We've confirmed Sunday 7 January 2007 for monty Python's Terry Jones and Sue Jones-Davies, stars of 'Life of Brian', to be at the Machynlleth Tabernacl and discuss the film and see a screening to raise money for Fadeco. A big thank you to both of them. I don't think they've ever met since making the film, though Sue's made a few more films and is now ... my yoga teacher!
This is the biggest fundraising event Friends of Fadeco has attempted and a big opportunity to raise our profile. [If you're not a member please join by going to that web page and downloading the form!]
It might be nice to have a get-together afterwards at someone's house in Mach as well, to which we could invite Terry and Sue, to chat more informally, with a small buffet. I wonder if anyone wants to volunteer their house and we could all chip in with the buffet?
Could we have a get-together to plan the event, and who wants to do what? I'd like to start on publicity now, to maximise turnout and awareness. Could we meet on Monday 16th in the White Lion at 7.30? Is there anyone else as well - other FoFs - eg in Taliesin - that you could tell about this please? Feel free to pass this on.
With Pete Telfer [of documentary production company the Pixel Foundry] we are hoping to film the event and cooking up an idea for a documentary programme where we might fly Terry and Sue out to Tanzania to see what's really going on there. We're working on the idea 'The Second Coming of Brian'. What would Brian think if he came back 2000 years later and saw the mess people had made of His legacy?
We've suggested the idea to Terry's agent and I'm waiting to hear back.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
Hybrids proof copies mailed out
Hundreds of uncorrected proof copies of Hybrids have just been mailed out.
Are you...
Maybe, one day, you will be...
Johnny and Kestrella are hybrids, victims of 'Creep', a virus whiuch cauases sufferers to merge with frequently-used items of technology.
As hysteria grips the nation, they live in fear of being rounded up and sent to the mysterious Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation, never to be seen again...
Compelling, contemporary and though-provoking, David Thorpe's sci-fi thriller is esssential reading for the cyberspace generation.
Publication: 8 May 2007
For more information contact:
ISBN 0 00 724784 4 | £5.99
Cover blurb
Are you...
- A slave to your computer?
- Welded to your mobile phone?
- Joined at the hip to your iPod?
Maybe, one day, you will be...
Johnny and Kestrella are hybrids, victims of 'Creep', a virus whiuch cauases sufferers to merge with frequently-used items of technology.
As hysteria grips the nation, they live in fear of being rounded up and sent to the mysterious Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation, never to be seen again...
Compelling, contemporary and though-provoking, David Thorpe's sci-fi thriller is esssential reading for the cyberspace generation.
- Winner of the nationwide HarperCollins/SAGA Magazine competition which attracted nearly 900 entries.
- The panel of judges included Ornage prize-winning author Helen Dunmore, who says: "The writing is sharp, the dalogue good, and the action pacey and page-turning. But there's real depth to this story too. like all good fiction it makes the reader see the world in a different light, like HG Wells and J ohn Wyndham."
- Also from the judges: "wonderfully original...totally fresh and exciting...vivid and unputdownable."
Publication: 8 May 2007
- Proof mailing to all key influencers including UK buyers, journalists, teachers and librarians
- Blanket review coverage and features in national, local and trade press, magazines and online
- Major feature in Saga magazine, as well as reviews and author interviews in teen press and national and regional newspapers
- Radio interviews.
For more information contact:
- Catherine Holmes, Press officer, tel. (+44)(0)20 8307 4453
- Alison Ruane, Head of Marketing, tel. (+44)(0)20 8307 4380
ISBN 0 00 724784 4 | £5.99
Friday, October 06, 2006
Praise
Word is my friend
I shall not want.
I make him lie down on white
And he leads me to the waters of comfort.
He mines my soul
And directs me towards the light, for his and my sakes.
Even if I am lost in the field of confusion
I will not be afraid.
For he is with me;
His grace and his logic.
You provide me with riches beyond count
And unite peoples.
You have swept a wind of clarity through my mind
And my well of inspiration will never run dry.
But your loyalty and warmth
Will bring me calm all my life
And I will live in the House of Word
For ever.
[from a radio play, The School Play, I'm writing now]
I shall not want.
I make him lie down on white
And he leads me to the waters of comfort.
He mines my soul
And directs me towards the light, for his and my sakes.
Even if I am lost in the field of confusion
I will not be afraid.
For he is with me;
His grace and his logic.
You provide me with riches beyond count
And unite peoples.
You have swept a wind of clarity through my mind
And my well of inspiration will never run dry.
But your loyalty and warmth
Will bring me calm all my life
And I will live in the House of Word
For ever.
[from a radio play, The School Play, I'm writing now]
I'm on Wikipaedia. How weird is that?
My younger son came in yesterday and said "You're on Wikipaedia". We looked. And I was.
It was almost as weird as the day nine months ago when I found a book I did a long time ago, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect, was for sale on Amazon, when the publishers melted away 15 years back.
[I've since taken over the stock and ordering of it. So if you want to buy it direct from me, please email me, then I get the whole cover price instead of just 40%.]
Who does this kind of thing? Methinks the latter was a comic shop in the US called Mile High, and I don't know which lovely person did the Wikipaedia entry.
Anyway, being a stickler for truth and accuracy, I have updated it. So you can go and see it - and even change it - if you really like.
Maybe anyone, however obscure, can be on Wikipaedia, for doing hardly anything: "Jack O'Donnell [fictitious name] in 1989 wrote ascreenplay 'The Other Side of My Foot', which was never made." I wonder how at Wikipaedia they decide how trivial something has to be before it goes in?
It was almost as weird as the day nine months ago when I found a book I did a long time ago, Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect, was for sale on Amazon, when the publishers melted away 15 years back.
[I've since taken over the stock and ordering of it. So if you want to buy it direct from me, please email me, then I get the whole cover price instead of just 40%.]
Who does this kind of thing? Methinks the latter was a comic shop in the US called Mile High, and I don't know which lovely person did the Wikipaedia entry.
Anyway, being a stickler for truth and accuracy, I have updated it. So you can go and see it - and even change it - if you really like.
Maybe anyone, however obscure, can be on Wikipaedia, for doing hardly anything: "Jack O'Donnell [fictitious name] in 1989 wrote ascreenplay 'The Other Side of My Foot', which was never made." I wonder how at Wikipaedia they decide how trivial something has to be before it goes in?
Monday, September 25, 2006
Science fiction is the main literary tradition of the last 100 years
Science fiction is indisputably the main literary tradition of the 20th century and, for all we know the 21st, although there are some who may not want to recognise the fact. Over the last 100 years, ever since Einstein achieved his revelation with his special theory of relativity, science has pushed back our understanding of ourselves and the universe to an unimaginable degree and brought technological benefits and curses that previous generations would have called miracles and cataclysms.
By using technology to magnify and extend our natural senses we have made exponentially revelatory discoveries about the world around us whether by burrowing deeper into the nano scale or peering further back to the far side of the universe and the beginning of time. We have discovered how tiny and insignificant we are, and how, if there is only one God, He must surely have His hands full with all those billions of galaxies to look after, so what time could He possibly have for us? The more we discover with our hyper-magnified senses, the more we develop and refine our theories of reality -- although each generation of scientists has liked to appear supremely confident in its knowledge. Cumulatively, the effect has been to instil in us a sense of inevitability of progress -- a future which goes on until the heat death of the universe -- in which mankind has the potential to continually adapt himself in order to survive, and in which cultures and societies may be disruptively different from our own.
As a partial consequence, fiction writers have had their imaginations magnified by a greater ability to perceive the possibilities for human endeavour, and compare them with the reality.
One of JG Ballard's insights is that Surrealism is the main visual tradition of the 20th century, as well as science fiction being the main literary tradition. As someone who studied Surrealism and Dadaism, I would say that it is not just the visual tradition of Surrealism but the philosophy of Dadaism and Surrealism together which represents the only sane and the dominant response for witnesses of the tragic vulcanic chasm that exists as a tectonic rift valley between the parallel paths of the development throughout the last 100 years of science and technology on the one hand and human political misgovernment on the other. After all, at the beginning Andre Breton could not even imagine that Surrealism could be a visual art movement.
Dada, Surrealism and science fiction all employ the imagination to objectivise aspects of our present condition which we may find painful or difficult to explore otherwise. From HG Wells through Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Ballard himself, William Gibson, Ursula LeGuin, Marge Piercy, Kurt Vonnegut and many more, science fiction has been used to seduce us into accepting the dark and unforeseen consequences of our shortsighted decisions. It has of course also been used to trace the dreams of imperial fantasies, especially when sanctioned by the mighty corporate finance of the planet's dominant hegemony -- we are talking Star Trek, Star Wars and similar space opera. Here we see America dreaming an interplanetary pastoral allegory of how it would like the rest of the world to perceive its benign expansionism. Such films have dominated the top ten box office smashes of the last twenty years.
And then there are comics, specifically American comic books, which frequently merge both Surrealism and science fiction to create, as Stan Lee himself has often said, a modern mythology all the more remarkable for being the product of hundreds and hundreds of authors working in concert to create a self-consistent universe populated with fantastic characters who act out their parts in cosmic dramas of life, death and ultimate meaning, as well as love, tragedy and betrayal. Like any good pantheon from Norse to Hindu mythology, there is always one superhero you can choose to identify with, whether it's the driven, guilt-ridden Batman, the messianic Warlock, the simple-minded, clean cut Superman, the Jekyll-and-Hyde rage machine that is the incredible Hulk, or the macho loner with the sensitive heart who is Wolverine. Although much of this pop art is trash, it has also produced its share of the greatest literature of the last hundred years, from the keyboards of writers such as Neil Gaimon, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, whether or not these are recognised by departments of English literature in any of our universities.
A central principle of Surrealism is taken from Pierre Reverdy, who remarked in 1918 that the most powerful poetic image is one which brings together the most disparate and even opposing elements. The further apart they were originally the greater the charge generated by compositing them side-by-side. A central principle of Dadaism is that rejection and gallows humour are legitimate responses to the absurd atrocities generated by the so-called developed world's way of life. Mainstream 'modernist' and 'post-modern' literature, with the exception of 'sociological' big picture fiction, has failed to tackle these issues with such effectiveness and engagement. Much mainstream literature, particularly in Britain, tends to concentrate on pitiful singular dramas of frequently isolated and alienated individuals. By contrast science fiction takes the big picture and forces us to confront what is at the focus of our blind spot when we stare into the mirror. And it frequently does it by using the above principles.
The greatest exponent of this type of writing and the greatest writer of the 20th century is undoubtedly.... William Burroughs. To call him a science fiction writer is a bit like calling Mozart a pianist. The potency of Mozart lies in overarching virtuoso energy and originality of his total vision, and the same is true for Burroughs. If one were to seek out a single metaphor which more than any other expresses the relationship of the individual to the time in which he lives during the last hundred years it has to be that of the junkie and his supply chain. Eric Mottram's book on Burroughs, the Algebra of Need, explains brilliantly how this metaphor pictures humanity as trapped in the web of exploitation and deceit that is the inevitable result of predicating that society on naked economics, removing meaning from life, and the leeching of power from the individual to those at the top; and how the success of this system is akin to the success of a virus which infects its host and uses it to manufacture further copies of itself, ad infinitum. The means of the infection of our minds is metaphorically the same. The result is the environmental and human suffering and devastation which we see around us burgeoning on every continent on the planet.
This can be the only valid topic for any self-respecting and compassionate writer nowadays. The corporations have hypnotised us by letting us wallow in one end of the Horn of Plenty, but at the other end of this supply line is a vision of hell on earth. Science fiction writers can help us visualise a better alternative.
By using technology to magnify and extend our natural senses we have made exponentially revelatory discoveries about the world around us whether by burrowing deeper into the nano scale or peering further back to the far side of the universe and the beginning of time. We have discovered how tiny and insignificant we are, and how, if there is only one God, He must surely have His hands full with all those billions of galaxies to look after, so what time could He possibly have for us? The more we discover with our hyper-magnified senses, the more we develop and refine our theories of reality -- although each generation of scientists has liked to appear supremely confident in its knowledge. Cumulatively, the effect has been to instil in us a sense of inevitability of progress -- a future which goes on until the heat death of the universe -- in which mankind has the potential to continually adapt himself in order to survive, and in which cultures and societies may be disruptively different from our own.
As a partial consequence, fiction writers have had their imaginations magnified by a greater ability to perceive the possibilities for human endeavour, and compare them with the reality.
One of JG Ballard's insights is that Surrealism is the main visual tradition of the 20th century, as well as science fiction being the main literary tradition. As someone who studied Surrealism and Dadaism, I would say that it is not just the visual tradition of Surrealism but the philosophy of Dadaism and Surrealism together which represents the only sane and the dominant response for witnesses of the tragic vulcanic chasm that exists as a tectonic rift valley between the parallel paths of the development throughout the last 100 years of science and technology on the one hand and human political misgovernment on the other. After all, at the beginning Andre Breton could not even imagine that Surrealism could be a visual art movement.
Dada, Surrealism and science fiction all employ the imagination to objectivise aspects of our present condition which we may find painful or difficult to explore otherwise. From HG Wells through Aldous Huxley, William Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, Ballard himself, William Gibson, Ursula LeGuin, Marge Piercy, Kurt Vonnegut and many more, science fiction has been used to seduce us into accepting the dark and unforeseen consequences of our shortsighted decisions. It has of course also been used to trace the dreams of imperial fantasies, especially when sanctioned by the mighty corporate finance of the planet's dominant hegemony -- we are talking Star Trek, Star Wars and similar space opera. Here we see America dreaming an interplanetary pastoral allegory of how it would like the rest of the world to perceive its benign expansionism. Such films have dominated the top ten box office smashes of the last twenty years.
And then there are comics, specifically American comic books, which frequently merge both Surrealism and science fiction to create, as Stan Lee himself has often said, a modern mythology all the more remarkable for being the product of hundreds and hundreds of authors working in concert to create a self-consistent universe populated with fantastic characters who act out their parts in cosmic dramas of life, death and ultimate meaning, as well as love, tragedy and betrayal. Like any good pantheon from Norse to Hindu mythology, there is always one superhero you can choose to identify with, whether it's the driven, guilt-ridden Batman, the messianic Warlock, the simple-minded, clean cut Superman, the Jekyll-and-Hyde rage machine that is the incredible Hulk, or the macho loner with the sensitive heart who is Wolverine. Although much of this pop art is trash, it has also produced its share of the greatest literature of the last hundred years, from the keyboards of writers such as Neil Gaimon, Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, whether or not these are recognised by departments of English literature in any of our universities.
A central principle of Surrealism is taken from Pierre Reverdy, who remarked in 1918 that the most powerful poetic image is one which brings together the most disparate and even opposing elements. The further apart they were originally the greater the charge generated by compositing them side-by-side. A central principle of Dadaism is that rejection and gallows humour are legitimate responses to the absurd atrocities generated by the so-called developed world's way of life. Mainstream 'modernist' and 'post-modern' literature, with the exception of 'sociological' big picture fiction, has failed to tackle these issues with such effectiveness and engagement. Much mainstream literature, particularly in Britain, tends to concentrate on pitiful singular dramas of frequently isolated and alienated individuals. By contrast science fiction takes the big picture and forces us to confront what is at the focus of our blind spot when we stare into the mirror. And it frequently does it by using the above principles.
The greatest exponent of this type of writing and the greatest writer of the 20th century is undoubtedly.... William Burroughs. To call him a science fiction writer is a bit like calling Mozart a pianist. The potency of Mozart lies in overarching virtuoso energy and originality of his total vision, and the same is true for Burroughs. If one were to seek out a single metaphor which more than any other expresses the relationship of the individual to the time in which he lives during the last hundred years it has to be that of the junkie and his supply chain. Eric Mottram's book on Burroughs, the Algebra of Need, explains brilliantly how this metaphor pictures humanity as trapped in the web of exploitation and deceit that is the inevitable result of predicating that society on naked economics, removing meaning from life, and the leeching of power from the individual to those at the top; and how the success of this system is akin to the success of a virus which infects its host and uses it to manufacture further copies of itself, ad infinitum. The means of the infection of our minds is metaphorically the same. The result is the environmental and human suffering and devastation which we see around us burgeoning on every continent on the planet.
This can be the only valid topic for any self-respecting and compassionate writer nowadays. The corporations have hypnotised us by letting us wallow in one end of the Horn of Plenty, but at the other end of this supply line is a vision of hell on earth. Science fiction writers can help us visualise a better alternative.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Richard Collins
Richard Collins is a local writer and an old friend. He is the author of two published novels, the first of which, The Land as Viewed from the Sea, was shortlisted for the whitbread First Novel Prize in 2004.
This novel is set in unnamed but recognisable locations around this part of west Wales - anyone who knows the area will have a great time recoginsing them. And anyone who knows our community, will have fun trying to identify the real people his characters are drawn from too!It is a Chinese box of a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, a beautitiful love tale lyrically told.
Richard's second book, Overland, was published in May and is a road movie set on the continent.I have a feeling his third novel, in development on now, will be even better - like his first, a complex interweaving, this time of identity, outdoor theatre and gardens. He is currently seeking an agent.
Richard and I are co-chairs, with his partner Flic, of Friends of Fadeco (there's a picture of us both on this link!), which supports local development work in one of the poorest and remotest parts of the worls. We have all been to this part of NW Tanzania and come back enriched.
We urge you to join the FoF, and send us donations to help the grassroots developmnt work there, including building and running a training centre.
Richard is a great guy, and one of these days I'm going to build his web site. In the meantime, you can discover a bit more about Richard Collins here, here and here.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Happy Birthday David Rudkin
David Rudkin was 80 very recently. Quite amazing, the man doesn't look much older than me, with his pepper-and-salt beard, and his stocky, fit frame. He looks more like a sailor on shore leave than one of the UK's foremost playwrights and screenplay author.
I felt very privileged to be invited by David Rabey and Charmian Saville (of Lurking Truth theatre company) to a celebration in their garden of the occasion, and of the Aberystwyth Unversity Theatre Dept giving Rudkin an Honorary Professorship.
Some of the cream of the old guard of British theatre were at this small gathering, including Howard Barker, Arnold Wesker, John Arden (with a halo of white hair), and Margaret D'Arcy (resplendent in a brown headscarf and dark glasses).
Tributes were read out from friends present and absent, and Rabey read an extract from The Sons of Light, about turning the pain of human existence into raw material for creativity, which I thoroughly identify with.
He co-wrote the screenplay to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 - still relevant today, as is most of Rudkin's work.
There were guests from as far as Sweden, and a sprinkling of local writers and artists. I had an inspiring conversation with Lucy Gough, who has just finished writing for Hollyoaks - she wrote 300 episodes - I can't imagine what that would be like.
She's working on a stage version of Frankenstein, sympathetic to the monster. My own work is on similar themes. Because of my health, I'm fascinated by science-human interface, by health issues, and by 'outsider' status - how it happens.
We agreed to share progress on our work.
And we all toasted Rudkin's health - happy birthday and many more to come!
I felt very privileged to be invited by David Rabey and Charmian Saville (of Lurking Truth theatre company) to a celebration in their garden of the occasion, and of the Aberystwyth Unversity Theatre Dept giving Rudkin an Honorary Professorship.
Some of the cream of the old guard of British theatre were at this small gathering, including Howard Barker, Arnold Wesker, John Arden (with a halo of white hair), and Margaret D'Arcy (resplendent in a brown headscarf and dark glasses).
Tributes were read out from friends present and absent, and Rabey read an extract from The Sons of Light, about turning the pain of human existence into raw material for creativity, which I thoroughly identify with.
He co-wrote the screenplay to Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 - still relevant today, as is most of Rudkin's work.
There were guests from as far as Sweden, and a sprinkling of local writers and artists. I had an inspiring conversation with Lucy Gough, who has just finished writing for Hollyoaks - she wrote 300 episodes - I can't imagine what that would be like.
She's working on a stage version of Frankenstein, sympathetic to the monster. My own work is on similar themes. Because of my health, I'm fascinated by science-human interface, by health issues, and by 'outsider' status - how it happens.
We agreed to share progress on our work.
And we all toasted Rudkin's health - happy birthday and many more to come!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Art on trial in Turkey
Michael Dickinson - or Mick Dick as my friend Frank Jackson and I knew him in Brixton - faces trial in Turkey for displaying a collage.
Tony Blair has intervened asking the Turkish PM for his release. As Mick is an anarchist I'm not sure of his attitude on this!
Anyway, he's also performed a play in Istanbul which insults both Islam and Christianity.
Regardless of the merits of both works, we should support is right to perform and exhibit. Many people are under trial in Turkey for speaking out - like Orhan Pamuk, one of my favourite writers, who got off due to his fame and an international outrcry.
Here is Mick's latest email bulletin.
At present I'm still waiting to hear the date when I will be called to court.
The story has sparked interest.
Tony Blair's appeal for my pardon was featured on the front page of a popular Turkish daily yesterday, and last night an interview with me was shown on a Turkish tv station.
Today I was interviewed and filmed by an international tv news agency, along with pictures from my latest collage exhibition at a local cafe.
You can see the picture (and others) and read the story at the Stuckism site -
Charles Thomson, the founder, has been very supportive in the troubles I've had since I joined the Stuckists.
Talking of the real story behind Easter, I finally got that darned play on at a theatre here in Istanbul last month with an international amateur cast. If I do get imprisoned for this (?), I would like my supporters to hold public readings of the script in support.
Seriously though, who knows what the next stage is?
Perhaps, as Charles Thomson said in his last letter to me -
"I think it's win-win now. Either they think better of prosecuting because of the fuss it could cause, or they go ahead, and everything's primed for an international outcry, which could have much bigger political repercussions on Turkey."
It could drag on.
I'll let you know when things get official.
This is a good site about cases of people being charged in Turkey with this sort of thing.
I spoke on the phone to them today and told them about my situation.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Saga review of Hybrids
The link on yesterday's blog doesn't seem to work so here's the text:
After an astounding 883 manuscripts, months of reading, weeks of deliberation and one delayed announcement due to that staggering response: ladies and gentlemen – we have a winner.
David Thorpe, 51, has won the Saga/HarperCollins competition to find a new children’s book-writing talent with his book Hybrids. His book will be published in Spring 2007. Our congratulations go out to him. “It’s a dream come true,” said David from his home in Snowdonia, near Aberdovey. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve written, and wanted to be a writer. But I had a lot of bad luck with getting anything published, and sort of gave up. Up until now.”
As outlined in the editor’s letter, David, an environmental journalist, sometime scriptwriter and cartoon-strip inventor, had to dictate his book using voice-recognition software, as mild childhood cerebral palsy had matured into painful carpal tunnel syndrome, making typing almost impossible.
His 50th birthday saw him living in Wales with his two children, Dion, 17, Nemos, 13, and Greek wife Zoe, and a complimentary copy of Saga magazine sent to him to commemorate this landmark just happened to be the issue in which we began the competition.
“I had a feeling it might be OK when my son took a draft to school and a group of kids started reading it over his shoulder. They were saying ‘Turn the page! Turn the page!’ It’s simply fabulous that I’ve won – I wrote it simply for myself, not what I thought the market was looking for, as so often tends to happen. And this is a vindication of that approach.”
One of the judges, Orange-prize winning author Helen Dunmore, said of the book: “Hybrids questions our human dependence on technology, and the loneliness of children and teenagers who may have a stronger relationship with computers and mobile phones than with flesh-and-blood family and friends. It’s a powerful ‘What if?’ fantasy, whose central premise is that humans - especially young humans - begin to bond with the pieces of technology that they use most.
“The writing is sharp, the dialogue good, and the action pacey and page-turning. But there’s a real depth to this story, too. Like all good fiction it makes the reader see the world in a different light.”
Gillie Russell, the publishing director of HarperCollins Children’s Books, said: “I was so impressed with not only the quantity of submissions to the competition but the quality of the writing. It has far and away exceeded our expectations and has been an incredibly hard job to choose the shortlist, let alone a winner.
But someone had to win, and for us the clear champion was Hybrids by David Thorpe. His wonderfully original and compelling story is told in alternating voices of the two young teenage protagonists in a totally fresh and exciting way. The reader is instantly drawn into the world which is current, but not quite; which is real, but only just; which is horribly close to our fears of what is happening and may happen in the future. Exciting, page-turning, vivid and unputdownable, Hybrids and David Thorpe will, I’m sure, be a real winner - not only within Saga, but in the children’s book market as a whole.”
Of the shortlisted three stories from a longlist of fifteen, each had their own particularly enjoyable and well –written plot, characterisation and compelling narrative. Each was very different from the other: a comic fantasy, an atmospheric ghost story and a sci-fi thriller – which certainly made the task of reading and selecting the winner varied and enjoyable.
The other two runners-up were The Standing Stones of Fowlis Wester by Alexander Gardiner, and Lord of Aldhammer by Annemarie Allan. Orange-prize winning author Helen Dunmore compiled these reports on each.
The Standing Stones of Fowlis Wester by Alexander Gardiner
Lively, fast-paced and well-constructed, this is the story of the battle between good and evil and the awakening of forces which want to destroy the human race. There are giants, ogres, dwarf armies, magical swords, a talisman and creatures which grow fat on the oozings from coffins ... and above all a very well-handled interface between the everyday human world of policemen and supermarkets and the world of magic.
Comedy and strong characterisation are the main strengths of this story. Moss Tudloch, the dwarf who drags the human boy Roger into the magical world, is very well developed. His earthiness grounds the fantasy. His romantic secrets have a humorous edge to them, and his tough, stroppy, loyal personality is completely convincing. When Roger crams the dwarf’s injured body into a stolen pushchair, and his maliciously curious neighbours pull down the tartan covers to see the ‘baby’. “Moss’s gnarled, meaty hands shot out, grabbed both women by their noses and twisted them – violently”. Moss may fit into a pushchair, but he is no pushover...
Lord of Aldhammer by Annemarie Allan
The setting is an isolated Scottish community on the shores of the Firth of Forth. This story has emotional depth as well as a strong dramatic structure. It’s a ghost story: in Aldhammer the past won’t lie down, just as the dead won’t lie peacefully in the graveyard. The past sucks the life out of the present, deforming it in a way which is uncompromisingly ugly and cruel. Aldhammer, with its bleak shoreline covered in seaweed, broken bricks and sea-clutter, its walls of mist and rain, and its bored, deviant teenagers, comes to life from the first pages. Maura’s quest to save the souls of her unborn sister and her mother from the voracious Lord of Aldhammer reveals that her own identity hides a mixture of dark and light. The quality of the writing and the solid, believable setting anchor the drama of Maura’s journey and make this an atmospheric and compelling book.
But for Helen Dunmore too, Hybrids pipped them to the post. Her review went thus: The central premise is that humans begin to bond with the pieces of technology that they use most. This hybrid virus - Creep - can give a girl a mobile for an arm, or a boy a computer monitor for a face. Like all pandemics, it creates hysteria.
David Thorpe has imagined his world through and through, with its Gene Police, its Centre for Genetic Rehabilitation, and its feral, desperate kids who have hybridised and want to stay out of the clutches of the authorities. The question of what it is to be human isn’t asked directly, but the whole book implicitly deals with it. The characterisation is very good; Johnny Online, rejected by his mother, struggling to survive, tough, feisty and wary; Cheri Winter, an idealist trying to provide refuge for the victims of hybrid plague; the street kids who pool their knowledge and don’t trust anyone; the boss of technology corporation Mu-Tech who may have released Creep into the world without reckoning on the power of the virus to mutate.
Friday, May 26, 2006
What's a hybrid?
A few notes on the origins of hybrids as used in my novel.
First, a link to the competition results page where more judges' comments and details of the runners-up can be found.Hybrids have many qualities:
- Are part human-part technology
- The technology has to be electronic
- The victims must merge with gadgets they use frequently
- The condition is the result of a transmissible disease, probably a virus
- The sufferers have to be adolescent when they get the disease
- The disease operates on the dna of the subject.
Where did the idea come from?
I get asked this a lot. As there are so many aspects to hybrids, the different ideas have different roots:- Flan O'Brien's Third Policeman contains a literary antecedent. A character uses his bike so much he ends up swapping molecules with it and the bike begins to display human qualities - it can be found in the bar - and vice versa - our man is seen weaving down the gutter late at night. That's not electronic though.
- There's obvious parallels with cyborgs - Star Trek's Borg, Cybermen - except that they have the emotion taken out and are mindless enemies. Hybrids are very definitely human. Maybe more like those in Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner by Ridley Scott) as they lament their lack of humanity (but androids aren't cyborgs, they're artificially created humans)
- Mutants - like the X-Men - have their DNA altered. But it's always puzzled me why they always seem to benefit from their mutation - and either want to save the world or destroy it. You never get a mutant who is in agony due to their condition. But that's the limitation of the superhero genre. Nevertheless, since I used to edit and write Marvel comics, I'm a big X-Men fan, especially Grant Morrison's version.
- Aids, and how it and its victims were seen in the '80s - and still are in many places
- On a personal level, being slightly disabled, I have always felt the discomfort and sense of 'outsideness' disabled people feel when they look at the able-bodied world. Hybrids are outside the system.
- This can transform into growing political awareness as you realise the socially-constructed barriers to acceptance, and where they originate.
- Genetic engineering; our dependence on and obsession with technology, how it is permeating our lives, dematerialising, and how this is fed and led by corporate expansionism. Bio-chips.
- Our changing relationship to our bodies - we often despise and want to change them.
Is that enough?
Monday, April 24, 2006
Hybrids - what the judges said
The judges were: Gillie Russell, Fiction Publishing Director of HarperCollins Children’s Books, Emma Soames, Editor of Saga Magazine, and author Helen Dunmore, winner of the first Orange Prize for Fiction.
They said:
For me the clear champion is Hybrids by David Thorpe. His wonderfully original and compelling story is told in the alternating voices of the two young teenage protagonists in a totally fresh and exciting way.
The reader is instantly drawn into a world which is current but not quite; which is real but only just; which is horribly close to our fears of what is happening and may happen in future. Exciting, page-turning, vivid and unputdownable, Hybrids and David Thorpe will I am sure be a real winner.
The alternating voices of the two protagonists will draw children in immediately with their fresh contemporary and compelling teenage voices.
The author writes so that one is immediately drawn in -- shown rather than told the story, which is key and critical for success and isn't always the case with new writers.
It questions our human dependency on technology and the loneliness of children and teenagers who may well have a stronger relationship with their computer, iPod and their mobile than with their own families and is a powerful and interesting way of dealing with an ever present difficulty in writing children's books, that is the way of "removing the parents" from the main thrust of the plot, in an original way.
It shows the reader our world in a different light and, like all the good, seminal writers of sci-fi, it takes the new technology and pushes it further and faster than is actually happening -- thereby tapping into our fears that things are changing faster than we can really cope with -- just as the great writers like John Wyndham did with Day of the Triffids and HG Wells with the War of the worlds etc.
The narrative is vivid and the imagery is strong -- I believe children will get a real buzz from Hybrids -- it will snatch the imagination and change the world a little bit each reader, which is what good fiction does. If strong imager stay in the mind, e.g. the Gene Police chasing the boy who had bonded with a scooter and forcing him to crash.
I believe we can take Hybrids into the marketplace in a way which is fresh and exciting and that it will attract good reviews and publicity on the strength of its writing and originality.
They said:
For me the clear champion is Hybrids by David Thorpe. His wonderfully original and compelling story is told in the alternating voices of the two young teenage protagonists in a totally fresh and exciting way.
The reader is instantly drawn into a world which is current but not quite; which is real but only just; which is horribly close to our fears of what is happening and may happen in future. Exciting, page-turning, vivid and unputdownable, Hybrids and David Thorpe will I am sure be a real winner.
The alternating voices of the two protagonists will draw children in immediately with their fresh contemporary and compelling teenage voices.
The author writes so that one is immediately drawn in -- shown rather than told the story, which is key and critical for success and isn't always the case with new writers.
It questions our human dependency on technology and the loneliness of children and teenagers who may well have a stronger relationship with their computer, iPod and their mobile than with their own families and is a powerful and interesting way of dealing with an ever present difficulty in writing children's books, that is the way of "removing the parents" from the main thrust of the plot, in an original way.
It shows the reader our world in a different light and, like all the good, seminal writers of sci-fi, it takes the new technology and pushes it further and faster than is actually happening -- thereby tapping into our fears that things are changing faster than we can really cope with -- just as the great writers like John Wyndham did with Day of the Triffids and HG Wells with the War of the worlds etc.
The narrative is vivid and the imagery is strong -- I believe children will get a real buzz from Hybrids -- it will snatch the imagination and change the world a little bit each reader, which is what good fiction does. If strong imager stay in the mind, e.g. the Gene Police chasing the boy who had bonded with a scooter and forcing him to crash.
I believe we can take Hybrids into the marketplace in a way which is fresh and exciting and that it will attract good reviews and publicity on the strength of its writing and originality.
Friday, April 21, 2006
"The new J K Rowling"
It began with a copy of Saga magazine falling gratuitously through my letterbox.
When you're 100 you get a telegram from the Queen but when you're 50 you get, through the dubious machinations of database and personal information management, a copy of Saga magazine.
Oh no, I thought. This is it. I really have joined the ranks of the oldies. From here on it's downhill. Pension funds and bus passes here I come. Zimmer frames can't be far behind. It's over.
[Which makes me think, now that more and more people are living longer, perhaps Saga should launch a new mag for Centenarians - called Gaga perhaps. I didn't say that.]
Anyway as I thumbed despondently through the pages of adverts for cut-price cruises and vitamin supplements and creams to fight aging next to pics of Cliff Richards, I came across a competition announcing in big letters "Could you be the next J K Rowling"?
Sure, I thought. Why not.
Actually, no, as I'm male and not particularly good looking.
But anyway I like literary competitions since at least it means someone is going to read what you write. And with entry restricted to over-50s, that would increase the odds.
So I started writing, in the odd hour I could snatch here and there. This work was made possible and speeded up thanks to voice dictation technology.
Yet, one year later, as the pixels coalesced on the final draft, I firmly believed that what I'd written - for myself - not calculated to aim for any market - was too 'old' for the competition's stated target readership - 8-14. But what the hell, the competition had spurred me to write it and I could always send it somewhere else. So I sent it in anyway.
Two months later, I'm phoned by Sally Gritten, MD of the Childrens Books Division of HarperCollins, to say I've won.
'Hybrids' will be published in April 2007.
Thank you to everyone who read and commented on earlier drafts, including my sons Dion and Nemos, and their friends Tudor, his girlfriend (sorry forgotten your name), Izzy Rabey, Malachy Doyle, Richard Collins, Zoe Savvidou, Lucinda Beatty, Cheryl Huntbach, Frank Jackson, Betty Jackson, and anyone else I've forgotten.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
How to be an adept
I'm dubious myself, since trying to put this stuff into words literally either sounds weak or pretentious. But here is an attempt...
Being an adept is about managing change. To manage change you need to understand change. All change is relative, so your terms of reference and your scale are important. You want to exert change relative to what? By how much?
These terms and scale can change for each project or operation you undertake.
For each project you must know the territory inside out. This requires substantial research, the necessary resources to be gathered, and a calm mind.
The terms of reference which you employ must coincide with the real and the potential worlds.
The potential contains the real like a bowl contains suspended solids. If you work in a nearly saturated environment, in other words one where the potential events nearly precipitate into real events, then success is more likely.
We assume that the universe operates according to natural laws and that randomness also exists.
You must be rooted in the Creative and operate in the Receptive. These exist in a reciprocal relationship, and roughly correspond to the potential and the real.
If things are in their proper place relative to each other then harmony occurs. If things are not fulfilling their function where they are then disorder results.
The role of the adept is usually to restore order. But first she must attend to this in her own life. Then more powerful actions are possible.
Harmony brings good fortune. This is called preparing the base or HQ. It follows that brute strength or surface charms are not sufficient to bring results although they may have temporary success. For example Blair!
Identification with deep structure (the laws of the universe) is important for it yields understanding of consequences, the key to managing change.
Of course it is not just about strategy but judgement too. How good is yours?
Some people rely a lot on symbols. These are useful tools but one must not be seduced into believing they are real. They are arbitrary and to be discarded by the true adept, who only needs to be guided by his or her intuition as if instinctively.
The adept's consciousness is like a membrane. On one side is the mind, the creative. On the other: the real, 'out there'. Sensations pass through it each way. It does not hold on to or judge what comes up to or onto its surface but lets it pass through, while noticing it.
The adept's centre is protected at all times, fed and nurtured by constant practice. What form the practice takes is important only in that it does not have disharmonious consequences anywhere. Otherwise it can be anything, since all is arbitrary.
Only belief and persistence are important. While belief is fundamental, you must know it is only belief -- a metaphor, a symbol, a tool. Not a thing in itself.
Powers fade. Nothing lasts. Balance is always temporary. It reforms elsewhere.
We are all novices. It takes years to become an adept.
An adept at what? Ho ho.Being an adept is about managing change. To manage change you need to understand change. All change is relative, so your terms of reference and your scale are important. You want to exert change relative to what? By how much?
These terms and scale can change for each project or operation you undertake.
For each project you must know the territory inside out. This requires substantial research, the necessary resources to be gathered, and a calm mind.
The terms of reference which you employ must coincide with the real and the potential worlds.
The potential contains the real like a bowl contains suspended solids. If you work in a nearly saturated environment, in other words one where the potential events nearly precipitate into real events, then success is more likely.
We assume that the universe operates according to natural laws and that randomness also exists.
You must be rooted in the Creative and operate in the Receptive. These exist in a reciprocal relationship, and roughly correspond to the potential and the real.
If things are in their proper place relative to each other then harmony occurs. If things are not fulfilling their function where they are then disorder results.
The role of the adept is usually to restore order. But first she must attend to this in her own life. Then more powerful actions are possible.
Harmony brings good fortune. This is called preparing the base or HQ. It follows that brute strength or surface charms are not sufficient to bring results although they may have temporary success. For example Blair!
Identification with deep structure (the laws of the universe) is important for it yields understanding of consequences, the key to managing change.
Of course it is not just about strategy but judgement too. How good is yours?
Some people rely a lot on symbols. These are useful tools but one must not be seduced into believing they are real. They are arbitrary and to be discarded by the true adept, who only needs to be guided by his or her intuition as if instinctively.
The adept's consciousness is like a membrane. On one side is the mind, the creative. On the other: the real, 'out there'. Sensations pass through it each way. It does not hold on to or judge what comes up to or onto its surface but lets it pass through, while noticing it.
The adept's centre is protected at all times, fed and nurtured by constant practice. What form the practice takes is important only in that it does not have disharmonious consequences anywhere. Otherwise it can be anything, since all is arbitrary.
Only belief and persistence are important. While belief is fundamental, you must know it is only belief -- a metaphor, a symbol, a tool. Not a thing in itself.
Powers fade. Nothing lasts. Balance is always temporary. It reforms elsewhere.
Friday, March 31, 2006
'Hybrids' achieves competition shortlist
I have just received a phone call from Sally Gritten, MD of the Childrens Books Division of HarperCollins, that my new novel, Hybrids, has been shortlisted (with two others) from a total of 850 submissions, for the Saga Magazine HarperCollins competition to find a new childrens' writer - "the next JK Rowling". It doesn't guarantee publication but is still amazing news. The final decision is expected April 20.
Monday, March 13, 2006
No such thing as Green Tobacco
David Thorpe opens up a second front attacking nicotine addiction...
Forgive me. You probably are fed up with hearing about smoking and its controversies; there’s been plenty of articles and talk about it recently. Smokers being banned from here, there and everywhere. Oppressed minority. The health and mortality statistics. But I wrote this when my father died of lung cancer having smoked all his life, and now I’m going to publish it.
If you’re a smoker, you probably know all the health arguments for giving up. Short of taking you into the future to actually see the suffering you’re causing yourself at the other end of your life, which unfortunately is not yet possible, none of those arguments has yet convinced you to quit. (Why don’t they show schoolkids videos of people having radiotherapy, lungs removed, coughing up blood, etc. to put them off?) But if you’re interested in matters ecological and ethical, and if you’re a smoker too, that’s the contradiction I want to explore.
Have you noticedthe number of environmentalists who smoke? Usually roll-ups. Now I’ve not done any market research, but from personal experience I know that these same people will make conscious and deliberate choices, sometimes involving extra expense and serious effort, to buy ethically sound or low-impact products: fair trade coffee, organic veg., low-energy lightbulbs, meat-free food, boycotting multinationals, and so on. But when it comes to smoking there’s a total blind spot. Ask them a question (and I have) like “why can’t you buy organic tobacco?” and “do you know what’s really in that thing?” they act like the thought never crossed their minds.
So here’s what I’ve managed to piece together. It’s not much: the industry is notoriously secretive. Don’t wonder why.
What’s in a fag?
When you take a drag, besides the nicotine and tar you are inhaling some 4,000 toxic chemicals. Some of these are naturally present, some derive from the pesticides and fertilisers used in the growing, and others are added during the processing. Unlike other substances you put in your mouth, they’re exempt from the requirement to describe the contents on the packaging: funny, that. But they include:
- arsenic and cyanide (classic poisons)
- formaldehyde (used to preserve bodies after death)
- lead (causes brain damage, weight loss, stunts growth)
- shellac (used in wood varnish)
- xylene (used to be used in marker pens until discovered to be carcinogenic)
- cadmium (highly toxic metal causing liver, brain and kidney damage being phased out in batteries)
- phosphorous (in many foods - and rat poison)
- ammonia (turns nicotine into a gas rendering it more swiftly absorbable - but do you want a disinfectant in your bloodstream?)
- propylene glycol (to moisten the 30% reconstituted tobacco dust present in the average cancer stick)
- acetone (a solvent used in nail polish remover)
- butane (the sniffing of which is reputedly more brain-damaging than crack cocaine)
- bleached beeswax (reason unknown)
- turpentine (inhaling too much of which brings on seizures, vertigo and worse)
- methoprene (due to its function as an insecticide, sprayed on tobacco crops, and one of many similar chemicals)
Of course, you are also inhaling carbon monoxide, also appearing at car exhausts, where it is sometimes tapped for the purpose of suicide.
Pollution
This gas, and carbon dioxide, also produced when tobacco is burnt, is a greenhouse gas; of course, enough tobacco is replanted to compensate by the emission of oxygen from photosynthesis, but what of the other pollutant effects of smoking?
Every day some 15 billion coffin nails are smoked: that’s a lot of empty packets, not to mention nub-ends.
Where do they all go? Many of them end up in the street, littering the countryside, and are certainly not recycled. Most of their constituents are of course biodegradable, although visually intrusive before they disappear, but not so the metal foil wrapping inside the packs. The cellophane outer wrapping also takes a little longer to decompose. Think of all the natural resources and energy that goes into just making the packs and transporting the tobacco and its products around the world.
Talk about food miles: no local-grown box-system golden virginia is possible I’m afraid. In fact, in the States at least, it is illegal to use the natural, fresh leaves, known as khat in Yemen and Western Africa, so you can’t grow it yourself. Such is the power to sway governments of the seven multinational companies who form the cartel that controls this global drug pushing empire.
Land use
Almost three quarters of tobacco is grown in developing countries as a cash crop. 4.1 million hectares of land is squandered in this way: if anyone tells you there isn’t enough good agricultural land to feed the world, let alone the impoverished populations of some African countries like Kenya where tobacco is grown for foreign exchange, quote them this statistic.
Much needed food crops could be grown on this land whose soil is instead ruined. For example Zimbabwe’s growing tobacco export industry has taken 3% or 72,000 hectares of arable land away from food growing, and yet the country still relies on international food aid. That land, if converted to food growing, could feed up to 17 million people a year.
Tobacco consumes soil nutrients, particularly phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium, faster than many other plants, and so the soil needs to be enriched by a cocktail of fertilisers, including organophosphates, which leach out and pollute the surrounding water table. The same applies to pesticides, which are often applied at paranoiac levels.
It doesn’t stop there. Once harvested, tobacco has to be ‘cured’, which means heating it for a week so it dries and ferments. Vast amounts of wood are used for this. Save the Rainforests reports that to cure one kilo of tobacco leaf uses between four and 13 kilos of wood. In Tanzania, a 1989 survey found that 12% of the trees cut there were being used for this purpose. Tanzania is a country which has lost most of its natural forest.
The industry also uses labour, which is often needed at times of harvest and planting, that should ideally go towards food crop planting and harvesting.
Economics
It is now well known that there is a relationship between economic health and environmental health. Poor people are not able to look after the environment. Besides, ethically, workers should be paid fairly for their labour.
But farm workers on tobacco plantations are some of the poorest paid. Even in the US growers earn less than a fifth of what they earnt 40 years ago, as a proportion of the price of a pack of coffin nails. A 1995 survey of 529 US tobacco farmers revealed that three quarters favoured a 5% increase in federal tax on tobacco if the money went to help them diversify into other crops and to promote public health. Farm workers in developing countries are frequently paid little more than starvation wages. Food crops can secure much greater revenue for farmers: for example by switching from tobacco to corn, African farmers could boost their income by a third.
With smoking declining in the West, the pushers are furiously encouraging addiction in the developing world. More than half the population of China smokes. The Dominican Republic is one of the world’s poorest countries, with a 1990 per capita income of just $830 a year. But people spend four times more on fags than they do on food.
Throughout the world’s poorest regions, tobacco advertising, like that for Coca Cola and Pepsi, is ubiquitous. The poor are ignorant and need their solace, so they’re suckers for the pictures of affluent and sexy white people with those smoke sticks in their mouths. And the money goes straight out of their local and national economies back to the countries which host the drug pushing companies: for the top seven that’s the USA (33% market share) Japan (5%) South Africa (3%), South Korea (2%) and Turkey (1.6%).
That’s how the rich countries drain money from the poor ones. And the US government is aggressive in its promotion of Philip Morris, British-American Tobacco and R J Reynolds into new territories, in ways that are sometimes reminiscent of Britain’s opium wars against the Chinese in the last century.
The governments of the victim countries do not mind at the moment as they harvest millions from the taxes. But wait till the health bills start rolling in, and the lost production hours from smoking-related illness.
For, while you could, macabrely, argue that the most efficient way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet is to cease to exist, and that by smoking you are probably going to do that an average of 13 years earlier than you might otherwise, the fact is that the health bill and other damage to the economy caused by your illness significantly mitigates against this dubious benefit. In the developed world it is estimated that lung cancer treatment costs $18,000 per year of life gained. Anti-smoking campaigns cost between $20-40 per year of life gained.
Consumerism kills
In fact, smoking and the tobacco industry can be seen as an illuminating example and metaphor for the way we screw up each other and the planet through our addiction to unnecessary products and damaging production and distribution processes.
So next time you light up, remember, it’s not just you you’re damaging. There’s a life cycle here, and even this incomplete analysis demonstrates that on environmental and ethical grounds, to be consistent with your other lifestyle choices - give up now.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Down with data protection and the privacy laws
Blogging is a modern form of therapy, and a substitute for a social life for people with delusions of importance like me.
Together with the fact that most people are vain and like to share their deep personal information on tv or the web or Home Truths, a privacy law is bound soon to be wildly unpopular.
People will be considered eccentric and odd if they don't want to share their private-most details, and in fact will clamour for all the personal information held about then by corporations, government depts., the DSS, NHS, and banks, to be conglomerated into one online and accessible spot, together with their blogs, online photo-galleries and email accounts, all for better management and for the purpose of archiving for a future / alien historian who, in their wild fantasies, will make their lives the subject of a monumental thesis in 5 million years time.
Soon they'll be demonstrating for the abolition of the Data Protection Act on the grounds that it INFRINGES their personal liberty.
I myself would vote for this, simply because at least I'd be able to see, and manage, what the Co-op, Sainsbury's, Virgin Trains, and credit agencies have on me, not to mention have easy one-stop access to all my personal records alongside my official online profile.
Privacy - hah! The only people who want it are those with something to hide. Eliminate these uncivic social undesirables!
Together with the fact that most people are vain and like to share their deep personal information on tv or the web or Home Truths, a privacy law is bound soon to be wildly unpopular.
People will be considered eccentric and odd if they don't want to share their private-most details, and in fact will clamour for all the personal information held about then by corporations, government depts., the DSS, NHS, and banks, to be conglomerated into one online and accessible spot, together with their blogs, online photo-galleries and email accounts, all for better management and for the purpose of archiving for a future / alien historian who, in their wild fantasies, will make their lives the subject of a monumental thesis in 5 million years time.
Soon they'll be demonstrating for the abolition of the Data Protection Act on the grounds that it INFRINGES their personal liberty.
I myself would vote for this, simply because at least I'd be able to see, and manage, what the Co-op, Sainsbury's, Virgin Trains, and credit agencies have on me, not to mention have easy one-stop access to all my personal records alongside my official online profile.
Privacy - hah! The only people who want it are those with something to hide. Eliminate these uncivic social undesirables!
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Where have the energy blogs gone?
I've started a new blog - The Low Carbon Kid.
This is where I rant about oil, renewables and nuclear. The worst, sordid, pimping, whoring, desperate, self-decieving and self-destructive addiction of our time.
This blog is kept for calmer, more elevated and cultural pursuits...
This is where I rant about oil, renewables and nuclear. The worst, sordid, pimping, whoring, desperate, self-decieving and self-destructive addiction of our time.
This blog is kept for calmer, more elevated and cultural pursuits...
Monday, November 07, 2005
Police action on Gunpowder Plot day
I went to London for the weekend and met my old friend Alan at his flat in Vauxhall - his neighbour was the Stockwell bomber. A mentally damaged and challenged individual by the sound of it, and a good choice of obedient footsoldier, subject of late night 'briefing' sessions involving Koran readings and humiliation.
I came out of Shepherds Bush tube to be confronted by a cop with a machine gun, 20 officers, several riot vans and two police horses. I said "what's going on?" and the sarge said 'football match'.
I was left wondering, is this a joke, to cover up an 'incident', or actually true, since I could see no coloured scarves.
We live in a world where it's impossible to tell - each could be just as likely.
It was the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, but nobody took the opportunity to have another go.
I came out of Shepherds Bush tube to be confronted by a cop with a machine gun, 20 officers, several riot vans and two police horses. I said "what's going on?" and the sarge said 'football match'.
I was left wondering, is this a joke, to cover up an 'incident', or actually true, since I could see no coloured scarves.
We live in a world where it's impossible to tell - each could be just as likely.
It was the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, but nobody took the opportunity to have another go.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Letter to Dionysos
This is a letter to my son, now he is 16 and starting his A levels, which include Drama, about the coincidences linking his name to the original Dionysos...
Dear Dion
I've just discovered this, which is really interesting.
Did you know that in ancient Greece, in Athens there was an annual drama event called the City Dionysia?
Playwrights would submit plays, competing against each other. Winners of this event included Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
The City Dionysia was celebrated during the Greek month Elaphebolion (spanning parts of our March-April - which includes your birthday!) by the whole federation of Attic states in the sacred precinct of Dionysus, which contained temples and sacrificial altars as well as the theater, at the foot of the Acropolis.
During the classical period, this festival lasted several days and included several types of performance, all of which were also competitions for important civic honor and prizes (many aspects of Athenian society were highly competitive).
The City Dionysia was under the direction of one of the principal magistrates, the archon eponymos.
During the summer, playwrights wishing to present plays in the following year would apply to the archon for a chorus by offering descriptions of their projected plays; the archon would then choose the three who would be allowed to compete.
Each playwright would be assigned a choregos (sponsor) from among the wealthy citizens who would pay all the expenses of costumes, masks, and training the chorus. Each choregos and playwright would recruit a chorus of young Athenian citizens (originally 12, later 15); chorusmen were not professionals and required rigorous training to learn the songs and dances for the four plays they would perform.
Besides writing the plays, the playwright composed music, choreographed the choral dances, and frequently served as chief trainer for the chorus.
The archon assigned each playwright a principal actor (the protagonist), as well as a second and third actor. These actors were professionals and were paid by the state; by the latter part of the fifth century the actors also competed for a state prize.
Shortly before the City Dionysia began, the archon held a Proagon, - a sort of advertisement for the plays to be performed. Each tragedian appeared with his choregos, actors, and chorus and presented the titles and brief plot summaries of the four plays he would present at the festival.
The judging of the dramatic competitions was very much in keeping with the general methods of Athenian democratic government—any citizen should be able to participate, not just specialists, and the principles of the lottery and random selection played a significant role (giving the gods a chance to participate?).
An urn from each of the 10 tribes contained the names of citizens eligible to serve as judges; to prevent bribery, one name was drawn from each urn at the start of the festival. Each of the 10 judges wrote down three names on a tablet in the order of his selection, and the 10 tablets were placed in a container.
On the last day of the festival, 5 of the tablets were randomly chosen, and these determined the winner. Great prestige was attached to a first prize victory; there was of course a "cast party” where actors celebrated their victory.
The Bacchae is unfortunately not the Greek play you're studying! But it tells you a lot about the Greek cult of Dionysos.
Dionysos, especially under the Lydian name of Bacchus, became known as primarily a god of wine in later tradition, but in the fifth century B.C. this was only one of his functions.
He is a god of nature in all its vegetable and animal abundance. Dionysos is associated with ivy and also with the oak and fir tree (so that's why you live in the Welsh hills surrounded by pine trees and an ivy grows up the front of our house - we didn't plant it, it came!).
One of his animal manifestations is that of a bull and Bromios `roaring', a cult title used frequently in the Bacchae, may refer to his association with the bull and also the lion, although some connect this title with his lightning-struck mother. (Your mother wasn't struck by lightning but was nearly killed by a hurricane).
Snakes, which were entwined in the hair of Dionysos' maenads, are another example of his connection with the animal world as is his own and his maenads' (his female fans) attire made of fawnskin. The maenads' involvement with nature was also symbolized by a cane of fennel called a thrysos, which they carried.
Maybe you should collect the fennel seeds from the plant in our garden - they're nearly ready.
The Chorus consists of female worshipers of Dionysos called Bacchae, whose name is derived from Bacchus, the Lydian name of the god.
Female devotees of the god are often referred to as maenads (from the Greek verb mainesthai `to be mad') and also as bacchant[e]s.
In the Bacchae there are references to the story of Semele's death by Zeus's lightning, his rescue of the baby Dionysos from his mother's womb, and the sewing of the baby into his own thigh in place of a womb to conceal Dionysus from Hera (which mirrors your premature birth and insertion into an incubator - see previous blog).
The primary rite of Dionysiac religion is that of ecstatic mountain dancing. The culmination of this rite was an ecstatic frenzy in which the dancers tore apart and devoured raw an animal such as a goat or a fawn.
These two acts are called sparagmos `tearing' and omophagia `act of eating raw flesh'.
The rite of omophagia was seen as a communion with the god in that the worshiper consumed a part of raw nature which was identified with Dionysos himself (this is one reason the Romans later chose the Dionysiac religion to be a rival to Christianity, with its ritual of eating the God's flesh - communion).
The primitive rites of sparagmos and omophagia were still practiced in various areas in the fifth century. But at Athens Dionysos was a much tamer god.
His worship was there channeled into more civilized forms, such as the Anthesteria , a spring wine festival, and, of course, the City Dionysia. The Athenians seem to have concentrated on the pleasanter and more civilized aspects of Dionysus as a god of wine and of dramatic performances.
Dionysiac worship was one of the mystery cults which flourished in ancient Greece alongside state religion. The word "mystery" refers to the fact that these cults required that their rites be kept secret from outsiders.
The Greeks called the rites of mystery cults orgia - `orgies', but this word did not have the connotation of sexual license which the word carries today. There were some, however, like Pentheus, who suspected that the ecstatic Dionysiac rites led to sexual immorality.
In the Bacchae Dionysiac ritual is consistently connected with joy and freedom. The Chorus sings of the happiness of Dionysiac worship on the mountainside. The celebration of the freedom from all the constraints of civilization is summed up in the Chorus's wild Dionysiac cry "Evohe" and also represented in the simile at the end of the parados which compares the dancing of a maenad to the leaping of a colt.
One more thing about Dionysus you should like. He is a also a god of illusion.
He demonstrates vividly his powers of illusion in the Bacchae. He deludes Pentheus by making the king 1. see him as a bull, 2. think that the palace was in flames and 3. think that a phantom Dionysos he was trying to stab was the god himself.
The god's ability to create illusions is one of Dionysos' traditional powers in myth and helps explain his connection with tragedy and comedy.
Drama is based on illusion: dramatic action and characters are artificial creations of the dramatist presented in order to give the illusion of reality. Thus, it is appropriate that the god of illusion presided over the City Dionysia, Athens' dramatic festival.
What could be more appropriate than that you are now studying drama and doing a directors' course?
Love
David
Dear Dion
I've just discovered this, which is really interesting.
Did you know that in ancient Greece, in Athens there was an annual drama event called the City Dionysia?
Playwrights would submit plays, competing against each other. Winners of this event included Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes.
The City Dionysia was celebrated during the Greek month Elaphebolion (spanning parts of our March-April - which includes your birthday!) by the whole federation of Attic states in the sacred precinct of Dionysus, which contained temples and sacrificial altars as well as the theater, at the foot of the Acropolis.
During the classical period, this festival lasted several days and included several types of performance, all of which were also competitions for important civic honor and prizes (many aspects of Athenian society were highly competitive).
The City Dionysia was under the direction of one of the principal magistrates, the archon eponymos.
During the summer, playwrights wishing to present plays in the following year would apply to the archon for a chorus by offering descriptions of their projected plays; the archon would then choose the three who would be allowed to compete.
Each playwright would be assigned a choregos (sponsor) from among the wealthy citizens who would pay all the expenses of costumes, masks, and training the chorus. Each choregos and playwright would recruit a chorus of young Athenian citizens (originally 12, later 15); chorusmen were not professionals and required rigorous training to learn the songs and dances for the four plays they would perform.
Besides writing the plays, the playwright composed music, choreographed the choral dances, and frequently served as chief trainer for the chorus.
The archon assigned each playwright a principal actor (the protagonist), as well as a second and third actor. These actors were professionals and were paid by the state; by the latter part of the fifth century the actors also competed for a state prize.
Shortly before the City Dionysia began, the archon held a Proagon, - a sort of advertisement for the plays to be performed. Each tragedian appeared with his choregos, actors, and chorus and presented the titles and brief plot summaries of the four plays he would present at the festival.
The judging of the dramatic competitions was very much in keeping with the general methods of Athenian democratic government—any citizen should be able to participate, not just specialists, and the principles of the lottery and random selection played a significant role (giving the gods a chance to participate?).
An urn from each of the 10 tribes contained the names of citizens eligible to serve as judges; to prevent bribery, one name was drawn from each urn at the start of the festival. Each of the 10 judges wrote down three names on a tablet in the order of his selection, and the 10 tablets were placed in a container.
On the last day of the festival, 5 of the tablets were randomly chosen, and these determined the winner. Great prestige was attached to a first prize victory; there was of course a "cast party” where actors celebrated their victory.
The Bacchae is unfortunately not the Greek play you're studying! But it tells you a lot about the Greek cult of Dionysos.
Dionysos, especially under the Lydian name of Bacchus, became known as primarily a god of wine in later tradition, but in the fifth century B.C. this was only one of his functions.
He is a god of nature in all its vegetable and animal abundance. Dionysos is associated with ivy and also with the oak and fir tree (so that's why you live in the Welsh hills surrounded by pine trees and an ivy grows up the front of our house - we didn't plant it, it came!).
One of his animal manifestations is that of a bull and Bromios `roaring', a cult title used frequently in the Bacchae, may refer to his association with the bull and also the lion, although some connect this title with his lightning-struck mother. (Your mother wasn't struck by lightning but was nearly killed by a hurricane).
Snakes, which were entwined in the hair of Dionysos' maenads, are another example of his connection with the animal world as is his own and his maenads' (his female fans) attire made of fawnskin. The maenads' involvement with nature was also symbolized by a cane of fennel called a thrysos, which they carried.
Maybe you should collect the fennel seeds from the plant in our garden - they're nearly ready.
The Chorus consists of female worshipers of Dionysos called Bacchae, whose name is derived from Bacchus, the Lydian name of the god.
Female devotees of the god are often referred to as maenads (from the Greek verb mainesthai `to be mad') and also as bacchant[e]s.
In the Bacchae there are references to the story of Semele's death by Zeus's lightning, his rescue of the baby Dionysos from his mother's womb, and the sewing of the baby into his own thigh in place of a womb to conceal Dionysus from Hera (which mirrors your premature birth and insertion into an incubator - see previous blog).
The primary rite of Dionysiac religion is that of ecstatic mountain dancing. The culmination of this rite was an ecstatic frenzy in which the dancers tore apart and devoured raw an animal such as a goat or a fawn.
These two acts are called sparagmos `tearing' and omophagia `act of eating raw flesh'.
The rite of omophagia was seen as a communion with the god in that the worshiper consumed a part of raw nature which was identified with Dionysos himself (this is one reason the Romans later chose the Dionysiac religion to be a rival to Christianity, with its ritual of eating the God's flesh - communion).
The primitive rites of sparagmos and omophagia were still practiced in various areas in the fifth century. But at Athens Dionysos was a much tamer god.
His worship was there channeled into more civilized forms, such as the Anthesteria , a spring wine festival, and, of course, the City Dionysia. The Athenians seem to have concentrated on the pleasanter and more civilized aspects of Dionysus as a god of wine and of dramatic performances.
Dionysiac worship was one of the mystery cults which flourished in ancient Greece alongside state religion. The word "mystery" refers to the fact that these cults required that their rites be kept secret from outsiders.
The Greeks called the rites of mystery cults orgia - `orgies', but this word did not have the connotation of sexual license which the word carries today. There were some, however, like Pentheus, who suspected that the ecstatic Dionysiac rites led to sexual immorality.
In the Bacchae Dionysiac ritual is consistently connected with joy and freedom. The Chorus sings of the happiness of Dionysiac worship on the mountainside. The celebration of the freedom from all the constraints of civilization is summed up in the Chorus's wild Dionysiac cry "Evohe" and also represented in the simile at the end of the parados which compares the dancing of a maenad to the leaping of a colt.
One more thing about Dionysus you should like. He is a also a god of illusion.
He demonstrates vividly his powers of illusion in the Bacchae. He deludes Pentheus by making the king 1. see him as a bull, 2. think that the palace was in flames and 3. think that a phantom Dionysos he was trying to stab was the god himself.
The god's ability to create illusions is one of Dionysos' traditional powers in myth and helps explain his connection with tragedy and comedy.
Drama is based on illusion: dramatic action and characters are artificial creations of the dramatist presented in order to give the illusion of reality. Thus, it is appropriate that the god of illusion presided over the City Dionysia, Athens' dramatic festival.
What could be more appropriate than that you are now studying drama and doing a directors' course?
Love
David
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Orpheus, Eurydice and Dionysos
Jean Cocteau's film Orphée is for me one of the greatest films of all time. The myth is wound into my life.
But it is problematic in the part of Eurydice, which suffers from the French idealisation of women, all those ridiculous Surrealist nudes, or relegation of women to support roles.
It's the only problem I have with it. It looks delicious, it's very well shot and edited for the time, and the script moves well. It's much better than the subsequent self-indulgent Blood of a Poet and The Testament of Orpheus. The romance of writing/being carried away by destiny/death/love and then transcending destiny, slays me!
When I first saw it in the 1978 I was inspired and wrote and later threw away a novel based on it. It was probably terrible, with odd chunks of inspired text, and a lot of morbidity, since its title was 'desire and misery' and contained some ideas later to turn up in my tv series and comics series Doc Chaos vol 2, such as the College of Unlimited Extacy, where our hero finds the road of excess leads to ... well, I think we can guess that!
If writing Orphée now I would make much more of Eurydice.
In the original, Eurydice while strolling through the grass with a group of Naiads, was bitten in the ankle by a serpent, which shot its poison into her body and killed her. The serpent thing is very symbolic and powerful.
The Maenads are Dionysos' followers. They use wine and ritual to follow the road of excess, which leads, as we know, to.... Well, they were Eurydice's girlgang, as in the film, and exact revenge on him for losing her a second time. Typical careless man. So there's a feminist thread in this myth.
The Maenads (who looked after the baby Dionysos when he came out of Zeus' thigh) also put a snake over their locks, for Zeus crowned Dionysos with snakes when he let him come out of his thigh.
In one version of the myth Orpheus' head fell into the sea and some say it was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos where the Lesbians buried it, and so the Lesbians have the reputation of being skilled in music.
Others say it went down a river, still singing, and where it landed an oracle - and the Orphic religion - was founded.
The Orphic religion was based on the Dionysian one, and based on "ecstasy" (ekstasis, "stepping out"). It was supposed that it was only when "out of the body" that the soul revealed its true nature. This needed a system of purifications and sacraments, unlike most Greek religion.
Unlike the Dionysians, they were controlled and strict vegetarians and ascetics - their total opposite. Body-denying Orphism is a variation of the same Dionysus religion which we associate with ecstatic orgies and the most physical and indulgent types of worship. But they share the same goal - destruction of the self and rebirth.
Eurydice is therefore a woman torn between her girlgang and a primitive, powerful and woman-centered way of life, and Orpheus, or a male-dominated, more disciplined way.
Dionysos was born twice, and so was used by Emperor Constantine as an 'official' religion of the empire in the 3rd C AD as a rival to Christianity, where the emphasis was on resurrection.
We didn't know this at first when we named our first son Dionysos in 1989. He was born in the 24th week of pregnancy - and so was also born twice - first into a 'male' environment [Zeus' thigh / humming life-support machines in Kings College hospital); then into my wife Zoe's care when leaving the hospital at proper full term (female / Maenads).
That he survived to be healthy is very unusual. But we are eternally thankful for it.
But it is problematic in the part of Eurydice, which suffers from the French idealisation of women, all those ridiculous Surrealist nudes, or relegation of women to support roles.
It's the only problem I have with it. It looks delicious, it's very well shot and edited for the time, and the script moves well. It's much better than the subsequent self-indulgent Blood of a Poet and The Testament of Orpheus. The romance of writing/being carried away by destiny/death/love and then transcending destiny, slays me!
When I first saw it in the 1978 I was inspired and wrote and later threw away a novel based on it. It was probably terrible, with odd chunks of inspired text, and a lot of morbidity, since its title was 'desire and misery' and contained some ideas later to turn up in my tv series and comics series Doc Chaos vol 2, such as the College of Unlimited Extacy, where our hero finds the road of excess leads to ... well, I think we can guess that!
If writing Orphée now I would make much more of Eurydice.
In the original, Eurydice while strolling through the grass with a group of Naiads, was bitten in the ankle by a serpent, which shot its poison into her body and killed her. The serpent thing is very symbolic and powerful.
The Maenads are Dionysos' followers. They use wine and ritual to follow the road of excess, which leads, as we know, to.... Well, they were Eurydice's girlgang, as in the film, and exact revenge on him for losing her a second time. Typical careless man. So there's a feminist thread in this myth.
The Maenads (who looked after the baby Dionysos when he came out of Zeus' thigh) also put a snake over their locks, for Zeus crowned Dionysos with snakes when he let him come out of his thigh.
In one version of the myth Orpheus' head fell into the sea and some say it was cast by the waves upon the island of Lesbos where the Lesbians buried it, and so the Lesbians have the reputation of being skilled in music.
Others say it went down a river, still singing, and where it landed an oracle - and the Orphic religion - was founded.
The Orphic religion was based on the Dionysian one, and based on "ecstasy" (ekstasis, "stepping out"). It was supposed that it was only when "out of the body" that the soul revealed its true nature. This needed a system of purifications and sacraments, unlike most Greek religion.
Unlike the Dionysians, they were controlled and strict vegetarians and ascetics - their total opposite. Body-denying Orphism is a variation of the same Dionysus religion which we associate with ecstatic orgies and the most physical and indulgent types of worship. But they share the same goal - destruction of the self and rebirth.
Eurydice is therefore a woman torn between her girlgang and a primitive, powerful and woman-centered way of life, and Orpheus, or a male-dominated, more disciplined way.
Dionysos was born twice, and so was used by Emperor Constantine as an 'official' religion of the empire in the 3rd C AD as a rival to Christianity, where the emphasis was on resurrection.
We didn't know this at first when we named our first son Dionysos in 1989. He was born in the 24th week of pregnancy - and so was also born twice - first into a 'male' environment [Zeus' thigh / humming life-support machines in Kings College hospital); then into my wife Zoe's care when leaving the hospital at proper full term (female / Maenads).
That he survived to be healthy is very unusual. But we are eternally thankful for it.
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