THECUBE is where I went today. Thecube. The Cube London. I am now back home. My feet reek.
Where is THECUBE? It is near Liverpool St. Station. Whereabouts? Near Spitalfields market. On Commercial Street if you want to be specific. What is it? It is essentially office space for creatives and business indivuals or companies. But it is a whole lot more than just office space, temporary accommadation, a limbo. It isn't even that. It is a place to network, to find contacts in whatever field you happen to be 'in'. If, for an example, you are an aspiring photographer, and you join to become a member, not only can you come in to use the working environment, but you can also take advantage of the fact that other people in the industry will be in easy reach of contact.
Think of it as a professional, innovative Facebook for real life. Less gimmicky and never freezes. It is a perfect oppurtunity to get yourself known.
The Look
This is a big part of THECUBE. It prides itself on sleek wood and glass panels, glossy surfaces against original brickwork, surgically-clean tiled floors. However, it is not so much the materials that have been used in the creation of the space, than the space itself. It is open plan, which promotes talk; private cubicles to work in are not THECUBE's style - if that's what you want, go to a library, or sit and work in your bathroom. Or in your cupboard. Or in bed. It is about connections here, not introspective doodling.
Needless to say, it is a very cool, modern building, both its interior and exterior leaking potential creativity. To be unable to work here, or to have trouble somehow, or above all, to feel on your own, is criminal. The sense of community that its creators are trying to express in every aspect of THECUBE is commendably evident.
Members Only
But it isn't a completely exclusive club; non-members can 'rent' space as they please, but it is more expensive that way. And to add to that, the benefits of connecting with other members are lost. Its success will rely on its members. Another comparison: Twitter would be inconsequentially tiresome if there were only a few members. Or, to say it another way, by all means, you can join Twitter, but then after a while, if you don't follow people, you won't get people following you - you won't make connections.
This is how THECUBE also works. If you aren't a member, you can't reap the rewards. In fact, its lowest level of membership (£5/month) is called In The Loop Membership. thefreedictionary.com defines "in the loop" as part of a group that is kept up-to-date with information about something. Exactly. And who wouldn't want to be in the loop? Especially in such a cloistered sector of society as 'creatives' and 'innovatives'. It is hard enough to find a door to knock on, let alone get your foot in it. It is the ideal place to launch yourself into whatever industry you fancy, as long as you are specific about what it is you want to crack on with.
Me? What am I doing?
I went in for a meeting today. I contacted THECUBE via Twitter to ask if they needed any writing done (free of charge of course - they are a fledgling company, 7 weeks old), because I am in dire need of experience. And here I am. With my foot in the door. In fact, the door was opened for me because I couldn't work out how to get in the building. This is a case study, as you see that by acquring various contacts on Twitter I could then make a connection with a relevant contact, and before I knew it I was nervous on the tube to Liverpool Street. With any luck the contacts will come in deluges now. It most definitely is 'who you know'.
What I'll be doing for THECUBE is writing. Writing a newsletter, helping to write a book for their first year. Like a baby book, full of first steps and pretty vomit. It will be based on cubes, the number 6, and staccato. I suggested that, as it is the first year, and because it is cube-related, the pages should be thick like a picture book so that - when finished - the book will actually look like a cube. We'll see.
& now what? Well. I'm going in next Wednesday. Every Wednesday maybe. I need to brainstorm and think about haikus. Double haikus. 6 lines, you see?
www.thecubelondon.com
That is the website.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Sunday 4 October 2009
the mountain fable
It is Sunday. I have just seen a very small trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Mount Parnassus is in Greece. Mount Parnassus in turn is named after the son of the nymph Kleodora, who is called Parnassos. There was a city of which Parnassos was the leader, and that city was flooded by torrential rain; the citizens ran up the nearby mountain slopes to safety. Whether this is where the mountain got its name from is beyond me. Etymogically speaking, 'Parna' comes from the same root word for 'house' in the Luwian language, which is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of Indo-European, and it is closely related to Hittite. You find out about that yourselves. The '-ssos' is a placename suffix, like Knossos. God knows what that means. 'Place'? Homeplace. Fair enough. May well mean 'is ruined'. From the mountain they looked down at the city crying and basically not loving it. Why is Parnassos called Parnassos then? Don't know. Apparently, his mother, the nymph, was one of those (yeah - 'one of those') prophetic nymphs who divined by throwing stones or pebbles. Very accurate. When the citizens ran up the mountain they followed (yes, followed) the sound of howling wolves; why on earth you would follow the sound of howling wolves I have no idea, perhaps they were suicidal. Anyway, they built another city up there called Lycoreia, 'the howling of the wolves' - naturally. Orpheus, the motherfucker, lived here with his mum and beautiful aunts. Did he fuck them too?
Why did you read that? What did I write it for? Any purpose, any purple. When I was younger I remember the exact moment that I learned what "on purpose" meant. I think I had to sit on the naughty step at my childminder's house because I did something "on purpose" - but I couldn't fathom it. It sounded too much like "purple" to make any sense. Another time at my childminder's house I first heard the word "violent", which, you guessed it, I thought was "violet" - again this was explained to me. I also learned the meaning of "including", and I remember that we were watching an advert for an upcoming season of Rugrats, which mentioned that all the gang would be there or whatever "including Angelica!" (what an ironic name, looking back: she wasn't an angelic at all). It means "everyone, plus Angelica". I remember that it took a while to explain. I need to know what words mean. Words and words. Well the above history/myth lesson didn't have any purple, really, so don't get violet about it now. Or I'll get violet. Serial. "WTF IZZ SERIALZZ???" Watch the Manbearpig episode of Southpark to find out why 'serial', and not 'serious'.
It is Sunday. Sunday in a student house is basically like any other day, but definitely a little bit slower, because no one is at lectures. Sometimes people go to lectures. So after we ordered tickets for Glastonbury this morning, we lazed around for a while. It is perfectly acceptable. Yes, I can hear you squaking, "Glastonbury tickets?!" Yes yes yes, Glastonbury tickets. Yes. SI AMIGOS Y AMIGOS. I've never been before, and Glastonbury 2010 is very special because it is the 40th anniversary. I don't think it is as special as 50, because that is half a century. 40 is just four tenths of a century, which is horribly anticlimactic and blandly unspecial. Still: it is a multiple of ten, and that's worth it. Because it wouldn't be going on next year if it wasn't for that magic 40, so I suppose it's good. It's good, yeah. I want to roam amongst the hippies. Me and Becky guessed that around 50,000 people probably attended on average. But we were very incorrect. The actual number is about 175,000. Brilliant. I just want to be lost, muddy and musical, Glastonburyised. Maybe it won't be like that. I suppose I will have to wait. In the videogame, No More Heroes, 'Glastonbury' is part of a fictional manga within the fictional story of the game's storyline - he is a giant robot which some girls ride around in smashing stuff up, I presume. It is a giant robot, though. The correct term is mecha, I guess, but then again, I'm not a prick so I'll say robot. The song "PURE-WHITE GIANT TINY GLASTONBURY" is a song on the soundtrack for the game. I'd rather be a Giant Tiny than a Tiny Giant. Would you? Why not debate it among friends? Bzzzzzz. That's the sound of sarcasm. I prefer the spelling 'Glastenbury', which is a town in Vermont (USA). Glastenbury Mountain is named after the town. According to legend, the town was flooded by torrential rain and they ran up the side of the mountain to safety, following the sound of howling wolves all the way up. BZZZZ. Shut up.
Why does The Politics Show exist? It is horrid. What even is politics in the UK? It is all ratification and referendum, voting and lords and commons and stupid paper signing and reading. Lots of wobbly jowled gentlemen, some unfortunate other individuals - men and women - with no charisma, except that of a wooden, melancholic, SAD affected talking, jiggling head, or on the other hand, with all the fight and inconsequence of a stupid yappy little dog, who can be kicked easily away with something like this blog post. They have no efficacy whatsoever. No anything, no nothing. Benchers and backbenchers, benching and wrenching each other's teeth out, all the tension of a fight that just can't be cared about. Hot air, so much of it, so much that they are stifling and sweating in their stiff suits, drenching their shirts and blouses on the benches, mopping their pulsating brows, feeling the droplets coggled in their untamed eyebrows, badly done makeup running, arses burning on the bench. With all the hot air, I expect they would undress, and from that explode into orgy at any moment. They should. But they don't. Why don't they? That'd be much more exciting. But of course, bureaucracy is bureaucrazy. Everyone knows this, but everyone carries on, not caring about the mountains of forms they have to fill in for the tiniest of things, your everything on record, your children made of paper and tickboxes with signature hair and crosses for eyes, scribble of a mouth saying "mother, father, stop your form-filling-in!" and then the inevitable answer, the blank-page stare, the ballpoint pursed lips, the numbers in their eyes, this says it all: "quieten down, child, and watch this, your paper inheritence, your filing cabinet future, now, erm, tick here to agree that I haven't abused you by telling you to quieten down... then sign here - no, there, and here - again? yes, again you silly boy/girl - ah! it's another form for insulting, hang on, it's here somewhere - wait - WAIT! where are you going? you need to fill in this before you leave! answer me? - you're going to make me forge it? - what?! you don't care? you have to - you don't? what?! you'll have to sign here for that, to prove you're culpable for what you say, and that it's not my fault - PLEASE! otherwise I'll have to fill in the one that means I become your mouthpiece and gumshield, brace and retainer! - what? don't slam the door, I'll get a noise complaint form from next door? they're good at forms, please d-- NO! NO THE DOOR! SHIT! More paper for the pile ......."
And so it went that this paper pile grew to over 300 metres above sea level. The town suffered under a sudden bout of torrential rain, and it began to flood, so they did the logical thing and ran to the mountain, and up its papercut slopes, following the sound of honking members of parliament. Later they founded a town on the mountain called Empeaton, and it was a shithole, and... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Fuck off fox hunting as well, leave the law alone. Clearly no one wants it repealed. Puck you.
Why did you read that? What did I write it for? Any purpose, any purple. When I was younger I remember the exact moment that I learned what "on purpose" meant. I think I had to sit on the naughty step at my childminder's house because I did something "on purpose" - but I couldn't fathom it. It sounded too much like "purple" to make any sense. Another time at my childminder's house I first heard the word "violent", which, you guessed it, I thought was "violet" - again this was explained to me. I also learned the meaning of "including", and I remember that we were watching an advert for an upcoming season of Rugrats, which mentioned that all the gang would be there or whatever "including Angelica!" (what an ironic name, looking back: she wasn't an angelic at all). It means "everyone, plus Angelica". I remember that it took a while to explain. I need to know what words mean. Words and words. Well the above history/myth lesson didn't have any purple, really, so don't get violet about it now. Or I'll get violet. Serial. "WTF IZZ SERIALZZ???" Watch the Manbearpig episode of Southpark to find out why 'serial', and not 'serious'.
It is Sunday. Sunday in a student house is basically like any other day, but definitely a little bit slower, because no one is at lectures. Sometimes people go to lectures. So after we ordered tickets for Glastonbury this morning, we lazed around for a while. It is perfectly acceptable. Yes, I can hear you squaking, "Glastonbury tickets?!" Yes yes yes, Glastonbury tickets. Yes. SI AMIGOS Y AMIGOS. I've never been before, and Glastonbury 2010 is very special because it is the 40th anniversary. I don't think it is as special as 50, because that is half a century. 40 is just four tenths of a century, which is horribly anticlimactic and blandly unspecial. Still: it is a multiple of ten, and that's worth it. Because it wouldn't be going on next year if it wasn't for that magic 40, so I suppose it's good. It's good, yeah. I want to roam amongst the hippies. Me and Becky guessed that around 50,000 people probably attended on average. But we were very incorrect. The actual number is about 175,000. Brilliant. I just want to be lost, muddy and musical, Glastonburyised. Maybe it won't be like that. I suppose I will have to wait. In the videogame, No More Heroes, 'Glastonbury' is part of a fictional manga within the fictional story of the game's storyline - he is a giant robot which some girls ride around in smashing stuff up, I presume. It is a giant robot, though. The correct term is mecha, I guess, but then again, I'm not a prick so I'll say robot. The song "PURE-WHITE GIANT TINY GLASTONBURY" is a song on the soundtrack for the game. I'd rather be a Giant Tiny than a Tiny Giant. Would you? Why not debate it among friends? Bzzzzzz. That's the sound of sarcasm. I prefer the spelling 'Glastenbury', which is a town in Vermont (USA). Glastenbury Mountain is named after the town. According to legend, the town was flooded by torrential rain and they ran up the side of the mountain to safety, following the sound of howling wolves all the way up. BZZZZ. Shut up.
Why does The Politics Show exist? It is horrid. What even is politics in the UK? It is all ratification and referendum, voting and lords and commons and stupid paper signing and reading. Lots of wobbly jowled gentlemen, some unfortunate other individuals - men and women - with no charisma, except that of a wooden, melancholic, SAD affected talking, jiggling head, or on the other hand, with all the fight and inconsequence of a stupid yappy little dog, who can be kicked easily away with something like this blog post. They have no efficacy whatsoever. No anything, no nothing. Benchers and backbenchers, benching and wrenching each other's teeth out, all the tension of a fight that just can't be cared about. Hot air, so much of it, so much that they are stifling and sweating in their stiff suits, drenching their shirts and blouses on the benches, mopping their pulsating brows, feeling the droplets coggled in their untamed eyebrows, badly done makeup running, arses burning on the bench. With all the hot air, I expect they would undress, and from that explode into orgy at any moment. They should. But they don't. Why don't they? That'd be much more exciting. But of course, bureaucracy is bureaucrazy. Everyone knows this, but everyone carries on, not caring about the mountains of forms they have to fill in for the tiniest of things, your everything on record, your children made of paper and tickboxes with signature hair and crosses for eyes, scribble of a mouth saying "mother, father, stop your form-filling-in!" and then the inevitable answer, the blank-page stare, the ballpoint pursed lips, the numbers in their eyes, this says it all: "quieten down, child, and watch this, your paper inheritence, your filing cabinet future, now, erm, tick here to agree that I haven't abused you by telling you to quieten down... then sign here - no, there, and here - again? yes, again you silly boy/girl - ah! it's another form for insulting, hang on, it's here somewhere - wait - WAIT! where are you going? you need to fill in this before you leave! answer me? - you're going to make me forge it? - what?! you don't care? you have to - you don't? what?! you'll have to sign here for that, to prove you're culpable for what you say, and that it's not my fault - PLEASE! otherwise I'll have to fill in the one that means I become your mouthpiece and gumshield, brace and retainer! - what? don't slam the door, I'll get a noise complaint form from next door? they're good at forms, please d-- NO! NO THE DOOR! SHIT! More paper for the pile ......."
And so it went that this paper pile grew to over 300 metres above sea level. The town suffered under a sudden bout of torrential rain, and it began to flood, so they did the logical thing and ran to the mountain, and up its papercut slopes, following the sound of honking members of parliament. Later they founded a town on the mountain called Empeaton, and it was a shithole, and... bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Fuck off fox hunting as well, leave the law alone. Clearly no one wants it repealed. Puck you.
Saturday 3 October 2009
The word is 'PROLEPSIS'
I'm in Southampton at Becky's house. It's very weird. I would like to be a student. I, Student. It's a shame that I'm not. I'm looking for jobs. It would be lovely if I could look for jobs now and not have a job at the same time to have to keep me going. A temporary job is distracting. You know what I mean. Time-consuming, as well. What I mean to say is I want a career. I don't want a job. What are you here for? Careering, probably straight into a job, straight into a wall, the kind of wall that careers straight back into you. Students don't have walls. Doors and windows, but no walls. Who needs all this philosophising anyway? Whatever and whatever else.
Now a flashback. Two nights ago I watched the first episode of Flashforward.
I was slightly apprehensive. I had watched the trailer, it didn't impress me really. However, I decided to give the first episode a go. What ensued was half-good. I was expecting melodrama, and what it was, well it was melodramatic. There's nothing wrong with that, though. So we career onwards into the program itself. It begins by establishing all of the characters, lovely lovely, so that we care about all of them. I don't care about most of them because they all interact with each other as if they're in group therapy. We get to see the status quo, the nice little lives, the houses, and for one character the prelude to a possible suicide. This makes it more fun when the 2 minutes 17 seconds long black out happens. Everyone in the world blacks out. Everyone sees something in their 'blackout' which is more like a vision than a dream - but then with some super sleuthing it is decided that the visions are actually memories of events which haven't yet occurred.
Ah-ha. Now we are getting somewhere. People who haven't had these memories of events which haven't yet occurred are going to die; that's pretty logical: if you see nothing, there's nothing of you existing in the future (which is April 29th, 2010). The media picks up on it, and you see some nice footage of some people on the news talking about these memories of events which haven't yet occurred. Is that getting annoying yet? I'm getting a memory of an event which hasn't yet occurred: I am watching a program about memories which haven't yet occured and I am using the laptop as a battering ram to my head. But that event hasn't yet occurred. For some reason all characters avoid saying "flashforward" like the plague, as if the word doesn't exist in this alternate reality, until Shakespeare in Love says it while being emotional in bed. If the program was called 'Memories of Events Which Haven't Yet Occurred', all the characters would be saying 'flashforward' - do you see what I mean? Shut up Shakespeare!
Am I being unfair? Maybe. I may be being biased, but I did research Flashforward, and did not realise that it was based on a novel of the same name. If Wikipedia counts as research, then yes it was research. The novel sounds pretty interesting, more science fiction than something that is happening 'now', and the blackout for 2 minutes and 17 seconds actually has a cause, shall I say it? It's caused by the Large Hadron Collider. I'll say that much. Perhaps I'm more of a book person. Perhaps I'm a purist. Perhaps perhaps. But let's carry on, shall we?
Despite hiccoughs here and there, for example, Abrams ripping off the pilot of Lost, with the carnage of the plane crash paralleled with the carnage that happens after the blackout on the motorway on the freeway when Shakespeare wakes up; the abuse of situational music every time something vaguely emotional or chilling happens - it makes me not want to listen to what's going on, and rightly so, some of the emotional stuff is ridiculously overdramatic and I wouldn't listen anyway, actually it makes me laugh, so it's a little bit of entertainment over the top of what stupid, teary-eyed waffling they are doing; the fact that this program is also basically just an urban Lost - strangers thrown together because of some fateful event, this time less plausible in its premises (a plane crash versus everyone in the world blacking out for the same time? Over in the first round); of course, also the memories of events which haven't yet occurred thing; despite all this, it has some good points.
The dialogue is believable and enjoyable, and in its very nature it has to be melodramatic at times - if we as an audience are going to believe that everybody blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and experienced a memory of an event of which hasn't yet occurred yet, then we can believe that these people also actually speak like they do. The characters themselves are bit funny, but on the whole, I'm not irritated by watching them, let's put it at that. Even though there is a little voice in my head, bleating and bleating about how silly the program is, I am addicted to the story, and this is only the first episode. I desperately want Shakespeare and his sidekick to find out what is behind all of the mysteries - I searched for the second episode online as soon as I finished watching the first one. I didn't find it. And I felt like a junkie, I need my next Flashforward fix, I'm a gibbering idiot, I'm hungry for a plate of intrigue. It's something that really needs investigating, and I can't wait until it is fully investigated. Every episode is like a slice of cheescake, but after every bite of the slice I have to eat a peppercorn; lovely, but with a miniscule sphere of shit every so often.
On the train down to Southampton me and Alex watched the second episode. Thirty-five minutes of it. I felt very unfulfilled. Have to wait for tomorrow. Have to wait for tomorrow. Then episode three... what will I do? I'm rocking back and forth in a corner. Help me.
Now a flashback. Two nights ago I watched the first episode of Flashforward.
I was slightly apprehensive. I had watched the trailer, it didn't impress me really. However, I decided to give the first episode a go. What ensued was half-good. I was expecting melodrama, and what it was, well it was melodramatic. There's nothing wrong with that, though. So we career onwards into the program itself. It begins by establishing all of the characters, lovely lovely, so that we care about all of them. I don't care about most of them because they all interact with each other as if they're in group therapy. We get to see the status quo, the nice little lives, the houses, and for one character the prelude to a possible suicide. This makes it more fun when the 2 minutes 17 seconds long black out happens. Everyone in the world blacks out. Everyone sees something in their 'blackout' which is more like a vision than a dream - but then with some super sleuthing it is decided that the visions are actually memories of events which haven't yet occurred.
Ah-ha. Now we are getting somewhere. People who haven't had these memories of events which haven't yet occurred are going to die; that's pretty logical: if you see nothing, there's nothing of you existing in the future (which is April 29th, 2010). The media picks up on it, and you see some nice footage of some people on the news talking about these memories of events which haven't yet occurred. Is that getting annoying yet? I'm getting a memory of an event which hasn't yet occurred: I am watching a program about memories which haven't yet occured and I am using the laptop as a battering ram to my head. But that event hasn't yet occurred. For some reason all characters avoid saying "flashforward" like the plague, as if the word doesn't exist in this alternate reality, until Shakespeare in Love says it while being emotional in bed. If the program was called 'Memories of Events Which Haven't Yet Occurred', all the characters would be saying 'flashforward' - do you see what I mean? Shut up Shakespeare!
Am I being unfair? Maybe. I may be being biased, but I did research Flashforward, and did not realise that it was based on a novel of the same name. If Wikipedia counts as research, then yes it was research. The novel sounds pretty interesting, more science fiction than something that is happening 'now', and the blackout for 2 minutes and 17 seconds actually has a cause, shall I say it? It's caused by the Large Hadron Collider. I'll say that much. Perhaps I'm more of a book person. Perhaps I'm a purist. Perhaps perhaps. But let's carry on, shall we?
Despite hiccoughs here and there, for example, Abrams ripping off the pilot of Lost, with the carnage of the plane crash paralleled with the carnage that happens after the blackout on the motorway on the freeway when Shakespeare wakes up; the abuse of situational music every time something vaguely emotional or chilling happens - it makes me not want to listen to what's going on, and rightly so, some of the emotional stuff is ridiculously overdramatic and I wouldn't listen anyway, actually it makes me laugh, so it's a little bit of entertainment over the top of what stupid, teary-eyed waffling they are doing; the fact that this program is also basically just an urban Lost - strangers thrown together because of some fateful event, this time less plausible in its premises (a plane crash versus everyone in the world blacking out for the same time? Over in the first round); of course, also the memories of events which haven't yet occurred thing; despite all this, it has some good points.
The dialogue is believable and enjoyable, and in its very nature it has to be melodramatic at times - if we as an audience are going to believe that everybody blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and experienced a memory of an event of which hasn't yet occurred yet, then we can believe that these people also actually speak like they do. The characters themselves are bit funny, but on the whole, I'm not irritated by watching them, let's put it at that. Even though there is a little voice in my head, bleating and bleating about how silly the program is, I am addicted to the story, and this is only the first episode. I desperately want Shakespeare and his sidekick to find out what is behind all of the mysteries - I searched for the second episode online as soon as I finished watching the first one. I didn't find it. And I felt like a junkie, I need my next Flashforward fix, I'm a gibbering idiot, I'm hungry for a plate of intrigue. It's something that really needs investigating, and I can't wait until it is fully investigated. Every episode is like a slice of cheescake, but after every bite of the slice I have to eat a peppercorn; lovely, but with a miniscule sphere of shit every so often.
On the train down to Southampton me and Alex watched the second episode. Thirty-five minutes of it. I felt very unfulfilled. Have to wait for tomorrow. Have to wait for tomorrow. Then episode three... what will I do? I'm rocking back and forth in a corner. Help me.
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