Uncategorized

To tear it down and start again

In their song ‘Finisterre’, Saint Etienne have a lyric that runs: “Imagine the nineteenth century never happened / a straight run from Beau Brummell to Bauhaus”. When I think of that lyric I wonder why the nineteenth century in particular and not the twentieth. You would think if you’re going to skip a century you want to pick the one with the holocaust.

All I’ve been able to come up with is France – go straight from the Revolution to the Third Republic. Skip the part where Napoleon subverted the revolution and crowned himself. Skip the part where the Bourbons came back. Skip the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848. Maybe that’s the meaning of the next lines: “dreams never end / this house believes in skyscrapers”. Maybe the desire is to return to a belief in history as a journey from darkness to light and skip the parts where that isn’t how it works.

life

Five hundred

There were three things I remember most clearly on that trip. The first, most often recounted, was the isolated spot just off the beach, north of Noosa Heads, under gum trees and a few steps from the water. This was where the campfire was set. Fish were sought just past the breaking waves – glistening silver whiting, and a disconcerted crab, soon released. I have been fishing twice, neither successfully nor willingly, so I rejoined the group at the fire, where scone dough was wrapped onto the ends of sticks and offered to the glowing embers.

The second was Dubliners, by James Joyce, hidden among the most generic selection of holiday reading. I’d never read Dubliners or Joyce before. Amazing.

The third was the card game, five hundred, which you taught us. You must have been in your twenties at that point. As tall as anyone, if not a little taller still. A bushy beard in fiery red to match your hair. I don’t know how much enjoyment you got from playing cards with your teenage cousins. I do know the enjoyment you gifted us, treating every hesitant play as a thoughtful masterstroke. Teaching us the joy of the game, not just the rules. Patient and generous with your time. Quick to smile, quick to laugh.

That is forever how I will remember you.

Uncategorized

“Oh wise sage” I said,

“the legends say that you have the gift of true sight, paired with the gift of optimism. Is it true that you can look into the lives of any you meet?”

“It is true” he intoned.

“And is it true that you can find the good, no matter how minor, in any situation or event?”

He nodded modestly, his long beard gleaming orange in the light of the sunset.

“Then great sage, what can you tell me about the world today?”

“Not really anything” he said. “Shit is awful.”

“Aw, fuck.”

“Sorry”

Uncategorized

Grooming a cheeky horse

I am particularly fond of etymology and also silly things, so finding out the origin of ‘to curry favour’ was particularly satisfying:

First, curry is the word meaning to brush or groom a horse, not the Indian spice. And the second word was originally Fauvel, the name of a horse in a satirical French medieval poem from the early 1300s.

Stan Hingston

Look I even found Fauvel! This is him!

Fauvel the horse, romancing a fine lady (I presume)

The etymology stuff is from this delightful blog over here while the lovely image is from wikipedia.

fiction

alias{ random(new())

“Well, even if they’re using a cover, Security will be able to match it back to their Identity and they’ll be up on murder charges.”

He bit back an acerbic comment, though some fragments of irritation surfaced in his voice. “That’s what I’m telling you, mum, they don’t have Identity the way we do. They buy and sell it. They burn through covers until they get tagged, then they burn the Identity, log out and start over.”

“Well I don’t know how they could do that. I’m sure it’s criminals who do those awful things. Identity is permanent, Security wouldn’t give you a new one, especially if you were wanted for murder.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. Really she was only half-listening, focused on pruning back the rosemary bush which was threatening to occlude the path completely.

“They own Security, mum. They own everything. That’s why they do it. They change their shells for fun and they don’t care what happens to them.”

She clucked her tongue. “Terribly wasteful. I wouldn’t want to put my mind into one of those creepy shells anyway. They don’t look like real people. Too…” -she reached for a better word, fell short- “real.” He sighed. She’s forgotten I’m in a shell. Just because it looks the way I used to look.

“I have to go to work, mum. Don’t watch too much news.”

“Oh, honey” She rose slowly, began to pare back the top of the bush. “Don’t you like it there anymore? If they’re really like that, why do you work at the School?”

He looked down at his fingers, turned his hand palm down, flexed the joints. Silent, perfect. He thought of the cost to replace them, imagined trying to find enough money just to cover the maintenance if he wasn’t employed by a Corp. “I dunno, mum. Guess it’s not so bad.” He clenched and unclenched the fist. For a moment he felt like he was a thousand feet away from it. He gave his head a small shake, looked up. His mum was diligently clipping away. “Gotta go.”

“Hmm?” she looked up. “Oh, love you, dear”

“Love you, mum”

philosophy

I have tried to define democracy, and worked out five criteria. If you meet a powerful person, ask them five questions: What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interest do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? How could we get rid of you?

Tony Benn
film

The sneering reflex is automatic (fight it)

In 2010, a bunch of the internet’s time was spent sneering at the grown men who owned their enjoyment of a show aimed at little girls – My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I never saw it, not until my daughter was old enough to take an interest. Only then did I realise how misguided the internet’s collective disdain had been. The show is pure and joyful. It’s selling toys, yes. That doesn’t seem to ruin anyone’s enjoyment when it’s Star Wars or Avengers: Infinity War.

In 2017, they did a film version and it got middling reviews. The Guardian could barely muster the energy to notice the film, with Mike McCahill dropping tepid lines like this:

voiced by Emily Blunt, who must have really loved these toys as a child to have wound up in this vicinity.

He managed to spend three paragraphs on the film without really saying anything about it. Simran Hans, for the Observer, at least responded to the film in a meaningful way, though only through gritted teeth in a review that barely reached a paragraph:

At the chewy, candy core of this assaulting, shrill, Skittles-hued headache is a well-meaning treatise on solidarity and female friendship.

This is a peculiar failure of film criticism; it can take the MCU seriously but it can’t bring itself to engage with this as anything other than a sickly-sweet corporate product. Why? Are there more executives at Hasbro than at Disney?

There’s a character in the film, Tempest Shadow, who was injured as a child. She’s cast out, ostracised for her disability. She learns to hate the cruel and indifferent world, and does evil to obtain the power to heal herself.

By the end of the film she realises she’s being used and flips. With her help, the good guys win the day and hold the staff of ultimate power. But they don’t heal her, even though it would be trivial with the power they hold. She doesn’t even ask them to. She has realised that she doesn’t need to be fixed. She has realised that she is enough.

I think about that more than I think about anything that happened in Infinity War or Endgame.

life

Dead blogs are insects in amber

I should blog more because my old blogs make me cringe but they also make me remember time and place. I should blog purely for myself, because I’m the main visitor and I should respect my audience.

Not for the nepenthe of nostalgia, where past sorrows and longings are dulled and the mists of time lend a forgiving rose-coloured glow that suffuses everything. But to try to hold in my head all the ways that I have been, to try to understand my own journey. To respect my past self despite his shortcomings, for I have my own, and hindsight is not wisdom.

fiction

Beneath the apple tree

I.

There are farms next to the wood on the border, and even the farmers do not go into the wood.

Some evil lives in the dark places in the wood. A great network of caves lies beneath. It might be that there are ley lines which converge in that great silent darkness.

II.

Karpov, the Vampire Lord, held court here in the days of his power. The lands were wild after the Empire fell, and none could challenge him, though many tried.

It came to pass that one attempt cut through Karpov’s arrogance and let him see that his own strength and power remained finite. He realised the folly of keeping his coffin beneath Karpov Castle. Should an adversary overpower him, finding his coffin and destroying his body would be trivial.

III.

Karpov laid his coffin deep within the caverns below Apple Grove. No story I have heard has adequately explained how a grove of apple trees came to grow in the depths of the wood. Sorcery is suspected.

Kingdoms rose and fell. Karpov was defeated and rose again. He became cautious, wielding his power in shadow and traveling to distant lands for years at a time to let his presence in the region be forgotten or mistaken for mere superstition.

It was held in some circles that the adventurer and hero Ralagar was able to divine the location of Karpov’s sanctum. Reputedly he even made a map. Unfortunately, Ralagar met a premature end as the result of an escalating series of dares during a drinking contest.

IV.

Some hundreds of years passed. A great Lich arose and brought terror to the villages. His followers grew in number. Folk flocked to his death cult in the deluded belief that he would extend their lives or ease their suffering.

Twelve warriors, as different as could be imagined, saw the plight of the common folk. Although they had little in common, they chose to swear an Oath of Vengeance, becoming paladins and comrades.

Before their might, the Lich and his cult fled. The paladins pursued him to the caverns below the Apple Grove and wrought his ruin. But his inner circle, his most trusted followers, remained hidden.

V.

In the months and years that followed, the followers of the Lich bided their time in the shadows, and grew cunning and cruel. One by one, the paladins fell – not in glorious battle against evil, but in ignoble deception. Nameless poisons, unspeakable curses, heart-rending betrayals – until the order was destroyed.

This was only the beginning. After each paladin fell, they were laid to rest with great honour by the people they had saved. But in secret, the followers of the Lich stole the bodies away. Though they lacked the unholy arts mastered by the Lich, it was prophesied that the strength of his enemies would return him from the grave. The followers built the Tomb of the Enemies and sealed the paladins inside, preparing for the day when another great necromancer would arise.

VI.

Hundreds more years passed and knowledge of the Lich faded from memory.

Karpov attracted the attention of the Keepers of the Chain when he brought the Orb of Form out of hiding and began to experiment with it. Using their extensive network and deep historical archive, the Keepers were able to locate Ralagar’s map of the caverns, long assumed to be a fake. With this in their possession they could move against Karpov with confidence that he could not escape.

Karpov, however, was alert to the possibility of attack, and butchered the party that came for him, though they succeeded in defeating his servant.

His coffin still lies in the caverns beneath the apple tree, and none have yet succeeded in locating it.