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Vogue Rot
What is ‘Vogue Rot’? Some kind of fungal disease found in cold and dark conditions, a form of wet anaerobic decay, or what? It sounds unpleasant, and it is. Fair warning. Preamble: for some of us there is the sense that nothing ever happens (one could call this a peculiarly English sense of personal and…
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whistling in the dark
There are three words given/suggested to me by the iPad: I, The and You. The thing is that they begin to take root as though I do, in fact have to use one or all of them. And it’s lovely, the world opened up by these three words: me and you and this object, whatever…
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Piatti e Martellate
Deterioration and/or… “the negotiations we are all involved in, unconsciously or otherwise, around who we feel we are and how we are seen”.* Up until recently I have lived with reasonable confidence that my personality was singular, but as I grow older I am finding this idea becoming more and more threadbare. Parts of me…
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Who Are You?
Who Are You ? is an exhibition of 14 works of art by Grayson Perry currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery until April 2015 (NB entrance is FREE!). It is a series of portraits which take us on a journey of discovery through the peculiarities of our different ways and forms of being…
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Wisdom and deterioration
“We are suspended in language such that we don’t know which way is up and which is down.” Niels Bohr.* I spent the weekend in Torbay Hospital. The catheter got blocked and then when it was freed by the district nurse she judged there was too much blood and that I should join the queue…
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Are these birthing pains?
Giving form to the unformable. I think of the traditions of painting and sculpture. These objects (from the past) seems so certain, so definite, that they became embedded in the narrative what we are, where we came from and what we might be entitled to hope for. It seems so tempting when you write: tell…
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“(And her dark pubic hairs)”: Loss and Different Qualities of Attention
At the BIG Mens Group (Hargate Hall November 13-17) this year I met Tom Falkner for the first time. He and I were in a small (x4 man) group together. Tom is about 70, Canadian, and the father of Rob Falkner. It was his first time at this men’s group. However, it was certainly not…
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GRANDFATHER – Father – Brother: Remembrance and Absence*
This is my grandfather aged twenty six and wearing military uniform. His uniform is from the First World War, and my guess is that the photograph was taken in 1916, and he had just been commissioned as an officer. But I don’t know. I don’t know when he enlisted, or what he did in the…
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Unsuitable
This word unsuitable touches something important. I notice the Italian is inadatto which suggests the English non-adapted. This is close but doesn’t quite get to the quality of unsuitable. What I am reading into unsuitable is some sort of awkwardness, resistance, bloody-mindedness perhaps. Dirty shoes, long hair, beards, old clothes. And it can also apply…
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Foglia appena nata
Brothers: I read this on the London Underground on Monday night, and wrote it down. (Maniaro 15 July 1916) What regiment are you from brothers? World trembling in the night A leaf just opening In the racked air Involuntary revolt Of man face to face With his own fragility Brothers Guiseppe Ungaretti While still thinking…
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Let Don Gallo Provoke
What the Vatican needs today is an openly gay Pope. ‘Hit’ la marciapede and be provoked into speaking: from diamonds nothing was born, from shit flowers bloom. A man whose name I know as Roberto has returned to Genoa and is expressing a new level of beauty in his life. This is what I am…
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Neither here nor there
Ho bisogno di vedere il sole, di sentire il caldo sul corpo, sulla pelle . . . In the enduring trixiness of politicians’ wiles, their innate corruptions exposing the blankness of their hearts. Having sold their souls to the devil anything goes! Of course for a short while they might (if the wind is in…
Categories (2024) are:
- ATELIER Work – about-creative-work (in all mediums: text-drawing-sounds-image etc)
- CLIMATE Action – indications-and-contra-indications
- DAWDLING – walking-pausing-to-wonder-wandering
- IN Conversation – companionship-and-connections
- LA Communita –participatory-collaborative-artivism
- OTHER than Human – animate-and-inanimate-terrestrial-kin
- PARANOID Readings – violence-and-fundamental-perversions
- POLITICAL Readings – mobilisations-affect-polarisations
- REPARATIVE Readings – inspiring-healing-restorative
- SHADOW Readings – speculative-and-not-yet-visible-thinking
- STYLE Readings – scales-and-familiarities
- TONITE at the Coliseum – live-experiences-performance
- YOGI (‘Not This-Not That’) – meditation-bhakti-consciousness
Different WORDSTALL Categories in the past supported the mainly experimental personal writing in posts. The previous list of Category headings was: Anti-gravity Surgery / Atelier / Catastrophe Games / Echo Effects / Exodus / Fundamental Perversions / Hitting the Potholes / Holy Fool-Hero / In Conversation / Old Men Traveling / On the Street / Out in the Wilderness / Over and Beyond / Tonite at the Coliseum. Some of these still persist or recur as Tag key-words.
The even earlier Category headings for the walkingtalkingwriting blog (2006-2012) have been forgotten, but can be explored if desired via the long tail of monthly posts for those years here.