Pond Scum: From Perfidious Albion to the Land of Wa
By Steve Finbow
This is it. This is the last ever Pond Scum. My brief was to explore the similarities, differences, and relationships between the UK and USA. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve come up with any earth-shattering conclusions. What has occurred to me while writing this column is how much I have grown to dislike my own country. I’ve even grown to dislike my home city. Even Primrose Hill is getting annoying. So, after sixteen years back in England, after thirteen-and-a-half years living in Primrose Hill, after seven years living in my apartment, after two years and fifty Pond Scums, I’m off. Off to live in Chitose, near Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Fare thee well Stella Artois. Hello Enjuku.
By Nicholas Allanach
There is one thing I won’t miss about the UK – the ongoing Brown/Blair saga. Never a frown with Gordon Brown will never be prime minister. He will not even be party leader. I’ll stake my… well, I don’t have anything left… I’ll stake my vampire on it that Gordon Brown will be the Michael Heseltine of the Labour Party – a perennial political bridesmaid forever fumbling the bouquet of pink roses. I am not going to watch television in Japan – Japanese television is truly atrocious – and so will not have to watch George W. Bush walking along the corridor toward the rostrum like John Wayne with a wet and itchy arse. Nor will I have to witness his inappropriate grins. And I’m sure that by the time I again get to watch Western television, Dubya will have become a full-blown Cyclops. I will miss watching Liverpool FC. I will also miss my friends, but, hey, there’s email.
As I look out my window at the garden, rather than starlings and wood pigeons sitting on the gutter peering into my living room, there is a lion and a unicorn. They are obscenely large. The lion’s yellowish coat, spattered with faeces, bones, and blood, is ragged and matted with death. The unicorn’s horn is broken and drips with gore. The lion bares its teeth, growls, and deals the unicorn several harsh slaps. The sound is of a wet umbrella being shook. The lion holds its belly and roars with laughter. The unicorn weeps. They both stop, frozen in time, then look directly at me. I stare back. The lion flicks out a long claw and mockingly slashes the air. The unicorn sneers and spits. I hold up a lone middle finger. There is a rending sound and a flash of black and white in the sky. The lion and the unicorn slink away, beaten. In their place – a storytelling of crows, a siege of cranes.
I would like to bow out with some recommendations – Ring and Dark Water by Koji Suzuki. Ring is a truly scary novel dealing with communication, ghosts, violence, and desire. The titular story of "Dark Water" is better than anything by Stephen King or Peter Straub, and the other stories, all water-based, are Poestmodern (sorry) horror at its best. I am re-reading Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-up Bird Chronicle – it is a truly stunning novel about existence, loss, spaghetti, ears, and drinking beer. Any short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa but particularly ‘Rashomon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’. And that’s about it because… gulp… fighting back sobs… I sold my book collection. From 4,500 books down to around 300, comprising my Murakami collection and my David Peace books (I’m hoping to interview both while I am in Japan), my Beat library – I will never get rid of that. As I write, my Spalding Grays are in a cardboard box on a freighter somewhere in the ocean or on a stinking yak truck in the wilds of Mongolia. My friend Vince is fostering my Hunter S. Thompsons. I have also kept J.G. Ballard’s complete stories, some Ted Berrigan, Clark Coolidge, and Robert Creeley poetry and my bust of Friedrich Nietzsche. That’s it. I have two bags for my clothes and will buy something at the airport to read on the flight. (Actually, I’ve just received the new Martin Amis in the post to review, so I’ll read that.)
So, what am I going to do in Japan? I’m going to write. I’m going to finish all the things I’ve begun and begin all the things I’ve been planning to begin. Novels: Chimpo will have further adventures – I’ve done all the research and now I have to get the little sod onto a train and out of the jungle. Eden – flying to NYC to visit Lola, I looked out of the window as the plane flew over Boston and I had an idea for a novel – sort of James Fenimore Cooper meets William T. Vollmann meets Lost. I started writing it and enjoyed myself – that does not always happen – I’ll get back to it soon. London Spleen – something I’ve been writing and planning on and off for the past three years. Isle of Bones – think Mosquito Coast written by B. Traven. Short stories: if and when they form in my mind – at present, Mrs Nakamoto is in full control. Non-fiction: IWIWY – chronicling my infatuation with William S. Burroughs (unfortunately, not my fascination with Adriana Lima). A little something provisionally called The Trouble with Women, which may send shivers down the oh-so-perfectly-formed spines of a number of females (except one). Poetry: you’re having a laugh. I will also be writing a (not so) regular blog called Seppuku My Heart, which can be found here. Please click on the ads – right now showing a cool www.by-the-sword.com – as this generates (very little) money for me and means I may not have to teach English. There is also a Google search button for your use.
OK. Thank-you time. First, I’d like to thank Kerrie Slavin for putting up with my typos, bad puns, encroaching senile dementia, impatience, and insistence that we go for a pizza and have just one more beer in the Crown Posada – her help in editing Pond Scum has been immense. I’ll miss her. To Sue Collins – for believing (in) me (sometimes). To Kelly Parslow for, well, she knows, saving my life and all the years. To Lola, for talks, laughs, drinks, food, for walks, and bad hangovers, for NYC and friendship. I’d like to thank Michael Helke at Stop Smiling for making me contemplate rewrites. A big spa`sibo to Mark Grueter. And, finally, Sarah Stodola for giving me the opportunity to write Pond Scum in the first place and for becoming a good friend and drinking companion in London, Manchester, and NYC. I hope to write the occasional review for Me Three.
According to Chinese history, ‘there is no distinction between father and son, or between men and women in the Land of Wa (Japan). People enjoy liquor. They live long, some reaching one hundred years of age, and others to eighty or ninety years. Normally, men of high echelon have four or five wives, and the plebians may have two or three. Women are chaste and not given to jealousy.’ Cool. I’m welling up. Sayonara, Scumbags. And cheers.
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Click here for Steve Finbow's bio and a list of works published.
© 2006 Me Three
