Movie Idea

Movie opens on our hero, Sebathius, in bed with a beautiful woman. They are making love. He is a talented lover and she screams in carnal pleasure. But, at the moment of climax, our hero is hit by an overwhelming feeling of guilt at his petit-bourgeois lifestyle and he flees into the night wearing nothing but his socks. Here follows a powerful scene of him looking at his reflection in a river -the Seine? The Thames? The Bosphorus?- as he awakens to the concept that his life has been based on false needs and he wonders if he has ever had a true feeling apart from his current one of cold. The camera pans back to reveal a wise, old homeless person staring at him with a tear in his eye (Note to director: play Yellow by Coldplay). We cut to the next day and our hero is sitting at his desk at work but still struggling to find moral authenticity in a culture of distraction and still wearing just his socks. The next sequence needs finessing but, to show his resistance against dominant ideology and to draw in a younger public, the outline is that he meets a sexy female scientist on the bus and they decide to build a giant robot together (montage scene to Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi). The movie ends with our hero in bed with the scientist. They are making love. But, at the point of climax, she wonders if they can really subvert existing culture or if they are just feeding it and she decides to run off with the giant robot. Our hero is left alone in bed. In his socks (to Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees?).

All Black and Bleu

I'm in a bar in Paris on a Sunday morning watching the Rugby World Cup taking place in New Zealand.
It's the final, All Blacks v France.
"Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!" chants the room.
All Black try. Chanting goes quiet.
Second half come back by the French. "Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!"
Final whistle. One point in it to the All Blacks.
The room is sad. Then... applause. "Allez les Bleus! Allez les Bleus!"
I walk back home via Montparnasse cemetery and pass Beckett and his words come back to me...
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."

I Used To Be Disgusted And Now I Try To Be Amused

I was walking through the streets the other day thinking how we like routine because it gives us the illusion of stability in a random world when I saw a man with no arms. He was begging. It made me think that he probably didn’t give a toss about the illusion of stability. That he was probably more concerned with just feeding himself. Then I thought what the hell did I know about what he was thinking.
***
You know, the more I know, the more I realise how much I don’t know.
***
His T-shirt said Startling Tales.
It was the cover of some old comic.
It had the picture of aliens carrying human prisoners across a landscape.
The people looked scared. They were being carried along. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them.
I stared at it a moment then I looked around at other people in the street. They were being carried along. They didn’t know what was going to happen to them. They didn’t look scared.
***
Am I reading a book or am I consuming content?

A Monkey In A Jacket

I was in the Louvre, exploring the upper floors, and I came across a little painting by Decamps.
Le Singe Peintre. The Monkey Artist.
I was transfixed. A little monkey in a jacket painting.
Decamps was having a go. Any monkey can paint, he was saying. Any monkey can imitate. Putting a monkey in jacket doesn’t mean he’s not a monkey.
Trying to do something different was hard, he was saying, not because of the effort but because it was simply easier to be a monkey in a jacket.
I thought about the little painting as I walked home, hands deep in my jacket.

Exotic Perfume

When, on an autumn evening, with closed eyes,
I breathe the warm dark fragrance of your breast,
Before me, blissful shores unfold, caressed
By dazzling fire from blue unchanging skies.

There, upon the calm and drowsing isle,
Grow luscious fruits amid singular trees,
There, men are light and strong,
And women startle with eyes of candour.

Guided by your scent to these fair climes,
I see a harbour thronged with masts and sails
Still weary from the tumult of gales;

And with the sailors' song that drifts to me
Are mingled odours of the green tamarind,
And all my soul is scent and melody.

-Baudelaire

How To Lose Two Billion Dollars

So let me get this straight...
I work hard and deposit my money in a bank. The bank pays me a pitiful interest rate and meanwhile lends out my money to other people/companies at a much higher interest rate. At the same time, a trader in the bank uses my money on deposit as collateral to trade on financial markets. If he makes more money for the bank, he gets paid a big bonus which he splurges around town driving up the cost of living and reducing the value of my money on deposit. If he loses enough money for the bank, then the State steps in to support the bank to make sure it can pay me back my money on deposit. The State uses money that it takes from me in tax. It uses my money to guarantee that my money gets paid back to me in case some trader loses my money.
What’s wrong with this picture?
What’s wrong with it is that I don’t do anything about it.
What could you do about it?
Take my money out of the bank and stick it under the mattress.
Why don’t you do that?
Because I’m scared some idiot in a hoodie will break in and steal my money.
Isn’t the idiot in the suit just as dangerous?
Yes. But he won't hit me, just destroy my financial future.
So what do you suggest you do?
Uh, go watch telly and stuff…

Joining Separation

'Hello Seb.'
'Bonjour Seb.'
'How's life in the City of Light? Living the dream?'
'How can you live the dream? If you live the dream then it becomes reality...'
'Nobody likes a smart arse. Especially not me.'
'I'm living the reality.'
'Aren't we all?'
'No. Hermann Hesse said "There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself." '
'Maybe Hesse needed to get out more...'
'Why go out when you can go in?'
'Well, you stay in, I'm going out.'
'You do that.'
'I will. Bye.'
'Bye.'
'Uh, can I lend me some money?'