Summer Rambling
How is your summer going? I am in the midst of interviewing people for my next book, on LGBTQ people’s experience of suburbia in the twentieth century, Tales of the Suburbs. So I’m meeting all sorts of fascinating folk and hearing stories that are incredible, heartbreaking, funny and just plain weird, often all at once… I’m still on the lookout for interviewees, so if you or someone you know fits the bill, do get in touch.
The Paint Job, now with added wallpaper
You may have read my essay The Paint Job on here, the story of my family’s adventures in decorating in th 1980s. I’ve worked with new arts publishing startup Ambitious Outsiders to publish it as a limited edition A5 pamphlet. There are 100 signed copies available, in 4 different cover designs by Richard de Pesando (so just 25 of each). You can get them for a fiver plus P&P over on the new shop bit of my website.
Soundtrack to Concretopia
A while back musician and artist Gavin Brick (The Metamorph) got in touch to say he’d been collaborating with Phil Heeks (The British Stereo Collective) on an album of synth instrumentals called Halls of Antiquity.
Their band, Ardala, has been inspired by early eighties synth pioneers such as Vangelis and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the resulting album conjures a beautiful dreamscape where Blade Runner meets David Mallett’s video for Ashes to Ashes. To my absolute delight and honour they had even named one of the tracks Concretopia. You can listen to sample of the album here and then go and sit in an underpass in a skinny tie and lots of heavy eyeliner*.
*Serving suggestion
A Personal Anthology
If you could edit a collection of 12 short stories, what would you choose? That’s the task set on A Personal Anthology, a long-running blog now featuring lists from hundreds of writers. I had a go last week, and my list includes a tale from Ray Newman’s chilling and playful ghost story collection Municipal Gothic, a piece from Timothy Thornton’s Horse’s Noise substack and two novellas set in abbeys (great, I have another niche fetish). They’re all loosely about place. You can read my list here. Thanks so much to Jonathan Gibbs for asking me to contribute to his amazing project.
Span vs The Shining
Now THAT would be an event! And it sounds a bit like a story from Municipal Gothic… But actually, these are two different events I’m doing in July.
On Sunday 2 July at 2pm I’m giving a talk at the New Ash Green Community Centre for the Arts Community there, on Eric Lyon’s New Ash Green and the postwar New Towns projects. Tickets available on the door, more details here.
On the same page you’ll also find details of an event I’m doing with Rough Trade Books at Foyles to discuss their beautiful book I contributed to on Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. I’m on a panel with the legend that is Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Craig Oldham and Hettie Judah. It’s on Monday, 31 July at 7pm, more info here.
Do contact me if you’d like me to come and do a talk at your bookshop, club, festival or group.
OFF-Grid
Hope I can get to see this exhibition in Deptford: Richard Chivers' OFF-Grid is at the Gareth Gardner Gallery on 24-25 June and 1-2 July from 2pm–6pm. Richard has spent has spent 8 years photographing Britain’s disappearing gasholders, and we are all the better for it.
It’s a also a nice reminder to snap away at all the strange landscapes you see on your travels. You never know how long they will be around for.