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Life upheavals dominated last month, and may continue to do so for the forseeable future. Rather than go on about that, however, I did want to take the time mark the real tragedy of April ‘09, namely the passing of James Graham Ballard, a writer who’s had a profound and lasting effect on me. The quality and character of the tributes he’s received in the mainstream press are their own testament. In Ballard we lose not just a great writer, but a truly visionary thinker whose influence extends far beyond the medium in which he worked. Normally I’d be slightly cynical about and dismissive of the mass media coverage that accompanies the death of a famous writer, even in the case of a personal favourite (perhaps especially so), but quite frankly, Ballard’s ideas and insights are always worthy of wider discussion, and I applaud the recognition of that.
Nothing quite on the Ballardian level of course. Stand-out read was probably Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly’s Local, a handsome hardcover collection of their 12 issue series from Oni. Touchingly poignant and meticulously constructed, it’s a fantastic achievement that beautifully marries craft and concept. That Vandermeer bloke is bloody good too mind.
Had to look in my work calendar to try and remember what I did in March; went to lot of meetings, apparently. Did manage to get away for a weekend in the middle, however, which was spent near Marlborough in the brilliantly named village of Wootton Rivers. Lots of walking around Avebury and along the Ridgeway, perambulating through an ancient landscape of barrows and standing stones. Got to thinking quite a lot about how the detritus of long-vanished peoples and civilizations that litters the English countryside might have shaped our national character, which I’d like to do something with at some point, I think.
Also this month, I became a certified Scrummaster. Next, profit.
Best of the month was the holiday-inspired Hengeworld, part pop archaeology, part extended meditation on time, place and peoples, and an excellently written, completely accessible and engaging book on a fascinating topic, but special mention also goes to Mr Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, a collection of short weird fiction by John Langan, and one of the most unsettling reads I’ve enjoyed for a while.
Am late posting about February, which is bad, because I actually did stuff. Firstly, I went along to Gipsy Hill Comedy Night at the Black Sheep on the 13th, a local night for local people with not so-local acts. It was Richard Herring headlining that caught my eye and got me through the door, but it turned out to be a really strong line-up, with four great sets and even a compere who was pretty decent. Also: handy for an early Palace Spice. Then there was Black Box Recorder’s second night at the Luminaire in Kilburn, my second dose of Haines in two months, this time with added Moore and Nixey, and predictably great. March already all the poorer for being a Hainesian desert of a month.
I also caught the preview of Let The Right One In at the BFI, which I was looking forward to after pleasant rumblings from across the pond. It doesn’t get a general release here until April, so for once my movieblogging might actually be of use to somebody. In short, it’s very good. I’ve had the book it’s based on on order from Amazon for a while, and I understand it’s a lot more convoluted, but the film itself is elegantly spartan and understated, with moments of warmth, horror, violence and even (black) comedy. For my money, certainly the best Cold War era-set Swedish Vampire film I’ve ever seen.
Err, that’s a bit rubbish really isn’t it? I’ve now read all of Aickman’s short fiction currently in-print, however, and it’s definitely been something of a revelation. As a frequently cited influence for many of my favourite authors, I wasn’t really expecting to find much I hadn’t already encountered elsewhere, but Aickman was a true master of the form, and his voice is still very much a unique one.
As a child growing up in the frozen North, we did, as might be expected, get snow from time to time. For some reason though it rarely seemed to fall particularly thickly or hang around for very long. It was great fun when it did of course, and from even a young age I was able to appreciate the stark beauty of a familiar landscape mysteriously submerged beneath a blanket of frosty, pristine white. One day though,something else happened as well, and my appreciation of the phenomenon was elevated to a whole new level. On that day the snow was much heavier than usual, and when we woke up in the morning it was still snowing - big fat flakes, and thick blankets of them too. At some point either during or immediately prior to breakfast we received a phone call, and my respect for the forces of nature in all their wild and fearsome glory was assured.
School was shut.
Since that day I’ve dared to dream and hope for a repeat performance. And yesterday friend, nature finally came through with the goods for me. Apologies if you were one of poor souls marooned on the roads trying to make an urgent hospital run, or trapped in your own home without food or warmth, but thanks to the wintry touch of General February, this simple cog in the capitalist machine had his weekend extended by a whole extra day, and for that I can’t help but be thankful.
Moving on, I actually had some marginally interesting nights out in January. On the 21st I went to see the League of Gentlemen 10 Years On retrospective at the BFI on Southbank. Three favourite episodes on the big screen followed by a lengthy Q&A with the League themselves. Back in the day the League was perhaps the perfect show for me - a perfect confluence of my interests, influences and obsessions. Since then, despite all concerned having done things of interest, it’s only Jeremy Dyson who’s succeeded in producing something a slightly more adult me has enjoyed to quite the same extent (Funland). As such it was quite sad hearing them all acknowledge those days of mad energy and crazed inventiveness were long behind them, and that to achieve that just once in a lifetime is rare enough.
Then last week I went to the Roundhouse to hear Luke Haines read from Bad Vibes and perform a small set. Incongruously, the venue was shared with Grace Jones, which made for some interesting people-watching in the Roundhouse’s crap bars whilst I waited for the room to open. The reading/q&a/set was disappointingly brief, but let’s face it, you’re not going to draw Haines into a protracted anything if he’s not up for it, so perhaps that was for the best. The book is brilliant by the way, and certainly the only one you’ll ever need to read about Britpop. Many biographies of the period have tended to focus on the chemical and sexual excesses going on behind the scenes with tabloid salaciousness, but to Haines treats all that as tangential to the far more serious business of skewering the ability, talent, and character of his contemporaries (including himself).
The days leading up to Christmas were a dizzying haze of mostly pleasant parties and pubs, and the days immediately after a blur of transiting between relatives in the north country. Christmas day itself was by contrast an oasis of calm, spent lazily unwrapping presents, gorging on gamey meat and wine, and of course, watching Christmas telly. The Next Doctor was… it was all right, wasn’t it? I mean I would have preferred it if some regular pleb hadn’t been able to pwn the Cybermen quite so easily, and Dervla Kirwan had turned out to be the Rani or something, but overall I actually kind of liked it. Christmas truly is a time for miracles.
The new bloke… well, let’s just wait and see, eh? Also, the less said about the BBC adaptation of The 39 Steps, the better.
Spent New Year in Norfolk, in what has now become something of a traditional bolt hole. Long walks, good food, plenty of booze. I only realised a few months ago that one of my favourite short stories, The Windmill by Conrad Williams, is set in Cley, one of the villages we tend to spend a lot of time in whilst we’re up there, despite the fact it’s stated outright in the text. This made our visit to the Mill somewhat more ominous this time, although fortunately I remained on good terms with the girlfriend and avoided being skinned alive. Holiday reading was provided by two collections of Robert Aickman stories I picked up before Christmas. Aickman has been OOP for so long, I think the last time I must have read him was in one of those Pan Book of Horror things they used to put out when I was a teen, but he’s been name-checked by so many authors I admire I’ve wanted to read more for quite some time. Both volumes have recently been reprinted as part of the Faber Finds line, a POD initiative by a big publisher to bring long OOP stuff back into print. Aickman didn’t disappoint, and I’ll certainly pick up The Wine Dark Sea in due course, but bloody hell, the line could certainly do with an editor to correct the presumably now decades old typos.
I realise the view that Christmas is too good for children might well be seen as controversial in some quarters, but those who inhabit them have not experienced the pram-congested hell that was the Twelfth Night celebration on Bankside. I mean, does anyone actually believe their children enjoy that sort of thing? All the ones I had the misfortune to stand near just seemed bored or cold, and weren’t at all coy about letting everyone else know the fact. To be fair the miserable little bags of snot did seem to like the Mummers Play, but that didn’t really excuse all the shrieking, snivelling and caterwauling whilst we waited for the Holly Man to arrive on the Thames. Parents - think carefully about what you’re inflicting on the world when you take your child out. It was amusing to see the Lord Mayor of London chatting amiably to a pagan fertility spirit, however.
Caught the last night of the Nunkie Theatre Company’s production Oh Whistle… at the Barons’ Court Theatre, a performance of two M.R. James stories by R M Lloyd Parry. Brilliantly observed and nuanced performance by Parry, that really evoked the atmosphere and dread of the original texts. Fantastic way to bring the festive season to a close.
It’s Christmas Eve, which can mean only one thing: ghost stories. The following is Christopher Lee reading M.R. James, from a fantastic little series of shorts that came out around 2000/2001, and have never been collected on DVD, a far more insidious assault on the Christmas spirit than the banning of Christmas carols or nativity plays, IMHO.
Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia
because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers
couldn't compete successfully with poets.
-- Kilgore Trout (Philip J. Farmer) "Venus on the Half
Shell"
