tailspin spring 09
DESCRIPTION
Featuring Art & Writing from the members of tailcast.comTRANSCRIPT
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february 09
featuring work from members of tailcast.com
photographyillustrationfine artpoetryfictionblogsquotes
Hejtejp - Färger
contentsTailcast Shop 1Blogs on Tailcast The Colclough Gratuitous Bloggism 3 Jonny Worcestershire Life 6 Pseudo Plaintext 7Tailcast Competitions 9Art on Tailcast Klarabella Grön Persilja 11 Roy Smith Misty Morning 12 Jonny Follow The Path 14 Gromit Little Slice Of Nowhere 15 Sushiko Wintermute / Gun Series 18 Rachel Osaka Order 19 Danangib Rain 21 Murray John- The Box 23 SommervilleWriting on Tailcast Belinda Subraman Issues, Colours 28 Golden The Man Who Sold Watermelons 29 Jessica Janes Little Fuzzys 33 Mike Parnell Council Tax 35 Neelesh Thinking Too Much 37 Penitent 1.21 am, Drunk 41 Pete Hood I Shall Wear Charcoal 43 Rosemarie Short A Letter Of Love 44 Killertango This One Needs A Title 45 Vincent Snickerbottle 46
Klarabella - Lemon
introductionWelcome to the February edition of Tailspin, featuring the latest offering of art and writing from the members of tailcast.com.
This month we bring you a preview of the upcoming ‘tailcast shop’, the result of our latest ‘poetry competition’ and details of our next visual-arts based promotion.
Over the last month we’ve been busy tweaking the design of the site. The audio player has been updated and you can now customise your profile.
We have also added our own video system, incorporating a processing solution and new video player. This will be launched with High Definition video as standard. That means if you create animations on your computer or record a film using a HD camera they will look great on our site!A new processing and encoding system means that your videos will play at the quality you
intended, will load faster and will be sharper when viewing in full screen mode. As the player develops, expect to see the introduction of playlists, video galleries, sharing tools and more. On your profile page you can soon expect to see the shop, a ‘latest activity’ module and a ‘status update’ section, so you can let everybody know what you’re doing.
We hope you enjoy the issue.
Best wishes, The team at www.tailcast.com
1.
preview>>
The online tailcast shop is well on its way to completion. At fi rst we will deliver to the USA and Canada, with the UK and Australia following closely behind.
What will you be able to do there?
You will be able to turn your work, or work that youlove by our members, into greetings cards, posters or have the image printed on to canvas. Easy-to-follow onscreen instructions will guide you through.
During the process of creating products out of your art, you may need to upload a larger version, (if you’re creating a poster for example.) To make this as easy as possible, we have built a ‘bulk edit’ function for your portfolio, where you can re-upload work to the site, (along with adding tags so people can fi nd your work easier.)
Of course, not everything will be available to buy. Simply select those pieces you wish to appear in the shop.
We’ll keep you up to date with the developments on tailcast.
tailcast shop
preview>>
shop homepage create a productshop homepage create a productcreate a product
select a product customise your greeting card
i just opened my latest bank statement. they’ve gone to all the trouble of sending me the statement, to tell me that they’ve given me the princely sum of 2p in interest this month. that’s on a current account with £294.38 in it. these letters are a monthly occurence, and the interest has been at the same piddlingly low level for at least half a year, so i’m taking an educated guess that next month, they’ll send another one to say i now have £294.40 in there. thing is, sending the letter probably set them back another 20p, which is 10 times what they’ve given me. now, why can’t they save the price of the postage, give it to me as additional interest instead, and send me an email to say i’m 22p richer? now, the other day, i was walking home from the shops, and events occurred, which forcibly impressed upon my already-addled brain the truth of two wise old sayings: one of them being “look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves” - especially pertinent at the moment, what with the fi nancial crisis raging, and all that. well, shortly after leaving the shop, i happened to glance down at the pavement, and sitting there at one side was a 2p coin. this coin didn’t say anything, it just sat on the concrete, and stared imploringly up at me, as if to say “please, nice human, take pity on a little, lost coin!”. i could tell that it was begging to be looked after. so like any decent person who is confronted by a small, lost, homeless coin which wants looking after, i tenderly reached down, lifted it from the unforgiving concrete, and looked after it. i gave it a cozy little spot in my pocket, and although the coin said nothing, it defi nitely seemed a lot happier in there. and so, fi lled with the warm glow that you often get when you’ve just done a good deed, i picked up the shopping bag again, and proceeded on my way.
however, i had only just got myself around the very next corner, when a little silver glint caught my eye. “what?” i asked myself, “surely that’s not another little lost coin wanting my help?” but it was. it was a 5p, even smaller than the 2p (albeit silver rather than copper), and it looked even more lost than the fi rst coin. well, my compassion is pretty much boundless (at least under some circumstances), and i have a particular soft spot for lost coins, so i showed that poor little 5p the same kindness i had shown to the 2p, and i put it in the same pocket. a slight metallic sound, as i fi nished the trip home, seemed to suggest that the two were getting on well. so now, they’re sat together on my desk, with a few other coins, and even a couple of banknotes. no sign of them breeding yet, but i should probably give them a bit more time. the thing is, i just thought it was quite ironic that i got a letter from the bank to tell me they’d given me 2p, when i’d already had 7p off the pavement a few days previously. oh, and the other wise old saying? it was... “money doesn’t grow on trees.” they’re dead right. everyone knows, and myexperience the other day confi rms, that money is much more likely to grow on concrete.
ps. do you think i should start an orphanage for lost coins?
the colclough - gratuitous bloggism
3.
Joysuke - (Top L-R) Super Hot - Minibus Station (Bottom L-R) You Drive Me Mad - My Space
blogs on tailcast
Joysuke - (Top L-R) Super Hot - Minibus Station (Bottom L-R) You Drive Me Mad - My Space
6.
Tom - Beside The Sepia Tree
Yesterday I took the village bus into Worcester. I used to take it every day to school. It was so lovely to be back on it, the ear drum buzzing drone and vibrations it made were music to my ears :)
I love it, it sums up the countryside, the village bus does. Ray was driving, he remembered me :) ... had a nice chat and when we got into St Peter’s in Worcester he was off to have his lunch break, he said Bye to us, and we all waved and a collection of voices said Bye, bye love, and Ta-ra. Then Steve the bus driver took over, he stepped on and said, “Welcome to the mystery tour” (cus the bus was so fi lthy we couldn’t see out the windows) and then he continued to say “Don’t think I’ll be cleaning it tonight”. It made us all chuckle.
Later I took it home and Adam was driving, he stops right at people’s doors for them to get off, and when passing the other bus (cus the route basically operates on a circular route) they stopped and have a little bit of banter as they always do.
What I am getting at is I love the old people on the bus chatting away, the young ones fi t right in too, getting up for older people if they need a seat. I couldn’t help but compare this to London and its disgustingly unfriendly busdrivers and the odd people on the buses who make you feel unsafe.
One of my fl atmates comes from London, another from outside Liverpool, they can’t understand how I can live in a tiny village. Yesterday, I was thinking how can they live in those air polluted places for so long. The countryside calls me and pulls me back. As much as the city is cool nothing gives me more euphoria than a walk on a frosty morning with views to die for.
To sum it up there is nothing better than the community atmosphere and old people on buses :)
jonny - worcestershire life
pseudo - plaintext
dot-dash.telegraphy, dark fi bers. communication reduced to binary. encrypted, like in Poe: put in a crypt, a tomb, premature burial, a twin sister to emerge toothless and moaning from history, pre-civil war.
dot dash. simple. here: the dot is a moon, the dash a horizon. A man, perhaps, wrapped in fur, deck of a ship, signaling space. It takes a long time for information to reach mars, which is where the future germinates.
Henry Olerich, A Cityless and Countryless World: an Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism. Mr. Midith, a visitor from Mars, goes door to door selling the works of Herbert Spencer, the quack evolutionist. Published 1893, Holstein, Iowa. In The Man from Mars: his Morals, Politics, and Religion, a hermit with a habit for astronomy is visited by a different Martian, who explains his society has evolved 10,000 years beyond that terran earth. Written in 1900 by William Simpson, who also scrawled a dedication, in pen, on the inside cover of my library book more than a hundred years ago.
But why, who cares? That is a teleological question, as John Steinbeck writes in the Log from the Sea of Cortez (1941), which cannot be answered without distortion. Simply describe, like his notebooks of marine invertebrates. This is, this is, and this. A girl I was on a fi eld ethology course with drew in silver marker on the back cover, designs of fi sh, spirals.
It’s still dark out, so I lay in bed thinking. For the poetry reading competition I was considering a sonnet by Milton, the last line of which is beautiful: I woke, she fl ed, and day brought back my night. You see, he’s blind, and had just a dream about his dead wife. Milton didn’t write Paradise Lost. He woke up early, and composed with mnemonic ink, speaking them later to his amanuensis daughters. This is what I mean by soft tissues that are forgotten. Who knows what these young plaited poets might have changed, or how odd his old cracked voice must have sounded when, like
Blake, the poetry had been read by imaginary angels.
Why does everyone think that literature is printed and not sung? Odysseus was a lyre, and the song changed with every dining hall, every Delphic temple. Stories evolved, adapted to the somatic challenges of the organisms that held them in their skull like parasites. And Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare, he was the King’s Men, excisions from fair copy, improvisational mistranscriptions from the endless rehearsals of voice--even in print, if you trace the octavos, quartos, half-remembered pirate editions, the literary organism didn’t cease its metamorphoses. does anyone else have the problem of this tailcast publishing window smashing their words together when you save, as if youwere speakingtoo quickly?
Primitive science of memory, of sounds. Western industrial culture prized its arcane squiggles on dead tree fi ber because it was (canons and cannons) a way to manufacture a delusion of having evolved, culturally, beyond the victims of its empire, deadening of the world, blood traded for ink, greek songs for latin grammar.Poe’s natural parents were itinerant actors. He was abandoned by them to a step-father, West-point, petty squabbles over whether or not Longfellow was a plagiarist, encrypting the living world in moribund fears of gothic architecture, destiny, race.
In “To Whom this May Come,” one of Edward Bellamy’s stories published the same year as Looking Backward (1888) but written earlier, the protagonist encounters a island race of telepaths who have evolved beyond the use of speech. “The Blind Man’s World” features another visitor from Mars, who this time describes Martians as having no memories, but endowed with an equivalent foresight. The face one loves, for example, gradually forms in the mind until the day that he or she is met. Mars as speculative engine extends into late SF: Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Brian Aldiss: White Mars. Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles, and so
7.
on.
I boil water, make coffee, try to remember the sequence. Telegraphy, Milton, Odysseus, Mars. I’m about at the end of your patience anyway. One last “odd” coincidence. One last story. Jorge Louis Borges wrote Funes the Memorious, the story of a boy who is crippled from being thrown from a horse, but also endowed with a perfect memory. He recalls everything, but the narrator suspects that he is unable to think, since thought is predicated on the act of forgetting. Selection. The year in which this miracle occurs in the story is the same as that in which Looking Backward was written.
There is more, of no concern to anyone, really, and which will become more drab and monochrome once ironed into strictures of academic style, taxonomies of argument, elimination of the “unfi t” inconvenient edges of how thought actually functions, in organic tissue and waves of sound. Whatever. I’m beyond thinking my work will have interest or value in the usual sense--it passes the time, constellating points of light, creating invisible mythologies. Two mornings ago my car wouldn’t start. It had gotten to -24 degrees farenheit (with windchill, below -40, which is where the celcius and farenheit agree). So...I haven’t left my apartment since then. My friend was going to come by and jump my battery, but had to work. Today, he says over the phone, and I ask him to bring some food.
9.
competitions
the prize:
a professionally printed march 09 tailspin magazine with a feature of you and your work inside.
what to do?
a drawing or painting,something computer generated,or take a photo of what ‘self portrait’ means to you.
it can be your face, favourite place... anything that defines you.
add a few words to the description to tell us what it means to you and upload it to tailcast.
include ‘self-portrait comp’ in the title, and post a link to it in the comments below.
this competition is open now and ends on the 26th march.
good luck!
Klarabella - Grön Persilja Roy Smith - Misty Morning
11.
art on tailcast
Klarabella - Grön Persilja Roy Smith - Misty Morning
14.
Jonny - Follow The Path
Well I draw mainly pencil sketches of people but lately have been branching out to painting. I take a lot of photography too though I’m not amazing I enjoy it. I am very much a visual person but because of tailcast I have discovered writing is awesome too.
I’m 21 and a uni student doing geography in London which is great and I can go to Harry Potter and youtube gatherings :D I come from the countryside originally, I love having the mix of living in the city and then being able to escape back to the countryside, sitting on hay bales and things :) I’m definitely a country guy at heart and there is nothing better than going walkies with the dog on a frosty morning or just out on my own in the squelching fields. I always have the yearning to be outside some time in the day so earning money through gardening in the hols is great :)
jonny
15.
(Top) - Morning Glory / (Middle) - Between Sea And Air / (Bottom) - City Of Sand Gromit - Little Slice Of Nowhere
If I could sum myself up with one word it’s probably “spontaneous.” It is safe to say that I like to do pretty much everything. Whether I’m climbing a mountain, surfing a wave, or simply just enjoying a good movie. It is all for me.
gromit
(Top) - Morning Glory / (Middle) - Between Sea And Air / (Bottom) - City Of Sand Gromit - Little Slice Of Nowhere
Sushiko - (Top) Wintermute (L-R) Gun Series I & II Sushiko - Gun Series III & IV
18.
Sushiko - (Top) Wintermute (L-R) Gun Series I & II Sushiko - Gun Series III & IV
I love writing and taking pictures, but I’m constantly learning. One thing I’ll never learn is to draw, that’s why I started using Photoshop: I wanted images to come out from my head.I don’t know if all this can be named “Art”, as there are as many definitions of “art” as many people doing or “using” it. Art to me is something you feel the urge to do, as an external projection of your mind, soul or feelings, thus it is not a necessary condition that your art, which is deeply yours, is liked or understood in the same way by the rest of the world…it is your creature that gains a life of his own.I am afraid of grasshoppers, earthquakes, shelves and something else, but people who cannot laugh scare me the most.
sushiko
Rachel - Osaka Order
21.
Danangib - Rain
Hi, Im Dana.I dont like very much to speak about me...its quite complicated to explain why being interested in art, especially in literature, I ended up as an engineer....Well, I grew up in a communist country, so wasnt exactly my choice....Im from Romania, a very beautiful country, where people are kind and having a great sense of humour. Now Im living in Gibraltar with my partner, who is Gibraltarian and a musician, playing bass guitar in EastSide Blues Band. I was always interested in photography, but in my country, a hobby its just a waste of time. Here I felt free to express myself and I started to “see” and to wish to share the beauty I noticed everywhere around us.Most of all I like to capture details of everyday’s life the others tend to ignore...you can find beautiful and interesting subjects where you expect less...just look around!
danangib
23.
Murray John Sommerville - The Box Part 1, 2 & 3
the box
Murray John Sommerville - The Box Part 1, 2 & 3
Just starting 2nd year as an illustrator studying at BiAD, Birmingham City University. Have a renowned love for natural, raw art, but also interested in film and animation, despite not being very good! Also love good stories, whether it be in a poem/novel/comic or otherwise! Most importantly also a huge music fan, current favourite band is Animal Collective! Always interested in any projects or work that people are offering, so if you ever want anything from me just ask! :D
murray john sommerville
Murray John Sommerville - The Box Part 4 Vincent - 0002
25.
Murray John Sommerville - The Box Part 4 Vincent - 0002
28.
Jonny - Turbining
belinda subraman - issues, colors
I can no longer tellthe color of pale walls.They all seem to have a touchof green or bluebut I am told they are white or gray.What trick of reflection is thisthat I can tint wallswith my mind? My father asks,“It won’t be long now, will it?”My mother says, “Don’t tell me.I can’t think about it.”I deny denialand simply see colorwhere there is nonethough we each, in turn,walk the long white hallinto gray, into black,into nowhere known.
writing on tailcast
29.
In all my forty-fi ve years, I’ve never been as scared of anyone as I was of the man who sold watermelons. It was a hot summer’s afternoon in 1970. We had been travelling for two days across Europe, towards Budapest. Robby, my younger brother, was sitting next to me in the back of the car, playing with a toy tractor. My mother had a map on her knee, but was not following it, preferring instead to look out of the window. My father was chain smoking faster than he was driving. That gave us a chance to look around, but at a price. As soon as one cigarette was burnt to the fi lter, he had lit another. His window was open. I was sitting behind him. I remember that I couldn’t decide whether to open mine or not: when it was open, smoke went out of his window but back into mine; if I left it closed, the smoke seemed to drift towards the back of the car and into my face. We were perhaps fi fty miles from Budapest, but my father wanted to stop before we got to the city. He said that it was better to arrive early in the day to his mother’s house. I knew that he was worried about being back to Hungary. He was worried that we may be arrested, or perhaps worse. So tonight, the plan was to spend the night in the countryside outside Budapest, before driving in the next morning. We were looking for somewhere to stay the night when my mother spotted an old wagon, covered in dirty white canvas, by the side of the road. A shaggy horse stood alongside. It was almost motionless, head down, grazing on the parched yellow grass. In front of the wagon, a makeshift table covered with a soiled cloth held maybe a dozen watermelons, one of them cut. “Stop the car,” my mother said. “Let’s buy some watermelon.” My father protested for a while, but slowed and eventually came to a stop just in front of the wagon. A round man, perhaps ten years older than my father emerged and strolled towards us. My father got out of the car and greeted him
“Szia.” “Szia , hogyan tud en segít ön?” He asked how he could help us. “How much are the watermelons? Mennyi?” asked my father, switching between English and Hungarian. His native language must have become a little rusty after fourteen years of neglect. My mother got out of the car as well. She walked over to the two men who were now in conversation. I played with Robby for a while, helping him build a house with his tractor. Then, I was distracted by a woman moving inside the wagon. She seemed to be shifting something heavy, perhaps a sac, from one side to the other. My mother looked back at us and called. “Come and choose a piece of watermelon. They look delicious.” Robby opened the door and ran to her. I followed more slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of the inside of the wagon again as I walked. The woman was climbing down now, frowning at her husband as she did so. That made it easier for me to see inside. Two children were lying, motionless on the fl oor. While the adults were talking, I wandered over to take a closer look. Inside, blankets lay across the fl oor and embroidered drapes hung from the walls. The two boys, one my age and the other perhaps a year or two older, were lying on the fl oor. Something about the younger one struck me as peculiar. He was wearing a pair of black Clarks shoes. They looked hardly worn, and certainly didn’t go with the wagon or the drapes. My mother called over to me. “Hey, Sammy. Stop being so nosey. Come over here.” I walked over to meet her. We each chose a piece of watermelon, before getting back in the car. As we ate the watermelon, my parents were talking. The woman had said the children were sleeping. There was not enough food to feed them. The more they slept, the less they ate. So they slept quite a lot. After he’d fi nished his slice of watermelon, my father got out of the car to give the man a few notes. He and his wife smiled. “Megköszön, hálát ad” the man kept repeating, shaking my father’s hand. They talked for a while.
golden - the man who sold watermelons
Then my father returned to the car and we drove off.“He told me a good place to stay the night,” my father said. “It’s just a mile down the road.” As we drove towards it, I told my parents about the boys who did not move, and about the Clarks shoes that the younger one had been wearing. “Very strange,” my mother said. “Very strange, indeed.” The hotel that had been recommended did not have a star rating. In fact, the only reason my father recognised it was a small vacancy sign, in Hungarian, hanging on a dead tree by the side of the road. It did not look welcoming from the front. There was a farmyard, where a few chickens kept a goat company. A couple of derelict stone barns stood either side of the main farmhouse. We were shown round the back to our rooms by a short woman whose legs looked like they would not carry her for very much longer. Our parents’ room was on the fi rst fl oor, while ours was on the ground fl oor. We had two single beds, each with a very tall and thin duvet. I had not seen a duvet before, and was a little suspicious. “How does it stay on the bed? What happens when I roll over? It’s bound to fall off in the middle of the night.”“Don’t worry,” my mother re-assured me. Our parents relaxed in their room for half an hour. We played a few games and had a duvet fi ght in ours. Then it was time for dinner. We were given a bath and dressed smartly, before leaving our room. It was a short walk to the outside dining area, where a few tables had been laid out. We were shown to a central position, and soon made friends with the family at the table next to ours. Not speaking Hungarian, a lot of sign language was used, but we got by. After a rather drawn out dinner, my parents were relaxing over coffee. My brother and I were playing under the table. The waiters had lit a few fi res around the dining area, and the music started. An accordion and two violins appeared from the side of the building, playing dancing tunes. We glanced over at the musicians, smiling, and then in unison, turned back and stared at them.
The lead violinist was the same man that had been selling watermelons by the side of the road. The players moved straight to our table, playing fi rst to my father. The man who sold watermelons spotted me and Robby under the table and winked at us. They then turned to my mother and played for her. First they played happy melodies, making her smile, but then switched to sad drawn out music. As they did so, I could see the expression on my mother’s face change. I had not seen anything affect her mood so directly before. As the evening wore on, the three played continuously. They fi rst moved from table to table. Then, playing away from the tables, they encouraged us to dance. I danced a tango with my mother, and another couple of dances with a girl about my own age from a neighbouring table. Then it was time for bed. My mother made sure we brushed our teeth, tucked us up and told us a story. She turned out the light and both Robby and I drifted off to the sound of gypsy music still playing outside in the courtyard. I don’t know how much later it was, or why I woke, but I found myself lying under the tall duvet, quite warm and awake, listening to my brother snoring. The music had stopped, and I couldn’t get back to sleep. There were faint sounds of conversation and glasses clicking outside, with an occasional loud laugh. I was tired, but excited by the evening’s entertainment. Then, there were footsteps outside in the corridor, and voices. I recognised one as my father’s, and the other as belonging to the man who sold the watermelons. They were both speaking in Hungarian. Then, the bedroom door opened, fl ooding light from the hallway across my closed eyes. I made an effort not to open them; to lie still. The two of them walked into our room. They were half whispering now, switching between hesitant Hungarian and broken English. The conversation was getting jumbled inside my head. I could not tell who was saying what. The voices sounded serious.
Umegoyomi - (Top) White Air (Bottom) Lights At Night
I tried not to move. “How much do you want for them?”“Two hundred. Nothing wrong with them.”“Still, it seems a lot.”“They’re a good pair. But if you don’t want them...”“Okay, okay, two hundred it is then. Do you want them now...”“No, leave them here for the time being. He can have them when they wake up.”
And with that, they left the room. Closing the door behind them, they walked back down the corridor. As soon as I could no longer hear them, I dashed to the door and locked it on the inside. Then, I rushed back to my bed and hid under the duvet. What should I do? Should I wake Robby? Should I tell him we had just been sold to gypsies? I closed my eyes and pretended it wasn’t happening. The next thing I knew, there was a loud banging on the door. I sat bolt upright in bed. I must have fallen asleep. It was light now. Animals were making various noises outside. They had come to collect us, to take us away. We had missed our chance of escaping, all because I had fallen asleep. Robby opened his eyes, sat up and started to yawn. “What’s going on?” he asked. I looked at him, then back at the door. Someone was trying the door handle now. Then, there was more knocking. “Are you two okay in there?” asked my mother through the door. I ran over, opened it, and hugged her leg as hard as I could. “Good morning,” she said. “How are you? Did you have a good night’s sleep?” “I... I was afraid...” I started. “Afraid of what?” my mother asked.“Afraid you were the man who sold watermelons, come to take us away.” “Don’t be silly,” said my mother. Robby laughed.“Anyway, he’s leaving in ten minutes. If you’re quick brushing your teeth, you should just be able to catch him. You could thank him for your new shoes.” I followed my mother’s gaze, and at the bottom of my bed lay a pair of black Clarks shoes.
“They were too small for his younger son, so he sold them to your father. We bought them for two hundred Forint. That’s about seventy pence, enough to feed them for a month.” My brother looked at them admiringly. “I wish I had a pair like that. Has the man who sold watermelons got any more?”
33.
jessica janes - little fuzzys
I remember our old wood house, rotting and molding.I knew nothing else.It was my home.On the dirty side of town, just outside the city buzz.Its walls were red and its windows were yellowed.Our neighbors were an automotive shop and abandoned houses.My mom told me to stay away from these.Their collapsing roofs and shattered windows became just a backdrop to my childhood.To the left side of our home stood an oak tree, gnarly and near death.But it was my Papa’s favorite, so my mother told me.Its trunk was circled by short wood posts, like a decorative base.I’d balance on these, walking around and around the tree, from stubby post to stubby post.Its leaves were large and dark green, though scarce, growing on only a few of its still surviving limbs.But something was destroying the tree.An enemy of sorts to my family.Web worms, we called them.Tiny green fuzzy caterpillars that spun their webs about a single leaf, laying their eggs and slowly eating the leaf away until the newly hatched caterpillars were born.Then they would move to a new leaf, slowly depriving the tree of the bit of life it clung to.Before my father left, I remember, he chopped off a branch that held the worms and burned them.My little brothers and I stood around in fascination, jumping and hooting wildly, at the death of the little devils.But a few worms were still on the tree and they continued the process, much to our parent’s dismay.So we decided to take matters into our own hands.We’d climb into the tree and smash the worms.
Eventually we discovered that if the long wispy hairs on their back were pulled they easily tugged away.We marveled at this, and suddenly we enjoyed giving the fuzzys “haircuts”.We were so excited with this new concept, we forgot all about killing the poor fuzzys, and many escaped with their new hair-do virtually unharmed.Occasionally we would see a worm with one of our signature hair styles and the idea occurred to name the little fuzzys. Oh, how fun it was to give a special hair cut to a special fuzzy, then name it and watch where it ventured. And for a while, the screeching of tyres, the sound of yelling, the dirty streets, and the rotting home disappeared and the fuzzys were our friends.
Years passed, my father left, and the fuzzys died one winter... oddly enough, the tree survived. We left that place and moved here. Occasionally we return to the dirty side of town and look at the weeds that overgrow about the tree and the abandoned homes that look even worse than before. My brothers usually shout and laugh at the thought of a hobo living in the abandoned homes, but I stare at the tree, a lapse comes over me as I wish for those simpler times. Something inside me wishes my brothers remembered that time. Wishes they would shut up about hobos long enough for me to enjoy a sentimental moment... but that never happens, and we drive away, into the night, back to our safe home on the clean side of town. And if you take a drive down FM 1960 and take that turn onto Meadow Vista you can still see that red wood house and the old oak tree and the long forgotten hotwheels in the sand hidden beneath years worth of overgrown weeds. But watch out for those abandoned houses, there may be hobos... hahaha!
35.
Mis-BUG - Videodrome
Street crime can climb, while the police are doing fine, working on the pub extension, but you miss the tax and you’ll get more than a fax, to accompany you to detention. Teenagers can die, being stabbed by the by, with little or no exemption,but you miss that bill and you’ll get more than your fill, of harassment, without redemption. Speed cameras and floods, our lost youth in hoods might annoy you on reflection,but you fail to pay, your full whack today and you’ll suffer much more than dejection. Politicians will lie, while looking you in the eye and say you have their attention,but as time will tell, they’ll send you to hell, without so much as a mention. So while fat cats thrive, in the council hive, the mother of employment invention, your pickings will remain slim, from the public bin, while the boffins spend most of your pension.
mike parnell - council tax
37.Tired.... Very tired....
Can’t sleep when I have so much on my mind.
Relationships They can decay fast. And watching it happen is stressful. But relationships in the making. Very entertaining. Right now, she’ll pretend to hate me. She likes me. But she won’t show it. I do the same... She can be nice... Very nice.There’s something in the air when we’re together. But we disguise it well.
Meaning of life? Make it worthwhile... Find true happiness... Find someone special... Have a family... A baby... That would be nice... And maybe... Do something good for the world...
Electro Magnetic Spectrum ~ROYGBIN~ Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain
-The easy way of remembering it.
Fear...Not scared of dying ~ Scared of my loved ones dying.Not scared of the dark ~ If you can’t see “it” then “it”probably can’t see you.Not scared of falling ~ I’ll pick myself up.Not scared of pain ~ Scared of not feeling anything.Not scared of animals ~ They’re just as scared. But they’re a younger species, so help them.
neelesh - thinking too much
Thinking a lot. I should fi gure out my future. If I don’t things may not be good. I can be successful, just need focus.
The tailcast icon in the browser bar. It’s green, yellow, blue, red. The Mauritian fl ag goes red, blue, yellow, green. Funny that. There’s an apple store there. Mauritius is nice. Too bad the Dodo died.
Humour... What I use to get through boring days. I have a lot of boring days.
I hate the new touch screens that are coming out. Especially Window mobile. They can’t compete with the iPhone. <3apple.
I’m a Mac. Not a PC. And you should be too.
Oh my, I need to think about going to a college.Because I’m currently going to a public school... SFSU looks amazingBut, being realistic, I don’t think my parents will let me go to america :(
Ahhh I need to try harder in school!! The school predict that I’ll get A’s in Biology, Physics and Chemistry. Need good GCSEs for a good future.
I went home early today. I said I’ve been feeling like crap and my sinuses and my neck are going crazy. School nurse asked me if I feel stressed. I said No. I lied...
God, I need a cup of tea.
Luca Grandi - (Top L-R) 41 - DSC_15 (Bottom L-R) A Train That Never Got There - DSC_04
I hate it when nothing is on TV?I end up watching something that can make your eyes bleed.When I watch something boring, like star wars, I’ll just end up getting a headache.
OMG My nose started bleeding while playing Super Mario Galaxy. My nose just started bleeding out of nowhere! Crazy.The truth is hiding in your eyesAnd it’s hanging on your tongue.Just boiling in my blood.But you think that I can’t seeWhat kind of man that you are,If you’re a man at all.
Paramore <33 Haley Williams is beautiful.
I have a strange Zombie obsession. Well not really an obsession. I think it’s the video games that infuence the strange thoughts.Designing video games. Sounds fun. And good pay.
The guys from Newgrounds are going to be in London. I should go see them. Speaking of Newgrounds I should really make a new animation. I need the will power though.
Thissentencehasnospaces.
Okay I need a cup of tea!And pasta!Yum! :)
Luca Grandi - (Top L-R) 41 - DSC_15 (Bottom L-R) A Train That Never Got There - DSC_04
41.
Vladan - o006
penitent - 1.21 am, drunk
1:21am drunk,Walking home this morning,I reached up to touch a sign above me,and now I write this havingreturned home to my waiting computerto type this.
Its not poetry,its not rhyme,but all I know is that as I reached up,to touch my “bikes left, pedestrians right”sign, instilled within me was somethingincredible, amazing. I was six, maybe five again,where I was not tall enough, almost, to reach the wash basin of my family home.
Where I would reach above me to wash my hands,and it would be a struggle to get the soap,and I would wish, wish for when I was biggerlike my brother, like my mother,when I could do what I wanted,my mind was changed,
I was but six again, when I perceived,that my parents loved each other,when I believed,that marriage and family was not fleeting,that happiness was a given,and emotional stability was normal.
And as I reached, without even trying,I touched that sign,the dew wetting my fingertips,everything fled.
I was older,I was lost,my parents were divorced,I no longer believed in true love.I lost a stable family,and I realised that I would never be able to go back.
If this is the cost of drinking with friends.
I wish I had never paid it.
43.
Syd - Love
When I am old and wrinkledThere’ll be no change of heart.You won’t catch me in purple,I’ll be a drab old fart.My clothes will be conventional,In gloomy grey or brownTo emphasise my sombre moodAnd bring your spirits down.I’ll never be exciting,I’ll be a tedious bore.In other words, I’ll carry on Exactly as before.I’ll grumble if the weather’s hot,I’ll grumble if it’s cold.I’ll moan all day, but that’s ok,Expected when you’re old.Don’t ever try to cheer me up -It won’t be any use.For such as me, old age will beAn excellent excuse.I’ll whinge if no one visits meAnd leaves me on my own,But if they call, I’ll tell them allI’d rather be alone.I’ll moan about loose morals,Naked women on TV -And I should know, cos no one’s Gonna watch ‘em more than me.If anybody needs my helpI’ll churlishly refuse.I’ll say that kids are ignorantAnd then I’ll push in queues.There’ll be no change of attitude,There’ll be no change of scene:I’ll be the selfish loathsome little gitI’ve always been!
pete hood - i shall wear charcoal
44.
Syd - Love
I sit here now,Beneath the azure sky,Surrounded by emerald grass,Thinking of you. I’m trying to understand,Why you spoke those words to me,And why you seemed to mean them. Almost everything about you,Your voice, your gestures, your words,They all seem to say something hard to comprehend. Yet, those eyes… Your eyes always were honest,I remember how I used to gaze into them,Those perfect pools of sapphire,They are portals into your very soul. Your eyes tell a different story,Tell me you don’t believe what you say,Tell me you love me still.Your words are of propriety, sensibility and of acceptability. Tell me this, my love,What is proper about refusing to listen to your heart?What is sensible about turning away someone who loves you so much?And, answer me this, if you can,What is acceptable about desecrating the very core of our lives together?There are tears running down my cheeks,Yet I do not want to brush them away. They are a part of what we have,What we had,They are a fi nal piece of our epic love story. Yet I will wipe them away,I will put you behind me. I have to.
Oh, I know,You thought I would beg,Plead for you to return to me. No, I will not. I understand now,As I write things become clear. There are certain things,Which we must give up in life. And I am your sacrifi ce,You chose to lose me,So there’s nothing more to say. Goodbye My Love.
rosemarie short - a letter of love
45. 46.
Roy Smith - Reflected Pollen
It wasn’t the first time someone had mentioned a key, It was merely a metaphor of promises.I, just a girl, told once or twice that now was the time to break a few hearts,And in the breaking,A shaking,A taking.And mine,Awash in the wake.
killertango - this one needs a title
A snickerbottle on the habblicocktook me by surpriseI threw the dimscook under the bellywiband looked him in the eyeWe pushed and shoved our cocklebellsuntil they burned so brightBut I refused to shiffle-shafflewithout a blimping fight The courtyard clamberduckeduntil the air was blueArms and legs lillypickedand fingers were all askewThe earth did shatterbangwith blows a raining downUntil the snickerbottle on the habblicockgave an almighty frown I give up shrieked the yellomanYou’re far too strong for meAnd with eyes and lips bumberlinkedI set my frackles freeThe crowd gasped and cornywabbledAnd swayed as if as oneAs I thrust my diddlebush at habblicockAnd snickerbottle was finally done!
vincent - snickerbottle
45. 46.
Roy Smith - Reflected Pollen
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“Praise and blame, gain and loss, pleasure and sorrow come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a great tree in the midst of them all.”- The Buddha“
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