Here it goes again…

I have finally updated the Writings page. Go check it out to see how utterly amazing and swamped I am with ideas and strokes of genius.

when I was enchanted by books. I’d get lost in the prose and find myself in a place that even the author couldn’t have imagined. Characters half formed themselves in the sleepy shadows of my mind and sceneries melted in the watercolours of the inside of my eye.

But then I started reading for sport. You know, speed reading. I’d read a page as fast as I could and test myself on its content. Due to this I have the innate ability to see only a mere flash of a road sign and know every which direction it was pointing to, but I’m not one to brag.

(Although, once, I read the entirety of Lord of the rings in under one week and received full marks on a test my teacher gave me as a little extra study. I even picked up the names of sub-characters that were only restricted to a few paragraphs of text and the underlying themes of racism and borderline sexism).

But now it’s different. A lot different. I read solely for pleasure. I see a good book or I hear about a good book, and I read it. But I’m so utterly selective in my readings that coming across a truly unique book is a rare occurrence. I’m extremely judgmental about what I read, damning it to the three categories of Worthy, Easy, and Shit. If a book is exceptional, thought provoking, maybe a little bit weird, it’s Worthy. If it’s a good read but nothing too hard or stressful, it’s Easy. Lacking any of the features above, and it’s Shit. Naturally I see most books littering the front doors of major bookshops as Shit before I even read them.

This mostly came about due to my awakening into the writing world, when I became a writer. Now, I use the term “writer” loosely here as I am in fact not a writer. I just write. Sure, what I write are masterpieces of our era, but I still just write. If anything I’m more of a hack than a writer since my works usually consist of pulp satire and I insist on wearing a fedora hat when I type.

But I digress.

Whenever I see a book displayed in the window of a bookstore, I automatically assume that it is generic, available, ordinary, simple… Shit. It’s mainstream and I don’t do mainstream. This may eventually be one of my greatest downfalls as a writer/hack/human being, but I don’t. do. mainstream. Sure, I’ll listen to a popular band, I’ll watch the latest block-buster, but I’ll be damned if you ever find a chick-lit or serial crime thriller on my bookshelf. The books I like are obscure, random, maybe even hard to find, possibly no longer in print; anything but mainstream.

And before you ask; no, classic pieces of literature, cult-mainstream, and books studied at schools do not count as mainstream.

The whole idea of mainstream annoys me. Sure, there’s the chance of picking up a book that says things that no other mainstream book has touched on, that says something different compared to the endless lines of racism, sexism, terrorism, love, relationships, historically accurate characters or mishaps in taxis. Maybe there’s a gem somewhere out there in the front row along with all the other colourfully decorated front covers where the name of the author is bigger than the title itself (another factor that’s always bugged me), but really, I cannot be arsed playing Russian Roulette with books that I know will offend me and everything I love about this manipulative little language of ours.

And it’s not just because of my smug, pompous attitude when I regale you with the stories of an obscure Canadian/African/Russian/Czech author, there’s a wholly deeper level to this altogether. You see, when it comes to reading books, I have a nasty habit of becoming the books. The florid writing and intriguing characters are absorbed into my mind and ebb out through my skin as the story unfolds. This is why when I read a depressing book, I feel depressed. Or when I read an anarchistic book, I want to create anarchy. Some of it passes, true, and I return to normal, but some of it stays with me and lingers in the cavity of my chest where it very well becomes a part of me as much as my organs.

And, as such, I don’t want some twenty-something secretary polluting what may very well be my soul with musings over boyfriends. I don’t want some shit little story that works itself out in the end with charming, happy little coincidences. I want tragedy. I want epiphanies. I want intriguing characters that develop in my mind and become me as much as I become them. I want to feel the world from my couch. I’m too cowardly to have these feelings for myself, so I read books to grasp every nurturing drop of emotion that inflames my senses to a feeling I never knew I could experience.

So please, I beg you, if you recommend a book for God’s sake make it memorable. Otherwise there is a very good chance that I will move myself away from you for your poor taste in life.

(Also, on a completely separate note, when the hell will I write a post that stays on bloody topic?)

-Condensation; the collective water, spit, sweat, bacteria and life of everyone in that room.

-A huge red blob of a woman. A sweating, hulking stinking cherry space-hopper that would find perfect employment if they were looking for a nose for a 50ft Rudolf.

-There’s an unfamiliar scent in my room and I place it on my new shampoo until I notice the bulge in my bed. I throw back the covers and find a beautiful blonde lying there as naked as God made her. I’m too tired to move her so I sleep on the couch and when I wake up she’s gone. These things always happen to me.

-Girl: Don’t hit me!
Hero: You’re lucky I’m not a feminist.

-The tattoo that spread from the inside of his elbow to his wrist depicted a blue skinned woman writhing in pain with sagging flesh hanging off the bone. Her mouth was screaming and her eyes were open wide and glowing violent red as they watched, painfully, the fiery dragon erupt from her spread-eagled legs. Her mouth was curled into a twisted utterance as the dragon smiled and winked at me, a thin tongue licking the flames sprouting from its nose.

-I currently have four novels on the go, one graphic novel, one film and one adapted screenplay. Why can’t I ever seem to finish anything?

-Is it possible to write in black and white?

-An idea for motivation; record people cheering and clapping, then repeat it over and over when writing.

This is probably why I’m going to fail psychology. Ha ha ha I don’t really care anymore.

As the results have shown, gender is a significant attribute in a person’s spatial awareness whilst handedness is not.

The gender section of the experiment has showed that men are, characteristically, more aware of their surroundings and navigation than women are. This may seem of little use, but it could help the leader of an expedition choose who to entrust the map to, or to help a blind woman understand why she is finding it hard to cope compared to her similarly blind counterpart.

The handedness section of the experiment might not seem like it was worth it, but it does add knowledge to the list of things that is known about the mind. By doing this experiment and knowing that handedness does not affect spatial perception, another psychologist has been saved the time and effort to find out for themselves. This does not sound like much, but by knowing that this experiment has already been carried out, that psychologist will no longer have to do it and will move on to another subject of spatial awareness that will help further understanding of it. Again, this does not sound like much, but psychology cannot be filled with breakthrough after breakthrough, it has to be filled slowly and incrementally, with little segments of information gently increasing our knowledge of the brain like rain increases the volume of the ocean.

A problem found in the experiment would be the effect that the gender of the participant could have upon the handedness section of the experiment. By using two groups that have been proved to affect spatial ability in different ways, the results of the handedness experiment could have been skewed. However, the handedness experiment was not significant at all, so it is doubtful that the gender of the participant could have affected it to such a serious degree. Yet, it is something to consider in future iterations of this experiment, and in any experiment using two factors to govern an outcome.

Hypocrisy
- a poem by Jonathan Mercer

Sleepy headed fires that scorch smiles
into lush green landscapes.
Hairs sprout from carpets that groan and
heave with
unheeded desire.

Thoughts and secrets are told and retold
in the soft serenity
of a screaming ballad.
The heart thunders a whisper which
refuses to stop no matter
how
hard
one
tries.

Naked in its most clothed form
amidst thread bare skins
of fears and woes.
The charmer is the thief
of the thoughts
and the soul
and the soft, supple flesh.

The prisoner is the prison guard.
The falcon is the falconer.
The sinner is the saint.

And in the distance, a saxophone screams.

“So, what would you consider yourselves?” and the room fills with quiet. Everyone’s always buzzing and moaning in a lecture until the precise moment that the lecturer turns on her pretty little high heeled shoes and looks directly at us with that usually monotonous mouth forming a wide spectrum question. The room falls silent and I noisily wriggle in my chair as the desperate searching of the lecturer sweeps over me. It was in vain. No one is perking up with a response as their own attentions are fixed irrefutably and unendingly on their navels.

I wriggle again and my chair creeks; the twig snap in a forest of leaves. Hungry eyes bore down on me and my mouth opens and shuts like I’m taking in air through my gills. I provide a half hearted shrug and the eyes look away in disappointment. She begins to pack away her things and the rest of us shuffle hopefully at the chance of leaving the room a full fifteen minutes early. It’s only when she is about to tell us to go away before I realise that I actually have something to say.

“I’m a public sociologist,” enunciating my words so every shoelace analyser would hear and know that I am delaying them from the extra fifteen minutes of freedom. The lecturers eyes are like Christmas morning and her smile spreads ear to ear. “How so?” she asks quickly and with too much eagerness dancing on her lips. I pause, for effect, and answer.

“I was thinking about what you said when it came to sociologists and power. Through study and analysis we basically know what will work and what will not work, and we also know what makes sense for the well being of the population without any bias agenda running behind it. Now, you mentioned that sociologists can only speak out against the government so much before the government gets pissed off and shuts us down, so that’s why we have professional sociologists to sit and debate and pass on knowledge to political parties who use it at their own discretion. Well, to me that seems wrong. As we all know; knowledge is power, and we have more knowledge than the government do. We know what’s right and what’s wrong,” another pause for effect as I drink in the admiration that fills up her big, watery eyes, “so we have a responsibility to see that it’s adhered to. It’s like having a firebomb of knowledge that’s made dangerous by setting it alight with statistics. We can’t just hold it smugly while people screw themselves over. We have to lob it at someone. Take aim and fire what we know and change the world.”

And that’s it. Two birds with one stone. Not only has a debate sprung up between even the most passionate of notebook doodlers and the lecturers face filled with more joy than I’d ever seen her, but I also came figured out, in the exact moment of that speech, what the story line for my third novel would be.

Hot damn that made it a good day.

Three bricks in tow, each one clutching a strip of paper in an elastic band grasp. The driver leans forward and lights his cigarette from my lighter before I snap it shut. He laughs maniacally and drums his fingers along the rim of the wheel. I smile at him through my glasses and buckle up as he speeds up, thundering down the midnight streets with youthful reckoning. The speed was fast enough to wrench our heads from our necks if we crashed somewhere, but something about the speed set us free. We slowed to a stop in front of a huge plate glass window. Behind the portal laid hundreds and hundreds of books, lined against walls and floors with each cover shining virginially in the light. The place was deserted so I stepped out the car and ground my cigarette. I could see all the books inside, I could see all the whore pages that would be read over and over for a penny a fuck and I could see their shallow shit encrusted little faces become lost in mediocrity and dying in memory. the window made a satisfying smash when I threw the brick into it. My carrier pigeon took my words and guided them safely to a solid crack on the floor, and I wondered what people would think when they read what I wrote. I stepped into the car, shuffling glass away with my feet and we drove off deeper into the city and deeper into the night. We still had two bricks by our feet and we still had so much to say.

We were starting a writing revolution.

So here it is in front of me; a perfectly sweet, crisp, clean word document. It took me only a moment to open it up from the shortcut in my Start menu, with only thirty seconds passing between the final stroke of my double click to the final built application that is Microsoft Word Processor. Thirty seconds isn’t long. It’s the length of one advert. It’s the time it takes to walk up a flight of stairs. It’s the time that a lecturer takes to walk into the room and set his briefcase on the table. It’s the time it takes to melt frozen bread in an 800 megawatt microwave.

Thirty seconds, not much time at all.

Yet, still I find myself tapping a pen with frustration on the edge of laptop as it loads up, each agonising second following the one previous with a malicious curling grin. By the time the word document opens with fingers prying recently de-clothed ass cheeks to receive my input, I can’t. My fingers have fell flaccid against the keyboard and even through the mind is willing, the flesh is not obeying. In thirty seconds I turn from spurting flowing ink to nursing my impotent pen and wailing softly into my chest. I’m welling up inside, fit to burst with need and desire and wanting, but nothing is coming out. The want is there, but nothing is turning me on enough to satisfy my needs.

The word document is cute, with her hitched up skirt and underwear round her ankles, but her hidden face is harsh and ugly and I can’t help but remember it when I’m using her. The internet is grateful, but hating at the same time. She’s a whore with a big ass and inviting stockings and a face that’ll either make you orgasm on site or throw up over her thighs. Photoshop would make me come within seconds if it weren’t for my inability to undo her bra. A videocamera winks at me as I ponder these, and I know that she might be the one to fill my head with swirling purple clouds if I could bother to court her and make the effort.

So I take cigarettes and write notes on them, I scrawl huge messages on the sides of bathroom walls, I send postcards addressed to the post office marked with unintelligible words or pictures. I’m looking for a new medium to invade, a new girl to fuck and satisfy this overwhelming feeling of inspiration but no material to fuck her with, no dick to slap a condom on and lube up with a patient, seedy grin. And fuck me I need to do something.

Inspiration running riot but no-

materialstimethought

The need to do something anything now then later now is overpowering and debilitating. So research investigations study seek new and exciting ways to haga lo que usted desea hacer, para llenar el vacío que se está ampliando con maldad inmensurable. And it is found. It is found but it’s-

unaccessiblehardtoohardgoddamntoohard

But the want to do it is too much, the need is too much, so fantasies form behind misty eyes and thoughts latch on to inspiration and stomachs rush with oh god yes yes it will be EL SORPRENDER but no wait maybe no no no what a shame.

You’ve given up.

Hot damn.

And the slow sodden sinking feeling slips in as I give up yet another essay. This is the third instance that I’ve given up on writing an essay and decided to hand it in a day late and take the percentage hit, and it’s the third time I’ve thought seriously on giving all this up and returning to a full time job. It wasn’t bad where I worked, just horribly horribly boring. I’d hike in for 9am everyday with blood filling my shoes to sit for seven and a half hours (thirty minutes for lunch, not a minute more or a minute less) and blog. That’s right, I’d earn £6 an hour with bonuses by sitting back at my computer and blogging. Sure, I’d occasionally have to do some work - I’d click here and there, type in a few numbers, send an email or two, and I was done. My workload for the day consisted of a cumulative amount of about two hours work. The rest of the time I was free to do what I pleased. And blogging pleased me.

Which is probably why I’m, right now, neglecting my paper and typing this. There’s three minutes left before the midnight deadline hits and there’s no way I can get it done. I blame myself really, since I am the only person to blame. Bad time management. Not starting it sooner. Going away for the weekend. Spending my entire day yesterday drinking and blogging (on my various other blogs, oh ho ho how I’m mysterious). Same old stuff. Even today I spent about half an hour watching Kings of Power and Dead Fantasy II when I should’ve been doing what I was supposed to hand in five minutes ago. But they were both awesome movies. Like, really awesome.

But now I get to sleep. I get to kick myself. And I get to work on this thing tomorrow before taking a big wopping 10% slam for being late. I love the subjects, and I love what they’re teaching me, but goddammit if I just wished I was good enough in my writing to live off it.