mechanical i

Test

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:17:00 +0000

Test

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:14:00 +0000

Job

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:09:00 +0000

Test

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Testing

Test

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:45:00 +0000

Random

Calling America

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 07:23:00 +0000

Calling America is a brand new UK based site with little content at the moment, but I highlight it here because I love the concept: using stories submitted by real people from real place all across the States, the site aims to form an alternative view of life in North America to the main stream media portrayal, which frankly for most non-Americans tends to usually focus on the negative (which of in some cases is of course justified).

I’ll be watching this site closely to see what sort of contributions it gets, I’d very much like to see entries from everyday people. I think it could be quite popular if it’s kept open minded. Why not contribute a story of your own, they run an open submissions policy, so check it out!

Speaking of open submissions policies, don’t forget that we also run a similar setup here. If you’ve want to draw our attention to a cool site you run or something you’ve found on the web that rocks then don’t hesitate to get in touch via this form. Thanks.

Desperate Curiosity

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:50:00 +0000

I have moved my blog to a personal domain. Check out the new and vastly improved version at:

www.writerspace.net

It is now officially a theatre and writing blog.

'blogito ergo sum'

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 11:29:00 +0000

My next story will involve a Blue Robot, a Marble Doll and myself. It will explore my idea: 'I blog therefore I am' and what the implications of this statement are with regard to our current condition. It will begin at A, though it will skip B and move on to C to take a look at future technology, what I will be calling the 'post technological' era, whose main defining characteristic is the paradigm shift from the human 'I' to the artificial 'I'. I'm not sure at this point if there will be a D involved or not, but what is for sure is that the Blue Robot is a charcter of Herculean importance in this story. At first encounter you might be tempted to brush bot (the fourth gender that comes after he, she and it is 'bot') off as a child's toy; but nothing could be closer to a mistake than that. If anyone should be taken at face value it's the Marble Doll, becasue she will remain largely an ornamental exhibition piece who stirs the occasional comment rift in the narrative. The 'me' in this story is not me, as in I the author of this blog, it is the 'me' that has finally given up all organic and natural constitution of body and mind and has become fully artificial. The narrator (the organic me) is the arbitrator, neither important or unimportant, like the road that lies between the most and least travelled by.

Night Drain

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 08:18:00 +0000

So I close the chat session. It's 6:45am. Shit has it been that long? My bottle of Pastis is almost empty. I pull back the net curtains and see sun rays poking holes in the morning sky. The birds are up but they sound like Moulinex food processors. The contours of Guildford cathedral appear crisp in my mind. Why has that image chosen to pop up at this time? No answer? Ok I'll accept no answer but if I can piss that'll be just as good. In pushing the toilet door open another piece of plaster falls on the carpet. The toilet pan needs cleaning, there are shit stains round the rim. How did they get so high up? Is the flaking turd teaching me that gravity is defiable? No, but the old codger in the room next door may well have been at the poppers again. My piss is golden yellow, Pastis 51, aniseed to fill the need of a night without definition. But god does it make your throat dry, milk is the only solution. "I love you 51, I'd drink you all night long!" Twist this with a French Friday night cocktail of wanton boys and girls with money and egos to spare and you have yourself a square named 'victory'. A public square like the market square only the madmen who cross Victory shout "I seek a shag for tonight" and are not concerned with god, well they don't say that really but that's what they're thinking...maybe. Toilet thoughts rarely make sense but shower thoughts? Well they're a whole different kettle of fish! And a kettle of fish? Well that's a whole different story!

I Flush the chain and head for the landing where the descent begins. There's a guardian to pass before I can soak this parched throat in silk gloss. He's black and white and he owns the window by the stairs. 'Cheech' they call him: "Hi Cheech may I pass?" He looks away, that means 'yes'. Down I go and a paper penetrates the letter hole. I flinch and see it uncoil over the bristles of the doormat. "Woman eats Dog" it says in large bold red type. Interesting but must continue to the kitchen and its cold tiled floor, greasy in parts, cracked in others. The fridge sits like a stuffed bear in the centre. I open its stomach and retrieve my antidote. A thin stream of white gloss trickles over my chin and drips onto the floor. Does a milk stain compete in the same league as an oil patch? There's a frying pan on the stove. A thick layer of the culprit oil coats its surface. It smells exactly like you'd imagine old oil to smell: like dust in rain. I contemplate food...perhaps triggered subliminally by 'woman eats dog'...perhaps not. Nothing up here, nothing down there, all empty. Search results=nil. But the codger upstairs has food. Its stacked high in that cupboard on the other side, the space is unfamiliar territory. If I take something I'll trespass and leave traces. He'll find out. Can I deal with the awkward silence later on? But the milk has set my stomach yearning. I give in and snatch the first thing in sight: a can of beans. Low fat economy, in a white and blue striped tin. Out they flow onto my plate, each one testing my conscience as it falls amongst its fellow beans swimming in orange slime. 2 minutes or 3? I'll go for two and a half; the liberal option is wise at 6:45am. So my beans sit on a revolving stage absorbing 2.5 gigahertz of radio waves and I have 2.5 minutes to see the world.

The neighbour is off to work, keys already inserted in the car door. Opel Vectra, his wife is called; a charming lady with well curved and streamlined sides. A puff of smoke a hum up front, the wheels spin and he's away for another day. Oh what's this? Movement overhead. Is the codger awake already? God no! He is! Must hurry! Beans check: one minute and counting. He's in the toilet, I can make it if I go now! I grab the plate, trash the can, wipe the top and I'm through the door, shit! His cupboard door, reverse and close the treasure chest, go back through the door, no time for Cheech, the landing's in sight. Oh so close! The old codger appears: manky dressing gown, oversized boxer shorts and a horrible grin. Our eyes meet above the plate of steaming beans. "Beans?" he asks, "Beans" I say. There's silence then he's gone.

Paper Plane

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:34:00 +0000

there's a book called Crash
with an obsession for steel:
cold brushed metal,
shiny, silky, sex-appeal
taming the taboos of fetish
into something playful and coquettish
where moral disorder
is allowed to seep through the borders
and soak the brain
in indelible nausea
it's fiction I hear you say
and not realistic in the way
white man has defined modern social order.

but take away the Ballard surreal,
and it feels cold remembering steel.
there’s no light
cos the windows are sealed
and no night cos
the bulbs stay up late
hanging in rooms
we called ‘triple 8’.
Mother’s womb – death tombs
made for no escape,
measured to scare off all remaining pleasure
8 feet long:
pale green, steel frame, wire mesh oblong
8 feet high:
every day I paint the ceiling with sky
8 feet wide:
it smells like a goddamned zoo inside!
cos the animals that don't abide
don’t get no soap
so they fester and itch
in suits that were stitched
to gag your body, your mind and your hope,
of its instinctive pursuit
to sweat in the heat, oh the infernal heat!
so you lie on your bed,
and try not to repeat the words you’ve been fed

i scream in my dreams
at a boy of just three
his mum and his dad lie down by the sea
he’s licking ice-cream
and it’s sweet and it’s cool
but the next step he takes
leads him to fall
a voice cuts the scene
both, foot and ravine
it’s Jones and his gun
grinning like thieves
cos its time - time for their fun.

bang, crackle, pop!
damp wood on top
of the open log fire
that provides me with heat
in my winter retreat.
the book I was reading
falls to the floor
the TV is on, there’s a knock at the door.
I get up from the chair, turn off the box,
glance at my watch and straighten my hair
it’s three in the morning,
pitch black outside
who could it be?
I’m scared but don’t hide.
so I undo the locks and take off the chains
no one is there but a white paper plane.

i unfold its wings and return by the fire
there’s a message in black
and I start to perspire.
whose writing is this?
who's playing this game?
will I ever be free
from this gut wrenching pain?
i sink in my chair, take a sip from my glass
redo the wings, let it fly through the air
It spirals and falls,
comes to rest in the flames
and I read one last time
while it shrivels and fades:

"we watch, you pray"

Asif (the describer)

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 12:25:00 +0000

Sickly leather: the scent of smouldering flesh was being carried westward on the evening wind. "It's safe to go out now" he told himself, but the boy's crumpled spine felt too sore to move. The sun set its fiery mass over the remains of the empty village, somewhat apologetic for a day of scorching a land that had nothing left to be scorched.

Four months before and the petroleum company had been laying pipes in the region. Their giant yellow machines had made mile-long incisions in the sand. They were implanting arteries under the earth's skin to pump new life back into ageing economies.

Asif was curled up in one of the grey pipes. Salt stains on his sallow skin and that distant acrid stench were all that was left of the day's events. He wanted to get out. He crawled forward on his hands and knees but the pain forced him down onto his stomach, chin in the dust, eyes on the approaching night. "It looks different from down here" he thought, "difference is good" he murmured.

[to be continued]

Unholy hour

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 02:02:00 +0000

Tokyo, 2am. Dark and silent. The devil, your conscience, brings you to. He runs through the plan with you one more time, then you begin to rise from your bed. You're careful not to disturb sleeping beauty beside you. You zip up your jeans, pull on a t-shirt and head down to the garage. The key slots into the ignition...it's been a while. Your rust-ridden Yamaha shudders like a sick child, angry at you for waking it in this unholy hour. You chug on through deserted streets, the odd stream of light trailing off in the distance, some late-night workers sit slurping ramen in an off-beat noodle bar. The air is muggy and hot. It's a twenty minute ride to the riverbank and you're thinking "is this pile of crap gonna hold out?"...it does. The riverbank is pitch black. You turn off the engine and roll down to the water's edge. The moon watches you from above. A few birds flutter off to the right, disturbed by your presence. Mild fear gnaws at your stomach. "So this is it" you say in a low voice, "the moment of truth". You edge the bike over the concrete wall, the water below is placid and deep. You make one last check, and you let go. The water swells and swallows the rusty bike with a large gulp, bubbles rise and pop at the surface. You step back, light a cigarette and begin the long journey home.

One cliché begets another

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 00:42:00 +0000

When you think of Japan what is the first thing that comes to mind? One undisputed cliché, besides the slivers of raw fish, the kinky graphic novels, the ultra kitsch fads, the giggling school girls with mobile phones, the group photo ops where index and middle fingers are forced apart like scissors, the reams of electonic gadgets, the men in white gloves, the crammed-in-like-sardines trains, the lunar-landing module sleeping arrangements and the fanatic work ethic, is Mt. Fuji. What is a cliché? The mind's embroidering on the image of something we have never seen first hand. Whether the cliché exists at all or whether the fantasy we project is in any way close to the reality is not something I'm concerned with here. The Mt. Fuji of my mind was very real and very clear, and if I grew too old and wrinkled to fantasize anymore, she was the place I wanted to curl up and die in. She was quasi-perfection, reified beyond the realm of the living world, her long white hair floating with the clouds, her tender curves cushioning the landscape for miles around - she was a sacred summit that only the gods and the most worthy of earth dwellers could attend. But I saw blasphemy through representation one day: my beloved Fuji, sullied on the side of a derelict warehouse, morose like an outcast-being without reason to live. Tears and mascara dripped from a pale visage, listless and weak. Alas...Fuji was no longer the goddess she once used to be. So I moved on, I was forced to, no matter how hardious the rift may have been...now I have a new dream: to walk in among the sycamore trees that line the plains of Israel.

Surreptitious Snakes

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Thu, 09 Jun 2005 14:36:00 +0000

A snake decided to pay me a visit this afternoon, impropmtu to say the least. I was expecting the odd sparrow, possibly a crow or two but a long, black slithering snake had not been on the agenda. I'm still not certain what business he had with me, was it amicable or hostile? I think it was a 'he', the flanking maneuver he executed smacked of masculine fourberie. Though the female snake is known to be most cunning too. In the Chinese folktale "Baishe Zhuan" (The Story of Madam White Snake):

"A young man encountered a beautiful maiden attended by a maid during a festive outing near a lake. He followed her and was invited to her fine mansion outside the city, where he dined and stayed overnight. After that one-night stand, the young man became visibly emasculated, his vital essence being slowly drained. The suspicion that he had been bewitched was confirmed by a revisit to the mansion-in reality, a graveyard. A Taoist was called in to perform an exorcism, and, sure enough, a white snake and an otter were driven out. Upon this skeleton, though, other elements were soon added to give it flesh and substance."

(Whalen Lai, From folklore to literate theater: unpacking 'Madame White Snake'Asian Folklore Studies Vol.51 No.1 April 1992 pp.51-66)

There was no beautiful maiden hiding in this snake and she certainly didn't invite me to her mansion outside the city, well not that I know of anyway. When I first caught site of the intruding reptile I think the eyes of my heart popped out and the remnants of a childhood phobia, the roots of which lie in tales from a next-door neighbour's twisted imagination and that 'snakepit' scene in Indiana Jones, re-surfaced and propmted my brain to administer a rather large dose of adrenaline in my bloodstream. Like a jack-in-the-box, I sprang up from my pic-nic rug, bundled my things and hurried to a safe distance. Once some level of composure returned, I mustered the courage to follow the scaly beast and snap its picture, which I give to you here. I remain straddled over an unabated divide when it comes to snakes: on one side there is fear; childish and squeamish fear pouring from an emotional tap. On the other side is awe and respect, acknowledgement of the fact that humans are not always feared in the animal world.

Black holes in the beach

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 13:58:00 +0000

Black holes in the beach - oh the beach! Where boys and girls with buckets and spades, sandcastles and popsicles, frolicked in the sun. Where men fell pray to copper hornets, zooming by - front, back and sides - until the poison struck and the beaches receded to nothing but I...And then there's her. Her with the white snarling teeth, and that ocean jaw. She's cunning, oh beautiful in her cunning ways! She simmers like bubbling broth, flat lid tingling on the back burner. Softly, calmly, her ripples lap at the land like the cat's tongue in milk. But do not let her halcyon ways hoodwink your wavering eye, because beneath her deep blue shroud, she has you locked in her sight, eye to the scope, finger at the ready - her fixation and a steady flow of saliva form the white froth I call l'écume du jour - she will devour us all one day! Oh yes, make no mistake, she will be most unforgiving in that regard. "Build the defences" I hear you cry. And why not? We have become masters of fortification, and not to forget that the beach itself is a natural line of defence, a noble buffer, strong at heart, though one who is not unaccustomed to defeat. Trenches, walls, barricades and blockades: they are the likely candidates to keep her at bay, but they all share the same vulnerability: time - all things crumble and fall in time. So I say put down the bricks and mortar and lay your trowels to rest, and since time will not be defeated let us go in the direction that time is taking us: build a boat. A mighty vessel that spans two continents in breadth but floats lighter than a cork in a sink - a 'Contintental Ark'! And what the great ocean takes from us in land, we shall claim back in sea!

Always & the beginning

noreply@blogger.com (A W Eglinton) — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:42:00 +0000

In the beginning there was always, which this new blog belongs to, and which makes it part of the beginning. The face(s) to my left are one of the many illustrations of what always can be: indistinct and repeatable to inifinity/intricate and precise to a split atomic level. I once sat next to a Japanese transvestite called Saori, drinking vodka and lime in a bar. Saori's face was indistinct and precise just like the picture. Perhaps she/he was the embodiment of always. I cannot tell at this point. In any case I welcome you errant wayfarers to this new blog here of mine...whilst at the same time I am wondering, secretly, what you might be doing here...