slow paranoia

confusing times again, thisisalloneword is several steps to the left of some other reality – this other reality being the one that a lot of other people seem to be in. But no no no, it’s just the onslaught of fresh waves of paranoia, full moons and neap tides (or is that spring tides? I forget) gently shift his position out of line, his feverish imagination pushed wilder and higher onto the rocks of a continent of doubt and uncertainty. Ho ho. He is trying to work things out on his own again but, and we should stress this point, that might not be the best plan. He has thought of finding someone but his needs are not necessarily their needs and, anyway, the whole process of sounding someone out isn’t easy. People can shy away from slow questioning, change the subject and push themselves that wee bit further away. Maybe you have become the outside man of an in-joke that isn’t funny any more. Maybe everything is coincidence all along and its just all in the mind. But to find out requires you to reveal your whole hand and to place yourself somewhere new, somewhere yet more distant and removed. So what do you do? To act and lose all quickly, or to wait and lose all slowly? To sleep, perchance…?

The Experimental Music Wars

I don’t think that the previous outing to some sort of experimental music thang was properly documented, if at all. thisisalloneword and his old man headed off down town and into an evening of weirdness which involved three performers showcasing there work.

The first was a bagpipe and drums outfit, although the drums were made of wet cardboard and therefore made little sound. Occassionally people from the audience would dance and hit the drums, one being my dad. I wasn’t all that impressed.

The second act used some sort of video display, a real ‘doors of perception’ thing going on – there were no performers but on stage was a series of diamonds which would glow in different colours when making a sound. All very trippy and I was shown bizarre landscapes and transported into weird realms by this stuff.

Thirdly was a women making music by pouring water onto pot plants and recording and amplifying the sounds. I poured water away and listened to the quiet, distorted sounds that were made…

But that was all weeks ago. Last night thisisalloneword found himself with friends and some artist freak with a wild large beard and lost eyes who will go by the name of Martin. We were waiting for the bands to start in some east London gallery room but what they were playing was minimal quiet and Martin was finding the whole thing very boring. I think some guy from Tortoise was up on stage. OK it was boring. It was plodding, unthreatening, staid, lifeless stuff.

Goths came in from the cobbled streets to annoy the band. They unplugged equipment and wanted to hear some goth rock stuff. Martin said enough of this crap and he somehow got me to agree that we could overthrow this lot and play some stuff ourselves. I agree and then realise that this is only half of what he has planned. He headbutts the lead goth and I tell the others to piss off and promise that their friend wont be too worse for wear. Martin takes him somewhere… the dull band play on and then Martin returns and starts smashing stuff up and is looking to put a few tables through the large windows that front onto the street. This is all going wrong wrong wrong.

I leave and go check on the lead goth to make sure he is not battered. I walk south down the streets and walk up old stone walled wide stairs to what can only be described as battlements. Up here above the city are the metal hoards. Fans of rock, goth, metal, black-metal, doom, extreme, thrash and so on. They are making cats cradels which when pulled out form 2D pentagrams and then 3D pentagrams. I saw that they should keep on moving up through the dimensions but this doesn’t happen.

I find lead goth bloke who isn’t too bruised or battered and doesn’t bear a grudge and then we rally these troops to get them down to the gallery to listen to some loud experimental free playing. That is if Martin hasn’t been carted away yet.

Not sure what happend next…

A quick dream…

We were building out of stone, wood and the rough turf on the wind swept hills on the coast. An early start meant we should have a semblance of shelter before it got cold. We all had one eye on the clouds; rain would change everything, they were dark grey all day, the sun had never shown, but while they threatened much they thankfully failed to make good on that promise.

The roof was sturdy but low, even I at only 5’5” had to stoop at most times although the very front of the building was high enough to stand and stretch. The floor space was small and awkward, bending around the central stone column and it seemed unlikely that all six of us could fit. This truth was proved that night and two slept with legs out outside, letting in the cruel air and light rain that started around midnight. There was no room for a fire within either although I found it warm enough positioned one from the back wall.

Why were we here? The fishing village was not too far away because we talked of picking up provisions from someone we knew there to bring back. What has possessed us to move away from the villages and towns? Why do we six seek this harsh isolation – are we running away from or facing something?

What the noise from my alarm clock looked like on the morning of 2nd September

The noise from my alarm clock resembled a beautiful pattern, like a multicoloured snowflake, one with many more lines of symmetry. Each new buzz from it caused the shape to pulse and change into another intricate pattern.

Names

My old man played Leonard Cohen’s ‘The Stranger’ and says to me; “you were named after the line in that song” and who am I to call him a liar?

OK, he’s a liar. He’s prone to telling stories and making stuff up on the spot to fit whatever has taken his fancy. I am named after my great, great, great grandfather, who’s walking stick I inherited but not used yet. Maybe I am also named after the song, it could be true, I am happy to believe it is true.

Both are true, neither are true. Infinite beginnings can explain how I came to this exact point of time; NOW.

I am the part of the tree between the roots and the branches.

Is my name Stranger?

Hello Stranger.

How does that sound? Good?

Were we strangers to ourselves? Would you recognise yourself 10, 20 years ago? Would you like who you met if you went back? Or how about 20 years into the future? Who will you be, how will you have changed? Hello Stranger. What lies we tell ourselves and others about who we are, who we were, who we will be. That’s ok. What does it matter?

What does time look like

Time looks like a giant clockwise outline of a stretched egg shape. There is nothing inside it. Christmas and New Year are at the smaller, tighter curve of the loop and Summer is at the wider, longer curve. I do not always view the rest of time from the actual date and time on this loop. Sometimes I stand there but some times I tend to be around September looking out across the void to Easter.

Taking 11 months worth of steps back will land you onto the same spot as if you were going forward one month. Weird, no? Not sure why this is. Maybe time does not exist within time.

There you go.

Once, thisisalloneword dreampt of the Lost Road Map

That was maybe 8 years ago now. It is a dream that I will not tell you but that has always stayed with me. It has grown and assumed new meaning over time.

It is also a photograph of a tree in Kings Meadow. It is also the tree and it is every tree and all things. It is the single point and everything that does, or could have, grown from that point. It is the points on the leaves on the twigs on the branches on the trunk on the tree, and the roots also. It is the roots and branches that never were as well as the ones that came to be. It is all the other photos I did take or could have taken.

The Lost Road Map shows the paths we did not take. It is very detailed and prone to change. It is alive I think.

It is dangerous and should not be used or consulted under any circumstances.