Author Archives: Joel Derfner

Okay, folks. Faustus here, dropping in momentarily from the wilds of Connecticut to ask that you refrain from criticizing my guest bloggers. You’re welcome to be as mean to me in this space as you like, but people I have invited into my electronic home are a different story. If you don’t enjoy what the Guest Bloggers I Wish I Could Sleep With write (I myself thought Lauren’s posts were hysterical and am finding Matt’s game exhilarating), by all means don’t read it, but I insist that you do them the courtesy of not complaining about it in this space.

Thanks. Now back to your regularly scheduled program. I have hours and hours of rewrites ahead of me this evening.

A little moment of respite, here, in my ongoing fort-holding efforts for the itinerant Mephistophelian medico. Today’s escapee is, if only I steer clear of the second person and the letter Q, somewhat less of a challenge than its esteemed predecessors, or indeed the consonants to come. Not really a proper lipogram, this is more of an intermission; which is only reasonable in the context of eight perfs on the trot. The Doctor is a hard taskmaster: “Post every day!” he admonished. If only I managed to post so often to my own blog…

It isn’t as if I have nothing better to do; even if we ignore, as seems best, work, which can hardly be described as “better” — day after day grooming the sprinting dogs of imperialist capitalism — there’s a whole host of entertainments, spectacles, diversions, hobbies, pastimes, addictions, cravings, follies, scandals, disgraces and assorted depravities that I might be misspending my time on rather than this; and evidently plenty who wish I’d do exactly that. Or at least blog those things in every sordid detail, rather than playing silly word games.

Nevertheless, here I am, with silly word games in tow. Why?

I need a holiday, frankly, and bizarre as it may seem, this is it. Sorry folks, this is all simply an expression of my own escapism, a fleeing from my life. Instead of lazing on a beach or trekking in sodden rainforest I’m twiddling letters on some foreign website. Perverse, no? What kind of vacation is that?

Well, a change is as good as a rest. And it’s hard to be oneself when alienated from one’s own lingo. Like Stencil, I get to do eight impersonations.

Hey ho. That’s it for the vowels, anyway. The road ahead is looking awkward indeed. Three more days in ill-fitting drag; ach, that’s not so many.

Take ’em or leave ’em.

Dr F isn’t in; hence my recurring presence as substitute. Never fear, he’ll be back. Betweentimes, a third guest is scheduled, starting at the weekend; Sunday, I believe. My presence here is transience itself — ephemera, pure and simple. I’m just a fleeting shade; but aren’t we all?

Need I identify this entry’s absent friend, Faustus aside? Hardly. It is, indeed, utterly predictable, as Pascale has already declared. Still, we might speculate: what awkward textual backwaters must we brave in this arbitrary cause, what twisty little passages all alike? And what verbal infelicities will, with grim inevitability, result? Read ’em and weep, ladies and germs. Read ’em and weep.

Is there anything justifying such an excruciating exercise? Can I perhaps hide my embarrassing writerly deficiencies behind this little game, applying tricksy linguistic legerdemain in a distracting spectacle all furnished in mist and silvered glass? Will I instead fumble the cards with amateurish hands, let slip the silk handkerchiefs, saw my beautiful assistant in halves I can’t then reattach?

Alternatively, is there a chance these limits might lay bare and circumvent a laziness in the way I — and by inference we — build sentences, a mechanical selectivity relentlessly preferring the familiar and clichéd? In struggling against stringent rules, can we find and awaken a slumbering creativity? That, at any rate, is what Perec, Queneau, Mathews and their experimental writing crew attempted; with admittedly variable results.

In any case, while this entry sequence is hardly breaking new turf, I’m finding it rather illuminating. The strictures within which I’m willingly writing here impart a surprisingly different lilt every time, each quite unlike my usual undisciplined style. Which is interesting in itself, and as well, inter alia, means this place remains distinct, during my fleeting stewardship, rather than merely transplanting Walky Talky. In truth, whatever it may appear, these paragraphs aren’t me at all.

Besides, it seems fitting. I became friends with Faustus, at least in part, via writing daft verses burdened with unnecessary rules. As much as anything else, this guest shift at The Search celebrates that humble beginning.

Everyone’s fave pseudonymous M.D. sends regrets; has stuff to do elsewhere. Before he returns you’ve got, on second watch, to keep you busy, me. A sorry surrogate, confessedly. A patsy. A scapegoat. Back for more, Matt? Golly, some people are such gluttons for… oh, whatever.

You know the story by now, surely? Random banter coloured by some melancholy absence, an unspoken sorrow, the tug of a subject we can’t talk about, the long shadow cast by what’s out of bounds.

All just a parlour game, of course, a playful endeavour, a jest, a jape, a lark. No real loss lurks below the surface, no secret groundswell of heartbreak you should be aware of. The joy hasn’t gone out of the world, the sparkle hasn’t been sapped, honest. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, remember? So who could blue? Not me, that’s for sure. No way, José!

We must choose our path through the maze of glyphs, take baby steps along each sentence, maybe somehow reach the end, maybe get lost en route. That’s what the whole “blog” endeavour demands. Words, only words. Don’t take the matter to heart, for God’s sake. That road leads to madness.

So, what won’t we say today? Where’s the room’s elephant? Where shall we all cast sneaky glances that we hope no-one can see, and then pretend we haven’t? Ach, that game’s dull; let’s play another.

How about poker? Seven-card stud, twos and one-eyed jacks unfettered. No? Perhaps Monopoly? Chess? Dungeons and Dragons? Boot up the old Dreamcast and dance along to Ulala’s on-the-spot reportage for Space Channel 5?

Or maybe not. Maybe there’s just a trace of sadness after all. Let’s make the most of that. Let’s all wallow. Let’s weep and rend garments, plumb the furthest depths of doom and gloom, fret and worry and gnash our teeth and mourn and sleep no more. Let’s cry all the way to the bank.

My, aren’t we random today? Even more than usual. Well, no matter. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…

…but you’ve heard all that before.

Faustus is away, still, and not coming back for many days. Without him, this blog wants a custodian, and such am I. A stand-in. A visitor. Was just passing through, thought I’d add a word or two. You know how it is.

And so, my introduction. I said I would, didn’t I? I’m Matt, aight? Say hullo, Matt.

“Hullo, Matt.”

Hilarious.

Matt, that is, of clan Walky Talky, just so you know which. Don’t want any confusion; it wouldn’t pay to mix us up. It’s Matts-a-go-go in blogland, nowadays, oh ho, it’s Matts-orama. Know what I’m saying? So damnably common that you can’t swing a cat for us. (Don’t know about you, but I’m always swinging cats, guys and gals, I’m hip to that cat-swinging action. I’m groovy, baby, so cool I’m frosting up. I’m no .)

Not just any Matt, right? I’m “two-way radio boy,” as a darling lad put it, oh so long ago. A Matt of distant communication, a Matt who hangs out far away. Much too far to walk, too far as a crow might fly, but just a click away for all that; it’s a small world, old chap, and shrinking daily. If you want a link to my scrawlings and photos and various outpourings, to that gradually-accumulating digital history, why, just look down and right.

(Sorry, but I was told to plug, it’s not my fault, my notion, my doing. I’m only following Dr F’s ordinstructions. Got no will of my own in this, right? Just a flunky, simply a tool.)

Oh my, what a rainy Sunday morning of a post this is, how vapid and without topic, caught up in solipsistic circularity, twirling around and around again, so consciously about nothing but its own trivial orthographic constraint. Frankly, I lost it way back; by now I don’t know what I’m going on about. Do you?

Moving on.

That lack, that loss, that missing link; it’s still in sight (or out of it), still holding sway, floating just past my grasp. Or a similar, anyway. An old pal not around, a trusty buddy in short supply.

What is it I’m looking for today? What am I lost without, sitting forlorn in front of my laptop, churning out this painful rubbish? Ah, don’t worry about it, our chum won’t stay away for good. Tomorrow is… oh, you know.

The good Doctor’s gone to ground; you must know this by now. I’m merely guesting. The understudy. For this short period, while he knuckles down to the difficult business of composing music — or does he just wish you to think so? Is he in truth toiling deep undercover to fight crime? Picture him, if you will, in the full Sydney Bristow outfit, complete with lurid crimson fright wig. It seems too likely, I think you’ll concur — Um, where were we? Oh yes: for this time, I’ve got my grubby mitts on his blog. How should I exercise such unexpected power?

Decisions, decisions.

You don’t know me. I’m not from here, though I’ve sometimes lingered on the outskirts; no, I’m from… somewhere else. Not knowing my voice, will you notice, I wonder, if there’s something odd in it? Something missing? Some undercurrent of loss, of issues skirted or things unwritten? If I’m not telling you everything, will you pick up on it?

I wonder.

But we’ve plenty of time for such nonsense. I’m here the week. You might yet get to know me better. There’s no need to rush.

Let us defer the introductions until next time. It will be simpler then. Or different, possibly. Less circuitous, if you get my drift. Tomorrow is… well, you know.

In the interim, I urge you to lift your cups in the time-honoured tribute — let’s drink to unpresent friends.

Still Still still still – actually, I thought I would be Faustus by now. This entire week, I have been waiting for our identities to merge. I’m not at all sure why they haven’t. I’m still not Faustus.

I was going to write something really funny, but then I spent two hours reading news websites instead and now I just want to slowly bludgeon someone to death or alternately get really drunk.

Someone should buy How to Start Your Own Country and start one and let me go live in it. I don’t really have the energy to start my own, but it seems like such a good idea in theory.

In the meantime, please go get drunk. I am going to go get drunk. While waiting for my identity to merge with that of Faustus (please note the elaborate means I am going to to avoid apostrophe controversy). This is supposed to be my last guest post, so if our identities don’t merge in the next few hours, it will just be too late.

Still Still Still not Faustus.

This (via) is the strangest thing I have seen in a while, and so I have to link to it. Because. Video Game Sweatshops.

He lives in the Fujian province of China, but his place of business is online