Writing, and all that cal – Page 7 – Christopher's Headspace

Too Busy to Blog!

November 27, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

For many writers – both accomplished and aspiring – a common obstacle to productivity is inspiration. Most people run dry at some point. It’s not a brag when I say that this isn’t a problem for me: no, my real problem is time. There simply isn’t enough, and there are only so many ways to stretch it.

Over the past few years, a fair few people have asked me how I manage to maintain my output, how I find the time. The answer has always been that I make time, and type quickly. But then, every now and again, it becomes insustainable, and when it does, something’s gotta give.

I didn’t set out to become a music writer: it was something I once dreamed off, made a few stabs at and did on a very part-time and voluntary basis for a couple of local and regional papers back in the early 90s before giving it up. My applications to music papers for paid work had been unsuccessful, to the extent that none of them had even bothered to reject me, and I decided it was simply too competitive for me, a person who’s not particularly competitive by nature. Moreover, not given to being all that outgoing, and steadfastly refusing to suck up or otherwise ingratiate myself, I decided music journalism wasn’t the career for me. I was 25, working full time and studying at the same time, and in my spare time, attempting to carve out a novel. I was going to be a proper writer!

It took another five years to get my first book, Bad Houses out into the world, and the novel I had been working on, Exiled in Domestic Life, along with its sequel, Rusty Bullet Wounds, remains languishing, unpublished. Still, a lot’s happened since then, and while I have received some help and support – not to mention invaluable exposure – from people who I’ve encountered along the way, my weekly blog on MySpace did contribute considerably to whatever readership I achieved.

People are always going on about the importance of maintaining a blog as a means of building and maintaining one’s profile, and at the time, it seemed that they were right, but when the MySpace community dissolved before my eyes, so the hits to my blog plummeted. Rebuilding a readership from scratch just felt like too much effort for questionable reward, and by this time I had begun reviewing for Whisperin’ and Hollerin’, something I had fallen into quite by accident, but it felt good to be reviewing again. It had been noticeable that the reviews I had posted on my blog had been the least successful by miles, receiving half the hits of my rants. Having a proper outlet for the reviews was an extremely positive thing, and besides, it meant that even if I wasn’t being paid, I was getting free CDs and entry to gigs – plus being able to say that I was a writer for a recognised site meant I was able to approach PR companies directly and have them add me to their mailing lists. This meant even more freeness.

At present, I’m managing to review approximately half of the stuff I get sent, and given that I’m kicking out an average of one to two reviews per day, you can get an idea of just how much the reviewing gig’s grown in the last couple of years. But I don’t want to be known simply as a music writer: I do still write fiction, after all, and have some pretty hefty projects in the works, with the story ‘Corrupted from Memory’ which appears in the new Paraphilia anthology A Dream of Stone being the first of a new wave of fairly dense pieces penned recently.

Then there are the interviews. I’d be daft to turn down the chances I’ve had to meet up with various bands, or to conduct email interviews with Malcolm McNeill and JG Thirlwell. They’re once in a lifetime opportunities. None of them came about because of my blogging, though, and finding the bile to spew out a weekly rant in a blog just wasn’t something I had in me.

The discipline of maintaining a regular blog is healthy for a writer, primarily because it’s so easy to procrastinate, defer and postpone: a commitment to produce a piece each day or week can be a great motivator and can provide the impetus to knuckle down to writing and attempt something new. By the same token, it can all too easily become an obstacle to producing anything else, with the main work becoming sidelined by the thing that’s supposedly a mode of liberation and promotion. Moreover, in churning out pieces on not only a regular but a frequent basis, it’s easy for the quality of output to suffer and to find yourself saying the same thing. If it gets boring to write, it’s going to be equally boring to read: if and when that moment arrives, it’s time to quit.

I had other reasons to quit, or at least cut back though: well, something had to give. I’m no longer studying, but am still working full-time and then some. I can’t not: there are bills to pay, and very few writers actually get to make a living from it. Besides, getting to teach English Literature to undergraduates, albeit on a part-time basis, is often rewarding, but make no mistake, it’s hard work, especially in conjunction with holding down another job at the same time. So how do I find the time to write? Make time, and type fast, of course. But without blogging, at least as often. Has it damaged my readership? No, I don’t think so, and while I receive more hits to my site via searches for ‘Christopher Nonsibor reviewer’ and Christopher Nosnibor Whisperin and Hollerin’, I still get the same number who arrive at my site having searched for ‘Christopher Nosnibor writer’ or for one of my books (more often than not THE PLAGIARST).

But then, I’ve recently found myself wondering if maintaining a blog is as important as it used to be – not just for me, but in general. I still read voraciously, but the number of blogs I read has diminished, and I instead prefer to read a small number irregularly, rather than a large number regularly, partly because many of the blogs I follow tailed off around the same time I allowed my blogging activity to become less of a feature of my writing output. Is the golden age of blogging over? Does it really matter? A world in which everyone has a blog is a cluttered one, but shouldn’t be mistaken for a well-informed one. Knowledge may well equal power to an extent, but with no shortage of blogs brimming with ill-informed opinions and even outright hateful propaganda receiving ample traffic, it would equally appear that misinformation is power, and besides, who cares about what you’re saying as long as you’re popular. The interest in celebrity blogs and Tweets remains unabated. Ok, so bloggers like myself (i.e. the authors of the blogs I like to read) are never going to be in competition with these ‘celebrity’ retards, and never were, but there comes a time when pissing in the wind stops being fun and simply becomes a thankless slog.

For me, the blog always served a dual function: to vent or to comment on the things I had no other outlet for doing so, and, if I’m honest as an indirect means of promotion. Now, I have other channels for both promotion and venting, and besides, I’ve come to the conclusion that the world only needs so many producers of culture and of comment, given that there are only so many consumers. Personally, I try to do both, but it’s hard to consume while producing. It’s simply impossible to read an article and write one at the same time. So, while I continue to work on the job of perfecting a clone or two to enable me to multitask more effectively, the blogs will remain on the back burner while I crack on with the real work…

And of you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

A Dream of Stone (and Other Ghost Stories), edited by D M Mitchell and Dire Mccain is out now in the US through Paraphilia Books.

A is for…

October 9, 2011 christophernosnibor2 Comments

Way, way back, I began work on a book with the working title of The A-Z of Internet Porn. The project fell by the wayside, but not before I had amassed a fair few entries (boom boom) and outlined a large (oo-er) percentage of the entries (fnarr) the projected book would cuntain. Maybe one day I will return to the project and finish it off (snicker), or perhaps I’ll attempt to flog the concept to a publisher for someone else to take in hand (huh huh), but in the meantime, while it’s languishing on my hard-drive (nyak nyak) alongside the completed novels Exiled in Domestic Life and Rusty Bullet Wounds and the never-ending work-in-progress that is my post-apocalyptic romance novel So Dark All Over Europe, I thought I might shove (arferoo!) a few extracts up here as and when the mood so takes me… Enjoy!

A is for….

ACCIDENTAL NUDITY

It’s a common situation: you’re out clubbing or on a night out with some gal pals and, forgetting you’re wearing something strappy, start dancing rather too wildly (well those 2 for 1 Bacardi Breezers are hard to decline) and suddenly – oops! – your tit pops out. You’re mortified, naturally, and put it away as quickly as possible in the hope that no-one’s noticed. Alas, no such luck: one of your mates had their camera of phone out and just happened to snap at the crucial moment.

The good news is that most mainstream social networking sites like Facebook remove pictures that are in any way ‘adult’ (clearly being off your face and spewing on the pavement is for kids) so should the pics that could ruin your reputation in a matter of hours make it up there (and the chances are that they will), so the chances of them being up for long and seen by the half of the world that didn’t see them in the first few hours won’t get to.

The bad news is that there are people on-line who go crazy for these kind of pictures. And of course, if you’re remotely famous, it’s even worse, because there are paps absolutely everywhere, with their lenses in your life, following you on holiday, to the shops, to the toilet…

Is it porn, though? It’s debatable, it has to be said. But we live in a celebrity-obsessed, sexualised culture in which one man’s poison is another man’s meat and one man’s yawn is another man’s porn…

See also CANDID SHOTS, CELEBRITY NUDES, DOWNBLOUSE, NIP-SLIP, NIPPLE POKIES, VOYEURISM.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

It Means Nothing So It Means Nothing: an Interview with ‘Hack’ author James Wells

October 2, 2011October 2, 2011 christophernosnibor4 Comments

I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of James Wells’ debut novel Hack when I received a preview over email from Clinicality boss Stuart Bateman, accompanied by a request to provide artwork for the cover. Parts of it made me laugh myself silly: others frustrated me beyond belief. Others still made me feel like I needed to take a shower. It’s the grubby, sordid story of a music journo, who on the one hand is such a scabby scum-sucking, double-crossing pondlife deserves everything he gets, yet on the other hand, as a part-time freelance music writer myself, couldn’t help but sympathise with some of his grievances – and he has many.

The first-person narrator, Rob, is a man who’s torn between his integrity and his libido. he’s not dumb, but he behaves it – and often has to act it just to get on with his job, but then one has to wonder how much of his shameful behaviour and how many of his diabolical opinions are the drink and drugs talking.

I should perhaps point out here and now that I don’t identify with the lifestyle aspects of the story, and while, in the event, the book incorporates subtly edited versions of reviews I myself have written, the book isn’t in any way based on me or my work. However, being the observant sort, I’ve spied more than enough sleazy music journos who think they’re the scene while at gigs that the tale Wells relates through Hack seems more than credible enough for me to buy it. And therein lies the book’s double-edged sword: it makes for uncomfortable reading, but is also compelling, a complete car-crash of a story. As a novel, it’s superficial and trashy, but also brilliantly observed, but I still couldn’t quite decide how to take it, so when Stuart asked me if I’d like to conduct an interview with the book’s author, I jumped at the chance, if only to find out just what kind of sleazy tosser this James Wells guy was – or if, perhaps, I should remember my own first principle of separating narrator from author…

The following exchange took place over the course of a couple of weeks of emailing.

CN: Hack is a pretty grubby book that paints a pretty messy and unpleasant picture of bands, reviewers, the music industry and the world as a whole. How much of it is drawn from experience?

JW: Well, some is, some isn’t. It’s a mish-mash of stuff I’ve observed first hand, stuff I’ve read and stuff I’ve imagined. It’s certainly not a realist work. It’s mostly supposed to be a bit of fun, with a fairly dark, twisted and dirty sense of humour pushing it along.

CN: It certainly is dirty. What’s the narrator’s obsession with ejaculating over breasts?

JW: It was just a bit of a gimmick, really. I was just messing with formula, really. It started when I was reading Bukowski – Women, it might have been, one of his really filthy works that’s really sordid – it just had a sort of cumulative effect, every few pages it’s the same scenario. He’s humped some broad and it’s ‘I rolled over, wiped myself down’, then he goes to the race track and gets wrecked. After while it all gets a but nauseating, but I actually liked it and found it funny in a sick way, and I was going for that. It was a long time since I actually read those book’s but they stuck with me, that matter-of-fact gutter eloquence and the way scenes just seem to play out again and again. Then there’s the whole process of pulp writing, the endless rehashing of scenes, plots and phrases, and I just recreated that in the context of a low-down, seedy music hack on an endless treadmill. Mostly, though, I wanted to keep the formula basic: sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

CN: To what extent is Hack autobiographical?

JW: Not very. At all, in fact.

CN: The book’s set in Leeds and presents itself as being based around the Leeds scene. Are any of the characters based on real people?

JW: Yes, quite a few, but I wouldn’t like to say which ones.

CN: Are the opinions expressed about music and bands your own? By which I mean, to what extent can we align the criticism and musical tastes of the protagonist with the author?

JW: Yes, I agree with many of the opinions expressed and like the bands the narrator Rob favours, and when he’s slagging a band, like Kasabian or whatever, I’m using him as a cipher through which to express my opinions. And so the distinction between fact and fiction, author and narrator continues to blur.

CN: With some of the running themes – in particular the CDs accumulating in Rob’s room – I got a sense of Chuck Palahniuk. In Fight Club and Choke, there are threads of the stories where the characters just endlessly collect, until the amassment of things – it’s rocks in Choke – takes over their lives. And then, of course, Palahniuk makes considerable use of heavy repetition. Was that intentional, or purely coincidental?

JW: It was entirely intentional. I’m a big fan of Palahniuk’s books and I thought that the way he addresses that idea of obsession with physical objects, that kind of obsessive gathering and accumulation was really appropriate to the music fan, and from the research I did it seems to be a common problem with reviewers.

CN: Well, it certainly is in my experience. So with regard to the music reviews in the book, you ended up using slightly altered pieces of mine after Stewart at Clinicality suggested there might be a few problems with the manuscript as it was. What happened?

JW: In my attempts to a) keep it ‘real’ and b) churn the book out quickly – I wanted it to be a piece of hack-work in itself, in the spirit of the narrative because I wanted it to be raw, immediate, unedited in feel, as though written to meet a deadline like so much journalism – I lobbed a bunch of reviews I found on-line and changed them a bit. But while editing the book, Stuart decided he didn’t want to take the risk of using ‘stolen’ reviews, even though the chance of getting stung for it was pretty negligible, and that’s when he suggested seeing how you felt about some of your reviews going in – with a few small alterations.

CN: As the ‘author’ of THE PLAGIARIST it would be hypocritical of me to refuse. Besides, I’m getting used to seeing chopped-up versions of my own reviews cropping up in all sorts of places on-line so I figured ‘what’s a few more’? I suppose this also tied in with the ‘spinning’ element of the story…

JW: That was exactly it. The part of the book where Rob can’t sustain his output so takes to lifting other people’s reviews and changing them slightly and then altering a few words here and there so one single review could end up yielding a dozen or so, I wanted to make it authentic. It’s a practice known as word-spinning. It’s insanely common, it’s how a lot of sites get just masses of content on-line so they appear up in the lists on search engines and I thought ‘this is proper hack work, 21^st century style’ so I went for it and wanted to integrate it into the story. As it turned out, it was only semi-authentic, but still, I think the effect’s there.

CN: So aside from Palahniuk, Bukowski, and me, who and what influenced Hack?

JW: I’m not really all that keen on saying that I’ve been influenced by anyone because it sets up an expectation for the reader, and if they’re going to pick up my book because they’re expecting it to read like Bukowski or Palahniuk, then they’ll probably be extremely disappointed or annoyed. But I suppose I have taken bits and pieces from various other writers and sources, without really thinking about it, it’s impossible not to. Obviously, the music press was a big ‘influence’, and I know you do what you do reviewing wise and I generally like your approach, but there are some really awful reviewers out there, and forums too. Fans think they’re the best critics, and anyone who criticises ‘their’ band is in dangerous territory – and they seem to think that they’re the only people entitled to slag off ‘their’ band, too. it’s very strange that they’re so previous and so critical at the same time. The press blurb Stuart did also mentioned the John Niven book Kill Your Friends and I suppose that’s a fair comparison, but it wasn’t an influence. What else? Hard to say. I didn’t sit down and think ‘I’m going to write a book that incorporates elements of whoever and whoever’, so apart from the parts that were consciously based on Buk and Chuck, any other similarities in terms of style or plot to anything else is entirely coincidental.

CN: As with Kill Your Friends – which is a book I really enjoyed – there aren’t many – any likeable or ‘sympathetic’ characters. Why is that?

JW: I wanted the misanthropy of the narrator to feed through the narrative. Most of the characters don’t really have much depth to them so the reader doesn’t get to know them very well, but that’s not what they’re there for, they’re just there for the story, they’re functional. The main characters aren’t very deep either, but then I never wrote Hack as a literary novel with emotionally-engaging character development at its heart. In fact, it doesn’t have a heart, and that’s as intended, reflecting the nature of the business itself.

CN: That’s a very harsh view. There are lots of nice people who are in bands and put bands on who are in it for all the right reasons.

JW: That’s true, but they wouldn’t have made for such a fun book. Besides, the narrator Rob isn’t supposed to be completely unsympathetic. He’s not an out and out bastard, more a bit weak and a victim of circumstance.

CN: Aren’t we all?

JW: Absolutely, and that’s why I think Hack has a universality that extends beyond those with an interest in obscure music and music more broadly. Of course, some readers won’t get all of the references, some won’t get any of them, but it doesn’t change the underlying plot – thin as it is – which is all about systems of interaction between people, the way those interactions are based on mutual use and abuse, and told in a way that while perverse and dark, is also intended to be humorous.

Hack is out now on Clinicality Press, and yes, it is extremely funny (although I didn’t laugh quite hard enough to shit my pants). Buy it: the cover’s ace.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Book Review: Allegorical Beasts by Leo Schulz

August 8, 2011August 15, 2011 christophernosnibor6 Comments

It’s oft said – not least of all by me – that it’s important to learn the rules before breaking them. Otherwise, it’s not subversion, but plain ignorance. On reading the sonnet sequence that occupies the first half of Leo Schulz’ Allegorical Beasts, it’s clearly apparent that the author knows his way around a sonnet.

That Schulz has actually produced a sonnet sequence is in itself extremely telling: in vogue briefly during the Elizabethan period, it’s hardly the verse form of choice for contemporary poets. Not that the forty-five poems that comprise ‘Sonnets of the Sea’ contain any half-arsed doggerel, sixth-form scribblings self-consciously imitating the Petrarchan or Shakespearean form: this is sonneteering 21st century style, which dispenses with the fussy rhyme scheme and the restrictive metrical dictates of old convention to produce a series of poems that pack some real punch. Schulz certainly doesn’t dress things up in draperies of poetic euphemism. Yet at the same time, ‘Sonnets of the Sea’ does follow the principles of thematic unity, and fills the lines with magnificent imagery, some contemporary, some timeless, and succeeds in doing so without being overtly self-conscious or revelling in the author’s own cleverness, a feat also achieved in the three-part ‘Imitation of Dante.’

If ‘The Devil Writes to a Woman Who Loves Him,’ the first of the three prose pieces, seems a little weak despite its twisted psychology and cunningly-devised scenario, it’s only because it’s overshadowed by the final story, ‘Love: A Confession’. The direct, first-person narrative drags the reader through the emotional wringer as the speaker (who I would hate to align with the author, although its raw intensity is so specific and detailed it makes it more than just a little tempting) picks over the scabs of a defunct relationship. Occasionally amusing, always observed and detailed with a stunning precision, the story is delivered with a vivid sense of tormented humanity, making t one of the most engaging short stories I’ve read in a while.

‘Allegorical Beasts’ is an intense and intelligently-written book that marks Schulz as a unique and remarkable literary voice.

Allegorical Beasts is out now on Königreich Böhmen and is available via Amazon.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Review: Black-Listed Thoughts by Mike Meraz (Propaganda Press, 2011)

July 21, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

I like reading, and would fairly describe myself as an avid reader. However, I often wish I had the time to read more. As we all know, time is one of the rarest commodities in today’s insanely hectic society, and while films and music offer instant gratification, the written word requires patience and mental engagement. It’s long struck me as odd, then, that the majority of bestsellers are whopping great 500+ page doorstops (that most of them are complete pap is, naturally, less surprising). Still, contra to the trend, and more in keeping with people’s busy lifestyles, the rise of flash fiction seems entirely appropriate, and short stories have been enjoying a welcome renaissance in recent years. And now, Propaganda Press have started doing a line in something truly innovative, the microbook.

Mike Meraz’s Black-Listed Thoughts is a compendium of pithy bon mots, one-liners, ponderences, reflections and scathing put-downs that’s perfect for dipping into, although just as easily devoured in a single short sitting. There are words of wisdom, words of encouragement, and words that are against wisdom and, well, pretty much anything else. By turns cynical and revelatory, Meraz is never less than sharp in his delivery. I found myself nodding in agreement, before turning the page and laughing heartily: Black-Listed Thoughts is a book for our schizophrenic modern age. A quick read though it is, this wallet-sized tome provides plenty to chew on and leaves a long aftertaste.

It might not be big, but it’s definitely clever enough.

Black-Listed Thoughts is out now on Propaganda Press.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Liberator! Part 10

July 1, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

Tim had a point to prove and a gospel to spread. He had seen the light, he could feel the liberation surging through his veins. He was reborn! He scanned the slightly tatty leaflet on both sides, then pasted the images into a document. Within an hour, he had a hundred sheets of double-sided print stacked in the tray of his printer. He then proceeded to take the pile and fold each A4 sheet in half to produce four sides of A5. The quality was pretty good, and while obviously not an original, first-generation copy, and the background had been darkened slightly on account of the source document being an off-white shade, the text was perfectly legible. Over the next few weeks, he circulated them as widely a he possibly could, leaving them in public places – pubs, the library, on trains and busses, even tucking them into and between books in various book shops, with particular focus on the self-help sections, in the hope of replicating for others the circumstances in which he first discovered the life-changing publication.

Walking down the high street, a girl stopped him with an extended arm. a leaflet advertising a new eatery or somesuch held toward him in her hand.

‘I’ll take one of yours in exchange for one of mine,’ Tim said flamboyantly.

The girl looked perplexed and probably agreed out of bewilderment, at which point Tim took one of her flyers and shoved one of the ‘Liberate Yourself’ handouts, folded in half, that he had been carrying in his pocket into her small hand.

Happy and confident that he had made some gesture toward altering the life praxis of another lost individual caught on the wheels of contemporary culture, Tim headed home with a spring in his step.

Arriving home his mood altered dramatically. The place was empty and unkempt. The surfaces were dusty and dirty dishes were piled high in the sink. The shower’s plughole was clogged with hair, wet towels lay in a heap beside the shower and unwashed clothes littered the floors throughout the residence. An odour resembling hot dogs permeated the whole bedroom. It had been a month since Amy had left and she hadn’t come back, hadn’t called him or made any form of contact, she had simply cut him out. Slumping on the greasy settee, a discarded pizza box and a clanking pike of empty beer cans about his feet, Tim felt tired, physically and emotionally drained. He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His skin felt rough and dry, his eyes sensitive and watery. He was exhausted, and this was reflected in his sallow appearance. No-one had called him in weeks. He couldn’t bring himself to check his emails or his Facebook profile. The last time had broken his rule and snuck himself a tentative sign-in the bottom had dropped out of his world when he saw there was nothing: no messages, no emails, no comments, not even a pathetic poke. Two months missing and the world hadn’t noticed his absence.

The realisation hit with a sickening thud and a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Tim had gained nothing, learned nothing. He had simply replaced one set of rules with another, bound himself with new ties. Having cut the shackles of technological totalitarianism, he had embraced another equally restrictive mode of living, only this time one with even less sense of connection and community than the dislocated confusion of culture he had existed in before. Instead of finding freedom, he has enslaved himself once more, and this time, without any of the support mechanisms that ostensibly held together the web of mainstream society, he was alone. Was he to blame, or was it the instructions he was following? Had he interpreted them correctly? The world wasn’t changing enough to accommodate his alternative lifestyle, wouldn’t allow him to reject it without it rejecting him in return. The fact he didn’t need it was immaterial: society needed him a whole lot less than he needed hit.

If you want to truly liberate yourself, stay in bed. Do not go to work. Do not phone in sick. Just do nothing, and enjoy. If no-one contacts you to query your whereabouts after a week, you may as well kill yourself.

Tim knew what he had to do. He knew who his friends were alright.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Liberator! Part 9

June 26, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

Tim was spending a lot of time as he pleased, but was far from being a man of leisure. Things were shaping up on the allotment, but he was a long was off being self-sufficient. All too often, he found the temptation to do something else less boring instead too great, and would take himself off on long, meandering cycle rides or sit in the pub on his own with a book or a magazine, or even a newspaper. He’d never been a big reader before, but was starting to find it an enjoyable and stimulating pastime, although he preferred non-fiction books and still found the news as depressing as hell. Still, it only reinforced his belief that what he was doing was for the best. The world was sick and he wanted no part in it.

Amy saw things differently though. Tension had been mounting and the more Tim refused to join her on her social climbing excursions and uncomfortable engagements with people neither he nor she really liked, the more irritated she became.

It all came to ahead one Wednesday evening. Amy had been working late and Tim hadn’t been working at all. It had begun with Amy’s daily harangue about him getting another job, and he’d had to admit that money was beyond tight. His suggestion that they sell some of Amy’s DVDs and unwanted clothed had incensed her and she had given him a piece of her mind with a few home truths expressed in the most straightforward of terms.

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ he had said.

‘You’re right, I don’t. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you,’ he had snapped in reply. ‘You need your head checked. You’re not living in the real world!’

‘No,’ he’d replied in a measured tone, solid with confidence and conviction, ‘I’m part of the solution. Your way of living, following the herd, running on empty and perpetual stress, as though you’re actually gaining from it, is all wrong. Success – material success – is an illusion. No-one sees it because they’re scared.’

‘Don’t talk like that, you sound like you’re mad!’ Any had screamed.

Tim had shaken his head. ‘If only you knew’, he had sighed. ‘Look, you’re off to a party for Paul’s birthday tonight, right? Why are you going? You feel obliged,’ he had lectured. ‘You can’t say no because you can’t be seen to not be there. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? But what’s in it for you, really? You’ll make like you’re having a great time, but it’s all a complete lie. You think he’s boring and his girlfriend’s an idiot. Although to be honest, I think you’re jealous of her because she’s on a higher salary and likes everyone to know it.’

‘Look, I can’t be with you if you’re going to be such a prick,’ Amy had snarled. ‘I’ll be back for my stuff later.’ Then she turned tail and walked out, slamming the door behind her.

Tim’s face flushed, a combination of humiliation and anger. Fuck her. If Amy couldn’t get on board with what he was doing, and support him in making a better life for himself in an insane world based on facades and superficial exchanges devoid of contact or humanity in a culture of hyperinformation, he didn’t need her. It was her loss. One day she would realise he was in the right.

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk

Liberator! Part 8

June 25, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

Over lunch on Saturday, Tim announced his intention to get out of the rat-race. He was going to jack in his job, and wanted them to move to the country where he would maintain a smallholding, a simple subsistence living off the land.

‘Are you insane?’ Amy squawked.

‘I’ve never been more sane,’ Tim replied evenly.

‘You’ve lost the plot,’ his girlfriend snapped, ‘and if you think I’m going to move out into the country and live some kind of ridiculous hippie lifestyle, you’ve got another thing coming!’

Tim went to speak, but Amy declared the discussion closed and ate the rest of her meal in irate silence. She carried her mood through the afternoon’s shopping, too, and while she went out with her friends for the evening, Tim decided to give the drinks with his mates a miss. None of them had been in touch to confirm the time or place anyway, and he’s not heard from anyone but Matt all week. Fuckers. They were all on the ever-lengthening off-limits list, cut off, excised, out of his life. He didn’t need them.

The following morning, Tim wandered around the house in his dressing gown and decided that perhaps his plan had been a bit radical. He didn’t have a clue about farming, so decided to modify his ambitions to more realistic levels. He’d start with an allotment and learn home brewing. He could sell or trade any surplus, thus creating his own micro-economy.

***

It slowly dawned on Tim that he didn’t have the first clue about gardening, or even where he might go to get himself a plot of land. Then he remembered his uncle had an allotment, and that he had been complaining about not having the time to maintain it, so he rang it up and offered to take it off his hands, or at least take over its running. His uncle agreed, and by that afternoon he had the keys to the shed in his pocket and was standing, surveying his new domain. It made a change from surveying dilapidated buildings as he did in his day-job. He felt a swell of pride and a small surge of excitement, despite the fact that the plot was badly neglected and massively overgrown. By evening, he had cleared some of the weeds, but was slowly beginning to realise that getting the land in order would be quite a major undertaking.

After the first week, anyone who initiates contact may be allowed back onto your list. However, should they fail to return your subsequent response within a week, then they are back off the ‘ok’ list and onto the ‘no contact’ list.

A week later and his patch of ground still resembled a weed-infested battleground, despite his having toiled from morning till night for the majority of the days. That said, he had indulged himself with a few lie-ins and leisurely breakfasts, and afternoons off down the pub. He had also given in and checked his emails a handful of times, and signed into his Facebook account. Each time he had done so, he had desperately fought the urge to update his status, although he found it impossible to resist responding to a fee of his friends’ updates and comments. While his bursting inbox and the number of voice mails on his phone, which were mounting by the hours caused his the same nausea-inducing combination of panic and dread, he was beginning to notice a shift in the nature of his correspondence, in that most of it was either work-related or otherwise spam, and that the number of direct, non-circular missives received by both email and via social networking was beginning to diminish.

His feelings about this were conflicting. On the one hand, it came as a relief as the pressure to read and respond to so much peripheral shit began to fall away. On the other, he began to feel as though he was already beginning to fade from society and from his friends’ thoughts. Out of sight, out of mind… he pushed these negative thoughts to the bank of his mind and slipped a DVD in the player. It had been years since he had simply sat and watched a film, at home, on his own, simply because he felt like it.

Over the next fortnight, Tim toiled on the allotment and spent the hours cooking up more ways of sustaining himself while pursuing his new, alternative non-capitalist existence with its corresponding technology-dependent modes of interaction.

Before he knew it, a month had elapsed. He had sent a letter of resignation to his boss after wrestling with his conscience over whether he really owed the cunt or the company so much as a formal notice but in the end drew the conclusion that it was only decent to honour the terms of his contract and besides, he didn’t want to be hauled through whatever processes, from tribunals to courts just to maintain his right to jack in his job.

Before too long – a month, perhaps – you will have a fair idea of who your true friends are. Cherish these people, and make every effort to remain in touch forever.

You will probably find that you have, in actual fact, far fewer friends than you thought. That’s because people are busy, self-absorbed and lazy. Or maybe it’s just that everyone hates you. Deal with it. The positive to be found in this is that you will have significantly more time to spend as you please.

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Liberator! Part 7

June 21, 2011 christophernosnibor2 Comments

‘Wake up, you’ll be late for work!’ Amy was shaking him to stir him from his slumber. Tim didn’t want to wake up. He’d been dreaming that he was on top of a mountain, looking out across the expansive vista of other mountains and trees on the slopes below.

‘I’m not going to work,’ he mumbled from under the duvet.

‘Are you ill?’ Amy quizzed.

‘Nope.’

‘Working from home again?’

‘No!’

‘Have you got a day off? You didn’t tell me if you have!’ she sounded tetchy.

‘No,’ Tim sighed. ‘I’m just not going to work.’

‘I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with you,’ Amy snapped as she flung herself from the bed and dashed about making herself ready.

Tim tensed. He felt a strange sense of déjà vu and something else just beneath the tension. A tingle of excitement and apprehension perhaps.

Before long, Amy had left for work and Tim found himself alone. He turned over and slept for another hour before being awoken by his phone. He turned over and picked up the device that lay buzzing and bleeping from his bedside table. He checked the caller ID. Seeing that it was Flashman, he killed the call and turned over again and slept for another half an hour before getting up and enjoying a leisurely breakfast. This was novel! But before long the novelty wore off and he began to feel restless. Restlessness gave way to agitation. He felt twitchy, fidgety. Resisting the urge to continually check and recheck his email was almost more than he could endure. It seemed unnatural, somehow. To remove the source of temptation, he stitched off his laptop and went for a walk. He had no idea where he was going. It didn’t matter: he simply needed to be out. He hesitated momentarily as he deliberated with himself over whether or not he should take his Blackberry. Going anywhere, even as far as the lavatory, or the back yard, felt somehow wrong, like a breach of protocol, or worse, like heading into a war zone without any kind of arms or protection.

The first thing that struck him was the extreme quietness that hung in the still air. He inhaled deeply and looked up, soaking in the sky’s blue hue and the delicate patterns the clouds traced across the vast expanse. Before long, he became aware that there were sounds to be heard, that the world was not silent. Sirens, but distant, sounded more calming than they did urgent. Birds chirped.

***

He awoke is a panic-stricken sweat. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth. His bruxism was beginning to wear him down, causing frequent toothache and dental sensitivity. He’d treated the last week like a holiday. He’d even let the charge on his Blackberry run down so he wasn’t being hassled by notifications of incoming messages or calls or texts and wasn’t tempted to switch it on. Ignoring the land-line was rather harder, but he’d turned the ringer down, or otherwise taken himself off for walks, drives and cycle rides. He’d spent all of Thursday from midday onwards in the pub.

So far, he knew inside himself that up to now he had only been dabbling, a few small token approximations of the principles of self-liberation. Small wonder nothing had really changed. He still felt tired and stressed and was still struggling to manage his time. Friday night he found himself walking aimlessly, a little drunk but alert in the cool night air. It was as he wandered he found himself struck dumb by a moment of clarity. This was his epiphany, and with it the realisation it had to be all or nothing.

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Liberator! Part 6

June 17, 2011 christophernosniborLeave a comment

As he sat on the train a few days later, perusing the reports he had to digest ahead of the meeting he was travelling to, Tim glanced around at his fellow passengers. Engaged in conversation on mobile phones, tapping out text messages, watching DVDs on laptops and portable players, or otherwise cut off from the rest of the world by their iPods, Tim realised something he already knew but had never felt so aware of before: that everyone was so wrapped up in their own technological bubbles that all sense of community, or free interaction, had been lost. In subscribing to this conformist culture, Tim was engaged in active complicity in the reproduction of the circumstances of his own alienation. He hadn’t signed into Facebook for a while now, and while it was impossible not to check his emails – even a few hours off-line instilled an uneasiness in his stomach and caused his tension levels to increase – he was managing to resist the urge to respond to everything straight away, to click the links on every forward, even to read them all. But the nagging knowledge that there were missives demanding his attention remained in the background, and the flagged and unopened emails mounting up were impossible to forget about completely. He was appreciating the time and freedom to soak in his surroundings a little and to observe from a slightly different perspective but he didn’t exactly feel liberated either: far from it, in fact.

Just then, he noticed it. Sticking out from between a couple of reports, he saw a yellowy-coloured piece of paper. Its corner was slightly dogged. He lifted the report to see what it was. The pamphlet again. How had it go in with that pile of papers? he wondered. Concluding he must have put it down and then picked it up by accident when moving other stuff around, he paused to re-read some of it as he went to move it out of the way, then read on just a little.

For all of the above, allow yourself to reply to any incoming messages, and continue work-related activity as normal (failure to do so may prove damaging to your career). These directions apply only to non-essential outgoing social contact (Obviously, if you’re in the middle of a breakdown, then it’s reasonable to apply these instructions to all contacts as a blanket rule).

You may permit yourself three individuals who are exempt. These must be people who you know will respond to your emails or text messages or will answer or return your calls, and within a reasonable timescale. Two days to respond to a text, or a week to respond to an email is not acceptable. These technologies are all about instant communications, remember! Everyone else in your contacts lists, address book, are off limits. Do NOT contact them. Wait for them to contact you.

***

Tim needed to clear his head. Perhaps he did need to wholly liberate himself as the pamphlet suggested. As he passed the houses, he was able to see the outlines of figures moving inside, moving silhouettes, people’s actions projected like life-size shadow-puppetry. Some had not closed their curtains, or had just opened them, suggesting that dawn was just around the corner and they were making ready for work or whatever. As he wandered past these little compartmentalised lives visible through real-life television screens, he was able to look into their living rooms and bedrooms. He felt nothing, a complete detachment. It didn’t feel wrong. He didn’t feel nosey. He didn’t feel as though he was in any way spying into their homes or voyeuristically peeping into their private lives. Separated by the glass and the distance and the still, dead air, cold and silent, it was like watching television on mute. His presence went unnoticed as they played out their parts. He was simply a viewer, not participating or interacting in any way. Was this liberation?

And if you’re loving my work, there’s more of the same (only different) at Christophernosnibor.co.uk