The Update that turned into an Essay

This is a strange blank time.

Work wore me out, I get that, and have been trying to research, get myself back into that space of enjoying writing. Not so easy really. The City and The City by China Mieville is a case in point. I know rather than feel how good it is. Clinically I see why it is great, but it doesn't touch me yet. Right now reading it is work, not pleasure.

Ngih Vo's Empress of Salt and Fortune is a faster, sweeter hit, but I trip up almost straight away on the use of the pronoun They for a person singular. I suspect it works in context, but I don't know what the context is yet. When it comes to pronouns, saying they rather than he/she is not difficult* but seeing it on the page is jarring for me, it disturbs the movement of the story over the page. I don't get why; many years ago I read Tutuola's The Palm Wine Drinkard, which is full of what some might call grammatical errors, and others would consider a vibrant written record of oral patois in West Africa. It was fun, and I had no problems reading it. Likewise Hoban's Ridley Walker has a very distinct linguistic pattern full of 'mistakes', if we are absolutely insistent on ignoring the point of the book. I am sure it'll work, but right now, it all feels like duty, heavy and worthy, something I am doing because I should.

Conversely, I was able to binge watch Slow Horses straight off the bat. Yes, there's that sense of it all being a bit too familiar near the beginning. Gary Oldman is the abusive slobby boss, q curry fart jokes from the off, setting the scene, I know, I know, good old 70s earthiness, yes, OK. Fortunately the plot moves fast and kept me. But it's not just a case of viewing vs reading; most stuff on TV bores me as thoroughly as anything I read, it's just quicker about it.

AI art continues to supply me with short sharp little hits of satisfaction. There's so much furore about whether or not this is art, its levels of derivation, even theft. For me, there is something poetically appropriate about the fact that AI art cannot do hands properly; the hand is the first sign we have of man as artist, signing on a cave wall in Maltravieso.



The above was created by Neanderthals; this in itself moves me more than anything I have read or watched in the past month. Art is older than modern man, it is a sign, not of our species but of our genus - and our genius. Older than we are, I think it will outlive us. Whatever happens, something essential picks up the pen or paintbrush, tells a story, sings, dances, creates. That's a heartening thought.

AI Art can only reiterate imagery, however, I recall talking to Conroy Maddox about what defined surrealist art, and he said that surrealism did not look for original elements within an artistic piece, but rather the extraordinary that occurs in the juxtaposition of those elements, their incongruity in relation to each other. For me, that is what can make AI art different, the movement and distortion between a prompt, what is imagined, and what emerges. I applaud perfect convincing photographic imagery as a matter of someone getting their craft down to a T. But it isn't always interesting... after all, why not just take the photo? What I want from AI Art is the unpredictable space.

My most lauded pieces include these:
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Because,however hideous, baffling, or indeterminate, they take me somewhere to find the thing I really want, the story. Which is how I know I am a writer, not an artist.**

And just like that, I'm awake.

* Using 'they' as a single person pronoun in speech takes a bit of readjustment cos I am not used to it, but it's nothing much. People insisting on entirely new words to describe themselves when they are not present (zhir, zhe, fae/fi/fa etc) can just forget it; I don't have room in my head for a multitude of individual lexicons for the wounded and special. We're all wounded and special.

** That and skill levels obviously. Whatever ability I have in writing would exist with or without a computer. The same can most emphatically not be said for my attempts at art.

Cleaner Karma

New brilliant cleaner, absolutely superb, does everything well. I pop out of my study to stop the washing up machine's triumphant beep (the appliances in this house are tremendously needy; if you don't attend to them when they complete a task, they just keep making little 'notice me' noises) and there she was on her phone in our utility room, having left the hoover standing still in the corridor still switched on.

Really?

She told me it was a new client. That's all fine, but I would rather she didn't spend my money while she answers the phone. I know it's not much, but we've just had one of those smart meters put in so we can keep an eye on energy expenditure, and it's been a bit eyebrow raising so far. Her phone rings, she answers it ASAP, but it takes, what, a second if that, to switch the hoover off before she continues. So why not do it?

A suspicious mind would say it's because she knows I am in my study, am unlikely to check, and will just assume she is working if the vacuum cleaner is on. I have no idea how long she was on the phone for, and I don't care, as long as the work is properly finished within the time slot agreed. She seems to have done her job competently as usual but she left 10 minutes early, and there was a distinct difference in the atmosphere between us. I don't want to be put in a position where I need to say, 'please don't leave the hoover on if you are not using it.' If I get a cleaner in to save me time, why would I want to spend that time admonishing the cleaner? The idea is that I don't have to bother, that the work is done, paid for, out of sight, out of mind. It embarrasses and mortifies me to think of 'telling off' a fellow adult whose services I pay for. I'm not the borough memsahib.

But I do think that expectation exists. I think a gent is expected to simply not care about the state of his house, especially if he is a bachelor, while the lady is supposed to be hawklike in her sense of order, aware of the minutiae, looking for reasons to correct. There is a sense of indulgence for him, of wariness with her. I don't want to think about it, don't want to play the game, never wanted to see myself as the gentle tyrant over a household full of staff scuttling around in dread of me. I don't want Downton Abbey, I just want a clean house and no hassle.

I am probably over reacting, a combination of frustration at my mother ('The phone is not working again there is a hooligan in Granada who is causing mischief and making my phone not work this phone does what it likes,etc, etc') and Orb Lord trying to make contact ('Debbie was my spiritual sister but she deserted me because she wouldn't believe that crop circles are caused by orbs who become inner Earth lizard people with a deep need to gaze at my c**k.')

So OK, maybe I am easily irritated right now. I still don't understand why cleaning staff lose their bright edge after a few weeks. The house doesn't change and we don't change. Karma then. Damn.