You Spin Me Right Round

Rear cover art (G, Garbage, 1995)

The final track of the album fades out. The laser assembly returns to its starting position with a whir and the disc slows to a halt. All that remains is the faint hum of the speakers. The disc ejects and you place it back in the case, glancing at the artwork before slotting it back into the rack.

The older generations oft pine for the crackle of vinyl and the large elaborate cover art, and I sympathise as someone who has undergone the rite of digging through parents' vinyl collection. Our attitudes to distribution media are more tied up with memory and nostalgia than any qualitative superiority as some audio enthusiasts are always attempting to prove. Whilst technological progress enables me to carry one and a half thousand songs on my old 8GB iPod Nano, which is a hell of a lot more than the 8 track decks my Dad remembers, my own musical experiences in the 90s bind me to the compact disc.

It's in the Trees, It's Coming!

missingno, bencanfield, 2010

Back in the summer I was engaged for several weeks with a role playing game. Though you don't play as any defined character, Gran Turismo has many of the elements of an RPG - just look at the grinding I had to do to afford an Audi R8. This month, however, I've got back into a proper RPG, one of the most popular of all time - Pokémon. Fittingly, I fell ill by the due date for this post as the last time I played Red/Blue was on a sick day which I spent bringing my Pikachu up to Level 100 in Cerulean Cave, which must have been at least twelve years ago. So aside from illness, why have I spent thirteen hours playing a child's old Gameboy adventure this month while on the cusp of turning twenty-five? And why am I also watching the anime?

Hexadecimal Genome

Eye-Bee-M, Paul Rand, 1981

I mentioned in October that my first computer was an IBM PS/1. In fact, I also had a used Commodore 64 for a few years, though I can't remember which came first; plus, I never really thought of the C64 as a computer. Like a console it plugged into the tv and it had a tape deck which to my young mind was equivalent to a game cartridge but with excruciatingly long loading times.

The interface of the 64 made it difficult for me to accidentally break it - the command for loading a game was written down on a piece of paper, and that was as much as I knew. By comparison, a technician had to be called out at least three times to reinstall Windows 3.1 on the PC. This was the same OS that came with a tutorial for using a mouse, so it was simply a case of double clicking the wrong thing. I used to explore the System and Windows folders looking for interesting hidden stuff (ooh, regedit.exe), but I only remember one particular time now in which I went into the Control Panel and decided to change the theme settings to something more Christmas-y. Unfortunately when it was next booted, Windows failed to load because my Christmas theme exceeded the video card's colour limit. You live, you learn.

Heaven's Night

Silver Falls 19, emperley 3, 2010

Early Friday after midnight I was reminded of the Perseid meteor shower. I spent nearly an hour standing still looking straight up into clear skies. The first I saw flashed across half the sky. I saw perhaps half a dozen. One of the brightest left an afterglow in either the atmosphere or my eye. Stood in the garden without sign of another, I could have been the only one watching.

After a while I couldn't crouch out of the streetlights anymore and lay down on the stairs, like an uncomfortable recliner. I lay there staring through space. I stared through it and at it. I started to move through it. As the stars rolled over I had to call it a night before I fell asleep. The night sky was probably the view our ancestors woke to on first watch. Unobstructed by skyglow, they would have seen the milky way and the enshrined heroes pivot on the celestial sphere.

You could feel the sky.

Alone Again with the Dawn Coming Up

2AM Eternal, Prij, 2008

In the heat there is a light in the North that defies sunset. Airlanes are pink against the blue airglow. That light is the relief from the winter dark that hangs so low overhead for so long. Sure enough it will return again.

Summer gives way to winter, gives way to summer. Our existence disappears in the cycle. Waves breaking on the shore die for more still behind them. The gears of the orrery crush stone. Imagine what it will do to you.

But for now in the blithe dawn chorus, all possibilities remain ahead. If your soul could explode in ecstasy, it would form the ethereal light on my horizon. She is still rising, stealing the stars from the sky.

Fleeting rhodon touch.

Alone in the Town

(Untitled), Prij, 25/12/05

It's happened again. Whenever I've got time off work I quickly slip into nocturnal mode. A while back I slept through three consecutive days of daylight, which is probably why I can't remember how long ago it was. It must have been during Winter, my curtains were never opened.

There's nothing like the solitude of the night. An extended run of quiet hours, you and the words, the music, or the film uninterrupted - a closeness that cannot be achieved in the light and air of the day, but after a while you must come up to breathe. The intimacy of the night can also smother you. The only colour in the dark is the infernal monochrome of the street lamp, like dead stars too weak to shine. It's often during these nights I sit and think, sometimes deliberate.

There is nothing to avoid in the night but sleep, for in my dreams I have fought backwards and see the old faces but speak new words. Accept the past or spend every sleeping moment trying to change it. It was once her face, then another's, and yet more from memory. Did I even know any of them? All I really want is someone else to catch this drift. Otherwise, I might have to consider I'm the only extant.

[224]

Golden Brown (GA-Slag 0)

It's nearly ten years ago that GA received a very special visitor. Chris Eubank came to the school for all of 15 minutes. To this day I wonder if I was daydreaming in English. It was totally surreal. You think he's eccentric on the tv? Try seeing him on stage.

We were all called into the assembly for a special talk about drugs, m'kay? Chris was promoting a hip new website called Dare to be Different or D2BD as per all the promotional material. The excitement builds as he arrives with his entourage and runs up on stage. Imagine if Dali had been recruited to write a public service announcement.

Sunshine of Your Love

I fell with her every rise
Dawn watched over me
I'd love to set eyes on blinding beauty
I'll die long before her

1] PAST.fall(ATELIC).PERFECTIVE.ATELIC-SUBJECTIVE-1p-SINGULAR rise.PRESENT-ACTIVE-PARTICIPLE.GENITIVE.COMITATIVE 3p-NEUTER-SINGULAR-OBLIQUE.GENITIVE
2] Dawn.NEUTER-AGENT watch(TELIC).TELIC-OBJECTIVE-3p-NEUTER-SINGULAR 1p-SINGULAR-OBLIQUE.LATIVE.SUPERLATIVE
3] eye(TELIC).VERBIFY.OPTATIVE.OBJECTIVE-1p-SINGULAR beauty.CONCRETE.PATIENT DUPLICATION.blind.SUBJECTIVE-3p-NEUTER-SINGULAR
4] die(TELIC).SUBJECTIVE-1p-SINGULAR.FUTURE DUPLICATION.long.CONCRETE.SUBJECTIVE-1p-SINGULAR 3p-NEUTER-LOCATIVE.PRECEDE

he.darew.[a]qi.kar rejas.[a]dán.en'ad ha.ne
hág.aṭa wirah.e ma'aw
xokå.je.jih.[a]me ṭiw.en.am ba.bál.a
diwax.[a]ke.z ta.ṭaláw.[a]ke hej'per

Hedarewaqikar rejasadánen'ad hene
Hágaṭa wirahe me'aw
Xokåjejihame ṭiwenam babála
Diwaxaket taṭaláwake hej'per

[Sample now out of date, IPA removed]

Because Maybe

Tucked in bed in my soft lit room
Time slows down.

The little radio on the desk
Quietly plays Wonderwall.

Peacefully drifting off
On a school night.

Memories Are Uncertain Friends...

At the end of June I had almost finished my delivery when the air carried a sharp smell that threw me back a decade. Something about it pulled me back to my first recollectable flight - a night flight to Tenerife, just after I had finished primary school. The poor cabin air always has something about it, so what was unique about the air on that flight?

Ectal 5: Sowing The Seeds of Love

At the start of second year (1999) a new guy, Lee, joined the class from down the coast. The clamour to impress him was embarrassing. I had a good time in 2nd year French with him, but if you want a story that shows how rabid it all was, here's one from Home Ec[onomics].

Ectal 3: Once When I Was Six

I've always been fond of dismantling things to find out how they work. Reassembly didn't always succeed, though construction wasn't a problem (which is a post yet-to-come). Because of my hand at electronics, the Padre let me retune the VCR for Channel 5's launch. Behind the TV, Completely unsupervised. Emboldened by this, I later decided to dismantle an old plug. As a ten year old I was curious as to why there were three pins. Without realising the dangerous path I was on, I inserted the top pin into the socket: Nothing. I then moved onto the two lower pins. One in each hand, oblivious, I inserted the pins into the socket.

I thought the Padre had grabbed me away from what I was doing, but he had left for his night shift. After a minute sitting startled on the floor with my heart racing, aware that no-one else was in the room, I realised the thump on my shoulders was a result of hooking myself into the mains system. I couldn't understand how I hadn't stopped myself from doing something so obviously dangerous - something you think would instantly stand out as a bad idea. Whether my electrocution has anything to do with my off-the-scale skin-conductivity (as confirmed in 3rd year physics) remains a mystery.

[226]

Ectal 2: Clarissa Explains It All

Being the eldest to my 4 years younger brother, I've always wondered what a big sister would be like - mostly because fictional televisual families have at least a sister if not an elder one.

From the forgotten realms of my memory I remembered a girl 4 or 5 years older than me when I was halfway through primary school. She must have been a monitor (that is, a final year pupil who watches over a class during an indoor break because it's raining). For a year or s0 she looked after me until she moved to secondary school. I only saw her twice afterwards.

Early on in her first year she visited the playground during lunch. A seeming tradition since both schools are only a few minutes walk from each other, and I as well as others have done the same. The final time I saw her I was making my way back at the end of lunch, she said hi but I didn't recognise her. What really irritates me is that I can't remember her name, though I'm sure it started with L. Thank you L.

[192]

Like a Glittering Prize, I Saw You Up on a Clear Day

Not The Aforementioned Junction, But There Are Roses

There is a single moment, a scene from eight years ago, which is a metaphor for missed opportunity. Whenever I walk through the junction on B St./R St., I flashback to April 2000. Because I lived a fair distance away, I was picked up from school by my parents. On this day I felt particularly isolated when the car drove through the junction, and looking out the window, I saw her walking down the street 90° in the other direction. I was so close, but she didn't know I was there. I wanted to jump out and walk down the street with her. But the car was in motion, and our paths never quite crossed.

[115]

Roygbiv

Untitled, 2005

Riding up front to the drifting American Dream
In the garden where whitewashed walls and paper bleach vision to a soft yellow glow
Away from the modem, pen in hand, sheets of untouched paper
Afternoons by the window, in earshot of the news from China
April 2001

(Moment of Clarity)

'Twas a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I came home from school to listen to Chris Moyles' show on Radio 1, as always. I turned the radio on, only to be confronted with a contemplative Moyles explaining why there wouldn't be anything to laugh about today (compared to all the other days when starved Africans are no reason to stop having a good time). As I listened to the unscheduled Newsbeat, my eyes widened and I wondered "Shit, has it finally happened?". As I didn't have a TV at the time, I ran into my brother's room and caught my knee on the drawer in my excitement - is "he" on the New World's side? All channels broadcasting breaking news.

Yo Soy Un Hombre Sincero

(Closeup on) Match, Light, and Torch, Prij, 13/05/06

Two years ago (May 14/15th 2004) the "senior prom" up in Glasgow had ended, we were bused back to the school and then off to sleep or continue partaying. Having purchased two fine Bolivar Habana No. 3 cigars at the hotel bar for £6.50 each (where the others went for the cheap cigarette-looking ones), I cut the end off one, took a match, and lit up under a streetlight - unfortunately not in black & white.

Having walked a friend home (but not a female friend, and not her - simply because she didn't go) and discussed my torch-carrying for her, I continued off home, which given where my friend lived, made the journey somewhat longer - so I whistled old tunes, one hand in pocket, and puffed for another half hour - until the bloody thing went out and I'd left my matches with another friend.

I've still got the other No. 3 unsmoked, waiting for a sufficiently celebratory event. And for £6.50 (as well as the fact that I don't know anywhere locally that sells them), I have high standards for said "event". I think getting laid qualifies...

[194]

Getting Older

Just listening to The Clash's 'Remote Control' brings back memories of tieless, aviator, black jacket, suspension-seeking, underground anti-school writing, last-time I saw my long-time fancied, when I was 17, free period, indoor-wall political grafitti, days of the last year of secondary school - even if I did hate it.

An extract from my Holiday Diary, Written in Albufeira, Portugal - 20/07/05