Mood: Dunno-frankly
[Toot!] Index: 5.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
[This post is dedicated to the Kenyans who endured the lack of wisdom that, for a while, underthrew tolerance, love, compassion and wisdom, in that country. And a quick Hell for those of us, like myself, who abated the horrors, or just stood back and watched (which is worse).]
In Entebbe, the city where the goddesses go to give birth, by the grand lake of I and I foremothers, Ennyanja Nalubaale (the Lake Victoria, the blasphemers call it).
There lives a tree stump, if you climb up towards Church Road, from this side of Queen's Road, and a piece of its torso that was deemed too gnarled to be usable. Around the bend, where there are frisky goats making kids under the sun, a tree has been dead for nearly two decades. When it was cut, there were tears of amber on the road for like maybe five months. I was so convinced they were tears, at that age, that I joined in the crying. I used to walk by, played around it with the dog, enjoyed it. Fought over it with my siblings. This was around the same time I discovered that if I didn't spend my pocket money today, I'd be able to spend more the next day. I don't remember the age, but put it at around seven.
Now, I once walked over to the tree, put my fifty-shilling note under some part of the tree stump, and walked on home. I think it was so that my sibs don't tell me to spend it, idiot, we'll get more tomorrow.
I checked the next day (to make 150/= and buy the bigger gummy bear), and I found nothing. Well, I found nearly nothing. The termites were chanting a lively revolutionary song, My Song In The Trench, and dragging off the last bit. If I had been three minutes late, I'd have thought I hallucinated having put it there.
My Ma doesn't really agree with kids putting money under tree stumps, but I was crying badly, and that makes a difference. So she gets a fifty, and a polyethene bag. She says, Let's go and put the money, okay. Don't cry, baby, don't cry. Let's replace it. Don't cry.
All this time I am saying, See, now I'd have a whole lot more!
She wrapped the money in the bag, one of those light transparent ones killing our environment because they don't fuckin' decompose, and we set off back to the tree stump. I showed her where I had originally banked my dough, and she put the new money. I don't remember asking why she had wrapped it in a kaveera, but I think I figured it would stop the termites. (I wasn't always this dumb, you know.)
Anyway, this started a habit. I used to alternate the days between the ones when I put a note and those when I withdrew from my `bank'. Then I realised that if I put for more days before I withdrew, there would be more gummy bears coming back out of the kiosk when I went to buy. (Okay, I was always a little slow.)
I started leaving the money there for days, before I went to eat enough bears to make me shiver with poisonous blood sugar levels. I've largely forgotten these precious money-management principles, but this story sticks in, because I went to check the tree stump out, recently, and it all came back vividly.
You see, I took the walk again, up Church Road, towards the school. Old paths are just therapeutic. I walked over to the stump. By now, it is just an old landmark people talk about when giving directions. Nobody knows what stories—of love, hate, misery, success, and how goats' sexual preferences change with sunlight intensity—the stump would tell, given an audience. An unmoving witness of decades; think about it. But a contemporary prophet once said, There's a natual mystic blowing t'ru the air. If you listen carefully, you will hear.
I stopped putting money there, when I had some sudden geographical changes to make. I moved from Entebbe for a while, and had no chance to get my money. Actually, I am not even sure there was any by the time I left. But I reached under the rotting wood and felt about. My fingers, they knew exactly what to do, as though it was back then. :o)
Now, if this story were not true, I'd put something here about finding my money and being glad. My fingers hit a slug, instead, and I pulled my hand back. It smelled of fungi. Nothing there. But I didn't expect anything, anyway, so I just got up, and put my sneakers onto the stump to steady myself against the pummeling of the memories and listen to the air and the goats suggesting adventurous things like `Humany style, where we face each other ...'
I was going to stop writing at this point, then I realised that you would not have read this far if you were not legitimately cheating time at work, so I may as well go on. If I wrote for hard-working readers like myself, I'd stop at the title. (For this paragraph, I've tried the Bazanye style, but it takes too much to maintain it for more than two sentences; not kid's play.)
Anyway, at this point the words jumped and stabbed me in both ears, and held the serrated daggers there. No introduction, as though we had been conversing for decades. ... and this is the whole concept, child, the words were saying, that we take what is precious-but-not-durable and wrap it in that which is less-precious-but-more-durable. It is called preservation. The cover matters a lot, though lowly. It is a fiercely-loyal, muscle-bound, battle-hardened mercenary working for a grand crown princess with soft hands. Dispensible, but impossible to do without. So your money was precious, protected by the kaveera. Pick your wrappings carefully, and you will live long, in good shape ...
I am not a fan of long-winded lectures. In short, the words were telling me which wrappings to use. Sijui love, kindness, forgiveness, meekness, slow-to-speak-quick-to-think, compassion ... fuck that shit. It bores me. Not practical. This tree stump that was talking to me has not been beyond this spot I was stepping on, yet it wants to give me a lecture. Don't get me wrong: I love the Natural Mystic, and I fuckin' well do listen carefully for it. But still. I just had to shoot back. Some of you here already know how I like to make my point, verbosely, with sabres, and only as much thought as it takes to find the nearest words.
I asked the tree stump, You've got fungi building advanced civilisations on your skin; how the fuck can you know anything about living long in good shape? And the stump said, I have the bark, you see. It is my wrapping. What is inside me lives yet. You see over here?
And, in all truth, there was a shoot growing there. Little, tiny, green capillary, but, yes, it was there alright. I was silent for a while, quiet, and wanting to say sorry for my earlier flare. But people would think I was some voyeur watching the goats fuck loudly, so I was already moving away when the tree stump said, That money you are looking for. You had been saving diligently, when you stopped coming over. The birds said you had to go to boarding school. I'm sad you didn't find your money. I just nodded, my eyes pregnant and burning. The Natural Mystic said, Look, some people came to clear this little bush and could have seen your money. And, naturaly, I thought, FUCK!, but the tree stump went on, I made sure they don't get it. You loved me to tears. I owed you a gift. You check around here, on this side. The wrapping is brown, by now, but the money has been well-preserved, under the bush. The currency changed, I've heard. These no longer work, but I think you can just keep it to remember what I've told you, my gift to you. Have you seen it?
[In other news, no better excuse for me to slip you this YouTube video. I don't know what I'd not give to watch a concert that starts like that. I never deserved not to be at that concert, because I was sinless at the time, Dear God in Heaven! I was not born, God, how could I have sinned enough not to deserve a chance at watching this?]
Friday, 29 February 2008
Tuesday, 26 February 2008
I'm Dedicating Time For African Lit, But ...
Mood: Literally Blank
[Toot!] Index: 0
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
First, if you use Firefox or Internet Explorer and the print on a page is too tiny/thin, expand it this way. Hold down the CTRL key and move the scroll wheel. If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, here. Firefox: CTRL + +. Internet Explorer: Menu -> View -> Text Size ...
I depend on it a lot, and good things are for sharing.
Second, I have been throttled on the issue of African lit at Tum's blog. Adelphe, boethei! :o) CB is over there, and he is also not too happy. The link is below; more anon. Until we return to African writers, Salman is, it appears, releasing a new book: The Enchantress of Florence. Hmm. But I'm going all African for a while, so that is in the queue, but not high-priority.
Also, Ivan is the coolest guy alive. He just moved his blog to Edge of Innocence. If the SMSes weren't enough, here's more congratulations, Ivan. Totally the stuff, moving to your own domain. I'd give you one of my daughters, if this had been a Chinua Achebe novel.
Now, the meat.
Tumwijuke wrote about the article Analyzing Achebe.
Okay, that article. I read it in the papers, and I didn't know if anybody else would find it as interesting. I didn't even know where to find the online version. Tum should give herself ten points. And, now, I am going to go into what I think about African lit.
By the way, I had written this already when I saw a reply to my comment at Tum's and I edited here, made it shorter. My rant is over there.
Also, many people can tell good stories, but that is not what I am after. I am after style. Read on with that in mind.
At Tum's, I dared to suggest that when an African writes in Achebe's historical context, they tend to write about naked dancing, and such-like anachronisms. It irks me that the first post-col writers set such a tenacious trend. I wanna defend my viewpoint here, and extend the indictment to even those that came later.
First, it is obvious that Africa is gifted with story-telling. There is no equal in all the world. We live, breathe story-telling. Give yourself 100 points if you've read Kikonyogo.
It's in Luganda, unfortunately, so that explains why it is relatively obscure. My favourite work of gun-toting fiction. I didn't say African. I mean of all.
Anyway, it was set in the '40s (pre-independence) and published in 1960 (independence), yet it is not fixated with faking a poetic tone to talk of wise birds and shit. It is (literally) straight-shooting detective fic. It was written back then, but it was not straddled with having to fake depth by referring to gods and the like.
Since these Achebes and Gakwandis, came into power, though, what is expected of us has become that boring stereotype: tell us about that case of corruption in your country, and remember to talk about the naked dancers.
When Adichie (she of a certain thick beauty about her) wrote Purple Hibiscus, her university dons in America were like Cummon, that ain't Africa! Where are the headless hunters? or something like that. Literature dons.
What I want to say is that when you write of a stereotypical Africa, you stand a chance to get put between covers. The problem is that you would, then, have to write about having to bribe the village council. When you write Bazanye (the style and attitude, rather than the leading practitioner, who happens to share the name), you will have people read to the end looking for where you talk about "Amalinze the Cat, because his back never touched the ground in the village wrestling matches" and the like.
I remember when African lit was my fave (maybe because nobody would let me near the uncensored stuff from beyond). It was Longman or MacMillan or the like that published those catching stories. They were great. Then I realised that they had died out (and that I had long since given up hoping to find them ever again) when I didn't get shocked at finding new pulps on sale that were all set in the village. I remember when the Monica Arak-Nyeko story (set in my Entebbe, beloved City of Goddesses) shocked me by ... not being set in the village. That's when I knew how much I had lost hope.
In the days after the hot pulp fic had faded, I discovered Bazanye (the writer). Worked like a drug, a hope to cling to. So, Baz, you know why I keep pestering you to write the Book (and I won't stop, no fuckin' excuses). Only Bazanye (the style and attitude) would be a strong-enough stroke to wake those fuckers up to read African lit that isn't trying to trick its way onto stalls by bending over to stereotypes. (Of course, there is also Iwaya and Inktus and Ivan ... tout le monde.) I remember listening to Iwaya's entry, some work he did and read online. (Was it some competition that Nate dug up once?) It was smooth writing, catchy, with suspense and no village elders. Infinitely better than that Okwonkwo stuff that is still winning honorary doctorates. Yet it is not on the stalls, and that is why I say our lit sucks.
Incidentally, Americans are also fixated with repetitive shit, and they get boring quickly, and that's why they aren't my favourites at all. I want me some variety. I need to have that variety. Until then, it all sucks.
Maybe not. I have been compiling a list of books to read for the Africa Reading Challenge. Really, just plagiarising Dee's list. There should be variety in there. Dee and Tum are like always right about books, and they have lists up. What these two recommend, I'll read. :o) I am going to borrow those that I haven't yet located. I have no number limits, because it is an open-ended thing for me, and will have a few non-Africans in there, but I know the theme night: African Reading Challenge. And not this War In Darfur shit; I mean fine fiction. It's About Time. Also, Baz, come with Ground Beneath. Dee, come with Midnight's Children. I'll bring back your two novels for the Happy Hour.
Remember: reading is not cheap like TV. It takes some to read; that's why not everybody does. And that reading has cyclic dependies—I've got to expect nice stuff to start reading, yet I can't see nice stuff before I start reading. In this, past experiences give the beginning. But for this Challenge, I'm going to reach in and taste, disregarding the crap that I endured before. Being the one who shouts about Africa being the best at everything, I'm more-eager to be proven wrong than any of you people out there could ever be in forty lifetimes of trying fanatically hard. :o)
[Toot!] Index: 0
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
First, if you use Firefox or Internet Explorer and the print on a page is too tiny/thin, expand it this way. Hold down the CTRL key and move the scroll wheel. If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, here. Firefox: CTRL + +. Internet Explorer: Menu -> View -> Text Size ...
I depend on it a lot, and good things are for sharing.
Second, I have been throttled on the issue of African lit at Tum's blog. Adelphe, boethei! :o) CB is over there, and he is also not too happy. The link is below; more anon. Until we return to African writers, Salman is, it appears, releasing a new book: The Enchantress of Florence. Hmm. But I'm going all African for a while, so that is in the queue, but not high-priority.
Also, Ivan is the coolest guy alive. He just moved his blog to Edge of Innocence. If the SMSes weren't enough, here's more congratulations, Ivan. Totally the stuff, moving to your own domain. I'd give you one of my daughters, if this had been a Chinua Achebe novel.
Now, the meat.
Tumwijuke wrote about the article Analyzing Achebe.
Okay, that article. I read it in the papers, and I didn't know if anybody else would find it as interesting. I didn't even know where to find the online version. Tum should give herself ten points. And, now, I am going to go into what I think about African lit.
By the way, I had written this already when I saw a reply to my comment at Tum's and I edited here, made it shorter. My rant is over there.
Also, many people can tell good stories, but that is not what I am after. I am after style. Read on with that in mind.
At Tum's, I dared to suggest that when an African writes in Achebe's historical context, they tend to write about naked dancing, and such-like anachronisms. It irks me that the first post-col writers set such a tenacious trend. I wanna defend my viewpoint here, and extend the indictment to even those that came later.
First, it is obvious that Africa is gifted with story-telling. There is no equal in all the world. We live, breathe story-telling. Give yourself 100 points if you've read Kikonyogo.
It's in Luganda, unfortunately, so that explains why it is relatively obscure. My favourite work of gun-toting fiction. I didn't say African. I mean of all.
Anyway, it was set in the '40s (pre-independence) and published in 1960 (independence), yet it is not fixated with faking a poetic tone to talk of wise birds and shit. It is (literally) straight-shooting detective fic. It was written back then, but it was not straddled with having to fake depth by referring to gods and the like.
Since these Achebes and Gakwandis, came into power, though, what is expected of us has become that boring stereotype: tell us about that case of corruption in your country, and remember to talk about the naked dancers.
When Adichie (she of a certain thick beauty about her) wrote Purple Hibiscus, her university dons in America were like Cummon, that ain't Africa! Where are the headless hunters? or something like that. Literature dons.
What I want to say is that when you write of a stereotypical Africa, you stand a chance to get put between covers. The problem is that you would, then, have to write about having to bribe the village council. When you write Bazanye (the style and attitude, rather than the leading practitioner, who happens to share the name), you will have people read to the end looking for where you talk about "Amalinze the Cat, because his back never touched the ground in the village wrestling matches" and the like.
I remember when African lit was my fave (maybe because nobody would let me near the uncensored stuff from beyond). It was Longman or MacMillan or the like that published those catching stories. They were great. Then I realised that they had died out (and that I had long since given up hoping to find them ever again) when I didn't get shocked at finding new pulps on sale that were all set in the village. I remember when the Monica Arak-Nyeko story (set in my Entebbe, beloved City of Goddesses) shocked me by ... not being set in the village. That's when I knew how much I had lost hope.
In the days after the hot pulp fic had faded, I discovered Bazanye (the writer). Worked like a drug, a hope to cling to. So, Baz, you know why I keep pestering you to write the Book (and I won't stop, no fuckin' excuses). Only Bazanye (the style and attitude) would be a strong-enough stroke to wake those fuckers up to read African lit that isn't trying to trick its way onto stalls by bending over to stereotypes. (Of course, there is also Iwaya and Inktus and Ivan ... tout le monde.) I remember listening to Iwaya's entry, some work he did and read online. (Was it some competition that Nate dug up once?) It was smooth writing, catchy, with suspense and no village elders. Infinitely better than that Okwonkwo stuff that is still winning honorary doctorates. Yet it is not on the stalls, and that is why I say our lit sucks.
Incidentally, Americans are also fixated with repetitive shit, and they get boring quickly, and that's why they aren't my favourites at all. I want me some variety. I need to have that variety. Until then, it all sucks.
Maybe not. I have been compiling a list of books to read for the Africa Reading Challenge. Really, just plagiarising Dee's list. There should be variety in there. Dee and Tum are like always right about books, and they have lists up. What these two recommend, I'll read. :o) I am going to borrow those that I haven't yet located. I have no number limits, because it is an open-ended thing for me, and will have a few non-Africans in there, but I know the theme night: African Reading Challenge. And not this War In Darfur shit; I mean fine fiction. It's About Time. Also, Baz, come with Ground Beneath. Dee, come with Midnight's Children. I'll bring back your two novels for the Happy Hour.
Remember: reading is not cheap like TV. It takes some to read; that's why not everybody does. And that reading has cyclic dependies—I've got to expect nice stuff to start reading, yet I can't see nice stuff before I start reading. In this, past experiences give the beginning. But for this Challenge, I'm going to reach in and taste, disregarding the crap that I endured before. Being the one who shouts about Africa being the best at everything, I'm more-eager to be proven wrong than any of you people out there could ever be in forty lifetimes of trying fanatically hard. :o)
Monday, 25 February 2008
"Même la Lune ne pluere pas pour toujours pour son Soleil avant qu'il y a un autre"
Mood: Natural-mystic-flying-I
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
When is the nextUB40 UBHH? Tell I in the comments, please.
I should be working. And, since I am working on contract, there is no slacking off thinking the salary will come in anyway. But a contract gig is what I needed to pad me pockets out after taking a dangerously-long break from working.
Nonetheless, I will be taking a full year off in a year's time. I discovered the beautiful joys of not having to work, and I can't come unhooked. Irregardless of how much it hurts. (I've used the word!) Until then, I am trying to set up ways to be earning without actually working. Beednesses, you know. So that, insha'llah, I'll make the leave eternal, and go driving around the Beautiful Motherland, from end to end, with only a laptop, cameras, money and someone to make love to. (I used the phrase!)
After Uganda, I'd tour Africa, then le monde entier. (... phrase!)
I don't want to have too much money. I want to have too much fun, stories to tell when my legs finally give way, little kiddiwinks scaterred all over le monde entier who'll scratch and bite over the few cents I'll leave behind when I die.
I'm in a bouyant mood. You know, we had a total lunar eclipse. I saw it and I saw the moon's lips moving, but I didn't hear the words. Clearly, I'm so out of touch with the mystical order of my foremothers. Batembuzi are supposed to be good at deciphering the songs of the heavenly bodies.
Still, the message came some other way that I can't fit into this post. Something about finding a long, scathing letter in (poor) French from my alter ego, telling me to stop being a spineless assholic muhfucker. "... Even the moon only mourns one Sun for merely a short time, and then there's another Sun. Didn't you see that? Usually just about 5 mins. Fuck you for dragging us all to where only you chose to go, spineless asshole..." Sheesh! Fine, okay! My God!
But the positive part is that I had a pro interpret the message for me. Still, I should get back in touch with my mystical side quickly.
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
When is the next
I should be working. And, since I am working on contract, there is no slacking off thinking the salary will come in anyway. But a contract gig is what I needed to pad me pockets out after taking a dangerously-long break from working.
Nonetheless, I will be taking a full year off in a year's time. I discovered the beautiful joys of not having to work, and I can't come unhooked. Irregardless of how much it hurts. (I've used the word!) Until then, I am trying to set up ways to be earning without actually working. Beednesses, you know. So that, insha'llah, I'll make the leave eternal, and go driving around the Beautiful Motherland, from end to end, with only a laptop, cameras, money and someone to make love to. (I used the phrase!)
After Uganda, I'd tour Africa, then le monde entier. (... phrase!)
I don't want to have too much money. I want to have too much fun, stories to tell when my legs finally give way, little kiddiwinks scaterred all over le monde entier who'll scratch and bite over the few cents I'll leave behind when I die.
I'm in a bouyant mood. You know, we had a total lunar eclipse. I saw it and I saw the moon's lips moving, but I didn't hear the words. Clearly, I'm so out of touch with the mystical order of my foremothers. Batembuzi are supposed to be good at deciphering the songs of the heavenly bodies.
Still, the message came some other way that I can't fit into this post. Something about finding a long, scathing letter in (poor) French from my alter ego, telling me to stop being a spineless assholic muhfucker. "... Even the moon only mourns one Sun for merely a short time, and then there's another Sun. Didn't you see that? Usually just about 5 mins. Fuck you for dragging us all to where only you chose to go, spineless asshole..." Sheesh! Fine, okay! My God!
But the positive part is that I had a pro interpret the message for me. Still, I should get back in touch with my mystical side quickly.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Six Things About I And I
Mood: Tagged-taggin'
[Toot!] Index: 1.0
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
I have good times ahead. I'm on the rebound, even though I'm still in the trough that I get before a high. (For how can one rise, unless one be down? Isn't that the joy of not having? That you may yet get? Isn't that the beauty in being under? That you may yet rise to the top? The trough is merely an investment that buys you the opportunity for a high.)
Scotchie done tagged I to tell six things about me. I've put the rules and my taggees at the bottom.
So, let me warn right away: this will get a tad deep. I'm not reserving of myself. I just needed a cue, and I'd come tumbling out to myself. I'm a fine psycho-the-rapist for myself. I sit here and my mind walks a few paces outside my body, and he strips nude (I don't know why he does this, either), and I start asking me-him questions. His answers usually end up in my diary. That is what I am doing, as I write this. This time, the answers will be here for tout le monde à lire.
That's it. I tag Baz, Carlo, Cheri, Dee, Inky and Tumwijuke. This list is in alphabetical order. The rules are:
[Toot!] Index: 1.0
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
I have good times ahead. I'm on the rebound, even though I'm still in the trough that I get before a high. (For how can one rise, unless one be down? Isn't that the joy of not having? That you may yet get? Isn't that the beauty in being under? That you may yet rise to the top? The trough is merely an investment that buys you the opportunity for a high.)
Scotchie done tagged I to tell six things about me. I've put the rules and my taggees at the bottom.
So, let me warn right away: this will get a tad deep. I'm not reserving of myself. I just needed a cue, and I'd come tumbling out to myself. I'm a fine psycho-the-rapist for myself. I sit here and my mind walks a few paces outside my body, and he strips nude (I don't know why he does this, either), and I start asking me-him questions. His answers usually end up in my diary. That is what I am doing, as I write this. This time, the answers will be here for tout le monde à lire.
- I am dying—literally dying—to send my mother a bottle of red wine. I want to be strong like a real man, but when I think how far my Ma is from me, far away in Babylon, I just go away from where anybody can see me, and I cry. There, I said it. I cry, because I miss my Mama to madness. I would go to Babylon to see her, but those muhfuckers will refuse to let me through. Now I want her to drink wine I have selected for her. Mummy, I love you. Just hold on for a little bit, I'll send you nice red Bordeaux, exactly as you like it, Mummy. That leave I told you about, it has made me broke. But when I get me a salary, I'll send you a surprise present. Music CDs and a bottle of fine, red wine.
Jesus, talking about my Ma just gets me emotional. - My dreadlocks haven't seen the inside of a hair parlour for so long. They have that raw, guerilla look about them. I love it intensely, but I like when the lady at the hair parlour rubs it with thick, colourful shampoos and massages it with her eyes closed, and says she wishes it were hers, and I say I wish hers were mine, instead, and we both laugh and I say I'd, in fact, love to have her boobs as well, and she says I can have them, and I say Oh, that's cool, and she says it's up to me when, and I am feeling really brave, and I say we could just slip into some upper room and I get my boobs, and she says I am going to be done with work at eight, and eight o'clock comes, and I am too shy to show up to `get my boobs'. This time, maybe I'll be brave.
- I hated mathematics in school. There was no discernible reason why, but I just kept failing and hating it. My teacher once shivered with anger when he was asking me why I got as far as the right answer, and then wrote the wrong one. I had got 05% in that paper. One lone tick, one correct answer stood in a big, dark, intimidating forest of angry, frustrated crosses. I had barely got a single mark in the paper. I learnt, that day, that even teachers knew how to put the F word into sentences. The teacher said, Why the fuck do you discourage me?
The years went by, I dropped out of school, and ... I am reading mathematics these days, and I don't hate it. The difference is that, these days, it makes my computer programming be more-elegant. I don't give a fuck about S4 marks. But my code matters. :o) - There is a thing I want to write, but I don't know how to get words for it. I'll put it lower down. For now, I'll tread on with this one: my cat is lactose-intolerant. She loves milk, definitely, but she gets a running stomach when she drinks it. So, the milk is back to being mine alone. You know, the thing about keeping cats is that it is more an exercise in taking orders than giving them. Cats know they are not dogs, and they flaunt it. Everything on their terms. So, if I can refuse to give it milk when it wants it, that is a nice way for me to re-affirm to my insecure self that I, in fact, run the street.
- This is going to be obfuscated to protect the privacy of the She in it. Unlike my usual self, I got very emotional with some girl, some time back then. My ka-poor, feeble heart was taken hostage. With time, I dropped the maybes of that kind of situation (maybe I am imagining this, maybe she doesn't ..., maybe she only wants ..., maybe, maybe, maybe). I tend to give all, when I fall for a girl, which is very dangerous since, as I already said, mine is a feeble heart. Just breaks on the first impact. Unfortunately, I didn't even see the signs that God places in the ether to warn me. Ka-ching-ping-boom-crash-bang-ding! Even nearly a week later, I was still stuck in the denial phase.
Yet if you ask me how I feel about her now? I ... [deep breath, calm down] ... love her. Not in that other way as it was before, but in a new way. And, in what maybe the most confusing discovery about myself since I was sixteen, I know for a fact that I like this better. She is one of those girls whose intelligence is nearly confrontational, and even if you manage to ignore everything else about her, you'll have to love the beauty of her mind. And when I resumed praying, around the time my little heart was mashed, I have been praying for my Mum, my cat, my siblings, and her. She stands out in the list for being the one I have the person I have the least connection to. But if She ever sees this (unlikely), here's the message: know that, if you ever need anything, anyone, anytime I will be ready to help with a whole heart. This is stuff I reserve for the people I remember to pray for. And you made it into that list. That status is eternal, even when I stop praying. - That's the part I wanted to get words for. The last is a kink I have. I love fire. From back when I was a kid, I have burnt roughly everything. Eyelashes, especially. Pyromania. I get big fat kicks out fires. My wildest sexual fantasies involve a grand, steady, roaring blaze, illuminating passionate bodies in jumpy variations of light and dark. Small fires inspire me, big fires arouse me. I used to carry a small lighter (I've recently resumed the habit) that I'd stare at burning, and nice verses would be forming in my head, problems would get imaginative solutions. So, in spite of living at the very heart of the equator, my bedroom will have that aphrodisiac flame when I wanna make some long, sensual, poetic love.
That's it. I tag Baz, Carlo, Cheri, Dee, Inky and Tumwijuke. This list is in alphabetical order. The rules are:
- Link back to your tagger
- Post these rules in your submission
- Share six things/habits/quirks/whatever about you in your submission
- Tag six [random] people at the end of it
- Tell each taggee via comments that he/she done been tagged
- There is no sixth rule
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Clawing Back My Sanity
Mood: Moew
[Toot!] Index: 3.2
Communism Bit: On
Location: Job, of course
So, a few thingies first.
There is The Closeted Lesbian over here. The blogren, they be diverse, eh? From what I gleaned: anonymous Ugandan lesbian in exile. But I left a comment and she deleted it. Maybe she missed the joke, and thought I was trying to be offensive. I know it's what they tend to expect, and it's easy for humour to fall off the page in written communication, so I forgive both of us. Just be cautious when you go over there. Well, anyway, that's one other LGBT blogger, as we deal with GUG over here. Kyoka the way I kinda like lesbians ... ;o) It's mostly all in my perverse head, but still.
(Am I the only one who is careful with words when talking about gay bloggers? Heh.)
Also, rant, rant, rant. Selah.
Okay, now, we move on. I've had quite a week.
(Shit. I just realised it's only a week! :-o Felt like a whole month!)
So, I was really, really distraught, this month-week. I live at sanity's edge, and it's easy for me to get pushed over. This week, I got shoved off the fuckin' cliff. I mean, that shit of waking up from a dream where your legs had melted and nobody was around to pick you off the now-greasy floor, only to realise you have awoken into a dream where you are the thirteenth in a line of chained prisoners who are waiting to enter a room and come out with one leg missing, and you are terrified enough to wake up out of it ... into another where you are burried up to your neck, and the rain water has already dampened your half-grave, and is now rising to your nostrils, can't cry out, but can wake up ... into another where you arrive home to find there has never been a house where you stand, and you look around and find no evidence of humanity as far as the eyes go, and you wake up into another dream where a girl tells you ... horror piles onto horror piles onto horror piles onto horror piles and piles and piles high, until you finish the stack and wake up into this world, and you are even scared of believing the dream loop is over.
That is when my cat comes in. Now, some people have non-happy tales about cats. She does, at least.
But me, I like them. Love them. When I say `my cat', some people usually go like `Oo. So gay ...'. But the only way I could tell that my dream loop was over was when I heard Space mewing. There are no animals in my dreams, interestingly. When I was home for three straight months, I watched her grow. There is this male cat that keeps eyeing her sinfully. But I did my role: I warned her. That ki-cat just wants to lay you. Only, only. And once he's done, he'll be over the road laying some other cat when you are here suffering little vermin against your bossom.
She'd better pay attention. I never was strong enough to get her tubes sealed off. There is something intensely Bushist about inflicting barrenness on a female of any species. With males, I'm cool. One dick, much seed. We can do with less. But a womb is quite sacred. (I was a priest in a womb-worshipping cult in a previous life.)
My cat feeds better than many people. I am only marginally better off (and I am not even sure of this). I know, it's not what you expect out of such a Maoist mouth as mine. But, you see, it should be enviable to be associated with me.
Space walked on PMama's keyboard the day I got her from the New Vision offices. She typed lots of gibberish and a Space, and in so doing chose a name. I added on other party positions (deputy Chief Strategist of the Bright Revolution, Vice Minister of Propaganda, honorary member of The Umkhonto we Sizwe Anti-Imperialist Hall of Gallantry, et cetera), and now her name can hold its own in a Party meeting. Now, I'm teaching her Luganda, so we can communicate better. I want to explain, clearly, the line between what she can and cannot bring into my fuckin' house.
Oh. Bye. Much written. (Say bye, Space.) Meow.
[Toot!] Index: 3.2
Communism Bit: On
Location: Job, of course
So, a few thingies first.
There is The Closeted Lesbian over here. The blogren, they be diverse, eh? From what I gleaned: anonymous Ugandan lesbian in exile. But I left a comment and she deleted it. Maybe she missed the joke, and thought I was trying to be offensive. I know it's what they tend to expect, and it's easy for humour to fall off the page in written communication, so I forgive both of us. Just be cautious when you go over there. Well, anyway, that's one other LGBT blogger, as we deal with GUG over here. Kyoka the way I kinda like lesbians ... ;o) It's mostly all in my perverse head, but still.
(Am I the only one who is careful with words when talking about gay bloggers? Heh.)
Also, rant, rant, rant. Selah.
Okay, now, we move on. I've had quite a week.
(Shit. I just realised it's only a week! :-o Felt like a whole month!)
So, I was really, really distraught, this month-week. I live at sanity's edge, and it's easy for me to get pushed over. This week, I got shoved off the fuckin' cliff. I mean, that shit of waking up from a dream where your legs had melted and nobody was around to pick you off the now-greasy floor, only to realise you have awoken into a dream where you are the thirteenth in a line of chained prisoners who are waiting to enter a room and come out with one leg missing, and you are terrified enough to wake up out of it ... into another where you are burried up to your neck, and the rain water has already dampened your half-grave, and is now rising to your nostrils, can't cry out, but can wake up ... into another where you arrive home to find there has never been a house where you stand, and you look around and find no evidence of humanity as far as the eyes go, and you wake up into another dream where a girl tells you ... horror piles onto horror piles onto horror piles onto horror piles and piles and piles high, until you finish the stack and wake up into this world, and you are even scared of believing the dream loop is over.
That is when my cat comes in. Now, some people have non-happy tales about cats. She does, at least.
But me, I like them. Love them. When I say `my cat', some people usually go like `Oo. So gay ...'. But the only way I could tell that my dream loop was over was when I heard Space mewing. There are no animals in my dreams, interestingly. When I was home for three straight months, I watched her grow. There is this male cat that keeps eyeing her sinfully. But I did my role: I warned her. That ki-cat just wants to lay you. Only, only. And once he's done, he'll be over the road laying some other cat when you are here suffering little vermin against your bossom.
She'd better pay attention. I never was strong enough to get her tubes sealed off. There is something intensely Bushist about inflicting barrenness on a female of any species. With males, I'm cool. One dick, much seed. We can do with less. But a womb is quite sacred. (I was a priest in a womb-worshipping cult in a previous life.)
My cat feeds better than many people. I am only marginally better off (and I am not even sure of this). I know, it's not what you expect out of such a Maoist mouth as mine. But, you see, it should be enviable to be associated with me.
Not one of my seed shall sit on the side-walk and beg bread ... Ye are the sheep of my pasture, so verily thou shalt be very well.This is in the heart of Communism: that the others will consciously want to be a part of us. God uses the principle too, by juxtaposing Heaven and Hell (in verse, in imagery, in location). I'm still faithfully toeing the Party Line. From each according to capacity, to each according to need. The cat only had need, no capacity, until she started saving me from my mind.
— Bob Marley (So Jah Seh)
Space walked on PMama's keyboard the day I got her from the New Vision offices. She typed lots of gibberish and a Space, and in so doing chose a name. I added on other party positions (deputy Chief Strategist of the Bright Revolution, Vice Minister of Propaganda, honorary member of The Umkhonto we Sizwe Anti-Imperialist Hall of Gallantry, et cetera), and now her name can hold its own in a Party meeting. Now, I'm teaching her Luganda, so we can communicate better. I want to explain, clearly, the line between what she can and cannot bring into my fuckin' house.
Oh. Bye. Much written. (Say bye, Space.) Meow.
Monday, 11 February 2008
Love, Hurt, Beautiful Scars, and And
Mood: Cryin', Laughin', How-Could-I-Have ...
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
By now, I should have like already talked about my cat. And DeTamble already made grim threats and all ... But that is for later. Shit went down, this weekend.
So, one moment I am lying full-length (that majestic Nilotic reach from dreadlocked head to tapering, nearly-effeminate foot, with a mystical thinness in between and a suspicious bulge at the center) on a couch, watching Jamie Cullum croon What A Difference A Day Made, and he's getting high on his own talent (leaves no hope for the rest of us), and he toasted a good Rouge to the fun he'd be fanning out at his fans that night at the head of the Blenheim Castle, and the jazz is grabbing me by the collar bones and hoisting me to that terrifying high, and ...
And there is the rich, silken scent of a glass half-full-half-empty with good Blanc. (Later, this Blanc I did taste, and the strong beauty of that keeps making me hallucinate painfully.) And there is the tumbler of iced tea, also half-empty-half-full. And the smoky essence of a Dunhill (that, for the most part, I coughed up in amateurish ineptitude) lingering in the back of my head. And the room is caught in a tight, asphyxiating embrace by the smell of warm woman.
What I try to draw there is the moment that, along with what came a short while later, made this weekend the best ever. Ever. I have always known I get high without the help of narcotics. The trick was figuring out what it was that got me high (so that I can isolate it and perpetuate it). I don't yet know the answer, but I am close: there should be music, the smell of warm woman, and a tomorrow that has no real obligations.
I'll skip the part that made it the worst weekend. It is not good to dwell on the song that skips, when you have the entire other part of the DVD working just fine, is it? So, I forward to what happens when I return to the slums at night. It is interesting, because it may help you help me kill the stereotypes of the Kampalan slummer. There isn't enough room in this 'ere concrete jungle (but still the greenest city on Jah Continent), so there will be the occasional non-idiot in those slums. The idiots aren't even the majority there. I am one of a small, loud group that has given the slums that undeserved reputation of idiocy.
So, I walk, a little too fast, back home. My cat knows me when it sees my silhouette from a distance, and you can see its raised tail cut through the shadows, trotting towards me. There are dogs in that area, but when I am around, it fears nothing. It knows I'd have to be dead before it is reached. And I like that. But this is not a cat post. Anyway, I didn't make it home that fast. I found, seated in the same shadows that my cat was emerging from, a woman. It is strange, because it was one o'clock. I've run out of space, so I won't introduce this philosopher. She was seated there waiting for her husband to return from a drinking binge. She hates it, but he does it. And then he hits her. When she revealed this, she dragged her finger over a thick scab on her upper arm. And this is where the line was dropped, right here.
Because I said, If he says he loves you, why does he hit you? If he hits you, how can you pretend you love him? And she kept massaging her scar. If he loves you, why does he cover you in scars? And she kept tapping the edges of her pain. If he hurts you, how can you love him? I thought the silence indicated my philosophical victory. The she answered me back.
We are only ever hurt by people we love. Everybody else just angers us. Hurt is exclusively for those who love.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it.
And the scars, they are beautiful, aren't they? They are stories of survival. Every scar speaks of a bleeding that stopped, a wound that healed. Scars are for those who didn't die of their wounds.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it. Same way, answering my questions last-to-first.
And he gets violent, it's true. But that is a wound. One day, it will be a scar. When I remember how he is willing to do the most-dangerous jobs to pay for our babies' food and school fees, I realise that the bad part is smaller than the good, and will not win the war in the long run.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it.
There is this woman's music that he likes to play. She sang something saying "I loved you young, I'll love you old." So, me, I loved him sober, I'll love him drunk. He likes that woman's music a lot. I've forgotten her name. (I knew she was talking of Chaka Khan's Love Me Still.)
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. He broke it.
In the distance, going a capella, a man was singing, with such touching, earnest talent, the words of Chaka Khan's (Billie Holiday's, in fact) The End Of A Love Affair. She said she has to go, her husband is coming back. I picked the cat and moved on home. Even though the words were a tad lazy, he came in clearly.
So I smoke a yittle too much, and I drink a yittle too much
And de jams I reques' are no ohways de bes'
But de ones where de trumpets bleeeehhh ...
But wharrelse can I do ... at the end of a love ...
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
By now, I should have like already talked about my cat. And DeTamble already made grim threats and all ... But that is for later. Shit went down, this weekend.
So, one moment I am lying full-length (that majestic Nilotic reach from dreadlocked head to tapering, nearly-effeminate foot, with a mystical thinness in between and a suspicious bulge at the center) on a couch, watching Jamie Cullum croon What A Difference A Day Made, and he's getting high on his own talent (leaves no hope for the rest of us), and he toasted a good Rouge to the fun he'd be fanning out at his fans that night at the head of the Blenheim Castle, and the jazz is grabbing me by the collar bones and hoisting me to that terrifying high, and ...
And there is the rich, silken scent of a glass half-full-half-empty with good Blanc. (Later, this Blanc I did taste, and the strong beauty of that keeps making me hallucinate painfully.) And there is the tumbler of iced tea, also half-empty-half-full. And the smoky essence of a Dunhill (that, for the most part, I coughed up in amateurish ineptitude) lingering in the back of my head. And the room is caught in a tight, asphyxiating embrace by the smell of warm woman.
What I try to draw there is the moment that, along with what came a short while later, made this weekend the best ever. Ever. I have always known I get high without the help of narcotics. The trick was figuring out what it was that got me high (so that I can isolate it and perpetuate it). I don't yet know the answer, but I am close: there should be music, the smell of warm woman, and a tomorrow that has no real obligations.
I'll skip the part that made it the worst weekend. It is not good to dwell on the song that skips, when you have the entire other part of the DVD working just fine, is it? So, I forward to what happens when I return to the slums at night. It is interesting, because it may help you help me kill the stereotypes of the Kampalan slummer. There isn't enough room in this 'ere concrete jungle (but still the greenest city on Jah Continent), so there will be the occasional non-idiot in those slums. The idiots aren't even the majority there. I am one of a small, loud group that has given the slums that undeserved reputation of idiocy.
So, I walk, a little too fast, back home. My cat knows me when it sees my silhouette from a distance, and you can see its raised tail cut through the shadows, trotting towards me. There are dogs in that area, but when I am around, it fears nothing. It knows I'd have to be dead before it is reached. And I like that. But this is not a cat post. Anyway, I didn't make it home that fast. I found, seated in the same shadows that my cat was emerging from, a woman. It is strange, because it was one o'clock. I've run out of space, so I won't introduce this philosopher. She was seated there waiting for her husband to return from a drinking binge. She hates it, but he does it. And then he hits her. When she revealed this, she dragged her finger over a thick scab on her upper arm. And this is where the line was dropped, right here.
Because I said, If he says he loves you, why does he hit you? If he hits you, how can you pretend you love him? And she kept massaging her scar. If he loves you, why does he cover you in scars? And she kept tapping the edges of her pain. If he hurts you, how can you love him? I thought the silence indicated my philosophical victory. The she answered me back.
We are only ever hurt by people we love. Everybody else just angers us. Hurt is exclusively for those who love.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it.
And the scars, they are beautiful, aren't they? They are stories of survival. Every scar speaks of a bleeding that stopped, a wound that healed. Scars are for those who didn't die of their wounds.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it. Same way, answering my questions last-to-first.
And he gets violent, it's true. But that is a wound. One day, it will be a scar. When I remember how he is willing to do the most-dangerous jobs to pay for our babies' food and school fees, I realise that the bad part is smaller than the good, and will not win the war in the long run.
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. She broke it.
There is this woman's music that he likes to play. She sang something saying "I loved you young, I'll love you old." So, me, I loved him sober, I'll love him drunk. He likes that woman's music a lot. I've forgotten her name. (I knew she was talking of Chaka Khan's Love Me Still.)
And silence reigned undisputed for some moments. He broke it.
In the distance, going a capella, a man was singing, with such touching, earnest talent, the words of Chaka Khan's (Billie Holiday's, in fact) The End Of A Love Affair. She said she has to go, her husband is coming back. I picked the cat and moved on home. Even though the words were a tad lazy, he came in clearly.
So I smoke a yittle too much, and I drink a yittle too much
And de jams I reques' are no ohways de bes'
But de ones where de trumpets bleeeehhh ...
But wharrelse can I do ... at the end of a love ...
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
If Everybody Wrote With Remarkable Style: On Jon McGregor's Writing
Mood: ?
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
If you haven't read Jon McGregor's book, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, look away now. This could become an unfortunate spoiler for you. I didn't say `if you plan to read' it. I said `if you haven't read' it. Because, whether you want to or not, this book is in your future. It will become required, compulsory reading after the Revolution.
I don't have it here with me (so this will be light on verbatim quotes), and I have read it only once, but it was good enough to make me wanna write about the style therein.
This is is as far as you should go, if you haven't read it.
Now, I don't know a whole bucket about Jon McGregor. All I know, really, is that he wrote a book. You see, Tumwijuke said she wished she had written it. This happens to be my measure of how much I liked a book: when I wish I had written it. Also, she said she would like to do a public reading of the first chapter.
Strong words, there. And Dee said she wants everybody in the world to read it. Another trustworthy sign.
So, I made arrangements to get it. I avoid getting trapped in a book I may not like, because I always have to finish it, once I really start. And it can be an exercise in sadomasochist self-hate if, for example, you find yourself caught in-between the two covers of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Quartet. Not that it was boring or anything. In fact, I loved it. But it was a little heavy reading. You may have discerned, now, that I am not necessarily after writers who tell a good story. Those abound. Love In The Time of Cholera was a good story by this Macondo guy, Gabriel García Márquez. But it had no style.
Especially not his magic realism. But, if love suspense is your kind of thing, good. Me, nope. There are many nice stories. There isn't much style, though. And style is basically what made Remarkable Things read-worthy.
It had nearly no plot. Enough suspence to pad the parts where the real fun could be found, but nearly nothing more. And that was a good thing. Jon has style.
There is another writer he reminds me of: Adam Thorpe. If you ain't read Ulverton by Adam Thorpe, run. The bookshop is still open.
There are many interesting parallels that I won't delve into. Suffice it to say he also wielded such style in that book, it was totally rewarding. You weep that the pages get thinner as you turn.
Adam Thorpe is a poet, first, then a writer next. Jon seems a lot like that.
The reason Tumwijuke said she'd read that chapter one is, I believe, because it is poetic. Do you see yourself reading the beginning of a Sidney Sheldon suspence thriller and walking off? It is the first first chapter I ever saw that had nearly nothing to do with the story. That, friends, is style.
Then, the first real chapter. The second, that is. It describes reactions to a sudden event. And it stops just short of telling what the event is. Everybody who would later have a role in the book was in that chapter, reacting to an event. But the event is, itself, not brought out. That, friends, is style.
Jon McGregor is really a poet lost in novel-writing. (Yet I'm not sad about it.) He excels largely as an observer of the surrounding. He doesn't necessarily tell a good story, by the way. It is an old tale, repeated for millenia. It was a superficial cover to the real deal: a writing style that rocketh.
In his book, the little boy doesn't pedal his tricycle. He pushes his weight forward and ... had you noticed this delicate difference between how we pedal on little tricycles and how we pedal bigger bikes? I hadn't. But Jon had, and he described it good. In any case, he could have said `he pedalled the tricycle ...'. But he didn't. He chose to zoom in. That, friends, is style.
The elements of his style are not novel or unique. Just richer in Remarkable Things.
Many of these things are actually staple for those of us who read magic realism. (Salman Rushdie, for example, does these things and more.)
The characters - and this is pivotal - are largely nameless. Can you imagine an entire story where characters named are the exception? There is only one significant, plot-aiding name in that book. And the only place you actually find it out is at the end - where it is repeated like a chant. That, friends, is style.
I'm a freak for style. Part of the reason I fear to write a book is that nobody would get my style. It's not this. It is out of this monde. It is Mario Vargas-Llosa-meets-Salman-Rushdie-meets-Bob-Marley-meets ... Every book I enjoyed changed how I want to write.
There is this book by Nicolas Fleming, This Is The Castle. It is really that guy trying to show us how crazy he can be and still maintain the tempo and fun. It was, for me, very eye-opening. The rest of this paragraph could be a spoiler, if you haven't read that book yet. The book's story lasts one day, and half of the book is merely the product of the protagonist's angry imagination, but you only learn this at the end; and the protagonist is, we can all agree,
Nicolas Fleming himself. The style was as rebellious against normalcy as I can imagine. It will hurt whenever you have to pause, or even blink, when reading this book.
All over the book, Jon tracks characters by where they stay, what they look like, what scars they have. No names whatsoever. The more-horrible computer geeks will, at this point, start thinking of the lambda calculus, and how it just works like a Turing machine, even with recursion, without the concept of a name. This stuff requires one to decide to live without something and invent a
way around the constraints of the style he/she has chosen. Jon could have just used names. But, no, he invented a scar, a height, a moustache, a body girth, a tone for the characters, and made it without a name in there. Computer geeks: the Y combinator isn't hot. Jon McGregor's style is hot. A distinguishing mark, a branding, so to speak, of characters as a way to identify them. Exclusively.
That, friends, is style.
From the beginning, you track a character who is supposed to be happy. He is happy, in fact. He has patiently saved a lot of money. He can barely sleep, because it is enough, at last, to buy him his dream. He ends up nearly the saddest in the book. His great expectations (`You are going to be proud of me, Dad' is what he was thinking) are inverted in the end. This strange sadism towards one's characters - raising their hopes and then dashing them - is a grim-but-true mirror of Real Life. And I already told you Jon is an observer.
I noticed, though that the couples in the book were uniformly happy. It is not that Jon didn't think about the problems - they all had major problems. They just were uniformly determined to see the light about them. The street where half of the book happens is riddled with immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Immigrants don't have time to whine. They just live life knowing it could have been worse. This is a thick theme in the book. One more mark for an acute social oberver. Style, friends. Style.
Now, the book is split into two. The halves are interleaved. This is a style I've loved since I read Mario Vargas-Llosa's The War of The End of The World. It is typical Mario style to bob back and forth in time from chapter to chapter. If you haven't read at least one Mario book, you are living in sin.
So, Jon did the same, here. And it was beautiful. So that you are living many years ahead of where you are. You see where things end up, but not quite, because the future is never certain. By design. You may even know what happened, but how it happened is what you want to find out. It takes great skill to pull that off. So, when a chapter deals with the past, those adjacent to it deal with the present. That, friends, is style.
The characters were intriguing. They were, by far, the best part about the book. The protagonist is some lady. She goes nameless, of course. The book is her memory and her present. You know that, since you've read the book. But here's the part I like the most about her. There was this guy who tried to make contact with her. He was the identical twin of the guy who had an obsessed crush on her.
I'm quite intimately familiar with his state of mind, being no stranger to that class of crushes. Anyway, so he keeps saying his brother is far away. I imagined maybe some tropical island or something. Jon never let him say where he was. We just discovered in the last sentence of the book. It remind I of Sidney Sheldon's heart-pausing coup in Windmills of the Gods, where, in the very last sentence, you discover that Neusa Munez is The Angel. The very last line of the book makes it come full circle, and the very tip of the tail touches the nose. That, friends, is style.
Anyway, so the protagonist is pregnant. The pregnancy is the result of a fling, and she feels all sorts of things about her situation. She didn't really have anything going with the father of the pregnancy. Like her mother put it, it was just `a fling in the dark without any precautions' (that last part coming out like `oceans'). The mother was a bit unhappy about it. And the father was just laid back. Jon insists on reminding us that the father's socks have dark patches at the soles, as though there is a message in it. He is a boxing enthusiast. He is watching a classic fight of Mohammed Ali, when we see him.
Anyway, the part I'm leading to is: some twin was obsessed with her, back then.
And, now, his brother had made contact and ended becoming a tower of strength for her. At this point, she was waiting to find out where the second twin was, as she waited for her baby to pop. One baby.
Later, she goes with the twin to get her first scan, and she discovers she is carrying twins. This is delicately wrapped up in twin stuff that is nearly mystical. When she discovers that it is a twin affair, while she was with the twin in the clinic, she is about to discover that the baby that showed up in the scan is the twin who is far away. Because, you see, he is already dead for some years now. More on this later. Style. Style.
Now, in the immigrant community, you have what seem to be Pakistanis. They are interested in cricket, which is largely a South Asian game in Asia (India, Pakistan, et al). Even when they are not named, they keep mentioning Allah, which makes them muslims. Pakistan is South Asia's mussulman country. Jon is quite detached from his characters (in that he never explains what they
feel - only what is visible about them). Only the protagonist expresses emotion without having to act it out, and that is because she is in first-person mode.
Otherwise, you are left to glean what you can from what you can see.
Now, them cultures that have been affected by the Middle East have a heavy meaning tied to the word for shame. Salman Rushdie captured this well in his novel on Pakistan, called (what else) Shame. Somewhere in Jon's book, a character is denounced by her in-laws as shameful. Jon takes time to explain that this is not shame as English normally has it, but a deeper, more-cultural kind. It was because she was assumed barren by her in-laws, so that their son wouldn't have children. The couple went for medical help, and they find that it is the man who is slightly lacking. So, they begin on a regimen to help him gain his fertility (back). It worked, and she got pregnant.
But to the very time that the birth pangs started, the couple didn't know why the pregnancy was so big. When she gave birth, she had twins. That is style.
My mother endured losing a baby before I was born. Even now, decades later, she doesn't talk about it. It totally kills her to remember that. It must have been like the darkest time for her. Yet when we came around, there were two of us. :o)
Now, the couple I talked about above. They, after having their twins, went and had the man's tubes locked off. These days they just sent the kids out to play cricket, and then went and locked the doors and had some really electric sex, with no possibility of kids stumbling into the picture (be it from them or from outside the house).
The book has lots of this sex in it. None of that stuff that you find in eroticas. This is the nice kind: people do it with their hearts. With passion, with a certain degree of warmth in it. It is neither an obligation nor a distraction. It is its own raison d'etre. A dance of sorts, if you will. The music being the heart-beats. There are cherished love bites, there are all sorts of things.
The real point of the book is that the guy who had saved the money was going to buy himself a car. After diligent hard work, the way immigrants do, he had earned a wheel. He went out to buy it. He bought it. And that is the sudden event that had been nearly shown in the first part. Not the new car, but that, when he was driving back, he knocked one of the little Pakistani twins. The boy haemorrhaged in the head. That is a very bad sign. It is roughly a death sentence. The ambulance was called, and the little boy was put on board with his crying mother. Remember, the father had been sealed off - no more kids. And, now, his boy was dead. This is the only time any character was named. The doctor in the ambulance asked for his name and the mother said he was called Sahib.
`Muhammad Sahib Nawaz'. First pause, now.
Remember Muhammad Ali, hammering people on the screen, when the protagonist's father was watching a bout? Muhammad. And this boy is called Muhammad. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I hesitate to pass things off as such, in books. This guy is demonstrably a fine writer, and this most-likely was a detail. Just as the way of the World is not a coincidence, but authored by whoever is the Author of existence, Jon put these things consciously. I won't blame chance. I'll chalk it
up against style. When you love magic realism, you come to treasure the seeming coincidences. Style, friends. Style.
There is a character who stuck to my head nearly more than the protagonist. He is not named, of course. He is identified by some recent (and very painful) burns he carries in his hands. The fact, by the way, that it doesn't look weird that characters only refer to themselves by outward marks is a bad outward mark on our societies. We are so detached from our neighbours, we call them `the man who got burnt', and it doesn't even feel wrong. Jon noticed that.
Anyway, he has a daughter, and he is a single father, apparently. He makes it a point to play with the girl, and they are obviously very close. His role in the book is nearly mystical. A bit like a prophet sent among a people to execute a divine mission and then leave.
He did three things. The first is that he had a philosophical outburst, and, in so doing, gave the book its title. This was one of the few times he ever spoke.
His little daughter didn't understand a thing, of course, but he said: `If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?'
Important to note that he was a very silent guy. Yet, when he spoke, he gave the book a name. He really is some kind of prophet in this book. That, friends, is style.
So, the boy has been knocked. No pulse anymore. A fist of blood can be seen at the temple. The driver who knocked has been immobilised and entranced by shock.
He isn't aware what is happening around him. The remaining twin runs to his father, crying badly. His father is crying, too. Probably because he was never going to have any more children, and now here was one half of his children dying.
Then the prophet comes onto the scene again, and tells the twins' father to stop crying while his son is crying, that it is not right. The exchange was terse, made more of signs than words, and the father of the twins complied and resumed his role as a tower of strength to the remaining twin. Then the prophet goes back into his house. That is the second thing the prophet did. It was very akin to what Jesus did at Lazarus' tomb, after he had cried. He felt the pain, expressed it, told them No Woman No cry, and assumed his mystic mode.
So, we have a case where a twin is dead, the protagonist is pregnant with twins, and is being helped by a twin, whose brother is dead. By the way, the protagonist doesn't know at all that the other twin is dead.
The doctor asks the mother the boy's name. She says he's called Sahib. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz. So the doctor calls out to the boy, repeatedly.
Back in the neighbourhood, the prophet has receded into his home. You are, at this point, allowed to picture a mystic entering a place where he is going to invoke divine action. He starts to repeat the boy's name, and says If everyone could just call out to Allah to save the boy and return him to his parents. And he starts chanting the boy's name over and over again, in supplication to God.
At this point, I joined in. You don't just sit there doing nothing when a prophet calls upon everyone to pray, and pray fervently. I started repeating Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz. This is the third thing the prophet did.
At this point, the doctor in the ambulance is calling into the boy's dead body.
The prophet is leading the faithful in a similar chant to God, for the boy's soul. You are allowed to picture a sea of fervent cultics chanting in rhythm, led by a man with stigmata. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz.
The twin who had an obsessed secret crush on the protagonist was still alive at this point in time. But only for a few more minutes. He woke up, and was dying. He hit a clay model, while he gasped for his breath, and the clay model hit the floor and broke. There was no real cause for death mentioned. In any case, identical twins have identical DNA, so if the reason had been natural, it would have been evident in his brother, as well. It is more like God just swapped one
twin's life for another. Because, you see, while his breath left him, the little twin, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, got his breath back. While one twin chocked, another coughed up what would have been chocking him.
Don't stop now. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz.
Sahib's mother gets excited by the returning life. See, if you will, a mystic with stigmata, saying, in a loud voice, `Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, come forth!'
I told you this book was intricately wrapped in a shroud of twins. Not every book makes me feel as weird about being twin, myself.
The clay model that the dying twin broke at the point of his death was symbolic. It was, apparently, one used in East Asia, by mothers who have lost babies. They take it to the temple and leave it there. And he broke it. The message was that there was not going to be a need for it now, as the young twin was not going to die.
It is at this point that the book ends. With the tail touching the nose. A twin dies, a twin comes into the protagonist's life, a twin enters the pregnacy scan, a twin comes back to life. Life, death, faith, everything. If you haven't read this book, you are not supposed to be reading this. And you are living in sin. The Wikipedia article on the book only notes the weird importance of names in the book. It misses the deeper, spiritual , mystical, magical bent on it. (Indeed, it would pass my magic realism test, this here book.)
It was great. Beautiful read. It was Tumwijuke's book that I read. Nice one from Jon McGregor. I had to speak about it, because, you see ... if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable? That, friends, is style.
[Toot!] Index: 0.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
If you haven't read Jon McGregor's book, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, look away now. This could become an unfortunate spoiler for you. I didn't say `if you plan to read' it. I said `if you haven't read' it. Because, whether you want to or not, this book is in your future. It will become required, compulsory reading after the Revolution.
I don't have it here with me (so this will be light on verbatim quotes), and I have read it only once, but it was good enough to make me wanna write about the style therein.
This is is as far as you should go, if you haven't read it.
Now, I don't know a whole bucket about Jon McGregor. All I know, really, is that he wrote a book. You see, Tumwijuke said she wished she had written it. This happens to be my measure of how much I liked a book: when I wish I had written it. Also, she said she would like to do a public reading of the first chapter.
Strong words, there. And Dee said she wants everybody in the world to read it. Another trustworthy sign.
So, I made arrangements to get it. I avoid getting trapped in a book I may not like, because I always have to finish it, once I really start. And it can be an exercise in sadomasochist self-hate if, for example, you find yourself caught in-between the two covers of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Quartet. Not that it was boring or anything. In fact, I loved it. But it was a little heavy reading. You may have discerned, now, that I am not necessarily after writers who tell a good story. Those abound. Love In The Time of Cholera was a good story by this Macondo guy, Gabriel García Márquez. But it had no style.
Especially not his magic realism. But, if love suspense is your kind of thing, good. Me, nope. There are many nice stories. There isn't much style, though. And style is basically what made Remarkable Things read-worthy.
It had nearly no plot. Enough suspence to pad the parts where the real fun could be found, but nearly nothing more. And that was a good thing. Jon has style.
There is another writer he reminds me of: Adam Thorpe. If you ain't read Ulverton by Adam Thorpe, run. The bookshop is still open.
There are many interesting parallels that I won't delve into. Suffice it to say he also wielded such style in that book, it was totally rewarding. You weep that the pages get thinner as you turn.
Adam Thorpe is a poet, first, then a writer next. Jon seems a lot like that.
The reason Tumwijuke said she'd read that chapter one is, I believe, because it is poetic. Do you see yourself reading the beginning of a Sidney Sheldon suspence thriller and walking off? It is the first first chapter I ever saw that had nearly nothing to do with the story. That, friends, is style.
Then, the first real chapter. The second, that is. It describes reactions to a sudden event. And it stops just short of telling what the event is. Everybody who would later have a role in the book was in that chapter, reacting to an event. But the event is, itself, not brought out. That, friends, is style.
Jon McGregor is really a poet lost in novel-writing. (Yet I'm not sad about it.) He excels largely as an observer of the surrounding. He doesn't necessarily tell a good story, by the way. It is an old tale, repeated for millenia. It was a superficial cover to the real deal: a writing style that rocketh.
In his book, the little boy doesn't pedal his tricycle. He pushes his weight forward and ... had you noticed this delicate difference between how we pedal on little tricycles and how we pedal bigger bikes? I hadn't. But Jon had, and he described it good. In any case, he could have said `he pedalled the tricycle ...'. But he didn't. He chose to zoom in. That, friends, is style.
The elements of his style are not novel or unique. Just richer in Remarkable Things.
Many of these things are actually staple for those of us who read magic realism. (Salman Rushdie, for example, does these things and more.)
The characters - and this is pivotal - are largely nameless. Can you imagine an entire story where characters named are the exception? There is only one significant, plot-aiding name in that book. And the only place you actually find it out is at the end - where it is repeated like a chant. That, friends, is style.
I'm a freak for style. Part of the reason I fear to write a book is that nobody would get my style. It's not this. It is out of this monde. It is Mario Vargas-Llosa-meets-Salman-Rushdie-meets-Bob-Marley-meets ... Every book I enjoyed changed how I want to write.
There is this book by Nicolas Fleming, This Is The Castle. It is really that guy trying to show us how crazy he can be and still maintain the tempo and fun. It was, for me, very eye-opening. The rest of this paragraph could be a spoiler, if you haven't read that book yet. The book's story lasts one day, and half of the book is merely the product of the protagonist's angry imagination, but you only learn this at the end; and the protagonist is, we can all agree,
Nicolas Fleming himself. The style was as rebellious against normalcy as I can imagine. It will hurt whenever you have to pause, or even blink, when reading this book.
All over the book, Jon tracks characters by where they stay, what they look like, what scars they have. No names whatsoever. The more-horrible computer geeks will, at this point, start thinking of the lambda calculus, and how it just works like a Turing machine, even with recursion, without the concept of a name. This stuff requires one to decide to live without something and invent a
way around the constraints of the style he/she has chosen. Jon could have just used names. But, no, he invented a scar, a height, a moustache, a body girth, a tone for the characters, and made it without a name in there. Computer geeks: the Y combinator isn't hot. Jon McGregor's style is hot. A distinguishing mark, a branding, so to speak, of characters as a way to identify them. Exclusively.
That, friends, is style.
From the beginning, you track a character who is supposed to be happy. He is happy, in fact. He has patiently saved a lot of money. He can barely sleep, because it is enough, at last, to buy him his dream. He ends up nearly the saddest in the book. His great expectations (`You are going to be proud of me, Dad' is what he was thinking) are inverted in the end. This strange sadism towards one's characters - raising their hopes and then dashing them - is a grim-but-true mirror of Real Life. And I already told you Jon is an observer.
I noticed, though that the couples in the book were uniformly happy. It is not that Jon didn't think about the problems - they all had major problems. They just were uniformly determined to see the light about them. The street where half of the book happens is riddled with immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia. Immigrants don't have time to whine. They just live life knowing it could have been worse. This is a thick theme in the book. One more mark for an acute social oberver. Style, friends. Style.
Now, the book is split into two. The halves are interleaved. This is a style I've loved since I read Mario Vargas-Llosa's The War of The End of The World. It is typical Mario style to bob back and forth in time from chapter to chapter. If you haven't read at least one Mario book, you are living in sin.
So, Jon did the same, here. And it was beautiful. So that you are living many years ahead of where you are. You see where things end up, but not quite, because the future is never certain. By design. You may even know what happened, but how it happened is what you want to find out. It takes great skill to pull that off. So, when a chapter deals with the past, those adjacent to it deal with the present. That, friends, is style.
The characters were intriguing. They were, by far, the best part about the book. The protagonist is some lady. She goes nameless, of course. The book is her memory and her present. You know that, since you've read the book. But here's the part I like the most about her. There was this guy who tried to make contact with her. He was the identical twin of the guy who had an obsessed crush on her.
I'm quite intimately familiar with his state of mind, being no stranger to that class of crushes. Anyway, so he keeps saying his brother is far away. I imagined maybe some tropical island or something. Jon never let him say where he was. We just discovered in the last sentence of the book. It remind I of Sidney Sheldon's heart-pausing coup in Windmills of the Gods, where, in the very last sentence, you discover that Neusa Munez is The Angel. The very last line of the book makes it come full circle, and the very tip of the tail touches the nose. That, friends, is style.
Anyway, so the protagonist is pregnant. The pregnancy is the result of a fling, and she feels all sorts of things about her situation. She didn't really have anything going with the father of the pregnancy. Like her mother put it, it was just `a fling in the dark without any precautions' (that last part coming out like `oceans'). The mother was a bit unhappy about it. And the father was just laid back. Jon insists on reminding us that the father's socks have dark patches at the soles, as though there is a message in it. He is a boxing enthusiast. He is watching a classic fight of Mohammed Ali, when we see him.
Anyway, the part I'm leading to is: some twin was obsessed with her, back then.
And, now, his brother had made contact and ended becoming a tower of strength for her. At this point, she was waiting to find out where the second twin was, as she waited for her baby to pop. One baby.
Later, she goes with the twin to get her first scan, and she discovers she is carrying twins. This is delicately wrapped up in twin stuff that is nearly mystical. When she discovers that it is a twin affair, while she was with the twin in the clinic, she is about to discover that the baby that showed up in the scan is the twin who is far away. Because, you see, he is already dead for some years now. More on this later. Style. Style.
Now, in the immigrant community, you have what seem to be Pakistanis. They are interested in cricket, which is largely a South Asian game in Asia (India, Pakistan, et al). Even when they are not named, they keep mentioning Allah, which makes them muslims. Pakistan is South Asia's mussulman country. Jon is quite detached from his characters (in that he never explains what they
feel - only what is visible about them). Only the protagonist expresses emotion without having to act it out, and that is because she is in first-person mode.
Otherwise, you are left to glean what you can from what you can see.
Now, them cultures that have been affected by the Middle East have a heavy meaning tied to the word for shame. Salman Rushdie captured this well in his novel on Pakistan, called (what else) Shame. Somewhere in Jon's book, a character is denounced by her in-laws as shameful. Jon takes time to explain that this is not shame as English normally has it, but a deeper, more-cultural kind. It was because she was assumed barren by her in-laws, so that their son wouldn't have children. The couple went for medical help, and they find that it is the man who is slightly lacking. So, they begin on a regimen to help him gain his fertility (back). It worked, and she got pregnant.
But to the very time that the birth pangs started, the couple didn't know why the pregnancy was so big. When she gave birth, she had twins. That is style.
My mother endured losing a baby before I was born. Even now, decades later, she doesn't talk about it. It totally kills her to remember that. It must have been like the darkest time for her. Yet when we came around, there were two of us. :o)
Now, the couple I talked about above. They, after having their twins, went and had the man's tubes locked off. These days they just sent the kids out to play cricket, and then went and locked the doors and had some really electric sex, with no possibility of kids stumbling into the picture (be it from them or from outside the house).
The book has lots of this sex in it. None of that stuff that you find in eroticas. This is the nice kind: people do it with their hearts. With passion, with a certain degree of warmth in it. It is neither an obligation nor a distraction. It is its own raison d'etre. A dance of sorts, if you will. The music being the heart-beats. There are cherished love bites, there are all sorts of things.
The real point of the book is that the guy who had saved the money was going to buy himself a car. After diligent hard work, the way immigrants do, he had earned a wheel. He went out to buy it. He bought it. And that is the sudden event that had been nearly shown in the first part. Not the new car, but that, when he was driving back, he knocked one of the little Pakistani twins. The boy haemorrhaged in the head. That is a very bad sign. It is roughly a death sentence. The ambulance was called, and the little boy was put on board with his crying mother. Remember, the father had been sealed off - no more kids. And, now, his boy was dead. This is the only time any character was named. The doctor in the ambulance asked for his name and the mother said he was called Sahib.
`Muhammad Sahib Nawaz'. First pause, now.
Remember Muhammad Ali, hammering people on the screen, when the protagonist's father was watching a bout? Muhammad. And this boy is called Muhammad. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I hesitate to pass things off as such, in books. This guy is demonstrably a fine writer, and this most-likely was a detail. Just as the way of the World is not a coincidence, but authored by whoever is the Author of existence, Jon put these things consciously. I won't blame chance. I'll chalk it
up against style. When you love magic realism, you come to treasure the seeming coincidences. Style, friends. Style.
There is a character who stuck to my head nearly more than the protagonist. He is not named, of course. He is identified by some recent (and very painful) burns he carries in his hands. The fact, by the way, that it doesn't look weird that characters only refer to themselves by outward marks is a bad outward mark on our societies. We are so detached from our neighbours, we call them `the man who got burnt', and it doesn't even feel wrong. Jon noticed that.
Anyway, he has a daughter, and he is a single father, apparently. He makes it a point to play with the girl, and they are obviously very close. His role in the book is nearly mystical. A bit like a prophet sent among a people to execute a divine mission and then leave.
He did three things. The first is that he had a philosophical outburst, and, in so doing, gave the book its title. This was one of the few times he ever spoke.
His little daughter didn't understand a thing, of course, but he said: `If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?'
Important to note that he was a very silent guy. Yet, when he spoke, he gave the book a name. He really is some kind of prophet in this book. That, friends, is style.
So, the boy has been knocked. No pulse anymore. A fist of blood can be seen at the temple. The driver who knocked has been immobilised and entranced by shock.
He isn't aware what is happening around him. The remaining twin runs to his father, crying badly. His father is crying, too. Probably because he was never going to have any more children, and now here was one half of his children dying.
Then the prophet comes onto the scene again, and tells the twins' father to stop crying while his son is crying, that it is not right. The exchange was terse, made more of signs than words, and the father of the twins complied and resumed his role as a tower of strength to the remaining twin. Then the prophet goes back into his house. That is the second thing the prophet did. It was very akin to what Jesus did at Lazarus' tomb, after he had cried. He felt the pain, expressed it, told them No Woman No cry, and assumed his mystic mode.
So, we have a case where a twin is dead, the protagonist is pregnant with twins, and is being helped by a twin, whose brother is dead. By the way, the protagonist doesn't know at all that the other twin is dead.
The doctor asks the mother the boy's name. She says he's called Sahib. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz. So the doctor calls out to the boy, repeatedly.
Back in the neighbourhood, the prophet has receded into his home. You are, at this point, allowed to picture a mystic entering a place where he is going to invoke divine action. He starts to repeat the boy's name, and says If everyone could just call out to Allah to save the boy and return him to his parents. And he starts chanting the boy's name over and over again, in supplication to God.
At this point, I joined in. You don't just sit there doing nothing when a prophet calls upon everyone to pray, and pray fervently. I started repeating Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz. This is the third thing the prophet did.
At this point, the doctor in the ambulance is calling into the boy's dead body.
The prophet is leading the faithful in a similar chant to God, for the boy's soul. You are allowed to picture a sea of fervent cultics chanting in rhythm, led by a man with stigmata. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz.
The twin who had an obsessed secret crush on the protagonist was still alive at this point in time. But only for a few more minutes. He woke up, and was dying. He hit a clay model, while he gasped for his breath, and the clay model hit the floor and broke. There was no real cause for death mentioned. In any case, identical twins have identical DNA, so if the reason had been natural, it would have been evident in his brother, as well. It is more like God just swapped one
twin's life for another. Because, you see, while his breath left him, the little twin, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, got his breath back. While one twin chocked, another coughed up what would have been chocking him.
Don't stop now. Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, Muhammad Sahib Nawaz.
Sahib's mother gets excited by the returning life. See, if you will, a mystic with stigmata, saying, in a loud voice, `Muhammad Sahib Nawaz, come forth!'
I told you this book was intricately wrapped in a shroud of twins. Not every book makes me feel as weird about being twin, myself.
The clay model that the dying twin broke at the point of his death was symbolic. It was, apparently, one used in East Asia, by mothers who have lost babies. They take it to the temple and leave it there. And he broke it. The message was that there was not going to be a need for it now, as the young twin was not going to die.
It is at this point that the book ends. With the tail touching the nose. A twin dies, a twin comes into the protagonist's life, a twin enters the pregnacy scan, a twin comes back to life. Life, death, faith, everything. If you haven't read this book, you are not supposed to be reading this. And you are living in sin. The Wikipedia article on the book only notes the weird importance of names in the book. It misses the deeper, spiritual , mystical, magical bent on it. (Indeed, it would pass my magic realism test, this here book.)
It was great. Beautiful read. It was Tumwijuke's book that I read. Nice one from Jon McGregor. I had to speak about it, because, you see ... if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable? That, friends, is style.
Saturday, 2 February 2008
Waaaahhh, And Other Short Stories
Mood: Bored
[Toot!] Index: 7.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
So, I went away. For a while. Them rumours you heard, mbu the 'Mericans got me—total lies. I have a jaw packed with arsenic. Death before dishonour. And death before a nice steak on the bone, also.
I came back and spent some time weeding the spam out of me comments, and then I went checking people out. DeTamble is slightly psychic in this kind of thing: one of the latest posts there was about whether or not I'd make it back.
And now that I'm in a de place, Brick and Lace, dese blogs are wicked, wicked, wicked.
By now you've seen the pattern: no discernible effort is being made to make much sense. I'm writing this in the slums, to push it later at the blog. There is a kid crying out there, and he knows how to make his cry sound so tormented. It is always a paining cry, when that boy decides to give it a hit. Most kids cry to fill the blanks for words they don't know yet. Him, he knows exactly what he wants to say, and it is `Waaaahhh'. And he says it with the passion of a preacher. Kid is driving me insane, even from that far.
Now, I came back as a stranger in the house. I know how it is when a soldier comes back home, having been one of the few who went and survived the War, and he expects his wife to explode with joy that he made it back ... and he finds his house deserted. The dog didn't leave, because it knew, somehow, that he was coming back. But the wife? `She said you must have died in the war. She left around two years ago. No, she sent the children to their grandmother's place. Yes, they are at your mother's place. She got married again, yes. Some man from over there; we didn't know him either, but he used to come and stay here sometimes.'
Or something like that. Maybe worse. Here's why:
Nate, it is illegal to insinuate, even as a distant possibility, that a girl is not hot, if she has a greater-than-zero chance of finding out at all. If you think so, keep it to yourself. Similarly, it is illegal to insinuate, even as a distant possibility, that a guy is impotent, if he has a greater-than-zero chance of finding out at all. If you think so, keep it to yourself.
The devastation caused by these two is never trivial. And any reaction is always an under-reaction.
Julius Nyerere drove the Jeshi La Tanzania against Idi Amin. I root the war—and such a pivotal war—in Amin's remarks about Nyerere's masculinity. If I throw a nuke at America because someone there said I'm not like the most virile human under Jah Sun, I'd still be under-reacting. I'd be a modest and forgiving man.
Which means I'm going to bomb these people sending me mails on penis enlargement. I think they are Nigerians, so it will be a good thing for the whole world. Maybe they are reading, so here: I don't mean to brag or anything but ... God was trying to make a statement of His Eternal Greatness when he got to me. I don't need your penis enlargement spam - enlargement can only subtract from this one. I'm at the pinnacle of what is possible. :o)
But seriously, male ego evolves, ultimately, around being a capable and preferred dispenser of the Seed. Female ego (the beast existeth) evolves, ultimately, around being a preferred and worthy recipient of the Seed.
Attack on these two fronts, and good people are allowed to stab you in the neck and enjoy your dying gurgles. Say `sorry', Nate. We love you both, you and Cheri, and I know you didn't know the impact it would have. It was meant to be a joke, but it went down badly, because you dodged my classes. Cheri, he didn't mean it. He isn't blind, you see. :o) I'm even going to make a couple of you two. I don't joke, me. You gon' kiss righ' now!
Anyway, lemme close and let you run along.
Wait. It's been a while. There's much shit to write about. I didn't blog all through CHOGM. I have much to say.
Earlier on in life, I learnt to deal with the effect that cute girls have on me.
For me, ignoring it doesn't work. Mine is an artist's soul - it pineth after beauty. It will explain my record of never keeping it to myself when a chic stuns me - this blog is covered in posts that are bleeding descriptions of beauty. But, by and large, I know how to deal with the effect. I recognise it, lie down, let it pass. Life, however, didn't train me to deal with the case where a girl just keeps getting prettier. I'm scared. When I try to `lie down and let it pass', the next time I see her she has doubled. It has become necessary for me to keep seeing her so that I keep up with the brilliance. If I take long, I worry I would go blind the next time. I'd recognise her (just look for the prittiest thing around, and that's her), but I'd probably go like totally blind. If I ever needed God, ever at all, I need Him now. I'm scared.
So, I was going to get up and heckle the Queen in the CHOGM nankanis.
I wanted to get up as she is chirping about why Britain keeps debts of countries that will never pay a fuckin' coin (and, after the Revolution, we'll recognise no debts), and start singing Bob's `Chant Down Babylon', improvising the tin drums as I go, but ... I realised I'd not be let onto the road leading to the road leading to the road to the City. Eh, whatevs. Me no care. I have a blog to sing from. I was ready for CHOGM, and it went. All I got was a damn fine time at some restaurant, eating Indian cuisine with some girl.
Also, them Brits arrested one of our boys for saying `Insha'llah' at one of their sacred Protestant airports. Insha'llah - God willing - is, to them Brits, a dark code word for `kill them all, let nobody escape'.
Lastly, the Kenyans.
Look, this is strange. I was seven, walking down a Nairobi street. My Ma was just a few paces ahead. My auntie was to my left. And my cute little new watch was on my left hand. And a Kenyan man rushed by, bumped a bit into my auntie, muttered an apology, and went on to where he was headed.
It was two hours later that I realised the watch had, with such mathematical precision, with such fluid swiftness, with such stunning talent, been snatched off my arm, and I didn't even fuckin' notice until two hours later. That is the Kenyan pick-pocket for you. Ever resourceful. I cried, because it was a very loved watch. I'd not even have thought it was him, if my auntie hadn't mentioned it. In retrospect, I am glad my watch was stolen with more flair than McGuyver can imagine. I am proud to have been conned by the best.
But now what is this? A country that doesn't know how to steal a vote?
In this century? Kenya, where have you been looking? Have we taught you nothing? Even the Americans managed to steal the vote. George Walker Bush. And the sly Kenyan can't pull only that off? I'm disappointed. Stop turning your Shame into Fury, Kenya (you'll get to The Moor's Last Sigh, at that rate). You can't steal the most-basic necessity for a country of this century. It's a shame. Go, Kibaki, go, Raila, go and sit at the feet of the street lumpens, and they will teach you things that thy minds can fathom not. In particular, look for a tall man with a scar about the jaw. Whoever you are, pick-pocket, I've not yet forgiven you.
The Kenyans are resourceful people. Immensely clever. Their thieves and cheats can steal anything. Why did the national character falter at the crucial moment of stealing the vote? Well, whatevs.
I've always said: May the best vote thief win (it is always a good sign of who is the better leader - it is a vote of its own, one nobody can cheat).
Ah. The deep cleansing rant.
[Toot!] Index: 7.2
Communism Bit: Off
Location: Job, of course
So, I went away. For a while. Them rumours you heard, mbu the 'Mericans got me—total lies. I have a jaw packed with arsenic. Death before dishonour. And death before a nice steak on the bone, also.
I came back and spent some time weeding the spam out of me comments, and then I went checking people out. DeTamble is slightly psychic in this kind of thing: one of the latest posts there was about whether or not I'd make it back.
And now that I'm in a de place, Brick and Lace, dese blogs are wicked, wicked, wicked.
By now you've seen the pattern: no discernible effort is being made to make much sense. I'm writing this in the slums, to push it later at the blog. There is a kid crying out there, and he knows how to make his cry sound so tormented. It is always a paining cry, when that boy decides to give it a hit. Most kids cry to fill the blanks for words they don't know yet. Him, he knows exactly what he wants to say, and it is `Waaaahhh'. And he says it with the passion of a preacher. Kid is driving me insane, even from that far.
Now, I came back as a stranger in the house. I know how it is when a soldier comes back home, having been one of the few who went and survived the War, and he expects his wife to explode with joy that he made it back ... and he finds his house deserted. The dog didn't leave, because it knew, somehow, that he was coming back. But the wife? `She said you must have died in the war. She left around two years ago. No, she sent the children to their grandmother's place. Yes, they are at your mother's place. She got married again, yes. Some man from over there; we didn't know him either, but he used to come and stay here sometimes.'
Or something like that. Maybe worse. Here's why:
Nate, it is illegal to insinuate, even as a distant possibility, that a girl is not hot, if she has a greater-than-zero chance of finding out at all. If you think so, keep it to yourself. Similarly, it is illegal to insinuate, even as a distant possibility, that a guy is impotent, if he has a greater-than-zero chance of finding out at all. If you think so, keep it to yourself.
The devastation caused by these two is never trivial. And any reaction is always an under-reaction.
Julius Nyerere drove the Jeshi La Tanzania against Idi Amin. I root the war—and such a pivotal war—in Amin's remarks about Nyerere's masculinity. If I throw a nuke at America because someone there said I'm not like the most virile human under Jah Sun, I'd still be under-reacting. I'd be a modest and forgiving man.
Which means I'm going to bomb these people sending me mails on penis enlargement. I think they are Nigerians, so it will be a good thing for the whole world. Maybe they are reading, so here: I don't mean to brag or anything but ... God was trying to make a statement of His Eternal Greatness when he got to me. I don't need your penis enlargement spam - enlargement can only subtract from this one. I'm at the pinnacle of what is possible. :o)
But seriously, male ego evolves, ultimately, around being a capable and preferred dispenser of the Seed. Female ego (the beast existeth) evolves, ultimately, around being a preferred and worthy recipient of the Seed.
Attack on these two fronts, and good people are allowed to stab you in the neck and enjoy your dying gurgles. Say `sorry', Nate. We love you both, you and Cheri, and I know you didn't know the impact it would have. It was meant to be a joke, but it went down badly, because you dodged my classes. Cheri, he didn't mean it. He isn't blind, you see. :o) I'm even going to make a couple of you two. I don't joke, me. You gon' kiss righ' now!
Anyway, lemme close and let you run along.
Wait. It's been a while. There's much shit to write about. I didn't blog all through CHOGM. I have much to say.
Earlier on in life, I learnt to deal with the effect that cute girls have on me.
For me, ignoring it doesn't work. Mine is an artist's soul - it pineth after beauty. It will explain my record of never keeping it to myself when a chic stuns me - this blog is covered in posts that are bleeding descriptions of beauty. But, by and large, I know how to deal with the effect. I recognise it, lie down, let it pass. Life, however, didn't train me to deal with the case where a girl just keeps getting prettier. I'm scared. When I try to `lie down and let it pass', the next time I see her she has doubled. It has become necessary for me to keep seeing her so that I keep up with the brilliance. If I take long, I worry I would go blind the next time. I'd recognise her (just look for the prittiest thing around, and that's her), but I'd probably go like totally blind. If I ever needed God, ever at all, I need Him now. I'm scared.
CHOGM (n., adj.) [Chow-gum; Show-m (rare.)]: Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Annual meeting held in a given member country of the Commonwealth of Nations, where the Head of Government of all member countries are in attendance. Except Robert Mugabe, of course. And the odd Pavez Musharaf, every once in a while. (See Also: Commonwealth, Zimbabwe, British Empire, Babylon, Head of Government, Head of State)So CHOGM came. I'm late, I know, but hey. In a de place, Brick and Lace, your love is wicked, wicked, wicked.
The CHOGM delegation went for CHOGM.
She is not very excited about the imminence of CHOGM.
Are you ready for CHOGM?
So, I was going to get up and heckle the Queen in the CHOGM nankanis.
I wanted to get up as she is chirping about why Britain keeps debts of countries that will never pay a fuckin' coin (and, after the Revolution, we'll recognise no debts), and start singing Bob's `Chant Down Babylon', improvising the tin drums as I go, but ... I realised I'd not be let onto the road leading to the road leading to the road to the City. Eh, whatevs. Me no care. I have a blog to sing from. I was ready for CHOGM, and it went. All I got was a damn fine time at some restaurant, eating Indian cuisine with some girl.
Also, them Brits arrested one of our boys for saying `Insha'llah' at one of their sacred Protestant airports. Insha'llah - God willing - is, to them Brits, a dark code word for `kill them all, let nobody escape'.
There are two kinds of fears: rational fear, and irrational fear. A fear of the Arabic language is an irrational fear.I've always said I'd hate bin Laden, if the Brits and Americans weren't there to compare Al Qaeda to. But this is not welcome-back material, so I'll put it on hold.
— Lemony Snicket (with minor alteration)
Lastly, the Kenyans.
Look, this is strange. I was seven, walking down a Nairobi street. My Ma was just a few paces ahead. My auntie was to my left. And my cute little new watch was on my left hand. And a Kenyan man rushed by, bumped a bit into my auntie, muttered an apology, and went on to where he was headed.
It was two hours later that I realised the watch had, with such mathematical precision, with such fluid swiftness, with such stunning talent, been snatched off my arm, and I didn't even fuckin' notice until two hours later. That is the Kenyan pick-pocket for you. Ever resourceful. I cried, because it was a very loved watch. I'd not even have thought it was him, if my auntie hadn't mentioned it. In retrospect, I am glad my watch was stolen with more flair than McGuyver can imagine. I am proud to have been conned by the best.
But now what is this? A country that doesn't know how to steal a vote?
In this century? Kenya, where have you been looking? Have we taught you nothing? Even the Americans managed to steal the vote. George Walker Bush. And the sly Kenyan can't pull only that off? I'm disappointed. Stop turning your Shame into Fury, Kenya (you'll get to The Moor's Last Sigh, at that rate). You can't steal the most-basic necessity for a country of this century. It's a shame. Go, Kibaki, go, Raila, go and sit at the feet of the street lumpens, and they will teach you things that thy minds can fathom not. In particular, look for a tall man with a scar about the jaw. Whoever you are, pick-pocket, I've not yet forgiven you.
The Kenyans are resourceful people. Immensely clever. Their thieves and cheats can steal anything. Why did the national character falter at the crucial moment of stealing the vote? Well, whatevs.
I've always said: May the best vote thief win (it is always a good sign of who is the better leader - it is a vote of its own, one nobody can cheat).
Ah. The deep cleansing rant.
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