12.3.08
dice man
i was absurdly touched, i will admit to you, when someone pointed out to me a review i wrote of the dice man and promptly forgot about years ago features on the author's website. right at the top, you notice, just above the sunday telegraph, anthony burgess and colin wilson.
the last time i tried looking luke rhinehart up on the internets (that was years and years ago - internet years, at least) he still seemed like the j. d. salingerish reclusive author, like not much hard facts or anything, but in the last few years he seems to have discovered the net and now he actually seems to have a myspace and everything.
the last time i tried looking luke rhinehart up on the internets (that was years and years ago - internet years, at least) he still seemed like the j. d. salingerish reclusive author, like not much hard facts or anything, but in the last few years he seems to have discovered the net and now he actually seems to have a myspace and everything.
7.3.08
28.2.08
SixKindsOfChris at 0823 today
That doesn't begin to detail the scope of it: more than 600 public bodies have the power to bug citizens, and the report listed 1,088 cases where the rules were broken in a 9 month period.
comments from 'A Government That Listens' on Guardian blogs
That doesn't begin to detail the scope of it: more than 600 public bodies have the power to bug citizens, and the report listed 1,088 cases where the rules were broken in a 9 month period.
Daisy88 at 0842 today
Do you think MI5 is reading this blog, and this comment by me?
liberati at 0847 today
Unlikely. I only got as far as the first sentence
JaneT at 0853 today
How can you feel qualified to comment on something you haven't even read, liberati?
liberati at 0902 today
That's funny. Is this your first time on the internet?
JaneT at 0907 today
Don't patronise me, you wanker
SPECIAL- RELATIONSHIP at 0917 today
I'D JUST LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU TO THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS WHO MONITOR US FOR OUR OWN PROTECTION
GCHQopcom #21399# at 0921 today
you're welcome
MaxPersons at 0925 today
It's a difficult balance - our privacy is important, but of course the intelligence services need to be able to do their work without being hindered.
GCHQopcom #21399# at 0929 today
a-men
SixKindsOfChris at 0936 today
It's clear we've completely lost sight of any "balance". Wiretap evidence isn't even admissible in court, and yet we're spying on litterers.
JaneT at 0948 today
GCHQ - are you really monitoring this blog?
GCHQopcom #21399# at 0954 today
Sort of. It's my lunch hour, so I'm listening but I'm not really paying attention
Daisy88 at 0957 today
Hanging is too good for litterers, IMHO
BigDorrit at 1002 today
Eating lunch at 10am are you mad!!!!!!!!!!
GCHQopcom #21399# at 1011 today
I'm on a weird shift - late night Facebook duty. I get hungry at odd times.
ElSmell at 1019 today
I think the security services are doing a great job, but then I feel like I have to say that or I'll be put in jail.
Daisy88 at 1024 today
Yeah, that's why I said that thing about litterers - keep them guessing.
MaxPersons at 1028 today
There are already legal protections in place. The question is whether they are sufficient, and whether they are enforced
JaneT at 1033 today
The question is, what is the best protection against having your phone tapped and your emails read by the govt?
liberati at 1045 today
Being boring
JaneT at 1052 today
You're safe then
comments from 'A Government That Listens' on Guardian blogs
20.2.08
no more stories.
oh dear what's happening?
i find every present moment so endlessly entertaining... life is so funny i'm going to laugh myself to death one day...
but i just don't feel like telling the internet stories about it any more.
i would like to contribute to the net somehow, though. give me a cable to hold or something.
what, you don't need me? -don't worry, we've got loads of experts on the job. we've got a couple experts to every foot of internet cable, all the way down the line to you...
oh dear what's happening?
i find every present moment so endlessly entertaining... life is so funny i'm going to laugh myself to death one day...
but i just don't feel like telling the internet stories about it any more.
i would like to contribute to the net somehow, though. give me a cable to hold or something.
what, you don't need me? -don't worry, we've got loads of experts on the job. we've got a couple experts to every foot of internet cable, all the way down the line to you...
still waiting
blast your mind so that all the human pleasures of life just seem like more essential corpse maintenance, yess...
(and then everything just falls apart after that...
"Look... I can tell when it's the voices in my head and when it's them doing it...")
(and then everything just falls apart after that...
"Look... I can tell when it's the voices in my head and when it's them doing it...")
19.2.08
take a chance you stupid ho
i have been living such a wholesome life lately that something was bound to happen sooner or later. still not quite like the time before realgem, but fingertip pushups, zen archery, yoga stretches, memorising persian verb forms and proper home-cooked meals abound.
on saturday it was a real effort to force that glass of wine down before eating anything other than breakfast. although if i'm all so yogic and everything now one might ask why i had felt compelled to dose myself with temazepam and valium and tramadol in the morning, no kidding, but it's really not the rule these days... but once it was down, that glass, my god, the next one and the one after that felt so right... got in touch with my inner self who turns out to be a fucking alcoholic...
i didn't really feel like drinking that left-over wine but some demon drove me... i didn't really feel like going out, but the malung's band was playing nearby... i didn't really feel like talking to that girl but some demon drove me, hissing but isn't she fucking deliciousss, preciousss? in my ear like some demented fucking gollum... fuck yeah of course she is, cafe latte skin and perfect tits, and then she vanish sometime in the morning-after with a phone and a credit card and some money and 40g of high-grade maroccy from the desk.
so we have a very contrite Lazy sitting with coffee under a hung-over and mournful sunday sky. jesus fuck, what can i do? set my psycho friends to hunt her down? police?
"what you gonna tell them? i slept with an underage girl and then she stole my phone and drugs?" says arofish. ha ha. fucking funny guy, that arofish.
it only takes a very short time to find the necessary attitude-adjustment switch in my head and then everything seems funny as hell again. the real moral of the story is not to tell anyone on this goddamn street anything or everyone will know by lunchtime. "but what should we do if we see her again?" asks too many people. "ask if she'd meet me again and i'd love to buy her a drink," is the correct glib response, and why the fuck do you care? "i heard about what happened... i'm sorry about that..." they actually say. what the fuck are you sorry about? i'm not. what did you do to me that you're sorry about?
i can't even feel angry at that dumb whore. she was just a slutty opportunist with a lovely ass and a pretty face, adventurous and totally non-sentimental; i can't hate anyone for those qualities. but the gossiping twittering i-don't-have-a-life-myself's, on the other hand, put me into a cursing murderous rage.
how completely absurd to commiserate with someone who has just learned a valuable lesson about this or that, like maybe basic pharmacology. that's what it often is, you know, these things that happen when god leans out of the sky to whack you over the head with some inexplicable thing, pay attention, you fucking idiot... and fuck you all, i'd do it all again anytime...
on saturday it was a real effort to force that glass of wine down before eating anything other than breakfast. although if i'm all so yogic and everything now one might ask why i had felt compelled to dose myself with temazepam and valium and tramadol in the morning, no kidding, but it's really not the rule these days... but once it was down, that glass, my god, the next one and the one after that felt so right... got in touch with my inner self who turns out to be a fucking alcoholic...
i didn't really feel like drinking that left-over wine but some demon drove me... i didn't really feel like going out, but the malung's band was playing nearby... i didn't really feel like talking to that girl but some demon drove me, hissing but isn't she fucking deliciousss, preciousss? in my ear like some demented fucking gollum... fuck yeah of course she is, cafe latte skin and perfect tits, and then she vanish sometime in the morning-after with a phone and a credit card and some money and 40g of high-grade maroccy from the desk.
so we have a very contrite Lazy sitting with coffee under a hung-over and mournful sunday sky. jesus fuck, what can i do? set my psycho friends to hunt her down? police?
"what you gonna tell them? i slept with an underage girl and then she stole my phone and drugs?" says arofish. ha ha. fucking funny guy, that arofish.
it only takes a very short time to find the necessary attitude-adjustment switch in my head and then everything seems funny as hell again. the real moral of the story is not to tell anyone on this goddamn street anything or everyone will know by lunchtime. "but what should we do if we see her again?" asks too many people. "ask if she'd meet me again and i'd love to buy her a drink," is the correct glib response, and why the fuck do you care? "i heard about what happened... i'm sorry about that..." they actually say. what the fuck are you sorry about? i'm not. what did you do to me that you're sorry about?
i can't even feel angry at that dumb whore. she was just a slutty opportunist with a lovely ass and a pretty face, adventurous and totally non-sentimental; i can't hate anyone for those qualities. but the gossiping twittering i-don't-have-a-life-myself's, on the other hand, put me into a cursing murderous rage.
how completely absurd to commiserate with someone who has just learned a valuable lesson about this or that, like maybe basic pharmacology. that's what it often is, you know, these things that happen when god leans out of the sky to whack you over the head with some inexplicable thing, pay attention, you fucking idiot... and fuck you all, i'd do it all again anytime...
9.2.08
well i haven't been here for a while. some people, i can see, do keep checking for signs of life...
then there are all those people who click through from google searches on 'chemical torture' (realgem is still at #1 as of this posting...). they read this through in a couple of minutes and most don't look at anything else here but click straight through to the Atlantic Monthly article or then to ishmael smith's profile. i wonder what they make of that. some of these come from very strange IPs, .mil servers, or searches on 'how to tie an afghan scarf' from security corp addresses.
but to the first group above, i suppose a thank-you for keeping an eye out and an apology for the recent erratic copy-and-paste posting is in order...
take care & take control
then there are all those people who click through from google searches on 'chemical torture' (realgem is still at #1 as of this posting...). they read this through in a couple of minutes and most don't look at anything else here but click straight through to the Atlantic Monthly article or then to ishmael smith's profile. i wonder what they make of that. some of these come from very strange IPs, .mil servers, or searches on 'how to tie an afghan scarf' from security corp addresses.
but to the first group above, i suppose a thank-you for keeping an eye out and an apology for the recent erratic copy-and-paste posting is in order...
take care & take control
1.2.08
Fuck Buttons at ICA, in Big City Redneck: "A friend recently informed me that the dark ambient rubric has now become known as “Illbient”. Fuck Buttons are bona-fide positivists, in both attitude and sound so it occurs to me that they/their sound could be described as “wellbient”. That’s not to say that darker, more intense moments do not exist in Fuck Buttons music...
...to me, anyway, this bodes well for an electronic/experimental/industrial-influenced outfit in terms of the “I believe in coincidence but I just don’t trust it” perspective...
Normally, this kind of positivism would make me want to pull my teeth out with pliers, their seeds of love falling on the stony ground that is my dry, blackened soul. But despite the fact that these boys are to my battered old psyche possibly too young to have experienced any real distress in their lives, there is a genuinely uplifting aspect to them both as people and in their music." (text Dr Otter, photos Lazy as always)
[[[[Fuck Buttons myspace]]] (playing a few gigs in Austin, Texas mid-March you Texas visitors might want to know)
10.1.08
Neglect Not the Black Arts
Bleeds personality from you – acquires mannerisms and characteristics from the people he parasites off – a shifting composite of his present hosts.
She’s starting to see things out of the corners of her eyes. It’s one of the first symptoms - I remember when it happened to me. Painful dilation of the mind occasioned by the insertion of an unusually large new idea.
Shako was standing facing the wall with his back to them. On the wall he had daubed a strange cruciform symbol using the blood from the cut on his arm. The lights flickered back on by themselves. The evil had evaporated from the air.
“Are you okay?”
He stood with his back to them, ignoring them. As they gathered around him, he slowly turned to them, with his head tilted back and a strange lopsided half-smile on his face. His eyes had turned an unnaturally icy blue-white, which focused not on them but on something in the distance – listening eyes. The ice gripped them all again.
Shako’s features were shifting – something was struggling under the skin. Ulrika realised with a chill that he was swallowing the demon.
The feral children have somehow unwittingly invoked ancient alien war gods.
GIVE. SYMPATHISE. CONTROL.
She’s starting to see things out of the corners of her eyes. It’s one of the first symptoms - I remember when it happened to me. Painful dilation of the mind occasioned by the insertion of an unusually large new idea.
Shako was standing facing the wall with his back to them. On the wall he had daubed a strange cruciform symbol using the blood from the cut on his arm. The lights flickered back on by themselves. The evil had evaporated from the air.
“Are you okay?”
He stood with his back to them, ignoring them. As they gathered around him, he slowly turned to them, with his head tilted back and a strange lopsided half-smile on his face. His eyes had turned an unnaturally icy blue-white, which focused not on them but on something in the distance – listening eyes. The ice gripped them all again.
Shako’s features were shifting – something was struggling under the skin. Ulrika realised with a chill that he was swallowing the demon.
The feral children have somehow unwittingly invoked ancient alien war gods.
GIVE. SYMPATHISE. CONTROL.
8.1.08
Essential corpse maintenance
The corpse is hungry, so force some food into it. The corpse feels desire, find it release. The corpse needs cleaning, scrub it and wash its coverings.
Keep that corpse stumbling forward until it lies down for oblivion, eventually for the last time.
Yes, it is a ghastly vision of life. Sometimes the light just hits the ground at the wrong angle, you know. You grate your teeth and see right into the core of things, but a core that is loathsome and humans should not know. Sartre called it the Nausea; I suppose at least that he was talking about the same thing. It is that moment of sickening realisation, that moment that I think Burroughs' title Naked Lunch refers to - that naked "frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of every fork".
Keep that corpse stumbling forward until it lies down for oblivion, eventually for the last time.
Yes, it is a ghastly vision of life. Sometimes the light just hits the ground at the wrong angle, you know. You grate your teeth and see right into the core of things, but a core that is loathsome and humans should not know. Sartre called it the Nausea; I suppose at least that he was talking about the same thing. It is that moment of sickening realisation, that moment that I think Burroughs' title Naked Lunch refers to - that naked "frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of every fork".
30.12.07
Deeper and deeper in a happy world in the middle of the day
Lying head on the table. I could hear the scratching of a pen on paper, the regular clink and thud of a glass being lifted and put down again. I watched an ant struggle in spilled water. The background chatter of conversation and the occasional clatter of cutlery on china came in broken waves, part drowned out in sine-wave interference. An occasional shouted order behind the counter.
I’d actually been in a good mood when I’d decided to kill myself. It had seemed like a sort of groovy idea at the time. I’d sat there with the hosepipe through the car window and the engine on, singing Beautiful Sunday to myself, humming the bits I couldn’t remember, while the car filled with exhaust fumes.
Then I sneezed violently and a ball of bad thoughts flew out of my nose. I thought ‘Fuck this,’ got out of the car and went to find the closest bar. Then memory sort of fades, but for disturbing and vague dreams and visions: a big toe splits open and peels away revealing an eye which blinks and surveys the room...
Now somewhere, depressed and wretched, head on a restaurant table. But where? I wasn’t interested in finding out.
A hand appeared, hesitated, wiped away the spilt water and the ant with what looked like a wet kitten, disappeared. Uncertain pause. Then a voice, inquiring, perfunctory, unconcerned.
‘Are you alright, sir?’
Carefully now. This is the genius of the madman; like a chessmaster, my mind flicked through all the responses open to me and possible reactions thereto. What was the bare minimum I needed to say to make him leave me alone?
‘Yeah. Fine. Another one, please.’
...
::::::
realgem: the story finally continues, or what?
I’d actually been in a good mood when I’d decided to kill myself. It had seemed like a sort of groovy idea at the time. I’d sat there with the hosepipe through the car window and the engine on, singing Beautiful Sunday to myself, humming the bits I couldn’t remember, while the car filled with exhaust fumes.
Then I sneezed violently and a ball of bad thoughts flew out of my nose. I thought ‘Fuck this,’ got out of the car and went to find the closest bar. Then memory sort of fades, but for disturbing and vague dreams and visions: a big toe splits open and peels away revealing an eye which blinks and surveys the room...
Now somewhere, depressed and wretched, head on a restaurant table. But where? I wasn’t interested in finding out.
A hand appeared, hesitated, wiped away the spilt water and the ant with what looked like a wet kitten, disappeared. Uncertain pause. Then a voice, inquiring, perfunctory, unconcerned.
‘Are you alright, sir?’
Carefully now. This is the genius of the madman; like a chessmaster, my mind flicked through all the responses open to me and possible reactions thereto. What was the bare minimum I needed to say to make him leave me alone?
‘Yeah. Fine. Another one, please.’
...
::::::
realgem: the story finally continues, or what?
Messages from across time
Skinny manic figure in a lab coat rummaging through the clothes outside the charity shop door.
-are you a doctor?
-no, I'm a mad scientist.
-mad scientist? Biochemist or something?
-psychopharmacist.
-here, look at these books… do you want this book?
Take them away from their context and these people become too flat to be visible. (but who knows what mind-blowing dimensions a nondescript someone, a vague irritating presence, could develop in the right context?)
They (all of those people, who take that stuff), they say "we" instead of "I" - like they're speaking for a hive.
(A hive is like a… like ants or bees, social insects all together - they have a hive mind - one ant is stupid but a million together are intelligent , I explain. Yes, just like Brazilians, she says. You put ten together and they look smarter. Together we're really intelligent.)
Oh no, the laptop's on... the ants have been at the internet again, looking up formulas for explosives and manuals on robotics... they're up to something...
[20,000 years down the line humans have evolved, but ants have come a long way too… they have recently been granted limited civil rights, like the legal right for each hive to own currency and work for a living, though no protection against an individual ant being squashed arbitrarily… they buy miniaturised computer gadgets… mad scientists programme pheromonal virtual reality entertainment and the ants rush to buy… the mutation of their culture is incredibly fast… as a virtual and commercial entity, a hive will demonstrate an endearingly eccentric personality
people peeled back, layers of reality peeled away… circuits and a sense of movement beneath…]
-are you a doctor?
-no, I'm a mad scientist.
-mad scientist? Biochemist or something?
-psychopharmacist.
-here, look at these books… do you want this book?
Take them away from their context and these people become too flat to be visible. (but who knows what mind-blowing dimensions a nondescript someone, a vague irritating presence, could develop in the right context?)
They (all of those people, who take that stuff), they say "we" instead of "I" - like they're speaking for a hive.
(A hive is like a… like ants or bees, social insects all together - they have a hive mind - one ant is stupid but a million together are intelligent , I explain. Yes, just like Brazilians, she says. You put ten together and they look smarter. Together we're really intelligent.)
Oh no, the laptop's on... the ants have been at the internet again, looking up formulas for explosives and manuals on robotics... they're up to something...
[20,000 years down the line humans have evolved, but ants have come a long way too… they have recently been granted limited civil rights, like the legal right for each hive to own currency and work for a living, though no protection against an individual ant being squashed arbitrarily… they buy miniaturised computer gadgets… mad scientists programme pheromonal virtual reality entertainment and the ants rush to buy… the mutation of their culture is incredibly fast… as a virtual and commercial entity, a hive will demonstrate an endearingly eccentric personality
people peeled back, layers of reality peeled away… circuits and a sense of movement beneath…]
A note of appreciation to whoever
Hot cold hot cold hot cold hot cold
I watch the false dawn and then the dawn, windows full of winter sky.
She's soft and warm. Mumbles in a dream and holds on to me tight. I'm soaked in poison sweat of nightmares, my skin crawls, I twitch and shiver and kick. She doesn't mind.
I watch the dawn, window full of sky, her breaths measuring time, reassuring me that it's still passing. Time heals all troubles.
"Sometimes, give also thanks to God..." (Falakzeb the pimp and drug dealer)
I watch the false dawn and then the dawn, windows full of winter sky.
She's soft and warm. Mumbles in a dream and holds on to me tight. I'm soaked in poison sweat of nightmares, my skin crawls, I twitch and shiver and kick. She doesn't mind.
I watch the dawn, window full of sky, her breaths measuring time, reassuring me that it's still passing. Time heals all troubles.
"Sometimes, give also thanks to God..." (Falakzeb the pimp and drug dealer)
25.12.07
Out of context
I'm not meant to be here.
I'm meant to be somewhere where there is some call for my gallows humour and ability to somehow keep smiling in the face of the sickest horror.
Will we see guerilla warfare and total social breakdown on the streets of London in our lifetimes?
It is difficult to imagine, but I ask many people that question, and am surprised at how many intelligent, reasoned and non-apocalyptic people say yes...
We will be quite well-stationed here... bounded on two sides by railway embankments and on one by a row of houses, the outward windows of which can be sandbagged... we would seize the abandoned signal-master's junction
house, one machine gun there... another two in top corner windows to cover the sole access onto the street... the beautiful garden in the middle an oasis of peace and calm and a source of vegetables and food, with maybe a mortar emplacement hidden in the rose bushes...
I'm desperately looking forward to it...