Herewith In Respect Of

The workflow management spreadsheet. The performance improvement plan. The good-enough register. The fishbone diagram. The likelihood predictor. The degradation forecast. The snack matrix. The talent bugle. The resentment pipe. The multi-skilling index. The uncertainty tracker. The obedience league. The overtime conundrum. The arrears fudger. The contradiction infuser. The hangover poem. The pay freeze. The patience margin. The flexibility insister. The morale barometer. The fridge.

Orality Corner

-[question]
-There was concern, about the start of the last bit. Either it was an unforgivable lack of proofreading or it was a deliberately unfriendly, unnecessary, pretentious whim. In a moribund slew of fragmented tedium.
-[response]
-Slew is no exaggeration after five-ish years, we feel.
-[response]
-It doesn't appear to be leading anywhere. And the eyes crave things to be glad about, and they feel themselves beginning to require an explanation, they say, or they might stop letting through the light that bounces off these drab and baggy lumps, until a more reader-friendly tone is struck.
-[response]
-Slews can contain lumps.
-[response]
-Yes, but they have no say in where we choose to point them. They said it was only yesterday they felt that a quiet word must be had, if a general improvement in stimulus is ever to be gained.
-[response]
-Verbatim. And somewhat highfalutin' we admit. We can't imagine why.
-[response]
-While you were passed out.
-[response]

Catatonics and the English Language

Foyles offer a free muffin for spending over a tenner, but mention nothing about a free book for buying ten muffins. This is one reason why my forthcoming book-and-alcohol-vending enterprise (possible names I haven't yet checked are available: Anais Nin's Home Entertainment Supercentre. The Fountain of Paragraphs. The Swede Creamery. Dostoyevsky's Death Palace. Loitering. The business plan, when I present it, will be just this list of names and an inventory of about a hundred books, none of which I'm really willing to part with, give me seventy thousand pounds or I'll bomb your allotment) will offer five hundred words for every litre of ale imbibed, and a free book for every seventy-five millilitres of spirits power-quaffed when you had work the next day. I haven't found a location, or an idea of where the stock is going to come from, how much the overheads are likely to be, start-up costs, customer base, and whatever other goblins might like to obscure the picture with their realistic hands, but I'm guessing a sharp half-hour on Yahoo Answers'll take care of all that, and I'll then be free to galvanise both flanks of the Avon with crass enticements, veiled threats and loyalty cards.

Eye Balm

London, london, listen, an exhibition, Mail Me Art, loads of excellent pictures on envelopes from all round the world and I have some words on one too and they're all for sale for charity and the show is 30th July to 3rd of August at the Framers Gallery W1T 2JT Goodge Street tube or Tottenham Court Road tube or put rollerskates on a horse and get there on that, as long as you get there.
Inf: http://www.mailmeart.com/
Purch: http://www.mailmeart.com/product/ed-garland-original-mail-art/

Unheard-of Side

In a right-angled cavern south of everywhere, a mercilessly average film projected itself at our heads. Bees were in it so how are you going to really complain. It featured a distressingly competent actor playing identical twins with beards and coughs. And one pretty soon ended up pretending to be the other and some people realised and some didn't. And there was a plot and some vengeance and it was all in Spanish. Which probably was because the financial backers had had it all filmed in English like anyone with any sense would've done but then grew worried about recouping their dubloons and had shown a rough cut to the local ombudsman and he'd gone fine yeah guns and money I get it. But: If an English-speaking-and-hearing audience is going to leave a screening thinking they haven't been filmically nobbled by this then we're going to have to re-do the whole thing in Spanish so as to hang a thin and arty and therefore more valuable gauze between the audience and its common sense. But we'll show it in the multiplexes rather than the art-sheds. For extra because so basically I'm not very sure. But I've booked it all now and it's too late to stop. And in the taxis afterwards they'll wonder what it thought it was, and in beds they'll curse and shrug while dreams of better things run through them, and you might almost make your money back.

Regards

Instead of a tremendous fuss we shared a sandwich. The straighten-up machine looked at me like finally, what fucking took you so long. And I thought that's odd because your function is to always have the answers. And here you are emitting surprise and pungent relief. Maybe you want oil.
We crunched and gulped and wondered at each other whether it's the better standard of graphic design on the packaging or a genuine improvement in the quality of the fillings that has led to the furtive ballooning of our appreciation of the Tesco meal deal. A combination of the two didn't occur to us. I put my empty bag in its hatch.
It sniggered. All the straightening-up I'd never got round to. Jesus. And with all my training as well. But now.
Somewhere a swamp hog claps its trotters.
While it glockenspieled my vertebrae I thought about the man I used to think I was going to be. The sudden lack of a depthless future exploded in my wardrobe. The machine said the problem with most people is they're not hardcore. I told it to get its tickling implements away from my fancies. The real problem is I don't know how to recalibrate. There's only one button besides the on-off switch and I'm still unsure what it does, although I press it more than a few times a day and believe there must be a consequence.

Associated Slice

(Stop going on about it). If you bought one thanks very much. I'm working on a downloadable version to appease our robot overlords and by working on I mean intending to work on, after the weekend, it's important to have something to dread while retching yourself awake at the stench of Monday's dawn-crevice and just because I'm between jobs doesn't mean I'll be going without, and by dread I mean pleasantly expect. If you'd like to borrow a physical one because you've run out of ways to get your hands filthy you can do so by moving to Bristol and visiting bloom & curll. It should be in the cupboard at the back where he keeps all the local things. Unless after reading it he decided to put it in some kind of capsule and bazooka it into the graveyard. I haven't checked. You might find James Collett's diaries there and that will be excellent also. Anyway go there and buy a book. And while you're at it stop being told what to do. Or don't, I'm not the leisure-sheriff, normal service will be exhumed when I remember where I've put it.

Call It What You Like

Sometimes you're an alarm clock as well as a postman.
Good night was it?
No one got hurt.
Sign there.
Your machine isn't sensitive enough. You can't even tell it's a signature. I might as well just be pressing a button.
But then there'd be no proof that I hadn't pressed the button myself.
There's no proof you're not a forger.
Impossible. It doesn't respond to my actions.
It can't be that sophisticated.
It wasn't at first.
Blimey.
I had to teach it who I was.
Was it very disappointed?
Your hair's looking less unacceptable than usual.
Thanks. I just had some of it removed.
I hope no money changed hands.
I did it myself.
By accident?
I wanted to look like a better version of me.
Not one that knows what it's doing?
You don't seem to be in much of a rush.
Time and a half today.
Divorce to pay for?
Your flies are undone.
I'm glad you've noticed.
I couldn't help it.

Briefly Very Excited

People came to the opening night. This was pleasant. There were a lot of them. I mainly sat behind the table of free stuff and gave out the free stuff and talked to strange faces. None of these faces said "it was all great except the writing" so I got away with it and that was a relief. People must like mesmeric horrible things as much as we do. Pumpkin and popcorn soup was served in shot glasses and Demdike Stare played uneasy goodness. None of the locals came in demanding the free booze.
It's open til the fifth but I had to leave to spend more time with the Job Centre in Rusholme. I'd been neglecting it in favour of working on things I actually want to work on. But when I went there today it didn't seem angry. Just disappointed. I think that's why it kept recommending jobs in faraway places.
On my crawl towards the Job Centre I went into Oxfam with my copy of Roberto Bolannnnnyo's 2666 and informed the nice girl behind the counter, when she looked up from her book, that instead of catapulting it into Blackpool Tower I've decided to give it away so that someone else might squirm through its stunningly tedious first half before doing something better, like eating a pot of Copydex. Perhaps she could put it next to Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on a special shelf labelled "The Latest Disappointments". I'm reading Richard Brautigan instead. Much better. And looking at a deeply unsettling but beautifully illustrated calendar. Approach with caution if you are under the age of eighty five or are on anything hallucinogenic, or plan to be during the next six weeks.