It's been a month. But there are things more important than you and your constant confirmation of my existence through the reading of my blog... Actually there aren't. I love your and your clicks (as I've been confirmed they're called) more than I love myself and I hereby offer my deepest regrets (which isn't much to be honest but hey, that's how I roll).
To be fair, reading back the last couple of entries, I was attempting to finish writing a dissertation and apparently at the end of my tether mentally. It was very tiring, but it's now finished and handed in. Never have I ever written anything for any kind of educational thing I was doing, which had such an emotional on me. It was weird. The moment I handed it in to the lady who, scanning my Student card, took hold of my baby and dropped it in a box. It was like I had cut a piece from my soul, handed it to her; only to have it plonked, lonely, crying tears of toner through its lone, perforated eye - into a purple plastic crate. It cried: Why have you left me father? A-why? WHY? I could not answer. As I left it, to be judged, all alone, on the coffee-stained desk of this or that academic somewhere or other, far away from the OpenOffice file that had once created it, I felt the cool, detached relief of the now moneyed farmer- just having brought his best bull to the butcher's, for he lacked finances and the beast was old and ready for the knife- thankful for the joy it had provided him, and in need of a good, stiff drink. Yet, in a quiet moment of reflection, the gentle sway of his country ale mixing with the bitter, salty tang of a single tear, tumbling slowly to the bottom of his pint glass- like a droplet of mercury sinking gently to the ocean bed- tasted like a long-lost love.
I'm over it now.
Really, I am.
I've been reading Nabokov -I don't want to use the proper title, in case it attracts the wrong audience. Come to think of it, you probably are the wrong audience. Ah well- this morning. I really like it- no, not in that way! What I'm basically moving towards (in an awkward fashion) is that sometimes things that are good have a certain reputation. It is very easy to fit in to either conforming and liking the thing without really thinking about what that thing may be- or adapting the knee-jerk reactionary response that it will likely be overrated shit. In a sort of relativist way, both of these options can only be conceived of as right, for the people espousing these opinions have (by definition) the right to say what they think, however ill-informed their brain-vomit may be. But why do I feel that I have to take some early Woolf with me when I borrow Lolita from the University Library? (Oh, fuck. I've said it. How now, Google perverts!) Why, when using the automatic scanning machine to borrow them, do I hide it between Woolf and Tristram Shandy, like the machine won't be able to see it? Do I seriously think that the screen will change into a giant tutting head telling me what a pervert I am for borrowing this book? And why do I feel like I can't read Lolita in the café? What makes me feel uncomfortable? I mean, it can't be that bad! Have people actually masturbated at this book? In a library café, ordering carrot cake, cappuccino and some extra tissues if it all gets a bit much? The book can't be THAT good, surely. It's a bit too detached and funny for pornography. Especially highly respected 20th century literature about 12 year old girls. I think I found the reason why. It's the yellowy, overexposed picture of a teenage girl on the cover. That does intensify the pervert-factor. Shit.
Yeah, liked that? It's about 20th Century Literature, yeah. But about wanking, too. So something for everyone.
This is actually quite a good way to get more blog-hits from the discerning pornography fan. Fellow bloggers, take note. Next week, Marquis de Sade.
In NEWS (which you probably might like to know), I didn't stop doing gigs throughout the last month. I had five gigs to be exact, which may not seem much (it wasn't) but I did get the chance to work up some new material and I now have a completely new 5 minutes, which I've been trying out in Brighton and London. I like this material and it likes me, which is quite pleasing. I've been getting good reactions and I feel like I can get loads of mileage out of it, which is good. The new performance style I'd been thinking/talking about has also been quite successful, apart from the times when I couldn't put the mic stand up high enough and I just had to tell the audience what it would have been like. This, oddly, worked quite well. Show them the device and they'll fill in the rest. How lovely audiences are.
In other stand up news, I'll be (un-?) ceremoniously poppin' my compèring cherry at the SUDS Variety night, at Falmer bar this Thursday. Some students doing stuff. But it will be fun though. And a good experience for everyone involved. Hopefully. On Friday, the compèring duties will fall to the lovely (DID YOU HEAR THAT INTERNET? LOVELY!) Sophie Buijsen, and I'll be ending the night. If the roof doesn't catch fire with all the hilarity in the room before. In other words: please come! On Saturday next week, I'm in a Casual Violence fundraiser (self-deprecatingly called 'Casual Violence Have Friends', as if to prove it to an unseen playground bully, before he kicks it in the dust, with its strange, awkward hair) at the Caroline of Brunswick.
In other stand up news, I'll be (un-?) ceremoniously poppin' my compèring cherry at the SUDS Variety night, at Falmer bar this Thursday. Some students doing stuff. But it will be fun though. And a good experience for everyone involved. Hopefully. On Friday, the compèring duties will fall to the lovely (DID YOU HEAR THAT INTERNET? LOVELY!) Sophie Buijsen, and I'll be ending the night. If the roof doesn't catch fire with all the hilarity in the room before. In other words: please come! On Saturday next week, I'm in a Casual Violence fundraiser (self-deprecatingly called 'Casual Violence Have Friends', as if to prove it to an unseen playground bully, before he kicks it in the dust, with its strange, awkward hair) at the Caroline of Brunswick.
One more thing before I go, I was finishing an essay the other night in the library, and I asked my twitter-followers (why not become one? I am interesting!) to shout me into doing some work. Two of them obliged, one of which (@jessdux saying DO WORK YOU USELESS PROCRASTINATING DUTCH MAN) got retweeted by @The_Netherlands. I would love the Netherlands to unilaterally declare tweet-war on @jessdux, who was surely only telling the truth.
So now, with, deepest love and dedication (about once a month), I must leave you. By-ee!
