PRIMES / random

FOOTSTEPS INTO THE EXPLODED

2009-04-05T21:30:00.003+01:00

I JUST WOKE UP

2009-02-19T21:20:00.003Z

Today is the first day in 3 years that I have not woken up to my laptop.

I used to wake, subconscious soup still swirling and spitting, to the information onslaught. Confusing the what might be reality in the machine with the what might also be reality in my dreams, I'd start the typing and reading while the brain and the heart still lingered last night. Without allowing even a few minutes to sit up in bed to reflect on the previous hours of visions, nor even the opportunity to wish for the day, I would reach under the bed, pull up the white Apple with one hand, and wake Snow Princess 2, to launch into...

50 emails that can all "GROW MY MANHOOD", a beeping calendar of projects undone, the ego boost of "how many hits did we get today?" and then the crush when I've realized our server has been hacked and our sites all point to some dick head's "GET THE BEST MALWARE SOFTWARE PROTECTION HERE". Scrubbing the sleep out of my eyes, but nearly not needing to as the tears well up with the blood pressure...

Nope. This morning, I left Snow Princess 2 to blip blip blip her pulsing incandescent. I sat up slowly and said hmm to the dream last night. Erik came to London again. It wasn't planned, he just showed up. He looked at the ground with a bit of a grin and shuffled his feet when we started to pass the facades...

Blip blip blip, I knew she was there, she always is. Light pouring in through unshaded windows, chocolate smell of Americanos, clip clip clip of Jack's hard soled shoes on the tiled grey floor. My unusually slow morning attention turned to the bureau, the one rescued from the alley behind The White Lodge.

In the bureau, not Snow Princess 2 with all of her music and museings, but a pillow book, with all of *her* music and museings.

(softly and a bit cute) "Jack? Will you bring me a pen?"
(gently and funny) "A pin? What kind of pin?"
(enunciating this time) "A pen. On my desk there are a few."
(just funny) "I thought you said pin and was wondering if you are a Kiwi now?"

Through the fabric wall a pen emerged.
"You can't go through the wall!"
"It's not a wall! It's just fabric."
Morning happy still sleepy giggles. Sun still pouring through the unshaded window.

Before the information onslaught, and before the worries of a ridiculous day...

I just woke up.

THE DECREES OF FABLISM / PT. 1

2008-12-17T08:37:00.000Z

The religious order of Fablism, and it's followers, Fablists, put forth the following decrees:

1. Candy, silk, the wearing of audio headphones, and the drinking of Pepsi is forbidden (Coca Cola is OK).
2. "Hawaiian" deep dish pizza can only be consumed between 3.00 - 5.00pm every third Sunday.
3. Mass gathering for worship occurs at 2pm everyday. And we mean exactly 2pm. Even if one is in midst of operating heavy machinery or dangling from a cliff, worship must commence at 2pm.
4. Worship sessions involve muttering the "16 Sentences of Truth" indiscernably so that no worshipper abreast can understand what you are saying. Worship sessions are followed by an invigorating 15 minute group game of dodgeball.
5. Whomever is struck last with the dodgeball at the end of the 15 minutes must go home later that evening and pray, pray, pray really hard to avoid having his/her flesh burning for eternity in Hell.
6. Homosexuality is forbidden. Any individual practicing homosexuality shall thereforth be draped in a white sheet and painted to match the surrounding scenery and be unseen (this, of course, is difficult if the individual is highly mobile).
7. Materialism and money are looked down upon. But like most religions, money is thrown around and practiced with fervour and modesty is paid by lip service in theory and conversation. In fact, in Fablism, it is decree to say one is not interested in money but then to be striving to make as much of a fortune as possible in practice.
8. All other forms of worship are wrong. They are all idiots.
9. Even when totally proven wrong, such as being called on Fablist belief that rubbing one's skin in acetone makes one look younger and attractive... they are still all idiots.
10. One must sleep in a bed approximately 3/4 the length of the sleeper's actual body length or they will go to Hell.

Note: Fablists are extremely good at dodgeball.

(Inspired by the book "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut).

YOU HIGH OR SOMEDING TANYA?

2008-12-03T23:30:00.002Z

"I love youuuu." As she melts into embrace her dear friend Patrick the once flickering star gobos begin to rain hot pinks and oranges, hipsters dancing turn to a sea of the same, the 808 kick thuds in to fill her belly, the melody sweeps so finely, divinity rising. Then snap! They pull apart, seductive deliciousness coursing through veins. Crackle! A data flash and the warehouse roof turns to wide open sky and Pop! They grin and they dance til dawn to the beat of that drum.

DO YOU WEIGH AS MUCH AS A LOLLIPOP?

2008-11-21T18:14:00.001Z

A RECAP AND A REWIND

2008-10-27T12:04:00.006Z

DISCOVERING THINGS IN HINDSIGHT

This is what happens in a giant whirlwind. Running around frantically to find a new place to put your roots, little things left undone and then when you finally have the time to reflect you can enjoy things after they have happened. A weird phenomenon and interesting but something you don't want to continue for a long period of time.

Discovering things in hindsight. Unearthing packets of information on the www have let me to find that the emotive hardcore band, Portraits of Past, have reunited and been playing shows in support of a discography of sorts on Ebullition Records. Finding this out sort of rattled my brain, thinking a lost of music from that era would effected be blanketed in the smoky haze of history. After the demise of that project a majority of the members went on to play in The Audience who then turned into Vue; both of whom I've had the chance to see or share a stage with. I haven't run into them for a while as time and moving around does those sorts of things. It's an interesting statement, the action in itself; having the last 10 plus years of music see that era of hardcore/punk spawn the seeds for the post-punk/indie/dance-punk and have that whole movement co-opted into some sort of strange chariacture of hip mobile phone adverts and Indie MySpace blog of the week profiles. Oh, that's another tangent altogether...

Portraits of Past were a great band and out of that era makes for a group of records I still listen to that can still resonate after all the years. There's some spacial, ethereal quality to the recording of their final LP that was a lot different than the records their contemporaries were putting out (well - there was a sense of space on some of the Hoover and post-Hoover projects as well). The choice of chord structures and guitar interplay makes this record as well. Here's some footage of them at one of their recent "reunion" shows in Berkeley, CA:

Ah, a time when bands were named after American presidents or medical conditions, everyone had a zine, rows of 7"s and 12"s in cardboard boxes at shows in poorly lit community centers, and when HeartattaCk Magazine seemed like it was the most read publication in the underground....

JUST LIKE THE OLDE TIMES

2008-10-11T11:07:00.004+01:00

Every so often I'll have really involved, crazy dreams where waking up is like crossing out of one world into another; a one grounded in reality. This particular dream has it's "inspiration" rooted in the current global financial crisis; a crisis which to which some of it was sparked by the irresponisibility and astronomical greed of big city bankers. Imagine if you will: people these days actually getting upset about losing their life savings, pensions, security – getting upset about things like a peasant would in the middle ages if the lord took all of his/her sheep (or duckets or whatever the hell type money they were using back then...). That peasant would be heading for the nearest pitchfork for a good ol' fashioned lynching. I saw people rallying outside of pubs and parks and heading for the nearest banking headquarters in The City, finding all the bigwigs and tying them securely with industrial strength rope in cocoons to large wooden poles. These poles were then stacked on large logging trucks like matchsticks and hauled off to some field somewhere out of the city. This field was just a giant tinderbox of dead branches and across this plain were the poles erected like antennas. All of a sudden the field was in a blaze. The dream was a little over the tip and "biblical" in the over-drama but it probably reflects the moods and feelings of a lot of people out there right now who are really questioning what the fuck is happening to their livelihoods, savings, etc.

On a lighter note, here's an automated drawing Tanya and I did a number of weeks ago during an online chat to some friends back home:

ENTERTAINMENT OF LATE

2008-09-30T16:25:00.006+01:00

This one's dedicated to shows we've seen, events we've checked out over the last few months...

June 9th, 2008
Matmos with Carter Tutti (aka Chris and Cosey from Throbbing Gristle) at the Beaconsfield Art Space.

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June 17th, 2008
Jazz Steppa live at Massive Attack's Meltdown Festival at The Southbank Centre.

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July 4th, 2008
Celebrated Jack's Birthday with Thick as Thieves at Electricity Showrooms.

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August 2nd, 2008
House Party with our German friend KE4 and his German friends.... we drank wine.

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September 7th, 2008
Jack and I saw the wonders of earth, space, plants, and animals at the Natural History Museum. We wondered if in the future we'll be making more trips to the museum to see... you know... plants and animals...

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September 13th, 2008
Collision Festival http://www.collision.org.uk
We walked into the centre of a group of baying sheep, watched a performance piece which involved a double decker bus and flame throwers, saw a marching band, we missed Polly Fibre. All in all, I felt like I was at a right proper festival. Massive space, art installations throughout, audience participation. Art circus... Where the camera was through all of this, I'm not sure. Photos of us in Roderick's fancy hotel room after the show will have to suffice...

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September 27th, 2008
Benga DJ set at Loud Tate. Went there with our friend Cam Reed, who is visiting us from Vancouver. Yip, free music at the Tate Britain.

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September 28th, 2008
All that plus an impromptu introduction of the Night Loop at Resonance FM...

LOOPFAX REDUX

2008-08-29T20:30:00.000+01:00

This bad joke has been given some internet real estate a while back. Imagine the ultimate revenge to getting a "junk mail" fascimile; taping together 3 sheets of paper into a sort of endless loop and having that feed through the fax machine and sending it right back to them. But the fax doesn't stop and no-one could figure out how to pull the electrical cord. Centuries later the fax is still running and most of the world's forests are depleted feeding this fax machine...

SCI-FI TO CHECK OUT "HARMONICA AND GIG"

2008-08-15T11:23:00.006+01:00

We're hosting a blog tour for the latest Science Fiction novel "Harmonica and Gig" by RJ Astruc available now from Lilley Press. This post features a mini-interview with the author and more info about the book...

A little about RJ Astruc:
I'm an Irish/African speculative fiction writer currently based in Australia. Most of my writing concerns issues of race, gender, politics, and how freaking awesome it would be if the world worked exactly how I wanted it to. I have a long-suffering second husband and no pets.

21. Who drives your stories, you or your characters?
My plot drives everything, everyone else including me is just along for the ride.

22. What process do you use to write? Do you use an outline or do you sit down and write and see where it takes you?
I don't really outline, I just have in my head where I want things to go. I do use a 'blocking' method - I write everything in first draft format, from start to finish, rather than going through and writing it, then coming back to fix.

YouTube Trailer

"The rules of the qverse don't apply when you're dicing with its queen...."

Felix "Gig" McGuiggen is having one hell of a week. Arnold Lee, a mid-level programmer and all-around nobody, stabbed himself to death while jacked in to the virtual reality known as the "qverse." Viger Singer, Lee's employer, has offered Gig a million dollars to prove it was a suicide and not the first-ever murder by brain hack.
From the moment Gig said yes, he's been harassed, stalked, bugged, lied to, kidnapped, and nearly blown to smithereens. And that's just outside the qverse.

On the upside, his partner in crime solving is his idol, the mysterious hack known only as "Harmonica." But when Gig meets the legend at last, he isn't the crusty old dinosaur Gig expected, in fact, he's a she, and she's the woman of his most intricately detailed, impossible fantasies.

On the downside, Gig might not live long enough to do anything about it.

Talk to RJ Astruc! RJ Astruc will be chatting in the Lilley Press chat room on August 15th at 9pm EST! www.lilleypress.com/chat

ON THE TIPS OF TONGUES

2008-06-14T19:35:00.003+01:00

Let your eyes glide down the left side: we've posted some tracks we've been listening to in the Last.fm playlist box from our profile there. This one was rather quickly thrown together in a vague autobiographical way: tracks we've liked and commented on over the last little while, tracks that have reappeared due to news and word on the street, tracks that have been placed due to a chuckle. It would be interesting to post a playlist based on our sense of humour, but that might take a little more time...

TRASH TRASH TRASH

2008-06-14T11:45:00.000+01:00

If there's one thing I've noticed about London is a lot of trash everywhere. This is the case for every urban center but for the scope of relatively high living standards here; there's a lot of trash trash trash. And a lot of it is usable trash too. High quality and fashionable furniture and appliances just left out on the street, left to the elements that are still usable. Full un-assembled shelves and furniture still in boxes, computer parts, kitchen appliances, nice clothes, good classic books, and the list goes on. It somehow borderlines on insane at some points.

And there is, of course, what I like to call "dumb fucking garbage": recyclable cans and packages strewn on the street and in the regular trash bins. Apparently the Germans (namely Berlin) are on top of this shit and got the recycling up and running in full form on the city streets; likely in any given number of other European cities as well. Food wrapped in plastic wrapped in cardboard wrapped in plastic in a little plastic bag to be placed in a plastic tupperware thing. Who needs that much shit?

Given that, we've been growing a pretty sweet garden in the backyard of our place: spinach, salad leaves, watercress, carrots, garlic, dill, thyme, and peppers. In tandem with this rad little activity we've been making a lot of food pretty much from scratch:

pizzas / vegetable pies / aduki bean and potato curry samosas / hazelnut loaf roast / mushroom gravy / baked beans with molasses / Welsh rarebit / scratch-made flour tortillas, corn tortillas, and naan / lasagne / marinated veg skewers with halloumi cheese / salads with blue cheese and balsamic-mustard-olive oil dressing / vegetarian worcestershire sauce / west african peanut stew / apple empañadas / giant soups

THEORETICAL CHAIN SMOKING

2008-05-08T15:37:00.003+01:00

"I crave your indulgence at this mail coming from somebody you have not known before. I decided to do this after praying over the situation. You should please consider the transaction on its content and not the fact that you have not known me before. I need not dwell on how I came by your contact information because there are many such possibilities these days."

STRANGE DAY IN BRIXTON

2008-04-30T21:54:00.002+01:00

I walked into Serpent and the Rainbow.
Twisting markets, shop signage dating back to the 50s.
Some shops so small only the shop keeper could sit, not stand inside.
Their wares hung around them.
Caribbean fabric shops, shoe shops, religious shops - Catholic I think. Prayer cards and rosaries.
Incense shops, perfume shops, tropical fruit shops.
"Blessed" West Indian take away. Wigs, do-rags, braids, corn rolls, relaxers for £15.

Meat shops. It was the meat shops. No all of it, mixed together. Fruits in front of meat next to shoes. But the stench of the meat shops... the chickens hanging skinned with feathers still on their crown. The massive bin of cow legs with hooves in tact that sat under the corner of the awning where the rain dripped and the pool of water in the street collected. Bloody ribcages and the snap of cleaver against bone. For blocks. Halal!

The doorway I ducked into to roll a cigarette smelled like piss and human shit covered the wall. The rain was decidedly not so bad.

The girl that followed me for ages, my age and half my size "Can you spare a pound? I just need to eat."

The rasta in a wheelchair with a full body and shrunken legs.

The dude who asked me for a light while he was standing at the bank machine on the street. I said "Sure." He: "You have an accent, where are you from?" Me: "Canada." He: "I have relatives in Toronto." Me: "Oh." He: "Can you go to Canada with a criminal record?" Me thinking... can I have my lighter back now? Me saying: "I don't know." Thinking more: I need to get out of here. He: "Hey, do you want to come to my house for a drink? My mates are there, it's just around the corner."

It was 11:00 in the morning....

ORDERING FROM IKEA

2008-04-30T21:45:00.002+01:00

Jesse Taylor was over at our house. He wanted to order something from Ikea. I walked over to CDIS to ask Amy how to, she was working at the front desk. She showed me how to match all of the letters with numbers, it was a convoluted process. I walked back home. Jack wasn't around, or maybe he was. I think he was working on something. Computer related. Jesse wanted a tour of the flat. I started showing him around and in the process I noticed on the shelf in the corner a bowl of rotting food. Embarrassed. I said it was Jack's and kept on with the tour. I got to Mom's room, she lived with us, but Jesse was no longer on the tour. I didn't think Mom was there, I crawled into her bed. Turned around slowly, she was there. Lying. I thought she was dead. She looked dead. Pale, crumpled face. Her window was covered with shabby curtains and mostly boarded up, but some of the slats of boarding were coming apart. She woke, still alive and grabbed the hammer beside her bed. She started re-nailing the slats over the window. She didn't like the light streaming through.

AUTOMATIC WRITING 01

2008-04-22T16:25:00.002+01:00

FRACTURE MOVEMENT

snap electric
change here
airstream at you
breath intake
exhale out take
exit sound stage

enter

MOMENT FINGER
speckle tunnel
going nowhere
hold tight
thieves are known to operate in the area

STUDIES IN OBSERVATION / NO. 1

2008-04-10T18:07:00.000+01:00

001 | An old man in a grey wool suit, riding an old cruiser-style bike, back stiff and erect, riding down the road all wobbly, cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

002 | Two men in and empty parking spot down a side road in between two cars, sitting on two neglected computer workstation chairs on rollers. One of them is wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, and gumboots and chewing on sunflower streets.

003 | "And if I line up all my ducks in a row..." "And if I assymmetrically arrange my hot dogs..."

004 | Someone finding a moment of panicked clarity about their lack of productivity after the marijuana smoke dissipates.

005 | Tight levis, hi-top cons, white frame sunglasses and like 6 chains with padlocks around yr neck like an 80's hiphop star.

006 | Tents and laughter in our back yard.

SUBCONSCIOUS UPLOADING

2008-03-25T07:32:00.000Z

Twin Crystals.
Video inserts. I moved them around to make a collage. But not with Final Cut or with my hands. Mind moving frames. Jesse, in a suit, in the left of the frame, singing no keyboard. Shadow in the distance. Ultra marine low lit blue. Black and white 60s TV dominates the centre, emitting the static we remember as the past.

Flicker out and switch to Tanya Pea.

Upload the soccer video. Without the ball or the players or the field. Although, there was a field, a green field, and flowers poke out of the grass. Flowers. They just grew. What were they? We know data rates not names of flowers. The sun shines, warm on naked skin. Slight figure before the camera. Love camera. Boyfriend camera. God camera. He looks like my reflection with a metal outer shell and I see me through his eyes. Watch myself sing the words. Miss a line. Slow motion look away. Step towards the lens. Close up memory moment when innocent happiness finds forever. I bite my lip a little and smile at my mistake.

THE WEEK THAT EXPLODED

2008-03-09T20:32:00.000Z

is a shining light in a carbon horizon.

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL

2008-03-09T20:27:00.000Z

Or the sleeve rather. The executive producer of Hazel O'Connor's "Breaking Glass" is Dodi Fayed, the man who died with Princess Diana in the tunnel, the owner of Harrod's, and the man who called the Duke of Edinburgh a "Nazi"...

WRITTEN DOWN IN SLOT TWO

2008-03-04T11:27:00.001Z

It is nighttime in the spring in our place in London. Previously we had broken into a treacherous construction site (something being built in the 2012 Olympics scheme) and lifted numerous sheets of wood, bricks, and cement and transported them back to our place in a large, abandoned baby buggy.

Over the course of a few days, we then built a sound-proof studio in the backyard. Sometime shortly thereafter we are phoned up by a writer for a music magazine who is requesting an interview. We choose a children's playground rundown council estate at 11:30pm. We bring along six cans of cheap beer and meet the interviewer. We talk for a while and then find a piece of wood board and proceed to use it like a snowboard to perform rail slides down the edges of the children's slide. At the bottom of the slide there is a pool of what appears to be scorched engine oil. After sliding the rail on the board we land in the oil and disappear into the Black Lodge*.

* As represented in the television program "Twin Peaks".

FOUND

2008-02-14T14:37:00.000Z

I've found some things in London. Not all material, but some material type items. In the material category is photos of strangers. I keep finding them. Or they find me. I just look down or on a shelf and there is another picture of someone I've never met. Here is one of them, and the back too.

LNDN FLDS

2007-12-30T21:54:00.001Z

Sticking the head out of the crazy workshop here for a moment and dropping a few random cards on the table. See you all in good health and good teeth in two thousand eight...

THE ORB LIVE 95 - VANCOUVER

2007-11-09T21:10:00.001Z

I love this...

LETTERS IN A NATURAL FORM

2007-09-04T05:33:00.000+01:00

After years of procrastinating on it and in preparation to really pare down a lot of my personal effects, I organized a lot of my letters that were written to me between 1994 and around 1999 I'd say. Lot's of old things I forgot and, of course, some hilarious excerpts (spelling as it was intact):

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LETTER SAMPLE 1

June 1, (1988?)
Dear Jack

Sorry I didn't get the letters cruising because I lost your letter and then I found it 9 mouths later. I got the metro-staiton and the Pirete ship. There are some new things in town like the track, loggers-spotes got moved, new buildings, and they put grass in on the play-ground. My birthday is in 7 day or June 8th/79 and I got a 12-spped bike for an Easter present. I still live in the same house we have got some new neibuirs.

Nick Brown

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LETTER SAMPLE 2

(note circa 1998)
P.S. [NAME] has really changed, I don't really feel too comfortable around him now - sux. tour was such a big bonding thing but now he's just Victoria Kid X.
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I heard THREE MILE PILOT got back together today. That is quite the "hiatus" (ie: 10 years?)...