sokth

Meaning is limited by context via the author – only if we take the moment of production, of conception, as important to the meaning of a text, thereby mummifying and reducing ‘enjoying’ to ‘understanding’, do texts “depend” on the socio-historical forces of present at conception.

I honestly didn't expect to see MW 2 present anything like that infamous leaked footage.

That said, it is an incredibly positive sign for the developer. It's good to see morality break through the bounds of RPG games (as the same time as RPG games challenge their own boundaries - Mass Effect springs to mind) and invade the mass FPS market. It's not the first - Bioshock, anyone? - but now we have "the decade's most anticipated game" doing it. I sincerely hope the scene is sickening and completely alienating (part of me wishes there was no way to skip it) because, if it is, we are witnessing another step in the rapid maturing of the video game as a piece of art.

And yes, I hope to be writing more often (and maybe even more coherently!) in the future.

before you reach God, the saints will eat you

meaning is a public phenomenon

God is dead, and we have killed him. How will we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves?

EDIT: "Oh dear! Oh dear! Isn't he going - backwards?" Yes, but you misunderstand him if that worries you. He is going backwards as people do when they are about to take a great leap -

the epistemic level determines the semantic level determines the ontological level

damn this "solemn, sluggish, ceremoniously clumsy" tongue and mind of mine! To struggle with trochees and iambs whilst delighting in even the most subtle meaning; that is my curse.

the rat, the mouse, the rabbit, the fox, watch the roots. the lion, the tiger, the horse, the elephant, watch the fruits.

Finally! NOT DIALECTIC. NO SYNTHESIS. FUCK YOU HEGEL

Prisons are built with stones of law; brothels with bricks of religion.

(expect poison from standing water)

Well, I suppose as it's well into spring now, I should be resurrected in some form or another. Life chugs on as usual, and isn't really worth talking about in depth. However, WATCHMEN is.

I saw Watchmen twice yesterday. I'd like to note that I didn't think it was that incredible, but I went with two different groups of people, and didn't really mind seeing it twice (especially since I didn't pay for either trip). I'd been looking forward to it - I've not read the graphic novel (!!!) and was a little put off by Time magazine declaring it was one of the "best novels of all time". It may be good (indeed, excellent), and to some extent display features more commonly associated with literature (allusion, symbolism, artistic self-awareness, allegory - I think - etc), calling it a novel is simply wrong. Graphic novels do what is said on the tin; the visual art is an essential part of the experience, unlike in a novel. Furthermore, grouping a graphic novel with novels is, I think, to devalue the role of the graphic novel. It seems to imply that the graphic novel can never be accepted as a form of "high art" (O, modernism, where art thou?), and so the anomalous(debatable) achievement cannot be a graphic novel in the usual sense. Anyway! I hadn't read it, but, after reading some critic reviews that labeled it as difficult for people who had not read the graphic novel, I'll admit I dipped into the wikipedia synopsis.

I shouldn't have - it was completely unnecessary. The film is lovely. It's what comic book (graphic novel, whatever) movies should be like. Comic strips tend to make good storyboards, but there's more to that. Sin City was lovingly adapted, but remained a little too removed for me. I know that was kind of the point, but I couldn't help thinking that it lacked something. Watchmen does not have this problem. Essentially, it is a grimy thriller more than a superhero film - grimy in a way that makes Batman look like a fairytale. These 'superheroes' are real people, flesh and blood, and Watchmen gives a 'realist' account of their development - mental illnesses abound. However, it manages to retain a twist of wonderful, bittersweet and incredibly dark humour. Not to mention a plentiful serving of blood and guts. Also, the ending is so totally not like the usual boring Hollywood resolution. I thought the performances were generally good all round, despite labouring under a script that flagged at times (script straight from speech bubbles? anyone?). The exception was the Richard Nixon actor (a small part) - I wasn't particularly impressed by him, but I think I was just expecting something on par with the wonderful neanderthal autocratic Nixon (played by Frank Langella) of Frost/Nixon.

In conclusion, yes. Good film. Also, watch out for references to Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human) and (possibly?) Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

The grotesque, absurd irony of writing a commentary to Pale Fire does not, I think, elude me. My essay will be, at the very least, meta-meta-textual, at times verging on the meta-meta-meta-textual. It makes me smile, then, to remember Nabokov’s famous phrase: “For better or for worse, it is the commentator that has the last word.” But which commentator?

do not go quietly unto your grave

"The Germans have developed an excessive variety of everything solemn, sluggish, ceremoniously clumsy, all the interminable and insufferable stylistic genres ... The German is nearly incapable of the presto in his language, and we may feel free to conclude that he is therefore also incapable of many of the most amusing and audacious nuances of free, free-spirited thought."

These nets I will fly

what be the plan, my only hollow man? maybe should we dance all night long in meadows where the machine gods ran?

I choose this path down past the Catholic Church every morning past the bus station men and women and children waiting pressed onto the wall like they’re about to be shot. Bangbangbang. He couldn’t stand so they tied him to the chair. Stupid English what an image no wonder Collins and the others fought. The sun never set over the English empire because God does not trust the English in the dark. Whispering and scheming : darkness : the unkown : the other : the dark continent. Found gold in South Africa 1886. Before 19th century no major incursion but by 1900 only Liberia and Ethiopia remain. Zulus bled and died for the gold that could have brought them hope. No difference between missionary and settler. Catholic church. Firing line. Bangbangbang. Collins. The traffic is sluggish in the mornings like some kind of serpent but like that snake it can and will suddenly move and shift and burst and kill people. The biggest cause of death in 15-21 year olds is car accidents. What does that mean? Does it include pedestrians or is it limited to those inside the car? The facts are, unfortunately, against you. Luckily public opinion is on your side and we all know what triumphs – facts or the mob. Fear of the mob… founding principles. Majority tyranny. Madison. Ambition must be make to check ambition. Greatest theoretical document in the world thanks in part to the storming of the Bastille. The French died so that the Americans could be. If they had known they wouldn’t have bothered. Rather stayed at home with the curtains drawn and the radio on like so many drunks.

Roads are so busy in the morning but not as busy as the Grand Arcade on a Saturday. So full of people all blank eyes gazing at shop windows stripped of dignity with nothing left but consumerism holding on with torn nails to some last broken idol. God is dead. Politics is dead. Philosophy is dead. Everything is dead – we are all dead in a dead world. Hades. We are all in Hades and literature is our Persephone. Stolen away from the perfect plain of imagination by the human, all too human conduits. The author is dead. FR Leavis. TS Eliot. Hollow Men. Scarecrows amongst the cucumber patches. Capable of neither good nor evil.

let's change things around because I can't get the mortal taste of that forbidden fruit out of my mind. Original: Sin: Simony: Harry Potter. Let me write and see what comes out I'd like to think that you'd still burn me and censor me but not anymore: this is not the age we live in. Not with a bang but with a whimper. I'd whimper too, if I was him: Fawkes : Parnell : Adams : Bin Laden. Whats the difference all men who talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country. Clever man, Russell. Cambridge. Mathematics. A prison of algorithms and symbols and numbers. A prison for thoughts and imagination that panther that roars and runs and is shot outside Ill's laden. But no more of that it's over and certificated and a big stamp on it says 'deceased'. Like the panther.

Its the king of the jungle that's what they say. Panther Rex. But its not the king, not anymore. We've changed that and now its the barge that travels into the heart of all that is dark that rules the world. Conrad : Sailor : Napoleon. My first communion was the happiest day of my life. This paradigm the copious hordes follow so that they might stay out of the pits with four thousand mile thick walls : Get thee behind me, devil : Get thee behind me, hypocrisy. A world run by hypocrites and devils taking it in turns. My go then yours then mine then yours. Let's all sing along abeeceedeeeeffgee and pretend we care when the ballot paper gets passed around. It makes little difference we're all blades of grass at the mercy of the breeze. Albert would have something to say about that and so would Dr. Mersault and all the rats that spill out into the pavement to die. Let the dead bury their own dead. That book of lies but not without hope for together we can stand against Gabriel and the flaming sword that bars our path if we so wish but why would we want to return to that state of darkness in the womb of ignorance? the world is all before us our place of rest to choose and providence our guide.

His wooing of Nietzsche’s woman has become apparent to me – it is no more than a whited sepulchre. That is to say whilst to all superficial analysis the white walls are indeed stronger than those of Ilium (despite the artificer being considerably more ignoble) and four thousand miles thick the grey vulture wings of his knowledge that hide within have become apparent to me. And to this predatory bird whose sustenance is not the mortal taste of mine I say: non serviam.

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