Twenty one thousand six hundred

The room shakes. Curtains flutter. A nurse shuts the windows to block out the noise, a compounding whirr. On the phone, a doctor wearing scrubs urges colleagues to act as the helicopter nears.

I accidentally tore the nail almost off my big toe. Well, it was accidental, all right. The imagery is stomach-churning. Your nail is ripped off your toe and hangs open like a welcoming door, as blood pours from your revealed inner flesh. You don’t want to do that purposefully. And it was almost, all right. Because like that door, the side of my nail was firmly hinged to the wall that would be the side of my toe.

So, I looked down and I saw the open door and I speechlessly shut it. Then I patiently waited for the clerk to ring up my bottle of water and nine packets of chewable vitamin C tablets. She took her time ringing up those nine packets. She counted them. Satu. Dua. Tiga. Empat. Lima. Enam. Tujuh. Delapan. Sembilan. Nine packets. And I looked down at my red toe, red sandals (in fairness, they were already red, but they were redder now, I tell you), red fingers, and then I wiped those fingers together to disperse the blood, lest I startle the clerk with a scarlet sight. Nine packets. She asked me if I wanted to donate a portion of the cost to charity, or I assume that’s what she asked, because I just said yes so she’d get to the next phase of the transaction.

More rumbling, but this is just a rather heavy person walking around.

As I was saying, I said yes. Then I paid, and she, who expressed concern to the extent that she thought I’d innocently bumped my foot and oofed more in surprise than pain, was none the wiser to my predicament. Good for her, she doesn’t need that stress, she’s just a kid. But the man I passed on the way out was not so fortunate. He saw me stumbling ever so subtly on the surface of my sandal, made slippery by the flow of blood, and involuntarily had his face drop. There went his day, for five minutes, anyway. After that, it might have been a funny story of the bule who— 

Medium Cappuccino and a Butter Croissant

This is the cliché: you sit in a coffee shop, the laptop lid is pointed toward an empty seat, beyond which is the mass of mocca- or coco- or latte- or smoothie- or kopi- or whatever-drinking blatherers. You observe for a second, an eye steals a glance at the wavy-haired, diminutive figure in the corner, you embed your head in the screen.

It’s a cliché, all right. I should have dipped my laptop in a vat of purple goop so I may at least have deviated from the mental image of this here lappie being white with a nice, silvery logo. Well, at least it’s not an Apple computer. Anyway, that’s the cliché, and that’s where I am and have been for three hours every day this week. Living the life of a writer in a sitcom. Typing on scissor switches with a mouthful of cold croissant, in between sips from an obscenely large mug.

It will be over tomorrow, so today I wonder if all this is worthy of reflection, and what value is supposed to be gained here.

This is such a transitory place. Density swells at a predictable level and pace. If I arrive at 11 AM, I will not find this corner unoccupied. Ninety minutes later, one may wonder whether they’re closing for lunch. Noise will correlate positively with density. Fifteen minutes ago, I would not have been able to hear myself think had my ears not trained themselves to transform the incoherent cacophony of voices into an ignorable drone. Now, the silence feels alien, punctuated by a few lonely voices and inescapable 80s pop music. I didn’t notice the soundtrack. I had grown so used to the noise that it painted the walls of my brief existence here.

That’s moot now. Two people arrive. Then a group of five. A man with a packaged sandwich sits down beside the window, a quiet lunch in mind. The cacophony returns. Unease joins it.

Statuette beside Potted Plant

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This statuette is no longer there. And neither is the plant. I don't know what happened to either; they just disappeared in between the time I last saw them and now. I'm reminded of A Clockwork Orange and Bronson (amongst many others), in which the main characters return home from a stint in prison, only to see that it is not really home. In Alex's case, the room is familiar, but the contents are different; belonging to everyone but him. In Charlie's case, conversely, the room is completely different, and the home has switched cities. Initially, all he wishes for is his old bed, decrepit but familiar. Ultimately, he learns that home is not a bed, but a city, the location in which his formative years occurred. Abandoned by his family and tortured by his friends, Alex finds that home is wherever he will survive.

The attachment to possessions is not, in this sense, driven by materialism, but familiarity and comfort. You depend on them to be there when you need them, to provide you with that sense of ease. It's not that you have own them that counts, but that you have them. And that is why losing them, and your home, is such a profoundly traumatic experience. But, even when you are faced with the terror of unfamiliarity and no way to escape it, you learn to live with it. To find new things to which you can attach your sentiments, new blankets in which to wrap yourself, and new walls within which you can hang your frames. Home becomes where you are.

Agents of Maize Maze

Woe is I.  I am looking for an agent, but none are to be found.  Some are believed to be hiding in the maize fields, but those dang mazes.  Maize mazes are the worst.  So, all the agents are lost in the maize maze, and we need to catch them.  Because I need one.

Partly, I want to eat one; I've heard they taste good in stews.  But, mostly, I want to use one for its powerful persuasion properties.  See, praying for more land like Jabez has failed, and so I am resorting to these elusive agents to procure it.  Elusive agents in maize mazes.

I remember in my youth, and this is a true story—honest—I wanted to be a boxer.  I met a trainer who was a former boxer, having retired many years before his time.  He was good, but only good, and so not good enough.  Thus, he turned to training young fighters to live his dream for him.  He was angry all the time; initially, we all thought that was all he was—that and mad—but eventually, there appeared to be a method to his particular brand of madness.  Madness such as making me perform unorthodox training exercises that made little sense to me then, but would, Shirley, serve me well later as an important boxing and life lesson.  One such exercise was chasing a rooster around my backyard.

Chickens are mean.  My cousin is afraid of them.  They peck your shins as though you're trying to abduct their children, or something.  That's why my cousin is afraid of them.  That, and the fact that he's a ninnie.  Anyway, chickens are mean; roosters, doubly so.  And my trainer let it out of its cage, and told me to catch it.  It promptly ran out the backyard gate.  Then my trainer told me to shut the gate, and then open it, again, and go buy another chicken.

The next one was spry, even resentful.  I couldn't tell whether it was angry that I was going to eat it, or insulted that I was using it to play catch; perhaps I had disturbed it during an episode of Cats Do the Funniest Things.  Nevertheless, it used this negative energy to consistently thwart my attempts to get a hold of it.  Ducking, leaping, clucking, it was infuriatingly evasive of my ducking, leaping, and shouting.  Then, just as I was about to rip it from the ground, it did a spin-o-rama, allowing the full force of my inertia to meet the dirt.  This chicken could have been a hockey player, were it not for the leg injury it suffered in pee wee, and its inability to make a decent pass or shoot straight.  And that it is why I have a bald patch where the right side of my beard should be.

Quit

For the past few weeks, my testes have been glued to the proverbial wall. It's been a constant flow of milestones and deadlines, one pushed up after the other. And with them, a steady stream of problems. I've been robbed, seen work destroyed by random mechanical failures, followed by my entire operating system. I've fallen ill.  And, worst of all, seen work destroyed not by the random disconnection of a power cable, but the wilful incompetence of others.

The temptation, particularly after the latter incident, has been to quit. Why should I suffer for the idiocy of others, after all? I've been sleeping little, eating sporadically, and alternately stressed or depressed. And, besides, the aforementioned incompetence is the easy out of my contract, should I need it. Justifying my current stint as an editor with all that has been hard, but the truth is, I'm not a quitter.

That's a big deal.  Because I really mean it. My patience has never been pushed this far beyond its limit. I've been told multiple times to just quit while I'm ahead; before it all comes crashing down. And while I've flirted with the idea, my response every time has been, "No." It hasn't been a defiant no, but a simple, matter-of-factly one, as though the statement isn't registering and therefore isn't receiving the appropriate response. And those few times I've flirted with it, I've felt the same. Just, "No." Not accompanied by triumphant ideas of finishing what you've started and not being a goram, dirty quitter, but the plain, hollow tone of resoluteness, of preferring to get back to work instead of dwelling on it. I don't know why, but I just have this need to continue.

To be honest, I've been quite surprised by that. I've said that I'm not a quitter before, but I never really knew it, and we all believe that about ourselves until we're actually tested. That I've been refusing to quit without feeling the need to justify it says something about me, regardless of whether a constant refusal to quit is necessarily a good thing.

In the end, with all that blood pressure in tow, this whole affair has been enough to show me that I have not yet reached the edge. (Never mind that one time I did.) That's something. And that's all for now. Back to work.

End.

Jim Thorpe, more than an Unrecognised Champion

I

had a friend, once.  We went to primary school together, and then high school, before she left, one year earlier than me, to pursue her future, again, one year earlier than me.  She wasn't my best friend, and neither was I hers, but I always felt a strong bond with her.  Our conversations never got old, and to this day, I regret not spending more time with her.  She was, and would still be, one of the few people in my life whose integrity and intentions I would never have to question, whom I could spend an infinite amount of time with and never get to a point where I had to crawl into a boxed room, where I felt my inferiority complex create an invisible contest between myself and the other because they had more of whatever than me.  (This was an unfortunate product of my social status, a mirage that often failed to conceal my family's unshakable position at the top of the totem pole that hung from the peak of the little hill guarded by little kings.)  She was, simply, one of my few, true equals.

She was also a talented gymnast.  This was evidenced by the fact that she decided to leave her home and friends for more competitive pastures.  Her goal to be the best was obvious, and, getting to the topic at hand, so was the presumptive desire to make the Olympics, one day.

Now, I have a tough relationship with this event.  I feel it is a sham, with no connection to the original games from which it stole its name.  It has only ever succeeded in breeding hostility between nations (or, at least, the inhabitants of these nations), as well as leaving cities to writhe in their deflating economic bubbles in its wake.  And its corrupt leadership leaves much to be desired.  When I observe the obscene popularity of the Olympics, I'm, frankly, rather mystified.

But then, I think about this old friend, who is still on my mind some years later, who I hope managed to reach their goals, and my distaste lessens.  It's not our place to spit on the dreams of others, no matter the darkness of the walls within which they occur.  Which is why, regardless of my personal feelings, I can still imagine how gut-wrenched Jim Thorpe must have felt after being told that his performance in the 1912 Olympic Games, the greatest ever, was henceforth to be forgotten by the historical record, because he was a no-good cheater.

Young Fern

Finally, finally, I can sit here today and pat myself on the back for a job complete.  This was probably the most frustrating assignment, in terms of conflicting personalities and opinions, I've had in quite some time.  And remarkably, it came right after an editing project that saw me fall unwittingly into a pit of confusion (literally, were the pit made of paper) that dug itself from its own conflicting personalities and opinions, and the nonsense that comes out of multiple minds attempting to write together from (mostly) separate locations.  But, rising from that pit allowed me realise how much I respected all the parties involved, for I saw how special the hierarchy we created was outside of my own frustrations.

All our roles were clearly understood, and, while I felt the daily stress of attempting to create coherence out of jumbled ideas, I was able release that stress because I had the freedom to defer to others on technical matters and take control when I felt it was appropriate - which was, of course, when it came to the English form, itself.  In this way, I managed to unleash my fury on my keyboard, instead of my pale, crumpled fists and fragile hairline, which unfortunately occurred frequently during the latter project.

Burning Wood

Full size.  On Flickr.

For the past few weeks, I've been playing the role of a copy-editor.  As easy as it sounds to sit on your behind and stare at your computer screen for hours, periodically stopping to delete one thing and add another, it's not fun work.  The people that come to me for help are generally, I'll be frank, in uninteresting fields, and not particularly adept when it comes to the grit of the English language.

One thinks, deliriously, of how ridiculous it is that someone actually wants to pay them just to read and make the odd change, but after the first page, the realisation of how slow a grind the process will be sinks in like a dagger in one of the meatier parts of your body.  The strange mistakes people make, tossed in with the unrelenting obvious ones, drive you insane, word by word.  I don't know what it is like for those who do this everyday, but I wonder how many are also prone to biting their fist and squeezing their skull when they're in the middle of a battle against numbing boredom on the one side, and on the other, the tendency of the inanities of commas and articles to make one question the very meaning of life.

It's a deceptive art.  Less sapping than writing itself, but more technical and depressing.  But then, never say no to taking an alternate route toward improving yourself, especially when there is, on the face of it, easy money involved.

In honour of Your Humble Freelancer's current project, today's image wasn't taken not by me, but H.C.B.

A Found Branch and its Leaves

A story about this stick with leaves growing out of it:

You may recall that I have some skill with plants.  I'm not particularly observant of it; neither do I pay any overwhelming amount of attention to the plants under my care (although, I do maintain a long-standing feud with those dirty, plant-killing vegetarians).  They just seem to thrive, for whatever reason, and I can't resist picking up reclamation projects for that purpose.

This branch belonged to one of the hedges you find running along the front of many English houses.  Someone had trimmed theirs, when I found it on the ground, lopped off with just a few leaves attached to it.  I don't know what compelled it, but my immediate next thought was to take it and stick it in the soil, next to one of my other plants.  Everyone told me I was a dumbass for thinking I could just put random branches in a pot and expect them to grow - and, really, I didn't; I'm just a hoarder - but, what do you know, it did.  Slowly, its few leaves extended into branches, themselves, that, in turn, bore their own leaves.

As always, life finds a way.

Red Sunset

Full size.  On Flickr.

Just as a sunset marks the transition from day to night, this image marks my own transition in life.  I look upon this sunset with a tinge of sadness and nostalgia, because I won't ever be where I was before it, no matter how hard I try.

Even though we may be happy where we are, a part of us always looks back.  We wish for the momentary naïveté of our former selves and brief glimpses of people for whom we spare mere minutes of thought.  I have been back to the location whence I took this photograph, in the hope of returning to where I was when I took it.  Unfortunately, it has been a futile exercise in recreating the life of a man I no longer know.

Looking up through Hole in Forest

Amidst towering trees, before water,

I look through a hole in a forest.

That hole is a small lake,

The forest, itself, amidst its city.

Through life, the self-perception exists,

From moment to moment; governed as,

It will govern: amidst.

There is no absolute; my hold wanes.

Yesterday, we, I, was to be one,

Tomorrow, we, you are to be too,

Only, the moment speaks:

Soar, we fall; win, we lose; fail, we soar.

 Amidst thoughts, I feel my body move,

Amidst them, I see the illusion,

Amidst the leaves, sky, clouds,

I hear the wind: time for me to change.

Seed and Leaves Silhouettes, Or: Not a Chestnut

Full size.  On Flickr.

I recall this moment in my youth, when my family was on its way home from some out-of-town event (there was an unfortunate overabundance of those).  In a small village, we passed a house with a massive chestnut tree.  I'm not sure what compelled the brashness, but we quickly stopped and decided to ask the residents to let us have some of their chestnuts (there was too much for a single family, after all).

To the owner's surprise, a bunch of foreign-looking people had just asked to clean up her yard of the spiky nuisances that kept falling from her tree, and even more odd: they wanted to cook it.  To our delight, we took her share of the bounty, too, and gorged on boiled chestnuts for the next month.

Too bad this wasn't a chestnut, and clearly it wasn't.  Otherwise, you wouldn't be seeing it still on the tree.

Connor Crisp Plays Goalie

When the Erie Otters faced off against the Niagara Ice Dogs recently, something horrible happened.  As Otters goaltender Ramis Sadikov attempted to make a save, an Ice Dogs player slammed into him and knocked him over.  That was his first, and last, save of the game, as he would not return after trainers helped him off the ice.  With second goalie Devin Williams not dressed because of his own, earlier, injury, the team was left with 58:15 minutes of ice time and no dressed goalies.

What were they to do?  Call Connor Crisp, the Otters centre who, after sustaining a shoulder injury, hadn't played since the 5th of April, 2011.  Crisp was watching the game from the stands when he got the call from Dave Brown, the Otters' assistant general manager, asking him, "Are you ready?"  Crisp couldn't believe it.  With news that Sadikov would be the only goalie dressed for the game, the Otters designated the now-healthy Crisp as his backup, taking the risk, hoping, that nothing would go wrong.  Unfortunately, something did, and Crisp soon found himself sprinting to the change room before having equipment he'd never donned before strapped on him by the equipment manager and a teammate, while the goalie coach attempted to teach him a lifetime worth of accrued knowledge and refined technique in fifteen minutes.

By the time he got to the ice, he struggled to make it to his end in his loaned skates, three sizes too small.  "As soon as I stepped on the ice and could barely skate at first with the goalie skates on, I was thinking this could be a long day," he recalled later.  Crisp faced his first shot 23 seconds after the game restarted, when the Ice Dogs' Freddie Hamilton streaked into the Otters zone and took a long, high shot that clanged off the crossbar, bounced off Crisp's back, and dropped into the net.  His next series of attempted saves did not fair any better, resulting in another pair of goals.  It looked like the beginning of, at worst, a hockey massacre, and, at best, an unwinnable situation.  But Crisp and the Otters persevered, bringing the score to within one by the end of the first period, before the Ice Dogs turned the game into what ostensibly should have been an embarrassing blowout, but shifted into a mere predictable one.

In the end, Crisp made 32 saves on 45 shots, giving up 13 goals in a 13-4 loss, the Otters' worst of the season.  After any other game, fans would have jeered and players would have avoided the pupils of their teammates as they silently trudged back to the locker room.  But not tonight.  Ice Dogs fans applauded Crisp's effort.  Every single one of his teammates skated down to thank him for his courage.  And when he was done with his own team, his opponents - both players and coaches - went over to pat him on the back.  Crisp was awarded the first star of the game.

Having never played the position before^[8], Connor Crisp came in and made over thirty saves, some lucky and some unbelievable, and let in over a dozen goals, some abysmal and some unavoidable.  There was no Miracle on Ice - indeed, Crisp felt reality's sting in it: "[Defenceman Adam] Pelech and [defenceman Troy] Donnay were blocking shots left, right, and centre.  The guys were behind me 100 per cent.  It got embarrassing at points and you feel like you're letting the guys down and hurting their statistics.  I know Pelech took a hard one off the ankle and is in a lot of pain right now." - but what the hockey world saw was on-ice drama in whose aftermath we will not likely see again for a very long time.

It is said that sport does not build character, but reveal it.  On Sunday, 4th of March, 2012, Connor Crisp revealed his.

Sources and Notes:

1. Buzzing The Net: "Erie Otters’ Connor Crisp, after not playing all season, gets his 58 minutes of fame by going into OHL game in as an emergency goalie"
2. Erie Otters official website: "Crisp dons goalie pads in loss to Niagara"
3. Erie Otters roster
4. Erie at Niagara Game Summary
5. Connor Crisp interview on Marek vs. Wyshynski, 5th March edition (mp3).
6. YouTube video from user Ramboshaw: "Connor Crisp Plays Goalie for Erie Otters 'The Saves'"
7. Quote ("sport does not build character, but reveal it") is attributed to Heywood Hale Broun.  Original: "Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”
8. Although Crisp did have his obligatory turn at goalie in pee wee, that was the extent of his involvement with the position.

Yellow-Flowered Shrub (and the Intricate String)

Download original.

I'm currently in a bit of a quandary with a story I'm working on, of the sort in which logic is having trouble reconciling with creativity.  It's that moment I encounter with everything I write:  how do I give reason to senseless occurrences?  The only idea I have is to find some intricate way to tie it all in together, while balancing it against the need to not let it get too convoluted.  Last time I was, it ended up 70 pages over the limit.

As yet, I haven't found that intricate string.

Embarrassment Never Felt so Good: Cynic Live, One

C

an you believe it: your eloquent Narrator humiliated himself in front of Paul Masvidal.  The ever-flowery penner who has no trouble constructing pretty collections of words was caught in the trap of too-much-to-say-with-too-little-time.  So, instead of reciting the thoughtful lines I’d prepared all week, I, first, giggled like a shy girl, and then burst into a monolithic rant on Cynic’s musical history, without a hint of beckoning, and even less context.  Yes, I told Paul Masvidal what his own music sounds like.

I shouldn’t be allowed near my heroes.  No matter how much I convince myself I won’t look silly, I always end up looking silly.  I’m like a kid that refuses to let go of a piece of candy, even though he’s full and has had enough.  Cynic and Intronaut are my candy.  And enough is not enough.  See, I’m sitting in the corner of a train station as I’m writing this.  It’s dark, cold (no matter how much I prepare, I’m never ready for the agony train stations throw at me), a wind keeps blowing into my face even though the doors are shut, and after getting just a hair over two hours of sleep today, my body is ready to quit.  And yet, I’m having no trouble slinging this together.  But put me in front of Paul, and I go all googly-eyed.

The chemistry of a lifelong friendship.

In my defence, though, Cynic gave me a ton to talk about, because their set provided it.  For example, Paul’s singing was so subversive it was almost beyond surprising.  He would prolong certain notes, distort others, and ignore some choruses all together, all to the point that singing along required one to stay on edge because we quickly realised Cynic weren’t going to be taking the verbatim route.  It gave the show an improvisational feel, and in hindsight, makes absolute sense – even if no one was expecting it.

The songs, too, were distorted.  I’m a big fan of “Integral”, the remix of the masterpiece “Integral Birth”, and they did something so brilliant it was utterly logical looking back at it, but equally unexpected because no one would think they had the balls to try it: rather than play only one of the two songs (a shame, because I’d love to hear both, but that’s impractical), they combined them, with Paul playing “Integral” as an overture, before the band collectively jumped into “Integral Birth”.  It was a stunning amalgamation that fit so perfectly one could have assumed it was but a single song originally composed as such.

As Thoughts of Failure Swell

I was doing some work, recently, good, honest work, when a thought descended on me.  I was riding my bicycle, got off, trotted across the street, and just thought, "Damn, I'm a failure."  I stopped for a second, breathed.  "Damn."

It stunk.

Right now, I'm deep into a project that I've lost the will to complete, but inevitably have to.  It's thankless and payless.  Its ultimate effect on anything but a tiny scope of knowledge will be beyond miniscule.  Frankly, it's almost worthless.  This never dawned on me when I hastily jumped on it.  At the time, I was chuffed that I was going to enlighten people on an obscure topic; now, that's not enough.  I keep telling myself that I have to be working on big things, I have to be living up to my delusions of grandeur.  Big things.  Important things.  Things that will make historians look back and say, "That, now that, that said something about who we were and who we are.  That, yes that, that was important."  I don't want to be important. I want my work to be important.  But this isn't important enough.  And that stinks.

Long Shrub in Meadow

Cynic's Carbon-Based Anatomy is out tomorrow.  Originally, the idea was to buy the record at whatever show I go to when they come to Europe, but then my girlfriend slapped me with a dose of logic: if I did that, I wouldn't know any of the songs when I saw them.  Dang.  Of course, I could just download it and listen to it until I get it from the show. I'm not opposed to doing that, as I have several times. The band's going to be getting my money, anyway, right? What's the harm in cheating by a few days?

But, eh, not going through the ritual of oogling the sleeve while my ears meld with my headphones feels wrong.  Sometimes waiting for it is worth it - this was the case with Intronaut's Prehistoricisms, for example.  After making the mistake of getting Void in digital form (sorry, but getting the CD and then ripping it to my HDD in something like FLAC beats saving a couple bucks on average-quality mp3s, and I won't make that mistake again...  I hope), my rigid determination to get a CD version of Prehistoricisms meant that, at a time when funds were scarce, I had to wait for a long while before getting it (as a present from the person literally dozing next to me right now, no less).  I tried to rationalise downloading it before inevitably buying it, but, again, not having it in my hands when I listened to it for the first time just didn't feel right.  So, I waited, which sucked, but getting to peel open the case gave me a wonderful feeling of satisfaction for not succumbing to the temptation of cheating.

So, should I cheat or wait a month?  Fungible principles be damned?  Yeah, I never said I was a patient person (actually, I have, but I'm trying to prove a point here so let me fib), so I'm going to do neither and just pre-order it.  Not knowing the songs note-by-note be damned!

In conclusion, that's a long shrub, and it's in the middle of a meadow.

When Plans Go Awry: Intronaut Live, Two

W

ell, seeing Intronaut for the second time didn't turn out as planned, even though it was much closer than last time.  Speaking to the band (mostly Joe for a couple hours) was, again, awesome, as was the first half of their set.  We missed the rest so we could catch the final train home, which, oh, joy of joys, was first late, and then cancelled as it pulled into the train station.

The collection of travellers were justifiably pissed, but there was nothing we could do.  Eventually, we hatched a plan to share a taxi with six other people, allowing the ride to be only slightly more expensive than the train ticket.  So, all was not lost... for us, anyway.

As the taxi stopped for a minute in front of the station, an old man standing beside it stared at me.  He had a hunch, long, black beard, unkempt hair, and the look of a bitter, defeated man.  Only minutes earlier, he had been standing alone while we tried to get a taxi home.  Before that, he was angrily asking an attendant why he wasn't allowed in the train.  When we exited the station, I felt his distress - we, too, were stranded.  But, then, there I was, safely on my way home while he stood there, watching everyone but him leave.

Man, that felt shitty.  I should have done something, more than just pondering aloud whether he was headed in the same direction.  There probably wasn't enough space (I believe adding us was the limit), but does it hurt to try?  In the end, I can only hope he eventually found his way home, whether it be on the first train of the next day or some other means. 

End.

(Updated: 12.03.14. Reason: formatting and grammar; I did not fix the otherwise terrible writing.)

Unforgettable: Intronaut Live, One

M

y memory of Friday, 3^rd of June, 2011, will not be forgotten until the senility of old age takes me.  I don’t say this as some hyperbolic trope with little meaning – it was truly a night to remember.Somehow, however, I’m not sure how to describe it all.  I could use one of the various over-used adjectives that permeate the modern English lexicon, or a long, structured examination of the day’s events, but, frankly, my tongue can’t grasp the words required to do that.

When I briefly spoke to Joe Lester after their set, the word I kept flubbing out through my star-struck quiver was “Wow!”  The word was the closest I could come to expressing my combination of joy, ecstasy, disbelief, and sheer awe.  By the time the band had started coiling their cables and the audience had dispersed, I was still standing in front of the stage, wiping the sweat and inability to comprehend what had just happened from my brow. 

I couldn’t believe it.  This was Intronaut.  In person.  Not two metres from me.  In the centre of the stage, Joe had played his bass; to his left and right, respectively, Sacha Dunable and Dave Timnick provided a harmony of guitar and vocals; and, finally, beyond them was Danny Walker, whose cymbal hits, fills, and blast beats were as precise as they were to the point.  Each member was in form, working as vessels through which the music flowed.

Machine

Please note that you can read the prologue here. Head past the jump to continue.