I Hope to Write a Garden

I Hope to Write a Garden.

I hope to write a garden.  I hope to know its secrets – its rough, intriguing stonework features that hide in clustered grasses; its shrouded walls where dense ivy gives way to clambering clematis and honeysuckle hoards; its winding footways, its nooks and crescents, its shadows and sunlight rippled clearings.  I hope to roam into its depths, where purple cones of bright buddleia are cocked on twigs; crimson and many toned azaleas dazzle the eye; and sunflowers – proud of their packed bulk – stand tall above all.  I hope to write gazebos, elegantly latticed; enclosed sculptures of wild green men and weathered, sessile buddhas; sudden fountains of clear, cold water.

I hope to write my way into this peace and seclusion, this haven of mild breezes, buzzing bees, and darting damselflies.  I hope to write its subtle scents, vying in the warm air for contact with the cilia and damp, inner skin of my nostrils.  That jasmine tinge, that florid efflux with its shifts and tints that overwhelm and disappear as if at whim.  I hope to write sparrows, thrushes and linnets, warblers and finches, all flitting through my bright, bushy maze, with their songs of cadenced chirrup, jabber and high pitched rill.  To see them flash from cover, gather in groups, peck, preen and suddenly scatter as if by an unseen signal.

To plant for my pleasure with no wish to reap, simply to sow and watch as seedling stretches to stem and branch, to leaf and flower and fruit; as seasons work their passage and weather takes its many turns.  To watch from unseen vantage, as yellow caterpillar squirms, green shield bug struts and striated snail slowly slides to extend its glistening trail.

I hope to write all this and more, as I stare from my window at a small rectangle of patchy lawn and a straight stretch of stone paving with a scattering of scrawny weeds that grow through the cracks.  I look down at the unforgiving fencing that encloses this arid scrap from the rectangles of my neighbours’ gardens.  At the over-sized plastic waste bins that I have nowhere else to store.  At the bin bags of clippings that I have yet to take to the dump; the corner bed where I do my best to preserve what’s left of some other gardener’s plantings or what the wind blows in to grow.  And as I look my vision fades, my words become meaningless marks on the page.

I hope to write a garden, to type its mass of species, to dig beds and seed them with but a biro in my hands.  To make terraces of A4 reams, raised beds of notebooks, dictionaries and volumes of reference.  To make archways of essays, pillars of poems, ponds of prose and the twisting footpaths of storylines.

I hope to write a garden.

Cambodian Psychedelia

Cambodian Psychedelia

www.worldmusic.net/cambodia

I am a non-musician but a serious fan of a wide range of music from a wide range of cultures and traditions.  That said, I don’t get as much time as I once did for listening.  Nevertheless, I retain a seemingly unending curiosity about and desire to hear music and set aside what time I can to do so.

Thus, last night I began a serious listen to a compilation in the esteemed and generally excellent Rough Guide series that goes out under the heading: ‘Psychedelic Cambodia’.  I’d bought it in part because a friend of mine had played me an album by Dengue Fever and it had produced quite a high reading on the old thrillometer.

Dengue Fever, a mixed race, USA based band, have made something of a name for themselves in the last few years.  I hope to find time to hear more of their work, but know that it is based in part on a relatively short lived interlude in the musical history of Cambodia which occurred between the Khmer independence from the French and the arrival of the Khmer Rouge.  This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s.  And that music is mainly what is featured on this compilation.

Psychedelia?  I can’t say for sure.

If you’ve read the ‘Ptoof!’ piece on my website about Western psychedelic music and culture, you’ll know something of the style of music to which I consider the term is genuinely applicable.  Whilst it is not necessary to be on or even to have experienced the effects of psychedelic drugs to play it, it is music which is produced with a layering and attention to detail that – when listened to in a psychedelically enhanced or even a simply mindful state of reception – becomes evident and apparent.  Psychedelic music works like those ‘Magic Eye’ 3D pictures that on first appearance is but a pattern or random visual ‘noise’ on the page.  You hold one close to your eyes, gradually move it away and at a certain distance, with the right degree of concentration, you find yourself looking at a 3D image, previously unseen.  Sometimes in the music those ‘hidden’ elements are tricks of the mix, sound effects or vocal elements picked up only if you are paying close attention, sometimes they are contained in the weave of improvising instruments.

This compilation contains a dozen songs from the original era of this music, and three by modern bands, recreating and developing the style.  The older songs (several tracks by key singers Ros Seresyothea and Pan Ron, plus a couple more) may or may not have been intentionally psychedelic.  In the words of compiler Sean Hocking, they blend ‘elements of traditional Khmer music with the sounds of rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll’.  They do so with a quality of exotic beauty, combining often-female vocals, delicate and winsome, with a mixture of traditional and rock/pop instrumentation.  I’d say that what largely earns the ‘psychedelic’ tag are the instrumental breaks, featuring guitarists who play in a style that clearly resembles that of, say, Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish, or keyboard breaks reminiscent of the Doors’ Ray Manzarek.

Well, there I am listening to these songs and thinking: ‘Wow!  This really is great stuff.’  It veers between a charmingly dated 60s kitsch pop feel, the purity and ‘folk’ feel of the Cambodian instrumentation, and these wonderful, wild instrumental breaks.  Intentional or not, it satisfies many of my psychedelic criteria.  Particularly with the strange dreamlike feeling engendered by well known western song tunes that have been co-opted into this music (such as Pan Ron’s ‘Kom Veacha Tha Sneha Knom’ which is credited as traditional but is clearly the tune of ‘Bang Bang’ – as sung in the west by both Cher and Terry Reid).  But there’s something that bothers me too.  Something that stops being able to enjoy it fully.

I don’t have the same problem with the work of the modern bands – the aforementioned Dengue Fever or the trancey tracks by Cambodian Space Project and the Terence McKenna sampling Dub Addiction.  That material all swoops and swerves into my ears delightfully, with the full benefit of modern production techniques.

No, the problem with the original stuff is not its sound but the story that goes with it.  The majority of these musicians were to become victims of Pol Pot’s genocide regime.  They were executed by the Khmer Rouge.  I cannot get this fact out of my mind as I listen.  It brings a dark edge to work whose main attribute is a quality of light grace and delightful celebration.  A taint I am unable to ignore.

I will continue to listen to it.  Maybe that feeling will pass.  I hope so.  Those musicians would have wanted their music to be heard after their deaths, I’m sure.  As did, according to Sean Hocking, ‘the Khmer people themselves who hid records or took them overseas and kept them as treasures of a lost past’.  My gratitude is to all of them, those who died perhaps purely for the sake of this music, and those who took risks to preserve the recordings.

As for Dengue Fever et al – looks like I’m going to need more room on my shelves.

Toodle pip to one and all.

Just Checkin'

Just Checkin’…

This here blog began in January and has meandered on ever since.  In what I hope is a relatively bullshit free manner, I followed the hand-me-down advice that having a regular blog would help to establish my presence on the web (which, until this year, was not something I had actively pursued) and that this would help me to sell copies of my book.  There is an awful lot of hand-me-down advice just a Google search away, and I’m not sure that any of it is particularly trustworthy, or even that coherent at times.  But some things just have to be tried.

At first there were not a lot of ‘hits’ – still less than 200 when Wilful Misunderstandings got published on April 1st.  Recently there have been a lot more and now it’s well over 1000.  Still not a deluge.  And of course, amongst those there will be many who linger for a few seconds and move on.  Nor can I distinguish which of them are return visits and which first timers.  Google+ provides me with some statistics, but they tend not to tell me stuff I’d most like to know.

I know a couple of people who have been kind enough to tell me that they read this blog on a regular or semi-regular basis.  That’s the limit of the feedback I’ve had so far.

Apparently I should be building up my ‘followers’ – but that implies that I’m attempting to lead them somewhere, and frankly I don’t fancy leading anyone anywhere.  What would I do with them when we got there?  So, readers, rest assured that I shall make no attempt to recruit you in any way.  Okay, I shall attempt to gently cajole anyone who hasn’t yet done so into buying a copy of Wilful Misunderstandings (because, let’s face it, your life is incomplete without it), but that’s as far as it goes.

What I would enjoy greatly would be to hear from anyone who does read this blog.  It would be really interesting to know whether the content I put into it (often rather randomly) is proving entertaining and/or at least occasionally thought provoking.  Is the mix of content about right, or would readers like to see more or less of certain things?  What have been the highlights so far?  And, dare I ask, the lowlights?

There appears to be a box at the end of each entry where you can post comments.  Do feel free to use it, or if you’d prefer send me a message through G+.  It would be lovely to hear from you.  Opinions, if they emerge, my well conflict, of course.  But all suggestions will be considered and some of them will be acted upon.

Over to you.

In the meantime, here’s a pretty picture.

Toodle pip

Ambition

Ambition

I wanted to hang the moon and its glow

up from my ceiling to brighten my nights

they said I was foolish and I should know

that I had no claim to purloin satellites

(was I not content with electric lights?)

I told them my plans could still reach fruition

and they were the ones who lacked ambition

I required a mountain in my back yard

complete with eagles, snow, crags and a peak

they said the logistics were far too hard

that my neighbours’ views would be much too bleak

(a small rockery is what I should seek)

I told them they showed no true intuition

and mountains came to those with ambition

sure my attic could hold a universe

one hatchway to some endless diversion

they said: ‘you’re deluded or maybe worse

no house could contain such an incursion’

(could I not accept a loft conversion?)

I told them they had no sense of vision

infinite’s the limit of my ambition

And speaking of ambition, here's one more from th' Tube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFe7OlHNBQc

Toodle pip.

YouTube? Blimey! What next?

“So ‘e’s on YouTube, now, is ‘e?”

“Yeah, well, makes a nice change from ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’.”

“Come on, there’s no way ‘e’s going to out-viral all them cats playing pianos, surely.”

“’Course not.  Going for a niche market, in’t ‘e?  A balding old hippie reading stories from this book he’s trying to flog – I mean, it’s not exactly cute or sexy.  But, you know…  Takes all types, dunnit?”

“Well, what’s ‘e like?”

“Put it this way.  George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio won’t be losing any sleep.  ‘E does his best, you know…  You don’t see a lot of the audience, but they seem to be enjoying themselves by and large.  ‘E gets a few laughs, and some of them look like they’re actually where ‘e intended them to be.”

“Really.  So these stories ‘e’s reading, what are they about?”

“Oh, I dunno…  I wasn’t paying that much attention.  They don’t make a lot of sense, but ‘e tries to make it sound as if they do.”

“You mean like politicians?”

“I s’pose.  Not so scary, though.  In fact ‘e’s quite affable, really.  An’ he bobs around a bit, does a few funny voices…  Like I said, he does his best, bless ‘im.”

“Oh, there we are then.  I might get round to watching one of ‘em, if I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Wait a minute!  Forget about ‘im.  ‘Ave a look at this one!”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a cocker spaniel… an’ ‘e’s playing the violin.”

“Oh yeah!  Aww, look at ‘is little paws…  That is so cute.  And that’s a Stradivarius ‘e’s playin’, too.”

“You reckon?  I thought it was one of the Brandenburg Concertos, myself.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWh5i6CRERM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP8fMwx_R4Y

_________________________________________________________________________________

The Cult Book of 2016 continues to pick up steam!

Don’t be the last one to know – get it now!

Comments are coming in from readers of Wilful Misunderstandings, and so far they've been well positive.  Here's a sample:

Just to say I'm so enjoying your book. I've just finished 'Moon Bar Night'. It's mind expanding. How did you come up with that? Amazing. Loved the language, characters, everything about it. Your stories are like dreams half remembered, tapping into a seam (or seeming) of the unconscious mind.  (TJ Alderson - novelist)

I'm really enjoying reading Wilful Misunderstandings!  I love the feeling throughout the stories of shifting, malleable realities, it is so much fun and encourages thinking in new ways about the world. Love it! (Emily Hinshelwood - poet, climate change activist)

Wilful Misunderstandings.... The book is bloody brilliant. I read it in nearly one sitting. It totally messed with my head. So much so that now I'm going to read it all over again!  (Jo Freeman - teaching assistant)

Quite fascinating reading.  I'm sure Alan Moore fans will enjoy his stories. (Flavio Pessanha - Alan Moore scholar)

And speaking of Alan Moore, if you've missed it so far, here's what he had to say about Wilful Misunderstandings:

With an unusual oulipo toolkit and a feigned bewilderment at the English language, Richard Foreman strikes a previously undiscovered seam of literary inspiration in this oddly charming compilation of deliberately misconstrued everyday phraseology. Words are the essential wallpaper of our lives and our reality, and when even the word ‘wallpaper’ can suddenly become a thing of eerie, alien beauty we are made uncomfortably aware of the peculiar worlds of possibility that lurk beneath the skin of our vocabulary. A passport to a parallel planet where nothing means quite what you thought it did, this book offers an excursion to a strangely familiar place that you have never previously dreamed of. Get your shots and book your ticket today.

So there we are.  Click on this link to Lepus Books (or go to Amazon etc. if you need to economise) and buy it.  You won't have any regrets.

http://lepusbooks.co.uk/wilful-misunderstandings/

An Oulipian Fragment

An Oulipian Fragment

I've been thinking since I reproduced the piece on the Oulipo for this blog, that I ought to dip into their 'constraints' once more and see where I got to when I went there.  Okay, I said to myself, let's write a prose piece of around 500 words, under one such constraint.  Here goes...

I look at hills.  Jaggy or round in form.  Across my horizon and all in a row.  Woodland on a small quantity, individual growths on an additional amount. Clouds scud by as a backdrop - hint of indigo, part pink, as sun sinks.

I look at hills.  Hills look back.  Down on towns in which humans mark land with foundations, buildings, roads and paving.  Hills watch us all with profound absorption. A watch lasting as long as humans trod this land, if not for a duration way back past that shaky start.  Thinking Gaia’s thoughts of sustainability, I ask?

Hills stay with us.  Cliff facings, cascading liquid falls, random rock formations all abound – both at first scan, and also in our minds. Flora and fauna, climbs and slips, arduous trips and languorous strolls, wild winds and slow draughts; all within and without our own banks of thought.

Not simply mounds, big or small, hills stand with dips and undulations.  Fractal by way of formation, you can multiply all that hills contain and find infinity, insofar as find it you can with all your mind’s limits in play.  Think of hills as worlds if you will, or go as far as you can, anyway, on this thought-form path you follow.  Think through hills, into hills.  Go down to low strata, and pick up this story of how hills found form.  Find hills’ part in an unfolding saga of ground and its contours.

Hills do not show fright - proud to stand, stalwart, without complaint or any form of misgiving.  Up on a hill, you look afar and in all ways that your compass can point.  Up on a hill, you find a unitary spot at which to join that high continuity, and absorb all that is shown to you.  Raptor birds swoop in salutation, bug and dragonfly buzz and flit in comity with your far sight and smooth focus.  That’s what a hill can hand to you.

On a good day.

But on a bad and blowy day, as high winds push and drag your body, rain on a slant soaks to your skin and hail hits you hard, it may not turn out that this location suits you so happily.  Such days hills wish to hold apart, for a solitary form of inclination that no human can form a party to.  And on such days, if you go, you will stand on your own and probably find you will soon turn gladly to part company with all that turmoil that is raging about you.  Such days stay days in which to find walls and a roof to hold guard on your body.  Hills own rights to that which you do not.


So I look at hills to pick up any sign that I am fit to pass days amidst an availability of drama and on which this insight I always sought will possibly find its way to my mind.  I look at hills and know that I may find what I want to find - or just as much of what I’d not truly wish for.


Well, my respect for Georges Perec has just gone through the roof.  500 words without an 'e' and I've only just managed to keep it all making sense (more or less).  He wrote an entire novel under that same constraint.  And someone else translated it without 'e's too.  Hats off!

At first, I thought: 'this is silly, it's gonna take me all day to do the goddamn blog at this rate (it nearly did) and what's the point of that?'  After a bit I thought: 'hmm, this is interesting.  It's forcing me to find ways to get ideas across without falling back on the obvious words I might have used to convey them.  It's steering me away from writing patterns I often fall into, and from cliches.  Some of it may be rather inelegantly expressed, but here and there I've come up with some phrases I rather like and might not have found otherwise.'  Just writing whilst denied access to words like 'the' is quite enlightening.  Amazing too how often I did throw in a word containing an 'e' without noticing until I used the 'find' tool to highlight them.  We can write words and be blind to them - that's why proofreaders are worth their weight.

It's good this Oulipo stuff.

In small doses.

Toodle pip

Used Planet For Sale

Originally published in 'And This Global Warming' anthology,

Roynetree Press, 2012

(& proud I am that it was)