"The Only Way Out Is Through"

When whichever slap dash guru first penned this helpful sentiment, did they imagine it to include "through the heart with a rusty lancet"? "through the spleen with a desert spoon"? "through the head with a hunting knife"? I have my doubts. But hey. Rules are there to be interpreted.

I am still waiting for the muse. thanks to a wonderful set of workshops last week, there now exists molecules of inspiration, bits of texts, feelings, that are circling my mind but failing to land. I am dreading Blackpool. People trying to have fun...

I have been thinking of a new way to structure. this was was of the rules. I am interested in up and downness, and so I went fell running in Ennerdale this weekend, in the hope that I would be inspired/contained by the landscape I ran/hobbled through. In effect, it all whooshed by in a blur as i tried to concentrate on not breaking my legs before i got back to the car. It went up steeply, then it levelled out, then it went up a bit more, then it was very rocky, and then it went down and down and down. Unless I want to do the Ingmar Bergman version of theatre, this is possibly not the best route to take. 

And then i was thinking of the big dipper. I love rides. Perhaps I'll give that a shot. It's quicker than fell running and probably a good deal safer.

I think that one of the reasons why Blackpool fills me with dread is that i went there every year on holiday with my family - some of the most stressful times known to mankind are there to be had, down the old fun fair, with two neurotic parents and two fighting sisters, one of whom (me) is a total scaredy cat and just wants to eat candy floss and watch other people on the rides.

I think I might just book myself into a hotel and write the show. The whole twenty minutes. And whatever I come away from Blackpool with, that will be it... meanwhile I feel sick whenever I open my e mails, and my mobile phone feels like a brick in my pocket. At any point the delicate imaginings that have so far formulated, can be blown to smithereens in an instant by the wrong word form the right person. I dream of sitting in a deep old chesterfield by a fire, deep in a book and safe from reality. I am generally against the Tracey Emin approach to using oneself as the well spring. Especially as mine looks so dry. But denial of this sickly mournful state feels almost impossible. Even if I only use it to make gags. 

The only way out is not through. It's comedy.

03_NC: workshop swapshop

03_NC: workshop swapshop

Simon invited us to Morecambe. Morecambe with me, him, Bethanie, Christine, Eleni and Simone. We all went to Morcambe with him. We left early we got the train at 07:10 we met lots of people stepping off the train from Morecambe. We were the only people going to Morecambe at this hour. Simon read us John Berger in just the right places. We walked in pairs. Eleni and I walked along the coast and back again. We rejoined in Rita’s café. We went to the post office and sent a postcard to a loved one. On the train home again…Eleni and I discovered we were born on the same day, we are the same age. There is a little girl and a mother, who Simone and I share a table with. We laugh together. Back in Lancaster, a little bit of Morecambe stuck with me.

I lead a workshop. I am torn between doing what I know will work, trying something new, doing something to help me, to help them – so that we can all make it through to the other side. We have walked together, we have talked, but we haven’t really worked in a studio together. I feel I’m still just getting to know these people. After an early morning we start gently, we move, we sing, we write, we compose, we show, we write, we go. We go with a little big of each other stuck to one another.

Michael Jackson, Charlton Heston, Buster Keaton, God, Madonna and Hitler enter a room with a song and something beautiful, they come being prepared to get messy.
Eleni and Bethani ask us to guess who we are whilst listening to the music. It is that old party game where you write a famous person on each other’s foreheads. I always found that hard. I am one of the last to guess that I am Michael Jackson.
They ask us to create a character from what they have on the table. I am bemused at first, there just appears to be food on the table. But then I watch them dip their faces in syrup then hundreds and thousands, rub food colouring into their skin. I leave like a child at play school learning how to play with a new toy. I leave with a cheese string and several cocktail sticks stuck with me.

Simone starts in the studio, in pairs we haven’t worked with. I feel a sensation on the end of my finger – It is Bethanie’s face. I feel my own face, through Bethanie’s direction. My finger feels but now my face feels too. I feel the space through my finger and I am surprised at what I feel, or cannot feel.
She takes us for a walk outside. She asks us to spend time in 3 different places. I cling to a tree stump and imagine I am a sailor in a storm on the top sail. I lay in grass, and imagine grass growing through me. I leave a trace by building a dead branch mobile. I watch the branches swaying and I could watch them for hours, articulating the wind. Back in the studio we bring these experiences into a composition.
I leave with the wind in me, the grass growing through me, the mis-remembered memory of a sailor stuck with me.

Driving down the M6. Dreaming. (Any dream will do). I wonder who will surface. I am gutted not to be there, but I have to be in London. I drive into the dusk imagining what is going on, in that little church in Morecombe. I drive into the dusk imagining the multitude of events, that are taking place at this very moment. I imagine that some are beyond my imagination. I start to think of friends and family, now dead. What would they have to say to me now. How does this world look from the other side? How does my life look to them? A little bit of them is always stuck with me.

04_sb: Doing Things and Making Plans

On Monday I am going to recreate a photograph. If you are following this blog you might recall an earlier piece of writing I did:

In the picture he is about eighteen, ten years my junior, looking smart, handsome, walking down the promenade with his father, who looks at the camera, with some kind of annoyance, discomfort, or sadness. That was Bridlington, though / Brid / And that was my father, not me.

And I have decided to re-take this photograph in Blackpool, not Bridlington., on Monday afternoon. I will be walking on the stage right and my father will be to the left, one stage behind.

The new photograph will be taken by Philip Sykes, who has been my friend now for some years. I am going to put on my new suit. It is light grey with white pinstripes. It cost £7.99 from The Children's Society in Lancaster, and it looks the business. I am going to structure a walk through Blackpool with my Dad, based on the structure of that Album by Trespassers W. Phil is going to document it from a distance, video and digital stills, very likely. My mum is going to tag along so Dad has some company on the train. He has to get back for a choir practice that night, otherwise we would spend the whole 24 hours together. That is far as the planning has gone. It will be good to spend some proper time with Phil, as well. Sometimes you are too busy to have friends, so I am calling the time we will spend together "work" in order to justify it.

I found something in an interview with Cor Gout from Trespassers W, where he cited a review they got from a critic. He said: A man and his son are orientated on places and spots which don’t exist anymore", but that was Drederich Diedrichsen, not me.

I think this is a piece I am making as a reader, which is to say, an interpreter. The rules aren't hard and fast, I think they cut you loose and teach you self-reliance, perhaps, but solo work isn't really my bag, normally, and it's strange to be working like this, normally I just have a little idea, do it, then another little idea and do that. So all in all I'm feeling the benefit, and it's lovely to be up here.

I see the future through the fog

After spending a sunday in Blackpool in miserable weather and too much candy floss i didnt get any filming done. all equipment seems to be on its day off. not in the mood. A bit like the young donkeys we meet on the beach. I cant believe there are actually some children being taken on trips in the gale that is blowing. I have a chat to the owners and then to his wife who is in the truck sheltering from the elements. We strike a bargain on potentially having a donkey for a day, they are an expensive animal.








I ate quiche for the first time in years. It even came with bread and butter. Blackpool is growing on me, quite literally. its junk food heaven.
i get my fortune told by two different palm readers. I wasnt convinced by the first one, so i had to go to another to see if there was any cross overs in their stories.Like the sugary foods, I could get addicted to this.

I will in the future:
have 2 children, one will be a lawyer, the other a musician.
live in a white house with green trees all around it.
it will be in Spain, Australia, America or somewhere far, not Europe, no i cant see that.
My work will take me to a large building.
I will be wearing a power suit.
Im good with people
im at a cross roads
but im good with people so that will help me decide.

My eye!

there's something wrong with my right eye. I think I might have got something in it but it makes it very difficult to see/drive/concentrate. Perhaps I should poke myself in the left to even things out.

I can't inagine that any of the thoughts I've had re the process could be remotely more interesting than my eye problem but here goes.

I've written some stuff, been to the spiritualist church in Morecambe where we began the service with a version of "I close my eyes... draw back the curtains" form Jason Donovan and his Technicolour Dream Coat. Then it was pretty standard: people being contacted by the dead and all of that. I have been toying with the idea of going to see a clairvoyant and getting them to tell me what they see me doing in my twenty minute presentation, and then doing as close to that as possible...

On Wednesday, I ate my own heart out (made of red liquorice) which was strangely satisfying and made me think of Trevor Stuart's old act where he ate his own brains out of the hat he was wearing and his speecgh slerrrrly diginurtayjed..

I still don't know what I'm going to do, but bits off stuff are floating towards me now. I might be a medium. I must go and visit the gypsies in balckpool. I mean Blackpool. Funny how every time I write that word it magically turns into illegible shit.

sb_03: Trespassers W

Hungover it's awful, but:

1.
In Oxfam the other day I happened upon a record, a fine-looking, very well packaged record, the artwork reminded me of Do Make Say Think's Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn, but it is actually called Roots and Locations, by a Dutch group, Trespassers W. It cost me £4.99

I looked in the Gatefold Sleeve and found: a / A record; b / A press release booklet; c / A Catalog of Trespassers W releases; d / A booklet the size of the sleeve with Lyrics and artwork; e / An A-5 sized photograph of the band, printed on AGFA photo paper,with the following written by hand:

///

photo: Ada Fesever

Trespassers W
at 'The Memorial'
at The Hague

left -> right:

Peter Bos (.)
Ronnie Krepel (.)
Hayo den Boest (.)
Fran van den Bos (.)
Car Gout (.)

///

The Memorial says 1914-1919, and at the last line of it reads:
ZIJ ZIJN DAAR - WAAR NACHT NOCH NEVEL IS

The album artwork, is a score for my performance, a structure that is new to me.

The record is a concept album about "the city of The Hague set in the fifties, set around the story of a father and son". Then it says something about politics. It makes me think of that picture of my father, and his father (at Bridlington, not Blackpool. Brid). In the Roots and Locations Lyrics:

FROM 'THE MAN' "Until he turned around and found out / Until he turned around and found out" Then it says something about time. FROM 'THE PARK' "The bewildered child stormed into the waste ground (...) circled (...) three times / And then leaving" FROM 'THE ROOM' "Soundless movements (...) lines, white on paler white" FROM 'HEXIO PERFECTO DE LA LUXE' "Here come the pretty waitresses / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, La La La La La La La La La La La La / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, La La La La La La La La La La La / Sh-boom, Sh-boom, Life could be a dream, sweet".

2.
Researching Trespassers W I found an interview with a member of the band (I think it was with Cor Gout), and the interviewee put in an image of a text of a song he had been working on (click on the picture to see it big and legible):



















(the image comes from www.fictionalize.org/index.php?2006/03/01/5-trespassers-w).

The Interviewer asked him:

"Do you sometimes have what I call a feeling of "belonging" (when you feel totally well, your feet standing firmly on the ground and your head buzzing with ideas, just "in tune"?

He replied:
Once again: the sunny day in the Scheveningen Wood feeling. Also: on a stage, when everything seems to fall in its place and things seem to be going on just by themselves. Or: riding on my bike, hearing the voices from the houses and the pavements tell me all sorts of secrets. Or: late at night, when segments of imagination come together in a totality with a ‘sound’ and a ‘rhythm’.

3.
In the Carl Sandburg Poem, The Sea Hold, the one that I edited down, I cut the following line

"I am a loon about the sea,
So are five men I had a fish fry with once in a tar-paper shack trembling in a sand storm".

I think the five men that Carl Sandburg had the fish fry with were, left -> right:

Peter Bos
Ronnie Krepel
Hayo den Boest
Fran van den Bos
Car Gout.

4.
In Neil's workshop (Tuesday Afternoon, 9.4.08) we were asked to write these cards to each other, things to get us out of trouble, difficulty: observations, commentaries, bits of advice, imaginings, situations. Two favourites: "You are passionate about all aspects of bird life but in particular, migration. You await the return of a favourite" and "Simon: Do as you would be done by". And you have to ask: why this advice, why me. I am reminded, again, of my wrongs.

5.
In Simone's workshop, we walked outside on the grounds of an old house by a field overlooking the motorway and the railway line. We were given a directive that said: Find 3 places to inhabit and 3 ways of inhabiting them, for up to 5 minutes each. Write for 1-2 minutes in response.

1 / fit in-or-around; 2 / blur the edges or merge; 3 / the body leaves a trace

In response to 2 / I spin your stillness, pull your crookedness into my bones and your decaded growing pains ache the muscles of my right arm (...) Look at me I'm dancing (...) Five crows, or black birds any way, soar at me as I outshine them. Leaves of grass. Leaves of grass.

6.
I never knew the Macc Lads did a song about Blackpool, called 'Blackpool'. This changes everything. I just got it off iTunes for seventy-nine pence. The song is mostly about chucking beer cans at cars on the Motorway. The best bit is: "An' Peter's in the back seat / An' his crack is goin' "gerrit" / He's got his finger up her like a ferret" (www.lyrics007.com/Macc%20Lads%20Lyrics/Blackpool%20Lyrics.html).

I look like Jessica Fletcher.

After the workshop I conducted with Bethanie this is what i came across.

Bethanie likes:

playing with boxes

is very, very  tidy

likes pretending to be a fly (with a silicon bra strapped over her eyes)

can be extremely quiet (she did not talk or sing for 2 hrs)

she looks good wearing a nurses outfit 

prefers lines rather than circles

Today I am Bethanie biscuit Ray from Tamworth.

I found out with my workshop for Eleni that she...

is small

Likes to know what's available to her

is a bit cross with boxes

drags her body cleanly

will continue until something is finished

Collectively we are hungry, but will continue with the blog as the art comes first and we are the artists.

This morning Eleni collected shells and Bethanie found fluff in her tea...umm.

We have talked, but decided as part of a new structure to limit the time we spend together. Also to try new ways of working we have decided to pick some music to use before we devise the work, chosen to include an improvised section in the piece and opted to limit our use of costume and props in certain devising sessions.

We're thinking of ways to bring the outside in, thinking of how you internalize another person,  wondering how much of some one you take in when you get to know them, and what remains when they leave. We're also thinking to bind ourselves from the inside, to try restricting food, liquid, air, company etc to see how the affected internal feelings reflect outside.

Tomorrow is our workshop. It's been interesting thinking of workshoping when the emphasis is on benefits for our practice, rather than the other way round. We really had to focus on what we find interesting to stimulate material. The way people react to certain situations, their dialogue with 'audience'(when they know they're being watched), their willingness to experiment, their compliance, or lack of, to social rules, the little things they think people don't notice, their honest responses to situations, are all things we find intriguing.

Ok so maybe that list is a wee bit long, but we feel we've managed to incorporate enough in the workshop to get us going, as well as it hopefully being fun!?

Neil and Simon both had great workshops today which left us with sand in our toes, beans in our bellies and much to help with process, so we thank them for that.

Miss Fletcher and Miss Ray are off for their tea now before they start salivating over furniture. 

Bethanie and Eleni

Levantes x