Issue #120. January 27th - February 9th, 2006
I Promise To Go Wandering (Part 6)
The concept of vegetarians hadn't been introduced to him either. Kate had to explain it. When our food eventually came, two hours later, it was patently obvious that the tomatoes had been fried in lard.
By Matilda Mother
Mr Quinn/Seth/Time
It was the biggest disaster
in the world,some say
I disagree
and lucky for me
By Bob Young
Squashed Sandwichs & Warm Beer
So, I'm sitting on a train packed full of people "rallying round". Snow sits on the ground and the train being the sensitive type is feeling unwell and does not wish to move just now.
By Rachel Queen
Film Review: Memoirs of a Geisha
The Geisha house owners had more control over their destinies than the Geisha did as they were owned by the house that they were sold to and all the money they made went to the house.
By Grainne Lynch
Record Review #1: Cannonball Jane - Street Vernacular
Teachers have it, teachers rock! Mild mannered educators by day, but by night they transform themselves into hip scenesters, down with the kids and wowing the audience with the kid of musical delights usually espoused by delinquents, disaffected youth and bad kids from good families
By Johnny Mac
Record review #2: Celestial
Shimmering, gliding, haunting and tantalising, Celestial hover in the indie pop shadows waiting for their next victim, for the next unwilling, unwitting innocent to idle by before being seduced by the sweet, sweet slices of effortless beauty that slide through the darkness and sink deep into your heart without a sound.
By Johnny Mac
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Part 6
part 1 ¦¦ part 2¦¦ part 3¦¦ part 4¦¦ part 5
Dorset
'Isn't it good to be lost in the woods
Isn't it bad, so quiet there?
In the wood'
~'Octopus' by Syd Barrett
It was my friend Pete's 30th birthday this year and he decided to hold Pete
Fest - 30 odd friends with tents, a barbecue, some cricket wickets and balls
and a forest - in the county of Dorset.
Kate and I drove six hours to join them there, racing against the clock on the
Friday night, lest the campsite close; only to find them all gone to the pub
when we got there. Then it started raining. I was quite merry with it all
though, the sherry was a factor.
The Saturday morning really did have a festival air to it. We milled around
hugging people before driving in convoy into the nearest village. We were
assured that the breakfasts in one of the pubs were cheap and lovely, though
no-one had warned the licensee what was about to happen to him. Over 30 people,
as well as his usual clientele, descending simultaneously were demanding
breakfast.
The concept of vegetarians hadn't been introduced to him either. Kate had to
explain it. When our food eventually came, two hours later, it was patently
obvious that the tomatoes had been fried in lard. It was horrible. Some of our
party reported that they met the licensee out in the street with a newly
purchased toaster under his arm. Kate overheard him on the phone telling
someone to get out of bed now and get into the pub to help out. On average, the
breakfasts took between an hour and two hours to arrive and got less and less
as time went by. Pete had a single mushroom, not a big one, just one single
button mushroom. My egg wasn't well-done. People were counting ten baked beans
etc. None of the meat eaters had the advertised two sausages. My tea tasted
like it had been stewing for a week.
Funniest of all though was the Toast Lady. You were supposed to get your toast
with your meal. Even after the landlord had bought a toaster, it still arrived
an average of half an hour later. The old lady bringing them would put it down
on the table, look around nervously, whimper, 'toast' and flee. One of the lads
did complain three times, but none of the others did. Usually Kate would be the
first up doing it, but I think that we were just having fun and it had become
hilarious rather than annoying
We looked around the village, then returned to the campsite for a bit of
cricket. Well, the others did. The surrounding forest was just too enticing, so
I explored it, twice, going deeper and deeper in each time, until the
encroaching sunset told me that it was nearly Beltane. As a Wiccan, I had a few
things to do, like a raise a circle, so I made my way back to the tent.
I've never done a circle in a tent before, but one side was open to the west
(and therefore the sunset) and the energy within was unbelievable. It was
top-of-the-Tor level of buzzing. I sent a bit of it to everyone I knew who
needed it, then was halfway through those who didn't need it, but should have
it anyway, when Kate came back. I opened the circle to let her into her bedroom
area (*giggle*), but she waved it off, saying she'll go at the toilet block as
well, but wanted to warn me that folk were getting ready for our bonfire in the
forest. I closed the door again and finished off. I'd just closed the circle
when she returned. It was a beautiful atmosphere in there and, having seen a
bonfire made up on the heath earlier, I fully expected us to run into a group
of pagans out there with a fire already going.
It was quite an expedition. 30 people, some with chairs, some with lanterns,
some with beer, all heading out into the forest. I kept having to run ahead or
behind in order to avoid the torches. I have excellent night vision, which gets
blinded by the torches. One torch in particular blinded just about everyone. I
couldn't understand why so many people needed their torch when the night wasn't
so dark yet, but Kate told me that people's eyes are different and some really
do need it. We went quite a way into the forest, way past where I'd seen the
bonfire, and I began to get a tiny sense of the size of this place.
Wareham Forest, I know now, is 14 square miles. It encompasses marshlands,
watermeadows, a fir and conifer forest, heathlands, as well as your
bog-standard forest. It is BIG.
It was really chilled out. Sitting around drinking, talking, then someone got a
portable music system (of some sort, I didn't look closely enough) and all
chance I had of hearing was gone. I didn't mind that, I'm used to it, but when
one lad was trying to ask me about Paganism and another was trying to talk
about... something... I had no chance. Also it's very hard to lip-read in that
light. I had to keep apologizing, but I was having so much fun. Everyone was.
You could see it in their faces and Pete's face was great to watch. He kept
looking around and getting this little grin on his face, which I translated as
'look at my people, who came all this way to share this beautiful moment with
me...'
Then IT happened. It started with a couple of flashes behind me and Kate, which
first I caught and asked what that was. Then Kate caught. By the third, we
realized that we were looking at a storm. It grew and it was stunning! Forked
lightning, sheet lightning and not a drop of rain... Someone said that it was
probably over the Solvent and we could see it because of our vantage point. But
later I learned from one of those who'd returned to camp earlier that they saw
it all around us, spinning around the sky, but not touching us in the centre.
It was amazing enough for them, but for us... WOW! Every few seconds, the trees
would light up or forked lightning would zap across an opening in the trees.
One of the wenches next to me was afeared that it would strike us, but her
friend reassured her that the trees are taller and it would strike them first.
But what if we were under it? I replied that we just don't sit under it. On
retrospect, telling her to avoid being under trees while in a forest... She was
among the group who left shortly after that. Then there was a man, very drunk
and wanting to talk to me. So he sat on a chair right in my view of the storm.
I ended up talking to him like a three year old. 'Get up... move your chair
there... here!' *picking it up and moving it for him* 'I can't hear you... I
still can't hear you... there's a storm, music, people talking and I'm deaf...
I can't hear you... I'm just going to watch this storm... I can't hear what
you're saying. Shut up.' Bless his cotton socks. I met him for the first time
this weekend and he was generally lovely.
I was so energized by it. Downright high! The place, the setting, the company,
the storm AND it was Beltane. As the storm died down, I wanted to run wild. I
did a lap of the little bonfire and was about to tell the lad interested in
Paganism about the leaping over it, when I realized that he was missing.
Looking up the track, I could see the storm still going on further up and a
little incline in the track, which I could only tell by silouette in the
lightning. I asked Kate if she wanted to come a walk up there, but she was too
comfy. I was wanting the walk and two seconds of silence just to kiss the
goddess's skirts for letting me be me and be there.
I wondered on up the track, being careful not to deviate from it, because it
was dark and even I recognized that I could get lost. A little way up, I found
Pete and his friend collecting wood. His friend was considering the walk too,
but he needed to take the wood back. I told them that I'd only be five minutes
and walked off along the track, transfixed by the lightning in the distance,
the moment and the forest all around. Very careful to stay in a straight line
along a single track... the irony...
I reached a gate and from there could watch the storm in the distance. As I
sat, I heard a scuffling and a little yelp. I strained in the darkness to see
and made out a fox about ten feet away. OMG! I just stared and as I did, it
came towards me, right at my feet as they dangled from the gate. I barely
breathed, but I could hear it panting. It came to me suddenly to wonder if
foxes would attack... you'd think that I'd know by now, wouldn't you? But no...
then, as I watched, it seemed to become transparent then ran away. I sat there
half in shock. It was either an hallucination (I wasn't entirely sober...); a
real fox (this was the early hours and everything in darkness pixelates greatly
with all the buzzy, golden lights (phrenozones?); a ghost fox; or it was my
totem/familiar showing itself. I didn't know then and I still don't know.
I thought I'd consult Kate or Pete on the subject, so meandered down the track
again. Partway down, a track forked off and I nearly took it, then remembered -
Stay on the straight line, so you don't get lost. I looked down and the track
very distinctly led one way, but there was a slight curve which made it look
like a fork. That other was a track going off it. I walked on. What I failed to
notice was that I'd never once, on the way up, walked around even a slight
curve. That had been my track and I was now walking along another track which
led at right angles away from both where the others were AND the camp-site. We
reckon that was around half 2. I made it back to the campsite, utterly
exhausted, at around half 8 the next morning after spending the entire night
walking around the forest trying to find my way back.
But what a night. I saw… things… I found a hillfort and a stream; I saw deer
caught in the pre-dawn mists; and a whole grove of flowers and gorse. I'd
actually got close home early on. I have a good sense of direction. I usually
only have to go somewhere once to memorize it. Folk find this hard to believe
after Saturday night, but it's true. What my downfall was was that it was
cloudy, therefore I had very little to go on; I didn't know either the lie of
the land or the forest, as I'd never been to Dorset before, let alone Wareham;
and I was in a totally different part of the forest from where I'd been
earlier. The few clues I had, I utilized. I looked up and found the Plough and
the Pelaedes. I remembered staring at them before the storm and where they were
in the sky, then I faced them and headed in that direction. I also thought I'd
seen the pilons to the north of the campsite (no, they were telephone wires, I
learned later), so I kept them to the north (the pilons were actually to the
south of the site...).
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From the pen of Bob Young
Mr Quinn
It was the biggest disaster
in the world,some say
I disagree
and lucky for me
it happened in the back garden
reading the paper
3 year old girl raped
father kills his son
mother drowns
I turned on the radio
Hancock's half hour
outside the plane crashed
Sid James laughed
I got up
opened the door, amazed
and honoured
300 dead people
blacks in my summer bed
the rich in my compost
Germans in my roses
and a blonde movie star on top of my apple tree
Hancock was crying, then you
Mr Quinn
looked at me
300 dead
and lucky me,
you hanging on
life half gone
buck tooth like a rabbit
blood dripping from your eyes
"help me. Please"
that was the biggest disaster
You
having a chance to survive
you should have never
been born,
as I turned away
I'm sure you thought the same.
tonight I would
cut the grass, clear the compost, and plant a thistle up
Your arse.
and I did.
Seth
The last time
I saw beauty
was the only
time
you came out
of the ugliest hole,
it has destroyed many
Do you want to cut the cord? The nurse asked
no I thought
no I replied
How could I
take a blade
to something so
very beautiful,
you looked at me, smiling
for the first time, the only time
I knew……I had a....purpose;
I would be your armour.
Time
I lost
I lost
You won
He won
Two years later
You're both winners
I remain
In bed
with low
lights and cars
passing on buy
Nothing else
that's all.
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Squashed Sandwiches & Warm Beer
So, I'm sitting on a train packed full of people "rallying round". Snow sits on the ground and the train being the sensitive type is feeling unwell and does not wish to move just now.
This is the third time it has stopped. Lancaster station at 7.00 in the evening is not particularly interesting place to be. Especially not for two hours.
People are generally bemused, offering round squashed sandwiches, cans of warm beer and taking advantage of the complimentary tea and coffee. I am fiddling with my walkman. It doesn't work. I study my collection of carefully recorded CDs mournfully. Sequentially trying to remember the words and tune in my head. It passes the time.
Opposite me sit an oldish couple, surrounded by bags and coats, who tell me about their previous journey to their daughters. "The train was on time all the way..." They proceed to list each station along the route correcting one another until they return to doing the crossword puzzle.
Next to me sits a girl with a nut allergy. She has a walkman on. It seems to be working.
My bag rings, or rather my mobile rings, I hadn't realised it was switched on. My bag is lodged between other cases above my head. I am stuck in the inside seat sandwiched between old couples and girls with nut allergies. Other people don't know who the phone belongs to so I let it ring.
I look around the carriage for the owner of the annoying phone. But I think the redness in my cheeks could be enough to convict me. The commuter type man behind me complains loudly about the phone. I am thankful to him because people now look knowingly towards him and my red cheeks remain unnoticed.
By some miracle the train moves forward once more. People cheer reservedly.
My walkman still refuses to work...
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Film Review: Memoirs of a Geisha
Memoirs of a Geisha is the story of a little girl who was sold by her family to a Geisha house in Kyoto and how she become one of the most celebrated Geisha of the 1930s and 40s. It is not really a love story, Geisha are not allowed to love, and it is certainly not a comedy. It is not a sexy film. The Geisha may be famed for their beauty, grace and allure, but this film focuses more on the hardships of their lives and the lengths they have to go to to create that illusion of effortless beauty.
One of the things it does do is answer the question ‘what is a Geisha?’ and explains some of the rituals and traditions involved in their lives, though not in the detail that Arthur Golden’s book does. The film does not have the long descriptions of the Geisha clothes and the ritual involved in dressing, but it does have magnificent scenery and beautiful shot scenes of the busy city. It conveys the beauty of the cherry blossoms, the feel of crowded streets and the ridiculous height of the Geisha’s wooden shoes much better than the book. The entire film looks magnificent; the long shots over the bustling city and the stillness of the mountains are breathtaking.
It is very much a woman’s film. All the main characters are female, and the casting of beautiful Chinese actresses as Japanese Geisha caused some controversy. Whatever their nationality, in general they succeeded in creating memorable characters. Li Gong as the cruel and beautiful Hatsumomo and Youki Kudoh as funny, little Pumpkin both do a magnificent job. Sayuri, the Geisha of the title seemed to be a stronger character in the book, one was more sure of herself and her place in the world. In the film, she seems more inclined to do as she is told.
The male characters may take a back seat in the film, but they still have all the power. The Geisha have very limited control over their lives; men hold all the cards because they have the money. Perhaps this is to be expected in the pre-World War II era but it is still hard to see how very little choice they had. The Geisha house owners had more control over their destinies than the Geisha did as they were owned by the house that they were sold to and all the money they made went to the house.
Sayuri’s rise as the most celebrated geisha in Kyoto is interrupted by the outbreak of war and she spends three years outside the city. When she returns to Kyoto, it is not the same place she left. The city has been over-run by American soldiers. There are English signs along side the Japanese ones, the quiet rickshaws have been replaced by noisy Jeeps and Frank Sinatra is playing in the tea-houses. This is the beginning of the Americanization of the Japanese culture and it is possible to see how this transformation led to the Japan at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as seen in Lost in Translation.
The film succeeds in telling the story of Sayuri and vividly recreating the world she lived in. Though the film is beautiful to look at, it is not as spell-blinding or as moving as the book, but which I would thoroughly recommend.
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