Brown and Mucky Trousers

Exciting plans

2010-08-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

I probably shouldn't be writing this because any plans I usually outline on this blog end up changing beyond all recognition or simply never materialise at all. Nonetheless, here's the plan...

Over the coming months I will be publishing selections from the glut of short fiction I've been hammering out over the last couple of years. Many of them will appear in a forthcoming collection provisionally entitled "Babbage's Disease & Other Fictions", which will be disseminated via Olchar's mOnocle-Lash imprint. In addition to the 10,000 word-ish novella of its title, it will include somewhere in the region of 8-10 shorter pieces, some of which are rewritings of the better bits of "Selected Prose Works" and many of which I have yet to release in any form.

In the run up to that publication I'm planning to self-publish a short series of chapbooks inspired by the concept of promotional music singles. Each of these chapbooks will feature a selection from "Babbage's Disease" accompanied by a "B-side" story which will not be published in any other form. The first of these will be "The Punch-Up", with a B-side entitled "The Cathedral of Meat" and will hopefully be ready in time for a reading I'm doing in Torquay on September 9th.

All in all I'm planning to release over a dozen new stories by the end of the year. Hopefully this post will serve to spur me on rather than stand as a testament to my inability to follow through on my grand ideas.

CONTENT.

2010-08-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

New content, no less, albeit based on some pretty old ideas. The tracks below are recordings of a short performance I did at Bryce's awesome cafe-bookshop-arts venue thing called Epicentre. If you're ever in the vicinity of Paignton you should drop in for a nibble and a browse and make a foreigner smile.

This was my first attempt at doing anything which could be legitimately referred to as "live comedy" and I'm deeply indebted to the lovely audience of clever poets who had the decency to laugh at a few of the least awful bits. I'm not at all happy with my performance of the William Morris monologue. I was rewriting it on the train (four years since I first wrote that bitch and I'm still fiddling with it), and the combination of failing eyesight, dangerously small font sizes and my own illegible scrawlings resulted in some very unsightly pauses in all the wrong places. Ah well. Have at it:

A Letter of Disenlikenment by dbedwards

William Morris/Crab Scenario by dbedwards

A dusty old poem

2010-08-20T06:44:00.000-07:00

I found some scans of a splat poem book thing I produced for a project at Dartington. The recording of the performance has long since vanished, so I thought I'd better record what I can remember of the event here.

I seem to recall the performance involved me slowly progressing through the pages book, performing each double-page by first focusing on the left before introducing elements of the right page and drawing on them simultaneously then performing solely from the right page. Once that was done I'd turn the page and restart the process as seamlessly as possible. This created a nice mix of slow progressions and abrupt shifts. It took about twenty minutes to work through the whole text, which I performed behatted and becaped in a hot studio. I built the sense of encroaching exhaustion into the piece, exploiting my lack of breath and straining voice for all it was worth.

I'd distributed noisemakers amongst the other students, who were mostly music students I think as this was for one of the optional cross-disciplinary modules. They were a bit nervous at first, so I had to bring them in with a gesture and conduct them for a couple of minutes before they really got into the shifting rhythms and began to bounce off each other as much as anything I was doing.

I think this remains the furthest I've ever taken the splat poem as a form, certainly as an act for a single voice, but I feel certain there's far more still to be done with it if I can challenge myself not to slip into a mode of delivery which is now so familiar and comfortable to me that it no longer feels like a worthwhile activity.

In other news I've been doing some comedy performances recently, audio recordings of which will hopefully find their way to me soon (and will naturally turn up on this blog when they do).

These things happen

2009-11-15T05:08:00.000-08:00

Hmm.

Something better will be along eventually, I should imagine.

I am an award-winning playwright.

2009-09-13T17:58:00.000-07:00

The awards ceremony for the Gloucester One Act Play Festival was held this evening. Broadcast and those involved in its occurring had been nominated for six categories:

Best Set
Best Director
Best Actress
Best Actor
Best Original Play
Best Play

In fact, the only categories we weren't nominated for were Best Juvenile Production and Best Supporting Actor/Actress, neither of which we were eligible for anyway as it was an adult cast of two.

I wasn't present at the ceremony due to my recent relocation to Plymouth, but I received regular updates from the cast and the other members of Nailsworth Dramatic Society who had gone along to cheer them on. I expected us to maybe pick up one or two of the awards, seeing as we'd been nominated in so many categories, but to my great astonishment we won the lot. All six. Huzzahs all round, methinks!

I've said it elsewhere, but I am hugely indebted to the members of Nailsworth Dramatic Society who assisted me in all manner of ways to finally get one of my plays off the page and into a theatre at long last. It's been a wonderful experience.

PS - I have a shitty audio recording of the final performance which I shall try and make available to any interested parties just as soon as I've cleaned it up as best I can.

Fats and THE BBC HORSE

2009-08-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

During the process of hurriedly packing up all my worldly possessions (again, again) I came across a couple of brief narratives culled and assembled from various sources (a similar style of composition was employed for the text for the Jackanory performance embedded in my previous post). I think I was planning on making a habit of these, but life, as ever, blah blah blah. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility that more may still happen eventually.

This one is basically still intact (I think), but the other one needs some patching up. Anyway, I thought I'd share it before I went back to the dreary task of decanting the contents my flat into a new one far far away.

And, should you be having difficulty in accessing the image, here's the text all typed-up like:

Fats and THE BBC HORSE

Can you Use a bank note to KEEP A HEDGEHOG HAPPY Mr. Crawford?

You try Miss Allnut "I'm an awful duffer at this sort of thing, .Each of the Adjustable lamps under his eyes turned into a yellowish-green liquid and one of them appears to have a foot he said

Miss Allnut Jumps 15 separate jumps which no canvas could withstand in pursuit of
Tradition
Judgement
Liberty
Nature
Character
Style
Duty
Chance
Common Sense
Hope
Civilization
Evidence
Money
Force
Energy
Art
Life
Genius
Moral
Unity
State
Will
Analogy
Category
Space
Time
Love
Value
Form
and gas permeable elbows made from yeast

Here we have 100 nuts in five bowls. declared Mr. Scott a soft yet crisp fungus which has to be removed by surgery
His Tarry, beefy nose was Harmonius and long with a fairly broad tip and a traditional Chinese ink stand in its salmon-pink Spode cones Miss Allnut and Mr. Scott look misty, as though they will flutter and rearrange DRESDEN During the course of a canoeing holiday,

Mr. Crawford, decays quickly of scurvy- and of newspaper and of drought, telegraph poles and several diseases,

you can overcome this, by cutting your own meat although Crawford is compressed from the earthy, dead-still air.

More vim vom vimeo!

2009-07-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

I told you I'd get round to it eventually...

In which we extract some honey from a bag of flour from David Beris Edwards on Vimeo.

And, whilst we're at it:

Jackanory from David Beris Edwards on Vimeo.

A film from the past

2009-07-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

I wrote and shot this (with the invaluable assistance of Miss Waterfowl) in a couple of hours not long after I got my camera. For innumerable reasons it is only now that I have finally finished editing it. Anyway, t'is done, t'is done. You can view it all nicely embedded here, thus:

8 Jokes from David Beris Edwards on Vimeo.

Or, failing that, follow this link a-here, thus.

Playtime!

2009-07-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

I suppose I might as well mention here that a short one-act play of mine will be performed later this month at the King's Theatre in Gloucester as part of the local one act play festival.

I've been working with the wonderfully generous, accommodating and talented folks at Nailsworth Dramatic Society to put together this silly little production. Here's a little poster with details and whatnot:

I hope you can be there, at least in spirit.

Lost & Found

2009-03-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

Eleanor's clearing her desk right now. She's just handed me an old, crumpled envelope with my handwriting on one side. Apparently at some time in the before-now I wrote the following two poems. The first didn't have a title (rather unusually, as I often start with the title these days) so I've given it a somewhat unimaginative one for now. Other than that I've changed practically nothing in either.

Things I Have Seen

I've seen a fire engine.
Its red hands were clasped in a gesture of horrible anticipation.

I've seen a blade of grass.
No one was looking so it probably got away with it.

I've seen an old window.
"Too wooden," said the giant tortoise underneath, "far too blue and wooden."

I've seen a modern rock band.
They sang about anal sex and synthetic textiles.

I've seen a wasp.
It was carrying a dead shoe in its claws.

I've seen 14 other things as well,
but they're not quite so consistently engaging.

A Chant for Mellotrons

CHAFFERY
SLIPINCH
SPOOLESS
CORDLING
FUCKFUCK
FUCKFUCK
FON-DLED

I've written a foreword!

2009-02-19T16:48:00.001-08:00

Mouse Milk's just published a lovely little collection of poems by some exciting young up'n'comings and I was very kindly asked to provide a preamblage.

A link to a link.

United America

2009-02-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

Shortly before I went to the states, my dear friend Joble organised a 24-hour writing experiment type thing for reasons apparent only to himself. He'd suggested that anyone in our writing group could join in but in the end only Amy and I stayed and wrote with him.

We turned up for the nightshift armed with books, scissors and glue. Lots of things were produced that night, but the one project to which I devoted the most time was cutting full-page pictures out of a copy of Alistair Cooke's America and sticking nonsensical captions onto them using a small selection of text from said book, which gradually dwindled (I chose not to restock once I'd started selecting images), making it harder and harder to even achieve grammatical accuracy in the captions.

By morning I had about 17 of the buggers and no idea what to do with them.

Then, a couple of months ago it struck me: why not try my hand at writing a book about America myself? After all, I'd recently visited the country and thus knew it like the back of my elbow, and Cooke's account was a good fifteen years out of date, at least.

Thus, I present to you:

United America: Country of Liberties

Have at it!

PS - A little DVD extra for you. One of the pictures I scanned but couldn't squeeze into the final version of the book:

Hooray for Nicer Hosting!

2009-01-31T13:39:00.000-08:00

All 7 of my recent PDFs (A New Stench, A Body of Water, Selected Prose Works Vols. 1-5) are now all availble for download from the following address:

http://www.box.net/shared/1evg3om030

Feel free to bookmark it, because all future PDF publications will be going into the same folder.

Hopefully this will be easier for all concerned.

Do check back regularly, 'cause I'm planning on churning something else out in the next week or so. I've no idea what it'll be yet - there's a few half-finished things I really ought to wrap up, but it may well be something entirely different. We shall see.

Anyway, that's it for now.

TTFN, old egg(s)!

Selected Prose Works Vol. 5

2009-01-30T05:45:00.001-08:00

And so, at long last, here is the final installment in what I hope has been an entertaining and diverting little series.

I won't say much about this story, other than I personally think it's one of the best things I've ever written. It should be noted, however, that I tend to be a terrible judge of my own work. Regardless, here it is:

Selected Prose Works Vol. 5 - The Great Tower of Greenwich, the People Who Built It and the Boy Who Swam to the Top in the Rain

A quick note on the setting: In the real world, Greenwich is a district of London. This is a fact which I have completely and utterly ignored whilst writing this story, choosing instead to treat the setting as though it were a small town in Yorkshire circa 1957. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just use an actual Yorkshire town name instead, but I didn't. Greenwich it is, though Greenwich it isn't.

PVIM!

Selected Prose Works Vol. 4

2009-01-29T08:36:00.000-08:00

Today's story is a rewrite of something I originally wrote as the first part of a series of stories I never actually finished on the theme of medical malpractice (an obsession of mine for years now). I wrote four of the stories, but only really liked two of them and even then I wasn't entirely happy with how either of those came out. It's not surprising, then, that I never completed the series as I'd originally envisioned it.

This is the shortest of the five short stories I'm publishing this week. Hopefully tomorrow's rather lengthier offering will make up for that, (for those who equate worth with quantity, at any rate).

Selected Prose Works Vol. 4 - Under the Knife

Have at it.

Selected Prose Works Vol. 3

2009-01-28T04:39:00.001-08:00

So this one was written at about the same time as the first volume, as part of the same piece. I'd originally conceived a series of seemingly unrelated short stories linked by two common threads - each would feature a character being interrupted by an abusive phone call (later revelaed to be all from the same man, who simply wants some help with a crossword he's doing but doesn't really have the social skills to put that across without swearing profusely) and ending with the arrival of a government inspector. I kept said inspector for The Hole, but dropped 'em for this one. Consequently I never really worked out a proper way to end this story. Hopefully that isn't too obvious when you read it...

Well anyway, here it is:

Selected Prose Works Vol. 3 - A Change of Hands

Enjoy!

Selected Prose Works Vol. 2

2009-01-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

Here it is then - Selected Prose Works Volume 2! I honestly can't remember when I wrote this one. It all happened rather suddenly. Unlike yesterday's offering, I tampered with this one surprisingly little after it first tumbled out onto the page. The scene with the stripper is, in my opinion, one of the best things I've ever written. You may, however, disagree. In fact, I'd love it if you did, especially if you then left a comment telling me so. Honestly, it'd just be great to know someone out there's reading this shit.

Selected Prose Works Vol 2. - The Party

Cheeri-o, chums!

Selected Prose Works Vol. 1

2009-01-26T07:02:00.001-08:00

As promised, here's the first in a series of five individually-wrapped short stories. I wrote the first draft of this one about two years ago, I think, and it's been through several drastic redraftings since. I'm publishing it now in an effort to let the thing be at last and stop my ceaseless tampering. Do enjoy it.

Selected Prose Works Vol. 1 - The Hole

Be sure to tune in again tomorrow for volume two!

Books for all!

2009-01-25T15:21:00.001-08:00

Hello again. Remember me? My name's David Beris Edwards and I used to update this blog. Sometimes. When I could be arsed. Well, now is one of those times. Not only do I feel compelled to post on this blog again for the first time in months, but I actually have stuff to update it with! Yes, honestly!

But first, a few words on what I've been up to for the best part of a year...

Last summer I went for a two-week jaunt in the United States of the United States of America. I did a few performances and whatnot there (the whole reason I went, in fact), some of which will one day be available for your online viewing (dis)pleasure. But not today, 'cause I'm crap.

I also graduated last year, with a respectable but entirely useless BA in Writing. Huzzah.

Since then I have been largely unemployed, save for a disasterous spell over the festive period working as a till-monkey at Asda. This has meant that all papery publishing plans have been put on hold for much of the forseeable, alas.

Instead of simply shelving all my publishing plans, though, I've decided to simply make my work availble for downloading in PDF format. This is (hopefully) a convenient method for everyone who wants to read my stuff, and one that still allows me a little more control over the end product than simply slapping it in a blog post would grant me.

So, today I've got two books to share with you. The first is a small book of rhyming couplets I tossed off over a few days last autumn. It was briefly available via the mouse milk blog but nobody downloaded it and the link went dead. This time I've uploaded it via the yucky ad-infested megaupload. If anyone knows of a better place to host stuff, do let me know.

A New Stench on an Old Brush

Secondly, here at last are all twenty-eight poems of A Body of Water (and a mind of silt), in what will probably be their absolutely final form. These poems took about two months to write and nearly a year (on and off) to format! Hopefully you'll consider the results worthwhile. I'm considering writing a small poem-by-poem commentary to accompany the book, should anyone be interested in such a document.

A Body of Water (and a mind of silt)

There will be another update tomorrow containing the first of five short stories which I've formatted as dear little books which would be ten times lovelier if they were papery and tangible. Do feel free to print and bind your own copies of any or indeed all the PDFs I upload here during the coming weeks and months.

Well then, till tomorrow - Vimb Vomb Vimb!

Dan Brown Must Die.

2008-04-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

But, in the meantime, here's a satirical picture of him I drew (very shoddily) back when Ellie had just gotten a wacom tablet:

(For more topical Dan Brown satires, why not take a peek at Ellie's blog all of her own?)

Now then, on to matters of import. Firstly, I STILL do not have the wherewithall to make our Red Ape performance be all up on the internet but I assure you it will happen in the not-too-distant.

My contributions to the wonderful self-propelled art machine that is Fiddlesticks at the Lost and Found gallery in Somewhere, America, will hopefully be going up (and down, where necessary) on the twelfthf of this monfthf. Keep your eyes firmly affixed (airfixed too, if you're so inclined) on the official Post-Neo blog for documentation regarding that.

"A Body of Water (and a mind of silt)" is nearing completion. Once all the pages are looking their absolute best I shall go about trying to make some copies what you can hold in yer hand. I'm not sure exactly how much they'll cost but I'm afraid I WILL need some money off of those of you who want a copy, simply in order to continue making them. You have been warned.

Mouse Milk Books are also hatching a couple of crafty plots which will probably result in even more lovely, silly publications for your very real delight. These include a proposed pocket-sized book of splat poems for everyday use, the third edition of EFW's Curious Almanac and a series of so-called "Random Prose Works" I am currently writing whenever I ought to be doing something else. These will be made available to the public in the form of sealed envelopes which give no hint towards which of the six possible works are contained within, much like some of the highly collectable plastic Japanese tat I sometimes find myself curiously craving. More on all that soon, I promise.

For now I shall leave you with a poem I have just written. Whoosh:

After-Dinner Mince

release the filter
Grip the top of the filter and pull it up and out of the kettle.
Brush it with a soft brush, under a running tap.
Rinse the kettle, in case any scale particles have fallen inside.
replace the filter
Slide the filter back down the grooves on either side of the kettle, then
press it down.
Close the lid.
replace the filter
Slide the filter back down the grooves on either side of the kettle, then
press it down.
Close the lid.
replace the filter
Slide the filter back down the grooves on either side of the kettle, then
sit down.
Close the lid.
replace the filter
Slide the filter back down the grooves on ether side of the kettle, then
sit down.
Close the lid.
replace the filter
Slid the filter back down the hooves on ether side of the kettle, then
sit down.
Close the lid.
replace the filter
Slid the filter back down the hooves on ether sighed of the kettle, then
sit down.
Crows the lid.
replace the filter
Slid the filter back frown the hooves on ether sighed oft he kettle, then
sit down.
Crows the lid.
replace the filter
Slid the filter back frown the hooves on ether sighed oft he kettle, then
sit down.
Crows the lidl.
replace the filter
Slid the felt ear back frown the hooves on ether sighed oft he kettle, then
sit down.
Crows the lidl.
replace the womble
Slid the felt ear batch frown the hooves on ether sighed oft he kettle, then
sit drown.
Crows the lidl battlements optional.
replace the womble
Slid the felt ear batch frown the hooves on ether sighed oft he kettle, then
sit drown.
Crows the lidl battlements optional in your particles suspended in the water may give it a cloudy or greasy appearance. The filter will prevent these particles going into your drink. If you see deposits on the filter, clean it, otherwise the performance of your kettle will drop, your drinks may contain scale and the water inside the kettle may look cloudy.
release the filter
Grip the top of the filter and pull it up and out of the kettle.
Brush it with a soft brush, under a running tap.
Rinse the kettle, in case any scale particles have fallen inside.
replace the filter
Slide the filter back down the grooves on either side of the kettle, then
press it down.
Close the lid.

Sad News

2008-03-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Following my last post, I regret to inform you all that Mr Hugo Ball-Rat has died. For a beautifully written account of his brief, but immeasurable life look no further than the obituary my good lady wrote this morning. I simply could not have put it better than she did, so I shall not really attempt to.

This morning our loveliest, most beautiful friend died.

He'd been struggling with myco for a few months and had lost his appetite and become thin and weak. We had his carrycase open in the bed with us last night incase he needed to come out for a cuddle and he kept me awake for most of the night with his insistence on nesting in my hair or on my face. I realise now that he was probably just trying to get comfortable. David woke me at half 5, Hugo was lying still in between us, making a funny noise. I picked him up and we talked to him and slowly he just stopped breathing.

We both feel so lucky to have had Hugo and although he'd only been with us for a bit over a year it honestly feels like we've always had him. He taught us so much about himself and his wonderful species, but most importantly the value of every tiny scrap of life. I did not know that it was possible to love a creature so small so much and I'm certain that we will always love him and we will enjoy our memories of him for the rest of our lives.

A few months ago, when he was fit and healthy, Hugo was our alpha and he was the most kind and gentle alpha any human or rat could hope for. He welcomed new rats into the group without the slightest fuss and if there was a fight he was always there incase it got out of hand(/paw). He was always busy; making nests, grooming the other rats, pottering around and making sure everything was in order. He was always first in line for cuddles, licking fingers and faces, cleaning out fingernails and combing David's beard with his tiny hands. It's such a shame that we never got to see him grow into the fine old beast he clearly was inside.

I don't believe in little ratty heaven or the rainbow bridge or anything like that, I believe that his soul (although I'm not sure I believe in that either), all of the little invisible bits of him which made him so full of life are out there now in the soil, helping all of the trees to will out their buds and fruits in time for summer.

So we're trying, in every way possible, to say goodbye to our wonderful, charming Hugo. Ambassador for rats, my great big chunk'o'hunk, Mr Hugo Ball-Rat.

I felt, despite Sian saying it all for me already, that I must at least try to remember Hugo in my own words. Greatly inspired by what she wrote in the penultimate paragraph of his obituary, I seem to have ended up with this:

An Earthbound Titter
In Memory of Mr Hugo Ball-Rat

See w/his eye the sound of one hand tapping as he makes his way from hither to a bed of deep & scattered soils. Touch w/delicate threads a-twitchin' all that smells - the kind of joy one gets from company [warm in its place, bright in its face]. Make no fuss.

Who am I to make off with your smiles this mourning? I'm no toothy cad nor bounder, no clickity govt. ball-point scratching! Wigglies of the crumbling earth are a most welcoming bunch, I'll have you know. Roots dig down & embrace my life, my gleam, my all that all that & take it. The airs above are clamouring for branches. Who am I to stash & hoard my faltering breath?

Taste w/his nose that delicate, refreshing brew - it sings faint goodbyes as best it bloody can. Smell & hear w/his big top ear and four fine hand that never will the thought decay - locked as it is, a magic lantern laughing landslide [earthbound, without a sound]. That'll do.

I'd like to finish this post by including a few more poems written by the more prolific of our four fine beasts, Krindle (a.k.a. E. D. Rinkl) and The Baron. I know Olchar was considering organising a medicinal reading of the rat poem I posted last time. Perhaps, should he still feel inclined, a memorial reading of a few of these rat poems could take place instead. I'm sure our Hugo would delight in such an event.

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The Bar Bar Baron - 23/07/07

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E. D. Rinkl 02/12/07

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E. D. Rinkl and The Bar Bar Baron 16/12/07

Mr Hugo Ball-Rat, 2007-2008. RI bloody P.

Mr Hugo Ball-Rat is unwell.

2008-03-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

His face is puffy like it's all dough or something. His hairs are perpendicular and twitching with every laborious breath. Tomorrow he shall be prodded and tutted at and hopefully prescribed with some sort of salve, unguent or other medicament which may enable him to fully recover from his current wretched afflictions. Until then, however, I propose that he be soothed with the careful application of medicinal poetry. You can help by reading aloud or quietly to yourself the following stanzas, which Mr Hugo himself contributed towards along with his three fine cagemates.

xc§1Ω`¡Ω0
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jh ff
fd 7ykly
jrl8yyyyy'''0p.lllllllllllllllllllllp.=-≥*?+------------4
gkk'],.ccu gv
,gcjbbbb11111
. bn? R666d€€€€€
vr;hsssssssx§
g g ,,i0km

mcl,o'cmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn¨ uuyyb.w.,gh gj ]0
,n/" mcm
un jyh6 6
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brbvrrddddddddddflkx

We wish you a speedy and majestic recovery, Mr Hugo Ball-Rat. Sniff sniff.

In other matters, Ellie and I shot some great footage of our somewhat successful performance in Plymouth the other night. I'll transfer the footage onto a computer and get it all uploaded and whatnot just as soon as I am able.

Mind you, that might be ages. Ah well.

The Red Aype Project

2008-03-11T15:59:00.000-07:00

According to the flyer below, Ellie and I are part of this.

We shall, if all goes as planned, be attempting to extract a small quantity of honey from a bag of plain flour, according to instructions laid out by a notorious Elizabethan loony who we may or may not have entirely made up. Will our plans succeed or shall our efforts be entirely for nought? Do try to come along and find out. There's a lot of other fine people performing. You never know, it just might be good.

Also, I have included in this post, for the pleasure of your eyes and nostrils, two sample pages from my upcoming new batch of poems "A Body of Water (and a mind of silt)". It'll be ready for the having of as soon as I've finished it.

Vim vom vurm, etc:

Try saying this one splat style. It's funner that way:

SPROING!

Fancy Splat!

2008-02-14T13:20:00.001-08:00

Hello there. Just a quick post to show off a couple of splat poems Ellie and I made happen with the aid of a very lovely letter press (I needs to gets me one of these fellahs!) and generally prove that I'm still not dead. Bonk:

In other news...

Pretty much all my writing projects are on hold whilst I try and whip my dissertation into shape (it's going terribly, thanks for asking).

It is quite probable that I shall appearing either on my lonesome or with Miss Waterfowl at Plymouth Arts Centre on March the 13th, 2008. In the evening. This will be for a thing called The Red Ape Project organised by an interesting chap called Mark Greenwood. I'll say more on this when I've more to say.

Belch.

here we are, then...

2008-01-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

Enough is enough. Bugger deviantART. Bugger myspace. Bugger the cocking Post-Neo forums (what a damp [anti-]squid they was, eh sirs?). I shall, at long last, grasp my green candle and bite the bulletin board system. I shall bloody well get myself a blog. This blog, apparently. Yes.

This blog will not be for political rantacising. It will not advertise pornography (well, probably not). It will not be about my pets (though lovely things they be). This blog shall be a place to air my soggy, lumpy unorganised ideas. It shall be the slice of internet in which I shall inform the few who care of what I am currently doing, what I might be doing next and, most importantly, what I’m probably not going to do after all.

So let's get the last of those dealt with first, shall we? Milk. Those of you reading this who have kept a beady eye on my dA page this last year or so may recall that I made many a reference to, and indeed posted extracts of, a proposed novel about me going to fetch a glass of milk. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. So many of my ideas do. To me, anyway. That’s why I have them. So many of the fuckers, all of them in silly, slanty directions and all wearing such pretty pretty hats.

Anyway, I can’t tell you exactly what happened to Milk. I think it was probably the Summer. Summer does things to me. It makes me think that I can achieve something because no one’s on my case for a couple of blissful months. Alas, what this means is that no one is on my case, including myself. And so I fritter away my days tossing off the occasional substandard poem with words and gaps and numbers and things, thinking about plays I might one day write if I started believing in theatre again and doing a lot of sweating. Such was how my Summer wafted fruitlessly past me last year. And it seems Milk wafted by with it.

Recently, I’ve been writing some stories about some peculiar tramps, quite possibly inspired by the pleasingly diverse crop of wandering souls in Totnes, a place I sometimes call “where I have to be at the moment”. I’m there now, incidentally, which is why I’ve got the internet again. Yippee.

Anyway, these stories are probably going to converge into a substantial publication of some description, though not for some time yet. The style of the pieces is such that it seems likely I can work much of what I wrote for Milk (and still manage to read without wincing) into the lives of my free-footed protagonists without losing much more than the self-consciously flimsy premise on which the novel was based. Whether or not I do eventually choose to do this, we shall all have to wait and see, but rest assured that I have not abandoned all hope of producing a substantial work of fiction. It will just look and feel a little different to Milk and be about someone(s) entirely else(s/ism). I think.

I’ve got a lot of other things I’m nowhere near finishing that will hopefully all see the light of day over the next year or so. These include:

A card game that encourages and creates endless futile arguments. I’m currently trying to find a manufacturer for this project as several people have assured me it could be potentially accessible and fun for a lot of people. If I’m unsuccessful in this (as I fully expect I will be) then I shall attempt to make and distribute copies myself, albeit on a much smaller scale.

A new book of poems (some visual, but all for voices). Written ‘from the top down’, i.e. starting with the title. I’ve not yet decided on a title for the book itself yet. Possibly A Body of Water, A Mind of Silt. How does that one strike you?

A series of plays for radio. These include an adaptation of my short story Nobody Liked the Moth, (a great improvement on the original, IMO), and three new ideas involving club meetings, dead people and sinister, talking crabs. I hope upon hopes that I can gather enough talented voices together to get them recorded before my time at Dartington is up so’s I can hand them to soundart radio for broadcast before I leave. I really wish I’d done more for that station, but what with flitting between Devon and Gloucester, Amy’s illness and excuses excuses ex-fucking-cuses, it just doesn’t seem to have happened. Amy and I have at least two other semi-formed radio pieces we could work on but I just can’t say whether or not they’ll ever happen.

A text-based adventure game I’m writing with the aid of this nifty little program. The object is to throw a walnut at Germaine Greer.

A spoken word CD. To be honest, I only started properly work on this a couple of hours ago but I’ve been itching to record something new with my little device for ages, and seeing as I’m never in the right place at the right time to do any of the gigs I’ve been offered these last few months, it seems like recording something in a quiet little room might be the way to go. I’d like it to be a jolly disc, but so far what I’ve written has turned out quite creepy. Again.

Additionally, I’ll be getting some stuff together for a small exhibition of my work (alongside some other far more interesting artists) in America what Olchar E. Lindsann be organisin’. I want to have at least a little bit of visual stuff for it, as well as plenty of stuff to be performed and a splash of audience-participation pieces. I’m thinking I might write a series of instructions for simple things to do with specified quantities of milk (pour it through a sock, sing at it, slap it about until it’s learnt its lesson… that sort of thing).

And, on top of all of that I’m meant to be writing a dissertation. Ah yes, the BA Hons. That old thing, eh? *sighs* I’m trying to base it round the notion of implicitly funny words, but apart from some choice examples from certain beloved entertainers of mine (most notably Python’s Woody and Tinny Words) and the delightfully frivolous loops of Jonti ‘Weebl’ Picking, I’m not sure there’s much to go on. Why has no one written a book on funny words yet? You’d think someone would have gotten round to it by now! Well… I would.

Oh, and finally, for those of you who don’t yet know… I’ve got a ukulele. I’m not very good at playing it yet. This has not deterred me, however, from plinking out some terrible little songs. I need some proper musicians to help me sort them out and make them how they are in my head. Fuck knows when that’ll ever happen.

So that’s it. This is, apparently, what my blog will be. Lots and lots of whining about all the things I’d have already finished if I didn’t spend so much time eating, sleeping and holding hands with a pretty lady. I don’t wish to leave the dedicated few of you who’ve read this icky sprawl of a first post to its sour, doughy end, so I shall leave you with a couple of poems what will probably be in that new book I mentioned earlier, assuming I don’t decide I hate them both one day or keep the titles and write entirely new poems underneath them instead. Vom:

Pilk
For The Bar Bar Baron

A pilk habitat’s one I’ve frozen.
It’ll never blink nor taste its pickle.
A pilk mariner’s one to savour
Cut it into strips and watch it trickle.

A pilk salamander votes for Clinton,
Give it sugar, steal its tar.
A pilk forensic isn’t likely,
Instead it pokes an open jar.

A pilk mistake is white as Toshiba.
Give it a bone - befriend it for life.
A pilk horn is one I stand on,
It hurts incessantly and sleeps with my wife.

A pilk forget-me-not has no feelings,
So why not brand it with a spoon?
A pilk suggestion has its roots
In Madagascar, melt and moon.

A pilk conclusion slams its wingnuts,
Hear it chortle – ha ha ha,
A pilk salamander votes for Clinton,
Give it sugar, steal its tar.

Throat Haggle
For Ellie and her thoughts especially

Your neck sings sweeter than a factory alarm system
as I haul it out of the Thames on a wire and toss it to a dog
playing cricket with itself; yelps, knocks it for six
licks his balls and bounds along,
to the ticking of your song.

The jam inside is raspberry pink
it sinks when tasted,
smells like a man and can't be helped
no matter how I titter through it,
bellow through it,
make it gargle Anti- 'til it chokes.
It will always be your very much,
will always shake its penguin for sniggering,
Squeeze, rinse, kiss it gently on the belly and
march march march march march march march march march march march march
to an identical VIM.

O! to express my joy
when I feel your throat haggle under my chin,
making pure banality dance like a sack of
lentils,
bent in sicking retreat.
How many more rubber chickens must perish
before we realise why this actually matters?
100?
100?
200?
100?
Or even fewer than 100?
94, perhaps?
Regardless, it will still sound bad.
A grating, scratching oaf of a tune:
Three walruses banging on seperate drums.
Three voices tossing off through a nutcracker (admit it, you would!).
Three gulls cawing ceaselessly a sudden "be there/do that/won't you?" refrain.
Three ugly actions imposed upon a seperate sheet,
making unsense of the sensual,
shitting elements of grief for copper coins.
This is what I want from my Britain.
This is what I want from my hat.
This is what I want from my throat.
I want to be a gobstopper.

A throat might die,
a thought ejaculate,
a vol-au-vent tickle its sister.
Yet all, yet all, yet all, these won't if we can feed them sufficient stupidity.
Cack your cack and shove it in a sack,
stuff your knackers in your overalls and underall it
march march march march march march march march march march march march
to an identical VOM.

Your sanity is most unwelcome,
profanity a must.
Your
P O L I T I C K S
Your
I N T E R N E P T
is very much a mustn't.

Your neck sings sweeter than a shopping centre alarm system,
as I suck it out the packet and toss it to a frog.
He bursts 'HOORAY!' and leaps inside.
Don't say I didn't warn you.