Author: Ali

Alihttps://aliabbasali.wordpress.comWriter, Photographer, Carpenter
Ali's avatar

DP: Let’s Dance – As the End Draws Near

As the End Draws Near

Ground tablets in over-steeped valerian tea. The ordered spin of stirring decays into a Brownian melee.The bitter flavour, the gritty texture is irrelevant to me now. It settles in my stomach, cooling and weighty. An anchor pinning me to the earth.

I brought my old tape deck for this moment, but I think the batteries are weak. The music drags like the ballerina in a jewellery box as the clockwork winds down.

I’m glad I chose a warm day, scudding clouds and sunshine. It is a day for dancing slowly, and coming to a stop.

END

 

My book available here and here among others. Buy it, review it, tell me what you think.

Trolling – Craving Notoriety

Trolling – Craving Notoriety

There are too many people in the world, all clamouring for attention and crying out to be heard. How does one voice, certain of its own clarity and purity, rise above the rest of humanity; all thinking they have something worthy to say?

As a writer what will make my erudition and insight rise cream-like to the surface; pushing past the bobbing turds of everyone else’s lacklustre prose? And what is it that I want? To occupy a moral high ground from which I may never be seen or heard, decaying slowly into poverty and dejection. Or to sell my books and see them translated to the silver screen where a burly man will bang a gong to my success? And if it is the latter what is it I prepared to sacrifice to feel red carpet beneath my new patent leather shoes?

It is in that dream, swathed in the Armani tuxedo or Versace dress, we find the gnarled form of the troll: someone who uses a brief platform to launch an indefensible attack because if they cannot have adulation they will take attention.

The troll may also have done the maths. “If I say something patently ridiculous, against which a hundred commentators will marshal two hundred arguments, which thousands will read… then the online vitriol will not touch my skin, but thousands who have never heard of me, or taken an interest, will know my name. Some will want to research me, to find out more about this mentalist that mistook idiocy for iconoclasm. That will generate hits. Hits may go on to generate sales. That’s more interest and hits and sales than an intelligent reflection on the same subject would engender.”

None of that is not to suggest the troll is stupid. Far from it, but it is the low cunning of the provocateur, the self interested trap laying of the ivory poacher, not the reasoned passion of the conservationist.

But perhaps the greater fault lies with the rest of us. Those who rise up in indignation, tapping furiously from bum creased leatherette onto crumb laden keyboards. Well meaning, well-articulated oxygen is pumped into greedy lungs that will return only carbon dioxide, and no growth.

I am guilty. Yesterday Damyanti posted a very finely crafted rebuttal to a piece of errant nonsense that came out under the aegis of Huffington Post.

The target of the troll’s ire was JK Rowling, who has been placed on a pedestal by success and popular acclaim, and has somehow become fair game for anyone. The argument was bent as a nine bob note, and deliberately crafted to be so.

I and more than a hundred others piled in with comments and praise for Damyanti, and varying reflections on Rowlings literary merit.

So here is the damned Cocker Spaniel barking at the Labrador* – the rebuttal needed to be written, but now a host of readers and writers know the name of a troll we would otherwise have blissfully ignored. Some have already been on book review sites to see what the troll has written. Some may buy. Come buy, come buy as the goblins said.

Everything has gone a bit Faerie, bear with me.

Mission accomplished for the troll. An unremarkable writer has generated column inches they would otherwise never have garnered, and has eased up a notch in the global notoriety stakes. In a few years the trolling will be forgotten, swamped in the mass of data splurging around the world. If the troll achieves great success a muck raker may unearth the offending article, but by then who will care?

Does it matter? A deliberate provocation inspired a fine response.  Without the trolling there would be no rebuttal, other writers would not have gathered in common cause. Goodness followed, all hail the troll.

Yet I can’t help feeling sullied by the experience. I have gifted notoriety to the troll with my participation. A higher and noble purpose may have been served here, Melpomene may be graciously bestowing her favours on us all; but there is enough injustice and untruth and self serving arse gravy out there without more being added to it.

So yes, it does matter. That is why I have not mentioned the troll here at all. I won’t play that game anymore. We need to respond, swiftly, accurately, beautifully to the ignorant and self-serving, but that does not absolve them of the guilt of being wankers in the first place.

And yet, and yet, and yet, I’m reminded of a little truism. There are wankers and there are liars.

*Pair of dogs – Paradox. Keep up.

END

MANIFESTO – The Artists Will Set You Free

The Artists Will Set You Free

There are no paintings, no sculptures, no books of poems. There are only conversations between the creator and the canvas , the chisel and the stone, the pen and the paper, all asking: What could you be?

And the dialogue does not stop there. The art asks the audience and the audience answers even if only to say: I do not understand. The creator asks the canvas, creating art; and the art asks the audience and the questions spread. Why? Why this way and not that? Why him and not her? Why your favoured son in the grand chair, why my daughter in the sweat shop? This is what the hegemonies fear.

The questions breed questions. A population explosion, immeasurable, restless. What is the story of the unmade bed? What tide washed in the room full of sunflower seeds? Why do some have no water, and some drink only sugar syrup?

Art is a meritocracy. The questions and the conversation do not see rags or riches, colour, gender, preference, height, weight, they only hear the questions asked as the chisel falls, as ink flows to the nib.

The hegemonies fear for their control is based on illusion. They fear because one mind wide awake can pierce the veil of dreams they wrap us in, cuddled and coddled and exploited. A feedback loop of fantasy in which we are sullied and despoiled.

The questions and the conversations and the dialogues are locked in vaults. They are traded at great price, commodities, goods, merchandised to cheapen their meaning. They are caged in wealth. The chosen, favoured creators gagged by privilege. Money is the divisive wedge.

The rest languish, ignored, the susurrus of the silenced in abandonment, daubed with the discounted cross of price: This has no monetary value – Therefore it has no value. Our language has been suborned and yet we live out our lives without outrage.

The only true currency is communication. What questions does the art make you ask? Does it fuel your courage with indignation? Does it make you inquisitive? Does it wake you from your lives of silence and subservience? If it makes the questions bubble up from beneath the somnolence of soap operas, quiz shows and celebrity worship then the art has some purpose, it has meaning, it has value.

The artists will set you free. They will show you chains you do not know you wear. They will draw back the lace curtains from the cage of thought in which you are trapped. They will make you question the burdens you have become so accustomed to you do not know you bear them. The will smash the yokes of ignorance and blindness with which you plough your birthright for the table of another.

You could have a walk on part in this war of ideas that is long overdue. Did you even know your freedom has been traded for shallow comforts? The sweat of your labour is stolen back from your hands with goods you don’t need made by slaves you will never see, paid for with your own bondage.

The artists will set you free. They will carve the faces of the unschooled children who make your trainers into the soaring walls of corporate mansions. They will spatter the overpasses with the strip mined landscapes where the precious metals for your hybrid car are ripped from the earth. They will bend wires into the spirals of despair and destitution faced by those who don’t fit the narrow confines of the corporate capitalist model.

The artists will set you free. Feed them, hear them, invite them into your homes and hearts. Challenge them to wake you with the truth, and listen when they scream it, raucous, uncouth, uncontained. Ask the questions they ask you. Demand answers and the hegemonies will fear you, hate you, hurt you. Give your own life meaning. Overturn the illusion of your privilege, where the best part of your production lines the pockets of those with plenty.

There will be peril, but at the end of the chain of questions there may be equity.

END

In a similar vein a recent post from someone I follow: Let us judge Art by QUALITY not POPULARITY!

And off on the consumerism tangent – check out What’s the deal with consumerism?

This piece was brushed off from its initial incarnation because a daily prompt asked for a manifesto and mine has not changed.

My book available here and here among others. Buy it, review it, tell me what you think.

The Door I Never Opened

The Door I Never Opened

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden.

TS Eliot – Burnt Norton

I cling to my regrets. They are milestones and millstones, showing where I have been, or the doors I did not open. Keepsakes, chains on snowflakes that bind my failing memory.

There are things I would change. Most are actions or decisions of such monumental personal proportions that I cannot unravel the consequences. Life, death, love and loss are contingent on those turning points. Best left alone, I think.

Little moments, almost inconsequential incidents also haunt me: a choice of words, a second’s hesitation. Given the chance to do these over I would take a different path.

This is one.

There is much I regret about that final year. My glittering academic career, punctuated with awards and scholarships, came crashing to earth. I ignored the syllabus and threw myself into night-long discussions on metaphysics, maths, syntax, and the recipe for the perfect mozzarella salad. I wrote a lot of bad poems. A lot, and really bad.  I spent hours tapping them out two-fingered, but I could not bring myself to spend a fraction of that time in the library reading about my course.

All that is set. Let it stay.

I’d change the two words I said to you one summer afternoon before we sipped elderberry cordial in the shadow of Woolf and Wittgenstein.

There is a lot I don’t remember about that year, twenty and some have passed since then. I do remember you. We smoked on the window seat in my room, our legs dangling towards the river and the Bridge of Sighs three storeys below. I should have been revising for my finals.

You asked me to turn you into a vampire. I bit your neck.

I remember how much you loved those windows. I remember I didn’t kiss you.

1931013_33671666361_3482_n

I remember the night four of us walked across the scholar’s garden. The moon through the branches striped the lawn. I took off my shoes and went third, it was our Abbey Road, or Belsize Park. “Do you remember, barefoot on the lawn with shooting stars?”

And I remember the day you were going on a trip upriver, and either I invited myself, or you insisted I go with you. There was a gang of your friends. Of them I remember nothing at all.

We watched the trees pass overhead from the bow of the boat, wading through the unreal beauty of Cambridge. You pulled me back as the others strolled to The Orchard tea room and said, “I do love you, you know.”

I said, “I know.”

Those words cut me today, while you have undoubtedly forgotten them. I don’t know what I was trying to prove, or what coolness and aloofness would achieve. A moment to be anyone but Han. I should have said anything else, I still don’t know what.

Who knows what it would change. I forget now if I ever saw you again after that day. Perhaps once in a fleeting goodbye and a promise to write. Perhaps not. Those facts might remain unchanged. But the burden of two careless words in my memory would be lifted, and I would tread a little lighter.

letters

END

If you are interested in my storytelling look here

More memories from college collated here

The Joy of Books – A Guide for the Valentine’s Day Escape Artist

We’ve all been there. Filled with good intentions a week before, our minds bubbling with exotic and innovative ideas to surprise and delight our significant other, we’re mentally prepared for V day. And then Alex calls for a drink and Ben needs a favour and Charlie has ticket to the football and before you know it its Feb 13th and you’re out of time.

Welcome fellow travellers to the wonderful world of the Valentine’s book – cheap, easy to acquire, personalised and sure to make you look thoughtful and romantic, as long as you choose the right one.

If you have a day in hand go for a physical book. You can get expedited delivery from online sellers, and in London at least you can track down a book shop on every other high street. Poems are the obvious choice because fiction spans so many story lines you might trigger an adverse reaction. (Unless you want to signal to someone not your partner that you would rather be with them[Jude], would rather they weren’t with the person they are with [Wuthering Heights], or want to kill your partner [Gone Girl].) Having said that my own book of stories has roses on the cover and would work a treat.

So which poetry book? There are so many to choose from and not all of them fit the Valentine’s bill. Gabriela Mistral’s MadWomen is probably only appropriate if you want to give a break up gift. Brilliant as it is, the message is all wrong. Similarly Ted Hughes’ Birthday Letters, the undercurrent of tragedy and regret will pull you into an emotional maelstrom.

Neruda is the natural choice. Romantic, sensual, accessible and familiar, but it is a bit uninspired. You won’t get any points for thinking outside the box, or applying some diligent research. The same goes for the old romantic standards. Shakespeare, Barrett Browning, and Pam Ayres, all worthy luminaries of the English speaking world, but so well known, and gracing so many greeting cards you’ll get nothing back for the effort.

That means you need to cast the net a little wider – if you want something with a slightly melancholy romantic turn you should pick up Cavafy’s Collected poems; there is a distinct homoerotic sensibility running through it, which adds a level of poignancy when set in context of the time he was writing.

If you are after something with more violent passions then Vicente Aleixandre’s Destruction or Love is the perfect choice (my Goodreads review of it is here). The hardback edition is a beautiful and weighty tome – you’ll be considerate, worldly, and a harbourer of dark and brooding passions all at once.

Rumi has suffered a little by becoming a campus favourite, and therefore a bit saccharine for more mature sensibilities, but if you can find a copy of The Book of Love, you should ease your way out of any strife.

An acquaintance recently wrote a translation of a Li Bai (aka Li Po) poem, which made me look the Tang dynasty poet up. How did I miss this? (bangs head on wall). Buy two, one for your significant other, and one for yourself in case you ever break up because you won’t want to be without it.

In a similar vein the love poems of Catullus to Lesbia are vaguely remembered by many, but under read by all. In the UK Walt Whitman is not part of the school reading list, and so won’t be familiar, but it is better suited to someone with a bit of grit in their soul.

If you have really run out of time (it is six pm on Feb 14th, and you need to do a real Houdini act) then there are two options. If you have been together long enough to be able to send or gift books to each other’s Kindles or tablets then you could still wriggle out jail. My friend Rik Roots has written the very credible Poems to Quote to Your Lover, and many of the writers above are available in ebook form.

Be wary though. Some of the older books are just scans of an early edition with crappy page breaks and no hyperlinks. I recently picked up a very cheap copy of Rumi for my tablet only to find the text and notes poorly laid out.

If you don’t have the option of sending something over the ether then get a really nice card and crib in a poem. Choose someone relatively unknown and if you are too cheap to buy a copy use the Amazon “Look Inside” feature to lift a poem, and scribe it into the card. The onus is now really on you to pick something personal. Alice Meynell’s Renouncement is intense and if your significant other is not a regular poetry reader you might get away with it. There are some lines buried in Shelley’s Epipsychidion which only avid fans will remember, so you could easily take a couplet or two (although have a care, from memory Charlotte Bronte quotes the “seraph of heaven” line in Vilette). Nicholl’s Sonnets to Aurelia are also hard to get hold of, and although many of them are scathing and cold (again good for a break up message), you can definitely pick up a couple of romantic lines e.g.:

In my ruins hour remembrance brings

Faith to my doubt to my intention grace

Reminding me how feebly fall such stings

On one whose eyes dared once your eyes to face

And read in them what no ill can remove

The Love that to the Love said “I Love”

(I did that from memory – self high five)

As a writer I urge you to credit what you crib! Apart from the good practice, in a Google dominated world you may get found out as a Knock Off Nigel and things will go downhill from there.

The Look Inside technique will work on the list above, although you might only get the first poem in each book. If you are in for something steamy then try Eiff’s 31 Tanka, it charts an entire relationship from start to end so there’ll be something for you in there, but definitely NSFW.

Remember the mantra – when all else fails a book will bail you out.

Good Luck and Happy Valentine’s Day

END

My book available here and here among others. Buy it, review it, tell me what you think

The Harry, Hermione, Ron Triangle

JK Rowling has recently commented that she persisted with the romance between Hermione and Ron, despite this being less likely than Hermione and Harry, reported variously in the press, including here in the Guardian.

There is a third way, a path that mirrors the hard truths of modern life in the Harry, Hermione, Ron love triangle. It was rational for Hermione to choose Ron in the aftermath of madness, and the wizarding world needing reconstruction. He was safe, uncomplicated, undemanding.

But within a few years the mundanity of life with this very ordinary person would grate on someone with her extraordinary gifts. He would not “get” her, or understand her need to be challenged, intellectually, magically, perhaps sexually.

As for Harry, well Ginny was always the rebound girl. After crashing and burning with Cho, and being unable to match the martyr status of Cedric Diggory with his own heroics he fell back on his own safe option, the kid who had a crush on him from the start. Whatever he felt for Hermione is subsumed in that overwhelming desire to be noble; orphans are never able to believe they deserve at the expense of others.

But roll them forward a few years, when Ginny’s clinging neediness and increasingly frequent mental health issues from her brush with Tom Riddle will be tearing the fabric of the relationship. Harry can’t abandon her, it would be ignoble, but nor is she the anchor his own instability needs.

It leaves Hermione unsatisfied, and Harry trapped. Their seeking solace in one another is inevitable.

End

I have written some fan fiction elaborating on this theory – take a look

My book available here and here among others. Buy it, review it, tell me what you think