Open sale by Luke Acton

SALE I

CHIKEN NIGHT, CRINGE, NCLMIAMI, CATFORD PRE-FAB, BIG DISAPPOINTMENT TOWN, FUCKED RENAISSANCE

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4 NCL to Miami. Real estate, crime and art 6 Chicken night, Brooklyn Shakeshaft Ward. Hullâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fair of fairs 14 Cringe, Nellie Saunby. Idyllic and truly semi-sexual 18

Contents

Catford Pre-fab, Daisy Malivoire. Urban decay w/ beaches

26 Big Disappointment Town. Party party party hedges 34 Fucked Renaissance, NCL Friends. Fun w/ scanners 42

Skeletons, tastes and basketball. Words by lines 2

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Edited/Designed/uncredited work by Luke Acton lukejacton@gmail.com Â© All work is the property of their respective creators

OPENSALE Living in Newcastle having moved from London, the Baltic, the biggest gallery in the Toon, is not a strong gallery. It has no rich, slavery-funded family or collection to finance it. Just some of the money from 2000. Some other of that money went on the bridge that you see in all the pictures of Newcastle. It is a bridge in a city known for its bridges. That bridge goes nowhere but to the Baltic and The Sage next door. It opens sometimes to show you that you can. You watch as it takes five minutes for it to open and Bill Murray looks at you. That show was not very good, the room was too big for the tiny houses with Bill Murrayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face on them.

NCL to Miami 4

OPENSALE Newcastle needs money. Money with connections enough to get on in the always incestuous art market. Miami is one of Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s biggest art markets and it did it with no government money. It did it mainly through the money made through the crack epidemic in the 90s and the increased investment in real estate from cocaine money (which was one third of Wthe annual economic output of Miami). Although the growth also meant the highest violent crime rates in the US. What it attracted was the class of people who â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. The kind of people who have family collections like the Rubells and the creative class who move somewhere because of the cheap rents created by the empty warehouses and violent crime. This creative class is building and maintaining the creative community of the Wynwood Art District that has now become a monolithic tourist destination in and of itself. One of the most important reasons is that London is eating itself, and before all the creatives move to Berlin and then Leipzig and raise the rent there. Spread the money out, break the mold before London turns into all bankers and artistic backwash. Institutions like the Baltic are not self-sustaining. They go over groundup development, it is why it is failing artistically and financially. Play the long game and invest in

projects that have a long-term personal investment by the people that run them. This is the way that you build a city culturally and economically. Diversity is both culturally and economically enriching. Gentrification kills. My class perpetuates this process. You need something to help get things started. But do not put too much fuel on the fire: you will kill it. You must let it grow, you cannot skip a step. Fuck speculation.

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Chicken night ‘You know someone died last year.’ ‘She got stuck in the bomber right? She was big so the seatbelt wouldn’t close, she held on, but then she came off at the top, landed next to Bob Carvers – people buying chips were sick, crying children, I saw it! ’

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY BROOKLYN SHAKSHAFT-WARD

OPENSALE For one week the from the carousel. the soundtrack to the fair, fat-bomber-lady is There’ll be time no one knows why. But you resurrected. It starts on for that later. Oncan’t hear him when you’re the bus. It’s a Friday wards, onwards, past up there, it’s eerie. You feel and it’s chicken night. the food stalls, the small, but part of something The first night is always ‘screeeeeeeeeam if much bigger. Like Hull chicken night. The you want to go fast- is not on the edge of the rides are half price and er’, ‘chips for £2’ the world but inside it and all you are a hero, being helter skelter (a cop of it. Like the world doesn’t the first to try the rides, out of a ride) and exist outside Walton Street. braving the frontier. suddenly it looms Meander down the food For the good of the up. The bomber. street, even if you don’t buy city. The bus is still full The greasy smell of anything. Brandy snap in price, but it feels spethe ride operator, a white paper bags and fudge cial. Instead of saying fiver for three grimy that melts under the hot ‘105’ they say ‘DEStokens, sticky and fairground bulbs. TINATION: HULL neon blue. One trip ‘Aah, she’s missing the FAIR’. There are five on the bomber with fair this year, better get her other buses circling one to spare for the some fudge’ the town with DESbumper cars. It all tastes the same, but TINATION: HULL ‘Maybe you’ll a good kind of same. Waxy, FAIR in green lights. sit in the seat she but super sweet. Eat it there There are never seats DIED in!’ and then, it’s not the same so you swing on the ‘I hope I do.’ otherwise. You can’t take safety poles. The first ‘Screeeeeeeeeeam it home. It turns to dust as ride of the night. The if you want to fas-s- soon as you pass through the bus heaves but no one s-s-s-ster, you better train gates. Or at the very dies, not on chicken screeeeeeeeeam boys night. You feel the fair and girls!’ before you see it. The Basshunter, Now You’re magnetism of it, the Gone plays below. You only hear shop owners seem to Basshunter in this spot, at this be pointing: ‘Go that time, once a year. Basshunter is way, that way, follow them!’ Kids hold hands in a line, pulling each other through the growing crowd, between policemen’s legs, pulling through the train barrier, almost tripping on the exposed wires

OPENSALE least the façade drops and you spit it out mid chew. Back to Bob Carvers. Chips and meaty barrels of gravy, sickly sweet but somehow sour, always leaking through the bottom and sticking to the paper. You feel bad about dropping the wrapper but what can you do? Stick to chip spice and lick it off your fingers. There’ll be time for gravy another night, but not tonight. You venture to the steaming centre. Fucking minions. Even in a sea that feels dreamy, timeless, dangerous even, the minions appear. Their dead eyes scream at you to pour your money into the fair, pour everything you’ve got into these games. FUN FUN FUN! Literally screaming it, FUN GUARANTEED! YOU WILL HAVE FUN!!!!! But the fucking minions spoil it. The yellow faces, as yellow as the light off the stall holders bored eyes. You shut your eyes. But once you have seen the stinking heart of the fair, full of soft toys and shitty games you can’t go back. You clutch your 10ps and run out. You’re not going to win an ipod today anyway. ‘Huh, they should call it hull UNfair, get it? Because I lost a tenner? Hahahah.’ Back to the real fair, the funhouses and candyfloss. Remember when the trucks-in-a-circle ride was the best thing ever? A crowd of men watch the kids go round and round.

You hope the rumours about kids plucked from the ride and disappearing is just a rumour. Finally the waltzers entice you. It’s dark now, and cold, spitting. The booth smells of vomit, but the light from the ride operator’s torch in your face masks it. ‘If you haven’t got the money, sling yer ‘ook’ It’s terrifying, a small part of you wishes you forget your money, just to see what he’ll do. And now it’s starting and you feel sicker and sicker, and when it spins backwards you see the man opposite regrets his fudge purchase as much as you. When the ride clunks you wonder if this is the end. The screaming of the ride operator. Screams of your friends, of your new acquaintances, strapped in as the ride operator moves around the perimeter, jeering and spitting and

OPENSALE the lights are moving so fast you forget you’re in a carpark, because you’re not any more. When the spit lands on your face you don’t even care. Chicken night isn’t real – it’s a gimmick, a massive lie. The rides are not cheaper and no one dies. You know where the bomber is, you know the hyper realistic Cascada mural like the back of your hand, and so does everyone else. The screws are not loosened to make it more fun, and the games are as rigged as ever. But you are one of the brave, the warriors of chicken night. ‘The bomber wasn’t meant to be opened, you know since that woman died, but they opened it specially, because it was chicken night. You won’t be allowed on it, cos you didn’t got the first night.’ ‘I saw an ambulance man drag a man off a bumper car because he drove it too fast and it fell off the track and hit a wall. But we all laughed along.’ ‘I got a free chilli burger because the man said it was too spicy to eat but I ate it all and he gave it to me for FREE!’ Chicken night is not real. But, for one night there is nothing else.

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PICTURES BY NELLIE SAUNBY

NGE 15

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BIG DISAPPOINTMENT TOWN A

SHORT The supermarket has the big sign ‘GRIKO’S’ on it, it’s green with the white plastic behind it which lit up in night time. Jeffry walked in as the rats outside laughed and made his face red, Max said: ‘Don’t be so easy man. They’re dicks, they live off shit.’ They walked into the shop and saw the aisles, the shop was playing music. Stepping forward and stepping back. Max went to look for things to eat like: bread, eggs, dip. Jeff stayed in the cereal aisle and looked. They walked out of the shop using for life bags from a shop that Max’s mum used to go to. As they walked out Jeff saw the rats and stepped towards them and said: ‘Fuck you rats!’ Jeff walked away and Max did but slower. The seagulls were around the waste between GRIKO’S neighbourhood and Maintown and were screeching like kids, a crow said: ‘So lame’ And Jeff said: ‘Yeah’ and threw him some bread. Max looked really close at Jeff with quarter eyes. As they were about half way to the edge of Maintown (the landscape: dusty, but green with long grasses where the water flowed through, the mountains in the heat-haze distance: small on the horizon) they saw one pigeon with no feet, just stumps. It was staring into the

STORY

OPEN SALE distance and the boys stared, it looked round at them with moon-eyes and said: ‘don’t do drugs kids’ Jeff and Max answered in the affirmative and went away, the pigeon always looking at them. ‘I think that was a bird of the Moon’ ‘I think we should just forget about it. And maybe not do drugs’ ‘Mmmmmmmm?’ ‘Look what it did to him’ ‘Truuuue’ The sun was behind them and high, and in front of them was an overpass from an unfinished motorway, there was a crack in one of its pillars. Max and Jeff climbed up and stood on top of it. Max said: ‘Cool you can see the sea in front of us and the desert behind us.’ Jeff made a sound in his throat and got off the overpass and walked towards the sea again. Max stayed up there for a while longer and ran after him with the lemonade and Doritos in his hands. As they got to the edge of Maintown they found two old bikes. They got onto the bikes and left behind the desert and rode towards the sea that they had seen. They rode like the kids down the hills, with their legs in the air and the palm trees on each side towards the sea. There were guitars and a trumpet playing in the background and they felt them with their legs in their shorts. The wind whispered in their ear and so they screamed back with the fear and happiness in their necks: ‘WOOOOOOOOOOOO’ It was one of those things that they saw for a while, like when you look at a light for a long time, or at the sun, and you see it for a little bit after. Max sighed loudly with a smile when the road became flat and the beach came down. The trees framing

OPEN SALE their view of the beach coming down. They rode fast through the shade of the trees and straight onto the beach letting their bikes fall away and dropped on the sand. Max stood up still smiling and screaming and Jeff couldn’t say anything because he was smiling so hard, so he didn’t, he jumped on Max’s back and they fell over again. Max and Jeff threw the Doritos at a mocking seagull and it flew off and Jeff said: ‘Haaaaaa! Fuck you!’ Then he looked to his side where there was a baby who looked up and down at him like his mum was who was behind him and then they walked off. Max said: ‘Haha’ Jeff walked down the beach. Max looked at the sea for a little bit and then ran after him and then Jeff ran too. So they ran together towards the music that they heard. It would be dark in a few hours and Max and Jeff loved to dance. The party was still far away, but the music was louder and the sun was lowering to the music, the cats were starting to come out. One of the cats pulled up his sleeve to show a tattoo that said: ‘BEACH CATS’ with a picture of a beautiful cat lady below it. The cat rolled his sleeve down and said: ‘You guys are looking for that party riiiiiight?’ Jeff said: ‘Pool party not the beach party’ ‘Yeah’ Max said. ‘The one that that girl Alex is throwing?’ ‘Girl Alex?’ The cat said: ‘Yeeeeeeeakeep going that way and you’ll find it.’ ‘Yeah towards the music.’ ‘Mhuuuuuuuuh’ They looked around at the beach and the street, and then Max said: ‘Cool, you want this?’ and held out a

OPEN SALE baggie with a few pills. ‘Don’t do drugs’ ‘Not even a little bit? They’re cat drugs. Got them from a vet.’ ‘You need to find Jesus.’ ‘We saw moon bird a while ago.’ And there he was in the sky. They looked. The cat hissed and ran off with the other cats. Jeff and Max looked at each other and suggested: ‘Hail.’ And they walked away from the sunset towards the weird jams. ‘Those are weird jams,’ said Max. When they got to the house the streets were still pretty dry and the trees were still pretty green with the shouting of the kids from the pool. The house was big, had a big sky, it still had lots of trees, walls very white with a few dribbles of rust. Some of the birds in the trees were shouting: ‘Slay! Slay man! Slay the hedge!’ Some of the girls who were keeping the house (Alex was out, she would be back) had made a swing across the pool from the trees and the rope from the beach. Jeff swung from the rope and across the pool and Max’s face and right into the hedge at the back of the garden. ‘Dude he slayed it’ ‘Slew?’ ‘Slaaaaaaayed’ And then everyone else did too in the empty house with the full pool. Then two people swung at the same time, then three. They didn’t do four because Danny wouldn’t get on it and the bees hummed that he wasn’t he kind of guy that would get on it. An albatross landed by him and said: ‘Don’t give in to peer pressure – you do you’ The albatross was shining in the sun.

OPEN SALE ‘Go away bird!’ said Jeff ‘Relax,’ said Max, ‘look:’ there was a pigeon and the boys smiled like they did. The bird looked at them with one eye and left. A girl on the roof said: ‘Don’t be a pussy Dave’ Dave just jumped into the pool with a smile and a fuck you and waited for Alex to get back. He looked at the ocean like the ocean was orange and jumped into the deep and blue pool with a big sound like: WHOOOOOOPSHHHH and an open-eyes smile. The sun went down and Alex got back and put the music in the house, there was shouting and laughing and so many smiles. Max went off to see some people, it was still quiet. A boy called Elliot came over to Jeff and asked if he had anything to drink, and he said no, he was broke, man. Elliot said: ‘Fuck that, come with.’ Elsewhere that night was the moon was coming up and which looked nice. The other kids were on the beach now. There was a very old man, he was bald but with tiny wisps of hair. Wearing old clothes wrapped around him, one of them was a sports tshirt about birds. He glowed a little, in the moon light. A little blue. The kids talked around him, some sat and warmed their hands on his glow head and he stared at the moon and whispered secrets. After the kids would say things like: ‘Cool’ and ‘Oh gross’ And so the kids stayed a little while with the moon, the ocean, and the old man and his head. Jeff, Elliot and people got back and the music was just yes, and the people were just too, and so was Jeff and for a while he just heard things and felt things without talking about it and there was Max and all the people and they were together and it was just like the bikes

OPEN SALE and the light and he felt it for a while. Their bodies were shaped like how they oooooooh and it was so beautiful and they saw each other looking beautiful and they smiled and made each other more beautiful and when the song ended everyone screeeeeeeeeamed so loud that everyone smiled and moved to the sound of their voices and they grabbed each other and moved to the sound of each other’s voices. They fell and had to breathe. A while before the dancing, Jeff went outside to see the people at the pool – there was a glow, just so, on their faces. They mostly lay down or sat and were talking, a bit of smoke was coming out of people’s mouths sometimes, and Jeff blew his breath in the air. Eliot and Max’s heads came over the fence and said: ‘Yo some of us are going to the beach’ ‘Like a gang of you? ‘Yeah’ ‘Let’s gooo’ said Jeff and he climbed the fence. The sea was empty apart from some of the inflatable slides and things for the kids and tourists. They walked along the beach before they were skipping to the shop because that’s what felt good. Jeff stopped for a second with Ann. ‘It’s fun to look at stuff ’ He said. She nodded: ‘For sure, ‘What are you going to get from the shop?’ ‘Whatever you guys get me’ ‘Cool’ Ann said Jeff: ‘Yessss’ It was on and so was the city. GRIKO’s was far away: you could see the city but everything was far away but for the grass, rustling. Sometimes a car a mile away came and rustled past with the grass and its lights went across the other lights coming from the city. The other lights from the city that lit up the horizon and

OPEN SALE lower sky. Like they were in the middle of the ocean, and the only way to find land was to follow the light of the city on the land and over the horizon. Really in the middle of nowhere. The shop was put up before the land was developed. Then the developers had went and did the other side of town instead, and GRIKOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s was left all alone. Except for the kids, the grass, and the lights. Griko looked out of the window at the lights and laughed along.

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SKEL-

etons dancing around the fire on their nice dark day. ‘Rattle my bones’ that are yellow and white and bright silver spots and rods and plates the fire on their spots and rods and plates. So bright! The rats and rats of the sky and those with neither hands nor wings warm them on the fire that does. So warm and bright in this dark, dark wood. ‘Stylish stylish’ one says as the shimmer of the movement of the good dancer contrasted because of the contrast of

the light and dark. The fire and the rest of the wood’s light and dark but so, too, sometimes, so. ‘What’s up?’ says Skeleton Boy to Skeleton Girl. ‘It means you have to wait.’ The boy hits the metal parts of skeletons and bones of skeletons for tone: one, one up, one down, seven down, three down (no halves). The Skeleton Boy says: ‘O, something’s coming!’

TASTES

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of tastes of times of times (dark – not like that!). Smiles of smiles (no teeth)? Wandering around the field with no smiles and the sun on the back of your neck. Very happy! I would go to the field away from the bricks and cobbles my Grandma says: ‘O they’re so awful!’ when I go to town and hedges and hedges and hedges. I bring pastries (a peach). O, like nothing you’ve ever seen. God just fucking

sceeeeeeeeeeam!!!!!! Try to fire, light on object and look at it and feel sad and a field of sun on your neck that burns so red to brown to slap. Screaming screaming screaming screaming fucking beating beating beating beating and running and don’t look! Expression enough to strain your face fully tensed. ‘I try to drink enough water to stay hydrated, it makes your skin look better. It is easier to scream and

radiate.’ Pain very opaque and stacked. The pain so that, that one is on top. On the edge w/ tears. The top larger that comes to the extreme. Scream along! You’ll be so great! I really enjoyed it, can you play again? I love you! Red socks with white sandals (style style style style) on the broken grasses and through them too. ‘Your love is

stranger/stronger than sandals and socks and just as sweet,’ lips. ‘Hit me!’ ‘PLEEEEEEEEASE!’ screams and shouts, haha. Falling with crop circles from angels (they WILL believe you). Take photographs of gallery toilets and play bass you angel.

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really really sad,’ said the wise man. His grandson said: ‘Why are the leaves green?’ ‘Because of the chlorophyll, they give the plant energy.’ Looking at the green trees and grass around the polished concrete with the green hoop he bounced the basketball. It was night, the floodlights were on and the ball bounced loudly, but he didn’t bother anyone. The houses were so far apart they had so much land. The suburbs were thin and huge. The sur-

rounding desert by the fields of grass added to it, it was all on big dish facing the sky with a shallow concave, the edges only at the corners of your eyes when you looked up. Large hills and mountains around and on every horizon solidifying it. Bounce five times in one hand, arm all the way extended, crossover, bounce five times in the other hand arm extended all the way, pushing through the ball. There were no echoes because there were no hard surfaces except the ground. Fingers splayed – push through the ball. His legs did not move with his arms and hands moving to where the ball was going to be. Catching the ball with spread fingers. ‘Hey Abel! Hey Grandpa!’ David

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shouted from a top floor window. He stopped dribbling, ‘O! That’s where you are! I thought you had gone to sleep.’ ‘No, I’m going to come down, it’s too hot to sleep.’ ‘Watch out, it’ll be dewy later.’ David took his shovel and began digging in the pit by the court, it was past the topsoil soil and to the red dirt. He was building a pool. Abel shot the ball, its apex cast a shadow over his eyes. His clothes were old and loose from moving, use and sweat. The D and the key’s markings

were faded and shone as much as the unpainted surface. The ball slapped the net a timbre. Through the hoop Abel breathed a ‘Yesss.’ David stood and held his pickaxe and struck it down, ‘Mother, fucking, ground,’ and went to the tree to sharpen it where he left the whetstone. Short, sharp strokes on the top side, bush with his hand, same for the underside. Abel jogged to get the ball. ‘Can you help me?’ said David. Abel dribbled and jogged to the

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edge of the D, did a fade-away and picked up the shovel and added dirt to the pile next to the hole. He started until he was digging dirt until all he could see was red and his muscles got the idea and he just stared out at the picture around until it was all red and green. David had slabbed the pool with concrete and tiles and filled it with the sun overhead and in his eyes because of the ripples from the pool. He lay half in the shade of a tree with headphones, his tshirt off and over his eyes. The

tree shushed a nice wind. The door was open to the house and in the kitchen was Abel frying something and looking at David fill the pool. He turned off the hob and walked out to it. He stood on the opposite side to David with his hands on his hips and said: ‘That’s a handsome basin you’ve tiled.’ David looked up at him squinting and said: ‘It feel’s good to have it finished.’ The pool, half in shade, half in the sun had an uneven surface on its bottom from the uneven hole in the dirt David had dug. Abel walked onto the court and picked up the ball there. He threw it and the ball dropped.