суббота, декабря 31, 2005

welcome to this special holiday edition of sub-space

wed like to welcome you folks to this special holiday edition of sub space live, so to speak, were still alive, from buddy's head. what do you say to the folks, buddy?
- welcome buddies! welcome and merry new year!
-thats right little buddy, new years is coming!
-bah humbug! as they say.
-come on buddy, tell us how you fell then, dont hold back.
-i feel like berlin in the eighties; i feel like a glass roof in a train station; i feel like a man!
-yeah! applause for buddy.......
-and i feel like dvds!
-oh, come on now buddy, easy up on the dvds...
-i feel like a tornado with no mother! a potato with no brother! a child with no game...
-wow! applause for buddy on this special edition of sub-space.....
-no! i feel like a wicked wicked tom cruise has done; i feel like bears in mini skirts eating honey to russian folk songs and dancing on their hands in late july when NOBODY should be eating honey! i feel like a miracle of modern science! long live the king! long live the king!

суббота, декабря 24, 2005

take my picture

take my picture, make me famous, take my picture. put my face in the tabloid press and tell children about my name and what it means.
everyone stood around and took my picture, and some people pointed their fingers; one lady smiled and smiled, she was loving it. she didnt know who i was at first, until the photographer started to take my picture, then she started to smile. before, when she didnt know, and i said: take my picture, make me famous, and she just frowned and said nothing, but laughed under her breath and off to the side in a mean, bragging around way.
but in the end, they took my picture, and everybody smiled, even the other ones.

четверг, декабря 22, 2005

A Question of Upbringing

Anthony Powell’s first installation in his ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ series sets the standard for the subsequent eleven novellas. Given it was written some twenty years before the final novella, it is a standard curiously consistent throughout the series. One wonders whether Powell diligently planned every miniscule detail of the series before embarking upon the actual process of writing.

Like all of the novellas in the series, ‘A Question of Upbringing’ is notable for possessing one extremely strong feature – a tender, almost obsessive, attention to the craft of the English language – and one extremely weak feature – a refusal to countenance the deeper philosophical questions of our existence, indeed to construct a storyline of any kind other than ‘this is life’. This is not to say that Powell completely ignores human existence – a series entitled ‘A Dance to the Music of Time’ could hardly fail to comment on this subject. Rather, Powell’s observations on human existence are frequent but fleeting. Often they ring true, sometimes they are banal. Powell is not seeking to solve any ethical dilemmas here.

The great strength of ‘A Question of Upbringing’ is Powell’s attention to each carefully constructed sentence. His writing is elegant and often ornate – at times even pedantic. Indeed, many of his sentences are extremely long and permeated with an abundance of punctuation; yet they are read clearly and easily. It is an unusual and perhaps old-fashioned style of writing, but one that appeals, at the least, to me.

Though I may, of course, be completely wrong, I do seem to recall Powell’s work coming under some considerable criticism from Salman Rushdie. My recollections of Rushdie’s criticism are vague, but seem to revolve around a general complaint that Powell’s novellas are boring. I was not at all bored by ‘A Question of Upbringing’, but I can sympathise with Rushdie’s criticism (or at least, with my recollection of it). Upon reading the final page of this first novella, the reader is left with the feeling: ‘is that all?’ The answer, of course, is: ‘no’. There are eleven more novellas to follow, but nonetheless, reading the entire series does not entirely rid the reader of this uneasy feeling that perhaps they have wasted a large amount of time. Unlike Dostoevsky, Powell’s intention is not to ponder over the larger moral paradoxes of our existence, but rather to feed a whole series of reflections into our minds, presumably that we may bubble over them at our leisure, and extract from them what we will. He certainly has no blatantly ideological wheelbarrow to push, no sermon to deliver, not even any confusion over the vagaries of life. He simply depicts the lives of the narrator and his contemporaries, without passing judgment or seeking further enlightenment.

Frankly, at times I found the prudishness and conservatism of the narrator to be quite off-putting, but was magnanimous enough to put this down to the context of Powell’s own upbringing, and indeed the historical context of the novella. From this point of view, it can be said that Powell has done well to so accurately capture the concerns – mundane and childish as they may be – of the early 20th century English upper-middle class.

On the whole, I recommend ‘A Question of Upbringing’, if only because Powell’s writing style is unusual enough to warrant reading, and it is such a short novella (only 200 pages) that the reader has little to lose and much to gain.

вторник, декабря 20, 2005

driving is for buttheads

i cant drive! i dont even want to see driving! when i see people, in their little car machines, i turn my head around and look at the ground, and not at the stupid asshole car machines! i hate them! they are for little chicken brains. they are for the marginalized and the abused who like to feel power instead of life. i dont like power. i like life. i like the rain. i like the warmth of friendship. i like being with you, and i like being alone. but not power. oh no, not me.

I luv da machine

Because we don't have to beat the shit out of one another. We can just be little chicken afraid of telling what we really think over the Xmas turkey and give meanings to the definition of humanity. Darn cowards little beings. Instead of that, we're here, typing this bile and spread the humor over the world. Go on ! Good job chicken !

its an answer

thats a typical mistake, really just typical; sitting around, braggin around about how you make mistakes and everyone has elastic in their jeans and its not your fault, its not you mistake. well, thats your mistake, you just made the biggest mistake - being a stupid asshole with wings on your shoes and stars in your eyes! shame on you! shame! how dare you! brag around like that!

I'm not responsible for your family mistakes

If you don't like your name, really, there is nothing I can do.
If you don't like the way you wear your jacket with your funny elastic shoulders, there's nothing I can do.
If you don't like the way you sound when you speak around about these little incidents of life, I can just listen to you and notice that and give you reasons to hate your parents.

четверг, декабря 15, 2005

another bi-monthly salary

In fact, these guys eat money or they put it into socks or under a cheap persian-style carpet, they put it aside for one day, when it would be sunny and bright enough to burn it on pina coladas and havana cigars, or between two wide spread silicon legs of some robotic prostitutes, because, here we are, we don't money, what we is love.

But here we go again

-DVD's
-Gave some money back
-a card for the internet cafe
-food : Hawaiian pizzas, chicken fingers, barbecue sauce, cranberries sauce, bananas, beer
-a lot of soap, enough for 4 months

and of course nothing for the charity, nobody deserves nothing.

one bi-monthly salary

'i dont have any money left?'
'pay day was last week...?'
'oui.'
'what did you spend your money on?'
'i bought twenty dvds, a belt thats useless because its too big, food...'
'what kind of food?'
'pizzas.'
'pizzas?'
'oui. and champagne and martinis. and i bought a card for the internet cafe and sausages.'
'anything else?'
'i bought shampoo. and dried fruit.'

понедельник, декабря 12, 2005

Cuty Cuty Cute

Japan.
1859

This Bleak State of Abandonment 2 (with apologies to Andrew Lang)

Ah! leave the smog, the opulence, the screams
Of Moscow, and the black-clad street.
For still, by the Australian shore,
The warmth of the wind is narcotic.
Still, still the suns of summer greet
The backyard of Seth,
And yobbos still their songs repeat,
Where breaks the blue Australian sea.

суббота, декабря 10, 2005

fine me please, find me please, find me please, find me please, fine me please, fine me please, fine me please

Peter Forsberg 9 (unassisted)
Minnesota power-play
hooking - 2 min
hooking - 2 min
tripping - 2 min
hooking - 2 min
fighting - 5 min
fighting - 5 min
tripping - 2 min

good job buddy

i cant stand on my hands in the shower
i cant find the oboe you left under my pillow
in agony
in despair
at the leaving
i would say
at any leaving

i cant eat my own fingers
because they arent chocolate covered
and i certainly cant invent a machine
to cut my two hands off
and maybe my feet
because im just not the creative type
though im sure if i could everything would be alright
everythings gonna be alright
everythings gonna be alright
if i can just finish that damn machine

Song dedicated to my former lover

I can't fuck
the wall facing me
the wall behind me
the wall beside me
the ceiling
the floor
I can't
fuck you
fuck y'all

вторник, декабря 06, 2005

Brunswick Depot



I was so damned caught up in finding the right angle that I didn’t realise the security guard was talking to me.
‘What’s that, mate?’ I asked.
‘Who are you?’ he repeated with some impatience. ‘This is private property.’
‘Just a local resident.’
‘What are you doing?’
I’da thought it was obvious.
‘Taking a photo,’ I said.
‘Well, you need a green or orange vest if you want to be here,’ he replied.
‘A what?’
He struggled to overcome his impatience.
‘A green or orange vest,’ he repeated.
‘Righto,’ I said. ‘I just want to take a photo, mate.’
He edged into the shot, swept a hand through his hair, and said: ‘You need a vest.’
‘Listen mate,’ I replied. ‘Can I take a photo or not?’
‘If a tram comes around the corner, it’ll hit you,’ he said. ‘You need a green or orange vest.’
I tilted the camera slightly to exclude him from the shot.
‘Okay,’ I said, and the camera went ‘click’. ‘Thanks for that.’
He gave me an obliging nod.
‘About those vests…’ I said, and his patience ran out.
‘Get out of here,’ he said, but I’d already got what I wanted, and a smile to boot.

понедельник, декабря 05, 2005

this bleak state of abandonment

and if life helps now and then with terrors that transcend the parrot-wisdom of banal experience, the the petty bourgeios mentality despairs.
candidate A despairs. we wont name his name, but we might be called upon to add that he hails from somewhere in the general direction of the antipodes. and as we said he despairs because he has no reason to say what he says nor believe what he believes. to be quite accessible: though he should say he believes in his cultures altruism he hates everyone and is nice only when in fear or awe. and in wardly he despairs.
candidate B also despairs. neither will we unmask his name, but we will note that judging from his speech he seems to be from the nearer corners of the european continent, possibly from the parts that speak a pure romantic tongue. and he despairs because to unfocus is to find hilarity and to focus is to find emptiness that needs filling and practice at a pursuit. in other words, that the cistern of his is empty at the moment and to focus is to start again from zero. it is a situation rife with despair.
and finally candidate C. does he despair? of course! but his situation is much closer to the one in which the patient tells the doctor he is sick. it does not mean he necessarily is. though to find he werent would be tantamount to despair. so naturally he is. and he is from nowhere.