London, london, listen, an exhibition, Mail Me Art, loads of excellent pictures on envelopes from all round the world and I have some words on one too and they're all for sale for charity and the show is 30th July to 3rd of August at the Framers Gallery W1T 2JT Goodge Street tube or Tottenham Court Road tube or put rollerskates on a horse and get there on that, as long as you get there.
Inf: http://www.mailmeart.com/
Purch: http://www.mailmeart.com/product/ed-garland-original-mail-art/
Bearable Onslaught
The weather got in bed with us and would not respect our boundaries. Weekdays we all worked beyond our thresholds in breezes bought from Wilkinsons that made an office-wide soup of our deodorants. Widened margins of error let photocopied rectangles land on previously unthinkable desks. Chiming phones were gripped in sweaty trepidation. Remarks were made. The customers were hungry for rain.
In the unwaged hours we groaned in parks showing our feet to each other and suffering leisure. A frisbee is a machine that takes away from the people in its immediate vicinity the ability to fully relax and replaces it with the faint but persistent worry that at any moment some jovial wrist will launch a silent disc at your favourite nostril irrevocably.
A memory wails: before a P.E. lesson in the gym this tall guy was spinning round under a basketball hoop with a rounders bat in his left hand. Others were gathering in a bored and fragrant murmur in the middle of the court and under the far hoop this older tall guy was stretching and doing smiling older tall guy stuff. The first tall guy increased the speed of his spins until he felt queasy and then stopped spinning and also stopped gripping the rounders bat, which was then launched across the basketball court in a dead straight untumbling line towards the back of the other tall guy's head, past and through and inbetween everyone else's white-clad adolescent necks and foreheads and oozings and worries, and as the other tall guy tuned into the collective clench of expected horror he turned to receive the fat end of the bat with his mouth half-open at first and then shut just before it bulleted into his face. Half the audience looked at the other half for an indication of how to react appropriately.
He staggered into the changing rooms and leaned on the sink and spat out a tongue of blood and shattered tooth. The bat thrower stood just inside the doorway, unsure of the etiquette, crying. The teacher picked the tooth fragments out of the sink and took the boy and his mouth away. The rest of us played games with no projectiles.
In the unwaged hours we groaned in parks showing our feet to each other and suffering leisure. A frisbee is a machine that takes away from the people in its immediate vicinity the ability to fully relax and replaces it with the faint but persistent worry that at any moment some jovial wrist will launch a silent disc at your favourite nostril irrevocably.
A memory wails: before a P.E. lesson in the gym this tall guy was spinning round under a basketball hoop with a rounders bat in his left hand. Others were gathering in a bored and fragrant murmur in the middle of the court and under the far hoop this older tall guy was stretching and doing smiling older tall guy stuff. The first tall guy increased the speed of his spins until he felt queasy and then stopped spinning and also stopped gripping the rounders bat, which was then launched across the basketball court in a dead straight untumbling line towards the back of the other tall guy's head, past and through and inbetween everyone else's white-clad adolescent necks and foreheads and oozings and worries, and as the other tall guy tuned into the collective clench of expected horror he turned to receive the fat end of the bat with his mouth half-open at first and then shut just before it bulleted into his face. Half the audience looked at the other half for an indication of how to react appropriately.
He staggered into the changing rooms and leaned on the sink and spat out a tongue of blood and shattered tooth. The bat thrower stood just inside the doorway, unsure of the etiquette, crying. The teacher picked the tooth fragments out of the sink and took the boy and his mouth away. The rest of us played games with no projectiles.
Bulk Centre
The screens above the seats on the return train all had the same scrolling message saying this seat is probably reserved. As the carriage filled up people stared at the message for their own seat and turned around to stare at the one opposite and then stare at each other and wonder when this new lack of certainty had been demanded. I walked through some conversations - this is a yes or no thing surely - this country's public services - how much more are we going to take - maybe the destinations are only probable too - I do hope there's a drinks trolley - I'll be needing a drugs trolley - and a word with the governor - has the smell got worse or has my nose improved? - just got out, a week, see the kids - sand in my lungs - countryside, a real treat - so ludicrously above inflation - seem to care - of course Hugo insisted we weren't to fly - futile sanctions - the sound off please - a diabolical sense - flabby like she is, no thanks - put up with - nice little set-up if the weather doesn't - had to babe - locked into a punitive schedule here, so I'm not able to - can't tell him yet but the silence must seem - I found an empty seat as the train began to crawl and fell asleep next to a woman who smelled like a goth but wasn't.
Doff
One of the pictures in the gallery was a huge dark shiny abstract probable vagina, and I leaned in closer thinking I might learn something about technique, yes they’ve really, you can see right here, applied one thing to another with unfathomable panache, etc, but a piercing one-note alarm went right through everyone’s head, and an attendant scuttled over politely muttering about sensors and invisible thresholds. I withdrew, and from then on tried to keep my head directly above the rest of me, and shuffled past the tasty sculptures and bland collages until I came to the infinite book.
A man had photocopied bits of some books and illutrations he owns and likes and once he had fifteen thousand pages he packed them into a few boxes and placed the boxes on several one-bright-coloured steps and stages and plinths, with instructions for us (you) to have a rummage and take ten pages home and make a book or a whatever you like out of them, nobody's going to come round and check. On my way out I stole a pencil from the lobby and went back to the pasty shop and bought and ate another chicken pasty, alertly, and watched the sea for an hour.
A man had photocopied bits of some books and illutrations he owns and likes and once he had fifteen thousand pages he packed them into a few boxes and placed the boxes on several one-bright-coloured steps and stages and plinths, with instructions for us (you) to have a rummage and take ten pages home and make a book or a whatever you like out of them, nobody's going to come round and check. On my way out I stole a pencil from the lobby and went back to the pasty shop and bought and ate another chicken pasty, alertly, and watched the sea for an hour.
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