surreal blue monday

and it was genuinely.

A very restless night then a very early start - hence the dawn shot. There's a lot on at the moment and pressure and politics and other things I don't much care for. I didn't get lunch, so at 15:00, I nipped out for a very quick breathe of fresh air and spoke to friend G which helped. He said we are all mostly anti-matter and empty space so none of it mattered a jot. It was a surreal comfort.

So I bucked up, had another coffee (to add to the red bull) and after a 10 hour day made it to an evening class on experimental fiction. Tonight's specialist topic was surrealism so we tried exercise in an automatic writing. Not sure this was a good idea...

My parole-happy id went wild conjuring utter obscenities, batty bizarreness and half jumbled impossibilities. A tripping toddler run amok in teletext, swinging between free associations of images, sounds and senses. Things I hadn't thought about in years, old book quotes, adverts - all kinds of cr*p.

It wasn't till all my other classmates read their pieces out loud (mostly lovely little tales of the well expected / or better more imaginative poems) did I realise how far off piste, or off galaxy I was.. . There was a cough and a look before the tutor suggested I had a "furtive imagination". And could I please stop apologising when reading aloud?

In the end I rather liked it.
Heartedly recommend giving it a bash

Surrealist experiment 1: Automatic writing
1) Turn the lights out for 30 seconds and / or find other means to disorient yourself (drugs, booze, chanting, dancing, spinning.. whaddaever)
2) write whatever comes into your head without stopping for 10-15 mins (set a timer) no matter how stilted at first keeping trying it. Just pass thought to pen instantly. No editing. No review.
3) twiddle the ends of your moustache in wonder at the marvellous petrifying co-incidence of it all

Surrealist experiment 2: Q & A
1)person A writes random questions in one colour paper in private, person B writes random answers in another.
2) Cut / rip out. Fold. Jumble in hat. Pick out some pairs to read.
3) read the results while walking your lobster and marvel at the wild dark recesses of your mind.