It's been some time

You know that phrase Nelson uses in the Simpsons, when he's forcing Bart to punch himself, "stop punching yourself, stop punching yourself". That, I know that feeling.

It's the feeling of being blamed for being understaffed. It is the feeling of being perceived as wrong when one follows established process. It's the feeling of knowing I am doing my best (and I am f-ing awesome at my job) and not being able to do all the things that need to be done. It is a feeling of hopelessness unnecessarily growing because looking ahead, one week, one month, to the next year, one anticipates another "stop punching yourself."

I am exhausted by that feeling. Knowing the tide change coming, the 'dog wagging the tail' prophesies, the ever-ever-closer micromanagement tendencies, and the general move from collaborative practices to suspicions of being the them in 'us v. them.' 

Collaborative behaviours are key. What did the Golgafrinchans do to themselves?

Public information about public houses

You might not be aware of this but there's a couple of areas of Leeds 'history' that I'm fascinated by. Architecture, obviously, and the changing streetscape, cinemas and theatres, and the evolving public spaces. One of the really big fascinations I have are public houses. I've heard so many tales about them, descriptions and locations, clientele and staff, and I find them creatively inspiring. It might be a long way off though a project about these places is a distinct possibility. Public houses often serve multiple functions, meeting rooms, folk clubs, a liaison for the evening or long term companionship, and are often located in places that link communities. However, I often hear these tales in other public houses, so have no notes to reference. I know someone told me about a Roxy, though am I getting confused with similar public houses in Nottingham, London, Norwich? I've been in market taverns in London, you know the ones that open at 5/6am for the porters, and I think someone else told me about the Leeds ones, but I can't recall. In an effort to start collecting this information I'm going to start carrying a small notebook. In this I will jot down the things people tell me, any tales I get about the current and lost pubs of Leeds, their locations and the location in which I get the research. I might spend a bit of time explaining what I'm doing but think most people I've met in public houses, friends and strangers alike, would probably be happy imparting their stories.

Competition time

It's the last day of the month so far had a look at the Poetry Kit website's list of open competitions. There's a few going on in August, with more all the way through to the end of November.

I counted at least ten I would like to enter. Thinking about entering poetry competitions was something recommended to me as a means to get inspiration and work to deadlines. I may not enter all the competitions, in fact I guarantee I won't, but I will keep those ideas bubbling up under my writing process.

It is the same with magazine submissions and poetry/spoken word events. I have a slowly growing list of interesting items, and when I am going through my notes and completed work I often think whether I could/would/should submit my work.

This is all falls into my writing process. Though I write primarily for an audience of one, of me, once I have something I am satisfied with it is nice to show it off.

Notebook

Pre-work poetry practice, going through my notebook to find the following lines.

22/3 -
Tin foil, tin can.
Those are the lips that kissed,
The lips that she kissed.

25/4 -
Présélection téléphonique.

And 27/5 -
'Your expanded LAN is the wide, wide world,'
Sometimes more, always growing.

Like the band James, over time pages and pages of scribbled notes become a stanza or two, whittled down through drafts until there's something there.

Yellow-Seventeen Poems

After all the writing and drafting and so on and almost screwing up my notes and emptying them into the bin I managed to exhibit my poems.

I'll be posting one or two other posts about the process, here are the poems in order (along with extra material and a link to the YouTube playlist.

Yellow-Seventeen - James Corah - For Planetine, Wednesday 4 May 2016 - Wednesday 11 May 2016

Artist information

James Corah

Yellow-Seventeen, 2016

Poetry, paper and video

The exoplanets beyond Neptune and Pluto are unknowable to us though to a certain extent they are familiar; they have inhabitants, customs, geographies, atmospheres, weather cycles, origins, and endings. Out there is life, it is other life though still life.

Yellow-Seventeen is such a planet. Yellow-Seventeen is an attempt through poetry to explore the world, its customs, and its inhabitants, delve into its oceanography, and explore its history.

Originally Yellow-Seventeen was to take the form of two hundred and eighty nine Senryu (Senryu being ‘human Haikus’ of 17 syllables over three lines of five-seven-five, two hundred and eighty nine being seventeen squared). This transformed into the more reasonable set of poems in the exhibition through time restraints and just plain rebellion against the restrictions I placed on myself.

Each poem presented here has also been recorded as a video I have posted on YouTube. This is my first exhibition and very much the first time I have shown my poetry to more than a handful of people. It is the first time I have created videos and recorded myself reading poems. The process, like Yellow-Seventeen itself, has been a journey into the unknown.

Yellow-Seventeen would not have been possible without the support and inspiration of the other ‘Planeteenies,’ particularly Ryan Thompson, and from friends and family, particularly Hannah. Special thanks to Thomas Day for both pushing me onwards through regular moments of doubt and for helping come up with the word ‘Yellow-Seventian.’

In our own way we are all Yellow-Seventian, we are unknown to each other until we explore what connects us.

Introduction to Yellow-Seventeen

Yellow-Seventeen,

A surprisingly earth-like planet.

Not unsurprising.

Not earth-like.

Still a planet.

Before you unknowable unknowns,

About a far-off planet.

Not real

Not unreal.

Still a planet.

James Dustjacket’s Travels to Yellow-Seventeen

I travelled through life,

A blind speck of dust with no right to know.

Screaming at the big-wide,

Give me a sign, answer my question,

We are not alone.

I travelled by experiment.

[Redacted by GRAPES*]

[You can’t know this until you’ve discovered it.]

[“Keep backing the rocks together, guys,”]

[You are not alone. We didn’t tell you.]

I travelled unknowable distance.

Crossing the far-wide cosmos,

Searching the planet-filled unimultiverse,

Looking for that revelation in space,

We are not alone.

I travelled and arrived,

I cannot say or know how far.

My feet on Yellow-Seventeen,

My ears hear unfamiliar voices,

I am not alone.

Still my eyes were closed,

Taking in the sight of sounds.

They were not unfriendly noises.

Someone held my handing,

Pulling me forward, onward.

Untutored ears picking out greetings,

Welcomes and hellos,

Their invitations to stay.

I opened my eyes.

*The Galactic Republic Academy for Progression of Equitable Science

Ryu Senior’s Episodes of Yellow-Seventeen History as Senryu

1.

Steam powered transports,

Bringing together far wide,

Isolation ends.

2.

Shaken, shaking hands.

Released, the knife fell. Free. Now,

Change and liberty.

3.

“Fear space invaders,

They come for you and yours” - lies,

They just wanted peace.

4.

Lux kissing cold lips,

Dead, to stop their union.

So starts civil war.

5.

The bombs fell all night.

Blanket blanching on the ground,

The unprepared, dead.

6.

First rain falls. Stable

Lands propagating, all life

Evolves planet-wide

7.

She cried pain, passion.

He sung love and rebellion.

Leaders, lovers, two.

8.

Surf radio waves,

Furthest friendliest hellos,

Making connections.

9.

Disagreeing monks!

Two sides, one side, two sides, three!

Oh, what to cook guests?

10.

Inherited crowns,

Passed on to the elected,

Free through progression.

11.

Slow rising rocket:

“Take me on to the unknown

Space beyond our skies.”

12.

Conflict, endless fight,

Killing Y-Seventians with

Devastating ease.

13.

“The only doomsday

All doomsday devices need

Is their own end. Dead.”

14.

“Fruit pickers unite,”

The dispossessed rally call:

“Break unfair systems.”

15.

Physicists predict,

One may only know their own

Unimultiverse.

16.

Planetary shift.

All things eventually ends.

Then comes the next stage.

Storms

Searching,

Wandering souls lost;

The hammering storms eyes’

Devastating touch, on land all

Lost. Gone.

Sea Diptych #1 - Retreating Tide

Awesome wave, awesome wave,

Wave upon wave of awesome wave,

Upon wave of awesome wave,

Wave of awesome wave,

Of awesome wave,

Awesome wave,

Wave.

Awesome wave, awesome wave,

Wave upon wave of awesome wave,

Upon wave of awesome wave,

Wave of awesome wave,

Of awesome wave,

Awesome wave,

Wave.

Awesome wave, awesome wave,

Wave upon wave of awesome wave,

Upon wave of awesome wave,

Wave of awesome wave,

Of awesome wave,

Awesome wave,

Wave.

Awesome wave, awesome wave,

Wave upon wave of awesome wave,

Upon wave of awesome wave,

Wave of awesome wave,

Of awesome wave,

Awesome wave,

Wave.

Sea Diptych #2 – The Sea of Life

Rolling seas,

Deep blue, deep, blue waters,

And wide, wide oceans.

Fish, plankton and seaweed,

Hard shells of seashells,

And soft bellies of limpets,

Jostled by the ever flowing, even flowing currents.

Vast oceans,

Seemingly too wide to cross.

Ever connected by tradewinds trade routes.

Kayak, yacht and liner,

Hard tall tallships,

With soft flapping sails.

Moving by ever changing, ever blowing gusts.

Fishing fleets,

Lines of boats trawling along waves,

Trailing long lines of fish.

Hooked, caught and hauled,

Seafood for table,

Seafood for market,

The seas of life on Yellow-Seventeen.

With a 400 year oceanic conveyor belt,

Replenishing nutrients, shaking salts.

A source of life,

A source of food.

The deep blue waters of Yellow-Seventeens.

‘Closer’

Ultra-Dexitri put a wall around his property,

Said, all Yellow-Seventians being equal these are for me and mine,

Taking other nearby resources for safe keeping.

Ultra-Dexitri knew the value of nothing,

Except for what he said.

Only a few could be happy.

Trompe-Dexitri put a wall around his people,

Said, all Yellow-Seventians being equal we will remain equal under my leadership,

Forcefully removing dissenting views.

Trompe-Dexitri knew not the collective voice,

Except for what he said.

Only a few could be happy.

Opposo-Dexitri tore down the walls of his property,

Said, all Yellow-Seventians being equal I'll help all,

And tried his best with the resources they had.

Ultra-Dexitri mocked; Trompe-Dexitri smirked,

It is futile to appeal to Yellow-Seventians’ better natures, they claimed.

Except Opposo-Dexitri carried on.

Not everyone can be happy straight away.

Ultra-Dextri increased the value of his property,

And his people couldn't afford it.

Trompe-Dexitri forced more people to share their work,

Without doing his own share.

Opposo-Dexitri tried to help as many as possible,

Hard without Ultra-Dexitri’s wealth;

Difficult without Trompe-Dexitri’s force.

Yet still he tried.

Not every Yellow-Seventian can be happy straight away,

Said Opposo-Dexitri, though if we hold dear to,

Fraternity,

Equality,

And liberty,

We get closer.

Complex Social Relations

Was it love or companionship,

Procreation or simply to pass the time,

This dance I saw before me,

The courtship on Yellow-Seventeen?

It wasn’t hopeless or smothering,

Seedy, greedy, or domineering.

Every dance has many dancers,

And no Yellow-Seventian is an island.

They shout praise,

Of complex social relations,

They cheer and sing:

            “Dear stranger, friend,

            Lover, or kin,

            There will be hardships,

            There will be new borns,

            Fleeting moments of passion shipped over many years,

            Lifelong companionships developed over time

            Almost breaking points and severe strains,

            There will be pain beyond pain,

            Beyond pain beyond pain.

 There will be heartfelt heartfuls of love,

 There will be heart felt hearts full of loss

 We will not avoid it.”

Yellow-Seventeen’s Entry in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

So, you’ve landed on Yellow-Seventeen, have you?

Lucky.

I doubt you quite planned it this way.

Ran out of credit,

Thrown off a spaceship,

Regular stuff that happens, right?

What we going to do now, says that little back-of-head voice.

Loudly.

You’re a frood on a mission, you need credits,

There has to be entertainments - by which you mean drinks,

And there has to be good company.

That’s why you hike, right?

Let’s find a bar, you need a drink or two.

Or ten.

Wherever in the unimultiverse you hail from,

There’s an analogue beer,

Or spirit waiting,

Before you touch the local stuff.

Be warned, that local stuff is pretty strong.

Special.

Locals say outlanders should only ever have one.

I had six.

Or maybe eight.

Only out of it for three weeks. Months.

Now, company, you’ve met Y-Seventians.

Pretty.

But they’re pretty unimpressed with drunk outlanders,

Not paying tabs,

Chasing folk around.

Real unattractive, like.

You’re not from Yellow-Seventeen but you want to learn.

Knowledge.

You hear about a couple of jobs for likely hands,

Picking fruit,

Servicing transports.

End up invited to some social gatherings.

You drink, sure, but not a ridiculous amount.

You dance.

With a couple of the other pickers you put on shows,

Sing a song,

Do a routine,

Make everyone smile a little while.

Yellow-Seventians like to smile bright.

Wildly.

Not a smile wider in the unimultiverse.

You saw it firsthand,

You made it on your own,

On this yellow-green planet.

Disaster strikes in the simplest of ways.

Foreseen.

Your ride off Y-Seventeen arrives.

Say goodbye to the boss.

Say au revoir to the lover,

With a heavy heart - it’s just the take-off, you say - you’re off into the unimultiverse,

And on to the next planet you touch down on.

The End of the World

When the Yellow sun grows red glows white,

Engulfing the future ancient old.

Seismic shifts, plates crack,

The tallest mountains falling into the deepest sea.

I will still remain on Yellow-Seventeen.

When the volcanos spit,

Ash into the sky and lava onto the land,

Choking gas; burning rocks,

Cities devoured by flaming rivers,

I will still touch Yellow-Seventeen.

When the deep blue boils,

Leaving just salts and minerals

Barren lands and dust bowls,

Moistureless influidity.

I will still see Yellow-Seventeen.

When the animals cry,

Scream and bolt and flee.

Panicked stampede,

Crazy horses running blind fury.

I will still hear Yellow-Seventeen.

When neighbours take up arms,

Against each other.

Anger and violence,

Towards strangers and the Other,

I will still feel Yellow-Seventeen.

When it all ends,

Planet split by the enlarging sun,

I will remain on Yellow-Seventeen.

From the first spun-out planet-forming debris,

To the very last thrown-out planet-formed debris,

I will remain as text here,

I will remain as thoughts in process,

I will remain as memories you carry on,

I will remain as Yellow-Seventeen.

Endroduction to Yellow-Seventeen

The exoplanets beyond Neptune and Pluto are unknowable to us though they are familiar; they have inhabitants, customs, geographies, atmospheres, weather cycles, origins, and endings. Out there is life, it is other life though still life.

Yellow-Seventeen is such a planet. While Yellow-Seventeen is an exoplanet, Yellow-Seventeen is an attempt to translate aspects of an exoplanet in a human perspective.

When Ryan Thompson first mooted the idea of Planetine I liked the way the exhibition could be used to explore imaginary planets. Yellow-Seventeen could be my Coruscant, my Middle Earth; I could brew Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters and raise replicants.

Science fiction allows this spectacular speculation. Actually, all fiction does, it is not a feature solely embedded in sci-fi. This was my approach to Yellow-Seventeen. This speculation makes the ordinary extraordinary and renders the extraordinary ordinary. Again, all fiction has this amazing power to exaggerate aspects of life and use them explore the human condition.

I didn’t want to overindulge. I wanted to show off Yellow-Seventeen in the same way an Yellow-Seventian might write about earth, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas (Under Milk Wood, 1954), ‘thou I know you will be the first, to see our best side not our worse.’

My original plan was to write two hundred and eighty nine Senryú about Yellow-Seventeen. These proved to be a little difficult to produce, the limitation of three lines of five-seven-five syllables was frustrating. Of the fifty-odd I did produce, sixteen remain. Partly because of my self-imposed restriction I rebelled. I rebelled spectacularly and the result was ‘Yellow-Seventeen’s Entry into the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’ Like interstellar floodgates opening in the space of a week I had the basics for what you see in the exhibition.

James Corah

Extra bonus material! One of the many ideas that circulated among the Planeteenies was possibly creating a newsletter about our planets, to be called Planet Express (for reasons I will only reveal if you ask nicely). Anyway, here’s my contribution.

Planet Express!

The Fruit Pickers’ Show

Review: A familiar event at the end of the fruit picking season, the Fruit Pickers’ Show is part celebration, part revue, all party put on by Y-Seventians and outlanders. Given the number of hours these guys end up working it is amazing they have the energy to put on such a fabulous show.

Fruit picking on Y-Seventeen is serious business so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the comedy came quick and fast. There were prop sketches involving bananas, Semme Grusto continued the long tradition of mimicking the great and good of Y-Seventeen, and four outlanders put on a sketch they called ‘Four Yorkshire men.’ While there is a great deal of familiarity in Grusto’s act, four men trying to outdo each other for childhood hardships seemed too familiar. This sketch was repeated as a much welcomed encore at the end of the show.

Folkmusic was the order of the day, with instruments from all six continents and outlander worlds represented. Luxo Freem led the audience through a series of national anthems before the musicians descended into improvisation. I said descended though it was more transcendence from all involved, melodies collided and continued, changed and challenged into new forms.

The food and drink on offer was spectacular: Y-Seventian seafood rubbed shoulders with herbs and sauces; soft cheese was used in an outlander dessert with a biscuit base (unfortunately, though this writer had a lot of this dessert he didn’t manage to catch its name); and of course there was a fantastic fruit salad.

Before the close of the show the current chair of the Fruit Pickers, outlander David Flanks, gave a moving speech about the origins of the Show, about raising money to help the pickers on to their next jobs, and about the foundation of the Fruit Pickers’ Union. Understanding is key to life on Yellow-Seventeen for both Y-Seventian and outlander alike, it is ever heart-warming that our fruit and cultural feasts are so plentiful.

Poem

Press Play Again - 28/01/2016

What shape does that sound have,

Of the regular, rhythmic beat and the swish, swoosh, swoon of a melody.

How can you leave me be,

Opened up, bare, bear hearted to the world,

With a glance and a glimpse, you are gone.

Paused.

Stopped.

Press play again.

Where do those words come from,

The simple complicated way of saying complex, clear things.

   - "I never knew I was a lover"

I always had an inclination,

Cornered, not like the others, fighting, singing,

I hold you are long as I can, you are gone.

Fade out.

Skipped.

Press play again.

Why do you leave me so messed up,

Three, four minutes of joyfulness confusions, of love and Beatles references.

  - "Just because I stole the thing you hide"

Did it take you long to write,

The effect you affected,

To completely change my life around?

Repeat.

Repeat.

Press play again.

After the world changed, after the noise and the words,

I do not recall the before, I cannot recollect the silence.

  - "I want to be the King of Spain"

I keep you in my head,

I keep you in my heart,

You may never know what you did to me,

I may never even tell.

I play your record again,

Just once again.

Press play again.

Note - So, yes, this is a draft, I want to change it, certainly some of the lines and words in the third quarter. But also, yes, I like this a lot.

Round-Up '90

A rough collection of the notes I've made for blogging recently. 

December music trawl trawls into January

I'll be honest, what started out as a good idea got caught in what John Lennon called life. I thought thirty-odd songs that I like and wanted to share. 

Urged on by friends, spending time listening to videos on YouTube, it was a great idea. Maybe. My videos weren't that out-there, the left-field I covered didn't compare to the left-field of friends (or more correctly, I wouldn't compare my left-field videos to the awesome left-field suggested by others), and then there's life.

Life. And unfortunately life can be annoying. So maybe I shall record my December trawl with just one video, which links into something else I'll be writing about later.

King of Spain, The Tallest Man on Earth

Lindi Ortega/Doubts

Lindi Ortega is currently touring in Europe, playing live tracks from her most recent lp, Faded Gloryville. This is a good lp, I'd recommend it for a listen, Lindi is one of those artists who seemingly (for me) just go and it's good and entertaining and sings about stuff I think about. 

At the Brudenell Social Club on 26 January 2016 Lindi introduced Faded Gloryville as one of those places one ends up in if they are washed up or are passing through when one is having doubts. Artists have doubts, everyone does, where they are going, what they need to do, when will their time be. While that lp is something I've listened to a number of times, watching her introduce it that way live kind of made it even more approachable. 

The lovely thing about watching Lindi Ortega live is the surprises. Dancing, encores, fantastic instrument playing (the guitar sound was awesome, but that bass), just a good night all round. 

The Buried Giant Review

I was given this book as a birthday present at Christmas, having spent most of the year looking forward to reading it. Now, with about thirty-forty pages left to go I find myself trying to stretch out the experience. Since I reached page 250 I've started and read about a third of Terry Pratchett's Sourcery and advanced considerably through my bus-read, Dune.

There is not much left to do. Thirty pages is a good, relaxing evening session, an hour of really intense ignore-everything reading, it's not going to take long. So it might have to be finish, break for a day or two, then crack on with reading it again.

The curious thing is I've only ever done this with a handful of books at various times in my life. When I first got reading as opposed to having reading thrust on me as a product of school, I read through Pratchett's Mort three or four times. I was about fourteen I think (rough guess) and had been introduced to the series by a rather enthusiastic uncle. The next time around it was Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout. 

While rereading Mort was about exploring the joy of reading, rereading Sombrero Fallout was the joy of exploring where thoughts and words can take you. Both books are fantastical, though not the same kind of fantasy, and both books feature keys and time pieces. The third book I've ever reread straight away is Bo Fowler's Scepticism Inc. I am led to believe this is a natural phenomenon which does not need exploring.

Kirkstall Spoken Word and Performance Festival

Working on Kirkstall Festival has been one of the best experiences of my life. Actually, community activism has led to some of the best and most beneficial experiences of my life, the Festival, Kirkstall in Bloom, the On The Edge Festival, all of those things have made me realise the link between myself and my community. I am firmly of the belief that one should establish that link as soon as they can and then work on it for as long as they can. 

Myself, preparations for this year's Festival are underway (feels like it's been on since the day after the last one). And it will be good, packed with activities, stalls and performance. You should come, you should.

I've been thinking that beyond Kirkstall Festival's main activities there would be the potential to hold an event that focused more on spoken word and performance. Both of those are part of the main festival but I want to move them centre stage, and bring together poetry, drama, performance, comedy, story-telling, and presentations.  

There's a couple of possible shapes for how this could happen. An all-in-one-day festival with multiple stages or a series of daily events linked by the theme of the SWAP. It's early days, and there's a lot of things happening, but it is a good idea that could fly.

Poetry Workshops

I've signed up to a poetry workshop run by Jen Campbell. It will be exciting to see how I do, I've always written and made notes for poems but never really forced it anywhere. There's a lot of scraps of notes of lines, serious stanzas or silly single sentences of words that amuse me. In the run up to the workshop I made an effort to do two things, firstly, I've been working on something linked to the few lines below, secondly, a draft of a full poem released elsewhere on my blog.

{Poem removed}


Is the earth flat?

New Year Jump

The start to my New Year included chasing a very muddy West Highlight White Terrier around my parents' house to aid in its bathtime. Apparently, once he's in the water he's fine, it's just the getting him in the water bit that's the problem.

There's a number of projects and things happening in 2016, and I feel the need to bring my writing under control. All of it, this, my messing around with stories, all. There was a bit of slackening off towards the end of 2015 which I should really try to avoid happening again. In my notebooks there was very little, and the ideas I had for blog posts, poems, stories, all seemed to get washed away.

Music and the environment

Let's celebrate. Let's shout out loud those times when the music we're listening to in our heads or physically chimes with our environment. 

Share the joy of when the beat of the track is mimicked by the external sound of a forklift truck reversing. Tell someone, any one, everyone, when the heavy rain starts just as the cymbal is hit.

Just as the echo chamber is released.

Just as synthesiser goes through seventeen shades of the chord A-Minor.

Or that beat you're moving to, the sound of the chain of a skip-truck making out the tink, tink, tink of a cowbell or triangle in your head.

Loop in, in your head, that is your music and the environment.

Balancing branches

It is fairly reasonable to say that Emperor Palpatine is an untrustworthy fellow. He is Gollum without the calming influence of Smeagol, Sauron and Melkor[1] combined, Vorgons if they were evil, a Bond villain that manages to triumph. Palpatine ain't no friend of yours or mine[2].

I mention this because I've read some of the 'journey to Force Awakens' comic books and Chuck Wendig's Star Wars Aftermath in preparation of the forthcoming film. I am a little excited, it is a film I'm looking forward too, and the comic books and book appeal to what I think is Star Wars, my expectations and experience.

The chance to speculate on possible themes also appeals. Upon finishing the fourth issue of Shattered Empire it occurred to me I had seen the tending to a garden training method elsewhere. In fact, it's in one of my favourite comic books, Usagi Yojimbo, in which our hero confesses to his training master that he couldn't tend his garden. His master then says the test wasn't about gardening, the seeds had been boiled, but to see whether Usagi would cheat or confess his weakness.

Shattered Empire climaxes with a high-security laboratory being broken into by Luke Skywalker and Shara Bey[3] to recover trees Palpatine had stolen from the Jedi. Luke is surprised there are two trees, and they agree to look after one tree each. Bey gets to keep one because "it should go to a good *home*." Fairly simple instruction, and yet...

The massive narrative[4] of Star Wars up until now has been binary. Jedi and Sith, light side and dark side[5], "do or do not", even when the films have touched the muddy grey-area that is closer to life it has been on good/bad terms. Binary does not work if one eliminates 1 or 0.

So, what if the two trees are binary. What if Luke knows, through the 'magical powers afforded to him through the Force', that one tree is tainted, like Usagi's seeds, never to grow properly? If Shara Bey is given a tree because her future, her home, is good; by extension Luke's future, Luke's home, is bad. And bad in this binary universe means Sith.

Aftermath deals with the Empire's 'long game' and doesn't feature any gardening (sadly). What it does feature is interesting characters that Chuck Wendig has put a lot of care into. The characters are believable, they hurt and make mistakes, they drink to forget. And not 'shoot the wrong being' mistakes, mistakes in interpersonal relationships. In this universe relationships happen, and they go wrong, just like human relationships.

There is a line in The Big Bang Theory's theme about how we attempt to unravel all the mystery with mathematics, science, and history. Culture helps us solve these mysteries; when the boy dies at the end of the book, when the singer sings about architecture, when nuclear war results in a comic book about law and order in overcrowded mega cities, all of these narratives create space for us to examine more than just what is in front of us.

A science fiction western movie, heavily based on an earlier Japanese film allows this space, just in the same way and to the same extent that a restoration comedy does. To deny one over the other is to give into the dark side.

That mystery is simple to ask and so, so complex to answer. Are my seeds tainted, or will they grow, and how can I know for certain before I plant them?

Notes
1 - I will now paraphrase Kent Brockman, 'it's in the Silmarillion, people.'
2 - 'BB-8's going to be one of the greats, it's a fact he buys rounds for all of his mates', I could keep up the Star Wars themed rhyming couplets until Arthur Dent gets his cup of tea.
3 - Bey being mother to Poe Dameron.
4 - That was a typo but I might stick with it, expect micro narrative and macro narrative to appear some time. Soon.
5 - 'You make me cry,' to paraphrase Glasgow's Urusei Yatsura.

Date night for shop assistants

There is a shopping assistant in Dundee who had a date on Saturday night. There is two colleagues in Forfar who have experienced the same nuisance caller in their shop. There's lots of these kinds of things happening between shop assistants across the country because shop assistants are human and have human relationships[1].

Anticipation of Saturday's date was high, though expressed in a non-committal way. She will 'see what happens,' 'not expecting much to happen' though can't decide what she will accept as acceptable activities. This was all relayed to me as I wandered around the charity bookshop she worked.

So, where might it have gone? I'd roll a D12 and check out the results against the Date Outcome Table. If you score 13 it will be an amazing date.

While I was in Dundee I spent a lot of time pondering whether to buy the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Pack. I've often thought about doing this, just don't really know a great deal of people[2] who might be interested in learning/playing.

Most of my role-playing has been a singular activity via books and video games. On my Android Hudl I have some chose-my-own adventures, and I've play a lot of rpgs on so many consoles (I rather like Zelda games, but my favourites would have to be Golden Sun and FFVII[3]), but physical, game master and players around a table has alluded me.

What do I think I am missing out on? During the question and answer for Frank Furedi there was (rather reactionary) questioner who suggested 'books good, video games bad' to which Furedi replied that video game play was not wholly bad as it was play. For me I think it is the social aspect of role-playing that I have missed, as I have quite an active imagination[4] already.

Notes
1 - There is a shop assistant in _ whose primary relationship is with their PDA, but she doesn't talk about it much as she's catching up "on some things."
2 - I could end the sentence there.
3 - There is not much chance of me completing FFVII without the help of my brothers. There's not much chance of me ever completing most video games without their advice.
4 - Very imaginative at three in the morning listening to the noises of a creaking house move as it cools and reacts to the weather outside and the wind alongside the exterior walls.

The art of handling talking about books

I have to be careful about how I talk about books, there are certain ways one has to discuss reading. Likewise, music is a subject that requires considerable thought, listening is similarly to be revered. It is only by turning these activities into something "splendid and worthwhile"[2] that you, me and everyone can discuss books. Only those who read worthwhile books, listen to only pre-approved 'good' music, whose reading elevates their daily life, whose collection contains absolutely no 'guilty pleasures', they are the only people who are privileged to talk about books and music.

What poppycock, what utter nonsense peddled by the lazy and those who wish to keep a sense of us and them. As much as I try to be progressive in my life there is nothing that "just gives me the impulse to be complete reactionary"[3] more than the person who says there is a worthwhile book or record, by extension there are unworthy books and records.

I will try to refrain from writing this only a handful of times in this but THERE ARE ONLY BOOKS AND MUSIC AND HOW PEOPLE INTERACT WITH THEM.

On Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 October I attended two more events at the Ilkley Literature Festival, Frank Furedi: The History of the Remember, and Treasures of the Brotherton Library. Three events in total[4], my first proper convention (though three out of everything Ilkley has to offer is not that much). My overwhelming desire is to do more next time, and take the opportunity to ask questions and talk with the other bloggers and commentators there.

The three events managed to take me through all the aspects of books that I love and dislike, from celebration to dismay, with the discussion of the panelists or guests to the questions of the audience. There is a discourse happening here, which is to be encouraged, though generalised, lazy, disingenuous discourse should be avoided.

There were some aspects of Frank Furedi's talk that impressed me considerably, and there were other aspects that drove me up the wall. Furedi has written a book on the power of reading, and I need to read that before properly being able to comment on it.

That said, there were the occasional comments that I'd like to pick up. Furedi discussed his own reading experience as well as those that lead him to start his book[5], which appeared to be a number of students at the university he teaches at not reading handouts or recommended text. This lead to a lot of research as to the role of reading thorough history.

Reading is good, books are one of the most amazing things humans have ever created. And not just book as in two covers and paper between them, book as in document that represents fact or non-fact, fiction or fictionalized. All that which can be at one's finger tips.

Yet there is a tendency to be negative about books and reading, from society at large and from booksellers in particular. Jen Campbell mentioned that booksellers could be doomsayers even when book sales were up for the first time since 2007[6]. Furedi discussed how reading seemed diminished as something that people enjoy, making suggestions about how reading is taught and the decline of public libraries.

And underneath it all, that spark of people reading, enjoying, sharing the connections between books. There is an issue with reduced library number but it is not solely a reading issue, libraries have always had a central role in communities, once they are removed, closed, shut, they remove, close, shut a community hub[7].

There is an issue in how people talk about books, and I think this is where I need to read Frank Furedi's book before commenting. I do not think there is an unworthy book, and we should celebrate that there is fanfiction just as much as there is Milton[8]. If someone enjoys any given text let's celebrate rather than berate their choice.

It is possible to construct a way to talk about worthwhile and splendid books. How, you ask? Really, you need me to show you, oh, you do?

Well, firstly, I suggest there is a value for every book. Every book, taking note of what I said earlier. Now, if one takes all the differing values everyone places on books, it's quite hard to correlate them. One needs easily definable values, such as monetary or rarity. The bonus of using these these kinds of values is that it replaces the conservatives' 'good/unworthy' equation with one that they really like showing off, money. This book X and Y like, you see, Y likes it more because they bought a rare first edition copy that cost more than reasonable because every other third word is misspelt.

The value of books is in the reading. Value can be found in how reading then spurs on to further reading and connecting with other readers. Money plays a part, either in the transaction to purchase a book or the financial underpinning of public libraries, but monetary value is not reading. A first edition of The Hobbit is still just an edition of The Hobbit if it is untouched.

Notes
1 - The title had originally been a quote from a book about reading.
2 - Starting early with the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy quotes, this one from the very first radio episode from the 1970s.
3 - Super Furry Animals, The International Language of Screaming, 1997
4 - Reading And Writing In The Digital Age being the first, or third, if this were a list.
5 - It all started after a comment piece in the London Times, that home of free press behind a pay wall online.
6 - Is this the triumph of print? The Bookseller, 26/09/2015 
7 - Hub is not a bad word, and it is a useful way of describing those places were communities gather.
8 - Both Paradise Lost and Fifty Shades Of Grey were mentioned during Furedi's talk, one 'good' and one 'bad' example of books.