Shining Greatly

This morning I asked the I Ching for advice.

This is what it told me:

This is a time of gain, profit and expansion. Have a place to go. Enter the stream of life with a purpose, or embark on a significant enterprise. The source above has descended, and its Tao is shining greatly.

God, revising for his exams in the garden by William Blake

(Also available in paperback)

Auguries of Innocence

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all heaven in a rage.

A dove-house fill'd with doves and pigeons
Shudders hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the state.

A horse misused upon the road
Calls to heaven for human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.

A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
The game-cock clipt and arm'd for fight
Does the rising sun affright.

Every wolf's and lion's howl
Raises from hell a human soul.

The wild deer, wand'ring here and there,
Keeps the human soul from care.
The lamb misus'd breeds public strife,
And yet forgives the butcher's knife.

The bat that flits at close of eve
Has left the brain that won't believe.
The owl that calls upon the night
Speaks the unbeliever's fright.

He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be belov'd by men.
He who the ox to wrath has mov'd
Shall never be by woman lov'd.

The wanton boy that kills the fly
Shall feel the spider's enmity.
He who torments the chafer's sprite
Weaves a bower in endless night.

The caterpillar on the leaf
Repeats to thee thy mother's grief.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the last judgement draweth nigh.

He who shall train the horse to war
Shall never pass the polar bar.
The beggar's dog and widow's cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.

The gnat that sings his summer's song
Poison gets from slander's tongue.
The poison of the snake and newt
Is the sweat of envy's foot.

The poison of the honey bee
Is the artist's jealousy.

The prince's robes and beggar's rags
Are toadstools on the miser's bags.
A truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.

It is right it should be so;
Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.

Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.

The babe is more than swaddling bands;
Every farmer understands.
Every tear from every eye
Becomes a babe in eternity;

This is caught by females bright,
And return'd to its own delight.
The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
Are waves that beat on heaven's shore.

The babe that weeps the rod beneath
Writes revenge in realms of death.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air,
Does to rags the heavens tear.

The soldier, arm'd with sword and gun,
Palsied strikes the summer's sun.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.

One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
Or, if protected from on high,
Does that whole nation sell and buy.

He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.

He who respects the infant's faith
Triumphs over hell and death.
The child's toys and the old man's reasons
Are the fruits of the two seasons.

The questioner, who sits so sly,
Shall never know how to reply.
He who replies to words of doubt
Doth put the light of knowledge out.

The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armour's iron brace.

When gold and gems adorn the plow,
To peaceful arts shall envy bow.
A riddle, or the cricket's cry,
Is to doubt a fit reply.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mile
Make lame philosophy to smile.
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.

If the sun and moon should doubt,
They'd immediately go out.
To be in a passion you good may do,
But no good if a passion is in you.

The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-sheet.

The winner's shout, the loser's curse,
Dance before dead England's hearse.

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
WILLIAM BLAKE

Writing is Difficult

Writing is a bitch...

I've been on the road for a week, doing various kinds of things to earn a living. And I've had fun, and done well. I've been meeting people, talking, discussing problems, analysing businesses, and offering advice.

Now I have to write a bunch of reports, and though I know I can, and I want to, I hate it. It feels like it's going to be a struggle.

When I was six years old, I discovered I could write, and it was the most magical, powerful, and wonderful thing ever. I took to it like a duck to water, and by the age of eight I had my picture in the papers.

Writing, before the stars were torn down

When I was thirteen, I can remember being at home, sitting at my desk, and staring at the wall, and looking at the pen in my hands, and thinking I was sick and tired of being popular and successful.

A lot of things happened when I was thirteeen. Bad things, mostly. Regular readers of Hot Vimto may remember The House on Sandygate Lane. That was where we went to live when I was thirtteen. That's the great, hot, dry solid lump of a story that I set out to share with you last summer, and it's still stuck in my belly, making me vomit, and worse.

I'm going to hand over my voice to Sia now. Bless her, she's messed up and twisted, but she writes great songs. I sing along with her, and I dream that one day she will rescue from a dark, twisted sexual relationship with Amanda Palmer, and we will be free to love and cherish one another.

Until that day comes, we are siamese twins, conjoined at the groin and the liver.

Healing is difficult
Often results in psychosomatic
I admit to enjoying drugs
They get rid of tension, boredom and static.

Hate those adverse side-effects
Forcing the people who love me to scatter
Excuse me for being such a hypocrite
The way I see it really doesn't matter.

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?

To tell you the truth
I can't believe I love you so much
So much in fact that I don't know
Whether to weep or wind my watch
I have a sick sense of humour
It amazes me how points it scores
I'm addicted to vice
My best friends are pushers,
My boyfriends are whores.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Simple to see why I breathe
No one bothers me completely.

Waking up next to you
Your morning breath
Reminds me of Lucy
The flies in the front room
Buzz round my head
And try to seduce me

If I contract illness
The last thing I want
Is to pass it to others
Fucking leaves guilt pangs
When I start forgetting
The names of my lovers

Why do you cock your head
To the side when you look at me?
Why are my skills in bed
More important than sanity?
written and perfomed by
SIA FURLER

Laughter and Love

Laughter and love are everywhere. The cathedrals, built in the ages that loved God, are full of blasphemous grotesques. The mother laughs continually at the child, the lover laughs continually at the lover, the wife at the husband, the friend at the friend.

"The Napoleon of Notting Hill"
GK Chesterton

Jukebox Plays

Jukebox plays ska
I do nothing
And I don't sleep.
Days of fear
September through New Year.

When I think of my friends
Who are working
I'm afraid to go that way.
Isn't one of them
Loves the thing he does
Every one of them
Wants to get away.

I wish that I had something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.


Jukebox plays Doors
Strange Days and Riders On The Storm
Ray's keyboard and the sound of spray
And a long black car
Comes to drive me away.

When I think of the fate of my heroes
I'm afraid to go that way.
don't want a be a heap
On a bathroom floor
Don't want to burn out or blow away

Just want to find me something that
I could put my heart and soul around.
So I dream of better days
And I slip into a haze
While the jukebox plays.

Song From Under the Floorboards

I saw my friend Amy the other day.
Amy is good with naked women.
We talked about Dostoevsky.

Amy is an artist, but she had never shown me her portfolio before. She is very good at life drawing, and has a real eye for the female form. She had several nude studies on her iPhone, and even on the small screen, the curves of her figures were beautiful and involving.

By coincidence, Amy mentioned that she wanted to read some Dostoevsky, the Russian author I alluded to the other day. I mentioned this book, and the song that Howard Devoto made of it. Devoto restored the original Russian word the translator rendered less poetically; the anonymous narrator addresses the reader from between the floorboards of his apartment.

I am angry, I am ill and I'm as ugly as sin
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it

1982 was a year when I was not good with naked women, and everything in my life felt crooked, rather than curved. "A Song from Under the Floorboards" was an existential crisis you could dance to, with an insistent opening riff that moved harmonically and went nowhere melodically. I was angry, and I felt ill and I felt ugly. These last few months, I have felt it all over again.

This is a song from under the floorboards
This is a song from where the wall is cracked
By force of habit, I am an insect
I have to confess
I'm proud as hell of that fact.

I know the highest and the best
I accord them all due respect
But the brightest jewel inside of me
Glows with pleasure at my own stupidity.

This is a song from under the floorboards ....

I was never stupid at school. Stubborn, yes; lazy, distracted... and afraid to speak out. But I did not manage to be stupid. (Yes, dear reader, I knew too much.) And I knew a good thing when I saw it.
I knew beauty, but it was not the involving kind.

I used to make phantoms I could later chase
Images of all that could be desired
Then I got tired of counting all of these blessings
And then I just got tired

This is a song from under the floorboards ...
MAGAZINE

How

My real self
isn't something I find very easy to fit into
the real world.




"There is a crack
in everything...
That's how
the light gets in."
LEONARD COHEN

Strung out in Heavens High

This blog post is late, just like a lot of the others and a lot of stuff in my life (filing my tax return, losing my virginity, etc etc.)

On Monday morning, I read the obituary of J.G. Ballard in the newspaper. Monday evening was the series premiere of Ashes to Ashes, the Eighties time-travel police drama.

Ashes to Ashes is set in 1982, a time of my life when the black dog of depression had already moved in on me, and I was darkly cynical. I listened to Elvis Costello albums and read Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde, and I knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Ashes to ashes, punk to funky
We know Major Tom's a junkie
Strung out in heavens high
Hitting an all-time low

Punk had been and gone, and the charts were filling up with dross again. 2-Tone let different races mingle, and dance together, but it didn’t stop there being two million unemployed. The New Romantic movement meant that people like Jonathan Ross were allowed to become famous. Bowie was still good for a couple more years, but Roxy Music had deteriorated into some sort of soul band.

The show captured my feelings well. Apart from the Gene Genie and Bolly-Knickers, who are the hero and heroine and therefore have to look good at all times, everyone around them was drifting into an abject state. Not tough, not soft, not principled, not a-moral; just strung out and getting low. The sex was nasty and loveless, the prostitutes were unhappy and not nice to look at, and even the arrival of Princess Margaret and a giant pink penis failed to improve the mood.

JG Ballard was a science fiction writer who wrote about the twentieth century, and the imagined twenty-first, as though he were dissecting a corpse trying to establish how it died. He describes a civilization that’s lost, only we are inside it, and losing ourselves with it right now. I discovered his work when I was sixteen, round about the time my father died, thanks to a friend I used to borrow records from, who lent me this paperback.

Ballard was trained in medicine and for part of his childhood, he and his parents were interned in a prison camp in Shanghai. I had a chronically ill father, and both my parents spoke endlessly about the war, so Ballard’s stories seemed like pointers to my own future, in a world where my father’s visions partially came true, and I was an adult capable of inhabiting this savage, whimsical, collapsing scientific experiment. I would become an illuminated man with “arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown”.

Today (I mean Monday) I remember one scene in particular from ‘The Terminal Beach’. The earth is much hotter, and London has become a tropical rainforest, and the narrator is trying to make himself a home on an abandoned scientific testing station, while grieving the deaths of his wife and son.

One day, he finds some large charts showing mutated chromosomes, and he takes them ‘home’ and hangs them on the walls of his bunker. They are his art, but he doesn’t like the pictures not having any titles, so he begins to make up titles for them. Then, one day, “passing the aircraft dump on one of his forays, he found the half-buried juke box, and tore the list of records from the selection panel, realizing that these were the most appropriate captions.”

“Thus embroidered, the charts took on many layers of associations.”

No Means

"We only become what we are
by the radical and deep-seated refusal
of that which others have made of us."
John-Paul Sartre

Thanks to Howard Rheingold for Twittering this.

Hope

Since I'm finding it so difficult to blog at the moment (in fact, to do any kind of writing) I may as well attempt to write about not being able to write.

1. I'm doing okay. My friend's trial (the weirdest school reunion imaginable) brought up some very unpleasant childhood memories, but it's all for the good.


2. The words "I wish I'd never been born" are less true than they have ever been. (I just haven't stopped saying them.) I might get used to this place, y'know...


3. That dead badger I was complaining about? I don't think it really was a badger. I think I just ate something that disagreed with me. Like... a bath towel. And I didn't chew it properly.
   


4. Everything happened when I was thirteen. I don't mean literally everything, not things like the moon landings or Princess Diana, or Richard Curtis making a good film. But it was a time of teenage weirdness.


5. And I had nobody I could talk to about it.


6. I'm ready to talk now.


7. I'm not really ready to talk, not yet.
   

Poem

We are all imprisoned
In the castle of our skins
And some of us have said
So be it. If I am in jail
My castle shall become my rendezvous.
My courtyard will bloom with hyacinths
and jack-in-the-pulpits.
My moat will not restrict me but will be filled
With dolphins sitting on lily pads
And sea horses ridden by starfish.
Goldfish will make love to Black Mollies
And color my world Black Gold.
The vines entwining my windows will grow butterflies
And yellow jackets will buzz me to sleep.

NIKKI GIOVANNI

Dead Badger Syndrome

So, anyways... I know I told you I was going to feel a lot freer to write and talk about a wide range of things once the court case was over, didn't I?

Well, I'm still borked.

If you need to know more, RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual.)

"People can also be prosecuted for having a dead badger. If you see a dead one, arrange for the local council to collect the carcass and dispose of it. Never try to dispose of a dead badger yourself."

Thanks to the guys at http://www.badgerland.co.uk for their helpful guide to The Protection of Badgers Act 1992.

Happy Birthday Billie Holiday

"If I'm going to sing like someone else,
then I don't need to sing at all."

Billie Holiday, born April 7th, 1915

Spot the Difference

The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that most airport scanners can't tell the difference between Osama bin Laden and Winona Ryder. This is probably important if you're travelling on a plane. I think Osama pays for his own clothes.

The Best of All Possible Worlds

"This world is the best of all possible worlds,
and everything in it is a necessary evil."
[F.H. Bradley]

I was runnin' thru the summer rain,
Trying to catch the evenin' train.
To kill that old familiar pain
Weavin' thru my tangled brain
I tipped my bottle back and
I smacked into a cop I didn't see.

That policeman said "Mister Cool,
If you ain't drunk, then you're a fool"
I said "If that's against the law,
Then tell me why I never saw
A man locked in this jail of yours
Who wasn't just as low down poor as me?"


And that's just when someone turned out the lights
And I wound up in jail to spend the night
And dream of all the wine and lonely girls
In this best of all possible worlds.


Well I woke up next mornin'
Feelin' like my head was gone
And like my thick old tongue was lickin'
Something sick and wrong
I told that man "I'd sell my soul
For something wet and cold as that old cell"

That kindly jailer grinned at me
All eaten up with sympathy
Then poured himself another beer
And came and whispered in my ear
"If booze was just a dime a bottle boy,
You couldn't even buy the smell"

I said "I knew there was something
I liked about this town"
But it takes more than that
To bring me down
Cuz there's still a lot of wine and lonely girls
In this best of all possible worlds.


They finally came and told me
They was gonna set me free
And I'd be leavin' town if I
Knew what was good for me
I said "It's nice to learn that everybody's
So concerned about my health"

I said " I won't be leavin'
No more quicker than I can
'Cause I've enjoyed about
As much of this as I can stand
And I don't need this town of yours
More than I never needed nothin' else"


'Cause there's still a lot of drinks that I ain't drunk
Yes and lots of pretty thoughts that I ain't thunk
And there's still so many lonely, lonely girls
In this best of all possible worlds.

Words and Music by
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON

Weirdest. School. Reunion. Imaginable

This weekend I am in an emotional decompression chamber after a week spent helping two guys I was at school with sue the Catholic Church over allegations of child sex abuse.

I hope I'll be able to write about this at some point. In fact, I hope that I'm going to feel a lot freer to write and talk about a wide range of things, because of what we were able to achieve this week. But first, I have to let the news sink in.

We know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it really happened. Not to me (I just got the standard institutional brutality, lucky me) but to people close to me.

Weirdest school reunion ever, and most muted celebrations imaginable.

In other news: guys who haven't seen me in twenty years tell me that nowadays, I look like Eddie Izzard, or Philip Seymour Hoffman. It could be worse, I suppose. I had better lose some weight, and learn to wear makeup.

Dream Brother

There is a child
Sleeping near his twin
The pictures go wild
In a rush of wind
That dark angel he is shuffling in
Watching over them
With his black feather wings unfurled

The love you lost
With her skin so fair
Is free with the wind
In her butterscotch hair
Her green eyes blew goodbyes
With her head in her hands
And your kiss on the lips of another
Dream Brother,
With your tears
Scattered round the world.

Don't be like the one who made me so old
Don't be like the one
Who left behind his name
'Cause they're waiting for you
Like I waited for mine
And nobody ever came...

I feel afraid
And I call your name
I love your voice
And your dance insane
I hear your words and I know your pain
Your head in your hands
And her kiss on the lips of another
Your eyes to the ground
and the world spinning round forever
Asleep in the sand
With the ocean washing over.

Written and Performed by
JEFF BUCKLEY

Anti-Matter Friday the Thirteenth

Yesterday was Thursday 26th.

Friday 13th + 13 days.

Does that make it double the bad luck?
Or is it the anti-matter Friday 13th that destroys all the bad luck?

Time will only tell.

As Dr John said, "What a long strange trip it's been."

Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day in celebration of women in technology everywhere, named in honour of Ada, who was Babbage’s assistant and the world’s first computer programmer. About six months ago, I signed a pledge to say that I would write a blog today about a woman I admire in technology, and I have chosen to write about Susan Laflin.

I wrote my first programs as a second year undergraduate at Birmingham University, on a mainframe that probably had as much processing power as an iPhone, and cost several million pounds. The alpha geek who taught me was a grey-haired woman. Thanks to her, my stereotype of a ‘geek’ has never been a spotty, inarticulate male. (That’s my stereotype of ‘student’.)

Dr Laflin taught us about pre-tested and post-tested loops, Dijkstra’s theorem, and much else that I can’t remember. She also told wonderful anecdotes that made her seem wiser still, and made the world of computers seem fascinating and rewarding to the enquiring, creative mind.

She told us about the first British mainframe at Manchester University (when the British universities were still ahead of Caltech and MIT) and how they used to debug their programs using the command ‘hoot n’. Your program played a tune as it executed, and if the tune went wonky, you had an idea of whereabouts in your code you needed to look for the bug. That means of course, the code must have been running on a mainframe that executed about four instructions per second!

If you Google the name of this fantastically enthusiastic woman, you will see that she retired in 2000, is a prominent figure in Wargaming, and researches family history. I’m pleased that the stuff about how many children she has, that normally clogs up women’s biographies, is low down in the rankings.

I'm Not Lying (I'm Just Stunnin')

I wanna hold em'
Like they do in Texas Plays
Fold em' let em' hit me
Raise it baby stay with me

(I love it)
Luck and intuition play the cards
With spades to start
And after he's been hooked
I'll play the one that's on his heart

Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(She's got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(She's got to love nobody)

P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face
(Mum mum mum mah)

I wanna roll with him
A hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun
When you're with me (I love it)
Russian Roulette is not
The same without a gun
And baby when it's love

If it's not rough it isn't fun, fun
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got
Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhh, ohh-oh-e-ohh-oh-oh,
I'll get him hot, show him what I've got

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(She's got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
She's got to love nobody)

I won't tell you that I love you
Kiss or hug you
Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin
I'm not lying I'm just stunnin'
With my love-glue-gunning
Just like a chick in the casino
Take your bank before I pay you out
I promise this, promise this
Check this hand cause I'm marvelous

Can't read my,
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(She's got to love nobody)
Can't read my
Can't read my
No he can't read my poker face
(She's got to love nobody)

Written and performed by
LADY GAGA