For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins
For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins For the happy man! - Collected writings DEPRESSION: Ed Atkins
Feel its tentacular motion inside your florid gut! Writhe in RAPTURES as your cells are subjected to that peculiar rummaging! [...] The twisting, groping shoots of that Triffid word, GRISTLE, spreading out, easing into your desperate openings. Rimming them with its Stratopharia Cubencil-blue tongue, quivering, blind – a fractal degenerate of only a few of the darker colours, though each one as rich as Guatemalan chocolate – or cacao nibs, even, bitter stimulant halved like a capsule of cyanide disguised as a tooth (the initiation rite involved the dashing out of a full four teeth with a tiny geological hammer wielded by someone’s mum – the gang whooping) and swallowed as if a spot of bile: with a wince. This fractal disappoint- ment spreads out, a patch of time-lapse mould in a forgotten petri-dish, and infects, infests your entire body, in a flash – blooming (tired) then receding, until finally coming to rest, to harden into that clot, into that ball-bearing tumour in your IN. In the meanwhile, upstairs in your brain, VISIONS! (accompaniment by Josef Van Wissem or Carl Stalling or Smegma or Evangelista or Kim Doo Soo – any or all of these rendered unrecognisable by your tuneless hum (I strike up an accompaniment on my teeth, striking them like a marimba with my thumbnail – the temptation always to go for the William Tell overture, only as-rendered by Spike Jones, all belches, thigh-slaps and glottal tics).) [...] And you say, ‘“The only chance you get is the one you take”’, and we laugh like jackals. This time, as so often, laughter leads, in the end, to spasms of agony. Sorry, I
say – but it’s worth it, eh?, an open hand on your shoulder. You’re bent double before me, one hand to your chest, tears on a face I find hard to recognise, let alone console. It’s exhausting, you say, later, so we go for a nap. (You nod off to a confrontation with the tumour, demanding the cessation of its aggression. The tumour answers in rubbery squeaks, renting sounds, gargling. This is the only way you can apprehend the thing: in dreams. Sprinting through the long wet grass, away from the terrible oasis of security lights and the tumourous folly – and its familiar occupant – heading for a shadow on the horizon you take to be a line of trees. The sound of your heavy breathing alongside the swishing, quiet thwap of the grass. Somewhere behind you – you don’t turn to look – comes your own SCREAM, filtered through everything (Auto Filter, Auto Pan, Beat Repeat, Cho- rus, Compressor, Corpus, Dynamic Tube, EQ Eight, EQ Three, Ero- sion, Filter Delay, Flanger, Frequen- cy Shifter, Gate, Grain Delay, Limiter, Looper, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Phaser, Ping Pong Delay, Redux, Resonators, Reverb, Saturator, Simple Delay, Spectrum Utility, Vinyl Distortion, Vocoder, Arpeggiator, Chord Note Length, Pitch, Random Scale, Velocity; AKA: Altretamine, Hexalen, Asparaginase, Elspar, Bleomycin, Blenoxane, Capecitabine, Xeloda, Carboplatin, Paraplatin, Carmustine, BCNU, BiCNU, Cladribine, Leustatin, Cisplatin, Platinol, Cyclophosphamide, Cytoxan, Neosar, Cytarabine, Cytosar-U, Dacarbazine, DTIC-Dome, Dactinomycin, actinomycin D, Cosmegen, Docetaxel, Taxotere, Doxorubicin, Adriamycin, Rubex, Imatinib, Gleevec, Doxorubicin, Liposomal, Doxil, Etoposide, VP-16, VePesid, Fludarabine, Fludara, Fluorouracil, 5-FU, Adrucil, Gemcitabine, Gemzar, Hy-
- Page 85 and 86: oily substance not unlike jojoba, f
- Page 87 and 88: muscles) Averting our eyes from one
- Page 89 and 90: late to be a fucking lie told badly
- Page 91 and 92: fingernail, most likely. Fingers re
- Page 93 and 94: great prairies of skin are, in each
- Page 95 and 96: the same mistake again. The dead ey
- Page 97 and 98: -Resembling the lichen that seems t
- Page 100 and 101: A tumour (in English) 2011
- Page 102 and 103: punctuation and that peculiar synta
- Page 104 and 105: and waning produces a horrific pull
- Page 106 and 107: frozen, unknown. It’s not mine, t
- Page 108 and 109: pink, marbled-looking veneer inspir
- Page 110 and 111: notch at its highest point with a c
- Page 112 and 113: [...] If it’s like this in the mo
- Page 114 and 115: the crew: Fletcher, the navy techni
- Page 116 and 117: scenes remind us that this isn’t
- Page 118 and 119: Grotesque, just like this text here
- Page 120 and 121: The tumour, spanning many acres now
- Page 122 and 123: TEETH, and a battle is pitched betw
- Page 124 and 125: A cave again, this time somewhere i
- Page 126 and 127: The underside of a banana slug. The
- Page 128 and 129: taxidermist, so as to preserve its
- Page 130 and 131: a golf ball. I fucking hate golf, y
- Page 132 and 133: As previously discussed elsewhere,
- Page 134 and 135: varieties: RODS AND CONES (rods of
- Page 138 and 139: droxyurea, Hydrea, Idarubicin, Idam
- Page 140 and 141: of blasé humanity writhing happily
- Page 143 and 144: Do it 2013
- Page 145: Graciousness - hospitality at all c
- Page 148 and 149: - My daughter says she loves to ice
- Page 150 and 151: Or remembering thinking: I used to
- Page 152 and 153: Or the admission that I bought a kn
- Page 154 and 155: Or the gap in the journal here. A f
- Page 156 and 157: Or someone once writing something a
- Page 158 and 159: Or that an index of absence is a so
- Page 160 and 161: Or something like that. Diminished
- Page 162 and 163: gler, to be precise - on to the arm
- Page 164 and 165: Or the too-late comprehension that
- Page 166 and 167: Or there’s THIS, off the TOP OF M
- Page 168 and 169: tralaminar nuclear group (baffled a
- Page 170 and 171: incerta (lopsided), PITUITARY GLAND
- Page 172 and 173: have - the other seemingly a king o
- Page 174 and 175: The brute indomitability of a list.
- Page 176 and 177: Or a massive tattoo of a shark bite
- Page 178 and 179: Or, to focus a little, the reptilia
- Page 180 and 181: Or, that we are not limited to verb
- Page 182 and 183: Or perhaps it’s more useful to be
- Page 184 and 185: Or... I suppose. False positives an
Feel its tentacular motion inside your florid gut! Wri<strong>the</strong><br />
in RAPTURES as your cells are subjected to that peculiar<br />
rummaging! [...] The twisting, groping shoots of that Triffid<br />
word, GRISTLE, spreading out, easing into your desperate<br />
openings. Rimming <strong>the</strong>m with its Stratopharia Cubencil-blue<br />
tongue, quivering, blind – a fractal degenerate of only a few<br />
of <strong>the</strong> darker colours, though each one as rich as Guatemalan<br />
chocolate – or cacao nibs, even, bitter stimulant halved<br />
like a capsule of cyanide disguised as a tooth (<strong>the</strong> initiation<br />
rite involved <strong>the</strong> dashing out of a full four teeth with a tiny<br />
geological hammer wielded by someone’s mum – <strong>the</strong> gang<br />
whooping) and swallowed as if a spot of bile: with a wince.<br />
This fractal disappoint-<br />
ment spreads out, a<br />
patch of time-lapse<br />
mould in a forgotten<br />
petri-dish, and<br />
infects, infests your<br />
entire body, in a<br />
flash – blooming<br />
(tired) <strong>the</strong>n<br />
receding, until<br />
finally coming to<br />
rest, to harden<br />
into that clot, into<br />
that ball-bearing<br />
tumour in your IN.<br />
In <strong>the</strong> meanwhile,<br />
upstairs in your<br />
brain, VISIONS!<br />
(accompaniment by<br />
Josef Van Wissem or<br />
Carl Stalling or Smegma or Evangelista or Kim Doo Soo –<br />
any or all of <strong>the</strong>se rendered unrecognisable by your tuneless<br />
hum (I strike up an accompaniment on my teeth, striking<br />
<strong>the</strong>m like a marimba with my thumbnail – <strong>the</strong> temptation<br />
always to go for <strong>the</strong> William Tell overture, only as-rendered<br />
by Spike Jones, all belches, thigh-slaps and glottal tics).)<br />
[...]<br />
And you say, ‘“The only chance you get is <strong>the</strong> one you<br />
take”’, and we laugh like jackals. This time, as so often,<br />
laughter leads, in <strong>the</strong> end, to spasms of agony. Sorry, I
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