Writers, painters, sculptors, bakers, dancers, prancers, flautists, chancers: I want you to help me effect the gruesome death of an innocent man.
Specifically, old chum of mine David Maybury. You may or may not know him. You may wish him no ill. But that’s all right, because it’s all just (victim-endorsed) fiction. It’s not really happening! If it was, I probably wouldn’t be blogging about it. I would still tweet it though, because #lolmurder, and because I have to break that stubborn three-retweet barrier some day.
Details, then: I’m collecting stories in which Dave dies in some campy, outrageous fashion, to be published here. There’s no restriction on length or format (short is fine, illustrations are more than fine). There’s a rudimentary back-story on the site, but don’t worry about that – for the time being at least, it’s just a gag setup to justify a bunch of standalone stories.
Do head over and have a look, and if you’re at all interested in creating fiction of whatever stripe, I’d love to hear from you.
1. During season 3, Viewing Public complains that show is going nowhere, stops watching in droves.
2. To appease Viewing Public, Producers commit to set timetable for resolution of show, up pace.
3. In order to facilitate (2) above, Producers start resolving the most thematically important subplots, more or less abandon the rest.
4. Show ends. Viewing Public complains about subplots not being resolved.
***
Years later, the Dessert-Eating Public becomes enraged at their inability to both have and eat cake. A global spate of bakery-directed arson ensues. Cuse and Lindelof appear to call for sanity. JJ Abrams appears to fling the idea for Super Clovereightfield II at someone and collect a fat paycheck. Colm eats a Mr Freeze, maintains that it is both “delicious” and “refreshing”. Paul Daniels is pronounced World President, resolves to crack down on pastry vandalism. Everyone is confused. It was all a dream. Or was it? No. But you could be forgiven for thinking so.
[A short discursion on a stranger's nethers, in two parts]
“Look on the bright side, you get your hole, you have 2 great kids, and you gt to pass of the door-knocking sales-scum to CL. Win-win, really.”
“Christ, could you refrain from referring to CL as a fucking hole? I know you think it’s jokey and cute, but it isn’t. It’s just a way to insult women.”
I.
“Getting your hole” is an idiom meaning “having sexual intercourse on a regular basis”. The hole in question could be a vagina or an anus–here, in context, it’s pretty clear that it’s a vagina. To a woman you might say “getting the length” or “getting your fill”1. So the direct meaning of the phrase, let’s say, is “having more or less unrestricted access to a vagina, subject to the ongoing approval of the person of whose body said vagina is a part”.
II.
So “hole” in this case refers specifically and solely to the vagina–i.e. to the organ, not the person. But now, look at the switcheroo happening between the two quoted comments: the second takes it as read that “hole” is referring to the person. In other words, the second commenter is speaking as if the vagina constitutes the entirety of the person’s being. Which, if I may offer a humble opinion here, is treading some pretty dodgy ontological ground, enlightened-outlook-wise.
Though the latter is maybe a bit redolent of that musty old nonsense about passivity/receptivity and the psychosexual/social implications thereof, which let’s side-step that whole barrel of worms for now. [↩]
There’s something like my weight in books sitting at the end of my bed these days. I’m not counting shelves, you understand – only the bags of just-bought unreads. Some people seem to feel like this would be a daunting prospect, as if reading is something you have to push yourself into. Which, I don’t know. I spend minutes at a time just smelling books. I build them into a fort around me, laughing like a maniac the whole time. If I could swim through the things Scrooge McDuck-style, you’d better believe I wouldn’t be here talking to you people.
Because it’s funnier in Dutch, that’s why.
The catalyst for all this was the €100 of book tokens I got for Christmas. I was going to save them til my in-tray had diminished a bit, but on my first day back in work I went for lunch and – oh hello, I appear to have wandered near Hodges Figgis. You know they’re gonna have some sweet deals, might as well check those out.
I ended up buying seven books by accident. Which is to say, I didn’t specifically intend to buy seven books. I just kind of fugued. Also, the cashier was pretty.1
So ok, that’s gonna keep me going for a while. However, and for reasons outside my control, I happened to end up in Waterstones a few days later. Now, the thing about Waterstones is they have those 3-for-2 deals which, obviously, you’d be a fool not to take advantage. Not only that but there’s a best-of-the-decade table. I don’t want to spell things out for you, but let’s just say I woke up hours later with a brutal hangover and Random House’s number tattooed on my chest.
That should have been the end of it. But no: one morning the following week I forgot to put a book in my pocket on my way out the door. The whole way in on the bus I was just staring into space. Have you ever noticed what other people sound like? What they smell like? It was a nightmare. What the hell was I going to do on the way home? Gnaw my own arm off? Clearly, an emergency fix was needed. So into Hodges Figgis at lunchtime – Garrison Keillor, you say? And only €4? Job’s a good un. But on the other hand, if I find another book for €6 that means I’ll get a stamp on the ould loyalty card, and that’s just sensible.
It goes on in this vein. I’m going to trail off now, because I’m giving myself the vapours and my bank account can’t withstand another blackout. And because there’s a book of EU tax legislation here that I haven’t put to bed yet, and man do I want to see how that turns out.
A fun game in bookshops is to try get the cashiers to check you out. I think I caught her attention with the Pynchon, but on reflection Rape: A Love Story wasn’t my smoothest move. [↩]
Haven’t been doing much around here, have I? Lot of things going on the past week. For one I reckon I’m starting to get the most out of twitter. Like for instance the other night I found out that there were fireballs falling in Houston Texas, and the next day some guy I don’t know ate some meatballs in IKEA, and the cool thing is I knew about these events sooner than probably quite a few people. If you want to feel like a sci-fi supervillain just go to monitter.com, throw in some keywords and then imagine you’re absorbing crazy data streams out of people’s heads. It is not hard to do.
Secondly, there’s a project afoot. Uh. I’m not going to say anything about that yet.
Thirdly, I wanted to mention a nifty event I was at in Chapters on Tuesday – Neil Gaiman reading and Amanda Palmer ukelele-ing. Organisation was a bit dodgy, largely it seems because the staff were too busy shuffling awkwardly and going “Shucks, no one’s gonna turn up at our shop” to properly think it through, but it was a most enjoyable evening. Gaiman was reading from a book they worked on called Who Killed Amanda Palmer? and basically what you need to know is that his old school storytelling mixed with her gleeful sordidness makes for some top-notch material. Grimm fairytales but with hookers and crack, that kind of thing. You can see basically the whole show in five parts starting here.
And lastly, I’m off to Maastricht in… four hours. I’m typing fast here so I can stay awake. Exhilarating! There’s a carnival over there, you see, and I’ve been trawling Dublin’s various vintage shops (and River Island, and Tie Rack, which I don’t understand how they stay in business because surely cravats and cummerbunds aren’t exactly flying out the doors) so that I can bring the magic of Oscar Wilde’s Jakey Nephew to the streets of the Netherlands. On which note, either it’s bloody hard to get hold of a cane in Dublin or I’m just stupid.
This week I have been not so much burning the candle at both ends as chucking the candle into a bonfire. One might think a nice relaxing weekend would be in order… but no.
The plan tonight is to break open a few bottles and watch Batman Begins and Gotham Knight. There are a few reasons for this – firstly, any excuse to watch Batman Begins, secondly none of us have seen Gotham Knight. Thirdly, and most importantly, we’re preparing for tomorrow afternoon, when 12 of us will be toddling along to Cineworld to see The Dark Knight.
I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. I can safely say I’ve never been so excited about a film in my life. I’ve always loved Batman, been properly fascinated with the character and the world, and the first time I saw the ending of Batman Begins (“Take this guy…”) I broke into a cold sweat. This is a big, big deal for me.
The reason I didn’t go see it on Wednesday (and again on Thursday, and again at lunchtime today) is because we decided we should make an event of it. This entailed getting the old crew together, from various parts of the country, and the only way that was going to happen is if we waited til the weekend*. It is nice to go on a Saturday, though, because that means we have an entire night to drink and analyse and recover, and in some perverse way the extra few days of self-imposed waiting is adding to the whole experience.
I was going to write a bit more about the hot tub/pool table/Mario Kart/barbecue party on Sunday, but can it really compete with Batman? Nothing can compete with Batman. So I shall leave it there. Have a good weekend everybody.
*Has anyone ever noticed how badly tenses get mangled in Hiberno-English?
So I’m sitting at my desk in work and a woman comes along holding a bulging plastic bag.
“Would you like an ice cream?”
Hell yes I would like an ice cream. Rather a selection, but I didn’t want to spend ages picking through them while she was standing there like a chump, so I grabbed a strawberry Cornetto. Delicious. (Although I don’t remember the ice cream-sorbet ratio being so skewed towards the latter.)
This seems to be a Thing they Do where I work, because it happened a few months ago as well. Who pays for it, I wonder? Is there some maverick group of morale-raisers lurking in the wings or does it go all the way to the top? Is this coming out of my PRSI?
Whatever. I just had a Cornetto. All I need is to build a sandcastle and chase a dog and my day will be complete.
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