Marc Magnee

This was going to be some other kind of writing altogether but then I forgot my password and by the time I’d done the whole email me to reset and all that, I’d completely forgotten what I was going to write about before the entire login massacree – all tribute to Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant, oh forget it – started.

So, today is the first day of the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the dragon, I’m told the best of all of the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. I am not one nor am I aware of knowing anyone who is one, or maybe I do and forgot – perhaps I heard it when unsuccessfully logging in to somewhere once, and it clean went out of my brain.

Kung hei fat choi to all of you.

Now, if you’re not Chinese or don’t know anyone who is Chinese and/or don’t live somewhere that is Chinese, you probably wonder what all the fuss is about. Or how much fuss there is.

You know how huge Christmas is – and yes I know about all the other religions but this is to about that – in non-Chinese, ostensibly Christian countries? Well, Chinese New Year is like that. Living here in Hong Kong let me tell you, it is about midday on a Monday (holiday) and it is the only time I have been enclosed in such a cocoon of near silence since the last time I passed out (which wasn’t recently and isn’t something that happens much).

Shops are closed which is to Hong Kong something akin to an apocalypse. The shops in Hong Kong NEVER close in the daytime.

Almost nobody is on the street and barely a car. I’ve not yet heard one blaring car horn, and the entire population appears to have been rendered unconscious or immobile or both. That is what Chinese New Year morning is like.

So there you have it, from a forgotten story diverted by a forgotten password came this rant(ish) bit of scribble.

On this eerily quiet, Christmas morning feeling Chinese New Year midday I wish you and those you care about, and those you don’t, except for those people who fart in lifts – you know who you are, you deserve an eternity of mild discomfort – a very Happy New Year.

Cheers,

Marc.

An idea for a story popped into my head today while I was showering and listening to a Queen album.

Isn’t it bizarre how the mind works in the background while you’re performing insignificant tasks? The worst thing to do is to sit down in front of a blank page (or screen in my case) and try to tease out something. It is rare that anything emerges from my distracted mind while the mouse clicks its way through a series of web sites, each more disconnected from the initial purpose of opening the browser in the first place.

It is tempting to sit down to write with the internet disconnected for the duration of the session but the thought of being disconnected from the internet for any length of time at all is a thought that makes me cold with dread.

So, how to convert those wonderful ideas popping into one’s head during mundane odd-jobs into a reasonable period of actually turning that idea into a more substantial piece of writing?

If you have any ideas and I mean any, please let me know. Please!