Pumcan and other scary things
This halloween Ghin dressed up as a pumcan. For those who are not grandparents or related to us, you should look away now. Look away especially if you find Anne Geddes photography of babies in furry and fluffy fruit costumes nauseating and parents who do this out of their minds since children do grow up and are likely to be embarrassed by this when they reach nine, or younger. But you know, i can't help it, and offer no apologies. You were warned....
...and now it gets pretty hardcore. Ghin dances to 'Young at Heart'. A song only heard at Old People's Tea Dances. And youtube uploads by annoying parents. I cannot take the blame for the selection of song, it came on the radio as i began videoing him. Perhaps there is no such thing as coincidence, as they say in the Matrix...
OK after that entry about shlepping, i thought that i'd write a bit about other stuff. Birdfeeding for instance. It is now the time of the year we feed birds and we made a birdfeeding tree out of the pruned back elder bush in the garden. I was a bit disappointed that the birds were not taking to it, but i needn't have worried. It was just that i wasn't really observing it, as i was running about like a blue arsed fly. This morning i did have the opportunity to watch and i am happy to report that there are about 30 birds who use the feeders. This includes starling, of course, tits of all sizes and kinds, chaffinches, black birds, collard doves i think that's all so far. I was a bit worried that the birds had deserted the garden over the summer but that was a silly worry. They were busy doing other things. What i have noticed though is that despite the 'feast' laid on for them, they do prefer to forage in the leaf litter which is still replete with skates, spiders, milli and centipedes and other delightful creepy crawlies, or as they say so tweely in the RSPB mini beasts. oh the word mini beasts, it drives me nuts. Hwo do you think an insect would feel being refered to as a mini beast? It's tres patrionising, non? As far as a milliepede is concerned its pretty damn big enough, mini beast. And tell that to a screaming female who would give any sprinter a run for their money if they saw one of those undulating their way towards them. Ugh, mini beasts...its an insect, you are not supposed to make it consummerable... it is a frighting, alien looking creature with exo skeletons that uses razor sharp teeth to crunch its way through dead matter to reduce logs and forests to dust, or powerful acid to dissolve rotting flesh and suck it up, through its straw mouth like a drink. Come on now, mini beast...
Kids don't like insects because they're made cute, they like insects because they can see the horror in the business these creatures do, and they respect that. It's probably why most people don't love insects, it's that primal memory when we were amoeba and they were towering giants, relentlessly making their way towards us with their six legs and their shiny metallic carapaces and terrifying wings.
I have poured my third cup of coffee today. I made it with our ancient espresso maker which does not have a rubber ring because one day i bruned it right off by forgetting that the machine was on the stove. It still functions perfectly without it though... it is amazing how things still function without their 'right' appurtances.
This morning the independent devoted its entire magazine on how to get by on less. Suddenly self-reliance is in. Mending and knitting and sexy. Digging and austerity and delightful. Being a man means doing DIY and knowing how to erect a barn, being a woman means baking bread and scraping a three course dinner from the back of yer fridge.
And so we are bemused. Those of us who have somehow, despite being born twenty years after the second world war have somehow managed to still want to save string, wrapping paper and have boxes of remnant lace, ribbons and buy what was called junk furniture from Oxfam and Banardos, are suddenly considered not just wise, but fashionable and chic. Just how shallow can people be? While we need to live like this out of neccessity, good time or bad, it is made out to be the new narccisism. Where taking control and acting out of creativity is being responsible, it is now commercial and chic. The new going up section... i think it is great that the mainstream are now advocating sensible living, but i know it is skin deep. And that is a cause for some sorrow.
But it doesn't matter, does it? As far as i'm concerned, i will still be making compost heaps from recycle tables, constructing garden borders from disused fences and carefully folding reused coloured tissue paper. Why, because it makes me feel good, that's why. Honestly, it does.
And finally, before i leave, i cannot go without saying something about Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross. It is not a coincidence that with the apparent end of this phase of the consummerist boom, as the world sets itself to rights again, that the symbols of the excess of our culture are being torn down as well. J Ross the overpaid, overrated and overinflated icon of the media has been told that he ain't funny no more. His humour which depends on skating on the thin ice of disrrespect with the boots of veiled insult has run out of time. The age of celebrity hopefully is over. Will the age of integrity be ushered in now? The irony of the whole incident is that those who were baying for the blood of the BBC and the license fee are those who were precisely responsible for the lowest common denominator sort of culture from when Ross gets HIS license from. The Daily Mail. The Sun. The News of the World. Those who have pushed the boundaries of propritey with their topless models, racist, ageist, misogynist and explotative drivel are suddenly telling the BBC that the very creatures which they themselves spawned are not to be funded by the license fee payer. It's ok if they fork it out for themselves, but not ok if they are forced to do this by the license fee. And people can't see it? This whole debacle it not merely the failure of democracy, it is also a failure of culture and education. Education is now a sausage making machine and we now have the sausages taking over the supermarket...
I bought the Daily Mail two days ago because i wanted to see what they said about the whole affair. I was shocked at how rabid it was. How can people read this shit? The misinformation, the uncharitable and raging anger which it inficted at everything and everyone which wasn't one of them, the lack of responsibility, the culture of blame which it perprated. Even Oisin would have had a more mature editorial policy if he ran a newspaper. It was like reading the diary of a spoilt, crass, malnourished, illiterate thirteen year old. I had to put it away because i had the overwhelming urge to take the editor by his ears and throw him into Plum Village for a year.
OK, rant is over. Must go. I think i'll clean the house now and wash three days worth of dishes. Really looking forward to that... ummmmmm.....
PS:
i was just doing the dishes and thinking about Ross and Brand. I was also reading the indy's articles on them and it struck me the role of comedy and how they transgressed their role as clowns. In fact the problem is not that of taste or decency, but goes further back, further back than most debates of this issue take it - right back to the role of the Trickster. The figure of the clown and chaos who are as they as in NI inextricably linked and the function it serves in all societies. The role of the Trickster is truly archetypal. In any and every culture you find it, see it, it can runs the range from the despised and castigated one, the sacrificial scapegoat to the loveable and harmless clown who gives license. The Zen master who acts the fool, the satirist who keeps it real. It upsets the order of things in order to keep the balance. It elevates the pedestrian, gives voice to the voiceless and brings the high and mighty down low. It brings perspective and injects creativity. It destroys and then brings life again. In mythology we have Coyote, Raven - buffoons who create - and then we have Loki, cross dressing and transgendered gods who destroy. Ross and Brand were tolerated while they stayed within the range of Falstaff - or the Fool who mocked the King, in King Lear, for instance, but then they crossed over to the dark side. They became unchecked and now if they read Norse mythology they will understand the fate of gods who harm the harmless.
Loki, despite his cynicism and irreverence, was tolerated in Asgard as long as he contributed to the balance. It was when he went over, when he attacked the helpless and good - Balder the Good - that brought about his downfall. His punishment? He was enchained under a serpent dripping venom and even in his torture his writhing causes earthquakes. His capture though signals Ragnarok, the end of the world, an indication that the balance cannot live without chaos for long and therein lies the demise of life as we know it.
So Brand and Ross attacked a harmless 78 year old man, taunting him about his embarrassing granddaughter who had no respect even for herself, and now pay the consequences. They did not overstep decency and good taste, but rather they violated the rules of comedy, they escaped from their role of restorers of nature, of the equilibrium - say if they made fun of a government minister for instance, reminded them that they were human - and became bullies. If left unchecked society somehow instinctively felt that it would symbolise a horror of us all and reacted.
I think of Lear's Fool who kept telling the King that his decision to give all away was foolish and idiotic. His actions were naive and arrogant at the same time. But he stopped being the taunter when Lear is thrown out by his two daughters. He then became Lear's companion, his only friend, and that is why Lear, in his humiliation continued to love the fool. That is why we do as well. Because the thing that comedy must always have, it holds under all its layers and layers of wit, sarcasm, its nihilism and rebellion is compassion and if it has no compassion, then like everything else, it becomes a parody of itself and must too be sent for purging.
Imagine if the Fool kept on taunting Lear, kicking him after he loses his eyes, spitting on him. No, more than anyone else, the comic needs to see reality as it is and address it from the heart. And that's what happened, blinded by their own egos, by money, by greed and by a society that puts itself first, they forgot the heart - and so they had to go.
Of course there is still the balancing effect. The BBC has said that salaries will have to be reigned in. That humour will have to return to where it used to be. That boundaries will have to be respected here as well in the financial world, again - parallels which are not without coincidence.
And so the balance returns.
...and now it gets pretty hardcore. Ghin dances to 'Young at Heart'. A song only heard at Old People's Tea Dances. And youtube uploads by annoying parents. I cannot take the blame for the selection of song, it came on the radio as i began videoing him. Perhaps there is no such thing as coincidence, as they say in the Matrix...
OK after that entry about shlepping, i thought that i'd write a bit about other stuff. Birdfeeding for instance. It is now the time of the year we feed birds and we made a birdfeeding tree out of the pruned back elder bush in the garden. I was a bit disappointed that the birds were not taking to it, but i needn't have worried. It was just that i wasn't really observing it, as i was running about like a blue arsed fly. This morning i did have the opportunity to watch and i am happy to report that there are about 30 birds who use the feeders. This includes starling, of course, tits of all sizes and kinds, chaffinches, black birds, collard doves i think that's all so far. I was a bit worried that the birds had deserted the garden over the summer but that was a silly worry. They were busy doing other things. What i have noticed though is that despite the 'feast' laid on for them, they do prefer to forage in the leaf litter which is still replete with skates, spiders, milli and centipedes and other delightful creepy crawlies, or as they say so tweely in the RSPB mini beasts. oh the word mini beasts, it drives me nuts. Hwo do you think an insect would feel being refered to as a mini beast? It's tres patrionising, non? As far as a milliepede is concerned its pretty damn big enough, mini beast. And tell that to a screaming female who would give any sprinter a run for their money if they saw one of those undulating their way towards them. Ugh, mini beasts...its an insect, you are not supposed to make it consummerable... it is a frighting, alien looking creature with exo skeletons that uses razor sharp teeth to crunch its way through dead matter to reduce logs and forests to dust, or powerful acid to dissolve rotting flesh and suck it up, through its straw mouth like a drink. Come on now, mini beast...
Kids don't like insects because they're made cute, they like insects because they can see the horror in the business these creatures do, and they respect that. It's probably why most people don't love insects, it's that primal memory when we were amoeba and they were towering giants, relentlessly making their way towards us with their six legs and their shiny metallic carapaces and terrifying wings.
I have poured my third cup of coffee today. I made it with our ancient espresso maker which does not have a rubber ring because one day i bruned it right off by forgetting that the machine was on the stove. It still functions perfectly without it though... it is amazing how things still function without their 'right' appurtances.
This morning the independent devoted its entire magazine on how to get by on less. Suddenly self-reliance is in. Mending and knitting and sexy. Digging and austerity and delightful. Being a man means doing DIY and knowing how to erect a barn, being a woman means baking bread and scraping a three course dinner from the back of yer fridge.
And so we are bemused. Those of us who have somehow, despite being born twenty years after the second world war have somehow managed to still want to save string, wrapping paper and have boxes of remnant lace, ribbons and buy what was called junk furniture from Oxfam and Banardos, are suddenly considered not just wise, but fashionable and chic. Just how shallow can people be? While we need to live like this out of neccessity, good time or bad, it is made out to be the new narccisism. Where taking control and acting out of creativity is being responsible, it is now commercial and chic. The new going up section... i think it is great that the mainstream are now advocating sensible living, but i know it is skin deep. And that is a cause for some sorrow.
But it doesn't matter, does it? As far as i'm concerned, i will still be making compost heaps from recycle tables, constructing garden borders from disused fences and carefully folding reused coloured tissue paper. Why, because it makes me feel good, that's why. Honestly, it does.
And finally, before i leave, i cannot go without saying something about Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross. It is not a coincidence that with the apparent end of this phase of the consummerist boom, as the world sets itself to rights again, that the symbols of the excess of our culture are being torn down as well. J Ross the overpaid, overrated and overinflated icon of the media has been told that he ain't funny no more. His humour which depends on skating on the thin ice of disrrespect with the boots of veiled insult has run out of time. The age of celebrity hopefully is over. Will the age of integrity be ushered in now? The irony of the whole incident is that those who were baying for the blood of the BBC and the license fee are those who were precisely responsible for the lowest common denominator sort of culture from when Ross gets HIS license from. The Daily Mail. The Sun. The News of the World. Those who have pushed the boundaries of propritey with their topless models, racist, ageist, misogynist and explotative drivel are suddenly telling the BBC that the very creatures which they themselves spawned are not to be funded by the license fee payer. It's ok if they fork it out for themselves, but not ok if they are forced to do this by the license fee. And people can't see it? This whole debacle it not merely the failure of democracy, it is also a failure of culture and education. Education is now a sausage making machine and we now have the sausages taking over the supermarket...
I bought the Daily Mail two days ago because i wanted to see what they said about the whole affair. I was shocked at how rabid it was. How can people read this shit? The misinformation, the uncharitable and raging anger which it inficted at everything and everyone which wasn't one of them, the lack of responsibility, the culture of blame which it perprated. Even Oisin would have had a more mature editorial policy if he ran a newspaper. It was like reading the diary of a spoilt, crass, malnourished, illiterate thirteen year old. I had to put it away because i had the overwhelming urge to take the editor by his ears and throw him into Plum Village for a year.
OK, rant is over. Must go. I think i'll clean the house now and wash three days worth of dishes. Really looking forward to that... ummmmmm.....
PS:
i was just doing the dishes and thinking about Ross and Brand. I was also reading the indy's articles on them and it struck me the role of comedy and how they transgressed their role as clowns. In fact the problem is not that of taste or decency, but goes further back, further back than most debates of this issue take it - right back to the role of the Trickster. The figure of the clown and chaos who are as they as in NI inextricably linked and the function it serves in all societies. The role of the Trickster is truly archetypal. In any and every culture you find it, see it, it can runs the range from the despised and castigated one, the sacrificial scapegoat to the loveable and harmless clown who gives license. The Zen master who acts the fool, the satirist who keeps it real. It upsets the order of things in order to keep the balance. It elevates the pedestrian, gives voice to the voiceless and brings the high and mighty down low. It brings perspective and injects creativity. It destroys and then brings life again. In mythology we have Coyote, Raven - buffoons who create - and then we have Loki, cross dressing and transgendered gods who destroy. Ross and Brand were tolerated while they stayed within the range of Falstaff - or the Fool who mocked the King, in King Lear, for instance, but then they crossed over to the dark side. They became unchecked and now if they read Norse mythology they will understand the fate of gods who harm the harmless.
Loki, despite his cynicism and irreverence, was tolerated in Asgard as long as he contributed to the balance. It was when he went over, when he attacked the helpless and good - Balder the Good - that brought about his downfall. His punishment? He was enchained under a serpent dripping venom and even in his torture his writhing causes earthquakes. His capture though signals Ragnarok, the end of the world, an indication that the balance cannot live without chaos for long and therein lies the demise of life as we know it.
So Brand and Ross attacked a harmless 78 year old man, taunting him about his embarrassing granddaughter who had no respect even for herself, and now pay the consequences. They did not overstep decency and good taste, but rather they violated the rules of comedy, they escaped from their role of restorers of nature, of the equilibrium - say if they made fun of a government minister for instance, reminded them that they were human - and became bullies. If left unchecked society somehow instinctively felt that it would symbolise a horror of us all and reacted.
I think of Lear's Fool who kept telling the King that his decision to give all away was foolish and idiotic. His actions were naive and arrogant at the same time. But he stopped being the taunter when Lear is thrown out by his two daughters. He then became Lear's companion, his only friend, and that is why Lear, in his humiliation continued to love the fool. That is why we do as well. Because the thing that comedy must always have, it holds under all its layers and layers of wit, sarcasm, its nihilism and rebellion is compassion and if it has no compassion, then like everything else, it becomes a parody of itself and must too be sent for purging.
Imagine if the Fool kept on taunting Lear, kicking him after he loses his eyes, spitting on him. No, more than anyone else, the comic needs to see reality as it is and address it from the heart. And that's what happened, blinded by their own egos, by money, by greed and by a society that puts itself first, they forgot the heart - and so they had to go.
Of course there is still the balancing effect. The BBC has said that salaries will have to be reigned in. That humour will have to return to where it used to be. That boundaries will have to be respected here as well in the financial world, again - parallels which are not without coincidence.
And so the balance returns.
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