Trysting Fields

Hooray For Being Almost Productive

Contrary to intentions, I got nothing of any real note done today. But I did dispose of quite a lot of trivial domestic and administrative tasks which had been bugging me. And cleared my email (er, more or less), which is always good. So I will be in an excellent position to actually accomplish stuff tomorrow.

My sister and her boi have stocks of strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, apricot, and lingonberry (no, I don't know either) jams. And herrings. It's a Scandinavian thing, apparently.

But they had no raspberry jam. So I bought some.

I also got brownie mix. I thought I would make some and send them to Chris Titan. I kind of feel sorry for him.

In other news, the camera seems to be having serious exposure problems.

I am listening to "Blind" by the Sundays, but I think I'm going to have to turn it off, because it is making me very nostalgic and causing me angst. Lovely album, though.

Now I'm gonna go and cook that roast I was talking about yesterday.

If you haven't already, go and visit Jo; she needs to be encouraged to post more often.

Sam Placed On Bed: Freaks Out

I put Sam up on the bed last night, partly because I am secretly sexually attracted to him and partly due to a childish desire to do things that will piss my sister off without her knowing about it whilst she is away.

It really upset him. He just didn't know what the hell to think.

Sorry Sammy.

Scientology's Melbourne HQ Are Hiring!

I wonder if Bridget or Charles would give me a reference.

(JOKE.)

(Actually, I'm sure working for the Scienos - except, perhaps, in an authorised infiltratory capacity - would be in breach of my contract.)

Tamagotchi

The Descmeister told me to get a Tamagotchi, so that hers would have a friend to make the hot infrared interfaceage with. Naturally, I complied.

My first hatchling, Blort, was born on Sunday at about 11am. Rather heartlessly, I terminated him in the evening because I decided I'd warped him too much by not knowing what I was doing. (NB If more parents adopted this strategy in real life, the world would be a better place.) Besides, I really wanted a girl.

Blort's successor, Zooey, was born shortly afterwards. She seems to be doing well.

Birth of Zooey the Tamagotchi

Zooey, age 2

Ack, Ack

I've been rushing around like a mad thing today, then I get in and everything's gone all crazy-like in virtualworld with the commenting (yay commenting) and the Reanimator getting a funny email and.. other things.

Then I went out to walk the dog and do some shopping.. and locked myself out! And I couldn't get on to my sister's friend who has the spare key! And I had to wait outside for 90 minutes in the cold for the locksmith with only random text-messagery to amuse me!

And it's ten o'clock and I haven't eaten anything and there's too much to do! Too much to do! It's the 29th on Wednesday! Why isn't anyone more concerned?

Did anyone see what happened to this month? As it went swoooshing by? I think I missed it.

And I still haven't written to Nada. Or Def. And I DON'T have TIME to be posting this! I must eat food or I shall collapse. Fuck, and I was going to do a load of washing tonight 'n'all.

*deep breaths*

It's okay, it's okay.

Awesome Epic Bloggy/Neurocam Dream

I dreamt last night that I was Scarlett Johansson in a futuristic, Blade Runner-esque version of Tokyo.

An amalgam of Lindsay Lohan and baby sis's obnoxious former housemate Anna (who looks - and behaves - quite a lot like Lindsay Lohan) was trying to kill me, ostensibly because she disagreed with my stance on the war in Iraq - although there was some suggestion that she was in fact an agent of the Circle de Luce, and possibly Constance incognito.

An amalgam of JoJo aka Johana and 14-year-old pop starlet JoJo (heavily pregnant and smoking like a bastard, natch) had been assigned by the mythical, non-existent organization Fiat Nox to protect me.

JoJo/JoJo eventually took out Lindsay Lohan/Anna/Constance with a sniper rifle from a rooftop, then immediately went into labour. I had to fly her to hospital in a helicopter, causing me tremendous anxiety because I was not technically allowed to fly a helicopter without a fully licensed helicopter pilot riding shotgun. But it felt like the least I could do.

I can't remember what happened after that. I think I may have crashed the helicopter into a building. But we both came out of it alright.

Deadsoybean appeared as a shadowy double-agent of ambiguous motives.

The role of Bill Muwway was played with infinite worldweariness - and serious delirium - by Avery Cardoza.

And comic relief was provided by Cheshire Cat, who appeared as an endearing idiot man-child constantly asking strange and irrelevant questions. Occasionally he would also sing Wesley Willis classics such as Fuck You and Cut That Mullet. These interludes were mounted in the style of elaborate Bollywood production numbers.

In the end, the whole situation turned out to have been deliberately engineered by machiavellian Melblogerati queen Ms Fits, so that she could adapt it into a tv show, then post about how clever she'd been.

Orange In The Grass

When I was out walking Sam the dog on Tuesday evening, I came across this photo of a ragged half-orange lying in some grass. I found it in a park, next to what appeared to be the actual orange.

I left them both, because I thought together they made for quite a nice little piece of street art. (Park art?)

On Friday I was back the same way, and the orange had gone. But the photo was still there. So I took it.

It's Really Quite Sad And I Probably Shouldn't Admit This

But, you know, my heart actually sinks when I get home from work to find that in ten hours no one has sent me email or left comments.

Work harder people.

(Or should I work harder not to care? Answers on a postcard..)

What do we think about this local Cam get-together idea? Several parties have been independently expressing enthusiasm for such a prospect.

Where would be good to do it at? I'm thinking somewhere reasonably central and reasonably conducive to conversation. I am a relative newcomer to Melbourne and notoriously reclusive, so someone else will have to think of a venue, coz I just have no idea.

P.S. I can't be sure, of course, but I could have sworn I saw the mysterious Xul Solar 23 this morning at Spencer Street Station. Seriously.

Fish Sticks & Salad

(And cheap champagne.)

In homage to Lady J.

I would normally never eat fish sticks (actually, in Australia, we call them 'fish fingers') but my sister has about 80,000 of them in her freezer for some reason.

They must have been on sale.

Results Of My Online Scientology Personality Test

I'm not sure exactly what it all means but I can discern that the only category in which I scored a result high enough not to warrant 'urgent attention' was 'aggression'. I am apparently as depressed as is humanly possible. For more detailed results I'd have to go to the Scieno mission in Azerbaijan, which I told them was the one closest to where I live.

Katie Holmes Speed-Brainwashed by Scientology?

(Via ausculture.)

This is all a bit tabloidy (I never thought I'd link a story from Fox News except for the purposes of ridiculing it), way below the usual high standards rigorously maintained here at Trysting Fields, but I've long been fascinated by the bonkers sci-fi megacult of Scientology, and I'm more than a little intruiged by this report:

Sometime that week, her friends say, [Holmes] flew to Los Angeles for a meeting [ie her first] with Cruise about a role in "Mission: Impossible 3." The meeting took place after April 11.

The next time anyone heard from Holmes was on April 27, when she appeared in public as Cruise's girlfriend and love of his life.

Where was she during those 16 days?

Somewhere during that time, she decided to fire both her manager and agent, each of whom she had been with for years and who were devoted to her.

What's more, according to Radar Online, Holmes was not Cruise's first choice.

For some more routine Scieno zaniness, RO also offers this excerpt from a standard-issue COS security questionnaire, featuring wacklicious questions - some of which are presumably addressed to one's malevolent body thetans - such as:

• Have you ever driven anyone insane?
• Have you ever killed the wrong person?
• Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?
• Have you systematically set up mysteries?
• Have you ever sought to persuade someone of your insanity?
• Have you ever smothered a baby?
• Do you deserve to have any friends?
• Do you deserve to be enslaved?
• Have you ever castrated anyone?
• Have you ever zapped anyone?
• Have you ever had a body with a venereal disease? If so, did you spread it?

And my favourite:

• Have you ever tried to make the physical universe less real?

I heart The Church Of Scientology. Just keep it far, far away from me.

Jonesin' & Pining

I still haven't managed to secure any weed. It's really driving me out of my mind. I don't know why, particularly. In recent times I've gone for whole months at a stretch without so much as thinking about the chronic.

It's pretty goddamn lame. Here I am in trendy, urban Fitzroy and I can't even score. I wonder how many people are getting stoned right now within a one kilometre radius of where I'm sat. Probably hundreds.

Being an isolated recluse may sound pretty sweet but it has its drawbacks.

Stupid prohibition.

I know I've been banging on about this to an extent which is probably getting somewhat tedious but it's becoming all I can think about. I'm hoping if I whinge about it enough someone'll email me and sort me out just to shut me the hell up.

I wish Toots were here. She'd know what to do. She's like a high precision ganj-seeking missile.

I miss you, Toots.

Someone else I've been missing a bit lately is a girl named Sarah. Where are you, Ms Whatever-Surname-You're-Using-These-Days? What are you doing right now, I wonder? (Sleeping, probably.) Did you get the Christmas card I sent to your mum's house in Howth? Or did the two of you finally kill each other? Are you really, as it says in your disused Yahoo profile, a wedding planner? Or was that a joke?

I asked around a bit a little while ago after a working email for you, but without success.

I really hope you are well and happy, and that you will stumble across this page by chance and get in touch.

Finally: how cool is this?

Later, bitches.

WO0T! Camera!

Sister decided her camera that I had been using up until recently was so cruddy and decrepit that she didn't want to take it to Sweden after all, and there was much rejoycing.

I love you, camera, even if she doesn't.

My sister's fridge is full of photographic supplies. I tried some, but they were totally disgusting. She's probably the most normal one in our family but she's still a real freak.

Martin the Swede told me my eMac was yellow and smelt of cigarette smoke. I'd never noticed.

Not being able to chain smoke and have the teev on in the background whilst I'm online is proving a major lifestyle adjustment. I'm not at all sure it's healthy.

Which reminds me: I can't pick up ABC here. Doesn't matter as much as it might, though, because I've got cable broadband. (UPDATE - Although I am kinda bummed about missing Dr. Who.. hold on a minute.. *has idea*.. yep, they're all illicitly online. Of course. *does happy dance*) Yay, broadband. Who would ever have thought a subsidiary of Telstra could offer a service so blindingly speedy and efficient?

Apologies to those to whom I owe emails, especially Nada. You've given me a touch of the email performance anxiety, I think. The same dread condition once stopped me writing to Elmo for three months. But I'll get on it sooner than that, I promise.

I've had a retarded dog to walk.

H Is For House

Moved into my sister's place this arvo. It's great here. I feel like I'm on holidays.

Pretty much everything I have to say today I've already said in a comment at Desci's.

She's wonderful.

Oh, and Melbourne operative Rorschach has delivered on the nekkid dog pics, and earned his pimp. Check out his blog, it's not half bad at all.

Finally, as spotted by Tript "don't call me Tript, it's weird" Tript, Neurocam.com has changed. Those without freakishly wide screens will want to grab the black bar at the top and scroll along to the right.

The beloved disclaimer screed is gone, replaced by the single phrase "Neurocam is not what you expect."

How do they know?

Spooooky.

Everyone's Too Stupid

Help The Cat come up with an album title.

Constance is strongly encouraged to comment on this post. I will then wildly over-react to her contribution, totally regardless of how valid or sensible it may be, and, when she calls me on it, deny that I am annoyed, claiming she is "making assumptions about my emotional state". After that, she may get mildly snarky, and I will tell her to "lay off", and suggest that the thread has become "retarded" and that this is her fault. She may then accuse me of being on crack, and I will delete the entire post, so as to definitively have the last word.

Then, perhaps, we will both realise how silly we have been, kiss (virtually, of course), make up and be friends again.

That is what I hope will happen.

UPDATE - I include myself in the above statement.

Yay!!

Which Operating System Are You? (via Peluchio)

Voicemail From Baby Sis (332kb mp3)

Received in the early hours of this morning.

Bless.

(I think she resents her moniker, though.)

Gagblat in "Not Loved By Anybody" Shock

My esteemed colleague Henry Gagblat is an insufferable whinger, but I do feel his pain, because I'm very sensitive and stuff - and also because I'm quite a lonely soul myself. Unlike him, though, I question the utility of using one's blog to howl into the void about it.

I have done so on occasion, but it didn't help.

I expect he brought it upon himself, anyway.

Just Call Me Huggy Bear

Coz I'm a motherfuckin' etc.

Look what my childhood best friend Ben did.

When not making webpages, he is also a trained librarian and plays in punk bands, which is an interesting combination. His current band is called Draft Dodger (old site, predating his joinage - new one coming soon, so I'm told), and their album may or may not be entitled, topically, 'Holy Shit, Batman'. And he's a thoroughly nice bloke.

I highly recommend him for all your website, librarianship, punk rock and nice bloke needs.

I have that accursed song in my head now. Damn.

Some People Find These "Weblogs" To Be A Waste Of Time

But I don't believe in time, so it's not a concern I share.

If, six months ago, you'd told me I'd one day be using this blog as an excuse procrastinate on the execution of actual proper Neurocam business, I'd have told you to get t'fuck - but that, dear readers, is the situation you find me in this evening. It feels very odd.

I've been pimping other peoples' blogs of late; now I'm gonna pimp a kebab shop, which also feels odd. Ali Baba - an institution in my native Canberra - has just opened an outlet on Fitzroy Street and I'm so glad. I've patronised it twice already this week. I instinctively feel the urge to post a pic of the screwed-up wrapper of the first-rate chicken kebab I just consumed, but alas I have no camera anymore.

(Which is really no good, incidentally. I worry about the future of the 'Fields - for the first time since I started it I have no embryonic posts in reserve, no camera so I can't just take random pics and throw 'em up.. and Neurocam have effectively all but silenced me by way of promotion. So, if anyone has any novel ideas for posts - please, let's hear 'em.)

As fate would have it, the manager of this Ali Baba is none other than the guy who used to manage their establishment in Garema Place, where I was at one time a very regular customer. He greeted me warmly and we exchanged witheringly disparaging remarks about the Can', as is customary amongst ex-residents. It was great. All I need now is billies and baby sis (mmmmmmm..... billies....), and it would be like I never left. But, you know, in a really good way - because, in fact, I have.

Another thing I'm putting off even as I type is cleaning my flat, a process which is half-finished (the place is in complete disarray - don't see pic, not attached) and needs must be completed post haste as I am shortly to be vacating for a month. I'm gonna be housesitting for boringly-grown-up-sis from next Tuesday whilst she is away meeting her fiance's folks in Sweden.

I'll have a whole house to myself - but for Sammy - and as I was saying to the two neuroblogerati luminaries (one of whom famously described Canberra as "a nice place to die") with whom I partook of a most pleasant and interesting coffee or two earlier in the evening, I'd really love to bring Tahiti to Fitzroy and throw a bitchin' Neuroparty (would Robin Hely come, I wonder?). Confoundingly, however, I just spoke to the lady of the house and she blew this idea straight out of the water point blank, supposedly on the grounds that there is too much expensive photography equipment lying around the place.

Yeah right.

That's the last time I pimp your goddamn cruddy half-finished website, bitch.

Hmph.

(long pause)

Oh well.

More Blog Pimpage

I have decided that people are not paying enough attention to Deadsoybean. Also, Reanimator has a personal blog, which is pretty cool. He has a bonsai. I like bonsais. They're good.

Okay, I Don't Think This Is Flu Anymore

I take reasonably good care of myself. I exercise most days. I eat pretty well. I sleep eight hours most nights. I don't regularly drink very much, or indulge in any other seriously health-compromising behaviours, with the sole exception of smoking about sixty gazillion cigarettes a day.

So WHY, for the last five months or so, have I woken up, every single morning, feeling like someone has kicked me in the fucking head?

Xade will call me a whiner. I don't care. I've really had enough of it.

Graham Is Back

And it sounds like he's had quite an interesting month. Although not in a Neurocam-related way, of course.

Also, I just heard from Melbourne Wintermute, who some will remember from Bolte Bridge etc. He's had put his operative status on hold due to other commitments but hopes to be rejoining the ranks later in the month.

Assignment NIO-3001/01 Completed

In other news, Beltaine is an idiot.

Writing Under The Influence

UK operative Alexis has seduced me with the promise of nekkid dog pictures (I know, I'm too easy) into plugging her blog.

Check it out; she has a more impressive scar than mine.

Scars (Part 2)

See here.

(And here.)

More of my sister's work here. (Flash site, under construction - progress bars pending; dialuppers counselled to exercise patience).

Good Grief

This is worse than some of those signs outside Crown.

Number Of Things I Didn't Want To Screw Up This Week That I Screwed Up:

Five. Or possibly six (outcome/ultimate significance pending).

How I am feeling: shitty.

Still.. the overall trajectory remains an upward one.

Life is life.

*shrugs*

I need to change my various 'new mail' noises. It's all gotten waay too pavlovian for my liking.

Thanks for stopping by, gentle reader. Particular greetings go out to those who know me in, as they say, real life. You guys should comment more often. Hi Ben! Will write soon. Hi toots.

And finally: hello Ludmila, if you're gracing us. Way to do my fucking head in. You are ace.

I bid you all a fond goodnight.

Wither Graham Henstock?

The granddaddy of neuroblogging appears to have died.
Perhaps he said too much.

And the neurowiki has been taken down due to the recent spate of spam attacks. But Dev assures us it will be back and better than ever. Yay!

I like the wiki. It's good.

Note to self: .. and a new baking dish

In other news: I am more naive than I like to imagine. People are funny.

Oh, and Josie and the Pussycats is the best movie ever. (join the army)

Anyone Wanna Buy Me A Camera?

So I can continue to post exciting and dynamic photos like this:

New bowl in action (as requested)

(NB: Please don't ask what happened to my thumb.)

Note to self: buy bananas

I Love Youse All

Except the last three people, I don't know you. But I'm sure you're very special.

It's all (virtually) happening! We have pathos; we have bacchanalian excess; we have uncircumcised dick; we have happy snaps. We have crazy pink paedophile fun.

And look, I bought some new bowls:

New bowls! It's all happening!

Neurocam! (not really)

I dreamt last night that I was bitten by a tarantula at the behest of Chris Titan. It really hurt. Woke me up.

Perhaps I have underestimated him.

Perhaps not.

Jojo & Lady J have both updated, finally.

Neither of them had anything much 'Cam-related to say either.

Now I Will Tell You

A certain someone - who is not human either - has made me a mix CD. It is called, beautifully, "dogwHistlinG in the dArk" and it is too perfect. (Very naff in parts, but perfectly so.)

I have taught you well, he said, with characteristically insufferable arrogance, arching his fingers in a villainous fashion.

Thank you so much.

It's obviously been compiled with your correspondent in mind, but because it's very accomplished so great and because I'm so proud, I can't resist sharing.

Anyone who fancies a copy: don't ask why, just ask.

Amusing Stats Update

Number of people who followed the 'revolting menstrual sex' link: 21. You know who you are.

I love this blog.

It's strange. The hits on my old neuroblog used to stay pretty steady, but this one seems to be getting more popular all the time. I've been whoring it more I suppose.

Long, Rambling, Vaguely Triptlike Anecdote, But With More Ethics

I just had a novel encounter with a drunken Irish girl who I met on a southbound 112 tram. She reminded me a bit of my second favourite ex (she of the revolting menstrual sex) (amongst other, less totally horrendous things). She'd lost her friends somewhere between Burke & Collins Streets and insisted on buying me drinks once we arrived in the Kilda, where she is staying in a hostel.

She was really nice, and pretty, and funny, and alarmingly flirtatious. And that is the end of the story. It could potentially have been a much more interesting story, but as part of my ongoing bid to rejoin the human race I felt like I should try and behave ethically. She was falling-over drunk and lonely and far from home and nine years younger than me, and stuff.

I didn't actually *feel* any kind of moral compulsion.. just a desire to do what a normal, non-possibly-sociopathic person would do.

Am I wrong?

I have been feeling all romanticky lately lately for some reason, which was heightened this evening by having been to see Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (incredible mess, btw.. not absolutely the worst conceivable Hitchhiker's movie - it had qualities - but they screwed it up pretty comprehensively); the chick who played Trillian (who was also the Cameron Crowe analogue's sister who runs away to become an air hostess in Almost Famous.. here she is.. her name - I shit you not - is Zooey Deschanel. She also played 'Gas Station Girl' in a movie called It's Better To Be Wanted For Murder Than Not To Be Wanted At All, which I have just added to my must-see list for the title alone) was a babe of stupendous proportions (although that was no excuse for the whole romantic subplot.. what the hell were they thinking? Then they had the audacity to dedicate it to Douglas Adams. He must be turning in his grave. Cunts. But I digress...), and I just can't figure out at all if I did the right thing or not.

I half wonder if God - who, of course, I do not actually believe in - is sighing exasperatedly down at me even as I type. "Honestly, young man.. I do my best, you know.. I really do.."

It seemed especially providential since I shouldn't actually have been on that tram at all. I left my bag behind in the cinema and only realised once I was half way home. I had to go back and retrieve it, then get a third tram south again.

It sounds like the sort of story people tell their children. The kind that's meant to be sweet and charming, but actually probably just frightens the crap out of them, confronting them as it does with the horrifyingly arbitrary, random nature of existence. "If I hadn't left my bag behind that night.. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BORN" etc.

It's been a night of stuffups all round. Irish girl (she was so lovely.. sigh) misplaced her friends, I misplaced my bag, and my sister and her fiancee Martin the Swede got hopelessly caught in traffic and missed the movie. And they both left their mobiles behind, so I had no idea what had happened to them. I had visions of having to call Mum in Geneva to find out their rego number, and calling the police to see if they'd been in an accident, and them both being dead.

To be perhaps inadvisably honest, the prospect seemed quite exciting. And it would have been a fantastic excuse to blow off work tomorrow.

Ah, who am I kidding? I'm not human. I'll never be human.

Next time, ethics can get fucked. So to speak.

NaNoWriMo

So yeah, I'm going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I've taken this decision now so I'll have lots of time to prepare, and flagging it here so it'll be harder to back out when November rolls around.

I bought this notebook to put thoughts and ideas in.

Because I'm a sucker, I'm going to acquire & read Chris Baty's NaNoWriMo bible No Plot? No Problem! I like the title.

It's also a good excuse to re-read a few favourite books.

(138 pages of The Magus to go, weary sigh.)

Another preparatory project will be salvaging old writings dating back to the early 90s from my old Mac Classic II (pictured below), currently awaiting carriage to these people, who are going to put its 40MB hard disk onto a CD for me.

Informing (you of) Your Choices

Indispensable Australian censorship news & reference site Refused Classification has a transcript of the Office of Film & Literature Castration Classification's Des Clark being grilled in Senate Estimates last week.

The proceedings were somewhat less colourful than usual this year, thanks to the absence of the insane and abominable Senator Brian Harradine, who is, pleasingly, unwell. But it still makes for most interesting - if irritating - reading.

Particular attention is drawn to this exchange:

Senator McGAURAN - But moving on, Madam Chair, many years ago I was involved in a movie called Salo, which was eventually banned.
Senator LUDWIG - Did you appear in it?
Senator McGAURAN - Pardon?
Senator LUDWIG - You said you were involved in it.
Senator McGAURAN - I was involved in getting it banned.
Senator LUDWIG - I see.

Compelling Reasons To Live (An Occasional Series)

Exhibit A: The Draughtsman's Contract.

However jaded I may have become, I still heart this movie so fucking much it hurts.

(You might want to go away and do something else while the pictures load.)

First saw it when I was about 14. Completely changed my life.

Latterly, before making the mistake of allowing baby sis to borrow it, I used to have it on as audiovisual wallpaper from time to time, but I can't have actually watched it properly for maybe three or four years.

No wonder I've been so miserable.

MR NOYES: Mr Chandos was a man who spent more time with his gardener than with his wife. They discussed plum trees. Ad nauseam. He gave his family and his tenants cause to dread September, for they were regaled with plums until their guts rumbled like thunder and their backsides ached from overuse. He built the chapel at Fovent, where the pewseats are of plumwood. So the tenants still have cause to remember Chandos through their backsides, on account of the splinters.

"It is said that the Duke de Courcey invited his water mechanic to the top of an elaborate cascade he had constructed, and asked him if he could build such a marvel for anyone else. After offering various thanks and pleasantries, the mechanic finally admitted that - with sufficient patronage - he probably could.

The Duke pushed him, gently, in the small of the back -- and the wretched man plummeted to a watery death!"

(raucous laughter)

MRS HERBERT: Thomas, why is Mr Neville interested in my sheep?
MR NOYES: He is to draw them wet outside the laundry.
MRS HERBERT: Wet? Why does he want them wet?
MR NOYES: Madam, I cannot answer you that. Perhaps he has fond memories of being a baby.

MR NEVILLE: Madam, who is this child who walks the garden with such a solemn look on his face?
MRS TALMANN: That is my husband's nephew, Mr Neville.
MR NEVILLE: He attracts servants like a little midget king. What is his patrimony, Madam?
MRS TALMANN: His father was killed at Ausbergenfeldt. His mother became a Catholic, so my husband had him brought to England.
MR NEVILLE: To be reared as a little Protestant.
MRS TALMANN: He was an orphan, Mr Neville, and needed to be looked after.
MR NEVILLE: An orphan, madam, because his mother became a Catholic?!?

MR TALMANN: It is imperative, Augustus, that in representing me, you ask of yourself the very best. And you do not fraternize with whomsoever you choose. Chasing sheep is a tiresome habit best left to shepherds. If Mr Neville chases sheep, he is not to be emulated.

Drawing is an attribution worth very little - and in England, worth nothing at all. If you must scribble, I suggest that your time would be better spent in studying mathematics. I shall engage you a tutor. And who knows - one day you, Augustus, may add the Talmann name to the Royal Society.

Augustus?

Your tutor, of course, must be German. There are far too many English influences on your life as it is..

MRS TALMANN: Mr Neville, I have grown to believe that a really intelligent man makes for an indifferent painter. For painting requires a certain blindness; a certain refusal to be aware of all the options. An intelligent man will know more about what he is drawing than he will see. And in the space between knowing and seeing he will become... constrained. Unable to persue an idea strongly; fearing perhaps that the discerning - those who he is eager to please - will find him wanting if he does not put in not only what he knows.. but what they know as well.

Fucking.. fucking.. I love you, The Draughtsman's Contract. Still. Will you marry me?

Constance..

..got her wish, apparently.

And the day after I put my old, 'Cam-only blog to bed on the basis that Neuroblogging is dead in the water, she comes out with this.

Be afraid.

You know, in a good way.

Poker Without Cards

I had an email out of the blue the other day from memeticist Howard Campbell - not the one from Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night, but the one from Ben Mack's fairly astonishing "consciousness thriller" Poker Without Cards, which can - and should - be downloaded as a .pdf here, or purchased here.

You could also listen to Joseph Matheny interviewing Ben here (part 1) and here (part 2). And watch this video, The Pitch, Poker and The Public.

You really could.

He asked if I knew any reviewers. I could only point him to Elmo - but the two of them were already acquainted.