MESLANGE DES JEUX DE L'ORGUE - Gaspard Corrette

Those of you who know me will recall that I still like to play the organ from time to time.  Truro Cathedral is of course, blessed with the only Cathedral Organ built by 'Father' Henry Willis to still be even approaching its original state (a new detached console and moving the Solo Tuba to the front part of the interior pale in comparison to the rebuilds [and repitchings] other Cathedral organs have faced), but alas, I have not had the pleasure of playing it.  And rightfully so, for an organ scholar in retirement like me!  However, I am allowed access to one of the Cathedral's other instruments - what remains of the organ installed in 1750, in the Parish church of St. Mary in Truro, built by John Byfield II. (NPOR)

Battered and bruised over its 266 year lifespan, I now jump at whatever chance I have to play this noble fragment (the case and I'd say barely 4 of the 19 stops that would have accompanied the  first service of Nine Lessons and Carols remain, in heavily altered form), and hack through my favourite stuff: French Baroque.  Full of character and uncompromising discord, the composers of the French School had a talent for the dramatic, as well as the pastoral, using the 8 church modes to create suites of pieces that were designed to accompany the worship of French liturgy, either as alternating with chanting or a choir, or as pieces to be played at the communion.  Organ building reached a peak (and arguably stagnated), meaning that almost all instruments had the same basic sound available (with according luxuries on lager instruments), so a set of registrational rules were drawn up that once learned, could be applied to any instrument.

The menu that follows comes from the introduction to Gaspard Corrette's Organ Mass, the title of which translates as "Mass on the 8th tone for the Organ, for the usage of Nuns and useful to those who play the Organ" (no, really).  It's great, full of crashing discord and a few indulgent melodies thrown in to the mix of dialogues and Plein Jeu's... But trying to register anything on what's left?  I'll leave the French intact and give the hilarious machine translation but after I'll give as good an account as I can of what actually happens.  Unfortunately, everything starts to sound the same after a while...

Pour le PLEIN JEU: L'on tire les Claviers ensemble, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon de 16 pieds, Bourdon, Montre, Prestant, Doublette, Fourniture et Cymballe, Au Positif, Bourdon, Montre, Prestant, Doublette, Fourniture et Cymballe. 

For FULL GAME, Keyboards together are drawn, In Big Game, 16-foot Bumblebee, Bumblebee, Watch, Prestant, Doublette, Supply and Cymballe, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Watch, Prestant, Doublette, Supply and Cymballe.

Couple the manuals; On the Great, Open Diapason, Stopt Diapason, Principal.  On the Swell, Open Diapason, Stopt Diapason, Principal, Mixture.  Couple both to Pedal (in case of tenths)

Pour la FUGUE: L'on tire les Claviers ensemble, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, Prestant, Trompette, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, et le Cromhorne. 

For the RUNNING AWAY, Keyboards together are drawn, In Big Game, Bumblebee, Prestant, Trumpet player, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, and Cromhorne.

Swell Oboe and SD, couple to pedal (in case of tenths)

Le TRIO A DEUX DESSUS: on pousse les Claviers, la Main droite sur le Positif, et la Main gauche sur le Grand Jeu, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, Prestant, Montre, Tierce, Grosse Tierce, Nazar, et Quarte de Nazar, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, le Cromhorne, et le Tremblant Doux. 

The TRIO HAS TWO TOPS, Keyboards, the Right hand on the Positive, and the Left hand on Big Game are pushed,
In Big Game, Bumblebee, Prestant, Watch, Third, big Third, Nazar, and Quarte de Nazar,

In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, Cromhorne, and Trembling Soft.

Right hand on the Swell and the left hand on the Great.  Sw. SD and Principal and Gt. OD (or Principal an octave down)

Le DUO: On pousse les Claviers, la Main droite sur le Positif, et la Main gauche sur le Grand Jeu, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon de 16 pieds, Bourdon, Prestant, Tierce, Grosse Tierce, Nazar, et Quarte de Nazar, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, Tierce, et Nazar. 

The DUET, Keyboards, the Right hand on the Positive, and the Left hand on Big Game are pushed, In Big Game, 16-foot Bumblebee, Bumblebee, Prestant, Third, big Third, Nazar, and Quarte de Nazar, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, Third, and Nazar.

Right hand on Swell and the left hand on the Great.  Sw. Oboe (or OD and Principal), Gt. SD

Le RÉCIT DE NAZAR: Se touche sur le Positif, et l’Acompagnement sur le Grand Jeu, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, et Montre de quatre pieds, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre et le Nazar. 

The STORY OF NAZAR, feels each other on the Positive, and Acompagnement on Big Game, In Big Game, Bumblebee, and four-foot Watch, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch and Nazar.

Solo on the Great, accompaniment on the Swell - Gt. Principal and Sw. OD and SD

DESSUS DE PETITE TIERCE: Se touche sur le Positif, et l’Acompagnement sur le Grand Jeu, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, et Prestant, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, Tierce, et Nazar. 

TOP OF THIRD BABY, feels each other on the Positive, and Acompagnement on Big Game, In the Big Game, Bumblebee, and Prestant, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, Third, and Nazar.

Solo on the Swell, accompaniment on the Great.  Sw. SD and Mixture, Gr. OD

BASSE DE TROMPETTE: On pousse les Claviers, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, Prestant, et Trompette, Au Positif, Bourdon, et Prestant ou Montre. 

BASS OF TRUMPET PLAYER, Keyboards are pushed, In Big Game, Bumblebee, Prestant, and Trumpet player, In the Positive, Bumblebee, and Prestant or Watch.

Solo on the Great, accompaniment on the Swell - Gt. Principal and OD, Sw. OD and SD (box half closed)

BASSE DE CROMHORNE: On pousse les Claviers, Au Grand Jeu, Montre et Bourdon, Au Positif, Prestant ou Montre, Nazar, Tierce, Doublette, Larigot, et le Cromhorne, point de Bourdon.

BASS OF CROMHORNE, Keyboards are pushed, In Big Game, Watch and Bumblebee, In the Positive, Prestant or Watch, Nazar, Third, Doublette, Larigot, and Cromhorne, no Bumblebee.

Solo on the Swell - Sw. Oboe and SD, Gt. Dulciana.  Great to Pedal coupled.

CROMHORNE EN TAILLE: Au Grand Jeu, Montre, Bourdon, et les Pedalles de Flûte, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, et le Cromhorne.

CROMHORNE THERE SHARPENS, In Big Game, Watch, Bumblebee, and the Pedalles de Flûte, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, and Cromhorne,

Solo on the Swell - Sw. Oboe and SD, Gt. SD.  Great to Pedal coupled.

TIERCE EN TAILLE: Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon de 16 pieds, Montre et Prestant, et les Pedalles de Flûte, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, Nazar, Tierce, Doublette, et Larigot. 

THIRD THERE SHARPENS, In Big Game, 16-foot Bumblebee, Watch and Prestant, and the Pedalles de Flûte, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, Nazar, Third, Doublette, and Larigot.

Solo on the Swell - Sw. Mixture, Principal, SD, Gt. SD.  Great to Pedal coupled

FOND D’ORGUE: On tire les Claviers l’un sur l’autre, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon de 16 pieds, Bourdon, Prestant, et Montre, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre. 

BOTTOM Of ORGAN, Keyboards the one at other one are drawn, In Big Game, 16-foot Bumblebee, Bumblebee, Prestant, and Watch, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch.

All 8 foot stops coupled to Great

CONCERT DE FLUTE: On tire les Claviers l’un sur l’autre, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon et Flûte, Au Positif, Bourdon, Flûte et le Tremblant doux. 

CONCERT OF FLUTE, Keyboards the one at other one are drawn, In Big Game, Bumblebee and Flute, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Flute and Trembling soft.

Manuals coupled, Sw. SD, Gt. OD and Flute

DIALOGUE DE VOIX HUMAINE: On ne tire point les Claviers l’un sur l’autre, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon et Flûte, Au Positif, Bourdon, Flûte, la Voix Humaine, et le Tremblant doux. 

HAD TALKS OF VOX HUMANA, Keyboards the one at other one are not drawn, In Big Game, Bumblebee and Flute, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Flute, Vox humana, and Trembling soft.

Solo on Swell - Sw. Oboe, Gt. Dulciana

DIALOGUE A DEUX CHŒURS: On tire les Claviers l’un sur l’autre, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, Prestant, Trompette, Clairon, et le Cornet, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre et le Cromhorne.

They HAVE TALKS IN TWO CHŒURS, draw Keyboards the one at other one, In Big Game, Bumblebee, Prestant, Trumpet player, Bugle, and the Cone, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch and Cromhorne.

All couplers - Sw. full, Gt. OD, SD, Principal, Ped. OD brought on for final 'Fort Lentement' 

DIALOGUE A TROIS CHŒURS: On tire les Claviers l’un sur l’autre, Au Grand Jeu, Bourdon, Prestant, Trompette, Clairon, Cornet, Nazar, Quarte de Nazar et Tierce, Au Positif, Bourdon, Prestant ou Montre, Cromhorne, Tierce et Nazar, le Troisième Chœur sur le Clavier d’Echo, et le Tremblant à Vent Perdu.

They HAVE TALKS IN THREE CHŒURS, draw Keyboards the one at other one, In Big Game, Bumblebee, Prestant, Trumpet player, Bugle, Cone, Nazar, Quarte de Nazar and Third, In the Positive, Bumblebee, Prestant or Watch, Cromhorne, Third and Nazar,

the Third Chorus on the Keyboard of Echo, and the Trembling with Lost Wind.

Don't even start chummy, you're 'avin a laugh.

Pfff.  Big Game...

If anything, Organ teachers should just hand out a list of machine translated stop lists and let their students have an honest stab at it before telling them the real things.  Imagine, that one day a recital is given by one of these earnest pupils, who through sheer nerves tells their audience that they hope to showcase the beautiful voicing of stops with Monseigneur Couperin's "Top of Third Baby", only realising what they said after a smattering of confused applause and the audience mumbling the word "...baby?"

Trust not too much

Think about it.  Give yourself 30 seconds, and diagnose a problem.  And give me a solution.  Well.  More for me, really.

I've all but let go of writing recently.  They say when will you write again, they say where was that review of Star Wars?  They say isn't it a shame.  They even said you should write a book.

I always wrote as if I was in the centre of a narrative.  My life had a direction, even if I didn't know what it was, because things were happening that were taking me to different places.  Now, not so much.  Or at least, I don't really see it that way any more.  I came to realise that all of my problems were the same problems that everyone faces, give or take, rather than to try and frame it into a narrative where I overcome various challenges as set by some malevolent deity (or Choirmaster), and enjoy a moral and societal feeling of justification.

I had to down tools about 8 months ago, as I thought that things had gotten a little too close for comfort really.  It was impossible to talk about problems without maintaining the usual veneer of almost respectable semi-anonymity, which then got in the way of basically everything else that I wanted to do.  Once upon a time I had grand designs for a fortnightly schedule, but because of one thing or another, I let it go.  Creativity took a back seat to, well, I don't know, the abyss.  My obsession with long form also doesn't help, but neither did the nagging feeling that I was wasting my time with people in particular.  It's not just institutions that close their ranks, after all.  

There's also something about regular work that's upset the ship slightly, but the massive increase in salary and disposable income must make up for that, surely?  (You are not your bank account)  But surely, the major flaws of data entry and answering the telephone leaves me with little in the way of feelings of accomplishment; I regularly attend admin "team" meetings (because everything is a team these days - not a kitchen but a catering team, not a choir but a music team &c &c) where I bring up that really anyone could answer the phone and unjam the photocopier (actually it seems I'm almost the only one who can), only to be told that no I am valued and a special unique snowflake that they couldn't do without and it really doesn't ring true.  It's okay to have someone employed as the monkey who answers the phone, but not okay to make it seem any more than that.

Anyway.  It's about time I came back, somehow.  It's boring, not writing.  And I hate being bored.

Come Clap Thy Hands

I'm closing the Asylum down for a little while.  I like to think it's for repairs, just like the Cathedral and the north side of the nave roof.  Yes, imagine that, a whole load of scaffold up around my head; whole wings lay in ruins, hardly any of the lights work and various doors either won't open or close depending on where they are and who's behind them.

I'm tired, I suppose.  I know I'm upset about the end of the year as well, before anyone points it out for me, especially as it feels particularly abrupt this year - just so many things have happened: Filming 9 Lessons and Carols alongside the usual packed Christmas timetable, audio recordings in January, Come and Sing, the termly concerts with their own highs and lows (Less than half the Cathedral full on a Friday night?  Thoughtless errors in the Durufle Requiem?!), this year's CD followed swiftly by the broadcast... It's been a packed schedule.  Maybe you as audience may scoff at this - perhaps you are part of a choir that does this every year so it's in your stride?  Maybe you have a full time job and demanding home life?  Or maybe you have no idea why this sounds like a lot?  Who knows.  I know that as we reached and somehow survived this last hurrah... I just feel knackered.  I'm worn through and burnt out really; not so much burning the candle at both ends as throwing the whole candle into the fire.  

So, like I say, the place is going to close for a little bit.  If anybody catches me publishing anything before the 6th of September then, then... I don't know, some arbitrary measure of punishment ought to be involved.  Seven weeks ought to be good enough.  Did you know there's a difference between saying something doesn't matter and saying something isn't important?  Amazing.  But I digress.  I used to write about how much it upset me that I didn't fit in: Humanity is still essentially a herd animal - social but ultimately stupid and dangerous in large numbers.  After a modicum of success I once again feel pretty much the same, so I guess this is my get out post for now though - there's just so much bullshit I've decided that the best option now is to down tools and shut the doors - there are battles here that I will never win, ever, and trying to fight on terms other than my own is destroying what's left of me.  Sometimes I feel like the monomaniacal Ahab, hell-bent on his own destruction... Although having thought about who or what my own white whale would be, and what sort of short-sighted offence might be taken, I should say no more on it.

I wonder whether I have left bridges unburnt merely for the sake of it?  I've never felt so inadequate in all my life, said I, before processing up for Evensong... But that's for another time, I suppose.  Frankly, I feel more and more that I have been treated increasingly as a commodity: enough is enough.  That my opinions are increasingly invalid; that my decisions are easy to overturn, or are simply incorrect in the first place; that I am at others' convenience, and that alone; that I may be cancelled, and cancelled on; that simply, it does not matter.  Good for answering your questions, but not much else.  Maybe if I tear enough down, tear it all down, maybe I can build something better.  Yes!  Build a better asylum, build a better mousetrap, build a better me.  Such lofty aspirations.  

There are some good things to come out of all this dread though, in a way.  I now look after a tiny little doglet person, a Golden Retriever puppy of gradually increasing age,size and appetite.  Odds are that nobody would ever have thought I'd be a dog person, in fact probably not any kind of animal at all person but there we go - a change really is as good as a rest.  In a way, he acts like a little Emotional Support Animal, what with me being "on the spectrum" and all (before any of you clever dicks out there say it first), and that I have had no more fun this year so far than chasing this tiny dog around the house and garden, and taking him out and gradually introducing him to the world at large.  He may not strictly be my dog... But when I have custody of him he is my responsibility, and what I say goes.  I've taken to carrying the treat pouch around with me now, to encourage him to behave better (especially at road sides), which garnered me the strange but (probably deserved) compliment that I was "like a proper daddy", which filled me with an as yet unknown sense of pride.

I suppose I'm angry as well.  Maybe it's all misplaced, or totally unwarranted or even unjustified, but that's neither here nor there.  I really need to get my life in order for a really quite substantial change (no, I'm not moving away... But I can't help but think perhaps I missed an opportunity, but actually I do have promises to keep after all), and relieving myself of any guilt of having not posted anything is as much a part of it as anything else.  I am in a time of change, as always at the end of an academic year, and as old totems finally crumble from sheer age I don't really know how to replace them - I am unsure and feel almost totally alone.

None of this rage will matter next year though, as I will finally have a job and money and maybe even some status to go along with them.  Maybe people will finally like me!  I crack myself up... Ah, once upon a time, while I still thought that killing myself was a valid and morally reasonable option, I joked about how I would take so long writing a suicide note that would encompass all my feelings of being wronged and why I ought to leave this mortal plane that I would become too engrossed in the actual note itself, inadvertently saving my own life.  It was at that moment, I knew it was a writer's life for me!  All laughter aside though, wouldn't it be boring if I died?  I can't stand being bored myself, and I'm sure plenty of people would be even more bored if it wasn't for me, so I'll be sticking around for a while.  Anyway, I'd have nothing to complain about!  Even at the gallows, one's sense of humour is still important.

I'll leave you with a real joke for now; I think Rorschach said it best...

"I heard joke once: Man goes to doctor.  Says he's depressed.  Life seems harsh, and cruel.  Says he feels all alone in threatening world.  Doctor says: "Treatment is simple.  The great clown - Pagliacci - is in town.  Go see him.  That should pick you up."  Man bursts into tears.  "But doctor..." he says "I am Pagliacci."

Good joke.  Everybody laugh.  Roll on snare drum.  Curtains." 

Come then, and clap thy hands.  

Fyer, fyer!

I wrote this on the train, and also in a flat in Islington (here in a basement).

I've been doing this all wrong for too long.

As some of you may or may not know, I've been on holiday to England.  Yes, yes... Laugh it up, Cornwall technically is part of England.  But it also isn't.  Favoured holiday destination of seemingly most people on this island, be it from middle class families, beach hut owners, post A-level and pre-university students or just people from Birmingham, Cornwall is very much its own place.  I don't really need to wax on too long about this; I'm sure you have all the TripAdvisor recommendations and have seen enough of the new Poldark to be able to form your own, unquestionably valid conclusions.  My own recent adventures out to Gurnard's Head and getting sunburnt from just sitting at the desk in the office are part of the good things about living here.  What's most telling about life on this 80 mile spit into the Atlantic is the sheer scale of things – or the lack of it.

Five days in Derby have given me a lot of perspective back, actually.   As sad as it is to walk about and see parts of the city dirtier than memory would have me believe, at least... At least it's there. You know?  Okay, okay... The ineffable value of a place being the place is difficult to get down on paper (this is paper? What is truth then?) but not lost on the author.  No trip to Derby is complete without a bag of dinky donuts, or indeed, kneeling on St. Mary's Gate to get in the entire height of the Cathedral tower in frame.   I sometimes wonder about going back... But then I remember that nothing can ever be the same, and that the hope that it could be is an even more vain and time wasting hope than usual, even for me.  But much as suffering builds endurance and endurance builds character, distance allows for breathing room and breathing room allows for perspective.  A little distance is what I've needed for a long time, actually; I've been remarkably hard on myself (even for me, a noted self torturer) recently in sort of not going anywhere.   I've become stuck somewhat in Truro for what I could only describe as no good reason.  I haven't even been to the sea on my own, for saying it's £2.70 and a half hour away, let alone somewhere luxurious such as Exeter...

In getting stuck though, I've almost given up.  In moments of self awareness, I've noticed that I've stopped playing music (excuses here are legion, the best being that my keyboard plug is bust), stopped listening to music (the headphone jack on my phone doesn't work oh dear), almost given up writing, reading, cooking... It's worrying. It could be worse though!  I could have stopped all of these things and started handing my books out to other people!  Tragic.  It's as if I have let the fight just...run out of me.  I suppose that this is all part of the process I started about a year ago, of resetting my head.  I said it was a rewiring job at the time, before moving on to a more apt metaphor, that my head is more like an Asylum, a colossal house of madness full of rooms and whole wings that make up the most of my memory, bad as it is already, that can be shut off, doors locked and barred.  I have recalled things I had rather not have over the past twelve months, things that I have chosen to discuss either publicly or on here, in order to help myself get past them; while the jokes might not exactly be pouring forth, but at least I can talk about my own history of suicidal tendencies rationally now.   Last week was more about straws and my own dromedary spine, but as sure as you break me with reed I shall purge you by hyssop.  I'm sure there's worse to come as well.

It's not so much that I have been totally beset by tragedy or misfortune, perhaps just as much as anybody else, but that I wear my heart on my sleeve, until both it and the sleeve wear out.  It makes sense though – I have no real fine control over my sensory input or emotional state which is extremely tiring and difficult to manage, notwithstanding my propensity for panic attacks and more recently, nightmares (not something I'd recommend).   Also I've been struggling with interpersonal skills again, in differentiating means and ends, recognising the two (and who sees me as which and vice versa) – there's been plenty of unrest actually and I'm glad to have taken a step of several hundred miles away from things. Something else I've been pondering is that in getting older and becoming more settled am I simply becoming... Boring?  Being outspoken and opinionated doesn't really seem to have helped terribly, but what's the alternative?  Sycophancy?  Alright, that's the extreme sure, but really?  All of us, all of our lives struggle, in different degrees with things, people, situations and relationships that we don't like and for what?  Usually so other people are happy, more often than not.  I think we're done here.

There's actually a lot of unrest at the moment, all bubbling away under the surface. I'm sufficiently convinced that this isn't the time and place to discuss the hard and fast reasons behind it, but I'm certainly not the only person who isn't entirely happy – and it isn't difficult to tell either.  Sometimes syntax isn't just about how you put a sentence together, it's about how you are as well. It's something that I suppose that people aren't aware of, but it's all a giveaway.  Things like, oh I dunno... How often you go to the pub, or more tellingly, what time you start drinking.  I have to watch this kind of thing all the time, I spend an awful amount of effort trying (and often failing) to decode social meaning and hierarchy and all (who has a problem with authority anyway?).  You never really realise yourself, but when you have to watch things... it's all a dead giveaway when something's the matter.  As I've already mentioned, I am of course my own worst case in point – since my keyboard power adapter has broken I have all but given up and resorted to well... Drink instead of practice really. I still resolutely claim that things are “alright” and that I'm “okay”, but really?   It doesn't take a behavioural scientist to work out I'm secretly in misery and denying it.

Something about being back has reminded me that the moment I feel like giving up is in fact the moment to start fighting back again.  It always was, and I have no idea why I let it go? Maybe it's something in the water – or more accurately, the lack of it down south (mmmm, limestone hills). It's always like this, and I usually stay pretty fired up for about two or three days after getting back and then... Poof! Back to normal, or what passes for anyway. Now is the most selfish time I have, as I have been reminded. I will never be as young as I am now, and if I keep rolling over and giving up just for the sake of what I don't even know, then I will have wasted all the effort that brought me here, and waste what potential I have left for my future.


NEXT TIME ON ASW... Le Grand Depart, in detail!

Fair in a morn

You know, the thing with a sporadic update schedule is that you sometimes miss the big occasions - even a first anniversary is as exciting as any other!  I still haven't really found a 'purpose' for this particular venture, as such, but it keeps me sane - just.

Lately, things have been... Well, not great.  I've had awful block, terrible depression, a straight up inability to sleep, and become almost a fixed point around which my moods swing and emotions wildly oscillate, which is more tiring than anything else.  Through it all though, I've managed to keep going; perhaps at a less than even keel but still... I know that I'm indestructible.  It isn't easy feeling like you don't belong, especially when you thought you'd left that sensation behind in the toilet that was my second year at University.  It's difficult to explain, even with several thousand words left ahead of us here and now, because the contexts are often so sensitive.  People I love and care about very deeply often bear the brunt of an unhappy man who simply feels lost a lot of the time.  I'm sure one day we'll all look back on this and laugh, heartily and loudly, laughing genuinely at the quarter-life crisis of someone who probably just doesn't get enough fibre in his diet (come on, it has to boil down to something that ridiculous).  Even today had its own great episode!

Failure hangs heavy in the air this afternoon in particular.  I can't really remember the last time I legitimately asked somebody out on a date before this afternoon, but that day, lost as it is to the ages and cobwebbed chambers of my memory was also the last time I got a successful answer.  I know, I know; you're thinking that this shouldn't really be a problem.  I shouldn't really be getting upset about this.  Not really.  I feel the same way, it's quite disappointing getting hung up on so simple a hook, but... It's a real drain, actually.  I have problems, as we know, intuiting social cues, body language, facial expression, basic human communication.  A lot don't believe me because I seem to get on quite well.  The awful truth is that I don't, and just because I don't look like I'm searching for the nearest and most convenient exit while I'm basically anywhere is because I've normally already worked it out ahead of time.  It's extremely difficult for me to engage on an emotionally stable and socially relaxed level at any time, so have a heart.

It's not as if I haven't had dates in the past either, to say otherwise would be to do a very great disservice to a good few (but not many) young ladies.  Usually, there are patterns that I am finally recognising, patterns that I seem to fall into time after time.  Being attracted to someone makes me extremely nervous, and the control of such nerves soon becomes completely impossible, which makes social interaction a nightmare - I usually talk too fast and can get quite sarcastic without even really meaning to, which normally leads to nobody quite being able to understand the other.  It's also a huge effort, especially factoring in the low margin of success, in thinking of the right thing to say, and finding the right time and nothing ever seems to happen properly and I end up coming away very bitter and angry at myself for even trying.  Why bother, if that's all I have to look forward to?

Most of the time, I just stop myself.  Is this a good idea?  Is it really?  Won't I scare this person off with my mania and my anxieties, my gaping character flaws?  Normally, I say yes, of course I will.  Could you imagine?  What would we talk about?  What would we do?  How long would it be until the inevitable, crushing rejection?  There are some rejections that secretly, I have never recovered from, and the prospect of any in the future honestly frightens me.  There have been those who used me to make themselves feel better, those whose affections have soured faster than those sherbet lemons I always carry around (just in case!), those who are so precious, those who have known but never believed, those who have never known, and those who never will.  That and I don't really have a plan if I ask anyone and they say yes anymore - I hardly know what flight of fancy lead me into the latest swatting but I somehow decided it would be a good idea, almost on the spot.  I say swatting, but it was all very gentle; for all that frustration in being refused I kind of had no outlet as one must stay magnanimous, no matter how awful and dejected and useless actually hearing "no" made me feel.  I understand that wasn't the intention at all but it doesn't stop it from hurting.  Like when you accidentally staple your thumb.  

It's all back to square one though.  Straight back to the foot of the heap, a mountain of a mole hill of self worth and self esteem.  There's always something in me that keeps trying, keeps pushing - I've never truly learned to give up yet, which has its upsides and its down.  Sometimes I feel sick, I feel like it's killing me but... I don't know.  At least I still feel!  They say that you only regret the things that you didn't do, after all.  Oy.


I'm sure I've published better, and hopefully I will again; forgive me for bending your ear with tales of ponderous woe.  All's fair in love and war, and we all know I'm spoiling for a fight most of the time anyway.  Hopefully I can move past the latest in a series of severe creative blocks and write something you might even enjoy reading!  That'd be nice.  

NEXT TIME on ASW... William Shatner's THE TRANSFORMED MAN, Alan Shore as my Aspergers hero, and just who am I carrying sherbet lemons around for?  And why?  Isn't it obvious?!

Roses are Red

We all know what today is.  The world's greatest Hallmark moment, legitimised by capitalism... Ahhh, there's nothing like being cynical.  I, of course, have an extremely checkered relationship with the implications of this date and also with relationships anyway, and I'm sure we'll be investigating this further as I claw my way out of this soul crushing depression I'm struggling with, inch by inch.  

However, it is Valentine's day after all.  We should be celebrating the values of love and tenderness... unless it's not, obviously.  I broke stride on twitter last night after reading this midget gem of hilarity:

"Roses are crabs
Violets are crabs
Haha there are crabs everywhere lol
Oh god this isn't a joke anymore where did they all come from"

What can I say.  It inspired me.  What follows here is what happened next... At least I was enjoying myself.  At one point I seem to visit the outskirts of word salad? 

Roses are red
My tongue is blue
Is it fatal?
Oh God

Roses are red,
But white grapes are green.
Time to unlearn
Everything you've seen.

Roses are grey
Violets are grey
Everything is grey.
I wish I wasn't colourblind

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I forgot the safeword
Fuck.

Roses are red
Violets are helicopter
Grand soapbox wrenches
Inclement weather

Roses are red
Violets are blue
If only you had original thoughts
And treated me like a human being
*sigh*

Roses are red,
Violets are fuchsia.
They're not always blue.
Idiot.

Roses are red,
Violets aren't cheap;
I wonder, in which of these lyrics
Do you think I'm playing for keeps?

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
If only it wasn't inappropriate
To be in love with you.

Roses are red,
I'm tired of this game;
Inside I am dead,
And no longer feel shame.

Hmm.  That took a dark turn.  Woo.

Happy Valentine's Day, suckas.

You Black Bright Stars

First things first: I survived turning 25.

It's been two weeks since my last post and, boy!  What a two weeks it's been!  Last Saturday I ended up having one of my once infamous "quiet days", where I initiate a simple yet effective lockdown - no extra-domestic communication or travel.  I'm sure any members of the counseling or medical communities might find this troubling, I know my family and my friends do as well, but I'm not going to sit here and say I would recommend this to anybody unless in a state of absolute mental disarray... Which I may or may not have been.  I've recently been struggling with my depression quite a lot, actually, and sometimes that struggle comes out as being unable to leave the house.  

I guess... I guess I've been getting stuck in my own head more recently.  In considering what the next step is I've actually thought more and more about the things I've missed out on, things that I'll never have chance to get onto because I'm too old - I had lunch with my boss last week and I brought up something as insignificant as never going on an Eton Choral Course; initially not because I had missed on the idea of it, but more that I had missed out on an opportunity to do more singing when I was younger - although I suppose being an alumnus of the "Rod Squad" wouldn't have hurt too much.  Of course, thinking about it, I probably would have had extreme difficulties with my social and emotional states - surely I would have been expelled from the course for hitting someone who would have suggested that Derby was a third rate Cathedral Choir (an assertion that I've had to bite my tongue through several times, both here and at University).  Oh well.  They would have deserved it, but more on the good old days another time... Although I suppose that singing for almost 18 years (and singing countertenor for 10 of those years) is a worthy endorsement in itself. 

Of course, the next great tableau of melodrama is the oncoming Hallmark masterpiece of Valentine's Day... It's more a backdrop that brings my own issues to the top of my thoughts instead of being repressed like most of the time.  I essentially don't have a problem with the whole cards and gift giving and romantic dinner and candles and all that... There's certainly a lot of jealousy that I can't really join in, what with being bitter and alone, but also upset,  more that I just never seem to be able to get almost any kind of relationship right at all.  I feel like I'm a danger to myself and others emotionally, which is probably some kind of psychological equivalent to body dismorphia thinking about it.  The last few years' worth of "romantic" relationships have ended, well... Badly.  I've even had occasion this year to recall one such relationship that impacted my time at choir from almost four years ago as well, as a wave of dreadful similarities line up - don't mourn for me though because it turns out I'm always the villain, a one dimensional emotional and intellectual abyss that it's okay to hate!  I'm reminded of my own failures constantly, and the 14th of February is a perverse focus for me, that I just can't seem to hack that level of physical and emotional relationship with another human being... And if the thought of me having trouble with that amuses you, then why not think about how you would manage facing the same realisation, once you've finished guffawing heartily?

Enough, as I once shouted in the middle of the night when standing out of bed yet still unconscious (a mystery I still have not got to the bottom of), there must be some light at the end of the barrel.  Mustn't there?  I can't really tell at the moment, which means I need to slug it out even as I'm not really sure that it's necessarily going to get better.  It's at times like this that I turn to my old totems for support though, to maintain a symbolic identity at the very least.  It's hard!  It's not fun.  I upset myself more effectively than anybody else does.  Maybe it really is time for the beta blockers.

What's worth pointing out in the midst of all this despair is how good things have been at work over the last few days.  Friday night concert, Saturday night singing at a ball, Sunday services and the most nonsensically loud but truly excellent Monday evensong in a long time, with Sunday evening to the end of services this half term presided over by Truro's indefatigable Alto dream team add up to actually a very good time indeed.  This sort of week makes me question my own desire to leave, especially now having dismissed five potential moves back into England, one from a particularly prestigious choir in a particularly beautiful Cathedral (like that narrows it down), because essentially... I don't want to.  Now isn't my time, but I'll really need to be aware of when it's time ahead of time from anything from a year to three months in advance to ensure I'm not unsure.  Or maybe I should just throw caution to the wind and totally uproot myself without a safety net.  So many people do and succeed after all, there must be something to it?

NEXT TIME ON Asylum Southwest... Who knows?!  Outside of existential terror I've finally sat through enough sermons to finish The Trial and I'm convinced I've found it funnier than anyone else has on a first read, almost entirely abandoned the questionable pacing of the Assassin's Creed franchise, and found myself questioning that Jerry Espensen is the token Asperger's character in Boston Legal, when all along it's been Alan Shore.

Cue music.  Roll credits.

Never Forget

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet army.  Today, we are invited to reflect on the lessons of a human calamity so great, that it qualifies for the definitive article: Of all the massacres that this world has leveled against itself, only this one is called The Holocaust.

Yesterday afternoon I sat at my kitchen table and read this excellent and deeply upsetting article by Hugo Rifkind.  I also sat and cried my eyes out.  It caught me on the hop, Mr. Rifkind having knocked on the head a nail I had been sizing up for the last fortnight or so, that when reduced to a personal level, the horror is magnified.  The worst thing about it all, the piles of shoes, the rooms full of hair, the houses converted into gas chambers... The worst thing of all is that it all actually happened.  It's like an abyss that stares back.  All that's left of the people who were arrested, exterminated and then almost erased from history.


I read Maus when I was young.  Very young.  Eight?  Nine?
I'd almost certainly say too young, although maybe everybody should read it for the first time then?  I finally bought my own copy after years of borrowing from Derby Central Library when I was eighteen, when I moved to University.  Like several important volumes of Metaphysical Poetry, it survives every house move I have and will do. It's the story of the Spiegelman family, of Vladek and Anja who survived Auschwitz, and of their son Art, as he deals with his relationship with his father in the narrative present, while recording the events and depicting them in the narrative past, which makes up the majority of the two volumes.  In distorting the people by depicting them as not only cartoons but also as anthropomorphised animals, I think it actually helps bring it closer - rather than become hung up on how accurate the faces may or may not be, or how 'Jewish' the Jews look for example, the animal faces are largely uniform; they become emblematic, symbolic.  We look past them.  The boundaries are still, if not even more present as well, that we can identify the Jews instantly, portrayed as Mice, while the Polish characters (more often than not as Nazi sympathisers) are portrayed as Pigs - I'm sure there's no irony lost there even with my hazy knowledge of kosher - rather than have to work it our for ourselves, distancing us from the narrative.

This is a story about people.  Maus is focused, of course, because it is the account on one man.  Naturally we can seek out the accounts of others, and today there will obviously be a lot of attention on those who are still with us.  I feel as if I'm straying into Cornwall Remembers territory here as well, having performed a week of Evensongs and the Britten War Requiem specifically as part of the remembrance events for the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the first world war.  The number of Holocaust survivors dwindles every year, just as the survivors of WWI are now gone.  Their stories must continue.  We must never forget.  We must never forget it's about people as well.  I feel as if I'm banging on a little bit, I apologise, but there's a quote from the Rifkind article that we should all pay close attention to:

"Anybody could have done it to anybody. This is what humans can do. Talk about that. Talk about which side you’d be on, if something like this happened again. And talk about how you’re so damn sure."

There have been so many atrocities against the Jews throughout history, let alone the twentieth century - look at Mount Masada and The Diaspora (yet another 'definitive'), and there were so many casualties that it's easy to make this a purely Jewish thing... But the Third Reich set their sights on anybody  they didn't want.  The extermination of the Jews, yes, but also the Roma people, Homosexuals, the mentally and physically ill, any kind of political dissident, Soviets, Communists, Freemasons... And God help you if you're not white.  The list goes on and on.  Absolutely anybody they didn't like or want.  Ask yourself, did you look at that list and find a label that you would or have had applied to yourself?  Even if you're a socialist, if it wasn't their kind of socialism you might have had a knock at the door and were further never seen or heard from again.  Let's just say that I'd be dead on three counts alone there, my own Jewish nature notwithstanding.  

I am no Holocaust Scholar.  I am no expert on the policies of the National Socialist Workers Party.  What I am, however, is a person who will never forget.  Today we remember a horrid crime, Man's inhumanity to Man on a grand scale, and if there is any element of celebration it is that those who were left behind at Auschwitz, the elderly, the infirm and the children, that they were found.  The first camp, Majdanek, was actually found by the advancing Soviet army almost six months previous.  The scenes there were just as horrific.  I once lived in a shared house with a person who would continually watch Holocaust documentaries on Netflix - you know, the great stock of History channel material that they had (do they still have?).  Seeing as it's a delicate subject to me at the best of times, I was finally moved to question this person, who would sit in the darkened front room, eating oven cooked ready meals while chaining these programmes... I hardly expected them to say "So I can be ready for next time." 

I'm fasting today.  I hardly ever keep Shabbat at the best of times, let alone the worst, but I thought it was an appropriate thing to do.  I like to joke that as a man with Jewish heritage the act of singing in an Anglican Cathedral Choir is purely business, but the issue is far more complicated than that.  I, as a man, appeal to you, never to forget both what happened and that this is something that affects us all as Human Beings.  Collectively we are better than this, and we need to make sure we remember that as well.

O Amica Mea

I bet you all thought I'd forget, didn't you?  No such luck.

It's been a long month off, as well.  Somehow, I managed to survive Christmas, and then New Year happened and that was... Uninspiring, to say the bare minimum (Captain's top tip: Don't stick around if the option to go back to Derby is there), and now here we are in the...third(?) week of January, tumbling towards my quarter century.  OH MY GOD.

I know what I've said.  I know I hate all those soul destroying platitudes.  I know.  But I'm starting to feel that I'm getting to a point in my life where I kind of just don't really have much to show for it?  No, I'm certain.  I definitely feel like I could have more.  AND SO BEGINS THE PRELUDE TO MY MIDLIFE CRISIS.  No, but seriously.  I also dimly recall saying that I don't want to get stuck in Truro, and I almost feel the abyss yawn in front of me.  I'm going to be 25 on Friday.  Jeez.  New year, new...?

I'll level with you, I started off planning this on Saturday and I was angry as shit, I mean, I was like, "How mad can one guy get?", an illegitimate voice in an illegitimate age.  Unsurprisingly, that I didn't sit and just crash through writing it all in one go, I've calmed down a little bit, you know; ever so slightly.  Lately I've taken to reading a lot again (which may or may not have something to do with the fact that the power adapter to my keyboard hasn't worked properly for months), and soaking up a ton of English satire (Charlie Brooker), American trangressive nihilism (Chuck Palahniuk), and Bohemian modernism (Franz Kafka) (look how intellectual I am eh) has taught me that if I spend too long just looking at my boring and unfulfilling life (oh is it though) that nothing will really happen and I'll just sit around having decided that I'll be miserable forever and yadda yadda yadda you get the point.  I'm about halfway through The Trial, and I already feel like my life is some kind of dark reflection of Josef K., not especially being on trial per se, but more that I'm trapped by what appears to be my own idiocy, and an inability to ask the right questions to find the way out of some mysterious arrest.  Some kind of existential hall of mirrors.  Or something.  

I digress.  I do need to actually get something together, namely my life.  But this is frightening.  Change is inherently terrifying to me.  I might not have capitalised But the discussions have started already, and there is a very lightly penciled exit timetable that may or may not fluctuate wildly in the coming year - I do joke about merely having to change the date at the top of the letter of resignation... But actually it would require a substantial redrafting.  A bit of tuning up.  I understand that I have to make an almost concrete plan that could at any time be shattered, but as long as I have the basics sorted I ought to be able to roll with it.  I feel I kind of wasted a lot of time at Uni just not doing stuff, I owe it to myself to do something really exciting.  I mean, really.  And I'll need money of course.

Speaking of money though, I'm pleased to report that I'm also starting the ball rolling on my plans to travel across the pond.  I haven't got two maple leaf flags hung on the mirrors in my room for nothing, after all.  I'd love to go in the summer, but the small matter of choir tour to Northern France and Belgium and all the money I'd need for that might get in the way.  I can't remember how much money I took to Sweden with me to begin with, but I do remember that it wasn't remotely enough.  I took another 50 quid out through an immensely expensive transfer place in Stockholm and spending every last Crown.  Choir tour is the only regular foreign holiday I take, so I try to enjoy it as much as possible.  Hopefully we can bring Cardinal Sin along as some kind of choir mascot, and he can sit in a flowerpot again.

As for the schedule, I haven't given up on it, but I realise I need to tighten my form up a lot, you know, a bit of structure isn't going to hurt anybody is it?  Tuesdays are still going to be the front and centre "ooooo I hate everything especially myself" kind of thing, just in case you were worried for a moment.  I'd hate for you to worry. I put a nice new background on the page, so why not write in to tell me how much you like it and I'll be back on Thursday!

Carte Postale - Farewell 2014

I've been telling myself I was going to write this for weeks.  Weeks and weeks and weeks... You get the point.

This is also a notice of temporary closure, of course.  I've been failing to keep a grip on my own self-imposed schedule for too long almost, although Christmas has a habit of doing that to you.  Notwithstanding the fact that I hate Christmas, having to be fucking jolly all the time, more the fact that there's just so much choir to deal with.  This year in particular has been particularly not stress free, what with the world premieres for the Advent Carol Service, the usual concert madness, and then another world first in filming Nine Lessons and Carols for DVD release (including the incredible disappearing red hat)... But then normal service resumed with Festal Curry, all the descants and what I can only describe as the Festival of English Cadences on Christmas Morning.  Honourable mention goes to the Lay Clerks of Peterborough Cathedral, who lost one of their own this Christmas, which must have been (and probably still is) nothing short of just... The worst.

It's impossible not to write something today without some kind of token comment about the year as well, so much so that I even anticipated it in the title.  2014 has been a weird one.  I lost one on my best mates.  I watched another one get married.  What is it with these caffeine shampoo adverts that are taking over my ad breaks?  It becomes increasingly difficult to think about this year clearly as we barrel towards the start of the next.  What's really happened?  I suppose the more relevant question is "what's going to happen next?".  I suppose you're expecting me to make some sort of list of resolutions?  Please.  There are a couple of things that I have to do, true, but it's not like I'm ever going to do anything so ridiculous as make a resolution.  The last resolution I made was never to make a New Year's resolution again, and that was 2009.  Yes, I really did that... 

Anyway.  Temporary closure.  I say closure.  I'm going to give publishing a rest for a fortnight officially, and try to just... Catch up on the schedule I tried to establish.  Every Christmas I let choir take over my life, so I fell behind.  There's also a theory knocking about that I've been quite seriously depressed (again), which I'd hardly like to comment on here and now.  I haven't written anything about the books I've read, and I owe somebody a recipe.  I also need to sort my life out (just like always).  New Year might be as good a time as any to do so, but what about all the other days of the year?  It's never too late.

The last blog I ran came to a natural end and fulfilled its purpose, a backdrop to being miserable in houses and having a dreadful time singing.  No choir director has accused me of lying again or since, thankfully.  This time, there isn't really a purpose, which is probably one of the reasons I've found it so easy to not write recently.  Such a poor excuse... I'm sorry, he said to himself.  I need to stop torturing myself.  I need to think hard about what's going to happen next, my immediate future and also my future at large: not an easy task.  I've never had a five year plan because five years is an impossibly long time for me to imagine.  In 17 days, I'll be 25, which means I'll have lived through five of these five year blocks, but it's okay because the digits add up to 7, which means everything will be alright... Right?  I remember giving something very precious on the 7th of the 7th.  That was good.  I didn't say half the things I meant to or I wanted to, and that was just that day, let alone all the others.

This is the first New Year since I moved out that I haven't been home.  I'm not sure that I like it really.  At least had I have gone back up, I could have sat in HQ until I was no longer sober.  This year... Money's tight.  Tighter than comfortable.  I shouldn't really go out drinking, could you imagine the money I'd hemorrhage!  Invites to parties and whatever are completely lacking, which tells me all I need to know. 

This is the last you'll hear from here for a little bit.  Give me a fortnight or something, but don't call it a comeback.  Think of me, sat drinking tea and pepsi, watching films and reading cookery books into eternity.  Focus your prayers and positive energy so I can discover my true purpose in this life.  Call on your Gods.  I recently bought this quality volume of hardcore pornography (right) - something to keep me warm through these lonely winter nights, of which much will be forthcoming.  If you're lucky, I might even make you a bagel.  Might.





Anyway, it's almost time.  There's just under 8 hours to go here until it breaks, and I can't wait, I can HARDLY CONTAIN MYSELF for another thrilling and exciting year to come, can you?  It can hardly be worse than this one (dangerous talk), can it?  

I'll see you on the other side.

Remember Me

It's almost time to free fall into the end of the year.  Fantastic.

I don't know how many times I use that expression, actually.  We're always free falling into the end of a year, because that's the only way that a year seems to end nowadays.  Choir is basically my life, after all; I don't think there's any other way to really explain it.  It's either the end of the 'Christian year', or it's the end of the calendar year, or it's the end of yet another year singing and time for my anniversary (this one will be my 17th!), or it's the end of the academic year and then everything really is over.  Will I cry this year?  Or will I finally have got over myself?  Will I finally learn that people just... Move on?  Perhaps I need to move on in order to fully understand.  I always say I never want to get stuck here, after all.

I hate Christmas.  No, wait: I really hate what Christmas has become.  No longer is Advent the sober prelude to one of the central points of belief in one of the dominant world religions (or that crazy made up cult, as I like to refer to it when it's all getting a little too serious round here), but is actually now the whole thing!  People put trees up and decorate their houses by mid-November, decorations are up in shops by the end of October!  It's too much, Master.  Worst of all is when you're not "on message", like me: persecuted for not being manically happy every second of every day and I get funny looks for not having my shit together on Christmas shopping and get victimised for not liking mince pies.  I've had it!  Even the Coca Cola truck has already been halfway round the country by now!

Christmas is of course the time of year that choirs reach critical mass, and there's more rehearsals and carol service and actually carols than ought to be strictly legal, people trying to get you to work for free, potentially horrific Secret Santa, and of course, the all important nights out after all the concerts and carols and carol concerts.  My voice is already shattered this year, after taking the extremely professional and effective decision of singing through a head cold... Although I don't really have much choice in the matter on that one.  The real problem is that I'm fast running out of homeopathic remedies (because I am obviously a dirty, dirty hippy), and if I take any more decongestants full of paracetamol I'll either ossify my throat or not be able to stop vomiting, neither of which are particularly inspiring or useful in my dream career as Cathedral Lay Clark and programme note writer - speaking of which THEY'RE DONE and will be up here on Sunday after the concert.  The fact that my voice just basically isn't working at critical strength, especially right now is a major downer on basically everything.  I kind of feel that I'm no good at what I'm supposed to be good at, so what hope do I have for anything else?

I dunno.  It'll be alright in the end, just like it is every year.  This year isn't exactly calm, due to recording the Nine Lessons and Carols on the 23rd, not to mention the usual Concert-9L&C-Midnight Mass-Christmas Day combo that plays out over just under a fortnight round here, and probably everywhere else.  Also on the cards this year is a concert in St. Mawes which ought to raise some much-appreciated funds for the tour to Belgium and northern France this summer.  I mean, it is the 100th anniversary of the Great War after all, so it would be a shame not to go... Actually, I'll probably be neither use nor ornament for most of it.  I spent ten hours sat at this very Kitchen table in June writing the notes for the Summer concert, the first half entirely composed of settings of WWI poetry, and must have cried my eyes out for four of them.  There's just something about having to condense that kind of stuff down without getting kind of sucked in to it - I can get to that place where it's all upset but I can't exactly get myself out again.  I don't remember having to fight for too much with the edit either... Anyway.  I digress.

I guess this is a kind of unwell, grumpy kind of post.  Another thing I seem to be overly aware of is the amount of young couples going round town at the moment - I suppose Christmas is meant to be romantic?  I constantly berate myself for not being able to get a date, and blame myself completely for the string of relationships I've had that start with so much promise... But end so badly.  It's almost as if I betray myself time after time, showing a consistent interest in people who have absolutely no feelings for me at all, and I've kind of moved to a position where I feel I have accept that I will just always be like this, you know, and I'm okay with that... And I am not okay with that.  Oh well.  I actively reject any kind of sympathy, but it's just something I've been thinking about, and if I can get it out here then maybe I can accept it and move on.  I do get angry though, that things just don't work.  

Anyway.  That's probably enough moaning for now.  I'm going to retire to my deliberately very cold room, and see how long it takes for me to freeze solid (update: 9 days and counting), and then hopefully by the time I wake up tomorrow, you never know... I might actually even feel better.

Out of the Deep

Why break the habits of a lifetime?

I hope you're all enjoying my attempts to look outward, to drag myself out of a mire, usually of my own making, in the form of my new schedule (he says, barely hanging on to it by his fingernails alone).  I'm one down in a way already, so I'll have to finish and publish my take on three short stories by Kafka on a transposed date, but in falling behind I'm already falling into the bad habit I am so desperate to avoid.  That said, you try and read The Judgement, Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony and... No, I'll leave it at that.  Just trying to read them ought to be more than enough for now.

Then again, don't forget that at the heart of this venture is still the same man, misguided at best and bitter at worst, trying to make sense of not only everything around him but also inside his own head.  The title of this blog has become a cornerstone really, and it all started as a throwaway joke (as all the best things do), combining the salutation an old friend would use on the telephone with a kind of forced reaction to the BBC's latest interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, fronted by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is NOT KHAN*.  That's not a spoiler, I'm not even going to apologise.  I mean, could you imagine if Star Wars: The Force Awakens was set in an alternate timeline that split off just after the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope and replaced Lando Calrissian with... BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH?!  I suppose it might be a bit different, I mean, Billy Dee Williams didn't die in 2009... Anyway, the point I'll be getting back to right now is the whole "Mind Palace" concept that Sherlock didn't necessarily invent but brought to a kind of public level.  While I'm hardly an expert (feel free to emphasise any or all of those five words as you see fit in my stead for maximum ironic impact), Cumberbatch's Holmes is certainly symptomatic of Asperger's, or at least high-functioning autistic.  I can't remember the 'official' byline on it, wasn't it something about being sociopathic as well?  Who knows.  

It's this 'Mind Palace' where all of his knowledge is stored, all highly organised deep within his brain.  There's a neat visualisation of this at the end of the third series, after suffering a life threatening gunshot wound, where we see him retreat to his memories both comforting and well... Not.  Also, there's that Doctor bird (technical term) who fancies him, popping up as the voice of reason to walk him through surviving being shot.  I think it's her anyway.  Pretty sure.  It's from this palace that the floating text appears when he looks at things (Egg?  Sitty thing?!?!?), like the scanning from the Metroid Prime trilogy but without having a Chozo Battle Suit Ver. SA1-446B-VM6-P (or should that be Ver. SH1?).  3D map constructions (press Z to bring up the map) and things like phone numbers float about as well.  What happens after he gets shot is arguably more like a dream sequence than anything else, but it's clearly set in the same place.  We're also shown that the baddie of the overall outfit has his own kind of palace, the "Appledore Vaults".  Throughout the series we're treated to scenes of him trotting in and out of archives, picking out files and pictures &c, only to discover that in the end it was all in his head!  Thanks, Dallas.  

Being the friendly local neighbourhood autist (or, at least the one who admits anyway), the comparisons with Sherlock were impossible to avoid.  In the eyes of many, I have all of his social niceties (almost none), yet none of the beguiling intelligence.  Oh, how I am good for nothing!  But thinking about it, there's some traction.  I retain almost everything I learn, and notice more environmental and intellectual stimuli compared to my emotional ability.  True, things are better than they ever have been, but I still lag sometimes significantly.  And often, my memory of places and events is aided by the recollection of bizarre things such as exact weather conditions, seeing someone's collar turned up or what time my watch said compared to somebody else's, you know, something quite odd that ties it all in to a causal timeline.  Sometimes this has been taken advantage of by others, who know that I'll recall events as they happened with no bias.  Everything is up here, somewhere, it's just getting at it that's the problem.

So, finally.  Why an asylum?  An old mad house, a "hospital" for the mentally degenerate.  Many real asylums were truly awful places, the genuinely disadvantaged rubbing shoulders (and perhaps more - yeesh) with the syphilitic, most likely being beaten by staff who would strike out in anger and fear more than anything else (is this helping?); not terribly jolly places at all.  The next step?  Don't roll your eyes too hard: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, yet another seminal and character defining work from Grant Morrison, illustrated by Dave McKean.  Yes, it's Batman.  Yes, it's an illustrated work... But serious stories can also be told with in a visual manner, and just remember that the next time you go and see some cinematographical masterpiece.  The wikipedia page linked there has some interesting comments, about how Morrison believing the further abstraction provided by McKean's art reduces its power, by making it 'unreal', and the success it had with an untypical readership - perhaps I'll write up for the next 'Top Shelf' (although I'll need to finish Kafka first).  I'm going right to the end with this one though.  Batman's journey through Arkham is harrowing enough, interspersed with the story of Amadeus Arkham, the man who turned the family home into a madhouse (and also tried to invoke some crazy dark magic), but by the end (and cutting a long story very very short), our favourite nemesis to all things Bat gives our hero a simple offer as he leaves: "Enjoy yourself out there.  In the Asylum.  Just don't forget -- If it ever gets too tough... There's always a place for you here."

In this case, the Asylum is the outside world: Gotham, crime, daily life, whatever.  Arkham Asylum itself is a little haven, an island where the madness inside is only ever less than or equal to the madness going on outside.  Like... The inside of my head?  Ha ha ha...  We all have to think of something, right?  

In the Asylum, there are many doors, and not all of them are open.  Things like traumas are locked away - abuse, family death, injury.  You know what it's like, you know, when "the mind protects itself" from the memory of great pain.  This is my version, that those things, places, people, those sensations are behind closed doors, some of which do not open.  Some things, like the time I basically became a functional alcoholic are behind doors that open - I can make myself remember if I try, and it brings back a lot that I don't necessarily want - Grant the King a Long Life was an exercise in opening many similar doors, so that I could accept those things and start to move on more positively, that the things inside those rooms could no longer burst their prisons and overwhelm me but be put away in their proper place.  Of course, I consider myself quite mad, in fact, you could say I was "fucking insane" most of the time, and had I lived even a hundred years ago, I probably would have been condemned to one of these "hospitals" myself, no need to kid myself.  I can retreat here though, when it all gets a bit too much outside, and I also need to stop making myself feel guilty about that.  I already push myself to appear as, uh, "typical" as I can, (because being normal is some boring ass shit and I ain't getting involved with that), and sometimes I just need a rest!  Feet up, tea, lock the doors.  Nothing in or out.  Everything will be okay.

Anyway.  I promise to get back to the new timetable of distractions after this.  It's good to get out of the Asylum sometimes too.






* Yes, I'm STILL angry about that.  This must be what "Trukk not Munky" felt like in the mid 90s...