The Life & Times of a Hypothetical Dead Man
From some idiots who fought with electric swords comes the story of one gimpy-lookin’ man on a quest for stabby justice. Or such is my understanding - it may turn out that justice isn’t his bag at all. The important things to note are gimpiness and stabbing, and I think we can all agree that those are some top-notch things.
The post title implies that I’m going to link to at least two trailers so… here, go watch Heath Ledger being cool again.
His prose fiction contains zero emotional content, by design, and doesn’t attempt to be journalistic in the George Orwell mode. And yet, the last page of Factotum leaves you feeling like you’ve just sailed off the edge of a cliff, looked down and seen something terrible.
I’d previously read Post Office and loved it. The writing is superbly minimal. That’s probably why it’s such a gut punch; Henry Chinaski actively resists and repels any feelings of pity by just getting on with things, by being a shiftless, incurable drifter, and and by enjoying various dodgy pursuits a little too much. So when the tiniest, merest hint of an implication of vulnerability sneaks in, it becomes a very big deal. And then it ends.
I am very much looking forward to reading Women.
Sticks right in my craw to go so many days without posting so I present to you a mild status update. Various things and projects are going on at the moment so it might continue to be a slow few days but… new Life & Times sometime this week, at the very least. In other news, you might be interested to read about how Japanese officials are accidentally giving people free drugs.
Worthwhile post? Teenage Mutant Ninja Lincoln says yes.
Pursuant to a recent tagging, I shall now hold forth at short-to-medium length on seven songs that are currently jouncing around my head (”jouncing” being a recently coined word that combines the best elements of bouncing and, uh, jouissance).
Had this happened about a week ago this post would essentially have been a link to the Dazed and Confused soundtrack on Amazon. In the intervening period there has been a certain amount of boozing, dancing, playgrounding and intermittent bouts of furious writing, so we’re now at a kind of stage of chaotic semi-unmusicalness* that almost certainly very few people will enjoy. How and ever.
1. Saul Williams - Gunshots By Computer. A “remix” (read: original song with a black man hootenannying over it) of Nine Inch Nails’ already bangin’ Hyperpower!. (Emphasis theirs. Seriously. Listen up, Irish music scene: that’s how you punctuate a song title.) There are better Saul Williams songs, but this one lodged like a bastard when I first heard it.
I missed two Saul Williams gigs over the past two weeks. This makes me unhappy.
2. Martin Grech - I Am Chromosome. Got horrendously addicted to this a couple of years ago and picked it up again at the weekend. Waily-voiced Maltese-Brit gets scared about his legacy while the world ends around him. Excellent. My mate had a few drinks with him once, apparently a very nice guy.
3. Chrome Hoof - Circus 9000. It’s, well, circusy. And also kind of sinister. I walked into Tower once and heard this song playing and, in sheer amazement at someone in Tower putting on something not entirely wankery, bought the album.
Couldn’t find it on YouTube but, as coincidence and/or me liking the song a lot would have it, it’s the first track on the muxtape I will almost certainly finish one of these days.
4. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Milk Lizard. Crazy jazz metallers listen to mix of their new album, decide this track needs more 60s-era cop show brass section. Includes a vaguely boy band-ish breakdown of the type that only The Dillinger Escape Plan can make sound cool. Even if you don’t like his singing, do listen to the whole thing.
5. April March - Chick Habit. One for the ladies. Retro faux-French lady spoons sass onto bouncy beats, gives perfect end to best film of 2007 (i.e. Death Proof. While I think of it, the theme music from Planet Terror could very easily make this list… man, I am cheating so hard here.)
6. Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip - The Beat That My Heart Skipped. Waaaaay behind everyone else here, but this was only shoved my way last week and it stuck most thoroughly, to the extent of actually preventing me from sleeping one night. Deadly buzz, and even though I expect yer manno’s voice to start grating at any minute, it never does.
7. Right… I was going to put Sigur Ros - Staralfur here, after hearing it the other day and being randomly afflicted with slow motion ever since, but earlier today I happened to hear some grade A choonage from America’s foremost dance auteur and… well, listen for yourself.
I’m supposed to pass this on to seven people, but I’m going to make like Dragonball Z and roll them into one. Maybury, I am taking my revenge.
*On account of I’m leaving out the needlessly depressing ohmygodwhatamIdoing inevitable-crash songs.
It’s been quite a while since I pimped this properly and I have more readers dropping in these days, so I might as well be blatant…
Ill Repute is an online fiction project by myself and David Maybury concerning the adventures of estimable men-about-town Eli Mordino and George Fournier. We update more or less once a week (for a given value of “more or less”) and we’re currently in the middle of our first story arc (story arcs: just like you see on the television). Any more description I try to give will descend into noncey apron-wringing so I shall link you to the first post and leave you it.
Good thing I didn’t get around to putting my grand Italian-whackin’ scheme into action, because it seems that it was those pesky Irishites all along. Mine was one of 300 accounts affected, and I feel slightly better knowing that some poor bastard lost €16,500 to my measly €700.
I can’t help but try to figure out what shops were involved. I’m reminded of a bit from Dara Ó Briain’s live show, where he talks about how replacing signatures with PINs has made identity theft vastly easier. Is it funny because it’s true?
There’s one upside to this development: it makes my revenge plan easier, as the list of retailers on my last bank statement is considerably shorter than the list of Every Person In Italy. If anyone fancies joining me in my Slap A Face For Justice campaign, do get in touch. (Must supply own costume).
I feel like I’m on the verge of something. I don’t know what.
The facts, as they stand: a taste of stale apples for the third morning in a row; trousers full of change from money I don’t remember spending; a growing habit of waking in an armchair. Also, a bitter kind of sense that dirty jokes at 4am is becoming a main event.
Today’s chair is somewhat towards the leather end of the spectrum, and it takes a few attempts to peel myself up. The balance isn’t the greatest and the sleeping bodies on the floor make for tricky navigation. A homeless man I dragged along is curled up to a radiator, arms twitching, no doubt still off his arse on rubbing alcohol. I leave him to it.
The sunlight is a little too much and necessitates some casual leaning in the doorway, arms folded and a certain level of cold sweat… but no one seems to notice, or they give no indication. The vision clears far enough to surmise that we’re somewhere over Ranelagh direction and I edge towards what could be a taxi.
The driver watches me crawl in, yellow teeth cracking out of a black smile.
“Where to?”
…
It’s a decent question.
I’m not gonna lie, conditions have not been favourable, but I think it’s high time we had some actual life and actual times of actual hypothetical dead men around here. Later today.
(Whoever googled “vicar street cloakroom”: I’m sorry, I do not know where your jacket is.)
I’ve been meaning to wax evangelistic about Achewood for some time now. It is, by an urban kilometre, my favourite webcomic, and probably in my top 10 of favourite anything. Drawn and wrote by a feller named Chris Onstad, it concerns the life and times of a group of cats, stuffed toys, robots and an otter in a fictional Californian suburb.
There’s far more depth to the characters and the storylines than in most webcomics (so much so that Time magazine named Achewood their number one graphic novel of 2007). The writing throughout is livelier than a sack of eels at a ska concert, being a weird mix of white boy hip-hop, tortured poetics and old school English gentleman, and the plots are twisted genius. Witness: Ray Sells His Soul/Ray + Beef Road Trip, The Great Outdoor Fight and, most recently, Roast Beef’s greeting card business.
A+, and so on.
As mentioned elsewhere, I got a call from my bank’s fraud department a couple of weeks ago. It seems that while I was in Italy in February I neglected to take the necessary precautions with my Laser card on one or more occasions. Some some ne’er-do-wells did no well and I’m down forty quid and a debit card.
Right, well, apparently some wires got crossed. Turns out the forty quid they mentioned was the total of my last two transactions, which were in Dublin, which is why their computer flagged the two transactions in Milan on the same day. The two transactions that burned me for seven hundred chudding euro. The hell, like? I was ready to write off €40 as charming roguery, but what arsehole takes €700? I tell you, as soon as that money comes back into my account I’m booking a ticket over and I’m going to personally slap every Italian in the face*.
In the meantime I’m going to mildly freak out about where this month’s rent is coming from, and try to console myself by looking at some Manbabies.
*Yes, I’m reverse-ripping off My Name Is Earl.
All content is ©Colm O'Brien, except where otherwise indicated.
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