Criticism and creativity.

Curious how we like to use the internet to find what we want; be it pornography, self aggrandisement, a date, casual sex, old friends, flattery, our own name in print, a photograph of ourself we particularly like.

The last thing we expect or want to find is criticism yet criticism is the best thing we can find.

Criticism sharpens the pencil, cleans the mirror, asks questions and demands an answer.

I quite often find that the criticism defines the critic rather than his target. The critic really wants to talk about himself, but there isn't really anything worth talking about so ' let's criticise everything around me and try to make out that I am better'. There are very few creative critics, there are many creative objects of their criticism.

Criticism breeds creativity in order to feed off it.

Creativity just gets on with it's stuff and doesn't give a fuck.

Legal advice from Mr Bounce.

An interesting chat with Mr Bounce the barrister today regarding what does or does not constitute harassment.

The law states that if the act is intended to expose a crime or prevent a crime it cannot be considered harassment.

Therefore I have every right to expose Tristan's crimes against literature and art.

(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)

French letter.

I have recently received a letter containing some advice on courtesy.

Nothing wrong with that except that it came from a Frenchman who tucks his sweater into leather (lace -up fly) trousers.

Ouch!

Hacker

Someone has hacked into this blog this morning... I have an ominous feeling about this.

St George: Whatever happened to chivalry?

Long, long ago a knight, while riding through a forest, came upon a familiar scene:

Roped to a tree was a white gowned damsel. A damsel most certainly in distress. Leering over her was a dragon. there was the usual smoke from the nostrils and stench of rotting flesh.

The knight dismounted, approached the dragon while unsheathing his sword.

'Stop!' Cried the damsel and dragon in unison. 'If you kill the dragon you will kill us both for we are two halves of the same beast'.

'But if I do not kill the dragon it will surely kill you'. The knight said to the damsel.

'No it won't'. She replied. 'This is just a game we play to entertain ourselves'.

The knight sheathed his sword, mounted his horse and rode away to the sound of jeering from the damsel and dragon.

The last words he heard were: Whatever happened to chivalry.

Haircut and love.

To Tristan's place this evening. He had asked me round to cut his hair... Sure, no problem, glad to.

As a barber I had expected to talk of holidays and something for the weekend and did you see that film called Tony ( fuck I've plugged it again) you know the one with the serial killer with the bonkers haircut and if you don't tip me proper I'll give you one of those.

But no. He wanted to talk about poetry and love and the best kind of . As if I would know.

Shit. I'm only the barber mate. what do I know.

'Jan.' He said. 'I hope you know not to run at me with those scissors'.

Ok. I said. I'll walk. That way I can be more accurate.

Anything for the weekend?

S & M

Self flagellation used to be the preserve of the religious fanatic.

Not so any longer... I knew a man who has been beating himself up since his father stopped.

The same guy had a girlfriend who was doing the same thing for the same reason. They met on common ground.

They split up when she realised that he was never going to beat her and he realised that all she wanted to do was beat him up rather than herself because she didn't want to damage her looks.

Time and memory are beating them up now.

Time is merciless.

As is god of course, if you believe that shit.

What goes around comes around... With a whip.

Postcards from Rusty No: 46

Rusty sends this, it is an image of Evelyn Beatrice Hall.On it he writes: I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Ethics and property rights

Another conversation with Tristan on the subject of ethics.

Warning: This could be boring.

'Was I unethical in writing that letter?'

'No. In so much that it was the truth. But it could be seen as unethical for me to publish it'.

'Why is that?'

'Because it is acceptable to have a thought but totally uncool to express it. Even if it is the truth. Society today is based on everyone telling each other lies (what they want to hear) and living in comfortable denial. The truth is an uncomfortable intrusion. The truth forces one to look at oneself and this can be an ugly, uncomfortable experience'.

'So I should have bitten the bullet, allowed myself to be slandered and libelled, responded with love (as Spinoza would have me do),. I should have lied to protect the lies already in place in order that the status quo may be maintained and no other reputation tarnished (other than my own). That doesn't seem very fair'.

'Since when has man concerned himself with fairness? Look around you'.

'But Spinoza said'...

'Bugger Spinoza. His ethics demand an absolute belief in god... Remove God (or references to God) from his book and what are you left with. NOTHING. Or at best a twee little pamphlet about property rights.

And that is what modern ethics boil down to: Property rights.

So you are perfectly within your rights to express your thoughts but be prepared to be hated for it, even though it is the truth'.

Alarm

A curious sight this morning: I had been woken by strange sounds coming from the roof. I climbed the ladder and peered out. Feathers everywhere; a cat had somehow managed to get among the pigeons.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD - Patti Smith (Tears for Fears)

Respect.

We are more relaxed with people we do not respect.

We just do not make any effort.

Unless it is a psychopath with a knife...

Then we sit up, pay attention and wonder how we got into this in the first place.

Suddenly the pub seems welcoming if only for the relaxed atmosphere advertised on the A board.

Holy communion, cocaine and showbiz.

Tristan called in late this evening. He'd had a long day, we opened beers,opened mouths and opened hearts.

The letter to Cynthia is still a fresh bruise.

Tristan had spent the afternoon as an extra on a shoot with Marc Henri, a Belgian friend. He spent three hours being fed the body of Christ by Charles Dance in a local church. Thank god the body of Christ ain't fattening; there would be no Catholic supermodels... All those outrageous confessions lost forever.

Marc Henri asked Tristan to look more serious. He tried but when Charles intoned: 'The body of Christ and if you believe that you will believe any thing' Tristan lost it somewhat...

Oh the wacky world of showbiz eh!

Tristan had then gone on to a party in the west end, in a private members club. He said it was all too well scrubbed. There were speeches however; the restaurateur mentioned his restaurants and the BBC guy mentioned his producer.

One overheard conversation of note though:

Her: 'Do you want a line of cocaine?'

Him: 'You know, I can't be bothered'.

Suggests the drugs ain't working so well.

This reminded Tristan of something he overheard outside the Cow the other night: Three eurotrash guys were discussing where to go next. One said: 'Let's go to the Electric and see if there are some cock teasers around'. Obviously a sign that they are doing too much virtual sex. In my day you avoided cock teasers.

You do not need to make it up around here.

Oh and by the way. God couldn't get Tristan into a church but the movies could.

The film is called Fatherly love and I will naturally review it when it is released.

Election nonsense.

Hugh Grant was in the pub tonight. a friend tapped him on the shoulder then went off and voted Conservative. This sadly set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Whatever happened to the Nick Clegg X factor?

I cannot be bothered to sit up for any more anticlimax. I shall no doubt awake to a hung parliament scenario which in turn will lead to another election soon enough.

The TV coverage is farcical. Especially the BBC CGI obsession.

The cock ups at polling stations smack of third world elections.

Britain... Good grief.

Xenia.

At last the Muse. http://tristanssecretsofmagic.blogspot.com/

The window sill above my desk.

Passport

Wristwatch; gift from Mel, reminder of happy times

19th Century penknife

Pebble with a hole in it

Large red die

Piece of obsidian; touchstone and muse, Apache tear, Lapis Obsidianis.

Silver ash tray

Rose tinted glasses

12 bore shotgun cartridge

A silver sixpence

Pair of Victorian dolls eyes

Silver spoon

Heart shaped padlock

Ruby cuff links

Mother of pearl collar studs

All the essentials

Man stuff.

Ha ha.

Sitting in the Cow tonight, just chillin with the cool guy and shooting the breeze when my eye was caught by some Japanese packaging.

Oval ice moulds for whiskey drinkers.

So we got to talking, the cool guy, the owners of the oval ice cube makers and me and I drew these conclusions:

What broke the ice? the ice maker. Coldly ironic.

I want my woman to be unblemished by my behaviour. I am the pencil with eraser at the end.

How a man maintains his mystery is in itself a mystery.

Of course I shit on my own doorstep every morning... Where else would I do it?

What colour eyes do i have? I don't know. I'm scared to look.

and are there ice makers on ice-breakers or do they go out to chip off lumps of ice from the passing floes to slip in to their vodka's?

And then get the Japanese to shape the shards into ovals.

when they are not killing whales... for science.

Boy the Japanese know how to work this planet well.

But they make a mean oval ice cube maker. And then wrap it up in unnecessary packaging which we will send back to China to be turned into hoodies... What goes around comes around.

Kad Achouri-Mi Negra

Ethics and dialysis

When we separated she decided to keep a number of my possessions. I asked her for them but she said NO!

I told her that it was theft but she said:

When a man comes to live with me in this flat he moves in under my terms and he renounces all property rights.

Where there are no property rights there can be no theft.

She then went on to say that If I loved her as I said I did then it stood to reason that I would want her to keep those things as they improved the quality of her life and therefore increased her happiness.

I guess I can live without my dialysis machine.

Led Zeppelin Since I've Been Loving You 1973

Tristan sends me this link. he says: I was a teenager then, cool times. Ginette, a farmers daughter used to ride over to meet me half way in a wheat field. She'd hitch her horse to a hedge and we'd make crop circles.

Small ones but crop circles all the same.

Which leads me to believe that all those big crop circles are just evidence of Massive alien teenagers fucking in our fields.

One eyed Marxist Eurotrash.

A wet cold bank holiday Sunday... Just the thing to keep the Eurotrash away from the Westbourne.

Time for a beer over there then.

It's cool. You get Marxist doctrine wrapped up in a hip cool bar staff kind of way as if this generation of youngsters were the only ones. I was young once, I was like that, boy was I cool too.

Under the outside heaters that are killing the planet for your children ( but fuck it, who cares, you ain't got children yet) a one eyed woman mesmerised us as perhaps a cobra in profile might mesmerise.

It is hard to take a one eyed cobra seriously. Even Buddha knew that.

Kit said: She is gorgeous and look she has an eye patch and it has sequins on and everything and she is gorgeous and she moves as if everything is as it should be and she moves like a thoroughbred racehorse she moves like a supermodel.

Later, much later, I asked her about the loss of her eye; didn't it ruin her chances as a model?

She said: 'On the contrary. when I first approached the agency they told me that there were plenty of perfect models out there, we were ten a penny, common as anything. they said what you need is a fault, a defect, a flaw... I did not have the courage to cut my leg off so I compromised and wore this eye patch. I have not looked back since. Not on the left side anyway.'

Can you see your way to coming back to my place. I said.

No. she said.

Not on either side.

http://thewestbourne.com/

Notting Hill, nostalgia and bollocks.

An obsession with nostalgia is not a healthy thing.

Notting Hill, and especially the Portobello Road area seems obsessed with nostalgia and all things 'retro'. Forward thinking is frowned upon unless it involves the creation of some kind of twee 'heritage experience'. This will result in the area becoming a ghastly tourist ghetto filled with souvenir tat and crap fast food which will have no relevance to the lives of the local population and will kill the real market. Look what happened to Camden.

Instead of creating a crass shrine to the social kitsch we should be weaving strands of our history into something new and forward looking.

The punk thing appears to be the be all and end all right now but this infatuation will be as ephemeral as punk itself. Fads come and fads go and this my friends is just a passing phase which will be replaced soon enough.

It is also sad to see grown men salivating over memories of a short period of rebelliousness in their pasts, this sort of nostalgia should be safely locked away in the attic (next to the dressing up box) only to be brought out on Fathers Day.

The nasty habit of protecting street art with plexiglass is in itself nothing more than the enshrinement of society's self loathing; where is the next generation of disenfranchised youth going to express it's discontent when all the available wall space is dedicated to Banksy's (the Bono of street art) self congratulatory commercialism.

What is wrong with going forward? Only drunks and lunatics walk backwards.

Never mind the bollocks eh!

Insomnia.

How wonderful insomnia is for the happy. Or those in love or on a creative jag.

Those nights when sleep retires graciously allowing cherished 'extra time' for good behaviour and laughter, loving or just thinking.

Wearilessly.

Architectural weather.

Torrential rain hammering on the flat roof above my head.

A wall of sound. Or is it a roof of sound.

Architectural rain whichever way you look at it.

Makes me think of that house that Frank Lloyd Wright built; Falling water I think it was called.

It was so damp that the owners referred to it as rising water.

Moist architecture.

Voting confusion, Simon Cowell and the dumbing down of Britian.

I imagine, come polling day, millions of confused voters.

They will have discovered that their voting slips do not carry the names Cameron, Brown or the other one (you know the LIb Dem chap) and they will have no idea who to vote for.

I can imagine in future elections the ballot papers being standardized for all constituencies; They will contain no names or parties, just photographs of the party leaders.

Under the heading: 'Simon Cowell presents'

Lula-mae

Rusty sent me this:

He said it was the last picture he took of her before she ran off with the virtual snake oil seller from silicon valley.

Lula-mae... you've got a way with a gun.

The same way you got away with sticking a knife in my heart.

Under an assumed name.

I guess you'd been lying so long you forgot your real name.

but you didn't forget where you hid the knife. Or where my heart was.

Swimming for democracy.

Hey. You are bound by your fear of liberation.

You cannot let go because you cannot see the other side of the swimming pool.

And hey, you can't really swim

You have just been pretending, showing off to the girls

relying on us, the lifeguards, to rescue you

when you start drowning in ignorance

or laziness

and who needs the other side when this side will do

Just as well.

My inner woman looks something like this.

Election, X Factor and dictatorships.

The forthcoming election is not 'X Factor'.

One should be voting for the person who best represents you in your constituency.

Certainly not voting for 'celebrity' figureheads who care nothing for you and everything for their own ego's. This for them is nothing more than a stepping stone towards obscenely lucrative gigs when the politicking is done.

Whatever happened to career politicians who cared about the welfare of their constituents?

Depressing is it not that we shall have, once again, an elected (sort of) dictatorship rather than democracy.

Charity begins at home.

The current situation reminds me of an old folk tale:

John Albion was a woodsman. He worked hard for his living and then worked harder still to support his wife and six children. They were poor but fed and clothed; for that they were happy.

One day John came across a group of lost children in the woods, he took them home with him and instructed his wife to feed them and house them. She complained that they had barely enough to support themselves let alone newcomers.

'Let our children go without for a day or two. It will do them no harm'.

So the newcomers were fed and clothed at his own children's expense and months passed.

Eventually, out of despair, the wife departed, taking her children with her leaving behind a very unhappy John Albion surrounded by his waifs and strays who continued to eat him out of house and home.

.........................

I am not a member of the BNP nor do I support any of their policies. I have voted Green all my life. I have worked (as a volunteer) for charities supporting and helping the homeless and the disenfranchised. I have acted as peer advocate to a number of Immigrants and asylum seekers, taking on councils and government agencies on their behalf. I have always considered myself Liberal.

It is not the 'waifs and strays' that I am criticizing but John Albion's policies.

But enough is enough... This country has become the laughing stock of the world.

Am I being unreasonable? Be kind enough to let me know by commenting on this... You can do it anonymously.

The deerhunter

Dead gorgeous

I found this on the Vintage Scans blog:http://vintagescans.blogspot.com/ I paticularly enjoy the strumpetry.

Postcard from Rusty No: 34

Rusty writes from Mountain View, California:

Damned if Lula Mae ain't left me for good. Packed up her pie tins and other baking stuff in a red gingham tablecloth and gone off with a virtual snake oil peddler from Silicon Valley.

I asked her did I make her that unhappy and she said no Rusty, you made me very happy a lot of the time but that just makes the unhappy times impossible to bear.

Rusty.

Norman Mailer wrote: Happiness and absolute sorrow flow from the same wound.

A poem for the muse.

I would like to say that you are enough

but that is never enough

and I end up writing a poem

with a gun held to my temple

your finger on the trigger

can you do it

without military backing

I would like to say that you are woman enough

Scallops.Botticelli and nurse Caz.

A difficult day.

Tristan's Event at the Tabernacle has been cancelled, a double booking fiasco. not his fault. He now has to go back to scratch and re-plan.

Nurse Caz left six scallop shells on his doorstep today.

I sense that the scallop shells are more important than the cancelled event.

Looking at him now I see disappointment as if he were looking at Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' but seeing nothing but an empty shell.

I know Tristan. the Event will take place in it's own time and stuff will happen.

And nurse Caz will say hello... Probably.

Patti Smith - We're gonna have a real good time

Virginia the milliner.

Virginia the milliner makes a nice hat

in terms of accomplishment that's about that

A hat is a hat and a hat is a hat

There is nothing much else to Virginia than that.

Neil Young - Harvest Moon (with lyrics)

Question answered.

Many years ago and I mean a long time ago (something over 4,000 years if the Old testament is to be believed) chickens (indeed all birds) did not lay eggs.

They, like mammals, gave birth to almost fully formed offspring. Not an easy thing for a chicken; you try pushing a broiler through your letterbox.

Until one day an incredibly stupid bird was born, a bird that could not distinguish between seed and grit. She would spend her days pecking at anything remotely seed shaped, much to the amusement of the other birds.

They mocked her something rotten, even the birds across the road would come over for a closer mock.

All to no avail, she carried on doggedly; she had true grit, that bird.

Until one day she met a mate. Or rather she became the victim of avian lust and (with grit between her teeth) she conceived.

21 days later, on her newly made nest, rather than forcing out a bird shaped thing with much grimace and cluck, she smiled, sighed, then eased out an egg. which out of ignorance she sat upon for a couple of weeks (A well earned bout of maternity leave) before the egg hatched to reveal the cutest thing imaginable.

The other birds looked on in disbelief and envy until, when hunger took them, the scuttled off to find some grit.

Yes! The chicken came first.

London spring.

A beautiful London day. A blue sky that still constantly amazes after such greyness.

This evening I walked down Portobello Road without a coat without a care but with great attention to detail.

music squirting from the bars and hardly a word of English in earshot but many smiles.

the view from my window where I write is straight out of Blade Runner... Vehicle lights on the Westway, the trains and tubes below. The planes are back; they slide behind the tower blocks on Harrow Road.

Police sirens cut with precision. The busses roar as they turn into Chepstow Road.

London is a great place to be.

The unzipping of the sky

While it was all very pleasant having no aeroplanes overhead for a week I did enjoy watching the first arrival unzip a perfectly clear sky.

The excitement didn't last long though.

The poet at work

St Georges Day poem.

Why St George who was St George

a Roman legionnaire

Caught in the crossfire of sectarian bickering

sanctified by papal spin doctors of divinity

Brought here

A souvenier

By returning crusaders

Like some plastic Eiffel tower

To England's green and pleasant land

A rallying cry for Shakespeare or

A cry for god's sake

Engerland, Harry Redknap and Boy George.

Better the dragon

The undead, unspun dragon

The dragon alive in every English heart

Avoiding bad press

And 3 way debates

Finding Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land

Eyeing up the true symbol

Not for him the oak or the rose

But

The Cow

Rip it's horns off, wipe it's arse... And stick it on a plate.

Dragons

I spent much of today researching St George in order to write a poem to recite at a party tomorrow night (St Georges day).

I'm going to write about the dragon instead.

Meat Loaf and plagiarism

The theme of Meatloafs new album:http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w0001702.html is identical to Tristans Short story called 'Arc of a diver'. First published in May 2009: http://tristanssecretsofmagic.blogspot.com/2009/05/arc-of-diver.html

Shame he couldn't give Tristan a credit.

He tells me he is taking legal advice.

James Auden Photography

http://www.jamesaudenphotography.co.uk/

Hippies

Ashtrays and dead strawberries.

You can learn a lot about a man from the state of his ashtray

This is the ashtray of a man who kills strawberry plants even though they are on the kitchen windowsill. What on earth crossed his mind as he looked at them dying each time he washed up.

A friend suggested that he drank straight from the bottle or can and therefore never needed to wash anything.

The state of the ashtray confirms that.

Ruby.

Many years ago, after a divorce, well meaning friends would suggest 'suitable' new partners for me.

In order to avoid these embarrassing meetings I invented Ruby.

Some months later invention became reality and 'Ruby' entered my life.

Be very careful about what you wish for.

http://tristanssecretsofmagic.blogspot.com/