No Planet B

These last few days, it has been my intention to find a recording of Rob Newman's latest show. It has some songs in it that I've been humming for days. The title track, "No planet B", is a dirge and anthem for sustainability. The show as a whole is a look at history intertwined with a love story that's just soaked with pathos (Especially the denouement, "Walking to Geurnica"). It also embodies my love for the absurd and tragic.

"I do not like you. You do not like me.
Ain't it pleasing that we both agree.
We are Europeans,
The original barbarians,
But we're good for cake, canals and cheese."

As such, I was very glad to find that the show (which I've heard described as a musical lecture) is online in a words-and-pictures format.

If you like being depressed and inspired, you'll like The History of the World Backwards.

MADRE DE DIOS

Summer, for the perpetualy educated, is a wasteland. However, I do what any good post-Pong socially-inept male does; I replace human friends with electronic entertainments.

The communal TV in the Tower, here, has two means of activation: a button on the front and a cellotapéd remote control. The button on the front fell off forgotten ages ago. This leaves the TV dangerously reliant on a single control device, and one that is not firmly attached. The situation is precarious. I did not, it turns out, appreciate how close to total ruination I lived.

It's been 48 hours since I've heard the sound of a lightsaber.

I think I'm getting the shakes.

Bandits

No Bran Report today, people. Uncle Nathan's got a rumbling in his abdomen like he angered a vindictive god. For now, go and read this article (link courtesy of Ryan North) about Olympia, Washington.... the town where the Racoons are in command now.

Gen. Per. 127

Gen. Per. stands for General Periodicals, and in it is a French title, Comptes Rendus that might be called Matters Submitted in English. We've been moving it a few days now. It's a long series. It's so long, in fact, that I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever finish it.

It could well be that the bookmoving team will grow old and grey with Comptes Rendus. We'll be moving it so long that future generations will conclude that we were created by a tidy-minded god for the express purpose of moving Comptes Rendus. In time, rivers will change their course and mountains will fall, and we will still be shelving Comptes Rendus.

I've heard it said that in strange ages even Death may die, but when it does I bet that our mortality will fall away from us like shadows, leaving bloodless automata singing worksongs in a language now forgotten. Any strong soul who stops to listen to our angular bubbling, however, may catch a fragment of meaning- a scant snatch of sense, repeated over and over: Comptes rendus, comptes rendus, comptes rendus.

At the end of this planet, of course, the sun will falter and choke on itself and swell up with wrath. We will look up at the blood-stained sky and see the baleful eye growing larger day by day, hour by hour. Knowing the end is near, we plead with our long-dead gods:

"But we haven't finished Gen Per yet!"

The Jam on Bread and a Mug of Coffee, I Guess it's Like a Continental but Really Crappy Report

You know, it's amazing how a man can spend all day playing video games and thinking to himself "Man, bank holidays are awesome" and then roll up the street at ten to eleven at night, expecting to find a shop to sell him milk and toothpaste.

Blargh.

Addendum

This is basically the most unsatisfactory grilled cheese sandwich I have ever eaten. I think it's time to do sum-bout-dis.

The grill-cheese report

You see, I can't have Bran this morning. Not that I'm out if bran, no... bran deposits in our kitchen would keep me happily bloggin' for weeks. However, I also need milk. In our tiny shared kitchen it isn't practical to store more than a litre and a litre doesn't last you long, not when you love bran like I do. This means that I end up going to Gainda on a fairly regular basis.

Gainda is an off-license that also sells milk and biscuits, and it is the closest retail outlet to my tower. It was previously known as Londis, and before that it was the St. Clement's street post office. I have loved it in all it's incarnations.

What they also have, bizairely, is a box of tokens that made the washing machines in the tower work. I broke a note buying them when I first moved in, to discover the machines had all beeen removed. They have now been replaced, but with machines of different token requirements. This means that I have to face a choice:

Keep two featureless discs of metal as souvenirs of my time in Oxford
or
Tell the good folks at Gainda that they've apprently been cut off from the lucrative box-of-discs-under-the-counter trade and ask for my £2.40 back.

I can't do the first without feelin' like a jackass, and can't do the second without feelin' spineless. The issue is going to be forced on me if I want to eat bran again, though. And I don't want to have to go tinkerin' with the blog title. It's a dilemma.

Also: Late entry!


I mean, I do love being dry, upright and handled with care...