V for Vina

This is a picture from the comic book The Klandestines that I have written. This is just a silly little thing and not an actual panel. Drawn by Dong, coloured by me. A scene from issue 3 of the series. Uploaded here because I can't think of anything else to put up and I decided I don't like the previous post and would like it not to be the latest update.
Most of my hours are spent toning The Klandestines at the moment. It's like being at school again, colouring in. :D

A War Between Tribes

This is a tale of two tribes. One wore red, and the other blue. Their many and particular differences became voided in the simple action of peeling back layers, to reveal skeletons that cannot be told apart.
High noon, full moon out on a summer’s day. Swift gunfire scatters, slices into the haze. Red dances to the beat pounding heavily on an old tin drum. There is the sound of a thousand wild pigeon wings jumping high into misty white air. Blue waltzes quietly, following the pattern of a million ancient feet. It’s like the sick old lion that has spent a lifetime on the beat. Too tired to carry on, but still hungering for more. He holes up, lying sick and weary at the cave door. Word gets out that their most odious king is nearly dead and gone, he will not be here for long. At long last! Hoist his limp flag at half mast. So roll up, pay your respects. Along come gazelle, imapala and ox, followed gingerly by the fox. Three sets of footprints go in. None come out. Along come zebra, warthog and deer. Six sets of footprints. Nine, twelve, fifteen. Scorning the fox for his indifference, they follow the pattern of a million ancient feet while the fox turns tail, he bails.
Meanwhile, back in the now, red and blue flash clashing sabres and swords. Two miles from front lines, dignitaries disguised as thieves pile high their shiny hoards. Five miles hence, Kings and ministers draw out a game of noughts and crosses. Generals and doctors mark them off, count their losses. The next grid is prepared as they review how they fared. A million purple soldiers line up at the mouth of a cave. There is the sound of a thousand captive dove wings jumping high into clear mauve air. Though the barometer reads fair, the weather spills out a snow shower of small white feathers. Reality TV audiences collect them to hand out to the sly old fox. This done, they turn back to their idiot box. Vicariously drink up, consume, piss out hours and hours of misplaced experiences. At the end of their day, wave goodbye to the bosses. Go home to watch the unfurling game of noughts and crosses.

[This image was sent to me a couple of years ago by the Arts Institute at Bournemouth/ ACUB and I wrote a story to illustrate the image. The story was bad. They didn't publish it. This is a new version of the same story. I wrote it a few moments ago so I don't yet know if it is bad. I do not know who drew this picture, other than that they were once a student at the AIB at the same time that I was a student at the AIB.]

It makes us smile if it sounds dope

Now we the American working population

Hate the fact that eight hours a day
Is wasted on chasing the dream of someone that isn't us
And we may not hate our jobs
But we hate jobs in general
That don't have to do with fighting our own causes

But we'd rather be supporting ourselves
By being paid to perfect the pasttimes
That we have harbored based solely on the fact
That it makes us smile if it sounds dope

Fumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition and
Yawn and stretch and my life is a mess and
If I never make it home today, God bless

I’m not a great listener of hip hop, but Aesop Rock is something different. It’s a crossroads where poetry, music, art and philosophy crash together, sometimes a little messily. But mess is okay. If you focus really hard you can start to see sense in the mess. On the surface it might seem like too much in one place, too complex, too rich, too confusing. But if you take a step back and stop thinking about it all then it becomes clear that there is an order to the seemingly chaotic splatter of words.

Here are some bizarre music videos from Aesop Rock’s album None Shall Pass, followed by the song No Regrets from the older album Labour Days. I have included the lyrics to No Regrets because they are beautiful and I try to live in harmony with them.

Lucy was 7 and wore a head of blue barettes
City born, into this world with no knowledge and no regrets
Had a piece of yellow chalk with which she'd draw upon the street
The many faces of the various locals that she would meet
There was joshua, age 10
Bully of the block
Who always took her milk money at the morning bus stop
There was Mrs. Crabtree, and her poodle
She always gave a wave and holler on her weekly trip down to the bingo
parlor
And she drew
Men, women, kids, sunsets, clouds
And she drew
Skyscrapers, fruit stands, cities, towns
Always said hello to passers-by
They'd ask her why she passed her time
Attachin lines to concrete
But she would only smile
Now all the other children living in or near her building
Ran around like tyrants, soaking up the open fire hydrants
They would say
"Hey little Lucy, wanna come jump double dutch?"
Lucy would pause, look, grin and say
"I'm busy, thank you much"
Well, well, one year passed
And believe it or not
She covered every last inch of the entire sidewalk,
And she stopped-
"Lucy, after all this, you're just giving in today??"
She said:
"I'm not giving in, I'm finished," and walked away

[Chorus: x2]
1 2 3
That's the speed of the seed
A B C
That's the speed of the need
You can dream a little dream
Or you can live a little dream
I'd rather live it
Cuz dreamers always chase
But never get it

Now Lucy was 37, and introverted somewhat
Basement apartment in the same building she grew up in
She traded in her blue barettes for long locks held up with a clip
Traded in her yellow chalk for charcoal sticks
And she drew
Little bobby who would come to sweep the porch
And she drew
The mailman, delivered everyday at 4
Lucy had very little contact with the folks outside her cubicle day
But she found it suitable, and she liked it that way
She had a man now: Rico, similar, hermit
They would only see each other once or twice a week on purpose
They appreciated space and Rico was an artist too
So they'd connect on saturdays to share the pictures that they drew
(Look!)
Now every month or so, she'd get a knock upon the front door
Just one of the neighbors,
Actin nice, although she was a strange girl, really
Say, "Lucy, wanna join me for some lunch??"
Lucy would smile and say "I'm busy, thank you much"
And they would make a weird face the second the door shut
And run and tell their friends how truly crazy Lucy was
And lucy knew what people thought but didn't care
Cuz while they spread their rumors through the street
She'd paint another masterpiece

[Chorus x2]

Lucy was 87, upon her death bed
At the senior home, where she had previously checked in
Traded in the locks and clips for a head rest
Traded in the charcoal sticks for arthritis, it had to happen
And she drew no more, just sat and watched the dawn
Had a television in the room that she'd never turned on
Lucy pinned up a life worth's of pictures on the wall
And sat and smiled, looked each one over, just to laugh at it all
No Rico, he had passed, 'bout 5 years back
So the visiting hours pulled in a big flock o' nothin
She'd never spoken once throughout the spanning of her life
Until the day she leaned forward, grinned and pulled the nurse aside
And she said:
"Look, I've never had a dream in my life
Because a dream is what you wanna do, but still haven't pursued
I knew what I wanted and did it till it was done
So i've been the dream that I wanted to be since day one!"
Well!
The nurse jumped back,
She'd never heard Lucy even talk,
'Specially words like that
She walked over to the door, and pulled it closed behind
Then Lucy blew a kiss to each one of her pictures
And she died.

[Chorus x2]

1 2 3...
A B C...

Arts and Crafts

I bought a few books from the shop where I sometimes work. These books were about three art styles, all closely related: Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau, Asian Art. These books are fantastic and so inspiring. Here are some images to get you into the right mind-frame:

The Arts and Crafts movement is something I strongly relate to and that is in line with my own ways of thinking and living. I think the concept is also relevant to the wider world, even more so now than in the early 20th Century when the movement was in full swing. There is a definite move now towards the handmade. The popularity of Etsy.com is just one proof of this. Closer to (my) home the proof is in the growing number of rural craft fairs where the middle classes flock to buy locally handmade unique practical objects, as well as the sharp increase in craftspeople who are keen to revive dying arts. The industrialisation and automation of our society is fast growing old and uninspiring. I’m not saying that there is a move away from it entirely; I’m saying that there is a revival of the ideas raised in the Arts and Crafts movement.

For me this is a happy and good thing. After reading a Handmade Life I came to see the human world in a more positive light. I take pleasure in the manmade objects that surround me everyday. I aspire to either make most of the things I use on a daily basis, or to know the craftsperson. This way I can really appreciate the form and origin of these objects and feel an attachment to them that I could never have with a cup bought from Ikea. Human beings are creative and skilled animals who delight in their creativity and skill. This society is becoming increasingly automated, with machines replacing humans in many areas, not just manufacture. I went into Natwest over the weekend and was directed to a machine that I was expected to pay my cheques into. I didn’t want to use the machine. I wanted to speak to a real person, who smiles and does the job in a transparent and actually quite beautiful way. I have read Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut and I can see that our society is heading towards the society in the pages of that book. I believe that this new Arts and Crafts movement is a positive step away from that possible grim future. People make beautiful, flawed objects with an origin. Machines make replicated perfect objects. People take time and pour passion into what they make. Machines churn out indifferent object after indifferent object. These machine-made objects are turning their users into indifferent, unskilled and apathetic shells. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but there is some truth in there and I don’t want it to apply to me.

But we do live in a different age with different tools and attitudes. There is no escaping this and why bother to even try? In response to all of this I have been designing some of my own things that I will use in making various objects, such as cushions, throws, fabrics and wall hangings. These designs were drawn by hand, scanned into my PC and then coloured using my wacom tablet in Photoshop.

Next Stop: Hansons Fabric shop in Stirminster Newton to buy material with which to make these designs into a reality. I am planning to attend Dorchester’s Spinners, Weavers and Dyers Guild open day where I hope to be taught about wool spinning and weaving. My attempts to teach myself spinning is not going so well. We’ll see if I improve at all with some expert guidance.

On a wool-related note: There are many very cute little lambs bleating away in the field that surrounds Mr Kite’s house. It’s a shame what these cute bounding little things turn into, but at least they bear me some wool to spin.

Christmas Eggs

It’s been a while since I was last on my computer long enough to update anything online. The Christmas period was fairly lively. We played many, many games until we got so bored of playing games that we resented them for a while.

On Christmas day we got our first eggs from the new chickens. Now they are laying far too many for us to comfortably eat. They are far tastier than eggs from supermarkets.

I made some decorations out of materials found in Mr Kite’s garden. The boiler broke a week before Christmas and it was so cold that I had to distract myself somehow, and making decorations seemed to be logical. The Christmas ‘tree’ is made up of various evergreen branches pruned from trees around the Kites’ garden and then arranged in such a way that it almost looks like a tree, if you squint.

When rooting around the decoration box I found a couple of very odd decorations. I have included some photos of these strange children with their odd appendages.

For presents I made everyone sweets and biscuits lavishly dunked in chocolate. I wish I had photographed them because the biscuits, truffles and peppermint crèmes looked really beautiful all draped in various green and blacks chocolate. They tasted beautiful too.

Things have still not gone back to normal. This is partly due to the blanket of snow resting over Dorset at the moment. But it is mostly because Mr Kite’s asbestos cabin roof has started to crack and we are not happy about this. So we shifted everything out and are now attempting to take the roof down and replace it with a less carcinogenic one that we hope won’t leak. At this very moment Mr Kite is up there working on it in the snow. I ought to go and check he hasn’t slipped off.

---

Walking down Bleet Lane in the snow:

"The authority of science comes from the power it gives humans over the environment" Or 'Promethean Madness'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/copenhagen-climate-change-confe/6807295/Copenhagen-climate-summit-How-banks-can-help-to-save-the-planet---and-make-a-profit.html

“When the average punter sees hordes of crusties protesting in Copenhagen and calling for the collapse of capitalism, he or she is unlikely to be sympathetic. They don’t want to be told that the answer to global warming is to repastoralise society (minus the cows), and for us all to sit sneezing in yurts until the Earth cools down. They need the warning but they also want hope. They want the technological optimism that has characterised our species since the Stone Age.”

The only answer is to repastoralise society. Faith in technology and humanist ideals is the same Ricky Ray Rector saving his last piece of pecan pie for later. Technology and a growing economy is unsustainable within a limited environment with limited resources. The capitalist system that is based upon economic growth and technological ‘progress’ is doomed to crumble and fail because it relies on limited resources, but in order to be successful requires unlimited resources.

When oil runs out how will these technologies function? Oil is a fundamental resource used in the manufacture of all renewable resource technology and almost all technologies. To put faith in a future scientific wonder-breakthrough technology that will save us from all our animal natures is rather absurd, or at least exactly the same as putting faith into a God that will save us. In fact, God is a much more realistic power to put our faith in. He works without limitation. Technology will always be ruled by the limits of the natural environment. The crusties are not protesting in order to save the natural environment: that will sort itself out. What they are protecting against is the destruction of humans by putting all our faith into the destruction and reliance upon limited resources.

The only way to ensure a happy and sustainable population of humans is to choose to live sustainably, not using the limited resources faster than they can be replaced and not using resources that cannot ever be replaced (or at least not relying on them).

This means a total change in the way we live. We need to become resilient and self-sufficient.

We need to abandon our blinkered faith in technology. It will not save us it will destroy us.

However: it is not technology itself that is the problem, it is the attitudes and ethics that rest beyond it. It is possible to use technologies that do not use limited resources in order to make tasks easier and safer to perform. These technologies when applied to a society that has sustainable, self-sufficient attitudes and ethics can be wonderful and useful and these are the technologies that have been developed and used since stone age times. Technologies that are applied to a selfish and greedy society will only end up destroying that society.

The ‘hope’ that Johnson speaks of is the hope to continue extreme greed, extreme selfishness, extreme inequality. This is impossible within a system of limitation.

( http://slowriot.deviantart.com/art/Boris-81346348 is where I got the image from. )

Submarine Review

I wrote a review for the book Submarine by Joe Dunthorne. The website EssentialWriters.com have featured it here: http://essentialwriters.com/submarine-by-joe-dunthorne-4818.htm

The review I submitted was quite long, so it's been edited. Other than a few bad re-phrasings I am happy with the review and am glad that EssentialWriters have featured it. The website is very good and a great resource. It's one of the best places to find jobs and places to submit stories.

I am excited about the prospect of the forthcoming film adaptation of Submarine. Richard Ayoade is the director and most of the stuff he's worked on before has been brilliant. I think he'll do wonders with Submarine. Craig Roberts who played Robin Branagh in CBBCs Young Dracula is playing Oliver Tate. Roberts is a very good actor, and I hope this film will provide him a solid platform to future success.

Talking of Young Dracula, I have gone and done the obligatory YD fanfiction. Yeah, I know: sad.

I needed something verbal to do in-between toning The Klandestines. I didn’t want to get stuck into one of my own novels so I decided to write a fanfiction. I chose Young Dracula because I had an idea which would allow me to twist the story a little. It has not all been uploaded yet. You can read it here: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5534456/1/Lacuna

So far I've uploaded chapters 1-8 of 13 chapters. I'll link again when it's all up there.

It’s a kind of hardboiled thing and it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what the hell Young Dracula is, since it’s from the point of view of Robin (played by Craig Roberts) who had a year of his memory wiped at the end of the series, therefore remembers nothing in the series.

This is the sort of very visual stuff I have been working on that has lead me into writing a fanfiction in order to do something verbal. It is a graphic novel called The Klandestines, written by me, drawn my Jian Yang Dong and toned by me:

I was going to post a clever response to a comment in The Daily Telegraph written by Boris Johnson. I wrote it out on a scrap of paper and showed Mr Kite, who really liked it. I left the scrap of paper at Mr Kite's house, so I'll post this silly entry instead.