Dystopia, doggerel and a dick joke

Or, as I like to call it, another day in 'Mike World'

July was quite a month, eh? I did what I do every time the world starts to get insane (okay, more insane) and read books and listened to music. It’s easier to ignore the impending end of civilisation when you’re enveloped in the creations of others.

Ostrich, head, ground - that’s me, although I did stick my noggin up to have the occasional laugh about potential US Vice President JD Vance and all the couch memes. Sofa, so good JD?

How do you deal with life when you’re feeling overwhelmed? How do you find the time to be creative when work is busy and time is more scarce? Let me know by commenting below or sending me an email at mike.kilpatrick@gmail.com.

My creativity took a little bit of a backseat as the heat at work turned up with the university semester break here in Aotearoa. The break also meant no writing or pottery classes and I found I really missed being forced to put my feelings on paper or mould them into imperfect clay creations.

The good news is that both classes have now started again and words, ideas and vases are starting to flow freely. This past week’s pottery class was the most productive I’ve had yet and, despite my muckle hands, I’ve found it easier dealing with small amounts of clay. I must be used to having a tiny thing in my hand…

Talking about tiny things, this is my favourite from my beginner’s class. It’s a small vase, but I love the boundary between the two glazes that’s created something unique. I’d like to say it was deliberate, but I’d be lying.

Less than 400g of clay forces me to be gentle and more thoughtful with how I touch and mould it and, to me, the results have been noticeably better. I’ll see if they survive the initial drying process for me to tidy them up before posting some pictures.

My loosely-themed collection of fictional stories has been put to one side temporarily as I concentrate on creative non-fiction and poetry for the next six weeks. I know if I get distracted by fiction during the creation of this part of my portfolio I’ll end up having to write 3000 words the day before it’s due. I’m too old to wing it like I did first time around at university.

I’ve also been re-reading my portfolio from last semester and it’s surprised me how quickly I’ve started to dislike and poke holes in work I was proud of, especially my poetry. There’s only one piece of prose that I feel still resonates, so I share it here in the hope you find it interesting before I end up hating it too.

Apologies for those not interested in politics (or my politics!) but it’s short and can be easily skipped and won’t be the focus of my creative works going forward. You probably want to skip the next bit too, on the current books I’m reading!

A VOTER’S LAMENT 

Dear Prime Minister Luxon 
You’re not running a business, 
And we’re not your employees 
Just waiting to be mauled by 
Your dog-whistling Cerberus 
It’s tail wagging you for fun 

Could you focus on those 
Without seven houses, 
Two Teslas and a phony smile? 
Families are going hungry 
While landlords gorge 
On borrowed billions 

Seas are running out of fish 
But cigarettes are plentiful 
At least we can huddle 
Around glowing tips 
When our rented homes 
Don’t offer heat or light 

Keep on looking down at us 
From your ivory tower 
Mocking us with rhetoric 
Proclaiming 
‘I led Air New Zealand’. 
How could we ever forget? 

It’s my 50th birthday next month and grand plans to complete the West Highland Way in Scotland to celebrate were destroyed earlier this year by water leaks and electricity work for the house as well as extortionate flight prices.

I can’t quite recall when I first decided I wanted to walk the West Highland Way, but whenever it was I definitely would not have been fit enough to do so. Now I am fit enough, I’m on the other side of the world and it seems as far away as ever.

And then a friend said something which flipped my pity party on its head. When I told them I wasn’t doing it any more they offered “Well you can save the walk for your 55th.”

Now that’s a way to look at something positively, instead of wallowing in my own sadness over something that I don’t really celebrate anyway.

I think it’s more likely I don’t jump for joy at birthdays anymore because of my age and not because the last time I actually celebrated a birthday I had just turned 40 and my marriage ended within a few days. Psychiatrist says what?

<POLITICS START>

Anyway, I’m probably not helping my own moods with the choice of books I’m reading right now.

I’ve always enjoyed hearing George Monbiot talk and I regularly read his columns, but I’ve struggled to get into some of his books. That’s not true of his latest, The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism, co-written with Peter Hutchison.

It’s not exactly a bright look at our future, but I do recommend it.

For me, it's up there with Dark PR: How Corporate Disinformation Harms Our Health and the Environment by Grant Ennis in helping me understand how we - I’m talking about the general population here, and not the ruling class or the billionaires that are breathlessly reported on by our media - have been left to feel the faults with society lie with us as individuals and not the system working as designed to screw us.

We’re seeing it in the UK again right now, with immigrants and asylum seekers being attacked as the cause of problems within the country, rather than dealing with the root cause - the underfunding of social programmes and infrastructure, the privatisation of public works, the destruction of the NHS and more.

We’ve been told so many times that it’s <point to someone else and exclaim THEM!> to blame that we don’t particularly examine the system that’s driven us to this point. And it’s happened within my lifetime too. In the early 1970s the gap between the poor and the wealthy was at record lows. Now it’s at record highs.

In less than 50 years, we’ve managed to disenfranchise billions of people in order to appease those who need it least, while putting targets on those who need it most.

Which leads me to my other current read, Paul Lynch’s magnificent Prophet Song, winner of the 2023 Booker Prize.

It’s not an easy read, partly because of the lack of paragraphs but mainly because it’s dealing with a country - in this case Ireland - moving into totalitarianism. It’s dystopian, yes, but it also feels like a warning to where we could easily end up.

It was by accident that I happened to be reading these two books at the same time, but they feel inextricably linked in today’s world. A less-than-happy coincedence?

<POLITICS END>

Anyway, enough about me finding new ways to depress myself. This weekend was the start of the new football season and my team… oops, nope. Let’s leave that one too.

Thankfully there are a couple of books I’ve read lately which offered the escapism I mentioned right up top of this newsletter.

Welcome to Glorious Tuga by Francesca Segal is an easy read, set on a fictional island full of characters, love and belonging. I also finished listening to Callum McSorley’s Squeaky Clean, a Tartan Noir book that is hilarious if you like dark humour. Set largely around a car wash in Glasgow, it’s a debut novel that has left me gagging for more.

Not quite as light, but still absolutely brilliant, was Louise Wallace’s Ash. I started reading it on the bus home and was praying that we’d be delayed so I could finish it. It’s a 90 minute read, and Wallace’s poetry background shows in the prose and structure of the novella.

Much like Catherine Chidgey’s amazing The Axman’s Carnival and Pet, there’s a sense of foreboding that’s created that just makes you want to keep turning the pages. I don’t want to give anything away, just read it. I dare you to be unaffected by it.

The other thing I’ve been doing - and which I can heartily recommend to everyone - is singing aloud in the shower to some of my favourite songs.

My glass cubicle insulates me from the world and I can pretend for those three or four songs that no-one else can hear me. I sing like I’m Jimmy Buffett, Dave Grohl, Kirsty MacColl and more. My eyes are shut and I’m in front of 40,000 people, screaming for more as the hot flood of water bouncing off my skin cleanses my soul for a few more hours.

I don’t know what it is about the combination of music and hot water, but it’s magic. And with the world we currently live in, a wee bit of magic might be just what we need.

ABRACADABRA!

Now piss off and stop wasting your time reading my words. And don’t forget to let me know how you deal with life when you’re overwhelmed.