Beast & Field - The Webzine for Hunters

Infinite Monkey: Part Two

2012-01-24T01:51:00.000-08:00

Robert Downey, Jr: “Pray you, avoid it. Do you get that? That was Shakespeare. Heard of him?”

Zach Galifianakis: “Yes I’ve heard of him! He was a famous pirate. And by the way, it’s ShakesBEARD.”

Infinite Monkey: Part One

2012-01-24T01:47:00.000-08:00

If a monkey hits keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time he will “almost surely” type a work by William Shakespeare. At least in theory.

The Infinite Monkey Theorem has many variations. In one version it’s a vast quantum-vivisection lab filled with a million monkeys who merrily bash the keys for eternity. In another version it’s a single immortal house-monkey sitting alone at a beaten up Underwood with his ink stained sleeves rolled up above his hairless elbows. Trapped in perpetual labour, his sole directive is to compose the work that is not only beyond his ability, but also beyond his comprehension.

Obviously, the monkey is not an actual monkey but a metaphor for some kind of conceptual machine capable of generating a random sequence of letters … for ever. In the final analysis the odds of a monkey typing a precise work of Shakespeare is so tiny that the chances of it happening before a thousand universes expire are essentially zero.

… Although not actually zero. In any case, if a clever monkey does happen to show up with a fresh copy of The Merry Wives of Windsor some time before the end of the universe it will be the first time the phrase “Stranger things have happened!” can be answered with, “… No they haven’t!”

When you consider how much Shakespeare owed to agencies beyond his control—to fate, genetics, the success of his ancestors, the ability of several of those ancestors to shape his upbringing, the hyper-productive capabilities of his own subconscious, and the work of all the great writers, thinkers and scientists who needed to come before him—it was blindingly far from certain he would ever grow up to write the things he did for us.

Further, it’s even more blindingly unlikely that some of the atoms thrown up from the collapse of a dying sun would eventually assemble themselves into the precise combination: William Shakespeare. Modern neuroscientists might also make the point that even if you steered young Shakespeare to his table in London and shoved a quill in his paw, you’d be flattering him to say that he was truly in charge of the ship. We are only just beginning to learn the extent to which our subconscious mind is in command not only of our creative activities, but of all aspects of our daily lives.

It might be possible to think of the greatest writer in the English language as someone destined to happen regardless of conditions. But in a way I think it’s even more lovely to consider his happening as a grand chemical accident, the perfect storm of atomic constitution and external input. The chances of creating a clever monkey like Shakespeare are almost zero—but not exactly zero.

Two Outstanding Articles Exploring Aspects of the Publishing Business

2012-01-03T03:08:00.000-08:00

Death and the Author: The Story of Helen DeWitt

On Not Rolling The Log: Glen David Gold

The Fabric of the Cosmos

2012-01-03T02:54:00.000-08:00

In 2011 I finished my first novel. (I mean I wrote one, not finally got around to reading one.) Watch this space for further dramatic news.

The book I wrote explores humanity’s struggle to find meaning in a bold new quantum reality: where objects can exist in several places at once; where time flows not just forwards, or backwards but slantways too; where concepts such as ‘space’ and 'causality' and 'punctuality' are meaningless; and where our universe is just one of an infinite number of possible realities, each appearing and expanding like a bubble in a limitless ocean, only to vanish in a wink and leave not a trace of its existence in the cosmic foam.

Or something like that. To be honest it's all a blur.

I couldn’t have written my book without Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos, a ‘… grand tour of the universe and the best layman’s guide to current thinking on how everything works’.

It's a brilliant and bewildering book. I very much hope you enjoy it.

Matt.

Fabric of the Cosmos (Penguin Press Science)

On the Road

2012-01-03T02:52:00.000-08:00

On The Road is an autobiographical work describing Jack Kerouac's road-trips across mid-century America. Kerouac was fond of relating the story of how he wrote the book in one three-week typing frenzy onto a 120-foot roll of gold-embossed, 12-ply toilet paper pilfered from Orson Welles' guest-house, but this version of events is probably embellished.

Here is Kerouac's book ...

On the Road: The Original Scroll (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

And here is my own Google-maps version, written in one exhausting session in 2010 on the back of a sheet of refill paper taped to another sheet of refill paper.

On The Road — Memoirs of a Motion-sickness Survivor ...

The Very Sucky Giant — A Christmas Story (Reposted)

2011-12-21T03:28:00.000-08:00

There was once a Giant who lived in the middle of an old town in a high-spec, split-level home with semi-detached lodge for guests (though he rarely entertained, he mostly just used the lodge to get his head together.) The Giant also had a large, lovely garden. It had been designed by a Swedish landscape-artist known for his ability to create the illusion of space in restricted urban environs. Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden."How happy we are here!" they screamed at each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been away in Cannes promoting a film he had produced. When he arrived home he saw the children playing in the garden. "Get out of my dutch elms!" The giant said in a very gruff voice, and the children gaily soiled themselves.

Then the giant built a high wall all round the garden and put up a notice.

TRESPASSERS

WILL BE

MURDERED

He was a very sucky Giant.

Now the children had now nowhere to play, except the local youth centre - which was full of dealers and smelled of pee. They used to wander round the high wall when their lessons were over and talk about the beautiful garden. "How happy we were there," they said to each other. "Let's set fire to it!" But the wall was made of stone and the giant had installed thermal sensors.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were blossoms and birds. Only in the garden of the Sucky Giant was it still Winter. The birds did not care to sing there as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round."

Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave only grapefruit. "Enjoy your weird, shitty-tasting fruit!" she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees like annoying theatre people.

"I cannot understand this," said the Giant, as he sat at his vast window, on his beloved Eames, and looked out at his frozen meditation pond. He wondered if he was dreaming, but the Giant never dreamed. "Dreaming is for pussies," he often said to himself. "I can't think why winter would be localised exclusively to my garden, but I'll need further evidence before I can leap to the absurd conclusion that this kind of weather event is caused by human activity."

One morning the Giant was lying awake in his king-size Japanese memory-foam bed when he heard some lovely music. It was a little linnet singing outside his window. "I believe the Spring has come at last!" said the Giant, and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, thereby evading his motion sensors and laser-guided tranq-darts. They were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight. Only in one corner it was still Winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said. "Now I know why the Spring would not come. I will put that poor little boy out of his misery, and then I will knock down the wall. So he crept downstairs and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they they all ran away, and the garden became Winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. The Giant stole up behind him, licking his lips, but at the last minute he changed his mind and put the boy up into the tree, and the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy flung his arms round the Giant's fat neck. Then the other children came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe to knock down the wall, but the children saw the axe and ran away, and it immediately became winter again, and the giant thought, "This is getting ridiculous." But they soon returned, and when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.

"But where is your little companion?" he said: "The boy I put into the tree."

"We don't know," answered the children, "he has gone away."

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But not the little boy whom the Giant loved. "How I would like to see him!" he would say.

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing for work. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that by opening his heart he had made Winter his bitch.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonderment. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child, and when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on his little feet.

"Tell me, that I may get some of my associates to hurt him!"

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"That's weird!" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, but to-day you shall leave this world for another garden, a garden of fire!"

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms. The little boy explained to them: "For years this giant ran a complex and clandestine ponzi scheme with several of his buddies. My Dad gave him our savings, and the giant lost it all. Because of that, Christmas in our house has not been a time of joy; it has been the suckiest no-present suck-fest you could ever imagine. Don't even get me started. Today I came to take my revenge on the giant, but it seems as if some of the imported cactuses in his garden have leeched into his drinking water, causing him to hallucinate that I was Jesus, and that Winter was localised entirely in his garden, and ultimately to die of a cardiac arrest. It's funny how life works out, isn't it?"

And the children all agreed.

THE END.

Atahualpa Yupanqui - La Copla

2011-12-15T04:31:00.000-08:00

To the Editors, Random House & Associates

2011-11-01T05:56:00.000-07:00

To whom this interests.

Twilight, as I’m sure you are no doubt aware, is a highly successful series of novels about a young woman who must make one of life's most painful decisions: whether to give her precious flower to a sulky vampire, or an angry moon-puppy. It is a situation that most young women can relate to. These books are the reason I became a writer in the first place, and in the second place, a waiter. The series has spawned many imitations, and publishers such as yourself are now slathering to find the next big semi-adult, supernatural-forbidden-love franchise.

Below are my ideas. Please get in touch by phone or send me a fax.

IDEAS:

1. Phantasm of the Human Heart

Jenny, a young woman on the brink of sexual maturity is forced to move to a small mountain town where she has no friends (just the school janitor, Custer, who follows her everywhere.) She does meet another lonely outsider, Mark, who turns out to be a ghost. The pair fall in love, but are unable to consummate their relationship due to Mark’s nebulousness (which is a metaphor for all teenage boys.) Mark has the idea that he will inhabit other physical objects (table, lamp, draft-mule) and then Jenny can make out with them, but she’s not into it. Their love ends tragically one night when Mark is secretly watching her shave her legs and experiences a poltergasm which makes her house fall down.

2. The King of the Mountain Kings.

Tina, a young woman on the brink of sexual achievement is forced to go inside a mountain and live with a tribe of dwarfs -- for reasons I won’t go into. She has no friends; the dwarfs are surly and antisemitic. They have a lust for the ancient ‘black gold’ buried in the mountain and become angry when Tina points out that it is coal. On the precipice of despair, Tina sees that a tall, bearded stranger has arrived in town. When she asks about him she is told his name is Lord Sweathammer. She eventually discovers that her Lord is really one dwarf riding on another’s shoulders, but unfortunately not before the wedding.

3. Boy-Mummy.

I’m still sketching this one out and it obviously needs a better title. Mathilda is a young girl who is forced to go on holiday to Egypt with her archeologist, divorcee Dad. While wandering alone in a tomb she encounters a 4000-year-old teenaged Pharaoh, Max. Max is withdrawn, listless, unresponsive to Mathilda’s advances, and, on closer inspection, dead. When Clara asks a local wise man if anything can be done to revive the mysterious Max, the man replies, “Oh that’s just tourist shit. I will show you a resurrection.” Then it all goes a bit weird, and that’s when I wake up. Oh, I forgot to say this idea is based on a dream.

4. The Mysterious One

Kylie, a young woman on the brink of sexual magnificence, goes into the witness protection program. She meets another lonely outsider, Josh. Josh is a mysterious boy: moody, sullen, brooding, and with a fiery temper. Kylie tries to get close to him, hoping to learn the terrible secret of who he really is. Vampire? Werewolf? or something even stranger? In the end it turns out he’s just a dick.

My Fabulous Fashion Life

2011-11-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

Here is an article excerpting my experiences as a glamorous international fashion blogger.

Descent of Species

2011-11-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

David Eagleman:

"In the afterlife, you are treated to a generous opportunity: you can choose whatever you would like to be in the next life. Would you like to be a member of the opposite sex? Born into royalty? A philosopher with bottomless profundity? A soldier facing triumphant battles?

But perhaps you've just returned here from a hard life. Perhaps you were tortured by the enormity of the decisions and responsibilities that surrounded you, and now there's only one thing you yearn for: simplicity. That's permissible. So for the next round, you choose to be a horse. You covet the bliss of that simple life: afternoons of grazing in grassy fields, the handsome angles of your skeleton and the prominence of your muscles, the peace of the slow-flicking tail or the steam rifling through your nostrils as you lope across snow-blanketed plains.

You announce your decision. Incantations are muttered, a wand is waved, and your body begins to metamorphose into a horse. Your muscles start to bulge; a mat of strong hair erupts to cover you like a comfortable blanket in winter. The thickening and lengthening of your neck immediately feels normal as it comes about. Your carotid arteries grow in diameter, your fingers blend hoofward, your knees stiffen, your hips strengthen, and meanwhile, as your skull lengthens into its new shape, your brain races in its changes: your cortex retreats as your cerebellum grows, the homunculus melts man to horse, neurons redirect, synapses unplug and replug on their way to equestrian patterns, and your dream of understanding what it is like to be a horse gallops toward you from the distance. Your concern about human affairs begins to slip away, your cynicism about human behavior melts, and even your human way of thinking begins to drift away from you.

Suddenly, for just a moment, you are aware of the problem you overlooked. The more you become a horse, the more you forget the original wish. You forget what it was like to be a human wondering what it was like to be a horse.

This moment of lucidity does not last long. But it serves as the punishment for your sins, a Promethean entrails-pecking moment, crouching half-horse half-man, with the knowledge that you cannot appreciate the destination without knowing the starting point; you cannot revel in the simplicity unless you remember the alternatives. And that's not the worst of your revelation. You realize that the next time you return here, with your thick horse brain, you won't have the capacity to ask to become a human again. You won't understand what a human is. Your choice to slide down the intelligence ladder is irreversible. And just before you lose your final human faculties, you painfully ponder what magnificent extraterrestrial creature, enthralled with the idea of finding a simpler life, chose in the last round to become a human."

Anonymous writes: Snappy Answers to Stupid Spammers

2011-07-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

It would be fair to say that a large number of the comments I get on this website are from young spam-artistes desperate to use my media clout to get them on the ladder of the potentially lucrative making-me-buy-sexual-enhancement-products industry. One of their key strategies is to praise my site in a way which makes me think that what I’m reading are some kind thoughts from a genuine fan. What they don't realise is that my true fans are literate individuals whose comments hardly ever contain the term “sturdy erections”. Here, for the first time, I publish some of my favourite unpublished spam comments, with my responses.

Anonymous writes: Dear Author www.suddain.com ! I congratulate, excellent idea and it is duly

Yes, my friend, it is Duly! But before you know it, it will be Daugust.

Anonymous writes: Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?

Of course! You may take all the vowels - except Y, which I sometimes need.

Anonymous writes: lets talk about your favourite sport games. i live football.

Thanks, I enjoy greyhound racing and nude paint-ball battle reenactments. Where do you live? Let’s drink coffee!

Anonymous writes: Is it practicable to altercation interdependence couple with you? Regards, Mirek.

Mirek, you are asking if I swing? This is a big step for me and I would need to see some photos of you and your wife first. FYI, don’t just send your holiday snaps. You’ll increase your chances if you put some effort into costumes and scenery. Best of luck!

Anonymous writes: Good day You bored habitual sex!

Good day, you creepy cyber-ghoul!

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Thanks for writing, Congo. I do put a lot of effort into my posts, but my smithereens of the situation is only one point of view, and there are many other sites available in the oblivion.

Anonymous writes: Is it possible to truck identify with with you? Regards, Marie

Yes, Marie, meet me at junction 44 of the M25 today and we will truck identify together.

Anonymous writes: ...please where can I buy a unicorn?

At your unicorner store, friend! Or Harrods.

Anonymous writes: Stay us for the nonce to buy more information and facts!

I understand. It is hard to find a nonce to buy you information since they closed News of the World. Have you asked Piers Morgan?

Anonymous writes: Ей захотелось заплакать, но слезы не к лицу боевому офицеру.

Your typing's gone crazy there. I think you spilled боевому on your keyboard!

Anonymous writes: You pall its girl or wife you're tired of itspartner, a lover can not You bring, you looking for diversity in Personal Life?

Mirek. You’re coming on a little strong. Let’s just start with the photos.

Anonymous writes: Hey, I am checking this blog using the phone and this appears to be kind of odd.

It’s not your phone.

Anonymous writes: The plants are not provided with any support so that they make a thick layer of growth which will cover a wide area of the bank.

That is interesting. Please tell me you are not writing this while burying a corpse.

Anonymous writes: So qrazy.. Mmm.. After

You are strange and funny. You should have my job.

Anonymous writes: Delete shis text plz. Sorry.

Consider it done. For shiz.

Anonymous writes: Hello! I'm newbie in Internet, can you give me some useful links? I know only about Yahoo.

This might help ... www.piersmorgan.com

Great Books

2011-03-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

An Artist of the Floating World

By Katzuo Ishiguro

"Yesterday morning, after standing on the Bridge of Hesitation for some moments thinking about Matsuda, I walked on to where our pleasure district used to be. The area has now been rebuilt and has become quite unrecognisable. The narrow little street that once ran through the centre of the district, crowded with people and the cloth banners of the various establishments, has now been replaced by a wide concrete road along which heavy trucks come and go all day. Where Mrs Kawakami's stood, there is now a glass-fronted office building, four storeys high. Neighbouring it are more such large buildings, and during the day, one can see office workers, delivery men, messengers, all moving busily in and out of them. There are no bars now until one reaches Furukawa, but here and there, one may recognise a piece of fencing or else a tree, left over from the old days, looking oddly incongruous in its new setting."

Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain in 1960. An Artist of the Floating World is the story of a painter, Masuji Ono, whose retirement seems tranquil, but whose memories continually return to the past - to a life and a career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism. The book was short-listed for the Booker Prize and won the 1986 Whitbread Book of the Year Award; it has been translated into fourteen languages. Ishiguro is the author of The Remains of the Day, and his most recent book, Never Let Me Go, is being made into a film from a screenplay written by Alex Garland, and starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield.

The book is sad and brilliant. I hope you'll consider reading it, then writing to me and telling me you loved it to.

Purchase An Artist of the Floating World

Face of the Day (On Beauty)

2010-08-27T04:28:00.000-07:00

I hate beauty pageants. I have no moral platform. I just think that saying, "beauty pageants aren’t representative of modern women” is a bit like saying, "circus clowns aren't representative of modern comedians."

“Beauty,” said Albert Camus, “is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.” “Beauty,” said W. Somerset Maugham, “is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it.” “Beauty is the evidence of why we are here,” said Adrian Canfield, and “Beauty will save the world,” said Fyodor Dostoevsky. “To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders,” said Oscar Wilde. “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances.”

“Angelina Jolie,” said Donald Trump, owner of the Miss Universe pageant “is … not beauty, by any stretch of the imagination. I really understand beauty. And I will tell you, she’s not. I do own Miss Universe. I do own Miss USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s not.”

Now you might find it hilarious to hear the concept of beauty so critically defined by a man sporting the black ocular pits of an ageing rhino, the limp jowls of a University Don, and a haircut that looks like a multi-million-dollar apartment development for sparrows. In an unguarded moment you might imagine Donald himself crossing the stage, to the hoots of well-dressed men, a mat of hair spreading like desert grass across his undulating torso, an ill-fitting swimsuit straining to flatter his sub-prime millionaire junk, the scant lycra hemmed at one edge, perhaps, by a stray frill of pinkish scrote, and the whole affair watched from above by a set of gray, pendulous man-tits. I would not be so uncharitable. Donald is not a beautiful man, I think we can all agree on that, but need one be a painter to appreciate art? And need one himself be an attractive person to dispense wisdom on the subject of beauty? Sometimes beauty can be best defined by its opposite.

I was a correspondent at the Miss Universe Pageant in Vietnam in 2008 (Please read my story here). I got to meet the competitors, host Jerry Springer, and a then unknown young performer who called herself Lady Gaga.

For entertaining and well-considered ideas on the nature of beauty, it's worth browsing the works of Oscar Wilde.

Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Collins Classics)

An Open Letter to Mothers

2010-07-13T07:33:00.000-07:00

I was recently commissioned to write an open letter to our mothers (on behalf of their sons) for Mother's Day. The letter was meant to express everything we feel about the women who created us, and how grateful we are for all the sacrifices they've had to make. It was surprisingly well received and my own Mum even emailed to say it made her cry (although she wouldn't say whether this was out of pride or embarrassment.)

Of course, in reality, I'm a very different person from the sensitive soul this piece portrayed. In reality, I am a total badass who has no time for feelings or emotions. Ask my Mum if you don't believe me.

Here it is.

Face of the Day

2010-06-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

Keith Richards is a living God.

It is one of life’s great ironies that he probably has a reasonable amount of moss growing on him.

On Preventing Identity Theft

2010-06-08T10:17:00.000-07:00

Identity Theft happens to 1 in 5 persons (though they are all basically dead to us now.) The common misconception about Identity Theft is that it will be like the movie The Net, starring Sandra Bullock. In reality, it is much, much more painful and expensive, like the movie Speed 2, starring Sandra Bullock.

Here are some tips for avoiding Identity Theft.

- If your bank gets in touch to ask for your account number and passwords, your wife’s maiden name, or photos of your infant children, first check to see if they have a proper logo. A real bank logo has a clean, elegant design, and seldom includes a clenched fist or necklace made from skulls. The address should be a real address and not include obviously made up locations like “Anywhere Street” or “Banking District.”

- It might surprise you to know that your baby has an identity. A Russian mobster called Anton Dubeke once stole the identity of a baby called Richard Hammond and spent a whole year living for free in one of Britain’s most prestigious daycare centers.

- Your fingerprints mock and betray you. Every time you handle a wine glass in a bar you are leaving a tiny piece of yourself behind. Wearing surgical gloves at all times doesn’t have to be a social liability. Many public figures do it: Keanu Reeves, Donald Trump, The Edge. And have you ever heard the name Billy Bob Thornton? Me neither, but apparently him too.

- The other day I got a message from an "Organisation" called “Worldwide Fund for Nature” asking me to help them save the “Endangered white rhino.” Rhinos are grey. Another group wanted money to stop the “Genocide” in the “Sudan.” It is a common ploy to make up a fictional country that is similar to your target’s first or last name. Beware of this kind of scam with your own name: Timor/Tim, Niger/Nigel, Chad/Chad, Uzbekistan/Rebeccastan.

- Identity Theft can even happen outside the Internet. Never let a mall cartoonist capture your image. And never let a man-whore take a Polaroid for his “Files.” There are no “Files,” just an old shoebox marked posterity/blackmails.

Alien Picture Show

2010-05-09T02:13:00.000-07:00

Nothing sums up the dizzying, exploratory weirdness of our childhood quite as well as the moment when we watched a boy called Elliot get smashed off his face in a Coors Light alien mind-meld and snog Erika Eleniak while frogs skipped 'round his ankles. It is a signature memory for any personality which formed during the 80's because it concisely captures the alien strangeness of sudden-onset adolescence. Also, because no producer would ever, ever, consider allowing such a bizarre scene to be included in a modern G movie.

After E.T., my generation took its obsession with the idea of alien life (and Erika Eleniak) to such a degree that it became almost spiritual. These aliens will be wise and tender, probably naked. They will gently chastise us for our warring ways, and introduce us to amazing new technologies: love-bots, mood-plugs, hover-nannies, extra-sensory fellatio, and baths which let you wash between dimensions.

Perhaps realising that the religious instinct was central to a belief in alien life, Steven Spielberg intentionally bedded religious ideas in his epic movie about an alien spud who arrives from the heavens, befriends a group of misfits, evades the authorities, performs miracles (healing, levitation,) prays for deliverance, is captured, put through a series of trials, dies, wakes up again, and ascends once more to the heavens (but not before leaving his friend a message of hope and friendship.)

Spielberg has said that he never intended the film to be a religious parable: "If I ever went to my mother and said, 'Mom, I've made this movie that's a Christian parable,' what do you think she'd say? She has a kosher restaurant on Pico and Doheny in Los Angeles." I assume she’d say, “That’s hilarious.” There are so many ideas from the life and martyrdom of Christ in his film that it is inconceivable to think it was accidental: from the composition of his followers (all boys, one girl,) to shots of the alien performing miracles with a blanket draped like a shroud over his lumpy head, to the scene, where he prays in the forest for deliverance while his followers sleep. Even the poster-art for the film has religious connotations: it is is an obvious spoof of the Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. It is impossible to see the film as anything other than an intentional satire of a rival faith by a prominent Jewish filmmaker, and perhaps the second greatest religious satire behind Life of Brian.

Our perceptions of alien life have changed dramatically since E.T.. Recently, our greatest physicist, Stephen Hawking, spoke out against efforts to establish diplomatic relations with other planets. These creatures will not be friendly, he thinks. They will kill our livestock, take our stuff, and mock our puny brains and eclectic sense of fashion.

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

Aliens aren’t benign anymore. They steal us from our beds, they mercilessly probe our hillbillies, they have no desire to send luminous, green-skinned ladies to show us their advanced knowledge of human g-spots; instead they will lay eggs in our brains, or send their squid-like spawn to suck our faces. They are a testament to our new and apparently Godless Universe. They will stalk us over the rubble of our cities in omni-legged deathpods, and at the end of a hard day of conquest, they’ll kick back by unhooking their lower jaw and gobbling down a hamster.

(To be fair, this is also how Madonna feeds.)

Prompts for Young Novelists

2010-02-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

Starting a novel is hard: first you have to think of an idea, then you have to write it. As an aid to aspiring writers, I have designed 10 "Prompts" which can be used to get the old juices flowing, and some new juices, hopefully. The most important thing is not to censor yourself, because, as we all know, censorship is wrong. Just take the prompts one at a time, go with your first impulse, let the ideas flow, and before you know it, you’ll be a fully published author, probably. Good luck!

PROMPTS:

1. “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” she screamed.

2. As Donna's head began to spin crazily, Richard picked up the manual and noticed that her instructions were in Dutch.

3. “Helmet!” The man did not answer.

4. As Troy watched the heavy shape fall towards the stormy waters below, he felt that same familiar sensation stir, deep down, in his sack.

5. As Professor John Langhorne strode down the darkened corridor of the Louvre he suddenly noticed that the Mona Lisa had some kind of code on it.

6. Ontogeny recapitulates philogeny,” gurgled the mind-baby.

7. “Not again! This always happens to my hair!” said John Mayer.

8. "Do you have any great ideas for a novel?" laughed Sarah. "As a matter of fact, I do!" replied the Professor, before telling her one.

9. “Gregg, you are about to go literally, and figuratively, to heaven,” said the cock-witch.

10. "Dear Miss Jones," the letter began. Thank you for your query regarding the publication of your crime novella, 'The Sack of Troy'. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you any assistance at this time."

11. Tina woke and went to the bathroom mirror. "That's not my face!" she exclaimed.

On The Road

2010-02-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

My new Google Maps essay, 'On The Road: Memoirs of a Motion-Sickness Survivor', is here.

Please Judge a Book by its Cover: A Compendium of Popular Wisdom

2010-02-12T09:48:00.000-08:00

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”

Contrary to opinion, the cover is one of the best ways to judge a book. On the cover you’ll find the title, the author’s name, a short biography, selected quotations from prestigious journals (often,) and a concise description (or “blurb”) of the characters, story, and themes of the work. The cover even has a piece of art designed to graphically evoke the mood of the book. In short, a cover is an excellent way to judge a book.

NEW PROVERB: Judging a book by its cover is the third best way to judge a book, short of reading it, or skimming the review in the Times Literary Supplement.

“An eye for an eye leaves the world blind.”

It’s clear that if two combatants each lose an eye they will still be left with two functioning eyes. This is assuming that they each had two functioning eyes. If the combatants are both pirate captains, or Cyclopses, then yes, there is the possibility of total blindness. Perhaps this proverb is speaking metaphorically about the entire world, and the pointlessness of violence and retribution, but even then you’ve only removed one eye from each human, which wouldn’t make the world blind, though it would make driving more dangerous.

NEW PROVERB: An eye for an eye will not leave the world blind, though it may make it harder for the world to judge distances.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

I beg to differ. If you go to the trouble of fooling me on consecutive occasions, perhaps inventing mysterious foolin’ machines, or stringing intricate webs of fallacy, until I’m lost, wandering in a mire of deception, not knowing which way is up or down, then still shame on you. I’m not here for your amusement. Get a life.

NEW PROVERB: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on you again, dickwit.

“A penny saved is a penny gained.”

I’m no expert, but I don’t think you can just make a proverb by stating the same fact twice. “A sock in the drawer is a sock indeed.” It’s perfectly obvious that if I have a penny, I’ve gained a penny. We don’t need an aphorism.

NEW PROVERB: If you don’t have any good proverbs to say, don’t say proverbs at all.

“All's fair in love and war.”

We live in a more enlightened age, and recent events have taught us that techniques like waterboarding, and genital electrocution, are cruel, and probably the reason why 50% of marriages end in divorce.

NEW PROVERB: It is plain wrong to zap a man’s balls, even if he did snog your mate, and especially while he’s napping.

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

It’s the egg. No, ssshhhh, don’t say anything, it’s egg, the answer is egg. The creature who would evolve to become the mighty chicken laid eggs. There were no chickens roaming around who suddenly learned to lay eggs.

NEW PROVERB: The egg came first. End of discussion.

“Better wed over the mixen than over the moor.”

A mixen is a compost heap or dung pile. Thus, this strange proverb means: “Better to marry someone who lives beyond the dung heap than beyond the hills, or, “Better to marry a neighbour than a stranger.” I suppose that’s true, though someone who lives in the next town might be preferable to someone who has chosen, for whatever reason, to live beside a gigantic pile of crap.

NEW PROVERB: It’s generally better to marry a neighbour, though you might set your sights higher than someone who lives beside the town’s communal septic mound, and also, you might want to check with his wife first.

“A blind man's wife needs no paint.”

I am going to go out on a limb and say that few wives require painting.

NEW PROVERB: Few wives require painting. If they do, paint in a well ventilated room and allow at least 6 hours for drying.

“The early bird catches the worm.”

Are there no worms around after 10? I like to sleep in. So shoot me.

NEW PROVERB: The early bird catches the worm, but don’t worry, it’s not the only worm. Enjoy your lie-in.

“Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.”

I was at my cousin’s wedding, and it was super hot, and the bride fainted and got duck shit on her dress, which is no good. Then a stray dog ran in and started licking itself. No one knew where to look, though mostly we all looked at the dog.

NEW PROVERB: Keep the bride out of the sun, and think twice about a riverside wedding in Hamilton.

“Imagine no possessions; it isn’t hard to do.”

Easy, I imagine, for those who have few possessions already. Harder, I would think, if you’re trying to imagine no possessions while hammering away on your magnificent ivory Steinway, in your palatial country estate, shortly before falling into the arms of your Japanese conceptual hoochie.

NEW PROVERB: He of the banquet should not preach of the bowl.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they’ll never sit in.”

Actually, I quite like this one.

The King is Not Dead

2010-01-08T05:04:00.000-08:00

An Imaginary Conversation with The King That Aligns Itself with Popular, Contemporary Conspiracy Theories.

AIDE
Ok, Elvis, we just need to go through this one more time so we can be absolutely clear. You’re saying, basically, that you would like us to help you to fake your own death.

ELVIS
That’s right.

AIDE
Ok. Just remind us why you want to do that.

ELVIS
I’m tired, baby. Tired of all the fame. All the attention. I just want to be left alone.

AIDE
Right. Because, you know, we did the TV special, we did the tours, the Vegas shows. We did all that stuff that you wanted us to do to put you back in the public eye. You got us to take you to visit the President.

ELVIS
President Nixon.

AIDE
Yeah.

ELVIS
Nice fella. Nice fella.

AIDE
Ok, so anyway, hypothetically, if we did help you to fake your own death, and bearing in mind that we do NOT support this idea in any way.

ELVIS
That’s cool.

AIDE
But if we did help you, you would be able to choose any means of death you like. I mean, the sky is the limit. Any kind of spectacular, heroic exit that you can reasonably conceive of—we can do that for you. Theoretically.

ELVIS
Sure.

AIDE
I mean, high speed race-car crash, jet explosion, zeppelin fire, rescuing a child from a burning building. You can die screwing yourself to death with eleven beauty queens if you want. We could arrange it so you appear to die while jumping over a shark tank on your motorcycle.

ELVIS
Sounds dangerous.

AIDE
(Heavy sigh.) Ok, so with all that in mind, taking into consideration that there are literally no limits on the way that you can appear to exit this world, tell us one more time how you’d like to go out.

ELVIS
Dead on a toilet.

AIDE
Dead on a toilet.

ELVIS
Dead on a toilet, baby.

AIDE
Right.

ELVIS
In my underwear.

AIDE
In your underwear. Ok. So out of all the heroic and spectacular deaths you could have, you would like to be remembered by history as a drugged, bloated corpse on a toilet.

ELVIS
That’s right. Corpse me baby! (Laughter)

AIDE
Ok, we … let’s come back to that issue. The other thing I’m having trouble coming to terms with is … you said that after you’re gone you want to … come back once in a while?

ELVIS
That’s right. Comeback specials.

AIDE
You want to reveal yourself to people?

ELVIS
Sure. That’d be cool.

AIDE
Even though you’re supposed to be dead?

ELVIS
On the toilet.

AIDE
Ok, and where did you imagine these appearances happening? Churches, hospitals, mountain tops?

ELVIS
Malls.

AIDE
Beg pardon?

ELVIS
Malls, I want to appear in malls, 7/Elevens, Dairy Queens.

AIDE
(Heavy sigh.) Ok Let me just … I mean … (Heavy sigh.) We’ve done a lot of crazy shit for you. I mean, man alive, the stuff we’ve done. Do you do know how foolish it is to fake your own death? That’s crazy enough. But then to start “materializing” in restaurants and convenience stores. Just walking into a mall there and wandering around. I mean, that’s just so mind-blowingly reckless …

ELVIS
And on crackers.

AIDE
I’m sorry, what?

ELVIS
I want people to see my face on crackers. I want people to open up boxes of Saltines and there’s old Elvis, smiling back at them. Hey, Davy, any chance you can get me some of them Saltines, maybe with some shaved ham, and some of that cheese I like, what’s it called?

DAVY
Gruyere?

AIDE
Ok, I’m just having a real problem getting my head around all this. Basically, you just had your big come-back. The whole damn world loves you again. We did Aloha Hawaii. 1.5 billion people saw that!

ELVIS
Phooooweeeee!

AIDE
Yeah. Now you want us to arrange for it to appear as if you’ve died of an overdose on the toilet. You want us to fly you to a secret island, an island which you want to call … ?

ELVIS
Qualudia.

AIDE
Qualudia. But you also want us to fly you back occasionally so that you can make appearances in convenience stalls, fast-food restaurants, and suburban malls.

ELVIS
Yeah.

AIDE
And to top it all off you want us to infiltrate a snack-food manufacturer and arrange for your face to be secretly printed on a small number of crackers.

ELVIS
That is correct.

AIDE
Colonel, I'm speechless. What the hell do you make of all this?

COLONEL
Boy, I think you’re madder than a sack full of raccoons in a bath full of snakes.

ELVIS
Thank you very much.
 

Kiwi Rhyming Slang

2010-01-08T04:47:00.000-08:00

I'm in London: The Grumpy Apple, The City That Often Sleeps. As an unofficial, non-payed, non diplomatically sanctioned cultural attaché to London it is my job to sniff out innovative ideas that can be adapted to my country of birth. This is how we got Gok Wan and competitive vomiting. One of the things that I think could do very well in New Zealand is Cockney Rhyming Slang—the street-slang invented in the 19^th Century by London merchants to confuse their wives and mistresses.

Here is a story I wrote for a New Zealand magazine on the invention of a Kiwi Rhyming Slang.

The Sucky Giant

2009-12-23T03:50:00.000-08:00

A Christmas Story

(With apologies to Oscar Wilde)

There was once a Giant who lived in the middle of a town in an high-spec, architect designed home with semi-detached lodge for guests (though he rarely entertained, he mostly just used the lodge to get his head together,) and though his home was minimalist, he used objects from his travels to express his style: an antique Japanese kettle that General MacArthur had once peed in, a Victorian, steam-powered dildo called Danielle Steele, and a bust of Ayn Rand killing an eagle with her bare hands. The giant had made all his money from hedge funds.

The Giant also had a large, lovely garden. It had been designed by a Swedish landscape-artist known for his ability to create the illusion of space in restricted urban environs. Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden."How happy we are here!" they cried to each other.

One day the Giant came back. He had been away in Thailand on "business". When he arrived home he saw the children playing in the garden. "Get out of my Dutch elms!" The giant said in a very gruff voice, and the children gaily soiled themselves.

Then the giant built a high wall all round the garden, and put up a notice-board.

TRESPASSERS
WILL BE
MURDERED

He was a very sucky Giant.

Now the poor children had now nowhere to play, except the local youth centre - which was full of drug dealers and smelled of pee. They used to wander 'round the high wall when their lessons were over and talk about the beautiful garden. "How happy we were there," they said to each other. "Let's set fire to it!" But the wall was made of stone and the giant had installed thermal sensors.

Then the Spring came, and all over the country there were blossoms and birds. Only in the garden of the Selfish Giant was it still winter. The birds did not care to sing there as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom. The only people who were pleased were the Snow and the Frost. "Spring has forgotten this garden," they cried, "so we will live here all the year round."

Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant's garden she gave only grapefruit. "Enjoy your weird, shitty-tasting fruit," she said. So it was always Winter there, and the North Wind, and the Hail, and the Frost, and the Snow danced about through the trees like annoying theatre people.

"I cannot understand this," said the Giant, as he sat at his vast window, on his beloved Eames, and looked out at his frozen meditation pond. He wondered if he was dreaming, but the Giant never dreamed. "Dreaming is for pussies," he often said to himself. "I can't think why winter would be localised exclusively to my garden, but I'll need further evidence before I can leap to the absurd conclusion that this kind of weather event is caused by human activity."

One morning the Giant was lying awake in his king-size Japanese memory foam bed when he heard some lovely music. It was a little linnet singing outside his window. "I believe the Spring has come at last," said the Giant, and he jumped out of bed and looked out.

What did he see?

Through a little hole in the wall the children had crept in, thereby evading his motion sensors and laser-guided tranq-darts. They were sitting in the branches of the trees. In every tree that he could see there was a little child. The birds were flying about and twittering with delight. Only in one corner it was still winter. It was the farthest corner of the garden, and in it was standing a little boy. He was so small that he could not reach up to the branches of the tree, and he was wandering all round it, crying bitterly.

And the Giant's heart melted as he looked out. "How selfish I have been!" he said. "Now I know why the Spring would not come. I will put that poor little boy out of his misery, and then I will knock down the wall. So he crept downstairs and went out into the garden. But when the children saw him they were so frightened that they all ran away, and the garden became winter again. Only the little boy did not run, for his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see the Giant coming. He was basically a sitting duck. The Giant stole up behind him, licking his lips, but at the last minute he changed his mind and put him up into the tree, and the tree broke at once into blossom, and the birds came and sang on it, and the little boy flung his arms round the Giant's fat neck. Then the other children came running back, and with them came the Spring. "It is your garden now, little children," said the Giant, and he took a great axe to knock down the wall, but the children saw the axe and ran away, and it immediately became winter again, and the giant thought, "This is getting ridiculous." But they soon returned, and when the people were going to market at twelve o'clock they found the Giant playing with the children in the most beautiful garden they had ever seen.

All day long they played, and in the evening they came to the Giant to bid him good-bye.

"But where is your little companion?" he said: "The boy I put into the tree."

"We don't know," answered the children, "he has gone away."

Every afternoon, when school was over, the children came and played with the Giant. But not the little boy whom the Giant loved. "How I would like to see him!" he would say.

One winter morning he looked out of his window as he was dressing for work. He did not hate the Winter now, for he knew that by opening his heart he had made Winter his bitch.

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonderment. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child, and when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, "Who hath dared to wound thee?" For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on his little feet.

"Tell me, that I may get some of my associates to hurt him!"

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"That's weird!" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let me play once in your garden, but to-day you shall leave this world for another garden, a garden of fire!"

And when the children ran in that afternoon, they found the Giant lying dead under the tree, all covered with white blossoms. The little boy explained to them: "For years this giant ran a complex and clandestine Ponzi scheme with several of his buddies. My Dad gave him our savings, and the giant lost it all. Because of that, Christmas in our house has not been a time of joy; it has been the suckiest no-present suck-fest you could ever imagine. Don't even get me started. Today I came to take my revenge on the giant, but it seems as if some of his imported cactuses have leached into his drinking water, causing him to hallucinate that I was Jesus, and that Winter was only happening in his garden, and ultimately to die of a cardiac arrest. It's funny how life works out, isn't it?"

And the children all agreed.

THE END

HETEROPODA DAVID BOWIE: FACTS

2009-12-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

I wish I was David Bowie, then I would get the maximum quota of respect, and men would invite me to have the sex with their wives while they watched (an offer I would decline with a knowing smile that seems to say, “I’ve been down that road, man. It was a blast, sure, but I’m married to four beautiful women now.”) Doe-eyed girls would ask me to do that thing where I twirl my balls in my fingers, and I would again smile knowingly as I said, “That wasn’t me, man. There was a small man in my robes who twirled my balls for me. True fact. Do you want me to sign those?”

FACTS:

David Bowie was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, London, on 8 Jan 1947. He shares the same birthday as Elvis. Rock guitarist Peter Frampton was Bowie's friend at school. David’s right pupil became permanently dilated when his friend George Underwood punched him in it. They were fighting over a girl. He changed his name to Bowie to avoid confusion with Monkee Davy Jones, who’d twice attempted to steal his soul. At the age of 17, Bowie was interviewed on a BBC programme as the founder of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long-haired Men. Bowie's first hit - 1969's Space Oddity - was used by the BBC in its coverage of the moon landing. Bowie was hit in the eye by a lollipop while on stage in Oslo, Norway in 2004. George Underwood became the main suspect, but he had an alibi, saying, “I couldn’t have thrown a lollipop that far from where I was standing,” to which the charging officer replied, “We didn’t even mention a lollipop, did we Noel?”

David is 5 feet and 10 inches (178cm) tall. David lives in London, just like me, though he won’t return my post. David recorded a version of Space Oddity in Italian titled Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Solo - which literally means Lonely Boy, Lonely Girl. He has been in 10 bands - The Konrads, The Hooker Brothers, The King Bees, The Manish Boys, The Lower Third, The Buzz, The Riot Squad, The Hype, Tin Machine and Tao Jones Index. There’s a spider named after David Bowie. The spider is described as being large, yellow and hairy. David Bowie has enough poison in his sack to kill an adult male, but his mandibles are very weak.

The Space Oddity 40th anniversary edition was released in the US this month.

www.davidbowie.com

The Butterscotch Bandits

2009-12-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

I have had a leg pain for a while now from trying to do the forbidden dance with a four-foot nougat Santa. (long story: I was drunk.) Now whenever it rains I get a pain in my leg, and whenever it stops raining the pain switches to the other leg. This pain is most acute during sex (which happened once.) What would happen during sex in the rain? I hate to think.

I have gone to various experts and body mechanics such as a regular doctor (who advised me to get a surgery,) and a country doctor (who said I should get kicked in the legs by a mule.) The best result I had was from a local witch doctor who took me into his hut and performed certain (I presume) ancient rituals. He lit candles and put on some nice music and we smoked his pipe and watched X Factor. That’s when I noticed that whenever Jedward (The Butterscotch Bandits) were performing my leg pain would almost completely disappear! (His neck-rubs also helped.) I was amazed, and even though through the night he performed a lot of other rituals on me (some which made me feel uncomfortable,) the one that worked the most was when I was watching the Butterscotch Bandits perform Under Pressure, by David Bowie and also Queen.

Well, since BB got their sweet little asses kicked off the show my leg-pain has returned. My witch doctor never called me for a follow up consultation and when I went back to his hut and rang the bell the lady there said he’d moved to Norwich (Norwich — Nor-witch?) and all his witch doctor stuff (oils, albums, rubber wands,) had all been boxed up ready to go.

I don’t know what to do now.

In Pain.

*******

Dear In Pain

Life is pain. Pain is life. I wonder if you’ve learned a valuable lesson about the consequences of dealing with charlatans. My friend, the Prince of Nigeria, still owes me $7 million, but I know he's good for it, I have his email picture. I love the Buterscotch Bandits, too! Ha ha!

Louis Walsh.