Do they really have yellow roses in Texas? I thought it was all heat and cactus and those rolling bush things like you see in movies.
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Book Expo America 2 weeks today
On Friday the first of June, two weeks today, Book Expo America opens for three days at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre in Manhattan, and – inshallah – I will be there.
My book’s one of the titles shown on one of the booths run by PMA – Booths 4041 to 4044, I don’t yet know which - and I’ll be hanging out there, grabbing buyers gently by the throat as they pass.
Of course, New York is a big city, and I might get lost.
But I have a plan.
If that happens, I’ll ask directions in an exaggerated English accent and do Mr. Bean impressions.
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Beatitudes
Blessed are those who make mistakes
Because he who never made a mistake, never made anything else either
And mistake-makers serve as useful grindstones for boring and conventional people to polish their dull wits against
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Zorn. (An excerpt from the incomplete novel.)
The place is a pizza shop in Roknor Bay, a popular holiday resort on the Mediterranean coast. The time is June 2035, and a group of teenagers are on holiday there.
Fucking Twat, thought Kevin, biting into his pizza savagely. We were supposed to be together, and he fucks off and leaves me.
Kevin had not had a good night. He’d been here a week, and not a sniff of a girl. Last night he and Michael had sworn not to drink too much, and that way they’d pick up a couple of girls while everyone else were falling down drunk. So he’d just had a couple, but Michael had gone and got pissed up as usual, and then got talking to some girl and vanished with her. And where was he this morning? Not in his room, and hadn’t shown up by 12 o clock, and so he, Kevin, was sitting at mid day eating pizza on his own.
He’d banged on the door, but Michael never showed his face, so unless he’d got so pissed he was still out cold, he’d never come back. Did that red-haired slut have a room of her own? If it was her he’d left with, which wasn’t certain, ‘cause he hadn’t seen them leave.
Kevin chewed on his pizza uneasily, and pocked with a finger at the mushrooms, brooding on another possibility. That little slut with the purple eye liner vanished about the same time, that Zorn bitch with the smart mouth who’d been sniffing around Michael a couple of days ago. What if they’d left together? No. Michael hadn’t said anything, and in any case he liked things straight, none of these butch girls and fairy boys. So he’d been on top of that red-haired piece all night, and was probably on top of her now, and he’s said sod you and left me on my tod. Twat. Of course I’d do the same, but so what? What’ll I do now on my own?
Kevin bit into the pizza and looked across the room glumly. An older guy a table or two away looked up at the same moment, and their glances met. Kevin wagged his pizza in vague greeting, then looked moodily out of the window at the passing people. He’d remembered him from Silver’s last night, and smelt the scent of a fellow sufferer, for the dude didn’t look too happy either.
Iril didn’t remember Kevin though. Lump, he thought, some straight dummy stuffing his face. Hit the gym would be a good idea.
The door swung open and a trio of girls came blasting in, noisy and giggling behind dark sunglasses, wet-patched Bermudas pulled hastily on over wet bikini bottoms, bare feet sandy from the beach from which they’d fled in hunger. “Iril,” cried their leader, and crashed down into the seat opposite his.
Iril winced at the spray of salt water drops and spread his hands protectively over his plate. He liked Evren – she was always cheerful – but she couldn’t seem to get it through her head that he was gay.
Lucky sod, thought Kevin, watching slyly through narrowed eyes whilst pretending to indifference, that’s a nice looking chick, and she’s too young for you. More my age. Lay off and send her over here mister. But the chick was all over the dude, standing and leaning over the table, smiling into his face with her big knockers nearly coming out of her top, almost dumping them on his plate. Mangoes! Rub them up against his nose, why don’t you, thought Kevin enviously. And the dude was talking to her so easily, not stuck for words. I wish I could do that, thought Kevin. Now the girl was twisting round the table, half going to the service counter with her feet and half hanging in there with her elbows on the table, still talking to buddy, and now it was her bum wagging at him, Kevin, and she must have made a joke, ‘cause the dude was laughing.
To Kevin it seemed – again – that there was a realer world than his, with realer people in it who were comfortable and knew the rules. Some people were shiny, somehow, and belonged, and people talked to them as if they were important. He felt greasy, and little. Then the girl was on her feet again and scurrying away to join her friends, who were….
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Wake of the Raven, Volume 2. Provisional title “Singapore”. An excerpt. (The date is April 1951.)
As Bruce drove, Stuart thought furiously.
Chain me up in a secret room, he’d said. But he was already chained up in one, and so secret only he could see the room, or the chains. Now how was he to handle this? An appointment with a nun, to argue out a disagreement! He felt as though he were a schoolboy summoned by his headmaster for a severe ticking-off. How the devil did one conduct one’s self in such an encounter? He could hardly shout and storm, could he? Just what did this old bat expect of him? She had given him no clue on the ‘phone.
‘What are you expecting from our reverend friend,’ Bruce broke the silence.
‘I don’t know really. I suppose it’s not enough that Miles has told her to wait and see. She probably wants to brow beat me herself. It can’t hurt to meet with her.’
‘True.’
‘On the other hand I hate doing it. Too much like admitting her authority.’
‘In a place like this she has some. Play it by ear. See what comes. You might get some clarity that you’re not getting from Miles. Keep calm and see what comes.’ Bruce fell back into silence, attending to his driving, for he was a careful, polite driver.
Miles won’t like this, he thought, smiling pleasantly as he smoothly shifted gear. Good old Miles. He had come to the dinner as he had a thousand times before, and been wise and important and serious, and then made one of his feeble little jokes, and Eleanor had treated him as some harmless pet, and then he was gone again, thank God.
As if it wasn’t bad enough having to work with the man, to have to put up with his nonsense in one’s own home. But these things are sent to try us, as he had remarked to Ellis only ten minutes before. One had to keep patience; there was no sense giving in to anger. And if he kept patient, and watched his chance, then one day that silly little monkey of a man would make a slip, hopefully a serious one that would be seen on high, and down he would fall, and if he, Bruce Soames, were standing close when it happened, then how he would stamp on his throat.
That would be the time to put the knife in! The wretched little oaf! Did he think no one could see how he mooned over Eleanor? She couldn’t, and for a while that had infuriated him more than the little shit himself did, until he realised that it was just Eleanor’s way. She was too good natured.
And he liked to be good natured too, liked things to be calm and amiable. He didn’t believe in anger and violence at all, it was just the constant nibbling on his patience of that little twit, always so self assured, so right, so self contained, till he felt like storming into his office one happy morning and seizing him by the scruff of the neck and smashing his face into the desktop again and again and again and again until the bones of his stupid little face broke and the blood ran all over the leather top and trickled down the polished wood and soaked his nancy-boy carpet right up to the door.
Bruce twitched the wheel roughly to go around a leisurely cyclist. ‘Dratted bikes,’ he said in explanation, ‘amble about all over the place. A confounded nuisance.’
And when the little bastard crawled moaning on the carpet, then stamp on his hands. Wait till he saw a hand clutching at the pile with the fingers bent, and stamp on the fingers so they broke. He saw the face turned upwards in agonised supplication; kick him in the face: slam the leather sole right into his stupid little face. Kick right into the swollen lips with the corner of the heel so that the broken teeth come right through the lips, then get the fountain pen from the desk and stab him in the arse with it, stab him in his skinny little arse over and over and over till his blood runs out mixed with ink.
‘Here we are old chap,’ said Bruce, pulling up before a solid, well polished gate set in a high wall, ‘all delivered, safe and sound.’
‘Thank you again Bruce,’ said Stuart absently, eyeing the gate as he opened the car door, ‘into the lions den.’
‘Now just remember old chap, keep calm. Nothing achieved by loosing your cool.’
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Wake of the Raven, Chapter 23, “Cake.” An excerpt.
At first Stuart tried to think of other matters: of how he would travel home from Singapore, if they ever got there, and of what the speculation must be amongst his friends, if even they knew he had vanished. For a while this occupied him, but then amidst these sober plans the relentless dragon of speculation crept slyly in again, and held before his mind’s eye the face of a girl long forgotten, a girl he had known in his teens, and walked in Pillot woods with one long ago summer.
She was a girl he had been very fond of, a quiet, dark haired girl, and they had strolled slowly, too absorbed with each other to care much where they went, content to wander aimlessly, talking endlessly on infinite subjects as the young can, crossing and re-crossing the same trails, oblivious to the people who passed by them on the dappled paths. Only half conscious themselves of their growing purpose, and not speaking of it, they found themselves leaving the beaten path, wading through the woodland grass between the tangled trees, rejoicing in the firm snap of twigs beneath their feet.
Voices came to them faintly, floating through the ever thickening barrier of trees, and his hands felt moist and his voice a little hoarse and unsteady. Yet that didn’t matter, for they had ceased to say much, but went on in unstated quest until the distant voices were fainter than the flutter and song of the birds in the branches above, fainter than the close, pressing hum and buzz of the insects.
They passed into a narrow clearing to which no path came, and paused, feeling the warm isolation of the place, and turning to each other came together gently, and embraced softly, but with a rising heat of their own, beyond the summer day’s. And he lay with her in the grass where the Blue Bells grew thickly, whilst the shafts of sun and shadow duelled beneath the leaf swathed branches.
They kissed, and her breath fanned his face warmly, and his hands….
Damn! I’m out of ink.
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Phasors on Stun
I was commenting a friend a few minutes ago, who had blogged about an issue concerning Christians and cash. As the friend had posted protected I won’t mention a name.
By the time I’d finished commenting I was in such a rage that I decided to blog it, and here it is.
I was raised (nominally) as a Christian. I can only remember one of the Bible teachers at the Sunday School I briefly attended. He was later arrested for fencing stolen goods. I have seen this occur over and over again, and have myself suffered badly at the hands of these crooks who hide behind a pretence to religion. In fact since coming to North America I have often noted the tie-in whereby aqquisitive business people make a point of shouting out their allegiance to Christ at every opportunity. This practice is much more marked than in the UK, where our crooks tend to be more honest atheist crooks.
I tell you in all truth, that my personal observation has been that a major characteristic of Christians (as a statistical group, not necessarily as individuals) is that they are as dishonest with cash as they are with most points of intellectual common sense.
I have no problem with Christ, who is obviously one of the many masters of the inner life, but “automatic” Christians make me want to run amok.
What do I mean by an “automatic” Christian? It goes like this: “I am a Christian, therefore I am automatically right, automatically saved, automatically better than a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist etc.”
It is a system that is dead, because it has killed itself. The only reason it stands on its feet is that the need of people for meaning and hope props it up.
I found something better many years ago that comforts and sustains me, and thank God I did. I pity any sincere person who has to go through life with nothing better than the ancient, corrupt system of Christianity to sustain them.
I now feel very pissed. I think I will blog this.
I do indeed have a few book projects in mind, and the non-fiction one is called “Blue Sky Hijack,” my account of how established religion comes between us and our souls.
And now I’m going to bed. Good night. If anyone doesn’t like this be advised: to paraphrase the words of Admiral Lord Nelson, “I have not even begun to blog.”
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My Dog’s Theology
I’m certain my dog has religious beliefs, which he practices devoutly.
He watches a superior being intently, understanding only one word in a thousand, but wagging his tail at any kind one.
He supplicates constantly for his daily needs, mainly food, especially any kind that he is not supposed to eat, and even better, walkies.
When blessed with walkies, and let free of the lease – for the superior being believes in freedom and happiness – he obeys NOT the commandments bellowed after him by said superior being, but runs amok, fighing with other dogs and sniffing at as much rubbish and dog pee as he can find.
Upon being chastised he boweth his head and waggeth his tail in a most apologetic manner, and tomorrow will do all this over again.
I’m certain my dog has religious beliefs.
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A sad story, but true
Unfortunately, immigrants to English speaking countries are sometimes mocked for their inability to speak our language clearly, and this is a pity, for we should appreciate that often they have made great efforts to learn what is to them a strange foreign tongue, and this barrier often frustrates their efforts to become useful and productive members of our society (I’m never quite sure what that last pompous phrase means, but it sounds good.)
Recently I witnessed such an effort on the part of two people to whom English is a second language. It happened thus -
I was walking down the hallway of an apartment building, heading towards a friend’s appartment. As I passed one of the doors, I heard clearly through it a snatch of conversation, as probably did half the building, for it was bellowed without restraint. It seems that two people – one a man, the other a woman – were quarrelling, in accents that suggested the far east, but they lacked a common first language to quarrel in.
Probably they were husband and wife, from different countries, or from one of those vast countries where many languages are spoken. Therefore – as they must have done when pursuing their original love – they had to resort to English, in which they did their best to convey their meaning to each other.
It went like this -
The sound of a scuffle, ending in the sound of several vigorous slaps.
She: “Oh, oh, oh. You are beating me. I am being hit all over. I am being beaten by you!”
He: “I will kill you, I will definitely kill you.”
She: “I will leave to my mother.” (sobs.)
He: “I will kill your mother also. I am definitely telling you I will kill your mother also.”
I didn’t hang around to hear more. My friend tells me this is a regular occurence, so presumably there were no fatalities.
Top marks to these people though, for a determined effort to express themselves clearly despite unfavourable circumstances. I was especially impressed by the emphasis with which the male speaker intoned the adverb “definitely.”
As Kurt Vonnegut often said: “so it goes.”
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I will
I WILL throttle that chicken
A comment on Graham’s cryptic outburst by Gary Allan Wilson:
I’m becoming concerned.
Until now all we different personalities have existed peacfully together, usually content to let Jason speak for us, as he is the outgoing one.
When the Graham personality took charge I saw little reason for objection, and felt it was good if I stayed quietly in the background, as usual, but now he seems to have decided to remain in permanent command, and is apparently threatening violence to Jason, or possibly one of the others.
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