Found In Translation

Maintenantman appears to have been otherwise engaged since the Last Post. It would have been interesting to have been kept informed about his activities, especially as these have included:

•  Travelling incognito throughout the length and breadth of Mexico negotiating a permanent solution to the horrifying drug wars that have coated a thrilling, wonderful part of the world with such a vicious blight.
•  Sweating through many games of racketball and producing hours of mediocre performances interspersed with a few (all too few) transcendingly brilliant moments of co-ordination between brain and body.
•  Working enough hours of demanding-fulfilling care work to retain the ability to wave rather than drown.
•  Waving at people (also at mountains and other living things).
•  Translating the creation myths of the 200+ languages that have become extinct so far in the 21^st century into string quartet music.
•  Inventing a white ink, so that black people can play a more visible role in tattoo culture.
•  Watching films (ok – you watch The Turin Horse twice if you think you’re hard enough).
•  Digging a Pit of Babel (towers are so biblically vulgar are they not?).
•  Planning future return journeys around British Columbia, Yukon, Alaska. A part of the world which, if you contract British Columbia to BC, can be anagrammatised into Analsoakbucky.
•  Chipping and chiselling at some writing works in progress, whilst doing very little of a constructive nature towards the publication of Pick Up The Pieces.
•  Translating Beethoven’s Late Quartets and most of Bach into forms of natural, organic land art which will survive the extinction of all hominid species.
•  Being in more than one place simultaneously.
•  Gazing at big banks of cloud formations on the horizon and imagining that they are mountain ranges and wondering what it would be like to be striding out along their dark blue ridges.
•  Doing too much driving.
•  Just living and getting high on getting by.

However, we have not been kept informed. We have had to rely on our fevered imaginations, a situation which has (probably) led to every possible nuance of reaction, from mild speculation to indifference. Maintenantman has certainly had his work cut out over the last three months (particularly with the land art and the film watching stuff) but the blog has been fallow too long.

Anyway(s)…those big bad bouncy blog vows are hereby renewed.

And why? Because it’s there. Because some wonderful exchanges and connections happen (from the personal to the philosophical to the revealing to the vulnerable-making to the fact that someone pointed out the existence of a great song by Hillbilly Moon Explosion called Night of the Living Ted). Because it is fun to do and I can resist all things except fun. Because it is a good writing discipline. Because readers can look back at all previous posts. Because agents / publishers can see it. Because some real human beings who are important to me like it and we can learn more about each other this way. Because it involves risks and challenges. Because it can tick over happily whilst also being present for more intensive periods such as its origins in the 2010 Analsoakbucky trip (when there were over 500 different readers). Because it is about the right words and is not about photographs. Because it might not last. Because I might not last and I want to reach you by poem by story by touch by hook and by crook.

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Many prefer to email rather than to comment directly on here, though any which way is welcome. If you prefer to email it’s: tedeames@btinternet.com

Also, soon come (by the end of September): a couple of photo meditations on a local quarry and a ruined house on www.flickr.com/photos/tedeames and some yammerings on here about a forthcoming spell in Sutherland, the best part of mainland Britain.

Ted x