An Elephant of One's Own

The other day, I stopped off at a local KFC and ordered chicken and fries. As I picked up my order and was about to head out to the car, the woman serving me glanced up and said, "Have a postmodernist day!" No, that's not true. What she did say was: "I'm afraid we're all out of regular chicken, so you've got postmodern chicken instead." Or - on reflection - maybe that was "spicy chicken", but she said it with a postmodernist expression. No, that's not true either. Actually, I didn't go to KFC at all. I was just trying to figure out how I might use "postmodern" or "postmodernist" in a sentence in a way that might convey something - anything really - to the reader. As you see, it's not easy. I think many people have the same problem. The true meaning of "postmodernist", assuming there is one, is fenced in by a wall of impenetrable books, invariably in French, that few people dare to read and non...

When you're not young, and have already forgotten most of what being young was about, there are still a few knotty recollections that serve to remind you that whatever being young was, it wasn't at all like being old. Sex is one of those things. When you're old, you can still keep a candle burning to sex if you want - and it seems somehow fitting to have some small shrine flickering away there, for nostalgia's sake if nothing else, and to dedicate the odd votive offering and yard of kleenex - but what shocks, and rankles, is the undeniable fact you used to be its slave. This is one of the surreal things about youth, that young people don't even see as odd because they're so used to it, and because the culture encourages them to see it as normal - this tyrannical power that sex, in whichever of its various manifestations, exercises over us. I won't go into this because I've talked enough about it elsewhere. But that's definitely one thing. Another t...

" The idea of Europe is in peril. " Really? That surprises me. Evidence? " From all sides there are criticisms, insults and desertions from the cause." OK. If I understand you right, you are defending a Europe, or "an idea of Europe" in which "criticisms" and "insults" cannot be tolerated. Or - let's break down the process - in which initially mild "criticisms" are loftily ignored by a bureaucratic elite, to a point where frustration builds up and "insults" begin to be heard.  And then, when even these are ignored, or are responded to with further "insults", you affect to be surprised that "desertions" begin to take place. Is that it? “Enough of ‘building Europe’!” is the cry." Wait a moment. You said that the idea of Europe is in peril. Which idea, precisely, do you mean? I ask because the notion of Europe as a continent has been in circulation at least since Herodotus, and was...

There's Sprog's homework to "help with", i.e. to do. (I live in a "Homework Culture" a sinister nationwide conspiracy to enable people to do each others' homework with impunity). But I can hardly move a limb. I am sprawled on a torn leather sofa, with stuffing bursting out of the tears, one foot hooked over the staircase railing, the other floorbound, arms thrown backwards from the angular corners of a stretched ribcage, trying to gulp in the extra oxygen I would need to reverse the sleepward drift. "Wait," I say. "Wait..." The way of dying I seem to have chosen does not leave any room for dignity. As things go, I will wheeze more, struggle more, swear more as I fail to negotiate obstacles with my grotesque bunions and failing coordination. I will forget more and more of my eminently forgettable life, finally forgetting how and why I came to be here, in this strange place, surrounded by strange people to whom I am a defective mod co...

Older incarnations of this blog had songs pulled from YT as a regular feature (one day I might even get round to tagging them). Sometimes there'd be brief commentary, most times not. This morning I had the idea of using this space to annotate some more music, in the hope that my favourite elusive mythical beast, the Actual Blog Visitor, might discover something they liked. Seems a harmless enough activity for a Sunday night. Seems a common way to go, even. "Row Jimmy" appeared on the Grateful Dead's Wake of the Flood album, which along with various other Dead albums, and a smattering of prog and Motown soul, provided much of the backing track to a goodly chunk of my unspent, bedroom-bound, lightly sozzled adolescence. Forty-odd years later, I still like both the song and the album. At that time, the meaning and reference of the lyrics of Row Jimmy seemed fairly obvious to me, apart from the cryptic middle 8. Since then, courtesy the Internet, I've discov...

Not quite a microcuento but still: "So you say you have proof that I agreed to have five dollars deducted monthly from my account for this hokey insurance deal?" "We do. We have a recording of your voice agreeing to this, over the telephone." "You recorded my voice on the phone?" " Yes, we did . One of our agents phoned you and sold you our insurance package. Don't you remember?" " In other words, you recorded my voice saying 'yes' to an unrelated question, then spliced that with a separate recording of an operative asking me if I wanted to pay five dollars ." The aggrieved customer (whom we shall call Pussy Cinderwell, although her real name is not this, in fact being a fictional character she doesn't have a real name) paused for a moment, fiddling with her cellphone during the ensuing polite silence. "Well, can I hear the recording?" "Certainly, Miss Cinderwell. Just one moment." Mr Smug...

If you're a Hollywood director, you'll know that a "teacher" is someone who stalks about the timbered end of a classroom, firing off Socratic questions and pertinent facts, a tall ship in the centre of a small inland sea of rapt attention. Girls prop their chins on their hands and gaze adoringly at him ( sic ). Behind him, waves of untidy equations rise and fall on a seasick blackboard. At some point, this "teacher" may instruct students to rip up a book or stand on a desk: querulously or with alacrity, it shall be done . And of course, years later, he'll be remembered with a mixture of amused affection and reverence. This blameless, worthy soul, dedicated to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, will have "changed lives" almost in spite of himself. Friendship, maybe not so much, but influence, well, he's practically got the patent on it. I am not this "teacher". I don't know whether he really exists. Perhaps he does. I...