Marc Nash's Blog, page 42

Our Father - A Drabble

Behold my teenage son there. The putto. As might be represented by Lucien Freud rather than Donatello. With halo having become sullied and slipped down from above his crown so as to cincture his features in the form of a hood. The monk with his vow of silence. The black friar stewing in his own tormenting juices. Angelic features framing a demonic countenance. And yet my wife constantly counsels me not to make him break his vow. Thereby he flagellates and scourges me even without removing his hands sheathed in the pouch in his hoodie. Our father who art in Hell...

It's The New Thing - 10 songs about newness for the New Year

So 2014. A brand spanking new year. And yet here's me sticking to a tried and trusted old theme, a music chart. But in with the new, the theme of this one is all things new. There are lots of bands with 'new' in their name, New Order, Brand New Heavies, New Puritans, New York Dolls, New Kids On The Block (um).

So here's to the optimism a new year and fresh start brings. Or sumpting...


1) U2 - New Year's Day
Ha ha ha, Bono's hair and dancing. never really liked U2 but I'm feeling charitable and all celebratory for the turn of the year.



2) Joy Division - New Dawn Fades
Didn't last all that long to be honest. "A loaded gun won't set you free". This song represents their musical epicness as it builds, an epicness built on a very stripped down, clean mix of just the 3 basic instruments of guitar, bass & drums.



3) James Brown - Papa's Got A Brand New Bag
Let's get the mood back up and who better to do that than the Godfather of Soul himself? The song that launched a thousand hip-hop samples. BTW there ought to be a show called "Shindig" on TV these days too.



4) Queen Latifah - New Jack City
I went to see this film in the cinema when it came out. It was my introduction to hip-hop. Taught me everything I know today. Okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. The film was considerably better than this theme tune



5) Clipse - Chinese New Year
Actually, if you want an introduction to hip=hop, you could do a lot worse than Clipse's debut album Lord Willin'. Unfortunately this isn't a track from that album.



6) The Fall - New Face In Hell
Probably wouldn't be one of my music charts without a track from the Fall. But then with about a hundred albums to their name, they have song titles to cover every single theme eventuality I could come up with. They had another song called "New Puritans" just to make my point and yes, that band took their name from the Fall song.



7) 23 Skidoo - The Gospel Comes To New Guinea
Great title, great song. They seem to be back around playing live after 25 years away. Think I may just try and come out of my own gig retirement and catch them if I can.



8) Tricky - Brand New You're Retro
Must be cold up on stage under all those lights, but Tricky has come prepared with a nice big coat. But he won't feel the benefit once he steps outdoors...



9) The Stylistics - You Make Me Feel Brand New
It is an abomination when you type the song title into YouTube, you are first offered Simply red's version. I had the same thing on the radio last night when "swing Low Sweet Chariot" was a version from UB40. Gaaaa! When you listen to some of the early reggae collections from Trojan & Studio One, you realise how UB40 built a career on the backs of other, better artists. "Red, red wine" anybody? Or "red, red whine" as UB40 made it. Rant over.




10) Dizzee Rascal - Brand New Day
Ah, Dizzee counsels da yout to do their homework. A case of 'don't do as I do, do as I say'.

Skin Bar - Friday Flash

Content warning: strong stuff in the horror genre





Her dog tags plumblined under her head towards the floor as if they were divining. Dowsing for unadulterated blood. The metal tags had been fashioned from razor blades, dangling among her cascading tresses like Medusa’s serpents as her body swayed casting its spell over the audience. The divining had worked, her thong strap corralling a plethora of banknotes like a cotton hula skirt. Crisp verdant tender that had only recently pupated from an ATM, clenched stiff-backed in febrile flapping hands so that they tapered between tensing fingers, but now cocooned against her hot skin the currency had wilted and shrivelled. The men snapped them at her, like cobra’s fangs. Hoping to cop an illicit fondle of her flesh. It was hard to determine who was the charmer and who the entranced snake. It was only when she was fully distended against the indurate embrace of the steel pole that she felt sure of who she was. And who the vipers coiled in the audience were. 
A hissing, guttural whistling and applause broke out as she slid down the steel for the final time. But she did not lap it up. It was always the worst moment for her, when her naked skin broke off communion with the unyielding metal. No matter how hot the club was under the lights, her exposed skin flared up in goosebumps. Her spine no longer reinforced by the steel brace sagged and curled in on itself. She pelted off the stage and passed the next dancer with a live snake wrapped around her shoulders. She shivered. The lights dimmed to shroud her newfound modesty as she bent down to recoup her faux military costume, her tags taking a last bow of their own bouncing around her temple as she gathered her far flung attire. As she held the clothes clump to cover her breasts with one hand, her other swung the tags back into place cresting her decolletage. The touch of the metal sent a charge through her that banished the goosebumps as the blood resumed coursing through her veins, coming up to the surface for its feed at the mouth of the razor blades.
In the dressing room, she slipped her feet into her crocodile skin mules so that her flesh was no longer chilled by contact with the floor. She threw the fatigues under her dressing table before plucking the banknote fronds from her thong, wadding and stuffing them into the gaping maw of her snakeskin handbag. She extracted a lizard skin jewellery case from its scaly bowels and opened the clasp. She tipped the box upside down and a pile of metalwork clanged on to her dressing table. She started slipping the charm bangles, bracelets and wrist bands over her hands and sliding them up the length of her forearms. She moved to complete the metal-ringed concatenation with some filigree iron cuffs. As she cinctured one wrist with the band, the circlets above began their segmented slow shuffle down her arm. 
Satisfied with an inspection that verified there was virtually no pink skin visible beneath the metal carapace, removed her thong and replaced it with a chastity belt forged from iron. Next she compressed herself into a metal corset. She pulled the wire ties like ligatures as she welded herself into the callous embrace of the garment. The metallurgy made an ingot of her body as she proceeded to pour herself into a metallic mirror dress. Her torso now fully scourged and pressed behind the unbending, she sat down on her chair. She slipped on a pair of metal anklets which resembled those of an Indian temple dancer and strapped on a pair of steel shin guards that gave her the appearance of an ice hockey goal tender. She stood up, without a shred of skin being exposed beneath her ferric sheathing. Modern day chain-mail for confronting the world in, and particularly the unchained male with his tongue hanging from his mouth, she felt emboldened to step outside the skin bar and return home. The venomous vipers might have been held in check by the in-house rules but outside, even though there were a myriad of laws, there were fewer rules and considerably less illumination. Fully armoured, she offered them no purchase on her flesh to sink their fangs into.
She marched straight through the bedroom and into the ensuite. She gathered up some fresh dressings, swabs and surgical alcohol. She returned to the bedroom and set the articles on a bedside table. She went over to her mirrored closet which had been covered up behind sheets stuck over the reflective glass. She opened the door and sunk stiffly to her knees as she foraged around the floor of the closet. She emerged with a husked snakeskin all of a piece. She started to pare it carefully with a scalpel. A groan was emitted from behind her as soon as the scalpel’s scratching started up. “Not much more now. We’re nearly done” she intoned absently as she concentrated on her close work. When she had fashioned several reticulated squares of snakeskin, she turned towards the bed. She approached the quivering body and surmised that it was silently weeping.

She started unpicking one of the pressure bandages that adorned the man’s shin. Beneath lay the muscle, ligament and bone denuded of their flesh pellicle. The bandage had a smeared blood stain on its lint, but she discarded it into the corner of her room where others lay stacked up like a termite mound. She placed a few of the squares over the man’s bare leg. He started whimpering louder. She turned to the drawer of her bedside table and extracted a thick bodkin needle. She pierced one of the snakeskin patches and ran some thread through the needle’s eye. She would mark this particular snake in all his true colours. He would never shed his skin again. 

The Art Of Collaboration - some thoughts

They say writing novels is a lonely pursuit. Well in an age of digital and self-publishing this is no longer true. There are a myriad of online writing communities, where you can get craft, publishing and technical advice or trial your work. With social media you get to converse with your readers before they buy your book, as they buy it (since they can just share the fat of their Amazon purchase with one click, while I've had people tweet a photo of my front cover), while they're reading it I've three people reading my short stories who are tweeting to me about them as they progress through the book) and finally of course when they've finished reading and want to continue the engagement either through a review or just talking to you about it. If like me you can't even draw stickmen, then you'll need to reach out to a designer to design your book cover for you. While if you want a bespoke website but have no coding skills, again like me, then you need to collaborate with a web designer.

So digital publishing is the age of interaction and collaboration. Earlier this year I collaborated with Pixel Pixie Design on a video reading of one of my flash fiction stories, seeking to tell a story in a different way. We're about to launch into our second collaborative project making a second video.
I've been used to collaborating, since I formerly wrote plays for the stage. There I had the privilege of attending all rehearsals, doing the warm up games with the actors, participating in the impro tasks as the director found ways for them to discover their characters, without laying down too many pre and pro-scriptions. It was a real skill to allow everyone to bring their own creativity to the production, rather than just impose one person's vision. There may well have been things I wanted to say about the interpretation of 'my' play, but I didn't interrupt the process. I would never bring them up directly with the actors and only rarely would I have a sidebar chat with the director to feed in my input. I may have written the script, but the actors had to bring it alive up on stage and I felt it best to trust to their abilities rather than impose my own views. Any playwright who feels precious about every word that they write, ought to bear in mind that an actor may trip up over a word or line and just never get it right, for no logical reason at all. Then the writer just has to let the line go. If that can happen to any line in the play, then you realise that nothing is so precious as to be ring-fenced from being cut. There may be no rhyme or reason to it, but that's just how things can shake out.
What my theatre experiences taught me was it's vital to allow every creative partner the space to bring their talents and vision to the project. That way you maximise the chances for full synergy, that is the finished piece being greater than the original conception and bigger than the sum of the different creative parts that came together to produce it. I may have written a text, Pixel Pixie may have animated design skills, but hopefully the synthesis of our skills forged a piece that became more than a short story and more than a kinetic typography video. The kinetic typography would hopefully bring out things in the story less accessible to being read in print. While the text would hopefully inform and reinforce just why kinetic typography was being used as the medium and make the letters on screen resonate with meaning.
But that creative space for each to pitch in is hard to define. Unless you're all sat round a table with a blank piece of paper at the beginning, (less and less likely in these days of virtual communication), the someone will probably initiate the process with the concept. I had written my story and had a vision of how it would look in kinetic typography. And it can be hard to relinquish 'ownership' and throw it completely open to your partners to do what they will with it. I'm sure that the whole spectrum of creative working relationships exists, from the person with the brief so detailed and the control freakery to prevent their partner from deviating from a single detail, through to the person with a grain of an idea who turns to their partner and asks them to go away and magically conjure the whole finished piece. Clearly the ideal is somewhere between those two stifling poles.
There exists a further issue, that of different creative artists not speaking the same language in order to communicate their take on things and their vision. I can't even draw convincing stickmen with pen and paper, let alone wield any design software programmes. And yet the process with Pixel Pixie was without hiccup. The initial brief was no more than 6 lines long, and then the full 275 word text itself. There was a process of initial emails where we were just feeling around to understand each other's approach and conception. And language. Pixel asked me about fonts and colours, but I was keen for her to bring her own ideas to that. We talked about a voiceover of the story, but I explained I felt that since the piece is about the breakdown of language and the ability to recall words (due to developing asphasia), we needed to show the actual breakdown of words and their transformation into other words visually. We talked about morphing and transitions as I gradually learned the concepts involved in Pixel's art and she learned about how the story worked conceptually beyond the words that she was to transform and animate. Finally we talked about imagining the viewing experience for an audience not greatly exposed to this relatively new way of telling a story. (Most kinetic typography videos are either infographics for a product or service, or use song lyrics or film dialogue that are well know already).
So after these initial getting to know your art stages, Pixel Pixie went away and created! It was the equivalent of a first draft of any author's manuscript, only way more realised and closer to the final version. The points we discussed on this first draft were already about details, rather than overall conception. We did talk about colour, agreeing that the basic colour scheme was correct, but that it could just be broken up a bit more in places with other colour effects. The fonts we left untouched. The exciting thing was not only had Pixie Pixel come up with the 'doodle' images in the piece, but that these sparked off suggestions from both of us of other ones we could add. The sparking off of a creative partner you just don't get working on your own. Some of these image suggestions were tried, but I always couched them with the caveat if they proved too difficult technically, or messed up the transition, then to drop them as ideas. My training from the actors corpsing in rehearsals standing me in good stead. Indeed there was one really nice image idea we tried but had to abandon as it just didn't work into feeding into the next frame.
A second draft required very few changes, the third draft was for the soundtrack and we didn't make a single change to that. The fourth and final draft was for the credits and in the space of 11 days the video was complete from its starting blank screen. Even when it was finished, the swapping of ideas didn't end there. I asked about how she went about finding and applying the 'doodle' images as such information will inform my side of things for the next kinetic typography project we will hopefully collaborate on later in the year.
Here's the fruitful result of my collaboration with Pixel Pixie Design:

Music Colour Therapy - Songs about colours

Color Me Badd, as if there aren't a host of bands with a colour in their name, Black Sabbath, White Stripes, Green Day, Blue Oyster Cult, Simply Red, Maroon 5, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry...

But here are songs involving colours rather than just the band names. Good and bad!

Enjoy

1) "Paint It Black" - Rolling Stones
Beatles or Stones? I was never really either, but I preferred the Stones' edge over the Beatles, though didn't really dig many of their songs. This however is a classic and has a real menace.



Honourable mentions:
"Black Candy" - Beat Happening
"Black Betty" Ram Jam
"Blackheart Man" - Bunny Wailer
"Black Night" - Deep Purple
Black Dog - Led Zepplin

Dishonourable Mentions:
"Men In Black" - The Stranglers makes David Bowie's "Laughing Gnome" sound meaningful


2) "Curious Oranj" - The Fall
Orange, the word that has no rhyme and therefore unlikely to lend itself to lyricism. Unless you're Mark E Smith, who echoed a 60s avant garde film from Yugoslavia and composed a score for a modern ballet (performed by Michael Clark's dance company) based on the colour divide in Northern Ireland. Barmy but fun.



Honourable mentions:
"Orange Crush" - REM

3) "Purple Haze" - Jimi Hendrix
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy'... Simply definitive song by the master. It's about drugs ya know? I see purple landing smoke canisters for helicopters in Vietnam whenever I hear this song. Like I say, definitive...



Honourable mentions:
"Purple Rain" - Prince

4) "All Cats Are Grey" - The Cure
After their debut album of low-fi pop pun, that difficult follow-up album was the doomy gloomy "Seventeen Seconds" from which this track was taken. It was the prelude to Smith's ridiculous White Rabbit meets Goth phase which was cartoonish in its sentiment, but this track represents them when they actually meant their angst.



Honourable mentions:
"Fade To Grey" - Visage
"Grey Day" - Madness

5) "Green Light" - Sonic Youth
From when Sonic Youth were still good and making interesting, discordant music. Although this song musically references another of their own songs "Death Valley 69" which is a bit cheeky methinks. There are many honourable mentions for this colour, the colour must conjure up lots of things. Note, rap artists singing about 'green' as in money were not considered for this category



Honourable mentions:
"Everything's Gone Green" - New Order
"Pretty Green" - The Jam
"Green Green Grass Of Home" - Tom Jones
"Green Onions" - Booker T & The MGs

6) "Golden Brown" - The Stranglers
I remember this with its whimsical harpsichord vibe getting into the charts. And yes it's about drugs. Colours... drugs, seeing a theme develop here.



Honourable Mentions:
"Golden Years" - David Bowie
"Fools Gold" - Stone Roses
"Brown Sugar" - Rolling Stones
"Don't It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue" - Crystal Gale

Dishonourable Mentions:
"Brown Girl In The Ring" - Boney M
"Gold_ - Spandau Ballet - always hated this song, even before it became the theme or motif music of 1001 quiz and sports' shows

7) "Blue Monday" - New Order
The Blues, well this colour clearly would have the most entries, but this is the daddy of them all.



Honourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO
"Preaching The Blues" - Gun Club
"Gravedigger Blues" - Beat Happening

Dishonourable mentions:
"Mr Blue Sky" - ELO - sometimes it's just too damn cheerful for my mood. Music can be like that you know!


8) "Pink Turns To Blue" - Husker Du
A band of heavy guitar punk/new wave playing really muscular music, all three members of this power trio eventually coming out as gay which gave a whole new insight into their love songs. Fabulous.



Honourable mention:
"Pink Cadillac" - Natalie Cole
"Pretty In Pink" - Psychedelic Furs

9) "Violet" - Hole
I know it's heresy, but I actually preferred Mrs Cobain's band to Kurt's mob. If you'll excuse the implicit sexism, she had more balls in her music and lyrics than hubby.




10. "White Lines" - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
Has this been bettered as early hip-hop? I don't think so. White, symbol of purity (and purity of powdered drugs) seems to be a very popular colour of choice in song titles. White noise? Don't you believe it.



Honourable mentions:
"White Rabbit" - Jefferson Airplane
"White Riot" - The Clash
"White Punks On Dope" - The Tubes
"Whiter Shade Of Pale" - Procul Harum
"Knights in White Satin" - Moody Blues
"Ride A White Swan" - T-Rex

10) "Silver Machine" - Hawkwind
Hawkwind were a band that divided (I mean check out this video for bubbles, flutes and strange mute women in astral make-up as to why) but still the greasers stuck to their preferred choice of music. I happen to be a punk who really likes this song.



Honourable Mention:
"Silver Rocket" - Sonic Youth
"Silver" - Pixies

Dishonourable mention:
"Silver Lining" - Stiff Little Fingers - what punk mutated to when they ran out of rage



Dishonourable mention - The colour red.
Red, colour of passion and flame and yet a strange paucity of songs honouring the colour. All I could think of was "Red, Red Wine", a ska reggae version by Tony Tribe which is pretty neat, but then later covered by UB40 which should have been named "Red, Red Whine".

Secret Agent Songs

In a historic week in which all three chief spies in the UK came out of the shadows and reported live on TV to Parliament, well I say live but there was a two-minute delay on the transmission which was a bit useless as people were live tweeting it - but anyway, I thought I'd do a chart of spy and secret-agent related songs.

Enjoy (in private, unless the NSA are listening in to your internet surfing).

1) Last Of The Secret Agents - Nancy Sinatra
Or James Bond goes jaunty country & western. Actually this is nothing of the sort, but a paean to her man who is a complete fantasist, but Nancy still stands by him



2) Secret Agent Man - Devo
Devo sounding more like Cabaret Voltaire here. Do you remember a time before music videos? Well Devo in the late 1970s were making quite disturbing ones and were way ahead of the trend. The keyboardist here looks like he's moonlighting from Doctor Who.



3) Espionage - Green Day
I never got the whole Green Day thing, but well here they are. It;s funny how most songs about spies/secret agents have the chugging rhythms that reference TV shows like "Dragnet"and of course the James Bond movie themes.



4) I-Spy - Beat Happening
... or they go a bit Oriental to suggest the exotic climes in which the spies work. I love Beat Happening and yet couldn't recall this song at all.



5) Double Agent - Rush
Rush appear far too many times in my charts, not because I particularly like them (punk rock saw an end to my flirtation with heavy rock), but because their song titles seem to chime with whatever zeitgeisty theme I happen to choose, to make a chart for, so props to them for that. This song is pretty dreck though!



6) The Spy (In The House Of Love) - The Doors
Named after an Anais Nin novel, Morrison again resorts to literature for his lyrical delivery. This one is sort of whiskey bar boogie. Musically the band were so damn good.



7) Spy Vs Spy - The Spinto Band
I remember casting around for some music to listen to and The Spinto Band came highly recommended. Too floppy and feeble for me, I didn't really get on with them though. I only dredged this from my recall because Spy Vs Spy echoed a Billy Bragg album title and I was ,uch more into him.



8) CIA Man - The Fugs
See what happens when you give some poets a bunch of musical instruments? All good fun really, I do wonder if one of my favourite bands were influenced by them both politically and musically in songs like "Big Stick".



9) Spy - They Might Be Giants
Here's a band I haven't featured in my charts before, so glad to welcome TMBG. Again that chugging rhythm albeit with a jazz vive over the top of it. I don't know, maybe the rhythm is to suggest a pursuit or something...



10) Surveillance - Clint Mansell
Now this one definitely breaks the mould compared to the others. No chugging rhythms, just a genuinely creepy sense behind the music. I've not seen the movie, but am tempted to track it down.

Short Story - Narcissus Denied

In a world without silver and glass, those with poor eyesight were selected out. Victims of predators, but also condemned to die as lonely hearts. 
For without silvered mirrors, lovers constantly asked their swains to construe their own unseen beauty for them. To trace their features with their fingers and relay a description of what lay beneath their pads. Love making with a running commentary. These verbal echo chambers, pinging back the co-ordinates of the heart by plotting the topography of the rest of the body. Reaffirmation of flesh through the word as much as the adoration by sinew and plasma. The connection was less the physical merging, more the establishing of an image in the mind of each partner of themselves.
Suitors gave air to what attracted them to their inamorata and gave generously. All became poets and lyricists as they gave vent to the full range of their imaginations, reaching for increasingly outlandish metaphors as they moved their lover’s hands over their own countenance. True love often exaggerated, sometimes it outright lied and fabricated. 
Moving in to steal a partner from a rival was often a case of offering a different and maybe more flattering or appealing portrayal of the paramour’s pulchritude. Flimsy fixities of self-images crumbled as they were effortlessly overwritten. Duels were fought with incongruously soft-edged verbal bouquets. The vanquished reeling away to brush up his verbal palette elsewhere. 

Without mirrors and with the quality of water too muddied to hold a sharp reflection, men were unshaven. Their visages partly covered up from delineation in word. Their faces remained opaque. Not so very different from our own world in many ways.

Music For the Sinful

The seven deadly sins. How many have been enshrined in song? Surely there's never been a song penned to sloth?

Here's my best stab at them for your delectation and indulgence!

NB There will be no U2 in this chart, as I don't think Bobo was being ironic when he sung of pride and glory...

1) The Undertones - "The Sin Of Pride"
Good Catholic boys from Derry warble on about pride



2) Earth Wind & Fire - "Pride"
Pride in the costumes of soul funk yeah that sounds about right!




3) The Bug featuring Tipper Irie - "Angry"
Yep, they sound impressively angry, but not as much in The Bug track "Politician's and Paedophiles"



4) Public Enemy - "Prophets of Rage"
Actually I always thought with so much righteous anger behind them, Chuck D kept it respectful, while co-vocalist Flavor Flav was the clown in his delivery.



5) The Fall - "Eat Yourself Fitter"
I used to own this very video on Sony Betamax format. Yes The Fall have been making great music for THAT long!



6) Buckcherry - "Gluttony"
I know about this band, but they didn't have Marianne Faithfull's "Gluttony" on YouTube. Poor show. And do stop swearing, it's not big or clever or RRRRRRock




7)  Dizzee Rascal - "Money Money"
"Money money girls girls cash cash..." The history of rap is littered with male rap singers complaining about female gold diggers



8) Mos Def - "Sex, Love, Money"
More of the same



9) Rainbow - "Jealous Lover"
Sensitive heavy rock, whatever next?



10) Bill Withers - "Who Is He And What Is He To You?"
Good question, great song



11) Buzzcocks - "Just Lust"
Punk-pop at its finest



12) The The - "The Dogs Of Lust"
Funny, I remembered them as a synth band



13) Small Faces - "Lazy Sunday Afternoon"
Has there ever been a more English voice in rock & pop? It was this or The Kinks "Sunday Afternoon" - there really wasn't much to do in Britain in the 60s when the pubs were clsed for the Sabbath was there?

14) Charlatans - "Can't Get Out Of Bed"
It wasn't called the 'Shoegazing' movement in music for nothing you know. Shoegazing was what William Burroughs remembered from his heroin addiction, for hours on end apparently. He described it as boring...

Percapita

The talking head reads from prompt cards. Intones with flat intonation. He is no professional, but is undergoing the greatest audition of his life. For his life.
The cards are held by a human auto-cue, a man unlikely to be aware of Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" video for all this uncanny homage. Though they are fittingly stationed in a basement, it is the talking head who is a long way from home. 
The card wrangler stands behind another man wielding the camcorder. There is camera shake because this man wishes he had the role soon to come in front of the lens and can barely control his fury. He is a man given to daily rage minute by minute on behalf of others. Today’s ire is uniquely located within his own plight. He is disgruntled with his position within the film-making hierarchy. 
The slight cant of the performing head's eyes betray the unseen existence of the prompt. As to the cant of the words.... 
They were being digitally captured. 
Captured, an apt word for it. Prior to being released into the airwaves. Wave or particle? Who can rightly tell when all media is quantum. When you need to go viral just to survive and reproduce within the body of the host. A world joined up by interconnectivity, yet only to further human atomisation.
Wave or particle, the observer distorts what he observes. The rest of the time when not being filmed, the talking head is blindfolded. He observes nothing. Distorts less. The production crew themselves are hooded. Negative inversion of the blindfolded head. Where dark comes out light and light comes out dark. Digital cameras require no such developmental transliteration. No chemically immersive treatment.
The same could not be said of the prompt cards. They required redaction. Letters transcribed backwards or with butchered limbs, curlicues and arabesques. Since this was not the natural calligraphy of the film crew, but an imported one. A colonial one. Their transcripted mangling might partly account for the talking head's faltering delivery. When the film's Director barks at him in his native directorial tongue, the talking head shakes its incomprehension. It wobbles in synch with the camera shake. Emotions at the opposite poles of the spectrum, yet impelling the same frequency of reverberation.
Nevertheless, since the tone of the words is clear, the overarching message does not pass completely over the talking head’s head. This is how human beings train dogs. Curs. The precise words themselves are redundant. Tone is all in these messages.
The word the talking head stumbles over is 'repairations'. The script editor had trusted to an online translator when inscribing his prompt cards. Had he been also offered 'reaper-rations' or 'repair-nations' in among the Moonie wedding of word couplets?  The algorithm word groupings. The idiomatic permutations. Language determinants per mathematical probabilities, go figure. All in the quest for the resonant phrase. The one that could bore into men's skulls and alter their perceptions. Sub-titularly buttressed by this visual presentation. Actions speak louder than words. 
The off-screen prompter flips over another speech card. Its predecessor plops to the floor. The camera pans in for the full head shot. In order to capture an escapee bead of sweat on the talking head's brow. The focus puller pulling rank and introducing a creative decision. A production value. A subjective judgement. Intromitting auteurship. Though this will only ever be a collective owning up to ownership. Attribution but no end credits. 
As he enters into frame, the director yells “cut” and the talking head can talk no longer. Or ever again. This is a one-shot take only and the camera shakes more than ever as the fury of its operator peaks. The production crew become Greek chorus as they chant the soundtrack to the central action. Swords, no sorcery. Unless one counts the strange permutations of the online world. Boxed box office.

Like/Dislike
*If you think this story is in bad taste, then it has performed its function of echoing the feelings aroused by Facebook permitting the sharing of beheading videos if the context is acceptable. 

Not In My Name - Excerpt

I was struck today by the debate raging over Facebook's decision to reserve the right of its users to post beheading videos depending on their context. I wrote about this in my novel "Not In My Name" which is all about the new politics shifting to the online world and which is far more vicious than any other public political discourse.

Below are two excerpts from the novel around the subject:

How can you criticise beheading videos on the internet, when during the invasion of Iraq, the US military would release footage of its surgical air strikes on mainstream TV news programmes? Both show ferocious acts of killing and the last moments of supposedly sacred life, just one appears in close up. Do you not realise that both seek the same outcome, that of enlisting support to their cause? We’ve moved on from baroquely moustachioed Lord Kitchener 'Your country needs you' recruitment posters. Telescopic military videos are designed to becalm its target audience with the detached, scientific nature of precision warfare, whereas the beheading videos are meant to stir the passions of its gallery. We cavil because it seems so barbaric, but they equally regard our methods as both cowardly and uncivilised with its ravaging of civilians. If we persist in such hypocritical myopia, how will we ever evidence the judgement necessary to resolve this clash of civilisations beneficially to both houses? 

Capitation (poem by Aki) 

Eyes cast down, neck braced by the woodImpressed grain logs the ineffable ruling.Court artist sand, worm’s upraised viewingDeath mask imprinted with my blood.I blanch while the ascending ground darkensTrading places, I divine sacrifice not martyr.

In the arena, a recount of the chargesMy basket case nerves nod mute accord. There is no bucket beneath to slam dunk Neither Jacobin traitor, nor political agitator My poll will not be mounted upon any pole. All glassy eyed it will be held up highRevolved around, to be cheered all four sides.
My lolling tongue and foaming mawAre requested to shape the words of Shahada.Lip service paid now, whence in default beforeChurlish to supplicate for a miracle.I hear the soft sandalled treadAn executioner’s shadow enshroudingAs the sword’s molecules dash on deckEach anticipates bloody anointing.

I shut my eyes, no desire to seeThe separation of my apostate head,From my mutinous body. Instead,An involuntary prayer, to whom I am unsure.I hearken the shimmering swish of a scimitarPerceive behind a field of dancing light.Beauteous spectral wake as blade parts the air.Not taut like steel, but floppy greenLong-stemmed bloom presented afore me
A declaration of love, gift of lifeRevivifying my enervated senses.I unfasten my lids, unshutter my gazeWinch my head up from the stumpAnd view only the one, you my loveAs you drop your veil, to revealA different red hue sun glinting.You shake away the baying dogsWith a sweep of your headYour welcoming arms grant private audience

I stand and stride, a little shakilyNo mirage you, unflinching in bearingA cradle of acceptancePerfectly tailored for my bodyHands safeguarding my bare crown.On approach they spangle and changeNow palm fronds provide our joint canopyMy bride elixir births me anewReturns me to my root safely.Intact, yet only half a man stillUnblockishly lower my gaze and modesty

On today's issue my personal thoughts are as follows. Beheading videos are created only for propaganda purposes. Facebook will not permit them being posted for the purpose of advancing a cause or trying to incite commitment and recruitment. I don't really see how representing these videos in a critical fashion can be beneficial to any public debate on the subject of terrorism or violence. Beheading is a bad thing, go figure... Also the act itself is a crime, a beheading video is a record of a crime while it is being committed and that must have legal implications I would have thought. I know happyslapping and joyriding videos abound online, but this is a far more extreme crime. It is the equivalent of snuff porn and that wouldn't be allowed online. Is the only difference that in a beheading video the victim has their clothes on, unlike a snuff movie? I say this not with flippancy, but as has been pointed out today, Facebook comes down heavily on breastfeeding images because of the nudity.
Sorry, I just don't see any circumstance where showing a beheading video promotes any understanding of the issues