the sea. He said he'd spent a month in the blood vessels of an otter. Can you imagine? Sir?”
The captain shook his head. “I always knew you were simple,” he said, “but I had to try. Soft, that's what you are. You don't know what's good for you. Bleeding heart. What would you do if they were here now? What would you do if your father was still alive and you were there as they were torturing him?”
“Please.”
“Would you stand by? No, you'd fight like anyone else.”
“Of course I'd fight, just like you did. And then I'd be as bad as you.”
In the morning, the prince rode out alone across the lines. He had tied a token of parlay to his personal standard and was quickly picked up by the enemy knights and taken to the King's tent.
The young prince was almost thrown into his Uncle's presence. The King turned and faced the boy, taking his crown from his head and wiping the sweat of concentration from his brow. But there was such a look upon the young man's face. It made everyone in the area stop. No one spoke. The boy did not hate his Uncle. The boy did not forgive his Uncle; they were beyond forgiveness.
A tear formed on the King's cheek. The warlord offered his hand, and they shook, and they embraced, and the King fell to his knee and cradled the boy in his arms.
11 Feb 2010
Blogroll
I've been looking at the statistics for this blog: some fuel for my ego there.
Anyway, I wanted to pass on some stuff I read regularly.
My friend Alex keeps a robust blog about archaeology, extreme metal and swearing. If you like that sort of thing it's not a complete sack of http://alexsotheran.blogspot.com/
There'd be no point in me writing about politics because Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash consistently codifies my views for me. I'm not saying he gets it right 100% of the time, but he makes similarly flavoured errors to me.
This guy lives in a cave in Moab, Utah. I get the feeling that he's deeply troubled on some level that he doesn't show to us, but nonetheless I find him inspirational. http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/
Now Then would be achingly cool if it wasn't so Yorkshire. It's the best publication about Sheffield since Go ended, although I suspect the Skye Edge thing in the last Now Then was from the Go stable. Now Then is made by the Opus people. Everything they do is great.
I used to go on body modification site bmezine every now and again on a gross-out trip, how far could I look before my legs went funny and I had to close the window? People do what to their bodies? Anyway, Shannon Larratt used to run it. I'm glad he doesn't now because he's a brilliant writer and node. A polymath.
This is a lot straighter. Too straight if anything, but still worth the punt. Strange Maps is about cartography. The writer is obviously trying to make enough words to publish coffee table books, but the actual content (the maps themselves) are excellent. There's a number of blogs like this, but I reckon this is the best.
That's everything I feel I can pass on. If you'd like me to give you a shout out, let me know.
Anyway, I wanted to pass on some stuff I read regularly.
My friend Alex keeps a robust blog about archaeology, extreme metal and swearing. If you like that sort of thing it's not a complete sack of http://alexsotheran.blogspot.com/
There'd be no point in me writing about politics because Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash consistently codifies my views for me. I'm not saying he gets it right 100% of the time, but he makes similarly flavoured errors to me.
This guy lives in a cave in Moab, Utah. I get the feeling that he's deeply troubled on some level that he doesn't show to us, but nonetheless I find him inspirational. http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/
Now Then would be achingly cool if it wasn't so Yorkshire. It's the best publication about Sheffield since Go ended, although I suspect the Skye Edge thing in the last Now Then was from the Go stable. Now Then is made by the Opus people. Everything they do is great.
I used to go on body modification site bmezine every now and again on a gross-out trip, how far could I look before my legs went funny and I had to close the window? People do what to their bodies? Anyway, Shannon Larratt used to run it. I'm glad he doesn't now because he's a brilliant writer and node. A polymath.
This is a lot straighter. Too straight if anything, but still worth the punt. Strange Maps is about cartography. The writer is obviously trying to make enough words to publish coffee table books, but the actual content (the maps themselves) are excellent. There's a number of blogs like this, but I reckon this is the best.
That's everything I feel I can pass on. If you'd like me to give you a shout out, let me know.
9 Feb 2010
Woods in February
Last night I went out to the woods on the bus and made camp for the night. I was surprised to find a couple of centimetres of snow on the ground, but it was pleasant to be in the wood while it was snowing. I don't like weather forecasts; they stop you from experiencing the world as it is. I'd rather be wet than afraid of nature.
Anyway, I went out to a wood, and I built a shelter. I'd seen Ray Mears make a long shelter with a long fire in front of it, so I started off making one of those. I found a medium-small fallen tree I could lie underneath and laid sticks up against it enclosing it completely on one side. I threw a couple of inches of a mixture of snow and pine needles over the twigs until no light came through. Then I suffered a failure trying to start a fire. Dry wood was hard to come by, and much of the wet wood was frozen as well as waterlogged. We've had a week of mist so it's unsurprising everything was so wet. I must brush up on my firelighting skills (which I'd thought were pretty good). I gave up on the fire and decided to enclose the shelter completely. At either end I repeated the process, then I made a porch with a doorway from a lintel and an upright, which I finished the same as the rest of it, with snow and pine needles. I hung my waterproof trousers up to enclose the door, and laid out my bed inside and found myself warmer than in my house.
I read a biography of Frank Zappa for an hour or so and drifted off. I dreamt that a fox had come inside and was trying to eat my cheese, so I chased it away. Then I changed my dream-mind and threw it pieces of cheese and enticed it in, where it curled up and slept on my belly. Then it was morning and the dawn sky was beige-orange. I had slept soundly for ten hours.
I struck camp (leaving the shelter) and walked back to my house. As I came over the moors I meditated on empathising with the DIftW hermit, and reached some answers. Then I encountered three joggers: "...I asked her over coffee."/"Morning!"/"Morning."/"And she said she earnt three times as much!"/"Hahaha." That was the end of that.
Anyway, I went out to a wood, and I built a shelter. I'd seen Ray Mears make a long shelter with a long fire in front of it, so I started off making one of those. I found a medium-small fallen tree I could lie underneath and laid sticks up against it enclosing it completely on one side. I threw a couple of inches of a mixture of snow and pine needles over the twigs until no light came through. Then I suffered a failure trying to start a fire. Dry wood was hard to come by, and much of the wet wood was frozen as well as waterlogged. We've had a week of mist so it's unsurprising everything was so wet. I must brush up on my firelighting skills (which I'd thought were pretty good). I gave up on the fire and decided to enclose the shelter completely. At either end I repeated the process, then I made a porch with a doorway from a lintel and an upright, which I finished the same as the rest of it, with snow and pine needles. I hung my waterproof trousers up to enclose the door, and laid out my bed inside and found myself warmer than in my house.
I read a biography of Frank Zappa for an hour or so and drifted off. I dreamt that a fox had come inside and was trying to eat my cheese, so I chased it away. Then I changed my dream-mind and threw it pieces of cheese and enticed it in, where it curled up and slept on my belly. Then it was morning and the dawn sky was beige-orange. I had slept soundly for ten hours.
I struck camp (leaving the shelter) and walked back to my house. As I came over the moors I meditated on empathising with the DIftW hermit, and reached some answers. Then I encountered three joggers: "...I asked her over coffee."/"Morning!"/"Morning."/"And she said she earnt three times as much!"/"Hahaha." That was the end of that.
7 Feb 2010
A few brief things
I have been working at DifTW. I've been trying to include more of the voice of the narrator near the beginning because in the finale the narrator is actually going to enter the story as a character so I need to foreshadow him sufficiently. At first I wanted to just pluck him out of thin air which would have been very satisfying to me but I think would have confused a casual audience. I want this story to be multi-layered and I want one of those layers to be a straight reading which is accessible to all (for example children or even watchers of soap operas). I also want to be sophisticated with it, but the more complex layers cannot be allowed to upset the straight reading. For this reason, the audience needs to be expecting a narrator.
In general, I don't like it when an author seems to think that a narrator needs a name and a character ("I'll tell you a story from when I was a boy...") but I've got something clever to do with this formula so I've gone for it. I hope it doesn't turn people off.
I've been sticking the bits together and trying to make everything more explicit without dumbing down. There's hugely complex layers of nuance in what I've written but most of it is undecipherable to anyone but me. She's wearing a green dress. Why? I know what that means, and most of you probably do too, but it doesn't hurt to spend a couple of paragraphs talking about grass stains. I've used plants throughout as motifs. Some are self explanatory: you get the right feeling from a hedgerow with sweet cicely in it, even if you're not too sure exactly what sweet cicely is. But still it doesn't hurt to describe the smell. I've found myself experiencing this forest world very strongly through imagined smells as I've been writing. O, I wish it was spring.
Music helps me write. It keeps me alert and helps keep emotions closer to the surface. But I can't write to anything with words. So I find myself using post rock and certain prog and classical to keep me going. I've tried listening to music in European languages like German but it's still too close to English and every now and again I understand a phrase and it throws me. Something that works well is Gaelic lyrics. I've found myself listening to all sorts of awful music (and some good stuff) I would normally be embarrassed to admit to listening to, but it's been helping me along so I'm happy with the result.
There's a certain mood I have to get into for the words to flow. I can write any time, but it usually only comes out good if I'm in the zone. I've noticed recently that this mood (which I have understood intellectually for some time) is accompanied by a feeling of warmth in my chest. Very strange.
In general, I don't like it when an author seems to think that a narrator needs a name and a character ("I'll tell you a story from when I was a boy...") but I've got something clever to do with this formula so I've gone for it. I hope it doesn't turn people off.
I've been sticking the bits together and trying to make everything more explicit without dumbing down. There's hugely complex layers of nuance in what I've written but most of it is undecipherable to anyone but me. She's wearing a green dress. Why? I know what that means, and most of you probably do too, but it doesn't hurt to spend a couple of paragraphs talking about grass stains. I've used plants throughout as motifs. Some are self explanatory: you get the right feeling from a hedgerow with sweet cicely in it, even if you're not too sure exactly what sweet cicely is. But still it doesn't hurt to describe the smell. I've found myself experiencing this forest world very strongly through imagined smells as I've been writing. O, I wish it was spring.
Music helps me write. It keeps me alert and helps keep emotions closer to the surface. But I can't write to anything with words. So I find myself using post rock and certain prog and classical to keep me going. I've tried listening to music in European languages like German but it's still too close to English and every now and again I understand a phrase and it throws me. Something that works well is Gaelic lyrics. I've found myself listening to all sorts of awful music (and some good stuff) I would normally be embarrassed to admit to listening to, but it's been helping me along so I'm happy with the result.
There's a certain mood I have to get into for the words to flow. I can write any time, but it usually only comes out good if I'm in the zone. I've noticed recently that this mood (which I have understood intellectually for some time) is accompanied by a feeling of warmth in my chest. Very strange.
1 Feb 2010
Second Start
I have decided to slightly repurpose this blog. I still want to talk about Dangerous Ideas from the Wood, but I also want to talk about my music and things I have found in life. For seven years I maintained a hyper-reflexive personal blog with a readership of around fifty, but the cost of providing such a direct insight into my mind has begun to outweigh the benefits. So I'm going to continue blogging here, but it'll be different because this is very public and has an overt agenda of promoting my writing (and music).
Last night I went to see Buffy Sainte Marie play in Wolverhampton. You could say that some of her music is a bit AOR cheesy, especially if you made the judgement based on her most famous songs (Love Lift us up Where We Belong, Soldier Blue etc.) but if you can look past that layer of production and pop music naivety it's really good stuff. Her songs about uranium and native american rights are great. She played for ninety minutes and did nothing but valuable songs. A very good gig. We were easily the youngest people there.
Universal Soldier
He's five foot tall and he's six foot four,
and he fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of 31 and he's only 17,
He's been a soldier for a thousand years.
He's a catholic, a hindu, and atheist and a jain,
A buddhist and a baptist and a jew,
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will kill,
You for me my friend, and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada he's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA.
He's fighting for the Russians and he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks he'll put an end to war this way.
He's fighting for democracy and he's fighting for the reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone.
He's the one who gives his body as a weapon to the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame,
But his orders come from far away no more.
They come from him and you and me and brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put an end to war.
That was the first time in my life I have seen a standing ovation.
Our train out wasn't until 5:24am so went and tried to find somewhere to sleep. We tried for a large park near the town centre but there was CCTV everywhere and the police did a slow drive by as we were sizing up the fence. So we abandoned that and decided to sit it out at the station. On the way back we saw a deep bank of dogwoods on the central reservation of the inner ring road and we were in there like a flash. So long as we didn't stand up we were completely hidden. We pitched the tent and slept for four hours before packing down and catching our train. There was a fresh snowfall while we slept.
At Birmingham New Street I said goodbye to my girlfriend. She was headed for Japan and won't be back for six weeks.
Six weeks is long enough to finish this novel, so long as I don't get distracted. I'm on my fourth macro-structure. At first it was a collection of short stories. Second, it was going to be a set of short stories crushed together with time multiplexing. The third idea was so complex it collapsed under it's own weight. Now I am working on using the story A Perfect Life (the original DIftW) as a framing device. Through the woman's perfect life we encounter all these other stories. I've got the first 10k words arranged, with 30k/40k more in the bag waiting for homes. My target is 80k, or however long it needs to be. Let's see where I get to.
Last night I went to see Buffy Sainte Marie play in Wolverhampton. You could say that some of her music is a bit AOR cheesy, especially if you made the judgement based on her most famous songs (Love Lift us up Where We Belong, Soldier Blue etc.) but if you can look past that layer of production and pop music naivety it's really good stuff. Her songs about uranium and native american rights are great. She played for ninety minutes and did nothing but valuable songs. A very good gig. We were easily the youngest people there.
He's five foot tall and he's six foot four,
and he fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of 31 and he's only 17,
He's been a soldier for a thousand years.
He's a catholic, a hindu, and atheist and a jain,
A buddhist and a baptist and a jew,
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will kill,
You for me my friend, and me for you.
And he's fighting for Canada he's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA.
He's fighting for the Russians and he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks he'll put an end to war this way.
He's fighting for democracy and he's fighting for the reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone.
He's the one who gives his body as a weapon to the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
He's the universal soldier and he really is to blame,
But his orders come from far away no more.
They come from him and you and me and brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put an end to war.
That was the first time in my life I have seen a standing ovation.
Our train out wasn't until 5:24am so went and tried to find somewhere to sleep. We tried for a large park near the town centre but there was CCTV everywhere and the police did a slow drive by as we were sizing up the fence. So we abandoned that and decided to sit it out at the station. On the way back we saw a deep bank of dogwoods on the central reservation of the inner ring road and we were in there like a flash. So long as we didn't stand up we were completely hidden. We pitched the tent and slept for four hours before packing down and catching our train. There was a fresh snowfall while we slept.
At Birmingham New Street I said goodbye to my girlfriend. She was headed for Japan and won't be back for six weeks.
Six weeks is long enough to finish this novel, so long as I don't get distracted. I'm on my fourth macro-structure. At first it was a collection of short stories. Second, it was going to be a set of short stories crushed together with time multiplexing. The third idea was so complex it collapsed under it's own weight. Now I am working on using the story A Perfect Life (the original DIftW) as a framing device. Through the woman's perfect life we encounter all these other stories. I've got the first 10k words arranged, with 30k/40k more in the bag waiting for homes. My target is 80k, or however long it needs to be. Let's see where I get to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)