Shaftesbury Arts Festival

Shaftesbury Arts Festival Sept 5th-9th.
It's a busy week for Storyslingers. Check out the following exciting things that are happening:

I.

MAP MAKING COMPETITION:

Storyslingers, my writing group, set up an interesting competition for writers (and vagabonds, comedians, artists and the general public). Here's the link: http://storyslingers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/storyslingers-launches-its-first-open.html

The winner(s) will be announced on Saturday 8th at our book stall/ display of wonder, SAC. (see item III. below)

Check out the facebook page for inspiration/ procrastination opportunity: http://www.facebook.com/events/341655955921155/

(this is a random map I found from the internet. Thanks internet!) 

II.

PROSE, POETRY, MUSIC EVENING AT BEGGAR'S BANQUET: 

Storyslingers have teamed up with Beggar's Banquet Music Cafe in Shaftesbury and will host an evening of good stories, funky tunes and slick poetry. There will be snacks of fine quality, there will delicious drinks, you can bring some wine of whatever quality you prefer (corkage fees apply!) 

Beggar's Banquet is an amazing place; provider of wholesome veggie foods, player of excellent music (check out all the vinyl for sale in there), host to exciting arts events. http://www.beggarsbanquetmusiccafe.co.uk/

Thursday 6th September, 7:30pm, Beggar's Banquet, Muston's Lane, Shaftesbury, Dorset. Free entry. 

(writers take note of this amazing opportunity: we have one or two reading slots still available. If you're a prose writer or poet, please email Jennifer Bell or Jennifer Oliver to declare your interest. Time guideline of 5 mins/ 800 words.)

http://www.facebook.com/events/263686563750118/

III.

STORYSLINGERS CURIOUS STALL OF HANDMADE LITERATURE

Come to Shaftesbury Arts Centre at about 10am-4pm on Saturday the 8th of Sept, we will have a stall of handmade books, zines, comics, bookmarks, cards, origami, chapbooks and also published works and postcards. We're not sure which room we'll be in yet, but the mystery will only add to your experience as you wend your way around the labyrinth of SAC in search of wondrous treasure (ie: us). 

(a recycled image from last years' arts festival.)

Keen for it to end

I can't stop listening to the Eels. It is my newest obsession. I have long known about Hugh Everett's Many Worlds theory. I (sort of) came up with the same theory when I was 14 years old. Then I found out some other guy had come up with it fifty years ago, and with a lot more science stuff to back it up. No one even took him seriously, so I kept my own mouth shut and wrote a book about it instead, and later did an art project all about it.
Christmas day 2008, ten years after I first came across Hugh Everett and about seven years since I came across The Eels, I was told that Mr E is the son of Hugh Everett. I was also told that Hugh Everett died when Mark Everett was only 19. E found his father dead in bed. Then a while later his sister killed herself, then his mother died of cancer, and his cousin died some years later in the 9/11 plane crashes. Shit.

I am listening to Essential Eels Vol 1 over and over.
This music is so wonderful and inspiring. I wish so much that I could make something this good, this poetic. There is a crisp poetry to his lyrics.
Today I am not feeling very poetic. I am feeling vague and distant.

I found a beginning to a story I wrote a couple of months ago. I didn't get any further. I'm not sure there will ever be an ending, or a middle. Just a beginning. Here it is:

We were walking along a suburban street in a small town. The day was turning into night; golden fringes were absorbed by the encroaching muddy-blue of dusk. High-pitched squeals peeled into the air. Children were dressed in black and green, as ghosts or vampires. They ran from door to door, weaving across the street, spilling sweets from their sacks. We walked through it, our eyes fixed ahead. The moon was going to be full that night, but was not yet risen.

The suburbs turned abruptly into countryside. We slipped through the space between two red brick walls. There was a stile at the end of the corridor, we entered the field and stopped. The valley was dark grey-green with a weak-blue sky hanging above it. The trees and hedgerows were still and silent. Not even the nearby children’s voices broke the stillness of dusk.

We walked onwards. The grass was wet, cold and dewy but the black leather of our boots was too thick to let it in. In a few nights it would turn to frost and sparkle in the light of the cold moon.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Down by the donut prince
A fifteen year old boy lies on the sidewalk
With a bullet in his forehead
In a final act of indignity
The paramedics take off all his clothes
For the whole world to see
While they put him in the bag
Meanwhile an old couple argues inside the queen bee
The sick fluorescent light shimmering on their skin

-Mr E: Susan's House.