Monday 30 April 2007

Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!

"Oh the werewolf, oh the werewolf
Comes stepping along
He don’t even break the branches where he’s gone
Once I saw him in the moonlight, when the bats were a flying
I saw the werewolf, and the werewolf was crying

Cryin’ nobody knows, nobody knows,
How I loved the man, as I teared off his clothes
Cryin’ nobody know, nobody knows my pain
When I see that it’s risen; that fool moon again

For the werewolf, for the werewolf has sympathy
For the werewolf, somebody like you and me.
And only he goes to me, man this little flute I play
All through the night, until the light of day, and we are doomed to play

For the werewolf, for the werewolf, has sympathy
For the werewolf, somebody like you and me"

heh - got told off tonight for endlessly quoting but never writing in this damn thing

but then "Like all writers , he measured the achievements of others by what they had accomplished, asking of them that they measure him by what he envisaged or planned."

don't think i'm no writer but like that quote - think it's more universal than merely applying to them that write.

I think it's possible that we're all guilty of that - judging others by what they lack in their life rather than what they plan - whereas we're outraged if no-one can see the depths and possibilities in our good selves (as much as we'd like them to be hidden we long for them to be public). Ee'um we really can be hypocritical wee shites can't we?

but, despite that, how much fun are people? like seriously, how cool and interesting are most people, because, and i know this sounds like mushy shit, you just never know. you may have someone fucking pinned down exactly in your mind as to who they are but they'll still surprise you. and although that can be scary sometimes it's also kinda cool i think.

right - am turning into a damn panda so gonna hit it - night

Saturday 28 April 2007

it grows darker with the day


As so with that, I thought I'd take a final walk
The tide of public opinion had started to abate
The neighbours, bless them, had turned out to be all talk
I could see their frightened faces
peering at me through the gate

I was looking for an end to this, for some kind of closure
Time moved so rapidly, I had no hope of keeping track of it
I thought of my friends who had died of exposure
And I remembered other ones who had died from the lack of it

And in my best shoes I started falling forward down the street
I stopped at a church and jostled through the crowd
And love followed just behind me, panting at my feet
As the steeple tore the stomach from a lonely little cloud

Inside I sat, seeking the presence of a God
I searched through the pictures in a leather-bound book
I found a woolly lamb dozing in an issue of blood
And a gilled Jesus shivering on a fisherman's hook

Wednesday 25 April 2007

I'm not on top

"Then said Ganglere: What tidings are to be told of Ragnarok? Of this I have never heard before. Har answered: Great things are to be said thereof. First, there is a winter called the Fimbul-winter, when snow drives from all quarters, the frosts are so severe, the winds so keen and piercing, that there is no joy in the sun. There are three such winters in succession, without any intervening summer. But before these there are three other winters, during which great wars rage over all the world. Brothers slay each other for the sake of gain, and no one spares his father or mother in that manslaughter and adultery. Thus says the Vala's Prophecy:
Brothers will fight together
And become each other's bane;
Sisters' children
Their sib shall spoil.
Hard is the world,
Sensual sins grow huge.
There are ax-ages, sword-ages---
Shields are cleft in twain,---
There are wind-ages, wolf-ages,
Ere the world falls dead.

Then happens what will seem a great miracle, that the wolf devours the sun, and this will seem a great loss. The other wolf will devour the moon, and this too will cause great mischief. The stars shall be hurled from heaven. Then it shall come to pass that the earth and the mountains will shake so violently that trees will be torn up by the roots, the mountains will topple down, and all bonds and fetters will be broken and snapped. The Fenris-wolf gets loose. The sea rushes over the earth, for the Midgard-serpent writhes in giant rage and seeks to gain the land. The ship that is called Naglfar also becomes loose. It is made of the nails of dead men; wherefore it is worth warning that, when a man dies with unpared nails, he supplies a large amount of materials for the building of this ship, which both gods and men wish may be finished as late as possible. But in this flood Naglfar gets afloat. The Fenris-wolf advances with wide open mouth; the upper jaw reaches to heaven and the lower jaw is on the earth. He would open it still wider had he room. Fire flashes from his eyes and nostrils. The Midgard-serpent vomits forth venom, defiling all the air and the sea; he is very terrible, and places himself by the side of the wolf. In the midst of this clash and din the heavens are rent in twain, and the sons of Muspel come riding through the opening." - Snorri's Edda



via Andrea McLean


Sunday 22 April 2007

the sight of bridges and balloons


I've been thinking about adulthood a lot recently. this may be because of the fact that I'm 23 and its the sort of age which i always felt was when you had to be a fully paid up member of the adult world. possibly it's because I'm kinda settling into my job now and i sometimes get mistaken for someone who has his life sorted out (this unsettles me). maybe it's just this time of year - April is a time of flux and of change and I kinda feel like I need to grow somehow.

it's funny. we age, and as we do we accrue all these shards of experience and knowledge which we sow into a puppet which we call an adult. the only thing is that the one pulling the strings is still the same confused person who is staring at a bewildering world wondering what to do next.

from conversations with older generations we know that they pretty much feel the same way. that all these outward signs of adulthood are a shell and that they feel the same way as when they were younger. the fact that despite tacitly acknowledging this we still manage to go on pretending that it matters is staggering. and possibly amazing. i think that maybe i love the way we constantly strive to deceive those around us and, more importantly, ourselves. i mean that it's such a beautiful thing in a way. very few of us want, or even can i guess, to see the world as it really is. i know that i don't.

meh - thats a bit spraffy i think.

i just wonder whether there are people who really take themselves seriously. i know a few people at work who are very senior and important (at least to the firm) and i sometimes wonder whether within those stern and taciturn men there're some very puzzled kids who're wondering when they're gonna get to go out to play. sometimes i wanna give them a tickle. just to see what would happen.

Monday 16 April 2007

the illusion of peaches

The Á Bao A Qu lived in the Tower of Victory in Chitor. The Tower of Victory consisted of many spiraling steps, at the top of which is the most beautiful landscape in the world. The Á Bao A Qu waits on the first step for a man brave enough to try to climb up. Until that point, it lies sleeping, a translucent blob, until someone passes. Then, when a man starts climbing, the creature wakes, and follows close behind. As it progresses further and further up, it begins to become clearer and more colorful. It gives off a blue light which increases as it ascends. When the climber ascends halfway up the Tower, the Á Bao A Qu's tentacles become visible. But it only reaches perfection when the climber reaches the top, and achieves Nirvana, so his acts don't cast any shadows. But almost all the time, the climber cannot reach the top, for they are not perfect. When the Á Bao A Qu realizes this, it hangs back, losing color and visibility, and tumbles back down the staircase until it reaches the bottom, once more a colorless, dormant blob. In doing so, it gives a small cry, so soft that it sounds similar to the rustling of silk. The creature has no eyes, but can see with its entire body. When touched, it feels like the fuzz on the skin of a peach. Only once in its everlasting life has the Á Bao A Qu reached its destination at the top of the tower.


Sunday 8 April 2007

and we don't care about the young folks

seems happiness is discovering that your brother has joanna newsom's first album. yipee.

also being home at easter has been dead nice. chance to catch my breath after being in london for such a long time. unfortunately looks like i'm not gonna get another chance to come up for air till september time

although glastonbury should be fun... wooo.

cannot wait till then - is gonna pretty much be an awesome weekend.

We sailed away on a winter's day
with fate as malleable as clay;
but ships are fallible, I say,
and the nautical, like all things, fades

Sunday 1 April 2007

the absense of a piano

"...the piano has been drinking, not me."
- Tom Waits

The story about the girl and the letters from God, reading psalms in the feathers of a peacock, each falling parable accompanied by the fluttering of earthly wings. But we make our own happiness.


'We make our own happiness' a missread post on someone's journal but still

True. And this is where we find ourselves. "We are No-One's parents with no simple answers", the call of every generation with aching questions, we wonder why our father's don't care about us while watching their lives spiral out of control.

It was a perfect crime, infiltrating the ticker-tape parade, now at the core and causing havok. Silent goodbyes quelling panic and stopping the bastards from calling us in and giving us the answers we haven't been looking for.


If this is what we want then why haven't we stopped looking?

If all we are is a fragment of a second of a point-of-view of a consciousness then why do these images persist?
A flotsum built craft of nostalgia and childhood dreams drifting on the seas of reality. All we have is this frail vehicle to navigate the portals of adulthood and responsibilty. Why are we gifted with such a poor choice to guide us through life? At every turn and at every different bluster we turn, and in turning contradict, weak vassel that we are, to expose ourselves as inept.

The truth is that from moment to moment we don't know ourselves any better than we know the always shifting waves. Pretence is the only aide to knowledge as we predict the changes after the strike and grow the wisdom after the assult. Participating in our delusions we fool one another. Never admitting the growing chasm in our lives as we seek to be as we wish ourselves to be seen.

Why does no-one admit that as we grow towards, so called, adulthood, these anxieties only grow deeper and more profound? As trite as it may be admit these worries it is worrisome itself that we will not open ourselves to scrutiny regarding this. If we were to admit that all our adult rules and rituals were merely subjective and oft the result of dimly remembered childhoods would be the better for it? Confessing that, like those younger, we were no more in control of our lives that those in thrall to the first passions of youth, and often the deeper, for one finds themselves the more ardent a lover for the repetition of the motions.

With the summer so long we watch our idols crashing down.

"good readers are even blacker and rarer swans than good writers... Reading, obviously, is an activity which comes after that of writing; it is more modest, more unobtrusive, more intellectual."
- Borges