You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
 

- Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

Alice came to a fork in the road.  
"Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
 

- Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The way the coffee cups clink against each other from the vibration of the microwave.

Postsecret.

Roygbiv.

Roy G. Biv is a mnemonic for the sequence of hues in the visible spectrum and in rainbows:

Red  Orange  Yellow  Green  Blue  Indigo  Violet

A rainbow spans a continuous spectrum of colours; and the distinct bands are an artifact of human colour vision. In Roy G. Biv, the colours are arranged in the order of decreasing wavelengths, with red being 650 nm* and violet being about 400 nm. The reverse VIBGYOR is used in many Commonwealth countries.

*A nanometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a metre. The nanometre is often used to express dimensions on the atomic scale: the diameter of a helium atom, for example, is about 0.1 nm, and that of a ribosome is about 20 nm. The nanometre is commonly used to specify the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation near the visible part of the spectrum: visible light, in particular, ranges from 400 to 700 nm.

Comic book writer Geoff Johns** created the idea of an Emotional Spectrum around "Roy G. Biv" for his Green Lantern comic series for DC Comics. Beginning with the central and most powerful colour of green, which is attached to willpower, he devised a sliding scale of emotional control, where the colours at the opposite ends of the spectrum, red (rage) and violet (love) are the most powerful and controlling over their users and their surroundings. Orange becomes the light of avarice (greed), yellow the colour of fear, blue is the light of hope, and indigo the personification of compassion. Each light has its corresponding Lantern Corps and power ring.

** Wiki tells us that Geoff Johns worked on The Flash and Superman.

Roy G. Biv was also a pseudonym for the evil mastermind behind the plot of Sam & Max Season One***.

***Sam & Max was mainly designed and written by a combination of Brendan Q. Ferguson, Steve Purcell and Dave Grossman****.

****Steve Purcell and Dave Grossman both worked at Lucas Arts during their adventure games era and Dave Grossman wrote and programmed The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (together with Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer****)*****. He later co-designed Day of the Tentacle. This is him at Comicon:

Dave Grossman > and/or = Guybrush Threepwood.

****Tim Schafer is best known as the designer - and it seems writer - of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. 

******And so follows some of the classics from the Monkey Island series:

          Guybrush: At least I’ve learnt something from all of this.

Elaine: What’s that?

Guybrush: Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.

Elaine: A what?

Guybrush: I don't know. I have no idea why I said that.

Barkeep: Guybrush? Is that a French name?

Guybrush: No, actually it’s a fictional name.

 [Looking through a keyhole]

           Guybrush Threepwood: I see a diorama of the children of the world living in peace
            and freedom. No, wait. It can't be that. It's just too dark to make out what's in there.

          Guybrush: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Carpenter: A woodchuck would chuck no amount of wood since a woodchuck can’t chuck wood.

Guybrush: But if a woodchuck could chuck and would chuck some amount of wood, 

what amount of wood would a woodchuck chuck?

Carpenter: Even if a woodchuck could chuck wood and even if a woodchuck would

chuck wood, should a woodchuck chuck wood?

Guybrush: A woodchuck should chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, as long as a

woodchuck would chuck wood.

Carpenter: Oh shut up.

Roygbiv is also a song by Boards of Canada on their album Music Has the Right to Children (1998). They're Scottish. Wikipedia says many of the songs on Music Has the Right to Children utilise a number of field recordings******* and intense sound manipulation.

*******Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. Field recording of natural sounds is called phonography. "Field recordings" may also refer to simple monaural or stereo recordings taken of musicians in familiar and casual surroundings.

Roygbiv (more accurately Bocuma / Roygbiv) also has an unofficial video attached to it. 

Disco Pop Onesie Wednesday.

19/07.

I would like to react. But for now I fear I am past that.

A little broken, a little sad. Relieved.

It will only get harder. Won’t it? It will. The emotional unravelling, how easy. How difficult is it to scream, to cry.

Now the awkward aftermath. Will you still need me tomorrow?

I fear the loss of my sanity.
I fear the loss of my faculties.
I fear the loss of my empathy.
I fear the loss of very few.

My headphones are on but I play no music. The white noise fills my ears. 
A certain reassurance, a cotton wool-like numbing.

I fear other people will speak and I will have to listen.
I fear hearing other people.

Stretches of beauty are waning and I can’t allow the chain to break or everything will be static and floating and empty.

I fear my timeline has left me behind.
I fear I have let my timeline leave me.
I fear I lay too much importance to rest in ridiculous things.

I am bored but not disinterested. There are things that will entertain but I am lazy now, I will not search them out. Temperamental but dispassionate, I cry too often only to blink unnervingly at what should frighten me the most.

I fear the itching around my eyes will never go away no matter how many cool fingers I press upon it.
I fear I allow my body to manifest its grief.
I fear I have no grief to compare to others.

I regret nothing but maybe I shouldn’t be here.

Decisions deserve not regret but second thoughts.

Meditations in an Emergency.

Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?

Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.

Why should I share you? Why don’t you get rid of someone else for a change?

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under them, too, don’t I? I’m just like a pile of leaves.

However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh.

My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them still. If only I had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I would stay at home and do something. It’s not that I’m curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it’s my duty to be attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the earth. And lately, so great has their anxiety become, I can spare myself little sleep.
 

Now there is only one man I love to kiss when he is unshaven. Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching. (How discourage her?)
 

St. Serapion, I wrap myself in the robes of your whiteness which is like midnight in Dostoevsky. How am I to become a legend, my dear? I’ve tried love, but that hides you in the bosom of another and I am always springing forth from it like the lotus—the ecstasy of always bursting forth! (but one must not be distracted by it!) or like a hyacinth, “to keep the filth of life away,” yes, there, even in the heart, where the filth is pumped in and slanders and pollutes and determines. I will my will, though I may become famous for a mysterious vacancy in that department, that greenhouse.
 

Destroy yourself, if you don’t know!
 

It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.

“Fanny Brown is run away—scampered off with a Cornet of Horse; I do love that little Minx, & hope She may be happy, tho’ She has vexed me by this Exploit a little too. —Poor silly Cecchina! or F:B: as we used to call her. —I wish She had a good Whipping and 10,000 pounds.” —Mrs. Thrale.

I’ve got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I’ll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don’t want me to go where you go, so I go where you don’t want me to. It’s only afternoon, there’s a lot ahead. There won’t be any mail downstairs. Turning, I spit in the lock and the knob turns. 

Frank O'Hara 

After Mayakovsky.

It's after one. You're probably alone.
All night the moon rings like a telephone
in an empty booth above our separateness.
Now is the hour one answers. I am home.
Hello, my heart, my God, my President,
my darling: I'm alarmed by the alarm
clock's iridescent face, hung like a charm
from darkness's fat ear. This accident
that was my life will have its witnesses:
now, while the world lies wholly motionless
and sorry in a crapulence of stars,
now is the hour one rises to address
the ages and history and the universe:
I swear you'll never see my face again.

Denis Johnson

To Be Continued.

“Ah, Marjorie, you can’t use the grater for that!”
Marjorie, visibly exasperated, sighed more audibly than necessary.
“Then what, Diane? What can I use the grater for?”
“Cheese, Majorie, cheese.”
Her ‘e’s stretched.
“Or a stick of butter perhaps. Yes. A stick of butter.”
Marjorie could not believe.
“You have no imagination, Diane.”
“And you, Marjorie. You have too much.”
Marjorie chose not to reply, and instead let her focus drift to her surroundings, her left hand still with a relatively firm hold on the grater, her right holding the shell that she had been trying to grate. She had wanted to make ‘shellings’, like ‘shillings’, so she could go to the corner shop and try to buy a juicebox and when the assistant would refuse she could say, ‘but I have shellings – but with an accent on the e - real tender!’ and then she would laugh and laugh.
She had had better ideas.
“I want to go to Morocco, Diane. I want to see the people there.”
Marjorie did not let her focus drift from nothing.
“By all means, Marjorie. Just leave the grater.”
Diane was not listening but this was alright, as Marjorie was not speaking to her.
“Or maybe Eastern Europe.”
Marjorie mused, and absent-mindedly went back to scratching the conch shell down the side of the grater that had not the little holes, nor the littler ones, but the three lengthy slicers that she had not found a use for before.
“Mmm, it’s cold there.”
Diane’s back was turned. And she spoke too softly. So Marjorie spoke louder.
“WHAT'S THAT DIANE?”
“It’s cold there.”
Diane enunciated but hardly a fraction louder.
“It’s cold here.”
Diane turned then, to see Marjorie pout, idly dragging her little shell across the metal so that it made a ridiculously useless sound. She wore a light, short-sleeved blouse.
Diane went back to her onions.

I am in the wilderness

You are in the music, 

In the man's car next to me

Somewhere in my sadness,
I know I won't fall apart completely

A little Sade never hurt anybody.

Dogs.

You've got to be crazy, you gotta have a real need
You gotta sleep on your toes, and when you're on the street
You got to be able to pick out the easy meat with your eyes closed
And then moving in silently, down wind and out of sight
You gotta strike when the moment is right, without thinking

And after a while, you can work on points for style
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile
You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to
So that when they turn their backs on you
You'll get the chance to put the knife in

You gotta keep one eye looking over your shoulder
You know, it's going to get harder, and harder and harder as you get older
Yeah, and in the end you'll pack up and fly down south
Hide your head in the sand
Just another sad old man
All alone and dying of cancer

And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown, as you go down all alone
Dragged down by the stone

Gotta admit that I'm a little bit confused
Sometimes it seems to me as if I'm just being used
Gotta stay awake, gotta try and shake off this creeping malaise
If I don't stand my own ground, how can I find my way out of this maze

Deaf, dumb and blind, you just keep on pretending
That everyone's expendable, and no one has a real friend
And it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner
Everything's done under the sun
But you believe at heart everyone's a killer

Who was born in a house full of pain
Who was trained not to spit in the fan
Who was told what to do by the man
Who was broken by trained personnel
Who was fitted with collar and chain
Who was given a pat on the back
Who was breaking away from the pack
Who was only a stranger at home
Who was ground down in the end
Who was found dead on the phone
Who was dragged down by the stone
Who was dragged down by the stone

Friday.

 

"...I realized that the one you were before, had changed into somebody for 

whom I wouldn't mind to put the kettle on"

Song Off #1

 

About Last Night.

Last night the city - the city, the city, monstrous and expansive, old and new and grey-like, not ours of course but you understand - was a wasteland. The streets lay strewn and empty. The one I was on, however, was full of the survivors of some unexplained catastrophe. White-Lies-frontman professed his interest, and perhaps love, for me in letter form and it was announced, without being announced. I caught sight of my reflection in the mirroring glass door near the snack table and realised that, mid-apocalypse, I had had the chance to get a wonderful new hipster haircut, and I wondered briefly why no one had commented. I walked the courtyarded wasteland that we had all taken refuge in, to find White-Lies-frontman and tell him I did not think it could work. I feared that if we started something now there would just be too much pressure with the upcoming struggles we would have to face. I did not tell him this but I did not want him burdened by me, for him to feel the need to protect me, if it came to any life or death situations - which it would - so soon in this 'relationship'. We were chilled though and I petted his grey, pointy-faced horse. Animals were particularly attracted to me and I ended up entwined in and with two long, silken-haired dogs, of which one was a cat. His friends commented and I laughed and took the fact that White-Lies-frontman was travelling in a graffiti-ed minibus with a bunch of 20-something skater bois with grace.

Things happened, and happened, and a lot else happened before this happened but when it did I rushed back into the courtyard to find White-Lies-frontman and I threw my arms around his neck from behind and I gasped out that I had made a mistake I had made a mistake. He held me and we were utterly connected, so much so that it would all be fine. But everything and everyone was moving and leaving because we had to, of course, because they were coming, and so I lost White-Lies-frontman as the pointy-faced horse began to rebel and went for me, chasing me around the courtyard backwards, enlisting the help of another horse friend, now both intent on kicking me with their hindlegs, frantically galloping crazily towards me; ass first, heads neighing, teeth bared and frothing from behind. I watched White-Lies-frontman being herded into his minibus by his friends, but he was waiting for me, he was making them wait, he would come, and I had to get to him, but I couldn't escape the horses, who wanted me dead it was decided. I had to jump and climb on top of a huge, old black tv - at least 2m by 2m - that was piled on top of other salvaged rubbish to get away. From above, I watched the graffiti-ed minibus pull a handbrake turn while blank humans insected around it.

I was outside of the courtyard then on the wide grey street and they were coming, of course they were and we could all feel it. It was my brother (his first appearance), an acquaintance from university, a blank ghostly figure who was feminine in nature and myself who stood staring at each other with horror as well as determination for a few seconds before the electronic band standing on a makeshift stage of black shapes next to us started up the song - the song, oh the prodigal song! - that forced us and let us beautifully sprint flat out down the street, while teachers - past and present as well as Stevie Nicks who was not Stevie Nicks but Orla who used to work at Universal Music, but actually a teacher of mine that I could not recognise - reached their demise in various, torturous ends, personally scripted to suit their fears. I saw these deaths first-hand. Stevie/Orla/Teacher/I was pushed into another, smaller courtyard, only to be confronted with hundreds of students, standing in a certain square-like grid, seemingly larger than her/her/her/me. Alarmed, glancing back to the gate we entered through she/she/she/I saw now only cement. She/she/she/I met our end, cowering, as students, all leering with quiet anticipation, one particularly frightening long-haired brunette, all picked up handfuls of the dark earth around them and started throwing it at her/her/her/my face until her/her/her/my eyesight and lung capacity was completely obscured by the black dirt. 

But I was still running, the pounding beats corresponding to my equally pounding steps. But we were only to be confronted by them - although I still had not seen them - coming around the corner of the massive city intersection. We turned back, found a staircase that led to the roof. A glorious find that my brother had led us to but he was now missing and I had lost the acquaintance, not that I was trying hard to keep her, so I was left with the blank feminine figure. We rushed up the stairs, and a small child halfway-up grabbed and grasped my hand in both of his and murmured prophetic negativity from under his hoodie, staring at me but not at me at all with wavering, large eyes. I listened and then ran, bursting out onto the fresh, clear air of the darkening night. The roof was an outlined rectangle, overlooking the now emptied courtyard and I felt fear for the first time. The roof was broken in parts and damp in others and it was a far way to a/the door on the other side. The child had somehow contacted others and I could tell they were coming. We didn't think, just ran, as lightly as I could, as deftly as I could, across the pockmarked rooftop, anxiety and black torn holes in the fabric of the fiberglass stopping me often. Large men rose from the surrounding roofs, sinister. They did not rush but were languid in their movements, and more frightening because. One to the right of me was deep and dark and was telling me that I will not get out, I will not survive, 'you will not make it, don't be silly girl, you will not make it'. I side-stepped him and a black gash in the roof as he went for me and finally got to the door on the other side. No relief, but then I wasn't expecting it, this was just where I had to go. A man waited for me behind the door and immediately all I knew was that I had to take him. I had to get to White-Lies-frontman, but also I knew he would come for me if he had to and I did not want him to leave where he was, where he was safe. So I picked up a broken piece of wooden scaffolding, I bent into tennis receiving and I mentally aligned, smacking the splintering wood into my left palm, ready to kill this demon with my bare hands.

And then my effing alarm went off.

Never been so bummed.

Never.

01 July 2011.

I just made a cup of Earl Grey at my office and when it was finished I perused it's slightly milky consistency. 

With a flourish I then wastefully took an English Breakfast bag and just dipped it in there. 

Dip dip dip. Dip dip dip. Until it was juuuuuust right.

And while grinning evil-y (a real word) to myself, I got a strong sense of pride and "sticking it to the man".

... I think I'm getting paid too little.       
               
                                                                              



A weekend song: