Rio Film Club - for dedicated hardcore movie buffs only!

Do you enjoy nothing better than talking non-stop about films to anybody that would listen as well as watching them? Want to meet new like-minded people to talk about films with who won't get bored with your constant mutterings? Then the Rio Film Club is just for you! The Club meets every other Sunday (although this pattern can vary occasionally according to the main feature schedule), for the early evening show and after the film heads to the Evin Café for post-film discussion, where you can also enjoy a drink and bite to eat (30 sec walk from the Rio!) The last and next meetings were and are as follows: Sun 18 Oct 6.00 - THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS Sun 1 Nov 6.00 - TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE Sun 15 Nov 6.00 - BRIGHT STAR Sun 29 Nov 6.30 - A SERIOUS MAN ______________

Not sure what to do this weekend? Bored? Well what are you waiting for mankind! Pop down to Stoke Newington this Saturday evening for Darwin Night! - It's evolving man

SAT 21 Nov • Darwin, Evolution & the Movies (@ The Rio)

Darwin influenced fiction as well as fact and the classic literary works of HG Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Charles Kingsley were all directly inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution and they paved the way for later generations of writers whose work has moved from page to screen. Certainly, the threat (or promise) of future evolution, metamorphosis or mans' descent into savagery have been familiar themes since the movies began. On 24 November 2009 it will be 150 years since On the Origin of Species was published. Time then for a selection of classic movies curated by Carole Jahme, filmmaker and Darwinist, who will introduce both screenings and perform extracts from her 5 star award winning comedy show Carole Jahme is Sexually Selected! enabling the audience to learn about their evolutionary sex appeal by discovering some basic instincts! Mmm....Sounds er interesting.

ALIEN (18) 11.30pm (Saturday 21st Nov, 2009)

(UK/US 1979) dir. Ridley Scott 117m.
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm.

In space, nobody can hear you scream! Or so they say. The terror begins when the crew of the spaceship Nostromo investigates a transmission from a desolate planet and makes a horrifying discovery, a life form that breeds within a human host. ALIEN is a landmark triumph of art direction and special effects with a monster designed by surrealist painter H.R. Giger that is a brilliantly original fusion of insect, man and machine. Darwin would have been fascinated.

+ artist’s short film commissioned by the Wellcome Trust

+ introduction/performance from film-maker and Darwinist Carole Jahme

£6.50 (cheaper if you're a poor lazy student. Even cheaper if you're an old age pensioner. Free if you're me)

2012 - The Review

There was a moment during the watching of '2012', when I realised, I had lost something precious. Something I would never get back. The feeling started off as a little kernel of no consequence (like a foetus...sorry, bad analogy!), but slowly, gradually, it fed on the dregs of ones thoughts and black bile, and it grew, until finally, it transformed itself into a full fledged storm of the open sea, hurling and burlin' inside the mind. This was not a mere irritable itch like one gets when, for example, one is on a long bus journey and the passenger sitting behind has his knee pressed up against the back seat. Oh no, I had lost something and I was angry. The thought of this loss filled my heart with anguish and my soul with pins and needles. Hot pins and needles. What was this thing I had lost?

Two and a half hours of my life!

Two and a half hours, that I could have, and certainly would have, if only faith did have, devote to other things. But such is the luxury of hindsight. I can recall the exact moment when the realisation of this 'lost time' lifted and touched the surface of my consciousness. It was at the point in the movie, during that scene, when the President of the United States (played by Danny Glover) decides that; contrary to the advice of his advisers, he will not board the Ark (yes Ark!), but that he will go to Church instead and pray. Yes pray! Pray for the salvation and the souls of the denizens of our doomed planet. Now I have nothing against prayer as such. I believe that in some cases it can have efficacy, but only in the same way that a placebo can also sometimes have efficacy. Purely in the mind kind of thing. This was a turning point in the movie because, believe it or not, it had started off rather well. It had started off with a little science!

It started off in India, deep in the bowels of the earth, 10,000 feet below the surface, in a disused diamond mine. When a movie starts off with a little science it automatically warms my cockles. I think this will be an intelligent movie, and as well as being entertained, I will also learn something - well that's the thought anyway. In the movie's beginning, we are introduced to an Indian astrophysicist, who during experiments on massless Neutrino particles, realises that strange things are afoot: the earth's core is melting and it is the neutrino's that are to blame. The earth will die, the mantle (surface layer) will melt like Swiss-cheese under a grill, and eventually after moaning and groaning, it will cave in - taking all of us with it. There will be mega earthquakes and giant tsunamis and super duper volcanoes. Chaos and destruction and black plumes of sulphur will reign maelstrom from the skies and pour forth their fury, and the final curtain will fall on the lease of Man. For it was always a short term lease. Man, in his arrogance, believed otherwise. Believed in the exaltation's of his creation. Such a fine creature he is! So you see I wasn't too displeased to witness his imminent extinction - albeit on celluloid. I rubbed my hands in glee, and my eyes sparkled like diamond cutters, and I stuffed my face full of sweet popcorn. The popcorn's were sticky and they stuck to my palate, and my clothes and my fingers. I took a sip of coke to wash away the stickiness, but the sugariness only made it worse.

It was a nice feeling to be alone in the theatre, just me, the rain and wind lashing madly outside under a dismal sky, but here inside, I was warm and protected from the elements, from the cold; but (and this is the ironic part) a different kind of storm was raging and assailing me inside. A storm of mighty visual spectacle and glorious Dolby digital surround sound. Inside the theatre the world was about to end and I was jumping in joy! This is what dreams are made of! To bear witness to the end. I admit, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that I can sometimes be sick of heart, for I do enjoy watching the race of man utterly wiped out.

Those of you psychologically primed will no doubt conclude that I am not a happy bunny - hence my desire to see human life extinguished. That is not true! Let me explain (and I know I am digressing here, but this is my blog, and I can jolly well write what I want). You see, members of the jury, I genuinely believe that man is a scourge and a blight and a nasty infection upon the earth. Man is the worst thing that ever happened to this planet. I really don't know why we keep elevating ourselves to some lofty dais. We were and are a big mistake. We should never have evolved. We should never have come down from those trees. We should never have heaved our fish like bodies out of the primordial ocean onto dry land huffing and puffing. Hell! We should never have coagulated out of stardust! But it was out of our control. Just like the end will one day also be out of our control. He giveth and He taketh away - without even bloody asking! We never got a say in it did we? Did anybody ever ask us? Did anybody ever ask you whether you wanted it? Did anybody ever ask you whether you wanted to exist? So, why cry when it's all over? And yet! And yet, we are expected to be thankful for existence cos it is such a good thing isn't it? Tell me, what is so special about existence that we are expected to spend our entire existences being so thankful for existence?! Should a lump of rock be thankful for existing? Should the sun? Should this coffee sitting in front of me? Who should the lump of rock be thankful to anyway, and for what? For being a stupid thick rock! It's so silly, and I am in danger of going mad and in danger of loosing you, my dear readers, in the thick undergrowth of my philosophical peregrinations. The great thing is that we can think and ponder about all this, and nothing, and I mean nothing, is out of bounds as far as the enquiring mind is concerned. Nothing is sacred. I am Stardust and so are you and isn't it wonderful! - to wake up in the morning and think (or scream if you wish): I am stardust! I am a lump of stardust and I can drink coffee. I am a lump of stardust and my name is Wasim and I'm so fucking brilliant and so gorgeous and I have a thing called a heart and I have an ipod I'm so proud of And there's this other lump of Stardust called a girl who likes me!

Er OK, back to the movie.

There were some good moments in the movie, and I use the word 'moments' sparingly. There was the moment when the President is squished by a giant tsunami. That was a good moment. There is the moment when the Vatican is utterly destroyed by an earthquake. That was a good moment too. There was the moment when a McDonald's is swallowed up by a fissure in the earth. There were some cheers in my heart for that moment. No more McDonald's! Not a bad thing. No more work! Not bad. OK, no more school! Slight tremor there. No more Pepsi or Coke. Big whack there. No more books! Woh, I think I'm going to faint. No more England! Wow, that's like huge. No more America. Yes awsome! No more mobile phones. Yippee. No more people. No more me. No more you. No more anything. Look, it's only a movie and hardly brain food, but do watch it for the special effects porn that it is. But don't expect it to change your life. But why would it? Why would or should any movie change your life? Well some movies can admittedly have that life changing affect, and some (well most of them) are just a waste of two and a half hours of your life. But life is free and you never paid for it (well you never asked for it either) so you might as well consider those two and a half hours as free time. Life is free - do what you want with it. Even watch 2012 if you want to!

You'll regret it. Just like I did. But life is free - and nothing really matters in the end. Cos the world is gonna end one day you know!

_______

Decaf thoughts

I'm having decaf thoughts - ideas - weird one's. I'm seated in a cosy cafe enjoying a Sunday coffee washed down with a book. Or is it the other way round? : A book washed down with a coffee? Anyway, never mind. I'm sitting in my usual seat next to the large window that overlooks the windy outdoor pavement scene. Last night it must have rained heavily for the pavement is glossy with a greasy film of water. The sky is a wan blue with the skid marks of aeroplanes criss-crossing it. The trees have shed most of their leaves. Their yellow corpses lie littered on the pavement. I've just realised what I am. I know, brilliant eh?! Do you, my Gentile readers, ever have those abrupt attacks of reality? A sudden gust or gush of fresh air that causes you to inhale a little more deeply than usual; a sudden realisation about something or other that stops you dead in your tracks? Well it happened to me this morning. Well it happened just now actually. Please don't laugh or pity me. I have my moments and I just wish to express them.

You see I was stuffing my mouth full of food and I suddenly realised, when I looked down at my plate, that I was eating dead things! Or to be more precise, things that were once living things. It came as a bit of a shock actually. Let's take my eggs Benedict for example. These once belonged to a chicken and were once on the road to chickenhood, until one day, some farmer who had delusions of grandeur and thought he could play God, decided otherwise, and these eggs were plucked from that noble path to chickenhood, and placed on the less noble path to my plate. The path of platehood! I know what you're thinking gentile readers - Theft!

My toast were once chubby wheat stalks basking in the life affirming rays of the sun in some dusky wheat field until, one day, they were decapitated. And my delicious roast coffee once grew in the slightly acidic soil of the highlands of Ethiopia. And all around me, everywhere I look, I see (no, not dead people) but alive people with round orifices, holes in their heads called 'mouths', through which they shove an endless stream of once living things. And I see two fat women seated to my left, and their mouths now take on a whole new disgusting meaning. The dead food they eat ends up around their bellies. It accumulates in wave like undulations around their waists and backs and under their chins. And they look alien to me now. People look alien to me now. And now, I stare at my eggs Benedict, and I no longer want to eat. And I look at myself, my mouth, my stomach, innards, intestines, and I find myself too disgusting to contemplate. I hate myself. I hate being human. I hate having a body. If only, I was just a brain, and nothing else!

What are we?

What exactly, am I?

Have you never thought about what you are? It's through eating and other such acts like sex, that you realise. Have you not thought about what eating is? Isn't it fantastically alien this eating business? Am I the only one who thinks this?

The unicellular amoeba, when it wants to eat, nestles beside a giant food particle and then changes its shape and invaginates to imbibe it. Swallows it whole. There are some mother birds that store a supply of food in their stomachs and when they go back to the nest, regurgitate it into the mouths of their little en's. There are certain species of ant, whose sole job in life, is to hang from the ceiling of the ant colony, as a source of food for the workers. There is another species of ant that 'farm' aphids. The aphids have teeth and the enzymes that are needed to digest certain leaves. The aphids do the digesting and any excess food is secreted from their backsides in the form of droplets of sugary 'honey-dew'. The ants stroke the hind legs of the aphids and the aphids release the honey dew into the ants mouths. Why? What do the aphids get out of it? Protection. The ants look after the aphids by protecting them from predators and even carry them to the leaf sight. Such relationships in nature are called symbiotic.

And we do the same. We are the same. Certain types of human farm the food, whilst another type, ask the big questions. Inside, we are a colony of cells, and each one of our cells is a colony of bacteria. Our Mitochondria, the power station of the cell, were once free living bacteria, that now live inside our cells. They need the cell as much as the cell needs them - symbiosis. We're all weird aliens you know. We're just too busy to notice. Next time you are eating something think about what you are doing. What are you doing? You are taking into your body, flesh and all, that once belonged to another living being. Do you absorb the spirit, the soul or the life force of an egg when you eat it? Does something of chickenhood end up inside of you when you nibble on a drumstick? No, not exactly. But you do get a lot of calories and protein! And calories are good for they keep you going. You need calories to write stuff like this! You need to eat dead things, in order to power the neurons in your brain, so that they can realise, that you are eating dead things!

And what is the point of that?

Exactly!

___________

Now for something a little different - '2012'

There are movies and then there are Roland Emmerich movies. The former give you time and space to think and make up your own mind. Roland Emmerich movies don't - they pound you into submission. Watching them is like going into a boxing ring and receiving blow after blow of punches. You leave the cinema utterly exhausted and in need of a rest. Tomorrow, Like Dr Faust, I'm going to sell my soul and watch the above Hollywood Blockbuster. The poster, as you can see, features an enormous Tsunami, and a plaintive looking monk (his crimson robe caught in the breeze - how romantic?), looking regretfully on, as the world is consumed by a huge bucket of water. Above the whole the caption reads: 'we were warned'. Yes indeed. Now, everything you need to know about this movie is written in that caption: 'we were warned'. How imaginative. You can just imagine the brainstorming session:

'OK guys, new movie. Worlds about to end. Big Blockbuster. We must come up with something deep for a caption'

'You know, something a little vague and sphinx like but not too vague as to be unfathomable, but simple enough for Mr and Mrs American Public to understand'

'Just a few words, little words, not big words, a small sentence. Any ideas?'

'We were told?'

'No. Good start though. But not sinister enough'

'We were threatened'

'Better but too sinister. Can't go round threatening people these days. You'll get sued'

'We were warned?'

'Mmm, Nice. Terence, your a genius!'

This movie will be an absolute stinker! I can smell it already. Totally rubbish. But I'm watching it anyway - why? Because I enjoy self-induced brain torture? No. Because I have nothing better to do? Er not quite. Because my legs are wilfully disobedient and will take me to it. No. Because firstly it's directed by Roland Emmerich - he of numerous cheese encrusted disaster movies fame (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow). Each one of his movies has been a steadily ascending exercise in outdoing the previous offering in sheer visual spectacle and bravado. Secondly, this movie incorporates the age old gambit that past civilizations have much to teach us and that we ignore them at our peril - Wow, how original man. That's like, so far out there man. In the like, twilight zone man. Mm, where have I seen that one before? Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

Anyway, in the case of '2012' it's the turn of the ancient Mayan civilization of Guatemala to 'warn us' - and they did warn us but would humanity heed? Oh no! Too busy Christmas shopping and stocking up on mince pies and updating their Ipods to care. For maximum effect I'm watching this tomorrow morning at the rather anti-social and nihilistic hour of 09:30am. A time when the streets will be deserted and populated only with the dregs of Friday nights detritus. A good time if you ask me to watch the world die in a glorious death rattle, whilst everybody else in LondonTown is snugly snoozed up in bed.

OK, I admit. I'm only watching this for the special effects! Special Effects Porn that's what this movie is: 'We were warned'

More like: I was warned.

My only hope is that it is not half as bad as I think and believe it will be. Will let you know...if I live to tell, my sordid and gregarious tale. Must go prepared. Will take my Sennheiser noise cancellation headphones along too just in case!

V.

Do Extraterrestrials feel romantic love? / Coup de foudre

How do you get two intelligent organisms to copulate and have children? Remember we are talking about intelligent organisms; intelligent in the sense of being self-aware. There is only one animal on earth that is (as far as I know) self-aware, and that is Man. My female readers I hope will not be indignant at my chauvinistic use of the male descriptive. When I say 'Man' I include them also. In fact, since we are on the topic, when thinking of self-aware Man, I think of my female readers more than my male compadres - but I am digressing. As always.

So, coming back. How do you get two intelligent and self-aware organisms to copulate and have children? Answer: create within their brains the ability to feel romantic love. There is no more powerful emotion than that of romantic love. I say 'romantic' love deliberately to differentiate it from 'other' types of love. Like the love one feels for one's parents, siblings, friends and so forth. The whirlwind of romantic love has shaped and carved our world throughout the ages. It has torn asunder empires, smelted dynasties, ripped families in two, levelled continents, reduced histories to ash and perhaps most important of all, harassed individual lives lived on the edge of obscurity. It has served as a muse and inspiration for our greatest works of art and our dizziest technological achievements. Second only to God, it was romantic love, that beat a path for the Enlightenment.

But that is not what I wish to discuss here. We have all, if we have lived fully, experienced first hand the tug and pull of romantic love. We know what it feels like. We know the powerful grip it can have on us when its potions take hold. And yet! And yet (and here I must whisper lest somebody hears my sodden incantations) we claim to be free, to possess a quality called freewill. When Man (or Woman) is under the iron grip of romantic love, he/she is like the Penguins of the Antarctic, huddled together in a black and white mass, conserving heat against the cold, trying to keep warm, to repeal faith, but ultimately in the end, giving in to the inevitable. When in-love you are like the hedgehog scurrying thereabouts in the undergrowth - seeing only that which lies a few inches from the tip of your nose. Or like the pigeon, pecking away, at little baubles. Are you a myopic hedgehog or an all seeing eagle? Answer: myopic hedgehog!

If life exists on other planets. If, many millions of miles distant, somewhere out there in the starry void, lies a planet, studded with intelligent life, does it I wonder, feel romantic love? And if yes, does its version of romantic love feel the same as our own? Perhaps these beings have bigger hearts on account of the thicker blood that must be pumped around the limbs because of the stronger gravitational field. Does this imbue them with stronger romantic feelings? Does their heart throb and hurt more? Perhaps they have two hearts - what then? The imagination can only wonder! Perhaps they have their own version of Romeo&Juliet that would make our own appear like a tepid midday soap opera. Perhaps they have no stomach, do they then suffer that ignominious knotted 'butterfly in the stomach feeling' that we must endure? Perhaps they are endowed with logic circuits that reduce all love decisions to probability and mathematical certainties, thus doing away with all that tedious mucking about with: dating, anticipation, the gushes, the sobs, the hysterics, the coyness, the meals spent gazing into each others glassy eyes. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

There is something else I briefly wish to touch upon here. Please observe the man or woman in love. Imagine them in your head. Observe their behaviour. Observe how, when in the presence of their desired one, they shut out all else, all others, the world. Observe, how they react and notice every nuance of the object of their affections. Seeing meaning and purpose where none doth exist. Observe and hear my friends the lilting tones and praise they heap upon their loved one. Praise towers so high they touch the ceiling...of the world. Observe them with their friends talking inanely and non-stop about their loves ones sense of humour, their superior tastes, their bookish charm, their record collection, their clothes, their career, their person, their brain, their body, their tattoos, their earlobes. Observe how their dreamy eyes travel back in time and recollect and congeal a particular moment out of a dense mass of moments. They see all yet they see nothing. That is what love does. How is it, that in a world of 6 billion people, we feel, when under the thrall of romantic love, that we have found the one? That we have by some amazing comingling of faith and chance, found that one singular individual who will complete us, make us happy and whole, and whom no one else on the planet can replace. For that is how love feels does it not? The exclusivity of romantic love. The irrationality of it. The way it subverts our more thoughtful and pragmatic tendencies. The way it barges into our ordered lives and smashes about (like a rabid bull in a china store). The way it lifts us to a vague make-believe place up in the clouds full of fairies and skyhooks. All these qualities and more, tell me; the armchair philosopher, that romantic love is on par, and deserves to be grouped with, and should be treated as, a mental diseases! Ha! Yes, a mental disease!

But to end on such a grim note will not do. I think a little lunacy and frenzy is good in life. Adds a dash of colour, tone and texture to what would otherwise be a rather morose, glum and moribund tapestry. Love inspires! Love kills! Love is the muse of muses! Too much sanity is not a good thing and frankly a little boring. Madness. Madness is good. All forms including romantic love. Revel in it. Allow it the pleasure of deranging your senses. Let its scent rub off on your person, and don't let anyone or anybody say or convince you otherwise of its high glories and lowly pains.

Iseepurplerabbits.com

Ithinkimightbeturningintoapenguin.com

___________

L o n d o n P a n e g y r i c

aDoseOfPhilosophy - On Women

Greetings! -

Welcome again my greedy voracious caterpillar hungry readers. It is that time again, that time when you read the title above, smile, rub your hands in glee, make a cup of tea, sit comfortable, and proceed to swallow another teaspoon, nay another dose, of philosophy. Today's topic is on that wonderful confounded creature that has vexed man since time began, the woman.

Let us begin:

It is often said that women are from Venus and Men from Mars. But I disagree. Men are not from Mars. They are from earth and women from planet GodKnowsWhere.

Tell me, what is the first question a woman will ask a man whom she is considering dating?

Mm?

Any ideas?

Anyone?

No?

Let me tell you. She will ask him that 'find-out-everything-about-someone-in-one-sentence' question :

What do you do?

What do you do?! - in those four words, which, on there own, look so innocent and guiless, lies a whole life's worth of information about you. Asking someone what they do for a living, is the quickest and most efficient way of getting to the root of a person. Are you a teacher? (caring, sociable). Are you an accountant? (dull, precise, good with numbers). Are you a writer? (solitary, schizophrenic, phlegmatic, bipolar). Are you a photographer? (creative, poor, smelly, love cheese). Are you unemployed? (Idle, good-for-nothing lazybones). Are you a philosopher pondering life's mysteries? (mad, loopy, strange, wonderful, sexy?)

When a girl asks you what you do, you should reply as follows:

[girl] 'What do you do?'

[boy] ‘Well I er, don’t actually do anything'

[girl] 'What do you mean you don't do anything? Everybody does something'

[boy] ‘Well, I erm, don’t do anything - I’m just Me!’

[girl] 'Well how do you eat?'

'With my mouth'

'Yes, I know but with what?'

'My teeth?'

'No but...'

'With my hands?'

'Yes I know but with what?'

'I eat food'

'Yes I know! But what do you buy it with?'

'Oh! er, money'

'Yes, but you just told me you don't do anything so how...?'

'Oh I see. Well my tummy is so small, and my body so minor, and my wants so tiny, that I don't need much to live on. A hunk of bread, a bit of cheese, maybe a tomato, a spoonful of honey and water from the stream'

'But where do you sleep? You must have a roof over your head?'

'Yes I have a roof. It's called the sky'

'The sky?'

'Yes you know, the sky. It's up there!'

'Yes I know where it is! What about your bed?'

'The grass'

'And for light?'

'The moon and the stars'

'OK, but what about friends?'

'The crickets, the birds, the caterpillars, the insects and the worms that crawl through the soil and the hedgehogs and the monkeys...'

'Monkeys? What Monkeys? There's no Monkeys in London?

'In London Zoo they're are'

'What about companionship, like girls...female company???'

'Well, funnily enough, you're the first ever to show interest!'

[girl blinks]

[she blinks again]

_________

And then she turns around and slinks off. The man sits there scratching his head wondering what happened. He scratches his head and finds a big fat louse in his hair. He watches it wriggle between his fingers wanting to escape back into the greasy warmth of his bedraggled hair.

'Mm, protein' he says. And puts it in his mouth.

-THE END-

Coming soon...Is your job big enough for your spirit?

The wonderful thinking tour

There is something terribly noble about a life spent reclined on the cushion of philosophy. To sit back, to fold arms behind head, and think. That is the ultimate cool. Let me take you on a brief thinking tour:

First stop: my ipod touch. There it sits, beside me, next to the frothy coffee (who's every bubble is like a miniature universe), there it sits, catching the gilded rays of the sun on its black curves, blinking away, and next to it, the Voyager and next to that my battered and bruised copy of (yes you've guessed it) Paradise Lost. We've discussed PL in a previous post so won't talk about it here. The ipod touch has a memory capacity of 64GB. Of which 40GB is currently free. Let me put this into perspective. I have currently on it: 300 music albums (from Joy division to the Pixies and somewhere in the middle a bit of commercial pop), the entire Oxford English Dictionary, books downloaded for free from 'Project Gutenberg', numerous Pod casts, a collection of Audio Books from Bill Bryson to Blackadder. I have on it an A to Z of London - so that I don't get lost, a Tube Map with updates, the many learned quotes of 'Seneca', an application that tells me the weather, the latest news, another that allows me to check emails, my Paypal account balance, my Amazon account. I have a program that tells me the latest cinema releases with reviews and where showing. Another called 'Ambiance' that allows me to listen to the sound of raindrops, thunder storms in the Peruvian desert or the calming swash and froth of lapping waves on a Caribbean beach - useful for escape and relaxation when the walls threaten to swallow thee in surburbia. I can explore far away galaxies and Pizza Express at the same time. I can take eNotes of my thoughts for later use, or while away a good hour exploring the London Underground map. I can memorise cool Latin phrases. A caelo usque ad centrum and wonder. The world ad arbitrium. In digitalis...

Why am I telling you all this? I am telling you this because I want you to be amazed (as I am) how it is possible that we have reached a point of advancement where this and more can be squashed into a device that fits comfortably in your back pocket. Wired - Connected - Mainframed - Digitised, my fingers on the pulse of humanity.

I was first introduced to the possibilities of such fantastic devices many years back whilst reading Douglas Adam's 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'. In the book, the device of the same name was an electronic portable computer that contained everything an intrepid galactic hitchhiker would need to know in order to see the marvels of the known universe. If Douglas was alive today he would no doubt be as happy as a pomegranate full of pips. It was Douglas who had the biggest impact on my young adolescent brain. The virus of his initial infection still casts a happy and translucent hue on the way my brain views the world. It would be an understatement to say that I have a Douglasesque colourscape. Douglas wrote a hilarious piece once (well he wrote many). I will repeat it here for your enjoyment. I quote word for word (well almost):

'Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for'

What is it about? Well, many things. Foremost it's a subtle criticism of our homocentric view of the universe. We humans find ourselves in a world that seems to fit us perfectly. So perfectly that it seems to have been built especially for us. Just like the hole the puddle finds itself in. But that is a fallacy. What Douglas did was to turn the analogy on its head and give our homocentric world picture a good shake up. There's nothing like a little dose of Douglas to do that. Give us a good shake up.

Moving on. The 2nd thought that has randomly crept into my thought sphere is Me. My favourite subject! So self conscious me! I have oft been described by my friends; usually after an evenings merrymaking, as someone who lives on the 'other' side of normal. The 'other' being a loving term used to describe a place far away from 'here'. 'Here' being an everyday existence spent in the thrall of such mundane activities as gravity, the X-Factor, gas bills, filling up the car with petrol and the occasional foray into existential musings. Let me be clear. This is not a life I am familiar with. I am as familiar with this life as a Hedgehog is familiar with the works of William Shakespeare. A life followed by the majority of the somnambulating denizens of earth. I, as already pointed out above, live elsewhere - coming down for air now and again (and I use the word down deliberately!). Like the fabled Leviathan monster of the ocean deep the Blue Whale, who spends most of its time beneath the waves, occasionally venturing or deigning to come up to the surface for a gulp of air. I too must come up for my gulp, but then I must quickly dive back down again into the cushioned depths below! The deep dark tea time of my soul. But then life is more fun on this side don't you think? The sun shines so much prettier here. The birds so much less noisesome. Love gilded with gold and silver. Smiles free to flutter in a crystal heart. The problem with everyday life is that it can get rather tedious at times. Even the most sensual and exciting of things can, after repeated revisits, become tepid and ordinary. Which is why ti's important to impart existence with a little variety and gaiety. Human beings are creatures of habit but they also, at the same time, get easily bored. What to do?! What to do?!

Life should be lived in a state of deranged fascination. There is much to see and hear and feel and think in the world. Only the other day I caught some sun beams on the top deck of the bus. Yes I caught them. They were meant for me. So said faith in my ear. They had emerged through a gap in the grey clouds, after a lengthy journey through space of many millions of miles. They had passed through the atmosphere, and before reaching me, on the top deck of the bus, listening and bobbing to a beat from 'The Strokes, they had to pass through a patchwork of leaves, which gave them a soft twinkling light. A soft light that made me smile and vindicated the beauty and possibilities of existence. Moments. All moments. You must catch them. What do I remember of my trek through Lao's northern jungles? Moments. Details are lost. But moments I remember. Life is all moments. When Cadbury's marketing executives sat around a round table brain-storming possible names for their new product, it was no accident that they stumbled upon the following:

Now the 3rd and final topic of today's magical thought tour. And this will be shamelessly dipsy: Starbucks. Or rather the Starbuckscard. Did you know that if you get a Starbuckscard, and top it up, and use it to buy coffee, that's not all you'll get. Oh no, the card allows you free Internet access in any Starbucks in the world. Now, I'm not known for being a corporate slave especially psychotic multinational corporations; I'm just talking about the simple fact that you can get free Wi-Fi access for the price of, well for the price of a coffee. Not bad coffee. I've had better, but it has caffeine and one can blog till one's heart bleeds and fingers hurt.

On that note tis time to end here. I have a tendency, as you may well know, of going on a little bit. I just can't stop! I just want to keep on scribbling (or in today's age) keep on tapping. Consider this blog entry for example. It just won't stop! When will it stop? Will it ever stop? I don't want it to end here. I have so much to say. Like how wonderful I think it is that when you sit on the bus you have an African to your left, a Chinaman to your right and opposite an Albanian women with whiskers and a gaunt parcel on her lap. That you can hear many conversations. This babel of languages travelling through the bus, smothered in rhyming lilting slang and gypsy tones:

'Someone tried to pull him off innit. Yeah off his bike man. Last night. That's what he say's though'

'How's the hood?'

'Hoods fine man. You coming round?'

A little boy plays with his toy. His mother on the phone in a different and more grown up world:

'Why she say that about me and Kevin? Why she get involved? It's getting on my nerves and the way she's jacking us. I don't know...'

Listening to these conversation it seems to me that people exist on totally alien planets. Worlds I have no idea or conception off. There's the inner city world of young black youth. The world of the Polish migrants. The world of the East End Asian diaspora. Like the bubbles in a cappuccino froth, each is totally self-enclosed, yet living side by side. The group of young Chinese students speak in machine gun Mandarin. The Bangladeshi man sitting to the left is staring out of the window. Shrouded in his bedraggled beard and white skull cap. What's he thinking? What thoughts passing through his mind? What's troubling him? For something is always troubling people. We live in a global world. One hundred years ago this scene on the bus would have seemed impossible. Languages, cultures, foods, smells, clothes are all today asked to share the same space. To make room. In a city. A road. A house. A bus. The amazing thing is that they manage to get along. Making room for each other. Making allowances for each others differences. Labelling them as harmless eccentricities. We are a tolerant species most of the time. The thought brings a smile. A smile that wants to hug everybody and everything. Tomorrow who knows, but right now, I'm glad to be human. Well, almost.

Goodbye. Trust this finds you in a state of perplexity and leaves you in a state of perspicacity.

-THE END-

A box full of love-tricks / The Voyager has landed

I was on my way out this morning when the courier arrived and presented me with a package:

Well, what is it? Well stay with me and I shall introduce you to the 'Voyager'.

The 'Voyage' of discovery: I love going on walkabouts. When I was living in Dubai I used to wander for hours. Many times I would leave my apartment at 6 in the evening and not return till way after midnight. I wandered through every street and every alley and over every bridge and through all the Malls and through all the car parks. So much so that I still retain a vivid virtual map of Dubai in my head. I can visit whenever I like, it's all up there in headspace, to visit as I please, without having to get on an aeroplane. The same applies to all the other places I have been to. And when I wander I need a soundtrack. The soundtrack will provide the backdrop to my wanderings. U2 is a particular favourite of mine because the widescape soundstages of 'Pride', 'One', 'Where the Streets have no Name and 'City of Blinding Lights' allows me plenty of room in which to roam. This is where the Voyager comes in. Where it fits in perfectly.

There are some of us out there who are very esoteric in our habits and interests. Take me for example. I'm as esoteric as they get. I only choose me because I happen to know me very well. I could have chosen you, but then, I don't know you as well as I know me. The reason I know me better than you is simply because I spend an awful lot of time with me. I would love to spend more time with you, but alas, you are many (for there are 6 billion you's on the earth), and ergo, I cannot afford to spend my time with all of you's - for then I would have no time left to spend with me.

Now, coming back to my original point...where was I? Oh yes, I was talking about quality me time. There are many ways of spending quality time with me, and the best way involves shutting out the you's, and everything else, so that what remains is only me. And this brings me nicely to the subject of this rather meandering blog entry: The Graham Slee Voyager Headphone Amplifier (see above/below)

Now before you all start chuckling and laughing let me first put my hands up and admit that this an extremely 'nerdy' thing to be talking about. I mean let's face it, who has even heard of headphone amplifiers? Let alone discusses them? Exactly. Not many people. And I admit that. Why would they? Most people are more than happy with their Mp3 players and their run of the mill headphones. But before I continue let me just very quickly tell you what this device does. This is what you do. You take your Mp3 player and plug it via the headphone socket into the Voyager Headphone Amplifier. You then take your headphones and plug them into the Voyager. So it goes: Voyager + Mp3 player + Headphones = your brand new walkabout Mp3 set up.

Now, the obvious question that arises is: why would you want to do this? That is a stupid stupid silly-billy of a question! You want to do this because - because, you want to spend quality time with me. Me of course being yourself. You see the thing is, when you listen to this set up, your chin will hit the floor and not lift off. It will remain rooted and seated to the ground in astonishment. If you're lucky your eyes will still be in their sockets. For so good is the aural soundstage of this set-up, that you will feel as if God has given your ears wings. For they will soar. I guarantee it. The sound stage will wrap itself around your ears, and then in one fell swoop, transport them to some higher plain. A higher plain of experience. 'Higher plain of experience?' Wtf am I talking about? You think I'm getting carried away don't you? Look. Let me explain. The 'life experience' is a manifestation and a direct output of your senses. There are some of us who, due to genetic gifts, are able to taste a greater range of flavours than others. There are some of us who are blessed with a more heightened and acute sense of smell - which may or may not be a good thing (I'm thinking summer time London hot Tube next to sweaty passenger scenario).

So consider the Graham Slee Voyager Headphone Amplifer as an extended phenotype. An extension of your body, or rather your ears, that allows you to hear and experience things in 'SoundSpace' that you would, otherwise, be wholly ignorant of. Ergo, A higher, deeper, more elevated plain of existence. Who could have thought that such an ugly little black box the size of an IpodTouch (for that is what the Voyager is - I mean, take a look at it!), could contain within it; within it's black ugly facade, the ability to woo your ears. To perform wonders and magic, to serenade your heart and strum your soul and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and listen.

Warning:

Please do not, under any circumstances, go out with a girl with the Voyager in your pocket. She will not be impressed. She will think you a nerd. It will be like walking into a restaurant with the girl of your utmost dreams and taking out a copy of 'What Hi-fi' magazine. Look. If you really want to impress her this is what you do. Take her to the night-time light showcase that is Canary Wharf. Take her there in the evenings after 7pm winter time when the office lights are still on. Don't let her open her eyes though. Make sure she keeps em' closed. Then, tilt her head upwards towards the 'scrapers (eyes closed remember). Plug in the Mp3 to the Voyager. Plug in the headphones. Place them over her lovely reclining head. Press Play. Open her eyes. And her mind too will open... And, if she has even an ounce of brains, even a pinch of sense, she will love you forever afterwards. Amen.

(Box full of love-tricks)

_________

Apollo 13 & Piccadilly nights

If you follow me, I will follow you into the unknown

Like Apollo, like Apollo 13 we’ll fly to the Moon

London Piccadilly winter night and neon fight for the pleasure of my eyes. Like a softly-filtered dream I struggle to make shapes. It’s all rather seamless – Piccadilly neon blends with purple-blue winter sky. Purple blue-winter sky blends with the soundtrack of my ears ‘If you follow me, I will follow you into the unknown...’. I skid through London's Piccadilly Circus (the galactic centre - the ultimate people circus of the united boroughs of LondonTown). I espie with my little eye black eye-liner girl of the Soho gutter. Did you see me? Your lazy eye-liner eyes were vacantly searching the night as I watched you. You were as sad as a song, a child of the street, a leaf of the fall. Oh eye-liner girl. If only you’d allow me – I’d take you to the unknown and like Apollo13 we’d explode. You don’t belong to the world that I’m from. I don’t belong either. Together unbetrothed are we.

And what about you 'newspaper man' wrapped in yesterday’s news? Homeless Man of the World, oxymoron if ever. I think of oxymoron's as the real morons invade the purple night. I espie with my little eye a black-stocking girl chain smoking cigarettes to keep herself warm. I see diners seated inside the ‘Aberdeen Steak House’ forcing themselves to enjoy their over-priced (a la miniature/petite) steaks. The lonely girl sitting in Piccadilly’s Waterstones bookstore at 9:30pm on a Friday night reading Shakespeare’s Sonnets. And then...the heart-wrenching moment when she has to clear out. Forced into the cold purple night shivering and loveless – the sublime Sonnets still very much fluttering like butterflies through her miniature glass heart. Where will you go to Sonnet girl? Another to disappear into the night? My heart whimpers. There is something delicious here. Something to write about. The grating of opposite surfaces. In short: the stuff of life.

To feel alive one must jump

From Uttermost pebble to Outermost pebble

‘Cross the river Chaos

That’ threatens to engulf thee

I make fists in my pockets to keep me warm. Ears tingle me cold. Breath freezes. I have a drink at the warm cosy bar to escape the chill. The drink warms my stomach and my sleepiness is slaked off. I like it here. So out comes my bible. My, by now, tattered copy of Paradise Lost:

A globe far off it seemed

Now seems a boundless continent

Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night

Starless exposed, and ever threatening storms

Of chaos blustering round, inclement sky

The lines make me shiver as soon as sound gives them form. The hair follicles on my neck stand erect. Potent words like drugs these, that increaseth the blood-flow coursing through my veins. Thy pupils open, thee endorphins make me happy-some. I chuggeth another stiff drink. The giddiness allows me to melt into the soul of the words. The font suddenly enlarged and throbbing. I drink em' in. It feels good to be indoors, away from the cold, reading Milton, and watching the world from afar - from a distance - from the stratosphere! It seems; to me at least, that the whole gamut of the human condition, is described somewhere within these pages. There is not a line somewhere in Paradise Lost, that cannot describe exactly how you are feeling, at any given moment in your life. That’s quite an achievement. Particularly considering that Milton was utterly blind when he wrote his masterpiece – dictating it to his amanuensis. The legend goes that it took Milton five solid years of hard graft to complete it. He would awaken early in the morning and be ready with a dozen or so lines that he would dictate to his amanuensis before breakfast. And thus his contribution for the day over. Also, bear in mind that Milton only wrote in the winter months. Winter being more conducive to the writing mind. Paradise Lost is by far the greatest prose poem in the English Language. And its scenes are as universal as the tapestries of life. Truth, sin, redemption, love, and the nature of good and evil. What makes the work so special is that it is Satan who is the protagonist. And it is He who one roots for in the end. The archaic language transports you to a bygone age smelling of sandalwood and dusty tomes and Aristotelian imagery. You learn how erstwhile peoples thought. We always see the world thorough the lens of Our Times. But are Our Times nearer clearer to the truth? Do Homer or Sophocles or Xenophon not speak the truth? Or are Our Times just merely different?

The idea is to strip off all that makes you you. To be someone else:

In Egypt I recall the prostitute I slept with. Her firm buttocks and her bronze tits, glazed with the taste of honey-suckle. And the Dance of the Bee she did for me. I recall the carcass of the dead dog, it's rotting flesh being pecked clean by vultures, entrails hanging out, blackened. They always go for the soft parts first. The eyes, the anus, the stomach – the harder parts are eaten later. I watched the creatures eating the dead dog. Life passing from dead to living. The old woman begging me to fuck her – her breasts sagging to her belly button. The man who massaged me and grabbed my balls between his fingers proceeding to stroke them and then whispered in my ears: 'baksheesh! baksheesh!'. No thanks – and I laughed a crazy laugh. Why kid ourselves? We may look noble in outer countenance and make-up, and clothes, and affected manners, and minds that stretch to the concave heights to contemplate the inner workings of the universe – and yet, yet inside, in our secret moments, in our deepest chambers, we just want to fuck, and fart and fornicate. Ha! hold a mirror to yourselves. The same mind that gave us Paradise Lost also gave us the Killing Fields of Pol Pot, the Trenches and the Concentration Camps. The same mind also gives us love:

Black eye liner girl, you’re not the one

You don’t belong to the world that I’m from

Your lazy words flow like confetti, in the wind

In the wind

But,

I will follow you, if you follow me to the unknown

Like Apollo, like Apollo 13, we’ll fly to the Moon...

__________

The Chameleon - Hi-Fi Adventures on the London Underground

I will go with thee - And be thy guide - In thy most need - To go by thy side:

I am a Chameleon. A Karma Karma Chameleon. A leeezard with a viiiisage. Skin rough and scaly. Eyes weird and bulging large. Here's proof: I can rotate my eyeballs independently and focus on two different objects simultaneously. Just like a Karma Chameleon I can fix one eye on the pages of Paradise Lost, whilst the other, holds a luminous thought firmly and fixedly in outer space. As if wilfully suspending a newborn star in the profoundest of abysses. It's no easy task. I assure you. I can assume hues to match the terrain of the world I am passing through. For example, in the metropolis that is LondonTown; I am leathery and swarthy and wear sunglasses down in the underground so none can see me so - for I carry secrets that trail my wake. Those dizzy Underground tunnels are best traversed whilst staring at the overhead lights rushing pass. It's a wonderful sensation. You should try it. And then there's the silence. But only when wearing Sennheiser IE8 headphones - a must for the professional London Tube user. With the IE8s it drapes about you as if a cloak - the silence. It hangs from the high-aboves to the low-belows. Leftwards, rightwards and leewards. I spin 360 degrees on my axis like a compass needle and its everywhere. I am Michelin man; padded in protective bubble-wrap silence. Encapsulated. Encased. Ensconced in silence. On the train; encrusted between passengers, I am a raisin - in a fruitcake. I look about me with one eye. The other on Paradise Lost no doubt. Lips move yet nothing comes out. Bodies nod in the thrall of conversation like crash-test dummies. I feel the air pressure on my temples before the train arrives. I sense the people darting about me in nervous kinetic energies. A hive of bees they bristle and twitch and make me itch. I see the lines of worry etched on their faces - carving deeps so profound to hold the troubles of the world, and even, the demons of Hell too.

Outside me, time is hurrying ahead. Inside me, time a-leisurely stroll. With cloud cushions for trainers I enter the tunnels below. The tunnels, those endless pointless tunnels, a metaphor for deep time. I see Trilobites and Dinosaurs and the dawn of the Cambrian. Descending the escalators feels like entering the jaws of some hideous underworld creature; Erebus, it's entrails the Piccadilly, Jubilee and Bakerloo lines. I stare at the sign that says 'Piccadilly' until the spelling looks strange and I no longer recognise it. The extinct implore me to stop, their limbs outreaching, imploring for forgiveness. I am chased by Tiktaalik Rosea doing press ups. Have I been smoking pot?

At Angel station I am on the following lines of Paradise Lost:

With thoughts inflamed the majestic Fiend

puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell

explores his solitary flight; sometimes

he scours the right hand coast; sometimes the left,

now shaves with level wings the deep, then soars

up to the fiery concave towering high.

It takes repeated readings and supreme effort to find, grasp and then hold onto Milton's rhythm. These are not rhyming lines but oscillating. They chime in harmony with the peals of one's voice. The secret is to read the lines out aloud - to yourself. You must hear them. You must utter the words, for breath must exit your lips to give flesh to the poem. And then like the Fiend of Paradise Lost, you shall don 'swift wings and scour left and right, and then shave with level wings the deeps. Then soar up to the fiery concave' - the firmament of the deep blue endless sky! This is where dreams are born. Careful where you tread. Lest you tread on my dreams and thence I'll blaze forth scorching ruin upon you and your progeny - So says I. So says I. So I grin to myself and my lips curlew at the edges, she notices - sitting opposite; wondering things about me...I can tell, I can always tell. I am the Fiend. And nothing is sacred. And everything an uncertain adventure. We forget, and Milton reminds us always: to have seen and tasted and assayed - Ha! only then can the following not ring hollow:

As when far off at sea a fleet descried

hangs in the clouds, by monsoon winds

close sailing from Bengal, or the Isles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring

Their spice drugs: they on the trading flood

through the wide Indian Ocean to the Cape

Ply stemming nightly towards the pole.

I carry such lines about my person like a gentleman's snuff box. Can you smell the plywood of the poem and the creaking bough beams of the ship as it sails the equinoctial winds? Can you espie the taut coffee-stained canvas of sail and the broad sweep of the Monsoon as it carries you aloft betwixt Javan spice islands of Nutmeg, Pepper and Cloves? Ha! What visions. And I see them on the Underground with one eye on the page and the other fixed firmly on her. She's always there. Pumping beat-box rhythms through my shallow idiots heart.

Wake me up before I die, hold me close

As I gaze upon the sky, comatose

No reason to survive, I suppose

Wake my heart baby...before I die

______

Coming shortly...Hi-Fi Adventures on the London Underground

Or,

How to read Paradise Lost on the London Tube and still manage to get off at the right station.

Featuring Mr Headphone Head and his wily counterpart Mr e-Centric.

'Gravity? Bah humbug - who needs gravity when you've got me baby'

(Mr e-Centric)

________

Noise Isolation Headphones - For the Professional Londoner

I'm in love. Oh yes. But not with you. That would be silly. That would be most unbecoming of me. But I am in love. With these (see pics below). I use the The Underground often you see. Scurrying forth with my whiskers twitching before me through the subterranean world of LondonTown. The Rat Man. Early morning shifts - late night burrowing - weekend traipses - people browsing. That's me. Catch me if you can. I'm your friendly Underground rat. Commuters - Tourists - Grinding wheels - Booming trains - I flit through this belching, heaving, sweating beehive of humanity unnoticed. The morass. Immune to it. Inured I am. Because I have these. You see the thing is, one is constantly under attack. One's personal air-space violated. One's sovereignty questioned by 'noise'. You feel like a beleaguered castle whose ramparts are permanently under attack...by 'sound' / 'noise'. Pollutant of the airwaves. Modern Contemporaria Scourga. "ChatChat - cough - sneeze - laugh - profanities - profundities - giggle - lament - ooh & ahhs - music - rumble - mumble - mobile - squeal - retch - drum&bass - belch - yawn - gabber-gabber - yapper". You need a defence mechanism against this tirade. Earwax genes would help but I'm not blessed with such genetic gifts. A weapon you need. Here's mine: Twin weapons. One for each ear. A pair of Sennheiser IE8 Noise Isolation Headphones.

Featuring powerful neodymium magnets for; and here I repeat what it says on the beautiful box, 'for outstanding out-of-this-world sonic clarity'. What does that mean? Especially since I've never been 'out of this world'? Who cares.

Take these babies out of their box. Carefully...like undressing a women (sexist me?). Unwrap...slowly. Select the correct sized buds from the selection and then slip em' in. Plug. Play. And then? And then watch the world dissolve away. It's almost like sex but without the histrionics and regret. Aural Orgazma. You'll be transported. Though not by London Transport. You won't even feel the train rumbling beneath you when you wear these. Be careful though - you'll miss the important station announcements. You'll miss your stops. You'll miss the screaming kid on its mothers lap next to you. You'll miss the gorgeous sultry morbid babe sitting opposite. You'll; if you're lucky, even miss the end of the Universe. So good are these, for they block out 'all' noise. Not a squeak gets through. Everything. Apart from that noise living in your head. Yes, that one. Finally you can hear yourself think with these. Hell, I can hear myself scream whist reading Fyodor Dostoevsky - Yes, that's how good they are and that's how you spell his name! - D-O-S-T-O-E-V-S-K-Y.

These babies are compulsory for the professional London Underground rat. If you don't own a pair of these, you're not a true Tube Rat. Don't come near. Don't wanna know you. That's me. Acerbic. Acidic. Aesthete. With these I am no longer harangued, abused, invaded by the tyranny of noise. Time to enjoy the silence. In the big city. The silence of your thoughts and not others. I flit through crowds unmoved, unfazed, untainted, invisible. I don't exist, except in a world of my own devising. Not this world. Not yours. Not theirs. Mine own. In my head. In there. Where you can't get to me. But I'll let you climb in. If only you'll give me a kiss.

You ready? Let's go. Climb in. The cockpit. Let's go.

I

wanna fly and run

till it hurts

sleep for a while

and speak no words

In the Underground.

________

The Vexed Spirit

Sunlight infused the sky like Peking tea in a blue China cup. I watched the colours of the world steadily dissolve in time. A steely orange glow; the last remnant of today, skirted along the horizons edge - on either side threatened by the arc of encroaching velvet night; a velvet dimpled with starlight peeking through.

With rock as pillow and time my only boss, I watched the Milkyway mark trails on the surface of my eyeballs. Vast trails across my retina as the earth beneath me spun on its steady rhythmic course. The earth revolving unquestioningly - like a heartbeat. The wind rustled and shook the branches and even ruffled the stars causing them to blink. Did they stir? Did Newton's Laws vanish? My thoughts lay prone and my heart lay open: like winged solar panels to soak up the universe, gulp it in in-fact. If landscapes were canvases, they were conceived by a mind raised above the troubles that vex the human spirit. I'm just a living solar panel vexing in existence.

I ate by moonlight what would normally be described as a poor meal. A paupers dinner. Fit for an indigent king. Hunk of bread, olives and dried goat-milk curd for a palette deprived. Did I forget to mention coffee? A nasty brutish coffee - weak and feeble like Pluto the wench. This is the country that gave us the 'Kawa' and yet...

And yet the earth continues to revolve and I resolve to revolve too in my own 'e-centric' universe. I fall asleep to the murmur of stars and the steady blink-blink of the unimaginable. I dream of insects and trilobites and the steady tick tock of things untried in words or rhyme. I wake up dazed yet I saw no sun last night - only stars. And words. I must endeavour to write them down sometime.

Cape Comorin

Baruch de Spinoza - A tale

Step inside the eye of my mind

Step inside the eye of my mind

Don't you know you might find

A better place to play

________

Paradise Lost

This is an illustration for John Milton's epic poem 'Paradise Lost' by the French artiste Gustave Dore. It pictures Satan's flight to earth at the end of Book III. It's a wood engraving and was originally printed in 1866.

Gustave Dore was perhaps the most prolific of 18th century book illustrators and certainly the most brilliant. Take a look at this image. It depicts Satan in the guise of an intrepid cosmonaut. He has traversed on wing the hazardous realm of chaos in order to reach the world of creation. In this image Dore depicts Satan's final descent as the sphere of the earth swims into the view. What do I like about this image? I like Dores' romanticised image of a handsome, athletic-looking Satan. A far cry from the demonic hoofed-feet creation of yore. His bat like wings intimate the only signs of menace; and yet in my opinion they are also beautiful - notice how their line effortlessly mimics and reverses the curve of the approaching earth. The clouds part as Satan enters the atmosphere, bathing him in gorgeous star-flecked celestial light. His muscular physique, determined bearing, and the fluttering skirts of his classical Homeresque armour all suggest an heroic figure - stalwart in the face of His heavenly tyranny. The image has less in common with Renaissance art and more in common with modern science fiction. Without Milton we just might never have had the vivid imaginings of Satans travels in epics such as His Dark Materials.

That Satan with less toil, and now with ease

Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light

And like a weather-beaten vessel holds

Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;

Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,

Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold

Far off the empyreal heaven'

(Paradise Lost)

There is nothing better than to spend a very early Saturday morning; that is clad in thick grey clouds, like today, absorbed in the fantastic imaginings and world of Paradise Lost. Or, in the words of Milton himself, 'where the deep transported mind may soar - Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door - Look in'

Though my favourite line and the one that comes eagerly to mind, as I sit here is: 'better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven' - indeed!

______

Currently reading...The Inheritors (by William Golding)

Currently watching...Uzak ('Distant')

If ever a film was composed in a minor key, it is this beautiful and poignant movie from the Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which floats like a helium balloon above the middling mainstreamers of today. It attains a clarity and simplicity that lesser film-makers could strain every sinew trying to achieve without ever getting anywhere. Uzak is about loneliness and depression, and particularly the kind of depression suffered by men of a certain age who would cut their tongues out rather than admit they are depressed.

Yet the film itself is the opposite of depressing. It is gentle and deeply humane, and even ventures into an arena of delicate visual comedy with a shy adroitness. Watching it is like taking a deep draught of cold, clear water and oxygen.

So what is it about? Mahmut (Muzaffer Özdemir) has made a success of his life as a photographer living in an apartment in Istanbul, which he has furnished with a middle-aged bachelor's fastidiousness. Professionally bored and disillusioned, he is conducting a deeply unsatisfactory affair with a married woman and has been forced to confront the reality of his life choices with the news that his ex-wife is leaving for Canada with her new partner. Mahmut's walls are crammed with books and CDs, but he is hardly ever shown reading or listening to music, he mostly just watches TV, while glumly screening out calls from his family on the answering machine. There are long scenes in which Mahmut just, well, watches TV.

His life is disturbed by the deeply unwelcome arrival of Yusuf (Mehmet Emin Toprak), a dopey country-bumpkin of a cousin from the same village that he has left behind. Mahmut has promised his mother that he will let Yusuf stay in his pristine modern flat while he looks for work in the big city. It isn't long before Yusuf is getting on his nerves in a very big way, failing to find work, showing every indication of getting comfortable and permeating the carpet with cigarette smoke and fag ash. The realisation that Yusuf is the nearest thing Mahmut will now ever get to human companionship in the evening of his life is appallingly sad and funny.

Poor Yusuf is lonely too: though naturally communicating this to his prickly and disapproving host is out of the question. There are long scenes in which he does nothing but slope around Istanbul in the biting cold. Ceylan found a day to shoot in which the city is made breathtakingly, serendipitously beautiful in the snow, though forbidding and alienating at the same time.

There are sublimely funny moments. Mahmut watches an arty movie on late-night TV, longing for Yusuf to go to bed, so that he can watch porn instead. But, when Yusuf bumbles back into the front room, he must scramble to switch the filth off and get Tarkovsky back on. When a mouse is caught by one of the sticky strips that houseproud Mahmut has laid out, it is Yusuf who, with a residual sense of decency and a heartbreaking empathy with the poor twitching animal, takes it outside in a plastic bag and tries to despatch it humanely by bashing it against a wall, while Mahmut impassively looks on.

The cleverest sequence comes when Mahmut frostily asks if Yusuf has seen a silver pocket-watch that has gone missing. Yusuf is not so stupid that he does not understand the implied accusation and shrilly asks if Mahmut has not just misplaced it. A close-up then tells us that this is indeed the case, but Mahmut will not admit it to Yusuf: his loneliness, his inability to articulate an apology and his tacit, internal admission of defeated pride are disclosed to us in one effortlessly simple take.

Ceylan has superb compositions with a deep focus of beautifully realised, crystalline detail, particularly his opening, painterly shot of a wintry country landscape through which Yusuf is distantly trudging, as distant as a bird, until his great pudding face looms up, filling our field of vision. The movie is a series of these unhurried sequences, timed and managed to perfection. Uzak is about the distances that open up between us locked away in pride. It is about the past, the present and an unattainable future. Highly recommended *****

Fly - Run - Hurts - Sleep - Australia

[Cover version]

[Original version]

Danakil!

The Dankalia region of Ethiopia is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. It is, for the most part, wanting of flora and fauna and presents to the eye alternating scenes of desert flatlands and isolated mountain groups, sometimes interrupted by valleys mottled with thorny acacias. Goats roam in bands cropping the bristly stems of short grasses and kicking up loose dirt into little churning dust storms.

Moving inland, toward the Ethiopian highlands, a long depression extends itself reaching a depth of 120 meters below sea level. This section is one of the lowest and hottest places on earth and is known as Dallol (Danakil depression), where temperatures in the sun can reach 145°F (50°C).

The Danakil depression is an area along the Great Rift Valley (the cradle of mankind) where the earth’s crust is being stretched and thinned like sheets of heated plastic and the land has sunk, over much time, to a current depth of 371 feet below sea level. This is one of the lowest points on earth. Here the earth’s crust is so thin that new land is constantly being created by new lava jets that ooze upward. Water also seeps down, to be ejected back out again as angry steam bursts. Volcanic cones are an enchanting and common visual sight, as are deep cracks that line the earth. To be here is to feel the birth pains of the young earth many billions of years hence.

10,000 years ago the Danakil desert was part of the Red Sea when the earth’s crust collapsed and water flooded in. Many believe this localised geological event to be the origin of the Biblical Noah's flood story. This flood water; subjected for many years to a blazing sun, gradually evaporated leaving behind enormous salt pans and salt lakes. Lakes so salty that the density of the water is greater than the density of the human body - enabling one to float without paddling.

The people living in the Afar region; a crumbling waste of brittle rock and broken lava flows are as tough and hostile as their environment. The Afar people are largely nomads and almost entirely Muslim by faith. It is here that some of the oldest humanoid fossils have been found, linking our ancestral tree's roots, firmly and suredly, in a African setting. A million years back we are all Africans.

Confused? Perplexed? Wanna know what it's all about?

Well, there's only one way to find out. Let's listen to the smartest man on earth. The voice of reason in an unreasonable world.

Ladies & Gentlemen,
I proudly, and with infinite cheer, present to you Professor Richard Dawkins! (cheers! clapping! whooping!)

Best bit : 3mins 36 secs into the video - 'Aren't you?' - classic!

Newsnight Review Special (originally broadcast on 11th Sept, 2009)

Enjoy!

My Book Review: The Greatest Show on Earth

Coming soon...

aDoseOfPhilosophy - On Child Wonder

Movie to watch!...'The Class'

The idealistic young teacher reaching out to a troubled class of underprivileged kids - it should be the dullest movie cliche imaginable. Yet French director Laurent Cantet does something miraculous with it in this fresh piece of humanist, realist, optimist cinema, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year.

The teacher is François Marin, a slim, boyish thirtysomething teacher of French language and literature. We are to encounter him in the classroom, the staff-room and in the schoolyard, but never at home. We never find out about his home life or his personal life. His sole moment of privacy is glimpsed at the very beginning of the film: having a cup of coffee before gearing himself up for the fray.

My favourite scene in the movie is at the end when the students are sitting in the class ready to break for summer term. The teacher is asking each of them what they learnt that year. One student says 'volcanoes' another 'combustion' and another 'reproduction'. Finally the camera settles on the trouble-maker of the class. A spotty faced-teen with braces in her teeth who the teacher had previously called a 'slut':

''I didn't learn anything' she says apologetically

'You can't spend nine months at school and not learn anything' says the teacher

'Well I'm the living proof' she replies

'You must have got something from the books you read in class?'

'Your books are shit' she replies

'What about a book you read yourself?'

'The books I read myself?...well there's The Republic. The book The Republic' she says

[The teacher stares at her not quite believing she read The Republic]

'By Plato?' he asks

[She nods her head]

'You read that?'

'Yes' she replies

'How come?' he asks (remember these are underprivileged school-kids from immigrant backgrounds)

'My big sister had it'

'She does philosophy?'

'No, law'

'So what's it about?'

'Well there's this guy. His names Socrates. He stops people in the street and he asks them, "Are you sure of thinking what you think? Are you sure of doing what you do?"

'What does he talk about?' the teacher asks

'Everything. Love, religion, God, people, everything'

'It's good you read it'

'I know. It's not a slut's book!'...

The sheer lucid force of The Class is compelling and exhilarating. Cantet's final tableau shots of the empty classroom, like a deserted battlefield, made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. There are very few films that can claim to make their audiences into happier and smarter people. I think this is definitely one. Highly recommended!

[Trailer]

Weird Adventures in Natural History

[Addendum]

And why, you are no doubt wondering, does the female eat the male in the first place? For a good meal that's why! It seems that once the male has made his contribution to the relationship; in this case his contribution being his sperm, it seems that there is no further use for his services so he is, er promptly eaten. Gives a whole new meaning to the term 'dominant relationship' if you ask me.

A Slice of Me

I was born to be a scribbler, scribe, pen-magician, blogger - call it what you will. I can write about (almost) anything whatsoever. One nostril on earth and the other sniffing out scents in a galaxy far far away. The canopy I sleep under has a dome whose diameter far exceedeth that of ordinary sniffing mortals. Wonder - that's what lies at the heart of me. Like that glowing thingy in the chest of Iron-Man - my kernal is Wonder. I was looking at myself in the mirror the other day (not because of vanity mind you) peering into those dark eyes...they say the eyes don't lie. What do mine say? I stared deep into their Liquid Crystal Display trying to read them, to get lost in them, to loose myself in a bewildering forest of prickly thorns and beaming flowers. Did they reveal my soul? Are my secrets that I hold so dear, my visions that I see sometimes, my inadequacies that I stow away - are they revealed through my eyes? I looked but couldn't recognise the man staring back. Who is he? And like a familiar word; that through prolonged staring looses its familiarity, the man in the mirror morphed into a stranger...the reality of things is revealed through the lens through which we see.

There is a little game you can play to mimic a change of lens. Close your eyes for five minutes and shut away your thoughts. Stow away your memories. Plug your ears. Block your nose. Relax your muscles till there is nothing left but the cold blackness of nothingness. Journey back to the moment before your birth...and then slowly, carefully...open your eyes, and look out of the box in which you've arrived - and view the scene as if you've woken up fresh into the world. It's like a tonic! I play this game often. In fact I played it on the bus yesterday and it gave me a horrid shock. A big burly fat man had seated himself next to me...and the shock of it, the shock of seeing this tubby tub of lard, inspired me to write a little diatribe:

fat man, fat man, on the bus
wheezing - wheezing, on the huff
skinny me, skinny me, next to he
squishy - squashy - wishing death to thee

Now, notwithstanding the puerile nature of this ditty, what strikes me most is its wish for death to reign down and strike this fat man. Can I use the word fat? Anyway, so I was wishing death on someone I barely knew. It's the lens effect you see. Well inspiration must gush from somewhere I suppose - even if it is the asshole of vainglory.

So give me a topic and I'll scrape you a few morsels from my soul. Give me a subject and I'll dredge the seas of Aldoran. Give me love and you'll never see me again. Give me a moment and I'll show you eternity.

A visiting vagabond amongst the human race. That's me. Not here to stay. But to Wonder.

_____

Go Girl Power! / Afghani Elections

Oppression is the bastard of human nightmares - My heart glows with mirth amidst such scenes - Ignorance and bigotry stifle the voice of many - The bearded ones I scorn the most - Flimsy is their stock of reason - wealthy their store of guilt - hidden under their Khlashnikovs - I hope for hope - for there is nothing in the ruins - but pieces - Do you care world? - Are people selfish? - All hypocrites

Coming soon...Unweaving the rainbow

aDoseOfPhilosophy - on death & dysentery