A blossoming career

The Nauseated Reader

"Things have broken free from their names. They are there, grotesque, stubborn. gigantic, and it seems ridiculous to call them seats or say anything at all about them: I am in the midst of Things, which cannot be given names."

"Words have disappeared, and with them the meaning of things, the methods of using them, the feeble landmarks which men have traced on their surface."

-p 180 and 182, Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre.


Wow, I'm a writer quoting Sartre- how original. I'm been ploughing 'Nausea' for some time now; not for existential enlightenment, but it's one of those books you feel you need to check out. A literary classic, like 'Of Mice and Men', or 'To Kill A Mockingbird'. My bookcase groans with the increasing tide of books I tell myslef I must read, in order to be 'well-read'. That's rubbish really: there's so much out there, I'm sure it's capable of being well-read by going through many channels.

I've read 11 of the "100 novels everyone should read" (according to the Daily Telegraph), and a further six of them I own, waiting to be digested. I fare slightly better on the BBC's Big Read list of 100 novels, having consumed 12 of them: although three of these are Roald Dahl books I read when I was ten.

However, these lists only consider novels. Would they include 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius', 'Prozac Nation', or 'Round Ireland with a Fridge'?

I feel the need to read more, and perhaps, write less. I'm mot sure whether this is a good thing or not. Or maybe, like Sartre's character, I need to explore life and feelings a little more first of all.

Let's pretend to be friends

It’s all just pretend
that we’ll play ‘til the end
until we send
all our pretend friends
around the bend
with our lies about Jen
and do you care about Ben?
Is he on the mend?
Will he be fit to fend
for himself, or to tend
to his needs after being in traction?

everything’s on pend
your life will suspend
if you cannot defend your actions

so your lies will rend
the people you offend
to a state of permanent objection

and they will upend

all relations when
your friendships go into suspension

nobody likes being in suspension
it causes unnecessary tension
and by the way, did I not mention
the fact that everyone thinks
you’re a cunt?
I probably should have mentioned that sooner

before you became redundant.

What to read, what to read...

I’m looking on my bookcase for a suitable read to lose myself in. Worrying, the only one I am presently attracted to is Albert Camus’s ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’, the first line of which (ignoring prefaces, etc.) is:

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.”

Hey, that seems light-hearted enough. Mmm, should I tell my therapist about this?

Ah screw it, I’ll just read some Calvin & Hobbes instead.

Spike Milligan suffered ten mental breakdowns for this?

Comedy shows are the cursed offspring of television programming. Often they fail to find their audience, or they have to aim so low on the dumbass scale in order to desperately attract an audience.

With this in mind, I watched 'Horne and Corden', on BBC Three the other night. Pulitzer Award committee members, stop your search, I've found your new heroes. *cough*

Oh look, the fat one is wobbling his big, rotund, lard-ridden belly around. Hahaha!!!

Wow, there's a suggestion of homoeroticism between the two male leads. Haha-fucking-original-ha!

And that's pretty much it. Start despairing on behalf of Britisg comedy now, and go watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart instead. Where have all the cowboys gone?

A voice out of the darkness

My friends recently bugged me, and bugged me, and bugged me to sign up to Facebook. I'm a Myspace kid, but apparently, everyone is on Facebook. And Lord forbid that one of them might have to e-mail seperately whenever there is the briefest of updates in their lives.

Or so I thought.

But now, I'm hooked.

Damn it, I like the little notifications, the tagged photos, the minor comments and updates. I know I shouldn't care, I really shouldn't give a rat's ass, I guess. But oh, it feeds the ego, Facebook does. Having a profile on any social networking profile must be an act of egotism by sheer definition alone. And fuck, I am King Ego.

One of my friends said that she hates Facebook, as it forces you into a degree of exposure that you don't feel comfortable with. Perhaps you expose only what you want to expose. That's if you dismiss horrible photos of your drunken red-faced self being posted by your equally drunken friends. This is what the internet has evolved to: so that we can all point and laugh and say "ha ha ha, look how feckin' bladdered you were last night!"

Got to go and see if anyone has posted any new shit in the last hour.

Arguing In French

This is what comes out of Googling your own name...

http://www.famouslikeme.com/36779/article.html

In this article about the erotic actress Chissy Moran, lifted form Wikipedia, it states "In October 2005 she was nominated 'Most Recognisable Adult Actress' by France's Putain magazine and subseqently appeared as a guest star on a primetime French television chat show Tout Le Monde En Parle hosted by Thierry Ardisson. During her interview (in french) she was insulted by the Irish poet Colin Dardis and proceeded to have a vicious argument with him live on air."

Curious, since I can't speak French. The original article from Wikipedia has been changed (although the Spanish verison still has it- http://wikipedia.qwika.it/en2it/Crissy_Moran), but somehow this survived. As Wikipedia is pretty much an open forum, anyone can go into an article and "amend" it. I remember about two months ago seeing the last line of the profile of Frank Mitchell, a weatherman for Ulster Television, constantly change- mostly it made a suggestion that Mitchell was homosexual. Wikipedia soon stamped this out.

Alas, I can't find a contact for whoever runs famouslikeme.com to correct this. In a way, it's quite amusing, so perhaps this oddity should be left alone...