Monday 28 April 2008

The best way to spend a weekend in May...


Andy and Polly, my friends and commiserates, have developed "Exposures," the most wonderful show which provides:

A) A great opportunity to fine tune your skills with a camera, and

B) An excellent excuse to spend a day in Brighton. (If you haven't been already, you will love it.)

Their Shoreham show "The Day Trip" last July was one of the most unique and invigorating theatrical experiences I've had outside of the Edinburgh Fringe. They make shows for adventurers - the audience member/sleuth who can seek out beauty in unexpected places. This is what theatre is for - making us more inquisitive, more courageous as Humans. Giving us a better idea of everything a term like "Live" can really encompass.

ttp://www.myvillage.com/brighton/arts-theatre-Exposures.htm

On the topic of Liveness and Photography - I had the strangest and most illuminating dream last night. In my dream, someone told me very authoritatively that a photograph was 0001 of death because it was a moment that was still - unmoving - and whoever is photographed is a ghost. (Regardless of whether or not they are still alive.) This seemed incredibly meaningful when I woke up, and hey, still is in a way that I can not quite articulate, but looking around my room at all of my very old photographs of people long dead who I will never meet (which I collect) and the somewhat more recent photographs of people I have met and love (which I don't collect, but I do gather) I am suddenly struck by how the eerily similar the two categories are. What a strange and surreal thing photography is when you think about it - if a living cell is continually moving and changing, what are these still "captured" parts of life? With a word we use as casually as "capture" what do we really mean? Is there some part of life and movement and change that is trapped in these images and continues to haunt them?

Okay, okay, so there's a little bit of dreamy sub logic to bring into your very Alive experience of wandering around Brighton taking pictures. Truly, Andy and Polly's work is a treat and you'd be a sucker to miss out on it. Maybe we'll see each other there! I'll be the one who is terrified to take any photos and keeps muttering about how she doesn't want anything to be "trapped."

Indisputably Good Things. (Cheese is an indisputably good thing.)



(In no particular order)

*Taking a walk in a park you've never been to on a nice day. Especially if said park includes a pond.

*Baking something that actually works out and sharing it with people who are subsequently impressed.

*Being so "in the zone" whilst creating something (be it a play, a drawing, an essay or a mix tape) that you forget to eat.

*Whatever your friend cooked you for dinner (or lunch).

*Whatever your flatmate cooked you for dinner (or lunch).

*When a person in service (at a restaurant or shop) likes you so much they give you a discount or freebie. (However small.)

*Dancing alone in your room in a ridiculous manner.

*Photos of your friends' baby and/or wedding.

*Cold and delicious fruit juice.

*Having no plans, then running into someone you like very much by chance and spending the day with them.

*Getting excited about your friends' successes and general awesomeness/excellence.

*Improvised competitive party games that seem to come out of nowhere. (Best recent improvised party game - for the era of Facebook and the Digital Photo - Who can take the best band photo. Not only does everyone get to posture as a band member, everyone gets a turn of posturing as the super conceptual photographer!)

*Drinking wine whilst eating excellent cheese (not at a party - do this at a dinner or by yourself. If by yourself, limit it to one glass of wine, and one type of cheese.)

*Swimming.

*Dreams where you are flying.

*Being introduced to new music in a non-pressurized fashion - this is where the beauty of the mix tape/ cd comes to the fore.

*Compliments on your work from someone who did not know you were responsible for the work. (AKA - "I liked that play, I can't remember who wrote it. " SO super sweet.)

*Free and unexpected gifts in the mail - best when they consist of a trinket, a new book, a new cd or a hilarious photograph of your friend.

*Record players playing something swoony and old timey.

*Fresh flowers.

*Sunbathing.

*Good art, music or writing made by your friends and people you have met.

*Long fluid Car rides with good music (vital) and good scenery (Not as vital.)

*Long and informative Emails (Facebook does not count) from estranged friends.

*Funny postcards sent unexpectedly.

*Nerding out over any one of the following movies: Wayne's World, The Big Lebowski, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Clueless, Rushmore, Annie Hall, Kindergarten Cop.

*Any one of the following movies: Wayne's World, The Big Lebowski, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Clueless, Rushmore, Annie Hall (and less fun to nerd out about but very wonderful to watch) anything by Truffaut but especially Jules and Jim, Manhattan, Ratatouille, Beauty and the Beast, Swimming to Cambodia, Harold and Maude, Being There, The Jerk, anything by Wong Kar Wai but especially "Happy Together" and not necessarily always Kindergarten Cop.

*Old Episodes of The Simpsons and Seinfeld.

*Giving someone a present you bought them whilst on vacation.

*The Perfect Temperature Shower.

*Hope.

*Love.

*Cuddling. (Aw...)

*Memory. (Also a bad thing.)

*The perfect dive.

*The sky.