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April 12, 2019

#7 - GWR Why Have You Forsaken Me

I'm writing this on a train. A packed train. A packed train on a Friday afternoon. The man opposite me is heavily invested in exploring every nook of his crisp packet and the child behind me is screaming like she's just realised it's the funnest thing. Why am I telling you this? Because I feel like this probably won't be my finest effort but I'm Dedicated To The Cause of getting this done.

What do me and Theresa May have in common?

An attraction to wheat? Yes. An appreciation of leather? (My fourth favourite material I reckon). But also - this was a week where we both negotiated deadline extensions.

Luckily, I was talking to people that I'm pretty sure like me and don't *entirely* feel like I'm taking the piss, even if I'm certain it wasn't a fun time for either me or Big TM. It was in fact a horrible decision to have to make, but I am exhausted (I'm noticing April is the month this always seems to happen) and it's an extension that will let me produce better work for a project with a more urgent deadline, as well as freeing my head up for swinging back around to this delayed one. 

The need to ask for that suggestion also revealed something to me about my writing process: namely, I'm a less supple writer than I used to be. It used to be a joy to hop between different pieces of work. It was, in fact, my method of beating writer's block. Work on one thing til you're so bored that anything else is appealing, hop onto another thing, rinse and repeat and hey presto you've got yourself some pretty productive procrastination. Now? I don't know what's changed exactly but to try and give it a positive spin, I suppose I just want to drill deeper into my work? The meditation habit I've gotten into has perhaps given me greater focus at the cost of a certain terrified energy. I like to believe this is eventually for the best, especially as research shows that there is a significant cognitive cost to the brain in constantly switching between things.

Speaking of brains...I finished Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos this week. It was a recommendation from a producer as a reference for new piece I'm working on. I've tried five times to type a sentence that will do it justice and not just sound wilfully bonkers but I can't quite manage it so just know that I enjoyed it immensely and it made me feel unexpectedly comforted about how my head functions sometimes. I've not read a huge amount of Vonnegut - a few novels and some shorts - but he's one of those writers whose strangeness never feels forced or affected. It feels like a rational response to his experience of the world, particularly that of the second World War, mostly famously interpolated into Slaughter House Five. I've dipped in and out of Vonnegut's letters over the years (in a book, I didn't ransack his house) and there is a clear throughline from his non-fiction writing to his prose. The best example of this is probably this letter he wrote to his family whilst he was a POW. That oddness is in there, that very particular way of looking at the world, a glib approach to the macabre but a humanity too, always a deep humanity.

In terms of actual writing, it's been a full on week with a hand in on Monday, notes today, and some intense but ultimately aborted attempts at an outline in between which is what led to the aforementioned grovelling for a deadline extension. Despite this, I've tried my best to be Cultural. Firstly in the form of Don McCullin exhibit at the Tate Britain. It's a pretty exhaustive collection of his work, larger than I expected it to be, but it's gorgeously curated and gives a compelling account of the emotional journey of the man and his relationship to his work. That work itself is unsurprisingly stunning to the extent that it felt impossible to take it all in. You're overloaded by the time you've gone through three rooms and there are like another four to go. I had a decompressing chat with a young man who worked the til at the shop afterwards and he felt the same. He also suggests going early on a Monday or a Tuesday to beat the crowds, so top tip there. On til the 6th of May.

What else? Oh yes! I went to the opera. The Opera. Well, the ENO. I know sod all about opera, I've never been before, but I seem to recall there's a snobbishness towards that place? I'm not even going to try and figure out why because it's not an attitude I want to indulge but it was quietly thrilling to experience something on a stage and not have the capacity to have an opinion on it. Or at least, not a considered one. When was the last time I could just experience something and not have the automatic instinct to try and pick it apart? There's a brilliant foodie review (that I sadly could not find) of a McDonalds restaurant where they write about it without any of the cultural baggage and it kinda makes you love the place. Let me trying this a little with my evening, but in reverse. A know-nothing, naive write up of my ENO experience.

There was quite a long queue to get in. The drinks cost as much as the West End theatres but the crowd seemed a touch friendlier. The seats don't flip up but are instead quite short. I found myself with an overwhelming urge to sit up straight. There were greeting messages on the surtitle screens as you sat down. People wishing their loved ones a nice evening out. I like that. There were a lot of kids. Maybe kids really dig flutes? (It was a production of The Magic Flute). 

The show itself...I was constantly delighted. I mean, I lost the plot very early but it never really felt like that mattered? (The programme, I later discovered, tells you the whole plot in advance if you want it. Top tip. I remember The Drowned Man eventually giving you a crib sheet before you went in and it helped a whole bunch). 

The set was simple but cleverly used and there was some exciting projections. There was always something to look at. Even though it was touching three hours long, I can see why the kids around me were into it. It was near-constantly playful. I don’t know if the singing was any good but it sounded like I assume opera singers are meant to sing and no one hit an obviously bum note. The curtain call was super long. So long the the fitness tracker on my wrist thought I'd taken 500 steps after all the clapping. 

On my way out, I saw that the show was directed by Simon McBurney. Oh yeah. Him. That makes sense of everything. The projections especially. Man loves a projection. And with this knowledge to hand, my brain, my stupid big brain as Vonnegut would put it, suddenly tried to be all clever about things again.

Dang. You cannot escape, kids. The Theatre will always find you...

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