awake

been awake for a few hours. not used to being awake this early on a sunday, not a morning person so i don’t like it.

but have managed to read warren ellis’ “crooked little vein”. it is not a particularly good read. in trying so hard to find the dark soul of america all it describes is a number of outlandish perversions. all this occurs because the protagonist has been hired to find a lost book that will restore normalacy to the american psyche. written in a sub noir style with flat attempts at humour and shock. there are a few good ideas in the book – the key one being that the mainstream more often than not co-opts the underground and makes it acceptable. even this is undercut by a lack of anything like a description of what is normal and what is deviant, as the lead character points out there is no “us and then – there is just us”. it is as deep as the book gets.
for a short book there is a lot of repetition, which just gives the feeling that this has been knocked out in a few bored weekends. even worse this is just a rehash of the story from the “desolation jones” mini series. it will appeal to warren ellis fans, or those stuck in their adolescence.

so with most of the day ahead of me i have to decide what to do with the rest of it. there will be coffee, there will be art and there may even be some cleaning of the flat (oh now i am just entering a bizarre mirror world). one thing that there can’t be is me spending money, as i am broke.

oh well let us see what the day has to offer.