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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Christian Read" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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04:51 pm
[Link] | Ten to five and it's black as Hell here. And cold. The kind of cold I've never experienced. I've been in chillier but never as slow, falling into bones like dead whales, sinking.
I remember six months ago when I got here that the sun never set. Sun up at midnight.
I like the weather. I like the night times that last too long, that reach too deep.
I shan't miss Oslo but I shall miss this.
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09:59 pm
[Link] | Isn't it time the heroic Mark David Chapman was released from jail?
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06:27 pm
[Link] |
Wiiith
One week to go in Oslo and no desire to spend money, I've no choice in my leisure activities. I am taking advantage of the super internets in Europe to watch TV. Much TV.
I am watching a show called The Supernaturals.
The Supernaturals is a very bad show indeed. It is about two brothers called Sam and Dean, who I presume are the Supernaturals of the title. I can't figure out which one is which so I will call them the Cool One and the Pouty-Lipped Girlish One. They fight demons and ghosts to a soundtrack only a fifty five year old divorcee chap could love.
It is incredibly unoriginal, with plots being openly stolen from many fine and better comic books of the ten to fifteen years ago. (Ever read Hitman? Hellblazer? Even Baby's First Novelist, Neil Gaiman. It's quite brazen. Oh they also pinch from the Simpson episode where Bart can make his dreams real. Expect the ending to feature Jesse fighting Cassidy fight outsie the Alamo) There is an eerie sensation of homo-erotica to the brother's relationship. I'm not saying that in the way that fucking imbeciles say things like 'oooh! slashy!'. I'm saying that in that they don't relate to each other like brothers. The Cool One is weirdly dominating and the Pouty-Lipped Girlish One is clearly some sort of masochistic. I don't understand what dynamic is supposed to be. I also liked the dad, who appears to be acting underwater with a stroke. Seriously, look at him closely. It's like a candle in slow motion...
Also: pop culture references. I am very over them. Mentioning another show on your show only goes a short way and quickly confuses hipness for cannibalism. Besides, Middleman did it better.
I'm also mildly convinced someone thinks they're writing a Western but they aren't. But I do like the swaggering road-house atmosphere they go for. I like the grift.
Finally, I'm sort of tired of people using wikkipedia for a reference. People have recommended it to me on the line that 'It's really authentic. The writers know what they are talking about!'.
No. They don't.
All in all, I am rather liking it, though. I don't know why but even though the characters are quite awful, I like the actors. I just can't help but think there's actually a great one here that never quite makes it. I love a good paranormal detective story. There's even the occasional scary bit and the occasional cool idea. So, yeah... Man, why can't the BBC do a good paranormal detective show?
Anyway. So The Supernaturals. Bad show I'm demi-enjoying. What else is out there I should be all over? Please don't say Truly Blooded.
EDIT - Paris Hilton does a walk-on. No.
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03:47 am
[Link] | So, I went and saw the Munch Museum today.
It was terrible. Munch is terrible. 'The Scream' is terrible. 'Vampire' was ok. Much redder than I thought. There was a Whistler showing as well... fucking Whistler. And it was better.
But it's like I've been saying forever. Expressionism can fuck off. He's the worst of the Symbolists and yet the best well known. It's goddamn unfair, if you ask me.
This message brung to you by ignorance and a bottle of wine.
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12:37 pm
[Link] |
I want to eat every cake in New York City
So I've been in a queer black Ouranian mood recently. Since getting my neck chopped off, it would seem. Everything has seemed so brittle and ugly. Human sounds grate at me. I see wolves in trenchoats. Jackals in high heels.
But then something lifts my mood.
My old friend Astred is getting married tomorrow.
She's a fine woman, dressed in leopard print, composed as hanging judges. A designer of rare talent, a woman of endlessly exceptional aesthetic taste, I haven't seen much of her in the last few years but that's a clear mistake. Hard to believe the girl I knew back in the day is the woman ready for the Big Promise.
And with that news, my strange mood has eased.
I like it when people get married. I like it when people have babies. It is the Correct way to live a life. It is Good.
So congratulations, sweetheart. Your man is a lucky one. And you've given me a grin.
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03:37 pm
[Link] |
Ever done a card trick for a dog?
So, I went to Prague and out of town to... somewhere, I forget the name of it.
Look, I could go on and on about it. I had something lined up that was all about the psychogeography of the place, the ending songlines of history, how it felt to stalk the Golem-streets, to live out a life long dream to see the Tower of Astronomy chime out its murderchord, crossing bridges where tanks clanged out the last centuries' drumbeats, walking over bridges men died to protect or take, smoking cigarettes standing where passionate madmen took torch to themselves, to breath in the air of the fourty thousand bodies that make up the Cathedral of Bones...
But let's face it: talking about that stuff is why people avoid me at parties.
So yeah. Anyways. Pretty fun. Got a heap of clothes. Although the Praugistanis were a bit on the rude side. Still, if Nazi Germany then Soviet Russia can't put a smile on your face, you're not trying, I always say.
Last ditch effort is underway to stay in Europe. Got a promising lead on a job in Sweden, so crossing fingers on that one. There's something in Texas as well but... Texas. Love to visit, can't imagine I'll be happy working there. Actually, that's not true. It'd be great. I'm just not in the mood for hot weather right now. There's something else I heard of which is in France, perhaps Montpellier. But I don't know. France is... Have you spent much time there? I've spent a few weeks all up and I never quite warmed to the place. Perhaps it is just me but I always felt this weird, right-wing current to the country that always sparked wrongness up at me. Plus, I don't like speaking my stuttering, monstrously-accented French. I must sound like a buffoon.
Also, I note that the Australia I'm trying to avoid has reinvented the Black and White Minstrel Show. Yawn. Seriously, humans. It was a ludicrous, stupid thing but, well... I'm finding it a little hard to locate the outrage over something so retarded. At this point, my own culture is like a dog that took a kick to the head. It is sad but you can't stop sickly laughing at its pitiful, giddy stumbling and broken, atonal attempts at barking.
And I saw the B. Hussein Obama won the Nobel Peace Price. That made me laugh and laugh too. Although, seriously, it's like winning a Ledger award for Australian comics. And they gave it to a man who has blocked investigations of war crimes of the previous administration, propped up the worst of the worst in Afghanistan and on and on it goes - so there's that.
I note that response to his winning of this award has been ludicrously idiotic. I saw one LJ pundit get all outraged that Mr. Obama was giving the right ammunition to attack him with. Yes. Yes. Did you see the prize committee defending their decision? Always a good sign that.
So. Stay tuned as I plan to post a youtube link of a man singing a song about having sex with a unicorn!
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02:55 pm
[Link] |
I happen to find the carrot infinitely more beautiful than the rose...
Hmmm. One door closes, another opens. Thank you for all your kind comments. And for those who did not: Ya-Boo-Sucks to you, sir. That's right. I said it!
Just got confirmation that Chaosium wants another book from me. So that'll take me up to Christmas. A sort of setting-book for those pen-and-paper RPG dinosaurs amongst you. The Dread Empire of Tsan Chan. My terrible murderthoughts are strong on this one. I think it's going to be jolly good. Grim and awful but jolly good indeed.
Paul Abstruse the artist on me old graphic novel Witch King just wrote, wanting to get the band back together, so I'll be meeting up with that peculiar madman on my return. Got to go and sort out the rights from Phosphorescent, now that they've closed. Although, honestly, I've nay got the energy right now for that sort of stuff. It'll be strange, if we do decide to, and can, return to that character. He was very much an invention of my youthful self. Now, of course, I am old and grizzled, with a crocodile's eye for a heart and snapped pencils for ribs and pretty schoolgirls in their little skirts jeer me in the street and threaten to steal my teeth for the Kaiser, so we shall see.
That, or we'll do something about a Celtic princess, her talking dragon-unicorn and the jarring, outlandish sexual frisson between them. They'll fight, fuck, I don't know... Racism? Homelessness? That or some sort of dog-fish hybrid. With elfs. Then I'll get the women. Then I'll get all the women!*
Eldritch Kid soldiers along. Things slowed down for the artist to get married and relocate but that'll be settling down now. The dime-novel sequence is up next, wherein the Ten-Shoes discovers his partner's fame and I'm terribly excited to see it.
So, now I'm off for a quick jaunt to Prague, to sip absinthe and drink coffee and be a horrible tourist and try to buy bowling shirts. If my crippled, bone-shattered leg holds up, I shall do another trip before I return back. Possibly Budapest, if I can. Or maybe somewhere supercheap. My bones, though, they do ache in this chilly northern clime.
Might also stay a night or two in Thailand, or somewhere in Asia on the way back. Or does anyone know, no guesses please, the quickest spot to fly out of Europe to Australia? Best research says Greece...
Oh and finally, the sodding marvelous Berlin Noir trilogy by Phillip Kerr is out in a collected edition. Ex-Kripo P.I versus the Nazis. If you like proper private eye books, (none of this single mother and a cat finding the missing Hummel figurine nonsense)you should pick it up. History all over the shop plus Kerr's super-ace prose. I read em all ages ago and recall loving 'em.
*And I'll gobble them up! hahah!
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05:47 am
[Link] | So, yeah. I got retrenched.
Bummer.
Funcom, my New Dark Masters, saw fit to execute Order 66 and out came the MeatWhirlwind. No Flesh Was Spared. About fifty percent of the dudes I worked with got the ick. Some guys had been here only a few weeks. One guy was flown in on a friday to get his marching orders on monday.
But that's life, ennit?
We got a speech from some important chap. He wept openly. It was so lovely and touching that I though he was going to get his tits out and cheer up the lads who, honestly, could have all used a cup of tea by that point and a smile. But last on, first out, as they say and the remorseless hand of horror, the fell will of that mad Demiurg I Love and Fear, struck me once again. Thankfully, I was given a standing ovation, a 21 gun salute and a woman threw herself on a burial pyre to mourn my passing. Then, there was a group hug and we all felt good together until, sadly, the first inevitable erection creaked into life.
All that savagery soothed me, so I'm feeling fairly chipper. That and the fact the company is obliged to rehire me if Dreamweavery of Poetry, ie. the writer's room, gets put back together. Although, that reminds me of the old movie business joke, 'Did you hear about the blonde who was so dumb she slept with the writer?'...
Plus, if nothing else, I know I can do this job now so I'm pretty confident something will come up. There's a few more jobs around and I fancy I shall get a good reference. Certainly, quite a few (three)of what hu-mans call 'team leaders' (we had our own secret word for them)said they'd do so for me. And there's a few projects around I fancy a gander at.
So, not sure what the plan is now. No more Oslo for me. No more paying five hundred Australian dollars a week for a room in a bad part of town. No more dropping twenty five dollars for a shot of whiskey. I suppose I shall have to return home at some point but not just yet.
Fancy me some bumming about Europe first.
So I'll be back in Sydney in a few days or a few weeks, depending how far my payout takes me, or if my crippleation will permit perambulation.
So, in short: Blast and damnation but, as always, as always, these words from mister Albert Swearengen guide me. Pain, or damage or despair don't end the world. Or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a fucking man. And give some back.
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10:28 am
[Link] | So, I watched some episodes of Mad Men the other day. Show set around advertising execs in the very early sixties. It's actually really fun if you watch it and you pretend it's actually the story of Darren from Bewitched. Endora's at his house, touching his stuff while Darren smokes and drinks like a motherfucker.
While I'm not seeing that searing, staggering, mind-numbing genius that people have told me it is, I'm quite enjoying it. Mainly, because I think the art direction and costuming is rather brilliant.
But I think there's a problem with it. Because I'm learning a weird lesson from it.
Sexism is awesome! You know... If you're a fella.
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07:30 pm
[Link] |
Nerd Alert
Anyone playing Champions Online? Come track me down on our awesome super-team 'You're Going Home in the Back of an Ambulance.'
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11:57 am
[Link] | http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20571
Gordon Brown has officially apologised for the treatment of poor, doomed, sinned against Alan Turing.
Most of you will know who Turing is, of course. The code breaker and mathematician who oversaw Station X at Bletchley Park during WWII. The man's work was instrumental in a Nazi defeat. But he was gay and so stripped of rank, 'cured' of homosexuality through barbaric chemical treatments that grew him a pair of tits and left him obese and eventually he found cause to take his own life, poisoning himself.
I have no idea how much an apology is worth to a dead man. We'll all find out soon enough.
But it's better than nothing.
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11:34 pm
[Link] | This evening, on the bus, I watched a young girl try to seduce her boyfriend.
It started with hand-holding but soon, she seemed to have lost interest in speaking to him. I watched, all clear to my well-honed peripherals as she displayed what must have been an attempt to promise sordid pleasures to come.
It involved sticking her tongue out at him an ululating it about. It was like watching Jabba the Hut eat Calamari. It was like watching a giant slug shuck clams. There was nothing sensual about it... she just looked like she was trying to coax some cold pink beast from out of her jaws. The boyfriend, of course, was so stoned he barely noticed. But still, she waggled it about like she the proud owner of a slimy rattle, trying to sooth some oilsome child to sleep. Spitoon hypnotist. Abalone-mouthed virago.
As I left the bus, clearly her passions were inflamed as she seemed to be attempting to lick her own throatskin.
You know, each day, I look older. I look sicker. I can see the shape of my skull, now. It outlines the skin of my face. I ponder what life will be like when I am riddled with cancer and my internal organs are replaced with pigparts. But you know what?
I think about the poor, inexpert girl and her worriesome mouth and I thank God I'm not a young man.
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01:56 pm
[Link] | 
http://twiststreet.livejournal.com/
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12:15 pm
[Link] | A game site I used to work for just slagged off my game. Thanks, Brenna Hillier!
I'm not too worried, really. I've slagged off heaps of games. But it's weird, taking the punch.
But today I got to write about the semen of a hanged man. So... suck it.
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09:35 am
[Link] | This may only be of interest to a few people but...
I just found Ray Feist's blog. In which he fixates on his 'embarassingly younger' ex-girlfriend and calls her a lying whore for... many, many hundreds of words indeed. Then talks about his myspace relationships. He is in his sixties.
Jesus, man! Write some shit about dragons or elfs or dwarfs of something! Jesus!
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01:08 pm
[Link] |
See that monster? That's my monster.
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02:34 pm
[Link] |
Pete Bondurant
Well, the press releases are out so let me say...
I'm moving to Montreal. Around Christmas. The office is relocating.
And while I'm sad to be leaving Europe and so not travelling, let me simply say that Montreal is considerably cheaper, more exciting and doesn't shut like a door on a Sunday. Financially, this is the best news we can get.
So. There you go.
I fully expect it to be exactly like Call of the Wild meets Twin Peaks.
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01:26 pm
[Link] | http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,642310,00.html
Now this is remarkably interesting. A husband and wife team of theologian/economists (I know a Secret Origin when I hear it) in Africa have discovered that giving money to a broke village in Africa, just giving them a dole, is helping them. Please note that traditionally, giving money to poor people is considered Very Bad by rich folks. Please also note that in the article, the sad presence of a loudmouthed farmer. Why is it that farming seems to turn people in Giant Cocks?
There are the women who travel to the city with their money, where they buy fabric remnants and make clothing to sell. And there is the man who invested his 100 dollars in cement and is now making concrete blocks. Another man opened a shoe repair shop. The residents have formed a committee of 18 people to provide financial advice.
This cheers me.
Oh, look at me still talking while there's science to do...
Now I have to plan out the hideous tomb-prison of a hellish godking, tormented for five thousand deathless years.*
Sometimes I wonder what five year old me would say if he knew what he was going to grow up to become. After the bone-crashing disappointment he'd feel when he learned that, in real life, archaeology is boring, I imagine I can tell him things like the above. But I still think becoming a specialist in both theology and economy would give me background training and motivation to put on a costume and fight crime by night.
*Cormac McCarthy can suck it. Adverbs. Adverbs!
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11:45 am
[Link] | I'm fairly certain... I'm not sure...
I am fairly certain that tonight I ate off a whale's face. No foolin'
Should I be proud of myself?
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06:38 am
[Link] | I'm aware I'm not saying much of interest recently. There's a great deal I'd like to say about the Work I am currently engaged in. I just can't, pretty much. Although, I've begun to work up some interesting relationships with various people. The art department has finally started to come to me with ideas which is, of course, a great personal joy. I'm learning a very great deal from the Designers, who are smart young men with very agile brains.
I hope my policy of shutting my mouth and letting them teach my whale-stupid something is paying off.
And then, there are, of course, the frustrations...
But anyways. I was thinking about the Kennedy's tonight, the whole damn crew of them. But who cares what I think? (Jack? Great. Bobby, the worst scum to draw breath. I'll save you an ersatz-Ellroy rant.)
And I wondered what the great Gore Vidal had to say. I like Gore Vidal, as I've said before. He seems to be the only man alive who talks about Republic. And I like that he's the most flatly cynical human being I can imagine. No... cynic is wrong. He's simply the most realistic human I've ever encountered.
Here's a recent interview with him, concerning B. Hussein Obama. This is part two. I will link to this because I want you to hear the last line.
Soon Mr. Vidal will be dead.
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