Monday, September 08, 2008

The Tales of Walkman. Next stop, Jerusalem

I thought I’d open this all cleverly like and say “I must have forgotten Jerusalem, for verily my keyboard has dried to the top of my mouth”. Or something. But when I went to write it, it was clearly just painful.

Let’s just be upfront. I have a block. I have A Block as big as the Andes, as big as Antarctica, all covered over with ice, a block huge and remotely looming. In fact, dear Reader, I’m not even here, for I can’t actually open up a “new post” page – I can’t even look at my blog – so in reality I’m in Word, trying to trick myself into writing something which maybe I can copy-paste into a “new post” page without really looking and then it will be done. Shhh. Let’s keep it a secret, let’s not let me know. (Trouble is of course I wanted to insert pictures and video footage of Antarctica and all sorts of cleverness which I don’t know whether it can be done in Word, so I may have to give up on that. Or maybe I’ll come in later and stick it in, once it’s up. If it goes up. We shall see. Aren’t you excited? Aren’t I?)

It’s not as if I haven’t been meaning to write. Every now and then I’ve had thoughts, the precursors of a blog post coming up (these have been varied and have included things such as the discovery of the bottle-opener, which I got in exchange for a Sony Walkman in 1987, on a train through what was then known as the East Block. I have blogged about this exchange [insert link here] and spent an hour or more in an attempt to take a decent photo of the thing, on a particularly bad day [insert photo here]; a bee which made me think of Lemminkäinen’s mother [insert image here]; how a haircut gave me a premonition of a distant doom; how a book once ruined a Christmas for me [maybe insert link here?]; and, well, various things [insert collection of summer photos here]). But the question of why? has cropped up, too, and because it used to feel good doesn’t seem a good enough answer.

But, you know, here I am, all the same. Although I’m not, of course, as we know – I’m actually in Word. But still. Hello. And thank you and sorry to those who’ve left comments which remain unanswered. I shall get to you, soon, I shall, I promise.

20 comments:

Unknown said...

You are here, all the same...and that is very good to know. Perhaps it's the world turning a notch or two, or the cloudy overcastness that has passed for August here, but I am
similarly afflicted. The difference is that you have made it through words onto the page. Thank you, Anna, I am encouraged.

nmj said...

Jesus, where have you been???!!! I am so happy to see you again, in Word or anything else you choose to use x

Merkin said...

Oh well, you have made this Scotsman happy.
I had been saving all month for a barrel of Brandy for the aforementioned St Bernard of your last post.

Now I can scoobie it all by myself.

Montag said...

I thought I felt the bracing northern wind...and there you are.

Please do not imagine some sort of obligation to respond to comments, at least to mine...which were all self-centered and written with tawdry and crass motives anyway.

Any symbolic effort (writing, speaking, painting,etc.) should re-inforce your status as a free and creative being.
It should not be a simulation of prison and servitude.
Take those comments and throw them to the wind!

Anyway, your first paragraph was lapidarian: a small gemstone, and "a haircut gave me a premonition of a distant doom" is so Jorge Luis Borges that you leave us panting with admiration.

Everything changes...
Not every post can be a "puss between toes" post.

Reading the Signs said...

You have got me thinking about the condition of being "in word". When a horse is pregnant she is said to be "in foal" - does this mean, dear Sees, that you are pregnant with the word or even many words perhaps? Of course you need not answer this. A nod's as good as a wink to a blind Signreader (nudge, nudge, say no more).

But whatever, it's good to see you - even with challenging questions around why we do this weird thing. Just keep doing it, is what I tell myself. All will be revealed in the fullness of time. And just remember that when in doubt you can do as I do and come out with a pompous pronouncement.

trousers said...

No problem, it's just nice to read some more words from you, whether in Word or in Blogger - different format, same words, which are appreciated.

Montag said...

climb to Chimayo

Reading the Signs said...

- and just out of curiosity, Anna, I looked to see if there were any other posts marked 'wtf' but that's the only one. I am pondering it - not too deeply but, you know, giving it existential breathing space.

Anna MR said...

Yes, Nicola, I am here (hello). I'm glad you are encouraged - and I love the word notch. It's one of those you don't need to say many times for it to turn really funny. Thank you for bringing it here. The world needs more notches.

Anna MR said...

Cyberfriend, honey, hei. I sort of fell into a hole and couldn't get up but the Word idea worked, or then it was just the fullness of time that brought me back. I've been lurking and mouth-breathing from time to time over at your house, though. Too lovely to see you, I've missed you.
xx

Anna MR said...

St Bernard of Scoobie, just because I limp around here again doesn't mean that I have somehow stopped deserving a barrel of brandy.

Anna MR said...

But Montag, the thing is I want to reply to my comments, just sometimes it becomes overwhelmingly difficult to do so. Thank you for the lapidarian Borges thing - you'll be delighted to know "puss in between toes" is one of the biggest search hits of this blog. Says something about the world we live in, no?

Anna MR said...

Listen Sees - only you could turn my being in Word (suffering from a mind-alteringly bad block) to potentially mean being pregnant with the word or even words. What a totally poetic leap of lateral thinking. I found that very inspiring.

As for the wtf, some while ago I realised my labels were very boring to a technocratty degree. They needed more fun and spice and mystery and generally a more TPE approach to labels. Oh yes. So now you know who got plagiarised here. Shhh.

(And as regards the pronouncements, yours are positively regal.)

Mwah and hei and hopefully see you soon xx

Anna MR said...

Housut, hei. I'ts nice to see you too and I'm glad you approve of my Word-escpism.

Have you changed jeans, recently? They seem to be of a different colour.

Reading the Signs said...

I know, Anna, I'm so poetic and lateral I blow myself away sometimes. And don't you love the idea of poetry being a "dark art" (Don Paterson) in the sense that it changes the way one sees things; and as one sees, so it is. Perhaps. And don't you love the perhapses; (see I'm not putting question marks, so you can take the questions as rhetorical if you wish). And so it may be that you are now absolutely enceinte, in which case an army of angelic midwives must be despatched forthwith.

Ah, the Periodic Horseman. A lovely source from which to plagiarise.

Anonymous said...

You know very well that i would give you both barrels in a jiff.

When I was living in Poland the motto of my school was 'English in the Jar-O'.
This was because I was very well known for my version of 'Whisky in the Jar' by Lizzy.
So, it made great advertising for us.

Very dear to me is that song and lyric.

Anna MR said...

Well look, Skins, perhaps you are so poetic and lateral that I had to google enceinte, but perhaps I'm not going to tell you about that, because it may just be, perhaps, that I would prefer people thought I knew everything without googling. Perhaps.

An army of angelic midwives dispatched forthwith does sound like a thing to behold and experience. Now I'll just go and google Don Paterson (perhaps).

And as for plagiarising - oh yes. The mediocre artist copies, the great ones steal, and the really great ones steal directly from The Divine Source. Ahem.

(Incidentally, "perhaps" is a word which my fingers tend to typo (I suffer from slightly webbed middle and ring finger, as well as toes, but it doesn't stop me from being an outrageously quick typist and still remain reasonably attractive). It all too often comes out as "perhpas". I would like there to be a word like that.)

Anna MR said...

St Bernard, I shall be expecting my jiffy-bag delivery of two barrels of brandy (complete with a dog bearing your name, and sufficient food for the said dog - they're big and I'm skint) forthwith, then.

When I was younger and had a pub-life, That Song was on the list of Those Songs (about five of them) which pub bands should cease to cover, I'm afraid - along with Dirty Old Town and couple of others. The fact is, though, that the song itself is alright - just overplayed.

(Am now crouching behind suitable blog furniture, awaiting your eruption of wrath at my insolence. I need the brandy more than ever.)

Reading the Signs said...

Well it goes something like this you see, Anna. Ach, but what need have you of occult distraction when you are Divinely inspired!

There is (perhaps) no such thing as a typo. But we may need the services of a Shrink to sort out the perhpas.

Anna MR said...

Well yes, sweet Signs, but perhpas it is so that the Occult and the Divine shake hands in my inspiration (they may even exchange a longing glance or a sneaky snog behind the kitchen door, when the other guests aren't looking - or they think they're not). So do please keep sending the Occult in.

Thank you for the link to the article - it was and is a very interesting and enjoyable read, and quite erudite at that (I'm only a forrin geerl, you know, and I don't know half the poets he refers to with a casual wave of his keyboard), and I was having a very good time with it indeed and then people over here started sh**ting each other in sch**ls (you'll get my drift, even with the stars - if there's one thing I don't need it's google-search hits for that topic) and I got kind of distracted. I have bookmarked it, however, and will return to it soonest.

Listen, seriously, I have been a piece of crap and I know it. No, no, NO, don't argue against a fact clear as day. I have been a piece of crap but I fully intend to improve, inshallah, God willing, and my Divine inspiration gently shoving my backside. Are you well? I most certainly hope so. Sending mwahs, mwehs, and mwohs, too, why not, and promise to be in proper touch soon.

xx