The Louise Brooks Hairdo

The world is funny, life is a shaggy-dog story playing in real-time through a strange loop, and no anti-climatic punchline coming anytime soon. Hmm. Case in point?

~~~~~

E@L’s favourite movie review podcast (pretentiously implying that he listens to, let alone is aware of, more than one) is Kermode and Mayo’s Take. Love it: music and movie trivia and fun boomer banter, movie recommendations, jokes, opinions, and crucially, great emails from listeners…

One of these on the most recent download E@L was listening to this afternoon was a question about naming some once illustrious actors whom no-one remembers these days, presumably due to the vast cultural chasms between generations. Could Mark or Simon name some famous movie people who aren’t any more. Famous that is. Mark quickly brought up the silent movie star Louise Brooks as an example. Once a legend of the silent screen, but now, mostly forgotten. E@L searches his memory to no avail. (Where did he put his small headphones, also none of this avail stuff.*) Mark promised that we would recognise her if we saw her photo, so Simon, who did not recall the name either, Googled and then said, “Yes I do recognise her!” (Or words to that effect.).

E@L wasn’t sure he knew the name either. He wondered if she was in the sister’s big old book of glossy promotional photographs of Hollywood Stars, The Image Makers, and if he would recognise her… but then he got distracted by life, like not driving into the car in front of him as he sips his flat white, etc…

~~~~~~

Cut to the balcony at E@H GHQ later that day, where it’s a bit windy and chilly considering that summer is a hair’s breadth away, but the mosquitoes don’t care, so the gas patio heater is raging and emitting throaty burps of flame as the wind hits it sideways, the smoking mosquito coil is threatening go blow out, the ice in his Disaronno (been to an Italian restaurant, in the mood for an almond digestif) is slowly melting, the solar powered lights still have charge, and E@L is up to page 205 of Thomas Pynchon’s newest, Shadow Ticket.

It’s the depression era, prohibition is about the end, and our gumshoe protagonist, Hicks McTaggart, from Milwaukee is in… Budapest? Vienna? Paris? (fuck it’s hard to keep up with these details in a Pynchon novel) talking to Daphne Airmont, the absconded jazz singing daughter of a business/criminal type, known as “The Al Capone of Cheese”, and she’s the person he’s supposed to bring back to the family mold, I mean fold in Chicago, and she is complaining about her putative fiancé, saying how she’s often “come upon him in the sweaty clutches of some Swing Girl barely into her teens, Louise Brooks hairdo, nighttime makeup in the daylight hours…” 

And E@L goes W. T. A. F!

~~~~~~

Twice in one day! Like, SMW** or what!

~~~~~~

Remembering The Image Makers, E@L runs around his tsunduko style library looking for the old book - here it is! Looks like some naughty puppy (Alfie, the family’s cocker spaniel from the 1970’s no doubt) has taken a fancy to some of the pages, but there they are the early days in artistic black and white: actors and those who were once called actresses, with their the soft-focus cheeks, bright eyes either with I-dare-you-to-come-hither stare or a thousand yard stare to left/right (which is my best profile?), the elaborate stage clothing with that daring flash of cleavage or side-boobage that E@L recalls from his teenage years. And there’s the blokes with their chiselled jaws, earnest testosterone fuelled smiles, brylcremed hair, and fuck-you-I’m-famous personae.

But…

No Louise Brooks.

With the same straight fringe flapper bobbed hairdo though, are only Colleen Moore, and Claudette Colbert (though fair haired).

So, following in Simon Mayo’s fingerprints, E@L Googles her….

And yes, he does recognise the Louise Brooks hairdo, the face, the whole impression of her. Black hair. Very short bob, linear fringe.

This:

~~~~~~

E@L has seen her before, surely. Inside whatever part of brain controls trivia, there is an explosion of electricity and a flushing toilet of neurotransmitters across of a network of said neurones, despite what any number of agents might be trying to do to his serotonin, and hey! HEY!

Surely Louise Brooks is The Hat-check Girl in that hilarious 15 sec snippet of Buster Keaton from Seven Chances (1925)… Tight black bob, steely, indifferent but accusing gaze — must be her!

This one:

Watch it on YouTube for a complete giggle...

~~~~~~

Louise Brooks’s life as Hollywood starlet and after was documented in her autobiography, Lulu in Hollywood. And there are a few resources around on the internet, like an interview with Kenneth Tynan in The New Yorker, and extended bio here, and a shorter YouTube bio or two. So I won’t go into it myself. It seems to be an “Oh dear, to fame and riches, to who? and rags, to oh dear (escort girl!), to relative fame again” story. The not quite classic Joseph Campbell mythic cycle, but what is?

~~~~~~~

So E@L watches the Buster Keaton clip one, two more times. It never fails to amuse him. But what tale of forlorn love doesn’t? you ask. Good point.

And then he finds other resources to confirm that the wise, wily, worldly “girl with the black helmet” in Buster’s visual gag really is Louise and…

~~~~~~

Here’s the shaggy dog ending… (“That ain’t my dog. Mine ain’t that shaggy.”)

It WASN’T her in the Keaton clip after all.

Sigh. It was someone else, with the oh-so popular Louise Brooks hairdo. It’s Rosalind Byrne, another forgotten star of the silver*** screen. She’s got a post of her own in someone’s Louise Brooks fan-blog (with further links if you’re interested), probably because of people like E@L who get them mixed up.

~~~~~~

Oh dear. Two out of four references in one day; well, it ain’t great, ain’t even a pass, but considering he was not aware of Louise Brooks or her infamous hairdo it ain’t that bad really, thinks

E@L

~~~~~~

* #CRUNCH#, oh there they are, under the wheels of his office chair.

** Spooky. Mystic. Weird. (Have you forgotten already?)

*** Metallic silver really was used in the reflective screens with the projection technology of early cinema. 

Not The Expat That E@L Used To Be.

Something was missing, and it was this: it was the feeling that I was expressing what I intended to express, and that I had an audience with whom I was in sync, who understood me, got from me what they wanted and what I wanted to give. It was the feeling of belonging. 

I hadn’t belonged anywhere for a few years now.

Tracy Thorn: Bedsit Disco Queen.  p240. (emfarsis mine)

~~~~~~~

After severalish, smalllish Japanese whiskeys, these are the sentiments that E@L is resonating with at the moment. 

Problems with writing stem from…?  

E@L doesn’t know. He is aware of a potential audience of 2 to sync with at the maximum. 

Is it the 21C schizoid learned distractability of smartphones, and of course the internet in general? Is it the barely subdued anger at the spiralling chaos of the last few years leading up to and including his post-expat suburban life, circumstances dumping him in this unexpected place in what is allegedly his new reality, his new normal…? 

And add the righteous anger at the currently even more fucked up than usual actual world itself? 

With all these angers, frustrations, regrets, and nostalgia for lost futures spinning into each other how could he think clearly, how could he write about the pernicious banalities of his current life and try to milk a laugh out of them? How could he write about anything now and be the E@L of the old days (when he was funny…)?  

The absurd reality of what his life is now like… What he shoulda describe woulda outdo the most imaginative fictions anyone coulda create. 

~~~~~~~

E@L sits at the computer on his desk, and can’t face his Scrivener blank pages. There is some magnetic like-poles repulsion from sitting with a writing programme open to, well, to sitting at all, let alone fucking writing anything.  

He needs distance, the distance the computer is trying to push him away to... Is this why he rides 30-40kms on his bike when the weather permits? Real or spiritual, emotional, physical, he needs distance from all things. Perhaps take the laptop outside to the table on the balcony. Perhaps this desk is no longer his writing desk. Perhaps he should have another whiskey. Or perhaps another desk…

~~~~~~~

Or (phew, oof, that smell again!?) perhaps he should change his colostomy bag before going to bed and risking a blowout and a Trainspotting worthy bed-linen crisis at 4am. 

Ignore all the preceding: all else pales. At the moment, right now, this is the biggest question in the life of   

E@L

eRide Like The Wind! (Part 1)

Exercise is needed badly here: after a few years of troubles, including quite a few hospital stays,  pretty much lying in bed for most of several months all up, E@L had transformed himself into the classic ageing former expat. Big belly (OK that was always there), no arse, skinny legs, pants hanging way too low thanks to an even more grossly unhealthy hip/waist ratio. 

His good legs were once a feature: an ultrasound scan of his muscular thigh even made into a long lost promotional poster.

Now they are nothing to be proud of: nothing, to be honest, but an embarrassment! 

Yep, he should have be following his old but never implemented New Years Resolution of 2013. This the first year after that first “Italian angina incident” which required two stents, a week in St Catherine’s Hospital, two weeks walking around Sienna, still missing 90% of the historical significance of the place, and he had missed the horse race by only a few weeks. This was followed by four, or was it six, weeks in Hamburg with expat ex-Singapore friends - he wasn’t supposed to fly, but hey! (Aside: The 180km/h autobahn run from the airport at Lübeck, where his friend worked, certainly tested the integrity of his refreshed myocardium.) 

That NYR involved a big rubber exercise ball, one that he had bought at the request of his part-time flat-mate with a bad back who needed to sit straight at her desk. You could do a variety of exercises with this impressive orb, but his principle goal was 40 (to start) big-ball-supported wall-squats. 20 in the morning that is, and a repeat 20 in the evening. Sad fact: After 13 years with this ball, now repatriated and blown up again (like himself), he calculates that he might be up to maybe 800 reps in toto. Under-utilised, wouldn’t you say?

~~~~~~

E@L recently connected with an old friend, seriously old, same age as himself, and getting older. As with most lost-in-life old friends, they connected at the funeral of another old friend, one who’s not getting any older. 

This old friend, Mick, sorry, Michael (“My mother christened me Michael” he would say, just to put people out of step, which he found amusing) had brought his new friend, a mid-priced eBike, down from the country with him. It had fat tyres, an engine in the hub with 5 speeds of assist, 8 gears. Michael, though it seem unlikely to some, must had been sponsored to ride as his aerodynamic lycra top had brand names all over it. He loved his eBike. He rode up around 30kms most days, and sometime further, to the limit of its battery; breezed uphill past struggling Tour-De-France wannabes; tinkled his bell as he shot up behind meandering pedestrians and their dogs; enthusiastically tried to convince E@L to buy one. 

~~~~~~

Michael and E@L went camping out at an old surf-spot down the coast (beware of koalas, kangaroos, tiger snakes) with two other old friends — see above re: connection method. The first evening, these four old retired men, sat together outside their varied styles of 3-night accomodation. 

Michael had hired camper-van with all mod-cons as he was thinking of his fast approaching grey-nomad years and thought’s he’d try one out. 

Wally, who had organised this reunion, kipped out in the back of his small EV, on a foam mattress, old surfer style. He had a marquee thrown out from it which covered tables chairs, a hot-plate, a toaster, tubs of camping things, and even a small bar-fridge! How did all of that come out of his car? Tardis, go eat your multi-dimensional hear out! 

Bernie, now that he was retired, had cleared his large work van, a Mercedes (fond of German autos, he once drove a surfie-style VW station-wagon), of all his carpentry stuff to put a foam mattress on a bench in the back.  E@L had a two man tent, borrowed from Wally, with a new large-size camp-bed with specs to carry his weight, but not to match the tent’s dimensions, so that it protruded from the tent for half a metre, exposing his feet (or his head, choose one) in the night to those koalas, kangaroos, and tiger snakes.  

In the chill of that autumn evening, they sat around two aromatic candles on an upturned bucket, drinking their self-supplied favourite poisons and reminisced about journeys E@L had not been on as he was married at 19 and moved overseas at 40, and hadn’t really seen these friends in 40 years or so. Their stories of Baja California, New Zealand, the desert breaks in South Australia, filled the evening. E@L kept his adventures in Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza to himself… 

And why candles, you ask, and not a roaring open fire, marshmallows, guitars, as old campers might prefer? In this site, adjacent to a large national park, open fires were not permitted except in certified, approved, don’t-start-another-devastating-bushfire-round-here fire-pits, which none of the group owned, or knew to purchase in advance.

But Michael also loved to rave about his eBike.

~~~~~

These friends could not help but notice that E@L was not the greatest paragon of health and vigour in the group. Heart attacks, multiple bowel surgeries, a colostomy, alcoholism (only a social-media drinker, but when isn’t he on FB?), still a large beer-belly despite his success with Ozempic, no arse, skinny legs and all. But they were still friends, old friends, friends enough to suggest that E@L fucking do something about it, and fucking quick! A quick dip in the ocean while they tried to recherchéz les surfing skills perdu, was hardly enough exercise.  Maybe, one day you could surf again too, E@L? 

And maybe fucking not! 

“Get an eBike” was Michael’s strongly enthusiastic suggestion. The others agreed, even though they didn’t have eBikes. Was this some conspiracy, E@L wondered. 

Michael had also suggested getting another couple of candles for the next night. While the “warmth” from these two was reasonable[!?], another two $35 aromatic candles would surely do more to keep away the beach-side, clear-skied evening chill. He also suggested that each time one of them went for a piss, that they move the candles around, like stirring wood in a real fire. He had a sense of silly humour that was infectious. But he was serious about the eBike. 

~~~~~~

E@L will skip the other hijinks of the trip… OK maybe one thing. On the third and last morning, prior to packing, Michael and he, up earlier than the others, were checking the non-existent surf. They were standing on the sandhill at the edge of the beach, not far from the small cliff at the S-W point of the bay, when suddenly a screaming came across the horizon from the clifftop above their heads, and, so low you could almost reach up to it, with the deafening whine came a military jet, unmarked as to from which air-force it originated… Wow! Deafening, and, you might even say, surprising! The plane banked to follow the curve of the coastline and shot off, up towards Anglesea, until it was too far away to see… 

Then we remembered that there was an airshow back in Geelong, and of course some Goose or Maverick was checking out the surf for themselves. We think it was probably an F-16, but what the fuck would we know?

Given the early morning, and the heavy drinking the night before induced brain fog, and with the jet and its scream well gone, it was quite the “Did that actually happen?” moment.

An alarming reality was now only a memory. 

~~~~~

But, in conclusion: You’re old man now, or the same age as one, and you’re not an athlete, and you're well behind the eight-ball of “living forever or dying in the attempt” billiards: c’mon, get an eBike and build back those

E@L   

thighs!

To Be Continued!

Question

 

Should Expat @ Large change his name to Exile @ Home?

Which would you prefer?

E@L

or 

E@H

More Michael Moorcock Than You Can Swing a Runeblade At...

How many of these (scroll down, but later) magical masterpieces of Swords and of Sorcery have you read? 

E@L has x-ed (and reddened) those he has ploughed through (27 is it?), and y-ed (and purpled) those he owns but hasn’t got around to yet, not in this realm anyway. You’ll notice that he has mainly done the pre-1980 novels and stories as he eventually turned away from such childish fun and adventure, thanks to pressing concerns, and became a boring old man at the age of 23. Maybe he overdid the fantasy schtick at the time… Maybe the guilty indulgences stole his S&S soul?

Anyway, E@L temporarily embedded his blade into Moorcock back in 1977/78 at the urging of a fellow unworldly student radiographer (who went on study for a real job as a dentist while E@L hung around on the cusp of unemployment and failure). 

They are so easy to read, these slim volumes, and so much fun, at least once you get a delightedly morbid taste for soul-stealing swords and demon infested nether-realms and lots of gruesome and bloody deaths, and those dead who don’t stay dead, but aren’t zombies either, thankfully, as that would be, like, hey, a cliché. 

E@L means, hey, if you're 20 years old, working full-time, studying on the evenings, are newly married and with a young baby to focus on, why wouldn’t you retreat into a fantasy world at every opportunity?

You weren’t free to go surfing on a whim anymore, at the drop of an on-shore wind and the rise of a solid swell…

~~~~~~

[Many years later]

So bring on the black mists and the intrigue of the gods and elementals! And get out your guitar and play some Hawkwind songs (if you know any; E@L doesn’t!).

Let’s scour the realm of second-hand bookstores and of charity store like the Salvos or Vinnies, submit ourselves to the fates of heretical churches and their sly fêtes. 

Let’s overflow E@L’s already well fucking overflowing bookshelves with the adolescent fantasy dreamworld of Michael Moorcock!  

More Moorcock! More Moorcock!

If you’re wondering WTF; E@L is listening to the audiobooks of the Elric saga on his morning walks, and loving them, hence this post. 

~~~~~~

E@L considers his poor — perennially on the knife-edge of failing -- performance in his initial career (radiographer, as mentioned) due to being distracted by these stories of eternal champions like Erokosë, Jerry Cornelius, Dorian Hawkmoon, Corum, and, of course, the pale, thin-blooded, reluctant, emperor, Elric of Melniboné (not MEL-kneebone but Mel-NIB-onay) with Stormbringer, his runesword, the stealer of souls! 

It was not just the family stuff.

E@L means, hey, like, awesome, right?

~~~~~~~

E@L attributes his poor performance at high school to his being distracted by those surfing whims when it blew off-shore and tide was right and swells were a solid 4-6ft  (or lower)…

~~~~~~~

E@L attributes his poor performance  at surfing (he was OK, but not a star) to his mother being reluctant/unable to buy more and better surfboards for him. And for him being shit-scared of big waves. He could only afford a decent board when he left school and got a job, but see above re-marriage and progeny and work and study, and guess how well that worked out for him.

Not that he is bitter, twisted, and has his hand on the rune-encrusted obsidian pommel of his otherwordly blade…

No, his hand is on a double G&T.

~~~~~~~

- [ ] The Elric of Melniboné series (1961–2022), including:
                  - [ ] The Dreaming City (1961)
                  - [x] The Stealer of Souls (1963)
                  - [x] Stormbringer (1965, revised 1977)
                  - [x] Elric of Melniboné (1972)
                  - [x] Elric: The Sailor on the Seas of Fate (1976)
                  - [x] The Weird of the White Wolf (1977)
                  - [ ] The Vanishing Tower (1977)
                  - [ ] Elric at the End of Time (1981)
                  - [y] The Fortress of the Pearl (1989)
                  - [y] The Revenge of the Rose (1991)
                  - [y] The Citadel of Forgotten Myths (2022)
- [ ] The Dorian Hawkmoon series (1967–1975), including:
                  - [x] The Jewel in the Skull (1967)
                  - [x] The Mad God's Amulet (1968)
                  - [x] The Sword of the Dawn (1968)
                  - [x] The Runestaff (1969)
                  - [x] Count Brass (1973)
                  - [x] The Champion of Garathorm (1973)
                  - [x] The Quest for Tanelorn (1975)
- [ ] The Erekosë series (1970–1987), including:
                  - [x] The Eternal Champion (1970)
                  - [x] Phoenix in Obsidian, aka The Silver Warriors (1970)
                  - [ ] The Swords of Heaven, the Flowers of Hell (with Howard Chaykin) (1979) (graphic novel)
                  - [ ] The Dragon in the Sword (1987)
- [ ] The Corum series (1971–1974), including:
                  - [x] The Knight of the Swords (1971)
                  - [x] The Queen of the Swords (1971)
                  - [x] The King of the Swords (1971)
                  - [x] The Bull and the Spear (1973)
                  - [x] The Oak and the Ram (1973)
                  - [x] The Sword and the Stallion (1974)
- [x] Behold the Man (1969)
- [x] Breakfast in the Ruins (1972)
- [ ] The Time Dweller (1969)
- [ ] Sailing to Utopia, comprising:
                  - [ ] Flux (1962)
                  - [ ] The Ice Schooner (1966)
                  - [ ] The Black Corridor (1969)
                  - [ ] The Distant Suns (1975)
- [ ] The Wrecks of Time, aka The Rituals of Infinity (1967)
- [ ] The Sundered Worlds, aka The Blood Red Game (1965)
- [ ] The Fireclown, aka The Winds of Limbo (1965)
- [ ] The Twilight Man, aka The Shores of Death (1966)
- [ ] Kane of Old Mars (1998 compilation volume originally published as three books in 1965, 346pp)
- [ ] The Lost Canal (novelette) (2013)
- [ ] The Chinese Agent (1970)
- [ ] The Russian Intelligence (1980)
- [ ] Michael Moorcock's Multiverse (1999) (graphic novel)
- [ ] The Metatemporal Detective (2007) (collection)
- [ ] A Nomad of the Time Streams:
                  - [ ] The Warlord of the Air (1971)
                  - [ ] The Land Leviathan (1974)
                  - [ ] The Steel Tsar (1981)
- [ ] The Dancers at the End of Time sequence (1972–76):
                  - [y] An Alien Heat (1972)
                  - [y] The Hollow Lands (1974)
                  - [ ] The End of All Songs (1976)
- [ ] Legends from the End of Time (1976)
- [ ] The Transformation of Miss Mavis Ming, aka A Messiah at the End of Time (1977)
- [ ] Gloriana (1978)
- [ ] My Experiences in the Third World War (1980)
- [ ] The Opium General and Other Stories (1984)
- [y] Mother London (1988)
- [ ] Casablanca (1989) – short stories
- [y] King of the City (2000)
- [ ] London Bone (2001) – short stories
- [ ] Kaboul (first published in French) (2018
- [ ] The Jerry Cornelius quartet of novels and shorter fiction:
                  - [x] The Final Programme (1969)
                  - [x] A Cure for Cancer (1971)
                  - [x] The English Assassin (1972)
                  - [x] The Condition of Muzak (1977)
                  - [ ] The Cornelius Quartet (1977 compilation volume, 974pp)
                  - [ ] The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century (1976)
                  - [ ] The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius (1976)
                  - [ ] The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, aka Gold Diggers of 1977 (1980)
                  - [ ] The Entropy Tango (1981)
                  - [ ] The Alchemist's Question (1984)
                  - [ ] A Cornelius Calendar (1993 compilation volume, 554pp)
                  - [ ] The New Nature of the Catastrophe (1993 anthology collecting Jerry Cornelius stories by Moorcock and others, edited by Moorcock and Langdon Jones, 448pp)
                  - [ ] Firing the Cathedral (novella) (2002)
                  - [ ] Phase 1:A Jerry Cornelius Story (novella) (2008)
                  - [ ] Modem Times 2.0 (novella) (2011)
                  - [ ] Pegging the President (novella) (2018)
                  - [ ] The Fracking Factory (novella) (2018)
                  - [ ] The Wokingham Agreement (novelette) (2022)
- [ ] The von Bek sequence:
                  - [ ] The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981)
                  - [ ] The Brothel in Rosenstrasse (1982)
                  - [ ] The City in the Autumn Stars (1986)
- [ ] The Pyat Quartet:
                  - [ ] Byzantium Endures (1981)
                  - [ ] The Laughter of Carthage (1984)
                  - [ ] Jerusalem Commands (1992)
                  - [ ] The Vengeance of Rome (2006)
- [ ] The Second Ether sequence:
                  - [ ] Blood: A Southern Fantasy (1994)
                  - [ ] Fabulous Harbours (1995)
                  - [ ] The War Amongst The Angels (1996)
- [ ] The Elric/Oona Von Bek sequence:
                  - [ ] The Dreamthief's Daughter (2001)
                  - [ ] The Skrayling Tree (2003)
                  - [ ] The White Wolf's Son (2005)
- [ ] Doctor Who:
                  - [ ] The Coming of the Terraphiles (2010)
- [ ] The Sanctuary of the White Friars
                  - [ ] The Whispering Swarm (2015)
                  - [ ] The Woods of Arcady (2023)
                  - [ ] The Wounds of Albion (TBC)

~~~~~~~

Phew! Busy guy that Michael Moorcock!

~~~~~~~

Sigh.

E@L considers his poor history with girlfriends (only JUST plural) and wife (singular) to being obsessed with surfing. And himself. And being obsessed by obscure (to many) books, and to only ever learning four songs on his guitar and playing them on heavy repeat for 50 years yet never remembering the chord changes correctly.

And just being a selfish, ignorant dickhead in relationships, with zip EQ (see previous paragraph for pathetic excuses), and so here he is at 67, still alive despite the best effort of the invidious fates, the anger of the chaotic gods and spirits on this realm and others, only by having used the Mechanical Magic of Modern Medicine to confound his destiny and his malicious DNA, sitting alone on his balcony with a double G&T and an iPad, a thorax marred with multiple scars, a gurgling colostomy bag, and a list of the millions of books he hasn’t read, not to mention the one he hasn’t written. 

Pleasant enough, right?

~~~~~~~

But, oh, this post has gone off the rails suddenly, hasn't it? 

But like, hey! What more could one expect from that plate of cheese and crackers, that (second) double G&T, and

E@L

There You Are... Not.

The received wisdom of travel is "wherever you go, there you are.” 

The consciousness in a calcium box that you might think(ha!) of as YOU never goes anywhere, not by itself. 

The sensations that stimulate it are sort of... arbitrary, dependant on the geolocation of the flesh and bones that support and protect it, that then send electrical impulses to a bunch of cells that create your awareness of externality, when it exists... (The exquisite details of the physical location, the emotions felt in dreams for example, or in hallucinations, don't exist.)

Your senses might be stimulated by views of the 365 chimneys of Chateau Chenonceau, or by the turrets of Neuschwanstein half enveloped in mist as a chilling snow embraces you in the clouds, by the tickle of hungry tropical fish swarming around your feet in the warm waters of Koh Phi Phi, or by the familiar aromas initially and then a burning on the lips and tongue as the plethora of capsaicin rich chilis in your spicy som tam flood in and overload your trigeminal nerve to deliver a Doc Martin kick to the inside of your occiput. 

If you believe in physical reality that is. You know the theory of duality, right? Mind/body. Well, let's assume you are not a brain on a box somewhere, and that the world and all its stimuli are predominantly real when you are awake. Places and things surround you.

But are they real? Of course they fucking are. (Or are you only dreaming you are awake, or is this a Man With Two Brains scenario? No! Snap back to reality!)

Your body, the physical YOU and its consciousness, the mental YOU, board a cruise ship, an aeroplane, a train: the coordinates on Google Maps move with both.

Your character, your habits and traits, the moral beliefs that both torment and bring bliss, your education, your memories, they move with you as well. There they are. There you are. YOU. Wherever YOU are, you are the same person in a different location; feeling awe, hunger, satiety, gastronomic discomfort, warmth or cold, moisture, cold, physical pain, maybe, but still come the same patterns of thought, mental and physical reactions, as your body moves here and there. YOU are. You. The YOU you think you know, that your friends and family would recognise in an instant. 

All true.

~~~~~~

Until… 

You turn from from Soi 4 into Nana Plaza, from Soi 23 or Asoke into Soi Cowboy, through the plush purple curtains on Lockard Rd, or out of the lift straight into the 6th floor bar in Roppongi or Shinjuku…  

And YOU are gone. Woosh!

And probably it's a night on the rickety tiles with a YOU that is completely different, and enjoying it immensely with a YOU who once was

E@L 

~~~~~~
(Just realised that this is very Clarice Lispector)

No! Yes! No! D’oh!

D’oh indeed. 

E@L’s  first work trip was proposed for Monday to Friday next week. The Victorian rep who would be supporting the Sydney apps lady is going to be at a conference in New Zillint. 

The work is in Bairnsdale, a 5hr drive away, across Victoria, and a decent hotel needs to be booked. Dr’s had OKed E@L’s travelling that far, so all good. However, until today he had not had confirmation of the demo going ahead… aaaaannnddd… so he presumed it was cancelled or something, so didn’t need to do anything. 

On Tuesday this week a letter came from the hospital Outpatients Dept with an appointment scheduled for next Wednesday, when, hmm, he MIGHT be in Bairnsdale! This would be the last Dr’s appointment to follow up on his recent surgery so he really wanted to get it out of the way and move on with life, the universe, everything [the novel?]. 

And on top of that, the district nurse had made his final  appointment with her/them for Thursday! 

Um… he again wonders if this trip is going ahead or not? He would might need to change all these appointments and it’s getting close to too late…

It’s Friday now, mid-afternoon. E@L is relaxed [a pint of lager and a burger, $20 special at Carwyn cellars, who could say No?] and reading a book… [Aqua Vita by Clarice Lispector — he’s not sure what is going on, indeed not sure IF anything is going on. She’s writes at a point where the Samuel Beckett of the trilogy and Fernando Pessoa cross paths.]  

A phone call: “Are you still OK for next week? Sorry for the last minute call. I’m still heading to NZ, so we will need you. I’ll confirm with the Big Boss!” 

“Yep, excellent!”  [Some good money coming with his exorbitant rates!]

E@L logs on to Booking-dot-com, tells them Bairnsdale and the dates, and selects some reasonably comfortable mid-range accommodation in this medium sized country town, but waits to press BOOK just in case.

5 mins later an email and Team mtg appointment from the Big Boss: “Demo is Tuesday to Friday next week. Please let’s have a meeting to discuss the demo on Monday.”

Oh shit, the appointments!!

It’s currently Friday afternoon still, but it’s 5 minutes before, if he remembers aright, the Outpatient clinic closes… E@L calls just in time and asks to change the appointment. There is nothing free until the end of the month. OK, whenever is possible, thanks. 

E@L hangs up. 

E@L’s finger is back to being poised over BOOK for his hotel… aaaaaaaanndd…

E@L’s phone rings: “Hi, mate [not Big Boss obviously], have you booked anything yet, because the demo has been pushed back! Don’t have a date yet…”

E@L sighs. He pulls his finger from his iPad…

It’s now 2 mins after OP has closed….

But E@L calls anyway, thinking for sure it’s too late — Friday, after 4, when he used to work there, phone? Fuggedabartit! — and for 7mins the phone keeps a ringing (not on hold, no robot messages so there is hope eternally and internally springing). Then a welcoming voice answers, springing (Hope fulfilled!) from a live human’s voice-box, yay! Outpatients is not closed after all! and Yes, she is able to change his appointment back to next week as previous.

E@L sighs.    

What a run around! 

Then a penny drops… If the demo is postponed, that means the local guy whom E@L would have been covering for is back in town and will be available after all.

E@L will not be required. 

No big money after all. 

Another sigh from

E@L

Speech, Free or Not? Subscribe to Find Out

[I drafted this ages ago, in May, but forgot to post. It’s looks Sam Harris is becoming my NYT as a source for blog post topics!]

Sam Harris, famous as being one the Four Horsemen of Atheistolypse, is sort of almost detested by the right, because he is not right wing, and because he rails against evil fuckwits like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, even Trump himself*, and, more recently, he is viewed suspiciously by the left (maybe as he has criticised the NYT and even the New Yorker), at least in America. 

At the risk of being cancelled myself, I admit I do subscribe (in order to get the full episodes) and listen to the occasional podcast from Making Sense. In my opinion he usually does exactly that, as he is prepared to listen to intelligent people with whom he might possibly disagree without losing his temper and at least he claims to be prepared to change his mind. Unlike Joe Rogan, he does not suffer fools gladly, and his guests are more than just other podcasters and influencers.

His current interview with Greg Lukianoff,  author of “The Cancel[l]ing Of The American Mind” (please buy), Substack writer, no subscription fees required (no-one blogs anymore: not true, he writes for the FIRE blog - see link below) is fascinating, as it covers most aspects and opinions about free speech; historically with the social medium of the time, the printing press under the Tudors, and also McCarthyism; mainly about free speech as a modern concept in general; what’s happening on university campuses now, and, duh, cancel culture, etc etc; predominantly the American experience, but also comparing the laws, and the variability in interpretation between countries  in Europe.

Usually I end totally confused about where my opinion should lie after listening to Making Sense, as everyone on his podcasts sounds so reasonable and rational, as does Mr Lukianoff. 

Not that I think I disagree with Lukianoff’s definition of Free Speech, which is basically that all opinions have the right to be heard, in order to make it possible to rationally discredit bad shit or support the good stuff with “the truth”. Inciting illegal actions, or even voicing opinions that trigger illegal actions (I think I got that right), should however be restricted. In other words controversial topics should be allowed to be heard otherwise these opinions will go underground and social media will amplify and intensify them. Not that doesn’t happen anyway, as influencers attack on the ideal of truth and trust in authorities/experts.

Here's a hypothetical they come up with. What if Alex Jones, while still saying the Sandyhook tragedy was a lie, DID NOT give out the details - addresses and names, which he did -  of the families of some of the victims, would he still be liable for prosecution?  

Ferkucked if I know! I would very much hope so though! He certainly should have been kicked of Twitter or Youtube or whatever, from his very first post on the topic.

~~~~~~~~

But I also remain concerned about Australia, which Wants to Dictate What The World Can Read online, and where Lachlan Murdoch** can sue a small Aussie independent online newspaper for offering an opinion in Lachie’s responsibility in the Dominion voter fraud case in the US.  He lost, and had to pay legal costs - do I get my contribution refunded? Libel has to cause “substantial harm” in Australia, so I doubt anything much less $785million would trouble NewsCorp.au. (I drafted this a while ago: Crickey settled.)

And as I’ve mentioned on FB before, I spent 16 years of living in Singapore where, as examples, in my first few years there, truckloads of riot police arrested four silent protestors from the Workers Party standing on the footpath with “More Transparency in Government” or WTTE, on their tee-shirts; where a foreign speaker at a public meeting on free speech was not granted permission to speak by MICA aka the Ministry of Truth; where blogger mrbrown lost his stint at a newspaper for a light hearted piece on the cost of living (“If you want to comment on politics, join a political party”, said the MiniTru - and that worked out well for those silent protestors, right?). At another public session on censorship in Singapore, this one at the 2006 (or was it 2007?) Writers Festival, hosted by mrbrown, I ventured to hope to be anonymous and safe from MiniTru as my sometimes contentious blog*** was hosted in San Francisco, but mrbrown was sceptical and said, “Everyone knows who you are Phillip!”

(Everyone knows mrbrown is Lee Kin Mun.)

 ~~~~~~~~~

Question is: Would people go to substack instead of here and pay to read, or even read for free, the inexpensive speech of  

Phillip aka E@L

*I still recall Harris’s  brilliant rant against Trump from a few years ago.

** News Corp eventually dropped the case in embarrassment: "A defamation battle being waged between media heir Lachlan Murdoch and the publisher of online news site Crikey appears to be driven by "ego and hubris", a judge has declared.” 

*** The historical posts are mostly gone now, cancelled by a software upgrade. The plan is to restore my back-up to a readable format, but the comments are all over the place in the ascii dump of the SQL database. There are about 250,000 words there, so not an insubstantial effort is required.

Is There Intelligent Life On Earth?

On my walk this morning I listened to very stimulating discussion about what (philosophically not chemically) it would take for complex life to develop. Sam Harris and guest Sara Irma Walker, also discussed the Fermi Paradox and likelihood of life on other planets, and what it would take to even measure that likelihood in a nearly infinite universe and within the limited time before either the sun goes red giant or Trump wins the coming US election, either of which would destroy all intelligent life on the planet. (In which case, after next week, there will be no-one left to read this near-defunct blog.)

Anyhows... When my eyes and brain weren’t glazed over with the abstract theories and physics jargon, I really enjoyed it.

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/388-what-is-life/id733163012?i=1000673910025

According to Sam’s guest, the multiverse is crap (my word). The “block universe”, where the past present and future are all "now”, as with the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse Five, and the inky octopi in Arrival, is also crap.

However, she keeps flipping on Yes, there is life and No, no life.

My take on the Fermi Paradox, given that if the earth could be reset to its beginning, there would be way less than fuck-all chance of complex life developing again, and that this current time around, of all the planets in the brain-numbing extent of the universe, over the life of the universe from its the past, before there even was time, and into its future, our earth was the single typewriter where one of those infinite monkeys randomly typed the complete works of Shakespeare. (Prof Brian Cox, not the actor, would agree, I think.) Or then again maybe, like prime numbers, there will always be one more, we just haven’t conceived of it, or indeed constructed it (listen to discussion) yet.

Just we still haven’t constructed a timeless

E@L