Tag Archives: May
Yet another month evaporates away like mist on a late spring morning. The great and titanic majesty of summer begins to stir itself from its slumber, serpentine coils sliding and uncoiling. It readies itself to strike, be it with sun-fire or unending rain, Summer is a fickle beast and we are never sure with which weapon it will strike. Let’s face it, summer’s a bit of a dick. But on this day, the last before summer awakens I bring you stories. Tales of derring-do, of wonder and sorrow, tales of a place which is not here. Tales of a girl, standing on a mountain.
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Leave a comment | tags: May, Physio, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Sci-fi, Short stories, Writing, Yoga, Yogic | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
The astute and observant amongst you (by law of averages there’s bound to be at least some) will be aware that since January I have been suffering from vague and mysterious pains and generalised agonies, in and around my hip. This has led to thoughts of DIY amputations or the acquisition of slightly lethal quantities of painkillers. In the last month my strange and nebulous bodily torments have fallen under the purview of a physiotherapist, who now valiantly quests to sort out my gammy hip once and for all. He has, however, been extremely reluctant to use advanced military cybernetics as a solution. (What can I say? He’s a traditionalist.)
So as you read this I will be, in all likelihood, barely clothed, sprawled out on a massage table being subjected to the eye-watering agony of “treatment.” Last time, when I asked what he was doing his response could be summarised as “Oh, I’m just poking your tendons so hard that the connective tissue starts to dissolve.” I shall count myself lucky if I can stand once he is finished, and doubly lucky if I can manage walk properly afterwards. But as the old saying goes: “You can’t make an omelette without pain so intense that it makes your nerves melt and your bones howl.” (This is a lie, that is not how the old saying goes.)
This (as always) tenuous segue leads us to this month’s Pictonaut Challenge and the grotesque flexibility of Yogic.
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2 Comments | tags: May, Pain, Physio, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Short stories, Writing, Yoga, Yogic | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
I have spent the last few weeks stewing in a soup of my own stress. A relentless assault of bills, complications, inconveniences, irritations and down right vexation. It has not been a good month in that respect. But there is always tomorrow and there is always music. My days have been balmed by the electro tones of the Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories. This was partnered with the mind-bending New Age soundscapes of Mike Oldfield’s Songs of Distant Earth. They have kept me within the tenuous boundaries of sanity. It is quite fitting considering the theme of this month. For how else do you listen to music if not through a Music Box.
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1 Comment | tags: May, Music Box, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Short stories, Spring, Summer | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
May. A month of dancing round poles and the subsequent phallic symbolism such an act invokes. A month of two sweet and solid bank holidays; the last before a drought that save for a brief respite in late August will last until the end of the year. Summer’s not quite here yet. I can sense it though, just around the corner, just waiting for a chance to start flaunting its heat. But with that heat there is the promise of cider, beer gardens and nights as clear and crisp as cut glass. And with the burgeoning swell of summer comes the desire to throw open all your windows and crank the stereo all the way to eleven and let music fill the air. And that leads us, by an unwieldy and overly circuitous route to May’s Pictonaut Challenge: Music Box.
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3 Comments | tags: May, Music Box, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Short stories, Spring, Summer, Writing | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
There may have been some of you who turned up here on Monday just after the striking of noon expecting a blog post. Some of you may even have been disappointed to see that there wasn’t one. Since we’re all friends here I’m going to be honest, I just couldn’t be bothered to stitch some words together and send a shoddy collection of thoughts shambling into the bright and burning light like a poorly constructed corpse-beast. Necromancy has after all, never really been my forte. Besides, you were going to be getting two blog posts at the end of the week. Three posts in one week seemed a little overkill. I spent much of last weekend and indeed Monday itself, elsewhere. I left the safe confines of the Fortress of Ineptitude (my house) and sallied forth (got a train) to a dark and foreboding place filled with evil and despair (Hampshire) to see my mentors in the ways of the arcane arts (my parents.) What followed was three days of traipsing around a variety of gardens and stately homes which, due to the weather, may as well have been on the surface of the sun. In those three short days my carefully cultivated nerd-pallor of pure alabaster white has been utterly destroyed. Now my exposed flesh has become the colour of orange leather. This is one of many reasons I tend to avoid the outdoors and the sinister privations of the malevolent day-star. On the subject of stars I suppose I should get down to the business of wrapping up May’s Pictonaut Challenge: Starwatcher.
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Leave a comment | tags: Gayane, May, Moebius, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Short stories, Starwatcher, Writing | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
So it’s May. The last month of spring. The last month before summer finally arrives and my world begins an inexorable slide into an unpleasant, Stygian heat. The rains of the last month have been a delightful salve to my soul. I like rain. It keeps me cool, it makes me feel clean, it reminds me of a better time. A time when it meant I wouldn’t be dragged outside to play football. May is one of those month’s which fills me with a slight and intangible dread, I’ve always felt that there’s something distinctly suspicious and untrustworthy about it. I’ve chosen not to take a cue for this month’s theme from the month itself, all that would lead to would be thinly veiled phallic symbolism. I’m not sure anyone would enjoy that. So once again I’ve delved into the depths of the Pictonaut image folder in search of something suitably inspiring.
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4 Comments | tags: May, Moebius, Pictonaut Challenge, Pictonauts, Short stories, Starwatcher | posted in Pictonauts, Writing
The Rogue Verbumancer 