It's 12.15 am and I am about to relate the events of yesterday as perceived by me. They could be of little interest to anyone else. But if you think about it, do you ever stop to break down your day into the minutiae it possibly deserves, exploring where you have been in the hope that it will show you where to go?
Here we go...
My walk to work merged into my day at work. The sight of Peckham Rye Park in the half light, a space that either seems unworldly with strange low level mists, bleak or wildly beautiful. Work ranged from manically stressful to eerily quiet, culminating in a random act of origami, resulting in the creating of a 'bored fish', which I presented to a work colleague as a gift. As ever, lunchtime served as a respite to the ravaging system, imploding beneath its own weight. The futile dreams of improvement and superiority immersed in a cash strapped reality. Sitting in Ruskin Park watching the Crows as they loudly communicate their disdain for the human carrion frolicking in their manor. Wings flapping wildly in the wind.
After work, catching the 68 to Waterloo, the none-too-memorable journey, stopped as usual in Camberwell awaiting the new driver. Getting off, walking to Kingsway. My usual café, Café Amici, usual order which the waitress knows, jacket potato and tuna and the best Mocha in town. The waitress with the smile to thaw even the coldest of hearts. Then off to the Tate Modern.
I walked around the 'Dreams' section of the Tate Modern. Max Ernst and Picasso et al vying for my affections. Something about the Surrealists and modern art does it for me. Free association, headless female torsos, distorted figures, found objects incorporated seemingly at random into complex comments on the explosions of the psyche. If your psyche could regurgitate, what would it produce?
Then into the 'Paul Klee: Making Visible' exhibition, marvelling at an artist who numbered all of his works, clearly fixated with systems and order. Not odd then to discover he was a Master at the Bauhaus Art School. His work is a complex mixture of styles, some canvasses filled with colour squares. Some of the other paintings more complex and textured scenes framed theatrically by arches. He also had a fixation with fish. I am left wondering how random and 'unconnected' our meaningless acts of creation are? 'Bored paper fish' anyone?
Leaving the exhibition, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the shop, selling lots of merchandise connected to the artist. So much expensive stuff in one small space. A reminder that art is only important if it can be repeatedly resold?
I opted to walk over the Millennium Bridge on my journey to my next destination. I looked back and saw the massive Tate Modern chimney thing strikingly framed in a rusty sky with a crane gently cavorting with it. As I walked the bridge, I looked at the people taking photos and performing their acts on the bridge. Someone was dressed like a Transformer, which made no logical sense. A child ran across the bridge, breaking quiet conversation with the thud of youthful movement, but who was he running from or to? His past or future?
Hitting the Thames Path, I was overcome by thoughts of Susan in Austria, exploring every time zone and memory alone and in company. I looked up and imagined London as a series of colours, each building reduced to its essence, all structure removed. Think of those two dimensional panoramas and you will know how I felt. Just colours and lights. The familiar rendered indistinct. I was accompanied by Gulls as they flew and still I imagined Susan, this time escorting me, an unmasked companion unburdened by the past, finally liberated. But she wasn't there, except in my heart.
My journey past the ancient graffiti strewn concrete walls. I saw messages such as 'Annie... You taught me all there was to know.' That wasn't the message, but it was the sentiment. The exact wording is never as important as the emotions it evokes.
Up past Charing Cross, Leicester Square and Soho where tourists hungrily tried to capture the lanterns of Chinatown with their mobile phones. 'I was here' stamped in pixels on a memory card to reveal to those back at home. I passed the alfresco urinals, glamorous punctuation marks to a time long ago when people threw their excrement on the streets from their windows.
Into the Soho Theatre for 'Barb Jungr: Mad about the Boy and No Regrets'. Down in the Basement where I felt like an extra in a David Lynch film, watching Barb Jungr, brilliant interpreter of others' songs. She was wearing a low cut black ball gown and her vocals lifted me. A jazz singer for people who tire of the structures of jazz. She opened with the Dylan number, 'Tangled Up In Blue' and culminated with a Cohen song, 'A Thousand Kisses Deep'. She moved the audience, moved through them and even physically touched them. Outside the Basement space, she stood with the pianist selling CDs. There is nothing so humbling as a performer selling their own wares. A funny moment occurred when I asked if she would sign the CD I chose to buy. She said 'yes, if I would open the CD'. The glorious world of shrink-wrap resulted in Barb and I tearing at the plastic together. She signed it and I headed home through Soho, home to late night post work happy people, flinging themselves in every direction, unable to retain any sense of equilibrium or in some cases, decorum. Who needs social etiquette when you can have alcohol?
Heading down to Charing Cross past people manically lost in space and time. Searching for a guiding light, some principle of direction.
I hit Charing Cross Station then went to London Bridge. From London Bridge on my home bound train, I marvelled at the interesting people including a group of inebriated girls who delighted in repeating the word 'orange', as though it were a mantra for modern living, very quickly infuriating the guy sitting next to me who nearly got up to tell them to shut up.
Leaving my station, I walked the quiet streets thinking of the times I have crossed the Zebra crossing and walked the same way home. I thought of Susan again.
Laying here I reflect on only one truth, the day lived is better than pretending to live. Even the bad moments are necessary to inform and constrain the chaos we inhabit.
This is not a diary, this is not just my life, this is one life amongst many. I write for you and I create for me. What do you live for and who do you still love?
Do you want to remember?
Barry Watt - 26th October 2013.
Afterword
'Tangled Up In Blue' - Bob Dylan. It originally appeared on 'Blood On The Tracks' and is copyrighted to Columbia Records.
'A Thousand Kisses Deep' - Leonard Cohen. It appears on the 'Essential Leonard Cohen' album and is again copyrighted to Columbia Records.
Café Amici is on Kingsway, near to the Aldwich and is well worth a visit.
Soho Theatre is on Dean Street. One of the most original and happening venues in town. Please go and see something there.
BW
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