Silence update - limited reading

As my ADD gets worse, I have only been able to read a few chapters of two books in the last year. Both books are well worth reading if you are interested in art.
1. " The $12 Million Stuffed Shark : The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art - Don Thompson.
2. " Seven Days in the Art World " - Sarah Thornton
It's quite pathetic that I haven't even finished them. I have now stopped buying books as I have no time to read and find it easier to focus while reading on a computer screen. The recent bespectacled mode has not induced much desire to read either.

as for further madness Under the Pepper Tree, it is all brewing up within for another toxic chapter which will be released whenever time allows...........

Hari Kunzru on trouble in paradise

Hari Kunzru writes an informative article on a different side of the Maldives about its political upheavals and "golhaabo" Gayoom. A slice of life away from the... ''re-defined luxury '' where ... ''perma-tanned middle-aged couples and upscale honeymooners, are greeted by neatly-uniformed men who whisk them off in speedboats to islands with $3,000-a-night water villas''... Kunzru has also written 2 books , Transmission and The Impressionist and his articles can be read on his website. I have Transmission gathering dust on my bookshelf along with many other books that I have no fucking time to read .

Under the Pepper Tree - Dr.Julio Jabugo Guijuelo Gordales

As the sun's first rays shafted the velvet pubescent dawn, El Diablo woke up in a skip outside FICEB. He was encrusted in George's liquid dump, some used condoms, rejected sex paraphanalia and rubble from a nearby building. He slowly stood up, pulled a purple butt-plug out of his arse crack and crawled out of the skip. George the Wild Boar was still unconscious and was brought to his senses abruptly with LD's impatient fist on his temple. With a vicious,pounding headache and an aching kidney, still sore from the 900k volts of the Streetwise stun gun, LD mounted the brimstone steed and headed towards Calle Caspe to meet Slippery Sally Clitsen.... continued at Under the Pepper Tree

Late nite liquid metronome

Bottles of Beronia 2003 were an unguent liquid metronome for the Canterbury gallop of late nite tales at the Cafe Modesto... stories of Paco L.... aka 'Clammy Hands' , part of the Gador mafia... with a queer son.../... the Redhead's Indian experience of an inquistive Parsi junkie in Calcutta that eventually dies young, overdosed into oblivion in his pharmacological quest... an outdated India guidebook that lead to a non-existent hotel with a landlady long dead ...memories of mulligatawny soup at the 'squatter' Madras Club.../... an era of decades gone by... all washed down in the porcelaneous vulval bowl of life.

Martin Amis - The Age of Horrorism

A day before the 5th anniversary of 9/11, Martin Amis has written a long-winded, yet important 12,000 word essay entitled '' The Age of Horrorism '' about the rise of extreme Islamism, in the Guardian. Amis's new book , " House of Meetings " will be out on the 28th of September 2006. A list of all his books , some interviews and a biography are at MartinAmisWeb. I am currently reading '' Yellow Dog '', his post 9/11 satire.

Update : October 1st : Guardian Interview : The Amis Papers

Martin Amis + The Age of Horrorism + House of Meetings

Iceberg Slim at Rodalquilar

Two rug munchers playing paddle ball at the edge of the scuzzy beach in Rodalquilar....one has salt and pepper hair, small dags and a 3'' thick, dense stripe of black bush.... the other with big pendulous east-westerlies that flop about on each paddle stroke and a regular black V... a 'perro de agua' yaps, skitting across the skanky reeds and the detritus on the sticky sand....the massage tent is full and greasy, as a pert bronzed set of puffies stroll by, bearing a tinge of vermillion lycra defining wobbly butt crack....the beach is violent with its jagged, sharp, barnacled rock entry... sea urchins on its floor greedily awaiting a tender footstep, as the last of the summer's wave of jellyfish float on...at the end a beautiful serenity oozes across the bay by dusk , yet by day retching angry mastiff jaws with miles of treacherous shallow depth.

Not far away in the scuzz, I lie reading 'Pimp - Iceberg Slim' - as he opens with being ''Georgied'' having his 3 year old face locked between Maude's thighs. " ... and most vividly I can remember my panic, when in the moment of her climax, she would savagely jerk my head even tighter into the hairy maw....I remember the ache of the strain on my fragile neck muscles, and especially at the root of my tongue ''. Pimp is a strong, violent, raw, ripe and fucking good book. Its brutality is not for the faint-hearted , and is extremely misogynistic. Iceberg has a very descriptive style and takes you deep into the stench and sweat of the 'cat' and his grim Chicago pimp world. a world with a language of its own... with a glossary at the back to guide you through Slim's prolific ghetto jive. It's well written and gripping, almost too well written at times (for a pimp !!??) though Iceberg Slim boasts an I.Q. of 175 ! 'Pimp' is suitably repugnant reading for the beach at Rodalquilar.

Iceberg Slim (aka Robert Beck ) was born as Robert Lee Maupin in 1918. He died in 1992. Slim also written the following books : Trick Baby + Long White Con + The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim + Airtight Willie and Me + Mama Black Widow + Death Wish + Doom Fox.

Iceberg Slim

Ghosts of Spain

Late evening... wet... sprawled naked beside the emerald green kidney, the last shards of the Andalucian sun streaking across my scrotum....some solace from the day's searing 40° C ....the agapanthus are in full bloom, large melon-sized globes of white and blue-violet, snaking upwards from their pots against a backdrop of Haliborange hibiscus.....the bougainvillea strangles the hardy Opuntia dillenii as it sways in the fucking madness of the gale force June - July Gador winds, scattering its magenta leaves into the emerald green kidney... the wind lacerating the banana palm leaves into ribbons.... the Lithops is about to pop another stone-like bud and my hard-back copy of ''Ghosts of Spain " has just arrived via The Book Depository ( a great website that does free delivery to most of the civilised world ).

A few days ago, the Redhead was reading out captions from the '' Ghosts of Spain ", Giles Tremlett's new book published earlier this year. She found the Franco references and descriptions of life under him in the Sixties very familiar as she was at school in Andalucia at the time. Giles Tremlett is the Guardian's Madrid correspondent and has lived in Spain for the last 20 years. He talks of the various facets of Spain , the silence of the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War, how they have just forgotten and eradicated certain elements of their past....the book covers brothels, gypsies, flamenco and corruption in the construction industry amongst other aspects of daily Spanish life.

" Why do Spaniards go to plastic surgeons, donate their organs, visit brothels and take cocaine more than any other Europeans ?" More to follow as I plough through it distracted by the fucking discombobulating wind.........

Tags: Ghosts of Spain + Giles Tremlett + The Book Depository

Geraniums and Tourism

Back in Andalucía after two months of pursuing the ''big deal ", the grey, mundane metallic chatter of its commercialism leaving me vapid. Now the geraniums are in full bloom, barking a Marlboro red, bursting in their ebullient fuchsia...the frangipanis fighting their way into new life after a battering frost. The royal palm sits patiently in its big, black rubber pot, awaiting its entry into the dry,desert womb as a big opaque scorpion scuttles out from beneath it. The emerald kidney is being filtered, beating at 11°C , a testicle shrinking, nipple erecting plunge clears the head as I race through a recently purchased copy of Tourism by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal. Was it the erect nipple on the cover that drew me to it in the book shop?

Nipple Singh's first book, Tourism, is good... fast-paced, suitably filthy, contemporary,racist and enjoyable as he doesn't mince his words. Perhaps its a bit early to compare him to Houellebecq, as the Guardian interview suggests ''Houellebecq-light "..... "I read Houellebecq and I thought if this nerdy white dude has got the guts to write this stuff, then fucking hell, I should have the bottle as well, you know "....Julie Burchill says," The best debut I have ever read "... I think its the best Punjabi debut I have ever read !

Tag: Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal

No words

Stultified by the tedious, mundane mechanics of life..... neck deep in its bullshit....no time for the written word = silence... back soon

Under the Pepper Tree - Full Penetration in Barcelona

The sky was a translucent cerulean tinged with a smattering of vermillion cirrus clouds. El Diablo, Slippery Sally Clitsen and George the Wild Boar (G.W.B.) were tearing down the highway towards Barcelona. LD had decided to stop at FICEB ( Festival Internacional de Cine Erotico de Barcelona ) as they had to drop off Slippery Sally who was a participant in the Barcelona 690. As they entered Barcelona heading for La Farga de L'Hospitalet, G.W.B was nodding his head to the 2 Live Crew song that was blaring out of the brimstone steed's DAB radio. '' ...you said it yourself, you like it like I do, put your lips on my dick and suck my asshole too...",
continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree.

Evaporating Despondency

he sits naked, ensconced in priapic tension, bearing a lugubrious daze, slowly shaving his head ... revealing a dry, grey scalp hidden from the torrid noon day sun.... shedding the load of a dire, dark week...a drudge watching the numbers on the screen increase and decrease in a soporific stupor... a hollow expanse of time and space filled with morbidity, dread and self-imposed solitude. he can sink very low, reaching into the grim depths of depression's intestine, sitting there paralytic at the edge sipping the valerian solution, with no pistol on the table. as the last tuft of hair falls from his scalp bouncing off the crimson floor, there is finally a pin-prick of light that slowly enlarges, tearing through the recycled paper screen of his despondence . He rises to his feet, stretches out of his sedentary sojourn and steps outside into the glaring sunshine, leaving his saturnine coat behind. the joie de vivre gently seeps in like a cool beatific gimlet....

Cystic Explosion

He sits in a puddle of sebaceous pus.... a turgid mass of putrid, vile smelling sebum that weeps softly out of a golf ball sized cyst on his inner thigh. Black trouser starts sticking to his leg as the viscid juice oozes south, a cinnabar and yellowish double cream, coating his balls in cystic coagulation.... a smell so indescribably repugnant, acts as an emetic to retch a violent bilious chunderstorm, a lapful of the previous night's sashimi. Peeled layers of concentric necrotic tissue speckled with tiny mouths, the b-roads of the pus highway that finally flood their gates, released from their rotting subterraneous prison. Soothing balm of relief to the now deflated hard-boiled hillock entrapped within, a wrenching agony of taut flesh,tension and stress fuelled by whiskey and Jamón Ibérico, the pleasurable toxins of the fatherland. His bow-legged buggered stance resumes a normal gait as he enters the natatorium and falls into a deep sleep, lulled by the twittering birds of dawn.

Jeremy Clarkson's caustic wit

"Unfortunately, if you’re middle class you may as well take cocaine and spend Saturday night talking to yourself because there’s bugger all else to do. You can’t go into town because it’s been overrun with drunks and all the police are too busy filling in hazard assessment forms to do anything about it " .
An excerpt from Jeremy Clarkson's funniest column in the Sunday Times this year.

Tags: Jeremy Clarkson + Sunday Times

Under the Pepper Tree - In Alicunte with Slippery Sally Clitsen

The sky was a deep viridian, bucketing rain followed by a vicious hailstorm. As hailstones the size of El Diablo's balls pelted down bouncing off George's head, he screamed : Look out ! The brimstone steed was hurtling down the highway at 217 m.p.h. as they hit a transgenic fluorescent pig crossing the road. El Diablo slammed on the brakes, and the steed hit the pig dead centre at 153 m.p.h. LD and George were pitched forwards and flew through the air for 17 seconds till they landed smack in the middle of a pile of green pig manure by the road side. ........ continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree

BRUTE! Magazine

A few days ago a friend suggested that I should look at BRUTE! Magazine, which he said was popular in the mid 80's and would be right up my street. He was right !! The short stories are ripe and raw, yet tongue-in-cheek, paying homage to the pulp rags of the 30's and 40's, illustrated with powerful, strong woodcuts by Aidan Hughes. A paperback was published by Sphere Books to a sell-out first run, yet still available here.

Here is an extract from one of the short stories called ''TWAT!'' ".......You watch me ! I'll decimate ! Slaughter without quarter ! I'll spare none ! ........ I'm a raging,furious, suicidal cut throat with a lust for carnage ! For ACTION ! I've a thirst for devastation, beer and cunt ! ''

Another extract from "A Town Called Early " '' ......I knew right then that he had blown off his full load, so I sprang up to him and launched a law-flooring poke to Dobber's brains....... The crowd gasped as I clambered up onto the body and, tearing the star from his shirt, shit and pissed in his mouth.... "

I highly recommend reading all the 25 odd stories on the site. An in-depth interview of Aidan Hughes can be read at Trigger Magazine.

Tags: Brute + Aidan Hughes + Pulp Fiction

Books printed on recycled paper

In an American opinion survey done by the Opinion Research Corp. in Nov. 2005, 80% of people who had bought a book in the past six months said they would be willing to pay more for a book printed on recycled paper. The survey showed that 42% were willing to pay $1 more per book. That's a healthy sign as annual book production chews up a million tons of paper requiring a staggering 20 million trees !!

Over a hundred publishers have adopted paper policies to eliminate the use of fiber from endangered forests and to maximize the use of recycled & FSC Paper. Publishers save one tree with every 90 books printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. If the book industry's use of recycled fiber increases from 5 to 30 percent, there will be an annual ecological benefit of saving 4.9 million trees, conserving 2 billion gallons of water, preventing the release of 524 million pounds of greenhouse gases and 388,137 pounds of hazardous pollutants, and reducing pressure on rare and threatened forests.

We are buggering the planet's ecosystem on a daily basis, maybe to eventual extinction in time. One small thing you can do to marginally alleviate that is to click on the Rainforest Site. One free click a day saves 11.4 sq.ft (3.47 sq.m) of endangered rainforest which is about 4160 sq.ft or 1266.55 sq.m a year. Or eventually bite the bullet and succumb to an E - book reader ?? !!

For more information on advances in eco-friendly publishing, visit these informative resource sites:

• http://www.greenpressinitiative.org
• http://www.conservatree.org/
• http://www.oldgrowthfree.com/
• http://www.ancientforestfriendly.com/

Tags: Recycled paper + Rainforests + Publishing

Under the Pepper Tree - Pukey Pete Greeley's Pharmacy

Pukey Pete Greeley's Pharmacy stank of cat's piss, a smell quite normal for a methamphetamine lab. As the pervading smell hit George, he snorted loudly and struggled against the iron chain. El Diablo was more concerned by the appearance of Pukey Pete and the Franchi shotgun pointed at him. Pukey Pete had bright white peroxide hair, enormous lips stuffed with about 353 cc of collagen and was wearing a tight pink polka-dotted dress, cut to just above his bollock line. As an immediate reflex LD put his hands up into the air ....... continue reading at Under the Pepper Tree

Hardbacks, paperbacks or E-book Reader ?

Hardbacks: I have always had a preference for hardbacks when it comes to buying books and often buy 1st editions from Abebooks. There is a certain solidity and permanence in a hardback that's missing in a paperback and generally bigger print as well. The Redhead says that they are too heavy to read in the bath !

Paperbacks : Paperbacks seem to have a sense of disposability, yet are convenient to travel with as they are lighter, but don't have the same reading satisfaction and pleasure as a hardback. Often due to the heat on a beach they fall apart and you spend your holiday fumbling with loose pages, coming home with a missing page.

E-Reader : The Sony Reader was displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Apparently a marked improvement on previous e-readers with a capacity of about 80 E-books, portability being the size of a paperback and a battery life of 7500 page turns. This already indicates a move towards digitization and is like an i-Pod for books. There is a long post at the Guardian predicting the future of the printed book and the eventual move towards e-books. It will be a sad day when a piece of fucking plastic and a bunch of pixels replace the standard paper book.

So what do you prefer, hardbacks, paperbacks or moving towards the idea of being an e-book reader ? Please leave a comment with your views.

Tags: Sony Reader + Hardbacks + Paperbacks + Books

Under the Pepper Tree - Slimy Sol's Sodom Bar

El Diablo zoomed along at 183 m.p.h. much to George's chagrin. George was getting tired of being strussed up by an iron chain in an awkard uncomfortable position. He hadn't slept or eaten for two days and was fed up of LD's 27.4 cm hoist up his rectum, continually pummeling his large intestine. He was being driven mad by the wind and the orange bugs splattering on his snout as the brimstone steed tore down the highway at full pelt ...... read more at Under the Pepper Tree.

Authors Interviews

There are over a 100 interviews of various authors available to read online at Powells providing some very interesting reading. They include Bill Bryson, Peter Carey, Deepak Chopra, Philip Pullman, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Brett Easton Ellis , Zadie Smith, and Carl Hiaasen amongst several others.

Spike Magazine has a fascinating, long interview with Ralph Steadman about the death of Hunter S. Thompson and himself. 3:AM Magzine has a whole host of interviews including Dan Fante, Irving Welsh, and Toby Litt. J.G. Ballard talks to Salon about William S. Burroughs and ELF(Ecletic Literary Forum) talks to Allen Ginsburg a year before he slid into the box. More interview sites will be added as I come across them.

UPDATE : 30th Jan. Podcast interview of Stephen Fry talking about his new book at Slam Idol

There are over 300 interviews at the Paris Review on Nelson Algren, Truman Capote , Lawrence Durrell and many others.

Tags: Author Interviews + Bill Bryson + Peter Carey + Deepak Chopra + Brett Easton Ellis

Under the Pepper Tree - Jesus Flymo's Porcine Flagellation Station

A few Neo-Geo dogs were standing by the bar, and they swung around at the smell of the boar as LD entered. The boar growled at the dogs and a couple of them pissed themselves resulting in a viscous day-glo green frothy puddle on the floor. Sister Morphine was playing loud via an iPod behind the bar. JesusFlymo’s Porcine Flagellation Station was bathed in ultra-violet light .......... continued at Under the Pepper Tree .

Reading List 2006

Despite suffering quite badly from ADD, which makes reading and more so writing, fucking difficult due to an inability to retain a somewhat consistent focus, this is a list of books I bought recently and plan to read this year. (not in the order listed below, red text = read. )

• Deliberate prose: Selected Essays 1952-1995 - Allen Ginsberg
• The possibility of an Island - Michel Houellebecq
• Fear and Loathing in America - Hunter S. Thompson
• The Beat Hotel - Barry Miles
• Pimp - Iceberg Slim
  
• The Burroughs File - William S. Burroughs
• Memories of My Melancholy Whores - Gabriel García Márquez
• The Hot Jazz Trio - William Kotzwinkle
• Tourism - Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal
  
• One Hundred Strokes of the Brush before Bed - Melissa P.
• Helen and Desire - Alexander Trocchi
  
• Girls - Nic Helman
• Without Blood - Alessandro Baricco
• Gabriela, clove and cinnamon - Jorge Amado
• The Magus - John Fowles
• Yellow Dog - Martin Amis
• Tarantula - Thierry Jonquet
• Stone Junction - Jim Dodge
• Bad Chili - Joe R.Lansdale
• The Colossus of Maroussi - Henry Miller
• An American Dream - Norman Mailer
• The Man with the Golden Arm - Nelson Algren
• Not Fade Away - Jim Dodge
• The Ebony Tower - John Fowles
• Ghosts of Spain - Giles Tremlett
• The Dedalus Book of Absinthe - Phil Baker
• Theft - Peter Carey
• Dopefiend - Donald Goines
  

Tags : Allen Ginsberg + Michel Houellebecq + Hunter S.Thompson
Alessandro Baricco + William S. Burroughs + Gabriel García Márquez
William Kotzwinkle + John Fowles + Henry Miller + Martin Amis + Thierry Jonquet

Under the Pepper Tree and Other Stories - a new blog

A new blog has been constructed for the story ''Under the Pepper Tree " at Under the Pepper Tree and other Stories where it can be read from the beginning to the most recent post in a continuous sequence. A new update in the story will be coming very soon and in time there will be other stories posted there. Rundaas wishes all who read here a very Happy and Successful 2006.

Under the Pepper Tree - bulbous baculum dysfunction

Continued from the previous post Under the Pepper Tree - the Wild Boar


In his haze he had forgotten his bulbous baculum dysfunction (he had an occasional case of his dick swelling up resulting in getting stuck for hours, like two dogs fucking). He realized after a short while of pumping the boar and screamed loudly as it happened again. More....

Under the Pepper Tree - the wild Boar

Continued from the previous post Under the Pepper Tree

El Diablo (LD) woke up with a start, sweating profusely. It was dark with a sliver of a new moon peaking through the clouds. Rubbing his head, he adjusted one of his horns that bent in the fall. His head felt like a small chain-saw was buzzing through it and he slowly staggered towards his brimstone steed. Reaching into the saddle bag, he pulled out a large bottle of 80% proof Oaxacan Mescal and took a long swig, drinking half the bottle. He belched loudly and spat on the ground. Fumbling in his pockets, he pulled out a pack of filterless Cabronas and lit one up, scratching his arse as the Mescal fired through him.

He spotted some reed canary grass growing nearby and went towards it to pick some. Stuffing fistfuls of it down his throat, he smiled to himself while ingesting the grass which he knew had a high DMT (dimethyltryptamine) content. He swallowed a handful of harmal seeds (a monoamine oxidase inhibitor) , needed to retain the full effects of the DMT, and washed it all down with more Mescal. LD heard a rustling in the bushes and his infra-red sensors picked up the presence of a wild boar. Despite his fucked up state, he charged into the long grass and in a second had the boar in his grasp.

Tying him to a tree, he sat down and smoked another Cabrona . He thought about what he would do tonight and his thoughts drifted back to the previous night’s sex. As the DMT took its toll, twisting his neurons, swelling his pineal gland , the Mescal sloshed around his rancid guts, and he jumped to his feet. He ran towards the boar, grabbed it by the head, pulling his swollen baculum out of his black leather trousers, and stuffed all 274 mm. of it up the boar’s rectum. As the boar squealed in pain being hot-rodded, El Diablo roared with delight thrusting back and forth.

To be continued....

The AA Independent Press Guide

The AA Independent Press guide is an enormous list of over 2000 magazines and publishers. There are links to magazines and publishers from the U.K., U.S.A., Canada, Australia and the rest of the world, and links to over 750 Internet magazines. The AA Independent Press guide has been painstakingly compiled by Dee Rimbaud, a Scottish writer and illustrator. It is an extremely useful, free resource for writers, poets and those wishing to publish their work.

Tags : AA Independent Press guide + Independent Publishing

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez - The Insatiable Spiderman

Just finished reading 'The Insatiable Spiderman' by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, a collection of short stories by the Cuban author who wrote 'Dirty Havana Trilogy' in 2001. Having been excited to see another book written by him, I was disappointed as the stories seem a bit monotonous, lacking the power and intensity of his previous novels published in English (Dirty Havana Trilogy and Tropical Animal ). Maybe he is loosing his juice !

Dirty Havana Trilogy was by far the best, a powerful book, like a sharp scalpel slicing open the ripe underbelly of Cuba, spilling out the poverty, hardship, degradation and squalor that most Cubans endure in their lives there.... an insightful, shit-smeared, somewhat Milleresque, torrid, sexually charged portrait of life that most tourists who go to Havana are totally unaware of. An excerpt can be read here.

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez has written several other books and some poetry, but unfortunately not published in English. I still look forward to reading more from him.

Tags: Pedro Juan Gutiérrez
Dirty Havana Trilogy
Havana

Las Alpujarras moment

Lime washed walls and pink bougainvillea entwine, as peach sunrises kiss cobalt dawns... an ensalada mixte mind, wandering... ensconced in the daily torrid blaze.... the crickets creak and crackle - an eerie sound reverberating in the mountains.
The Alpujarras held a certain unreality, a kind of displaced detachment, a smattering of scattered adobes stuck into the mountain.... violet shades of rock and rustic dawns.... blue flowers smiling for a while.... then puckered dry by noon.

Butchering literature via text messaging

It appears that a university professor at UCL has converted English literature classics such as Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet into condensed text messages as a form of study aids for students. A sad reflection of the times!

FeudTween 2hses- Montague&Capulet. RomeoMfalls_
<3w/_julietc@mary>J fakes Death. As Part of Plan2b-w/R Bt_leter Bt It Nvr Reachs Him
Evry1confuzd-bothLuvrs kil Emselves

Though I am a big fan of modern technology I find this quite appalling. Is this what today's education has been reduced to? Perhaps it reflects the enormous text message fetish that is prevalent amongst the generation below mine; they can only absorb condensed information in a text message format instead of reading and writing as they spend most of their time text messaging in a fucked up abbreviated tongue instead of improving their facility for the English language. Learn the language first, then fuck it up if u wnt 2 !

Maybe it is modern technology that has destroyed their ability to focus, being blasted at a very young age by computer games, mindless television, additive net surfing and text messaging. Without sounding like an old fart, I’m glad I can read a lot, write, and maintain a current focus on today’s technology. It seems we are going backwards while trying to go forwards.

Silence and the Man with the Olive Arm

"People who have found true knowledge fall silent. If I were a philosopher I would stop painting; I'd do nothing at all. That would be the silence of Zen.The only thing to do is to carry on searching for the light: I haven't found it yet, and that's why I paint." - Antoni Tàpies , from Barbara Catoir's 'Conversations with Antoni Tàpies'.

In 1949 Nelson Algren wrote "The Man with The Golden Arm " , i currently feel like the man with the Olive Arm , fucking exhausted having relentlessly picked olives for days....silent in general (not the silence of Zen) and certainly not from finding true knowledge or quiescent under the leafy cool tranquility of an ancient olive tree as i would prefer to spend my afternoons ...or in a state of priapic bliss experienced under the pepper tree.....instead of constant blurred images of black olives when i close my eyes with the faint thunder of the brimstone steed in the distance. Perhaps i should add an inane NaNowrimo style counter here ....... 21,693 olives picked ... updating frequently and boring the shit out of any kind soul that reads here.

Tag: Antoni Tàpies

Desert stultification

Wading through the bilious sludge of a week’s mental stultification, the monotonous coins rattling… cast asunder, in the mordant vessels of the beggars in my mind….time lurching forwards, towards the perilous descent to the Fatherland … momentary solace, plunging in the heated emerald kidney stirring up the stagnant liver… basking in the pre-winter sun… a tinge of joie de vivre returns… lost in the verdant solitude of the Arbequinas….149 trees to be picked and sent to their cold-press extra virgin heaven, all for the promise of delicate gold 0.1%…skulking voles nibbling the fallen almonds, in the parched and dusty river beds of Tabernas… minimal human contact for the extroverted being…. the desert dance is taking its toll….

Block

Picking olives under a blazing, fiery mackerel sunset, the Arbequina drips softly to the net below….

I sit silent, constipated in the lavatory of my mind …..waiting for the words to float by….....

Pre - prandial thoughts on Stephen Fry

Lying by the pool, an inviting body of water like a large emerald kidney shimmering in the Andalucian sol , my thoughts drifted between grilled swordfish and Stephen Fry's controversial new book , 'The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within.' Having seen him on television last night talking about it, saying that anyone who can speak and read the English language can write poetry, I looked it up , as unfortunately there are no real English bookshops in the nearby vicinity.


Stephen Fry believes that '' poetry is a primal impulse within us all '' and the book is about writing poetry, full of various tools for the reader, claiming it will make writing poetry, ''fun, easy, satisfying, fulfilling and delightful". He says '' I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry.'' He gives his own examples of all the different forms and styles , from the Petrarchan sonnet to the villanelle, arguing in favour of the traditional forms refering to his haiku as '' worthless arse-dribble '' ! This is one book I will not be reading despite my utmost respect for Stephen Fry's cornucopia of etymological knowledge, wit, intellect and an ability to do many things well, as I never really been very interested in poetry and don't share the belief that it is a primal impulse within us all.


The book is a patronising finger up the established modern poets of the day saying, '' it is a wonder that any considerable poetry has been written in the last 50 years .'' Fry refers to the "free-form meanderings " of modern poets as '' emotional masturbation'' ! I also think that saying that anyone who can speak English can write poetry is a bit like saying anyone with a hand can paint. Anyone can paint, even Congo the chimpanzee can paint, but not everyone can paint well. Nevertheless I'm sure that for the aspiring poets out there this will be a very enjoyable book to read, being well written, well- researched and amusing for those who don't like modern poetry.

Tag: Stephen Fry

Palma and the Puro experience.

Palma is like a mini Barcelona, with its beautiful Modernist buildings, several similar street names, a semi-cosmopolitan feel with plenty of smart cafes, art galleries and restaurants. The ''Old Town '' near the big Gothic cathedral, La Seu , has been gentrified with spruced up buildings and new smart shops. Interspersed in the labyrinth of cobbled streets, some very narrow in parts, there several old palacios with their courtyards open to display. Seems that several of them are for sale at the moment.

Checked into the Puro Hotel, Palma's new bastion of chic, a 14th century palace beautifully converted to a boutique hotel ''blending modern ethnic elements with bohemian chic and Mediterrannean exotism.'' Within the Oasis Urbano is Opio, its restaurant where we ate a delicious mix of highly overpriced Asian-Med cuisine. Opio is dripping with long strands of shells threaded on jute from floor to ceiling, pristine virgin white splendour with the odd splash of red on the cushions. Looking down from the Opio is the Puro bar with its ''Bargrooves '' beat, hosting an assortment of Eurotrash, old codgers with the odd Russian hooker, a gaggle of doggy drunk English girls who arrived, emitting a shrill cackle that grew worse as the evening went on, three Mallorcan preppy pricks, a swarm of Polish beerboys that entered and departed within minutes. Perhaps the off-season dross ? relieved to hear less German chatter in general....

Scuttled off upto our 'Superior Flow' room , a white airconditioned temple of silence away from the madding crowd below,festooned with several bright cushions made from Rajasthani saris, hand carved Burmese sliding doors, white parrot feather hats from the Bandjon tribes in Cameroon adorned the bedheads, complimenting the white guinea goose feather lamps, with the Purobeat humming gently from the Bose sound system.

Spent the next day in the luxury of the Purobeach .


Tuesday 12th:
At breakfast, saw a bleary-eyed hungover Hammond of Top Gear fame, his hair not spiked, hiding behind a Herald Tribune. Checked out with great memories of Mallorca as a beautiful civilised island with a great mixture of beach, countryside,and city. Shame its so polluted full of fucking Germans !!

Tags: Palma de Mallorca + Puro Hotel + Bargrooves

El Barragon Xeleni , Deià

In the Barragón Xelini, a busy tapas bar, an old English queer lasciviously seduces an ernest young bespectacled diner.The Redhead says he (ernest) will get hurt and bruised in the dodgem car of life, or meet an earnest young girl. I think he will more likely end up disillusioned with an earnest life, sodomizing the village idiot after several Jägermeisters shattering all semblance of his innocence against a stony wall under the starry Mallorcan sky.

Under the Pepper Tree

The Devil sits on a whitewashed wall under a pepper tree, masturbating furiously.He ponders on the night’s excessive foray up the chocolate highway at 154 m.p.h. on his brimstone steed, leaving a wake of sore rectitude in his trail. As he sits sucking on a lemon-lime, a cigarillo dangling off his lip, he smiles in priapic bliss, sweat pouring from his brow .... dripping onto his rig. Another 15 minutes of shaking his bone, he points at a ripe fig by his feet and shoots white jasmine glory, the fig sizzles red picante as he leans over backwards in momentary ecstacy and falls off the wall.

First night in Deià : Western Mallorca

Deià acquired its name ad-daia (hamlet ) in the 10th-11th centuries . Later in 1239 the philosopher Ramón Llull founded his missionary school there. In the 16th century the village expanded. Fishing, olive oil, citrus fruit and sheep farming flourished and the population grew to 1500.

Cut to 2005 : Arrival in Mallorca at 7p.m. , zoomed to Deià on the western coast, a Mediterranean paradise by the sea resplendent in bougainvillea, royal palms and an abundance of incredible ancient olive trees with thick gnarled trunks ... stone houses with tiled roofs ... a breathtaking view of the sea with its jagged sharp rocky coastline and loads of coves, the water cobalt with irridescent turquoises splashes, bedecked with sea pines , a luminous green.

It seems that Mallorca is one of or the first place in Spain to ban smoking in restaurants, as I found to my horror when I asked for an ashtray, and they all talk in intrepidation of January 2006 when the absurd, anal ley will be passed banning smoking in all public places. Deià's beauty is shattered with the constant, vile guttural tones of hordes of fucking middle-class Germans which seems to be crawling out of the woodwork, apparent from the tri-lingual menus in almost every restaurant. Pouring with rain .............

Tags: Deià + Mallorca

No Direction Home - Bob Dylan

In brief, Martin Scorsese’s well-researched, over-hyped, flawed, too clean cut yet somewhat mesmerizing 210 minute documentary 'No Direction Home' on Robert Zimmerman aka Bob Dylan is a portrait of the singer/songwriter from 1960-66. Known to be incredibly private about his life, it includes the first interview in many years and is an in-depth chronicle of the early 60’s folk music and its political references and Dylan’s meteoric rise from doing covers to stealing/writing his own lyrics. The insistence of his peers that Dylan was a ‘topical’ songwriter which he denied, the pathetic boos and cries of ‘Judas’ when Dylan electrified folk music at Newport in 65 with wild riffs from Mike Bloomfield ,while Pete Seeger threatened to axe the mic wire outraged by the ' sacriligious electrificaction of purist folk' , the great cue card scene of ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues‘ filmed by Pennebaker, footage of Ginsberg young and erudite old, Lawrence Ferlinghetti at his typewriter with a Venice carnival mask, Joan Baez crooning away, misty eyed in Dylan adoration, fabulous black and whites stills of Dylan, the inane questions he suffered from journalists and the press, and many other facets , debately a lot missing issues, all meshed together in a brand new leopard-skin pillbox hat ….

For more serious reference and all is not what it seems, read the excellent, no punch pulled review by David Yaffe published in Slate.

Tag : No Direction Home - Bob Dylan

Mobile Eroticism - Henry Miller : Ebooks for $1

Olympia Press offers several titles of Henry Miller's books in an E-book format, as their website says , ''Ebook reproductions from that golden age of Parisian decadence cost just $1 each.'' Ranging from the Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy : Sexus, Plexus, Nexus ; to Quiet days in Clichy and the hard-to-find '' World of Sex '', they are availabale in a PDF format with a free HTML backup. And you can shove them in your Palm and Pocket PC !

Henry Miller

Barcelona's beautiful beach

Barcelona's most beautiful beach is about 40 mins drive from the city towards the Girona direction. With soft white sand and cool water glistening a milky turquoise sheen, this a nudist beach which is quite packed in the June -October months, sadly polluted by lots of ''pervs'', young and old , who parade up and down the beach sporting various angles of erection and try and park themselves down next to women in a valiant effort to look up their cracks .
It is understandable for the old codgers (with their tiny little dicks) to behave in this manner (somewhat) , but inexplicable when the youngs guys do it. Many lurk on the wall at the perimeter above casually perving and some ''shaking'' in the bushes.
There is even a ''smiley'' middle-aged woman perv who likes to sit with her legs apart on a rock, displaying her gravital gash to all and sundry, totally unabashed with a large acid grin on her face. She normally sits by "Perv Corner" at the end of the beach , lapping up all the attention of the pervs that intermittently pop up and down behind the rocks (undoubtedly for a quick curl ). One has seen all sorts and shapes on that beach !!