Three True Things

Mark tagged me for this meme: three true things you’ve read recently, from fiction. I’m taking a generous value of recently because otherwise it would all be Shakespeare.

Prince. I never did see such pitiful rascals.
Falstaff. Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit as well as better: tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

William Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV 4.2.65-68

In youth, one day, in the Russian countryside, latitude of Labrador, a racket was given to me to play with the family of the Orientalist Gotovtsev, perhaps you have heard. It was, I recollect, a splendid summer day and we played, played, played until all the twelve balls were lost. You also will recollect the past with interest when old.

Vladimir Nabokov, Pnin

Some ain’t need to be stoned in order to have strange cares.

Chris Onstad, Achewood

Passing it on to Rachel, Britta and Tom.

Backstage

A word to restaurateurs: I do not want to be told when I am being moved from the bar to the dining room that “we’re running to a really tight schedule tonight”. I love cooking at home, and I love eating out, but when I’m out I have no desire to be taken backstage.

Fine dining is to a certain extent the cultivation of illusions, but it all depends what illusions you enjoy. Foodie culture is based on the illusion that you or I could actually be a chef, if only we had the time to source pork bellies from a farm in the Southern Highlands where piglets have to have their names put down on a waiting list two years before they are weaned. Matey glimpses behind the curtain fit in well with this culture, which finds its dismal epitome in MasterChef.

But I don’t want to pretend that I am a chef, I want to pretend that I have a chef, and a country house which has the best servants in the world. My ideal of good service involves a politeness so discreet and silent that one doesn’t even notice the existence of the politeness, let alone the waiters. I don’t care if they are running to a tight schedule or if the kitchen’s on fire or if the chef has just been knifed by the sommelier; all that is none of my business.

Let me tell you of a dining experience which will illustrate exactly what I mean. It took place at a small restaurant, the location of which is known only to myself and a small circle of like-minded gourmands, many of whom have since moved overseas or passed away. Over the preprandial sherry and toasted cheese, we talked candidly of our dissatisfaction with life, the general decline of standards in all things and of our own personal misfortunes and grievances, and took it in turns to enlarge upon the ideal mode in which to live one’s life. It was on the following day that the first of that remarkable series of successful speculations in real estate to which I owe my present comfort was to bear fruit. Not long after that, as my wealth increased, I was granted the leisure to re-examine my prospects and to embark upon an unexpected career change which led to the discovery of my true vocation. After decades of long and deeply satisfying labours, I arrived in a state of tranquil retirement, spending my time at my retreat in the rural hinterland, visited by friends of old and my many descendants, devoting myself to a life of contemplation, horticulture and the study of Ancient Greek. It was on a particularly calm and mellow evening in late autumn, when I sat before the fire and seemed to see figured in its ever-changing flames the appearances of faces from the past and future, a waiter appeared at my side and asked suavely, “And would Sir like to look at the dessert menu?”

Now that’s what I call good service.

“So, was it a productive meeting?”

1.

It was… I don’t really know where to begin. [mutters distractedly, looks into middle distance.] Did you ever have one of those… I don’t want to say, experiences, because it’s more like, I don’t know, an event, or a turning point. And after it, nothing will ever be the same, ever again. [eyes begin to shine with ecstasy] Before 10 AM this morning, I thought I knew so much. And now: I realise that I know so little. So very little. And that realisation, which this morning would have terrified me, honestly, the really incredible thing is, that it’s liberating, the fear is all gone. It’s a source of joy. And that joy is something I will have with me… well, I hope it will be with me for the rest of my life.

2.

What meeting? What do you know? [grasps interlocutor's coat lapel and thrusts them behind a partition] I want you to listen, and I don’t want you to speak until I am finished. You never saw me come out of that doorway. You never saw Sandra, Frank, or that guy from Accounts with the nostril hair in the same corridor together. Do you know that there are things happening all around you that you not only cannot control, but that you cannot comprehend? Imagine an ant on the footpath. Imagine if two or three people on the same footpath were to have an encounter, share a joke, smoke a cigarette, swap business cards, flirt, cuff one another approvingly on the shoulder blades, make menacing gestures, exchange angry words, even come to blows. What do you think the ant would make of that? I’m not saying that you are that ant. Because we never had this conversation. You never saw me here.

3. (recommended)

You know, the usual. [shrugs] I don’t even know why we bother with these things.

Cynicisms

British cynicism is congenial, up to a certain point, cynicism being so commonplace among that nation that any remission of it is perceived as a kindness. It is understood that we are talking here only of stereotypes and preconcieved notions. Americam cynicism is directed exclusively against the government or the corporation; one remembers, or pretends to have remembered, the great days of American cynicism, of wiseacres in snap-brim fedoras, and wonders if they will ever return? Cynicism being so essential a part of the Anglo-Saxon notion of Frenchness that an uncynical French person is an inconceivable contradiction in terms, and allowing that any notion the opposite of which cannot be concieved cannot truly be imagined, we conclude that French cynicism is formally unthinkable. Australian cynicism is a minor relation of British cynicism; it seems to me to have less hope of remission, but perhaps this is because the cynicism one grew up with will, if percieved at all, be felt as harsh, inescapable, without charm.

Status gothic

A little tale which I posted in my Facebook status over two weeks in 2008

Mike Lynch was working late into the watches of the night, when he heard a knock at the door.

Mike Lynch paused to listen to the soughing of the wind in the ancient pines.  The season was early spring – no time for travellers in these mountains.

Mike Lynch shook his head, returning his attention to the brown, water-stained leaves of the heavy volume before him.

Mike Lynch lost himself in reflections: the book’s pages, so frail and brittle, had been bound long centuries before the stone walls of this house had been raised.

Mike Lynch was startled by three more knocks, each as clear and distinct as the tolling of a great bell.  Not without testiness, he called aloud: “Maynard!  The door!”

Mike Lynch immediately regretted the abrupt tone with which he had called for Maynard.  His family’s ancient, wrinkled retainer would have long since retired for the evening.

Mike Lynch descended the cold staircase, the beams of his lantern playing fitfully across the stones, his own shadow dancing to freakish heights above.

Mike Lynch lifted the heavy crossbar away from the dark cleats.  The night air sighed bitterly in the gap as he slowly opened the door.

Mike Lynch paused on the threshhold.  He raised his lantern.

Mike Lynch saw the ground before him, carpeted with brown needles, and the strange stillness of the empty pine forest.

Mike Lynch called out.  The sound of the wind was now faint and far overheard, but his voice sounded curiously muffled as it was swallowed up by the silence.

Mike Lynch felt a rush, as if great wings were beating somewhere behind him.  He turned and caught a glimpse of a dark figure disappearing into the doorway.

Mike Lynch  – or the spirit which had once gone by that name – awoke from the deep swoon into which he had fallen. A light appeared in the tower high above.

Mike Lynch could remember nothing, apart from a terrible hunger to be back within the walls, to return to that world of warmth and light.

Mike Lynch knocked on the door. [FIN]

Despatches

Fighting on several fronts. Systematic use of misleading metaphors and incongruous juxtapositions have been reported in the southern fringes of the city. An insistence on over-elaborate or deliberately foregrounded structure will usually prove to be the sign of an underlying structural deficiency, although this is not always the case.

An epic in heroic couplets on the themes of sovereignty, the dual body of the monarch and the sublime nature of self-sacrifice in war seems to be a last-ditch attempt by the government units on the eastern side of the river, cut off from their supply lines, to reassert order. So far the epic seems to have been successful. Outbreaks of doggerel, jeering street songs and sarcastic pamphlets have accompanied this action but it is unclear whether these fall into the category of weapons or propaganda.

As always, the government has accused the rebels of resorting to barbaric and forbidden rhetorical devices. State television has depicted the heartbreaking aftermath of a hospital devastated by meiosis. The rebels in their turn argue that the war itself is merely some kind of metaphor.

The realism agent. Very mild doses of the realism agent were found to be beneficial when administered to logistics, planning and IT staff, but large doses quickly produced malaise and low morale, leading in a significant minority of test subjects to debilitating depression. All attempts to deploy a weaponised form of the realism agent against the rebels have failed, possibly due to the difficulty of containment. Many specialist units were lost to the enemy before this line of attack was abandoned.

Voltaren: Days of Glory

It was the dreams he missed the most.

He looked up at the rows of old VHS cassettes above his desk, reading the titles lovingly. Voltaren Versus All Of Space. Voltaren: Lord of Power. Voltaren and Zyban. Good times. And yet, as amazing as his television exploits had been, they were nothing when compared to the dreams.

Oh, the stories those children had dreamt for him. His three syllables had resounded through cataclysms of fire and danger far beyond the fantasies of any animator. Even now. The most threadbare carpets, bare tabletops, those dusty zones trampled free from grass in playgrounds, had required only the mention of his name and they were transformed to eerie moonscapes and futuristic cities, arenas for glorious combat.

Voltaren.

“Honey? Are you coming to bed?”

All such a long time ago. His career in medicine had ended all that, and it had treated he and his family well. Times change, and the world finds a new use for you. He accepted that. It was part of life. He heard Mersyndol’s voice again.

“It’s late. You’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Remember? The Half-Marathon?”

“I’m coming, darling.” He replaced the dog-eared paperpack on the shelf, the faded red letters on the spine barely legible: Choose Your Own Voltaren Adventure.

Awful Christmas specials – a history

Lucifer’s Fatal Tree; in which is shewn plainly that the Redeeming Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only means of Salvation from the Eternal Torments awaiting those who practice the Heathenish Usages and Wicked License commonly Observed at the Season of His Nativity. Including the Author’s Sermon on the horrible Tree-custom lately introduced from the Rhineland. With 12 Woodcuts
Rev Archibald Watkins
London, Plain Tract Society, 1837

What Do Communists Find in Their Stockings?
Doreen and Carmichael Butt
Little Golden Books, New York, 1965

Beth Got her Womanhood for Christmas
Berkeley Young Adult’s Collective
The Peachstone Press, Berkeley, 1974

A Festival of Reason
Richard Dawkins and the Free Thought Quintet
Spoken-word CD with light jazz accompaniment. Sample track: “No, There Is No Santa (But the Truth is the Best Present of All)”
Bright Recordings, 2006

Daddy, Please Don’t Melt Santa’s House!
Animated telemovie in which little Jaden persuades his parents to carbon-offset their enormous Christmas display. Featuring the vocal talents of Susan Sarandon and Ed Begley, Jr
Foresight Films, 2007

Diplomacy

The pamphlet says that “our mediation service is the most highly sought-after in the Galaxy because Hyperion’s unique quantum-physical status reduces travel costs and waiting lists. Our friendly staff are uniquely equipped by their own multivalent nature to the onerous task of finding a common ground between the most disparate points of view.”

How it all works is that we set the pleroma to pick up the various representatives and wait until it collapses into a state where they’re not actually maiming one another. Then we get them to try and talk it over. Technically, what this involves is perturbing each current active self-state so that it will either find a pathway to some kind of stable ensemble-attractor, or, alternatively, react by fleeing the pleroma altogether, to be replaced by another, and hopefully more relaxed, instance of itself.

My favourite way of doing it is to throw rocks at them.

This morning I’ve got a representative of a space-going species who operate entirely on reason and logic, and an ambassador from a neighbouring system whose culture operates entirely on reason and logic as well. These two have been at war for something like three thousand years: I think it all started as a dispute over either comet mining rights or the timing of certain seasonal festivals, or whether comets could be mined at certain seasonal festivals or something like that. You’d be surprised at how many civilisations claim to be operating entirely on reason and logic. They’re always very proud of it.

The second one just pulled something out of her mantle that looks like a field mortar. Sorry, I’m going to have to go and get a bigger rock.

Brian Eno Intervenes

A new reality TV show, in which the celebrated producer and culture theorist visits a different workplace each week. Watch as Brian addresses everyday problems with his unique blend of Cageian wit and wry, cerebral provocation. Having each member of staff invent their own language in which to talk to the customers may not help sales at this boutique, but it’s television magic!

Next week, Brian is in hot water again, after he erases all the files in a murder investigation because “I thought everyone was getting stuck in a rut: it’s impossible to do good creative work when you’re bored, and that’s what I’m seeing here.” Even when he’s being carpeted by Senior Detective Baxter, there’s no shutting Brian up.

“An important murder investigation? So does that mean that you wouldn’t be this angry if you were trying to find out who killed an unimportant person? That’s very interesting, I think this is a very good avenue for us to explore.”