Hello, and welcome to the penultimate apoplectic.me post of the year. Maybe. I was thinking that the only post after this one would be some sort of end-of-year round up, but that’s not necessarily true. [It wasn’t – Ed.]
Either way, it’s time to pull together a couple of strands from recent posts, and tie them together in a nice big festive bow.
[Give yourself a wee Christmas present, and sign up for the Apoplexy Newsletter here.] Continue reading Lies, Lies, Lies – Pt. I
Last Wednesday, I attended my class’s graduation ceremony from the Masters of Science programme in Creative Writing (?!) at the University of Edinburgh. As I wrote at the time…
We all had a lovely time. And I’m proud to be able to say that with the help of Beth and Paw Broon, I’m a post-stroke graduate! I have to say, though, that while it was nice to punctuate a wonderful year, it’s a bit concerning to be leaving the leafy groves of academe for a highly competitive world 18 years after I did it the first time.
Fortunately, Book Week Scotland was taking place out in the real world at the same time. And that helped ease the transition….
[In the Stroke Bloke privacy spectrum, get the good stuff and have a chat over here.]
As Thanksgiving approaches, I guess I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Not least, being 0.5% of an American abroad, I get to attend a number of Thanksgiving Dinners in excess of one.
[For more personal news and occasional whimsy – and to join the conversation – check out the Apoplexy Newsletter.] Continue reading Thanksgiving
Interested in Nerd Bait? Before digging into this week’s post, find out how The Wee Mermannie got the girl – deleted scenes from our Book Festival Gig are part of the bonus materials included in the first issue of the fabulous FREAK Circus!
The beautiful paperback artefact is here. The electronic version that includes the unexpurgated prose version of The Tail of The Wee Mermannie is here.
Right. Now. Back to the blog.
The people each of us individually are at 10, 30, 40, “share the same name and some of the same memories, but we are quite different as a person.”
During the intervening week, I wrote a short story about a man who may – or may not – have lived a succession of quite different lives. Yet there are common themes in those lives. For example, in each case, the character’s father disappears from the scene in his early years.
It wasn’t until I was reading a passage in Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer-prize winning novel All the King’s Men last night that I realised that my fiction had been taking a sideways look at Eagleman’s theme…. Continue reading To a Tee
Over the past couple of weeks, life in Edinburgh has moved along at its usual break-neck (for a stroke survivor) pace. But the news cycle hasn’t stopped. In rUK, they’re in the midst of the party conference season.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Manchester look so nice! The wee fella in the picture above gets a look-in because, in 1933, he ordered a project that would produce a basic vehicle capable of transporting two adults and three children at 100 km/h. And this led to the creation of Volkswagen, which has been featuring in stroke news while I’ve been busy. Although you might not know it, cos no one’s suggested VW has been trying to give you a stroke, right? Continue reading Have a Scooby-Doo
It’s my birthday this week. I’m too old to take birthdays too seriously these days, but there is a certain frisson added to the event by the memory of my new age taking so long to bed in, in 2012. Because of the brain attack suffered two weeks later, y’see?
Continue reading Post-Capitalism
Nerd Bait’s Wurdz Boi writes:
Nerd Bait’s appointed-against-his-will marketing svengali and master of low-light photography @chrisdonia suggested that the band get hip to the kids and put Greatest Hits, Vol.6 – featuring stroke-themed mini-musical The Treacherous Brain – up on Bandcamp.
So just like Radiohead, we posted our album with a “name your price” option starting at £0.00. You get high-quality downloads in MP3, FLAC, and more, as well as unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app. We get to be rich. Like Radiohead. Rich, I tells ya!
Well, we get to share our stuff with you in a convenient and free fashion, and we’re very happy about that.
We hope you’ll take advantage of us it.
Back in January, I wrote briefly of Moritz Erhardt. He’s rarely far from my mind, if I’m honest.
Moritz was a 21-year-old intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London who, ten-and-a-half months after my haemorrhagic stroke, died after working three nights in a row. Early each morning, he would pop home for a quick shower while his taxi waited outside, before returning to the office. As a news report at the time wrote, “this procedure is so commonplace that it has a name: the magic roundabout.”
But let’s ruin a different childhood memory this time….
[Want a beautiful memory? Check out Nerd Bait‘s retelling of The Tale of The Little Mermaid with a bunch of talented people in attendance at Illicit Ink‘s Happily Never After as part of the Jura Unbound strand at the Edinburgh International Book Festival tomorrow.]
If the Edinburgh International Festival starts in four days, then it must be the beginning of August. It’s even a nice day in Auld Reekie, as if the weather is any guide to what day time of year it is around here.
And if it’s the beginning of August, we must be approaching the third anniversary of The Event – as suggested by last week’s post. I which case, it must also be time that my mindfulness practice, in its largest sense, calls for a check-in.
[What else has been going on? Check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter to find out!]
Continue reading The Golden Lasso of Truth
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote that “sometime this week, Beth and I are going to see Asif Kapadia’s documentary, Amy.” I saw his movie about the late Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna on a plane last year, and thought it was very powerful.
Well, it turns out I was lying. Or, I didn’t have the full facts to hand. We went to see Amy last night.
[Sign up for the Apoplexy Tiny Letter here, for more words to while away the day.]
Continue reading The Jazz Singer