novel #2 excerpt

HOME SWEET HOME
I know I can’t really blame anyone or anything. But it’s the most intense memories we remember isn’t it? Our brains, our entire nervous system, doesn’t give us a choice. Memory is instinctive and emotional. Like how a duckling remembers to follow whose ever feet walk in front of it. Or how a puppy remembers to not do things after it’s been scolded. We remember what has been there, what has made us feel.
What has shaped us with its reverberations, and caused us to follow in its wake.
What has swept us up and left us shaking.
Our bodies still shiver from emotional ripples created years ago.

Massive emotional pain or massive pleasure = remember.

A single memory can be retrieved several times when the proper stimulus is presented.
Retrieved and relived, over and over.
Emotions like waves roll in. Washing over me.
I’m no big wave surfer though you think I would have worked out some technique by now.

I crash into the waters.

The hippocampus is named after the sea horse. Because it’s shaped like one. In mammals, from hedgehogs to humans, the hippocampus has a similar appearance. However a bigger body however does not mean a bigger hippocampus and we see this expressed over and over. Quite simply, the hippocampus however takes up a much larger volume of the brain in rodents than in primates. What does this tell me? That a rat has a better memory than a monkey? And if Darwin was right, where does that leave us humans?
What could be contained in that rat’s brain leaves us humans relatively stupid!
Who’s to say?
I was born the year of the Rat. Perhaps a redeeming feature, I’m not yet sure.

And the seahorse? Why, the male fertilises the eggs and gives ‘birth’. My human-skull-encased hippocampus, my sea horse brain. Mixed up and turned upside down. What a glorious state of affairs.
In my sea horse brain are my memories. I watch them now, my memories, scurrying around in my aquatic equine brain. My brain cells like bunches of floating balloons that cluster together and whisper to me their stories. Formed in the shape of a sea horse they speak to me. Billows of colour merge and open up to form these filmic moments in time.
They are as real now as then.

The brain can’t differentiate between real lived experience and invented. Ask any hypnostist.
Ask your sea horse brain.
What really happened then? What really happened?
Really?
Really?

Sea horses daily speak to each other, engaging in a long courtship. A strong bond between the parents aids the survival of their young.
My memories that link one to another, one to another, something happens in this life and links me back to my past my previous times. This ensures my survival. This forgetting and remembering. One thought links to another thought links to another. One to another. One to another. Linked. Endless links in a chain of memory.
Some of these are full large and bright, others hide behind closed doors, only opened at very specific times. Some are so small they require searching. Then once found reveal a tiny shiny jewel, and sometimes a sharp hurt.

It was Julius Cesaer Aranzi named the hippocampus after the sea horse. Not because it’s anything aquatic, well no less than we are mostly made up of water. But because it’s shaped like one. A banana more like it, I think. Hippocampus is just a romantic name for a banana shaped part of the brain.
Darwin was right. We are monkey brains indeed. As I swing from memory to memory. Not much control over what happens next.
But naming things gives us power and brings them to life.
This I know.

My memory is contained in a sea horse.
And I know this.
My memories do not exist in straight chronological lines rationally moving from one to the other. Stopping at ‘now’. But they come to me in swirls and spirals, on tides of emotion, one jumping to the next. It is this I am trying to make sense of.
One jumping to another and back again. Filling each other in, taking from each other, borrowing from each other. And next time I go there, it may have changed.
I ask myself did this really happen?
Did it?
It doesn’t matter.

It is these things I remember.

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an open letter to eric dando, whose tv i broke 8 years ago when i was living with him and i never really apologised properly

dear eric,

it’s been a long LONG time i know. and yes, you were there when i broke the dial on your tv. which was old and on it’s way out, and didn’t even have a remote, (at least i dont remember it having one) but you did love watching it, a lot. a lot more than i was comfortable with.
and it was a stupid fight. (as fights tend to be)
i told you to go outside. it was sunny and you were lying on the couch as you often were, watching tv.
i was acting all mum-sy and i know it was ridiculously rude of me. but i was fed up.
i hate tv see. really really hate it. so i just walked over and turned it off and you got angry. i hit the tv. i must have been really really angry! it seems quite alien to me now, all that rage, but yes, the channel turning dail broke off onto the floor. a broken section of it, a broken large section of it that rendered the dial unusable.
why i was that angry still baffles me. and i felt really bad immediately afterwards. but i didnt let you know that. and i probably should have apologised right then and there. i dont think i did. at least i dont remember apologising. (hence this letter.)
and i was always impressed by your artistic talent. and no, i probably never let you know that either.
but i want you to know a couple of things. years later as it is. 8 i think if my memory serves me well. which it often doesn’t.
and that is this: i think you are a great writer. while i risk sounding like a complete sycophant, i loved your book. as much, if not more than your first one.
and i want you to know, now i have two copies. because, i should tell you i found your latest book in a second hand bookstore and i quickly snapped it up not because i wanted two copies, as i had already forked out full price for it at some bookshop whose name doesnt need my promoting, but because i didnt want anyone else seeing it so soon after being released in bookstores, to be available ’secondhand’ .
you deserve people paying full price for that work of art. damn it.
(that was exactly what my thought process was. well almost. well actually i tried to put myself in your shoes and i thought if i was eric dando, right now, would i buy this book so it wouldnt be seen in the second hand store or would i not.. i figured you would.. did i figure wrong???)
the thing is, i wanted more people to buy your book. ever since it’s release, i have been barracking silently for you. (and not so silently too. i mean, i havent made myself a knitted oink oink-scarf or anything, but yeah, i talk about it with friends. when they examine my bookshelf and see your two, well three books there, shelved side by side.
by side.
but now, im somewhat confused. and considering i just discovered a really easy way to contact you, through glorious time waster facebook, i can ask you…
what do you suggest i do with my spare copy?
it seems greedy of me now to have two…
and now i think, maybe i should have left that book in the second hand bookstore…
what should i do eric??
i mean i have two copies of slaughterhouse 5 but thats because they have very different covers, (one from the 70’s and one from the 90’s) and well, you more than anyone else i know, would understand my obsession there.
sigh…
so yes, i have been barracking, you could say, well before and well after the aforementioned unpleasant and somewhat unexplainable tv breaking incident.
and most of all, eric, want to congratulate you. on writing novel #2. it’s been a long time between chats, and i know now how hard and lonely and well, it’s hard to avoid the cliches of what a writer’s life is. but as i now know, it’s also quiet and calm and extremely tranquil at times too. sometimes, most times, well mostly tranquil.
til some housemate breaks your damn tv dial.
sigh…
so gosh, i hope you weren’t too disturbed by my television knob breaking outburst.
im really terribly sorry.
at best perhaps you can turn it into a short story.
or at the worst, i want you to forget it ever happened.
(if you had already forgotten, i regret reminding you…. )
i extend my hand in friendship and i would like to quickly remind you of something you told me which i will never forget.
you said, if you dress like a gardener you can get away with all sorts of things.
while you were not explicit about that these ‘all sorts of thing’s’ are, just between you and me, i have found this to be true.
so, thank you.
again.

i hope you have a new tv. or it broke on a channel that you like watching a LOT.

in friendship,
mazzie starr.
x

should i take the book back… should i not. should i post it on bookcrossing?
should i give it away?
shall i mail it to you?
am i thinking too much about this?

am i blogging at a stupid hour again.. at least to that i have an answer. YES.
sigh.

oh.. ive written a novel. im still working on a f*king synopsis. why is it so hard???
http://tisforcathedral.wordpress.com

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another snuggie blanket parody + more uses of ‘blankets’?

oh and btw, i heard that ‘they’ (read – people who are spectator sport inclined) are wearing snuggie’s at the football. why am i not surprised?

and if you havent had a laugh yet, at craftastrophe.net – now is the time.
i have one question. what’s wrong with this picture? what?
note: this is not a parody of snuggie.
>

and i hate you, yes i hate you whoever made this, for destroying forever my love of sock monkeys.

<img src="http://amandabransgrove.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/mrjohnson.jpg" alt="mrjohnson" title="mrjohnson" width="261" height="400" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-151

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panis et circenses (bread and circuses)

yes apologies, there appears to be a good 6 months between november and my previous blog and well, i have no excuse.

i am attempting to reconcile all my blogs into ONE blog.

is this possible? only time will tell.

today it rained. a lot. for once. hence my cat stayed inside my room. and did everything he could do get my attention…

he stood on the keyboard..eg.. (actual cat typing..) 0222222222222258888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888488==][[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[

and…my desktop…

so i felt like it was necessary to include a photo of my desk? why? because i am concerned.. i am concerned that i am a stereotype. it just screams geek, bookish, sci fi,  child of the 80’s.

i refer to :

1. star wars comic book in a paper book version (30c from an op shop mind you!) it’s pages are genuinely aged yellow and it misses the first ten pages – they have been ripped out, but its a bona-fide marvel comics version.

then we have the 2. darth vadar figurine. bought about a year ago from a service station. so NOT original figurine.

3. a boom-box mousepad. gimicky from a gimicky shop. but at $8 and needing a mouse pad, it exists. (my bruce lee mouse pad was ’stolen’ by a previous house mate)

4. an umberto eco book of essays – travels in hyper-reality. a bit dated now but still a good easily digestible social theory book of essays.like baudrillard’s essays on simulcra and simulcrum, eco pulls apart this ‘age of simulation’ and hyperreality, this world of the ‘Absolute Fake’where imitations don’t merely reproduce reality but try to improve upon it as he travels across America. From Disneyland and Las Vegas to Superman the movie, and spectator sport (namely the World Cup). Most timely that i read the essay tonight about spectator sport as Nick and i vehemently critiqued the Herald-Sun newspaper today – as we are oft to do – for it’s saturation with ‘human interest’ stories (the aussie battler and/ or aussie hero – with large almost full page color photo) and of course, the aussie (read white and yes, of course, male) sportsman and their games. argh. spectator sport. even Roman emporers, as Eco notes, observed the usefulness of circenses. ie. useful as shrewd devices to maintain a dictatorship. so, back to the herald sun. we have ron barassi (with an obligatory head shot – for the Herald Sun can never have enough imagery!) offering social commentary on anything and everything as though his opinion, as a retired australian footballer and coach means more than a head of sociology at an Australian University/ a commissioner of police/ ANYONE really relevant to the situation. why should ron barassi’s opinion on social issues like carrying of knives be relevant? why??? melbournians what has happened to you all???? i hang my head in shame. the bane of an educated mind.
argh. journalism and media today!
bread and circuses indeed.

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mc sweeneys – open letters

just to have an hilarious sunday night.. i was found reading

“AN OPEN LETTER

TO JONELLE, WHO

SENT A THREE-SONG

DEDICATION TO HER

BOYFRIEND, ROB.”

laughed? sure did.

my open letter would be to my house mate who insists on smoking outside and dragging cigarette smoke inside with her and then watches over 10 hours of commercial television a day.

maybe i will begin it now.

dear housemate,

not that i would call you dear, more likely, deranged or demented and i probably should let you know straight up, my friends and i refer to you as ‘the yeti’.

so, let us begin,

deranged yeti,

i have decided it is time now for me to take more serious action. yelling cajoling asking politely and writing you kind letters have all failed. pushing you outside and locking the door did have some effect however the neighbours would probably eventually call the police if i did that every time what with you yelling you f’ing b&#@tch through the glass while i looked on fascinated at your the way your face contorted even more horrendously than what it normally looks like.

yes, you arent exactly pleasing on the eye and hey, after cancer treatment for lung cancer and only just surviving, i cant exactly expect you to be an angelina, BUT that brings me to perhaps my greatest point. why the f#%! are you smoking when you have only recently recovered from cancer anyway????

a drain on society???

it makes me wonder, do you think that all taxpayers just there to support your ignorant and lazy stinking wasteful life?

you are an embarrassment and an abomination.

the abominable yeti.

in disgust, amazement,

your housemate.

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