We shall see that at which dogs howl in
the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
- H. P. Lovecraft
- H. P. Lovecraft
Or:
All rationalism tends to minimalise the
value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human
happiness.
- H. P. Lovecraft
- H. P. Lovecraft
Or (if you want to be all obvious about
it):
As a baby, Shakespeare showed few signs
of becoming the most significant figure in literary history, so nobody bothered
noting down the details of his life.
- P. Cunk
- P. Cunk
The Him’s making a noise.
The Him: Frrrrmththththththtrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpfffffssssssss...
Me: I don’t think that a slow puncture counts as a spirit animal.
The membranous noise continues.
Me: Satisfied sea lion?
The Him: Hrrrrrmphhhhhhhhhflfffflf...
Mystery Voice:
Me: Sounds like a bear lying down and being quite happy about it. Is it a sea badger?
Him: I don’t know, but it’s getting really difficult to do.
Me: Yeah,okay. So, we did our annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh to see the Socks, amongst other things-
Him: Yes.
Me: - and this year, you got to come along with me and the Mystery Voice and see some other acts.
Him: Yes.
Me: Did you enjoy that?
Him: I dunno.
Mystery Voice:
Me: Different experience to usual?
Him: It was certainly a different experience to usual. It involved two trips to Edinburgh.
Me: In a helicopter.
Him: Sure.
Me: Hmm?
Him: Sure.
Me: We always go in a helicopter.
Him: Do we?
The Him: Frrrrmththththththtrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpfffffssssssss...
Me: I don’t think that a slow puncture counts as a spirit animal.
The membranous noise continues.
Me: Satisfied sea lion?
The Him: Hrrrrrmphhhhhhhhhflfffflf...
Mystery Voice:
Me: Sounds like a bear lying down and being quite happy about it. Is it a sea badger?
Him: I don’t know, but it’s getting really difficult to do.
Me: Yeah,okay. So, we did our annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh to see the Socks, amongst other things-
Him: Yes.
Me: - and this year, you got to come along with me and the Mystery Voice and see some other acts.
Him: Yes.
Me: Did you enjoy that?
Him: I dunno.
Mystery Voice:
 |
| "Oh hi, Denny." |
Him: It was certainly a different experience to usual. It involved two trips to Edinburgh.
Me: In a helicopter.
Him: Sure.
Me: Hmm?
Him: Sure.
Me: We always go in a helicopter.
Him: Do we?
Me: Yes, you spoon.
Him: I don’t remember that part of the continuity.
Me: We went in a helicopter last year as well. You were mostly asleep.
Him: I don’t remember that part of the continuity at all, but if you want to keep track of it…
Me: Well, someone’s got to. It’s all in m’head.
Him: That’s true.
Me: Yeah.
Him: Everything’s in your head.
Me: Along with your, ummm…
Him: Along with me.
Me: Ha! No! You’re not imaginary.
Him: I am.
Me: No more than this sea badger is. Well, it’s imaginary at the moment, but not for long... Right! Who did we see first?
Mystery Voice:
Him: Well, that’s up to you.
Him: Yeah.
Me: It was a smaller venue than we saw him in last year, and it was a work in progress.
Him: Well, I wasn’t there last year. I kind of was, because I am you, but…
Me: Yeah, so… Actually… Apart from the Pun Run last year, that was the first – ah, no it’s not. The Socks’re comedy… It was more traditional stand-up.
Him: What were you going to class the Socks as, if not comedy?
Me: They’re not stand-up though…
Him: The Clocks!
Me: The Scottish Falsetto Clock Puppet Theatre! I don’t know how that would work. I’ve done enough on clocks recently what with Watchmen and Suicide Squad and-
Him: Oh! Not that again!
Me: So, Stewart Lee… You’ve seen the Comedy Vehicle.
Him: Yes. But the Comedy Vehicle was too good and too many people were watching it.
Me: So the BBC killed it?
Him: Yeah.
Me: To see where all these golden eggs were coming from. It was more of a traditional show that he did.
Him: That’s definitely something you’ve said.
Me: We had great seats for that show. We were right at the front and-
Him: We weren’t right at the front.
Me: Well, tucked up to the side.
Him: There’s such a thing as being too close to Stewart Lee.
Me: Ha! What, on the stage? Close enough that he can steal your pint?
Him: The seats up front were on the stage!
Me: They’re always like that. It’s totally different to a music gig where you’ve got-
Him: I’d have felt a bit threatened being that close to Stewart Lee.
Me: -burly people in tight t-shirts, hearing voices in their ears and stopping the great unwashed getting too close to the gods of the stage… Yeah, I thought it was really good. He looked like he was enjoying himself.
Him: And the drinks! The drinks were in glass! Glasses. Glasses made of glass.
Me: Yeah! Which isn't something you get in a music venue, either.
Him: No.
Mystery Voice:
Me: No. And you be- you met him.
Him: I don’t remember betting him.
Me: You bet you could make a horror movie, and then next thing you know: Manos.
Him: 'Mangoes'.
Me: 'Cans of Fruit'.
Him: My rendition of Manos would be swell.
Me: How would it go?
Him: It would star me. Well, it would be Manos, but with me.
Me: Would you do all the parts?
Him: Yeah. I would.
Me: How would you do Torgo?
Him: Um… Carefully.
Me: Give me an example.
Him: Oh, you want to hear some of the lines? Well, I’ve been doing some of the motions there for a little bit.
Me: Yeah, but that doesn’t really help people who are reading this. I mean even digital- As interactive as this is, and it is ergodic literature, you’ve still got to-
Him: Hang on, this is being typed up, isn’t it?
Me: Yeah.
Him: So it doesn’t matter.
Me: No.
Him: Alright. So… This is how I would do Torgo.
Me: You’re not going to make an effort and put on a voice?
Him: I did put on a voice.
Me: You never put on a voice!
Him: I did put on a voice!
Me: You always do it in your own voice. Even when I complain, “Do the voice!” you never do!
Him: I just did do a voice! I did the Torgo voice. It was about as Torgo as it gets. I’m still doing it now.
Me: But that’s the way you always talk.
Him: No, it’s not.
Me: Wait a minute… Are you… Torgo? So, who did we see second?
Him: Well, it wasn’t Torgo.
Me: It wasn’t Torgo. It was Katherine Ryan.
Mystery Voice:
Me: It’s fine.
Him: Alright. So, Katherine Ryan.
Me: Uh huh.
Him: Did you enjoy yourself?
Me: I thought it was great. Like I said, her star’s been in the ascendancy ever since I held her baby… In a tiny oven, about two years ago, with the Mystery Voice. We were in the front row for that one and… Yeah…
Him: You should stop – y’know – stalking Katherine Ryan.
Me: I’m not stalking Katherine Ryan. We just go and see her show and give her money. It’s not the same as stalking somebody.
Him: You do like her though.
Me: That’s because she’s really good. She’s excellent. So confident. You had an interesting moment. You got missed in the Audience Participation round-
Him: That’s because no-one can see me but you.
Me: Ha! She asked me how I was doing.
Him: Yeah, and you said you were ‘bettering up’.
Me: I said I was bearing up, but she couldn’t hear what I was saying. I became quite conscious that I was accidentally derailing the gig and… I should just’ve said… I don’t know. “My leg’s fallen off,” or something.
Him: Am fine.
Me: ‘Am fine’?
Him: Am fine.
Me: That sounds like someone that would write romance novels. Actually… Isn’t Anne Fine a writer?
Him: You would know that.
Me: And the, after the gig – which was great – we malingered around outside. We hung round in the rain, and then she came out.
Him: Yeah. About half an hour after everyone else had left. She’d seen us and was, like, “Sigh. Let’s just get this over with.”
Me: She wasn’t at all like that! She was lovely.
Him: She waited as long as she could, but we just weren’t leaving.
Me: She gave me a hug.
Him: Yes.
Me: And we got a photo that no-one’ll ever see.
Him: Yes. That even you will never see.
Me: She signed your ticket too.
Him: I don’t know where you put that.
Me: It’s just above this section in the blog.
Him: Okay.
Mystery Voice:
Me: So, the second day… In the morning we went into the Arctic and had a look around, and then late afternoon we headed up to see the Socks.
Him: Yes.
Me: That was… So, what was the theme of the Socks this year?
Him: Why… Why did you look at the ceiling when you asked that?
Me: I dunno. I thought I might’ve been having a stroke-
Him: It was confusing.
Me: Yeah. Exactly. Everything went a bit swimmy. Yeah, so… Erm… So, what was the theme of the Socks show, this year?
Him: It was Shakespeare.
Me: And was it good?
Him: Yes.
Me: Was it very good?
Him: Are you going to give your thoughts on any of these or are you just going to ask me repeated…?
Me: I’ll stick them in at the bottom.1
Him: Repeated questions.
Me: I’ll stick them in at the bottom.
Him: You can say that all you like.
Me: Yeah, but it won’t make for a very interesting read. It was great, wasn’t it?
Him: Wait. First of all you go through and pretend you’re talking to someone else so you can write up your reactions-
Me: Yeah.
Him: Then, afterwards, you write up your reactions.
Me: Yeah. One day, I’ll have a syndrome named after me. We’ve written over a quarter of a million words on this blog.
Him: Do you… even need to pretend that you’re talking to anyone else?
Me: Doing your voice hurts my throat. And makes me sneeze.
Him: It just makes you look insane.
Me: Yeah. Do you know what the really difficult bit is?
Him: What?
Me: You have to use the second set of vocal cords for doing – when you do throat singing, you access your second cords. That’s the only way I can do the moments we talk across each other. Using the two voices at the same time is very, very difficult.
Him: But… You’re typing this up.
Me: I know.
Him: And we’re not talking across each other.
Me: No, but-
Him: Because there’s no way to type that.
Me: No, but I have to do it in such a way that it sounds like two people speaking. It was great, the Socks’ show was great. And afterwards, their manager – the wonderful Kev Sutherland-
Him: Yis.
Me: - took us for drinks.
Him: Well, he took you for drinks.
Me: That’s true.
Him: Because I’m not real.
Me: No.
Him: Ethereal beings don’t need to drink.
Mystery Voice:
Me: That’s true! The Mystery Voice got orange juice-
Mystery Voice:
Him: Yas.
Me: I got my sparkling water, and I had to go up and pour yours into plastic glasses from the water jug on the bar and put them in the space where you’d be sitting if you existed. Mr Sutherland was really good though and didn’t mention it once. We had a good natter about things and stuff. I thought it was great. The show was… The show was more together than last year. You laughed a lot.
Him: Yeah, it was good. It was very good.
Me: Hell of a lot of work’s gone into it. Some of it’s incredibly clever. Right, after that we kind of squared-off a circle. This isn’t part of the Fringe ‘review’, but we went to see Finding Dory.
Him: That was not at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Me: No. I think we should mention it because… I’d like to capture your thoughts in this sort-of digital amber. When we came out of it – because we stayed right to the end – it felt… To me it felt as though it really – and not all sequels do it – it felt like an incredibly well-crafted conclusion to the story begun in Finding Nemo.
Him: Like the second Godfather film?
Me: Yeah. It dovetailed together so well . A lot of care and love and effort-
Him: That’s why it’s taken so long.
Me: Yeah.
Him: It hasn’t been churned out a year after the original film came out.
Me: You said something interesting about the theme of it.
Him: Did I?
Me: You did.
Him: Well, I can’t wait to hear what that was.
Me: The way it addressed mental illness.
Him: Oh! That was you, but…
Me: And how the first one’s about parents and Finding Dory’s about-
Him: I feel really sorry for anyone who’s not seen it and’s reading this, thinking, “Oh, the Edinburgh Fringe and – what’s this? Endless, endless spoilers!”
Me: We haven’t really said anything spoilery.
Him: Oh, I dunno. You named it.
Me: That 'Boy With the Tail' ad at the start was a bit… Well, we tweeted about that. What was it you said?
Him: At the start I made up a joke about seeing someone escape from a van and, only after the film did I realise there was a better joke to be had, in that they’d been advertising fish fingers before a film about sentient fish.
Me: Ha! It was really harsh! “If you’ve enjoyed this film, why not eat the cast? There’s a restaurant only fifteen yards from this cinema.”
Him: Ha!
Mystery Voice:
Me: Right, we better wrap up there, so… I’ll explain why the square’s a circle and write up the other stuff underneath this… Can you make the noise of a sea badger, please?
The Him makes the noise of a sea badger, using all his cords.
Me: And, on that bombshell…
 |
The Him’s Socks Review. It’s a tradition, or an old charter or
something.
|
1.
This is usually the section where I blather on with an actual ‘review’ of the shows we saw. I’m not going to do that this year because, well, things change. And that’s okay. It’s certainly nothing to be scared of, to misquote Adam Ant.
There’s a mountain ledge in the Arctic’s Werewolf Country that’s clear of snow this time of the year. It’s high enough to allow you to look down on the clouds, but the road to the ledge is often closed, even in ‘Summer’. The seasonal melt releases incredible amounts of water to piss joyfully down the slopes, dislodging boulders that bounce like rolled cheeses onto any vehicle unlucky enough to be grinding up the ascent at the time. I neglected to mention this might be a factor to the Mystery Voice, which is mostly why he agreed to drive up there in the first place.
A lifetime ago I took the Him to see Finding Nemo at a cinema that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not sure, but it might well be the first time he’d even gone to the pictures.4
We’d lost all coverage as the road started rising, so the Mystery Voice had to rely on my directions. He’s obviously braver than anyone realises. We reached the ledge and parked up. Within seconds of getting out, all of us were drenched. The ground falls away quickly there, thousands of steep feet lead to a plain sprinkled with trainset-sized Christmas trees. All the life-threatening torrents are distant enough to look like tears running down a wall. The further away you are, the more real it feels; the way patterns naturally repeat becomes more obvious. The air tastes white and the border between the world below and the other one are thin enough for you to feel fictional. If you’re prepared to look, to properly look, then you can get a brief glimpse of how time works.
They skinned the cinema first, exposing its concrete skeleton and hidden chambers. Discarded slabs that used to be walls were ground and smashed by bright yellow machines, until they were rendered removable. The walls of a cinema hold dreams and memories in the same way a mountain stores fossils. But cash, like rust, doesn’t understand sentimentality.
There are tributes scattered around the ledge, looking into the valley and the clouds. Flowers, bleached cards, metal plaques: all of them mementos mori. The dead see things differently.
The Him and myself watched Finding Dory in Europe's tallest car park disguised as a cinema. The film itself is stunning. Individual grains of sand fall and clump, foam foams, scales sheen, all of it a tribute to Moore’s Law. There’s something else though, something lurking inbetween the callous certainty of cold binary. It’s like a ghost, but ghosts aren’t real. The Turing Test misses the same, most obvious, test of what it is to be human, that English exams do. Y’see, there’s no difference between low art and high art, and there never was. Art isn’t objective, agendas are. Does it move you? Does it make you feel? Does it tell you something about yourself? It’s not enough to know how it was made, or even why it was made – those explanations are almost always wrong anyway – the only thing that matters is that it’s there, and that encountering it changes something in the you that lives behind your eyes. Shifts it. Maybe only momentarily, maybe for the rest of your life – avalanches gotta start somewhere, after all – but there’s a reaction to it that takes place on an animal level. That’s all that matters. That’s all that counts.
After twenty minutes there were still no werewolves, so we got back in the car. The creatures we used to be watched us turn back onto the shrinking ribbon and head downhill, growing steadily less distinct. Eventually we vanished into the cloud and they went home.
2. You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.
3. Arf. Just kidding. I’d only type something like that if I was passing myself off a ‘professional writer’, darling.
4. It definitely wasn’t the first film he saw though. That was The Wolf Man, which remains one of the few watchable films set in Wales. Certainly the best one with a werewolf in it.
STICKING IT IN AT THE BOTTOM
Or: 2
A CIRCLE SQUAR’D3
A CIRCLE SQUAR’D3
This is usually the section where I blather on with an actual ‘review’ of the shows we saw. I’m not going to do that this year because, well, things change. And that’s okay. It’s certainly nothing to be scared of, to misquote Adam Ant.
There’s a mountain ledge in the Arctic’s Werewolf Country that’s clear of snow this time of the year. It’s high enough to allow you to look down on the clouds, but the road to the ledge is often closed, even in ‘Summer’. The seasonal melt releases incredible amounts of water to piss joyfully down the slopes, dislodging boulders that bounce like rolled cheeses onto any vehicle unlucky enough to be grinding up the ascent at the time. I neglected to mention this might be a factor to the Mystery Voice, which is mostly why he agreed to drive up there in the first place.
A lifetime ago I took the Him to see Finding Nemo at a cinema that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not sure, but it might well be the first time he’d even gone to the pictures.4
We’d lost all coverage as the road started rising, so the Mystery Voice had to rely on my directions. He’s obviously braver than anyone realises. We reached the ledge and parked up. Within seconds of getting out, all of us were drenched. The ground falls away quickly there, thousands of steep feet lead to a plain sprinkled with trainset-sized Christmas trees. All the life-threatening torrents are distant enough to look like tears running down a wall. The further away you are, the more real it feels; the way patterns naturally repeat becomes more obvious. The air tastes white and the border between the world below and the other one are thin enough for you to feel fictional. If you’re prepared to look, to properly look, then you can get a brief glimpse of how time works.
They skinned the cinema first, exposing its concrete skeleton and hidden chambers. Discarded slabs that used to be walls were ground and smashed by bright yellow machines, until they were rendered removable. The walls of a cinema hold dreams and memories in the same way a mountain stores fossils. But cash, like rust, doesn’t understand sentimentality.
There are tributes scattered around the ledge, looking into the valley and the clouds. Flowers, bleached cards, metal plaques: all of them mementos mori. The dead see things differently.
The Him and myself watched Finding Dory in Europe's tallest car park disguised as a cinema. The film itself is stunning. Individual grains of sand fall and clump, foam foams, scales sheen, all of it a tribute to Moore’s Law. There’s something else though, something lurking inbetween the callous certainty of cold binary. It’s like a ghost, but ghosts aren’t real. The Turing Test misses the same, most obvious, test of what it is to be human, that English exams do. Y’see, there’s no difference between low art and high art, and there never was. Art isn’t objective, agendas are. Does it move you? Does it make you feel? Does it tell you something about yourself? It’s not enough to know how it was made, or even why it was made – those explanations are almost always wrong anyway – the only thing that matters is that it’s there, and that encountering it changes something in the you that lives behind your eyes. Shifts it. Maybe only momentarily, maybe for the rest of your life – avalanches gotta start somewhere, after all – but there’s a reaction to it that takes place on an animal level. That’s all that matters. That’s all that counts.
After twenty minutes there were still no werewolves, so we got back in the car. The creatures we used to be watched us turn back onto the shrinking ribbon and head downhill, growing steadily less distinct. Eventually we vanished into the cloud and they went home.
2. You pays yer money, you takes yer choice.
3. Arf. Just kidding. I’d only type something like that if I was passing myself off a ‘professional writer’, darling.
4. It definitely wasn’t the first film he saw though. That was The Wolf Man, which remains one of the few watchable films set in Wales. Certainly the best one with a werewolf in it.
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