Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Shelley


I like this. Have been feeling not so good, but I've got a plan of action for sorting myself out, started on it already and it can't do any harm. Enough of the cryptic. I wish I could remember who did the illustrations for the WONDERFUL illustrated copy of Dante's 'Inferno' which we used to have in the library at college.

I find plastic surgery makeover programmes fascinating and deeply sad.

Been reading: Rumours of a Hurricane by Tim Lott, Valley of the Dolls by Jacquelline Susann, Careless Love by Peter Guralnick, No Mercy by Pat Califia and The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis. All are re-reads. All will be read again, without a doubt.
Recently read Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis, as well. I bought it second hand as I wasn't sure whether I would like it as I read very mixed reviews, but I found myself unable to stop reading, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a very strange and unsettling book and I would absolutely have paid £7 for it.

I may not blog again before I go to Germany, but I'll be back in the country by Tuesday and will try and write about what I did on my weekend, but for now what I am doing is a sort of secret

it's just a trick of the light

This is going to be the last post where I write about the recent events on BME.
I'm going to stay on IAM and carry on using it just like before. Why? Because I want to, and see no reason to leave. The thing that keeps me on IAM is the people there and that hasn't changed (ok, a few have left, I know how to contact those of them I wish to stay in touch with.)
As usual I am incapable of blogging about anything coherently, so I'm glad to see that others (especially Marisa are posting about this in an articulate, balanced and intelligent way, something I am incapable of even on good days. I don't know shit about what's really happened and as more stuff comes out I'm pretty sure I don't want to know, but I'll be staying.

By the way, both Livejournals are now dead (will be reading my friends page and communities but that's all). Feels good. And why I left LJ and went to Blogger? I knew a lot of people on there sort of vaguely, and felt it was taking up too much of my time, which could have been better spent doing something else like scratching my arse or catching up on sleep. I'd filtered and filtered who was actually able to read it to the point where hardly anyone was. Reasons being in some cases I didn't want to offend people, some stuff I wrote seemed appropriate only for those I knew well, BLAH BLAH BLAH. I have no interest in the 'community' side of blogger, if there is indeed one, I haven't looked around this site in any detail. I just wanted to start over with a blog where I would write what I want and if you want to read it fine, if not just avoid it and do something else. All posts here are public and hopefully by escaping Livejournal I will escape the hordes of whining little turds that populate that site. (If you think I'm talking about you, I'm probably not.)

Had a day at work that started horrendous and climbed an upward trajectory from then on. Was nice for a change.

Earlier this evening I found myself absent-mindedly wandering about the house clutching a lump of cheese. Reasons could be not enough caffeine / too much sleep / early onset of dementia.

fence sitter extraordinaire

With all that's happened regarding BME, IAM and Modblog lately, the only thing I can be sure about is I don't know what to think. I've heard conflicting accounts of what happened and the bottom line is I don't know what or who to believe as I do not know any of the people involved personally. Since I don't know any of them personally I think it is best not to take sides until ALL the information is out there, if even then. I don't like the way it everyone is taking sides here. For example, a comment on the Bodytwo modblog was posted, stating that anyone who is still continuing to use their IAM like nothing happened has no integrity. Somewhat harsh, I think. Unless this person is privy to information that I (and I would guess the majority of people on IAM) are not, then I don't think continuing to use the site compromises my integrity one bit.
IAM is of great use to me, often for catching up with people and keeping in touch with those I don't see often. I like that it's a closed community and that all the people in the community have shared interests of some kind. I'm not going to let that go, lose touch with many people who although far away, I consider friends, and lose the ability to organise things (example being the upcoming suscon Ben and myself will be attending) if I don't know all the facts about what's going on.
Until I know where I stand with the ownership dispute on the site, I won't be submitting any content. There are certain things on my IAM page (examples being photographs of my genital piercings) when, if BME did not exist, these photos wouldn't either. I'm glad I submitted them anonymously, tattoos and other identifying marks cropped out, but the fact remains if BME wasn't there then I wouldn't have taken the pictures. The purpose being to add to the archive of content and reference available on the site. I won't be taking any more photos like this for the forseeable future. I would not have submitted any content to the site at all, apart from I really liked BME and what it stood for.

Basically my views are this:
-I'll still be using IAM, mainly as a tool to organise suscons and tattoo appointments and to stay in touch with those I don't see often.
-I'm not taking sides as I know neither the facts nor the people involved.
-I'm not submitting any content to BME or Bodytwo until this is resolved.
-I will continue to blog (a bit) on IAM but to all intents and purposes, this is now my main blog, and is likely to remain so.
-I'm not a fan of censorship.

By the way, the namesofthedead Livejournal is getting deleted today, and it's likely I won't be posting in the ___dust account either as of.... very soon. I'll keep it for the purpose of reading communities and certain people on my friends page who haver friends only status and I can't reach any other way, but basically this is it. If you actually want to read my rubbish then you'll have to come here.
I'm signing off for the afternoon.
Later.
-

Jun Matsui

WWW.LIFEUNDERZEN.COM
I'm not sure how I stumbled across this site, but it is the best discovery I've made in the last few months. Matsui is a tattoo artist working in both Japan and Brazil, and his work is some of the absolute best neo-tribal tattooing I've ever seen. It takes elements of traditional tribal styles from several cultures. The tattoos tend to be large scale, and take design elements which are usually seen quite small as part of an elaborate tattoo, and enlarged and simplified to fit an entire arm, or entire calf, for example. Beautiful bold, graphic designs. The tattoos flow perfectly with the body, and the sheer quality evident in the linework and the solid black is astonishing.
The site is a portfolio site/blog. I like the way it is set up, with each blog entry showing the whole process of one tattoo, from the initial drawing on paper, to transferring onto the body, to outlining, ending up with the finished tattoo. It's extremely interesting to see the amount of work and attention to detail that goes into these abstracted and deceptively simple tattoos.
I think Matsui's work tends to look better on the male body, it just seems to fit better. But that's no criticism of the work he's done on women, it's all beautiful.
Best tattoo artist and site I've seen in ages. Just great.

endless mindless

more as a note to myself, tattoos are currently:
- entire right arm, solid black
- dragonfly
- beetle
- two rough black blobs that used to be beetles
- two big red roses
- smaller red rose and 'AMOR VINCIT OMNIA'
- ?
- hemostat clamps
- lotus with clouds pouring out of it
- severed hand holding skull cup filling with blood
- '7' in Tibetan
- mudra for giving refuge
- borneo rose with scribbles and 'YOUR MUM'
- heart and eyeballs
- 'I'LL SURF THIS BEACH'
- cotton reel
- 4 psychic crosses/coptic crosses (depending on your views)
- lotus and bud
- red clouds and squiggles
- robin

rust

It was the first foggy morning, properly cold, of the autumn.
Things:
- eating pizza on the beach near Biarritz on a cold and windy night, the only light coming from neon orange bolts of forked lightning crackling from a storm some way offshore. I wonder, what happens when lightning strikes water? Imagining the sea boiling. How would anyone even get close enough to find out?
- the colour of the sea the next morning, this incredible blueish green capped with foaming white, huge waves breaking over the rocks. I think the sea that day was the single most beautiful colour I have ever seen.
- chemical factories at night, lit up like a cliche sub-Bladerunner movie set, except it's real as are the gases boiling from the huge chimneys. It frightens me a bit, like I am so saturated in media that it is difficult to view anything without comparing it to something else. The cross-referencing irritates me when I catch myself doing it, but I think it's something pretty much constant and unconscious, unfortunately.
- speaking of which, the view was incredible from the church that overlooks the port in Marseille, the whole city sprawled out below like a vast upturned jewelry box. Islands too. One used to be a quarantine colony during outbreaks of the plague, the other a prison. Allegedly the prison island written about in The Count of Monte
Cristo. So the island is real. I learned something new that day.

I keep these images in some kind of mental file and take them out and look at them from time to time. Sometimes photos just don't cut it.

The last few days have comprised good pork and risotto, very bad curry, good friends, lots of wine and beer, my ill-concieved attempt to escape from a straitjacket, and a lot of work.