a writer's notebook
Catching up on my long queue of “stuff I marked to listen to later” at Bandcamp.
MUSIC IN THREE MOVEMENTS FOR WHEN THE WORLD FALLS APART by Dag Rosenqvist is, indeed, useful music for when everything else is moving at sloppy speed.
MITHRA by Ager Sonus is misty atmospheric time travel.
Stag Hare is always great, and I’m filling in gaps in the discography. Long shimmering tones and drones.
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Commencement speech to the graduating class of the University of Essex at Southend
On the occasion of having been made an honorary Doctor of the University
Delivered 31 October 2017
Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea
I’m going to keep this short, because I just got back from Amsterdam, and I’m sure some of you know how that goes.
(This actually got a big laugh, which led me to make a comment along the lines of “Oh, I see what kind of crowd we have here.”)
I’ve been asked to say something inspirational and uplifting to you on the happy occasion of your graduation. Which, given that you’ve worked very hard for your qualification and I just wandered in here and got one for free, seems faintly obscene. So I could lead out with a cautionary tale about how life is fundamentally unfair and old white guys steal everything. But, you know, I left education at 18, and by the time I was your age I was living in a six foot by six foot rented room that used to be a dark room and would sometimes go out at night to punch pay-phones to get them to spit out loose coins that I could use for food money. And here I am. Life is unpredictable.
Sometimes you start out at the bottom. Sometimes you’ll trip and fall down. Sometimes you stay there for a good long time. Sometimes all the lousy luck in the world only ever seems to wash up at your door. I’m telling you from experience that sometimes you’re going to feel like giving up on your chosen path. Maybe you’re even worried that you don’t actually have a chosen path yet. There’s going to be a day when you say to yourself, the hell with it, I’m going to leave a note blaming my teachers for everything and I’m going to go and sell all my organs to medical science while I’m still alive.
Don’t.
I’d been working as a professional writer for seven years or so when I went on my first American tour. On the first stop, at the signing table, this big guy comes up to me, with wet eyes, and told me about the story I’d written that saved his life one night when he’d been down so long that he didn’t see a better day ahead. Whatever was in that story, it gave him something to think about, a goal to stay alive for. I don’t tell you this story to explain what a wonderful person I am, though of course that’s true and now I have a doctorate to prove it, which I’m going to use to drive my family absolutely insane for the rest of my life. I tell it because life is unpredictable and you never know what’s going to happen to let in the light. And I say that as someone who used to literally live in a dark room.
The focus and dedication and determination that got you into this room is what’s going to keep you going. You know how to aim at a goal and reach it. You know what you want. Keep it in sight. Hold on tight. Maybe you don’t know what the specific goal is yet. That’s fine. You’ve got time. Even if you don’t know the shape and name of it, you know in your gut where you want to be. Aim for what makes you happy. For what feels valuable to you. Put yourself where it’s going to count.
That’s where I need you to be. You’ve lead lives that had structure and clearly defined ends, and now you’re entering a world where people watch Jeremy Kyle on purpose. Nobody predicted how weird it’s gotten out here. And I’m a science fiction writer telling you that. And the other science fiction writers feel the same. I know some people who specialized in near-future science fiction who’ve just thrown their hands up and gone off to write stories about dragons because nobody can keep up with how quickly everything’s going insane. It’s always going to feel like being thrown in the deep end, but it’s not always this deep, and I’m sorry for that. But we need you to be out here with us now.
I hope you have the fire in you that my generation had at your age, that most generations have at your age – the fire to fix things, and the fire to make new things, fly new ideas, create the new sound that nobody heard before. You’ll notice that my generation didn’t fix everything, and also released Piers Morgan on the world. We’re sorry for that, too. We made mistakes. You’ll make mistakes too. Don’t be afraid of that. Making mistakes happens when you’re trying something new. It’s how you know you’re bending the envelope. Making mistakes is how you learn, and sometimes a mistake gives you something valuable. Brian Eno made a set of cards with weird notes on them that he used when he was working with David Bowie, among others, and one of the cards reads, “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” You’ll find that’s a lot more useful than Keep Calm And Carry On.
Don’t worry about making mistakes. You’ll learn something, and that will be added to the commonwealth of our knowledge, and we all take one step forward.
Today isn’t the end of anything, really. It’s the beginning. You’re just getting started. You’re going to do great things. You’re going to surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and what you achieve. I’ve seen it happen, over and over again. All you have to do is not quit. Take a day off, but don’t quit. Keep fighting, keep thinking, keep making, keep trying something new. Hold on tight to what matters to you, stand up for what’s right, and keep your eyes on the horizon. It all starts today. It all starts with one step forward.
Congratulations to you all on your achievement. It’s time to begin the bigger and more exciting and more important part of your life. The part where you make a difference. I look forward to seeing you all again, in the future that you help create. Time to get started.
LTD 002
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Well, this thing is bloody huge. Didn’t look that big in the photos. It’s A4 and two and a half inches thick.
I am essentially stuck at my desk for much of this year, so I am improving my mind by buying the DVDs and Blu-Rays of the films I want to watch and study that cannot easily be found on streaming. I had therefore decided it was way past time I did a deep dive on Ingmar Bergman’s career, as I’d been having a lot of thoughts lately that seemed to me to intersect with his work.
I was not aware that I was ordering a paving slab.
If you too want to go nuts and you have space in your office for a paving slab, take a look. (UK) (US)
Comments closedOne of Yumna Al-Arashi’s newsletters popped up today. They’re irregular, but well worth the subscription click.
I’m stealing a quote from the new one:
For many years, I’ve been creating self-portraiture as a means, not only, for expressing myself, but also, to take ownership of my body when it so often feels as though it is not my own. There’s a need to claim women’s bodies and the act of using it as a tool for expression feels like an act of defiance.
Photography became my freedom. I could define myself, through all of my selves. My decision to photograph myself was my most political act. I am presenting how I’d like to be seen to the world, on my own terms. I am protesting media’s representation of those like me. I am protesting identity in itself.
The funny thing I’ve learned about identity is that it does not exist in one dimension. It is evolving, confused, colorful, nonsensical, and weird. It surely isn’t just a token. I could never fully explain Identity to you because it simply has no real weight. The more I feed into the notion of it, the less it makes sense. And so, I wonder why we always keep the question of identity at the forefront of our minds in the first place.
How can we fairly represent one another without exploiting each others mere humanity? I so often carry these questions with me through every project of mine, openly admitting that I do not have the answers. Reminding us all: what is most important is that we are asking them.
Graphic novelist Jeff Lemire returns to the Republic with a weekly newsletter, Tales From The Farm.
Craig Mod’s excellent RIDGELINE hits 12 issues, all nicely archived for you.
(My intent here is to actually try and remember to note down the newsletters I like, building a map of my personal region of the Republic. I also like that “The Republic of Newsletters” seems to have stuck with some people, the way Nabil Maynard’s “Isle of Blogging” stuck with me)
Comments closedThe hashtags mark it as “ritual” and “Indian,” but “ukujula” is a Zulu word for “depth.” It may be somewhere between Muslimgauze and the “Ethnological Forgery Series,” I don’t know. But it’s very much trance music, and very much a nice way to close out the day. It’s three American dollars on Bandcamp. And a good way to test the shortcode function on this WordPress install.
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PICTURES OF THE OLD WORLD is brutal.
Honestly, I could have filled this post with nothing but screenshots from this amazing, beautiful, tender and staggeringly bleak film.
Shot in 1972 by Dusan Hanak and banned by the Czech government for its unrelenting documenting of grim rural poverty, this luminous restoration by Second Run DVD is a revelation. Often heartbreaking, sometimes charming – the toothless old man obsessed with the 1969 moon landing, who stuffs his jacket with related clippings, carefully taking them out and reading them with a magnifying glass, telling the camera all the Apollo trivia he knows like a lonely child eager to finally find an audience.
Parts of this film could have been shot in the late Middle Ages. This is what back-to-the-land waiting-for-death uncivilisation looks like. Pain, damage, unmitigated age, a man who’s literally lived on his knees for twenty-five years like an extra from HARD TO BE A GOD, and, over and over again, I repeat, waiting for death.
PICTURES OF THE OLD WORLD (UK) (US) (or directly from Second Run DVD, not sure how international shipping works with them but you may prefer to try)
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