Xen and the Art of Cricket Commentating
Also Known As Paranoid Thoughts of the Stoned Mind
Also Known As Peter Lloyd Review Take 3
See, the other night I was watching the cricket, and I was kinda stoned. I began writing a story about how the commentators on SBS were saying strange things, and this is what came out. Funny the way the mind works. Funny... hah... ha...
*********************************************************************
Maybe it was the bong-toking, but did anyone else notice the stoned gibberish emanating forth from the SBS cricket commentary box tonight?
Seriously.
I mean, I can understand that these guys have spent several weeks now, watching Australia bat, and having hours upon boring hours pass trying to find something to talk about, but for serious! These guys were garbling on as good as me at my most stoned and introspective!
Listening to those English ex-cricketers, I began wondering; is everyone as stoned and fucked in the head as I am right now? Is it in the air? Is it being ducted through my house via an intricate sequence of tubes and ducts?
It was soon after this that I realised I was
a) being stupidly paranoid, and
b) staring blankly, oblivious to anything going on around me.
I looked to my left. Freddie had said something.
What was it?
I thought quickly: had he noticed my lapse? Was he aware of the thoughtful look on my face right now?
My eyes darted sideways; he was watching!
He knows.
Fuck!
‘Uhh… What..?’
‘What the fuck are these guys talking about?’ He asks, but I notice the look of contempt in his eye. Oh he knows alright.
But oh yeah, the stoned commentators! That’s exactly what I was talking about!
I laugh, but it sounds forced, kinda like ‘hah. Ha..’ it is obvious my mind is elsewhere.
‘Seriously. The moral dilemma of the modern game? It’s an emotional journey through the self?
Whatever. I’m really paranoid right now, fuck it. I can’t seem to talk about anything important at all; my mind just wont stay focused on the subject.
So I’m just gonna babble.
Australia are in with a chance? Bullshit. Fridge, you seriously must be smoking as much hash as the lost-it fools in the commentary box. Australia could bowl out England for only another 15 runs and still we’d lose the match.
And what is with people using the term ‘graphic novel’. What is it? A book. With pictures. And text in captions.
Oh, it’s a comic!
Yes, it’s a fucking comic.
So if it’s a comic, call it a fucking comic, you fucking pretentious fucks!
Ps, I’m fucked. I need to find out if I can pay a stupid fucking debt tomorrow and hence not have to go to court. *sigh*
Stupid things that suck.
Speaking of stupid things that suck, Peter Lloyd’s A Fingerpost for Rembrant, begs the question; how does shit like this get published? Drivel! Tedious, pretentious drivel!
A streetlight-trashcan –
bucket of circle-shadows,
tremors on almost still life –
lost mumbling-limbs
in mini-lashes
of chemical death.’ (Snap/click, p 40)
What the hell is that?!
And the really hard thing for me was that I was worried if I didn’t at least say I liked this book, Entropy magazine (and perhaps even you, noble-yet-innocent-Entropy-reader) was going to assume that this reviewer is just plain critical of everything. I was facing the ‘you don’t like anything firing-squad!
But then I got over it.
And I got over it because I realised that this book sucks. A Fingerpost for Rembrant is, without doubt, the most self-indulgent and pretentious thing I’ve ever read, and I’ve read my poetry!
But not to be discouraged, I searched around for a way to have enourmous fun with this review despite the handicap, and I found one: copy-and-paste-poetry!
So play along now, kiddies, and see if I can create a more interesting (and just plain better) poem than Snap/click, simply by randomly choosing words out of a dictionary!
A more interesting poem which I named:
The Result
Fawn repugnance
Giddy, trave
Marshall
Use, exploit
Nevermore!
Need I say more?
Yes Lloyd has studied the art of writing, and yes his deliberate use of broken phrases, and combination of both romantic and common language (particularly in The Lilac Tree, p 18) can create an image of the beauty of life being forgotten in the haste of everyday tedium, and even investigate to a surprising emotional depth the dual nature of man’s ability to both care more than he can conceive, and to not-care beyond what he can condone. But the questions is: ‘Do you want to read this book?’ And the answer is ‘No.’
2/2 Middle Fingerposts for Peter Lloyd.
******************************************************************************
Well? DO YOU?? Didn't think so...
Also Known As Peter Lloyd Review Take 3
See, the other night I was watching the cricket, and I was kinda stoned. I began writing a story about how the commentators on SBS were saying strange things, and this is what came out. Funny the way the mind works. Funny... hah... ha...
*********************************************************************
Maybe it was the bong-toking, but did anyone else notice the stoned gibberish emanating forth from the SBS cricket commentary box tonight?
Seriously.
I mean, I can understand that these guys have spent several weeks now, watching Australia bat, and having hours upon boring hours pass trying to find something to talk about, but for serious! These guys were garbling on as good as me at my most stoned and introspective!
Listening to those English ex-cricketers, I began wondering; is everyone as stoned and fucked in the head as I am right now? Is it in the air? Is it being ducted through my house via an intricate sequence of tubes and ducts?
It was soon after this that I realised I was
a) being stupidly paranoid, and
b) staring blankly, oblivious to anything going on around me.
I looked to my left. Freddie had said something.
What was it?
I thought quickly: had he noticed my lapse? Was he aware of the thoughtful look on my face right now?
My eyes darted sideways; he was watching!
He knows.
Fuck!
‘Uhh… What..?’
‘What the fuck are these guys talking about?’ He asks, but I notice the look of contempt in his eye. Oh he knows alright.
But oh yeah, the stoned commentators! That’s exactly what I was talking about!
I laugh, but it sounds forced, kinda like ‘hah. Ha..’ it is obvious my mind is elsewhere.
‘Seriously. The moral dilemma of the modern game? It’s an emotional journey through the self?
Whatever. I’m really paranoid right now, fuck it. I can’t seem to talk about anything important at all; my mind just wont stay focused on the subject.
So I’m just gonna babble.
Australia are in with a chance? Bullshit. Fridge, you seriously must be smoking as much hash as the lost-it fools in the commentary box. Australia could bowl out England for only another 15 runs and still we’d lose the match.
And what is with people using the term ‘graphic novel’. What is it? A book. With pictures. And text in captions.
Oh, it’s a comic!
Yes, it’s a fucking comic.
So if it’s a comic, call it a fucking comic, you fucking pretentious fucks!
Ps, I’m fucked. I need to find out if I can pay a stupid fucking debt tomorrow and hence not have to go to court. *sigh*
Stupid things that suck.
Speaking of stupid things that suck, Peter Lloyd’s A Fingerpost for Rembrant, begs the question; how does shit like this get published? Drivel! Tedious, pretentious drivel!
A streetlight-trashcan –
bucket of circle-shadows,
tremors on almost still life –
lost mumbling-limbs
in mini-lashes
of chemical death.’ (Snap/click, p 40)
What the hell is that?!
And the really hard thing for me was that I was worried if I didn’t at least say I liked this book, Entropy magazine (and perhaps even you, noble-yet-innocent-Entropy-reader) was going to assume that this reviewer is just plain critical of everything. I was facing the ‘you don’t like anything firing-squad!
But then I got over it.
And I got over it because I realised that this book sucks. A Fingerpost for Rembrant is, without doubt, the most self-indulgent and pretentious thing I’ve ever read, and I’ve read my poetry!
But not to be discouraged, I searched around for a way to have enourmous fun with this review despite the handicap, and I found one: copy-and-paste-poetry!
So play along now, kiddies, and see if I can create a more interesting (and just plain better) poem than Snap/click, simply by randomly choosing words out of a dictionary!
A more interesting poem which I named:
The Result
Fawn repugnance
Giddy, trave
Marshall
Use, exploit
Nevermore!
Need I say more?
Yes Lloyd has studied the art of writing, and yes his deliberate use of broken phrases, and combination of both romantic and common language (particularly in The Lilac Tree, p 18) can create an image of the beauty of life being forgotten in the haste of everyday tedium, and even investigate to a surprising emotional depth the dual nature of man’s ability to both care more than he can conceive, and to not-care beyond what he can condone. But the questions is: ‘Do you want to read this book?’ And the answer is ‘No.’
2/2 Middle Fingerposts for Peter Lloyd.
******************************************************************************
Well? DO YOU?? Didn't think so...
posted by Arithon @ 11:33 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home