Short Story #2 'Overflow'

SHORT STORY #2: OVERFLOW

    On a Wednesday in late June, not exactly at midday but thereabouts, some people who had died before their time started turning up again. They simply appeared on street corners and milled about confusedly until someone took pity on them, and took them home, or to the police, who didn't know what to do with them either.

    They were as they were just before they'd died. They looked dead, but they weren't. It was like time was a filing cabinet and they’d got slotted back in to the wrong pocket file. That this  period of currently living time was a sort of time that could be overlooked in such a manner, put the wind up everyone just as much as having a bunch of dead people hanging about.

    When Deborah ran into Vincent Van Gogh at the Post Office, she demanded to know, “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?” He shrugged, “How should I know. I’m only an artist. Can you direct me to a paint shop and a florist that sells sunflowers. I've got to do some more paintings. I need the cash.”

    “It’s alright for you!” She replied. “You’ve got a trade. I’ve got the Romanovs living in my spare room and they’ve got nothing. They’re eating me out of house and home.”

    The whole world was waiting for the second coming, but the son of God was lying low. “They’re not going to get me this time.” he told Deborah, as she walked past the allotment he’d made home. She could tell it was actually him because of the halo. She didn’t blame him for wanting a quieter death.

    King Arthur was not so shy in coming forward. He had adopted Totnes as his new Camelot and was busy petitioning the EU to rejoin as an independent nation.

    Yes, it was hard. The deeply depressed were in revolt. For what good is suicide when you can be sent back? Those countries that still had the death penalty were having to rethink. Population density was spiralling. Wars, however, had ceased, with death not being the threat it once was, and everyone agreed with each other that this was a good thing.

The end. Sort of.

Poem #1: ‘The Alpha Mum’s Tale’ or ‘Everybody hates an overachiever’

She woke early, and so by Ten
Had raised two children
To an Oxbridge education.

To salve boredom then
She renovated property
Until Three.

And in the hour to Four,

She mastered the idiosyncrasies of law.

And by the strike of Seven came
Her novels numbered just the same.

Quickly the hour of Eight drew nigh

So she made a feast for Nine,
And had girlfriends round to dine.

Yet, although perfectly cooked
She’d been completely f**cked.

For culinary failure would’ve been
More fondly seen.

So, by midnight she was dead.
In her own hand the note said:

‘Is nothing I do enough?’

The one who liked pubs

This is (probably) a self portrait by Joos Van Craesbeeck. It's called 'The Smoker'. If Teniers punctured pomposity in an intellectual and businesslike manner, then this painter delighted in doing it with humour and the absurd.

He was a non-conformist. A prison baker by trade, unlike Teniers he didn't paint by commission; he had no need, I guess, because he had another income.

I like this for its stupidity. The smoker's expression is obviously exaggerated, his hair is wild and he comically clutches a bottle of something, probably alcohol, as if someone were about to take it away from him. There is no attempt to be precious about the subject and therefore about art.

This lower picture is a more famous one by him. It's called 'The temptation of St Anthony'. I may have to come back on here about this one, there's so much going on, it's more a comic novel than a short story.

I think it's obvious that he has used himself as the model. Not only in the facial similarities to 'The Smoker' but in that his eyes are looking to where your eyes would look if you were painting yourself. When you do so you try and move your as little as possible, it's very wearing. He must have been painting, looking, painting, looking. The painting above demonstrates that he also had a good visual memory, he could make a pose, remember, and then paint. There is a huge difference in glimpsing and painting, and studying, then putting down all your props, then painting. He also had to remember how the smoke looked! And, though his depiction of smoke doesn't demonstrate complete technical brilliance it is convincing, and with this subject matter, otherwise painted with a free and loose hand, that is enough.

David II Teniers

    I thought I'd mention another discovery from the Flemish School section of the Louvre: David II Teniers, a painter working in Antwerp in the mid 1600s. This is one of his paintings: 'Interieur de cabaret'.
    There is a protestant disavowel of the decorative here, but also I love the ordinariness of the scene; the glimpse into a commonplace life, the action that happens off to the side and the affection between the man and the woman seated in the foreground as he shows off the beauty of light reflected off a glass. Glass was available only to the richest people; every other vessel in the room, and Teniers has made sure they are obvious, are pewter, earthenware or wooden. This is a picture about class, or rather, social mobility.

    What you must remember was that I had just spent the best part of an hour with the most brilliant portraits of the rich and powerful that had been produced in Northern Europe at this time, and this painting punctured that pomposity, that of people who commissioned art at that time. In fact all the paintings in this little alcove gallery, off the main drag, did the same thing. They showed that normal people were equally good subjects for artistic work.
   Perhaps it begins to show the change from commissioned art to art of the artist's own volition. I don't know, it may have been commissioned too, possibly by the merchant pictured.
   But, a little googling has made it apparent that this is not the work that Teniers is renowned for, but instead the usual mix of historical and religious allegories. He was incredibly well known and respected in his time.
    I find it fascinating though, that he would have been knighted, like Reubens and Van Dyke, should he have agreed to give up selling his paintings, but he refused to do that, even though he wanted the social elevation. There is also another legend, that he created a rumour that he had died in order to sell his archived work for a higher price.
    This painting demonstrates an understanding of human emotion, humour, the ability to tell a story and, of course, technical skill. His business acumen, maybe financial greed, enabled him, at the end of the day, to value cold hard cash more than intangible social standing.

Parent & baby DooDoo

Found this in a sketchbook which was in the pocket of a very underused suitcase which I have decided to take to Athens. Can't remember when I drew it or why a dismayed parent Dodo was amusing me at the time.

The 'boring' one

    I went to the Louvre last week and, faced with its daunting collection of art and people, I decided to concentrate on Northern European Painting which I've always found calming. I discovered there Hans Holbein's painting of Anne of Cleves, and, since nobody now seems to mind photographs being taken, here it is.

    I've always been fascinated by this painting, and in the flesh it's magnificent, she is presented as so calm, so symetrical, so pleasing, more like a doll than a person, that I don't wonder why Henry VIII chose her of the two sisters he sent Holbein to paint.
    But she's the wife that no one talks about. Possibly that's because she's the most boring, but well, in comparison to Anne Boleyn, they all seem so. And frankly, considering how capricious Henry was, she must have been glad to be boring, and perhaps it's why she survived. In fact, she survived him by the longest time, she was given lands and property after their divorce, and was considered, after his daughters and subsequent wives, to be the most pre-eminent of women. She became his friend, and was referred to as "the King's Beloved Sister".
    I think she was probably a shrewd person, cleverer than she was loud. She managed to get the best from the situation into which she was forced, and, although probably, by means of being called 'sister' she was still under Henry's protection, and therefore control, she achieved an independent position, virtually unknown for women at the time.
    Looking at it, I thought Henry must have fallen in love with the painting rather than the woman, she is so wonderfully framed in it, so decorated, that she, the person, can't be real. I don't think any woman could have lived up to Holbein's vision.
    Famously Henry called her 'the Flanders mare'. It's a bit cruel, but then men have always insulted women via their appearance, and that's quite mild treatment from Henry VIII. Additionally to the changed political panorama that meant their marriage was no longer so advantageous, apparently she wasn't cultivated enough for him; she had no formal education, she wasn't witty; the total opposite to her beheaded namesake. No wonder Cromwell liked her and Henry didn't.

    I suppose, if I were to be truthful about why I really like this painting, then it's because it's a masterful execution of marketing; a magnificent lie. It supported the claims of Cromwell, et al, to the King so well that it persuaded the King to marry, an enormous undertaking, and then, when his lack of attraction to her became infamous, it became renowned for being an example of portrait painting distorting the truth.

    This is a miniature of Anne, perhaps painted by Holbein as well, in it she seems more real, even sparkier, but still with those half-lidded eyes, calmly level headed and patient. The perfect queen, if only Henry had realised it.

Stop press! Got something to say, yada yada.
Watched telly by candle light last night in honour of No Impact Man. Can't help thinking that I'm missing the point.

I ought to put the link for the iMDB entry for No Impact Man since I'm posting about it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1280011/

No Impact Man

    Just seen the film No Impact Man at Warwick Arts and while I'm cooking dinner, which I am not doing by candle light, I'll tell you my thoughts. Not all my thoughts are good. There are some huge holes to pick in this endeavour, which is to live in NYC for a year without having an 'impact' on the environment in terms of energy usage. It's close to impossible to do and they picked up and tackled the obvious ironies that prevented them doing it honestly, like Michelle working at Business Week, and I'm glad they did.
    It was good to see them manage it as a couple, anyone less suited may have thrown in the towel at trying to do the above in an apartment the size of a shoebox on the ninth floor. She was by far the easier to identify with, as the one who had communicated a sense of revelation in her life. At the beginning I didn't think she was going to make it, but she did and she looked so much healthier for it. As the driver of change he was always less easy to sympathise with.
    It's not a film I'd bother going to the cinema to see, I just had nothing else to do tonight, but I'd watch it on telly, and pick holes from the comfort of my sofa, then go and check out some more environmentally friendly cleaning fluids; I've got some vinegar and baking powder in the cupboard, so why not give it a go.

I'm deeply considering doing an OCA course in writing. What I've seen on the website is encouraging. I suppose I just want what I write to be better. I generally feel like I'm feeling my way around a dark room at the moment, but that I'm sometimes blinded by brilliant white light, which, though it should give me hope, just serves to confuse me further, leaves me blinking with only the hazy outline of my brief glimpse to comfort me.
I've been really encouraged by the last few days that I've spent writing longhand, I've written around seven thousand words and it seems to make better sense than doing it on the computer. But now my arm aches!
I guess I want to wait until I've exhausted that subject, that what might turn into a novel, might actually turn into a novel if I don't let myself become distracted from it, and only then. Maybe I should wait a little, do what I'm doing now and try the course when it's finished. Because I know what courses do, they change you, and the me that writes afterwards won't be the me that writes now. In some ways I feel that the me that writes now is a little bit precious, terribly innocent and probably susceptible to all kinds of cliches and boring notions, but yesterday I found myself writing about sanitary towels and I had no idea that I was going to do that. It actually got quite traumatic. But it was funny at the same time. I've never read about that experience anywhere else so that's why I feel that I'm on to an interesting thing. And I don't want to stop myself while I'm enjoying it.

Rachel from 'Chips'

'CHIPS' Short Story #1

Chips


     Once upon a time there was a little girl, who was called Rachel, who felt that all the food she had on her plate belonged just to her. She wouldn't share any of it with anyone even when they asked nicely. She like chips best of all, guarded them jealously and ate them last just so she would remember them best.
     Every day at school dinner time she sat with her four friends and when they had eaten they would go and play together until it was time for lessons again. They did the same every school day.
     There was also a little boy at the school. Well, actually, there were many, but only this boy matters because he had taken a liking to Rachel. His name was Louis. He pronounced his name with a hiss at the end rather than an 'ee' because he wasn't French. It doesn’t matter much why he liked Rachel, to be honest there was no obvious reason to do so, what's important is that because he did he decided that he was going to make friends with her.
     This was a difficult thing to do because the Rachel and her friends didn’t want him to join in with any of the games they were playing. After a while he retired to sit on his own under a tree in the playground so that he could examine the large bruise that they had given him. This gift, they felt, would remind him that he shouldn't try to join in with their games in the future.
     He used the time examining his new bruise to think of another way in which he could make friends. It is worth saying at this point that not only was he a very determined boy but that he also felt that his friendship was a gift worth offering; in fact nobody had turned him down before.
     In the next lesson he put his new plan into action. He picked up his chair and, limping slightly, put it next to Rachel's and sat down. He managed to stay there for a whole two minutes before the teacher heard Rachel yelling and saw him struggling and made him move back to his normal table. They were the best minutes of his life so far, but he still hadn’t managed to make friends.
     He was very sad about this and for the rest of the week tried really hard to think of another plan. As it happened the new idea lay in wait for him to discover at the weekend, he just had to wait to get it.
     This happened during Sunday lunch, for which his dad made roast chicken with Yorkshire puddings, roasted potatoes and parsnips, boiled carrots and gravy. From the happy noises and the friendly chatter in the living room he could tell that his family were enjoying it, and he thought; if food could make his family happy then maybe it would make Rachel happy too.
     Therefore, on Monday at lunchtime he sat with his packed lunch as near to her as he dared to where Rachel and her four friends sat together. He was encouraged with his plan when he noticed how much less she bit and scratched when her mouth was full of food, but he wasn’t brave enough to try to talk to her right then.
     At Tuesday lunchtime he sat closer again. This time he gave to the friend of Rachel who was sitting closest to him half of his lunchtime chocolate bar. That little girl accepted it greedily.
     On Wednesday, he gave the same girl half of his chocolate bar, and to the girl sitting opposite her he gave the other half.
     On Thursday, he broke the chocolate bar into four pieces and shared them out between all of Rachel's friends. However, he despaired about what he was going to do on Friday because he didn't think the chocolate would break very generously into five pieces and his plan depended on Rachel having a really big bit of chocolate, and at the same time he didn't want her friends to feel left out because he was afraid they would give him more bruises if they did. 
      Therefore that evening he asked his mum if he could have an extra bar of chocolate in his packed lunch instead of crisps. She said that that would be fine and he began to feel more confident in his plan again.
     On Friday school was always fish and chips. It was Rachel's favourite meal and she looked forward to it all week, particularly the chips.
     Louis sat down and opened up his packed lunch. He broke up one of the bars that his mother had dutifully packed for him into the four waiting palms of Rachel's friends, but he kept the other bar back to give to her. He didn't keep a single bit for himself but he didn’t mind that because he was sure that his plan would work this time.
     Smiling a big friendly and confident smile he got out of his seat and walked around to where Rachel sat, sure that now she would be his, just like all her friends already were. But as he deposited the chocolate bar next to her plate she swiftly stabbed him in the back of his hand with her fork, and screamed at the top of her voice, “Leave my chips alone!”
     In this way not only did Louis learn that not everyone's friendship can be bought, even when all their friends have already been successfully purchased, but that sometimes it is a very good idea to take 'no' for an answer.
      As a result he never bothered her again. Rachel was given a plastic fork to eat her chips with, and since the only thing she had wanted all along was to enjoy her chips in peace, she was happy enough with that.

Hello out there.

I can't promise these will come thick and fast but I certainly intend to bung out there a short story fairly frequently. I'm even intending them to be funny.