photies from the electric bookshop 5

For fellow fans of the electric bookshop, here are the shots by Chris Scott:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisdonia/sets/72157629090890015/

He even got one of me in action:



I say' in action', I mean 'awake'.

death drawing

(photo by Hugh Pastol)

Today the university's anatomical museum opened its doors for the first of once a month public access days (last Saturday of every month, 10am - 4pm).

Just off The Meadows, the old medical school building itself is fascinating, and the exhibits are wonderful. Very helpful staff.

I found a macaroni penguin to draw. A famous little chap, as he appears in an (18th painting in the foyer too.

life drawing

I have returned to models who wear less and stay still, see above.

And the negative of it:

Think I'll be pursuing this for a while.

The electric bookshop

An entertaining evening at Inspace, courtesy of Electric Bookshop and their guests Aidan Moffat and Chris Meade.

Electric Bookshop 5 returned for another evening of booksperimentation, bellinis and beyond-brilliant guests. This chapter, we set stories free from pages and explored the possibilities of non-linear narrative.

We welcomed singer songwriter Aidan Moffat and heard more about his current #unravel collaboration with FOUND. Aidan read extracts from the work which is being produced in a residency with New Media Scotland.

Chris Meade is director of if:book, an organisation dedicated to the possibilities of books and the potential of reading. We discussed how the way we related to the printed word is being transformed by technology.

I feel the need to create some multimedia of my own after that.

Its time for my final museum collection twitteroetry.
Unless I think of another over breakfast.



#my26t: I spent my entire career flashing at sailors. They don’t let me do that in the museum.

Happy Verse Day from Illicit Ink brought together some of literary Edinburgh's big performance poetry guns, firing words of joy, wonder, lust and sarcasm into the audience at Pulp Fiction.

Compered/ herded/ mocked by the wonderfully waistcoated wordsmith Matt Macdonald, was this stellar line-up:

Sophia Walker
Sean Martin
Amber Kennedy
Morag Edward
Mairi Campbell-Jack
Elspeth Murray
Alec Beattie
Rachel McCrum
Emily Dodd
Alison Summers
Andrew J Wilson
Andrew C Ferguson
Tracey Rosenberg
Kath McMahon

The event was so good, it actually made more than one person cry. I have never enjoyed a poetry gig so much in my life. And it just so happens that I lost my performance verse virginity at this one. Thanks, guys.

Faster than witches, faster than horses, weaving a black cloth of smoke steam and ashes. #my26t

Licks of magic protect our canoes. We navigate with colour through the surf. Always call us home, bird bowl. #my26t

I carved music from the cottonwood trees, left a little in the forest for the spirits to pluck. #my26t

I hadn't fully grasped the significance of time zones before. I knew the theory but I didn't feel it.

They're not existing simultaneously on another part of the planet, simply needing a little more expertise with the alarm clock to facilitate some skype, they've moved into another day and have left us behind still living in the day before. They're on a completely different planet.

As are we to the continents we've left behind in yesterday. They're not here yet, and when they arrive, we'll all be gone.

I offered myself to you three times, trying to bring meaning to this life. Don’t mess with my head at this altitude. #my26t

Fluttering on orange stained glass wings, a transatlantic aristocrat disguised by soldiers and monarchs. #my26t

There’s a big moose loose aboot the hoose. #my26t

bored princesses bitch-slap with verse

This month I've discovered a more malign use of verse. Not wielded by my own hand, I am just pondering on the online inky action I've witnessed in passing.

A girl, post breakup, is very happy with her liberation, in fact she'd chosen her ex's replacement some time before finally managing to get rid of him, so it was a relief for her when he actually left. But him existing competently without her is not yet an option in her pretty world, so to ensure a good grip on his attention she's been posting subtle 'my heart is sad/ if only my departed lover was here' genre poems for the world (but especially him) to see. As her heart never has nor is ever likely to break, she's doing it as a creative writing punishment exercise, but unless you know that, it's completely convincing. She writes it while sitting next to her beloved new man, grumbling that she feels a bit insulted that her ex might be thinking of dating new women already. The irony is breathtaking.

It hurt to read it, due to things I was already feeling. In addition, I think I'd always feel turmoil regarding responsibility to speak up versus the strict rule of not interfering, but comms seem to be down at the moment.

In the meantime, I watch this poetry flow, I wince, and I wish I could dole out a few slaps. But the rest of me is in awe that anyone would have to imagine what it's like to feel real loss, and then be so skilled at making another person feel that pain and regret instead.

Such a good aim with words. Poet, princess or sociopath?

Predator and marine engineer, he grew rapidly, constructing new coiled shell sections throughout his brief but violent life. #my26t

Suspended in disbelief, no eta for a flightless bird. I've never touched an iceberg that wasn't fake. #my26t

We chose cyclic polygamy over consecutive monogamy. You need a lot of rubber for this lifestyle. #my26t

Bite me, fish dish. Cross my palms with food, black delivery shark. I will empty you. #my26t

I stamp a monologue of lotus flowers onto skin-like paper, releasing them into the wind, the water, the earth and the fire. #my26t

2012

HNY. I hope that your next 366 day journey around a star is a satisfying trip.

I don't do NY resolutions, I make todo lists. Lots of them. 2012 is for finishing the todo lists of 2001 - 2011. First todo: find lost lists.

I have no need of designated times to make new goals. I have enough trouble limiting myself to feasible courses of action throughout the year, and life will always alter my plans if I ink them in. For me, the arbitrary but psychologically effective illusion of a newly-started year is the time to finish projects and cross off things on the todo list in order, I suspect, to reach that state of serenity, achievement and liberation that is out there somewhere. Or in here, somewhere.

*You are of course welcome to look at cross-sections of my todo lists. They are, somewhat predictably, a combination of life laundry, bodywork MOT, enhanced creativity, literary collaboration, deadlines for art and words, exams, paperwork, family obligations, parachuting into disaster zones, delusional optimism, and aknowledgement that at some point, I should get A Career.