I’ve visited impressive galleries of all sizes over the years. But none of those collections – not the National Gallery, not the Louvre nor MoMA – delivered an experience as unique and memorable as the gallery I visited in late December 1999. This collection wasn’t open to the general public. It no longer exists. It […]
The $88M masterpiece and the private penthouse gallery Read More »
The moment I walk through the door, I can sense something is awry in the gents toilets. I know this thanks to years of hard-won experience. Every man of my generation was expected to learn the skill of navigating a pub toilet successfully. Perhaps the trend to gender nonconformity and unisex toilets will one day
Laundering pranks for Lads’ Night Theatre Read More »
Why do we only have a short-term relationship with certain artists? I’m not talking about one-hit wonders: those individuals who produced a memorable hit and whose follow-up single is only recalled by pop-culture trivia buffs. I mean those performers, many of whom – at least in the pre-streaming era – captured our attention and returned
Shakespears Sister, The Thrills and other musical flings Read More »
If you write a lot, and if you have an extreme tendency to preserve your past work, then you will encounter an uncanny feeling from time to time. It’s the contradictory sensation of reading something utterly unfamiliar, while armed with the rational knowledge that you certainly wrote the words on the page. Maybe it’s a
Revealing the uncanny contents of Pigeon.doc Read More »
I received my final mixtape in 2005. In those days, receiving a cassette already felt slightly quaint, if not yet anachronistic or performative. Still, you could hand it over with some confidence that the recipient could find a way to play it, on a compact kitchen stereo or an exhumed walkman. This romantic mixtape was
A Mixtape and the Trough of Longing Read More »
I’m on my way home when I realise that I’ve left my backpack behind somewhere. Even in my dreams, I’m always fussing with my belongings – checking and double-checking that I have everything with me (wallet, keys, mobile, headphones, mask, gum). In an ironic twist, my adherence to these frequent ritualistic checks has led me
Dream Diary: Lost backpack, Mistki melody Read More »
Last year I started another strange collection. I began to look out for instances of what I thought of as ‘digital bathos’. That is: moments where a customer-facing digital display fails to have the desired effect, with mildly comic results. Misaligned and glitching messages on public transport always brought a weird satisfaction. Then I began
Digital Bathos: the petty joys of public glitches Read More »
In which I make a series of disturbing discoveries on the way to the shops, and witness a surreal, theatrical dispute on the streets of Wimbledon… The pavement is deserted and dark at 5pm, slick with rain, which is falling in a light haze. Below the curb, between two parked cars, I spot a large
London Lucky Dip: Gutter Baby and Discount Prospero Read More »
Sam Shepard often seemed more of an American myth than a man. His short, surreal prose pieces both unpack and undermine that frontier persona… “He’s like a Sam Shepard character.” This, somewhat recursively, is how I first heard Sam Shepard described. I knew nothing of his work until I heard theatre critic Mel Gussow explain
Sam Shepard road trip: Super Cowboys and Strange Motels Read More »
This hotel had it all: a whimsical tearoom calamity, truly ingenious canapés, low-yield nukes, and an unnerving descent into the earth… I: The tearoom My journalistic impulse is nagging at me. I’m acutely aware that I need to come up with a story, or a hook at least. I have to record something, to capture
Dream: Clumsy waitress, nuclear terror and innovative canapés Read More »
