Issue #111. September 2nd - 15th, 2005

Book Review: Planet Simpson
Another example of these digressions are the foot-notes at the end of each chapter. It feels like Turner just liked the little facts and stories too much to leave them out, even if they didn't have a solid place in the book.
By Grainne Lynch

Let's start a revolution! #2
What fuels the underlying despair that keeps me up in the last nights of August? What is the unbearable nothingness like? And what is it that makes people count down the days to their next holiday?
By Dimitra Daisy

And through the darkness I thought of you
It was too dark to call you. To call anybody so I lay in bed thinking and listening. Listening to the hollow empty darkness, restless and alone. I lay within a cocoon. I thought of you.
By Rachel Queen

On Home
Sometimes, if I catch the sun at the right time, I see me staring back at me from the porch and remember the days when this had no porch.
By Paul Williamson

Record review #1: Shout Out Louds (Howl Howl Gaff Gaff)
There isn’t too much too technical with this record, at no point does it even get near disappearing up it’s own arse. There is no pretention, no posturing or posing, none whatsoever, it’s simple, pure, valid pop music.
By Johnny Mac

Record review #2: The Lucksmiths (Warmer corners)
You can imagine driving down a dark and deserted room road in the middle of a rain swept night or sitting out in the garden on a warm summers day. Put simply, it is music for always.
By Rachel Queen

Book Review:
Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a Generation Chris Turner

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of books about the Simpsons. A quick search of Amazon.co.uk returns 215 titles, ranging from the academic - The Simpsons and Society: An Analysis of Our Favorite Family and Its Influence in Contemporary Society - through the wide range of comic books such as Simpsons Comics Present The Big Bratty Book of Bart to the numerous episode guides.

Chris Turner’s book offers more than just a fan’s analysis of his favourite show, though you can tell from the title that Turner does love the Simpsons and the book includes all the usually fan-book stuff - a history of The Simpsons rise to fame, quotes from favourite episodes, worldwide vewing figures of this 'cartoon masterpiece', a list of the other sitcoms and comedians that have influenced the Simpsons. But this entertaining book offers a lot more than that.

The politics of the book, like the politics of the Simpsons writers and creator lean heavily towards the left. The book allows Turner to examine in more detail the most frequent targets of the Simpsons satire. These include, but are not limited to Corporate America, dot com mania, the dumbing down of tv and the media in general, fame and our obsession with celebrity and even the Simpsons own branding.

One of my favourite chapters is the Simpsons in Cyberspace, which documents the rise of the internet and illustrates how accurately the world of the Simpsons mirrors our own. It also includes an excellent short history of the Internet, including it's hippy roots. This chapter ends with a story about the island of Tuvalu. This has very little to do with The Simpsons but some of these digressions were my favourite part of the book.

Another example of these digressions are the foot-notes at the end of each chapter. It feels like Turner just liked the little facts and stories too much to leave them out, even if they didn't have a solid place in the book. These include personal experiences, freeze-frame jokes, trivia about the episode being discussed, etc. Like the Simpsons itself, a lot of it is irrelevant or unnecessary and it's still worth reading.

You don't have to be a huge Simpsons fan to enjoy this book, most of the episodes that Turner references mostly come from what he calls The Golden Age (1992 - 1997), that is episodes that have been repeated many, many times.

At this stage, almost 20 years after the Simpsons first premiered on Fox, when there are so many episodes out there and they have all been repeated so many times, it is all too easy take this cartoon masterpiece for granted. This book reminds you how clever and funny the programme really is and will make you want to watch it more often.

But that's okay. Watching the Simpsons is good for you and is more fun than other worthwhile activities such as eating your greens or exercising regularly.

Grainne Lynch

(More by this author)

Let's start a revolution! #2

The Quest for Time and an Everyday Life Worth Living

"Swooning is more important than studying because contrary to popular belief life is not a leisure time activity". Discuss.

It is not because I am supposed to be studying now that I am writing you this. No, really. It isn't that. It is because I bumped into a couple of friends with the post-holiday blues the other day, and I think that what I saw in their eyes was what they saw in mine. And for that reason, that moment started something inside me that is, by now, asking to come out; say hello to the world; explain its presence.

And so it will.

It was the first time I'd been out since I'd returned to Greece after a month away (spent in the Netherlands and in Scotland.) Using ice-cream to lure me, a friend had convinced me to leave the house, where I'd spent the first day-and-a-half hiding from the late summer sun behind my closed shutters. When I had finally stepped out the sunlight had been blinding despite it being late afternoon. I walked around in a daze and a crazy wind, though not for very long: just as we exited the train station we bumped into the aforementioned friends, who had been back from their holidays (a few weeks in Central Europe) for a week.

Naturally they asked how I was. Not without difficulty (I was in a daze, remember; also, speaking Greek again still felt strange to me) I managed to say I was in shock. I gestured vaguely to everything around us, meaning: the shock of coming back. They looked at me and nodded, and one of them added that since he's managed the first week he expected things to get better. Soon afterwards we parted. I didn't expect things to get better (for various, mostly valid reasons); nevertheless the exchange made me feel a little better. Not saved, but understood. That is always a little bit better.

(That might be why I like explaining things so much.)

But that was only the beginning. Because the next day I saw that another Greek friend's post-holiday-in-Spain sign-in name was "unbearable return to nothingness" (and then, in italics: 11 months to go) and something happened inside me. Something broke, and something changed -I felt a jolt of recognition- and I wanted to cry as much as I wanted to start a revolution. I wanted to revolt against what a writer very successfully coined "the lack of dignity in every day living" - and be done with it forever.

Because what are the post-holiday blues made of? What fuels the underlying despair that keeps me up in the last nights of August? What is the unbearable nothingness like? And what is it that makes people count down the days to their next holiday?

Laziness is the easy, all-too-common answer: the answer that would be given by those people that have shaped my life so far and thus, the answer that haunts me. But is it? I think those people mentioned above would work very hard for something they loved, and I know for myself that I am willing to work hard on pretty much anything as long as it feels fairly worthwhile. And anyway, is it lazy not to feel excited about eight-hour-long, dull, stressful working days that end up lasting longer than ten hours if you count in all the time it takes to get ready, and to get there and back? And what if you, like me, are silly or sophisticated enough to count in the time it takes you to become your proper self again after a working day? Then you have probably run out of time in the day already. That leaves us with weekends, assorted holidays and the occasional evening when inspiration overcomes you despite everything, all of which are a bit of a commodity and not to be taken for granted, here in Greece at least. And which don't sound very much anyway - nowhere near enough.

I spent the summer sitting in trains -and the occasional park-, and lying in beds -rented beds in an assortment of towns in Scotland and the sofa-bed in our front room in Nijmegen- trying to understand the boyfriend. Trying to figure out how the world looks through his eyes, what it is like to be him. (Not only am I curious but I felt I had the responsibility to do it since I have agreed to spend the rest of my life with him.) I think I've made a good start at it, but it was a hard task: it took a long time and a whole lot of concentration. Talking and imagining. Thinking it over. Comparing notes. Drifting away, then getting back to it. I don't think I would have managed it with less time on my hands, but what would have happened had I not found myself without a job for most of the summer?

Life is a time consuming thing, especially if done properly. We need time to notice things: the passing of the seasons, the hours of day, the weather, colours in the street. Time to get to know each other and ourselves. Time to be together. Time to see the world. Time to get inspired, to plan and dream, to create, for wasn't nearly everything we take for granted today someone's dream once upon a time? Isn't this the way the world moves forward? And isn't it the very essence of life, it's prime purpose, to live consciously, savour the taste of life on this planet, then make something out of it?

There seems to be little space in modern life for that, much as I hate to say this. I hate to moan and I hate the term 'modern life', and yet I know that every single good thing that has happened to me in the past three -four- years (and that's a whole lot of good things) didn't happen because I was doing was I was supposed to but because -and when- I was following my heart's desires. I have had to conclude my heart is very wise. And yet I often lose heart in a world where most people don't seem to notice there's something missing, let alone dare to think it could be different. I can't help but dream about it, though. I read a phrase three years ago -at about the time that we were setting up Friends of the Heroes: an everyday life worth living. Just think about what it would be like if this was a dream a lot of people shared. It would be so simple.

I suppose there's not much that you can do, dear reader. There's not much that I can do and this sometimes grieves me. Just remember what you deserve; dream of the right things; stay true to yourself; be kind to others. And if you see a way out, take it. And say a prayer for me.

Dimitra Daisy
(More by this author)

And through the darkness I thought of you

On Tuesday morning the world remained dark. Not the temporary darkness caused by a thick covering of clouds eclipsing the sun, but a deep dark velvet blackness normally reserved for the hours between 1 and 2 am. For a reason that I don't understand the world forgot to turn and daytime did not follow night time, the sun did not chase away the moon, and the sky did not turn from black to red to yellow to blue.

It was too dark to get up. It was too dark to call you. To call anybody so I lay in bed thinking and listening. Listening to the hollow empty darkness, restless and alone. I lay within a cocoon. I thought of you.

Dreaming, thinking, wishing, and counting the stars and measuring the distance between us.

And I thought of you.

A distant jigsaw of feelings and sounds and images floating in and out of my consciousness. Intangible, almost fictional, but absolutely and entirely you. The shape of your neck, that look in your eyes, the hairs on your arm, the way I shiver whenever I'm near you the lump in my throat whenever I'm not.

And through the darkness I thought of you.

A mangled film comprising of memories and dreams. A shaky unbelievable plotline where we spent our day a part and nights together under a soft warm quilt of music. A mess of dreams and reality sown together under the twilight hours.

And through the darkness I thought about space between us.

I started to think about the roads and the rails and rivers that connect us laid out like a map. The sky and grass and the wind. I started imagining that I was flying, over hills and mountains and lakes. Over villages towns and cities until I reached your house and you were sleeping. Your eyes gently closed, your breathing peaceful.

And through the darkness I thought about you.

And suddenly everything clicked into place. Day time followed night, the sun chased the away moon and the sky turned from black to red to yellow to blue. And I could breathe.

Rachel Queen

(More by this author)

Home

And where did it all go? you can sit here and write and try to remember where it was and what it was and a song emanating from a retrospective reminds you of a winter when nights were warmer and TV flickered off and on and off and on and you didn't mind at all. We pass the Salutation Inn, salutated, saturated, salubrious and then what?

Then what?

I was looking through some things and I saw your face. It's funny how it catches you like that. Time. I am kicking a ball about in a garden made of ashen soil and patchwork turf and I am preparing to go back in time and break windows like I used to. Sometimes, if I catch the sun at the right time, I see me staring back at me from the porch and remember the days when this had no porch.

It's funny being back. Next week my little sister becomes a part of another family, yet to me she is still crying for digestives and learning to ride a bike. I tell her it's easy but she doesn't believe me and she pedals tentatively without the stabilizers and I'm not allowed to leave her side. Next week, someone else will be at her side, and she will look as tentative and as beautiful as she always has, and at some stage I am supposed to get up and read Paul's Psalm to the Corinthians and it's not the reading that presents the problem but the letting go that does.

By letting her go I am losing a part of what I am.

Salutation. Salutation. Salutation.

I borrow a bike and pedal up and over the quarry. Old haunts. Faces. I pedal along the rivers edge, my reflection distorted by the gentle lolloping ripples, and I can see the countless times I had to retrieve the football from the river, and the days of nettle stings, hayfever days, half-hearted attempts at fishing for trout in a desolate sloth of a lake. All gone, all gone.

The school is no longer a school. It has been knocked down and replaced by luxury 2 and 3 bedroom houses. Where do the kids go to school these days? A group of pockmarked, gangly youths pass me by, all vacant stares and dispassionate glares, and it all makes sense. Another lost generation. Like the blind leading the blind. What can we teach them? How can we teach them the value of education when the very foundations of their education has been sold and turned into penthouses for the rich?

I've had enough.

It's tempting to look for answers but the sun has made me weary. I park the bike. Close my eyes. Close your eyes too. Give me another beer before I begin to remember you.

Imogen, my love, Imogen.

Paul Williamson
(More by this author)