hey julio, im gonna be down in london next week so pl post details here - hope to come along
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 12:05 (fifteen years ago) link
i don't live around london. tho i am heading up there for the weekend for the meltdown concerts and maaaay still be around monday/tuesdayish. can't say for sure, though.
― thomp, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 14:39 (fifteen years ago) link
hey Ward! This is good timing - hope to see you too. We'll keep details here.
thomp - Oops I knew about meltdown but didn't know if you were going to be around later that week.
Unless Gamaliel can make it Monday (doesn't look like it) I'd say next thur? Looking at the options how about this one just off the main street - Old King's head - but if you all have another option in mind then do tell.
http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub473.html
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 21:08 (fifteen years ago) link
I'll revive thisILE thread now for casual ILB-ers (or otherwise) who might want to come along.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 17 June 2009 21:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Unless Gamaliel can make it Monday (doesn't look like it)
I really can't unfortunately. Awkward customer I know - the toad work. I will have an ILB FAP by myself on Thursday if it's not possible for others though, to make sure I pay my alcohol/reading duties.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 18 June 2009 07:06 (fifteen years ago) link
That's not awkward at all! See you and everyone who can come next Thursday.
Should be at the Old King's from six-ish, I shall be reading and drinking if I don't see anyone.
I'll say which book on the day :-)
Might bother to do a 'Balkanized' ILX London FAP thread over at ILE on the day of the meet.
And thomp - if you're in London later this year etc let us know and we can arrange a FAP (although I might see you on Sunday, I guess?).
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 18 June 2009 20:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Will def be along on Thursday, and will similarly post book-holding details (tho' Gamaliel and I can identify one another - we go back)
― woofwoofwoof, Thursday, 18 June 2009 22:20 (fifteen years ago) link
I might be back from Brighton in time for this FAP. Then again, come to think of it, I guess I don't know anyone who's going to it.
― the pinefox, Thursday, 18 June 2009 23:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Pinefox we have been in the same FAP several times. I think you also have talked to Ward Fowler.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 19 June 2009 19:07 (fifteen years ago) link
bit odd how the board has an entirely different clientele to last time. feels a bit like housesitting.
but, yeah, see you sunday maybe. i'll be hanging around the bar reading the bantam edition of dhalgren, i should think.
― thomp, Friday, 19 June 2009 22:48 (fifteen years ago) link
New generation, innit?
I shall look for the Dhalgren (bantam ed.)
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 20 June 2009 09:25 (fifteen years ago) link
did anything happen with this FAP?
it's nice to know that people think they've been at a FAP with me, but I doubt that I could walk into a bar and say 'hey, aren't you xyzzz__?' I don't think I can even pronounce it.
― the pinefox, Monday, 22 June 2009 17:50 (fifteen years ago) link
It's on Thursday. xyzzz is usually my last utterance of any evening in a pub.
― GamalielRatsey, Monday, 22 June 2009 17:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Pinefox - Its Julio. We only see each other once a year, or thereabouts, but still you should know what I look like.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 22 June 2009 19:32 (fifteen years ago) link
ah, would love to come to this, but not a chance I can make it.
― still counting on porcupine racetrack (G00blar), Monday, 22 June 2009 19:38 (fifteen years ago) link
That's a shame G00blar!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 22 June 2009 19:41 (fifteen years ago) link
5 month old baby + wife trying to finish PhD corrections + moving in a week = hahahah the pub??? yeah right..
― still counting on porcupine racetrack (G00blar), Monday, 22 June 2009 19:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Julio? Sure I know Julio! It just wasn't intuitive to guess that 'xyzzz__' meant 'Julio'!
― the pinefox, Tuesday, 23 June 2009 07:40 (fifteen years ago) link
I can see that.
If I don't spot anyone immediately I will be drinking and reading Patricia Highsmith's Carol at some table.
If people are spotted but not everyone else I will leave it on the table.
:-)
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 23 June 2009 19:49 (fifteen years ago) link
sorry not to see catch you at the weekend julio — how did you find ornette? i think that night had maybe the oddest selection of musicians i have ever seen share a stage
― thomp, Tuesday, 23 June 2009 21:42 (fifteen years ago) link
hey julio, am in london typing this on a borrowed computer v. quickly - am going to wimbledon tomorrow, but still plan to stick my head round the door of the old kings early eveningish - have sent a link to m@rtin skidm0re, who i think will be coming along too
btw, i have a copy of THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY by Henry James going spare, have just finished it and don't especially want to lug it back w/ me to glasgow
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 24 June 2009 09:39 (fifteen years ago) link
thomp -- sorry I missed you too, Ornette was great, I sorta revived his thread on ilm but haven't checked.
ward -- I was at wimbledon yesterday.
see you all later
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 25 June 2009 10:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Will be struggling in probably between half six and seven, looking rather shop soiled and feeling rather vinegary, in all probability clutching a copy of Henry de Montherlant's Chaos and Night.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 25 June 2009 13:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Right. Unlike the last FAP there are no pics but thanks to Gamaliel, Ward, woof and m@rtin for meeting up.
Pinefox you were missed.
As I said last night: a pleasure.
Ward - let us know when you come down to London again, and do try and go to Wimbledon some other year. The queue is 'work', but I managed to finish a book while sitting in the park waiting. And then once you get to the grounds its matches and luck that you might get to see something great, but some of the outside courts have this lovely intimacy to them. Its an experience.
Thomp - didn't get enough time to say more when I posted previously but yes, kinda weird and yet its part of harmolodics that you could get Patty Smith, Flea and Master Musicians of Jojouka on a single stage. How were the other nights you went to?
Gamaliel - Chaos and Night sounds really interesting. By a coincidence of sorts I am going to see Alain Resnais War is Over, both seem to be a central character's feverish dream of their role in the Spanish civil war(?)
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 26 June 2009 20:36 (fifteen years ago) link
i demand pictures next time!
glad you guys had a good time.
― scott seward, Friday, 26 June 2009 22:31 (fifteen years ago) link
Yes, that was def some fun. Good to meet you all - now have a brain full of recommendations and leads and look forward to doing it again.
― woofwoofwoof, Saturday, 27 June 2009 12:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Yep, I had a very good time. Drink + interesting and intelligent people (er... + me) = an evening well spent.
xyzzz___, yes, I'm liking Chaos and Night a lot. It's rather vicious and comical, free wheeling and digressively conversational. The Spanish Civil War forms the main backdrop to both the book and the main character, Celestino (exiled in Paris, hilariously, self-defeatingly misanthropic), I'm not sure how much the book deals with the actual events of it. It seems (I'm only a third of the way through) more like it's going to be about how it affected Spain 20 years later, and how it's distorted Celestino's mind - he suffers from a sort of Quixotic political insanity, that causes him to unheroically misinterpret the world around him.
Greene was a fan, and I wonder how much using the Don Quixote template to explore the idea of a mind warped by political extremity was an inspiration for (the admittedly far gentler) Monsignor Quixote.
I wish I wasn't quite so attracted to Fascist writers though - Celine, de Montherlant. It's emphatically NOT the fascism that appeals, but I do wonder if the reduction in empathy and an unwillingness to tolerate democratic compromise produces a hard, extreme style that I quite like, not exclusively, but which I certainly have a taste for from time to time.
Speaking of Fascist writers, (sort of joeks) Wyndham Lewis wrote one of his more accessible novels on the Spanish Civil War and specifically the English types involved in it (more tilting at Bloomsbury windmills) in The Revenge for Love. If you're immersing yourself in civil war stuff it's possibly worth reading for the excellent opening scene set in a Spanish prison. Lewis was capable of writing remarkable set pieces, extremely evocative of their setting - I'm thinking of the scene I just mentioned and the one at the beginning of the otherwise daunting Childermass, where a sort of heavenly limbo is described, and which feels like the best science or perhaps more properly speculative fiction (as do the excellent and hardly mentioned sequels Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta - two remarkable books).
That Resnais seems quite appealing right now - I might go on the Monday if I can finish work early enough.
― GamalielRatsey, Saturday, 27 June 2009 12:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Need to find another word for 'remarkable'.
― GamalielRatsey, Saturday, 27 June 2009 12:18 (fifteen years ago) link
"I wish I wasn't quite so attracted to Fascist writers though - Celine, de Montherlant. It's emphatically NOT the fascism that appeals, but I do wonder if the reduction in empathy and an unwillingness to tolerate democratic compromise produces a hard, extreme style that I quite like, not exclusively, but which I certainly have a taste for from time to time."
Don't know about de Motherlant - but there a negative energy to Celine that makes his writing pretty vital. Not exactly because he was a fascist either. Beckett also had that quality, from what I recall.
I should be at the NFT on Monday for Resnais, too.
I will make a point to read some Wyndham Lewis, think I'll start with The Revenge for Love
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 28 June 2009 09:58 (fifteen years ago) link
Its really lovely out there -- drink sometime next week (later in the week: Thursday, perhaps).
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 3 June 2010 21:48 (fourteen years ago) link
I'd be on for that. Gamaliel, you about?
― woof, Friday, 4 June 2010 10:59 (fourteen years ago) link
I could feasibly come along...
― Stevie T, Friday, 4 June 2010 11:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Can do Wednesday or Thursday, yep. (Wednesday slightly preferable tbh, but it's not a massive problem, Friday would be no go).
― GamalielRatsey, Friday, 4 June 2010 11:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Wed is fine with me. We'll go w/that. I know its obvious but how about the Royal Oak in Tabard street? Any other suggestions welcome...
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 4 June 2010 14:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Damn, weds not actually great for me - thurs better. Any chance of that? Royal Oak good though.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Friday, 4 June 2010 14:18 (fourteen years ago) link
oh yeah fine with either. Thur it is :-)
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 4 June 2010 14:24 (fourteen years ago) link
Royal Oak, absolutely. Thursday fine, just need to remind myself to take the late shift on Friday not the one that entails me getting up at five.
― GamalielRatsey, Friday, 4 June 2010 14:53 (fourteen years ago) link
i wonder what happened to mikey g.
― scott seward, Friday, 4 June 2010 15:07 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh and for anyone who wants to come along Thursday and does not know what we look like I will have a copy of the ARABIAN NIGHTS on the table.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 7 June 2010 15:29 (fourteen years ago) link
^Likewise, I will be the one in the corner with the vacant illiterate stare. Complete fraud going to this - my inarticulate fists can barely hold a book at the moment, let alone turn pages. I blame the ILM listening clubs.
― GamalielRatsey, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 12:07 (fourteen years ago) link
One more thing: should be there between 6-6.30.
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 8 June 2010 13:35 (fourteen years ago) link
For those who were thinking of coming along, here, from six-ish -
http://www.fancyapint.com/pubs/pub1228.php
Kinda looking like it's just going to be me, xyzzzz__ and woof, any more? Stevie T?
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:30 (fourteen years ago) link
def coming, get fucked up talk abt books.
― tetrahedron of space (woof), Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:43 (fourteen years ago) link
South of the river (Mummy, I'm scared), but might come along, fancy a walk (and a pint)
― Wenlock & Mandelson (Tom D.), Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Still not sure if I can come, but will be there around 8 if I can...
― Stevie T, Thursday, 10 June 2010 15:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Got here early. Pint of mild and a copy of Eric van Lustbader's seminal work The Ninja, which I plucked more or less randomly off the shelves of the pub, in order to justify my appearance.
LYRICALin its tranquilityREMORSELESSin its violenceSTUNNINGin its sensuality (aye-aye)HEART-STOPPING in its suspense
apparently. Surely how this FAP is going to turn out.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 10 June 2010 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh I say, apparently it also
EXPLODES THROUGH THE FRONTIERS OF MODERN FICTION WITH UNPRECEDENTED POWER
astonished I haven't heard of it before tbh.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 10 June 2010 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Hmmm. Seems pretty conventional so far.
"What the hell am I doing with a Mercedes? he asked hiSelf rhetorically."
lol.
Might just liveblog this book if no one else arrives.
Ah, my game pie is here.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 10 June 2010 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Game Pie? I wish I could've joined you chaps now. Liveblog the pie at least.
― Ismael Klata, Thursday, 10 June 2010 18:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Game pie was good, not great. We've got a quorum now. Intense discussion about the finer points of literature as I'm sure you can imagine.
― GamalielRatsey, Thursday, 10 June 2010 19:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Right, I've never stayed there before.
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:10 (one month ago) link
Did you enjoy it, Tom? I've not planned that much but its Paris..xp
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:10 (one month ago) link
I go there at least once a year. There's definitely plenty to see and do!
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:28 (one month ago) link
For example, on a whim on Saturday I went to a free outdoor "jazz" concert. First band was sort of post-bop but the second was a Marxist avant-skronk Henry Cow meets Magma octet playing extracts from a concept album about workers.. I thought, only in France.
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:35 (one month ago) link
wait you have to tell us (me) their name! are they part of RIO? (does RIO still exist?)
i will be back in that london first week nov (health check-up) and again first week dec (meeting former ilxor) -- one stay will probably be several days more than the other but right now i haven't decided which
― mark s, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:39 (one month ago) link
Kami Octet
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 08:57 (one month ago) link
I assume they're too young for RIO.
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 09:00 (one month ago) link
Lol sounds good.
---
Ok so let's aim for that first week of Nov. Check in nearer the time.
― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 09:07 (one month ago) link
First week in nov seems likely to work for me also. Enjoy Paris, xyzzz... the best advice I can give you is to take Yerac's recommendations on the relevant thread seriously.
― Tim, Wednesday, 4 September 2024 15:35 (one month ago) link
November rules and I want to attend, can we please not have on the 4th out of deference to the papists among us (I have a prior commitment)
― Romy Gonzalez’s utility infusion (gyac), Wednesday, 4 September 2024 15:37 (one month ago) link
Is first week of Nov still ok for this?
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 October 2024 10:52 (two days ago) link
my extended london visit will be first week of dec (to overlap w/one-time ilxor steacy easton’s visit)
my shorter london visit has to coincide w/mon 4 nov (atrial fib check-up that afternoon) -- if monday eve is a good day for the FAP i'm in (but don't be ruled by me obv)
― mark s, Saturday, 5 October 2024 10:58 (two days ago) link
Happy to do a Monday however if others can say whether they are up for a drink then we can do that or first week of Dec. Easy going.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 5 October 2024 11:04 (two days ago) link