Abbie Hoffman and Levitating the Pentagon

A few months ago, I read an oral biography of Abbie Hoffman, Steal this Dream. Hoffman's story is a sad one. After his deliriously creative period in the sixties, Hoffman's life fell apart. He moved into drug dealing, a career he had little talent for, resulting in a bust. He spent several years on the run, where his bipolar condition worsened. By the end of his life, Hoffman was a sad, broken figure.

But during the sixties, Abbie Hoffman was incandescent. He was central figure in the Yippies, and one of the 'leaders' of the 1968 Chicago protests. He brought a manic freshness to protest, including an attempt to levitate the Pentagon. Hoffman was able to use the media, producing spectacles such as throwing dollar bills onto the floor of the stock exchange. These protests also demonstrated publicly that there were other ways of looking at things to the conventional. The attempt to levitate the Pentagon was absurd, but part of its success was that it was taken seriously in some quarters:

"Sal Gianetta: The two meetings I knew of, one in New York, and one in Washington, were probably the best examples of Abbie's brilliance. There were some Washington representatives and there were two military representatives. It started out that no way in the world was there going to be any activity anywhere around the Pentagon, which was the fucking Basilica of the United States, no fucking way. Right away, Abs says "Fuck you, we'll levitate the fucking thing high enough you won't be able to get in. Then what're you going to do with your fucking Pentagon?" They actually responded. That was the first inkling he had that he might be able to suck them into this…

At the other meeting I was at Ab threw the levitation on the table, right for openers. Ab was adamant that the building was going to go up twenty-two feet- because someone had told him except for fire-ladders, you can't get a ladder that's twenty-two feet. So he was willing to negotiate. If the fucking building went up twenty-two feet the foundations were going to crack, so there was discussion about foundations and cracks, it was fucking unbelievable. That meeting was two and a half hours or so and probably 20 per cent of that meeting was devoted to this fucking serious talk about levitating the Pentagon. This is our military, right? I swear to you, Ab came down from twenty-two feet to three feet, the military agreed to three feet and they sealed it with a handshake. That's how Ab was, he could capture you in that fucking bizarreness. Oh, it was joyful!

Looking back, the Sixties seem like a crazy time, when things could have changed forever. Imagine the scene at the Pentagon: American Indians, shamans and people burning yarrow, all gathered to exorcise demons from the building (with Kenneth Anger sneaking into the building to lay curses). I wish that same craziness and possibility was around today.

Lives as a single day: Kurt Cobain and William Burroughs

Imagine human lives considered as a single day, all those events compressed into the hours between rising at 7 and sleeping at 11. 16 hours of wakefulness. 

Take Kurt Cobain: each hour was twenty months, the time sweeping past. Nirvana formed at 6pm, and released their first record almost an hour later. At 8pm Cobain met Courtney Love. It was almost 9:30 by the time Smells Like Teen Spirit was a hit. Kurt and Courtney married just before ten pm, when the day was almost over. At eleven, Cobain put an end to his life.

William Burroughs died at 83. Each hour of his life was more than five years. At 2pm he shot his wife Joan Vollmer, when Cobain was 11 years old. He released his first book, Junky, at 2:30pm. Kerouac died at 5:30. At almost 8pm, Burroughs lost his son. His final novel, the Western Lands, was published at 9pm. 

Cobain and Burroughs met in October 1993. Years of real time separated the two, but if you consider their lives as a single day, it was 10:40pm for Cobain and 10:12pm for Burroughs.

Imagine a world where you knew how long you had left. What time is it now? What do you still need to do?

Writing From Life (Brighton Creative Writing Sessions No. 1)

How can your writing be influenced by what you see? How do you use images in your work?

Ellen-de-vries
On Saturday, Ellen de Vries and I held the first of our Brighton Creative Writing Sessions events. These are a series of playful, experimental creative writing sessions held in Jake Spicer's studio (also home to the Brighton Life Drawing Sessions). The studio proved to be a fantastic home, providing a more inspiring environment than a classroom-style venue.

Ellen and I did a lot of planning but were a little nervous before the start. How would people respond to what we were trying to do? It turned out that we had no reason to worry. The attendees were enthusiastic and both Ellen and I had a fantastic day.

The session started with a clip from Wild At Heart: "My dog barks some. Mentally you picture my dog, but I have not told you the type of dog which I have. Perhaps you even picture Toto, from 'The Wizard of Oz.'". This set the tone of the session.

We had a number of exercises and discussions examining the relationship between words and the visual world. We gave everyone blank paper to write on, urging them to think beyond writing in neat lines. As a warm up we used some timed visual prompts, similar to what we do for the our Not for the Faint-Hearted sessions, but using Jake's paintings:

Jake-spicer-painting

Jake joined in with the exercises, and hearing him respond in writing to his own paintings was fascinating. In another exercise, people wrote about their non-dominant hand, producing some tremendous self-portraits. We also had some discussions, including Jake talking about drawing as a visual language.

Still-life

For me the most interesting part was when we introuced a life model as a prompt. She made a series of three costumed poses.

Frankie-life-model

For the final two poses we used easels to hold the paper. Obviously everyone had to stand for this and we all found that writing while standing gave the act a different energy.

Jake-spicer

It was this exercise that I found most valuable, and I produced one of the most exciting pieces of writing I've done in years. Jake's recent Catalyst Club talk urged people to experiment with drawing, and I tried mixing my (admittedly poor) drawing skills with writing. I tried to capture the shape of Frankie's hair with the shape of my text, adding a few lines to suggest her face and outfit. While the prose was not perfect, I found the experiment inspiring. I can't wait to try building on this.

James-burt-writing

For me, it was a rewarding afternoon. The attendees were friendly and gave the session a lovely relaxed mood. The next session is on Sunday 26th, on Wabi-Sabi (tickets available here):

This is a miracle-worker for writer’s block and for loosening up to generate new ideas. Wabi Sabi is a Japanese tradition which celebrates broken and fragmented things, things coming into life and dying things. It lends itself well to writing from landscape; it’s a new way of looking into the cracks in the world around you. "Just lean into the crack / and it will tremble ever so nicely. Notice how it sparkles down there". Bjork.

Thanks to Jake Spicer for providing the venue. Below is a postcard he produced in response to one of the exercises. I love this piece!

Jake-postcard

Miscellany: Gentrification, tennis zombies and serendipity

Not for the faint-hearted workshop No. 4

On Wednesday, Ellen and I held the fourth of our Not for the Faint Hearted Sessions. The aim is to write stories or poems inspired by images, with a short time limit. Once the time finishes, everyone takes turns to read some, or all, of what they've written. We have a rule that you aren't allowed to apologise for your work before reading. It might sound imposing, but the workshops are a relaxed, friendly event.

This time, Ellen tried an experiment in the second half. Rather than use a picture as the prompt, everyone was given a slice of cake, which they ate during the ten minutes. There were some fascinating stories in response to this strange prompt. We're hoping to do some more experiments in the future sessions.

We used creative commons images from flickr for the event. The photographs used were:

As usual, the delight was seeing how many different ideas emerged from the same image. It's a good exercise in latereal thinking, and it's very rare for someone to produce work that isn't fascinating or amusing. This time, I found it hard to settle in the first couple of rounds. In the first two minute session I wasted a minute, but managed to come up with something I liked for this image, from Dean Ayres:

Dressing Room Only

"The clowns gasped as the image was revealed to the court. No decent clown would let himself be seen making-up in public. The sentence was the worst available, beaten to death with squeaky rubber mallets. It took two days."

We also had an outbreak of limericks during the session including one a serious one from Graham Sutherland. It was surprising to hear a light form used in a different way. There's a lovely write-up of the session from Louise Halvarddson here, and a brief discussion from Tom Hume here.

Thanks once again to the skiff for hosting the event. Details of the next Not for the Faint Hearted event will follow soon. Meanwhile we're running the Brighton Creative Writing Sessions starting from tomorrow. Leave a comment if you'd like more information on that.

Photos of Brighton – September 16th

I like to think of Brighton marina as a JG Ballard theme park:

Ballard-theme-park
 

But there are also homages to other writers, such as this cthulhoid horror:

Marina-cthulhu
 An approaching storm:

Marina-coming-storm
 Walking past St Bartholemew's, the light caught the building in just the right way that the windows glowed:

St-bartholemews

An abandoned door:

Abandoned-door
This inventive plant-pot is in the garden at the bottom of Trafalgar Street:

Trafalgar-street-garden
 

Further delays to Brighton’s i360

I360-argus
 

Back in April, I wtote a long post about delays to the i360 project. Brighton's i360 was originally supposed to open in Spring this year and it now looks as if the project has been delayed to the second half of 2012, at the earliest. Today's Brighton Argus includes a story headlined 'Brighton Eye to miss 2012 target' about the ongoing problems (no online version as yet). Marks-Barfield, the developers, are now trying to sell sponsorship of the tower's name "in a bid to close the funding gap".

Tony Mernagh of the Brighton and Hove Economic Partnership is quoted in the article saying "I would expect a business whose core market is young and trendy would be attracted to this, someone like a fashion label, or maybe an alcohol brand… We could be talking about the Smirnoff Tower in a few years' time." Nice.

The i360 is still no closer to completion. I'd still like to see it finished, preferably without a tacky name, but the continued delays and threats to the project make the vandalism of the West Pier seem even more shameful.

A Derbyshire wedding

I spent last weekend in Derbyshire, at a family wedding. It was a lovely day. Rain threatened on the day itself, with a shower as the bride reached the bottom of the hill near the church. The problem was solved by the car driving slowly until the shower passed, and the weather was good for the rest of the day.

Breedon-church 

I loved the marquee and the table decorations:

Marquee
 
Place-setting 

The wedding was also a chance for me to see my new nephew, pictured below with my brother-in-law:
  
New-nephew 

It was a great weekend. Congratulations to Julie and Andy.

How Stewart Lee escaped his certain fate

I bought Stewart Lee's book, How I Escaped My Certain Fate, to help myself through a hangover last weekend. I wasn't sure how interesting it would be to read transcripts of three shows that I'd already seen, but the book includes some massive footnotes discussing the routines and Lee's life, all of which proved fascinating. 

Stewart Lee interests me since he is someone who obviously cares about his craft. He talks in detail about his work, and how it relates to the comedians he loves, many of whom I'd not heard of before I read references to them in Lee's interviews. Lee also has some fantastic set-pieces, my favourite being his attack on Richard Littlejohn for Littlejohn's disgraceful comments on the Ipswich murders 

Some of the most interesting parts of the book are when Lee talks about his career and its current status. Inspired by Daniel Kitson, Lee has deliberately aimed for a smaller audience of people who love his work. He's a good example of someone with 1000 true fans

A few favourite quotes from the book:

"…my teenage comedy hero John Hegley told me you only need a few thousand fans. And if they all give you ten pounds a year, you're away. And I thought about all the musicians I like – the folk singers and free jazzers and alternative country cowpokes and persistent punk veterans who all hang on in there, on small labels, selling self-released CDs for cash out of suitcases after gigs and operating within viable margins, tour, rest, tour, rest and sell some CDs. They survive" [p31]

"I am arrogant, I admit, but when I say things like this onstage I have chosen to be arrogant for comic effect and hope, in part, that the comments reflect badly on me, creating a distancing effect between me and the audience. I hope they admire the comedy, but I'd rather they didn't enjoy the show just because they liked me as a person. It seems cheap." [p68]

"For the middle part of my thirties I'd been barely earning a living. I was like a punch-drunk prizefighter with no other viable skills who thought there might still be a battle to be won. And I realised that stand-up was just one man on a stage in the room. And so stand-up was infinite. And I had been a fool to doubt it." [p39] 

I like that last quote because it reminds me of something Harvey Pekar said about comic books, which is often quoted by Warren Ellis: "Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures."