Amnesiac Texts VI

ASH: 'A writer shouldn't write for money; but there's no reason anyone else should expect him to work for nothing.' Have I nailed it?

Dom: Sweet. Blogit.

ASH: Will do. (Even better, it's my retort - somewhat overdue, admittedly - to a remark by Ayn Rand.)

(Il)literati of the day

"Relative unknown Mia Wasikowska, 19, from Australia, will be playing Alice, who is much older in the film than in CS Carroll's classic."

Yup, it actually says this in the Daily Mail.

Thought for the day

"You go into the kitchen and try to write a song, and you can't write a song."

- Bob Dylan

The Amnesiac Texts V

ASH: I am in Essex, wearing tights, some sort of S&M harness, and a t-shirt that says 'Vote For Pedro'. A career boosting move, d'you think?

Sartorial summery

'Let me tell you about linen,' she said. 'After a certain age it makes a man look ten years younger. Up until that age, it makes him look ten years older.'

- Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

The longest day

Strolling home this evening, at about 10, I was struck by the fact that it was still light.

I realised that, as adults, we just don't get to enjoy the long summer evenings the way we did as kids - ironically, because we're never in bed while the sun's up (or not at the end of the day, anyway).

All downhill from here, of course.

Father's Day

Seen in TESCOs: one book on Josef Fritzl, in the Father's Day display.

[Thanks to KJW]

Saddam's loo

Discovered in W1.

Sound sex advice

"Read most contemporary literary sex scenes and you'll soon be cured of all sexual inhibitions - mainly because you'll be celibate for the rest of your life."

- Kathy Lette in today's Times.

I should add that it's hard not to admire any piece of front page journalism in a nation's paper of record that includes the phrases "luncheon truncheon", "chucking the spam javelin" and "plugging your live seed feed into the love socket."

Celebrity culture skewered

Here's what I don't understand about Susan Boyle being in rehab: Surely you can't be crap and in rehab.

Myths & Legends

My girlfriend and I are going to a 'Myths & Legends' fancy dress party on Saturday night.

I'm going as the female orgasm.

She's going as a 12" schlong.

Nixon in Egypt

Is it just me, or has Tricky Dick made a posthumous appearance on the front pages?

The answer

"Good writers borrow from other authors.

Great writers steal from them outright."

- Samuel Norman Seaborn, The West Wing

The question

How ironic is it that Don Quixote rode a horse?

(Or does that gag not work in Spanish?)

Thought for the day

To the victor, the smugness.

Egypt UPDATE

Our North Africa correspondent checks in.

Headlines

Yesterday's Metro reports that exposure to bright light can "improve men's sexual performance".

Of course, few scientific announcements are as revelatory as they like to claim, and least of all in the field of sex.

Raul Ibanez, on bloggers

(For those of you who don't know, Raul Ibanez is the Left Fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies. He's good. Check his stats.)

"You can have my urine, my hair, my blood, my stool -- anything you can test. I'll give you back every dime I've ever made [if a drugs test is positive].

"I'll put that up against the jobs of anyone who writes this stuff. Make them accountable. There should be more credibility than some 42-year-old blogger typing in his mother's basement. It demeans everything you've done with one stroke of the pen."

Damn, why does everything think all bloggers live with their mums? Also, why does everyone think we want samples of their stool? My co-blogger and I are forever receiving anonymous stool samples in the mail. We understand people's frustrations at the things we write about them but our mums insist the poos in the post really must stop.

Dylan, on politics

What's your take on politics?
Politics is entertainment. It's a sport. It's for the well groomed and well heeled. The impeccably dressed. Party animals. Politicians are interchangeable.

Don't you believe in the democratic process?
Yeah, but what's that got to do with politics? Politics creates more problems than it solves. It can be counter-productive. The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles.

Dylan, on women

If a young man considering a career in the arts wanted to meet a lot of women, would he be better off learning to paint or to play guitar?
Probably neither. If he had women on his mind, he might think about becoming a lawyer or a doctor.

(Same source)

Dylan, on writing

Images don’t hang anybody up. Like if there’s an astrologer with a criminal record in one of my songs it’s not going to make anybody wonder if the human race is doomed. Images are taken at face value and it kind of freed me up.

In what way?
Well for instance, if there are shadows and flowers and swampy ledges in a composition, that’s what they are in their essence. There’s no mystification. That’s one way I can explain it.

Like a locomotive, a pair of boots, a kiss or the rain?
Right. All those things are what they are. Or pieces of what they are. It’s the way you move them around that makes it work.

- Taken from Bill Flanagan's interview with The Great One.

Re: The consolations of matrimony

The latest response to my anonymous friend's thoughts on marriage comes from another friend who may or may not be called Dee Dee and may or may not be of the female persuasion:

"A wife's not a sidekick! Wives have to do regular wife stuff, whereas sidekicks can have fun: adventures, mishaps, wacky inexplicable scrapes that only a rubber band and a working knowledge of vernacular Swahili can get you out of...that's the stuff I crave! I bet [INITIALS OF FAMOUS MOVIE STAR WHO DEE DEE PLANS TO SNAG WHEN WE'RE IN CHICAGO NEXT SEASON] won't let me do any of that! I'll have to just stay at home in his mansion, cooking and coming up with as-yet-undiscovered sexual positions (that's what wives do, yes?)."

This is getting interesting.

Greatest love song ever

Re: The consolations of matrimony

My inbox bulges with this response to my earlier post from another friend who may or may not be called Frank (just as he may or may not be called Englebert):

Dominic

This could only be written by a newlywed or someone contemplating marriage from a theoretical vantage point. Such convictions will never out last the honeymoon as the object of his touchingly naïve but misplaced affections makes it clear to him how it’s going to be from now on, starting with no more BJs and deteriorating from there.

I prefer Dr. Johnson Advice to a Young Man Contemplating Marriage: “Don’t”

Been there

For the record, I have no immediate plans for marriage. This is less to do with my fear of commitment than the fact that I don't have $260 for the "Hound Dog Special" wedding package. As soon as I do, I'm tying a knot in my knob (a traditional Native American custom practiced by the Semen'ole tribe).

The consolations of matrimony

This pearl of wisdom may or may not have come from a friend of mine who may or may not have tied the knot just last week:

"I'd recommend marriage. The wife's family pays for it all, and loads of people give big cash donations. My (/our) bank balance is looking very healthy now. Then you get a wife to look after you while you write whatever books you want. It's excellent value for money."

(Congratulations Bjorn. Sounds like you done good, old bean.)

With the sympathies of this blog

"Music was the driving force of my life, but I was scared. When I was young, the line in my house was that you do something sensible - it doesn't matter whether you like it or not. You only do music as a hobby."

- From an interview with Bryce Morrison in this month's Marylebone Journal.

Twigged

You must make an enemy of time in prison. You must not wait for time to pass, instead resent its passing as you fill your days with worthwhile tasks, inner tasks.

- Giordano Bruno

The same could be said of African bus journeys.

[Thanks to Robert Twigger, Dr Ragab's Universal Language]

More on Citizen Kane

"It's no great trick to make a lot of money... if all you want to do is make a lot of money."

Thought for the day

If a manuscript is covered with writing which masks previous writing about having sex with relatives, does that make it palimpsestuous?

(Thanks to Dee Dee - I was incapable of any decent thoughts today)

It is written

Empires are won by polymaths and lost by specialists.

- Robert Twigger

Parenting: the basics

Mickey Mantle was so hyped that it about broke him: He made the New York Yankees club when he was 19 years old. Then, after a rough spell, he was sent back to Kansas City, where he was so depressed he talked about quitting the game. That's when his father famously drove up to Kansas City and started packing his clothes and (in Mickey's memory) said, "I thought I raised a man. I see I raised a coward instead. You can come back to Oklahoma and work the mines with me."

Mantle, you might remember, decided to stick it out with baseball.

Reminds me of a heated 'discussion' I had with my parents in Pizza Express in Barnet last night.

Spam of the day

Dites dsetroy oour helath. Laern ho

Oh, sure, I'm so clickin' that.

FYI

Splendor in the Grass

is not a movie about lacing pot with low calorie sweetener.

Imagine my disappointment.

Who

knew?

(Answer: Not even the good folks at World Wide Words, as it happens, but at least they gave it a shot.)

(Thanks to JR and her companion)

Titles gone begging - 6

Death on the Patio: mother's trouble with plants

Is it just me

or is it kind of freaky listening to Christian Bale speak with a British accent?

Ghosts in the infield

Look closely at this shot of a nightgame between the Bucks and the Dodgeroos at the beautiful PNC Park (click the image for full size). I know I'm a hopeless romantic when it comes to baseball and everything, but I can definitely spot at least four ghosts haunting the infield. Two on first base. One on second. And one on the pitcher's mound.

(Il)literati of the day

Matt Wieters Is The Reason I Comes Before E, Except After C.

Thought for the day

The rolling stone gathers no moss.

But it does start avalanches.

Titles gone begging - 5

No Countryside for Old Men
(the CPRE in the 21st-century)