Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Kerry Katona's Wheelie Bin
I’m getting to bed and to sleep. But if I'm lucky, the neighbour’s kid will howl through the night and I might dream of bonny lasses dancing in Iceland TV ads. Hopefully no more dreams like last night when I met Steve Martin. Who wants dreams about meeting one’s heroes? I was bought a signed copy of Steve Martin’s autobiography for Christmas but I should have held out for a packet of cheap prawns from Iceland and a signed picture of Kerry Katona.
Urgh. Sarcasm. Forgive me but this is just me. Not Him. Perhaps I’m turning into an old man or I’m still as easy to annoy as I’ve ever been. I’m just being typically misanthropic as I wonder what is about people that makes them such aggressive pursuers of their own selfish desires. Have we really lost the ability to empathise with others?
I know I’m being trivial, hence the trivial nature of this rushed cartoon, which I scribbled in the five minutes since I arrived home.
All night I couldn’t think of a thing to draw. Then I arrived home to discover that the neighbours had put out their wheelie bin early (somebody should tell them that there’s no collection tomorrow) and stuck it directly in front of our gate. Naturally, they are keeping their own gate clear of the sight and smell of their collected Christmas waste. Their bin, heavy with rotting rubbish, now obstructs our gate and anybody walking past will assume that the bin belongs to us and that we don’t care if we block their path. Any visitor to our house has to squeeze past the bin and I now have to go out, past midnight, and move it. I feel petty doing so but I think you have to make a stand. I'm also annoyed because it’s as though they know that my father isn’t here to stand up to them. He wouldn’t put up with it. I’m so much gentler, much more of a coward than he ever way. Should I have to put up with it? My bolshie self says no. The coward sits here writing about it, rather than doing something about it.
I suppose that’s me. I walk around, scowling at the world. I’m generally shocked at the way that people treat their homes, their surroundings. The wet weather hasn't stopped people from parking their heavy trucks on the grass verges, which are now cut down to a depth of about half a foot. The ruts are full of mud and pooling water.
Then there are the neighbours on the other side who routinely park their cars across the pavement. Hard to describe the arrangement, so here’s a picture.
I know I'm being petty again but isn't it these small things that show how selfish we've become? Two cars on the road, one on the grass verge, one across the pavement, and two in the drive. The result is that if you want to get past, you have to walk in the road. They don’t see the problems they cause. They never walk anywhere. The only good to come of this is that it’s made me search my CD collection to finally add Lou Reed’s ‘New York’ to my iTouch. It’s probably his finest album, the one where his lyrics crackle with anger. It’s undoubtedly my favourite. ‘Transformer’ is too full of the camp aesthetic that ruined his post Velvet career, his false falsetto and bits borrowed from Bowie. 'New York' is how I like to think of Reed. A real poet of the city. A hater of mankind.
Americans don't care too much for beauty
They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim
I sometimes wish that the credit crunch might affect them and their kind. The neighbours have six cars in a house of five – or six or seven or is it eight? I’ve lost count of the babies. Their attitude is screw the environment. Park a car where there’s grass, stick decking where there’s soil. I’m no eco-warrior but this brings out the nihilist in me. I saw we should just go out in a spectacular display of arbitrary consumerism, drunken liaisons with whatever orifice passes before our inebriated gaze, another baby squawks through the night, keeps me awake while its randy father sleeps soundly in his vest and track suit bottoms in a bed, streets away.
Sorry. I guess I’m just tired.
I’ve just come back in, finished moving the bin, and found a gem of a comment over at The Spine. One of the stories I wrote a long time ago was about Natasha Kaplinsky choosing to wear a Walrus hat at some London Premiere. It still receives the occasional comment. Tonight’s was one of the best. ‘Not only was a walrus killed...’ goes the comment, ‘he was killed to look like a fucking idiot. Ohh... and don't really think the walrus cares too much that after he was dead he was worn by a famous person. No wait... I'm sure it was his life's dream.’
I wish that walrus hats were all the rage in London. It would make more sense if I were getting angry at that, rather than wheelie bins and a neighbour who resembles Kerry Katona’s evil twin. Kerry is a local girl. I’m meant to think that it’s good to see her succeed. Strange but that’s the last thing I feel.
I hope I'll dream of Steve Martin. He always gives me faith in the world.
Urgh. Sarcasm. Forgive me but this is just me. Not Him. Perhaps I’m turning into an old man or I’m still as easy to annoy as I’ve ever been. I’m just being typically misanthropic as I wonder what is about people that makes them such aggressive pursuers of their own selfish desires. Have we really lost the ability to empathise with others?
I know I’m being trivial, hence the trivial nature of this rushed cartoon, which I scribbled in the five minutes since I arrived home.
All night I couldn’t think of a thing to draw. Then I arrived home to discover that the neighbours had put out their wheelie bin early (somebody should tell them that there’s no collection tomorrow) and stuck it directly in front of our gate. Naturally, they are keeping their own gate clear of the sight and smell of their collected Christmas waste. Their bin, heavy with rotting rubbish, now obstructs our gate and anybody walking past will assume that the bin belongs to us and that we don’t care if we block their path. Any visitor to our house has to squeeze past the bin and I now have to go out, past midnight, and move it. I feel petty doing so but I think you have to make a stand. I'm also annoyed because it’s as though they know that my father isn’t here to stand up to them. He wouldn’t put up with it. I’m so much gentler, much more of a coward than he ever way. Should I have to put up with it? My bolshie self says no. The coward sits here writing about it, rather than doing something about it.
I suppose that’s me. I walk around, scowling at the world. I’m generally shocked at the way that people treat their homes, their surroundings. The wet weather hasn't stopped people from parking their heavy trucks on the grass verges, which are now cut down to a depth of about half a foot. The ruts are full of mud and pooling water.
Then there are the neighbours on the other side who routinely park their cars across the pavement. Hard to describe the arrangement, so here’s a picture.
I know I'm being petty again but isn't it these small things that show how selfish we've become? Two cars on the road, one on the grass verge, one across the pavement, and two in the drive. The result is that if you want to get past, you have to walk in the road. They don’t see the problems they cause. They never walk anywhere. The only good to come of this is that it’s made me search my CD collection to finally add Lou Reed’s ‘New York’ to my iTouch. It’s probably his finest album, the one where his lyrics crackle with anger. It’s undoubtedly my favourite. ‘Transformer’ is too full of the camp aesthetic that ruined his post Velvet career, his false falsetto and bits borrowed from Bowie. 'New York' is how I like to think of Reed. A real poet of the city. A hater of mankind.
Americans don't care too much for beauty
They'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim
I sometimes wish that the credit crunch might affect them and their kind. The neighbours have six cars in a house of five – or six or seven or is it eight? I’ve lost count of the babies. Their attitude is screw the environment. Park a car where there’s grass, stick decking where there’s soil. I’m no eco-warrior but this brings out the nihilist in me. I saw we should just go out in a spectacular display of arbitrary consumerism, drunken liaisons with whatever orifice passes before our inebriated gaze, another baby squawks through the night, keeps me awake while its randy father sleeps soundly in his vest and track suit bottoms in a bed, streets away.
Sorry. I guess I’m just tired.
I’ve just come back in, finished moving the bin, and found a gem of a comment over at The Spine. One of the stories I wrote a long time ago was about Natasha Kaplinsky choosing to wear a Walrus hat at some London Premiere. It still receives the occasional comment. Tonight’s was one of the best. ‘Not only was a walrus killed...’ goes the comment, ‘he was killed to look like a fucking idiot. Ohh... and don't really think the walrus cares too much that after he was dead he was worn by a famous person. No wait... I'm sure it was his life's dream.’
I wish that walrus hats were all the rage in London. It would make more sense if I were getting angry at that, rather than wheelie bins and a neighbour who resembles Kerry Katona’s evil twin. Kerry is a local girl. I’m meant to think that it’s good to see her succeed. Strange but that’s the last thing I feel.
I hope I'll dream of Steve Martin. He always gives me faith in the world.
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Gary Larson
The first thing I do whenever I write is reach for the volume on my speakers. I can’t write with music playing.
The first thing I do whenever I’m drawing is reach for the volume on my speakers. I love to sing along whilst scribbling.
Lately, I’ve been unable to write. I find the silence too upsetting, my mind easily distracted and led to sad thoughts. I don’t know how these things affect people so I don’t know if it’s normal to still feel the way I do. To say it’s two months since it happened is to make it sound like I should be over it. I think it’s the months before that which are still getting to me.
Anyway, I’ve posted a few more pictures over on my new closed blog (the invitation is still open to anybody who cares to go look). I’m out today, making the most of my ‘holiday’ to go into Manchester to buy myself some quality inkjet paper. I’m not at all sure what constitutes a portfolio but I intend to print a selection of my better cartoons in as high a quality as my HP can output. As yet, I’ve avoided looking at which magazines might accept cartoons. I’m also losing a bit of faith that my scribbles are funny enough to earn me money.
I think I’m probably suffering for a mild form of cartoon envy. I’ve been reading ‘The Far Side’, which does a good job of making the business of writing single panel gags look far too easy. I sense that Larson’s success has made him something of an easy target among aficionados of cartoons. I just think that his humour sits well within the mainstream but there are always enough with an offbeat slant to maintain my interest. For everyone that seems too obvious (a guy opens a fridge to find his potato salad holding a gun to the rest of the groceries – the tag: ‘When potato salad goes bad’), there’s one that’s more offbeat. A couple lie on the floor, acting dead, as another couple leave the room. The tag: ‘The Arnolds feign death until the Wagners, sensing awkwardness, are compelled to leave’. Larson’s genius, I think, is in the writing of his lines.
After reading a couple of volumes of ‘The Far Side’, gag writing begins to look effortless until I go back to trying it myself. I bought myself a second-hand copy of ‘The Pre-History of the Far Side’ (69p + p&P), in which he talks about the processes that go into creating a cartoon. It did nothing to alleviate my suspicion that he’s just copiously gifted. I can sit here hours trying to think of gags. It never works. It’s like trying to think of narratives. It’s better when I just switch off my brain and wait for something strange to cross my mind.
Which, oddly enough, has just made me think of a cartoon and a tag. I should go to bed before I spend a couple of hours cross-hatching a suit. I’ve come to the conclusion that an addiction to cross hatching is a form of madness.
The first thing I do whenever I’m drawing is reach for the volume on my speakers. I love to sing along whilst scribbling.
Lately, I’ve been unable to write. I find the silence too upsetting, my mind easily distracted and led to sad thoughts. I don’t know how these things affect people so I don’t know if it’s normal to still feel the way I do. To say it’s two months since it happened is to make it sound like I should be over it. I think it’s the months before that which are still getting to me.
Anyway, I’ve posted a few more pictures over on my new closed blog (the invitation is still open to anybody who cares to go look). I’m out today, making the most of my ‘holiday’ to go into Manchester to buy myself some quality inkjet paper. I’m not at all sure what constitutes a portfolio but I intend to print a selection of my better cartoons in as high a quality as my HP can output. As yet, I’ve avoided looking at which magazines might accept cartoons. I’m also losing a bit of faith that my scribbles are funny enough to earn me money.
I think I’m probably suffering for a mild form of cartoon envy. I’ve been reading ‘The Far Side’, which does a good job of making the business of writing single panel gags look far too easy. I sense that Larson’s success has made him something of an easy target among aficionados of cartoons. I just think that his humour sits well within the mainstream but there are always enough with an offbeat slant to maintain my interest. For everyone that seems too obvious (a guy opens a fridge to find his potato salad holding a gun to the rest of the groceries – the tag: ‘When potato salad goes bad’), there’s one that’s more offbeat. A couple lie on the floor, acting dead, as another couple leave the room. The tag: ‘The Arnolds feign death until the Wagners, sensing awkwardness, are compelled to leave’. Larson’s genius, I think, is in the writing of his lines.
After reading a couple of volumes of ‘The Far Side’, gag writing begins to look effortless until I go back to trying it myself. I bought myself a second-hand copy of ‘The Pre-History of the Far Side’ (69p + p&P), in which he talks about the processes that go into creating a cartoon. It did nothing to alleviate my suspicion that he’s just copiously gifted. I can sit here hours trying to think of gags. It never works. It’s like trying to think of narratives. It’s better when I just switch off my brain and wait for something strange to cross my mind.
Which, oddly enough, has just made me think of a cartoon and a tag. I should go to bed before I spend a couple of hours cross-hatching a suit. I’ve come to the conclusion that an addiction to cross hatching is a form of madness.
Monday, 29 December 2008
Another Damn Blog
Yet another blog is probably the last thing I need at the moment but I’ve opened one where I intend to put all my cartoons. If I’m serious about getting any of these published (I’m serious in so far as the response to them has exceeded my expectations), then I think it’s probably a good idea to limit their distribution. I’m sure somebody would point to the Creative Commons licensing scheme but I’d be happier knowing that I can tell anybody who asks that they’ve never been published. Unlike some of my rougher pictures I’ve tended to post here and there and everywhere, I’ve already put up some of my favourites and the cartoons I think I have the best chance of getting published. Depending on your response, I’ll keep on adding to them.
Naturally, if you want to get in, you’ll need to leave a comment or email me. Everybody is welcome.
Naturally, if you want to get in, you’ll need to leave a comment or email me. Everybody is welcome.
Friday, 26 December 2008
Something About The Mouth
I thought I'd spend the day writing but found myself consumed with finishing this cartoon for The Spine. Getting a resemblance to a real person is something I haven't conquered. Some people are easier than others. Philip took seconds. The Queen still isn't right after countless hours. In the end, I decided to cheat and traced her face from a portrait. If I have more time, I'll figure out the right codes so I'll be able to sketch her quickly. It doesn't seem right spending so much time on one picture. My versions of her were getting increasingly baboon-like. It's something about the mouth...
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
A Bit But Not Much
Lola sends me this link and It occurs to me that from my last post it might be suspected that I'm actually a geek. Well, it's not true. I did write some pseudo-code the other day but that's as far as my geekdom goes. Oh, I own some technology (I love my iTouch) but that's it. I'm not fanatical about Star Trek, though the new movie looks promising, and I don't own any Star Wars action figures. I don't even read Manga. And I do have a life away from the keyboard, can speak in more than monosyllables, and often make eye contact, just prefer not to.
And yes, I do protest a bit too much but it's better than not protesting at all. As I believe Spock once said in episode seven of series two...
And yes, I do protest a bit too much but it's better than not protesting at all. As I believe Spock once said in episode seven of series two...
In Which I Become David Moorcroft's Spokesman
Another sleep. Another elusive dream. In last night’s episode, I’d applied for a job working for British Athletics. I was to be their new spokesman. I remember meeting key figures in British sport, including David Moorcroft and Sebastian Coe. Why I had this dream has me beat, though there might have been some lingering vestige of my day among leisure consultants in the mix. It’s the only explanation I have. I don’t remember if I took the job – moving to London seemed to have been an issue – nor if I was offered it. I also can’t imagine why anybody would consider me for such a role. There can’t be many people who are less suited to being a spokesperson; lacking photogenic appeal, any sartorial flare, and having a Lancashire accent full of muddy, flat vowels.
Whatever the meaning of the dream, it was a very deep sleep. Whether I’m righteous or not, I really couldn’t say. I am moderately alert and anticipating two weeks of holiday. What I’ll be doing with that time is probably far from what I’m hoping. This Christmas, I’m in no mood to celebrate. It’s going to be quiet and I’ll be happy if I can stay where I am, at home working away on some yet-to-be-decided project. I face the New Year with the realisation that I have nothing to sell. One rather disappointing aspect about blogging is that once you’ve done your piece, it is published. Finished. That’s an end of it. I can’t go forward to sell it. I can’t make money from all my past efforts. Which means that I need something new to keep me going into the New Year and beyond. I have a series of cartoons, all based around a single theme, which I’d like to send out. I’m tempted to put them in a locked blog to see what you all think about them, but it’s the novels that really do need finishing. I’ve had two for these last six months that have always seemed promising when I go back and read what I have of them. I just need to concentrate my energies there, ignoring what I feel I should be doing with blogs.
This morning I thought it would be fun to dash of cards for some fellow bloggers. I fear there won’t be time to get one to everybody that deserves one. And some people I can’t send cards to because I don’t have their email addresses. However, it felt like a good thing to do, though I’m now running out of steam. If I miss you out, forgive me.
I’ll probably be here tomorrow, typing away about something or other. I’ll be celebrating Christmas my own way, which most people would probably find hugely depressing but I’ll be quite happy. In the meantime, let me wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the hopes of a prosperous New Year. I’m now off to doodle while I listen to Jim Morrison growl his way through ‘LA Woman’, which remains one of my favourite tracks, and the perfect tonic for these cold days in December.
Whatever the meaning of the dream, it was a very deep sleep. Whether I’m righteous or not, I really couldn’t say. I am moderately alert and anticipating two weeks of holiday. What I’ll be doing with that time is probably far from what I’m hoping. This Christmas, I’m in no mood to celebrate. It’s going to be quiet and I’ll be happy if I can stay where I am, at home working away on some yet-to-be-decided project. I face the New Year with the realisation that I have nothing to sell. One rather disappointing aspect about blogging is that once you’ve done your piece, it is published. Finished. That’s an end of it. I can’t go forward to sell it. I can’t make money from all my past efforts. Which means that I need something new to keep me going into the New Year and beyond. I have a series of cartoons, all based around a single theme, which I’d like to send out. I’m tempted to put them in a locked blog to see what you all think about them, but it’s the novels that really do need finishing. I’ve had two for these last six months that have always seemed promising when I go back and read what I have of them. I just need to concentrate my energies there, ignoring what I feel I should be doing with blogs.
This morning I thought it would be fun to dash of cards for some fellow bloggers. I fear there won’t be time to get one to everybody that deserves one. And some people I can’t send cards to because I don’t have their email addresses. However, it felt like a good thing to do, though I’m now running out of steam. If I miss you out, forgive me.
I’ll probably be here tomorrow, typing away about something or other. I’ll be celebrating Christmas my own way, which most people would probably find hugely depressing but I’ll be quite happy. In the meantime, let me wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the hopes of a prosperous New Year. I’m now off to doodle while I listen to Jim Morrison growl his way through ‘LA Woman’, which remains one of my favourite tracks, and the perfect tonic for these cold days in December.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
A Card For Work
I’m typing this with my eyelids dropping below the forty degree angle but I’m not sure why. I think I just wanted to post the above picture of the card that went into circulation today, hoping to extend its audience from a rather pitiful five to a rather healthy eight, based on the readership stats of this blog. I knew it would be a mistake to blog as anybody other than Him and I’m reminded of ‘Unforgiven’ when ‘The Duke of Death’ talks about royalty having a certain majesty that makes it impossible to assassinate them. The same is true of celebrity and being a blogging celebrity. They are read irrespective of what they write. I suppose it has much to do with already being in the public’s psyche. What people know, they know. What they don’t... Well, that’s where the majority of blogs come in. Published by the masses, unread by the masses. I should pack in now before I waste the next two weeks of holiday trying to breathe some life into this place.
I digress, rather morosely too. I just wanted to talk about my card, the subtleties of which you’re sure to miss unless you’re a leisure consultant, worked with leisure consultants, or do a little leisure consulting on the side, perhaps as a hobby or charity work. If so, I’m sure you’ll see the genius of the piece. I have a feeling that it will be seen as a classic; the finest leisure consultancy-themed Christmas card that there has ever been.
And God bless the Gods of Hewlett and Packard for doing such as good job of printing it out. Can God bless Gods or would they just stand them for a beer? But I digress again...
I don’t normally go the homemade route for Christmas cards. Friends at University used to embarrass me with their finger painted daubs, which I tried to appreciate but couldn’t never avoid the feeling that I’d been short-changed out of a card. Woolly liberalism never came quite as woolly as my friends with their finger painted cards. Perhaps my work colleagues think the same about me and my ‘witty’ cartoon. Although I did think I’d save myself some money by producing my own, I really did it in order to make people smile. Which they did – perhaps out of pity – and my day way brighter for that. I would like to think that in a hundred years, these five cards will be worth a fortune, but I think the reality is that they’ll quickly turn yellow, the ink will peel off, and they’ll end their days torn to shreds and serving as bookmarks.
I have to now go off and scribble out three more cards. Once my family saw what I’d done for work, they immediately said that they looked forward to their cards. I seem to have set myself a precedent it will be difficult to break. I’m a one-man Hallmark.
Monday, 22 December 2008
High Noon
I make reference to 'High Noon'. Quite witty, I thought. Only nobody has seen 'High Noon'... Not so witty.
Twelve Monkeys
Brit mentioned Terry Gilliam this morning, which was odd given that I’d just finished watching his interview with Clive James on my iPod. A quick jaunt around town convinced me that we’re living in a nightmare of Gilliam proportions. Humanity reduced to hammering away at each other as they fight for their place in Christmas queues. I managed to get into Waterstones, only to realise the futility of staying the ground floor. Thinking I was being clever, I sought refuge in the poetry section. Only, even the poetry section was full.
I pass or visit the poetry section of Deansgate’s Waterstones at lunchtime two days a week. It’s always empty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it full. Which either says something about the popularity of poetry as a means of saying that something special or that people will buy just about anything for Christmas gifts. The fact it was full meant something. Twelve monkeys time, I thought.
I pass or visit the poetry section of Deansgate’s Waterstones at lunchtime two days a week. It’s always empty. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it full. Which either says something about the popularity of poetry as a means of saying that something special or that people will buy just about anything for Christmas gifts. The fact it was full meant something. Twelve monkeys time, I thought.
Christmas Monday
I’m not totally sure why I’m in work today. Then again, I’m not sure why I’m in work on any day. There are so many better things I can be doing. Today (and tomorrow) are exceptions. I feel justified in wondering what I’m doing being here. I normally make it a point of using whatever holidays I have for the last few days leading up to Christmas. This year I’m told that I haven’t any holidays. I used them up being sick and taking compassionate days after my father died. So I’m here.
I spent my weekend drawing two cartoons (one unpublished but my best yet) and doing a little writing. My eyes wouldn’t allow me to get much done. They were red and puffy for most of the time; a result of working Thursday and Friday last week, two shifts of eight hours staring at these screens. I'll have to learn to take more breaks when I’m here.
The trains were half-empty. T he station quiet. Even today's Metro (the newspaper) is thin and barely worth picking up. I don’t read it myself. It’s for other people in the office.
[Update: I have received my first Christmas card.]
[Update 2: I should add that I'm in one of the worst moods I've ever afflicted on an office. Listening to Cohen's 'Songs of Love and Hate' on the way into work probably didn't help.]
[Update 3: God bless eye-drops and paracetamol. I feel a little better. I can now see the screen. The woman in Boots told me that I had to be careful not to take more than eight in a day. I replied that she was giving me ideas. She seemed to believe me and gave me a leaflet on depression at Christmas. I replied that if I was seriously thinking about doing myself in, I wouldn't have spent three quid on a Mexican style bean wrap.]
[Update 4: Note to self. I must try to be more cheerful when I blog. If He really did write a blog, He would definitely be more upbeat. I should write some poems about a love for vintage automobiles. Perhaps post some pictures here of quaint English pubs.]
I spent my weekend drawing two cartoons (one unpublished but my best yet) and doing a little writing. My eyes wouldn’t allow me to get much done. They were red and puffy for most of the time; a result of working Thursday and Friday last week, two shifts of eight hours staring at these screens. I'll have to learn to take more breaks when I’m here.
The trains were half-empty. T he station quiet. Even today's Metro (the newspaper) is thin and barely worth picking up. I don’t read it myself. It’s for other people in the office.
[Update: I have received my first Christmas card.]
[Update 2: I should add that I'm in one of the worst moods I've ever afflicted on an office. Listening to Cohen's 'Songs of Love and Hate' on the way into work probably didn't help.]
[Update 3: God bless eye-drops and paracetamol. I feel a little better. I can now see the screen. The woman in Boots told me that I had to be careful not to take more than eight in a day. I replied that she was giving me ideas. She seemed to believe me and gave me a leaflet on depression at Christmas. I replied that if I was seriously thinking about doing myself in, I wouldn't have spent three quid on a Mexican style bean wrap.]
[Update 4: Note to self. I must try to be more cheerful when I blog. If He really did write a blog, He would definitely be more upbeat. I should write some poems about a love for vintage automobiles. Perhaps post some pictures here of quaint English pubs.]
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Art or Arthur
Sad news, either way, but is Arthur Spiegelman THE Art Spiegelman? Yahoo is reporting the death of Arthur Spiegelman, reporter for Reuters, but has a picture of Art Spiegelman, cartoonist and author of 'Maus'. The body text doesn't actually mention anything of Art Spiegelman's work.
I grabbed a screenshot to prove that I'm not imagining this.
[EDIT: As I thought, Art is not Arthur.]
Saturday, 20 December 2008
Drawing Bush
It feels much easier being me. I sit here and simply write what comes to mind. Little imagination required. No attempt to be more interesting than I am.I’m off the back of a marathon sleep. I was out for something like eleven hours last night. I’ve always been a good sleeper but usually restrict myself to seven or eight. But whenever I hit my Manchester days, it breaks whatever work and sleep pattern I’ll have established in the previous five days. I drag myself by my ears from my bed at six o’clock, on the train for seven, and I’m in the office and working for eight or eight thirty. The day is fixed. I have to work eight hours and, like most people in the office, I choose to work them in a solid block, eating lunch at my desk and with only a couple of ‘bathroom’ breaks. By four thirty, I’m usually a mental and physical mess but happy to heading home. The nights aren’t much of anything. I’m paid for eight hours but they’re really taking eighteen. I travel, work, travel, doze in front of the TV, and then I sleep. A rush of energy on Thursday was the exception to the rule. I managed to write a few posts. My ‘Coming Clean’ piece was the product of peanut butter, which I’ve been told is good for energy. I think it was the relief of confession that drove me on but last night, I was unable to function.
Today I’ve been unable to write. I spent this afternoon trying my hand at drawing a political cartoon. I’d had the above joke in my head for over a week but hadn’t had time to draw it. Unlike my more surreal jokes, scribbling political figures requires far more time and effort. I finished today’s picture (don’t ask how long it took) and sent it to my sister who immediately pointed out that my George W. Bush looks remarkably like Donald Rumsfeld. She had a point. I went back and added a slightly more prominent lip, smaller ears. I think it is enough for the joke to work. I posted it over at The Spine, just to keep that site going.
Caricatures don’t interest me all that much. I see them as a necessary evil when making a joke about a public figure. That was always the pleasure of writing The Spine regularly. I could use photographs to make my point. The down side to the site was that I could never sell my gags to newspapers because I would have to account for every element of a picture. The copyright laws just don’t make any allowances for new forms of cartooning involving Photoshop. The other problem was that any joke was always constrained by the availability of a picture. I would often resort to taking photographs of my own elbows, hands, and knees, just to fill in a gap. Sketching allows me to get closer to my ideas, though I face a different difficulty drawing recognisable caricatures.
I try not to be influenced by the way real illustrators draw their victims. I had to deliberately avoid Gerald Scarfe’s method of drawing the simian-like Bush, big ears and huge baboon maw. His caricatures are some of the best in terms of taking a hard swipe at a figure. He’s more in the tradition of the great seventeenth century artists and, naturally, I think of Hogarth. Scarfe’s figures regularly display their genitals or are to be found facing us arseways, sphincter compressed. As much as I admire his work, I don't think he's chasing outright laughs. They more scatology than wit, more outrage than punchline. He’s not, as far as I can see, a humourist who cares about the laugh. He's probably greater than that.
Thinking about all this reminds me of my local shopping centre where a lad runs a stall where he draws caricatures of customers. I always glance over and see what he’s doing. He clearly has a skill for it but, for me, it’s too close that that episode of The Simpsons (doesn’t everything remind us of episodes from The Simpsons?) where Lisa is allowing herself to be drawn by the local caricaturist. If I remember it correctly, the artist simply sticks her in a car and exaggerates one feature (her hair). It’s implied that this is exactly what he does with every subject.
Could mutter on some more but my laptop battery has dropped below 10%...
Friday, 19 December 2008
Coming Clean
The idea attracted me immediately. Perhaps it was the perversity of the concept that engineered the folly it would eventually become. That I would create a blog where I would be me in everything but name was counter to everything that I was meant to do with a blog. Blogs are about attracting attention to the undiscovered self. They are about promoting ego. This was something else. This was a huge finger directed towards everything else.
At that point, I’d been blogging for over a year and I hadn’t hidden my identity except for a change in surname. I had a real life, thought I might still stand a chance of working in academia (I foolishly thought a Ph.D. from a good university stood for something -- it doesn't!), and I was worried what people might think about my strange new blog, clearly written by a madman. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. That first version of me was nominated for two national awards (I lost both). A second blog gave rise to a book which was accepted for publication only for it to be aborted a few weeks before of its arrival in bookshops, these events overlapping with my third blog. That’s when I began to write my fourth major blog – major in the effort it took, not readers. This has never been about having many readers. Just about having a few loyal readers whose company I enjoyed.
I suppose I chose the subject of that blog out of a petty grievance, although not completely. To be Him was to be part of the process that had seen my novel deleted. I was not one of them, so I would become one of them. I would become one of the prime movers. It would be fun, funny, and disruptive. As Tom Waits would say: the three missing dwarves.
And so it began.
At the beginning, it all happened quite quickly. The first thing I noticed was that I was being rapidly accepted onto blogrolls. Everybody wanted to be near Me. They sent Me emails praising Me for my blog. I was the funniest blogger they had ever read. In fact, I was simply the funniest guy on the planet. A huge talent. ‘So much funnier than you are on TV’ they would say. The Guardian found my blog and (knowing what it really was) reviewed it favourably. I was a pick of the week. (Ironically, they also linked to my other blog on the same page but I could never make much of this double success.) More readers dropped by. People emailed me to congratulate me on my blogging success.
Then, slowly, realisation dawned. The number of blogrolls linking to me slowly began to fall. A few angry emails followed. I was no longer such a huge talent. I was no longer the funniest guy on the planet. I was no longer a huge talent. I was, in fact, a rather sad lonely figure, sitting along in a bedsit, amusing (possibly self-abusing) myself, who should get a life or, if possible, die. So they said.
I felt vindicated. Their anger was real, so I didn’t tell them that this was the point I was always trying to make. My satire was never ever directed at the person who everybody assumed I was targeting. Satirising celebrity is tedious, pointless, and, ultimately, self-defeating. Celebrities revel in being satirised. It’s a sign of their success. No, the people I wanted to mock were the people who placed context before content. I’d been inspired by a well known story of an academic who had presented poems to undergraduates, seeing if they could spot the great poems without the name of the author to influence them. I was out to get the British Public. I wanted to expose the hypocrisy of audiences unable to judge talent. These were the people who wanted to be close to Me but only because of what I could do for them. The evidence was there for all to see. And say what they liked, these were the people that lauded me, asked me to read their books, help them get published. Above all else, they demonstrated how we don’t live in a meritocracy. Context is everything and when that context is the BBC, ITV, or Channel 4, talent is assumed. It is a given. The irony is, of course, that moving to satellite TV should been seen as diminishing that talent. And that’s what happened. Viewing figures dropped. Suddenly, the golden couple weren’t so golden. Had they lost it? Of course they hadn’t. In fact, their shows were better than ever. They were more relaxed. They had matured. Yet they failed because the context had changed. Context had given them status. A different context had brought about a change in status.
On the other side of the game were the people who cheered me on. All along there were those that apparently liked what I was doing. They understood the joke and still understand the joke, even if it’s faded somewhat. I continued to write it for them. I worked damned hard to make them smile. But I also worked in a very strange way to improve the reputation of the person I had apparently set out to mock. Yet mockery was never my aim. The lesson one quickly learns when writing satire is that you usually get quite close to the person you attack. I actually began to really like Him. I began to understand what a terrible ordeal celebrity must be for Him. Unable to trust friends, doubting the judgement of every stranger who congratulates you on your latest success: celebrity is lonely. Very, very lonely. From a distance, I watched Stephen Fry accept the 25,000th person to the list of people he follows on Twitter. And I watched people regularly direct comments to him. I see John Cleese doing the same. I have even, somewhat playfully, joined in once (to Cleese). Yet I did so feeling a degree of shame that I was doing the very thing that I had accused others of doing. (Although, in my defence, I would argue that I’m a fan of both because of their content, not context).
Along the way, there were moments I regretted. I fooled a few people who didn’t deserve to be fooled. I felt truly bad about it and still do. Two stand out. One was only fooled for a day and, I think, he has forgiven me. The other I can only hope smiled before he moved on. I sent him two of the funniest emails I’ve ever written. They took me hours to get just right. He replied to the first. It was a brief but wonderfully vulgar and poorly typed reply. As a fan, I’m delighted that he emailed Me. I’m just disappointed that he didn’t email me. He emailed the other me. I got myself out that pickle by replying that I doubted that he was really who he said he was and asking him to stop emailing me. It’s crazy to think back on it. I actually asked (demanded!) that one of my heroes, a man whose books and TV programmes I’ve read, watched and admired since adolescence, should stop emailing me! It was the best moment and the worst of being Him.
The strangest part of this whole game of being Him is that, unwittingly, I think I did some good. He didn’t acknowledge me or the work I was doing except to deny that he was me, that I was him. He didn’t know about the people I’d helped in his name. He wouldn’t know how I’d tutored one person through an English coursework; fixing punctuation, teaching the correct use of the apostrophe, and talking literature (something I’m supposedly far more qualified to do, anyway, and could probably have charged by the hour). He wouldn’t know about the times I’ve helped people track down books, recipes, or whatever it was that they wrote to ask me about. Though I was playing a role, I always knew that it came with a responsibility. Previously, people had expressed contempt towards me (as him). Soon they began to warm to me (as him) or him (although me). I learned to do my best to give the game away whilst being subtle but there were some people who could never see the truth, no matter how blatant. It’s strange to find oneself improving another person’s reputation. My talent, whatever that is, was suddenly his talent. All my work was doing some good for him. The irony – a tragic irony as it turned out – was that he published a book and began to talk about family just as I was losing such an important part of mine.
Which has led to the confusion of tone which needed sorting out. It’s why I’m over here in this old lapsed blog, talking about these things for the first time. It’s not a divorce. As Brit put it: it’s a separation of voices. The people that matter – the people that understood me – already knew. Those of you that come here, come here and learn a bit more about me, should you really wish to know me and not Him. And now you know what’s been going on over there. I feel isolated. I feel exposed. I also know I won’t have many readers and may well lose a good few. Who wants to read me? I’m insignificant in a big way. Just another fool looking to make his way doing the things he loves. I’m not even sure what I’ll do with the other me. Perhaps I’ll add Him to my CV. I’ll probably carry on writing it. Just to see how this separation goes. I’ll be funny and Him over there. Serious, depressing and more like myself over here.
For the record, I have now written four quite substantial blogs. The Spine (631 posts), I rarely update. My Harry Potter pictures are still a huge draw but the political side of blogging no longer interests me. (And too many of the supposedly humorous political blogs are vile and filled with hate, verging on racism and misogyny. I want no part of them, even by association.) I’m also tired of photoshopping images. I could never sell them due to copyright. I might go back and use it as a place to put my cartoons, although the few I’ve published over there have yet to attract any interest.
My second blog, ‘What Ho Proles!’ (135 posts) dwindled but only because it was the genesis of my book. For the moment, it would hurt to go back and write as Murgatroid, though I already have a good idea for a second book. Jacob still gets regular emails from the Conservative Party, who seem to believe that he's real.
‘Chip Dale’s Diary’ (363 posts) was a huge effort to write and I’d like to revisit it. There’s also a book in there, though I suppose Chip and Gabby have now separated given that Lembit has lost his Cheeky Girl. I still get regular emails from people asking about my stripping services. The British Thong Society (another of mine) still attracts regular emails from people (mainly Americans) who are secret lovers of the thong. It has also been listed in various places as a real organisation.
None of my blogs, except The Spine, attracted many readers, yet the word count of all my blogs is probably getting close to a million words. Total earnings for a couple of years of constant blogging: about £150, most of which came from a single commission from ITN for two cartoons. It proves that pictures are worth more than words and that pictures of dogs wearing knickers are worth more than a thousand pages of prose. There are (and were) other blogs, some obviously me, some obviously not. Probably over a dozen. But I’m coming clean about those that matter to me because I just want to have it on record that I did all that work. As I come to the end of 2008 – the worst year in my life – I think it’s time to say: this was all me. I still have many ideas and too little time. Manchester drains my spirits more than I can ever explain, yet I want to still blog and draw, and write some more novels. I want to talk poetry, write poetry; talk about films, write films. Perhaps I’ll do that here. Perhaps I’ll do it for a day or a week, a month or a year. I’ll do it before I’ll go off quietly and begin again; committing another outrage, offending a few more people.
At that point, I’d been blogging for over a year and I hadn’t hidden my identity except for a change in surname. I had a real life, thought I might still stand a chance of working in academia (I foolishly thought a Ph.D. from a good university stood for something -- it doesn't!), and I was worried what people might think about my strange new blog, clearly written by a madman. Perhaps I shouldn’t have worried. That first version of me was nominated for two national awards (I lost both). A second blog gave rise to a book which was accepted for publication only for it to be aborted a few weeks before of its arrival in bookshops, these events overlapping with my third blog. That’s when I began to write my fourth major blog – major in the effort it took, not readers. This has never been about having many readers. Just about having a few loyal readers whose company I enjoyed.
I suppose I chose the subject of that blog out of a petty grievance, although not completely. To be Him was to be part of the process that had seen my novel deleted. I was not one of them, so I would become one of them. I would become one of the prime movers. It would be fun, funny, and disruptive. As Tom Waits would say: the three missing dwarves.
And so it began.
At the beginning, it all happened quite quickly. The first thing I noticed was that I was being rapidly accepted onto blogrolls. Everybody wanted to be near Me. They sent Me emails praising Me for my blog. I was the funniest blogger they had ever read. In fact, I was simply the funniest guy on the planet. A huge talent. ‘So much funnier than you are on TV’ they would say. The Guardian found my blog and (knowing what it really was) reviewed it favourably. I was a pick of the week. (Ironically, they also linked to my other blog on the same page but I could never make much of this double success.) More readers dropped by. People emailed me to congratulate me on my blogging success.
Then, slowly, realisation dawned. The number of blogrolls linking to me slowly began to fall. A few angry emails followed. I was no longer such a huge talent. I was no longer the funniest guy on the planet. I was no longer a huge talent. I was, in fact, a rather sad lonely figure, sitting along in a bedsit, amusing (possibly self-abusing) myself, who should get a life or, if possible, die. So they said.
I felt vindicated. Their anger was real, so I didn’t tell them that this was the point I was always trying to make. My satire was never ever directed at the person who everybody assumed I was targeting. Satirising celebrity is tedious, pointless, and, ultimately, self-defeating. Celebrities revel in being satirised. It’s a sign of their success. No, the people I wanted to mock were the people who placed context before content. I’d been inspired by a well known story of an academic who had presented poems to undergraduates, seeing if they could spot the great poems without the name of the author to influence them. I was out to get the British Public. I wanted to expose the hypocrisy of audiences unable to judge talent. These were the people who wanted to be close to Me but only because of what I could do for them. The evidence was there for all to see. And say what they liked, these were the people that lauded me, asked me to read their books, help them get published. Above all else, they demonstrated how we don’t live in a meritocracy. Context is everything and when that context is the BBC, ITV, or Channel 4, talent is assumed. It is a given. The irony is, of course, that moving to satellite TV should been seen as diminishing that talent. And that’s what happened. Viewing figures dropped. Suddenly, the golden couple weren’t so golden. Had they lost it? Of course they hadn’t. In fact, their shows were better than ever. They were more relaxed. They had matured. Yet they failed because the context had changed. Context had given them status. A different context had brought about a change in status.
On the other side of the game were the people who cheered me on. All along there were those that apparently liked what I was doing. They understood the joke and still understand the joke, even if it’s faded somewhat. I continued to write it for them. I worked damned hard to make them smile. But I also worked in a very strange way to improve the reputation of the person I had apparently set out to mock. Yet mockery was never my aim. The lesson one quickly learns when writing satire is that you usually get quite close to the person you attack. I actually began to really like Him. I began to understand what a terrible ordeal celebrity must be for Him. Unable to trust friends, doubting the judgement of every stranger who congratulates you on your latest success: celebrity is lonely. Very, very lonely. From a distance, I watched Stephen Fry accept the 25,000th person to the list of people he follows on Twitter. And I watched people regularly direct comments to him. I see John Cleese doing the same. I have even, somewhat playfully, joined in once (to Cleese). Yet I did so feeling a degree of shame that I was doing the very thing that I had accused others of doing. (Although, in my defence, I would argue that I’m a fan of both because of their content, not context).
Along the way, there were moments I regretted. I fooled a few people who didn’t deserve to be fooled. I felt truly bad about it and still do. Two stand out. One was only fooled for a day and, I think, he has forgiven me. The other I can only hope smiled before he moved on. I sent him two of the funniest emails I’ve ever written. They took me hours to get just right. He replied to the first. It was a brief but wonderfully vulgar and poorly typed reply. As a fan, I’m delighted that he emailed Me. I’m just disappointed that he didn’t email me. He emailed the other me. I got myself out that pickle by replying that I doubted that he was really who he said he was and asking him to stop emailing me. It’s crazy to think back on it. I actually asked (demanded!) that one of my heroes, a man whose books and TV programmes I’ve read, watched and admired since adolescence, should stop emailing me! It was the best moment and the worst of being Him.
The strangest part of this whole game of being Him is that, unwittingly, I think I did some good. He didn’t acknowledge me or the work I was doing except to deny that he was me, that I was him. He didn’t know about the people I’d helped in his name. He wouldn’t know how I’d tutored one person through an English coursework; fixing punctuation, teaching the correct use of the apostrophe, and talking literature (something I’m supposedly far more qualified to do, anyway, and could probably have charged by the hour). He wouldn’t know about the times I’ve helped people track down books, recipes, or whatever it was that they wrote to ask me about. Though I was playing a role, I always knew that it came with a responsibility. Previously, people had expressed contempt towards me (as him). Soon they began to warm to me (as him) or him (although me). I learned to do my best to give the game away whilst being subtle but there were some people who could never see the truth, no matter how blatant. It’s strange to find oneself improving another person’s reputation. My talent, whatever that is, was suddenly his talent. All my work was doing some good for him. The irony – a tragic irony as it turned out – was that he published a book and began to talk about family just as I was losing such an important part of mine.
Which has led to the confusion of tone which needed sorting out. It’s why I’m over here in this old lapsed blog, talking about these things for the first time. It’s not a divorce. As Brit put it: it’s a separation of voices. The people that matter – the people that understood me – already knew. Those of you that come here, come here and learn a bit more about me, should you really wish to know me and not Him. And now you know what’s been going on over there. I feel isolated. I feel exposed. I also know I won’t have many readers and may well lose a good few. Who wants to read me? I’m insignificant in a big way. Just another fool looking to make his way doing the things he loves. I’m not even sure what I’ll do with the other me. Perhaps I’ll add Him to my CV. I’ll probably carry on writing it. Just to see how this separation goes. I’ll be funny and Him over there. Serious, depressing and more like myself over here.
For the record, I have now written four quite substantial blogs. The Spine (631 posts), I rarely update. My Harry Potter pictures are still a huge draw but the political side of blogging no longer interests me. (And too many of the supposedly humorous political blogs are vile and filled with hate, verging on racism and misogyny. I want no part of them, even by association.) I’m also tired of photoshopping images. I could never sell them due to copyright. I might go back and use it as a place to put my cartoons, although the few I’ve published over there have yet to attract any interest.
My second blog, ‘What Ho Proles!’ (135 posts) dwindled but only because it was the genesis of my book. For the moment, it would hurt to go back and write as Murgatroid, though I already have a good idea for a second book. Jacob still gets regular emails from the Conservative Party, who seem to believe that he's real.
‘Chip Dale’s Diary’ (363 posts) was a huge effort to write and I’d like to revisit it. There’s also a book in there, though I suppose Chip and Gabby have now separated given that Lembit has lost his Cheeky Girl. I still get regular emails from people asking about my stripping services. The British Thong Society (another of mine) still attracts regular emails from people (mainly Americans) who are secret lovers of the thong. It has also been listed in various places as a real organisation.
None of my blogs, except The Spine, attracted many readers, yet the word count of all my blogs is probably getting close to a million words. Total earnings for a couple of years of constant blogging: about £150, most of which came from a single commission from ITN for two cartoons. It proves that pictures are worth more than words and that pictures of dogs wearing knickers are worth more than a thousand pages of prose. There are (and were) other blogs, some obviously me, some obviously not. Probably over a dozen. But I’m coming clean about those that matter to me because I just want to have it on record that I did all that work. As I come to the end of 2008 – the worst year in my life – I think it’s time to say: this was all me. I still have many ideas and too little time. Manchester drains my spirits more than I can ever explain, yet I want to still blog and draw, and write some more novels. I want to talk poetry, write poetry; talk about films, write films. Perhaps I’ll do that here. Perhaps I’ll do it for a day or a week, a month or a year. I’ll do it before I’ll go off quietly and begin again; committing another outrage, offending a few more people.
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Odd
When I began to think about coming back to write this blog, I also found myself thinking about the title. Back when I created it, I wanted to use it as a place to jot down my ideas about fiction and voice. But the more I think about voice, the more I realise that it’s just a by-product of my own thought processes and that when I’m writing fiction, I am really writing about myself. It’s heavily disguised but everything I’ve ever written contains a mutated form of my experience. Sometimes those are experiences I’ve lived. Sometimes they are experiences that I’ve found at second-hand, though books, film, the television. The point isn’t that I’ve moved away from thinking about voice. I’m just happy to be writing as myself. It’s liberating to be myself. It’s still all a fiction, of course. Even as I try to write about personal experiences, I’m transforming them into something else. Anybody who reads me will transform them again. Voice is all fiction. Even when I mean it to be quite real.
Trickster Is Me
‘Abandon form and trust the voice.’
So said Martin Amis to Clive James in the podcast I listened to for the umpteenth time as I rode the train home tonight. Those shows make me unbelievably happy and the Amis interview is the best of the lot. And his is a good piece of advice to be posting when supremely tired and aching in eyes, brain, and legs. I’ll trust to voice and assume that something I say here will make sense to somebody.
***
Tonight I’m bitter, a bit bewildered, and tired like the damned. It’s all normal for a Thursday. These are the moments when I feel the most rebellious. Always do the opposite of what’s expected. Or the opposite of the opposite.
The last week or two, I’ve been dipping into Lewis Hyde’s ‘Trickster Makes This World’. The subtitle is ‘How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture’ and, for obvious reasons, when I spotted it in the local Borders, I was drawn to it like filings towards a tax inspector. Good read with some stunning passages. It contains some of the best lines I’ve read all year: ‘To learn about intelligence from the meat-thief Coyote is to know that we’re embodied thinkers. If the brain has cunning, it has it as a consequence of appetite; the blood that lights the mind gets its sugars from the gut.’ I gave a whoop of delight when I read that last part. Perhaps it’s some misguided projection on my part but I identify with the trickster. I once wrote a 90,000 word ramble about appetite and poetry and reading this reminds me of the things that interested me back then. The trickster is the embodiment of sublimated appetite, an escape around vices and into a different kind of eating, growing, procreating.
Why do I tell you this? I don’t know. It’s not funny or inkeeping with anything. Listen to my inner voice. It’s just me. Tricky old me.
***
I still see the woman the train who never stops typing. She’s worn her keys down until the surfaces have gone and they’re down to the black plastic. People write too much. I say that but I should really look into buying a new laptop. Ideally, I should look into buying a new life. Amis talks about writers whose talent turns gangrenous if not followed. I feel it within me on these nights when I barely eat because I’m so exhausted. I don’t even know if ‘talent’ is the word for it. Feels presumptuous. I prefer to think of it as a hunger. It’s the insatiable appetite to do what I want to do. I’m not one for being told what to do. Friends say it’s my big fault. Hairs on my back turn into the Grenadier Guards when I’m ordered to do anything. Working for others makes me deeply unhappy. I become a different person. I keep describing it as a form of attention deficit disorder. I cannot sit still and seek distraction.
Today I met somebody who said that they look for ‘career progression’. I gave a shiver. I told them that I don’t think like that, which I assume to be true because I believed it when I said it. Yet I wonder if it’s the right term for my peculiar form of indifference. I don’t feel like I have goals in terms of arbitrary titles within arbitrary institutions. Is it money in the bank? I suppose I want that. Enough to be happy. No more. But whether I’m senior or junior to somebody else doesn’t concern me. I’d be full of self doubt in either situation. I just want to be read and for people to laugh at (think about) what I write and draw.
***
Not for the first time, I’ve been thinking about agents. I sometimes wonder if I should just sign a devil’s pact: ask somebody to represent my work for 50% of the income. I’m no good at selling myself. I just don’t do it. I don’t play the game. Failure is my own doing. I don’t try to succeed.
***
Abandon form and trust the voice. It’s a seductive idea. I’m sometimes too obsessed with form. Narrative feels like it should be there in some pre-ordained structure. My novels tend to get difficult when I fear they don’t have a shape. Perhaps I should stop thinking and just write, trust that I’ll find something along the way. Not thinking worked in the past. I think.
Coming into Piccadilly this morning, I finished the first book of ‘Molesworth’. Reminds me of Burgess, a little of Joyce. Strange book with the most basic form. It’s just a series of self-contained lists. Wonderfully written and Searle’s pictures keep me just as entertained. The look in Molesworth 1’s eye transfixes me every time.
***
What exactly are Gladiators? Why do I feel like throwing the cat at the TV whenever they come on? The ads talk about records being smashed and legends made. What records? Man in spandex balancing on podium while other men in spandex hits him with a large rubberised baton.
There’s a guy who travels home on my train. He’s a body builder. It was raining when we got off and he tried to run for cover. Hilarious. He’s incapable of bending his legs. Incapable too of crossing his arms. Imagine a man in splints trying to do the 100 metres. A form of paralysis, perhaps. He’s given himself a disability. Perfection comes at a price.
***
Twitter confuses me. I’m not sure I like it but I like playing the game. Trickster. That’s me.
So said Martin Amis to Clive James in the podcast I listened to for the umpteenth time as I rode the train home tonight. Those shows make me unbelievably happy and the Amis interview is the best of the lot. And his is a good piece of advice to be posting when supremely tired and aching in eyes, brain, and legs. I’ll trust to voice and assume that something I say here will make sense to somebody.
***
Tonight I’m bitter, a bit bewildered, and tired like the damned. It’s all normal for a Thursday. These are the moments when I feel the most rebellious. Always do the opposite of what’s expected. Or the opposite of the opposite.
The last week or two, I’ve been dipping into Lewis Hyde’s ‘Trickster Makes This World’. The subtitle is ‘How Disruptive Imagination Creates Culture’ and, for obvious reasons, when I spotted it in the local Borders, I was drawn to it like filings towards a tax inspector. Good read with some stunning passages. It contains some of the best lines I’ve read all year: ‘To learn about intelligence from the meat-thief Coyote is to know that we’re embodied thinkers. If the brain has cunning, it has it as a consequence of appetite; the blood that lights the mind gets its sugars from the gut.’ I gave a whoop of delight when I read that last part. Perhaps it’s some misguided projection on my part but I identify with the trickster. I once wrote a 90,000 word ramble about appetite and poetry and reading this reminds me of the things that interested me back then. The trickster is the embodiment of sublimated appetite, an escape around vices and into a different kind of eating, growing, procreating.
Why do I tell you this? I don’t know. It’s not funny or inkeeping with anything. Listen to my inner voice. It’s just me. Tricky old me.
***
I still see the woman the train who never stops typing. She’s worn her keys down until the surfaces have gone and they’re down to the black plastic. People write too much. I say that but I should really look into buying a new laptop. Ideally, I should look into buying a new life. Amis talks about writers whose talent turns gangrenous if not followed. I feel it within me on these nights when I barely eat because I’m so exhausted. I don’t even know if ‘talent’ is the word for it. Feels presumptuous. I prefer to think of it as a hunger. It’s the insatiable appetite to do what I want to do. I’m not one for being told what to do. Friends say it’s my big fault. Hairs on my back turn into the Grenadier Guards when I’m ordered to do anything. Working for others makes me deeply unhappy. I become a different person. I keep describing it as a form of attention deficit disorder. I cannot sit still and seek distraction.
Today I met somebody who said that they look for ‘career progression’. I gave a shiver. I told them that I don’t think like that, which I assume to be true because I believed it when I said it. Yet I wonder if it’s the right term for my peculiar form of indifference. I don’t feel like I have goals in terms of arbitrary titles within arbitrary institutions. Is it money in the bank? I suppose I want that. Enough to be happy. No more. But whether I’m senior or junior to somebody else doesn’t concern me. I’d be full of self doubt in either situation. I just want to be read and for people to laugh at (think about) what I write and draw.
***
Not for the first time, I’ve been thinking about agents. I sometimes wonder if I should just sign a devil’s pact: ask somebody to represent my work for 50% of the income. I’m no good at selling myself. I just don’t do it. I don’t play the game. Failure is my own doing. I don’t try to succeed.
***
Abandon form and trust the voice. It’s a seductive idea. I’m sometimes too obsessed with form. Narrative feels like it should be there in some pre-ordained structure. My novels tend to get difficult when I fear they don’t have a shape. Perhaps I should stop thinking and just write, trust that I’ll find something along the way. Not thinking worked in the past. I think.
Coming into Piccadilly this morning, I finished the first book of ‘Molesworth’. Reminds me of Burgess, a little of Joyce. Strange book with the most basic form. It’s just a series of self-contained lists. Wonderfully written and Searle’s pictures keep me just as entertained. The look in Molesworth 1’s eye transfixes me every time.
***
What exactly are Gladiators? Why do I feel like throwing the cat at the TV whenever they come on? The ads talk about records being smashed and legends made. What records? Man in spandex balancing on podium while other men in spandex hits him with a large rubberised baton.
There’s a guy who travels home on my train. He’s a body builder. It was raining when we got off and he tried to run for cover. Hilarious. He’s incapable of bending his legs. Incapable too of crossing his arms. Imagine a man in splints trying to do the 100 metres. A form of paralysis, perhaps. He’s given himself a disability. Perfection comes at a price.
***
Twitter confuses me. I’m not sure I like it but I like playing the game. Trickster. That’s me.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Titles
Titles to novels are almost harder to write than the novel itself. This isn’t apparent from the point of view of the reader. On my desk, I can see Terry Southern’s ‘Candy’, Philip Roth’s ‘Zuckerman Unbound’, and Graham Greene’s ‘The Heart of the Matter’. Each title exists, in my mind at least, as though they are integral to the novels they represent. When I think of the book. I think of the title.
As a reader, you know the title before you know the book. As a writer, you often come to know the book long before you know its title. I have spent days thinking up a title for a story I’m in the middle of completing. Nothing seems right but then, the book is still a series of problems I have yet to overcome. Finding the title transforms the story (or a series of written pages) into something more imposing. It gives the manuscript an identity. It’s like putting the roof on a house. Until that point, it wasn’t a house but a series of walls, abutments, and foundations. I want to give these pages an identity as a book but perhaps it’s too early. I’m still standing in the foundations wondering if this thing will ever get built.
Thursday, 17 July 2008
Bones
Sometimes I fear that I write for words and not for meaning. A novel is more than a sequence of chapters and writing any kind of narrative from the inside requires a knowledge of their anatomy. Much of it is empty space. The places where the blood flows, where the simplest prose can suffice and mere detail exist. But to create these spaces requires knowledge of where cartilage must be strung, where the supports of the narrative’s bones must rest. Too often I find myself filling space before I have the skeleton in place. At other times I worry too much about bones. Somewhere between the two, lies a novel.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
The Writers
From my room, I hear the hammer of weights from the gym. In the summer, they work out with the doors open. The sound echoes across all the gardens and the waste ground separating me from them. The routines are always the same. They have the same regularity as my fingers find on this keyboard. They exercise as I exercise. Big fingers hitting iron keys. These guys are as local as me but they grunt when I sniff. They swear when I try my hardest to find just the right word. More often than not, the words they find are much better than mine. In their way, they are also writers. I can tell because they also growl when they exercise.
Two Lines: The Mirror of the Sea
"Landfall and Departure mark the rhythmical swing of a seaman’s life and of a ship’s career. From land to land is the most concise definition of a ship’s earthly fate."
Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea (1906)
Absolute stunning perfection.
So much could be said about two lines that hang together like the balanced sails on some turn of the century clipper. The lines have a ‘rhythmical swing’ and a caesura sits about the middle of the first line (after ‘swing’) which leads the ear to find an equal length until we reach the full stop. It’s only natural for us to then read the second line with a slightly forced pause after ‘concise’, which the pushes us on to stress ‘definition’. The technique is poetic. The effect sublime.
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Cultural Hyperventilation
The media is in a febrile state. The internet has made it so. Where once we had a relatively few collections of individuals, to whom we even ascribed friendly names like the BBC, NBC, HBO, Macillan, Random House, Hodder & Stoughton, all producing TV shows, films, books, newspapers, or journals, we now have millions of individuals breaking all the rules and teaching us how to be creative. Low cost HD cameras and a general will to anarchy has made it possible for consumers to become producers and for the mainstream to embrace everyday culture in a new and, apparently, invigorating way.
Increasingly the web is the place where the media source material for broadcast. We are encouraged to send our videos and photographs into news channels for which they pay us nothing but the honour of having our names read out on air. YouTube has become the free repository of gaffs, gags, and the grisly, and it is these momentary oddities of life that are delivered into our living rooms on a daily basis. They may be cheap filler but they are increasingly defining our culture, and who and what we are.
Against these new standards, older forms of expression seem precisely that: old, outdated, lapsing into insignificance for all but a few who wish to cherish their archaic mannerisms. Structure went out of the window with the talent. This is a world made by and for William S. Burroughs where everything it cut up and rearranged. The most damning criticism of any form of culture these days is to describe it as ‘safe’. Although new media isn’t really new media at all (though the medium has certainly changed), it is a new way of ascribing value to the brash, the bold, the ballsy. MTV can lay claim to have been in the vanguard of this new aesthetic of grotesque banality. ‘Jackass’ (and it’s UK derivative ‘Dirty Sanchez’) represented the most extreme examples of the low-brow writ large. When a man is willing to put a staple through his own foreskin in order to get on TV, there’s very little chance that the slow burn privations of long term artistic integrity stand any chance of succeeding. What chance the young but talented landscape painter against Damien Hurst’s diamond-encrusted skulls or the media-savvy doodling of ‘Banksy’?
As rank amateurism flourishes, professional amateurism gains ground. It is now an established practice that all those tangential to fame also find fame. The world is filled with hundreds like Karl Pilkington (mate to Ricky Gervais) or Jimmy Doherty (he of ‘Jimmy’s Farm’ and childhood friend of Jamie Oliver). Give the audience more of what they think they want. Why be satisfied with Ozzie when there’s also Sharon, Kelly, and Jack? We want more, more, more, more of the same...
The ironies are as apparent as they are vulgar. Democratising the means of production has led us to the point where the daughters of rock stars can present the news, footballers wives produce newspaper columns, porn stars write books for children. The product may be inferior to that of the professionals whose jobs they have taken but only by reducing our standards have we allowed ourselves to become in thrall to those standards and to these people. Our banality breeds their banality and it can only get worse.
As the visual has risen, it is customary to say that the written has lessened in significance. Yet the written word still has a role to play: it’s that of the placeholder or the tag. It isn’t so important that words are put together with any artistry. They must simply exist in the right form to help people find the visuals to satisfy their hunger for quick Big Mac entertainment. It isn’t hard to envisage a time when good tagging is cherished over good writing. In fact, it might already be here. Welcome to the world of the blogosphere.
Is it possible that too much creative oxygen makes us hyperventilate? Do we breathe hard and fast because there’s simply too much culture to enjoy? Or is it that we’ve not enough quality carbon dioxide in the blood, too few producers of merit and note? And how do creators keep pace in a world where the average consumer with a video recorder stands more chance of success than an artist in a studio? Is it culture? Is it art? Is it even good for us?
The most popular websites in the UK are generally those like the BBC that already have a large readership because of their (old-media) mainstream activities, or those that embrace the counter-side of culture. Yet to describe it as counterculture is trite when it is really in the ascension. To be counter in our culture is to still believe in the role of the library or the museum, it is to read books other than those plugged 24/7 via Amazon’s newsletters. To be different is to refuse to embrace this cult of difference. A few people still succeed by working the old way. From the creative individual’s point of view, it has more guarantee of success. However, when the creative pool is measured in the many millions, the media can carry on plucking out the lucky strikes. From their point of view, there is always another funny clip of a dog wearing glasses, a guy trying to mix cola and mints, another monkey who has struck a few keys together and accidentally written a masterpiece. No wonder so many of us are confused and gasping for breath.
Increasingly the web is the place where the media source material for broadcast. We are encouraged to send our videos and photographs into news channels for which they pay us nothing but the honour of having our names read out on air. YouTube has become the free repository of gaffs, gags, and the grisly, and it is these momentary oddities of life that are delivered into our living rooms on a daily basis. They may be cheap filler but they are increasingly defining our culture, and who and what we are.
Against these new standards, older forms of expression seem precisely that: old, outdated, lapsing into insignificance for all but a few who wish to cherish their archaic mannerisms. Structure went out of the window with the talent. This is a world made by and for William S. Burroughs where everything it cut up and rearranged. The most damning criticism of any form of culture these days is to describe it as ‘safe’. Although new media isn’t really new media at all (though the medium has certainly changed), it is a new way of ascribing value to the brash, the bold, the ballsy. MTV can lay claim to have been in the vanguard of this new aesthetic of grotesque banality. ‘Jackass’ (and it’s UK derivative ‘Dirty Sanchez’) represented the most extreme examples of the low-brow writ large. When a man is willing to put a staple through his own foreskin in order to get on TV, there’s very little chance that the slow burn privations of long term artistic integrity stand any chance of succeeding. What chance the young but talented landscape painter against Damien Hurst’s diamond-encrusted skulls or the media-savvy doodling of ‘Banksy’?
As rank amateurism flourishes, professional amateurism gains ground. It is now an established practice that all those tangential to fame also find fame. The world is filled with hundreds like Karl Pilkington (mate to Ricky Gervais) or Jimmy Doherty (he of ‘Jimmy’s Farm’ and childhood friend of Jamie Oliver). Give the audience more of what they think they want. Why be satisfied with Ozzie when there’s also Sharon, Kelly, and Jack? We want more, more, more, more of the same...
The ironies are as apparent as they are vulgar. Democratising the means of production has led us to the point where the daughters of rock stars can present the news, footballers wives produce newspaper columns, porn stars write books for children. The product may be inferior to that of the professionals whose jobs they have taken but only by reducing our standards have we allowed ourselves to become in thrall to those standards and to these people. Our banality breeds their banality and it can only get worse.
As the visual has risen, it is customary to say that the written has lessened in significance. Yet the written word still has a role to play: it’s that of the placeholder or the tag. It isn’t so important that words are put together with any artistry. They must simply exist in the right form to help people find the visuals to satisfy their hunger for quick Big Mac entertainment. It isn’t hard to envisage a time when good tagging is cherished over good writing. In fact, it might already be here. Welcome to the world of the blogosphere.
Is it possible that too much creative oxygen makes us hyperventilate? Do we breathe hard and fast because there’s simply too much culture to enjoy? Or is it that we’ve not enough quality carbon dioxide in the blood, too few producers of merit and note? And how do creators keep pace in a world where the average consumer with a video recorder stands more chance of success than an artist in a studio? Is it culture? Is it art? Is it even good for us?
The most popular websites in the UK are generally those like the BBC that already have a large readership because of their (old-media) mainstream activities, or those that embrace the counter-side of culture. Yet to describe it as counterculture is trite when it is really in the ascension. To be counter in our culture is to still believe in the role of the library or the museum, it is to read books other than those plugged 24/7 via Amazon’s newsletters. To be different is to refuse to embrace this cult of difference. A few people still succeed by working the old way. From the creative individual’s point of view, it has more guarantee of success. However, when the creative pool is measured in the many millions, the media can carry on plucking out the lucky strikes. From their point of view, there is always another funny clip of a dog wearing glasses, a guy trying to mix cola and mints, another monkey who has struck a few keys together and accidentally written a masterpiece. No wonder so many of us are confused and gasping for breath.
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
First Voice
I suppose I begin with the thing that started my thinking about voice and it’s that quote by Philip Roth I’ve put to the right of the page. When I first read this line I questioned if ‘voice’ is really as uncategorisable as this quote would suggest. Might we not equally equate it to ‘genius’ and from there leave it alone as an irreducible truth? The assumption is that ‘voice’ is out there, to be picked up from ether if the writer has the talent. It’s a fairly common assumption. It’s the hackneyed line: ‘You either have it or you don’t, kid... And you sure as hell don’t’.
My instincts – my faith, I suppose – encourage me to believe that it’s more practical than that. Voice is a deliberate construction which at the most basic level comes down to lexical choices, runs through syntax and grammar, and expands to include something as nebulous as ‘world view’ or ideology. Might we not say that Orwell’s voice is still apparent in many an iconic dystopia?
At the level of words, though, I think we can be more precise. Roth himself writes the words of Nathan Zuckerman who is himself repeating the words of his idol, E. I. Lonoff. And he makes an subtle choice in the quote that really began my thinking about voice. ‘Voice’, says Lonoff, ‘begins at around the back of the knees’. I think the ‘at’ is superfluous unless it does something we don’t initially notice. Voice ‘begins around’ would make for an easier read. Only, voice is not about what’s easy. It’s about what is characteristic. The ‘at’ gives us a broken rhythm of speech, or, at the least, it locates us in the idiom of the Jewish writer living much of his life out in the countryside. Lonoff, Zuckerman, or Roth: the line passes us by unpolished. And to my untrained ear (or eye) is critical to understand voice because voice is as much about the unpolished nature of prose than it is about presenting clean marble. Voice is alive when prose appears to be hewn from a natural rock face.
To jump metaphors: it is the background radiation – a ‘white noise’ – that lies beneath whatever we’re hearing.
Take another example, and speaking of 'White Noise', it is from the first page of Don DeLillo’s ‘Falling Man’.
Where is the voice here? I would say it’s the prolonged detail lapsing into repetition (the running and repeated images of people covering their faces). I also think it’s most apparent in the disjointed fourth sentence, beginning ‘They had shoes...’. The narrator breaks off, ‘a woman with a shoe in each hand’, as if the woman has literally run through his sentence. The voice here is harried. It makes, of course, for a great opening. There is momentum generated by fleeting glimpses of a scene, rather than a prolonged exposure to detail.
My instincts – my faith, I suppose – encourage me to believe that it’s more practical than that. Voice is a deliberate construction which at the most basic level comes down to lexical choices, runs through syntax and grammar, and expands to include something as nebulous as ‘world view’ or ideology. Might we not say that Orwell’s voice is still apparent in many an iconic dystopia?
At the level of words, though, I think we can be more precise. Roth himself writes the words of Nathan Zuckerman who is himself repeating the words of his idol, E. I. Lonoff. And he makes an subtle choice in the quote that really began my thinking about voice. ‘Voice’, says Lonoff, ‘begins at around the back of the knees’. I think the ‘at’ is superfluous unless it does something we don’t initially notice. Voice ‘begins around’ would make for an easier read. Only, voice is not about what’s easy. It’s about what is characteristic. The ‘at’ gives us a broken rhythm of speech, or, at the least, it locates us in the idiom of the Jewish writer living much of his life out in the countryside. Lonoff, Zuckerman, or Roth: the line passes us by unpolished. And to my untrained ear (or eye) is critical to understand voice because voice is as much about the unpolished nature of prose than it is about presenting clean marble. Voice is alive when prose appears to be hewn from a natural rock face.
To jump metaphors: it is the background radiation – a ‘white noise’ – that lies beneath whatever we’re hearing.
Take another example, and speaking of 'White Noise', it is from the first page of Don DeLillo’s ‘Falling Man’.
It was not a street anymore but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night. He was walking north through rubble and mud and there were people running past holding towels to their faces or jackets over their heads. They had handkerchiefs pressed to their mouths. They had shoes in their hands, a woman with a shoe in each hand, running past him. They ran and fell, some of them, confused and ungainly, with debris coming down around them, and there were people taking shelter under cars.
Where is the voice here? I would say it’s the prolonged detail lapsing into repetition (the running and repeated images of people covering their faces). I also think it’s most apparent in the disjointed fourth sentence, beginning ‘They had shoes...’. The narrator breaks off, ‘a woman with a shoe in each hand’, as if the woman has literally run through his sentence. The voice here is harried. It makes, of course, for a great opening. There is momentum generated by fleeting glimpses of a scene, rather than a prolonged exposure to detail.
Monday, 30 June 2008
A Blog About Doubt.
One of my ideas was simple. I wanted to put my ideas down about the books I’ve been reading. Yet more important were the doubts about the books not yet written. My own books and my own voice. The things I think and the things that I don't think but should. I’ve never given much thought to my own voice in an academic sense. Is voice more than that habits we hold onto? Is it the habits we break or make for ourselves? Where does voice live in the text of a novel? And what can we learn by reading books? How have other writers established this obscure thing called ‘voice’? This is an excise for me. A place to put doubts so that I don't trip up on them.
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