THE GREAT SILENCE

Recently, I have been listening to a lot of podcasts. Most recently, an episode of This American Life grappled with the issue of loneliness, starting at a cosmic level. Given that I listen to podcasts principally out of a kind of loneliness (living and working in a non-English speak environment), it was amusingly apposite. In a very short time, however, my amusement gave way to a feeling of existential dread.

The programme bore the title “Fermi’s Paradox”, and used the conundrum of cosmic loneliness to springboard into the more general topic of loneliness. For the uninitiated, Fermi’s paradox is the contradiction presented by the apparent likelihood of intelligent life existing in our Galaxy and the complete lack of visible evidence that this is the case. In Fermi’s words, “Where are they?” (“they” being technology advanced aliens).

For the show’s producer, David Kestenbaum, the possibility that humans are alone in the visible universe made him feel profoundly sad. I do not share this feeling: perhaps when there are fewer things to feel sad about within human civilisation I will start to grow melancholy at the silent universe. I did allow myself to consider Fermi’s paradox yet again, however, and this led me to a darker place.

The predominant hypothesis concerning the apparent absence of intelligent life is quite simple: there are no aliens. The Rare Earth Hypothesisstates that the conditions necessary to create life, even in its most simple form, are exceptional. Technologically sophisticated, culturally complex civilisations such as humanity are therefore beyond an oddity: the evolutionary coincidences that have led to our development amount to probabilities of trillions-to-one, we are alone in the Universe. This was what rendered Kestenbaum so upset. The universe, within which our tiny planet is barely a pinprick, is teeming with death: it is a cold, desolate, empty expanse, which will ultimately consume all human endeavour.

The show was a journey of reconciliation- allowing Kestenbaum to come to terms with his feelings of cosmic isolation. Part of this process seemed to focus on gently mocking his sensitivity, and allowing him to recognise that there are far more pressing things to worry about in the world. Additionally, other reasons for the Great Silence were touched upon, suggesting that Fermi’s Paradox need not preclude the existence of alien life.

One of the reasons explored was the so-called “Zoo Hypothesis”: the existence of alien civilisations is being deliberately kept from us so that our cultural and biological evolution can follow its own course, without external influence, presumably for similar reasons to those of conservationists preserving endangered species in their natural habitat. It was a thought I’d had before, but had not pondered for some time… least not since the Simulation Hypothesis had been re-popularised by Elon Musk. It was putting these two ideas together that sent me into my own existential tailspin.

An extension of the Zoo Hypothesis posits that in their efforts to conceal the rest of the universe from us humans, the advanced alien civilisation(s) have somehow isolated our world and its immediate astral environs, surrounding them with an incredibly sophisticated simulation of the rest of the universe, which has been created bereft of other sentient beings. For me, Fermi’s paradox naturally dovetails into the Simulation Hypothesis: our entire reality is a digital simulation that has been created to observe how a human civilisation might develop in a universe lacking any other sentient beings.

Imagine those early pioneers of agriculture, trading the uncertainty of the foraging lifestyle for the relative security of sedentary life. These men and women ultimately set in motion an unprecedented revolution in culture and technology, culminating after tens of thousands of years in the exploration of space.

Along the way they have created hierarchy, religion and war. To facilitate their industrious exploitation of their planet’s resources, they have poisoned their own environment against them. Whilst they have made progress in reversing the inequality that has sprung up over the centuries of cultural evolution, it is unclear as to whether this progress is sustainable given the scale of the environmental problems and capacity to annihilate themselves over political disagreements.

Cue intervention by an interstellar civilisation. Detecting the emergence of a technologically advanced civilisation within range of their spacecraft, said civilisation decide to introduce themselves. They are dismayed to find that Homo sapiens has been unable to resolve its social differences in spite of its huge leaps forward technologically. They issue dire warnings to the terrified denizens of earth, having witnessed this behaviour in previous civilisations. Almost universally, world leaders surrender to the superior beings and follow their recommendations, in order to steer humanity from its path to destruction. Not all of earth’s citizens are so eager to comply, resulting in a bloody war.

Reluctantly, the aliens assist earth’s leaders in the suppression of the global insurrection, but in doing so they reinforce support for the rebel forces. The whole planet is in the throes of a bitter, bloody civil war. The aliens have failed utterly, and after much discussion, decide that their only option is to intercede directly: follow our road map to peace and prosperity, or face annihilation- annihilation at their hands.

The threat is enough to at least get the leaders of the significant parties to agree to meet. The dividing line is clear and stark. On the one hand, the establishment opinion holds that humanity will be destroyed unless the aliens’ instructions are followed. On the other hand, insurrectionists argue that it was the aliens who created this situation in the first place, are now threatening the earth directly, and better to die fighting for freedom than to continue living with no control over their fate.

The divisions and arguments are predictable, but the alien civilisation is able to steer a way through the debate with their trump card: simulated realities. They have the power to create incredibly accurate hologrammatic simulations, and are capable of demonstrating the outcome of actions on a galactic scale by tweaking the simulation’s parameters. Hundreds of these simulations are run, each demonstrating that if humanity was simply left to their own devices, the only possible outcome is increased misery and suffering and ultimately, the extermination of all biological life.

Naturally, the insurrectionists suggest that these computer models are weighted in favour of the extra-terrestrials preferred outcome. As a measure of good faith, the aliens induct the top computer scientists and programmers from the insurrectionist side into the inner workings of simulation construction. Across earth, an uneasy truce reigns.

After several years, the insurrectionists are convinced by the civilisations validity, but this does not put an end to the conflict. The debate turns to the age-old issue of individual agency and the greater good, the Platonic/Aristotelian dialectic that has plagued public discourse since the dawn of civilisation. However, faced with annihilation, the wider populace overwhelmingly choose life as well fed slaves than hungry free me. A new world government begins to institute the aliens’ original programme for cultural and environmental recovery.

Naturally, pockets of resistance still exist across all continents. Though they can no longer count on the same levels of popular support as before, they are still able to interrupt the recovery programme and cause misery, pain and suffering. For some, this is the price of progress, and anticipate on the remaining insurrectionists slowly dying out. For others, it is unnecessary and hideous, and are dismayed by the establishment’s inability to stamp it out completely.

Once again, the aliens manage to steer a path through the fog. Human leaders are urged to reach out to the remaining extremists and offer amnesty: not in return for seizing their actions, but for the opportunity to negotiate and discuss once again. The aliens are desperate to understand the desires and motives of these men and women, and to do what they can to end what they see as unnecessary suffering. Amongst the myriad demands and aspirations lurked something curious: it wasn’t that the insurrectionists wanted the aliens to just go away, they wanted them never to have arrived.

So: in order to demonstrate at least some degree of compliance, the aliens agreed to run a simulation in which they never came to earth. In fact, they agreed to run a simulation of the universe entirely devoid of other sentient life forms. They hoped this would demonstrate the hopelessness of the remaining insurrectionists’ cause. I cannot speculate on the outcome, because I believe that this is the simulation in which we now live.

I snapped out of my reverie in a manner similar to Dhasa in the Glass Bead Game: I found myself back in the present, doing something completely mundane, having lived through not just one life time but tens of thousands of years of parallel history. Like Dhasa I was by water, pouring from a shower head not a gently babbling forest stream. My heart rate felt higher than usual and I was aware of a great deal of chatter in my head. I resolved to practice some mindfulness, in an effort to return myself to normality.

Inhale, exhale: as long as you are breathing, there’s more right with you than wrong with you.

I felt the cold, wet torrent immerse my head and body.

I looked at the soap bubbles forming between my fingers.

I observed the complexity of the iridescence on the surface of each bubble, each one, containing within it its own universe.

What kind of technology would simulate this? Even at a level observable by the human senses, what power would be required to simulate something so complex, so convincingly?

It looks so real. It feels so real.

But then again, it’s all we’ve ever known. How do we know that this is what wetness feels like?

Embrace the matrix. There is no way out.

You can listen to the podcast that inspired my melancholy here.

HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART THREE)

FINAL PART IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

In the event, i hit a wall. A ten metre fucking thick wall of brick and earth. Then I walked beneath the arch instead of through the wall, which was a more sensible option. Then I hit another wall (pictured). This time there was no massive arch, but an entry fee and tickets and electric vehicles and i wasn't in the mood for any of that.

It was a cool, overcast, February day in Hue, city of walls, and I was at the citadel, the citadel not even noted in Full Metal Jacket, where the rebel army had holed themselves up for several weeks until they were ultimately bombarded out of hiding by American air power. There's not a lot of that in the local histories, nor about the initial atrocities they insurrectionists committed, nor the vicious reprisals they and their sympathisers likewise endured. Instead, the story is focused on Vietnam's Imperial past, the colonial protectorate of the Nguyen Dynasty, the anachronistic monarchy and life at court. I was not in the mood for all of that.

What I was in the mood for, I knew not. Somehow the disparate threads at which I'd been tugging had remained just that- disparate. For once, sticking a map on top of another one didn't really achieve anything other than make a nice picture.  It wasn't even my picture- it was Struan Brown's. The ingredients were there but it wasn't working: the military origins of psychogeography and cartography, the horrors of war aped, in children's play and cinema, but I felt disinclined to pull the pieces together, and I was not quite sure why.

I made a circuit of the inner wall, which amounted to a stroll of just under 2.5 km. This is not long for a walk, but it is long for a wall. As I patrolled the perimeter I tried to put my self in the shoes of one who would have made such a journey before: a guard, most likely, or maybe a penitent. Perhaps a bored concubine looking to sneak back in after attempting to escape palace life, but later having a change of heart. The shoes of the soldier felt small on me, not because soldiers have small feet, but because I'd pretended to wear them as a young boy, under similar circumstances, circumambulating Hadleigh Castle. That magnificent wreck is slowly crumbling into the Estuary after more than seven centuries. Hue's citadel has been around for a much shorter period of time, but it's historical significance is arguably greater.

In Roy Bayfield's book Desire Paths, the author describes: 

"..the finding approach described by Duncan Barford in his blog post  'Inside the Entrances to Hell': "

Perhaps this is what I should have done, instead I wandered around, eyes flitting at materials, looking for something that would make everything fall into place. I didn't find that. Instead I found this:

HUE/BECKTON - STRATEGIC VS> TACTICAL [PSYCHO]CARTOGRAPHY (PART TWO)

PART TWO IN A SERIES OF THREE. READ PART ONE HERE

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”

-Charlie Chaplin

Looking back at the Hue psychocarte from 2014, experiencing disappointment: a pretty picture, but practically useless. A fraction of a battle map, spliced out and blown up, the details blurred and indistinct, all before the overlay… The plan had been to trace a random path through the citadel using the overlay, the route of a dérive, but the streets were barely visible.

"All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops — the geometry" -Raoul Vaneigem, The Unitary Urbanism Manifesto

The roots of the dérive (as opposed to its routes) are supposedly in urban warfare: the “aimless drift” was used as a means of reconnaissance. DeBord and the Situationists were engaged in cultural warfare, and via détournement (cultural re-appropriation and re-purposing) these tactics were being turned back against the state. Like war, psychogeography was a political act. But like the actors portraying Joker and his comrades in Full Metal Jacket, there was also an element of play.

The closing chapter of Full Metal Jacket occurs in 1968/86 in Hue/Beckton. A crazed General, Kubrick, has ordered a platoon to wander through the remnants of a gasworks in search of a Vietnamese woman, whom they are to kill. She is the third and final woman, and the only one not to be presented by Kubrick as a sex object, though is equally disposable. The only enemy whose face is seen in close up- feminine, because the enemy must be emasculated. In the end, after a hard day’s play, the lads wander across the burning landscape, singing a song Mickey Mouse. In spite of yourself, you may just feel an incongruous warm glow inside.

Not only was 1968 a big year for Hue (just as 1986 was a big year for Beckton, although it would be made aware of that until long after the event), it was a big year for the Situationists. Increased militancy amongst industrial workers and students, culminating in a series of occupations, protests and a general strike nearly brought the French establishment to its knees. Though there were numerous socio-economic causes for this period of civil unrest, the Situationist International can take credit for providing some degree of leadership, and its writings strongly influenced the political graffiti of the time, which have provided some of the most enduring images of the period. 

Via http://radicalgraff.tumblr.com/post/143899675528/be-realistic-demand-the-impossible-may-1968

Ultimately, the status quo prevailed, state power managed to suppress the protestors, and returned stronger and more resilient. Likewise, in Vietnam, the Tet offensive was ultimately crushed by the combined ARVN and US forces, and the rebel forces were expelled from all the major urban centres they had assaulted. In Europe and the USA, 1968 is often remembered as the last gasp of the counter-culture, a glorious failure. In Vietnam, the Tet offensive was a dress rehearsal for 1975, and victory for the revolutionaries (who, predictably, went on to impose their own repressive regime of state power). Ho Chi Minh’s forces succeeded, perhaps, because there was a coherent strategy in play, one which would outlive its progenitor.

Fire at the Albert DockVia http://www.invisibleworks.co.uk/ghosts-london-blitz-aerial-maps/

Tet is rapidly approaching, 49 lunar years having passed since the infamous offensive, and the Battle for Hue. 31 years have likewise elapsed since the Battle of Hue was recreated at Beckton gasworks. Both of these are prime numbers. The 49^thBoulevard was also the previous name given to Pham Van Dong Street in Hue. The time (and the cosmic numbers) is right for some kind of intervention. Yet without a coherent strategy- in this case, my psychocarte- there can be no opportunity for a successful operation. From the outset, the superimposition of a Hue map atop a map of Beckton (or perhaps the other way around) seemed like the best place to begin.

Sadly, it's been done before: here is Struan Brown's interpretation of Beckton overlaid on Hue. One cannot be startled by the fact that this has been done prior to it being imagined by me, but what is perhaps surprising is that Struan was actually a class mate of mine at the University of Greenwich. We studied together on the Landscape Architecture masters programme in 2014 (both of us had also been Greenwich students in 2013, but during different semesters). I have no memory of seeing this before, but was suddenly beset by a strange fear that I was experiencing cryptomnesia, the phenomenon of experiencing a memory as an original thought. 

Image by Struan Brown via http://struanbrown.blogspot.com/2013/12/beckton-gas-works.html

Perhaps of greater concern was the possibility that, having previously seen this image, the map of Hue had been buried in my subconscious, and that its presence there had subtly compelled me to find its origins. My journey to Hue, less than one year later, was not only on a whim but also somewhat serendipitous. Originally, I had obtained a job (via an agency) as an English teacher in Hanoi. Whilst booking the flights, I discovered it would be much cheaper to fly to HCMC and travel up to Hanoi independently than fly directly. On informing my agency, however, it transpired that this would not be acceptable to my prospective employer (I would have missed some "essential" part of the induction process whilst travelling from HCMC to Hanoi), and a new course of action was decided. Instead of teaching in Hanoi, I was told to meet up with a group of newly-qualified TEFL teachers in HCMC and travel with them to Hue, a city I believed I had never heard of.

It's hard to recall what was influencing my decision making processes at that time, the whole period prior to my departure is a miasmic blur. My memories of this period are a series of weird vignettes, mostly of one-on-one conversations with people who's lives are going to be somehow disrupted by my departure. There's no truth in them, really,: I've spliced and edited them back together too many times, there were filters on the lenses, and they're remakes anyway. 

PART 3 TO FOLLOW

DÉRIVE 49

The lessons progress. Whilst slowly I learn history and folklore, superstition and language, my explorations need to continue using what I do know, to analyse what I think I can see... and these explorations need to be mapped.

Where am I?

I live on the fringes of Huế, Vietnam's former capital. As the rest of the country expands and develops, Huế's outer boundaries encroach on the outlying settlements but gently, in keeping with the unhurried pace that pervades the ancient city. Where its northeastern edge rubs up against the southwestern outskirts of Phú Vang district is Vỹ Dạ, the ward within which I am housed, otherwise known as  Bốn Chín.

Bốn Chín is Vietnamese for 49, referring not to an arbitrary numbering system for the ward, but rather detournement by the locals of the previous (arbitrary) name of the ward's main street. A pity that it was not Boulevard 41, since bốn một would make me smile.

The narrow street widens abruptly, after the lights. Big buildings- flophouse hotels and builders yards, in the main- set back from the road by ten metres or more. There's not a lot of soul, the people are detached from the promenade, the eyes of the empty international clinic stare impassively at passing backpackers on motorbikes.



Towards the bridge, another bottleneck. The wide street narrows as it approaches câu Vỹ Dạ, crossing this little tributary of the Perfume River. Across the bridge, the city's western district, but to the right, steps invite a brief dérive, a step out of time. Another narrow lane, low buildings serve as cafés, an old woman selling sand and cement. before again collapsing to show an expanse of sky, and the causeway separating the other side of Vỹ Dạ from the "western" district.

Atop the water, aquatic "ferns", perfect for hogfeed, imprison a vessel intended for the next world, a ghost boat for an ancestor to sail the rivers of hell.

This white man walking gets a lot of attention, principally from xe om motorcycle taxi drivers. It's a novel experience, after so many months of being another road user, not sticking out like a sore thumb. I only cross via the causeway at night, when the unilluminated left side affords a glimpse of oblivion, distant flickering neon of the far north bank suggesting something beyond.  

Drinking coffee with condensed milk, thinking about where this leads. I didn't even know the name of this corner of the city, the corner in which I live, until a casual conversation about the whereabouts of Côn Hen (Mussell Island) revealed that I'd been sitting in Vỹ Dạ for the past four months. But this gave me an idea. I have to approach the psychogeographical analysis of this city from as a curator-cartographer: I will make maps from the testimony of its residents.

Wandering back across the causeway, the theatre of water puppetry still looked grim, in spite of the intense noon sun. Looking at the above photograph now, the theatre would not look out of place amongst the ruins of Hô Thủy Thiên, yet it is apparently open. I did catch a performance of this baffling though highly entertaining traditional art form in Saigon, and endeavour to visit this place soon.

Across the causeway and onto Nguyễn Sinh Cung made for a far more interesting stroll than the walk along PVD. Running parallel to Phạm Văn Đòng, NSC is narrower, and with greater levels of human traffic. Like the best (and worst) of Huế's streets, the shopfronts spill onto the pavement, an there is a great conflation of public and private space, guarded over by ancient treees, many of which house ad hoc roadside shrines. There's also an attractive, colourful pagoda (pictured) and a pretty decent market, as well as the best fried rice in the city. I made a note of the turning to the bridge to Côn Hen, with a view to later mapping my route.

After the market I hung a left onto  Tùng Thiện Vương and followed a very narrow concrete lane lined with small coffee shops, barbers and bakeries before turning once more, this time towards the canal. A small lane led alongside it, bereft of businesses, and some construction work was in progress to reinforce the concrete embankment. No-one stopped to offer me a lift, or indeed paid me any attention. Eventually arriving home, I began to make a map with a red biro.

Note I have named the area between PVD, NSC and the two tributaries of the Perfume River The Estates of the Minor Plutocrats. This is based upon my own previous reconaissance and some anecdotal evidence provided by local friends. The area is comprised of wide, quiet streets flanked by large, detached and recently built residences, clearly of considerable worth. Additionally, there are a few schools (including the respected Phạm Văn Đòng secondary school), a local tax office and several sports fields. Though I imagined the residents to be amongst Huế's elite, I have been informed that the real movers and shakers occupy estates on higher ground, beyond the reach of the river's rising waters. Hence, the plutocrats I designate to the minor category, pending further investigation.    

Scracthing away on the brown paper of my notebook with a dry biro required some exceptionally heavy-handed penmanship, even by my own Lenny-esque standards, and I was pleased enough with the resultant image on the obverse to photograph and flip it. Admittedly, rubbing the image with wax crayon did not have quite as dramatic an effect as was hoped, though it's not entirely shit.

The map does not accomplish much, and is not pleasing to look at, but it was a tentative step in the right direction. The city holds many mysteries, and its surface has barely been scratched: and scratching is what I must do. Any city with history is a palimpsest, and the layers  must be teased away. All that scratching does, of course, create further images on the flipside, adding as it subtracts, building as it deconstructs. The work continues.

-

This is connected to an ongoing series of articles concerned with the origins of Vietnamese street names, and the myths and legends attached to them. You can find the story of how this project came to pass at Huế Street Names.

Alternatively, you can look up all articles labelled street names

A SERENDIPITOUS FIND: SYNECDOCHE HUẾ

Sometimes, the internet is a wonderful place. Whilst running a google image search for french map hue vietnam I came across this beautiful rendering of the citadel. In true psychogeographic fashion, one random derive led to another fortuitous stumble as I attempted to trace its provenance. 

The map was posted on a now archived reddit by FelixNguyen, but of greater interest to me was the first comment made in the thread. I've cut and pasted the comment by AnathemaMaranatha below:

Nice map. I’m gonna swipe a copy. I’ll tell you why:

In mid-summer 1968 I went on an operation (Lam son) with 2nd Bn, 1st ARVN, 1st Brigade, 1st ARVN Division out of Hué. We were to cover for two other battalions by providing fire support with an ARVN artillery LZ on the mountaintops over the Song Bo valley west of Hué. Our battalion was perimeter security.

Instead, the battalions operating along the river valley came up empty, and we hit the mother-lode. There was an NVA (North Vietnamese Army) division-size (or bigger) base-camp under the triple canopy jungle on every side of our firebase. It was well organized, with paths and signs, barracks, mess halls, supply drops, HQ briefing rooms. The streams were marked upstream-to-downstream for drinking, bathing and laundry. It was a little city of jungle hooches-over-bunkers, uniformly constructed from local wood and foliage. Pretty nice, actually.

The base had belonged to one of the NVA divisions that had gone into Hué on Tet 1968. Two or three had gone in, killed about 3000 civilians in a dress-rehearsal for 1975, and then died themselves when the city was retaken over the next couple of months after Tet.

Good thing for us, too, because we landed right in the middle of their camp. They had left a ton of supplies and whatnot behind (and a small cadre who kept sniping at us), but the best thing was found in what was obviously a briefing hooch for senior officers.

In that hooch, on the dirt floor was a scale model of the Citadel at Hue. It was about 2.5 x 3 meters and three dimensional. They had dug little ditches were the canals were, and put blue-colored paper in the ditches to simulate water. The Citadel walls were done with cardboard, colored to look like walls. The interior Citadel likewise, and all the houses and buildings inside were also recreated in cardboard, and actually colored individually to match the actual houses in the city. Outside the walls, they had dug the moat, and showed Highway 1, the railroad and the Hué and Perfume River bridges.

It was quite a find. All the MACV advisors were put on rotating (pun intended) helicopter-landing duty during the day, me included, while every general officer in Vietnam came to see this model. Fortunately, it was only about 200 meters downhill from the ARVN firebase. I think the max count of stars on our little LZ was fourteen one day. That’s a lot of generals, plus they all have aides and goon squads accompanying them.

Our battalion commander, Thièu tá, was puffed up with satisfaction at hobnobbing with so many important people. Even so, he seemed far more cheerful than that. When finally all the generals departed, we were getting ready to leave ourselves. The Thièu tá invited all his officers to a dinner party (the battalion had cooks) in the former NVA command hooch. We all got a beer and a pretty good meal.

Our senior advisor, a Marine 1st LT, finally poked the commander. “Thièu tá, you seem mighty happy. Is there something you’re not telling us?”

The Thièu tá smiled, walked over to the model of the Hué Imperial Citadel. He stood over it like an ARVN Godzilla, staring down. Finally he reached down and picked up one of the carefully-wrought cardboard houses. He held it up for us, and smiled.

“My house,” said the Thièu tá. Then he folded the cardboard house and put it in his pocket.

Never let distaste for western imperialism get in the way of a good story.

AN OUT-OF-PRACTITIONER

“The important thing is to continue production, creation [thus] preventing stagnation. The most dangerous delusion of all being that this has to mean something…”

Whilst it is tempting say that I hate eating my own words, the truth is I’m so accustomed to it I find it almost palatable. Hindsight renders the outcome of the most minor of personal goals crushingly inevitable, to the extent that I have on occasion developed an irrational aversion to ever recording any kind of plan. It’s a sort of inverted magical thinking, whereby the magical act of spelling out a desire absolutely ensures that it will not happen. I doubt Noel Edmonds and I would get on very well, though that would likely be true even if our respective perceptions of causality were not diametrically opposed.

In my [pseudo-]academic work this attitude has helped me to embrace the philosophy of process over goal, though in truth the seeds of this shift were sown by my interest in psychogeography. The derive can occur on the page as well as the street, in a free-flowing concatenation of words or an apparently meaningless arrangement of pencil marks. It doesn’t have to mean anything, per se, though it does have to be done. And the ‘doing’ part presents a significant challenge.

At present I teach English as a foreign language to Vietnamese students in Huế. It is a challenging and rewarding occupation, but one that has gradually absorbed my time to the extent that I pretty much eat, sleep, plan lessons and teach. There are moments of respite, but these are characterised by a stupefied exhaustion, usually witnessing me staring blankly at a movie in the local coffee shop, or clumsily hitting balls around a wonky pool table with an equally wonky stick.

If all this sounds familiar, it may well be because I wrote about this back in October. Oh well. I’ve also written that repetition is a form of change, perhaps as an insurance measure (that being the case it would show some of that foresight I’ve previously described as uncharacteristic).

As of Friday further investigation into Huế’s “psychogeographic currents” will be postponed for a fortnight at least: I will be in Saigon, teaching at a new language school. This promises to be a rewarding period for the work alone, but also presents another chance to explore Vietnam’s largest city, as well as the chance to buy some quality English language literature.

Until then, I will tentatively present the ultimate goal of this literary and pedestrian (in every sense, perhaps) meandering as this: metamorphosis. Not a destination, but a state of being, something like that which Deleuze& Guattari describe in Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus:

“…a free man, irresponsible, solitary, and joyous, finally able to say and do something simple in his own name, without asking permission; a desire lacking nothing, a flux that overcomes barriers and codes, a name that no longer designates any ego whatever. He has simply ceased being afraid of becoming mad. He experiences and lives himself as the sublime sickness that will no longer affect him.”

But yeah, process not goal, unless the goal is the process...

THE MAP AND THE TERRITORY (AGAIN)

The geography of Huế, in common with many cities, is strongly connected to the river that runs through it. The Perfume River, Sông Hương is therefore an excellent starting point for future explorations of the psychogeographic currents that flow through the urban environment. Here follows a preliminary study using photography, montage, drawing and mapping. Derive and detournement are employed in the creation of the series of psychocarts published below.

The strong geometry of the city's ancient citadel, represented in this US ordnance map over-emphasise the dominance of the Forbidden City upon its outlying territories. Whilst it is over forty years-old (pre Tet offensive) and thus represents a city somewhat different than the one experienced today, the impression that the cartographer's hand was drawn to the citadel's regularity when it drafted the above plan is nonetheless hard to shake. By night a far more noticeable presence along the banks of the river are the monuments to Vietnam's contemporary rulers: namely Mammon, whose neon altars infuse the sky with magenta, violet and electric blue. 

Drifting along the river, long exposures grant an impressionistic take on the unsettling ambience. Electric light, by turns romantic and horrifying, burns itself onto the retina. The boat rocks steadily, trailbacks tracing the journey like a seismograph. 

Several exposures, overlaid atop one another, brought out a hitherto unseen iridescence, reflecting the lipid substances floating on the water's surface.

Crudely rendered in watercolour, the cones of light stretch across the river from bank to bank, interspersed with imaginary possibility fields, pencil lines tracing currents and torrents, the resultant image- a spectral grid- was ripe for superimposition,

Crudely, the image below represents one interpretative snapshot of Huế, 2014, on top of another western interpretation, circa 1968. Seemingly random spectral cones, erupting from each bank, are intersected by two orthogonal grids: the first is Cartesian, providing grid references for ordnance drops and troop movements... the other is extruded from the Forbidden City's own geometry and extends into the immediate suburban street layout. It dates from the late 18th Century but is indebted to an older cosmological system.

In an effort to uncover the design logic behind the Forbidden City's orientation I needed to look no further than a panel in the citadel's exhibition centre. As a UNESCO world heritage site, the Forbidden City provides  an abundance of historical information, particularly concerning its structure and layout. Thus far I have not bothered to decipher the precise meaning of the site's geomancy, though this presents one interesting avenue of research, a sign post for another tangential derive. Suffice it to say, it is informed by Chinese feng shui and is particularly concerned with the citadel's relationship to the Perfume River, as the intriguing site plan indicates below:

The final step in this crude mashing of psychocarts was to overlay the geomantic plan onto the previous psychocart using Photoshop. A little bit of artistic layer blending was employed to get the required mix of clarity and obfuscation:

Thus we witness the birth of the strategic map, the psychocarte, for further psychogeographic investigation. Below is a sequential frieze showing the interplay of the four grids:

L-R: cartesian ordnance grid plus orthogonal site architecture; overlaid w. spectral grid; geomantic plan; final psychocart

Next steps are tricky considering the cost of site access, though continued ranging of the perimeter (whilst considering the supplantation of imperial untouchability with tourist exclusivity) should prove productive. The human element is integral, and the simplest narrative thread goes something like this: byzantine court rites, colonisation, civil war, post war austerity (and decay) followed by economic and tourist development. Of course, seeing as it is fun to celebrate my international derive with clichéd gap-year re-evaluations of occidental cosmologies I should start thinking that time is a bit more like a spiral or something... hence final image... 

transcription of non-spontaneous prose during contrived derivation

BRIGHTON-LONDON

I'm writing in this moleskine- no, wait: I am not writing in a moleskine. I am transcribing the words I wrote in my moleskine onto a computer screen, hours after the actual events took place. But whyfor this wilful disruption of suspended disbelief? Let's not get too post-modern about everything. We'll end up like Ouroboros  with a mouth full of our own tail. Or tale... or otherwise disappearing up our (my) own arsehole. With some experience of bricklaying, allow me to rebuild the fourth wall. Are you sitting comfortably? I hope not.

So: you are with me, on a train, inside my head, hearing my thoughts. Or better still, looking over my shoulder from the seat behind, watching these words appearing not on your computer monitor or smartphone screen but as black ink on off-white paper. I'm writing in this moleskine. I am writing in this moleskine. I am writing for precisely the reason cynics believe people write in moleskines: for vanity. I'm attempting to project an image of bohemian-savoir. I want to radiate the cool air of the aloof intellectual, jotting notes in his pad as he travels form Brighton to London. I am probably failing at this: the girl to my (our) left for whom this whole performance has been staged does not seem the type to be impressed by antics such as these. Quite how I'm able to determine what she does or does not feel about the situation to which she may or may not be paying any mind is a mystery: I've barely looked at her long enough to ascertain whether or not she's attractive enough to merit such a performance.

I'm smirking now. You, of course, cannot see this from your seat behind me. But you can read me writing about it, if you are reading at all. I'm smirking: evidently amused by my self-aware, self-deprecating wit as I glance to my right to take in the view from my window. Perhaps I'm pretending that the majestic landscape of the South Downs is in some way inspiring these words as I jot them absent mindedly (and somewhat awkwardly since I'm not looking at the page as I write), jot them in my mother-fucking moleskine. MY moleskine. Twat.

This pretence would be more effective if I were not travelling through a tunnel. There is no view, there's nothing to see here... and she's probably not looking, anyway... ad I'm probably not even bothered. Probably.

So: enough masturbation. It's unseemly to do so in public, no matter how clandestine one engages in auto-gratification. I mean, up until now this pen in my hand may just as well have been my cock. Who's to say it isn't? A poet or a philosopher might posit that they are both conduits for [non] spontaneous expressions of passion. I think a scientist might disagree. But I'm not any of these things so I can can decide for myself: since no-one is going to dissect the logic of this idle scribbling [typing] I feel at ease stating that this pen is both my cock and a pen. Behold! My mighty phallus! Barely ten millimetres in diameter and with a tip that has a tendency to dry out...

Huh. CREEPY. Glad she can't see this, though of course you can... THIS IS BURGESS HILL. This is the 15:26 service to London Bridge. Change for services to Luton and Bedford. Might steal a glimpse of the lady: hopefully her head will be turned away, I can catch her reflection in the window of the glass. Oh well: here goes. Think I'll pause first, close this book... and look out my side. From OUR side.

* * * *

INTERRUPTION (/DERIVE)

"Can I see your tickets please?"

One, two, three, four...

"You have to change at Croydon."

Can't I stay on until London Bridge?"

"No."

* * * *

CROYDON-VICTORIA

I lean on the glass. The suburbs rush by: one thousand back gardens of one thousand strangers all shouting in unison that I have no part to play in their narrative, and they have none in mine. The universe is only big because it is a conglomeration of billions of tiny, independent, heliocentric microverses, each of us a sun at its centre, proclaiming ourselves the only point in space.

I have stopped writing. You are still with me, an invisible presence at my side, or maybe inside, privy to my thoughts, witness to my psychic dynamics . You will hear my internal attempts at translating the Franglais of the bi-lingual family and their beautiful dog. You will hear me cursing the ski-tanned returnees from Gatwick airport. You will hear me ask myself again and again why don't I just shut up! Perhaps you might ask what makes me think my misery is so special that it merits broadcast? I will say this: because it is mine, and because you are taking the time to listen. It's not misery, anyway: it's stuff happening on the other side of the glass as the train rushes towards it's inevitable terminus.

VICTORIA-HOLBORN

The palace, the rain, the faint nausea: all these things are familiar. Is there an inch of this metropolis I have not trodden unhappily? How many times have I been alone in St James Park waiting for a pelican to eat a pigeon? Don't answer that. Tread. Listen to the chorus of French voices. A reminder that it is nearly a year since my last derive, wandering the streets of Paris.

Doing the same thing again and again, each time expecting different results. What the hell was Borges/ Browning talking about, these red brick labyrinths? I see only yellow brick and concrete and white-washed render I see the same squares where I've had the same conversations with innumerable faces, all starting to merge into one, a copy of each other, each more faded than the last., I see the city city sees me. Invisible no more, is this the city of the dead?

Nauseated, yes. Nauseous, too, I think, judging by the space I am granted.

All roads lead me back to my Rome, Stroud Green, centre of the universe. All aboard the Piccadilly line. In the carriage, head cradled in my hands, I am robbed of my moment by the knowledge that someone may or may not be taking my picture. Suddenly I am a performance piece, my actions are bereft of verisimilitude. I am not genuine, an affectation. A man writing in a moleskine for the benefit of an audience. We are only alive when we are being watched. When not, we are ghosts. I hope he gets the image he wanted, though I do not photograph well. Can you take a picture of a spectre? He has taken a piece of my soul: indignant indigenous idyll.

106

Red-right. Lacking-left.

I used to use that code when I climbed the steps from the platform, so that I'd know which way to turn when I got to the top. One stairwell had a bright red bannister, the other had none, and through this simple aide-memoire I knew which way to turn.

It's fitting that now I don't know which way to turn. The bannister has changed colour, and this time I suppose I'm supposed to take a different exit. I'm thinking that if I see you there waiting it will be as bad as I can imagine. But things are never as bad as you imagine: they're usually worse. This knowledge does not help the feeling of dread that's been brewing all day, probably the result of too much time tramping on an empty stomach.

But you are not there, obviously: you are everywhere. This city was your home before it became my home. That day is still fresh. I relive it often, and here I am reliving it again: looking at the same view that greeted me nine years ago. Nine years. I wish I knew where all that time went. They were painting the bowling alley back then: and the paint job has held up well. Maybe the years have been kinder to it than I. maybe I should stop comapring myself to Rowan's bowling alley.

Then the bus. Won-oh-sicks. Grimly inevitable, and with me, lion:

Lion that eats my mind now for a decade knowing only your hunger

Not the bliss of your satisfaction O roar of the universe how am I chosen

In this life I have heard your promise I am ready to die I have served

Your starved and ancient Presence O Lord I wait in my room at your

Mercy

-Allen Ginsberg

It's taken me years to decipher just what the old queer meant when he wrote that down- probably in a Moleskine, maybe on a train. In all that time those words have taken on a meaning of their own, independent of their original author's intent. Likewise, everyone with whom I have shared them has projected their own interpretations, wrapped up in the event, the spectacle, the performance. Mostly my frenetic rendition, I flatter myself: TERRIBLE PRESENCE! EAT ME OR PERISH! Meaning re-inventing itself, endlessly undone and remade: much like this city, an organism, a project, a collaborative work of art.

Whatever Pepys may say about me being tired of life, I remain unflustered. I draw strength from the fact that this it is not the same place that he wrote about. It is my home: or at least the nearest thing I have to one.