pray mantis
saw a prey mantis the other day, on the concrete stairwell that leads to my apartment. the first time i saw it, it was standing on the window sill. the frosted glass beamed white against it's hard green body. it didn't move and just basked in the sun, posing. i walked past without giving it much notice.
the next time i saw it, it had moved. instead of being sideways on, like it was before, it stood with it's back to me. i could see the full length of the body against the grey floor. this time i paused and looked at the back of it's head. i noticed it's eyes. the little black dot followed me as i walked slowly past. i kept looking at it and it was still.
the next few times i left and came back to my apartment i kept my eye out for the prey mantis, but it had disappeared. i checked the window sill, the hard ground and the brown girders but it was nowhere to be seen. i went about my business as before and soon stopped looking for the prey mantis. the next time i saw it i was face to face with it.
on the way home from work one night i was climbing the stairs. it was perched on the edge of a step, slightly left of centre. i saw both it's eyes looking at me. i saw it's solid jaw and teeth. it wasn't still this time but bobbed his head like a boxer, swinging from left to right; ducking and weaving. i stopped where i stood and watched. it was just about eye level with me. i wondered what to do. it started moving. i looked at it's legs. they were thin and looked incapable of supporting it's hefty body. as it walked to one side, the legs looked unsteady on the concrete, and it wobbled. i climbed up a step. he stopped moving. the light from the stairwell reflected off it's raised arms. i took another step. nothing. i took another. nothing. then it moved; again with the ducking and weaving. i pressed myself against the far wall. it stared at me. i took a deep breath and pressed my toes together. i moved. in two steps i was on the same step. then in another two and i was away. i turned toward my door and put the key in the keyhole.
i looked back the prey mantis. it stumbled as it walked. it's spindly legs dragged it's frame across the rough floor. it pulled itself into the small cleft under the window sill. it crouched then disappeared. i walked into my apartment and closed the door behind me.
band
saw a band in the park the other night. they were singing under a street lamp with an electric guitar, a microphone and a backing tape, all coming out of a small yellow speaker, the size of a lunchbox. they were made up of 2: a girl singing and a boy playing lead. drum and bass were provided via the tape.
i don't know if it was because they switched the volume of the guitar up too high, or the speaker was too small or something else but they sounded great. the girl sang in a very high girly bubblegum pop voice. she screamed the words with perfect sugar into the microphone as she shifted her feet and nodded her head. the guitar on the other hand provided perfect contrast. it was like a chainsaw being taken to grand piano. it distorted, twanged and screeched through the whole performance. between these two extremes were the uniform beats of the tape. he strummed despondently to her eternal optimism.
on the same night, on the other side of the park was an official stage set up for a festival for the moon. there was someone playing a flute. i'm not a fan of flutes but when the player has a pony tail, a thin mustache and wears a shiny waistcoat, you know you're in trouble. of course this clown had an audience of about 50 while the other guys had an audience of 4. it just goes to show doesn't it.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Thursday, October 06, 2005
today
i woke up late. it's sunny so i decide to do the laundry. i see the clock. it's already 12. i have so many things to do today.
i eat a banana and switch on the tv. i flick through all the channels at least 4 times knowing that nothing will have changed. i switch off the tv and listen to a cd. it's the new gorillaz album. i listen to dare because shaun ryder's voice makes me laugh. i don't know why. i always try to skip the dennis hopper track and also the second track. i don't like those ones.
i cook lunch. it consists of yesterday's soup and yesterday's rice. i put the saucepan on the stove and heat up the soup. i put the cold rice into a bowl and open the microwave. in the microwave i find rice from 2 days ago. i sniff. i inspect. i sniff again. no bad smell. i combine the 1 day and 2 day old rice and put it into the microwave. to soup starts to get hot, but it isn't ready yet.
i pick up a book and start reading. it's a history book. i notice that the writer uses many words that i don't know so i start refering to a dicitonary. i also notice that he starts sentences with conjunctions and uses idiom to punctuate his wordy paragraphs. i learn the word apostacy.
the soup is almost ready. i turn the dial on the microwave to 1 minute. i remember that the rice is 2 days old so i add another 30 seconds. the soup is ready. the microwave dings. i turn the dial to 1 minute again just to make sure. i picture the germs explode as the photons annihilate them. the microwave dings again. the rice is very hot and very dry.
i look out of the window and see it's a sunny day. i do the laundry via the coin operated machine in the bottom of my building. it's not a room because it has no door. the ground is covered with ripped tissue. i remember that i did the laundry yesterday too, but left a tissue in my shirt pocket. as i took out he wet clothes i shook them to get the tissue off. the tissues littered the ground. i though the wind would blow them all away but they didn't.
i read some more. recidivist. i know that one, but i look it up just in case. i was right. it's talking about manchester and womens rights. unitarian: don't know it. thralldom: look it up. calvinist: know it.
i leave my flat. i'm going to the cd shop. i use my bike because it's a sunny day. the ride has ups and downs and finishes with a very long uphill climb. i realise my back tire is flat. the cd shop doesn't have the cds i want so i buy some others instead. i ride back and drop into an internet cafe. i type words.
i woke up late. it's sunny so i decide to do the laundry. i see the clock. it's already 12. i have so many things to do today.
i eat a banana and switch on the tv. i flick through all the channels at least 4 times knowing that nothing will have changed. i switch off the tv and listen to a cd. it's the new gorillaz album. i listen to dare because shaun ryder's voice makes me laugh. i don't know why. i always try to skip the dennis hopper track and also the second track. i don't like those ones.
i cook lunch. it consists of yesterday's soup and yesterday's rice. i put the saucepan on the stove and heat up the soup. i put the cold rice into a bowl and open the microwave. in the microwave i find rice from 2 days ago. i sniff. i inspect. i sniff again. no bad smell. i combine the 1 day and 2 day old rice and put it into the microwave. to soup starts to get hot, but it isn't ready yet.
i pick up a book and start reading. it's a history book. i notice that the writer uses many words that i don't know so i start refering to a dicitonary. i also notice that he starts sentences with conjunctions and uses idiom to punctuate his wordy paragraphs. i learn the word apostacy.
the soup is almost ready. i turn the dial on the microwave to 1 minute. i remember that the rice is 2 days old so i add another 30 seconds. the soup is ready. the microwave dings. i turn the dial to 1 minute again just to make sure. i picture the germs explode as the photons annihilate them. the microwave dings again. the rice is very hot and very dry.
i look out of the window and see it's a sunny day. i do the laundry via the coin operated machine in the bottom of my building. it's not a room because it has no door. the ground is covered with ripped tissue. i remember that i did the laundry yesterday too, but left a tissue in my shirt pocket. as i took out he wet clothes i shook them to get the tissue off. the tissues littered the ground. i though the wind would blow them all away but they didn't.
i read some more. recidivist. i know that one, but i look it up just in case. i was right. it's talking about manchester and womens rights. unitarian: don't know it. thralldom: look it up. calvinist: know it.
i leave my flat. i'm going to the cd shop. i use my bike because it's a sunny day. the ride has ups and downs and finishes with a very long uphill climb. i realise my back tire is flat. the cd shop doesn't have the cds i want so i buy some others instead. i ride back and drop into an internet cafe. i type words.
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
history text
reading a history of britain by simon schama. it's the third part, from 1776 to 2000. in the introduction schama says the indefinite article in the title suggest this shouldn't be regarded as a textbook and those looking for a textbook should look elsewhere. i disagree. if this had been my textbook for history in school i would have studied it and loved every bloody minute of it.
history really is interesting isn't it? in what other book does the first 2 chapters deal with characters as different and real as tom paine and mary woolstonecroft to nelson and wellington to wordsworth and hazlitt to george III and louis XVI? history is all drama and all conflict and it's all very good. i'm on chapter 3 now, victoria is about to reign. can't wait to see what happens.
reading a history of britain by simon schama. it's the third part, from 1776 to 2000. in the introduction schama says the indefinite article in the title suggest this shouldn't be regarded as a textbook and those looking for a textbook should look elsewhere. i disagree. if this had been my textbook for history in school i would have studied it and loved every bloody minute of it.
history really is interesting isn't it? in what other book does the first 2 chapters deal with characters as different and real as tom paine and mary woolstonecroft to nelson and wellington to wordsworth and hazlitt to george III and louis XVI? history is all drama and all conflict and it's all very good. i'm on chapter 3 now, victoria is about to reign. can't wait to see what happens.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
can anyone tell me who i am?
i just finished reading king lear twice. in the introduction to the edition i have, the guy who wrote it says that this is the best play shakespeare has written. i personally think he's as mad as a beggar in a naked storm. someone else wrote that king lear is like a pile of jewels without a string. i think he's as blind as man with no eyes.
the thing is with lear is that it's so relentless. no-one is saved: the innocents die; sins are not forgiven; loyalty is not rewarded; families are unloving; age brings no comfort; honesty, integrity, wisdom, hope, love: all are punished punished punished. lear's final vision of happiness in jail is dashed along with edmond's shot at redemption at the expense of cordelia. we are cheated of gloucester's reconciliation with his true son as it happens off stage and it kills him anyway (in an ambivalent state of grief and ecstasy). we are cheated too of edmund and cornwall's death along with the deaths of goneril and regan (also all off stage). the only person that dies on stage is poor lear, in a moment of self delusion and oswald the coward. the fool just disappears! the kingdom is left in a much worse state than it started in: order is not restored.
everyone in the play dies as they have lived except albany. they die in misery. lear's folly is realised less than halfway through the play when he knows that he has wronged cordelia. this is the same as gloucester. they die without change. kent never learns to shut up and his diligence leads him to the grave. edgar discovers what he already knew. edmund's last minute repreive smacks more of desperation than goodness. i guess goneril had the decency to commit suicide so she may have gained some insight. albany does change. out of thin air he starts to brood. he ponders. he thinks and he sees things as they may be; but ultimately albany is ineffectual. something may be rotten, but he cannot stop it.
as flies to wanton boys, shakespeare is to people like me: i criticize him for my sport. robbed of an ending, king lear seem amoral. there is no god and therefore no goodness. men are made mad my their sons and daughters and the process is irreversible; nature nurtures then destroys. the pendulum swings from good to bad and it swings most violently. when the storm comes, we will all feels it's power.
i just finished reading king lear twice. in the introduction to the edition i have, the guy who wrote it says that this is the best play shakespeare has written. i personally think he's as mad as a beggar in a naked storm. someone else wrote that king lear is like a pile of jewels without a string. i think he's as blind as man with no eyes.
the thing is with lear is that it's so relentless. no-one is saved: the innocents die; sins are not forgiven; loyalty is not rewarded; families are unloving; age brings no comfort; honesty, integrity, wisdom, hope, love: all are punished punished punished. lear's final vision of happiness in jail is dashed along with edmond's shot at redemption at the expense of cordelia. we are cheated of gloucester's reconciliation with his true son as it happens off stage and it kills him anyway (in an ambivalent state of grief and ecstasy). we are cheated too of edmund and cornwall's death along with the deaths of goneril and regan (also all off stage). the only person that dies on stage is poor lear, in a moment of self delusion and oswald the coward. the fool just disappears! the kingdom is left in a much worse state than it started in: order is not restored.
everyone in the play dies as they have lived except albany. they die in misery. lear's folly is realised less than halfway through the play when he knows that he has wronged cordelia. this is the same as gloucester. they die without change. kent never learns to shut up and his diligence leads him to the grave. edgar discovers what he already knew. edmund's last minute repreive smacks more of desperation than goodness. i guess goneril had the decency to commit suicide so she may have gained some insight. albany does change. out of thin air he starts to brood. he ponders. he thinks and he sees things as they may be; but ultimately albany is ineffectual. something may be rotten, but he cannot stop it.
as flies to wanton boys, shakespeare is to people like me: i criticize him for my sport. robbed of an ending, king lear seem amoral. there is no god and therefore no goodness. men are made mad my their sons and daughters and the process is irreversible; nature nurtures then destroys. the pendulum swings from good to bad and it swings most violently. when the storm comes, we will all feels it's power.
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Saturday, September 17, 2005
i uncanny do it
i saw it's a wonderful life a few days ago. to call it wonderful would be like jabbing van gogh in the eye with a spicy sausage. to call it simply wonderful would be like squating and shitting on the grave of monet.
there is a point in it's a wonderful life that shakes you. it's the freeze frame of james stewart, the very first moment we see him. i learnt something the other day about the nature of art. it's call the uncanny. the uncanny is defined as something that is known, but is invisible in your everyday life. it is something you already know which you choose to ignore or is oppressed. an example is blood. when we see blood, it is sometimes an uncanny moment. from this we know, like we have known all along, that we are indeed flesh and blood. mortality and pain. apparently the nature of any art is to expose the uncanny, or perhaps to have an uncanny effect.
i've always thought of freeze frames to be a modern innovation of film making. i am an idiot. here is capra using it before they even had colour. it rocks the screen like a crashing piano falling from the sky. god is represented as a flashing light and angels by bells. he can stop time and lead us in the right direction and he bloody does.
and james stewart! what a star! if you could bottle james stewart the jars would outsell domio and ragu put together.
movie book
i read a book about movies called going to the movies by syd field. it's about his personal journey through films and especially screenplays (he teaches it you know). he worked with sam peckinpah when he was writing wild bunch. he used to read screenplays for a living and maybe still does. this is what he has learnt, movie-wise, during all those screenings.
at first i didn't like it. what inspired him to write it was what a 16 year old girl told him about titanic. what his gleans from her comments is that all the teenaged girls all over the world didn't see the film over and and over again because of leo or the special effects. it was the emotional response to rose. young woman; trapped by mother and bad man; shown the way by leo, who dies very heroically and selflessly; and finally she can create her own destiny: thanks to luck and a big iceberg.
field begins the book like he is writing to 16 year old girls. he explains every symbol, metaphor and subtext. he starts to grate like my old english literature teacher (not her, the other one with fuzzy brown hair), over enunciating every word like they were droppings from jesus. but once all the rudimentary are out the way he delves into the good things: the 3 acts, plot point one, plot point two, the mid-point. setup, confrontation, resolution. 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes. whammos. and by god he's right.
nothing he says is really new and he knows this. he quotes plato about the 3 act story telling form. even the youngest child knows it must have a beginning middle and end. it made me think of stories and how, well most of the ones i thought about, really do follow this age old system and how there must be something in it. it's applicable to films, novels, plays, songs and even blog entries.
i saw it's a wonderful life a few days ago. to call it wonderful would be like jabbing van gogh in the eye with a spicy sausage. to call it simply wonderful would be like squating and shitting on the grave of monet.
there is a point in it's a wonderful life that shakes you. it's the freeze frame of james stewart, the very first moment we see him. i learnt something the other day about the nature of art. it's call the uncanny. the uncanny is defined as something that is known, but is invisible in your everyday life. it is something you already know which you choose to ignore or is oppressed. an example is blood. when we see blood, it is sometimes an uncanny moment. from this we know, like we have known all along, that we are indeed flesh and blood. mortality and pain. apparently the nature of any art is to expose the uncanny, or perhaps to have an uncanny effect.
i've always thought of freeze frames to be a modern innovation of film making. i am an idiot. here is capra using it before they even had colour. it rocks the screen like a crashing piano falling from the sky. god is represented as a flashing light and angels by bells. he can stop time and lead us in the right direction and he bloody does.
and james stewart! what a star! if you could bottle james stewart the jars would outsell domio and ragu put together.
movie book
i read a book about movies called going to the movies by syd field. it's about his personal journey through films and especially screenplays (he teaches it you know). he worked with sam peckinpah when he was writing wild bunch. he used to read screenplays for a living and maybe still does. this is what he has learnt, movie-wise, during all those screenings.
at first i didn't like it. what inspired him to write it was what a 16 year old girl told him about titanic. what his gleans from her comments is that all the teenaged girls all over the world didn't see the film over and and over again because of leo or the special effects. it was the emotional response to rose. young woman; trapped by mother and bad man; shown the way by leo, who dies very heroically and selflessly; and finally she can create her own destiny: thanks to luck and a big iceberg.
field begins the book like he is writing to 16 year old girls. he explains every symbol, metaphor and subtext. he starts to grate like my old english literature teacher (not her, the other one with fuzzy brown hair), over enunciating every word like they were droppings from jesus. but once all the rudimentary are out the way he delves into the good things: the 3 acts, plot point one, plot point two, the mid-point. setup, confrontation, resolution. 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes. whammos. and by god he's right.
nothing he says is really new and he knows this. he quotes plato about the 3 act story telling form. even the youngest child knows it must have a beginning middle and end. it made me think of stories and how, well most of the ones i thought about, really do follow this age old system and how there must be something in it. it's applicable to films, novels, plays, songs and even blog entries.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
sleeping all hours
i'm just laying there, unable to close my eyes anymore. that's at night, between midnight and 5am. during the day, i'm so tired that i'm afraid if i blink too long in class, my head will come crashing down onto the table. i sometimes lay on the floor whilst watching tv and i see the light above me. it's a perfect circle. i close my eyes for a few seconds and i drift off. i open them again and know that i could sleep if i wanted to, though it is only 6pm and i know that if i sleep for an hour now, i wouldn't be able to sleep for 5 hours later.
my mind knows it's an unfair exchange. sleep is like a bank account apparently. you can go overdrawn, but you always have to pay it back. in this case it's like borrowing 100 pounds then having to repay 500. the sharks swim round and around. i try to sit up, but if feel like my skin is stapled into the floorboards. i blink and look up again. just five minutes i say and i smile as everything fades to black.
fooled
still reading king lear. i remember reading it in school and liking the fool. i'm reading it now and i think the fool is a really annoying little shit. if i wrote it i would have stabbed him in act one scene one and drained his flaccid body on a pole.
i'm just laying there, unable to close my eyes anymore. that's at night, between midnight and 5am. during the day, i'm so tired that i'm afraid if i blink too long in class, my head will come crashing down onto the table. i sometimes lay on the floor whilst watching tv and i see the light above me. it's a perfect circle. i close my eyes for a few seconds and i drift off. i open them again and know that i could sleep if i wanted to, though it is only 6pm and i know that if i sleep for an hour now, i wouldn't be able to sleep for 5 hours later.
my mind knows it's an unfair exchange. sleep is like a bank account apparently. you can go overdrawn, but you always have to pay it back. in this case it's like borrowing 100 pounds then having to repay 500. the sharks swim round and around. i try to sit up, but if feel like my skin is stapled into the floorboards. i blink and look up again. just five minutes i say and i smile as everything fades to black.
fooled
still reading king lear. i remember reading it in school and liking the fool. i'm reading it now and i think the fool is a really annoying little shit. if i wrote it i would have stabbed him in act one scene one and drained his flaccid body on a pole.
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