Sinister: Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to its vomit

[kieran devaney]

Breathing is habit. Life is habit. Or rather, life is a succession of
habits... The periods of transition that separate consecutive adaptations...
represent the perilous zones in the life of the individual, dangerous,
precarious, painful, mysterious and fertile, when for a moment the monotony
of being is replaced by the suffering of being...

- Samuel Beckett

There are loads of reasons why i like that quote, partly because it sounds
clever and a just little bit pretentious, but not dangerously so... and in
the context of the rest of mr beckett's work it fits perfectly, like a mini
manifesto. earlier in the year i went to see 'waiting for godot' at the mac
in birmingham, and of the people i went with, one fell asleep and all the
others pretty much denounced it as incoherent rubbish... silly them. i like
it so much i was tempted to write about it in my english exam in the summer
instead of crappy 'death of a salesman' but i couldn't remember it well
enough
and despite being super cool in class and being a rebel in all my essays,
during exams i am a real wimp, you'd hate me. the stuff i write in exams is
the type of hollow crap that gets people their grades
it's worth it though
thats what i keep telling myself

anyway, i'm pretty much new, i got my wings and fled the nursery (is that
what it's called?) a couple of weeks ago, but one thing or another has
prevented me from posting... laziness mostly i guess
but everyone here seems so nice and stuff, how could i not say something?
one qualm i have is to do with the near cult status that ribena has here...
and perhaps you'll say i'm taking ribena much too seriously now, but you
know that it's made by smithkline beecham who fund animal testing?
i stopped drinking it when i heard that
not wanting to sound overly politicised, their advertising net has ensnared
john peel too, who i'm sure is everyones hero, since he advertises aquafresh
which they make too
so sad
but i don't want to impose these views on anyone, just please bear it in
mind
i've digressed, i was introducing myself
when you opened the email you might have clicked on kieran which is my name
i'm from birmingham in the uk
someone a while back commented on how pretty all the cranes look in
birmingham city centre and now that i have the chance i will belatedly agree
sometimes i hang around town until sunset because there is a kind of skewed
beauty when they are silhouetted against the darkening sky... i wont come up
with a crap similie because one doesn't really spring to mind
so many nice situations are ruined by overly rampant poetic license
speaking of poetry
somebody showed me this poem the other day

I Am the Only Being (1836)

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure--secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there

- Emily Bronte


she wrote wuthering heights too y'know...
i think this is proof that if she emily bronte was around now she would be a
female morrissey type... or, more fittingly, morrissey is a male emily
bronte type, there are definite thematic similarities in their work
i think so anyway

what else did i want to talk about?
oh yeah... the new hefner album
this has been causing much consternation in the past week or so since its
release, so i wont help by adding my opinion
i guess the reaction has been akin to the one from radiohead fans after kid
a
but as a radiohead fan who loved kid a straight away i can totally dig this
new hefner direction... it's not as immediate as the older stuff, and their
are a few crap songs on the record, but all in all it's a winner á mon avis
also it's interesting to see a band who on paper look like generic indie
types really branching out and being sort of experimental
i get to see them live on the first of november which should be great, and
john peel might even be there too since it's being broadcast on his show
i hope so
although if i meet him i will undoubtedly make a fool of myself by either
embracing him heartily and begging him to sign my face
or berate him about advertising aquafresh, despite the numerous apologies on
his show, he does it to get his kids throught university he says
sorry in advance for any untoward behaviour john

isn't applying to university an immensely demeaning and essentially hollow
process?
it annoys me so much i'm going to save up my bile about it for another post
since this one must stay happy

oh yeah... i managed to convince my (rich) friend to buy 'if you're feeling
sinister' on a whim (i really like whims) and he loves it now so i've
instructed him to buy more stuff, and knowing his budget, he will have their
entire discography and all the merchandise by the end of the month
*sigh*

my love for marks and  spencer egg and cress sandwiches is tempered only by
their cost
they are indeed a giant in the sandwich world
if only my pocket would run to making them the mainstay of my diet

thats all for now i guess, except to say that paul theroux's 'my secret
history' is such a good book that you should go out and read it right now,
it mentions VS naipaul in it too (under a different name obviously) and i
can't think of anything cooler than that
i feel as though i should apologise for the length of this post since
everyone else does

peace and love
kieran


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