John Walker's Electronic House

Sorry people.

Time appears to be going eighteen times faster than normal at the moment, the incredibly brief moment, and with so much work coming at me from all angles my fingers are worn down to small stumps above the knuckle, meaning I need to wait for them to grow back a bit before writing much here.

If anyone would like to write some essays for me, let me know.

Oh, and I should add: 15.2 this morning, with the scales wavering on 15.1 for a bit.

What a very splendid start to a week.

Of which a part is: 15 stone 4lb. I’ve lost 10lb since records began. Go me! I am more handsome.

My impressively grumpy mood impedes me from posting witty thoughts on underwear juggling or similar. So instead, here’s another chunk from my ‘idea’. Comments welcome. Although I will tell you that you’re stupid and wrong:

I think this worth mentioning at this point. I quickly departed from writing this introduction to visit our friend the toilet, which, like some tired cliché, meant the landline rang. The landline rarely rings, so this almost inevitably means it’s a pre-recorded cold call, shouting at me in a robotic American accent, “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED TO BE FIRED FROM A CANON INTO THE SEA! ALL YOU NEED DO IS” [click]. But also, it could be Chrissy, as she is probably the only person who knows the number, having lived here herself. I wipe and run, grab the phone, and hear a serious, grave voice:

“Is Tim Andrews there?”
“No,” I reply, “I think you must have the wrong number.”
A pause.
“Is this the ministry of defence?”
“No!” I say, delighted. “But good work!”

I’m not sure what I meant by “But good work”. I think I had decided, in those seconds, that he was a spy. It would explain the grave, late-40s voice, serious but with a hint of dangerous excitement. He apologised and hung up.

This story serves to prove the point I was about to write. Thank you providence.

Memories are best-guess stories. They are not honest. Conversations are never remembered, and thus must always be invented, and hence fictionalised. Being based in truth is irrelevant. All conversation in fiction is based in truth, not matter how loosely. To recall memories is to enter a process of fictionalisation, creating a story to link yourself to your past. And that’s ok. It’s not lying – it’s not a deliberate attempt to deceive or rip off. It’s the best that can be done under the circumstances of being alive.

For instance, that phone call. To start with, it was yesterday morning now. Twenty four hours have passed since that paragraph was started, and I return now, the next day, 12.34pm. But also, I don’t remember if the name asked for was Andrews. I know it was Tim, because the person before and after Chrissy who lived in my room in this flat was called Tim, Tim Edwards, and I remember connecting the two. But Andrews is my best guess. I cannot tell the story without a surname, it would be weird. And Andrews sounds like something the spy man might have said. And of course, about his spy voice: It was grave, certainly, but the rest of the description: poetic imagery to conjure my emotional response to the situation, as mild as it was. I wanted to share with you the thoughts that ran through my head, and what better way than to attribute a tone of ‘mischievous spy’ to his voice. It’s fiction. But based in truth.

In tribute to the resignation of Senator John Ashcroft, I think it only appropriate that I dig out an old cut-up of the God-fearing man.

Asscroft

He was a strange man to cut up – he already said the kinds of things you might want to edit someone to be saying for comedy effect. For instance, during the original speech (while Clinton was in power), he states an example of the government’s evil as, “taking money and spending it on drug clinics”.

He’s gone, he’s gone, let’s dance and dance and dance. May he be utterly miserable in all his remaining days.

Spectacularly, in his resignation letter he says,

“the objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.”

Well, that must come as quite a relief to all Americans. Not only is The War Against Terrorism won, but also the lesser spoken of War Against Crime! It must be absolutely splendid in America now.

There are two things I want to write about – one is my thoughts on the wisdom of acting out of an “I don’t know”, and the other is about kicking pants.

No competition on a morning where my head is muddled and my thoughts are distracted.

This is something that when it works, it pains me so much that the glory isn’t shared by another. But at the very same time, it’s such a good thing that no one can ever see it. In fact, common sense would dictate that I just keep it to myself. It would. Were I to ever employ such a thing.

Each evening, or more commonly, early morning, as I get ready for bed, there is a special, secret challenge that awaits my night-time preparations. Before climbing into my improvised pyjamas, it is of course necessary to remove my underwear. Bear with me. Socks first, now pulled so that they are not inside out before throwing them in the washing basket. I never used to do that when my mum did my washing. I’m sorry mum.

(Heh – like my mum would lower herself to using a computer out of choice, let alone read my blog)

And then pants. Stay with it. Try not to create mental images. Once around my right foot, the game begins. The aim is: to kick them up in the air in such a way that they can be caught impressively.

Now, this started off reasonably simply. I would kick them up and catch them, and be pleased with this. But of course, this quickly became too easy. And then, as so often is the case with serious scientific research such as this, serendipity played her part. In order to kick them up in a way that can be caught, some spin has to be applied. Ideally, they should go forwards before spinning up and backwards. It was during one over-eager kick that the pants flew up and over my head, where, on instinct (I think being able to juggle is what causes this instinct, rather than anything more inherent in the animalistic mind of a human) I reached out behind me and caught them. It was spectacular. Crowds should have cheered. And then stopped cheering, because they’d notice that a fat, hairy man was standing naked in his bedroom, holding his pants behind his back, and they were watching, the sick-minded perverts.

So this has become the game. To kick them up, spinning, over my head, and caught with a nonchalent hand behind the back, then tossed into the washing basket. The rule is: you only get one go. No putting the pants back on the foot and trying again, oh no matey. You have to wait until the next night to try again. And the glory, the sheer life-affirming joy, of a neat kick and catch, makes going to bed worthwhile.

A couple of paragraphs from my new project, giving it away, somewhat:

Reading the book was like seeing Swingers for the first time. During my first attempt at university, first year, Film, Radio and TV Studies (it’s ok to laugh), script writing module. Given the task of writing the opening, middle and closing scenes of a film. It’s a clever project, because you can’t help but plan out an entire plot if you’re to render this convincingly. I recall the lecturer now – an older guy, too old for the course he was teaching, fed up and clearly dragging a sleeping pair of legs through the last couple of years before retirement would allow him to live a perpetual life of being about to do those things he’s always wanted to be able to do that he’d do once he’d finally retired. My film idea was not original. It was about a ‘cool’ guy trying to get his ‘average’ guy friend a girlfriend. It was about the lack of communication between the two of them, that despite their friendship Cool Guy would fail to identify how different an approach to relationships Average Guy took. We would identify with Average Guy, because we all recognise ourselves as Average Guy/Girl. /We/ do. Other people, people other than you or me, recognise themselves as Cool Guy/Girl. They get all the attention, and they get all the film and television. This was to be Average Guy/Girl’s film, their moment in the spotlight, a chance to bathe in the melancholy that only you or I understand, and with which Cool Guy/Girl will never connect. The opening scene was a car crash, the two of them exchanging student-written comedy banter as they went through a terrifying moment. It would tell us all about them both, see them both vulnerable, make sure we knew we liked Average Guy, and resigned to accepting Cool Guy. Then the middle scene was Cool Guy taking Average Guy to a bar he thinks ideal for meeting a girl. This fails, and there’s a really good special effect metaphor that no one else has done yet, so I’m keeping it to myself. No, I’ll never write the script. Yes, the world will be starved of my good idea. I am bad. And finally, Average Guy meets a girl he likes, a girl that Cool Guy likes too, but Cool Guy is surprised to like her. And the ending was the ending. And then I watched Swingers.

While Swingers doesn’t exactly mirror the above, it does do pretty much everything I had planned, including using special effect metaphors, and clever-clever movie references. I watched it, and realised that not only was it my idea, but it was much better than my idea, and written much more competently than I would ever manage. I didn’t want to copy it having seen it – I conceded defeat. Well, no longer! Now, I do not care. This book exists to defy such worries. I think we are too worried about being like something that is rare or unique, while quite prepared to allow people to generate genre fiction en mass, without question. People don’t squeal, “This murder mystery novel features a detective and a mysterious death – it’s just like Agatha Christie”, before throwing the novel on a fire. But when something is more specific, less explored, to be similar to it is a crime. Such nonsense must be ignored. This continues to exist. Case dismissed.

This is a book that isn’t worth writing. It reveals nothing other than that which is revealed by being alive. Nothing happens in here that couldn’t happen to anyone. Of course, there are things in here that I would never wish upon anyone, moments of utter terrible tragedy, hideous, murderous pain that should never be suffered by another. But they are. And so they remain ordinary.

Of course, with the passing of Negativeland comes the passing of Big Robot itself.

I was supposed to write something for the last week. I failed. I did it today. Jim, very generously, has added it to the dying beast.

Change The World 6.

There are a few typos, but you can forgive those.

But I think more importantly, Big Robot should be celebrated. Jim’s final post does a good job of that, and is linked here.

A year ago, when it started, saying it would only be there for a year felt safe. It felt distant and therefore it felt comfortable. November’s rush towards us, headlights on full, blinded us with its glare, and seems to have splattered us across the road without fair warning.

I’m honoured to have had a part in it. I’m pleased with In The Eyes as an exploration of short, confused fiction, and I’m more pleased with Change The World, and the couple of pieces of feedback have been incredibly generous and uplifting. But I was lazy, and contributed little. Others were better, stronger, more attractive people, and they contributed much. Chrissy’s poetry was always beyond me, and yet let down trails for me to grasp at, moments to understand, moments of smiling or unease. Tony’s tarot pieces have delighted me, surprising my dislike for the notion of Tarot with subtle journeys of inspiration. Tim’s sketches took me aback, scratched and alive. Hale’s photography bemused and caused gasps. Its evolution over the year has been splendid to be confused by, and a favourite is atop this post. The music has been consistently excellent, all lost from my hard drive in the Hard Drive Fire of 2004, and needing to be replaced. Some can be further appreciated by being bought here. Negativeland has been a fantastic fixture of 2004. I have been doubly blessed by it, getting the fun of the photoshoots, the peculiar invasion of privacy (about which I will write more another time), and then the same pleasure as everyone else when reading the results. I sometimes wonder if it’s possible for people to take it for granted when you aren’t aware of the process Kieron used to create it. It was an astonishing feat of improvisation, imagination, and a clever, adaptable plan. And finally, and most importantly, Jim’s writing. He is a writer who inspires me, despite being a man who is shorter than me. His ability to push his fingers through the scalp, to redress the most real parts of reality in a sinister and breathtaking way, and to invest magic into the inert, has caused me to, quite literally, see things differently. Buildings no longer look the same. That’s kind of amazing.

Bye bye Big Robot. To steal a brilliant comment from Jim’s blog, Rust In Peace.

Negativeland comes to an end.

And knowing you, you probably never read a word of it. Idiot.

Thankfully, it’s all still up on Big Robot. So go there now and read it.

Click on “Gillen” on the left, and start with Episode 0.

Here’s hoping I’m right, eh?

I’m more confident now than I was when I wrote it. Though that didn’t change anything about my anger and regret at the result. It’s hard to know how much of that can be attributed to my falling asleep on the sofa at about 2.30am, and waking up at 7, back twisted into a circus contortionist’s chiropractic session, only to hear the news that the exit polls were dramatically wrong, and Bush was indeed King of The Americas once more, while realising my muscles in my back were not in a very good mood.

But ignoring the imminent end of the world at the hands of a frothing right-wing madman, here’s a more promising thing.

I’ve begun a new project, most likely taking the form of a book. It exists because a number of reasons all collided at once. One of the more interesting ones is an attempt to channel the astonishingly fast and creative kinetic madness that occurs in my brain when I have an anxiety attack. When these occur (infrequently, thankfully, but I do appear to be in a phase just now), my brain works about four times too fast, and the volume of thoughts and ideas is too great, and I end up exploding in one of a number of interesting ways. Tuesday, by deliberately writing down as many of the thoughts as I could, I found them flowing helpfully, even productively, into an idea that makes a lot of sense. It’s something based upon about ninety other things going on at the moment, and I hope will serve to collect them together in a useful way that will mean they begin to know their place. It should be interesting.

I owe updates to the TB archive and Copyright Watch bits. I also intend, as soon as I find the energy, to upload all my writing that has returned to my (dismissed) copyright, so it can be released into the wild. Encourage me, or better yet, write me a nice simple script into which I can dump the text, so that it magically appears on a section of this blog. That would be cool. Someone must know a way I could do that.

Also, I am happy for an undisclosed reason.

Jim and Amanda had a lovely Halloween party Friday night.

Pictures linked above.