Trying to make sense of it all
This is a tough time of year for many - perhaps even most of us. Post-Christmas and the dull, damp, cold, short days, seem endless. It's not until April that we properly see the green shoots of Spring.
I've tried going out over Xmas in Wells - but not very much. It's difficult to meet people. It's a bit like being the last people on the dating app. You soon realise why you're there - no one else will have you!
You're half-cut when you do meet people, you swap numbers, and when you do contact them for a drink or to give them a link to your erudite and hilarious new blogpost, they either ignore you or don't open it at all.
Oh god - it's him!
People have busy lives too. I'm there all the while shouting "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"
I chatted with a chap from London and he said he found it difficult too. I spent most of my life in the city (that's London btw, not the City of Wells) and was a reluctant returnee.
I know I'm intolerant and opinionated but I have tried over the 18 months I've been here.
Wells and I are just not meant for each other
It could be that my hitherto brilliantly concealed madness is seeping out all around me, thus giving the game away as I stand ankle-deep in puddles of undiluted insanity .
The only answer is to get out more and visit/bug existing friends, so I shall have to do that this year.
I've been watching a ton of movies and I just watched Inland Empire - David Lynch's last feature film from 2007 which he self-funded. What I like about Lynch is his reliance on dreams as puzzles to slowly elucidate for the watcher. And if they don't that's fine - whose dreams really ever make sense or have a comprehensible message?
 |
| The best hair, ever. |
Having done the Mindfulness course and looking back at my past actions with my customary self-criticism (I am my harshest critic) along with my cynical attitude to just about everything, I can see I have fewer answers and more questions.
Just another minnow in an ocean trying to make sense of the indefinable, incomprehensible chaos.
Trump's inauguration doesn't help of course.
My Dad suggested I'd have been better off if my sister had been running my business.
The whole thing is I always hated work, even when it was something I enjoyed doing. I know that that's the system, but I was born into it. I didn't have a choice.
And I've met so called life-coaches who say 'if ya ain't lovin' whatchya doing it's the wrong job for you!'
Well I say bullshit. Where’s it written that you have to love work, or even like it?
It just sells a bunch of dumb self-help books on Amazon.
It's easier for some people. The rest of us just have to mug on and get on with it.
I’m also of the opinion that work stress and sleepless nights contributed to my dementia.
Excerpts of unwritten novels (in my head)
Talking of David Lynch who sadly died recently, he loved to sit in silence and the ideas would come to him, like a solitary angler waiting for his first bite.
I get silly lines in my head, usually spoken in a particular voice, when I'm least expecting it. Walking the dog, doing the dishes, that kind of thing.
Example: the start of another forgettable Merchant Ivory film based on the boring novel of some Oxbridge stately homo about the unrequited love from Smedley minor, in the voice of some luvvie or other:
'It was at Ebstone where I wrote my third novel; 'The Crimson and The Beige. Ahhh...Ebstone...'
Or a children's book for girls about ponies, narrated by Kenneth Moore:
'Ginny loved to ride, and everyone loved to ride Ginny!'
I never got any further with that one...
But Ginny did!
Good old Ginny!
Film reviews
The Substance - amazing body horror from French director Coralie Fargeat. Demi Moore plays an aging starlet who now has an 80s style aerobics show. To her horror, she discovers her grotesque boss played by Dennis Quaid, wants to replace her with a beautiful sexy young thing. But luckily someone has slipped her the details of a new wonder ‘thing’ called The Substance. What could possibly go wrong?
Fabulous performances, not only great set design and cinematography, but incredible sound design too. An awesome tale about women, their bodies, aging, beauty, the patriarchy and the price to be paid. 9/10
Poor Things - released last year. Bonkers Alice in Wonderland meets Frankenstein in a steampunk wrapping. Based on the book of the same name by Alasdair Gray (which I actually read many years ago) this is a bawdy tale of a child’s brain in a woman’s body, and how she experiences the world as she grows up feeling neither guilt nor shame.
Check out the architectural jokes of the set, if you're that way inclined.
Very refreshing and enlightening. I loved it. 9/10
Nosferatu(alt title: 'Sleepin’ and a-creepin'.) 102 years after the Max Shreck original, this beautifully designed and rather characterless film neither creeps us out nor scares.
It looks beautiful in incredibly low-light which at a modern cinema works brilliantly. But the characters are essentially cyphers and the last 3rd does drag a bit. 6.5/10.
 |
| Eerie, weird and tragic. |
For proper nightmares, the Werner Herzog version is properly unsettling - a bizarre, eerie film shot mainly in natural light. It’s like a Breughel painting come to life. It also has the most rats I’ve ever seen in a movie, with the ethereal beauty of Isabelle Adjani and the hideous tragic monster fittingly portrayed by Klaus Kinski.
Toilet of the Week
They don’t make them like this anymore. Back when Sheffield steel meant quality and Britain led the world in toilet construction: a vintage Unitron.
Built like a tank, it can cope with anything.
Very high water level in the bowl which was a thing back then.
Now that’s a man’s toilet. That’s not sexist as I know some of you women can really let rip.
Great is a word often overused but coupled with Andrex quilted toilet paper, this is a truly great toileting experience .
Seat: 8/10
Flush: 10/10
Ambience: 7/10
Total: 8.3/10
I am NOT a bloody hipster
I've always been into prog, fusion, Zappa, as well as all those wonderful themes from library music.
And people like me have a fancy moustache as we can't grow hair where it’s intended (on top of me 'ead) so it's compensation: a sporran/mirkin for my face.
In fact, if anything I'm trying to emulate my hero, the inventor, Wilf Lunn.
 |
| Wilf, and dragon. |
British invention you know.
Copy-wrong
Bullshit copy seen this week on a Leica website:
"It fits seamlessly into your creative lifestyle."
Just like my Tom Ford buttplug.
No comments:
Post a Comment