I am my favourite horse

It recently dawned on me that I am nobody's favourite person. I was having a bit of a ponder about flying wall ducks and the stiffness of measuring tapes when it popped into my head. I am nobody's favourite person. I don't mean that everybody hates me, only that everybody I know has at least one person who rates higher than me in their invisible rating scale of people, like their long-standing grew-up-together-best-friend or a boyfriend or wife, or the undying object of their unrequited love.

I am no more a workhorse.

Five seconds after coming to that conclusion I felt immensely pleased. I have discovered a new kind of freedom. So far I have used this freedom to leave parties without saying goodbye, not reply immediately to missed calls, text messages or email and importantly to not bother about including people in my plans. If there is not one person out there who will be especially hurt to not be said farewell to or invited to the art gallery, movie, cafe, bookshop, picnic, graveyard, Peach Deck or ferry ride then I needn't be bothered wasting time thinking about other people when I make plans. I can do whatever I like, whenever I like and not have to answer to anyone. Spencer will tell me I'm being a fuckwit if I start running around being deliberately rude, but his scale of rude is quite different from mine to begin with. What I would consider quite rude indeed he wouldn't even consider.

When there is someone, I mean someone special, a first port of call on all matters large and small I have the luxury of a second opinion. That opinion can stretch across all facets of life, from what I am wearing to what I'm saying, eating, thinking, reading and most importantly, what I am writing. In cases like this I have acquired a constant reader.

I am a racing horse.

I despise a constant reader, one that feels like they need to comment on every single letter of the alphabet, wants to know if I was talking about them, wants to know if this is really what I mean to say. It is easy to be weighed down by a constant reader who wants to act as a second head, no neck was built to withstand that kind of strain. It's like holding a mirror so close to a dancer that it shatters with every point of a toe.

Don't go feeling sorry for me walking around being nobody's favourite person. I have no constant reader, no man burdened with mental illness tracking my every move, no person aching to call me to account for every minute I spend in silent reflection. No watchdog counting the relative merit of every spindle of thought. I have the freedom to fail, flail or spend the whole day writing without interruption. I can cancel any obligation without guilt, I can stay away for days or curl into the arms of a good idea. I am my favourite horse.

Finally a book trailer that doesn't make me want to puke

My cigarette butt of stars and my actual butt of corporate oppression

I will write the post here, in this space soon, until then feel free to imagine one.

Newly discovered poem by Ted Hughes

More information here at Channel 4 News...
And at New Statesman...

SLAMMATOWN - Fucking magnets!

'Miracles' by Insane Clown Posse is the stupidest song of all time. Take these lyrics for example:

“Look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas
And everything chilling underwater, please
Hot lava, snow, rain and fog
Long neck giraffes, and pet cats and dogs…

I see miracles all around me

Stop and look around, it's all astounding

Water, fire, air and dirt

Fucking magnets, how do they work?”

I had no idea a giraffe could live peacefully under the sea with cats, dogs, rain and lava. Thank you Insane Clown Posse for furthering my education. Clearly the song, and possibly the posse, is stupid but the clowns have a point.

I wanted to take a few examples from my everyday life, like icebergs, corn flour and beer bottles, to explain in flawless prose just why everyone should be walking around thinking everything is not only amazing but possibly a miracle. I was twirling my pencil in preparation for writing something profound when I came to a stunning scientific conclusion, quite similar to the whole apple-falling-on-the-head-inventing-gravity-thing. Insane Clown Posse is Indie.

Continue reading on RHUM...

Introducing Project Polymath

I've had some ideas in my time, for example walking on custard, like Jesus but sweeter. More formally known as my Afterdinner Jesus Project: An experiment using non-Newtownian viscoelastic fluids for purposes of entertainment. It was a spectacular failure but as yet I've not been deterred from having ideas.

I first had the idea for Project Polymathic one month ago. I was sitting at my dad's dining table, chatting about art and life, when Dad suddenly said, 'He's a polymath, unlike the rest of us'. I thought, hang on a minute, I don't want to be 'the rest of us' and for a moment became quite bitter at the thought of being so ordinary. When I got back to The Peach I decided to make an origami donkey as a birthday present for Abdullah. After the fifth donkey attempt failed I started sticking bits of paper onto other bits of paper and instead made a collage titled 'Abdullah's Birthday Garden of Donkey Happiness'. People seemed to quite like the picture and this where the idea formed.

The most obvious thing to do after making one semi-successful birthday present is to become a polymath, like Leonardo da Vinci or Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, by doing one of everything. By everything I mean artistic pursuits within the realms of 'stuff I like'.

For my first two acts of polymathic proportions I intend to perform as a sound artist with my hypothetical band The John Entwistle School of Standing Very Still and have my visual art exhibited in a gallery, neither of which I have done before.

I suspect this is going to take a very long time.

I will now chew my vegemite toast vigorously

The taxi driver smelt like penis but he drove me home so my feet could be silent. Earlier this evening I caught the bus to Glebe. I hate Glebe but I went anyway because Geoff Lemon was doing a spoken word gig at the Friend in Hand. I don't hate Geoff Lemon, not yet.

Geoff performed admirably but offstage he was incoherent with jet lag and exhaustion so I wandered over to Spencer's house and yelled about the internal violence of words. Spencer deserves some kind of medal, in fact he proposed that someone should pay him money for being my 'keeping it real person'. I'm not entirely sure what that job would entail, I assume part of the role is to sit with me in a cafe while I yell about things and accidentally knock over water glasses and ashtrays.

Spencer has a habit of keeping large pieces of folded paper about his person. He will produce one from time to time and let me read over whatever he is working on. There is no greater privilege than seeing a song half-written, before even the song itself is sure of what it should sound like. Though perhaps I would like to rifle through another writer's desk. Uncurl the edges of all of those bits of paper and watch the words crawling towards each other, in the way that words on curled bits of paper do.

After the spoken word gig, after giving up on the possibility of having anything within the realms of a normal conversation with the valiant but sagging Geoff. After walking through the backstreets of Glebe where my feet flashed like imaginary fish and I remembered most of yesterday in slow motion. After Spencer came out of his gate and talked with me about the violence of words, and the taxi driver who smelt like penis, I made two pieces of toast. Spring is the best season for the vigorous chewing of toast, it has none of winter's demands for warm cups and the laying on of blankets.

In other news if you search using the words 'age of adz review', my review is the first result. In your face other people without toast. In your toastless face, is what I would say if I was that way inclined but I'm not so forget about it.

Neil! Get a haircut or at least stop staring so strangely

Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 made me travel back in time and who doesn’t want to travel back in time? There is no excuse for not listening to this album. Blah blah album reviewing words, Neil is good etc


Read the actual review on RHUM...

Dispatch

Haul up the buildings like nightshades. I don't want to see anybody's horizon. All day I poured wine  across the back of upturned glasses.

Great white ship

My feet look like imaginary fish so I'm headed for the harbour.

Strange Tourist

Gareth Liddiard must be possessed. If there isn’t a sudden screaming need of the collective unconscious to hear what Liddiard needs to play I’ll eat my hat. Brace for this music, or you will come undone. From the first hissed syllable there ain’t no shaking the spell.

Strange Tourist is the kind of album you will play for the rest of your life, every lived year adding poignancy, dropping you down further into the bones of each song. This album, like a point of light, will throw shadows against your walls.

Continue Reading on RHUM...

Where there is livestock there is deadstock or Ted sees a bird on the way to looking at a cow

Dead Farms, Dead Leaves

Cling to the long
Branch of world.

Stars sway the tress
Whose roots
Tigthen on an atom.

The birds, beautiful-eyed, with soft cries,
The cattle of heaven
Visit

And vanish.


Ted Hughes

Yes yes I am starting with the easy ones but don't dismiss them just yet

A Kite is a Victim

A kite is a victim you are sure of.
You love it because it pulls
gentle enough to call you master,
strong enough to call you fool;
because it lives
like a desperate trained falcon
in the high sweet air
and you can always haul it down
to tame it in your drawer.

A kite is a fish you have already caught
in a pool where no fish come,
so you play him carefully and long,
and hope he won't give up,
or the wind die down.

A kite is the last poem you've written,
so you give it to the wind,
but you don't let it go
until someone finds you
something else to do.

A kite is a contract of glory
that must be made with the sun,
so you make friends with the field
the river and the wind,
then you pray the
whole cold night before,
under the travelling cordless moon,
to make you worthy and lyric and pure.

                                       
                                                                                                                                                         
Leonard Cohen