We've been away, but now we're back....

I've been otherwise engaged for a while. It seems we're still getting some traffic. OK, it's not exactly the New Jersey Turnpike, but we're marginally more popular than a cathouse in Christian Town, so I thought we might as well open for business again.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks:

I've seen David Lynch's Inland Empire three times and I still can't distill that demented, delirious synaesthetic experience into words. As Paul Morley said on Newsnight Review, "it was 3 hours long and at least 3 hours too short." Yeah, the jump from film to digital video involved an aesthetic trade- off, but I don't really give a shit how Dave delivers his art ~ just as long as he keeps on sending it my way I'll be in clover. He could drive his next magnus opus right over to my house on the back of a pick-up truck for all I care. This guy could dump a consignment of fertiliser on my lawn to greater artistic effect than half the hacks currently holed up in the City of Angels could produce even if they pooled their respective "talents" and annexed all the film stock and resources in Hollywood.

My friend, Will, from California, has just finished a novel and, knowing him, it will be wonderful. As yet, I haven't found the time to read it, but I'll post an extract here as soon as I locate an elusive spare hour.

Another good friend, Nathan, from New York, appeared, unexpectedly (well, to me at least) on Horizon the other night. I was taken aback to turn on and tune in to his familiar countenance in an unfamiliar context.

I noticed in the reports of the tragic Virginia Tech shootings that the shooter's English teacher was Nikki Giovanni. When I saw the shooter's dismal, delusional "Psycopathic Idol" audition on the news networks I was reminded of Nikki's poem "Ego Tripping."

I was born in the Congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
The Sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad

I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with Allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to Europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is Nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the Nile
I am a beautiful woman

I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me

For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son Hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on

My son Noah built New/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
Jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save

I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents

I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission

I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...