Month: August 2023

Are You Not Entertained?

~ MKW Publishing ~ 5 Comments

What it is about entertainment that keeps us enthralled? Hooked and distracted by carefully crafted forms and expressions of what we call ‘entertainment’. Put there initially to entertain, but seems to be a consuming conveyor of industry now. Once you are in the corporate fold for it, seems you are no longer you. Similar maybe to how we get treated once we are born, as part of the societal cog we are brought up to believe we are so important to. But just as in that structure you would have workers, soldiers, royalty etc, there is another layer that gets overlooked as important. Look at the film Antz for a basic on what I mean, it’s a good watch, but is about society, being an individual as well part of the collective, and saving society from a nefarious eugenicist plan by the head of the military. But they keep the structure basic as i mentioned, wanting us to liken ourselves to ants and other hive creatures, busying ourselves for our purpose, so the queen can flourish and then repeat the cycle.

Yet there is layer that is always there, in different forms. I’ll start from when I think of them being portrayed as an important part of life.

Greek Tragedies – theatre performed by actors portraying human nature, myths and traditions, apparently as early as 5BC.

Jesters, those medieval tricksters that heavily feature in Nephilim stories and appear in the royal courts, to keep the king or queen amused they say. While on the streets of the average folk having a scaled down puppeteered version in Punch and Judy. And another custom which is interesting, mostly relevant, but a bit of a tangent here.

Plays also became a big thing around the mid 1300’s, with theatre performances being encouraged by the church they say, telling bible stories and the lives of the saints. Maybe then it was realised that visual propaganda can be a powerful tool.

Mop Fairs – we still have some around today, but they are known more as funfairs these days. But back in the day, they were created to match workers with employers, so a job drive really. But off the back of the black death (and before the Statute of Cambridge in 1388 – covered in my article A Working Strategy) it seems they already found a way to limit and control people. Holding local events, to create a contract between employer and employee, making the skilled person show their trade by way of a symbol on their persons (straw for farmer, wool for shepherd, and a mop for an unskilled person). Once you had come to an agreement and your employment secured for a year, you were given a ‘token’ of a shilling, and a ribbon to signify you were taken. Sounds all very organised doesn’t it? If not a little weird and controlling. And as a bonus, they started to put on stalls for games, drinking and for them to be able to spend that token as fast they got it. It is said – “The whole event became a major festival and eventually was condemned for the drunkenness and immorality they encouraged”. But still falls into the category of entertainment, to a point, making a very public spectacle of people’s skills and ability to pay their own way. I’m sure someone found that very entertaining, as well as humiliating and quite demoralising for the people going through it perhaps.

But back to forms of keeping people enthralled. I can’t imagine it really got to take hold until the advent of cameras and moving film, following on from literature in the form of fiction. But again, we are led to believe that most average people were illiterate and couldn’t read, only the wealthy, and those who had time to partake of fanciful thoughts and ideas. Same with theatre, as time has gone on, we have had a pricing system which determines usually who gets to go, and different types of presentations for those who may have different tastes. Like opera and live music generally, there are many different styles and tastes and would have been a great source of amusement and enjoyment over the centuries. But again, until technology has allowed us to record and repeat music and songs, it would have been a small number at any one time being exposed to it.

I will skip to modern times now, with a perfected mechanism of exposure really between all the devices and forms of entertainment. The First Fad covered the psychology behind the basics of it back in the 50’s, but we can easily see the product of it all around us. Music, games, TV, film, news and all forms of entertainment condensed and contained to be dipped into when you so wish. No longer having to wait like the good old days, or even stop being entertained by it all if you want it to go on for days. Choosing to immerse yourself in another world, written and constructed with distraction in mind, and most people know this. They want this and rightly so, sometimes life can be a bit draining and you do want to ‘switch off’ for a bit. But do many people give any thought to what it is they are wanting to escape from? Or do they spend time watching to be inspired? It’s one thing to have something to compliment reality, but it can also be used to escape reality, so it’s the individual that needs to decide which one it is.

So, in all that, what is the purpose it really serves. What help is it to anyone if you are distracted from your life? Not really noticing real things change, because you are so used to watching things being the same. And some of those things you watch, repeat the things they want you to believe, and want you to think you know. Nothing becomes a billion dollar enterprise by accident, and certainly not without purpose, so the whole ‘entertainment’ industry is part of the hydra, multiple heads of the same beast. Creating a strange ‘reality’ for people to be in. I used to wonder about people who want to be actors, who seem to find it so easy to pretend to be someone else, to essentially lie for a living, and the more convincing you are, the more you are applauded. How do they ever know who they are? If they are any good of course. But creating a persona to cope or deal with the outside world is possibly a natural thing, or a consequence of our own reaction to how we have become. We may have been different before daily news programs, newspapers being made a thing for people and being notified of things whether you are interested or not. Would people have just been concerned with getting on and living? I’ll never know, and sometimes think entertainment is a good thing, as it spawns ideas and creativity, indulging an output we apparently never had the chance for before. But as with lots of things that start with good intentions or have a plus side, there is usually someone or something that will try to take advantage of that…

Pic from film – Gladiator

(c) K Wicks

The World’s A Stage, Or A Fair

~ MKW Publishing ~ 1 Comment

The world’s fairs. I hadn’t even heard of them until a few years ago. There are various videos and theories on the internet about them, the public reasons for them, and of the ideas that they might not be as they seem. I have also mentioned them briefly in my article Just Passing Through, and after giving them more thought decided they deserved their own article, although maybe not entirely from the same angle as others people’s speculations.

On the face of it, they appear as what they say they are, and as we still have them today, it would seem there is nothing to see here. Although these days, despite being more advance technologically, we don’t go to half the effort we once did – check out the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition 1893 (wiki) for a bit more on what I mean there and how seemingly splendid and temporary these sites and venues were. You can see why people might ask questions, my own personal thoughts being how wasteful a time it was if they could indeed construct things like that just to destroy it after. As well as all the other rather magnificent building that were all ‘founded’ around 1850 onwards and seemed to be the norm, despite often small or tiny populations – my article The Old World looks at that point in history a bit. A big time for skilled workmen, lots of money and materials, and locations for these sites being no object – I must be thinking of a much poorer late 1800’s which doesn’t seem to have been there after all, not with the ‘evidence and history’ we see around us. Currently called Expo’s and still being held in big cities, although mostly in already established venues, hired for purpose, and showing off new and innovative ideas and inventions to the travellers who make their way to them. People work at them; people visit them and technology is distributed from them as far as I know.

In Dublin during the famine times, they had one of these fairs. Because famine, war and disaster create vast amounts of wealth for some, and industry doesn’t stop because of these things, it thrives. Much changed in Ireland over those few years, millions starved, millions left – conveniently offered passage to New York we are led to believe. Needing numbers to fill up the cities that had been built for them perhaps. And it strikes me as similar to now, how they create a problem in an area, and then ‘encourage’ the locals to leave, either by bribery, force and whatever it takes to clear an area, and create another where you would like one, with minimal fuss and kickback. But as much easier way than stealing people in slavery emerged, convince them to sign up and go where they are needed themselves. Offer them ‘wages’ and appear to compensate them for their time and life being given in service. An exchange, so it looks like an agreement, but one which has been made to appear that way. Because now it has stepped up a gear, and they are making it clear you won’t be getting a choice in the future about who’s slave to be, or what trade to be a slave to, or how much you can demand for your slave wage. Instead, we are now becoming a slave to technology, and those that control and distribute it. They hold people to ransom with it already, slowly closing any gaps and loopholes that some may find to keep themselves out of the grid.

They would have been perfect opportunities to encourage all the innovative people with bright ideas to step forward, to try and get investment and share their ideas with the captains of industry. Who then could very neatly tie them up, for later use, or to corner the current market. I always thought patent offices were also a handy way to make sure you get to see all the clever stuff first, to commandeer the ideas and inventions and therefore the future. I can easily see now why some people may have kept their rather genius ideas to themselves. To stop it falling into the wrong hands, and all that…

The World’s Columbian Exposition – The White City and fairgrounds 

(c) K Wicks

The I Scream Man (short story)

~ MKW Publishing ~ 2 Comments

I thought I would share another of my published short stories. Not a cheery tale by any means, so be prepared if you decide to continue…

The I Scream Man

Summers had always been Edward’s favourite. Long hazy days, playing in the fields and park and spending all day with his best friend Doyle. They would be back to school soon so were enjoying the long days of holidays to the fullest.

Early evening time would come and the sound of their regular favourite, the Ice Cream Van would begin from afar. Playing that melodious droning repetitive song, they could never be sure if had always sounded so broken, or it was just dying a slow death. Like an old gramophone wobbling and creaking round and round.

But as soon as the faint music started, it would be a race to see who could make it first. Jostling for first place. The Ice cream man would give an extra flake to whoever was the winner. One morning though near to the end of the holidays, Edward called on Doyle as they had arranged but he wasn’t there. His mother answered the door and looked tired and drawn in the face. She almost looked as though she smiled when she saw him, but that faded from her face quickly.

“Edward, it’s you. I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen Doyle since yesterday. Do you know where he is? Was he with when he went to the shops?”

A policeman appeared behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Please ma’am, we’ll ask the boy the questions”.

And with that Mrs Matherly was manoeuvred into the back of the house by someone he had never seen before.

“Now son, is it ok is we ask you a few questions? Is your mother at home so we can just check with her if that’s ok as well?”

His heart was racing, he didn’t know what they would want to ask about. Had they done something wrong? Why couldn’t anyone find Doyle, why would he be missing? All of these questions started to make Edwards brain race as fast as his heart. Where was his best friend?

The policeman took him back to his house, it was only a few doors down and round the corner but it seemed like a mile. At first his mother’s face was furious.

“You’ve been out of the house for five minutes and already you’ve got up to mischief?”

But as she finished the sentence, she looked at the policeman’s face and could see there was a tired tenseness and this wasn’t to do with her boy at all.

“Sorry ma’am. I didn’t mean to cause alarm but we need to ask Edward some questions. His friend Doyle Matherly hasn’t been seen since yesterday”.

Edward couldn’t imagine what they needed to ask him, had he seen Doyle, no. It was that simple in his head. But it wasn’t that simple, there were so many questions. Did they have a hiding place? Was I keeping any secrets for him? Had he ever talked about running away? He was starting to feel stressed out by the questions, everything he could think of kept drawing up a blank. He didn’t know where he was and the reality of that thought hit him like a ton of bricks. The tears started welling up in his face.

“Am I ever going to see my friend again?”

The words game as garbled noises through his tears. He wanted this to end right now, they were starting school in a couple of weeks and were meant to be out playing. Still trying to cling to the sense of normality that had been there yesterday. How can you say goodbye to your friend yesterday and today they have disappeared he thought, how does that happen?

The town took on a sombre tone that day. Reporters and police, volunteers and family all bustling around trying to find Doyle. Search teams and interviewers all doing their thing in the hope of bringing this nightmare to a happy conclusion, but the longer it went on, the more unlikely it seemed. It was all everyone was talking about but no-one wanted to.

Over the coming days it got worse. Still Doyle hadn’t been found, and the more the news coverage went on it seemed to reveal that a number of other children had also gone missing over the last few years from the surrounding areas. They also had never been found. Edward didn’t read the papers and his mother kept the news to a minimum around him. He tried not to think the worst but it was hard. What if his friend had fallen down and hurt himself or what if he got lost in the woods and couldn’t find his way out? These were the worries that wouldn’t leave him alone. He wanted to go and search himself, but his mum didn’t want to let him out of her sight. The worry was clear on all the adults faces, but they were careful not to discuss it in front of Edward, but he had noticed.

Then the next day, the tone changed again. Suddenly there was lots of commotion around town. A body had been found. Most of the town had gathered around the streets where the boys lived, waiting for more news. People wanted to hear it as it happened, not second hand from the television or newspaper. Edward didn’t want to hear any of it. He hid away in his room as soon as he had heard. In a strange way wishing it wasn’t his friend in the hope that he might still be alive somewhere. Until they found him, there was still a chance.

But this was destined to be somebody’s grief, although Edward got half his wish for now. It was the body of a child, but not Doyle. The mystery deepened with it being one of the children from about 20 miles away, who had been missing for around 3 years. They were found in the search area for Doyle, which at that time hadn’t been searched. But from the whispers going round, it wouldn’t have been found then either if they had.

It was perfectly preserved, hadn’t aged a day they said. All the previous cases were re-opened and the mystery only deepened. Edward found it hard to fathom how it all fit together, wondering where the other child had been all this time. He had never really thought about people going missing before, nothing like this had happened in his short lifetime of nearly nine years. But now it was all he thought about. Where was Doyle? How do children just disappear? It didn’t matter how he thought about it, it didn’t make sense.

As the days went on he slept less and less, dark dreams of evil forests and monsters stealing and swallowing children. When he would fall asleep he would wake up sweating and gasping for air, as if the dark forest had taken him as well. A forest full of time holes, where you fall in from your time and disappear, then reappear dead in another time. Such strange thoughts and dreams, he couldn’t remember what it was like to not think about them. He knew he wouldn’t be going to the forest ever again.

To try and cheer him up, his mum gave him a pound to get an ice-cream next time the truck came round. Next day when the music started in the distance, he almost got excited, remembering for a moment what used to happen. It faded as the music got closer, but still he tried to perk himself up and went outside to the van.

“What can I get for you today young man?”

Edward didn’t actually know what he wanted, he hadn’t really thought about it until asked. In previous years the older boys always jumped up to look through the window and see. He was tall enough this year and suddenly felt brave enough.

“Not sure, I’ll have a look”.

And with that he quickly jumped up with his arms on the counted and glanced into the van to see what he wanted. Just as he did, the ice-cream man grabbed his arms and pushed him down away form the counted rather hurriedly.

“Not allowed to do that no more, heath and safety. Now what do you want, I gotta get on”.

His whole demeanour changed and where he had been friendly before, was no equally unfriendly. Edward apologised and feeling quite downhearted just asked for an orange lolly. He didn’t even think he would eat it. He said thanks without even looking back at the man and slowly walked back to his house with his head down. Once back in the house, he put the lolly in the freezer and gave his mum back the change for it. Without Doyle everything had lost its magic. How could he enjoy anything again he wondered.

That night was a very fitful sleep. The dreams were replaying in his mind over and over. Monstrous trees trying to eat him and Doyle, they were trying to run through the forest. Falling and tripping over tree roots emanating from the ground to grab them. Huge holes opening up ahead of them ready to drop them as a corpse into a different time. Half the time he was looking for Doyle, alone in the forest and scared he wouldn’t find him. The other half was with Doyle, desperate not to lose him and to save him from whatever fate lay ahead for him.  Edward felt so powerless and scared, that by itself was terrifying enough. A new feeling of genuine fear he hadn’t felt before but he was sure would not stay with him forever.

Something was different in this dream though, it felt more real and something else lurked in the darkness. He could feel it getting closer. He turned to grab Doyles hand to make sure he was still with him. He wasn’t. The awful feeling of losing him happened all over again. The turning round in circles seeing where he went, screaming his name and hoping this time you get a response. Nothing.

But there was a noise, really faint at first, just starting to creep through. Edward tried to ignore it as he was shouting and crying into the dark forest. It grew louder though, pushing into his psyche and demanding attention.  It was the ice-cream trucks dying melody starting to approach. It made Edwards blood run cold, in fact his whole body felt cold and he started to shiver. The truck got closer, but this one had no driver, just steering itself through the trees making it’s way towards Edward.

It slowly came to halt in front of him. His heart was beating so fast he could hear it thumping in his head and his chest. He didn’t want to go to the counter or look inside, but he knew he must. It didn’t look anything else in the dream at all. This looked exactly as it did earlier in real life, just without the man. He took a deep breath and stepped up to the counter, realising he was going to have to jump up again. He hesitated. Suddenly thinking something could grab him or pull him in. Another deep breath to get himself together and he pulled himself up and looked. He looked around inside the truck and weirdly it all looked normal and as it had this afternoon, even his pound was on the counter. As his eyes went over it a second time he remembered he was trying to see what there was in the freezer when he was told off. Maybe now he could look and see what it was. The coldness he felt hadn’t gone away and he even thought for a moment maybe he was being turned into an ice-cream in his dream.

But this didn’t feel like a dream anymore, this felt different. As he looked into the freezer he could see cornetto’s, ice-pops, zooms and a hand. A whole hand with fingers and everything just there in with all the ice-creams. In fact, not just a hand, but what looked like a sleeve as well showing just the edge of a jumper. Doyles jumper!

He screamed himself awake and jumped out of bed. What had he just seen? Did he see that earlier? Was his brain imagining things? He wanted to pretend it didn’t happen, he didn’t see it, it was a dream and even at nearly nine years old, you could still go mad. But the more he thought back to earlier, he realised he did see it. He was surprised at being turfed off the counter and his brain didn’t register it at the time, but now it was. And Edward meant to do something about it, his scream had already woken his mother and he told her everything from the beginning, knowing that she would listen and not tell him was being silly. And even if she did, he knew he wasn’t.

She didn’t say he was silly at all. Quite the opposite, she told him it was important and that they should tell the policeman right away. He sat on the edge of his bed while his mother made the call, the nervous excitement of telling her what he knew was now replaced with an empty sadness. Because now he knew what had happened to Doyle. Knew they wouldn’t ever play together again, wouldn’t go to big school together and he wouldn’t get to laugh with his best friend ever again.

After he had given a statement to the police, it only took a couple of days for it to be big news. The killer had been caught. The link between the communities and the previous missing children that had never been found was revealed. No-one talked about it much after, you didn’t need to, it would always be remembered as a local tragedy.

(c) K Wicks

The Rat Race

~ MKW Publishing ~ 2 Comments

A number, like the mice in The Beautiful Mice, but shows something different. A balance. The golden ratio of a living balance in a way, I guess. Not in a sterile Georgia Guidestones kind of way though. I give thought to the idea that we are unable to escape our ‘container’ apparently, so like the rats and mice that get put into the controlled environment, we also are subject to the conditions, and all of that goes on to help form our habits and behaviours as individuals and as a group. Now, we are led to believe that back in the day, people had a certain amount of freedom to go where they want, and do what they pleased, within reason of course. It would seem that being a complete arse or psychopath has never gone down particularly well as a likeable trait, so if you were a basically decent human being, you could have freedom right? Wrong.

Once I learnt of previous restrictions placed upon hardworking average people, for the sake of controlling wages and work distribution, mentioned in my article A Working Strategy, I realised then that mostly we have been at the whim of others people’s rules, boundaries and ideals for hundreds of years now, not just mere decades as some would speculate. What we thought was freedom, and what we apparently fight to preserve, was already a form of control and surveillance of our lives, it just didn’t seem as intrusive. But The Digital Doomsday Database goes some way to explain how we are just in a technological version and going through an update to past times. Same shit, different day springs to mind here. The census, taxes, records of birth and death, insurance companies listing your possessions and assets, banks having your financial fingerprint, governments now wanting your digital fingerprint for every breath and interaction of your life. Those things now being quantified as a transaction, rather than experiences, or time or something more than a percentage and profit margin.

But as I said, it’s an extension of where we were before, this isn’t all entirely new, just a new format to present it. Sometimes though, it does seem as though the powers that be, view the ordinary folk as a bit of an infestation. How we might view rats, even though we would be the ones that allowed them to congregate in what we would call ‘unnatural’ numbers. Like people, herding them into cities at strategic points in the past, causing health issues by way of conditions, paving the way nicely to then appear to help with said health problems. Prevention rather than cure used to be the way, so a fear of what was to come was needed, to make people believe that the cure would be better than the end result. So, we are led to believe that there needs to be an intervention, to stop it all getting out of control. But what if that’s what stops it ever stabilising, that it needs to reach a critical mass and turning point, needs to run its course and find a balance within its own circumstance and environment. Without interference. We’ll never know as we are constantly being interfered with, manipulated, steered and treated like the commodity they see us as. And we get tricked into believing we are, and seem to act accordingly. All of us.

So, as many are wondering these days, why do we all appear to accept the unfolding mayhem and disaster we see around us, and not actually do anything about it. And I do wonder, who is more of an idiot, the people in suits talking nonsense and pretending to ‘lead’, or is it the people on the ground who still listen and look up to these people. Looking to them for guidance still. It’s baffling. Because if the rats had realised it was other rats that were keeping them In A Maze, and messing with them for fun and money, starving them ‘just to see’ and other ghastly things, would they go insane? Escape? Get revenge? Put up with it and just lose the will to live? Perhaps all of those, as we see around us. They appear to be going for a bigger net to catch everyone, and at the same trying to create a smaller and more confined area for their projects. Wanting to monitor, medicate and dictate your purpose like a parasite. And all these systems and algorithms now appear to be an electronic version of one, like we had the ‘computer viruses’, now we have the computer parasites. Because if you aren’t in the system, giving it your time and energy, thoughts and data, it can’t work as intended or survive. People, however, can survive quite well without them…

Picture from Rat Race :A short film story by Steve Cutts

(c) K Wicks