Emu's World

 

 

 Having paid my respects to the category-defying works of Fred Spencer, I feel I should probably also share some weird, personal, self-produced music videos that are actually ept. Jazz Emu's visual album Ego Death (below) came to my attention last year when the video for Fun Kitai Furai Dei (above) appeared on a bill of comedy shorts at the Ritzy to a hot crowd of universally dropped jaws. When real-name Archie Hendersen's full album showed up on youtube in March, its brilliance lifted me out of a particularly lightless attenion-deficit - I had just moved to a spacious flat near Arsenal and decided to keep the walls bare, a stowaway in my new captital P place, my brain two-thirds phone. That threat of playing statues hasn't entirely vanished, the feeling of wanting to tell myself to just go on ahead and I'll catch me later. But Ego Death still gets me moving.

 

A History of Rome For People Who Like Wobbly Things

I have watched this film four times now and I still have 

no idea what this graphic represents. 

 

 Having self-isolated for over twelve weeks, it was weird to wake up on Friday with an insect bite. It felt very, you know, "We got company..." I think I found the mosquito responsible when I went to take a shower, hovering by the curtain like a tiny Norman Bates. A surprising amount of blood ensued. 

 So now I'm alone in the flat again, and what I miss most about company might be best embodied in the following, nineteen-minute history of Rome sent out to classrooms in the eighties, and preserved here on Reelblack's youtube channel in an ever so slightly warped print. The distortion's only noticeable when there's music, but there's quite a bit of that, which I find amusing enough when watching on my own. But I know would it have me on the floor if I was watching in company. That's what I miss. It's hard to corpse on your own. And I guess this means there's still a part of me that associates friends with classrooms. Anyway, could someone get the lights?

Last post of 2014: December 2013 - Writing/not writing

 Right, it's probably time I rounded off my clearing out of 2013...

 

 

 I remember spending much of that Christmas playing Temple Run 2 on my newly received android tablet – a colourful and endless little adrenalin stimulant, as shown above – and resolving that in 2014 I would... 

 Hang on - I wrote it down. I'll see if I can find it:

"NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION : -

Perhaps – Dare to be bored? 

 You'll only make something if you're bored. 

That might be why the Premier Inn came as such a relief [while I was touring "Ring" and writing for Mitchell and Webb] 

IN FACT Hotels in general 

I'm remembering in particular the single bed and the side table in Athens. But all hotel rooms seem to be built for a writer.

Maybe that's also why I moved my bed away from the wall.

Also, remember how much you loved those lessons - only 45 minutes long - where you were left to just do something."

 Etc.

 I also made the note: "Youtube video - on boredom", which is a reference to the V-sauce episode below. I remember David Mitchell arguing that boredom was a life skill which should be taught, rather than banished from the classroom, but V-sauce goes one further, providing hard chemical evidence that boredom is not merely a side effect of creativity, but a symptom of it, and even a spur:

 

 

 

 God, I haven't watched that video in ages; I forgot he mentioned Genie. Louis C. K. makes a similar point when he talks about cultivating "the ability to just sit there": 

 

 

 Just sit there. 

 I think I did okay this year. 

 I didn't draw a monster a day, and I haven't yet made the album I promised myself I'd make this year, and there's only an hour and a half to go. 

 But I stopped playing Temple Run 2. And then Keeps and I went to Los Angeles (where I was happy to learn she was as keen on becoming an American somehow as I was, if not keener), and then we returned and moved to our own place, and it's been great. I'm even thinking of moving the bed back against the wall. 

 So that was 2013. 

 And this is 2014. 

 If you're traveling into London this evening, the message from the police is make sure you have a ticket. And whatever you're doing for the next hour and a half... and then in 2015... I don't know... whatever you do – whatever we do – let's do it on purpose, and take no guff.

 Here's to 2015. Be well.