A holiday is a tricky beast. A mass of whirling preconceptions and plans that collapse down to the waveform that is reality once you set foot at the destination and realise just what you've really arrived at. The last week was spent, for me and my anniversary-ing parents, in scenic and wet Amsterdam, the mildewy elegant and liberal capital of the already liberal Netherlands. Needless to say, people got cheese for gifts and postcards were totally neglected.
That's right, I forgot all postcards. Sorry, people of the world who expected some.
For my part, I did exactly two things as activities and excursions in Amsterdam: The zoo and tracking down board game shops. Everything else fell by the wayside in the chaos and panic, and instead it narrowed down to animals and cardboard. In retrospect Zooloretto would have been the best game to get. Blast it all! My travel arrangements favoured everyone but me, so that's a trip well organised. Sigh.
The Amsterdam Artis Zoo is lovely, taking up a massive portion of the city to the east of the Hermitage (ticked off a Civilization computer game landmark!), and filled with all the usual suspects as well as the lesser seen sea lions and alligators. The alligators were hiding when the even more than usually hesitant trip to the reptile house occurred and a few side glimpses of snakes pushed me back out into the cold drizzle. Oh Dutch drizzle, you are no match for the Welsh kind, which kicks you in the teeth after soaking you through and not before. The Beiderbecke references were knocked off pretty quickly by copying the notion of a canal cruise and then what was there left to do?
An in-depth analysis of all the material at hand upon arrival led to a swift declaration of a Red Light District prohibited zone, a bike hire that was subsequently mostly ignored, and the directions to board game shops supplied by the awesome Elena being salvaged and used on the final morning. Not buying a game was compensated for by identifying and visiting a cheese shop as a consequence! Who can go to Amsterdam and not buy cheese, truly? It is the default gift, apart from knocked off windmills, leather jackets and terrible miniature clogs! Note: Never get gifts for anyone from Amsterdam unless you want a friend with clogs, leather jackets and windmill beanie hats driven by cheesy breath. Ick.
The overriding impression of Amsterdam from my city-loathing point of view is that is comparatively green, comparatively scenic, less grey and severe than some other places, crushed underneath a sea of cyclists and generally quite nice away from the aforementioned prohibited zone. But it's still a city. Bleuch! The public transport system is admirably integrated though, right down to universal travel passes and free ferries across the massive river Ij. There are scenic streets and canals, and historic buildings galore, as well as some of the seediest gift shops known to humanity. It's a strange contradiction in terms in many ways, and a contradiction that will need further independent study.
Now if only we could get to the bottom of why the term 'museum' actually means 'gallery' in the European countries I've been to a mass of disappointments might be averted in the future. Actual museums are so much nicer than galleries!
O.
Monday, 12 May 2014
Saturday, 10 May 2014
Movie: 'Dan In Real Life' (2007)
(Prepared far far in advance. Away in Amsterdam.)
The danger in writing about 'Dan In Real Life' is that you will write 'It's a lovely little movie' over and over again, because it is. So why not just get that over with at the beginning? It is a lovely little movie after all, and it firmly and unequivocally belongs in my little box of post-Millennial movies that are actually good. It also slots neatly in to the very small set of movies featuring comedic actors in crossover roles, which so far is complete in 'Groundhog Day', 'The Truman Show', 'Stranger Than Fiction' and this movie. If you know of anymore please add a comment.
Where to begin? Very well, 'Dan In Real Life' is a romance / family drama with some comedic overtones. It's one of the few such movies I can stand to watch, and in part that's because of an unwavering sense of reality that's meshed deep into the fabric of what is ultimately a simple tale. It's so simple that it can be summarised by the following: "Widower single dad falls for woman, woman turns out to be his brother's new girlfriend, they end up together anyway."
This is potentially a futile post as I have no idea what it is I like about this film. Why do I cry at a romance at all? It's set in a big house where a massive extended family is having its annual meeting, which is not something I relate to, and it's all about love and its attendant messiness and the stressed relationships between the titular Dan and his three daughters. Maybe if we ignore the love story and concentrate on Dan himself it might become clearer. It's really much more a film about Dan than anyone else, a story of someone finding it within himself to not be afraid anymore and love again. With some naturalistic funny bits. It's not a comedy firstmost or secondmost, but a story. A simple story at that, but one with a magnificent cast, in a beautiful place, with great skill apparent at all technical levels, and a heart of gold at the core. Also, Sondre Lerche does a great job with the music. Check him out. He's only a little crazy.
It's strange how it works out. A film which could be overwhelmingly twee or sentimental instead holds its course enough to be comfortable and affecting. A potentially humdrum stressed family dynamic resolves into what could be a new beginning for all concerned. A potentially farcical Steve Carell movie turns out to be an understated character piece. Sometimes the pieces do align. I actually do get kind of bored in the story with his middle daughter but it feeds into the ending so it has to be there. Teen love? Love is for lesser mortals, those who don't have crumpets! Oh, love...
It's easy to become scared of life and love, especially it doesn't seem forthcoming. Just remember, it's not the case that you find love, but that love will find you if you're open to it. That's a nice thought, even if it is too sappy to be true. It's a good movie, with an excellent soundtrack and a massively winning performance from Carell, and one that sits very strangely in my movie collection. I suppose the answer to why I like it is obvious: It's nice to think that people can overcome their demons and be happy and even in love and loved. It's a nice thought. Until then, however, it's crumpets and swimming.
Love will find you!
O.
The danger in writing about 'Dan In Real Life' is that you will write 'It's a lovely little movie' over and over again, because it is. So why not just get that over with at the beginning? It is a lovely little movie after all, and it firmly and unequivocally belongs in my little box of post-Millennial movies that are actually good. It also slots neatly in to the very small set of movies featuring comedic actors in crossover roles, which so far is complete in 'Groundhog Day', 'The Truman Show', 'Stranger Than Fiction' and this movie. If you know of anymore please add a comment.
Where to begin? Very well, 'Dan In Real Life' is a romance / family drama with some comedic overtones. It's one of the few such movies I can stand to watch, and in part that's because of an unwavering sense of reality that's meshed deep into the fabric of what is ultimately a simple tale. It's so simple that it can be summarised by the following: "Widower single dad falls for woman, woman turns out to be his brother's new girlfriend, they end up together anyway."
This is potentially a futile post as I have no idea what it is I like about this film. Why do I cry at a romance at all? It's set in a big house where a massive extended family is having its annual meeting, which is not something I relate to, and it's all about love and its attendant messiness and the stressed relationships between the titular Dan and his three daughters. Maybe if we ignore the love story and concentrate on Dan himself it might become clearer. It's really much more a film about Dan than anyone else, a story of someone finding it within himself to not be afraid anymore and love again. With some naturalistic funny bits. It's not a comedy firstmost or secondmost, but a story. A simple story at that, but one with a magnificent cast, in a beautiful place, with great skill apparent at all technical levels, and a heart of gold at the core. Also, Sondre Lerche does a great job with the music. Check him out. He's only a little crazy.
It's strange how it works out. A film which could be overwhelmingly twee or sentimental instead holds its course enough to be comfortable and affecting. A potentially humdrum stressed family dynamic resolves into what could be a new beginning for all concerned. A potentially farcical Steve Carell movie turns out to be an understated character piece. Sometimes the pieces do align. I actually do get kind of bored in the story with his middle daughter but it feeds into the ending so it has to be there. Teen love? Love is for lesser mortals, those who don't have crumpets! Oh, love...
It's easy to become scared of life and love, especially it doesn't seem forthcoming. Just remember, it's not the case that you find love, but that love will find you if you're open to it. That's a nice thought, even if it is too sappy to be true. It's a good movie, with an excellent soundtrack and a massively winning performance from Carell, and one that sits very strangely in my movie collection. I suppose the answer to why I like it is obvious: It's nice to think that people can overcome their demons and be happy and even in love and loved. It's a nice thought. Until then, however, it's crumpets and swimming.
Love will find you!
O.
Friday, 9 May 2014
Television: 'Star Trek The Next Generation: Family' (Episode 4x02)
(Prepared long ago. Away in Amsterdam.)
As I sit here typing frenetically and producing cover material for the Muffin over the next few weeks, I am overshadowed by a massive number of Star Trek novels. Star Trek was a massive influence on me, massive, and on revisiting much of non-Original Series era be underwhelming or feel a little hidebound.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation', henceforth to be referred to as TNG, had a number of problems. There's not much point in going into the problems in depth, but amongst them there was the problem of writing truly meaningful or dramatic episodes within a purely episodic structure where there could be no consequences. It was a show that started in the 1980s after all, with all the trappings of that era. TNG actually succeeded for the most part despite itself and its own structure, and part of that was because occasionally it could do episodes like 'Family'.
'Family' was the follow-up to the preceding two-parter 'The Best Of Both Worlds' in which Picard (Captain Jean-Luc Picard, false Frenchman and tea addict) was taken and assimilated in a fashion into the Borg and used to power and mastermind an invasion into the United Federation of Planets. Of course by the end of that story he was reclaimed and restored to the Enterprise-D (which doesn't look like a giant duck at all, oh no) and in the normal Star Trek scheme of things that would have been that. On this occasion there was 'Family', though, which allowed consequences, which were unheard of outside the still-recent movies II, III and IV.
Consequences did not occur much in Star Trek then as mostly things get forgotten by the next episode, but 'Family' was one of two notable TNG episodes (along with 'Lessons' which refers to 'The Inner Light') to show consequences to a given story. That changed everything. Picard got a whole episode, in concert with less impressive but thematically similar B and C stories, to recover from what would be one of the most traumatic things to occur to a character in Star Trek ever. It was and is quite the magical show as Patrick Stewart showed every inch of his acting calibre and sold the idea that Picard might not come back to the ship, that the world is different now, and that some trauma doesn't go away. And then he gets to fight in mud with Jeremy Kemp (brother Picard) and remind us all that he is the guy with the most rounded and human character on the ship by far. I think fighting in mud with Jeremy Kemp should be the overwhelming feature of every trauma recovery in Star Trek really, but that's just me.
It is one of the landmark episodes, a show without a space mission or a problem to be solved via science or neutrinoes or some silly deus ex machina. The only stories are personal stories, and they all land, and when Picard does eventually return to be captain again - get back in your own seat, Number One - it is because he has worked through his problems himself. The introduction of stories like this is what saved TNG, what powered DS9 completely at times, and then disappeared somehow as Star Trek went away again into the dark. Of course that is the way it goes, and that was the way it went. At least we got one of the best episodes ever when TNG was on air, and it was called 'Family'.
O.
As I sit here typing frenetically and producing cover material for the Muffin over the next few weeks, I am overshadowed by a massive number of Star Trek novels. Star Trek was a massive influence on me, massive, and on revisiting much of non-Original Series era be underwhelming or feel a little hidebound.
'Star Trek: The Next Generation', henceforth to be referred to as TNG, had a number of problems. There's not much point in going into the problems in depth, but amongst them there was the problem of writing truly meaningful or dramatic episodes within a purely episodic structure where there could be no consequences. It was a show that started in the 1980s after all, with all the trappings of that era. TNG actually succeeded for the most part despite itself and its own structure, and part of that was because occasionally it could do episodes like 'Family'.
'Family' was the follow-up to the preceding two-parter 'The Best Of Both Worlds' in which Picard (Captain Jean-Luc Picard, false Frenchman and tea addict) was taken and assimilated in a fashion into the Borg and used to power and mastermind an invasion into the United Federation of Planets. Of course by the end of that story he was reclaimed and restored to the Enterprise-D (which doesn't look like a giant duck at all, oh no) and in the normal Star Trek scheme of things that would have been that. On this occasion there was 'Family', though, which allowed consequences, which were unheard of outside the still-recent movies II, III and IV.
Consequences did not occur much in Star Trek then as mostly things get forgotten by the next episode, but 'Family' was one of two notable TNG episodes (along with 'Lessons' which refers to 'The Inner Light') to show consequences to a given story. That changed everything. Picard got a whole episode, in concert with less impressive but thematically similar B and C stories, to recover from what would be one of the most traumatic things to occur to a character in Star Trek ever. It was and is quite the magical show as Patrick Stewart showed every inch of his acting calibre and sold the idea that Picard might not come back to the ship, that the world is different now, and that some trauma doesn't go away. And then he gets to fight in mud with Jeremy Kemp (brother Picard) and remind us all that he is the guy with the most rounded and human character on the ship by far. I think fighting in mud with Jeremy Kemp should be the overwhelming feature of every trauma recovery in Star Trek really, but that's just me.
It is one of the landmark episodes, a show without a space mission or a problem to be solved via science or neutrinoes or some silly deus ex machina. The only stories are personal stories, and they all land, and when Picard does eventually return to be captain again - get back in your own seat, Number One - it is because he has worked through his problems himself. The introduction of stories like this is what saved TNG, what powered DS9 completely at times, and then disappeared somehow as Star Trek went away again into the dark. Of course that is the way it goes, and that was the way it went. At least we got one of the best episodes ever when TNG was on air, and it was called 'Family'.
O.
Wednesday, 7 May 2014
Story: 'Wordspace', IX
(Part I , VIII , X) - (Prepared long ago - delivering the Dutch from tyranny and cheeses at this time)
Mystery, Club and Sorpresa stood at the point of intersection. Their ally Cloud, left behind on their other plane of existence, would be doing what? Would he wait? Would he be summoned away for some vital mission?
Mystery jerked himself back to his new reality, his mind wandering as it never had before. Was that an effect of crossing over to this strange new place, wherever it might be? Around them was the accumulated debris of eons, or of just a few minutes. The space was vast (or quite, quite small) and dominated by the figure he could only assume was the Silly Stone.
The Silly Stone was bunny hopping. Badly.
Club immediately stepped forward, to Mystery's right flank. He looked quite normal and composed, but composure for Club meant preparedness and vigilance. The Silly Stone continued on obliviously, now making strange noises that might have been singing.
Mystery's mind had wandered again, and this time he brought it back from the Isle of Truth, Lies and Mystery as it had used to be. This time there was an almost audible mental twang. What was the Silly Stone? What had Sorpresa done when he was here last? (If 'last' even had any meaning?) Now that he was reminded of that strange visitor from another land he examined him closely. Sorpresa wasn't looking around, not was he chirping away in his own lingua franca. He just watched the Silly Stone silently and quite intently. Did he know something?
Bunny hop hop hop. Hop chirp splat hop click squeal hop unidentifiable noise tra la la hop.
The Silly Stone was evidently sillier than even Space had intimated. Mystery and Club looked on as he capered around, utterly alien and yet quite familiar. Parts of the Stone seemed to made of the regular syllables and letters of their own syllabic existence while others were utterly different and... inexplicable... even solid. And what was there in the syllabic sense was partly extra-lexical. It was madness!
"Sploot sploot, clammy nostrum axc:lap." The Silly Stone had stopped before him and he realised that he had drifted off again. "Slappy Clippy Drchr Sponge?"
"Sponge?" A genuine word?
"Sponge! Ah! Tarkll lingual smash traversal sl^p."
"Translation!"
"Yes. Translation. Don't spckl, it's almost settled in now. Ah, I know this trpl from before! No need to analyse! Como se va, Sorpresa?" The Silly Stone addressed Sorpresa.
"Bueno, excelente, pero ahora quiero ir a mi casa. Ha hecho muchas días." Sorpresa sounded happy, but not urgent.
"Si si, en un momento." The Stone turned back to Mystery and Club. "I've identified your lexicon now. Never met anyone from your world before. What can I do for you? Sing a song? do a merry Rosetta jig?"
"No, ah... This is confusing..."
"Yes, it would be. As lexical beings you're struggling with being out of context." A slow waltz around the tiny/huge room. "You'll adjust in a few moments. Plus, I suspect a few days trying to interpret another language has left you more than a little tired." A sigh. "When you're made of language itself, a new one can be rather opaque."
"Yes... What?"
"Time means nothing here. I know most things and at the same not many at all. However, it's best to get our friend Surprise here home." The Stone spun, handed a funny looking bag to Sorpresa, who attached it somehow quickly. Then the Stone snapped his digits and boom, Sorpresa was gone.
"Sorpresa? Surprise?"
"Yes, Surprise."
"I see... That explains the jumping out of holes while grinning."
"Probably. He's much more fun than the other one."
"The other one we haven't seen at all."
"Just as well. A nasty piece of work. Quite shook the feathers off my back." The Silly Stone stopped bouncing and looked worried instead. "I suppose that we'd better talk."
"Yes, it sounds we had better." Mystery had a feeling that the weirder events were yet to come.
More shall follow.
Mystery, Club and Sorpresa stood at the point of intersection. Their ally Cloud, left behind on their other plane of existence, would be doing what? Would he wait? Would he be summoned away for some vital mission?
Mystery jerked himself back to his new reality, his mind wandering as it never had before. Was that an effect of crossing over to this strange new place, wherever it might be? Around them was the accumulated debris of eons, or of just a few minutes. The space was vast (or quite, quite small) and dominated by the figure he could only assume was the Silly Stone.
The Silly Stone was bunny hopping. Badly.
Club immediately stepped forward, to Mystery's right flank. He looked quite normal and composed, but composure for Club meant preparedness and vigilance. The Silly Stone continued on obliviously, now making strange noises that might have been singing.
Mystery's mind had wandered again, and this time he brought it back from the Isle of Truth, Lies and Mystery as it had used to be. This time there was an almost audible mental twang. What was the Silly Stone? What had Sorpresa done when he was here last? (If 'last' even had any meaning?) Now that he was reminded of that strange visitor from another land he examined him closely. Sorpresa wasn't looking around, not was he chirping away in his own lingua franca. He just watched the Silly Stone silently and quite intently. Did he know something?
Bunny hop hop hop. Hop chirp splat hop click squeal hop unidentifiable noise tra la la hop.
The Silly Stone was evidently sillier than even Space had intimated. Mystery and Club looked on as he capered around, utterly alien and yet quite familiar. Parts of the Stone seemed to made of the regular syllables and letters of their own syllabic existence while others were utterly different and... inexplicable... even solid. And what was there in the syllabic sense was partly extra-lexical. It was madness!
"Sploot sploot, clammy nostrum axc:lap." The Silly Stone had stopped before him and he realised that he had drifted off again. "Slappy Clippy Drchr Sponge?"
"Sponge?" A genuine word?
"Sponge! Ah! Tarkll lingual smash traversal sl^p."
"Translation!"
"Yes. Translation. Don't spckl, it's almost settled in now. Ah, I know this trpl from before! No need to analyse! Como se va, Sorpresa?" The Silly Stone addressed Sorpresa.
"Bueno, excelente, pero ahora quiero ir a mi casa. Ha hecho muchas días." Sorpresa sounded happy, but not urgent.
"Si si, en un momento." The Stone turned back to Mystery and Club. "I've identified your lexicon now. Never met anyone from your world before. What can I do for you? Sing a song? do a merry Rosetta jig?"
"No, ah... This is confusing..."
"Yes, it would be. As lexical beings you're struggling with being out of context." A slow waltz around the tiny/huge room. "You'll adjust in a few moments. Plus, I suspect a few days trying to interpret another language has left you more than a little tired." A sigh. "When you're made of language itself, a new one can be rather opaque."
"Yes... What?"
"Time means nothing here. I know most things and at the same not many at all. However, it's best to get our friend Surprise here home." The Stone spun, handed a funny looking bag to Sorpresa, who attached it somehow quickly. Then the Stone snapped his digits and boom, Sorpresa was gone.
"Sorpresa? Surprise?"
"Yes, Surprise."
"I see... That explains the jumping out of holes while grinning."
"Probably. He's much more fun than the other one."
"The other one we haven't seen at all."
"Just as well. A nasty piece of work. Quite shook the feathers off my back." The Silly Stone stopped bouncing and looked worried instead. "I suppose that we'd better talk."
"Yes, it sounds we had better." Mystery had a feeling that the weirder events were yet to come.
More shall follow.
Monday, 5 May 2014
Story: Oneiromancy, VII
(Part O , VI , VIII) - (Written long ago - Currently in Amsterdam, testing the Dutch toffee tolerance)
Weirdness has an endearing habit of becoming normal with exposure. So many things that used to be weird are now normal, and so many that used to be normal are now quite bizarre. On many levels, weirdness is interchangeable with unfamiliarity. Those thoughts wouldn't occur to Stanley for another few days, until long after his world had changed irrevocably.
After departing the Blue Monkey, the teacher spent his evening marking and then transferring everything he could remember about the dreams and his experiences to paper. The light path, the owl in the blue fez, the great sand face in the desert, and finally the incredible feeling of familiarity and connectedness in the cafe that day. After some thought, he mentioned the infuriating dreams of his past and the extents he had gone to to rid himself of them.
Two streets away, Helen had scribbled down what little she remembered about her dreams. She also wrote about some rumours she had heard about while studying at college. The rest of the evening was spent distractedly at Spanish class, which fact does not concern the narrative any further.
Dusk fell early in what was after all the late Spring, and Stanley worriedly took a walk around the park, then around the supermarket, and then once around the block. It had been years since he had been so scared of going to sleep. Finally, in a state of near exhaustion from worry, he nervously brushed his teeth and washed before retiring to his rather unruly bedchamber. For all the wrong reasons, he couldn't rid Helen Ostrander from his mind.
Two desperate hours later he got up, made a cup of cocoa and then returned to bed. Several sips of the warm brown goop later he subsided into sleep and mirrored what Helen had been doing for hours already. He slept, as she slept, and then they dreamed.
Within the dream, Helen had been floating on a raft in the middle of a deep blue ocean, watching the dolphins and building houses out of giant dominoes. To windward a second raft approached rapidly, in a most illogical manner. She paid it only nominal attention and continued laying the large double six as the garage roof.
Stanley held on to the raft grimly as the squids propelled it along, endlessly pumping away. Finally they slowed and then vanished underwater as the rafts collided and merged most ridiculously into one giant structure. He examined the house Helen was distractedly building and wondered why she hadn't properly buttressed the arched ceiling. He got down to work and piled into the architecture. If only they a mass of kapla and a steadier raft they could work wonders!
The raft approached a darkened island. Upon the island there was a shack. Within the shack a light burned erratically. Stanley and Helen looked confusedly at one another and then up at the shack. Behind them was a clear dividing line between night and day, firmly defying the sun high up in the sky. At their feet, a scale pagoda made out of dominoes. On the topmost level, a message was crawling out in pebbles: "Help me."
A figure emerged from the shack.
To be continued...
Weirdness has an endearing habit of becoming normal with exposure. So many things that used to be weird are now normal, and so many that used to be normal are now quite bizarre. On many levels, weirdness is interchangeable with unfamiliarity. Those thoughts wouldn't occur to Stanley for another few days, until long after his world had changed irrevocably.
After departing the Blue Monkey, the teacher spent his evening marking and then transferring everything he could remember about the dreams and his experiences to paper. The light path, the owl in the blue fez, the great sand face in the desert, and finally the incredible feeling of familiarity and connectedness in the cafe that day. After some thought, he mentioned the infuriating dreams of his past and the extents he had gone to to rid himself of them.
Two streets away, Helen had scribbled down what little she remembered about her dreams. She also wrote about some rumours she had heard about while studying at college. The rest of the evening was spent distractedly at Spanish class, which fact does not concern the narrative any further.
Dusk fell early in what was after all the late Spring, and Stanley worriedly took a walk around the park, then around the supermarket, and then once around the block. It had been years since he had been so scared of going to sleep. Finally, in a state of near exhaustion from worry, he nervously brushed his teeth and washed before retiring to his rather unruly bedchamber. For all the wrong reasons, he couldn't rid Helen Ostrander from his mind.
Two desperate hours later he got up, made a cup of cocoa and then returned to bed. Several sips of the warm brown goop later he subsided into sleep and mirrored what Helen had been doing for hours already. He slept, as she slept, and then they dreamed.
Within the dream, Helen had been floating on a raft in the middle of a deep blue ocean, watching the dolphins and building houses out of giant dominoes. To windward a second raft approached rapidly, in a most illogical manner. She paid it only nominal attention and continued laying the large double six as the garage roof.
Stanley held on to the raft grimly as the squids propelled it along, endlessly pumping away. Finally they slowed and then vanished underwater as the rafts collided and merged most ridiculously into one giant structure. He examined the house Helen was distractedly building and wondered why she hadn't properly buttressed the arched ceiling. He got down to work and piled into the architecture. If only they a mass of kapla and a steadier raft they could work wonders!
The raft approached a darkened island. Upon the island there was a shack. Within the shack a light burned erratically. Stanley and Helen looked confusedly at one another and then up at the shack. Behind them was a clear dividing line between night and day, firmly defying the sun high up in the sky. At their feet, a scale pagoda made out of dominoes. On the topmost level, a message was crawling out in pebbles: "Help me."
A figure emerged from the shack.
To be continued...
Saturday, 3 May 2014
The Antecedent
(Written far in advance. En route to Amsterdam.)
This is not my first blog, in fact 'The Quirky Muffin' is a legacy weblog, inheriting its address from the now long-dormant `Mighty Clomp'. The 'Mighty Clomp' inherited its name from one of my sister's and my favourite toys, who was known as The Clomp. The Clomp, quite apart from being deliciously nasty, powerful and exiled also has the unfortunate tendency to get carried away, and once spent a month on the bottom of the sea because "it would be nice to get away from it all and chat with a squid". He also monologues, which will seemingly always be a problem for maniacal super villains. He sits on a stack of books not very far away even now, chuckling about the things he plans to do should he ever stop being incredibly lazy and addicted to writing false memoirs. The books are by Jim Davis.
antecedent: something that happened or existed before something else and is similar to it in some way
The Mighty Clomp was therefore the antecedent of the Muffin, and in many ways they are similar. Also in many ways they are quite dissimilar. Where the Muffin is fairly anonymised and generally depersonalised (or at least as much as it can be while still remaining a blog), the Clomp was a much more inappropriate place to be. Fortunately no-one was there and it collapsed rapidly under the weight of a total paucity of events and an author with a background devoid of anything but books and Star Trek. While this blog is determinedly adirectional, the Clomp was aimless but it is missed in the tiniest crevices of the author's heart. At least it lives on in the smallest ways, and the real (comparatively 'more real') Clomp sits on his stack and sings German drinking songs still.
As you read this I'm far, far away and preparing for a length journey to Amsterdam via bus, rail and ferry. If you encounter someone in the next few days in Amsterdam, maybe on a bicycle and looking lost maybe you should offer them a cheese in the hopes of reviving the spirits. In more general terms, I strongly advise tolerance for passing cyclists or crazy people in your swimming pool. They might be me! Especially if they have a bicycle AND are in the pool. There's a reason why I have to leave Britain! It's not all holidays and parental anniversaries.
Amsterdam... land of bike paths and swimming pools, and other things best left uninvestigated. If you're interested, please try to read 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace before I get to writing about it! Amsterdam features very prominantly, as does a little dog. Intrigued?
O.
PS It's hard to believe that this silly little personal challenge of a blog has been going for more than three hundred entries, and is still just as random and nonsensical as it has ever been. Even now there are seven different files open, each with a different heading and silly idea attached. And they're all manifestly terrible. More than three hundred entries and the quality's still somewhere between debatable and deplorable. Que sera, sera, loonies.
This is not my first blog, in fact 'The Quirky Muffin' is a legacy weblog, inheriting its address from the now long-dormant `Mighty Clomp'. The 'Mighty Clomp' inherited its name from one of my sister's and my favourite toys, who was known as The Clomp. The Clomp, quite apart from being deliciously nasty, powerful and exiled also has the unfortunate tendency to get carried away, and once spent a month on the bottom of the sea because "it would be nice to get away from it all and chat with a squid". He also monologues, which will seemingly always be a problem for maniacal super villains. He sits on a stack of books not very far away even now, chuckling about the things he plans to do should he ever stop being incredibly lazy and addicted to writing false memoirs. The books are by Jim Davis.
antecedent: something that happened or existed before something else and is similar to it in some way
The Mighty Clomp was therefore the antecedent of the Muffin, and in many ways they are similar. Also in many ways they are quite dissimilar. Where the Muffin is fairly anonymised and generally depersonalised (or at least as much as it can be while still remaining a blog), the Clomp was a much more inappropriate place to be. Fortunately no-one was there and it collapsed rapidly under the weight of a total paucity of events and an author with a background devoid of anything but books and Star Trek. While this blog is determinedly adirectional, the Clomp was aimless but it is missed in the tiniest crevices of the author's heart. At least it lives on in the smallest ways, and the real (comparatively 'more real') Clomp sits on his stack and sings German drinking songs still.
As you read this I'm far, far away and preparing for a length journey to Amsterdam via bus, rail and ferry. If you encounter someone in the next few days in Amsterdam, maybe on a bicycle and looking lost maybe you should offer them a cheese in the hopes of reviving the spirits. In more general terms, I strongly advise tolerance for passing cyclists or crazy people in your swimming pool. They might be me! Especially if they have a bicycle AND are in the pool. There's a reason why I have to leave Britain! It's not all holidays and parental anniversaries.
Amsterdam... land of bike paths and swimming pools, and other things best left uninvestigated. If you're interested, please try to read 'Yes Man' by Danny Wallace before I get to writing about it! Amsterdam features very prominantly, as does a little dog. Intrigued?
O.
PS It's hard to believe that this silly little personal challenge of a blog has been going for more than three hundred entries, and is still just as random and nonsensical as it has ever been. Even now there are seven different files open, each with a different heading and silly idea attached. And they're all manifestly terrible. More than three hundred entries and the quality's still somewhere between debatable and deplorable. Que sera, sera, loonies.
Friday, 2 May 2014
Total Submission
You must lay down all your joys and whims. None of them may pass with you into publication. All prose and colour, be it visual or verbal, is left at the gates unless you pay the utmost penalty. You shall not pass muster without that total submission. And lo, when your manuscript is taken they say unto you that it shall be judged by your peers, some of whom are not angry for the incidents of Leeds in 2013, and that you must wait.
The weeks, they pass slowly, and the words crumble into dust until at last all queries must be answered with conspicuous delay, and arguments with custard and rhubarb most sharp. If thou dost not comply with the rites so vague, and so laden with pomp, then nothing will fall upon you for all your labours but the peril of the pink slip of rejection. The editor shall place marks of black against your name, and when next the badges of publication are drawn you shall be given the wonky pelican.
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It was a good day. After six and a bit years of massively nonsensical labour, a paper has emerged and been submitted, and all on the eve of the eve of a monumental holiday. What do you do when you get a paper submitted (not guaranteed to be published, just submitted)? Well, you start thinking about the next one, of course! Just what could it be about? Ummm... That's a bit of a difficult question...
Also, in general news not related to aardvarks expect something special from Film Bin for the massively cult film 'Flash Gordon' very very soon. We even had a special guest and some snacks. It went surprisingly well for an endeavour I think we were all a bit nervous about on the Crew. Fortunately even if we do pick up a listener we're sure to lose them again pretty quickly. They only have to listen to any other one of our shows!
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This is the last live blog before the holiday, and all but one of the cover posts is now prepared. It has taken far more effort than I thought possible, and that last one shall be taken care of tomorrow even as the first of the cover posts come out. Maybe in the future the Quirky Muffin will suspend for vacations, but not this time!
As a result these are the last words before departure. We shall close by commemorating the number nine, the letter Q, and by suggesting quite complimentarily in both directions that Brian Blessed is indeed the British William Shatner. Let fly in comments if you disagree.
O.
The weeks, they pass slowly, and the words crumble into dust until at last all queries must be answered with conspicuous delay, and arguments with custard and rhubarb most sharp. If thou dost not comply with the rites so vague, and so laden with pomp, then nothing will fall upon you for all your labours but the peril of the pink slip of rejection. The editor shall place marks of black against your name, and when next the badges of publication are drawn you shall be given the wonky pelican.
---
It was a good day. After six and a bit years of massively nonsensical labour, a paper has emerged and been submitted, and all on the eve of the eve of a monumental holiday. What do you do when you get a paper submitted (not guaranteed to be published, just submitted)? Well, you start thinking about the next one, of course! Just what could it be about? Ummm... That's a bit of a difficult question...
Also, in general news not related to aardvarks expect something special from Film Bin for the massively cult film 'Flash Gordon' very very soon. We even had a special guest and some snacks. It went surprisingly well for an endeavour I think we were all a bit nervous about on the Crew. Fortunately even if we do pick up a listener we're sure to lose them again pretty quickly. They only have to listen to any other one of our shows!
---
This is the last live blog before the holiday, and all but one of the cover posts is now prepared. It has taken far more effort than I thought possible, and that last one shall be taken care of tomorrow even as the first of the cover posts come out. Maybe in the future the Quirky Muffin will suspend for vacations, but not this time!
As a result these are the last words before departure. We shall close by commemorating the number nine, the letter Q, and by suggesting quite complimentarily in both directions that Brian Blessed is indeed the British William Shatner. Let fly in comments if you disagree.
O.
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