Lateralus

It's a combination of demonstrating a point and reality, I suppose. It's easy to lose track of where someone is, whether the distraction is someone else, something else or yourself. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a bar or a party with a group of people and not noticed that one of them has left. It's also relevant that Stacy looks after the narrator but doesn't and can't (won't?) always protect and nurse him. I do know what you mean though, the inconsistency troubled me too, and it's one of the things that I think I'll revise. Thanks for reading anyway. Always nice to hear from you.

Wow, I absolutely loved Toast Boy. It's a little graphic for the forums though, don't you think? Here's something else I wouldn't like to have seen as a kid: [yt]ALO95kDh9m8[/yt]

Nick Drake - Pink Moon (album) I've been listening to a lot of acoustic artists lately.

This is a little short story I started writing yesterday and finished this morning. I'm going to leave it for a few days before I revise it, but in the mean time I thought I may as well post it here to get some feedback. No title yet. It's a little bleak, but, like Sinatra says, that's life. I'd love to evade the censor to keep sentences as I meant them, but rules are rules, and I'm sure you'll be able to work the meaning out. *** The New House Hotel was where we went every Friday night, Stacy and I. We had no choice; there was nowhere else. It was a terrible place. The hotel was situated in a small clearing surrounded by dense woodland on all sides. The thin dirt road which lead to the building was strewn with tree roots and dog [cabbage]. It was a long way from our flat and we almost always walked, unless it was raining or we were especially tired. The greenery around the building attracted all kinds of biting insects, so you couldn't even stand outside on a pleasant day without the repellent smoke from a cigarette for protection. Not only were the drinks and food cripplingly expensive, they were rotten. For all its faults, the New House attracted a good crowd. My friends and I had made it our social centre for years, and I took Stacy there for our first night out together. I met Stacy a year earlier, in the job centre. I was sitting in the waiting area, preparing for a meeting with a careers advisor. I turned to grab a pen from the magazine covered table and when I looked back Stacy was there. She struck up a conversation, and I was charmed by her simplicity of speech and her lack of pretension. She was pretty in a very ordinary way. Her hair hung loosely around her face as if the wind had been at it, and there was a kind of melancholy resolve in her grey-blue eyes. A few months later we were living together. We shared a flat in an affable but grey part of town, not far from the retail parks that marked its centre. The flat was sparsely furnished, yet the little furniture that there was all clashed. A blue sofa embossed with floral patterns that her parents were going to throw out, a small stained wooden coffee table, a television I had been given as a teenager, my writing desk, and my bookshelf. The desk and the bookshelf looked entirely out of place, and were made almost entirely useless by the chatter of the television. I couldn't read or write when it was on. I tried retreating to the lone bedroom, but I found I could still hear it through the walls. I was sick of Stacy even before we moved in together. She was constantly gently, barely noticeable, but firm all the same pushing me towards some kind of office work, which was something I had no taste for. I could hardly blame her. She supported me with the money from her secretarial job in the times between my unemployment payments and the rare occasions I worked as a day labourer for a friend's father. Many of my friends had told me that they would be very happy with a girl like Stacy. Even so, her simple way of conversation and ordinary but pleasant looks grated at my being, and every time I thought about how I hated her, I hated myself more. We strolled along the dirt road that lead to the New House. Experience and muscle memory guided my feet over the roots that split the earth, but the dominion of the trees was made plain when the toe of my shoe was caught and I stumbled. The evening was in full swing as we entered the side door to the bar. Groups of old and middle aged men occupied most of the tables near the bar. Towards the back of the pub in a slightly raised area the younger crowd sat on a large cushioned horseshoe bench with tables in the gap in the middle. Alcohol and the music blaring from the jukebox raised all conversation to a shout. The pub was decorated in a rustic, country kind of way A tribute to its days as a farm house. Dark wooden panelling rose from the carpeted floor to half way up the wall. Farming implements and brass jugs established the theme on high wooden shelves. There was a painting of a stag, and above the coal fireplace was the taxidermed head of a Highland cow. Stacy went to sit at the back of the room with the crowd in the horseshoe while I waited at the busy bar. The wait was made longer by the poor service of the bar staff. I scanned the room with purpose, my eyes flying over faces and backs of heads, until I saw her The best, and increasingly only, reason to spend any time at the New House. Emily. She was beautiful. It took a special kind of eye to see it, but she was. She had the sort of style that was often imitated but wasn't diminished by it. Her blonde hair was cut short so that it stopped just short of her jaw line at the front and an inch or two higher at the back. The pale skin of her neck flowed graciously to her shoulders, which were covered by a small black cardigan. She wore a blue cocktail dress and sipped on a glass of white wine. Emily had been a patron of the New House for years Only once a month or so when I first noticed her, but more and more often after that. I had only spoken to her around a dozen times, and never for very long. Once I had told her that I wanted to be a writer. She looked around the room disinterestedly. Her eyes were glistening with half a bottle of wine and lazily flowed over the room, occasionally looking back at me to show that she was listening. Oh God, her eyes. She looked at everything, saw everything, and her brow furrowed or relaxed in perfect response to what she saw. Oh really?, she said as she turned back to me. That's lovely. And then she left on a perfumed breeze. I got the drinks and walked to the back of the bar to sit with Stacy, positioning myself so that I could see Emily. Look at me. I'm here. I'm waiting. She didn't look. The conversation my friends were having bored me, so I finished my drink and went to sit at the bar. I ordered another drink. Dave had followed me from the horseshoe area and sat down beside me. He was one of my closest friends, and we had been to school together. He was in my English class and we often talked about books and writers. His mother had moved abroad Spain, I think but he didn't want to go with her and needed an income to support himself, so he left school at 16. We didn't talk about books much any more. How's the writing going? I wiped the condensation from a lager tap with my index finger. Not well. Nobody seems to want my articles, and I haven't had any reply about my short stories. I liked it when people asked about my writing, even if my reply was negative. It made me feel like a writer. That was all I wanted to feel like. That's too bad... Don't you wish you had finished university? You'd be on good money by now. No, I don't wish I had finished. I don't care about the money. At any rate, a business degree would just be a safety net, and that's the last thing I need. God knows I'm lackadaisical enough as it is. I could tell by the way Dave looked at me that he didn't agree. He thought I was an idiot for leaving university and throwing away the chance for a good salary. He had told me once when we were drunk, but I don't think he remembered. Yeah... I guess you're right. At least you've got Stacy. Yeah. At least. Dave looked puzzled. I'd always thought he had a thing for Stacy. He was certainly a great admirer. What do you mean? What do you think? I'm not happy. I'm with her because it's easy and I get the feeling it's better than being alone. Lackadaisical. He gave me another puzzled look, though this time there was a definite note of disgust in his eyes. Anyway, I took a long, slow drink of beer, I'd rather not talk about it. She knows just about everyone in this place. Anyone could be listening. I looked over my shoulder and then turned back to him, smiling with half my mouth. I'm going out for a smoke. You coming? Nah, I've just been. I think he wanted to talk to Stacy. When I stood up I found that I was quite drunk. I looked at the walls as I walked from the bar to the door. The décor had taken on a surreal quality. All subjectivity left me, and things were no longer quaint, or tacky, or rustic They simply were; farming tools used as ornaments on shelves high out of reach, the stuffed head of a dead animal, and most striking of all dozens of people paying no attention to any of it. Experience had eroded their interest at the absurdity of it, and it was just the way the pub was. I continued outside where the damp woodland air would smell like Emily. I tripped as I stepped through the door to the beer garden, and bumped into a man who was standing with two friends, all three of them wearing shirts and ties. Sorry. I tried to keep walking, but he put his hand on my chest and stopped me. Watch what you're [bleep]ing doing! Sorry. I just wanted to get through the door. He sneered at me and spit on the ground. I stood a few metres away from them and lit a cigarette. I felt that the man had been quite rude to me. Wasn't it just an accident after all? And wasn't he standing right in the doorway? I realised that I wasn't sorry at all and that no self respecting person could stand for such abuse in reply to an apology. I walked over to where he was standing, and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention. I'm not sorry. What? For bumping into you. I'm not sorry. And then my hands were around his throat as tightly as I could manage. His friends were soon upon me and I caught a few solid blows to the head before I was on the ground. They kicked and punched and spat and I bled on the wet cobbled stones. They went back inside the pub and left me lying, coughing in the rain. It felt as if everything was conspiring to deny me of even my simplest pleasures. To try and shake the feeling of defeat I lit another cigarette and held it up in defiance as I lay on the ground. I tried to enjoy it, but the smoke seeped into the cuts in my mouth stinging them harshly, and the filter was quickly covered in blood. It was no good. I flicked it away. The door opened, and two or three people walked past me, muttering their disdain. They thought I was passed out drunk. After some time I turned onto my back to look at the stars. The trees were buckling under the weight of the rain and they leaned in to finger the air above me, obstructing my view, as the dim orange lights on the pub wall polluted the sky. I couldn't see any stars. I stood up, wiped my bloody mouth and nose with my sleeve, and walked back into the pub. Almost everyone had left. Emily and all her friends had gone. Only a few old men remained in quiet corners, with nothing to go home to but memories and regrets and photographs of their dead wives. Stacy was talking to the barmaid. She rushed over when she saw my face, and I batted her hands away and asked her to leave me alone. I sat at the bar and ordered a drink. My head throbbed and my ribs ached. I felt pathetic. I stayed in the pub until it closed and got drunk enough so the thought of going home with Stacy no longer made me want to cry.

I hate my hometown. If you're ever in Livingston, you absolutely have to escape.

[yt]XGSfG7Toc6g[/yt] It wasn't so much that it scared me, but it sure freaked me out.

Really you need to read quite a lot of Asimov before everything clicks. Try to read (most) of the Foundation series (Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundations Edge, and Foundation and Earth), and the Robot series (The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire). The Empire series is not as good, and does not fit entirely with the other two series. If you didn't come across Nightfall in the short story collections, then you should look for that too. Titles by other authors you could look out for would be Hyperion by Dan Simmons and the Rama series by Arthur C. Clarke, starting with Rendevous with Rama.

This is my only real concern. I won't spam up your thread anyway. If people don't mind then that's fine.

Why not get a blog, or use the 'Today...' thread?

I don't have a problem with auto-tune, provided the person using it wrote the song. 808's and Heartbreaks is the obvious example. It's an album I enjoy, and probably wouldn't be if not for the auto-tune. I couldn't care less if Kanye West can sing or not. What matters is that he came up with the melodies and used the auto-tune to make sure the song was as good as it could be. Now, it's something completely different when the auto-tune is used on a 'recording artist' whose only job is to sing the song well. Lip-syncing is something I can't tolerate at all.

Well actually in Greek mythology Humans were not created by the gods. Humans were created by the titan Prometheus. (and animals by Epimethius but that's not that point) I thought Prometheus was the guy who gave humanity fire for their benefit; not realizing that we would smith weapons using it. That is where the secondary title of frankenstein(the modern prometheus) came from. It depends on your reading, really. Across the many texts he's mentioned in, Prometheus created mankind, gave them fire, started civilisation by giving humans maths, art and the like, and generally just pissed Zeus off in any way he could.

I don't fear death, but waiting to die is an entirely different thing. If you knew that you'd pass peacefully in your sleep, then there's not much to fear. Anyway, I'd get monstrously drunk and then see what happened. I'd probably write a little something. I'm sure people would be interested to read the thoughts of someone who knew exactly when he was going to die.

I finished Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway yesterday. It's a fantastic piece of literature, and something I found myself identifying with very much. A lost generation filling the gaps left by the old systems of value and belief with alcohol and frivolity... Timeless really. On a darker note, I really enjoy Hemingway's misogyny. I don't know if that makes me old fashioned or doomed. With Fiesta out of the way I started reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. Yes, I know it's cliche with the film coming out recently, but better to read it than not I say.

Make sure you're in a chair and not sitting in bed. Open your windows up nice and wide. The combination of the fresh air and heat escaping should help a lot. I always fall asleep when I get too warm and comfortable.

I smoke, so I almost always carry chewing gum with me. I like the blue Extra. I don't know what flavour it is.

As long as they're not boring I really couldn't care less. It might seem like a broad criteria, but it's really not. Friend is not a word I use lightly.

You should look into the original New Journalism movement. Tom Wolfe - who was one of the more important figures of the movement and went on to write Bonfire of the Vanities - compiled a good book of articles, simply called The New Journalism. Hunter S. Thomson is in there, amongst a few other fairly well known journalists.

My dad and grandpa raised me on Asimov. He's one of the few sci-fi writers that I can stand these days. The Foundation series is excellent, are the rest of the books set in the same universe. His short stories are something that I really enjoy. The Black Widowers Club (I think it's called - it's been a while) stories are very enjoyable mystery stories, and Nightfall is probably the best piece of short sci-fi I've ever read.

It's not like it's gonna kill you...unless you drink the entire bottle, then *maybe*. Drink moderately and nobody will have any problems. An entire bottle of wine will not kill you. Not even close.

My first thought was "Midget Gems". Lucky Charms.

Nailed it. "Shush girl Shut your lips. Do the Hellen Keller and talk with your hips." I've heard bad lyrics before, but not like this.

"District 9 is based on Alive in Joburg, a short film directed by Neill Blomkamp, Sharlto Copley, Simon Hansen and Shanon Worley. Copley also portrayed one of the interviewed policemen. The short film is about aliens landing in South Africa and becoming confined to a specific area and forced to work. In the movie these aliens are called "Non-Humans" and are overseen by Multi-National United (MNU), a company which is utilizing alien technology." Subtext? Children's literature is more subtle.

That's John Simpson the BBC's foreign correspondant right? His on camera work is good but I haven't read anything of his, might be worth a read. Yeah, that's right. His writing is very good.

"Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short it is a synthesis. A synthesis is a relation between two factors. So regarded, man is not yet a self." One of the denses pieces of writing I've ever come across. From Kierkegaard's "The Sickness Unto Death". His philosophy is too Christian for me, but I like this passage a lot. Conciousness is just a biological function, I think. The self is the conciousness experiencing itself, the "you" is how much will you have perform any given action and so make choices. You're a set of experiences experiencing itself.

Good to see this running again. Congratulations on a great job. I'm going to check out Ash Ra Tempel and David Ford. It's nice to see you put Cracked Rear View, too. I was so close to putting that on mine (unless I did, but I don't think so), but something else edged it out. "Time" is one of the songs I always sing when I'm walking home drunk. I'm really not into jazz at all, but I suppose that's what you get when you let a drummer make a list of his favourite albums.