Blog

02 Nov

Posted at 11:22h in Sarah's Journal by

Floral tributes tell me about family and class of both who is left behind, and who has died. There is a fashion too for depictions of hobbies done in flowers. In the manner of celebration cakes, displays of cats, football teams, cars and musical instruments are popular. I imagine my own funeral. There is a cardboard coffin in a camper van, a ram-shackle procession. I love floral letters, imagine them hand-held, lined up to spell something irreverent perhaps – to give passers by a laugh, or food for thought. I imagine the cost, (keep it to the minimum) then a pithy epitaph. LOVED. Does that say everything that’s needed? It is both adjective and verb, the final stamp of a well-lived life. Or better still, use one letter shorter, LOVE, a command, inspiration, a name, the sum of everything that matters.

01 Nov

Posted at 10:53h in Culture Reviews by

When my father died in 1988, I inherited his copy of ‘The Joy of Gay Sex’ by Dr Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. The ‘Rainbow Dads’ podcasts is a sensitive series of conversations that would have spoken directly to his situation, but he was of the pre-internet generation who had to find their own way. “It was just a deep feeling which I had inside of me which became really really powerful” Ahnet explains. He is one of the 5 gay or bisexual dads who talk frankly in this series of revealing podcasts about the “secret places” where queer sexuality often resides. Nicholas McInerny – our enthusiastic and genial host encourages each of them as they describe how they found “the courage to step out of family and social networks to reclaim my identity” in the process of coming out. We hear about their internalised messages of guilt and shame, in a context of different social, cultural and faith backgrounds. Importantly they also acknowledge the hurt caused. They each grapple with the complexities of marriage, their unconscious drives and parenthood. I warmed to these men as they confessed to many, “Oh shit! Moments” in the interplay between self, partner, children and community in order to know as David puts it, “that you are ok, that your life is valid.” Ultimately these are stories about being human, finding healing and learning to love. Their words resonate deeply with me and my own late coming out, but also shed light on my father’s internal conflicts that led to his own declaration of those words, “I’m gay.”
www.podtail.com/en/podcast/rainbow-dads/

31 Oct

Posted at 16:41h in Sarah's Journal by

Halloween is being marketed to us by corporations who want to sell mass produced synthetic costumes, plastic buckets, cheap chocolate grown where rainforests used to grow and sweets which encourage obesity. We are being sold images of this American confection through film, TV and social media. However, scratch the surface and you will find Samhain – the old Celtic festival to mark the end of harvest and the passage into winter. This has been celebrated for centuries on these isles. All Souls Day (the first of November) has been glued onto the old roots of this festival. I sense the profusion of “trick or treating” and dressing up in gothic styles as a response to our hunger for a connection with the circle of life and death. We yearn for a relationship with the ancestors – which we will soon be. Borrowing from the tradition of ‘Los Dios de los Muertos’, the ‘Day of the Dead’ in Mexico, a family film like ‘Coco’ (Pixar/Disney 2017) does just that in a way that includes children. “The English experience of death is apologetic. In Mexico it’s a celebration of the person who’s passed on.” (Stephen Wright, artist) After placing offerings for my ancestors, on Saturday I will be slipping on my skeleton suit and dancing at ‘Golden Delicious’.
http://www.rialtotheatre.co.uk/whats-on/events/golden-delicious-day-of-the-dead

30 Oct

Posted at 23:38h in Culture Reviews by

I stand outside on the street looking into the Hart Club, which is full of the colourful, bold portraits painted by Paul Wright. He portrays his favourite characters from the comedy programmes and soaps he loves. “The work was cheeky and interesting,” says Stephen Wright (no relation) about Paul’s work. They began a creative working relationship, laughter being a key ingredient. “It was a two way experience,” reports Stephen, “Paul helped me to loosen up”. This exhibition has come into being through a collaboration between the Hart Club (who champion neuro diversity in the arts), Submit to Love Studios (part of Headway, a charity working with people who have experienced brain injury), Stephen Wright (working as artist in residence), and Paul Wright (artist with brain injury). Helen who works alongside the artists describes Headway Hackney as having “a Yes! Attitude”. She invites us to think outside our current mindset. “What would it mean for your life if you were very dramatically changed, with loss of self, loss of identity?” I had spent the afternoon with someone struggling to come to terms with exactly that – a sudden change in the entire landscape of their life. “Art practice is a way of living with uncertainty…and turning that into something magical,” says Ben of Headway Hackney. Their inclusive mission with service users is to foster “meaning, the opportunity to be valued, food and love, to have a place in the world; in short, trying to be human.”
www.hartclub.org

29 Oct

Posted at 19:57h in Sarah's Journal by

Here lies an unpicked harvest. Nature’s bounty falls to the ground for wasps, now drunk on fermented fruit. Even the birds have had their fill. City people too busy or unschooled in nature’s kitchen to plunder fruit trees, let it rot. Trees rely on mammals and birds to eat their fruit. The seeds are designed to be returned to the ground in a neat parcel of manure to assist propagation. My poo – it’s fertilising power untapped – flushes from sewer to pipe under the city until it reaches sewage treatment works then canal or river before it flows down to the sea. The majority of crab apple seeds will rot and be swept

28 Oct

Posted at 20:01h in Sarah's Journal by

Tony, Pan-like with his goat legs and horns dances on the beach. Our feet crunch on the stones to the beat. The elements put on a show as the sun sets. Big wide sky swirls above us blue, pink and gold like a lava lamp. The sea is still, coated with a petrol blue lacquer. The pier is crusted with jewel bright lights, which melt colour into the sea as the sky darkens. We dance around a fire, watching the elemental performance. The flames breathe in the light salt air and bless us with wood smoke. Tess plays a track which speaks to me. I suck on spaciousness, loosen my limbs, feel gratitude for the beating of my heart.
http://www.wildmoves.org/waves-on-the-beach/4594154601

27 Oct

Posted at 22:58h in Sarah's Journal by

After a month of rain and grey sky draped like a blanket over everything, mushrooms are popping up. Stems grow like teenagers’ legs in a growth spurt when you’re not looking; they appear as adults overnight. Firm fragile fungal flesh a paradox of sturdy enough to break through soil, yet soft enough to fracture on touch. Beneath the grass a hidden world of mycelium grows and spreads, fertile soil for nature’s opportunists. I lie to squint at delicate gills of warm neutral tones. I stop to peer under bushes, examine small canopies. I notice teeth marks at the edge of one fleshy mushroom and wonder who the nibbler was.

26 Oct

Posted at 20:21h in Sarah's Journal by

Angry Dan’s bright and cheerful rainbow mural has been defaced by someone who sees Ikea in the colours yellow and blue. I want to reclaim them for sky, sun and sand. It made me realise how much I cherished approaching the rainbow as I walked down the path. To me it says “Hello!” queer or otherwise, with a nod to the variable nature of the weather. This morning it made me consider the fundamental nature of my queer identity. People who don’t know me well often assume that I am heterosexual. I notice how my nature – invisible for many years despite being called ‘Queero’ at primary school – is glad to be seen. Angry Dan – artist and activist also uses painted rainbows and clouds in his ‘blue dot’ series to remind us of the finite resources on this small blue planet.
www.angrydan.com

25 Oct

Posted at 17:49h in Culture Reviews by

Jamie Wheal’s brilliant and erudite proposition is that in the post modern, industrialised west we are suffering a “collapse of meaning”. He identifies a necessary collective ‘griefgasm’ (Bilal’s term), to belch out our trauma. “Our ability to be of service is in direct proportion to our ability to digest our grief”. He articulates a very convincing synthesis of how to bring about change for the many not the few – “it needs to be all of us, or none of us”. He presents a diagram of the components of collective transformation. The crux is awakening through both ecstatic practice, through cathartic experience, yet connected and grounded in community. His shiny appearance, “super sexy, gee wizz” language is designed to get the attention of the well groomed smart casual movers and shakers in the audience. “How to blow your mind with household substances – respiration, embodiment, music, sexuality and substances…stacked together to bio-hack consciousness” is the programme. I share his passion to ignite courage, witness his eyes brim, and am already on board with most of what he espouses. He brings together strands to inspire “don’t curse the darkness, light a fire”(Watkinson). I would also love to hear his words weaving in circle with others – with women and people of colour. Here he stands with Yoms and June prefiguring my wish.
Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That’s Lost Its Mind. Talk by Jamie Wheel. www.tickettailor.com/events/rebelwisdom/290176/

24 Oct

Posted at 22:01h in Sarah's Journal by

On the brow of the hill where the view is attention seeking is a simple bench. “In memory of Alan Holden 1924-2011…expertly monitored butterflies and helped create the nature reserve for all to enjoy,” reads the plaque. Eight years since his death, and here lie fresh flowers. The living rush about, send texts, busy themselves with infinite to do lists. This eight-years-gone man has time to remind us to sit awhile. I remember a holiday free from the tyranny of digital means. We sat on a bench on a hill to watch the passing of sunlight across a valley, and the movement of goats. We called it ‘goat tv’. I stop and remember at this place of remembrance that other view where we stopped and sat.