Reading List

Well, here's a list of the books that I've managed to grind through over twenty pages of in the last few weeks...

Rex Warner- The Aerodrome. A soupcon of Kafka, a snifter of Isherwood, a distinct hint of Orwell...
Louis MacNeice- Collected Poems. Cheer up, big man. At least you don't have Auden's jowells.
Artur Machen- The Terror. I shat myself. Sorry if this is ugly, but it's true. You probably wouldn't.
Helene Cixous- Angst. I haven't read very much of this, but at least it lowers the testosterone count.
Iain Sinclair- Landor's Tower. I believe this is what the reviewers call "crackling prose". Haywire.
Sigmund Freud- various. Please help.

some other stuff I can't think of right now. Some Derrida? Ah, Of Hospitality. It made my head hurt. Any good stuff about ruins would be appreciated, too.

Records, many of which appear to have been borrowed from Nathan Barley...

British Sea Power, Broadcast, The White Noise, Black Dice, Antipop Consortium, The Birthday Party, Le Tigre, Pink Floyd, Fugazi, Royal Trux/RTX, Ultramagnetic MCs, Wolf Eyes, DNA, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Gram Parsons, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Violet Violet, PiL and a bunch of other stuff.

Okay, time for more barwork

jx

Thursday

About as succint an evocation of today as I can manage. I didn't manage to write up the rest of London and now it's been confined to the superglued papershredder that passes for my memory. Anything I write now will not necessarily conform to the same temporal sequence as that of the recent visit to Capital City. We did go to an exhibition of Lee Miller's life-loving, titillatory, invigorating portraits at the NPG. I did buy some records in Rough Trade. We followed the Whitney Sinclair up to Hoxton Square, down through Shoreditch to Spitalfields and then across the Square Mile to Saint Paul's. As usual, we staggered around Soho with aching limbs, pressing our noses up against the windows of Patisseries baking cakes for the Groucho Club and French bakeries.

I've been writing my chapter on Loving over the last few weeks, reading up on ruins and neutrality and various explications of the uncanny. About 4,000 words so far, with another 2,500 to come over the weekend if all goes according to plan. Saturday I'm heading up to Lincoln (with some trepidation) to watch Darlington and meet up with my brother and Ron. I'd link to some of his journalism- somehow, he's scribed a little for When Saturday Comes and Four Four Two- but those who know him understand that making any kind of effort is so anathemic to him that he'd probably be offended.

A couple of nights ago I performed with "quiet big band" Roberte (no website as yet) in the music centre at UEA. It was fucking intense, especially letting a single tone decay for about four minutes at the end. Normally I find myself trying not to laugh or yawn in these circumstances but on this occasion all I could do was stare into the unlit crowd. Applause broke tension. We were supporting the avant-garde (is this still an acceptable term?) violinist Tony Conrad (probably has a website) who plays big drones and microtonal "rrrreeeeeesss" on modified instruments. The night before we went for dinner with him. I'm sure i'm not the only person in the world who'd find sitting in Pizza Express on St. Benedict's Street talking about, and I quote, "the most popular weapons in Glasgow" with a sixty-something former associate of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sonic Youth and Gastr del Sol a little bit strange. He was very sarcastic, playing up to my immature stereotype of New Yorkers. Good laugh, though.

guten tag

jx

(Lazily titled) London #1

So, despite the fact that (thanks to the Brains-type figures who press all the wrong buttons in out IT department) I lost a few words, I concluded that I was close enough to 3,000 words to take the weekend off. It was time for a London visit.

Unfortunately, we decided to prepare for our trip by caning wine (white, rose), beer and chinese food, resulting in no sleep until three in the morning. The alarm went at half six. It was a miracle when we staggered onto the train just before eight a clock, bleary eyed and (in my case) stinking of booze. I think it gets caught in my teeth. They'd mucked up the seat reservations so when I got to the place I was meant to be sitting there was a posse of middle aged City fans on a field day to Crystal Palace. We sat down behind them as they cracked open the Stellas.

Somewhere after Romford the coffee kicked in and I began singing "London Loves" by Blur.

At Liverpool Street we tried to begin walking up to Trafalgar Square, but then deemed it too much of a dautning task and retreated to the underground. We emerged fifteen minutes later at Charing Cross and spent a while trying to find the National Portrait Gallery, before realising that it was quite a large and not entirely discreet building stuck just behind the National Gallery...

SkyNet

How to ruin yr day:

1- write lucid, incisive prose. In fact, the best you've written all year.
2- find out the computer you're working on is fucked.
3- lose it all.

Kids- always save your work.

Everyone in the computer centre is now under the impression that my permanent mode of being involves thumping screens, kicking chairs and swearing (what's that? It does?)

FUCK

Jx

An "Aweful" Purchase

Aweful, November 26, 2003

Reviewer:
Kyle Stewart (Georgia) - See all my reviews

This series is horrible beyond all conception. Tolkien overbloats EVERYTHING to the point where it's absolutely ridiculous, and I loose tract of the plot amidst unimportant details. Quite frankly my only thought is I DON'T CARE WHO EVERYONE'S FATHER IS, IF YOU WANT ME TO KNOW THEN WRITE A PREQUEL, JUST TELL THE STORY IT IDIOTIC BRIT! I don't know how someone who wrote something as good as "The Hobbit" could produce this junk. I think what happened was he had a bunch of notes left over, and wanted to cash in by writing a sequel, so he threw all the details he had onto a shallow plot, but sense it was to complicated to be called "dumbed-down" like most money-making sequels noone could attack it. And it was so complicated people have been trying to convince others for decades that they're intellegent because they can understand this book, but since noone understands it, noone can test them to see if they really do or not. Anyway, if you want a complicated plot you can understand, read "Dune" by Frank Herbert.

Question:
- Does Kyle know there are already TWO prequels to Lord of the Rings?

The rest of the argument is far too elliptical to follow.

Kyle: you are the Moths of Boredom reviewer of the week. Should anyone wish to reward his achievement, I've accidentally pasted in his e-mail address at the top. All prizes should be appropriately cerebral, as Kyle is a very "intellegent" young man. Not some "Idiotic Brit", right?

Jx

Finally, a satisfied customer!!

Today's Amazon review is a little more positive... witness this rousing reception for George W. Bush on God and Country by, well, George W. Bush.

a book for the ages
June 23, 2004 Reviewer: A reader

This was the best book I have ever read. It will stand the test of time and truly be on everyones shelf before this century is over. Bush will always be the man we loved and trusted. Thankfully, this book will rewrite our society to a better tomorrow.

Books can write?

Jx

Today's unhappy customer...

Today's reviewer is Matt Gordon of Wiltshire. Can you guess what he's returning to Waterstones?

Dull, dull, dull dull dull., February 25, 2005

Reviewer: mattgordon from Nr Bath, WILTS United Kingdom

Not only does this book fail spectacularly to live up to the hype it recieves, but whilst doing so somehow manages to condone human sacrifice, rape, murder, torture and genocide.

Beware of exposing children or the infirm to these questionable morality examples.

Some chapters also are so far fetched as to be unbelievable. Examples of the whole world being covered by water (where did it all go?), to the feeding of 5thousand with fish in breadcrumbs (not even a decent recipe included) and the laughable zombification of the main hero are neither explained in any depth nor reassesed or apologised for when later chapters blatently cotradict them.

Add in a few spurious claims such as a 6000yr old earth and an infinitely large assimilating bad guy (kind of like the Borg off Star Trek) and this book manages to fail despite its obvious potential.

If you want a decent cult novel with morality metaphors and a philosphical and deep main herpo i would strongly reccomend The Dice Man.

Edgy and provocative? Or sixth form philosophy? I just can't decide...

Jx

more disappointed customers

Next up...Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler...

The Wind Beneath Multiculuralism's Wings, March 9, 2005

Reviewer: the_dalry_lama from Dalry, Near Beith

It surprises me that a lot of liberals and left wingers don't seem to like this book much, because the only reason most of us put up with the distortions of fact, biology, history, and society that these left wingers promote is because of this book. Yes, that's right, Hitler, despite himself, was the greatest friend the Jews, Blacks, liberals, feminists, socialists, and communists ever had.
Around about the 1930s, Jews were widely distrusted in the West, Blacks were treated like big brawny children, while the commies were penned into a truncated remains of the old czarist empire. Along comes Hitler and 30 years later, all Hell had broken loose.

Hitler, by his cruelty and incompetence, basically dragged down the perfectly respectable idea that White European civilization should dominate the World. It was no coincidence that following his disastrous impact on the World, the Jews had the sympathy to found Israel and dominate the media in the USA and other countries; the Communists rapidly expanded across Eastern Europe and Asia, and infiltrated Western academia; the Blacks won their independence, which they squandered as quickly as a welfare, or got their Civil Rights, which just made it much harder to explain their continued failure; and the absurdity of liberal multiculturalism, which puts the stone age on par with the rocket age and endlessly attacks White European civilization was enshrined as a new World religion.

All this is thanks to Adolf. Although he was a man of obvious political genius and had some good ideas, I think his inhuman extremism, lack of a sense of proportion, and poor strategic sense, damned us to the present, PC, multicultural Hell. For this reason, despite its historical interest, I can only give this unlucky book one star.

"liberal multiculturalism, which puts the stone age on a par with the rocket age"?? Eh!? This racist propaganda writes itself!!

jx

Mothsy Bonus

It's also worth checking out this list of inspirational albums, particularly the comments about Britney...

jx

new feature

This week, The Long Moths of Boredom will be republishing Amazon reviews written by disappointed customers. Today: The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard


Lots of Words, Doesn't Say Much, June 7, 2004

Reviewer: benji_j from London, England

After reading the positive reviews for this book, I thought "what the hell", and bought it. I thought the same thing when I read it, but in a different way.

This book is one of the hardest I have ever read, partly because its written in a very formal and slightly archaic style, but mainly because I find it very hard to see what Bachelard's point is, most of the time.

After finishing another seemingly endless paragraph, eventually working out what the grammar and words mean, you are often left not understanding what he is getting at.After half a chapter I finally realised that he has no point.

It's hard to explain, but I would say that this book tells you nothing even remotely relevant to anything you will ever experience.

Overall, a pretentious waste of paper. I think I might chop mine up and make poems out of the words.

Thanks, Benji

jx

Temples 'r' US!!!!

Hello. I am 23. Should I really be leafing through books about landscape gardens in Ireland in order to write highflown academese about buildings and the uncanny? The answer's in the question, is it not?

Anyway, apart from that I've just got back from a weekend spent forgetting to switch the telly on to witness important cultural events (RIP JPII/ HRH+CPB 4 EVA!!!/ NCFC 2- MUFC 0). If my grandchildren should happen to ask me where I was the day the "people's pope" (sic) was put to rest (truly, euphemism is the poetry of our times) I'll be able to tell them the following things:

1- I was cursing the search system in the Millenium Library for making me waste my time
2- I was watching a pissed-up tramp rucking in the market place(in a two way display of abject ignorance, some lads called him a "dirty fenian wanker" in response to his chorus of "The Billy Boys")
3- I was hungover
4- I ate chilli beans on toast, a cambozola and ham baguette, meatballs in tomato sauce with linguine
5- I went to see Mika Bomb, Hyper Kinako, Violet Violet and others down the arts centre.

On Royal Wedding day I went to Somerfields and worked. Work allowed me to escape the humiliation of being a United supporter in a Yellow pub, except for when the guy introducing the bands (it was a get-together for all the rockabilly/skiffle bands that did the East Anglian circuit in the 50s and 60s) insisted on yelling the score out between acts.

Great events have, once more, passed me by.

Jx

America

Last night, I watched gun-toting darkside hippies Love play far too quietly in an overlarge venue, went home and watched the beginning of a Steve Martin film then went to bed and watched Wisconsin Death Trip. WDT is a documentary with a narrative constructed in black & white reconstructions of stories from the newspaper of the Wisconsin township Black River Falls. The stories take place across the year 1897 and the film is split into four parts, corresponding to the seasons. In between each sequence of reconstructions, we're shown the town as it is now (in colour). Several characters recur across the reconstructions, one being a cocaine sniffing schoolteacher who has a "mania for breaking windows" (hysteric diseases are a preoccupation in the film).

Anyway, I've figured out that you could more or less extrapolate everything you need to know about America by putting Arthur Lee, Steve Martin and the window-smasher together in a room.

Jx

Recent dilletantism includes...

Colin Wilson - The Occult (hippy esoteria bits notwithstanding)
FR Leavis - New Bearings in English Poetry
Andre Breton- Collected Writings
Louis Chevalier - The Assassination of Paris
David Gascoyne - Collected Poems
Georges Perec - Species of Spaces
Ian Sinclair (ed) - Conductors of Chaos
Ian Hacking - Mad Travelers - Reflections on Transient Mental Illnesses

As you might recognise from the implication of the header, I very rarely get to read much more than half of anything, more's the pity. Oh, and I've not been doing too well on varying the testosterone levels this week.

Listening to...

Black Flag - The First Four Years
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell
Sonic Youth - Murray Street
Plaid - Spokes
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Verve - A Storm in Heaven(!)
The Beatles - Rubber Soul, Revolver
Stereolab - Transient Random Noise Bursts and Announcements
Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Lists give me an excuse to keep on sitting here...

Jx

Free Arthur Lee

I'm off to see Love tonight. I have to work for a couple of hours while the support band play, but it'll be worth it. The original guitarist, who used to hold up mobile candy vendors in California at gunpoint, is playing with them.

Saturday was one of those days which rolls from place to place, solar powered. We walked up to Mousehold Heath the back way, Magdalen Street via the charity bookshops (see below) and Sprowston Road. Once across the tiver you enter Norwich Ultra Aquam (Over the Water) which is, according to some internet literature, an autonomous commune within the boundaries of the city at large. It always struck me that the East and North of Norwich belonged in its own world, but I'd ascribed the feeling to staying in the media-class/student ghetto for too long and coming to consider anywhere else otherworldly. Anyway, Sprowston Road looks like the North, terraced houses elevated above street level with small patches of grass on the little plateaus by the porch. A couple of adolescents were leaning on the wall, half-naked, loud and outdated hip-hop blaring from the front door where a bulldog was chained up. They were chatting up some girl. The pubs up that way are all interesting looking (in the sense that they're a bit rare)- The Cat & Fiddle, The Artichoke, The Wherry, The Prince of Denmark and that one that's above the road at a confluence of back streets. Norwich's renovation continues apace but it's largely confined to the southwest of the city, a small strip along the riverbank around Duke Street and the far peripheries. The fringes of the heath, outer Magdalena, are intact examples of old Norwich (as opposed to the spectacle of Chad dressing up as John Sell Cotman at the Castle Museum).

We turned up Gilman Road, past a small church, to get onto the Heath. A path led through a small patch of wood before opening out onto a wide meadow which was once the site of a lime-kiln. Apparently the topography of the Heath was affected over the course of the last few centuries by unsupervised mining. Beyond this field the woods rolled and tumbled into little dells- anyone who read Alan Garner's great book for kids when they were at school would recognise the scenery. We stopped and rolled around in leaves for a while, taking photographs. We then cut out into the open ground higher up and walked around the pond, which I'm sure looks suitably melancholy in the right weather but is completely out of place in spring sunshine. We went back into the woods, trying to head in the direction of the football noises which represented our destination, the bandstand, and Zak's Diner. What is it about a certain species of British youth and the American fifties. Took some photos of the bandstand and then abandoned ourselves to gastronomic simalacra (admittedly of the most delicious sort) for a hour or so. Less good chips than Cappy A's but nicer burger.

Sorry, inner food monologue at work (see also Homer Simpson, Desperate Dan). I'm hungry. The woman in Lite Bites (in the futurist utopia also known as the Earlham Road Complex) wouldn't let me get a ham and cheese sandwich for less than £1.40 so I had to make do with ham, and I'm not letting myself eat it till I've finished the AHRB form.

Anyway, after the Heath we went for a drink in the Adam and Eve. This joint likes making claims like "!!England's Oldest Pub!!" but had contented itself on this occasion with "Possibly Norwich's Oldest Pub", a claim contradicted by the nearby Maid's Head Hotel. The A+E sold me Old Peculier which resulted in a need to fall asleep and/or wet myself all the way home, a journey involving lengthy detours around the co-op and Choices Video.



yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah...

Jx

Famous Relatives

Having got bored of Googling my own name, I decided to ask Wikipedia what Kennedys i was aware of. It troubled me that my name would forever be associated with a cabbal of philandering American statesmen, a fictional doctor and a "punk" violinist who found himself inexplicably popular in the 1980s. I was directed towards this fella, who, in addition to fighting an against-the-odds human rights campaign in the Deep South, was a sort-of-buddy of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Having said that, I haven't read the stuff properly yet. It might be an April Fool.

Oh, and today's diary entry...interesting stuff happening on the Teknikov front after Wednesday night's gig (which was fucking good fun, I have to admit, though my throat knacked afterwards). Shall speak more of which as and when I know more. Last night we went to a Smiths tribute night at the Arts Centre (well, spending every night in there is better than spending every night in the Union, which is what I was forced to do a few weeks back) which was exactly as expected: geography teachers remembering the lost girl with the Cure t-shirt who used to sit around picking daisies etcetera etcetera. For more description, cut and paste from the following list of rubbish 80s indie cliches:

- Jozef K
- Gregory's Girl
- C86
- Derek Jarman
- Liz Frazer
- "shimmering"
- duffel coat
- Oscar Wilde
- rain
- Milan Kundera
- Youth tribes

Afterwards, we went for a long walk in the mist down Old Palace Road and back up through the Nelson Quadrant, where, in a strangely filmic episode, they were just stacking the tables up and locking the doors at the Fat Cat. A man was leaning against a lamp-post, looking crook. I thought he was going to open his jacket and offer me nylon stockings for Jenny.

Today I have been reading about the influence of Dada on English Modernism. Interesting.

Jx

Very Old Man

In the graveyard of the church I went to photograph on Monday there's the grave of a Very Old Man. This is his story...

Moths hereby instigates a Very Old Man competition, which of course also means Very Old Woman (although women should perhaps have a separate category, as most worldwide longevity records are held by ladies). The town with the most Very Old Man wins.

I'm trying to avoid doing my AHRB forms. Does it show?

Jx