sucking you in

The grand week concluded with gently different gumdrops and Saturdays.
I met my friend Emma at Embankment tube station, and we proceeded in walking towards an art gallery whose name had given me the slip , and I had only a vague idea as to where it was. My directions from memory were thus: “Leave station, go left, it’s back a bit.” Needless to say, I got us completely lost, and walking in circles, before prompted recall courtesy of a WHSmith tour guide (read on the shelf of course) sent me back to where we had started half an hour earlier, and across the bridge over the Thames to the South Bank.
We walked past the Royal festival hall, where we saw footballer Raud Hullet outside and the geeky bloke who presents the channel 5 Pepsi chart show, though un-phased by such D-list stars, we walked on ignoring them.

The Hayward gallery (mental note, when time travel is invented, go back to myself on Saturday morning, and tell me the name of the gallery) was our destination, and the ticket turnstile without turnstiles slipped us into the hole works of Anish Kapoor, constructor if intimate space. The entire gallery had been reconstructed especially to harbour the exhibition. The works were amazing. Most of them explored were single colour and invited interaction, as womb like orifices.

For example, there would be a huge silver steel hole in the wall, which you would lean into, and no matter how far you stretched in , you could never see the edges, you’d just reach in further and further, and seem more distant from any surfaces, until all you could see was your distorted reflection, to the exclusion of the rest of the universe, in an intimate moment outside of time and space. Inside the space were fantastic acoustics, and the faintest whimper or movement of lips would endlessly reverberate into non-matter. To our amazement, from another angle, you can see exactly how big the hole is, and it isn’t very large at all!! We just kept on leaning into all the exhibits, and kept being told by over zealous jobsworth security guards not to touch anything, as we would damage it!

One NARCY OLD BAG even had the nerve to say to me, while I was merely leaning my head forward, with my body FIRMLY rooted on the floor: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to lean in, you might lose your balance” “LIKE BITCH, I REALLY HAVEN’T BEEN STANDING UP FOR TWENTY TWO BLOODY YEARS AND AM AN ABSOLUTE CABBAGESQUE RETARD WHEN IT COMES TO PREVENTING MYSELF FROM FALLING OVER ON REGULAR OCCASIONS, AND LANDING IN A BLUBBERING MESS WITH ALARMING FREQUENCY!!!” (Tori encounters excluded, and waxworks) I refrained from actually saying this, but merely scowled and using my guide book as a prop, illustrated the distance to face deficit between myself and said exhibit, showing her up to be the golden ass burger that she was. ( and no bitch, my hair isn’t going to fall out and land on the white sides of the dome either!!!)

One exhibit outside twisted the sky and reflected all around in it’s global fancy. Emma and I spent some time out there on the roof, in the June sun-haze, and created our own exhibits by leaning over the edge and watching the people below seemingly walk up the walls of our perceptually constructed angular stone floor.

The final piece was a giant red sphere, suspended from the ceiling, we lay underneath it, staring up into it’s infinite depths, it was an endless mass of space and earth fused, and made us feel very small, and entranced, making walking afterwards very difficult. Looking at flat surfaces afterwards became like staring at one of those magic eye pictures, as everything started to sink deeper and melt, when in fact it was flat and solid!


Hole in the wall: June 1998

The grand week concluded with gently different gumdrops and Saturdays. I met my friend Emma at Embankment tube station, and we proceeded in walking towards an art gallery whose name had given me the slip , and I had only a vague idea as to where it was. My directions from memory were thus: “Leave station, go left, it’s back a bit.” Needless to say, I got us completely lost, and walking in circles, before prompted recall courtesy of a WHSmith tour guide (read on the shelf of course) sent me back to where we had started half an hour earlier, and across the bridge over the Thames to the South Bank. We walked past the Royal festival hall, where we saw footballer Raud Hullet outside and the geeky bloke who presents the channel 5 Pepsi chart show, though un-phased by such D-list stars, we walked on ignoring them. The Hayward gallery (mental note, when time travel is invented, go back to myself on Saturday morning, and tell me the name of the gallery) was our destination, and the ticket turnstile without turnstiles slipped us into the hole works of Anish Kapoor, constructor if intimate space. The entire gallery had been reconstructed especially to harbour the exhibition. The works were amazing. Most of them explored were single colour and invited interaction, as womb like orifices. For example, there would be a huge silver steel hole in the wall, which you would lean into, and no matter how far you stretched in , you could never see the edges, you’d just reach in further and further, and seem more distant from any surfaces, until all you could see was your distorted reflection, to the exclusion of the rest of the universe, in an intimate moment outside of time and space. Inside the space were fantastic acoustics, and the faintest whimper or movement of lips would endlessly reverberate into non-matter. To our amazement, from another angle, you can see exactly how big the hole is, and it isn’t very large at all!! We just kept on leaning into all the exhibits, and kept being told by over zealous jobsworth security guards not to touch anything, as we would damage it! One NARCY OLD BAG even had the nerve to say to me, while I was merely leaning my head forward, with my body FIRMLY rooted on the floor: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to lean in, you might lose your balance” “LIKE BITCH, I REALLY HAVEN’T BEEN STANDING UP FOR TWENTY TWO BLOODY YEARS AND AM AN ABSOLUTE CABBAGESQUE RETARD WHEN IT COMES TO PREVENTING MYSELF FROM FALLING OVER ON REGULAR OCCASIONS, AND LANDING IN A BLUBBERING MESS WITH ALARMING FREQUENCY!!!” (Tori encounters excluded, and waxworks) I refrained from actually saying this, but merely scowled and using my guide book as a prop, illustrated the distance to face deficit between myself and said exhibit, showing her up to be the golden ass burger that she was. ( and no bitch, my hair isn’t going to fall out and land on the white sides of the dome either!!!) One exhibit outside twisted the sky and reflected all around in it’s global fancy. Emma and I spent some time out there on the roof, in the June sun-haze, and created our own exhibits by leaning over the edge and watching the people below seemingly walk up the walls of our perceptually constructed angular stone floor. The final piece was a giant red sphere, suspended from the ceiling, we lay underneath it, staring up into it’s infinite depths, it was an endless mass of space and earth fused, and made us feel very small, and entranced, making walking afterwards very difficult. Looking at flat surfaces afterwards became like staring at one of those magic eye pictures, as everything started to sink deeper and melt, when in fact it was flat and solid! After our trip to the edges of ourselves, we strolled along the Thames walk, taking the path that Hugh Grant took in Four Weddings, and I tried miserably to quote the film, while running backwards. Eventually we came to Tower bridge, and after sunbathing a while, crossed it, sandwiched by Mediterranean tourists and impressionable purists, Before crashing down on the lawns outside the tower of London. We lay there some time chatting about the stuff that drives, and the wounds men make, the deep recesses of our thoughts and perspectives, why pigeons don’t give good blow jobs, and how everyone may or may not have their perfect march out there somewhere, though it’s hard to keep a straight face when an airplane is flying into Emma’s left ear, and out of her right a few seconds later. A Devine chicken Balti and sweet sweet Guinness filled my inner void, which must have looked like a work of Kapoor for we were both so hungry, good old Mr Wetherspoon, puts on a good spread. The day was capped by a couple of pints at an old fire station converted into a pub near waterloo. I was desperately looking for the firemen’s pole to slip down, but it had been removed, so we doused the fires burning with beer, and watery discourse, in the company of friends of friends who you never really get to know, and Emma’s cool housemate, whom I instantly got on with, which is rare for me, maybe it was our shared despise of blokedom and the ability to poke affectionately harmless fun at Emma! A good week now recedes into the ever nearing hell of my direct marketing exams, which make me want to growl and be primal in my schizoid freakshowered shredding of paper!!! Much glowy stuff, Johnnathrown.


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