Hattie in Montmartre / Croatia / Paris / Djembe

Marion Seward. Diary 1914

July 1st 1914

Our trunks were finished packing last evening ready for an early start this morning. Phyllis, as a sort of compensation for her long illness is to go with us, and we hope the journey will be an immense benefit to her....



So begins the diary of Marion Seward, my great grandmother, who travelled the world in 1914, kept a diary and a sketchbook of exquisite watercolours, no more than 2 by 3 inches in size.
Recently my mother typed up the diary and explored the possibility of publication, but a book of colour reproductions is costly.
However, they would make a briliant weblog, appearing on line daily...

Family Photos 2006

Christmas 2005 ...and one fom our wedding

Desk in June

Teenage Song

Like yeh yeh yeh
Like nuh nah no
Like - duhh! Like, unh!
Like errr….dunno.

Like a bolt of light
Like stormy weather
Like - djanowamean?
Like…. Wha’ever.

WE TWO BOYS

WE TWO BOYS was first performed by Bogus Theatre Company at the Leadmill, Sheffield and Celtic Lodge, Edinburgh, in August 1983, with the following cast:

BILLY Stuart Golland
WILLIAM Christopher Wilkinson

Directed by Jane Collins
Stage managed by Fran O’Shea

WE TWO BOYS was performed by Grapple & Graft Theatre Company at The Nuffield, Southampton and The Finborough Arms and The New End, London, in June 1984. It won the George Orwell Memorial Award in 1984

ACT ONE

MUSIC: ‘THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN’ BY THIN LIZZY.
BLACKOUT. LIGHTS FADE UP ON BILLY AND WILLIAM INTENT ON A GAME OF POKER. THEY SIT ON WOODEN BLOCKS EITHER SIDE OF A TABLE CENTRE STAGE. THE TABLE IS COVERED WITH A TABLECLOTH ON WHICH STANDS TWO COKE CANS, A TOBACCO TIN THEY USE AS AN ASHTRAY, CARDS AND MATCHES WHICH THEY BET WITH. THEY SHARE A CIGARETTE.

BILLY IS STOCKY AND WEARS A STRIPED RUGBY SHIRT AND JEANS. WILLIAM IS SKINNY AND BESPECTACLED, WEARS A BOW TIE AND BLAZER.

MUSIC FADES.
BILLY WINS THE GAME AND LAUGHS, TRIUMPHANT. WILLIAM SULKS. THEY GROW FIDGETY, LOOKING FOR NEW ENTERTAINMENT.

BILLY: See last night’s conflict, William? What a performance, eh? That had me gnashing, I can tell you!

WILLIAM: Oh sensational. That young chappy gave it some bottle.

BILLY: Norrarf, and when Jenkins scorched in off the back end…

WILLIAM: Marvellous!

BILLY: Thumping stuff!

WILLIAM: Quite so.

(PAUSE)

WILLIAM: Did you catch that end bit?

BILLY: Sorry?

WILLIAM: The end bit – when Chalkie dribbled off and the Boss called for a chuck up?

BILLY: Well – good on him!

WILLIAM: But Billy, it was a blinder.

BILLY: I saw it with my own two eyes, old boot.
(HE POINTS OUT THE PLAYERS’ POSITIONS WITH THE CANS ON THE TABLE.)
Chalkie here, right?

WILLIAM: Right.

BILLY: Jefferson foreshadowing, right?

WILLIAM: Right.

BILLY:` And then up comes Chalkie from the left hand and stuffs in the old two/four like a sodding geranium!

WILLIAM: Not at all, it was simply a classic example of the double lined blinder.

BILLY: Like a sodding geranium!

(PAUSE)

BILLY: What’s to do then, eh?

(WILLIAM STARTS GIGGLING).

WILLIAM: Oh I say!

BILLY: What? What??

WILLIAM: Hey – let’s wag off round the bog and prank, eh?

BILLY: Nah.

WILLIAM: Snoop on Old Baldy and fiddle the bits. Give Minor a wigging… you know, Billy: do naughties.

BILLY: Tear the legs off sissies? Drink piss? Rip Sally’s skirt and pinch her whoppers? Go sniffing knickers and gob on policemen!

WILLIAM: Scratch our knees knicking sticks from the tuckshop – you know the stuff.

BILLY: (STANDING). I’m tops though, sunbeam.

WILLIAM: Why?

BILLY: I’m tops because I eat bricks.

WILLIAM: I’m the hugest because my Daddy’s loaded.

BILLY: I’m the hugest because I’ve got hairs and no returns or else I’ll thump you.

WILLIAM: Bullying scruffbag!

BILLY: Wet! You shitty pisshole!

WILLIAM: You blob! You grotty scumball!

BILLY: Come here and say that.

WILLIAM: Shan’t.

BILLY: Come here.

WILLIAM: Won’t.

BILLY: Come!

WILLIAM: Oh dear. I cringe and suck thumb now, blink slow through teary eyes. Oh mum, what horrors. This big strong boy’s come to batter me cruelly.

BILLY: Hey, Snotty.

WILLIAM: Who me, sir?

BILLY: I gob on you, wimp features. My dad beat me black and blue and I never reddened. I didn’t whimper or widdle once. Me? I’m tough and resentful – my uncle’s a pirate. Come here, snot, or I’ll thump you!

(WILLIAM JUMPS UP ONTO THE BLOCK HE WAS SITTING ON)

WILLIAM: Policemen! Mummy! Billy is roughing and summoned the scaredycats – come quick please and tell him!

BILLY: I’m coming to get you, pipsqueak. Stenguns and jackboots, flick knives and pulpfaces! (HE PUTS HIS FISTS UP READY TO STRIKE). Cop this, blub arse!

WILLIAM: I’ll give you, Billy.

BILLY: Give me what exactly?

WILLIAM: Oh… things.

BILLY: Tell me what or I’ll thump you.

WILLIAM: (PRODUCING A BAG FROM HIS POCKET) Look – in this scrumpled up bag.

BILLY: Ooh! Ah – well… cleverclogs, eh? Poshoes and flash ones – I see. Gimme ‘em, you squirt.

WILLIAM: Shan’t.

BILLY: Gimme.

WILLIAM: Won’t.

BILLY: Gimme!

WILLIAM: Can’t. I promise. Blood honour. These are the winnings of Daddykins, his big ones. But look here, Billy, if you should tow my line…

BILLY: Now watch it, Wimpo; I’m big as shit.

WILLIAM: And I’m bright as a knife and wealthy with it. You thump and I’ll cut you. Deep. Gab on you venomous, you see?
(HE STEPS OFF THE BLOCK AND CROSSES TO SIT ON THE OTHER ONE, PRODUCING A PEA SHOOTER FROM HIS POCKET AS HE DOES SO.)
Pax, old chap?
(HE SHOOTS A PEA AT BILLY).

BILLY: Hmm… well… call it a truce. Uneasy peace. (HE SITS) Hey – we’ll truant right, and go laddoes!

WILLIAM: Now that’s more like it. Splice the batttlecry. Chunder forth.

BILLY: Two together, tough and sparkling.

BILLY & WILLIAM (LEAPING UP TO FACE THE AUDIENCE):
Up and at ‘em!

WILLIAM: Absolutely. Decked out in finery, a valiant package, harry the ranks with spear and sword.

BILLY: Come on, cock – let’s swagger.

(THEY MARCH TOGETHER AROUND THE STAGE, BILLY LEADING, WILLIAM COPYING HIS MOVEMENTS.)

BILLY: All right, Blossom?

WILLIAM: All right, Bruiser. Two together: him and me.

BILLY: Me and him. The two of us, Take no lip. We are the Champions. Right, wimpo?

WILLIAM: Right, Brickhead.

(BILLY OBJECTS TO THAT TITLE SO TURNS AND TRIPS HIM. WILLIAM FALLS.)

BILLY: Watch it, Squire.

WILLIAM: (PICKING HIMSELF UP AGAIN). You and me, Billy. What a team.

BILLY: You bet.

(THEY STAND AT THE FRONT OF THE STAFE LOOKING OUT).

BILLY: So, where’s the strife? Some spastic to pulp up, or a gypowog to claw some and slit eye…

WILLIAM: Billy – how rotterish!

BILLY: All right then, some posh arsed git to plunder if that’s more deserving.

WILLIAM: No, no – let’s play a game, we two; make epic together, intrepid and suspenceful.

BILLY: Cops and Victims and bags be cops: count to three and I’ll pan yer head in.

WILLIAM: Billy, no! A grander game this one: yes, a journey of unravelment. We’ll need our wits about us.

BILLY: Let’s play Napalm again and you be the carnage.

WILLIAM: No, no – we can further that for sure, two neat young sparks like us. Look ceilingwards, old fruit. What gloriousness awaits us once we’ve grasped the clues. This room’s a ruddy oyster; with your grit, my smoothtalk iced around it..

BILLY: You’re cracked, old nut. Can’t see a monkey’s flaming armpit.

WILLIAM: Look – I’ll show you. (HE MAPS OUT THEIR JOURNEY USING THE OBJECTS ON THE TABLE). We are here, right?

BILLY: Right if you say so.

WILLIAM: Believe me that we are. We’ll need to journey first through these.. fiddly bits. Like this.

BILLY: I see. (HE DOESN’T)

WILLIAM: At this point here we broaden out to encompass enemy lines along Parameter B, thus. You follow?

BILLY: Sure. But then what?

WILLIAM: Um, then… a city! Yes, of course.

BILLY: Why a city then? Why there?

WILLIAM: The significance of this is highly Top Secret and relevant. Here we must pretend… (HE’S FLOUNDERING NOW AS BILLY REALISES).

BILLY: Pretend what?

WILLIAM: Complicated things – you’ll see.

BILLY: And if we don’t, then what?

WILLIAM: We’ll get got, by hovering splats and suchlike.

BILLY: So what about this pretending lark?

WILLIAM: You be a rock and I’ll go frilly. That’s it. I’ll keep house. Thus at least some part will be revealed. And… then the word. And then the chase. And then we get there.

BILLY: Where?

WILLIAM: The Goal, of course. Where everything’s made plain and we get given everything.

BILLY: What – like striped paint, and X-ray specs to see through walls and..

WILLIAM: All that and more, Billy. Doubloons and crocks and.. (HE PICKS UP THE TABLE CLOTH AND CARESSES IT TENDERLY) the Damsel of course, distressed no longer once we’ve shown up to brighten her. She’ll love us as at a glance.

BILLY: Ugh!

WILLIAM: She’ll love us wonderfully though, like you can’t quite imagine quite.

BILLY: Hmmf!

WILLIAM: (DROPPING THE CLOTH) Oh – but before that… just here in fact: The Threat! Of course. But that’s unspeakable. We’ll need to conquer that to reach the end. You’ll like that bit.

BILLY: You’ve got me blind still, Softy. I’m jiggered if I can grasp it.

WILLIAM: But that’s to be expected. Simply a matter of innate lack of suss.

BILLY: You what?

WILLIAM: Don’t worry it. Look - crouch down. (BILLY CROUCHES) I’ll simply ride aloft your shoulderhood awhile and show the way. You’ll get the hang. (WILLIAM SITS ON HIS SHOULDERS.) Trust me Billy, my word is writ in adamant. Come now, Sir Billy, arise.

(BILLY STRUGGLES TO HIS FEET WITH WILLIAM ON HIS SHOULDERS.)

Selected Quirks

i

(poem wrtten in Sheffield, nineteen eightysomething)

That - soft - click

of the sitting room door handle
of my parent’s home when I revisit it
releasing like a madeleine dipped in ty phoo

That soft click

Having lain awake for ages
hearing the muffled buzz of tv laughter
I tiptoe up the stairs, reach up to the
warm brass knob

That soft click

Years later a girl called... Elisabeth?
sits in the armchair which is really my father’s,
crosses her arms over her chest
and pulls her teeshirt over her head
revealing
two new dawns

That soft click

Adam and eve and pinchme
went down to the river to bathe
took off all their clotheses
swam and laughed and played
then on the sunny bank they lay
indulging in sexcesses
in polymawful pervery
and sadomasokisses

we stripped off our denim
we stripped off our tee shirts
we stripped off our knickers
we stripped off our lies
and then God spake saying:
“From now until wonderdrug
there remains stretched
between all women and all men
between all men and all men
a taut membrane of fetherlite rubber
and who punctures it dies

the vicious little shit! but what the fuck
never mind this new filth forged from the
juice of our understains. God knows
what dark crust of odious murk
already cakes us?

Nostalgia:
bottomless feelings without conclusion,
an endless, pointless sigh

Jealousy:
the stomach opens, scrotum tightens
each croaked word I speak drops from my lips and
aaaaaiiiiiii!

My son Joey crazes round the room stark naked,
wanton libertine, begging pleasure me pleasure.
Simple at three to be starkers. Boy o boy
it gets harder and harder

Satin & lashes, peaches and steam,
leather and fleshiness, creme de la cream
hitch this up, stick that out, pout thus and thrust -
voila: lust.


The Commas, Brian Lawson & CM, live at The Crucible, Sheffield, Nineteeneughtysomething.

SELECTED QUIRKS OF CHRISTOPHER OVERLEAF 1970 - 1990

Buspoem

It was quite
a long-time ago.
There was a
red bus
at dawn.

Little red
and grey shadows
lurking
and wandering
from seatoseat
among the old ladies
and weeping conductors.

Sixpence
The little red bus
stopped.

At the end of the bus queue
bulletbus
with
cobweb windows
I watched
as the doors buckled open
and the grey mistshadows
slid up
onto the bus
and
the brownshadows 2
giggled
and pounced
on a
runaway driver
who suffered
from severe engine trouble.

A couple of
ties
stepped aboard
and wandered past the shadows
to disappear
into the back
into the past.

Sixpence
And the greyshadows
rise up
and sweep
still cackling
out of the
cracked lips of the bus

Sixpence
And,
hiding a tear beneath my busticket
sweep out with them
and across the road
into
the
shadowschool


1970

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Raft

In frost all substance equalised:
brick, flesh and earth as cold, as hard
as raw blue fingers digging in the snow,
unearthing twig and bone.

You are a brave child,
foraging the stillness of a landscape
without space beyond these lines.
Your hot head feverish,
in the onslaught of a perishing wind,
convulsed by pump of blood and footfall,
wet-eyed; at every breath steam rising.

You are gathering objects to you,
stripped now of function,
scratching the frost
from these emblems embedded,
assembling and binding them,

constructing a vessel.
I cannot know what words,
what images you choose to store -
provisions for interior siege.

You are building a raft,
a thing to cast off in.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Sound Poem

You, listener, speak;
I take the credit
/edit/ out the hums
and ha’s; “I’m just a medium
sort of person, really,
tuned to my Fmeral reality.”
With razor blade and sticky tape
reclaimed as Personality.

I listen. I record.
I analyse and then revise -
“It seems to me,” and what seems
NOW
is past rewinding passed
from reel to reel
refined rejigged reverb
...verb
...verb
...verb

May I present
A BALANCED VIEW
__________________*
*my pencil drew
this fine blue
line

While on the other hand (hand other the on while)
The Radical,
extremistly self-styled,
prepares to phone -
(delayed by seconds
...1...2...3...4...5)
- to phone in LIVE

Hello?
Hello?

“We’re talking to,”
a yard or so of tape
AND NOW A BREAK////////////////////////////////////////////


to play a jingle
spin a disc
to tell you this
is RADIO
oh, wonderful, oh
RADIO
oh, singin’
chattin’
proppin’
up the status quo
...quo
...quo
...quo

May I present:

THE QUIZ FUN CHAT
KID SOOTHE & THRILL
SHOW
THE 24 HR A DAY
WEEK IN ONE EAR
& WEEK OUT
ALL YEAR ROUND
SHOW

Hello?
Hello?

My... (talk into this please:-)
my dumbness transmitted
in stereo
multiplied nation-wide
latent voice hovering

silently seethes up the air
at a very high frequency
drifts over the city
awaiting a listener
a you to tune into me

Hello?
Hello?

You read me?

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

King

huddled embryonic
in warm corner
of cold, dark world;
a soft, white solipsist
silently curled,
am playing my gigglestick,
fiddling about under cover.

slipping under the covers
of hard-edged reality,
into my underworld...
King Wanker
of a flushed, moony universe,
bosoms and buttocks
I summon up,
the old rites perform,
polymorphous, perverse
in my otherless land.

this bedship I steer
beyond possible bounds,
King Wanker
sticks pins into darkness
where the fears are full flood.

savage - I feel no rage
surrendered - I feel no shame
what harm can I do?

O, but the onrush,
the guilt juice,
the spillage -
the howl of alone!
unable to lie now
to cuddle me,

King Wanker
King Man
grit teeth
slip tight

no need to awake
unless bodily shaken


''''''''''''''''''

Him

Your long words
never cease to confound me;
your estranging nod
when we pass in the street,
your barest glance
through the thick of debate
as the ol’ dialectic plods on.

‘ah yes, but...’
A safe flirtation
through the thick of the themes
we discuss:-
a) The Role of the White,
Anglo-Saxon, Protestant,
Middle Class Male
In Contemporary Society.
b) The Sexual Politic:
A Personal View,
c) by allusion, occasionally,
tentatively,
The Nature of the Relationship
Between Me And You.

We armwrestlers
we two men
over coffee over beer over three years
of Eng. Thought & Lit.
sat discussing, squeezing out pips
from our separate experiences
pressing together.

“ah yes but...
WE CHART MAPS OF COMMON GROUND
WE PLANT SEEDS OF COMMON STRUGGLE
WE PLOT ROUTES
through the thick of the future
as the ol’ dialectic plods on
through the thick of the web of the text
to a point where the two of us fit
in the closest proximity.

“ah yes, but...”
your long words
never cease to exclude me
from the heart of the matter.
Come time we do not hesitate,
don’t loiter to natter but
turn back abruptly to Real Things:
lives with our women.

“ah yes, but...”
just once or twice I have had you
through the thick of our distances;
I saw and I ached and I gobbled you up -
your hesitant, confident eyes,
your graceful, nervy gestures,
chopping up squares of air.

“ah yes, but...”
your long words
never cease
never falter nor lead me
to a place to make other shapes:
angers and sanctuaries,
silences, tangles.

oh yes but
the ol’ dialectic plods
on
and
on.

We armwrestlers
half brothers
love smugglers

we two men.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,


Pocket Guide

Ye olde Brumagem
Heart of not far from Shakespeare country,
Load of old bullrings.

Municipal Brum of stalwart chaps
Chamberlain, Cadbury Baskerville,
Watt, Rattle and Carrot.

Brrrmingham - Motor City
of ringroad and superprix,
great place to get out of quick.

Eurobrum: new jet set
conference and communications centre
simultaneously translating
to all corners of the globe.

Multibrumicultural city
of Balti, Bhangra and Carnival,
snazzy shades of youth groups
juxtapositions and fusions
of elders’ traditions.

Workingbirmingham
Land of hard graft and metalbashers
where self made men
made cars, planes and pins.

Boringbrum
Britain’s second (rate) city
self deprecating
self confessed
dullsville

Brimming Birmingham
forward citizens
of City and Villa
to symphony and opera

Proud Birmingham
more canals than Venice
more parks than Paris
more hype than anywhere
city of a thousand trades
city of a million souls
city of a trillion possibilities.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The Politics of Glances

The Politics of Glances
a delicate matter.
Her caution, her cynical glint,
that hint of - admit it! - desire.

And how can she communicate
without manipulation
without sell-out
without strings,
assert her right to ask,
might we light perhaps tonight
each other’s fire?
Instead the looks and smiles,
the talk of other things.

So, what’s the risk?
She’s sussed up to the eyeballs,
all options open,
insured, at least in part,
against despair.

To reach out to someone,
to a man to be precise,
to reach out for something
and find it not there.

He makes all the right noises though...

Succumbing again
to men and their treachery,
confronting the oppressor with,
of all things, a kiss!

And didn’t her friends say:
The prick is a gun with babies for bullets,
it is pressed to your life,
your glances his trigger -
don’t pull it! don’t pull it!

Rocking with her sisters at the interface;
thinking that, doing this.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Song for Swinging Politicoes

Let’s go! One two three four -
INVADIN GRENADA
Bangawanga, bombawomba, -
hup - hup - hup -hup - hup
INVADIN GRENADA
Democracking, stabilicing, bestowing freeedum -
dumb -dumb - dumb - dumb
INVADIN GRENADA
north south big mouth east west we’re best
INVADIN GRENADA
we got the key you got the cruise -
how can we lose? how can we lose??
INVADIN GRENADA
INVADIN GRENADA
INVADIN GRENADA

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Dance Daddy Dance

Dance Daddy Dance
out of nowhere someone come
the tip tap tip of ten new toes
beat the big soft drum
beat beat cos Joe is come

Dance Daddy Dance
clutch to your chest his hot head hug
he grib grab grubs he longs to suck
eat eat now - Joe is come

Dance Daddy Dance
in the early hour he howling howling
rock rack rock dat soggy bum
him suds him shit him bodyheat
sweet sweet Joe - Joe is come

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sheffield Elegy


ThisBeingTheIntolerableTelling
OfNoneOther ThanThatAbsoluteFact
OfLifeAsWeDreadIt
CominToYaLiveAnPreRecorded
DoubleSpeedQuickTimeNeedfulCraving
MindfulofAllBeatsAndSubtleties

SHOCK! thatsthenameofthegame
SHOCK! tellingitloudstyle
backforsideswards - upandown
goin on a mission on a character assassination
shut up an listen BAMBALAMBALAMBAMBAM
(eeupduck!)


eros & thanatos wrestling in the park
adam and eve and pinchme driving through the dark
I&I and she/he their ReLayShunShip marooned
on jagged anger, high and dry, high and flying
flunking out to stray red eyed the bleary city
itchy city shitty city - shut up an listen

I&I and she/he mourn the dead
wet their lips, press kisses to her silent wrist.
SHOCK!
The wrench bolts through
their limbs conducting
death to life to rage to rage;
a livid consciousness of every breathing.

in and out and in and out
this is the way through the guts of the city
as the mourners hysteric it dancing 2/4
sticky hand in sticky hand,
wobbling on the brink like baggy toddlers.

and remember the old days? the nice days
the bluepeterland of nice clean white faces
so PaTerNaliStickally polite, so simply super,
so goodytwoshoes?

and we were young and easy under the strobelight
eyes wide, legs wide, smiling,
reading the news today boyoboy,
dreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemin.
We had a dream then and pots of money,
no egg on face, no rags, no bones...

FastForwardToNowThen
TheMAtterOfTimeBeing
ThingOfTheMinute
ThisGloomyBlueAgeUppermost
ReseshunHitCrumblinSheffield
slap in the face for the well brung up white kid,
pinko, affluent everso, the mealymouth.

SHOCK!

Southsider sidles northwards
gleaming newpinstyle
thinks he’s the cream man, the fuckin creme -
reet chuffin berk ‘e were

“Shutupanlisten” this woman sez,
gobsmacks the kiddiwink,
lays him on some
PoLiTickle Re-EduKayshun -
Get this - info on what’s
goin off an stuff, the what’s to do.

He blinks, gulps some and shoulders up,
roll’s up his sleevies - you bet!

And if I could only
with sharp steel scissors
clip out the good bits
assemble crisp booklets of
black print on white paper
the whole doings packaged concisely
to be flogged for a bomb

And if I could only
funds apply for for ongoing
workshops and skillsharings
brainstorms and nosepickings
by misfit truants laddoes and girlsonly

And if I could only
store 3D multimead
softwearing videoh dear
her everybreath recorded
stored in memory for
atatouch recall

And if I could only
be naked singularity
clutching her gift to my throat
silver locket of black black
antimatter black hole of
hopelessness warping the everyday

And if I could only
fight back the panic -
“You and I two also rans,
lost at sea in a baked bean can”

Today wrenched from its socket
cars back into lamposts, old lady topples in the road,
a drunk is roughed up and dumped outside the pub -
all duff. grit yer teeth and kick a policeman
(we need someone to blame)
sing: BANTHEBAMBALAMBAMBABOMB
grow wings to soar above oppression,
rage rage against the killing of the strong.


Satanic

“The exposure of a writer of twice his stature...”
“The status of a writer of no substance at all...”
“Fiction of a danger substantially greater...”
It is. Are you? Aren’t we all
Backed up against the wailing wall?

Speechless - gobsmacked -
heartfelt - unutterable,
darkly unmuttering
stunningly silent
our adjectival causes
turned suddenly
violent.

As the Sky rains down its drizzle
of wall to wall celebrity,
plugging holes in chaos
with tromploy pictures of integrity,
recipes for disaster
in undergrounds, at Locherbie,
How-To guides to scandal -
do you want to be a wannabe?

It is. Are you? Aren’t we all
Backed up against the wailing wall?

Lest we forget
the gap twixt text and chat show,
twixt scraps of newsprint headline
and the floating turd,
a three minute silence, a momentary pregnancy -

Praise be to Allah
for the power of the written word.


Edge of August, Keef Green, Jon Arnold and CM, Phun City, Hoxton, London, Nineteenseventysomething)

GIGOGNE PROJECT 2002 - 6

Gigogne Read Through, London 2004



GIGOGNE JOURNAL

Extracts from Emails between Julie Riou & Chris Meade
May 2002 - January 2003
Member Name: béca
Location: FRANCE
Sex: Female
Marital Status: CELIBATAIRE
Hobbies: THEATRE INFORMATIQUE BALADES EXPOS DESSIN CONCERTS
Computers: PC
Occupation: Artist

Member Name; Snugandoutdoor
Location: LONDON
Sex: Male
Marital Status: Married, 46, two children
Occupation: Writer, Arts Administrator
Personal Quote: “This is a world of Imagination & Vision” - William Blake

hello Snugandout !

I've just read your personal card, I'm very interested in. I'm writing to you cause i'd like to find your help, working on my play.

Well, actualy, I'm Julie, 24 in Paris, and I'm putting on a play I need someone to write... The story bord I made is quite precised, but very free and unperfect : if we talk about it, i'm curious of your opinion.

I drew mine inspiration from Gertrude Stein's texts. That's the reason why i'd like to work with an English person for the script ! I read that you are a musician too ? A drummer ? I'm interrested in that too, mecause music will be an important part of the play, live music will be included. I've already got friends happy to help me that way (professional musicians, and olders than me, that i think it's good)
I didn't look for money now, but i hope to find subsidies... Would you work, just for the fun ??? :))
Or, if you could just give me your advice, not working really on it, it would be great too ! ?
I'm not going to explain you all the thing, because you are perhaps not interrested. So, *I'm waiting for your answer, let me know,

julie

Well, what an interesting e-mail! Yes, I'd be very interested to know more about your play. I have written for the theatre and would love to get back to it. I live in London and run a charity promoting books and literature, I also am conga player in a band which plays (for fun) Buena Vista Social Club-type Latin American music. Please do send me your storyboard and I could certainly give some advice whatever.
All the best,
Chris





The pictures I sent you are taken from the scenary I made at the end of this project, as a played application of the applied arts principles I developped. The subject born of an object I was observing for two years : a very poetic metallic, old and colored top. This magic toy made me work on luxury, danse, life, air, music, repetition, overlaped "nest of " (not sure of the word : "gigogne" in french), extreme sensibility, precious, dreams, projections, protection, transpearence....

And most of all, I turned the top into a person, studying how we are at the same time, a result of what surrounds us (the top is under the quality of the material wich it is mooving on, like a victim) , and the creator of what is surrounding us... These point of view gave me three caracters of the play : the actress-dancer, the manipulator-lover, and the relator. Perhaps the actress caracter should be divided in "gigogne"'s ones.. I don't really know.

For the athmosphere, I dream of an aerian, dramatic, quite and mute area. Only the music and the relator would be eared (Gertrude stein's words are perfect for the expression of music and cycles). The play is a dance between the actress(es) and her home own space : at the beginnig, the house is invisible, looking like a packed new one. The actress is very heavy and like a colored "gigogne" statue. At the end, it's the like Newton's discs)or not (a compact ball). Perhap is it easy to say top is an allegory of life, when people don't stay, whereas their intimity space (home, music, texts, memory) can remain omnipresents ? ... I simply feel that way.

ok... enought to begin, isn't it ? Would you tell me what is and not ? What draws your inspiration, what do you think is less good ?

Thank you for your time,

Julie Riou

Dear Julie,
I was at the Matisse Picasso show at Tate Modern today and saw the portrait of Stein and thought of you. Now I find you've sent me your amazing set designs and fascinating outline of what you have in mind. Let me think it over but I'm really interested. A major influene on me was Picasso's play 'Three Little Girls' - do you know it? Years ago I wrote a play called We Two Boys, (the title of a painting by Hockney). I am busy, but like the idea of a project like this, and am still stunned that you found me on the internet! I'll be in touch, What's your deadline for this by the way, or is it a longterm project?
All best
Chris

Dear Chris,

Thank you very much for your comments. I'm very glad you thought my set designs and outlines were amazing. I searched through the Internet to find the play "Three Little Girls". However, I couldn't find it. Neither could I find "We Two Boys." Could you, by chance, email me a copy of these plays or perhaps refer me to the website where I can find them? Who made the scenary for the play you wrote? Do you have any photographs of this play you can email to me?"
…

You think my project is bizarre, not very clear ? We certainly need to meet each other and discuss it looking at my all scenery, and at the objects, the clothes I made. By the way, it's sure that my project has to be criticized and corrected a lot. It's the reason why I don't want to work alone, but with a team. i didn't take any date to go to London for the moment, but I'll try to come soon. I hope to see you there.

So, Chris, thank you very much for spending time;
See you soon in my letter box ?

Julie Riou.

Yes, I'm keen to meet up with you on friday, and I'll see if Hattie can come too. At Spitalfields Market there's a bar called the Spitz which is well known. How about there at 3pmYou can call me there when you get to London.
I haven't had much time to think about your project yet, but I'll bring along a copy of my play and we can talk it through then.
Looking forward to meeting my internet friend!

Hi Julie,
Well it was fascinating and lovely to meet you both on Friday. Your dissertation is a beautiful document, rich with great images, and I'm trying to understand more of the text. I hope you weren't disappointed by the real me! I am excited by the potential of this piece, whatever comes of it, and will try to send you some kind of treatment in the next few days. Let me know if you've had any other thoughts since we spoke.
Shame you missed the party - it was a very good night - but no matter.
All the best
Chris

How is my famous writter today ?
Well, I hope ! :)

I guess you finally didn't have time enought to begin with the play ?
At last, I escaped from the disappointing area where I was, and thought of a lot a things, new things for the setting, and the actions, music...

Do you manage thinking about the subject while you are working ? I know you are busy, but, whatever you have in mind, or not, I think it would be great, if you could make soon a short beginning, in order to discuss about it . Even if it is very very oversimplified. I don't want to force your inspiration, but we have to begin one day, you know ? ! Let's beginning writting sentences, sounds, musical parts of ideas... I don't know ! I would like you to work with your words like you are used to play drums : sensitively, intuitively... If you feel it lt this way of course !
Keep in mind Stein's sentences that are written in the "memoire" I gave you. Do you have the 'tender buttons" texts ? This texts are the reference.

I propose You to think about the parts, exactly the way i'm working with Yannick for the music:

1) Storm, air , cataclysm, violence, birth, bass beats, heartbeats, fear, expecting, big bang... live ! (short)
2) Quiet, calm, naked, new, young, awakening, first discovers, (short)
3) Game, mistakes, rules, energy, songs, experiences, growing up, piling up, maturation, space and body relationship, gigogne areas and persons. influence of the environnement under the individual human being, and the inverse (long)
4) accumulation, distorsion, too much, bizarre, strange, false, trap, wrong way, slower and slower, heavyer, and heavyer, darker, less air, suffocation
oldness ( slow, medium)
5) body death, body soul dance, return to the beginning. Cycle. very much air pushing out the bodies . things are still there, bodies have passed.

I'm working on the storybord, and will try to send you things at the end of the week, to make things go in the same order. What do you think about all that, Chris ?

Read you soon, all the best,

Julie.

Ebbeca: hello Chri s!!
Snugandout: Hi there Julie, and I'm actually at work on the treatment right now!
Ebbeca: really ? I let you work quietly !
Snugandout: Probably a good idea. How about you? Hows the chandelier?
Ebbeca: they are at their very beginning !
Ebbeca: but i'm at home now, so I'm here for thinking about my own project... Tired of chandeliers !
Snugandout: Ok. How do you feel about the Narrator being covered in layers at first, like a prengnant person/the top/gigogne and the dancer starting off wearing little, then the Narrator gradually takes off different clothes which the dancer puts on to create different personalities for different rooms??
Ebbeca: it's a good idea, why not...


THE PLAY presents five facets of one old woman whose memory is a blur - everything in her familiar environment has become invisible to her. But she has suddenly regained a strong sense of herself.
She has come FULL CIRCLE in her life.

At the start: the storm, everything in chaos around the woman who is spun like a top by the Manipulator.

Then five women climb out from the ground (as if from a nuclear bunker).
These five facets play musical chairs as elements of the room descend.
The losers are banished to stand frozen in different rooms of the house.

In the following scenes each Gigogne enacts a different aspect of the woman.

In the BEDROOM is the spoilt PRINCESS. She is innocent and fresh to things.
She brushes her hair, looks in the mirror, imagines her prince, but she is brittle and proud.
She talks about: ponies, jewels, cinderella-type fantasies, privelege, failed friendships with the 'ordinary' people



In the KITCHEN is the HOUSEWIFE, playing at making cakes, letting the washing up stack up into towers.
Her talk is about an imaginary brood of children, babies and husbands for whom she provides. She is hard working, sturdy, but resentful of her load.
Games of pat-a-cake, bizarre recipes, Cosmo-type advice for the Ideal Mum….



In the BATHROOM is the BATHER, sensual and animal, a wild side of her which she tries to control by washing herself obsessively. But then she luxuriates in the bath.
Her talk is sexual and scatalogical. She tries to wash away her sins.

In the SITTING ROOM is the VIEWER, depressed and passive, soaking up reality TV and cartoon fantasies.

Her talk is about an office job, the dull routine, her ambitions thwarted, loneliness, the Internet, TV, pills to suppress her worries and passions.

Finally in the GARDEN the NARRATOR begins to appreciate how her isolation has allowed her to live in the imagination, to allow herself to play with the different aspects of herself.

The five gigognes play. The NARRATOR has gone full circle to unlock herself. She waters cut flowers, she escapes from the house, climbing up her own hair(?) to be free/to die…

A rather predictable analysis would be that the woman was traumatised in childhood by taboo sexual feelings (perhaps an abusive uncle ), has fended off adult relations ever since, and now in old age goes back to that time to confront her fears and free herself.


Ebbeca: I think we are on quite same waves, don't you ?
Snugandout: I think we are on the same waves yes!
Snugandout: (wavelength actually)
Ebbeca: oh thak you ! I was searchoing the word in my dictionnary !
Ebbeca: i've a big lack of vocabulary, you know ?
Ebbeca: I'm working on the game of chase, rhymes they chant. I'll send it later today oh yes !
Snugandout: I'd like the woman to be living in a place which is a mix of paris and london. the writing should have some of the feel of our correspondence i think. infact i find myself writing in your kind of english !
Ebbeca: i liked this rythmic too

Minded to spin in the green green light. I ask you. And asked everything of everybody
Snugandout: And its a pleasure to be quoted back to myself!
Ebbeca: :)
Ebbeca: my kind of english ? It would be a disaster, Chris !!!
Snugandout: No - its very poetic actually!
Ebbeca: what does that mean ? childish english ?!!
Snugandout: And so strange that our ideas connect given how you found me
Snugandout: No, you bend the language in interesting ways.
Snugandout: brb
Ebbeca: yes, I'm very very very happy to have found you !
Ebbeca: i tjink i build english like french sentences, that's all !

hello Chris !

Your text is magic...I am really impressed... and very happy you respected all the ideas we discussed about. Thank you for being so conscientious and implicated.
Now, shall you read it again, and try to make another version wtih more rythmical sentences, and poetic sounds ("alitérations" in french) ? really like a psalm.
I'm trying to make the stirybord of the second part, so we 'll be abble to discuss about it next. Pleasen if you can wait having the drawings before to write definitively, it would be perfect ! I appreciate your ses of articulate the scene together... I join your text, if you can read my comments, and tell me about it ?

read you,

julie





FIRST DRAFT SCRIPT, SENT BY CHRIS, RETURNED BY JULIE WITH COMMENTS IN BRACKETS

GIGOGNE: (is she the narrator ?)

Wha?? Where was I? When I saw - a blur - all blur - What? Everything spins and I fear to topple. I am toddler and totterer both - that terrible, beautiful, blessed, scented morning.

Spring obviously, as it always is back then; honey-suckle and fresh lawns and applesharp deedah (don't understand this word)and beeswax(nor this one), mind your own. Minded. Child. Minded to spin in the green green light. ( i like the rythmic) I ask you. And asked everything of everybody.

Why is the sky blue and the hole black and the how many light bulbs does it take to make a sun, Mummy? (very nice, i like this flash back !, the picture)Child chided (word..?.). For playing tictack with the ruffians, scuffing my best - what a crime! Go to your room! Go on! Up the stairs to Bedfordshire(word ?). Brush your briar-tangled locks! Get hot and hurt, you and your red-eyed gang! You witches!

Where?? Where was I? And where are you, weird sisters, stirrers and spellbinders. Where are you locked up with me somewhere in the ivory tinkling tower? I hear you still - yes - sniggering and gibbering through keyholes. Do I? O -i like that !

i don't understand this part
The derangement - quite pleasant sometimes - off my rocker/ trolley /tree etcetera - going round the bend and up the road to pastures brimming.

How many breathes does it take to make a lifetime daddy? Not so many more.
i like that flash back, and the idea is very poetic too !

I keep my breathings in little stone boxes which I shut with a click and lock (nice rythmic) inside slightly larger boxes. I adore this idea beatifull picture
I breath into lockets (the thing you put on your neck ?)and plastic bags, store them in baskets on the off chance that it shall never come to me: when I shall lay me down to rest, sleep till the maggots mingle with my brain and the slugs lick my jelly eyes my oozy eyes my barefaced eyes all naked naked o what sights we are seeing sister!

O God forbid are we so filled with the light with spun gold blurred invisible the known world the virgin lands. Wake me to a world fresh baked and body bared and all awakening! i like



SCENE 2
Bedroom: (princess and pea
really nice idea to put the light on the princess, narrator and princess again because of the incident. i like this exchange and parallel)
PRINCESS stands in THE BEDROOM like a sleepwalker. She opens her eyes suddenly and gasps.
She takes off her nightie, places it over a lamp and the light dims.
She brushes her hair…
(i like the hair role, perhaps making a relation with the 3 Greek godesses that are making live's thread(Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos), and the sleeping beauty that injure herself on the spinnig weel ?
(NARRATOR explores her privileged, spoilt upbringing. The dancer finds a pea in her bed. Takes it the kitchen…. what dancer ? one from another room ?)

SCENE 3
Kitchen
In the kitchen the next dancer, COOK, bakes a cake, plays pat-a-cake
(what is that game ???) , mummies and daddies, discovers the OBJECTS of the home.
Fantasies of being wife and mother, mixed with dread of it too.

(nice !)

SCENE 4
Bathroom - Snow white
Sex games and songs as the child slowly becomes adult. This becomes a frantic scene, with the dancer trying to scrub her clothes and her self clean, to clear out her system like a bulimic etc.

(i like that. Not sure about the way to write sex games ! but why not... if it's by poetry !

(i drew a bathroom where the dancer is following a kind of puddles /flat bowls route before to access to the bath bowl. (remember the foot tiny contact with the watter ?) She could make bowls singing, dancing with them too. You talk about a frantic scene, and, a few days ago, i imagined that , on the wall, we could have projection of views : on the left, a right view of the bathroom; on the right a left view of the bathroom, on the back, a above view, like in a kaleidoscope. Perhaps it is quite the same idea of looking everywhere and clean every part ?





SCENE 5
Sitting Room - TV cartoons/reality TV
The dancer is a couch potato, watching Reality TV, having fended off relationships.
She is drugging herself (yes ! hypnotic top)- suffocating.

Miss Potato Head, Miss Cabbage Brain, Miss Melons-for-breasts heavy as bombs on the sofa in slo-mo, blood's whoosh and blink. Suffocating on this hot air of punditry, very nice reality tv: sitting in a room watching an empty room.
Via the web seeking out dull people from other incontinents. The sticky fingered web full of creepy crawlers.

Mister Bigcheese visited yesterday. Mama was pleased. We ate pleasantries and spoke of modes of torture in foreign climes. How starchy he was I thought.
I am learning backgammon, the bolero, nuclear physics, the square root of pi - I think I get it. I like the fact you are writting in passed time, but i think it's too much illustrative. i would prefer something more poetic, even if the meanning is the same (taste of unfair, disgust of happiness, something negative is appropriate, yes.)
Let us speak of filing cabinets, square, smug and stuffed full of stuff. Lines of guardmen at attention,
The fax stutters, the internet whines and whirrs. yes !
No air.

SCENE 6
Garden - Rumpelstiltskin
this is fabulous
The next dancer is watering the cut flowers she places in vases in the ground.
Imagining her own funeral.
She has locked herself away all her life, but now remembers that feeling of spinning when she first felt love and desire. (
yes, a cycle)
The dancers come together and at last the Narrator "lets down her hair" - then climbs up her own hair to escape from the room which is now filled with objects.
(beautifull idea)


Bedtime, Gigogne
Baby, my baby,
My possible,my probable
My might be, my maybe.
Sleep sweet Gigogne
Again.

Bedtime, Gigogne
Baby, my baby,
My possible,my probable
My might be, my maybe.
Sleep sweet Gigogne
Haunting this home
Where an old lady lives
Where a hurricane came.
Sleep sweet Gigogne
Again

Bedtime, Gigogne
Baby, O baby
My possible, my probable
My might be, my maybe.

Spoilt Gigogne
Thrown in a spin
Where an old lady cries
When a story unfolds
Begin sweet Gigogne
Again


Dans un courrier daté du 01/12/02 18:55:50, Booktrust a écrit :

<<
Bedtime, Gigogne
Baby, my baby,
My possible,my probable
My might be, my maybe.
Sleep sweet Gigogne
Again.

Hi Chris,

And congratulations for the words, they seem to make sense :)

In order to help me make them fit the melody, would u please tell me: in ur mind, do they begin like the melody i sent u lately, i mean, a kind of "verse chorus" rythm ?

Thanx in advance,
Vitaa


Hi Julie & Vita,
I just phoned Julie's answerphone and sang Gigogne! I hope I got the right number!
Let me know if that's helpful. The first verse is shorter than the second, and the third ends verrrrry slowly - I've changed the last verse so it's simpler:

Hello Chris!
Thank you very much for your lolobye on my answerphone !! It was delicious and so funny !
We agreed with Vita, on that the sens is nice, the words right, but still too many !! He will try to add notes in the music composition, but if you could make the more long syllabs shorter, it would be perfect... The aim is that people understand and remember it very easily. You are really near the best version ! We will make the moovie and photographs on friday evening. I'll tell you how it was !!
I read the beginning of your new script, but didn't have time enought to read it entirely. I've so much sewing to make this days... Thank you for your nice work, i'll tell you about it in a few days, after the moovie's sequence !!

Hello Chris !
We made the photo and the film on saturday, it xas a great moment, with a lot of tire, but many nice feelings !
I'll have the film next week, and the phots at the end of this one. We'll put the sound on the moovie when we'll got it. I'll try to send you a copy by postmail, okey ?
I have to got to my mother place, in Le mans tomorrow, and will be back on saturday. I'll try to read all the stuff you sent me there and will telle you about it this week end.
Have a nice week,

Kisses
julie

I'm glad it went well, Julie. As I said the last draft of the script has a different kind of beginning, but then becomes random notes for scenes. Don't waste too much time on it. Work is hectic and stressful at the moment so I have little time before Christmas I'm afraid. But afterwards I'll have a few days away to work on it. Is that okay?
Dora (my daughter) and I have started seeing a french tutor - a woman called Helene, born in Le Mans!
Enjoy your visit.
Looking forward to seeing the video.
All the best
Chris

Chris Meade's Website

This is a jumbled anthology of old writings and bloggery, assembled here to get me back on a creative track. Make of it what you will whoever you are!
All best
Chris