I've read quite a few of Ian Dunt's articles now. Sometimes I agree with him, sometimes not. This article is, in my opinion, the most on target that I have read so far. Quote therefrom:
In actual fact, the government has no particular interest in the truth. As Professor Nutt said yesterday, the Home Office's decision to upgrade cannabis from Class C to Class B had a far more significant political effect than the error of its imposition. With the experts all telling the government this was the wrong move, and all the data pointing to a reduction in use since the drug was downgraded in 2004, Smith, under orders from the prime minister, upgraded it to class B anyway. The precedent was clear: experts and evidence mean nothing. Tabloid headlines mean everything.
There could be no better lesson upon which to start a politically conscious life: the government is not telling you the truth. With that piece of knowledge you can become a fully active citizen, rather than the passive sponge government wishes you to be. The next time a prime minister tells the public that a country can attack us in 45 minutes in order to justify a war, the kids will be suspicious. The next time politicians throw insults at each other as a means of evading debate, they will be suspicious. The next time a politician justifies taking away British freedoms with reference to the threat of terrorism, they will be suspicious.
And here are a couple of articles relating to climate change:
I was walking the streets of Swansea just the other day, seeing all the new mothers with their offspring, and I couldn't help seeing reproduction as an almost military thing, part of a tactic of genetic occupation of resources from a particular DNA tribe. To have children is, as I have said before, to stake one's claim in genetic immortality. However, it is a claim that is contested - by all the other DNA tribes also reproducing. Reproduction, in very simple terms, is a war for resources. Affluent couples are like affluent nations. They know they can secure a bigger share of the world's finite resources for their children.
That's all it is, folks. That's all it is. Reproduction is war.
Walking back to the car park from Swansea town centre, I stopped to let a mother pass with her child in a push-chair. Instinctively, I apologised, in what should be the normal British manner, when there is any hesitation or confusion over 'right of way'. She stared at me wordless and insolent, and pushed her precious load onwards. This is the way it always seems to happen. Reproduction is not seen as an act of selfishness that must be indulged, but as something that confers on the breeder some greater social rank, some greater entitlement, as if we should all care about that person's scrabble for genetic immortality as much as they do. The vanity, the conceit and the tyranny of family values!
If I were at all techy in inclination I would take The Hand that Rocks the Cradle by The Smiths and put it over the clip from Chaplin's The Kid below, and put the resulting combination on YouTube. The same effect can be acheived if you play both of the clips together at the same time, but turn the sound down on the Chaplin clip while watching that clip rather than the other. Alternatively, you can open two separate windows and play the clips at the same time in the different windows while watching the Chaplin clip with the sound down. The clip of The Hand that Rock the Cradle is 19 seconds longer than the Chaplin clip, so it's best to let this one play first, for up to 19 seconds. (I recommend 8 to 10 seconds.)
On the 20th of this month I got up and went downstairs and there were leaves across the kitchen floor, as if blown in on a gust of wind. They are still there. Autumn always comforts me.
The same day, blowing in on another wind, there came two different leaves in the form of packages for me. One of them was a volume called Japanese Love Poems, edited by Jean Bennett and illustrated by Scott Cumming. Poetry is notoriously difficult to translate, especially between two such dissimilar languages as Japanese and English, but I find the translations in this volume to be very fresh and evocative.
The poems date as far back as the third century (possibly further), which does tend to make me wonder for how long, exactly, humans have had the same emotions? Here's an undated Japanese lyric from the selection:
Two things cannot alter, Since Time was, nor to-day: The flowing of water; And Love's strange, sweet way.
Reminds me of another old lyric:
Of course, these are things I know nothing about, but I am anthropologically and aesthetically interested.
It's a very beautiful book, in content and as an object, the illustrations forming a significant part of its charm.
The book was not coming to me for the first time, actually. I had sent it (after my initial purchase) to the illustrious illustrator, and he very kindly wrote an inscription and sent it back.
The second package I received that day was a Japanese purse - the purse equivalent of this:
Today I received another package in the post. It was this book:
I've read and appreciated Alan Watts before, so am looking forward to reading this. I am actually, very, very slowly, working on my own translation of the Tao Te Ching and this looks as if it will help me.
By the way, talking of the "flowing of water", here's a little extract from Alan Watts' book:
... Tao is the flowing course of nature and the universe; li is its principle of order which, following Needham, we can best translate as "organic pattern"; and water is its eloquent metaphor.
It has now, quite definitely, been released. It is a wonderfully produced volume and I'm very pleased with it.
Props to Dan Ghetu for lots of hard work on this one.
I'm really not sure what to say about this. I mean, I feel like I should make a speech or something, but I think, in the end, if the collection doesn't speak for itself then it's failed. So, I shall be optimistic and assume that it does speak for itself.
Incidentally, I did, I admit it, consult the Oblique Strategies cards on how the collection would be received. My answer was, "Just carry on". Yeah, well, isn't that what I've always done? I shall carry on until one day I stop for good.
I'm finding this story, about the Hadron collider, quite fascinating. Anything that totally warps previous conceptions of reality is okay by me.
To quote:
Danish string theory pioneer Holger Bech Nielsen and the Japanese physicist Masao Ninomiya say that the yet to be discovered Higgs Boson could have the ability to turn back time to stop its cover being blown, reports New Scientist.
To quote further:
The duo had proposed to prove their theory by printing millions of cards with the words "carry on" written on them, and then slip in a couple of cards that say "shut the thing down".
They conclude that if you randomly draw out a card that reads "shut the thing down", that Higgs is attempting to influence the future, and that the world's largest machine should be shut down.
I conducted a little experiment of my own a few days ago on this blog. Now I intend to repeat it with questions relating to the collider.
First question put to the Oblique Strategies cards:
Q: Is the Higgs Boson particle, indeed, sabotaging the Hadron collider from the future?
OS: Cut a vital connection
Q: Hmmm. Interesting. Does that mean that the collider should be shut down?
OS: Disconnect from desire
Q: Hmmm. Interesting again. Is the Hadron collider, indeed, against nature?
OS: What mistakes did you make last time?
Q: Are you addressing the human race generally, or referring specifically to the Hadron collider project?
OS: [pack fell open in two places here] Decorate, decorate
Question the heroic approach
Q: This is getting a bit obscure again. I probably shouldn't use either/or questions, anyway. Let's see, what other questions are there to ask on this? Okay, I'll ask a fairly open question. What the hell, if anything, is, in fact, going on with the LHC?
OS: Be dirty
Q:???? What would happen if we found the Higgs Boson particle?
OS: Simply a matter of work
Q: So, it's not that dangerous then?
OS: Destroy:
Nothing
The most important thing
Q: Ah... this is getting a bit creepy. Let's see. What is the Higgs Boson particle, actually?
OS: Accretion
Q: Now that's pretty fucking esoteric. I'm going to have to actually do research to see if that has any relevance.
Okay, I'll ask again, in the hope of clarifying, are Holger Bech Nielsen and Masao Ninomiya right in their theory about the sabotage of the LHC from the future?
OS: [pack fell open in two places again] Simply a matter of work
Who should be doing this job? How would they do it?
Q: Hmmm. Okay. Confusing. I feel like you haven't answered the most important question here. I'll try from a different angle. Will we ever find the Higgs Boson particle?
OS: Which elements can be grouped?
Q: Er.... Okay. I think I'll give this a rest for now. Is there anything you'd like to add before I do?
I said I didn't have any particular comments on the programme. This is largely because I'm not very politically motivated and don't think I'm well informed enough to add anything to what other people have said. However, I've decided to jot down a few thoughts.
I think I'm interested in this issue - the media's relationship with the BNP - primarily because I am a writer (sorry to have to say that, as if I'm wearing a badge), and therefore, by my very nature, I am deeply concerned with issues of free speech. My feeling is that racism (as imputed to the BNP, for instance) is an issue that is understood by more people and to a relatively greater degree, than free speech, which, it seems to me, hardly anyone can grasp or understand. That's because the average human being is incapable of empathising with the enemy. Inevitably, this means that free speech, for the average person, of whatever political persuasion, becomes, "You have the right to say anything you want as long as I'm not offended by it." Clearly, this is not free speech at all. (I'm adding this some time later. I've actually been thinking about how the issues of free speech and racism are very closely related, and in complex ways. Perhaps, rather than racism, I should use a broader term like 'cultural friction' or 'cultural and racial prejudice' or something. People try to deny free speech to others in the power plays that take place within cultural conflicts.)
Watching the broadcast of Question Time posted above, I felt there were strong overtones of what Heidegger called 'Das Man'. People were saying what they thought they should say (especially true of the politicians, of course).
I have searched my heart and I find there no hatred for Nick Griffin. This might be surprising, considering I am quite capable of hatred for other political and public figures who probably (possibly?) are less malign in intent. But then, to compare Griffin to someone with whom he is often compared, I find in my heart no hatred for Hitler. Hitler's name has become a byword for evil - a cliche. He is no longer a human being. It is often said that in order to make us hate our enemies, the politicians and media dehumanise them. It seems to me that the very reason I cannot hate Nick Griffin and Adolf Hitler is because they have been dehumanised. (Incidentally, my impression is that Griffin is not really comparable to Hitler.)
Even if I wanted to hate them, others have already done the job too well for me, and it would be redundant of me to add any hatred.
This gives rise to the question, is it obligatory to hate Nick Griffin, and if so, why?
I would suggest that if it is obligatory to hate Nick Griffin then something very dubious is taking place - a very insidious form of censorship.
Another reason I am interested in this issue is that, particularly since having lived in Japan, I am often preoccupied by questions of identity, diversity and tolerance (for instance, can and should we tolerate intolerance?). In simplified form, I think there is a human dilemma (or question) that goes something like this: Will there always be conflict as long as there is identity? If so, what is to be valued most, identity or peace? And, if identity does not automatically equal conflict, then at what point in the interactions of different identities do conflicts occur? In short, should we all be the same, or is it okay (better?) if we are all different?
This is a dilemma that to me also relates to my interest in the difference between Western and Eastern religion, philosophy, society and so on. Chesterton outlines the elements of that difference brilliantly as follows:
A short time ago Mrs. Besant, in an interesting essay, announced that there was only one religion in the world, that all faiths were only versions or perversions of it, and that she was quite prepared to say what it was. According to Mrs. Besant this universal Church is simply the universal self. It is the doctrine that we are really all one person; that there are no real walls of individuality between man and man. If I may put it so, she does not tell us to love our neighbours; she tells us to be our neighbours. That is Mrs. Besant's thoughtful and suggestive description of the religion in which all men must find themselves in agreement. And I never heard of any suggestion in my life with which I more violently disagree. I want to love my neighbour not because he is I, but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore the world, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is one's self, but as one loves a woman, because she is entirely different. If souls are separate love is possible. If souls are united love is obviously impossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself, but he can hardly fall in love with himself, or, if he does, it must be a monotonous courtship. If the world is full of real selves, they can be really unselfish selves. But upon Mrs. Besant's principle the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish person.
There's more, but I won't quote the whole thing here.
If Chesterton is right and it is the Western impulse to love what is different rather than to make something the same in order to love it, then mine is decidedly the Western impulse. Of course, that's a big 'if'. It might be hard to find love when one looks at the oppression and conflicts of Western history, and even if I claim the ideal of loving difference as my own, it is, so to speak, a different matter as to whether I can actually live that ideal. Nick Griffin's impulse would appear to be not to love what is different. In that sense, he is different to me (at least as in terms of ideals and expressed views). What, then, is my attitude to him to be if I wish to adhere to the principle of loving what is different? (Yes, the old question of whether we tolerate intolerance.)
I have noted the language that the media and public figures have used in relation to Nick Griffin. They seem to feel the need to attach epithets such as "squalid" and "chilling". To me, these epithets are redundant and seem designed to score points in a pharisaical manner. If you describe what appear to be Griffin's intentions and his actions to the best of your ability, there is no need for such epithets. On the programme, one audience member suggested that Griffin should go to Antarctica. In short, this is the failure of integration - it is war. The question is, is war inevitable? Again, does identity always mean conflict?
Recently I've been playing with Oblique Strategies, using the cards as a kind of oracle, a habit I picked up a while back. I thought I'd try an experiment. Actually, I'm not sure I have any good questions that I want to ask (not that I want to ask publicly, anyway), but, just now, I asked the first thing that came into my head, which was, "Is the world going to end soon?" (this is the kind of 'first thing' that comes into my head), and got the answer, "Is it finished?" This seemed appropriate enough to prompt me actually to go through with the experiment. So, I will type my questions, split the deck, and then write precisely what card I got, without cheating:
Q: You tell me, is it finished?
OS: Is it finished?
Q: I don't know. That's why I'm asking. Is it all over?
OS: Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
Q: Okay. I'll try doing that. Do you think it's a good idea to have the BNP on Question Time?
OS: Gardening, not architecture
Q: I must admit, that's pretty obscure. Could you clarify?
OS: Give the game away
Q: Okay, well, I can certainly interpret that, so I'll go on to another question. Is there any point ever having children?
OS: Take a break
Q: Yeah, I agree. I think we need a break. Why don't more people read Chomu?
OS: Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
Q: Ah, you have exceptional taste! Okay, now for a biggie. How will I die?
OS: Take away the elements in order of apparent non importance
Q: Hmmm, just like they say, eh? Okay, I suppose I can handle that. I'm going to be self-indulgent now. Do you think my new book is any good?
OS: How would you have done it?
Q: Well, pretty much the way I did do it, I suppose. I mean, I don't think there are no flaws or anything. But you're kind of avoiding the question. Make a critical judgement, please.
OS: Honour thy error as a hidden intention
Q: You minx! I'm not sure how to take that. So, I shall take it as a compliment. Thank you. I'm actually running out of questions. And it's late, and I think I want to go to bed. Maybe one more. Let's see... Should I give up writing this blog?
OS: Don't break the silence
Q: !!!!
You know, you're right. Damn, if only I could follow that advice. I shall try and start now.
What about the rights of adults? If it is conceded that the airport staff would be making indecent images of children, aren't they doing the same to the adults who pass through? How much longer do we have to swallow this kind of shit?
I had the following dream. There was a mini-bus, a bit like the Mystery Machine, out of Scooby Doo. It was going on a tour, and passengers were invited. I accepted this invitation. Not for the first time in my life, I turned up to find that what I had chosen was not, in fact, the popular choice. I was the only passenger. Still, there was some sense of luxury and privilege in such a position, not to mention, well, uniqueness.
The driver was a very tall, big-boned, soft-bellied homeless man with tangled red locks and a vast red beard, which was eternally damp with drool and alcohol around the region of his lips. He was energetic, however, and loyal and purposeful. This tour had given him purpose. It was his tour, he was in charge, and I was his responsibility.
His loyalty, however, in some way overflowed, and I found myself, quite soon, having to fend off sexual advances. Luckily he got the message. He was much bigger than me, after all, and could have decided not to take 'no' for an answer. On the other hand, I got the sense that he had not given up his designs upon me.
We stopped at a canteen. Troubled in mind, I paced about, making a conscious effort to avoid the driver. What should I do? Should I simply abandon the tour altogether? That would be extremely impolite. No, best to stick with it, and simply fend off whatever advances were made in a demure fashion, like a maiden defending her modesty.
Unfortunately, however, he noticed that I was avoiding him. Our eyes met, and I saw a terrible indignation in his. Soon he had told all his friends in the canteen. They paraded between the aisles there, holding up placards denouncing me as a two-faced traitor.
The topic for this year's Blog Action Day is climate change.
I've been thinking about this, and I don't know if I'm really the best person to write about this, because I feel pretty conflicted and emotional about it. Also, I find myself tending towards fatalism. There may be happier times for human beings at some point in the future, but, as they say, not in my lifetime.
Anyway, so I decided to look at some other people's blog posts on the subject.
I keep getting e-mails from Ed Miliband. We're on first-name terms. Yesterday he wrote to me thus:
Quentin,
We face a fight and I need your help.
He knows who to turn to when the situation calls for a bit of pugilism. He continues:
Our generation is the first to understand that climate change needs to be combatted - and could be the last to make a significant effort to curb its worst effects.
Senior Tory backbencher, Douglas Carswell MP this week declared that those who believe that climate change is happening are part of a "lunatic consensus".
I want you to help spread the word about what the Tories really believe. Click here.
It's incredible that Conservatives still think like this. Their green rhetoric is undermined by their uncosted and incoherent policies. They claim to support renewable energy but across the country Tory MPs routinely campaign against w ind power.
In December, more than 180 countries will go to Copenhagen to thrash out a new international deal to tackle climate change. The stakes could not be higher.
Those of us who understand the need for action need to make our voices heard.
Visit the EdsPledge.com letter-writing page to send a letter to your local newspaper and spread the word about the need for a fair, effective and ambitious deal at Copenhagen.
Thanks
Ed
Just in case you wanted to click that link, it's here.
I was outside just a while ago, involved in redecorating, and the neighbour mentioned something like, "They've just said on the telly that there'll be no more snow at the Poles within 15 years."
Or was it 50 years?
I've tried looking the information up, and can't find it. I found this, but not an estimate for when snow will disappear entirely from both Poles.
I do wish there would be a readily available digest of all this information. I've said this before. There just seems to be a kind of blizzard of information in which it's hard to discern quite what is happening.
If this post seems rather listless, it's because I've been contemplating armageddon. There's really no way I can write down all my thoughts and feelings on the subject, and I'm not sure it would do any good if I could. Nonetheless, I felt like writing something.
I'm about to have lunch, but first some pointless lists:
Well, I wrote the list below yesterday, I think, and now I'm going to be confusing by inserting a lot of commentary without indicating the chronology of the different parts of the text. First of all, I woke up this morning, and my radio alarm was blasting out the Chris Moyles radio show. I'm just not very good at tuning in to different radio stations, that's all! Anyway, day after day in my life, I have woken and thought all sorts of antagonistic things about Chris Moyles, but this morning, as I surfaced blearily from sleep, I only thought, "What a great guy Chris Moyles is! No wonder everybody loves him!" So, if I'm capable of thinking that about Chris Moyles, clearly any list I write of people I've 'gone off', shouldn't be taken too seriously, especially when it is a list containing the likes of the people below, all of whom are lovely in one way or another. Anyway, I'll proceed to explanation.
Gone off
David Bowie
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for David Bowie! I am looking for David Bowie!"
As many of those who did not believe in David Bowie were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.
"Where has David Bowie gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying David Bowie? Do we not smell anything yet of David Bowie's decomposition? Pop and rock geniuses too decompose. David Bowie is dead. David Bowie remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?
More on this theme, in the same place, later...
Neil Gaiman
I actually went off Gaiman a long time ago. I was reminded of this fact relatively recently when I watched Stardust. Let us say, I did not enjoy it. It's probably a good job I watched it on an empty stomach. Gaiman is kind of the twinkly-eyed David Essex of pseudo-intellectual comic-book fantasy.
Stephen Fry
Not so very long ago (a couple of years, I suppose) I was attending a group for the discussion of poetry and someone happened to mention that they couldn't stand Stephen Fry. At the time I found this incomprehensible. Comprehension, has, since then, grown upon me. Since A Bit of Fry and Laurie way back in the mists of time, Stephen Fry seems to have sat heavily upon his laurels, in a celebrity quiz show called Q.I.. I believe that stands for 'quite interesting', which is probably supposed to be false modesty. However, it's not. On the programme where various celebrities name all that they hate - Room 101 - Stephen Fry named one of his hates as the 'New Age'. In explaining himself, he quoted G.K. Chesterton, to the effect that, the problem when people stop believing in Christianity is not that they then believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything (as if Christianity doesn't fall under the umbrella of 'anything'). Fry then explained that he is not a Christian himself. I'm pretty sure he'd call himself an atheist, in which case we have an atheist using Christian sentiment in order to dismiss the New Age. I find this incredibly boring and conservative, but not at all surprising. Recently I see that he was able to enjoy the company of Jeremy Clarkson. Also, the only science fiction he likes is that written by Douglas Adams. Apparently. He has come to resemble a big pillow that has been used in too many pillow fights and is now sad and shapeless.
Gautama Sakyamuni (the 'Buddha')
I had an experience not long ago in which my psychical antibodies, after a long struggle, defeated the invading virus of Buddhism. I'm not going to explain the experience at length, but I formally rejected Buddhism at the time. The fact that I rejected Buddhism shows how close I came to accepting it fully. The Buddha was suicidal. Quite understandable, but I don't see why we should base a religion upon it.
Momus
Momus is a very under-rated singer/songwriter. I've been a fan for a long time. Unfortunately, I think I've read too much of his blog to be able to enjoy his music as I should. Apparently he's decided to stop writing his blog. I think he's right to do so, for many reasons. It has been one of the best blogs on the Internet. However, I don't think - unlike some people - that blogs are really a good idea for artists in the long run. I wish I could put an end to this blog, too, as it would stop me writing this kind of shit. Actually, it was Momus who inspired me to take up blogging in the first place, and thus changed my life. I think he might be ceasing to blog because he's starting to get books published and is feeling a rush, or a slight whoosh, of success. If ever I feel a whoosh of success, I'll probably give up blogging, too. I'll get someone else to build a website all about me, and I won't have to embarrass myself anymore.
Turning on to
Chuang-tzu
I've long been interested in Daoism, but being - appropriately - something of a butterfly, have not really studied it systematically. Recently, however, I've been motivated to sit down and really assimilate Chuang-tzu (if such a thing is possible). Incidentally, I'm not sure that Chuang-tzu would have called himself a Daoist, or if such a thing even really exists. Anyway, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, and the kind of philosophy they expound, are actually better than Buddhism, in my not very humble opinion. There are all kinds of things I could say about Chuang-tzu, but one small detail, that might be telling, is this - he's a philosopher who does not eschew poetry. Even in the rather stilted translation I am reading (it seems to be scholastically very thorough) the poetry comes through.
Epictetus
I've long had an interest in philosophy. At A-level, I studied religion, half of which was the philosophy of religion. At university, I hung out with quite a number of philosophy students, and was always fascinated by their conversation. As usual, however, I've been a bit lazy when it comes to really getting to grips with philosophy. I have renewed my efforts recently. Philosophy is a load of balls, of course, but in a way that I personally find enriching. I'm currently stimulated by what little I know of Epictetus the Stoic and his teachings. I shall endeavour to learn more.
San Juan de la Cruz
I just happened to find a volume of the poems of St. John of the Cross in Oxfam (translated by Roy Campbell), opened it up, read the first two stanzas of the first poem, and knew I had to buy the book. Some of the best poetry I've ever read. I don't think I'll ever get the concept of the Holy Trinity, though.
G.K. Chesterton
I haven't read that much of Chesterton. However, I like the way he says things. I even like some of what he says. I'm sure that I'll end up hating him one way or another, but his Orthodoxy is now on my reading list.
Skip James
I was introduced to the blues back in 2005. I'm a very slow person in many ways, so my exploration has only got as far, really, as John Lee Hooker, Skip James and Bukka White, all of whom I like very much. Of these I like Skip James the best. I feel I understand his music now, whereas, at first, I was simply intrigued. Skip James has yuugen.
Okay, I'll write explanations of the rest of this stuff later...
Rediscovering
So, to continue with the relentless self-sabotage... (Actually, I don't think self-sabotage is possible in relation to some of the names below):
Edgar A. Poe
People are always, very kindly, sending me books in the post. I received some this morning - three rather wonderful volumes, two of Reggie Oliver, and one of Edgar A. Poe. I think I own almost everything Poe wrote in one form or another, but the volume I received today is a very attractive 1909 hardback selection with colour plates by Byam Shaw.
I remember with reasonable clarity my first encounter with Poe... or rather, the first whole story (rather than a precis or digest) of Poe's which I read. I must have been about twelve. Someone had given me a hardback edition of Tales of Mystery and Imagination. I cannot find a picture of the edition online. Anyway, the first Poe tale I read was 'The Gold-Bug', which seems a strange place to start with Poe, and I do remember it was not what I expected. I also remember finding the opening passage of this, and of 'MS. Found in a Bottle', to be quite dense and difficult to wade through. Re-reading those opening now, I'm not sure why I would have thought such a thing of the former story, though the opening of the latter still seems quite heavy. I still don't know who "the German moralists" mentioned in the opening of the latter tale are.
Something, somewhere, at some point, must have impressed me, because I soon read just about everything that Poe had written, with the exception of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (oh for the days when you could use the word 'narrative' in the title of your novel!) and possibly one or two other pieces. My favourites were 'The Masque of the Red Death', 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and some others. There were some stories, however, that, though I enjoyed, I was conscious that somehow, I 'didn't get'. I am thinking, in particular, of 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. I didn't really get the poetry then, either.
In latter years I have found myself being especially drawn to some of Poe's poems, even more than to the tales. I am also finding myself wishing to return to the tales, and to read that Narrative. Recently I re-read 'Berenice' (there's a connection with my forthcoming collection). More recently still, I started on Poe's essay-poem 'Eureka'. I think I must have at least tried to read this one in my teens, but I probably wasn't ready for it at the time. I don't find myself recognising what I am reading. I am, however, enjoying it. It is quite clear that Poe is an exceptional writer, a phenomenon.
Dare Wright
I've put Dare Wright under 'rediscovering', but this rediscovery had its inception round about 2005/2006. A lot of things probably did, come to think of it. It is a real rediscovery in the sense that, I'd never really forgotten about Poe or Hesse, but Dare Wright had been buried like the city of some lost civilisation in a very deep stratum of my psyche. I had known her books in a curious silent way as a child. They had not been read to me, as they should have - I had found them. In fact, my memory of this matter is as confused as it is powerful. I certainly know that the emotions conveyed by the use of photography and posed dolls were very poignant to me on my first encounter, as they are to me now. I can't help a sense of wonder when I consider the eerie, fragile way in which Dare's works came into my life and touched me so deeply. I anticipate that she will be an inexhaustible well of fascination and beauty for me.
Hermann Hesse
I read Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund recently. I'd started it years and years back, but never got past the first chapter or two. Something told me that now was the right time to give it another go, and I was right. Utterly fantastic. If only all books were this good. It's particularly interesting to me because, although it starts out weighing the spiritual/intellectual path of Narcissus quite evenly against the sensual/artistic path of Goldmund, it seems to me that, at the end, Hesse comes down quite decisively in favour of Goldmund. I found it powerful for that reason. (Everyone these days wants to be balanced, but that can be an artificial and stagnant attitude.) This is also good for me as I have tended to denigrate myself whenever I have placed myself on the Goldmund side of the intellectual/artistic dichotomy. Here is a book that makes me feel, quite convincingly, that I need not do so. I also have the sense that it's a powerfully anti-patriarchal book.
To give a little example of the kind of things that I relate to my feelings about this book, please watch this clip:
Now, I don't want to 'dis' (should that be one 's' or two?) Krishnamurti here, but I suppose I'll have to do something like that. I don't necessarily disagree with anything he's saying here, either (although his estimation of himself as "nobody" is unnecessarily modest), but... if he's proposing that gurus are useless and we should look to ourselves, then... what the hell is he doing on a blinking stage being asked questions by a reverently hushed audience? Is that the behaviour of a "nobody"? It makes no sense to me, really. What would impress me would be if, instead of just ponderously trotting out self-evident truths mixed with depressingly austere and possibly dubious 'wisdom', he could actually do something, like play a really mean ukulele, or tap-dance:
Why aren't these gurus ever any good at doing anything at all other than getting up on a stage and telling other people to look to their inner wisdom? A teaching to which the obvious answer is (excuse me for repeating myself), "So, we don't need you, right? So, what are you doing up there talking? We're about to have a party, what party skills do you have to offer?"
(I'm told that there are some ascended ones who did actually have some other skills apart from being generally wise. I shall look into this. Otherwise enlightenment looks pretty damned tedious.)
Well, more on this post later...
Never went away
Nagai Kafu
I'm not sure what to say about Nagai Kafu that I have not said before. (Incidentally, this year is not only the bicentenary of Poe's birth, but the fiftieth anniversary of Kafu's death.) He is shibui. He's the geezer. Etc. Here is a picture of him leaning on a window sill:
In this article, Michael Hoffman calls him "a difficult man; eccentric, unloving, unlovable". Increasingly, I feel that, if the world labels someone a troublemaker, or "difficult", they are usually my kind of person. Interestingly, of all the people I've never met (and even of those I have), the unloving and unlovable Kafu may well be the one who has made me feel least alone and offered me most consistent consolation. If I have been saved by Kafu, it is because he has given me the ability to aestheticise even the worst moments of my life. He was a man who could look at the prostitution, poverty, drug addiction and degradation of the Chinatown of his day and say (I quote from memory): "My only fear is that those we call humanitarians may one day sweep away this world-within-a-world, this treasurehouse of fleurs du mal." Not a sentiment that one could easily express today without being taken to task, but did he care? No, he did not. That's why I love him.
I wrote some lyrics about Nagai Kafu for Kodagain. The opening lines are as follows:
Walking romantically by himself, an elder statesman Of side streets, where he turns into pure observation. Tokyo is not like Ancient Rome. Tokyo is not like Rome. Dead and fast decaying, it's still ambivalently home.
Morrissey
I do sometimes have the curious feeling that I should 'give up' Morrissey, as if Morrissey is the kind of thing you do 'give up', like... well, like any habits that one is supposed to outgrow. This is possibly because Morrissey himself is perceived as frozen in one 'phase'. But, does one give up one's friends merely because one has been friends a long time?
Having said that, I think many Morrissey fans are scared of actually meeting the man. All sorts of terrible things could go wrong.
In this brief news story he is called "one of the last remaining real pop stars":
My feelings exactly. One of, or perhaps even the last, who is a self-created pop legend, who came out of nowhere and made himself inevitable, like the figure in Bowie's Lady Stardust (a bit): "The boy in the bright blue jeans/Jumped up on the stage."
I have a story called 'Tzimtzum' in the Ex Occidente Meyrink anthology and another called 'The Gwyllgi of the Lost Lanes' in the Haunted Histories anthology. They're both fairly long stories. The former is really more like a novella.
I should also have some stories in Postscripts (about three), but I don't know when.
WIDGETIZE