#27

On doing, being, feeling not much of anything

Dear reader I come to thee - dead of nite - heart hard-beating, horror, fright.

That latent loneliness once again strides toward my door, and I cannot stop her from wading in. Much is afoot in the wider world, beyond bad and dark, and art seldom seems to mean much of anything. Aggrandized, inconsequential.

Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1961) dir. John Huston.

I feel, babe, largely lethargic - on the cliff-brink of burnout - for all mine efforts as of late have been ploughed into Prayer Room. An exhibition I’m planning, which I’ll speak of within an issue to come. Candles, crucifixes, pain. The moon wanes and this stage I’m in feels different, this time. I’m no longer only ‘artist’ kneeling over stone, but a kind of curator, too. Muddied, blue.

Things are ticking slowly - ideas you know of already, reader – yet, head-cloudy, I cannot find mine focus. Eyelids fall heavy as I drive in the dark.

Too much time is passing and disconcerted, nervous, I’m struggling to make sense of it all.

Those age-old feelings, of days gone by, of wasting time. Not doing enough, being enough, seeing enough. Greed and malice and pungent joy. Avenging that figure in the dimly lit carriage. I feel I rarely write now, angel, and this concerns me. My hands have yet to touch a paintbrush, and I find the studio and all its fixings becoming less and less essential to my life. There is drama and pathos, too. A boy who delights in harm. Yes, you.

I’ve been thinking about God, about the King James Version bound in baby-pink, about warding off evil. I’ve been thinking: No weapon formed against me shall ever prosper. A vinyl bumper sticker in fuchsia Blackletter, surrounded by rhinestones. Outbursts Year Two is still around, too, this time powder-pink and prissy – no newspapers. A limited edition of thirty: a slick, shit film script, deep and gorging, bound by brass screws and Courier New.

I wonder, now, how Outbursts Year Three will feel against thy palm.

A porno rag, a queer pulp novel, a tarot deck. Divination.

Debbie Reynolds in Susan Slept Here (1954) dir. Frank Tashlin.

I recently attended a Babeworld screening – Derby Day – as part of Flatpack Festival, and have since been thinking a lot about Super 8 film. Its permanence and archival quality, its translucent grain harking back to Maya Deren and Kenneth Anger. I wish to make a film. I wish to write a script, properly. A vision: using those wigs, Polly! Sixties prim-and-proper, stood by a way-marker waiting for no one.

I’ve been listening to Amy far, far too much. Her bawdy wails echoing through the bedroom. Notes on love and betrayal, on being borderline. Trawling through Back to Black for a fortnight I realise this is, in large part, about loss:

It’s okay in the day
I’m staying busy
Tied up enough so I don’t have to wonder “Where is he?”

Layla is in my Mother’s room, sat sulking on the rug. She won’t look at me. I’ve been gone too long. I pick her up, Jacobean ruff of fur tangled betwixt mine fingertips, plonk her softly on the bed and kiss her tiny head. The clouds roll through the nite and I inhale, winding Spring winds soaking mine lungs. I’m lost, again. The world swirls in spite of it all.