(fiction)

On the day of my mother's funeral I was very tired and sleepy. The world was heavy beyond my eyelids. Nobody danced for me on that day. The funeral director's car drove me to the incinerator, I wanted to stretch out along the back seat and rest. There was nobody else there. Beyond the trees beyond the field strung with low walls dotted with plaques and rose bushes too neatly kept a crake called from the marsh.

st frigo, 1997

more about fridges, they're obviously big at the moment, but not on the cutting edge, the slicing edge of fridge happened in 1997.

apparently

Eat the hands of the pickers

In the event of a good line occuring to anyone, but insufficient energy to effect a narrative of however dubious quality, I think it should be prefaced thus:

I was reading a quality Entertainment magazine at the checkout of Stop N Go Mart the other day and I saw this marvellous quote by -

Brian Eno. He said. "I used to eat a lot of Cashews but then I learnt that they eat the hands of the pickers. Poor fellows"

Sample only, do not requote.

Big enough to be tropical

Nothing to be done.

You know what would tickle me? And selfish as I am I'll express it here amongst friends and romans: I'd like a site full of cool-ass quotes. Anything you've read recently with a killer line. I think a blog full of killer lines would be awesome. Perhaps the lines could be used, attributed, and messed with: re-constituted.

I'll have a go.

It was a cool winter day. A freckled breeze in the leaves of the trees, but nothing more. In the carport two members of the body corporate were arguing about waste recycling. One of them said it was a crying shame that glass bottles were thrown like that. How much energy goes into a bottle? One said.

There was a joke to be had there, and it involved Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas pissing their creative juices up a brick wall. I presume they didn't get above waist height, though both would have tried.

The two body corporate members disdained the joke. It was irrelevant. The joker was not on the committee and they resumed their argument. But what can I do about the glass situation? The previously silent member said.

Something! The other said.

What?

The argument was going nowhere.

Something. If something had been done along time ago we wouldn't be having this argument.

Even if you are right, that's a pathetic argument.

It was getting personal.

Look, a final indisputable argument. What can be done, will be done.

It was William Faulkner. The past is not dead and gone, he said, it isn't even past.

You piss me off. Go fcuk yourself and your pastimes too.

There was nothing to be done. The body corporate wasn't meeting for a week. Their argument had lasted years. It was big enough to be tropical.

A Teak fridge

Just looking at all of the recent posts which seem to chronicle a mutual ineptitude that I think is encouraging. But anyway, like a child acrobat, here I am. Da-Da!

Being a blogger novice I hadn't realised that blogs have themes, is it a bit like .. umm .. is it like ummmm ... is that 'cos there is a readership? Sorta like if Home Beautiful suddenly started filling its pages with Motorcars. Is it because it might confuse things?

Cos, if so, I suppose I'd better read deeper back across the posts to get a feel for CutWrapCrash .. but it sounds good. Like a sandwich violently expelled from a schoolbag. CUT WRAP CRASH.

School anecdotes? Hard Days From Memory. Strange Episodes that involve sandwiches... Ok.

I remember listening to some shrimp farmers in south Sulawesi that Suddenly got rich and didn't trust banks so they stored their money in Electrical appliances. They had hair dryers and toasters and microwave ovens, but the really prized appliance was the fridge. The only problem being that they didn't have enough ready power (they used a small generator) to use their appliances so they were more or less just sitting there, nothing but stored wealth.

Anyway, cos fridges were so vaunted, but yet useless, one of the farmers ordered a teak fridge to be made from one of the local artisans, It's only a small stretch to go from a useless but potentially useful fridge to one that is useless altogether as a fridge. So he had a teak fridge made. He was very proud of his teak fridge and invited people over to marvel at it. It was a very beautiful teak fridge in a way that you might imagine a teak fridge could be.

I'd heard about this teak fridge and thought it sounded amazing. I wanted to see the teak fridge. So I asked about it. But it seemed the farmer was away. They all spent a lot of time in Korea, because that was where all the shrimp farmers got their supplies. After a few unsuccesful attempts to see the teak fridge I said to one of the farmers that I was disappointed about not being able to see the fridge, given that it was made of teak and he replied that yes, it was a disappointment because inside it - and this was new ground for me as I'd never stopped to wonder about what was inside the teak fridge - he kept many sandwiches.

I remember that. Many sanwiches. Not just one or two, but many,

Wow, what a fridge, The one thing I never wondered at the time was why they never bought a bigger generator.

I hope you've all got many stories about fridges too. You google "fridge" and there is not nearly enough quality literature on the subject.

where to now?

I've chosen a new template for this blog. It solves the problem that I was having with the comments and it looks better. Thankyou Douglas Bowman (Douglas designed this template and very many other beautiful templates.) Also swapping over to this template answers my question about profiles for different members, they all come up down the side, just click on the name. Nice.

So, where to now?

What are we going to use this blog for now that its been re-invigorated? Is it going to be a writing and reading blog? A chatting about words blog? A doodling blog? Will Tom ever work out how to get on to the blog, will all of the other members ever come back? (I should email them ...)

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment ...