Reading books and riding bikes is all very well of course, but sometimes the call of the capital is strong, and a London weekend is nearly always a good way to end a school holiday. There were a couple of things I wanted to see, mainly the Hogarth and Mark Wallinger at Tate Britain. Now Hogarth isn’t really my thing, but I’ve seen the Gin Lane engraving reproduced or referenced so many times in books I’ve been reading over the years that I felt I ought to take a look. And, well, you need to look at those ‘greats’ when they are available to you, don’t you?
So I went, and I saw, and I left. And Hogarth is still not really my thing. He seems to be many other’s though, judging by the crowds. I dislike crowds, and crowds at galleries and museums are some of the worst. It is so difficult to see the work, so difficult to let your head into the correct place to think. Or it is with me at least. So I skirted around, took some cursory glances and fell just a little in love with the paintwork on Thomas Herring’s sleeves. Later I did the same with a pair of blue shoes and the brushstrokes in Hockney’s Bigger Splash – the first time I had bothered to actually stop and properly look at the damn thing – but that’s another story.
I had heard good things about Wallinger’s installation in the main hall at Tate Britain. If you don’t know about this, it is a recreation of peace campaigner Brian Haw’s Parliament Square protest, with the added contextuality of it being half within and half without the one kilometre exclusion zone around Parliament imposed by the May 2006 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. It’s thought provoking, of course, and oddly sad and melancholy in its objectification of ideological commentary: Protest as museum artefact. I admit that mostly I had to reflect on the simplification of message, and of the ultimate uselessness of Art or protest (or indeed Art as protest) in changing Political or Corporate motivations. Power and greed always win. History tells us this. It tells us too of the tension between the (largely Western) luxury of protest and the harsh realities of that which we protest against. And it seems to me that Wallinger’s art in this case is more about this tension than it is about the surface quality of the image or the content of Haw’s protest. Maybe that’s just me being wayward and cynical of course, but it kind of set the seal on my Saturday mood; a mood that even an hour or so spent in the sun talking Pop with beautiful Swedish popkids could not quite shift.
Speaking of which, London weekend’s are also about meeting people of course. It was good to catch up with K and J on Friday. The Hungry Beat movie inevitably came up in conversation, and we await to see what direction it will take. It is always difficult to develop an agreed direction for group projects, especially when they are based on subjective views of events and times that one was closely involved with. I’m intrigued to see how it turns out. It will inevitably not be my story, as it will not be K’s or even, perhaps, Messr’s Stanley or Kelly’s. Hopefully it will be an engaging, inspirational and mysterious one though. That it is what it needs to be, I think. Keep the mystery caged, and all that. It obviously led to me thinking about the Mervyn Day movie. I so wish that was available on DVD. It needs to be seen by more people. I was thinking about it the other day, about it’s beautiful synchronicity of celebration and mourning; the wonderful opening of the bikie riding the old Eastway circuit, of the bicycle as transport in the film, of the resonances of the July 7th bombings, and forward to July 7th this year with the Grand Depart of le Tour. As someone once said, it all fits. Natural and strange.
We also talked about the difficulties of work-place politics, of corporate speak and job-branding and of managing teams. Oddly enough, I had similar conversations with T when he was down for EGP! I guess this is indicative of our age and the points our lives are reaching in that age. Before you know it we will be talking about mortgage rates. As T said, imagine what your seventeen year old self would have said… But this is life. And it is fine.
Friday night also was a time of meetings, this time with Last FM people. Felters, headgoneastray, twistability and popkiss were all there at the Luminaire, the last two having skipped school in Sweden and come over for their own London long weekend. The company therefore was exemplary, which more than made up for the dismal groups on display. I had heard good things about Manhattan Love Suicides. Popkiss told me that they had done a cover of Beat Happening’s glorious ‘Indian Summer’ which should surely stand for something, and felters said their album was like Shop Assistants. Sadly, all I could think of when seeing them was of a million and one generic indie-schmindie shamblers from back in the day. Tuneless, charmless and pointless, all dressed in black, dreaming of the Mary Chain but totally missing the key of what made that group so exciting and special in their early incarnations. Which brings me back to something K said about Douglas Hart in the Hungry Beat film; that wherever he ended up going, his comments and insight into the context of the Mary Chain beginnings were spot on.
I’m sure, however, that there were many younger and less foolish than I who thought the Manhattan Love Suicides were terrific, and that’s fine of course. After all, what do they care for the opinions of old farts who have seen and done it all before they were born? And why should they? It is as it should be, and I was the same. Sometimes I pretend to wish I had been more open to the views of those with more wisdom in my time, but know that it would not have worked. That’s just not how it goes. Again, c’est la vie. Et c’est bien. And pardon my French.
So Saturday night, then, and I should by rights have been at ‘How Does It Feel To Be Loved?’ I think I have had good intentions of going there in every one of the past five years of its existence. It is rare however that my trips coincide with the events, and now that it did, what did I do instead? Well, I got close, I really did. I stood in Cavendish Square and I watched the young and beautiful congregate. I thought how funny it was that all these people should be going to a club night in a place called The Phoenix, and how different it was to our own efforts in our own Phoenix. And yes, you guessed it, I got the blues then and ended up walking around the West End listening to my iPod before stomping back to Paddingon in the night’s chill, berating myself and imagining, as always, that the realities of things will never be as good as the dreams. Well, that and feeling strangely haunted by the eyes of Anna Karina.
It has always been thus, however, for as long as I can remember. The tension between wanting to belong and the need to not belong at all. The fear at being too ugly, too stupid, too obvious, too young, too old, too everything in the world that you can imagine and more besides. Kids in school would say that was so Emo and laugh of course. And what a troubling thought that is… though in connection with that I recall someone saying recently about how the ‘troubled’ youth of my generation at least had the likes of the Esurient groups to turn to. Now all they have is ‘emo’. Well, maybe there is something in that.
Whatever, I suppose it’s the fear of rejection forcing you to not participate in the first place. Is that also fear of failure? I suppose so. I guess everyone gets it, and every so often I have always just made a melodramatic song and dance about it (everyone who knows me nods in acknowledgement at this point). But no matter how much I know this, no matter how much I tell myself to get over it and no matter how much I DO get over it (and I do, goodness knows I’m sure I do) it always returns. It’s probably just nature’s way of saying ‘get a job’, or ‘get back to your job’. Which I will do tomorrow. And which I will then proceed to complain about.
Some people are just scared to get happy, aren’t they?
Would it help if I said that I've never felt I belong with anybody who found it easy to belong?
Posted by: Dimitra | April 23, 2007 at 23:29
quote:
"It has always been thus, however, for as long as I can remember. The tension between wanting to belong and the need to not belong at all. The fear at being too ugly, too stupid, too obvious, too young, too old, too everything in the world that you can imagine and more besides."
wow. that sums up about where i am right now (and probably have been all along?).
Posted by: tyler | April 24, 2007 at 01:32
thanks Dimitra, that does help, and it does make so much sense, yes. And Tyler, isn't it good to know it's not just you that feels that way? i know i find that. And don't you also find there is a tension between wanting to express those thoughts and the feeling that doing so only makes it worse; only makes you seem even more of a hopeless 'emo' feeling sorry for themselves. When in reality it isn't that at all, is something so much more complex.
Anyway, back at work now, and i should be thinking about much more important things.
Posted by: me | April 24, 2007 at 11:59