Posts Tagged ‘Kate Muir’

On the alchemical secrets of the data stream

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009

Sometimes I like to try fairly random web searches just to see what comes up; and this has the added bonus of confusing data miners. Doing this today I started with “empty blogs” coz like Hegel in the Logic I figured you should start at the bottom and work your way up (not that you’d catch me stoppin’ with the Prussian state!). Unfortunately the search for “empty blogs’ didn’t turn up much of interest. Personally I just can’t take supposedly ‘professional’ blog tips seriously, and especially when they include advice like don’t repeat yourself. As you probably know, I love repeating myself coz it’s so post-modern, as well as being side-splittingly funny. Oh and I also found a site hosting blogs that was berating users who’d opened up accounts but failed to post anything. A blog about this from the management team concluded with the message:

“You are not allowed to comment on this entry as it has restricted commenting permissions.”

Yeah, search for shit and you get shit. So I figured I might as well apply my alchemical knowledge to this search and transmute some shit into gold. I went for “empty blog’ and “Stewart Home” and got only one entry, but what an entry! A blog by top American novelist Dennis Cooper from 30 July 2006:

“Joe Mills said… if the competition was a ploy to out The Lurkers – it worked. Lots of new names – unfortunately not much info on their (often empty) blogs… Jeff said. Everyone here should check out lutherblissett.net. Dennis, have you heard of the Luther Blissett project? I think Stewart Home is involved…”

Yep, it looks like it is the all important comments that will pull the traffic onto your blog, coz they just produce such wonderfully post-modern random word combinations.

Moving on I figured I should reverse my search process with a double dose of shit by looking for “empty blogs” and “Kate Muir”.  And it was no surprise to be told: “Your search – ‘empty blogs’ ‘Kate Muir’ – did not match any documents.” Yes, out of nothing comes nothing. And little Katie the Times columnist with an irrational fear of ‘drunk ventriloquists” really ain’t worth nothing at all! But all that has changed thanks to me. From now on when you search for “empty blogs” and “Kate Muir” you can come here… Like that old groover The Almost Fake Heraclitus observed way back when: “it is impossible to step into the same data stream twice…”

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!

What Kate Muir Did Next With The Drunk Ventriloquist

Friday, January 9th, 2009

The following piece was pointed out to me a couple of days ago, I’d missed this snore fest of a non-review when it came out.. It is by someone called Kate Muir and comes from “The Times of June 23, 2007″. It dates back to when I appeared at The Poetry Shack that summer: The piece is called “The Dark Ages” and is much longer, but since it is really boring I’ll only quote the bit about me::

“Then a man in a black T-shirt runs on bearing a brown stuffed creature that might be a dog or a monkey. It turns out he’s a drunk ventriloquist, and the dog will speak his carefully crafted words, Sixty Nine (sic) Things to Do to a Dead Princess. Now Portia and I are hooting and crying, while the recycled bag ladies tell us to hush. Surely this can’t be serious?

“He’s an idiot savant,” suggests Portia, as the dog-ventriloquist recalls line after excruciating line. After an hour of this dreck, we can take no more. It might get better. Perhaps the children’s party stuff is a warm up. Although the DJ-sleb Phil Jupitus will be performing later, we never see him because by then I’m in the Ladies’ opening a vein… ”

Well actually I wasn’t drunk, it is an act, but obviously it isn’t hard to fool an idiot; it would be pretty amazing if I could get plastered and still do a combined ventriloquism and memory act without cocking it up. Actually the British courts take calling someone drunk when they are not pretty seriously. The point is it could make professional bookers think I’m unreliable and loose me paid performance work.

But what I think is worse is that in the context of the whole piece Little Katie – who thinks she’s so grown up and sophisticated – creates the impression I’m reciting poetry rather than prose (yeah I know my prose is good but even so what I was doing that night ain’t poetry). So should I threaten to sue this moron who can’t write and doesn’t know the difference between a stage act and reality? Or can you all think of lots of insults to email her instead (post them underneath, I can sort out getting them to her later if I can be bothered). BTW: does anybody know who Kate Muir is?

And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ – you know it makes (no) sense!