sandstorm

On the edge of the town, red earth, a plain of dust and spinifex thorn bushes twining like stunted hedge mazes across the cracked skin of the land, i sat, crouched in the arms of an old salmon gum, warm eucalyptus breeze stirring the locks of wispy blonde hair falling over my eyes. The clean parched air rippling below. A bungarra slowly swishing across the black ironstone to lay, blood-lazy with clotted warmth, on the rock. His tongue, blue-black, flickered out to lick his nose. i could tell he was thirsty, like the trees and all the land. in my dirty hard hands i turned the arrowhead over and over, feeling its sharp rusted edge, the coolness of the metal, the ridge down the centre its forged spine, the sense of pain it suggested, of pierced flesh and wood protruding from bone, lodged somewhere within, better to push through than attempt to withdraw. A clean bisection. My nose ran a little and i wiped it on the back of my hand, already sticky with half dried mucus. The archery field lay about three kilometers from my home. Out beyond the rock that had strange discolorations like the markings of a face. Maybe the traces of some lost artist, his own dust bones gently caressing away the pigments ground from river stones and massaged into the stone’s porous quartzite skin. The field was an empty space of dry red dust, turned of most large stones, fast being reclaimed by the straggling weeds and creeping spinifex of the desert. Remnants of wooden target stands lay in piles of decay at the far edge. I’d run into the place with a sense of profound awe. The empty field carved from the waste by the hands of men long since passed on, never to return. i’d stepped on the sharp arrowhead with my hard black feet. Like some kind of image in a film. i saw myself glance down, pick it up, turn it over and over. Still turning it.

In the tree i felt all of a sudden the immense stillness of the moment. The lullaby motion had ceased, a slow imperception. My hair hang motionless and soft in my eyes. i brushed it aside with my arrow-hand, running the edge of the blade across my forehead gently, visualising the pink line, opening into blood for an instant – a smooth visage. The warm wind had stopped. i peered up into the branches. Smell of eucalyptus. Everything was silent. The leaves barely rustled against eachother. There were no birds. Even the clicking cicadas and crickets held voiceless. i didnt speak much, but i was used to listening to the speech of the world around me. This was disquieting. i squirmed uncomfortably.

From the corner of my eye something caught my attention. A slight darkening on the horizon. The blue arc of the sky shadowed at the edge by perturbation, unsettlement. The silence and a distant, subsonic murmur. i felt the air picking up, a smell of electricity, of energy infusing the spaces between things, everything. i looked down; the goanna was gone, sashayed off to some dark cool hole. The world was dimming. The sky had flowed to ultramarine, navy, jet. A dull red haze began to saturate the skyline. i could see a shadow on the horizon, growing as the silence, as the noise grew. The arrowhead lay dead and hard in my palm.

This was like no storm i had ever seen. No moisture, no smell of yearning parched earth. The earth here shrivelled away, retreated, turned its face in towards its stomach, shied from the sky. Not a drop of water. i opened my lips and the stillness sucked my mouth dry. i could see this, this red storm, like a wall of dark dry blood massing on the edge of the plain. An army mustering troops, gathered from all four corners of the world, sweeping in lines across the stone land, dust rising like the beacon of some approaching violence, some heavy dead killing mask. steel and dust. the dead of the world and man. and the army came marching at me. implacable. resolute. mindless. not a machine but a force. driven, without recourse, without hope of return. To the ends of the earth. the wall of dust would blanket the earth until the winds came to blow it away.

i jumped from the tree. landed awkwardly on an old mallee root, grey and rock hard, twisted my ankle. a cry from my mouth. high and thin. a tiny sound against this roar. The sandstorm was a wall gathering at my shoulders. The sky was crimson black. ash and dull coal. but dry. so dry i thought i could not live an instant in that dust. that the water of me was a lure to this hungry things thirst, unquenchable as the desert, drinking down the world in its infinte dry belly.

i ran. limping. for the house. my ankle firing like arrows in the heel. back past the copse of eucalyptus, through the sand piles, over the hedge of withered roses my mother pretended to tend in the summer, leaping the parched yellow bullgrass lawn. the wall of sand buffeted my shoulders. the smell was of ageless stone ground into fine powder, proud mountains reduced by time to near-nothingnesses, bitter somehow about this diasporation, each one amongst so many countless millions. a collective of lost glory. dry eyes searching for the currents of blood. i leapt onto the verandah, stumbling on the top step, staggering forward to tear open the glass sliding door and slip inside through the crack, ripping it closed behind me as the first dry tongues of sand licked my shoudlers. and then the wall hit. the world went black, red. The world was noise. impossible noise. the windows vibrate

Glasgow Mega-Snake is a fucking good name for a song

(spinoza's signet ring)

Mr. Beast is a gift. this music is somehow intensely spiritual, approaching the divine. Mogwai have earned their place in my heart and my IPod for many years now. when i listen to them, in headphones with the volume pushed into my synaesthetic range, my whole body lifts, textures appear on the surface of an unnamed sense, curtains of light and energy rush through me into the sky. beyond thought, pure joy

oblivion continues to impress too. truly beautiful world-making. the modding shall begin in earnest soon as i get some free time...

last night my neighbour, a professor of urban sociology and ethnic studies, held a party with a group of people from the NGO Shanti Volunteer Association, some visiting Bangladeshis and a Buddhist monk/researcher from Koyasan University. Together with mister Watado, his wife, and another gentleman novelist, we downed copious amounts of sake and talked into the small hours. topics included the earthly avatars of Amitabha/Amida and Avalokiteshvara/Kwan Yin (Panchen Lama and Dalai Lama respectively,) the books of Mishima Yukio which as conicidence would have it both I and my neighbour's wife are reading at the moment, Nakagami Kenji the burakumin(ancient underclass) novelist, Dostoyevski, and Spinoza. good people all. i was invited to stay at Koyasan sometime and its sounds like a fascinating and unique opportunity.

How to enjoy sushi

Totally serious. No sarcasm here at all.

night maras...

woke up from a nightmare

something perched on my chest

heavy as a corpse

no breath

frozen

.

this screen a window out of the room
a world of numbers; structure
comprehensible

here's an old story i told around a campfire, carrying a lantern and a sacrificial dagger, curved like a three-day moon, sharp as crimson-lacquered talons, tusks and viridian tattoos, a golden star in the centre of my brow, softly glowing...

((As told at The Night of The Star, Feb 10th, Undercity courtyard, Maelstrom.))

DA NIGHT-MARA

Once dere wuz a lonely old troll carpentah who wuz haunted by Night-Maras. Now, as every liddle troll knows, dese Maras dey be evil spirits; dey perch on yah chest at night and whispah bad tings in yah ear...

Dis old troll, he heard 'nuf, but he knew as he could ne'er catch dat Mara by hisself, cuz such fairies dey weave webs o great drowziness o'er dere vick-teems - but he conspired wit his friend, a chandlah, and dey laid a tricksey trap indeed...

One black night, de Carpentah went ta sleep, and hiss friend de Chandlah, he sat hidden with a stingin' nettle under his bum-hole, so as if he did sleep he wake up quic-as-a-flash like! Heh heh. And sure 'nuff, in de hour afore dawn...

in troo de keyhole, e'er so slowly-like, dere crept a fat white lizzud, glissnen like Da Mooon, an it plopped on de floor and slinky-slunk towards de bed where lay de Carpentah. And de Chandlah grew sleepy, like some voodoo song be ringin in his ears...

Den Suddenlee he sit down and yell out!

"OUCH! Sweet Momma Mah Ass Be A-Stinging!"

And he rushed to de door and stuck his candle in dat keyhole, and den out he went like a light!

Meanwhile, de Carptenah he be awoken by all the shoutin', and seein' da Lizzud he grabbed is hammer and nail and wit all his might he nailed dat mean spirit-tings front paw to de floor. Den like a coconut falling from a tree he too fell into de land o Nod.

In de mornin, de two trolls woke up, and were supprahzed to find a byuutifool and honey-eyed troll girlie in dere room, nekkid as de day she popped outta her momma! Skin smooth and white like Alla-Bastah she done had...

An' hair like woven silvah...but her hand was blood red and scaly and nailed to da floor...

As soon as dey beheld her de trolls dey fell in Lurve....

"She's a-Mine!" yelled de Chandlah. " Twas mah candle dat kept her from runnin'!" "BAH! She's a-Mine!" replied de Carpentah. "Twas mah nail dat kept her here!" And so dey argued back and forth and soon dey come to violent blows...

"ENOUGH!" de Mara-girl suddenly screamed. "Cleea-lee ya both have a right tah mee - yah magick spell-charms be holdin me in dis cursed place." And she wailed like a wolf den...

(For as any young troll-un knows, de normal everyday tings o dis world are magicks to dem from bee-yond, juss as dere mudanities be sorceries and hokuzz pokuzz to uss...)

So den de two trolls dey be driven tah madness bah her words, and each one he rushed to de odder ones 'charm' and tore it free. Dem stoopid trolls...

"No candle now!" yelled de Carpentah "Ya be free o him!" "No nail now!" yelled de Chandlah. "Yah be free o him!"...And den de troll-girlie smiled a wicked smile, and out from her lips dere came a long pink tongue, and wit it she licked her own eye...

"Ha ha!" she laugh, and den she wuz a liddle white lizzud, pale as Da Mooon, and like lightin' quickasaflash, out de keyhole she skitted. Lickety-split! All in her glory...And Dat...

is da end o da story!

itadakimasu

Recent thoughts:

Food.

One of the reasons I love Japan and continue to live here is the food. It really is incomparable. This nation treats food as one of the great pleasures of life. It is a joy and an art. Today I had lunch at Ootoya, a chain of affordable ‘homestyle’ cooking restaurants that can be found near most train stations. Very popular with people from all walks of life: businesspeople, schoolkids, housewives, retirees; the works.

My lunch:

Grilled salmon served with a little lemon and oroshi daikon finely-grated Japanese radish and shoyu soy sauce.

Piping hot bowl of Japanese white rice.

Renkon sliced lotus-root in a mild mustard sauce.

Bowl of miso soup with long onions, chives, wakame seaweed, and soybean curd fu.

Soft white tofu with dried nori seaweed, katsuobushi dried bonito fish flakes, spring onions, grated wasabi horseradish and tsuyu, a chilled light dipping soup of shoyu, sweetened mirin sake, and dashi fish stock.

Tsukemono salt-pickled slices of Japanese kyuuri cucumber.

Cold spinach leaves seasoned with a kurogoma black sesame sauce.

Water and hot green tea.

All served on conservative wabisabi Japanese-style ceramic tablewear. Pristine light waribashi wooden chopsticks. A steaming oshibori hot towel with which to cleanse ones hands before dining.

Cost?

714 yen inc. tax.

At today's rate, 8 dollars 49 cents Australian. For lunch.

Tell me where I can get this in any other country. Answer: I can’t. Every lunch is a pleasure and a moment of aesthetic appreciation. Its like going to an exhibition. Before I eat I whisper the Japanese expression itadakimasu; often translated as bon appetite, but really it is something much more. An offering of thanks to the chef who prepared the meal with the skill of a master-artisan; to the spirits of the animals sacrificed so that I may live; to the gods of the land in whose soil the plants take root and to the great sun whose light makes them grow tall and strong. To the simple fact that I am alive and able to appreciate the pleasures of taste and aroma and beauty and contentment.

And then, sated, I head back to the office.

IC; it feels good to watch george clooney tortured; seijinshiki

seem to be finding a lot of texts dealing with terrorism/anarchism/revolutionary movements recently. some quite interesting.

books:

China Mieville's Iron Council. Read the first two books, Perdido Street Station and The Scar, first.

here, the heroes are terrorist/revolutionaries. socialist mythology, the paris commune. the image of the perpetual train, a group of criminal chain gang railway workers who kill their masters/guards and lay endless tracks across the untracked wastelands, taking the rails from behind to lay down in front, is one that will stay with me. seminar discussing the book including comments from the author, here.

films:

Syriana was great. Someone said to me: 'I prefer my fantasies to have wizards in pointy hats.' But of course I disagree. All texts are fiction. All sense is fantasy. And the things that this movie said spoke to me as true as any other voice I've heard recently. Munich, Narnia, Violence, Koreda, Bergman, Capote, Vendetta, Night Watch, Immortel.

'Arabs are very family oriented, as a people. Is that racist?'
'Sure.'
'It is?'
'A little. Well no, I guess if what you're saying is positive...'

The Information Revolution, they used to call it. Who knows what is going on anymore? The answer to that question is: no one at all. And further questions: did anyone, ever? Information, not Knowledge. A human brain is only so big.

Someone else was writing a letter to her 20-year old daughter on her coming-of-age. Struggling for sage advice. 'Know thyself.' 'Wisdom is knowing that you know nothing.' 'Happiness is when what we think, what we say, and what we do are in harmony.'

on the dude's shirt: INTEGRITY

This weekend was great. hung out with old friends back in town for a time, then hung with ritz and the crew in the buya. I fell in love with a beautiful scientist and got a bloodied nose from a deathmetal gig melee. deep in a tokyo metal dungeon; full body dragon tats; blood-red light; extreme volume; a heaving mass of bodies; in the centre forms a clear circle; combatants enter, clash and part, rejoin the seething mass; at moments the tension erupts; fists glimpsed in a flash of strobe; rage and joy and a forest of rock horns raised to the gods of thunder

"the dead shall rise and feast on the living"

Saw this film “The Village” by M. Night Shyalaman. Liked it. Not too long. Who names their child ‘Night’? Did they plan for him to become a creepy supernatural/suspense film director? Ron Howard’s daughter, a beautiful blind girl. Whenever I see Adrian Brody I can’t help but think of my old mate Mike B. who resembles Brody and the story of when Mike came out of a theatre in Tokyo after watching “The Pianist” and some Japanese people stared and whispered that ‘it was him!’ The Village operates in the tradition of the ‘closed world’ tale: the controlled environment, the sterile construction, the Brecht/Beckett stage, the auteur as scientist; the setting a laboratory, the characters, pale pink-eyed rats who wouldn’t survive a moment in the outside; or moving gears and cogs, balls rolling around a machine in controlled patterns, electrons shooting around a network; diodes, transistors, silicon circuitry. In these type of constructions, a ‘working machine’ means that everything falls in its correct place, that nothing wanders off track, that the finely tuned laws of this constricted and discrete system work as a harmonic and consistent whole, precise, relentless, inevitable, crystalline, eternal. Utopia. This is what they strive for: the sense of the eternal. Of myth (not of legend) – of an elevation of the mundane into the symbolic realm (that heavenly realm of Plato’s fantasies) where Spinoza and Jung meet and talk over english tea in a lucid dream, centuries apart, even now. I love these kind of constructions – but they are a hard trick to pull off. My own writing attempts tend towards them at times. They are often moral realms: realms of moral exploration and elucidation. They carry that religious/mythical tone. Lars Von Trier’s works skirt this kind of construction but somehow in them the auteur is so strong a presence that he ‘corrupts’ the entire universe and pollutes it with his presence and his own impurities. His worlds have some hole torn in them where he leaks in and sickens the very characters gently cupped in his giant directors hands. A friend of mine once said that Mishima’s works ‘stink of blood’…somehow Von Trier’s stink of pestilence, of fevered sweat, of semen. Closed worlds: Murakami’s books are great ones for this. In his the auteur enters as an overwhelmingly positive aura. As a sense of simple wonderment at the weirdness not of life or the universe, but of existence itself (it? it?) In “Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World” the closed-off world/text/novel/creation/universe/mind/idea is a partitioned section of a man’s brain, in which he is ‘trapped’ by a security system wired into his head. He is cut off, adrift, severed from the real and left floating in a discrete world with precise boundaries, rules, cirlces; limits. God I love these works. Its all about cirlces: limits.

I live within the circle of the great train line that rings the city. It sets a boundary within which is one place, and without is another. It is important to me that I live within this. The idea of ‘beyond’ brings a sense of weightlessness, of endlessness – exposure to the horizon, the eater of edges – as though if I were to step outside it, I would no longer know where my world ends, and no longer know when I should stop walking and turn back home. As though I might fall away, to the mountains and beyond, no place to rest my feet on solid ground, no place to rest my head and say ‘I am here. I am withing the circle. The circle protects me, it gives shape and form to my world, it allows me to function in a systematic, understandable environment. It is a bulwark against the madness of the infinite.’

And this is what boundaries are: like walls of houses. Keeping us safe from the hungry infinite.

When I make music, or paint or draw, or write – I need limits. Rules, edges, lines of resistance. This is how all creation works. Take for example, a blank document in Illustrator. A blank white page of glowing gamma radiation pouring from energized liquid crystals in a matrix pattern on the screen. They just POUR out their own ‘being’. It is when we put limits on this stuff, this light/energy/exsitence, that patterns and forms emerge, that shape is given to the endless white plain. Such is the world itself: an infinite field of all things, limited and bracketed by rules. Rules that create something from nothing, rules that themselves ARE nothing (for what is a rule?) I used to love the old Russian Formalist poets and their penchant for setting strict rules to aid in creation: write a poem with no adjectives; write a poem without the letter ‘e’; write a poem while screaming obscenties at train commuters in rush hour; write a poem while fucking your wife; write a poem while you kill a man.