A Protest or a Cry for Help

30.03.20.

As I write this it is still morning. I am in the perfect space between ‘awake’ and ‘shakily over caffeinated’. These days there’s something slightly fatalistic about seeing how much of the big cafetière I can drink before 11am. I’ve done about 3/4 so far. It’s a BIG cafetière. I think the format of the last email went pretty well. If I were to describe it I think it would be as follows: 

Whimsical introduction

Thoughts that no one asked for 

Self-deprecatory humour 

Some artfully constructed suggestions for reading/watching/listening 

Closing statement asking for forgiveness 

With that in mind I’ll begin. Playing from the ever-faithful UE boom is the ‘American Water’ album by the band Silver Jews. They are a morning band. Other examples of morning bands are: The Velvet Underground, Otis Reading, Kurt Vile, Fleetwood Mac, Alabama Shakes and, of course, Elvis Presley. For contrast, evening bands consist of: Blood Orange, David Bowie, The Cure, Fontaine’s D.C, Massive Attack and Portishead. I am willing to die on this hill. The light filling my ‘workspace’ is the white light of the morning. This is an all-encompassing light, different to the orange light of the evening that only reveals itself in the shadows it makes on the wall. 

Quarantine is starting to really take hold of the household. Dad could only get smooth peanut butter from the supermarket instead of crunchy and it caused a real panic. The cat has taken to shitting in the bath if the door is left open. Literally no explanation for this. Not sure if it’s a protest or a cry for help. Strange times. Mum keeps making apocalyptic pronouncements over dinner. Dad told her to stop then proceeded to tell my sister about the crashed Uruguayan Flight 571 where the survivors resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. I was thankful for Quorn mince and carried on eating. 

I have started voice-noting and realise I am bad at it. Apparently I stumble over my words even more than in regular speech - which many deemed impossible. However, it’s a nice way to converse and I feel like there’s something more meaningful when conveying tone and rhythm etc. Hoping that this whole affair will speed up the production of sci-fi holograms. We’ll see. 

Most importantly I can’t stop thinking about the dance scene in Ex Machina when Oscar Isaac ‘tears up the fucking dancefloor’. Genuinely never seen a guy so built move like butter. Might try and learn the dance. Maybe i’ll do it on TikTok. 

Recommendations for the end of days: 

I think the films of Joanna Hogg are good quarantine fodder; in my opinion she is the reigning champion of British middle class discomfort and internal strife. Her films are slow, with impeccably written dialogue and beautiful framing. A master of show don’t tell. They are also, at times, very funny and often feature (love him or hate him) a young Tom Hiddleston. Start with ‘Archipelago’ and ‘Unrelated’ and finish with ‘The Souvenir’; an emotionally mature work reflecting on love and relationships.

My poetry selection for this week is the collection ‘A Bonus’ by Canadian Elizabeth Smart. Most known for her shatteringly honest ‘By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept’; Smart’s latter poetry collection burns with the same dry wit and passion that she became famous for. A short example is:

Hangover

Diabolical Dionysus 

Last night egged us on 

To raze the sacred temples.

The god has gone. 

Now troupes of mini-builders 

Using their mini road drills 

With puritanical fury

And vindictive zeal 

Riot round my temples 

Needed for enduring

This frail day. 

Other favourites include, ‘There’s Nobody Here But Us Chickens’, ‘Cleanliness Is Not Next To Godliness’ and ‘Are Flowers Whores?’. For any of you that are interested Smart led an absolutely scandalous life that merits a google search (fell in love with a poet, had a public affair, was an avid smoker and drinker, bit off the upper lip of said poet, had her poetry banned in Canada, had multiple lovers and raised four children on her own). 

Considering we are all going to spend a lot more time inside I think a fitting book recommendation is The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard. Bachelard convincingly and delicately unpacks the domestic spaces we spend much of our time in, offering philosophical and psychological elucidations on the most intimate of settings. It sounds like hard work with chapter titles such as, ‘The Dialectics of Inside and Outside’ and ‘The Phenomenology of Roundness’, but is actually a surprisingly easy and lucid read for even the most amateur of ‘Topologists’. 

Art wise, I think the Surrealist paintings of Yves Tanguy capture something of the isolation, dislocation and dystopian anxiety of our current predicament. Whenever I see them they always simultaneously spook and intrigue me. 

Right, enough of that. Hope you all enjoyed the second episode of this Corona saga. Accepting all constructive criticism. Will be back again soon. Thanks all for being here, aiming for 100. Nearly there. Lots of love. 

Cam