keep paying attention/mess with some heads

a call for people to keep their eyes and ears peeled for Iranian related material, particularly cultural...

i sent in this scoop from a free local newspaper here in Dublin southside.

::

the embers of Pyro-Theology at gb09 are glowing brightly. *much* work to be done but my confidence that we can pull together a worthwhile offering is gaining.
i can't/won't give any details away but i think this could be an engaging gathering.
(time tbc/friday evening/Centaur. keep the date.)

NOTE: our friends in Moot helped created a "protest" for our Fundamentalism gathering a couple of years back - brilliantly led by the Father. it was integral to setting the mood and theology for the night.

money quote (from someone in the queue, who took the Father's iain paisley-esque hell, fire and brimstone trickster protest against ikon to be the real deal):

"fuck off!! i'm going in to worship!!"

hehe. oh the ironies in those 7 words. as jonny would say, it works on many levels.

i can't say anything about the plans for this year, but if you're gonna be on site and are available to lend a hand in the 30 mins before the event and possibly during it, let me know how i can contact you by direct mail. we may need some extra hands for this year's evanDalistic infiltrating. please note, any info you are given as a result, you are asked to keep to yourself.

right, i am running massively behind this morning and am meant to be travelling to Belfast. better get my ass firmly in gear.

LB

on the town with the league of gentlemen

this is local radio for local people. we'll have no trouble here!

only last night, my inaugural guest, Padraig, my love (aka the gbf) referenced the Dentons as i showed him the selection of towels at his disposal. which was rather appropriate given he was carrying a rucksack and only staying the one night...

BBC Radio 7, starting tonight. a chance to go back to the beginning and the town of Spent. (later to become Royston Vasey in the television incarnation.)

available to local people the world over on the iplayer. marvellous, as the Father would say.

LB

edited to add: seasons 1-3 & the deliciously dark xmas special available separately or as a collection for DVD Region 1. unmissable, frankly.

living with truth: pragmatism vs. poetry

how to live alone with persistent feelings of unrequited love:

the past is past. the future hasn't happened yet. all you have is now. be honest in it. accepting the external reality turned out not to be fatal. but have you accepted your internal reality? stop supressing and resisting and eventually these feelings for another, as deep as they are futile, stop hurting. your feelings become a kind of inner white noise. endeavour to use the energy you regain to do some small piece of good in your world with the time you have left.

if anyone asks, say, it turned out it was easier to live with the white noise than to wish one had never loved at all. these days i barely notice it.

if that honesty makes others uncomfortable, or invites pity, remind them, the most efficient path is the way of least resistance. (many people will accept the awkward and harsh reality of being human, if you can pass it off as Zen wisdom)

::

The Effort


Would anyone care to join me
in flicking a few pebbles in the direction
of teachers who are fond of asking the question:
"What is the poet trying to say?"

as if Thomas Hardy and Emily Dickinson
had struggled but ultimately failed in their efforts—
inarticulate wretches that they were,
biting their pens and staring out the window for a clue.

Yes, it seems that Whitman, Amy Lowell
and the rest could only try and fail
but we in Mrs. Parker's third-period English class
here at Springfield High will succeed

with the help of these study questions
in saying what the poor poet could not,
and we will get all this done before
that orgy of egg salad and tuna fish known as lunch.

Tonight, however, I am the one trying
to say what it is this absence means,
the two of us sleeping and waking under different roofs.
The image of this vase of cut flowers,

not from our garden, is no help.
And the same goes for the single plate,
the solitary lamp, and the weather that presses its face
against these new windows--the drizzle and the
morning frost.

So I will leave it up to Mrs. Parker,
who is tapping a piece of chalk against the blackboard,
and her students—a few with their hands up,
others slouching with their caps on backwards—

to figure out what it is I am trying to say
about this place where I find myself
and to do it before the noon bell rings
and that whirlwind of meatloaf is unleashed.

- "The Effort" by Billy Collins, from Ballistics. © Random House, 2008. from today's writer's almanac. no profit gained. no infringement intended. buy here

LB

ever wondered...

what it costs to get parking in the dead centre of Wimbledon at this time of year?



20 quid apparently.

via Will & Testament: Vicar loses the plot

sorry. couldn't stop myself.

LB