Sometimes intestinal fortitude masquerades as a plastic phallus

In "Dream Cargoes", a short story by J.G. Ballard, the protagonist comes to unwittingly lose himself for days, hours, even weeks in the contemplation of a solitary leaf of a plant of completely unnatural, otherworldly beauty. I thought of that story today, mostly because I've been thinking a lot about the vast gulf that separates objective time from time as we subjectively perceive its passage. I suspect that when "modern" man captured time and reduced it to a series of objective measurements, and then in a feat of sheer hubris, actually had the gall to figure out a way to slap time onto his wrist, humanity may have been put under a kind of curse. At least that's how I've often felt lately -- things that are truly unpleasant seem to be extruded into filaments of time stretching towards infinity, while the small and wonderful things flash by so quickly that one is left with only the faintest echo -- a fleeting, fugitive feeling of something beautiful having all too quickly expired.

There's actually no reason for me to write about this on "the blog," but I just felt like throwing (it) up and it is-- after all--my blog, so for those who'd rather read the regular drek I put up here, perhaps now is the time to get back to eBay! (Writer politely turns back while readers either a) jab frantically and with alarming inaccuracy at their "close this window (or tab)" buttons, b) move quietly and with furtive whispers towards the exits, or c) squirm uncomfortably in their seats while reaching for lattes, green teas, stoly-tonics, ciggies, or (insert drug or placebo of choice) and silently wonder what the %4@!

Now that we're alone and can get all comfortable and cosy, let me tell you a little story. It's a condensed horror-tragi-comedy in 3 acts. Actually, I'm too lazy to tell you the story -- it's just too damn hard figuring out how to seamlessly weave those overlapping themes. Either that or I'm too cowardly or too merciful --wanting to spare you from the pain that I fear my writing might induce (in both of us). So, instead how about an excerpt, something anecdotal and forgettable....?

Once upon a time there was this chick. One day, she found herself sitting in a restaurant with a male friend. Earlier in the day, they'd visited an enormous and impressive museum that had recently opened in Roppongi, wandering through an ambitious collection of 20th century art from around the world. It was wonderful, at times appropriately surreal and naturally, occasionally bordered on the ridiculous, prompting her at one point to walk over to a thermostat and ponder it's artistic significance while stroking her phantom goatee. Her friend's tastes were sometimes in line with her own, though she thought briefly of walking away from him forever when he expressed his disinterest in collage (for example, dadaist Kurt Schwitters in his view sucks).

Now they sat in a gaudy little booth at an Indian restaurant to which she'd privately vowed never to return. They'd just finished a fantastically crap dinner, truly the worst Indian food she'd had in her life -- curry made with frozen vegetables, chicken tikka masala from a can, uninspired naan and chutney...--and were making post prandial small talk. Conversation turned to "where next," prompting her friend to remark that if he wasn't mistaken, the neighbourhood in which they were was well knwn to be replete with strip joints and such. The really, really smart and kinda pretty chick concurred that indeed, they were steps away from stripper heaven and even quipped that it was why she'd chosen this neighbourhood for their rendezvous.

And then, for reasons that can only be attributed to her penchant for making bad decisions, she told him that in her university days she'd never once joined the gaggles of girls who'd make a big show once or twice a year of going to see those male dancers called the Chippendales. "Just not my idea of fun", she'd remarked, downing her remaining dregs of beer. "Would much rather hang out at a tiny hole in the wall blues joint gone slightly to seed," to which he replied, "hey rubber dicks." At least, that's what she heard.

She was a bit confused but being kinda pretty and pretty damned smart besides managed to throw together a matrix of intelligbility for his comment. The essential outlines of the thought experiment within which "rubber dicks" made sense went something like this: i) they'd been talking about strip joints; ii) she'd mentioned never having gone to Chippendales but having once been to a strip club for men; therefore iii) "rubber dicks" referred to a) the Chippendales boys and/or their staffs of glory or b) her friend's mistaken belief that she'd once witnessed a bunch of scantily clad dildo wielding chicks dancing around poles at what would anywhere else be considered a second rate --but in Pensacola, Florida was viewed as a first rate --stripper club.

It turns out that her friend had never actually said "rubber dicks." What he had in fact said was "whatever it takes...." They both laughed really hard at her misunderstanding, but later she wondered what the hell was going on with her hearing that could have led to such a gross misprint on her auditory apparatus. Rubber dicks, she has vowed to strive tirelessly to ensure that similar misunderstandings occur with alarming frequency ad infinitum.

When Pigs Rule!

A brand new year!

Cheers to everyone and here's hoping that all your dreams for '07 come true!

In Japan, '07 is the year of the wild boar. I'm not sure if that's more or less dignified than year of the pig, but it does have an appetizing--if slightly savage Lord of the Flies--ring to it.

Computer News and Blogging Previews, etc...

(Erm....Yeah. I'm vying for dullest blog in the world today but figure things can only get better from here!)

The lap top has been showing signs of advanced senility of late, so it's back to the desktop dinosaur up in my office. Here's some background to the desk top's recent tribulations: While Doug and Barri were visiting back in October, Doug's attempt to install software for a new printer and set up to print wirelessly backfired terribly, resulting in the desktop's virtual demise.

I assumed that the old girl was gone for good (along with several years of scribblings that I hadn't backed up anywhere) but decided that stoicism rather than hysterics was the only sanity-sparing response I could muster (D and B had flown thousands of miles to be here after all!). Doug felt terrible about what had happened, but I reminded him that the desktop had been old and was actually more of a Frankencomputer than a single integrated object, having been cobbled together with bits of hardware over the past 7 years.

Fortunately, D is not only a computer er...whiz...but also (similar to Neo in the Matrix) not one to accept digital death as virtual death, and so several hours of hacking and cursing and a day or so later, Doug was somehow able to restore Windows XP.

Other than going online occasionally, I'd attempted no word processing on the desktop -- renamed Zombie computer -- since the miracle of its revival, so it was a bit of a disappointment to discover recently that MS Word and all documents written in Word have mysteriously vanished from its hard drive, presumably to that great literary recycle bin in the sky.... Somehow, despite the fact that there was probably a lot of rubbish in those files anyway, I'm feeling a bit less than stoic about this turn of events. Happily though, something called WordPad seems to have chosen to stick it out to the end; it seems quite willing to indulge my occasional desire to scatter a few random thoughts.

In other news, my ipod's usb port has gone the way of the dodo bird, though I think I'll be able to get it replaced since the little black box of boogie woogie is less than a year old. Uhhmmm...
Yes, this post quite the opposite of the rapier sharp witty little bon mots I usually throw up! Gag! Heh Heh Heh Heh.

Most of my students have decided to take an extended break over the New Year, leaving me with scandalous amounts of free time in which to think and to write. Am working through the ramifications of recognizing that while writing about writing is a form of writing, I actually aspire to something a bit loftier than just sitting around and going on about how hard it is to write. I've got so many beginnings and middles to work with that it's hard to choose where to start, but have promised myself the dubious luxury of committing to something soon.

I'll continue to doodle on the blog for fun. I view blogging as a kind of warm up exercise (okay, mostly am just venting), so there'll probably be some more entries related to booger snacks and hentai (perverts) as well as excursions in and around Japan. Thanks to a cluster of experiences on the train towards year's end, am thinking of adding "lunatics" to the shortlist of subjects for the blog. And then there's that one time when--in response to a staccato pitter patter heard while lolling around at my desk on a wintry afternoon--I looked out of the window and saw a stark naked boy of about 10(well he was wearing shoes)running furtively up the street on which I live....