The Behaviour of Crumbs

Sitting in the sofa eating toast, savouring the sheer comfort of it as you bite into it; warm buttery goodness hitting your tongue, the crunch filling your ears, crumbs sticking to your lips and yet more crumbs bungee jumping off the plate, descending determinedly into all the places that will annoy you later because you can’t reach properly – the corners of the sofa, the ends of your hair, behind the scatter cushions, beneath your breasts.

Has it ever occurred to you that this is how we are? We bite into life, into the things we want, the people we think we need, and we undo ourselves. Our fragments tumble off into those annoying hidden places that we are only aware of in loneliness, in inebriation, and in the split second before we die.

Story, story? Story! Once upon a time? Time, time!

Self Deception, from Google Images




For years, there have been debates over the writing of fiction, given the dictionary definition of the word. Is it possible for a story to be completely fictional, can stories directly inspired by an author’s experiences also constitute fiction, if the work is saturated with the author’s experience but portrayed in made-up circumstances, does it become fiction with breadth or thinly veiled autobigraphy?

The debate goes on…

Meanwhile, in Poland, author Krystian Bala has been jailed for 25 years after police found that his novel, published a few years ago, is actually an account of a murder he committed.

In a random internet discussion, a police officer found that the book being talked about bore striking resemblance to an unsolved case back at headquarters, put two and two together, launched an investigation, and boom, case solved! The novelist was the murderer…thank God this particular po-po happened to be a book geek, huh? The original news story is here if you’d like to read it.

In the light of this, skeptics of the ‘purity of fiction’ appear to have been proven right – ain’t no story like a true story. And it makes me wonder about writers and this whole writing business, whether it be poetry, prose, drama or songs: who are we kidding? We’re not making things up, we’re yanking things out of the core of our beings, reaching out from internal discomforts, and begging, pathetically, to be listened to. The reason we insist it’s all made up, is that in our glittering mental images of ourselves, there’s no room to acknowledge the neediness and insecurity that’s mirrored back to us on paper.

Apparently, Krystian Bala killed Dariusz Janiszewski because he suspected the ad agency exec was having an affair with his ex-wife. Now picture Mr Bala at his book launch, being interviewed (hypothetically of course!)

Interviewer: Mr Bala, what inspired your new book? How did you come up with the concept?

It would be bullshit if he said anything other than…

Mr Bala: This dude was messing with my wife, and I got insanely jealous so I popped him off and chucked him in the river. This book was the only way I could deal with it and face the pain.

You and I know though, that this soul-baring scenario could never happen. He denies all charges of murder as we speak, just as the rest of us gloat at our character’s failings, and rejoice in their not being our own.

On the flipside, I could just be giving him the benefit of the doubt with all this romanticised nonsense. What if he's just a twisted sicko who found a way to get his vengeance on his wife's alleged lover, and make some cash to boot? I guess we'll never know.

Hmm.

The Big Bong and Other Nonsense

Disclaimer: I do not take drugs or endorse drug abuse. The views expressed here are simply a matter of principle.

Images from Google Images

Hands up who thinks journalism has gone to the dogs? Ah, I’m glad to see you all agree. Last week, the front pages of most of the newspapers were awash with cries of angst from petulant journalists. Apparently, some MPs and other people in positions of power took drugs in their youth. Big freaking deal; I don’t see how that’s newsworthy. And I don’t see how it has any bearing on their trying to enforce new drug laws now. If they were caught rolling spliffs in between sessions at parliament, and found to be passing laws based on fantabulous ideas their stoned minds came up with, then we’d have a problem. If they were eating magic mushroom risottos at lunch or using cocaine as sweetener for their lattes, then we would have every right to call them hypocrites. But for stuff they did at uni? Give them a break, guys. They weren’t responsible for the country back then; they were just students. Now that they’ve successfully waded through experimentation and found the ambition which has landed them in positions of responsibility, there are plenty of other things, I’m sure, that would have looked better on the front pages. Cue the violins…

I’m asking special permission from the powers that be, to line up every single person that slandered the poor Jacqui Smith, gag them with cold oats, jab them with truth serum, and then interrogate them as to their hallucinogenic past (or present, as the case may very well be). I’d then take their inevitable confessions of guilt, plaster them all over the front pages, and call the journalists themselves hypocrites, for calling other people hypocrites, because they spent their days at uni doing exactly what they’re trying to crucify other people for. The only hypocrites here, are the people pointing fingers. Arguably, journalists are also people in positions of power – they inform and shape opinion everyday. If they stopped ‘dabbling’ in weed thirty odd years ago, would they think it was fair for the public to cast aspersions on their morals today? Probably not. So why are they whining?

And this is not by any means, in support of drugs, please remember that. It’s just me observing, that the death toll in Iraq has obviously sky rocketed to a level that’s ubiquitous enough to be boring, the property ladder is not any easier to get onto – nothing to report there, crime has gone both up and down – they can’t decide which is which. The press has tired of its usual contingency-plan, space-filling material, so they now need to work retrospectively, to dredge up ancient personal history, which wasn’t anymore relevant to anything then than it is to anything now.

Now that ‘offenders’ are older and wiser, they have every right to try to reclassify the offence, because they have the benefit of experience. Been there, done that, know better. Who knows how many people will be saved by its being a more serious offence? Some people simply won’t touch it because they don’t want to get into trouble. It is actually responsible of them to try to address the issue. Imagine if in a few years from now, eight year olds were puffing lye in the toilets. The journalists would have a field day about how the government didn’t make enough of an effort blah blah blah. Imagine what a lame excuse it would sound like if Jacqui et all said, ‘Sorry, we felt it would be hypocritical to enforce weed laws because we smoked it as teenagers and hance didn’t feel we had a right to stop others from doing so.’ Imagine the very same journalists calling them lax lazy buggers, crying about abandoned duties to society etc. So why is it that when they are actually trying to do their duty, they get attacked?

Another stupid moment in journalism was in the Telegraph two weeks ago, when an article proclaimed that students in Tony Blair’s school were expelled or suspended for posting a clip of themselves on YouTube smoking weed. If I worked at No10, I would sue for defamation/slander/libel/the whole lot, just on principle. a) The fact that his children attend(ed) the school, doesn’t mean that he owns it and b) his kids weren’t even involved in the incident in anyway. They just used his name, as a hook for a negative story, which, in the light of his recent stepping down, is as tasteless a crime as speaking ill of the dead, if you get my drift. Was it really necessary to include the Blairs when there was no connection in any way?

Before my grandma retired, she worked as a broadcast journalist, and made history by being the first woman in Nigeria to run a TV station. She knows a thing or two about journalism. Her theory is this: opinion is free, but fact is priceless. We were equally appalled by the two stories I mentioned above. How did they pass the whole line of command and get into the papers as they were? Why didn’t the editors do something? I know we’ve come a long way from then, but in Grandma’s day, you’d have been fired for attempting to pass off such conjecture as journalism. What’s happening is that the type of reportage used to cover whimsical celebrity behaviour, is creeping up on real news. It’s potentially dangerous and needs to stop. Take a few minutes to think of the repercussions…

Incidentally, while we're on the topic of journalistic demise, those awful, purple, brain-addling evening papers need to be got rid of. Where are all the environmental campaigners? Surely these are trees we’re killing! They litter the streets and make London look messy, especially with the rain. Walking home is like one ugly plod through papier mache quicksand. We were just fine with our morning (blue) Metro and (orange) Evening Standard, thank you very much; their distribution remains a tidy, orderly affair, and doesn’t turn the city into a pictorial of chaos in hades. One would have thought that the (purple) papers pass-on value means that you don’t need such a massive print run. The poor dudes (and dudesses, if that’s a word) practically maul you at street corners, because they’ve been told they have to shift their stash – a stash that still wouldn’t be halfway dwindled if you handed three papers each to every UK resident. Plus, most days, the content is just an extension of trashy telly in print. The only thing I find interesting, is that anonymous article, ‘Life in the Square Mile’. I always used to take one, just because I had forgotten that I still have a choice; they’ve become such a large part of the Everyday, a given, like a (red) London bus. Also, because short of keeping your fists closed and shoved deep into your pockets, your eyes behind shades to minimize eye contact, and your walking pace at competition speeds, the chances of reaching a tube station between 4 and 7 pm on a week day evening un-purpled are slim to none. Ignore them and read a book instead – much better for the posterity of your mind!

Horror Scopes

Image from Google Images

This week, I have been conducting an experiment. And now I have re-proved to myself something that I know already; that all this horoscope business is pure nonsense. Why did I experiment with something I already know, you ask? Because at 8 am on the Piccadilly line, the only thing you get to read is bits and pieces over someone else’s shoulder. I have not fallen in love, quarrelled with my work colleagues, made a ton of money, or had an argument with my family; all of which a varied cacophony of myopic gypsies insisted I would encounter. Perhaps it has something to do with the quality of the viziers I experimented with; mass market visions reproduced a million times over in the free daily papers that colour the mornings blue and the evenings purple. But I know better than that really – I mean, you can’t blame the blandness of the food on the bluntness of the kitchen knife, but I was trying out this new thing where you give people the benefit of the doubt for ooh let’s see…one two three…benefit of doubt time over. Horoscope hocus pocus is all crap, and coming to an even stronger conclusion than before my little experiment, I now understand why the lives of certain people I know are messed up. It’s simple really – they live according to what those things say. How long are these things anyway? Max 300 words (and that’s being very generous and givey the benefit of the doubty) mind you; yet they cleave to it as though it’s the quiddity of life itself.

I think those things are dangerous and should be banned. Sometimes, we under estimate the potency of words, and under value our minds ability to reorganise our lives into either confirming our fears or exaggerating unrealistic notions. I feel about horoscopes the way some people feel about prosperity/doom and gloom preachers; both prevaricate from one extreme to the other. All of a sudden, your life is expected to lift off and become perfect, or your demise is waiting round the corner for you, sniggering at your expense. The brain is powerful. When we read, the words don’t just evaporate off the page and turn into some sort of silent language that our eyes receive. They go and take up residence in our SELVES. So when the stupid witch says to you, oh watch our for love today because there’s a fairy in your venus, or whatever, you smile coyly back at the guy on the train who’s smiling at you. You then think that ‘something happened’, that you ‘met someone’, when in fact, nothing happened, you didn’t meet anyone, and his smile was just the auto-programmed grimace that city people have adopted as a contingency plan for when the avoidance of eye contact with other commuters mistakenly occurs. What you can’t possibly know, the possibilities that your brain can’t then access (he might be psychotic, he might in fact be married with three kids, he might not have registered that he grimaced at you) are blocked, because the viziers words have formed a disconnect between what’s really happening and what you’re expecting to happen. Hence you see things off centre.

You trip on the pavement because you weren’t looking and all of a sudden, you knew it, you just knew something bad was going to happen today. You have a stomach ache because you chose to eat prawns in a dodgy restaurant, and wham, finally, here’s proof that someone at work wants your job, someone is trying to poison you, someone mixed printer ink with your balsamic dressing when you went to the loo. By reading these things, you sacrifice a part of your brain where objective appreciation would have resided, and fill it with paranoia in all directions, both for good and for woe. Especially in the morning. People cut veritable slices of their consciousnesses and hand them over to words which carry forces which don’t know anything. They accept that this generalisation of themselves, propounded by the astrologist or whatever, is superior to their own common sense, to their own in-built sensibility.

If these horoscope things are sooooooo fantastic, why don’t people turn to them when their relatives lie dying in hospital, when they are cash strapped and hiding under the kitchen table from debt collectors, when bombs go off? If you’re going to pray when things are bad, then you might as well ask the person you pray to for direction and guidance in the things that puzzle you. If when we pray in desperate situations, we see the radical difference it makes, why short change ourselves in the Everyday with the astigmatism of guessing? It’s all a question of perspective, really.

What say you? Feel free to agree or disagree – this is not a communist blog.

Voyage to Clubland: Investigating Peep-Show Theory

Images from: Google Images

I was out clubbing again yesterday for a friend’s birthday. When we got there it was quite empty, but we had to take advantage of the £10 before 11pm deal, because the promoters threatened ominously that it would be ‘more thereafter’ and being broke in a chic studenty type of way, we had to ensure that we’d still have enough money on us to pay for the night bus home.

So we got in, hissed at the £2 charge for coat check (it’s usually £1, the cheeky gits!), found a good spot to hang and began to sway lightly on our feet in the way that clubbers do when they enter a party space. It’s code for, we’re here now, we’re open to see what’s gonna happen tonight, DJ play something that will change this sway into stepping! In other words, it’s like the warm up before the athletics.

As the club filled, the DJ’s set progressed from upbeat Soul to velvety RnB/Hip-Hop, and with this progression, came a progression in the dancing. At this point, we were all dancing, screaming along to the lyrics, and listening out for what the next song in the mix would be. It was somewhere at this point, amidst all the activity, that I noticed that the clubland gender roles became more played out than ever.

For guys, a large part of the clubbing experience is voyeurism and for girls, it’s performance.Perhaps I have always known this, but it became more of an articulated thought than a vague idea last night. As someone who likes watching people, I’m very shy about being watched myself, so when it came to the part where the lyrics were telling the girls to ‘wind for me’ and ‘jack your leg up’ and ‘back that ass up’ and ‘work it like you’re working for dollars’, I took a step back and perched on the back of a sofa. I then realised that all the guys were either perched on the same sofa, or up against a wall, watching the spectacle going on. A guy friend pointed at one if my friends and said, ‘Wow that b**** looks fiiiiiine,’ so I said, ‘Errr, yeah, I understand that you mean she looks nice, although maybe I’d have used different words to describe it.’ She was of course, naked. She was ‘having fun’ sexually dancing – exhibiting. He was ‘having fun’ inspecting the anatomy and mating rituals of a prize b**** – voyeur-ing.

Every so often, during a particularly dramatic contortion by one of the girls, a guy or a couple of guys would latch them selves onto her behind and simulate a sex act. Then all the other guys would whip out their cameras i.e. Oh the pleasure of sight both for now and here after! Don’t get me wrong, I love dancing, and mucking about with friends, but the focused attention that seems to demand that you dry hump and pseudo-copulate on the dancefloor kind of kills it for me. Being clung to by another being impedes my movement, so when all that starts, I’m more than happy to go back to people watching. There are always so many things to see: elaborate avoidance schemes, successful linkages, attention seekers, the cool kids, the kids who can pretend they’re cool because it’s dark, comical drunken virtuoso, all sorts!

After a while, all the guys were asking me what was wrong, and why I wasn’t 'having fun'. It wasn’t enough for them that I just enjoy kicking back and watching the scene (even though they know what I’m like already). On top of that, it wasn’t enough that I happen to be mildly scoliotic and aggravated winding on the dancefloor means hell to pay pain-wise the next day. It wasn’t enough that I fell on the stairs yesterday, and my knee got hurt because I landed awkwardly on it while trying to protect the chocolate cake I was carrying at the time. None of that was enough, they swarmed round me like flies, pestering, trying to force me to ‘have fun’. Trying to get me to do the whole ‘I’m sexy all up in the club bit’ so they could sit back and watch. Oh hell no! Not last night.

What was funny was, I did get up and dance again, but my dancing wasn’t valid because I didn’t ‘get low’. I didn’t proffer my bottom to the first available taker, I didn’t jump onto a sofa and bend myself in half. Stepping my heeled feet and midi dress, moving my arms, nodding my head, mouthing along to the lyrics, snapping my fingers, moving my shoulders, flicking my hair, swaying my hips lightly – none of that constitutes dancing, apparently. Someone said to me, ‘come on girl, put your back into it.’ So I said, with a huge smile ‘Sorry, I don’t grind.’ ‘Ugh,’ was his response.

The birthday boy sidled up to me and said, ‘I used to think too much when I was younger too, and it’s not good for you. Try and have fun.’ Granted, he was drunk.

‘I am having fun,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying the music, I’m enjoying being with everyone. And look, I am dancing.’

‘No you’re not, you’re depressed,’ he declared. ‘Here, have some more alcohol then you’ll be dancing properly.’

I rolled my eyes (privately of course). Another cliché: buy a girl a drink and she’ll lose all her inhibitions. For goodness sake, I come from Opobo, where local moonshine, is the preferred alternative to Listerine. The Irish afterall have their ales, and we have our gin.

‘I’m fine hun, seriously, thanks! Stop worrying.’ I waved my hands in the air and started doing the electric slide and he looked at me as though he really wanted to believe me but somehow, I wasn’t making that possible.

Sigh! I looked around. Another girl had lined herself up with a ledge and was giving it the same attention she would give to a man under the right circumstances. The guys were moments away from dribbling. They had forgotten about capturing the image on camera for later. They were focused on the right now, broasting in lewd concentration, being stimulated by their sight. After about three minutes, someone began to film it. Then she made a show of not wanting to be filmed (as though she had NO CLUE that she was being watched before) and then carried right on with romancing the wooden ledge, with even greater alacrity, I might add. One brave man stepped forward and welcomed her posterior with his crotch. ‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ the other guys said. So it would appear, I thought.

Eventually, I decided to leave, because frankly I was tired, and I just wanted to go to bed. Why people can’t seem to accept that it's a valid choice for a girl to come into a club and just chill, like I was doing, is beyond me. Maybe because unspoken club rules state that the guys are supposed to be pleased/pleasured by what they see, and the girls are supposed to provide the entertainment. My lack of performance (on their terms) was robbing them of a fraction of the £10 value they came in to behold, and it struck me as all very problematic. The guys paid £10 to see some good booty, the girls paid £10 to have the undivided attention of a room full of horny men.

I suppose most girls love to be watched and ogled at, but I’ve never been most girls and I make no apologies for that. I really don't enjoy being watched. I’m not a tomboy at all – I do love my heels, a nice frock, makeovers, etc, nor am I particularly interested in being controversial, but I find it difficult to accept that if I’m not consciously trying to make a guy imagine having sex with me, then I’m contravening some sort of ‘fun having’ rule. If you asked any of them about last night, they would claim that they’re not sure whether or not I had fun. And I would beg to differ. I so did, because I got dressed up, danced (on my terms), hung out with friends, took silly photos, listened to good music, and got some fodder for my blog! It probably sounds like I’m being disparaging of the club experience, but I’m not; I actually like going clubbing. I’m merely trying to deconstruct it and find out what the point is, for the different people who go there. Why they go, what they percieve as fun (and why that is). Also, if they’ve ever actually stopped to question the shape their assumptions about clubland behaviour take i. e. do they ever consider that they might be playing a role that's dictated to them by the club space, and by media semiotics surrounding similar spaces (e. g. music videos)? What happened to the days when most dancing was about movement, rhythm, skill and not latching on to the tail end of the nearest mother ship?

I suppose the idea about meditation in clubs in my poem below (Nightclub) came true in that I reached a new gender role discovery. I would also like to refer to my post (Exploring Erotica) below for the topic of respectability. Some girls complain about the way guys respond to them in clubs. Granted, there are lots of losers who do unprecedented letching (heck they’d hit on a duck if it waddled past), but for the large part, guys respond to the signals that the girls are putting out. Note to women (again!): if you don’t want to be mistaken for a stripper, don’t act like one and then pretend to be offended when you’re treated like one. At a certain stage of your life, you should be able to make cognitive assessments about your behaviour. If you’re going to act out a part, be prepared to deal with the repercussions.

About the unprecedented letches, though, while I was minding my business waiting for the night bus home, a bald, sweaty, rotund, drunken weirdo staggered up to me and began to interrogate me. Even after he had established that I wasn't Halle Berry, Samantha Fox, Shakira or Beyonce, he asked me if I'd like to go home with him. I declined politely. 'Is it becaue I'm ugly?' he asked. I didn't respond. He then tried to help himself to a handful of the chips I was eating. 'Stop it,' I yelled. 'Go away! You can't just stick your hands in other people's food.' 'I only want one chip,' he said. I shut the take away box and glared at him. Thank goodness, I shut it before he could get his grotty fingers on my food. 'Oh, you slut,' he said, shaking his fists, then he disappeared. Last time I checked, there was nothing slutty about eating soggy chips in a full length black coat and no make-up, so I didn't need to be offended, because he was clearly the one with issues, mostly, those to do with cider-induced altered perception. If I had been pole-dancing on the bus shelter, then maybe he'd have had a point. But I wasn't, so he didn't. Oh ye women, take note.

And that, my darlings, is it from me…for now.

Smooches,
xx

Mediocrity Polemic: In Praise of Shoddy Work

Image from http://montanalibraries.org/ILLTraining/images/j0196394.GIF

I just watched A Beautiful Mind for the first time. It was brilliant, and I think Nash really was a genius. I’m about six years behind Hollywood, but never mind, I’m trying to catch up. What I came away with was a question: What is the difference between achievement and recognition? Until John Nash’s tutor posed the question to him, I had never needed to consider that they were two distinct entities. It’s almost logical to take it for granted that the two are interchangeable; so logical in fact, that it takes stepping back to extricate one from the other.

On stepping back, I realise that it’s a distinction that needs to be made more often. Take contemporary fiction for example. There are a few authors I’ve read, whom if I were their teacher, I’d write ‘Stop being lazy and apply yourself’ in red across the top of their paper. But whether or not I think their work is mediocre, they have awards, endorsements and reviews (celebrity) that seem to suggest that they are good at what they do. In that scenario, their recognition implies that they must have achieved extremely high standards of work, when in fact, they might not have.

In the same way, there are geniuses working away all night, churning out masterpiece after masterpiece, yet because they don’t yet have a public platform, it may be possible for an anonymous observer to play down the excellence of the work; simply because he can assume that if the work was reeeeeaallly that good, then surely it would have been noticed by now.

I think this separation of achievement and recognition can and should be be applied to most creative fields. There are popular singers, writers, producers, film makers, actors, designers etc that make one think, how in the world did they get a deal? Or maybe the undeserving heroes used to produce top quality stuff until the critical acclaim and recognition made them complacent? And on the flipside, there are incredibly talented people we know who’ve been banging at the doors of opportunity for ages and haven’t got the recognition that their work deserves.

In Emile Durkheim’s paper, ‘The Functions of Crime’ he insists that crime actually serves a purpose in society. Stay with me here. According to him, punishment of criminals acts as social organisation, deterring the general public from doing the same. Crime also helps in the governance of societies because it reveals the negative changes that have occurred in morality (by measuring collective responses etc) and enables them to facilitate better security services for the average citizen. I have decided to appropriate this concept (the concept of crap stuff having a purpose) to my appreciation of untalented geniuses.

Rather than continue to rant and rave about how the prominent people with disgraceful work shouldn’t be where they are, I’ve decided to learn from them, to use them as inspiration and I think this is something we can all do. If they, with all their half-arsed work can get a record deal/get published/get exhibited/get cast/get awarded/get endorsed/get signed, then so can the rest of us. Their mediocrity is actually a good thing about them because it serves a purpose; it gives the rest of us hope that if they could hoodwink the world with their nonsense, then we can sure as hell bless the world with our excellence.



P. S. The psychiatrist who had Nash committed in A Beautiful Mind was called Dr Rosen. There’s a well known article called ‘On Being Sane in Insane Places’ written by a David L. Rosenhan. Is that a (reality to fiction) coincidence? Or does the scriptwriter happen to own the same books as me? Strange.

Nightclub

photo from http://www.gordonbarker.com/new_images/nightclub.jpg

While I was in a club recently, I started thinking about what the space meant to the people who were there, what it represented, and why we had all chosen to spend four to five hours of our night there (apart from the 'obvious' pursuit of fun). I didn't go in there planning to go all Lefebvre and intellectualize a night out - that's just nerdy - but it randomly occured to me during a mini dancing time-out to catch my breath. As the idea occured to me in Kabuki (which means Japanese theatre) I had hoped the poem would be a Haiku (Japanese style of poetry) to match , but the words didn't quite work out like that. Anyways, here it is! x

Nightclub

Den of meditation
Nectarisation of desires
Boiling down, sweetening slowly
Like jam.

Space of mixed anthems
Consciousness individualised
Me, my, mine, to group dancing
Startling clarity.

Most irreverent of decibels
Sinewy lyrics, testosterone rhymes
Latent distraction a blank silence
To ponder life.

Subversion of curse
Wallflower to observe, flanneur
Crowd watching and cross referencing
Mental resource.

Cocoon of darkness
Shock of flashing lights
Subconscious epiphany brewing
Unlikely oasis.



© June 2007

Quorn Shoes - How Far is Too Far?

I've had a lovely week bumming around Brighton with my sister. We walked on the beach, got leered at by random weirdos, had ice creams and hot dogs, wandered round the Laines and ate entirely too much tiramisu.

Wandering round the Laines was interesting, and I thought I'd bring back a souvenir of my exasperation for you guys - a picture of a vegetarian shoe store. Now come on! I think this might be on par, if not slightly more ridiculous than ideas like communism, fair trade organic gluten free sashimi and those hideous jute 'ghana must go' bags that Louis Vuitton is trying to turn into a handbag trend. So not happening!

While we should respect animal and plant life on earth, people have forgotten that animals are subject to us, to humans. Why should there be vegetarian shoes? I refrain from being mean about vegetarian food; I thought Quorn was the height of food substitution but shoes? It is the cow's fate to give us meat, milk and leather. Not using this leather because we feel sorry for the cow is the latest addition to what I'd like to call my 'Catalogue of Modern Man's Inferiority Complex'. It's because we've forgotten that we are the boss of the cows, and not the other way round, that we can pussyfoot around them and shortchange ourselves of good footwear, just because, sniff sniff, we feel sorry for the cows. If anyone bothered to ask them, they'd find that the cows are actually very happy to keep us in top quality, beautifully stinking leather shoes, belts and bags.

Barring dietary allergies, I don't know why anyone wouldn't eat meat, but as I said, I won't be mean about it, because we must be respectful of people's preferences etc, but taking the aversion into shoes goes to far. If you don't eat meat, don't create things that look and taste like it (Quorn) but aren't it - that's like eating your cake and having it (or is it having your cake and eating it?) and its very confusing for some of us. But why do there need to be vegetarian shoes? Last time I checked the dictionary, being vegetarian was a dietary preference, not a movement. In the light of this, is it possible or right, even, for vegetarianism to be extended into non-dietary areas? It's whimsical. What if meat eaters decided that they'd only use clothes, stationery and other products that contained some sort of animal component? Would that be allowed? I don't think so.

I mean, kudos to the entrepreneur of this venture. It's very good niche marketing and all, but Quorn shoes? I mean, really! Strangely, I found it oddly charming that such a shop should be established in Brighton. Strangely, Brighton always reminds me of what I imagine a conglomeration of Camden/Soho/Covent Garden would look like. Edge, funk, alternative & random bottled and sprawled out by the sea.

A Tale of One City

Conglomeration of intellect and wit
With Billy Bryson in Foyles Bookshop
The sound of travel writing and jokes
Cheery bibliophiles high on the smell
Of new paper, varnish and ink.
Drunk on silence, queueing for autographs
While a nameless crazy scholar rocked on the floor,
Marinating in his own stink.

**
A stroll through Soho in the evening breeeze
Latent with distraction, ‘Dirty White Boy’
Emblazoned on Old Compton Street
Yummy cakes in windows, flip flops on our feet
30% off strawberry sauce and ribs
Rainbow artwork objectified the gay night
Their hands clammy in clasp, making a point
Gazes held slightly longer, longer in assessment.
**
Rounding the night up with music and drinks
Mojitos and shots of Absinthe are both green
So imagine my shock in Marketplace Bar
Where existential shit smirked from the walls
Taunting the Drum and Bass
Threatening sound barriers
WOOD stencilled onto wood in jest or silent reproach
Philosophy not love, residing in weird places.
**
Three stages of a night, in the womb of Londinium
Randomness and beauty, a tale of one city

Modernity and Emasculation

A new disease has crept insiduously upon humanity. I’m being generous by saying humanity. What I really mean is men; a disease has crept insiduously upon the men of today’s world. What do I mean? Well it’s quite simple really.

I was thinking about the movie, A Knight’s Tale (starring Shannyn Sossamon, Rufus Sewell, Heath Ledger) and how much wisdom there is embedded in it. If you haven’t watched it, please run out and buy/rent it. You’ll see this post in a new light. Basically, there was a jousting tournament and the winner would get to have the princess Jocelyn’s hand in marriage. In those days, when they said ‘may the best man win’, it was perfectly logical that the woman would choose to be with the best man. And the men rose to the challenge. If a man found a woman out of his league because he lost a challenge or wasn’t able to support her, he went away to make himself better, fully understanding that the woman would do the best she could for herself by choosing the best man in every situation. He’d ride gallantly away and wish her luck. He’d be a good sportsman and acknowledge his loss gracefully.

Now, men have been emasculated and are afraid of competition. If a woman picks the best man for herself, the left out guy will huff off in a sulk and rather than find ways to improve him self, accuse her of being ‘materialistic’ and a ‘gold digger’. He’ll sit there feeling sorry for himself, slagging women off about how they’re all the same. I’ve seen this happen a million times, and I think, stop moping and feeling sorry for yourself. Either you upgrade yourself to the level where you can attain the type of women you want, or you settle for a woman who is in your leaugue, but you can’t expect a woman to lower her standards because you’re not up to hers. According to Jeanette Winterson, ‘Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose.’ If you happen to be male, take it from me, your dignity is better preserved when you can own up to certain inadquacies and work on them. Wallowing in self pity is just really sad, and we will leave you for the better man. Hahaha.

Jane Austen remained single all her life because the man she loved couldn’t afford to maintain the standard of living to which she was accustomed. The husband-to-be-that-never-was did not resent her, because he acknowledged that there was no point in reducing her to squalor just for the sake of his own ego. So they conducted their relationship happily, pragmatically, and he never accused her of being materialistic or a gold digger. She was neither. She was a smart woman, and he was a smart man.

Oh for the days when men fully expected to have to compete for the things they wanted. Now they want women to make things easy for them and dive headlong into compromised situations to prove they aren’t ‘materialistic’. I admit, some women take things a bit too far, but for the most part, men have simply lost their balls. Some of them would rather buy a bride on ebay than spear a wild boar for the love of their life.

Spear me a boar, I say.

Like Discarding Knickers

Images from www.thestorkwearhouse.com

Almost everyone I know now has some sort of parallel life they’re living. Between Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and MSN, people have the opportunity to choose what name they want to be called, how they want it spelt, and for how long they want that name to refer to them. When their screen name no longer suits them, it is discarded, yes, like disposable knickers. It makes me wonder (and please forgive me for the terrible cliché) what’s in a name? If changing our real life first and surnames didn’t involve the hassle of public announcements, appearances in court and tracking down every bank, telephone and gas company we did business with, would we change those too? If we use online communities to share what we think are the most interesting parts of our lives (apart from for confidentiality reasons) why do we chop and change our names? Do they detract from our fun-loving, happy-go-lucky online image? And what informs the pseudonyms we give ourselves? Are they suited to the mood we were in when we logged on, or to the nature of the new nugget of information we upload to share with the world? Or do they embody the sentiments we’d rather our parents had considered when they called us so and so? If names are as personal as they are said to be, then how are we able to disregard them even temporarily?

Or is that just the point? Do we dump our names temporarily sometimes to experiment with the freedom of being nameless, characters who can absorb and exhibit and experiment with different personas/characteristics? And if that's the case, aren't we then saying that our given names stifle and constrict us?

Exploring Erotica

Image from: http://www.citypaper.com/sb/91778/books_erotica.jpg

I was recently introduced to Black erotic fiction by a friend of mine at university and it started off a chain reaction of thought processes. I was curious. As a writer, I feel I have a responsibility to know what’s out there, so I read a chapter. She was reading The Sex Chronicles, and was so impressed by it that she ordered four more titles off Amazon when we went into the library to study. While this is in no way a criticism of people who enjoy this sort of literature, or indeed, of the genre’s authors, I think we have to think very carefully about the significance of such books.In the library, she showed me the corresponding website, Erotica Noir, where a prominent author of Black erotic fiction interacts with her readers, answering their sexual queries and also creates a forum where they can share their own real life erotic experiences. Although, admittedly, there was only one sexual image, the descriptions were vivid, each detail of every sexual act minutely described. And for all the protestations by the author on the sexual repression that women have suffered over the years needing to be challenged, I couldn’t help but think that this erotic fiction, while it may be liberating Black women sexually, also corroborates the historical (and media) image of the Black woman as a solely sexual being, a wench, a whore.

There is a fine line between sexual liberation and impropriety. Personally, there is nothing wrong with sex, except when it is turned into an exhibitionist movement. As I read the chapter of my friend’s book, it struck me that this was the textual cousin of traditional pornography. She was quick to assure me however, that this wasn’t porn at all. It was merely an expression of alternative creativity, linking her argument back to the concept of erotica as art. But how far can this go? Would that mean then, that such stories, or other images of the said erotica, if they were to involve children, would be absolved of all accusations of paedophilia? Also, how does the production and consumption of these stories stand up against what we would call our moral fabric? Are they a good behavioural manual for young Black women? What attitudes and mindsets do they sublimally assimilate from repeatedly reading these books? What ideas do they form about themselves, their sisters, their mothers and aunties within the greater context of society? Are these books not creating a multi-faceted dichotomy - a mass confusion between sexual liberation and endorsed baseness.

Black women everywhere are constantly fighting for respect, and are attempting to distance themsleves from the sex crazed image I mentioned before, which we see perpetrated mostly in music videos, but also deeply embedded in media semiotics. But how far are we actually getting?Are we not shooting ourselves in the foot by voicing our video-vixen dissent, and insisting on our respectability, only to write, publish and endorse this type of fiction? What image are we giving ourselves, especially as these books are plentiful in the Black Interest sections of book stores. If the adage about figuring someone out by the books they read were to be applied, then what should people deduce from looking at our shelves? What statement is our literary sub-culture making about us? Why should rampant sex be key to our literary manifesto?

This is not to say that all Black fiction is erotic, nor that all erotic fiction is Black. Neither is it to say that sex, or thinking through sexuality is wrong, but I find it hard to accept that erotica is any less objectionable than pornography. We really need to think about this, and make sure that our professions of decency are congruent across all areas of our lives.

It is entirely possible to say that I'm placing too great an importance on the image of Black women from the perspective of our reading material, and that after all, it's just sex; everyone does it as some point or other. What I'd like to know is this: what exactly do we mean by sexual liberation, and are we not, in all our methods of achieving this, overstating the point? What would sexual liberation look like? Even this erotic fiction which claims to libearate Black women plays charmingly into the very image we're trying to fight i. e. Black people don't read, but when they do, all they read is sex. Isn't true sexual liberation being a sexual being, among, not over and above, other things? Would true liberation not discredit the current definition of Black women as one of the synonyms of the word sex? I am not advocating censorship, I'm not accusing the Black eroticists of ruining society. I'm just saying we need to think, really think about what it means.

Comments and insights very welcome.

Preoccupations

Has anyone else noticed that authors are incredibly themed creatures? Once I read something from an author and like it, I have to unearth their whole back catalogue, and by doing this I’ve noticed that many of them harp on and on about a given subject place or topic. It’s not a terrible thing I suppose; in fact I don’t think it can be avoided, because if they can come up with an average of 1000 combined pages of material relating to one thing, then it has to be a pretty integral part of who they are, right? Actually, maybe it’s a good thing, because when we pick up a book by our favourite author, it’s because we enjoy what they obsess about, and we know, to some extent, what to expect. Allow me to share their obsessions, but we can call it inspiration if you’d prefer. Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list…

Author Preoccupation Titles

1. Joanne Harris

Food & Drink, Rural France, Magic

Blackberry Wine
Chocolat

The Lollipop Shoes
Five Quarters of the Orange

2. Tony Parsons

Infidelity and Families

The Family Way
One For My Baby
Man and Wife
Man and Boy

3. Lily Brett

The Holocaust, Sex, Germs, Poos

New York

Too Many Men
Just Like That

4. Lisa Jewell

Yuppies with messed up love lives

Vince and Joy

A Friend of the Family
Ralph’s Party

I think it's really funny how the lofty art of novel writing is merely a reflection of our mundane collection of fixations. So much for my delusions of grandeur; I wonder what will appear on this list in a few years, when I’ve written a few books. I shudder to think what people will be able to list as my obsessions…hahaha!

Minjiba Cookey © 2007

Solitude Doesn't Mean Lonely

Received wisdom says that there are three women for every man on the planet, so from the outset, you’re battling the odds. Word on the street has it that all the good men are taken. The men left over just don’t do it for you. All their various shortcomings confirm exactly why they’re still single, and hey, you weren’t born to lap up the dregs. You can’t have the good one you really wouldn’t have minded, because he’s taken - he married your college friend last year. You can’t have the very available one at church for one of three reasons. A) he has crusty feet. The sight of them last summer took the joy out of your iced latte. B) he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and you have dreams. C) he’s a lovely guy. So lovely in fact, that at any given time there are two women who comprise the category of his ‘one and only’. It doesn’t help that the mother of his nine month old child is now back in the stakes.

The next landmark age (one of the really annoying ones that ends in zero, like 30, or 40. Don’t you wish you could go back to 20?) is standing at the end of the road, grinning smugly as you plod your way reluctantly to him. Every time your birthday comes round, he snatches the opportunity to use what should actually be a happy day, as a day of mourning, for the days when you still had ‘all the time in the world’. You probably wished to be here when you were ten, so you wouldn’t have to go to bed at bedtime, but now the day is upon you; you’ve completed half the journey to being a geriatric and the fairy tale you’ve carried with you since girlhood still hasn’t happened.

Here’s a deep question for single women. Are you happy?
In the light of the numerous talk shows, tapes, and books on the keys to successful marriages and relationships, single women are having to find a niche for themselves. But is it that simple? How do you fight the ‘poor me blues’ when you arrive home with aching feet, to leaking taps and rubbish that’s begging to be taken out?

Instead of hating your house for being so empty, shut the door and close your eyes, and enjoy the feeling of having a sanctuary, a sane space that’s all yours, where you can think and cry and grow and be, without having to explain your mood swings to anyone.

Sing loudly, and badly in the shower, confident in the fact that only teddy can hear you, and he wont ever break up with you.
Be thankful that your time is yours. Instead of spending half an hour making the perfect family fry up each morning, you get to use that time to pray. Grab a bagel and a coffee, and meditate on how great God is. Consider this: at 8pm, when your blissfully wedded friend (no hard feelings to married folk, mind!) is moaning to you on the phone about doing laundry on a Friday night, be grateful that you’ve had enough time not only to shave your legs, but to give yourself a mini facial. Imagine trying to clean up after a chronic fling-his-socks-across-the-room-man while you’re pms-ing.

Before you drive yourself into depression over the lack of a cute baby to dress up in Baby Gap and play with, remember it ain’t cute when your earth-mother organic food comes out at the other end with a bad smell and a yell in the middle of the night. If you’re really feeling broody, head down to the local park on your day off. There’ll be lots of tired mum’s only too happy to use your help.

And finally invest in you. Open a regular savings account to squirrel away the extras you don’t crucially need. Treat your friends and family. Shop guiltlessly (but sensibly) while you can still do so without psychologically equating every expenditure to its value in nappies or mother-in-law-birthday lunches.
As the recent Vodaphone ad campaign says, there’s no time like now. It’s easy to disregard what we have in the present because we’re constantly looking to the future ‘in faith’. Any wonder about where those constant feelings of dissatisfaction come from? If today is never good enough, then tomorrow can never be better, and we’ll never appreciate the progress we’ve made since yesterday. Just as companionship is a gift, solitude is a special, and it doesn’t have to mean lonely.

So cheer up, single ladies, we’re in this together. No more moping, and pulling long faces. No more longing glances at the bridal section of the news stand. No more false glossy smiles when wedding announcements are made from the pulpit. Quit cutting your eyes at the blushing couple in Pravins who’ve spent an hour discussing the pros and cons of each style of ring.
Give yourself a hug when you wake up each morning, and work that freedom like a new pair of shoes!


Minjiba Cookey © 2006