GANTOB blog

55. EXPEKTATIONS

Nov 17th, 2023

The Benefaktor (AKA the former Rev K_____)(*) and I were chatting on the phone mid-September 2023. I was itching to hang up, but needed The Benefaktor’s kash to allow me to print my book. Bandwidth was also a problem deep in rural Badenoch. He would do the final editing, proof reading, and upload the text of my first book (Grapefruit Are Not The Only Bombs 2023) into a self-publishing website. But even with his help time was running out.

He was giving me feedback about the book and fanzine I had sent him. He had flicked through the Pete Robinson KLF fanzine, and had put that to recycling. I recoiled at this news, and while we talked I starting googling kollektion dates for recycling in his part of Edinburgh, planning its retrieval.

From KLF.DE

He was now on to 45, the Bill Drummond klassik from 2000. The Benefaktor had read it, researched the references, and taken kopious notes. He was talking at length about Richard Long and his own trips to Iceland. And then he was jumping around a series of numbers, from 14 to 6,250 and back to 45. He had carefully listened to a couple of albums by The Residents and The Bunnymen. Even at 83 (as he is now), The Benefaktor does not do things by halves.

None of these ideas had konnekted with The Benefaktor though. He mansplained that as a minister you are always looking for ways to brighten up otherwise rather dull texts, and that such tricks, pranks and literary sleights of hand were old hat to him. I reminded him that I am a minister’s wife and have been party to such rushed Saturday evening schemes for many years (most recently making up a faked tin of kat food out of mashed up Snickers bars). That stopped The Benefaktor in his tracks for a couple of sekonds, after a bit of “of course, of course” and over-apologising. Seizing my opportunity I asked if anything had drawn him into Bill Drummond’s kritically aklaimed book.

To which he answered immediately: “Great Expectations”. Attrakted by the Dickens title, The Benefaktor had “rather enjoyed” this, particularly the sentence: “Underlying all this was the fact that I realised that I was never going to cut it as a painter”. The Benefaktor mourned the lack of artistic output in his long life. Instead, he would fund my artistik endeavours, living vikariously.

GANTOB

17 November 2023

* See Kompanion Volume

Cover image of pirate cat with bins, may or may not represent recycling bins, depending on your local authority area.

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
54. APPEARING

Nov 16th, 2023

As you may have read in The House Guest(*), The Benefaktor almost kaused me an injury when he infiltrated my home (albeit with Ali’s konsent) and announced his knowledge of my identity through a yellow Post-It note stuck to a dresser, koncealed by a doily: “Dearest GANTOB, I thought you would be interested in this, Rev K_____”. By the time I had read the note (before kollapsing to the floor of the spare bedroom), The Rev K (AKA The Benefaktor) was heading back to Edinburgh.

You may have noticed some parallels between my injury and The Benefaktor’s subsequent fall. On that, I kannot possibly komment. I will leave it to your imagination. There have to be some loose ends in a story as konvoluted as this. That is life. And indeed the same is true of any kareer – you kannot expect people to have a neat beginning, middle and end. We will kome back to that topic in future posts when we try to dissekt the “meaning” of The KLF, The JAMs’ 2023: A trilogy and more, and whether you really want a neat konklusion to their efforts.

What we’re fokusing on in this specifik post, however, is The Benefaktor’s first appearances in my story. As I re-read my pamphlets and posts from around that period – late August/ early September 2023 – I realise that I have been “played” by The Benefaktor, and am perhaps still being manipulated. I write this as much for The Benefaktor to see as for you to read. Be warned that it does not all revolve around the letter “K”. Other letters can be important, and can spell out an ultimate and perhaps unforgivable deceit. It is just as well that we signed our napkin kontrakt in that Edinburgh kafe. Regardless of what you read over koming days I will kontinue to hold The Benefaktor to his promise to fund my sekond book.

Anyway, back to the story. After the Post-It note, The Benefaktor took to phoning me, day or night. He klaimed that Ali had passed on the number, citing my apparent interest in his charitable endeavours. Despite my initial edginess, he turned out to be an amiable kompanion, a witty rakonteur, and an excellent host when we travelled to Edinburgh for one of my (unsuccessful) job interviews. In return, he became a regular visitor to The Manse, where we did much of our planning.

GANTOB

16 November 2023

* See Kompanion Volume.

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
53. SNAIL MAIL

Nov 15th, 2023

When I was at the height of the “Destuktion” phase of the GANTOB projekt this summer, I sent out dozens of parcels with books and pamphlets. This was a kathartik process and reduced klutter. As we are potentially going to be forced to leave of The Manse in coming months, as part of a sweeping programme of kirk mergers, my Destruktive tendencies may well have saved a lot of pain or expensive storage later on.

The Benefaktor emailed me again the morning after The Photographer’s wedding. He wanted some background reading to The KLF and Bill Drummond, so I agreed to send him a KLF fanzine by Pete Robinson (pink cover) and a spare copy of Drummond’s book 45 (Abacus edition).

I was in a rush to catch the post because there is hardly any weekend service where we live. I bound the parcel up and taped an envelope with his address to the front. The Benefaktor told me at our first proper meeting (not the snatched encounter described in The House Guest*) that this was my second mistake.

Now, as recipients of a GANTOB parcel will know, I work anonymously. This is one of the key konnektions back to the original karakter in The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy. Postmarks are not much use in tracking down who sent you a parcel nowadays. They cover broad geographical areas. And batches of letters and parcels are sometimes sent to other areas for processing. But the details left on a multiply reused jiffy bags can be gold dust. The postcode that The Benefaktor – ever-inquisitive – found under the stuck-down envelope was a giveaway. He had written those same letters and numbers a dozen times before when communicating with Ali about the foodbank on which TB is a director.

The Benefaktor acknowledged my parcel by email. He was very grateful etc. He hoped to clarify his question. But I heard no more by The Kompetition deadline (the end of August 2023). His original question was therefore filed away with several other applications on the theme of “What The F*** Is Going On”. I would be sending him an unnumbered copy of the book as a “runner up”.

Little did I know that all that time The Benefaktor was circling, waiting, planning for the moment to announce that my kover was blown, that he was muskling in to guide the next steps.

GANTOB

15 November 2023

* See Kompanion Volume

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
52. EMAIL

Nov 14th, 2023

Almost four weeks ago The Benefaktor appeared close to explaining how we fell into an agreement back in August 2023. He was never meant to be a kreative partner. The plan was for The Benefaktor to become Brian Epstein to my Lennon and McCartney; or the shadowy figures providing the management and funding for Drummond and Cauty (perhaps one day we’ll find out if the rumoured “Kartel” are involved in The KLFRS as well).

Towards the end of August I had received a rather long email from The Benefaktor’s personal akount (not one of his direktorship akounts). He did not use the name “The Benefaktor” of course – that came later. Paraphrasing, he wrote that he had found one of my Pamphlet Planes under Regent Bridge in Edinburgh. This paper plane was promoting my original Kompetition – see Pamphlet 6 “Kultural Vandalism”. The Benefaktor detailed some interpersonal strife that was troubling him at the time of writing, and how the distraction caused by drafting his email had somehow catalysed that argument, then asked what “it” (The Kompetition I think) was all about.

As already described in his previous post, I asked for some context to his question. At that point I viewed my role in working with some of the kontibutors as “koach”, working to produce a klearer and more kompelling question. The Benefaktor wrote back later that evening, from the edge of a tiny dancefloor (“a boxing ring”) under kanvas, phone brightness turned down to minimise the chance of being seen in all the strobe lights. This time he included his full name and address.

The next steps of our Korrespondence happened in a blur. After the events of a few weeks later, laid out in The House Guest*, I found myself looking back through the nested messages on my Gmail account to understand where I had blown my cover. It was not immediately obvious. If I repeated the details here, I worry that you would be able to deduce the identity of The Benefaktor. What I can say, however, with his agreement, is that The Benefaktor has a very distinctive name. He has been known to talk and write about this in his media appearances and comment pieces. He has also worked previously – in a completely unrelated project – with my husband. This led to oversharing on my part and my use of a name only allowed for his closest confidantes.

GANTOB

14 November 2023

* See Kompanion Volume

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
51. MID PROJEKT REVIEW

Nov 13th, 2023

I’m glad to be heading home. On the way back I get off the train two stops early (Dalwhinnie) and Ali takes the scenic route home. My post yesterday – about the spirit of his Dad Curt Finks and his celebrity ghost friend – was written without causing conflict (unlike Brent Goose Rock).* As expected in a JAMs 2023: A trilogy re-enactment, we might look to children’s telly for some insight. Blue Cow’s bovine associates might have said that “Everyone knows that ghosts don’t write blogs”.

I update Ali on other aspects of the project, including the plan to recruit 31 volunteers to write all the December blogs, so I can reach 45 copies of the planned book. See my new un-numbered pamphlet “17, 23, 45. You decide” for more. It is being distributed by volunteers across the UK, including Andrew, Liam, Graham, Heather, Dan, Art, Christine, Andy, Nick and Caroline (“The Ten” perhaps). I sent them inserted into Bill Drummond books with numbered titles (17 and 45).

Ali introduces the number 8 into our discussion – the Edinburgh café posts, representing a “middle 8” as he puts it (posts 41 to 48). It was indeed a very long discussion I had with The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor. But we still didn’t reach the point where The Benefaktor and I explained how we finally landed on our original kollaboration. Perhaps we’ll come to that.

After yesterday’s post we decide to stop outside Halfway House and we talk about the practice of pulping remaindered books that haven’t sold. I have been using misprinted versions of Kompanion Volume to illustrate recent posts and personalise the copies of the new pamphlet for “The Ten” to keep. That uses spare materials well. I certainly wouldn’t want the produkts of my labours pulped. But is it kowardly to print only those copies that have a name against them? Should I be aiming to publish more and seek a new audience?

When we get back to The Manse I recheck the website that stocks Bill Drummond’s most recent books. The four books published in 2022, printed in editions of 400, are still available at their original price. I know of people who have bought multiple copies. Remaining copies will not be pulped presumably, but it demonstrates the nicheness of even King Boy D’s literary outputs. I decide that 17, 23 or 45 will be enough for my re-enactment.

GANTOB

13 November 2023

* See The Letter in Kompanion Volume.

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
50. HALFWAY HOUSE

Nov 12th, 2023

The ghost of Curt Finks is communing with a rather more successful author at Halfway House. Ian MacPherson, author of Wild Harbour (1936) has travelled here on foot from a den close to Dalwhinnie, where he has been waiting for the “all clear” to sound. His feet are completely dry. He does not remember where he parked his motorbike. He has forgotten that he, too, is a ghost. They have met here before, gathering when authors come to this cottage for their “retreats”.

The current “solid” resident is an author who we would count as substantially more successful than Curt Finks. He has had a few books published. They were well received, but didn’t shift many copies. Others were commissioned but then the publisher folded. The story of his life. He is staying at Halfway House for a month, taking advantage of the cheap winter rate, while the owner takes the hit for the extremely expensive White Meter heating.

Curt Finks and Ian MacPherson watch their shadowed guest with interest (and envy) as he uses the new tools of the trade. There is a notepad and pen, but they’re rarely used. The keyboard he types into is almost silent. There is no dictionary. This has been the pattern of things over recent years. They rarely see the finished results. At night, the writing done, he sits with a handheld device on his knee, engrossed, occasionally jotting ideas in his notebook.

For this visit, however, there is a new substantial presence in the room where he writes. It appeared after he was away for a few days. Immediately before this departure he had fumblingly inserted things into his ears, talked earnestly into thin air, and shouted to stop. Finks and MacPherson thought that they had been spotted. Indeed, they thought that they had seriously spooked him when he ran out, returned fleetingly for his car keys, and then sped down towards Dalwhinnie.

Days and nights pass unnoticed when you’re dead. The two ghosts were first aware of the author’s return when they heard him ranting at the front door. “Pulp them indeed” he was panting as he dragged two large cellophane wrapped packages into the house. Slicing one open carefully he pulled out copy after copy of the same book, placing a few copies on a shelf and reading another through in a single sitting, nodding sagely at each well-turned phrase.

This piece was kindly contributed by the ghosts of Ian MacPherson (who considers himself just as much of an influence on the Roberta Antonia Wilson character in The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy as George Orwell or anybody else), and Curt Finks (who dislikes fake versions of himself on skateboards) 12/11/2023

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
49. RED SQUIRREL SKWIRRELS

Nov 11th, 2023

Red Squirrel skirts the drain of The Manse and stands on the solid slate roof. She looks down, past the trees, out over the bare fields towards the drone of the red van that is winding its way up the glen. Her heart is beating fast. Perhaps that was because of her recent climb, or just because she is just a very small mammal. She doesn’t feel small from up here though.

As the post van passes across the cattle grid, rattling its load, Red Squirrel feels as if she is going to burst. The postmistress slows almost to a stop, turns her vehicle up the drive, accelerating to crest the bumps, crunching gravel over weeds, and jumps out leaving the engine running. She runs across to the backdoor, leaving the parcels, letters and junk mail on top of the tumble driver. She looks up at Red Squirrel and winks as she leaves the house, easing herself into the van to make her return journey.

Red Squirrel slips down the drainpipe, manoeuvring skilfully through the window in the kitchen that is open even in November. She sifts through the new deliveries and nibbles the top of the largest of them to inspect the contents. A red corner. Looks promising. A sun faded spine. Yup. She opens the parcel and drags out the huge copy of Bill Drummond’s book 17. She will need the help of other family members to lift this one out through the window in the kitchen, back to the drey. But then she hears a car door close and the heavy tread of The Man. She skedaddles down the slippery white surface and waits.

The handle turns and Red Squirrel readies herself, tail curled around her burden. A narrow gap opens and she’s off, careering across the sharp stones, through the heather, across the burn, into the trees. She burrows for a few minutes and finds her stash, adding the new book to a collection of other number themed Bill Drummond books. She is storing these up for book drops across the UK over coming weeks, c/o The Vixen and other helpers. Vehicles for a new GANTOB pamphlet. A new competition promoting GANTOB’s second book of 2023. She can’t monitor GANTOB’s emails, but she’ll be able to gauge the response from the amount of food left in the bird feeder which she knows is really for her.

Red Squirrel 11/11/2023

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
48. NEEDS

Nov 10th, 2023

As The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor babble on about things, and pick daintily at their French patisserie like extras at a Swiss finishing school, I am thinking about need, and yesterday’s Nurse Matilda quote. I have demonstrated previously that the GANTOB project has fulfilled a need in many of the participants. It has connected people, fuelled their creative processes, given a new sense of purpose. I need to reignite that spirit.

I have asked people to contribute up to 3 posts for December 2023: a secular, month-long advent calendar, closing 2023 and anticipating the coming of 2024. I imagine kontributors opening the blog each day to see if their piece has been selected, just as I do when I have submitted a story to a literary magazine.

I await the proffered prose with the same sense of trepidation as the questions I needed for my eponymous book over the summer.

Will I receive enough applications to make this blog a worthwhile venture?

Will the applications provide plausible and interesting contributions to the GANTOB cannon, or will they be snippets of dream sequences that build up to some KLF-inspired chaos? If this is a re-enactment of The JAMs’ 2023: A trilogy I probably need both.

And if I do receive a reasonable number of submissions, will they fit together to produce a collective whole, or will they read like a fragmented mess in need of an editor?

I wonder about promotion of this newest engagement with my readership. Will it be of interest to The KLFRS’s Tillerman? I hadn’t heard a peep from The KLFRS for weeks. I worried I was on the wrong track with this blog. But then they shared one of my posts on Wednesday. A much-needed boost.

The pendulum of doubt in the creative process is all too familiar to me from other parts of my life. It’s like closing a deal as travelling salesperson, customers blowing hot and cold, detailed negotiations about final terms. I’ve written previously about the “pedestal phenomenon”(*).

The channel of need in a creative process runs in two directions. Sitting in this cliquey café, watching The Benefaktor and TFD bond, I feel as isolated as when I’m stuck in The Manse in Badenoch, waiting simultaneously for inspiration and for the phone to ring. I need to engage instead with my readership, The KLFRS and readers of The JAMs’ 2023: A trilogy.

GANTOB

10 November 2023

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.

The featured image in this blog (a version of Maslow’s hierarchy of need) is from Simply Psychology. Inspired from a discussion with my son.

(*) See On Anxiety (GANTOB pamphlet 16)
47. NURSE MATILDA EFFEKT

Nov 9th, 2023

And we keep talking. I tell them about the stress of searching for a job, the deflation of rejection. The Foundation Doktor details the chemical levels in the brain. She is talking in three-character acronyms. 5-HT (AKA Serotonin). She sees her grandfather fidget with the now almost completely healed scab on his head. Though only three months into her job as a doctor, she is already bored with unnecessary medical chat. She perhaps imagines him heading off into a ramble about 5FU or his health more generally and heads this off.

After her account of the effect of antidepressants and talking therapies on the same pathways in the brain I mention the self-help dimension of my GANTOB Book, the sometimes difficult circumstances of my korrespondents, the personal details of my life I shared in return. TFD tells us about transference and countertransference. She launches into an explanation, and I find myself lost in the detail.

I started off part 2 of this trilogy with a piece on “death of the author”. I have been planning to return to the topic, but I cannot remember the details. That is one of the perils of Kreative Tyranny, and the obligation to post 400 words each day, regardless of everything else that is going on. I like hearing about the lives of my regular korrespondents. I enjoy hearing their ideas about the development of the book, or responses to the pamphlets, blogs or messages. I recount this to my coffee time companions and TFD reaches for her phone again, types in a few words, and holds up a meme with the following words printed in cursive script:

“’The more they don’t want me,’ said Nurse Matilda, ‘the more they must need me. When my children don’t want me, but do need me: then I must stay. When they no longer need me, but they do want me: then I have to go.’”

(From Nurse Matilda by Christianna Brand, 1964)

This is a story that I remember reading to my own children, from around the time of the film adaptation (AKA Nanny McPhee). I read them all three books.

I like the idea that I channel Nurse Matilda. But then I recall the unnecessarily long dream sequence at the end of the series, and ever-changing names of seemingly infinite children, and I am brought back to The JAMs’ 2023: A trilogy with a groan.

The Foundation Doktor asks how I’d define need.

GANTOB

9 November 2023

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.
46. THE BEATLES

Nov 8th, 2023

The Benefaktor is reminiscing about The Beatles. He has been listening to their new (and final) single “Now And Then”. He is besotted. He has seen my post about hearing it on release day. I certainly enjoyed the track, though not with the raptures The Benefaktor experienced.

Instead, I viewed it through the lens of my own fixations, writing: “GANTOB is relieved that somebody has released a song with John Lennon on lead vocals for the end of 2023. Job done. She is now free to take her blog in her own direction rather than striktly following the JAMs/ Illuminatus trilogy structure. Just don’t tell The KLFRS”. I am embarrassed to note that I all too frequently write about myself in the third person, Donald Trump style.

I have read the end of The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy a few times, and still don’t think I understand it. Some of my korrespondents are obsessed with the book. A few have “ownership” of a page. Instead, I have been feeling stuck, attempting to shoehorn my thoughts into the events of that book as this blog attempts to re-enact The JAMS’ imagined version of 2023.

Common red soldier beetles (Rhagonycha fulva) – The Manse, Badenoch, July 2022

I make a decision. I will write that The JAMs foresaw The Beatles/Lennon’s return all those years ago, perhaps with inside knowledge from their mate Mark “Spike” Stent, who was instrumental in The KLF and the new Beatles track. Unlike The JAMs’ book, The Beatles/Lennon will almost certainly not be in kontention for the Christmas Number One, but probably not to the chagrin of Paul McCartney this time. No need to repeat this chaos for my own book. And for the second time in this coffee chat with The Benefaktor and The Foundation Doktor I feel a clearing of the air.

The Benefaktor is still wittering away. I hear occasional phrases. “Crystal radio for Christmas”, “Radio Luxembourg under my bedsheets”, “My brother was front-of-house at Caird Hall, Dundee when they played there”. The Foundation Doktor is watching the Now And Then video on her phone. She has heard her grandfather’s stories before. Her eyes are glistening. The Benefaktor notices this and explains that there are now three generations of Beatlemaniacs in his family. He is clearly very proud. This is safe territory for us. It’s how we first bonded after all. Our narrow and deep love of one revolutionary band, then the ikonoclastic ideas of another.

GANTOB

8 November 2023

Don’t forget to enter The Foundation Doktor’s competition to win a unique piece of art by GANTOB (inadvertently using TFD’s bootlegged text of an imagined Curt Finks story).

And send in your completed blog ideas for a chance to win the book of this blog.