fragment

It all began with a lie.

Quickly told, deftly executed, but a lie nonetheless. Conventional wisdom will tell you that anything based on a foundation of lies will only be destined to failure and ruination. "The centre cannot hold" and all that other literary bollocks. I was never one for conventional wisdom or literary merit, mind. The lie was this:

"I love you, Meg."

Four simple words to make a girl's heart melt. Like putty, I was, in his arms, giving way to tender caresses and whispered platitudes. I should have known better. As my mum had told me, "Men are scum. Men are evil, Megan. Don't trust them. All they want is your sex, nothing else." I always chalked up her attitudes toward the fact that my father was an alcoholic who was known to stick it in anything with a hole in it, and on many occasions did. She'd chatter on about what he was doing wrong, how he was doing it wrong, why he was doing it wrong, and most importantly that he was a "bloody guzzling, soaking sot."

No, I'm not sure exactly what that means either, but whatever it was, my mum was intent on calling it my father. See, my parents were first generation Canadians; both emigrated from various parts of England, half the time in my house I wondered if they were even speaking English.

Things Falling Apart

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

-- William Butler Yeats

In Your Electric Chair

It's been awhile since I've actually checked my activity log, but it's always interesting to find out what people have been searching your site for. I've had quite a few people looking for "stand-up comics" and "Jerry Seinfeld" -- I know, that one kind of baffles me too, but there you are. Ray Tate has also apparently popped by and searched for himself -- I'd suggest some kind of philosophical soul-searching joke here, but unless it has something to do with Doctor Who, Buffy, or Scooby Doo... Maybe he just got lost? People have also been searching for "Alan David Doane" -- about six different queries for him in the last week -- and if you're looking for him, you can find him here.

Nightmares by the Sea

At CBR: "LYING IN THE GUTTERS will be published late afternoon Monday."

Not that I'm one to quibble over regularity in updating, but when you promise something, follow bloody through. It's now Tuesday here in North America, five thirty in the morning across the pond. You need your weekly fix of Rich's inane ramblings, sour grapes, and sometimes news.

Blank Stares & Nervous Glances

You know, when they say that there are only two things that are inevitable in life -- death and taxes -- they're wrong. At least, they've never met me, since I would be the third actuality; that it's inevitable that I will drop off the face of the planet for a month or two.

Um...how 'bout them Leafs?

Newer Thought to Question Why

A fully-realised thought does not just plop out of the sky. It's not like a latter day Python-esque sketch where a man walking down a street is just suddenly struck by an albatross. Not even the more feasible streetcar. No, a fully-realised thought percolates. It transmutes. Is mused over. It's forgotten. Picked back up and forged into a working thesis. Ideas, ideas grow on trees, but they have to be worked upon to become a thought. Not merely a question, or a ponderance. ...but a real thought.

This is why I constantly have problems with "keeping up". I place strictures on what I consider to be a fully-realised thought with supporting, logical argumentation. It takes more time than the cookie-cutter nature of the quickening of culture through blogonomics. It has to be something larger, something that accurately shows a step-progression of logic, instead of giant leaps and the higgeldy-piggeldy nature of much online writing.

I'll have to think on this further.

If You Hate Something, Don't You Do It Too

The thread following Mike San Giacomo's asinine column this week has degraded from "everyone vs. Mike" in defence of iconic artwork to the typical name-calling back and forth that normally graces Newsarama threads. I guess I should be glad I stopped when I did.

2003 in Muisc: Song of the Year

It's All Right, Sooner or Later

This year it seems as though we've been at a loss for "anthems" that carry us through the summer, that we see everyone singing, and gets played again and again and again such that after about a week, you're already sick of it. Maybe I should be thankful that the record companies took the year off from pimping the "big" single, or else I'm willfully choosing to supress something since it was so goddamn awful. How often have that new Britney Spears song or Pink's "I'm Trouble" been played? Neither seem to have diffused through to public many repeated playings.

...and so, I'm left coming up with a favourite that probably hasn't been played on the radio.

•"21st Century Living" -- Matthew Good

From his debut solo album, Avalanche, "21st Century Living" is like a Rick Mercer rant set to music -- funny, relevant, biting, and catchy. Ringing in at just over three minutes, Good tackles "super-sizing" and "ambition".

"I'd like a super-size of death with a Coke."

A Portrait of Ignorance, Simply Drawn

There's this thread currently stemming from Mike San Giacomo's latest treading into the realms of blissful ignorance in regards to "realistic" and "simple" artwork. As you'll note in thread, I myself have a few things to say, which is odd since I rarely actually take part -- or read -- most of Newsarama. What's more interesting is Alan David Doane's response, Journey into Ignorance.

The Only Thing You Need to Buy This Week

Drawn & Quarterly Volume 5.

It's the only thing you need this week and it's the giant red and green covered anthology sporting a beauty from Dupuy and Berberian. The book is just gorgeous, featuring a story from the aforementioned Dupuy and Berberian, a new Paul story from Michel Rabagliati (if you didn't pick up Paul Has a Summer Job earlier this year, you seriously missed out on some great autobio comics), R. Sikoryak's adaptation of Wuthering Heights to the style of EC horror comics, and a sizeable retrospective of Albert Chartier's art and career. Plus a couple other things.

If you have no clue who any of the people above are, please, stick your head back in the sand now.

The Greatest of All Time?

Take a look at this. Occasionally I'll joke about a book being heavy enough that you could kill someone with it, I think you actually could if this one was thrown with enough force. Certainly the book itself -- or perhaps once you see your bill -- would be enough to knock you out.

Mind you, the above is just the right hand punch from a southpaw. Here's the left.