Cold Earth / Семена Мёртвых

No spare fuel for cremation.

No spare fuel for bulldozers.

Wasteful of manpower to dig pits by hand.

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851, Emanuel Leutze

It is a decade since The Day After Tomorrow was released. Not the exact date (May 28th), since I've remastered the art of missing deadlines and got beaten to the subject. It's not a seminal film, nor ground-breaking in narrative or special effects; it is, however, the last Roland Emmerich film I enjoyed. Emmerich is something of a fetishist for destruction having made many many films about disasters - most famously and well-received Independence Day, and most infamously and less well-received Godzilla. Then there was 2012 for which I presented many criticisms a year and a half ago, primarily that is was built on a non-premise and the idea that it was somehow sci-fi. Emmerich was originally going to step away from the disaster genre but unfortunately went back on his word because he believed it was too good a concept to pass-up. See my criticisms for why I honestly have no idea how those words could reflect what sets '2012' in motion. However, let's get back to discussing The Day After Tomorrow (herein TDAT).

Frigid Spring

El juicio de Paris, Enrique de Simonet, 1904

It's a title that works on so many levels. After writing the longest string of words I've ever put together, well beyond my Buffy retrospective and edging out my criticism of Star Trek Into Damnation, part one of my Scarlett Johansson indulgence left me a bit listless. And more than a little irritated that the review's been on the front page for exactly two months and garnered precisely one view - I feel like Rivers Cuomo after Pinkerton, which I haven't heard, or Bill Murray after The Razor's Edge, which I haven't seen. Er, point made. Having readers might help. All I need is a little discourage, or perhaps as with Donnie Darko over a decade ago I'm waiting for other people to discover it so that I can refresh the tree of smugness with the blood of latecomers. I haven't been as single-minded about a film since I saw Battle Royale - I've got the Under The Skin soundtrack on vinyl, a promo ad cut out of The Guardian I read on the day I saw it, and my DVD pre-order date stamped over a month ago. Despite that, I'm still far more restrained than the individual on IMDB who declared of Ms Johansson that he would happily "drink her bathwater". People like that make fans look like obsessives and ruin my chances of ever having children with her. It's spring after all - a time of fertility and flourishing of the quick.

COMPUTERLIEBE

Know All Men By These Presents, Coles Phillips, c1910

It seems like there should be a morose Morrisey-penned song about a flaming meteor saving us from Valentine's Day. There might well be - I haven't paid any attention to him in years, so I don't know. This isn't supposed to be my critique of Morrisey's latter-day output, opinions, and jack-assery; but consider that a summary. This is about Valentine's Day, OKCupid, and another Valentine's Day on OKCupid. Oh yes, I'm on there - I obliquely mentioned it in 2012. All that stuff I said years ago about throwing darts in lovers' eyes were the over-dramatic ramblings of a nineteen year old. Not that I retract my statements. It was two years ago while I was reading my more popular and less pseudonymous East coast counterpart's blog that I was ensnared by an OKCupid (hereafter OKC) personality test. In order to save the results of my test I had to create an account. Thus began a relatively lame journey. Sorry, that was a spoiler.

I Thought It Was The UK, Or Just Another Country

PART ONE OF A SERIES.

Na Nož, Jaroslav Věšin, 1913

Britain isn't cool you know, it's really not that great / It's not a proper country, doesn't even have a patron saint / It's just an economic union that's past its sell-by date
-Take Down the Union Jack, Billy Bragg, 2002

At the deepest historical time-depths there is a very basic notion of identity between the self-identified civilised peoples and the barbarians. While the concept of being Greek (Hellenes) didn't yet exist, the city states at the base of the Balkan peninsula saw a commonality between themselves but not with others to the uncharted North or in the later conquered territories of Alexander's empire. The genesis of this fraternity also lies in transmission of culture as the Greek alphabet (save for some regional variations) allowed folk culture to be stored. The established alphabet may also have smoothed over the dialects as it only represents the sounds distinguished within a dialect and not the phonlogical distinctions between the dialects. That would not be unlike the unifying force that Hanzi had on the disparate Chinese languages by representing words and not the component sounds of the languages (which are as wildly different though related as French and Romanian). Indeed, language is one of the most prominent pillars of ethnic identity along with religion (historically Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, etc paganism for pre-modern Europe) and, of course, land.

Where Does Time Go?

Part Two of Two.

A Wistful Look, James Carroll Beckwith

He's supposed to be old, like 26.
-The Brain, Brick (2005)

Yes, I did wait a year to use that quote. The previous post tangentially touched on my own pessimistic suspicion that I have missed the metaphorical bus. Like the time I decided to take a real bus home from work four years ago on a torrential day before Christmas - I waited in the rain for twenty minutes (not that it mattered since I had already been in it for four hours at this point) and not a single bus appeared. I was therefore prepared for two to appear at once. It turned out they were cancelled due to the flooding. At other times I instead feel there's enough time to just catch the last one. And yet whenever I take a few moments to just lie in bed and think I glance at the clock to find time is flying and I have somewhere to be - it hardly ever seems to do that illusion where it holds onto a second, but then is there really anything meaningful you could do in a second that would wipe out any death-bed regrets you might have?

Cinnabar / Phthalo Blue

Litmus, magnuscanis, 2009

Just across the river stands the Rosneath transmitter and on clear days the Black Hill transmitter between Glasgow and Edinburgh can be also be discerned. I remember when I first moved into my current house looking out over the river and imagined seeing rolling longwave signals being relayed across the land. That's of course a misconception of how vision works (perpendicular light does not intersect an observer's eye), but it did make me wonder what the world looks like beyond our three-colour perception.

Phonemes Solo

The Railway Crossing, Fernand Léger, 1919

The Car Analogy works with almost anything. Language is a car that gets your idea from A > B. A great ride makes the journey tolerable (as great prose is effortless to read). Abusing the car will break it, as in deprecating words. Recently the reporting of News of the World's phone hacking has relied on repeating the same key words and phrases constantly. We're told that advertisers and individuals distanced themselves from 'toxic' association with the paper - I heard it so many times I felt agitated as if the word itself was so. We were also told the 'vast majority' of journalists did not employ illegal methods in gathering information. The vast majority of times I've HERD or RED 'vast majority' I've unconsciously deleted the word 'vast'.

The Reverse Will

Skrik, Edvard Munch, 1893

About twelve years ago my brother and I got pet goldfish. They died a number of times, probably due to our negligence; but we were unaware as our parents had replaced them, overestimating our attachment to the point of driving up the motorway to the pet shop in Renfrew one morning. To say that we were upset about this would be an outright lie, truth be told I pretty much forgot we had them - the cat was the centre of attention. Pet fish are really an entry level pet, the sort that a child can make a fatal error without having any serious mental scars. Ashes to ashes, flush to flush. Later on my cat disappeared. He was older than me by a few years so it was all but confirmed he went to find a place to die. Still, the ambiguity makes denial easier, and I wasn't as upset as I would in a more clear cut situation - as when my second cat was run over. That was much different because I had her from kittenhood. Animals do have personalities. Despite not witnessing it, her death is quite clear in my mind. That led to an excruciating post in 2005 that I'm not going to link back to.

(Dream A Dream A Trance As You Dream) In Trance As Mission

The Listening Room, René Magritte, 1952

More than a decade ago in a hot and stifling home economics class each pixel in my eye went out one by one until my vision faded, my inner ear lost track of balance, and the last thing I could feel was my head painlessly colliding with the floor tiles. I woke up in bed, got up for breakfast and went about the morning routine for school. Then I woke up again in the recovery position on the classroom floor. As I woke I said to the teacher 'I was dreaming' - What I meant was, I thought collapsing was the dream, and the dream was reality. She figured I had dreamt Scotland won the World Cup. I always found dreams interesting like my own personal bizarre little narrative-defying films, which is why I used to keep a dream journal off and on between 2004 and 2008. A few years ago I read about lucid dreaming but largely forgot about it until seeing Inception. Since the start of this month I've been trying, though to no avail as of writing.

In The Waiting Line

Still Life with a Skull (Vanitas), Philippe de Champaigne, 16xx

I have a very good long term memory. If I say I don't remember it, it's probably because I want to forget it. Despite this, I always feel highly disconnected from the past. My room is littered with little mementos of various places and times because I tend never to return after leaving: I have a safety box-cutter from my ten days working at Amazon, a phonetic alphabet chart for pinning to a monitor from the telephony course I was on in 2007, and I have the old frame labels of my old delivery. Each of those is a concrete object that proves the past happened. I have a much harder time with the future.

A Suicide/The Kiss

I've always been interested in space and astronomy. Unfortunately, the sense of proportion that comes with that is a form of torture. I had what can only be described as an existential crisis at the age of 14, bad enough that the school contacted my parents.

Whilst I may not be as acutely mind-fucked a decade on, I've never actually exited the crisis, just attempted to ignore it. It popped up again in 2006, as a large bulk of posts will testify, and now and then since but the lack of posts mostly hide it. I was thinking a lot, however, and I happened to be reading this article:

A particular way of breaking through the sense of isolation is through touch.

when it struck me like a diamond bullet through the forehead, that I already knew this. Nothing could more be described as transcendent than the random hug the girl in my chemistry class once gave me. It sounds so petty and laughable a saudade, but it just could keep me going. Somewhere out there is a connection to be made.

Art: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (Extract), Georges Seurat, 1884
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Communication Let Me Down

Beginning, Kenneth Noland, 1958

Though I wouldn't consider this blog to be in the same league as Doctorvee's, it seems many bloggers are facing the same issues.

The post rate here and elsewhere is down. In the early days it's probably true the deluge of posts each consisted of 500 words or less. Occasionally I would post some grand interpretation or theory, until gradually great 2000 word essays felt expected. Writing multiple 100 word entries, even if it is a legitimate non-twitter-esque post, feels like cheating . I've tried Twitter and found 140 characters only suited to celebrities talking about a cloud they saw an hour ago, or more interestingly (links to) breaking news.

I Wanted to Rub the Human Face in its Own Vomit

Fall of the Damned into Hell

The de rigueur moral outrage is predictable and contemptible. I ask, why is it we send people to prison? People out there consciously debase justice to revenge. Driven by tabloids with their head-on-pike photoshopped front page graphics. Vanguard of morality, continued on page 3 with tits. The eternal shreiking victims are never able to accept that anyone can reform. Did he paint a picture of the rape scene? They will never accept anything less than the death penalty because they cannot reform themselves. An eye for an eye, and still they'll be calling for a second hanging for a one-man murder.

In Scotland this hysteria typically results in yet another outcry against the 'not proven' verdict. Their motivation for its removal has nothing to do with fixing the legal system, but everything to do with gaining closure - regardless of who it's exacted on. Abandon your pretensions of morality. You're really not much better than they are. In the end, there will only be the guilty verdict.

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Thirty Frames A Second

JB Mason, Self Portrait, c1912

It's been a while since more than two posts were published in a single month, with the exception of the holidays. You may notice the preceding post has origins back in 22/06/05, before this blog actually started. I'm suddenly eager to clear out the drafts sitting in the management screen. The continuing problem being that I can't seem to eke out something publishable. The dullards on the street don't have to worry about editing their thought(s) and putting them onto paper, so to speak. In light of this, I've attached two abortive posts.

The two dreams which I've previously described - Astronomic and Old Bedroom - seem to have been phased out upon mention. Most recently I've repeatedly dreamt of losing a tooth, disturbing me to the point that I had trouble sleeping. A new adaptable classic, Tsunami, has filled some of the void. The cause is always different; but always leads to a scramble up the hill I live on through back gardens and over fences, well ahead of the water. Seems to have been ripped straight from the end of Deep Impact. In fact, I love that scene, and have it on DVD. Which probably proves something about the influence of cinema.

I've Got Plenty of Java and Chesterfield Kings, But I Feel Like Crying. I Wish I Had a Heart of Ice

In the Venusberg, John Collier, 1901

Time was I would get preoccupied trying to recall the rest of a dream from the one segment that popped into my mind in the mornings. It finally prompted me to start writing them down while I could remember them - mostly because some were quite entertaining or deeply fascinating. Then there's the black dogs which sit on my shoulder all day.

I imagine exiles dream of home but wake up with the same feeling. Her face fades under the inertia of time. Just the name is enough to bring the feeling back for a few minutes of rapid eye movement. Eventually, as always, I wake up with that elated feeling in my chest which within seconds veers to obliteration of the soul as reality thumps me square in the heart.

Probably explains why almost all songs are about it. Call me Deacon Blues.

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I Was Your Fortress You Had To Burn

Picasso, self-portrait (Picasso With Cloak), 1901

As I wrote last July, a lot of my dreams are set in places I haven't been for a long time: primary school, secondary school, and my old house. There may be a subconscious reason for that.

I lived in that fairly-large house from 1991 to July 2000: that's from the age of 5 to 14. Physiologically, that a lot of growing-up. But also consider how a person's personality can change. By the time I had moved into the house I currently reside, I was two weeks into third year.

In plain terms, I was never particularly happy in primary school. From Primary 5 onwards I had a good run of teachers - Mrs Cameron, Ms MacKenzie (maiden name for first few months, although I can't remember what it changed to), and Mrs Fortune - and through those improved last three years I started to become less introverted.

The Garden

Hasegawa Tohaku, The Pinewood (Right Screen), 15xx

Unlike last year, there has been no low. The weather has been good and consistent - until, of course, I drafted this. I'm the James Dean of the dole queue and I am perfectly content. Except for this persistent writing-block, which has reduced me to forcing a post a month. For some the year crawls, I almost experienced two Fridays in a row. As the days grow longer, I await summer with excitement.

Niemand Gibt Uns Eine Chance

Automat, Edward Hopper, 1927

It gets dark at 1930. I can't get out of bed until 1300. I can't sleep until 0400. The rain is heavy and constant. The air is warm and stifling. I'm as comfortable as being stuck on a plane again.

The strong winds last night have blown the first dead leaves from the trees that line the streets on this side of town. It's a Thursday and I hate Thursdays. On said day the bins are collected. Every Thursday I walk down the street and immediately know from the multitude of bins that another week has come and gone. It's like having an odometer counting the days of your life, ticking over in the most noticeable but uneventful way. I sit in the dark and listen to the wordless cries drifting through Subterraneans (Low, 1977).

On a different note, anyone else find Anousheh Ansari attractive? I think the pigtails do it for me. That she, like every other woman I've found attractive, is older than me is totally coincidental and in no way reflects any perceived preference on my part.

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Share Bride Failing Star

Nighthawks, Edward Hopper, 1942

Last night the sky was the clearest I've ever seen without a power cut. The faint smudge of the central belt of our galaxy was just perceivable. My gaze was fixed upward, waiting for something to happen. A streak of light 100km above. The trouble with Earthgrazing meteors is that there's no sound. You can't write 'woosh', regardless of whatever noise your mind tries to associate with the spectacle. Shiin is apparently the closest you could get to describing it.

The Push and Shove

Selbstmörder, Édouard Manet, 1877

I can't summon the will to go to college. I went in this afternoon to read the papers (as last Friday), but I didn't go to European Studies, even though I like that class. I'm not going to Psych or Sociology anymore, since I wasn't enjoying those and when you've failed the course, like moi, you can go to whatever classes you want: It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything. At least until June 9th. I should probably use all that free time to write that optimistic series of posts I've been meaning to write for about 3 months - might go some way to explaining why I, and the rest of society, can't be bothered with anything anymore. I'll need to go in tomorrow since my brother doesn't have another exam until Tuesday.

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