Check out this amazing video from Joan Gratz. It’s incredible. It blends iconic pieces of art into each other and the result is sometimes charming, sometimes menacing but it’s compulsively watchable. I stumbled across it via Blaugustine last night and am off again for my fifth looksee. It’s mesemerizing.

I hardly ever do political posts. The last time I went on at any length about politics was way back here. That was a bit ranty. This is even worse, it’s a bit ravey. Sorry ’bout that. I’ve posted a few incidental, political, spitty-spitty phthoo-phthoo paragraphs here and there on PCB – not many at all really considering I follow it all quite closely and sprinkle my political views around people’s comment boxes all the damn time – but every now and then I feel the desire to blog it out.

I’ve just watched Barack Obama deliver his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for president. He’s the first black man in American history to win, win the nomination of a major party. This was not an appointed position, Secretary of State or Attorney General or such. He won the right to run after a long, hard campaign in which he consistently took the moral high ground and did not compromise his integrity.

Tonight his speech was not about his being an historic candidate though. It was hardly even about him being black. It was about America rebecoming the country the Founding Fathers envisioned. Obama is not merely an outstanding black candidate, he is an outstanding candidate, – he truly makes race not matter. If it is true that any minority candidate must be twice as good as any white male candidate then he is four times as good. He is an extraordinary person.

The speech was brilliant. He was subtle, he was strong, he attacked but did not slur. He said there was no one party more patriotic than another so quit that crap, Rove tacticians. He set a noble, high-minded but also very muscular and practical tone, and laid out 29 strong policy differences between he and McCain. He turned McCain’s perceived strengths and particular attacks back on him and ended up sounding by far the more honest candidate. He has single-handedly managed to raise the tone of American politics and be successful and sincere doing it – something I reckon most of us thought was nigh on impossible nowadays. His wife has that same deeply intelligent, articulate, measured and compassionate sense about her and, while I know this is politics after all and how politicians are wont let us down badly, I really, really find myself believing in these people in a way I thought I was much much too jaded to be able to. It seems very unlike me to be gushy about any politician and I am having a hard time recognizing myself.

Following that speech tonight, any of the usual attacks from McCain next week when he accepts the Republican nomination are going to look, petty, pathetic and desperate.

Obama is the American Dream incarnate. Not the trite, corn-ball, white-picket-fence dream I was encouraged growing up to think America was all about, but the old, original American Dream that anybody – even the black son of a single mother – willing to work, and given the right tools and encouragement can fulfill their personal dreams while at the same time increasing the common good. He has resurrected that second part. He declared old style models of trickle down economics and the “ownership society” as just no longer workable in these changing, globalizing times and that our personal “I’m alright, Jack, you’re on your own” hangover attitudes towards each other from the Reagan years must yield to a bit of collective purpose. Obvious, for sure, but not common from the mouth of such a high level politician. He called for a country where we are our brother’s and sister’s keepers, not in terms of personal, governmental or lifestyle intrusions but in terms of keeping us all economically and morally robust and accountable to each other.

While he used the language of hope, he didn’t sugar-coat any of it but called for serious, hard work, both individually and collectively to get stuff done. He invoked the generation of the Depression, his grandparent’s (“who were no whiners”) generation, when describing how the huge problems of the day require us all to pull together with hope and a common purpose to reach progress and better times in a socially and morally responsible way. And he was specific about how we can do that, outlining his plan for energy-independence from the Middle-East in ten years and an unprecedentedly huge investment in other energy sources, admitting that some of them would fail but, like in the development of any new technology, we have to go through that before we learn how to succeed with it. He called for a big election to be about big issues, not small wedge issues like in the last two elections, because the times are just too serious for that and the stakes too high.

Obama has changed minds by inspiring people, not frightening them and by talking to us like we’re adults, not children who need complex problems dumbed down for us. He does not pretend all will be perfect for everybody or that government is a panacea for all society’s ills but that we need a clear change in direction and in what we value as a society. He can admit his opponent is a good brave man who loves his country but says McCain just does not get the changes going on with the country economically, socially, temperamentally and globally. and he makes a damn good case in saying so, using McCain’s own record as proof.

I’ve listened to many political speeches and I am nothing if not a cynical European when it comes to American campaign hoopla, especially the cheesy rhetoric, but I cannot recall being so energized, inspired and excited by any candidate before, anywhere.

Obama is the man for these times. History is always ready to make fools of people who feel as convinced as I do about a poli-afterblinkin’all-tician but, despite myself, I really believe that to be true. I’ll be gutted for haggis if he doesn’t win in November.

~oOo~

Been a bit busy lately and looks like it’ll continue through the end of next week. Prolly be around but not as much. Somebody asked but I’m not going off blogging. Not at all, I still love it. Especially because myself and the fabulous Devin have been invited to Ireland in February to watch the Irish blog awards again! And in October I’m going to meet a whole bunch of amazing sketch-bloggers and artist friends of the truly incomparable Crackskullbob!

I feckin’ love blogging!

There is a daddy-long-legs stalking me. It’s quiet at the moment but I think its spying on me from up by the top of the curtains. It flutter-bombed me in the face earlier on and I thought it was just a mistake.

“Ah, it’s probably more afraid of you than you are of it, the wee soul,” I chuckled bravely, right before it flutter-bombed me again, this time round the corner in my head and this time with a more direct diving action. And then a third time near my toast! I tried turning the table lamp out thinking it was being attracted by the light, but everything seemed worse in the dark so I turned it on again.

I’ve been watching it for about an hour now, even glaring sometimes so it knows I’m not a person to be trifled with. It’s been eyeballing me from various places too high to swipe at but I have been making sudden movements to let it know I can be unpredictable too. Then a wee while ago it disappeared but I last saw it near the curtains so I think it’s still in there somewhere.

I know it’s up there just waiting for me to go to sleep so it can creep all over my face with its hideously-kneed legs and lay all its unspeakable little eggs in my warm ear. I know it.

Silly America. It’s said I can become a citizen! Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of my life. My naturalization ceremony will take place at a mystery date in the next 2-3 months and, alongside 6000 other furners in a sports arena, all of us huddled together – huddled, one might almost say like some sort of a mass yearning to be free, although equally one might not – I will pledge allegiance to the Flag and vow to punch anyone being mean about the Constitution.

I’m looking forward to it. I’ve long been in love with the founding principles of this country. True, the Founding Fathers were flawed, some of them deeply so, especially with respect to slavery, but together they came up with a brilliant groundbreaking document filled with truly enlightened convictions on how their new Republic should be set up to guarantee people the right to liberty and self-determination. Their ideas were noble and good and as much as we fail (and they failed) to live up to them, the ideas themselves continue to be excellent anchors to principles and precepts not quite yet lost. I don’t think “America is the best country in the world” or any such ridiculous statement, but I do sign on to its ideals, however remote we may seem to be from them at times.

Mostly, I want to be a citizen because I want to vote, and have a voice in the country my children are growing up in. I want them to see me vote and for them to go on and become voters who will beget voters who will beget more voters and then that’s it, because that’s as far as my mind will beget at the moment.

Despite being required by the US to renounce my allegiance to all other countries, I will be continue to be British too because officially all Britons are subjects of the Crown. I could renounce Britain until I’m star-spangled in the face but apparantly Queenie doesn’t recognise my renunciation. She just doesn’t, that’s all. She probably wakes up on an average morning to her private secretary saying “Another couple of renouncers today, Ma’am”, and I expect she doesn’t miss a beat while uncurling her rollers and trilling “Well, it’s a jolly good thing I don’t recognise that sort of thing then, Fortescue, isn’t it? Now do pass the royal boiled egg, won’t you, I am hungrier than a bleedin’ mofo this morning”.

And continues with her day.

Being a subject doesn’t bother me as much as some people think it ought to. I know that ideologically it’s pretty crap and everything but, as it doesn’t mean much at all in practical terms, I can’t get that exercised about it. The royals only cost us 40p each a year and I’m pretty sure most of us have that kicking about down the sides of our sofas. And besides, it’s not their fault they were born royal. It looks like a pretty crappy life, really, with all that duty and precedent and protocol and having to show up to places you really can’t be arsed showing up to:

“But, Beh-ttieee, I just fancied a quiet night in with Eastenders and a spot of Glenmorangie!”

“Phillip, you know perfectly well you have to go and present a silver plunger to the retiring head of the Welsh Plumber’s Assn. this evening!” (The queen can actually say Assn, like that. They train her to say that stuff. Actually they train her to say thet stuff, but thet’s neither here nor there.)

“Look, I can’t go, can I?” the Queen will probably continue. “I have to be at the Barnstaple community-run eco-supermarket-opening by six, and then these bloody Blairs are coming over for a while. After thet I have to get to bed early because we’re orf to Fife first thing to tour a trifle-sponge-making fectory.”

“But what’s the bally point in being the Queen if you can’t decide to take a day orf?”

“Dyootay, Phillip, dyootay. Now go and take thet negligee orf, the car will be here any minute. You will try not to insult anyone tonight, Phlippers, won’t you? The papers are saying that the people are fond enough me and Anne but think the rest of you are a waste of space and money. “An appalling old anachronism” I think the Telegraph called you the other day. The Telegraph!”

That conversation must happen …ooooooh… ’bout every-other-nightly, I’d say, down the palace.

Really and honestly, I’m kind of glad I’ll still be a Brit. because it would be strange indeed to think of th’ould sod as foreign. Dual nationality is a pretty cool thing though, and without being able to have it I reckon I’d have had to think a lot longer and harder about becoming an American citizen. All in all, if being a subject is all I have to do to hang onto my British citizenship then it’s all right by me. So foot in both camps straddling the pond and trying not to let Iceland see my metaphorical knickers – that’s for me.

~oOo~

Haven’t been posting much lately on account of being a bit busy. Plus in the evenings the Olympics are on and there are all sorts of incredible bouding and leaping and running and flying bodies to watch. I have a mounting stack of books I want to read too. Blogging eats up reading time like anti-matter swallows galaxies – with a terrifying, all-consuming indifference to the rest of life and a great rip in the Book-Time continuum.

If I’m not around commenting for a few days here and there, don’t think it’s because I don’t love all your lovely selves and your fine blogs. One good blog-pal has emailed to make sure I’m not avoiding them and I feel horrible to have given them that impression because I swear there’s nothing personal in my visiting patterns. The nature of some blogs has me save them up for when I’ve got the time to sit down for an extended read, savour them and do them justice. Others are more suited to those times when you have short 10 minute intervals here and there to pop in and out during the day during those times the children don’t seem to need much raising other than telling them not to do that to daddy’s iPod again.

I’m really sorry if I’ve made anyone else think I was going cool on them. I promise that’s not the case. If you’re on my sidebar I love you, and a whole other bunch of blogs besides. Blogging’s a time-gobbler though and so for a week or so I’m gonna just watch the Olympics and read the things I’ve been meaning to read. I’ll prolly be around, just a lil’ bitty less for a lil’ bitty while, is all.

PS. Is there anyone who believes the Chinese women’s gymnastics team are all 16 or over? The telly tells me they are 16 and it says so on all their documents but my eyes are screaming “No blimmin way, Pedro! That wee one’s got to be 12 at the very, very absolutest of mosts!”

Nobody likes a smirker.

In the town of Stornoway, at the turn of the 20th century, there were two men well known for their smirking. One, Smirky Smith (45) had a congenital condition called rigor smirkus which caused his facial muscles to sieze up into an infuriating smirk at unpredictable moments, much vexing his neighbours. Stress aggravated the poor man’s affliction and not being able to trust his facial expressions made social situations tortuous, and not in an even slightly sexy way.

The other smirker was a mere arsehole, and by mere, I mean utter. He was the local councillor for the powerful Seaforth Ward and was feared mainly for his ruthless smirk, and his “I know something about the municipal sewer system you don’t” smirk although he had many other kinds. He had pretensions up the skatoolumshinopterops (local euphemism for the bottom), fancied himself a wag and was the sort of fellow who, upon hearing about a devastating monsoon in Bangladesh, would send the Red Cross an umbrella, barely able to conceal his cleverness at the Post-Office and completely unable to conceal it later at the pub. An arsehole then. His name was Hugh Jorgan (42), and he was.

Even in the year 2000, there were many in Stornoway who didn’t believe in congenital conditions, only character flaws and punishments from God. Smirky Smith was deemed to be a puzzle. He was also deemed to be a butcher and one and half of these things was right. He was known far and wide as a fellow generous with his time and money, always the first to help a neighbour or do some kind service for some-kind-service-needer. But except for a few understanding old ladies, people couldn’t understand why he so often also appeared to be a prick.

In the shop, while he would give all his regular customers an extra sausage in their packets, sometimes his face would twitch into a knowing smirk right at the worst moment.

“Extra sausage in there for you this week” he would wink with a kind smile to poor Mrs. Matheson whose husband had run away with all her money and a freckled prawn-packer from Balallan, “I’m sure you can use it.”

But right then his kind smile would contort into a salaciously knowing smirk and Mrs. Matheson would get it all wrong about the sausage and declare “Oh! Oh! Did you hear that Mrs. MacLeod? I’ve never heard such impertinence in my life” and beat him about the head with her handbag. Sometimes other shoppers would join in.

Incidents of this nature happened about once a week. Not enough to put housewives off his delicious meaty vittles, which were the best in town, but just enough to make them wary of his sudden, disconcerting smirks.

As you might imagine, Smirky Smith was a lonely, unhappy man. Hugh Jorgan on the other hand never met a person he didn’t feel he could be smug and supercillious to. His smirks weren’t the comic or impishly charming smirks of the incidental smirker. Hugh Jorgan’s smirks were all about power. They were designed to put people in their place – to show who was the smartest at the table, to mark himself as the urbane fellow who knew the system because he kept the system in his pocket.

The odd thing, considering the size of the town, was that the two had never met. One day they did. It was at the annual regatta on the harbour. The weather was foul. Rain lashed the beshorted’n'tee-shirted islanders on their purple and white variegated legs, and wind whipped puffs of their candy-flosses into the hair of other people too cheap to buy their own which was dead unfair. But despite the thunder and occasional lightening, people were having fun. And the Bonny Baby contest was just about to be decided! Look!

Traditionally a butcher judged this event, having an eye for a good healthy hock and experience in identifying a superior breeding line. This year it was Smirky Smith’s turn and he was dreading it. What if he smirked when announcing the winner? What if it looked like he thought the island’s bonniest baby, the very bonniest it could manage, was really a little goblin? How upset would the parents be? How enraged the crowd? he thought as mounted the outdoor stage and walked up and down the row of dribbly little humans sitting on their beaming mammy’s laps. He made his selection, a fat, jovial little bubble-blower from Ranish, the one with the least snotty summer cold.

Hugh Jorgan, also sitting up on the stage behind a table full of trophies was the local dignitary selected to present the prizes this year. He sat there in full-on self-satisfied smirk, puffed with his celebrity and the thrill it was sending through the proles. A thrill that didn’t in fact exist, even in a parallel universe. Rather, in all other possible parallel universes, and even the impossible ones, the crowd was as one brain in thinking “God, would you look at that smirking bastard up there all smug and condescending. Why I’d like to…!” And there they split off from one another in a babble of preferred come-uppances for their councillor.

The time came for Smirky to announce the winner. Trembling he approached the microphone. The crowd hushed in anticipation, and, as if this were some sort of made-up story and not the absolute Gospel truth, even the rain and wind seemed to calm momentarily. For a minute he stood there, swaying, facing the upturned faces like a pinata who knows the beating he was born for was about to begin. He removed his cap and ran his fingers through barely there hair, staring into his cap as if it contained the answers to all his questions. He looked up.

“The, uh, th…” (Oh God, the dreadful twitching was starting) “…the winner …” (Oh please God, no! Don’t let me smirk, please don’t let me smirk!) “um… of this year’s bonny baby competition…” (Oh no! Here it comes! No no no!) “is…”

But Smirky never did get to say who had won, for at that moment the heavy heavens cracked open and righteous fire from God’s own finger* struck the mercury amalgam fillings in the head of one of the mammies on the slick, wet stage, sending heaps and heaps of volts through everyone on it. The crowd screamed or bellowed according to their voice-ranges and relative level of operatic training. The figures on the stage, jumped and jiggled and all their skeletons glowed bluely through their bodies. Percy Veerence, stoic and father of 7, just had time to notice with a groan another tiny skeleton sucking its tiny bony thumb, deep in his wife’s pelvis, as she and # 7 jerked up and down the stage.

And then it was all over. God put his finger away, zipped up the low-slung heavens and the people on the stage collapsed like charmed cobras might if a sudden snake-charmer strike with immediate effect had been announced.

Nobody on the stage that day died but some formerly straight-haired people weren’t any more. The same thing could be said of the straight-laced people whose morals suddenly went all curly. But something much more remarkable happened. For on that wonderful day Smirky Smith lost the smirk tht had plagued him his whole life, and Hugh Jorgan lost the smirk that had supported his ego.

Hugh experienced a catastrophic loss in confidence without his smirk, resigned abruptly from public life and slowly but surely, through means of a Deepak Chopra Audio lecture on DVD and a high-fibre diet, rediscovered the lovely person underneath the arrogant bastard.

Smirky Smith was never to lose his nickname but, now, finally able to control his facial muscles, he quickly became a beloved figure in the town, married a woman with a skellie eye and a twinkle in it, and lived pleasant-facedly ever after, out from under the shadow of the Vale of Tears And Smirks.

*Or lightning.
The End