Dance & Drink & Screw

My six-day holiday has been perfect so far.  Yesterday morning I lounged around home then went to meet millionreasons for coffee. We have been LJ, Facebook, Twitter, God Knows What Else, friends for four years but only now did we meet in real life for the first time - and she lives just up the road! We had coffee in this nice little café North of Victoria Park and chatted away for two hours about books, the Royals, music and our families. She surprised me by bringing a copy of Atwood's Bluebeard's Egg, which she originally nicked from a B&B in Bath. I have to pass it on once I'm finished.

For lunch, I cooked myself a huge bacon and eggs fry up then got myself ready for the garden. On the bus ride there, I saw police running across Mile End Road, through screeching traffic like cops in a U.S. TV show, chasing five hooded boys. They pushed them all against a wall and started searching them. One of the boys reacted and a scuffle broke out. A few minutes later, I walked past police searching and interrogating more youths in a West Ham park. I wonder if it's related to those squat raids?

The garden was quiet, with just the garden leader, one of the regulars (George) and one of the people who live across the street. I planted five broccoli plants and weeded some of the pathways. At 6pm, I headed for the South Bank to see La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928). Just before the film, wink_martindale and I bumped into denalyia . We had a glass of white wine on the Royal Festival Hall's balcony and chatted about the Expanding Mind podcast.

Jeanne d'Arc was accompanied by a live band and singers. Five guitars and basses, drums, harps, keyboards, and more. It was a mixture of Godspeed You Black Emperor, Barry Black, a dash of the Cocteau Twins and church coral songs. It was epic and marvelous. It made the film seem currant and brought out the intensity of Maria Falconetti's performance. I want to own that soundtrack.

Edit: Looking at info on yesterday's performance, I just realised that it was the guys from Portishead and Goldfrapp who created and led the score.  I should have known about this beforehand, shouldn't I?

There's a giant Sainsbury's supermarket by Whitechapel. Since it's on my way home, I decide to drop by and purchase a few things. I'm in the pizza aisle when an announcement comes on telling us to remain where we are. Everyone stops for a brief moment, looks at their neighbour, then continues to wander around. The staff look as bewildered as the shoppers. The recorded voice message is on repeat, telling us to stay put.

I'm getting near the shampoo aisle when the message changes to a fire alarm. It's loud, interspeared with a message telling everyone to evacuate. I shove my basket above the nappies and head towards the exit. There's only about ten other people doing the same; everyone else stands around with a mild look of if-there-is-no-fire-I'm-gonna-keep-shopping. The staff have congregated by the door; they lift their shoulders and shake their heads to the few people who ask what's going on. It reminds me of an experiment I once saw on TV, where a man sat in a room filling job applications, little knowing that the other people with him were actors. When the room began to fill up with smoke, the actors didn't budge, kept on writing their applications as if there was nothing wrong. So the guy did the same, against his instinct to run away. The need to shop overrules the need to survive (for some.)

Sissy Jen called us last night with the news that she found a worm in her Tesco salad bag. She had just poured some dressing on her plate, so it was hard taking photos for evidence that distinguished the worm from the creamy sauce.

After Sainsbury's, I walk towards Bethnal Green Road. A beautiful black-haired young man comes out of the fire station's garage, spits on the asphalt, then strides like John Wayne to a payphone. One block away, a red double-decker bus rolls down the road, a big sign for the Respect political party hanging from it, Gloria Gaynor's Aretha Franklin classic track blasting through speakers: I'm about to give you all of my money, all I ask of you in return honey, is to give me a lil' Respect (just a little).

A car with young asian boys honks at the bus, and when the Respect members wave back at them the boys stick their arms out of the car and give them the middle-finger.

After my apartment's flooding on Friday, I thought it would be a nice, relaxing change to meet friends for drinks on Saturday night. In Camden. Most people, including the birthday-celebrators, were already sitting down with their cocktails when I arrived at 55 Bar. It was happy hour and the men behind the counter had beautiful arms and the kind of costumer service only seen in the U.S. of A.

We are sitting in the reserved corner, sipping away our fruity sobriety, under a barrage of classic rock, when someone returns from the outside hyperventilating: "there's a massive fire in Camden market. If you haven't seen it, go outside. The air is covered in smoke and people are being evacuated." One of the bartenders, who looks like the younger, fit brother of Paul Giamatti, starts a rumour that a junkie dropped a cigarette in a pile of newspaper (later, when we leave the bar, I'll catch him telling the bouncer that a freight train carrying oil collided with something just as it was going past Camden market.) As kixie said, a train goes through Camden market?!? And as moral_vacuum said, there goes London's supply of cheap PVC trousers.

For the rest of the night, we updated each other on the fire, showing the images we captured on our mobile phones, notifying family and friends that we were alive, and generally continuing our drinking as if we'd only leave the bar if forced by riot police. I didn't have my mobile phone on me, so I couldn't notify Kevin or anyone else that I was alive (Kevin, at that hour, was staying over his sister's and completely oblivious to my damsel-in-not-much-distress status.)

Other than this major event in London's history, I met some nice people, and had a good time with the old timers I always see in these gatherings. Some unfortunately left too early, leaving me in hope we'll have a better catch up next time around. Others didn't speak to me until the end of the night; they better make it up next time by lavishing me with plenty of attention. And drinks.

My most surreal memory of the night is standing by Camden Town tube station, police cars everywhere, streets deserted and cordonned off, a girl sobbing hysterically into her boyfriend's shoulder, TV cameras pointed at perky journalists (surrounded by your typical rubberneckers), and teqkiller and I, leaning against a police barrier, sharing hand moisturizer SPF 45.

I watched two films yesterday that fetishized leather and pain. The first one was Preaching to the Perverted, the story of a group of religious conservatives in Britain trying to bring down a S&M club. It was like an Eastenders episode dealing with buttplugs and pierced genitalia. The second film was Mad Max, a classic of the post-apocalypse genre which is full of leather men on bikes and cars fighting each other in the Australian Outback. For the first time in years of Mad Max re-runs, I saw the version featuring the original Ozzie accents rather than the American or Brasilian dubbed versions. There's something about the Ozzie accent that perfectly fits a crumbling civilization. :-P

The Mad Max trilogy is strangely allegorical and prophetic. Filmed in 1979, it could have easily dealt with nuclear war, or some other popular paranoia of the time, but it went for global warming and the power of petroleum instead (which I think is much more popular today than ever before). The first film lays the groundwork for the society coming apart: police turn vigilante when puny liberals destroy the justice system; marauding gangs take on nicknames and outfits that wouldn't be out of place in London's Torture Garden; and the Ballardesque setting hints at a society crumbling and self-imploding because of global warming/eco destruction. These themes are then further explored in episodes 2 & 3.

I haven't seen Tarantino's Death Proof yet, but the trailer - with its fast cars and seventies look - reminded me of Mad Max. Must be another movie Tarantino studied for inspiration. Actually, the first scene of Mad Max, with the insane couple causing havoc on the roads as they are chased by the police, reminded me of the couple in Pulp Fiction's diner. The midnight movie element is there.

There are some rumours that a new Mad Max movie is in production, but without Mel Gibson. In the meantime, it would be nice if a cinema in London held a showing of the three Mad Max movies, back to back. And it would also be nice if Mel Gibson wasn't such an asshole in real life; I hate feeling guilty for watching his films.

Deep underground, at Bank tube station, a busker strummed her guitar and sang The Smiths' Panic: "Panic on the streets of London/Panic on the streets of Birmingham/And I wonder to myself/Whether I'll ever be sane again..." Stupidly, I didn't stop to listen to what was a beautiful folky version of the song.

Her choice must have been based on the gales hitting the country.

Holy Macaroni!

A tornado has struck North West London. The tornado went down Chamberlayne Road, not too far from Kilburn Lane, where I lived for a year and a half [full story here - thanks for the heads up sparklielizard].

I know that road well. We walked down it every time we visited Sainsburys or wanted to rent a movie. We also used it for reaching Queen's Park or going to our local pub. Incredible.

London looked horrible this morning, with rain and darkness everywhere. The downpour disappeared on my way to work, then returned with a few thunderstorms and black clouds. An hour later, the sky was blue.

Question for any Brits reading this: have tornados ever appeared in London before?

When I lived in Canada, whenever a topic of conversation went serious - frakenstein food, globalization, destruction of the planet - some of my friends would interrupt by saying "oh, Amazon forest conversation." It was their way of saying the topic was another highly serious one which shouldn't/couldn't affect their lives; or that it was a cliche to talk about something so heavy, overly played out in the media. They would rather think about the latest fashion trend then the consequences of drinking coffee ground by exploited workers.

I wonder if the current bandwagon-jumping on global warming fears is a little too similar to the one two decades ago when people became worried about the Amazon forest disappearing. At the time, Sting went to Brasil and visited the natives in the forest; millions proclaimed that Brasil should stop destroying the world's lung; but then something else went on the front pages and the story slowly disappeared out of view. I would like to believe that the current warnings on global warming will change the world, but who can say how oh-so-predictably-crap-at-hearing-warnings human beings will react? Will the papers be interested in this story by next year?

My feelings tend to go from extreme negativity to positivity. This morning, looking at the weekend newspapers, I'd swear on the Bible that we were heading for deep shit. How could we not? We as a species refuse to memorize our history lessons. In doubt, read Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Many human civilizations have been destroyed before and it wouldn't be impossible for ours to go the same route. If you add up all the stories in the papers - collapsing fisheries, escalating civil wars, disappearing water resourses, etc - it's enough to make you wish Virgin would hurry up with their space flights so you could book yourself on the next one to the Moon. And the majority of news editors and journalists don't help matters by scarying the public with twisted stories on the government's upcoming green taxes.

But this evening, on my gym's treadmill, with The Kooks on the stereo, and all these different people sweating beside me, it became obvious that in some aspects we are no longer like our ancestors, and perhaps we won't commit the same errors they committed. Sure, there's a vast majority of people who don't give a crap and will continue leaving their lights on when they leave their home, but the percentage of people who are not like that is higher than ever before. In the past, civilizations collapsed sometimes due to factors beyond their control (e.g. enemies or viruses) but the vast majority of them suffered because they didn't understand how important their environment was to them. We are no longer like that.

That the shit is going to hit the fan is obvious. Rich countries are going to have to deal with masses of refugees in the future, and probably the rise of extreme right-wing politics as a consequence; but there will also be places where environmentalism will show definite improvements in people's lives, and this will in turn encourage other communities to follow suit. I have to believe things will turn out OK, otherwise I might as well not get out of bed.

We can see the smoke from our office.

I hope they manage to get it under control soon.

Update: Seems to be under control, or gone. It rained and there is no more smoke. Also, the pesky news helicopters have buggered off.

We'd just turned out the lights last night and got into bed when I smelled something funny. At first it seemed like someone was burning incense -- possibly Natalia, who likes that sort of stuff, but a different brand. Then I thought something was burning in the kitchen; maybe the oven had been left on with something inside it. Kevin did a quick check of the apartment while I spied out of our windows; the courtyard was empty and, although you could see a sort of mist hanging by the street lamps, there were no fires.

Then I looked down and saw an ashy pile burning against our building's wall. Kevin stuck his head out of the bathroom window and when I pointed out the fire to him, he ran into the kitchen, got a bucket, filled it with water, and ran downstairs.

I kept a watch on the fire but it didn't seem in any danger of spreading: it looked close to over, and it was on top of a concrete block, near the back door entrance. By the time Kevin got to it, there was only smoke. He poured the water over it and stepped over any smouldering bits. When he got back, he told me it was a pile of newspapers. Why was it there? We have no clue. It could have been started by someone dropping a lit cigarette onto it, or on purpose.