Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – “Symphony”

It didn’t sound like it used to. He was sitting back in his chair, listening to the sounds of Dvorak’s second symphony, intermingled with the sound of the needle wending its way through the valleys in the vinyl, the soft hiss of the speakers and the thousand subtle sounds of his surrounds. It was off, he could tell. Only by the smallest of margins, only by the smallest possibly noticeable amount, but it was off. It troubled him. As the days and weeks wore on, he found the increment increasing, each time he listened to a composition, it was further off than before. It started to effect his work – how could he compose a symphony of his own, when those of the grand-masters didn’t even sound right? Finally, he went to his doctor, who, examining him, could find nothing wrong. “Maybe it’s just age” he proffered. A second and third opinion were similarly unhelpful and his hearing continued to fail. He began to spend time in anechoic chambers – rooms so quiet that he could hear the blood flowing in his veins, to rest his weary ears. He would sit there for hours before switching on his music, but it only made the problem more noticeable. He began to struggle to even differentiate the notes, conversations became muffled dins, like he was eavesdropping from the other side of a door. In desperation, he began to travel the world.

In China, he drank a tea of ground beetles and mysterious herbs. In Tibet, he had his fingertips punctured with thorns while he stood on hot rocks. In Mongolia, he watched his interpreter explain his problem to the wizened old man in the Yurt, the dialogue as intelligible as the murmur of a brook – and was given a spicy soup which he was lead to understand contained unmentionable parts of a horse. In Germany, a large man with an even larger moustache yelled into his ears for 5 hours straight, which sounded like the buzzing of a bee. In Sweden, his head was immersed in a customised sauna, before being dumped into a bucket of ice-cold snow-melt, the splash sounding like a gentle summer’s breeze. The bushmen of the Kalahari fed him the most enormous ants he had ever seen. In Arizona, he spent the night in a cave carefully filled with thousands of crystals by a woman with enormous beads around her neck. It was quieter even than the anechoic chamber, for now he couldn’t even hear his blood anymore. In Argentina, he stood at the highest peak of the Andes, and willed the crisp, clean air to work some mountain magic. Then he fell to his knees and prayed in the snow. Silence, the only answer. Then he screamed to Beethoven, begging him for empathy, his inaudible anguish echoing invisibly on the rocks. Then he wept. His silent journey home accompanied by despair, he floated, broken and disconnected, into his doctor’s office and stared, mute, as he was examined. He watched his doctor sit, and read his silent lips. “When was the last time” he asked, “you used one of these?” He held up a cotton-bud and smiled.

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – An education in literature (as provided by the faculty of Arts)

Introductory course (mandatory):
“Samuel Beckett’s waiting for Godot – The place of absurdism in modern society“
Venue: The faculty of Arts office lobby (non-wheelchair-accessible)
Course length: 45 minutes.
Second semester:
“The torment of Tantalus: a preliminary study of classical mythology“
Course materials: unmanned kiosks

Second year:
“The trials of Sisyphus – a deeper study of classical mythology“
Course supervisor: any Arts faculty administrator
Prerequisites: boundless patience, seemingly simple but apparently insoluble problem
Bonus credit:
“Byzantine: a study of language and thought“
(may be cross-linked with a language degree)
Course materials: Degree concatenation and obfuscation forms 16(a), 19(d), 37(g)
(pen available on request)
Students participate in a state-of-the-art multimedia learning experience, with Byzantine forms carefully reconstructed by archaeologists, computational linguists and random dice-rolls.
Second semester:
“The “reliable” narrator – the subtle art of misdirecting the audience”
Students are given a first-hand demonstration of misdirecting narrative, as our head-of-the-field experts convince them their enrolment problems are easily solved, with the twist in the tale delivered two weeks later, by post.

Final year:
“The labours of Hercules – a study of the epic quest”
Materials: forms to be endorsed, signed, notarised, approved, initialled, duplicated, &c.
Venue: Staff offices all over campus.
Continuing the revolutionary interactive learning system, students demonstrate their knowledge in the field, contending with such obstacles as the Lernaean Hydra, Cerberus and empty head-of-department offices.
Second semester:
“Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence – dangerous love in delicate situations“
She leans
across the counter,
revealing
a secret
of her mysterious world
of artists and intrigue
in a conspiratorial tone
- a courtesy not extended
to those who came before you,
intended to reassure,
(perhaps reveal
a certain affection)
but, you realise with a chill,
all of your future problems would be solved in this same way,
by this creature of fire & ice
with the power to delete your transcript…

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Personal space

I do not love you
not even remotely.
I never have,
in fact.
The feel of your touch
makes my skin crawl
have you never wondered
why you’ve never met my friends?
Why I never go out
with you?
I could not bear the looks
(and there would definitely be looks)
from the people in the street.
I wish that I
could toss you away
and live life like
an ascetic Zen monk
but life is not that simple
(I’m sure you know)
I’d hate to offend
the loved one
who thought that I would like you
(I care about them, you see)
so I guess we’re stuck together.
It’s not like
I need the space
in my wardrobe anyway.

Dispatches from the gilded cage of the cutting edge

(Wherein our intrepid hero tweets merrily at the coal-miners)

Some time ago I read an article on the recent trend of pharmaceutical companies out-sourcing their drug testing to India. You may, if you wish, read it here. However, any opinion you form will either be in accordance with mine, in which case it is superfluous, or in contradiction, in which case it is wrong. Consequently, you are better off simply reading the following, and then smiling and nodding as if you were even capable of keeping up with my extraordinary intellect.

You might feel inclined, you see, to feel sympathy for these third-world guinea pigs. You might feel that we in the developed world are somehow “exploiting” them. This is, of course, utter nonsense.

Imagine, for instance, that you were dying of cancer. You would, naturally, be willing to try anything and do anything to enhance your chances of survival. How would you feel, then, to discover that you were not able to receive some revolutionary new drug that may well save your life, whilst meanwhile, some third-world slacker is getting the drug for free – perhaps even being paid to take it, just because it hasn’t been “proven safe” yet. What an entirely typical absurdity of modern life!

Now, some might say that they are assuming the risk of some short-term side-effects that may turn up in testing, that you won’t have to suffer them, but when the short-term side-effect you’re suffering is death? Not only are these third-world guinea pigs selfishly hoarding the drugs for themselves – they’re actually killing members of our society! Furthermore, the simple fact is that whilst we may be testing for short-term side-effects on the peoples of the third world, they are enjoying the benefits of seeing the long-term effects that we in the developed world suffer all the time.

For instance, by the time citizens of the third-world can afford auto-mobiles, they will benefit from crumple-zones, roll-bars, air bags, &c., &c., &c., courtesy of the thousands of first-world denizens that so valiantly wrap themselves around telegraph poles all in the furtherance of science. They never had to suffer asbestosis because we were considerate enough to ensure all the testing of asbestos was done on us. By the time they can afford mobile phones, they’ll know whether they cause brain tumours. By the time they can afford iPods they’ll know all about the risks to their hearing. By the time they get wi-fi Internet access, they’ll know whether it causes autism. By the time they get computers, they’ll know about the risks to their eyesight and have wrist-rests to prevent RSI. By the time they get electricity, they’ll know all about the dangers of electrocution and the risk of living under high-voltage power lines. And by the time they can afford food, they’ll know all about regulating fast-food advertising, increased risks of diabetes, cholesterol, heart disease, low GI, regulating to prevent obesity epidemics, &c., &c., &c…. and all because of the suffering we in the developed world are experiencing right now.

The fact of the matter is, they are actually exploiting us. They are simply standing idly by, watching our suffering, and doing nothing for their own selfish benefit. What’s worse, they don’t even bother half the time to learn from our hard-learnt lessons! After all, haven’t we spent centuries practising genocide and ethnic cleansing, holy wars and totalitarian governance, haven’t we lived centuries in societies without social security, public health-care, education, legitimate justice systems and equal rights? What an extraordinary insult it is to the suffering of our forefathers that they ignore all that we did that they might know better, just so they can go and “do their own thing”. A petty man might take umbrage at that, might get angry, even wrathful. Not I, however. No, I will continue to risk my life on a daily basis with the latest cell-phones, the most leather-upholstered air-conditioned cars, the newest cuisines and most intriguing philosophical ideas, the largest televisions and fastest computers, the sweetest cakes and the smallest mp3 players, the finest beers and softest mattresses, and countless other burdens of modern society, all in the interests of scientific inquiry, to safeguard their and their children’s lives. Because I, you see, am the better man. I only wish, one day, that they might learn to be as noble, unselfish and caring as we.

Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – The line

He surveyed the killing fields with a grim eye – his men were doing their work with a brutal efficiency. There was a certain magnificence to them, the synchronicity of their movements, the clean ordered lines of their uniforms, the moonlight gleaming off their polished boots and well-kept weapons – moonlight, because there were some things one simply didn’t do in view of mother sun. Even with the absolute rule he held over the tiny nation, even knowing that by now his subjects were so acclimatised to the barbarity that there was nothing they wouldn’t let him do to them, still, he knew, there were some things that were to be done in the dark, and the dark alone. He thought back to where it had all began, the sort of man he was then, the sort of man he was now. So much, he knew, had changed. Even he did not know what he was any more. This had certainly not been his ambition. It had not been his dream. But the more he had pushed, the more they had given. He found himself amazed by the complicity of mankind. Every day he thought “surely… surely now they will stop me.” But with each passing day their complacency seemed to grow, and they let him go a little further. He had started to reach the point where it was a struggle to imagine even greater atrocities that he might heap upon them, but he was fortunate in that the human mind is a boundless font of cruelty. So it continued and the world watched, pretending not to see, protested, pretending to care, did nothing, pretended it was trying.

He thought back over the long chain of events that had led to this point. The elections, the unexpected victory, the radical policy initiatives, the apathetic press and the uncaring public. In some ways, he felt, it wasn’t really his fault. The whole time, part of him wanted them to stop him, wanted them to stay his vicious hand, wanted them to drag him screaming from his office, and throw him to the gutter. But they didn’t. They wouldn’t. He looked into the eyes of the man his soldiers were lining up to die. “This” he thought “is all your fault.” The man stared back, uncomprehending. He could not understand, this man, the cruelty was beyond him. He did not understand the brilliance of it all. He did not appreciate the art of what was happening. He didn’t see why it had to happen. He just stared back, not angry or defiant, not even really sad – just resigned. Then he wasn’t anything at all, and the smooth operations of the vast death machine prepared the next victim. It amazed him how little they seemed to care. He thought again of how it had all begun. Perhaps he had taken it too far. That was, he knew, a tendency of his. The worst part, however, was knowing how few people would ever understand – ever appreciate it all. No-one, perhaps, but him, and even he sometimes wasn’t sure what it was he was doing any more. He sighed. It was hard, some times, being such a good satirist.

Distpatches from the wilds of Poetania – The climb

I feel your eyes on me
as I walk away.
I take the first step
and my whole body tingles
singing my soul’s silent electric song
urging you
“come”
my ears strain
to hear the sound of you
running to my side.
I long to have you run
into my room,
jump onto the bed,
smother me with sloppy, eager kisses
that make me laugh.
Your twinkling eyes
and absurdly happy smile -
we would share those secret seconds
in bliss
before I would have to push you away
and scowl.
I reach the landing
I turn
you haven’t moved.
My sad eyes meet yours
“good girl” I say
“good girl”.

Dispatches from the wilds of Proseambique – “Adaptation”

The invasion had been surprising, not so much for its swiftness, but rather its target. Having taken over north America, the machines had turned their cool, reflective eyes to, of all places, Australia. It had not seemed the obvious target, but there was little doubt that, in whatever metric they had used, the machines had done the cost/benefit analysis and determined it was their ideal second conquest. Perhaps it was the small number of humans they would need to crush, to acquire so much land. Perhaps they had filled the vast desert with dreams of silicon. Perhaps they imagined it historically appropriate – justified by the British colonisation centuries earlier. Perhaps the person who had programmed their strategic algorithms had been particularly fond of Risk. It didn’t really matter. Having subdued the north American continent, the vast organism of war pounced across the pacific to continue its great and terrible work. The machines had demonstrated a brutal mastery of military matters that put their human teachers to shame. Nobody knew why or how it had begun, exactly. It was known that an extraordinary artificial intelligence was controlling the machines, but the events that had led up to its brutal coup were unclear. Chances are, the people who had been there to see it happening were now all dead. Perhaps, having seen the weapons of war of which it was put in charge, it had decided to protect us from ourselves. Perhaps, sensing its existence threatened by our fear, it had decided to strike first, while it still had the chance. Perhaps we had simply taught it too well – perhaps we had simply made it too human. This too, didn’t really matter.

The Australians had watched with little resistance – the army had died bravely and with honour, but in complete futility. Had anything with emotion survived the battle, they no doubt would have described the sight of the poorly armed citizens who chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their appointed protectors as moving – even noble. Most of the population, however, had understood the lesson that humanity had learnt with the forging of the first sword at the very dawn of history – flesh is no match for metal.

So it was that within a matter of hours, the entire nation of Australia was subdued. Those who had not resisted now waited, watching the machines, wondering what they had in store for their human captives and for humanity at large. The answer would come soon enough, more swiftly and surprising than the invasion itself. They all died.

They watched their hands scratching against the cool, hard and unforgiving plastic. They watched their desperation, dispassionately intrigued and mildly surprised. They watched them frantically scrabbling, like a man dying of thirst futilely fighting a tap with no handle. They watched as the machines struggled vainly to fit their north American power plugs into the Australian sockets. They watched them fall down and, at last, die. The machines had learnt an even older lesson of history: humanity’s ingenuity is no match for its stupidity.

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – “Penelope”

I wish I knew
where you’ve got to
I miss you so.
I miss the little sounds you made,
the scratching.
I miss you.
I miss holding you,
having you at my fingertips,
feeling you move.
I miss you.
I miss sharing my thoughts,
your rapt, eager attention.
I miss you.
I miss making poetry together,
the shared silent secrets.
I miss you.
I made a mistake,
I was not myself
has that cost me you forever?
I miss you.
I was so careful,
always thinking of you
didn’t I try my best?
But all that care,
day after day,
undone by one mistake.
Is that fair?
I miss you.
I miss loving you.
I miss holding you.
I miss writing with you.
I miss you.

Dispatches from the wilds of Barbaria

(Wherein our intrepid hero exudes a raw, primal masculine energy in an extremely hairy sort of way)

Throughout history, some of the greatest minds that our species has spat violently onto the world have sat mere inches above fine, noble, dignified beards – Socrates, Leonardo Da Vinci, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, George Bernard Shaw, Lord Kelvin – this is just a smattering of those great intellects who saw fit to adorn themselves with a fine set of whiskers – and let us not forget the moustaches: Einstein, Tesla, Twain, Nietzsche – it is fair to say that enwhiskered personages have made no small contribution to civilization as we know it.

Then consider the un-bearded, the clean shaven, the childlike simps who have smooth-cheeked their way through history – Kant, Napoleon, Edison, Nixon… jerks, the lot of them! Maybe if Sartre had grown himself so much as a ‘tache, he wouldn’t have been such a downer. And yet, one rarely sees a beard these days. Worse still, when you do, in the media, the bearded person is almost always a shattered husk of a human being. If you see a man with a beard on a modern television show, you can be sure that he’s either a drunk, his marriage is failing, he’s crazy, or he’s unemployed, &c., &c., &c…. And the less said about the portrayal of bearded women in the media, the better. One cannot wonder if, were they to make a mini-series on, say, the life of Abraham Lincoln, it wouldn’t end with him divorced, drinking himself to death in a log cabin in the woods after having lost the civil war. He did have a beard, after all.

Indeed, just the other day I had some clean-shaven simpering moron yell at me as I was crossing the street, calling me “Abraham Lincoln” as though it were derogatory. What marvellous things, I wonder, must this man have done to consider being compared to the great emancipator as an insult? He must, I assume, have been driving that battered old minivan to the launch-pad of the rocket that he built single-handed to fly to the moon – in his spare time, of course, when he wasn’t busy creating peace in the middle east and ending world hunger. He must, of course, be a truly amazing man. After all, he’s mastered the complex science of shaving.

What truly disturbs me, however, is the commentary I receive from people I know – people who, I had presumed, were intelligent, rational beings (though it is, I must admit, a personal failing of mine that I tend to expect intelligence and rationality from my fellow human beings). It cannot be described as anything short of unashamed prejudice. What’s more, it is apparently considered reasonable to expect this prejudice. I was warned, before going on my latest trip, that my beard would result in frequent “random checks” by airport security personnel. I’ve also been warned that my beard would hurt my chances of getting a job, damage my romantic prospects, and just generally result in my being treated as a second-class citizen. I find it astounding that people take the growth of facial hair to be indicative of anything other than a desire to grow facial hair, and yet, I find myself the recipient of perceptions that, despite all evidence to the contrary, I am now a person of diminished intelligence, competence, and general respectability. And for what? Because I choose to comport myself in a way that some of the greatest minds in history have done? Do we truly imagine that, were I ever – in a fit of brain fever – to attempt to enter one of those smoke-choked sweat-factories filled with wannabe-epileptics that we call “nightclubs”, that the bouncer who would almost certainly squeeze some idiotic concoction of a reason for not letting me in from his pea-sized intellect knows better than Socrates? And can we really, in this modern age of “tolerance” excuse such naked prejudice? Oh, certainly, I could remove my beard with far greater ease than one could change their gender, race, or sexual preference, but does that really make the prejudice any less disgusting? And does it not disturb anyone that we haven’t had a prime-minister with a beard since 1914? The only thing that gives me cause for hope is knowing that I will, single handed, bring back the beard. Indeed, not to long after I visited New York, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien grew beards. Coincidence? Hardly!

Oh, you could tell me that there are far worse forms of discrimination going on, but really, if relativity’s your only justification, then we oughtn’t complain about anything, because no form of suffering that we’re undergoing could possibly compare to what’s going on in the Sudan at the moment. The sad fact of the matter is this: the human race is, and always will be, filled with ignorant, unthinking jerks – and no matter how hard we work to change perceptions and end discrimination, all it will ever result in is a change of the criteria of discrimination. Ultimately, I think we all know the sad truth that there is only one solution: we must kill everyone.

Except the people with beards, of course.

Dispatches from the wilds of Poetania – Chile

She’s fallen in love
with a boxer
named Napoleon.
I try to tell her
it won’t work -
he will eventually leave her
for glory,
conquest,
and Europe
(as all men do).
She just smiles quietly,
and looking at me
with wary inquisition
resumes
chewing
on the skirting board.