Tag: Pamphlet

Something Must Break once more–a limited-time publication

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Every once in a while, I publish not in limited quantities, but for limited periods. A gimmick to drive sales? Perhaps, but equally, it connects with my obsession with time, and specifically its brevity in terms of life lived.

In 2016, I marked the leap year by publishing a pamphlet containing two short stories – ‘Something Must Break’, which had previously only been available as an e-book on publication in 2014, and ‘Dream of the Flood,’ penned over the 2016 holidays in response to the floods which hit York that Christmas.

Christmas 2018 seemed an appropriate time to republish, partly as a commemoration where the latter story is concerned, and partly because the former is perhaps one of the bleakest, darkest pieces I’ve written to date.

I often say I switch off to write as a means of avoiding self-censorship, and on revisiting the alternating narrative of ‘Something Must Break’, a story of psychological disintegration and separation, parts of it felt quite shocking even to me.

As I continue to work on the follow-up to Retail Island, which should be out some time in 2019, I’m in a rather different headspace, although as we inch toward the final hours of 2018, it’s perhaps an appropriate time to reflect.

Republished – with alternative cover art – on Christmas Eve 2018, to be deleted at midnight on 31 December 2018, ‘Something Must Break / Dream of the Flood’ is available via the link which is the image blow.

Something Must Break new

Closing the Floodgates: 5 Days and Counting Down

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So, the 29 days of February are inching to a close.At midnight on the 29th, my 29 Days of February project will be terminated, and the pamphlet / ebook containing the short stories ‘Something Must Break’ and ‘Dream of the Flood’ will be deleted. There will be no republication, so the number of copies in circulation will be limited to the number of copies sold during the 29 days.

Here’s a brief excerpt from ‘Dream of the Flood’. Purchase links are at the bottom.

 

As the car alarms squealed and wailed outside under the cover of darkness and following earlier reports of power outages, the lack of contact with the outside world began to gnaw at me in ways I had not anticipated. I was ok, my home was safe, as was my immediate family, but my family and friends further afield had nothing to go by but the news media, and had no means of reaching us, nor I they.

I made my way out, for the second time that day, into the street. It was unusually quiet, although I had to remind myself that Christmas often brought a strange silence to the streets. The traffic was minimal, and I passed but a handful of pedestrians as I took my circuitous route to the river, rediscovering a mobile phone network on the way. It wasn’t until I drew near the approach to the river than I encountered any density of people: groups were hovering at the end of the road, and they had clearly made their way there with the intention of observing the floods, just as I had. Clusters of three or four, all wearing wellington boots, stood at the edge of, or even waded into, the water which had crept beyond the point at which the road ended and the fields began: the bollards, with their reflectors, were largely submerged, and the famed Millennium Bridge, opened in 2000, began some 30 metres away from the edge of the expanded river edge.

 

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The blurb:

‘Something Must Break’: A dissonant tale of mental fragmentation and duality.

‘Dream of the Flood’: A meditation on climate change and possibilities of the near future, of human interaction and solipsism.

Together, these two pieces represent Christopher Nosnibor’s more literary side as he continues to explore narrative forms and voices.

The links:

Purchase the print edition here.

Purchase the e-book here.

Something Must Break (Excerpt)

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Did he jump or was he pushed? The suicide continued to play on his mind. Not because he cared, but because he couldn’t help but wonder. What could possibly drive a man to take his own life? Could things really be that bad? Steve opined that this question was an absurdity, knowing full well that they could, and often were. Ever since university, Steve’s perspective on self-immolation were subject to a questioning, a cynicism that he didn’t like to rationalise. Back in uni, he’d shared a house with some dropout waster who’s succeeded in becoming a raging alcoholic by the second semester of their second year. They’d started out as friends in the first year, but Adrian had become increasingly erratic in his behaviour, and at some point entirely gave up on sobriety. Before long, he had almost ceased being human. He had probably needed help, but Steve was in no position to offer sympathy. He had his own troubles, for starters. So when Adrian went into the self-pitying mode, sobbing about how no-one loved him, about how he was a loser and a waste of space, and how he might as well be dead, Steve hadn’t bothered to contradict him.

‘Why don’t you just fucking kill yourself?’ he had hissed venomously.

‘You’d fucking love that, wouldn’t you?’ the twat had spat through a veil of tears and saliva during many of his drink-induced crying jags. ‘One day, I will, and it’ll be on your fucking conscience.’

‘Fine. As long as I don’t have to look at you in this state, or listen to any more of your self-absorbed, wallowing, self-pitying bullshit or step in any more of your fucking puke around the house, I can live with the guilt,’ Steve had replied on more than one occasion. He’d been ice cold in his delivery. He’d fucking meant it.

Eventually, after repeated instruction to fuck off and die, Adrian had done as he had been bid. It had been Steve who had discovered him, slumped in his room, a bloated mess of vomit and early decomposition. The housemates had all gone home for reading week. Steve had been the first to return and was perplexed to find the front door unlocked. Everything had seemed normal, other than the house being vacant, or so it had appeared. Shrugging, he had unpacked, prepared himself some food and watched television for a while, before growing curious.

On discovering the corpse, he had been fascinated and repelled in equal measure. Pity hadn’t entered his emotional range, and the sadness he felt in his chest was no more than a fleeting pang. He had called the police, and then poked a boot into the dead fucker’s ribs. Waster. He was no real loss.

The coroner had concluded a verdict of suicide on account of there being no sign of forced entry or anyone else present, and vast quantities of alcohol and barbiturates residual in the bloodstream of the deceased. Steve had snapped a handful of photographs before the services had arrived and removed the body from the premises.

 

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Something Must Break / Dream of the Flood are available in print and e-book format from 1 February 2016 to midnight on 29 February 2016.

The blurb:

‘Something Must Break’: A dissonant tale of mental fragmentation and duality.

‘Dream of the Flood’: A meditation on climate change and possibilities of the near future, of human interaction and solipsism.

Together, these two pieces represent Christopher Nosnibor’s more literary side as he continues to explore narrative forms and voices.

The links:

Purchase the print edition here. (Enter code LULURC at checkout to receive 25% discount and free priority shipping on qualifying orders)

Purchase the e-book here.

The 29 Days of February Start Here

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February 2016 has a bonus day. The month has already arrived in the southern hemisphere, but I’m marking the arrival of the extended leap-year February in GMT and celebrating with the publication of a pamphlet and e-book containing a brace of short stories which will only be available for the 29 days of February.

At Midnight on 29th February, Something Must Break / Before the Flood will be deleted and will not be republished.

 

Cover Version 2 copy 2 TEXT

 

The blurb:

‘Something Must Break’: A dissonant tale of mental fragmentation and duality.

‘Dream of the Flood’: A meditation on climate change and possibilities of the near future, of human interaction and solipsism.

Together, these two pieces represent Christopher Nosnibor’s more literary side as he continues to explore narrative forms and voices.

The links:

Purchase the print edition here. (Enter code LULURC at checkout to receive 25% discount and free priority shipping on qualifying orders)

Purchase the e-book here.

Rage on the Road

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Having spent the last few months writing a succession of short splenetic pieces under the collective banner of The Rage Monologues, I’d been focusing primarily on producing a cache of material I could raw on for live sets of varying duration.

The premise was simple: spoken word shows are notoriously difficult, especially if your thing is prose narrative. Audiences seem to respond better to poetry, and to shorter pieces. Telling a story or reading an excerpt from a novel simply doesn’t hold the attention in the same way, and when slots are often between five and 10 minutes in length, there isn’t much storytelling you can do if you’re not a writer of flash fiction.

So after penning a couple of short rants that seemed well-suited to the spoken word format, I aired them, admittedly with varying success. But the more intense the performance, the more people took notice. By which I mean by ramping things up, it was hard for them to ignore me as I stood, shouting and raving and cursing. Adopting a more manic persona seemed the way to go, and so I figured perhaps I should make that my set. Hence more wants penned, with a view to having a body of material I could draw on for sets of all lengths that I could mix up according to location and crowd.

I discovered the other day I’ve produced more material than I had actually appreciated. a whole pamphlet’s worth, in fact. Consequently, with a number of live dates pencilled in for the coming months, I’ve decided a pamphlet to accompany the performances, for those who don’t feel the urge to rush from the room after the first thirty seconds. It’s going to be self financed and self-published, and will be an extremely limited print run.

The material is still being pieced together and proofed, but when it’s ready, it has a cover waiting for it. Simple, but effective….

 

Rage Cover 2

 

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

The Changing Face of Consumerism: Public Opinion, Booze Culture and Bartering

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The local newspaper recently ran a front-page headline about proposals to open three new pubs in York’s city centre. Two local breweries – The Leeds Brewery, formed as an offshoot of the York Brewery, and the Ossett Brewery, had submitted plans to take over vacant premises – one a former cafe, the others retail units, previously an estate agent and an army surplus store.

The objectors raised all of the concerns you’d expect them to. Predictably, there was concern about the city centre becoming a mecca for drinkers, that having such a concentration of licensed premises would send a message that York promoted the already endemic booze culture that is, we so often told, a leading problem in Britain that causes the taxpayer billions, and that the opening of these three new hostelries would encourage an even greater influx of stag and hen parties and cause violent, alcohol-fuelled crimes and other such sordid scenes to soar.

But these aren’t the kind of places rowdy stag and hen parties would frequent. we’re talking about traditional ale houses that would also serve traditional pub grub. The kind of places tourists – particularly those from America and Japan – flock to in their thousands in order to experience a slice of culture they simply do not have back home. As a historic city, visitors to York want to see and sample tradition. They also want refreshment.

Other critics argued that it was essential that the city preserve retail premises for retail when conditions improve. Will they ever? This is also the same council that approved another out of town retail park, which objectors – not least of all local business owners – have opposed on the grounds that by taking the retail trade away from the city centre, the place is slowly dying. It’s a complex argument, not least of all because the major chains and small independent stores serve different markets. Nevertheless, they can’t have it both ways, by encouraging more retailers to move out of town and then complain that there is an abundance of vacant premises once occupied by retailers, especially in the middle of a lengthy economic downturn. Remember the words ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’? For some reason, people seem to think things are improving just because the FTSE’s up and more houses have sold in the last 6 months – never mind the huge numbers of redundancies announced by large employers like Aviva, Co-op and HSBC.

There is of course another angle to this, namely, if everyone’s redundant, they’ll need nice pubs to sit in and while away the hours as they drink their redundancy pay-offs and dole cheques.

The same day I read the article, I was walking home through the city’s pub-packed centre when I ran into musician, poet, diarist and rambler Mark Wynn, a man who’s inspiring in his complete disregard for any kind of consumer trends or capitalist-led operating models of industry. As ever, he’d been travelling the length and breadth of the city, the county and the country, playing poorly-paid gigs in pubs of the very sort the Leeds and Ossett breweries run and giving away most of his CDs for nothing or in exchange for a beer. It’s something to be applauded. he’ll never be rich, but in sharing his art, he never goes thirsty. Moreover, his approach represents the epitome of the punk ethic: he’s out there doing it himself on zero budget and building a fanbase from a grass roots level. that’s what I call sticking it to the man!

We exchanged pamphlets: I had the very last copy of my Liberate Yourself! pamphlet folded in my bag (there are now 100 copies in circulation, and having been left on trains, in pubs, inside self-help books in WHS and who knows where, their whereabouts and readership I haven’t a clue) while he had a batch of a new A5 publication called Dirty Work containing some selected highlights of his spectacularly off the wall and very funny tour diaries and, stapled inside the back page, a PVC wallet containing his last album. Arguably, I was up on the deal, but these things always balance out over time (some weeks later, Dirty Work 3 would see the light of day, containing more rampant ramblings and a new CD EP by Mr Mark E Wynn with additional text by Sam Forrest of Nine Back Alps and The Sorry Kisses, and myself). The important thing was, we had traded our art with one another, we’d both received something we wanted and what’s more, the cash-free barter had taken place on the street. Retail outlets are just so last year.

 

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Shops? Who needs ‘em?

 

And if you’re loving my work, The Changing Face Of Consumerism – the book – will be out some time in June.

Liberator! Part 10

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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 6

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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 

Liberator! Part 5

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Tim rose at 6:30am and was at his laptop, set up on the rarely-used dining table, working, by 6:45. Still in his dressing gown, with a strong coffee, he sat blearily in front of the screen. 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. The text was beginning to drift before his eyes as he read it again and again. The text was beginning to drift before his eyes as he read it again and again.

It was after 11pm when he finally called it a night. He felt exhausted, yet his mind would not cease in its cogitations. Around midnight, after a large glass of wine, Tim retired to the bedroom and snuggled up beside his recumbent partner. He closed his eyes but behind his eyelids images flickered like a cut-up reel of cine film. He turned over and over as his mind turned his list of tasks for the next few days over and over. His heart rate began to increase, until it almost reached the point of fibrillation and sweat was running in rivers from every pore. It was no use. Tim simply could not sleep. Gingerly, he slipped from under the duvet and stealthily made his way back downstairs. Amy continued to sleep soundly.

Arriving in the living room, Tim did not turn on any lights and instead made his way silently to the window and stood behind the crack in the curtains. The street outside was dark and silent, yet unexpectedly bright, illuminated by the bright orange sodium haze of the street lights, one of which was in front of the house directly opposite. The curtains of the house were open, and there was a light in the upstairs window. He watched as a figure entered and exited the room. In shadow, he was unable to observe their features. It felt strange to be alone in darkness and at this time of night: Tim usually remained in bed, lying stock still so as not to disturb Amy, while him mind raced. Here and now, alone in the darkness and silence, with only the breathing of the house for company, his mind wandered. He projected himself outside into the long, anonymous, rectilinear street lined with almost identical red-brick terraced houses. He traversed the street like a ghost. His mind played in a flash a world in foment, in tumult, as rabid dogs and vigilantes prowled the alleyways. His heart raced with a heady blend of fear and excitement, the likes of which he hadn’t felt in years.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Tim retreated into the darkness and brought himself back to the reality of the here and now, his interior world. Pouring himself a shot of rum, he spotted the rather dubious pamphlet he had pickled up the other day lying on the coffee table. He didn’t recall placing it there, but nevertheless, he switched on the standard lamp and read as he sipped at his drink and waited for its soporific effects to take hold.

A recent survey found that people working from home work the equivalent of an extra 20 days a year, which almost counters their holiday entitlement. The technology that has facilitated what would first appear to be the perfect working solution and the best way to obtain a more comfortable work/life balance is thus a double-edged sword. Small wonder people don’t all want to rush home and check their inbox.

Be honest: how many times have you been gripped by fear at the prospect of logging in and checking your email, because of the idea of dealing with hassling correspondence from the bank and a slew of messages from people you can’t face replying to is simply too much? Email and mobile communications technology was hailed as a great means of keeping people in touch with one another. But how many proper emails do you send or receive?

Tim shook his head. He hated to acknowledge the fact, but this tract resonated with him. The way he spent – and wasted – hours trying to keep in contact with old friends and former colleagues, even more peripheral family members. He had the niggling feeling that life was too short to expend time and energy on people who couldn’t be bothered, but then, all too often he failed to respond to messages and emails from his friends. He felt like a cunt for doing so, but what could he do? He was busy – busy chasing his tail as he raced like a hamster on a wheel on the treadmill of life.

Tim was exhausted, but read on, slowly. 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.

To reclaim your life and liberate yourself from the tyranny of technology, and at the same time, take the following simple steps.

1: Do not log into Facebook for a week.

2: Stop sending emails, especially forwards and links.

3: Do not send any text messages.

4: Do not make any non-essential phone calls.

It seemed a bit extreme. On the other hand, Tim reflected for a moment just how much time he spent checking into Facebook and reading endless reams of status updates that were ultimately pointless. He didn’t need to know that Neil was tired after going to the gym, or how sick Jonathan had been after his brother’s stag night. More to the point, he simply didn’t have the time to become mired in the vapid empty existences of others. He had his own empty, vapid yet insufferably hectic life to live. What could he possibly learn from a pamphlet that he hadn’t already read and discarded from countless self-help manuals, forums and television programmes?

 

 

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