Six Dollars and Sixty-Six Cents

In Greg Araki's stunning film The Doom Generation, that's the price of everything. Three teenagers meander an apocalyptic roadtrip, pursued by meaningless violence, pursuing non-conformity through sexual pleasure or sexual pleasure through non-conformity depending on how you look at it. As in Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood the apocalypse is readable in signage and symbols; O'Connor's broken car drove down route 666, while Araki's teenagers stop off at gas stations to buy Doritos, nachos, hot-dogs. And everything costs $6.66.

As a very young child, I used to ask my parents nightly; 'Is today the last day?' 'Will tomorrow be the last day?' 'What will happen on the last day?'

Apparently (I don't remember any of this) I concluded – not unhappily – that on the last day, time would start flowing backwards. I think I was pretty pleased with this idea because I was confident this would mean the eventual return of dinosaurs.

Then when I was about 11 someone told me that the ancient Mayan calendar ended in 2012, the logical conclusion being that time would also end there. Dear Quentin, I sympathise thoroughly with your fears about the end of the world, I even wrote a song about it once, I'm sorry for leaving that book lying around.

2012, then; significant because 2 + 0 + 1 + 2 equals 5, always a spiritually potent number, as well as being 2 & 3 (23), which should set alarm bells ringing, plus if you rearrange the 2s just slightly it spells Zion, right? So when it comes to making New Year's resolutions, be careful. I've just made mine and it shot me right in the foot...

See, the torment of working in a bookshop (which I have been doing for the last two months) (which incidentally is where I'm writing from, as not that many people are buying books on New Year's Eve) is learning to love certain editions, certain imprints. The Everyman Library, for example, is just amazing, I'm always jealous of anyone buying one of their editions. So I figured this year I'd aim to read every one of their 100 Essential Reads, in their edition where possible. And yeah, it turns out I've read 34 of them already. Which leaves... Good God! 66.

belleville notebooks

Dear Diary,

This is me scribbling for Belleville Rendez-vous, about to embark on its haphazard tour.

It is weird. You sit between a couple of instruments and a notebook and you watch things appear around you and in front of you, you scribble everything you can, you're scared to jump in and stick things on top of what you see but you also can't not.

It is so happily frustrating.

amnesia

There is something admirable about Zizek's project of pursuing meaning in a culture of attempted meaninglessness. The great lesson of Marxism is perhaps the all-permeating meaningfulness of all things. But isn't Zizek sometimes as forgettable as the products he analyses, namedrops? The risk is great and the achievement uncertain

the mythicisation of reality

Thankyou Bruno Schulz: http://www.schulzian.net/translation/essays/mythicisation.htm

more on this later?

athen_a

This week I went to my parents’ house to pack up my old room. They are moving to Devon. My mum didn’t want me to throw away the cardboard vase I’d made when I was five or six, with a picture of Athena on one side, and the title

Athen
– a

(because I ran out of space). She took it from me, she obviously unsure as to whether to throw it away herself. I think she wanted to keep it but was embarrassed at being sentimental.

I ate scrambled eggs and cold mushrooms.

Opening old, broken drawers I flung sheet after sheet of my doodles and poems and songs into binbags. I came across a cache of loveletters a girl had written to me. I didn't know her all that well at the time. She was away, in Poland, and she wrote a letter to me everyday. Like a diary. She gave them to me all at once, in a package. I remember being surprised. I don’t think I ever really understood that they were loveletters. I know I didn’t read them all in one go.

I was listening to an audiobook of a Hemingway novel that I'd recently read as I put the letters on a pile to be thrown away. It occurred to me that this Hemingway novel, Across the River and Into the Trees, was about someone who was unable to truly understand that they were loved. You should never disregard being loved. I must never forget that, I was loved. I did not throw away the letters. I wonder where I shall keep them.

After the End: Ovid's Metamorphoses, Bk 1

The end-of-the-world narrative has many forms and many meanings. But, like its cousin the Dystopian or Utopian novel, it is always charged with a message about the world that the writer and reader share, the world that is ending or has ended. Sometimes, like a dystopia, it carries a warning about an aspect of our world that may prove to be destructive; other times, it reminds us of what is at the essence of who we are.

All ; Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 1, trans. Arthur Golding ; Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker ; Cormac McCarthy, The Road ; Max Brooks, World War Z and The Ultimate Zombie Survival Guide ; John Wyndham, The Day of The Triffids ; Mary Shelley, The Last Man ; Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End ; Margaret Atwood, Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood ; St John the Divine, The Revelation ; Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines

1. Ovid – Metamorphoses, Book 1 (translated by Arthur Golding, 1567)

Without wanting to make sweeping statements about the context or purpose of Ovid’s fifteen book poem, the Metamorphoses, I would say that its great achievement is its use of collage: its ability to link different ideas and images with an immediacy that allows them to retain their individual power. Jumping from story to story, the narrative puts the various myths of gods and heroes and nymphs into an ordered sequence while at the same time celebrating their chaotic instability. Golding’s translation, informed by his own Calvinism and the religious and social instabilities of his time, gives this contrast an urgency that is both spiritual and political.

In the first book, a world created out of chaos begins with a Golden Age of implicit order. But the world declines; soon order must be enforced in the face of hardship. Finally, the world descends into the Age of Iron, a time of uncertainty and cruelty:

Of iron is the last,
In no part good and tractable as former ages past.
For when that of this wicked age once opened was the vein,
Therein all mischief rushèd forth. Then faith and truth were fain...
(Lines 143-146)

Jove, the king of the gods, calls ‘a Court of Parliament’ of gods together (191), who resolve that they will have to destroy the world and start afresh. At first, Jove wants to use his lightning bolts to destroy the Earth, but stops for fear that ‘the flames perhaps so high should grow / As for to set heaven on fire and burn up all the sky’ (300). Instead, Jove floods the world until

No difference was between the sea and ground,
For all was sea.
(343-344)

The images of the drowning world are playful – a mutation and transformation of the world, rather than a process of destruction: a wolf swims in a field of swimming sheep, dolphins play in the trees, anchors are buried in green fields. And all is not lost – a good man and a good woman, Deucalion and Pyrrha, survive the flood. Throwing stones behind their shoulders, the couple observe a miracle: the stones turn into a new race of humans, as perfect as marble sculptures, and ‘of these are we’ – humanity as we now know it – ‘the crooked imps and stony race’ (493).

Here, the apocalypse serves to remind humanity that they are creatures of divine creation. The fact of their creation is what gives them their strength; when this fact is forgotten, when humans forget their spiritual debt to the universe, they descend from the beauty of gold into the hardness of iron and have to start again.

Document 9

Just because you’re paranoid
Don’t mean they’re not after you

States have a love/hate relationship with freedom, as with fear.
Freedom is sometimes the freedom to be afraid, isn’t it? Like growing up. It has an isolating or agoraphobic quality. And when you distil that quality to a pure form – let’s say, The [North] American Dream, the most overused and overdefined and murky conception of freedom you’ll find out there – well, what do you get?
A purity fear and isolation. That kind of isolation you might feel in a crowd.
None of this is a particularly original or a particularly eloquent observation; as I say, it has been done to death. But it came into my mind when I read that Hemingway had been tracked by the FBI while he was in Cuba. His paranoia and depression involved the world being against him, shadowy agencies pursuing him, and a sense of entrapment in everyday life.
Did the FBI start that, or contribute to it? Maybe he’d have felt that way even if they weren’t following him. A lot of people feel that way.

But why do so many people feel that way? I say this particular in reference to North Americans, who seem to feel this in abundance. And it’s not only that: it’s a feeling that’s become central to modern US culture.

But let’s be logical for a second. I mean, not that many North Americans believe that the world is about to end, or that lizards rule the White House, or that Barack Obama is a foreign Muslim with a false birth certificate. Not that many. The numbers aren’t important, it’s the mileage that’s so shocking.

And, to take it further: not that many North Americans believe that white people are a superior ‘race’ which needs to exert control over the other ‘races.’ Not that many. Quite a lot but not that many.

However, a great deal of books and films and songs and pretty much the entire internet would make you think that these things – or at least the mutual feeling that they appear to stem from – were definitive. Perhaps that’s why almost everyone in the UK seems to say ‘[North] Americans are weird / greedy / violent / paranoid / racist / militaristic / conservative.’

Well, alright. There is objective justification to some of the generalisations in that list (though they are, of course, sweeping generalisations). But it’s the mileage, the amount that the ideas are talked about – in the US and outside it.

Now, I’m going to focus on a well known cultural products, and talk about the difficulties it brings up because of this agoraphobia, heterophobia, and paranoia that they exhibit. My glowingly problematic example: the writing of Sylvia Plath. A writer of depth, beauty and understanding. But there is racism there, in The Bell Jar, notable and unchallenged racism. Unchallenged by Plath in her style, and always, always, always unchallenged by her readers. Brushed over. ‘A product of her time, despite her progressiveness.’ That sort of thing.

We miss a massive point when we sweep the fear and alienation that racism represents under the carpet. Has there ever been a time when the world was racist? Or should that be, has there ever been a time when the world wasn’t racist, sexist, classist? Should we listen to a Tory politician tell a female politician to ‘calm down, dear’ and, struck by the sexism of his remark, excuse him as the product of his time?

The feelings at the heart of prejudice, the heart of darkness: the horror, the horror. Horror at what is around you.

But the question is, the question we started with is, what role does the state play in it?
Maybe it comes before the state. It is a vehicle the state can ride.

the feast of st patrick (bugbites & beestings)

so, I have indeed been writing everyday for lent, though of course not blogging. not all of it has been songs, though there have been a couple here and there. something longer has emerged as well, among the short stories.

anyway, for the first Feast Day of Lent, the Feast of St Patrick (which was actually yesterday), here is a new song. I am very ill right now, my voice will tell you as much, so I may try to record this again when this is not so clearly the case: but here is
Bugbites and beestings by Ben Osborn

next week perhaps I can branch out into non-fiction.

the early Christians were an interesting bunch, oscillating between brutal tribalism and a kind of proto-communism of the soul... you might say... so here is St Patrick's Prayer:

I bind to myself today The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity: I believe the Trinity in the Unity The Creator of the Universe.

I bind to myself today The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism, The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial, The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension, The virtue of His coming on the Judgement Day.

I bind to myself today The virtue of the love of seraphim, In the obedience of angels, In the hope of resurrection unto reward, In prayers of Patriarchs, In predictions of Prophets, In preaching of Apostles, In faith of Confessors, In purity of holy Virgins, In deeds of righteous men.

I bind to myself today The power of Heaven, The light of the sun, The brightness of the moon, The splendour of fire, The flashing of lightning, The swiftness of wind, The depth of sea, The stability of earth, The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today God's Power to guide me, God's Might to uphold me, God's Wisdom to teach me, God's Eye to watch over me, God's Ear to hear me, God's Word to give me speech, God's Hand to guide me, God's Way to lie before me, God's Shield to shelter me, God's Host to secure me, Against the snares of demons, Against the seductions of vices.

the first yesterday of lent. 'The Monster'

Ash Wednesday

as per 2009, I'm giving up non-writing for Lent.

here's today's effort; a song for a friend:
Don't go off the radar by Ben Osborn
Don't Go Off The Radar

The smartest thing I
did in my whole life
was to keep on swimming
when I couldn't see the other side.

Northern Star

so Northern Star is going down in London, and tickets are starting to sell out; it's a beautiful and unusual play, an underperformed gem now dragged out of retirement by Buzz Goodbody Award winning director Caitlin McLeod... and featuring a soundtrack by me and Tegid Cartwright.

More info here
http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productionsnorthernstar.htm

get your tickets by clicking the link over there on the right.

reading in 2011

This blog is going to remain structureless for a bit longer yet, though hopefully as I get some more writing done and maybe publish some articles over the next few months (my new job could come in handy with that) I will start to make this something more professional, a little advert for myself and my services and all that. Whoever's reading this, and someone must be reading this right now, you who are reading this right now - it's the tree falling in the woods thing, isn't it - I apologise for the messiness, the lack of any contribution to your life and mind, etc etc etc, also I hope you've enjoyed it so far...

Anyway, it occurred to me I might get some writing practise by writing about books, or something. I'm not going to start this properly yet, I'm just going to ramble a bit. But it's going to be great anyway, so if you've read this far I reckon you should read a bit further. Come on pal. I'm getting all if on a winter's night a traveller on your ass... which brings me to my next point:

Unlike a lot of my fellow students, particularly fellow English students, I managed to read a lot during my degree. a lot of people I knew found that reading had become 'work' and no longer found it enjoyable; conversely, my constant sensations of guilt have always been assuaged by the fact that I consider reading to be, somehow, a kind of work. So I read as much as possible. I don't feel guilty when I read, even though I enjoy it so much. I feel guilty doing many things which I think aren't really worth feeling guilty about - watching tv, sleeping, eating (especially at night, but pretty much all the time), spending money (especially on the internet, but pretty much anywhere else as well), taking long showers and baths, using moisturiser, playing the piano or guitar on my own, etc etc etc. Reading, listening to music, playing music with others, walking out of doors, cycling anywhere, dancing, having sex, running, cooking, fixing things or building things: these are all things I enjoy a great deal, but don't feel guilty about. They've retained something wholesome; an aspect of them is 'work', and rather than detracting from the pleasure they give me, this increases it.

Yeah, there's something sick and a bit puritan work ethic about that, but there's also a positive element. To quote Wilhelm Reich, someone I've been reading recently:

Love, work, and knowledge are the wellsprings of life; they should also govern it

So, in a good way, I felt that at university. I tried to let love, work and knowledge act as positive, governing forces in my life. And reading was an example of that. So I read a lot.

As a result, 2010 - half of which was spent finishing my degree - had the best of all possible reading worlds. And a lot of what I read I now consider to be highly important to me. Chuang Tzu, the Manyoshu poetry, Akiko Yosana's poetry, Kerouac's Big Sur, all of Raymond Chandler (except Playback, which doesn't look worthwhile to me), Philip K Dick's Valis and The Man in the High Castle, Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker, Allegro's little book on the dead sea scrolls (before he turned into an immense theological shroom head!), lots of Richard Brautigan, Petrarch's Canzoniere... there are a lot of books, many more than that of course, a year's worth but a good year's worth. It was a good year for books. I even got through things I wasn't sure of, but I'm pretty sure were still worthwhile (R D Laing, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, that sort of thing). And I ended the year on a high - Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller, truly amazing; Wyndham's Midwich Cuckoos, followed by his slightly-trashy-but-with-incredible-moments rediscovered novel Plan for Chaos, Dante's Divine Comedy (which I haven't finished; I'm stuck halfway through Paradiso, symbolically enough) and Vita Nouvo; these were among several things I got through in December, but these are the ones that stood out. I don't know if any of it means anything. I just wanted to look back on it. I wonder what about me has changed.

So far this year I've only read two novels, Quentin S. Crisp's astonishing Remember You're A One-Ball!, Atwood's The Year of the Flood. I've dipped into some other things, of course; some of Petrarch's prose, and Hodges' Turing biography (I'm about halfway through, BUT IT'S SO LONG AND DIFFICULT), Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism (among various works on fascism I've been reading lately; stylewise, Reich's is certainly the most interesting, if perhaps not too informative [its history, if not its thinking, feels a little bit far in the past considering the contemporariness of the issue, but then it was written in the 30's]), Deneslow's book on political pop music (When The Music's Over), and some other things I've no doubt forgotten. The plan is, for all of 2011, to write up something about every single book I read. Starting tomorrow, maybe?

If you actually read this far, I genuinely feel sorry for you.

Theatre Music portfolio, Jan 2011

A selection of my compositions for theatre.

theatre portfolio jan 2011 by Ben Osborn