Picos Gemeos

After getting some new bespoke running shoes at Runner's Needs (thank you sparklielizard for the tip!) I've become a regular jogger in Victoria Park. I like to go in the mornings, with my iShuffle plugged in (dangling from some very expensive, neon Adidas running earphones I also got at the shop). I do one full circuit of the park - the equivalent of 5K - then follow it up with two days at the gym doing weight training.

Yesterday morning I noticed a group of short, skinny people doing sprints in the park... Olympic athletes! They were from Rwanda, I learnt later. Apparently they didn't feel like practicing in the Olympic stadium and asked if there were any nearby parks they could use. Victoria Park was the suggestion. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I do.

This London Olympics, which felt very British when it was first announced, has become progressively more "American" as the years have gone by (and especially under the Tories.) Do we really need the biggest McDonalds in Europe built right inside the Olympic park? With a ban on nearby businesses from selling french fries because McDonals has the sole permission to sell it? It's the next best thing to having a giant American flag waving in everyone's face. And by "American" I mean in this context profit-over-commonsense - that neoliberal idiocy that businesses ultimately choose what's best for everyone.

Still, despite all the weird stories surrounding the Olympics (from slum conditions for cleaners living near the park to graffiti artists being arrested), I felt a thrill of excitement at suddenly being so near to Olympic athletes in Victoria Park. My dance company is also involved - we performed as part of the Olympic Torch relay through London and many of our dancers are part of the opening and closing ceremonies.

On McDonalds related news, HBO Documentaries has made available online its recent "Weight of the Nation" series. You can check it out on YouTube. It's in 4 parts and quite compelling viewing, especially if you also recently saw the BBC's "The Man Who Made Us Fat". The series is often mawkish but has some eye-popping figures and graphs. It's made me go off soda drinks for life.

Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible, 1998
Kingsolver's novels are like symphonies that keep playing in your head long after they are finished.  Say whatever you want about her style (which can be overly poetic sometimes), there's no denying the rigorous research she puts behind her stories and the life she blows so easily into her characters. She has an axe to grind with the way politics and religion (specially the ones originated in the U.S.) smash human life, and she's not afraid to put her characters through hell and brimstone for the sake of exposing the 20th Century's forgotten crimes in Africa. (If she's not careful though, Glenn Beck will be calling her a commie bastard very soon.)

A family of white American missionaries descend on the Congo in 1960 for a year of Bible thumping, ignorant of the culture they are entering and the dangerous politics that's shifting power from Belgium's colonialist rule to a chaotic independence.  The narrative moves between the four daughters, who range between 16 and 6 years of age, and the mother years later, back in Georgia, U.S.  They struggle to adapt to this new culture as well as bear the ignorance and fanatism of the family's father, who believes he can bring salvation to all those African heathens.  We know early on from the mother's narrative that one of the daughters eventually dies, but we don't know which and for what reason, and it's partly this suspense that drives the story forward.  Village life slowly gets harder and the mysteries of the Congo swallow the family whole, and the reader. 

Some of this novel's pleasures: Kingsolver's ironies, ranging from the book's title down to the way the sections are divided; the way this Southern family's differing points of views build an image of the Congo and the 60s (like Faulkner transposed to Africa, actually); the rich Bible symbolism turned on its head; and the beautiful and redeeming love story at its core.

Thoughts on the second part of The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. All non-spoiler comments welcome!

( The Poisonwood Bible: The Revelation )

On Friday morning, my brasilian friend B arrived for a week-long stay. I took him downtown and we walked in the cold for hours while discussing the end of the world and psychedelic drugs. At night, we ate pizza in a nearby pub then finished off pints to the sound of East End jazz standars at the Palm Tree pub.

Yesterday, we went downtown again and browsed various bookstores. The weather was miserable, but not as horrible as the crowds around Oxford Street. In the evening, a friend invited us to drop by Passing Cloud (where he works) to see some live music. The evening was called Worm Food! and it was absolutely brilliant: afrobeats-and-folk on the ground floor to a beautiful, happy crowd and dub/reggae/soul on the second floor. MDMA highs without ingesting anything harder than rum and juice. As B correctly pointed out, you know you are in a great club when everyone around you has a smile on their face.

We ended up staying until four in the morning. Here's a taster of what the ground floor is like:



Today, we ate breakfast at The Victoria and were happy to learn that:

• They didn't lose their live music license, though they had to compromise with the neighbours and no longer have any gigs on Thursdays. They told me that all the signatures on the petition were a big help because it showed to the court that two people were trying to unfairly bully a large group of people. So well done to all of you that signed it!
  
• They have a table tennis in the cinema area (removed on Sunday nights for the film at 8pm).
  
• They now have a Dreamcast attached to the telly so anyone can play videogames if they fancy it.
  
• The hairdresser is also still there.
  
• They still play great music (i.e. mostly The Cure)
  

B loved the pub. Afterwards, we went downtown again so he could buy DVDs at HMV and visit the Photographer's Gallery. I'm going to make dinner in a minute (pasta with tuna and tomato sauce) and then we'll settle down for the night with some Planet Earth action.

Last night, Kevin and I visited Shakespeare's Globe Theatre for the first time - a blasted curse on our names for not visiting before after nine years in London! The play was Troilus and Cressida, which I knew nothing about, and which I loved (despite there being a preponderance of despicable queer characters with no redeeming qualities). The only actor I recognised was Matthew Kelly, who played a camp old queen who likes to perform a song or two for the audience and fawn over semi naked young men. He stole the show just as much as the actor who played the leprous hunchback beggar. It was only a fiver to stand and now I'm in the mood for buying season tickets and reading Bill Bryson's biography on the Bard (which I started, anyway, last night in a fit of excitement, and which is very good.)

On Monday, I was given a tour of a fairy house in South London (not open to the public), tucked away behind some bushes and an unmarked door on Wandsworth Road: the home of Kenyan-born poet and writer Khadambi Asalache. His house, which is now being taken care of by the National Trust, is completely covered with beautifully designed wood carvings, art works, paintings and collections of random things (tea cups, ink bottles, etc), many of which inspired by mathematical theory (he had a MPhil in Math), Islamic design and his memories of Africa. In his writing room, we heard one of his poems read out loud as we stared at one of his murals. Afterwards, we sat in his kitchen drinking tea and talking about life. No photo does justice to the place.

( Photos of Khadambi Asalache's home )

Hello James,
Can you help me to recieve a cheque in uk??

Regards

Adams

Hello Adams,

I work all night, I sleep all day, to fill the veins I have to fill. Ain't it sad? And in my crypt there doesn't seem to be a single coin left for me - that's too bad. In my dreams I have a plan: if I got me a wealthy man I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a midnight ball.

Money, money, money - must be funny in the rich man's world. Money, money, money - always sunny in the rich man's world. Aha-ahaaa! All the things I could do if I had a little money... It's a rich man's world.

A man like that is hard to find but I can't get him off my mind. Ain't it sad? And if he happens to be free I bet he wouldn't fancy me. That's too bad. So I must leave, I'll have to go to your property in Nigeria and win a fortune in oil. My life will never be the same. Money, money, money - must be funny in the rich man's world.

Regards

James

Despite attending a "lame" fetish night at Slimelight on Friday, then not getting any sleep, tina found enough strength yesterday to get on a train from Walthamstow and come meet the actor who plays Kevin and I at Liverpool Street Station. Every Londoner was out and about after a smiley sun rose above the capital. She looked gorgeous as ever, although a little sleepy; we walked over to Brick Lane for the South African B-B-Q I'd promised earlier in the week, as well as a long-overdue catch up.

Afterwards, we grabbed some coffee and had a look at the stalls that sell overpriced crap by clueless Shoreditch designers. There seemed to be a vintage store every ten feet, which brought the shopper out of Tina and Kevin: soon he had a grey bag for his notebooks and pens, and she had a vest and a beautiful dark blue dress.



We visited Nog Gallery so Tina could check out their zines and art books; we ended up discovering a neat exhibition of darkly humourous etchings made by a Hackney artist called John M F Casey. They are quite beautiful - I believe he painted the wooden canvasses white, then black, then etched through them to create imagery of hellish horrors that would suit Tim Burton's living room.



We said our goodbyes to Tina around 4.30pm and went to Spitalfields Market to wait for tom. His girlfriend christa had planned for him a massive treasure hunt across London, and we were his almost-at-the-end-of-the-line stop. I had a pirate badge pinned to my bag which said "Happy Birthday to Me"; as soon as he found us, I removed it and he pinned it on his jacket. His task was to sing any of The Smiths' songs in their entirety, with no mistakes, so he could learn his next destination. He shocked me to the Moon and back by not knowing in full any of their lyrics. He stammered through "This Charming Man", failed at "Bigmouth Strikes Again", and was about to bomb on "Shoplifters of the World Unite" when Kevin told me to give him a break and suggest an easy one. So I suggested "How Soon Is Now?", which he murdered hurried through before making his escape. Remind me to never go karaoking with him.

We headed for Waterloo for a meeting with my old friend Kelly at the BFI Southbank. Juliette Binoche's paintings are being exhibited there as part of their "Binoche Season" and they are worth checking out if you are in the area. Her paintings are pairs that match her career's characters with the directors she has worked with. All of her self-portraits are infused with the personalities and physionomies of the directors that created them.

Kelly showed up with a gift for us, some french cheese, figs and lavender she collected from her house in France. We walked over to Soho's Curzon because the idea of watching a grim Icelandic thriller called Jar City on a beautiful September night seemed like a good idea. It was one of those films which could have easily been made for TV - a sort of Prime Suspect with detectives that eat goat heads for dinner and juggle their personal lives with their depressing work. The film had some wonderful aerial shots of Iceland but its main message seemed to be: DON'T LIVE IN THIS FUCKING MISERABLE ISLAND. Iceland's Ministry of Tourism should look into suing.



Outside the cinema, past 11pm, London suddenly seemed overwhelmed by crowds of horny, drunken louts from the 'burbs. Everyone shouted over everyone else, and cars honked uselessly at a traffic that was going nowhere. A gang of women dressed as FBI agents, the leader wearing bridal headgear, stumbled past us. Even the neon lights seemed brighter than usual, intense enough to burn your retinas. A nightmarish sight rolled into view: a red double-decker bus crammed with people, blasting "YMCA". The bus carried girls wearing glittery tiaras who were having a right hoot rubbing their boobs against the windowpanes for the benefit of the men on the sidewalk, their hands banging in the air as if the Village People were the ultimate rave experience. Some girls on the street felt compelled to join the fun by rushing to the windows and doing their own YMCA moves back at the partygoers inside. It only dawned on me to take a photo of this modern horseman of the apocalypse once it was pulling away - thus the shaky photo above.



Today, we took our iPods and newspapers to Vicky Park, bought some bagels and coffee and lay on the grass in full view of the sun. On the way back, we found this chest of drawers sitting on the sidewalk, not too far from our tower block. There was nothing wrong with it apart from its green snot colour (debatable defect) and food stains (solved quickly with a soapy cloth). It's going to sit in the master bedroom after it failed to look alright in the hallway, the sitting room and the dining room.



This little fellow approached us last week, when we were sitting on the lawn outside the Geffrye Museum enjoying coffee and slices of cakes bought at Broadway Market. dawnkitten made the mistake of giving it some of her carrot cake, instantly creating a friend who thought she was made of cake. I never saw a squirrel this upclose before; he was actually slightly intimidating. It didn't even flinch away from Kevin's paparazzi-style photography. Just look at that mouth. It wants to eat you. Yes, YOU!

* Once in a while, the usual rumour ran the school's cafeteria: a new ship was in town. Sometimes you outstripped the rumour by seeing the sailors wander down the city's packed streets before anyone else, their "plain" clothes making them look so alike: tight jeans, buzz cuts, fitted shirts or T-shirts tucked in, pristine sneakers. At night, they descended upon Wan Chai, looking for Cantonese hookers and alcohol. To their surprise they would find themselves sharing clubs and bars with us, teenage gweilos who also liked a bit of cheap booze and a good time wherever ecstasy tabs were easily found.

* She called my phone to tell me she wasn't waiting by the bookshop but by the longbar. When I saw her, she was sitting beside a mother and her child, waving at the baby. In the crowded supermarket, I confessed that I was reading a trashy novel called "Labyrinth". Kevin and I made her watch Twin Peaks' pilot episode that night because she'd never seen it. I wanted to take her to Elbow's Cafe, just on the other side of Victoria Park, but the weekend was far too fast for us.

* We spent the turn of the millenium pushing a car up Saint Domingo's mountain, our feet caked with cow shit, cold rain running down our backs, the night so dark that the only thing we could see were the pine trees caught by the headlights. Then, once we had reached the top, we crammed inside the car and opened the bottle of champagne. we smoked some pot and laughed at our miserable new year's as the rain showed no sign of abating.

* Friday night and everyone from school has plans. Even my brother has gone out with his skateboard friends. I sit in my bedroom, surrounded by cheap paperbacks, computer games and a good-for-nothing TV. I have a million hours to kill and the worst company of all: myself. I haven't discovered The Smiths yet. My parents sit in the living room with my brother Nicholas and his nurse, watching television. I don't wish to join them, but I give breaks to my solitude by walking past them on my way to the kitchen.

* It's my birthday and all my friends have been asked to dress as superheroes. I am Superman and my brother is Spiderman. Another Superman arrives, taller and stronger than me, then a couple of Spideys too -- costumes from the same supermarket I'm sure. When Bianca arrives, wearing a red polka dot dress, I rush to explain away her embarrassment at having forgotten the theme, how she didn't fuck up, how there is a heroine out there, printed on a comic page, wearing the same dress and saving the world.

* The first apartment I lived on my own. A semi-basement beneath Mechtilde, the landlady with a large collection of books on Hitler. When the ice storm hit Montreal, the stairs leading to my door became a slide. I broke one of my suitcase's wheels sliding to my door after arriving from the airport. The city had been in darkness for weeks, with people sharing apartments in order to generate heat (the year of Montreal's baby boom). Mechtilde gave me boxes of chocolate in exchange for shoveling the snow off her entrance. And I, in turn, got Holly once to help me do the job. I told her it would be fun and she believed it. Then it was too late to back out when the shovel was already in her hands.

- inspired by rag_and_bone.