books

Peter Hujar’s Day

By and large, film is a very accessible artform. Most of the time, I can just wheel into a cinema, watch a film, and get what it is about. I can understand the story the audience is being told. However, this wasn’t the case yesterday. John said he was going to watch a film at the Barbican, and once again invited me along. The film he intended to watch was called Peter Hujar’s Day. I’d never heard of it, but as usual try to be open to such opportunities.

We got into the screening room slightly late (my fault), but what I found myself watching was very odd indeed. It wasn’t a conventional film at all: it was just two people, a man and a woman, talking. They spoke and spoke, mostly about his apparent career as a photographer. Nothing else happened; there was no other action or any kind of establishing shots. While I recognised a few of the names the guy mentioned such as Susan Sontag, pretty soon I felt my mind wandering. To be honest when the film ended, I was baffled what I had just been watching.

In this case, however, context is all. When we got home John explained it to me: the film is essentially a dramatisation/visualisation of audiorecordings made in 1975 by Linda Rosenkrantz of her conversations with photographer Peter Hujar. The recordings tell of his interactions with all kinds of famous New York artists, such as Andy Warhol. They essentially give us a glimpse of the vibrant artistic landscape of New York fifty years ago. Being told that instantly put what I had just seen in a fresh light: it wasn’t just a piece of dull, pretentious fiction I’d assumed it to be, but an interesting fragment of reality and art history. Audio transposed into the visual. As soon as I was told that, I kicked myself for being such a luddite, and now feel the need to find out more.

Could I Change Someone’s World?

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a question rattling around in my head which won’t seem to pipe down. It first occurred to me on the day my powerchair broke down on the other side of London. Just before that catastrophe, I had been once again thinking about how wonderful it is to live in this fantastic city, and about how it all stemmed from the fact that I met Lyn. Had I never met her, I simply wouldn’t be here: I would never have moved to London and got to know this incredible metropolis. The chances are that I would still be living in Cheshire with my parents, and the notion that I could ever live in my own flat in south London would still seem absurd, or even frightening.

Meeting Lyn put an end to that: during my ten years living with her, not only did I start to get to know London, but I also learned that I didn’t need to rely on the cozy support structures which I had been used to since childhood. My world changed from a quiet, conservative two-storey Cheshire town to one of the greatest, most vibrant metropolises on earth.

When I think about it, it’s hard to sum up just how different those two existences are. Here I am, exploring this city, flitting on and off busses and tube trains, trundling around shopping malls and skyscrapers and royal parks; going to cinemas and concerts and shows, just like any other Londoner. I’m living a life which would once have seemed unimaginable. And it’s all because, around seventeen years ago, I received an email from someone called Lyn. Had that not happened, and had she not had the kindness to invite me to move in with her, zark knows how things would have turned out. That is not to say that life before Lyn was bad or uncomfortable; but that meeting Lyn took it in an energetic, thrilling, previously unthinkable new direction. She showed me what is possible.

What I find myself wondering now though, is could I one day make the same sort of difference to someone else? Could I change someone’s life as fundamentally as Lyn changed mine, and bring as much joy, wonder and potential for awesomeness into someone’s life as L brought into mine? I profoundly hope I can: It seems only fair, after all. The only question is, how?

Fooled Into A Spinoff

I was expecting to write my response to the BBC’s exciting new science fiction series today. From the trailers it had looked quite promising: at last something new to get into and blog about. Something which would potentially divert my intellectual energies away from the usual staples of Star Trek and James Bond. Thus last night I settled down to watch the first two episodes of The War Between the Land and The Sea full of optimism.

I freely admit I can be a dumbass sometimes, but it took me a few minutes to realise what I was watching. The opening struck me as somewhat cheesy, but I could let that slide. It wasn’t until I kept hearing references to “The Doctor” that I realised that, rather than the brand new science fiction series I was expecting, I had stumbled upon some sort of godawful Dr Who spinoff. The odd thing is, there had been no mention of Dr. Who in the trailers, leading me to feel rather misled.

I have not watched Dr. Who in years. It is, let’s just say, not my thing. As much as I love science fiction, I prefer it to be grounded in some semblance of reality – something which Dr. Who does not have. The plots are derivative and contrived, lapsing so far into the fantastical that it becomes nauseating; the special effects third rate at best. Thus to have been tricked into that fictional world when I was expecting something far more refined irritated me. More to the point, I quickly found that what I was watching wasn’t any better.

As an educated, aware man I have nothing against environmentalism. Of course we must do what we can to curb the damage we are now doing to the environment. However, to have such an ethos rammed down my throat with all the subtlety of a shovel wielded by a Eastend builder whose football team just lost five nill was another matter altogether. What we were witness to last night, with its mysterious sea-bound yet humanoid species emerging from the depths to reprimand us for filling the seas with shit, made Beavis seem like an expert in Lacanian psychoanalysis or a three-year-old with a well-loaded paintbrush look like Turner or Matisse.

Check out this no less critical Guardian article for slightly more detail, but if guys like Russel T. Davies want to spread the message of environmentalism, there are far better ways to do it than through something so crass and infantile. Of course, people need to be told about such issues, but to do so so heavy-handedly risks putting people off.

Comic Con 2025

Today turned out to be far more interesting than I expected it to: maybe not quite up there with those truly awesome days, but certainly good enough to blog about. I had heard Comic Con was happening this weekend on the news a couple of days ago. Such events interest me, but to be honest I was not enthusiastic enough to pay an exorbitant amount to get in. Thus this morning I thought I would just roll over to the Excel Centre to check out what was going on, try to find something worth blogging about, and then come back.

That, then, is what I did, catching the DLR a single stop under the river and having a trundle around the dock, before heading to the exhibition centre to check out what was going on. I thought I would hang around there for a few minutes before heading home. However, on the spur of the moment and out of pure curiosity, I decided to roll up to the entrance and ask how much it would cost to go in, and to my total astonishment I was told I could go in for free.

In that moment my afternoon obviously changed: I suddenly had something interesting to do. Going into the exhibition centre, I was instantly fascinated: there were thousands of people, most younger than me, dressed in all kinds of weird costumes. Many I recognised, but others obviously came from fictions I had no idea about. There were also stalls and tables and talks being given. People were playing computer games. I was instantly fascinated, and my affection for London was instantly renewed – where else could I just roll into such a monumental event?

I stayed there for two or three hours, fascinated by the culture. Maybe it wasn’t quite my thing, given that I’m not really a comic book or computer game guy, but it certainly got my cultural juices flowing. Comic Con is on all weekend, so I’m now seriously considering heading there again tomorrow: if today was anything to go by, given it will be the main day of the convention I suspect it will be incredible.

Rowling Should Never Have Been Published

I am now rather ashamed to admit that I have fairly warm memories of listening to Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter audio books. We listened to them as a family, as my parents, brothers and I drove through various parts of Europe. I remember being quite captivated by them at the time: they might not have been on a par with Tolkien, Melville or Hemingway, but as stories they were certainly  entertaining, especially when delivered through Fry’s rich, maple syrup and Lord Melchett voice. Now, however, I never want a single word written by the hateful bitch Rowling to pass my eyes or ears again; and the same goes for the film adaptations of the fourth rate, pisspoor shyte she made her fortune from.

Accuse me of cancel culture all you want, but Rowling should never have been published in the first place. Now that she has revealed herself to be nothing but a rabid, vile transphobe, it’s time we recognised her work for what it is: a collection of stolen ideas delivered with all the talent and wit of a pile of horse shit. It is an insult to english literature, with it’s two-dimensional characters and simplistic, infantile themes and plots. Frankly, it should be taken out of print immediately: young people deserve better than to be subjected to such derivative, talentless crap. I’m glad to see that Fry now feels the same way, and I would personally urge him to get the audiobooks he recorded taken out of circulation: if I was him, I’d be sickened by the thought that this bigot was making money from my voice. The fact of the matter is, Rowling is now using her undeserved success as a platform to spread hate, and that platform should therefore be destroyed.

Rain Stopped Play

I’m sorry to say that I don’t have the entry I thought I would write here this morning. I was really, really looking forward to last night. A couple of weeks ago, John suggested going to the Globe Theatre to watch The Crucible, and of course I was up for it. It is a play I studied for A-Level English, and seeing it at the awesome Shakespeare’s Globe would be a treat. I was extremely keen to see how it would be performed, and how it might be used to make a comment on contemporary American politics. I knew, of course, that it was a play about the Salem Witch Hunts, but that Arthur Miller used that history to make a statement about the Mccarthy Witch Hunts of the 1950s. Could performing the play now mean it was being used to say something about what is happening in America at the moment?

We got to the Globe about 45 minutes early, and killed the time on our Ipads (who knew seventeenth century playhouses have Wifi?). To be honest, the sky had been grey all day, so I was a bit concerned about the weather. In due course we were lead out, and I was allowed onto a wheelchair viewing platform among the groundlings right in front of the stage. It wasn’t raining, the play soon began, and we were quickly absorbed into Miller’s intriguing historic narrative. However, about half an hour into the play, the skies began to open, gently at first, then gradually heavier and heavier. I was obviously in my powerchair – allowing it’s control to get too wet would be a disaster.

Unfortunately, as the weather grew worse and John and I became increasingly soaked, we had no choice but to call it a day and head home. It was a great, great shame. I had been really looking forward to the performance, but we only got about a quarter of the way through it. I was extremely disappointed to say the least: it was a great play in an incredible venue. Oh well, I suppose seventeenth century groundlings obviously didn’t have powerchairs they had to keep dry!

Just Exchanging A Book

It amazes me what a numpty I can be sometimes. A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a James Bond-related video on Youtube, which concerned a biography of Ian Fleming which I thought sounded interesting. I have read a couple of good bios of Fleming in the past but not this one, so I determined to try to look it up. A day or so later, I set off for Waterstones in Lewisham, and put in an order for the book I was interested in. A few days after that, of course I went back to Lewisham, payed for the text and brought it home.

Truth be told I don’t read that much these days as I get too distracted by the internet, but I told myself to make the effort to read the book I had gone to that much effort to buy. It wasn’t until that point, however, that I glanced at my book shelf to see that a copy of the very same book had been there all along! At that moment I felt so infantile and stupid – I would have died of embarrassment, if anyone else had known what I had done.

Fortunately for me they didn’t, so today I was able to pop back to Lewisham and exchange the book for one I don’t have, on Hitchcock and Truffault. It’s not that I think this is particularly noteworthy or blogworthy – many people probably do similar things every day. Yet, on another level, in a way it’s pretty amazing: if I had been told as a ten or even fifteen year old that I would one day be trundling around South-East London, living independently, doing my own shopping, talking to strangers and even buying books I already had, I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Every once in a while, it stuns me how differently my life has turned out to the way I always assumed it would growing up, even down to the ability to go out on my own and buy my own things. That is why I think it’s so important that I help to encourage young people in similar positions to mine. When you have a disability which effects how you communicate, you often don’t realise that you can interact with society just like anyone else.

Pulp Fans And Outsidership

I was just watching BBC Breakfast News as usual, and came across something which really, really got on my nerves. They were running an item on Pulp, Jarvis Cocker and Britpop, about how it was so influential and the legacy it left, especially on places like Sheffield. Towards the end of the piece, they quite predictably interviewed a few fans: what I found so annoying was how such fans saw themselves as outsiders. They were saying how, to be into a band like Pulp, you had to be a bit weird, strange or unusual, gleefully emphasising how different and abnormal they thought they were. The thing is, the people saying this were white, male, able-bodied and (I assume) straight. Sorry, but I couldn’t help getting rather wound up by that. They obviously belong to the most mainstream, advantaged cohort of people there is; one which faces the least discrimination of all. Liking a certain band or genre of music does not make you an outsider, yet they seemed to regard theirselves as oddities swimming against the mainstream current.

As someone who faces various kinds of discrimination every day, down to being unable to get where I want to go due to places being inaccessible for wheelchair users, to hear such a person trumpet how ‘different’ he felt he was, really felt like a piss-take. He would know nothing of the kind of persecution a member of any real minority faces. But then, these days it seems to be culturally fashionable to be a member of a minority: nobody wants to be seen as a member of the advantaged, privileged few, so rather like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen will jump at anything that makes them seem hard done by, persecuted or different. The thing is, liking the music of a certain band, and being educated in a special school alongside seven or eight quite disabled young people, are hardly the same thing.

Kier Starmer Rapes Chipmunks

I was watching the breakfast news as usual earlier, when a quite unsettling item caught my attention, particularly as a blogger. According to the beeb, “The wife of a Conservative councillor who was jailed after she posted an online rant about migrants is due to have her appeal against the sentence heard on Thursday. [ie today]” Lucy Connolly had been jailed for 28 days after apparently tweeting that she thought a hotel housing asylum seekers should be burned down. If you ask me, of course, twenty-eight days in jail is nowhere near enough punishment for such a vile, disgusting xenophobe: being married to a Tory councillor, she obviously thought she had a right to voice such reactionary, inflammatory tosh with impunity. I find such arrogance sickening of course, and my gut reaction was that she had no right whatsoever to complain.

The obvious problem is, that raises all kinds of issues about the freedom of speech. I naturally believe that anyone should have the right to say whatever they want, online or off, no matter how disgusting or abhorrent other people may find it. Here on my blog, I’m sure I have written things plenty of people may disagree with over the years – does that mean I should go to jail? What would happen if one day I wrote an entry accusing Kier Starmer of raping chipmunks – does that constitute defamation? Thus as vile as any sensible, intelligent person will find what this woman tweeted, her right to voice her opinions must take priority. The moment we start censoring people, the moment we start putting people in jail just for voicing their opinions online, we all loose something extremely valuable.

Of course I am torn by this: I cannot deny that a large part of me thinks that what this repugnant woman tweeted has no place in modern public discourse. We see it more and more: such barely literate morons think it’s cool or trailblazing to go against the politically correct grain, resulting in a slide further and further to the reactionary right. It seems to be becoming fashionable to discriminate, belittle and bully, as people try to imitate so-called online ‘influencers’ like Andrew Tale. People are also feeling more and more pressure to attract attention online, resulting in ever more wild, distasteful things being spouted in an effort to stand out and get noticed. No doubt such factors were what was behind this woman’s vile tweet: I’m not sure she deserved punishing for them or not, but the fact that she has been clearly sets an unsettling precident.

Real Cripples Don’t Need Lanyards

Yesterday morning, just as I was preparing to go out, I caught an interview with Jake from The Traitors on morning TV. As you may remember, Jake was a finalist in the Traitors who has comparatively mild Cerebral Palsy. However, his CP is so mild that he was able to keep it hidden throughout most of the show. As I said a few weeks ago when the program aired, something about that does not sit well with me: He was saying yesterday how CP is actually fairly common, and that a lot of people have it but it’s so mild that others might not realise. He then went on to explain how you could wear a special, flower-adorned lanyard to let people know you identify as disabled.

I’m sorry, but if you need to wear a lanyard to tell people you’re a cripple, you’re not a zarking cripple! Cerebral palsy, like all disabilities, should be obvious: if you have it, it effects your ability to walk, talk and move, albeit to varying degrees. In my case, people can instantly see that I have CP, which is why most of the time strangers treat me like a five year old. If someone’s CP is so mild enough they can hide it, I don’t see the point of them saying they have it in the first place. If they can walk, talk and move like anyone else can, to the point that nobody notices and it has no discernible impact on their lives, how are they disabled? Frankly, it’s like a white, middle class person claiming to be black because one of their great, great grandparents was black, then going on to claim to share all the oppression and racism black people suffer. It may be currently politically and socially fashionable to be seen as a member of a minority, but such cultural intrusion is becoming increasingly widespread and increasingly perverse.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so negative and grumpy; ultimately it’s great to see a disabled guy getting so much media attention for once. Yet a voice in the back of my head keeps asking: did Jake go to special school? Did Jake get a second rate, half-arsed education because everyone assumed he’d never achieve anything? Did Jake have to watch his classmates die one by one? Can Jake only go into certain buildings because his wheelchair can’t go upstairs? Do people assume Jake has the mental ability of a doormat and treat him like a toddler? Does Jake experience a plethora of other hardships on a day to day basis, but has to just accept them as the way things are? Because if he doesn’t, he has no right to usurp the identities of those of us who do for his own gain.

Happy Retirement Mrs. Hickson

I came across some news which I think is quite astonishing last night. On my old school’s Facebook page, I saw that Chris Hickson was retiring. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a long, long time: Mrs Hickson is – or was – the Speech and Language Therapist at Hebden Green. One of my very earliest memories is of her coming to the nursery department of school to take me to her office for our weekly sessions. I must only have been four or five at the time; the sessions were one-to-one, as I was the only kid in my class who needed speech therapy.

My weekly meetings with Mrs. Hickson continued throughout my time at school. If memory serves, they were often basically just chats, where she would just encourage me to speak. This was long before I got my first communication aid, so it was obviously important to get me to talk as clearly as possible. We used to talk about absolutely anything, especially my favourite books at the time. Obviously, Mrs H would then structure exercises for me around those subjects, but I remember sessions with her being fun and engaging.

Once, getting into her office, I threw my school bag onto the floor before sitting down. I was at the age when throwing things around seemed like a fun thing to do. I remember Mrs. Hickson looking quite aghast at me: “Matthew,” She said, “What if that bag contained a communication aid? It wouldn’t be a good idea to throw it around like that if it did.” At the time I didn’t feel very concerned, but I can see now that it was the beginning of something which would become far more significant for me.

Indeed, it was with Mrs. Hickson’s help that I was given my first Lightwriter. It was a relatively primitive device, compared to the communication aids we’re using now, but it completely revolutionised my life. I was suddenly able to talk to anyone and everyone I wanted, not just people who knew me well enough to understand my speech. The first morning I got one, I remember going up to shop keepers in Macclesfield and asking them for all kinds of bizarre things. It was like a whole new world had opened up.

Obviously, it was only because I had this new ability that I could do all kinds of things which would have been difficult previously, like going to the comprehensive school next to Hebden for GCSE english classes. That then lead to me going to college, then university, and eventually moving down to London. That would simply not have been possible had I not had a communication aid: talking to anyone like Esther, Charlotte, John, or the guys over in Tesco, would have been off limits. These days I use my communication aid daily; it is essential to me. The last twenty years of my life could not have happened had I not had the ability to communicate with other people efficiently.

All that is ultimately thanks to Mrs. Hickson and her foresight. I am thus highly indebted to her. No doubt she has helped countless other young people in similar ways. Frankly, given that I left school over twenty years ago, finding out that she is only just retiring yesterday struck me as astonishing. Indeed, Mrs. Hickson had been working at Hebden since the seventies: her legacy must surely be incredible. In many ways, it is because of her that I lead the life I now do, trundling around South-East London, talking to all kinds of people; going into shops and asking for all kinds of things. I therefore wish Mrs Hickson the happiest of retirements. Most of all, I’ll always have fond memories of our weekly speech therapy sessions back at school.