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The Eucharist by Maiada Aboud

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Eucharist by Maiada Aboud tonight proved an interesting work and certainly one that offered several challenges to the viewer. Not least of which was the difficulty of the location itself. During the winter months Fargo Space (Coventry) can be a cold location for artists taking their residencies there. Which must in some way influence their work? Even if it is the determination not to be influenced by it. If such a paradox is possible, and why the hell not? This is art after all and everything is up for grabs.

So, for an artist to consciously choose to make a performance work in this space, at this time of year, and to perform it naked we must be allowed to include some discussion of the temperature of the space, whether this is intentional or not it is a factor, particularly for the audience who are slightly less mobile than the performer.

The Eucharist by Maiada Aboud

The Eucharist by Maiada Aboud

So, and therefore, the performance last just over an hour. Maida, a small but very intense artist originally from Israel begins by walking to a table set out for dinner and strips her off evening gown. She then spends the next fifty or so minutes plucking down apples that are hung above the table, peeling them, dipping them in red ink and then placing them on a plate at each of the four seats. Finally, she starts to glue the peelings on to her naked flesh, rings a bell and walks off stage. All this time an ambient guitar has been playing as a soundtrack.

The Christian metaphors are rich and laid out in the open with this project. They don’t require unpacking or the passage of time to reveal themselves to you. Which can work against the work if that’s the type of art you want? But of course, art isn’t a murder mystery and it doesn’t matter how it ends. Although often the audience want some kind of cathartic release. But this work doesn’t offer that to you: it just continues and the themes are reinforced with the duration. Personally, I would have liked to find another layer to the work, but perhaps that’ll come as I ponder the piece some more over the next couple of days?

Maida Aboud’s work often explores her own experiences as a woman living in a Patriarchal society and being an Arab citizen, gives her plenty of material to work with. Personal work is often the most interesting.

There are some more images from the performance available at the Fargo Space blog.

All praise has to go to Talking Birds for making the Fargo Space available to artists. There isn’t nearly enough challenging and interesting work going on in Coventry, certainly outside of the gallery spaces. More performance work, please!

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I bloody love you vodka!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

When you drink vodka, particularly the stronger and more expensive ones, at least two things happen. One, you get the feeling of being invincible and secondly, your ability to focus on the thing in front of you becomes more tenuous. And thirdly your use of the word tenuous becomes more obscure and painfully forced into the paragraph.

Photoshop makes everything arty and cool, even drunks

Photoshop makes everything arty and cool, even drunks

Invincible is fine. Really what’s the worst that can happen? As my life coach is always telling me, the only thing standing between you (he means me, not you. He hates you) and your goals is your ability to believe in that thing. Therefore, I am invincible. But just when I’m believing it. Which will probably be when I need it most, like when I’m in a car accident. QED: If I make sure that I’m always drunk when I drive my car, I will remain invincible and never come to harm.

Focussing, whether on the thing in front or the thing in the distance can be corrected by the right glasses. I can’t afford bifocals, but am pretty good at changing from one pair to another very quickly. So if I always keep one hand off the steeringwheel to keep changing glasses as I drive along, then I should be able to focus and concentrate on the other vehicles around me.

The use of words such as tenuous is purely the side effect of being a dullard who thinks he understands and knows how to use English. Vodka puts paid to that, so I should drink more vodka to go past the stage of using obscure words.

Really, I can’t stress enough how safe and enjoyable a car journey with me and a bottle of vodka would be. Stay safe, clunk drink, every trip.

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Oh Christmas, you idiot!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

In the future, everyone will be miserable for fifteen minutes.

Christmas tricks me every time. It’s the one moment I genuinely feel confused and uncertain about my position in life. Should I be pleasantly convivial? Should I be sanguine and dour? It’s hard to know. Mostly because I have no idea what sanguine or dour actually mean.

I try to avoid people who believe in trying to be upbeat and artificially positive about life. Those bubbly, cheerful, always-with-a-smile and a bright, “Life, eh? It’s what you make of it!” Those fucking idiots. I truly cannot believe that anyone can be such an extremist positivist.  I always imagine that one day, mid-giggle at a fucking cat video or some such trite bullshit, they’ll stop, make some grand existential leap of awareness and a single tear will flow from their left eye. Then they’ll go mental and kill everyone in their office.

Which is a good enough reason. But there’s more. I prefer to decide for myself whether I should be happy or not. It’s up to me what kind of mood I’m going to be in. I really won’t have my mood decided by someone who thinks that a cat taking a shit on an iPad and activating their iPlayer App is the apogee of comedy.

But I digress.

Christmas fills me with cheer and I find myself smiling at people and hoping they have a lovely day, “on the day.” It just comes over me like a long, languid trouser-staining piss on a drunken saturday night. And like the cold, embarrassing walk home after such an accident, I feel cheap, dirty and foolish. Obviously I want people to be happy. I’m not a Tory, after all. But I don’t think it’s up to me to remind them. In the same way that I don’t want them to remind me, I offer them the same option. Decide for yourself. Or don’t decide. It’s your decision, not mine. Unless you don’t want it to be your decision. In which case, let someone else make it for you. Or don’t.

But I digress.

Oh wait: no I don’t. That last paragraph was my whole point. Suppose I should end now.

Hang on, one more thing:

Christmas is bollocks. It’s a trick designed to make you think you’re happy. Like a Royal Wedding or a packet of marshmallows. Right, I’m done now. time to go and unwrap some presents. Or not?

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Oh, X Factor! Up Yours

Sunday, December 11, 2011

I’ve always been a  fan of high camp theatrical work. I like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and there’s much to be recommended about New York experimental cinema during the 50s and 60s. Damnit, I even used to watch Noel’s House Party (I have no shame). I understand the role of programs like the X Factor and where they should be situated in our cultural lives. I really don’t condemn them. Like Cheryl Cole, I know it’d be a nice enough way to spend fifteen minutes, but I wouldn’t want to spend every Saturday night with her.

What irks me about X Factor and the like is that they are the living, throbbing, shiny whiney embodiment of pop music’s return to the theatricality of seventies high camp. It’s as though Punk or even the New Romantics never happened. (Remember, New Romantic’ism (sic) was all about dressing up as though the world were about to end and we might as well get bloody hedonistic and go for it!).

No matter who you bet on, the casino always wins

X Factor has at its core the conceit that it’s championing the everyday talent who can rise from the streets and lead a glamorous life of celebrity, if only they could find the right song for that week.  And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  But when you consider that shows like X Factor are supposed to be championing the everyday hero, it feels as though the fall at the final hurdle (or final seven or so hurdles. And by hurdles I mean shows).  They, as did 70s rock, have removed the means of production from ordinary folks. The glamour and theatricality of the live shows and the tours and the hidden backing singers and everything about the high production values, removes it from our grasp.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? This is the music industry’s last ditch attempt to convince us that they are responsible for music production and distribution. Not that silly old interwebs and anyone with a copy of Reason or even Audacity loaded on to their Apple/PC. Without us, there is no music industry, so you’re all better off shutting your computers down and watching the telly. No, wait, open them again and vote online ( we make more cash from advertising that way).

Why can’t the faux reality shows and the real reality shows [WHAT?!! - Ed] make one big program? I’d like to see Warwick Davis being eaten live in the jungle while Cheryl Cole is lampooned by Ricky Gervais while staring at Piers Morgan’s Horrible Body. And can someone punch Jeremy Kyle in the face, please? I really mean that last one, by the way.

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Scouting For the 99%!!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Who would have thought that camping could be so subversive? All across the globe people are huddling in tents for the winter to raise the awareness of the inequalities in the first world right now. Pretty soon just shopping in Go Outdoors will be a subversive act in itself. Having one of those keyrings that looks like a climber’s safety hook (whatever they’re called) will put you on the list of  potential terrorists.

I’m only kidding, obvs! But just don’t buy a thermos flask for a couple of months, yeah?

I love the Occupy-ists. And I think they’ll stick it out longer than the student protestors who, let’s face it, all rocked off back home when the holiday season began. As though political action only mattered during term time. Talk about not being able to see beyond the strict guides of pedagogy! If anyone actually say things like that, outside of Radical Philosophy magazine?

Given the important role of camping in this contemporary movement, isn’t it time we rewrote Scouting For Boys, by Lord Baden-Powell?  Happy Camping!

Scouting has been described by more than one enthusiast as a revolution in education. It is not that.

Scouting is the voice of the 99% enthusiasts as a revolution against inequality. It is not (just) that.

It is merely a suggestion thrown out at aventure for a jolly outdoor recreation. which has been found to form also a practical aid to education.

It is merely a suggestion thrown out to the people to ask them to think and to do so peacefully, which has been found to form also a practical aid to education.

It may be taken to be complimentary to school training, and capable of filling up certain chinks in the ordinary school curriculum. It is in a word, a school of citizenship through woodcraft.

It is taken to be complimentary to school training and wants to ensure education for all and freedom of thought and access to health care and. It is, in a word, citizenship, not Big Society through woodcraft.

The Meaning of the Boy Scout Occupy Scout Law

With thanks to usscouts.org for the use of their text

A Scout is Trustworthy.
A Scout tells the truth. He is honest, and he keeps his promises. People can depend on him.
An Occupy Scout tells the truth more than a politician. The 1% can depend on it.

A Scout is Loyal.
A Scout is true to his family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and nation.
An Occupy Scout is true to his.. well, he just isn’t a politician, basically.

A Scout is Helpful.
A Scout cares about other people. He willingly volunteers to help others without expecting payment or reward.
An Occupy Scout cares about the rest of the 99%. And probably about the 1%, if they just stopped expecting payment or reward!

A Scout is Friendly.
A Scout is a friend to all. He is a brother to other Scouts. He offers his friendship to people of all races and nations, and respects them even if their beliefs and customs are different from his own.
An Occupy Scout is a friend to all (of the 99%) He is a brother to other Occupy SCouts and respects Scouts of other Nations even if their beliefs are different from his own.

A Scout is Courteous.
A Scout is polite to everyone regardless of age or position. He knows that using good manners makes it easier for people to get along.
An Occupy Scout is polite to everyone regardless of income or job title. Good manners make protest easier.

A Scout is Kind.
A Scout knows there is strength in being gentle. He treats others as he wants to be treated. Without good reason, he does not harm or kill any living thing.
An Occupy Scout knows there is strength in numbers. He treats others as he wants to be te… he isn’t a corporate whore or a politician!

A Scout is Obedient.
A Scout follows the rules of his family, school, and troop. He obeys the laws of his community and country. If he thinks these rules and laws are unfair, he tries to have them changed in an orderly manner rather than disobeying them.
An Occupy Scout doesn’t always agree with the rules of society. He tries to respect the laws of his community and country but they don’t always respect him.

A Scout is Cheerful.
A Scout looks for the bright side of life. He cheerfully does tasks that come his way. He tries to make others happy.
An Occupy Scout looks for the bright side of life. There’s no point in having a revolution if it isn’t going to be fun.

A Scout is Thrifty.
A Scout works to pay his own way and to help others. He saves for the future. He protects and conserves natural resources. He carefully uses time and property.
An Occupy Scout pays his own way and always manages to help others. He isn’t a politician!

A Scout is Brave.
A Scout can face danger although he is afraid. He has the courage to stand for what he thinks is right even if others laugh at him or threaten him.
An Occupy Scout can face danger (and pepper spray) even though he is afraid. He has courage to stand for what he thinks is right.

A Scout is Clean.
A Scout keeps his body and mind fit and clean. He chooses the company of those who live by high standards. He helps keep his home and community clean.
An Occupy SCout gotta keep running from the man!

A Scout is Reverent.
A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others.
An Occupy Scout is not reverent to the gods of finance and religions of money. He still manages to respect the beliefs of others.


 

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Cafe

Sunday, November 13, 2011

“I think that, when you die, it’s just a shut down and then there’s nothing. Perhaps a few blinking sparks of consciousness and then,” he paused to stare at the swirls of cream turning his coffee white, “then you’re free.”

Opposite him, the clown smiled and ran a white streaked hand across a sweating brow. “Freedom is relative.”

The coffee tasted bitter, despite all the extra cream he’d added. Everything always tasted bitter of late. It had started slowly and then had built to a crescendo of bitterness. At first it had just been the occasional meal and he’d put it down to a change of diet. A change brought about by concerns for diabetes. The diabetes had been a red herring. Actually, he was just a hypochondriac. But the bitterness built up. Soon enough, every meal and every drink had rounded on him and become an enemy, daring him to engage with it and finish it off.

He glanced up at the clown. Fixing him with a long gaze, he took in the long black streaks under the eyes that smeared into gradually drying white face paint. Where there had been two perfectly formed red circles were now two slaps of rouge, painful against the heavy bones of his cheeks. “I prefer the illusion of freedom to the materiality of captivity. Besides, isn’t it better to know exactly what your limited options are than to never know what your unlimited choices might be?

The clown folded his enormous billowing sleeves under his arms so that he could comfortably pick up his cup of Chai tea. “Perhaps, perhaps. I like this tea. You should consider changing your drink. Does the coffee still taste bitter?”

“Always and no thanks, I’m happy with the bitterness.” He waved the cup through the space between them, spilling some of it on the cheap laminate cafe table. Embarrassed by the spill, he placed the cup down and drew out a handkerchief from his pocket. It soaked up the coffee and he slipped it back into his pocket. Outside, the darkness embraced the whole city and neon lights flickered into life. Their reflections grew stronger in the window, a challenge to their own faint grasp on reality.

The clown smiled. “Everything is an illusion. Perhaps the bitterness is a part of that? You should spend some time dwelling on that possibility and decide what suits you.”

“I have a choice?”

“We all have choices in our lives. It’s what we do with those choices that differentiates us from the animals.”

The old man felt the handkerchief moistening his leg through his trouser pocket. “I wonder if bitterness exists outside of the tastebuds?”

“Everything is an illusion. We make our own choices about what we want to accept or not.”

The old man sighed. “Of course you’d say that – you’re a clown.”

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Grand and shitty all at the same time

Saturday, October 29, 2011

“I don’t know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen.”

Theft: a love story

The opening sentence to Peter Carey’s novel Theft: A Love Story. The story of Butcher Bones, an artist (painter) and his brother, Hugh. I really like this opening sentence and I’ve been running it through my head since starting to read the novel yesterday.

As an opening sentence telling us that this is going to be a first-person tale, told from a future point, it’s pretty decent and does the job. There’s a certain Dickens-like quality to it:

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. – David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)

The narrator exists at some time removed from everything that happens after this point and we’ll probably be granted a revisionist interpretation. But Carey knows that this approach lends itself to unreliable narrators, so he throws in a side swipe that neatly undoes anything the main character might write about. The brother Hugh, gets his own chapters, sparsely placed throughout. Not, as you might imagine, evenly alternating between the two, but just when Butcher Bones is at his most arrogant and earnest. They have an important part to play in the proceedings.

What I love about this first sentence though, is how well it tells us so much about the character and background of Butcher Bones.

“I don’t know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy,..”

Here is the knowing reference to literature, the Dickens connection is obvious and the use of the word tragedy, tells us that he understands his genres. Then the way he phrases it with grand: it’s a word that suggests an old world elegance and upbringing, perhaps it’s used slightly mockingly here though? Bones is a man who constantly flirts with the ultra rich of the art collecting world to make a living, while at the same time hating them and himself for it.

“…although a lot of shitty stuff did happen.”

A nice juxtaposition of language here, using the word shitty in a base and even funny way to distance himself from the previous rich-patron tones. And it verges on almost being terrible syntax but that just increases the earthy tone of it and the natural feel of the language used. Again, this perfectly summarises the way his own character fluctuates between the artist who has escaped his working class, family butcher origins and now relies on the rich patrons who buy his art.

That first sentence just sets the tone of the whole novel up so well. I can only hope to one day write as well as Peter Carey.

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Elena

Saturday, October 29, 2011

First Draft

 

“ELENA is a new facility aimed to deliver antiprotons at the lowest energies ever reached in order to improve the study of antimatter,” said CERN’s Stéphan Maury, Head of the ELENA project.

In 1955, antiprotons were discovered at the University of California. In 1955, Elena Jakorowski was born in Poland.

 

Rain always falls in the same direction. This is a given fact of our corporeal existence. The most trivial experiment leads to the conclusion that it always falls in the same direction. It begins above and ends below, splashing at our feet and forming a mass. All those individual, unique (I like to think of them as unique, despite evidence of homogeneity) pear-shaped missiles falling around us. It’s just the way the universe is.

The red blocks measured in the experiment's caesium iodide calorimeter indicate photons from the positron annihilation. The yellow lines correspond to charged particles from the antiproton annihilation. These are detected by silicon detectors (pink) and the calorimeter (yellow blocks).

Sometimes, if I’m walking in a downpour on my way home, I stop. I just stand there, wherever the fancy takes me. Being a good scientist doesn’t always mean observing social protocols — otherwise we’d never achieve anything, don’t you think? Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t just stop. I’m not a bloody idiot. You have to gradually decelerate and reduce your energy levels. Otherwise all sorts of random things can occur.

An extracted beam of 1.5*1013 protons at 26 GeV/c is produced in 5 pulses with a total duration of 500 nsec

A by-product of my experiments is that I also get to observe some of the people around me. I know what an odd figure I appear to be, with my cream raincoat and bulging bag full of papers, laptop, lunch box and newspaper and most probably, an uneaten banana. Standing in the rain, even not moving, changes the outcome of the experiment. Any cat knows that.

Once, an old lady was going by on a bicycle. I forget the model now, but I’ll try to find out next time I see her. She had her head down trying mightily to ignore the rain (as though ignorance ever got rid of anything!) And, although I’m sure this is a cliché of romance novels, she seemed to have a glow about her and something inviting in her eyes. Did she have a scarf flowing behind her and hair whipping about in the slipstream wind from a passing lorry? My memory is vague now. I’ll find out next time I see her.

Don’t mistake my calling her an old lady for youthful arrogance, I’m sixty-four years old.

The AC machine is modified to become a decelerator (AD)

I don’t think it’s that important to change your name when you get married. Especially if you’ve had the same name all your life. Your face and your name are how you define yourself, more than anything else. My name has always been Michael Hawkins and I’ve always had a small knife scar along my right cheek from a youthful prank. Her name has always been Elena Jakorowski and she’s always had a thin, deep line of gnarled scar tissue across her back. That’s who we’ve always been.

Everything changes.

Decelerating the antiproton beam from the Momentum of 3.57 GeV/c  to  100 MeV/c

If forced to make a comment on the nature of relationships, I’d say that it would be impossible at this point in the experiment to agree any solid facts. I can tell you how it’s going and what the problems encountered are, but I haven’t formulated a definite outcome. Elena hated it when I spoke like this, making everything sound like ONE OF MY DAMN PAPERS FOR NATURE JOURNAL. VOLUME 15.

Elena says her whole life changed when she met me. Not as a direct result of our meeting, at least not physically. Definitely emotionally, but not physically. That dye had already been cast many years before.

During deceleration, the beam is cooled with stochastic and electron cooling

Shit happens. Or rather more elegantly, entropy happens. Entropy as defined within a closed system means that an outcome can always be calculated: given a known data set, known variables and starting points. Perhaps that’s why we have no idea what path our lives will take? We have no idea which closed system we’re actually part of and therefore what the data set is.

Standing watching rain fall with a cyclist passing while a pedestrian bumps into me and knocks my bag from my shoulder. Can all of the different factors be accounted for and recorded?

Don’t think that this is the first time I’ve tried to tell this story and it may not be the last. It’s just part of a sequence. The thing is, I keep recalling different elements. Last time I wrote down my notes, I couldn’t recall that Elena’s hair was whipping around. Next time I write this down, I will recall that we had already met at a conference five years earlier. We’d even shared a drink and meal (albeit with seven others at the table). The data set keeps changing.

The vacuum is a factor 20 better than AC , multiple scattering on residual gas molecules causes emittance blow-up at low momenta

Elena worked in a laboratory handling radioactive materials as part of experiments developing antidotes to radiation spills.

Sometimes when we’ve had an argument: I’D BE BETTER OFF IF I STILL LIVED ON MY OWN! Both of us have used this particular piece of vitriol at times. It’s a nice jagged hack and slash of the harmony of combined habitation. Or put less elegantly, it really fucks things up for weeks at a time.

All power converters have to be modified to have a better current stability at Low Momenta

Elena spends a lot of nights coughing and shows me the tiny specks of red that ruin the pretty white elegance of her tissues. On those nights, we just sit up in bed and I talk to her about some of the places I’ve traveled to. Having come from Poland to my country during her late teens, she chose not to travel the rest of her life. She doesn’t say too much about those years, but hints at something that happened to her around 1967. I don’t press for more information, just comfort her by rubbing her back. The ridge of tissue rides my fingers up and across her otherwise smooth, tanned skin.

There will be a new control system, compatible with the rest of the PS control system

A doctor prescribes some drugs that have just been approved by the government. They alter the structure of something or other at a molecular level, forcing her immune system to focus on attacking the growth.

The beam is Fast Extracted and sent to the experiments in a new area in the Centre of the ring

Five weeks pass one second at a time. Immune systems alter and perform fresh maneuvers. A battle isn’t a war.

The access to the experiments will be possible at all times during Antiproton Operation

It’s midnight and I call up the doctor and shout at him. Elena has been sick again and unable to eat anything for a few days now. I use a shouting voice that she’s taught me and abuse him for a full ten minutes before he calmly tells me to meet him at his surgery in half an hour.

The foreseen extracted beam intensity is about 1.2 107 pbars in a pulse of 200 to 500 nanoseconds , repeated once per minute

I still go to work and try to focus on the experiments I’ve set up over the past four years. There’s a problem with the magnets and we’re struggling to get funding for a backup power generator. I’m at work most days for about three hours before she calls me. She doesn’t complain or demand my presence, just wants advice and to hear my voice. Still, I can’t sit here at my desk and eat my salad knowing that she’s at home, in pain. I leave Post-its stuck to machines all over the lab for my PhD students and technicians.

Protons for setting-up will be available in the Reverse Direction (PS > TT2 > TTL2 > 8000 > 7000 > machine > 6000)

Elena spends more time on the settee than the bed. We agree it’s a good compromise between being in bed and up and watching television. It’s a halfway process.

“When I was a little girl, in Poland, my parents used to sit me in the lounge and read to me. Mother couldn’t get hold of any fiction so she used to read text books that Father had taken from the local school.”

Didn’t the schoolchildren need them?

“I was the only child in the neighbourhood.”

And of course, the text-books were all science ones.

AD is running during 6 months per year Monday morning to Friday evening  24h/24.

Eventually, Elena completely decelerated. Yes, I know that isn’t a very romantic or human way of putting it. FUCK YOU, THIS IS MY LIFE AND I’LL DO WHATEVER I WANT WITH IT. In my best Elena voice.

I’ve tried standing in the rain, repeating the experiment, watching the rain go in the same direction. Sometimes you have to repeat parts of an experiment to confirm that you carried it out correctly. Or to note any elements that were different from the first time. Those are important variables.

When raindrops completely decelerate, they become part of the mass of water beneath our feet. The raindrops are still there, they’ve just become something else.

_*_*_*_*_

Titles taken from: http://psdoc.web.cern.ch/PSdoc/acc/ad/index.html Introduction section.

 

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Same sequence.

Monday, October 17, 2011

a highly asymmetric dijet event, with one jet with ET > 100 GeV and no evident recoiling jet

Same sequence.  You really have to initiate a sequence to fully comprehend where it’s planning to be errr, taken. The girl just sat quietly waiting for something to happen. Command sequence and, errr, you know… press stuff? The girl shifts about, drawing her half-length dress tighter around her knees, hiding her pale flanks. Press keys and step back, rock in chair. Begin to understand something more fundamental than the initial sequence. She twirls her hair through fingers that are still moist from earlier. IS it earlier? A flick of keys suggests that barely a second has passed and yet..? Yet again it’s time to press keys and play the tired old game. Can you picture it before it appears on the screen? No. Start again. The girl sits quietly waiting for something to happen. Caress each key in what, for the sake of modern parlance, we’ll call the correct sequence. Syntax and coding aside, it’s the least we can offer the machine.

The girl remembers a time before the time before just now. Her fingers are still moist from it. She had wiped something away hadn’t she? You initiate a sequence and stand back. Oh, I see, it’s YOU! You’re the principle protagonist in the sequence are you?

Good, good. Right well that’s all clear now. The girl doesn’t look convinced though. She remembers the moisture that now slips across her pale, cold skin. Tapping harder and trying to out-think the machine, that’s the game. The moisture was on the front of her dress. The dress that now has begun to form narrow canyons, pulled so tightly across her legs. If anyone has any final thing they want to say, then now’s probably the time to say it.

The girl flips her head back like a broken Pez dispenser and lets out a strained laugh. You carry on trying to find the right sequence but you could spend the next forty billion hertz trying to do it.

You’d never get to her in time.

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Flash[mob]dance

Monday, October 17, 2011
dance”]

Flash[mob

Abide with me, oh never mind, collect yourself and reconfigure. No, eliminate. No, trammel down the moments between the moments that…. And where next? Hard fought moments. Collect ours and yet… eliminate the sequences. Oh god the hard won moments, the eliminated sequences..

 

 

[Holding forth, he wonders: Is the point to contemplate further?]

[Ahead of him: the last bastion of sensibility]. A small, perfectly formed oblong with flashing screen. Nice. That’ll do nicely.

[Whole cast perform Flashdance sequence.] Only instead of the famous dance sequence, they just grab a load of welding tools and start to build a boat. Sometimes it’s the other scenes that matter the most.

Inherited by itself, it probably doesn’t amount to very much. I like the ones who dance and then bother to take the time to talk to you.

Lap dancers?

No welders? They have the softest hands.

Yes, it’s the gloves they wear. Only, the material they make the gloves from tends to be made from a rare carcinogenic material designed to stop the heat penetrating and causing skin complaints. The material saving them, is also killing them.

Whole cast move forward and sit at front of stage. Nobody bothers getting up and performing because arts cuts have made it impossible to light the stage.

George Lucas gets funding to do a CGI version.

Fade out.

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