One: Once I was being chased by a Giant Cheese named Walter. Walter was angry at the horrible treatment of Giant Cheeses by society at large and searching for vengeance via the only method known to it: Mad capricious violence. Parenthetically, I will never go for a holiday in the realm of Giant Cheeselandia again, if only because the food is terrible. I only escaped Walter in the final circumstance by rolling under a brace of giraffes and then swimming the Baltic.
Two: Sitting in the cinema once, I was accosted by three older gentlemen with a shopping cart. Apparently they had bought the cinema ten minutes before, with very suspicious grey-market funding, and had begun to pillage the screening room for the nicest furniture and accessories. Unfortunately, the Mackintosh and Splott Act of 1944 had never been repealed so I spent two years as property before being released back into the general population. If only I had been still seating in my seat and not the aisle!
Three: The Blonde Menace at the Arts Centre Cafe is surely adorable. I suspect, however, that she's part of a cabal to overtake the World and spread cake and salad in victorious fashion across all the non-cake eating World! Some times I see her staring at the cakes with an inscrutable expression but somehow still with a nefarious look in her eye. It's possible that she might even have perfected that long-improbable Cake Ram which eluded the French for so long during the Napoleonic Wars and inadvertently led to the television program 'Sharky and George', which was inspired by the reaction of a local marine population after the final prototype was dumped into their local waters.
Four: It was an unfortunate day when my path connected with famous novelist Arch Shpack. The great man had just lost his wife, in the department store and not to death, and he was capering down the aisles with glee at the release from forceless browsing. Sadly his capering was to be his undoing as it led to a head-on collision with my trolley full of catalogues en route to the main entrance. The collision spun him around and forced him to the edge of the escalator, which he promptly slid down in a perfect imitation of a black and white comedy disaster. Shpack took it badly, especially his wife's laughter, and the famed author of 'The Olive of Hateful Vengeance' and 'The Harbinging Neighbours of the Apocalypse' fell apart completely. His only remaining bestseller would be 'Fluffy and the Mad Adventure'. He never ate jelly again.
O.
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Tuesday, 25 March 2014
Bananaman
Let's be clear, there is no real reason why my levels of excitement should be rising so at the very idea of a Bananaman film. No reason at all. It is surely going to be a small scale animated feature played for laughs and updated badly if at all. Announcing one now for 2015 surely leaves insufficient time to do something good. Yes? Right?
The rationalizations aren't working. The excitement is building. Why would they possibly be doing something as obscure as a Bananaman movie if they don't have a great idea to make it interesting? Is it live-action or animated or CGI? Who will play Fiona to sumptuous newscaster? What can they possibly be planning?!!!!!
<pauses to relax>
Bananaman has such bizarrely epic potential that the mystery surrounding it all is almost arresting in it's absolutness. And yet, the character is really only a fruit-based (or herb-based if you're being picky) British funny-strip knock-off of Captain Marvel, so why get excited? His longest previous screen instalments were five minutes long, so anything even vaguely similar in concept would have to be expanded and adapted, or badly padded out, on a structural basis. A movie? How can there be a Bananaman movie? How?
Excitement? Perhaps it's because Bananaman is a concept, whether it be for kiddies or everyone, animated or live-action, that seems invulnerable to the pathetic hamfistedness that ends up twisting films into American or British stereotypes. There is absolutely no way Bananaman can be twisted into a foul-mouthed cockney gangster flick or even a Richard Curtis cringe-worthy romcom. It will still be Bananaman, the story of Britain's greatest superhero. It is a law unto itself, so rebellious that the cartoon was voiced by the Goodies themselves.
I don't think I'm even joking, he really is Britain's greatest superhero isn't he?
The jaded cynics of the world outside my tortured head will bewail all too soon, but for now my excitement shall prevail and I shall continue to anticipate happily for the first time in years. The cynicism shall flow away, and for now childish irrational enjoyment will continue. Someone out there is mad enough to make a Bananaman movie, and then some other people were mad enough to pay for it. There's hope for silliness in the world! Rejoice! That more than the film itself pleases me enormously.
Unless it's all a hoax.
O.
The rationalizations aren't working. The excitement is building. Why would they possibly be doing something as obscure as a Bananaman movie if they don't have a great idea to make it interesting? Is it live-action or animated or CGI? Who will play Fiona to sumptuous newscaster? What can they possibly be planning?!!!!!
<pauses to relax>
Bananaman has such bizarrely epic potential that the mystery surrounding it all is almost arresting in it's absolutness. And yet, the character is really only a fruit-based (or herb-based if you're being picky) British funny-strip knock-off of Captain Marvel, so why get excited? His longest previous screen instalments were five minutes long, so anything even vaguely similar in concept would have to be expanded and adapted, or badly padded out, on a structural basis. A movie? How can there be a Bananaman movie? How?
Excitement? Perhaps it's because Bananaman is a concept, whether it be for kiddies or everyone, animated or live-action, that seems invulnerable to the pathetic hamfistedness that ends up twisting films into American or British stereotypes. There is absolutely no way Bananaman can be twisted into a foul-mouthed cockney gangster flick or even a Richard Curtis cringe-worthy romcom. It will still be Bananaman, the story of Britain's greatest superhero. It is a law unto itself, so rebellious that the cartoon was voiced by the Goodies themselves.
I don't think I'm even joking, he really is Britain's greatest superhero isn't he?
The jaded cynics of the world outside my tortured head will bewail all too soon, but for now my excitement shall prevail and I shall continue to anticipate happily for the first time in years. The cynicism shall flow away, and for now childish irrational enjoyment will continue. Someone out there is mad enough to make a Bananaman movie, and then some other people were mad enough to pay for it. There's hope for silliness in the world! Rejoice! That more than the film itself pleases me enormously.
Unless it's all a hoax.
O.
Sunday, 23 March 2014
Reverse the Null Hypothesis, we're going in!
My penpal and alternate universe cellmate Elena keeps telling me to write about Pink Floyd when I have no ideas, but of course I know nothing about Pink Floyd, nor about the second choice of Edgar Allen Poe and so I am in no position whatsoever to do it. Blast, compulsive truth-telling strikes again: I have read a few Poe stories and have no desire to be depressed again by revisiting him. Alas, Elena, I can not oblige on this occasion.
Looking to the right I see a massive textbook full of the material I'm pumping into lecture notes, and to the left a stack of inexplicable mugs. Behind me... long long pause... Well, it's best not to comment in case people realise my actual madness as opposed to presumed madness. Masses of things lie behind me. Meep meep! There might be a shark called Vera, but who can say what's real?
The week ahead is my last significant time in Aberystwyth for the foreseeable future, and that's sad. It has been lovely, even in the stress and loneliness, but it is now almost over again and the mysteries of fate alone will reveal whether I can go back in the future, apart from that one Tuesday where I have to go in and finish off the lectures and pretend to not be an unemployed loon who walked in to teach them for free. Why pretend? It's actually just to confuse them because I've looked like an employed loon who walked in to teach them for no reason for the last three months.
Being employed means you are mad, but being mad does not mean you are employed. It's a pretty good indicator that you were employed at some point though, otherwise why would you be mad? Without being specific, all but one or two of the whole department seem to be raving mad, and that's including Gretchen the Tea Room Ghost. Poor Gretchen, she should never have tampered with sugar bowl...
It will be strange to not be in Aberystwyth again, that rain-soaked jewel of the mid-Ceredigion coast. It's lovely. It's a scenic blunder that is yet to be fully spoilt by the modern world, mostly because it's two hours away from the rest of civilization. It's remote, and wonderful, and just the right kind of ludicrous. In the summer the tourists wreck the place but up until then it's gorgeous. And again, it's ludicrous, oh so wonderfully ludicrous.
Oh, grog, got to keep lecture writing going...
O.
Looking to the right I see a massive textbook full of the material I'm pumping into lecture notes, and to the left a stack of inexplicable mugs. Behind me... long long pause... Well, it's best not to comment in case people realise my actual madness as opposed to presumed madness. Masses of things lie behind me. Meep meep! There might be a shark called Vera, but who can say what's real?
The week ahead is my last significant time in Aberystwyth for the foreseeable future, and that's sad. It has been lovely, even in the stress and loneliness, but it is now almost over again and the mysteries of fate alone will reveal whether I can go back in the future, apart from that one Tuesday where I have to go in and finish off the lectures and pretend to not be an unemployed loon who walked in to teach them for free. Why pretend? It's actually just to confuse them because I've looked like an employed loon who walked in to teach them for no reason for the last three months.
Being employed means you are mad, but being mad does not mean you are employed. It's a pretty good indicator that you were employed at some point though, otherwise why would you be mad? Without being specific, all but one or two of the whole department seem to be raving mad, and that's including Gretchen the Tea Room Ghost. Poor Gretchen, she should never have tampered with sugar bowl...
It will be strange to not be in Aberystwyth again, that rain-soaked jewel of the mid-Ceredigion coast. It's lovely. It's a scenic blunder that is yet to be fully spoilt by the modern world, mostly because it's two hours away from the rest of civilization. It's remote, and wonderful, and just the right kind of ludicrous. In the summer the tourists wreck the place but up until then it's gorgeous. And again, it's ludicrous, oh so wonderfully ludicrous.
Oh, grog, got to keep lecture writing going...
O.
Friday, 21 March 2014
The Conduit
What can be written about today? A movie, a podcast, a book? A random event or the news of the week? The giant flailing hammer of weather that squeezed the world on a daily basis?
Not so long ago, or longer than you might think, I stumbled across a podcast called 'The Tobolowsky Files'. It's a sequence of stories told by the noted character actor Stephen Tobolowsky ("Ned... Ryerson!"). Despite the rather mawkish sounding topics it was a podcast, and now is again, that serves as a guiding light somehow. A podcast that forms part of the conduit to the emotions that are buried most of the time.
The conduit to the heart is a tricky thing; It gets blocked so easily for one thing, but is then unblocked consistently with certain learned triggers. For example, I know that the 'Due South' season one finale called 'Letting Go' will open me up every time, 'Star Trek II' too, and 'The Tobolowsky Files'. Other things work but there's no predictability. The conduit is tricky. 'Mary Poppins' is unreliable in this respect, despite being practically perfect in every way. Oh, Mary Poppins, you smudger!
'The Tobolowsky Files' is a great podcast, a rare gem unafraid to go to personal places without becoming intrusive, unafraid to be free of swearing while still tackling adult material on many levels. It is hard to overstate just how rare podcasts free of swearing are on the Grand Old Internet. So far there's Tobolowsky, 'The Thrilling Adventure Hour' and 'How Stuff Works' that I have found in my ponderings. Obviously there are many more out there and they remain to be discovered. Oh, I forgot 'Filmspotting': A show that freewheels frequently off the cliff into the ravine of pretention but manages to come back to be interesting anyway. None of them really competes with Tobolowsky though; that show serves as a surrogate source of experience for someone who hasn't lived the fullest of social lives, and also more significantly illustrates explicitly at times the differences between an American lifestyle and mindset to our own. They can be so strange sometimes across the Atlantic!
Back to the conduit, the mystic cranky beast of a waterway for the emotions. A crooked canal that goes nowhere and everywhere. Human sentiment crashing through scientific mindset and for a moment re-establishing that elusive balance that vanishes so easily. Music can unleash its power, movies and television and radio too, but never books. The intellectualisation of reading is perhaps too much of an effort and forms a block of its own? This will take some extra thought.
Here endeth the ramblings for this week.
O.
The Quirky Muffin: Confused, unstable, annoyed and annoying, but persisting still. Never give up, never surrender!
Not so long ago, or longer than you might think, I stumbled across a podcast called 'The Tobolowsky Files'. It's a sequence of stories told by the noted character actor Stephen Tobolowsky ("Ned... Ryerson!"). Despite the rather mawkish sounding topics it was a podcast, and now is again, that serves as a guiding light somehow. A podcast that forms part of the conduit to the emotions that are buried most of the time.
The conduit to the heart is a tricky thing; It gets blocked so easily for one thing, but is then unblocked consistently with certain learned triggers. For example, I know that the 'Due South' season one finale called 'Letting Go' will open me up every time, 'Star Trek II' too, and 'The Tobolowsky Files'. Other things work but there's no predictability. The conduit is tricky. 'Mary Poppins' is unreliable in this respect, despite being practically perfect in every way. Oh, Mary Poppins, you smudger!
'The Tobolowsky Files' is a great podcast, a rare gem unafraid to go to personal places without becoming intrusive, unafraid to be free of swearing while still tackling adult material on many levels. It is hard to overstate just how rare podcasts free of swearing are on the Grand Old Internet. So far there's Tobolowsky, 'The Thrilling Adventure Hour' and 'How Stuff Works' that I have found in my ponderings. Obviously there are many more out there and they remain to be discovered. Oh, I forgot 'Filmspotting': A show that freewheels frequently off the cliff into the ravine of pretention but manages to come back to be interesting anyway. None of them really competes with Tobolowsky though; that show serves as a surrogate source of experience for someone who hasn't lived the fullest of social lives, and also more significantly illustrates explicitly at times the differences between an American lifestyle and mindset to our own. They can be so strange sometimes across the Atlantic!
Back to the conduit, the mystic cranky beast of a waterway for the emotions. A crooked canal that goes nowhere and everywhere. Human sentiment crashing through scientific mindset and for a moment re-establishing that elusive balance that vanishes so easily. Music can unleash its power, movies and television and radio too, but never books. The intellectualisation of reading is perhaps too much of an effort and forms a block of its own? This will take some extra thought.
Here endeth the ramblings for this week.
O.
The Quirky Muffin: Confused, unstable, annoyed and annoying, but persisting still. Never give up, never surrender!
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Story: Oneiromancy, V
I write this entry in the wake of the Bananaman movie revelation. 'Bananaman' and 'Peanuts' both with movies in 2015! That is potentially going to be a fascinating year. My excitement is almost irrational in its intensity, revealing perhaps the lack of excitement in my regular day to day events and lack of interest in most films. And 'Kung Fu Pands 3' too. Amazing. Until then it's time to get deep into Hitchcock and check out some of the less frequented films. And now for the story...
------
Story: Oneiromancy, V
(Part O , IV , VI)
Helen had not dreamed like that before. The surreality, if that was the word, had been frightening. Somehow she had been huge, for a moment in union with the land itself. Up above a figure had been floating, transfixed and staring down at her. The figure had seemed real, a fixed point in the shifting narrative which jostled her from the welcome and regular repose of sleep.
The figure had seemed real.
Work reasserted its importance in her mind as the lunch rush began and the tide of customers into the Blue Monkey escalated into a torrent. It was only much later, when the torrent returned to a more stately ebb and flow, that the dream popped into her mind again. All her life she had never really remembered her dreams at all and now... this.
The afternoon wore on, the regulars came and went, and then the teachers came in at the end of the school day. In they came, bedraggled and tired and sometimes triumphant but mostly defeated. They carried cases fulls of papers and bottles of water and ate together, slowly moving up the energy scale back to normality and preparing for piles and piles of marking later in the evening.
One of the teachers approached her, looking a bit dishevelled and sleep-deprived. He looked at her, and then boggled, which amused Helen in its incongruity. No-one ever boggled at her even on the most photogenic days. But then the world stopped and for just a moment the man seemed so real as to eclipse everything else in the restaurant. Everything faded to be as surreal as the Blue Monkey logo itself. And she fainted, just the man in front of her seemed to waver and open his mouth to speak.
This time, while unconscious, Helen didn't dream. After all, who was asleep to hear her?
------
Story: Oneiromancy, V
(Part O , IV , VI)
Helen had not dreamed like that before. The surreality, if that was the word, had been frightening. Somehow she had been huge, for a moment in union with the land itself. Up above a figure had been floating, transfixed and staring down at her. The figure had seemed real, a fixed point in the shifting narrative which jostled her from the welcome and regular repose of sleep.
The figure had seemed real.
Work reasserted its importance in her mind as the lunch rush began and the tide of customers into the Blue Monkey escalated into a torrent. It was only much later, when the torrent returned to a more stately ebb and flow, that the dream popped into her mind again. All her life she had never really remembered her dreams at all and now... this.
The afternoon wore on, the regulars came and went, and then the teachers came in at the end of the school day. In they came, bedraggled and tired and sometimes triumphant but mostly defeated. They carried cases fulls of papers and bottles of water and ate together, slowly moving up the energy scale back to normality and preparing for piles and piles of marking later in the evening.
One of the teachers approached her, looking a bit dishevelled and sleep-deprived. He looked at her, and then boggled, which amused Helen in its incongruity. No-one ever boggled at her even on the most photogenic days. But then the world stopped and for just a moment the man seemed so real as to eclipse everything else in the restaurant. Everything faded to be as surreal as the Blue Monkey logo itself. And she fainted, just the man in front of her seemed to waver and open his mouth to speak.
This time, while unconscious, Helen didn't dream. After all, who was asleep to hear her?
Monday, 17 March 2014
Individuality
I've been thinking a lot about individuality, that facet of consciousness that thoroughly separates us from the other animals. We are the ones blessed with a deep knowledge of being unique and cursed with the compulsion and societal pressure to be the same as everyone else. We're the ones who know we're going to cease at some point.
Note: This is actually a fairly personal subject as it has affected me badly in the past. Enough said.
We are mad mad human beings, working away to raise money in order to eat and live and make more human beings who will then do exactly the same things. We stuff all our resources into savings for the future and end up doing very little in the present, and all the while time grinds on and the great washing machine of the Universe continues its endless cycle of rinse and repeat.
Where does the balance lie? Where is the line to walk that manages to preserve our own quirks but also satisfies every other responsibility that we accept from societal norms and madnesses? The answer is simple, really, in that the line is different for every single person. Some people, obviously just from looking around the world, can quite happily balance a family and work and whatever interests they have and not go mad. Other people, myself included, have trouble even managing one of those things individually. What, work and have some kind of social life?! Impossible! Give me my keyboard, and I'll just spout rubbish at people on the Internet instead of having to talk about the weather and whatever someone did that day. And no, I will not talk about how good this soup is at length, thank you very much. Take the hint, soup-maker.
That got oddly personal, and may even me a mild violation of the Quirky Muffin editorial code. I think soup-hatred is proscribed also.
On the other hand, people concerned with their individuality and maintaining their own identities can badly tend to self-absorption, much like couples and parents preoccupied with their own internal life over old external acquaintances. That would be just as bad a loss of identity as that experienced by those who get too submerged in their own families and work. Where is the truth in this? How can people know what to do? How can I even know what to do?
This blog really doesn't make any sense. Expect revisions soon.
O.
Note: This is actually a fairly personal subject as it has affected me badly in the past. Enough said.
We are mad mad human beings, working away to raise money in order to eat and live and make more human beings who will then do exactly the same things. We stuff all our resources into savings for the future and end up doing very little in the present, and all the while time grinds on and the great washing machine of the Universe continues its endless cycle of rinse and repeat.
Where does the balance lie? Where is the line to walk that manages to preserve our own quirks but also satisfies every other responsibility that we accept from societal norms and madnesses? The answer is simple, really, in that the line is different for every single person. Some people, obviously just from looking around the world, can quite happily balance a family and work and whatever interests they have and not go mad. Other people, myself included, have trouble even managing one of those things individually. What, work and have some kind of social life?! Impossible! Give me my keyboard, and I'll just spout rubbish at people on the Internet instead of having to talk about the weather and whatever someone did that day. And no, I will not talk about how good this soup is at length, thank you very much. Take the hint, soup-maker.
That got oddly personal, and may even me a mild violation of the Quirky Muffin editorial code. I think soup-hatred is proscribed also.
On the other hand, people concerned with their individuality and maintaining their own identities can badly tend to self-absorption, much like couples and parents preoccupied with their own internal life over old external acquaintances. That would be just as bad a loss of identity as that experienced by those who get too submerged in their own families and work. Where is the truth in this? How can people know what to do? How can I even know what to do?
This blog really doesn't make any sense. Expect revisions soon.
O.
Saturday, 15 March 2014
Notes on a hectic week
Saturday: Returned from Aberystwyth laden with menacing emergency marking. Forced to not play games and instead WORK. There shall be vengeance. I must train a mutant turtle to do my bidding and make pizza. No, I don't like pizza. Mood swings.
Sunday: Went swimming. Finished the hectic emergency marking and then leaped straight into writing lecture for the following Tuesday. No sharks. Shaky mental stability evidenced by lack of appetite and excessive tweeting. Oiled bike and then went nowhere. Blasted hills!
Monday: Wrote more lectures and didn't see daylight. There may not have been a day. Dog barked a lot, but not at the sharks which weren't there. There are never any sharks inland. Didn't finish lecture but did finish 'The Reverse Of The Medal'.
Tuesday: To Aberystwyth! Weekend disruption meant lectures unfinished and coursework postponed. Approached to undertake secret mission but refused as not offered coffee cremes. Fluffed the lecture by being out of shape and collapsing. Pie shortage. Long calculations finished. Huzzah!
Wednesday: Aha! The long-awaited careers event I volunteered to organize! Barely ten final years turn up with refreshments for fifty laid on! Academics did not descend like vultures to scoop up remains. Madness! Went swimming and waited for miraculous coincidences. None. Can't shake 'Dignity' by 'Deacon Blue'.
Thursday: Two practicals and a lecture. Finished practical briefing in the first practical itself. Then finished lecture notes minutes before the slot. Ate lots of crisps. Organized mysterious Scrabble game for following day.
Friday: Two tutorials and a meeting. Minus signs monstrously mutating behind my back. Students mostly asleep. It's possible that whiteboard marker fumes are affecting me, but the pink elephants say it's okay. Two weeks until the contract finishes. Late night Scrabble goes well but chips rebel. Sleep doesn't happen. Blast you, salt deprivation!
Today: Away from Aberystwyth once again. Wrote some coursework. Realised that more than a week has passed since last break. What a lot of water there is in 'Thunderball'! Recalled the existence of 'The Beautiful South' and 'The Communards'. This day must end, and soon.
O.
Sunday: Went swimming. Finished the hectic emergency marking and then leaped straight into writing lecture for the following Tuesday. No sharks. Shaky mental stability evidenced by lack of appetite and excessive tweeting. Oiled bike and then went nowhere. Blasted hills!
Monday: Wrote more lectures and didn't see daylight. There may not have been a day. Dog barked a lot, but not at the sharks which weren't there. There are never any sharks inland. Didn't finish lecture but did finish 'The Reverse Of The Medal'.
Tuesday: To Aberystwyth! Weekend disruption meant lectures unfinished and coursework postponed. Approached to undertake secret mission but refused as not offered coffee cremes. Fluffed the lecture by being out of shape and collapsing. Pie shortage. Long calculations finished. Huzzah!
Wednesday: Aha! The long-awaited careers event I volunteered to organize! Barely ten final years turn up with refreshments for fifty laid on! Academics did not descend like vultures to scoop up remains. Madness! Went swimming and waited for miraculous coincidences. None. Can't shake 'Dignity' by 'Deacon Blue'.
Thursday: Two practicals and a lecture. Finished practical briefing in the first practical itself. Then finished lecture notes minutes before the slot. Ate lots of crisps. Organized mysterious Scrabble game for following day.
Friday: Two tutorials and a meeting. Minus signs monstrously mutating behind my back. Students mostly asleep. It's possible that whiteboard marker fumes are affecting me, but the pink elephants say it's okay. Two weeks until the contract finishes. Late night Scrabble goes well but chips rebel. Sleep doesn't happen. Blast you, salt deprivation!
Today: Away from Aberystwyth once again. Wrote some coursework. Realised that more than a week has passed since last break. What a lot of water there is in 'Thunderball'! Recalled the existence of 'The Beautiful South' and 'The Communards'. This day must end, and soon.
O.
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