Little of import.

I'm a tired and grumpy cephalopod this morning: I stayed up all night reading about new book about Somalia in the 90's, and then I dreamt that Kalashnikov-wielding warlord in a limousine was trying to kill me, because I made fun of him over the internet. Anyhoo.

I read an article about etiquette classes just now. I must admit, though hardly a class warrior, I couldn't help but choke a little on my morning layer cake (a favourite of Dogtooth’s, it involves crushed Anadin and whisky, and rarely makes you feel any better). I will of course accept the existence of such a thing as manners, dependant on respect for others, but can people not see that etiquette is merely a system of shibboleths which the idle rich use to identify themselves, like the lisp of and 50's homosexual or the handshake of a mason. Perhaps I'm just bitter: tentacles and a beak make for poor table manners.

I recently watched, over t'internet, a new episode of House about a brain damaged savant with remarkable piano-playing abilities. Two questions arose - first of all, what is this post-Rain Man obsession with autism and savants? I admit they are fairly interesting, but I don't see why a general public who display no interest in any other aspects of neurology should take these particular subjects to their heart. The more important question, of course, is how do I begin to justify stealing television over the web? I'll come back on that, either with a functioning excuse or a great deal more free time.

You might not hear from Dogtooth and I for a couple of days: we're off on a father and son whaling trip, by which I mean we hope to harpoon both a bull whale and a calf. Don't worry, we always catch-and-release.

Clerihew, where are you?

A clerihew is an ametrical four line poem which starts with the name of a person and then describes them. Go on, you know you want to.

Ezra Pound
Is widely accepted to have broken new poetic ground.
However, this does not excuse
His feelings on the Jews.

W.B Yeats
Was interested in altered states,
But he never lived to see the widespread availability of pot
So he went to séances, and also drank a lot.

D.H. Lawrence:
To him mosquitoes and bats were an abhorrence.
The animal kingdom proved too much for him to take
So he threw a log at a snake.

In Praise of Molly

I'm still a little shaky after last night's brush with the unimaginable conspiracy which exists around, and to some extent within, my local pub, but I've settled my nerves with Dogtooth's favoured analgesic - Anadin Extra (actually I favour a cheaper, own brand alternative, but I'm trying to keep things looking classy) - and I want to write about Achewood.

Good comic strips are very rare (I was briefly exposed to the Sun's 'funnies' while waiting for my tea to brew yesterday morning, and can only report disappointment, or, in one example, actual offence), and in the open cloaca of the web anything of any merit at all whatsoever is rarer still, so Achewood is a daily delight. I like Achewood because of Roast Beef, a cat whose debilitating depression causes him to shower in his socks and to overspice nachos; I like it because of Lyle, a stuffed tiger who wishes he could wake up with the liquor already inside him. I like Achewood because of the constant references to the preparation and consumption of food, and because of the Bangsian themes of death and resurrection. I like the character Emeril LeGoinegasque, a Melungeon who speaks in a bizzare cod-chaucerian manner and trash-spots recreationally. Most of all though, I like the timing. Gags are offbeat and asymmetrical. A punchline does not end the strip, but is followed by a silence, or a change of topic. It is delicate, intelligent, and, a (dare I say it) postmodern. Beckett uses the same technique of the ruined laugh, the abortive joke.

The entire comic exists in a weird, semi-real space, which intersects uncannily with our own world: the characters keep blogs which can be read online, and they listen to bands and cook foods which exist in our own world, but they also have their own peculiar life, where stuffed animals talk and cats gather ever year for a Great Outdoor Fight where hundreds of them brawl to the death for personal pride. You can buy Roast Beef's t-shirt (I am the guy who sucks. Plus I got depression.) or Raymond Smuckles the millionaire party cat's brand of hot sauce. The fictional urban recreation of trash-spotting is gaining a real-world following. You can buy a novel written by the gentlemanly serial killer Nice Pete or have your problems answered by the ever knowledgeable Ray.

Achewood bills itself as 'a momentary diversion on the road to the grave'. Well divert away; I raise a glass of my customary cocktail (cut-price red wine, white cider, whisky, ink, salty sea water and saltier tears, mixed in a dustbin before breakfast and sipped throughout the day) and drink to its creator, Chris Onstad.

In other news, I cut and pasted another's work (above) without any knowledge of copyright law, and the legality or otherwise of my act. Don't be surprised if you see me being led away by the 5-0 with five pairs of handcuffs on me.

A New and Radical Theory of Existence

Dark deeds abound: Hamilton's life was threatened yesterday by a sinister intelligence living behind the wall of the Muted Slughorn. Perhaps it was his dangerous new theory of existence as a vector that tickled the creature so. Hamilton postulated that existence - currently measured only by duration in Time - should also be considered Spatially. People lament that their lives are short, their days numbered. 'My existence stops at 6'1",' rejoins Hamilton, waving an errant tentacle at the empty space above his head, 'and yet it is not a cause for complaint.' Dogtooth paced out his days on this earth, never to stand taller than 5'9" - was he to be followed by a funeral procession all his life, mourning the inches that might have been? A pleasant equilibrium is seen in the respective lives of men and women: on average, women live longer; men, on average, have a greater physical volume. We have not done the sums, but we feel confident that, all things considered, men and women enjoy the same quantity of existence. That fateful sandwich cannot be regarded so morbidly when one considers that, in her short life, Mama Cass existed in more places at any one time than her more slender contemporaries. It is clear that the only achievable way of extending one's life is to give oneself heartily to fatty foods. Mankind can only travel forward in time, turning what would otherwise be a scalar existence into a vector measurement. It is obvious that, were we to travel back in time to our conception, we would never have existed.

Unfortunately, the vector factor must be Time. It is, however, very pleasing to consider our spatial activity as a vector. I conjecture, for example, that if my existence was a spatial vector, I could travel ten yards from one tree to another tree, then back to the first tree retracing my steps, and claim never to have made the journey. I don't know much about physics, but...

Avian Pre-History & The Zombie Apocalypse

These two subjects are in no way interconnected (if only...). It's been a very avian sort of a morning for Dogtooth: when I stepped out to meet the a.m. I noticed the reptilian sprawl of the coot's foot; the geese were steeped in honied indolence - 'Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright', said I. To no avail. I returned and began the usual mid-morning Wikibrowsing: I flirted with falconry, and settled finally on a comprehensive index of Late Quaternary Prehistoric Birds. If, like me, you are of such a disposition that relishes the occasional departure from rocky reality to shamanic flights of fancy, you no doubt find the pre-history of the Earth an engrossing subject. I have learnt about bolide impacts, Moa and post-glacial rebound. Last year the London Prodigal and I visited the Horniman museum in SE London (Forest Hill - where they nabbed the bank-robbers - nice place). Exquisite taxidermy was the order of the day. I recall with great fondness a stuffed Dodo. I think it is the finality of extinction - seemingly more final than death (a debatable Newt point) - that has such an impact on the self-righteous failed celebrities who rally round the endangered species with their shabby rhetoric and cheap, hand-wringing catchphrases...

(Intermission: Dogtooth drinks a glass of water and drapes a wet flannel over his brow.)

Today my preferred ally in the zombie invasion we are all anticipating is Gustave Flaubert (pictured above). He was known at times to rampage fiercely around his study, waving his arms and sweating furiously; on other occasions he would loafe for hours on the hearth-rug, thinking. He displays the sort of temperament that can adapt quickly to its surroundings: when we are fighting the zombies, I will obviously want him angry and alert; at other times I will want him to keep himself quietly in a corner while I work on the problem of dispelling the zombies and saving mankind

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the

supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities[.]

No movie featuring Harry Dean Stanton in a supporting role can be altogether bad

Pah! I've been press-ganged into this. I have a ferocious head-ache after listening to the whole of Captain Beefheart's 'Trout-Mask Replica', then Tom Waits' 'Bastards' followed by 'Disco Hits of the 1970's' - the situation has been exacerbated by 'Play that Funky Music [White Boy]' seemingly playing on a loop.

Naturally enough there is something cheering me at present; aside from this delicious Cabernet Sauvignon courtesy of the good people at Casa Lapostolle. That being the forthcoming release of the latest David Lynch film: 'INLAND EMPIRE'. Mr Lynch, another photogenic character, is simultaneously exhibiting a major art retrospective at the Fondation Cartier. Both of these are earning 'rave reviews' - I can't possibly comment - but I'll be off to my local Odeon come March 9th (film) and hopefully Paris before May 27th (exhibition).

All Manner of Miscellaneous Bollocks [ed. Dogtooth]

I was going to write a review of my current obsession, the webcomic Achewood, but I'm feeling lethargic, so instead I'm just going to throw you a handfull of ill-conceived jokes and observations in the manner of a unemployed Parisian left-bank [rive-gauche? ed. Dogtooth] 'thinker'.

Firstly, inspired by Dogtooth's arch intellectual in-jokery I thought I'd dig up some literary and artistic chat-up lines I crafted some time ago:

Postmodernist: Hey baby, how would you like to mute my post-horn?
Futurist: To be honest, I'm just looking for a quick shag...

Surrealist: Fancy making a call on my lobster telephone?

Vorticist: Sleep with me or I'll hit you on the tits with this bar stool.

Beat Novelist: Can I balance this whisky bottle on your head?

If you are anything like me you will have been wanting to see Norman Mailer bite a chunk out of Rip Torn's ear for some time. .

I was reading the Sunday Times in bed this morning (more accurately, I woke up and found the Sunday Times was in bed with me, and a good deal of the ink was actually on me: I am becoming text) and I saw a mention of the TV series Hornblower. For some reason I have a real objection to this series, and I can't for the life of me remember why. Any suggestions would be welcome.

I was going to give you a picture of the Florentine Pietà in a sort of lame attempt to show that I'm just as down with the visual arts as Dogtooth, but it doesn't really photograph that well, so instead here's a picture of Beckett, the most photogenic man in history.

The Proto-Surrealist

The canvasses of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), sui-generis painter and forefather of the Surrealist movement in Art, have an unsettling effect. The paintings are mostly characterised by empty streets and squares, colonnades, squat architecture, statues, mannequins, shadows and distant steam trains; people rarely feature. His style was unique, but de Chirico has been eclipsed in fame by subsequent Surrealist painters whose real contributions are unworthy of his legacy: Magritte and Ernst are off the hook, but Dali's reputation seems to have enjoyed immeasurable indulgence in the past fifty years. I cannot believe that people still have such a generous opinion of his gaudy, cheap tricks and transparent tromp l'oeil. I will concede only as far as to give him due credit for the crucifiction paintings, which, for sheer, brilliant perspective, are surely a marvel. But I digress...and now for something completely stupid: an impromptu Surrealist/Dada shaggy dog anecdote.

Rene Magritte was throwing a birthday bash for his friend Andre Breton. The invitations were all written automatically by their friend Tristan Tzara and, as a result, were totally incomprehensible to the few invitees who received them. Furthermore, Magritte had asked his friend Jean "Hans" Arp to address the invitations. This resulted in a somewhat eclectic guest-list after Arp decided the guests should be chosen according to the laws of chance. But they were all there. Max Ernst arrived in good time riding a mechanical elephant. Dali was very late: he apologised gushingly and explained that he had lost track of the time because all the clocks in his house had inexplicably melted. He had tried to ring ahead, of course, but had found, to his dismay, that some idiot had substituted a lobster for his telephone. Frida Khalo had called earlier in the week to explain that she would, on the day of the party, be undergoing complex surgery to donate her circulatory system to a woman who looked exactly like her. Joan Miro got confused. Magritte had decorated Breton's hall with all manner of wonderful contrivances: cloudy-blue-sky wallpaper; giant pipes, cannons and a model train emerging from the fireplace. The dress code specified dark suits with bowler hats. Food was provided in the form of apples. All the drinking cups were completely useless. All the urinals were upside-down. Breton's speech was pretentious and boring. Ernst started an apple fight and was ejected forcibly. Dali visibly began hitting on Georgette, pinching her rear and cupping her breasts with his hand. Miro was all over the place. Celebes came crashing through the wall and drenched everyone in bottom-grease. At that point, Duchamp entered dramatically, farted, then sat down and started playing chess. The rest is history.