Opinions...

Modern recording and archiving means that all performing arts can be or are plastic arts, art forms that are not only substantial but can be manipulated by their medium, for example remixing in music.

Performing arts thrive on directly provoking thoughts and emotions in any viewer/listener etc. They are more on the nose. These thoughts and emotions are very strongly timestamped as well as attached to place. We change but recorded performance doesn't.

Digital technology means infinite replication. It is equally easy to call up any work from any period. The past no longer recedes as it used to.

This creates a problem for performing art. There is no need for it anymore. We have enough already. Most successful new works set out to very deliberately remind us of past works, an obvious example is film is now dominated by zombie franchises.

Is the way round this, as Walter Benjamin once described Franz Kafka, to think in eons instead of epochs, refer less to time and place, use fewer specifics and more archetypes, less art of recognition more of alienation?

Who effin knows, eh?

Picture from here..

Flight Engineer

I'm a pilot. It's not a line of work you'd expect to see apparitions. The airline I used to work for though had a haunted 737. I have flown with the ghost, even seen it up close. It's a slim, small man, younger-looking with pale, cropped hair. He wears a cap and uniform with purple and gold epaulettes, hence his name, the Engineer. We sometimes see him in the cockpit, looking lost. There’s nowhere for him to sit. The 737 never had flight engineers, it was all done by monitor. When I have seen him his skin he has had a translucent grey hue, as if from in a black-and-white film. Sometimes people meet him gliding along the passenger isle or 'working' on some mechanism on the plane. I always thought ghosts must be bored having to go through the same motions over and over, a job you can never leave. He's harmless though he can upset the passengers.

The first time I heard about him was when passenger, a puffy, white South African tried to get his attention. He had already complained about the food and about his head-rest and the quality of the film selection. The Engineer ignored him. This did not go down well. I was a junior at the time, just qualified. While the pilot got on with important things like flying the plane I was pulled out to soothe this poor man's feelings. Afterwards the Senior Flight Attendant, whose name was Noelle, apologised:

"I'm sorry" she said. "I ran out of things to say. He wouldn't stop. I could hardly tell him it was the Engineer."

"The what...?”

"You don't... you don't know...?"

"Know what...?"

"God, you are new" she said and patted me on the cheek, a little patronising, but I didn’t mind so much. I’m sure I wasn’t the only crew member to have a slight crush on her.

So the Engineer went through the motions on this particular plane. No one knew why he was there, what he wanted, or even who he was, though there were some good guesses. I remember talking to an aviation enthusiast called Roger, who investigated the Engineer. He took eyewitness descriptions of the ghost and made a photo-fit. I know because he was hanging around Heathrow Airport lounge trying to talk to company flight crew. He showed me the photo-fit and a picture of a young man called George Blake, who used to be a flight engineer. He went apparently missing West Berlin shortly before the wall went up, though Roger didn’t say whether it was murder or misadventure. Mr Blake looked quite like sketch of the Engineer though. Roger was certain; goodness knows how he got the photo. I wasn’t so sure.

The Engineer was bound to the plane and to his work, a minor inconvenience and an interesting tale. But something changed on the way into Brandenburg Airport. We were about ten minutes from arriving in the stack. I was poring over the dashboard, getting ready to resume control of the plane when a hand appeared over my shoulder. I jumped then turned in my seat. It was the Engineer, stood over me. He had a half-blank, half-anxious expression, looking back and forth and pointing intently at something on the dashboard. There was a sudden exclamation from the cabin door:

“Oh my God…!” My co-pilot, Darius, had just come back from the toilet. “What…?” He was flabbergasted, shocked, almost as blanched as the Engineer. He was new and clearly had no idea. I said:

“Wait…” which he did. The Engineer was glancing back and forth. He wanted to tell me something. Eventually he managed to slowly mouth:

“Look…” I wasn’t sure if I heard him or not. I realised he was pointing to the internal pressure dial. It seemed fine though the indicator was flickering. Something in me took this seriously. I said:

“What should we do…?” The Engineer pointed down. “OK…” I then got in touch with Traffic Control and sent the plane down several thousand feet. I knew I’d done enough when the Engineer smiled and disappeared.

It turned out there were three stress fractures in in hull, only small ones, the onboard computer missed them all and any breaks can be dangerous. The plane was grounded for repair. A few years later the 737 was decommissioned and, as far as I know, it seems the Engineer has been permanently retired.

Mail Order

Here's something short. It failed to win a recent competition for an Irish website called Brilliant Flash Fiction. The theme was It Came In The Mail. The word limit was 500 words, which is very tough. This didn't make the grade, so I'm inflicting it on you. Ha! Yeah, it's a bit blunt and simultaneously info-dumpy, but I like the core idea and it's got nowhere else to go. Some news is coming soon about published work though. Hooray!

“Good morning, Natalia.” Striding through his office he greeted his secretary with an assured smile. “You look radiant.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Through a door to his room, Peter sat at his desk. Another day ruling his empire, a multi-million pound mail-order bride agency.

It all began in Russia. Peter had been a British trade envoy. When the Cold War was over Peter decided to branch out.

Back in the day Peter had met a man in an underground fair in Moscow, a magician who only had one trick but it was a good one. He folded things that were impossible to fold and put them into spaces they could not fit. The climax of his act was putting his assistant into a matchbox and taking her out again, unharmed. Peter saw an opportunity. He brought the magician under his protection.

There was so many desperate people in Russia, young women in particular, who would do anything for a better life. Peter's idea was having the magician fold them into parcels and mailing them to rich, lonely men across the free world, saving on visa and plane tickets (a crucial edge in the market).

He still had to drum up demand but that was easy. Peter had many connections. He fed his clients with pretty pictures and beautiful promises. He ensured supply in much the same way. Keeping his monopoly was the most difficult part. Peter had the magician bought off and, ironically, locked away in luxurious captivity, a mansion in Sochi where he lived and worked under guard.

The situation in Russia stabilised. Peter had to work harder. A fake casting company here, a non-existent scholarship there helped maintain supply. Rival firms tried to extract his trade-secret, sometimes even steal his magician outright. Peter always dealt with his rivals, problems to be packed away. He was a clever man.

“Here’s your mail, Sir.”

“Thank you, Natalia.”

“You’re welcome, Sir.”

He was an important man too. His only regret was his trade wasn’t recognised enough to get him a Knighthood, even though he’d found matches for two Senior Secretaries, a gay Saudi prince and a French ambassador.

Natalia left. Peter fondled his post, two letters and a parcel. He chuckled. Who sent mail anymore? He did, he supposed, but the letters were hardly worth reading. He glanced then cast them aside. Someone should find a way to send brides as an email attachment he thought. He laughed again as he prized open the parcel. There was a puff of air, it sprang apart. Shocked, Peter dropped the parcel. It fell to the floor and a woman climbed out.

“Who are you?” he gasped. The woman was tall, tanned, supple, wearing heavy make-up and a short cocktail dress, like one of his pretty pictures. The Woman said:

“I was a mail-order bride, now I am a mail-order assassin.” She reached behind her back, produced a pistol and took aim, “and I have come for you.”

A question and a cut up.

I need to get a new story going. I've got a rough idea. A hitman/fixer hired by Marshall, Carter and Dark is sent to 'deal with' a corporate/underworld rival called Outis. It's a wild goose chase, or it could be, but the difficulty comes where to successfully kill someone one you need to know them, know their strengths and weaknesses, but the hitman (or woman) is trying to hunt down 'Nobody.' But could it result in something other than nothing, if that makes sense? Perhaps it could be a circle, five, seven or ten mysteries in London that refer back to each other.

...

Story I get got story idea. New idea. Going rough to a story going. Hitman know but is a goose kill corporate/underworld and to rival hitman/woman where weaknesses, hired you rival one where kill chase could refer in you the nothing. Each London other comes to mysteries in makes hunt something chase, comes could know in goose where in five it you makes nothing. But than to in that result mysteries if other if could five be nothing, nothing, something could that that in refer into.