Number of people who followed the ‘revolting menstrual sex’ link: 21. You know who you are.
I love this blog.
It’s strange. The hits on my old neuroblog used to stay pretty steady, but this one seems to be getting more popular all the time. I’ve been whoring it more I suppose.
Filed under Weblogs
I just had a novel encounter with a drunken Irish girl who I met on a southbound 112 tram. She reminded me a bit of my second favourite ex (she of the revolting menstrual sex) (amongst other, less totally horrendous things). She’d lost her friends somewhere between Burke & Collins Streets and insisted on buying me drinks once we arrived in the Kilda, where she is staying in a hostel.
She was really nice, and pretty, and funny, and alarmingly flirtatious. And that is the end of the story. It could potentially have been a much more interesting story, but as part of my ongoing bid to rejoin the human race I felt like I should try and behave ethically. She was falling-over drunk and lonely and far from home and nine years younger than me, and stuff.
I didn’t actually *feel* any kind of moral compulsion.. just a desire to do what a normal, non-possibly-sociopathic person would do.
Am I wrong?
I have been feeling all romanticky lately lately for some reason, which was heightened this evening by having been to see Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (incredible mess, btw.. not absolutely the worst conceivable Hitchhiker’s movie – it had qualities – but they screwed it up pretty comprehensively); the chick who played Trillian (who was also the Cameron Crowe analogue’s sister who runs away to become an air hostess in Almost Famous.. here she is.. her name – I shit you not – is Zooey Deschanel. She also played ‘Gas Station Girl’ in a movie called It’s Better To Be Wanted For Murder Than Not To Be Wanted At All, which I have just added to my must-see list for the title alone) was a babe of stupendous proportions (although that was no excuse for the whole romantic subplot.. what the hell were they thinking? Then they had the audacity to dedicate it to Douglas Adams. He must be turning in his grave. Cunts. But I digress…), and I just can’t figure out at all if I did the right thing or not.
I half wonder if God – who, of course, I do not actually believe in – is sighing exasperatedly down at me even as I type. “Honestly, young man.. I do my best, you know.. I really do..”
It seemed especially providential since I shouldn’t actually have been on that tram at all. I left my bag behind in the cinema and only realised once I was half way home. I had to go back and retrieve it, then get a third tram south again.
It sounds like the sort of story people tell their children. The kind that’s meant to be sweet and charming, but actually probably just frightens the crap out of them, confronting them as it does with the horrifyingly arbitrary, random nature of existence. “If I hadn’t left my bag behind that night.. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BORN” etc.
It’s been a night of stuffups all round. Irish girl (she was so lovely.. sigh) misplaced her friends, I misplaced my bag, and my sister and her fiancee Martin the Swede got hopelessly caught in traffic and missed the movie. And they both left their mobiles behind, so I had no idea what had happened to them. I had visions of having to call Mum in Geneva to find out their rego number, and calling the police to see if they’d been in an accident, and them both being dead.
To be perhaps inadvisably honest, the prospect seemed quite exciting. And it would have been a fantastic excuse to blow off work tomorrow.
Ah, who am I kidding? I’m not human. I’ll never be human.
Next time, ethics can get fucked. So to speak.
So yeah, I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I’ve taken this decision now so I’ll have lots of time to prepare, and flagging it here so it’ll be harder to back out when November rolls around.
I bought this notebook to put thoughts and ideas in.
Because I’m a sucker, I’m going to acquire & read Chris Baty‘s NaNoWriMo bible No Plot? No Problem! I like the title.
It’s also a good excuse to re-read a few favourite books.
(138 pages of The Magus to go, weary sigh.)
Another preparatory project will be salvaging old writings dating back to the early 90s from my old Mac Classic II (pictured below), currently awaiting carriage to these people, who are going to put its 40MB hard disk onto a CD for me.
Indispensable Australian censorship news & reference site Refused Classification has a transcript of the Office of Film & Literature Castration Classification‘s Des Clark being grilled in Senate Estimates last week.
The proceedings were somewhat less colourful than usual this year, thanks to the absence of the insane and abominable Senator Brian Harradine, who is, pleasingly, unwell. But it still makes for most interesting – if irritating – reading.
Particular attention is drawn to this exchange:
Senator McGAURAN – But moving on, Madam Chair, many years ago I was involved in a movie called Salo, which was eventually banned.
Senator LUDWIG – Did you appear in it?
Senator McGAURAN – Pardon?
Senator LUDWIG – You said you were involved in it.
Senator McGAURAN – I was involved in getting it banned.
Senator LUDWIG – I see.
Filed under Current Affairs, Movies
Exhibit A: The Draughtsman’s Contract.
However jaded I may have become, I still heart this movie so fucking much it hurts.
First saw it when I was about 14. Completely changed my life.
Latterly, before making the mistake of allowing baby sis to borrow it, I used to have it on as audiovisual wallpaper from time to time, but I can’t have actually watched it properly for maybe three or four years.
No wonder I’ve been so miserable.
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MR NOYES: Mr Chandos was a man who spent more time with his gardener than with his wife. They discussed plum trees. Ad nauseam. He gave his family and his tenants cause to dread September, for they were regaled with plums until their guts rumbled like thunder and their backsides ached from overuse. He built the chapel at Fovent, where the pewseats are of plumwood. So the tenants still have cause to remember Chandos through their backsides, on account of the splinters.
“It is said that the Duke de Courcey invited his water mechanic to the top of an elaborate cascade he had constructed, and asked him if he could build such a marvel for anyone else. After offering various thanks and pleasantries, the mechanic finally admitted that – with sufficient patronage – he probably could.
The Duke pushed him, gently, in the small of the back — and the wretched man plummeted to a watery death!”
(raucous laughter)
MRS HERBERT: Thomas, why is Mr Neville interested in my sheets?
MR NOYES: He is to draw them wet outside the laundry.
MRS HERBERT: Wet? Why does he want them wet?
MR NOYES: Madam, I cannot answer you that. Perhaps he has fond memories of being a baby.
MR NEVILLE: Madam, who is this child who walks the garden with such a solemn look on his face?
MRS TALMANN: That is my husband’s nephew, Mr Neville.
MR NEVILLE: He attracts servants like a little midget king. What is his patrimony, Madam?
MRS TALMANN: His father was killed at Ausbergenfeldt. His mother became a Catholic, so my husband had him brought to England.
MR NEVILLE: To be reared as a little Protestant.
MRS TALMANN: He was an orphan, Mr Neville, and needed to be looked after.
MR NEVILLE: An orphan, madam, because his mother became a Catholic?!?
MR TALMANN: It is imperative, Augustus, that in representing me, you ask of yourself the very best. And you do not fraternize with whomsoever you choose. Chasing sheep is a tiresome habit best left to shepherds. If Mr Neville chases sheep, he is not to be emulated.
Drawing is an attribution worth very little – and in England, worth nothing at all. If you must scribble, I suggest that your time would be better spent in studying mathematics. I shall engage you a tutor. And who knows – one day you, Augustus, may add the Talmann name to the Royal Society.
Augustus?
Your tutor, of course, must be German. There are far too many English influences on your life as it is.
MRS TALMANN: Mr Neville, I have grown to believe that a really intelligent man makes for an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness; a certain refusal to be aware of all the options. An intelligent man will know more about what he is drawing than he will see. And in the space between knowing and seeing he will become… constrained. Unable to persue an idea strongly; fearing perhaps that the discerning – those who he is eager to please – will find him wanting if he does not put in not only what he knows.. but what they know as well.
Fucking.. fucking.. I love you, The Draughtsman’s Contract. Still. Will you marry me? I’m serious.
..got her wish, apparently.
And the day after I put my old, ‘Cam-only blog to bed on the basis that Neuroblogging is dead in the water, she comes out with this.
Be afraid.
You know, in a good way.
I had an email out of the blue the other day from memeticist Howard Campbell – not the one from Kurt Vonnegut‘s Mother Night, but the one from Ben Mack’s fairly astonishing “consciousness thriller” Poker Without Cards, which can – and should – be downloaded as a .pdf here, or purchased here.
You could also listen to Joseph Matheny interviewing Ben here (part 1) and here (part 2). And watch this video, The Pitch, Poker and The Public.
You really could.
He asked if I knew any reviewers. I could only point him to Elmo – but the two of them were already acquainted.
Well, the end of the month has arrived, but despite my resolution, I’m still 168 pages shy of completing The Magus.
I have been contemplating suicide, but it really wouldn’t suit my style and besides, I want to find out if the ending is really as ambiguous and unsatisfying as everyone says.
The DVD of A Zed & Two Noughts I was coveting here has gone, I discovered today. However in its place was one of PG‘s preceding feature, The Draughtsman’s Contract (pictured, below) – also with director’s commentary! Go the digital revolution etc. Feeling in need of a compelling reason to live some retail therapy, and wary of being gazumped again, I bought it.
Yay, DVD of The Draughtsman’s Contract with director’s commentary.
What else? I happened to pass pipe-smoking Bolte Bridge participant Operative Arachni on Barkly Street this morning. I smiled at her, but I don’t think she recognised me.
Here is a picture of someone else’s toaster (my own is too retiring for photos):
Blah blahdy blah blabidy blah blah blah blahdy blah blah blabidy blah blah blah blah blahdy blah blah blah blahdy blah blah blah blah blabidy blah blah. Blahdy blahdy blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah; blah blah blabidy blah blah blah blahdy blah blah blah.
Blah blah blabidy blah blah blah – blah blah blahdy blah blabidy blah blah blah, blah blah.
Blah blabidy blah, blah.
My sister wants her camera back. Silly bitch.
Neurocam is not a culture jamming exercise.
Neurocam is a misdirection virus.
(Please note: Neurocam is not a misdirection virus.)
Here is a picture of Kate Beckinsale in “Underworld”:
“I’ll never age and I’ll never die/Unlike all the stars in the sky/I’ll be young forever.. know why?”
Filed under Blah
Well, probably not. But the second half of my induction was completed earlier in the week and I really can’t say anything at all about it, except that it’s pretty sweet. I certainly ain’t disappointed.
Hang in there, you entry-level scamps.
As others have observed, the more you learn about the Cam the harder it becomes to talk about. But I will continue to blog about Neurocam to the extent that this is feasible. May not be all that much.
That said I have a new assignment, NIO-3001/01, which is not of itself earth-shattering in nature, and which I am not explicitly enjoined from discussing. Suffice to say it’s a less diversionary equivalent of NCI-2332.
Filed under Neurocam
In addition to buying clothes on Friday, I also got a new wallet. My old one was falling to pieces. Things were constantly falling out of it. I’ve lost four keycards in the last eight months or so because of this.
As the picture above illustrates, the new wallet is substantially smaller than the old one.
In many respects this is a good thing. However I had not entirely anticipated the extent to which the new one offers severely limited scope for one of my favourite passtimes, the obsessive collection and hoarding of random stupid crap.
My old wallet used give house room to all manner of daft accumulata. Unfortunately for the shiny novelty value of this post, I actually already partially cleaned it out when I moved. It was becoming unweildy.
Effecting the transfer nevertheless necessitated further wallet-crap cullage, and was a welcome excuse to indulge in a spot of the old ultra short term nostalgia.
From top down: plastic bag no doubt used for illicit purposes, business cards, handy Polyester Books “Get Out of Hell Free” card, old Canberran ID & membership cards, including ANU Health Club card, expiration date August 2002
Inscribed scraps of sentimental value
One and a half playing cards
Tickets for things, mostly movies. I decided to retain the ones from Melbourne and archive the ones from Canberra, which comprised the bulk of the collection (note yellowing ticket to Kill Bill Vol 1, dated 27th October 2003, in foreground)
I was unsure what to do with this particular ticket, for a 10:10pm session of Van Helsing on Monday the 30th of May 2004, at the Jam Factory Village (see previous post), which I foolishly went to see entirely on the basis that Kate Beckinsale was in it.
It is an unhappy ticket; I associate it with sitting sadly on the floor of T’s flat in Toorak, realising that my first attempt to move to Melbourne was doomed. And despite the movie was absolutely dire.
But in the end I decided to retain it.
248 pages of The Magus left.
I think the experience of participating in recent Neurocam group assignments was beneficial. The vibe of vague dread and menace engendered by the mysterious nature of the Cam was substituted with standard job-interview dread and menace, but in other respects it was an eerily similar kind of experience.
Unhappily, I miscalculated the number of pages of The Magus I had left to read. It was actually 300. Now it’s 274.
(There was a longer version of this but it’s kind of longwinded and tedious and I can’t be bothered to finish it – which is of course what happens when one attempts to read longwinded and tedious books which one can’t be bothered to finish – so I’ll just give you the gist:)
I want to finish The Magus. It’s really shitting me. I don’t like it at all. The concept is interesting but the execution is very contrived. The style is soporifically ponderous and all the characters grate my tits. The narrator, especially, is a pompous, self-absorbed pillock. He reminds so much of me; it’s terrible.
I want to read my Peter Greenaway book. And also, I’ve decided I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year and have a pile of other books I want to read or reread in preparation. Like Georges Bataille‘s The Story of the Eye, which is great.
(Opens at random)
[Insert pyrotechnically surreal, lurid and obscene passage from The Story Of The Eye here.]
Let’s try it with the Magus.
*flip flip flip*
[Insert bromidically dreary, overdescriptive passage from The Magus here.]
See what I mean? [Well, probably not.]
I am going to finish it by the end of the month if it kills me, a possibility which cannot be discounted. I have 200 pages to go.
Filed under Books
