Hee kijk:

Er ligt allemaal zee in ‘t water.

Zoom in2 birdspace.

/& am a hooj wild bird floatin on thi currents slidin wifin thi driftin wind, hangin lazily loosed on ma outstretchd wings cantileverd acros thi singin air. Ma wingtip fevirs r eech thi size of hands; they flutir like a lam’s hart flutirs when ma shado folz ovir it. Ma feet r steel-tipt grapples hung on thi end ov ma hawser legs. Ma talins r unsheethd razers; onli ma Is r sharper. Ma beek is harder than bone, keener than juss-broke glass. Ma keel bone is a grate nife cozend in ma flesh & cleevin thi soft air; ma ribs r glistnin springs, ma mussils sleek bunchd fists ov oily powr, ma hart a chambr fild wif slo thunder, qwiet & unstressd; a towrin dam triklin powr, tikin ovir, hedwaters ov charjed blud pent & latent.

Wel, YES! This is moar like it! Why did I evir bothir been a hok? Why woz I so bleedin unambishis? I feel feers, I feel powerfil.

[© Iain M. Banks, Feersum Endjinn]

(See what I mean? Terrifically quotable.)

Passing time

As always I was reluctant to choose which of his books I was going to re-read, because I dread the specific horrificness his excellent writing is going to seduce me into witnessing, but I’m re-reading Banks, Use of Weapons, possibly his best? Who cares. So and as always I want to quote at length, which I still might, but not now, because just now, I read a sentence fragment which seemed to sparkle with one of those little gleams of ‘transcendental’ or metaphysical (or whatever) insight for me: “… the identity of thought and passing time.”

Now there’s an idea. Time, the passing of it, the concept of time as something that passes, the concept of time; being identical with thinking. Not a cause and effect relationship, it’s not that time passes because I think; it’s like only when there’s thinking around does the tableau of the world manifest a kind of time that passes from the might-be into the over-and-gone.

I haven’t read up on any popular science lately so I’ll say I don’t know what I’m talking about right up front, but here we go anyway: how was that again with the proof that time has an arrow? Far as I know that’s accepted physics, although there’s a couple smart dissenters, e.g. Julian Barbour. Anyway, it suddenly became clear to me again that if time has an arrow it isn’t possible to show it exists from looking at sense experience, all you get from that is an opportunity to compare memory images and conclude that there’s different ones.

Summer time…

Blockbuster time!
Holy shit.

Grand Theft Auto IV (Xbox 360) Eurogamer

This review just went up at Eurogamer, and though this really ain’t my genre of game (at least ’til now), this sounds like something I’ll have to find the ah, demo of once it’s out on beigebox.

Comparison

The Star Shrink Shooters – Tanz-Demokratur: Extrawelt’s slutty big sister, the one with the swagger in her electro-booty.

Spoiler. Alert.

There’s movies I’d like to see but feel way too apprehensive about to actually watch, so after reading Russ’ review of Haneke’s remake of his own Funny Games over on Chud, I just had to read the spoiler. It’s over here. If you’re like me and too much of a wuss to watch it, read it. Or don’t.