Alasdair Watson

Look at the top right of this. New Alan Moore CD, in January. The best comic of 2001 is becoming music, and will blow you away. And, if you order now, it’s cheaper. Buy it.

Copey’s a bright fella, and doing his version of “The 18 Charms Of Odin” on the stereo right now, so it’ll do for a title. Yes, I am still alive. Yes, I am still in the process of moving, but there’s only a week and a couple of days to go, so that should all be sorted nicely, and with any luck, I’ll manage more than one update every couple of weeks.

I would have posted my thoughts on the new Potter movie, but I thought I’d wait a week or to, so save LJ folks getting accidentally spoilered by my lack of ability to use the cut tag. Non-spoiler version in the meantime: Highly enjoyable, but I’m glad Chris Columbus isn’t directing number three – his stylistic quirks are more prevalent in this than in the first one, and they annoy me.

“Remember, remember, the 5th of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot,
I see no reason why gunpowder treason,
should ever be forgot.”

Damn right. I mean, If we forget about it, we’re never going to get it done right are we?

Alan Moore, on Lost Girls:

“Ah, Lost Girls. Can you imagine anyone else being able to get a wonderfully accomplished artist to spend thirteen years drawing pornographic material for them, customised to demand; being able to declare himself a pornographer and have everyone take it as some bold new intellectual position; or even claiming against tax for high class scud-books like The Art of the Marquis Von Bayros as “reference material”? No. You can’t. This is why I am a genius. “What are you doing in that bathroom, young man?” “Mother, I am doing highly paid reference work.”

One of the things that has made Lost Girls work is that we realised fairly early on that there probably wasn’t a sexual act, no matter how seemingly perverse or even grotesque it might sound from a brief description, that couldn’t be made beautiful with enough layered crayon effects. ”

The second issue of Eddie Campbell’s Egomania can be ordered now from Diamond Comics Distributors, Cold Cut and Top Shelf Productions.

I mention it here because most of its 48 page length is going to be an interview with Alan Moore. I am so there…

Yeah, I know that’s yesterday’s rhyme. But I was busy yesterday. (See 28 DAYS LATER, by the way.) Halloween over, and a holy night tonight. Stupid fucking night to hold a Halloween party on, really, but everywhere seems to be doing it. No good will come of it. Where’s the frisson of danger if all the saints are watching over you? Where’s the Halloween spirit?

But I digress. We’re in the wind-down, now. Last two months of the year. It’s stock-taking time again. Time to start examining the year. It generally takes me a month or so to do that, and then December is the planning for next year. This year was dalet (or daleth), the door. Next year is hei (or heh), the window, or the breath of the divine spirit. If memory serves, it’s part of the tetragrammaton, the name of God. And of course, the year maps nicely onto 23. I have a suspicion that next year is going to be a year to be careful and look closely – things won’t always be what they seem, but those things that are, may be very important indeed.

I’ve just re-read that. Anyone else see my shady past as a horrorscope writer showing there? There’s no reason that the kabbalah should be any more accurate than a horroscope at predicting the future, and indeed, nor do I believe it is, but it’s a method that allows me to map a year, get things filtered through another perspective, and generally keep my magician’s head in. Which is at least half of what this stock-taking and planning is all about.

So, it’s time to start the fight with the ghosts of 2002. Even though the year’s not over yet.

I’ve got another month’s rent to pay on my current flat, and I’m done. Most of the moving will be done at the back end of next month, but I’m already moving my life back South. Tonight, I stopped off in Woodford to load a couple of bags up with stuff to bring it back. Not much, but hey, every little bit I can bring back now is less to pack later. My Woodford flat was cold, and damp, and smelled like it – I haven’t been in there in a little under a week to air or heat the place. All I have in the kitchen there is a bottle of HP, a bottle of Worcester sauce, some garlic pepper, half a jar of peanut butter and half a bottle of water. That’s been the case for the last two weeks.

Now I’m back with my folks, eating a hot muffin with peach jam, and drinking a mug of tea. There’s a scent of ginger and cinammon from the candle, and the room is warm. Yeah, OK, maybe it is a little sad, moving back in with your folks at my age (even if it is only a temporary measure). But I know where I’m happier, cheers.

But first, the news. SIX STRINGS, the short comic I wrote earlier in the year is now up at Opi8. The direct link is here. 12 pages, a nasty little blues story of teenage heartbreak and bloody guitars, written by me, with art by Mr Nelson Evergreen.

I know it’s been quiet on here of late. I’ve been busy. And to be honest, the stuff that’d be most interesting and entertaining to write about, well, it’s not for public consumption. Not because I want to keep it quiet, but more because I don’t really feel the need to let other people judge, if you see what I mean. All too often, you read a blog or LJ about the ghastly trauma in someone’s life, and then you get to watch their friends telling them that no, they’re in the right, and it’s all OK, or, about as often, a plethora of people denouncing them as scum. On this occaision, my life’s gone a bit fucking soap-opera, and I’m really not interested in what the rest of the world thinks. As soon as something interesting happens to me that doesn’t sound like an old Neighbours episode, I’ll let you know.

My life, as more than one friend has observed, has been a really mixed bag of late. I’m really hoping that things will have settled out a bit by the end of the year, because I really don’t feel like I’ve achieved anything solid since SIX STRINGS. I can’t get it together to write properly, at the moment. I can’t write when I’m bored, and that’s all I am whenever I have spare time, of late. Attempting to write feels like I’m just attempting a distraction, rather than writing for the joy of it, and what I produce seems forced and insincere.

Still, less than two months to go…

It’s what they made London from. They left the meat and the soft parts for the Ravens, but the blood and the stone made a city. I was at the Tower on Sunday, finishing up asking for a favour from August and Odin, and I was there to hear the stories and touch the edges of the blood and stone behind the place. I didn’t go there until I’d exhausted myself with walking around the focus of the modern city, from Bond Street down Oxford Street to Tottenham Court, along the commercial vein because I needed to be operating on a really basic level in the Tower.

It was good. I heard the stories, and I bought the tokens, but by the time I’d done the job I was there to do, I was too tired to spend much more time there – all I wanted was a shower and some rest, so I headed on. But I’m going to go back again soon. The guided tour was great, and I really want to go and see all the things they’ve got there. Everyone should visit the Tower.