Awkward Issue 2 available now

Hello.

150 copies of Awkward Issue 2 were sitting on my dinner table in a nice square cardboard box when I got home from work about 10 minutes ago.

I'm nervous about letting them out into the world.
I'm nervous because I'm exposing myself.
I'm nervous because I don't know what I'm doing.
I'm nervous because I put a poem of mine in there that makes me sweat with embarrassment.
I'm nervous because I really do care what you think, although I know I probably shouldn't.


"Art should be imaginative, not authoritative - kill that fearful and mawkish voice inside you that disallows poetry!" - as my very good friend Toby Dyter said to me only yesterday.


So then, Awkward Issue 2 is available as of right now. Containing documentation of the brain farts of the following fine folks:

Jane Isaac
Franciska Waskiewicz
Jack Carr
Rosemary Kirton
Andrew Carlin
Ben Powell
Alexander Milnes
Florence Poppy Deary
Javena Rahamantya Wilkinson
Andrea Kearney
Toby Dyter
Gene Limbrick
Ian Pons Jewell
Samson Blond
and
Ashleigh Marsh

If you'd like one, simply send £2.75 via paypal to trustthedarkmen@hotmail.com and don't forget to add the address you'd like your copy sent to.
Get in touch about paying through any other channels, or indeed with any other currency.

Thanks,
Jack

Bliss

As unlikely as it may seem, there does actually exist an even more enchanting version of this wonderful song, somewhere deep in my friend Luke Branston's collection of rare and excellent reggae records. Both you and I will have to make do with this youtube version for now though, because you can bet your house on the fact that he won't let anyone touch it.

(Jack)

Chaos

(Jack)

.

(Jack)

faithful representation

The Sun Ra Arkestra, Directed by Marshal Allen - All Tomorrow's Parties, December 2009

(Javena Wilkinson)

John Rattray, the thinking man's professional skateboarder

Day in LA from friendlyfire on Vimeo.

A short clip there from the es footwear website. Featuring John Rattray, Clint Peterson, Mike Manzoori, Keegan Sauder and Rick McCrank skateboarding on a miniaturised skateboarding jump-pipe.
John Rattray is like J.G Ballard, Aristotle and someone else clever all rolled up into one agile, sporting personage. Quite possibly my favourite british skateboarder of all time.
Enjoy!

(Jack)

We Are Here: The Pale Blue Dot

We Are Here: The Pale Blue Dot from dmahr on Vimeo.

(Gene Limbrick)

Collaborations or guest posts or something like that

I've taken the appropriate measures and now you can expect some postings on here from some of your best loved Awkward contributors.

Jack

Homorhetoric

(Rosemary Kirton)

"Welcome to yesterday on the internet. Ha."

The Church Of The Eternal Void - Excerpt #1

     "Work is only ever the organization of natural, unprofitable chaos into some semblance of function-able, control-able, tame-able order..." 

     Ebert tried telling himself this as he watched the world around him contract, shrinking ever-steadily towards an existence comprised entirely of one bed, a sweaty dressing gown and a window, wherever he happened to be.

     "Is the whole world in every room? Fuuck, I wish I'd never tried to read any philosophy."

     He thought about Martin Creed... specifically he thought about an utterly incredulous display he'd witnessed once on youtube. It was as if 'The Artist' had taken a stupid-pill for effect... the effect of appearing stupid. 

     "Why would someone do that?" 

     Creed's words, when written on a page, and occasionally the warm way in which he was prone to speaking about nothingness and somethingness, had comforted Ebert in the past, but his memory of this video was a painful one. It was like the artist had become ensnared in a trap of his own making; having to appear as stupid as possible all the time in order to authenticate his 'simple' works. To insinuate some ungraspable profundity he would fein dumbfoundedness in the face of ideas as complex as "people make art." In the end though, he just seemed dumb. 'Stupid'. At least that's what Ebert thought as he tried and failed to get out of bed.

Bad sound : good noise

I went and saw Until The Light Takes Us the other week in a cinema full of metalheads and hipsters in Dalston. It was a confusing, conflicted experience, but the film was pretty good I suppose. Lots of people laughed in some really worrying places, as well as in some of the right ones. Highlights (a little thin on the ground and definitely peppered atop a thick undercoat of 'rubbish', 'filler' and 'bad footage') included Varg generally talking in a flawed but stridently philosophical/still appropriately angsty manner about the whole thing and Fenriz talking on the phone to a music journalist about the lyrics from his new album, about techno music and about how you should just kill yourself - a conversation bookmarked perfectly at the end with a "yeah, so, fucking great, goodbye!" *hangs up phone* 

Champion Chumpington

Yeah, so this is like a self promotion exercise. I really want you to give me £2 cos I want you to read my writing and think I'm really great and like, tell your little sister I'm soooooo dreamy so she can think of me when she's in the bath.

Its pretty hard to hit the right tone with this blog. I mean, what do people want to hear? What do I want to say? Is anyone reading? Do I hate the internet? Do I just hate myself? Do I hate everyone else? Why am I still talking?

Being a 'writer' seems so ridiculous at any time other than when you are writing something. This stuff - writing about writing - doesn't seem to count. Its a strange sensation. All I really want to share is my self doubt, but what the hell is the point of that? No one wants to hear it, not even me. But here I am, being all reflexive and talking about talking like a bewildered, narcissistic knob.

Anyway. Blogs are useless. I might delete this thing... but I probably won't