A million years ago, when I was young and almost good-looking, I knew a Vet who proudly bore the name Nick De'ath. He pronounced it De ARTH. I thought the Nick part was quite apposite, but he didn't appreciate the humour implicit in it. Such is li'fe.
Death - without Nick's odd apostrophe - has been on the mind today. One of my readers is on the slippery slope, and it's not easy. He's mid-30s, with a beautiful child and wife. Li'fe just ain't fair.
Co-incidentally, I was chatting to one of the oldies today. This one's a charmer. She wanted me to order a book on arranginging your own funeral, and showed me her coffin. Her husband built it. His one's been used: he di'ed a couple of years ago. Hers is similar to his: he made it out of driftwood. It is fabulously cool, but it looks like it would be a sonofabitch to carry. Looks as heavy as sin, which I'm sure this very cool old lady has a few in her back closet, awaiting discovery by her grandchildren.
I was listening to Hollie Smith's album "long player" the other day, and I wondered why she hadn't released a follow-up. And tonight I find she has - today. Serendipity, thy name is music.
Had to laugh, tonight. TV3 spews had a segment about some Labour back-bencher who - on an aircraft - had the temerity to say what we've all wanted to say: "I wish those kids would shut up". I would have added a couple of four-letter words, but he's a gentleman, or something. Anyway, the parents complained to some blogger, who raised Cain over the so-called incident. Anyway. I gritted my teeth, and said something about non-stories. Then, twenty minutes later, Campbell comes on, and say that the media'd had been full of the story, and that, yes, it was a non-story. Nice to see he does have editorial independence..
Although, does he? How come he's doing a regular "What's On Trade Me" segment? My question is this: does Fairfax own a chunk of TV3? I genuinely don't know the answer, but it's the only reason I can think of that would explain such nonsense.
Listening to: Well,Hollie Smith. Again.
Reading: Nothing new... just rotating through the three I have running.
Word of the day: Death. Without the apostrophe.
RATS:
He rubbed the repair with some linseed oil, hoping that the beech would soak the oil up at the same rate as the oak: if it didn't, it could swell at at slightly different rate, and that could be enough to throw the aim out of true.
And for the kind of shooting Arthur did, he had to be precisely accurate.
He put a cork into the barrel, sealing the gun-oil in, and hung the rifle on the wall of his solitary bunker. He looked around, reaching for the whisky bottle, and pouring a healthy slug into his enamelled tin cup. He had two bunks, one of which was empty. He'd salvaged a small desk from a torn-apart school, and a one-legged milking stool from the remnants of a barn. It had been made with care: someone had burnt a fanciful design of a cow jumping over the moon into the seat, and it had been painted in gay colours before being varnished. Arthur had been surprised that the local folk know English nursery-rhymes, but thought it was just another example of how everything that was good about Britain did end up with the rest of the world. He kept a week's worth of rations on the rough wooden shelves, along with a gallon tin of whale oil for his lamp, his “housewife” - an army-supplied kit that contained sewing and darning needles, a thimble, cotton, patches, and khaki wool – with which he could do running repairs on his uniform, two bottles of whisky stolen from the Officers' Mess by Corporal Stack, his shaving kit, a quart of water for washing, drinking, and shaving, a bronze shaving mirror that he'd bought in Egypt, soap, a towel, boot polish, and three spare pair of socks, puttees, two shirts, and a thick woollen jersey.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Monday, March 15, 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009
A(nother) Death In The Family
It seems to have been a year for it.
Our ancient and much-loved Granny Cat died in Jenny's arms at 12.37 this morning. Sometimes I think she's psychic. Well, I would if I thought that there was even the slightest possibility that anybody ever has been / will be psychic, which I don't.
Yesterday morning I realised that Granny Cat had had a stroke: she'd lost control of her rear legs, and was in a rare state. We settled her down, and pretty well waited for her to die. We had to work, and spent the day fretting about her. She could drink - she didn't want any food - if we held a dish near her face.
We spent the night with her, comforting her, and letting her know we were close. We went to bed at around 11, and immediately slept. Jenny woke suddenly, just after 12, and went out and held Granny, who sighed, purred, and died.
Jenny cried. I cried.
LISTENING TO: Claire Martin, "Perfect Alibi". Seriously smooth jazz.
WORD OF THE DAY: Remember.
READING: Still on the Cameron book, which is brilliant. Also reading the final of the Arthur C Clarke / Stephen Baxter trilogy: the last thing Clarke wrote before he died. It is, obviously, brilliant: more Clarke than Baxter.
NEW TO THE BLOG.... Rats.
But first: please accept that this is a work in progress: second draft only, so it's as rough as guts, and nothinglike the final. I'm still getting the story in the right order. Still, it may help you understand what I'm about.
Introduction.
November 11, 1913: Fyfe's Gully, 2 miles north-east of Northbridge.
The grass was sweet, soft with Spring’s warm blessings, and black under the three-quarter moon. Arthur Tomlinson breathed in the scent deeply, and smiled with pleasure, being careful to not show his teeth. He breathed in deeply again, and warmed to the rich and plummy earth-tones, and the succulent, fat-grass odours of ripening clover. He breathed out through his hand, careful to hide the white vapour of his breath, and, equally importantly, to capture and contain the scent of his breath.
It was a crisp November morning, in the hills just two miles south of Northridge, and Arthur’s smile was the first movement he had made in two hours. He had walked here overnight, arriving at a little past three in the morning, his rifle heavy on the sling over his shoulder. Where he lay, his feet slightly higher than his head, was as near as dammit to 407 yards from where his quarry would appear. He was quietly confident that he could bring Old Tom down with just one shot. He knew the land, and he knew his quarry, better than anyone else.
A slight breeze came from the Southwest, as it usually did at this time of year, and caressed his left cheek. The sun, when it rose, would be behind his right shoulder. Cunning and long-lived though Tom was, Arthur knew that today he would put the wily old bugger down. He had the range perfectly: he had been here two days ago, and had zeroed in his Mauser bolt-action rifle on the beech tree where he expected Old Tom to make his appearance shortly after first light.
Grampa Smith had put a rifle into Arthur’s hands when he’d been seven years old, and had been surprised at the child’s natural skill. The rifle was a Winchester .22 which threw a tiny slug very quickly, and, in Arthur’s hands on a calm day, was accurate out to 200 yards. A small range was built behind the workshop, and Arthur practised daily, putting at least twenty rounds through the barrel of the little rifle, which he would then carefully clean. Look after your rifle, boy, and it’ll look after you. How many times had he heard that? He smiled again, and looked down into the gully. The eastern horizon was showing the slightest grey stain, which Arthur felt more than saw.
Arthur Tomlinson still had that little .22: he’d used it to teach young Tim Copthorne to shoot. Now, there was a fine shot for you. Just a few weeks ago Tim had brought down a Mallard drake on the wing with the little lever-action popgun. Like Arthur, Tim had looked after the rifle carefully. With a little luck, it would have enough left in it to teach a third generation from the village.
Grampa Smith had been strict with his ward, and spoke to Arthur often about respect for the rifle, and respect for the prey. “The Good Lord gave us dominion over the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, my boy,” he said, over and over. “Dominion. D’you know what dominion means, Arthur? It means we have a responsibility for them, lad. We must care for them, as we care for ourselves. Even more so. And in return, they give themselves to us, to use as we must. They are ours to take, as need arises. The horse carries our weight, and the donkey carries our freight. And they will carry us and our wares further if we give them respect, and love. It is the same with our lovely land here, Arthur. Our Queen in England has dominion over us, and when needs rise, as they must, she will take from us as she needs. But she must also care for us, and defend us, and see to our needs. And so she, does, my boy. So she does.”
A soft grey light was now ghosting over the Eastern horizon, and a million stars faded. In the West, the sky was still as black as pitch, and supported the fire of an uncountable number of stars. Arthur slowly rolled over, to take the rifle from its waterproof canvas cover. He froze as a pair of bats flit-flitted overhead, on their way home. There had been a time that Arthur had been able to hear their guiding squeaks, but too many rifle-shots had dulled his hearing. Not enough, though, that he'd miss the sounds coming from the undergrowth nearby. Kiwi, probably, or Weka.
Arthur hadn’t bathed for three days now. Miss Francis would have had a fit, but that was the way of it. He couldn’t allow Old Tom to catch any human-whiff, otherwise he would simply melt back into the bush. Arthur couldn’t allow that, not today. This would be the day Old Tom died, and Arthur would be the man to kill him. His love for his old adversary wouldn’t allow any other outcome.
Dew had plastered Arthur’s hair to his scalp, and he combed it away from his eyes with his fingers, careful not to let the white of his palms flash toward where he knew old Tom would be waiting and watching. Even in this dim light the old devil would see that tiny pale flash, and would be even more wary.
Our ancient and much-loved Granny Cat died in Jenny's arms at 12.37 this morning. Sometimes I think she's psychic. Well, I would if I thought that there was even the slightest possibility that anybody ever has been / will be psychic, which I don't.
Yesterday morning I realised that Granny Cat had had a stroke: she'd lost control of her rear legs, and was in a rare state. We settled her down, and pretty well waited for her to die. We had to work, and spent the day fretting about her. She could drink - she didn't want any food - if we held a dish near her face.
We spent the night with her, comforting her, and letting her know we were close. We went to bed at around 11, and immediately slept. Jenny woke suddenly, just after 12, and went out and held Granny, who sighed, purred, and died.
Jenny cried. I cried.
LISTENING TO: Claire Martin, "Perfect Alibi". Seriously smooth jazz.
WORD OF THE DAY: Remember.
READING: Still on the Cameron book, which is brilliant. Also reading the final of the Arthur C Clarke / Stephen Baxter trilogy: the last thing Clarke wrote before he died. It is, obviously, brilliant: more Clarke than Baxter.
NEW TO THE BLOG.... Rats.
But first: please accept that this is a work in progress: second draft only, so it's as rough as guts, and nothinglike the final. I'm still getting the story in the right order. Still, it may help you understand what I'm about.
Introduction.
November 11, 1913: Fyfe's Gully, 2 miles north-east of Northbridge.
The grass was sweet, soft with Spring’s warm blessings, and black under the three-quarter moon. Arthur Tomlinson breathed in the scent deeply, and smiled with pleasure, being careful to not show his teeth. He breathed in deeply again, and warmed to the rich and plummy earth-tones, and the succulent, fat-grass odours of ripening clover. He breathed out through his hand, careful to hide the white vapour of his breath, and, equally importantly, to capture and contain the scent of his breath.
It was a crisp November morning, in the hills just two miles south of Northridge, and Arthur’s smile was the first movement he had made in two hours. He had walked here overnight, arriving at a little past three in the morning, his rifle heavy on the sling over his shoulder. Where he lay, his feet slightly higher than his head, was as near as dammit to 407 yards from where his quarry would appear. He was quietly confident that he could bring Old Tom down with just one shot. He knew the land, and he knew his quarry, better than anyone else.
A slight breeze came from the Southwest, as it usually did at this time of year, and caressed his left cheek. The sun, when it rose, would be behind his right shoulder. Cunning and long-lived though Tom was, Arthur knew that today he would put the wily old bugger down. He had the range perfectly: he had been here two days ago, and had zeroed in his Mauser bolt-action rifle on the beech tree where he expected Old Tom to make his appearance shortly after first light.
Grampa Smith had put a rifle into Arthur’s hands when he’d been seven years old, and had been surprised at the child’s natural skill. The rifle was a Winchester .22 which threw a tiny slug very quickly, and, in Arthur’s hands on a calm day, was accurate out to 200 yards. A small range was built behind the workshop, and Arthur practised daily, putting at least twenty rounds through the barrel of the little rifle, which he would then carefully clean. Look after your rifle, boy, and it’ll look after you. How many times had he heard that? He smiled again, and looked down into the gully. The eastern horizon was showing the slightest grey stain, which Arthur felt more than saw.
Arthur Tomlinson still had that little .22: he’d used it to teach young Tim Copthorne to shoot. Now, there was a fine shot for you. Just a few weeks ago Tim had brought down a Mallard drake on the wing with the little lever-action popgun. Like Arthur, Tim had looked after the rifle carefully. With a little luck, it would have enough left in it to teach a third generation from the village.
Grampa Smith had been strict with his ward, and spoke to Arthur often about respect for the rifle, and respect for the prey. “The Good Lord gave us dominion over the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, my boy,” he said, over and over. “Dominion. D’you know what dominion means, Arthur? It means we have a responsibility for them, lad. We must care for them, as we care for ourselves. Even more so. And in return, they give themselves to us, to use as we must. They are ours to take, as need arises. The horse carries our weight, and the donkey carries our freight. And they will carry us and our wares further if we give them respect, and love. It is the same with our lovely land here, Arthur. Our Queen in England has dominion over us, and when needs rise, as they must, she will take from us as she needs. But she must also care for us, and defend us, and see to our needs. And so she, does, my boy. So she does.”
A soft grey light was now ghosting over the Eastern horizon, and a million stars faded. In the West, the sky was still as black as pitch, and supported the fire of an uncountable number of stars. Arthur slowly rolled over, to take the rifle from its waterproof canvas cover. He froze as a pair of bats flit-flitted overhead, on their way home. There had been a time that Arthur had been able to hear their guiding squeaks, but too many rifle-shots had dulled his hearing. Not enough, though, that he'd miss the sounds coming from the undergrowth nearby. Kiwi, probably, or Weka.
Arthur hadn’t bathed for three days now. Miss Francis would have had a fit, but that was the way of it. He couldn’t allow Old Tom to catch any human-whiff, otherwise he would simply melt back into the bush. Arthur couldn’t allow that, not today. This would be the day Old Tom died, and Arthur would be the man to kill him. His love for his old adversary wouldn’t allow any other outcome.
Dew had plastered Arthur’s hair to his scalp, and he combed it away from his eyes with his fingers, careful not to let the white of his palms flash toward where he knew old Tom would be waiting and watching. Even in this dim light the old devil would see that tiny pale flash, and would be even more wary.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Battlers
It's been a staple of the journalist's list of cliches: INSERT NAME HERE has lost his / her battle with INSERT DISEASE NAME HERE.
Usually, the disease is cancer, and the more exotic, the better. According to our journalists (who know all, and see everything) famous people should not die of ordinary diseases, nor should they accept that the fatal disease they have is going to kill them. No, they have to battle it, and then bravely and stoically lose that battle.
This manure gets trotted out almost every time someone famous carks it. Ted Kennedy's the latest, apparently "losing his battle with Brain Cancer". There's so much that's wrong with the statement and the emotion that words almost fail me.
However, I won't let my internal splutering slow me down. First: what the hell sort of cancer is Brain Cancer? I'm pretty damn' sure that I won't find it in Jenny's Big Book Of Diseases, the grey volume that gets trotted out whenever someone gets a little crook. Wait a moment while I scurry off and check...
Nope. There are cancers of the brain, but no Brain Cancer. Oddly, I'm hearing a little "woo-woo" chord in my head when I tap out those two words... oh, wait: I'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald. Going "woo-woo". That's not Ella Fitzgerald Kennedy, you understand..
And I actually looked at Big Ted as he was busy working while cancerous, and he simply seemed - to me, anyway - to have accepted that fact that he was dying, and he was getting on with life while he had some to get on with. One thing he wasn't doing was "battle his cancer". That phrase indicates to me that the soon-to-be-ex-person is rushing about, trying quack medicines, going to shonky Mexican clinics or Filipino psychic surgeons, and brewing a cup of nettle tea to slurp down with their toast and ragwort jam breakfast.
The very phrase "battle with cancer" applies to people who are afraid of death, and set up some extraordinary startegy of prolonging life, and going all Egyptian about their imminent death. Going into de Nile, you understand.
I'll be spittingly angry if I ever contract some fell fatal disease, because - as an atheist - I won't be able to threaten to haunt any bugger who uses the phrase "Allan lost his battle with booger disease last Tuesday..". The phrase is a sodding insult to the no-longer working intelligence of the dead person. Yes, the person may have been pissed off at the thought of his or her imminent demise, but that doesn't mean they went all mushy-brained and started looking for some slightly demented layer-on-of-hands to pull a miraculous cure from the ether. And it dopesn't mean they went spitting and cursing in the face of Death, either.
As an aside: the proof that miracles don't (and never did) exist is the fact that almost anything these days is described as miraculous. The miracle of life. Yeah, right. The miraculous victory of the Wallabies against the Springboks, and the Black Caps against the Sri Lankans... well, actually, if that does happen I may start wondering about divine intervention. Pamela Anderson's miraculous dress-sense and cantilevered breasts, Miracle Whip whipped cream in a can, someone's miraculous brush with death (that's every second week, on the cover of any woman's magazine..), and so on.
READING: Bruce Kennedy Jones & Eric Allison "Fat Blackmail". Just started it, and it looks good.British crime.
LISTENING TO: Ella Fitzgerald, Best of album, and Nick Cave "Murder Songs". Nice and jolly.
WORD OF THE DAY: Dead. Let's not be afraid of death or dying... or of actually talking about it.
HENRY CONTINUES... BUT NOT FOR MUCH LONGER.
But he owed them a good death, just as he’d always striven to give them a good life.
He was afraid of the thought that came to him occasionally, a black dog in the night, that whispered that maybe he was more a symbol to them than a reality; that when he left them all they’d recall was what he stood for, what he’d meant, instead of who he was and who he had been.
His thoughts have become cloudy now, mushy. He must return home. Suddenly where he dies becomes more important than when. He marvels that he is vacillating, even now. He now knew that time, this vacant concept that Mary and he had been playing with for a moment, a lifetime, means nothing when you’re past your allotted span.
He was cold, and struggled to put his hands in his pockets. He was unequal to the task, and simply let his hands drop into his lap. The cold is right, somehow. It’s reaching into his flesh, slowing his mind.
“I’ll be all right. Just make sure you take care of yourselves.”
The lethargy he feels is now intense. His limbs are leaden, his lips are thick, and they prickle with pins and needles. His vision narrows, and his breath is rasping in his throat. A distant thunderclap tears at the silence, and he raises heavy, heavy eyelids to look out, over to the northern horizon. The sky is black, and rushing at him, a crackling giant overwhelming this vast landscape. Lightning stabs the ground, thunder booms a kettle-drum howl of conquest. He watches the display, unmoved. He can count three great anvil-heads towering thousands of feet into the air, storm clouds brimming and churning with the fury and anger of an affronted nature, and a shiver runs down his spine. The speed of the storms appals and terrifies him – in minutes the shack is engulfed in hammering rain, and the wind rages and whips at the windows and roof. A shutter slams and slaps at the wall, and he hears it as a distant clatter. Henry Talbot, lover of Mary, father to Adam, is dying. His eyelids flicker, and he welcomes the blackness that’s shrouding his mind. It’s coming, and I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry. I’ll be all right.
Snap.
Christ. They’re going to be caught in this. They’d been told to keep clear of the gulch if a storm threatened, that flash-floods can come quicker than thought.
“Go on,” he’d said. “I’ll be all right.” Never once did he think that they might not be.
Usually, the disease is cancer, and the more exotic, the better. According to our journalists (who know all, and see everything) famous people should not die of ordinary diseases, nor should they accept that the fatal disease they have is going to kill them. No, they have to battle it, and then bravely and stoically lose that battle.
This manure gets trotted out almost every time someone famous carks it. Ted Kennedy's the latest, apparently "losing his battle with Brain Cancer". There's so much that's wrong with the statement and the emotion that words almost fail me.
However, I won't let my internal splutering slow me down. First: what the hell sort of cancer is Brain Cancer? I'm pretty damn' sure that I won't find it in Jenny's Big Book Of Diseases, the grey volume that gets trotted out whenever someone gets a little crook. Wait a moment while I scurry off and check...
Nope. There are cancers of the brain, but no Brain Cancer. Oddly, I'm hearing a little "woo-woo" chord in my head when I tap out those two words... oh, wait: I'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald. Going "woo-woo". That's not Ella Fitzgerald Kennedy, you understand..
And I actually looked at Big Ted as he was busy working while cancerous, and he simply seemed - to me, anyway - to have accepted that fact that he was dying, and he was getting on with life while he had some to get on with. One thing he wasn't doing was "battle his cancer". That phrase indicates to me that the soon-to-be-ex-person is rushing about, trying quack medicines, going to shonky Mexican clinics or Filipino psychic surgeons, and brewing a cup of nettle tea to slurp down with their toast and ragwort jam breakfast.
The very phrase "battle with cancer" applies to people who are afraid of death, and set up some extraordinary startegy of prolonging life, and going all Egyptian about their imminent death. Going into de Nile, you understand.
I'll be spittingly angry if I ever contract some fell fatal disease, because - as an atheist - I won't be able to threaten to haunt any bugger who uses the phrase "Allan lost his battle with booger disease last Tuesday..". The phrase is a sodding insult to the no-longer working intelligence of the dead person. Yes, the person may have been pissed off at the thought of his or her imminent demise, but that doesn't mean they went all mushy-brained and started looking for some slightly demented layer-on-of-hands to pull a miraculous cure from the ether. And it dopesn't mean they went spitting and cursing in the face of Death, either.
As an aside: the proof that miracles don't (and never did) exist is the fact that almost anything these days is described as miraculous. The miracle of life. Yeah, right. The miraculous victory of the Wallabies against the Springboks, and the Black Caps against the Sri Lankans... well, actually, if that does happen I may start wondering about divine intervention. Pamela Anderson's miraculous dress-sense and cantilevered breasts, Miracle Whip whipped cream in a can, someone's miraculous brush with death (that's every second week, on the cover of any woman's magazine..), and so on.
READING: Bruce Kennedy Jones & Eric Allison "Fat Blackmail". Just started it, and it looks good.British crime.
LISTENING TO: Ella Fitzgerald, Best of album, and Nick Cave "Murder Songs". Nice and jolly.
WORD OF THE DAY: Dead. Let's not be afraid of death or dying... or of actually talking about it.
HENRY CONTINUES... BUT NOT FOR MUCH LONGER.
But he owed them a good death, just as he’d always striven to give them a good life.
He was afraid of the thought that came to him occasionally, a black dog in the night, that whispered that maybe he was more a symbol to them than a reality; that when he left them all they’d recall was what he stood for, what he’d meant, instead of who he was and who he had been.
His thoughts have become cloudy now, mushy. He must return home. Suddenly where he dies becomes more important than when. He marvels that he is vacillating, even now. He now knew that time, this vacant concept that Mary and he had been playing with for a moment, a lifetime, means nothing when you’re past your allotted span.
He was cold, and struggled to put his hands in his pockets. He was unequal to the task, and simply let his hands drop into his lap. The cold is right, somehow. It’s reaching into his flesh, slowing his mind.
“I’ll be all right. Just make sure you take care of yourselves.”
The lethargy he feels is now intense. His limbs are leaden, his lips are thick, and they prickle with pins and needles. His vision narrows, and his breath is rasping in his throat. A distant thunderclap tears at the silence, and he raises heavy, heavy eyelids to look out, over to the northern horizon. The sky is black, and rushing at him, a crackling giant overwhelming this vast landscape. Lightning stabs the ground, thunder booms a kettle-drum howl of conquest. He watches the display, unmoved. He can count three great anvil-heads towering thousands of feet into the air, storm clouds brimming and churning with the fury and anger of an affronted nature, and a shiver runs down his spine. The speed of the storms appals and terrifies him – in minutes the shack is engulfed in hammering rain, and the wind rages and whips at the windows and roof. A shutter slams and slaps at the wall, and he hears it as a distant clatter. Henry Talbot, lover of Mary, father to Adam, is dying. His eyelids flicker, and he welcomes the blackness that’s shrouding his mind. It’s coming, and I’ll be all right. Don’t you worry. I’ll be all right.
Snap.
Christ. They’re going to be caught in this. They’d been told to keep clear of the gulch if a storm threatened, that flash-floods can come quicker than thought.
“Go on,” he’d said. “I’ll be all right.” Never once did he think that they might not be.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Sunday Scribbles 3
I was walking home from the Supermarket the other day, weighed down with shopping, and I thought: do we have the uniquitous plastic supermarket bag to thanks for the establishment of supermarkets? In times gone by, my Mother got by with a shopping basket, that she took to the shop every day. The butcher delivered the meat, the baker delivered the bread, and she preserved the fruit, etc. Lot of hard work. But of she'd gone to the supermarket with her trusty yellow basket... it wouldn't have worked. Enter the plastic bag. Cheap, strong... it gave the shopper a way of getting the shopping into the car, and of getting said shopping into the house.
Actually, we owe a lot to the plastic bag. There's that scene in "American Beauty"... the dancing plastic bag. There's the novelty things people have made out of them by knotting them together: macrame, by any other name. Bin liners, of course. Osama Bin Liner, anyone? Leonard Cohen wrote a terrific line about those plastic bags that time cannot decay. They've given a couple of generations of sandal-wearing yoof something to get incensed about... and they have led, of course, to the industry of making bags to replace the bags that replaced a lot of labour.
Is the plastic shopping bag a metaphor for modern life? Cheap, and disposable? Terry Pratchett put it nicely, when he said that life wasn't cheap. It was death that cheap. Life was expensive, all too brief, and often ended in great pain.
Read an article about Ursula le Guin. She's 76! How the hell did that happen? She's been a long-time opponent of the occupation of Iraq, and used to keep a poster in her front window shbowing the number of American deaths, updaating it daily. She couldn't, to her chagrin, show the Iraqi death toll, as there was no way of getting to an accurate figure. I guess she could have gone for the nearest 10,000.
Michael Jackson is dead. Well I, for one, am relieved. What a sad, empty life. He was a great dancer who put together a couple of insanely good albums. And that's all. He was also a victim who did nothing about his state of victim-ness. Instead, he made his children victims, as well. Poor little buggers, all carrying some version of his name, all leading a surreal life.. The obscene thing about it all is this: we all allowed and encouraged his increasingly bizarre behaviour. Other fading starts - Liz Taylor, Diana Ross, etc - made excuses for him. But no one pointed out to him that he wasn't healthy. He was ill, and he was abusive. I doubt if he sexually abused any little kids... but he abused them, nonetheless. And he abused his own children. He's dead now... and a cheap death it was. And what a useless, bloated, and excessive thing his funeral is going to be. Sad little bastard.
LISTENING TO: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Best of.." album. Absolutely hilarious - and I only jujst realised (a couple of years ago) that whole Bonzo Dog schtick was about being gay in the 60s. The Love Generation hated gays...
READING: A book by Robert Wilson. I can't remember the title, and it'sin the bedroom where Jenny's still sleeping, so you'll have to wait. It's a police procedural, set in Spain.
WORD OF THE DAY: Birth. I spoke to Adam yesterday. His daughter is due to make an appearance on Tuesday. Holy crap!
MORE OF HENRY'S JOURNEY:
“Ah, yes,” says Henry, and grins. “Fuck off.”
And he turns, and Charlie helps him limp up the path to greet his wife, who is now standing at the door and weeping with laughter.
Chapter Six.
Hank: or a rose by any other name.
When Henry was twelve, he decided that he wanted to be called Hank. Henry, being Henry, didn’t tell anyone. He felt, rightly enough, that a nick-name, or an abbreviation, should be a spontaneous gift from a friend.
Henry was blessed with three extraordinarily good friends, named Roger, Adam, and Patrick. Respectively they were called Bill, Spot, and Murphy. How Roger became Bill is a story of enormous length and little point, involves asparagus, and should never be told in mixed company.
Adam – and yes, Henry named his only begotten after his very good (and twenty-four years dead) friend – became Spot after an equally and fabulously fatuous episode, one involving sunscreen, a girl in a blue gingham bikini, and a rubber glove.
Sometimes it’s best not to know, or ask.
Patrick became Murphy, or Murph, because Patricks often did, and besides which, Patrick surfed. Very, very well.
Murphy, Spot, Bill – and Henry. Henry didn’t really mind his name. After all, it stretched back into antiquity! He was the fifth first-born male Talbot to have been blessed with the burden of the name! Hurrah! Well, blah, thought the twelve-year old Henry, who truthfully did mind his name. He’d noticed that while Henry Fonda was called Henry on the movie posters, in the movie magazines his friends and admirers called him Hank. This is something Americans and Australians did well and still do: they convert, subvert, invert, and revert names. To be fair, the English do, too: John, for instance, become Jack – although a Jack only becomes a John by acquaintance with a certain kind of lady. However, Henry had found the precedent for there being a Henry to Hank conversion, and he desired the nickname with all the passion available to his pre-pubescent soul. The name Henry, he raged to himself, is a burden. Tote that bale, carry that name. Hank. Hank? Hank! Short, sharp, snappy! Muscular and virile! It wasn’t too much to ask, even though he never did ask and don’t ever ask him why.
The name Henry, on the other hand, is, well, it’s soft and doughy. You make bread from a name like Henry: you made hard-tack and scroggin from a name like Hank.
Bill, Murphy, Spot – and Henry. Henry, declared the twelve-year old burden carrier to himself, is a boring name. A dull name. If I’m not careful, I shall become a boring person. My name shall drag me to the clammy pits of adult dullness and putrescence. I shall never wear a Hawaiian shirt, never smoke a cheroot like Clint Eastwood, I shall become a grey and formless ghost. I shall remain what I already am: a Henry.
There are worse things, but don‘t expect a 12 year old boy to know that.
Spot, Murphy, Bill – and Henry. It must be said that, at the beginning, Spot was the serious one. It was a narrow race, but Spot did edge Henry into second place. At age seven, it seemed that Spot was the boy born to be beige. He was quiet, introverted, and much more interested in books that in games. Fiercely intelligent, Spot had been tormented through his first few years at school, until he came to the attention of Murph and Henry. They adopted him into their coterie and protected him, and discovered that under the tweedy pullover he always wore was a loyal and dependable friend.
Despite his early reticence, Spot grew up to be a particularly effervescent character, albeit a short-lived one. He denied the destiny that had seemed carved in granite when he was young, and grew up to be a wild youth who tried to radicalise the world. Oddly enough, though, Spot never called Henry anything but Henry.
It must be said that Mary had a dozen, a score, a simply million billion squillion names for Henry, and he revelled in each and every one of them. Mary was, and always would be, Henry’s greatest friend, his love, his heart’s desire. He saw no fault in her. She was as flawless as a crystal teardrop, as beautiful as all the roses of Picardy bunched together. He loved her with all his heart and all his soul and – but wait: Mary never, ever called Henry Hank.
Actually, we owe a lot to the plastic bag. There's that scene in "American Beauty"... the dancing plastic bag. There's the novelty things people have made out of them by knotting them together: macrame, by any other name. Bin liners, of course. Osama Bin Liner, anyone? Leonard Cohen wrote a terrific line about those plastic bags that time cannot decay. They've given a couple of generations of sandal-wearing yoof something to get incensed about... and they have led, of course, to the industry of making bags to replace the bags that replaced a lot of labour.
Is the plastic shopping bag a metaphor for modern life? Cheap, and disposable? Terry Pratchett put it nicely, when he said that life wasn't cheap. It was death that cheap. Life was expensive, all too brief, and often ended in great pain.
Read an article about Ursula le Guin. She's 76! How the hell did that happen? She's been a long-time opponent of the occupation of Iraq, and used to keep a poster in her front window shbowing the number of American deaths, updaating it daily. She couldn't, to her chagrin, show the Iraqi death toll, as there was no way of getting to an accurate figure. I guess she could have gone for the nearest 10,000.
Michael Jackson is dead. Well I, for one, am relieved. What a sad, empty life. He was a great dancer who put together a couple of insanely good albums. And that's all. He was also a victim who did nothing about his state of victim-ness. Instead, he made his children victims, as well. Poor little buggers, all carrying some version of his name, all leading a surreal life.. The obscene thing about it all is this: we all allowed and encouraged his increasingly bizarre behaviour. Other fading starts - Liz Taylor, Diana Ross, etc - made excuses for him. But no one pointed out to him that he wasn't healthy. He was ill, and he was abusive. I doubt if he sexually abused any little kids... but he abused them, nonetheless. And he abused his own children. He's dead now... and a cheap death it was. And what a useless, bloated, and excessive thing his funeral is going to be. Sad little bastard.
LISTENING TO: The Bonzo Dog Band, "Best of.." album. Absolutely hilarious - and I only jujst realised (a couple of years ago) that whole Bonzo Dog schtick was about being gay in the 60s. The Love Generation hated gays...
READING: A book by Robert Wilson. I can't remember the title, and it'sin the bedroom where Jenny's still sleeping, so you'll have to wait. It's a police procedural, set in Spain.
WORD OF THE DAY: Birth. I spoke to Adam yesterday. His daughter is due to make an appearance on Tuesday. Holy crap!
MORE OF HENRY'S JOURNEY:
“Ah, yes,” says Henry, and grins. “Fuck off.”
And he turns, and Charlie helps him limp up the path to greet his wife, who is now standing at the door and weeping with laughter.
Chapter Six.
Hank: or a rose by any other name.
When Henry was twelve, he decided that he wanted to be called Hank. Henry, being Henry, didn’t tell anyone. He felt, rightly enough, that a nick-name, or an abbreviation, should be a spontaneous gift from a friend.
Henry was blessed with three extraordinarily good friends, named Roger, Adam, and Patrick. Respectively they were called Bill, Spot, and Murphy. How Roger became Bill is a story of enormous length and little point, involves asparagus, and should never be told in mixed company.
Adam – and yes, Henry named his only begotten after his very good (and twenty-four years dead) friend – became Spot after an equally and fabulously fatuous episode, one involving sunscreen, a girl in a blue gingham bikini, and a rubber glove.
Sometimes it’s best not to know, or ask.
Patrick became Murphy, or Murph, because Patricks often did, and besides which, Patrick surfed. Very, very well.
Murphy, Spot, Bill – and Henry. Henry didn’t really mind his name. After all, it stretched back into antiquity! He was the fifth first-born male Talbot to have been blessed with the burden of the name! Hurrah! Well, blah, thought the twelve-year old Henry, who truthfully did mind his name. He’d noticed that while Henry Fonda was called Henry on the movie posters, in the movie magazines his friends and admirers called him Hank. This is something Americans and Australians did well and still do: they convert, subvert, invert, and revert names. To be fair, the English do, too: John, for instance, become Jack – although a Jack only becomes a John by acquaintance with a certain kind of lady. However, Henry had found the precedent for there being a Henry to Hank conversion, and he desired the nickname with all the passion available to his pre-pubescent soul. The name Henry, he raged to himself, is a burden. Tote that bale, carry that name. Hank. Hank? Hank! Short, sharp, snappy! Muscular and virile! It wasn’t too much to ask, even though he never did ask and don’t ever ask him why.
The name Henry, on the other hand, is, well, it’s soft and doughy. You make bread from a name like Henry: you made hard-tack and scroggin from a name like Hank.
Bill, Murphy, Spot – and Henry. Henry, declared the twelve-year old burden carrier to himself, is a boring name. A dull name. If I’m not careful, I shall become a boring person. My name shall drag me to the clammy pits of adult dullness and putrescence. I shall never wear a Hawaiian shirt, never smoke a cheroot like Clint Eastwood, I shall become a grey and formless ghost. I shall remain what I already am: a Henry.
There are worse things, but don‘t expect a 12 year old boy to know that.
Spot, Murphy, Bill – and Henry. It must be said that, at the beginning, Spot was the serious one. It was a narrow race, but Spot did edge Henry into second place. At age seven, it seemed that Spot was the boy born to be beige. He was quiet, introverted, and much more interested in books that in games. Fiercely intelligent, Spot had been tormented through his first few years at school, until he came to the attention of Murph and Henry. They adopted him into their coterie and protected him, and discovered that under the tweedy pullover he always wore was a loyal and dependable friend.
Despite his early reticence, Spot grew up to be a particularly effervescent character, albeit a short-lived one. He denied the destiny that had seemed carved in granite when he was young, and grew up to be a wild youth who tried to radicalise the world. Oddly enough, though, Spot never called Henry anything but Henry.
It must be said that Mary had a dozen, a score, a simply million billion squillion names for Henry, and he revelled in each and every one of them. Mary was, and always would be, Henry’s greatest friend, his love, his heart’s desire. He saw no fault in her. She was as flawless as a crystal teardrop, as beautiful as all the roses of Picardy bunched together. He loved her with all his heart and all his soul and – but wait: Mary never, ever called Henry Hank.
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