The Great Ultraculture Swindle.

Hi there. If you've come here from the Ultraculture site, this message is for you.

I wish to publicly disassociate myself from the Ultraculture project and all those still involved. This is due to certain odious and defamatory comments made by one of the other contributors in this thread on the UC Google group.

I quote:

"The basic mechanism: displacement of an individual human consciousness from their body and temporary replacement with a parasitic life-force-harvesting energy - this kind of psychic body prostitution in payment for magical favors - is inherently problematic."

"*At best* Voodoo is a hell-realm religion - created in the hells of slavery - and it's gods are demon-gods as should be pretty apparent at even a cursory inspection."

"Voodoo is horrifically bad shit, unclean in every axis and dimension, has no redeeming features, and should have died out when slavery ended. It is, in fact, in my considered opinion, the last manacle of those times locked around the spirits of people who practice it, black and white and other alike."


I was repulsed by this unfounded, bigoted and racist attack on the religion of Vodoun. I hoped that the editor would be as shocked and disgusted as I was. Instead, he chose to affirm and support those comments, and has even reiterated and expanded upon the original defamation in this thread.

I cannot in good conscience be associated with this project anymore or with the people involved. I'm sickened and appalled. I have asked the editor to remove my piece from the journal. He has not done this.

Further, I'm very disappointed that some people have continued to involve themselves with the Ultraculture group in spite of the deeply bigoted and also completely irrational nature of these comments. I can only assume that these individuals are profoundly ignorant and happy to remain that way, being so addicted to conflict they no longer care who or what they're supporting.

This is a sad and ugly business.

PS: If you've come here looking for me, you'll find me over here.

Right then

Yes, I have essentially dropped off the face of the Bloggersphere for 3 months. I've been over on Livejournal for the most part, hiding my face amid a crowd of friends-locked posts. Not even friends-locked; I've mostly been communicating with a tiny tiny cluster of fellow magickos and interested punters via a special filter which allows only the opt-in crowd to read my stuff.

I am chickenshit. I admit it.

However, I'm minded to resurrect this treadmarked bitch, and will commence by linking you to the lj entry in which I attempt to explain why I've been quiet.

"I don't wanna sell you any death-stickssss..."

Yes, the little violent loathing rant in the sidebar is gone. I'm rethinking some stuff after some very intense magical experiences over the past 3 weeks. I've discussed it elsewhere so I won't get into it again here; anyway, there's really no way I can talk about it without coming across as utterly and completely bugfuck to anyone who isn't into magic. And probably to a lot of people who are.

There's always the possibility, of course, that I am utterly and completely bugfuck.

Fire walk with me...

Selling out.

Right, I've finally got myself together sufficiently to sort out an eBay account and offer tarot readings.

This was a surprisingly difficult decision to make. I've got massive issues with asking for money for this sort of thing; why, I don't know. I totally support other people who charge way more for divination and spells. It's like there's this little voice at the back of my head telling me that it's wrong. That divination is a load of cobblers and even if it isn't I'm crap at it, that money is eeeevil and I shouldn't debase my gifts by asking for a financial reward. I mean, I have actually been told this by real people who are really real in the past but frankly I should be over internalising that sort of nonsense by now. (Especially since the people I've heard saying it were, to a man, freeloading rip-off merchants extraodinare).

So yeah, a professional cartomancer is me. If you're interested, you can check out the listing here. Or just drop me a line and we'll sort something out.

In related news I've earmarked this weekend for sorting out my web presence a bit. I'm planning on pruning this beast . Half the sidelinks are toast because I haven't done anything with it in about a hundred years; I might also go through and delete some of the more embarrassing drunken rambling.

I also need a proper web page if I'm going to make a real go of this online divination/magick lark. I've registered a free chaosmagic.com domain and I plan to start offering simple spells and things there as well as eBay.

I did this unbinding ritual the other day (yes, I got bound. It happens. Stop smirking.) and suddenly stuff seems less impossible. I feel more like my old self again. Or my new self. Whatever.

I'm feeling all kickass right now. I feel like I want to jump around and do all superhero stuff. Ragh! I'm going to start getting a bit more serious about the magicks now. True, this will eat into my valuable computer games and pornography time but I urgently need to become this extreme hardcore kickass scary-as-all-fuck magickian with knives and demons and sunglasses. You'll all help me, right?

Good.

Yeah, so.

Updates. Been a while, I know.

I've been updating over on Lj, a lot of it friends-only (at least for now). Reason being: I have been having a lot of partials, petit mals, stuff like that; there has been much meltyhead. Perceptual disturbance. I get confused aobut stuff.

I realise this thing was never a model of coherence at the best of times but I'm happier at the moment doing shorter entries which can be buried behind cuts and filters. (I generally assume that people who add me to their "friends" lists know what they'll be getting).

Things are improving; I can't say that the disturbances have receded much but I'm finding my way around them better.

I still don't have a job. I'm working on it though. I'm also trying to get the eBay sitch sorted out so I can sell stuff, maybe auction tarot readings.

I want to start updating here again soon. The plan is to do longer, more perlitical-type entries, reserving Lj for stupid quizzes and random shit about which colour of swirly mosaic pattern I'm seeing today.

That's the plan.

Plans are good.

Two weeks left of my course

And the practicals are overrr.

I want, I want... Man, I don't know what I want. Mostly a job. Just some job, you know. One lives in hope. I'd like some rehersal space so I can start singing again, a massage table, an idea for a novel (other than the huge terrifying Big Novel, I mean), to finish a Flash animation, to get my theremin circuit working again...

Mostly the job.

Off to school now. More later.

Naked.

Here's some fun: A guy that makes paintings from stranger's abandoned photos, purchased from the developer.

I feel ambivalent about this. On the one hand: if the people who took the pictures cared very much about them, perhaps they should have picked them up from the developer instead of leaving them on the racks for any old Tom, Dick or Tarquin to pick up. On the other: well-to-do educated guy rips off scraps of the little people's lives, taking them for profit and glory.

Nothing new there, I s'pose.

Lush and thick with impasto and containing within their ranks an image of a fat tourist, they (do not look like but) made me think of Jenny Saville. This is from back when I made one of my spasmodic attempts to get an art A-level. I remember posters from "Strategy (South Face/Front Face/North Face)"--you know, the one the Manics used for the cover of The Holy Bible--were put up in the halls outside the classroom. I remember marvelling at them, loving them, loving this rejection, this still rebellion. I remember these two girls off my course laughing at them with their sleeves in their painted mouths--you know how teenage girls laugh--tittering because hey, look, a fat girl, naked. God, if you looked like that you wouldn't pose for a painting, would you? Teeheeheeheehee.

I remember how badly I wanted to get a bunch of centrefolds, the most banal, vacuous airbrushed smut I could find, sneak round while there were no other people there and staple them over the paintings. Watch the laughing girls freak out. Well, this is what you wanted, isn't it? This is beauty, this is the sort of person who's supposed to get naked, right?

Sometimes I wish I'd been the kind of person who did that kind of thing. Sometimes I hate that I'm the kind of person who'd think of it.

Anyway.

Something I like: Taking objects that are similar and lining them up in rows. I like doing that. I do it with coins and things. I used to like boxes of decorated noteletts or greetings cards, the ones where all the pictures are identical. It satisfies me in a basic kind of way. It's the kind of behaviour I try to supress, because it's unintelligible to most people and witnessing unitelligible behaviour in others is disturbing. I may have finally found a sneaky way to engage in it...and even get paid. Woohoo!

I'm having a bad day.

Not an awful day, not a terrible day, just bad. Most of the badness was cumulative badness from the last few months; you see, I've been trying to pay my electricity bill.

So back in the mists of time, I get my leccy bill. How to pay it? Aha, I think. I shall take this bill to my bank. Surely I can pay my bill at the bank.

So I take the bill along, ask if it's possible to pay it. No problem, says the guy. He does guy in bank stuff for a few minutes, then turns back to me and says, "that's that!" Only, y'know, in Spanish.

So I think fine, all done and dusted. Until a month or so later when I get a reminder. Scowl, scowl, check bank-book, oh bugger, the money never came out. Go back to bank. Same thing happens. Get shouthy reminder letter in post, grr we're cutting off your electricity on the 22nd! Back to bank. This time I am told that the bank cannot help me as the name on the bill is not my name (this is despite having asked leccy co. to change the name when I moved in). Phone up electricity co. I am to try the post-office. Go to the post-office. No, I cannot pay the bill there as the name on the bill is not my name; I am to try the electricity co. office. Go to electricity co. office. Cannot pay bill at that office; I am to go to a different office which is now shut for the day as it only opens in the morning.

Today: Go to the other office. Cannot pay bill at that office. Explain that I can't pay it at the bank because the name is wrong. Am informed that they can't change the name until the bill is paid. "Try the post-office." Explain that the post-office won't let me pay it there, either. All such concerns are brushed aside by snooty electricity co. staff. Go to post-office. Post office is now shut. Crawl weeping back to flat convinced that I have fallen into a Franz Kafka novel. Sulk until P.O. reopens, seek out staff member who looks least arsey, present bill PAY BILL YES YES YES THANK YOU JESUS.

And this guy came to check our butane sitch and changed the tubes over and charged us loads of money and when I tried to use the oven the new tube melted and filled the kitchen up with butane and I've got a cold and I broke a glass and BLARRRGH.

Mordant Carnival in "actually finishing something" shock

Help me out here. I have a month left on my course and I'm not behind on anything. I have no overdue paperwork, I don't suck at some crucial aspect, and worst of all I--God, I can hardly choke out the words--I've been being...punctual. I've even been told that I might be in danger of getting a job at the end of it. Obviously this is a strange and unnatural state of affairs which must be corrected forthwith.

Option 1) Not studying.

This probably the worst option. The course is almost entirely practical. Since I'm on a building site, there's little to do except build stuff. The only theoretical aspect is some stuff on calculating surface areas which unfortunately I already know.

Option 2) Get really really drunk every night.

Age has taken its toll on my alcohol tolerance, and a crippling hangover at least two or three days a week would help to reduce my attendance and ensure that any work I did do was suitably crap. However, I just can't muster the enthusiasm that I once had for getting unspeakably wasted midweek. I fear I lack the proper motivation.

Option 3) Assault a staff member.

I have identified at least one staff member with the required degree of wankitude. However, he's way taller than me and has access to pointier tools.


Christ, I may actually be going to pass something. I feel...sullied.

Reasons to be cheerful

Some guys are doing some kind of building work on my building. I can here drilling, shouting and bits of wall dropping off. I'm afraid to look. Stressed?

Stress is stupid. I mean, yeah, it's a positive force blah blah blah in some ways but if you can't immediately do anything about the stresstastic situation then it's just a pain in the bum. Stress should happen in a pop-up window that you can close again easily, with options and tickboxes. Mira...

*PING!*

You have (3) stressy things happening.

You can resolve (0) of these stressy things at the present moment.

OPTIONS:

(_) Lie awake until stupid o'clock going biscuits
(_) Think about it in the morning
(_) Ommmmmm
(_) Cinema
(_) BEER
(_) Faceknives
(_) Remind me again in (_) weeks

(_) OK (_) CANCEL


The thing that bugs me most about stress is not the stress itself. What bugs me is the attendant general inability to get one's head in the goddamn game. Studying? Thinking about lunch. Eating? Thinking about jobs. Apllying for jobs? Thinking about the electricity bill. Paying the electricity bill? Thinking about a computer game. Playing a computer game? Thinking about studying. Give. Me. Back. My. HEAD.

Hmmm... updates... yeah, that might be an idea.

Well, I've had stuff on my mind--nothing new, just the same old shit I've been dealing with for the last couple of years, only, y'know, moreso. Boring to live through, boringer to read about.

I have started those free Castillian lessons and I'm doing well. The tiling/decorating/plastering course is going great; I'm really into it. On Thursday I stripped all the tiles I'd stuck on my little pretend bathroom off, which was oddly satisfying: chiselling them away from the wall with a hearty SMASH as they hit the floor, getting a wheelbarrow-load together and then carting them across to the skips. The skips are massive, twice as big as the kind you see outside people's houses, with a walkway of planks leading up between them. Because the planks are steep and a barrowload of tiles and dry cement is heavy, the only way to get as far as the top is to start with a good run-up--you have to show the incline who's boss. Man, I was sore the next day! Fun, though.

Today I start working in earnest. I'm doing my masterpiece, another pretend room which must be tidied-up and tiled extra-spiffily coz we're being graded on it. Hey, I was thinking the other day--wonder if there's a market for a magic- and kink-aware handyperson?

Quickie.

1) Tiling going well.
2) Random paranoia in overdrive.
3) Probably going to get free Castillian lessons.
4) I <3 Fridgemagnet.

Hmmm...

I'm thinking seriously about going over to help with the tsunami rebuilding effort once my course ends in mid-March. (There's little point in my going before then as frankly I have no useful skills.)


Things to consider:

1) I'm flat broke. How do I get there when I can't afford a ticket?

This leaves me two options:

a) Sign up with some sort of voluntary organization.
b) Get the money together privately. Since I don't really have anything to sell off, except maybe a kidney, this means donations from friends or family, and probably blegging. Very very awkward and something I would hate to do.


2) How long for?

I was thinking of 2-3 months. It's my understanding that most voluntary organizations generally require one to commit for a minimum period of time, and I don't think anyone is going to be terribly impressed if they chip in for a plane ticket and then I'm only gone for a long weekend.


3) And do what, exactly?

When my course ends I will have some building skills. However, the bulk of my course consists of decorative stuff like stuccoing and tiling. Not sure that a handsome wall mural or a shiny new splashback is really going to be a big priority for a tsunami survivour.

I have a sound background in electronic* engineering, but I can't see how that'd be much use.

I do have some experience in fixing up electrical* bits and pieces, fitting light sockets and power outlets ect. However, this is mostly stuff I've learned on the fly. I never had any proper training and strictly speaking I shouldn't really have been doing it. I don't have any formal training or references or anything.

Apart from that, I can: doodle, clean floors, sweep streets, make tea, make sandwiches, do basic first aid. Not much else that I can think of.


4) I'm afraid.

It's pathetic, but there it is. Not just of being in a disaster area, although that's a thing. Mostly it's... well, I'm generally clueless about travelling since I didn't go abroad at all before I met Lurid and I've never been outside of Europe. Living in Barcelona is the abroadest I've ever been. Ever. Contemplating two or three months in SE Asia is very very scary.


*Electrical engineering vs. Electronic engineering: The difference, you ask? Oh, 'bout two hundred volts, mate.

Advice and input welcomed.

We could be heroes...

The builder's tale.

I don't mind admitting that this made me mist up. Then I realised--in a couple of months, I'll have the skills I need to go and do something just like that!

Keeping this handy...

Castillian verb lists.

Actually that whole site looks awesome, it's got Cervantes and everything!