Latitude 2010

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Latitude was a lovely interlude between finishing the book and my return to Brighton later this week. It's a fantastic festival with a perfect site (despite a massive downpour on Saturday morning, the ground was dry again within an hour or two). I only saw a handful of bands, spending most of my time between the poetry, literary and comedy tents. I saw three of my heroes through the weekend (Chris Morris, Eddie Argos, and Bret Easton Ellis) along with lots of interesting people I'd not heard of before. Among the highlights:

  • The poetry tent had an excellent programme, which included my friend Rosy Carrick doing a couple of New Voices slots. I saw good performances from Anna Freeman, Rhian Edwards, Byron Vincent and Laura Dockerill's Word Orchestra. One note to performance poets, though: please can you stop doing patronising pieces about tabloid readers and the underclass.
  • There was a showing of 4 Lions with a Q&A afterwards. This was marred only by a heavy-handed announcement that officials with night vision goggles would be making sure nobody filmed the screen. Both insulting and patronising- and there are better ways to steal a film than at a festival showing. Chris Morris lightened the mood a little, suggesting that there were only two officials and a whole crowd – with a little work, it would be possible to run them ragged…. The Q&A was fascinating, with some discussions about the film's research. Apparently, jihadi message boards are like those for "any other obsessive hobby".
  • The Bret Easton Ellis interview with Miranda Sawyer was fascinating, but probably deserves a post of its own tomorrow. Hanif Kureshi was an interesting warm-up act; I liked his observation: "Writing could stop you going mad – but so too could reading"
  • I read The End of Mr. Y a couple of years ago and wasn't particularly excited by it. On Saturday night, just before midnight, Scarlett Thomas read from her new book Our Tragic Universe, accompanied by her brother on keyboards. I was spellbound by the reading and had to buy the book. I can't wait to read it next week.
  • The best band of the weekend was Crystal Castles, who played an amazing, chaotic set on Saturday. Alice Glass veered between being incredibly cool and a little daft, which makes her the perfect pop star (it seemed excessive to have a mike-lead roadie to untangle the wires when she caught them behind the monitors). Alice spent much of the gig in the crowd, cutting the set early after she was groped. Some media reports claimed the crowd were booing when she left, but I didn't hear any boos where I was. It was an amazing, furious set.
  • On Sunday night, Robin Ince's book club featured a reading of one of Guy N Smith's Crabs novels, with musical accompaniment. Quite spectacular. I'm now resisting the temptation to re-read the Crabs novels.

Latitude was a great weekend. The festival isn't perfect (the heavy-handed bag searches were wearing) but the acts easily make up for it. I'm looking forward to next year's event.

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I Have America Surrounded

I've been reading a lot of books about the 60's lately. On my to-read pile there are books by or about William Burroughs, Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson, Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton. Most recently I've read  I Have America Surrounded, by John Higgs, a biography of Timothy Leary. I'm not a huge fan of Leary's writings and theories, but he is an intruiging character.

The biography was a good read. First off, I love the title. It comes from an interview with Leary where he was asked to comment on Nixon's claim that he was the most dangerous man in America. Leary, who was dying at the time, replied, "Yes, it's true. I have America surrounded."

In The Polysyllabic Spree, Nick Hornby suggests should be a legal limit to the length of a biography. This book is perfect, coming in at just over three hundred pages. There was no messing around: by the end of the third chapter, Leary had been thrown out of the army and then out of Harvard. There were a few points where I'd perhaps have liked more detail, but the book concentrated on telling a great story. The contents page reflects this – there are some fantastic chapter titles.

For me, the best biographies are those that include a series of connected anecdotes and episodes, with hindsight putting them into perspective. This book includes some wonderful stories – like the time that the only LSD Leary had access to was dropped in a suitcase. The drug soaked into Richard Alpert's white linen suit meaning Leary and friends were "reduced to nibbling the suit when they wanted to trip". (Alpert's name was later borrowed for a character from Lost). Or the time when Leary was given a series of psychological papers to decide what category of prison he should be held in – papers he himself had devised.

There's also some interesting background information. I learned that the 007 codeword came from John Dee, magician and spymaster. The notes have a brief discussion of Dock Ellis, a
baseball player who pitched a
perfect no-hitter on LSD
and there's a mention of R. Gordon Wasson, an ex-vice-president of JP Morgan. Wasson's hobby was, apparently 'ethnomycology', "the study of mushrooms in human society". He went to Mexico to investigate mushroom cults for Life magazine, a trip apparently funded by the CIA. 

One thing I love about biographies is how they overlap. Leary gave psychedelic sessions for Burroughs and Ginsberg and was an associate and defence witness for Abbie Hoffman; there's also a weird moment, where Charles Manson criticises some
pro-violence statements that Leary made. But, for me, the most interesting episode was when Leary encountered Eldridge Cleaver. After escaping prison with the help of the weather underground, he fled America for Algeria. Apparently, after Algeria achieved independence, the country recognised 13 'liberation groups' rather than the countries they were resisting. This meant that the official representatives for the USA were the Black Panthers, under Eldridge Cleaver.

Like many 60's icons, Leary's post-60's legacy is more conflicted. He was finally captured by the American Government and was released after agreeing to assist the FBI with their investigation of the Weathermen. Although it was claimed Leary's co-operation was a pretence, and that nobody was arrested as a result, it was a dubious episode.

I Have America Surrounded was a good book – recommended. Next up: Steal this Dream, an oral biography of Annie Hoffman.

I’ve finished the novel

Today I finally finished Swansong, the novel I've been working on in Derbyshire. While the manuscript undoubtedly contains a few spelling mistakes and odd errors, there are no bugs that I am aware of.

I started working on Swansong when I was in Coventry, although I first had the idea at University (when I was at University the first time, that is, doing my BSc). The novel has turned out very different from what I first planned, but I think it's stronger for that. It has been fascinating to work on – the research has led to some fascinating conversations and I've met some interesting people.

I've learned a lot from writing this novel. One lesson is to be more careful with research. I spent too long gathering material rather doing the specific research that the novel needed. Hopefully I can avoid this in future by planning the second half of the book better – which would also have prevented a couple of the rewrites. Having said that, I'm very excited about some of the secrets I uncovered through doing the research.

FWIW, Swansong is not the first novel I've written. I wrote some appalling messes in my twenties, that have now been permanently deleted. There is also The Clown Novel, which I finished last year, but that feels a little too depraved to unleash upon the world. Swansong is the first novel I've written that I feel reasonably happy with. I'm now going to send the book to my initial alpha-reader for their comments. Then I'm taking the rest of the day off.

Where does the weirdness go?

The price of second-hand books seems to have fallen in Brighton. On my last trip I picked up some good books including The Secret State, The Manual of Detection and a volume of Eldridge Cleaver speeches, all for two pounds each.

I also picked up a copy of Toby Litt's i play the drums in a band called Okay. I'd read a couple of the chapters as short stories so thought I would give the book a try, although books about rock bands are generally disappointing. This turned out to be a lovely novel. It's written as a rockstar's autobiography and makes an episodic sweep across his life. The book's origin as disconnected short stories works well. In fact, it's arguable that the book is actually a short stort collection – but, if it is, then it's one of those rare collections where the selection and sequencing make the stories far stronger.

Another cheap book I picked up recently was Warren Ellis's Crooked Little Vein. I'd expected this to be entertaining but I've been surprised at how much it's made me think. The book explodes with ideas like godzilla bukkake / macroherpetophiles, Aaron Sorkin as a CIA plant, saline infusion, the ethics of human/canine relationships and the meaning of America. But the book also has some interesting things to say about what the Internet means for fringe culture:

"Consider this, though. If I've seen it on the Internet, is it still underground? 'Underground' always connoted something hidden, something difficult to see and find. Something underneath the surface of things, yes? But if it's on the Internet – and I do praise the Lord that I lived long enough to see such a thing – it cannot possibly be underground."

We live in a time when anything interesting is quickly propagated on twitter. Jokes can be stale within hours. Hype cycles can be so fast that they never recover from the 'trough of disillusionment'. There is less time for things to brew in secret before being brought to light – it's ridiculously to throw up a website for a minor project. And that may be a bad thing, it may not, but things have definitely changed. Crooked Little Vein might look like be an extended gross-out at points, but it's also a very clever little book and well worth reading.

New story at Are You Sitting Comfortably in Brighton, June 19th

A new short story of mine, The First Time is being read at Are You Sitting Comfortably, a Brighton short fiction night where the stories are read by actors. It sounds like an interesting event:

White Rabbit presents: Are You Sitting Comfortably?- Pyjama Party!
Saturday 19th June 2010, from 9pm, The Basement, Kensington Street,
Brighton.

Slip on your slippers, bring blankets and bed rolls ready to camp out
at the White Rabbit’s storytelling sleepover inspired by the summer
solstice. Midnight feast available from our kitchen, and fairytale films
to send you off to sleep… you‘re welcome to toddle off home, or stay
the night and have breakfast with us…
Dress code: glamorous PJs /nightwear
Bring: something to snuggle down with: sleeping bags etc
Extras: pass the parcel, musical chairs, prizes for best dressed…
Follow the bunny….down…down…down

Doors open 9pm, stories start at 10pm, followed by midnight feast,
films, more stories, then lights out! breakfast available for those who
sleepover
. £4/£6

Full details here. Also reading is Louise Halvardsson, who has been writing some fantastic stories lately. 

"When I was fourteen, a
girl on the estate disappeared and I was the last person to see her.
I was asked a lot of questions afterwards. Some of them were
friendly, others were impatient, and there were some implying that
I’d done something wrong. I never told the full story, not to any
adult, but I did tell the other kids on the estate. They were the
only ones who would have believed me."

New story available online: The Dirty Bits

I have a new story available online, in the latest issue of Streetcake Magazine. The story is called The Dirty Bits and was read at Short Fuse's erotic fiction night last year. As the continuity announcers like to say, it contains strong language from the beginning.

It's a fairly experimental story, featuring 'samples' from Anais Nin and Georges Bataille and was an interesting piece to read in public. Issue 11 of streetcake magazine is available from here.

Flash fiction in Black Static Magazine

A story of mine, In the Night Supermarket… is one of ten short horror stories that will be appearing in the next issue of Black Static Magazine:

"Ellen always comes to the
supermarket after two, when it’s quiet. She used to have terrible
nightmares but late night shopping keeps them away.
"

The story was entered as part of the Campaign for Real Fear run by Christopher Fowler and Maura McHugh. I can't wait to see the magazine – firstly, because it's so exciting to be appearing in a magazine that I've been subscribing to for a couple of years. Also, as I said in my last post, I can't wait to read the other stories the Campaign has produced. Hopefully it should arrive in the next couple of weeks.

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Ever worry that signs are talking to you?

Do you ever worry that signs are talking to you?

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The photo above was taken in the village post office on Friday. They put up a message of the day – a little like one of those Unix login messages, but without the need for a keyboard.

Summer is definitely here. I spent Sunday on my first bike ride in years, dashing around the Derbyshire countryside between Calke Abbey and Staunton Harald reservoir. The weather was incredible and I am currently in love with the England and the summer.

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The Bearded Theory Festival

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I forgot to post this last week – the other weekend I went to the Bearded Theory festival. It's a small, relaxed event, held about thirty miles from where I'm staying. Joh spotted the festival and demanded I go with her. She'd been attracted by an eclectic line-up, which ranged from New Model Army to the Cheeky Girls via Senser.

A lot of the bands were heritage acts, some of whom did better than
others (Musicians! write songs you can still sing in your
forties!) The Wonder Stuff were as good as I'd hoped, but the biggest surprise of the weekend was Senser. I missed seeing them around the time of Stacked Up
and had low expectations fifteen years later. They performed an amazing
gig, which included a couple of bars from Milkshake finding their way
into Switch, and a great cover of Mama Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J's comeback song. (There's a recording of them doing the cover here).

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There were the usual festival shenanigans, although elf ears and silly hats were refreshingly rare. We saw some frightening toilets. We lazed around in the afternoon listening to music in the distance. We heard political ska music – I've never seen the point of that. Has there been any recorded case of a fascist changing their mind after seeing a ska band in the afternoon?

I tried to explain to Joh that bad hats are a valid reason for disliking a band. I had a minor festival disaster, in that I only packed two books, and had pretty much finished them both on the Saturday. A tour of the event's stalls produced nothing to read.

At a festival you can never be sure who your next door neighbours will be. Camping behind us, for instance, was a man from the North-East, whose only tone of voice was an aggressive shout, whatever he said. But even more unnerving was the neighbour in the van next door. While Joh was preparing a supper of super-noodle sandwiches, I looked up to see:

Craig-the-clown 

I know clowns are people too, and need time off like the rest of us, but it's still disturbing when you find one living next door.

Why bother writing

My latest article, Why Bother Writing? is now up on the Literature Network site. It was written in January, when I was preparing to leave for India:

"I carry a book everywhere I go but it’s only when lugging whole boxes of them that you become aware of how heavy text is. I’ve slimmed my library down massively and it’s still too heavy. I think back to the rumours that my university library is sinking under the weight of the text inside. The story wasn’t true, but it sounds like it could be."

The article is about Twitter, phatic communication, and what the point is in writing in a world that already contains so many books.