every little hurts

say no tesco in stokes croft

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wonderclub

Last week I went to see an interactive play at the wonderclub in stokes croft.
It was a lovely night, full of brilliant set designs, dramatic lighting and some top notch acting skills.

The play went by the name of 'the lamentable tragedy'
"an extraordinary site specific performance. We make exciting interactive promenade theatre, bringing to life installation art from some of Bristol's leading artists we merge theatre, music and performance art tied together by a narrative that allows you, the audience to find, play with and gossip about."

this kind of unique experience is something i love to get my teeth into ever since i saw a version of Edgar Allen Poe's 'masque of the red death' at the battersea arts centre a couple of years ago. This play was perhaps the most amazing theatre experience i have ever had. The atmosphere was electric- with every member of the audience wearing a plain white grotesque mask, and after a visit to the tailors, a black velvet cloak to match. The music was intense and constantly building making you chase each character around the set, through wardrobes, out of fire places, visiting each room more than once and finding it changed, the action having moved on to another space. It was fantastic.

in close competition was fuerzabruta an intense piece of interactive theatre at the round house in london. The audience spent the entire night watching around them and above them as characters emerged form within us and stages moved around the space. this was accentuated by a constantly running man on a conveyor belt in the centre of the room, coupled with foil walls dropping down around us and people rushing sideways, swooshing and banging against the wall. The water was something i never expected. but it made the night unforgettable.
watch this video on the website to get an idea of the intense experience.

well done wonderclub for such a good show last week.

pictures: fuezabruta and masque of the red death.

diva done

a prophet

amazing.
go and see this.
a prophet

storytime

the story of the beast.

the beast came into our lives four years ago when jungen and gregor traveled to the forest to find something to carry us to our dream destinations... They searched for many days, and many times they feared they would fail their appointed task and return to the coombe with heavy hearts and empty hands.

Then one day, they went to an olde hamlet near the dean, that goes by the name of glowscester. Here they found, nestled amongst the trees, a yard, owned by the kindest, most friendliest forest dwellers they did ever come upon. the dwellers took a shine to the two travelers, took stock of their tasks and offered them a creature so vast, it was perhaps the only vehicle possible that could carry so many heady souls to pastures green and new.

jungen and gregor followed the happy foresters to a small pen out of the back of the ramshackle old yard house, and there they saw it.... the beast.

Immediately the two city rouges took stock of the thing, checked it over, touched its cold clammy sides and decided that yes. the beast was exactly what the coombe needed, not only for this journey, but also for the other deeds that may come in the following years. They understood she was reaching an older age and she had had difficulties at times, but they offered something the beast had never dreamed of in her old age- love, purpose and a family to look after her.

the beast came to be loved by the two young travelers and all that rested upon her belly with an open heart and tired toes. She ferryed them over seas, through sand, rain, snow, sleet and sparkling sunsets that seemed as though they would never end. She took a new life of her own, deciding when she liked a place or hastened her pace to move on to find a new spot to explore, snug and safe in the knowledge that when the time did come... she would be transported to an open meadow near the place of thorns and rocks where the men stood wide with arms bred for lifting weight high.

but of all her dreams, she realised she could not give back enough money nor silver to the beauty of unconditional love she felt for those who had released her from her graveyard of doom and returned her to the magic touch of the road.

Ne'er a beast did ever turn a heart so full of stone to golden dust as the best beast of all.

wake up

Now i am aware that this film is a love or hate situation.

but Linklater's 'Waking Life' made me feel differently about philosophy.
It made me realise it is something very relevant and real and applicable to our every day selves bumbling along in our moments joined up by the beautiful and boring and mundane.

The intensity of the conversations held within this film blew me away. of course i understand that the content can be seen as pretentious and over the top... bringing too much together too fast... kind of like a montage of different views of what is happening around us right now. but i found myself reaching for a pen and paper to scribble notes and pause for thought when my brain caught up with the wavering images.

It tells the story of a young man lucid dreaming.
He is contastantly having 'false awakenings' believing that he is waking up, but ultimately he just keeps waking up into another dream throughout the whole film.

road in It captured so entirely the idea of the 'the human spirit refusing to submit' for me that a friend and i coined the term for our own lives. now we have 'waking life' conversations and moments of our own. I remember so vividly a moment of such when sat outside a greasy spoon cafe on lewesbrighton. just me and rhi, our reflections in the window beside us, a cold winter day with hot chocolate and warm apple pie, talking about how incredibly important the people are in our lives who transcend the normal and become spectacular. We caught each others smiles and suddenly a murmeration of starlings silently emerged from behind her head in the bright winter sky and we both watched quietly until they left our sight.

If you haven't seen any other of Linklater's films.. i highly recommend 'slacker' for those who are of the 80's/90's teenage generations. you have got to love the apathy captured so brilliantly in the characters and their bad fashion statements shuffling through the wide streets of america. clerks eat your heart out.
...and if your a raging emo nostaligic romantic like me... you have to take some time to watch 'before sunrise' and 'before sunset'. absolute gems for those dreamers out there.
The couple also feature in waking life as the couple in bed discussing the idea of 'observing your own life from the outside'.

i've just been trawling through clips to out up here from waking life and its reeeally difficult to chose one. but i think this will do for now. the simplest can be the most effective.
enjoy.

girlishness

secrets

last night i had treat of the best variety.

it included smoking rooms, gin and tonic, 4 course vegan food and lots of happy smiling faces.

It may sounds like i had a fantastic night at a fabulous top notch yuppie eaterie.
well in many ways i did- except minus the 'yuppie' and including a 'squat'.

cloak and dinner put on a completely astounding night in the style of a renegade restaurant.

a location was sought, picked, people were moved in, kitchen prepared, food collected from whereever possible, chairs borrowed, curtains draped, candles lit and to top it all off a host of the most excellent on floor waiting service i have ever experienced.

i want to give them the respect and congratulations this little crew of creatives deserves by saying a great big thank you.

i wallowed in superior treatment and the decadence of the whole night.. followed by cigarettes, gin and tonic and dancing in candlelight.

the lovely people in their own words:

"We are a Bristol-based collective of amateur and professional chefs, waiter/esses, bartenders, artists, actors and creatives, inspired by food and disappointed by the pretense and price-tag necessary for a great eating-out experience in Bristol."

dressed to impress they did a smashing smashing job. encore encore.

photo 'borrowed'

shifty

I am sure many of you have already come across this group of word loving political activists from our very own London town who go by the name of ctrl.alt.shift. They are well on it with the current issues and noble causes, whilst embracing the creativity of all us little people in all their doings and goings on. They produce a quarterly magazine, have a vast array of bloggers heading up the team on all sorts of ecofriendlypoliticalissues which have never even crossed your mind- yet.

the magazine is particularly well put together, well written, and very good looking.

Previous titles include:
Issue 1: The awareness issue
Issue 2: The stigma issue
Issue 3: The gender issue
Issue 4: The corruption issue
and you can download the first 3 here : the magazines

They have an events calendar for art and protests and gigs and dancethenightaways.

And the best thing of all- for all of you fast lane life livers.. there is a page for actions.
Actions that will take you a few seconds / a few minutes / a few hours....
It s all set up, just find some causes you believe in, or cannot believe are happening in the world today, click some buttons, write some words and get your voice heard in amongst the crowds of discontent.

They have made of £10,000 for Haiti victims already.

as an annoying drunk middle aged woman once told me in Thailand- get involved.

panorama

If you missed last night's Panorama on BBC 1 watch it here:

Panorama - A walk in the park...

and read about it here:

Staking claim underneath East Jerusalem

It is strange how tv programmes- unless whole heartedly sensationalist, don't seem to highlight the importance and urgency of situations like the Palestinian families documented in this episode of Panorama. There are constant and consistent references to the past; Some of Jerusalem becoming Jewish land 200 years ago; displacement of Palestinians since 1948; settlement building since the 1980's... Yet the quiet rapidity at which the Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem (and with in the occupied territories) are being demolished resulting in generations of Palestinian families becoming evicted from their homes and from the cities in which they have always lived, makes it seem as though the conflict has always been fought in this way. Soldiers coming to houses in the middle of the night, escorted by a further team of armed guards, denying any paperwork as counterfeit.. it is all part of a mechanism of extending the past into the present, and removing the focus from the current phenomenon which is entirely new and fresh and a tool for the Israeli government that is in power today. This is not a battle that has been going on for centuries. It is a demographic plan which has come into fruition faster than the blink of an eye.

In 1901 a group by the name of the Jewish National Fund was formed as a precursor to the establishment of the Israeli state. The JNF were created specifically to put together a vast archive of information of Palestinian land quality and water sources in order to sell it to Jews, create Kibbutz's, and 'stamp out' some of the more hostile areas toward the Jewish people. Even though the Jewish people were given 56% of the land upon which to construct a Jewish state, they proceeded to ignore the Palestinians right to return after being expelled from the land in 1948. Further to this, the 1967 war saw Israel claim an extra 22% of the land; whilst still refusing the right of return to the Palestinians. Demographically Israel was starting to have a massive influence. The Israeli peace group 'peace now' hold a map of the settlements in the west bank which can be seen above, including those surrounding East Jerusalem. It also shows the plans for building a new city around the walls of East Jerusalem.

This area or new city of settlements will be called E-1. for now.
And it will cut Jerusalem off from the rest of Palestine.
Thus negating it as a viable capital for a Palestinian State.

Settlements have been off the international agenda for so long...
Is it not time we took note? whilst there is still some land left?

Arabic

The arabic alphabet.
something i am trying to learn at the moment.
Writing each letter is hard enough.. but saying them?

well.

thats a completely new kettle of fish.

sacco

Ever since I came across Joe Sacco's 'Palestine', a graphic novel I borrowed from my friend Hannah, I have been in awe of the ability of Sacco to translate in pictures the struggle of Palestine.

I took my time to read the novel, dipping in and out of its pages when I felt I had the time and energy to confront the situation in Palestine. As a medium I find the graphic novel impressive, as it not only has words (and quotes of real life people due to 'Palestines' nature as a documentation of experiences), but it shows faces and families and street scenes, bringing it all to the present because its not only engaging us through text, but also by the intense pictures allowing each page to come to life.

I finished reading Palestine a week before my trip to the West Bank. And I am so glad of this timing, for i can honestly say, hand on heart, that Sacco's representation of Palestine is completely accurate, even today. He argues himself in footnotes that the struggle is timeless, as it has no conclusion, no outcome. It is continuous. The way in which he describes his experience of being a journalist within the daily naturalization of violence and suffering, until you realise every family has a story, every son has a brother in prison, every mother has lost a son or nephew to the struggle, the nature of every story and the changing reaction of the listener is documented so perfectly in Sacco's book. It becomes 'normal' to hear of martyrs and settler attacks and imprisonment without reason.

For Christmas this year I received Sacco's most recent work 'Footnotes from Gaza'. Ironically I also gave this graphic novel as a present to the very same friend... And again, I find myself taking my time to work my way through the chapters, as each page deserves attention to the detailed drawings and experiences being discussed scene by scene.

but read it for yourself.

and if you need more persuasion, here is an article on Al-Jazeera with Sacco himself.

Interview: Joe Sacco by Laila El-Haddad

the teens speech

I have been working for barnardo's for almost a year now and still i am impressed by the level at which the projects work for the young people and families involved. They released an amazing set of posters that entailed portraits of difficult young people sneering or glaring, with a statement below commenting on how barnardo's works with the young people that families and societies have given up on. (in many cases)

and this teens speech puts together all of these elements, told by young people, about young people in their own words and voices, just why its so important that we listen to what they have to say

The Teens' Speech from Barnardo's on Vimeo.

robert the: book works

lovely books by robert...

Another lovely wordsmith using books and pages and words for magic.

lovely.

her morning elegance

just as i was thinking about this beautiful piece of stop frame, i noticed bex has beat me to putting it up here.. so the appreciation is seconded.
completely.

anis again

active stills

This group: active stills, have been doing some amazing work in Palestine and Israel...

Some of their photo essays are breathtaking and oh so very beautiful and still extremely shocking.

They have a series of essays:

joint struggle - The photos included in this essay are astounding, and from both sides of the wall. Anarchists against the wall joined with Palestinians across the length and breadth of the Israeli Security Fence in order to resist the racial segregation enforced by the Israeli government

Life under occupation - This series shows the every day life of many Palestinians.. the checkpoints, housing demoltions, the imposition of the wall, the desructions of olive groves, contamination of water, settlers attitudes.. the list goes on.

blog

http://leftofthemiddleeast.blogspot.com

For updates and actions of the group I traveled to Palestine with, please visit the above blog.

pictures

Pictures from Palestine

from holly

zaytoun group


The ordeal I went through with my nerves at the airport when leaving Palestine and Israel, especially in relation to my photographs was actually quite significant. I had heard various horror stories of activists leaving Palestine being black listed for having visited the west bank, or having volunteered for a pro-Palestinian organisation, or being questioned initimately about number in their phone books or emails on their computer, really put the fear of god in me. I made sure i cleared my brothers camera of pictures in Jerusalem (with the help of a very sweet guy called Omar, who, having lived in the USA for eleven years, felt more like a european than a Palestinian until his neice wandered in with a drawing for him.. which he praised in arabic and gave many smiles and hugs for- and like a true palestinian made me sit and drink tea in his store for a good hour before leaving for dinner. It was a fascinating conversation and i really admire him for returning to palestine to be with his family) anyway, photos on a CD, sealed in an envelope, placed in the hands of a good friend who was leaving for a cyprus a few days later... i went to the airport physically free of photos, but fearing my reaction to the israeli security and my ability to act nonchalant and passive when being questioned.

but i feel that every picture was worth the worry.
I only wish i had taken more of my friends.

paradise now

I am not sure if i have ever seen a Palestinian feature film before.
I have seen documentaries, many documentaries full of sadness and woe and heartache and violence. but this story was very well told. the simple stories are often the most effective.

This film makes martyrdom seem like an everyday occurrence in Palestine.
however, I know it is not. but it brings to light the normalization of violence and escape and resistance with an air of last-resort politics.

The actors are cast well, the dark underworld is scary and the occupation is rife from the moment the film begins at a checkpoint, machine gun held on the focal point of the female love interest.

With a new film 'Amreeka' begin released in the United states of America, the idea of a Palestinian feature film in a Hollywood style is becoming less obscure, even if there are no cinemas in Palestine. As the protagonist in Paradise Now: Said states - the Palestinians burned the only theatre in Nablus down as an act of resistance during the second intifada.

I hope cinema as a tool can manage to bring to light some of the issues of the middle east to the average American and British viewer at home.
i hope.