This July inspiration was to be found in some unlikely places - including a Brexit lexicon, no less, a secret library in a besieged Syrian town, and even something to do with the RAF having invented gremlins ...
“Why don’t you cover a big cork bulletin board in bright pink felt, banded with bamboo, and pin with coloured thumb-tacks all your various enthusiasms as your life varies from week to week?”
The New Yorker's Brexit Lexicon:
June’s Brexit hangover haze morphed into delirium tremens. Then Boxit. The New Yorker put the UK’s political predicament into plain English: “... over the coming weeks, we can look forward to all but one of the following: Goxit, Maxit, Leaxit, Foxit, and the merry Dickensian Craxit. God bless them, every one!” Brilliant!
RHLSTP - Comedy, Creativity & Cock Ups:
Speaking of cock ups Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast features some of comedy’s greats talking about writing and performing stand-up, dying on stage and fielding heckles. Creative highs, but mostly lows laid bare, with a peppering of cock jokes and retro TV references - truly great (unintentional) creative pep talks.
#Wearehere - Battle of the Somme Tribute:
Friday 1st July: men in WWI uniform appeared like ghostly apparitions in stations and shopping centres nationwide. Dubbed #wearehere on Twitter the sombre spectacle - We're Here Because We're Here - marked the centenary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. A ‘human memorial’ for the 21st century by Jeremy Deller.
Hypnos Necklace by Via Seres:
If one person taught me the relevance of history it was my classics teacher Miss Pilgrim and her plaster cast mascot Hypnos. In honour of Miss P (and my 40th, back in Feb) I bought this iridescent glass cameo of Hypnos from Via Seres - a jeweller duo inspired by ancient art and mythology.
Roald Dahl Centenary:
The Tales of the Unexpected author was also an RAF pilot. And there were gremlins - who knew the 1984 horror comedy had mythological roots in WWII fighter pilots and their mechanical mishaps!? Dahl wrote a story. Disney picked it up, but the project foundered. Perhaps the gremlins got it?
Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield:
Unlike Dahl, however, eyes are glazing over when you ask people to read your stuff says Pressfield. Why? Because no one WANTS to read. Anything. Still here? Remember “writing/reading is, above all, a transaction”. Your words must be worth your reader’s time. Read NWTRYS - if you can be bothered.
Syria's Secret Library - Radio 4's Crossing Continents:
While in the besieged Syrian town of Daraya a secret library populated with books rescued from bombed-out buildings - medical manuals, universal stories, like Hamlet, and even explicit texts - is proving a lifeline. Poignantly Illustrating the importance of books and the library as space for learning, escapism, inspiration, sanctuary and community.
Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern:
Natural forms in high focus. Blank skies seen through sun-bleached skulls. Black doorways. Multicoloured music-inspired abstracts. And the "composite portraits" of GoF by “sharp eye[-d]” husband-promoter Alfred Stieglitz. Tate Modern’s retrospective aims to show there is more to the great American artist Georgia O’Keeffe than vaginas - symbolically and literally.