James

antiporap

Extended footage of yesterday's Antipobro Ustream just for you!

Jackson Niewland and Ben Rosamund rap live on cam, with dance support from Alice May Connolly and James 'ass' Duncan.

antipobros IRL

We did a ustream thing.





















Screenshot by Neon Glittery.

Alice

I am never going to understand the 'jersey dress'

The Snow Looks Pure Tonight

The fire and the wine and the words in the air, alone, together, a blanket and a chair. They're talking about their future. He is stroking her hair and her eyes are heavy and she's drifting off to sleep. He looks outside, dark but light. The snow looks pure tonight.

clouds are really becoming a motif for some reason

72

i say to you
that i have been getting "poem" feelings

which is something like sitting in the passenger seat of a car
alone and looking at the rain

it is listening to the same album over and over and over again

it is feeling the wind like it is a tangible object
that i can mould with my fingers

it is holding my hands out in front of me
like i am cupping water
and thinking "i want to fit into the nook of my hand"

i would like to spend my time trying to fit into all the small spaces of the world

i want to be very safe and warm

i imagine myself as a bear

i imagine myself as a lil worm

i imagine myself as a living representation of the sound my bedroom door makes when you open it

i imagine you and i as a body of water

let's go swimming in the wintertime

INTERVIEW WITH JAMES DUNCAN

Jackson Nieuwland  May 30

Are you male or female? How old are you? How tall are you? How much do you weigh? What colour is your hair? What colour are your eyes? Where were you born? Any birthmarks? Any tattoos? Any piercings?

James Duncan

May 30

I am male. I am 18 years old. My height is ~6'. I weigh ~60 kilograms. My hair is blonde. I looked at the entry for "Eye color" on Wikipedia and read this - '"Brown eyes" redirects here. For other uses, see Brown eyes (disambiguation).' ... I think my eyes are 'blue.' I was born in Sydney, Australia. There don't seem to be any significant markings on my body... no tattoos. I don't have any piercings.

Jackson Nieuwland  Jun 5 Can you ride a bike? Do you have a driver's license? What is your most used mode of transport? What is your favourite mode of transport? Tell us a travel/transport story.

James Duncan

Jun 6

I can ride a bike. I have a provisional driver's license which means I can't lawfully drive over 90 km/h, or carry more than one passenger after 11p.m. My most used modes of transport are walking and trains. My favourite mode of transport is walking. During my first year of high school the bus was driven by a driver from Hong Kong, on and off, for about 3 months. Nobody knew his name, but called him Chips because one time he stopped the bus for 10-15 minutes to buy himself some hot chips (for breakfast). Over the course of the journey he would "hype up" the passengers by yelling "Eeehhhhhh, eh!" to which everyone would answer "Hey, hey, heyyyy!" or something similar. Sometimes, when stopped at an intersection, Chips would turn to the passengers and tell us how much he loved us maybe just to pass the time or maybe because he really meant it. One time he bought a packet of assorted biscuits and offered them to people as they boarded the bus. As much as we liked him, it seemed strange or wrong to be given food by the driver. I can't remember if I said no thanks to a biscuit or if there were none left by the time I got on, but I know that I was one of the last people to board because I rode the bus near the front, standing in the aisle, about a metre from Chips. Not long after leaving the bus stop, Chips brought the vehicle to a crawl, opened the doors and called out to a passing girl, "Excuse me, are you Chinese?" She looked up from the pavement to see where the voice had come from, finding Chips' grinning face yelling back at her, "Because these boys think you are BEAUTIFUL!" He turned around and made his signature chant, "Eeehhhhhh, eh!" and drove away quickly as we echoed, "Hey, hey, heyyyy!" Later, at a clear intersection, Chips exclaimed, "There is no car on the road today, it is a beauuutiful day!" Chips made everyone feel good. Another time, the door on a car opened and closed as it pulled out in front of the bus. He said, "This man here, he is Hong Kong taxi driver." Chips wore white gloves. This may have been for hygiene or just because he liked the feeling of his sheathed hands against the wheel, but some people who caught the bus suggested that it was so there wouldn't be any DNA evidence when he killed us all. Chips drove so fast, he always got me to school on time.

Jackson Nieuwland

Jun 6

Do you walk to parties? How do you get to parties? DO you party a lot? Are you a party animal? What sort of animal do you think a party animal is? Do you have a birthday party every year? What is your favourite party you have been to?

James Duncan

Jun 10

I have walked to parties before. I usually take a train and then walk to parties. One time there was a party in my suburb that I was able to walk to and walk home from without using any other form of transport. I am not sure if I party a lot. I feel like I don't party a lot but maybe I would think otherwise if I could see myself from an external perspective. I might be a party animal. If lying on my bed, listening to emotional music through headphones, and feeling like I am always in a state of 'almost-crying' is considered a party then I am an out-of-control party animal. I sometimes go to friends' parents' houses and drink alcohol and listen to music and maybe say some things that I later identify as being a representation of 'not-myself' or some some. I don't really consider 'low-key' things like that to be parties but they probably are actual parties. I think I start considering something a proper 'party' when I can't really gauge how many people will be there or how exactly I will conduct myself, or just when I start considering things like that. When I feel like I can't arrive at an event without being intoxicated, it is probably a party. That probably happens once or twice a month. I think lots of humans are party animals but other sorts of animals could be party animals, idk. I had a birthday 'gathering' when I turned 17. Lots of people who attended weren't really close friends but people I had met at other 'gatherings,' and I felt awkward. My parents supplied a small amount of beer that people seemed unenthusiastic towards. I drank enough beer that I found it difficult to resist grinning at various points throughout the night, while others drank nothing. My close friends - who seemed estranged, strangely - sat in a corner of the garden and smoked weed. I smoked weed with them and watched people do 'the bubble' on other people who were stoned, trying to convince them that they had been in some sort of unconscious bubble for what seemed like a few seconds to them but was really about 30 minutes. I watched a girl shake her head in a disapproving manner and mutter "No, no" as people did 'the bubble' on her. Later, I sat around a table, trying to be a good host, and found it difficult to hold a conversation with people. My mum had made chocolate brownies that were on a plate on the table. The same girl who had resisted 'the bubble' ate about half of the brownies. A playlist containing mostly songs by A Tribe Called Quest and Animal Collective played during the night. My friend wrote a rap on a piece of paper and gave it to a girl he was 'tuning' at the time. Someone found some fireworks in the garage, that were left over from celebrating Y2K, and fired a rocket out of an empty bottle. People started leaving and I fell asleep watching a really bad action film on TV. My 18th birthday reminded me of turning 17 and I decided not to have a party. I think I had had some sort of birthday party every year before that. I'm not sure what my favourite party has been. At a party about a month ago I found a book of Bukowski's poetry which I read to people in a 'poetry voice,' which I found quite fun. I also danced to "I Wanna Be Your Dog" in a manner that I hadn't danced before. In a bedroom, I read aloud a copious number of text messages from my phone and told people that it was poetry. I know that the event was a party because I consumed alcohol at a rate of ~1.5 'standard drinks' per ~12 minutes for about 2 hours before feeling comfortable and then arriving at the house where it was. That was probably my favourite party I have been to.

Jackson Nieuwland

Jun 13

What do you do for fun besides partying? Has what you view as 'fun' changed over the years? Is 'chilling' 'fun'? Would you describe yourself as a 'chill bro'. Do you like 'chillwave' music? What's something that you find 'bloodchilling'?

James Duncan

Jun 28

Bru, I don't party that much. I think experiencing 'fun' means being engaged in and enjoying an activity enough that I don't contemplate long term goals, how much sleep I will get that night, whether I am even happy or not etc. for the period of time that I am doing it. I guess this means that what I find fun involves decreased (or changed) awareness -- beginning doing something knowing that it is 'for fun' can just lead to disappointment for me, maybe, unless that thing is intoxication which is almost always guaranteed fun. This is kind of circular but I think 'fun' is a fun way of saying something somewhere between pleasure and happiness. I don't know. Making music with friends can be fun. Playing a game of chess -- sometimes I play chess -- can be fun. Reading and also writing, sleeping and dreaming are fun. What I view as fun has changed over time. I think life, or being conscious, in its entirety was once 'fun' for me. I still think life is mostly fun. I think a fun moment is one that I would like to, but know I can't, reproduce. These sorts of moments can pass while 'chilling' which is like a chill way of saying doing nothing. I'm a chill bro and I like chillwave music. I find the idea that there was once nothing and that there might again, and forever after that, be nothing 'bloodchilling.' I mean as much as we know about 'nothing' is via consciousness which is some weird ass part of existence but eventually there will be an actual fucking nothing.

Jackson Nieuwland

Jun 28

I actually find that I often don't enjoy chilling that much. I always feel as if I should be doing something. Is there anything that you feel you need to do? What do you want to do in life? What do you want to do right now? What do you want to do tomorrow? Do you have any goals? Do you have any dreams? Do you remember your dreams very often? Are you dreams, when you remember them, interesting? Can you tell us a cool dream you've had?

James Duncan

Jul 7

I agree with you re 'chilling.' I can't chill on my own; often I will tell someone that I have just been chilling at home when really my brain has been quite busy. Right now I feel that I need to write concise and maybe interesting answers to your questions, eat something and write a poem. I feel that answers to questions about what I want to "do in life" involve knowing what sort of 'career path' I would like to take and I don't know what sort of 'career path' I would like to take. It's the evening and I would like to write some things, read a book, eat something and go to sleep feeling that today has been enjoyable and that tomorrow might be enjoyable also. Tomorrow I would like to clean and then rearrange my room, do some of the same things as I wanted to do today, go for a walk to places near my house and maybe go to a friend's house to make some music. I don't have any specific goals but vague ideas of fulfillment. I feel that I am goal-orientated--always moving towards an elusive sort of excited peacefulness and doing things on the never-ending way to it--in a way that I never seem to have actual concrete goals, where I do things without ever feeling weighted by them. I'm not sure if that is good or bad. I think my dream is just this big ass elusive piece of emotional experience that I will probably never have. I remember my dreams quite vividly but they might not seem interesting or significant to anyone. I often wake in a dream, in my room, get out of bed and feel that something is coming to get me. But the feeling and the dream is familiar and I just make it stop. I walk into the room at the back of the house, open the window and jump out of it. Sometimes someone will try to pull me back through the window and it gets messy with all the glass and infinite fly screens and the window wanting to have to be opened more than once. When this happens I might think "what is this i don't even have a body lol" and then I will be outside, floating. Sometimes I will be naked and then suddenly I won't be naked. I can then go pretty much anywhere I would like to go. The air is viscous, like honey, and I kick and pull through it. I usually do breast-stroke. If I want to, I can land in the neighbours garden and stand in a corner. My eyes are an ice pick; I look at the place where two sides of the fence and the ground meet and pull it apart. I move through the space I've made and down a spiral staircase, wade through a pool or onto a mountain where there is snow. Usually some kind of backstory will offer itself to me and I will have something to do or somewhere to be. Sometimes I will be more conscious and make things happen, make things appear, have a conversation with a person in another person's body and realize I am speaking to myself. One time I flew through a dark tunnel, through some ghosts and into the space beside a building with floor-to-ceiling windows. I sat on some grass with a small group of people, beside someone who seemed familiar. There was sunshine where we were but there wasn't a sun or a sky for it to be in. A man stood in front of the group and said things and I felt excited, anticipating going inside the glass building. My 'friend' and I moved away and sat beside a small brick building and smoked weed and then smoked acid because smoking acid was a thing. I took a cigarette from her bag. I felt calm and happy to be where I was and with who I was with. There was no past and the future was always good and just about to happen but never arrived. I wasn't really aware of those conditions while I was dreaming. I met my friend's mum or my friend's friend who looked like a mum and the dream ended soon after that. I think I have had cooler dreams than that…

Jackson Nieuwland

Jul 8

I tell people I've been chilling when I've been busy too! It just seems easier most of the time. Also, who really wants to hear what I've been doing? I feel like this should be the last (set of) question(s). I don't know what to ask. I didn't sleep last night. My thoughts are blurry. We're meeting in two weeks. What are your thoughts on that? Could you say something about the difference between interacting with people online and interacting face to face? How long have you been talking to people online? What different interfaces have you used to talk to people online? How real to you are the people you talk to online? Am I real to you? Are we bros? Is this interview happening right now? Are these questions? If these aren't questions, what am I doing? What am I doing?

James Duncan

Jul 13

I wouldn't mind hearing about what you have been doing. I agree with you re "last (set of) question(s)." Sometimes I don't sleep very much and I enjoy the 'blurriness' that results from it. Sometimes I don't enjoy it. I hope you're feeling good. Me taking so long to reply to your questions means we are meeting in about one week now. I have enjoyed answering your questions; I have been reading them then thinking about them for a while, sometimes forgetting that I need to type out the answers and send them to you. Hehe (sorry.) I feel sort of calmly excited about meeting you and think that we will 'get along' well. I'm excited about lots of things, I don't even know. I feel that, compared to interacting face to face, there is nothing unnatural or 'wrong' about interacting with people online--it remains that we are just trying to, and quite often succeeding in, 'connecting' with other people. I have found that I can learn a lot about a person via the internet in a way that is real and constructive and very comfortable, maybe sometimes 'weightless.' We can share ideas and things and maybe become close without being overwhelmed by each other's actual presences but then none of this is lost when we interact face to face. I'd hope that this 'rings' true when I meet you and when I meet other people who I talk to online but haven't yet met. I have been talking to people online for about 10 years. A friend helped me set up a hotmail account when I was 8 years old. I spoke to him, his older brothers and his older sister and some other people on msn messenger. Since then I have used facebook, myspace, bebo (lol), gmail, aol instant messenger, blogger, tumblr, skype, some music community site whose name I can't remember and maybe some other things. I can remember the first time someone wrote "brb" to me. I kept looking at it, pronouncing it like "bih-rib" in my head. I asked her what it meant and it took a while for her to answer because she had gone away from the computer. When I found out that it meant "be right back" I felt a bit sad that she had stopped the conversation to do something else. Quite often, while talking online, I will involuntarily generate an image of a place that is in some way associated with a person and project it as a sort of 'backdrop' to their conversation, like a hyperspace that I inhabit while typing words to them. When thinking about a person who I talk to online, they can seem unreal. I think I picture (involuntarily, again, hehe) the space that I most frequently am in when I talk to a person, with them just sort of 'there' in it. I can get attached to these places. I get attached to the people in them. I get attached to people; I am human. Lolololol. The more time I spend face to face with somebody, the less I will think of them in this way and the more 'real' they will seem. If I go to someone's home and see the place where they compute from I tend to start thinking of them in a more concrete way. I don't know if it is good or bad, right or wrong, that instead of accepting that I am alone here and just reading words on a screen I allow myself to create these people-presences. I guess it is just a function of empiricism or something. You seem very real to me and you are my bro. This is happening. You are requesting information from me via questions. Haha, I have really enjoyed doing this interview. Right now you are sleeping, you told me so.

New topic: Winter

Southern hemisphere livin'

My dog

I could tell my dog was going to die. I wore his sadness like wet clothes. His little face drooped into what I could only imagine to resemble Long Island, New York. He sat on the terrace under a dappled autumnal light his wilting eyes oozing black goo and me, sitting beside him. I gagged a little bit because his ears were infected badly too. I regretted that in his old age we didn’t care for him or did we ever really? I petted his ear until it went soft his body shifted to allow me to tuck into him and I did, resting my head somewhere on his shoulder or his stomach or his leg. I thought about our history or was it memories my tears amalgamated into his black and white figure like watery knowledge into a hard past. Yes it’s true we didn’t always get along when we first met I took hold of his leash and he galloped away dragging me along the ground; maybe he just wanted someone to run with. Either way I didn’t let go.

I didn’t let go.

USA A-OK

whilst trying to write something for this theme
kept thinking "USA USA USA USA"
while staring blankly at my computer screen

today i saw an american flag at the top of a flag pole
thought "the fuck..."
then kept on walking

today is the 4th of July
this means nothing to me

I don't know what to write about America

I am listening to an interview with Bret Easton Ellis.
He is American.
I haven't read anything by him.
I mostly read American literature.
I mostly listen to American music.
I mostly watch American television and films.
I mostly talk to Americans.

I live in New Zealand.

I made a chapbook.

I sent copies of it to America.

More Americans read my writing than New Zealanders.

What the fuck is going on?

Who am I?

Where am I?

Why am I here instead of there?

My rap name used to be Patriot.

That seems horrible to me now.

This is the first result for a google image search for patriot:

I watched Transformers 3 the other day.

It seemed very patriotic.

I laughed a lot watching it.

At least it was better than the second one.

What am I doing?

I don't know what I'm trying to say.

I spent a day and a half in New York.

I went to that island with the Statue of Liberty on it.

I went up the Empire State Building.

I went to some art gallery.

Bret Easton Ellis is talking about American Psycho.

I've seen that in bookstores in plastic wrapping because it's R18.

That's the only book I've ever seen like that.

I haven't even seen the movie.

I just found out there is a sequel to the movie.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a sequel to the book.

The interview with Bret Easton Ellis finished.

Another interview with him started playing.

I really like that movie American Beauty.

I don't really have anything to say about it though.

I just remembered that Sam Mendes isn't American.

I think that's right.

I didn't enjoy Jarhead much.

But I liked Away We Go a lot.

I think that's what it was called.

I haven't seen Revolutionary Road.

Even though I like Leonardo Dicaprio a lot.

I haven't read the book either.

I've read the Easter Parade.

At first I misspelt Easter and Eater.

This is probably going to be really boring for people to read.

Just a list of things that I have or haven't read or seen.

It's about time for another picture.

That was the first google image search result for picture.

I'm sorry for wasting your time

America

There's a French woman here in the hotel and I'm in love with her by the way. We met in the pool last night and actually we didn't meet per se but she was under the water, on the bottom with her legs crossed almost breathing, and I stood on the side of the pool for an awfully long time watching her. She eventually floated to the surface to gulp some air and I mimicked her open mouth like we were kissing. She smiled down deep down into my throat and body and nibbled on my heart and testicles. I returned to my room to call my brother and masturbate.

"Water represents emotionally fluidity," my brother said. "She is in touch with her emotions and she is accepting of them."

"Yes," I said. "But what does that mean really?"

"She will teach you," my brother said. "She will crave the challenge."

"But I am a tsunami of confusion and rage," I said. "I cannot be attractive to a woman who is a frog on a lilly pad on a pond next to the grass and trees under the sun."

"It's a challenge," said my brother. "All women like a challenge. You must be an emotional barbarian. She will attempt to calm and tame you. She will place her hands upon your naked skin and she will hold them there. You will feel her warmth and you will understand. You will be together and I can promise you that."

"I will call her a fucking cunt," I said.

"Ha ha Jesus," my brother replied. "That would be so awesome but I'm just shitting you. She's probably some whack job trying to get some time away from her husband and kids. How do you even know she's French?"

"I don't know really," I admitted. "She had small tits and I don't know. She was skinny and she just looked kind of French."

"Whatever bro," my brother said. "You didn't go all the way to America to meet some French broad anyway."

"What are you saying man? Are you saying I shouldn't call her a fucking cunt or I should call her a fucking cunt?"

"Yeah, why don't you start out by not calling her a fucking cunt. It's hard for me to generalise without really knowing all the details but that's probably a good place to start."

It's a big hotel but I have just now knocked on every door and asked about the French woman. "I'm sorry, I know, but I am in love," I say to the people who answer the door. "Do you know her? Have you seen her? She has small breasts and she may or may not be French."

Oh snap, now somebody's knocking on my door. I'm looking through the peep hole and it is her.

"Vous êtes une fichue merde," she says.