So, I quit doing Budo for Litro a few months ago because I didn’t have time. Term is coming to an end, however, and I’ve been dying to produce something, anything, that isn’t an essay / commentary. Of course it’s never that simple and I will stew for weeks – months – without setting pen to paper, despite knowing it’s the only thing that will make my day worthwhile. I’m sure lots of us do this and I believe the term is procrastination. It’s ancient, humdrum stuff. But yesterday I watched a documentary about Irish monks who sailed from the north of their country to the place we now call Scotland; if they could paddle across the sea, build a monastery on the island of Iona and create the Book of Kells – coloured with lapis lazuli from a mine in Afghanistan! – in the 6th century, I can draw a grammatically fraught comic about a film I went to see in the comfort of the 21st.

“I can say with hand on heart that I’ve never seen a digital film that can do quite what one originated on film does. (And yes, I’m aware that nearly all celluloid-originated films get transferred to digital for the editing process before returning to celluloid.) It’s not just the obvious things – inferior representation of movement, synthetic-seeming colours, the sense of that rigid, invisible bitmap that can’t swirl or flicker as celluloid grain does – it’s something ineffable, a feeling that the analogue photographic image retains a contact with its human subjects and the way the light falls that digital somehow distorts. [...] And while we’re knocking digital, let’s kill off its premiere myth, which is that its cheapness would open the door for new waves of talent. [...] Rather, it has made cinema overall seem more underwhelming and less important than it was, in part because the overall standard has fallen for the first time since the 1980s.

- Nick James, Editor of Sight and Sound, April 2009 (Volume 19, Issue 4)

“I’m old-fashioned; I’m a man of celluloid. I think it still has a depth and a precision that you do not have in the digital domain, and the digital domain has some disadvantages. When you shoot something and record it with a digital camera, you have an instant access to it – you don’t have to wait for the dailies.”

- Werner Herzog

“The evolution of the digital age [represents] the existence and transfer of informational data without the medium of human consciousness, essentially creating a simulation of the human cognitive process – an artificial being – that, as the alterego [of Aldous Huxley] comments, has “distinct memory but no resemblances”.

- ‘Acquarello’ on ‘Aldous Huxley: The Gravity of Light (1996), Strictly Film School

So. Is anyone else feeling nervous?

Maybe it’s me, but everywhere I go there are hordes of police officers standing around. I came out of the train station today and was met by a group of about ten guys in full body armour and bright yellow jackets.

A few days before there were several van-loads of pigs at Victoria waiting to escort a group of guys from the platform to the pub.

Their latest ad campaign is fucking ridiculous:

I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know what can be done to tackle an entire army.

So I finished my internship at Diva Magazine. I learned that people want to be shown in a positive light and this is okay; that people are willing to talk to you and respond to challenges if you avoid attacking them; that there are genuine nutcases in the world; that writing clearly/simply is as great a skill as writing technically/academically; that you should spell things out; that *everyone* I meet once worked with or was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party; that people who work for magazines have to *think of things* to write about and aren’t magically bestowed with knowledge; that editors might – shock, horror – ask others for their opinion; that the media is probably where I want to spend the rest of my life.

I also spent the last two weeks getting about four hours of sleep every night because I was at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival at the BFI, Southbank. Oh how I love this festival and this year was particularly good because it involved LOTS OF BEER, a pink card!, two minutes of fame and glory as a chair on one of the panels, lots of beautiful people, interviews!, and yeah, there were some good films as well. Someone, who shall remain nameless, was disparaging in an email and I sent back three paragraphs explaining why, and how, the festival was a good thing. It so is! For roughly 355 days of the year we’re all scattered across the country/globe, working, busy, poor etc. Then the festival comes and EVERYONE is there. I imagine it’s more fun for me, since this is the first time I’ve known a significant amount of people – thus novelty, thus joy – but if *I* can go, mingle, hang about in the cafe and make sleazy passes at interesting people, ANYONE CAN. I’ll admit that there’s a bit of a boy/girl split. And at one event I was so disgusted by the painfully fashionable druggy dykes I saw congratulating themselves on their Shane-esque aloofness that I left early. But other than that, there’s so much to be gained by going.

I was particularly impressed with Bi The Way, which looked at the notoriously sticky issue of bisexuality. It was affirmation of what I already felt; yes, bisexuality exists and in fact, could be the more enlightened position. I really liked Against a Trans Narrative because it wasn’t completely positive in its portayal of FTM transsexuals. By this I mean that it brought up all the taboos that the rest of us – and probably trans people themselves – think but are afraid to say. It also made me realise that there is a feminist / non-feminist dichotomy and something needs to be done about this. I’m all for Queer being an umbrella term, but, as someone rightly pointed out this alienates the older generation for whom Queer is an insult. Okay – but are we trying to be inclusive or accurate? Both lead to infinite regress; if we approach this as individuals then *everyone*, by virtue of being themselves and not someone else, would need their own label. On the other hand, by attempting to be inclusive we have a list of letters: LGBTQQIAA, anyone? What the hell does that even mean?

As Diva rightly pointed out, black lesbian cinema appears to be having a moment. Though it’s all from across the pond. I imagine this is because the Jay Bernards of London, England are blogging, rather than shooting. black./womyn.: conversations with lesbians of African descent was great because as one of the participants put it, it showed ‘regular ass women’ talking about their lives. It’s nice to see all three major aspects of myself on a screen. Really, it is. The testimony of the cousin of Sakia Gunn in Dreams Deferred broke my mother fucking heart. I *cried*. In public. Still Black was dull in parts, but it was fascinating to see these peopleat various stages in their transition.

I’m thinking next year I’d like to submit a film. First, it will shut me up and give me a deeper appreciation for all the peeps who make films, regardless of their lack of technology / funding / support / talent / ability. If I can spot the flaws, maybe I can avoid them. Allyson Mitchell made a great point about this during her Deep Lez discussion: stop criticising and start contributing, bitch.

Films I’m pissed I didn’t see

Society
Noah’s Ark
OMG / HaHaHa
Travel Queeries
Fig Trees

So Yemisi challenged me with ‘red’ after I declared D40 war on him. I thought this was pretty disgusting.

I haven’t posted the last few Budos. This one was apt as Ms. Goody has finally passed away. I was weirdly moved by the news; I don’t think I’ve ever had any strong feeling towards her, except when she insulted Shilpa Shetty. Otherwise, there was just nothing going on. But I recognise a brilliant story and god, I wish I’d written it. The times quietly side-stepped the news and instead reported the death of Nicholas Hughes, son of Sylvia and Ted.

Plath’s friend, the poet and critic Al Alvarez, once said: “I would love to think that the culture’s fascination is because Plath is a great and major poet, which she is. But it wouldn’t be true. It is because people are wildly interested in scandal and gossip.”

I admit to that. Which is why the sudden change in tone has been so disconcerting. The newspapers want stories because we want stories. When someone is alive and well we do everything we can to find out the moist, intimate, details, then we broadcast them as loudly as possible. I’ve never noticed this before, but the redtops shout stories. Then, when someone is about to die or dies, we change. We forget completely the hatred and irritation we felt.

Two-faced? Double standards? I was listening to Radio 4 soon after Cecilia Tsvangirai died and the interviewee said that where he comes from there is a saying: a man can be bad in his life, but once he dies he becomes good. You can feel compassion towards the worst child-murdering bastard who is being ill-treated. I, for one, do not support the death penalty or torture or anything else that reeks of revenge, because it goes against my basic, primal, knowledge that people are helpless in the face of death. We’re pathetic when it comes to The End. I wouldn’t (seriously) wish death on anyone because there is nothing more terrifying or more final. That’s it! You’re gone! Curtains! You will never walk on this earth again. This brilliant, magical thing called life which can be so oppressive, is all we have. There’s nothing else. So as hypocritical as the papers seem, I think the sudden shift in attitude is a sign that, at bottom, we’re still humane – we wouldn’t go on slating the woman out of spite or stubbornness.

I have no problem with Jade’s, or anyone else’s, funeral being televised. Why do we see the births, marriages and deaths of royalty, but not an ordinary woman? Why was it tasteful, even obligatory, to film the two princes slow-marching at their mother’s procession? We live in the information age. There are far more sordid, vulgar things on TV, but perhaps we’re wary because Jade Goody is something of a construction; she isn’t quite real, and her death, with the accompanying twist of fate, means she has blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction to an uncomfortable degree.

“Wow. Are we still exploiting her?”

“Yes, yes we are.”

“Well, we’ll follow her to the edge of the universe, but uh, I think we should stop there…”

Her disappearance from our television screens is not the ordinary passing which is usually forgetfulness and neglect, nor is it the spectacle of a car crash/assassination/suicide. It’s tragicomedy. It’s ridiculous. It’s farce. It’s awful. It’s in digital. It’s a compelling mix of stark flesh and indignity. It’s pornographic. It’s like being sucked in to the strange rhythm of two people going up and down. It’s ‘Ugh!’ But it’s ‘Oh…’

I'm thinking of printing a t.shirt...

During the open mic I doodled some of the readers. Not all, mind, as I ran out of space, but most. I’m thinking ‘Bastard Surrealist Coppers’ deserves a t.shirt of its own…

Part of the crumbling abbey right by the coast.

So I went to St. Andrews in Scotland to do a reading for this festival. Ben Wilkinson (another of the young writers) and I were trying to work out how many festival-y type things we’ve done. At the time I could only think of LitCamp which took place last year, but on second thoughts there’s been YLAF, SpitLit, The Battle of Ideas… I like this festival thing. St Andrews was tiny – smaller than Oxford – comprising three main streets, many crumbling castles/abbeys/cathedrals, and a lot of coast. On my first night I wandered around a haunted beach, ate at a nice little place called BeanScene, then went to a reading by Kate Clanchy and Robert Crawford. Well, the latter was brilliant. I later discovered that he has a very academic Glaswegian accent, but since I am deaf to the subtleties of any accent above the Watford junction, I just appreciated the boom in his voice and the very soft Rs and the fact that melancholy/ irony/dead-pan humour sound so much better than in RP.

Next day: my reading with Abi Curtis, Ben, Adam O’Riordan and Emily Berry. A nice audience – mostly older people, quite receptive, appreciative applause at the end for everyone. Then I met up with another Foyles Young Poet who was part of the 2005 batch and we chatted about the alcoholism of some poets, the teen-hating of others. Then off with me to the ruined abbey. Actually I’d been on my way to a talk by Jay Parini, but one of the festival organisers caught me and explained that it wasn’t until later. I bought an all inclusive ticket and went to the little museum, went up St. Rule’s tower and also the dungeon at St. Andrew’s Castle. This is because at heart I am a tourist. I also believe that there’s nothing wrong with doing all the touristy things if you only have 20 hours or so to see a place. I also like murders committed in the 16th century. Apparently Cardinal Beaton was murdered after he executed George Wishart (that damned Protestant!) and his body was strung up out of the window. I went down in to the mines that were dug out of solid rock; basically, after Beaton was killed the Protestants took over, were sieged by Catholics who decided to dig under the castle. The protestants dug a counter-mine to meet them (though it took three attempts), they had a fight, the protestants won. Can you imagine fighting off people who wish to kill you in here?

I re-discovered a love for crumbling bits of rock. There is nothing as hot as a statue with no head, or just the arms of the statue or a bit of badly eroded stone-work. It’s just so amazing. Particularly excited by tombs.

I think we should bring back constant reminders that we will die. ‘Memento Mori’ should be written up on the side of every building. Skulls and crossbones should be as commonplace as traffic lights. We should also get back in to this habit of decorating buildings. I went up St. Rule’s Tower and close to the top (just when I thought I’d throw up because looking down the staircase was giving me serious vertigo) I come across some amazing chevrons! Look how they come out at right angles from the wall! LOOK.

And, finally, the view from the top.

It was a hazy day.

Jay Parini gave a great talk about his time in St Andrews as a student. I bought MythMash, a journal by English Students at St Andrews and, on the train back to London, read ‘Mr. Robinson’ by Anna Thomas, which is brilliant:

I am an ambiguous seed -
an unclear and indistinct
compromise.

…

For I go gently in to that good night,
Lest by my rage the night should doubt its own benevolence.
And as I accepted ignorance, diverted anger, learned to laugh -

Is your mother a bit of a mutt like you.

Why wasn’t she doing the reading?

Saw Simon Armitage read from the soundbox of the theatre. Neil Astley and I were ’shoe-horned’ in by one of the organisers. It was a fantastic view, though irritating because the air-conditioning was whirring, and ironically, the sound in the soundbox is terrible. From above, I got to thinking about audiences. I must bore my tutor to death whittering on about the reader, the reader, the reader, but I love the idea of writers/speakers disseminating information, and that information doing crazy things in the massive, dark, sponge that is the audience. They’re so important.  As far as I’m concerned they make the work. And there are different kinds. There are the obvious distinctions: hostile, friendly, warm, cold. I hope, dear reader, you never feel an audience turn against you. Ach, the silence. When people hate you they stop moving. The same thing happens when they like you, except then they also stop breathing. I’ve done gigs where, out, far far away, I’ve seen a guy staring right back at me, bored to tears, hating every word. And I’ve been in audiences where I’ve seen a woman looking very similar, except I know I’ve got her. I’ve felt that maybe once or twice in all the time I’ve been reading. The former experience is by far the most common. I think I bring it on myself; I HATE it when directors don’t direct. Nothing bothers me more than the director saying ‘improvise’ without telling the actor what he should aim for. I hate it when people dismiss form/structure on the basis of wanting to be ‘free’. I hate it when anyone, including myself, expects the audience to participate when they’ve not set up something constructive to participate in. The worst readings (and performances) I’ve ever seen and/or committed, have been when the speaker off-loads themself on to the audience. DON’T DO IT. You are in charge. You are to blame.

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But I am liking Fart Party by Julia Wertz. How true this comic is.