Beware

This is probably going to be a phenomenally sappy post.
I came across a quote from the Winnie the Pooh books by A. A. Milne today, and it said this.
'If you live to be a hundred, I hope I live to be a hundred minus one day, so that I'll never have to live without you.'
And I got all stupid and choked up about it.
I've been thinking about friendship a lot lately, and what it's made of, I suppose. I've come to the definite conclusion that candy floss isn't actually involved.
Anyhow, I'm not going to wax poetic about how lovely my friends are. I don't have a lot of them, mainly owing to the right swot that I am most of the time, and the cynical shrew I am the rest of it, and also because I just sincerely don't like most people, but the ones I do have are the sort of people I couldn't possibly get rid of.
There are the brilliant ones, the ones I love because I admire them, who won't stand for mediocrity, but somehow manage to put up with me, who give a half damn and don't know why. There are those who know exactly why they're in my life, and how they got there, and still aren't terribly interested in giving me up.
And for all the bits of me that have been scattered all over the globe, all the little shards of heart and guts and unsightly emotions, you're still a part of me.
So there, and good luck getting rid of me.
Damn it, my chest hurts now.

every now and then

i want to go blind.

Syncopating my Repotaph

It has been an eventful week, mostly owing to Stephen Spielberg.
It's the last weekend before Christmas, and I'm only just starting to realise exactly what that means.
The Dreaded Holiday is upon us.
Not that I don't like Christmas, and certainly not that I don't like the event of the birth of our Lord, but quite frankly, people are simply past bearing during these lovely times.
I'm sure you've been following the news. Wal-Mart greeter trampled to death on Black Friday et al, and I just wonder sometimes what people are thinking.
I'm going to stop myself here before I start ranting about the sheer idiocy of consumerism.
I'm going to be happy because I'm going to cut my hair on Monday.
Yippee.
I'm also drinking a grape powerade. It is foul.
In case you were wondering.
I ache in places I didn't remember I had.
And remember, kids:
Import all the best boys so the Swedes don't get them!

the trouble with exhaustion...

...is that I find myself writing these brilliant bits of imagery in my head as I'm drifting off to sleep, and I vow to myself that I'll get up in two minutes and write them down.
But I never do.
So if you were expecting long, loving lines about how I am the sieve through which the world is spun, look elsewhere.
Sorry.
In other news, I'd like to apotheosise cough syrup. Particularly when I have a bad cough, and need to go Christmas carolling.
Oh.
I'm getting the best gifts ever this year.
Happy Christmas, Fafi.

okay seriously

Am I the only person who thinks David Tennant is mindbendingly sexy?
Yah. Mkay. I needs help.

Erised

I'll be there
as soon as I can,
but I'm busy mending all the
pieces of
the life I had
before.
Before you.
--Matthew Bellamy
Isn't he just the sweetest?
Okay, so I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus, and I get to the part where he gets busted by the retarded girl for saying obscene things and being a commie, and I start thinking, that girl should get punched in the ovaries.
Not literally, of course, but she should at least be sat down and given a stern talking to.
Really unloving, what she did.
Cough.
I am so happy right now. I've been enjoying one of those butterscotch lollies from See's candies.
Last year, the sample-girl was a mindbendingly hot thing called Makayla, or something. She had pretty blue eyes, and she couldn't make up her mind whether to flirt with me or my roommate. It was epic.
I'm off the save the world!
Oh.
Have a pretty piece of poetry, from a man that both Seamus Heaney and I love.

Relic

I found this jawbone at the sea's edge:
There, crabs, dogfish, broken by the breakers or tossed
To flap for half an hour and turn to a crust
Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold:
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold.

Nothing touches but, clutching, devours. And the jaws,
Before they are satisfied or their stretched purpose
Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws
Eat and are finished and the jawbone comes to the beach:
This is the sea's achievement; with shells,
Verterbrae, claws, carapaces, skulls.

Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these
Indigestibles, the spars of purposes
That failed far from the surface. None grow rich
In the sea. This curved jawbone did not laugh
But gripped, gripped and is now a cenotaph.

Ted Hughes

Black Friday

Remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom.
Today, thrown into the toss-up between Sheryl Crow's 1998 hit singles, and Michael Bolton's remake of 'Santa Claus is coming to town,' pray for me.
This should be fun.

This post is going to be out of it.

Why are you so worried about self-identification, you fucking yuppie bastards?
The fucking 'new me'? Are you SERIOUS?
OH MY GOD!
'My self esteem is so low. I put myself out there, and I failed. Wah bloody waaah.'
You drive me up the wall. I want to pull out my hair, but I won't, because my hair is lovely and shiny.
Again.
Oh.
My.
God.

Just Figures

It makes sense, I suppose, considering my neglect of the Muse over the past couple of months (look...I asked him very nicely to consider looking like Daniel Craig, and he got offended), that when I really need nothing more than to sit down with a ruler and a blank canvas, and chuck some high viscosity oils (thank you, o great and powerful Winsor and Newton) in a pleasing fashion onto double acrylic primed 100% cotton duck, I am alone with my watercolours and the worst paper in the world.
Note to artists: DON'T buy 'reflexions' paper. In fact, don't buy any artist's paper you can't touch, or see the colour of, or smell the fibres of. Just...don't. Back to Strathmore and Canson with me. Oh, and A4 printing paper for presketches. Woot!

Round and Round and Round and Round

There is no bookstore in this town.
How do people get their things to read?
I suppose everyone's on the internet, but that doesn't make it any easier to cope.
The café that plays jazz and has a superannuated entertainer, and proprietors from back east make it a little more bearable. Particularly as they have mint-chocolate cookies.
O. No. I need some ice cream. Dreadful.

Ohai Hugh!

FINALLY! Other women who agree with me about a guy being attractive. Apparently Hugh Jackman is the 'world's sexiest.'
Ch...yeah.
Have you SEEN the 'Australia' adverts? I mean...I'm not super into overmuscled blokes, but this...is...just...well see for yourself.
Boys from Oz are the best.

Sing for Absolution

I had my first snow-fall of the year this morning. It was pretty brilliant...cold enough that the snow didn't melt on the asphalt, and then re-freeze. I did, however, fall and scrape my knee. That wasn't super fun. I resented myself, just a little.
Ah!
Lurve is in the air. And not, at the same time. There are loads of people breaking up with their significant others, a few red-eyed, half-weepy birds who've finally realised they just don't want to deal with it any more, and a couple of idealistic, happy young men who've dragged some poor girl along, into their lives.
NICKY! For one, is getting hitched. I'm not talking about the Nicky I'm madly in love with, who gives me chocolate croissants, which are not crescent-shaped, and free coffee with as much vanilla sprinkles as I want. I'm talking about whingey, Scorpio, confused, Joseph Fruit Nicky. He is getting MARRIED.
Insane, yes?
In the best way, I am horrified.
I suppose it's the way of things. When you're friends with hopeless romantics, they eventually pair off with other hopeless romantics, and do things like make babies and exchange vows, and rings, and all that nonsense.
Hah.
More power to the brave few.
I, like most people, am profoundly cynical, not because I don't think I have enough room in my heart, but because I have plenty of room, and I profoundly do not feel I should have to regulate my emotional temperature to suit the social climate.
Though, admittedly, my emotional temperature is decidedly below freezing at times.
It's cool, we can still be friends.
Conor Oberst told me that, though I'm pretty sure he's just another whingey hopeless romantic just wanting a woman to wash his socks and bear his offspring, and mix his coffee properly.
But I pray, most mornings, for Richard Dawkins. I'm not sure he'd appreciate it, but I hope he can at least acknowledge the thought. Maybe that makes me a little sentimental, but as slovenly-thinking as I occasionally can be, I hope he really, really follows, to the bitter end, the things he asserts, and draws the conclusions that are...right.
Even if he doesn't believe in objective right, and asserts objectively that there is no such thing. And it isn't the morning, but here goes anyhow:
Jesus, bless and keep Richard Dawkins, keep him safe. I know that You will, cause You love him lots.

ROCKETBOOTS!

i wonder where he got his scars

I never say how lovely tea is.
I've actually managed to have a nap (o noes! the evil nap!), and I'm perking myself up with a cuppa...and o, dear God it is one of the most fabulous things.
I just listened to your single, Nicky, and I think it's...very you. You little fruitsation, you. I had this sudden, awful, wonderful memory of you playing me those sad little punk songs you used to write about me (which were never terribly complimentary, but hey, we were sixteen). I still don't like your nasal, whingey, Blink 182 voice, but awh...you're all growed up and making music!
So, there's this graphic novel. It was written by a bloke called Gibson Twist, and the art is done (I think) by Ben Steeves, and, as it was Gibson's birthday just a bit ago, I'm going to go ahead and tell everyone I know (via blog) that he's a pretty brilliant bloke, and his work is probably the most realism you're ever going to get from a webcomic. Go look at it.
Erm. Yes. I've been trying to write poetry.
I'm not getting away with it.
I mean, it's good stuff.
But it's pointless.
If you can find a point in it, please tell me.
This one's called L'Enfant Trouvé, une femme. (pretentious? moi?)

O, Hadasseh,
daughter of the
morning, did you fall
to earth like lightning?
Did you make a
storm of absinthe in your
sugar-jewelled tea-cup?

The fairest broken
nightingale sings tinny
lullabies, harmonised
to delicate, edible
suede-soft whispers
in the dread of
summer nights.

I am the child of
promise, leaked,
by aneurysm, onto your
shoulder, haemhorraged
grey matter, composing,
composing, the ode
to joy, deafly.

This is your volatile
tenderness; a vacuous
seduction, a holocaust;
the tanned-tissue lamps
are given to Diogenes,
with my heart thrown
wide open, just for you.
(fin)
and scales.
Also, TERRY PRATCHETT!

nous sommes les etranges

Ack. The weekend came and went, and I had forgotten just how lovely it is to crank up the hotel's heat. Guh. It's freezing in my house. *grouchy face.*
Oh. You guys.
I really shouldn't be surprised about this, but yesterday morning some retards at IHOP mistook me for a man.
It was epic.
As if I don't feel wretched enough on Sunday mornings.
Anyhow, the server thought it was hilarious, but she gave them the evil eye for me. Downright decent of her, I say.
Oh, and I'm looking to do a study of a Bougereau, just with some gender-tweaks.
Stay tuned!

speaking of which...

I think it was the watercolours' fault, but I had a dream last night that Josh was giving me a real dressing-down about something...I may have bent him over the bar again and started flicking quarters toward him, or maybe I was flirting with Monica, but he went off like a tiny little hot-man firecracker, and my spine snapped straight and suddenly all I could think of was him pulling my hair.
Yes. I need help.
But how random was that?
Oh, and pray for me. The weekend approacheth.

last today, i swear to sweet little baby jesus

i really, really regret not asking josh to sit for me.
that's all, really.

okay, okay, okay!

I had a look at my blog and realised that in order to find shallower posts, you'd have to bang up Paris Hilton's webpage, but in all honesty, sometimes that sort of nonsense is required for me to make it through very cold days.
Maybe long, warm boots and Hugh Jackman's chest are the only things that evoke that sort of very deep, emotional response in me.
Well, not really. I like puppies, whole bunches. And new pictures of Drake make me go to complete mush. I'm surprised every time I realise he has Betsy's doofy grin, or that their eyes are the same shape, and he has Julia's ears, or that the kid is two fucking years old, and I'm missing him being a toddler.
It's cool...I'll just have to make it up to him when he's old enough to remember, and I'm not skint as a Weasley.
Guh.
I am knackered, and properly, too.
Oh. Wayne Barlowe really, honest-to-god scares me.

Australia!

I forgot how happy Hugh Jackman's chest made me.
I think I'm actually getting a little choked up.
It's been so long, Hugh...hold me.

YAY!

I don't think I've ever been so in love.

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so to make it finite.
G.K. Chesterton said that. The trouble is, it reminds me of something Douglas Adams said, and so makes me giggle. I don't think the point of Orthodoxy was to make me giggle.
Erm...I did, however, manage a really brilliant character study when I'd finished the first three chapters and a bit of the fourth. I'm not sure why, I think Chesterton's style of dictation is just so diametrically opposed to mine that it woke something up. Nasty little habit, that.
Also, I'd just gotten a new moleskine note-book, and those things demand to be talked into, in whatever way you want.
People should trade their therapists in for a book deal and several hundred moleskine notebooks.
There would be a huge ruddy upswing in the lit market.
Oh. Yes. I've been thinking of selling out to the Strathmore trading card movement. Come on, it's such a cute idea!
O God...I've found the boots I want.
http://chineselaundry.com/indShoe.asp?type=b&store=c&id=3514&sess=10210859835717728

Hey, Baby!

Oi.
So I've got a couple of days away from home before the big weekend comes charging along like an enraged rhinocerous who's had a decidedly uninviting run-in with Steven Segal's hair cream.
Figured I would give an update to the old coughalong blog, despite its cirrohated condition as of late.
I can't say I've got anything, really, to post. Just the usual. I've been considering starting to read a lot (and I mean a ruddy LOT) of nonfiction, cause my bookshelf is overpopulated with self-gratifying nonsense by Sacher-Masoch and Jacqueline Carey. Sensing a pattern, here?
So my first foray into the whole shambling nonsense was going to be Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, but I got sidetracked by The Feminine Mistake, which I, personally, think, is hilarious, even though puns are against my religion. It's not strictly a pun.
Oh, and I've decided, tentatively, on a title for my novel. What do you think of Drink up the Sea. You could do a whole lot with a title like that. And no, it's not Biblical, I'm afraid. It's from Nietschze's parable of the madman.
In other news, I hate my neck muscles. They're all cramped along my right side.
I've been looking for a link to give you, but I can't find one. So, I guess I'll leave you with nothing.

Enschuldigung, ich bin ein Amerikanner

I desperately want a nape piercing.
Get better, Chris, or I will personally induce your third back surgery.
This is very, deeply annoying. I went to my bookstore yesterday, specifically to find and buy a moleskine notebook, pocket-sized, squared paper, and they didn't have one. It was, to say the least, ridiculous. Of course, I did, somehow, manage to buy myself a dress and a pair of adorable pedal pushers, but that's beside the point. How am I going to be creative on the go without my favourite notebook?
Maybe the Lord's trying to teach me a lesson about buying overpriced journals.
It's getting colder, and for some reason, my dry-cleaning hasn't been picked up. This means, of course, that I am going to have to finish painting the miniature that I've started, for some reason or other.
I am sick to death of abstractism (she said, in her rambling way).
Actually, I was thinking of poetry.
I was sitting, two weeks or so ago, beside a thoughtful young man who was quoting a poem, and I, very guiltily, half-listening, realised that I've forgotten all or nearly all of the poetry that I used to know by heart. Even William Blake's 'Tyger.'
Well, we'll have to just deal with it, shan't we?
I wrote a flash fic the other night. It's very, very short, and doesn't have an end, so I'll type it up here.
Warning: contains profanity and uber-fluff.

She was very, very thirsty when she got out of bed; so thirsty that a litre of water wouldn't help. Neither did tea, or juice, or beer. She tried it all, and slunk back to her room feeling rather defeated.
He was still asleep, broad back solidly toward her, ink-strewn right shoulder traced by the light flickering sneakily through the drapes. The sun had come up outside, but it was still very dark in her room. It was meant to be.
She didn't want to disturb him, of course, because logically, that would be very unkind. He would growl nonsense words, and be rather cross, even if he did curl a possessive arm round her and pull her decisively into his very warm chest, and kiss her closed, dry mouth with his soft cherub's lips. Obviously, she wouldn't do that. She very much wanted to, though.
Instead, she sat at the edge of the bed, fumbling for the cardboard box on her end table, and match (she didn't hold with lighters), and struck up a Davidoff. She could only just make out the bold lettering pasted on the front of the box, 'rauchen ist tödlich!'--and the little skull and crossbones. She couldn't read the fine print, though, in the dark.
She inhaled deeply, feeling tar and nicotine spread through her choked, shrivelled lungs. She liked this very much; it was extraordinary, relaxing. Never as good as him, of course. She'd admitted this not very long ago, and only to herself. She liked him more than smoking her long German cigarettes, more than she liked swimming in a cool tropical ocean, more than eating shortbread or drinking beer brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium.
'Stop fucking smoking that utter shite.' he growled, almost unintelligibly. She couldn't help smiling. 'I'm going to tear every single fag up, and feed them to my mother's goldfish. She's going to be very upset with you when they take ill.' her smile deepened.
'And why,' she luxuriated in one more long drag before stubbing out the hardly started cigarette, 'would she be upset with me, seeing as you've fed them my fags?'
He turned round, grey green eyes glowing just faintly, phosphorently, in the near darkness. 'Because, obviously, you've compelled me, with your filthy habit,' he took her round the middle, with embarrassing effortlessness, and dragged her down beside him.

In Idleness We Forget

I realise that I haven't been very active on here. But let's face it, I have approximately three readers, all of whom are Andre. That's life. I'll deal with it.
Anyhow, I was reading Psalm nineteen this morning, and a phrase from verse four leapt out at me. I'm not all that into Biblical poetry, but this was stunning, and I realise that it was the only phrase that could ever be the title for my great novel, to be completed before I'm thirty. Which means I have about nine and a half years more. But anyhow, the verse says,

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.

And I was thinking, wow. A Tabernacle for the Sun, M. Deutsch, would look really fabulous on a leather spine in bold black ink. So I googled to see whether it was an available book title, and guess what. Some bird called Linda Proud has already snatched it up. For some bolloxed novel about a Venetian runaway. How lame is that? I mean, honestly. Mine would at least have been contemporary and transgressive and borderline gonzo. Let's face it, I write compellingly.
Giggle.
None of you have ever read my serious fictional work, and we're going to leave it like that until I'm thirty, all right?
Anyhow. So that's all through with, and I was thinking and thinking about another title, cause nothing sums up what I want to write about as much as that phrase.
It's like Hebrew names. I love Hebrew names, and should I ever have babies (they will be with David Tennant, or Daniel Craig, let's not mistake things), they're going to have good Hebrew names, even if I end up with a little girl called Mannaseh and a little boy called Devorit.
But, yeah, I've come to the conclusion that whatever novel I write, the title's probably going to be something out of the Bible, and not because of this nonsense trend that's come out about writing faux-shocking things about religious canon (take that, Dan Brown!). It probably won't have anything obvious to do with the Bible, and you're going to have to squint very hard to see the very deep philosophical and social statements I'll be making, but oh, trust me, they'll be around. Hidden in long, langourous scenes about lovers touching one another with their finger-tips as they asphyxiate in tombs, or a screaming old man making sacrifices to Baal-Jupiter, kneeling in the brick-red Arizona desert, sucking water from aloe vera plants and cutting his feet to ribbons on the Mojave rocks.
Oh, yes, you will squint.
And you will be wrung out like a dishrag.
Move over, Ian McEwan, I'm going to make people cry like you've never dreamed!

On the Metro

You might remember, if you've known me long enough, how a long, long, time ago I was madly in love with a tall, slim brunet with big blue eyes and a flirty wink. He was called 'Drake,' but I determinedly called him my Adonis.
Well.
He has been effectively replaced.
By a skinny little man who gives me free coffee and shortbread.
I love my Nicky.
I will fight you for him, Aimee.
Also, David Tennant.
Here, c'est moi.

Completely Inappropriate

Kinkature.

Mood: Finger-tips hurting.
Listening To: 'The Regret' 500 Miles to Memphis
Reading: Tiger in the Smoke, Margery Allingham
Eating: roast beef and potatoes
Drinking: Smart Water!
I ain't ready, I ain't ready,
Don't put me in that pine box yet.
Hah. This song is totally rockin. I wanna rip out its spine and move in.
Things are a little crazy. I've been working out like a pony, and I made a silly little promise to a green-eyed boy that I wouldn't cut my hair till he does. Considering both of us look like haystacks, and he's well chuffed with my state of disarray, I think that may have been a bit unwise.
I've also developed a very unhealthy desire to watch High School Musical.

Man Candy

I am sick to DEATH of people telling me I look like Halle Berry.
If I looked like Halle Berry, I would have a gorgeous man-piece like Gabriel Aubry.
So there.
Been grooving to Radiohead...actually, just two of their tracks, Karma Police and No Surprises, both from OK Computer. I've got the most depressing playlist on my mp3 player right now...it even has Blue Eyed Soul by Wilco on it, but then suddenly starts spritzing up with Delivery by Babyshambles, which, incidentally, is the catchiest fucking tune in the history of catchy tunes. Long live Shotter's Nation, mah lovelies!
Urb. I'm going to go to bed and dream about blond Adonislike gods.
Observe.
Though, to be perfectly honest, I've been less and less about perfectly chiselled good looks lately, and more about scruffylooking men with killer smiles. Weird, huh?
I accosted some poor, random bloke in the mall the other day just cause he had the most glorious beard...and he was a blond. Obviously, fair men usually have kind of patchy facial hair..but he had this fabulous full on golden beard, all vikingly, and a great smile and all dimply through it.
Oh. I'm experimenting with watercolour canvas.

Killing in the Name Of

I faced off with a twelve kilo sack of half-rotten turnips the other day.
You bet your bottom I won.
I'm hungry, and I feel like having some red meat.
Grr.

Seamus Heaney

I love him.
Lots.
And I really, really want to read his Beowulf, but I can't seem to find the time.
And Neil Gaiman has done his best to ruin the legend.
The tosser.
But here, have some Seamus.

Death of a Naturalist

All the year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampots full of the jellied
Specks to range on the window-sills at home,
On shalves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.

Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hadges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like snails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

Clipping

You know weird things make me cry.
This did.

Button!

Here's a little WIP from a miniature I'm doing. It's like...three by four inches or something ridiculous like that.

the skin is peeling
off my hands
in paper-fine layers.

The Battle You Left

Mood: Drowsy Morning
Listening To: 'The Siren's Song' Oh, Sleeper
Reading: venomous alibis
Eating: wish it were toast and marmalade
Drinking: peppermint tea
Today is going to be a particularly bloody-minded day. It's Wednesday, but I do get to relax marginally. Tomorrow I won't have time to get prepped for the weekend, so today, I'll be doing all that lovely stuff.
This song is sodding great, by the bye. You need to listen to it. 'Soft, wet skin' is some of the better lyrical consonance and alliteration I've heard in a while. It also conjures images halfway between a centrefold Petra Nemcova and a dementor.
Delish.

Remember the clouds that hid the trees?
That kissed my emptied eyes?
Forgetting colour, the landscape ends
Beneath the limitless skies.

I have an ungodly knack for choosing the most reprehensibly depressing films on my freeday.
I just watched 'Immortal Beloved.'
Jeroen Krabbe is always mediocre at best, but Isabella Rossellini was, frankly, superb.
I shouldn't have to mention how brilliant Gary Oldman was, with his sensitive upside-down mouth and tenuous fingers, carrying voice, the strong stillness of him...but I will, because I do adore him so.
Anyhow.
I think Bernard Rose was historically off on the identity of the 'unsterbliche geliebte,' but it was a moving film, nonetheless, and mindbogglingly upsetting.
I do hate the scene where they miss one another by moments in the corridors of the Karlsbad hotel. Those misunderstandings across decades between lovers always make me a little upset.
Of course, that is because there is always a pathetic little swot who will occasionally pop her head up and say 'the world was meant for lovers!'--after which I will smack her upside said head and tell her she's barmy.
Still, she has great taste, cause she likes Gary as much as I do.

Joyeux Noel

I found myself falling in love the other day.
A pair of blond boys trounced into the shop, maybe seven and nine, with their parents strolling lazily behind them, holding hands and whispering. When I greeted them, the elder of the two looked up at me with the greenest eyes in all creation and grinned a chipped-tooth smile and said, 'Merry Christmas!'
His mum gave him a scathing look and reminded him that he was a half-inch away from being grounded. He gave a suitably repentant look, but grinned back at me as he walked away.
Troublemaker.

Ozymandias

You know what I'm talking about. The old Byron poem about the statue in the middle of the desert, of a king no one remembers. 'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair' and all that nonsense.
Well, I feel a bit like that, right now. I've built things that I thought were infernally eternal, no matter what I did to them, I built and built, and didn't test them, cause I was afraid they'd crumble.
And crumble they have, because I haven't had the guts to take care of them the way I should.
Oh noes!
I've buggered up again!

Drujan

I am the eponymous hero
Given to a thirsting world.
Manna, manna! They speak with bristling hands
And waking eyes, all joy-stricken, and deceived.

I have delivered lark-kisses
In the seafoam surge of horror,
In the purple-embroidered night
With its diamond-facet stars.

O my Navigator, my scourgèd medicine,
Physick to my adulterous bonhomie,
Reigning, the tyrant
Over my withered iron empire.

I watch the water drying from
My jade-dog opium pipe.
Conqueror of life, the sacred fire
Burns once again in Persia's heart.

You were my gilded Auschwitz,
The death-camp of my past,
Tanning my masks into your flesh,
Beautifying your ligaments.

I hide your guiding illumination,
O brilliant Northern Star.
My compasses demagnetised
Beneath the westward grievance.
(finis)
Sunday, 3 August, 2008
9.33 Pacific.

I just finished watching Requiem for a Dream.
It was god-awful. I feel physically ill.
Granted, today hasn't really been a great day or anything, but that just capped it.
I can't wait for summer to end.

once upon a time
I went
nuclear--
with a cellular decon
struction
five-point-two on the Richter.
I will mend it?

drinking worm-wood bitters
from the husk of a fallen star
let.
reddened hair spilt over my pillow.
do
sit
down,
you're making me
nervous.

my darling
self
shines.

Okay, mes amis, my faithful little lurve kittens!
I'm back from the other end of the globe, so to speak, with a couple more neck kinks and a couple fewer other kinks. Lucky you, I'm in the mood for a good, old-fashioned ramble.
I know I haven't been blogging regularly for a while, now, and that is, in the main, due to the fact that I almost invariably ramble, like I'm doing now, about nonsense, and occasionally post a photograph of a mindbogglingly sexy person, but I'm going to go ahead and switch it up a little.
Hand to God, you know I adore all you hardworking bassists out there, but really...the way to pick up women is to play the shaker.
I have a couple of poems in the works, but I've got to edit them pretty heavily, except for this one, and only because it's so ruddy short.
Bear with me. Here goes.

dance my quadrille,
shark-like
and sleek
beneath
my palms--
just so.
(finis)

There. Told you it was short.
In other news, I watched the Dark Knight film, and, against my own force of will and determination not to go with the swarm of people who raved about Heath's performance, I'm gonna have to admit, I liked him so much.
So much.
Hotter than ever.
And Christian Bale, for once, didn't give the impression that he was in desperate need of emergency surgery to remove whatever was rammed so hard up his colon, praise God. He was vaguely likeable.
Urb. I would love to post a picture of some deviously brilliant piece of artwork that I've just done, but to tell you the truth, nothing's been very forthcoming. I have a two-hour sketch of an unearthly beautiful man, whom I'm going to be lusting after for quite some time, despite his fictionality, but to be perfectly honest, I've been wanting to go the way of Armin Mersmann for a while now, and draw interesting faces.
Now, if I could only yakk myself over to Michigan and sit at his feet as he draws. That would be a dream come true.
Hold on, just a moment, while I lust after his godlike powers with the pencil.
*insert glassy-eyed stare here*
All right, all through.
Erm...here, though, for your consideration.
The watercolour isn't quite finished, I need some more practise with fabric, and the forearm...well...I wasn't feeling very confident with the muscles. I'll find some reference and finish it soon. It's called 'Youth with Minarets,' and it's a piece in a weird mix of styles. I was experimenting with some really cold-press rough paper, which is why the colours aren't as transparent and brilliant as I would like, but it'll have to do. I only thank God that I wasn't tempted to do it in oils. That would have been a fiasco I don't even want to contemplate.
Okay. Here you go.

Enter the Thought-Crime

I'm not sure how much you know about this, but there has been a worldwide campaign against any sentiments against homosexuality. In fact, in Canada, a minister was fined a few thousand dollars and threatened with prison time if he carried on talking about the Biblical stance against homosexuality.
The latest in this rather politically safe trend is Brazil. The Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said something to the effect that homophobic thoughts should be criminalised.
Now, I'm not even going to go into the whole gay-rights thing, but don't you think that's a bit of a scary statement? Whether or not I'm pro-or-anti-gay doesn't even enter the picture at this point. The fact that anyone, particularly a political leader, wants to criminalise dissent or open-minded thought, and freedom of speech, putting homophobia not only on par with, but above such social scourges as totalitarianism and racism is ridiculous.
The fact that he said homophobic thoughts should be criminalised is seriously disturbing.
Oh, by the bye, did you hear that the worldwide economy is going to hell and Russia is buying up all the oil in the world and aligning itself with the most oil-rich countries in the world?
Of course you did. Cause you're clever.

Pettru?

Yeah, so I'm not really into Apocalyptica, but their third cello is mind-bogglingly hawt.
Here. Have some completely gratuitous metal manflesh.
Brutal.
Giggle snort.
Oh, yeah, and Skwisgaar Skwigelf is also completely delish, despite also being completely fictional.

'God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.'
I don't think when Francois Arouet wrote those words, he meant them as I understand them, but I do think he would appreciate the understanding I take of them.
People are bloody-minded and ridiculous, and they dumb themselves down so that they don't have to be intelligent. I wish I could be as light-hearted as some of these ridiculous scoundrels, but I don't have the lack of drive.
Faugh.
Anyhow, I don't mean to return to this blog on a negative note, but sometimes, people just drive me up the wall. I think I need these half-hour hikes I've been taking on weekdays, just a few hours to rock climb and trample through the wood finding blackberries and foxes tangled up in each other and, every now and again, a deer, or minnows in the creek.
I'm going introspective, people, and my Muses are running in terror. I think I'm going to have to find a tall slender blue-eyed blond with a crooked smile and oddly white teeth to laugh about. They're always good for an eye-bat or two.
So I haven't done any real art or writing lately, but I'm convinced that my novel is really coming together.
(giggle)

Throwing Back

Oh, God. I think I've just come.
I found seven Tom Sharpe ebooks.
And they're mine. All mine.
I won't resurface for a while, if I don't have to.

Eloi! Eloi! Lama sabacthani!
I am in great pain. Mah belly hurts. All of it. Guh. Also, I have a wisdom tooth crowning and my gum is ripping open. Hurrah!
And I'm all sniffly. I want my mum.
At least spring is in full swing, with wildflowers and animals everywhere. There's a woodpecker who hunts outside my window, but I don't think he lives there, thanks be to all that is holy.
I saw the trippiest drawing the other day. I think it was done by a nine year old boy. It was called 'water dragon' and it was of this strange, blunt-faced animal with huuge anime eyes walking toward a fat man, barking, with someone saying 'watch the fat man.'
How awesome is that?
Also, I hate rooibos tea. It is most foul.
And look how EVUL Lucius Malfoy is.

I was trying to think last night. To really think, the way I used to, the lateral, backward-and-forward, compartmentalised way I used to. And I realised, I don't enjoy it like I did. Maybe I just feel less need to impress myself, but for all the logicality in me, I really do love a good day dream. Shame on me.
Also, I went out for a hike with some small children, to a rocky valley where there is a pond, and tadpoles, and turtles, and transparently brown fish. We caught loads of tadpoles, but I couldn't let them take any home, cause I rang their mum up and she said she hadn't anywhere to keep them. C'est la vie. Well.
My flat is coming together nicely. I'm not doing a good deal of the work, but what are pints of ice cream for beside bribing the help? Also, I desperately need a beer. I haven't had any in far too long and I'm meant to do some singing tonight. But my sinuses are congested and my immunity is low, so I likely won't be arsed.
Someone with lovely long hair is thinking of chopping it off, and I'm mortified. Which is ridiculous, of course, because I've got little-boy hair myself.
So I just realised that it doesn't do to say that my rooms are nearly finished, cause you've no idea what I've done with them. Well, the walls are repainted, in nice, colonial colours, and I have a new coffee table on which I have painted a couple circling koi, and we're building little chairs to go round them.
I've got a vase, as well, dark rust-coloured, with dead plant matter in it. New blinds, too, and an air conditioner.
Looks all sharp and sexy, really. I'm getting a bit attached to this little living space, as tawdry and inconvenient as it is.
Night!

Diversity

Mood: Hammock in the Sun
Listening To: Someone else watching 'Arthur'
Reading: Venus in Furs, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Eating: Danish blue and water crackers, petit ecoliers (petits ecoliers?)
Drinking: green tea
I got a bunch of free books today. Not the least of which is Venus in Furs, which was written by the bloke after whom the term 'masochism' was minted. I was going to pick up Mirabeau's Torture Garden, but I thought it was a bit much. I find, oddly, that my idealism goes really quite well with the book, but my cynicism does not. 'Whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.' And '(woman) can only be his (man's) slave or his despot, but never his companion. This she can become only when she has the same rights as he, and is his equal in education and work.'
I don't think man and woman can ever be truly equal, in either, because they were created expressly to be different. They can be companions, yes, but to attempt to be exactly like one another is impossible. In my opinion. But then, neither can two men be equal, nor two women. And I'm going to stop yammering now because I have been eating chocolate biscuits all day, and it is not helping my brain. I got, also, the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for three dollars. Which is freaking cool. And also, this little vintage compact mirror with a little rouge in it, and a ring with fake jade. SUPAHCOOL! It's a bit heavy, but it's fun to wear. And it smells a bit like nag champa.
Oh, I got pictures of the BABY! He's huge and supah ugly lookin. I'm so happy.

Ink, inc

Mood: doucement
Listening To: Biomusicology, Ted Leo and Pharmacists
Reading: absolutely nothing.
Eating: mac and cheese
Drinking: green tea!
Well, well, look who's back. I'm alive, really I am. My computer's power cord went kaput for a couple weeks, but I've a new one, so I'm back in business. Lady Things will not go down without a fight. Neither will trannies, for that matter, but I'm inclined to be philosophical about that.
In any event, I'm sort of looking for a subject for a Dionysius painting, and I've found the loveliest face for it, but I don't think I'll grind up the courage to ask. I'm looking through some old photographs, and I've got a couple winners (owing to the huge number of drunken party photographs I have stashed on the old hard drive), but we'll see, if I finally work up my courage to actually put it down. I've done the sketch on canvasboard, but I don't think it's big enough for my vision of it.
I haven't been being too creative, beyond a few sketches, which I think are really not bad at all. They're faces, but (and bear with me, here) they're women's faces. Which we all know, I'm not very good at.
Well, it's been a helluva couple weeks. We'll see what I can manage. Love and sparkles.

This is My Penance.

I really hate to admit this, but I think I might just be madly in love with Matthew Bellamy. Observe. I don't know what I've done to deserve this, but I really sincerely like this band. Ugh. I hate myself. I know that this, fundamentally, contradicts almost everything I stand for but...in my defense, I have loved them since before they were cool.
Anyhow enter improvisation. Despite the fact that I inherently loathe the piano. There's no piano in this song.

Icy Spicy Leonie

For some reason, I thought of you, Kenji.

Dimmesdale vs Stansfield

So I've been having the opening couplet of Sonnet 147 running through my mind for the past weekend, without knowing what it was to. I mean, I knew it was Shakespeare, because of the language, which is so easily identifiable, but you know, I started writing a sonnet that mirrored it somewhat. Well, not as such, but the same basic concept of the sonnet, in a different way. I'll post it when I scrape the last six lines together, as I only have eight insofar. And this one is written in proper iambic pentametre.
Also, I just got through watching 'The Scarlet Letter,' the one with Gary Oldman. It's wretched how little of him we see in that film, I got a bit nauseous of Demi Moore's singularly mannish acting. Not that I dislike her particularly, only, I've never cared for her, either. I also much prefer Gary as a gutwrenchingly psychotic sadist. What can I say? I have some serious issues with how I perceive talent.

Beastly

Mood: Five Minutes to Bed-Time
Listening To: Albion, Babyshambles
Reading: The Golestan of S'adi, S'adi
Eating: Nothing. All bloody day.
Drinking: the ink from my pen
If you're looking for a cheap sort set in false anticipation,
I'll be waiting in the photo booth at the underground station,
Oh, come away, say you'll come away, we could go
Anywhere in Albion.
This song is the sex. Almost as much the sex as Jeremy Brett. You know, I just realised he's the little poufter who plays Freddie in My Fair Lady. I always thought he was such a little wanker, letting himself get dragged about by a girl who didn't really care about him. And he's so masterful as lovely S.H., you'd never know he was a poncy little Scorpio boy who smoked sixty cigarettes a day. Brings a whole new meaning to desperately needing a fag.
Who am I kidding? Nothing's going anywhere, and neither will it.
Nothing new under the sun, and all that.
I really just want to be snuggled, damn it. And the damned Ocker's gone away. So I shall indulge myself in petty nonsense like this.
Beastly Little Things!

Souped-Up SoHo Mincer

I'm staring into my tea, and it's quarter past seven in the morning. Grumb. Good thing I've got a wiry darkhaired Brit to stare at when I roll over.
So I've become addicted (belatedly, I realise) to the coolest swing band out there, and certainly the one with the most risqué name. Go check out the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. They rock. Hard.
Also, I worship Luis Aquino and Pedro Eustache. The brats, with their brass and woodwind instruments, thinking they're so awesome. They are. Buggrit.
Here, have an art link. It's the LeStrange bros.

A Ten-Minute Dream in the Passenger's Seat

Last night I slit open a pack of canvas panels. They're small, nine by twelve inches, and since I grid in half inches, usually, I'll call them eighteen by twenty-fours. I've found that canvas panels are generally just a few millimetres shorter than what they're meant to be. Something to do with the size of the canvas wrapping over the cardboard or somesuch nonsense.
I'm also thinking about doing some arbitrary studies of hands, since I'm so useless at them. I mean, the new study I'm doing involves hands...but one of them is a bit deformed, so I don't think it qualifies. It's more of an abstract shape. Gah. I love hands. They're such beautiful things. And I've been seeing some lovely hands lately. Anyhow.
I think pretty much the only thing I ramble about is art on this blog, really. I don't talk about personal issues or things that are happening to me, because really, who wants to hear that? It's like...someone said something to me a bit ago about how they felt like they'd not been getting any sleep, even though they'd been having a good seven or eight hours a night, and my first reaction (both because I'm a heartless scoundrel, and because I'd not yet had any tea that morning) was, 'who bloody cares?'
That is why I don't ramble on about my personal life, and also because (see above), I am a heartless scoundrel. Erm. Oh, but I do post some very personal poetry, and I think that qualifies. Speaking of which, I do have a piece that no one has seen, ever, but I have read it to a friend over the telephone. I wrote it haaages ago, and I'm sure it has something to do with Ockers.

Brindling, like a fascist child,
I wear the uniform of love,
The barest hint of subtle sweet,
The faintest hum of music.

And o, the wounded sounds you make
When for you I sigh in fear,
If time were ours, how we would feast
On one another's bones.

You are the silk of palm fronds,
Sleek and barbed across my mouth.
A hook, a charm you gave to me
To fletch for you, as I saw fit.

We cut our time in half, for pride,
We chased our own false smiles.
I never gave you more than love,
You never knew the difference.
(finis)

Gosh, I need to learn to be more subtle, don't I? Also, to stop using open quatrains to do my dirty work. I don't know, rhyming seems so pretentious to me, even though I was once really good at unusual rhymes, despite the fact that I used a whole arseload of assonance.
Also, I really, deeply dislike Latin. It's an ugly language. I don't care who says what, it has never sounded anything beside overheady and sepulchral. Honestly! 'Haerebantque in comintante sedebam' blah blah it sounds wretched. It's an ugly language.
Furthermore, I don't really know if I like English, either. Not spoken, anyway. It looks lovely written down, all those curved letters prancing out of my pen so joyfully and meaningfully. You can represent so much in writing, the steadiness of your hand, the slant of your letters. Unfortunately, I need to write sideways because otherwise my handwriting slants left, but that's just a habit from training my hand to lie outside my paper when I'm drawing, so it doesn't smudge. Speaking English has proved to be a near impossibility. I find myself drowning in a phrase that should be simple to speak, but I have made it odious to myself, and others have made it mean nothing. I can't even say some things when I am alone. And I'm talking about ordinary words, nothing sacreligious or any such nonsense. I mean simple things, which are simlpe to type or write. I can't express myself for fear of drowning people.
I blame all those little footnotes in the dictionary saying 'obsolete.' I also blame Gary Oldman, but only because I just happen to be a bit mad for him at the moment. Guh. Cobalt blue and Payne's grey eyes.
Damn him.

A Pikey with a Knowledge of Scripture

I'll tell you a story, but you won't listen,
It's about a nightmare steeped in tradition.
It's the story of a coked-up pansy
Who spent his nights in flights of fancy.
Yaz, I know. I've been a bit neglectful. Which really doesn't matter. I blog for myself, which is good, because bloody no one reads this little corner of cyberspace.
News.
Erm, I've nearly finished the first face of the grisaille portrait, and I'm working up the courage to start the next and fill in the clothing details. Looking for some reference, but I think I'll just cop out and do it from memory. There's texture in the canvas. Blah.
I bought some ink the other day, but I was very disappointed to find that it's not viscous enough to work with my pens, and I already have watercolours to work with my brushes. I don't want to do the sumi-e thing.
I started this sketch today...it was meant to be David Thewlis, but it ended up not being nearly sensual enough...his nice, expressive mouth turned all tight and forbidding. I can't imagine David Thewlis looking forbidding--can you?
I just found out that he's a novelist. The brat. And of course, the critics absolutely CRAWLED to him.
Perhaps I will begin to paint postcard-sized heads. It shall be my own little protestation at minimalism.
Other than that, there isn't much on the brain, besides the fact that I'm getting worse and worse at holding myself back. I'm turning into an emotional hedonist, indulging myself in feeling at every opportunity. It's shameful, really. I've been so good at not for ever so long. And I remember why I didn't. Because, when you're really let go, it's as though the sky itself were incinerating, little polyps like stars all gleaming like pinprick angels.
And then your lips begin to gleam, as well, in a rictus smile that beguiles and makes everyone think you're a pleasant person.
Pastry-chefs, I expect, are shamefully adorable boyfriends.
However! I wouldn't know, because I only ever flirt with them when I feel the need to 'suit up' in all the masks and sugar-tartness of candied cherries and glossy tea-cakes.
Maybe I'm only feeling like all the colour has gone out of everything because it's the tail end of winter, and spring hasn't yet shown up to tell me that things always move in cycles, and it really will be all right, but there are far too many layers to my life, and I just want it to go out of this present one and into the next.
Because emotional excess doesn't always need to be present in the life of a girl, even if she is young and moderately attractive, with good posture and nice teeth.

Sod it, He's Mine!

John Cleese, I mean.

I would love to tell you something new. Something relevant. Something exciting. But I haven't got anything new, necessarily, that will entertain you. I've been writing like a maniac, all manner of things, but I can't seem to get a piece of fictional poetry out of my head.
O, dear my lord,
Let this breast
Upon which you have leant
Serve now as your shield.
If that's even how it goes. That, and Israfel. I contemplated writing a myth with a bunch of symbolism concerning the divinity of the feminine, but I flaked out of it cause I don't believe women are divine. Or that any gender is, essentially, divine, in any other way beside the fact that we were fashioned divinely. But that is honestly neither here nor there.
No, what I want to talk to you about is Andrew Motion. Current Poet Laureate, whom I have very mixed feelings about. On the one hand, I admire his work. It's literal, personal, technical in a way that is difficult to use when employing open verse. He managed to make the epitaph of the Queen Mother not at all grandiose or distant, but something everyone could relate to. I think he signifies a lot that is right in the world of poetry, and a lot that isn't. There is no longer any pretension in the idea of divine right of monarchs, and they are sent out of the world with the same sort of affection as someone else's mother is. But still, read this. And tell me. It's called Ice.

When friends no longer remembered
the reasons we set forth,
I switched between nanny and tartar
driving us on north.

Will you imagine a human hand
welded by ice to wood?
And skin when they chip it off?
I don’t think you should.

By day the appalling loose beauty
of prowling floes:
lions’ heads, dragons, crucifix-wrecks,
and a thing like a blown rose.

By night the seething hiss
of killers cruising past -
the silence after each fountain-jet,
and our hearts aghast.

Of our journey home and the rest
there is nothing more to say.
I have lived and not yet died.
I have sailed in the Scotia Sea.

Atlantic

I shall never marry Ted Hughes,
Not for old, red love
Or bright, blue money
Or fickle fame.

I shall never grieve with Seamus Heaney,
Not with salt tears,
Or bitter smiles,
Or sweet songs.

Instead, I shall laugh with the chevalier of
Hals,
Shall render Ranuccio as the Baptist,
And give of my unbleached titanium hair
To Medusa, whose fate was purest satire.

And walk, with Behemoth, on both my hind
legs,
And dance with Toulouse-Latrec--
No need to bend double,
I am already so, so small.

With Israfel sing, for I am young
And alive, and hoarfrost is strange to me.
My hair, strong and black
And still short as a boy's;

With all of my joy I will be
Young, for as long as is needful.
And then I will twine
Myself in his wedding-gown doom.
(finis)
Friday, 22 February, 2008
9h0am

Pacific

I am your Endymion
O, my Selene--
Undying and beautiful
As you commanded.
I wait, my eternal sleep
A thing of the past.
A fragile thing,
Broken, for how could it last?

Yet she, so golden and so fair,
Entwined in Apollo's light
So bright and dead,
Is yet a dish of apples in a crust--
With caramel sweetened is her breath,
With my longing flavoured,
Beauty-crisp in glory found.

O, but my lady is a Lazarene,
The fair flame-bird
Burnt in Oriental spices,
Forever, like me, to slake her hunger
Upon my bovine backbone.
But she is my weight to bear,
And mine alone--
In yielding to you,
I am resilient as stone.
(finis)
Thursday, 21 February, 2008
7h01 pm

Self Affirmation is Bollocks

Now, I hate to have obscenities in my blog title, but it is. Really.
Go ahead. Try it.
Go look in the mirror, and tell yourself that you're a strong, capable man/woman who doesn't need (insert addiction/vice/unwanted thing here).
The trouble is, if you really were strong and capable, you wouldn't BLOODY NEED SELF AFFIRMATION!!!
*sighs, catches breath*
You're going to have to excuse me. It's been raining, I've been depressed, and sleeping too much. Sleep is bad. I mean, oversleep is bad. And I've just had a marvellous cup of Irish breakfast tea, and I've been writing prose. Good, solid prose, with really enjoyable characters with flaws and things I hate and love about them.
No, they'll never see the light of day. But yes, they rawk.
Hard.
Okay I'm going to go now. No, I won't stay and cuddle.
Go affirm yourself.
Loser.

Me Too! Me Too!

Apparently, this is so much an epidemic that they had to make a tea towel out of it. Damn. My initiation was about three nights ago. In my defense, he was naked, yes, but standing on a dais in contrapposto in some marvellous light which really brought out the nice richness of his skin, with some fantastic Tyrian purple and terre vert drapery behind him, and holding a very yellow apple.
As Benedict would say, 'There's a double meaning in that.' Though, really, the thought of a bucknude Daniel Craig taking time out of his undoubtedly busy schedule to provide me with live reference is really, really a lovely thought, though I almost would rather Adrian Brody.
Don't hurt me, ladies. Really. Mr. Craig looks like a frog, but he has fantastically lovely malamute-pup eyes, and, yes, even my eyes went a little glazed when he minced out of the ocean in Casino Royale wearing a pair of barely-there skivs. Yes, I do own a libido, thankyouverymuchly. But still. Adrian Brody. Honestly. Tall and lean and brown-eyed, and cerebral-looking. Or Jason Isaacs.
*eyes glaze*
Oh, deep-fried calendula blossoms!
*slaps self*
Erb. I wanted to say something useful.
I'm working on the Lavertezzo painting again, as well as contemplating opting out of this whole grisaille business. It's not quite as intimidating as a full colour portrait, but it's a double portrait, and I've never painted an infant before.
Eli! Eli! Lama sabacthani!
Actually, it's not that bad. It doesn't merit crucifixion garment-tearing, or the heaping of ashes on my head. Speaking of which, I curtailed my hair. A bit. Makes me happy.
I did a little sketch, a couple evenings ago, with a little set of pastels I got myself as a shiner prize for being such a good girl, as well as a pack of about three hundred sheets of manila paper. There are two black pastels, a bistre, a terracotta (I wish they'd used sanguine instead), and white. I did a fun little sketch after Lucian Freud, a man's head, very fun expressive lines and funkeh shading. Big, amused eyes. I love the expression as it turned out, very cynical and bizarrely warm at the same time. I haven't drawn for a while with chalk, so it was entertaining.
I've been doing tons of faces, also, with pencil, ranging in detail from four-hour drawings to half-hour thumbnail sketches. Gettin' back in the groove. My next big mission is to figure out some cool art nouveau-esque border design for this Mucha copy I've just nearly finished. I have to wait till the lines are dry, though, again, because of the heavy use of copal medium to thin the paint. Buh. I'll post when she's finished. She's a gift for someone, so you can't see her yet.
Well, of course it's a she. Mucha--HELLO!
My toes have been freezing all day, but now they're wonderfully warm.
Also, the slice in my thumb has finally healed up, and I'm tentatively starting to play guitar again. God, I'm rubbish. My voice sounds fantastic, though. Swear I've lost a bit of range, though. My tones are improving, and I can project better. Probably all the yelling and cursing I've been doing at my paintings.
Buhhh.

Marble-tongued

So it's been a while since I last made a proper post. Those of you who have half a brain will know how busy I've been...meetings, more meetings, reading, studying, applying the self to evermore fascinating endeavours. Well, despite the massive attack of motion that has lately swallowed me whole, I have managed to get a couple other things done.
I also finished the central subject of the Mucha copy I was doing, and the surrounding (original) design elements will be soon forthcoming, if I can manage to sit down for long enough to dredge something up.
I had a dream about rock-climbing last night. I wasn't rock-climbing myself, I was watching about thirty boys clamber about on a cliff face, and sometimes, one of them would let themselves fall, and the others would grab him. Then I sprained my ankle.
I dreamt about pixies, too. Not The Pixies, though 'Cactus' has been tickling through my head. No...no, real pixies. The sort that feed off various human energies and will do anything to carry on feeding. The sort that fix all your problems and disappear into your rubbish bin before you can see them, really. But it was a bit of a discomfiting dream, and I won't carry on with it here.
I'm glancing over at my workspace right now, at my palette, with its unusual colours on it. I have a fun time mixing for this Mucha copy, but they're colours I rarely use. For example, I used a minty-green-blue sort of pastel colour, and I used some cad yellow dark, which, also, I don't favour, except in skintones. And I mostly emptied my tube of unbleached titanium. I'll need to run out for some more next Monday before I start my new project.
Oh! Speaking of which. I have a very ambitious project. Remember that grisaille portrait I was going on about? Well, I've started it. I gridded the photograph I'm copying it from, and gridded the canvas likewise. It's going to end up 30x26 inches, which is very convenient for me. Nice how they sell most canvases in the 'golden rectangle,' in perfect ratio. Now, if only I can find an old nautilus shell...
Oh, Lord, someone stop me. I'm on the rampage.
Yes of course. I cut my hair yesterday. It was nearly to my shoulders, in the back, and I chopped it all back up to my back hairline. All that stifling hair, gone. Lovely. I'm sure I wrote a poem at some point during the past week, but I don't think it's worth reading. But...you be the judge. Not you, Dre, you still haven't commented on my Sonnet V.

She sang for absolution
Every night after supper.
And the crazy thing about it was
That she never quite recovered,
Never saved our great nation.

I stood in the cage beside her,
Hung my hat up on a peg.
And I danced all afternoon beside her,
But I didn't draw a dime.
And I guess she deserved it.

Maybe that's just a story for another day.
Come help me burn the flag.
Come help me read the newspaper.
Help me walk,
Help me dance.

My fingertips crack
On these old metal strings.
And my heart broke with her neck,
When they sang, 'Penny for the Guy'
In the streets of London.

I've heard a lot of songs,
But never one so sad as yours,
Never one so bad as yours.
Do you think you'd mind
Performing for the Rolling Stones?

Skrep

Hang on, babe, we're going surfing!

Twelve Feet Tall

Seriously, now. Read THIS and then tell me I'm little.

Dread

When I say 'L-U-V,' you'd better believe me, L-U-V. Gimme a beer!
I'm in a bit of a quandary. Note the words 'a bit'--it's just a little one. The quandary is, how shall I bitterly ring in Valentine's day? A classic choice would be Jaëger, but I think the irony of wine would suit. Besides, it pairs well with linseed oil and violent string quartet music.
Yes, this isn't your average 'love-affairs-are-horrible-but-it-still-sucks-to-be-alone-on-V-Day' pity party, ladies and gentlefields. It's a brash, celebratory reaffirmation of the ego, that is, my singularity. And not in that annoying carnal way, either. It's the day I look my best, throw on a dress made of tissue paper, and slap some paint (talent being the most fickle love of all) exuberantly on whatever base material comes to mine. Luckily, I just reprimed a couple canvas boards, and I have one big sexy double-primed 36x24 ready.
I may consider investing in some linen. I would likely to too intimidated to touch it for a year. I've also been considering a very detailed grisaille portrait, just cause. Maybe I'll do a study after Ingres. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. I mean, I like him a lot, but sometimes he strikes me as a bit of a sellout. His technique is faultless, really. Mine isn't to say the least. Artistically, we have little in common, but I still remember Katy painting a master copy of his Odalisque in the atelier, when I was thirteen, and I loved the smoothness of everything, how the colours were faultlessly blended, but didn't assume the grey muddiness typical of overblending. I mean, he is a master for a reason.
Anyhow, if you have any good ideas, do comment, if you think I'd be interested.

Nights of Cydonia and Their Sarcasm

Mood: Silky
Listening to: Just Un Rêve, Frenchie
Reading: Descent into the Maelström, Edgar Allan Poe
Eating: Sushi
Drinking: Tall Double Toffee Nut Latte
There is so much sugar in this latte--I think my immune system is going to go into a very determined nosedive. The two shots of espresso aren't going to help my liver, either. But I am very tired.
I seem to have been tired for the past month. I don't know why, because it's only been the past couple weeks that I've gone insomniac, I'm also getting more exercise and everything. I'm meant to be hungrier and more energized, or at least better capable of deep sleep.
Maybe I've caused myself to learn on a crutch by falling asleep, for the past year, by listening to someone reading. I've blazed through FJWLs, letters, audiobooks--everything. Bah. I shall work out harder. I shall go to sleep surrounded by nothing but the sound of the wind, and my own thoughts (now there's a frightening proposition).
Anyhow, I want to whinge about something. I can't smile properly anymore. And no, I'm not talking about some ridiculous emo nonsense. I ate a rather sharp piece of toast the other morning, and nicked a slice in the corner of my lip, a little deeper than a paper cut. I can't stop running my tongue into it, which prevents it from healing, and if I smile, it cracks a little more, or at least feels like it. Anyhow, I have horrible (and completely exaggerated) visions of my cheek splitting open along the fault of this toonsy little slice, tearing my face open to the jawbone. So I'm reduced to this closemouthed smirk, which, admittedly, comes more naturally anyhow.
Also, every now and again, I have little revelations concerning just how completely bizarre some things about me are. My name, for one. Lord, but it is strange.
And I have dimples. My mum always specifically wanted a child with dimples, and voilà! She got me! In retrospect, she probably wishes she prayed down a little more respect for authority and self-restraint while she was at it, and maybe a little less narcissism, but PTL, He knows best.
But back to the subject at hand. That is, my dimples. Bugh. Yes. Well, they used to be very prominent when I was little (no cracks about my height. I'm warning you), because I had chub. But now that I'm all sleek and long-cheekboned, one has nearly disappeared, while the other only makes its presence apparent when I produce said smirk. So I had nearly forgotten about my made-to-order dimples, till someone brought them to my attention yesterday. Fortunately, they weren't daft enough to say, 'oh, look, you have dimples,' because that likely would have caused me to burst into tears for their sheer stupidity. Instead, I got a very polite, 'oh, your dimples are cute,' which caused me to restrain a tooth-baring, cheek-ripping grin (all for the best--it's terrifying), smirk politely, and thank them. To which they said, 'look, there it is again!' At which I burst, promptly, into tears.

Sonnet V

O, Bedlam, where Osiris chases
Round my cinder effigies
Emergents from inferno blazes--
Scourges them to bright frenzies,
The matron of delerium
With condor wings shall be the fleetest,
Across old, vast Ephesium
To sting the Muse who sings the sweetest.
And I, suspended 'tween the years,
Shall wield the sickle-bladed moon
Against the necks of vanquished fears,
And bravery is new-illum'd.
Ennobled by your violent rages,
My ink-stained mind adorns these pages.
(finis)
Friday, 8 February, 2008
12:50p

Read and Think!

Are you nothing more than the sum of your biological instincts?

Androgyne

The latest addition to my notorious ladyboy collection of creative works. Oh, yes, there will be pretty men. Sorry about the flash reflection. I used a buttload of thinner on the lines.

If You Squint

So I painted last night. As I said, a Beardsley repro, which I am very pleased with, in the main because it is so androgynous. I will call it Judith. Oh, man, I forgot how bloody fun minimal knifework was. Particularly when vibrating Stockholm Syndrome by Muse through my auditory canals.
Anyhow, I think I'm going to experiment with glazing with oils. I know it's the thing to do with acrylics, but what about achieving a watercolour effect with oil? I mean...I did this groovesome almost-Asian thingie for the drapery on this piece, and I bloody love how it looks. Black outline, olive green, with a heavy thinning with a copal medium. Anyhow. Nuff of that. I think I'm going to do a little series of simple art nouveau print-style paintings. Hang on to your nads, Mucha, you're next!

Aubrey on My Mind

Mood: Chemical Warfare!
Listening To: We Are Nowhere, and It's Now, Bright Eyes
Reading: The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
Eating: The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri
Drinking: Water
Beardsley is fun to look at. That is all.
I think I will go ahead and do a study of one of his prints, but in oils, so it's smexier, and less shakeable.
It is my mum's birthday, and, as a good daughter should, I meant to go ahead and sing her praises, but I will rather say that when I'm sick, she's the only one I want around me. Anyone else I will snarl and curse and scratch their eyes out. Unless they come bearing lots of NyQuil.
"Side-effects they don't advertise
I've been sleepin' so strange.
With a head full of pesticide."
Hah.

Also, Beware

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cutest Fights Ever

Courtesy of Scott Campbell.

Assemblage

I have recently developed a desire to paint an old woman. This is the sort of perverse feeling that creeps up on me whenever I look at Armin Mersmann's work. If you don't know who that is, Google him. You will fall hopelessly in love. He probably has the hippest taste in music of any fifty year old in the world. I don't necessarily agree with him taste, but I can't do anything but stare slack-jawed at his talent. Brat.
Concerning his work, it is, in the main, pencil (graphite) drawings on large scales, increasingly large, in fact, in a startlingly photorealistic style that took me several viewings to really appreciate, or even believe. He's mind-boggling. I would love to know how he manages to draw every single pore and wrinkle, rendering them in such brilliant contrast, but it likely has something to do with the fact that he spends about four hundred hours on a drawing that I would speed through in five or six.
Which reminds me. I haven't done a good, long-term drawing in a while. Probably has something to do with losing my xacto knife, or not owning fixatif. And my portfolio is falling apart like Satan. I've had that stroppy sky-blue folder since I was thirteen, and it has trailed me over the past three continents like a lost puppy.
Speaking of puppies, I was watching a dog show the other night. Shut up. I was. It was the only thing on the telly worth watching, sadly enough. It made me remember why I love borzois so much. Yes, they're lanky and have those irritating wedge-shaped heads, and probably shed too much, and look nervous and aristocratic, but there's something in the curl of their tails and the sensitivity in their ears that makes me adore them. I want one. I promised myself that I shall, someday, adopt a little borzoi puppy and name him Lord Ruthven.
And, to complete this post. I love the Wiggles, don't you?

A Winter's Tale

I'm on a bit of a Shakespeare kick. I remember the first one I ever had, I was thirteen, living in a flat on Le Loi Street right across the street from Ho Chi Minh City Central Park, giggling at the antics of the two Antipholus and Dromios, coming out of my Bard-induced trance every few hours to run down to Ben Thanh Market and gulp down a bowl of hot pho bo or three fresh spring rolls. I never was big on the sonnets, though my favourites are ten, twenty-seven, and forty-two. I didn't give much consideration to the ones that were popular, and I still find that iambic pentametre is exceedingly heavy handed.
But I was in the shower this morning, thinking about sonnet twenty-eight, and I could only remember about nine lines. I dropped off starting from 'I tell the day to please him, thou art bright' &c. And despite not particularly liking that sonnet, I was a bit upset. I should have a better memory than this. I remember all the lyrics from the memory book tapes, and a song was playing the other day that I haven't heard since I was seven or eight, but I remembered it verbatim. In any event, last night I watched Much Ado About Nothing, and, despite Keanu Reeves' dolorous mealymouthed woodenness, I grinned and giggled myself all the way through. Alan Rickman should have been John the Bastard. He would have been just edible. Almost as edible as when he was Colonel Brandon. But I digress.
I was feeling nostalgic for the times when I had the leisure to read for hours on end, and emerge only for food and piano lessons. I miss the people in Saigon that I loved, and it's for them that I scrounged for this little piece of pensive brilliance, despite that it is gentler than my tastes in poetry run.

Sonnet XXX
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moon,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
(finis)

Failures

Click. Masticate. Repeat.

Character Sketches

Write hard and fast about what hurts.
--Ernest Hemingway
From doing a quick bit of painting last night, I found that I really enjoyed it, and am learning to define when my energy wants outlet from painting or writing, or whathaveyou. You'd think I'd have gotten the hang of it already, right?
Well, I've been doing a couple sketches lately, of the writing variety, and just thought I would include one little bit here. It's incomplete as yet, and taken out of a stammered, abandoned short story, and has less to do with a physical encapsulation than with the feeling of the character. Anyhow. *clears throat*
A little like glue, and a great deal like old books, yes, that was how his room was scented, with its cobwebby depths all too fascinating not to plunder. The room itself was cool, dry, absent of mildews or moulds--that would have disturbed the books, seen to their ruin. And there could be none of that at all.
I know it bothered him, to live in a country filled with omissions--from the 'u's' in words like 'colour' and 'flavour,' to the newsjournals he combed for an unbiased approach to world events.
Such a scholar, he! Such a difficult world to live in for a soul as old as his battered copy of Hamerling's 'Aspasia.' My heart would have broken inside of me if I had lived the life he had.
I will, in order to spare you difficulty in connecting such events as I have yet to describe, narrate how I came to meet Griswold Thatcher, in as minute detail as I can recall.
I was quite in a daze that day, that he came round to the library, the musty grey building which stood upon a hill, overlooking Elm Street, with a very disapproving cast to its mouldered yellow bricks, chastising the cars which scurried to and fro for their unconscionable haste.
I, of course, had nothing to do with the world of machines of metal and their infinite cogs, spewing forth gaseous fumes into the air, soiling it with bleak oils and things for which he had no use.
He was a tall man, even in his age, with shoulders that still boasted a redoubtable strength. It was not, however, common to observe him unfolded, as it were, from him armchair near for fireplace, with a book habitually opened against a wide, weathered palm. As I have said, Griswold Thatcher is a man of the past, presenting to the future the effigy of a bygone era, when we were neither entertained nor educated by fits and starts of coloured light projected across an electronic screen. His silver hair belied the vivacious quality in his eyes, his face, lined with character and stamped with dignity, made one forget, with its easily-earned smile, how harsh the angles and planes of it were.

25 Of My Favourite Things

In no particular order, off the top of my head, though none of them rhyme.
1. Jesus
2. Cointreau
3. Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.
4. Cooked, stuffed geese, with truffles
5. Victor Hugo
6. Alexandre Dumas
7. Voltaire
8. Poe
9. Edna St. Vincent Millay
10. Christopher Plummer
11. My Stuffed Keith Richards
12. Linseed Oil
13. My Fitch sable brushes
14. Some British Standup Comedians
15. Writing
16. Painting in a fury
17. Duvets
18. Rockabilly Bands
19. Sherlock Holmes
20. Joscelin Verreuil
21. Aubrey Beardsley
22. Mehmet Turgut
23. The Sensation of Being Tattooed
24. Armin Mersmann
25. Korean Steakhouses

Long Lost Twins

A Well Used Half Hour

Speed painting with the Pixies and 500 Miles to Memphis blaring in the background, noshed in with some Babyshambles and, for good measure, Willie Nelson playing a Rolling Stones cover.
Oils on canvas, with about five shots of rum. Titanium white, yellow ochre, light red, Ventian red, burnt umber, Van Dyck brown, manganese blue, terre vert, and lamp black. And some righteous natural bristle brushes. Lick well.

OH NOES!!!!

Enschuldigen! Coming Through!

They are Beastly
Little
Things!
SNUFF will be out soon.
*dances, and loves Chuck Palahniuk*
Mark your calendars for the twentieth of May! And you didn't hear it from me.
But the first man I ever loved will always be

Mattel is Out to Get Me

Now would be a good time to hand me a tranquilliser. Many of them.

Life is, apparently, not worth living any longer.

Behaviour of an Amputee

Listening To: 'Sunshine in a Shotglass,' 500 Miles to Memphis
Reading: Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Eating: Crisps
Drinking: Caramel Latte
It's all Kate Bush's fault, quite frankly, as I'm sure you'll all agree. She'd drive ten year olds to bewail the state of the political world and addict themselves irreparably to rubbish bands like Anathema and HIM.
I find now, as the new year rolls round in my mouth, that I miss Switzerland. This time last year, I had been there less than a month, and it was cold and grey and, somehow, still ravishingly pretty. By the time spring came round, it was like watching everything wake up, gradually and without regard for whether or not I was ready for it. The fields of canola flowers bloomed, casting their sickly smell into the air, but at least they were pretty. I remember six year olds walking to school on their own, holding their schoolfriends' hands, without parents worrying about whether they'd be snatched.
I remember Suicide Hill, and suffering myself to be nicknamed a little Eskimo Boy by a preadolescent Spaniard, trading suggestive looks with a rather older Spaniard, while ice cream melted on my hands and I burnt my toast. I miss eighty-cent 70 % Lindt chocolate bars and a pair of thick white duvets covering my narrow bed. I do not miss sleeping alone.
I miss the Altstadt, with its hidden tea rooms and shops with horrid eighties-throwback fashion in their windows, longing after the bookstore, wishing I knew German so I could read the many, many volumes smelling of old paper and ink.
I miss drinking beer beside Lac Genève, sitting on the parapets of old city walls, and looking down into valleys from 1527 metres above sea level, and lying sprawled over a dark blue velvet settee, watching Manchester United beat the snot out of Liverpool, drinking Feldschlösschen lager and eating Nutella out of the jar with my fingers.
And, of course, you.
Get well soon, and stop running into things on motorbikes. It isn't particularly healthy.

Donne Moi l'Encre!

I have found lately that as impatient a writer as I am, the rhythm of typing doesn't seem to pull the ideas out of me as easily as a simple pen and paper. A dip-pen is even better, and a little bottle of sepia ink. Sepia ink has a nice flow to it, and doesn't seem to clot so much as black ink.
Also, I have the best ideas for lyrics while brushing on mascara or washing dishes. It must have something to do with the meditative half-moment, when your hand is either attempting to steady itself so you don't poke yourself in the eye, or engaged, without much aid from your brain, in sloshing warm, soapy water over egg goo on a plate.
I was thinking, last night, of things, memories in my life that I wanted to write about, or insert in a story or novel to give it a level of verisimilitude, or relatability, at least, and I came across a dusty old bit that involved trips back to the north-east to visit rellies.
I remember the upright piano, in a cobwebby basement that smelled, mainly, of old couches. It stood between the pinball machine and a billiard-table, and the bare concrete walls were here and there decorated with games of pin the tail on the donkey, half-scraped and bubbled with water damage. I remember venturing down the creaky steps, turning the lights on at the top, because even now, I'm afraid of the dark, listening for the sounds of my two older brothers playing billiards, the crack of cues hitting balls into one another. Whether they were there or not, it didn't so much matter to me. I sat at the piano, and dusted the cover with my finger-tips, brushing away the dust acquired over weeks of disuse, feeling the sandy grains and silky webs clinging to my hands, before I lifted the cover, and started to play.
I didn't know a thing about music, and I don't well remember why I liked it so much, but producing sounds, so easily, was what drew me first to it. Then, when I found that they neither bent nor squealed, if the keys were gently used, I liked it better. My feet didn't reach the pedals, and my hand scarcely spanned half an octave. Still, it was not the music or sound itself that I enjoyed, it was producing it. Being the conjurer of a thousand discordant notes, and delighting when I found a combination that pleased the ear. For hours at a time, I would press the keys in, gently or harshly, though I could never make much volume with my weak fingers, and hum tunes, words that came to mind, mainly about horses, and Robin Hood, and, occasionally, tragic deaths of lovers like Hero and Leander, of swimming the Hellespont every night, and one night drowning, of the terrifying certainty that if he was not there, he must be dead.
I am sure, if confronted with recorded evidence of the sounds I made, I would now be horrified, embarrassed, or, at least, a little annoyed that my childhood wonder was made a spectacle of, so many years from when it was poignant. Maybe the only thing that would annoy me is that I haven't the courage to do the same now, to make up sad songs in a basement, because I have grown up, and I can't stand sounding bad to myself.