Finishing Unfinished Conversations

En antropi na pw oti to prwi pou ksipnw vazw nina simone jai xorefkw mes’sto spiti, perki ksipnisw? Oi ennen kathe mera. Apla kapote. Pete mou oti en to kamnete esis. Ate. En opws tes klanies. Oulloi kamnoun to. Paretate me.

No no that isn’t the unfinished conversation I just wanted to get your attention.

Would you hit me over the head if I asked what makes a good book good? Yes, you would, with a rather heavy book too. I would probably inflict bodily harm to someone if they asked that, in fact, I almost did lunge out of my seat to claw out the eyes of a certain tommy (unfortunately no relation with the gun, I asked, but was met with wide unappreciating eyes, which made me want to ask him reeee ttttommy! where do you go bearing? but I realized I wouldn’t be making any friends so tried to sit tight and smile) who bombastically claimed walcott to be writing trash. He should know. He’s been here 12 years. Or perhaps he needs a little passive eye clawing.

But where was I? George Eliot is also with one ‘l’ re christo. And she’s actually ok. No really, she is. Even if she does have a stupid name. I’m filling that “gap in my education”, he said admonishingly. I asked him if he read Grant Morrison but he said ‘the art history department deals with that. Comics are a far cry from thoreau alexandra (tsk tsk tsk).’

Which brings me neatly into my subject: discovering london. Going into unfinished conversation number 2. remember that echo of a conversation about NYC and going to the city that has all the cultural references, all the text, all the films circling around it, going through it, exploding from it. I agree. From Frank O’Hara, Leroi Jones, Duke Ellington, anything old skool, Woody Allen, yellow cabs, even those 19^th century american writers, james and so on, always returning from the apple of everyone’s eye. Where then, do you find the culture that circles around london? ‘It’s a magik city’ he said and I brushed it off, but yes I did find london through unreal texts. H.G. Wells, tseliot, dickens, alan moore’s from hell, graham green (a little place off edgware road). The references to london are in its dark corners, stuck to the pavements with the pieces of gum chewed years ago, in the dust on top of the bookshelves, the monsters that scurry through the half deserted street.

To return, to return. Number 3. So. Is Ulysses a good book? Ha-Ha (no no, please, read that out loud, ha-ha, what happened? Do public school kids take elocution lessons in laughing?). What can you say to the person who thinks the english language is nothing but a ‘code’? the continentally educated who piss on anglophonic literature, so proud that beckett wrote in french, but when told it was because he wanted to write ‘without style’ they stutter and look confused. And then they discover tolkien (but through the movies of course my dear fellow) and suddenly feel like they have found a true philologian, here is someone who is able to utilize the english language, who is able to write greatly, they think. And here it ends. All english literature is crap, apart from lord of the rings, a true work of art.

Steam pours out of my ears. Where do I begin? And how should I presume?

Enough. Here is a picture of a missing bicycle. Enjoy.

P.S. The manglis way of doing the twist. (number 4).