He and his wife kept one of the most opulent (but meticulous) gardens I’ve ever seen, and it was through him that I learnt about my dad and his idiosyncrasies compared to his other siblings; between a yellow Fiat Spider and a red Lotus Elite (which his elder brother chose), the dish-washing fiasco, bohemian Christmas dinners; my paternal grandfather and his stint at Keyhawk in the 50′s before where he is today and the boxy little offices off Cecil Street in the 1980′s that resembled a river town during the average tropical storm. It was then that he spoke about my father’s late friend, Graham, a kindred soul, who loved motorbikes; quit his job when he had the chance, and rode towards his destiny in the Far East, all over Asia. At the age of 87, he had such a charming soul; and even with the unfortunate reliance on a home-made eucalyptus inhaler, he had the life (and brilliance) of all the people I’ve ever met. We spoke animatedly on football – he holds a season-pass for Aston Villa games and displays an autographed 08/09 jersey in his home office upstairs behind a computer that he never uses/detests, and also photographs of the team between the 60′s all through to the 80′s – of athletics and Mo Farah, and then about my paternal grandmother and her golfing prowess, especially in the dark. At this point, I would have contested against Marvell’s winged chariot; having seemed to have the ability to stop Time altogether, if only for a moment.

My father on the other hand, is a quiet revolutionary, one who revolts in his own way and in Le Guin’s words, beginning with and from the thinking mind. If there was one thing I’ve learnt from him in twenty-three years, it was embracing the synchronicity between knowledge, astute observation and the soul. This was made manifest while we were at the NAM in Sloane Square; I suppose it was there that I realized most of my ideological influences on the various narratives of war were inherited from my father, not Robbespierre, Hobbes or Foucault. My mother, however, was wildly pragmatic, ignoring (and perhaps, wisely so) the obsession of anti-violence with her Archaeology of Knowledge on Flora and Fauna. Needless to say, Kew Gardens and Regent’s Park became her spirit home. Unlike my father, my mother was the hurricane you’d find in Looking for Alaska; heady and stubborn – it was flowers or turgid silence. But it was also this mad excuse of a lady who taught me not only the importance of being earnest but the value of self-sufficiency and perhaps by extension and my own interpretation; the inclination to trust no one. In a way, I deeply admire my parents’ diametrical opposition and it never ceases to amaze me how oddly paired they are. While they share too many differences sometimes, I would like to believe they still love each other like they did thirty years ago; which makes me wonder about too many things in general.

Anyway I was looking at a couple of pictures off my usual haunts, and it’s oddly mesmerizing how I could never imagine myself actually being surrounded by post-coital ashes, having grimy hands (paint-stained, glitter-covered for whatever old-rave/new-age, artistic reasons), poorly maintained knees (cp. one of the average Tumblr posts – Why? I don’t know), or being photogenically reduced against dubious-looking wallpaper. The whole grunge, hipster-whore (not a derivative of hippie) movement is too unreal and mildly unhygienic. But I did notice that the long hair helped to cover most of the faces, which is universally good advice that I intend to manifest in due time. Even if these images represent a fetishized cult of the Social, I don’t understand how these could pass off as anything but mainstream. There’s really nothing characteristic about poetic/imaginative filth or intentionally unkempt conditions but there is some sort of perpetuating obsession about it. It’s not that I’m one of those harmony-preaching harpies or better still, a germaphobe but if you’re telling me that people (who profess to be part of the scene) can or will live like that, yousa lyin’ sonofagun. It’s like the myth behind pornography where everything is exceptionally clean, sound and timed right; the grass doesn’t give you hives and even the bonnet of the car isn’t that hot after all, and copious amounts of semen is actually good for the eyes…

Sometimes the whole scene gets a little overrated (not the literary one but the mildly sensitive h- word), I might even be unintentionally detached; not that I don’t appreciate it but I have a feeling I will most probably stay that way — I’m just in it for the books and the associated paraphernalia, the culmination of all imagined histories, the occasional person that walks in and the best potential conversations (Pico and Cake too); that in itself is already more than enough for me. It’s just one of those days: sweatshop duties, lunch-time errands, the Sunday crowd and Los Campesinos!, The Mystery of the Lost Signal and the Credit Card Machine, oscillating between Flatland and the Wahhabi Movement to cope with the mental saturation of Ackroyd (it’s been three months), and also, Mom’s finally back safe. I couldn’t not immerse myself in the brevity of the moment.

… with lots of plants. (Out of which brought forth Plato, Locke, Kant and at some point De Sade.) Eyes wander and avoid, darting off bubbles, froth, objects and people to release the tension held by a single irreversible knot leading to the gap between Law and Lawlessness. (We are the In-Betweens.) In the midst of all things, I realized we were being watched over (from the top right window) by half-bodied mannequins with neon-coloured hair and gaping mouths. These are Conrad’s “lower sort of apostles” as we sat still in the spirit of religious-like fervour, embalmed in the smell of our own hallowed tobacco and the blood of dead philosophers.”

Also, I have to add/freak out here that the idea of absolute moral judgment on the pretext of karma, or justice, for that matter, escapes me completely. I do not see how any part of the alleged Japan Karma Trifecta can make sense, at all (I’m not even going to specifically comment on the obscenity of certain misspellings) At this point I am desperately trying my gosh-darnedest* not to feed the trolls because there are, safe to say, maybe 300 million of them inhabiting Plato’s proverbial cave. The more I read, the more guilty I become of being essentially in the same damn genus, and I sincerely hope that this guilt is not the product of some subconscious First-World empathy.

Needless to say, I have lost my moral compass.

When I am more lucid, I shall come back to this post again but in general, I am decidedly more productive after 00:30 than the other twelve hours of my waking moments put together (which are periodically littered with opulent naps).

*my virgin attempt at being refined