A Manifesto (29 March 2011)

 Posted by at 3:13 pm  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 302011
 

A Manifesto: being the minutes of the meeting held at Boston’s, Exeter, 29 March 2011

  1. We don’t know what we are doing. Or, for that matter how to do what we are doing.
  2. In spite of the above (1.) it is not to be assumed that everything we write is to be totally disregarded. Though a pinch of salt is best kept ready for action.
  3. In fact, in real life there is always resistance, even though we have to breathe constantly. Inspiration. Brief pause. Expiration. Brief pause. Resistance is probably related to authenticity.
  4. We believe in practice.
  5. Don’t dribble the chilli sauce.
  6. It is to be doubted that we shall ever be in receipt of the sherry courtesy of HRH.
  7. To speak is to deny.
  8.  It unreels.
  9. We believe in producing a piece of work to a deadline and holding to the intention of publication of one sort or another.
  10.  There is an aesthetic. 

The Loaded Dagger

 Posted by at 3:07 pm  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 302011
 

How our deadly deadlines continue to work their weekly agent/victim magic! Back and forth, back and forth, the sharp weapon (el cargado puñal / der Dolch geladen) urgently shuttles between us, undercover, and as if on some kind of mission except we have forgotten who it was who gave us our instructions, and sometimes even how best to pass the parcel, HANDLE end first, PLEASE!.

Undercover – Agent Heros, or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder Victims?

Two instructive examples of the agent/victim puzzle happened to be on display in last weekend’s press:
- The "Who are You?" Story of Mark Kennedy / Mark Stone
A police officer; he had spent seven years as "Stone" as a police infiltrator inside the world of ‘extreme’ environmentalist groups in the UK before being unmasked in 2009. He is now seeking redress against his employers. Is it possible to do the job without becoming paranoid, the weekend interviewer asks, I’d use a different phrase, he replies, I never became complacent.

- The "Who are You?" Story of Anna Chapman / Anna Kuschenko
A Russian agent; arrested in New York as "Chapaman" on suspicion of spying, and deported in 2010 as part of a swap. Since then, she has worked as a successful model, investment adviser, charity promoter, and TV star, and may shortly decide to run for Parliament. If all of us were joyful, she says, we could do something useful and new.

The first thing to be observed about the overlapping experiences of Mark and Anna is the disapproving reaction they have both received from their respective sets of  ‘colonels’. One the one hand, Mark has been heavily criticised by members of the police establishment, especially for going “rogue”, to such an extent that he has begun to doubt who he really is, or so he says. On the other hand, Anna’s making fast fame and fortune for herself through her comely cleavage and scanty panties has brought some loud hisses and boos, of course delivered off stage and from the shadows, from the professional spying fraternity… of which she may… or may not have been a member.

The next thing to observe is how both Mark and Anna have responded to their positions of being first outed and then criticised by continually ‘upping’ the publicity. Mark has engaged the publicist Max Clifford to help him present the ‘unfairness’ and ‘trauma’ within his situation. Anna interviewing with BBC’s Moscow correspondent on the wireless, as well as fronting the Observer Magazine being photographed in 007 Bond-girl style, has continued to play on the tease about her spying, I will never deny, and I will never confirm the fact…

At first sight Mark appears to be more in the victim role, more suffering, and Anna more in the agent position, more happy and in control, but in the undercover world nothing is that straightforward… The Colonels are always threatening 'to take us out'…

… And it is worth recollecting that there is a common saying which goes as a warning among us in the undercover world, It all unreals.

A Manifesto

 Posted by at 2:21 pm  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 302011
 

A Manifesto: being the minutes of the meeting held at Boston's, Exeter, 29 March 2011

 

 

  1. We don’t know what we are doing. Or, for that matter how to do what we are doing.
  2. In spite of the above (1.) it is not to be assumed that everything we write is to be totally disregarded. Though a pinch of salt is best kept ready for action.
  3. In fact, in real life there is always resistance, even though we have to breathe constantly. Inspiration. Brief pause. Expiration. Brief pause. Resistance is probably related to authenticity.
  4. We believe in practice.
  5. Don’t dribble the chilli sauce.
  6. It is to be doubted that we shall ever be in receipt of the sherry courtesy of HRH.
  7. To speak is to deny.
  8.  It unreels.
  9. We believe in producing a piece of work to a deadline and holding to the intention of publication of one sort or another.
  10.  There is an aesthetic. 

 

The Undercurrents of Last Year’s Zeitgeist

 Posted by at 11:00 am  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 242011
 

Is it any wonder that trust has fled the world. I was almost looking forward to another few hundred miles on the back of a horse only to find that I’ve been eating it for the last few evenings in those fiery dark stews that, to be honest, I’ve enjoyed. Though, now, should I change my mind about enjoying them, should I be horrified?? There we go – I was hungry. This territory reminds me of Ian Sinclair’s East London mind, stuffed full of darkness and back alleys. And as much as making our way through this landscape it is often more like losing our way through it, as we variously imagine it to be Jerusalem, the Moscow suburbs, or Buenos Aires.

    If I turn my head at all suddenly I catch a fleeting glimpse of Thomas Aquinas hard on our heels. At least I think it must be him. If it is him then he is quick on his feet, too, for such a stupendous mind and stomach, as he melts into a shop doorway. But I have to accept the possibility that it may be the local agents of the Colonel, driven from his homeland (why does he have to come here? Is this the place where all the refugees end up?), intent on re-establishing his empire and wealth in Acacia Avenue. It’s the shabbiest of the semis. The net curtains could really do with a wash or preferably replacing. I have the suspicion that he’s been given part of my pension to live on or perhaps he’s raiding my bank accounts – although if he can find any money in them he’s a sharper financial wizard than me – which actually wouldn’t be that difficult.

    A dream from last night left me reflecting on the mysterious ways of memory. There was one of those London cafés run by Italians who I imagine came over in the fifties to escape the poverty of Southern Italy. One association was the little sandwich bar adjacent to Great Portland Street tube station: a tiny place where I used to grab a coffee and sandwich to have perched on one of their stools when I worked nearby in the early eighties. This is already pretty weird – the 20th century is beginning to disappear into some misty mythical past. But there is another café pushing its way forward but I can’t place it anyway real so it might well be the image from some previous dream. Did I read recently, that dementia affects 1 in 3 of those over 65?

    I better write this while doing a headstand – will that help, doctor?

 

‘Undertow’, ‘Kick-backs’ and ‘Backwash’

 Posted by at 6:48 pm  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 222011
 

Mr friend is asking about the horses. Where did we leave them, he says, but what he really means is, Hey, SUNSHINE, what have YOU done with the nags.

In order to give any kind of satisfactory answer, I need to explain that at the time of writing I am sat beneath a flickering light behind the bar, a Budweiser sign or something like it blinking away, perhaps it is a warning, of the ‘Metropolis’ tavern within that great city of the pampas that never ceases to grow. Or am I in the café Buenos Ayres in that other great city of the Russe on the edge of the steppes. That is one of the problems, isn’t it; the indecisions and inaccuraciesp that comes with a scandalous geography at the Walk/Don’t Walk, and other complex questions, intersections of the mythological suburbs of what we have come to call the ‘Western Provinces’ and their opposite, the ‘Eastern Blocks’ ( or ‘Osterns’ if you prefer).

Two weeks ago on a sandy beach besides the Indian Ocean, or was it the Arabian Sea, I thought I had my orientations clear… but no, to be honest, not even then… I was checking out certain words and phrases with Marina (from that famous Argentine Palermo barrio) and Elena (from Kaluga, that town south of Moscow renowned for its ‘red calico’), the two librarians I nave asked to help with cataloguing, who had come to help me on the beach. But they are forever arguing, Resaca, Marina said, Undertow, Otkat, Elena responded, Backwash, Kick-backs. Or Hangover, I suggested weakly, and at least they were both prepared to agree on that, the burning sensation in the head,  rushing in the ears, and sucking sensation under the feet.

So, about the horses; in one version of my answer I explain to you that I let them loose to run free over those vast, unfenced plains beyond the city, but in the other version I find myself pointing behind the city abattoir at the row of blackened and malodorous vats bubbling away, Sorry, I say, we (by which obviously is meant “I”) needed the money.

That flickering light, and how I wish Elif was here at this moment, and able to join our caravanserai – I missed her giving her (LRB) talk at the British Museum in February on Double-Entry accounting (her is a flavour of Elif Batuman's style of ‘criticism’ )  –  because for the life of me I cannot stop Marina and Elena laughing, As if, they cackle, Any of the versions given here provide an inkling of the true situation concerning our ‘real’ credits and debits.

And were the horses “yours” or “mine” in the first place to sell or give away, I ask. My Argentine and Russian friends are having hysterics, gasping for breath and slapping their sides…

… However, it is possible that, diachronically labouring towards our weekly deadlines here, we have inadvertently struck on a novel Triple-Entry accounting system, since, although we don’t collaborate, and we are not a ‘writer’s collective’, we do actually meet about fortnightly in person, simultaneously and successively reminding each other that we are both agents and victims in this process, as it were, passing the loaded dagger between us.

For instance, it is Census time!

Person ‘1’ – How do you describe your main activity?

Person ‘2’ –  I have written “Creative Non-fiction”.

Stop it! Stop it! , my Argentine and Russian friends are crying.

Where did we leave the horses, can anybody tell me?

 Posted by at 11:11 am  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 182011
 

I don’t recognise these streets or for that matter this particular arrangement of muscular tensions – the whole thing is rather perplexing. Perhaps I am merely tired. Questions hover in the air, like, how would we know if we are in the right listening station? Is there any meaning to the word trust? And what sort of system overload caused David Foster Wallace to kill himself? Of course, this state I am in could be the result of being ‘stuck’ somewhere in the middle of his Infinite Jest.

    Recently I was forewarned by the big man on the horse (a retired police officer, if he was to be believed – but who would? And how did he emerge just at that perfect moment, his head seemingly travelling along the top of the hedge, with the slight up and down rhythm of the hedge’s unevenness or if you like, the horse’s walk) as to the dangers lying in wait for me. Later I understood the implications of his words, though by this time, it was too late, I was hurtling down the hill, trying to avoid the worst of the winter’s potholes and praying that no more sheep were being driven along by a sheepdog and a woman on a quad bike, as they had been a few miles back.

    You mention the Brothers Karamazov. I must have read that at about the time I was riding motorbikes. Does that go together? Dostoevsky and motorbikes? Sartre and Dostoevsky and motorbikes – the roads to freedom? I have to admit I remember nothing about it – the Brothers K, that is – are you really reading it or did you pick up a quote from somewhere else or open it at random?

    Actually one memory comes to mind: heading out somewhere or other in the early morning – destination unknown – on a 350cc Velocette. There I was canted over, into the next bend, only to discover a line of cows crossing the road and I just managed to weave between two of them, imagining I could feel the soft mooey breath of the second and her thinking, rather wearily, oh these young men, they do give a girl a fright sometimes. I couldn’t have stopped and I didn’t look back . . .

    On we go.

    Psst, actually, do you remember where we left the horses?

 

Souls for Sale

 Posted by at 5:42 pm  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 152011
 

A quick gesture, a glance, a catching of the eye, that little something, whatever it takes to entice one in off the street, Come inside, only looking, you’ll find the best stuff upstairs.

Hooked. You know me, I can’t resist the search for a bargain and upstairs I go, and it is the same man beckoning, the one who offered to sell you back your soul and gave you his card, I have one too now of course, the script in Arabic, you say. Or is it Cyrillic, the way the man smiles is reminding me of Smerdyarkov in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov:

“His face expressed a form of extreme insolence, and at the same time – which was strange – an obvious cowardice. He looked like a man who had been submissive for a long time, but had suddenly jumped up and tried to assert himself, or, better still, like a man who wants terribly to hit you, but is terribly afraid that you are going to hit him.”

In a word – traumatised – and thereby a member of that great global number (WHO world population estimate 2010 = 4-6 billion).

You are right to remind us of the central purpose of our meetings, and the main subject of our blog pilgrimage – a Moral Tale – “Straznoya” (sp?) my new Russian friends at the ‘Listening Station’ call it, meaning I think some deeper form of spiritual questioning, complex and contradictory, for these troubled times in which we live, undertaken in the sort of extended conversations the Russians are well used to, in their tradition so to speak, for instance like the one between the two brothers in the Brothers Karamazov sat together in the tavern ‘Metropolis’, which lasts over three long chapters, to and fro, to and fro around the opening two lines of an unfinished poem -

Believe what the heart tells you
For heaven offers no pledge

- Between the two brothers; Aloysha, the more holy, the more saintly, or, if you like, the bigger fool; and Ivan, the more philosophical and intellectual, or, if you prefer, the more confused…

… and still in the tavern ‘Metropolis’, our horses tethered outside, only we are some forty years older than those two, and certainly neither of us are a Dostoyevsky, and yet still somehow of the same compromised and tainted lineage as the Karamazovs, yes, and even of that same breed too as Pinky or Perky with their “…long carnivorous mouths with plump lips… (that) sprayed saliva whenever they spoke”, extolling their pseudo-markets and twisted exchange systems for the traumatised, selling them back their souls in a flood of spit against which, being of the same people, we struggle helplessly… soul searching we are not progressing… but we are definitely moving on.

No thank you, I don’t want any of what you have got to sell today.

A face in the crowd and a bargain

 Posted by at 11:10 am  Atelier  Comments Off
Mar 112011
 

He’s looking at me through narrowed eyes, slits in the mystery of a face: a furrowed mock-serious forehead, fleshy lips, and a non-descript sort of nose and the usual grizzled hair and beard. Plus he’s wearing a heavy overcoat and a scarf that is wound tight around his neck.

    ‘You,’ he says, in a somewhat high-pitched voice, ‘alienated . . . ‘ There’s a grin of stained teeth, ‘you want to buy your soul back?’

    I’m not too sure about this. Why can’t he sell smuggled watches or cigarettes, mobile phones or cocaine? But souls? And my own soul, my soul, which I assumed was already an integral part of me, not to be separated from.

    ‘You’ve got my soul?’ I try to turn it into a joke. Perhaps he’s one of these people who hang around the high street, smiling, who are going to want to tell me about some charity, prior to persuading me to set up a direct debit.

    ‘Of course,’ he says, ‘I picked it up for a song in 1963.’

    1963? JFK, Dylan, the Beatles, nuclear bombs? That was the year I came off a motorbike and ended up having emergency surgery. Was he hovering outside the window or perhaps he was the surgeon?

    ‘Wouldn’t I have known it was missing?’

    He laughed.

    ‘You didn’t care then, you are stupid, you wouldn’t know either way.’

    Stupid! That seems unnecessarily brutal.

    ‘How much?’ I ask. Let’s get this over and done with.

    ‘Cheap,’ he says, ‘a million euros.’

    ‘That sounds like a bargain, is that all my soul is worth?’

    Sarcasm or not, that’s a big heap of money but the funny thing is only yesterday I had been slipped a bundle of used 500 euro notes that I suspect are counterfeit. But I remain curious as to the mechanics of the deal. What would be the exchange? A million euros in notes sounds tangible; a soul, well, who knows (excepting the devil or God, I guess) what that looks like if anything at all. Does it come in a jar? How and where had he stored it for the last forty eight years?

    He slips me a card. I peer at it but all I can see is some Arabic script and as I peer at it he slips away into the crowd.

 

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