beat.

Things to do before I leave town

My library is now in storage, which means I'm one step closer to my holiday. Storage centers are weird, pushing the trolley past dozens of identical doors, knowing there are hundreds of rooms in the warehouse and wondering: what is in all these rooms?

Only a few more days to go, and I still have lots left to do. A week from today, I'll be settling down for my last sleep in this country for some time.

I love Ross Sutherland's poem Things to do before you leave town, now more than ever:
Do not go back for your coat
Do not hard-talk the homeless.
Do not stare longingly up at the clock tower.
Stop taking yourself so seriously. .

I'm speaking at the Catalyst Club on Thursday 14th January

I am speaking at the Catalyst Club this Thursday, on 'How to escape from a WW2 POW Camp'. The Catalyst Club takes place at the Latest Music Bar on Manchester Street (BN2 1TF) and costs £5.  Doors open at 8 with the first speaker on at 8:30pm.

This is my first post of 2010 - the start of the year has been great fun, but hasn't allowed as much time for blogging as I would have liked. I will catch up with things before I go away.

The Brighton Santa Dash 2009

Today's training run was a little different, as I was entered in the Santa Dash. This is one of my favourite runs of the year. How can you not love charging along the seafront with hundreds of people, all dressed in Santa outfits?

The Dash has a great atmosphere. Someone had a tape-recorder at the start line playing Christmas songs, and I loved seeing the man pushing a pram decorated as a sleigh. The spectators are also very friendly - I particularly enjoy passing people who hadn't realised the race was on until they see the runners.

The 2007 and 2008 races have featured appalling weather so I was delighted to have a dry, calm day. This meant I could run a little faster. Last year, despite being fitter, I finished in just under 26 minutes. This year I finished in under 24 minutes, which I'm very happy with.

I will now wear my Santa outfit for the rest of the day.

Some old #foundwhilewalking photos

I found the photos below in my drafts folder. As you can see from the dates, I've been meaning to post them for a while.

30th October

 

29th September

 

3rd October

November 10th

New short story night in February

Sarah Charsley, who read a brilliant piece at the last sparks event, is organising a new spoken word night. From the Heart is on Friday 5th February, at the New Venture Theatre. It  will feature actors reading short stories. Sarah is currently looking for stories up to 1500 words on the theme of love. Full details are in the image below - click to see a larger version.

Photos of Zombie James

On Friday the 13th it was the Trailer Trash: Zombies vs Vampires night at the Komedia. I performed as part of the group act, which featured a battle between zombies and vampires. I fought Thérèse La Tease and Honour Mission before being killed and resurrected to do the Thriller dance.

It was a fun night, with Rosy compering, becoming increasingly blood-soaked throughout the night. The next Trailer Trash event is on New Year's Eve, and will be themed around Pirates of the Carribean.

Below are some photos taken by Ashley Clark. His main site is here, and he has a huge collection of shots from the night here (including pictures of the Zombies vs Vampires act)

Above: Me with Thérèse La Tease

Above: Rosy Carrick

Above: Me with Jake Spicer

A busy week

• Last Sunday I read my story 'Laurence Holloway's Cartoon Babylon' as part of Short Fuse's Nouvelle Noir night. Also reading was Danny Hogan from Pulp Press and AK Benedict. It was a fun night, and people seemed to respond well to my story. twhume and I enjoyed AK Benedict's piece, which included some horrifying information about what happens to men's testicles after death.
• Wednesday I went to see Luke Haines at the Hanbury Ballroom. Haines seemed to enjoy the gig, and played his hits alongside the new album, as well as two of my all-time favourites, Baader Meinhof and Bad Reputation, pausing the latter to describe the horror of playing a song about Gary Glitter to an audience of Ricky Gervais fans.
• Thursday was Hammer and Tongue (poet and novelist Lou-Ice talks a little about the evening here). The night featured Byron Vincent and my favourite poet from outside Brighton, Ross Sutherland. It was a busy night (we were at capacity for part of it) and featured the final heat of the slam before next month's final. The final should be good, with Spliff Richard, Adam the Rapper and The Speech-painter among the qualifiers. I might also be doing the sacrificial poet slot, which is likely to be be only ever poetry performance.
• Friday night was the Trailer Trash Zombies vs Vampires night. Kitty Peels made me up as a zombie and I was part of the group dance act, which included part of the thriller dance - so that's a childhood dream achieved. Kate Kamikaze has some photos here, and there should soon be some photos of zombie-James (and possibly video of the dance routine!). I'll post more about the night when I get some images.

I didn't get home from Trailer Trash until three, and then had to remove the gore and make-up before bed. I checked my email before turning in and received some great news: my story 'finis terrae' has been accepted for Sparks 7. It's very different to my recent pieces and has a female narrator. I'm looking forward to seeing what the photographer makes of it (as well as figuring how best to read it live).

Following my late Friday, Saturday and Sunday have been very slow. I managed about 5 hours sleep on Saturday before the block's fire alarm went off. The weekend has since been taken up with napping and rest. I emerged briefly this morning for the Brooks Brighton 10K, although I had to run 2 miles to make it to the start in time! I'll post about that another day though.

Some photos from Fear of the Dark

The last couple of weeks have felt very busy but, after a tiresome journey on East Midlands Trains, I'm now recuperating at my sister's rural compound. I'm currently working at the kitchen table, watching the chickens while catching up on things - like posting photos from last Thursday's Fear of the Dark event.

Things seemed to go very well. I spent most of the performance backstage, so didn't see many of the acts, but I enjoyed what I heard. Bernadette Cremin did a fantastic series of poems about a woman called Patsy; Kay Sexton did a couple of stories, one of which she dressed as a scary old lady for; Strawberries and a Peach did two lovely musical interludes; and Glue Gun '91 produced a fantastic imitation of a dying swan, and a poem about Ruth Ellis that featured a staged hanging.

The final section of the night was performed in complete darkness. It seemed to work well (apart from one poor member of the audience who suffered an attack of the giggles). The evening was rounded off with serving cake to the audience. I'm not sure what everyone made of it, but I was pleased with what we produced: a spoken word evening like no other.

Another accounts is here (from performance poet/novelist Lou-Ice) and there are some morning-after tweets from @eldevri and @badgermind. The photos below show: Rufus Moonshine and Ruth Ellis relaxing before the show; a view of backstage; Ruth Ellis after the performance; and Gimley Whipple, serving cake, with an axe.

Thank you to everyone who came, and everyone who performed.

 

White Night 2009

I've been meaning to blog various things recently, but they'll have to wait until after next week. Tomorrow I'm running a writing workshop and on Thursday we have Fear of the Dark. It's going to be a busy week but I'm as excited as I am nervous.

I took time off last night for White Night. I'd slept through Saturday afternoon (I have a weekend napping problem) so it took me a while to get into things. I wandered around loving the pianos placed in the street and accidentally finding a singer on a North Street balcony doing the famous bit from Carmina Burana.

I met up with Kay Sexton and went to Fabrica. There was a fantastic atmosphere at the gallery, with a cafe and lots of drawing activities.

Nobody likes a stick-in-the-mud, so I tried drawing one of the faces in the gallery. Drawing fascinates me as, like writing, you aim to represent a reality by favouring certain aspects of a thing. Extracting significant visual information from a face was fascinating. The more I tried to sketch the faces in the gallery, the more I noticed shapes and curves, becoming more sensitive to the way the faces were composed, how different they looked when their angle shifted. While the faces might not have been recognisable as the ones I was sketching, they did at least look like faces, which was a pleasant surprise.

White Night was fun but, like a summer festival, it was as much about walking around and queueing as anything else. Still, it was lovely to see so many people out and to bump into old friends. I didn't have the stamina to stay up till the end (a dawn choral work on the beach near the fortune of war) and went home fairly early.

(Sadly I couldn't get in to Jake Spicer's Drawing Cards from the Deck session - preparations pictured below - but I think I will go along to the Brighton Life Drawing Sessions soon and try some more drawing)

I also went to see AK/DK on Friday night at the Leisure Sports Discotheque, where they played with :Kinema: and Trance Farmer. It was a great night and I stayed out longer than I should have done. Here is a photograph of AK/DK:

Two drummers! Two drummers! And synths.

Fear of the Dark at the Marlborough Theatre, October 29th

At the end of the month I will be teaming up with Glue Gun '91 to put on a very special Halloween spoken word event. Fear of the Dark will start in a brightly lit theatre, with the lights fading as the night continues, until the final acts are performed in near-complete darkness. We promise an entertainment like you’ve never experienced!

I will be reading short stories about clowns, zombies and worse. Rufus Moonshine and Gimley Whipple from Glue Gun ‘91 will be unleashing their own special blend of mayhem, including a performance of Swan Lake featuring special guest ‘Ruth Ellis’. Kay Sexton will be reading short stories and there will be poetry from Bernadette Cremin. We also have a musical interlude and a special guest appearance.

I'm very excited about this event. I met up with Rufus and Gimley earlier this week to discuss what we're going to do. Every so often we'd come up with an idea, look at one another and decide that, maybe, that was going too far. We're aiming for a mood a little like Jam and have some lovely ideas.

The night will start at 8pm in Brighton's Marlborough Theatre on Thursday 29th October. Tickets are £5 (or £4 for concessions). You can buy tickets on the door or in advance. I'll post a web link soon, and there'll be tickets available behind the bar at the Marlborough from this weekend.

I didn't even mention the apple bobbing, the cake, or the any of the other stuff... Fear of the Dark is going to be something special: you must come!