The Closet Fascist

I had a bit of a power trip moment at work this morning. After months of repression, I was finally given the chance to dictate my terms to faceless members of a project team I have very little to do with or even knowledge about. ‘Send me these documents!’ ‘Confirm these values!’ ‘Resolve this issue!’ and ‘Stop bloody hassling me!’ A very liberating circumstance, the faking of one’s own knowledge and the resolution of challenges through other peoples labours. One could get the hang of this. Who needs an autonomous society? I’m sure we’d all happily be dictator for a day. We all have our repressed, dictatorial leanings. I know I do. (Say that like the guy talking about pyramid schemes in ‘Garden State’: ‘we all have dreams… I know I do) Oh, and by the way, none of this is true.

No, it is true. If I ruled the world, would you want to live in it? I wouldn’t be so bad. Prob’ly just force all the rich people to remove the lining from their pockets and do some good in the world, then have a small elitist revolution on my hands. Ah well, that’d be fine. Down with the Bourgeoisie, up the Workers! Don’t worry, I don’t really believe this.

No, I really do believe this. Is it true democracy’s the worst form of government? Apart from all the others? Why have we had 5000 years and still not figured anything out? Why do civilizations crumble to nothing? And when will ours? It’s alright, these aren’t my questions.

No, they are my questions. I demand explanations. I want a system that works. I want liberty and justice for all; not just those who can afford it. I want egalité, fraternité, and some other French word that calls to mind revolution.

I want to climb down off my soapbox before I give myself a nosebleed.

With a Reddish Tinge

Was driving back from the Cotswold’s this evening, enjoying being chauffeured around in my cousin’s new business expense, a Jag, when we hit the turnback at Fish Hill. Cut to the top, and as we reached the crest I had a quick view out over the vale of Evesham. Looking out as the sun finally broke through the clouds on the horizon, an idyllic panoramic view sweeping away from me into the valley, and there, running perpendicular to us down a hill, with the farm buildings in the background, was a perfectly trimmed, russet-coloured hedgerow, bounding the edges of the fields. And I thought to myself, ‘God, I love the world.’ Then was immediately puzzled as to why I’d have such a strong surge of emotion at so commonplace a vision.

Aditionally, the exclaiming of this to God seemed bizarre, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because our God is lacking one crucial element that contributes mightily to his ability to hear my exaltations. Namely, his existence. While the second point is rendered moot by the first. But after this sudden roadblock in my thought, I next wondered why I’d suddenly decided to love the world. What does an English hedgerow have to do with anything really? On an immediate, shallow level I decided, well, nothing. So then at this point, I decided to ignore myself and chat with my cousin about Jools Holland, who I know fuck all about, but at least he keeps me entertained. ‘Don’t fall in love with everyone you see,’ sang Okkervil River to me. Sound advice. Amen. And don’t fall in love with the world everytime you see a trimmed russet hedge. Or do.

It’s all the same to me.

In Rainbows

And no, this has nothing to do with the new Radiohead album. I have to confess I've only heard it once. Blasphemous I know. But I'm remedying that as we speak. By listening to it. Again. We'll discuss how long it should take for music to transform from 'inaccessible' to enjoyable another time. More blasphemy! I know. Might as well just call Jesus a carpenter.

Yeah. But no. What I really wanted to say is that I saw the most perfect rainbow I've ever seen this afternoon, right after getting caught in a shower over my lunch break. Strikingly brilliant, and, to top that, there was a second arc outside of the first. Shyah. D'you know that the second ring on a double rainbow is seen with the colours in the opposite order? Discovered that when we came inside to look up how the hell a rainbow forms, and so I immediately rushed back outside, to confirm with my own eyes, only to find the rainbow gone and a dark grey storm cloud in its place. Five minutes. That's all we got.

But oh how beautiful transience can be...

Funny Old Thing, Life

The Inane Textual Meanderings of a Frightfully Ordinary Individual

I resolved earlier to write a book. But it was quickly drawn to my attention that I have nothing to write about. Nothing with which to fill the pages of a book. Rather a conundrum of existence. Only for once it’s not my existence being called in to question. My existence is well grounded in fact. I’m here typing this aren’t I? Yes, would be the answer, for those a little slow off the mark. But is it the right answer? At the time of writing it was, and since literary works are always considered to be in the present, then it maintains its immediacy. But the real moment within which it inhabits is… now. The moment you read it. And I, who was very much caught in the act of typing this, am naturally, now not typing it. And until the moment you can watch a book being written, we’ll be caught in some sort of temporal flux, whereby my present is not your present. Following me on this? Good. We’ll come back to it later.

The point of this, which I am vainly trying to make, is that I feel faced with a dilemma. There is on the one hand my strong urge to write, and on the other, my lack of substance about which to write. So what to write about?

Life? I definitely have one of those, in the broadest sense, despite being constantly told to get one. Which implies a decided lack on my part. And so in those instances, I mentally add the word ‘new’ between the words ‘Get a,’ and ‘life.’ And then I don’t feel so depressed; merely the higher call for change.

The Universe? Is undeniably there. Or what we perceive to be a universe does in fact inhabit the space that we suppose a universe should inhabit. Too vague a topic though. Where to begin? Bang! Yes. That would be the ideal place to start, if you go for that sort of thing. I personally think that when ‘Science’ starts talking about the Big Bang and dark matter and other such incomprehensibles, it borders dangerously on religion and, closer, faith, and, despite more than a few billion people claiming to the contrary, I feel the world would be a better place without either of those concepts.

Everything? Ahhh… we have discovered the rub. There. What grander, more eloquent topic could be landed upon? Except that, in a peculiar, cyclical arrangement, it once more encases the two previously discarded topics. And on those grounds, it really has no legs to stand on. Supposing it had legs to begin with, which requires a representative tax on the imagination, but I’m sure once you come to grips with the phenomena of standing abstract thoughts, you’ll feel remarkably well-adjusted to what was previously described as the universe, and can kick back and have another drink.

And more importantly than anything else, if I am to write a book. Anything else at all really. Or everything else maybe. I must express an incalculable debt of gratitude to Douglas Adams, Bill Watterson, and Eddie Izzard, without whom these would all be my words, and not plagiarized.

Is Anyone Alive?

She wore such a good disguise
Or maybe,
The sun was just in my eyes

So that I saw her face in silhouette
As she turned into the sunset
And she cried,

'Is anyone alive?'

Now summer's dead and gone,
But she still wakes with the dawn

There was a time when the sunrise
Meant it was finally time to close our eyes
And I've only now realized,

You and I aren't alive...

Our Lady

Found myself inside the stunning Notre Dame for the first time last night. Oh I've been there before. I've watched the crowds mingling on the plaza in front, I've seen the pigeons blanketing the square, and I've pretended to be a street artist while sketching the stained glass from the bank of the Seine. But I'd never set foot inside 'til last night. And it was beautiful. Entered in the middle of evening mass and I was overwhelmed by this lady's voice filling the hall as she sang. Piercing right through me and into a soul I thought I'd sold long ago. Then I opened my eyes and the wondrous feeling vanished as I noticed for the first time the four flat screens running along each edge of the nave showing the same service that was happening in front of us, only with a few more dramatic zooms, player stats, and instant replays. And I was mildly sickened.

Even God has sold out to commercialism.