The Deepest Part of the Ocean Will Remain Forever Dark ...

... until the sun boils away the seas and we are long gone.

Listening to - Philip Glass - not sure which title though.

There are so many possible catalysts about. I cannot choose which to go with. The thought of the screen equivalent of blank paper is too much. In the poetry document (which is close by here - so close to you, like being just out reach in the fourth dimension), the moment after the chore of emboldening the title seems to be loaded with so much possibility. There are thousands of words in the language and so many ways to put them together. The first character almost seems to burn itself into the electronics and the recoil comes back at me through the keyboard. The poem last night was written in a notebook with a fountain pen and it felt so good; I love the little acts of crossing out and inserting words; it just seems so powerful to be able to command these images with just a pen. It is all very well with a photograph or a paintbrush but nearly everyone can use a pen. I could not imagine how those clunky typewriters ever caught on what with the need for snow-pake/Tippex etc. At the moment blank paper or screen seems to demand to be filled.

Why is modern life so obsessed with triviality? Maybe I take things too seriously. Recently I have become worried that I am recovering from autism. I had many obsessions in my teens, with turning off taps and shutting doors etc. I still cannot look a stranger in the eye; it just seems not right. Could someone with the emotional blankness that autism produces produce poems? Maybe I have learned the correct reactions like psychopaths learn how to react to the things that they are unable to connect with emotionally. Maybe other things cause my emotional problems.

As you may have worked out, I got these worries after reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. I see the obsessions of the main character as almost normal, the science, the lack of eye contact, the touch taboos etc. I have learnt to react over the years in order to get by. Maybe my brain has corrected itself like a stroke sufferer who loses the function handled by the destroyed part of their brain and regains it after the brain re-wires itself to bypass the damage and free-up undamaged circuits. I feel emotional at times; I cry at all the requisite things right down to the death of the Tsar and they feel real and deeply meaningful to me. My worries cannot have basis in fact.

Word does not seem to have corrected any grammar in this piece. Maybe I am beginning to learn Word's style. Maybe it is a trick like the Encarta Dictionary of World English, a trick to force us all to talk like Microsoft as well as to use their software. Well at least I can string some words together. Please tell me if there are any grocers' apostrophes. I assume that I have that correct, as it is many grocers who have apostrophes and therefore the apostrophe goes after the s which indicates the plural. Lynne Truss has made me a proto-stickler. I though the reviewer who complained that the statement about lack of capitalisation with reference to e.e. cummings (sic) was being a bit pedantic when he stated that Mr. Cummings always capitalised his name. This page proves that he DID but the point being made was that most people immediately think of lack of capitalisation in Cummings' poetry (See another one - they're getting in everywhere - there goes another one) and the best way to indicate this was to use the version of his name which comes to mind. It was - horror - a joke.

Some E.E. Cummings to end with i think.

anyone lived in a pretty how town

Frieda - I am so sorry

Listening to - Four Organs - Steve Reich

Don't listen to this if, like one person at the premier, you are the sort who will bang the stage with a shoe if you do not like something. If you are listening to a CD then probably all you will have to bash will be something of yours. Four Organs is the same chord played over and over against a maraca rhythm, just lengthened each cycle. I think it is wonderful.

My DVD copy of Sylvia arrived yesterday so after restraining my self enough to watch Terry Jones' wonderful programme about Medieval Lives, I dived straight in. Well I have to say that it spookily matched the images in my head. Even more spookily, there is an early scene where Ted and his mates are reciting poetry or plays at high speed. One does "Henry King" but Hughes' piece is Prince Hal's soliloquy from Henry IV Part 1 so Henry King and King Henry bookend the scene. What is spookier is that the soliloquy is the one long piece of Shakespeare that I have memorised after being forced to by my English teacher in about 1980. It was only Saturday that I quoted it for reasons I cannot remember.

I suppose I ought to make an effort and do a longer review. have to say that the film messed up real life quite badly for the sake of flow, though it may have benefited from being a bit longer and fleshing things out. Some aspects of Plath's character were glossed over - she used to re-use old papers so I suspect she would not have screwed up paper to throw away. In some ways though and contradicting what I have just said, maybe the film did not need to be made. People who know Plath's life would not really gain anything other than entertainment involving the object of their hero-worship and lay viewers might well be bored unless they like beautifully composed shots.

Over all I was not disappointed but I could not feel anything other than that the film was an accurate visual representation of what happened even if the characters were flattened. Contrary to what I thought, there was quite a bit of Plath's poetry in the film (none of Hughes' though) but it was often in the form of audio equivalents of the spinning newspaper to indicate time spent composing and even then I think some of it seemed made-up. Maybe I just do not remember enough of her poetry. As one reviewer said, what can a film about poets actually do other than show the hard life that inspires them? Well, neither Hughes nor Plath had a really hard life physically but Plath was bound in the cycle of her own emotional problems anyway. In a way I could say that this is a film about how the other half lives, the emotional, literary people whose outlook on life and love differ from us mere mortals though looking at the tabloids these days maybe I am the peculiarity. See this film and it will not be a wasted ticket but as you probably know, the end is what we expect. I am not sure whether they resisted temptation by not extending the film into the posthumous life or whether they stuck to the brief of the original title of the film - Ted and Sylvia - which leaves me with an image of a Venn Diagram of the lives of the two poets with the film being the intersection, which is what it was. Sylvia on its own suggests that the film should have started in the thirties and finished where it did.

I wrote a long poem after the film finished. The house was quiet as my wife had not managed to stay the distance. It felt quite unworldly like the house was all that the universe consisted of at that time, or maybe like the Tardis spinning in space, the atmosphere of so many of Plath's poems. I know this sounds like real self-indulgent, self-reference and maybe you are right but have a look at the poems inspired by Sylvia Plath page here. My poem is better than most of these. There is also discussion of the film on the same site.

Invective Perfected

In a quiet place, the non-humans come and go, silent things to stay hidden from us. They are always there, waiting for us to go but often they wait for years for an empty space.

I know there are no easy solutions but this makes me feel so bad. Political ambitions (though how wanting a nuclear weapon can really be classified as being political is beyond me) seem to be ultimately, consciously or subconsciously, about nest-feathering and have no real thought for the people they 'represent'. Yes! I am being naive and I know that the BBC have specifically put a picture of three angelic though rake-thin children at the head of their article but surely the provision of food and other basic staples of life should be the most important thing. The inertia in the world is disgusting. So you are all going to shout at me and ask what exactly I am doing. The answer, apart from ranting about it, is nothing. But the point being that the people who have the capability and the responsibility for doing something are also doing next-to-nothing.

Now the Fortean Times may do one of their Myth-Chasers about this but I have always been led to believe that the world has more than enough food to provide for everyone. It is just that the west is reluctant to part with its surplus either because it is difficult to transport that much food without costing a fortune or, more likely that, deep down, the western governments have a vested interest in stopping the rest of the world becoming too productive and taking over markets which have traditionally been served by the first world. Of course we need the third world so big business can get its supply of cheap labour - see here for Oxfam's take on this. If the Wal-mart and Teco so have ethical trading policies as they claim, then I would like to see them employing or, better still, funding someone to check-up on the supposed breaches.

Ranty Bob, who never gets up and does anything, just writes about it all. I feel so guilty that my lifestyle is funded by my inaction and reliance on the very facts about which I complain so loudly. And yet my family and I live our live quite simply compared to the majority of people. We only have one car, though technically we should have none as my commute is well-served with public transport.

Don't Care About Spots on Apples

Listening to - Fairytales of Slavery - Miranda Sex Garden

This is far better than I remember it. I bought this record on the back of their wonderful Madra, which was unaccompanied madrigals and other such stuff. Fairytales of Slavery is more like some definitive If-you-are-a-goth-you-MUST-do-it-like-this manual. If you like your goth sweetly singing with weird 4AD style rumblings in the background then get this. If you don't then ... er ... don't.

Notice the entirely correct use of the apostrophe there? Well I finally succumbed and got a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I always knew how to use an apostrophe - you sling it over your shoulder, blow into one end and a noise like a sick duck comes out of the other - though you may not believe me looking back at the archives. The author of this sweet little book (not sure about commas yet though) is entirely correct that punctuation is important. Sadly these days, the problem is not really just one of bad punctuation but of bad writing in general. I know I am not the most wonderful of writers but some of the memo I have to read are just sad; they need rereading to get any meaning from them because all rules of grammar seem to have been ignored. More to report later. Just a joke there. This is conversational and the occasional ellipsis is permitted.

I watched Powaqqatsi yesterday, on my own because my wife, despite liking Koyaanisqatsi more than she thought she would, was not able to take two plotless movies in a week. There are some excruciatingly powerful shots in this film; the South-American dancers were amazing and together with the music made a film which said so much without any words at all. An acre of meaning could be gleaned from every minute, far more than say a whole afternoon of "live from the jungle". It is very like Man With a Movie Camera except that Reggio and crew had a helicopter and air-travel. I have just noticed that Koyaanisqatsi is mentioned in the IMDB review of MWAMC - which is nice.

Pip Pip!

Yesterday was the 80th birthday of the BBC time signal pips.

Listening to - Powaqqatsi - Philip Glass

Now koyaanisqatsi was wonderful. I have seen it several times before, once when it was shown very late by Channel 4 and I could not sleep afterwards. The long section called The Grid is just breath taking. It consists of static shots of cities sped up and gradually sped up further until near the end of the sequence it is difficult to work out what you are seeing. Now there was a passage early in 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time' where the narrator hits a policeman because he asks him questions without giving him time to reply; the information just builds up in his head. This struck me as similar to what I experienced when watching The Grid section.

I was driving in to work the other day when two massive building cranes loomed out of the mist. They were angled so that the jibs were facing in exact opposite directions like a massive honour guard or those two giant statues at the end of the first Lord of the Rings film. I though that it would have made a great time-lapse sequence to have them move slowly throughout the sunrise but of course the film-maker didn't script anything for Koyaanisqatsi. The film looks stunning; some of the cityscapes are so beautiful and together with the music they create real 'tingle factor' and yet all the time it is in the back of your head that you are supposed to be horrified by what humans are doing to the planet and that you are part of the problem. My memory of this film has always been that it was a gritty low-fi thing meant to make a point rather than be beautiful but watching it yesterday I was struck by how perfect it actually was.

Slow Waltz with Building Cranes

Listening to - Sheryl Crow - er by Sheryl Crow

Like that is so eponymous!

There was halo around the moon last night. It was full and at about ten lunar diameters from the moon itself, there was a light line caused by the moonlight in the thin layer of cloud that was up there. Lunar Halos are probably not quite as rare as I made out to my wife but it is the first time I have seen one. What with that and it being my birthday as well, I felt quite content last night even if I am now 40.

That meant DVD frenzy, with the double DVD pack of Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi. Now these being scored by Philip Glass, my wife was expecting a night in the kitchen but she decided to put up with Koyaanisqatsi and had to admit that she quite liked it. Cue one smug birthday boy. We didn't risk overload by trying to watch Powaqqatsi but instead went on to Anita and Me. Ok so it wasn't deep but contrary to what some of the reviewers say, I think it stuck at least to the emotional side of the book.

Just read this article sparked by John Lydon's outburst and departure from I'm a Celebrity, get me some more publicity. Nice to see Roger Mellie still reminiscing.

More on the DVDs later.

I also got more books, which has prompted my sister to suggest that we may not actually have room for them all) - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, which is so easy to read that I am already up to Chapter 97. Well that sounds more impressive than it actually is because the chapter numbers are all prime so it is only chapter 25 really. Actually that sound quite good as well. I am getting worried. In both the program by Luke Jackson, the teenager who wrote Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome and in the latest book, I have though that the supposed symptoms of Asperger's syndrome seem no more than normal. I don't think of myself as unemotional but as a teenager I seem to have had trouble working out how people reacted to me and always assumed the worst. I am more able to work things out now but sometimes the flashbacks hinder me. I can still understand the 'proper ' answer to the Monty Hall problem though even if I went along with the intuitive answer (which is the wrong one). The other book is Wintering by Kate Moses, the concept of which sounded so horrendous at first but the reviews have convinced me to try it. The author writes about the final months of Sylvia Plath's life. I will let you know.

Return With a Muted Trumpet

Well I wanted to start writing a few minutes ago but I couldn't think of any thing but after a few minutes away on the Amazon web site I have come back. Not that I want to write about anything I saw there though there may be some purchases made over the next few days.

Still reading Experience and I have to say that I have been impressed by Mr Amis' lightness when it comes to talking about himself. The fact that his cousin, Lucy Partington was a victim of Fred and Rose West might have meant a continuous miasma of gloom over the whole thing but it is not like that at all. Occasionally he comes out with some short invective about the murderers and yet when this is over, the overriding sense is of celebration of the Lucy's life. I am only a third of the way through and I could not tell you if the book is in any way chronological or not. The letters he writes to his father and Step-Mother that are interspersed throughout the book seem to be in order but the rest of the book jumps back and forth seemingly as he thinks of things to write about. You may think that this makes the book confusing but again it adds to a new image of someone who probably seems very serious to those who are familiar with his writing. I need a good editor; the one in my head is useless. Maybe I just can't write.

This sounds terrible - like sixth-form magazine stuff. Coupled with this little local depression a great wave of “no future” has swept over me, well maybe not a long term thing but a wish to stop the current action and do something completely different. Like swimming through treacle (sorry! Golden Syrup).

A Swamp of Fear and Loathing

"The trouble is that he had such a small ... intellect."

Listening to - Heaven and Earth - Jah Wobble


We watched a couple of the episodes of A Very Peculiar Practice that I taped from BBC 4 over Christmas. The book of the same name had a gimmicky insert at the start of each chapter in which the writer of the TV series (a guy called Rust rather than Andrew Davies who actually wrote both book and screenplay) talks to the (real) producer of the TV show. Yes! Confusing isn't it. Well it worked in the book but it is good that this device was not carried over to TV. It struck me last night that AVPP was actually quite gimmick free and I was trying to work out whether this was a feature of such drama at the time or just a refreshing reaction to the need to keep people's attention. There were many pauses which today would be filled with music which would then bleed into the dialog and make it inaudible. I know it seems that TV drama these days is a lot more sophisticated but in a lot of cases this is because the production values vis-à-vis the visuals, the picture composition, the lighting etc are so much higher. For a lot of people I think this makes something better than the writing would suggest. Now is this wonderful visual style done in order to paper over the cracks in the writing or is the writing so much worse because the writers know they cannot compete with the rinky-dinky little camera tricks?

For years I have periodically employed the phrase "rinky-dinky-little" as an adjective for many things and yesterday I realised that I had nicked the phrase from Bob - Sorry! Robert Buzzard in AVPP. I like to think it was an ironic theft rather than a subconscious admiration for the monster that was Dr. Buzzard. Maybe my understanding of irony was at American levels when I stole it.

A Very Peculiar Practice seems to have brought attention to many of the ludicrous attitudes and actions of people which at the time of transmission were probably under the radar for the general public but which now are part of everything from business to government. It was a sort of Catch-22 for academia though Heller has updated Catch 22 for a business situation.

Pouring Out Attitude

Listening to - I Can Hear the Heart Beating - Yo La Tengo

Ooh! Dig that loungy sound!

As someone said, maybe it is not only the case that complex cases should be heard without a jury but without a judge as well. Ouch! Roll on the next 'inquiry'.

Preparing to be Disappointed?

Listening to - Eight Lines - Steve Reich

Maybe the BBC are not that good after all. This article seems to be saying that the film Sylvia is all gloss and no substance. This may be the case; I am already prepared to be very disappointed but the article has a picture of Ted Hughes and a woman they claim is Plath who is in fact Hughes' wife Carol. (Update at 12:37pm - They have taken the picture down and replaced it with a picture of Gwyneth Paltrow).

They also have a picture of Shannon Hunt, a student at Smith, who processes Plath's manuscripts into online lists, dressed as the poet for a college ball. Reminds me of Woody Allen's dismissal of Plath in Manhattan :-

WOODY ALLEN'S GLIB LINE from Annie Hall: "Oh, Sylvia Plath, whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the schoolgirl mentality."

I am still in the middle of reading Experience by Martin Amis and have just read the paragraphs about his contemplation of suicide that he says he would never have carried out while his parents were alive and not ever now he has children. Thinking of suicide is an insult all suicides I think he said, probably meaning that a very few people may have a genuine reason for taking their own lives but normal melancholia is never enough. Though as this admission was prompted by discussion of problems with his teeth (which are far more painful than my one brush with root canal work), it does seem to be trivial from the start, which I suppose is his point. It is all a bit breath-taking what with the stuff about Nabakov and you could easily feel that you are in danger of sounding like Sting with what must be the worst and most pretentious line ever in a pop-song (sounds like a category at the Brit Awards). Witness in case you have forgotten :-

He starts to shake he starts to cough
Just like the old man in
That famous book by Nabokov

(Great tune though! Well the original certainly is. Not sure about the 1986 version.)

Now Listening to - Whore - a tribute to Wire

Resolution - Make the poetry less over-blown. I have been telling myself for ages that poetry should be passionate, the verbal equivalent of gothic and yet having read all the poems I have written in the last two years in one go, I have decided that they are just too much. They need to be lighter in voice if not in subject matter. Maybe that is just what comes of reading them all in one go, late at night.

DVD Overdose

Listening to - Achtung Baby - U2

I love DVDs. We watched at least two over the weekend, not counting the continuous playing of Sooty DVDs by my daughter. The first of ours was The Shop Around the Corner which was the original inspiration for You've Got Mail. Now I was not expecting a quite convincing portrayal of a small gift shop in 1930's Budapest. The film was actually a version of s stage play. I thought it was going to be some soppy 1930's romantic comedy and while it wasn't exactly Kafka it was better than I was expecting. Not of course that I would watch anything based on something by Kafka by choice.

The second DVD was Catch Me If You Can which I quite liked the look of when it came up as part of an offer somewhere but which my wife was not really expecting much from. We both though it was an excellent film. It appears from Internet searches that Frank Abignale's life was just as wacky as the film shows. The book might be an interesting read.

Not exactly an overdose was it. Well the Sooty maybe. I hate sooty.