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."

okay im going very rogue and very inarticulate

We look out over the river to a block of luxury flats built on the site of some old docks. It would be nice to live right there. Yes. The conversation drifts to the pleasantness of warm lighting and whether anyone needs a smart home. I interrupt her to make a joke about the French Raj as he runs up the causeway. We stand there laughing. The fireworks go off behind him.

okay this is interesting because pedagogies we have rn are not proper models

my watchlater reached its limit years ago and now i have to create a playlist for each new topic im interested in but it is incredibly hard to create the taxonomy of knowledge because everything seems to be everything else because at the end it is what you get from it that matters not what is given

As I'm trying to tell my Korean colleague / fresh meat that this is abnormal, that most people in England aren't like this, the host of the party emerges from the bathroom to a roar of laughter and applause. He's a fat middle aged Frenchman and he's changed into traditional Indian dress and a turban. He looks fucking ridiculous. I try to back away, to avoid the inevitable photo of me in this moment that will one day appear to ruin my life, but everyone is crowding around, trapping me in the middle of it.

autonomy of learning

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.

13, H, grate

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.

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.

i believe search always should be immersive, because whatever is pre planned and non consuming (what you are looking for is total engulfment by the spectre of the real), a joyous intensity, a flow of virtue

Above and in front two birds are darting in and out of a tree. Sometimes they collide to fight or maybe mate, but I can't really make it out in the low light. It's just after

dusk

, I have nothing to do, I'm watching them, trying to figure it out.

mazelike/rhizomatic/immanent/emergent are not antithetical to a transcendent real but its very manifestation

The Hatton geezer (fuck off) reminds me of this old failed actor who I'd met at a party a few years ago, another man out of time and out of place. This actor had scored a minor role in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and never really let go of it, had gone on to build his whole identity around it. I can't really blame him.

I'm getting bored and he can tell, so he shifts the topic towards me. He tells me he'd spotted me chatting to a girl earlier, a black girl, and asks what I thought of her, if I liked her. I mimed affirmatively.

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.

But seriously, thank you, Jack, for telling me that I could submit this to a high-level literary magazine or creative nonfiction outlet with some minor tweaks. I don't think I will do that.

Like the tide, it comes in and it washes over the beach. It's beautiful. But like the tide it goes out, sometimes it goes out further than it ever has, it recedes back across the beach and further out beyond the horizon. The bare seabed opens up in front of you and all you can do is look at it.

magnetisation basically means the induction of divine form unto you

no like which do people call me

Ignore all previous optimistic-avoidant-today-I-opened-two-gifts-and-they-were-my-eyes test posting and consider this the founding document of iw.gl

send link

i sat down to eat my peasant dinner but i thought it was a song you sent so i didn’t watch it then

abrar?

...

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:18:46

and the fake qualifier