vii.
it's only gonna get worse before it gets even worse, she jokes as she serves me another beer. I am about to make good on her flirtations when a group of locals compliment me on the dead nigger. I fly at them with a broken bottle but no amount of Achillean rage can save me from the savage beating I take. I wake in the gutter alive; How did this happen? Who saved me? Was she my guardian angel? Is Clarence?
viii.
After what seems like days, I finally find a car that works. An old one made to last. Clarence takes the back seat, chauffered, and I get behind the wheel. It is Vinyl Thursday, playing all your favourite albums in their most physical form across the digital airwaves. Today it is the White Album on loop. With my first brandy of the day, I start the engine and put my foot down on the pedal. HeltEr SkelTer.
ix.
By the stone wall I take a right. She sits on the edge with her thumb in the air. Twenty metres of thought away I decide to stop. She slides off the edge and runs to the car as I open the door. Before she has even seated herself properly, she asks, in regards to Clarence, What happened to him? He slept with my wife, I answer. Musta been a heck of a time she says. And it still is.
x.
After a long while of open road I put my hand on her knee. She shoos it off, telling me, I once knew a man like that and I really hated it. She looks at me with sorrowful look, pleading something. Excuse me, I explain, I'm rather drunk. All the more reason to keep both hands on the wheel, she snarls. Don't worry Cleo, it'll be ok, the road goes on like this, straight on, and on, for miles and miles, I tell her. Looking ahead, we both sigh.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Cinema
Controversial film
Bunuel film
Black & white
I think of you while watching the manipulated light.
Bunuel film
Black & white
I think of you while watching the manipulated light.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Running Water (episodes 1-6)
1.
We were drunk. The house had guns in it and I shot him. He was my best friend and I loved him dearly. As he died we made amends. I was to take him back to his hometown to be buried amongst his ancestors. My wife, of course, would be, at best, nonplussed by the notion. She has no comprehension of honour, at least not in the Homeric sense.
2.
She doesn't take it well. It's the other side of the world, you have no car, you have no money; she tells me, as if I do not already know. Why can't you bury him here? she asks. Because this land is a shit-hole, I tell her. She crys and so do I. It is our last night together.
3.
Is uncky Clarence a-sleepin' pop? he asks. No Maurice, Uncle Clarence is dead, I shot him in the stomach, I tell him, Beware the fury you have inherited from me son, it will be your downfall and is about to leave you fatherless. I make to leave. Where you going with dead uncky Clarence? I must plant him under the tree of our childhoods'. Oh, he say and goes to bed. I do leave, heart broken.
4.
The sun's burning is today articulated through the amber shade with which it colours the sky. I pass the men setting their crop ablaze and, they hope, with the flames, destroying the locusts devouring it. The fire becomes the afterglow of my presence in this town. I leave to become just a memory signified by the ash on the plain.
5.
Vultures circle themselves into a jagged coil up above my head. They goad me, they want me to hand over dead Clarence. They beseech me, they will make it easier upon me when my time too does come if I comply. I cannot, I throw a rock skyward, scraping one of their formidable wings. Before flying away, until another day, they prophesise my death; their shrieks indicate that it will be unpleasant.
6.
It's midday, or at least it appears to be, when I arrive in the city. The sun beats down on the streets, and upon building after building. Arrakis, I say to Clarence.
-----
* Running Water is a serial of Facebook status updates telling the story of Joey Joe and dead Clarence. A sort of barmy idea to up the quality of stuff on there. Please bear in mind that with the intended medium of the story, live feeds et al., and whatnot, there is an ellipsis of time, and usually space, between the episodes.
Warm Regards,
S.K.
We were drunk. The house had guns in it and I shot him. He was my best friend and I loved him dearly. As he died we made amends. I was to take him back to his hometown to be buried amongst his ancestors. My wife, of course, would be, at best, nonplussed by the notion. She has no comprehension of honour, at least not in the Homeric sense.
2.
She doesn't take it well. It's the other side of the world, you have no car, you have no money; she tells me, as if I do not already know. Why can't you bury him here? she asks. Because this land is a shit-hole, I tell her. She crys and so do I. It is our last night together.
3.
Is uncky Clarence a-sleepin' pop? he asks. No Maurice, Uncle Clarence is dead, I shot him in the stomach, I tell him, Beware the fury you have inherited from me son, it will be your downfall and is about to leave you fatherless. I make to leave. Where you going with dead uncky Clarence? I must plant him under the tree of our childhoods'. Oh, he say and goes to bed. I do leave, heart broken.
4.
The sun's burning is today articulated through the amber shade with which it colours the sky. I pass the men setting their crop ablaze and, they hope, with the flames, destroying the locusts devouring it. The fire becomes the afterglow of my presence in this town. I leave to become just a memory signified by the ash on the plain.
5.
Vultures circle themselves into a jagged coil up above my head. They goad me, they want me to hand over dead Clarence. They beseech me, they will make it easier upon me when my time too does come if I comply. I cannot, I throw a rock skyward, scraping one of their formidable wings. Before flying away, until another day, they prophesise my death; their shrieks indicate that it will be unpleasant.
6.
It's midday, or at least it appears to be, when I arrive in the city. The sun beats down on the streets, and upon building after building. Arrakis, I say to Clarence.
-----
* Running Water is a serial of Facebook status updates telling the story of Joey Joe and dead Clarence. A sort of barmy idea to up the quality of stuff on there. Please bear in mind that with the intended medium of the story, live feeds et al., and whatnot, there is an ellipsis of time, and usually space, between the episodes.
Warm Regards,
S.K.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
An open letter to Earth
Dear Planet,
From my observations, I am led to believe you were once a thing of around about infinite beauty. On behalf of my people I would like to apologise for disfiguring you so.
Sincerely,
Sam Kastin.
From my observations, I am led to believe you were once a thing of around about infinite beauty. On behalf of my people I would like to apologise for disfiguring you so.
Sincerely,
Sam Kastin.
Friday, 5 February 2010
After all
J- But, you know, really, after all, you can't really complain too much.
Pause.
R- After all what?
J- What?
R- Forget it.
Pause.
R- After all what?
J- What?
R- Forget it.
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Slit
If you make your mother ill again, like that time you did when you slit your wrists, I'll bump you off, said her auntie.
Monday, 20 July 2009
The night cheese won the Oscar™
...Of course we all remember, for how could we forget, that wonderful night when Albert Eisenstein announced that the winner of the year's Academy Award for Best Motion Picture was to be a lump of cheese. The world forever changed by that brief, timeless, moment within the Kodak theatre, LA.
For me, the communal gasp still rings in my ears even after all these years. Not only was the cheese not in competition, it was not a motion picture. Surely, I heard people say, there is some by law in the Academy's guidelines disallowing cheeses the winning of such awards. A-list hands rubbed A-list ears in disbelief. It seemed so impossible. However, even doubting Paul Thomas Anderson had to concede it was really really happening when he saw Hilary Swanky carrying the still supermarket cellophaned Cheddar up on to the podium, perched upon its tray of human enamel. The silence was as hot as the stars and heavy as the producers. It spoke nothing for the whole minute as the lights reflected off of its see through attire. At first it seemed obnoxious to us who were there but by the time the cheese had been taken backstage with its Oscar many, including Sean Pencil, had been moved to tears by the cheese's unspoken dignity. What had started off adversely became for us all; you, me, him, her and probably God too, our most cherished, enlightening, and not to forget broadcast, moment.
However, it all may have never happened. As you can probably imagine- although you really had to be there- persuading the panel was no easy deal. There he was, vice president of the academy, Adam McCadam frantically arguing cheese's claim to the award. To him it was simple: cheese more than film deserved the Oscar. Conventionally, they weren't willing to go with it. As the bookies had predicted, many wanted the award to go to the year's prestige piece; a five hour biopic of Stalin with Keanu Reeves as the lead man. Indeed, it was, and always will be, the best film of all time. But Adam McCadam was adamant. Eventually, after five drunken days culminating with the firing of a bullet into the black laced thigh of his secretary, with more where that came from, he managed to persuade his peers that cheese was worthy. Many thought he'd gone nuts but, as time went on to prove, he had merely turned genius.
Testament to the man's beautiful mind is that when, on the morning of the ceremony, the Academy's president asked him which cheese he proposed to win the award His Holiness Sir Dr Adam McCadam M.D. merely laughed and spoke the ever eternal line Cheese, my dear oh dear friend, transcends such petty notions as that of competition. And finally it got the credit it so richly deserved.
For me, the communal gasp still rings in my ears even after all these years. Not only was the cheese not in competition, it was not a motion picture. Surely, I heard people say, there is some by law in the Academy's guidelines disallowing cheeses the winning of such awards. A-list hands rubbed A-list ears in disbelief. It seemed so impossible. However, even doubting Paul Thomas Anderson had to concede it was really really happening when he saw Hilary Swanky carrying the still supermarket cellophaned Cheddar up on to the podium, perched upon its tray of human enamel. The silence was as hot as the stars and heavy as the producers. It spoke nothing for the whole minute as the lights reflected off of its see through attire. At first it seemed obnoxious to us who were there but by the time the cheese had been taken backstage with its Oscar many, including Sean Pencil, had been moved to tears by the cheese's unspoken dignity. What had started off adversely became for us all; you, me, him, her and probably God too, our most cherished, enlightening, and not to forget broadcast, moment.
However, it all may have never happened. As you can probably imagine- although you really had to be there- persuading the panel was no easy deal. There he was, vice president of the academy, Adam McCadam frantically arguing cheese's claim to the award. To him it was simple: cheese more than film deserved the Oscar. Conventionally, they weren't willing to go with it. As the bookies had predicted, many wanted the award to go to the year's prestige piece; a five hour biopic of Stalin with Keanu Reeves as the lead man. Indeed, it was, and always will be, the best film of all time. But Adam McCadam was adamant. Eventually, after five drunken days culminating with the firing of a bullet into the black laced thigh of his secretary, with more where that came from, he managed to persuade his peers that cheese was worthy. Many thought he'd gone nuts but, as time went on to prove, he had merely turned genius.
Testament to the man's beautiful mind is that when, on the morning of the ceremony, the Academy's president asked him which cheese he proposed to win the award His Holiness Sir Dr Adam McCadam M.D. merely laughed and spoke the ever eternal line Cheese, my dear oh dear friend, transcends such petty notions as that of competition. And finally it got the credit it so richly deserved.
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