tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post447824200102964328..comments2024-03-28T16:31:27.365+00:00Comments on call me ishmael: The Sunday Ishmael - 5/4/2020call me ishmaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-16892689450294549942021-01-04T04:58:49.037+00:002021-01-04T04:58:49.037+00:00@ultrapox - 7 april 2020 at 16:02
in the fourth p...@ultrapox - 7 april 2020 at 16:02<br /><br />in the fourth paragraph of thic comment, <i>"finding"</i> should read <i>"found"</i>.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-80320908907933833742020-04-11T06:09:08.927+01:002020-04-11T06:09:08.927+01:00i have realized, rather belatedly, that, given the...i have realized, rather belatedly, that, given the current lockdown-situation, mr bungalow bill must also probably have been making a deliberately subliminal, or maybe even - after too many tots - totally unconscious, allusion to franz kafka's tragi-comic story of filial incarceration, <i>die verwandlung</i> - or <i>the metamorphosis</i> - in which an authoritarian father, his wife, and their daughter pen the son in his room and treat him worse than an animal.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-50044692932062183662020-04-08T22:12:52.302+01:002020-04-08T22:12:52.302+01:00mr shoulders, I wish that mr ishmael could have se...mr shoulders, I wish that mr ishmael could have seen your comment - all those years together in cyber street and neither of you knew that you were both guitarists. Lord, if I started I could weep an ocean. <br />When we came to this place, 20 years ago, mr ishmael took a few guitar lessons from one of the leading musicians here - there was something particular that he wanted to learn, he had been playing since he was a boy, at one time he even did a bit of gigging, although he hated playing to an audience - you know, yet another drunk shouting: give us Streets of London. Anyway, in his search for the perfect, yet affordable guitar, he had amassed eight guitars by the time of his death, complete with stands, fur-lined cases, capo, picks, spare strings, and a ukelele, keyboard, 3 harmonicas, 2 amps - one a Marshall - and speakers. He hadn't been able to play for a year or so - hands didn't work, pain, fatigue. I don't play anything. So I asked mr ishmael's guitar teacher - a wonderful musician herself - to come to value the collection. She was very reverent in handling his guitars, told me how wonderful a musician he was, how beautifully he had kept his collection, and she placed real value on the instruments, some of which are fine. She has taken them away into her shop, where she is selling them on commission. The less valuable ones I've donated to her musical charity, by which kids who cannot afford to buy a guitar are given one.<br />That's a good thing, but the reflections on mortality are inevitable - how it all goes to dust, all the striving and accomplishment - <br />Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair...<br />mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-45977417747606742712020-04-08T16:04:22.292+01:002020-04-08T16:04:22.292+01:00I didn’t know Mr Ishmael was a guitar player. I su...I didn’t know Mr Ishmael was a guitar player. I suppose everyone is at one point in their life…blokes anyway.<br />There are numerous guitars situated around my house and bloke visitors always remark upon them one way or another.<br />It’s true about the tuning though. I have a couple of Epiphone Les Paul copies. The Gibson LP was the one I always longed for as a kid. Longingly gazing at it the shop window.<br />Even though I bought a Fender Strat because it was a cheaper guitar. I always wanted the LP.<br />I sold the strat plus Marshall valve amp and speakers to pay for my wedding…giving up the dream of rock stardom.<br />I saw that strat in a shop in Glasgow, in a glass case, with a price-tag of £10,000 (I paid £315 in 1980) The last of the Californian built.<br />Today I would not have sold it even for that money. Because I recently took possession of a Gibson Les Paul. And after all these years it just doesn’t seem as good as the strat.<br />I have browsed and contemplated, played and pondered over guitars for years, much like Phil the desk is with desks.<br />I have a fair few guitars and a fair few have come and gone. The best was the strat, but I tell myself it’s just nostalgia.<br />One saving grace is that I still have the first guitar I ever owned . An Kimbara acoustic, which in terms of tone and mechanics (Staying in tune and action height etc after some modifications) it is the best acoustic I ever had.<br />I could go on but thanks for listening.<br /><br />Doug Shouldersnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-65505765851587762212020-04-08T10:45:55.664+01:002020-04-08T10:45:55.664+01:00Hi, folks,
Never developed much of an interest in...Hi, folks, <br />Never developed much of an interest in whisky, mr bungalow bill, although mr ishmael had some collection of the stuff. Nope, wine has been my downfall. It is kind of you to comment on the serenity of my hosting - that's because you haven't seen me howling along to Bonnie Tyler of an evening. And, of course, mr ishmael had a rare, inimitable gift for sustained, frothing indignation.<br />I seem to have been excused Kafka in my life-long reading programme. Now it looks like I shall have to plunge in. Thank you, mr ultra, for the extracts - that's a grim little parable you provided.<br />Well, here in the northern hemisphere, we appear, once again, to have crossed the dark seas of night and arrived on the bright shores of morning, so it is time for me to lay aside my pen and get on with digging over my tattie patch. mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-10409253672002096642020-04-08T06:24:11.327+01:002020-04-08T06:24:11.327+01:00the present actions of the establishment may, in t...the present actions of the establishment may, in the technical parlance of certain professional circles, be broadly scientifically classified under the generic socio-anthropological heading of <i>"taking the fucking piss"</i>, and moreover, this profoundly philosophical shaggy-dog-story - a satirical dissertation on the absurd disjuncture between empire and subjects - is, in fact, a celebrated example of franz kafka <i>"taking the fucking piss"</i> which - should our world-leadership choose to establish the absurd nature of its present political predicament - undoubtedly constitutes essential recommended reading for both the prime minister - when he achieves improved health - and, of course, the incumbent president of the united states of america: <br /><br /><br /><i><b>the great wall of china</b><br /><br />see translation by ian johnston of vancouver island university, nanaimo, british columbia, canada - http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/kafka/greatwallofchinahtml.html</i>ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-19902434898337266112020-04-08T03:30:06.929+01:002020-04-08T03:30:06.929+01:00@8 april 2020 at 02:26
franz kafka's famous p...@8 april 2020 at 02:26<br /><br />franz kafka's famous parable <i>before the law</i> was originally included in his novel <i>the trial</i> - and is often used, by teachers, as an introduction to kafka's work.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-56727877452916931412020-04-08T02:26:40.829+01:002020-04-08T02:26:40.829+01:00although a parable about a man seeking permission ...although a parable about a man seeking permission to gain entrance, i reckon that - interpreted in reverse - this franz kafka story - translated courtesy of ian johnston, vancouver island university - has relevance for those wishing to be allowed out - including, when in improved health, the prime minister:<br /><br /><br /><i><b>before the law</b><br /><br />before the law sits a gatekeeper. to this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. but the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. the man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometime later on. “it is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. when the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “if it tempts you so much, try going inside in spite of my prohibition. but take note. i am powerful. and i am only the lowliest gatekeeper. but from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the last. i cannot endure even one glimpse of the third.” the man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. the gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. there he sits for days and years. he makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. the gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. the man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. the latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “i am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” during the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. he forgets the other gatekeepers, and this first one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. he curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, as he grows old, he only mumbles to himself. he becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. but he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. now he no longer has much time to live. before his death he gathers up in his head all his experiences of the entire time into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. he waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. the gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the difference between them has changed considerably to the disadvantage of the man. “what do you want to know now?” asks the gatekeeper. “you are insatiable.” “everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is it that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” the gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. i’m going now to close it.”</i><br /><br /><br />translation by ian johnston of vancouver island university, nanaimo, british columbia, canada - https://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/kafka/beforethelawhtml.htmlultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-48822055481342611612020-04-08T02:08:03.598+01:002020-04-08T02:08:03.598+01:00Whisper it, mrs i, but I'm liberal, to a degre...Whisper it, mrs i, but I'm liberal, to a degree, I mean, I want everybody to be free. Though I have voted for them all in my time. I voted for "Nick Raynsford" once, man of the people, about to save us from Von Thatcher and he turned to be Wyvill Richard Nicolls Raynsford of Milton Manor, in Milton Malsor. The bastard. <br /><br />The hoodwinking of us all by Mr Tory Blather still brings me up stone stopped dead. WTF?, as the children ask. And now McDoom wants to get all the villains of the last two decades together, to save us, to work together, for the many... Fife must be boring in spring. Let's sing another song, boys, please. This one has grown old and bitter.mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-72601222607852853482020-04-08T01:39:35.903+01:002020-04-08T01:39:35.903+01:00the prime minister currently being under-the-weath...the prime minister currently being under-the-weather - and therefore only in the market for literature of extremely restricted length - here is my reading-suggestion for him - franz kafka's shortest story - courtesy of <i>wikipedia</i>:<br /><br /><br /><i><b>a little fable</b><br /><br />"alas", said the mouse, "the whole world is growing smaller every day. at the beginning it was so big that i was afraid, i kept running and running, and i was glad when i saw walls far away to the right and left, but these long walls have narrowed so quickly that i am in the last chamber already, and there in the corner stands the trap that i am running into."<br /><br />"you only need to change your direction," said the cat, and ate it up.</i>ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-66387058401414928642020-04-07T22:48:19.687+01:002020-04-07T22:48:19.687+01:00Yes, they're by Franz Kafka, Mrs I. Not everyo...Yes, they're by Franz Kafka, Mrs I. Not everyone's cuppa but I think he was/is astonishing and of our moment - and most moments.<br /><br />I've had too much Glen Moray (£20 Tesco and fabulous value) but I'd like to say that there is a serenity now about the hosting of this blog which is a serious tonic and which is, I'm sure, hard won. Anyway, it's a refuge.Bungalow Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-4272179164627533892020-04-07T22:34:08.892+01:002020-04-07T22:34:08.892+01:00God alone knows what is happening, chaps, but let&...God alone knows what is happening, chaps, but let's focus on survival. mr. bill, can you point us to the texts you recommend? mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-51361242518918025612020-04-07T22:11:13.502+01:002020-04-07T22:11:13.502+01:00That is what we may have to do, Mrs I. Heinous Sea...That is what we may have to do, Mrs I. Heinous Seamus once said that calling a wooden spoon a wooden spoon is the beginning of wisdom and he was probably right. Go back to things properly made, as Mr I always insisted, Otherwise, I'm with the first half of Mr Ultrapox's first paragraph.<br /><br />I'm also with the Little Czech Insurance Fella whose visionary genius is once again moving back from cliche to Big Truth. Those who may not have read The Trial and, particularly, The Castle really should. They're the purest documentaries, being shot now.<br />Bunglow Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-62770557044116211392020-04-07T22:04:11.324+01:002020-04-07T22:04:11.324+01:00dear mrs ishmael,
i write to inform you that far ...dear mrs ishmael,<br /><br />i write to inform you that far from being 'fake-news', the notion that we, in the government's team of medical advisors, deliberately infected the prime minister with the corona-virus is, in actuality, an entirely accurate representation of events - and may i explain that, although this clinical intervention may, to the layman, appear to have comprised a somewhat drastic course of action, it in fact formed an integral part of our innovative nietzschean nerd-immunization plan...<br /><br />so chill man, and remember: <i>vorsprung durch technik</i>.professor foggisumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-77866987925401998822020-04-07T20:59:08.561+01:002020-04-07T20:59:08.561+01:00sorry about the hare-brained hypotheses, mrs ishma...sorry about the hare-brained hypotheses, mrs ishmael, but i must confess that, like many, i'm rather partial to a juicy conspiracy-theory - primarily, i suppose, in order to complement the constant bland diet of professionally faked news which we're force-fed by the mainstream-media-outlets. however, this <i>penchant</i> for the altogether extraordinary explanation really isn't my fault, you know, because i readily pick up such virulent ideas all around cyberspace - and i have to admit that i sure do read some pretty dodgy blogs.<br /><br />don't worry about dr scoldedgood - she'll become a legend in her own lifetime, much like 'eddie the eagle', or 'eric the eel', but, rather than the living embodiment of mad british, or guinean, have-go-heroism, become a by-word for rank establishment-hypocrisy. she's already made a damn fine job of undermining the authority of the power-addicted political <i>élite</i> - so fear not, she will be back...<br /><br />even if only doing the good work of delivering babies and what-not.<br /><br />at the end of the day, people will have to acknowledge that doctor fail-do-good didn't actually murder anybody - and is far less dangerous than walking civil disaster-zones such as lin homer, david gauke, and professor neil foggisum.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-15983960559157914092020-04-07T20:54:38.650+01:002020-04-07T20:54:38.650+01:00Don't despair, mr bill, sharpen some sticks an...Don't despair, mr bill, sharpen some sticks and plant some potatoes.mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-91924054117562723732020-04-07T20:26:11.399+01:002020-04-07T20:26:11.399+01:00I can't give credit to anyone or anything at t...I can't give credit to anyone or anything at the moment. We seem to be lost among fictions woven into fictions. It has probably always been so but we have been able, at least, to pretend that most of it was true or trueish, while keeping straight faces.<br /><br />Now, Professor Icke sounds no more absurd than other commentators; he's just a bit exotic. Ruin indeed, I don't think we've ever been so bankrupt.Bungalow Billnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-24373359419275374132020-04-07T18:59:06.844+01:002020-04-07T18:59:06.844+01:00Dear mr ultra, I love "dr scoldedgood". ...Dear mr ultra, I love "dr scoldedgood". If we ever have cause to refer to her again, that shall be her name. Unlikely to need to refer to her, though, as she has sunk beneath our wisdom like a stone. I see The Demeaning as a Robin Hardy film, with the avenging plod played by Edward Woodward. You are right - the bespectacled radically shorn signer is a female (we don't know if she's a feminist)version of rowan atkinson. They've also got a male signer who makes the most extra-ordinary faces. Subtitles is the way to go - they've just got to get a bit faster at them. And more accurate.<br />And you really must stop all this fake news/conspiracy theorising, before they take measures against us, as they are proposing doing with What's App (what is that?) and Youtube.mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-12265190987072598452020-04-07T18:42:53.067+01:002020-04-07T18:42:53.067+01:00Oh, mr mongoose, I was the biggest fool going when...Oh, mr mongoose, I was the biggest fool going when Tony Blair stormed to victory with his New Labour Party. You see, I confused New Labour with Labour - see what an idiot I was! I chaired a branch meeting of my trade union the following day, and we were happy and triumphant. How embarassing. But, as you say, he was a lad, winsome and charismatic, with that strange, staccato way of speaking and, we thought, a new world dawning in his eyes. That'll teach us for being naive. Clause 4 and global murderers - pragmatism and power beats idealism any time.<br />How nice that the Abbess drawers had a reincarnation in your dad's workshop. Sturdy things, these Abbesses.<br />Get well soon, Boris, your country needs you.mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-33395843937212657322020-04-07T16:16:04.837+01:002020-04-07T16:16:04.837+01:00@7 April 2020 at 16:02
correction: "we are s...@7 April 2020 at 16:02<br /><br />correction: <i>"we are simply being played, and this hospitalization-drama <b>is</b> just a handy exit-strategy"</i>.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-74651520837978130662020-04-07T16:10:25.841+01:002020-04-07T16:10:25.841+01:00pardon, the above was addressed to mrs ishmael.pardon, the above was addressed to mrs ishmael.ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-2750116631899802812020-04-07T16:02:58.986+01:002020-04-07T16:02:58.986+01:00the demeaning was chilling and puritan: "come...<i>the demeaning was chilling and puritan: "come down into the body of the kirk, sinner, and feel <b>ye</b> the wrath of god."</i><br /><br /><br />very nicely put, <i>the demeaning</i> - i feel a film coming on: stanley kubrick, or a hammer-horror with peter cushing and christopher lee, perhaps? maybe the good doctor could double as the helpless virgin lain prone upon the sacrificial altar?<br /><br />i'm sure that the ordeal-by-gnasher was as nothing in comparison to the preceding visit from plod, whose officers - to give them their due - are, as a consequence of routinely dealing with genuine tragedy, some of the most accomplished melodramatists in the business. can you just imagine the kind of admonishing performance they relished giving at the calderwood family-home, all delivered with a stiffly stern and straight face?<br /><br />the erring lady, as you say, certainly faced the fiery and fulminating blast of the first bag-pipe with admiral bravery, and duly repented her mortal sin of going to the seaside with a degree of sincerity as absolute as we have known from a public figure, in these recent ethically cheapened and cosmeticized times. however, dr scoldedgood was clearly highly emotional and finding the calculated and choreographed televized apology a deeply chastening and gruelling experience - an ordeal evidently made all the more traumatic by having, in her rear, a bespectacled, and radically shorn, feminist version of rowan atkinson busily executing the signing as judgmental performance-art.<br /><br />thankfully, bouncing boris is still breathing, and allegedly doing so unaided - proving him to be the greatest prime minister since winny the war-criminal. hopefully, for joker johnson, we are simply being played, and this hospitalization-drama just a handy exit-strategy, or a device to facilitate <i>détente</i> - he having realized the lock-down to be a neurotic nation-wasting over-reaction, and the imminent emergency-execution of the inevitable u-turn-escape-manœuvre to require the political space and slack generated by a wave of national sympathy.<br /><br />on the other hand, of course, this gripping 'house of common corona' episode of holby city could well be seized upon, by the nation's dominant medical flagellators - who in fact, maybe intentionally, infected the poor bugger in the first place - as a serendipitous opportunity for emotional blackmail, and thus a suitably proselytizing pretext for enforcing the lockdown with ever more rigour.<br /><br />i don't envy boris-the-bumble the life-and-death limbo of the intensive care unit tho' - however much expert care-and-attention you may get there...ultrapoxnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-77709070185088656022020-04-07T15:56:07.574+01:002020-04-07T15:56:07.574+01:00If memory serves, mrs i, the drawers from that des...If memory serves, mrs i, the drawers from that desk ended up under a planked workbench in my dad's man-cave two houses later.<br /><br />It's a rum old do when one is older than the PM, especially when he is in such a pickle. Blair was the first of the bastards to be younger than me. After my entire adult life being at the mercy of the Tory Bastards it seemed as if it was indeed a bright new morning. And a lad in charge too. How little we knew. Yes, beggar the nation for a decade - that's what Labour are for, to have a turn and to reset the controls, rebalance the tooth-and-claw three goes that the Bastards get. But bugger me what a clown. The second best politician of my lifetime, he could have done anything.<br /><br />I think that, eejit that he is, we rather need young Boris at the moment. mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-90007085899024711082020-04-07T14:27:54.281+01:002020-04-07T14:27:54.281+01:00Thank you, mr verge, I hadn't realised that th...Thank you, mr verge, I hadn't realised that the blog has a search facility. mr blackhole said: "it seems like years, aeons, even, since the mad, raving lunatic was pried from his imaginary levers of control. He recedes, now, at such velocity as to be visibly red-shifted. Just another iron hard, soot-ice clinker, lost in the void of interstellar space - Fife, apparently." 26 November 2010 <br />Seems mr blackhole spoke too soon. Brown is on the case, Saving the World. Oh, do buck up, Bo-Jo, get beck to the levers of control sharpish.mrs ishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-77810322351471959782020-04-07T13:41:16.104+01:002020-04-07T13:41:16.104+01:00I think all the respect must go the other way, Mrs...I think all the respect must go the other way, Mrs Ishmael, for obvious reasons. As for current affairs, Ishmaelites will enjoy a post from 8 years ago if they type BROWN OVER KOREA. SNOTTY GOES TO WAR into the blog's own search box, top left. Brown (retired, but not in his own mind) is shown ranting away with impotent megalomania, insisting he was Still In Charge - this is now a clear case of Nostradamus Smith, as Bruin was on the radio this morning sermonising about the need to gather "one hundred" former presidents and prime ministers (like him, see) to Save The World. Honest, not invent. Grave new world, what has such fuckers, innit?<br /><br />v./<br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com