Conrad Eliot James Austen

Sir Jacob Epstein's bust of Conrad (1924 - the year of his death), Birmingham Art Gallery

I wake up and my fears have fought their way from my core to my skin after sleepless dreams and dreamless sleep. In that no-one’s land between the states of sleeping and waking, sweat demands and end to this, demands action. Yes! No more! I’m infused with change until I find my Id is playing with the controls as usual.

Let’s see: CAD and Winterson, Erich Fried and Searching for England, late Graham Greene through Martin Amis’ eyes. On a stroll through Linz and Habsburger Barock, not only the discovery of Plague Columns and blatant hankering for magic numbers, but also the connection between paving stones and concentration camps. Karl Kraus and Thomas Bernhard twice, through him Wittgenstein again, and did you know that Erika Mann was married to W.H. Auden, and the bloke from Trainspotting to Angelina Jolie? He’s Mr Knightley on the BBC, and I’ve struggled with F.R. Leavis again (hence the title) – another loop closing. I could also throw 12 Lucifers at ‘Numbers’, and ‘Deuteronomy’ at genocide. Der Kontrabaß, however, entertained superbly.

Waiting for Gold

Photo from the Staffordhire Hoard Website; added Monday, October 19th

If out of Mercia’s Earth it had not been dug, we would not gaze at Victorian brick today. If I fail to describe the filigree gold garnet gems, it's because the poodle’s core is in the hours spent.

Henry’s Capricorn, not Goethe’s Faust, wiles away the time. He thinks Dostoievsky, at an age unknown; we, however, all came together, of age that is, on January first. Between then and lolling May, I read Cancer, lost Virginité, Jalousie, Bourgeoisie - and the hope to write. Wilfully deliberate it was, liberating, too; painful and hard in ways of the world previously unknown, and although annihilated, I knew I would soar with him and Lawrence, and the quest had begun. Without double tonics they were not, those thirty-four years; there were Beckett, Ionesco and O’Neil, Erikson and Erica, and conquering our local bard’s tongue. Always someone hot under the stache but none as billy-goat horny as him. They say you never forget your first. Indeed.

Bar one black sheep, the horde awaiting the hoard is civil. Curse her.

Out of Time

Neither Prozac, nor Cocaine. Whatever fuels the MadMen, our sustainable source shall be Poetry and Prose! The first injection while the kettle boils: a jet of exhilaration through those vermillion veins. Pirouettes and tambourines – oh, to hang on the lyrical drip for the rest of the day!

Alas, time and tide waits for no man or woman. Crazy Caligulas and King Canutes pile ponzi pyramids on a bank of bubbles, and the “smarter than thou” socialites engage in verbal snowball fights. Guardianistas, accused of being science illiterate and paranoid, lament the demonization of adversaries. They gleefully label each other, while food label trickery goes unnoticed. As does, amidst the arguments, the GM element of the uteri jabs for whole generations. Is this a galaxy of gullibles, divertibles, and distractibles? Easy prey for screen based poly-addictions?

I phone, You tube, We blog – conjugating the 21^st century. Pixels, pictograms and pictures, tweeting twitter, wicked wicki, a quick quiz, a short chat, a swig of soapy soma - TEMPIVORES, one and all!!

Back to books, the primal impulse!