Rumeurs et visions

Confronting the Danger of Art

2011-11-18T03:20:00.000-08:00

Confronting the Danger of Art, a poetry pamphlet written by me and illustrated by Phil Cooper, is available to order from Sidekick Books today. It's styled like a government information booklet from the 70s/80s, such as the nuclear guide Protect and Survive, and envisages a society that has decided artistic expression is so dangerous it needs to be suppressed. The anti-art arguments employed in the first chapter of the book are based on those used by Plato in Boox X of The Republic. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, maybe there's a career for me in propaganda, and Phil's artwork is witty and cool. More info at http://www.drfulminare.com/dangerofart.php

Sometimes The World Is Too Beautiful

2011-11-18T03:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes The World Is Too Beautiful follows the life of a Mississippi poet, from early mistakes (the hacking up of a turtle to make a comb for his mother) through to marriage, children, divorce, a love affair, and concluding with the death of his parents. Some mistakes are learned from - following his debacle with the turtle the poet develops a deep affinity with the natural world, often very beautifully expressed ("Yesterday, pruning azalea bushes, / A female cardinal let / Me look into her brown eyes"). Others, perhaps chiefly that most Luciferian of flaws, pride, persist, see him summoning monkey demons, or, lost in life's maze, shouting for a confrontation with the Minotaur that never comes. The writing is lucid, evocative of powerful emotion, often of an almost shockingly high standard. Though this book is perhaps especially for those who "... sense the dilemma of the rare, lost ones, / Who yet can't embrace any belief simply / To save themselves--", the quality of the poetry will speak to everyone.

Dr Faustus, White Bear, Kennington

2011-09-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

My brother has a production of Dr Faustus running at the White Bear, Kennington from 27th Sept - 2nd Oct 2011. I created the flier for it with help from my doggie.

The Holograms

2011-07-27T00:08:00.001-07:00

Before Casper we were a quantum band,
an act that only happened when unobserved.
Our drummer maintained we'd split
the world, then took a full-time position
in PR. Auditioning his replacement
round our Crouch End front room,
with his white vest, buffed All-Stars
and holographic principle patter,
Casper shone. ‘These,’ he said,
nodding at his drumheads,
‘are my event horizons;
it's where the beat really happens.’
To prove it, he worked up an almighty storm,
while we puffed on our cigarettes.
Short of a singer, Casper made a call.
Yume Shirakawa, he explained,
would beam in her performance. Jay,
sliding milk down his thin throat,
looked pleased. Dispatched to Budgens,
strangely, no complaints. We jammed.
Matter grew vague, the days came and went.
First gig, a full house, but no sign
of Yume, whom we’d still never seen.
Plugging into our amps, tweaking
Volume, Gain, she appeared, silk-clad,
like a switch had been thrown. Turning
our three dimensional selves to the crowd,
who thought we were actually there?

The Absinthe Room

2011-07-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

It is the green hour when my love arrives;
shrugging off life's bristling threads,
her exquisite liquid nakedness,
she soothes my brow with sweet palms
chill as iced water, her visage
milky opalescence, la louche, where
wild scents bloom: crisp fennel;
rich anise; wormwood.

Do you sleep? I know the evening
and the metal dawn. I work with
absolute materials: everything
and nothing.

A dreaming drowned man,
my mistress, glacial sage,
of such delicate health
she must sleep behind
UV-proof glass.

Suddenly the window is white.
Too much sun; the rush that burns.
Her fading footsteps.

I know a pure, clear-headed love.

Confronting the Danger of Art

2011-05-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

Introductory page from Confronting the Danger of Art, a pamphlet I've created with artist Phil Cooper for Sidekick Books.

Retrato de Armando Seijo

2011-05-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

University documentary on the painter Armando Seijo I helped produce.

Confronting the Danger of Art

2011-05-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

I'm currently collaborating with the artist Phil Cooper on a pamphlet of illustrated poems for Sidekick Books entitled Confronting the Danger of Art. This pamphlet will have the look and feel of government booklets produced in the 70s and early 80s, and will use the arguments put forward by Plato in Book X of The Republic to justify the government's suppression of art and artistic expression in the UK. The text is basically all written and Phil's just in the process of illustrating it now.

The Hunger

2011-03-18T16:31:00.000-07:00

Plato Rd, libertine academy, in pairs

jackals pass, dealing, sprawled body

kerbside, out cold – worked for him.

Hunting blood category AB negative,

‘I’m just a poor boy,’ I confide, but no

juice and I hate them for being wrong.

This is hell’s fourth circle. Billionaires

man tills, load shelves, detoxing cash

habits with reward points. Hard pulse.

Hunger. And on a dime my luck turns.

But you look too young in your Brioni

suit, a love-bitten throat, AB negative,

waning. Compromise dulls the blood,

tell ‘em, prophet; soon it won’t matter.

Easing off, drawing out the black knife.

Trouble, Cat Stevens cover

2011-03-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

Thirteen, Big Star cover

2011-03-17T02:18:00.000-07:00

Salem's Lot moment

2011-02-14T01:46:00.000-08:00

Salem’s Lot moment: feeling of elation when you realise you and one other person have resisted a virulent cultural meme that has infected the rest of the local population. e.g. having met the one other person at a party who refuses to dance to commercial R'n'B, you both hide out in the garden. Should you fail to find another such person, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the infection, dancing along to Beyonce, now one of the damned.

Etymology: the 1979 television adaptation of Salem’s Lot concludes with two characters, Ben Mears and Mark Petrie, hiding in a church from the other town inhabitants, all of whom have been transformed into vampires. Despite the danger of their predicament there’s a sense of elation that they have resisted the vampire infection.

Narcissus

2011-02-13T03:20:00.000-08:00

AM. Sunlight an upbeat headache. 
Twisted sheet, love's last conquest  

gone, Opium and cash drift south.  
Check the void. Parish shirt, gold

chain. Straight dope on the radio. 
Turn it up, Stunners, battle dance.  

Halting, in lit plate check the void;  
some double. Jewels, Hummers,  

Bathing Apes, my girl, yours, for
the void, swallows murders. At

the door, I show myself to it.

My December

2011-02-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

I love the Holloway Road

2010-12-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

Thought (i)

2010-11-29T15:03:00.000-08:00

Old poems you've written are like former versions of the self, and as hard to straighten out.

The World's Last Barman Poet

2010-09-25T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am The World’s Last Barman Poet,

apprenticed to Jean-Thomas Cruz,

half-French, half-Spanish wizard

with vodka, lime juice and thesaurus

via a backpacking trip that didn’t

work out, small misunderstanding –

Not drugs, talcum powder, see?

The times I hated Jean-Thomas,

all his prattle about the holy spirit

of cocktails, the preparation

a kind of sacrament, and of course

the importance of abstinence,

when he was tapping my girl

in his hotel suite every chance

he got. I lay in the room below,

ceiling fan beating its sultry drum,

schooled by the bedsprings' trochees,

him, between thrusts, shouting: Twist

of dark rum! Whisky! Orange juice!

Until one night I added a good slug

of hydrocyanic acid, thus became

The World’s Last ... you get the idea.

Daljit Nagra, Will Self and Jesca Hoop at Book Slam, The Tabernacle, 1st September 2010

2010-09-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

Book Slam holds regular literary and musical evenings at The Tabernacle, Notting Hill. Shot from a table (initially with a Reserved sign - for Will Self's guests had he chosen to bring any?) at the front of the room. Daljit Nagra was on stage first, followed by Will Self reading from his latest book, Walking To Hollywood. The third act, Jesca Hoop, played songs from her album, Hunting My Dress.

Copycat

2010-08-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

Flung out to dry

sheets of soaking cloud.

A perfect mental copy?

No way to tell.

By The Hideaway

slick pavement’s

patchy glitter: fool’s

gold. Return.

Stretching for a knife

to slit my boot laces

I grip its shadow.

Simon Callow, Foyles Bookshop, July 2010

2010-07-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Simon Callow discussed and read from his latest book, My Life in Pieces (subtitled An Alternative Autobiography), in 'The Gallery' on the third floor of Foyles Bookshop, Charing Cross Road. All seats were taken, I shot from the back of the room. As Simon Callow elected to read sitting down, it was hard to get a good view, so I shifted from my seat to the window sill. I wondered whether staff would be bothered about me filming, or sitting on the sill, but they didn't seem to notice. Simon Callow seemed cool about it too.

South Bank Poetry (Issue 7) Launch Party, July 2010

2010-07-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

I arrived at the event a quarter of an hour late to find all seats taken, so had to shoot from the stairs. This was my first visit to the Poetry Cafe in Betterton Street. Ambient noise is pretty bad as there's no door between the downstairs readings room and the cafe above. Twelve poets read in all, including the editor of South Bank Poetry, Peter Ebsworth. I shot all twelve, but ambient noise was too intrusive to make many of them worth uploading. In the order they read, here's Niall O'Sullivan, Chrissy Williams, Dave Bryant, and Peter Ebsworth.

Nutshell Magazine (Issue 2), Summer 2010

2010-07-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

Issue 2 of Nutshell, the literary/arts magazine I help edit is available to order here. It contains new poetry, short fiction and art, as well as an interview I conducted with leading British poet and editor of Picador's poetry list, Don Paterson.

ICMP/Shure Songwriting Contest, July 2010

2010-07-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

On 22nd July 2010 five acts competed for two spaces in the finals of the ICMP / Shure Songwriting Contest, which will be held in September. The event occurred at The Enterprise in Camden. Clips from each of the acts below in the order they appeared on stage. The camera had trouble reproducing a clean sound for the keyboard, so where possible I've posted guitar tracks. First place was awarded to Signe Madsen, with Mike Dignam the runner up. The other performers were Lucy Dagg, Marta Carillon, and Ian Edwards.

Nutshell Magazine Launch Party, June 2010

2010-07-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip of John Drain performing at the Nutshell Magazine launch party on 27th June 2010. This year's party was held at The Last Days of Decadence in Shoreditch. I wrote a review of the night which can be found here.

London can you wait?

2010-07-23T03:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd use this blog to showcase events I go to, mainly in London, which I plan on filming using my flip camera. Clips will be mostly a few minutes long, with little or no editing. I'll also include things that interest me about living in London, such as the skate and parkour scenes, and maybe some poems, short fiction and reviews.