sense of doubt: January 2010

31.1.10

falling and laughing

You say that there's a thousand like you
Maybe that's true
I fell for you and nobody else
So I'm standing here so lonely
What can I do
But learn to laugh at myself
Falling and Laughing - Orange Juice

Paintings by Jeremy Geddes

Fiona: I can understand why you're angry, Marcus. But I don't feel the same as I did yesterday, if it's any help.
Marcus: What? It's all gone away? All that?
Fiona: No, but, for the moment, I feel better.
Marcus: The moment's no good for me. I can see you feel better at the moment. You just put the kettle on. What happens when you finish your tea?

Dialogue from About A Boy

(This post, as ever, is a mish-mash of the words and imagination of other people, while my own takes a bit of time out to readjust. These snippets have no visible connection, so I'll explain why they're there in case some deep meaning could be construed that really doesn't exist at all [or maybe it does and I just haven't noticed]. The song popped into my head when I came across the paintings, because I wasn't sure at first whether the figures were falling or flying - which my brain then naturally connected with the song Falling and Laughing. Referencing About A Boy with those ideas in mind stems from reading an interview with Nicholas Hoult in the Observer Magazine earlier today and remembering what a great film it is. Nick Hornby wrote the novel, which deals with the hefty subject of suicide, and falling figures are fairly inextricably linked with that [to me at least]. And I just liked the sentiment of not really knowing what might happen when you finish your tea. All very simple really.)

18.1.10

you get up and sleep

It's Monday
Slither down the greasy pipe
So far so good no one saw you
Hobble over any freeway
You will be like your dreams tonight

You get up and sleep
You get up and sleep
Joe the lion
Made of iron

You get up and sleep
The wind blows on your check
The day laughs in your face
Guess you'll buy a gun
You'll buy it secondhand
You'll get up and sleep

Joe the Lion - David Bowie

11.1.10

positive thinking is a scam

'We are told to see the glass half full even when it lies shattered on the floor'.

January is the root of all evil.

10.1.10

la vita è bella

9.1.10

the serendipitous nature of existence

It's hard to imagine two more different; innate calmness and stoicism are not the obvious match for unstoppable cheerful verbosity. How do these things occur? Evacuate or stay; one leaves for a quiet year among the haystacks, the other hides under the stairs with innumerable siblings, counting with a sense of exhilaration the number of seconds until impact. The war seems like marvellous fun. When the end comes - the final end, VJ day, when the church bells were silent and the vicars voice trembled - there's a missing date. He's gone to see his friend in hospital (TB, they say it's bad). Some time later at the bowling alley, said friend appears resplendent in a pinstripe suit too large for such a skinny frame, only recently released from the ward.

"That's Glenys, don't you know her?"

"No, but I'm going to!"

B-movies, avant-garde jazz, the endless slope of Bristol. "Coo-artin'" is a delicate process of course. Tie the knot why not, Oxford, and then perhaps a couple of children. The first boy has a Bailey button nose, the second sports a more triangular Warren sloping beak. Amid the dreaming spires it's botany and Boots, Byrd and the Bodleian. Skipping on some years, I'm born, adding a third generation to the party. I often wonder if 1955 already knew that was going to happen?

6.1.10

mousetraps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness

Quote from the Dormouse in Alice and Wonderland, photos from somewhere.

Miss Nancy Ellicott smoked
And danced all the modern dances;
And her aunts were not quite sure how they felt about it,
But they knew that it was modern.
Cousin Nancy - T.S.Eliot

5.1.10

like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick

Quiet first few days back in Southampton, I'm trying my best to get my scary workload to a managable level. Why must all the deadlines and exams be in the same two weeks? As ever, my refrain with writing stuff about books I don't completely understand is "Well, I've done it in German!". Even then 1,500 words in German still seems an easier task than 3,000 in English right now. English students are probably supposed to 'get' literature in general, but I think it says something about me that the only book I've related to on a level beyond thinking it was quite a good read is Helen Oyeyemi's The Icarus Girl, about a socially awkward and mentally disturbed 9-year old. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf? Totally got the wrong of the stick there. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson? Sure, I enjoyed it, but it didn't knock me flat (which I had been led to believe it would do). I find it difficult to minutely dissect novels I can't muster up much feeling for. Perhaps it's just my state of mind at the moment; I'd like to be enjoying them more than I am, but my brain just ain't playing ball. In the grand scheme of things, exactly how important are these essays anyway.

4.1.10

i've never felt better in my life

There is no culture is my brag,
Your taste for bullshit reveals a lust for a home of office

THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!
THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!

Where are the obligatory niggers?*

HEY THERE FUCKFACE!!
HEY THERE FUCKFACE!!

There are twelve people in the world
The rest are paste

THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!
THIS IS THE HOME OF THE VAIN!

I just left the Hotel Amnesia, I had to go there
Where it is I can't remember,
But now I can remember...now I can remember

HAFTA! HAFTA!
MESSAGE FOR YER! MESSAGE FOR YER!

Too much reliance on girl here
On girls here, behind every shell-actor
Snobbier Snobbier
Too much romantic here
I destroy romantics, actors,
Kill it!
Kill it!

KILL IT!
KILL IT!
KILL IT!

You won't find anything more ridiculous, than this new profile
razor unit, made with the highest British attention to the
wrong detail, become obsolete units surrounded by hail.

THE CLASSICAL!
THE CLASSICAL!
THE CLASSICAL!
HOTEL AGGRO!
MESSAGE FOR YER! MESSAGE FOR YER!
THE CLASSICAL!

POLEAXE!..........one of the millenium of conspiracy,
Forever,
I know it means a lot of stomach gas,

I KNOW IT MEANS A LOT OF STOMACH GASSSSSS

I've never felt better in my life
I've never felt better in my life

POLEAXE!
THE CLASSICAL!

Stomach gas
I've never felt better in my life
I've never felt better in my life

POLEAXE!

Millenium of conspiracy
Play out Classical
I've never felt better in my life
Better in my life....

[* Allegedly this line cost the Fall a record contract with
Motown Records.]