Moping around in the sad gazebo of the mind

I want to write of miscellaneous things today.

First of all, I'm finding the Crap Archives, or Studies in Crap, in the Village Voice, to be really inspirational. I'm not sure there's really much I can add to this with a commentary of my own, but there are some wonderful details here. I like the comments under this entry in the series. Of the cover of a 1965 treatise on homosexuality, someone called Willie writes:

Being gay means you mope around in the sad gazebo of the mind.

I cannot say how inspiring I found this. I, too, wanted, upon the instant of reading, to mope around in the sad gazebo of the mind. Granted, I've already done quite a bit of just such moping, but I wanted to do it anew, more consciously, and with greater, or perhaps lesser, purpose, in a more lispy and wafting, almost camera-shy kind of way, after changing my name to Jeremy Feathers.

That, I have decided, is the only way to combat the loneliness of one's autumn years, worse by far than the loneliness of one's spring years, and worse than the loneliness of one's summer years, too, but not as much worse than them than it is that of the spring years. In other words, in order of loneliness, the autumn years come first, the summer years second and the spring years third. And I haven't even mentioned the winter years. Hopefully I'll have moped myself to death by then. Anyway, basically, things just get worse as they go along. Except that, now, I know that moping in the sad gazebo of the mind can, if not save, then adequately console me.

I feel an uncharateristic urge even to recommend the habit as one that will make beautiful the lifestyles of all.

Also, I have decided that Puzzles, or April, the Clown, must now be my desktop wallpaper:

Now, the second matter of great importance that I must mention before I run out of energy and collapse, as usual, is the appearance, on the Internet, of a new website, called Pleasure Principled, from the founder of International Wota, Ray Mescallado. For some reason the Pleasure Principled page is refusing to load for me at the moment, but I hope this problem is resolved by the time anyone reads this. Apart from anything else, the new site boasts the first part of a story by Justin Isis, called, 'The Eye of the Living Is No Warmth', about the obsessions, disappointments and consolations of two wota in Tokyo.

My computer is being obtuse at the moment, and gormless and sluggish, so it's taken me a while even to put together this much of a blog entry. So I am going to finish for now, and two items will have to count as 'miscellaneous', I'm afraid. However, please look forward to, if you can, the possibility of my writing something in the not-too-distant future about Robert Aickman, and about (the) Kodagain, though not necessarily in the same blog entry. Oh, and I might review the new Momus album, with Joe Howe, called Joemus.