Wonder why?

Does no one ever wonder why I keep doing this?

Does no one ever wonder why 5 million people sit in their houses in front of TVs doing nothing watching people sitting in a house doing nothing?

Taking into account the number of people who are aware of this realgem, and the number who are aware of that TV show, what is the per capita ratio of people who think to themselves just: Why? (shaking their heads slowly, brows furrowed in incomprehension)

Session 9

The Princess lives in the tongue, she likes talking in her little-girl voice. And now the Princess is gone; she's sleeping, and it's Billy here. Billy lives in the eyes, 'cause he can see everything. They don't want to wake up Simon, none of them do: Mary Hobbes, or her alters, the Princess and Billy. They try to warn the doctor. But in session 9, they wake Simon.

"And can you tell me where you live, Simon?" comes the disembodied voice of the clinical psychologist from the tape.

There is a pause.

"I live... in the weak and wounded..."

[session 9, from the tapes in the basement casefile 444]

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Moderate Life

"I am trying like Klee, to create something that will have a life of its own, that can put me in real danger, a danger which I willingly take on myself"

William Burroughs, Painting and Guns

Bloggers protect their offline identities to various extents, and the identities of those they write about. I could still pretend that Mikey is a character, a narrator. And it’s true: Mikey is a construct, a character that is being developed to carry out certain functions for its owner. Having features of a meme. There you go, Nardac, a real meme: Mikey and realgem and his slice-of-lime logo. It’s infected some people’s minds; if you find yourself clicking onto here regulary, you’re one of them. But I am probably the worst victim myself.

Also, as noted before (see part 3 of the post) on several occasions, there is something relevant here about Italo Calvino’s observation that the first character any author creates is the one who will write his book for him.

Now, anyone with a modicum of internet investigative skills could find my Real Name (tm) and other significant personal information about me without any great effort. (This is not an invitation to flood my inbox with emails beginning “Well, Mr _____, I happen to know that, in 2003…”)

When I began realgem this didn’t really matter to me. No disguises, I thought: just the ones I use in normal life (like this). It was also almost some sort of a cathartic exercise – live life in the open - at a dark time in my life. At the same time, I was setting myself up in direct competition with Big Brother – surely my life was more interesting than those dipshits? Well, Big Brother 5,000,000 – realgem 2,500 (and now down to 29 or so…)

It has been said the main qualifications for journalism are having a suit and tie, a half-way plausible manner, and a low, rat-like cunning. Well, I’ve got plenty of all of them, although mostly I wear suits without ties and use the ties for tourniquets. I can’t find veins in my lower arms easily any more, and that’s quite bad. I use the silk cat-print one (nine lives…) The dinosaur print one is bad luck, even though dinosaurs are cool (who on earth came up with a silk brontosaurus-print tie? Ah, T M Lewin & Sons of Jermyn Street).

Real-life stories. Not necessarily

[redacted]

 What can we, real humans, do in this age of compartmentalisation and specialisation, of personal hygiene and over-use of deodorants - supermarket self check-outs – ticket vending machines - the attempts to erase all personal human contact from public life - the nanny state?

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

Robert A. Heinlein

Yeah, there’s rock-climbing or para-gliding or scuba diving – contrived kicks you do your 9-to-5 to pay for. What is there in modern life that you can do that will challenge you on every side? Put you in physical danger and expose you to adrenalin; stretch your skills in applied psychology and force you to deal with a wide variety of people; challenge you mentally and intellectually, make you solve puzzles and improvise your way out of situations; learn new languages and cultures?

[redacted] until hair grew on my toes and I found myself becoming a hobbit and thinking (or maybe shouting): “Oh God, anything, anything you ask me, just for a boring life.” Casting yourself into the chasm of blind faith in God is all good and well, but you’ll still have your free will to deal with, motherfucker.

[redacted]

[It had ejaculated when it hit the windscreen – strange non-sequitur which will probably never be explained]

[redacted]

Guess who's back?

No not me, not quite yet...

Meanwhile in the news... the UK Government has set new levels of how much of a given illegal drug you may possess for it still to be considered personal use... (seven grammes of heroin) or half a kilo of marijuana... seems quite reasonable to me... The Telegraph reports here... (and the Guardian's news blog here, always worth giving an eyeball...)

realgem advertising review++++++++++++

I draw your attention, too, to the BP advert in the sidebar (of the Telegraph story, that is). Web advertising is getting oh-so clever these days - this is a great example. This one has a volume slider which you can use to activate the advert. Turn the volume slider up to hear the BP exec blab excitedly and reassuringly about the future of the energy business, and the whole advert opens up to (semi-transparently) cover a part of the page.

The implication of this particular ad is somehow re-assuring, too. As cynical as all eco-types and rainbow warriors and many intelligent people want to be about BP (Burnt Planet, as the two former categories might have it) and other energy giants, do you really think the energy companies aren't aware of the real state of the petrochemicals situation on the planet; with alternatives up their respective sleeves ready to capture the market once the oil starts to run low, and/or non-petrochemical energy sources become cheaper or more fashionable?

Well done to the copy-writer who came up with "Beyond Petroleum" for BP... hope you got a big pat on the back for that...