How did the Warren Ellis meeting go, Han?

Ah, I think we have a different system of grading here. I still don't quite understand what you mean, but that's fine, as I will never be able to afford education in the UK!

Yes, the display is fucked up. ANyone who wants to fix it should. If this blog is personal, we should probably make it a private blog. There are such mechanisms in place to allow it.

Breaking news, that cloud of smoke is in fact a ping pong ball that the three women are holding up with their urine. I also found out from Warren Ellis that it is a painting. I see everyone is too shocked, or maybe they thought it was a residual glitch from Y2K.

Joli, a 2:1 is the third highest distinction in the British university grading system (am I wrong? Does it apply to A-levels?). I think it means a 60 out of 80. In truth, this blog is personal. But no, after a little thought, it's an ongoing dialogue. But argh, the archives need to be on a seperate page, the display is fucked up. Since taking off all the bios, the only thing that distinguishes our entries is our names. I'm gonna dig a little, see why the Actor's studio went under.

Kevin ain't on the odd word. He just sent me an incredibly filthy email.

Vin: I never congratulated you on the Masters opportunity. I know why it appeals to you. Studly muffin.

Presently, that naughty punjabi, Rishabh Seghal is in town, cajoling with his girlfriend around Bayswater. I'm going to find him and demand a rematch, for when body slammed me off cobblestones.

Han: Do you want to take this off the public domain? We have a sitemeter on the site, though Blogger does not monitor traffic. If you want to check out the traffic, click on the link at the very bottom left of the page. We get visitors from everywhere, usually people googling to our site to find 'odd+word'. Someone also came in search of the 'french word for shit'. I am so glad that the odd word can serve as a bridge between cultures.

This might be a naive question, but why did The Actor's Studio lose a venue?

MEEKZ. You have returned. Waddup.

What is 2:1?

Taken from Warren Ellis's blog, who took it from someone else's muckraking through the internet cesspool. I'm going to see him get interviewed tomorrow. I think the Victorian sluts will come out after all the talking is done.

You just needed to click on the "view blog" button. Alternatively, "http://theoddword.blogspot.com/" would work. What do you guys think about taking this off the public domain? I got no idea who reads this, and I'm not even sure of it's appeal. Does anyone have a clue? Blogger doesn't monitor traffic, does it Joli?

I just read that The Actor's Studio has lost a venue. Basically their location in Dataran Merdeka, a library and two theatres. That's sad, the best thing I saw was a mixed media performance that incorporated dance, gamelan and a didgeridoo. It was a showcase of artistic talent, and the fact it's been taken away makes it all the more difficult and dodgy to express a political view in Malaysia. Damn.

Joli: The screenplay's premise was startling, I hate this habitual treatment of classics, that they shouldn't be touched. That they needed to be treated with eminence, or else you are not doing service to the author. People tend towards streamlined representations of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and Sherlock Holmes. Even for people who 'update' these stories, the characerisation is couched in the established principle themes of the story. For instance, Romeo and Juliet is an exploration of the young love, the anarchism and self-destructiveness that underlines that level of intimacy. For instance, Sherlock Holmes is some ascetic, violin-playing detective, pale as a whisker, and gets off on solving crimes. Fuck that. I like it when people respond to what they read and share it with people. The last version of Shakespeare I saw (I'm not a huge fan) was Romeo and Juliet in Constantinople. The only attempts at historicising the play were the period costumes and backgrounds, and a certain line about monetary exchange, changing Lira to Drachma or something.
It seems, when people go for adaptations of major literary works, they use the cliff notes more than the actual book itself. Sherlock Holmes is an opium-eating bastard. I never knew this. I'm reading an autobiography of Primo Levi's return to Turin from Aushwitz. He populates the story with people. He works in an infirmary in Katowice, the war has just finished and soldiers who celebrate "do not always fire up in the air". A infantryman and a parachuttist are hospitalised, though they aren't severly wounded. When there is a parade in the streets, the parachuttist, already in full regala, gets out of bed and jumps out of the window, "like all good parachuttists".
I like this, Levi wears his bias on his sleeve. If you guys read that Arundhati Roy essay I posted several weeks ago, like many things addressing a political issue, it is calculated to make you think in a certain way. I guess that's the drawback of rhetoric, I'm sure if Roy went for a neutral tone, it would've impoverished her arguments. But that's the whole idea of political writing. Literature, on the other hand, tells you the skeleton of which needs to be understood: The plot, the rest is like a contract betweent he reader and the author. People disrespect themselves when they say they've "gotten this wrong", or whatever. I'm going to spend the following years unlearning the process of injecting literary criticism into the way I read. Because the only way a novel should ever be is through itself. An opinion that I stand by.

I'm not going to get a 2:1. I think it's a 3rd for me. I never expected my grades to speak of my academic performance, I think I'll have to rely heavily on references if I go for some office job. The present outlook is to find myself in a maintainable lifestyle in order to develop my writing skills. Somehow earning enough money for food, nicotine, beer, cds, comics, clothes. I've completed my job with the library. It was mainly cleaning out old stock. But since I was so goddamn deft, they might have other jobs for me.
btw, Kevin's poem is in reference to when he yakked all over his bed when he was staying at my place in KL two years ago. Then he proceeded to sleep in the piles of vomit, at one point arranging them in neat piles, so they would not cause to much mess.

What will you be doing in London? I am considering going north to teach. Go for the master's Vin, and bloody congratulations on graduating!

(That was in no way a reference to Kevin McLeod's 'poetry').

PS. Nice issues, K. McLeod.

I have never read anything written like a play/screen play before. Oh hang on, that's a lie, but I can't remember what it was like exactly. I'm surprised by how much attention is paid to visuals and physicality. I always thought that shit existed in the mind of directors. I love it.

chunks of cabbage and zukini stained blood red
like a thusand mini tampons
untimly ripped from the fold
catipaltaed out of my mouth
splatering on the pillow

- Kevin Mcloud

From: WarrenE@aol.com
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 21:07:44 EDT
Subject: BAD SIGNAL: Lock, Stock And Holmes
To: badsignal@lists.flirble.org

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

badsignal-unsubscribe@lists.flirble.org


This is something I was messing around with a few months ago.
Don't read anything into the screenplay format -- I was trying to
find the tone, and screenplay format suited the attempt to
find the particular voice I was after. (Some things start out looking
like screenplays, some things start out looking like prose,
some things start out as linked monologues. I like to have as
many tools to hand as I can.)

I was messing about with it as a writing exercise, one of the
things that gets the brain moving. I decided to try and find a
way to do a Sherlock Holmes adaptation that might capture
a jaded audience and not echo previous shots. What I ended
up with was, if you like, the Guy Ritchie version -- honest to
the book and Conan Doyle's intent to his characters, while also
being honest to the way people actually speak. In particular,
letting Watson out of the strictures of writing and publishing
that Conan Doyle was working within in the 19th Century.
One did not say Fuck in the magazines of the time -- even
Jack London watched his mouth.

Anyway, it's just a bit of fun, and I'm taking it for a bit of
air before it gets backed up onto the Misc. File, never to
be seen again.

-- W

FADE IN:


EXT. LONDON DOCKLANDS - 1887

It's bleak and filthy here. Nineteenth Century London was
dark, and busy with swarms of people. So it is here, with
dockers going about their business as a long line of SOLDIERS
crocodiles out of a moored ARMY SHIP.

SUPER: 1887

Each of the soldiers passes through a CHECKPOINT that's really
just a wooden table and a seated INSPECTOR, reading through
the papers each soldier provides.

Reaching the checkpoint; DR JOHN WATSON, a lean man in his
early thirties. He stands straight, but is down on his luck: in a dirty
army uniform, with a weakened left arm and a small battered suitcase
in his right hand.

INSPECTOR
Papers.

Watson hands them over. The Inspector peers through thick
little glasses.

INSPECTOR
Captain John Watson.

WATSON
Doctor John Watson. I received my
discharge before boarding.

INSPECTOR
Take the sodding uniform off, then.
Next.

Wearily, Watson trudges off out of the docks, to the streets beyond.


EXT. LONDON STREET - DAY

Crossing a cobblestoned junction, not too different from the London
of today aside from the horses and the dung, Watson looks around.

WATSON
Good God.

Walks on, sourly.

WATSON
London's still a fucking toilet.

Pushing on through the light crowds, Watson sees a tough STREET
KID yanking the HANDBAG off an older lady.

WATSON
Hey!

The street kid looks him in the eye.

STREET KID
What?

Watson looks around, sees a POLICEMAN clearly turning his
back - can't be bothered.

STREET KID
Got something to say, you gimpy
bastard?

The kid pushes Watson in the left shoulder - Watson YELLS with
sudden pain.

STREET KID
Come on then. You want some?

Watson drops his suitcase as the kid shoves again -- feints with his
left side so that the shove doesn't connect --

-- and punches the kid in the head with surprising force.

The kid drops backwards, smacking the back of his head on the
cobblestoned street. He doesn't get up again.

Watson recovers the bag, hands it to the distraught woman.

WATSON
Madam, your handbag.

She's too shocked to speak. This just doesn't happen in London.


Watson, wincing, lifts his own case and soldiers on.

WATSON
A fucking toilet.



INT. PUB - DAY

A smoky pub, half-full. Watson is propped in a corner seat, reading
a copy of The Strand magazine. Glaring at it furiously, in fact. He
reads it to himself, as if that'd make what he's got there the more
believable:

WATSON
"…By a man's finger-nails, by his
coat-sleeve, by his boots, by the
callosities of his forefinger and
thumb, by his expression -- by each
of these things the scientific
enquirer may plainly reveal a man's
calling and background…"

He looks up, to see a large ROACH crawling across the damp,
yellowed wall next to him. He addresses it.

WATSON
Is callosities even a word? Honestly,
what crap.

He rolls up the newspaper and smacks the roach into pulp
with it, even as he hears someone call his name.

STAMFORD (V/O)
John Watson?

WATSON
Hello?

STAMFORD appears at the table, a very clean young man in a
suit, the very image of the young doctor.

STAMFORD
Dr John Watson? It is you, isn't
it?

WATSON
Is that… you were with me at St
Bart's Hospital, weren't you?
Young Stamford?

STAMFORD
Watson, whatever have you been doing
with yourself? You're thin as a rake
and you look like you've been roasted
on a spit, man.

WATSON
I've just been booted out of the
army, Stamford.

STAMFORD
That sounds like call for a drink.

WATSON
Several.

Stamford waves his arm at MARY, the grim woman behind the
bar, eagerly sitting down next to Watson.

STAMFORD
Mary! Two pints of best over here!

MARY
Get 'em yourself, you bloody layabout!

STAMFORD
They love me here. So tell. You
were in the Afghan War?

WATSON
Army surgeon. Took a bullet in the
left shoulder at Maiwand. Busted up
the bone pretty badly and clipped
the subclavian artery.

STAMFORD
Nasty.

WATSON
They got me back across British lines
and on to the hospital train to Peshawar.
Which was the worst thing they could
have done.

Watson reaches for his beer; just a slight shake in his hand.

WATSON
Men laying in their own blood and
piss and shit, Stamford. Breeding
ground for disease like you wouldn't believe.

STAMFORD
What happened?

WATSON
Enteric fever. Nine months I was
in bed. Had my last rites twice.
And with my health therefore
officially irretrievably ruined,
here I am back in London, pensioned
off.

Stamford laughs and raises his pint.

STAMFORD
Cheers. So what now?

Watson takes some more of his beer, settles back and considers.

WATSON
Well. No living relatives in England.
Hell, no living friends in England.
So, first thing is to look for
somewhere to live, on eleven shillings
and sixpence a day. Comfortable rooms
at a reasonable price, anything so
long as it's not a bloody tent in Afghanistan…

STAMFORD
Funny. You're the second man to use
that phrase to me today.

WATSON
Tents in Afghanistan? Don't tell me
it's some new slang phrase I have to
learn. Doesn't mean anything to do
with bums, does it?

STAMFORD
No. The comfortable rooms bit.
There's a man at the chemical
laboratory at Barts right now,
and he was moaning just this morning
that he couldn't find anyone to go
halves with him in some nice rooms
he couldn't otherwise afford.

WATSON
Well, if he wants someone to share
the rooms and the expense, then,
right now, I'll share with anyone
who doesn't intend to shoot me in
the subclavian artery.

Stamford looks uncomfortable.

STAMFORD
Yes, well. You'd have to talk to him
about that.



EXT. ST BART'S HOSPITAL - GARDEN - DAY

The gardens surround the ancient old edifice of St Bart's
Hospital, flowers blazing with the first real colour we've seen.

STAMFORD
The St Bart's Gardens stil amaze me,
y'know. No matter what the state of
the rest of London, they still bloom…

WATSON
You know why, of course?

STAMFORD
Why?

WATSON
Why the gardens are so rich and
beautiful, no matter what? The
gardens are planted on mass graves.
Lepers, mostly. Good compost.

Stamford looks around with new eyes, and then hurries into
the building. Watson follows, smiling.



INT. ST BART'S - CORRIDOR

Footsteps echo in here - all marble floors and wooden walls.
The pair walk together, past flocks of nurses.

WATSON
So he's a medical student?

STAMFORD
No. I mean, don't get me wrong,
first-class chemist, excellent
anatomist, but he flits in and out
of here like a mayfly. I have no
idea what he intends to go in for.

Some shouting ahead. STUDENT DOCTORS in white coats
running out of the LAB they're approaching, and down the
nearby STAIRS.

STAMFORD
Hey, hey. What's all the noise?

STUDENT DOCTOR
Your crazy mate's up to something
in the morgue!

Watson eyes Stamford sourly, and then they follow. The sign
on the stairs shows that they're descending to the MORGUE:



INT. MORGUE

The morgue's dissecting-room is a separate office within the
larger room of the morgue, big windows allowing one to see clearly
inside. There is a door into the dissecting-room, currently locked,
and an aged MORGUE ATTENDANT sits on the floor outside it,
tending a cut lip.

In the dissecting-room, two male corpses are arranged on benches.
And a tall, spidery man in black is waving a cricket bat above them.
His name is SHERLOCK HOLMES.

STAMFORD
What in the name of God is going on?

MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's beating up the dead people,
Dr Stamford.

And, true enough, as they stand there, the tall man laughs out
loud and smacks one corpse in the belly with the cricket bat.

WATSON
Bloody hell!

STAMFORD
Get that door open.

MORGUE ATTENDANT
He's locked it from the inside. I
tried to stop him, but he smacked
me one and then said if I kept
bothering him he'd do an experiment.
On me privates, like.

The morgue attendant dissolves into tears, as the others look up
at the lunatic in the dissecting room.

The tall man puts his bat aside and hunches over the body, peering
at the place where he struck. His eyes narrow. He studies the area
intently.

And then snaps upright, walks to the door, unlocks it, and greets
Stamford with a brilliant smile.

HOLMES
Stamford, old man! Good to see you.
Come in, come in. I was attempting
to conduct an experiment.

WATSON
With a cricket bat?

Holmes looks Watson up and down, as if studying a small turd
placed in his path, and then turns his attention back to Stamford.


HOLMES
It is, you see, extremely important
imperative that I know how long
after death the body can produce a
bruise. These things matter.

WATSON
So you were slapping corpses with a
cricket bat for science.

HOLMES, dismissive
Yes, yes, of course.

Stamford turns to Watson.

STAMFORD
Dr John Watson, I'd like you to
meet Sherlock Holmes. He's looking
for someone to share an apartment
with.

Watson sags.

WATSON
Good God.




INT. ST BART'S - STAIRS

They head up the stairs. Holmes, tall and quick, leading the way.

HOLMES
Back from Afghanistan, then? I trust
your recuperation wasn't too distressing.

Watson glares at Stamford. Stamford puts his hands up, like; how
would I have told him?

WATSON
How did you know that?

HOLMES
Doctor, yet clearly military. Your
face is darker than your wrists, yet
not the rich tint of a man fresh from
the tropics. Your face is haggard,
you are somewhat undernourished, and
you hold your left arm in a stiff
manner. Where else could an army
doctor gain and lose a tan, and take
an obvious battle injury?

Holmes crests the stairs and turns to grin at Watson with
intellectual triumph.

HOLMES
Plus, I think you've had the shits
recently.

WATSON
You sound like a magazine article
I just read.

HOLMES
In the Strand?

WATSON
Yes, actually.

HOLMES
I should think so too. I wrote it.

Watson turns to Stamford.

WATSON
If I give you my service revolver,
will you please shoot me in the head?

###

Hi guys. I am back from San Francisco now. Three months before completing my B.A degree (if I decide to go sans honours), and a potential 9 months before beginning my law degree. For reasons unknown, I am depressed. Things just feel low. I came to some kind of conclusion that it's because I am nearly done with the goals I had set myself coming out of high school - to go to university and get a Bachelor's degree. I didn't think beyond that, and now I have to, I am somewhat confused.

Han, redesign away. And also, everyone should come visit Melbourne. It is cold and you will hate it.

Isn't that sweet? I wrote that letter, Vinny, at 7am after allnighting my dissertation and other miscellaneous things for coursework. 7am was 6 hours before the 6000 word essay was due and I had written 600 words. I handed it in last week, making it eight days late.

I've beaten that record before, but I had blisters on my feet and hands for no particular reason.

The site's in need for some redesigning. The archives should go on a seperate page. I have some time these days, so I'll give it some thought.

Way back in 1988, on the 3rd of July, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a missile cruiser stationed in the Persian Gulf, accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner and killed 290 civilian passengers. George Bush the First, who was at the time on his presidential campaign, was asked to comment on the incident. He said quite subtly, "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."

It was important to avoid making a straightforward victory announcement, because under the Geneva Convention a victorious army is bound by the legal obligations of an occupying force, a responsibility that the Bush administration does not want to burden itself with. Also, closer to the 2004 elections, in order to woo wavering voters, another victory in the "War on Terror" might become necessary. Syria is being fattened for the kill.

As America's show business gets more and more violent and war-like, and America's wars get more and more like show business, some interesting cross-overs are taking place. The designer who built the 250,000 dollar set in Qatar from which General Tommy Franks stage-managed news coverage of Operation Shock and Awe also built sets for Disney, MGM, and "Good Morning America."

From Arundhati Roy's essay "Buy one, Get one free". here

If you ever felt the a cat demanded too much, go here

This new blogger is odd. Never mind.
I've been busying with my dissertation, can't wait to get finished. I started the book Soul Mountain yesterday. I'll tell you all how it all works out.

The point though is, if Joli is _in_ San Francisco, there's no cause to put anything in your curls. Or go out of your way to harass the locals. Vinny if you're going to Barcelona, then have a good time. The Spanish people will eat you alive before you can say, "cabron".

Everyone all done? Damn you all, I am jealous.

Who changed the format? WHO!

I'm in San Francisco right now. Again. It's hot. Damn hot.