Every day was April, from May to May.
2013-04-06 ~ 12:36 a.m.
I was down in London for a few days the end of last month. So much art. So much food and drink (actually not that much, more such a variety, it's not fair that you can get chain Vietnamese restaurants in London, and there's a Japanese fast food place in Kings Cross, while in Edinburgh Waverley station it's purely pasties and baguettes and even Costa shut.
The Kurt Schwitters In Britain exhibition at Tate Britain was really good. Amazing amount of material considering he was only in Britain for about 7 or 8 years till he died. But some of that was in an internment camp on the Isle of Man during World War, and they seemed to do nothing but paint (I guess it was full of artists and creatives who'd fled the Nazis and had nothing to do but paint). Schwitters is often painted as a tragic loner because he died in comparative poverty in the Lake District, but he was always a funny and sociable person, who collaborated with lots of great artists, had a shrewd eye for publicity, and even made a sex-crime grotto in Hanover which was sadly destroyed by British bombers in World War II. Maybe not enough respect for the complexity of his character, but if you're focusing on the British side of his life it's more tragic than his earlier career.
At the Barbican was a show on Marcel Duchamp and his influence on avant-garde Black Mountain College types like Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns, John Cage, and Merce Cunningham. Music, art (including the reproduction of Duchamp's Great Glass), though sadly I missed out on any dance performances.
And I went on a random sort-of-psychogeographical walk through East London in an attempt to follow the river Lea (which is sometimes called the Lee, and at its bottom seems to be called the Bow Creek) up from the Thames past the Olympic park: Iain Sinclair and Bill Drummond went up to Waltham Abbey, but I only got as far as Stratford. It was really fucking cold. There are photos on my Facebook, and sorry I don't post them here, but they're rather grey anyhow, and possibly you already know me on FB.
I started by getting off just east of the Lower Lea Crossing, detraining near the Lyle's Golden Syrup factory. Such sweetness in such a horrible place. Better than the other sights: the Millennium Dome sending its yellow spiny arms up into the sky, and the Emirates cable car lurching dangerously over the Thames daring the incoming flights to Docklands airport. Then made my way through the first of several dismal business parks to the Lower Lea Crossing, a section of elevated road.
After that, it was off the main road, and past the Bow Creek Ecology Park, a section of wasteland with an elevated light railway through the middle of it. I soon left the river behind, because I'm fairly shit at the navigation side of this, and ended heading up towards West Ham. Lots more industrial estates: a school bus depot, various recycling operations collecting rubbish, building sites, barbed wire, railway tracks, snack vans stinking of burgers. Repeated attempts to get back to the river were rebuffed by private roads, security barriers, gated business campuses. There's a lot of people working in that shitty corner of East London, but I've no idea what they were doing. There was some kind of cake manufacturing unit.
Eventually as I approached the Olympic park, I was able to cross the Channelsea River, and make my way to the banks of the River Lea, now separated from the Olympic park by a huge fence. As I approached, the shitty pseudo-constructionist Arcelor Mittal twisty tower was a regular presence, though there were far bigger towers around, and cranes. The riverside was a mix of old London - houseboats, rubbish from picnic lunches, shifty men hovering near skips, the rare jogger - and modern riverside housing developments. Plus a historic sewer.
Then I left the river again to pass through the Olympic park, which no longer welcomes the world. There's a path through the middle of it, high fences at either side, bored Chinese security guard watching the entrance to the path. After a while you pass the stadium and the path becomes even more ridiculous, forced through a maze of temporary roadways, boards, hoardings, traffic cones, security checkpoints, high-fenced storage depots for the remains of Olympic traffic management systems, and construction sites, till you pop out on the main road south of Stratford. Then I went to Westfield mall for a burrito. I didn't do any shopping: I don't think I've bought any clothes in actual shops for over a year, nobody buys music these days and DVDs less frequently too, and the only shops I go into now sell food or DIY, and I didn't need any paint thinner at that point.
So the moral is, if you're a tourist, from the snack vans of the Thames to the food courts of Westfield, there's a cornucopia of food if you don't mind freezing and looking at a shitload of railings. Almost every one of my photos, which you can't see, features railings or a fence.
Also while in London I watched White Chicks and RED on TV; the latter in particular was fun. And with a very special erstwhile Diaryland I attended Lore at the cinema, a rather impressive, bleak post-WW2 drama. From Cate Shortland, director of the excellent Somersault (teenager Abby Cornish argues with her mother and goes off the rails, Sam Worthington stands around looking dim which is a reasonable substitute for playing the sensitive hunk). Lore seems one part Lynne Ramsay and one part Andrei Tarkovsky. Kind of harrowing, but not always as much as you'd think, and in line with Somersault also an account of a young girl growing awkwardly into womanhood and the realisation that maybe Nazism wasn't all good.
I've broken up with B. Things hadn't been too wonderful for a while. But still obviously a shock and sadness, and I'm kind of avoiding people who know her (my stepmother was typically supportive about it, but my younger sister really liked B, so I've not discussed it with her). I go to bakeries all the time now. There's a lack of sweet things in my life. That's not entirely accurate. I've still got a whole easter egg to eat. I did see my family at Easter, which was good, my brother up from Brighton, just back from presenting a poster in Tenerife.
I'm loving this song more each time I hear it. Little Boots has found the perfect level of melancholy electro-pop. Like St Etienne, but dare I say it better (I've been listening a lot to the likes of Pale Movie and Hobart Paving as well.)
I was listening to Jayne County last night, who is surprisingly compelling for someone I'd dismissed as a novelty shock punk (formerly Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys). But actually a very good shock punk, songs like the melodic Trying To Get On The Radio or Toilet Love far better than e.g. the New York Dolls. And, well, If You Don't Want To Fuck Me Baby Fuck Off, probably better than Coldplay
Currently listening to Reachin' by Arcesia (on Spotify), strange 1970s outsider-psychedelia by someone who in the early 1950s was the next big thing of swing, recording with Nelson Riddle, then disappeared for nearly 20 years, before after his wife's death making an astonishing personal statement. Rainy Sunday is wonderful.
Finally found someone I love more than the rain - 2013-09-17
Taxi driver, be my shrink for the hour, leave the meter running - 2013-08-29
Dear friend, I cannot tell the reason why we started well - 2013-08-06
I saw this movie one time called Imitation of Life. The movie was really kind of shitty but I loved the title. - 2013-07-12
Catch the bus by half past three otherwise you'll find you're walking home - 2013-07-10
mail note tunes cabbages sprouts
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