Friday, October 08, 2004
The last half of darkness
Dust and smoke failed to contrast against the waning power of the sun. I stook there, taken aback at the sheer violence enacted against my dreams.
The night had done enough damage already. Belfast in the winter is not a bright and happy place. The day begins late in the morning and fades away by mid afternoon. Despite this, compounded with cold and cruel weather, we went about our daily lives. I had been pulled out of school for this last month of the year to be there, yet there was little work for a 4th grader to take with him overseas, so I was left to my own entertainment.
Every day a helicopter hovered over our apartment building. Common sense suggests that it would have to come down to refuel every now and then, but as far as we could tell, it was always there. A shattered glass pane of a covered bus stop outside our apartment reminded us of the violence that was still going on.
It was impossible for the situation to escape my grasp. Soldiers were more common on street corners than street signs.... British soldiers packing M16s. Armored personal carriers would roll by just to scare the shit out of everyone. Every now and then a car bomb would go off downtown, and the helicopter's buzz would grow a little distant for a few hours.
When we met with some locals, I was scared to let them know that I had actually been born in England, until my dad comforted me and let me know that no one would hold it against me. I didn't understand the boys my age.. their dialect were very strong, and their attitude reflected their bleak atmosphere
Yet I had been ready for all of this... despite my age I realized that Belfast was not the most wonderful place to be at the time, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that I would at least get to visit a giant multi-story toy store in a nearby town.
Unfortunately, the Irish Republic Army blew it up a week before I got there, so all my dad could do was show me where it used to be. It was still smoking, a week after the bomb. The sun was already setting, and as we left the site of the bombing, I looked over my shoulder and wondered why it had to be a toy store.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
How blogs are actually meant to be used
As links to news articles and analysis. I think this is the biggest story of the year:
'U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's'
find the rest of the article here.
For you CNN junkies
'U.S. Report Finds Iraqis Eliminated Illicit Arms in 90's'
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 - Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles within months after the Persian Gulf war of 1991, and its ability to produce such weapons had significantly eroded by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector for Iraq said in a report made public Wednesday.
The report by the inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, intended to offer a near-final judgment about Iraq and its weapons, said Iraq, while under pressure from the United Nations, had "essentially destroyed'' its illicit weapons ability by the end of 1991, with its last secret factory, a biological weapons plant, eliminated in 1996....
find the rest of the article here.
For you CNN junkies
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Since feeling is first...
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
e.e. cummings
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
e.e. cummings
Monday, October 04, 2004
Crossing the void
Play this as you read, and let me know what you think.
My lack of coffee consumption over the past few days has led me to yet another nightmare; one disturbing enough to make me want to forget it. However, like a good soldier I wrote down the essentials when I woke up, and found my mind coming back to it as it usually does in the small hours of the night.
I was in this battle in a house, pit, or cave. The location wasn’t specific, or important to the idea of the beginning of this story. I might have been chased, there might have been zombies, or giant teddy bears… in this my memory is at fault. All I know is when it was over, I was disillusioned with my future, and began to plot my temporary removal from society.
The plan could only work in a dream: I was to fake an injury that would leave me confined to a wheelchair, to get a standard leave pension from the university and then to escape to some far away land. Yet, despite it all, my conscious would not let me commit such an illegal act, and despite having already announced to everyone that I was disabled in this manner, I fled the doctor’s office where I was to be certified a cripple.
The destination of my flight was in itself a world constructed within a dream. It was to be Japan, yet only in name, as the true location consisted of a frozen black landscape, stretching on beyond my imagination. I left in the night, attempting to get a head start on whoever would be sent to pursue me. My car raced along a straight highway through this icy hell with only my headlights offering a chance of survival. Soon enough, a car appeared on the horizon in my rear view mirror, and I knew that I was being hunted.
The landscape was completely flat, so the car behind me was, in fact, quite a ways behind me, so I felt I had time enough to stop at a local town. For some reason, when I stepped within the gate, I was actually in an ancient Japanese sea-side town in broad daylight. My memories of this place have already faded, but I remember running along the cobble-stone streets looking for a place to hide, and then talking with a few patrons of a local pub.
Soon enough I was back in my car, driving along the ebony plane. The car behind me was much closer now, so I stopped at a mall before it intercepted me. I decided to assume the identity of the cripple now, so I rolled through the front doors of the mall in a wheelchair, and proceeded to make my way through a department store.
I was mulling around, pretending to work there, when I saw my pursuers arrive at the front door. It was Kyle and Chris Church, dressed in black and dead serious. Kyle motioned to Chris to look elsewhere, and he began to search through the department store.
Scared, I rolled to the back entrance of the store, got up out of my chair and attempted to bolt the rest of the way, but Kyle saw me walking, and ran over to me.
“Hah! I knew you weren’t crippled… you’ve been trying to scam the school.”
I explained to Kyle that I had decided not to go through with the certification, so I was picking up the tab for this little vacation I was on. He acquiesced, and so we decided to go see a Japanese movie. We were sitting there in a crowd, watching some dark movie I can’t remember, when I suddenly felt sick and left the theater.
Everything in this world was dark, as all the windows just looked out over the frozen landscape that surrounded us. In the lobby of the movie theater there were two pool tables, one normally shaped, the other bent and twisted, with some portions a few inches higher than the rest. It was almost like it was from another dimension, where up and down never figured into the equation. It was when I was staring at this disfigured game that I was approached by the girl.
We introduced ourselves. I don’t remember much about her, except she was my age, blonde, dressed all in black, and rather provocatively at that. As we were talking, a man and his wife approached us. I couldn’t see his face, it was hidden to me by the dream, but the wife was obviously a realization of Helena Bonham Carter. I got really bad vibes from the man, but Helen looked kindly upon me. They took the girl away by the hand, and beckoned for me to follow. We entered a room with another man and another girl about the same age.
Their intentions were known to me from the start… yet I didn’t do anything to stop them. The husband stood there and watched while the man already in the room… took aside the girl that was with him. In the meantime, Helen took aside the blonde girl I had befriended, and with some sobbing, properly prepared her to be next. Oh God, what this couple was doing was sick and perverted enough to make me reluctant to tell the whole story. They were doing it like it was their duty, like it was inevitable, and they thought me fit to stand there and watch.
I was woken up by the sound of a telephone ring. I don’t know whether or not the dream would have continued, or if it had ended several hours previously, and I had just dreamt nothing afterwards. I hope for the latter, for it would mean that my mind found the situation too crazy to continue. I'd be damned if I didn't have a Frappuchino tomorrow morning.
My lack of coffee consumption over the past few days has led me to yet another nightmare; one disturbing enough to make me want to forget it. However, like a good soldier I wrote down the essentials when I woke up, and found my mind coming back to it as it usually does in the small hours of the night.
I was in this battle in a house, pit, or cave. The location wasn’t specific, or important to the idea of the beginning of this story. I might have been chased, there might have been zombies, or giant teddy bears… in this my memory is at fault. All I know is when it was over, I was disillusioned with my future, and began to plot my temporary removal from society.
The plan could only work in a dream: I was to fake an injury that would leave me confined to a wheelchair, to get a standard leave pension from the university and then to escape to some far away land. Yet, despite it all, my conscious would not let me commit such an illegal act, and despite having already announced to everyone that I was disabled in this manner, I fled the doctor’s office where I was to be certified a cripple.
The destination of my flight was in itself a world constructed within a dream. It was to be Japan, yet only in name, as the true location consisted of a frozen black landscape, stretching on beyond my imagination. I left in the night, attempting to get a head start on whoever would be sent to pursue me. My car raced along a straight highway through this icy hell with only my headlights offering a chance of survival. Soon enough, a car appeared on the horizon in my rear view mirror, and I knew that I was being hunted.
The landscape was completely flat, so the car behind me was, in fact, quite a ways behind me, so I felt I had time enough to stop at a local town. For some reason, when I stepped within the gate, I was actually in an ancient Japanese sea-side town in broad daylight. My memories of this place have already faded, but I remember running along the cobble-stone streets looking for a place to hide, and then talking with a few patrons of a local pub.
Soon enough I was back in my car, driving along the ebony plane. The car behind me was much closer now, so I stopped at a mall before it intercepted me. I decided to assume the identity of the cripple now, so I rolled through the front doors of the mall in a wheelchair, and proceeded to make my way through a department store.
I was mulling around, pretending to work there, when I saw my pursuers arrive at the front door. It was Kyle and Chris Church, dressed in black and dead serious. Kyle motioned to Chris to look elsewhere, and he began to search through the department store.
Scared, I rolled to the back entrance of the store, got up out of my chair and attempted to bolt the rest of the way, but Kyle saw me walking, and ran over to me.
“Hah! I knew you weren’t crippled… you’ve been trying to scam the school.”
I explained to Kyle that I had decided not to go through with the certification, so I was picking up the tab for this little vacation I was on. He acquiesced, and so we decided to go see a Japanese movie. We were sitting there in a crowd, watching some dark movie I can’t remember, when I suddenly felt sick and left the theater.
Everything in this world was dark, as all the windows just looked out over the frozen landscape that surrounded us. In the lobby of the movie theater there were two pool tables, one normally shaped, the other bent and twisted, with some portions a few inches higher than the rest. It was almost like it was from another dimension, where up and down never figured into the equation. It was when I was staring at this disfigured game that I was approached by the girl.
We introduced ourselves. I don’t remember much about her, except she was my age, blonde, dressed all in black, and rather provocatively at that. As we were talking, a man and his wife approached us. I couldn’t see his face, it was hidden to me by the dream, but the wife was obviously a realization of Helena Bonham Carter. I got really bad vibes from the man, but Helen looked kindly upon me. They took the girl away by the hand, and beckoned for me to follow. We entered a room with another man and another girl about the same age.
Their intentions were known to me from the start… yet I didn’t do anything to stop them. The husband stood there and watched while the man already in the room… took aside the girl that was with him. In the meantime, Helen took aside the blonde girl I had befriended, and with some sobbing, properly prepared her to be next. Oh God, what this couple was doing was sick and perverted enough to make me reluctant to tell the whole story. They were doing it like it was their duty, like it was inevitable, and they thought me fit to stand there and watch.
I was woken up by the sound of a telephone ring. I don’t know whether or not the dream would have continued, or if it had ended several hours previously, and I had just dreamt nothing afterwards. I hope for the latter, for it would mean that my mind found the situation too crazy to continue. I'd be damned if I didn't have a Frappuchino tomorrow morning.
