Gorgs Graphic Souk

Hostiles. I hate you. I hate you more. You are green. You are blue. You are different. No, you are. You eat animals. You are a sodding vegetarian. You worship the wrong god. It’s the right god, it’s you that is wrong. I’m right. You’re wrong. You speak funny. You talk rubbish…
The list goes on. It’s endless. Is repetitive and static and stupid and brain-petrifying and criminally tedious and it goes nowhere except to the bottomless pit via a downward spiral of doom.
Come ye bugs and tardigrades and inherit a planet gloriously void of crack-brained WeThePeoples wot tolerate Netanyahus and Bravermans and Musks and Bezoes and Blair Witches and Bojos and Abascals. All the infinite variety of comedians, dangerous clowns that will bring about ArmaFuckingGeddon whilst repeating, like dumb zombies: “Capitalism is the Way, the only Way, the Holy Way!”.
And: “Capitalism has lifted thousands of people out of poverty!” (but never, ever admitting to the hundreds of thousands that it has plunged into abject destitution..).
They will bleat: “Repent, oh sinners, and embrace the true Doctrine…or else!” (Whatsoever the doctrine might be, in whichever colour it might bedeck itself, no matter how implausible its gospel…).
They will shriek loathsome metaphors like: “Israel has a right to defend itself!” which is shorthand for “We shan’t stop until the last Palestinian is dead or exiled!” (But preferably dead, for the dead don’t come back to demand accounts, reparations or, god forbid, a place to love and live a decent life.)
They will throw wobblies worth of a spoilt infant and demand more tanks, more drones, more money, more flattery, more luuuurve, more…more…more…
They will throw their bloodstained hands high up in the air and claim that their very existence is under threat and call it the “crisis of masculinity” and they will use this as an excuse to go out and murder a few more women to reassert their god-given privilege.
And so on…and on…and on…
Dearie me.

Lone Trees. The lone trees in the lonely wood on the free-floating itinerant islet are charmed by the slow, stately passage of a school of wandering flying sardines. “Don’t leave! Stay! Bide here a while and play with us and have tea!” they plead. But the celestial fish are restless and cannot stop. Theirs is a mysterious itinerary and the reason they follow it is not revealed even to them. They must go where their unknown impulse takes them, poor buggers. The trees are desolate, their island also following an inscrutable course marked by fuck knows who or what, let alone why. See, not all is always fluffy and merry in the Uncertain Zones. There’s also a moderate deal of heartbreak. Ah, well…

Dawn. So time went on. And on. And centuries went by followed by millennia and those by aeons. Eventually, after a decent period of time had elapsed, and the bugs and the tardigrades had settled, the Mother of All Frogs decided it was time to have another go at diversity on the planet. So She emerged from Her private singularity and brought forth a couple of tadpoles, just to try and see what would happen. The tadpoles initially were very confused, poor mites. The bugs were delighted; they thought that the tadpoles were dead cute and whattahell, the more the merrier. The tardigrades were not quite so sure. “Well, at least they are not mammals…” they concluded. We wish them all great happiness and prosperity and endless grooviness. Also, better luck, and, above all, a vastly higher degree of soundness of judgement than we evidenced, obviously.

Reptilian Tittle-Tattle. De perdidos, al río. (From lost, to the river -in English, In for a penny, in for a pound.)
That’s how things are these days: crappy beyond belief, as one of the iguanas has rightly appraised. Faced with such massive heap-a-caca, the options aren’t all that many. One can throw in the towel and do away with oneself, in varying degrees of gracefulness, or let oneself die of rage, disgust and boredom. Or a body can decide to carry on regardless. Having survived that long under such in utterly intolerable conditions, one might as well hang around a little longer and see what happens next. The means to take the first option are always available, innit? The river isn’t going anywhere…
Have a splendiferous new week-soon-come and be thankful you’re not a Palestinian, or in Port Au Prince right now, or a First Australian, come to think of it. Or, Bumba forfend, dependent on the NHS demi-gods’ vagaries for your wellbeing.

Tangled Grub. aka Masters of the Universe: The Kingdom and the Power but not the Glory. (Again, For ZBSH. Gone but by no means forgotten)
Long time no rant… Here’s Kabbalist harangue, then.
Driven by the primaeval hungers of Malkhut they have stormed Yesod and there they have built their petrified fastness and constructed their constantly changing but never evolving personae. Snug, smug, compliant, self-sanctioned, fashionable, safe and impenetrable, there they defend their impeccable splendid isolation tooth and claw. Wrapped in the robes of self-willed blindness there they breed and brood. Nothing comes in and nothing but their waste matter ever comes out of that meretricious coop. The flimsiest, most nebulous, tiny thought -let alone a flash glimpse- of Tiferet would fill their polymer-clad brains (or what passes for brains) with terror. So they eat and drink and pontificate their vapid lies and evangelize their fatuous Disneyotic fantasies and look down in scorn and anger (and fear) at anything that might dare hint at a higher something-or-other.
They are the almighty master puppeteers and their very mighty meat puppets; and the merely powerful but still on the alrightnik side of the hierarchy; and the just-about-powerful, desperately scuffling up the fragile, fickle ladder. And the slaves-in-all-but-name, half crazed with their thirst for power and their fear of impotence, ever-willing to do the meat puppets’ bidding in case it brings them even a tiny step up the greasy pole; and the wretched slaves who sell their grandmothers and, often, their own grandchildren, for just a shred of reflected clout.
They are the obscenely rich and the very rich and the simply wealthy and the well off and the nicely comfortable and the not-so-comfortable but determinately aspirational. They are both the lost sheep and the good shepherds. The cattle and the drovers. They are the salt of the Earth and they shall inherit it … until they blow it up to smithereens or they poison it with aerosolized hot air and crushing misery.
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.
Matthew 5:13 Meanwhile, back at the reality ranch, the poor wee grub is left wondering what the fuck all this shit has to do with her and her kin and her friends and her neighbours. My heart aches for you, little one.

The Messenger. aka Bleak House. aka. The Shape of Things As They Are, given the astronomical all-pervading levels of sheepishness and laziness. And may Bumba have mercy upon our wretched tired souls.

Non-Euclidean Bug. Belated greetings card for International Women’s Day. Go for it, girls. Give ‘em hell!

Bird and Wraith. Wandering with her familiars in the twilight gardens of the Elusive Zones, Tribulata, the flightless, four-legged Bird of Paradise Misplaced, has been ambushed and buttonholed by a small but perfectly formed nonconformist wraith who claims he is, honest-to-Bumba, genetically related, if very remotely and even more nebulously. The wee sprite, whose name is Bagatelle, is not seeking any worldly gain or advantage, he says, just a spot of pleasant interaction and intelligent conversation. He claims that interaction with other phantasms is, well, kind of flimsy. And that family is family, regardless of how far-flung and blurry the connection might be. Tribulata is not quite convinced by the little phantom’s evidence. The familiars are all for a good old get-together, not to say a merry chin-wag and, ideally, a jolly old riotous tea party. The familiars like tea, bless their furry socks. We wish all the parties involved a maaaaarvelous time. Life is short.

Prisoners. Lest we forget.

Amazed. (Or even amazing grace.) Amazed that I’m still alive in spite of all the odds being against; and in spite of the Indian palmist* who assigned me 60/65 years as a long lifespan; and in spite of having done some miraculously idiotic things. Amazed that I can still discover new friends in unsuspected places and find new insights under the most unlikely of stones. Amazed, and utterly chuffed, that new-ish shapes of Shoggoth can still emerge from the deep fathoms of my diseased imagination. I am truly and really a lucky bleeder. (Here’s to you Ian!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPvRsLWlDXw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmopROxBnBU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1injh4-n1jY

*The Indian Palmist. A cute traveller’s tale.
It was long ago and far away, when the wench I then was was young and foolish and brave and didn’t think twice before embarking on chancy undertakings, that I found myself in a deserted train station, in the middle of nowhere in South India. The only other representative of human life was a middle-aged Indian chap also travelling on his own. Naturally enough, almost a given in India, we fell into idle chitchat; you know, “where are you from?” “how do you like India?” “have you ever been tempted to vote Lib Dem?” and so on.
At some point it transpired that he was a spare time palmist and astrologer and he kindly offered to read my palm. Now, I don’t believe in any of this occult, mystical fiddle-faddle, but I am rather fond of astrology nevertheless; it amuses me. So I agreed to have my fortune told and very interesting said reading turned out to be. My heart line revealed, he said, that I was by nature loving and kind but had little or non patience for idiots (guilty as charged) and by the poor flexibility of my thumbs that I was very stubborn (again, culpable, m’lud). The life line, he said, was good. I’d enjoy a long life, “60 or 65”. And indeed, by his standards, 65 might have been more than a reasonable lifespan.
We sat there indulging in some more pleasant chin-wagging. The afternoon was hot but calm and the air was clean and sweet, considering we were in a train station. Suddenly on the other side of the tracks, far in the distance and like in a dream, an all-women manifestation went by in almost total silence. It passed on quietly, carrying placards I couldn’t read and red flags. I liked to imagine it was a communist protest and who’s to say I was wrong. After all we were in Kerala, or very nearby, and in them blessed days Kerala was known as the Red State.
Then his train came so we wished each other well and he went on his way. I was half tempted to hop on that train myself -although technically, as per schedule, it wasn’t my train- as one tended to do in those days in out of the way, middle of nowhere places in India; for you could never be quite sure when the next train, bus or bullock cart would be along, no matter how emphatically the locals told you that “yes, yes, train/bus/bullock cart come, very soon/5 o’clock/two hours”. I didn’t, however. I kept faith in the quoted time-table and eventually my train arrived, a mere 35 minutes late.
There are events that stick in your mind like memory limpets. This is one of them. Not only for the almost surreal, dream-like quality of the whole thing but because, come every birthday after my 65th, the nice amateur astrologer lives again in my mind’s eye and I tell him “For better or for worse, you got that one wrong, mate.” Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, indeed.