a bunch or two of cheerfulness

I’d lived in Battersea for years before I discovered there’s a traditional greengrocer’s just seven minutes’ walk from my block. And even though I’ve been frequenting Thurgood’s for a good few years now, I still get a tingle of anticipation each time I set off for their small but invaluable establishment. A proper greengrocer’s in Battersea! What new seasonal produce will be in stock? Once – just once – there was black cabbage, but, to my own bemusement, I was too scared to buy any. I wish now I had. Today, for the lucky sum of £7.77, I came away with a bag of English Cox’s, a few tomatoes, bananas, four blood oranges (hooray! the first this year, and one of my personal harbingers of spring), flat leaf parsley, a cos lettuce, a handsome swede (for Burns’ Night), two limes, one lemon, minimal packaging, and two bunches of scented cheerfulness. They look and smell gorgeous. Cheerfulness, a pound a bunch. That’s a bargain in my book.
Later in the year, there will be Cyprus potatoes with chunks of red earth still clinging to their skins, English asparagus for roasting, Scottish raspberries, nectarines… Long live the greengrocers!

a bulging fruit bowl

scented cheerfulness

a quick (late) sketch from the rear stalls

To a seat in the rear stalls at the Royal Festival Hall last night, for the T S Eliot Prize readings. This was the hot ticket on a very cold Sunday night. Nearly 2,000 in the audience. Eight shortlisted poets reading for 10 minutes each (give or take a rambling digression or two). Compered by the ever affable Ian McMillan. The stage bare apart from a lonely lectern and a discreet-ish promotional banner; centre back a large screen for the benefit of us punters squinting from the rear stalls. And in order of appearance:
Daljit Nagra – bouncy, boyish, infectious and inventive! I’ve read his collection Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! and it’s very good!!
Bernard O’Donoghue – the name was not unfamiliar but the poetry was. A touch of humour. Seemingly effortless but also moving. I like his themes – family, loss, exile. What lies beneath the ordinary. He ended with a finely judged elegy for a friend.
Esther Morgan – understated, cool poems. “It looks simple” one of her lines starts in the poem Grace, and these are poems (as all poems should be) to go back to, to mull over, to give them space to work on you.
David Harsent – mysterious, slightly withheld. Writing at the height of his powers, according to our compere. The last poem he read, Blood Alley, ‘about’ playing marbles as a child, and so much more; the twist of the last line sharp as a bully’s pinch.
[Interval. Scramble a plastic goblet of red wine. Exchange impressions with fellow poet Joolz Sparkes. Spot a few known culprits from the London poetry circuit.]
John Burnside - he’s funny, good at the banter between poems. And his poems aren’t bad either. In fact, I rather like them. Rich imagery, and beautiful precision. I close my eyes to listen better. He’s on my list.
Leontia Flynn – witty and self-deprecating and contemporary and engagingly discursive. After reading an extract from a long poem, she ended with an elegy for her father, who had Alzheimer’s. As she read the poem I realised I had read it before and been struck and moved by it.
Sean O’Brien – restrained anger, a powerful voice. And another elegy, this time for his mother (how many ways there are to be moved, how different and yet how close each individual’s loss).
And last but not least, Carol Ann Duffy – assured, razor-sharp, generous. Finishing with an elegy for her mother, Premonitions, and as she read this poem again it revealed itself to me as a poem I’d read and tucked away inside, the movement and feeling of the poem reverberating in me.

And the winner was announced tonight…

…John Burnside, in case you hadn’t heard.

pep talk

New year’s resolutions are so last year, don’t you think? Besides, I have a constant conversation with myself (mostly not out loud, but the occasional exhortation gets vocalised) about being more disciplined, focussing on what’s important, keeping the day job in perspective, not giving in to diversionary tendencies (that sounds like a political crime in some tinpot dictatorship), making time to write, and so on. I know exercise (walking, cycling, swimming) helps my mood and stimulates the creative juices. I can see there’s some value in the idea of ‘the power of positive thinking’, but I simply can’t be resolutely upbeat all the time. The motivational and self-help industry makes me queasy. So I’m left to my own resources and those private imprecations and the ongoing never-resolved tussle to carve out writing time from all the other pressures, pleasures and temptations of life in London in the twenty-first century. Phew. And when I do sit at my desk and ignore all the myriad distractions – as I managed to on several mornings over the festive season – and engage in writing – well, that is one of the best places to be in the world.

antithematic

As a writer, I’m allergic to themes. Or, perhaps more accurately, I have an intolerance of themes, rather than a full-blown allergy. I can see why magazine and anthology editors like themes – to give structure and shape, an overall coherence to the final selection. The theme may also help restrict the volume of submissions to a slightly more manageable level than it might otherwise be. Or it could be a themed writing competition, in support of a particular cause or to promote a sponsor. I realise the given theme is meant to be a starting point, a trigger to spark ideas in all sorts of directions, to be interpreted in any number of weird, whacky or wonderful ways. But, for me, too often, a theme leaves me cold. My writing muscles freeze, and I can’t get beyond the most obvious and literal images or thoughts prompted by ‘water’ or ‘chocolate’ or whatever the theme is. I’ve tried my darnedest in the past to write to a particular theme, but the resulting piece more often than not strikes me as weak or forced. On the whole, then, (oh, and I do love my qualifiers, which probably should be the subject of another post…), so, on the whole, if I come across a call for submissions on a certain theme, I’ll tend now to see if there’s an existing piece I’ve written that fits the criteria. That’s how my short story ‘Howard’s Journey’ found its home in the latest Duailty anthology, on the theme: ‘Home’.
Of course, more broadly, certain themes recur in my writing, sometimes despite myself: childhood, moments of departure, misfits looking in on life from the outside. A nonconformist streak, which no doubt also plays its part in my resistance to writing to a specific theme. Now, there must be a publication out there somewhere looking for obscure navel-gazing writerly reflections?

all quiet on the literary front

Not much writing going on, for various reasons (excuses?). I’m still adapting to (resisting) the full time work routine. And then, last week, there was my significant other’s significant birthday to celebrate. Cue: midweek break to Margate for bracing walks, sea air, magnificent skies and a visit to the new Turner Contemporary gallery – unprepossessing on the outside, but impressive inside. The current exhibition, Nothing in the World But Youth, is an eclectic survey of artists’ exploration of adolescence over the last century and a bit. Posters of gigs and rallies from the late 70s and early 80s; a montage of found footage from early rave clubs; The Smiths Meat is Murder album recreated from karaoke recordings of young fans from South East Asia; Glenn Brown‘s sculpted desk, Teen Age Riot, camouflaged in thickest cakings of oil paint (love that smell!); a strangely beautiful (beautifully strange?) short film, Lasso, by Salla Tykkä, with a knowingly manipulative soundtrack, which somehow captures, entirely without words, adolescent longing in all its absurdity and poignancy. Overall, a thought-provoking and moving exhibition. And not at all inappropriate for those of us who survived this turbulent phase of life a not insignificant number of years ago!
Now, here comes the winter solstice, some pagan festivities, and a few very welcome ‘grace days’ away from work. Time (I hope) to declutter the mind and put pen to paper. No pressure. No resolutions. Or so I wish…

from the steps of the Turner Contemporary, 14th December 2011

big paintings, small review

Well, hardly even a review. But I’ve been thinking about the Gerhard Richter retrospective, Panorama, on at Tate Modern at the moment. I’ve been twice now, and there is so much to see, and the work is so varied, which is one of the things I like about Richter. The same artist can produce bleak and troubling monochromatic paintings (for example, the 18. Oktober 1977 series), then wildly colourful abstracts, or a touching portrait of his daughter. He engages with difficult subjects (Germany’s Nazi past, the Baader-Meinhof gang etc), as well as ‘Questioning painting’ (Room 11 in the current show). But of all the work on display, I’m most taken by the six Cage paintings, hung in a room of their own, and separate from the main exhibition. If you can’t or don’t want to fork out to see the whole exhibition you can wander in to see these paintings without buying a ticket.
The 2006 series of canvases was painted while Richter was listening to the music of John Cage. The text on the gallery wall tells us that Richter is ‘drawn to Cage’s rejection of intuition as well as total randomness, planning his compositions through structures and chance procedures.’ The paintings are more muted – quieter – than a lot of Richter’s earlier abstracts. Layers of paint scraped and stripped back, like mottled streaks of glue and torn poster fragments. The palette all pale yellows, creamy greys, shots of verdigris. I’m reminded somehow of Cy Twombly‘s late paintings. And that wonderful word ekphrasis comes to mind. What’s missing, what I want to hear, is Cage’s music playing in the same room, to see, and feel, how the music and the paintings interact. Music begets Kunst; creativity begets creativity.

less is more, more or less

To Kings Place on Friday evening for a concert billed as 50 Years of Minimalism: Europeans & Experimentalists, featuring the sibling pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque, alongside musicians involved in Katia Labèque’s ‘contemporary rock band’. It turned out to be quite a varied programme, ranging from incredibly quiet and delicate pieces to the cacophonous. Now, there is a part of me that loves noise – whether it’s the industrial racket of early Einstürzende Neubauten, the shimmering crescendo of a thundersheet, or some other-worldly electronic fuzz; and I like the mild absurdity of an electric guitarist playing from a score on a music stand, while those audience members less enamoured of noise stick their fingers in their ears – but for me the highlight of Friday’s concert was the music of Howard Skempton. In the first half of the concert, Marielle played solo piano pieces from Skempton’s Images followed by Postlude – exquisite short pieces – the temptation is to call them fragments, but that makes them sound light and throwaway. They are small, perfect aural sculptures. In the second half, Matthew Barley performed Six Figures for solo cello, which I found intimate, beautiful and amazingly inventive. The Labèque sisters then joined Barley for a lively rendition of Skempton’s jaunty Resister, before the composer was beckoned up onto the stage for warm and well-deserved applause.
A special mention too for percussionist Raphaël Séguinier, who opened the evening with a mesmerising performance on solo gong (seriously!) of Postal Piece No. 10: Having Never Written a Note for Percussion by James Tenney, and later played Philip Glass‘s One Plus One (for ‘amplified table top’), drumming out the piece with his fingers on the closed lid of an upright piano. Both visually arresting and quite an ear-catcher. More minimalism, less contemporary rock, s’il vous plait.

immersive states

On Friday evening, we went to see the Pipilotti Rist exhibition, Eyeball Massage, at the Hayward Gallery. ‘See’ is not quite right; ‘experience’ is more accurate. And what a joyous, enriching and somehow also calming experience it was, and a wonderful transition out of – far away from – the working week. I’m worried now this is going to sound rather hippy-trippy, and you could find this aspect in the Swiss video artist’s work. On the whole, I’m not a fan of video art, but really this is too narrow a category for Rist’s art, which encompasses sculpture, installation, environment and sound, as well as her lush, flowing visuals. Her concerns include childhood, nature, the body, domesticity; the pieces are sometimes on a large scale – such as the room hung with pale, rippling curtains onto which loops of film are projected, and which you wander through as through a forest, or recline for a while on the scattered cushions made from stuffed clothing (a pair of jeans, a hand-knitted jumper – suggesting both dismembered body parts and cosy, homemade furnishings); sometimes small, delicate pieces – the beautiful conch shells and handbags, which you peer into and discover another world flickering inside, each with its own lilting, slightly distant soundtrack. Sometimes you’re not sure what you’re looking at – something red, glistening, fleshy; or bristly; skin, eyeballs, feet. And flowers – whole fields of intensely red tulips and bright yellow daffodils, vivid green stalks and leaves; and then these showy emblems of beauty are joyfully undercut – crushed, pulled apart, eaten.
My first encounter with Rist’s work was her 1997 piece, Ever Is Over All, at that year’s Venice Biennale, and it made a big impact on me. So I was thrilled to find it’s on show in the Hayward Project Space, and as subversive and uplifting as I found it the first time. To a gently rocking, infectiously whistlable tune, a young woman in a white dress and red shoes and carrying a Red Hot Poker strolls down the street, smashing car windows with her phallic flower. Flowers as weapons. None of this really captures her work. If you get the chance, go and immerse yourself in her worlds.

The following evening was my first live encounter with The Necks, described by Wikipedia as ‘an experimental jazz trio from Sydney’. Again, jazz isn’t usually my bag, but The Necks are something different, by several degrees. The two CDs we’ve got (Drive By and Silverwater) are endlessly engrossing listening. Each is an hour-long, improvised journey, and the patterning and textures that The Necks wring from the simple combination of piano, double bass and drums are astonishing. We missed the start of the first set due to – let’s call it a map malfunction, which saw us chasing around Shoreditch trying to find the Bishopsgate Institute. This turned out to be only a few doors away from the pub where we’d met fellow Necks fan, and illustrator extraordinaire, Andrew Pavitt. We had to wait then for a suitable moment to be let into the hall and creep quietly into seats at the back. Once we were in, it took me a little while to adjust to a) being late – since when did gigs start half an hour after the doors open? and b) being seated – I’d imagined the audience standing, pressing close to the stage, not seated in orderly rows. So I had to silence these jumbled, distracting thoughts, and gradually I did get drawn into the music unfolding around us. Still struggling to listen deeply without putting the experience immediately into words in my head. Close my eyes. Focus. Be in the music. Something switched; I tuned into the building intensity, a change of gear, and then a slow stripping back, lowering the temperature, coming to a hushed standstill.
The second set, following a buzzy, chatty interval, was an even more intense experience, helped no doubt by being there from the outset; the first three note theme plucked soflty on the double bass, picked up in the lower register of the piano, a scant beat tapped on the rim of a drum. The music developing from here in ever widening ripples, shuttling complexities, generating a trance-like energy that had me on the edge of my seat and all my nerves tingling. The Necks held us, for that 45 or 50 minutes, as they journeyed out on their wayward, crisscrossing tracks, finding their way back finally to the point of departure. What a privilege to be there in those moments when something new and unrepeatable is being created.
Home then with a new CD to add to our small collection – Mindset, The Necks’ latest.

a few dread words

Goals. Targets. Prioritising. Career. The language of business and the grown-up world. I resist, buck against it, my contrary side fights through. I think I can safely say I have succeeded (watch it!) in my stated desire not to have a career (with all its overtones of ambition, monetary motivation, seriousness, achievement over integrity). Writing for me is a vocation; it is my lifeblood, not to overstate it. Yet, I also have to acknowledge I am ambitious to some degree (which troubles me), and certainly it’s not enough to write and leave it in that cliched drawer. Writing means engaging with the world. This is important to me: being engaged, in the existentialist sense. And I like, too, the existentialist idea of a fundamental project. Project – another word that has become sullied in the work context.
And then I feel sorry for these words. It’s not their fault that (in my mind anyway) they carry such corporate associations. Words exist in the world. They have feelings, I’m convinced of it. We must treat them with care.

masks and wings

On Tuesday night, we found ourselves standing in a street in Shoreditch with a hundred or so others, all sporting plastic Alfred Jarry masks. The occasion: a group photo to mark the launch of Alastair Brotchie’s handsome and indispensable tome on the great ‘Pataphysician. Inside The Griffin pub, the pool table had been temporarily transformed into a bookstall for Atlas Press. In an ideal world, every pub would sell ‘extremist and avant-garde prose’ alongside their pints. It would have been rude to leave empty-handed, so as well as the Jarry masks and a few Jarry badges, we came away with a signed biography and a couple of essential pamphlets.

Then, on Friday night, we headed to Tate Britain for performances and interventions on a post-apocalyptic theme (tying in with the Tate’s John Martin exhibition). In a gallery hung with historical paintings (Reynolds, Gainsborough, William Powell Frith’s The Derby Day), Richard Strange had constructed a set for his Cabaret Apocalyptica, with old TV sets showing footage of riot and mayhem, electric tealights flickering, and a mannequin in a camouflage jumpsuit holding up a globe. You couldn’t move for art students and white boiler suits. Gavin Turk impersonated a death metal DJ. But the best intervention (in my book, anyway) was a too rare performance by Rene Eyre, as a dark, despairing angel, complete with magnificent black wings, dancing her agony to the churning wall of Mogwai-esque sound created by two self-effacing guitarists. What would life (post-apocalyptic or otherwise) be without rogue creative spirits such as these?