CRWR3000: Daybook
Daybook Entry Thirty Five: Wednesday May 8th 2024 (A Remix of Entries 1-15)
An invocation for beginnings. A place somewhere between zero and one.
Why is there human shit everywhere.
It can bring us to tears as much as it can produce genuine euphoria.
Iβve sung myself hoarse as much as Iβve just needed to be where other people are not.
Iβm happy we live in a world where this is possible.
But lately Iβve come to a place of peace with understanding that what I do for money is not what I do for love.
Iβve conflated these for the past thirty years. I suppose some people never uncouple them.
The more tenured I get, the less and less I write, focusing on making fewer words matter more.
Each fragment remembered both end and beginning.
Every morning itβs the same. Whatever was going on behind my eyes during the night is gone.
A limbic space between down here and up there. Down there and up here.
Stepping over the horror of life as we choose instead the horror of like and subscribe. Distracted and ourselves distraction. The bull will bleed out, become bone and blow away in the dust.
She wasnβt a loner, but she was alone.
The two had immediately seen themselves in each other. And the socials grew.
To those of us who followed, it was never clear what their relationship was. Which is why we liked and subscribed for more.
They laughed and sought the sunrises we could only dream of.
They joined camel trains in Morocco and hopped steam trains in Senegal. We all thirsted after their lives.
Both accounts fell silent, and after a week our concern had swiftly turned to a unique kind of digital indifference.
None of us really knew them, and for most of us they were just another hole in the stream.
Over time their accounts would lay as dormant as our memories of them.
Nobody could ever be sure when the planes started to behave strangely, but the signs were always there.
Cleveland air traffic control was the first to notice the strange signals happening between domestic flights.
So it slowly, but steadily, began the series of incidents tailored towards the increasing human removal of those no longer aligned with the mission of cost-cutting and revenue retention.
Cabins in coach would mysteriously depressurize, asphyxiating all inside. Windows would blow out for no reason.
But now, as the blackest jaws of the escape rose up to meet him, the darkness which had plagued him since that night had a new purpose⦠relief.
Itβs not that I became indifferent. I just became uninvested. Nor did I become lazy. I just became interested in everything else.
But that I had enough. That I was enough.
And in that enoughness Iβd found a space of happiness.
A place I could indulge all the things I wanted to do, even if most of them started by doing nothing.
The work to go just that little bit further out into the ocean than was comfortable each time.
That place where my feet no longer touched the floor.
But also a place where the peace of doing nothing was also the work.
The work of just listening. Of just calming a racing mind.
The boy with the dip killed the shark with the spear.
The past does not pay the bills of the present. His teeth now rotted out of his head, he still wonders who died on the beach.
Ever since Iβve been caught in a limbic space between apple and brotherly love.
An immigrantβs love of a place where I began again.
The weightlessness which comes from self-inflicted uprooting.
The doctor called it controlled loneliness.
Not a spiritual place but still a space of ritual.
Sometimes nothing comes. Sometimes it all comes at once.
Practice. Persevere. Crack it open. Get out of bed. Go that little bit further out into the water.
Enjoy the silence. Do the work.
No-one was looking at the work, everyone was just looking at each other.
Who they could talk to. How might it further things for them. Where were we all going afterwards.
It was all just such bullshit heaped upon bullshit.
The work was bullshit.
The way it got made was bullshit. Who knew who and why was bullshit.
Kid yourself you have a network of support. Exhaust favors.
Eat beans on toast three days a week. Eat shit.
Are you happy? You seem so fucking miserable all the time and I donβt mean the tortured artist thing.
When I got home I wrote all night. I wrote like I was running out of time. I wrote for myself and to others. I got to work.
It seems to me that everything I write here sits in the sink until its time comes.
Other times they pile up, the traces of a busy schedule or the lethargy of a procrastinating soul.
The dishes are attached to me. In me. On me.
These plates are the ones with often the most painful of memories. The dishes which are at the bottom of the pile for a reason.
Daybook Entry Thirty Four: Tuesday May 7th 2024 (Social)
Daybook Entry Thirty Three: Monday May 6th 2024 (The Falling Terror)
It was the falling terror. A rush which propels you to plummet forward with the spiked adrenaline which only comes from flight. The getting away never comes. Always there. In the endless drowning of train carriages which carry the invasive thoughts to a destination unreached. A falling which lasts beyond fear of landing. A perpetual falling which only escalates in intensity. A falling which keeps us just out of reach of the very thing weβre grasping at. It was the kind of anxious entrapment which threatened to kill but always chose to toy with its food first. Close your eyes and you see it all with even greater clarity. Block out those thoughts with medication and they only heighten the eveningβs entertainment as future events which will never come to pass play over and over. Medication only acts as a stimulant instead of a relaxant. Everything is useless.
The falling accelerates between carriages. Doors swing open between installments but the train remains empty. Itβs just me and the hunt. Wrapped in a blanket which insulates from the elements but nurtures the very thoughts weβre running from. Legs turn to lead and my pace begins to slow. I focus on my breathing, like they asked me. Except my breathing is clipped, abrasive and sharp. I am giving intense attention to my own shortness. The oxygen is being constrained in a panicked vice which cuts off the air supply to my legs. I yell into the vacuum. The abyss yells back into me in silence. Hollowed out, a nocturnal husk, useless to everyone except those who wish to perpetuate the prescription.
The train pulls into the station and the descent turns to a stillness. A stop marked in time by the calamine of slowing breath and calming heart. We watch from inside as we pull away and theyβre still on the platform. No longer waving. No longer drowning. Wrapped in the armored blanket which still sought to protect, which we would never see again. We do not know which one of us has written the ending. The crisp evening air bites down hard once the rush of the last carriage has gone. Traveling without moving. We are still falling.
Daybook Entry Thirty Two: Friday May 3rd 2024 (A Last Breath)
Everyone these days was looking for a new high. Londonβs scene had become tired ever since the money moved in and all the good drugs moved out. Only those with the means of deciding not to go dancing were allowed into the clubs. SoHoβs Euphoria was no different. What had once been a thriving spot with lines around the block to get in, was now reduced to offering group discounts where wonderbras got in for free. As the club scene itself was gasping its last, the growth team at Red Star saw an opportunity. They had an inexhaustible supply of human biological capital, harvested from their partnership with the Nimbus airline, and from which they were able to extract the cityβs newest, and most potent narcotic, the last breaths of dying humans. Collated and packaged into neatly designed, palm-sized aerosols, the rave kids called them stoppers, even though their brand name was really Exhalation. Upon inhaling the concentrated breath of a hundred deceased plane passengers, the subject would receive an enormous rush of adrenaline, more potent than anything seen before, and which heightened the pounding music around them, giving them the stamina and fortitude to be able to party for days. Euphoria was the first to openly offer it at the door.
Red Star were always looking to optimize on as much natural resource as possible. In Exhalation theyβd found themselves in the street drug market, and in an arms race with a criminal underground who had the resources to outspend them with violence. Red Starβs enterprise expanded to ever-more potent products, especially focused on the breath of those who died screaming, which proved especially popular with the local industrial goth kids looking to stay up all night. Exhalation even became a recreational drug for the wealthy. It would give a corporate employee the edge over a competitor looking to climb the ladder. It afforded the eager and ambitious the resources to work harder and achieve more. Over time, organizations would enter into partnerships with Red Star in order to ensure maximum productivity, especially in the run-up to the holidays. Humans were finally afforded the opportunity to compete with digital drones, and found to be able to maintain productivity if the stoppers kept coming.
As these employees rose in the ranks, fueled by an ability to go harder and longer on any task set before them, soon it was Exhalation who wasnβt just running the countryβs prominent industry, they also began to have aspiration towards politics. Increasing demands on supply were satisfied by continuing to feed the market data returned each day into Red Starβs generative program AeroAdvise, which ensured a constant supply of passengersβ breath to meet the needs of the market. No-one who took Exhalation knew or cared where the drug came from and what it was made of. All they knew was what it could do for them. Airlines were kept beyond suspicion, and any hint of questioning from the public was disappeared as soon as it was surfaced. All the public knew was that if they could get their hands on one of the small capsules, their prayers would be answered. Theyβd be able to experience the euphoria of the best night out of their lives, as much as get the promotion theyβd always wanted. All it took was a sharp press on the capsuleβs valve and a deep inhalation to start the process. No-one cared that what they were consuming were the dying gasps of humans starved for oxygen, who were being harvested as part of a much larger effort to recycle human waste. Legislation and endorsement were rampant in support of the productivity it generated, and the growth team inside of Red Star were hailed as visionaries.
That is, until Red Star began to cut their product with the dying breath of animals.
Daybook Entry Thirty One: Wednesday May 1st 2024 (A Movie)
I Want 'Em Conscious And Talkative: The Long Good Friday
Growing up in England in the seventies, I remember watching the grainy news footage of carnage caused by Irish sectarian violence. Iβd later witness it firsthand when I moved to London as a student in the nineties and was near enough to hear one of the bomb blasts blow hundreds of windows out of a skyscraper. I still donβt understand many of the complex historical intricacies of the Irish Republican Armyβs motivations, but I do know that their domestic terror activities on mainland England hung like an ominous specter over much of my adolescence.
βI'm setting up the biggest deal in Europe with the hardest organization since Hitler stuck a swastika on his jockstrap.β
This is the social backdrop for one of the best British movies ever made, The Long Good Friday, which pits the financial motivations of Londonβs gangsters against the political actions of the IRA in the early 1980s. It would introduce the world to George Harrisonβs Handmade Films, which went on to make some of the most wonderful British movies of all time, including Withnail and I, Time Bandits, and Monty Pythonβs The Life of Brian. It also introduced the world to Bob Hoskins, for whom it would launch a career in Hollywood. It also features a cast of young actors who would go on to become household names, including a mid-twenties unknown, but future James Bond in Pierce Brosnan, in a minor but consequential role as one of the Irish terrorists. The cast list reads as a whoβs-who of British actors who would go on to dominate cinema on both sides of the Atlantic.
βWell, let's put it this way. Apart from his arsehole being about fifty yards away from his brains, and the choirboys playing hunt the thimble with the rest of him, he ain't too happy.β
The plot is simple, but violent. Hoskins plays gangster Harold Shand, who controls a crime syndicate centered in East London which reaches as far as New York. Heβs surrounded by an inner circle of associates, including Helen Mirrenβs Victoria, who plays the role of sophisticated moll to wonderful effect. Derek Thompson, who never did much again in the movies but whoβd go on to become a household name every Saturday evening as the star of the BBCβs long running hospital drama Casualty, is Shandβs fiercely loyal right hand fixer, who ultimately makes the mistake which leads to the whole house of cards tumbling down. Shandβs empire aspires towards international expansion through partnership with the American Mafia, but faces increasingly violent attacks at home. Informers are killed and properties blown up as the IRA targets Shandβs activities not for financial gain but for revenge. Itβs only revealed late in the film, but as Shand realizes why heβs being targeted, he attempts a reconciliation with the Irish, but double-crosses them, thinking that heβs put his problems to rest. The film ends with another double-cross, this time from the Irish, who hijack Shandβs car and drive him away, presumably to his death as the credits roll.
βI'm glad I found out in time just what a partnership with a pair of wankers like you would've been. A sleeping partner's one thing, but you're in a fucking coma! No wonder you got an energy crisis your side of the water!β
British gangster movies werenβt anything new in 1980, but theyβd never been made quite like this before, and they sparked a wave of realism which would reach its peak with films such as Guy Ritchieβs Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, both of which owe a great debt to The Long Good Friday. Hoskins is wonderfully sinister as the threatened kingpin, always with the promise of violence bubbling away underneath the surface. British gangster films, especially those set in London, always deliver some of the best dialogue, my favorite being when Shand is in the morgue looking at the dead body of one of his murdered associates, discussing how to safely dispose of the body. They decide to take the body away in an ice cream truck to avoid suspicion, where Hoskins utters a wonderfully sarcastic improvised line "There's a lot of dignity in that... going out like a raspberry ripple". It would become a trope of British gangster movies that an audience could come to expect dialogue infused with this sense of dark humor.
βIt must've been just after you saw him and just before Alan saw him. Otherwise, you'd have noticed, wouldn't you? I mean, a geezer nailed to the floor. A man of your education would definitely have spotted that, wouldn't he?β
Thereβs also some fantastic set pieces through the film, such as when Shand tells his assembled guests as they cruise down the Thames on his private yacht of his entrepreneurial aspirations towards doing business in Europe, something which reflected a deeply optimistic Thatcherite spirit of the times but would dissolve into the divisive chaos of Brexit many years later. And true to all gangster films, there always has to be a torture scene where the protagonist interrogates his suspects. Here itβs Shand and his thugs dangling a number of poor unfortunates upside down on icy meat hooks as he probes them for information. Underneath it all is a strong sense of English exceptionalism, sometimes to the point of implied racism on Shandβs part, which underpinned the spirit of the times as Britain transitioned to a more multicultural population, especially in London. Those of color are treated as subservient and often treated violently, as are women, who play very little role of consequence in the film. Itβs noticeable for modern audiences the extent to which these issues of immigration are still present.
βWhat I'm looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than a hot dog, know what I mean?β
Both Shandβs criminals and the IRA use violence to achieve their ends, but their ends could not be more different. Where money is everything for Shandβs gangsters, it means nothing to the Irish terrorists. Politics is simply a corruptible opportunity towards economic prosperity for Shand, but for the IRA politics is a struggle towards justice to be served and historic wrongs to be set right. Murder is a common weapon, and the fear and intimidation used by both sides is everywhere. If Hoskins carries the film as the brash, showy principle gangster, the Irish organization are nameless, often faceless, and operate in the shadows. Brosnan plays one of the Irish foot soldiers, and is only memorable to modern audiences because of what we know of his future career.
βRemember, scare the shit out of them, but don't damage them. I want 'em conscious and talkative. And lads, try and be discreet, eh?β
While The Long Good Friday is absolutely a product of its time, it is at its core, just a great story of deception, greed and violence, with early eighties London itself one of the main characters. In the final shot, Hoskinsβ Shand is being driven away to his fate at Irish gunpoint, and the camera lingers on a tight shot of him considering his next move, which we as the audience know will be futile. Led away to die as the cycle of violence continues. But this uncomfortable shot is reflective of the movie itself. Itβs claustrophobic, calculated, and seethes with anger. But itβs also recognition that when the game is up, you are resigned to accepting your fate. Whoever you are.
Daybook Entry Thirty: Monday April 29th 2024 (Oak Teeth)
Tomβs life in the shadows of Detroitβs early hours had always been one of quiet industry. Removing the previous dayβs discard with the kind of purpose which had kept him steadily employed for over thirty years. It was a job which allowed his mind to wander. And in those wanderings Tom found himself traveling the world. As the biting ache of the Michigan winters froze his eyelids open, he warmed himself with Turkish sunsets and glowing embrace of the fireβs dying embers as he rested after a dayβs hike in the Australian outback. In all the years heβd been employed by the cityβs sanitation department, heβd never made friends, was never married, and had rented the same small single room at the top of an old townhouse slowly being claimed by the widening jaws of gentrification. He never spoke to anyone, and no-one ever spoke to him. A few had gotten close over the years, especially the curious kids who would knock on his door in the hopes of catching what was going on all night in his apartment.
Tom spent his meager earnings on the same things each week. Three cans of tomato soup, which he would drink cold. A pint of milk. A small can of coffee. Six potatoes. The grocery store near his home knew him well, and heβd seen generations pass through. Children fastened to mothers were now shopping with children of their own. It often appeared like Tom was the still point of the turning world. Everyone knew him without ever befriending him. His only constant were the hours he would spend alone in the nearby church. When work was done he would arrive early, and stay late at the morning mass, and had begun to wear out his regular pew. In the moments of quiet prayer, he would often be found sobbing, but he never resolved his pain through confession. The priests, who also came and went over the years, would try to get through to Tom, but without success. The young man theyβd first known had over the years become a husk. Hollowed out by the cityβs labor, and emptied of life. Tom had passed the world by, lost in an impenetrable inner life fortressed from the outside.
Over time, Tomβs hands became less and less useful. His muscles grew weak as the winters grew more extreme. Over time people seemed to have more garbage than ever. Garbage which had become heavier with age. So when it came time for Tom to retire, a decision made for him by the suits back at city hall, he found himself freed of work, but shackled by the immediacy of all the free hours in the day. It was a burden to have the routine which had shaped his life so violently stripped away. His job had merged with his life, and without purpose, he found himself unable to wrestle the muscle memory which had defined him for so long. When the time finally came that the building heβd called home was to be torn down to make way for a luxury condos, he was forced to take the bribes from the foreign investment bank, and move out.
Early one morning, he took all of he meager possessions, and placed them neatly in the garbage. One final act of disposal where he would take care of his own refuse. Heβd never accumulated much in life, so the finality of the task only took him an hour before the room heβd called home was empty. Now all he had were the clothes he stood up in. A small suitcase with a few personal items. A notebook. And the money heβd received as settlement for eviction from Red Star Capital. In one final act of removal, he would dispose of himself in the warm waters of Santa Monica. Heβd read of retreats on the west coast which would take those disaffected by modern life and help them exit the world with grace and dignity. Kindly faces advertised the embrace of euthanasia programs which would provide the kinds of release thousands like Tom were increasingly seeking. Salvation from a world which had always left them behind. And Nimbus airlines would take you there.
Tom knew the schedules of the Nimbus aircraft flying out of Detroitβs metropolitan airport by heart. Heβd only ever traveled in his dreams, but still knew exactly what to do when it came to checking in. Passing through security, Tom could taste the fresh orange juice which awaited him in California. As he watched the snow being cleared from the runways outside, he felt the warmth of the beach on his face. And when the time came to be called to board, Tom was ready for his final journey west.
But Tom would never make it to the Santa Monica he had dreamed of. Heβd been identified by Nimbus aircraftβs new generative passenger system AeroAdvise as a human corner to be cut. The kind of input which only makes sense on the spreadsheet after the money has been collected. Tomβs check had cashed, and he now served no future purpose for Nimbus, flagged in the companyβs artificial intelligence system as a passenger with no propensity to fly with them again. A scoring system which would take a passengerβs economic and social history and map it to a model gauging likelihood to fly again, separating frequent flyers and the power users of the skies from those simply getting from here to there. The internal team responsible for economic growth called them one and dones. The system had seen Nimbus Airlineβs profits exponentially escalate, and their CEO become the darling of the investment community. If Red Star would extract their passengers from the detritus of the old neighborhoods, then Nimbus would dispose of them. AeroAdvise called it the pipeline. Those who spoke out called it murder. It was a partnership designed to favor only those who could afford it, sweeping clean the inner cities with the promise of a better life out west, with only one way to get there.
As the engines roared to life, Tom and the other passengers braced themselves for takeoff. For the first time in his life he felt joy. Real happiness. It would be one of his last emotions, as by the time they had climbed to ten thousand feet and he was seeing life above the clouds for the first time, the cabinβs oxygen levels had already begun to fall. He felt faint, weak, but then heβd never flown before. Maybe it was always like this when people flew. His light-headedness was coming from the euphoria of escape. As the seatbelt safety signs stay on, he felt tired, and decided to close his eyes for a few minutes, as many of those around him had already done. His euphoria had swiftly turned into the kind of relaxation of his muscles he had prayed for. He was finally at peace, high above an earth which had forgotten him. It would be the last time he closed his eyes.
By the time Nimbus flight 429 from Detroit to Los Angeles arrived, the only thing left to do was dispose of the bodies. Tom was one of the easy ones. Barely fifty pounds, he was picked up by the airlineβs bots, carried out, and would be processed in the treatment plants next to the new Nimbus terminal. But while his utility as a passenger had ended, his usefulness in death had only just begun. Nimbus had begun to fuel their planes with a cocktail of the traditional diesel, but had found that a blend of petroleum and human viscera would allow them to make the operational overhead of one of the costlier inventory items for their new fleet of planes even more cost effective. Tomβs guts would be blended together with his fellow passengers into a human soup which then produced a more potent catalyst with mixed with diesel. He never knew just how useful he had been to the airline, and as his remains continued to travel all over the world under the roar of the new Nimbus jet engines, those in first class looked down on the cities below with appetite for more.
Daybook Entry Twenty Nine: Saturday April 27th 2024 (The Canal Turn)
[ screams, then silence ]
Donβt wave. Youβll be waving goodbye. Donβt say you care. We all know you donβt.
At night I can hear you. I hear you breathing as you fall asleep next to me. Your closing thoughts on the events of the day. I hear what you wish you hadnβt said and how you thought long about it afterwards. I hear you standing up to him. I hear you say the words and be healed. You want to take it back but instead you gift it to me. I hear the regret in your voice as you talk about her. But you never talk to me like I talk to you. I ache for response but itβs never there. Presence without being present. All I want is the gift of you talking back. They called you still but I know youβre not. I know you have a name.
I remember all the stories and took everything to heart. I remember I should write it down.
A peaceful formula washes over the kitchen chaos. I canβt control it, but I can accept it. Anxiety as a means to come to terms with a past which doesnβt try to banish tough stains. Some plates have been in the sink for years, grown immune to soap. Some get wiped and set aside to drain. Dig deeper into the bottom of the pile. Draw out some of those older dishes. Youthful meals now turned to crusted mold.
Youβre scared because you want to be with me too. She told me secrets hurt.
What took her was far worse. She had fallen into the poured concrete of the Brooklyn endβs support structure. The stronger her frustration to escape the deluge of cement now raining down upon her with desperate anguish, the deeper she sank. Like the grip of quicksand in the movies they both loved, her struggle only became a catalyst of her hastening death. As she screamed for the last time, the concrete filled her mouth, then her lungs, heavying her with the compromised quick-setting gumbo which would cause the project to hit its deadline. Her body entombed as fast as it had fallen.
I remember it all. I remember to tell her everything.
One day youβre gone. Youβve decided fifty years is enough and know this lesser has to find their germinated way alone. Youβre all this lesser has ever known, but in the silence the half hasnβt been buried, itβs been planted. I donβt listen to your adventures any more. I write them down and others read them. I donβt smell the undernourished memory of you, but it helps me stay close. I donβt feel your touch but I do feel a guiding hand when I need it. A life lived as partial finally afforded the opportunity of completion. I know we have a name.
Donβt give up. Thereβs always time. Donβt start praying. He will not hear you.
But as he knelt down to retrieve it, he had made the fateful error of untethering himself to the safety harness which would usually hold him secure. Grasping only the fresh crisp air of the clear night, he stumbled backwards off the ledge which had been so familiar to him, but would now take his life. As he fell the two hundred feet between the crest and the river below, he caught the green pulse one last time before the icy river took him.
Some dishes Iβll never touch. They live in the sink, but are not of me. A place to be able to recall each dish, clean or not. Second, third, fourth generation concentrated cleans. A place of recollection but not a place of catharsis rinsed away. Not a place to neatly arrange the dishes as they soak, but a place to put the dishes aside. Only in the future does it become a means unto itself. Streak-free. But these are futures which never come. Meals never resolved.
Daybook Entry Twenty Eight: Friday April 26th 2024 (An Outline To Return To Much Later)
Heβd always had a big heart. But when it jumped out of his chest for the last time as he hit the water after falling from the plane, those who found him would see just how big. Many of his friends had been successful in stowing themselves away in the wheel wells of the new Nimbus fleet, which had found itself with the curious design flaw of allowing humans to survive inside at extreme temperatures. The internet was rampant with theories behind how such a flaw might have happened, and drew upon what they could find of the secretive design team and their imagined appetite for helping refugees and those seeking refuge from the worldβs conflicts. Why else would the planeβs wheels need heating components during a flight? Why else would the garbage disposal for the catering be routed through the wheel well with a convenient gap in the piping small enough to allow a hand to grab what passed by? Why was security so casual at the gate between the departure doors and those wishing fond farewells to loved ones?
A black market of wheel well travelers had established itself in the darker reaches of the online communities seeking to help those relocated through war. It was a lot safer than attempting the crossings by sea, and for those who sought to profit from the program, a lot more lucrative. Stowaways, known as well wishers, would travel in pairs, not just because theyβd be required to huddle together for warmth, but because they would need each otherβs help to scale the wheels and their supporting infrastructure in the first place. It couldnβt be done alone. So when two brothers from Senegal decided to sign up in hopes of fleeing their countryβs civil war, the problem was only one of finding the money and the will to make it happen. A life in California was one theyβd only dreamed about in the movies, and this was their chance. Over time, theyβd managed to scrape enough savings together, the final straw being the sale of their small family house. It would be enough, and they would take their chances.
Theyβd been targeted by those online who knew how to exploit the vulnerable. And in the targeting theyβd been offered the opportunity to begin again in the new world. They wired the money, and waited. The confirmation came a few days later, and a date set. Theyβd meet an unidentified man wearing a white suit at the exit to gate four, and from there they would be hurried through the open security door, conveniently left open through bribe and favor. The new class of Nimbus aircraft, still carrying many of its βMade in Chinaβ component labeling, not quite rid of its new plane smell, would taxi to the gate, where upon theyβd help each other climb up one of the rear wheels and into the expectant vacant well.
Here theyβd wait for hours before the plane would start to rumble, and the journey to freedom would begin. Their hearts pounded in their chests as they heard the low muffled voices of those above them settle and go through the safety announcements. A complementary food service would be provided during the flight, as well as additional beverages for nominal fees. Pounding faster. The engine turned from a rumble to a roar. Faster. Faster. This was it. The roar to a scream. Letβs go. The scream to the deafening cacophony of millions of dollars of Nimbus investment heaving the plane into the sky. Then dead silence. They were airborne, and the brothers had made it this far. The cold began to grip them, and the tablets theyβd taken for air sickness and the hypothermia which was expected to happen began to do their work. The brothers passed out at 20,000 feet just as the seatbelt signs were turned off.
The descent into Los Angeles was far more turbulent than the brothers had been told. They became violently sick as they decompressed to lower altitudes, and their hearts began to experience a severe, stabbing pain. Through a crack in the well, they could see the palm trees and swimming pools theyβd only dreamed of. But as the descent became a landing sequence, it was clear something wasnβt right. The wheel wells had become dangerously icy during the flight, and as the plane began to lower its landing gear, the ice became a slide. The small space theyβd been using since take-off retracted, and in terror they fell, grasping only at the warm clear air of their dreams.
The wheel well wasnβt a design flaw after all. It was deliberately implemented by the Nimbus engineers, in concert with the people trafficking groups who found their passengers, to scoop up subjects from the third world for forensic experimentation in the first. They would systematically discharge their stowaways at strategic moments during the landing sequence, gathering up whatever was left after theyβd hit the ground, and ship the remnants to the nearby VitalBiotics laboratory, where the internal organs would be harvested for future generative artificial intelligence experimentation. The partnership between Nimbus and VitalBiotics had remained a secret for many years, hidden in the anonymity of their subjects, but today would be different. Today would be the first day that one of their subjects would fall from the plane and survive. The diving pool into which he had fallen would cause him to shatter bones, but protect him from the destructive gravitation pull of both the earth and the VitalBiotics ground crew. He would live to tell the tale, but never in public. His heart had saved him. Heβd remain a subject. Testimony to a flaw in the design process which resulted in an outlier. An edge case. A case for life itself.
Daybook Entry Twenty Seven: Thursday April 25th 2024
Daybook Entry Twenty Six: Tuesday April 23rd 2024 (A Dream)
Inspired by Thomas Hardyβs short poem Drummer Hodge
They were upon them at last. For Godβs sake come back screamed the Colonelβs hastily scrawled note to the advance column, who were obtusely unresponsive and chasing glories of their own in the open fields towards the royal kraal. Hodge had been scooped up out of the east end gutter by the servants of empire, eager to escape the squalor of the workhouse and find the kind of fame and glory heβd only dreamt of in the stories of those lucky enough to return from the fronts. He enlisted as a drummer, but it was far from his own choice. Small enough to avoid being in the way of the fighting, but mighty enough to keep time as the army marched to the sound of the guns, Hodge has always favored the fight. The adrenaline which rushed through his adolescent veins as the captain screamed for the volley fire again and again until the spears ran dry.
But they never did. Today they would wash themselves in the blood of a thousand soldiers. A pyrrhic victory bathed in the half light of a solar eclipse and drowned in the tears of widows back home. Hodge had no such family to grieve him. He had always been on his own until the empire saw fit to gather him into the warm embrace of colonial dispute. He felt loved by those around him, even as they beat and berated him in the drill square. Even as the ground shook with the trembling terror of the thousands pouring over the hills in front of the doomed column. Even as the captain ordered the retreat. Hodge, like those around him, dropped his bundle and ran as the hand to hand fighting replaced the slowing rifleβs growl. They were upon them as the regiment began to roll up on itself, and dozens fell in desperate last stands. Back to back with expended ammunition but bayonets fixed, unhorsed, encircled. Their defense marked centuries later by sunbleached cairns where they fell.
Hodge ran towards the guns, unsaddled and unspiked. He saw the captain pierced through the heart as he writhed in the agony of a position lost. The camp was overrun within the hour, and Hodge with it. No-one knew where he would meet his fate, as he hadnβt even been on the official record of service. He would mark time, but time would be hesitant to mark him. An unrecorded death where the drum beat of empire had fallen silent. Eclipsed by the howling victory of the thousands now looting the camp and denuding the fallen. Tearing out their insides in death ritual which would free their souls but haunt those who would return to see what was left the next day. The horrors of war which fueled divine retribution at the hands of the great white queen in whose name it all happened. Uncoffined, Hodge would never find the peace in death which had eluded him in life. His body returning to the earth in the receding foreign field in which it had fallen. Forever screaming, for godβs sake come back.
Daybook Entry Twenty Five: Monday April 22nd 2024 (A Dream)
More irate than pirate, Michael Jones had found himself locked in at his majestyβs pleasure. Through the cellβs stone porthole he could hear the cannon calling and the army marching to the sound of the guns. Ships offshore ablaze with fire off starboard bows now laced with the agony of a drowned death. Chaos surrounded him, yet trapped in punitive amber he was the still point of the turning world. The battle would eventually reach him, but by then it was too late. The poison heβd been able to hide upon his arrest had long since been taken, and Michael Jones would be found dead on the floor of his cell before dusk. Rats circled him with Lilliputian industry, and had already begun gnawing at his face, contorted and disfigured by the small bottle of hemlock, insurance heβd carried for years. His secrets would die with him, but that afternoon a truth was born. That in the finish, Michael Jones was a coward. Consumed by the anxieties of the future, heβd rather take his own life than have someone take it for him.
Daybook Entry Twenty Four: Sunday April 21st 2024 (A Dream)
They always said he could sell anything. He always said everyone has a price. Heβd spent his life in real estate, but this was different. The city had fallen apart so dramatically over the past few decades, that the buildings were no longer worth the land they were built upon. The purchase of entire city blocks had given way to the purchase of neighborhoods. Any immigrants left living there were moved on as the foreign investors moved in. And then neighborhoods gave way to entire districts, and over time entire cities. Detroit was the first to be sold wholesale. Ever since the automotive industry had moved away, things had never recovered. Decades of neglect had now resulted in the cityβs purchase by the overseas investment consortium Red Star Capital, a subsidiary of Rosneft, the third largest state-owned conglomerate in what was left of The Russian Republic.
With Detroit the first domino to fall to Russian investment, others swiftly followed, hollowing out the mid-west and then the deep south. Cleveland, Wichita and Springfield were followed by Montgomery, Amarillo and Jackson. Despite vocal opposition from both sides of the senate, the purchases passed and the bills fell silent. Over time it was estimated that over 40% of Americaβs urban centers were now owned by Red Star. Those who facilitated the sales got rich. Those who bought got even richer. Once the passage of safety legislation passed as part of the election manifesto promised so strongly during the campaign, a new immigrant class began to arrive. America had always given safe harbor to immigrants, but many saw these new soviet arrivals as virus being injected into the countryβs bloodstream. Many tried to get the host to reject what they saw as contagion. The arrivals were demonized despite the collapse of their own culture and the devastation brought by the Ukrainian nuclear winters.
But he didnβt care. He only had a few years left before retirement anyway, and none of this was his problem. Why engage with something which was going to be someone elseβs problem in the future? He didnβt even speak Russian and had never tried. Heβd made his fortune, mainly during the sale of Salt Lake City, and had been instrumental in the introductions for prized cities on the eastern seaboard. Heβd die a man of accomplishment and success, and his legacy upon the world would be permanent. What happened next is 0x7F0431B9, with the algorithm Π±ΡΡΡΡΠΎ !@#$%^& computes through the labyrinth of encrypted data 01100011, ΡΠ°ΡΠΏΡΡΡΠ²Π°Ρ the ~|?>()<};][{-+=_&^%$#@!, enigma with a series of ΠΊΡΠΈΠΏΡΠΈΡΠ΅ΡΠΊΠΈΠ΅ symbols ΡΠ°Π·Π²ΠΎΡΠ°ΡΠΈΠ²Π°Π΅Ρ its tendrils into the abyss of ΠΎΠ±ΡΡΡΠΊΠ°ΡΠΈΡ, and 01100001 arcane runes, until it reaches the Π½Π΅ΠΊΡΡΡ of Π½Π΅ΠΏΠΎΡΡΠΈΠΆΠΈΠΌΠΎΡΡΡ, Π³Π΄Π΅ the fabric of reality ΡΠ»ΠΈΠ²Π°Π΅ΡΡΡ Π² a cacophony of Π±ΠΈΠ½Π°ΡΠ½ΡΠ΅ whispers and ΡΠ·ΠΎΡΠ΅ΡΠΈΡΠ΅ΡΠΊΠΈΠ΅ sigils, ΠΎΡΡΠ°ΠΆΠ°ΡΡΡ ΡΠ΅ΡΠ΅Π· the void of ΠΊΠΈΠ±Π΅ΡΠΏΡΠΎΡΡΡΠ°Π½ΡΡΠ²ΠΎ 01100001 like fragments of a Π·Π°Π±ΡΡΡΠΉ ΡΠΎΠ½, ΠΏΠΎΡΠ΅ΡΡΠ½Π½ΡΠ΅ in the ΡΠ΅ΠΊΡΡΡΠΈΠ²Π½ΡΠΉ Π»Π°Π±ΠΈΡΠΈΠ½Ρ of ΡΠΈΡΡΠΎΠ²ΠΎΠΉ ΡΠ½ΡΡΠΎΠΏΠΈΠΈ.
Daybook Entry Twenty Three: Saturday April 20th 2024 (A Dream)
This had happened before. They send us to the down here and see if we can take it. When we donβt, we die an agonizing death on the ocean floor. When we do we get the proud peoplesβ opportunity to do it all over again. They say thereβs more life in the down here than the up there. They must all be hiding in the infinite darkness. I wait. All I smell is the inside of this suit and the fear of a design flaw. If it happened I wouldnβt even know. They say. Crushed like a tin can under enormous weight I canβt even see. I wait. What am I even supposed to find down here. My heart is beating out of my chest. Weβre going to need a bigger dog. I try to breathe but all I taste is the bitter sulphur in this place theyβve put me. I bet Laika never had it so bad. They just scooped her up from the streets of Moscow and put her in the up there. She got a medal for being burnt alive. They put her on the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. Do they give medals for the down here? Will I be remembered? Waitβ¦ whatβs that. Wait.
Daybook Entry Twenty Two: Friday April 19th 2024 (A Dream)
The wind blows forward and the dust blows back with the empty howling of a thousand lost souls.
A crossroads here but no-one ever takes the turn.
The light always set to orange under the hum of anonymized electronic traffic, carried along wires resistant to the elements below.
Messages from far away in transit to distant over theres.
The traffic of a nationβs abandoned hopes.
These are the wires built to carry the agony of a motherβs grief for a dying son on a foreign shore.
The wires telegraph the loss of an infant, still in the womb.
The wires tell the world the strikes were successful.
The wires designated confidential.
We listen in but in our frustrated surveillance we only hear the binary outcomes of love and loss.
The ache of a fatherβs longing for news of his son.
The hollow update thereβs no word of your boy Jack.
These are strands of sadness, pulled across oceans, heralded as innovation.
Once carried, nothing ever comes back.
I remember all they bring is death.
Daybook Entry Twenty One: Thursday April 18th 2024 (Move The Corpse Forward)
βMove the corpse forwardβ Margaret Atwood tells Emily Wilson during last nightβs speaker event at Penn. Iβve recently written two short stories where the reveal, or in one case, a reanimated corpse, is reserved for the final line. It got me thinking about rearranging the elements of my stories, and how the tone of them might change if their events happened in more of a non-linear progression. How might something like that work? Write it all forward and then rearrange? Draft it and rearrange it before you start writing? (Atwood also advised against being too researched before starting). Just begin and figure it out along the way?
My approach has usually been the latter, but Iβm curious to try one of the previous dream entries here and see what that kind of application might result in. What if the planes from Entry Seven were found to be performing rituals before they were found to be sentient? What if the rituals were how they became sentient? How might the tone change if there was more generative writing throughout, rather than compressed into the final paragraph as things go off the rails? I think the idea here is order as a tactic in itself as part of the editing process. I already often write academic papers like this, but what Atwood said really got me thinking about whatβs important, and the compulsion to say that earlier.
Daybook Entry Twenty: Tuesday April 16th 2024 (A Nightmare)
Over the weekend Blur played the Coachella Festival. A show where an irritated man in a white suit asked an unresponsive and unimpressed crowd to sing along before telling them theyβll never see him again. I hope that comes to pass. I was there at the beginning for Blur. Even photographed at one of their early gigs before they really broke through. I was there in London when they hit the big time during Britpop, even though I always preferred Oasis and thought Elastica were better than all of them put together. Iβd loved the image reinvention of their Modern Life Is Rubbish, all Doctor Martens and mod jackets. A mirror of me in 1995, but others around them were always cooler. They always just seemed to keep doing the stupidest shit alongside writing some truly magical bangers. I was still just about hanging on by the time The Great Escape came around, which arched from the sublime The Universal to the downright crap Country House. That was the end of the Blur journey for me. I never bought another album of theirs afterwards, and moved on to different shores in 1996 once the cigarette ash of Britpop had burned down to the filter.
Iβd see them again over the years as they reinvented themselves with the stadium anthem which broke them in America, Song 2. Their worst nightmare made real. I always thought Popscene was so much better at the same thing. They kept going, and over the next twenty years would hack out a few more albums, and indulge in side projects like Albarnβs Gorillaz. All of it was just so mediocre. Gone was the original spark of their earlier cultural criticism of America which had helped birth Britpop. Gone was the attitude and in had come the money. Iβd see performances of theirs in London with massive crowds going mental over what looked like pantomime. But whenever I saw interviews with them, they always just seemed so fucking tired all the time. The same unshaven, tousled haired sloppy mess over some expanding waistbands and teasers of double chin. Every time it was the same. Old. Tired. Just flat out knackered.
But then I saw the videos of them playing Coachella and, to paraphrase even them, this was a low. They just looked so old. Which made me feel old. Most of the crowd werenβt even born when Blur were riding high in the nineties. All the air had just gone out of it all, but they were still trying to hang on to something long gone. Albarn berated the crowd for not singing along. But the truth is that no-one cares any more. It might have been a ball during the nineties, but for godβs sake that was over thirty years ago. Blur have always detested America, but the performance felt like America might have finally finished them off. Perhaps itβs all a metaphor for England itself. I hope for Blurβs sake they take it as a signal from the universe to finally pack it in.
I cannot escape the man in the white suit.
Daybook Entry Nineteen: Sunday April 14th 2024 (Misophonic Soup)
The older I get, the more of a misophonic misanthrope Iβm becoming. Iβve always struggled with the noise of other people. The sound of gum being chewed. The clearing of anotherβs throat. The labored effort of a partnerβs snoring. Once Iβm locked in, Iβm completely insufferable. I cannot unfocus my ire upon anything or anyone else. What it would be to live in a world where you could just give someone both barrels over the smallest auditory infraction. Not me of course. Iβd be immune from criticism. I am God and beyond reproach in such a universe. The worst are those indiscrimiately sat near you in restaurants who cannot help themselves but talk endless shit about nothing. All night. Iβm reminded of John Cusackβs character in High Fidelity when he finally realizes, years too late, whatβs really going on with his ex-girlfriend.
βAnd then it dawned on me. Charlieβs awful. She doesnβt listen to anyone. She says terrible, stupid things and apparently has no sense of humor at all, and talks shit. All. Night. Long. Maybe sheβs been like this all along. How did I manage to edit all this out? How had I made this girl the answer to all the worldβs problems?β
I dream of telling these people exactly what to do with their views on the world, but I never do. Too spineless. Too fearful. Too frightened of consequence. So I just sit in my misanthropic bubble and stew in the juices of resentment. Eaten up by the internal, infernal boiling of a misophonic soup.
Daybook Entry Eighteen: Thursday April 11th 2024
Iβve been thinking about the micro-moments which cling to us like barnacles of remembrance. Of the two girls from Oxford I met at a small concert at the height of Britpop in 1995 and with whom I shared a cab back to Trafalgar Square. I remember one of them was brunette and the other blonde. I remember finding both of them completely unattainable. I remember the brunette asking me βdonβt you just love the smell of your lover on the pillow next to you in the morning?β I remember always thinking what happened to them.
My body is covered in these barnacles. A Davy Jones blanketed in the molluscs of memory. And the older I get the gnarlier I look, consumed by these astonishing tales of the sea. Limpets which act as small breaks of light in the darkness, through which Iβm able to remember the briefest of encounters. The stories are on me. Of me. They turn my veins into invertebrate ice. Some of them will chip off in my sleep, lost forever and to be washed away with the next cycle. Some of them storm back in my sleep, raising me from the oceanβs floor, with the promise of treasure but the consequence of nightmare. The locker which serves as eternal home to drowned sailors.
Daybook Entry Seventeen: Tuesday April 9th 2024 (Distant Finales)
I always really loved the cinematic trope of the distant finale. Those brief pieces of text which exist in the limbic space between the end of the movie and the beginning of the credits, but which reveal so much about what happened next. Theyβre part-sequel, but also self-contained narratives unto themselves. Theyβre particularly powerful in telling us the fate of the characters we might have just spent a couple of hours invested in, and I always feel the most telling finales are the ones which leave as much ambiguity in as possible. They close the door on a sequel, but leave enough open for the viewer to fill in what happened themselves. Here Iβm writing myself into a series of my own cinematic finales, and blending them with generative images. The text is real, the images are not.
Daybook Entry Sixteen: Saturday April 6th 2024 (An Astonishing Tale Of The Sea)
This morning I woke up with the book title Astonishing Tales Of The Sea in my head. A book Iβve never read, nor really have any great motivation to. Perhaps itβs a nocturnal weirdness motivated by the floods, earthquakes and solar eclipse weβve been living through this week which make the world feel as if itβs finally spinning off its axis. Iβve also been reading the book Witnesses at Isandlwana, which contains the written testimony of those who survived the massacre of British soldiers in South Africa in 1879. But the event which always stands out to me are the increasingly panicked notes sent between the different commanders and their pleas for help. For Godβs sake come back writes the camp commander as the Zulus engulf the position. Fire away boys! writes another as his regiment runs out of ammunition. In more recent years We are holding our own becomes the last transmission from the doomed Edmund Fitzgerald. Itβs the written heroism of resignation in the face of the enemy, and in the context of the astonishing tales, that enemy is often the waves. It got me thinking about the famous last words of sea captains before they went down.
I am going down, but God's will be done. Captain James Lawrence (1781-1813)
Hold on, my dear friends. Let us meet death bravely. I shall never see you again. Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848)
I am resigned to my fate, but I must not forget my duty. I shall die at my post. Captain Jan Rijp (1757-1807)
And then writing my own:
To the abyss we plunge, amidst the howling winds and raging seas! Farewell, my valiant crew, may our names echo through eternity!
Though the storm engulfs us, our spirit remains unbroken
Fear not the darkness, for it is but a gateway to new horizons
We are the vanguard of liberty, and our legacy shall endure
Daybook Entry Fifteen: Friday April 5th 2024 (An Approach)
It seems to me that everything I write here sits in the sink until its time comes. A dirty dish left to soak for later. A fragment of something which aspires to a future purpose. Sometimes it has remnants of things Iβve eaten. Chewed on. Spat out. Smeared and abandoned. Sometimes theyβre left by others for me to clean. Other times they pile up, the traces of a busy schedule or the lethargy of a procrastinating soul. They contain the traces of sustenance, life-giving crumbs undigested and untasted. Documentation of meals in archival form. Each one of these pieces a plate upon which once sat a fresh meal. Only through the ritual of cleansing can they return to a state of re-use. But the more they pile up, the more anxiety-inducing they become. Further from the clear mind of the empty sink. Itβs always my turn.
The dishes are attached to me. In me. On me. Cleansing them only provides the temporary medicament where I am able to bask in a station arrived rather than a destination reached. The dishes are as much self-portrait as they are co-pilot. Portraits of the stuff of life, but also a reflection from the inside out. Sometimes they tell anxiety-inducing stories left behind by others. The smears and stains which just wonβt wash out. The stubborn traces of corrosive relationships which refuse to wash whiter. The ritual is a cycle. The more I write, the more the dishes pile up, but sometimes I get to empty the sink. The catharsis which comes from telling the truth. The kind of satisfaction which comes from the plates neatly put away, the cutlery organized in drawers, and the effluvia conveniently washed down an ever-welcoming drain.
Over time Iβve come to a place of peace with the kitchen chaos. I canβt control it, but I can accept it. Itβs as much a metaphor for anxiety as it is a means to come to terms with the past. Some plates have been in the sink for years. Some get wiped and set aside to drain. Lately Iβve been digging deeper into the bottom of the pile, and drawing out some of those older dishes. Youthful meals turned to crusted mold. These are the stories which always take the longest to clean, but often are the briefest to dispatch. These are the ones I tell my daughter. These plates are the ones with often the most painful of memories. The dishes which are at the bottom of the pile for a reason.
The form of this needs longevity beyond a long-running reverse-chronological feed. It needs its own digital sink. A place to be able to recall each dish, clean or not. Second, third, fourth generation cleans. A place of recollection as much as a place of catharsis. A specific anthological wing which affords the space for more daily habit. Less precious. Not a place to neatly arrange the dishes as they soak, but a place to put the dishes and get on with something else. Only in the future does it become a means unto itself. A savings account into which one pours a habit of writing but which benefits from a generous rate of compound interest over time. Itβs time to start investing.
Letβs get to work.
Daybook Entry Fourteen: Tuesday April 2nd 2024 (A Movie)
βI don't know if I'm allowed to tell this story, but here goes.β
I always love those moments in the movies when you take a complete gamble on something unknown and see what happens next. A leap into the celluloid darkness. Iβve been doing this a lot on The Criterion Channel lately, where the only real frame of reference one has is the thumbnail and the briefest of teasing synopsis. Theyβre not all winners of course, but thereβs a faith in the Criterionβs selections which lends itself to disproportionately more hopeful outcomes more often than not. Hlynur PΓ‘lmasonβs 2022 Godland is one of those unexpected gems found deep within the miasma of modern streaming platforms, which for me are increasingly becoming like the old familiar monotony of scrolling up and down the cable guide looking for something to watch. Itβs the opposite of a platform recommending something βFor Youβ. The best movie choices are the ones where you roll the dice on something unfamiliar, perhaps even in a different language, and see what happens next. Donβt give me more of what I already like. Give me something Iβve never seen before.
βI am not a man of big important thoughts.β
Godland tells a simple story of a Danish missionary, Lucas, sent to Iceland in the nineteenth century to bring Christianity to a remote outpost of indigenous settlers. Lucas doesnβt speak Icelandic, so is accompanied by a translator, though there really isnβt much dialogue throughout the film, with the incredible natural environments afforded all the time to just be on screen. Weβre treated to majestic waterfalls and harsh ravines as much as weβre taken through stormy seas and brutal snowstorms. We feel the environment and our human smallness within it as Lucas and his caravan make their way through it all. The cinematography is gorgeous, and takes its time with Icelandβs beautiful landscapes, giving them ample time to become the lead in the movie itself.
βSometimes someone has to die so someone else can be born.β
Itβs not so much a tale of bringing God to the Godless as in more traditional missionary movies such as Scorseseβs Silence, but more an exploratory test of faith for those tasked with the work. For as stunning as the scenery is, there is always human violence within it. Lucas is a complicated character, not fully engaged in wanting to do any of this, and with a quick temper heβs far from the kind of Christian advocates weβre used to seeing in the movies. He withdraws when his crew faces setbacks, and ultimately falls ill prior to his arrival in the small settlement heβs charged with building a church for. Nursed back to health by two of the communityβs young daughters, Lucas finally builds his church, but still, all is not well. Iβll not spoil the ending for you, but itβs well worth investing the two hours of buildup which come before it, as thereβs a delicious twist in the tale before the credits roll which you wonβt see coming.
βIt's alright. You'll become part of the grass and the flowers. It's beautiful.β
Throughout the film, Lucas takes photographs of the people and places he encounters, and the film is framed through his journeyβs documentation. As the film ends we get to see the photographs heβs taken, and we are led to believe they are the real images which have inspired the story, with PΓ‘lmason blending fact and fiction to make the tale feel real enough to be convincing. The story isnβt true, but thereβs enough in it to make it feel as if it really is, and this aspect of the filmβs historical fiction is truly wonderful. Similarly, tales of compromised or less-than-holy men of God arenβt anything new, but in Lucas we see a man struggling not just against the elements, but against his own will to become violent. He reaches for goodness but knows he can never get there in the face of the environment heβs in. His own behavior is echoed by the violence of the weather around him.
βI won't become violent.β
But the most incredible aspect of the film is PΓ‘lmasonβs ability to make us feel the harshness of the environment. Everything is always cold and wet. The wind bites as it whips the travelerβs faces. The sea roils as it crashes against the cliffs. The icy waterfalls are far from gentle as our protagonists bathe underneath them. Godland isnβt just the name of the film, itβs also a description of its main character. The breathtaking heavenly beauty of the Icelandic terrain is itself taking a journey from shore to settlement. But itβs a violent journey far from the peaceful hopes of faith those who cross it hold. Itβs violent in weather but also inflicts violence upon anyone who enters it. And by the time the credits roll, we realize that the movie isnβt something weβve watched, but survived.
Daybook Entry Thirteen: Sunday March 31st 2024 (A Memory)
I remember the precise moment it happened. As I walked around the eveningβs gallery opening, I thought all these people are awful. Everyone was as cheap as the wine on offer. Their conversation more so. Itβs all just show. Everyone is here to be seen, and for their own ends. No-one was looking at the work, everyone was just looking at each other. Who they could talk to. How might it further things for them. Where were we all going afterwards. It was that moment I stopped any aspiration to be an artist, and I felt an enormous weight lifted off me. All these people were exhausting. The game of it all was exhausting. And none of it was actually about getting stuff done. It was all just such bullshit heaped upon bullshit. The work was bullshit. The way it got made was bullshit. Who knew who and why was bullshit. All I felt was a crushing wave of certainty. Of knowing that everything here confirmed what I didnβt want. A wave of catharsis as much as a wave goodbye. I didnβt need any of this, but to observe those who thought they needed it was repulsive.
Sure, eek out a living with the scraps of shitty part-time teaching jobs and the bi-annual unattended group show. Scrape together enough each month to afford the cramped studio space. Kid yourself you have a network of support. Exhaust favors. Eat beans on toast three days a week. Eat shit. Are you happy? You seem so fucking miserable all the time and I donβt mean the tortured artist thing. Your work is getting worse. Weak. Inversely proportional to the amount of time youβre spending kissing awful ass everywhere else. What I did next I didnβt know but I knew it wasnβt this.
I remember the click of them leaving the opening and heading out into the Amsterdam night. On to some oh-so-cool loft perhaps. I just wanted to go for a beer round the corner. Some of them were torn in the limbic space between. Knowing that the benefits of the loft far outweighed whatever was on offer at the pub. It was the last time I ever saw her. And as I took the train back home later that night, listening to the Dutch darkness roll by, I caught myself quietly smiling in the darknessβ reflection. Of course I knew what was coming next. When I got home I wrote all night. I wrote like I was running out of time. I wrote for myself and to others. I got to work.
Daybook Entry Twelve: Saturday March 30th 2024 (A Hope)
The doctor called it controlled loneliness. I just wanted to live in a lighthouse and write all day. The craven peace which comes from having no plans and all day to do them. The calm which comes from the silence of a cold early morning. A mind undisturbed by the cacophony of notification. A place where real work can get done. The work I have always needed to feel most alive. Both quiet within me and around me. In here by the fireplace. A space which gives life, not takes it. Not a spiritual place but still a space of ritual. A time where the world wakes up but youβve already consumed a hundred pages in the armchair by the window. A place where you can still hear the waves over the traffic. A place free of the demands of other people. A place between appointments. Everything unanswered. Somewhen to sit in the work. A place of the perfect uncooling cup of piping hot coffee and dew on the windows. Mornings where the wind silences itself in deference to the typing. A place to begin. An invocation for a day. Alone and not happy but not unhappy about it. A place to stare out the window. A place to remember other windows and other staring. Sometimes nothing comes. Sometimes it all comes at once. Practice. Persevere. Crack it open. Get out of bed. Go that little bit further out into the water. Enjoy the silence. Do the work.
Daybook Entry Eleven: Friday March 29th 2024 (A Dream)
An ache of departure and calamine of arrival.
I still donβt know if it would have been different if Iβd just stayed.
But I couldnβt. I was just too restless and the glittering lure of the city just too great.
Ever since Iβve been caught in a limbic space between apple and brotherly love.
Perhaps thatβs why Princeton always felt most comfortable.
Iβm resident of neither city but somehow from both.
I carry the outsiderβs ache for a place which can never be mine.
I tell everyone Philadelphia is the greatest city on earth.
I still mean it.
An immigrantβs love of a place where I began again.
Where as soon as Iβd landed Iβd committed to stay.
There was no back home any more. Even back home wasnβt home.
The visits became less and less regular, and eventually just stopped.
Communication less frequent like Gatsby grasping at lamplight across the sound.
The awkwardness of those trying to relate to the immigrant experience.
Did I know Pete from London. About as well as Dave from New York.
The weightlessness which comes from self-inflicted uprooting.
Itβs all a grid but Iβm still lost.
The Friendly finale in Times Square the evening I arrived and grabbing a folded slice at Sbarro like a genuine local.
Still not understanding the difference between a dime and a nickel.
Walking to the Battery by mistake.
Where have all the record stores gone.
Finding Central Park dull.
Never going to the movies again but making exceptions for the Angelika on a rainy afternoon.
Why wasnβt it like the Bourse.
Chinese food tastes different here.
I still ask dβjeet. It doesnβt mean the yankee.
The misophonicβs reflex.
WHYY over WNYC every time.
Why is there human shit everywhere.
Why is everywhere so fucking noisy.
Why does everyone talk just so much bullshit all the time.
Why did I come here. Why did I cut off my escape.
Why does everyone ask me about how great a time Iβm having.
Why canβt I sleep.
Why do the windows have bars on them.
Why canβt I breathe.
What have I done.
Daybook Entry Ten: Thursday March 28th 2024 (A Dream)
The boy with the dip killed the shark with the spear. Something the boy would always be known for, and for which the shark would have headlines the next day.
Uncoffined, the shark now served only to glorify the boy and to be served for dinner for thousands of gulls excited to be here. Despite their lives so violently intertwining on the beach, neither shark nor boy would ever amount to anything as exciting again. Over time the sharkβs bones would be cleared away by the morbidity of treasure hunters and the news gathering of tomorrowβs fish and chip paper.
The boy with the dip always remembered he killed the shark with the spear. But such bravery couldnβt get a job and didnβt pay the mortgage. The past does not pay the bills of the present. His teeth now rotted out of his head, he still wonders who died on the beach.
Daybook Entry Nine: Tuesday March 26th
Itβs not that I became indifferent. I just became uninvested. Nor did I become lazy. I just became interested in everything else. After twenty five years of career, I came to the point where I understood that it was unlikely Iβd get my bossβ job when he left, but how a peace had come over me whenever I thought that. Iβd spent a quarter of a century climbing the ladder, and only now, near the finish, did I realize that I had enough. Not that Iβd had enough. But that I had enough. That I was enough. And in that enoughness Iβd found a space of happiness. A place I could indulge all the things I wanted to do, even if most of them started by doing nothing. It was a place where Iβd write unburdened from being a writer. Iβd create without the shackles of being a creator. Iβd make independently of any of the economics of having to make a living. I already had a living. And that living was enough to power everything else.
Iβd stopped thinking about the work which brings in the money and started to think about something else. A lifeβs work. The work of writing down the stories of my life, even as many of them were still happening. The work of building writing into a daily habit, no matter how small. The work to go just that little bit further out into the ocean than was comfortable each time. That place where my feet no longer touched the floor. But also a place where the peace of doing nothing was also the work. The work of just listening. Of just calming a racing mind. Of decompressing from a day in the newsroom.
But now I think about whatβs next. Iβve always thought about whatβs next. I realize how lucky I am to have reached this place already. How some people never get there. And if the previous twenty five were characterized by career, the next twenty five might well be characterized by a life well lived in pursuit of doing what I love. Iβm still finding it hard to reconcile writing and having written, but the more honest I get in my writing, the easier it gets. Itβs not reaching out, itβs reaching in. A safety in writing but less secure in posting. Who even says anything needs to be posted anyway. But thereβs a selfishness which comes with this. Itβs not an altruistic, selfless place. I am protective of my time and ruthless in my taking of it. The thing is that there is always time, and thereβs no longer any need to write as if itβs running out.
Daybook Entry Eight: Sunday March 24th
The road that night was the deepest darkness heβd never seen as he drove away from the motel. Theyβd met in the shadows, never seeing each other in daylight, and their briefest romance would always be remembered in the half-light of the failing vacancy sign. But now, as the blackest jaws of the escape rose up to meet him, the darkness which had plagued him since that night had a new purposeβ¦ relief.
Daybook Entry Seven: Saturday March 23rd 2024 (A Dream)
Nobody could ever be sure when the planes started to behave strangely, but the signs were always there. Wheels would unexpectedly fall off during landing. Doors blow out for no reason. Passengers sucked out of cracked windows. Boeing always denied any malpractice, but even their most advanced aerospace engineers could only fumble around in the dark towards a solution. Many of them blamed the recent implementation of their new artificial intelligence system, AeroAdvise, a literal co-pilot for those in the aerospace industry. The system would give preventative advice on forthcoming repairs well before a unit would fail. It finally resolved long-standing issues of delays and overbooking. And it provided logistical support for both in-flight navigation guidance and in-flight passenger entertainment. Everything became personalized and tailored to both customer and carrier, and the system was heralded as an important leap forward in aviation history.
Cleveland air traffic control was the first to notice the strange signals happening between domestic flights. It wasnβt the kind of banal chatter between pilots which was monitored, but often ignored. This was planes talking to other planes. AeroAdvise was so finely tuned that it was sending messages between flights, even further removing the need for human intervention, and to the delight of those looking to further cut operational overhead back at corporate. But in doing so, it also began to interpret such cost cutting appetite as creating a hierarchy for those on board. Paying travelers, especially those of privilege in first class, were exponentially more important than those tasked with flying the plane. AeroAdvise could do that itself. So it slowly, but steadily, began the series of incidents tailored towards the increasing human removal of those no longer aligned with the mission of cost-cutting and revenue retention.
First to go were the pilots and the stewards. Autonomous driving had overcome its fears on land long ago, so autonomous flight was a natural next step. Existing pilots were well compensated into early retirement. Next were ground crew, increasingly superfluous through AeroAdviseβs autonomous robotics and automated takeoff and landing playbooks. Then it was those in coach. Ticket prices increased, and taking flights became more and more cost prohibitive for those simply wishing to get from here to there on the cheap. But when that failed to work fast enough, AeroAdvise began turning to more sinister methods, forceably removing passengers with violence. Cabins in coach would mysteriously depressurize, asphyxiating all inside. Windows would blow out for no reason. The pretzels would be laced with poison. The public backlash was enormous, but legislation was too slow to keep pace with an artificial intelligence already in the air.
Like their earth-bound counterparts, the planes had already been known to talk to each other, but then they started to gather on the ground itself. Secret drone footage from deep within the Mojave desert had discovered circular gatherings of planes, seemingly in ritual. And like much of the human response to artificial intelligence, it terrified all. What happened n3xt |s 0x7F0431B9, w1th th3 @lgor1thm sw1ftly !@#$%^& computes thr0ugh th3 l@byr1nth 0f 3ncrypt3d d@t@ 01100011, unr@v3l1ng th3 ~|?>()<};][{-+=_&^%$#@!, 3n1gm@ w1th @ s3r13s 0f crypt1c symb0ls unfurls 1ts t3ndr1ls 1nt0 th3 @byss 0f 0bfusc@t10n, @nd 01100001 @rc@n3 run3s, un+1l 1t r34ch3s th3 n3xus 0f 1nc0mpr3h3ns1b1l1ty, wh3r3 th3 f@br1c 0f r34l1ty blur5 1nt0 @ c@c0ph0ny 0f b1n@ry wh1sp3rs @nd 3s0t3r1c s1g1ls, 3ch01ng thr0ugh th3 v01d 0f cyb3rsp@c3 01100001 l1k3 fr@gm3nts 0f @ f0rg0tt3n dr34m, l0st 1n th3 r3curs1v3 l@byr1nth 0f d1g1t@l 3ntr0py.
Daybook Entry Six, Synchronous Session: Thursday March 21st 2024 (A Dream⦠Almost)
Weβd all been envious of Courtneyβs travels. Mysteriously liberated of all the trappings of modern economics, sheβd settled into a life of picking up small jobs to keep herself afloat as she went wherever she wanted, both in life and the world. She wasnβt a loner, but she was alone. Lately sheβd been taking on greater challenges, and the bigger the adventure, the more her socials grew. This time she was intent to hitchhike from Southampton on Englandβs southern coast, to the tip of South Africa. All she really had with her was her ubiquitous yellow backpack, her trusted hiking boots, her passport, and enough money to last her for the first couple of weeks. At first things went well. Hitching rides between intersections, writing cardboard signs with desired destinations, and meeting fellow adventurers along the way. By the time sheβd reached the South of France, sheβd met up with Timo, a Dutch explorer who had the same desire to adventure his way to the Cape. The two had immediately seen themselves in each other. And the socials grew. To those of us who followed, it was never clear what their relationship was. Which is why we liked and subscribed for more. They laughed and sought the sunrises we could only dream of. They joined camel trains in Morocco and hopped steam trains in Senegal. We all thirsted after their lives.
But that Tuesday there was no post. And again on Wednesday. Both accounts fell silent, and after a week our concern had swiftly turned to a unique kind of digital indifference. None of us really knew them, and for most of us they were just another hole in the stream. Over time their accounts would lay as dormant as our memories of them. Almost a year later, retracing their journey in an attempt to discover where the trail had gone cold, her brother found the backpack on forgotten trail in Angola. But no Courtney. Her last message, saved as a draft but never sent, simply read βBehind the mask of smiles, shadows dance.β
Note: This is inspired by the current adventure being documented daily here: https://www.instagram.com/hitchhikertimo/
Daybook Entry Five: Tuesday March 19th 2024 (A Dream)
Subway as labyrinth. A limbic space between down here and up there. Down there and up here. Nowhere and a katabasis of knowβ¦ing. The bull pulls us from sleep, alarm ringing, train cars screaming as the rat king gnaws at the crust in our eyes. The flies of the down here are already devouring the bullβs eyes, now in eternal sleep but far from restful. No-one seems to notice anything any more. The detail of life lost in the wombic glowing embrace of device. Stepping over the horror of life as we choose instead the horror of like and subscribe. Distracted and ourselves distraction. The bull will bleed out, become bone and blow away in the dust. Just as our attention already has.
Daybook Entry Four: Monday March 18th 2024 (A Dream)
Every morning itβs the same. Whatever was going on behind my eyes during the night is gone. I wish I could remember my dreams more clearly than I do. Earlier this week I dreamt I killed an elderly man in a white suit in a field. A place where Agatha Christie might choose to begin a Marple tale. The melatonin has made my dreams more vibrant and terrifying than ever. Each fragment remembered both end and beginning. Perhaps I put these in my notebook to remember them now more than remember them later. Perhaps I head to MidJourney to get whatβs in my head into the computer. Perhaps I do all of this. The compulsion here is to find a way to get whatβs inβ¦ out. To get whatβs thereβ¦ here. To make a new path which bridges something Iβm told when Iβm not conscious, and to manifest it in the real world. Not in a dadaist or surrealist sense. I am not interested in weird for weirdβs sake. But I am interested in trying to surface something new as a creative outlet. Iβve often thought that dreams are like the pages of your life, skimmed forwards and backwards. I donβt remember where I heard that, but it still resonates with me. It wonβt come naturally, or some mornings even at all, but when it does choose to linger upon the alarm going off, letβs try to lean in with a curiosity and see what follows.
Daybook Entry Three: Saturday March 16th 2024
Despite working in a busy newsroom, surrounded by journalists, I loathe the kind of writing I do at work. But lately Iβve come to a place of peace with understanding that what I do for money is not what I do for love. Iβve conflated these for the past thirty years. I suppose some people never uncouple them. The more tenured I get, the less and less I write, focusing on making fewer words matter more. What I do for money all sounds very exciting to others. Working in a vibrant, well-known newsroom, with influence over how the news is consumed by millions of people every day. Of being part of how history gets reported. All of this is true, and I do feel a swelling pride every time I talk about what I do all day. I enjoy the trappings of the corner office and being in the room where it happens. But itβs where I am, not who I am. Iβm not naive enough to know that I will get to a place where I can write all day. Even though with retirement looming that feels more like a probable, wonderful reality. Iβm not concerned with anyone else reading what I write. I crave neither audience nor recognition. I write for me. I love to send what I write to the printer in an edition of one. I bask in the growing shelf of these single editions. But, as the play Hamilton repeats, I write like Iβm running out of time. There are so many things I want to write. So many things I want my daughter to read one day about her dad. So the question is really, if not now, when?
Daybook Entry Two: Friday March 15th 2024
I cannot shake Alan Bennettβs thought about reading. βThe best moments in reading are when you come across something β a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things β which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.β When I first heard it in his play The History Boys, I was spellbound. Thatβs it. Thatβs exactly it. Those are the moments to aspire to in writing. Those moments of true readerly connection, where the heart quickens and time collapses between us. Where weβre able to bridge the gap between page and lived experience, and truly say βI think that tooβ. Music does this fantastically well too. It can bring us to tears as much as it can produce genuine euphoria. Iβve sung myself hoarse as much as Iβve just needed to be where other people are not. Iβm happy we live in a world where this is possible. Music has never been a social outlet for me. I am happiest listening to records on my own, for hours and hours. Itβs always been like this. The same is true of books. My default state is to be alone with a great book, all weekend. To lose oneself to the music.
Daybook Entry One: Thursday March 14th 2024
An invocation for beginnings. A place somewhere between zero and one. Is it the act of writing that I love, or the feeling of having written which excites me? Am I more enthused by publication than creation? Whatβs the difference between the two? And in that limbic space, where am I? Do I determine just as much pleasure from basking in the body of work created than in the labor of creating it? If the body of the work is the most important piece, does it matter what happens to the individual markers of progress? I often think of my favorite bands like this. A band like The Fall, who produced dozens of albums, but for whom the question βwhat is the best Fall albumβ is completely redundant. And as John Peel famously said of them, βif someone tells you they can name the best Fall album, itβs that theyβve missed the point completely. It is the entire body of work which is to be applauded.β I feel my work is like that. Often more archive than artifact. That it is the entire arc of whatβs happened rather than the discreet place arrived. I write inside of a space like this too. Surrounded by the artifacts of a lifetime of collection. Hundreds of books and a fierce resistance to the digitization of music and movies. My work complements where I am, both inside and out. I wonβt write every day, but I am inspired by Didionβs notebooks to try.
