Subtle manipulation of reality: Part 2

As well as politicians, Advertisers too are always good for a bit of truth twisting.  They are at least complicit in the big lies.
Greed is good: Coke's the Sweet Thing (and ethical too!): banks really do help you Loan Your Own Home: no-one died stitching sweat-shop shirts: Nestlé truly is the Nutrition, Health and Wells company that never steals anyone's water: Utterly But-plasticky really does taste like butter despite being only a molecule away from a plastic door knob . . .
A recent advertising campaign for a major global, tax evading, fast food charnel house shows a child of about ten years old being scolded by his mum and dad for splashing through puddles in the great outdoors, jumping around on a bed and climbing trees.  He’s told off for doing anything remotely healthy, mind expanding and child-like.  Though the lad is obviously a tad grumpy, he nevertheless complies with his parent’s wishes because he knows which side his bread's buttered.  In the meantime, his doting parents reward their monumentally sycophantic offspring by taking him to a fast food joint where they watch him stuff his face with chemically modified, biologically androgynous, big fat juicy MacDonald’s burgers.  Mum and Dad, smiling sickly, congratulate themselves, and join in a chorus of “that’s my boy”.
Coronary Heart Disease has become the biggest killer in the western world the scale of which, despite 21st Century advances in medicine, is without historical precedent. And that's no lie.

Swell, my new novel.

 (C) Rivenrod 2015

Subtle manipulation of reality: Part 1

Like everyone, it would be impossible for me to participate in every day life without ever experiencing someone attempting to mess with my head.

Whatever gets them off, different strokes for different folks. But who are these people?

 One thing I know about them, they are everywhere.  Right here, in this very place, by the window, on the phone, that grey/black woman selling chocolate and hate Mail, the one eyed chugger hunting down the main chance.  Sometimes “they” are you and me.

The standard culprits are, of course, Politicians.  Their entire reason for existing seems to be to reconstruct what we think we know about this world to fit their own often extremely twisted views.  They cause mischief and mayhem, sometimes worse, without care or conscience and certainly no fear of ever being held accountable.

These Low Lifes move in high circles.  A British politician, a Minister in Government*, was recently exposed for misleading Parliament no less than 28 times over a very short period of time.  Even the name he goes by is a fabrication.  Has he been sanctioned? No. Will he ever be brought to justice? No.

Sadly, in Britain, it’s considered bad form to publicly denounce our esteemed leaders for lying.  In this so called bastion of democracy we are gagged by our own genetic proclivities. But, in this at least, our silence does not mean acceptance.  Silence is forced upon us.

Swell, my new novel.

*an extreme right wing government inflicted on the good people of this country by the vast MINORITY of voters at the last General Election.

 Image by Vikette: Hobby Fractalist

(C) Rivenrod 2015

Swell: inspiration#2

“Rivenrod is a master storyteller.  His words are punctures of light made intensely riveting by shining in the sombre spaces of our minds.  They inspire us to blissfully defend what is improbable.”
Yoran Lanchenko

Swell, the new novel by Rivenrod

Image by Kishin Shinoyama

(C) Rivenrod 2015

Tentacular papercuts

Book sculpture: Art or vandalism?

Top: Flutter 2007 / Devotion series by Jacqueline Rush Lea

Bottom: Lotisaul / Las Defensas de Las Plantas by Barbara Wildenboer

Swell, the new novel by Rivenrod, click here to read more    



Available everywhere in all digital formats and paperback: Amazon USA | Amazon UK | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Inktera . . . to name but a few.

 

  (C) Rivenrod 2015

Oi Methuselah! What's all this sex malarkey?

Andy Warhol said sex is too much work.  Mae West was just pleased to see you, well anyone really.

Hmmm sex.  Sex is not the same as sexy.  Sex is the business end of sexy and more often than not involves a trade off - your juice for mine - you get my drift.  Neither is sex the same as provocative, in fact sexy isn’t always provocative and vice versa.

What's more, if the headlines of the tittle-tattle tabloid press are to be believed, sex is everywhere, instantly, just 3 feet from where you’re sitting right now!  But it’s not true is it.

Therein lies the conundrum which both interests and excites me (from a purely philosophical point of view of course).  It interests me that so many people talk about it, think about it, say they want it and insist they need it.  Nearly everyone has an opinion on it, a desire to express it, a score to boast about or dream about and yet in practical terms there’s so little actual sex about.  If it’s that fascinating why doesn’t everyone just shut up and get on with it.  The truth is in most relationships, after the initial surge of rampant lust has faded, what remains is a bit of a sorry, soggy mess.  The unappetising fact is most people just aren’t very good at it and consequently, whenever the urge raises it’s ugly head, they would rather crochet jackets for hot water bottles than get down and dirty.

Despite all the nudge-nudge wink-wink obsessing, I don’t think the subject has ever been tackled head on, not in any direct and honest way.  Please allow me to try by offering at least one logical but highly improper suggestion.  If you’re hungry, you cook a meal.  If you can’t cook, you get a take-away.  If the car breaks down, you fix it.  If you can’t fix it yourself, you get someone in who knows how.  Are you with me so far.

Sex is one of the last necessary functions that’s crying out to be outsourced.

The act itself almost always involves a bit of tinkering under the hood which kind of implies that we should know what we’re doing and it’s an inalienable fact that to be even three parts average at something requires practice.  So what’s the problem with paying good money for sex training, why should people disapprove so?  If you spent a few hours a week practising tennis, would you feel obliged to sneak back home expecting to face the music?  No you would not.  Being able to hold your own on a tennis court is commendable but surely sex is one thing you want to be really, really good at.  Just a thought.

~

“A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she’s a tramp.”  Joan Rivers

Why Methuselah? Well, if the biblical story is accurate, then Methuselah and his unnamed wife are the ancestors, through Noah and his wife, of every living human being. And as we already know there are more human beings alive today than have ever lived.  And it's all down to sex.

Swell is the new book by Rivenrod, click here to read more  
 Available everywhere in all digital formats and paperback: Amazon USA | Amazon UK | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Inktera . . . to name but a few.

(C) Rivenrod 2015

Beyond the boundary of imagination

The published version of Swell realises my original vision.

I was looking to create a story with no discernible plot, the only hooks, so to speak, being the characters and the flow of words.  It was to be a story concerned with imperceptible reality entangled in ostensibly uninvolved mysteries.  Each mystery being an alternative version of reality, much like “real life” actually.
Someone once said, it could have been me, I forget, that mysteries can only exist beyond the boundaries of imagination.  In other words, if a thing can be imagined it cannot remain a mystery.

How else can we explain the religions of the world.  With few exceptions religions have become strict enforcers of apparently arbitrary rules turning even the most benevolent faith into a Leviathan of human torment, whose teachings and promise of eternal life plug into the irrepressible human desire for self destruction. Universally, religions require the destruction of their own followers in order for them to win the ultimate prize, to sample the delights of Paradise.

Trouble is they can only get to Paradise if they’re dead and Death is one mystery that only throws up questions, never answers.

 Swell is the new book by Rivenrod, click here to read more


Available everywhere in all digital formats and paperback: Amazon USA | Amazon UK | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Inktera . . . to name but a few.

 

 

 

Image: Mariana Monteagudo is a Miami based Venezuelan artist who uses latex, ceramic and other media to create extraordinary doll-like sculptures which are both intriguing and fascinating.  I urge you to pay her a visit

(C) Rivenrod 2015