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| The Sound of Music |
Accidentally found myself in the same building as Nigel Facade this week. In the EU funded Sage. If irony was the only casualty of the Leave campaign's dangerous hate-mongoring we might be able to weather it with the usual British method of satire and eye-rolling. As it is, our choice today is stark and binary: love or fear, together or isolated, in or out.
Poetically, I've been subsumed by a sudden attack of the lurgy ever since, rendering me hard of hearing and full of bile: much like the man himself.
I can't remember another time in my privileged life when I've felt so on edge in a public space. We saw the telly vans first. Then the protestors, singing and shouting 'Welcome to Gateshead. Everyone is welcome here' I had an overwhelming urge to join them without yet knowing why. Then the extra security at the door. A pile of glossy programmes slipped out from beneath black clothed tables. 'Blueprint for Brexit'. Fuck. Alec went to pick up our tickets as I made a beeline for the loo. A tall man in a suit lurched into my path and stood too close. He wanted to know which event I was attending before letting me use the facilities. I was shaking as I entered the bathroom. We were at the EU FUNDED SAGE to support two artists who, inspired by Rachel Carson, are spending a year making work on the Northumbrian Coast. Environmental artists in one room. Nationalist piss-artist in another. I was so angry as we walked across the concourse of the EU FUNDED SAGE, with it's perfect view of our bridged cities.
We could hear the pomp and ceremony blasting through the supposed sound proofing, interrupting the gentle ebb and flow of tides and poetry. As the evening wore on I became increasingly aware of how few of us there were compared to the capacity next door. My mind wandered to fantasies of crawling up the lighting rig and unfurling a banner above Farage's head. My heart raced, time dragged. Our number dwindled. It was difficult to concentrate, impossible to relax.
I know I'm singing into an echo chamber of Remainians, but illness is making me sentimental and increasingly likely to make references to the Sound of Music. (Blame THAT poster).
The threat to our green and pleasant land isn't coming from the outside, from immigrants or EU red tape, it's already here in the fateful history-repeating marriage between power-hungry right-wing career politicians and the disenfranchised masses.
Whatever result emerges tomorrow the country is already divided. Ideally we make love and art and heal our communities and educate and nurture each other and share what we've got and STOP projecting everything that's difficult onto Others. If the alternative is to put on our travelling clothes and make for the hills, I hear Vienna is lovely this time of year.
VOTE REMAIN.
Poetically, I've been subsumed by a sudden attack of the lurgy ever since, rendering me hard of hearing and full of bile: much like the man himself.
I can't remember another time in my privileged life when I've felt so on edge in a public space. We saw the telly vans first. Then the protestors, singing and shouting 'Welcome to Gateshead. Everyone is welcome here' I had an overwhelming urge to join them without yet knowing why. Then the extra security at the door. A pile of glossy programmes slipped out from beneath black clothed tables. 'Blueprint for Brexit'. Fuck. Alec went to pick up our tickets as I made a beeline for the loo. A tall man in a suit lurched into my path and stood too close. He wanted to know which event I was attending before letting me use the facilities. I was shaking as I entered the bathroom. We were at the EU FUNDED SAGE to support two artists who, inspired by Rachel Carson, are spending a year making work on the Northumbrian Coast. Environmental artists in one room. Nationalist piss-artist in another. I was so angry as we walked across the concourse of the EU FUNDED SAGE, with it's perfect view of our bridged cities.
We could hear the pomp and ceremony blasting through the supposed sound proofing, interrupting the gentle ebb and flow of tides and poetry. As the evening wore on I became increasingly aware of how few of us there were compared to the capacity next door. My mind wandered to fantasies of crawling up the lighting rig and unfurling a banner above Farage's head. My heart raced, time dragged. Our number dwindled. It was difficult to concentrate, impossible to relax.
I know I'm singing into an echo chamber of Remainians, but illness is making me sentimental and increasingly likely to make references to the Sound of Music. (Blame THAT poster).
The threat to our green and pleasant land isn't coming from the outside, from immigrants or EU red tape, it's already here in the fateful history-repeating marriage between power-hungry right-wing career politicians and the disenfranchised masses.
Whatever result emerges tomorrow the country is already divided. Ideally we make love and art and heal our communities and educate and nurture each other and share what we've got and STOP projecting everything that's difficult onto Others. If the alternative is to put on our travelling clothes and make for the hills, I hear Vienna is lovely this time of year.
VOTE REMAIN.
