Final one, *7

It's not really a story I guess. You'll see (if you read it).

Starry Eyes, Silent Night

6 of 7

"it's christmastime in the mountains
everything is white
tonight"

I've been working at the airport bar
It's like Christmas in a submarine
Wings and brandy on a winter's night
I guess you wouldn't call it a scene


Oh what a strange time of year it is. Ecery day is a strange time of the year. Every day comes but once a year. They come but once a lifetime. However, we exist in minutes-hours-n'days as much as the universe exists in metres-n'yards-n'miles. That is, not to say we don't to a certain extent. Memphis in June. April in Paris. The suns will change. London is sometimes a hell of a town, someplaces a hell of a time. The lights go out in New Orleans, the city gets less red.

4 + 5 of 7

I gave myself the day off yesterday. It was an early Christmas present. I've not been being too strict on myself. That's a present too. Too many presents. They're pasts now. I'd not intended to do that but the season was getting on top of me. Rather than rest in it we tend to get put under by it. At least that's what happens with certain people I know. The pressure to make something the best ever. There's nothing wrong with making it just something not bad. What do you reckon Paul McCartney means by making a sad song better? Remember that scene in Midnight Cowboy when Joe Buck gets all spruced up and he ask Ratso what he thinks, the response being 'not bad.. not bad'. That is what I think human beings should aspire to. That is the only response needed. When you reach the gates and ask Peter if you have led a good life and he responds 'not bad, not bad'. Wouldn't that be a bit of a relief. Anyhow, there is time for that yet. Human beings neither live in the opresent or the past or the future. Scrooge could tell you that. Dunno where we exist but not there. I bought my mother a soft toy this year. It is a donkey. It cost 79p, I'm not cheap but I do hate money. I got off the bus earlier than I expected to when I saw it in the shop window, I was already thinking of what I was going to do when I got home before it pulled me back into the present. It'll be a good present for her when she gets it in the near future.

Snow by David Berman

3 o' 7

So all the best presents you've ever received probably mean diddley squat to you outside of signification, right. I don't think anyone is born materialistic, right. What would that kid want with gold? When a child's given this huge present what becomes clear is that the huge present holds little interest especially when it came in a huge box. We can not live in the present but if we want to we can live in a box. And for a while we do. We hide in it. Hiding's nice. Like a good painkiller. It's nice to give someone somewhere to hide. I know of a few people who have done wonderful things while hiding. I have read a marvellous book written by someone who was hiding. It is not shying away from existence, it is a taking hold of it. At least trying to. It's always night and we are in a perpetually cold universe but the earth lets us all hide in the sun for a while from time to time. God bless it for that. We've all got face the light of day sometimes.


A Junky's Christmas by William Burroughs

2 0f 7

‎2 of 7:
Remember when you were a child on the beach and you said you were as happy as a sand boy and you probably were? Dylan Thomas talks about that in one of his nostalgic pieces. He looks back on childhood fondly, if not magically. At Christmas there is a lot of missing that goes. You know, people missing people. Though perhaps not necessarily missing other people. Ever thought how you were kinda better as a kid, kinder perhaps. Before they filled you with the problems they had and added some fresh ones just for you. And I miss, and I miss, and I miss your precious heart you might say. Maybe not. Plenty of folks have lousy childhoods. Seems that a worthwhile life would be to make the world a wonderful place for children. It is a wonderful place here and there and now and again. It could be a matter of pointing out things already here, you could show them a blue door knocker a midst a mist of black ones perhaps. It only takes a moment. There was this kid the other day who was ever so slightly excited by a malleable mountain made up by autumn leaves (this other day was in Autumn) equal in proportion to one of the big ones somewhere in this world, his mother was looking at her Blackberry, not a blackberry of course. Wouldn't be bad being worthwhile, to be OK while you're here, I wrote a play about it:

Walden. Wouldn't be bad being worthwhile.
David. Oh yeah, that'd be good. Yeah.
Walden. But just for a while. I can't be bothered building the Taj Mahal.
David. Oh yeah, I know. Yeah.

Just think of that child I was talking of yesterday who was born in a manger, that's a pretty wonderful thing. Look at all those animals etc. And didn't he get the chance to do a pretty good ramble, eh. Poor kid, he was only about 30 when they bumped him off. Just a baby.

A Child's Christmas in Wales

Christmas project 3: week of Christmas 1 of 7

For Christmas week 1 0f 7:

For Christmas week I've decided to put up some real good stuff focused on the season. This is Paul Auster's 'Auggie Wren's Christmas', it was commissioned by the New York Times for their Christmas edition 1990. Here's a sentence from it, "If you don't take the time to look, you'll never manage to see anything". Literature needs good readers as much as it needs good writers. It was the first piece of overt fiction commissioned for the Newspaper. Of course there had been plenty of covert fiction commissioned for the Newspaper before. I was going to write an essay accompanying but I'm slightly pushed for time. Give or take it was to be about the role of stories at Christmas, it would have been essentially about how season is formed around a story about a boy being born in a manger. I would have said how it is one of the greatest stories of all time. I would have said it is probably only second to the story of alchemy, how we turned paper and digital symbols into the worth of most things, for example a horse. That's the gist. As I said I don't have time to write it. Time is money and talk is cheap. That's a bit sad, eh; everything is worth money and money is worth nothing. What the Dickens is that all about!? Humbug in't it.

Auggie Wren's Christmas Story

Christmas Project #1

getting into the season, it's easier said than done; getting out of bed, smiling and being happy, however seeing a robin bobbing along would probably help. it comes in for a fleeting song then goes on. crows have the intelligence and vocal capacity to indulge in birdsong, however they do not. fair enough. you know what Fat Waller said at the end of a reveric gig? he said, 'Quick! Someone shoot me whilst I'm still happy'. That's one way of doing it I guess;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV7y_rk4_co

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV7y_rk4_co