Reverb10 - Vive la resistance!

I have been reading the prompts with increasing feelings of unease as the pattern of vomit-inducing positivism seems to get worse and worse. I almost gave up, started to look for other online communities which might offer more varied and challenging subjects. However after a few days I thought - what the hell, give it a bit longer. Maybe can have a little fun with all this. Inspired by reading posts and comments from others who feel equally, if not more so, enraged by the sneaky self-help cod philosophy invoked by the prompt authors, that has become my challenge - turn all this positive energy back around onto itself, and create something more destructive and dark!

Its funny how since I started doing Reverb10 I developed a real hankering after black metal and industrial music, something I haven't really listened to for a long time (mostly been pretty quiet folk music the last few years). Like watching the students stand up for themselves, it kind of takes me back to the good old days, gives me a warm feeling inside. I am feeling strangely energised by the malicious feelings that are being provoked here. For that I can truly thank the organisers of this initiative.



So, with all that off my chest, here are my brief entries for the last few days:


> Community.

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010?
What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Well, I found Reverb10 this year, with all its scary, brainwashing traits. Thankfully there seems to be a kind of growing anti-schmaltz Reverb10 sub-Community out there which I would like to be part of, and see develop into something altogether more evil!
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> Beautifully Different.

Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

OK now this one really made me want to vomit. First reaction was to photoshop a turd. Or maybe this was written by an electrocutioner... now that would make sense. But, wait - oh joy of joys - it seems that the author of the prompt has written a book about all it - to help poor lost souls like myself. Its called 'The Beauty of Different'.

If only it was full of photoshopped turds.




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> Party.

What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Hmmm, I do not seem to recall being invited to any 'social gatherings' this year.

I have been known to 'remove' my socks whilst making a kind of rocking motion from side to side when precariously balanced, when the weather is rather hot, it is sleepy time. However I cannot recall there being other people involved, or any particular music, food or drink.

As for shenanigans, we gave those up a long time ago didn't we dearest?
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> Wisdom.

What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?

Not voting Lib Dem.
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Reverb 10 Prompt 4 - Wonder

December 4 – Wonder. How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

This prompt really got me worried. It seems to imply that we all have to 'cultivate a sense of wonder', all very prescriptive and new agey. I started to think that, after the other therapy-like prompts we have already had, that this Reverb thing might be some marketing scam to sell some kind of hideous self help book by a one a semi-religious con artist guru type.

So I waited a few days.

[admittedly I didn't get much time to write anyway during those days.]

And after reading the later prompts I thought - OK - so maybe not all of the prompts are pure evil, give it a bit longer, see what I can get out of it. So that's what I am doing.

If I don't like a prompt, I will say so or ignore it.

After all, its not as if anyone is actually reading this anyway apart from my partner, so I can pretty much write what I like -

arse
balls
smelly poo face
knob cheese
and
gubbins!

Now that was therapeutic!

.

Arse-gubbins

Reverb 5: Let Go

December 5 – Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

I haven't let go of anything. I have steadfastly not done anything of any major significance this last year that anyone would be able to term creative or innovative. I have endeavoured not to cast off the shackles and heavy weights which stop me from moving, developing and enjoying life, and have grown to accept and love them for what they are - an integral part of my being.

Indeed I have tried very hard to cling in desperation to the things that mean a lot to me. For example each time I swing my son around by the hands I am petrified I will let him slip. Equally I have tried very hard to hold onto other things such as relationship, friends, job, sanity, and sandwiches.

Yes, sandwiches. Chip sandwiches. Or chip butties as they are properly called.

You see, even when the bread is a bit old and starts to break up I will always try to get a good bite before the chips start to spill out the side. People say I am mad. They say "Paul, that chip butty is a mess. Throw it away and start a new one." But I try and hold it together for a bit longer, to get the last good bites of vinegary potato bready goodness out of my fist and into my mouth before the whole thing collapses.

Maybe it is foolish of me. Maybe I should move onto something different. Try using wraps. Pitta bread perhaps. If I was so inclined I may just say to hell with it, and just go and eat my bread and chips separately. Who knows - it works for some people. I've seen it with my own eyes. In posh cafes and in other foreign parts. They seem happy enough. But are these people really that much better off than what I is?

Anyway, enough butty talk. If you really must know, here's what I have really let go this last year.

• My hair (it just started running away)
• My eyesight (bloody computers)
• My health (bloody lazy-arsed me)
• My sex-life (too many reasons to go into here)
  

Next year I may well have to add self-respect, what little confidence I have left, job and money to the list.

And if I do ever lose my ability to enjoy a good chip butty - somebody please shoot me.

On the make

Reverb10 task for today:

December 6 – Make.

What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

Easy peasy this one:

1. I made a salad for me tea
   
2. tomatoes, artichokes from a jar, hummus, beetroot, black pitted olives, fake cheeze, a fancy-dan half baguette, a knife, a fork and a plate to put it all on so I could carry it from kitchen to the other room
   
3. some nice pasties followed by a massive sponge cake with lots of chocolate cream on the top and down the sides (and maybe in the middle too)

Am guessing this prompt was meant to be a little more 'spititual' than this - particularly given the way the last few seem to have been heading - but then, lets face it, you can't fill your butties with poems.

[Note: At first I thought maybe 'make love' would have been better for number 3, but then its not just about clearing time is it? (in our house you have to clear the toys off the bleedin' floor as well)]

Reverb10 - moment

OK this one is about a moment from this year when you felt most alive. Also supposed to add lots of descriptive bits.

Initially I just thought I was just going to be lazy and put a photo up of a time I remember in the summer when we were with Tammy's family, walking back along the seafront after a nice meal out together.

It was one of the most relaxed nights out we'd ever really managed with Jake, particularly for me as he was very well behaved, ate well, but mostly because he was happy to play with other people - not just me for once.

It was still warm when we left, had just got dark and the moon was shining bright and full behind us out to sea.

I was running and playing games with Jake and Alyx (his 12 year old cousin), laughing a lot, feeling like a kid all over again. I remember running backwards so I could watch Jake try to keep up - make sure he didn't fall over and hurt himself. Jake simply beamed with energy and joy (God knows where he got it from - or where my energy came from for that matter - must have been the sea air).

Behind me I would catch glimpses of Tammy walking arm in arm with her brother. I couldn't really see closely, but I like to imagine she was as content that time as I was. Long held plans had finally come together and people seemed to be having a good time. An actual holiday. A time when we could relax a bit. Something we hadn't been able to do for far too long.

It made me feel as if things didn't always have to be the way they were, and that maybe, just maybe, we could live a normal and happy life again some day soon...

.

Couldn't find the photo. I know we had some. I also remember how disappointed I was with how they came out. How they just didn't get anywhere close to capturing the beauty of reflection of the moon against the sea.

Why bother? #Reverb10

Prompt: What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Prompt Author: Leo Babauta)

There is an implication in this prompt I find a little scary - ie that you should live purely for your writing, or turn all you do into creative fodder. That sounds a bit too extreme for me. Maybe that is because I am not a serious writer. Maybe its because I have become cynical over the years. Maybe its because I think that balance is more important.

I go through phases when I feel like I need some kind of creative exercise to stop my mind freezing up. Right now it is this Reverb doohickey. Before it was doing drawings and paintings, and pretending to be a Mexican finger puppet living in a kneepit world of corruption and sadness. Long before that there was music and films.

This creative urge is not daily for me by any means, and since my son was born it is rare that it has even crossed my mind at all.

But I know it is there, somewhere inside me, as it probably is in all of us to some degree, and it feels good to let it loose once in a while.

So to answer the original question - I do lots of things that don't contribute, and many more which make it practically impossible. But within all that I know that if I really want to write, and can start to enjoy it for the sake of it (rather than for the hope that someone somewhere out there will like what I do) then I will make the time somehow.

Right now what I really need to eliminate is the fear that I have nothing worth saying, and my own laziness.

I also need few more good prompts.

After all, we all need a good promting every now and then don't we?

2010 - Gubbins, 2011 - Survival

A new challenge, prompted by my other half.

One word that describes last year -

Gubbins

This means its not been great, there has been stress from many sides. Not least having to watch the suffering of someone special to me, from an ever increasing and helpless distance. Thankfully Jake gives us so much energy and purpose that this year has also been one of the most liveable and joyful I can remember.

I chose the word gubbins because it is something Jake increasingly now uses to describe anything out of place around him, and is one of the few things guaranteed to make that person I was telling you about crack one of her incredible smiles.

Next year - I would wish for survival. That should be enough for all of us. One step at a time.

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Gubbins is a chiefly British and by now old-fashioned slang term that originally meant the fragments of something. It then became used to describe an amount of nondescript (and presumably useless) bits and pieces - "I can't even get into the shed because your father's got all his old gubbins lying around." - and therefore figuratively to mean unimportant nonsense