Distant Voices: Samuel Beckett

His plan therefore was not to refuse admission to the idea, but to keep it at bay until his mind was ready to receive it. Then let it in and pulverise it. Obliterate the bastard.
–More Pricks Than Kicks

Heroine of the Day: Marion Eaton

Who portrayed a brilliant Mrs. Gert Hammond in the 70's cult classic 'Thundercrack'
"Oh Charlie, people come and go, but cucumbers must stay."

Part Fore-Toe

I'm sitting across a man. The room is filled with smoke, a children's choir is singing a devil's hymn behind us, a woman, one leg, brings us drinks. Mi madre ha muerto, she says. I smile empathically. The man is an alchemist, he is here to teach me. He is my Señor Zenith. I know all of the Artes Liberales, now the forbidden arts are in order. The Alchemist drinks and smiles. I wish he would look into my eyes and see my conviction. The Alchemist is more handsome than I imagined, his voice warmer, his gestures soothing. I lean back. I hear the woman repeat herself, mi madre ha muerto, to the harpies sitting next to us. They shriek and laugh and spit in her face. A boy, a soprano clearly, yells out: 'look, she's back!' and as in a vision I see the Bride walk into the smoky room. She waltzes to our table and introduces herself to my Alchemist. My Señor Zenith.
"Forgive me, I should have warned you," I stumble. But he merely smiles and for the first time he looks into my eyes.
"I studied Ibn Hayyan, Hermes Trismegistus, Alain de Lisle, Masini and Boehme, but never did I find the symbol I need." The Bride takes my hand and we both look to the Alchemist for an answer.

Part Fore-Won

Zabayel

Distant Voices: George Orwell

The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they abandon individual ambition - in many cases, indeed, they abandon the sense of being individuals at all - and live chiefly for others or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, wilful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong to this class.

- from Why I write

Part Fore-Zewo

Because I was thinking and didn't know where to begin, a rough translation from the poem 'Eind van de Eeuw' by Leonard Nolens;

End of the Century

So What, Achmatova, we aren't in love anymore
with your pain, that iron fall of seventeen.
Other moustaches and Octobers have grieved us
before we were born, before we could see
Afterwards how blind we were in the crib
of this cold war. The enemy without a trace.
That's why we hated ourselves, our clattering lies
of this armed peace, a heaven without a saviour.

Yes, Achmatova, so what!

I feel conflicted about what I wrote about the actor I met last Friday. It is what happened, but it's my subjective version of the facts, fictionalized so it could fit in my story. I feel that he comes across as too arrogant and at the same time needy, and that I'm a cool-acting bitch. That's not how it felt at the time, but that's problem isn't it? If you write about things like that, it's always a lie. What I remember most is his smile, but I can't put that in words. I could try, but I could never give an accurate description of that smile and how I reacted to it. I also don't want to blow it out of proportions, after all it was just a drunk encounter on a Friday night, so I'm conflicted.

Distance and saying goodbye is the horny metaphysics of men who keep their love moist and damp in a faraway place where they can boil their days.
- From the hurting that I am, I have no part.

I talked to some people today, I want to remember what they said to me, although it's of no great significance.

"If your parents had sent you to art school when you were younger like you wanted, imagine what your life would have been like."
-My ex.

"Sure, you can borrow this book. It's only on the table because my sister asked what sort of books I enjoy. I couldn't get away with anything else, that would just have been ridiculous."
-My best friend.

"My shop looks way too pink from outside if you stand across the street. It just doesn't go with my chandeliers, it's like Barbie's dream house in here. Damn, now I have to paint again."
-My boss.

"If my former teacher could see how I'm fumbling with this html code he would yank my hair right out of my skull."
-My flatmate.

"Why can you never find work that's legal?"
-My mum.

"Oh right, I forgot you're still young and naive. When gay men discuss outdoor activities, they don't talk about camping or fishing."
- A friend

Part Tree-Nain

Step away from the computer.
Turn off the phone.
Put out the television.
Shut down the music.
And step into my darkened room.

A room with heavy curtains drawn over the windows. A room with no furniture. Close the door behind you. Come stand in the middle, together with me. Take off all your clothes and throw them away. Think about what you're doing. Do you feel alright? Are you scared? What are you thinking about? Just try to relax and tell me your first thoughts. Take your time.

An escalator.
Bathing when I was little.
The woman from the grocery store.
Maggie Simpson.
Smoking a cigarette.
A dead bird.
A sharp knife.
A dead bird.
A sharp knife.
A dead bird.

Let's try this another day. Try not to think anymore, open the curtains and put on your clothes. Log in, put on your music and chat away. Just don't think. Stay away from dark rooms. Drown your thoughts with sounds.

Whatever you do, never log off.

Part Tree-Siks

While Man has turned his back on me, making me coffee so I can be on my way, I ask the Phantom Ape some questions.

"Should I give my characters names?"

- They have names, you just never write them down. The Bride's name is ******. The Vampire is called ********. The Undead Soldier is *********. The Man in the Chair is the same of the Man you are writing about now and his name is *****. The Pink Lipped Harlequin you call ******. Should I go on?-

"No please, that's enough. Why do I have trouble naming things?"

- Because you get nothing in exchange for it. Once you name it, it becomes unchangeable. You will lose all the chaos you crave and the object of your interest will be locked within it's name. You'll have power over it. You wish for everything and everyone to have a name for usage and a true name, a name that should be hidden and secret. You know the philosophy behind that as well as I do.-

A conversation in between:

Ursula -Slaapwel, bisous.
Gaylord -Bonne nuit madame.
Ursula -Bonne nuit à le singe!
Gaylord -Il est plus populaire de moi!
Ursula -He's got a sexier ass.
Gaylord -Bon, laisse moi un message pour samedi prochain. Good night.

I am sleep deprived. Every time I sit down to write I feel like peeing. Tomorrow I have loads of psychological test with my psychiatrist. His favourite mental disorders for me are a form of autism and something that starts with shizo-. I think he would get a kick out of seeing them both manifest. I have to buy my chihuahua a fucktoy. I'm thinking -stuffed elephant. It's morning now and I'm so glad the crazy cat lady is keeping me company. Man is bugging me, I secretly think I'm a disappointment and that I should work on my act, but I just make it easy for myself and say Man is to blame. We're restyling the apartment and decided we're going to spend New Years skiing. It sounds eighties prep, but it beats being bored at a party. I'm surprised with how many of my friends have never seen any of the Star Wars movies. So far I've counted seven.

I was sitting in my living room, looking at the book shelves, wondering what I should read. I picked out a random book and it's title was 'Astral Entities Around Us'. The next two I picked out were 'A History of Erotic Literature' and 'Anna Karenina'. My first thought was - I should stop buying books impulsively- and the second was -If you combine these three, you get an interesting story. A Russian saga where horny phantoms try to speed up divorces, the morbid decadent downfall of aristocracy.

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle keeps haunting me. I swear I could hear a girl humming it on the bus. It reminds me too much of the house I destroyed. Of the Bride I killed. Is she dead? Could I bring her back? Is that girl telling me I should bring her back? Prends garde à toi.

I'll bring her back.

Part Tree-Faif

I'm in the bed of Man. The only thing masking my nude form is my pearl earring. Man is lying with his back turned to me, snoring softly. A flowing rhythm, a gentle wave covering me with sleep, uncovering me, covering me, uncovering me, making me want to cover me again. Man has confessed his love to me, but I could only smile at him. What is love without truth? Who's still looking for truth? Who can still love when truth is overlooked? Questions don't really matter now, all what comes next is morning, my cup of coffee and the journey afterwards. The Phantom Ape is sitting on the cupboard.

I ask the Phantom Ape; 'is it safe?'
The Phantom Ape answers: 'think of the cat."

The Cat. Man has a cat. When the morning has come, after my cup of coffee, I'll leave Man again. Until I miss Man, will want to see truth in his green eyes, will present my body to him so I can feel the waves, caress his stubble, forget the questions, hear the stories. It's all about the stories.

The Phantom Ape is waiting patiently until the sun comes up, until the naked bodies cover themselves with shame again and the morning game can begin.

Distant Voices: Daft Punk

Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Crash it, change it, melt - upgrade it,
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick - erase it,
Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick - rewrite it,
Plug it, play it, burn it, rip it,
Drag and drop it, zip - unzip it,
Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
View it, code it, jam - unlock it,
Surf it, scroll it, pose it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, twitch - update it,
Name it, read it, tune it, print it,
Scan it, send it, fax - rename it,
Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
Turn it, leave it, stop - format it.

Surf it, scroll it, pose it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, twitch - update it

Lock it, fill it, call it, find it,
View it, code it, jam - unlock it,
Buy it, use it, break it, fix it,
Trash it, change it, mail - upgrade it,
Charge it, point it, zoom it, press it,
Snap it, work it, quick - erase it,
Write it, cut it, paste it, save it,
Load it, check it, quick - rewrite it,

Surf it, scroll it, pose it, click it,
Cross it, crack it, twitch - update it,
Name it, read it, tune it, print it,
Scan it, send it, fax - rename it,
Touch it, bring it, pay it, watch it,
Turn it, leave it, stop - format it.

- Daft Punk, "Technologic"

Distant Voices: Ted Hughes

Work and Play


The swallow of summer, she toils all the summer,
A blue-dark knot of glittering voltage,
A whiplash swimmer, a fish of the air.
But the serpent of cars that crawls through the dust
In shimmering exhaust
Searching to slake
Its fever in ocean
Will play and be idle or else it will bust.

The swallow of summer, the barbed harpoon,
She flings from the furnace, a rainbow of purples,
Dips her glow in the pond and is perfect.
But the serpent of cars that collapsed on the beach
Disgorges its organs
A scamper of colours
Which roll like tomatoes
Nude as tomatoes
With sand in their creases
To cringe in the sparkle of rollers and screech.

The swallow of summer, the seamstress of summer,
She scissors the blue into shapes and she sews it,
She draws a long thread and she knots it at the corners.
But the holiday people
Are laid out like wounded
Flat as in ovens
Roasting and basting
With faces of torment as space burns them blue
Their heads are transistors
Their teeth grit on sand grains
Their lost kids are squalling
While man-eating flies
Jab electric shock needles but what can they do?

They can climb in their cars with raw bodies, raw faces
And start up the serpent
And headache it homeward
A car full of squabbles
And sobbing and stickiness
With sand in their crannies
Inhaling petroleum
That pours from the foxgloves
While the evening swallow
The swallow of summer, cartwheeling through crimson,
Touches the honey-slow river and turning
Returns to the hand stretched from under the eaves -
A boomerang of rejoicing shadow.

Distant Voices: Oscar Wilde

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new
material his impression of beautiful things.
The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of autobiography.
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without
being charming. This is a fault.
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are
the cultivated. For these there is hope.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
The nineteenth-century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban seeing
his own face in a glass.
The nineteenth-century dislike of Romanticism is the
rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.
The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist,
but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect
medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true
can be proved.
No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist
is an unpardonable mannerism of style.
No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express
everything.
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of art.
Vice and Virtue are to the artist materials for an art.
From the point of view of form, the type of all arts is the art of the
musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new,
complex, and vital.
When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself. We
can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it
intensely.

All art is quite useless.

- Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray

Distant Voices: Sylvia Plath

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

Part Toe-Tree

I open another room. It's white again, same chair, same portrait.
A painter is trying to paint over the queen.

"Why are you painting over the queen," I ask.

The painter stops, blushes and hides away his brush.

"That's better," I say and close the door behind me.

Part Toe-Won

I move to another room. It looks exactly the same as the previous one, an empty white room. One armchair and a portrait of the queen hanging on the wall opposite of the chair. No man-pig this time, but a jazz musician.

He says: "Hello, I am Capricorn."

I wave hello and take my seat in the chair. Capricorn offers me wine and drugs and plays his sweet sweet music. I laugh and rest my head. Capricorn laughs with me and gives me a kiss.

The Phantom Ape says: "You promised."

I become sullen and stand up. I noticed that the queen is smiling to me.

I say to Capricorn: 'It's a quarter to nine. I have to go."

Capricorn answers: 'It's always a quarter to nine."

I smile, leave the room and gently close the door behind me.

Before the Phantom Ape can speak, I say: "not now little monkey, I still have those razors and I will make sure Madam Blavastky isn't looking."

Part Toe-Zewo

I am in a room I do not like. I am in a room I despise.

My hands are resting in my lap while I'm watching the man-pig from my armchair. It is naked and on hands and knees, snorting and whimpering. It is a vile creature. It disgusts me, it makes me want to kill it. I look at the picture hanging on the wall in front of me. It is a stately portrait of a woman, a stern and commanding queen. The man-pig crawls closer to me and instinctively I open my legs and let it pleasure me. I hold it's head firmly so it cannot pull back and lock my eyes with those of the queen.

Snow crystals have been tattooed on my right hand. I see them and I release the man-pig and kick it hard on it's side so that it crawls away in fear. I turn away from the queen, my queen, and I ask the Phantom Ape:

"Are you still with me?"

First, I hear nothing. I only hear the whimpering man-pig. Then I can hear a faint voice answer me;

"You promised."

I have? Yes, I have.

Distant Voices: Thomas Chapin

What would you do if you had a billion dollars?
I don’t know about you… but I would definitely develop a method to draw a smiley face on the moon. Call me crazy, but can you think of a better legacy to leave behind?
Yeah. I didn’t think so.
Think about it.
Future generations of mankind would look up in the sky at night, only to see a big smiling face. Wars would cease to exist!
How could people even think about fighting with a giant smile in the sky?

Part Won-Sephenn

I am unable to sleep. I tried for more then an hour, but I have given up for the night. I kept thinking that an exotic spider managed to crawl into my bedroom and would bite me so that I would become paralyzed and..die. That made me think of vampires. The vampires made me a bit edgy, so now I'm writing. I should start thinking of the mess that I made of my life lately, but I only talk about it. My friends know all about my filthy mess, but I never stop to actually, truly think about what I am doing. I just talk and then do exactly the opposite of what I said earlier.

I said I would quit Mr. Neverland, but I am seeing him tomorrow night.

I am reading 'And the Ass saw the Angel' and I'll quote the part where I am now, don't try to stop me;

Six years passed. Six young gunfighters down on their luck. Six pine boxes to carry them in. Six crooked miles walked. Six broken stiles crossed. Six passing bells swinging but making no sound. Six widows weeping. Six plots of cold ground. Six blackbirds throwing six crooked shadows. Six sinking moons. Six wounds. Six notches. Six muddy crutches broken in two.
So rolled the years of mah springtime.

Six wicker baskets.
Into these did the years of mah youthhead roll.

Six years ago I was eightteen. I thought I was going to become a famous writer. I thought I was a genius. I thought I was sane, beautiful and talented. I was ready for the world, and the world was supposed to sigh in relief of my much anticipated adulthood. I wish I could pinpoint the moment when it turned from silent confidence into the cynical void that I feel today. Am I failing somehow? Have I burned a bridge too many? Has my soul turned black? Have I become the vampire, the human leech, that I fear at night?

Is it easier maybe, could we say that my path of self-destruction, lack of self-worth, is merely a symptom of a clinical depression, the well-documented black hole that twenty-somethings experience after their college days? A lack of faith? Slight shizophrenia lingering somewhere in the dark periphery of my brain? A curious and unstable mind forced to see reality?

The Janitor of Lunacy said I reminded him of the following, It's the image I'll take to bed where I'll read until it's dawn so I can be sure the vampires are gone.

Distant Voices: C. Hein

Wenn der Augenblick sogenannte menschliche Grösse von uns verlangt, vermögen wir nur intensiv und fast ehrlich in unserer Kaffeetasse zu rühren.

Part Won-Siks

We’re having tarts in the star-lid sky. Pints of beer go round while we sit in the grass and the firstborn perform their magic while reason sleeps and vanity is born in the shadow of a tree. We’re too young for coherent dreams. Underneath the clouds we seek the comfort of a statue, and from a gaping hole in the sand we hear children’s laughter. We’re shielded from malady, the truth cannot find us anymore as our mirror show only lost keys. We unzip our trousers and I kiss you, my friend.