Category: art

thing 15: ‘a magic made by melody’: a gig

Stripping off with a bunch of other people, variously familiar to me, in the chilly, cramped vestry of some hitherto-unknown church. Dressing for Saturday Night in modest, full-length black, then perching on a chair in an unheated church hall, eating squashed sandwiches. All the ingredients of a perfectly normal weekend for me.

I’ve been singing in choirs since I was about 7 (not continuously, obviously), and this has frequently involved doing gigs in (more…)

thing 6: ‘the nearest thing to life’: the Caravaggio exhibition

“Going and looking at stuff” wasn’t always that appealing.

I’m sure I was a disappointingly unresponsive child at times, failing to appreciate carefully-orchestrated opportunities and prone to Dinosaur Rubber Syndrome. For me the formative gift shop experience was at Prinknash Abbey, on a family holiday in That Summer of ‘76. I bought a set of 5 collapsible, flower-decorated biros—unusual colours, and in their own dinky see-through case which closed with a satisfying click. (more…)