not agree

I do not agree with the linguists who say that it is the complexity of our language that distinguishes us from the animal. It is our ability to surround ourselves with things we despise and that we are uncomfortable with, happily denying our unease and anxieties just to… to do what?

on cannery row

The word is a symbol and a delight which sucks up men and scenes, trees, plants, factories, and Pekinese. Then the Thing becomes the Word and back to Thing again, but warped and woven into a fantastic pattern. The Word sucks up Cannery Row, digests it, and spews it out, and the Row has taken the shimmer of the green world and the sky-reflecting seas. (from: Cannery Row by John Steinbeck)

It speaks to me. It is as if a sea-side town had been written down, as if blue twilight had been captured between the pages of a book, my memories altered to fit into an older version of a scene so serene and absorbing that it just blows my mind.
That morning in Shoreham I could not sleep. I walked down to the small port and tried to make out the French coast across the sea, but I was too far in the west. The sky was a stale stainless blue; the mist was the only reminder that it was only four o’clock in the night. A cool breeze was blowing from across the continent, and it carried the shrieks of the seagulls that where hovering over something far out on the Channel – a smack, probably. The restless circle of birds was the only hint that others got up before I did.
When the first sunbeams slowly sneaked across the streets and the sea, noises swept waveringly into the scene and turned into the motor of a car and the footsteps of an old lady picking up pebbles on the beach. The world seemed so perfect I did not dare dropping my cigarette butt on the concrete of the pier. The circling birds slowly moved with the ship that was somewhere out there, beyond the horizon. I stood and watched them for half an hour, then followed the now forthcoming, then withdrawing line of the water. The algae and the seaweed stuck to my shoes, the salt from the sea settled on my face, and I walked until, after four miles, I saw the Palace Pier that was still asleep and quiet. Standing under the West Pier I watched the sun rising behind the helter-skelter above the sea. The tiredness that had clasped my thoughts since I woke up was gone and I felt every little fibre of my body, of my clothes. I felt the sand between my toes and the salt in my hair, the sleep in my eyes and the remains of last nights mascara on my face. The urge for a coffee got stronger, so I left the beach and paced slowly past the Odeon on my way to the North Lanes, in search of a café. A bakery had just opened, and the woman behind the counter sold me a tea; I drank it quietly. Through Royal Pavilion Park I strolled to the bus stop, got on the one back to Shoreham. As I arrived at our house, Bob had already left for work. Kathy was still and bed, so I tiptoed back upstairs, into our room and found Anna lying there, fast asleep, a bunch of red hair under a bright-white blanket. It was summer in England.
To see the sun rise over a sleeping town makes the world a different place for a split second. It is like stepping into a parallel universe where everything that can go right goes right.

so long, jimmy : 1

It was some lonely Friday at the end of the first term of my second year. My Fridays were invariably spent in solitude, peering into my books on economics and wishing that whole fucked-up system to hell. I remember that it was Friday exactly because it was lonely and quiet, a state not often to be encountered in our house. At the time, I was living with four other second-year students in Hillfields, in an all-male shack provided by our university. On Fridays, the lads would go out, have a drink at the Anchor and Arms and then mooch to the Colli to get either laid or shitfaced. Sometimes both. I could have joined them, but found that looking for enlightenment in my books while others were looking for their legs on the floor of some shitty bog gave me a certain advantage over my fellow students. As I was burning with ambition and hell-bent on outdoing the preppy fuckers at Warwick, staying in on a Friday night seemed not an extortionate price to pay. There was still Saturday, and the good gigs were all during the week, anyways.
This night, too, I stayed in and tried to come to terms with inequity funds. The atmosphere in the house was quiet and tranquil; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was not until I heard a knock on our front door and went downstairs only to find Jimmy standing there, smug smile, bloodstained t-shirt, bag in hand that I became acutely aware of the volatility of my situation. Jimmy nodded, strode ride past me and through the corridor, and sat down on our kitchen sofa without further ado.
I had met Jimmy the summer before, at a gig of the Dead Crooners – a band that I mostly remember for their loud, if not particularly refined guitar play. I’d already had a few and pretended that I was having a good time when I saw Jimmy standing at the counter, waiting for his pint. Smiling, suave, standing out by a mile. He exuded a certain coolness, like a thin layer of ice surrounding him. He was the master of cool. I stood and watched, imagined that if the girl next to him got any closer, I might be able to see her breath waft off in little, hazy, white clouds. As I stood there gaping, Jimmy turned around and looked in my direction. Trying to follow his gaze, I turned, too. A group of girls talking animatedly; nothing special about them, they weren’t even looking our way. Next thing, there was a hand slapping me on my back, and someone said, “Hey, mate, want a drink?” Not in that usual pub-manner, short and dropping the utmost possible number of syllables. It was more a flow of words, you know, where cannot make out were the one begins and the other ends. It was Jimmy’s voice, I realised as I slowly turned my head. His hand rested comfortably on my shoulder. To describe Jimmy, all you needed were s-words: suave, smiling, self-confident, a little smug, too. In short: stupefying. Amazed and at a loss for words, I smiled back and gestured towards my half-empty glass.

would

Would it be of any help if I mentioned that I was voted on the board of our little theatre?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned that I do yet another director's assistance and that instead of getting shitfaced in front of a screen I'm getting wasted during rehearsals?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned sort of in an aside that I'm drinking too much and sleeping too much and reading too much?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned that I'm trying to come to terms with the Book of Job and Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained and that such people cannot be taken into account?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned the fact that I have to go to my courses and don't feel like it at all and wonder am I the only living person around or is there some fifth dimension to things that I simply cannot grasp?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned the fact that it is bloody winter and that I simply cannot be arsed to deal with anyone really?
Would that be a good excuse?
Would it be of any help if I mentioned the fact that this piece of writing is shit anyways?
Would that be a case of constructive criticism?
Would it be of any help if I recommended everybody else should just go and fuck themselves?
Would that be good advice?
And would I be making a point in saying that I cannot bring myself to taking anything seriously except for the ultimate experience, whatever that is supposed to mean.

a new year. inert

A new year, a new chance to fail. I see the flame of the night-light die and watch my tea getting cold. Inert. Aim higher, think bigger, and where are you now? Inert. Sooner or later you will write it out, bleed it out. One way or the other. Words drizzle slowly from my hands; the keyboard is sticky with the residue of tea and wine. The letters saccharine molecules forming an impenetrable, gluey amassment. Like caramel. The thought makes me cringe, makes my bad tooth hurt. A new year, a new appointment with the dentist.