I have, of late, been puzzling two serious mysteries. They are related, and both are far beyond my mere mortal understanding. The first is:
Why can’t I find a teapot that just pours tea into the cup, instead of all over the table?
And the next, quite obviously, is:
Why won’t they let me road test teapots in the shop?
Now, these may not strike you as serious laments, but for one thing, I drink an awful lot of tea. I blame my caffeine addiction on my mother, who started me drinking tea at the age of, I think, 18 months. The older I get the more delicious and comforting a good ol’ cuppa seems to become, and now every morning I clutch at my mug like it holds the elixir of life.
I had assumed that when I left home for university the volume of tea I consumed would decrease (presumably replaced by alcohol). Instead, the opposite occurred; all the people I moved in with were serious tea drinkers, and the cycle of tea-making and tea-drinking soon became self-sustaining. Someone made everybody a cup of tea, and eventually someone else would feel motivated to make one by way of thanks. Finally, after seven or eight people had made you a cup of tea, you would suddenly be seized by guilt and make another round. With twelve people living in a flat, I wound up drinking roughly six thousand cups of tea every day.
A teapot, then, seems like a useful idea. Tea tastes better out of a pot, and you can put a tea cosy on it and maybe have another cup later. Plus there is something civilised and refined about pouring from a collective vessel into smaller ones. It makes you feel like a Japanese daimyo.
Or it would, if the bloody stuff didn’t just spill all over the worksurface. I must be on my fourth model by now, and that’s all they seem to do. It isn’t enough to just rely on the standard teapot shape, either, the last one I bought from Sainsbury’s betrayed me at the first opportunity.
Now, if you bought another product and it failed to fulfil its primary function, you would be well within your rights to complain and get a replacement. If you bought yourself a fridge and filled it with food, only to discover that the fridge was failing to keep things cold, you would understandably be annoyed. You’d get another fridge.
If the teapot just failed to pour out the tea, well, that’d be a bugger and I’d still probably want another one, but I suppose there are ways around the problem. You could get the tea out with a straw, and imagine how louche and bohemian you would look drinking out of a teapot! Can you imagine it? I certainly can’t, and it’s my blog!
But seeing as the tea actually does pour out, but all over the table, you’re actually getting a new, inferior function, that you certainly didn’t pay for. It’d be like if you filled the fridge with food it couldn’t keep cold and then when you opened it a boxing glove came out and smashed your face in.
The solution, obviously, is to test the teapot in the shop, but for some reason proprietors seem to have a problem with this. I can’t see why, frankly. I’m allowed to have a drive in a car before I buy it, just to make sure the wheels don’t fall off after I get out of the garage. Admittedly a teapot is less likely to plough off the road and kill me, but my point stands.
The moral of this story? If you get a teapot that works like it is supposed to, you should hang onto it forever and ever. Or send it to me in the post, as I’m clearly in desperate need of it, and apparently have little else with which to occupy my time. Well, as I said, I do drink a lot of tea.
Updated only when you aren't looking.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Friday, 5 February 2010
Worryman
It’s been following me for years. Sometimes I feel like I’m outrunning it, sometimes it’s breathing down my neck, sapping my strength. Sometimes I almost forget about it, so small and manageable does it seem. But it never seems to go away.
There are three components to my insomnia. The first is largely self-inflicted, and involves a continued disruption of my natural sleep patterns. It occurs when I drink to excess, and exchange sleep for a few hours of stupefied unconsciousness. It occurs when I take drugs, and find I can’t sleep at all for what feels like a fortnight. It occurs when I make the conscious decision to stay up all night playing Mass Effect 2 (worth it!) and find the dawnlight creeping spitefully around the blinds on Monday morning.
The second is a biological and possibly hereditary component. Sometimes it just takes ages for me to drop off. I’m not exactly exhausted, but I am pretty tired, but I just lie there dozing for hours on end. Sometimes I wake early for no reason I can find, and doze for hours until my alarm goes off (at which point I hit snooze and fall deeply asleep). I require good sleep hygiene. My father suffers from a similar complaint, as do some of my brothers. It can be managed by regular, timetabled exercise and what could be broadly termed cognitive behaviour therapy (I refer to it as “not fucking around anymore and sorting stuff out”). It could be a LOT worse. I am always grateful that my insomnia is not linked to a more concrete and less manageable cause like clinical depression or pain-related conditions.
The third and most irritating cause is my anxiety, an admission that upsets me on several levels. To begin with, it’s a massive bugger. I mean, seriously Brain, can we not come to a better working arrangement here? I’ve got a job interview tomorrow. I need sleep in order to perform well at said interview. Acquiring said job will give me better access to funds with which to procure goods and services we can both enjoy. Help me to help you. What do you mean we’ve discussed this before?
I also don’t like the fact that my anxiety keeps me awake because it’s a wussy condition I try to not to give credence to. I do not, let’s make this absolutely clear, have any major problems in my life. I have a good standard of living. I have a loving family that consistently support me and a group of amiable friends, a small cadre of which I would happily die for. I do not appear to have any major medical conditions. I am of average attractiveness. I have Mass Effect 2 on my Xbox. Life, in short, is sweet.
And yet… it’s been following me for years. A nebulous cloud of half-formed worries and associations, sometimes gaining a toehold in my mind, sometimes relegated to the fringes. Again, none of them are particularly grievous. Bills left unpaid. Important forms lost. Friends and acquaintances upset. Love lost and unlikely to be recovered. The vague feeling that, at some point in the near future, I’m going to get in trouble about something.
It’s bollocks, innit? It really is all in my head. And yet there seems to be some gap between my hearty rationalisations and the feeling in my gut. Even though I know this stuff isn’t important, it still keeps me awake at night. It makes me hide from my responsibilities, and shy from acquiring new ones. It makes me moan constantly to anyone who will listen. It fills up my blog with self-indulgences when I should be writing funny lists about parties and stuff.
There is, however, a bright side. Sometimes it goes away.
Occasionally I emerge from this ridiculous cloud, always unscathed. It happens at key turning points in my life, those moments when you get the feeling that this could be it, this could be the fresh start the marks the beginning of everything else. From now on, you will be a new man. You will pay those bills on time, you will file every letter. You will be virtuous in thought and deed and not watch nearly as much porn on the internet. You will visit your gran regularly and find a nice girl and cease telling pointless lies to everyone you meet.
It doesn’t last. I fall back into old habits. I let things slide away from me until they begin to swarm and amalgamate, returning to me bigger and more menacing than they even seemed in retrospect. I let it happen because I’m lazy, and because, perhaps, I’m not the person I think I ought to be yet.
The potential, however, is there. The potential to make it all stick this time, to make the next big change mark the start of my adult life. When problems will be assessed, analysed and finally crushed under the mighty engine of my self-belief and maturity. When I wake up early every morning having slept the sleep of the just and look life right in the face even as I kick it in the nadgers.
Inspiring stuff, eh? Unlikely too, but it’s nice to have a goal. And the main thing, as we’ve already explored, is that it’s no big deal anyway. It keeps me up at night sometimes, but I have a good standard of living. I have a loving family that consistently support me and a group of amiable friends, a small cadre of which I would happily die for. I do not appear to have any major medical conditions. I am of average attractiveness. I have Mass Effect 2 on my Xbox. And I have you, dear reader, and next week I shall be funny again. I promise.*
*Author's note: may not actually be funny.
There are three components to my insomnia. The first is largely self-inflicted, and involves a continued disruption of my natural sleep patterns. It occurs when I drink to excess, and exchange sleep for a few hours of stupefied unconsciousness. It occurs when I take drugs, and find I can’t sleep at all for what feels like a fortnight. It occurs when I make the conscious decision to stay up all night playing Mass Effect 2 (worth it!) and find the dawnlight creeping spitefully around the blinds on Monday morning.
The second is a biological and possibly hereditary component. Sometimes it just takes ages for me to drop off. I’m not exactly exhausted, but I am pretty tired, but I just lie there dozing for hours on end. Sometimes I wake early for no reason I can find, and doze for hours until my alarm goes off (at which point I hit snooze and fall deeply asleep). I require good sleep hygiene. My father suffers from a similar complaint, as do some of my brothers. It can be managed by regular, timetabled exercise and what could be broadly termed cognitive behaviour therapy (I refer to it as “not fucking around anymore and sorting stuff out”). It could be a LOT worse. I am always grateful that my insomnia is not linked to a more concrete and less manageable cause like clinical depression or pain-related conditions.
The third and most irritating cause is my anxiety, an admission that upsets me on several levels. To begin with, it’s a massive bugger. I mean, seriously Brain, can we not come to a better working arrangement here? I’ve got a job interview tomorrow. I need sleep in order to perform well at said interview. Acquiring said job will give me better access to funds with which to procure goods and services we can both enjoy. Help me to help you. What do you mean we’ve discussed this before?
I also don’t like the fact that my anxiety keeps me awake because it’s a wussy condition I try to not to give credence to. I do not, let’s make this absolutely clear, have any major problems in my life. I have a good standard of living. I have a loving family that consistently support me and a group of amiable friends, a small cadre of which I would happily die for. I do not appear to have any major medical conditions. I am of average attractiveness. I have Mass Effect 2 on my Xbox. Life, in short, is sweet.
And yet… it’s been following me for years. A nebulous cloud of half-formed worries and associations, sometimes gaining a toehold in my mind, sometimes relegated to the fringes. Again, none of them are particularly grievous. Bills left unpaid. Important forms lost. Friends and acquaintances upset. Love lost and unlikely to be recovered. The vague feeling that, at some point in the near future, I’m going to get in trouble about something.
It’s bollocks, innit? It really is all in my head. And yet there seems to be some gap between my hearty rationalisations and the feeling in my gut. Even though I know this stuff isn’t important, it still keeps me awake at night. It makes me hide from my responsibilities, and shy from acquiring new ones. It makes me moan constantly to anyone who will listen. It fills up my blog with self-indulgences when I should be writing funny lists about parties and stuff.
There is, however, a bright side. Sometimes it goes away.
Occasionally I emerge from this ridiculous cloud, always unscathed. It happens at key turning points in my life, those moments when you get the feeling that this could be it, this could be the fresh start the marks the beginning of everything else. From now on, you will be a new man. You will pay those bills on time, you will file every letter. You will be virtuous in thought and deed and not watch nearly as much porn on the internet. You will visit your gran regularly and find a nice girl and cease telling pointless lies to everyone you meet.
It doesn’t last. I fall back into old habits. I let things slide away from me until they begin to swarm and amalgamate, returning to me bigger and more menacing than they even seemed in retrospect. I let it happen because I’m lazy, and because, perhaps, I’m not the person I think I ought to be yet.
The potential, however, is there. The potential to make it all stick this time, to make the next big change mark the start of my adult life. When problems will be assessed, analysed and finally crushed under the mighty engine of my self-belief and maturity. When I wake up early every morning having slept the sleep of the just and look life right in the face even as I kick it in the nadgers.
Inspiring stuff, eh? Unlikely too, but it’s nice to have a goal. And the main thing, as we’ve already explored, is that it’s no big deal anyway. It keeps me up at night sometimes, but I have a good standard of living. I have a loving family that consistently support me and a group of amiable friends, a small cadre of which I would happily die for. I do not appear to have any major medical conditions. I am of average attractiveness. I have Mass Effect 2 on my Xbox. And I have you, dear reader, and next week I shall be funny again. I promise.*
*Author's note: may not actually be funny.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Smartest man in the room
When I was a kid I always thought I was pretty smart. This fondly held belief stemmed from several places, all of them destined to take firm root in my childish psyche.
Firstly, I think that during significant portions of my childhood, I was probably better educated (or at least better read) than children of my age. I spent most of my early years in bed after contracting juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and all I did was read. This meant that when I finally got back into school, I knew a whole lot about a whole lot of stuff. This contributed to a slightly inflated sense of my own intelligence, largely because being slightly smarter than a group of children is no great feat. Kids are idiots.
Secondly, I valued my social standing too much to hang around with the children who were noticeably intelligent. This meant that I could exist in a state of heady solipsism, never running into anybody who could challenge my intellectual mastery (except teachers, and they clearly did not count).
Thirdly and most importantly: my mum told me I was clever. All the time. And I believed her because, as previously mentioned, kids are idiots.
I don’t think this erroneous belief is limited to yours truly. I think a lot of people go through their early lives secretly knowing themselves to be the one smarty-pants in a world full of durr-heads (please forgive these technical terms).
Then you move out, go to uni, go to work, go and see a bit of the world, and it slowly dawns on you that perhaps you are not the towering mental colossus that you always thought you were. At first it’s a gradual process: people get consistently better grades than you or they mention books and films and people that are apparently important but of which you have limited knowledge. Then you find that more and more people seem immune to your charms and manipulations. You find yourself outsmarted by your boss, your lecturers, the postman. Finally you end up in a pub on a Thursday afternoon in the midst of a heated debate about globalization and you realise, with a flailing horror akin to loosing your grip on a ladder, that you don’t know a single thing about what they are talking about and furthermore, may not have had an original and/or interesting thought in your entire life.
It’s a rough moment. I pray, for your sake, that it occurs but once. The sad fact, however, is that you are probably destined to stumble through these moments a score of times in your life. In fact, fuck it, I take back my prayers, if it happens to me (me! A tupping genius!) then I bloody well hope it happens to you.
If you want the cake of shame to taste really awful you need a good few spoonfuls of arrogance in there first, and your own intellect is an easy thing to be arrogant about. Firstly it is the limit of your own consciousness, which makes it difficult to accurately map what lies beyond it. To paraphrase another famous idiot, it’s hard to know what you don’t know you don’t know. Secondly, knowledge is a tricky thing to define – what is important for someone else might not count for you and vica versa. It’s easy to dismiss what others know as useless or indulgent, and see your own way of thinking as vital and dynamic. Finally, it’s really, really hard to admit the plain truth – that quite a lot of people are much more intelligent that you are.
Actually, there is perhaps one more point: that a lot of people in your immediate vicinity seem to be idiots. I mean honestly, they’re everywhere. On the telly. In the newspapers. Writing the newspapers. Advising the most powerful man in the world. The most powerful man in the world. When the majority of the educated world hold themselves to be more intelligent that the President of the United States of America (who is, let us not forget, basically the king of the world; when the aliens arrive they aren’t going to be visiting Kevin Rudd first of all), then we might be forgiven for holding an inflated sense of our own mental acuity. OK, so they’ve got another one now and he seems quite bright, but the point still stands.
The problem is that you cannot measure your intelligence by comparing yourself to people noticeably thicker than you. It might be easy to feel clever in a room full of numpties, but you aren’t necessarily that smart of the general scale. If you play for a men’s football team, you cannot claim to be the best in the league if you only play against girls under-13’s squads.
This would normally be where I would try and draw the whole post together with a relatively positive, upbeat solution. Well, not this time, thicko. You’ll just have to accept the fact that quite a lot of people are quite a lot more cleverer than you, innit. And unfortunately, the only way to advance on the road to cerebral progress is to consistently interact with those people, even if it means getting your mental faculties rubbed in the metaphorical dirt every so often.
On the other hand, you could just hang around with your mum all day. Every mother tells her child that they are the sharpest knife in the drawer. But remember she’s only saying it because you are her kid, and if we’ve learned anything today it’s that (sing it with me folks!): kids are idiots.
Firstly, I think that during significant portions of my childhood, I was probably better educated (or at least better read) than children of my age. I spent most of my early years in bed after contracting juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and all I did was read. This meant that when I finally got back into school, I knew a whole lot about a whole lot of stuff. This contributed to a slightly inflated sense of my own intelligence, largely because being slightly smarter than a group of children is no great feat. Kids are idiots.
Secondly, I valued my social standing too much to hang around with the children who were noticeably intelligent. This meant that I could exist in a state of heady solipsism, never running into anybody who could challenge my intellectual mastery (except teachers, and they clearly did not count).
Thirdly and most importantly: my mum told me I was clever. All the time. And I believed her because, as previously mentioned, kids are idiots.
I don’t think this erroneous belief is limited to yours truly. I think a lot of people go through their early lives secretly knowing themselves to be the one smarty-pants in a world full of durr-heads (please forgive these technical terms).
Then you move out, go to uni, go to work, go and see a bit of the world, and it slowly dawns on you that perhaps you are not the towering mental colossus that you always thought you were. At first it’s a gradual process: people get consistently better grades than you or they mention books and films and people that are apparently important but of which you have limited knowledge. Then you find that more and more people seem immune to your charms and manipulations. You find yourself outsmarted by your boss, your lecturers, the postman. Finally you end up in a pub on a Thursday afternoon in the midst of a heated debate about globalization and you realise, with a flailing horror akin to loosing your grip on a ladder, that you don’t know a single thing about what they are talking about and furthermore, may not have had an original and/or interesting thought in your entire life.
It’s a rough moment. I pray, for your sake, that it occurs but once. The sad fact, however, is that you are probably destined to stumble through these moments a score of times in your life. In fact, fuck it, I take back my prayers, if it happens to me (me! A tupping genius!) then I bloody well hope it happens to you.
If you want the cake of shame to taste really awful you need a good few spoonfuls of arrogance in there first, and your own intellect is an easy thing to be arrogant about. Firstly it is the limit of your own consciousness, which makes it difficult to accurately map what lies beyond it. To paraphrase another famous idiot, it’s hard to know what you don’t know you don’t know. Secondly, knowledge is a tricky thing to define – what is important for someone else might not count for you and vica versa. It’s easy to dismiss what others know as useless or indulgent, and see your own way of thinking as vital and dynamic. Finally, it’s really, really hard to admit the plain truth – that quite a lot of people are much more intelligent that you are.
Actually, there is perhaps one more point: that a lot of people in your immediate vicinity seem to be idiots. I mean honestly, they’re everywhere. On the telly. In the newspapers. Writing the newspapers. Advising the most powerful man in the world. The most powerful man in the world. When the majority of the educated world hold themselves to be more intelligent that the President of the United States of America (who is, let us not forget, basically the king of the world; when the aliens arrive they aren’t going to be visiting Kevin Rudd first of all), then we might be forgiven for holding an inflated sense of our own mental acuity. OK, so they’ve got another one now and he seems quite bright, but the point still stands.
The problem is that you cannot measure your intelligence by comparing yourself to people noticeably thicker than you. It might be easy to feel clever in a room full of numpties, but you aren’t necessarily that smart of the general scale. If you play for a men’s football team, you cannot claim to be the best in the league if you only play against girls under-13’s squads.
This would normally be where I would try and draw the whole post together with a relatively positive, upbeat solution. Well, not this time, thicko. You’ll just have to accept the fact that quite a lot of people are quite a lot more cleverer than you, innit. And unfortunately, the only way to advance on the road to cerebral progress is to consistently interact with those people, even if it means getting your mental faculties rubbed in the metaphorical dirt every so often.
On the other hand, you could just hang around with your mum all day. Every mother tells her child that they are the sharpest knife in the drawer. But remember she’s only saying it because you are her kid, and if we’ve learned anything today it’s that (sing it with me folks!): kids are idiots.
Stuff to read
OH HAIY!!
Yup, another big break, another miserable fortnight without my humorous guidance and comment. But fear not, dear hearts, I have been busy in the interim. Firstly, there's an updated (and much changed) version of the Annulus story that I posted here ages ago. This one is a bit less sexy and quite a bit more... unpleasant. Secondly I have another short (2k ish) story, a sort of mythic conceptual... thingy. It's fluff, really, but you'll get through it in five minutes. It's called The Tale of Tan Lushan.
The real reason for my absence was an essay on surveillance as an ideological fantasy that took forever to write, but it's a pile of old wank and I certainly wont be boring you with that.
Normal service resumes as soon as the next personal disaster befalls me.
Yup, another big break, another miserable fortnight without my humorous guidance and comment. But fear not, dear hearts, I have been busy in the interim. Firstly, there's an updated (and much changed) version of the Annulus story that I posted here ages ago. This one is a bit less sexy and quite a bit more... unpleasant. Secondly I have another short (2k ish) story, a sort of mythic conceptual... thingy. It's fluff, really, but you'll get through it in five minutes. It's called The Tale of Tan Lushan.
The real reason for my absence was an essay on surveillance as an ideological fantasy that took forever to write, but it's a pile of old wank and I certainly wont be boring you with that.
Normal service resumes as soon as the next personal disaster befalls me.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Return of the Mac
On New Year’s Eve – or more specifically early on New Year’s Morning – my friend Shortround and I were discussing a mutual interest, in one of those life affirming conversations where you both express your love for a shared person or thing, reaffirming both how good that thing is but also your friendship and what it is based on. It was a good talk, and it was about how much we both fucking love Annie Mac.
I doubt it’s necessary to go into detail as to our reasons. She plays good music, she plays good shows, she’s introduced me personally to a lot of really great tunes that I would not otherwise have heard (well, not me personally, obviously. Although that would be brilliant). It doesn’t hurt that she’s really fit and has a voice like a honey fondue.
We were, inevitably, pretty smashed. The night had been good to us. And, because I have a tendency to get over-sentimental when I’m high and also because I never know when to let go of a conversation thread, I began to imagine what I might say to her should I ever get the chance to meet her.
I’d probably tell her that I think she’s pwetty, but I think I’d save that until the end in case she immediately loses interest or has a bodyguard or a stun gun in her bag. Firstly I would say that even though we’ve never met, she’s done quite a bit for me, sorted me out with some really good times, and that I and all her other fans (and let me tell you, we are legion) really appreciate that.
Now, Annie Mac gets this all the time. I am not (shock horror) the first person to think of thanking a famous person for being in their lives. I am also not the first person to get over-sentimental just because I have a little crush on said famous person.
What I REALLY would have wanted to say was that listening to her has brought me closer with some other people I care about, Shortround in particular. I probably wouldn’t say that if he was there with me, because that’d be a bit embarrassing and might possibly lead her to believe we were a couple (which clearly would damage my, admittedly slim, chances with her and let me get this straight: I’d beat up Shortround to get with Annie Mac. Fact).
It’s a mushy sentiment, and one that, by that point in the night, I was well beyond expressing in such a coherent manner. If I had run into Annie Mac, I probably would have just given her a high five, and then maybe gone off to have a cry. And I doubt I’m going to get up on the radio and say it either – she almost certainly has people screening her calls for people that just want to gush over her.
The point is: that I like Annie Mac so much partly because my friends like her too. I love Metal Gear Solid because my little brother loves it, and can do all the voices. I like dubstep primarily because of the people I listen to it with. There are hundreds of books I cherish, but the icing on the cake is having a fulfilling, positive talk about one of them with someone I care about that likes it too.
Wanting to keep something to yourself is something we’re all guilty of. In times gone past I’ve been secretly disappointed when bands I like have become more popular, and I have to share them with other people. And with the New Year already under way I’ve come to a decision: that’s just the kind of elitist crap we can do without.
I think art is about sharing; I think I’ve said this before here. Although yes, I truly and sincerely believe that an artefact can communicate with an individual on a personal and private level, and that this is part of what art is and what it always should be, I would always want to turn to a friend and ask what they thought of it.
We didn’t get to see Annie Mac that night. We’d overstayed on one place and couldn’t get into the next place, and although we were disappointed, we knew there would always be next time. The main thing was- I’d gotten together with Shortround and half a dozen or so others, and we’d shared something for a bit. Now, January is a pretty crummy month, in my opinion. The weather stinks, and no one has any money. So, if you could do with a little flash to cheer you up, even only briefly, I would like to posit this: that there’s stuff to share, and people to share it with. There will always be someone out there who has shared an experience with you and would be willing to talk about it for a spell, even if it’s something as mundane as a book or a film or what you did on your New Year’s.
So at the risk of sounding trite, get out there and share a little; it’ll make you feel better.
Stay the fuck away from Annie Mac, though. She’s mine.
I doubt it’s necessary to go into detail as to our reasons. She plays good music, she plays good shows, she’s introduced me personally to a lot of really great tunes that I would not otherwise have heard (well, not me personally, obviously. Although that would be brilliant). It doesn’t hurt that she’s really fit and has a voice like a honey fondue.
We were, inevitably, pretty smashed. The night had been good to us. And, because I have a tendency to get over-sentimental when I’m high and also because I never know when to let go of a conversation thread, I began to imagine what I might say to her should I ever get the chance to meet her.
I’d probably tell her that I think she’s pwetty, but I think I’d save that until the end in case she immediately loses interest or has a bodyguard or a stun gun in her bag. Firstly I would say that even though we’ve never met, she’s done quite a bit for me, sorted me out with some really good times, and that I and all her other fans (and let me tell you, we are legion) really appreciate that.
Now, Annie Mac gets this all the time. I am not (shock horror) the first person to think of thanking a famous person for being in their lives. I am also not the first person to get over-sentimental just because I have a little crush on said famous person.
What I REALLY would have wanted to say was that listening to her has brought me closer with some other people I care about, Shortround in particular. I probably wouldn’t say that if he was there with me, because that’d be a bit embarrassing and might possibly lead her to believe we were a couple (which clearly would damage my, admittedly slim, chances with her and let me get this straight: I’d beat up Shortround to get with Annie Mac. Fact).
It’s a mushy sentiment, and one that, by that point in the night, I was well beyond expressing in such a coherent manner. If I had run into Annie Mac, I probably would have just given her a high five, and then maybe gone off to have a cry. And I doubt I’m going to get up on the radio and say it either – she almost certainly has people screening her calls for people that just want to gush over her.
The point is: that I like Annie Mac so much partly because my friends like her too. I love Metal Gear Solid because my little brother loves it, and can do all the voices. I like dubstep primarily because of the people I listen to it with. There are hundreds of books I cherish, but the icing on the cake is having a fulfilling, positive talk about one of them with someone I care about that likes it too.
Wanting to keep something to yourself is something we’re all guilty of. In times gone past I’ve been secretly disappointed when bands I like have become more popular, and I have to share them with other people. And with the New Year already under way I’ve come to a decision: that’s just the kind of elitist crap we can do without.
I think art is about sharing; I think I’ve said this before here. Although yes, I truly and sincerely believe that an artefact can communicate with an individual on a personal and private level, and that this is part of what art is and what it always should be, I would always want to turn to a friend and ask what they thought of it.
We didn’t get to see Annie Mac that night. We’d overstayed on one place and couldn’t get into the next place, and although we were disappointed, we knew there would always be next time. The main thing was- I’d gotten together with Shortround and half a dozen or so others, and we’d shared something for a bit. Now, January is a pretty crummy month, in my opinion. The weather stinks, and no one has any money. So, if you could do with a little flash to cheer you up, even only briefly, I would like to posit this: that there’s stuff to share, and people to share it with. There will always be someone out there who has shared an experience with you and would be willing to talk about it for a spell, even if it’s something as mundane as a book or a film or what you did on your New Year’s.
So at the risk of sounding trite, get out there and share a little; it’ll make you feel better.
Stay the fuck away from Annie Mac, though. She’s mine.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Breathless
Below is a short story without a title. It was written to be read aloud, preferably by someone with a largish lung-capacity. It was inspired by the picture which precedes it, and so in a rather heavy- handed manner clocks in at exactly 1000 words.
The chances of fossilisation are ridiculously small, especially for a land dwelling mammal. Without a convenient pool of soft sediment to keel over and die in there is a greater than 99% chance that you will just dissolve down into nothingness within a few millennia. Normally nothing of our physical selves will remain for any future generations to find. I run this by Fizel and he thinks for a minute and then says: tough shit and I just glare at him because I’ve made it clear that I’m only half way through a monologue and this is the kind of remark that might stop a lesser raconteur stone dead. I rack up the glare to say ‘tough shit to you too’ and carry on with the story because I’m about to sell Fizel a ten bag and if he wants my drugs he can damn well wait until I’ve finished talking. I run over the basic process of fossilization and explain how in special cases large collections of bones can become fossilized after some catastrophic event like Pompeii or maybe the Burgess shale although of course he doesn’t have a clue what either of these things are. I make sure it’s all laid out before I reach the point- so how do you think civilization is going to end? He thinks again, his bushy eyebrows knitting together and for a second I think he’s going to bring out some religious story because he’s an on-again off-again Muslim and likes to drop it into conversation when he’s more on than off and I don’t really have a problem with that but it’s going to be another massive stumbling block for my rapidly developing narrative and I don’t want to have to manoeuvre around his religious beliefs just to finish a story I’m starting to lose interest in anyway but eventually he shrugs and just says: war, and I nod and smile and say: exactly. If human civilization eventually ends it’s going to be through some catastrophic event - nuclear destruction, a self-sustaining rapid climate shift, some kind of devastating retro virus. We’re all going to go at the same time, geologically speaking, so for one thing that’s a greater number of bodies hitting the ground at the same time - means more bones. Also there’s probably going to be some kind of disaster effect like at Pompeii that means more bones are going to be preserved, nuclear winter for instance: all those people die choking in radioactive ash, like those savages on the Bikini atolls. That’d do for a layer of soft sediment, and everything else is dying at the same time so you’ve got ground cover and no cycle of decomposition, not to mention all the people that would shuffle off in sealed environments that have never existed before now so the estimates could go up hugely! It doesn’t have to be a massive increase, there’s enough of us around and that number is only going to increase in the near future so if it goes up as high as say a percent that’s still what? I get the calculator on my phone because I haven’t got a clue and I can’t remember how many noughts there are in a billion anyway but I say with triumph 60 million and spread my arms. So loads of us will make it into the fossil record- it could be you or me if the world ends soon enough and when some wise alien species excavates our ravaged globe it could be us they dig up and put in glass boxes for their children to look at. Fizel waits for a sufficient time to pass to make it look like he’s actually considered this and then says ‘sound’ and looks expectantly at me and I sigh and say fine and motion for him to give me the tenner and then I gulp down the last of my pint and indicated the plastic tobacco poach that has sat between us all this time and he grins and puts it in the pocket of his stupid puffer coat that makes him look like a drug dealer then he makes some excuse and gets up to leave and surprises me by turning around before he’s taken two steps and says wouldn’t it be funny if we got fossilized together and the aliens would wonder what the fuck we were about and come up with some history shit even though all we were doing is shotting weed and I smile and say it’s a nice thought already wishing he’d get out of my hair. And then on the bus later I think about what he said and think that he’s probably right, how when the end comes most of us will be at work or sat on buses like I am and the people pressed into the fossil record next to us will probably be total strangers and anyone who finds us will perhaps never suspect as much. Then I catch the scent of the girl sat in front and it doesn’t smell of anything specific, not coconut or flowers just the way girls smell when their hair is clean. Then when I get home the front door is open and the whole place stinks of cigarettes and Mattie is sat in front of the television in his school uniform looking bored because you’ve forgotten to take him to school and when I ask him if he’s hungry he leaps right up so you’ve obviously forgotten to feed him and that he can’t reach into the fridge by himself and it takes me a while to find you because you’re always in the last room I check and this time it’s mine and you don’t even hide the fact that you’ve been going through my stuff for funds and I think of the girl on the bus and how her hair smelled and I think that there are worse things than being fossilized next to total strangers.
The chances of fossilisation are ridiculously small, especially for a land dwelling mammal. Without a convenient pool of soft sediment to keel over and die in there is a greater than 99% chance that you will just dissolve down into nothingness within a few millennia. Normally nothing of our physical selves will remain for any future generations to find. I run this by Fizel and he thinks for a minute and then says: tough shit and I just glare at him because I’ve made it clear that I’m only half way through a monologue and this is the kind of remark that might stop a lesser raconteur stone dead. I rack up the glare to say ‘tough shit to you too’ and carry on with the story because I’m about to sell Fizel a ten bag and if he wants my drugs he can damn well wait until I’ve finished talking. I run over the basic process of fossilization and explain how in special cases large collections of bones can become fossilized after some catastrophic event like Pompeii or maybe the Burgess shale although of course he doesn’t have a clue what either of these things are. I make sure it’s all laid out before I reach the point- so how do you think civilization is going to end? He thinks again, his bushy eyebrows knitting together and for a second I think he’s going to bring out some religious story because he’s an on-again off-again Muslim and likes to drop it into conversation when he’s more on than off and I don’t really have a problem with that but it’s going to be another massive stumbling block for my rapidly developing narrative and I don’t want to have to manoeuvre around his religious beliefs just to finish a story I’m starting to lose interest in anyway but eventually he shrugs and just says: war, and I nod and smile and say: exactly. If human civilization eventually ends it’s going to be through some catastrophic event - nuclear destruction, a self-sustaining rapid climate shift, some kind of devastating retro virus. We’re all going to go at the same time, geologically speaking, so for one thing that’s a greater number of bodies hitting the ground at the same time - means more bones. Also there’s probably going to be some kind of disaster effect like at Pompeii that means more bones are going to be preserved, nuclear winter for instance: all those people die choking in radioactive ash, like those savages on the Bikini atolls. That’d do for a layer of soft sediment, and everything else is dying at the same time so you’ve got ground cover and no cycle of decomposition, not to mention all the people that would shuffle off in sealed environments that have never existed before now so the estimates could go up hugely! It doesn’t have to be a massive increase, there’s enough of us around and that number is only going to increase in the near future so if it goes up as high as say a percent that’s still what? I get the calculator on my phone because I haven’t got a clue and I can’t remember how many noughts there are in a billion anyway but I say with triumph 60 million and spread my arms. So loads of us will make it into the fossil record- it could be you or me if the world ends soon enough and when some wise alien species excavates our ravaged globe it could be us they dig up and put in glass boxes for their children to look at. Fizel waits for a sufficient time to pass to make it look like he’s actually considered this and then says ‘sound’ and looks expectantly at me and I sigh and say fine and motion for him to give me the tenner and then I gulp down the last of my pint and indicated the plastic tobacco poach that has sat between us all this time and he grins and puts it in the pocket of his stupid puffer coat that makes him look like a drug dealer then he makes some excuse and gets up to leave and surprises me by turning around before he’s taken two steps and says wouldn’t it be funny if we got fossilized together and the aliens would wonder what the fuck we were about and come up with some history shit even though all we were doing is shotting weed and I smile and say it’s a nice thought already wishing he’d get out of my hair. And then on the bus later I think about what he said and think that he’s probably right, how when the end comes most of us will be at work or sat on buses like I am and the people pressed into the fossil record next to us will probably be total strangers and anyone who finds us will perhaps never suspect as much. Then I catch the scent of the girl sat in front and it doesn’t smell of anything specific, not coconut or flowers just the way girls smell when their hair is clean. Then when I get home the front door is open and the whole place stinks of cigarettes and Mattie is sat in front of the television in his school uniform looking bored because you’ve forgotten to take him to school and when I ask him if he’s hungry he leaps right up so you’ve obviously forgotten to feed him and that he can’t reach into the fridge by himself and it takes me a while to find you because you’re always in the last room I check and this time it’s mine and you don’t even hide the fact that you’ve been going through my stuff for funds and I think of the girl on the bus and how her hair smelled and I think that there are worse things than being fossilized next to total strangers.
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Botheration
I've written a short piece to be read aloud that I thought I'd share with you. Unfortunately I've left it on the bally university computers. You can read it Thursday, folks.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Love affairs, spinerips and explosions
My apologies for the late post, I’ve got my job at Waterstone’s back and coupled with my writing course I’m basically working a six day week. Having said that, I should still find the energy to lumber you with my self-indulgent attempts at wit and comment- I’m just being a bit pathetic. Although if you’ve been paying attention to the blog thus far this shouldn’t come as a major surprise.
I’ve started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 in strictly rationed bursts. Rationed, partly because it belongs to my long-suffering and ever-tolerant housemate and I’m already a massive drain on his time and possessions (and, although he doesn’t know it, all the good food out of his part of the fridge) but MOSTLY because my love affair with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 got a little… intense. ‘Hanging around in the car park of her job’ or ‘four hundred page letters written in blood’ intense. I got over it (with the help of a 12-step programme) but it didn’t do wonders for my undergraduate degree or my interpersonal relationships.
It wasn’t exactly a new problem either. When it comes to computer games, I am the addict’s addict. Before inexorable and intrusive things like deadlines, bills and council tax started to hammer spitefully at my door, I used to spend hours playing up to the stereotype of my generation. I wasn’t even that good at games, I just had more than my fair share of bloody mindedness and less than my fair share of proper mates. Sigh.
I also treated video games as a true competition; I dislike losing in any circumstances, and video games allowed my to pick my battles a bit. When, at age 9, the final boss on Spider-Man VS. The Kingpin proved too much of a challenge for my tiny thumbs, I put it aside. But I didn’t forget. Instead I waited six years for my motor skills to reach their peak, took the Mega Drive down from the shelf, blew the dust off it, and then rained down pixillated fury on the my digital adversary.
Having an interest in video games and relatively lax parents meant that, like many of my close friends, I was exposed to a high level of simulated violence at a young age. I stress simulated in order to establish the proper context. In Final Fight you would punch, kick and suplex your never-ending enemies (who all for some reason looked like members of Public Image Ltd.) until they kicked the virtual bucket, uttering a touching woeful scream and then disappearing. In an episode of Tom and Jerry that has stuck with me through the years, Tom restrains the local dog with a sturdy rope and, while the dog strains and barks in an effort to escape, smashes all his teeth out with a baseball bat.
I’m being unfair on Tom and Jerry, certainly. They and other classic cartoons of their ilk adhere strictly to the laws of cartoon physics, which establish an easily understood set of parameters relating to violence and its effects. Video games used to operate under a similar set of parameters- it quite clearly wasn’t ‘real’ as the same bad guys appeared each time. And also (and this should not be discounted) the whole thing looked like crap. Up until about five minutes ago most computer renderings of fisticuffs looked like the work of impressionist artists whose chosen medium was Lego.
As graphical accuracy improved, the level of violence seemed to increase. This doesn’t strike me as unlikely; violence can sometimes be a direct partner to excitement, as action films have long demonstrated. The urge to blow things up in video games had always been present, submerged under poor rendering. I’m sure game designers would have been ripping people’s heads of and attaching guns to chainsaws from the very start had the tools been available.
In the last five years or so it has been argued that video games depict reality with such accuracy as to be as direct an influence on people as reality itself. I’m not going to explore this. Really, I’m not. Video games come out of the telly, and you make them go by wiggling your fingers and thumbs. You can’t play them in a power cut, and in them you get to be a racecar driver or an interstellar soldier or a world champion martial artist, whereas in real life you just go to school and watch The Apprentice and your favourite cereal is Wheetos. If you get computer games confused with real life then you are deluded or otherwise mentally handicapped.
An argument I will give more credence to is that accurate depiction or not, people are influenced by what they see. This one is backed up with a lot more in the way of scientific investigation. We learn from what we see and, as social animals, we learn especially from the actions of other people, whether they be real or imagined. Panic journalism and selfish political agendas normally overtake the argument, which leads to it being wildly inflated. Just because in GTA you can have sex with a prostitute, and then run her over with your car to get the money back, doesn’t mean your twelve year old is going to start doing it (he probably can’t even drive).
However, some of the logic is apparent. For example, fairy tales teach children lessons about fear, love, justice and self-sacrifice, and it doesn’t matter that even a child could tell them apart from reality for their lessons to influence.
The idea that children might be influenced by violent video games enough to commit violent acts is therefore a compelling one. And yet… I spent my tweens learning the button combination to make Sub-Zero rip peoples’ spines out, and I have never (successfully) ripped out a real person’s spine. In Call of Duty I shoot on sight. Or maybe grenade on sight. Or stab on sight. But when I bumped into someone on campus today as they unexpectedly rounded a corner I did not frantically thrust my combat knife into their sternum; instead I said, “I’m awfully sorry, pardon me,” and let them brush past. (They just glared at me. I wish I had stabbed them).
The difference, obviously, is that I know that ripping people’s spines out is morally wrong (as well as frightfully rude). The fact that I have attempted it in fiction and enjoyed it is not enough to make me experiment with it in reality.
I have been sufficiently socialised to accept the ‘right’ way of acting in society. I have a moral code implanted in me that overrides all else. I do not want to cause suffering in real people because society has taught me that it is wrong to do so. I can cause in video games if I feel like it precisely because I know it is not real suffering (although that isn’t my normal intention- unless it’s the suffering of my friends as I grind them into paste).
The children most likely influenced by violent imagery are those that lack ‘adequate’ socialisation. If they do not have people to show them the right way to act, they may draw inference from what they see instead. And, if the morals and norms of society are not properly ingrained, just telling them otherwise isn’t going to help. If most of your parenting was done by an Xbox, other people telling you how to act will end up as just that- a set of commands you can choose to ignore.
The problem with this argument is that is identifies those who are vulnerable as those most likely to be negatively affected by violent imagery games and other media. And well, people who are labelled as vulnerable are just that. Obviously they need stronger guidance, closer watching. Removing a single set of influencing risk factors isn’t going to make very much difference. There are more than enough examples of violence and moral skulduggery in real life for them to copy.
So if (God forbid) children ever end up in my care I’ll be more worried about they time they spend on the computer than what they do while they’re there. Except in regards to the Internet, obviously. That invention is a bringer of malice and sin and anyone who uses it is a lily-livered wanksock. You there, you reading this- how do you sleep at night?
I’ve started playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 in strictly rationed bursts. Rationed, partly because it belongs to my long-suffering and ever-tolerant housemate and I’m already a massive drain on his time and possessions (and, although he doesn’t know it, all the good food out of his part of the fridge) but MOSTLY because my love affair with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 got a little… intense. ‘Hanging around in the car park of her job’ or ‘four hundred page letters written in blood’ intense. I got over it (with the help of a 12-step programme) but it didn’t do wonders for my undergraduate degree or my interpersonal relationships.
It wasn’t exactly a new problem either. When it comes to computer games, I am the addict’s addict. Before inexorable and intrusive things like deadlines, bills and council tax started to hammer spitefully at my door, I used to spend hours playing up to the stereotype of my generation. I wasn’t even that good at games, I just had more than my fair share of bloody mindedness and less than my fair share of proper mates. Sigh.
I also treated video games as a true competition; I dislike losing in any circumstances, and video games allowed my to pick my battles a bit. When, at age 9, the final boss on Spider-Man VS. The Kingpin proved too much of a challenge for my tiny thumbs, I put it aside. But I didn’t forget. Instead I waited six years for my motor skills to reach their peak, took the Mega Drive down from the shelf, blew the dust off it, and then rained down pixillated fury on the my digital adversary.
Having an interest in video games and relatively lax parents meant that, like many of my close friends, I was exposed to a high level of simulated violence at a young age. I stress simulated in order to establish the proper context. In Final Fight you would punch, kick and suplex your never-ending enemies (who all for some reason looked like members of Public Image Ltd.) until they kicked the virtual bucket, uttering a touching woeful scream and then disappearing. In an episode of Tom and Jerry that has stuck with me through the years, Tom restrains the local dog with a sturdy rope and, while the dog strains and barks in an effort to escape, smashes all his teeth out with a baseball bat.
I’m being unfair on Tom and Jerry, certainly. They and other classic cartoons of their ilk adhere strictly to the laws of cartoon physics, which establish an easily understood set of parameters relating to violence and its effects. Video games used to operate under a similar set of parameters- it quite clearly wasn’t ‘real’ as the same bad guys appeared each time. And also (and this should not be discounted) the whole thing looked like crap. Up until about five minutes ago most computer renderings of fisticuffs looked like the work of impressionist artists whose chosen medium was Lego.
As graphical accuracy improved, the level of violence seemed to increase. This doesn’t strike me as unlikely; violence can sometimes be a direct partner to excitement, as action films have long demonstrated. The urge to blow things up in video games had always been present, submerged under poor rendering. I’m sure game designers would have been ripping people’s heads of and attaching guns to chainsaws from the very start had the tools been available.
In the last five years or so it has been argued that video games depict reality with such accuracy as to be as direct an influence on people as reality itself. I’m not going to explore this. Really, I’m not. Video games come out of the telly, and you make them go by wiggling your fingers and thumbs. You can’t play them in a power cut, and in them you get to be a racecar driver or an interstellar soldier or a world champion martial artist, whereas in real life you just go to school and watch The Apprentice and your favourite cereal is Wheetos. If you get computer games confused with real life then you are deluded or otherwise mentally handicapped.
An argument I will give more credence to is that accurate depiction or not, people are influenced by what they see. This one is backed up with a lot more in the way of scientific investigation. We learn from what we see and, as social animals, we learn especially from the actions of other people, whether they be real or imagined. Panic journalism and selfish political agendas normally overtake the argument, which leads to it being wildly inflated. Just because in GTA you can have sex with a prostitute, and then run her over with your car to get the money back, doesn’t mean your twelve year old is going to start doing it (he probably can’t even drive).
However, some of the logic is apparent. For example, fairy tales teach children lessons about fear, love, justice and self-sacrifice, and it doesn’t matter that even a child could tell them apart from reality for their lessons to influence.
The idea that children might be influenced by violent video games enough to commit violent acts is therefore a compelling one. And yet… I spent my tweens learning the button combination to make Sub-Zero rip peoples’ spines out, and I have never (successfully) ripped out a real person’s spine. In Call of Duty I shoot on sight. Or maybe grenade on sight. Or stab on sight. But when I bumped into someone on campus today as they unexpectedly rounded a corner I did not frantically thrust my combat knife into their sternum; instead I said, “I’m awfully sorry, pardon me,” and let them brush past. (They just glared at me. I wish I had stabbed them).
The difference, obviously, is that I know that ripping people’s spines out is morally wrong (as well as frightfully rude). The fact that I have attempted it in fiction and enjoyed it is not enough to make me experiment with it in reality.
I have been sufficiently socialised to accept the ‘right’ way of acting in society. I have a moral code implanted in me that overrides all else. I do not want to cause suffering in real people because society has taught me that it is wrong to do so. I can cause in video games if I feel like it precisely because I know it is not real suffering (although that isn’t my normal intention- unless it’s the suffering of my friends as I grind them into paste).
The children most likely influenced by violent imagery are those that lack ‘adequate’ socialisation. If they do not have people to show them the right way to act, they may draw inference from what they see instead. And, if the morals and norms of society are not properly ingrained, just telling them otherwise isn’t going to help. If most of your parenting was done by an Xbox, other people telling you how to act will end up as just that- a set of commands you can choose to ignore.
The problem with this argument is that is identifies those who are vulnerable as those most likely to be negatively affected by violent imagery games and other media. And well, people who are labelled as vulnerable are just that. Obviously they need stronger guidance, closer watching. Removing a single set of influencing risk factors isn’t going to make very much difference. There are more than enough examples of violence and moral skulduggery in real life for them to copy.
So if (God forbid) children ever end up in my care I’ll be more worried about they time they spend on the computer than what they do while they’re there. Except in regards to the Internet, obviously. That invention is a bringer of malice and sin and anyone who uses it is a lily-livered wanksock. You there, you reading this- how do you sleep at night?
Monday, 23 November 2009
A short post about photographs
I’m not an ugly guy. Let’s be honest, I’m not exactly Brad Pitt either, but I rate myself a cautious 6.5 on the Completely Arbitrary Aesthetic Assessment Apparatus (patent pending). I might increase that to a giddy 7.5 if I’m wearing nice clothes or the light is especially bad. I wish I could say that looks do not matter- but as long as they do I feel blessed to be of average attractiveness. I am all too aware of the alternatives, dear and soon-to-be-horrified reader.
The technological revolution of the late nineteenth century exposed a shameful secret about a small but significant fraction of the populace. These people looked just like everybody else, had similar features and so on, and generally passed unnoticed in the crowd. Some were even considered pleasant to look at, perhaps even handsome. It was only the new art of photography that exposed these charlatans to the rest of the world. While they appeared to be of regular appearance when in motion, the still image revealed their true, hideous visages.
Families and friends would be shocked at the change, disgusted by the very images they had sought to take, to keep and treasure. These ‘unphotogenic’ people would become the scourge of the captured image, ruining portraits and crowd scenes alike with their deformed, gargoyle-like countenances. I know this story all too well because… I am unphotogenic.
I mean, really. Is it too much to ask for a printed image to accurately represent the face I see in the mirror each morning? OK, I’m no Adonis, that much we’ve identified. But am I truly the shiny-faced balloon man that I see in my new Facebook photos every Sunday morning? I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a nice smile. Were those kind words spoken in truth, or were they really a horrified reaction to the manic cartoon character grin that I seem to consistently sport? I know my eyes point in the same direction in real life, so why can’t they manage it in pictures?
In order that this pain might be minimised in future I hereby present a list of classic errors made by those that would have their image immortalised. Heed my words, and may the secret uggos among you forever remain a secret.
1.Hush your gums. If you aren’t smiling, keep your flippin’ mouth shut. In a photograph no one wants to see any of the following: your tonsils, your epiglottis, your fillings, your chewed gum, the lipstick on your teeth.
2.Try and face front. I have only a passing acquaintance with the back of my head. I would probably be able to pick it out of a police line-up, but I don’t have a collection of photos devoted solely to it. At least, I didn’t, until people started taking photos of me in public. Now I have a huge public collection of pictures of my head from all angles, none of them flattering.
3.Stay still. Some of the most famous images of the 20th century are of bodies in motion, of dancers, sportsmen and soldiers. You are none of these people. Getting photographed will expose your movements as what they really are- a collection of stop-start jerks and flailing limbs. If you are being photographed while dancing, multiply this by a reasonable figure. Say… a million.
4.Time your pose. SmilesmilesmileBLINKsmilesmilesmilesmileRELAXsmilesmile. Guess when the flash went off?
5.Blow your nose. Yet another snap ruined because you’ve got a sugar frosting of ketamine around your nostril. Makes you really wish you hadn’t accepted your mother’s friend request, doesn’t it?
6.Concentrate. Normally it doesn’t take much of a conscious effort to keep you features aligned. Unfortunately, photographs and alcohol go together like… well, like photographs and alcohol. It will take mental fortitude to keep your features from melting like Morph under a hairdryer.
7.If you ain’t got it, fake it. You should have at least one ‘go-to’ pose for when the camera appears. This is your last bastion of control, with which to deflect the harsh light of photo-reality. Chaps, just make a gun with your fingers and point it at the camera. Ladies, put one finger to your lips and look beatifically into the sky. Come on people, work with me here.
8.Know when to quit. Maybe this will be the one. Maybe this will be that new profile picture I’ve been waiting for. Maybe this will be my next Christmas card. Maybe this will be the one my girlfriend likes. Maybe… oh, who am I kidding. Maybe I should just face the other way. Sigh. One more for the back-of-the-head collection.
The technological revolution of the late nineteenth century exposed a shameful secret about a small but significant fraction of the populace. These people looked just like everybody else, had similar features and so on, and generally passed unnoticed in the crowd. Some were even considered pleasant to look at, perhaps even handsome. It was only the new art of photography that exposed these charlatans to the rest of the world. While they appeared to be of regular appearance when in motion, the still image revealed their true, hideous visages.
Families and friends would be shocked at the change, disgusted by the very images they had sought to take, to keep and treasure. These ‘unphotogenic’ people would become the scourge of the captured image, ruining portraits and crowd scenes alike with their deformed, gargoyle-like countenances. I know this story all too well because… I am unphotogenic.
I mean, really. Is it too much to ask for a printed image to accurately represent the face I see in the mirror each morning? OK, I’m no Adonis, that much we’ve identified. But am I truly the shiny-faced balloon man that I see in my new Facebook photos every Sunday morning? I have been told on more than one occasion that I have a nice smile. Were those kind words spoken in truth, or were they really a horrified reaction to the manic cartoon character grin that I seem to consistently sport? I know my eyes point in the same direction in real life, so why can’t they manage it in pictures?
In order that this pain might be minimised in future I hereby present a list of classic errors made by those that would have their image immortalised. Heed my words, and may the secret uggos among you forever remain a secret.
1.Hush your gums. If you aren’t smiling, keep your flippin’ mouth shut. In a photograph no one wants to see any of the following: your tonsils, your epiglottis, your fillings, your chewed gum, the lipstick on your teeth.
2.Try and face front. I have only a passing acquaintance with the back of my head. I would probably be able to pick it out of a police line-up, but I don’t have a collection of photos devoted solely to it. At least, I didn’t, until people started taking photos of me in public. Now I have a huge public collection of pictures of my head from all angles, none of them flattering.
3.Stay still. Some of the most famous images of the 20th century are of bodies in motion, of dancers, sportsmen and soldiers. You are none of these people. Getting photographed will expose your movements as what they really are- a collection of stop-start jerks and flailing limbs. If you are being photographed while dancing, multiply this by a reasonable figure. Say… a million.
4.Time your pose. SmilesmilesmileBLINKsmilesmilesmilesmileRELAXsmilesmile. Guess when the flash went off?
5.Blow your nose. Yet another snap ruined because you’ve got a sugar frosting of ketamine around your nostril. Makes you really wish you hadn’t accepted your mother’s friend request, doesn’t it?
6.Concentrate. Normally it doesn’t take much of a conscious effort to keep you features aligned. Unfortunately, photographs and alcohol go together like… well, like photographs and alcohol. It will take mental fortitude to keep your features from melting like Morph under a hairdryer.
7.If you ain’t got it, fake it. You should have at least one ‘go-to’ pose for when the camera appears. This is your last bastion of control, with which to deflect the harsh light of photo-reality. Chaps, just make a gun with your fingers and point it at the camera. Ladies, put one finger to your lips and look beatifically into the sky. Come on people, work with me here.
8.Know when to quit. Maybe this will be the one. Maybe this will be that new profile picture I’ve been waiting for. Maybe this will be my next Christmas card. Maybe this will be the one my girlfriend likes. Maybe… oh, who am I kidding. Maybe I should just face the other way. Sigh. One more for the back-of-the-head collection.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Annulus
Here's a story for your delectation. It's called 'Annulus' and it's about... actually I have no idea what it's about. It's got a bit of sex in though. Thoughts to verbalslapstick@gmail.com. Enjoy!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZC6fkPHcTeWZDRicnZjMl8xaGtoc2ZoaGM&hl=en
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AZC6fkPHcTeWZDRicnZjMl8xaGtoc2ZoaGM&hl=en
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