* Scientists from the European pseudo-country of Liechtenstein are demanding that the latest findings from their ‘super-telescope’ – code named ‘Bulky Klaus’ – be given more serious consideration among the wider scientific community. “We can totally see Belgium with this thing”, said project lead Otmar Frick, from the attic room that houses the telescope, in the apparently real city of Balzers. “Given further development, we can refine this instrument to the point where we can see what Belgians are actually doing, and report it back to everyone.” The Liechtenstein scientific community, and the country in general, are eager to see if the findings will confirm their fears as to whether or not Belgians are ‘constantly doing it’, gorging themselves on waffles and parading Plastic Bertrand around on a big throne.
* Hanover, Germany – The latest unnerving research at the Rudi Schenker Institute has led to a small horse being grown on the back of a mouse. The creature has even been trained to flip over onto it’s equine side and canter around a straw filled cage.
* Vatican city officials are rumoured to be reconsidering their stance on the Axilla Heresy, which claims that God created the universe in one of his armpits, primarily to amuse his rambunctious nephews at otherwise tedious family functions. The crackdown on the heresy, which gained traction during early February of 1422, saw more than 30 adherents trampled to death by fat otters. A spokesman for Pope Benedict said “Listen, the current Pope used to be in the Hitler Youth – pretty much anything goes at this point”. How this relates to science we’re not really sure, but it’s a slow week and we’re thinking people probably don’t read past the first paragraph.
* Over in the U.S. of A., researchers have built a catapult that they believe could shoot Rush Limbaugh into space. While no clear strategy exists for tricking Mr Limbaugh into sitting upon the instrument for long enough to ensure an effective launch, generally people everywhere are feeling better for knowing that such a well-intentioned project exists at all.
Winking at Caesar – ‘Raise The Cubes’
The sophomore effort from North Carolina’s trailblazers of quantum metal sees them expanding their virtuosity to an even more improbable level. 2007′s debut, ‘Freaking at the Altar of Abstraction’, showed that this 5-piece were not going to be constrained by the limits of the current techno-math-metal movement, which drummer Aleph Cardinal described as “…a kind of diminishing Euclidian lip service”. When work on the follow-up began, the band promised “…with our new quantum sound, the listener will be simultaneously pounded with every riff, while looking up only to see the hammer fall once more – onto his face”.
Opening track “Exponential Headfuck” blasts off proceedings with a sustained, confusing barrage of beats from Cardinal’s formidable 90-piece drumkit (roadie Francois “Brass Liver” Frappé was once lost within it for a staggering 12 minutes, and emerged thinking it was 1986). Before your mind can properly adjust to the information, a riff of such pointless complexity and devastating note count roars out over the top, and we are in quantum territory. The sonic effect is that of a plague of panicked locusts with baseball cards taped to their knees, colliding with a grain silo jogging in the opposite direction. Singer B. Spoke Taylor’s delivery is distorted and magnified to the point where it’s almost possible to forget that his normal speaking voice sounds like Tiny Tim trying to whine his way out of a public urination ticket.
The fifth song, Hot Arm Delivery, is already infamous, following a bemused but scathing review in last month’s New Yorker, when guest writer Robert Falcon Scott (‘of the Antarctic’) wrote ‘Track five – hope is fading in the face of a relentless two-handed bass tapping solo…’. He abandoned the review at that point, and had to be prodded with an assortment of sticky buns and drenched in weak, milky tea before regaining his senses. The guys in W@C are taking the much-talked-about dissing in their stride. “What do we care?”, said lead guitarist Ted ‘Extra Fingers’ MacAllister, “they only got the copy of the CD because someone spiked the bike courier’s yoghurt with PCP – dude totally thought he was in the offices of [metal fanzine] Tin Gizzard”.
For myself, I confess I only made it to track 7, ‘Giblet Penance (parts I-IV)’, before calling it a day, having realised my highlights up to that point had been the brief silence between songs, and the power cut which affected our office for 30 minutes, allowing me to lean out of a window and hear nothing but traffic and a hobo hacking up a lung in the alley below. I cannot describe the bliss (not to mention relative profusion of melody) this sudden contrast afforded. Call me a lightweight, but I think I’ll be sticking to less frenetic forms of metal, such as the obesecore movement emerging in the midwest. Speaking of which, am I the only person who thought Stapled Goiter’s slow moving, heavy-set debut ‘Twenty Tons of Torte’ was last year’s standout?
Fashion of the Christ Tuesday, 8pm
Sister Wendy discusses the possible wardrobe of the famed 1st Century rabble rouser with a particularly giggly Jean-Paul Gaultier. They manage to agree on the likelihood of a hard-wearing knitted fedora, coupled with a tasteful armless turtleneck one piece and wooden brogues, however they disagree loudly over the addition of a chiffon cape. The discussion eventually descends into a tickle fight in which Sister Wendy displays surprising resilience and single-minded aggression. Reports from the show indicate that Gaultier had to be carried off and was later said to be missing 6 ribs.
Pimp My Aardvark Wednesday, 11pm
Contraversial fly-on-the-wall documentary charting Lindsay Lohan’s attempts to loan her pet Aardvark Bojangles out to confused foreign businessmen for sex, before Flavor Flav intervenes by jabbering inanely until everyone goes home.
Famous Roles, 18 Holes Friday, 9pm
In this edition of the most popular of the recent ‘actors playing golf in character’ shows, it’s Sean Connery as Zardoz vs. Dustin Hoffman as Rain Man. Hoffman gains an early psychological advantage by loudly blurting the number of clubs in Connery’s bag, just as the latter is teeing off at the first hole. Connery’s bad luck continues as he is distracted by a huge, flying, hollow stone head on the back nine. His humiliation is complete when, after the game, his outfit prevents him from entering the club house. Meanwhile Hoffman shouts at a waiter for over 20 minutes whilst hitting himself on the head with a baguette, before being escorted out by Tom Cruise to generous applause.
Sports Round Up Saturday, all day
Anyone involved in sport at a professional level is rounded up and imprisoned on a remote island for several weeks, just to prove that everyday life would not be affected in any meaningful or detrimental way by it’s absence.
As the morning progresses, a cold front will move in, temperatures will drop, resulting in cloud formations that will no doubt cause you to slaughter random farm animals in order to assuage your confusion and pacify whatever gods you have made in your own feckless image. Gibbering and naked, you will bang on doors throughout your village, gradually strengthening your neighbours’ feeling that you are a harbinger of madness and ill-fortune.
by Felicity Tramline
It was the great thinker Wallace Schoenough (inventor of the shelf, among other things) who said “only when the mind is bent, can the body follow”. This wonderful quote has been on my mind of late, since I saw it adorned on a Barrista’s smock, and so I was in reflective mood as I arrived at U Bend, the new yoga centre on the corner of Rothman and Embassy.
Meadow, a pixieish dreadlocked carrot-top manning the front desk, was very friendly: complimenting my Dukes of Hazzard yoga mat (though I get that alot, it was definitely a find), talking me through the immense selection of incense sticks for sale, and also giving a little insight into the centre’s philosophy. “Let me be frank”, she explained, “we are interested in the stern application of yoga, in an austere, vigorous environment. It is our intention to use the energy focused here to hasten the awakening of the Great Old Ones”. So, not your grandmother’s yoga.
Yoga is a large part of my life – in fact, along with the music of Lionel Richie, I can’t think of anything else that brings me such inner calm. However, since catching scabies from the sodden carpet at Frank’s Bikram over on Consulate (now closed – and the carpet has been shot into space on the advice of a local shaman), I have been practicing only at home – and while my complete set of Crystal Gayle yoga tapes do put me in an intense place, I jumped at the opportunity to return to a setting of communal enstretchment.
Having perused the schedule on the centre’s jasmin-scented webpage, I had opted to try out a Ph’nglui class. I am wary of faux-esoteric styles that seem to seek novelty, instead of just getting down to old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, legs-behind-the-ears business, but the accompanying paragraph (rendered in a remarkably peaceful font) assured me that Ph’nglui in fact dates back to the 4th century, and was developed by traders in exotic moss who needed a way to limber up for a day of hoofing sacks of wet plant matter to and from market.
As the class begun, with instructor Tungsten hustling the 20 or so attendees into formation by yelling traditional Tibetan obscenities, the state of the art stereo system piped the soothing sounds of Merzbow. The class was a broad cross-section of people, from the more experienced (guilty!) to the visibly clueless, from lithe athletic builds (not so guilty!) to one unfortunate man with a wheel instead of a right foot. While it made me feel mean, as a lover of traditional slapstick I did make a mental note to watch him attempt the Downward Dog.
The pace and content of the class was challenging. In the opening minutes, Tungsten threw one head-banded putz out of an open window for “breaking mad wind” (as my teenage sons would say) during the Fainting Heron pose. Shortly afterwards, as I wedged my ankle behind a hot pipe for extra leverage during the theoretically impossible Angry Cuckold maneuver, my hip cracked so loudly that a murder of crows took flight from a leafless tree in the park three streets away. “Good!”, bayed Tungsten, spinning and pointing, his moustache standing to attention. From that point, and for the next 90 minutes, the noise levels rose steadily as people howled in abject soul-searing discomfort, or wailed with mind-numbing self-laceration as the weaker were crushed by the verbal weight of Tungsten’s constant virulent hectoring. Bodies roiled, flapped and were coaxed into ever-more bizarre and improper configurations. The floors and walls grew damp and viscous from the sweat, hot tears and bloody phlegm that were flying in all directions as Tungsten beat a huge tribal drum and ululated in an ungodly falsetto to further drive the hysteria. The windows steamed up and the stench of terror and hopelessness combined to form a bewildering, toxic miasma. Limbs twisted and spun with such involuntary ferocity that I began to fear I would take a fatal blow from one of the many poor neophytes now totally given over to the bedlam, helpless and spastic, marionettes controlled by a puppet-master who’s very name was madness.
The class ended on time, with 3 minutes of quiet reflection bringing people back to a calm centering. With my eyes closed, I found myself quite enjoying the muted whimpers of my classmates. It was intense for sure, though I noted with approval that the parquet flooring would soon be clean as a whistle, given the attention of scalding, bleached water and a strong-stomached cleanup crew. Colour me scabies-free!
U Bend Yoga is open 6 days a week and will haunt your dreams with warped, feverish visions of ageless submerged cities
- won’t respond to producers’ faxes requesting recent moustache sample
- likes to cuss in restaurants
- too tall
- when attempting slam dunks, keeps rising and has to be rescued from rafters by volunteer fire officials
- is rumoured to be mythical, no confirmed public sightings since Amherst dragon slaying in 1988
- The Fall Guy contract really strict about other projects; is in effect for next 6000 years
Yesterday I ran into Doug, he said to say hello. So I did. After that, he pretty much let me run my side of the conversation. Which didn’t amount to much at first, as he was just back from a vacation somewhere in South America and had many stories he was itching to relate. I did my best to give my undivided attention, but my mind was swimming around, alighting on different things, and I was content to go with the flow, switching back to Doug’s channel whenever a conclusion seemed imminent. “…And then finally, with a single tolling of the town’s church bell, it was done – the flamingo was indeed inside out and everyone owed Pedro $5. So, what are you doing now? We should hang out”. I readily agreed, and we decided to pursue a combination of beer and music.
After perusing “Do What Now?”, the feckless privy rag that masquerades as a local what’s on guide, we decided to head to a punk show at the Hanging Gardens, a club not two blocks away. It was Burping McCain, with Macauley Skulkin’ and Your Sullen Antelope. Solid lineup, we were stoked. Doug had caught the Burps when he was out west last year, he said the singer was throwing quinces into the crowd and had this whole rant about the situation in Luxemburg. His frenetic reportage was infectious, and doubled my excitement. We had a couple of hours to kill though, so we slid into the Hapless Otter Bar, always a reliable place for pre-show drinks, though would be no good in a zombie attack. Too many windows and with some of the clientele, it’d be hard to know who’s side you were on.
We settled in, and did so in a manner befitting a couple of seasoned quaffers. You don’t just slap yourself down on a chair and wait for your ale like it’s a punishment or a stack of filing. You ease back in your seat, try out the arms, lean back a bit, maybe puff your chest out and slap it gently and absent-mindedly, whilst looking around with a slightly amused expression as if you’re about to drop an anecdote of unprecedented wit and wisdom to an audience of simpering theatre students.
Our drinks came, two frothy looking dames, you might say, and their arrival made our pulses quicken. Doug even said “hello, ladies”, though maybe a little too loud, as a couple of girls two or three tables over looked round sharply. Always keen to put out a gentlemanly demeanour, in this age where simple manners seem as fashionable as your grandad’s corduoroy wanking bib, I piped up, “oh, it’s OK, he was talking to our drinks”. This sounded no better at the time than it looks written down now, so things got a bit awkward for a second, but then Doug offered, “he had a head operation”, whilst bobbing a thumb in my direction. They looked at me as if to wait for some kind of confirmation, so I nodded and said “they opened it up but all they could find was coconut milk”. This seemed an adequate enough explanation for the girls, who returned to their conversation, albeit with a peel of secretive sniggers.
I believe I was slightly stung at the time, but later on, with Burping McCain redefining chaos and volume, Doug and I drunkenly tossed each other around an admirably frisky mosh-pit as quinces flew past our ears, and things really didn’t seem so bad. There we were together, enjoying a night of music, booze and banter, away from the rigours of the marketplace and the bondage of the chattel house. You either see that as a cause for celebration, or you get the hell out of my garden.
– regular ‘city life’ diarist Stanley Spooner is 35 and describes himself as aimless
An occasional series where we remember the wisdom and god-sanctioned quirks of popes throughout history.
CE 96 – After complaining of neck pain, Pope Clement I decrees that the papal hat no longer has to be made from solid iron. Before Vatican milliners settle on the final design of the familiar mitre, Clement wears a fez at all official functions, and an informal oven glove when presiding over staff meetings.
CE 225 – The sophisticated Pope Urban I ushers in a more modern feel to Vatican City by opening the first coffee shop, which has open mic Gregorian chants on Tuesdays.
BCE 50 – Pope Prematurus arrives some 80 years early and is quickly thumped to death by a pack of decidedly un-christian ne’er-do-wells.
CE 1010 – Believing the voice of God has commanded him through his dreams, Pope Sergius IV sets sail for Madagascar to scout locations for the soon to be introduced lemur.
by Casey Koenig
Dawn is supposedly the ideal time. They are docile then (relatively), not as quick to startle, to rear up, to attack. For anyone who wants a long career in this business, the ability to rise with the sun is an advantage indeed. This morning there is a moist heat haze that drifts up from the ground as if the earth is a huge pie, placed tantalisingly on the kitchen shelf of this mortal realm, and we – we are merely the frosted sugar dusted on the surface, the wisps of our lives urged this way and that by the rising currents of whatever strange filling lies beneath the crust.
I’m here with Lonnie ‘Yurt’ Mercer, which is just as well because somewhere, no further than 20 feet from us, is a ‘Wooden Genghis’ – slang for an untamed shed. The mood is tense and there is a heavy sense of imminent action. Lonnie is preparing a small mix of burnt squirrel droppings and decking oil – a somewhat overpowering scent for human noses, but catnip to a young, wild outbuilding. He is a stoic man, with the poise and instinct befitting someone who has spent most of his life around timbered storage units. “To me, they’re like displaced tree spirits, hewn from Noah’s lifeboats”, he mused this morning, as he paced thoughtfully around his operations base, a portacabin lovingly dubbed ‘the kennel’. “When we ‘tame’ them” – he hates that term, and uses it only when mimicking outsiders such as myself – “we’re really just opening a dialogue, reaching a hand out to say – ‘hey, welcome to this garden, can I store items such as a rake inside you?’”.
But that was back at base, away from danger, where an indulgence towards the poetic is a welcome contrast to the confrontations that await in the field. Much of the bravado and romantic allusions displayed are, of course, a way to get pumped up. There is no doubt Yurt respects his quarry, admires it even, but he knows the dangers too. As a young tamer, his mentor and father-figure Theodore “Log” Jones (a legend among men in this job) was savaged by a huge shed in front of Yurt’s eyes. “Well, that critter was pretty much a mini-barn”, he begins, eyes fixed towards the floor, letting the words rise up through the undertow of a dark, cold memory lagoon, “8 by 6, western red cedar, gambrel roof. Great craftsmanship, smelled beautiful but was as mean as hell”. Yurt’s quick action with a camping axe and a cup of undiluted creosote saved Log’s life, but with over 6000 splinters and a back injury caused by being violently shaken in the shed’s unsanded maw, Jones walked away for life (apparently sitting was not an option for some weeks) and these days is a recluse. Yurt visits, but is protective of the old man’s privacy. ”Put it this way”, he is willing to confide, “the largest wooden structure anywhere on his property is a little pine box his wife uses to store her fancy hookah tobacco”.
Then, there is a sound, and we fall silent. Yurt sees I am panicking, knowing that the shed is near but my untrained eyes unable to locate it. He puts his hand on my arm (surprisingly calming, comfortingly assured) and very slowly lifts the other to point out the adversary. My gaze falls on a rhododendron bush at 11 o’clock. I see nothing, but as Yurt’s hand rises so does my increasingly frazzled stare, until he is pointing above the bush, and — my god, there it is, dwarfing the bush by a good three feet and I think “really? I didn’t see that?”. The cost of my urbane lifestyle in the diverse, chai-latte-drenched modern metro environment dawns on me; the whump of realisation turns my stomach over like a sad pillow in a lurching tumble dryer. I have a private moment of frantic soul-searching during which I resolve to finally join that hiking club next Summer.
Yurt makes a sign that I recognise from my debriefing this morning – I am to stay here and keep quiet. He rises, readying his lasso. He has a slight advantage, as the shed is turned away from us just a little, and the fortuitous sudden sound of a nearby lawnmower from the other direction ensures the shed’s attention remains diverted – but we are dealing in a currency of split seconds here, and Yurt does not have enough for even a one-way ticket to pauseville. There can be no wasted action, and his approach is a rhapsody of purpose, the lasso lifting in a wide, humming, undulating circle. Too late, the shed picks up the sound and before it can fully turn, Yurt has thrown the lasso expertly, ensnaring the entire upper front section, and as the shed is thrown off balance, he brings it low to the ground. Yurt leaps up and mounts the now enraged structure, thighs tightening against the inverted V of the roof, hands gripping the shingles. It bucks and leaps, spins in circles, tries everything it can to repel this attempted subjugation.
How long it went on is impossible to remember, the sheer adrenaline of the spectacle, the excitement and terror, rendered time almost meaningless – this was a struggle that took place in the first three dimensions, vivid and muscular. Any quarter given to the notion of time would betray an admittance of weakness – that you can only sustain your strength for so long – and this was not a card either side had an interest in playing. So, the 4th dimension was consigned to the sidelines beside me, another fitful child banished from the banquet room so the grown ups can throw soup at each other. On reflection however, I think I should probably have made some effort to time it.
What I do remember is a heartstopping battle – a battle of wits, of worlds, of minds locked in conflict, then in struggle, the line between the two sides blurring as the struggle went from a feeling of pure opposition to an understanding – the kind of understanding that comes not from high-level abstract thought, not from books or college, but from the very fibres of being. After only a few seconds the outcome begins to become apparent. Yurt is too strong, too expert, too determined. The shed senses his emerging dominance, and almost immediately begins to acquiesce. From now, each movement between the two is part of a back and forth negotiation, peace terms being physically thrashed out. Eventually the struggle dissipates completely, and the shed merely shifts around on the spot, like a coquettish minx trying to get noticed at the village barn dance.
And with this, time suddenly becomes a factor. When a shed surrenders it’s feral self, it shortly loses all motor skills and comes to rest forever. Yurt only has a small amount of time to get it into place. Despite these details being arranged ahead of time, the shed’s owner, a shrill, sour-faced florist called Myrtle is shouting commands. “Back it up! Over there, by the garage – quickly now, and no more divets in my lawn!!”. Yurt grits his teeth and sets to cajoling the shed towards the designated spot. Finally sensing I can be of some use, I take a corner and do my best to copy his actions. He looks over and sees this, and I glimpse a faint nod that I take as a token of recognition – just for a minute or so, I’m on the team.
Later, back at the kennel, we drink coffee and reflect. How did this morning’s taming rate, in Yurt’s experience? ”Well, we didn’t lose anyone”, he jokes, “and we got the job done”. I tell him I thought the old lady was irritating, seeming to have no appreciation of the job, the risks. He shrugs, philosophical. “To be honest that stuff is just part of the background noise. End of the day, I’m glad to live in a country where a bat-shit crazy florist can call the shots in her own back garden”. Then, at last, the first broad grin of the day: “And they were some pretty big divets.”
- Casey Koenig is currently pursuing an M.A. in something or other.
