give me bradshaw, sing me a love song.
an excerpt from the first chapter of GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday:"An artist is identical with an anarchist," he cried. "You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to everything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere common bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway."
"So it is," said Mr. Syme.
"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else
attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies in the
railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will
tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It
is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket
for that place they will reach. It is because after they have
passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be
Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh,
their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next
station were unaccountably Baker Street!"
"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you
say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry.
The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious
thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild
arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with
one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because
in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to
Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that
he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books
of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of
pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give
me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I
say!"
"Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.
"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train
comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and
that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously
that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I
say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever
I really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And
when I hear the guard shout out the word 'Victoria,' it is not an
unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing
conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the victory of
Adam."
Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile.
"And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, 'And
what is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria
is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only
be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the
streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt."
"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about
being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be
sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being
rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate
occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical.
Revolt in the abstract is--revolting. It's mere vomiting."
The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was
too hot to heed her.
"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our
digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that
is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more
poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars--the most
poetical thing in the world is not being sick."
"Really," said Gregory superciliously, "the examples you choose--"
"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished
all conventions."
♥! and I bring you more reading material, from Iain Banks' Espedair Street:No room at the inn; I sighed and walked back to the big hotel at the road junction, ready for another rejection. They let me in without a murmur, a wee lassie getting me to fill out the Access voucher there and then; it was a double room and she talked me into having not only breakfast ('Oh, you might as well, Mr Weir; it's inclusive'), but dinner too.
I agreed to dinner because I'd stopped feeling tired and started feeling hungry, and it was still not half-past four. Long winter nights. I hadn't allowed for any of this. I was shown to my room. I observed its anonymity for a while, wondering how many hotel rooms I'd been in in my life. I had a shower and dried my clothes over radiators. I dried my hair and watched some kids' television for a little, then turned it off. I dressed, went to the bar, had a few drinks, bought a packet of cigarettes and smoked half of them, had dinner, then went back to the room.
All that time, I was waiting.
Waiting to feel something, waiting to suddenly burst out crying, or to suddenly
feel all right again, better once more, or go hysterical and take a running jump
out of the nearest high window... but none of that happened.
It was as though some autopilot had taken over, as if a temporary government was
running things, some skeleton crew of the mind; the king is dead, long live the
regent ...
On Iona it might be possible to know again; that was where I was heading and
everything had stopped while I got myself there.
Once I'd arrived, when I was facing those blue-green waves; then I'd start
thinking again; then, when I was finally faced with it, the reality of killing
myself and just not being any more; opting out of this insane, tasteless,
murderous circus where the freaks are too often wiser- but also more despised -
than the thronging marks. I was still convinced I'd do it. I was almost looking
forward to it. I'd heard that old people could accept death and there was some
sort of meta-tiredness which had nothing to do with the quick sleep of night; a
lulling, draining, glacial sapping of life's own life over the years, winding
up, powering down... I'd thought it was just some sort of excuse, a lie the old
told to convince themselves they wouldn't mind dying and so draw the sting of
fear. But now... now I wasn't so sure. I thought I understood that tiredness.
I lay down fully clothed on the bed with the lights on, staring at the ceiling,
waiting for something to happen.
I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up I didn't know what time it was. It was still dark and there was
music playing in the room next to mine. There was no clock in the room. I turned
on the television but there was only white noise on all the channels. I rubbed
my face and yawned, then took off my clothes (and thought: For the last time.
I'll go in fully clothed tomorrow; quicker, less ridiculous, somehow). I climbed
into the wide, cold bed, put the lights out.
The music was too loud. It was going to keep me awake, I knew it, too, which
would make it even harder to ignore. It was...
... us.
I hadn't recognised it at first; music always sounds different through walls,
but it was Frozen Gold all right; MIRV. It was side one; 'The Good Soldier'
faded, and was replaced by '2000 AM'. So I'd slept through 'Oh Cimmaron'. Next
'Single Track' and then 'Slider', and then, very likely as this was probably a
tape played on a ghetto-blaster, side two as well.
Too loud. Loud enough for me to be able to make out Christine's voice, Davey's
guitar. I lay there, listening, unable to stop it, paralysed and transfixed and
frozen.
And at first I laughed, because there is another song, on Personal Effects,
which contains the lyrics,Just an old rock star in a cheap hotel,
He's sung too many songs about love.
Kept awake all night in his en-suite hell,
By his old hit played too loud above.
And it was a low, despairing sort of laugh, the laugh of bitter appreciation
that life could always kick you when you were down, just to make sure you were
still watching the show, and with that laughter came an odd, half-appalled
revelation: there was no real division between tragedy and comedy, they were
just tags we'd stuck on our hooligan consequences as we stumbled and stampeded
through the world's definitive grotesqueries, just a set of different ways of
looking at things, from person to person and time to time, and a set of
different moods to see them in ...
And Davey sang 'Single Track':Ash blonde criminals abound in my mind
And you snow-princess were the worst I could find
And Christine sang 'Whisper':But this is only what you say,
One single way in all the ways.
I hear the flood within the drought,
I hear the whisper in the shout.
And Davey sang 'Apocalypso':'The dam has just gone,' said the cripple we passed
'But we shall live on,' he said, breathing his last.
'Oh please allow me,' said the young cardinal
But the wafer, we've heard, tastes a little too real
And Christine sang 'The Way It goes':Well I suppose this is the feeling,
That pretends to true love's wonder,
Finds you standing, finds you kneeling,
Never fails to push you under...
And together they sang 'Across From The Moon And Down':You put your shell-like ear to a shell,
Just to know what the bone will tell.
You hear no roaring ocean's flood,
Just the sweet, salt sea of your blood.
And I listened, and my laughs died away, and I just sat there, my heart
thumping, and my breath coming quick and shallow, and gradually - only lightly
at first - the tears came.
"So it is," said Mr. Syme.
"Nonsense!" said Gregory, who was very rational when anyone else
attempted paradox. "Why do all the clerks and navvies in the
railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will
tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It
is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket
for that place they will reach. It is because after they have
passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be
Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh,
their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next
station were unaccountably Baker Street!"
"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you
say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry.
The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious
thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild
arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with
one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because
in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to
Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that
he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books
of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of
pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give
me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I
say!"
"Must you go?" inquired Gregory sarcastically.
"I tell you," went on Syme with passion, "that every time a train
comes in I feel that it has broken past batteries of besiegers, and
that man has won a battle against chaos. You say contemptuously
that when one has left Sloane Square one must come to Victoria. I
say that one might do a thousand things instead, and that whenever
I really come there I have the sense of hairbreadth escape. And
when I hear the guard shout out the word 'Victoria,' it is not an
unmeaning word. It is to me the cry of a herald announcing
conquest. It is to me indeed 'Victoria'; it is the victory of
Adam."
Gregory wagged his heavy, red head with a slow and sad smile.
"And even then," he said, "we poets always ask the question, 'And
what is Victoria now that you have got there?' You think Victoria
is like the New Jerusalem. We know that the New Jerusalem will only
be like Victoria. Yes, the poet will be discontented even in the
streets of heaven. The poet is always in revolt."
"There again," said Syme irritably, "what is there poetical about
being in revolt? You might as well say that it is poetical to be
sea-sick. Being sick is a revolt. Both being sick and being
rebellious may be the wholesome thing on certain desperate
occasions; but I'm hanged if I can see why they are poetical.
Revolt in the abstract is--revolting. It's mere vomiting."
The girl winced for a flash at the unpleasant word, but Syme was
too hot to heed her.
"It is things going right," he cried, "that is poetical! Our
digestions, for instance, going sacredly and silently right, that
is the foundation of all poetry. Yes, the most poetical thing, more
poetical than the flowers, more poetical than the stars--the most
poetical thing in the world is not being sick."
"Really," said Gregory superciliously, "the examples you choose--"
"I beg your pardon," said Syme grimly, "I forgot we had abolished
all conventions."
♥! and I bring you more reading material, from Iain Banks' Espedair Street:No room at the inn; I sighed and walked back to the big hotel at the road junction, ready for another rejection. They let me in without a murmur, a wee lassie getting me to fill out the Access voucher there and then; it was a double room and she talked me into having not only breakfast ('Oh, you might as well, Mr Weir; it's inclusive'), but dinner too.
I agreed to dinner because I'd stopped feeling tired and started feeling hungry, and it was still not half-past four. Long winter nights. I hadn't allowed for any of this. I was shown to my room. I observed its anonymity for a while, wondering how many hotel rooms I'd been in in my life. I had a shower and dried my clothes over radiators. I dried my hair and watched some kids' television for a little, then turned it off. I dressed, went to the bar, had a few drinks, bought a packet of cigarettes and smoked half of them, had dinner, then went back to the room.
All that time, I was waiting.
Waiting to feel something, waiting to suddenly burst out crying, or to suddenly
feel all right again, better once more, or go hysterical and take a running jump
out of the nearest high window... but none of that happened.
It was as though some autopilot had taken over, as if a temporary government was
running things, some skeleton crew of the mind; the king is dead, long live the
regent ...
On Iona it might be possible to know again; that was where I was heading and
everything had stopped while I got myself there.
Once I'd arrived, when I was facing those blue-green waves; then I'd start
thinking again; then, when I was finally faced with it, the reality of killing
myself and just not being any more; opting out of this insane, tasteless,
murderous circus where the freaks are too often wiser- but also more despised -
than the thronging marks. I was still convinced I'd do it. I was almost looking
forward to it. I'd heard that old people could accept death and there was some
sort of meta-tiredness which had nothing to do with the quick sleep of night; a
lulling, draining, glacial sapping of life's own life over the years, winding
up, powering down... I'd thought it was just some sort of excuse, a lie the old
told to convince themselves they wouldn't mind dying and so draw the sting of
fear. But now... now I wasn't so sure. I thought I understood that tiredness.
I lay down fully clothed on the bed with the lights on, staring at the ceiling,
waiting for something to happen.
I must have fallen asleep.
When I woke up I didn't know what time it was. It was still dark and there was
music playing in the room next to mine. There was no clock in the room. I turned
on the television but there was only white noise on all the channels. I rubbed
my face and yawned, then took off my clothes (and thought: For the last time.
I'll go in fully clothed tomorrow; quicker, less ridiculous, somehow). I climbed
into the wide, cold bed, put the lights out.
The music was too loud. It was going to keep me awake, I knew it, too, which
would make it even harder to ignore. It was...
... us.
I hadn't recognised it at first; music always sounds different through walls,
but it was Frozen Gold all right; MIRV. It was side one; 'The Good Soldier'
faded, and was replaced by '2000 AM'. So I'd slept through 'Oh Cimmaron'. Next
'Single Track' and then 'Slider', and then, very likely as this was probably a
tape played on a ghetto-blaster, side two as well.
Too loud. Loud enough for me to be able to make out Christine's voice, Davey's
guitar. I lay there, listening, unable to stop it, paralysed and transfixed and
frozen.
And at first I laughed, because there is another song, on Personal Effects,
which contains the lyrics,Just an old rock star in a cheap hotel,
He's sung too many songs about love.
Kept awake all night in his en-suite hell,
By his old hit played too loud above.
And it was a low, despairing sort of laugh, the laugh of bitter appreciation
that life could always kick you when you were down, just to make sure you were
still watching the show, and with that laughter came an odd, half-appalled
revelation: there was no real division between tragedy and comedy, they were
just tags we'd stuck on our hooligan consequences as we stumbled and stampeded
through the world's definitive grotesqueries, just a set of different ways of
looking at things, from person to person and time to time, and a set of
different moods to see them in ...
And Davey sang 'Single Track':Ash blonde criminals abound in my mind
And you snow-princess were the worst I could find
And Christine sang 'Whisper':But this is only what you say,
One single way in all the ways.
I hear the flood within the drought,
I hear the whisper in the shout.
And Davey sang 'Apocalypso':'The dam has just gone,' said the cripple we passed
'But we shall live on,' he said, breathing his last.
'Oh please allow me,' said the young cardinal
But the wafer, we've heard, tastes a little too real
And Christine sang 'The Way It goes':Well I suppose this is the feeling,
That pretends to true love's wonder,
Finds you standing, finds you kneeling,
Never fails to push you under...
And together they sang 'Across From The Moon And Down':You put your shell-like ear to a shell,
Just to know what the bone will tell.
You hear no roaring ocean's flood,
Just the sweet, salt sea of your blood.
And I listened, and my laughs died away, and I just sat there, my heart
thumping, and my breath coming quick and shallow, and gradually - only lightly
at first - the tears came.