1
To be a nihilist who wants to give value to the world.
2
The philosopher must become a child
3
The ‘blonde beast’ is actually the lion tearing away history so the child can play.
4
You are finite but your potential is infinite. This is our fate.
5
An infinite becoming is yours, ‘What was scattered gathers. What was gathered blows apart.’ Everything you do, now that the lion has finished, can be a new becoming.
6
New values, new people, new you.
7
After all, where there’s life……
1
The concept of happiness causes more unhappiness than it’s teleological aim.
2
To physically exert oneself is, primarily, an emotional experience. The body is our truth.
3
Once you love your fate you can control your own will to power and become a free spirit in the eternal recurrence of the same.
Be history, become your authentic history.
4
Love your fate, reject determinism and say Yes to life.
5
Freedom is the acceptance of fate. Determinism, as defined in the scientific method, is not freedom.
6
Science treats the body abstractly, in isolation, as though the body is a doorstep and not the higher power that it actually is.
7
Laud the potent individual, look away from the leveling down of culture (the state is an example of this) to suit the masses.
8
The above is an attempt to transcend nihilism. We (individually) are more than the calculated parts of our body and environment.
A walk, a bridge over a motorway, jammed with cars, people hanging out of their window haranguing each other under the merciless sun. The explorer walks into a wooded area, another bridge over empty wasteland. Halfway across this bridge is a modern steel building adorned with a huge, garish Union Jack. A small outer building (more a wooded shed) is to the right of the larger building as the explorer sees it from the bridge. Two monks appear in rough brown robes walking towards the explorer calling out, “Do you like it?”, over and over again. The explorer gets nervous and retreats the way he came.
Another day with the explorer and he’s back on the third bridge, the two monks appear again, this time silent. A youth passes the explorer and steps off the bridge meeting the first monk who’s advancing towards him. The second monk is nowhere to be seen. The explorer hesitantly follows the monk and the youth some way behind. There is a missing step, or maybe its a hole, at the end of this bridge as though its a test of commitment and bravery.
The explorer is brave, he steps off the last bridge and hurries towards the youth and the monk. He is greeted but the explorer only recognises this through his mind alone. They walk and there is a large space that they either walk into or it opens up before their eyes, no one can be sure. They are on a platform, below them and growing beyond them is a vast circular expanse outlined with large desktops. The explorer can see people at the desks, not well defined but with loud colours not one the same. It looks like the colourful people are working on something but its hard to see what exactly. Nothing is well defined apart from the colours. There seems a shadow of objects on the desks, machine or other cannot be told. Suddenly out of the silence comes a heavy beat and a deep base noise. The beat is regular and it penetrates the explorer’s chest, the youth seems to be dancing.
A large carousel slides silently into view. The remaining monk motions us to the platform so we can take a seat. The youth jumps on, the explorer hesitates then with a nod, climbs into the chariot. It is noticeable that the beat and base slow and it is also noticeable that its origin is not electronic, maybe its a primal beat? The carousel swings smoothly around. We watch the people below moving but what for the explorer cannot tell. Eventually the carousel parks up against another platform equidistant from the departure platform. The explorer and the youth disembark and the music stops.
Two looks one thought: Is this some kind of game? The explorer and the youth do not even realise that they can communicate without talking, just a look will do. Before either of them could answer another vast expanse develops before them, very bright but not white. Slowly a wooden building appears as though it was walking, two monks, a man and a woman, naked, come out of the door beckoning towards the explorer and the youth. In a not before heard voice they say, “Do you like it?” over and over again until a plaque just above the door of the wooden building becomes legible, it says, Know Thyself and onward into infinity the letters reach.
The explorer and the youth walk into the building.
………………
No. 2 to follow.
Okay so this won the Booker prize and has a multitude of positive reviews, but I couldn’t finish it. Briefly, its the story of a spirit-child who is born for a short while in the real world but who’s command is to return to the spirit world when still a child. The child disobeys and wishes to stay in the real world (I’m reminded of Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire and Far Away, So Close, as a conceit only). The spirit world try to take him back to their world. But do I care? No because what plot there is it is slow in coming to and is drowned out by the extensive ‘magic-realism’, or the fevered hallucinations that have way too much prominence in the book. I get that the magic-realism is to be taken allegorically and symbolically of the beginnings of an African state after decolonization and that there may be something universally profound in the story, but I feel that it is two hundred pages too long and would have benefited by being more concise with more emphasis put on the plot. I’m sure many of you will disagree with me. Please use the comment section with your thoughts.
After missing a year, the Manchester International Festival is back. Their main exhibition is a collection of poetry mingling with the visual arts, curated by poet, Lemn Sissay and art ‘guru’ Hans Ulrich Obrist. The conceit of mixing words with material art has a long tradition in contemporary Western art and not always successfully. My nature is to begin skeptically and to suppress any preconceptions I may have, not an easy task. Here, though, I was looking forward to this and not just because it felt like we are emerging from the shadows after a torrid eighteen months, I had faith that the solitude we all endured (not necessarily a negative) enabled artists and poets to cut out the noise that usually surrounds them and think more clearly. It’s not an unalloyed success but there is much to admire. Bellow are four exhibits I enjoyed.
The French-Caribbean artist, Julien Creuzet has made a poignant and profound video that utilises imagery, sound and words to great effect. It is narrated, or rather, sung by a disembodied head(s) that floats dreamlike on the screen like a Greek chorus telling the story of fire, of fog and the spirit of the diaspora. It’s a pertinent theme now.
The flower paintings of Precious Okoyomon, bright and with vibrant colours, really grab your attention, as though three-dimensional. The life-like flower heads are comic and sad equally, foreboding in one painting and shocked in another as though someone has creeped up behind them and pinched their bottoms, if they had one. No need for words here as they easily build a narrative just by look alone.
Though born in Nigeria and resident in London, Ihenua Ellams’ pen picture and written poem next to it smells to me of a very Manchester scene. With the rain, the squashed, depressed heads buried in the pavement either side of a twisting road, the high-rises behind and a bus floating in the air above. You could mistake it for Oxford Road. The poem next to the drawing could be a tale of any city-scape but lines like “The rain clouds will gather” and “Such beautiful sorrow”, speak of the northern Rainy City it’s inhabitants have grown to love/hate.
Vivienne Griffin’s digital/graphic film is a dystopian affair fronted by what the video gamer will know as a ‘first person shooter’: a hand pointing a machine gun. We are in a human unoccupied environment populated with large three dimensional words and objects, like candles. Sometimes the scene is devoid of anything as the gunner moves through the landscape, firing balls from the gun with a bad aim. Occasionally a ball hits an object but too far away to effect anything. The machine gun moves closer and a game (of sorts) commences as the shots begin to knock the object over. The whole thing is frustrating and seemingly pointless which may actually be the point, given the piece’s title. A fake environment for a fake culture? I haven’t a clue.
I may be a jaded, cynical atheist but I do believe that ‘spirit’ is something akin to self-consciousness, not a ghost in the sky or some unknowable entity directing our lives. If so, then there may be hope for us yet, though I doubt it.
Links
Opening the door they let me
in
my room I walk
Bed table TV locked in a
cabinet
mesh on the window.
Bathroom padded door there’s
no
seat on the toilet
Everything is welded
to
floor and wall.
No room for maniac to
wield
a table or throw a chair
The door closes behind me and I
see
peeping hole partially closed.
Bag drops to floor it’s the
only
thing that’s mobile and me
I fall on the bed.
–
Later I stand outside my
room
only in boxers I’m ushered back in
It’s well into the night
when
I get my first dose then sleep.
The morning comes round another
pill
still dreaming still sweating
My mind is calm I know that
all
this is what I have now.
A tour of the facilities
leads
to a functional kitchen
A spacious living room TV
between
programs showing adverts for alcohol.
Walk past table chairs and
settee
I see outside
But first the heavy door to
open
I do with a strain all over my face.
In the fresh air mind starts to
breathe
mesh like table and chairs
No smoking signs people sat
smoking
you can’t tame the beast.
Large sloping grass
leads
down to a fence
A tree centered surrounded by a
hole
my anxiety grows.
I’m inside/outside together at
once
people are looking
I fall down the hill and hit my bonce.
The positive the negative
each mistaking the other each
misused for a fraudulent benefit.
Something that’s all too literal something
that’s only actually a myth made up
something that is tailor-made for you by them.
It’s a trigger it sets you off it’s a trigger
for no god damned reason
trigger trigger trigger trigger trigger
rinse and repeat.
Don’t wear that you’ll trigger ‘em don’t
do that you’ll trigger ‘em
don’t trigger the herd you’ll frighten ‘em
Don’t say that to me I’ll be triggered
I’m trigger happy
trigger trigger trigger trigger trigger
rinse and repeat.
Trauma big or small no trauma at all
it’s the elemental trigger for them
used against you.
Don’t have one make it up as you go along
look at the news watch your peers
steal a trauma feel their trauma
Try not to laugh give good feedback look
at the the-rapist there’s your trauma
right there.
trigger trigger trigger trigger trigger
rinse and repeat.
So I lie here wide eyes
racing mind,
Another night insomnia.
The darkness of bedroom
oppressive,
Just like restlessness can’t stop thinking.
A million subjects
objects too racing,
Know it’s the AM hours have to be up early again.
My fucking head used to
sleep so well now it just prickles,
Like fusion.
No use just can’t sleep
turn the light on,
Tired eyes used to it living off memory alone.
Jesus Christ in hell why don’t I have any temazepam?
Go to toilet snoring next door
take a leak come back,
Think about masturbating it used to let me dream.
Put some music on maybe drop off
before the music ends,
It ends lie helpless staring at darkness.
It’s just so fucking ridiculous and I cry
how did this happen to me,
Another night insomnia.
To get inside people’s head
Outside my existence
though inside my sense-experience
lies a table within a jungle of sound
Objects of being
in their own phenomenon
their existence is confusing
they just present themselves
with no meaning
Just there
but words and a kind of interaction
presents a way forward
as I am a phenomenon also
Its a fascinating subject
Wooden table faded a green bottle
of used wine
various objects female paraphernalia
large teardrop bulbous glass with
w somerset leaning over wordsworth
on a lower rack
A table of scattered confusion
inanimate objects
sense is one thing
existence another
The greatest thing is you don’t have to be a head doctor
we all give head
With a wave of soft music
a sandstorm of a table
shell ashtray that i’ve not used
Some empty wine
white and crimson with
evolution on the stereo
Rent book and comic book
distractions both
solvent on the table
How do we perceive again and again
do we put things together as before
do we understand what we see
or is interpretation a guise?
The same image can be perceived in many
different ways
life is not a jigsaw puzzle its more
complicated
subjective reality means we cannot answer for
you, them, they
so yes interpretation is just a guise
Kevin Nebula 