Something for the Weakened

Evening all. I’ve just been informed that there’s no link up between this old style brightblackcreative site and the all new, properly working www.somethingfortheweakened.co.uk, so this aspect of the site will not receive any updates after this one and will probably be purged from the face of the web in the next couple of weeks or so. Any further Comments should be made on the new site, or be lost forever. Not sure how this might effect RSS feeds, if they even work, so you might want to resubscribe over there if my words mean anything to you. Ayethangyew and good night.

As a number of you will be aware, I recently co-wrote a pub quiz that went considerably better than the one I wrote solo back at new year. My co-writee, Soimon, has put up the questions here and the picture round here. In answer to question 1 of both general knowledge rounds, I lost. Which I suppose, just leaves the music round. Here it is -

Quiz 2

Well, sort of. This is the unedited, original attempt I made that features 13 snippets of music rather than the 10 used in the quiz itself. The first 6 extracts are the choruses of some popular tunes played backwards. The next two have had their tempos increased by 400% and the two after that by 500%. The last two have just been sped up by 400%, hence them sounding a little more chipmunk like. Have a listen, then why not have a guess at what the songs are in the comments. This generally just means you, Chunky, but it’d be nice if there was some sniff of competition going on. But there won’t be. So listen.

Go to that point in the video. Listen to just after the “whoop!” Listen carefully. Not to the singing, listen underneath. Do you hear it? Try hard now. Yes?

You’re unlikely to have noticed, but this very site is once again offered at http://www.somethingfortheweakened.co.uk, without any peculiar redirects. This is almost certainly of no interest to anyone but me, but I thought it deserved some sort of commemoration. A public ta muchly to those behind the scenes who have done all the work there. I will have your money soon. Ish.

Having had a quick search about, I’m astonished that no one’s created a mash up image based on the weak pun that came to my mind the other day. I can’t be the only one who spent a fair bit of their youth reading both Tintin and Transformers comics. And with the respective films coming out over the summer, why hasn’t anyone else made something out of The Secret of the Unicron? All that search engines give me are people with no ability to spell or messageboards claiming to be based on Cybertron. For crying out loud, it’s there for you people on a plate! Here’s the cover of The Secret of the Unicorn and this is what Unicron looks like in his untransformed, planet shaped form. Anyone else see the big circles waiting to overlay one another? Then just a quick flip of a couple of letters and boom! My Photoshop skills are limited to colouring in at the moment, otherwise I’d go ahead and knock it together myself, but I can’t have been the only person sad enough to have thought of this, can I?

Can I?

Oh.

CUSTOMER – Excuse me, how do I get up stairs?

ME – Well, you go up the stairs.

There was more to the conversation, but it didn’t amuse me enough to remember it.

A month or so ago I was invited to contribute to a magazine that friend of the site Paul edits. Details on the availability of that when I have them. The remit was to put together something no more than 40 lines long related to the theme of food. I came up with a few ideas about what to write about – a first person narrative of a communion wafer briefly turning into Christ, something relating to cannibalism, a vague idea about a not terribly amusing misunderstanding between ‘hare’ and ‘hair’. I didn’t actually try and write any of those up, but did have a crack at two of my ideas. What follows is the one that I didn’t bother submitting as it was weaker conceptually and I had no idea how to end it satisfactorily. Make of it what you will.

“Urgh!”

“What?”

“There’s meat in the cupboard!”

“Yeah.”

“But that’s disgusting.”

“No it’s not. It’s dinner.”

“You expect me to eat that?”

“If you want to eat what I’m cooking, then yes, I suppose I do.”

“So what’s it doing in the cupboard?”

“Defrosting.”

“Couldn’t it do that somewhere more appropriate? Like the fridge perhaps?”

“I only took it out at lunchtime. No way a piece that size would defrost quickly enough in the fridge.”

“Doesn’t seem very hygienic.”

“It’ll be fine. I often stick stuff in there to thaw.”

“But did you have to stick my tea towel on top of it?”

“Well I didn’t want flies getting at it. That would be grim.”

“But it’s all bloody now.”

“We’ve run out of cling film and slinging it in a carrier bag seemed more than a little bit manky. Besides its not that bloody really, is it?”

“Now you mention it, no. No it’s not. How come?”

“It’s special.”

“Special?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m told its very tasty.”

“Well what is it?”

“Guess.”

“Um . . . beef?”

“No. Look closer.”

“Err . . . oh! Is that an eye?”

“Yep.”

“Oh God! Where did you get it?”

“Found it.”

“Jesus! Where?”

“It was lying around at work. I think someone left it.”

“We can’t eat this!”

“Course we can. It’s supposed to be really tasty.”

“No, no, no.”

“We can’t let it go to waste.”

“Well I’m certainly not putting it in my mouth.”

“Then you’ll just have to go hungry then.”

“I think I can live with that. It’s gross!”

“Don’t be silly.”

“But it is!”

“Oh come on. Don’t tell me you’re having moral issues with this?”

“Well . . . no, no, it’s not that.”

“Really?”

“Okay, maybe a bit.”

“Come on. What does it matter? Meat is meat.”

Transparency report – The original hand written draft only goes as far as the line “We can’t let it go to waste.” Everything following on from that I wrote over the past twenty minutes or so. I’m not a hundred percent happy with the whole thing. The use of ’special’ makes it feel too indebted to The League of Gentlemen, which wasn’t at the forefront of my mind when I wrote it but does seem to have influenced it somewhat. One of my reasons for abandoning the piece when I did was that I wasn’t sure how to end it (though the main one was because I was getting uncomfortable sat in my garden, propped up by the pole that holds up the washing line). I think keeping things ambiguous was the best way to go with it, as some of the conceits I’d come up with would have made it a little more horrible than it is now. Some of the resolutions involved ‘The Defroster’ working in a hospital, being a guard in a concentration camp, doing something that involved him working near or with roadkill (my initial thinking was to definitely make the meat squirrel) and probably a couple of others. All and none of these are true in terms of the tale. Pick one or make up your own. The whole thing is of course based on my own habit of defrosting meat in cupboards, because it is often a better way to do it than in the fridge. Though I have had countless people moan about this idiosyncracy, I have never actually cooked for anyone other than myself with cupboard meat. This is partly through cheapness and selfishness, though mainly because no one would ever want to eat anything I’d serve up to them. They’re probably right you know.

Just spotted that a Something for the Weakened Tumblr site has sprung up. I’m not going to link to it as it has nothing at all to do with anyone involved in the curation of this site and in fact appears to mainly be filled with nudie photo’s of nubile young lassies. Perhaps this was an attempt by spammers to appeal directly to me, or indeed to flatter me with their banner implying that the site is run by a ‘twenty-something’, but I’m afraid it hasn’t worked. Please ignore them and perhaps they might stop it. Unless it’s something I set up in my sleep, in which case I am very sorry.

Couple of weeks back I was walking home – my bike was suffering from a bout of my repeatedly trying to fix a puncture, so foot based perambulations were the only option the mothballs in my wallet would really offer me until I bought a new inner tube. This general air of thriftiness only really stretched as far as public transport though. I had just done a spot of shopping and my rucksack was laden with groceries. As I ambled along a penny happened to catch my eye and the old rhyme sprang into my mind.

“Find a penny, pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck.”

It was a warm, sunny early evening. There were people around on the street certainly, but not enough that I’d be blocking anyone’s passage if I paused to stoop. I briefly wondered how scummy the public would consider me if they saw me picking coppers up off the street, but quickly concluded that I actually didn’t care and quite fancied a bit of luck.

I arrived at the coin and bent forward to clasp it in my not so clammy hands. I just had it in my grasp when I was surprised by a loaf of bread lightly glancing the back of my head. The zip on my rucksack has been a bit dodgy for a few months now, so I always have to be careful when closing it. On this occasion I clearly hadn’t been.

Now I’m generally not a superstitious man, despite the events that occur in this story. Quite what possessed me to act upon the rhyme appearing in my mind I couldn’t begin to speculate, but it did appear to bring me some fortune. Yes , the loaf did clonk me in the back of my nut, but because of that I was able to grab it before it plummeted out of the bag onto the floor, presumably followed by the other foodstuffs I had been carrying. Had I not bent forward, I imagine that the zip would have gone at a later point during my journey when it was entirely behind me. The first I would have known of it would have been when my grub spilt itself out onto the path behind me.

As it was, I was able to save everything from making contact with the pavement, carefully carried my bag to a nearby bench, repacked it and carefully zipped it up in such a way as it did not open up of its own volition for the rest of my stroll.

No, I’m not a superstitious man. But I haven’t left the house without that penny since. And my bag hasn’t opened of its own accord since. Though that might be because I check it more carefully now. And don’t really buy individual Mojos anymore. But anyway, “How lucky is that?”*

*to be read in an unconvincing Scots or Irish accent – you choose

Anyone uncertain as to what I’m up to here is invited to type the word ‘consideration’ into the Search box over on the right there. Look at the first post called ‘For Your Consideration’, read the first paragraph and it will explain all. Everyone else is invited to shut up and listen to this -

Harry Oldfield – Stick Quartz & Modulated Synthetic Quartz

That up there is a new acquisition for me. I was wandering around a charity shop a couple of weeks ago and came across the album that this track features on. It certainly seems to be out of print – the only copy available via Amazon at time of writing is going for over forty-five quid and I can’t imagine there’s a great demand for a rerelease. The reason for my purchase was the name of the band Current 93 being emblazoned atop the album’s cover. “Excellent,” thought I. “An album of slightly unpleasant gothic nonsense in the David Tibet style!” I obviously didn’t read too closely as it actually proclaims ‘Current 93 presents’ and it doesn’t actually feature the sounds of Mister Tibet at any point in its runtime. Nor of Mister Oldfield (no relation).

This particular Oldfield is not a musician per se. In fact he is a doctor. Well, ‘doctor’. The liner notes of the album explain about his pioneering research into Kirilian Photography, his work with fractals (back then, prior to Mandlebrot Sets cropping up on every shit student bedsit wall, still a relatively new concept) and, most importantly, the experiments he had been (and still is) working on in Electro-Crystal Therapy. Now I, like almost all right thinking people, generally consider crystal therapies to be bunkum. I’m perfectly happy for people to do research into the potential of them having healing powers – if they’re able to get the funding and have that much time on their hands, they’re free to do what they wish. What I do object to is if they start giving false hope to the seriously ill in homeopathic ways that could damage their health further or possibly lead them straight into the grave. The liner notes do stress that, in spite of their getting positive results from a lot of their work, “…it is still too early to be making any claims of complete cure, since many cases need long term monitoring to see if symptoms return”, which I suppose is a reasonable caveat. This article is a lot less kind to Mr. Oldfield’s practices and does feature a bit two thirds of the way down about a woman who rejected chemotherapy and surgery, instead choosing to be treated with Mr. O’s crystals, which does leave me a bit uncomfortable. Apparently the woman’s testimonial stated that the cancer hadn’t been cured, but had stopped growing, which again seems to work as a bit of a caveat, but it does seem to give off the whiff of false hope to me. The original testimonial linked to in the article is no longer available on Oldfield’s own site, making me wonder what happened to the woman in the intervening two and a half years.

Anyway, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about Oldfield’s ethics, as it’s the music we’re supposed to be interested in here. The entire album consists solely of the sounds generated by running electrical currents through crystals, hence its name – Crystal. There is mention in the liner notes of there being possible therapeutic benefits to be had by listening, but I can’t say I’ve noticed any on the couple of listens I’ve given it. If anything it has caused me physical discomfort, initially from this very track. Should I have mentioned that earlier? Before you started listening? Oh, I am sorry. And not just a sadistic bastard. I am far more than just that.

Most of the album I have no real trouble with – it’s a series of tones flung together in intriguing, partially random, partially constructed orders. The sounds the crystals generate vary partly due to their own structures and partly from variations in the current being passed through them. There is something about the arrangement on this particular track that does make me feel really weird. Its the constant high pitch that almost goes outside the audible spectrum that really seems to makes me feel odd. I’ve also found that moving my head while listening to it produces effects that I have never experienced with any other recorded sounds that have passed through my lug holes. Perhaps its the shape of my ears only picking up certain frequencies at certain angles. Maybe I’ve found the sound that makes the mercury in my fillings vibrate. I really don’t know, but it is the most physically affecting series of sounds I’ve heard in a long, long time. It isn’t entirely unpleasant, but it is really alien to me, which might be why it just feels a little bit wrong. Even listening to it quietly leaves my ears ringing afterwards. It encourages some weird sensations in my torso too. Perhaps it’s inducing nausea. Maybe its curing the cancer the hypochondriac centre of my brain is always telling me I have. Won’t fucking cure it mind. Of that we can be sure.

If you are able to make it through all three and a bit minutes, do let me know how the experience was for you. I’m intrigued to find out if it is just me having these experiences or if it just sounds like a Spectrum loading to the rest of humanity.