The pseudonym, or non de plume, despite it's historic significance in serving the maligned and protecting professional identities, offers no such meaning to me. I do not have any professional record to hide, nor am I oppressed thanking to fair graces and simple luck. My initiation into the use of pseudonyms came instead from illegal activity and the attraction of fostered egos.
The first pseudonym I used was sprayed in chrome paint on abandoned warehouses and written in sharpie on the tiled walls of pub bathrooms. I enjoyed the expression of personality that demanded no loyalty, that could be denied and omitted without consequence. I enjoyed the sensation of a perceived anonymous attention. Moving through the throws of juvenilia and searching, building and at times completely abandoning identity required a rough sort of documentation- a classification of eras, of mindsets and moralities. In a time of life so full with confusion and juxtaposition, being able to create concrete forms of identity offered stability in the ongoing search within oneself.
Pseudonyms allow the artist to express truth, without the concerns of truth's repercussions- this is to a degree cowardly, as truth is partly so important in that it delivers one to all aspects of life: good, and bad, to their full degrees. But in times of cultural suppression, which does more damage to truth than the coward's pseudonym, the hidden identity of the artist allows for works of significant, otherwise unheard voices to be aired in the public's courtyard. Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches, a practicing physician of 1930's Paris, cannot publish a novel of youthful aberration without risk to his profession, but Louis-Ferdinand Celine may write openly of military cowardice, of prostitutes and the insane, all in the working man's dialect. William Lee tells of his romps as a homosexual heroin addict in 1950's United States where William Burroughs could yet not. Within anonymity, the artist is safe and responsible then only to themselves and their truth.
There are innumerable reasonings an author might make for their use and choice of pseudonym- they may feel the need to Anglicise their name to Dylan to avoid the antisemitism that Zimmerman might prompt, or to protect their wealthy families name from their experiences of dire poverty like Orwell. (lesser known as Eric Blair..) Samuel Clemens might have decided that Mark Twain sounded stronger, or more American maybe. Or, like the Bronte sisters, they may need to use masculine identities just to be published, in a time when women were not allowed to print. Regardless of reasoning, the use of the non de plume builds in and of itself deeper culture around the artist. Japanese poets who wrote haiku, often would assume haigo ((translating to 'mark')). Traditionally ukiyo-e artists would receive their first go from their school's master, bearing their teachers mark until they entered new spaces of identity, where they would then take on emerging go, symbolising the start of a new beginning, such as Matsuo Chuemon Munefusa's adaptation of the name Basho. The web of Japanese art can be linked together with these shared marks, building a larger stage of cultural history.
At times, the identity of the artist presenting their work is just as important as the work itself. In the 20th century this was exemplified by the rise of rockstars- artists created hyperinflated egos to embody the myths surrounding the body of work and the artists thereof. Those who understood this best cultivated identities of god-like stature. Bowie (who did this repeatedly throughout his career, building characters and their soundtracks simultaneously) and Led Zeppelin, who understood the power of imagery and symbolism, imitating the symbols of the Old-World and the occult to a before then unseen success. While the image cannot stand without the foundations of great work, great work may rely upon the image to draw in it's audience. Ego, identity, character, all rely upon distinction- without boundaries these concepts are lost to the void. Pseudonyms provide the distinction an artist may seek to form shape from the chaos, and rise above the limitations of their environment.
Music serves a multitude of purposes. We turn to sound to exacerbate, dismiss, or mediate our emotions. We turn to it for productivity, for leisure, for energy, for release. A branch of sound that I carry a nestled nook for, is dissonance.
dissonance 1. 1598- in Music, A combination of tones causing beats (cf. beat n.1 II.9), and thus producing a harsh effect; also, a note which in combination with others produces this effect. (from the OED).
The result of dissonance is a sense of decay- a feeling of result, one that may be an aberation from what is expected. This disarray from the wonted offers the soul comfort and place for the emotions it may feel shame of- those of anger, of frustration, of embarressment, disillusionment.
Dissonance in music divides. Not everyone shares the emotions that it nurtures. It is harsh, and abbrasive to the moods of the goodly. But dissonance also builds tension to enhance release. Mildy masochistic, dissonance offers the sufferer a non-harmful way of releasing painful and private emotion. It offers a pathway of resistant against the self-harm and abuse that these emotions can lead to- release is essential, and finding healthy methods of release is the key to the return of emotional, spiritual, and worldy joy.
In days of rot, where all feels like autumn leaves in wet gutters, sometimes all you can do is sit with the decay. I argue this is healthy. If the good days may come the bad must also. And if in the same style that we reach for joy in sounds to enhance our good passings, we are only human in our construction of the ill passing environments.
David Donald MacLean opened Cooks Hill Books, on 84 Darby St in 1985. Two years later David beat the council to securing the contract for the building on the corner- which was set be turned into a round-about. The store reopened on 72 Darby Street on April Fools, 1987. The shop has remained there as a cultural landmark since.
David, the co-proprietor of Cooks Hill Books, has watched Newcastle shift and evolve through the decades. The shop has formed into a organism of self-propelled culture, built off of second hand literature and the characters to have frequented through the decades. David tells personal anecdotes of exiled IRA members, notorious 'Push' philosophers and mournful accounts of persons lost to the heroin and ice epidemics of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, all known as friends.
David Maclean grew up moving around Texan and Hawaiian military bases where his father doctored for the army. In 1963, due to the rising tensions of the Cuban missile crisis and imminent conscription into Vietnam War for David and his brother, his now-quaker parents moved the family to Sydney on his 18th Birthday. After six weeks with his family in Lidcombe, David moved to a bedsitter on Kings Cross. His first job was at Dymock's on George St. 'that was okay, but selling new books..' After getting picked up as a copyboy for the Telegraph, David worked two jobs. '5 o'clock I'd start work, and I'd work till 10 at night.' 'then after 8 or 9 months, I got a cadetship as a journalist.' David worked as a profession journalist for a short time. 'I was doing the police, I was doing the court recording. I would go to the local courts and report on what was happening.'
The death of Kennedy and the way the Vietnam War had changed in the mid-60s deeply affected David. 'It was consuming..' 'I still had an American citizen ship at that time, and I felt like I was involved somehow.'' David toured South East Asia in 1966 and returned to study Politics, Indonesian, Asian Studies and Economics. 'I was in university for seven years.' 'But then when the war ended, my marriage had broken up, I was the parent of two children, I didn't have a job that I liked or wanted, I was bouncing around for a while.'
Sydney was changing from what David had known. 'during that period of late 70s, there was a lot of corruption in the local government and in the labor party.' 'After the Vietnam War ended, a-lot of the drugs were coming into Australia, and the CIA was kind of involved in running the drugs, controlling the drugs. Politician's were kind of turning a blind eye because of strong links with the American Government.'
David took his two children on a five month trip to US during this period. 'when I got back, my ex wife had moved to Dungog. So I thought.. I had to get out of Sydney.' David's stint in Dungog lasted three years. 'I was kind of desperate for something new.. I had been to Newcastle before, but slowly, slowly but surely realised it was a really really nice place.' David made the move at 40 years old to open Cooks Hill Books. 'I should mention, I'd been running this shop for a year and I'd been struggling, to find meaning.. to find enjoyment out of it.. And then I met a woman, named Linda. And we fell in love. And that probably changed my life. And I think the shop grew out of that.'The words skimmed like drops across glass- sliding across the paper. I put the book down. A crushed cigarette butt burnt like foul incense, blue curls rising from a full ashtray. I stared at the book and the ashtray. A biting ennui crawled under my skin. Two days without work.
I sat up, sudden. I left the kitchen, and pulled on a wool jacket, felt dry and warm, but cloistered. I pulled on a boot one at a time, balancing with haste. I walked out of the room without shutting the door, crossed the dark and musty living room, and opened the front door past the mudroom. I swung it shut behind me without stopping, without looking. I heard the clunk of the latch as I stepped over the flooded gutter into the street. Faint light burnt coming near from my left. I hurried. The car past behind me with the splayed sound of wet ashphalt. I bent forward, burning.
I turnt with the street, following the crusty sidewalk jagged with the roots of a boxgum pushing. The tall gums marched along steady in a row, blocking the majority of the street lights. I walked in the shadows, stepping into shallow puddles, dodging the deep sections. The traffic flowed in a din that echoed off the redbrick homes pushed back from the street. The verandahs, tiled with rich mosaics, were empty.
The sky opened in steady drizzle. It grew dense, swiftly. I felt my bare head plaster as my hair caught the pour. I walked off the path, took refuge under a sole fig tree, carefully balanced under an outstretched limb. My upper torso stayed mostly dry, but the rain began soaking my exposed pant legs as I leant back against the tree.
I watched the rain fall sideways in a lightshow under the cold street light. It seemed to grow heavier. I thought of turning back as I looked for an eave to wait under. A trickle began down the sheltered limb, landing steady on my shoulder.
I crossed out from under the fig, walking with splodgey haste from tree to tree. At the end of the block, across an intersection before a roundabout, I spotted an eave jutting over the stairs of a dark tenement. I began to run, wet hair slapping across my forehead. The sidewalk was hard against the balls of my feet, and I angled towards the bouncing grass. A car slowed down as I ran cross the intersection. I stopped under the eave. I watched a flow of eager cars merge through the roundabout. The light was cold, a sudden bright. The rain eased.
I jogged down the rest of the block, turning into a service station. A lady stood pumping fuel into a small white car, watched as I cross the lot. At the station entrance, a security guard bore down an accusing look on me, bored. I scowled at him as the doors slid open, walking by him. I made it to the self serve coffee machine and pulled out a paper cup from a stack. Working the touch screen, I watched the machine gurgle out a brown froth, and turned away. I walked over to the hot bin and pondered stale chicken fingers. I turned back, walking past the coffee machine, and stared at the rows of overpriced snacks. I thought of putting one in my pocket, even though I did not want it. I remembered how petty theft made me feel, and pushed away the idea. I walked back to the machine. The cup was full with white froth. I put my finger in it, and stirred. I licked the froth and tasted warm milk. I stirred again, and it tasted like warm milk. I picked up the cup, walked it to the counter where a silent man stood watching me.
"This is just milk."
The man feigned surprise.
"Oh sorry, it's been doing that."
"Ah."
A silence followed.
"Can I try again?"
"Sure man, sure."
I walked back to the machine. I grabbed another cup. I worked the screen, and watched the machine gurgle a brown froth momentarily before fading to water. It stopped and milk started pouring in. I canceled it, and left the cups sitting in the drip tray. At the sliding glass door, I turned to the man behind the counter at a distance.
"Thanks."
He smiled a kind of sorry smile, and said goodbye. I said goodbye walking.
The rain had stopped. I crossed a double lane highway, pausing at the meridian in the centre. A small bunch of vehicles, unified by the courses of traffic lights, passed. I felt awkward, exposed. I moved swift, and bounced off the first step up the gutter, back onto the sidewalk.
I walked with a clunk against the brick pathway, echoing off heel strike. Cars passed going the opposite way to my left. Under a wide awning, a middle aged man and woman grew quiet in their conversation as I passed. A cigarette was burning in the woman's left hand.
The street grew dark again for a stretch, before the corner of the main drag lit up again with stores. Nearly all were shut, but their lights remained on inside. A man sat on the step outside one, staring ahead. A forgotten cigarette was in glow in-front of his face.
On the corner, a white bright convinance store illuminated row's of synthetic American snacks, un-bought. A sheepish woman with slumped shoulders stood at the counter, buying a vape.
As I turned into the heaving street, rows of tenements adorned the sleek glow of the central ashphalt. A bored young woman stood behind the counter of a late night chemist. A man in a dirty hoodie glared at me as I stared inside. Across the road, past silent rows of newsagents and rug stores, the north-Indian place on the corner bustled. Gentle couples sat close bent over their curries. Others stood near the entrance, waiting for takeaway. A constant shift of traffic moved out and into the nearest carparks, parallel to to the footpath. Across the side street, opposite the north-Indian place, an old Irish pub glowed eerie in low warm light. A practiced bouncer eyed me off as I peered into the windows, making uncomfortable eye contact with the tenants inside, bent over their pints. The street was filled with empty tables, outside low lit bars. The warmth of overhead heaters tempted me to stop. In the window of an Italian restaurant, I read the menu. Ten dollar pasta special, with a drink. I studied the drink menu, disappointed. A lady inside mouthed the words, it's good.
I repeated the words silently through the glass. She smiled and nodded. They were the only ones inside. I turned away, and kept walking.
I studied the other side of the street, imagining a cheap cup of something warm. The only places open were gaudy bars and overpriced restaurants.
I walked in swift rhythm, passing slow groups. The street grew darker, and less foot traffic flowed till I reached the end of the stretched street. I turned left, walking through the dark towards the glow of a blue and yellow service station. The street here was near empty, save a lady pacing in front of a bus stop, hidden under a hood. As I passed a bottle shop, the attendant walked back behind his counter and watched me pass.
I walked into the service station. I grabbed a small cup, and pushed the button marked ,'masala' on the machine. The cup filled steaming with golden smells. I brought the cup to the counter. The disappointed attendant asked if it that was all. I looked at the hot bin full with decaying fired matter.
"That's it thanks."
I left, noticing the coloured height identifier on the door on the way out. The street was dark, and a long stretch of tall figs opened out into a large gloomy park. The openness felt eerie. I walked back the way I'd come, looking for a place to sit and drink the tea, reluctant to stop near the dark park. I reached a bus stop, but felt grim. Across the road a titled stage jutted off the edge of a shut pub. I crossed the empty road, and put my cup on the stage at chest height, and pulled myself up. It was wet and slippery under my worn boots. I squatted by the cup, and pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes out of the pocket of the damp jacket. I placed one in my lips, pocketed the packet with two cigarettes left, and pulled a lighter out of the same pocket. I lit the cigarette behind a cupped hand, took a deep draw, and looked up into the street.
The lady in the hood kept pacing. Intermit cars buzzed by with speed, and the noise was overwhelming with the tiles echo. I took a deep sip of tea. It was full of flavour, if a little off tasting, but the warmth was gratifying.
I finished the cigarette slowly, and sculled the bottom half of tea. The cigarette hissed as I dropped it in the small puddle of gold left. I hopped down from my perch, careful on the wet tile. My legs were stiff. I turned home.
''Me and Hamish are goina feed the potties in the bottom paddock.''
''Hamish and I are goina to feed the potties!''
I grew up on the central western tablelands, just outside the rural city of Dubbo. My father came from Medooran, seventy odd kilometres northeast of Dubbo and had studied English in the 80's before becoming a teacher. My mother grew up in Quirindi, among a Catholic family. My father had grown up as a builder's son, and regarded Dubbo as a major city. My mother found her metropolis in Tamworth. Both arrived in Dubbo with a sense of novel urbanity, and brought with them individual dialects unique to their culture- my father's low drawl and laconic ribaldries, and my mother's prescriptive syntax and sounded vowels.
Growing up in Dubbo meant vast skies and dry open landscapes. The peoples around me spoke with a lazed drawl, worn and careful with the dry heat and harsh winters. Laughter was loud and unabashed. Teachers slipped out of propriety often, and idioms unique and often puzzling highlighted lessons. A boy's life revolved around the seasons and their sacred practices- cricket in the summer and rugby league in the winter.
Dubbo is located upon Wirajuri country, and 17 percent of the city is made up of First Nations peoples ( as contrasted by Newcastle's 4 percent). Despite rampart racism, both direct and indirect, colloquial speech of the Wirajuri people has soaked into the local dialect. It wasn't uncommon to hear from the sidelines of a Saturday footy match slurs mixed into Wiradjuri colloquialisms.
As a child, I didn't recognise the difference between myself as an Anglo-Saxon Australian and the Wirajuri children around me. My best of friends were a mixed bag and our differences only became apparent through the comments and displayed behaviour of older generations around us. I spoke as they spoke, and lived as they lived- as we all did, those of us attending the local public school and sporting clubs. Our dialects were defined by our class, not our race. Naidoc day was a week long treasured event, and dream time stories were told to us all as we crafted black, red and yellow beaded bracelets, smoke was ceremoniously blown over all of us as we danced like dinawan and wambuwuny to clapping sticks and didgeridoo.
My father spoke to me in two dialects. He had his formal teacher's dialect, when addressing us at the dinner table or in public. When we fell into proletariat landscapes his lazed drawl would sound- demands in the shed, or giving criticisms to a bat-stroke. Silence was an important part of his speech. Some of my most poignant memories involve long drives through dry golden landscapes, with long silence only interrupted by laconic observations- types of trees and birds, agricultural practices.
Moving to the coast in my teens, I found myself contrasted in dialect, idiom use and lexical choice with the locals. I found my burred speech mocked and laughed at, and found myself laughing at the local salty sway of speech. My long trusty idioms fell on dim ears, and lost their lazy humour in their explanation, and my grasp of slang was blurred as new words surrounded me. Despite moving only within the state, I found myself within a new culture, with a new dialect.
I. Large dry hair surrounded a small head, filling in it's volume. From within the dry golden mop, not unlike straw, badly painted red lips failed at distracting the eye from a large black mole on the cheek. Sweat beaded the waxy forehead and the thick makeup resulted in a melted look. Dark, near black eyes peaked out at nothing, hiding.
II. He had a large round head. The wiry thick hair was cut short, and was a thorough gray. Instead of hinting at age, it hinted somehow at wisdom. Kind blue eyes, slightly magnified behind thick glasses, gazed searching, without prying. A kindly smile, gentle, rested with deep wrinkles that assured the expression was common.
III. He had a long, angular face, that swept inward to a hawkish nose. The white hair was pulled back from his forehead, sweeping in a wave. His beard, white also, was closely and cleaning cropped. His eyes, hidden in the deep shadows of pronounced eyebrows appeared solemn, sober, though not so sane. (of Ezra Pound's portrait)
The dawn suggested clear promises of easy warmth. Clear, blue skies, crisp- breathless. Purple tinges fade out of the night into the light.
The adolescent stood by a young gum tree. Feet bare, blue with cold. Plaid pyjama pants, and a shivering frame unnoticed under a stretched cotton t-shirt. In his right hand, drooping unaware, a length of thick rope.
A note rang out, opening the bird's choir. Thus began the day's din, the boy listened, abject. Nearby, a brick and timber pergola flanked a busy road with a curve. In an hours time, the current empty street would be lined with SUV's full with uniformed children, sulking and sullen, headed to the nearby local school.
The boy's movement broke the placidity. He limped gently in response to the frosted ground. No wind offered resistance to the tense stillness.
The rope sailed over the rafter of the pergola, directly in the centre. The boy struggled with a knot, in obvious novelty of the pattern. Despite, after bated movements, he succeeded in producing a strong noose.
Tying the ropes end to the bottom a brick column, the noose hung over the rafter. Carefully assessing each component, with calm notions the boy climbed carefully up one of the columns, and teetered across the rafter to it's centre where the noose waited. He sat carefully, and reached the noose around his neck.
A moments hesitation resulted from the sudden cry of a black cockatoo in the gum. The boy paused to watch as the bird sailed out from the tree's canopy towards the sun, yellow tail sparking across the clear blue.
The rope snapped taught as the boy fell forward, feet extended curling toward the ground, dirt along their base, blue with cold. The rafter creaked under the body's strains, till the only sound remained the cockatoo's distant call.
A man opens his window to the street. He hears a cry ring out below, hidden in darkness. The silence following is sharp - stretching time. He stays, moments pass. More pass.
His thoughts move to the stars above his head.
They're dim through the city smog, but the sky is clear of clouds and the brightest constellations burn jewel blue. A streetlamp flickers, drawing the man's eyesight back to the street. A shrouded woman hunched low ambles head down, below the tenements. The patches of light bend around her. Her hand holds out a leash binding a small frail dog close to her. The man watches her slow sojourn, till her last shuffled steps fade imperceptible.
He reaches into his shirt's pocket, standing up from leaning on the sill as he does so. He produces a half full packet of cigarettes. He takes one to his lips, and strikes a match twice before it lights. He cups his free hand around the cigarette end, bringing the burning match up to his face, illuminating the slight lean of his head, engorged shadows emerging. He draws deeply, and exhales a blue cloud into the still night air. His hand holding the cigarette sits bent up at the elbow, resting on the sill. The other arm rests on the sill close into his stomach, bending at the hips as he leans out the window, returning to the night.