Untimely

UNTIMELY #24 – A cat, for once in your life...

2011-10-25T23:19:00.001+01:00

I’m not saying it was a nightmare, but I was definitely asleep. There was a cat, and it was sitting next to me, and I was sitting down, too. We were looking at each other, the cat and I, me and the cat. I mean, I was looking at the cat the way maybe you look at a mailbox. It’s there, you see that it’s there, but at the same time you don’t see it; you don’t really care; it wouldn’t change your life one way or another if it were suddenly to disappear, cease to exist. But the cat was looking hard. I mean hard. And it was giving off a strange energy; it suddenly seemed to awaken from this stupor of indifference and all at once it really, really minded that I was sitting right next to it. Like it found my presence actively offensive. I wasn’t doing anything. Just sitting there. Next to it. But the cat was getting madder and madder. It wasn’t moving yet either, but I could see it in its eyes, could see the anger building and building. And I could see that there was going to be some shit. The cat was kicking off. And so I sat there, watching it.

I was wearing a t-shirt and a black armband about halfway up my forearm. Maybe someone had died, maybe I’d been playing tennis. Maybe I was in a rock band. I have no idea why I was wearing such a thing in such a place.

The cat looked at me and it looked at my arm, bare save for the mysterious armband. Then it straightarmed me, with claws slightly extended, which I think is the cat equivalent of slapping someone around a little bit, just trying to get the feel of the situation and everything. Letting them know you’re upset, but sort of buying some time while you figure out what you’re gonna do. It sort of patted my arm and its claws stuck in the terrycloth of the armband and I thought this was funny but this made the cat really mad. Like even madder. It started swatting me harder and harder but it kept hitting the armband and its claws kept sticking and I just sat there, not moving, keeping my arm frozen immobile stiff. The cat got madder and madder and then it started scratching my arm above the band, and still I didn’t move. Then it started clawing my hands and biting my fingers. I could feel that something was happening to me, but I wouldn’t quite say that it hurt. It was more like a strange sensation, and I just sat there while it went crazy.

When the cat finished and ran off, I stood up, and it was only then that I realized that the warm, wet stickiness between my fingers was my blood. I was dripping bright red hot everywhere and the cuts and scratches and wounds on my hands were really pumping out all over the place. A woman walked past and when she saw my hands and the red all over the ground she started screaming, but I didn’t know what to do. It still didn’t hurt much, but the blood was pooling in my cupped hands and I was making such an awful mess.

I don’t know how it ended, but next thing I remember I was in a basement with low ceilings jousting on a papier-mâché horse.

Untimely #24 - Spider-Man and The Giant Lynx Aerosol Man

2011-10-09T18:56:00.001+01:00

I’m wearing my Spider-Man outfit and I have to fight this giant squid, except my suit’s too small and rides up around my waist so my paunch pokes out and I get a bit of a builder’s bum if I bend down too quickly, but Helena says it’s fine and I’ll defeat the giant squid easily. How? I say. You punch it. She says. Hard. She says. Punch it? I ask. Yeah. She says. In the face. I punch the giant squid hard in the face (it has a face) and it is easily defeated. We celebrate by going and doing a dance in the forest. I hope that we see a bear and then loads of really, really real cartoon bears come from behind the trees and they are limping and they are really annoyed, not because we woke them up but because they can’t dance because of their sore paws. And cause they’re hungry. I give them each a hot dog and this just makes them more cross cause they wanted ice-cream. We run away back to where the giant squid was but now Giant Lynx Aerosol Man is there. Where is his face? I ask. There, underneath his nozzle. Helena says. It’s the Pringles Man’s face. She says. Has he stolen it? I ask. I don’t know. She says. Maybe they share it or maybe they are non-identical twins. I punch him really hard in the face and he starts crying but this is not the same as easily defeating him, so we run away again. It turns out that if we want to escape this bloody honeymoon I’m going to have to make some new wings for the London Olympic Stadium. I am really, really worried about this because I’ve never made new wings before and, although I know the basic physics, I’m not confident that I’ve not just remembered it all back to front and we’ll end up burrowing into the ground rather than taking off into the sky, in which case Giant Aerosol Man will definitely get us. Luckily, the wing problem turns out to be really easily solved cause we find some brand new wings just hanging around the back of our tent and they’re really friendly and even agree to fix themselves onto the stadium for free. We board the stadium and it turns out that inside is our wedding reception, but it is being re-enacted by all the cartoon bears from earlier and it’s like they’re doing it just to take the piss. I start punching them really, really hard in the face but this just makes them turn really, really cross and really, really real and not at all cartoon and then one bites me and then the dream ends.

UNTIMELY holiday!

2011-08-11T23:47:00.003+01:00

So this is a totally belated notice. But better late than. Sam’s on honeymoon, the punkass, and has been for a while. And won’t be back until the end of the month, so the blog’s on a bit of a hiatus...

In the meantime, why not check out our archive?! Remember UNTIMELY #7? Me neither! But I bet it was awesome. Why not check it out? And what about 13? A scorcher! 16? Go on, go crazy...

Untimely #24 - Castrol GTX

2011-07-06T19:52:00.000+01:00

I have just returned home from my place of work, which looks darker than usual. I walked away from a customer while I agreed with them about how they could get better value anywhere but here, went into the toilet, looked at my spare pair of shoes, and entered my front door. The dog had gone out, but my wife was at home. She was relaxing on our sofa, arm draped around a man so much more handsome than me that I felt happy for her.
'Hello. You met someone then?'
'Hello. Yes. This is --. You should move out.'
'That seems fair. How long have you two known each other anyway.'
'We met yesterday. Have you got all your things?'
'You seem nice, sir. It's good to meet you. I'll go stay at work.'
'Ok. You should know I'm pregnant.'
'Since yesterday. Wow.'
'Yes. I can tell. He's so much more exciting than you were, isn't he?'
'Yep... Bye'
I leave the house. The dog is coming home but he crosses the street so he doesn't have to talk to me. The new guy's probably got in with him already. I blame no-one. I'm just lucky to be here.
Yesterday nearly saw the end of me. I'd managed to get home after escaping the FBI in a shootout where I was actually very much the wronged party, and was eager to tell my wife the story of my exciting day, but at the first mention of this she practically exploded. She demanded to know things which I did not understand, then sent me out on my gear-less bicycle to pick up the very specific supplies she needed to complete the piece she was writing. This took several hours, though the sun did not set.
When I returned home, which was now a demountable atop a hillside retreat near a ski lodge/education centre, my legs were buckling under the weight of my wife's shopping. Placing it all on the table, she did not even glance at the haul before going red in the face. I cowered and hid under the table.
'CASTROL GTX!!' she bellowed.
'pardon?'
She grabbed me by the sleeves of my wooly jumper and hauled me upward.
'WHERE THE FUCK IS MY FUCKING CASTROL GTX?'
'But you asked for none.'
'FUCK YOU! GO BACK OUT THERE - no. Wait. Wait outside. Wait outside until it rains, and once it's raining enough, get back on your bike and go to the petrol station on the farthest side of town and get me my fUCKNG CASTROL GTX! AND DON'T YOU DARE USE YOUR FUCKING STUPID ARMS!'
'Ok', said I, and went outside and waited.
It took three days before it rained, but fortunately a real monsoon came eventually. I lost count of the number of cars which actively tried to kill me. I assumed they were all driven by men who my wife knew. Not using my arms was tough, but I only cheated a little. I carried the green plastic bottle with my elbows. I did not tell my wife this.
When I arrived home, I apologised for taking so long, then went to work. I guess it was while I was out cycling around that she met the new guy. I don't blame her. I should've known she'd need lots of engine oil to complete her next piece. I am an idiot. Good for you, the new guy.
She deserves the best. I hope to disappear.

Untimely Stimulus #24

2011-07-06T19:23:00.000+01:00

It's sort of a wedding theme this time around. Last weekend I went to a lovely wedding and had a super time. Next weekend is a stag do that fills me with both trepidation and excitement. the following week my wife has a hen party to attend. Two weeks later, and it's the second wedding for the month of July. And someone I work with has just got engaged! So it's everywhere. Deal with it.
I myself am fortunate to be married already, no longer a part of the games of love. Nonetheless, I constantly have anxiety dreams where my wife is incredibly mean to me in a variety of ways. She is not really mean to me, not like this. She's awesome. I just pretend she's horrible in my dreams. It's sweet really, if you think about it...
Anyway. Yes. This Untimely is dedicated to weddings. And love. And nightmares.

Untimely #23 - Sin City

2011-06-11T11:40:00.001+01:00

Dim Tim 'n' Phil Pills sit in 'Slick Rick's Skin Gym - Strip Clip 'n' Titty Bin'.
Dim Tim chin-chins, swigs his pink fizz.
Phil Pills grins, sinks his gin.
Minty Tits slinks by.
"Fitty McFitty! Wibbly Bits! Giz licks!" shrills Phil.
"Niffy fish whiff." Tim gips.
His chick is Miss Sixty-Six.
Tim sits, his bitch tits slick with prick milk, his itchy dick dripping with piggy jiz.
Tim slips his thin inch in.
Miss Sixty-Six sighs, “Fill it! Fill it! Is it in?”
“It’s in! It’s in!” Tim lisps.
“My clit – flick it.” Miss Sixty-Six hints.
“Frisky, frisky! Kissy-Kissy!” Tim wimps.
Tim is limp.
“Tiny. Brisk.” Miss Sixty-Six hissing grimly.

Chinky Kingpin, Slitty Ming, pimps skinny nymphs.
His vid biz ‘XXX Bint Films’ slings Big Billy’s filth flicks.
“Which vids is in?” Big Billy clicks.
“Kiddy Fiddling in Rhyll? Flid Rimming Six? Thick Lips ‘n’ Big Dicks? Fisting in Windmills? Which is it?” winks Ming.
Big Billy brims, his chin shiny with spit. Flinging his limbs in stinking swirls, tickling his sticky tip with vim, Billy thrills, “I is sick, innit!”

Untimely #23 - Left Field

2011-06-11T00:21:00.009+01:00

The various parts of my head and face which contain hair, are currently at war with each other. The top section, which currently holds the most ground, has been lording it up over the rest for some time now, and it appears they have had enough. Now, they say, they are going to fight back. However, there is no camaraderie to be witnessed here; each faction is out for themselves, looking to stall, trim, or steal from their opponents at every turn. It has started to get ugly.

At three twenty-seven yesterday morning I was awoken by the tiny cries of battle. As I lifted my head, I saw by the light of my thankfully hairless alarm clock that my pillow was littered with the fur of the fallen. Putting my hand to my face, I was horrified to learn that the right side of my beard had been almost completely removed, brutally torn out in great hunks. I turned on the lamp and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I swear to god that the lashes beneath my left eye were smirking. How could this happen? Surely, I thought, it can’t get any worse. And yet it has.

When I awoke later that morning, I realised that the remains of my massacred beard were no longer on my pillow. I had been too drained, both emotionally and physically, to clear it up in the night, so where in the hell had it got to? I had my dreadful answer but a moment later when I looked in the mirror, only to discover that my vision had become murky and lopsided. Squinting with my one good eye, it became evident that the hair from my beard had somehow been grafted onto the lashes beneath my left eye, creating a rugged perm effect, covering the eye itself, and the best part of the face. This is the worst thing to have happened since the great chest hair riots of ’99.

I fear how this will end. The permed left eye has begun talking in street slang, changing the rules of engagement from a gentlemanly battle into those of a turf war. The top section still claims to be the king pin, but the sideburns have begun to whisper of a secret alliance with the mustache. The left side of my face looks like a nightclub carpet, the right resembles a dried up teabag.

I tried to comb some of the hair out of my eye but it kept moving out of the way. I don’t know that I’ll ever leave the house again.

Untimely #23 – Skeezer

2011-06-05T19:02:00.002+01:00

They hear a noise but no one looks up. Not because they didn’t hear it—because like I said they heard it—but because they don’t. They are unflappable. The unflappables. The Unflappables capital u. Sometimes people call them that. OK, no one calls them that, but you could imagine people calling them that. “The Unflappables capital u.” You know? Kind of thing. They’re just used to it, the noise. All noise. Any noise. Any noise, I am not joking. Imagine a bee in your ear singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” at the top of its lungs. Kind of thing. Do you know once I got a fly in my eye and it got so far up there it only came out the next day? Truth. OK, maybe it was a gnat. But it was very painful. I slept with it in there, because I had to, because I was very tired, and so I tried not to touch it and in the morning I had actually forgotten about it. And I showered and everything and got on the bus and read my magazine and went in to work and then about two hours later I scratched my eye, because I had an itch, and holy hell did it hurt! I must have dislodged the gnat or the fly or whatever it was but it felt like a helicopter in there. And I started crying, uncontrollably, minus the sobbing and all of that. Just the tears. But floods and floods. Like my shirt was getting wet kind of floods. And Gary—he sits across me—he looked up and he’s like Bill, what the hell is wrong with you? Because of course what he meant was like omfg are you OK? But with Gary it always comes out like he’s gonna kick your ass. And I guess a lot of the time he is. Maybe half the time. But then for whatever reason he doesn’t, maybe ’cause he doesn’t want to go back to jail. Anyway, so he doesn’t kick my ass but I can tell he’s totally skeezing out because my nose has started running now, because they’re connected, all the pipes in your head, and so my shirt is wet and I’ve got snot dripping onto my lip but I am really and truly paralyzed it hurts so much. OK I’m not actually paralyzed but I just completely and totally forget where I am such is the intensity of the pain in my eyeball. Because it is a pain in my eyeball, seriously in it, not like near it or next to it or by it or on the side of it. It is my actual physical eyeball and I am in so many kinds of pain and I’m blinking like crazy almost like a reflex, like I can’t control it, and I’m freaking out like maybe I’m going to have to go to the hospital or something and then all of a sudden the pain passes like God plucks me from the sea where I’m drowning because I can’t swim and the instant His hand touches me the water clears from my lungs and I can breathe again. Like that, but I mean like less of a fairy and stuff ’cause I don’t even really believe in God or whatever. So then I feel something in the corner of my eye which is your canthus in case you didn’t know, the places where your boogers collect in the night if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t really wash your face before bed because you’re not a fairy or like if you’re a child and just dirty. I’ve never quite figured out if it’s something your eyes make like snot out of your eyelids or if it kind of drips out your nose and up and around but either way it’s pretty gross. But I guess it’s grosser if you snot out your eyes. No wait, maybe it’s grosser if your snot goes up and around the side of your nose and into your eyes. Either way it’s pretty gross and I haven’t had boogers in my eyes since I was like four I’m just saying. So I feel something in my canthus and instinctively I just reach up and touch it and it comes away on my finger and I look down and it’s this huge fucking gnat and it’s still alive and it starts flapping it’s wings all feebly and then I think, you poor silly thing, you were probably on your way to your family, maybe bringing back the food you had scavenged in a flower or a dead squirrel or something (fucking gross! That fucker was in my eye!) and all of a sudden you took a wrong turn and you wound up in my eye, but you didn’t die, you hung in there, you tried to survive as you slid back and forth across my eyeball and you nearly suffocated and you were too tired to fight it anymore and then miraculously just as you were about to go under for the last time the hand of God plucked you from the deeps and the instant His hand touches you (hey hang on a minute!) OK well whatever this fucking poor lost gnat spent the whole night in my eye and nearly died and I looked at it and all of these thoughts that took like twenty seconds to explain flashed before my eyes in like a quarter of a second and I contemplated the universe and my place in it and the gnat’s place in it and I felt a mystical connection to this tiny, powerless creature that had caused me so much pain and I thought of the mouse & the lion and Amos & Boris and David & Goliath and I looked down at this poor, half-squished bugger with wet wings and then I brought my thumb around to my forefinger like if I was making the A-OK! sign and I squashed the fuck out of it until it was just black streaks between my fingers. Piece of shit almost blinded me.

Untimely Stimulus #23

2011-06-05T19:00:00.002+01:00

I don’t really know where this came from. There’s a lot of pollen in the air and it makes my eyelashes stick together and it really freaks me out. Also, yesterday Gary told me about this old teacher he had who one day came into class and scared shit out of the students because she’d been sitting down at her makeup table and curling her eyelashes and she was squeezing the curler really tight and she was tired so she was leaning on her elbow but she was kind of near the edge of the desk and she must have shifted her weight or something because next thing she knew her hand slipped and she was in all kinds of pain and she looked down at her hand and she had like three quarters of her lashes in her curling device in her fist and she looked in the mirror and she looked like a fucking droog. So maybe that’s where this came from. I don’t even know.

Untimely #22 - Still Life

2011-05-19T19:15:00.000+01:00

The artist has been booked at short notice, cancelling another lucrative appointment to be able to take this job. It is not every day that one has the opportunity to be involved in something so grand. As we all know, a person is only inducted into the Philosophical Hall of Fame once every fifty years. But now, for the first time in PHOF’s illustrious history, two men being are invited in at the same time. This is a momentous occasion, particularly so for the talented young painter who has been invited to capture the two men in portrait fashion, as is the custom. Naturally she is a little nervous, but no less confident in her skill.

Day1.

The door opens and Carlos Irwin Estévez floats into the studio on a large, well-controlled cushion of ball lightening. He is in the lotus position, his hands folded in his lap. He glides at the pace of thick chocolate for, as he explains to the artist, if he were to move at his regular speed, she could lose consciousness – he already knocked eight men out in the foyer. Journalists! He goes on to say that when he first fell to this planet he reached such extreme temperatures whilst at terminal velocity that he was engulfed by a fireball a city block wide, and he wouldn’t want her to get hurt.

As she begins mixing her colours, capturing that blend of navy, seal’s skin, and spiderwebs for his loafers, she asks about when he first realised that he was so much more than average men, that he was truly major league. He starts by calling her ‘Sparky’, and she is unable to concentrate on anything else. As he talks, a platoon of tears march, single file down her cheek, engaging on a mission to capture just one hundredth of his brilliance. His is a new way. While conventional humans represent an idea with the switching on of a lightbulb, Sheen deals in planetary hotshots, solar flares, black holes.

They are together in her studio for fourteen hours. He does not move, but he is not still. He vibrates, a million tiny nuclear explosions occurring at any one second, somewhere in there. By the time he leaves, the young artist is worried that she has been blinded, having stared at the sun for so long. Almost immediately, she begins to mourn his passing.

Day 2.

Thomas Alan Waits starts to arrive at 4 am. From that point on he does not stop arriving. The Tom’s bump into themselves, hustling around, big time. They jaw with each other about foreign affairs, ménage à trois, and height-speed ratios of jockeys. The artist is at points exhausted, curious, frightened and infatuated. The Tom that wears the sunglasses asks her about her daddy and her granddaddy and what her momma does for a living. The Tom with the movie camera points at her easel and asks what's she gonna spend her blood money on. She says she’s being paid but small change for this job. It’s about honour. Three Tom’s start to well up.

Finding it difficult to get a handle on them all, the artist decides then and there to paint this subject in two colours only: deep red, like a collective heart attack, and vine green for their ghosts.

At precisely six o’clock in the evening the remaining Tom’s group together in the middle of the studio and begin to shift about uneasily. The artist wipes her hands and asks what’s up. She’s told that it’s almost closing time. She points out that it’s only six o’clock but they are already jangling keys, putting on hats, mumbling see you around’s, glad to know you’s, catch you at the soda fountain… She blinks and they’re gone. The artist wipes her hands on her apron, lights a cigarette and fetches a broom.

Untimely #22 – Won

2011-05-12T21:34:00.000+01:00

Dinner was at eight, they came twelve-thirty for twelve the next month of the next century. “Appointments” are for pussy cats. Dressed head to toe in ermine with baby-seal-skin boots and more guns than the NRA.

Charlie brushes the menu aside, smashing a crystal punch bowl and feeling for his smokes. Tommy’s already been sober and drunk and sober again and then drunk again and now even drunker since breakfast. He growls hello and Charlie just nods, chewing on a cigarette and sizing up his tablemate as he licks flecks of tobacco from twixt his tiger fangs.

Hey horsefucker bring me a drink Charlie spits and the maître d’ scurries to the kitchen. From between its double doors come six liveried bellhops pushing an enormous oaken barrel on a trolley. Barrel so big you’d need a helicopter and a crane and a troop of volunteer boy scouts just to turn it upright. They leave it on the trolley and the maître d’ fills two flagons fashioned from the skulls of Viking chieftains with a liquid the color of molten steel. It smells like a jungle cat’s lair and tastes like a highway covered in lava and left for an ice age. Charlie pulls six skulls without a breath while Tommy inquires after the freshness of the prawns. Charlie’s lip curls so far into a sneer his left nostril flips right.

After dinner the waiters cover the table in three hundred pounds of tobacco leaf and set it alight while twelve serving wenches fan the flames with a giant bellows. The winners discuss their artistic principles:
“I’m not interested in what people believe, I’m interested in what I believe, and that’s the truth, that’s what rules me.”
“You put yourself in some kind of a trance in order to receive certain songs, you know it’s like setting a trap for a song, it’s like fishing or anything else, you have to be real quiet to catch the big ones.”
“I blinked and I cured my brain.”
“I think what I try and do is write adventure songs and Halloween music.”

While Charlie huffs, Tommy sings to him of the anger of Peleus’ son, a fourteen-hour epic chanted and growled and barked in dactylic hexameter. Six hours in he loses his place and starts again. Charlie’s eyes have glazed over and the only sign that he is still awake is the occasional grunt of harmony during choruses.

At dawn a gray sun creeps above the smoldering wreckage of the table, stippling, speckling, flecking the shards and assorted debris, cracked lights and crack pipes, tea rolls and obetrols. The sky darkens and lightens and flashes with the force of a galaxy breathing its last sigh, a long, slow hiss that builds to a deafening roar, a holy ghoster tornado, and then all is totally, completely and forevermore black. Gentlemen, goodnight.

Untimely #22 - Winning

2011-04-24T14:38:00.001+01:00

- Yello Rita. You’ve news of a real bug-eyed ding-dong taking shape on the red carpet. Do tell Sugar Tits.

- Thank you, Don. Reports are coming in of a gen-u-ine Tom and Jerry fracas brewskiing between Mr Sheen and Mr Waits following recent artistic differences. Rumour has it that both sides are ultimately willing to settle this feud in a “Rock-Paper-Scissors” style showdown. Our reporter, Goodison Hotcock, is on the scene.

The boulevard pink with dawn hush. Willows of light sloping over the edges of buildings. The road spidered with cracks pocked and ashy from years of traffic already bleeding under the new sun. On either side lines of plane trees cast a cullis of shadows. Then the distant rumble of something the trudge of a hundred footsteps a guttering clarion the yips and yam-yams of beasts. At the western end of the boulevard a single panther stalks over the crest of the hill a single white panther on its back an alabaster women red-eyed and naked a banner in her hands snickering in the morning heat: “Deviance is the metaphor for sanity.”

Ask her what it means. What it all means. What does it mean? What in hell can it mean? Mean? Meaning is for pussycats. Meaning is for the neuron obsessed payday plastics – the breakfasting herd, man. Meaning is losing and we are not about losing.

A hive mind of albino porn stars ebony prostitutes mulatto strippers bleached Geisha. More banners. Our skin is heroic. Welcome to existence, intra-terrestrials. Mortality, what? Overdosing is über-winning. I am a magic. I am Charlie Sheen. I float above them all using my amazing powers of telekinesis. Look at you down there – flaccid, dull-eyed normality tots. I’ve got lips like a portal to HELLA-ville. You lose – suit-wigs. I’m firing on Goddess time and you gum gum GUM. Kiss it. The end. Period. The E.N.D.

Scuffing the east ridge of the boulevard long shadows leaking from two silhouettes in the early sun a slow piratical puppet show with the horizon as their stage. The first, white dry hair straggling from beneath a black wide-brimmed hat face sinking in lost kindness like a gold-rush corpse, plays a reedy march mournful on a makeshift whistle fashioned from the quill of a raven’s tail-feather. Behind him the protégé now master - gimlet eyes grinching chimplike under a pork pie hat. His left fingers clack together two grey stones. His right fingers grip the cone of a megaphone to the pug of his lips.

I’m what you get when you let cats and dogs mate -

A flurry of fur-balls and loveliest hate.

Born in a jailhouse, bred on the run

My teat was the desert, my rattle a gun.

I’m what you get when you stud goats and monkeys -

A circus of brawlers, drunkards and junkies.

The whole scene as some unreadable tract of writhing hieroglyphs pitted alien and seething, or else a palimpsest tapestry of shifting surfaces and frayed threads, or still an image scorched and blind in a tryst of time and light its burnt and shrivelling forms curled under the white-hot shadow of its own existence.

- Thanks Goodison. Please keep us updated. Don, back to you.

Untimely Stimulus #22

2011-04-24T14:35:00.000+01:00

Hello Charlie Sheen...

Meet Tom Waits...

How will you get along?

Untimely #21 – Five Views of Greatness (Now with more dogs!)

2011-04-03T17:52:00.003+01:00

So hey! Hey! Yeah, it’s going to be really great! Why don’t you come along? We are going to be fulfilling the plan of the great projects. Yeah. Yeah! I know! You are so going to love it. I think we are going to start with a parade. There’s going to be a band – several bands, but one at the front with really big fuck-off instruments that will take like eleven people to carry and about six to play, all blowing hard and working levers and huffing and puffing and cetera. And then we’ll have some dancing bears, yeah! And then we’ll have some fighting bears after that. And then the dog and cat show, which will be a sort of parade within the parade, led by children from the school for the blind, deaf, and dumb, so actually maybe some of the animals will lead some of the children. Which will be fine and really beautiful and heartwarming for everyone who’s watching anyway! And then will come the dancing children. In traditional dress! With different costumes for each of the regions they will represent! Which is all of them! And they will do traditional country dances and throw flowers and candy to the people on the sidewalks. And following them will be no less than ten thousand troops from our glorious army marching in close formation and the streets will tremble and ring with the clicking of twenty thousand boots and they shall know our might and see the greatness of our projects! And that’s just the beginning!

And as they gain on us may we summon the spirits of our holy fathers that we may wreak impossible vengeance upon the hollow bodies of their crepitant dead. And that we may have horses and wear capes as we ride them in the night, so flying like bats through the streets and banging on pots like gongs we scare the sissy children and women and scorbutic dogs. Bombast! Bombard! Bombard the dogs! We shall crush the dogs, the Imperialist dogs, the cretinous dogs, the dastardly dogs, the enteric dogs, the fallow and filthy and filarial dogs with their fustian, the godless dogs may howl and rasp and die. May they keel over dead before we get to them and make them choke on the dust of a thousand pusillanimous ancestors.

OK, so maybe we could start everything with a parade. I’m sure we could get the permits, get the streets closed down. At least one of the central avenues. Or if they can’t close it all the way maybe we can at least get a police escort. You know for traffic, and crowd control. Or just to keep the cars off the street while we’re on it, you know? Like police cars in back and in front driving real slow and keeping the cars away just while we pass. OK, how about we march in the bike lane? Yeah, we could do the sidewalks. Fine, we won’t call it a march. OK, so we’re just going to go for a little walk, and we’ll just keep it to the sidewalk. Great. No, no, it’ll be good, really good. Really, really good.

The greatest of the great plans is of course colonizing the moon. And this will be great because we will be able to found anew the socialist workers’ utopia that has so long eluded us on this cold, hard planet. Except that the moon is colder and harder! But we will not worry about that. The thing about the moon is that if it’s so great how come we’ve never been back? Don’t you think our technology is so much better now? Don’t you think we’d be able to get there in half the time with half the gas? Our fuel efficiency savings must be enormous! Because the last thing we want is to get to the moon and start littering and polluting and mining everywhere. Oh my god! If they discover oil on the moon we’re screwed! Can you imagine that? Suddenly there’ll be a whole other space race and wars to colonize bits and pieces of the moon and then wars in space and moon battles and the whole thing’s going to get really nasty. Urgh.

The shots rang out in a volley like firecrackers, fast as raindrops, loud as thunder. And then after it was silent and we none of us could see for all the dust. We lay still where we had fallen, some daring only to peek through slitted eyes, looking to see if they were still alive. The silence was otherworldly. Some wondered if they’d gone deaf, so close to the firing. And then we heard it, a low mournful whine, and we looked behind us and saw a dog trapped under the bodies of two men who had fallen from a balcony onto the crowd below. We could see where the wooden railing had cracked open wide under their weight and then we saw the red streaks down their cheeks and the hole in the forehead gaping into blackness. You forget just how heavy a body is until you try to move one. Bag of bones, sack of stones. They’d fallen one two right on top of the dog, broken its back. It must have been hemmed in by the crowd, trying to squirm through legs when the firing started. It had nearly made it, too, just a few meters from the alleyway, when poof! from above and any chance it had was over.

Untimely #21 - Fokusnik the Great

2011-03-27T16:03:00.001+01:00

The doves fuss against their bonds in the sleeves of Fokusnik’s red coat. He strokes them slyly, soothing them with sweeps of his elbows against his sides as he spins and fingers the battered fez from which they will soon flutter. This small audience will be amazed – stupefied! Big Joe and his officers sit behind large desks on the other side of the room. Outside the parade chants in celebration. Fokusnik spirals the fez in demonstrative arcs, outlining its emptiness, its sturdiness, its wholesome trustworthiness. Now an act of daring to strengthen the dissolution of misbelief. Fokusnik skips across the pitted parquet and plonks the fez on the head of Big Joe. A smile barely registers beneath the resolute moustache. The others hide smirks behind their uniform cuffs or fiddle with their caps distractedly. Big Joe removes the too small fez, places it on the desktop next to his own cap, and smoothes back his hair. The doves tussle again in Fokusnik’s sleeves and he lifts the fez, flicking with his fingertips as he twitches the doves still once more.

A whisker away from Big Joe now, with only a desktop between them, Fokusnik sweats over the sleight of hand to follow. Each little twist of the process must be perfect. Outside the parade hollers its support. Using the shouts as a screen, Fokusnik manoeuvres each dove up each sleeve. Big Joe squints, his eyes flitting to spot hints, signals of trickery. With his right hand Fokusnik snakes the fez, charms the eyes, as, with his left, he silently clicks his wrist back, pinching the neck of the dove, the cushion of his palm cloaking its eyes, stunning it for a second before, in one sinuous movement, he shadows it into the swirling fez, snipping its bands with his sharpened pinkie nail, for it to splutter free in a spurting snap of feathers. Beneath the wings and glances Fokusnik snatches Big Joe’s cap from its resting place upon the desk and, from it, whips the remaining dove in a second gasp of flapping and laughter.

Applause fills the room. Then a flash and the clap of shot. The laughter falls silent. A second shot and the silence rings. The two doves lie dead on the parquet. Big Joe settles his pistol on the desk, stands, blows feathers from within his cap, replaces it upon his head and smoothes his moustache.

“Doves are decadent beasts. Inappropriate for a parade, a spectacle and celebration of the glorious accomplishments of the Russian people.” He turns to Fokusnik. “What is your name?”

“Gospodin Fokusnik the Great, Comrade.”

Big Joe absorbs Fokusnik’s words, the parade sounding outside, and, for the first time, smiles widely.

“Have this traitor, Fokusnik, shot.”

Untimely #21 - LUFPOF-GP!!

2011-03-13T16:37:00.000Z

After some time this month sees the welcome return of famed artist and self styled ‘Russian Imitationist’ Donald Donald Donaldson. Having spent the larger part of his life embroiled in one enormous project – to lead an improved version of the life of Tolstoy – Donaldson has finally declared that piece “done… thank god”. However, at 93 (‘eleven better than Tolstoy’) the artist is still proving to be no slouch. Using some of the vast fortune he has accumulated from the sales of his world-uniting novel Peace & War, Donaldson now intends to throw one almighty party – Communist style! Of course, things are never quite as they seem with this brilliant yet most controversial of artists, for Donaldson intends this to be a gala event that no-one ever forgets.

In a press conference this morning he gave the following statement: “A man does not live to be 93 years old without learning a few things. And some of the things I have learned relate to the reanimation of deceased human corpses. So it seems only natural to me that, having finished off old Tolstoy pretty easily, it’s time to see what the Communist era has to offer. To that end, I have applied for planning permission to start reviving former party members immediately, with the intention of digging up select members of the intelligentsia at a later stage, for use in my celebratory Gala Evening. Given that this basically what the Communist era was always building up to, this project is currently entitled – Let Us Fulfil The Plan Of The Great Projects. Or LUFPOF-GP.”

Pressed for further details of who he hoped to bring on board for this project, and in what capacity we might expect to see them, the artist would only say that he intended it to be a marvellous affair, with “pretty dresses, cocktail glasses, and lots of haircuts”, but other than that he didn’t want to name names. He then went on to state that “if all goes to plan, Trotsky will be doing a fashion show. That’s a must see. Especially with Osip Mandlstam MCing. Very funny. There will also be theatrical performances, with Stalin performing some of his favourite scenes from ‘The Days of the Turbins’; I’m actually warming Bulgakov up already to do some rewrites on that one. Akhmatova will run the raffle, of course. Oh, and I’d thought about getting Lenin to do some break-dancing but I’m not so sure. Do you think that’s too chintzy?” Of course we don’t!

While the usual nay-sayers have again branded this new work ‘insane witchery’, tickets for LUFPOF-GP go on sale next week. We expect we’ll see you in the queue.

Untimely Stimulus #21

2011-03-13T15:02:00.002Z

Untimely #20 - Shittalker

2011-02-24T10:22:00.001Z

First, I must apologise that I have not written on my blog since December 15^th, the day of my wife’s death. Since then I have become skilled at making a meal of pasta for one. A single clove of garlic, which I slice thinly, frying it softly in a drop of olive oil. Sometimes I add an anchovy, sometimes two on good days. They sell the half tins of pulped tomatoes in the store now, which is enough. I like linguine; I like how thick but still slender it can be. I pinch dried strands between my thumb and first two fingers. She was from a very traditional family: they did not say it, but they were disappointed in her marriage to a writer, an academic. The few times I met them they smiled, they welcomed me, but they used their greetings to place and distance me.

I still use our large pan, bringing a large quantity of water to a rolling boil, before plunging the linguine in to soften and snake in the roil. She taught me, as her mother had taught her, to cook pasta to the bite, to reserve a little of the starchy water, to add a slug of oil, to lubricate the strands and coat in the sauce.

I am sitting now at the window twisting and forking the strands into my mouth as I read through a stack of freshman essays in response to this question:

“You don’t even know who he is.”

In the light of this comment, discuss the role of self-knowledge in the work of Paul Auster.

Most of the essays are workmanlike, parroting back the less interesting threads of analysis from my lectures, lacking the flair, imagination or originality that the subject demands. A few are just plain nonsense or are full of the misinformed literary namedropping so typical of freshman students. One essay, however, develops an interesting discussion on the relationship between the urban and the urbane in Auster, employing Joyce and Chandler as predictable but useful counterpoints. In the hands of this student Auster’s writing becomes an extended dialogue between the city and the self. Her arguments are taut, fierce, almost erotic, yet shy and self effacing in the way that Siri could be when challenged.

That is how she was on her last day, when we fought. She was angry that I had become so consumed in my latest book. As usual, I had spent night after night walking the city, returning at dawn to write through the day. I had assumed that she had understood that this was a temporary state, a process I often undertook at the start of a project, which she was to mirror in a typical state of wry forbearance. Returning that morning I found her sitting in the chair in which I now write. We argued, sniped; I was tired from walking, the frustrated urge to write channelled into bitter, sarcastic impatience which was further fuel to her anger. I tried to end the argument, as I always did, turning toward my study. It was at this point that we shattered.

“You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a great writer.” She said.

“Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is.” I returned and our words crystallized and fell.

Untimely #20 – Paul Auster

2010-12-15T18:44:00.000Z

Person 1 – You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a really good writer.

Person 2 – Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is. Shittalker.

1 – Yeah I do.

2 – Prove it.

1 – I don’t have to.

2 – Cos you can’t?

1 – No way, I know who he is. And I know what he’s done.

2 – What?

1 – What are you deaf? I said I know what he’s done.

2 – I know what you said, dicknose. But what’s he done?

1 – I thought you liked him?

2 – I do.

1 – Then you of all people should know what he’s done.

2 – What the frack are you talking about?

1 – It was on his blog. You’d think if you liked him you’d read his blog.

2 – What? What was on his blog?

1 – And his twitter feed.

2 – He’s got a twi-? I’m warning you, tell me what you’re talking about right now, or I’ll…

1 – I’m talking about Paul Auster.

2 – What about him.

1 – What he did. That time.

2 – Goddamn it!

1 – Calm down, bro’. Take a chill pill or summin’.

2 – Now look, you butt-lappin’, culture-phobic moron, if you don’t a) tell me what it is you think my homie Paul Auster’s gone and done, or b) shut your filthy clam right now, I’m gonna zombie your body with hyper-poison, tie you to this chair, wheel you down the road to my book group, then let fifteen awesome dudes loose on you with highly opinionated ideas about the total mega-multiculturalism of Zadie Smith, the super-sweet high-fiveness of Dave Eggers, the never ending wow-a-thon that is Nick Hornby, and the post-modern retro-nowness genius that is Brett Easton Ellis, until you shit in your pants.

1 – NO! You go too far!

2 – Now tell me – What has Paul Auster done?

1 – I can’t! I don’t remember! You gave me too much!

2 – C’mon. Spill those literary beans. Spill them!

1 – You busted my brain you, you, you…

2 – D’ya want me to read you some poetry from Mcsweeney’s? issue 22?

1 – Gah!

2 – Well? Do ya?

1 – I can’t breath. You’re killing me…

Untimely #20 – Three Thoughts

2010-11-30T22:50:00.004Z

I don’t cook for one. Cooking for me, see, it’s social. Baking. No one bakes alone. You bake for someone. You want to eat cookies, you buy cookies. You open the jar and take a cookie and eat it. You don’t mix flour and beat eggs and melt chocolate and then eat a cookie three hours later when by now your stomach is like ten times emptier and you probably would die just as soon as eat a cookie because you already ate ten an hour ago when you couldn’t wait for the fucking things to bake. So really your stomach wasn’t very empty, but it would have been entirely empty minus the acids that swirl about like Grand Rapids, MI, in that empty belly of yours. But now they rush and flood a mountain of cookie debris and you feel ill as you get fatter. Aren’t cookies grand? At this point you probably wish you ate a vegetable, unless of course it was eggplant, because eggs aren’t very healthy, especially if you cook them in oil. Olive oil is good for your skin, but too much will give you indigestion.

In the mountains, though, you can eat anything. Because you are chopping wood and herding goats and anything you want to eat you’ve either got to kill and skin or farm and dig and wash and chop. That’s why everyone smokes in the mountains, because everything takes about fifty times longer to do and also the air is cleaner, so it doesn’t even matter. When the earth is overpopulated, we’re all going to go up the mountains and leave the stinking cities to the rats. When the ice caps melt will there be penguins in Miami?

On my way out of the subway this morning there was a girl in hot pink sandals sitting on the steps. She smelled like piss in the most foul way. Sharp and sour, like she’d washed her clothes in it.

Untimely Stimulus #20

2010-11-30T22:42:00.002Z

Person 1: “You’re so lame. You probably think Paul Auster’s a really good writer.”
Person 2: “Oh yeah? You don’t even know who he is. Shittalker.”

Untimely #19 - I wanted to call it "Chattin' Bubbles"

2010-11-15T21:19:00.001Z

Are dance moves based on illnesses immoral? Say I’m at home doing the Mumps, does that mean I’m a bad person?

When people tell me I have Worms, because there’s no way I could eat that much otherwise, does that make it true?

Stop. I started to write this all funny. I wanted to be light-hearted, mix fiction with biography, do the task. You weren’t supposed to know what went where; no beginning, no end. A list of illnesses I may or may not have had. You wouldn’t know if I’d really had a bad case of Chattin’ Bubbles, or if my wisdom teeth had really been impacted, or if London did make me so sick that I had to drink enough until I could see my way out. Then I didn’t know.

I thought about how little I talk to my Brother. I thought about how I reacted when my Mother told me that my Aunt has had heart problems. I thought about how there used to be another Aunt. I saw my Father, transparent in a bed near north Wales, fluid draining from his spine as he had visions of the past. I remember our Dog Ben, my first best friend, watching me eat crisps and wipe my hand on the settee like a juvenile delinquent.

I’m not enjoying this.

My Granddad used to wear Brylcreem in his hair. I’d show him some break dancing, then sit on his legs and give him a Mohican. My Brother and, I think, my Father were scared of him. He’d try to feed me homemade brawn and I’d stand there in my football kit and pull sick-face.

My Nan wore stockings and didn’t cross her legs very well. She had wild teeth and cuddled you with nylon arms that made your nails curl, but she was golden.

My Nain. The welsh side. Grandmother to all of Wales, or so it seemed. The endless food. The mountain behind her house. The friend who’d had a stroke. Auntie Winnie, or similar. Nain was thin with big ankles and little slippers. She was the last to go, on Christmas Eve, the real big event.

If I dream that my Wife uses me as bait for zombies so that she can escape while I am eaten alive, does that mean I don’t want to lose her?

If three of my Grandparents die in the same year, and I later find out that maybe only one of them is a blood relation, will I still get cancer?

I’m not enjoying this.

Untimely #19 – Rigid

2010-11-10T23:27:00.003Z

Oh Stanley, you phoned in the night, and yes I remember the waking from sleep, the sweeping across the table and knocking the phone down, knocking the water down, the full glass, the water everywhere overspilling and soaking the tissues the books the carpet. And picking it up and hello who’s this what’s it all about what what what no. No. Because just a day ago. Just two days ago. We were. You, on the phone, and me, you said yes and you I could see you smiling, I could picture it right in my head inside my head. And it was fine. It was all going to be fine. Then the call and you couldn’t talk, your voice strangled in the air. Hello! Stanley! Can’t you hear me? Hello! Then your voice like a wire being torn out of you. Every word tearing it out and the phone goes heavy in my hand. Every word like a wire and the phone heavy like a wire like a. Winstanley. Every word like a.

They always want to tell you how quick it all is. It happened so quickly. You wouldn’t believe how quickly it happened. It happened and it was over before she he knew it. Over before it knew it. Over it. Knew it. Over. It. And how do they know it doesn’t all slow down? All those films, where it all slows down, you see the whole thing, frame by frame, frame by tiny frame, and it’s an age and an agony. Maybe it happens so slowly it’s the speed of life, it’s just like living it all over again. Or maybe we’re watching it now, watching it when we think we’re living it. It’s already it and we’re here and we’re watching it but we don’t know when it ends because we just can’t remember because we can’t see because how can we know that’s the last scene when we’ve been watching it so long we’ve already forgotten the ending? It’s like that book I just couldn’t finish because I kept falling asleep on the couch and I couldn’t remember if I’d read it or not and so I kept rereading it and I kept falling asleep again. And I could never finish it. So?

Oh Stanley. I knew younger ones too. I knew younger ones, but what do I care? Everybody knows younger ones.

Like a rictus, your voice frozen midair, I could see it twisted, twisting all the way down, down down and back inside you. Down into the blackness, the sour bile, the wretched churning of acid nothing oh Stanley the gale, falling and falling and whirling down and down and down and.

Untimely #19 - Gastrology

2010-10-24T19:24:00.001+01:00

Striplight whale belly of childhood earache –

Lino lolling like a cold tongue

unfeeling down trolleyed corridors.

Mum: unspooling

past slits of other people’s sickness.

Mum’s hand our feet her foot

up steps and along and under

an echo of signs.

Us: double doors one end

White walls

tapering

vanishing.

Me: trawling – not knowing

what is

food

medicine

poison?

Not knowing

until now

how unknowing

I was then.

You: still

bed bound

ill

behind the curtain

paper skinny.

(They say, don’t they, that it’s the tubes, usually,

that shock you when you first see your dad

like that.

For me, it was the contrast to Christmas.)

And you:

still

the other

end

dad

Untimely Stimulus #19

2010-10-24T19:21:00.000+01:00

Last week the BBC broadcast this adaptation of B.S. Johnson's 1969 novel "The Unfortunates", in which Johnson explores memories of his friendship with Tony Tillinghast who had recently died of cancer. The book was published in 27 separately bound sections which were designed to be read in whatever order the reader chose. The adaptation is still available to listen to here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v7sjw

Use this as a stimulus to write about memories of illness.

Respond!

Untimely #18 – Pursuit

2010-08-26T22:45:00.004+01:00

I heard him come in. Listen. You can’t tell me I didn’t. I heard it. I was sitting there and looking at the ceiling and I heard a noise and it was the door opening and in he came. I heard it. He just sat there and for a long time I didn’t look at him. I just kept looking at the ceiling. It was a white ceiling, but boy could you see a lot. You can see a lot when you put your mind to it. Really look. All the cracks and everything. Shadows. I saw a lot, boy. I sure did. Like with clouds, but different. If I can’t sleep, I don’t count sheep, I just look at things. Look and look. Well so I was looking at the ceiling and I almost forgot he’d come in. Because I hadn’t looked at him yet, you see. But then, as I was looking up, all of a sudden I smelled him. He was just sitting there, been sitting there a while. But I smelled him. Like that! One minute I was just looking at the ceiling and I practically forgot he was there and the next there was this smell and I just knew it was him. I mean I thought it was him before when he came in but I didn’t look. But then I smelled him and I knew. He smelled like sweat and a pipe. It kind of made me sick but kind of it was a good smell. You know? Kind of sweet. But a little too sweet. Too sweet and it becomes sick. Sweet, sweet smell of pipe, like polished wood and dried fruits and it’s evening and it’s fall. But then, just when you’re starting to think like maybe this is a really good smell and you can enjoy it and keep looking at the ceiling, then there’s this sour note that runs right through it and makes it shrivel all up. Sours it all to hell. And I knew it was him. So now I didn’t look at him because I didn’t have to. I knew it was him. I’d smelled him before. Smelling just like that, sweet and sour like a fucking plum duck. Oh it was him all right. It was him. Boy that smell it started to drive me crazy. He just sat there, not moving. I could just barely hear him breathe, that’s if I really concentrated. I stared at the ceiling but I couldn’t see anything anymore, the smell was too much. It was taking over. And that’s when I knew what I had to do. I reached under my pillow. Just like that I aimed the revolver and he didn’t move, he didn’t speak, he didn’t do nothing. I didn’t even look at him when I pulled the trigger. The smell disappeared almost instantly. There was the powder like incense to clean the air and then it was gone. I looked over and the chair was empty and then I looked back at the ceiling and then I fell asleep.

Untimely #18 - Twenty-Two-Zero-Eight-Two-Thousand-and-Ten. Twenty-Seven. Fifty-Three. Eighty-Two. Twenty-Seven.

2010-08-25T18:10:00.004+01:00

On the verge of leaving, returning home,

silent after chatter. Mum, your daughter,

on the bench by the wall, clears her throat. You

sat there once but sit on the folding chair

now, on the grass. At an angle, I too

sit, also on the grass, on the wooden

chair you brought from the bedroom. Helena,

also on the bench by mum, makes the square.

Rising we break the unsnapped moment in

a clatter of cups, dredging up a knot

of discarded jackets and cardigans

which mum untangles and hands out as we

pass back through the back bedroom returning

the wooden chair back by the wall, all square.

Untimely #18 - Minder

2010-08-25T14:14:00.000+01:00

“I had been trying to explain to my wife just what it means that I have been seeing her doppelganger about the place. ‘Don’t you see,’ I asked, ‘that this can only mean that our minds exist as one? That our love has survived it all, and so rewards us with this next step in human evolution, that we can now share both our conscious and conscious minds? That I can see into your mind so very deeply that I am even capable of sharing in your most personal mania?’

‘But I am not the one suffering any mania,’ she argued. ‘Don’t you see my darling, that the only logical explanation here is that you, and not I, are the one suffering from some malady, and that you suffer it alone?’

I tried to explain more thoroughly, though it seems clear to me now that she was not listening: ‘But I have spent time with this other you! We have been out to lunch, and to the theatre; my dear we have even made love! Can you tell me that you felt nothing in all of this? And still you tell me that you suffer no malady!’

It was around that point when my wife went to fetch you. Yes, around the time that I locked myself in this closet. I’m not sure how long it was before my wife’s other self joined me. What? Could I ask her? Well of course I could! But we might be better served if you went ahead and asked her yourself mightn’t we? Well, go on.”

Untimely Stimulus #18

2010-08-25T13:53:00.000+01:00

The Doppelganger

'Ms B, a retired schoolteacher whose case was reported by a doctor in Bristol (... described how) she did not just see (her doppelganger) - she felt it as well. Just as normal people are aware of two legs, two arms and so on, she was aware of four. 'It is me,' she explained, 'split and divided.''

From Rita Carter's brilliant book 'Mapping the Mind'.

Untimely #17 - The Deep Somewhere of Your Seeking Need

2010-07-27T13:18:00.000+01:00

In a scuttle and the dust in your nose and the bowelhump gutflex the whole shredded body of fear. The scuttle safe under rubble yet under ruins still under bombs falling stars under it all. In white gasps they hit stallion shards of dead light flaring foaming seething roar and swoop and suck of heat then the sound and the stink and the ground yammering through you like fear of your father. The ground your paws and the stink your stooping teething nose is the stink is the ground vipers needling in hot threads up your legs.

Then.

Silence like breath. Unmastered.

Then the stink and the sound uncoagulates discurdles meniscusifies reatomises. Blind dust. Creak of weak shelter. Splinters. Hot oil. Rubbered flame mutters. Human roast. Somewhere a baby screams.

On the road human blood channels and pools on the cobbles bubbles and scabs in the charnel heat. Bare human feet paddle through the slick. Arch eyes up at their arms outstretch at their wetstretched fastmoving faces all calked in dust their unreadable slow moving apetoothed gibboneyed faces too like yours to know or obey. Skulk instead through the thicket of ragged legs and dust and smoke. Seek him. Seek his voice. Seek his stink. Seek his warm laugh and whisky breath and the soft hollow of his lap. Feel your bark swell from the deep somewhere of your seeking need. Bark. Somewhere. Bark.

Untimely #17 - Totally Boned.

2010-07-25T17:04:00.002+01:00

Before climbing the fence behind my ex-wife’s place, I have one last check to make sure I’ve got everything I need. In my pocket is the copy of her backdoor key she doesn’t know I made, and in my backpack is a selection of the most vile and disgusting pornography money can buy, together with some children’s underwear, which I purchased yesterday. That son of a bitch thinks he can waltz in and steal my wife, adopt my kid? We’ll see what the cops have to say about that…

I also have with me a hunk of meat so enormous that my arm gets tired holding it. This meat is laden with poison. Thinks his fat dog can keep me getting back to my family? Think again, bucko.

I climb the fence, and draw a breath. I whistle, and somewhere a dog barks. I jump down into the garden.

I see the dog, it’s face so close to my own that I can feel its hot breath, smell the food in its teeth. It barks, but I see this in slow motion; the lips quiver, the teeth reach out, the fat around its neck wibbles. I laugh. I am a lion tamer. “You’ve got nothing on me fido” I yell. “That’s where you’re wrong buddy” the dog tells me. “Oh yeah, how’s that, moron?” “Because I’m sitting on your chest, asshole.” Yeah right. As if, dog. Think you can stop me ruining a man’s life with porno…

When I come to, the nurse explains that I have broken both my ankles in the fall, and that I also have two cracked ribs. The police then ask me to explain how I came to be found unconscious in my ex-wife’s garden, with a sack-full of pornography, some children’s underthings and a mouthful of poisoned meat, with a 50 pound dog sitting on my chest? “I was doing it for my kid” I explain, but neither says a word: one of them just let’s out kind of an ‘uh-oh’ kind of whistle. I’m pretty sure that somewhere, in the distance, I can hear that damn dog barking.

Untimely #17 - Aisle of Dogs

2010-07-21T23:01:00.001+01:00

Somewhere, somehow, a dog barked. A long, lone, yelping howl at the sliver of moon rising from behind the trees. Then silence. Then another bark. Shorter, crisper, sound dying prematurely in the air, frozen, arrested motion. A hollow where it had been, a vacuum, drawing attention now to its absence. Now the sound of tires on ice, smooth gliding then crunching, crackling, like wet glass slowly fracturing. The wind was very, very cold on her face, but she could not wrap up any more than she already was. Her nose and cheeks smarted but the damp of the air prevented her getting used to it. Each time the wind gusted against her it was awful and shocking and worse than before. She could not believe the misery she was in. And again the dog barked.

This time its bark rang out like a gong and was answered by other barks in the middle distance, staggered as in a round, all ringing out together like a giant gong falling down an immensely long staircase. Like a gong falling down the side of a Mayan pyramid. All of Chichen Itza trembling as the pitch rises higher and higher, faster and faster, until you can feel your teeth coming loose at the gums, the barking now a ragged shriek in a thousand bloody canine throats. In the cacophony a lizard closes its eyes and coughs. Somewhere a dog barks, then eats the lizard.

A dog’s bark shook her from her reverie. Yes, it was mighty cold. She wanted to touch her nose, to see if it was still there, but her hands pinned her arms to her sides. It was quiet again now. From time to time she heard tires on ice, crunching, crackling, gliding smoothly, then nothing. The wind in her ears was notable for its blistering coldness. A moon, a sliver of moon, rose behind the spindly naked branches of the trees. She watched it rise clear then fall behind a cloud. She could no longer feel her face, but still she waited. Somewhere a dog barked.

Untimely Stimulus #17

2010-07-21T22:53:00.005+01:00

“Somewhere a Dog Barked”

“Pick up just about any novel and you’ll find a throwaway reference to a dog, barking in the distance.” [Read the full article here.]
–Rosecrans Baldwin

Untimely #16 - Iron Lion Zion

2010-07-04T17:25:00.001+01:00

That song about Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot! was on the radio. Yes…

My dog, Proud Warrior, had suddenly burst from behind a well-greased 50’s motorbike chasing our ugly foreign neighbours’ cat.

“Bark!!” he woofed jeeringly.

“Dat right bwoy! You give that pussy footin’ blaad-clat what him deserve!” creaked I in my soft west-counrty drawl.

“Bark!”

“G’wan den, ya ion lion from zion! Mash him up!”

And I kid you not when I say that that Spartan-hound did indeed mash that cat right up. Then my neighbour arrived and all hell broke loose…

Next day, police made me put him down.

UNTIMELY #16 – I Can’t Stand the Rain

2010-06-18T00:42:00.002+01:00

And.

***

It.

***

Was.

***

Wet.

***
***

Rain pelted blackly, diagonally up from the charnel house of the river’s gashed and roiled surface. “Blast thees eenfirnall rrrain!” Alfredo Gonzales ejaculated wildly. Water dripped from the ends of his lacquered moustaches, the gaping cavities of his pendulous ears filled with a maddening drip-drip, and his wet, tobacco-blackened lips jutted forth petulantly – not even his monumental unibrow could shield them from the storm. Suddenly all hell broke loose!! The sky was rent with an almighty crack like the sound of a million beetles snapping in half into a microphone inside a cathedral in space.

Untimely #16 - Love Will Tear Us Apart

2010-06-13T09:43:00.000+01:00

Before.

School. Baby. Mrs. Band. Fame. Now.

School. Baby. Him. Motherhood. Motherhood. Now.

Monday last all hell broke loose.

A Teutonic sky black and clear as moral war. The moon in the mirror and me face its younger brother. I watch me movements. See thin unholy fingers unnoose me belt through one-by-one black loops of me pants. See thin scarred wrists from previous. See it again but different. The baby screams. Blue yowl of foxes rutting like barbed wire. Her indoors. Divorce. She’d choked gravely. See me redo me belt thin and tight. Sing Love Will Tear Us Apart. Now!

Untimely Stimulus #16

2010-06-13T09:37:00.005+01:00

Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules for Writing

1 Never open a book with weather.
2 Avoid prologues: they can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword.
3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4 Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" . . . he admonished gravely.
5 Keep your exclamation points under control.
6 Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose".
7 Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8 Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9 Don't go into great detail describing places and things, unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language.
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

Break all of these rules in one hundred words or less. Respond!

Untimely #15 – Wrong Song Boys

2010-04-29T00:13:00.003+01:00

He, he could feel his nails too long as he rubbed his hands together, fingertips brushing. Not like a girl’s, not really long, but long enough. Long enough to cut something. Like sometimes when the skin on the hands is dry and splitting, chapped and windblown and cracking fit to bleed, sometimes then when his nails are too long he’ll accidentally jab himself and it will split the skin and boyo will that hurt. And once you get one cut there, the fingers just seem to find it of their own accord. Drawn to it like magnets. And maybe he’ll forget and go and squeeze a lemon and the juice will run all around and over it and sting like a thousand bees inside his eyeballs and boyo will they water. Then he will shake his wrist very quickly and vigorously to try to get all of the blood out of his hand so that it won’t hurt. Or maybe to flush the hand with blood so that it won’t hurt. Anway he’ll shake his hand very fast and it will almost start to hurt his wrist and his fingers just a blur and the pulsing citrus burn will ebb a bit and he’ll be OK unless he smacks his hand on something else as he waggles it. Holy hell that’s just the worst, isn’t it? Also once he let his whiskers grow too long and they started to curve around and poke back into his face. Like what the hell. Since when is your body a booby trap, you know? Also his toenails are cracking and white, but she can’t see that. She spies him through the glasses from the pawnshop. Long scraggly beard and dirty nails and just looking like a drowned rat of a wreck. But there is something she is drawn to and, when her evil but misunderstood father is not looking, she slips out the door and down the hill. She finds him lying in a heap at the foot of a tree. His eyes are closed and his legs tucked up under his chin and his arms wrapped around them. Probably she could fit him inside a crate of melons, that’s how small he looks, all bunched up under the tree. And her heart goes all to water: she wants to be his woman. She stares at him a long time and when he doesn’t move she gives him a little nudge with her foot. Still nothing. A little nudge right between the ribs, right where his arm is clasping his legs. He groans and with a twitch he opens one eye. Why did you do that? he asks. She is not expecting a Spanish accent. I don’t know, she says in Spanish. Why are you playing the clarinet? he asks, still with a Spanish accent but not in Spanish. She looks down at her hands. They are soft and smooth and smell of sandalwood. She is not playing a clarinet. She looks back at him but he has fallen asleep again. This is not how it was supposed to be. Slowly, slowly she turns and makes her way back up the hill to her father’s shop.

Untimely #15 - Camel Coat

2010-04-24T11:37:00.001+01:00

We shaded her chin with charcoal.

We put her in a wig,

A wig of coiled black curls.

She wore the camel coat we gave her,

The coat to hide her budding breasts.
Her name was Susan.

Susan pushed her old grandfather,

A sack of rotting fruit,

In a rusting wheelchair.

Her eyes danced through the masses

That his dying eyes did miss.

She found the line. They joined the line.

The dotted line.

And Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

In a dimly lit space, behind a long black curtain.

And the line, the dotted line,

Weaved in and out, and in between,

Convention stalls and weeping people.

Seven from the front, Susan’s camel coat,

The cuff snagged on the handle mouldings,

The plastic handle mouldings,

Of her grandfather’s wheelchair.

And he sat there. Dying there. Unaware. As Susan’s hair.

And the snag became a fray.

And the fray became a tear,

A tear that trickled down,

Susan’s streaking charcoal cheek,

As she did weep at her grandfather’s dying eyes.

And the line, the dotted line,

Led to that dimly lit space

Where Lenny’s body lay in a smoked glass case,

Behind a long black curtain.

Where weeping people wait

To weep and compensate.

But it’s too late.

It’s much too late.

Untimely #15 - Services Rendered

2010-03-23T15:17:00.003Z

Though it is only 11 o’clock, Leonard is tucked up in bed, hairnet in place, sleeping soundly. He dreams of Joan of Arc. They are on a picnic together, holding hands. She smiles. He drums a rhythm on her body armour and smiles back. His fingers stop moving, but the drumming persists. Joan of Arc frowns. The drums swell. Joan starts to cry.

Leonard wakes to the sound of his brass doorknocker. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he swings his legs out from under the blankets and into his slippers. In a moment, he is padding down the stairs toward the door. Between bangs, he makes out a slurring grumble.

Leonard lets out a small moan before releasing the bolt, chain and latch, leaving the door to swing open. He turns and heads for the kitchen. There’s no need to inspect the visitor; he could smell the tobacco, sweat and cherry brandy stench from his bedroom.

As Leonard opens the fridge, he hears a growl of greeting from behind.

“Evening Muse. Anything wrong?”

“Hey Len, was you sleepin’? Did I wake you? I, ugh, oh, ‘scuse me… I got this idea see.”

Leonard heats some milk in a pan and takes two enamel mugs from his wooden mug tree. He yawns.

“Yeah, but it’s ok. What’s on your mind?”

“Right. So I was out at this bar see, with a few friends, some sweet, some very savoury, you know, my kinda people.”

Muse chokes out a throaty laugh while Leonard, nodding, turns off the stove, pours the milk, and sets the mugs on the table. As Leonard opens a drawer in search of pen and paper, Muse opens a hip flask and toddies up a milk.

“Anyways, we were havin’ a few drinks these friends and I, foolin’ around, laughin’ it up, when I gotta go the bathroom. Muse gotta go too, you know?”

“Everybody does, Muse.”

“Exactly! So I goes out the back to a stall and what do I see there on top of the cistern but some trashy romance novel, on top of a copy of Moby Dick! Some of my best and worst, right there in the commode of this noplace bar. Well, naturally I thinks of you.”

“Thanks.”

Muse shakes out a phlegmatic bronchial laugh. Leonard sips his milk and takes a few notes.

“No problem. So I thinks hey, here’s one for my boy Len! Romance and sailors in the toilet? Bullseye! It just needs a little something. Then I thinks to myself again, hey, Len’s a Jew - you is ain’t you?”

“Have been so far.”

“Great, great. So, now we got us a sailor and a Jewess, pour on a bit of sauce, maybe some nazi jive to get the hackles up. All we gotta do now is stir the whole thing up and round off with a classic Len bitter denouement and hell! We got ourselves a song!”

“Really? I mean, well, you’re the boss.”

“Damn right buster. A bit of work, and this one’ll turn out great.”

Leonard puts down his pen and stands to rinse out the mugs. As he wipes the sideboard, he feels a hand touch the nape of his neck. Leonard hangs the cloth over the tap to dry. The fingers claw down his back.

“You know the price of greatness Len? ‘Cause it’s time to settle up.”

Untimely Stimulus #15

2010-03-23T15:14:00.004Z

Untimely #14 - Beneath The Paving Slabs - The Beach!

2010-03-13T10:54:00.002Z

Ben brushed sand off his flank and propped himself up on his elbows to watch Erica dance in the waves.

Erica whirled naked in the froth.

Nico thumbed through a thick book, flicking his gaze from the pages to Erica’s great breasts.

“Every word a new world.” He said.

“After the spectacle we all became dancers.” Said Ben.

The men stood up to join Erica in the spume.

“How we laugh!”

The Man was drawing an alphabet frieze in the sand with a stick.

He re-used an old joke from the old world.

“E is for ‘Existence is futile’”

Pirates!

Arrant

Vikings!

Indignant!

“No

Gold!”

Sand cities rose on the rippling strand.

Lovers loll, stroll hand in hand,

And swap lips and tongues in swinging bands,

Bronzed and buff and taut and tanned.

So life goes in the cities of sand.

The Man has finished drawing his alphabet frieze in the sand with a stick.

He plants the stick in the sand.

Evening sun strikes a long shadow across his old face.

Ben towels down.

Erica smokes.

After the dance they all made love.

Caressing Erica’s great breasts Nico cracks a joke about the old world.

How they laugh.

Untimely #14 - the defeatist

2010-02-27T10:58:00.000Z

I simply can’t remember it the way everyone else seems to. Other accounts I have heard talk of the violence, the presence, our “desperation”. Many words from mouths of participants – struggle, attaque, triomphe, – make me think I must have been elsewhere. I see myself more as at a party, a rock concert, you know? It is loud, people pushing about. I see a woman at intervals; I make eyes of the revolution at her. I convince myself at lust in her glance, but really I doubt that I can be made visible from the fifty, sixty, three hundred other women and men at the roadside.

People now say, ‘Oh to have been there’, but I do not say anything. I know that I was there, my feet were on the ground non? But the nature of “l’experience”? I know nothing more about that than my feet were tired and the ground covered with rocks. ‘Those guys really showed them’ is what some people, looking backward, say. But I always ask ‘Yes? What did we show, and to who?’ You know? That gets me the bad look, sometimes the curled lip. Sometimes even the punch.

I don’t mind, it all feels the same to me. You get angry, you get loud, you hit or be hit, you calm down and it goes away. Of course, you are back where you started.

It is all the same trial. Napoléon in Russia 1812; the Sex Pistols in Club De Chalet Du Lac in September ’76; our battles. Where is the difference? Boom or bust: revolution as economy, non?

Forget it, I sound like a fifteen year old. I am too tired to try anymore. I dream to remain static, you know? Ah, screw you, screw me; is all the same.

UNTIMELY #14 – A Sunday Walk

2010-02-22T23:51:00.005Z

We awoke an hour before dawn and left the house when even Mother was still asleep. Our bodies ached and we stank of the nightsweat, could feel it in our shirts damp against our skin, but we didn’t dare wash for the noise. And so we left in silence, taking the parcels we’d hidden under our pillows, the dry bread and cheese, the fruit and nuts, and half an onion I’d managed to smuggle into my pocket during supper. We had a litre of father’s wine between us and I felt very grown up.

The moon was gone and the sky lightening as we walked in the misty gray along the edges of the fields. There was a low fog and our clothes wet now with condensation. The cold got inside our coats and our gloves and our scarves and we walked rigid and tense to ward it off.

At first light we came to an inn on the outskirts of the city. There was a fire and men talking and the sounds of dishes being washed. We stood close up against the long wooden bar and were grateful for the warmth. Slowly we drank the coffee, lapping the bitter water and feeling our spirits rise.

And so we stormed the barricade
And threw our rocks over the flaming sawhorses
Bureaus ancient and smoking
Lacquered wood peeling and cracking and hissing in the flames
Popping and creaking and collapsing with a sudden rush of air
Whoosh down and bang and the smoke billowing forth in acrid clouds
And we ran back for more
Tearing up the streets
And we took the pickaxes
And clattered the cobbles
And ran back to the flames, hurling our missiles onto their shelters

In the night the fires burned and the streetlights didn’t come on and we’d never seen the city so dark. Smoke and clouds blocked out the stars and we ran from blaze to blaze and felt along the walls with one hand when we couldn’t see, when it was pitch, but always we moved forwards. When we heard voices we ducked into doorways, hid under cars, and waited for the boots to pass, our faces close against the stones, the tyres, the rainbow puddles of oil that filled our noses with the scent of battle.

UNTIMELY stimulus #14

2010-02-18T00:01:00.002Z

Untimely #13 - Picking up pieces.

2010-02-03T18:03:00.000Z

1a. What might Inclusion mean?

For you, back in the early seventies, it meant civil rights. To me, at first, it was supposed to be the dawn of acceptance. The great dream. But when I saw you, I knew that all I needed was to be included by you. In your life.

1b. What might inclusion mesh?

It was supposed to be You and Me!

Men and Women Everywhere!

Kerry and Kevin…

the world.

1c. Roll Call.

We stood up to be counted. You were Kerry. I was Kevin. It felt like love.

2a. How can we break down social barriers?

We had to understand each other. To know; intimately. It’s the only way.

2b. How can we breakfast down social barriers?

“I want to move in with you. I’ll make you breakfast everyday. You can get a job. I get it. It’s fine.”

2c. So many Kevins. But who the fuck is Keith?

I can be supportive. I can be a homemaker. I can be the breadwinner. I can stand by your side and march with you. Down the aisle if you’d let me. But I can understand that you don’t want to be my property. And I can completely see why you should want multiple sexual partners. It’s empowering. I can deal with it.

3a. What might inhibit inclusion?

Perceived external threats. The fear of being marginalised. Devaluation. Changes for the worse.

3b. What might insert inclusion?

Force.

My way into your heart. Someday.

My fist down Keith’s throat. Too literal.

3c. Away from Kerry.

Keith died. I ran. Now I hide – nowhere in particular. I drive. I mostly live in my car. I watched you. I still watch. But so do the police, from time to time. Just in case.

4a. How does your practise enhance social inclusion?

I want everyone to see us, and in us recognise the perfect model of happiness,

of truth, of acceptance. We will become the ideal.

4b. How does your practise ensnare social inclusion?

People can be fooled into anything. Even you. I know they’ve fooled you into thinking I’m a bad guy. But they’ll see. I’ll get you.

4c. A song.

We’ll be so perfect they’ll put us on television. We’ll be sent over to America; big movie stars. Bob Dylan will write a song about us. I promise.

UNTIMELY #13 – Kerry & Kevin in Four Parts

2010-02-01T23:53:00.003Z

Part 1.

The calling of the roll.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Present.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Here.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yo.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yes.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hello.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yep.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hi.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Adsum.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Here, ma’am.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Right!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hep!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Ho!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hi-ya!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hoopsie!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Shtoops.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yessum.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Being present, ma’am.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Psych.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Ha.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yerp.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yeah.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yiyiyi!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Geronimo!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Gravy.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Wotcher.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Huh.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hmhm.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Sì!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Allo.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hey.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hey hey.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hey hey hey!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Hay. [sniggers]

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Righto.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: You bet.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Yes, ma’am.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Ya’ram.

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Woohoo!

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: What?

Kerry: Kevin?

Kevin: Who?

Kerry: Keith?

Kevin: [lets rip a loud fart]

Part 2.

Bacon, Brennan, Brown, Burke, Byrne, Campbell, Clarke, Collins, Connolly, Daly, Doyle, Dunne, Egan, Fitzgerald, Gallagher, Hughes, Johnson, Kelly, Kennedy, Lynch, McCarthy, McLoughlin, Moore, Murphy, Murray, O’Brien, O’Carroll, O’Connell, O’Connor, O’Doherty, O’Farrell, O’Neill, O’Reilly, O’Sullivan, Quinn, Ryan, Spacey, Smith, Walsh, Wilson [as one]:

Who the fuck is Keith?

Part 3.

Kerry, remembered.

You picked me up from school and peeled out of the lot and that fat bastard of an assistant principal chasing us threatening to call the cops. And we laughed and laughed and thought we’d nearly die. And driving into Ramsey you ran all the lights and past the police station we were very scared and you pegged it at 30 and the cars were honking and trying to pass us but we didn’t care a hoot. Drove all the way upstate and dead north on the thruway and slowly slowly the cars disappeared and it was just us and I pushed the seat all the way back and fell asleep with your hand clasped tight in mine. I woke up and didn’t know where I was. I was alone in the car in a parking lot and it was very cold. The motor was off and the keys were gone and I realized that I was locked in. There were some kind of crazy child locks on my door and I couldn’t open it from the inside and so I just sat there and tried to figure out where we were but I couldn’t see any signs. Just the highway behind me and the very occasional pair of headlights zipping along. I started to shiver and my teeth were chattering and then the car door opened and there you were with Roy Rogers and I was so glad to see you. Afterwards we ate the sandwiches, which were still sort of warm, and the cold french fries, which I always loved, ate them in great handfuls and the salt burned my fingers where the cold had split them.

Part 4.

A song!

Kevin’s knives slice nice snipe twice,

Me oh my but what a spice!

And filigreed so daintily

With lettuce leaves and potpourri,

Oh, Kevin, what a dish!

Nor fowl, beast nor fish!

Oh, Kevin, what a dish…

Untimely #13 - Kevin's Exclusive Including Machine and Question Personaliser

2010-01-23T15:25:00.001Z

Objective:

The objective of the following process is to enable all individuals to personalise any question asked of them via the enacting of a simple sequence of 5 steps. The following process will be carried out under test conditions employing the given test questions and the test Personalised Name Determinant SAMUEL CHARLES BUTLER

Equipment:

Questions for Personalisation
Dictionary
Personalised Name Determinant
Alphabet

For the following process the following terms will apply:

Input Question 1 = "What might inclusion mean?"

Input Question 2 = "How can we break down social barriers?"

Input Question 3 = "What might inhibit inclusion?"

Input Question 4 = "How does your practice enhance social inclusion?"

Methodology:

STEP 1: Identify question field for personalisation and objects for personalisation within given field.

e.g.

Verbs or Nouns

i.e.

Active Verbs:

Input Question 1 = Object for personalisation 1 = "mean"

Input Question 2 = Object for personalisation 2 = "break"

Input Question 3 = Object for personalisation 3 = "inhibit"

Input Question 4 = Object for personalisation 4 = "enhance"

STEP 2: Quantify total objects within question field for personalisation to determine personalisation vectors.

e.g.

mean +

break +

inhibit +

enhance = 4

STEP 3: Determine personalisation vectors per input question via Personalised Name Determinant based nominal conversion of total objects for personalisation.

e.g.

Total objects for personalisation ==> Personalised Name Determinant based nominal conversion ==> personalisation vectors

i.e.

4 ==> (First 4 letters of SAMUEL CHARLES BUTLER) ==> S.A.M.U.

:. 1=S, 2=A, 3=M, 4=U

STEP 4: Convert personalisation vectors into numerical operators via alphanumerical matrix.

e.g.

Numerical Operator 1 = S=19

Numerical Operator 2 = A=1

Numerical Operator 3 = M=13

Numerical Operator 4 = U=21

STEP 5: Input objects for personalisation into dictionary based personalisation logarithm subject to numerical operators to determine personalised question field varient.

e.g.1

Object for personalisation 1 = "mean"

Numerical operator 1 = S = 19

:. 19th verb succeeding "mean" = "mesh"

:. Personalised question field variant 1 = "mesh"

:. Input question 1 = Output question 1 = What might inclusion mesh?

e.g.2

Object for personalisation 1 = "break"

Numerical operator 1 = A = 1

:. 1st verb succeeding "break" = "breakfast"

:. Personalised question field variant 2 = "breakfast"

:. Input question 2 = Output question 2 = How can we breakfast down social barriers?

e.g.3

Object for personalisation 3 = "inhibit"

Numerical operator 3 = M = 13

:. 13th verb succeeding "inhibit" = "insert"

:. Personalised question field variant 3 = "insert"

:. Input question 3 = Output question 3 = What might insert inclusion?

e.g.4

Object for personalisation 4 = "enhance"

Numerical operator 4 = U = 21

:. 21st verb succeeding "enhance" = "ensnare"

:. Personalised question field variant 4 = "ensnare"

:. Input question 1 = Output question 1 = How does your practice ensnare social inclusion?

Results:

Personalised Output Question 1 = What might inclusion mesh?

Personalised Output Question 2 = How can we breakfast down social barriers?

Personalised Output Question 3 = What might insert inclusion?

Personalised Output Question 4 = How does your practice ensnare social inclusion?

Untimely Stimulus #13

2010-01-23T14:37:00.003Z

In which Untimely finds itself embroiled in: "...an initiative to establish a cross-participatory project between myself, Kerry, and 41 Kevins."

So, for this issue we are not Untimely but Kevin.

The stimulus is provided by our good friend Kerry. You can find out all about her and the other Kevins here: www.kerrykevin.co.uk.

The stimulus is as follows:

What might inclusion mean?
How can we break down social barriers?
What might inhibit inclusion?
How does your practice enhance social inclusion?

Respond!

Untimely #12 - In the Gallery

2010-01-16T23:04:00.005Z

Oh David don't I look divine? And yes, she did, because everyone wanted Karen's hair, so straight and so very very black. Black like jet some might say, and black as night others might say. And some say midnight blue, which is just about the same. Black and blue and white all over, with her lilyporcelainsnowwhite skin and gaping darkbrown eyes.

Black and blue and white all over

Like a lily midst the clover...

Lucia, darling, do you remember going for the Sunday strolls, the promenades in the gallery, weighted down with finery, white socks pulled up to the knee and stable boys in livery? When it rained the marble was so slippery and the girls looked so pale. Their hair so black and legs so long and thin!

When it rained the gallery was very full and the windows would steam up, slowly, from the bottom and the edges, until they were all covered like in a fog and the candles flickered overhead and everything was shinier and duller than you expected it. Her hair was so black and so low over her eyes and her mouth so red, so very very red. I think she put blue in her hair, to make it blacker. Just a bit, you understand, a bit of blue to make it black. It got very noisy in the gallery and the cold air rushing through the fever heat of bodies chilled us with its touch. In our stomachs we felt sick like hungry but not. We followed her through the gallery but it was no use, we couldn't see her face. Her hair was straight and short and blue in the sun but in the gallery it was black and blacker and she was prettier than anyone I'd ever met.

Untimely #12 - Lucia Joyce

2010-01-07T13:14:00.006Z

Yes. A Jung buoy. Yes.

Jung and freudened.

Bog-eyed. Bobbing animusically.

Squinting, side-glancing under dreams and starry eyes.

The Athlete. The Planner. The Professor. The Guide.

A Mermaid flapping in the wake.

Dance for your daddy

For your daddy sings

For your paddy.

Trieste-Zurich-Paris.

Nomad, unbarnacled kid

Of an old Irish goat.

Proteus. Unbound.

Nights on the sauce.

“She is a saucebox.”

Days of closeted genius.

“I am the genius.”

A tiny runt.

A tinny rant.

Ill.

It.

Irate.

I’ll iterate in four languages.

Fluent.

The flowering of words

And flailing of limbs;

And with his success

The phone ever rings,

A maddening mess

Of wires and strings.

Fragments, finesse,

Of fires and flings.

His obscene success.

My shadow mind stings.

Dance for your daddy

For your daddy sings.

Yes. I will. Yes.

For my daddy sings.

Untimely #12 - The Hot Line

2010-01-06T17:53:00.000Z

“She looked really good today, like a young boy.”

…

“No, not like a naughty schoolgirl. That’s just weird.”

…

“No, I just said NOT like that at all. She wasn’t wearing any kind of skirt.”

…

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you couldn’t. She was wearing some very smart, grey knee-length shorts.”

…

“Woollen, I think.”

…

“Yes, yeah, she did have knee high socks on actually, pulled right up they were, so they almost met her little shorts!”

…

“Oh really, how can people even walk in them? Ridiculous things they are. No, she had brogues on.”

…

“Brown.”

…

“Shirt yes, white no. It was a crisp light blue actually, neatly off-set with a medium width, maroon stripe tie.”

…

“Right up to the collar actually. I think it was a Windsor knot.”

…

“Yeah, she was wearing a little grey cardigan actually, though you couldn’t really see it that well under her blazer.”

…

“Blazer. It’s like a suit jacket.”

…

“Same maroon as the tie actually, quite dashing.”

…

“Hair? Of course she had hair, she’s always got hair! What did you think, something had happened to it?”

…

“Oh right, no, it wasn’t in pigtails, why would it be? How many young boys do you see roaming the streets with their hair in pigtails?”

…

“Precisely. It was in a side-parting.”

…

“Left to right.”

…

“Facing her.”

…

“I know. Hot right?”

…

“Yeah. Piping hot. Like a sexy kettle.”

Untimely Stimulus #12

2010-01-06T17:48:00.001Z

"She looked really good today, like a young boy."

One friend, about another friend. Let's leave it there.

Untimely #11 - Thanatos

2009-12-10T22:31:00.002Z

A dawn alarm. Alone. Our bed, still, half

Empty. Still stiff. Limp clock glow still totting

The moments. Your ghost, a metronome of

My missing, my stroking, my forgetting.

Memory, lotion smooth, curdles the cold

Skin of your hollow. The cool sheet furrows.

Worms erupt, seethe, over your sagging folds,

Burrow neat holes through the shroud of my sorrow.

Mid-morning alarm at finding myself

In the kitchen. Your hand, in chalk, “Bin Day”,

Remains, lined in dust, scrawled on the blackboard.

My hands, nails two weeks untrimmed, search the shelves;

Tea bags, tuna, tinned peaches, tossed away,

Contents strewn in bin bags across the floor.

Untimely #11 - Is That All You've Got, Tolstoy?

2009-12-05T12:36:00.000Z

Donald Donald Donaldson, the self styled ‘Russian Imitationist’, has finally unveiled plans for what many have already been calling the artist’s ultimate work. The entire undertaking, collectively entitled ‘Is That All You’ve Got, Tolstoy?’, is expected to consume Donaldson’s remaining years and will see him attempting to improve upon every major aspect of the famous Russian author’s life.

While some wary naysayers have called the work both preposterous and impossible, the wheels have already been set in motion to overtake the peaceful patriarch’s perfection. Scottish émigré Donaldson is already engaged to an as-yet-unnamed Romanian Princess, a marriage which will elevate him to the position of Prince, outranking Tolstoy’s own meagre post of Count by leaps and bounds. The princess is also said to be pregnant with the first in the couples planned brood of twenty-five, ten of whom are intended for slaughter during adolescence, thereby outstripping the author’s renowned prowess and his capacity for grief by more than two to one.

In his statement to the press this morning, Donaldson confided that he had already begun drafting the most inspirational, realistic and lengthy novel in the history of history itself. When pushed for any actual details of this literary behemoth, he would only say that such was its intended majesty, that “if Hitler had read it back in the day, he’d have stuck to painting instead of being a massive bastard.”

Further details of the project are enshrouded in secrecy for the moment, although when questioned as to how the artist intends to compete with Tolstoy’s lifespan of 82 years, Donaldson whispered into his microphone, “I’m going to live forever.” He then gave a salutary tug of his beard, rose, and left.

‘Is That All You’ve Got, Tolstoy?’ officially opens next week, wherever the artist happens to be.

Untimely #11 – Melt Banana

2009-11-30T23:32:00.005Z

Brushing his teeth in the mirror the world stops. Suddenly he feels very, very old. Where once reigned an unruly mane, a thin black wisp of tousled hair is disheveled, flattened, plastered to his mottled crown with sweat. Spots, age spots they call them, grow like a second skin, a thick, gnarled, scabby skin of brown blotches, from ear to ear across his craggy head. He has them on his back, too, and a few on his chest, though those are bumps, raised higher off the skin, and softer. Out of these grow a few straggling white hairs and, in between, something he could never understand: tiny red pinpricks of spots, bulbous, spherical, minute. Like droplets of blood hanging off of (or onto) his body. He was never quite sure how they formed, but there were more and more of them now, constellations in blood.

He was not fat so much as saggy; skin hung in loose folds, layering over his modest paunch, under his arms, his breast. Whatever tensile strength his skin had once exerted had long been given up. Now was the time to start running, he thought, and yet there had never been a worse time. How would his knees stand up to the crashing impact of the asphalt? His ankles? He could feel the shin splints as flesh separated from bone with each concussion. No, it was not the time to start running. Far from it. It was the time to stop, instead, to stop moving, stop driving, stop eating, because the more he ate the more he had to shit and the more he irritated his already irritated (and irritable) bowel. He was a bit of an irritable old bowel himself and worse he knew it. He smelled of sour banana skins, mostly because he would keep half-eaten bananas in his pockets, in all his pockets, in jacket pockets, trouser pockets, glove compartments. He loved bananas, but could no longer finish one, for either it made him constipated and irritated his bowel or made him need the toilet and irritated his bowel. There was no way to win, no middle ground, except of course not to eat the entire banana but to put the rest away for later. To wrap it in its own convenient packaging, a ready-made doggie bag, resealable and reusable yet entirely disposable and environmentally friendly. Sometimes, even now, he marveled at his own genius. As to the browning of the banana flesh inside the blackening skin, the mushing and mashing incurred upon the innocent fruit by the simple repetitive action of walking, or being sat upon, or the nose of a dog thrust importunately forth into his seat pocket – all of these happened at least once if not oftener and resulted in the sweet stench of rotting tropical fruit by which Mr. Jackson came to be known. Professor Donald Jackson, once preeminent biologist now left to rot and wither and brown like so many bananas in so many absentminded pockets. Yes, life had not been easy on him.

Untimely Stimulus #11

2009-11-30T23:30:00.005Z

“I grow old, I grow old. I’m gonna wear me some corduroy.” – me, Friday night at the pub

Untimely #10 – City of Rocks

2009-11-24T00:01:00.001Z

They left him for dead in the city of rocks, for the sun to kill him, or the heat, or the cold, or the wind, or the wound. The sun came up in a rusty red dawn, all mist and sand and wind. Then it was overhead and all around him sallow grey light too bright to look at. He pressed his head into the ground and shifting saw the blood thick and black and muddy where it pooled by his side and his shirt plastered down to his hip. His tongue felt like a block of wood between two stones. He lay on his side and closed his eyes and prayed that he would never open them. He held them shut a long time and thought of stories they used to tell of men buried up to their necks and covered in molasses and how the ants would clean the flesh off their bones, the vultures pluck out their eyes. OK, he thought, so it could be worse. It could always be worse. But still he kept his eyes shut and felt the tightening in his side and then there was a very great tightening and he thought that this might be it. When he awoke it was dark and there was a high moon and he was shivering. He couldn’t feel his legs and he tried to move them but he couldn’t see to tell whether they had moved. He was frozen all over and shuddering now and then he felt a surge of warm and then it was over.

Untimely #10 - Why! A Quit, Of Sorts.

2009-11-18T18:23:00.005Z

Washed my face in the rivers of empire;

Made my bed from a cardboard crate

Down in the city of quartz.

Pleaded with every agency of temps,

Harangued the centre of jobs;

Brandished my Curriculum Vitae at every turn,

And got nowhere in the city of quartz.

I dined in the soup kitchens of pain!

Ogled the grand patisseries of the French quarter,

And began to quietly starve in the city of quartz.

Attempting to prostitute myself to the children of Caesar,

I was flung into the prison of punishment.

And there sodomised for scraps,

In the bowels of the city of quartz.

Toothless, wretched, my metaphors scabbing over,

I am sold, out right, to an ageing actor:

Tears, joyous and otherwise, are ignored by all in the city of quartz.

I wish I’d never moved here.

My diseases are turning my mind to dung.

I’m decanting my sense into the toilet and becoming a moron.

I’m fitting in to the city of quartz.

I’m in love with my actor,

Though I’m sure he’s cheating on me,

With some new tourist to our city of quartz.

I’m leaving.

I’m going to kill myself while I have the strength.

I can’t take any more of this.

Fuck you, you stupid old city of quartz.

Untimely #10 - City of Quartz

2009-11-06T14:03:00.001Z

Parakeets swoon in

To roost on naked pylons

Under massed moon clouds.

Grass scratched tarmac seethes;

Freeway, sagging, crocodile

Spined, under moon clouds.

Corrugated cheek,

Cold against cool cardboard pulp,

Turns toward moon clouds.

Stray tobacco fronds,

Straggling on blistered lips, I

Stretch below moon clouds.

All extremities,

Finger tips, yellow toe nails,

Shiver down moon clouds.

Wrist knuckles click back

Through frayed cuffs, forage pockets,

Forgetting moon clouds.

Night time is my time,

Needle blind, tooth and eye time,

Hunger strikes moon clouds.

And out, out into,

Into quartz, into quartz tides

Under quartz moon clouds.

The dune teeming city

Subsumes me, the rowdy spume,

Moon clouding moon crowds.

Untimely Stimulus #10 - Guest Stimulus

2009-10-17T14:39:00.005+01:00

The first Guest Stimulus is submitted by Spencer Tapia:

"Washed my face in the rivers of empire;
Made my bed from a cardboard crate
Down in the city of quartz."

- From "Sunken Waltz" by Calexico

Respond!

Untimely #9 - Norman Mailer Toothache Nightmare

2009-10-01T18:03:00.004+01:00

For a week and a half, he had been forced to starve himself. Two teeth less sat in his mouth than before the operation and their absence meant that he could not chew a thing. He had been excommunicated from the delicious, awkward wonders of gnawing on bones or of forcing great boulders of meat and potatoes down his gullet. He had been posted out into the bitter loneliness of the Soup Gulag. Since his arrival he had been forcing himself to slurp and suck and struggle his way out, desperate to better a lightly coated piece of bread. And what delight that bread delivered. It was a madman’s first kill. It was divine inspiration. It was a lightning rod that pierced to his very core; a force that punched his soul in one ear and screamed threats into the other until it finally got the message, leapt up, ran out and got on the road. That week and a half had nearly done for him, but now the bread drove him on. Now he front-toothed his way through soft pasta with nothing sauce, hacked at ham with his tongue and his pre molars, and plain bled his way through sausage patties with fried eggs and home fries. There was no sense of enjoyment, just the sheer determination of a man who will not have things taken from him. On the twelfth night after the operation, he almost tore his fading stitches anew. He could feel his very jaw bucking at the feat it was being made to perform, the horse so sure the jump was too huge, veering away from the ridiculousness of the beef burger before him, but he would not submit. A final wriggle of the jaw while he attempted to flatten the slavering monster between his hands, and in it went. The feel of the fat coating his remaining teeth, the way the seeds of the bun instantly sought out and tunnelled into the last gaps left by the removal, and, most of all, the pain endured in the tasting of that ground flesh and gristle finally brought a smile to his face.

His long journey back to life was over. He had come home and now he could eat anything he chose to. The world was his oyster and he would slap it in a roll with some hotsauce and it would be gone in two. A champion.

Untimely #9 - Read/Broad

2009-09-27T12:07:00.002+01:00

Road

A couple are watching Crash under the Westway. Above them, cars plummet out of the sunset towards the city, two by two by four, hot metal tracings of a concrete arc.

The couple are parked on the tarmac island of the gyratory that snakes between the cages and pitches and the towering stanchions that thrust the flyover forward. Their vehicle is resting within focal range of the dull surface of the column that supports the apex of the grey parabola. It stands perpendicular to the black expanse upon which their car sits, scrubbed with weeds and packets. A thin crack daggers down the pillar, emerging from the underbelly of the track, forking and hairpinning to terminate at the focal point of the couple’s flickering lightshow.

The couple have rigged up a projector, powered by wires that tendril from a stray yellow generator, which beams a stammering image across the pillar’s plane.

Light, unchained, stings off the sharp edges, casts and reels in the shadow, clots over the windscreen, hums over the fleshy bumps and hollows of the couple’s heads and bodies. They watch alone, unwatching, unseen. And as each car rockets overhead the image on the makeshift screen jags and buckles with the rhythm of transit, like an imperfect mirror.

Bread

This is a poem I wrote whilst drunk in 2004.

When don’t you need

Music?

I haven’t got a clue what it is about

Which is half of its magic.

I let it play

Whatever it is

It just reminds me of things

Right now

Just now

Talking to Jos

About Sandwiches.

Which reminds me

I need to go and make a sandwich

Cheese and ham

(Ham not of the pig but of the Turk)

I like to think I have a secret recipe.

Bread on toastie machine

Then ham on bread

Then cheese on ham

And it all comes down to that last make or break bread slice.

Spread mayonnaise on the bread

And then the secret ingredient

MUSTARD!!!!

Magic.

Put it all together and

Toast til it makes noise

And the light clunks off.

Eat carefully

Magic.

Untimely #9 - Seabiscuit

2009-09-11T22:08:00.008+01:00

As has been noted, Jack loved his job. He had always liked bread, had liked to eat, and the town of Barber’s Landing had long lacked a bakery with the wherewithal to fashion a tasty loaf. And yet the bread on which he’d grown to his six feet and one hundred ninety five pounds, stacked on his upper half in the form of a barreled chest and arms to match, was bread any boy would have been more than happy with during a war. There was no war while Jack was growing up, but not knowing better nor knowing worse bread was bread and Jack was a happy man. Then one day Jack awoke from a dream in which he had been rowing a small boat across a calm afternoon sea to an island just distant at the edge of a great fog. When he arrived at the short pebble beach he paused to turn and look at the sky ominously blackening behind him over the bay. Rather than risk his vessel and his life in the choppy, churning waves, he dragged his boat clear of the water and, leaving it, began to climb the rocks, hoping for a bit of shelter, perhaps a rocky overhang or even a shallow cave, a dry spot out of the rain, even, dare he hope, a stone mansion with a great open fire and unwieldy steins of semisweet mead to quaff whilst reclining on the furs of wild bears and other savage beasts. Perhaps someone would offer him a pipe of opium, and as she prepared it for him she would do a little dance, dressed, as she was, in seven veils, and removing them one by one she would finish and fall into his lap, naked and adoring, as he drifted off into a haze of narcotically charged dreams. Of course, to dream in his dream might overwhelm his semiconscious powers, and so instead he simply continued to clamber over the jagged rocks in the diminishing light. Eventually he made it to the top, hands cut and knees and elbows scraped from slips and slides across the imperfect surface, and there he found himself in a clearing little more than ten paces by ten paces. In the center, on a wooden pedestal, was a shiny brass lamp with a small sign reading, in seven languages, “Rub Me.”

No, of course there was not. Instead, in the center of the clearing was ... absolutely nothing. Not a tree, not a cave, not a rock under which to find shelter from the rain that was beginning to fall with alarming force, slapping and popping on his bared skin like fingers on taut sheepskin. He ran to the center and arms widespread looked pleadingly up at the sky but the drops only fell in his eyes, blurring his sight. He dropped to his knees with a squelch in the liquid mud and felt the cold stream of drops running under his shirt and down his chest. For a very brief moment it felt cool and refreshing, invigorating, and then it began to get cold, and then very cold, and then very much colder, and he fell forward with his head on his knees, hands outstretched palms up in the mud and the rain splattered his back and his trousers and the soles of his shoes. He could feel it most on the back of his bare neck and when he went to cover himself he awoke stark naked and kneeling in the middle of his bed. He leaned over the wooden baseboard and retrieved his blankets from the cold floor, and then, rearranging himself, snugly fell into a long and dreamless sleep in which the sensation of being next to a fireplace featured strongly. The next day when he woke up he went straight to the general store and bought himself some flour and salt and corn flour and his first bread was sold out by the time he was ready to taste any.

Untimely Stimulus #9

2009-09-11T22:05:00.005+01:00

“In the beginning there was the road movie.”

“A meal without bread is not a meal.”

Untimely #8 - The Big Fight

2009-09-06T13:18:00.009+01:00

What a kerfuffle! What a furore!

For two fledgling fighters forging for glory,

With a flurry of fists, gruesome and gory,

In this Heffalump-Hardman-Bruiser-Babe Story!

One dances like an elephant, and stings like one too,

(He’s the Tiddlywinks Champion of Edinburgh Zoo.)

In his last major bout he was laid out in Round Two,

By a vicious left hoof from Gnigel the Gnu.

His foe is a featherweight who’s yet to be weaned;

No need of a gum-shield for this toothless young fiend!

He crawls round the ring, the scrappy wee chappy,

Snubbing shorts and tough gloves for bootees and a nappy.

The Pachyderm Pugilist parades the red corner;

In the blue the Newborn looks far more forlorner.

Eyeball-to-eyeball, awaiting the bell

For this Babe-on-Beast Ding-Dong, this hand-to-hand hell.

DING! DING! The bell rings and they meet in the middle,

And as they touch fists the tot titters and giggles.

Nelly honks, horrified, “What you chucklin’ on, Punk?”

If the toddler could talk he’d say, “Your ridiculous trunk!”

The mute little muppet snorts and guffaws,

And the dumbfounded crowd rise up in applause,

At the ticklish tactics, the peculiar plan

Of this pint-sized poppet, this diminutive man.

Thunderstruck Nelly, riddled with doubt,

Glances about him and wrinkles his snout.

He blinks with bewilderment and blushes bright pink,

But in the midst of his snivels, he sniffs a foul stink.

And so...

It comes to him whilst pondering, “What is that I smelt?”

The baby, in his giggling, has relaxed below the belt!

So trunky chops chortles as though he might explode;

The stench of baby’s ‘Rocky II’ has him totally K.O.’d.

Both fighters on the canvas, both out for the count

From the sucker punch of laughter; the tension starts to mount.

No punches thrown, no footwork shown, both boxers on the ropes,

The ref, slouched in the middle, has given up all hope.

The crowd get on the ref’s back, “C’mon sort it out!

We came to see a boxing match not a Ho-Ho Ha-Ha bout!”

The ref takes a spotty handkerchief and dabs his sweaty jowls,

Then leaps the ropes and swift elopes, throwing in the towel.

The bums on seats leap to their feet; they see the funny side,

They hoist the fighters high in joy and decide the match is tied.

The moral of this story is that everyone’s a winner

Especially when all involved make it safely home for dinner.

Untimely #8 – An Early Memory

2009-08-29T08:29:00.006+01:00

They were all sitting at the table when I came down. In the kitchen with the lights on in the middle of the night – I knew it was strange because the light was so orange, so rich and thick like syrup, not like daylight, nor like the evening light of after dinner. It was heavy and dark, the light, and they were sitting around the table crying. I took the stairs slowly, sleep-eyed, trailing my bear along the steps. I came down the last stair and turned down the hallway and I could see them all at the table around the telephone. My mother had her back to me and her shoulders were shaking and my aunt was holding her, but her face was hidden, too. Silently I walked toward the kitchen, the hall carpet threadbare and familiar under my naked feet. They were crying, all of them, the women of the house, and yet it was so quiet. I stood in the door in my pajamas, holding the jamb with one hand, the other holding my bear.

Untimely #8 - THE TRUNK or GOGOL GAGA

2009-08-22T20:11:00.007+01:00

“Did I ever tell you about my cousin, the circus chap, goes by the name of Major Kovalyov?”

“Actually no Nikolai, my dear fellow, you did not. What’s so hot about this cousin anyhow?”

“Please, my dearest Denniski Paulovich, don’t get your wind up about it; ‘tis nothing but a trifle of a tale which I felt might amuse you, but if you’d rather I didn’t…”

“I am sorry good sir, you must forgive me; I’ve a touch of the gas today and as you know this puts me in the very foulest of tempers. I beg you, continue with your yarn.”

“Very well. It so happens that my cousin, the Major, who is a relatively well respected Circus Elephant, awoke one morning some weeks back to find himself in something of a pickle. His trunk, you see, had quite simply vanished into thin air, leaving him with nought but a smooth, flat surface between two tusks. Very un-gentlemanly indeed.”

“Indeed!”

“Indeed. Though ashamed to be seen in public, not to mention terrified of losing his job, as are we all, there was nothing for the poor fellow to do but wrap a large scarf around his face and go off in search of the dastardly thing. Thus attired, he could claim to have a severe cold should anyone stop him, thereby avoiding upsetting anyone with his face, now so freakishly bereft of trunk.”

“Quite.”

“Quite. So off he blunders, straight in the direction of the Ringmaster, hoping to enlist his assistance in the search, when who should he spy but the very trunk which had fled him in the night! Furthermore, the blasted proboscis is trying to pass itself off as a snake in the hope of securing employment with the circus under its own steam!”

“Well I never.”

“And neither would I. Fortunately the ringmaster must have seen through the trunk’s elaborate ruse and turned it away because, after spending much of the day and night searching for the brutish protuberance, whipping himself almost to the point of frenzy, Major Kovalyov awoke the following morning to find the wicked thing right smack bang on his face again! The poor fellow was so relieved he almost wept. He actually went on to give the three best performances of his career that day, and has since been sent a number of very promising job offers for next season.”

“That is super! But still, and do not take me as being ungrateful that you shared this ridiculous story with me dearest Nikolai, but it is just that, isn’t it? Ridiculous?”

“Why of course it is, beloved Denniski, of course it is. Nevertheless these things do happen, and I believe it important to not to lose sight of such ridiculousness.”

“How true, my friend. How absolutely perfect.”

Untimely Stimulus #8

2009-08-22T20:05:00.004+01:00

Untimely #7 – Ambergris My Gander

2009-08-20T13:21:00.005+01:00

...nose to steamed porthole, the smell of pennies, a mouth of copper. Blood, for he bites the lip senseless out of habit. Boredom. Its salty tang frightens and refreshes him. Backing slightly from the blackened glass he touches two fingers to his lip. It’s only small – snakebite, a puncture either side of the fleshy center. He wipes the condensation from the glass. Black night. He cannot tell the water from the sky. Inside a greenish haze from dimlit lamps and a smell of socks. Old socks like wet bread and mushrooms and the underside of rocks. He runs his fingers across his lips and tries to see in the window but it is only a ghost that looks back at him. No sign of the blood that trickles to the corner of his mouth like when the old and infirm – dried like paper, like elephants, like biltong, like cement – forget to drink, forget to lick their lips or dab the corners of their mouths with handkerchiefs and work the saliva into a paste. He has seen amber rivers of tobacco juice flowing down the creases of weathered faces on the ship; salted and cured by the spray and wind, they’ll outlast the pharaohs, he’ll warrant. Men who look like strands of rope, with yellow nails and teeth and eyes and hairy ears the better to balance with. Men who cannot now return to shore without the blinding drunk to give that list they’ve come to know so well. He can feel the blood drying like paint and wonders whether he can pick it off or if he should just leave it, wash it in the morning. Remembers waking as a child with the hot blood coursing down his neck and throat, his pillow soaked, and how it caked below his eyes and in his fingernails. Mother screaming what’s he done, what’s he done! Holding his head back until it stopped, the salty snotty drip drip down his throat that made him gag, then dabbing at his cheeks with a moistened cloth. Now he could feel it dry and the taste fading and he pressed his head once more against the coolness of the glass, feeling his breath fog the window and wondering if she missed him like he missed her.

Untimely #7 - The Programme

2009-08-18T08:56:00.005+01:00

WWI – Whaler Women’s Institute

Programme of Events to be Forthcoming

Thursday 1^st April

Wood Carving – Learn how to whittle your very own kitchen utensils, a sturdy brassiere, party hats, or a brand new crack pipe, all from nature’s favourite building material. (Wood).

Friday 3^rd April

Self Defence Class – Concerned about big, strapping men invading the privacy of your inner rooms? We’ll teach you how to handle yourself, and others, together with the latest techniques in restraint, so that there’ll never be another “one that got away”.

Monday 4^th April

Gang Lingo – Like all mothers, do you worry about paying over the odds for hard drugs? Learn to keep that budget under control and obtain top product every time, with this very practical course from our own Nurse, Maggie Magnusson.

Thursday 5^th April

Plaster Casting – Want to wrap some stuff round something and keep its image forever? Want to make something smooth, strong and cool, something reliable that never has too much to drink, something really dependable? Then thank the Lord for Plaster Casting! Bring along your own mould, (how about a wooden leg, cats paw or a severed human penis), and we’ll teach you the rest!

Fun times await you.

Please, sign up below.

All courses come at a minimal price to cover costs of materials and the provision of break-time liquor.

Untimely #7 - Nantucket

2009-08-10T14:52:00.004+01:00

Circle-jerks. The Grampus toss of the sea. The creak and shrike of fear without end. Cotted below decks, tin-canned and man-coddled, down in the fulsome black, they like to imagine us alone in Nantucket.

alone in Nantucket

waiting, grey, on the hissing strand

streaked and stained in the salt dunes

counting the days in crusted corset straps

alone

as the sea. Tumbling spume. Because our bodies are the fucking waves to them

as the whale. Dick deep in blubber, howling at the void

alone as the sea as the whale as

Much worse as better. With their rum legs and their best, fucking hat. With some vast Spermaceti bubbling in the vats and the gulls and the gannets and the gulls all of a reeling at the flayed skin. The shanty clink of the victory shift. Blubber banked. On with conquest. At these times they like to imagine us at one in Nantucket.

at one in Nantucket

a coven of pins and purses

dripping our candle fingered titties with lamp oil

do-do-doing dildo-do-do saucery, firing our cunts with silver

at one

as the sea. Tumbling, filthy, foaming, frothy, frotting spume. Because our fucking bodies are the waves to them

as the whale. Howling at the blubber. Blubbing. Dick deep in the void

at one as the sea as the whale as

Their life of bellows and rot and hot, wet waste. The instruments of natural philosophy, of heroic increments. The needle and the horizon. Hooks and harpoons to stitch the drift. Endless frittering card games. The brine swill of mutiny sluicing the bunks.

At one alone.

No wonder they get it so wrong.

Untimely Stimulus #7

2009-08-10T14:46:00.005+01:00

"Whaling separated sexes; and in this isolated place, as isolated as any ship, and yet bleaker in mid-winter, whaling 'widows' had recourse to opium to cope with the loneliness. Others used plaster dildos known as 'he's-at-homes'."

Philip Hoare 'Leviathan (or, The Whale)"

Respond!

Untimely #6 - Jeff Goldblum - King of the Rats

2009-08-08T10:04:00.010+01:00

“Oh Brother! I just cannot believe how much shit you’re throwing out that window. Don’t you care about the environment? And don’t tell me that it’s all good ‘cos it’ll just be chow time for some bullshit rat-beasts, cos that little Styrofoam tub o’ beans, and your frickin’ spork there, ain’t bein’ eaten by nobody, and even if they could be, who the shit wants to start feedin’ rats anyhow, you sick sonofabitch?”

“Pardon me, Missy, but you see, aha, well, yes, aa, Chaos, you see, Chaos teaches us that while I may dispose of my Styrofoam bean dispenser and handyman’s spork in a seemingly, aha, or you may at least see it as such, um, irresponsible manner, perhaps, in actual fact I could, um, somehow become responsible for the a, a, a, the next STEP, in the evolutionary cycle. Now, yes, aha, it may be possible if we look through the magnificently dim light of Chaos Theory, that I may actually be, a, providing those which you call “rats”, uh, with the tools to become mighty Generals with command of, hoho, their very own armies! Yes, that’s right, Generals; Generals who, uh, may well fashion tiny protective helmets from my Styrofoam tubs; Generals who send their soldiers out to perform claw-to-claw combat with nothing, you see, NOTHING but the humble spork with which to defend themselves. ERGO, ladycakes, it is now likely, uh, unavoidable in fact, that in 10,000 years from now, uh, HUMUNGOUS Rodent Archaeologists will tunnel their way down into these caverns to, a, unearth this Mystic, uh, this Vital place, right here, where it all began… Undoubtably, haha, I, and My Spork and My Tub, uh, shall be revered as the PROGENITORS of this Inevetible Rodent Future! All hail, a, a, a, little lady, the munificent beauty that is Chaos.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Oh, yes, a, clever girl.”

Untimely #6 - The Carpudgeon

2009-08-07T12:12:00.006+01:00

- The Carpudgeon?!

- For stats, Hoppo. One varlent, smitheric, mawing grute of a jubba. Aports, it trags at its prain with pindled tegs, farthed darrily in forrows amidden its thorrowful smick. Fallid layes moller, gaxy and all-trothful. With morty kalver fongs it rints the hosh, a gulmish greetch durning the blennish solly. But most hellibund of all is the gorm-rot crandle that aborns his grint.

- Fucking hup, Brod! And the ossifer; how did you lig the ossifer?

- Have you ever skalked the Unterwar as our forends once skalked?

- I scaned the caverence once. A faught into meckness. I was aver wampy.

- Aye, Hoppo. It’s a hordant hance – a corpt. Folmy-layed Whuppets paggle for paps. Honnel Crits frip chummets of melch from abarrened charpses.

-Charpses?

- Oh aye! Many a trovey sprew has drotten the honnels, nowhine to reforn. Some blidder down all glastered or pooky, to hizz in homiden or flut the infarnal morm. Other more sneckety brodes, more stanless brodes, hem with metchety nubs and a mesk for tander – they venger rout into the catoblight to lench for bravure.

- But fellon say the parrels slenk through the meckness, through the cowels of the croven metris all the way to Henk.

- Let me shole a missem with you, Hoppo.

- Is it aband the …?

- You must trull nobrow!

- Not a moll.

- Stamice?

- On the blennish glame of the morling solly.

- Dackay. I waldened sublow only troy dures ago. On his toftfell my pather mandered me a scitchy crip of the honnels. He bond me that to unstreal the smath I must retrother the clember where the Carpudgeon dralls. Paps mandied that it flen beyorn the crip.

- Then how did you smoil it?

- I didn’t. I flumbered for hures, glasping in the meckness, smittling through rungered sketterlers, stralling for the parrels to tarry me fonwith. My larch blutted. I albut depaired.

- But…

- A pappety glame blickered beyorn the parrels. It strew me on.

- What was it Brod?

- A clember of fraun, timmery glame. The parrels bode, sunden entreen troy balstroms rappered with scurrelling pillumns and smasted with profient sygnots – gibberish to our fotern layes.

- The dain of the Carpudgeon?

- Parby. I can albut quass and quither.

- Then what …

- The ossifer. Lumbing in the braddle, frean and smeer. A greckle from the Carpudgeon’s garrific clatch.

- Clant, Brod! What does this tull?

- Toft.

- Toft?

- The Carpudgeon is toft.

Untimely #6 – Black Sheep

2009-08-02T23:37:00.011+01:00

And the keening, the keening. He heard them in the tunnel, the sheep, and ran toward the sound, slowing to a walk around the corner where the tracks led into the blackness. Looking both ways, for trains, for guards, for crackheads and cops and nosy schoolchildren, and seeing none, he jumped, careful to avoid what he had oft heard spoken of as the third rail. Not knowing quite what the third rail was, he aimed for the middle of the tracks, the wooden crosshatches that ran eighteen inches apart, figuring that wood was about as bad a conductor as they came and surely the third rail would not run smack down the center? He landed squarely in the middle and bent his knees deep, hands held out fingers spread wide for balance, trying not to touch either of the metal rails, nor the rat shit and trash that festooned the tracks. Before him was a black puddle filled with batteries, behind a newspaper and six coffee cups, relics of a meeting? An impromptu platform chat, as around a watercooler, men in suits gathering to speak crudely of women’s nether regions and slap each other on their padded shoulders? His mind ran off but now, standing in the middle of the subway tracks, was not the time, and he called it back and began to walk in the direction of the bleating. The tunnel blackened quickly, the orange lights along the walls and pillars dividing the tracks into uptown and downtown, local and express, providing a dull glow in which to plod, trippingly, amongst the trash and machinery, the skeleton of the city, bare and tough and rusted. The sheep were louder now the sound was channeled by the lowered ceilings and his footsteps clanged from pillar to pillar sounding like an army advancing before and after. He hurried from hatch to hatch, terrified of tripping, terrified of the apocryphal third rail and the deathly ooze of battery acid and urine that was a distillation of the plague itself.

When he had got accustomed to the regular gaps between the hatches and could walk at a steady rate without first checking each step, he began to think of his great fortune. He had long heard tales of the underground flocks that grazed between stations along the old tunnels, the first ones, the very deepest, in which long ago a freight car had derailed, dumping dozens of fresh Vermont country sheep into the bowels of New York City. The sheep whose virgin wool was soon turned black by the dirt and soot and lack of sun, the fabled Manhattan Blackbacks, a kilo of whose wool would fetch far dearer than its equal weight in truffles. The flocks who had been known to block trains for hours as they grazed on the discarded trash of commuters or in moments of true daring stormed the garbage trains and eviscerated the carefully tied black bags teeming with chicken bones and hot dog buns and paper napkins. For paper was the sheeps greatest source of energy, their staple, like potatoes to the Irish and rice to the Indians and cassava to the Africans. What riders unthinkingly discarded by the ton was what fed this flock and let it grow so that unbeknownst to all but the conductors and maintenance workers and the enthusiasts there were no fewer than ten thousand adult Manhattan Blackbacks roaming the city’s abandoned tunnels. But of course this was just an estimate, for no one had ever actually seen a flock, let alone the full herd of migrating beasts. There had been the occasional spotting, a woolly bottom or the glint of a yellow eye staring from beneath a grating on seventy-second street one early morning just before dawn, when an elderly woman by the name of Mabel Gardener nearly slipped and broke her knee after stooping low to the grating to see just what it was her Fifi was barking at so frantically.

No, these were mythical beasts, except they were not—they were real. Except no one had ever been able to study one, no one had found their lair. Which is why, as he rounded the bend and the bleating began to reverberate deafeningly off the solid metal tunnel, Henry Forsythe held his breath and clenched his fists for eagerness. There was a pounding in his chest and he fought the desire to break into a mad sprint towards the sheep he knew were just around the bend. He must not scare them. He must approach them like a cat stalking its prey: patience was the essence. It was almost more than he could bear.

Untimely Stimulus #6

2009-08-02T23:34:00.006+01:00

A man remarked upon a fellow traveler who was eating ribs and throwing the bones out the window of the subway carriage: “What will archaeologists think 10,000 years from now?”

Untimely #5 - Gitmo

2009-07-28T18:05:00.013+01:00

Upon arrival detainees are initially held in Camp 3. Immediately detainees undergo a process of preliminary interrogation to determine in which camp they will be held subsequently. The six camps are characterized by different amenities and levels of comfort.

In general detainees who are compliant are allowed certain luxury items such as thermal clothing, writing apparatus and library privileges. One detainee – a poet – told his representative that it was impossible to write, as pens and pencils were permitted for short periods only.

Consistent positive behaviour may allow detainees to progress to Camp 4. Camp 4 allows those detainees who pose no disciplinary problems to congregate freely. Unlike Camp 3, there is no ‘giant noise machine [generator?]’ or the constant tramping of guards’ boots to prohibit communication. Detainees are held in 10-cot bunkhouses with communal areas for meals, recreation and prayer. There is a sports field and movies are often shown as entertainment.

The department explains that detainees may be placed in Camp 5 or 6 as a result of persistent misconduct such as launching ‘concoctions’ of faeces and urine at the guards, head-butting guards or staging protests of some form. The department employs a comprehensive ‘screening process’ in which multiple staff provide data on individual detainees. Cells in Camps 5 and 6 are designed xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with xxxxxxxxxxxx windows and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx doors. Recreation is allowed xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and meals are provided xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At all stages of interrogation and screening the department seeks to ascertain detainees’ responses to the question ‘What does xxx mean, xxxxxxx?’ Responses serve as a constructive indicator of a detainee’s compliance and well-being and, in turn, as a determinant of detainee placement within the suite of camp facilities. Responses include:

“xxxxxxhood.”

“xxxxxxxxxxxx x xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxx xxxxxx foliage.”

“The xxxxxxxxxx of circles.”

“Space xxxxxx!”

“Disorder… and xxxxxx. Often they are the same thing!”

“Really, really very good xxxx.”

“Winning xxx xxxxx xxx.”

“Inflatables.”

“It’s just a word.”

[Each of these detainees was placed in Camp 5.]

Untimely #5 - Joy's Grape

2009-07-26T17:00:00.007+01:00

Well son, you see joy is like - it's like you have this grape, yeah? You take a grape, maybe like a nice fat grape so purple it's almost black. You take it and you put it on your tongue and you push it up against the back of your front teeth right up by the roof of your mouth feeling the chalky skin bitter against the tip of your tongue even though they say it's the bitter you taste way back down almost down your throat that's how far back it is. And you press and maybe at first it gives a little bit, the grape, because it's juicy and liquid inside and moveable, but then you press some more and it gets taut and really it's quite difficult now to press anymore. And so you keep on pushing with your tongue and but now it's awkward because it's hard to get a good angle with enough leverage to like really push on it and so you open your lips a little bit and are breathing sort of haggard through your teeth but you don't want to part your teeth because then maybe the grape will come flying out like a cannonball what with all the pressure your tongue's exerting on it and all. And so you strain a little bit and kind of squint your eyes and clench your fists and you feel it in your stomach even and it's a little bit sickening but then so you give it a final push and you are just starting to worry like maybe you're going to do a big fart or worse and but then it gives way and the flesh ruptures the skin and your mouth fills with sweet sticky juices and translucent chewy flesh and it runs all down your tongue and down your throat. And so you see, son, that's joy's grape.

The Toast

2009-07-19T17:40:00.008+01:00

A toast, sons and daughters, a toast. I’m head of this family and as such I’d like to share some thoughts with y’all. The young cannonball there, little Gene, comes up to me this afternoon and asks, what does joy mean, grandad? Well, I been pondering ever since and now I’m ready to tell.

Joy, people, is cracking open a bottle of good liquor and drinking it down as God intended without waste of water. Joy is goosing that sucker from top to bottom before falling out on the street and into the arms of the first woman you can afford, and let me tell you that when you’re as old and drunk and repulsive as I like to consider myself to be, that woman ain’t cheap.

Joy is losing the right woman, then going out and finding a wrong one every damn day instead. Joy is not caring one bit where that woman is or who she’s with or if she’s dead or alive because you’ve got everything she wants and there ain’t no way she’s ever coming back and asking for it. It don’t matter if you can’t stand to look in your children’s faces, or if you wake up every night crying; just so long as you’ve won.

Let me tell y’all that that, that, is what Joy is. Knowing that someone tore your heart out to make you sorry, then finding you’ve got no sorrow left. No sorrow, no love, no inhibitions, nothing. Except for hatred, ain’t nothing stronger than that. And that knowledge brings me Joy.

So here’s to Gigantic Gerry, good luck to you son.

And here’s to Joy, and to life at the bottom.

Untimely Stimulus #5

2009-07-19T17:27:00.009+01:00

This week, a special guest.

Stimulus #5 has been supplied by my good friend Adam Hallows. I have known him for a number of years, he attended part of my wedding, and he once punched me in the mouth. A good man. A special creature. A friend of Untimely. This quote is from his brain.

"What does joy mean, grandad?"

Retort.

Untimely #4 — Tramps C

2009-07-08T22:55:00.008+01:00

P.M.
Mrs. Saramap parps, a cat starts.
Mr. Saramap: Pam?
Mrs. Saramap: Caspar?
Mr. Saramap: ’assat?
Mrs. Saramap: ’s a cat.
Mr. Saramap: A cat?
Mrs. Saramap: A cat parpt.
Mr. Saramap: A! Crass cat. Scram!

A.M.
Pat starts a mass scat.
Sam: ’assat?
Pat: ’s art.
Sam: ’s crap.

P.M.
Marc’s Macassar spatt’rs a car’s parts.
Marta: Ma SmartCar!
Marc: ?
Marta: Marc scars ma SmartCar!
Marc: ’s ma attar—Macassar!
Marta: Macassar ma ass, ’s crapt ma car! Ma mats, ma tarp, ma parts: crapt!
Marc: Ma Macassar’s a massacar! A, a, a, a, a, a, a!
Marta caps Marc a smart rap.
Marc: …

A.M.
Cramps mar Sam’s start at Mt. Ararat.
Sam: AAAAAAAA! Ma arms start ta cramp!
Matt: ’at’s a crap start, ’at.
Sam: Cramps! Amass ma parts, STAT!
Matt: Parts: maps, tarp, cap, mast, mat …
Sam: ’t smarts, ma arm, ’t smarts …
Matt: Scrap Mt. Ararat, Sam.
Sam: Ma ass! Spasms! Cramps!
Matt: (prat.)

P.M.
Casa Marta, Caracas
Sara: Pasta, ma’am?
Mama Cass: ’assat? Spam?
Sara: ’s Parma ’am, ma’am.
Mama Cass: Parma Spam?
Sara: ’am.
Sara taps at a mascara scrap.
Mama Cass: ’assat?
Sara: Tapas.
Mama Cass: Tapas?
Sara: Spam paratas: tapas.
Mama Cass: Tttttttt. Spam’s crap, Sara.
Mama Cass, a tart satrap, starts ta pat maracas.

P.M.
Tramps, tarts
Cara: Ma! Tamara’s a tart!
Ma: A tart?
Cara: Tamara ’as a tramp stamp.
Ma: A tramp stamp?
Cara: A ASS TAT!
Ma: Tart!

Untimely #4 - Tramps D

2009-07-03T19:10:00.004+01:00

SMS>>

Mr D – MR T!

Mr T – MR D!

Mr D – DRAMS!! DRAM x DRAM! DRAM X DRAM x DRAM = PSSD!!

Mr T – AAAAAAAA SPAM!

Mr D – DRAM x DRAM = AM! TADAA!

Mr T – AAA, MR D PSSD?! PRAT

(…)

Mr D – DARTS?

Mr T – PASS

Mr D – DARTS + DRAM?

Mr T – Mmm…

Mr D – DRAM + DARTS + DRAM??

Mr T – TRAMPS PAR?

Mr D – PRAT

Mr T – DAM… “PAR”?!

Mr D – PARP!

Mr T – STP! TRAMPS?

Mr D – PARP PARP!!

Mr T – STP! STP! STP! DAM! TRAMPS?

Mr D – TRAMPS.

Mr T – MAD

Mr D – P.S.

(…)

Mr T – ??

Mr D – PARP PARP!!

(…)

Mr T – PRAT

Untimely #4 - Tramps B

2009-07-01T17:17:00.005+01:00

p.m.

Papa pats Ma’s baps. Ma taps Papa’s ass. Papa parts Ma’s spam rampart. Ma saps Papa’s ram bat.

Mass spasm starts.

a.m. – Ma a' Baba at SpartaMart

Ma: Mmmmmm, bass?

Baba: Tt! Sprats! Sprats!

Ma: Parma ‘am?

Baba: Spam! Spam! AAAAAAA! Aaa! AAAAAAA!

Ma: Aa? Baba’s bambam smarts?

Baba: Tt! A brat spat at ma pram, Ma!

Ma: A brat?! S’Bart ‘a bat ma arm, Baba!

Baba: Bart ‘as spat at Tam’s pram a’ Rab’s pram a' Sam's pram a' Pam's pram…

Ma: A’ Bart’s Ma smarms at Papa.

Baba: Bart’s a prat!

Ma: Bart’s Ma’s a tart!

Bart a' Bart's Ma (apart)

Bart: Rats!

Bart's Ma: Aa! Ma stars!

Untimely Stimulus #4

2009-07-01T17:13:00.006+01:00

This week: A challenge!

Write a tiny tale using only words containing letters from the word TRAMPS and the initial letter of your surname.

You may use the same letter more than once in a word.

Respond!

Untimely #3 - The Big Deal

2009-06-28T16:49:00.006+01:00

“Yo Geoff-ski, what up?”

“Yo Ted-ski, I’m gonna lay it on you straight: Hackney’s finished. You and I both know that even with the projected influx over the next two years of a further eighteen-thou’ mid-range dropouts, the only thing that could save this place would be a goddamn miracle. And seeing as how we blew our last magic-lamp wish on those beautiful gilt-edged crack pipes-”

“-so worth it-”

“-no doubt Teddy boy, but it still leaves us up Shit Creek holding our noses with faeces-covered fingers trying not to get any in our mouths. And that’s not the kind of life I had planned for us.”

“Good analogy G-Man.”

“Much love.”

“So what’s the exit strat’?”

“We’re gonna tear this baby down!”

“Boo Yah!”

“I’ve fiscalised and mathematiculated literally all morning, and hey! Turns out we can make mucho prosciutto if we sell the land to some guys looking to build a Kaiju-Zoo.”

“For real? Godzilla and Mothra and Rodan?”

“I know! Psyched! The Japanese’ve had enough of these boys bum-rushing Monster Island security and slaughtering valuable cows, so they’re paying to ship them over here and start a petting zoo. You know the play: keep ‘em doped up, train ‘em to breakdance; piss-cake.”

“Sweet!”

“No doubt T-Bone. And if we can secure at least a Hundred G in kids from the outgoing units to use as a food source for the monsters, we’ll secure ourselves an extra 3 points!”

“You the man, G-Dog! Where do I sign?”

“Same as always Teddy Bear: right here on my face.”

Untimely #3 - Untimely News

2009-06-27T10:12:00.012+01:00

CRIME SORES - BURGLAR BOILS
HEAT WAVE HITS HACKNEY
IMMIGRANTS IN SUPERMARKET SWEEP
LOCAL LAD'S LOTTA LOTTO LUCK
DALSTON TOWERS
ROO-D RAGE - WAZZA CROSS
ENGLAND EXPECTS
"NO GOD" FURY

JOHNSON JEW JIBE – “A JOKE!”
URB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
SWAN SONG LONG GONE
TRAMP EATS DOG

PAEDO EATS WENDY HOUSE
LIGHTENING ROD – FAT CONDUCTOR'S WEIGHT CUT
ANGER OVER PAVEMENT FIASCO
YO-YO NO GO - BALLS ORDERS

INDIAN SUMMER
NUMBERS DOWN IN BINGO HALL

THREE DEAD
HIGH RISE DEATH DROP
END IS NIGH

RAPE RATE "STABLE"
ORANGE RHYME FOUND BY LOCAL BARD
ASYLUM LUNATICS
DI ALIVE
SCUM!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES
OLYMPIC-SIZED FISH POND
UNDEAD IN PIE SHOCK
NEEDLES FOR SALE
DRAGONS ON CRACK

HELL
EXIT STRATEGY
REALITY BITES
EXISTENCE IS FUTILE

Untimely #3 — War Zones

2009-06-24T22:59:00.006+01:00

It’s already hard enough with all the dirt and the flies and the dust and the pollution so you can’t even see the stars or the moon or even the sun for that matter just a great grey cloud of dust all the time and all smoggy like sucking on the exhaust pipe out back of the bus. Feeling it hot and dry out its pipe on your leg standing there in the traffic and the noxious fumes making you want to sick all over the cars on either side. And standing there in the middle jogging in place cause you’re too fast for the folks on the pavements you’d be knocking them down left and right and into traffic. Not like they’d even care, though, not like they’d even notice the difference ’cause they’re always running out into traffic anyway, always just pushing their babies out into traffic from between two buses so you can’t even see them, just sticking their prams out into the goddamn traffic of the goddamn road and there you are running along, running full steam ahead, and you might as well be running on the damn pavement then you know what I mean because these people they just want to die. Have a deathwish. Step out and meet Jesus my old man used to say. Step out and meet Jesus, he’d say, and still says it every time he comes down this stretch of road, running along, step out and meet Jesus, and I tell you it’s like a bloody war zone out there. Pushing their prams and their carriages and their buggies left right and everywhere. Babies in the middle of the street I ask you. And everybody running and what you supposed to do when along you’re coming full steam ahead and out pops a little baby in front and next to you to either side buses tall as the eye can see, buses blocking out the sun, what little of it gets past the great stinking cloud of dust and smoke and haze and heat. And so what do you do? What’s a fellow supposed to do?

Untimely Stimulus #3

2009-06-24T22:57:00.005+01:00

‘Children just play in the roads round here’ — headline, Hackney Citizen

Bento Bestiary Out Now

2009-06-20T14:42:00.008+01:00

Dear friends.

At long last, the wait is over. Finally you have something decent to spend your savings on instead of holidays, or children, or roofing work. Tastier than fire and cheaper than salvation, the Bento Bestiary is finally here.

Cobbled together out of glue and gum-trees by myself and illustrator extraordinaire Ben Newman , this limited edition, hand-printed book is now available to order from the good people at Nobrow, and features 13 traditional Japanese Yokai. These mythical beasts have been given beautiful form by Ben, and includes some of his finest work to date. Yep, it's that good folks. The book also features word-work from me, dishing the dirt on each of our beasts dirty secrets. Or something. Anyway, we're very proud.

Check it here:

www.nobrow.net

And get to know Ben better here:

www.benhasapencil.blogspot.com

Lots of love

SJD

Untimely #2 - Holy Trinity

2009-06-20T10:44:00.009+01:00

and me under my sheet trying not to peek with her yammering like a burnt wolf for him him lapping it up like they always do getting every cents worth believing every bleat every yelp of it the true faith every praise be there father just oh there fath just jusohjusjus oh jusus oh father with his clean preachers palms pure and parched from prayer pared nails neat and nice and him nibbling at our at her nipples hollering out with his sunday bellow for tittitties falling for ourher act her burnt wolf song and dance and me now peeping catching a snatch of his bobbing buccaneer his dog collared dicky of biblical proportions oh praise your titties sweet evangeline our three titties her two prim bubs my one spare dug moreorless than the whole sum of our parts of our community chest under my wincing dreaming sheet were 11 years old in the dust out the trailer back in the night of the fairground glow ourher thick shared trunk in our slack shared sack with my legs and arms and hers tumbling cartwheeling rehearsing heads knocking our heads and our girls hair knotting lying in the dusk giggling girlgirls at the mess of our body diddy ends sore from spinning unsure men paid to stare even then the same old panhandlers and cottonpickers and dry roaming preachers liking what they pay for paying for the act and now his reverend self freeloading wanting just her half her hole not the two for one and we are siamese as you please setting on her with his menthol breath and soapy kisses old dolly me flapping about like catgut with hisherour every unholy thrust hiding the withered half me me well old dollys still got a song in her own throat my mighty wind and wont heher see now if I cant preach a bit too

Untimely #2 - Primeval Plunge

2009-06-15T23:33:00.009+01:00

His name was Big Nick Kingdom and he carried an axe big enough to split a house in twain. When he died on account of that woman, falling off down the cliff at the edge of town, he dropped so hard and fast he broke right through the riverbed, rocks and sand and all. As though the impact on the water and the water itself didn’t do a thing to slow him down. As though the sand and the sludgy viscid mud below it and the stones below that didn’t do a thing to slow him down. Heavy as lead his body knifed down through the river from that great height and split the earth below it, the river, with an ear-shattering crack. Then there was a great suck and the river downstream, past the break, reversed course and came flooding back, emptying itself into the crevice. Within minutes the river had vanished and the rocks and pebbles of the riverbed, glistening in the sudden sun and heat, began to dry.

She walked swiftly out of town, down through the forest, past the hoary hemlocks, the light fading by the time she made it to the river and the sky lit up all purple and pink and red. She had loved him, and he her, so she had thought. But then that woman had come between them and over it all went, quite literally.

Untimely #2 - Time Machine for Jesus!!

2009-06-10T18:46:00.004+01:00

“Hey ‘Vange, you alright?”

“Oh Doll, it’s over. He’s gone and it’s all over.”

“That preacher boy you been jawin’ about? What’s his name, Woodchuck?”

“Bigneck. His name’s Bigneck Kingdom and he’s gone. Funny thing is doll, I didn’t see it comin’ this time. If a fella seems keen before finding out what it is we do, you’ll see that keenness straight out vanish when he learns what’s what. Otherways he’ll start to grinnin’, while his other hand’s reachin’ for his wallet. Bigneck’d just said past was past, and so long as no-one else was invited from here on in, then that was fine by him.”

“So what changed his mind?”

“Well. Oh! He told me an angel appeared before him, some fleshy old crone in Sunday skirts, spoutin’ how his future held nothin’ but shame if he stayed on with me. Said he ought to leave me, leave town, and strike out on his own preachin’ freelance. And that from here on in, should he cross paths with some other ‘wretched girl’, he should be sure n’ teach her a lesson.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly. Then he’s off, without so much as a squeeze.”

“Sounds to me like you’re better off without that one.”

“You’re wrong doll. And I’ll tell ya, I’m gonna screw my way outta this place if it takes me a year, and I’m gonna go get me back my man. Angel or no angel.”

“But ‘Vange…”

“Don’t you call me that no more. My name’s Evangeline, and I got work to do.”

Untimely Stimulus #2

2009-06-10T18:40:00.005+01:00

"If he'd only come here a single man to be our pastor before she did something awful to get him to marry her in Macon, I could've put a stop to it. I know all about her kind and I would've saved him from her clutches. She's not the first back-alley slut I've seen in my life."

Elderly, un-named, church-going widow, quoted from Erskine Caldwell's excellent book 'Deep South - Memory and Observation'.

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Untimely #1 - The Unclean Beasts

2009-06-04T23:49:00.008+01:00

Unclean beasts wander dusty streets under flaccid sun. City asleep, they scroll and scavenge trash in empty fields, abandoned buildings with unfinished roofs, the overgrowth along the beach before the sea. A fisherman used to leave fish heads in a heap at the end of the jetty til others berated him, threatened to leave him behind or worse. Now any who stubbornly return are kicked, beaten, peppered with stones and bits of brick. From the cliffs they gaze upon the cemented stone walls weathered pale and smooth in the sun and spray, but they venture there no further.

Darkness comes early by the sea, bringing small respite from the heat. In the dinner hour pups cower in corners under mothers’ teats sucked taut against the bone. Ribs stick out like shipwrecks and between them fester wounds that cannot heal. Their eyes narrow and ears drop back flat against their slender skulls. They wait.

Farther down they gather on the beach around the remains of an offering. Charred meats cake teeth. Incisors. Premolars. Chops are licked absentmindedly and curled tails waggle in a steamy night breeze, content. Lapping waves lull them to sleep and there they will rest until men with sticks in the early grey bright of dawn come to clear the beaches for the tourists.

Untimely #1 - Sniffer Dog Blues

2009-06-01T19:44:00.011+01:00

Vice. It’s what this city was built on. Time was when the broken-tailed and the bow-legged could scavenge where they pleased; nowadays there’re shaven-buttocked bitches roaming courtyards, turning tricks in exchange for a mouthful of chow. All the while high rollers in handbags dangle bejewelled paws over titanium clasps, keeping a beady eye on their investments. It’s all about class, breeding, domination.

But hell, trouble’s what keeps a mutt like me in business. I find the runaways, meaning I’m out here seven nights a week, sniffing every crotch and scenting every lamppost just to scrounge a lick of information about old Mr Winkleman cos he owes some anxious pup one lousy bone, but hey, business is business. And I’ll tell you this friend: it aint hardly never that the Winkleman’s of this world have got smart enough to say adios and skip town. No. Because when you owe, and one way and another we all owe, then they’ve got you. And believe me, it’s a short leash.

So sure, I find whoever’s missing. And if that means they'll wind up stone cold and stinking out a skip, then so be it. At the rate we’re burning ourselves up, pretty soon, there aint gonna be nothing left. It’s been so long coming that I won’t even be sad. I’ll just sit me down by the old poplar tree and howl at the moon, and go right on howling till it howls back goodnight.

Untimely #1 - Wolf whistle

2009-05-29T11:22:00.005+01:00

Wolf whistles.

Sunshine. A sheer slab.

Me. Up since four-thirty. Cuppa number nine. Backache. Hunger. On the scaffold. Another break.

how-ow-ow-oww

hubba-hubba schwing-schwing

A lass gets off the thirty and slinks below us.

kintight kinicetitsooowet

Askin for it.

Skin. Hot pants. Cold shoulder.

They enjoy her fear. Smell the stink of it sluicing off her.

Me. Guvnor. Them. Like sons to me, almost. Good lads. Most.

She sways on. Hot pants and pink vest. Bronze and gold. Brazen. Becky’s age. Bit older. Sally never like that. Different age.

out cmon love

The thirty shunts off. Audience gone. Witnessless.

Cold shoulder still. A handbag. Leather straps and shining buckles. Wriggles. Alive.

Lads waning. Lost cause. Laugh it off. Good laugh.

Me. Last word.

suck us off sweetheart

The shallow silence of the street.

Lads laughing. With me. At me.

She walks on. Brazen. Her handbag wriggles, alive. A runtish pink head pops out. Chihuahua. Yellow eyes roll at us. Teeth bared. It fixes me.

Last word.

Yip!

Untimely Stimulus #1

2009-05-29T10:12:00.005+01:00

"Pleasures and anxieties over beginnings and endings abound in contemporary dog worlds. This should not be surprising when we are awash with millennial discourses. Why shouldn't dogs get in an apocalyptic bark or two?"

Donna Haraway 'Cyborgs to Companion Species: Reconfiguring Kinship in Technoscience'

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