1917: Landschap Verdriet [SPOILERS ALERT]

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw Sam Mendes' 1917 at the local flicks, but I'd still like to say a few words about it. It is one of the most powerful pieces of cinema, or even any kind of art, that I've seen. I came out of the cinema feeling sick, I found it that intense.

*I'll just take this moment to say 'watch out!' as there are spoilers from hereon out.*

I went in to the viewing with low expectations, thinking I was going to get a 'Saving Private Ryan, but set in World War One, full of teary-eyed Brexit-embrazened nationalistic sentiment', but I was so wrong. Whereas Saving Private Ryan is a story that follows a group of soldiers, each with distinct roles, as they cross through France in search of one man, punctuated with then state-of-the-art blood and pyrotechnic effects (trying to create a sensational viewing experience that conveyed the horror of war), 1917 is focussed, really, on one person's journey to deliver a message which will save many peoples' lives. There aren't the same group dynamics or character explorations. In that sense, 1917 is a bit more pared down, more sharply focussed. And as for the 'sensational'; yes, there is also gore, but the truly shocking and enduring images were of, for example, the way the bodies of soldiers and horses were decomposing into the sloppy mud and clay of the trenches, conveying a deep sense of how the wider war was creating landschap verdriet ('landscape grief'). I know it's a cliché to say that the film's location is a character in itself, but in this case, it is true that the surroundings did play a big part, creating calm or tension by itself.

I feel that SPR was more trying to be accurate and factual, filming along a route that real soldiers may have taken, whereas 1917 shows, yes, the horrors wrought in war, but uses the scenes more artfully than authentically, going from those sickeningly grim trenches sluiced with the dead, to farmhouse, to town, to river, to wood, to different trench systems - each chosen more for their emotional weight than historical accuracy. The journey is, if anything, more potent for that. Its other techniques (lighting in particular, especially during the town scene where pallid flickering flares punctuate the midnight blackness) that foster the sense of unending horror, as opposed to the action (firefights, mainly) in SPR.

One thought I had about the 'human war' facet of Mendes' film was how, at the beginning of the film we see dead bodies being reclaimed by the earth, those promising specimens of manhood reduced to barbed wire-based memento mori baubles. Indeed, our main protagonist Schofield is buried in rubble quite early on, but rescued by his pal, Blake. There seems to be a sense of humans and nature being inseparable. They are the killers and the killed, stuck in an inhuman (depending on how you define 'human', I guess...) process. Shortly after escaping the trenches, Scho has to move through a bombed-out town, lit only by the intermittent release of flares, and inconsistent flames. The town doesn't claim him like the rubble did, but it surrounds him closely, jaggedly looming. After an encounter with German soldiers, he runs away and jumps into a river rapid, which made me think there was an element of allegory there. The obvious point is that he's been baptised, and, especially because he threw his rifle away in his haste to evade the enemy, his focus changes from taking life to saving life. Maybe he's Jesus? Then, at the end, when Schofield's finally within reach of stopping this big battle going ahead, the soldiers' dark khaki uniforms stand out like print on a page against the trenches of loose, chalky stone, whiter than ashes, maybe suggesting they've regained their distinct humanity? I know that's a half-baked idea, but it's all I got...

Obviously a lot had been said in the media of Mendes' 'one-shot' look, and his collaboration with Roger Deakins who helped to achieve this. I think this absolutely contributes to the intensity of the film, and why I felt so viscerally affected by it afterwards. I don't want this to sound like a trite comparison, but it reminded me of playing one of my favourite ever games, DOOM. That is a first-person shooter (i.e. you look through the same eyes as the protagonist), and it is renowned not just for its blood 'n' guts, but also its ingenuity in level design. I am going somewhere with this, honestly... Imagine being completely alone in strange worlds, and every action you take leads inexorably to the next - for example, one of DOOM's fave moves is, upon picking up a key, a wall behind you that you thought was solid opening up to reveal monsters. At first, the sound shocks you, and then you start taking damage. You have to be sharp, turn around, and defend yourself - and it is this way in 1917. Especially in the town scene. That phosphorous hanging in the air provides this moment of sickly beauty, and for a moment we can breathe, but we have to move on, and within seconds, shots are raining down, and where is there to run? The sense, in both examples, is 'there is no turning back'. We can't in 1917 because the message needs to be delivered before it's too late. We can't in DOOM, because we simply want our nightmare to end, to find that elusive safety. 1917 really was a great vision, and superbly realised. I know it could never come too close to the real living grief that war is, but I was almost constantly disgusted - that this is what countries and their governments do to humans, put them through this hell that is completely made up by 'others'. Where is there to run? There is no safety from human nature, which, it seems, will always find conflict and inhuman cruelty. And Brexit.

Right. Ramble nearly over. I think I'd give 1917 four stars. It's so challenging and well-executed that I want to give it five, but I think some of the artistic contrivances (with respect to visuals, the inaccuracy of German soldiers' shooting that would cause even James Bond henchpeople to raise an eyebrow, and, y'know, clip sizes in guns (when will film-makers learn?), for example) took me out of things a bit. As I've said in other reviews, I look at things with such an unfairly keen eye sometimes, but, yeah, I think if the film could have been less of a 'gallery', it would have resonated that little bit more, but that's going to be near impossible to do, But hey, I considered five stars, so it's not like it's far off. Praise due to everyone who worked on it, and a million awards.

Since 1917, I've been to see Bad Boys for Life. Was alright.

Pages: Robert Sheppard: one sonnet from 'Breakout' my fir...

Pages: Robert Sheppard: one sonnet from 'Breakout' my fir...: didn’t think it would be like this green murk  slanted light catches the national fish basking just below the surface black length...

Back to Bad. Minton.

I've been back playing badminton now for about two months. Before that, it had been about seven years since I'd played, back in the days of doing my BA at Ole Edge Hill. It was great to get back to playing, like an existential homecoming. Not only is badminton one of the only competitive sports I've ever played with any regularity - and therefore become reasonably good at - but also it used to get me out the house and socialising in a meaningful way, and all these feelings and memories ran back to me, arms open wide. I'm incredibly lucky to have been introduced to the group I'm going to, which itself is lucky that the EU has funded it, and thankful. As the memories mill around my mind like lazy gas molecules, I got to thinking about the badminton-based writing I used to do on this very blog, so went back and had a read.

Faintly amusing I find those posts. Generally they comprise of me evaluating my performance, or moaning about some perceived social injustice wrought against me, alongside thrilling thoughts on Liverpool FC's latest match. I remember how it was, though, going pushing myself as hard as I could for a couple of hours, having plenty of laughs, then walking out into the cold, dark air, feeling also the chill of loneliness as I walked home, past the wooden fencing around the hospital that made a zoetrope of the wall behind, and in through the front door. I'd go from joking and exercising with everybody, to being by myself. Then I'd usually have a bit to eat, a shower, and a blog, and felt purposeful again.

Occasionally I would attempt to uncover - poetics-like - some nugget of wisdom about my badminton practise (how to play better, what makes a good player, etc), and I'm pleased with myself on that front. But anyway, whatever I think of having written it all, it doesn't matter. It's there. The most interesting thing to note was how I used to react to my performance. I'm a lot less celebratory after a win these days, rarely even opting for a fist-pump (does that suggest that there's less to fist-pump about?). I could be very puerile, as I let myself get carried away in the genuine elation, but this had been perceived to be trying to rub it in people's faces, which I don't, and never have, agreed with.

My reactions to losing are pretty similar. I'm still not bothered if I lose games, and still find dropping points with poor play disappointing, i.e. where I know I should've done better. However, I'm nowhere near as aggressive with myself as I used to be (there'd be an inner dialogue going on that would make a telepathic sailor blush), and in general now I look forward to the next shot, rather than dwelling on the one I've missed. Good advice for life, methinks. Indeed, some of these tools help interpersonally, too. There are a few people at the place I go to now that like to laugh at you when you miss a shot. I find this annoying, because I'm a stupid man-child with a hugely over-sensitive disposition, and an unfortunately robust ego, even after all this time and effort. That being said, when people do laugh, I take it on the chin, and by breathing and contextualising it better, the knot of annoyance is gone in a moment. Part of the contextualising can be thinking about how, objectively, a complete air-shot might look funny - like physical comedy, as it were - to others. Also, there's the fact that all you can control is trying to hit that shot, and your reaction. You missed, so what? Try and hit the next one. You can't control how other people take anything, so don't try. Let it be.

Anyway, I didn't expect this all to go on quite so long, and then turn into a weird Buddhist sermon at the end... So goodbye for now! Hope you feel inspired to dust off an old hobby, or even start a new one, after reading this :)

Bye!

Just Duck Breakin'

I fancied 'breaking my duck' for 2020 with a short, banal post, just to ease myself back into the blogging rhythm.

But then I thought better of it. Why not start the new year with a long, banal post?

And we're off!

It's been a decent start to the year to be honest. I wrote a first draft of a children's story (I know, where did that come from? But what can I say? I was walking around a park in Lytham, got that ol' inspired feeling, and acted on it. Any publishers of new writing for children out there - hmu!), have been keeping up to date with my various diaries, am doing a bit of sketch writing with a friend, have submitted a new poem to a local radio culture show... Quite a lot, really. In terms of consumption, too, I'm doing well. I've finished a few books, and seen some films, too. If I continue going like I am, I might find a level of consistent contentedness - could it actually happen? When you consider it, happiness doesn't take all that much - just spending your time in the right way...

I finally got round to reading Eleanor Rees' Blood Child a bit back. After finishing it, the dark character of its (our?) world has stayed with me, and I feel compelled to say a bit about it. I got so deeply slathered in language when reading this, it was wonderful. Like a weatherful walk along a beach, it was full of palpable (and yet also ethereal) experiences; the wind holding you by the shoulders, the rain lashing and prickling your skin, the sensation of sand slipping underfoot, the gulls' cries touching your brain - all rendered in seductively sonic language, and active imagery. Take these few lines from 'A Burial of Sight':

...the flight paths of geese above a city park.

In the night I am with them,

solid wings slapping against air currents,

almost like thoughts...

The cities crouch, and yet loom, as do the shadowy, mythic woods of Grimm-esque tales, where even the still things are alive, and have momentous presence, like in 'Becoming Miniature', where, "...the houses [are] pressed with satellite dishes./ Aerials all point west as if hearing the sea." This is down to keen eyes and ears, and the technical strength and beauty to do life justice. I mean, some of these sentences thrill me with their sonic luxury. How can you not get a kick out of this, from 'Arne's Progress: Cortège', "...he drives over cherry blossoms splattered on tarmac/ while a man at the bus stop scrambles through a sandstorm"? I also enjoyed the thematic tightness of the collection as a whole, the recurrence of natural, earthy lexis, splashes of colour, the way humanity is presented, and the sense of travelling through air and time. Although we have a diversity of poems in terms of length ('A Burial of Sight', 'Blood Child', 'Arne's Progress' - made up of several distinct sections - and 'Blue Black' being the longer works) and form, the collection sits comfortably like a nests in a tree. It's rich poetry, and I thoroughly recommend it.

While reading Blood Child, I also had Robert Sheppard's Micro Event Space on the go (whilst sitting stationary). There was a moment where both texts were talking about gulls, and there was this strange synaptic flash between these two very different books. Sheppard's collection is, I think, more of a menagerie, and there's not a lot (especially not in terms of, say, motifery) to link the collection together, apart from the idea of smallness - but under that banner there is such a range, that everything hardly manages to fit under it. The pieces range in length from twelve lines to ninety-seven, in form from 'Twittersonnets' to Haibun (which is interesting because the only way it fits, for me, into the idea of 'smallness' is in how it uses language, i.e. being small by its conciseness. But, obviously, this could be said of a lot of poetry. In terms of the scene, one could say the poem's about a walk in the park (which is at least partly true), and that's a small thing, but it's actually looked at from so many angles as to make it a Tardis-like 'hugeness contained within a smallness. So, as I say, it's interesting how it strains at the edges of its "small poems about small things" description [in the blurb]), and in content from Roman coins to a car park fire.

I've seen examples of the Twittersonnet before (in 'Twitterodes' from Pages, and in A Translated Man), but they were no less potent here. When reading them, I feel like I'm descending a small diameter helter-skelter (what a belter...). So quick are the line breaks, for me there's a sense of dizzying pace. And it completely works, not just in the pace of reading, but the stresses it provides, y'know, generally the way they say so much, as Sheppard always does, in such a short space. 'higgs boson', as with most of them, I read over and over. I'm a fan of the cheeky "pip," "dip," and "tip" rhyming, and the way 'photons and leptons' are ensmallenised even further as "...the pho[/] and the lep[/] tons..." I know there are constraints at play, and yet the effect they make - just yes! Like with any good fairground ride, I want to go again. I also like the effect he creates in 'Leeds'. The three numbered parts - which themselves reference art - create this pleasing gallery-within-a-gallery feel. Anyway, I could go on about formal inventiveness in Sheppardian work 'til I'm blue in the face, but for me, sometimes you just can't beat a super serving of sibilance, and so I swing your attention 'The Working Week'-wards, to an image that I'd like to think summed up the author as he got to grips with his poetic material, "A sweat-band soaks up/ the effluent of/ his excess labour." But this is just supposed to be a short mulling over, so I'll leave it there. It looks like Micro Event Space is sold out already - hope you got your copy! And if Twittersonnets are your bag, check out these six from Tyneside by Alan Baker - wonderful living nuggets from the north-east.

Fictionly, I'm reading Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got his Gun. I became aware of Trumbo recently when watching the film based on his life, starring Brian Cranston. It was actually pretty good, genuinely compelling, and avoided (too much) of the glossy white-washing that these biopics often lazily pedal. When I read the synopsis, I was fully expecting a 'yeah, America used to be bad, y'know, with the Communist witch-hunts etc, but now that we've venerated one of the victims, we're cool, right? Right?' kind of thing, but it was more rounded than that. Anyway, film aside, I got to researching Trumbo a bit, and the aforementioned book came up in my trawl. It's a powerful book, up there in terms of emotional effect and unswerving craft vision with American Psycho for me (yes, an odd comparison, but it is what it is!). I won't go into it a lot, but I think that the way he unflinchingly explores the life of his deeply disabled protagonist is inspiring, and rekindles in me the desire to follow through with ideas that my internal censor sometimes says 'no, that's too weird for an audience to like'. I mean, really, the ideas are just what we hang our words on. Here, the words and ideas have a singular effect. I feel really close to Joe - the main character - because his mindscape is so well represented, and his motivations and patterns seem genuine. I'm not too much a fan of the lack of punctuation, which makes reading difficult, but this is perhaps a more sympathetic representation of the processes of Joe's mind - not ordered in a standard(ised) way. In this sense, it was the punctuational equivalent of Chuck Palahniuck's Amy Hempel's 'burnt tongues', forcing you to re-read. I'm not sure if that was entirely the intended effect, but it means that you have to be wary of reading too quick, you know, and because you have to slow down, and open your apertures wide, you take the full force of the light within the book. It is almost blinding. If you've got a strong constitution (mentally as well as physically), then I think you should read it, too. Especially if you're of the right, politically. And/or extreme left, I guess. I dunno. Maybe all humanity should read it... People have got to listen at some point, right? RIGHT? Oh, I forgot...

Well, I've prattled long enough, I think. Soon, I'll have a little muse upon some of the films I've been seeing lately, so, if this post hasn't been too much excitement for you, I'll see you then.

Peace, love, and light, amici!

Hoping for a Fringemas Miracle

This is obviously the Fringemas Carol poster... Courtesy of Alt-Space.

Last Friday, I went to see Alt-Space's 'Fringemas Carol', a production made by, and for, the Morecambrian community. What a laugh it was! If you know me at all, you'll know I'm so far up my own arse, that I've can't even laugh at things ironically anymore. So bogged down in pretentious over-analysis am I, that usually I'm unable to appreciate the joke on the end of my face. Not so, however, with this performance, which was delightfully silly, corny, and occasionally crude, given the appropriate gusto by all the actors. It was especially lovely for me to see two close friends - Jim Lupton and Geoffrey North - assume the roles of Benevolent Scrooge and Scrooge, respectively, who clearly enjoyed 'hamming it up', in the very spirit in which Jim and I wrote the first draft.

That draft was a first in another way, too, in the sense that I've never written stuff for others to perform before (not with an actual production in mind, I mean). It was an interesting process, really, from start to finish. There were lots of Morecambrians at the first meeting back in November, and I was anxious about how everyone would get their voices heard. Initially, Jim and me were writing the first scene, but that escalated to the full five scenes. We both found a solid few days together to nail down the plot arcs, dialogue, directions etc. As I've said elsewhere, we collaborated well together on it, both got our own jokes and stuff in, a lot of which remained in the final version. That was another thing quite new to me, the extent to which our draft would be changed - but not in the way a lot of people assumed. Some folks have thought I'd be annoyed/insulted by people "messing" with my words, but a) I'm aware of (not used to, or practised in) the collaborative process of producing (especially scripts. I mean, the logistics of a project can only truly be understood after contact with the event conditions, run-throughs and stuff, and the players have new ideas of their own too, so this medium is almost made to be changed. It's a natural part of the process), and b) my journey through life has ably taught me how egotistical thoughts (i.e. thinking of MY work, and how PERFECT it is) are a way of goading the cosmos into slapping you down into the ground.

Anyway, the changes were genuinely big improvements. One of my memories of the night that will stay with me 'til I get Alzheimer's is how big the smiles and laughter were of the kids in attendance. I know how schmaltzy that sounds, but it was true - those kids really enjoyed being there, and the songs that were added in after our initial draft were a big part of that. But, as I said before, lots stayed in, and it was a new buzz for me to have an audience laugh at things I'd written, and I felt so proud of Jim when people laughed at his jokes, and my other friends, too, because of their vibrant performances. A special mention to Matt Panesh, who put it all together and co-directed with June Metcalfe, all the actors, the costumiers, proppers, and the very public that came out to support us, and added to the ambience with singing and 'oh yes it is-ing'. It was truly a lovely night.

Now, a key change. The very place that has hosted our fair panto is in danger. Because of a lack of funding to cover the basics such as rent, Mr Panesh is being forced to close the whole shebang down. This is a huge shame, as you can see by all the glowing comments in this article. Although life and (mainly) work have prevented me from visiting Alt-Space as much as I would have liked, I still remember my first time there - going to a debating night, where I met friendly new people, and had a fun time irreverently arguing various different cases. Then there was a play reading group, which was another night outside my comfort zone, but it was energising to look at a form I hardly engage with, and actually look at the performance side of things - gives you a fresher outlook on your own writing practice, I reckon.

One of the positives, whatever happens, is that the fantastic Morecambe Fringe Festival can still go ahead (because they can use other venues to host their acts). The problem with that, though, is that the inclusion of local talent and home-grown shows will be much more difficult, because Matt has been using Alt-Space to build up these performers. Watching these local-wrought shows have been amongst my most amazing Morecambe memories over the last couple of years, and being around the buzz of rehearsals, re-writes, and reviewers has been an honour and a pleasure. I hope, therefore, that this is not the end.

Now, another key change - back to near where we were originally BUT NOT QUITE. Next year, if all goes well, I believe there's a proposed rebranding of Alt-Space to the West End Play House, shedding a brighter limelight on local drama talent (though I'm sure that house will still include the wonderful comedy, spoken word etc to which we have become addicted), for which there is a great anticipation. There is a fundraising page up already (clicking on this paragraph will take you there), and their target is £5,000, which should provide a fair bit of breathing space with the landperson well into the new year, and allow Morecambe to continue to have this vital, fertile atmosphere for artists. I think the best thing to do is to give what we can and even if that's nothing monetary, we can raise awareness by sharing the fundraiser link. If the right people see it, and get behind the project, then we should be able to put a significant dent in the rent, as it were.  So please have a look at the fundraiser, please look at the proposals, and please do what you're able - whether that be financially, or spreading the message, or both.

Peace, love, and light, folks :D

Write or wrong, we helped to create the Fringemas panto - Jim on the left, me on the right.

The Best Laid Plans

Ages ago, I had big plans to write a grand 'this week in the arts' post, in which I was going to assume the role of one of my obnoxious Blogtastic characters, and promise a thrilling instalment every week - the joke being that it was a shallow one-off. I was going to put a lot of effort into it - jokes ideas, drafting, and such - and hoped to be proud of it. Alas, as we know, life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, and I'm months down the line with no Blogtastic posts. So I'm going to sit here and write nakedly (no, I won't apologise for that image). It won't be a highly polished piece, but, damnit, I want to share with you as many of the positives as I can remember since I was last around. It has been too long!

Firstly, there has been at least some writing. I had an idea for a new novel while I was on a little break in gorgeous Ribblehead (where, I must brag, I had embarrassingly good weather for the time of year - so my boots got a good pounding), which is loosely to do with the battle between a natural life and the lure of technological advancements - particularly social media. I don't think it's an earth-shattering existential exposé, but the dark comedy of my idea tickled me, and I'm both sad that the idea has been left to go colder, but also hopeful that I get time to go back to it, and rekindle it (along with my last novel in progress, for that matter. And the one before that... [and so on - Ed.]. I've also been writing some non-fiction bits and bats (I did five essays based on 'the five paths to happiness' that we discussed in a talking group I now go to every week. I'll write out these tenets at the end), have carried on with my dream diary and gratitude journal (or gratitude diary and dream journal?), dabbled with a couple of poems (one of which turned out to be a dead-end of inspiration, whilst one I can actually see getting into a finished state with relative ease). What else... I think that's about it, apart from writing letters to my dad, and one more thing, for which I am going to subtly start a new paragraph.

Ribblehead quarry (makes me a Quarryman)

 

That thing is film reviews. In the past three months, I have seen more films at the cinema than I had in the past three years (actually, until recently, I've hardly been watching any films on the telly or anything. It can be surprisingly easy to let things that bring you joy slip from your life). One has been brilliant, one has been a decent effort, one has been pants, and the watching of another one has eluded me so far... But my point is that, as well as re-discovering the joy of movie-going - making plans, seeing it at the height of newness, not being interrupted by adverts, the spectacular big screen and surround-sound, that feeling of leaving the building and looking at nightstruck Morecambe with another world lingering in your senses - I've been writing reviews. Again, I had planned to have them up on Blogtastic sharpish - which hasn't happened - but I hope that mentioning it here will act as a promise to you, dear audience, and will help prompt me to overcome my issues [don't go into them. Please - Ed.] and publish them.

I've been to the theatre a couple of times, too. Way back in August (was it?), I saw a night of Eastern European theatre in Lancaster, which was very powerful. There was a one-person performance of Macbeth - in Slovakian - was, in short, defamiliarizing and refamiliarizing, and had amazing physicality and energy, and was memorable and touched me with its emotional resonance. There was also a Polish multimedia piece centring on gulags, which was dourer, and perhaps more thought provoking in a direct way - especially as it was based on more tangibly real history. I am assured by one of the organisers that it will be back bigger and better next year, so keep your eyes peeled on the Storey Institute's various event regurgitation channels. The second thing I saw was a Lancaster-based production of Wind in the Willows. It wouldn't be my first choice usually, but I went because someone I know was in the cast, and he did a great job in about five different roles (I'd struggle with one! Blimey!). It seems Lancaster Grand Theatre's visions get bigger and bolder, and yet they realise them with aplomb - the limits of the stage are stretched to fit in all the characters and props, and all the singing and dancing is tight and well-realised. Fantastic.

Speaking of screen and stage (look back at the last two paragraphs...), I'm still thankful and excited that all of Lewis' hard work over at LBP Productions has resulted in the wonderful The Way to a Man's Heart - a deliciously dark short film based on a short story I wrote of the same name. Check it out, you won't regret it! I don't think so, anyway... I mean, you might, but [okay, okay, that's enough of that... - Ed.] And as for the stage bit, a good friend of mine in Morecambe - Jim Lupton - and myself worked on a script a month or so ago for a local Christmas panto. It's the folks at Alt-Space that're producing the play, with the help of the West End players. It was a fun writing process - we focused on different elements (such as plot and dialogue) that complimented each other, and also worked together on some of the elements (such as jokes), had lots of laughs between us, and reached a first draft quickly. It was the first time I've worked with Jim on anything other than pub banter haha, and we want more. Fingers crossed we get our wish, and make a big difference with our words in the near future.

Pantomime flier, courtesy of Alt-Space. Come and watch it, if you're free!

 

Next [and hopefully finally... - Ed.] is reading. Did you know, you're doing it right now? I've been doing some, too. I finally got round to reading Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, after many years of wanting to, and a few years of even (sort of) having it in my possession. I'm obviously glad I read it, as to me it's clearly the work of a very sharp mind, and it entertained me. It's not my favourite 'dystopian' novel by quite a way tho (and would remain a way off, I think, even if 'The Book' was taken out of it) - I prefer We (which, I believe, inspired Orwell quite heavily), This Perfect Day (even though that has more of a thriller vibe to it in some ways), and, I dunno, maybe Brave New World too. People had overhyped 1984 for me, and whereas, yes, the things Orwell wrote about were imaginatively prescient, I think Newspeak is the only concrete 'wow' facet for me. All these other works, in my opinion, have more aptly predicted more resonant issues in our society (the way people are tracked in TPD seems more like our mobile phones, and ties in with self-policing in a less obvious way), or put a wilder spin on things, to show us how we are. But anyway, rant over - of course it is a great work, and deserves its accolades as one of the canonical pillars of modern western literature.

Speaking of pillars, deserving of his own paragraph here is Robert Sheppard. His Drayton's Idea sonnet translations - that I have been enjoying immensely on Pages - have come to an end (oh no!), due to Brexit's depressingly slow - and ominous - roll. He has extended the project (oh yay!) using Drayton work from Idea's Mirror, which is a boon to those who lap it up like me. The guy is just unfathomably clever. The concept alone is genius, but to be that erudite, to contain imagery, humour, but also work density into his language as well as he does... It is first of all witty and entertaining, but as valid a political document as you could want also. It amazes and inspires me, and I've not this way about someone's swift, deft, and staminous [are you talking about the quality of having great stamina? Because 'staminous' ain't that... - Ed.] efforts since Tim Allen's 'Not National Poetry Day' project. I would love both of these projects to be published in full. It makes me feel good about life to experience work by people who are so on top of the game - sharp, irreverent, ludic etc - but have all the technical ability you could imagine to back it all up and help it hang together.

I feel like I should give Ian Seed his own paragraph now (it's been a long time coming, to be fair). Sorry, I'm being silly now... Anyway - I read Distances by Ian Seed recently, and enjoyed that a lot. I am not an expert on prose poetry, and couldn't really define it, except that I feel comfortable basking in Seed's living scenes. I think this prose poetry is where action meets an image/scene and produces a sense of being close to a life lesson, or a cosmic message. It's like an aphorism in motion, but when I say that, it falls so short of Seed's wonderfully comic eye (as it were). I mean, he portrays the humour (sort of dark humour, but not dark dark. Maybe shades of grey, like the lack of obvious right and wrong in the world his characters inhabit - there's no clear way, there's just being, and trying, and a sort of resolution in failure) in a situation, in the people's proximity to achieving their intentions, but someone or something falls short. They are like jokes in set-up, too, (like, their framing) so maybe that's where the poetic element comes in, because the way the form and content play is not 'prosaic' - or standardly prosaic, anyway. I have got no idea what I'm saying. Unintentionally. This is not a joke [don't we know it... - Ed.]. Help! Can I just repeat that I really enjoyed Distances? The scenes were very vibrant, and there were many images I can recall even now, but more than this was the breath blown into the players, and I can't rid myself of the 'cosmic cringe' I felt, feeling sorry for these characters and the gaffes they cause/are embroiled in, but knowing that it could not have been elsewise. Oh damnit, I'm rambling again. One of my favourite lines was [bus thing. Loss]. This was from Red Ceilings, and, also from them, I am looking forward to reading my copy of Sheppard's Micro Event Space. He has been, as usual, very generous in publishing related materials on Pages, and in reading them, I have made my appetite keen.

Riiiiiiiiiight.. That's surely more than enough for one post? But, as I said, I'm not going to polish it. This is it. Deal with it. Please.

What are you up to, anyway?

Peace, love, and light :)


Five Paths to Happiness (as they appeared in our group conversation)

1. Be active
2. Keep learning
3. Help others
4. Take notice
5. Connect

Interesting Submission Opportunity

Here is a story from the publishing world, involving dark humour [content note: Nazism] and judgement:

https://morbidbooks.net/feed/2019-09-24-night-of-the-long-noodles-part-1/?mc_cid=9938b9930b&mc_eid=460754b94a

I find anything that has caused debate like this interesting, and can generally see it from more than one side. I do think people should be able to make whatever jokes they like, but I'd like them to be as aware of context as possible, to try and avoid hurting others. However, that hope can only bely the potential to be hurt. Which is natural.

This is, after all, life, which, is currently full of humans. They inevitably make mistakes, but are also capable of such positivity. It's all about controlling what we can in our personal lives - whether you're the one who wants to make a joke, or the one that wants to react to that. Both people can be said to be trying to improve (and impress?) a behavioural community, and, in the case of the 'commenters', they are at least partly trying to improve the 'worldview' as it were.

I think the submission opportunity is, from their point of view, a good move (ideologically, and easy to get publicity for), and I have thought about the implications of sending them something... It's one to mull over...

I couldn't say much more without going into a book-length essay (I've already made this longer than I wanted to!) If I receive a suitable advance, maybe I'll get cracking on that. Anyway, what do you think?