Paint-stained schmoozing and Scotland's greatest living writer
We finished painting the nursery over the weekend, praise be. You wouldn't think applying a few coats of paint to the walls and woodwork of a smallish room would be so troublesome but there is currently no space in our hallway save a slender path through furniture and boxes of records, paperwork and all what-not, so there was nowhere to move some of the furniture in the nursery room, so while painting we were forced to move in a precise, angular and repetitive manner, like Tik and Tok Robotic Decorators Ltd (one for the LJ old-timers there). Much foul cursing as my physical ungainliness reached astonishing new heights and I repeatedly had to climb up and down the chair I was using (cos the ladder would sooner or later have gone through the window) to find my optimum angle of approach. Mo, meanwhile, gasped and groaned whenever she had to bend low, her Bean-burden causing her no small physical woe. The windows are not in smooth and simple frames but maybe the original 1950s jobs, with about 800 different planes, grooves and surfaces for some reason. I guess folk didn't do so much decorating and DIY back then. I applied the first coat to the first frame with brushes of various sizes and a dinky little roller; I smeared the final coat on the final frame with my bare hands, wild-eyed. Job's a good un.
When we weren't doing that, we did this:
the launch of issue four of Mo's successful comic book health resource thing at the Tron Theatre. I nipped along on Saturday afternoon, rubbing white satinwood from my fingers on the way, and yapped there with some of the usual suspects, Blondie, Big Jim, the Timelord. We watched a youth group performance of something called forum drama, which called for audience suggestions re: what the young protagonist should do next in terms of empowerment an all that. Impressive young performers and some reet laughs. The lead actor, who looked about nine, with an angelic face, fair-hued bumfluff and an unsettlingly direct manner, asked me over the buffet what I thought of the show. I fessed up my prejudices about this kind of theatre (theatre in general really), it's dangerous potential for worthiness and stuttered on about the power of the piece and its obvious value but I think I ballsed that one up.
Then Mo gave her presentation. I was so proud. I'd never seen her in this context before - such authority, such command of the room, such a powerful voice...but with laughs.
And last night, off with me to the Mitchell, which has been tarted up just lovely, with young friend Ruth to see Alasdair Gray, novelist, playwright, painter, polemicist and greatest living Scotsman. I've been to speaking gigs by a few writers whose work I admire - this is my arty-farty respectable version of celeb-watching - and some have been most entertaining while others...haven't. I didn't care if Gray just sat there making spit-bubbles with his lips, I just wanted to see the aging sage in the flesh and hear him speak. He wrote Lanark, fer any sake. I felt that an audience with the author of that monumental novel in his native city would be akin to hearing James Joyce speak in Dublin - something you might want to tell the grandkids, assuming literacy doesn't die out.
Rodge Glass gave a humourous intro and we were treated to some short, sharp poetry and some readings from the new novel, which seems to tick the A. Gray boxes of ironically plain prose, political/philosophical debate in the mouths of suspiciously articulate characters, unlikely sexual misadventure and of course mucho laffs. Gray is a wonderful reader with an actorly voice, rich and expressive. Unscripted, however, during the question session, he rambles, makes countless false starts and switches track frequently. He is knocking on a bit, after all. The whole crowded auditorium willed him to finish sentence after sentence. At certain moments I felt only the pained sympathy I'd feel for any old feller who couldn't quite express the many, varied and wonderful contents of his mind because of age and perhaps a little anxiety. I'd say all present were more than ready to forgive any septuagenarian loss of focus not only because of his achievements but also, as Ruth pointed out, because he seemed adorable. Wait til she reads Something Leather.
So, a more or less satisfying evening in the great man's company, which I will recount many years hence to my grandchildren with Gray-esque digression and forgetfulness of point. Afterwards, fair Ruth and I sunk a couple and chattered in the pleasant, low-lit, quietly-shitfaced ambience of McPhab's.
Back in the hamster wheel this morning, and by 11am I'd experienced confusion, frustration and one genuine lunatic. It's a living.
When we weren't doing that, we did this:
the launch of issue four of Mo's successful comic book health resource thing at the Tron Theatre. I nipped along on Saturday afternoon, rubbing white satinwood from my fingers on the way, and yapped there with some of the usual suspects, Blondie, Big Jim, the Timelord. We watched a youth group performance of something called forum drama, which called for audience suggestions re: what the young protagonist should do next in terms of empowerment an all that. Impressive young performers and some reet laughs. The lead actor, who looked about nine, with an angelic face, fair-hued bumfluff and an unsettlingly direct manner, asked me over the buffet what I thought of the show. I fessed up my prejudices about this kind of theatre (theatre in general really), it's dangerous potential for worthiness and stuttered on about the power of the piece and its obvious value but I think I ballsed that one up.
Then Mo gave her presentation. I was so proud. I'd never seen her in this context before - such authority, such command of the room, such a powerful voice...but with laughs.
And last night, off with me to the Mitchell, which has been tarted up just lovely, with young friend Ruth to see Alasdair Gray, novelist, playwright, painter, polemicist and greatest living Scotsman. I've been to speaking gigs by a few writers whose work I admire - this is my arty-farty respectable version of celeb-watching - and some have been most entertaining while others...haven't. I didn't care if Gray just sat there making spit-bubbles with his lips, I just wanted to see the aging sage in the flesh and hear him speak. He wrote Lanark, fer any sake. I felt that an audience with the author of that monumental novel in his native city would be akin to hearing James Joyce speak in Dublin - something you might want to tell the grandkids, assuming literacy doesn't die out.
Rodge Glass gave a humourous intro and we were treated to some short, sharp poetry and some readings from the new novel, which seems to tick the A. Gray boxes of ironically plain prose, political/philosophical debate in the mouths of suspiciously articulate characters, unlikely sexual misadventure and of course mucho laffs. Gray is a wonderful reader with an actorly voice, rich and expressive. Unscripted, however, during the question session, he rambles, makes countless false starts and switches track frequently. He is knocking on a bit, after all. The whole crowded auditorium willed him to finish sentence after sentence. At certain moments I felt only the pained sympathy I'd feel for any old feller who couldn't quite express the many, varied and wonderful contents of his mind because of age and perhaps a little anxiety. I'd say all present were more than ready to forgive any septuagenarian loss of focus not only because of his achievements but also, as Ruth pointed out, because he seemed adorable. Wait til she reads Something Leather.
So, a more or less satisfying evening in the great man's company, which I will recount many years hence to my grandchildren with Gray-esque digression and forgetfulness of point. Afterwards, fair Ruth and I sunk a couple and chattered in the pleasant, low-lit, quietly-shitfaced ambience of McPhab's.
Back in the hamster wheel this morning, and by 11am I'd experienced confusion, frustration and one genuine lunatic. It's a living.