Author: James Burt

My favourite books of 2011

At the end of the year, it's fun to look back at the books that I've read and pick out the ones I liked most. In 2011 I read 105 books, most of which were non-fiction. Here are my ten favourites, in no particular order:

Bookends: A Partial History of the Brighton Book Trade by John Shire is a fascinating description of an obscure topic. Shire's book runs from the early days of the town through to current times, and brought back memories of bookshops that I loved. As well as being a good history it is also entertaining and personal, with some entertaining asides, such as the observation that all books on Brighton are required to mention Aleister Crowley.

Thirteen by Sebastian Beaument came highly recommended by Scott Pack. It's a novel about a Brighton taxi driver who finds himself in a slowly developing Lynchian nightmare. The end of the book was a little disappointing, but the opening was one of the weirdest, creepiest things I've ever read.

Erinna Mettler's Starlings is a 'daisy-chain novel' set in Brighton. It's well researched and contains a fascinating range of characters and periods (although it did let itself down a little by not mentioning Crowley).

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi was a somewhat frustrating book, in that I hated the first half. I found its metafictional aspects glib and irritating and considered drowning it in the bath. I'm glad I didn't since the second part made up for it. Death In Varanasi was a fascinating description of a city I've visited in the past and where I plan to spend some time in 2012.

Another book which I half-liked was Cambodia: A book for people who find television too slow by Brian Fawcett. The book is once again divided into two. The top half is a collection of post-modern short-stories, some of which I found a little dated. The bottom section of each page contained a devasting analysis of the Khmer Rouge's atrocities and the West's response, .

I meant to write a long post about Jane Bussman's The Worst Date Ever, but that is currently lost in my drafts folder. Partly this is because the topics Bussman deals with are so huge. The Worst Date Ever is a clever book pretending to be dumb. It's very hard to talk about the book without getting trapped in complicated issues. In short: a celebrity journalist explores the conflict in Uganda. I regret not taking the time to finish my post about it and will try to do so in the Spring. It's well worth reading – I was shocked at the West's shameful complicity in the conflict.

Another book I failed to write about was Kenneth Goldsmith's Uncreative Writing. The book's title sounds like a gimmick but it is a fascinating and exciting account of what the Internet means for writing. Goldsmith started as a fine artist and this background gives him some amazing insights into where literature might be headed. It's surprising, approachable, fun.

I love pop-economics books and The Undercover Economist is one of the best I've read. The section of Fair-Trade coffee was particularly shocking. Grant Morrison's Supergods was just the mix of memoir, metafiction and comics criticism that I hoped for, and I'm looking forward to reading it again.

The book that's likely to have the most long-term effect on me is London Calling, Barry Miles' counter-cultural history of London. This is a fascinating history of underground movements in London during the  20th century. I read it on a beach in February and one particular paragraph stuck in my head, sparking some ideas that may take up much of the next few years:

"…with the coming of the Internet, underground publication has effectively disappeared. There can be no avant-garde unless there is a time-delay before the public knows what you are doing… whereas artists in the sixties could work for years with no media coverage, the hardest thing now is to not have thousands of hits on Google or a page on Wikipedia."

I received a Kindle as a Christmas gift. I'd always avoided them before, scared of being seduced, but it's going to come in very useful in my travels over the coming weeks (books are heavy). I suspect that it will change the way I read significantly. I'm looking forward seeing what is one my list of favourite books of 2012, and what form they take.

New Year’s Day Poetry

What better way to shake off a New Year's hangover than poetry? This Sunday, New Years Day, I'm joining with some Brighton poets for a free performance of Allen Ginsberg's Howl, 7pm at the Earth and Stars.

Howl-flier
As well as reading Howl, there will also be a short set from each of the poets. So far confirmed we have me, Verity Spott, Chris Parkinson, Bernadette Cremin and Michael James Parker as compere. There are a couple more friends we're waiting to confirm. It should be an invigorating evening. Spread the word!

New Banksy in Brighton

Sorry about the poor quality photo, but a new Banksy in Brighton is exciting yah? This one is on the New England Road near the steps to the station. There was a lovely, intricate illustration which someone painted over. Luckily Banksy was on hand. It's a little more slapdash than the piece on Prince Albert, but I guess he's busy selling to celebs now.   

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Let’s execute the copywriters

Early Friday morning, I was walking one of the little woodland paths that circle the university. My favourite one runs between a road and a car park, in a deep dip so it feels as if you're miles from anyone else. At the wooden steps where the path ended, a piece of litter caught my eye.

A cup from McDonald's. Someone driving by had tossed it away, or someone walking the same path had finished their drink before re-emerging into the world. The cup had been discarded and stepped on, but the brightly coloured design caught my eye, in particular two words: THIRSTY FUN.

Thirsty-fun

'Thirsty' and 'fun'. Two words that have probably never been put together before, except maybe in avant-garde poetry or pornography. The sort of inanity that the fashion for wackaging has deadened us to. 

Long ago, I studied theoretical physics at university and learned about the anthropic principle. This is the idea that universe we observe and measure must be consistent with the existence of humanity. While this sounds obvious, it leads to some interesting conclusions. Among them is the explanation of why we live in such a massive, empty universe. It takes billions of years for nucleosynthesis to occur, billions more for life to form. In an expanding universe, the age implies the size of it. All those stars and galaxies and empty spaces between them are pre-requisites for a universe old enough to contain a single human life, a single poem.

The existence of an object implies a history for it. This piece of litter implied so much: meetings, prototypes, emails, invoices, sign-offs. The planning sessions, the whiteboards and thought-showers, the tedious creativity. At some point a real human being sat down and wrote the words THIRSTY FUN. What did the words mean to them? What moments in their life, joys and difficulties might be summed up in those words?

Let's put aside the arguments about branded litter. Firstly they're not relevant to this rant, and secondly, I'm sure that McDonald's don't mean for their littering clientele to function as a street team. The logos are just there as part of the end-to-end brand experience of consuming a McDonald's meal. It's an accident that I seem to see this litter everywhere, marking out the restaurant's territories.

Let's put aside the arguments about branded litter. Someone wrote this copy to pay their mortages (what Christopher Buckley referred to as the "Yuppie Nuremberg defence"). And the words THIRSTY FUN are bitterly ironic when placed near the logo for Coca-Cola, a company often criticised for their effects on water supplies in the third word. Did anyone think they were doing the right thing as they designed, printed and distributed this cup?

Maybe I've got it wrong. In the same way as the existence of a single book requires billions of light years of universe, maybe we cannot have the Society of the Spectacle without the cultural emptiness of a squashed McDonalds cup? But I'm sure that can't be true.

What sort of person devotes their time to writing a phrase like THIRSTY FUN on a cup intended to litter verges and woodland paths, decorated with logos advertising murderous corporations? Who were they? Did they have nothing better to do with their time?

Reading at Grit Lit on December 9th

I am very excited to announce that I will be reading at Grit Lit on December 9th. The event takes place in the Red Roaster and will include readings from Tim Lay, Amy Riley, Joe Evans and Nina de la Mer. I'm particularly excited about seeing Erinna Mettler, whose novel Starlings sounds fantastic, "a daisy-chain novel set in Brighton" that Louise Halvarddson recently wrote about.

The piece I'll be reading is 'The Other Child', a horror story about ex-girlfriends and books.

"Sarah and I broke up a year back and we’ve both seen other people since, but she still calls me when there’s a problem. A few months after we split she phoned one Sunday morning because there was a spider in the bath. That time, with the spider, I thought it was an excuse, that she was too embarrassed to say what she really wanted. I flushed the spider, followed her to the kitchen and put my arm around her. It was fairly awkward when Sarah explained that it was just about the spider. I apologised and went back home to bed.
I’m the person she calls when the bathroom floods, or her house was burgled, or her new boyfriend needs another man to explain that it’s over and he should return his key. The Paula Sharp thing started with one of those ‘can you help me’ calls, but this time Sarah refused to describe the problem on the phone. “Just come over, please?” I’d promised myself I’d stop doing her bidding but was curious about what she wanted. And there was always the chance it might be the other thing."

Advance tickets are available here for £5. The event starts at 8pm on December 9th.

Under the paving stones, the beach

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On Thursday night, I made my second appearance at the Catalyst Club. The venue was packed and I was a little nervous – it was the largest crowd I've addressed. Hopefully my nerves didn't show when I was talking.

My talk was about Psychogeography. I gave a brief introduction and talked about how the practises involved make you more aware of your environment. One of the things I spoke about Brighton's amazing street art, something I occasionally post about in this blog.

My favourite ever Brighton artist was 'Dean', who used to tag around the turn of the century. Dean's logo didn't look particularly impressive, but great care was taken with its placement. As much as I love this street art, I never think too much about the people producing it. I consider the art as a natural part of the urban environment, as something that simply emerges. Dr. Bramwell told me he had a story about the person behind the Dean tags and I declined to hear the story, because I like the idea of these things simply appearing.

Thanks to everyone who came along, and to Kate Shields for the photo above.

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Psychogeography PDF Broadside

As part of my talk on psychogeography at the Catalyst last week I prepared a single-sheet handout with some suggested activities and further reading. One of the things that prompted this was Warren Ellis' discussion of broadsides. Laying it out was beyond my word-processor (quite fairly, since that's not what word processors are for) but I found a free, open source DTP package called Scribus which made it easy. 

Copies of the sheet are available below. Feel free to download it, print it out or whatever. I hope people find it interesting. 

Broadside

I’m speaking at Brighton’s Catalyst Club on November 10th

I'm very excited, because this Thursday I will be speaking at Brighton's Catalyst Club. Last time I spoke there was back in January 2010, when I talked about How to Escape from a WW2 POW Camp.

The Catalyst Club is something of a Brighton Institution, and may be having its 100th event this week. Each month it presents three talks, the subjects of which are not announced until that night. This means that people don't stay away because the subjects sound unpromising. Instead you give yourself the opportunity to be amazed by something you didn't realise was fascinating. I've particularly enjoyed seeing talks on Corsairville, The History of Boylesque, Algorithmic Art, Houdini in Australia and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

But the above description doesn't give much idea of the friendly, slightly rowdy atmosphere or just how much fun it can be. The event is at 8pm at the Latest Music Bar and tickets are 5 pounds on the door or online. And, just in case it didn't sound exciting enough already, I'll be printing some handouts.

Next Not for the Faint-Hearted: November 7th

Not for the Faint-Hearted is a monthly writing night run by Ellen de Vries and me. We show a picture on a projector, and everyone spends a short time (usually three minutes) writing a response. It can be a story, poem, dialogue, or something else. When the time's up, everyone takes a turn reading something of what they've written. It's far less intimidating than it might sound and everyone seems to enjoy it. If you want to come along then sign up here. The next session is in Brighton on November 7th starting at 7pm.

Meanwhile, Tom has asked me to post some links to the pictures used in the last session, at the start of this month. Here they are:

  1. Tiny Kitten
  2. Mar Mousa Monastery
  3. The Best Way to Make it Through
  4. The Awful Truth, Day 4: Could be working harder
  5. Gravestones #1
  6. Vitral de Catedral de Berna

 

Beachy Head Marathon

On Saturday, I ran the Beachy Head Marathon. This was my third marathon of the year, just 6 weeks after the Nottingham Marathon. While the two other marathons were road races, this was a cross-country marathon, featuring an appalling number of hills.

It was perhaps a little ambitious to attempt such a gruelling marathon so soon after my last one. In addition, my preparations were shambolic. To reach Eastbourne in time to register required me to get up at 6:15. I forgot to prepare any breakfast and the pasties at Brighton station looked particularly unattractive, so I started the race on an empty stomach. To add to the stress, I was relying on my phone and Google maps to find the starting line, since I don’t know Eastbourne. I found myself in a deserted Saturday morning town with no 3G and little idea of where to go. But things went all right. I registered, dealt with the slightly shambolic toilet facilities and was ready to race at 9am.

The Beachy Head Marathon is a tough race, with the organisers suggesting that it adds about 40 minutes to a runner’s usual marathon time. It starts with a steep hill, which makes a fairly serious statement of purpose (while providing a great view of the runners up ahead starting). I was less mentally prepared than for my previous two marathons, so I took things as they came.  The route is a constant series of ups and downs (you can view the course map and profile), with some amazing views of the coast, although I unable to enjoy them as much as I would have liked. The hills were incredibly hard work, made worse because I’d neglected to do any hill training. There were even a couple of woodland step sections late on, which were particularly tough.

By 6 or 7 miles in, my hunger was starting to bite. I don’t normally eat when running but decided to break the rule about not changing strategy during a marathon. Each of the rest stops had a supply of Mars Bars – in fact, some had cake, tea and coffee, sausage rolls, all an improvement from the sickly sports drinks handed out in Brighton and Nottingham. I started eating the Mars Bars at the stops, glad of sustenance, even though I was nervous about eating so much – I’ve heard stories of people ‘doing a Radcliffe’ after eating unfamiliar food in a long race. I’m happy to report no untoward effects.

Even as I was running, I knew that few of the sections would stick in my memory, rather that it would blur into an overall impression. A sunny day, wide views of the coastline, and the line of runners in the distance, pointing out the route. The course was surprisingly busy, considering how remote much of it was. I was very grateful to the supporters although I’m not sure that I put on a good show. I was in a fair amount of discomfort in the last third of the race and it was hard to smile or even acknowledge people. I was also a little grumpy about the event photographers – I don’t really want graphic evidence of me trudging my way up another bloody hill! I ended up hiding behind other runners as I passed, even when that meant having to run for a bit.

I’ve blogged before about how a marathon doesn’t start for me until about mile 18. This is the place where the trouble began for me in Brighton and Nottingham. It’s difficult to train for this stage of a race, since it takes 3 hours to reach. I found an interesting quote on Mr. Spratt’s weblog by Robert de Castella: “The marathon’s about being in contention over the last 10K. That’s when it’s about what you have in your core. You have run all the strength, all the superficial fitness out of yourself, and it really comes down to what’s left inside you. To be able to draw deep and pull something out of yourself is one of the most tremendous things about the marathon.” I guess I am going to need to do some research on training for the marathon’s later stages.

I put in a decent pace for the first 18 miles, with a few 9’30s ,so that it looked as if I might even beat my Brighton marathon time. Sadly the wheels fell off as I climbed out of Cuckmere Haven. My pace was falling and I had little energy left. My legs hurt and I wondered if I would finish at all. By the time I reached the Seven Sisters my spirit was broken and I wanted nothing more than for the race to end. I wanted to lie down and had to pause a few times on the upwards slopes. For a mile or so on the Seven Sisters I found it hard to run at all and had horrible flashbacks to slow school cross-country runs.

When I reached the final checkpoint, I stopped for some of the very tasty cake and set off again feeling a little better. I dragged myself up Beachy Head, the final hill of the course, and managed to run the final stage. The race ends with the same steep slope as it started, and it was good to have gravity on my side, helping me towards the finish line.

I was delighted with my final result of 5 hours and 3 minutes, which had seemed impossible at one point. And, despite the difficulty of the course, one good thing was that my feet were in better condition at the end of this race than in the Nottingham marathon. I don’t think I would do the race again, as it was incredibly hard work (I can’t imagine it in bad weather conditions), but I’m glad I’ve done it once. The medal I’ve received was the hardest won yet, and I was very grateful for it.

The Beachy Head marathon is a small race, with about 1,500 entries, and it was a lovely, friendly event. The marshaling stations were friendly and well-stocked, and the cake was a delight. Thanks to the  supporters and the organisers for a fantastic race!