Upsideclown
UpsideclownSlogan

 

* 200 articles. Two years. Whelk. The best of Upsideclown. Might be reprinted.

Civil Engineering

14 January 2002
Dan has come full circle

My father, who before his untimely death was one of the greatest creators of institutional architecture these isles have ever been blessed with, sadly did not have many opportunities to pass on his wisdom, or at least not to me. In what I wish I had known were his final years, I was occupied with a fairly heroic cocaine habit that left me personally bankrupt and with a Kirlian aura as tiny and black as a charred rat's cock.

Obviously, his decease was something of a wake-up call. I woke up, found that I had inherited a substantial amount of cash, cleared my accounts with a number of the less charming loan sharks of this less than charming city, and dialled out for a small mountain of Zen tapdancing powder.

It was during the subsequent and expensive hospitalisation that I finally got around to reading his magnum opus, The Role of the Civil Engineer in the Construction of Modern Consciousness. A definite eye-opener. Perhaps the most lucid account in existence of the importance of clean, well-staffed facilities and public utilities, and their correct disposition throughout the urban landscape, it also revealed itself to my soundly hatcheted doors of perception as the handiwork of a considerable Qabalist. Perusal of his personal papers confirmed this suspicion, and much more besides. It turned out that the old goat was a sharper operator than his employers had ever suspected. Or, for that matter, his family. Perhaps if we had made an effort to be more indulgent, or even more affectionate, I might not find myself in this position. Still, doesn't particularly matter.

Invitational design tournament tournament light a candle where why and the first and the fourth.

Sorry. A localised effect. I could delete it, but it might be of interest later.

What I was trying to say was something he used to tell me. Keep an eye on the angles, Daniel. If the angles are right, then everything else can be fitted around them. As a piece of advice, it covers pretty much everything from ripping off your dealer to anal sex. But the wider importance of the phrase was only made clear by a marginal note in one of his notebooks. Just a jotting, a doodle really. It's probably for the best that people very rarely go through their entire printed output while still living, or it might have been the old man standing here and the work of the world and the work of the world and not me.

It's an impressive structure, which I am afraid you will probably never be able to see. You'll appreciate the need for a certain degree of secrecy, I hope. On the bright side, you should at least feel privileged that yours is the first city to have its very own logolite. As far as I can tell, the more a city has been constructed according to the principles of The Role of the Civil Engineer in the Construction of Modern Consciousness, the more effectively this ought to work. And this place was where my father did his best work.

The factors are attractors where the work is the world and the turns turn round and round.

They're getting closer together. This is according to plan so far. I'm not entirely sure that he knew what he was building, or if he would ever have finished it. But his structures, the movement of machines and the way light reflects from polished windows, connect. It's the angles. They form a complex lock, and the logolite is the key. A doodle in a grotty leather notebook. Some of the angles aren't even visible to the naked eye.

And it's already working. This won't even register as a tingle in your head, but your language centres are being decentralised. Think of it like this; your brain is a vertical building, containing the different offices and subsections necessary to keep the systems running. To keep a complex system operating with the necessary resources and amenities. All Bristol fashion.

However, such monolithic, single-structure buildings are a symbol of the inefficient central bureaucracies of the past. The future is in outsourcing provision and maintenance across a series of administrative hubs. The discomfort, which I regret may well prove fatal, is the first stage in reorganising the civic architecture of the human being. Processes will be centralised and redistributed incompatibility sawbone evitable inevitable edible.

It's the first step in the creation of a better-organised, tidier, more civically responsible humanity. I am grateful for your cooperation, and look forward, in the event of your survival, to cooperating on future projects.

Have a pleasant day. Have a civil day. Cortex cortege albumen electrum cartilage Carthage hecatomb.

 

 
This is the fucking archive

Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
30 October 2003. Dan writes: My only goal
9 October 2003. Dan writes: The Knot
18 September 2003. Dan writes: The Engelbart Elephant
28 August 2003. Dan writes: The Amity Index
7 August 2003. Dan writes: This Sporting Life
17 July 2003. Dan writes: Touch
26 June 2003. Dan writes: Metadata
5 June 2003. Dan writes: Street Mate
15 May 2003. Dan writes: Usher's Well
24 April 2003. Dan writes: Medicamenta
3 April 2003. Dan writes: Weapons of Mass Construction
13 March 2003. Dan writes: David Sneddon, Bukake Secret Agent
20 February 2003. Dan writes: Mary Sue
30 January 2003. Dan writes: Bait and Switch
9 January 2003. Dan writes: What Never Happened
19 December 2002. Dan writes: Sermon on the Mount the Face
28 November 2002. Dan writes: Ballroom Blitz
7 November 2002. Dan writes: The Photographer
17 October 2002. Dan writes: Diaphragmatic
26 September 2002. Dan writes: A life in the day
5 September 2002. Dan writes: Different Class
15 August 2002. Dan writes: Story and sequel
25 July 2002. Dan writes: Fellatious
4 July 2002. Dan writes: Skin Mag
10 June 2002. Dan writes: The Ibizan book of the Dead
16 May 2002. Dan writes: The Sissons Situation
22 April 2002. Dan writes: UpsideClown and Out in Hollywood
28 March 2002. Dan writes: Nereus' Daughters
4 March 2002. Dan writes: Diomedes
7 February 2002. Dan writes: Text Only
14 January 2002. Dan writes: Civil Engineering
20 December 2001. Dan writes: Nativity
26 November 2001. Dan writes: The Wedding Band
1 November 2001. Dan writes: what dreans mecum?
8 October 2001. Dan writes: Stop me if you've heard this one before
13 September 2001. Dan writes: Mother of the Muses
20 August 2001. Dan writes: I say I say I say
26 July 2001. Dan writes: Bigger, Better, Brother
2 July 2001. Dan writes: Hecatomb
7 June 2001. Dan writes: Dispassionate Leave
14 May 2001. Dan writes: Small Town Boy
19 April 2001. Dan writes: Maintaining the Driving Line
26 March 2001. Dan writes: Cut and Paste
1 March 2001. Dan writes: Redemption
5 February 2001. Dan writes: Blyton the Face of the Earth
8 January 2001. Dan writes: Smoke Signals
18 December 2000. Dan writes: The Loa Depths
23 November 2000. Dan writes: The Limits of Melissa Joan Hart
30 October 2000. Dan writes: Shiftwork
5 October 2000. Dan writes: Dawson
11 September 2000. Dan writes: Testing Times
17 August 2000. Dan writes: Onanova
3 July 2000. Dan writes: Roboto il Diavolo

 
Let meeeeeee entertain you

We are all Upsideclown: Dan, George, James, Jamie, Matt, Neil, Victor.

Material is (c) respective authors. For everything else, there's it@upsideclown.com.

 
Never come here again

And weeeeeee can entertain you by email too. Get fresh steaming Upsideclown in your inbox Mondays and Thursdays, and you'll never need to visit this website again. To subscribe, send the word subscribe in the body of your mail to upsideclown-request@historicalfact.com. (To unsubscribe, send the word unsubscribe instead.)

...

... On this page: ... Archive ... About ... Subscribe ... ... Upsideclone