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December 2014 – Chapter 3/Number3 is already creating new futures: Quite a bit of it in London, where some of The Zine team are based. With our Chapter 1 talents raising their profile within a year, the power of under radar music is proven. Freshly uploaded, Chapter 3 makes Spring/Summer 2015 buzz in advance. True movement.

Starting a live music venue from scratch at Number3London; as we are setting up, is that Bruno Wizard of The Homosexuals or Jimmy Johnson of CuT with our music editor, Dizzy Spell?

On that evening (Friday 5th December), four inspirational bright young things came together; (left to right) Film creative, Elisabeth Rasmussen, musician/promoter/radio presenter Jean Genie Graham, musician/dj Kalamity Kate and photographer, Polly Harvey who is one of The Zine’s Chapter 3 photographers.

Number3Live Sessions are go. Soon after, Chapter 1 cover stars, Rhiannon The Nightmare play live with James Fisher (who also does a photo session…

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Archives #2 – Portraits

… when I wanted to make a go of this ‘photography’ lark I did a few photo shoots.  I’m really proud of some of the work I did and am sad that I don’t have time to do so much any more.  I no longer have my lights (in limbo at the moment) and I’m still trying to work out the whys and wherefores of off-camera flash.  I’ve never been particularly good at lighting techniques and it’s something I really would like to practice again (when I get new lights I guess).

But here are a few portraits that I’m still proud of:

This photograph was taken in a make-shift photobooth we set up (before they became all hip and trendy). I was there for what seemed like hours, capturing the crazy looks of the revelers.

I did some work with models off Model Mayhem to build up my portfolio. This one was featured in a magazine which I should really hunt out!

Anarkali – a photograph from two days spent photographing bellydancers at a Bellydance Superstar event.
I loved these women – so inspiring.

Samantha Emmanuel. She invited me down to Devon to photograph a bellydance weekend and I spent some time doing a shoot with her.

At the Spiegeltent when it was next to Battersea Power station.

This was a photo shoot with a MUA and a model to build our portfolios. He was up for ANYTHING so we dressed him as a fairy. I was really proud of my editing more than anything on this.

I’m going to hunt out some of my ‘band’ photographs later in the week.  It’s fun going through the archives – I think I was an ‘ok’ photographer at one point!

 

puts it all in perspective

The worst part of my job is knowing that occasionally you will have to deal with the death of a student.

We heard this morning that one of our students from last year, a much loved student, died at the weekend.  I obviously won’t go into details but just knowing that at 16 years and 9 months this sweet boy’s life was cut short just breaks my heart.

I was watching some videos I made with him last year, just seeing his smile and hearing his laughter as he acted in front of the camera made me cry with sadness and joy.  Sadness that he is no longer here, but joy at knowing what he achieved in school. He faced so many adversities to be in mainstream education and left with qualifications – something he probably couldn’t have done a few decades ago.

I don’t know what else to say really … but I’ll never forget him!

… was that really me?

Well it’s early in the morning and I’m awake.  I have to start getting ready for work in just over an hour and it’s SO cold.  But I’m tucked up in bed, wrapped in my dressing gown and watching the news.  I’m a creature of habit if nothing else.

Firstly I want to say that this isn’t some pass/agg way of ‘talking indirectly’ to him.  He’s blocked all over the place and I don’t think he even knew I had this blog so this is my way of ‘talking through’ my current state of mind … just to clear that up!

I finally read back that last post, over 2 months later, and it seems like a different person. I understand now why the ‘2 months non-contact rule’ exists.  Because, after 2 months, you don’t want to hear from them again!  I’m not going to bitch and moan because there’s no need to any more.  I’m pissed that he still hasn’t bothered to change his address with his bank so I’m STILL having to fight the fact that the credit rating on this flat is for shit!  But … other than that … my life is good.  And I’m not just saying that.

After a break-up with someone you thought you knew and loved, you experience intense grief.  I realised that a lot of that was to do with me questioning myself.  Questioning why I allowed that to happen for so long.  Why I allowed the slow, inexorable decline of my self-esteem and my personality to happen.  I don’t recognise that woman any more.  That weak, pathetic creature who would do anything to hold onto someone who was obviously no longer interested.

I posted this on my Facebook before I went to Rome:

“I’ve realised that the past few days I’ve not even thought about him, not in any sort of ‘I miss him’ way. I’ve even called him by his name and not called him ‘the shit’.
When he’s popped up as a ‘recommended friend’ there’s no jump in my heart, no feeling of sickness, no tears rising up in my eyes. Instead there is a gentle acceptance that he is no longer in my life and my life is so much better for it.
I’m not saying that this will definitely be the way … Yes I will occasionally have moments when my heart pounds a little harder and my eyes tear up when I think of him. But … In the same way that ‘I’ learned how not to behave in a relationship from my life with M, I now know what I will not accept in my life from a partner thanks to B.
I’ve used this time to grow and learn a lot about myself. Some has been hard, some has been exciting and some has been just an awakening of what I already knew.
So thank you … You all know who you are. My family and friends (such interchangeable words) who have seen me through all of this.
I love you all xxxxxxxxx”

I’m embarrassed about who I was as I was going through the break-up.  I’m embarrassed about the discussions I had with people where I excused his behaviour, where I went a little bit ‘psycho ex’ (although, to be fair, compared to what people suggested I did I think I behaved pretty decently all things considered!) where I cried and cried.  Just even typing this makes me embarrassed.  But love does weird things to people and it can never be said that I didn’t love with all my heart.

I wear my heart on my sleeve – this has, to be honest, had a detrimental effect on me as people who aren’t as honest as they purport to be will abuse my trust. I can’t change who I am to such a degree that I am untrue to myself but I am starting to protect myself more.

I’m enjoying life more than I have done for a couple of years. Friends and colleagues tell me how well I look, I guess the anxiety is gone from my face. I like the fact that despite the weightloss being quite dramatic (I AM getting tired of comments congratulating me on eating at work- people seemed to think this was all deliberate – believe me I love food – just I didn’t want to eat much!) I know I look healthier. I look like me again!

Looking back over posts from the past I realise that I was very angry for a long time. That manifested itself in my online spats when I should have just left them alone. I don’t want to psychoanalyse myself too much (too late) but I believe that these were substitutes for the anger I felt about my home life. I couldn’t express that so, as many do, I took it out on others. I can only apologise for that (although some really did deserve it!).

But I’m not embarrassed to say that the majority of the time I behaved in a respectful and mature way.  I tried to understand the other side of the story, I tried to see his point of view and I not to be angry.  Because I know how debilitating anger is.

This has helped me because now I am indifferent.  And that’s such a better position to be in.  I can no longer feel anything for him.  I have no good memories of our time together, though I’m sure they will return and I will look back fondly on some of the times.

The new me has emerged and in fact emerged quite a few weeks ago.  I will no longer define myself as someone who’s just ‘gone through a break up’ … fuck that.  I’m back back back! ha ha …

Even looking to the left of this post makes me embarrassed that I read a bloody ‘self-help’ book … arghhhhhhhhhhhhh … wtf? Honestly, I don’t recognise that woman.  She wasn’t me, I was hijacked!

… enough …

Moving on …

So things haven’t been great. Probably the worst summer ever spent desperately trying to sort myself out while battling with complex emotions and moods.

My friends and family have been amazing but it doesn’t stop me from feeling alone and lonely. I’m not very good at asking for help from my friends because they’re all so busy, so I spend a lot of my time curled up in messy, snotty balls of tears beating myself up and wondering when this will stop. The general consensus seems to be 6 months … 6 months of this? 

In less than a week I am back to work and although I’m looking forward to having a routine in my life again I feel that I have so much left to do. Everything I had planned to do this summer went to the dogs because my priorities changed.

Dealing with my emotions and feelings have been the hardest. I’ve tried to be angry. I’ve tried to hate. I’ve tried to be indifferent but none of theses are me. I’m not that person. I always see what else is going on with someone to drive them to hurt me so deeply and end up caring more about them than myself. I wish I didn’t care I really do.

The over-riding feeling though is loss. I’ve lost the man who was the love of my life. The man who gave me confidence, who allowed me to be myself … And then that rug was slowly taken from beneath me. The systematic decline of our relationship had me questioning my own sanity and now I’m stuck here trying to come to terms with what was real and what was not.

I know that I am better without him. He pulled me down with him and I couldn’t sink to a lower point than I was just before we split. However the times we’ve spent together since we broke up showed me that there was something great there once.  If only he could have talked to me when we were together in the way that we could after we broke up. And now we are Day 1 of the 60 days of non-contact. It needed to be done. I know he won’t want me back – but I need to get over the hoping because it’s unhealthy. I miss him though – I miss him so much.

But I can’t keep harping backwards – I need to move on. 

New ink!

And after a rant here’s my new ink – a death’s head moth. By Darryl Gates at Diamond Jacks Tattoos.

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Surviving The Evacuation, Book 1: London by Frank Tayell

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I love a good zombie story – and one stuck in my neck of the woods I thought would be right up my alley. Unfortunately the narrator was entirely unsympathetic which would have worked if we had him interacting more with other characters. However I found myself caring less and less about him and ended up scan-reading a lot of the remainder of the book. There was nothing original here and although there was a potential great storyline regarding government corruption it was never explored deeply enough.
Maybe the sequels will examine this further but I can’t be bothered to read them when there are much better writers in the genre out there.
Also the Kindle edition has a few spelling and punctuation errors which were a bit annoying.

View all my reviews

A review of my review

I can understand people disliking my opinion.  I’m very opinionated and sometimes this rubs people up the wrong way.  I accept that.  Everyone is entitled to their opinion, including me.  However, what I hate (and if anyone has read any other posts on this blog you will know this) are people who are irrational and ill-informed in their comments.

Recently I reviewed a book called The Key To Erebus.  Like all of my reviews it was written on Goodreads first then posted here on my blog.  For the first time someone chose to comment on my review on Goodreads:

I totally took it on board that I got the name of the lead character wrong – but that did also make my point that she was so dull that I couldn’t even remember it a few hours after finishing the book!

So here’s my response:

Yes, I got annoyed, hence the questions. I really didn’t understand her use of the word ‘bias’.  Firstly I didn’t understand why the issue of bias was even raised with regard to a review.  A review is your personal opinion, right?  Or am I getting this wrong?  Should I really be encouraging people to waste a few hours on this Buffy/ Twilight knock-off?

So she responded (natch):

Where did I review Buffy and Twilight???????? ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Yeah – she got my back up!

Has anyone else come across people who dislike their reviews enough to make you want to argue the toss with them?

I always judge a book by its cover

I thought this post was going to be about celebrating the beauty of paper cut and die cut style book covers.  However as I started writing it I realised that all of the books I was looking at may have nodded towards this style but more obvious was their colour – or as some might say – the lack of it.

It wasn’t until I started teaching at the current school I am in 2 1/2 years ago that I realised my wardrobe had been painted one night by the colours red, white and black.  Students who I’d never even taught were coming up to me and stating ‘your favourite colour is red and black’ (yes they do leave out the plural of ‘colour’ usually); the white always seems to be a given.

And I realised that my colour choices, conciously or unconciously, have been influencing my choices in almost everything.  It’s apparent through the way that my partner and I choose the decor in our flat, the presents I have bought for me and, it seems, the books I sometimes choose to read:

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I remember seeing this book (the UK design on the left) cover in my local Waterstones and wanting to immediately place my cash down on the counter and run away with it.  Not only was it in a colour palette I don almost every day of the year but it was about a circus!  I’m not sure why I didn’t buy it when I first saw it.  My shelves are heaving with books and I probably figured that I didn’t need another to read.  Or it could have been that it looked TOO similar to a book inspired by The Dresden Dolls – one of my favourite ever bands.  I know what some of the fans of Ms Palmer and Mr Viglione are like and the idea of reading fiction inspired by them wasn’t something I wanted to indulge in {of course after reading the book and reading about the author I realised that she is, indeed a fan, but definitely not to the detriment of her writing – and yes I do realise how awful that sounds.  I have tried to rephrase it in many other ways but I’m nothing if not honest and what I essentially didn’t want to read was a book that seemed full of veiled DD references and song lyrics}. Following a drink with my ex-husband one night he told me about this book I should read.  He assured me that as soon as he started reading The Night Circus he knew I’d love it.  I told him why I’d avoided it and he said that I should read it.  I’ve always trusted him on his recommendations so  I bought it the next day and devoured it.

As far as I can work out Erin Morgenstern designed the cover herself – oh how I hate her!  A compelling author and a stunning artist.

I don’t hate her I am just green with envy.

My ex’s recommendation was based on my love of this book:

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norell – Susanna Clarke

I was so excited to take down this tome from the bookshelf in the shop.  I was immediately drawn to the matte cream paper, the simple cover and the silhouette of the raven.  The monochromatic scheme and the size of the book meant that there had to be so many treasures inside that to reveal them all on the cover would have ruined it.  I had to wait for a 4 week sojourn in my ex-in-laws house in the South of France before I could read it – it’s not a book for carrying with my marking to and from work.

Since those days I’ve read the book again twice.  I bought the red covered paperback a year later and fell into it’s magical realm again.  However it took me much longer that the 6 days it took in France a year earlier simply because of its weight.

A few years later and my new beau bought me a copy from a charity shop.  He proceeded to pull it into three parts.  Not being the novel lover that I am I was shocked at this destruction of this book but it did mean – that  I could carry a ‘normal sized novel’ to and from work with me to yet again follow this tale.  Perfect.  No doubt I will purchase it again for my Kindle so I can have an even more portable version for the next time I want to read it.

My final choice for this ever-changing blog entry is:

The Book of Lost Things – John Connolly

 

Like The Night Circus this book not only indulges my love for black, white and red {with a bit of grey which never goes amiss} but also uses a stunning paper cut design by Robert Ryan.

Now, I haven’t read this book, yet.

It’s been sitting on my shelves for ages and again, I have no idea why.  The only reason I can think of is fear.  Fear that it’s not going to live up to expectations.  That the entangled leaves, brambles and keys will not hold me to it as the cover promises.

There is nothing worse that a book not living up to their cover.

Watching Fox News at the moment

People wonder why I watch Fox News. In the Victorian era people used to go on day trips to Bedlam to watch the crazies … Fox News is my Bedlam.