Stick It To The Mand...

Sometimes I Have Something To Say...

2011-12-02T21:33:00.002Z

Performed at the Whitechapel as part of the ongoing MFA Art Writing Residency:

Sometimes I Have Something To Say by mandiocious

This is an extract from an ongoing piece which was rewritten for a voice. That is all that I will say.

I'm a victim of this song.

2011-10-31T00:27:00.005Z

Pipolotti Rist perhaps my favourite artist and maybe has been for the last 5 years.
Fresh from the hayward gallery exhib "Eye Massage" (and then a few drinks and discussions with the superb Lucy Vann) I must urge you to see this, so feminine and wonderful and erotic and grotesque and so incredibly beautiful. Perhaps the master of desire leading perception/anamorphicly wonderous perspective. Not that these two are any sort of hint as to what to expect but actually Pipilottis has great taste in music/is a sweet recording artist...

(click on the image above and go to youtube I urge you!)

I'm not a girl who misses much...
(+ love of the beatles whilst decapitated - YES!)

BLOODY LOVE THIS WOMAN!

BECOME A READER OF THE ROOM

2011-10-20T14:04:00.003+01:00

The Reading Room at The Kenton is now a regular thing. Every 4th Wednesday of the Month (excluding December)

The Reading Room would like to invite the avid readers, the casual readers, the curious minded and the tactile natured to browse our collection. We present a selection of unpublished works, hand made books, zines, manuscripts and texts from writers and artists with a D.I.Y. mentality. Grab a drink, pull up a chair and relax with a book you may not have the opportunity to engage with otherwise.

The Reading Room is always looking to expand its collection, if you have something that you feel we may be interested in - whether you're an artist book maker, a zinester, a writer, whatever - if you have something which you may wish to donate (or loan out if it's a little bit precious) then please email mandigoodier@gmail.com

JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK. JOiN US ON FACEBOOK.

Language + The Flesh + Artaud (+ Spero)

2011-10-17T12:08:00.004+01:00

Musings:
When the pen pierces the page does it penetrate the skin. When the words cover the face does it become disfigured. When the mark marries with the body, is the trace erased or does it burn deeper. When language and the body are at one, does the father die?

All writing is pigshit, because it bares the mark of something else, because it becomes an object outside of the body - a partial object that survives its start point - at the authors throat. That lingers and becomes autonomous, that seems to "out grow the natural limitations of the organism affected by it". What of autonomy and the written word?

Where is the body that escapes me. Where is the body that is alien within me. Where words become the signal for the anamorphic real, where signs are permitted with enjoyment, with jouissance, which is replayed but never touched.

Wannabe

2011-10-12T15:24:00.003+01:00

Wish I could be in this band

"No one knows who the Beattle-ettes were. They were one more answer record knocked off responding to the maelstrom of the Beatles’ invasion of New York in 1964. (It was rushed out so fast, in fact, that they got the spelling of the boys’ name wrong, with an extra ‘T’!) But it is sure that they were produced by “Shadow” Morton just before his breakout success with the fabulous Shangri-La’s. Because of this, and the definite New York moxie of the singers, many believe it might actually be the Shangs! This would be cool as all hell, of course, but no one knows for sure.

What we do know is this is a rockin’ two minutes of punky Beat music that sticks in your head all day."

Then I wish I was this band

.... Which turns out to be suzi quatro and sister patti and arlene...

I also wish I would have wrote A Lovers Discourse, but I didn't, Roland Barthes did.

And I wish I could have wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being. But I didn't

These both written by men but I consider to be feminine in a lot of respects.

And the reason I didn't was because I wasn't born yet. Everyone got there first. I may be too old to be in a teenage girl band, but I'm making moves on all the other things. Now the main dilemma is plagiarism, iteration, or envy? "Let's start over," is a mode of Art Writing according to Adrian Rifkin. He could be very very right.

poor, lonely, but not down.

2011-10-09T01:30:00.000+01:00

Pervert...

2011-10-06T11:14:00.004+01:00

The hilariously insightful philosopher and (Lacanian :) psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek guides us through the real (super ego) symobolic (ego ideal) and imagined (ego) in cinema.

Possibly my favorite ever movie scene, Charlie Chaplin you beautiful man:

http://www.thepervertsguide.com/clips.html

Out of practice/Return to practice/Lacanian Paradigms...

2011-10-03T22:54:00.007+01:00

A good strong woman, as if anyone needs to be convinced of that, has mirrors fixed to a wall in every room of her house. They are positioned unusually, awkward to stand before, easy to walk past and catch a glimpse at another potential being, present, absent, unknown, a glimpse. Her head rests upon good strong posture in a fixed forwards position, it is only the eyes that betray good strong posture and head held high tautness. They stretch themselves to the furthest corners, painfully but briefly, springing back to forward facing, correct positioning in order to aid with navigation and general observation. When out in the street she maintains correct postulation, sure footed strides, flowing sweeps of her arms through the air, masterful composition. But a smile forms in those disobedient eyes at passer-bys and reflective window displays close circuit TV and distorted images upon vehicle bodies. They turn and glance from left to right, but head strong strolls on.

A good strong woman, no proof required, shows signs of weakness, where perhaps her strength is not tested but highlighted. Upon darkness's descent the surfaces which held the figure of her constant companion depicts a new shadowed creature haloed by the glow of street lights, moon light, head lights, stop lights. Go, go, go. Her pace is quickened her posture flails and she fights against the invisible hands stiffening her legs. Her chest is tight, her head turns slight - determination prevails and curiosity does not get the better of her. She is not alone. As she progresses between street lamp after street lamp a shadowy figure looms ever closer, only to fall behind when absolutely beneath their glare. And cars which pass cause the shadowy creature to gain ferocity, increasing velocity and to pounce upon the next shaded area - allowing her to catch up. She is a strong woman who feels terrified by the figure that creeps her, that won't leave her within the lightness of night. Upon returning home all lights are turned on and she races to her sanctuary. She sits at an empty desk. Hands pressed together between her thighs. She raises her head. Corrects her posture. Before her is a sheath of mirrored glass. The remnant of one once shattered.

One once shattered then walked over in bare feet, sharpened edges digging into her penetrating her souls, her spine jolting backwards then stiffening as if a pole were shunted along side it, straightening her out, displacing the weight of her body, opening up her lungs, widening her mouth for the cries of pain they were expected to carry. Not a sound was heard that night nor any other. Good posture = self sedation. Primitive war tactics passed down unknowingly from generation to generation, when human recognised itself, an animal, and instinct determined everything else. The glass remained in her feet until scabs formed embracing them, welcome to the family. At this point she stood up reenforcing her good posture, pressing the shards into nerve endings and reopening the scabs of good intent. She lifted herself so as not to further the injury to her feet, a strong woman can carry her own weight, metaphysically heavy. She placed her body into a hot bath and watched the sweat drip from her forehead, sometimes joining the bath water, sometimes evaporating into the surrounding steam. She took hold of her submerged foot caressed each protrusion of glass before sharply removing each and every piece. Never once did she tear her eyes from the surface of the water; did the back of her head leave the nook it rested upon. Once the last shard was removed she rested in red waters.

At her desk she looks into the remaining sheath positioned at eye level. Too thin to see a full image of her face, wide enough to gaze into her companions eyes. And in those eyes she is fixated, she stares desperately into them, flicking from left to right rapidly, before settling on one or the other. Dead eyes with no soul attached beyond the reflection she sees inside them, a figure, darkened, silhouetted. She sees herself.

(video nasty Boogeyman 2)

Les Grande Mains...

2011-09-28T23:34:00.002+01:00

Warrington secretly harbors A LOT of musical talent. This is particularly great!

The Reading Room II

2011-09-25T01:41:00.005+01:00

Things that are happening. In non-chronological order...

Another reading room in the Kenton.

Yes I've bagged me a regular home in the back room of The Kenton (Kenton Road, Hackney) on Wednesday 28th Sept. The Reading Room provides a valuable service, enabling you to indulge in some lovingly hand crafted artist books, zines, manuscripts and writerly objects that are not available in waterstones or your local library. Come along, relax, engage, don't be shy.

Manchester Print Fair. Three fifths of Parlour Press will be representing with a cozy reading room just like granny used to make.

Manchester Print Fair is a happening thanks to the wonderful Mill Press ladies at the Night and Day Cafe (Northern Quarter, Manchester). Parlour Press will be occupying the stage (naturally) from 11-5 on Sunday 25th September. More information here.

And this thing...
Myself and Rebecca LaMarre will be in residence in the locker room of the Old Police Station for the Open Studio Day on Friday 30th September. We will set up yet another reading room... But slightly huger. Many publications - self published, Artist and otherwise. Also we will be experimenting with format and attempting to keep you entertained with some projections and impromptu readings.

The Old Police Station (OPS) is situated on Amersham Vale, New Cross. More info here.

Sorry for the last minuteness.

Salford Zine Library...

2011-09-23T16:30:00.001+01:00

Coming soon...

cartoon crush

2011-09-18T13:08:00.002+01:00

Deconstruct this anomaly...

2011-08-31T17:54:00.005+01:00

I look unrecognisingly, at my emancipated reflection in the mirrored door of the wardrobe, lean forward, pull a face and 'ha' on the glass. I put my fingers in the condensation as if ro stroke my neck, staring into the unknown eyes of this stranger. I kiss the cold flat glass, open mouthed, my tongue snaking about on the ice, feeling for warmth.
'What do you want?' I enquire of myself, looking into the reflection of my tired eyes. But I refuse to allow myself to be led by this silly question to which I have no answer.
I shout at myself and stare into my yellowing teeth. I grimace and snort, purposely fogging up the mirror with my hot breath, then pull a silly face and answer myself in an idiotic little voice that I scarcely recognise.
'Meeeee,' I squeak.
'talking to yourself is stupid,' I say, subtly trying to change the subject, but I carry on bullying myself regardless.
'Who is "meeeee"?' I cross-question myself, intent on tripping myself up and making myself a laughing stock....
The wardrobe door swings open and once more reveals a twisted hideous body that I don't recognise as mine; the paleness of my limbs; my hollow cheeks and purple rings under my eyes; my teeth already tobacco stained and broken. I see myself as ugly and despise myself...

It's funny how mirrors hold an interesting dynamic in relation (and reflection) to ourselves. We are so desperate to catch a glimpse of ourselves through the eyes of others but, being unable to take up the position of the other, with each attempt we fail fail fail. We then rely on mirrors, photographs, a passing glance in reflective shop windows (hoping if I can turn my head fast enough I may catch myself off guard). The mirror as deeply flawed as skin, smudged and imperfect, the eyes we stare into, a cold dead reflection. The camera grains, pixelates, we are not made up of tiny little squares, we chose to ignore that which we are made up of, further still, out of sight out of mind... Perhaps we may faint upon opening up - this is just an avoidance of truth. So we rely on others for a true image... Another false image. It is easy to feel alone inside your own body, sometimes the company of others only serves to exemplify this lonelness, then again it they may be only opportunity to truthfully gaze upon ourselves. It is true that I have fallen in love with people off the back of the reflection I caught of myself in the glistening curve of their eyes.

Free music - An Image Of You

Just yes billy childish, yes.

I try to stand but fall twisted to the bed, my calves and knees locked in cramps. I straighten my legs, screaming in pain, cursing and rubbing my calves vigorously until at last the cramps subside and I can stand on my numb and tingling feet. On reflection, it might have been wiser for me to have sat in my brother's blue nylon sleeping bag. But comfort is not what makes great literature.

2011-08-24T10:34:00.001+01:00

Reading room tonight. Come, come. It'd be good to see you there.
It's at the Kenton up in Hackney.

another extract...

2011-08-03T02:01:00.003+01:00

10.
Time to catch up with the past which has somehow found itself far beyond our present. General chitter chatter and gesting and then a name is mentioned that doesn't quite sit right. Something bodily crosses the eyes of the other, blatant, dramatic - perhaps, but completely unrehearsed. Perception, on both parts, becomes interesting here. What the body conveys is not necessarily what the conscious mind picks up on. So what we had there was possibly a squirm or a look of dismay, a flash of hatred, or a reaction through discomfort. Once it is picked up on by all there-by present, the word "hate," in some form or another, is placed in the mouth of others and spat out carelessly, but you know that is not true. Not at all. It has happened twice on two separate occasions, with two separate parties. Hate was the last thing encasing the mind, uncertainty was the major - an unwillingness to settle on any type of extreme emotion, an incapability even, the only thing that was committing itself was the body and it's reaction. When asked to reflect on such obvious distractions, extreme contemplation comes to mind, not hatred. Just uncertainty. Any negative response merely turns a mirror onto oneself. It could only be perception and experience (or lack there of...), the failure to assimilate the actions of another, although bothersome, are not necessarily the fault of that particular other. Hate is a reflection or perhaps a deflection of the self. You can not answer with hatred, "Yeh, something happened there. I don't quite know what." or "it'll be a long story" are better deflections than the uttering of irrational words such as 'hate'.
"Besides that's not true. I hate my bodies reaction to 'the name'." The name is signification, the body is electricity, the signified is a short circuit, the reaction is a signal failure. And you realise that you quite like that other, or the way the name arouses the body, the attention it draws towards yourself, "It blushes and squirms, and it reveals something inside. Like it is caught out. You see hatred. Or anger. Maybe possibly even love. But all of those things are incredibly wrong. And all of them are absolutely right. But all of them are not true and require a deeper contemplation." Nothing here can be explained. Silence is a sign of contemplation but the mind doesn't think on the same frequency as the body, which is a shame. Complete understanding only occurs when she leaves consciousness behind and attempts to read her body without the mediation of language, then her body gives up, it will not work to order, you cannot force these things. An image serves as stimulant. But there is a whole universe between the self and the printed/projected/imagined image and the body refuses to act. Something is missing. The manifestation. The real. The symbolic betrays. The imaginary nurtures. The real never occurs. So as a temporary solution she will settle on this sentence as the only truth she can muster up, that she can coerce both mind and body to unite upon, through the silence: "I think I miss him."

Killing (In the Name Of) the Father... Extract

2011-07-13T00:24:00.016+01:00

The following are extracts from a much longer piece. It's a work in progress...

2.
“I killed him.” This is a confession. He is dead and it wasn’t easy. The pressure of my V7 Pilot Pen (favored to the 0.5 Uni-ball for its keen nib, thick stokes, ease and comfort) firm against the skin,over and over, back and forth, repetitive strokes. When the skin finally broke, blood was met with black ink and tears of relief. It took months, through severed veins and arteries, through bone and marrow, through the rigor-mortis of repetition and sedative euphoria. Then there was a dead man with a stigmata-esque injury through each wrist. I contemplated mourning over him. I contemplated worshiping him. I did love him. I loved him more in his death than was ever permissible in life. I do mourn, not because of the space left empty by him, but for myself and the earth. I died too. It wasn’t easy, no it was not. Liberation is like new skin, sensitive and vulnerable to surroundings; the atmosphere more easily absorbed through painful oscillations of needle like air altering my typically jaded state to a dizzying new suprasensual. The earth softened with every step and I pulsated with the breath of the wind, totally aware of every single cell, every single molecule that amounted to universal being: myself. Every step fully combined, my mind, my body at one, all that it touched and it was as beautiful as that. But it wasn’t easy. Everything shook as I collided continuously with the ground, with the eyes of passer-bys. The tyranny of such devices. They looked and judged, how limp and 'unaware', oh how wrong their impressions. I killed him and transgressed the tyranny of the eye. I killed him and entered into constant orgasm with the Earth as phallus. I killed him. I killed him: he is earth. I took a life. I took control.
The eye. That initial pusher granted me this downer, that gave me access to this language, to the pen, to the earth. My muscles once kiln blasted clay now soft and indiscernible from earth. It’s brave of me to admit all that isn’t it, that sort of sensitivity leaves me vulnerable and you know where my weakness lies, but you must be edged by fear to know that I could take a life under my hand; under the pressure of my V7 pen. Quite a weapon.
It wasn’t easy and now everything is out of focus, and everything trembles when I touch it but nothing touches me. “I confess to you, it wasn’t easy, but now it is all over. Now we are dead, now we are earth.”

3.
“You and I are earth,” There is an old man in the corner, he is stood on a soap box where girls once gathered around, held onto his words and collected them, wrote them in journals, savored them, revisited them, resisted them, repeated them, ruined them, lost them. He now preaches to the air. He thinks he is a wise man, he glares into his own future and reckons that this justifies his position, but his future is littered with aged memories and we have chosen to forget our memories as they deceive us, as they cause us to ignore inherent dangers whilst irrationally fearing the appearance of butterflies and moths. He directs himself at the naive, like they are idiots but a there is a new word on the street counteracting his stale air. He cannot access this word as it is uttered behind his back, outside of his generation, it breaks in the new kids who deceive their next of kin. So there is a rebellion and his words wreak of otherness and decay. He is channeling, disseminating the dead. We kill the dead. There is talk of killing the old man but we all feel so sorry for him and he happens to be someone's father (and he dares to speak of liberating ourselves from patriarchal constraints). This is the only thing that saves him, that assures his presence. We can’t bare to see her eyes stream on the news of his death as we stand in front of one long mirror, we look at ourselves. We spare him. His remains loiter ghost like in our minds, full of resentful respect, and sexual angst, ashamed at our own defiance to both him and ourselves. Regret all our actions. What must he think.

4.
What about...?
What about what?
Well, you know...
...
You know, her
What? What about her?
You know...
Well I haven't really given her a second thought.
Wrong her, it's a different one.

There is a silence, the kind of silence that fills the air with small needles which ferociously stab at the neck and chest; which inject small flushes of heat and emulate suffocation. It is usually indistinguishable from regular air to the person/s in the surrounding proximity. They have been twiddling with old bits of paper, flicking at lighters, finding small talk in the strangest of places. The talk is quashed. One twiddler is suspecting that the silence indicates an inappropriate use of small talk, that twiddler suspects that they have unintentionally broached on big talk. There is a sudden calmness now, the needles have finished and although she is still slightly flushed there is an urge to remain - keep the focus with the her....

I have only just began fantasising about her. A flirtation really. To be like that. Is that who I wish to be today? To emit charm and confidence and warmth and intelligence. That's who I was yesterday and the day before. But now, stifled. I fell from her shoes and when I got back to my feet... I'm a little shaky and the persona is slipping. And I'm unsure as to who it is I am fooling. But it's just a fantasy anyway. It isn't hurting anyone.

Oh. I didn't mean, her, actually I meant... Well that doesn't matter. I suppose the main thing is, well what about, him.

Him? You mean him...?

And make no mistake, this did not require contemplation. For as long as she could remember there had only been one him. That ‘him’ is a shape shifter. It does change but beyond the shell is a recurrent theme, or persona, or fiction, or thing. Him is fixed. He becomes a mark of all predecessors and stands before and remains after all, after all.

Well. I haven't thought of him for months now. Well that's a lie, since his death I mean I hadn't. Yet last night I began to fantasise about him. It seems less dangerous now. I severed several electrical wires and pulsating arteries... and yet I cannot fully heal the wounds where they had hooked themselves into my infrastructure. There was something there before. A mark of something or someone. I don't remember quite fully enough to tell it. I suppose that is why people are repulsed by this, it simultaneously reveals and conceals. Always something underneath determined by a... something else. Still at least this one isn't an open gushing wound a direct window into...

The scar itches then and there is a hypnotic glare adopted by those present. They begin to think of their fathers, but whenever anyone tried to speak they could only talk of their mothers. They all knew: the mother implicates the father too, mother is merely a concealing device as everyone fears directly the consequence of naming him. He bred them, he fed them, he allowed them to stay over on Wednesdays and every other weekend. His presence was inescapably bound to their existence. They gave up on language then and sat in silence for some time until one of them finally piped up...

We Know Don't We...

2011-07-06T23:35:00.001+01:00

...and we'll dream won't we...

I'm not going to tell you about a girl...

2011-06-07T12:06:00.002+01:00

Gimme...

2011-06-03T22:38:00.000+01:00

2.35 - 2.54
Merry Clayton.
oooo.

Prosthesis: Written Jouissance

2011-06-03T17:02:00.004+01:00

or how to find the self in text.

Theory as prosthesis
Subjectile/Projectile
The fallible phallus
Written Jouissance
Reader as parasite
Author as Frankenstein
Book as a coffin
Identity Theft
Paraphiliac tendancies
Écriture féminine
Subjective subjectile
Revival of the mark
Survival of the mark
Symbolic substitution
signified signification
Binary oppositions
Difference/differance
I only exist because you exist
I stink therefore I am
Sex is Death
Autoerotocism as alienation
Suggestive Tautology
Mystic preservation
The cuckoo kills the cat
Missing links

Bataille
Marquis De Sade
Sassure
Lacan
Derrida
Sontag
Artaud
Irigaray
Blanchot
Foucault
Cixous
The Count Censored
The White Album
Paul McCartney
Stefan Sagmeister
Zizek
Charles Manson

yes it's nearly hand in time!

Deteriorating quality of blog...

2011-05-12T15:59:00.001+01:00

It's that time of year again. I am completely chained to my work at present, editing and rewriting and folding and making and chopping significant chunks of flesh from my fingers (it would seem!) When I return expect snippets of prose, images of new lush books, critical writings of the latest internet memes, details of forth coming exhibitions (that ones a little bit 'out there'...) and many more exciting things relating to..... me! In the meantime you will just have to settle for the occasional youtube video. Or if you really love me (and I know you do!) please participate in this project:
www.usergenerated-text.tumblr.com
It maybe the only way for your love to be reciprocated.
Lots of love
Mandi

(p.s. I have removed all images of penises from my blog so you are now in the drastically reduced company of people that have landed here not wanting to look at a penis. Seriously there has been a huge reduction of hits! But it's all about quality, not quantity.)

He hit me....

2011-05-05T17:06:00.002+01:00

Adam Curtis. Sound track to match!

SNAP!

2011-05-05T10:16:00.002+01:00

You should buy (or submit to) snap zine because of Andrew Moss' cute floppy hair:

SNAP ZINE issue one advert from Matt Sidebottom on Vimeo.

Oh David.

2011-05-05T00:18:00.003+01:00

I still love you David.
Here's a fix...

Earl Slick on guitar there. nice.

I'll sleep well tonight.

ANY APPROPRIATORS OUT THERE...

2011-05-03T13:39:00.005+01:00

DEADLINE EXTENSION...
Firstly thanks to all the responses I've recieved so far.
If you are still intending on participating or still haven't posted the response then it may please you to know that I am pushing back the deadline until end of June early July (probably 6th at the latest).

The Appropriation project aims to find a collective author through the reading and reworking of piece of text. Once all texts have been collected I will set about collating and re-telling the piece through the responses, hopefully drawing on the experiences of others and the text itself. So the more responses the better really.

If you are yet to participate and are intrigued then please email for details or check this site:
http://usergenerated-text.tumblr.com/

The text:

All kinds of diverse responses so far, texts/images/mark making... Keep 'em coming!

We Never Felt Joy...

2011-05-02T19:52:00.003+01:00

We never felt joy the day that Osama Bin Laden died. An immediate grin crept across our faces but it wasn't a grin of elation, nor relief, it was of anxiety and anticipation. A prikly sweat attempted to push through my skin but didn't break. I could have jumped, but remained static. We looked at each other and our grins turned to confusion. It meant nothing, something was still up and desperately desperately wrong. When I think back to the circumstances everything was off. An unusual double bank holiday, a royal wedding, a pagan celebration, bewildering fun, exploration and copulation, and an absinthe fuelled hangover (more real than the usual). The death of notoriety. I realised that I had barely even reacted, I asked around and found everyone else was the same. Unable to feel sad, unable to feel joyous we were all just stumped. We wanted to be angry, or sad, or controversial, or ecstatic but all those emotions were so far out of reach that we remained. We just carried on.

We never could affiliate ourselves to a side, we stayed strictly down the center, in the light. So centeral that we realised everybody else was to the left or to the right. We owned that space. Even then we could find no joy, only ignorance.

Chisenhale Residency...

2011-04-28T17:50:00.003+01:00

Goldsmiths MFA Art Writing colleagues present an evening of performances, readings, projections, objects and contemplation. And there it is will chart the outcome of a sustained collective engagement with the decisive enigma of disaster and its many possible presences.

What if the word and its manifestations are perceived as events? The word might be a thing in the world, said, written or performed, the word might mark both a place of effort and a failure of presence. If the word is an event, a rupture, each rupture is a call to thought. Would presence, if achieved, mean epistemic failure? Does who writes matter? Does who speaks matter? Does which word we choose matter? Is our alphabet dead? Are we resigned to ringing variations of clichés or might we happen upon invention? Must our gesture succeed?

It could be Chisenhale, a screen, the internet, a wall, a piece of paper, a mask, a body, a voice, a void, or a word. We could find it. We could fail it.

Shepard Tones...

2011-04-27T23:11:00.002+01:00

live long and prosper...

2011-04-24T23:42:00.002+01:00

Expectations.

2011-04-24T09:51:00.002+01:00

I love you VV.

Keep in a cool place...

2011-04-20T00:32:00.005+01:00

Did you ever get the impression that you had been crafted? It was the result of an uncomfortable stretch, pivoting joints seemingly fractured. All these twists and turns began to separate themselves from the body. I began looking a little like a piece by Hans Bellemer. Disjuncture; Displaced; Disappropriated; Disjointed.

It looks like an act, there is a gesture towards eternal desire. This how you might look if you were to place your insides outside. Too much revealed, unnatural, not normal. Revelation, elation, liberation. Submission. The skin disappears and you are revealed as a mechanism. Let him turn his hand unto you and mould them around the artificiality of your limbs.

That is a falsehood as he is a falsehood, artificial mechanisms of otherness. Reduce each other to mannequins and find there an uncanny likening for something you once thought that you knew. The body curls in on itself then around itself - the surreality of it all. Life has been unveiled to you as nothing more than you had already found inside and there is a dissatisfaction to that. It was never the outside that oppressed you, it was always the inside.

Inside you found his hand and you were doing all you could to escape it before it's thick fingers clasped tightly shut around you. On running you had tied yourself in knots then questioned how it could possibly occur that the hand you were running from has now become a surface which you rest your tangled hide upon. This is how we represent each other.

Grotesque rippling of skin and flesh is tied into itself, it was never a part of me, it was just some additive. Something to dig at. Something to protect my core. How this did occur. How I have become so falsely represented. How you are, were and always will be the wire, distorting and manipulating my reality and my phantasy, intercepting thought processes and projecting yourself unto my limbs. I remain unmarked. Pull your wire once more and a little more tightly please, I am beginning to rise again.

You Know My Name

2011-04-18T21:42:00.002+01:00

look up the number

And There It Is....

2011-04-18T12:07:00.001+01:00

An event arriving at the Chisenhale Gallery 23rd June 2011.
Hosted by Goldsmiths MFA Art Writers.
Alright!

OWT #5 Atmosphere...

2011-03-28T02:10:00.004+01:00

Buy OWT zine for the following reasons:

It is
Beautifully put together
with

Hand/screen printed sections
from

Talented northern youths
and

I'm in it!

OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.OWT.

I also drink a lot

2011-03-24T00:41:00.000Z

The I that lies...

2011-03-15T16:30:00.009Z

For me to say I is problematic as I can only know as I have come to understand. I will not and cannot presuppose your knowledge. So where can another fit into I? It is single, alone, all-one. To force another to say I through that which I scribe causes a displacement. It passes into the realm of the other, the unknown. It is claimed by someone else and it is no longer mine. It requires the unknown other to draw from their own experiences and take the ownership of the I from me. Perhaps then, this is where we can become a collective, a we or an us. Although the letters w and e do not touch they stand together to form a comprehensible concept of togetherness. The unknown I find within myself and consequently others may become united through the use of the word I. Stood together because of subjectivity and singularity.
If I did have anything to say it perhaps should merely have been this: What can I say? And maybe the depth of différance within the response, the antecedence of the personal pronoun, the implications of the shifter, could have given us all some fat to chew on for a while.

***aside. A deconstruction of self. A presupposition of the speaking being.
As I entered into your language my mind was washed with nothingness. I had forgotten the thing that I was searching for and so I began to look for clues to help me remember. The clues that I found were ambiguous; they were surfaces for me to rub myself against in order to test whether I existed; they enabled a space for me to contort myself into. Although it is quite possible that one of these spaces had been made for me, I felt uncertain and thought perhaps that it was best not to claim any of them until I am sure that they aren't already inhabited by others (possibly out to lunch, visiting a family member in hospital, or holidaying in Spain). I suppose I could ask you about these spaces, but I am struggling to think of an example. The only thing I can recall is that I misread girth as girl. Upon reading it again I smiled. I didn't know whether to wrap my arms around your waist or to sit on you, neither is possible as you are supine when it comes to irrational outbursts of lust and/or desire. This is a bad example, but the fact that it is an example means that it cannot serve in it's particularity, it is in a paradoxical position of 'it is but it isn't(ness)', for which I am quite grateful as this renders me golden. I go out of my way to build spaces, it is an inevitable construct of language, yet I am uncertain who I may find loitering in these words. Every time I look, it is a concept of you, but when my back is turned I am unknown as is you.

(Possessing the I of a song)

What's in a Name (Revision of previous post)

2011-03-03T15:47:00.012Z

Antagonism will only rouse animosity.

Not everything you say will be taken on board.
Not everything you are interested in will I find interesting.

This is another point.

We are united based on difference not pinpoint understandings.
Understanding the other is the least productive activity.

ENIGMATICS AND OTHERNESS

- to stir my insides and tear it into pieces, being far more excited by the unanswerable than the satisfaction and comfort produced by the...

CHARISMATIC AND SAMENESS

- how is one expected to produce and write if not continuously foiled by what one thought to be right and what one thought to be truthful. Really it is the deception of perception that rendered this disposition. Blame the skin. Blame the concealment of interior with it's sense of touch and it's responsibility to protect.

Tell me then, how is it that a name can hold anything more than the key to authenticity? How can it unlock a piece of writing? How can a piece of writing create more of an impact due to the addition of a name so anonymous as my own? Who is it that wants to know me? And in addition how might they know the purpose of what I have told without sitting with them, and allowing them to take a scalpel to my protective layer and remove my innards with a fish knife. All of which, may I add, would have to take place whilst I continue to breathe.

Read my previous work and sure enough you find clues, similarities, structures, and characters, you find the same thing over and over, my word is truthful, my stories are riddled with holes. There is after all a 'hole' in 'whole'. For you, the loss of authors name is infuriating, but if Banksy were to reveal his face, would we be anymore wiser as to his identity? And here I am (or due to the temporality of this post, there I was) sitting opposite you, who I do not know, listening to your words, taking them on board despite the fact that I do not know you. Are you then any less valid. Is a name not only a point of reference? Or is it something that identifies us as beings? Does a name give us identity? Am I in trouble with my 'self', because by granting me with a name in 1986 my parents placed onto me something to which I identify my 'self'......

Imagine it in reverse. How frustrating it is to have people read your work but to never know them. Or worse to talk to people, to live with someone and never know them. To make love to someone and never. truly. know them. Why should I offer any other sort of courtesy? As it happens, (the work discussed - this is me venting by the way) it is a one off piece of work intended to gather a completeness (or deterioration) through a series of unknown authors. Unity in difference. Commonality through the individual. But it stands. The addition of my name, the removal of my name, whether it antagonises, as you have me, becomes completely arbitrary. You take it, or you leave it. My name means nothing around these, or any parts. I hold no value to it at this moment in time where I am building a body. I'll decide the name once I have given birth to the beast. (Frankenstein never named his monster, to do so may have helped people anthropomorphisise him, accept him, maybe then that is why people struggle at Halloween. Or perhaps it was the collapse of the two personalities - who was the real monster?)

As an a-side what then lies in a pseudonym? How does that effect the reader? I once had a male tutor who told me he had published poetry under various female names. Would this then effect the trace of the author, a complete disembodiment of author, which is then displaced onto an empty shell. A male with a female voice, or perhaps a female with a male voice. Or a complete lie, an untruth with no trace for anyone to follow. Would this be washing the blood from the page, so to speak. Your hands are clean, it is removed from your conscious, there is no DNA to be traced.

Sylvia Plath worked under the name Victoria Lucas when publishing the Bell Jar. Does the book mean more now that we know it was her? I would say yes. The active 'suicide' of the author within this piece some how lessens it. Although a fictive piece we need to draw parallels to Plath's own life before we can see it as anything more than just a piece of fiction. Without her, there are access points that elevate it to a worth while read if you are of 'that' nature. The attachment of Plath to this work suddenly seemed to make it comprehensible, it was somehow the revelation of the true author and the association with her own struggles and actual suicide which granted it resonance. Did it need the name to achieve acclaim? If so then when does an author's work become the 'work' of an author? Can 'work' become defined as any old shit found lying around once present to the respective author. Foucault mentions this in essay "What is an Author?" Should we have burnt Kafka's unfinished novels rather than re-assemble them - does the re-assembly of a piece then somehow displace authorship. If an author dies should his possessions be looted in order to find newness. Shopping lists, marginalia, abandoned pieces, notes. It is a doodle that a child has left in a white cube gallery having a pointed finger shook at it declaring, "LOOK, it is in this building, then it is art." How much should we rely on the institution of author for authenticity and credibility? Vladimir Nabokov died over and over again. After his real death, he published his final (unfinished) novel The Original of Laura subtitled 'dying is fun'. An aging novelist attempting to erase himself with the end of his pencil, unfinished, echoed in his death and his remains. To erase the name of the author is not possible, as it remains, a living institution beyond death, - fitting then that the novel was never finished. What I was left with from Kafka's 'The Trial' became paranoia and self incarceration through the waiting and unknowing of Josef K's verdict, reflected in it's state, we will never know and we will never finish. Who/what is absence? What needs to remain for a piece of writing to become present. The simple answer then is a voice. Who is speaking? Who cares? The death of the Author has been discussed to death since Barthes published his essay "The Death of the Author" in 1967. Unfortunately I wasn't around. It just goes without saying now. It's down to the reader, you either know the author or you don't, if you don't then you look for access points and gaps which you polyfill with your own experience. If you do the gaps are filled with some light research. But all the same, I want to keep control in order to lose control. I want readers to connect with me and each other by scarring my work with their own experiences. I want them to publicly execute the author - or at least assist in my suicide.

(After note:
This all started because I bad tutorial I had with a visiting tutor. She was deliberately undermining, and antagonistic towards my choices and work. We had completely opposing fundamental research interests, mine otherness and hers character which cast very argumentative/defensive/condescending cloud over the conversation. Although I held my own I believe these type of tutorials to hold no value beyond intensive reflection on why I believe myself to be right and absolutely no aid at all towards improved production... etc... anything she did say that I could have taken from the situation was overshadowed and forgotten or rebelled against.)

I think I can write again now.

Devils Advocate

2011-02-24T15:00:00.004Z

Not everything you do is good
Not everything you do will be understood

Maybe that is the point

Communication is based on a series of errors and misunderstandings
I am only trying to communicate after all.

Life is flashing before your eyes...

2011-02-21T20:16:00.002Z

Samuel Beckett Fans and Retro Video Game Fans REJOICE!

2011-02-18T00:58:00.004Z

Say are you a fan of Samuel Beckett AND retro video games? Life got you down because you can't quite juggle two great and worthy passions. Well, your troubled days have ceased....
WAITING FOR GODOT THE VIDEO GAME HATH ARRIVED.
http://vectorbelly.com/godot.html

Addictive 16bit theme, shitty graphics, 2player mode available, well executed. One could not ask for much more. However I can't help but feel Beckett would have been slightly unimpressed bu the staging.

2011-02-16T12:06:00.003Z

Productive enough to make a lolcat... that is only relevant to me and 19 other people...
Just need to critically reflect on this and project the following names unto it, Derrida, Blanchot, Agamben, Lacan then I can hand it in as a finished piece at the end of the year.

2011-02-16T11:17:00.001Z

A Walk Through H

2011-01-05T23:02:00.005Z

The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist.

I had to show you this. Usually I like to refrain from consecutive blog posts, spacing them with time, at least a few days, sometimes weeks, it has been known to be months. The desire for such a gap is acting upon my fingers as I type, no, give it a few days, let your ideas settle... Then again I have been known to do that as well; let them settle, get all dusty, covered in hair and tiny fragments of skin until I think, I cannot be bothered cleaning that one up... So this is a little 'half baked', but I had to share it with you. It couldn't wait.

A Walk Through H is a a short 1978 film by Peter Greenaway. I finished watching it about an hour ago. I am urging you to watch it too (although you probably already have, in which case watch it again). Firstly I was dumbfounded at the apparent similarities between this film and a short fiction that I wrote a few months back, one that I have been hung up on ever since. Common themes include cartography, migrating birds, obscurity, and an obsessive air. So naturally I felt a little riled that this idea has been done so much better already. But I kept watching. Becoming more and more tense and feeling a little obsessed by the unconventional maps and the directions in which our narrator took their intent. And the more I watched, the less I knew, about the story - the less it drew parallels with my own story of a migrating bird - the less I knew about the narrator, of the elusive Tulse Luper, of the maps themselves.

It plays with the memory; the narrator's memory, and journeys, journeys you yourself may have also ventured. It's plot is buried within a landscape - a landscape drawn out through cartography, so abstracted you can't help but then freely associate any cognition; which I began to associate more and more with the styling of (some) sketches within Tom Phillips' The Humument (later delighted to discover a colloboration between the two - I am yet to watch). And you reach the end of this journey, 92 maps 1,418 miles and 41 minutes and you realise, as you look back over your life, so far, that, no, I can't remember it all.

I can't remember how that scar appeared on the cap of my right knee, why it so neatly matches the one on my left. No I can't remember which of these books were gifts and which were acquired and which I sought. But I do recall which ones fell into my lap as if fate herself had placed them there, (I'm looking at you A Lover's Discourse, and you Nausea, and you Hangover Square.) And of all these papers scattered before me, I have no idea which one I will run with, which ones will materialise into some... thing, which ones will find their way to the bin, which ones I will keep with me. I do remember who I lifted the term 'half baked' from, that it desperately offended me at the time, then made me laugh a few weeks later - but no recollection of the journey connecting the offense to the chuckle, just a vague sketchy line. And I do remember the one path that so definitely crossed with another, then I must have strayed because I can't recall having left it, but bizarrely, when I turn back, all there is is a sort of cross, or a blank signpost, or a skeleton of a windmill which blocks my entry. Crossroads, very strange occurrences!

And just when I'm through appropriating this very mis-structured journey, this birds eye view seen through the abstracted gaze of the narrator, (the man always keeping something just out of view,) we are handed a surreal twist. As if Tulse himself was always the key to this puzzle. As if it was Tulse's journey, or perhaps it was his decoy. After all that we have been through! But you'll have to watch it to see what I mean.

"I've always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going - in a sense it's three tenses in one... My father had recently died, and the subtitle of the film was 'The Reincarnation of an Ornithologist' - my father was one. Through his life he had amassed an extraordinary amount of information about bird study, and I was very aware that with his death - as indeed with any death - a vast amount of very personalized information had gone missing, was totally irrecoverable. The film is on the journey a soul takes at the moment of death, to whatever other place it ends up - H being either Heaven or Hell. I devised 92 maps to help this particular character get there. The whole film was divided into five sections that represented movement from a very urban landscape to a wilderness landscape, and there were references and cross-references to all sorts of systems."

Greenaway added the subtitle as a memoir to his father, perhaps this walk through H is inability to understand all his father's 'stuff' - one has a tendency to loot for memories once someone important has died, perhaps sentiment is displaced only in death. This film is a tribute then, a memoir to something of which he has no direct memory. A something. A possibility. A reincarnation.

A very engaging, surreal, and wonderful account of a journey that was worth the voyage. It's such a shame that you cannot engage with these maps in reality. They seem well structured and thought through - all 92 of them, baring resemblances, carrying with them meanings, associations. Crammed (lovingly) into 41minutes of film, doomed to be lost in the landscape of my memory as I desperately attempt to recall it, to retell it to you. I suppose I failed: I just ended up talking a heap about myself... Well it is my blog. All is not lost, you can still watch it. Here's the link:
http://www.ubu.com/film/greenaway_walk.html

You + I = You + I

2011-01-04T16:15:00.005Z

You and I are clearly quite different. It is good grammar, not courtesy, that places the You before I, places unto You some air of greater importance. The importance of the both of Us is completely unknown to each other, after all, who am I to say that You are more important than I; that I am more important than You. It is an non-entity else completely subjective. It is something that we can never be sure of. All that is known is that I am inside this body and You are inside that one; that I can never be in your body and You never in mine. The euphemism here was unintentional but let Us run with it for a moment. We all desire the Other. If I were to place that desire in my (Lacanian non-physical) phallus, I would want to be inside You. The discovery of the Other. To know that which I am not sure even exists. All I know is all I am and there is a longing to step outside of that and to step inside of You; for how can I ever truly connect with You if I cannot know You. This drive I now have is also the Other, it comes from an unknown entity within. So my desire for the external unknown stems from an internal unknown; if I do not know that, how will I ever truly connect with myself? It is enough to drive one crazy.

"We are first of all, as friends, the friends of solitude, and we are calling on you to share what cannot be shared: solitude" -- Nietzsche

But what of You and I. How will We ever combine? How do We take the You and the I and bring them into matrimony? How can We transform our respective singularities into, not necessarily a universality, but a connectivity, a relation, a singular duality. Watch as these words fall through my body, to my fingers, onto a keyboard, through binary, onto the screen of my computer, into the ether of the internet where, hopefully (although dependent on blog popularity and further than that, whether I am holding your attention), You have received it. Notice as the words enter your body through the retina of the eyes, You begin to interpret and understand. Have I made a connection? Are we in some form of exchange where in you somehow gain knowledge of me through the words I write? Perhaps. But is that a connection? Are you not in fact understanding this based on a system You have within yourself, a system of knowledge, a system of semiotics, a system of experiences - experience that I can only tap accidentally. It is my belief that it is only when you hit that latter raw nerve that connectivity becomes aflame. We are no longer a You and a I, We are now a 'We', an 'Us' - Or we are somehow more than that, maybe friends, maybe lovers, maybe enemies, but We are still separate.

On conversing:

"the relation whereby the one whom I cannot reach becomes present in his inaccessible truth" -- Blanchot

If You and I begin to engage in conversation, or interact, then You and I become a We/Us. See how those two words "We" and "Us" are formed. Two letters. One for the Other (You) and one for the I. Two, a duo. They are still unconnected, they are still a duality; although condensed they remain You and I. The 'U' and the 'S' do not merge and conceive a new letter, a singularity, they still signify two separate letters, only now in union through the mode of a word*. The only place that a connection has been formed is the space between those letters, the space in which we converse.

"[A]s long as 'we' are engaged in conversation...'I' can't get a fix on 'you'; 'you' remain both unbearably close and inaccessible." -- Dianne Davis

The word 'I', in reference to the self, (myself or whatever Other self chooses it) is in fact the only personal pronoun which signifies a singularity. A One. An 'I'. And 'You' further signifies our relationship to the Other. Three letters. No longer a duo in conversation. The letter 'Y' touches the 'O' but never the 'U', the 'U' touches the 'O' but never the 'Y', and the 'O' acts as a mediator between the 'Y' and the 'U', keeping them separate, ensuring they do not interact.

Perhaps then this psychological business of the Other of mental and physical distance is not what separates You and I. Perhaps it is nothing more than letters, words, conversations organised into systems. Something that may or may not be innate, that has developed in order to unite Us, but so far has only heightened the differences and mis-communication between Us.

I'm sorry that it had to end this way. In fact I didn't want it to end at all. But now that it is over, know that You are still embedded within I and occasionally it rises to interrupt my discourse, only to be swallowed back down, hard. The Other. You.

*A thought that needs developing: The connectivity we achieve through love is still a desperate act to become the Other, to gain knowledge of the Other. Perhaps the act of love making is as close as humanity can get to transcending a two to become a one. This is perhaps where 'Jouissance' (mentioned in a previous post) leads in it's displacement. Sexual intercourse is perhaps the most effective form of relief for the exploration of the unknown Other. Two combine to form a one - the conception of a child. However, if this is blocked via contraception then merge is unsuccessful and 'jouissance' can only be relieved temporarily through orgasm, which leads back down to the Cat and Mouse scenario.

typographic design: www.mandigoodier.co.uk

Education and the Public Sphere/The Nomadic Hive

2010-12-11T02:01:00.008Z

The Teach-In.
This space is ours. It belongs to us. On the evening of December 9th 2010 we attempted an occupation of this space. Room 43 of the National Gallery overlooked by Manet's "Execution of Maximilian". We are a multitude of artists, students and lecturers. This space is public, it is ours, it belongs to us. This education is ours, it is public, it is free. We are sitting down aggravating this space because it is public space under the eyes of a political betrayal and abandonment. Look at the situation we are now all witnesses to. It has been creeping for the last 15 years. The state of our education system is changing. We are no longer in the grasp of free further education whose implications are for the greater public good, but capitalist education, education with a price tag that works towards economic gain. In other words, we are not expected to attend university to become educated and to educate, we are to attend university for private economic gain - university is treated as a savings investment. Else it is an elitist commodity. From now on the educated will sell themselves in the marketplace to other individuals who will have to sell themselves in the marketplace in order to feed back into this circle. To earn. To pay off debts. To become trapped in an economic sphere. To feed into a failing democracy that keeps letting the people down. To live, publicly. To die having taken nothing. We are not commodities, we are human beings. And if they believe that we are truly the future of this country, and if they truly believe that education will bring financial gain to this country, then they would invest in us. And on Thursday 9th December 2010 this sad future is cemented by 323 MPs, twenty more than opposed this bleak future. Education is no longer a social good, it is a private gain - a commodity.

The Occupation of The National Gallery.
This space is brought to you in conjunction with Shell, Hewlett Packard, Santander, and, of course, Sainsbury's (not to mention many others). We sit here in the hope that our institutions will not become Goldsmiths McNuggets of London, or the Royal Wallmart of Art (and so on). We sit and as a multitude discuss, as a consensus decide. We wave our hands in a jazz like fashion to show our enthusiastic agreement, and together, as a solidarity, aim to resolve the doubts of the minority. It's a long process. One in which you question what it is you actually believe. What it is we are all doing occupying this space. This space whose workers also face cuts, redundancies and job losses that will not be replaced. (I bet they're glad they didn't have to invest in their education, or perhaps some of them did). In here we are blind. What is happening outside? In the streets are violent confrontations as the news of a betrayal hits them. Here we are undeterred, we will remain. Our fight continues. And what a perfect time to form a manifesto. A Nomadic Hive, something to fathom out future actions. I organize my thoughts on paper and speak my case.
"Reaction. Reclamation of public space. Our space seems to be becoming more and more of a commodity, we need to take it back. This whole situation is a complete symptom of capitalism."
Hands wave at me, I have been agreed with on mass. More than this should have been said, these public spaces which are overcome by the public spectacle of consumer items, this is where a our reaction needs to take place. A representation of our beliefs. A public freedom of education. Lectures in the open. Spontaneity is encouraged.

The Spectacle.
This space is our space, this space is a prison. They are kettled in by the enforcing arm of the law. Delegation of power to control the masses - or, do whatever it takes to make these people do as we say. We, the Nomads, are overcome by solidarity. Group mentality. No matter how uncomfortable the minority within the group feel about the increasing numbers of riot police outside the gallery in Trafalgar Square, there is a sort of peer pressure to remain. What was going on outside? Here we have a power in numbers - our number amounts to one. If we leave together we are a force, if we leave alone, there is the possibility of being detained. We have rights, we can refuse to give our names - if you don't wish to become a number...
Our spectacle is something that seems fairly low key. We are asked to text everyone we know to let them know that we are occupying this space and we are not leaving until we have written a manifesto. For what good is an artistic representation if no public gaze meets it? The spectacle needs the spectator. That is what causes a reaction. That is what causes people to move. That is when solitude becomes a unity. That is when the singular wraps its arms around a universality. What is happening outside. Word enters the Hive there are riot police on the balcony.

The Escape.
This space has become hostile. It is still ours but there is external pressure. How have things deteriorated outside? Solicitors pass out advise. Don't give them your name. Power in the buzzing of our hive. We have points on our manifesto. I can assess the seriousness of the police situation based on how many grown ups remain in the room. But my friend is uncomfortable, she has previous with the traffic police and wants out. I'm split then. I want to see this thing through, it seems to be rounding up. We are best to leave as a majority - power in numbers, our number is one. My solidarity with my friend takes priority. I don't wish to force her to stay somewhere she feels uncomfortable. How many police are outside now? It maybe too late either way. At this point a figure head type women steps forward and offers a solution. A way out through a side exit which evades the police. After all, though the workers here seem pissed off and inconvenienced, no one has formally asked us to leave; after all, this is a public gallery, they are workers for this public space, our space, the space in which we occupy. It is the word 'Public' which is at threat. Are we pissing off the wrong people? Should we be somewhere more appropriate. An obnoxious man tells her that she is interrupting our discussion, he is met by heckles. "Shut up, she's trying to help us." And my friend leans in and asks if we can do that? I catch the of gaze of Maximilian who is about to be shot. We leave through the side exit with a few others evading the police and entering into the real spectacle. The one which belittles our tiny operation. Tourists, workers, passers by, spectators gather around the flares, the smoke bombed epicenter, the protesters, the spectacle. The police were never there for the nomads, they were there for the increasing number of protesters retreating to Trafalgar Square. And because of this spectacle, no one knew there was ever an occupation of the National Gallery. More riot police arrive. Shortly after the hive disseminates. We retreat to the pub and consult the guardian news feed, no mention of any angry nomadic hives, no national gallery occupation.

But it did happen. We were there. We have a manifesto.

www.artagainstthecuts.wordpress.com

Jouissance...

2010-12-08T22:27:00.003Z

"This endeavor [of striving for happiness] has two sides... It aims, on the one hand, at an absence of pain and unpleasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure... the task of avoiding suffering pushes that of obtaining pleasure into the background"
--- Lacan

"The most painful experiences... can yet be felt... as highly pleasurable"
---Freud

With that in mind may I present to you the Jouissance of the Cat...

"The Cuckoo" - Tex Avery (1950)

The Cat shows symptoms.
Associates troubles with the Cuckoo.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cat gets his hand broken.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cat gets a hole blown through his thumb.
The Cat attacks the Cuckoo.
The Cat achieves momentary satisfaction in believing he has killed the Cuckoo.
The Cuckoo kills the Cat.
This is a cartoon.
Do you get the point?

The Cat is crazy. He has an unhealthy obsession with the cuckoo. The cuckoo is his drive, he desires it, but he can't have it. His desire is something that is never fulfilled. Something he lacks. To have it would mean an end to his obsession. Satisfaction. Orgasm. But then what? The bird will be gone, the Cat is left with a nothing. He had his momentary release and now it is just a matter of time. Within the Cat is something unknown, an intruder who rouses his delusions. From within it erupts, the ringing in his ears, his falling apart. There is an alien within that he is unable to understand that torments him, makes him fearful, which manifests in the form of a cuckoo (in Lacanian terms a fundamental phantasy). The Cuckoo; unto which he desires torture and consumption - an attempt to derive meaning and sense from his internally erupting jouissance. He is repeatedly unsuccessful. His desire grows. His schemes to capture the Cuckoo grow more and more desperate, but he shakes, he trembles, he is so close.

"Who is there who in the name of pleasure doesn't start to weaken when the first half serious is taken step toward jouissance?"
---Lacan

In his bravado, he is weakened, he falters, he falls, he fails. He suffers in his desire, he perpetually chases himself round and round, complete and circular. Pain > Pleasure > Pain > Pleasure. Each time knowing the risks. The Cat is masochistic then. And finally he believes to have caught the Cuckoo. He believes it to rest inside himself. Satisfied, he believes his desire to be fulfilled. Then he falters. He turns back. He mourns. He represses...

The cuckoo has an obsession, though we never really hear his side, we just see it manifest in the torturing of the Cat. He is obsessed with the Cat. He is happy and fulfilled, although he never confronts his own joussaince (that which is internalised, over which he has no control) he enjoys his drives; his drives to torture the Cat. Unlike the Cat the Cuckoo is able to enjoy his drives for after each 'little death' the Cat is revived ready for the next scene, ready for the next temporary satisfaction of desire.

Meanwhile, the Cat mourns the loss of his little Cuckoo. The chase is over. Now what? Unknown to the Cat, the Cuckoo has not so miraculously been revived, just in time to witness yet another death of the Cat. The Cuckoo does not mourn. He lets out a triumphant blast of his horn, for he knows, as do we, that this is ongoing, they will perpetually chase each other, round and round. Death > Revival > Death > Revival. The Cat, we can only imagine, will be revived for the next scene, in which he will once again suffer a 'little death' at the feathered hands of the Cuckoo.

And this is how it must be. For this is a fantasy. It doesn't matter that one is dead, the Other can always be revived to temporarily fulfill the necessary desire. Pain > Pleasure > Pain > Pleasure >Pain > Pleasure - each one is necessary for the the Other to survive.

Self Made Music...

2010-12-05T17:20:00.003Z

It is a popular trend at present. Do everything yourself. The internet particularly is saturated by this. Blogs, websites, videos, memes, films, music, photography. It could be because technology is so readily available. Every fifth person has an SLR at a wedding. Every fourth person has a blog. Every other person has a personal space such as facebook. It is easy to get lost in it all yet, surprisingly things are dispersed daily that manage to break through. A small percentage. My blog, for example has a small but steady flow of regular visitors, but it is merely a drop of rain compared to the gushing waters that pass through blogworthy blog Hipster Runoff < The ultimate blog meme that seems to understand how to control it's popularity through usage of 'meme economy' tools... Yes internet popularity is a currency. Not only is it able to maintain it's (tongue in cheek) reputable status as a constant meme it is also able to excel others to a similar status (Best Coast, Wavves). My intention, however, isn't to discuss memes and internet analytics.

When it comes to production it is easier and cheaper to skip the middle man. Technology is so accessible these days. Every Man, Woman, Child and their Cousins have the technology. It is sometimes hidden amongst your computers applications but it IS in there somewhere - the means to self made music. It is possible because it is easy. You can craft something quite special in your own bedroom with surprising results. A lot of the time it'll be listened to be a handful of people. Your friends. Local radio. Your lover. Or even just yourself. Then, sometimes, just sometimes it breaks through. D-I-Y music, Lo-Fi, Chill Wave, I'm talking Ariel Pink (- his haunted graffiti), Toro Y Moi, Best Coast, Wavves. These bands all have critically acclaimed albums but are still pretty low profile. What about the ones who are yet to break through. I found this little lot loitering round my social groups. It's all quite lovely and occasionally visually stimulating. Temple Songs.

WU LYF

http://worldunite.org/

WASH

http://wash.bandcamp.com

Silent Age

Symbolic Retribution for the Disconnected from mandi goodier on Vimeo.
http://silentage.bandcamp.com

New Website...

2010-11-30T20:25:00.001Z

It has been down for a while and there are still a few things still to be added, but for now....

www.mandigoodier.co.uk

Revival of the Mixtape/Playlist #1

2010-11-23T00:33:00.008Z

21st november

Yesterday I was spooned by a complete stranger, once she was through, I spooned her back. I didn't look at her face. I didn't want to. She lay behind a white net curtain on a mattress dressed with white bedding. Nothing lush. A quilt a couple of pillows. A girl with brown bobbed hair, a big red jumper and blue jeans. I didn't see her face. I didn't need to. She could have been anyone. I could see the bodies piled up behind the curtain. As a spectator I felt no courage. Looking through the netting at a threesome of legs, arms, a jigsaw of human bodies. Does that make it sound sexual? I take off my boots and wait for my turn.

I chose to be spooned. The one adored, the one craved. But this was anonymous. The girl no more saw my face than I saw hers. If I was the one being adored, the one being craved, then that was a projection I placed onto myself. I lay with my eyes closed thinking nothing but 'this could be anyone'. So what do I do? Do I project a person unto her? Is this Andrew? Is this a lover? Is this a friend? Is this a stranger? It really didn't matter who this was.

There were two hands on me. A third person involved, but there was a barrier between me and the third. Except for the extra hand placed upon my waist, I felt the presence of only one other. It could have been anyone. It could have been no one. But it was someone. 'It' was someone because 'it' was breathing. 'It's' breathing was not relaxed. This person was inviting strangers to spoon with 'it', and I don't think 'it' was comfortable. The breathing was too harsh and as soon as I noticed this I did all I could to calm 'it'.

I spooned back. I placed my head into the back of the red jumper and my hand upon the small waist and steadied my own breathing. I wanted the body to mimic mine, to become synchronized. To become, through spooning, one single organism.

There was no connectivity. There was no one true organism created through touch. The mind became as redundant as the identity within the red jumper. I left not feeling comforted by a new relation to a strange fellow being, but comforted for having calmed the breathing of this organism who was damned to spend the rest of the night holding onto strangers. And I have absolutely no idea why she would want to do this to herself.

This playlist will not help us to connect. It holds moments which I can only share with myself. But if I give it to you, if you listen to it properly, maybe you will be able to feel me place my head onto your shoulder and my arm around your waist.

Misogynous/feminist political banner...

2010-11-10T21:16:00.003Z

I went to the student protest in London today. This was a banner that was given to us for the march. We adapted it then sort of realised it's anti-feminist implications. We probably should have put a comma after the word no. Or a couple of other things could be happening. As well as protesting against the cuts in the arts (and humanities, and social sciences of course) we could be hi-jacking the march for an ulterior feminist motive (as in no cunts yes women). Or we could simply be reclaiming the word so that cunt has positive connotations - however this detracts from the actual purpose of the banner, our original (what we thought was sort of witty) intention of insulting parliament. Will upload more images from the protest once I have gotten my film developed. However, I ran out of film by the time I got to the Tory HQ so no images of the said 'riots' or 'violence'. More on that later when I've had time for my thoughts to gather.

The need to Write.

2010-11-09T16:06:00.001Z

The need to write is linked to the approach toward this point at which nothing can be done with words. Hence the illusion that if one maintained contact with this point even as one came back from it to the world of possibility, "everything" could be done, "everything" could be said. This need must be suppressed and contained. If not, it becomes so vast that there is no more room or space for its realization. One only begins to write when, momentarily, through a ruse, through a propitious burst of energy, or through life's distractions, one has succeeded in evading this impulse which remote control of the work must constantly awaken and subdue, protect and avert, master and experience in its unmasterable force. This operation is so difficult and dangerous that every writer and every artist is surprised each time he achieves it without disaster. And no one who has looked the risk in the face can doubt that many perished silently. It is not that creative resources are lacking -- although they are in any event insufficient -- but rather that the force of the writing impulse makes the world disappear. Then time loses its power of decision; nothing can really begin.

Extract from The Space of Literature by Maurice Blanchot, pg.52
(University of Nebraska Press, 1989)

My oh My...

2010-11-07T22:59:00.005Z

I think River Deep Mountain High may be one of the greatest pop songs recorded.
A credit to Phil Spector's legacy, although many believe that this is the song that set him on his decent into self destruction. He thought that the song was his greatest achievement, and had high hopes for it. The song topped billboard charts at #88 (European #3). Ike (who had been paid off so he would have no say in the original production of the song) later re-produced it so that it would work better for the duo.
This is a bit of a wobbly live version, but the vocals are spot on.

The Chisenhale Disaster....

2010-11-02T23:27:00.003Z

Art Writers take over The Chisenhale gallery in a disastrous residency.
We hope.
Our residency is based upon the theme of disaster, and although we are not too sure how this will manifest itself just yet, we are all excited by the disaster we may or may not be heading for.
There are three workshops over the next few months which should climax with a public event on the 16th June. Everything is still up in the air, but the first workshop takes place on Monday (unfortunately it is not open to the public). I just wanted to take this opportunity to direct you all to the Disaster blog which is where we are gathering a lot of our resource material. There is a lot of fascinating stuff being posted.
http://thisdisaster.posterous.com/

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti @ The Garage

2010-11-02T00:59:00.004Z

I'm disappointed in you Ariel... (but not really you...)

I don't normally feel compelled to write about gigs. I attend a fair amount, and afterward, often fantasise about the type of things I'm going to write in a review of the event. However, quite often I get home, I'm worn out from pogo-ing, I'm dehydrated, the adrenaline vanishes. Then before I know it, a week has passed and the whole thing is completely irrelevant. Reviews are often too late anyway, and this is no different.

Tonight was Ariel Pinks final show in the European leg of their tour. Final show usually equals great performances and therefore high expectations from the crowd. And the performance was pretty much spot on. There were a few bum notes here and there but I for one feel privileged witnessing such moments. That in a small way this performance has been unique. And quite often bum notes, or a lack of tightness, occur in moments of release. What I mean by that is the band get into it and forget themselves momentarily, snapping back when they realise that there has been a mistake. But you would not attend an Ariel Pink and his Haunted Graffiti set with out expecting hitches. After listening to a few D.I.Y and studio albums you understand the beauty of Ariel Pink quite often comes from it's occasional incomprehensibility and general messyness. Perhaps the latest recording 'Before Today' stands as an exception to that, although the mood changes within often alters the feel of the album quite drastically and very daringly. All in all Before Today is perhaps Ariel Pink's masterpiece. Ariel Pink is the king of lo-fi, and his fans are fully aware if this, therefore NO-ONE would be attending this gig expecting to hear polished re-enactments of past albums. No-one. This shouldn't lower expectations for performance though. And I don't suppose it did. Nor did the band disappoint. Having said that something went wrong somewhere, but where?

It was the crowd. Something has to be utterly wrong if, at the front of the crowd, slightly to the left, Lucy Vann and myself are the only ones dancing. To be fair, to our left, in the epicenter, there were a few moving bodies, but not enough to constitute the usual sort of sweaty mess you would come to expect from such gigs. Alright so maybe Ariel Pink is a little pretty niche, but him and his troupe are the sort to attract (one would have thought) the type of geeky cult "I know all the words" crowd that at least bob their heads in a frantic sort of "AGH I'm at an Ariel Pink gig" way (i.e. Myself and Lucy).

Things were looking up at the beginning. They bashed out their version of The Rockin' Ramrods "Bright Lit Blue Skies", a sure crowd pleaser. Looking around for that usual participation, the thing that unites all music lovers, that turns fans into tribes, that immediately, from the first line of that first song, unites the crowd, makes us all one being, a current, a flow, singing along. To my dismay, not many were. The lighting was excellent. "Bright lit, Blue skies" The stage was a wash with a blue blue so dazzling the band became invisible, "You're full of liiieeees" the strobe lights flickering rapidly, usually igniting a sense of euphoria and unity in the crowd, causing arms to rise freely, and cares to just slide right off your shoulders. On the whole, arms remained firmly pointing downwards. So maybe people do not love bright lit blue skies as much as I. Perhaps people prefer the Rockin' Ramrods version, which is fair enough. Next Ariel dished out some snogs with the ladies on the front row. Naturally Lucy and I pushed forwards to see if we couldn't get a snog ourselves (...rock star kisses don't count...) We were too late, he was already back on stage. That was cool though, we were pretty sure he'd hand out a few more later. A couple of my friends saw him in Paris a few nights before, apparently he had been more than generous then. He didn't. And I don't blame him. This crowd did not deserve rock star kisses. He knew this. This crowd was far too uptight. I was unfamiliar with this terrain. In Manchester I had been amongst a few uptight crowds at The Deaf Institute, but even that 'too cool for music' crowd let go when fellow lo-fi-ers The Black Lips came to town. As I recall there was even a scuffle between crowd and bouncer as he repeatedly threw people off the stage. He got his comeuppance. Here at The Garage in London, there was perhaps only one guy truly free from himself, and the bouncer told him to calm down. What is going on? Ariel questioned us, "What are you all? Nazis?" Then told us to be happy. He shouldn't have had to do that. Dispute our anger, Lucy and I just about managed to curb our urge to 'fuck shit up' and just let go. We attempted to start some kind of current through the crowd but the electricity just wasn't there. We continued. Headbanging our way through the encore of "Butt House Blondies" and raising our arms during the more airy moments of "Little Wig". All in all we were more than a little bemused. This would have been one of the greatest gigs I'd ever attended if the crowd had been a little more loose. What was wrong? Did the snogging of numerous girls up front make people uptight? Surely not in this age, amongst this crowd of (ahem) 'hip' kids. Did people not know the music well enough, were they there simply to look cool? Well maybe but even so, the music is catchy enough to dance to, and Ariel was lively enough to feed off. Were people too concerned with how they look/are going to look once they have a sweat on? Most likely. Or is this just what I should expect from all future gigs in London town? I sincerely hope not.

Ariel Pink, you were awesome tonight. London, you were the biggest disappointment imaginable, I had no idea the audience as a whole could kill so many good vibes - nice one. Future advise to Ariel Pink, next time you come to England, play the north. They'll treat you good there. London, come on, let go. Tomorrow I will attend the more intimate Ariel Pink show - I expect better things from the crowd, and some rock star kisses. (P.S tweets popping up saying he killedit tonight, true, but crowd, you really quite literally did kill it...)

Why Parlour Press? Why Art Writing?

2010-11-01T18:09:00.007Z

Why?

We all still have the naivety to say that money, that a steady job, that a stable home, that procreation, that ownership of land, that bricks and mortar, that wealth, are not (yet) important, are not the meaning of life, are not our destiny, will not define our purpose.

We still have the naivety to say that literature, that beautiful places, that observation, that human frailty, that excessive collections, that new experience, that shared experience, that self expression, that fragile talent, that subversive pages, that sharing, that showing, that embracing everyone and everything will somehow make the world a better place to live in. That love and experience needs to be shared, can be spread over everybody like soft butter.

Because we are young enough to dream, because we are old enough to know that time will not wait, we believe that this moment is all we have - we are going to make the most of it.

We wish to share our thoughts, our views, our obsessions, our eccentricities, our expression, our experience, our aches, our pains, our ecstasy, our minds, our craft, our talent, our skills, our passions with you. We hope that you oblige.

We will not sell out, we are not old enough to sell out. We will encourage beauty and story telling and share our art until it is absolutely necessary, absolutely essential to get a proper job!

I wrote this a little over a year ago when Libby, Lucy, Caitlin, Sophie and I set up book collective, The Parlour Press. It was written as part of the Parlour Press Manifesto. Currently, exhibitions/fairs are currently few and far between (Parlour Press Ladies will be in attendance at MMU this Saturday as part of the Fifth Manchester Artist Book Fair). Re-reading this serves as a reminder not only to invest more time into the press, but also defines my pursuit of Art Writing as a practice as oppose to getting a proper job. It's pretty relevant. It just gave me a little inspirational kick in the shin. Good Work!

Touch Me I'm Sick...

2010-10-31T18:06:00.004Z

Bad music for bad people

"You Don't Look Like Martha and the Vandellas"

2010-10-26T20:13:00.005+01:00

Lock the door this time....

Etymology (Repetition/Mysticism/Hysteria/Tension)

2010-10-24T21:09:00.014+01:00

The tension is drawn. A rope loops around the chest, once, once again. The body trembles.

Tossing and turning again. How such situations occur I'll never know, but they keep on repeating themselves. When the mind quits, there is always something else. A word.

At each and of the rope there is a slight pull. The naked skin finds momentary pleasure as the rope scratches at it.

You tear a word apart and you find new meanings through Greek, Latin, Roman, French origins. You see their journey, their history unfold. That is a general 'you' that is a 'one'. You break a word into pieces and you find your own interpretation. Now it is you that I am addressing. A history.

A repetition. A pattern. A something on the tip of your tongue that will never pass the lips.

The scratches start to pinch. The breath that leaves the body has become more difficult to find.

It is not the rope causing this difficulty. It is panic. Now the body begins to sway.

The word sits on your tongue and you begin to kick out like an addict. The sweat down your back is thick thick thick. Another kick. Turn. Breathe. History and the repetition of it caused a momentary attack. Not everyone is a predator. I am not a predator. Yet the heart beats like it has ran as prey. It is not adrenaline, it is not blood. It beats vomit. And it is hot. And it burns.

The pinch is on fire now. It glows redness. Soreness. The earth beneath the feet is shaking with tension. As the rope tightens the legs become unstable, then they go, unable to balance on the unsteady ground. The body slumps, supported only by the rope. And it hurts.

Why the repetition has occurred is unknown. It slips out occasionally, the guard is down, honesty is up.

There is an explosion, like an emotional time bomb. It releases an anthrax of vocabulary which attacks it's audience and poisons their response. Their infected response then becomes another form of the repetition. That was when it happened again.

Now is when the breath really starts to struggle. The heart pounds irregularly, but that is panic associated with, but not directly caused by, the rope. The body twists but the rope ceases not. The fire breaks the skin.

Anxiety is perhaps to blame for the restlessness. For the forced attempt at sleep.

Once again it seems sleep is a fortress from reality. Then it is the turn of the subconscious to bite. Dreams are nightmares, and nightmares, in one form or another, are of the repetition.

A rib breaks and the body turns blind. A fuzz of warmth caresses the retina. "You don't need to see anymore," it whispers. The warmth travels down the body and tingles at it the arms.

It is now only the head that aches. All that is heard is a slow, irregular, heart beat. And it kicks.

There is not much more that can be done. Waking up bruised and ill is another repetition. The thoughts will not be leaving you today. It seems in a permanent residency. The world is still shaking. The heart is still swollen with sick. Distraction is necessary and is sought. Though the word still sits on the tip of your tongue, you are distracted, and the biggest challenge is making sure that you do not accidentally spit it out. Then there are those words that help to keep it concealed, the ones that hide it's true meaning, those uttered with delight, as a brief respite, in repetition. But the world still trembles. The heart remains swollen, the legs still kick, and sweat still lines your back.

The hands at either end of the rope rest. Gentlemen stand at either end. One marked lust, one marked desire, another marked despair, and the last marked time. No one has won this tug-a-war, but the still and contorted body in the center proves that something has been lost.

It remains in a painful stasis, until the rope once again becomes taut.

Reading Crisis

2010-10-24T14:25:00.002+01:00

What to do with all this time. How to fill it. How to remain distracted.
There is an impossibility in remaining focused due to the amount to focus on.
All these distractions, but what is there to distract from distraction.
That would be distractions close cousin, procrastination.
How to prioritise:
Earn money so you can survive here
Do not let earning money interfere with studying - the reason for being here
Do not study so hard that you forget to live and experience - inform all you think and work on
Do not experience and live so much that you forget to study/skip earning money
Have fun but don't get too carried away, so that you spend all your money on living, experience and intoxication... you need that money to live here
"This is such a fantastic city," Oh really? I haven't had the chance to look around yet. I only leave the east to go to work or school.
However very complicated everything is somehow fitting together. There is a definite balance starting to occur. This photo illustrates my biggest problem. Between reading what I want to read for fun and what I want to read for work. The lines between fun and work keep blurring, but I can't help feeling sorry for everything that keeps getting placed on the bottom of the pile (books and otherwise) acknowledged, but never quite getting round to. The list is inevitably growing. Adrian Rifkin handed us a reading list and told us not to worry about reading everything on there right away. Told us the pressing matters, a passage from Homer's Iliad, a chpter from Nietzsche's Human All too Human, and Roland Barhte's A Lovers Discourse (utter beauty). Everything else is for us to read between now and 2050. That advise will roll over....

Experience everything, miss no opportunity.

The Most Livingest Disaster

2010-10-21T20:32:00.007+01:00

I was drying my hair one day oblivious to the noise outside. Typically the noise outside was not actually noise like here in London, the occasional airplane flying overhead, the odd car engine, some kids walking by, you could sometimes even hear a push bike passing. Attuned to small town noises, you could imagine my shock when I switch off my hair dryer to the sound of an air-raid siren.

Duck and cover was my first thought. I had seen those public information videos once before in the Imperial War Museum. You know the ones, the ones that are so out dated, the ones where you and your family are advised to live under the dining room table for a few months until the whole nuclear thing 'blows' over. Such preperatory videos and procedures generally make me feel pretty excited towards the prospect of danger. I then tend to be quite dissappointed when nothing even vaguely exciting happens. I remember one winter, as a kid, my mum tucked me up in bed extra tight with some fluffy soft toys and told me that tonight was going to be the coldest on record for fifty years and we had to stay super warm.

I closed my eyes in excitement only to open them the next day in complete disappointment. I didn't feel one bit cold. Not at all (good parenting in retrospect). When I got my fire training at the Odeon a few years back, I took the whole thing very seriously and got very excited about the responsability I would have in a fire situation. I was only there five months and the fire alarms went into first stage, once (there were three stages in total). At first stage you get to push a button in the auditoriums so that the noise doesn't distract the customers ('guests') from their film, and the staff ('cast') get themselves prepared for some evacuating. Nothing happened, the alarms remained in first stage for about twenty minutes. It was a bit like being stuck at a traffic light that is red for so long that the car battery dies as it switches to amber. No one got evacuated. I was bitterly disappointed.

The siren is still buzzing (imagine).

As if people were ever so brain washed to believe that a few splinters will stop your world from ending. I look momentarily in complete perplextion at the small gap under the dressing table. Then inhale. This cannot be it. Nuclear war is a complete paradox of defense. Everyone knows that now. Having nuclear weapons is exactly the same as not having nuclear weapons as nobody actually has the balls to fire.

Complete annihilation. Nash equilibrium. Absolute paranoia. Psychological warfare. To quote wikipedia (we all do it) "tense but stable peace". And by now, 2010, we are all much more at ease with this tense but stable peace. We all know that no one is crazy enough to press that button labeled "complete and utter bloody destruction of everything but cockroaches". So why am I still able to hear an air-raid siren? It can't be. I would have heard something on tv, or an ad would have popped up on facebook or gmail proclaiming "nuclear attack imminent" - such is the information rich society we live in. Surely in this day and age we would not have to rely on something so archaic, something that I just about recognise as an air-raid siren. I slowly and thoughtfully place down my hair dryer. Look to myself in the mirror before me. Ok, so what if this is nuclear war?

The quickest war that will ever be fought. What if this is the end? The end of humanity. What a way to go. Hey, I won't do it. I will not duck under the dressing table. I will leave this world head held high. Yes the end of humanity. Finally, a vaccine. Immunisation for the planet against this human disease that has infected it's surface. It will take time but this planet will restore itself. It was here millions of years before us and it WILL remain millions of years beyond our extinction. The siren has stopped. This is it, finality, the end, see ya. I close my eyes, tilt my head backwards, hold my arms wide, ready to embrace the apocylpse. I remain like that for about five minutes before I my left eye opens, my wrist twists, and I am able to peek at the time displayed on my watch. Shit, best leave I'm going to be late for work.

I never discovered what that siren was for.

When your a kid, the greatest feeling in the world is fear. I guess that why public information adverts are so great. These are a bit before my time...

Why? I suppose it's just easier to control a terrified nation than it is to look after a chill nation.

I'll stop posting about this next week...

2010-10-20T23:40:00.002+01:00

When usual wordy service will be resumed....
In the meantime....
HUMOR ME....

http://silentage.bandcamp.com/

Coming up...

2010-09-27T20:49:00.000+01:00

Quick one whilst stealing wi-fi from my new local...

Official digital release of Symbolic Retribution 4th oct available via bandcamp, tapes hq and a book fair near you soon.

Review for Silent Age/Symbolic Retribution from The Pigeon Post.

Book Fairs:

Piccadilly Self Publishing Fair 3rd Oct

Ffotogallery Book Arts Fayre 9th Oct

Fifth Manchester Artists Book Fair 6th Nov

Very quick update. Expect a return to usual wordy service once my new dwelling is hooked up to the internet in a couple of weeks time. In the meantime, listen to Symbolic Retribution and visit some book fairs would ya!

Watch Your Own Back...

2010-08-29T03:49:00.006+01:00

Allow me to briefly introduce you to my latest project, Silent Age.
A lot of the recent silence on this blog is due to most of my spare time being taken up by writing, re-writing, recording, re-recording, mixing, re-writing, re-recording, re-mixing.... this project.

The project will be released as an EP titled SYMBOLIC RETRIBUTION set for release in October on independent D-I-Y label tapes (http://tapeshq.tumblr.com/). It will be available as a limited edition tape cassette (run of 30) and as a digital download (infinite, I think). The cassette will come with both a free poster and a free digital download.

I have no four track and the only microphone I have is built in to my apple macintosh computer. I have no digital interface leads (just yet) so guitar/vocals/hand claps/whistles have to be performed, at my computer screen, standing at various distances depending on dynamics and pitch of instrument. This whole process is figured out by trail and error. The whole thing is then mixed in garage band, then sent to itunes where it sounds nothing like it did in garage band and so sent back and re-mixed again. This whole process is also figured out by trail and error. It's sort of getting there now. All tracks are nearing their finalised state.

I even had time to design the artwork and make a music video which you can watch here http://www.youtube.com/user/mandiocious

This song is called Old Romantic. It's about bad judgment, misogyny, vindictiveness and the anatomy. Perhaps best heard through ear phones.

Old Romantic (demo) by mandiocious

Gonna Be Big...

2010-08-17T12:34:00.001+01:00

This weeks two songs to make you say yeah come from a couple of new(ish) bands.

This first one has already made it to the NME and are on the borders of being over hyped. They used to hold a regular slot at An Outlet Manchester. The last Saturday of every month, we would
be a part of something special, the brotherhood, whilst sipping in a coffee-tail (Old Man and the Sea, espresso, sugar, vodka, amerrtto, ice). I was privileged enough to be there, watching the crowd grow each week. Eventually busting out of this small cafe and performing in the foyer of the office block to which it was attached. And if you were there from the beginning, when the hipsters, A and R men and label representatives crowded round four 17 year olds playing in complete darkness but for a couple of sets of fairy lights; if you were on the front row hoping to god the excitable bassist doesn't knock your teeth out with the head of his bass; if you were there, you couldn't help but think as each week it somehow got bigger, a sort of circus, this was all slightly contrived. There was a bigger brain behind WU LYF and myself and a couple of others had our ears to the ground, knew the right people. We unraveled the mystery pretty quickly, but kept it quiet and began to admire the prowess of their manager. When I was little the idea of being a detective appealed to me, everything became something that needed a magnifying glass and a stealth P.I. It was all thanks to this series of books I was hooked to called The Mystery Kids (I fancied the curtain haired illustration of a boy, and wanted to be the illustration of the older girl.) And the point of this nostalgia? I still love a good enigma. Wrap yourself up in mystery and watch me drool. This is exactly what WU LYF had in the beginning a complete "we don't give a shit" aura of mystery. And now the secret is out, enjoy some Heavy Pop...

You can download free WU LYF tracks via last.fm
Un-raveling the WU LYF mystery ... The Pigeon Post
http://worldunite.org/

Next is a newly discovered band. Guards I know absolutely nothing about them. I think they are from Brooklyn.

You can download Guards Ep for free via Bandcamp

Me and My Void

2010-08-16T19:32:00.011+01:00

(alt title, Not Another Cheap Soul Bearing Post... Really, It's not)

This void on which we stand gets bigger and bigger. It started small, a nothingness, somewhere; we were aware but couldn't see exactly where it was, it was just there. It will close up one day, there is no doubt about that. It was just one of those things. Banging on about time being the greatest poly-filler for unseen but sensed voids, the problem with time is that you have to sit upon its thorned back and ride it until it seizes to penetrate you. A discomforting notion, that fills me with a sort of comfort all the same. I look all gooey eyed to a period of time where recent past becomes a jolly form of nostalgia as opposed to this stagnant mess I now glare at. Time will separate us, eventually. Like it never happened, like it was a film we once saw but never acted in. Time will doubtlessly retract it's current thorns but what will grow in it's place is that which makes me fearful. Will this happen again? And again and again.

The void grew and sort of vortexed and we'd wake up, sometimes our heads would hurt and we'd grow dizzy and remain as weary as when we fell asleep, others... we'd be ok and just take extra care with our footing. And, you know, it's fine, it's going to shrink sooner or later, it's just a momentary void. We dance around it like acrobats, juggling our thoughts and ideas across the plane, across the circus ring. And we'll laugh about it one day. How ungraceful we were. For now though, it is still here. I rearrange furniture every day to avoid slipping. I lost so much already. And still it grows. Now it is so big, I forget what that small something was that caused it. It is so big that I am able to walk through it, sit in it, muse in it. It is quite mesmerising really. People walk past it and admire it's blank plainness. I am able to wave at you sat in yours. We are able to joke about it, shout about it, take the piss out of it.

Then something sinister happened, the void grew legs, it began to follow us around. There was no escaping it. The places we visited seemed empty. It wasn't ours, it lacked faces. I held it's hand as I crossed the road heading to work. I speak to customers, it taps me on the shoulder, gives me digs, I look into the hole, the memories stagnate, it whispers "Is this you? Who are you?" And I laugh internally at my own facade and fear that the void will one day spread and become me.

The easiest thing to do when sitting in a void is to distract yourself. Thankfully we are talented, skilled and perfectly able to make something out of nothing. The blog is an undeniable distraction. Although lately I turn to it and the void has a firm grasp on my fingers. I look at them almost with disgust. If this were a piece of paper it would be a different matter. But it isn't. There are certain things I just can not allow myself to write about publicly at present, everything else becomes a worthless post, the publish button does not get hit. There is another way though, another expression, one the void cannot touch, one whose boundaries are only tested by my ability and clumsiness. Music. Aided with garage band, my Mac's internal mic, a guitar, a key board and my own experience, I have written and recorded my next project (hear an extract). And this expression is no more personal, but it feels better as a form of release. About everything. About the void. So please excuse my silence.

This void is filling now with more and more apprehension as September looms. For those who never left education, it is not spring that brings the new, it is autumn. (How long until they discover that I am a fake? They will rumble me. A familiar anxiety is taking hold, and I can already see their eyes looming downwards.) The unexpected is upon us. We may start to doubt ourselves, our talents, our skills, our thoughts. Remember that no one can invade that part of you, that is personal, that belongs to us. I get the feeling I am a wild card, but there is nothing wrong with that. Have faith in what you know. Hold on to yourself. Hold on very tightly. The void is starting to close, and I cannot remember what lies beyond.

When you step back from it all, when you are not blinded by panic, you can breathe. Things slowly focus. Age gaps, more education, masses of experience, more money, a real profession, being proper. None of this makes one being more valid than another, we all live, we are all alive and we are all experiencing constantly. An ex-tutor, Sue Platt, once said to me "You'll meet many different people, from many different backgrounds, they may be richer, more well spoken, have read more books, known more people, live in grand houses, none of that stuff matters. All that matters is what you know. Be confident in what you know and don't worry about the others." These are those who will be filling the void. Excitement builds and with white knuckles I will hang onto myself... I will move around like a tiger on vaseline....

Symbolic Retribution for the Disconnected.

2010-06-14T15:35:00.012+01:00

Symbolic Retribution for the Disconnected from mandi goodier on Vimeo.

Canto V Presents Symbolic Retribution for the Disconnected:

)best seen in full screen mode, best heard through a decent set of earphones( 
Deep psyche exploration, none stop free association, synth analysis, complete honesty, a lack of ability to comprehend anyone or anything outside of the self, and above all complete disconnection. 

This will last internally until the end of life when all is relived 
- canto v

An aural and visual experimentation by canto v

If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that this will never be shown on It's Nice That.

Have some music for your time

George.

2010-06-12T22:44:00.002+01:00

Symbolic Retribution.

2010-06-10T15:23:00.005+01:00

stick it to the mand presents:

SYMBOLIC RETRIBUTION

(for the disconnected)

TO BE

DELIVERED

14/06/2010

www.stickittothemand.blogspot.com

only available to view here

The first in a three part visual

and aural experimentation
www.silentage.bandcamp.com

Beauty...

2010-06-07T15:15:00.003+01:00

Ambulance by TV onthe Radio

Oh comely by Neutral Milk Hotel

Know all your enemies

Experience Everything/All of this has happened since:

2010-06-07T14:47:00.008+01:00

Amidst the banks crashing and colliding, an event which, at the time, evoked no real emotion in me beyond an "oh", an era was occurring that would carve itself into my memory greater than any other before it. With Mercury in retrograde, as Mars in Libra aligned with Pluto, a darkened shadow fell upon Saturn's moon Titan. This lead to a peculiar kind of gravitation pull, one so great it triggered a plummet within my heart which coincided with a glance into a pair of eyes. It remains to this day beating low. That unusually low beat activated a creative surge, which also continues to this day. I sat often, staring, contemplating a mathematical problem of emotional proportion with ever changing values and infinite possibility. The solitude and staring equates to one thousand five hundred and eighty four hours (and counting) since that plummet, leaving little time for much else.

Russell Brand and Matt Morgan leave my itunes library forever. Ridiculously I feel like I have lost two good friends. I would visit them once a week, we would share in jokes, they did most of the talking. I was gutted that I missed "that" podcast. I felt that the people who never used to join our weekly gatherings should have butted out.

A crash of personalities resulted in a constant grey cloud that hung over our house. It's silver lining was so bleak that it barely enabled us to find the key hole in the front door. A sunken druggy presence, which was completely un-intimidating and non-threatening, eventually turned two outsider souls to antisocialism and depression. Screaming lows and arguments. I closed my door on them. A sallow head reclusing into books and the written word. One harrowing scream caused me to rush from my room, expecting to find serious injury, I found one of those souls screaming at the front door, unable to unlock it. I opened it for her, realising that it was her final straw.

Gunmen. Men with guns. It takes years of psychological harm, then one object, a gun, one moment of madness and one final straw for a backlash of hurt feelings and international headlines. 15 dead at a school in south west Germany. 10 dead at a college in Finland. 7 dead on a bus containing the Sri Lankian Cricket team.

A labyrinth web was woven. A group of us found a comfortable nook and remained there. A set of overlooking eyes caught mine from time to time as they moved across the nook. As they focused in on me, I was struck like a fist to my low beating heart. We stayed in that nook so long that we forgot the route out. When we got out, nothing had changed yet everything was different. We all had to find new ways to settle and move on. It hasn't been easy to shut out.

I stayed awake the night of the US elections. Barrack Obama became President of the USA, a country in which I am not a resident and have only visited once. I loved what Obama represented. I expected an immediate change to the world. But nothing happened. I waited for a few more weeks, still nothing. Eventually I gave up waiting, then something new happened, Barrack Obama became the first president to have his official presidential portrait taken with a digital camera.

I know in the depth of my stomach it's a lie, a trick. You are a fraud. A self harming soul placed one heavy hand onto my self harming soul and there I received and sent pleasure resulting in momentary inflation of the ego and self image. The ability to feel a sudden connection between myself and another rarely happens so I became dazzled by it's appeal. This dizziness and lapse in judgment on my part resulted in disorientation. Fear was constantly pumped from my heart into each one of my organs resulting in the occasional anxiety attack. Once it was over I cried emotional rape, though I cried silently behind my closed bedroom door. Not one tear was wasted. I don't cry anymore. (revision: 3/11 I do)

Jade Goody dies. It seems like the most symbolic life and death of this generation. She became a reality TV star and remained famous for doing nothing. She was loved by us, then we tore her apart, then we loved her again, with the aid of Heat, Closer and Now. She shown a new side to herself, turning from the bullied to the bully and plummeted in our expectations, again on reality TV. Then she became terminally ill. She allowed the cameras to witness her death, she invited us all to her death bed. She died at 27, it is the rock and roll age. Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Jean Michel Basquiat, Jade Goody.

My neighbor utilised my self harming soul and good nature to form a self destructive cocktail but only after I had tasted hers. Sat by a pool of her blood, a craft knife (naturally) and a severed wrist. Shaking but clear. In that pool I could see a reflection of my heart. I couldn't go there. I drifted. Who could ask for better friends, really. And who could ask for better enemies. (Know your enemies). Disconnected from the event yet able to find symbolism in what I saw, I created a world of new imagining. A world exactly as this but with no people. Nothing but loneliness, nature and pure pointlessness. This fantasy makes me happy. Interceptions come in like an overheard police radio. Unclear, unknown and striking me as the thoughts of another. Abstracted visuals as if glancing into the landscape of another's memory, beyond comprehension but so completely beautiful. And what beauty I found in that blood. Disconnected from the event.

A car crashes into a Fiat Punto killing a father and son. The driver was drunk and otherwise engaged in performing a sexual act onto himself. He is jailed for 8 years, banned from driving for 15. I doubt he will ever drive or wank again.

She had been wailing all night. In complete honesty I knew what she had done but I didn't want to deal with it so I went back to sleep. April 10th, I ask her to open her door. No, she responds, you'll be mad at me. Upon hearing the no all I wanted to do was walk away and get on with the day, but that is not the right way to behave, that is not how a human being should respond to this kind of situation. Behind her door is an empty bottle of cava and five or so empty boxes of Ibuprofen. Then I shake, but remain totally clear. The ambulance arrives, staring, alone, still contemplating that mathematical problem. The grooves of the floor of the ambulance had collected grime from every accident it had visited, a time line, a biography a complete history of this van. Now I am part of that. Life and death. Four hours wasted in that hospital. The company of Henry Miller made that personality's tedious existence bearable for those tedious hours of my life. What a waste.

Kerry Katona is drunk on national TV. This Morning. God love Warringtonians, or Warringtoners as some prefer to be called.

All those people. All those brilliant people. Full of ideas. I want to reach inside the minds of each and every one. I want to relate to all of them. I want to touch their thoughts. None will fall. We remain solid beings. Beings with depth. Somewhere between intellectuals and creatives. Some neither here nor there. What beauties though. And under those watchful eyes. Inhalation. Laughter. Anxiety attack after anxiety attack. High achievement. Speak up. Slow down. Flight or Fight. Those eyes. Reading erotic material. Throwing up in bars. Being carried outside by the bouncer then laying in the middle of the road. Homing in on solipsism. Me. Only. Who could touch me really? Was it not all illusion created by myself. I connected to that road, that is the only explanation I am able to give. Those eyes linger on! They had me pinned. All I could see, because even though I am familiar with my surroundings, I am unable to see anything at all really. What was I waiting for? That suicidal friend takes me home. It was still early. We caught the second to last bus of the evening. I wake up to find a cigarette burn in my ear.

A mother in West Yorkshire kidnapped and drugged her own child. I was never quite able to comprehend what she hoped to gain from this, some form of monetary reward I think. The child was 10. Parents will continually fuck their kids up, but this one goes beyond.

Inhalation. Loneliness. Solitude. Deflation of ego. I am left with an headache and a bitter taste in my mouth. I think I want vengeance but I am unsure of the injury, whether a wrong has occurred. There are still more roads ahead of me, I may find myself laying in the middle of a few from time to time. There may be more red puddles to catch my own reflection in. The blood spilled that night was never cleaned up. It remained a dried up memoir of idiocy, selfishness of life and death, for all of us. Afterward, the people I told about the event would ask me if I was ok, not her. I responded in a human way, not a honest way.

Michael Jackson died the day that I discovered my final grade. It put a full stop to the days events Despite everything that had happened, I find myself with a first class honors degree. And what will cling to me most about the day Michael Jackson died? Those eyes, holding onto me like a cruel embrace that goes on too long. The usual conspiracy theories ensue, I take great interest in them.

She fell. I caught her twice. They fell, but they're getting better now. I fell. I was lifted momentarily by the actions of others. Those eyes fell, and I have no idea what this means. Intoxication. Disconnection. Vomit. Infatuation. Limerence. Suicide attempts. High Achievement. Lows. Loneliness. Lust Friendship. Dependence. Loss. Highs. Obsession. The influence of everyone. It turned out to be the greatest time of my life. I'm still counting the hours, the events, the landscapes, the experiences, the memories, everything. Experience everything, then create from everything you experience. And that is what I have learned, and that is how I live now.

Katie Price and Peter Andre split up. Well I saw that one coming.

All this happened since I met you. I'm not holding you responsible, but I am not taking the blame either.

Torn Sweater/Little Bastard

2010-05-16T16:15:00.001+01:00

These were taken by Roy Schatt in 1954.

I watched Rebel without a cause today and fell a little bit in love with James Dean. I enjoyed the romantic ideals and rebellion against tradition explored by the youth in the film. When I say youth, I really mean twenty somethings posing as teenagers. Ultimately the rebellion turns full circle as we see Jim Stark (Dean) fall in love and settle in a disused mansion, a sort of dystopian dream house. Throughout, Stark (and the picture in general) confronts masculinity, and asks "What does it mean to be a man?" And this question I find relevant to my own thoughts lately as I have been exploring with in myself the idea of femininity and the so called "stronger sex". The following questions are ones that I pose: Have I ever actually met a 'real man', someone completely strong, someone who is a complete protector? Can this type of person ever truly exist? Is it all just false expectation laid down upon us by a bunch of fairy tales. What does it mean to be strong? In the film it turns out that the courage to be sensitive is what fills Stark with masculinity. That and (well for me at least) his strong complex enigmatic persona. Perhaps man is truly a man when he has mystery about him. Perhaps they are only strong when their mouths are shut because when they are open they are like children. I'm not complaining. I would not like to add a "Am I right girls?" to the end of that sentence. I enjoy that men are essentially children at heart. The alpha male is obnoxious at the best of times, but it is particularly repulsive when you can see a small boy in his eyes. So who is the stronger sex? The Male or the Female? Weaker or stronger, what ever your sex, you are mostly just weak until you have that other sex by your side. Unless you are gay, the same sex scenario is essentially the same (there is a huge question mark next to the sexuality of James Dean). The love of a someone creates a new strength, a new sex. Together we become strong. Yet there is always a part of the self in tears, weakening you, wanting you to fall.....

Little Bastard....
And he fell. James Dean died a year after the previous photos were taken.

Interestingly, since his death a legend has formed around the car, Porsche 550 Spyder, and it's supposed curse. Could it be true that several accidents have occurred since Deans death involving the aforementioned automobile? Deaths, injuries, damaged property.The legend is as follows (cited from athingforcars.com)

Car designer George Barris bought the wreck for $2,500. On delivery, the Porsche slipped off its trailer and broke the legs of a mechanic. A doctor from Beverly Hills, Troy McHenry, bought the engine of the Little Bastard and put it in his own Porsche. The first time he took the car out, the vehicle spun out of control and crashed into a tree. He was killed on the spot.

Another physician, William Eschrid, bought the transmission of Dean’s Porsche. He went racing – some say against McHenry – and, going in a curve, the car rolled over. He was seriously injured.

Barris sold two tires of the wreck, which were unharmed in the accident, to an unnamed New Yorker. The tires blew up simultaneously, causing the car to go off the road. It was not reported what happened with the driver.

Two young thieves were injured while they attempted to steal parts of Little Bastard. Barris decided to store the cursed car safely away, but the bad luck kept coming from the hunk of twisted metal. In 1959, a fire broke out in the Fresno garage where Dean’s Porsche had been stored.

In that year, the Dean mania was still intense and so the California State Highway Patrol thought of transporting the mangled vehicle to local high schools and show teenagers the dangers of high speed driving. Little Bastard was put on exhibit in Sacramento, fell from its display and broke the hip of a teenager. On the way to Salinas, the flatbed truck with the Spyder on it
lost control and the driver was crushed by the Porsche.

Little Bastard still was very popular and George Barris took the cursed car on a tour to the other states. On the anniversary of James Dean’s death, September 30, a fifteen year old boy was standing about twelve to fifteen feet away from the exhibit. As if broken by spectral hands, three bolts snapped. The car plowed forward and crushed both of the boy’s legs.

In 1960, Barris decided to have Little Bastard shipped back home to California. In Florida, the Porsche was loaded into a boxcar, the door carefully sealed. When the train arrived in Los Angeles, the seal was still intact… but Little Bastard was missing. Private detectives went after the car of James Dean, but they could not find it. The Little Bastard mysteriously vanished and has not been seen since…

Some of these so called 'facts' are not facts at all, for example Barris did not originally purchase the wreck but the mere shell. And Troy McHenry died in a Lotus not a Porche. Beyond this not much else can be verified. Snopes.com (the most reliable urban legend de-bunker) places a little white circle next to the story which means "unclassifiable veracity". So perhaps if you believe in such things as curses this is quite plausible. Otherwise it is just another one of the mysteries surrounding Dean, and another one of those pesky urban legends that I absolutely cannot wait to tell to my nephew Sebastian when he gets a little older.

Little Bastard, Car With a Curse....

2010-05-14T16:33:00.001+01:00

The Election "Youth Vote" Still Confused?

2010-05-05T20:59:00.001+01:00

VBS have a great election guide aimed at the (there's that word again) 'Youth Vote'. In fact these are more compelling than the televised debates...

Lib Dems Like them Young

Conservatives Like them young, posh and drunk

Labour like them that can dance!

Qualities Not Policies!

2010-05-03T02:27:00.002+01:00

On a recent walk down Brick Lane, I was intercepted suddenly by a young chap who could, seemingly, only say two words: Pirate Party.
First off sheepishly and rushed, not very clear at all, I continued to walk. Then "Pirate Party," he repeated. I was a little perplexed, unable to relate what he had just said to my current position and situation, I hesitated giving him a bewildered look. "Pirate party?" Finally, in a sort of pleading tone, offering me a flyer. Ah flyer, Brick Lane, hipsters, an equation begins to form. "Oh," I thought, "A pirate party, that sounds fun. It's probably related to a pirate radio station round here - do they still exist? Surely in London. At the very least it's a party for pirates where everyone drinks Dark and Stormy's (giner ale, Sailer Jerrys and lime)." So I took the flyer and said "Ah, yes, Pirate Party." At which point I turned to my friend Eddie and said "Look at this Eddie a Party for Pirates."
Upon closer inspection of the uninspiring flyer I realised that it was not a party for pirates but a political party formed around the sole policy of legalising file sharing. A bullet point briefly outlined this policy, then below it, two more bullet points - sort of afterthought policies, where upon someone within the party realised that this sole policy is not solid decking for a Pirate Party. It seemed the party leader (Captian Black Beard as I will from now on refer to him,) tucked into a copy of 1984 and came up with a couple of paranoid Orwellian points, anti surveillance, anti mass corporations. To be fair to them I enjoyed their policies, created by my generation for my generation and although Captain Black Beard would never make PM he is at the very least doing something to get his voice heard and may one day get himself into Parliament.

Current candidates arguing on TV, policies sounding so in line with each other that you want to bang their heads together like one of those executive toys. I suppose this image is what makes a hung parliament seem so attractive to me. Watching Brown, Cameron and Clegg out-smug each other is enough to make me want to throw my vote away completely. It is like listening to school children debate why their Penguin bar in the yellow wrapper is better than one in the red or blue wrapper and vice-versa. What should I be looking for in an MP? The similarities between them, the overwhelming sense of a perverse personality pageant, that this election is turning into, is leaving me more than a little confused - and I do not want to stick around for the bathing costume round! Such confusion leads me to look for qualities rather than policies, the best looking one, the one with the criminal record, the one that rides a bike, and if all else fails then my favorite colour. But surely these 'qualities' are all mere psychological distractions, facades. Faced with such a dialema what more could I do? I asked the internet. A Yahoo questionnaire asked to rate a series of ideals based on what was important to me. 56% were in line with Conservatives. 55% were in line with Labour. 54% were in line with Lib Dem. Fuck off if you think I am scrawling a cross next to blue. Yes he is an entertaining marionette but his publicity is about as opaque as a sheath of ice. Surely this result further outlines my dilemma. What I would really like to see is something fresh. The Labour, Lib Dem, and Tory leaders are less gray then their predecessors, but they are hardly fresh meat. They are something for their generation, for the baby boomers, and that is who they speak to. Perhaps my 'youth vote' should go to a 'youth candidate' regardless of their party. And let us not forget that there are other options, other parties, none of which can take majority power but more seats in parliament do indeed mean a louder vocalisation of the things that matter to you. Captain Black Beard for example does not want to be PM, he merely wants to be heard. So what are the real alternatives?

If we all were to suddenly vote Lib Dem then there would be a fantastic opportunity facing us, a hung parliament, a chance for true change in our political system, something that would very much appeal to the youth voter who sees the forefront parties as out of touch. It would be a great opportunity for demoracy, as it stands, do we not just vote in a dictator for four years, and if we don't like him elect another?
The Green Party are in touch with many youth concerns however these concerns are being yelled over by a bunch of baby boomers claiming that "It is a waste of a vote," but in the long term, is it? By the time we come of age, could the Green Party stand a chance of ultimate power?
And if you really want to waste that vote a walk through London provided my with a few other real alternatives. The Christian Party who will make sure your five year old will not get a sex education. The Animal Party who will provide a sort of NHS service for you budgie. The Respect Party, a humanitarian option.The BNP who will legalise lynching. And if you truely truely want to toss that vote in the bin and say screw you Great Britain there is always the No Candidate Deserves my Vote Party.
And of course there is the party for the digital age - those bloody Pirates.
If all else fails you could just resort to anarchism.

If I am a true representative of the youth voter, then what policies interest me? It isn't immigration which more often than not comes across to me as an inexplicably acceptable form of racism. It isn't economy, which I truely believe is a man made force that has completely uncontrolable, that is the monetary equivalent to a tsunami or hurricane. I suppose it is Earth and Humanity. Something less corrupt, something liberal and peaceful that truly works for the people, for the world. Although that party isn't bothering this year... I think I'll just leave it until the last minute, trust my instincts on the day.

So who are you voting for?

Further reading:
Charlie Brooker
How to save the country by accepting that your parents have fucked you over
Political Debate Game
Blue shows it's true colours... again

Invalidenstrasse: Berlin - You're Right and I'm Wrong!

2010-04-27T12:03:00.003+01:00

There is a presence that sits like a romantic figure. Not romantic like Paris, it doesn't punch Japanese tourists into a delusional state, it is alone, misunderstood, sturm und drang, untamed and utterly charming. It's pull is like the subtle gravity of another planet, slight, and so essential to life, or at least my life. It pulsates as if it were Europe's heart, sort of central but to the left. And what could I do but succumb? I wrapped it's lasso around my waist and gave in to its force, slightly apprehensive of what I was to find, but full of lust, and revealed to find, at the other end of this rope, a lover - Berlin.

I fell in love with Berlin.

Not quite as I had imagined. Influences of post war dereliction, Kraftwerk, Metropolis, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, division and being told how it is quite a modern city, I had expected something shiny and metallic crossed with something half built and seedy. Take the U-Bahn for example, I expected a smooth phallic steel train shafting an equally smooth steel tube. Not quite. London's underground system is probably more similar to this x-rated vision than any other, (particularly the Westminster stop). Berlin's underground system is nothing so grandiose it is just another underground system. So my delusions of a futuristic city fed mostly by an electronic soundtrack/soundscape (Kraftwerk/Neu!) were lost - however maybe I'll just displace them unto Munich. (Just google imaged Munich - DAMN IT!)

All the time admiring it's rugged, wayward, good looks. Caressing the streets surface and digging at it, finding it a tear deep through it's center. It has healed though the scars are still visible, bullet holes occasionally visible, else subtly covered in fresh cement. Berlin played the center stage throughout so much of the last centuries political turmoil. You walk around on a grave yard, but oh what buds of beauty and character has rose from it's grounds. It is only through learning Berlins past that I was able to appreciate and admire its present. Of all cities I have witnessed, I have never found a place with such rich character. Not yet ruined by the gentrification that is brought about through money and consumerism, Although the side-effects of Capitalism starts to show and you hope that there is enough resistance left in the Berliners to fight, so that the face of Berlin will remain bristly and wise instead of clean shaven. "Poor but Sexy", not rich and banal.

Language barriers rose then crashed down on us as we snuck into the holes of the city, not too far from that well trodden tourist path. Attempting inconspicuous behind a Lonely Planet Guide, behind a city map and behind a U-bahn map, stopping occasionally at street corners for reference. Had we polished up on our Deustche we would have been braver, ventured further from the path and touched some more of it's far out sweet spots. As it stood, we embraced as sheepishly as acquaintances, when I have learned some of the linguo we shall converse like long friends, and embrace like lovers.

Although I loved Berlin I fear it is unrequited. Naive British un-assertive tourists. Culture occasionally collided. Misunderstandings. "Fuck off". And the biggest train ticket mistake I've ever made resulting in the most expensive two minute train journey I have ever had to pay for. A fine - Forty Euros each, just under two weeks left to pay it and absolutely no idea of how to pay. And so I left on bad terms, our first argument. Berlin I love you but you're bringing me down.

"Can we at least keep our train tickets as a souvenir?"
"No"
"Oh please, we have paid (40+25=65) €65 each for them."
"No"
"We're not going to use them again, we are going to the airport, look (pointing to the suitcase). We're clearly tourists."
"No"
"Well thank you very much for ruining our holiday!"

This is my only souvenir:

Berlin just say the word and I will take you back! We still have a long way to go before our love affair can end. There is still so much I have to learn about you. Oh yes Berlin I will take you back! In time.

Hair Peace...

2010-03-23T10:17:00.002Z

Immortalised by google maps in a poncho!

2010-03-11T20:12:00.001Z

Just a quick one... It was last year. Before I was aware that I possessed enough intelligence to get a first class honors degree, get on a master of fine arts course, yet somehow did have the intelligence to know that wearing a poncho is super cool. When I still rocked a short red pixie crop. This blog was not even a twinkle in my eye. I was walking from my house to the bus stop, on my way to university when the Google Maps car drove by and brapped me. I was eager to tell everyone of how happy I was about being immortalised in a poncho, but was never able to find the image. Today, my mum found it!
Here it is.

Don't believe me here it is a bit closer.

Wait if you don't know me, which unless you are Lucy Vann/Libby Scarlett/Caitlyn/Sophie Lee/Helen Kirwan (my most dedicated readers!) you probably don't... Those who know me, know this is me - immortalised in a poncho on google maps. That IS living!

Watch Out London

2010-03-10T12:11:00.003Z

I got this in the post today...

:)

Off the back of this...

Watch out London!

Hey Debbie I Can See Yer Whoo Haa...

2010-03-08T14:53:00.002Z

Debbie Harry, the only woman who can remain quite beautiful and dignified, despite extreme camel toe - that is a spandex/camel toe situation right? May be it isn't....

Dig this outfit, minus the head ware.

Billy Bragg/Barney Bubbles/The Flys

2010-03-08T12:14:00.004Z

Apologies for the terrible video. Ignore it. Just listen to the simplicity of this song and the power of its metaphor. Think of the times you too have been uncontrollably swept away, of its joys, its excitement, its pain.

The below image is to make up for the poor video above...

I wake up every morning looking towards my record collection. On available surfaces - shelves, speakers - facing out at me are my favourite sleeves. These tend to alternate. However this little number never changes. Recently I have began to suspect it may have been designed by Barney Bubbles, but there is no way to be sure - as Mr. Bubbles was the ever elusive ever evolving designer. Can any body amongst my modest selection of followers/readers, shed any light on this? If you look at the below images designed by Bubbles for Bragg around the same time, you will understand my suspicions. I hope it is, I love Bubbles. Check this blog REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

UPDATE: Confirmed it apparently is a Barney Bubbles. I'm just awaiting some form of official stamp

UPDATE UPDATE: Confirmation by Paul Gorman - as good as a stamp - Not a BB, but a Caramel Crunch - Barney's one time assistant. I still adore that cover though you can taste the mans influence. I have actually got other Bubbles sleeves which I will post later.

By the way, I was considering sending you my love, and a molotov cocktail. So, yeah, enjoy that...

If I start choosing songs with decent videos the chances are you will already have heard them. I think this is just about one of the greatest songs ever written.

Sense of Guilt....

2010-03-05T11:41:00.003Z

Jury Duty
Extract from 11.08.08. 11.17. In the court buildings. Waiting.

The room is split in two. Both physically and by the characters within. To me it is noticeable the second I raise my head from my book. (Franz Kafka, The Trial. Fitting I know.) The room is dull, clinical, very ‘waiting room’. It has been made to appear more friendly, more comfortable, more homely through the use of accessories, cushions, curtains, coffee tables.

The split: the café and the ‘lounge’. Separated by a partition. Separated by personalities. Characters. Half in the café half in the lounge. The café filled with groups. Sat around tables. Attracting one another. Making judgements, who shall i sit by? Who will be most accommodating for me? They buy their coffee and gather round each other. Then what? Spill their lives out. Their secrets, loves, divorces, affairs, mortgages, jobs, friends, family, politics. Anything. They give everything to keep conversations from running dry. Some share too much. Then there is a loner. A table to herself. Unable to make an assessment of the others. Indecisive. An empty table. A rash decision. She takes it and is unable to attract any attention. In retrospect I should have sat with her. She looked strange enough. Gentle timid. It would have been impossible. Awkward. I could have just sat there, looking at her, then writing something down, then looking at her again, then back to my pad. She would have moved away to another table, one with other people sat at it. I would have succeeded in forcing her to make that leap from isolation to crowd pleaser. I would be an outcast’s (and outcasted) hero. But I didn’t. As it is. She glances around at the others. An escapee from the other side. Our side. My side. She joins us. We are sat in silence. Occasionally gaining insights to the lives of the people sat in the café. We are all sat with at least one chair separating us. We are immersed in activity. In books, newspapers, magazines and thoughts. Is this it? I think. Am I truly witnessing what I think I am witnessing. I grin. Am I seeing a very physical very obvious almost symbolic division of introverts and extroverts? I am sure of which title I fall under. My smile thickens. My God this is it. I can see it.

Over there they are all sat in groups prostituting themselves for whatever conversation. Asking questions when they do not care about the answers. Will forget the answers and the people they have met within two weeks. (Jury duty finished.) Then us over here. Chairs apart from each other. Islands on a flowery sea of carpet. The introverts. Us. A group but all separate. Confident in our own company. Quiet settled and composed in appearance. Actually the atmosphere over here is a little tense. Eye contact is broken as quickly as it is made. Conversation is anticipated. We all glance around suspiciously. Who will break the silence first? Who cares? Conversation is more informative over here. On a need to know basis. “How long must we wait?” “Is this an inconvenience to you?” and so on. That then breaks into small talk. Something which the introverts hate. It is pointless and we are useless at it. As talk breaks out I wonder if I have misjudged my introverts. Sure there are definite loners, the ones tapping their feet, head in hands, sighing, willing time away (wasteful bastards). Nothing to entertain themselves. Are they just shy. Or worse bored. (Who comes to jury duty unarmed, really?) Then there are the confident ones. A business looking man captures my interest. He is suited. Confident. This is a colossal inconvenience to him. He carries himself well, is proud. Has a life. A wife. A few kids now in their teens. Probably a mistress. Yes, she is probably his P.A. she is my age, 22, he is more than twice that, he approaches 60. Yes, the sex is good, I hear bald men are virile. (I immediately scrap that thought, my dad is bald. My sister mocks me, “Baldness is hereditary!” She mocks, she mocks. “Yes but females are carriers, it is only the men that bald, I will not go bald. When I am older (this was a reoccurring argument throughout youth and still continues today, sometimes at random. Silence then “Hey Mandi did you know that baldness is hereditary?” I roll my eyes and say “Yes, my hair falls out, it is like pulling candy floss from a stick. I will soon have none left!) I will only be with men who have strong hair. It will be fine.” Tongue out. So there!) He is a man. He has no time to waste with these people. A quick burst of chatter with the other side whilst he buys a coffee and then back over to our side to read the FTSE 100. He is a leader. I lose interest, business men are dull. Most here are over 50, are grey and thinning, are unattractive (no silver foxes), no body keeps my attention. No attractive older men to stare out, or they are women with kids and will not God damn shut up about them, that woman looks businessy, she is the opposite of the bald man, but she is boring, she is in her forties, men fear her, she is sensible, she hates sex, she was divorced on the grounds of boredom. She settled out of court.She has no intention of remarrying, business is too important. Her life is numbers. She is a broker. Her husband is numbers, her children are numbers, her dog is a number. She is cold but she is happy.

This is not a reliable and healthy cross section of our country surely. There are no black people, no asian people there are no hippies, left wingers, liberals. Probably no gays either, but I will not delve into people’s private lives, I am not an extrovert. There is probably at least one gay in here. I look to the old men. They look sleepy. It is one of you. I know that one of the beige is gay. More than likely overtly so. Now it is disguised, it is disguised because he is in court. Underneath that grey cardigan, that beige generic coat, the pressed beige trousers, there are sailor tattoos, the left nipple is pierced, and there is a purple thong, his crinkled ass cheeks wrapped around it’s string. In between the creases of his face are memories, glitter, makeup, lost love and sperm. He grins at me. He knows I know. I nod to him. He winks. I have no overtly gay friends, an old beige like this would eat their baby faces alive, but they would run before he had the chance to.

There is a boy. He is young. Young like I am. This excites me. Colour amongst the beige. We could be friends. He could be my jury duty friend. No one here wants to talk to me because 1. I am on the introvert’s side 2. I am young and what do I know about anything. He is wearing a Strokes t-shirt (this is what attracts my attention actually, he is wearing a strokes t shirt to court!) he has long hair, a short untamed fluffy beard and flares. He is attractive but short. He looks too young. He is probably only fifteen. He is probably pretending to be his dad or his brother or someone who couldn’t make it but didn’t want to incur the fine. He has fooled the court. I lose attention quickly. He has a copy of “The Sun” in his back pocket. He probably doesn’t even know who The Strokes are.

I look around. I am fine here, I have my entertainment. (Thank you Kafka.) I couldn’t possibly start a conversation. At least not without a rush of blood to my cheeks. (Fight or flight, I always chose flight, it is too embarrassing! My sister is a psychiatric nurse. I inform her about the redness. “How can I make it stop? Why does it happen? I am not embarrassed, I feel fine. It just sort of happens then I get embarrassed because I am red, not because of anything that happened before it. Of course this makes it worse. Then I worry that everyone is pitying me and they shouldn’t because I am fine, I am just a little redder than usual.” She says “It is fight or flight. It is related to anxieties and your heart pushes blood rapidly around your body, and to your face, preparing your body for fight or flight.” Similar I guess to adrenaline so when you are confronted you are ready to either punch someone and be punched, or run like a mother fucking Olympian. It is always flight, or avoid situations which cause the redness. I say that I think I have social anxiety disorder, we discuss this at great length. No conclusion is made.) It even happens at the checkout in supermarkets or whatever shop. It especially happens there. If the cashier pays me a compliment or says anything to me other than “Thats £4.50 then, thank you, here is your change, have a nice day,” or “Have you got any ID?” then I am taken by surprise. I do the red thing. And then Andrew says “You’ve gone red,” then I say “Yes thank you I am perfectly aware of the colour of my face, stop it you are making it worse.” Because once the red knows that other people are aware of it, it gains an ego, it glows, it gleams, I get hotter, and it begins to pulsate. “Look at me, Look at me,” it calls. Shhh, I beg desperate to hide my face under my hair, this worked great until I cut it all off. (“So how do I stop it Dani? What is the trick?” “Well you have to embrace it. Act like it isn’t happening, pretend you don’t care, deflate it’s ego, and be confident, or at least pretend to be confident.” So that is what I pretend to be. Only the cashiers get me every time.) For this reason groups are impossible, unless I am used to the company. When I am comfortable I talk. And I talk. Then I become exhausted, my mood swings back to quiet and contemplative. I flick between confident, talkative and in control, to shy, contemplative and difficult. And I apologise because it is nothing personal to you, as the friend or whoever. It mustn’t be taken as an offense.

No one else interests me. I look to the mothers. They failed to lose their baby weight. “Being part of a jury is like being part of Jeremy Kyle,” one of them is betting. If the judge turns out to be Jeremy Fucking Kyle the British judicial system is well and truly bent, there is not justice! The builders keep their muscular arms folded, tattoos on show, mouths shut, impenetrable, skin heads, sunburnt, ugly. I am keeping my own company here. The extroverts happily share their lives with others. I keep mine to myself. Why would you want to know? What have you to gain? Are you really that interested? Being my own company, yes I am. So I share my life with myself. I carry with me a note book. I have had many of these over the years. Not exactly diaries, more of an outlet for thoughts. It reminds me of how much I have changed. Life constantly alters, much as you can never step into the same river twice, you can not remain the same person for too long, things happen, experiences infiltrate you, punch you, kiss you, fuck you, change you. And they are constant. I always feel as if my life has been a film, or a book (not a particularly interesting one) with many chapters, characters and parts. But I am not the protagonist, I am not the antagonist, I am no character within the book, I am it’s audience. It is as if I watch my life go by, and I remember the important things happening, but they didn’t happen to me. They happened to somebody else. That five year old, that seven year old, that twelve year old, that fourteen year old, that eighteen year old. She was a nervous eighteen year old. When she first moved to Sheffield she missed her first days of university because she was throwing up. She only left her room for the fire alarms at three in the morning. She couldn’t eat. (I always eat. I love eating!) She didn’t make friends with anyone. They knew as much as she knew she was not one of them. And like them she wasn’t sure who she was or who exactly they expected her to be. Her boyfriend had to make friends for her. That is how she got friends when in Sheffield, he gave his friends to her then went off and made some more for himself. But that was not me. It was a film I watched sometime. I vaguely remember now. Despite the eighteen year old’s anxieties she was fine really. She kept herself entertained. She can do that. She enjoys that. She is an introvert too. She did all kinds of reading and writing. Actually at the time she was pretty convinced that she was going to be a genius guitarist. She was going to be a rock star. Everything she wrote was amazing. It was new and fresh. Like nothing before. It was The Velvet Underground mixed with De La Soul. Actually, no it wasn’t. But it would have had that sort of impact. Actually, no, it wouldn’t. I am pretty sure that it was just shit. And since no body ever heard any of it and the eighteen year old had no confidence or intention of playing it to anyone, ever, it was probably one of the most pointless exercises she had ever indulged in, that I had ever witnessed. There you have it, the year and a bit I watched some familiar kid work intensely on becoming a rock star. It wasn’t really that intense. Most of the time was spent studying records. The crackle got to her, it made the sound more real. She wanted to crackle. Now she is different, but she still has the crackle. There you are extroverts has that enriched your lives somehow? Have you gained from me any information to further your self? Are you a better person now? Or are you just maybe a little bit bored? Why does anyone need to know that...

The group separates into two halves - different from the original intro/extro segregation - half are going to witness a trail, the other half are to sit and wait a little longer. Both extro/intros are happy to be chosen. The room quietens. The other half of us are left. An extrovert unable to cope now that his acquaintances have left, turns the TV on. The olympics. It annoys me. 1. because in an out of character political stance I decided to boycott all watching and news of the Olympics 2. because I am trying to read! Extroverts are the doers they do things like that. Turn on TVs because they do not like to be alone. Introverts are the big thinkers, but they struggle to do. So we don't do things like turn on the television for the sanity of extroverts. TV is a distraction. We are the thinkers. Thoughts can become so engrossing, but it is easy to become distracted. It is easy to become lazy. I try harder to read. The sound quality on the television is terrible. The speaker must be bust. It is too loud. It rattles and hisses with the cheers of the crowds, the excitement of the commentators. Don’t watch it. I can’t I am sat underneath it. This makes it louder. It is easy to wallow in your thoughts. Fear can take over. You can turn on the TV, it is loud my head hurts, it was hurting when I woke up, now it is irritated and angered. Turning on the TV will only postpone thought, it is still there only now it is waiting, becoming angered and irritated. Is it getting louder? My thoughts are shouting. We need outlets. Introverts need outlets. I write. Once the thought is tangible, physical, once your hand has followed the direction of your mind, once your hand has cramped and grown tired through words. There is nothing left to think. It is all there in front of you. In front of you and out of your head. An idea, a daemon, a desire, a creation. Do with it what you will. Destroy it, burn it, cherish it, share it, make it reality, read it over and over or never look at it again. I have read my past, my memories like a book, the chapters of my personality in flux (not the magazine). I used to avoid everyone. I am not that person today. I love human contact. I crave it. I like it best when people are strange, I seek out the strange. They are not strange. They are interesting. They are refreshing. They intoxicate me. Keep intoxicated. Nobody here is strange. But then I know nothing about them. I didn’t ask. What is even on the TV, is it... swimming?

Get out.

We are adjourned, no more court cases today. The extroverts stop mid sentence. The speaker cares not to finish, the listener cares not for an ending. The TV is turned off. Everyone races out. Through the metal detector. Security does not care if the alarm beeps on the way out. We all separate and disperse into the outside world. I will never recognise anybody again. I can’t remember the business man, or the boy with long hair, the overt gay, the mothers, I am not sure if they were even there in the first place. At least their faces were, but I have forgotten already. They cannot remember me. I cannot remember the flowery carpet and the curtains. We have made no lasting impression. We leave and go home. Lives unaltered by the interaction with in that room. Of course I have made some judgements here today. But I could be wrong. I probably am wrong. About all this. About the extroverts and introverts. About the divide in the room. About the personalities within. I know no truths, only what is imagined, only perceived reality. I will never see these people again. They are not the ones on trial here. I go to Waterstones with the intention of buying Lolita. Sean is working there. They do not have Lolita. He wants to know everything. I tell him that I am not allowed to discuss it until it is over, it will be over in two weeks, I will come back and tell you everything. And here it is. Everything, all from one little waiting room.

I never returned to that room.

(Ok so now you are at the end of my jury duty story and I bet you are disappointed. What happened in the court you are all thinking. Where was the story of the serial killer, the rapist, the shoplifter, the dealer, the kidnapper, the blackmailer, the law suit, the knicker nicker. Well I never got to sit in on a case. I got sent home after three days. It was the most disappointing two weeks of my life. I really thought I would get an interesting story out of it.)

The Gift...

2010-03-02T23:59:00.001Z

It was this story/song/piece written by Lou Reed, performed beautifully by John Cale and the Velvet Underground that penetrated my then sixteen year old ears and inspired me to write the way I write.

The Gift - The Velvet Underground

Waldo Jeffers had reached his limit. It was now Mid-August which meant he had been separated from Marsha for more than two months. Two months, and all he had to show was three dog-eared letters and two very expensive long-distance phone calls. True, when school had ended and she'd returned to Wisconsin, and he to Locust, Pennsylvania, she had sworn to maintain a certain fidelity. She would
date occasionally, but merely as amusement. She would remain faithful.

But lately Waldo had begun to worry. He had trouble sleeping at night and when he did, he had horrible dreams. He lay awake at night, tossing and turning underneath his pleated quilt protector, tears welling in his eyes as he pictured Marsha, her sworn vows overcome by liquor and the smooth soothing of some neanderthal, finally submitting to the final caresses of sexual oblivion.
It was more than the human mind could bear.

Visions of Marsha's faithlessness haunted him. Daytime fantasies of sexual abandon permeated his thoughts. And the thing was, they wouldn't understand how she really was. He, Waldo, alone understood this. He had intuitively grasped every nook and cranny of her psyche. He had made her smile. She needed him, and he wasn't there (Awww...).

The idea came to him on the Thursday before the Mummers' Parade was scheduled to appear. He'd just finished mowing and edging the Edelsons lawn for a dollar fifty and had checked the mailbox to see if there was at least a word from Marsha. There was nothing but a circular from the Amalgamated Aluminum Company of America inquiring into his awing needs. At least they cared enough to write.

It was a New York company. You could go anywhere in the mails. Then it struck him. He didn't have enough money to go to Wisconsin in the accepted fashion, true, but why not mail himself? It was absurdly simple. He would ship himself parcel post, special delivery. The next day Waldo went to the supermarket to purchase the necessary equipment. He bought masking tape, a staple gun and a
medium sized cardboard box just right for a person of his build. He judged that with a minimum of jostling he could ride quite comfortably. A few airholes, some water, perhaps some midnight snacks, and it would probably be as good as going tourist.

By Friday afternoon, Waldo was set. He was thoroughly packed and the post office had agreed to pick him up at three o'clock. He'd marked the package "Fragile", and as he sat curled up inside, resting on the foam rubber cushioning he'd thoughtfully included, he tried to picture the look of awe and
happiness on Marshas face as she opened her door, saw the package, tipped the deliverer, and then opened it to see her Waldo finally there in person. She would kiss him, and then maybe they could see a movie. If he'd only thought of this before. Suddenly rough hands gripped his package and he felt himself borne up. He landed with a thud in a truck and was off.

Marsha Bronson had just finished setting her hair. It had been a very rough weekend. She had to remember not to drink like that. Bill had been nice about it though. After it was over he'd said he still respected her and, after all, it was certainly the way of nature, and even though, no he didn't love her, he did feel an affection for her. And after all, they were grown adults. Oh, what Bill could teach Waldo - but that seemed many years ago.

Sheila Klein, her very, very best friend, walked in through the porch screen door and into the kitchen. "Oh gawd, it's absolutely maudlin outside." "Ach, I know what you mean, I feel all icky!" Marsha tightened the belt on her cotton robe with the silk outer edge. Sheila ran her finger over some salt grains on the kitchen table, licked her finger and made a face. "I'm supposed to be taking these salt pills, but," she wrinkled her nose, "they make me feel like throwing up." Marsha started to pat herself under the chin, an exercise she'd seen on television. "God, don't even talk about that." She got up from the table and went to the sink where she picked up a bottle of pink and blue vitamins. "Want one? Supposed to be better than steak," and then attempted to touch her knees. "I don't think I'll ever touch a daiquiri again."

She gave up and sat down, this time nearer the small table that supported the telephone. "Maybe Bill'll call," she said to Sheila's glance. Sheila nibbled on a cuticle. "After last night, I thought maybe you'd be through with him." "I know what you mean. My God, he was like an octopus. Hands all over the place." She gestured, raising her arms upwards in defense. "The thing is, after a while, you get tired of fighting with him, you know, and after all I didn't really do anything Friday and Saturday so I kind of owed it to him. You know what I mean." She started to scratch. Sheila was giggling with her hand over
her mouth. "I'll tell you, I felt the same way, and even after a while," here she bent forward in a whisper, "I wanted to!" Now she was laughing very loudly.

It was at this point that Mr. Jameson of the Clarence Darrow Post Office rang the doorbell of the large stucco colored frame house. When Marsha Bronson opened the door, he helped her carry the package in. He had his yellow and his green slips of paper signed and left with a fifteen cent tip that Marsha had
gotten out of her mother's small beige pocketbook in the den. "What do you think it is?" Sheila asked. Marsha stood with her arms folded behind her back. She stared at the brown cardboard carton that sat in the middle of the living room. "I dunno."

Inside the package, Waldo quivered with excitement as he listened to the muffled voices. Sheila ran her fingernail over the masking tape that ran down the center of the carton. "Why don't you look at the return address and see who it's from?" Waldo felt his heart beating. He could feel the vibrating footsteps. It would be soon.

Marsha walked around the carton and read the ink-scratched label. "Ah, god, it's from Waldo!" "That schmuck!" said Sheila. Waldo trembled with expectation. "Well, you might as well open it," said Sheila. Both of them tried to lift thestaple flap. "Ah sst," said Marsha, groaning, "he must have nailed it shut." They tugged on the flap again. "My God, you need a power drill to get this thing open!" They pulled again. "You can't get a grip." They both stood still, breathing heavily.

"Why don't you get a scissor," said Sheila. Marsha ran into the kitchen, but all she could find was a little sewing scissor. Then she remembered that her father kept a collection of tools in the basement. She ran downstairs, and when she came back up, she had a large sheet metal cutter in her hand. "This is the best I could find." She was very out of breath. "Here, you do it. I-I'm gonna die." She sank into a large fluffy couch and exhaled noisily. Sheila tried to make a slit between the masking tape and the
end of the cardboard flap, but the blade was too big and there wasn't enough room. "God damn this thing!" she said feeling very exasperated. Then smiling, "I got an idea." "What?" said Marsha. "Just watch," said Sheila, touching her finger to her head.

Inside the package, Waldo was so transfixed with excitement that he could barely breathe. His skin felt prickly from the heat, and he could feel his heart beating in his throat. It would be soon. Sheila stood quite upright and walked around to the other side of the package. Then she sank down to her knees, grasped the cutter by both handles, took a deep breath, and plunged the long blade through the middle of the package, through the masking tape, through the cardboard, through the cushioning and (thud) right through the center of Waldo Jeffers head, which split slightly and caused little rhythmic arcs of red to pulsate gently in the morning sun.

Brilliant!

You Broke My Sitar Mother F*cker...

2010-02-26T02:18:00.002Z

Ladies and Gentlemen may I present The Brian Jonestown Massacre...

Yes Yes YES!

If you do not own a copy of DIG! (The Brian Jonestown Massacre vs The Dandy Warhols) BUY A COPY NOW! However, if you're not into your garage drone, your rock stars thinking that they are Jesus, taking all the drugs, feuding, fighting, being a general mess, but somehow able to write and perform truly brilliant songs, then I wouldn't bother. Brian Jonestown are one one of the most insane, engrossing and utterly brilliant bands touring. I have my ticket to watch them at Manchester Academy 3 in May, it will be the second time I have seen them live. The first time was two summers ago (anecdote to follow). This is what I expected (extract from DIG!)

Their whole set consisted of no more than 5 songs. 5 long songs. The front man, Anton Newcombe, (as you may have discovered from the video) has issues. They used to be drug issues, ego issues, superiority issues. These days he is off the drugs, but is still a mess. He stormed off stage numerous times leaving the band to continue alone - often elongating the already drony songs. He would return looking ill, eyes rolling back in his head, occasionally wretching as if to vomit - although he never did and at one point he cried. I suspected he was shooting up, however I was later to discover this was not the case.

Now, I may take every opportunity to complain about my hometown, but one thing I cannot fault is some of it's cats (if the word 'dig' can make a come back I'm pretty sure 'cats' as in daddios not actual cats (yes daddios) can make a come back too). There is a small alternative community and only two small alternative places to drink that are open beyond 12. As a result everyone knows everyone. And, we all have shit hot taste in music - oh yes, oh yes. All rather cool characters as well may I add (no pictures just trust). So consequently (and without arranging it) the BJM gig turned into a sort of Wazza field trip. After the gig a BJM guitarist (Ricky Maymi) was smoking out front, being harassed as should be expected, by fans. Of all the Wazza massive, Jules Barrat (previously mentioned here) has to be the biggest BJM fan, maybe even beyond wazza, perhaps in the world.

JB: "Mandi, that's Ricky, I have to speak to him. It's important."
Me: "So do it then. He won't mind. Look everyone else is."
JB: "No I can't, I'm too nervous"
Me: "Don't be silly. Just tell him you enjoyed the set. Introduce yourself. It'll be fine"
JB: "Will you introduce me? please?"

ENTER Helen (HK). I have spoke of Helen on this blog before. She is the one that lives in Paris. Previously, she and I had been discussing in a nonchalant manner, how it was sweet that Ricky BJM is just coolly smoking amongst his fans.

Me to HK: "What do you reckon?"
HK: "yeh,"

So we approach. Helen is an attractive lady, very natural, tall, long blond hair and an extremely cool composure. Not too many people are naturally cool, Helen is. At this point Ricky BJM is surrounded by people. Andrew (who was doing his usual crumbling in the face of fame) had commented to me about how hideous Ricky's Brothel Crawlers were, was now complementing the man himself for having superb taste in footwear. I was cringing.

Me to Ricky: "Hey Ricky great set, this is Jules..."
JB: "Hi tonight was so cool..."
Ricky to Helen (because suddenly, to Ricky at least, all the other fans had disappeared and there was only myself and Helen stood there): "Hi I'm Ricky, who are you?"

and then the consequent greetings and introductions ensued. Jules began jumping around for his attention to little avail. Before we knew it, everyone had cleared off, Jules had given up, and there were just the three of us, Ricky, Helen, Myself. He was into Helen. First he invited us to Big Hands for a drink. Now our main problem was this: it was the summer, and I was a student at MMU so had a house in manchester (strange this past version of myself is sort of at a point where a book is about to close, where I become another me and start playing the lead in a whole new book. Completely unaware of all the madness that was to encapsulate me the following term - which retrospectively has to have been the strangest, most mentally/emotionally taxing year of my life! I will write about that year on here when I have gotten far enough away from its chaos.) However, I hadn't yet picked up the keys but my house mate had - only she wasn't answering the phone. We had no digs for the evening so had to catch the last train home. We couldn't stay. Simple as that. We explained this to him.

"Well what time is the first train tomorrow?" 6am "Well forget the bar, come and smoke with us on the coach, you can get the first train."

(Appologies I cannot get this the right way round)

As much as we knew we would look back and think 'damn', there was absolutely NO way that at that moment in time did getting on the BJM tour bus and getting intoxicated seem like a good idea... No, now come on, seriously. Alright, we could see how it may come across as an appealing proposition. We had already seen the state of Anton. We had already seen DIG! numerous times. We were two young, attractive - well Helen at least - ladies, if we were to get on that bus... So, being the losers are, we justified our reasons for leaving, silently, politely declined and said that we have to go for the last train.

"No, I can't just let you go" that was said to Helen not me, think of me as Helen's chaperon in this story. "Where's the station?" ten minutes that way. "Right I'm walking you."

And that is how Helen and I got escorted to platform 5 of Oxford Road station by Ricky Rene Maymi of The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Between finding out about Helen, and exchanging emails, he also revealed some of the mystery behind Anton's onstage behavior.

"Anton has two problems, alcohol, and his mental health condition"

Anton, as you saw in the above video, became angered when ever anyone on stage messed up, now, he has been through psycho-analysis and is off the heroin, he realises that it is himself that he has a problem with. That now, if Anton messes up, he fights him self. He breaks down and has to pull himself together. Occasionally, this means leaving the stage, and, yes, crying. But he's dealing with it. And they are still awesome live.

Two minutes after the train departed, my house mate rang me to ask what was up. I told her not to speak to me.

A week or two later, I recieved an IM from Helen (she had returned to France, at that time a small town in the south called Valance).

"So.. What are you up to the day after tomorrow?" Why? "Ricky emailed saying he can get us two VIP passes to - Garden Nef Party Festival - Angoulême, Poitou-Charentes, FRANCE" this was the line up: Iggy & The Stooges + The Hives + The Raconteurs + Justice + Nada Surf + Hushpuppies + The Do + Moriarty + Brian Jonestown Massacre + The Kills + Simian Mobile Disco + Patrick Watson + Archie + Bronson Outfit. In other words, yeah, awesome! I would happily of watched seven of those bands, and that is a lot for such a small festival. I would to fly to paris and jump trains the rest of the way, meeting Helen there. I would backstage it with Iggy and Alison Mosshart. I speak zero french and I hear they aren't that helpful to English speakers over there, so train hopping in unfamiliar territory where I am absolutely alien was not the greatest idea... I had no money to fly at such short notice. Helen was also struggling finding trains and then affording trains... then there was her boyfriend - he would want to come too, "Hey Ricky could you spare us one more ticket for..." So we bailed.

DAMN!

This one is for Jules. It has been a long time my love. See you at BJM '10

The Strokes Are Recording YAY!

2010-02-13T00:02:00.001Z

I'll look forward to this!

The following was a teaser put out before the release of Julian Casablancas' Solo effort. I enjoyed it, but why weren't there any music videos that looked like this?

Whilst on the subject of The Strokes and music videos...

The Strokes - You Only Live Once Clip
Uploaded by pitouthestroke. - Explore more music videos.

WORLD UNITE/LUCIFER YOUTH FOUNDATION

2010-02-10T12:09:00.001Z

A real allusive, enigmatic Mancunian alternative!

WU LYF!

The Political Personality Contest...

2010-02-10T12:02:00.003Z

But first...
I perhaps have a secret shouldn't but would crush on Charlie Brooker, that is despite his hate of the Mac/Apple brand. This is a great satirical look at how to put a tedious news edit together from the brilliant Newswipe (BBC4 Tuesday evenings)...

The following is a clip from the great eye opener, the archive footage meddler,the amazing documentary maker Adam Curtis (taken from the same Newswipe series). The clip shows, briefly, how we have all turned into Richard Nixon - thanks to the people that exposed the man - the media. Actually this is a generation absolutely paranoid to the point of confusion, no one knows who to trust, it isn't the Governement, it isn't the Media, it isn't even ourselves. Perhaps we need someone we can trust in control of everything, maybe Mr Curtis himself could step up - although it is true that he too is guilty of this fear mongering. Maybe Curtis does not belong to the documentary genre but horror genre. Use of archive footage and popular rendering nosalgia and a feeling of the uncanny within us, whilst juxtaposing familiar sights with the 'truth' - which apparently is more terrifying than any poltergiest or zombie b-flick. Is it a wonder then, with all this fear mongering fed on mass to the public, why people don't vote? Take the equation: confusion plus paranoia, then divide the sum by consumption which makes us not give a shit at all really. The average night in front of the news should go a little like this:
"Oh, there's a war on is there? What? It's illegal and the Tony Blair tricked us all? That is absolutely terrible. I feel so manipulated... Oh look Argos have a new catalogue out, I wonder if they have that new iPod with a built in camera!"
We are quite content to forget about all that worrying stuff for a packet of Malteasters and a new pair of jeans. It's ok, someone else will deal with all those important, moral dilemmas, Eastenders will be on in a bit, oh look Cheryl Cole's got a new bag, that's nice. In fact it I'm beginning to wonder if democracy is in fact out dated and what is actually needed is some new radical system to shake things up a bit. It is obvious that today's PMs and Presidents are selected on what is close to a Big Brother style personality contest. In the end it is the contestant with the nicest smile, comforting body language, and lowest CO2 footprint that'll win. The spin, the policies (because there are few discernible differences there) are of lesser importance. With most mainstream parties sat in the middle, and the only real alternatives being the BNP, it is no wonder that the whole thing finds resolve as a personality contest. In fact maybe more people would vote if politicians were put through a BB style campaign before election. When I was in primary school we staged a pretend vote. We had party representatives talk to us about what they each stood for. The green party handed out cool flyers with a superhero and 3D text bludging from the paper into our retinas, screaming "SAVE THE WORLD WITH THE GREEN PARTY", who could resist that? But in the end, at the mock booths in the assembly hall, all it really came down to was your favorite colour. I picked yellow, but to this day I wish I would have picked green, those flyers were really something!

William Burrough's Stuff...

2010-01-13T02:03:00.002Z

All these photographs were taken by a guy called Peter Ross. However, it is not the photographs that I like, it is their content - All this stuff belongs to William Burroughs. A lot of stuff on this blog seems to be either about William, or David Bowie, or time travel, or frantic kind of crazed moments, and just general ME ME ME ME ME. As a reader you need to understand that I am absolutely aware of the content of this blog becoming slightly repetitive. You see the thing with Burroughs is..........

I once lived in Sheffield amongst a whole group of people I was unable to, erm, let's say connect with. I couldn't relate to any kind of group of individual; not townies, not rockers, not scene kids, not course mates, not flat mates, they were interested in the type of things that I found mundane, with the occasional exception. In all honesty the only reason I went to uni was to join a band and I discovered very quickly that that would not happen. As a result I found myself with masses of spare time on my hands, some of which was filled by band practice, myself and Harry (yep my guitar has a name). Some of the time was spent listening to the Velvet Underground, or David Bowie for hours at a time. Occasionally it was spent day dreaming about apparent ambitions and the lack of motivation I had (at the time) towards achieving these, one of which I had held (and continue to hold) dear since primary school, to write the scariest story EVER! Some of the time (very little) was spent revising or writing essays for the business studies course I was on (what a complete waste of time that actually was). A lot of time was spent sleeping - seeing very little point in doing much else! And yet I still seemed to have an excess amount of time. This was when I discovered that I was not one of them (whoever they are) but more importantly this was the time that I discovered Burroughs.

Before attending university my Dad had given me some great advise (@libbyscarlett @lucyvann) that I really took on board "...remember nothing passes the time like a good book..." The book was Naked Lunch. It was a mountain of a book which I slowly climbed over the space of a year. Climbing then falling, then higher, then tumbling, then resting, and ascending finally to the peak, before 'accidentally' slipping back to a midway point and climbing back up to the top only via a different route. I discovered that there are no set paths, that most things, that most people are actually quite abstract - only we have become accustomed to or conditioned so that we just accept it, 'it' being life I suppose. In reality there is no such thing as a right way, a wrong way, as black and white, as truth and lies, just a whole bunch of variables amongst a wide range of perspectives - all of which are fine, all of which are good and true. The beauty of Naked Lunch is the search for meaning, yes there is a narrative but it is mangled amongst a whole car crash of text; it requires a lot of imagination and absolutely no preconceptions of what it is, or for that matter isn't. No author ever finishes a piece of work, be it a book, a photograph, a piece of design. It is always the reader that finishes it. An author merely guides you, in the case of a book, helps you to paint out a world, a world that is never the same in any two minds. Probably the reason why film adaptations of books are so disappointing, "That isn't how I imagined it to be" well of course it isn't, you didn't make the film! William never finished this book, I did, and if you have read this book, you did too. We took from it all we could and made our own minds up. It was during my second year in Sheffield that my eyes began to open to this idea (this may have been encouraged by finally going to art college). It was about this time I realised it was fine to think differently and most definitely fine to express this in whatever way possible. It is also fine when others do not understand, or when I do not understand, disconnection is as valid an experience as connection. Burroughs did not hold back. He bled his junkie blood on to the page so thickly that you can feel it pulse. And most importantly I discovered that actually, to achieve that ambition of writing the scariest book EVER! I would need to look beyond the paranormal, that I would have to delve right into the human psyche and pull out the most terrifying thing of all - ourselves.

We Want War...

2010-01-11T11:17:00.001Z

I am eagerly anticipating the new These New Puritans album. This video is quite hypnotic.

DVNO

2010-01-09T12:24:00.001Z

Belated post I suppose, I forgot how cool this video is. It makes me sweat just thinking of all the typographic hard work gone into this!

Successometer... Burroughs... Backmasking

2009-12-15T22:39:00.002Z

Forget the Goatskin certificate stamped with "first class honours," forget job offers and internships, Google is the new commander and chief when it comes to post graduate success.
That's right I Google myself when I am bored! And others it is true. But that is only because I rely on Google to indicate/gauge my own success. And at the minute I am feeling pretty swell as I have just discovered that one of my zines "Altered Meanings," is included in UWE (Bristol)'s Artist Book Special Collections.

William S. Burroughs believed that when you rearrange text you find a new, more honest meaning. Three notable Burrough's books were written in this way and are now known as the Cut Up/Nova Trilogy. Messages can be hidden but pertrude on a subconscious level. Many other Authors and artists have adopted this technique. Similarly hidden meanings and honesty are believed to be found in back masking (famously adopted by The Beatles and famously not adopted by Led Zeppelin "If there's a bustle in youre hedgerow, don't be alarmed now," becomes "Here's to my sweet Satan, I sing because I live with Satan" hmm) and there is a whole form of psycho analysis based around this technique. Again it can be found in images, subtle placement of images, or images flashing rapidly in between frames on film all are said to speak to the subconscious and somewhat controversially. Back to Burroughs, the man was fascinated with both mind control and how the 'man' wishes to control and cure the human condition - whether this is through machine, medicine, lobotomy, sex...

"but words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind wil soon encounter the limits of control."

Language is most definitely a virus that controls us, it has placed the question of purpose into our mouths. It has lead us to become destructive. It has lead us to become paranoid. It is probably innate. Language is the human condition.

I am interested in how the subconscious speaks to the conscious though dreams, through literacy, through free flow writing, self expression, dreams and spontaneity. How it sort of irons out our conscious thoughts and can almost become a new voice of reason or chaos respectively. This Altered Meanings project is ongoing so watch this space for more developments.

This Decade's Mine/Album of the decade...

2009-12-02T11:43:00.012Z

If you have Spotify you can hear my highlights of the decade here : Now That's What I Call a Decade 2000 - 2010

It is that time of year again (I am not referring to Christmas). I will make the trip down Oldham Street and into Piccadilly Records, a journey I take often, but, at this time of the year, as I pay for whatever difficult-to-get-hold-of CD/vinyl there is an added perk. On the counter, amongst all the zines, flyers and free badges, there it is. Highlight of my festive season. Piccadilly Records' Albums of the Year. An opportunity to catch up on all the music I have missed, equally to brag about all the music I haven't. Only this year, it will be Albums of the Decade - Oh boy! I have not made that journey yet, and I wish to compile my own list right here first.

THE DECADE.
It was the decade when politics became a personality contest (thanks to some Freudian psychology gone horribly wrong); 9/11 sent aftershocks throughout religious groups, colliding cultures, terrorists and conspiracy theorists alike; war struck a controversial chord within each and every person in the western world; the digital era finds it's footing and molds a whole community dependent on connection speed rather than geographical placing; a western generation would be born and not know life without the internet; music piracy and theft hit a peak thanks to the internet and file sharing causing cuts in the overall creativity of the music industry; thanks to nano technology not only can we carry our entire music catalog around with us, but we can expect to live forever (that one may not be quite true, yet); global warming has secured an apocalypse for the human race and it is closer than we think... but there may still be time to solve that one.

2000-2010 has been a very important decade for me personally, it has been a pivotal decade, the decade where I have become an adult. I have had to deal with things like teenage angst, puberty, adolescent love/lust, Exams, Exams, Exams, hormones, life changing decisions, high school, then college, then university, another life changing decision, one insane allergic reaction, messy messy messy nights out (and in), a couple of suicide attempts (not by me), death (for the record, neither suicide nor murder), throw in a couple more heart wrenching decisions, more hormones, becoming a fully grown adult person, financial instability, un petit depression, a lot of tears, a lot of laughter, a bit of betrayal, a first class honors degree and I think we have just summarized my life in the last decade. A shaky one. But at every low, and at every high I have had a piece of music by my side. It was the decade I discovered music in a serious way. The decade that I fell in love with David Bowie. The decade that I broke my addiction to Queen (I listened to nothing but for most of my childhood) and branched out. A decade that I am proud to be a part of.

THE MUSIC
Now for the important bit.
(much trickier than I thought, check out playlist for my highlights of 00-10: Now That's What I Call A Decade 2000-2010)

10. MGMT- Oracular Spectacular

New age and beautifully innovative.

9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell

For energy, dancability and personality

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Date With The Night
Uploaded by Yeah-Yeah-Yeahs. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

8. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Isolation and heartache fed the beauty of this album (I'm just off into hibernation for three months then...)

7. Jamie T - Panic Prevention

Witty lyrics, Jamie T rivals Alex Turner as story teller of the decade, only I feel Jamie's songs are slightly more edgy and experimentally diverse

6. The Libertines - Up the Bracket

Finishing off what the strokes started, molding the music of this generation

5. The White Stripes - Elephant

Minimalist rock n roll

4. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in the People

Anti minimalist Canadian Super group, lo-fi, quirky well written songs.

3. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain

Innovative production, unusual vocals, well crafted

2. Arcade Fire - Funeral

A new surreal world created another Canadian Supergroup, a beautiful album with some perfectly written songs

1. The Strokes - Is This It

This was probably the album that saved a generation. Before this all the kids had were mainstream radio stations, nu-metal, a fizzling out hip hop scene, (ahem) 'vintage' music, and Coldplay. Things were looking bad. Nothing was happening. Then The Strokes arrived. It was the perfect antidote for the times. Everything about this band opened my eyes as a 15 year old adolescent. Skinny jeans and trousers two inches too short, disheveled hair, leather jackets, knackered high tops. This band had an unkempt sexuality oozing from their Stratocaster and Epiphone guitars. Even the album cover (UK version different to US) oozed sexuality and roused my curiosity. A kinky simplistic photograph donning the words "Is This It" in sans, red type, echoes the album's raw simplicity and entices us in. The title is filled with dissatisfaction, disappointment and angst that perhaps ran parallel with the feelings towards the music of the time, but they are most certainly not the emotions provoked by 'Is This It.' So you peel back the cellophane wrapper, swing open the case and pop out that most obsolete music format, the Compact Disk, place it into the stereo, and what can you expect? Music that has influences from drone bands of the past such as The Velvet Underground, catchy and disjointed licks reminiscent of Television, and a sort of dry, don't-give-a-shit energy of proto-punkers The Stooges. The songs are unpolished, roughly cut yet perfectly ensembled. All of it seems so obvious and familiar but no one else had released this album, it belonged to The Strokes. All glory may be rested upon Julian Casablancas' having written the album, but each other Stroke added their own style to the sound. It may be Casablancas' baby, but it could not have happened in the same way without the procreation and influence of Nick Valensi, Albert Hammond Jnr, Fab Moretti, and Nikolai Fraiture. Yes the have grand names, they look good, they have written three great albums (not to such great critical acclaim however), not to mention some stellar solo projects. This is what started it:

The Strokes- Last Night
Uploaded by fuzz59.

If this album had been released a year later it would have been too late, it helped shape the music scene of this decade, paving the way for bands like The Libertines, The Kings of Leon, Franz Ferdinand, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Arctic Monkeys and many many others. It secured an audience and dare I say a scene for a lot the bands featured in this list. It is an album misunderstood by older generations who simply don't get it, that is because they weren't there which only assures it's place in this generation's hearts.

Is This It is not only the album of the decade but the album that kick started the decade.

Northern Soul Dancing...

2009-12-01T20:24:00.006Z

Nowhere to Run Spotify Playlist
www.mandigoodier.co.uk

My Boyfriend's Band This... My Boyfriend's Band That...

2009-12-01T15:19:00.006Z

It isn't often that I use this blog as a plug for others but...
So Drummer extraordinaire Andrew Moss and his band Bony Ghosts are regulars on BBC 6musics Tom Robinson's Introducing show (he bloody loves them!) This week their song "The Curse" features on the podcast, so download it would ya! They are approx 37mins in, but there is also a lot of other great new bands featured so don't just skip to the best bit... DOWNLOAD HERE!

Photos: Mandi Goodier originals (before I made books and Mick Rocks career was all I wanted!)
www.myspace.com/bonyghosts

A Very Bob Dylan Christmas...

2009-11-19T11:39:00.008Z

Bobby D?... Have you... please tell me you haven't.... I mean how could you... I don't mean to be rude... but... have you been straightening your hair???? You kinda look like an old Kurt Cobain.

I hear Bob's to star as a lead vocal in the next Muppet Christmas Movie (source: Adam Buxton). Still got to love a Bob that loves Christmas!

Now let's just juxtapose that with one of the earliest examples of the music video directed by D A Pennebaker (and a personal favorite track)

Note: Bearded fella in the back Allen Ginsberg he's probably 'contemplating Jazz' with another hip cat, Bob Neuwirth.

I guess "Must Be Santa" was inevitable.
Right feeling Christmassy as hell now (hell's not so Christmassy by the way. I'll start feeling festive in December - there's plenty of time for that.) I'm off to roll around in some tinsel.
DYLAN FOR CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE!

My First Artist Book...

2009-11-16T17:41:00.008Z

Here is my first ever self published book, made when I was six/seven. It was a school project called "My Best Fiend" based on a childrens book of the same title. It is full of naive drawings and endearing spelling mistakes. It also makes very little sense to any one who isn't me...

Here is the synopsis (complete with spelling mistakes)

"This is a story about my best friend (who's rely a fiend.) Read about the gunge and waht about school and the lake."

"Like thay alwas say 'you little devel' ha ha ha"

Here you can see I dedicated it to Karen Moriarty, however it was originally dedicated to Mrs Dickinson. I changed my mind because I probably had an attack of conscience and was unsure how appropriate it was to dedicate a book to a teacher I adored. (Yes I thought about stuff like that at such a young age!)

"The man went flying on the gunge."

"Karen shouted note fight. But we all put our names on the bottom. Karen put teachers have fat toes. And accidentally put my name on too."

"Next day was satturday and Karen went to a lake and fell in."

£12.99 at the time - bargain! Imagine what that Mandi Goodier original is worth now!
(also dig the way I spelt published - puberlished)

All in all the story was pretty rubbish as were the illustrations. I was generally good at story telling and drawing but obviously just crumbled under the pressure of a potential publishing deal - which I clearly blew! We got up to much better mischief than that in reality. We used to sit at the back of the field, in the over grown bit, eating wild berries and being late for class. The teachers always complimented us on our vivid imaginations! There was one game called treasure where we hid each others toys, Karen brought in some fake gems, I buried them and lost them forever. We used to play farm yard animals at break time and eat all the crisps on the ground that the other kids had dropped, when the playground supervisor saw this, she made us stand by the wall for the rest of break, we commenced drawing on the ground with stones. The time I had to sit in the naughty corner for biting a kids shoulder, Karen came and kept me company even though she had done no wrong. I made up a sweet ghost story about the fallen rail track that ran across the back of the school (if you ever make the journey Manchester - Liverpool via Warrington, you pass my old primary school) I invented a psycho killer I dubbed the Red Murderer. Before we knew it kids were coming up to us from all directions and years, reporting sightings of a sinister red shadowy figure, or hearing crying babies (his victims - I watched a lot of horror movies!) Come to think of it, maybe I was the fiend! I have not seen nor heard from Karen since the age of eight. I thought I saw her one time a couple of years ago sat in the street, I just walked past not saying anything.

Stolen from Viceland...

2009-11-16T13:31:00.002Z

It just made me laugh...

"First they came for the bikers and I did not speak out – because I was not a biker;
Then they came for the townies and I did not speak out – because I was not a townie;
Then they came for the metrosexuals, and I did not speak out – because I was not a metrosexual;
Then they came for THE HIPSTERS – but there was no one left to speak out for me…"

Pastor, (ahem) Niemöller?

The Waitress...

2009-11-10T14:14:00.008Z

The business men, middle aged, greying, thinning, fattening, sit around their San Pellengrino with a slice of lime and nicoise salads, discussing interest and numbers. The mothers at the next table wonder if they know what it means to live. The mothers, late twenties/early thirties, new buggies blocking all ways to the table, sit around smirmoff and lemonade/pinot grigio, breastfeeding, and say things like c section and perspective, the elderly couple at the next table smile, knowing that they have a lot left to live. The elderly couple, serene and sweet, sit with a double gin and tonic and a large glass of Chianti, a newspaper crossword and a book, at peace at ease, they use no words, they need no words, the table of teenagers to their left wonder how much longer they have left to live. The teenagers sit around their margarita pizzas, rolling their eyes at each other and offering quips of sarcasm and materialistic comments, use words like adidas and iPod, the waitress walks by and wonders when they will learn to live.

The waitress holds in her hand a tray, fresh San Pellengrino precariously balanced on it. She takes it to the business men, they laugh ignoring her presence. The girl is a sell out. She has sold out on all morals, not permanently, just for this job. She offers the men a sweet seductive smile, an attempt to seem affable, a push for tips. She doesn't see it but her fake seductive smile actually distorts on the journey from her lips to the retina of the recipient, it is a smile tangled with a creep and a psycho, it is intense and OTT. They shoo her away, barely a thanks muttered. They assume she is a child who understands nothing about living, that she is unintelligent, that she knows nothing beyond Warrington. They judge her, she is angered, and in turn judges them. Self important ex-yuppies, all grown up and still stuck here. But she doesn't know them, just as they do not know her so she lets the judgment go. She approaches the table of teenagers who she secretly envies but in no way wants to be. Offers a lame attempt at rad spiel - an ironic attempt, nothing serious. If anything an attempt to make them laugh, a satirical dig at their own behavior - as if they don't take themselves seriously. It turns out they do take themselves seriously and she is met with blank faces and insulting whispers. She takes their desserts over, a candle sticking out of one, another fake smile and a rendition of happy birthday. They are not expecting it, she wishes to embarrass the young tykes, serves them right. But they dig it. They dig the waitress who's idiolect is a bizarre concoction of 60's slang, jive talk and the modern trend of uncertain utterances. She uses words such as "like" "dig" "hip" and "David Bowie."

A fly buzzing round the restaurant captures the attention of a business man. He shoos at it lazily. In a pathetic attempt to impress the aging yuppsters, the heroic waitress dashes across the restaurant menu held high over her head, ready to swat. Quickly before her eyes a red light flashes. Her brain cries quickly -NOOOOO. It has sold out on most of its morals but this one, this is an important one. She is in no way a vegan, vegetarian, pescatarian, only cares slightly about animal cruelty (is mostly just afraid of animals), yet this is a moral she has adopted believing that it will keep her out of a lot of trouble with the psyche, karma and ultimately the law. Do not kill anything that crunches. If you hear it crunch, squeek or scream when killing it, you have definitely done a bad thing. The menu high above her head, the fly trembling, 2000 images of it's life flashing before it's eyes, of dung and newspapers and trash and fresh food and flight and repeatedly flying into windows. The business men look at her with greed, lust and anticipation. Her eyes flick between them and the fly and then an image of her self reflected in a mirrored wall then back to the men. She timidly lowers the menu, the fly makes his escape, the men look at the slightly unhinged young woman.
"Erm, can I get you anything else?" She offers from a reddened face.
"Yeh actually, we ordered some garlic bread, where is that?" She looks at their empty plates
"Erm, sorry. I'll just get that for you."
"No no, forget it."
She approaches the chefs, the boys in the kitchen. The boys in the kitchen are convinced she writes erotic fiction in her spare time, initially as a wind up and, since she made no effort to deny this, it wasn't too far from the truth, it stuck, they dug it. She cringes at forgetting the garlic bread, they give her a new one. She takes it to the table.
"I said forget it!"

The elderly man beckons her over with a polite grin, orders two cognac and asks for the bill. She graciously pours them out and takes them over. The mothers, now tipsy, place their well fed new borns back into their prams and also ask for the bill. The final two tables also make hand gestures for the bill. The draw into the air using an invisible pen onto an invisible ticket which is held in the palm of their hands. She prints all four placing them onto shiny silver trays, reflecting a flawed, image of her face. She pauses. Her image is transfigured by the dents and scratches upon the tray, made by cash payments, coins and tips past.

She attempts small talk whilst taking card payments. Yes, one last push for loose change. A vulture. A begger. Not proud. She hates small talk so has resorted to just saying anything that is on her mind, something which has mixed reception, blank looks, silence, conversation, giggles.
"Say do you know the music video to David Bowie's Heroes?" The business men ignore her. The card payment goes through the machine, she feels like telling them. "I'm not stupid you know. I have a degree. Someone once actually said I am intelligent and I should..." But remains silent. No tip on card. She leaves an "Enjoy the rest of your day," at the table, a long with the reflective begging tray. When she started this job she didn't care about tips, just earning an honest wage. It turned out Waitressing is not a simple task and if it wasn't for the tips she would quit. But she was still honest. She was sure of that. She went the extra mile to earn that tip, and knew when one wasn't deserved. It was all false in one sense but if it made her work harder for the customers, then they were happy, the boss was happy, she got her tip, she is happy, who cares about authenticity. The kids leave the service charge. The new mums leave a pound. The elderly couple enjoy the forced conversation and place in her hand a fiver. She is warmed by their generosity and thanks them graciously, half ashamed, half enlightened - she isn't that shit after all. She clears tables ready for the next lot. The suits, the girls night out, the young families, the first dates, the last dates, she anticipates all walks of life. They are all living. None of them as she would as none of them are her. She wonders if they will ever know how living really is. She wonders if she will ever know how really living is. She waits for her life to begin. But it is already upon her. She panics.

My Dog Ate My Blog...

2009-11-09T15:33:00.002Z

Here is one neglected blog from a not so neglected soul.
There is a reason for the neglect this blog has suffered.
In fact there is more than one.
Negligence is quite a negative thing, yet I assure you that my excuses are positive.
It is like when I went on holiday with my dad as a child, and neglected to call my mum, I would apologise for my negligence, normally in tears, and she would reply
"Don't be sorry, I know you haven't rang because you have not had the time, what with all the fun things you've been doing."
Typically the fun things would be running down super steep sand dunes to the beach, or tiresomely and feebly attempting to climb back up the dry tumbling mounds, or queuing up to go on the camp site's sole water slide, gaining a verruca (a verruca I still have, 15 years later), being stung 4 times consecutively by the same wasp (I still bare the scar on my stomach), watching magic/illusion shows, playing bingo, spending hours on the arcade machines - figuring at an early age that learning to drive will only be a negative thing due to the series of crashes accumulated during a game of ridge racer.
It is in the same vain that this blog has been neglected.
I have been doing too many good things, and have not had the time time.
So here is my list of good reasons to neglect a blog.

1. Parlour Press
Yes folks, Parlour Press is here, a new tour de force in book making.
Five rather attractive ladies donning a rather attractive set of handmade books.
Libby and I spent a day with a feast of oatmeal and raisin cookies, millionaires flapjack, soup and lemon and ginger tea... and inDesign, and Nouvaeu-esque typefaces, and swirls, and paper, and doodles..... Eventually we got us a logo. Later I spent the evening with a packet of sour sweets and wrote a sugar induced manifesto... I actually thought I was Allen Ginsberg by the end of it.

www.parlourpress.blogspot.com

Contemporary book makers or contemporary folk, close vocal harmony group that the hip kids are going to dig?

2. Manchester Artist Book Fair

Parlour Press took it's books on tour, to the Manchester Artist Book Fair. The build up to this event comprised of many many many days and evenings spent with a half dead printer, cutting down A0 paper to A4, sewing books, ruining books, rescuing half eaten paper from the mouth of the half dead printer, folding, rolling and sticking until final I had a set of books/zines to sell.
8 Altered Meanings
8 Transitions
13 Identity
6 Scrolls

At the book fair we were met with a combination of praise, interest and propositions.
Everyone at the Parlour Press managed to sell. There was a small impact to my stash of hand made zines/books - which truly did have a D I Y feel. We were naive young whippersnappers at the book fair compared to the stalls and stalls of pros. The new school. We learned a lot from our first fair which we will be taking with us to the next fair. Yes there will be a next fair...
I have sent 4 books on tour with Lucy May Schofield. So long books, Seeya in a year....

3. Out of the Cupboard

Finally, somehow, somewhere amongst the chaos and anxiety caused by the prospect of making books, my mum managed to actualise her promise turning the spare room into a studio. I have now left my temporary home within an old cupboard and I have a desk. Not only do I have a desk I have my grandad's old wallpapering table - which is where I constructed my books. My mum wishes to paint the wall papering table black - to comply with the rooms colour scheme of black an white. There are two reasons why I do not want her to do this. 1. The black paint my scratch and rub off onto my work. 2. (The reason I haven't told her) There are numbers and markings on the table in my grandad's hand. My studio is a little bland at the minute, all I have on my wall is a Andy Warhol print of a gun (over layed and offset) and a newspaper print of three men jumping from the WTC (this is a dark piece of inspiration. It is a sign of the times, the frailty of humanity, it also reminds me that when I am low I can always jump - this makes me not want to jump and thus inspires me to carry on, make the most of things.)

4. Manchester Literature Festival

I attended three events and wrote three reviews which can be found on the Manchester Literature Festival Blog. It was quite enjoyable, but I can't help feeling with a little more notoriety behind me I could have wrote of some of the bigger names such as Martin Amis and Will Self... Here are my posts:
Six by Six
Writing about place
There is Magic in Looking at Words and Pictures

5. Goldsmiths Open Day

Yes it is time I considered my future. I recently took the Vann for a visit to Goldsmiths University where we looked at the course Art Writing. There was a super massive queue which on our walk to the back Lucy and I simultaneously announced two Dad jokes "It's like Alton Towers"/"This ride better be worth it!" making all the hip kids in the queue stare with disdain.
As you may or may not know I like to write, but I also like to design and image make. I have found quite a comfortable relationship between these two in the form of artists books. It is now time to decide which aspect of this relationship I wish to work on a MA level. I have visited two courses, LCC - Graphic Design, and this Goldsmiths course. Design or writing? I am 100% torn.
London will be ours.

6. My Dog Ate My Blog...

This one isn't true. I do not have a dog.

7. Work

I have to earn money to save for a Masters.

8. Audio
One final distraction, Podcasts and Audiobooks. Adam and Joe are my new full time friends. In fact I think I may be suffering some kind of Adam and Joe related disease. I wake up early on Saturday mornings to listen to their breakfast show - thus making me a member of the Black Squadron, I listen to their podcast in the week and then this last week past I listened to a backcatalogue of old podcasts, I sing their jingles at work to help the day flow, I have adapted their idiolect... Yes I am addicted and they have even made their way into my dreams. Lucy Vann seems to be suffering similar symptoms. We need a diagnosis from Dr.Sexy (that in itself is a Adam and Joe reference). STEPHEN?

I have also been listening to the old Mighty Boosh radio series which I had almost completely forgotten. Noticing similarities between the Howard Moon character and a certain ex-tutor makes it extra extra hilarious. (Tutors should not be offended by this remark)
Masses of audio books have been consumed - does this mean I can say I have read the books or just listened to them?
Also I am collecting and listening to spotify playlists.

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST RULES...
I wish to revive the art of mix tape.
So if you have spotify make me a playlist.
It must be 21 songs long (or there abouts)
It must be about yourself/your current frame of mind - it seems the music we listen to at certain points in our lives reflect the way we feel. Songs should not be chosen for the sole reason of - 'oh man I'm showing off my obscure music taste' or 'you are going to just love this.'
Other than that you are on your own.
To send a playlist simply drag and drop the title of your playlist into an email. Or ctrl click (right click PC users) and copy link. In return I will send my playlist.
Send them here

mandigoodier@gmail.com

and I will love you forever!