I have been talking to Walter Mackey on gchat a lot lately. He is a very busy person and I really admire his output and the rate of his output. I feel slothful in comparison to him, I must seem slothful in comparison to just about anyone. One evening I asked him 'how do you do it' or something like that. He told me to just write poems and don't take too long about it. I sent him 8 poems within the next half hour and he turned them into an ebook for me w/ a lil illustration on the cover and everything. It's p sweet. Thank you walter!!!

Anyway the ebook is called 'Intense Pica' and you can read it by clicking here.
I guess you should also check out Screaming Seahorse #2 the journal that Walter helps edit. I am in there somewhere.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think.

What is the bare minimum of blogging?

I am a bad blogger. I have developed bad blogging habits. This is my [xth] attempt at resuscitating my blog. It gets more and more difficult because I feel like I need to open each new post with an apology of some sort. Then I set a minimum for the amount of words I should be writing. I can never stick to that either. How have you been? How is your blog going?
It is almost a week since the last 'any persan HALP me'. I had a lot of fun. Did you enjoy it? It is a relief when an event goes off well and I find that I am not at all bad at being a 'social seeming' human. At last weeks event I was the host of 'any persan HALP me' just as with the other events that had passed. By 'host' I mean I attended to the microphone and introduced poets etc. I cringe when I think about my performance as a host because in retrospect I always feel like I am perennially unfunny and I tend to recall things I have said while thinking 'that was so unfunny'. This is probably because I never really prepare what I am about to say or how I introduce people. I simply feel like I can improvise. I don't know why I think I can improvise but this is an attitude I have fostered in myself for years. This is probably the attitude that eventually forced me to drop out of uni. What do you do to stay organised? How do you stay on top of things?

[Paragraph about an employment opportunity I thought would be better to delete for fear of internet savvy employers. It was funny though. And I appeared cautiously, quietly optimistic]

Do you like books? Recently I have started reading the book 'Au Pair' by Willem Frederik Hermans. I thought maybe I would keep track of my thoughts on the book as I read it. Don't get too excited though. Even if I do manage to finish reading it I might just forget to post about it.

 

Thats what the cover looks like. The book is in Dutch, I'm not sure whether it is available in English. So far I would say I am a fifth of the way through it. 

Willem Fredrik Hermans is an important Dutch post-war writer. I have read some other books by him because he is frequently featured on mandatory reading lists for Dutch classes. That is not to say I didn't enjoy them. I think he is generally recognised as being an extremely pessimistic writer. The two other books I have read by him, 'The Darkroom of Damocles' and 'Beyond Sleep', both expressed pretty fatalistic worldviews. Both definitely had an 'effect' on me in as far as a book about a delusional white male WW2 resistance member and a book about a white male geologist with an inferiority complex can have. Between 2006 and 2007 I was definitely 'pessimistic' about [things].

It seems 'Au Pair' comes from a different perspective though. It was published ~6 years before his death, whereas the other two I describe are a part of his earlier work. Au Pair is about a girl named Pauline who is incredibly beautiful, speaks impeccable french and is frequently compared favorably to the Roman goddess Diana. Her one self-perceived flaw is her length. She is 6'3" which in the novel is adorably described in metres as being 1.92m. According to celebheights.com she is approximately as tall as Jeff Winger from Community.

Pauline decides to move to France to pursue an education in art history. To support herself she offers her services as an au pair. She au pairs for one family, who is monstrous, and is frequently found in embarrassing and risque situations. Being very levelheaded and strong she quits almost immediately and soon runs into a man who I have noticed is described to look very much like the author himself does. The man predicts that everything, from now on will go extremely well for her, and that she will be extremely happy and fulfilled in all her pursuits. The prose itself does begin to become more idyllic and positive seeming and it seems like things are looking up for Pauline. That's about as far as I got. Maybe I will include a little summary in my next blog post. I predict

If you have ever expressed a passing interest in Dutch literature then maybe you should pick this book up somewhere and we can read it together. No spoilerz please n_n.

Let's talk about albums I liked this year pt 1

Let's talk about albums I liked this year. I've tried the list thing before but it has never worked out for me. I feel like people are able to fool themselves too easily into believing they are music critics on the internet. I think I mad a list last year or the year before and i was stunned by just how exasperating putting albums in a listed order can be. And I suppose I am also supposed to tack a blurb under each entry. That's not going to happen. Much like in Han dynasty China, I am going to stick to my social class, honour my elders and not pretend to be a music critic.

The album I am currently listening to while writing this is 'Dreams Come True' by Cant (stylised as CANT). An interesting question to ask yourself is does the band name refer to 'no I can not' or languages like Polari. I can't tell you whether the synth sounds employed on the album are 'warm' or 'cold'. I find I can not make this distinction when listening to a lot of music with prominent synths. Am I autistic? The main members of CANT are Chris Taylor and Twin Shadow. Chris Taylor seems like a really legit person and probably a very 'interesting' musician. I find it easy to listen to albums and really like them without feeling an overwhelming urge to 'get to know' the artist at all. That is not the case with Chris Taylor or Twin Shadow. I feel like these are two very sexual bros. Probably they get very sexual in the studio, like Twin Shadow will not shave his chest hair for a week and Chris Taylor will arrive at the studio in nothing but his boxers and a loose fitting v-neck. I imagine them reflexively making 'bedroom eyes' while recording their vocals, pursing their lips between verses. Two songs I liked from this album are 'The Edge' and 'Rises Silent'.

This was a very sexual album. 2011 seems to have been a good year for sexual albums. 
Here are some other bands that have released very sexual albums that I listened to that I won't necessarily talk about: SBTRKT, Little Dragon, Destroyer, Toro Y Moi, nDeluv
Here are some people that have released decidedly unsexy albums this year: James Blake, Bon Iver, Nicolas Jaar.

Here is the song that caused me to realise I don't know the difference between 'warm' synths and 'cold synths:

I am leaning towards 'cold' synths though, because of the band name.

I feel like I need to mention the mixtape 'House of Balloons' by The Weeknd. This guy has released three mixtapes this year and all of them are solid but House of Balloons stands out for me. I listened to The Weeknd on Joey's recommendation I think. I had disregarded all the hype surrounding this artist. I have to say I feel like a bit of a hipster schmuck but I have to admit that the creative use of  Souxsie & the Banshees and the Beach House samples is what hooked me in the first place. What made me stay was the consistent mood the album was able to create, and also the narrative strength of it. That isn't to say that the lyrics are very good, because they weren't. They were consistent though, and evocative of egotistical 20something brats who smirkingly disregard what is acceptable. This album seemed very 'nocturnal' to me. Their seems to be a strong narrative running throughout the album, a shallow one which can be summarized as 'I am doing so many drugs/fucking so many people, woe is me', but I'd be lying if I said I did not love it. It reminded me of the Brett Easton Ellis novels 'Less Than Zero' and 'The Rules of Attraction', sort of exploitative stories of disaffected youths in sexy situations that slowly devolve into ugly situations. At some points - and I think this is what rounded out the mixtape for me as a 'great work' - there are disarming moments of vulnerability and emotional transparency that reminded me of 'The Catcher in the Rye', please tell me I wasn't the only one that felt this. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that Abel Tesfaye (henceforth know as the black Holden Caulfield) is just a really fucking good singer. What is your favorite song by the Weeknd? I think mine is Rolling Stone which isn't even on this mixtape but w/e u___u

If you liked the song 'What You Need' off of this album I suggest you go listen to the mixtape 'Audiobook' by The Jealous Guys, which is entirely produced by Zodiac who did 'What You Need'.

Here is my favourite musical collaboration of 2011:

'Relax' by Das Racist was also a fucking great album. I think I will talk about that album in part 2. I thought I would discuss some more albums here but I think talking about the weekend has got me thinking about racialised marketing strategies in music. I'm not even sure that is the right phrase. What I'm referring to is how the Weeknd was initially sold in media outlets like p4k, with close emphasis on the bits that go 'o yeah he totally samples beach house and souxsie & the banshees in his music. It sort of feels like they are saying 'Wow checkit this black artist sampling 'white people music' in his songs, isn't that clever?'. Obviously this isn't the first time phrases like these have appeared to describe artist working in genres like hip hop and r&b. The other day my brother sent me this song by an artist named Logic which sampled 'The Book of Right on' by Joanna Newsom. It wasn't a great sample, it could have been employed in a much better way I guess. It was a very unsubtle sample, but it still managed to get me to be like 'wow this guy is sampling Joanna Newsom' which to me seems like the least hip hop musical artist. I admit i am a sucker for it, it's a pretty dumb reflex that reveals how people still choose to see 1 kind of music as inherently 'superior' than another. What do you think?
I remember last year when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released, a number of videos appeared on Youtube detailing what songs were sampled on the album. I think the impression these videos wanted to convey was how 'diverse' the samples on MBDTF was. My first reaction was that it is not at all remarkable that hip hop artist sample songs by e.g. King Crimson or Tears for Fears and that artists have been doing this for years before Kanye.
I guess this is the point at which me not being a music critic becomes evident because I don't really know what to extrapolate from all this. What do you think? Also I've had a lot of Coffee and I am feeling very ADHD right now, which reminds me of another song I really liked this year:

The album Section.80 by Kendrick Lamar was also really good.
My flatmate has bought a bottle of Jameson for tomorrow. It is sitting on the table and it looks really really nice. Have a nice xmas everyone!

In my favourite dream I am PH neutral.

I am currently listening to the band 'Little Dragon'. Their new album seems to be sexy as all hell. It definitely seems like the kind of album I would play when fingerblasting a girl. This reminds me of a quandary that I pose to people when I think conversation is running dry, provided everyone is at least a bit tipsy: Which seems like the more inappropriate phrase; 'fingerblast' or 'fingerbang'? U r the lief of the party bb.

Last Saturday there was a 'pre-xmas' party at Giles' place. I was drinking from a large bottle of cider but I was being v liberal with it and filling up strangers' pints. I was feeling v generous. I think this is what Drake feels like when he spends a lot of money on a vacation for him and his best friends. At the party there were people trying to do kickflips in the kitchen. Around the end of the party everyone seemed to be retreating to their rooms and chilling in there. I was in Giles' room looking at his books because I have told him like ~2-3 times 'I really need to check out yr bookshelf & borrow some books, read sum relevant stuff etc'. Lately I have been looking at my bookshelf and thinking to myself 'damn these are all kids books'. They are not literally kids books, I am just having a hard time getting myself to read anything now I guess. 

I think I initially grabbed 8 books & then decided to narrow it down to 4. I think this is a blog about how I will read these books & how at this moment in my life it seems important to read these books.

1. Shoplifting From American Apparel - Tao Lin

I think I should read this so I can learn to spell the word 'apparel' correctly w/o having to resort to spellcheck. I have read a lot of things by Tao Lin but very few of his actual releases. Does that seem lame to you. I think this would be a good place to start. It's a small book and the cover looks v appealing. I feel like I have read the opening paragraphs several times on the internet. The fonts on the cover are so appealing. The back of the book features what seems to be a quote from the book maybe, there is no way of knowing actually, there are no quotation marks surrounding the sentence which goes as follows: The inmate with a mop held back the inmate without a mop. Think I remember Giles saying this was 'easier to read' than Richard Yates. I don't think I found Richard Yates particularly hard to read, maybe I will breeze right through this. Expectation level: 4/5

2. The Bird Room - Chris Killen

Ben Brooks told me Chris Killen is someone who might be interested in reading at any persan HALP me. I e-mailed him but he never got back to me though. 'Fanfiction about my cat' is probably the only thing I have ever read by him. I actually think I read that once while I was drunk so that doesn't even count really. 'I m the wurst' ~~ a German sausage, hehehe. my first impression of the book is that it seems v sexy, maybe a book I will read w/ Little Dragon in the background. The cover features close up shots of a pretty white brunette trapped in bubbles. One bubble contains a shot of her back, she seems v thin. One bubble contains her left eye, which has been tastefully make-upped. One bubble features her lips etc. The bubbles are all set against a dark wood grain pattern. Does that sound sexy to you? there is a quote on the cover:

'An extremely engaging combo of sex, melancholy and killer one-liners.' ~~Toby Litt

I dunno who is Toby Litt. Expecting a lot of boners while reading this. Expectation level: 4.5/5 

3. Hunger - Knut Hamsun

While I was in Giles' room I think I asked him ~3-4 times what is your favourite book out of all of these. I think he pointed me to a book called 'Mysteries' by Knut Hamsun. In the end I think he told me to read 'Hunger' instead. I don't remember why though. For some reason Giles found it necessary to tell me that Knut Hamsun was really into nazism back in the day. I think I would have found out anyway since I would Wikipedia him five times. Seems like he once wrote an obituary for Hitler, but he also won the Nobel Prize in 1920, not that that is any kind of indicator of anything. Seems weird to me, probably if this dude saw me reading one of his books he would slap it out of my hand or something. At the same time this seems to be one of Giles' favourite writers. Of course I understand being a bigot and a great writer are not mutually exclusive, some would point to Joseph Conrad and argue the very same. It is also v much possible that I am blowing up a comparatively meaningless deet from his life, I only really skim read this bro's Wiki. Someone holla at me if I am totally approaching this incorrectly. 

I think this is the book I am most exicted about reading, I predict it will be emotionally draining and will lead to me questioning lots of things. I am excited about finishing this book and then writing a post about what I thought of it. Expectation level: 6/5

4. Here They Come - Yannick Murphy

I don't remember anything abt this book or why I thought it was a good idea for me to read it. On the cover is the upper body of a horse silhouetted against a duotone skyline. I would read the blurb on the back but that is a habit I am trying to unlearn so as to avoid mad spoilers. Blurbs are usually dumb and never do a novel justice. When buying a new book I think you should judge off of the recommendations of a friend what you should get. Forgoing that just judge from the cover of a book. Don't read the blurb, that is just a waste of time. Damn I read the blurb but whatever, I am none the wiser. Except now I know that the author is female. Somehow I thought Yannick was a guy''s name. What language is that name from?

There are some pretty serious plaudits from Frank McCourt on the cover, thats good. I think I read Angela's Ashes at 14 on my mother's recommendation. I remember there being a lot of masturbation in it. Possibly my mum's way of saying exploring teenage auto-eroticism is totes fiiiine. Another book my mum recommended I should read around this time: Memoirs of a Geisha. Possibly my mum's way of saying growing up to want to wear elaborate dresses & lots of make-up is totes fiiiine. Thx mum <3. Damn maybe I should save some of this material for another blog post. Expectation level ?/5

Think I m gonna get settled and do some reading now. Think I will start with Tao Lin because it is the shortest and maybe I will be able to finish it tonight. Depending on how well I am able to concentrate on reading it I might stop halfway through and read Hunger. There is something v alluring about it. Wish me luck guys!

Some films I've watched.

God, how do I even do this blog shit? I woke up at ~5am today after tryna get to bed at 1.30. I am really losing my edge. Feeling weirded out most of the time. Guys, just try to sleep right and eat right and you will be a better person. I'm in some sort of half-conscious state and I realise I am very aware of my spelling here. I'm typing a lot more slowly and I am slightly more deliberate about what I type. I'm listening to a mixtape released by bay area rapper Droop-E called Black Diamond Life (stylised as BLVCK DIAMOND LIFE I think). It's really drowsy rap that samples Sade liberally. It also includes this track:

I am listening to this right now and it really just sounds like a string of non sequiturs to me. Feeling like a pretty numb/miserable human beings. Lately I have been staying awake very very late into the night basically doing nothing. I have been playing some Oblivion on my laptop, pretending it is Skyrim. It sucks a lot though, it crashes a lot too, never had either of those problem with Sonic the hedgehog. I've also been watching a lot of films so I guess I'm gonna tell you a little about that. Actually naw, since I mentioned Skyrim I feel like I just have to add this, building on the invective of my last post. Redguards mane. For those who are unfamiliar, the Elder Scrolls series of games has always included a playable race of characters called Redguards and they are probably the most transparently racist concepts I have ever seen in mainstream videogames. Basically the Redguard is a black guy, I guess I should clarify, the games allow you to play 3 flavours of white people, Lizard people, Cat people, High Elves (white ppl elves), Dark Elves (black ppl elves) and Wood elves (??? elves), and a race of actual black people (Redguards). 
I guess it is not an unfamiliar concept in science fiction and fantasy stuff to include a race of 'aliens' or antropomorphised animals to stand in for 'every oppressed race or culture ever' but the Elder Scrolls goes the extra mile by actually including black people.


The Redguards hail from the province of Hammerfell in western Tamriel. They are noted for their great strength, agility, and physical hardiness, and are very adept at surviving in hot, dry conditions. They possess dark skin, ranging from light brown to nearly black in hue, often with a distinct reddish tint.^{[38] ~ Wikipedia}


Oh yeah, so you've fired up Oblivion with the intention of playing as a mage it would be in your own best interest not to be a Redguard. You see their Intelligence score is really shitty so unless you want to suck at casting fireballs all the time you're better off playing as a white dude. If you want to play a warrior character on the other hand you're in luck, grab a sword, the Redguard's Athletics score is THRU THE ROOF. 
Heh aight, I don't really give a shit, just thought this was hilariously transparent. 


In forgoing another 'angry black man' post let's try and turn this into a 'frustrated straight man' post. I watched a film called Humpday yesterday morning, a film directed by Lynn Shelton. It stars Mark Duplass, which caught me by surprise because I didn't recognise his name at first. I know him as 'the dude from The League'. Humpday features the low, low budget and improvised dialogue feel that characterises mumblecore films. I think Lynn Shelton has described herself as being part of the mumblecore movement. Humpday is one of those mumblecore films that show strong generic focus though. There were a lot of moments that I would simply describe as 'comedy moments'. I liked this, I wasn't ready for another feature length about aimless 20somethings who can't speak up.


Humpday is about 2 BFFs reuniting after having been separated for a very long time. They find that their lives have diverged drastically. One is a married house owner, the other fulfills the couchsurfing artist stereotype. They both end up drunkenly daring each other into a gay porno shoot. Neither of them wants to wuss on the dare so it's sort of turns into a gay game of 'chicken'. In the process they are forced to confront some dark truths about themselves.
I thought it was a v funny film. Where a lot of mumblecore films have their 'belly laugh' moments, Humpday had me laughing out loud. I guess it is a film about self-exploration versus being considerate towards the people who put up with you and the very human desire to defy the expectations of others even in ridiculously arbitrary shit like 'can I do a gay porno'. I read it as sort of a commentary on the recent Judd Apatow wave of bromance comedies, taking that 'i luv u bro' *long hug* shit to another level. I guess the mumblecore film 'Baghead' also tried something like that re handicam horror films. Like they seem to be in the middle of making a serious commentary but then back out with a sort of 'j/k' attitude.


The film I watched straight after Humpday was 'Sucker Punch'. That shit was terrible. Watched about half of it and then turned it off, deleted it from my hard drive. Was expecting something like a hyper-hyper sexualised Kill Bill, as if that wasn't sexualised enough. It just ended up seeming really gross & I felt dirty for watching it.


I guess I should finish this now. I've run out of words. Dunno what to say about Sucker Punch except it is bad. The font on the movie poster is also really bad. Here is a redguard wishing you a pleasant evening.

Let me holla at u real quick about this mad racist shit going on across the channel.

I'm so concerned about the world. I am so concerned about the state of our economy. I d/l'd an e-book called 'Freakonomics'. I hope it will help me to understand the 'crisis' that we are facing as 20somethings in the job market. Feeling sorely disappointed that there is no occupy movement in Brighton. I suggest we occupy the Green Door Store. Every day I wake up and use the Guardian app on Facebook to stay 'up to date' on current events around the world. It's tiring but luckily there's a lot of entertainment news to cheer me up. I think the housing market is 'in the toilet'.

'Next stop homeownership! I'm just kidding - the middle class is dying, you'll be renting forever.' ~Alec Baldwin

I'm not sure what this means but it seems foreboding. Lately I have been watching this Vice documentary about the riots in Greece. Shit seems really intense and often 'too real'. If you were a riot police officer defending important public buildings from angry Greeks armed with spears and discuses how would you conduct yourself? What if you sympathised with their cause? Would you truncheon yourself? These spates of violence have led me to do a lot of introspection.

One of the biggest things I fear emerging from a global atmosphere of economic dysfunction is the eventual hatred and political mistrust that has been shown to rise among people in these times. It happened in the run-up to World War II, it happened during a number of significant 'world events' before that as well. I find it hard to understand why racial intolerance is such a 'thing' in the Netherlands. I've lived there for a really long time and it's like for a short period of time between the end of November and the beginning of December everyone just goes 'racism crazy'. Seems like the recession is really hitting the Netherlands hard. What are you putting under the lynching tree this holiday season (the Dutch have lynching trees instead of xmas trees)? Even though I haven't been to the Netherlands in what seems like a really long time let me try and relate to you the custom that is known as 'Sinterklaas'.

Sinterklaas is centred around this dude right here. His name is 'Sinterklaas', sort of like if 'Christmas' was 'Christmasman'. Conflicting origin stories have him either coming from Turkey or Spain. I'm putting my money on Spain though because I have never seen a dude this white claiming to be Turkish. I mean this dude is Dutch as hell, no doubt, he probably has Dutch-Spanish dual citizenship. Around the end of November he shows up on his white horse parading thru the coffeeshop free streets of the Netherlands shaking hands and kissing pregnant women on the tummy. How does he make it to the Netherlands all the way from Spain, you may wonder. Steamboat. A fucking steamship commandeered by his esteemed menservants:

That's right. Mantan, Sleep n' Eat and 'other'. Sinterklaas has a veritable army of these, known as The Black Petes. They're all black and they are all named Pete, or they are named after whatever dominant characteristic they are born with, much like the seven dwarves (ie Lazy Pete, Fat Lip Pete, Huge Dick Pete).  How Sinterklaas came to possess these individuals was never clear to me. Another mystery to me is why Sinterklaas usually arrives so early when the holiday isn't really celebrated until the 5th of December. His horse flies, this I know for a fact. Kids leave out a shoe with a carrot in it before going to bed. The next day the carrot will be gone, and the child's shoe will be filled with various sweets and awesome biscuit-like confectioneries which would be called 'Pepper nuts' if translated roughly. The idea behind this is that Sinterklaas has visited, found favour with your household and has taken your shoe carrots to feed his horse. I wonder if this is still common. Having just written this explanation it kind of seems gross to be eating candy out of a shoe. No doubt there is some sort of sanitised alternative ritual in place these days. 

I think at this point Sinterklaas also leaves presents under your lynching tree, on the condition that you have been well-behaved all year of course. If that were a real criterion I'm sure no child would ever receive a present. 

All the while our Black Pete pals sit around playing dominoes and sipping Kool-Aid. J/k, they are snatching your kids up off the streets. Unlike with xmas where naughtiness nets you a lump of coal, the consequences for being naughty before Sinterklaas are far more real. The Pete's - who have a copy of your passport and a record of all your movements - have license to wrangle you into their large burlap sacks and take you back to Spain with them, where a fate worse than unpaid servitude for life no doubt awaits you.

I think this aspect of the Pete's existence has been softened a little now. Last time I was in the Netherlands these guys would walk around in groups and shower passers-by with the gross cousin of pepper nuts, 'herb nuts'. That's cool I guess. Gone are the bundles of sticks they used to carry with them to lash children and sexually harass white women. It seems like the Dutch have little trouble diluting the traditions that come with Sinterklaas, but when it comes to addressing the whole 'face paint' thing I think they'd rather choose to ignore it for another year. Here's another Pete pic. 

I've found that despite the obvious racially insensitive signifiers these figures seem to posses I also find them strangely endearing. I did smoke a loooooot of weed back then though. Other cool shit related to Sinterklaas:

Giant Chocolate Letters! People claim that eating the first letter of your name makes the chocolate taste even better. I prefer the letter S for 'Satanism' or the Letter U for 'U r all racist scum'.

Marshmallow filled chocolate item called 'Negerzoen', which is translated as 'Nigger kiss'. You can actually get these all year round and have no particular affiliation w/ Sinterklaas.

Speculaas. A gross type of biscuit for poor kids who can't afford their names spelled out in giant chocolate letters.

Chocolate coins! Made to resemble Euros, probably have the same monetary value as Euros.

There's other stuff but I forgot. I really wanted this post to come out as a scathing indictment of this holiday but all it has managed to do is make me nostalgic for Sinterklaas. I really just want to stuff my face with pepper nuts and mouth watermelon as the people around me sing Sinterklaas songs. Fuck... miss u Sinterklaas!

Semi-obligatory post re: books I have read/am reading

One thing I've noticed about writing these blog revival blog posts is that these posts are the first posts I have ever started composing in the actual word processor provided by Blogger. I seem to write and write and hardly edit anything. It's very liberating I guess. Although I never ever used to edit stuff I used to post here, that has more to do with the irrational fear of having to reread long paragraphs of prose I have just written. I notice now that this fear is practically non-existent when rereading poems I have written, possibly because I know at some point I will reread them aloud for people so I have no need to be fearful the first time around. Some economical bio-feedback happening in my brain? Or something pointing towards a deep, immutable fault in the way I think/live?

I am holding the plastic remains of a Kinder egg, squeezing the top off with my thumb and index finger. It makes a really satisfying pop. I think the onomatopoeic equivalent of pop in dutch is 'plop', but as I write this I become more and more unsure. I am beginning to think now that the word 'plop' is the sound that is made when (e.g.) a coin is dropped into a fountain. I have just downed a large, milky tea in what seems like the space of ~2 minutes. It came in a mug the equivalent size of a Venti at Starbucks I think. I'm not sure. It seems like a year since I have been to a Starbucks. Is Starbucks still a 'thing'? Heh, I'm playin, Starbucks is bollocks.

Heh. This is a tweet that showed up on my deck and made me laugh. 

Just a couple weeks ago I received a few books in the post. They included 'The No Hellos Diet' by Sam Pink. I think I bought this book because Giles said he was reading it and then said he liked it and then didn't provide much else about it afterwards. I was also intrigued by the fact that it cost me £6.66 on Amazon. I have found that I often buy books on a 'value-per-page' basis, not consciously though. I will look at the book info on Amazon and find out how many pages it has then look at the price and then decide whether I should buy it or not. It's a twisted way to buy books. My father has always been a man of maniacal thrift and shrewdness, I think I have inherited this thrift, but only in the area of buying books.

I think I overlooked this step when I bought 'The No Hellos Diet'. When it arrived I discovered that it was ~90 pages long. I was momentarily disappointed that I had spent £6.66 on 90 pages, then I caught myself thinking in this fashion and my disappointment shifted towards myself. Surely I have unwittingly adopted the least fashionable attitude towards purchasing books. I felt a sort of anxiety upon realising the book was as short as it was. I began to think 'Oh well it's 90 pages long so I can really finish it whenever I want', which led me to think 'Oh I will never finish it because I will keep thinking I can finish it whenever I want'. I developed a strange sort of guilt that only made me able to read the book in very short bursts. It became the book that I would read during video game loading screens, the book I would most often take to the toilet.

I read almost halfway through the book (after ~a week) when I decided I just need to finish it now. Once I adapted to the pace and bleakly static atmosphere disrupted by bolts of mania I was hypnotised in the same way (e.g.) the elephant man would probably be hypnotised when he looks in the mirror and would look long enough to 'forget' that there is a mirror and he is actually looking at himself. The book is written in the second person, another book I know that is written in the second person is 'If on a winters night a traveller' by Italo Calvino. This is another book that 'I can finish whenever I want'. I think 1 reason why I found it so easy to stop reading 'If on a winters night a traveller' was because the chapters that were written in the second person - describing 'you' whilst getting ready to continue reading the same book - did not seem to describe 'me' at all. It spoke of 'making a large pot of tea' and 'sitting in a beloved armchair' wrapping blankets around you, adjusting the humidifier, putting your calls on hold, playing soothing bossa nova in preparation for reading this book. All these things prompting me to think 'um... gay'. And of course I am not a late 20something in a soul-numbing job in the 'icky' parts of Chicago like the main character of 'The No Hellos Diet', but I find this a lot more relateable. I think any of the 20somethings I know would find this relatable. A tired and defeated 20 something trying to hide away from the continually developing picture of a world that is becoming increasingly hostile in increasingly subtle, unknowable ways. Any foothold in life will do, it seems. In the end it took me ~2 weeks to finish.

Another reason why I decided I should just go ahead and complete 'The No Hellos Diet' was because another book had arrived in the mail: volume 1 of 'The Book of the New Sun' by Gene Wolfe. This is the post in which I talk about books I have read/am reading. Yes I am reading this book. I have never read any sci-fi/fantasy series except for Harry Potter and the Hobbit, after I saw the awesome animated television film 'The Hobbit'. I bought this book back in a time when employment was going steady and I felt like I could buy a couple grams of hash once in a while. At some point I thought something like 'wouldn't it be nice to take a long bong rip and just dissolve into this absorbing, fantastical narrative and just actively escape into a world where dudes wear all-black, swing giant swords, and sleep w/ pointy eared bitches'. Yeah so now this book has arrived and I am probably more sober than I have ever been since I was 15, you'd think I'd have absolutely no interest in some leather codpiece bro flying around on pegasi. Not true, it appears. I am enjoying the hell out of this book and it has only taken me 3 days to get to the midway point, which is the end of book 1. You can probably read about it just about anywhere on the internet. The language of the book seems unique & engaging. By cobbling together a bunch of words from French and old English and just really difficult words a sort of oppressive, labyrinthine atmosphere is created. Also there are no dumb ass 'made up' words at all. Just about every name and object described has an irl origin, I'm learning a lot of neat linguistical shit along the way. 

'Wats up u fuckin android', this is what I want to say to Vicki on Gchat right now. I am listening to this album 'Space Is Only Noise' by Nicolas Jaar. It is reminding me of a band I used to listen to a lot called 'The Books'. I haven't listened to them in ages and I am beginning to think that in my memory these songs seems really really dumb. I might blog about that tomorrow. Or the day after. Or never. I don't know. I feel like signing off with 'okay well suck like a million dicks for me guyzzzzzzz, bye'.

Note: The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe cost me £6.28, it is ~608 pages long, thats like 0.01p per page. YES.