mazelike/rhizomatic/immanent/emergent are not antithetical to a transcendent real but its very manifestation
Sun, 02 Nov 2025 23:49:08
or never left
i did until you asked which kind of gave it away
barren land
And thank you for telling me that the manner in which the narrator consistently fails to act morally is really compelling. Fuck you.
After I get away from the old racist failed actor, I go to see my Korean colleague. He's just arrived in London and I want to see how he's handling the party. We'd been invited as fresh meat for some of the older, gayer attendees. We aren't aware of that.
As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.
My inability to confront the old racist failed actor is distracting me. I decide not to tell her about it.
We gather around the start of a causeway down to the Thames. It's a pretty cold night and there's a breeze coming off the river. I've found the girl, or she's found me, and we're smoking a cigarette while we watch the dim silhouettes of the French Raj and his fireworks bearer down on the bank. They're fucking around with the box. I ask her what people do with fireworks for so long before they're ready to light. She doesn't know.
He went in there with a camera to film it before he moved out of the building. He didn't think anyone would believe the story if he didn't have proof.
Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.
what do you mean
yeah
feel you
and the fake qualifier
She closes the window. I wasn't paying attention anyway, I'm getting cold, and the birds are nowhere to be seen. I go inside.
so the method has to be autonomous
I catch him on his way to the bar, telling him about this old racist failed actor that I'm avoiding. That I'm failing to confront. I get the sense he's avoiding people too. We get our drinks and find a corner. We chat for a bit. He's managing just fine.
There is a pretty persistent ambient hate in England, a lot of people say vile shit about Muslims or immigrants or whatever, but in my experience most people aren't actual white supremacists. They have a black friend who they get a beer with. One of the good ones. Etc.
She says something that isn't really right but isn't really wrong. I'm not taking in their words any more, just their voices, trying to get a feel for whatever is going on between them. I'm imagining what it's like for them in this delicate situation, what I would say if it were me. She has that perfect upper-class accent, and she's using whatever upper-class tact that comes with it to navigate this. Style. They can't be together, but their voices are betraying them.
lol yea
The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."
much more tactility
Sun, 23 Nov 2025 10:37:17
Hours staring at the ceiling, the wall, curling up into a ball. It seems annoyed with the light, it kind of recoils. It will get lighter. I wonder where it goes in the day.
like people can read 100 books and still not have the fire within them
Another Frenchman pushes through the crowd to join him. He's an events organiser who I'd met earlier, and he's holding a large box wrapped in a bin bag. They're the fireworks he'd smuggled in from France the night before. They're Industrial Grade, whatever that means for fireworks.