Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Celebrity Big Brother - Summer 2014 (2)

CONTINUED FROM HERE

A recent skyline I took near where I live:
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27.8.14
I quite like George and Stephanie, well, like them better than the others.
I know Stephanie is connected with the Speidi brats or was that prats, but I do not remember much about them nor why Claire of Steps recently said she doesn't like Stephanie because of that very connection.
I don't know exactly why, but it seems appropriate that this Midsummer season of BB and CBB should include a marathon dose of Morris Dancing.


28.8.14
Yes, it was a good decision for the first eviction.
I still rather like George and Stephanie and their TV world's first example of a faux-fauxmance!
And the no-win situation in the role-roleplaying of the Gary balloon task. I think someone actually would have a phobia of balloons after reading some Stephen King...

29.8.14
I agree with Marion about Audley via-a-vis Kellie. I feel uncomfortable around those who deem the word 'uncomfortable' uncomfortable.
I also agree with her about her inferences and observations about James. But he is not up for eviction! How did that happen?

30.8.14
Marion wrote: ...looking more and more like Whistler's moth [...] Kellie flew at him -
There's more truth to that than any typo will ever conceal.
Meanwhile, I, too, was surprised at Leslie's eviction. And at the contrariness of the voting public.
I guess I am due to discover even darker truths about that voting public, living where I do (see just to the left HERE under the avatar).

31.8.14
I'd only add that I spotted a glimpse of genuine affection from Edele towards Ricci - the sign of a real fauxmance to contrast with the once engaging faux-fauxmance of G and S? Or, even, a REAL budding romance between E and R with nothing faux about it? If so, is it a first for reality TV?

1.9.14
A cynical use of a dome as a task as they are currently advertising the drama series 'Beneath the Dome' during CBB commercial breaks. However, Gary's acronym for DOME seemed very Illuminati to me...
Meanwhile, James remains a pent up ball of mutant chipped shoulders and Frenchie a loose cannon with strange lips whence the balls shoot out.

2.9.14
Marion wrote: Later, the pair sat and barked like dogs, she a yappy terrier, he a deep chested big dog.  I don't know why I laughed.
I held my breath for another rant from James about educating Gary etc ec
I laughed, too, and held my breath. And I wondered if James is just a Peter Brough in this Educating Archie exercise; nobbut equivalent to a ventriloquist on sound radio.
The HMs seemed pretty muted (Stephanie particularly) as if they are in defensively static attrition yearning towards the end of their TV reality lives, like some of us do in real life when in self perceived 'old age'. Only the nominations later ignited Lauren (negatively) and Dee vis-à-vis Ricci...

3.9.14
I think that Kellie and James are right to hate each other.
(A wonderful report, btw, Marion, to follow all those other wonderful reports. So many witty and revealing observations. I still feel sad that you do not receive explicit reactions on the thread itself from other people, despite there being over 31,000 views since the Summer season began.)
.
4.9.14
Marion wrote: In the DR, Gary performed for BB a song about eviction he had composed. It was utterly tuneless but he did perform some useful syncopation and ended the song with a goose honk.
Highlight of the show, but that's not saying much as not much was shown other than a predictable interview with Frenchie. I think Gary is the certain eventual winner. I can't think of anyone I would currently prefer to him.
I wonder if it was a diplomatic illness by Claire (on her part or CBB's) to avoid further perception or lack of perception of her 'dead from the neck up Ricci rictus' type character depletion.

5.9.14
Marion wrote: In the DR, Gary was feeling exceptional, balanced, and even which is a good place to be. The DR is like the confessinal and BB teases and tricks like a parent so it's all part of growing up.
If he gets evicted, he will leave with honour and pride and won't really have left as his spirit of hope, truth and love will remain and BB will always be in his heart.

I almost believed that Gary almost believed all that. It was almost stirring and inspiring to someone almost his age, as I am.
Edele is an interesting case of an ostensibly nice woman with not enough CBB profile but sufficient profile to be nominated heavily by other HMs because of her otherwise lack of profile but insufficient profile to be saved by the voting public, at least in Clacton.

6.9.14
Marion wrote: George stood accused of too much drinking and clowning to hide from himself and disguise a cry for help. Audley claimed ownership. Quite profound, that comment.
Another word Audley used in this context was 'aloofness', which I thought was spot on. I infer he meant a sort of designer aloofness.
I still can't think of anyone I would rather win than Gary. I write this as I try to gurn at my computer screen as he would.
Did Stephanie mention the dreaded word 'pact' at the end of her interview - with Emma then abruptly finishing it with her best bits? There is nothing more counteractive to audience belief than realising that James and Audley have a pact to be nasty to each other, probably pre-rehearsed for added wit.

7.9.14
Marion wrote:
:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
An entertaining night thanks to Mr. Gary Busey. If he doesn't win after tonight it will be an even bigger scandal than the Helen win.
BB appointed Gary as counsellor to the house. He was the perfect picture of a Californian guru as I imagine them to be. Dressed in a bright, striped poncho, decked with love beats, the tools of his trade around him, he was magnificent.
...he gave her one of his acronyms = P.A.S. T., (which stands for Preoccupation With Time Spent) which stops her moving forward.
Gary ROARED at him. 'You live in a conflict zone and can't get out of your own way.'
This gary was an entirely different one from what we've been saying - perfectly lucid, no trouble hearing, and right in all he said even if it was dressed up in pyschobabble.
Loved it.
He finished by blessing the public and saying he loved them.
You know what? We love you too, Gary.
Cunning old devil!

Say no more.

8.9.14
Without trying to be mouthest, have you noticed visually what a mean mouth James has got? That stab wound you mention?
What a report, Marion! Another tour de force. Lauren and James really are both media marionettes with tangled strings...
More sporadic roars from Gary bursting through - from his mouth that gurns with teethy love.


8.9.14 (later)
Marion wrote: Yes. I turned down the volume for a minute to watch Ricci's mouth which is a tiny pursed thing with odd tics to the side even when he's not speaking. James was there too and his mouth was a slash , welded tight shut to hold back the volcanic furies seething deep inside him. Gary's loopy radiant smile is refreshing.
That's a brilliant observation of Ricci's mouth, Marion!
(By the way, for the record, please replace my 'mouthest' above with 'mouthist'.)

9.9.14
Marion wrote: Gary thinks he gets nominated because he's likely to win.
Gary may lose some votes because of saying that, but he still should win, I hope. I have no preference for 2nd and 3rd. None of them deserve it.
The incident with the trousers was a hilarious Chaucerian cock and bull story.
And to James and Dee - get a life!

10.9.14
Thanks for explaining all that about Ricci and Lauren, Marion.
I think you began this CBB series by liking Dee, and I think I did, too. But I hope she goes tonight. Along with James. Still maybe Lauren and Ricci should go as they are less entertaining! The rest going on Friday, leaving Gary the winner.
Des and Marion, not to be confused with Dee and Marlon, will be going on Friday, too. :cry:

11.9.14
I think Gary lost a few more votes with the Edele argument and when harping on about the respect due to him because he is 70 years old and his experience of life. I still hope he wins, not that I ever demand respect because of my age. But I think George or Edele may win. James, even!
 
12.9.14
Goosey Goosey Gander where shall I wander,
Upstairs, downstairs and in my lady's chamber
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
I took him by the left leg and threw him down the stairs.

Marion wrote:
In the garden, a lone goose flew overheard causing great excitement in Gary, Lauren and Audley. Gary honked a greeting. 'They finally found me,' he said. Audley thought the lone goose was symbolic, he wan't sure what it represented but it must mean something. Gary reckoned the goose represented staying power and/or a message saying 'I love you.'


So CBB this summer ends with an explicit reference by the HMs to "Goose symbolism", while the BB earlier this season ended with Swan symbolism:

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DFL: "Following on from that, I've had a sudden revelation. The BB-historical double top for women as embodied by Ashleigh-Helen is simply a symbol of the Black Swan / White Swan syndrome or struggle in 'Swan Lake' (cf the film 'Black Swan'). Everything falls into place..."

Quote:
Rudeness was playing on Gary's mind. he gave Edele one of his acronyms - Riding Upon Defaming Energy = RUDE. He had to explain what defaming meant to Edele (he really s wasted on the HMs). Yup, Gary gets called rude, but others in the house are worse that he and 'there ain't nothin' said in church about that'
(Great phrase!)


I think that is the third such Illuminati acronym from Gary. Mine today: GARY: Great Age Running Young.
Goosey Goosey Gander, Climb those blessed stairs.
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Hope he wins tonight. See you in January, Marion, and thanks again for the wonderful reports. =D>
.
AS EXTRACTED FROM DISCUSSION WITH MARION HERE
 
CONTINUED HERE WITH CELBERITY BIG BROTHER WINTER 2015

Thursday, August 21, 2014

My recent thoughts elsewhere (1)


I think I probably imagine many 'buried patterns', having sought them in every aspect of my creative fiction writing and real-time reviewing hobby. So apologies if I am seen to put too much weight on these patterns.

“Paul swam in a sea of theories. Everything from the morning’s headlines to the license plates of buses had hidden significance. But Paul’s torrent of interpretations had something joyous to it. Buried patterns everywhere. It sounded, sometimes, almost like musicology.” – from ORFEO by Richard Powers

----------------------

Me, too. I consider myself to be eclectic as well as catholic (with a small c). I would hate to be called a 'snob', but I don't mind being called 'pretentious'.

Re: The Primary Task I agree with much that has just been said, only to add that academic study of weird fiction and art for art's sake (pure weird fiction) are not mutually exclusive. It's just that when conscious didacticism impinges, that we have philosophical and/or aesthetic knots.
I go back to my earlier post on this thread:
What do you think of Thomas Ligotti's statement: The primary task of every great horror writer is to expose the miscreation of this world and everything in it.
I would agree and then add: "and the secondary task is to optimise the creative expression of such exposure."
where the optimisation of creative expression can expunge the miscreation of which it speaks. A circular ominous imagination that can bolster us instead of depressing us. Fiction into truth by dint of its vice versa. Untying those knots.

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Celebrity Big Brother - Summer 2014

CONTINUED FROM HERE.

20.8.14
Happy HP Lovecraft Day.
Marion wrote: Dee told a couple of Royal tall tales. The one about accidentally killing the swan was best -I liked the bit about tossing the swan up into a tree so that Prince Philip wouldn't know what she's done.
Another swan! Was it white or black?
Actually, rough diamond Dee is quite good at role-playing Deirdre, the Duchess of Solihull, but I continue to be confused by this huge wriggling netful of 'celebrities' around her. I think I have heard of Audley Harrison and the Strictly dancer, but the rest are just people strictly to by-pass in any enclosed space, hardly noticeable in this increasingly eccentric world we all inhabit. Eccentric has always been good, but ordinary is now the new eccentric. A lesson for me.

Housemates Kellie Maloney, White Dee, Audley Harrison, Edele Lynch, David McIntosh, George Gilbey, James Jordan, Claire King,  Lauren Goodger, Stephanie Pratt,  Ricci Guarnaccio, Angelique "Frenchy" Morgan, Gary Busey, Leslie Jordan.

These excerpts are taken from the long-running discussion HERE.

20.8.14 (later)
Marion: The residents of the house are unknown to me too – celebrity sub rosa.
As to the swan, another mystery. When the Duchess recounted the murder of the swan and tossing up into the air, Claire immediately asked where the other one was as swans always travel in pairs. The duchess changed the subject suspiciously quickly.
Why? Did she accidentally shoot two swans and not want to admit it on the grounds that one feathered corpse was an accident but two smacks of deliberate carnage? Or is there one lone swan, a black one, hidden somewhere awaiting a chance for vengeance?
Des: Marion, just spotted that there is a Black Dee as well as a White Dee: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/celebrity-big-brother-benefits-streets-4073622
Cf the black swan and white swan earlier of Helen and Ashleigh!

21.8.14
Yes, an interesting bunch and your report does full justice to what is going on. Thanks, Marion.
As to my earlier 'buried patterns', only Gary's 'angels' last night seem to fit.
I think I probably imagine many of these patterns, having sought them in every
aspect of my creative fiction writing and real-time reviewing hobby.
So apologies if I am seen (by others reading this) to put too much weight on
these patterns during this thread.

Paul swam in a sea of theories. Everything from the morning’s headlines
to the license plates of buses had hidden significance. But Paul’s torrent of interpretations
had something joyous to it. Buried patterns everywhere. It sounded, sometimes, almost like musicology
.”
– from ORFEO by Richard Powers


22.8.14
Some worrying, irritating and entertaining aspects as documented by Marion.
I sat agog with mouth open at times at the way that this group of Celebrities - who really should join, for real, last night's 'Celebrities Anonymous' - interacted and projected themselves. Tarr and Fether without a tether.
Agog, too, at aging catamite Leslie's description of sharing a bed with Frenchie - drowning in a sea of pink bras, etc.

23.8.14
Wow! That about sums it up. It takes a brave viewer to watch all this. This is a template for the world as it is at the moment, a template that gives off, a template that takes in. A Way Station for our bitter divisions, a vehicle for abject professional yearnings, the crossing of personal and international borders, a public transmogrification upon tides of almost mindless acrimony. Even the dependable structural 'patterns' are fleeing us. Or being replaced with unwelcome ones we cannot resist. The universal 'we'.

Interesting doubts cast on the result of the Helen win in the BB Summer final: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s149/big-brother/news/a592154/big-brother-fix-claims-addressed-by-channel-5.html

24.8.14
There are at least five worryingly aberrant housemates simmering on and under the surface: Frenchie, Gary, Leslie, Kellie and James. Does this mean that generally over one third of all celebrities are seething loose cannons? Or that same proportion of the general public represent negative or aberrant forces in the chemical mix, because, with the Internet and multiple TV channels etc, many so-called ordinary people approach at least the nature of what, in my younger days, was once called 'celebrity'. This relates, too, with something said earlier in this thread: ordinary is the new eccentric, because eccentric is the new ordinary. Or was it always such, but now it is harder to hide?
I am afraid I, too, didn't understand the argument involving Audley, so I can't help Marion there.

25.8.14
When reading Dan Dare in Eagle comic at the age of 12, I remember slow tides of slime spreading over a planet. This is like what is happening to the CBB House: a physical and psychical living ectoplasm whence, I'm afraid, I can't really differentiate each shape lumping out such sticky porridge. I can't even bring myself to choose who should leave this spreading goo on Friday.

25.8.14 (later)
And I forgot to mention - a few days ago I am sure I caught a glimpse of some green swans in CBB as part of a task or something. Seriously.
Or am I going completely mad? :| BTW, swans honk as well as geese, according to google. "Never, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill
.
26.8.15
That's a truly brilliant report, Marion. Had me in stitches and wide-eyed with revelation - honking geese, comparative celebrity, reincarnation, the new religion of NGU et al.
By the way, has anyone heard of 'NGU Illuminati Theory'?
I have now chosen for the eviction tomorrow - James! At the top of his game, he said, but wasn't he recently sacked from Strictly?
I liked Leslie's 'Yes, you are right - and then walk away' method of avoiding arguments with Gary.
When I was a boy, my grandmother made me a Davy Crockett hat.
CONTINUED HERE

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Big Brother Appendix

CONTINUED FROM HERE


I've had a sudden revelation. The BB-historical double top for women as embodied by Ashleigh-Helen is simply a symbol of the Black Swan / White Swan syndrome or struggle in 'Swan Lake' (cf the film 'Black Swan'). Everything falls into place...including the swan shapes above.

“An angel’s face with the devil’s mouth.” –  Emma Willis in interview with Helen – about Ashleigh.
“She did it, too.” – Helen (repeatedly when previously in secret room)
“So many differences, but in the end the same.”  – Ashleigh in interview with Emma about both herself and Helen.

See also Winston Showan and Peter Quince: http://nullimmortalis.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/winston-showan-and-peter-quince/



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17.8.14
Further to my teasing out of the 'Black Swan' syndrome above with regard to Helen-Ashleigh, I make similar hopefully justifiable teasings-out in my real-time reviews (DFL Dreamcatchers) of fiction, including reviews HERE of the publications that are central to a discussion forum: i.e. that of TTA Press: Interaction: (Black Static, Interzone, etc). The discussion forum itself is HERE.

I see that Celebrity Big Brother starts tomorrow evening... Gosh!


My specific blog about the Black Swan angle: HERE
We need to know if BB planned this scenario or it accidentally arose? Nobody else so far has picked up on this.

18.8.14
CELEBRITY BIG BROTHER - Summer 2014
Enough of swans, now to stags.
Someone on CBB just asked "How's your stag?", followed by secret hand signals.
Well, this is the Illuminati Stag God:
Image
Vaguely like the BB eye?

Yet, having just checked, apparently the film 'Black Swan' was full of Illuminati symbols!!!

19.8.14
Thanks for the aide memoire of CBB housemates, Marion. I've not heard of any of them, except the Strictly dancer. There seems too many for four weeks?
I thought the Royal twist - Duchess of Solihull - task a bit demeaning, but there seems to be some strange cocktails of people here that may fizz off interestingly. I liked Emma's new direction in escort job description - but where is Super Cassandra?

19.8.14 (later)
Nelly Furtado ("aka Black Swan") giving the same signal as Zoe and the other housemates (including Ashleigh):
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19.8.14 (later)
Marion wrote: We must watch and wait for a revelation about this triangulation. Or perhaps an intervention - strange UFOs have been sighted over Huston, Texas
And I have just finished a book I have been reading for a while (ORFEO by Richard Powers about an Avant Garde classical composer, a book longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize) where I encountered this passage about a half an hour ago:

"And let him hold his fingers thus. The giant holds up his fingers in a sideways chink of V in front of his shining eye.
Shut the f**k up, Richard barks. Right. And let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisby whisper.
If that may be,
the giant says, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother's son, and rehearse your parts."

And, of course, the Pyramus and Thisby play was the play within a play produced by Peter Quince.
(ORFEO is stunning: Biopunk SF, tweets and musicology as chaos theory...)

20.8.14
Happy HPL Day.
Marion wrote: Dee told a couple of Royal tall tales. The one about accidentally killing the swan was best -I liked the bit about tossing the swan up into a tree so that Prince Philip wouldn't know what she's done.
Another swan! Was it white or black?
Actually, rough diamond Dee is quite good at role-playing Deirdre, the Duchess of Solihull, but I continue to be confused by this huge wriggling netful of 'celebrities' around her. I think I have heard of Audley Harrison and the Strictly dancer, but the rest are just people strictly to by-pass in any enclosed space, hardly noticeable in this increasingly eccentric world we all inhabit. Eccentric has always been good, but ordinary is now the new eccentric. A lesson for me.

CONTINUED HERE

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Two Occasional Tables

An Occasional Table (1)

George knew that to be an occasional table its main purpose was not to have a purpose at all other than as an ornament or, at the most, as a coffee table that is employed to put coffee table type books on if not coffee cups themselves. George was born a Prince but in the subsequent wars and revolutions became a commoner. In his younger days the palaces had been full of occasional tables as well as framed portraits in rooms used as galleries rather than rooms proper. Most things in the palaces were occasional - only his cot then his bed had a definite purpose. Even he as a Prince was an occasional one, or became such when the republic was still unformed, finally not a Prince at all, not even occasional.

His father, a once and future king, was a helicopter pilot until he was pensioned off through bouts of myopia or forgetfulness that was blamed on myopia, his mother now an ageing Nanny for kids that would have grown up like her one day, Princesses in the making once the monarchy returned, as some still hoped. George became a carpenter like a previous budding messiah or spiritual leader as George thought himself to be given different circumstances, but now crucified upon a destiny that was not of his own making. He carved the legs of the table, giving it ornamentation, curlicue curves, knots turned into buds, snaky ribbons weaving through the grain ... but legs would have been legs whatever the ornamentation; in fact, the fussy designs made the legs weaker than they should have been, eventually robbing them of any purpose at all. Instead of supporting the heavy flat plane of the table's surface, they seemed to buckle as each chisel chop that George gave them kicked in. He was behaving like the obstreperous child he had once been in the Royal days. If a table was to be occasional it needed not to work at all. Obsessed with a basic loss that he felt, some right that had been stolen from him, it seemed as if he needed to make the objects themselves around him as useless as he was. Each table he made more and more occasional. His mother wept to see the frowns of frustration knotting his forehead as he wielded the chisel. A carpenter who made a new world in his own image. Easier with words, though, than wood. These words.

Yet, his occasional tables were a big success. It was as if people, shoddy themselves, needed shoddy goods to make themselves seem real in a shoddy world, where nothing was better than anything else. One occasional table giving its name to this story, an occasional table to end all occasional tables, sloping slowly before toppling, spilling all the refreshments that had been entrusted to its surface. This story sloped, too, before toppling the thoughts that it had once promised to the sound of disappointed shouts from those who read it or heard it read aloud - but it never fully toppled at all, only forever threatened to do so. An occasional story, with little or no surface; no depth to satisfy any of us who fell - or attempted to rise - through it.

George scribbled it all out, before being discovered as its author. And decided to play with the Corgis instead. Like all toys, occasional for every occasion.

An Occasional Table (2)

It sat beside me, as innocent as an object can possibly be without having absorbed the memories of a lifetime. Objects are objects, and not even good nostalgia sticks to them, let alone bad things that happened around their vicinity. It is what it is.

Yet, this occasional table was the oldest thing in my life, having travelled from address to address with the audit trail of circumstances, circumstances spontaneous and deliberate alike. It was about three foot square with two parallel wooden plank surfaces, one above another, topped by four screwed wooden knobs, and vertical posts holding the construction together. It looked very basically made, and it was indeed cheap as chips, as born from a flatpack, except I recalled this one, unlike most flatpacks, had been easy to erect, even for the likes of me. It had usually supported a TV set or just something used like a coffee table, but now the narrow strips along the sides of both plank surfaces had peeled away revealing some sort of cork innards. The screwed knobs at the top had become discoloured with indelible thumbprints. I often wondered why this particular shoddy artefact of mankind had outlasted all my other belongings, as life slipped behind me, hardly noticing it, until today...

It was as if it spoke to me with a voice that was beginning to penetrate my absent-minded existence. A dusty croaky tone that hardly uttered words, but it did possess a whining ingratiating sense of thankfulness toward me for preserving it, or so I imagined. Or was it complaining, showing an awareness of what it currently bore upon it, even jeering at the current use to which it had been put, yes, by the likes of me. A large framed photograph leaned back on its wooden pull-out support, itself in turn supported by the top surface of the table. Upon the lower surface underneath, I had placed all manner of a muddle, like extinct files, and handwritten-upon papers where I had once attempted creative writing of some amateurish sort and a few Radio Times from the time I used to buy the Radio Times, most of them with one form or another of the Doctor on the front cover.

The framed photograph was of my family that had been outlasted by this occasional table. I knew I had got my priorities all wrong somehow. Occasional had become forever, and what should have been forever had gone, had gone indeed forever.

I squeezed back into the flatpack, only for it to vanish like a vehicle for a time lord who never really found his time ... except for those handwritten-upon papers as occasional evidence upon an even more occasional table. Gone with a skip. And a hop and a jump.