Belle & Sebastian

An Improvised Melody On A Few Stolen Chords

»Fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant.«
Sebastian was fairly sure hand-folding only applied to girls, and moreover, that nobody said peasant ever, but he obeyed anyway. His gramma was stern and sharp-tongued, quick to criticize others and, worse, to praise herself. (Honestly, she could be a right bastard. Not that Sebastian could put it into so many words.) And yet...
»Yes'm.«
»Better, I suppose. But what is that awful shirt?«
She sat like a viper, just waiting to bite at something, anything. But she did give him books, if he didn't displease her too badly. And not just for his birthday, or Christmas! She was wrapped up in books. Sebastian figured maybe that's how you became that way.
»I wish you'd dress properly when you come to visit at least. I see you looking like a slob too often.«
»Dad bought this shirt for me, and Mum picked it out. And I like Kermit! He has a funny voice.« (It sounded a bit like Gramma, he thought. But o, he would never dare to say it.)
»Don't make a nuisance of yourself. Children shouldn't talk back.«
Sometimes he suspected she was trying to wrap him up, too. In the end he didn't really bother, he assumed probably it was worth it, seeing as how Gramma had done it on purpose and seemed to be quite pleased. At any rate he was absolutely certain she didn't approve of him playing with his toy car — he loved Car — or dragging his wheeled dog around behind him, but he didn't really care about that. Mum and Dad just smiled kindly and helped the dog make woofing noises.
»Stop fidgeting boy. Youth is no excuse, you must learn patience young or you shall never have any.«
Sometimes when they thought...no, not that he couldn't hear; they never really bothered to hide...that he didn't care to listen, he supposed — Dad or mostly Mum would tell Gramma that »For God's sakes he's just a child« or »There's nothing wrong with a stuffed dog«. He agreed, but he knew Gramma didn't, she'd answer with something about education in an unpleasant noise. Sebastian thought of cheese graters. (He had once used their grater on the soup ladle. He had wanted to know which was strongest. The sound was very unpleasant. Not even Mum approved.)
»Finally sitting properly! What is it with children now? Like getting blood out of a stone, I swear. Hmf. Well. Listen, I'll tell you...«
Sebastian loved Gramma Belle anyway. She told him stories. She was huge on storytelling, and good at it too. Some of her stories were a bit odd and nonsensical, like the one about that kid Hugo, but the rest were very good. He especially liked the one where Gwydion made a girl from flowers — and the cuckoo one!

Scarab Eating

A Slice of Suburban Life

We all made fun of Hugo, in school. He was so gross; a real weird kid. Sometimes at recess, he'd go looking for beetles and, if he found any, eat them. Once Marcus dared him to eat a worm, but he said that was disgusting. Nor did he like spiders. Once, a kid (I wish I could say it was me) asked him what was the difference, and he said that it wasn't so bad, you got used to the taste pretty quick, and besides, beetles weren't like slimy worms or hairy spiders: they were hard and shiny and beautiful. It was odd for him to say that much; odd to answer at all, in fact.
Always a quiet kid, Hugo.

When the flu came to town, Hugo was one of the few kids who didn't get sick. He said it was the beetles keeping him well, but nobody believed that, of course. We all got a bit more convinced that he was nuts; it's not like he was the only healthy one or anything.
That was in late summer. In the autumn it rained a lot, and the leaves were very vibrant. I collected crimson ones. October came. October began to leave.

Hugo's mom was half Egyptian: his grandma was from Egypt, and she'd tell him stories. Boy, the stories she'd tell. That's what he said once, anyway. We figured, as ten-year-olds will, that probably Egyptian people were all crazy, and that you could catch it from your parents. We all offered up thanks for not having egyptian grandmothers, and made mental checks not to marry any Egyptians.
Hugo said in class that Egyptians had Hallowe'en too, but they called it — well, he said a name, but it just sounded like nothing. Gibberish. I thought that actually made sense, because when you think about it, Hallowe'en doesn't sound like anything either. (Not to your average ten-year-old, anyway.) We asked in recess what Egyptian Hallowe'en was like — well, truth be told, we jeered at him. He told us that in Egypt, there are things that come out on the equinox, awful things. (None of us knew what an equinox was, but we all pretended to. We were quite insufferable things.) Some of the kids from Irish families said it was like that in Ireland too, that you salted your doorstep to keep them out. Hugo said in Egypt they carried little charms called scarabs, that looked like beetles on top and had magic carved on the bottom. Everybody laughed and said maybe Hugo should carve magic on the bottom of the beetles he ate, and they'd protect him. He shook his head at us and went off to swing on a tire swing.

Of course I went out trick-or-treating that year; I was very proud because my parents let me go out alone with my friends. We lived in a pretty sparse suburb; we could walk out into the woods and play and sometimes there were little copses of trees between the houses. We were just walking down the road, though, when all the streetlights blew out and the others went missing. Suddenly everything was different and terrible. I remember shouting »SHIT!« or something; I remember running into the woods and stumbling over a root only five steps in or so; I remember — O, how I remember — the breathing of something madly huge and swift on my heels. And I remember seeing, in the moonlight, the fat, shiny black beetle crawling in front of my nose. I don't know what reasoning possessed me, or what fibre of my being came to think of just that, just then. But I grabbed the thing and shoved it in my mouth, quick as I could.
I can still taste that bitter, acrid flavor. But the hunting thing went. Once I had gotten the bug down and stopped hearing the noise of my own chewing, everything was quiet. That's all. There was nothing there.

The next day at school, there were five kids missing. One of them was my friend Joseph. I told Hugo, and he nodded gravely.

Three Uses for People You Hate

1) Doormat
2) Crocodile Bait
3) Rocket Fuel

Dreams of Times Gone by

Last night, I dreamt I travelled in time...

...to the early nineties, where I spent most of my time surfing the net and giggling at how primitive it all looked. They didn't even have Google back then, and nobody had even imagined Wikipedia.

At least I took the opportunity to register kalle@hotmail.com.

A New Policy for Havoc

Or linking as the case may be

I have concluded that it is a pity that the »Links« list down below in the sidebar is so benighted. To remedy this, I propose the following plan, which I intend to follow from now on and urge anyone who agrees with me to consider: when I find a link I feel is kick-ass enough to merit constant exposure (as opposed to a quick nod in its direction), I won't write a post about it; instead, I'll stick it in the Links bar. Possibly I will also make a post, in case I suspect none of you have ever seen it before, but probably not.
I'm starting with Finder, because I just got the Talisman album today. Oh boy is it ever good. Oh boy oh boy.

Kusch the Worldwalker in: Accounts of Daily Life

This morning I woke from my alarm clock. I proceeded to follow my usual morning routine, which means I got up, took a piss and then a shower. I felt unusually tired, even for a tuesday morning, but I didn't give it a second thought. I came back into my room, naked except for the towel around my waist, and was struck by how cold it was. I have the habit of sleeping with my window open, as my room can get rather hot, so I went to close it. Looking out, I was baffled to see how dark it was outside.

"Are we that far into the year already?", I thought.

Then I looked at my watch, to discover that it was 1 o'clock am. Further examination revealed that it wasn't my alarm clock that had sounded, but rather my cellphone that was trying to tell me that its battery needed reloading.

Grumbling, and with wet hair, I went back to sleep.

Roll over, Wikipedia

All the cool kids are moving on to Armeniapedia, the online encyclopedia about Armenia that anyone can edit. Really.

Idol Worship

A Random Mumble from the Sub-Basement of Consciousness

There was an obsessive fan. »I'd just like you to know«, wrote she to the object of her admiration, »that you're God!«
»Oh, thank you for telling me that«, replied God. »No really, I mean it; I had no idea. That explains why there's so much wrong with the world; I've just been sitting here on my ass for as long as I can remember. Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but there's lots to do!«

That was how fanmail begat heaven. But the fan wept, because her favorite author had stopped writing.

"Evil-wishers are always around to spread rumors."
/SPAM