18.7.13

london notes, summer 2013

To live in London is to be constantly on the brink of a life-changing event which never arrives.

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Overground

The man is muttering without pause on his smartphone as we travel between Surrey Quays and Canada Water. About Jesus. And God. To whom he perhaps believes himself to be speaking. Or to whom he is perhaps indeed speaking. His conversation is urgent, animated, contained. Jesus punctuates. The speaker is black. He has a goatee. His phone is a Sony Experia. It is weighty, even flashy. Its screen barely seems to fit in his hand. He doesn't care. He travels with God.

You are in Madrid. You're in Tarragona. You're drinking beer in Alcala de Henares. You're in Madrid again, in a hostel with marcabre sillhouettes on the wall. You're in Badajoz. You're in Madrid. I'm gyrating round London like a tourist. Hoping God will find me. But God's talking to the man who's other hand, the one not holding the Sony Experia, is flicking through the pages of the Standard without looking at them. He's fully occupied with Jesus. Who has no time for anyone else.

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Geography

If LA is the Northermost Latino city, then London must be the Westernmost Asian city.

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The Look (Shoreditch)

The look comes from within, intially. It is the external projection of a cerebral dream. Of course, the look, the affectation of the look, would appear on first sight something superficial, vacuous. 'Style over substance'. But this is in itself a shallow reading, by-and-large adopted by those who lack the courage to attempt to realise their inner visions; those who feel safer shattering idols rather than constructing them.

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Summer Fragrance

Aroma of promise, threat of rain, loss of virginity,
Untramelled nights, days of plenty, drunk beneath the
Spreading oak, head leans on kind breast, the world as it
Might have been, the eternity of England, promise,
Promises kept, promises reneged. A man in mirror
Shades and moustache, dressed in black. A girl in
White. Nothing to do. Laze the daze awaze. This was
Our youth and the youth of all who come hereafter
To imbibe this smell now that summer has come
And Albion belongs to you and your buttercup dreams.

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Interrupted by Dhiraj

How can a city contain so many corners? I would like to return in 20 years to find it has all been irrevocably altered. Beyond re-cognition. Beyond repair.

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