PoV Magazine issue 2 by Benjamin Turner

Power New WRITING // POETRY // ART // PHOTOGRAPHY on a common theme

Cover image by Rogan Josh THE GUYS AT POV TOWERS: Proof reading demon: Emma Seymour Designer: Ben Turner Editors and co-creators: Chris Pilkington and Ben Turner

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Hello

WELCOME TO ISSUE TWO

AND WELCOME TO POV

Ben and Chris

So here we are again. PoV Magazine issue 2 is before you, ready and waiting to entertain. This issue has the theme POWER and we have some great work in store for you. It’s been fascinating to see what our contributors came up with this time as the theme was more abstract compared to last issue’s STREETS. We couldn’t have imagined the variety of work we’d receive. We’ve got features ranging from the power of conflict photography to the power of community, from the power of people to change lives through charity work to power struggles in relationships. We’ve got superpowers, animal power, the power of Formula 1 and even the world’s most powerful lozenge and it’s all just a few clicks away. As with the last issue our contributors come from all over the world and the work is absolutely amazing. We’ve once again been overwhelmed by the sheer quality and scope of the imagination these guys have and want to take this chance to thank everyone that has been involved. Anyway, you don’t want to read what we have to say for any longer than you have to so turn the page and enjoy the very best in new writing, poetry, photography and art all brought to you in the neat little package called PoV. Ben Turner and Chris Pilkington Founders of the feast

Visit: www.povmagazine.co.uk Follow: @pov_magazine Email: hello@povmagazine.co.uk

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WELCOME: CONTENTS

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MEET THE CONTRIBUTORS THE CHANGING FACE OF CONFLICT Emma Seymour talks to Judah Passow

POWER AND GLORY Behind the scenes of F1 with Will Buxton

A JOB FOR MODHERO Superhero illustration by Rogan Josh

WORDS Kosmic Klown loves ‘em

POWER POETRY By W.M.Lewis

THE CYCLE OF LIFE Ben Turner chats to Adam Walker from Magnificent Revolution

FEELING MINNESOTA By Joe Clifford

THE DEER AND THE CROW Animal power from Francesca Harris

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING Chris Pilkington introduces Bengy Reid and talks about the power of drums

IF I WAS QUEEN OF THE WORLD By Elly Lacey

KOKUSAI KAIHATSU RACING #01R Chris Mount falls in love

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SLIDE By Kyrsten Bean

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NO PLACE LIKE HOME Judah Passow talks about the power of community with Emma Seymour

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THE POWER OF THE MIND Sgt. Pilko goes on another adventure

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POWER POETRY By Jade Leaf Willetts

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WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY Ben Turner discovers some responsibilities are less glamorous than others

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POWER POETRY By Gareth Liley

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THE ORANGE FENCE Power struggles in NYC by Ira Fox

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POWER POETRY By Luke Roe

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FINAL OFFER By Jenny Rossi

THE POWER OF PRINT By Amanda Eades

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THE POWER OF 1 Thomas Morgan discovers the power of giving

POWER POETRY By Mercedes Fonseca

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FORGOTTEN FUTURES How man-made power affects the world by Hannah Bettridge

SOLAR POWER Cindy Blaney’s solarised photography

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BLUE SPANDEX By Jeff Chandler

CORRIDOR PLATEAU II Anneka French reviews the latest exhibition at the Eastside Projects in Birmingham

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MISS REPRESENTATION By Will Conway

THE MOST POWERFUL LOZENGE IN THE WORLD Chris Pilkington reveals his love for Fisherman’s Friend

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THE TEA AND TOAST CLUB Lessons in electricity from Jackson Pilkington

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WELCOME: MEET THE CONTRIBUTORS

MEET THE CONT RIBU TORS 6

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AMANDA EADES Amanda Eades is a freelance writer and critic from South Wales, U.K. She is currently studying the influence of cartography and language on contemporary landscape poetry at post-graduate level and regularly writes for a number of online magazines. She is the founder and editor of the Railroad Poetry Project and is passionate about the literary community, linguistically innovative poetry, maps and British wildlife. Visit her personal blog at: http://aceades.wordpress.com Check out the Railroad Poetry Project at: https://railroadpoetryproject.wordpress.com Read her most recent review series at: www.nerditorial.com You can contact Amanda directly at: amandaceades@gmail.com BEN TURNER Designer / photographer / film lover / music listener / book reader / Stephen Fry worshipper. Oh and co-creator of this very magazine, by the way thanks for reading, you’re my new hero and you look amazing, have you lost weight? Having worked on corporate publications for the last few years where everything you do is checked by the complete and utter hell that is a “Branding Team” this is a breath of fresh air. A chance to design something I love with content by people I admire. Can’t ask for more than that eh? I also make film posters for the films you love. You should look at them with your eyes and maybe let your heart buy one. Or two. Ben’s homepage: www.ben-turner.co.uk Follow on Twitter: @benturner83 CHRIS MOUNT Chris is a keen Instagramer and a slack Twitter user. Design is his passion. That and obsessing over his music tags in iTunes. Forming one half of superstar DJ/VJ/ AV collective Fade In Fade Out you can find him wowing audiences worldwide with audio / visual delights. He also enjoys creating illustrations for magazines brilliant enough to do a second issue but easily persuaded to let him contribute again. Between 9 and 5, he’ll be in the Royal Borough shaping the future of web and mobile. Fade In Fade Out: fadeinfadeout.co.uk

CHRIS PILKINGTON A drummer, father and husband, he is a film editor and co-creator of PoV. A staunch fan of tea drinking thanks to his father that has also led him on many a journey and occupation. Having worked as a removal man, trolley collector and paint mixer he finally found his calling when rediscovering his creative spark during the re-wiring of his stereo. As a film editor he is highly creative and yet loves the techy stuff, plus very grateful for a job that allows him to drink lots of tea. Currently playing drums in one of the UK’s few Cajun/Zydeco bands Rough Chowder, he can be found looking online at vintage drums of the Premier/Beverley/ Ludwig/Slingerland variety. He has a dislike of buttons (pearlescent ones on shirts in particular) and looking smart. Check his drumming: http://www.roughchowder.co.uk And some of his video work: http://goo.gl/0KSP4 CINDY BLANEY Observing and learning about the natural world has always been my passion. I grew up next to a wooded park in the states, and have spent most of my adult life living and working in a woodland in London. Highgate Wood is an ancient woodland, so the scope for my passion here is pretty much infinite, as are the complexities and beauty of such an old ecosystem. I have been drawing pictures, taking photos, and writing articles about the wood for our newsletter since 1994. Lately I have been writing poetry too. The wood is a place that inspires the artist in people from all walks of life, so I have met some interesting people who have also inspired me. I studied photography at UC Santa Cruz, and worked briefly in a photo lab after college. In those days, printing was all by hand. Now, I manipulate digital images with an App called Photo studio on my computer. Images on the computer look more lively and bright, like slide shows in the old days, the extra light brings extra depth. Find out more about Highgate Wood: www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/highgatewood And take a look at my friend’s amazing insect photos: www.laurencecounter.com

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ELLY LACEY Elly has left the shores of Blighty for that place across the pond. You know, the US of something. Anyway, she’s having a marvellous time and has rather come to love writing again; whether it’s about her incredible adventures on her blog, as a prolific tweeter or in her e-newsletter (‘e’ for Elly and electronic clever huh?) to her friends back home. She’s written a few press releases in her time too but is quite enjoying being on the dark side for now. She also couldn’t live without potatoes. Elly’s blog: http://goo.gl/74dl2 EMMA SEYMOUR Emma Seymour is a writer and journalist based in London. Starting out as a reporter on regional newspapers in Kent and the capital, she now works in corporate publishing. Her heart lies in writing about real life, people and what makes them tick. Other interests include human rights, politics, animal welfare and international development. Read her Only Human blog at: http://goo.gl/Tuygf Follow on Twitter: @Emseymour FRANCESCA HARRIS I am an illustrator and paper cutter from the sunny south of England. I draw feminine creatures with ethereal features and papercut detailing. I also like to take these alien girls off of the page and into reality with models, beautiful locations and papercut costumery. Francesca’s websites: www.francescaillustrates.co.uk www.franmiscellany.tumblr.com Follow on Twitter: @franillustrates GARETH LILEY Gareth is a newly emerging writer who gains his influences for short stories and poetry, from everything from the abstract to the everyday mundane. A thirst for travel and exploring the new, influences all his work. He hopes you enjoy reading his material, as much as he enjoys writing it! Follow on Twitter: @gaz502

WELCOME: MEET THE CONTRIBUTORS HANNAH BETTRIDGE Studied BTEC Photography at City College Brighton and Hove, currently studying BA Photography at Nottingham Trent University but hoping to transfer to Fine Art: Photography at Staffordshire University for next year. I use both film and digital, and can never decide which is my favourite! I am constantly inspired by things going on around me, urban and country environments, people and especially alleyways! I enjoy travelling around the country and seeing the varied surroundings, and I take cameras everywhere with me. Hannah’s Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/hannahbettridge/ Hannah’s Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/HannahBettridge-Photography/109823385799686 Follow on Twitter: @bettridgehannah IRA FOX Photographer, culinary expert, musician, performer and native New Yorker, Ira Fox is a Renaissance man. Social realist, a true talent for composition, his images make strong statements. Ira enjoys working with people: intuitive, sensitive, patient, with a keen sense of human behavior, Ira captures imagery that is compelling. Whether it’s images of dreamlike reflections of New Yorkers at The Union Square Market, elegant and candid portraits of the famous and not so famous, streetscapes of Orchard Beach, or the lively energy of The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island, Ira’s creative eye captures the true spirit of the subject and the moment. “Being an actor taught me to consider the audience’s perspective; being a photographer allows me to use my ability as a performer to help bring out what I see.” Ira lives in New York with his lovely wife Sallie and beautiful daughter Julia. Ira’s homepage: www.irafox.com JADE LEAF WILLETTS Jade Leaf Willetts is a writer, artist and musician. He blogs at What would Neal Do? and is currently in the process of setting up the Jade Leaf Willetts Poetry Protest. This is not so much a protest, more another weird idea that he justifies in the ‘name of writing’. It basically involves him trying to convince strangers to create videos to showcase his work. Jade’s blog http://jlwilletts.wordpress.com/

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JEFF CHANDLER Jeff currently lives in London where he works as a professional actor and singer. Being faced with a crossroads in his life, he began to write. His weekly blog entitled ‘Malleable Reality’ marries together his passion for writing and photography covering love, life and everything in between. Jeff’s blog: http://goo.gl/45E2a JENNY ROSSI Jenny Rossi resides in frigid Vermont in the ol’ US of A. She clocks in and clocks out, probably more than the rest of you, and damn sure resents it. But she does write. O Jesus. Someone stop her.

JOE CLIFFORD Joe Clifford is the producer of Lip Service West, a “gritty, real, raw” reading series in Oakland, CA. His work has appeared in Big Bridge, the Connecticut Review, Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, Word Riot, and Underground Voices, among others. He has been to jail but never prison. Joe’s rants and writing can be found at: http://goo.gl/B1Njh And on his homepage: http://www.joeclifford.com KOSMIC KLOWN Artist, animator, poet, player of guitar (sort of) performer, editor, wit, raconteur, bon vivant, all this and more! I was born, at a very early age, under suspicious circumstances, in the back of a Robin Reliant. I was, quickly, brought up by owls in the wild, and after bashing my face in, following only a dozen or so attempts to fly, I had, eventually, to leave the nest, as the other young owls would deride my inability to swivel my head around 180 degrees, so, I made my way out into the world, with only a mild fear of hawks. To find joy and a love of Jam. I do 3D modeling, filming and editing, Painting and drawing, and I write the odd line here and there as well. Oh and I like to read stuff on stage. I love laughing, it’s the best, I even like it more than sex... which is lucky really, as the availablity of mirth is somewhat greater. The biggest mistake anyone ever makes is taking themselves seriously.

KYRSTEN BEAN Kyrsten Bean is a writer and a musician. She pens freelance articles for publications, including Groovemine and Bound by Ink. Her poems have been published in Children, Churches and Daddies, The Railroad Poetry Project, Amphibi.us, The Camel Saloon, The Delinquent, Breadcrumb Scabs, Gutter Eloquence, Censored Poets and others. She writes to motivate artists, writers and musicians to keep going in spite of difficulty at thestifledartist.com. More than anything, she encourages people to try and fail over and over again, because as Steven Pressfield put it in The War of Art: “because this is war, baby. And war is hell.” Kyrsten’s homepage: http://thestifledartist.com LUKE ROE My name is Luke Roe, an eighteen year-old poet and father living in the northwest. I’ve been writing for about four years and loving every bit of it. My inspiration comes from dreams, negative emotion, and reading the works of others.

MERCEDES FONSECA Mercedes Fonseca’s (aka CedeRed) first book written age six depicts The Cookie Family eating a pair of childrencum-playmates. Her writing now shows a different kind of gore, photographs (at times encephalograms) in words. Lover of detail, analogy, codes and passion. Hater of narrow-mindedness, labels and lack of logic.

ROGAN JOSH Rogan Josh, a.k.a. Josh Siegel, is a graphic artist in NYC best known for creating the series of minimalist superhero portraits modHero. Aside from comics, he has done exciting design and illustration work for dozens of clients ranging from wily rock shaman Vic Thrill to MoMA. In 2010 he helped found Geeks OUT to rally and represent LGBT fans of comics, and he’s currently busy working on a CD cover, a comic book, and a collaborative illustration project. For more about Geeks OUT: www.geeksout.org You can follow the ongoing modHero series: www.modhero.com and view his larger body of creative work at: www.bigvisual.net.

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SGT. PILKO Born in the wrong century, I’m the type who would love to harp on about exotic foreign trips, filled with peculiar women who have tempted my gaze with silver trays laden with shiny puddings. But alas the nearest I have come to this was to be holding the form for a trip to poke a peasant whilst he clutched at his Nokia 3310... THOMAS MORGAN Thomas Morgan is a documentary film maker and founder of BraveNewYou, an organization that calls all of us to be socially conscious and get involved in making change. His film, These Storied Streets is due out in May and he is in pre-production for Running to 18, a film about the runaway youth in America. Find out about BraveNewYou: www.BraveNewYou.org For all the latest on These Storied Streets: www.storiedstreets.com W.M.LEWIS I’m a Brisbane-based poet and fiction writer. My work has appeared in Best Australian Poems 2011, Cordite Poetry Review, Eclecticism, PoV Magazine, Railroad Poetry Project, street cake magazine and The Night Light (the first Australian poet to feature), with a forthcoming publication in Multiverses. You can find me (a little too often) on Twitter: @w_m_lewis WILL BUXTON A Formula 1 journalist for the past decade, Will is the pit reporter for the American SPEED TV channel and the face of Formula 1 in the USA. This year British television viewers will get their first taste of his passion for the sport as his commentary on the GP2 and GP3 championships, which have provided a proving ground for such F1 stars as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, will be used by the all new SKY SPORTS F1 HD channel. He lives just two minutes from the home of British motorsport, Silverstone, and describes his greatest loves as his daughter, The Beatles, his family, friends, his job… and Ribena. Will’s blog: http://willthef1journo.wordpress.com/ WILL CONWAY Will lives and writes in London. He has just had a shower and is thinking about cutting his hair. He has a collection of short stories called Tastes of Ink published by Lazy Gramophone and is always up to something. Will’s homepage www.willconway.co.uk Follow on Twitter @tastesofink

JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

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As journalists and photographers continue to lose their lives in war-torn Syria, four times World Press Photo award winner Judah Passow reflects on the changing face of conflict. By Emma Seymour All images ÂŠJudah Passow Photography

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JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR WEST BEIRUT 1983 A Palestinian boy aims a toy pistol at Italian peacekeeping troops patrolling the Sabra refugee camp in West Beirut.

Women frantically flee a rising tide of fighting as their children clutch pistols in an all too realistic game of war.

A Palestinian man weeps at the loss of a friend caught up in an operation to root out suicide bombers. Refugees look on helplessly as they survey the damage of their homes. Judah has been capturing these images of war for 30 years, bottling the raw human emotion etched on people’s faces. But as the news industry becomes ever more saturated with celebrity, he questions the impact powerful pictures can have on the world today. “Pictures do influence people, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “Look at how they changed the way the US saw the war with Vietnam. They woke the US up to the fact that war is an ugly brutal way of resolving a dispute, and it helped to end it. “But that couldn’t happen today. The people that deliver this information no longer see themselves as being in the business of news, they’re more interested in

“It’s a lot easier to get killed today than it was 10 years ago” ISSUE 2 2012

entertainment. The public is still hungry for news but the industry has reinvented itself.” Born in Israel and educated in the US, Judah moved to the UK in the late ‘70s when he started working for The Observer. He was sent to Belfast during the Troubles where he shot pictures in Europe’s worst housing estate, the Divis flats.

“It was the period of Bobby Sands and the hunger strikes, it was a very heavy time,” said Judah. “After that I asked to be sent to Afghanistan and I realised you have to be careful what you wish for. This was a world away from Northern Ireland where we spent a day on the street before going back to a nice hotel. In Afghanistan we slept on the ground.”

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The recent death of Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin in Syria brought home the danger faced by reporters and photographers in the field, with some believing she was targeted by government forces. Judah said he sometimes questioned whether the pictures were worth risking his life for. “It’s a lot easier to get killed today than

JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

BOSANSKI BROD 1992 An elderly Muslim woman weeps on a street corner in Bosanski Brod as the city falls to the Serbian army.

“My guiding principal has always been that I’m here to give somebody a voice that has no voice”

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it was 10 years ago. Photographers are targets on both sides. Syria is a difficult one because it’s a story that’s crying out to be told but does that justify the risks involved in telling it? There’s a whole new core of young photographers who are covering their own conflicts and it’s solving our dilemma for us. “But there often isn’t the budget to cover these things anymore so while the pictures are still being taken they’re not being used. This leads to another serious problem. A whole new generation of young photographers are spending money they don’t have going into these places and getting killed.” Judah has spent much of his career covering the Israel and Palestine conflict in the Middle East, something he describes as a very personal project. “It’s a conflict in the country I was born in, it’s my conflict. I have an emotional investment in it,” he said. “This is an issue that’s incredibly complex and most people simply have no understanding of it. That’s part of the problem. One of the reasons it’s festered for as long as it has and has eluded a resolution is because of the incredible ignorance of it that exists in the wider world, and both parties exploit that ignorance. “I’m very definitely taking a political side in this case. It’s a plague on both your houses. Both bear equal responsibility for not finding a solution to this conflict.” Journalists often pride themselves on their ability to be objective, to provide a fly on the wall view of what’s happening that’s unbiased and true. But the idea that photojournalists

can stay completely neutral when covering a war is, according to Judah, a myth. “My guiding principal has always been that I’m here to give somebody a voice that has no voice. That means deciding what side of the conflict you are going to take so you know whose story you are going to tell. “I think people like to imagine photographers as dispassionate, impartial observers. But observing something at one removed means not having an emotional investment in what you’re observing. And that completely misunderstands what it’s about. Photojournalism is about engaging with what you’re observing. In order to tell that story you have to look through somebody’s eyes. You have to pick a side. “Sadly I look at the conflicts raging around the world and I can’t find a single one I’m prepared to go to. There are no sides I’m interested in throwing my light on. “Photojournalism is dead. It’s a tragedy that could have been avoided, a mess created by the news organisations and now it’s come to haunt all of us.”

Turn over for more of Judah’s stunning photography

To find out more about Judah and see more of his work, go to www.judahpassow.com

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JUDAH PASSOWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR FAHME, WEST BANK 1992 A Palestinian woman refuses to hold a pistol offered by her son who works as a collaborator with the Israeli security service on the West Bank.

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JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

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FAHME, WEST BANK 1992 Children of a Palestinian collaborator playing Intifada in their home on the West Bank.

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JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

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NABLUS, WEST BANK 1989 Palestinian activists on trial at Israeli military headquarters on the West Bank.

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JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

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JENIN, WEST BANK 2002 A young Palestinian boy defending the rubble of his home in the Jenin refugee camp, razed by the Israeli army during Operation Defensive Shield.

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JUDAH PASSOWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

HEBRON, WEST BANK 1997 Israeli soldiers helping an elderly Palestinian who has injured himself in a fall outside the Tomb of The Patriarchs.

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JUDAH PASSOWâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR KORACE 1992 Croatian tank crew delivers a soldier wounded by Serbian artillery to a forward medical station at Korace.

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JUDAH PASSOW’S CONFLICT PHOTOGRAPHY: EMMA SEYMOUR

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HEBRON, WEST BANK 1997 Israeli soldier guarding Jewish settlers in the Avraham Avinu quarter of Hebron.

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POWER AND GLORY: WILL BUXTON

By Will Buxton

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A snake

of rental cars trace a familiar route through the early morning fog, turning off the Autovia and lining up at the imposing entrance gates to the Circuito de Jerez. The security guards, bleary eyed and barely awake give a cursory glance at the access passes hung around the necks of the vehiclesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; occupants, before waving them past with a nonchalant flick of the wrist. As morningâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first light rises over the Andalucian hills, a melee of photographers and TV crews bustle for position in an empty pitlane as a set of blue garage doors slowly open and a car is rolled forward into view. Two young drivers stand and pose for

photographs next to the steed which will carry their hopes of glory into the season ahead. At this one singular moment, they have as much chance of being crowned world champion as any one of their rivals. But by the end of the day, they will know in their hearts how the next ten months will unfold and that their ultimate competitive fate is now sealed. There is, perhaps, no more important moment in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most watched sport than this one day. After months of research, development and painstakingly precise design, after tens of millions of dollars and countless man-hours of production, it all boils down to this. This is the first time that the cars which

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POWER AND GLORY: WILL BUXTON will fight for the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship will be run in anger: the first opportunity to see if the work of the preceding months has paid off. This is the day that a balance of power is created. This is the day that a champion is born. Testing is about as far removed from the Monegasque glitz and glamour usually associated with Formula 1 as one could possibly get. There are no grid girls here, no parties, no super yachts. Instead of the rich and famous quaffing champagne, posturing in Dior dresses and Louboutin heels, here in Jerez the dress code is hats, scarves and gloves: one’s drink of choice, a polystyrene cup of coffee. Milk. Two sugars. The grandstands remain empty of all but a select breed of ultra hardcore fanatics, who will travel from far and wide to be the first to see their heroes in action. But today there will be no racing, no trophies won, and no anthems played at the end of the contest. The only music will be the hypnotic and constant scream of eleven cars, pounding out lap after lap after lap for eight solid hours. The story of this day began a year ago. No sooner had the teams of the Formula 1 World Championship launched their 2011 cars than the attention of their design offices would have shifted, in part, towards 2012. While one group of designers would have continued to develop and improve the cars being raced around the world last season, another separate group of boffins would have been scouring the 2012 regulations and coming up with initial design concepts for their team’s new car. With one set of tight regulations in place, you’d be forgiven for assuming that all the teams would come up with nigh on identical designs for their cars. But the creative genius at work within these design offices is such that one team

will always find a loophole, a way to interpret the regulations that gives them an advantage over their rivals. As the months wore on in 2011, the 2012 regulations were tweaked and altered to try and remove these loopholes. Then, in January, just weeks before the new cars were due to be launched, news started to filter through that two teams, Ferrari and Lotus, had discovered another such advantage. The governing body of the sport acted fast to stamp out the technology and so, after almost a year of research and development and just weeks before the first running of the new car, the design offices of the teams who had believed they’d got a jump on their rivals had to rip up their clever innovations and amend the new car to be just as fast without them. After months of running model cars through wind tunnels and hours of research with computational fluid dynamics, the new cars will be launched to the world just days and in some cases hours before they hit the track for the first time. But Formula 1 is a secretive world, and so the design which is unveiled to the press will rarely be the exact model which rolls out onto the track on this cold February morning. It’s why the garage doors during testing stay closed and screens are erected in front of them until the car is ready to roll. It’s why the top teams employ photographers whose sole job it is to try and take as many detailed shots of their rival’s cars as they can. And it’s why there is such

There are no grid girls here, no parties, no super yachts. Instead of the rich and famous quaffing champagne here in Jerez one’s drink of choice, a polystyrene cup of coffee. Milk. Two sugars.

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excitement about this day. Rumour has it that the reigning world champions, Red Bull Racing, have employed extra security at their own factory to stop the majority of their employees from seeing the 2012 car. Only the designers and the boys building the car are allowed access to it. The fear that someone could take a photo on their phone and sell it to a rival team is that real. This isn’t just a sport. It’s a technological war. Everyone wants to know what

everyone else is doing. Everyone wants to know if they’ve missed a trick, and if they have, whether it is something that could work in conjunction with their own design. With just 12 days of preseason testing permitted under the regulations, and with the teams able to run just one car on each day, time is limited. Every second spent out on track, accumulating real-time data, is invaluable. The press releases today will not focus on success or speed. They will, the teams hope, speak of

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untroubled running, a high number of laps completed and will, they all pray, at some point feature the words “a good day.” It may sound cold and mechanical, but that’s because over the winter Formula 1 is just so. But today it becomes a sport once more, as the most critical element of an F1 car is added to the mix… its driver. You can spend millions of dollars producing the most cleverly designed car on earth, but if the man driving it doesn’t

POWER AND GLORY: WILL BUXTON

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know how to draw the most from it, if he doesn’t know how to relate his experiences within the cockpit to the team in order for them to make the alterations he needs to take his ride to perfection, and if he can’t race the thing faster and harder than anyone else on track, it quite simply won’t be competitive. Formula 1 racing drivers are an elite breed of sportsmen. F1 cars in 2012 will hit an estimated top speed in excess of 345kph. Under braking, drivers can experience up to 5G, a force so great that the tears in their eyes are flung forward and splash onto their visors. They may be strapped into the car, but their internal organs will be thrown about inside their chests with every shift in direction, every stab on the throttle and every stamp on the brakes. They will race in three-layer fireproof overalls, in temperatures sometimes exceeding 50 degrees C, for 2 hours. They will do so racing at over 300kph, millimetres from their rivals, and in the full knowledge that a mistake, no matter how small, could not just signal the end of their race, but potentially their lives. And incredibly, at those speeds, they will not only race but provide the team with constant information about how the car is handling. They will advise their mechanics and engineers on miniscule alterations to the stiffness needed in the suspension, the height the car needs to be off the ground or the level of downforce that needs to be produced by the car’s wings. In the middle of a race they will be able to tell the team when one tyre starts to lose grip compared to the other three. They will help the team to decide on strategy. And, no joke, they will often be so aware of everything going on around them that they will know which photographers are positioned on which corners. They are some of the toughest

sportsmen you will ever meet: mentally, physically and competitively. This season will see the highest number of world champions line up on the grid in the history of Formula 1. There will be six in total, including Kimi Raikkonen, the monosyllabic Finn with a penchant for vodka, ice creams and massive nights out. A driver blessed with the kind of natural racing ability that almost seems to have been bestowed from on high,

There is only one person who knows how quick the car actually is: the driver. This first day is therefore not about reading times, it’s about reading body language he returns to the sport having walked away two years ago to try his hand at Rallying. With the new and highly secretive Red Bull not due to run until lunchtime it is perhaps unsurprising that the biggest buzz surrounds Raikkonen’s garage on the first morning of testing. But it is his compatriot Heikki Kovalainen, driving for Caterham, who is the first to step into a 2012 car and launch it around the circuit, exiting the pitlane precisely as the clock hits 09:00 and the most important day of the year begins. The drivers will conduct installation laps, checking that everything with the car is working correctly. When the data is checked, and everything is confirmed to be operating as it should, the test programme can begin, and the driver will get his first real taste of his 2012 car. The problem with testing is that nobody can ever know, with absolute clarity, how much better or worse than their rivals their cars actually are. Everyone will run different fuel

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levels meaning their cars will be different weights. Some will try long runs in excess of 20 laps to gain an understanding of how the car works in race trim. Some will be fuelled for just five sprint laps, to get an idea of how the car will be in qualifying. Different tyre compounds will be used at different times of the day when track temperature, air temperature, wind speed and direction will all have a bearing on how slow or fast a lap time will be. Journalists will sit in the media centre, watching the laptimes come in on banks of screens, trying to decipher a code which is nigh on impossible to break. There is only one person who knows how quick the car actually is: the driver. This first day is therefore not about reading times, it’s about reading body language. With testing being conducted using smoke and mirrors, it is in the words a driver uses to talk to the press and explain his day, the agitation or ease with which he describes the car’s handling to his engineers, or simply the way he holds himself

POWER AND GLORY: WILL BUXTON that tells you what you need to know. Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion, knows that feeling only too well. At the end of the 2008 season his Honda team pulled out of the sport leaving him unemployed. Ross Brawn, his team boss who had overseen Michael Schumacher’s championship triumphs at Benetton and Ferrari, bought the team, created BrawnGP and set about creating a car for the 2009 season. The team missed every test except for the very last four-day session in Barcelona. Jenson conducted his first few laps in the car, brought it back to the pits, climbed out and looked at the times. He was fastest. And not by a small margin. Rumour has it he walked straight into the team truck, opened his laptop and placed a bet on himself and his team to win that year’s world championships. They would go on to win both titles. Nobody knows how much Jenson had bet on himself but the odds that day had him and the team at over 500:1. And that’s why this day is so important. When a car is good, when it is championship-winning good, the driver just knows. And when it isn’t, when it fails to go for two laps without breaking down, or when it runs without failure but handles so badly the driver might as well be driving a truck on ice, then a driver is faced with the gut-wrenching knowledge that he will struggle not just to win races, but to even score a point. The Red Bull finally breaks cover at midday. It’s a neat solution to the regulations and features some interesting elements. The photographers click away, the journalists stand, nod and make interested noises. And then it’s gone, out on track. Within no time it is up to speed. Watching it tackle the many corners of the Circuito de Jerez, the car seems to be running on rails, a sign of a well balanced car and one in which the driver, Mark Webber, already feels comfortable. As the championship winning team for the last two years, everybody knows this will doubtless be the car to beat. Red Bull Racing

has Adrian Newey in their employ, the highest regarded designer in the sport. Put simply, he just doesn’t produce bad cars. But it isn’t the Red Bull that finishes the day on top. That honour falls to Raikkonen with a laptime faster than we saw at this track in preseason testing last season. Naturally, the questions start to surface. Was it a low fuel run? Was it grandstanding for the team’s sponsors who were present in numbers for the first day of testing? Was it the team creating the perfect headline-grabbing story for the returning champion? And so, the acid test. Hear what the man has to say. Watch him, watch how he moves, how he walks. But then you remember… it’s Kimi Raikkonen. The man who on winning the world championship, sounded about as happy as someone who’d just discovered that their most beloved pet had died. But the man who hates talking to the press is surprisingly open and relatively chatty. He stands at ease, raising a smirk, a grin, a knowing glint in his eye. He tells the press he wasn’t

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on a low fuel run, the car is just quick. Jenson Button has been driving out on track with Raikkonen all day. He, too, seems happy. His team has taken a unique design approach to the season, but the car has run without major issue and is clearly fast out of the box. He can’t help but smile, laugh and tell us all that it’s been a good day. Ahhh, those golden words... a good day. And as for his feelings on Raikkonen’s lap time? As Button was only too ready to admit, low fuel or not, his rival’s car is clearly quick. And like that, the first day of testing is over. The sun begins to set as the teams get down to work on the cars for the following day. Just 11 days of testing now remain before the teams, their cars and their hopes of glory are shipped off to Australia for the first race of the season. Ironically, it is only there, in Melbourne, that we will know for sure who is truly competitive. These cars will develop and change over the coming days of testing as problems are ironed out, and initial designs tweaked. As for now, the phony war has

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begun. From the outside, all we can do is look at the lap times, watch the cars on track, note how well they stick to the road and how comfortable the driver seems to be within them, and, of course, watch the drivers and their body language outside the car. Deep down, however, only a few of them will feel, in the pit of their stomach, that this could be their year. They will have that excitement, that anticipation, and for them Australia will not be able to come soon enough. For the others, they will pray that Australia was further away, as the realisation of another trying season unfolds ahead of them. Amongst these 24 heroes, there will be but one champion in 2012. The balance of power has been created. Their fate has already been set. And all the while, as we try and guess what the drivers will already know, back in the factories of the Formula 1 teams work will already have started on the 2013 car. The countdown is on. The most important day of the Formula 1 season is now just under a year away.

MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR MODHERO Superhero illustration by Rogan Josh

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SUPERMAN Not a bird. Not a plane. But a powerful metaphor for all sorts of aspects of the American experience, from immigration to Jesus (according to the recent film.) Kal-Elâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parents saw the end of their world coming and shipped their baby off in a space pod. Lucky for him! Not only did he escape his worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doom, but he landed on a planet that had: 1) Breathable atmosphere 2) Nice Kansas farmers who already wanted a kid and could raise him as their own 3) A yellow sun, which would turn him into the most powerful being on his new planet. Talk about a win-win!

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

THE BLACK PANTHER Man of mystery. Man of action. Royal blood. Street cred. Mystical traditions. Scientific wizardry. A superior fighter, thinker, ruler, and lover, the Black Panther is hard to sum up because he can basically do anything. Still, his life’s no walk in the park. He stands as a guarded bridge between the outside world and his homeland: the nation of Wakanda. Wakanda sits atop a deposit of vibranium, the most valuable metal on earth and has made incredible technological advances because of this resource. It’s also seen treachery from every angle, as outsiders vie for control of this otherworldly metal. Luckily for the Wakandans, they have a patron spirit, The Panther God, who bestows great power upon the royal bloodline. Mess with her cubs, and feel the panther’s claws!

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JUGGERNAUT The unstoppable force… that manages to get stopped by just about everybody. Poor schlub. The crimson gem of Cyttorak gave him nearly limitless physical strength. You’d think he’d be a big contender, a power player. But instead he always winds up back in the role of a thug. He almost turned it around for a while there. It seemed like he was gonna start barreling down the path of a hero. But, once again, he got stopped in his tracks by his own anger issues, and thick-headedness. It’s like he’s just banging his head against a wall.

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

CAPTAIN AMERICA The star-spangled sentinel of liberty! Captain America was more than just a living patriot missile. He embodied the spirit of the nation, all the while representing the value of the individual. A sickly young man transformed by science into the ultimate soldier, heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fought beside army grunts and godly superheroes alike. A cruel twist of fate froze Steve Rogers in a block of ice at the close of WWII and he awoke to a changed world decades later. Though suddenly outof-place in his own country, his unwavering moral fortitude and steely resolve have yet to be outdone, even when met with such modern challenges as rap metal and TiVo.

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THE BROTHERHOOD OF EVIL MUTANTS Why “Evil?” They could have called them selves The Brotherhood of Angry Mutants (B.A.M.), or The Brotherhood of Outraged and Politically Disenfranchised Mutant Activists (B.O.P.D.M.A), but no. Mystique, never one to mince words, went for the jugular. EVIL. There it is. Although, you’d be hardpressed to find a less evil bunch of terrorists. Sure, Mystique is nuts, but she’s driven by her desire for mutant empowerment. Her longtime companion, Destiny, is a totally nice old lady. Who wouldn’t want to get a beer with Pyro? Avalanche likes to garden, for heaven’s sake. And Blob… well, Blob is kind of an asshole, but you gotta figure the guy’s probably just worried about his next meal. If you gave him a steak, you’d probably have a friend for life. So, why call themselves “Evil?” Well, if you’re a marginalized, downtrodden minority, and you’re trying to carve out a place for your people, you want to be able to negotiate from a place of power. You could take the high road like the X-Men, who swear up and down that they’re very nice, but they still scare the pants off the average citizen and the newspapers call them evil anyway. OR you could just call yourselves evil, blow up a couple buildings, and see where that gets you. The Brotherhood was renegotiating the middle, pushing the establishment with no regard for traditional values or niceties, and, yeah, having a psychotically great time in the process.

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

THE HULK Hulk not evil mutant! Hulk just misunderstood science accident! Why always mad at Hulk? Hulk need new pair of pants… Hulk SEE great pair of pants at Big+Tall store! Hulk go inside. Door.. small.. Oh no! Hulk destroy building! Hulk disappointed in self. Hey, who shoot at Hulk??! Why army always where Hulk go? Can’t Hulk go outlet mall in peace?

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DANGER The killer is in the building! No, wait… It’s worse than that. The killer IS the building! She locks the doors for you, keeps the beer cold, and lord help you, she probably sees what you look at on the internet. Danger is the ghost in the machine, a sentient computer program running the X-Men’s “Danger Room.” Just, you know, a high-tech training facility built to try and KILL

every person who walked in the door. The X-Men never knew she was buried in the wires going stir crazy until she flew off the rails and became quite a horror show. The X-Men won back their home, and Danger got over herself. But now, when Wolverine kicks back with his iPad 2 to spend his day off watching VH1 Classic, he’s got to wonder... Who’s watching back?

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

IRON MAN Bazillionaire playboy Tony Stark has got a lot going on. He’s rich. He’s handsome. He’s sharp. He’s funny. But wait – he needs be hooked up to super high-tech machines to stay alive? That’s rough. Good thing he’s got a knack for gadgets, and pimping his pacemaker was no big deal.

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burger or having started an intergalactic war or whatever new mysterious corner of his past is illuminated to keep him “dangerous,” Gambit fans needn’t worry about him being gone for long. One look into those creepy black-and-red eyes and all will be forgiven.

GAMBIT Why, Monsieur LeBeau! What a dark and treacherous past you have! Right. The thing about Gambit is that the consequences of whatever terrible thing he’s done roll right off him like water off a sexy Cajun duck. In a few months, he’s back with the X-Men. “You lead a gang of murderous thugs for Mister Sinister? I guess that’s okay. Come on home. It’s burrito night.”

“You sold your soul to become Apocalypse’s Horseman of Death because your girlfriend’s mom was being mean? Well, I guess that’s understandable. Come on home. You can be on my softball team.”

It all boils down to one factor: Cool. Gambit is cool. Cool people can just get away with ALOT more than uncool people. So, the next time he gets shunned by the X-Men for having tried a dolphin

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**Also featured in this picture: The Marauders, the team of scary scary people Gambit wrangled for Mister Sinister. Clockwise from center-top: Vertigo, Riptide, Arclight, Scalphunter, Sabertooth, Harpoon, and Scrambler.

MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

NORMAN OSBORN The clothes make the man. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what they say. But what if a man makes his own clothes? And what if those clothes suggest deep sociopathic tendencies? Does that mean they are making the man who wears them crazy? Or was he crazy just to make them? Does it all devolve into some snakeeating-its-tail cycle of madness and murder? Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re talking about Norman Osborn, right? Then the answer is YES. He be crazy. (In a perfectly tailored sort of way.)

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AQUAMAN Yeah, talking to fish is kind of funny. But give the guy a little respect! On a planet that’s 2/3 water, the fact that Aquaman deigns to hang out with the surface-dwellers at all is pretty remarkable. It’s probably quite boring for him with no fish to pal around with, and hardly anywhere to swim. He might just as easily leave us to our own ends and dive back into the depths of his kingdom, never to be seen again. Have any land heroes dedicated their lives to defending the ocean? I doubt it. I bet none of the Super Friends could even name 5 prominent mer-people from Atlantis history. Yet it’s a given that when bad stuff goes down in Anycraptown USA, Aquaman is there to help, usually arriving via some convenient canal system, enlisting the aid of a local octopus to rescue Susie Helpless and her puppy out the window of a burning lakeside trailer. And you know, as soon as he’s gone it’s calimari for dinner. So, let the heroes laugh. He talks to fish, and I guess that’s funny. No doubt they have few nice things to say about humans. It’s likely that every other sentence out of a sea creature’s mouth is “Humans are assholes,” so the fact that Aquaman still looks out for us is pretty noteworthy. Maybe someday we’ll deserve it.

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

ROGUE The gloves are off, kiddo!

least not by anyone who lived to tell!

Once a feared villain, then a misunderstood hero, Rogue can absorb a person’s mind and powers with a touch! Poor thing’s never been kissed – at

But what’s this? It looks like she’s made out with the WHOLE TEAM of late 80s X-Men??! *

*except Kitty

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PSYLOCKE So, you need a makeover. It’s okay. It happens to every glamorous supermodel at some point in their career. You’ve got to keep things interesting if you want to stay A-List. Just dyeing your hair purple isn’t going to cut it. That may have shocked the sensibilities of your fellow Brits, but the longer you hang out with these wacky Yanks, you realize that flouncy dresses and girly tights that just-happen-to-match-your-purplehair don’t really get you on the front cover very often. Here’s an idea: Have your entire body swapped with that of a Japanese ninja! You’ll still be “yourself”, whatever that means, but you’ll have her fierce fighting skills. No more need to hide behind that bulky armor… or anything else, really, except a few thin straps of strategically placed ribbon. What’s, the problem? Does wearing a thong to breakfast with your coworkers seem out of character? Don’t worry, Betsy. Have you seen your new buttocks? No one will really care about your “character” anymore. (I hear you’re also considering a facial tattoo of some kind, and some sort of mystical shadow-form. … Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

MAGNETO Sorry, Professor X. Magneto was RIGHT! * *About a couple things: 1) Being a minority will always be kind of crappy, even if you have big muscles and cool powers. 2) Senior citizens wearing purple and orange tights can still strike terror into the masses. Savior? Terrorist? Visionary? Madman? Yes!

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VENOM Dude! Put that thing away! Jeez, talk about the worst wing-man ever! Whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d have thought a cool symbiotic alien sludge would turn out to be such a hanger-on? Venom first appeared as Spider-Manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sleek black costume that could slip on and off at will. Pretty helpful! But when Spidey thought maybe they should spend some time apart and figure out their feelings for one another, the black goo FREAKED OUT and took up with a really disreputable guy who also had an ax to grind with our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. All their negative mojo combined and the snaggletoothed, slobbering AntiSpidey standing in front of you is the result. Yuck! The moral to this story? Never look a gift alien symbiote in the mouth!

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

STORM Three guidelines of effective leadership, as taught to us by Storm: 1. GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY. If one of your associates gets kidnapped by a rival gang of unsightly underground mutants, and their leader challenges you to a duel… Go for it! Don’t act like some prissy goddess and delegate the task to Wolverine. Get stabby! You might even get a cool vest out of it. 2. CHANGE THINGS UP If you’ve established a certain image among your peers, say, as a pristine and etherial natureloving type, why not show up for work one day with a mohawk? Let your team know that you can keep up with current trends, and that you’re not afraid to get edgy if that’s what it takes to lead your team through some tough times. The mohawk will also look really good with the vest you just got. 3. TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES ALOT This is especially effective if you’re smoking hot, and your team consists of a bunch of emotionally underdeveloped men. Take a shower in the rain, and let the boys stare! You can say it’s “natural” and act like your African heritage and oneness with nature allow you a certain comfort with your own body that the average uptight westerner can’t grasp. You’ll have them all eating out of the palm of your hand, and following your lead to the end!

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RICTOR AND SHATTERSTAR Are they or aren’t they? Over a decade of smoldering speculation and slash fiction has finally paid off with a resounding YES! The cross-dimensional glam-warrior and the edgy Mexican “Earthquake Kid” are forever joined in the hearts of readers. Whether you picked up on the innuendo or not, the unlikely duo just had a certain spark. With Shatterstar’s new ability to slice “X”s through reality, along with Rictor’s classic tremor powers, this is one power-couple that really could crack the internet in half!

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MODHERO: ROGAN JOSH

DOCTOR DOOM If countries were people, they’d all basically be jerks, right? Even the most progressive, touristfriendly paradise basically exists to serve its own interests and look out for number one. If the actions of Country Number One have consequences that don’t exactly benefit its neighbors, well, I’m sure that can be somehow justified in a way to make sure no one at home feels too bad, or even gives it too much thought. Doctor Doom is a man who is basically a country. He rules the impoverished Latveria. Its interests are his and vice versa. No matter how black his intentions may seem, his actions are “for the good of the country,” which lets him off the hook morally. At least that’s how it seems to work behind his iron mask. He can launch one insidious attack after another against any nation on earth and remain smug in the ethical safe-zone of Latverian exceptionalism.

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WORDS: KOSMIC KLOWN

WORDS By Kosmic Klown

I love

words, there’s nothing more powerful than words, no gun, nor bomb in fact no weapon made by man has the strength of words. The right words, put together in the right way can change a life. There are words for all occasions, to suit all needs. Hopes can be raised or dashed, with a single well chosen sentence. You can be made to feel with words. Words can make you cry, laugh, sing, hate, love and try. Words keenly struck and forged in a mouth, can cut like the sharpest edge. A mind can be changed; thoughts reprogrammed. A life style can be bent and twisted. Words are lies and they are truth. I like words, they can start wars, and they can end them. They are the expression of all we tell the world we are, what we want people to believe of us. And what we think of others and ourselves. They tell our tales, they enrich our lives. They also repress us. Words are dangerous and they are safe, they are over used and forbidden. They offend and they delight. Words and their creation, their very existence is the utter expression of the dichotomy of what it is to be a feeling thinking human being. Then there’s thought, what of thought? I think in words, don’t you? Of course you do. So what came first? Thought, abstraction of self, or words? Descartes, now there was a wordsmith, postulated Cogito ergo sum; I think there for I am. Perhaps illic es lacuna ergo Cogito; there are words therefore I think, maybe more appropriate?

So complex, are words, that they are different all over the world, and yet they mean the same things, Kibinakh; Ngo oi nei; Je t’dore; Ich liebe dich; Ti Voglio; GamuSHa; all these words are different but they tell someone they are loved. This gift, this language is the greatest tool the human race possesses. I’m lucky enough to have learnt the words of more than one place in the world, but I’ve been in places where my words are not understood. There is I’m sure many of you, my non readers, who have felt this loss of power, because that is what it is that comes with the inability to communicate. A total loss of power. Words are used to make us believe. Hitler used words to drive an entire nation to hate and persecute with no justification. Words can make a fiction out of reality, and truth out of dreams. They are shocking cunt! They are soft pussy, and they are proper vagina. A single word can cause more and longer lasting pain, than a plethora of slaps to the face. They motivate, and they (a cautionary note for the pedants of my non readership, I’ve made this next word up) Apathivate (I didn’t like de-motivate, it’s far too clumsy). They are our power, and our weakness. They bring us together and they pull us apart. A wise and thoughtful person will learn as many of them as they can, and use them astutely. They can save you as well as damn you. I love words and so, I hope do you.

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POWER POETRY: W.M.LEWIS

COLOSSUS We found a new Colossus, though ‘discovered’ is a better word. His torso is a map of Hell from which we’ve been inured.

They paved the road, they wiped the sweat from brows of stinking men. They wiped the other gunk off, too, and whispered deaths to them.

His legs are roads, his eyes are stars, his toes an understanding. They display without a moment’s pause the demons he commanded.

He is a thing of wonder, though: the ancient past, and more. He makes us wish we understood what had gone on before.

He was buried in the mountains, which used to be the sea, and fighting with the rock and shells for anonymity.

Before the wars, before the peace bought so dearly with the blood of those they slaughtered and the tears of those who lived.

They made them big in those days, one digger spake with mirth. They made them big, I think I said, to terrorize our worth.

The digger turned to me and spat and threw upon the earth, his shovel, wishes, wonderings, accompanied by a curse.

They carved it when they thought that they were finally in the clear. They were celebrating freedom, though it’s what I know they feared.

I came here after myths, said he, I didn’t want the truth. I spat right back, What you’d expect? When what you want is worse.

The first one was for Victory, while this one was for Lust. The wrenching cries from war became just words immersed in dust. The dead tongue wrapped around his thigh: You see it fails to say? The slaves and whelps and women were the ones who had to pay.

We found a new Colossus, yes, he exceeded all our hopes. But we were left wondering just this: are we and History dopes?

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THE TYRANNY OF GOVERNMENTS

By W.M.Lewis

Politics is what we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say At the breakfast table Then on the train We arrive at the tyranny of governments before our destination Always Over the cereal Across the aisle Those of us who are free take the first bites We chew so slowly

TENDER BIRDS IN CONFERENCE The tender birds in conference like those old men of Versailles deciding the fate of the world ; arguing over every crumb with the aid of fine whiskey as if they were Poland Oslo Berlin ; who will take their sepia photographs write partisan biographies and comfort their loving wives with lies ?

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By Ben Turner

Powering a cinema with bikes seems like one of those crazy ideas you come up with after a few too many pints in the pub. But for Magnificent Revolution itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a reality. When PoV heard about the project we knew couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t possibly allow our power themed issue to go by without talking to the guys behind it. We caught up with Adam Walker, the director of the project, to find out all about those magnificent men and their cycling machines. ISSUE 2 2012

MAGNIFICENT REVOLUTION, WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT? Magnificent Revolution is an artists collective based in Hackney, London. We do all kinds of projects from children’s workshops bringing together art and ecology to our Cycle-In Cinema which is a series of outdoor screenings powered by bicycles. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA AND WHY? Magnificent Revolution started way back in 2007 when we put together our first bicycle generator rig for the Big Chill Festival. We put together a team of 40 amazing volunteers who helped us create a cycle circus of bands, films and performances. The original idea for the Cycle-Ins came from Drive-In movies in America. We wanted to create a cinematic experience where, rather than people driving to see a movie, people could cycle to the events

and actually become part of the show by powering the performance. Most of our work has this combination of collaboration and environmental education behind it. SO THIS IS REAL PEDAL POWER, HOW DOES IT WORK? In a nutshell, people plug their bikes into one of our modified training stands and pedal to spin a DC generator or motor. These produce the electricity which is then channeled together to create enough power to make the projector and sound system work. HOW PRACTICAL IS IT AS AN ENERGY SOLUTION? Not particularly practical if you’re talking about using these as a conventional power supply given how much energy we use per household. The generators themselves are about 50% efficient when you take into account all the losses

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CYCLE OF LIFE: BEN TURNER

from the bicycles and the power transmission. I do think that bicycle generators could be used in rural areas where there is no ready access to the power grid. The most obvious application would be in gyms to harness the power that would otherwise be wasted. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU? Firstly, as a way to bringing people together. It’s great to see people getting together to enjoy something in a different way. There is always a huge cheer at the end of the performance when the credits roll which is either relief that the film is over or that they’ve had a great time. It’s probably a bit of both. Secondly, as a way of communicating sustainability and environmental issues in a positive light. I think we focus too much on the negatives of the climate crisis. We hope that our cycle powered events present a way of doing things differently and getting people on bicycles is always a plus.

part of the Thames Festival last year. Actually, the biggest thing we’ve thought about powering was a humble kettle which uses 3000 watts (more power than our projector and sound system put together). It’s hard to choose any of our projects as the most interesting but I really enjoyed a project we did in Birkenhead called Our Turf WHAT’S THE BIGGEST THING YOU’VE in 2010. It was a series of cycle cinemas in some pretty run down areas of the city. It was EVER POWERED AND THE MOST INTERESTING PROJECT YOU’VE BEEN great to see loads of people from the local estates turn up and watch the films. I think INVOLVED WITH? the most interesting projects usually happen The biggest event we’ve been involved in is in places where they don’t usually see this type when we screened a series of Charlie Chaplin of thing. We’d love to go back and do some films on the side of the Royal Albert Hall as

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the biggest thing weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve thought about powering was a humble kettle which uses 3000 watts ISSUE 2 2012

more screenings there, as loads of the local kids asked if we were going to come back one day. IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ANYTHING IN THE WORLD TO POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I’m not sure I have something that I would like to power. However, we’ve just sent a generator to Uganda and it’s amazing to see people using the kit for something really practical like charging a battery so they can light up their houses in the evening. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU’RE PEDALING? DO YOU GET A CHANCE TO ENJOY THE EVENT FROM THE SADDLE OR IS IT JUST A JOB? It’s never just a job. Hopefully, I’m not in the saddle all the time. I love it even when I’m pedaling. WOULD YOU GET TWICE THE POWER FROM A TANDEM? Yes you would, twice the legs means twice the power. DOES IT KEEP YOU FIT? Oh yes, I’m a keen cyclist so I’m pretty used

to cycling for long periods but the cycle cinema can be quite a endurance test. CAN ANYONE GET INVOLVED? We try and make the events as inclusive as possible. We usually have a few kids bikes as well as they always want to get involved. We try not to charge for our events and take donations on the door so that anyone can come along. FUTURE PLANS? We’ve got a few interesting projects in the pipeline. We’ve recently had a girl from Australia work with us who has now set up a Magnificent Revolution project down under, which is amazing. We also have a project in Slovakia which is also doing well so we’re planning a European tour over the summer, working with artists and organisations in different cities along the way, running bicycle generator workshops and a series of pedal powered events. We also have our own Tour de London which will be starting in May where we’ll be taking the Cycle-In Cinema around the capital. AND FINALLY, DO YOU RIDE A BIKE TO WORK? Did you have to ask? Of course I do!

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find out more go to: http://www.magnificentrevolution.org

CYCLE OF LIFE: BEN TURNER

BORED? LONELY? WEEKS BEFORE THE NEXT PoV MAGAZINE COMES OUT? Well chin up, stop sitting staring blankly at the wall and log on to the PoV Symposium, a brand new site from the minds behind PoV Magazine. We’re launching a new website to keep you entertained between issues with more amazing work from our brilliant contributors and we want you to get involved. If you’ve been inspired to write a short story or poem, take a photo or paint a picture by the themes of the magazine send them to us on hello@povmagazine.co.uk and you could see your work online. The PoV Symposium – better than a poke in the eye.

HTTP://POVSYMPOSIUM.TUMBLR.COM ISSUE 2 2012

FEELING MINNESOTA: JOE CLIFFORD

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FEELING MINNESOTA By Joe Clifford

“I

like your shirt,” the waitress said as she refilled the three faded brown mugs. Jack returned his best Ray Liotta, and she smiled back. He didn’t take his eyes off her as she walked away up the aisle with her coffee pot. Baby, you’re too pretty to be stuck in Minnesota. Shifting his weight, Chris tried to get comfortable, but he was too large for the tiny booth and so he gave up and speared a hunk of blueberry pie and ice cream instead. He pointed at the big dice emblazoned with flaming triple 7s on Jack’s left sleeve. “That’s great, man,” Chris said through a mouthful. “Those dice, like, totally make the shirt.” “I’ve been meaning to ask you where you got that,” Pat added, squinting through his thick glasses and reaching for the sugar and cream. “It’s a really great shirt, Jack.” “Man, they have so many of those vintage shops out there, up and down the Boulevard,” Jack said. “That’s what we call Sunset Boulevard, ‘the Boulevard’; no one calls it Sunset. Except tourists. You wouldn’t believe how many bones it cost me. But as soon as I saw those dice, I was like, man, I gotta have that.” Jack had spent a hundred and twelve dollars on the retro red and black bowling

shirt, something he never would’ve done a couple years ago. These days, he didn’t mind dropping that kind of change. In the movie business, one couldn’t put too high a price tag on looking good. “Beats all hell out of the rags they sell here,” Pat said, hefting Chris’s fat arm and oversized flannel by the elbow. Chris pulled away. It was comical how tiny Pat was next to Chris. They’d make a good sitcom. The waitress was now behind the counter, and Jack caught her sneaking quick looks over her shoulder. Yes, it felt good to be back home. Chris and Pat turned and giggled. “I bet you see a lot of that out there,” Chris said. “You kidding me?” said Pat. “Girls like that are probably a dime a dozen in Hollywood.” Jack leaned back in the booth, spreading his arms, letting his head rest against the cool glass of the window. They were the only customers in the allnight diner, a favorite spot of theirs from high school days, back when they’d play cards through the night, talking about big plans for when they graduated. It felt good to relive those times. At four a.m., the normally heavy turnpike

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FEELING MINNESOTA: JOE CLIFFORD

traffic had died down. Occasionally a tractortrailer barreled along, or a car pulled into the 24-hr. 76 gas station next door, the same sad, lonely passengers getting out, stocking up on fuel and caffeine for their sad, lonely lives. Staring out into the darkness, Jack patted his shirt pockets for his cigarettes. It had been misting all day and into the evening, and now a thin sheet of ice shimmered on the glass and parking lot pavement in the crisp, cold Minnesota night. “You guys are lucky you can still smoke here,” Jack said as he flipped open his box of Gitanes, searching the cluttered table for an ashtray. “They outlawed it in California,” “Everywhere?” “Yeah, man, everywhere.” “Even in your house?” Chris asked. “No, I mean, like in bars and restaurants and stuff. It’s crazy. When we were working on the film and we’d all go into town and hit the bars—y’know, after shooting had wrapped for the day—man, they wouldn’t even let some of those guys smoke.” “That’s crazy. Can’t smoke in bars?” “What are you talking about?” Pat said. “You don’t even smoke, what do you care?” “Like you do?” Jack waved his hand over his head to catch the waitress’s attention, and she covered the pastries she’d been restacking and pulled out her order pad, taking a step in their direction,

but Jack shook his head “no” and mouthed the word “ashtray,” pointing to the cigarettes in his hand, and she nodded, and they shared a private laugh. “What?” Chris said. “I can’t find antismoking legislation interesting just because I don’t smoke?” Jack rapped a knuckle on the table and they both looked up. “Hey,” he said, “I want to hear what’s new back here. Fill me in. What’s the latest?” “Nothing changes in this place, you know that,” Chris said, unaware he was dragging his shirt sleeve through his melting ice cream. “That’s not true,” Pat said with a grin. “Mr. Big Shot here has been promoted to Produce Manager over at Suffy’s. He’s responsible for all that fine iceberg lettuce we’re so famous for up in these parts.” Pat snorted at his own joke. The waitress brought an ashtray and set it softly in front of Jack. He mouthed the words “thank you,” before pulling a cigarette out of his pack with his lips and letting it dangle. She brushed a wick of long black hair from her eyes. “You’re a funny guy, Pat.” Chris’s heavy ruddy face turned redder. “Like a little Christmas elf.” Outside, the diner’s glowing pink and blue sign flickered. But only Jack took any notice. He was developing an eye for these things, romantic moments, the multiple

Outside, the diner’s glowing pink and blue si Jack took any notice. He was developing an e romantic moments, the multiple interpretat the cinematic beauty of the everyday world

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interpretations of lighting, the cinematic beauty of the everyday world around us. Take this scene for instance: smoke-filled diner late at night, old haunts, cheap cups of coffee, old friends. He imagined the waitress, so young and fragile, waiting tables night after night, living in some one-room dump where she wrote her sad stories, naked beneath the covers. He saw the closing shot, heard the affecting score, the script almost perfect. “No, Produce Manager at Suffy’s, that’s the big time, brother,” Pat said, giggling. “No shit, really?” Jack asked, looking past his friends down the aisle. He patted himself down again, this time retrieving a Zippo lighter with the engraved initials “J.K.” “That’s terrific, man. Tell me about it.” Jack clicked the head shut through an inhale of smoke. “No, it’s embarrassing.” Chris finally noticed his wet sleeve. “It’s just some crummy job.” “Yeah, what you want to hear about that dumb job for?” “At least I have a job.” “Unpacking rotten heads of lettuce from smelly crates, some job. You’ve only been working there since forever, about time they put you in charge of something.” Pat motioned across the table at Jack. “The guy was in a movie with Sam Jackson, like he cares about your goddamn lettuce.” “You brought it up.”

ign flickered. But only eye for these things, tions of lighting, d around us.

“Guys,” Jack said, holding up his hands. “Listen, we’re friends. Nothing’s gonna change that. I want to know what’s happening in both your lives.” Jack’s words trailed off as he caught a glimpse of the waitress’s low cut blouse as she bent forward. “What’re you working on next?” Pat said. “Man, I still can’t believe you were in that.” Jack knew she knew he was watching her, and that it was turning her on. Now she was down on one knee, scrubbing, skirt all bunched up. He imagined the way she must taste, salty and young, the low hum of the diner’s track lighting drowning out everything else besides him and her. The director behind the scenes placed his principles: hometown boy rides back onto the ranch to rescue the girl, like Cooper in High Noon or Reeves in Feeling Minnesota. Yeah, Feeling Minnesota. That was a story. Hero breaks up the wedding, takes out the crooks, and whisks the girl off to a brand new start, pale blue convertible laying tracks down the freeway, trading artic cool for brighter days. “Jack?” Pat said. “Huh?” “Movie. What movie you working on next?” Jack scoffed. “Man, you guys got it all wrong. It’s not what you think. You act like I’m some big movie star or something. I had a five-minute, barely speaking part—” “Yeah—standing toe-to-toe with Sam Jackson. Besides, you’re really doing it, just like you always said—actually living in Hollywood.” Pat’s elf-like mouth twisted up to one side, making him look even more cross-eyed than usual. “Beats goddamn Lake Woebegone.” Loud engines roared into the parking lot. Chris picked up a fork and poked at his pie crust. “Still been in more movies than us,” he muttered. The door pushed opened and two big men staggered into the diner, laughing loudly. One

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FEELING MINNESOTA: JOE CLIFFORD

wore a black suede jacket, a size too small, fringe dangling off the arms and back. He paused to balance himself against the half-wall encasing the cash register. His friend didn’t wear a coat, only a faded orange T-shirt. Across the front it read “Don’t Fuck with Texas” in cracked vinyl letters. The shirt fit snuggly around his beefy frame and arms. He sported a buzz cut and big black tattoo of a claw-toothed animal on the biceps. Both wore motorcycle boots. Black Fringe jabbed a hand into his hip coat pocket, pulling out a wad of keys, rings and clips. Sidearm, he flung the ball hard against the mini-jukebox over the menu rack, throwing himself in backwards after it, thwacking into the wall. The booth shook and the two men laughed harder. Texas winked at the waitress, slapped his buddy on the shoulder. “Gotta use the pisser.” Chris and Pat started, eyes wide. “What the fuck you looking at?” Black Fringe barked down the aisle. Chris and Pat turned around. Reaching up, the man pulled his long greasy hair from his face, tiny pieces of ice flicking

onto the table and floor. “Hey, how ’bout some coffee?” he called out to the waitress, who’d safely tucked herself behind the counter. “I thought I told you guys not to come in here anymore,” she said. The big man furrowed his brow, made a loud sucking sound, tongue against teeth. He rearranged himself, sinking into the booth, back against the wall, one foot dangling over the edge, the other firmly planted on the floor. He returned his stare on Jack’s booth, a snarl on his lips. Jack flipped over his bunched-up coat and returned his cigarettes to the inside pocket. “What’d’ya say we get outta here?” he said quietly. Texas came back from the john, following his friend’s gaze. “What’s the problem?” “Faggot down there wants to suck my dick.” “Which one?” “The pretty boy.” Texas puckered his lips and smacked a kiss at Jack. The waitress brought the men coffees and set them on the table. Texas roamed his eyes

The big man furrowed his brow, made a loud sucking sound, tongue against teeth. He rearranged himself, sinking into the booth, back against the wall, one foot dangling over the edge, the other firmly planted on the floor. He returned his stare on Jack’s booth, a snarl on his lips.

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over her body. She started to walk away but he grabbed her by a loop on her apron, and she stopped, silent. “I ask you for coffee?” Texas said, a wide grin spreading over his face. He let her go. “Just fucking with you, baby.” He fixed himself into the same reclining position as his buddy, arm draped over the back, a big black-booted foot off the seat. Black Fringe grabbed a fistful of sugar packets. Tearing open several, he titled his head back, draining them into his wide-open mouth. “You guys want to hurry it up?” Jack said under his breath. “Should we just leave?” Pat asked. “Or do what?” “I dunno,” Chris said, “but we can’t just leave her in here with those guys.” “Hey, this isn’t the movies, OK?” “Yo, sweetheart,” Texas called to the waitress, “why don’t you bring us a couple beers?” The waitress stuck her head through the cook’s window. “I can’t.” Texas dragged his hand across the stubble on his face. “Why the fuck not?” “It’s after two.” Black Fringe sat up straighter, leaning toward the kitchen. “So what? Ain’t nobody in here.” He looked at Texas and shook his head. “Real law abiding girl we got here.” “Hey, sweets!” Texas said. “I said bring us a couple beers. Ain’t nobody gonna call the cops.” Jack took out his wallet, removed a ten and dropped it on the table. “I’ll meet you outside,” he said, and walked hurriedly toward the door. Texas put his foot across the aisle, blocking his exit. “Hey, pretty boy, you gonna call the cops if we have a couple beers?”

Jack shook his head no. “See, sweetheart, ain’t nobody gonna say nothin’.” “You’re not leaving on our account?” Black Fringe said to Jack. He stuck a wet finger into a sugar packet, then into his mouth, making a loud popping sound. “No,” Jack said softly. “Gotta get some sleep.” “Gotta get some sleep,” Texas mimicked in a high-pitched voice. “Y’know, there’s a toll to get outta here.” Black Fringe jerked his head and snorted. “Tell you what, pretty boy,” Texas said, “seeing’s how it’s so cold outside and all I got is this T-shirt, what say you give me that fancy one of yours and we’ll call it even.” His friend snickered. Jack’s hand dropped to the bottom button. The waitress came around the counter and slapped an open palm on the stool seat. “Dammit, Mitch! I told you not to come in here and bother me when I’m working!” “Jesus, sweetheart, take it easy, we were just havin’ a little fun,” Texas said, lifting his leg up. “You’re drunk. If you can’t behave yourself, go home. I’ll be there when I get off.” She turned to Jack. “Sorry about that, mister. Why don’t you sit back down with your friends? Have some more pie, on me.” Jack gave a quick head shake and pushed the doors open fast. Outside, he wrapped his jacket around him, feeling for his car keys but pulling out his cigarettes instead. Behind him, he could hear laughter echoing inside the tiny tin diner. Across the turnpike, the pall of the dimming streetlights fused into an early dawn sky. With unsteady fingers, he pulled out a cigarette. He tried to light it but the spark wouldn’t take, the cold Minnesota winds blowing right through him.

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

By Francesca Harris Models: Emma + Frankie Hair: Joshua Goldsworthy Makeup: Eleanore Wilkinson Costume, Headpieces, Photography: Francesca Harris

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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This

collection of photographs were the culmination of three years studying Illustration at university. I wanted to create something bigger, more consuming than a drawing and what better way than to make whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s floating around in my head, a living breathing reality. The collection began as sketches, working out ways to disguise the human face â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to enhance, exaggerate and to distort â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and grew into including hand paper cut elements to add depth and an extra layer of intricacy and eventually became an all consuming world of costume design and making, scouting locations and finding the perfect models. The costumes and headpieces were all hand cut from card or mouldable foam, hundreds and hundreds of laser cut feathers were sewn individually together to create a winged cape and twisted wire held the precariously perched antlers and skullcap in place. The concept evolved from a love of drawing ethereal girls with distorted features and intricate detailing and wanting to add depth. I wanted to give these girls a persona, a darker alter ego that made them surreal and otherworldly. There needed to be a friction between good and bad, the contrast of light and dark needed to be stark and from there grew these animalistic, waif-like alien beings. Still human in essence, with biologically correct spines and ribs, the photographs show them morphing into their animal counterparts. The Deer and the Crow inhabit the forest.

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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THE DEER AND THE CROW: FRANCESCA HARRIS

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THUNDER AND LIGHTNING: CHRIS PILKINGTON

Since the dawning moments of humanity there have been drummers. Fact. Maybe not fully kitted out jazz fusion drummers with shiny kits and cymbals but the very nature of playing a rhythm that compels others to move or dance, has always been with us.

When reading about the power and sheer infectious nature of early rock n roll, you will often see the beat being referenced, and the perpetrator of such a beat will be the drummer. The engine room, the groove master, tub thumper.

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Photo credit: ©Marcel Wolthers (into@metrique.nl)

By Chris Pilkington

For every aspiring drummer since the 1970’s, John Bohnam of Led Zepplin encapsulates the rock drummer’s dream: fame, stadiums, big drums, solos and a farm. Yes he had a farm. One could argue that Mr Bonham took everything that came

before – the groove, swing, pzazz – and gave it a hell of a lot of meat an balls. And there’s no one better to explain this than Mr Benjy Reid, who every night has the job of being John Bonham in the leading Led Zep tribute band ‘Letz Zep’ and does a grand job too...

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THUNDER AND LIGHTNING: CHRIS PILKINGTON When I was about 9 or 10 my parents took me to my first ‘concert’, no it wasn’t the big rock band touring at the time or even a name act for that matter; hell, I don’t even remember who it was or where, but it was the first time I had heard real drums played live. And yes, the heavens did part and the lightning did strike down upon the earth after hearing such sounds. [No, my first real rock concert was a bit more memorable (act wise) as it involved Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhodes on guitar and Tommy Aldridge on drums. It was the Blizzard of Ozz Tour and how astonished would I gape if you told me then I would be sharing the same stage with Ozzy at an Ozzfest in front of 40,000 people in the Czech Republic some quarter of a century later? Very! But more on me and my rock and roll road in a bit.] I knew then as I know now exactly what I wanted to do – to sit behind a drum kit and create my own thunder and lightning, for surely that’s what a drum kit is – forces of nature harnessed into a single space as rhythmic thunder and lightning, and what could be more powerful when struck in the right place and at the right time? The right time – that is the drummer’s job, first and foremost. I don’t care how mean your chops are or how fast, if ya can’t keep time ya ain’t a drummer. So let’s say you can keep time and you have got thunder and lightning flickering off your nylon moulded or wooden stick tips, does that make you a powerful drummer? No, I’m afraid not, not yet. There’s what you play, and how, and when, and your sound, and ultimately the vehicle (aka your band) in which you have to exercise all these myriad of elements. Now when I was a kid in the 80s, one drummer stood head and shoulders above all others, combining all of the aforementioned factors to; well, perfection. So much so that he still stands there today, despite having passed away over 30 years ago in the Autumn of 1980. And he is the one and only John Henry Bonham, drummer of Led Zeppelin. But how? Why is he still regarded as one of the most powerful drummers ever to drum? What makes this so? Well, I’m going to humbly attempt to tell you – key word here being attempt. OK, let’s start with sound – the Bonham sound. It’s world class as well as world famous, but it was far from an overnight phenomenon and took years in the making, years of practice, of learning, and of tuning. Though once he found the vehicle (Zeppelin) things moved forward pretty fast. At the time of the late 60s four American drum companies ruled the

drumming world, Gretsch, Ludwig, Rogers and Slingerland, though one probably stood out more than the others thanks to the boys from Liverpool. And it was Ludwig that John chose as his drum, with a little help from his friend Carmine Appice (Vanilla Fudge), Ludwig chose him too. John’s Zep kits started out very much the same as most of us with the industry standard 22” bass drum, 13” rack tom and 16” floor tom, but by the first U.S. tour the kick drum had grown to a 24” and an 18” floor tom had been added. Trusting wholeheartedly in the adage ‘bigger is better’, John pushed the boat out even further with his first endorsement kit later that same year, 1969, and it was this drum kit, and sizes, that would define the Zeppelin drum sound for the rest of John’s career, let alone set the standard for rock music up to this very day. John’s kit boasted a massive 26” bass drum, a 14” rack tom and 16” and 18” floor toms. For the most part, John consistently used a Ludwig Model 402 6.5 x 14” steel shell snare drum. And for any John Bonham drum spotters out there; yes, John’s last kit (the Ludwig stainless steel) even went further with the rack tom as that became a 15” drum and the infamous orange Vistalite kit had a 20” floor tom that he would seldom switch with the 16” floor tom to have 18” and 20” on his right side, but no matter how you set up a Bonham kit, it’s big drums! Cymbals too, were bigger than any contemporary set-up and dwarf what

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is considered commonplace today. John used Paiste 2002 series cymbals and his set-up ran as such - 15” Sound Edge hi hats/18” Medium crash/20” Medium crash/24” Ride. Oh, and the iconic gong! A 36” Paiste symphonic gong rose up 5ft. off the ground just behind the 18” floor tom and was used to great effect. He referred to his drumsticks as ‘trees’ and hit the kit like a hammer of the Gods, or a God wielding hammers (you choose the order of the nouns); regardless, what other sound could possibly come from such a combination, but that of thunder and of lightning? So many drummers spend so much time chasing that Bonham sound; they buy the same drums, Vintage or re-issue, same heads, study his tuning, buy big sticks, learn technique, blah, blah, blah. Wait, let’s fast forward and skip the hours wasted with such preparation, let’s make life easy. I’ve got one of John’s drums, one he played, right here with me in the room. I’ll even put it on a stand he used and hand you a stick he held. Now hit it once, just once, and give the stick to next drummer in the long cue behind you. Each strike will be different - in velocity, approach, angle, point of contact, rebound, but more importantly, in the belief and solidarity one has with whom and what he hits. Not one will sound the same, and not one like him. Don’t believe me? Let’s record it… so echoes the sound of silence. Nothing comes close to the original pioneer that was John Bonham or the

8 studio albums Zeppelin recorded (9 including Coda) or the estimated 200 to 300 millions of copies sold worldwide. The proof is in the pudding, and Custard Pie (amongst countless other Zeppelin tracks) is still on the menu of favourite drummers’ deserts. A quick note and reality check on sound. Getting a kick ass drum sound, live or recorded, is without a shadow of a doubt the hardest part of any sound engineer’s job, made slightly easier if he/she doesn’t have to turd polish; that is, the drum kit already sounds good before the mics go on. Even today, with all of the digital sciences and decades of recording technology amassed in the outboard arsenal of every studio’s control room, if the ‘live’ room ain’t no good then there is no high end drum kit or drummer that will ever sparkle enough to make up the difference. Whoa, whoa, not so fast, there are exceptions – case in point, I call the Police. Yes, Roxanne and red lights. Great band, great drumming, so innovative was the rhythm that its sound was… was… what drum sound? Fault lies not with Stewart, but in the room – a 25ft x 25ft square of parquet nothingness, without reflections, depth of angle, corner, cove, height of loft or bay of window, or any other sound enhancing irregularity or quality. Worst of all, in this so called ‘live’ room just off Junction 9 round London’s M25, is the height of the ceiling, or rather lack of it. How do I know? I recorded there, dragged my kit to every corner of the

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Find out more about Benji here: www.benjyreid.com

room, middle and just off-centre. Nothing made a difference and was undoubtedly the worst space I’ve ever had to record in - because of the room. The point I’m driving at here is that the room drums are recorded in is almost as important for the sound as is the drums and drummer being recorded. Now let’s go back 40 years when microphone and recording technology/techniques were very much in their infancy and listen to the newly released, and untitled, Led Zeppelin album (now known as Led Zep IV). What do you hear shining through? OK, now that we’ve scratched the tip of the tip of the tip of the drum iceberg of sound, let’s look at performance, actual lightning strike and roll of thunder. Firstly, a music lesson in tempo – energy, or power, is not created in music by simply increasing the tempo. John knew this, and so did Jimmy Page because a vast majority of the Zeppelin catalogue is under 100 beats per minute (bpm = number of quarter notes (beats) a metronome can spit out in a minute). This is not fast and only just mid tempo. Andante! Andante! The conductor would shout, which translates ‘at a walking pace’. Actually, it’s almost the opposite as power is created from space and the tension between the instruments living and breathing within that space. And Zeppelin created such spaces so often that it could almost have been deemed easy for them, least of all magical. Again, but how? And what makes it so? Space – the final frontier, but the trick is not to go where no man has gone before, but rather to keep your notes from going there! Zeppelin consisted of four musicians playing a wide range of instruments (mainly John Paul Jones on that matter playing bass/keyboards/ bass pedals/mandolin and upright, or double bass) as they went from hard, riff driven rock to esoteric folk, but their approach was always the same – four men, masters of their instruments, going about their business in almost a separate

way. What I mean to say is they each played their own part which tended to be an entity all unto its own, yet was woven with the other three in such a way as to become syncopated and polyrhythmic. When they did all line up from time to time, the effect was so strong to become palpable in feeling and thus a sense of power in music. Listen to Kashmir, off Physical Graffiti, a dozen times back to back and you may begin to get a real sense of the idea. Drum fills. These can lift a song to new heights or keep it strapped down to the ground with the wrong fill, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Most important is the song, listen to it, what does it want, what does it need? And now, what are you going to do about it? Well, one could say John Bonham did much more than anybody else was doing at the time. His right foot alone ripped out dotted sixteenths that turned heads almost as fast, as eloquently displayed in Good Times, Bad Times which appeared on Zeppelin’s first album Led Zeppelin I, recorded in October 1968 and released at the birth of the following year. What John tends to do intrinsically by nature is change the feel of the song with the feel of the fill. For example, a typical bluesy number in 6/4 or 6/8, he will straighten out the drum fill with quarter notes, eighths or sixteenths instead of playing triplets that would naturally suit the feel of the song. This creates tension between the instruments, or friction if you will, which in turn creates energy – and played in the right place at the right time; presto, power! This works the other way too, songs in a straight 4/4 meter John would fill out with triplets or 6 note fills so as to work against the natural feel of the song. Now switch feels within the fill itself! Sab kuch milega! Anything is possible! But I can’t tell you what to do, show you what to play, you have to live it, love it, learn it – and most importantly, feel it! The feel – it is all about the feel! John had it in spades and was famous for his bombastic

www.letzzep.com http://youtu.be/wQlyXKCZLWQ

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING: CHRIS PILKINGTON

grooves that could shake the pillars of Rome. Put When the Levee Breaks (off that untitled Zep album from 40 yrs ago) on at full volume, it will peel the paint off the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel… guaranteed. Now if you’ve made it this far, I tip my imaginary hat, but your efforts shall not be in vain for in the end, all shall be revealed – and we’re nearly there. A little further and you will learn the secret truth behind every powerful drummer. It is the rock drummer’s greatest weapon, though many do not possess this weapon, many do, it is of an ethereal nature that I believe cannot be learned, like curling your tongue, you either can or you cannot, you either got it or you don’t. All the great drummers have it, especially the great rock ones, as it is what makes a groove groove, it is the flickering tendrils of ghost notes that stand the hairs on a listener’s arm on end, it is the backbeat snare that holds an entire band back like the black leather reins of a coach and six, it lives and breathes in the most simple of 4/4 rhythms… boom tap boom tap boom tap and it is in the drummer, those human guardians of time and space, and their ability to… SWING! Yep, swing, you know, big band jazz, proper swing. John loved it and spent countless hours in his front room playing along to his favourite 40s and 50s orchestras, especially those driven by Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich. How do I know? His Mum told me. AC DC’s even got it!

No disrespect to Phil Rudd, but remember the aforementioned boom tap boom tap? Slap on Highway to Hell, if your head ain’t bobbing or feet tapping then there’s something wrong with ya, ‘cause it swings like f**k! There’s your power. As for me, I’ve played with rock stars, gods, icons, the lot – toured with Deborah Bonham (John’s sis) for a number of years, did the States coast to coast with his son, Jason, and even lived under the same roof with Joan Bonham (John’s mum) for a little while. Even got head-hunted to join Europe’s #1 Zeppelin tribute band, Letz Zep. So what? Does that make me an expert on John Bonham; no no, far from it. You want to know what really made John Bonham the most powerful drummer in the world? You would have to ask, and thank, three other guys – Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. What I can say with some authority is that the Bonham’s are great folks, salt of the earth, do anything for you types and I would imagine John would have been very much the same. As for Letz Zep, I kiss my sticks before every gig thankful that I have a job doing what I love, but then I’ve been touring pretty much 52 weeks a year for about a decade and a half (longer really, but then you might guess how young I am), let’s just say long enough to know better - it’s in the blood. Reminds me of a joke, “mummy, mummy, when I grow up I want to be a drummer” “now Benjy, you know you can’t do both!” Yeah; well, who wants to grow up anyway?

power is created from space and the tension between the instruments living and breathing within that space

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IF I WAS QUEEN OF THE WORLD: ELLY LACEY

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N E E U Q S A W IF I … D L R O W E H T OF By Elly Lacey

I mean for the riches, t n’ do I d. fe uf ch ty e World I’d be pret y father entirely for m e am bl I . If I was Queen of th ad m er w ranks see I’m a little bit po through the teaching want the power. You se ri m hi w sa I up dly. I – as I grew age I didn’t do too ba im s hi this state of affairs In . at th of or ing of this, direct l and then, the tower ir G d ea and become chairman H y ut ep D ep, Form Captain, the World is still the of en ue Q ut started with Form R B . ty cie e Musical Theatre So glory, President of th ultimate goal. ter is a highly sought af ld or W e th of en ue e position of Q onstrate this I have m de To I understand that th . ng ro st y rl candidacy is particula Order, as t’were… one but I believe my ld or W ew N or s ea strategy id pulled together some like. exhill-on-sea and the B , ls el W e dg ri nb Tu to be banished to * Slow-walking people ays. down for families, go s st co t * Four-day-weeks. Alw igh fl – week summer holiday my afraid they’re h “O . e.g lls ca k or * Everyone has a six w d decrease and no waste you”. opportunities to riot paid a lot more than ts ge ly ab ob pr e sh , ah lish Literature degree ng E y on holiday…Antigua…ye er ev on ed ur tter series is feat * The entire Harry Po course. exiled. * Odd socks will be put on mute. Forever. is ey el ad M aracters. It was just d ch ar en M ich R ad * M of e ag ust dress in the im * The whole world m Muppets’ Christmas e Th on d te better then, wasn’t it? ta ins re e is sung by Michael Cain * ‘The Love is Gone’ e , I’m still annoyed. ovies are made of th m at re -g Carol DVD. Oh yeah so tno e th the books before * Everyone must read t. main forms transpor books. e th e ar s et rp ca ic rting and mag * Time travel, telepo the World. I look of en ue Q r fo n tio ering my applica Thank you for consid onse. forward to your resp the time being then… r fo y tr en ta da is Better get back to th

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KOKUSAI KAIHATSU RACING #01R: CHRIS MOUNT

KOKUSAI KAIHATSU When I first saw the McLaren F1 I fell in love. Gordon Murray’s design. The central driving position. The speed. At the time it was the fastest production car in the world, hitting over 230 mph, a record it held for over 12 years. It won the Le Mans 24hr at its first attempt as well as finishing 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th. For me it will always be the ultimate car.

However the McLaren had a far bigger impact on me than just being a dream car. It was responsible for me thinking design rather than art. It started me down the path I am still on today. Although I never made it as far as Automotive design it influenced my choice of a design degree. Today I work on web. Mobile. Video. Animation. Illustration. All of which was made possible because of one man’s vision. If you ask me, that’s power.

By Chris Mount

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RACING #01R

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KOKUSAI KAIHATSU RACING #01R: CHRIS MOUNT

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KOKUSAI KAIHATSU RACING #01R: CHRIS MOUNT

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SLIDE: KYRSTEN BEAN

“There’s

a part of me that doesn’t want you to succeed,” he says. The musician and I are sitting on his king-size bed, our backs resting on the headboard. We are staring out the window at the blue sky, other Park La Brea apartment buildings stretching out as far as the eye can see. “Why?” I ask. “I’m afraid that if you do,

you’ll leave me.” I am his girl of the moment, one of many to come and many before me, but at this moment, I am the girl. This is all that matters. I’m in Fresno. I drove three hours with my little sister and her friend to see his show. He loops samples in his songs – a chain gang singing the blues, a Bulgarian women’s choir, Gregorian chants – they play behind electric guitars, drums and bass. His melodies splice themselves straight into my head, leave me hungry for more,

as if Mozart has come alive in the twentieth century to try his hand at rock and roll. I’m jealous. I want to be that good. As I stand near the stage, an errant foot connected to a crowd surfer hits me in the head, sends my face slamming into the guard rail. Sparks and blackness swim in front of my open eye as I cover the other one with my hand, push my way out of the venue in a rush, aiming for the fresh, cold February air outside. As I head towards the tour buses, a tall guy with a beanie cap emerges from the venue,

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walking out from behind a chain link fence. He lights a cigarette. “Hey,” I say. He looks up from his cigarette. It feels familiar, this scene. “You’re a musician, too, aren’t you?” he asks. He remembers me from an email conversation, but I swear I’ve met him in person before, in a parallel world. He moves closer, we fall in step, heading towards the sidewalk, where we stand, making small talk and then eventually, as we continue to talk, we sit side by side, our feet stretching out onto the black asphalt of the street.

The world stops spinning, I feel breathless as he continues to ask me question after question about my life. I joke with him about his shoes -- his big boots. “You know what they say,” he says, and I’m too young to cringe at the cliche. On the drive home, I notice a flashing light in my rear view mirror. As he approaches my window, the cop tells me to get out of my car. “What happened to your eye?” he asks, staring at my face. “I was at a show, got hit by

a crowd surfer.” He sneers. “Are you sure your boyfriend didn’t hit you?” he asks. “I would never let a boyfriend hit me,” I say. “Not unless I hit him first.” He lets me go, not finding anything else to hold me for. We are sitting at a fancy restaurant in Santa Monica, on a date. The musician has offered to help me with my songs, let me

IDE

By Kyrsten Bean

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sing on his. We are sharing dark red wine from a giant glass. Before I put the wine to my mouth, tip it back, remember the bitter, sour taste, I will have been sober for four years. I feel the old familiar wooze, a lost friend, slip over me, and I relax, falling into the warm copacetic balm. I am sitting across from a man I am infatuated with, he wants me here. My guts feel as if they’ve been snipped out of me, are dangling by a thread and swinging, a nervous tingle creeping through me every time he watches me. He feeds me buttery salmon gnocchi from a fork, it is better than anything I’ve tasted in my life. After he pays the hefty check, an amount I don’t even earn in a week, we go outside, onto the pavement. “Look at the stars,” he says. I look up, and he kisses me full on the mouth. We walk to the car, the electricity so thick between us I can’t even touch him. I’m afraid I’ll short circuit. It is four in the afternoon. I am laying on the same side of the bed we were on when he told me he was afraid of me succeeding, downing Tylenol PM, chain smoking cigarettes. I stare out at the light blue sky, tufts of tiny clouds wisping by. He is composing songs in his studio. My guitar sits face up on the floor by the side of the bed, untouched; I am afraid to touch it in his presence. He loops a woman’s voice through his keyboard, a mournful, haunting lament. It plays over and over again as he layers it with drums, bass and guitar. I will the Tylenol PM to kick in, to turn my brain off, but I remain conscious. Sensing an ending of some kind – the nice dinners and deep conversations have stopped – I tell him I’m going home for a bit. I haven’t been able to find a job other than a purely commission telemarketing gig I quit the first day;

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I’ve been circling ads for months. That’s a good idea, he says. After we load all of my belongings into my tiny Acura Integra, I sit in the driver’s seat. He slides into the passenger seat. I start sobbing. I’ve got chunks of snot pouring from my nose, keep wiping it on my arm. He is staring at me like I’m a toy that broke in his hands, angry and a little confused. “What is wrong with you?” he asks. “Why aren’t you more responsible?” He asks me why we didn’t even use condoms in all the time we’ve been together. I shake my head. “Can I come up and use your phone?” I ask. “No.” He says it so loud, and with so much heat, I flinch. “I don’t have enough money to get home,” I say. He pulls bills out of his wallet. “Is this enough?” he asks. I nod. I want him out of my car, now. But I desperately need him to stay in my car. It is this very struggle that will keep us repeating an increasingly repugnant scenario over and over again, in which he will call and beg and coax and I will crumble and acquiesce, quickly going into withdrawal without his eyes on mine, his approval, his fixation, a year in which I will allow him to hollow me out, making myself into an empty vessel for him to fill with his own insatiable need. As I lay on his couch in Burbank, asleep after blacking out, he straddles my pelvis, starts hitting me in the

I’m in the Arctic, I am ice an avalanche down a s waters. I can already fe

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face. He is wearing blue briefs I’ve never seen him wear before, the bulk of his now significant body weight pinning me down. How fancy, I think. The girl he is currently fucking, the girl sleeping in his bedroom at this very moment, must have bought them for him. “You are such a drama queen,” he shouts in my face as he smacks it harder and harder. His black unruly hair is scattered like the fur of a road kill animal. “You only care about yourself.” Smack. “What the fuck is your problem.” I lay there, drunk, not flinching. I’m sure I deserve this; that I asked for it by using the knife in his kitchen on my own skin hours ago. When he took a break from her in the bedroom to come try and fool around with me in the living room, I told him not to get blood on himself, wiped my wrist across his arm. Later, that night, after he kicks me out and I come back, beg to stay because I don’t want to take a taxi back to my car in North Hollywood, she will goad me to do it and I will smack him across the side of his face as he sets his jaw, stares into my eyes, says, “Yea, hit me.” I won’t think about the feeling that I was in the exact right place at the exact right time. I won’t think about purity. Instead, I will think that hitting him feels a lot like hitting myself. Useless. In the morning, he drives me to my car, still parked on Wilshire Boulevard, where his girlfriend and I were partying with her coke dealer

e sheets, I am sliding in snowy bank into black eel myself going under

for three days before things went awry and she called him to come and rescue her. My replacement sleeps on his king size bed, waiting for him to be done with me. “What happened to you?” he asks. His eyes tilt and fixate on the scab in the corner of my chapped lips. “What happened to your lip?” he asks. He knows about the pills, about the cocaine, about the vodka he bought us to come down off it. I stare at his strange eyes, his eyes that are avoiding my eyes. “I don’t know,” I say. I get out of the car. There is electricity between us, but it is only an errant spark from a snipped wire. He drives away as I sit in my car, not looking at him go. I stare out the windshield, at the palm trees outside. My body starts shaking. I realize I’m crying, gutwrenching sobs. I light a cigarette, choking on snot and spit and smoke as I start up the car. The phone is blinking as I walk through the front door. I’m in San Francisco – in the apartment I share with a new boyfriend. I pick up the phone, check the messages. His voice stops me in my tracks: I’m in the Arctic, I am ice sheets, I am sliding in an avalanche down a snowy bank into black waters. I can already feel myself going under. “Just calling to say hi,” says the voice I know so well, that California guy voice that says “like” and “rad,” but sings about loss and sanctity and pain. I can see the hook, the fish line, the hand connected to the pole. I run through every permutation of scene in my head – what he would say, what I would say, what he would ask me to do. I make a decision, standing on the hardwood floors of my foyer: I will break my slide. I will not call him back. Later, I will find my voice in the background of one of his songs, a song of his we worked on together, a song he later sold for cash.

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JUDAH PASSOW IN CONVERSATION: EMMA SEYMOUR

NO PLACE LIKE HOME Judah Passow talks about his new exhibition. By Emma Seymour

When

Judah Passow turned his lens on Britain’s Jewish community, he uncovered a kaleidoscope of people. Aside from their faith he found one thing that united them – a growing sense of pride. The Israeli-born photographer spent 18 months photographing Jewish people in 12 cities across Britain.

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All images ÂŠJudah Passow Photography

LONDON Klezmer Fest Regents Park.

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MANCHESTER Yeshiva students at lunchtime reciting Birkat Ha-Mazon, the traditional blessing after a meal.

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No Place Like Home is an exhibition of 98 black and white photographs depicting daily life for British Jewish people, from bankers at a Sukkah to a young soldier preparing for combat in Afghanistan. “Thirty years ago there was a completely different mentality in this country,” said Judah. “Our parents’ generation had this idea that you don’t call attention to yourself. Being British is one thing but being Jewish is something else and we don’t have to advertise the fact. “Now it’s completely different. It’s like what happened in the US in the ‘60s and ‘70s with the civil rights movement – that’s what’s going on here with the new generation of the Jewish community. There’s a great pride in being Jewish and you can see that from the contribution made by Jewish people across all sectors, from politics to show business. It’s no longer something that has to be hidden. “It’s a cultural phenomenon in any country’s evolution when the contribution a minority community has made to the host society is so substantial that all the feelings of otherness recede into the wash. We’re no longer looking through the window from the outside hoping to be invited in, we’re sitting at the table.” After spending 30 years dodging bullets to take award winning pictures in war zones around the world, Judah decided it was time he looked closer to home for his inspiration. “I realised I’ve been living here all this time and I’ve never taken pictures in Britain. All my work had been abroad and I thought it was time to rectify that.

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JUDAH PASSOW IN CONVERSATION: EMMA SEYMOUR LONDON Gay couple dancing at the end of the Simchat Torah service at a Liberal synagogue in west London.

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“Take the picture of the gay couple dancing, it’s an integral part of today’s community. There are some people whose concept of Jewishness doesn’t allow for that kind of phenomenon... If someone decides to stay in one place that’s their choice but the rest of us are moving on”

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CHESHUNT Maccabi Lions football team changing-room after a game.

LONDON Street performance in Leicester Square.

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“I started asking; what does it mean to be British and Jewish in the 21st century and how does that find expression? “I know how I express my Jewishness and I know what it means to me and this was a chance to find out what it meant to others. “One of the reasons I was able to take these kinds of pictures is because there’s such a broad spectrum and different approaches to the faith in this country. There are palpable differences between all the communities but there’s a common thread running through all of them. And that’s the feeling of responsibility for each other, the idea that ‘I am my

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No Place Like Home is showing at the Jewish Museum in Camden, London until 5 June

LIVERPOOL Police officer in charge of a youth offenders unit questions two boys about a robbery.

brother’s keeper’. “What I found comforting and thrilling was that meeting all these different kinds of people reinforced that idea and the excitement I get from my own definition of Judaism.” As well as focusing on the way different communities expressed their sense of Jewishness, the exhibition explores people’s perception of what it means to be British. From the tell-tale tartan in a picture taken on Burns night in Glasgow to the pensioners enjoying a typically British day out at the seaside, national identity is central to the project. “Every place I went to was like

unwrapping a present,” said Judah. “I’ve never travelled around Britain before so this was a voyage of discovery for me, not only the physical landscape of the country but the emotional landscape. Manchester is different to Birmingham, which is different to Glasgow. Belfast is like a different planet.” Judah photographed people from across all spectrums of the Jewish faith, from the ultra-orthodox to the liberal, the young and old, the modern and traditional. He said it was this ability to reinvent itself that made the Jewish community so resilient. “There’s a scramble to stay modern

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and to become a part of the 21st century that keeps this religion relevant,” he said. “We have this innate capacity to stay in touch with the changing times. “Take the picture of the gay couple dancing, it’s an integral part of today’s community. There are some people whose concept of Jewishness doesn’t allow for that kind of phenomenon. But one of the remarkable aspects of our tradition is to make allowances to keep moving. If someone decides to stay in one place that’s their choice but the rest of us are moving on.” Turn for more images from No Place Like Home

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DALBEATTIE An officer at the Royal Academy Sandhurst, on his final training exercise before joining the The Highlanders, the Royal Regiment of Scotland as a Second Lieutenant and being deployed as a platoon commander in Afganistan.

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LONDON Holocaust survivor and retired physiotherapist in his home in north London.

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LONDON An inmate at Wandsworth prison.

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LONDON Dinner time in a Haredi home in the Orthodox neighbourhood of Stamford Hill

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LONDON Concert for an Israeli singer in the West End.

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BELFAST Member of the Ulster Volunteer Force on a street in Protestant east Belfast, where Loyalist residents fly the Israeli flag to show their support for the Jewish state. This is widely seen as a response to the practice in Catholic west Belfast, where Republicans display the Palestinian flag in support of Palestinian independence.

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LONDON A doctor examines an asylum seeker at a drop-in centre for African refugees run by members of a Masorti congregation.

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LONDON A demonstrator from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign protests the launch of EasyJetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s route to Tel Aviv.

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SOUTHEND Retired couples by the seaside.

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POWER OF THE MIND: SGT.PILKO

Words and illustrations by Sgt. Pilko

THE POWER OF THE MIND Sitting

at a typewriter, banging away on the keys, I realise that I AM sat at my piano. Switching seats I begin to write...

back containing a day’s worth of rations, combat knife, map, compass (for drawing circles with), antique miniature antlers, a plastic charity bag, an issue of the Avon catalogue plus cold steel. A gun.

In his living room the aged but lively body of Sgt Pilko sits alert typing wildly into the small hours. His pearly glinting know-all eyes glower over the text he is typing.

Off he trudged through the dusky streets (sorry wrong issue) meadowland and into the forest, bird song trailing left to right in stereo informed fashion. Blue skies mixing overhead with a confused collection of grey and white as the weatherman-predicted-clouds surged in. Recently poachers had been about his place, taking and eating what was not theirs, they were terrible for the latest loss of eggs. Health conscious swines. He found the rope they had used to cross the river, the water but only 3 inches deep was laden with danger. Shopping trolley’s and old tyres namely. The trip wire he had set up had failed, it had merely become a slight inconvenience and had entangled the poacher and caused a minor stumble. It now lay in a stretched out spaghetti mess on the floor. The Sgt cursed, lay down on the floor to think and put his best slippers on.

It was a warm winter’s day, one that I recall starting by jumping from the worktops with joy. I was mid sandwich flattening* whilst phoning for a lady called Bev, I had decided to have the urge to go for a walk. So upon the donning of my favourite west-legged-shoes I took off out the door in an instant. Only looking back to check I had shut the door. I hadn’t so immediately retraced my exact steps to correct this. BAM it was shut, wiggling the door nine and a half times, to the exact decimal; for if I had to carry a digit over I had always planned to stow it away in a Sinclair calculator concealed in my pocket, it was powered by a 9v pp3 which made it lumpy; I was on my merry way. I decided on a quick route march of the territory to show would be intruders that I was not a trifle to be messed with. My back pack secure on my

After placing my thinking slippers on to trace out the best course of action I hear a noise... The rapscallions were still in

*an exercise from my military days when an express lunch was needed

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the area, the blighters! Cretins! They would hang before the day was out! They would rue the day that they worried my ducks and disturbed my geese or molested my soft turf with uncouth footwear! I sat up, a bit too quickly for the blood pressure to maintain a steady head, so I wobbled but only for a brief moment. Recovered, I scooted through the open air while mentally bending the light round me until I came to some cover. This happened to be a BBQ cover that I had left crumpled against an old disused building which, as it happened hid me a lot better. Placing my bag onto the floor I searched for the gun, but curses I had not one potato to load it with. Not being one to clout my targets round the noggin I would have to find another way to bring them down... On with the slippers again and into deep thought he went. Unfortunately for the Sgt, he was oblivious to the assailants creeping up behind him. In fact he didn’t notice the bang to the head or the entire process that saw him being bound and dragged across the landscape like an old hay sack laden with apples. He would wake up angry and stuffed into a small wooden box, only just big enough to allow him to sit or curl up on his side. Time ticked by with the incessant tick, tick, like a snapping of cereal in a constant loop. Not knowing how long he had been out for, he sat up as best he could and surveyed his situation... “Eegad! I’ve been captured.” I muttered backwards. I threatened them with lots of shouting and after I heard a resolute “no reply” followed by what sounded like sniggering I began with my best “You don’t know who you are dealing with” and “You swines shall pay for this!” right through to, and ending with “Please please I beg you set me free I need the toilet, I have a fish that needs feeding, he’s stuck in the freezer...” I tried crying like a girl but this only made the sniggering worse. I gave up and watched as the beams of sunlight gradually shifted with the passing of the day. The poachers are more sneaky than I had anticipated, they had now poached me! Lucky for me I had eggs in my pocket for company. With nothing but his own thoughts for company, the Sgt began to reminisce. Time was marching on at a pace akin to that of a lethargic errand boy, perfect for those times when compiling lists. Hunger began to kick in, he was reminded of the time that one of his fellow soldiers back in the days of training had turned peculiar in the heat of summer and had enjoyed a period of only talking whilst holding limp brown banana skins in front of his mouth. This, his companion reasoned, was to make himself “akin to the Octopus who would never otherwise enjoy the delights of land-faring.” This fellow killed himself only days later fearing a lack of water, after having heard the local news story about the national drought. This pushed him

to the edge and he had left a suicide note in the ‘windings’ font. It was many years later that anyone had the initiative to highlight it all and convert to Helvetica, and then to Minion Pro as someone preferred it, alas finally giving his death somewhat more meaning. It could be even more dramatic when read in Trajan pro. In times of recollection he could struggle to keep a calm head, going barmy over past mishaps and missed opportunities, so he began to compose a letter: What-ho! Samual ye olde fiend! So Jolly good to hear from you in these days on the eve of such ponderous business deals! I was just shouting at my parrot when your mail arrived and I was much relieved on the carpet. No matter, someone will clear it up, as for this business deal it is sure to be a success I am sure! As for the telephone I have installed in my house an in-bound device, with which I am unable to dial out. I had an unfortunate episode whereby I got a bit confused and dialled for the Police when I couldn’t remember where the door was in my house. Besides that all of my ears are slightly defective in the way of hearing sounds. Much to the annoyance of anyone who needs to talk to me. All those golden years of playing the company bugle at 5am every day took its toll, especially on my wife next to me. One thing I need to know before we continue - your weight is not permanent at 84kg? Does your hair weigh a lot? When it is trimmed are you filled with youthful vitality from the weight you have lost? It must be fun to run around on the inside of a Bank. With my 40% is it possible that you could pay me in cash? The mattress needs filling again. If this transaction goes well I may have another business proposal for you that would make us very rich men and keep us in good quarters for the rest of our days. Before we continue I need proof of who you are, I never do business with a man unless I see his face, I attach a picture of me at a recent political bash where we whipped some serfs around a garden for fun before settling down to some port, wines, cheese and business talk. Anticipating your next communiqué, Yours lovingly enabledSgt. Pilko.

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This was quickly followed by a long held, but somewhat vague business proposal questionnaire, set out in his head ready for the typewriter, should the bank ever need to see evidence of his plans. ======================== A PROPOSAL OF SAID ‘TOAST BAR’ AND/OR/ MAYBE/POSSIBLY/BABY ‘BREAKFASTERONUM’ For you I detail the following for my dream that I have held since I was a mere child. The idea of a place for commuters and business men alike to be able to eat toast easily and quickly. While paying a premium for service and quality goods. All I require is the following: l What is your favourite type of bread: ..................................... l Do you like bread: ..................................... l W hat is your opinion of men with beards: ..................................... l Jam or no jam, a policy or not?: ..................................... l S eating, is it a problem in a big area for small people:

history had seldom done much other than replay this woeful course. Unless you were a farmer of course, then in such case it was a highly joyous set of natural coordinates. The Sgt. passed out at some point from hunger and thirst. Dreaming of fruit squash, crackers and cheese.

..................................... l Goats are not allowed in, yes or no: ..................................... Thankyou for thy time. SP.

======================== He passed out and the sun continued on its journey through the sky, hallowed path and fatal trajectory that

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God griefness, what? Where? Who? Not knowing my captors was the worst part, made even worse by that ever pressing matter of a throbbing bladder. Ready to have its gates thrust open at any moment. My stubble is starting to grow forth and push outwardly from my skin. Making me in turn look vaguely rugged and heroic. My mind wanders to my luck with women, or rather the distinct lack of, having the sexual appeal of a discarded banana meant memories were held only to chance moments with the weak and gullible. Einstein had the right idea, my first girlfriend binned my signed copy of one of his books. I loved that book, I often

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more intermittently the dull thudding would continue amongst the general drone of feet trampling over dried mud, more giggling and muffled voices that were detailing a plan. Sgt Pilko awoke and pressed his one alert eye (for the other was slightly lazy) up to one of the gaps in the wood. ‘Let me out! I dare say that you have the devil’s innards and the faces of angels but I know you and you will pay! I haven’t lost countless girlfriends due to death of dear fright and stress, but through my beastly ways! Come close to this opening and my breath will sear thy flesh!’ I stuffed as many onion slices into my mouth, for I had some stowed in my underpants, just in case. My eyes watered and hoped that I would thrust discomfort onto those who dare come near. But alas the damage was done to myself. I would surely end up with the shits later, maybe bad breath and most definitely a slight French connection. The reference to girlfriends was sadly the truth, after he had calmed down and the onion had subsided in his mouth, he thought on the chat up lines that he had so often used: “You have beautiful eyes, may I have them... Get your coat, I want you away from me and I’ll get you later...” That sort of thing. Fool. Then a call... ‘DINNER!!’

sucked the corners to garner comfort from the cold hard logic. My favourite chapter was on the ‘Physics of the domestics’ and every house wife should gorge on it... Einstein’s little known theory book on domestic science contained gems such as the theory of ‘if a block of butter should fall to the floor which side should it land on?’ and ‘whole meal bread is most unsuitable for fried bread’ and includes calculations to back this up. It was poetry in motion, especially for the deluded rookie science enthusiast. By this time the Sgt had blacked out from exhaustion, dreaming about biro baking competitions, poodle pickling and the anticipation of winter. BOOM! The side of the box thudded, twice more and then

An exasperated female voice rang out in the distance. ‘DIIIINNNEERR!!’ It sounded again, this time with the clack of wooden sticks against the box which gave way to the sheer brilliance of heat and bright sunshine. Exposing a newborn-like Sgt Pilko, curled up and foetal, ready to pounce on no-one in particular, he was unsure what had just happened. Eyes screwed trying to adjust and make sense of it all he heard light, small feet in the dozens dull thud thumpling off and away, muffled small voices uttering words such as “Gameboy” and ‘Supersoaker”, making the Sgt suspicious of his captors maturity of the grey matter. Giggling, ever giggling.... I struggled to my feets all two of them, dusty, week knees sing a clicky tune. I straighten to find that I am 400 yards from the pond, the BBQ cover over in the distance looking at me lazily. I look down at my box – it would make good DVD storage. “ONWARD!” Off he marched, dreaming of eggs and physics, bunnies and charcoal, almond fingers and vandal paint. He embraced it all... Wondering who the gang were that he had chanced upon and began to think up his revenge...

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POWER POETRY: JADE LEAF WILLETTS

internal car crash my heart smashed against a wall my bone-cage rattles battles to hold everything inside broken windscreen my mind shattered upon impact fragmented with one small hole in the top corner it is held together momentarily by the thin metal frame of sanity still, suspended by shock memories flashed and showered me like debris shards of metal and glass tear and burn through my skin I cannot tell if this is from outside to in some are picked out and cleaned to heal others remain as shrapnel wounds, scars, of the time we had

the phone does not flash there is an overwhelming silence after two years spent together making plans for l’america for marriage I cried twice before noon today sat at the table eating more silence and a side order of soup watching water leak from the roof thought about you and Christmas and wished I could put winter on hold the beautiful time we had looked forward to the cruellest time to be heartbroken if I had known that kiss would be our last I would have made it better If I had known it would be the last time I would see you I would have said something more than “take it easy” I would have tried to make you know.

your personal paraphernalia litters the room we shared earrings hair-clips and make-up mirrors, tights, discarded not to be worn again they are the saddest thing

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By Jade Leaf Willetts

I DON’T LOVE YOU – I’M SORRY

POEM FOR MY WIFE AFTER OUR 237TH TELEPHONE ARGUMENT The problem with me and my wife was we had this thing where we just couldn’t communicate. It was real hard for us to understand one another when we spoke. It made no sense, we had the same accent, were from the same town, I worried about it. The implications of frequent misunderstandings were hard to take. I would say one thing and she would almost always take it to mean another. I know that this happens with people, couples, but it got me real low down. For example, I might say, “Are you ok?” and she would think, that this was a kind of coded confession/ a confirmation that instead of caring about her general well being, and enquiring about how her day had been that I was in fact not OK myself and was masking this by asking the question. At this point I should explain that I am in no way blaming her, the last thing I want to do is upset her. And in her defence I often say strange things when I am not OK. But it was strange we could make sense to one another in looks, gestures, movements, but never with words. This troubled me for years being a lover of words and all. Words, to her were second hand, tools I had used to lie, hurt, cheat. She had cared for them at a time and I guess I am responsible for her

losing faith in language. We are reconciled just now and we have just had our 237th telephone argument. A misunderstanding – and it is clear that after all these years I cannot read her without looking at her, touching her. My words fall away making little sense to either of us. She says that I do not let her know how I feel that I don’t say enough. I tried to explain that I am quieter now that I am older. I didn’t say that I am too fucking afraid to say the wrong thing, in the wrong way. My wife has no idea that I love her. That is not her fault either. I never treated her as such when I was young. I always loved her but failed to live by it; I had a weakness for drink and a bigger weakness for women. I was a fool in many ways. Sometimes I wonder if she will ever know how much I love(d) her. Women cannot always understand how a man can love them yet behave like an animal. I cannot understand why I have done the things that I have done but I know in my heart that I have always loved her. Tomorrow I will try to let her know, but I don’t think she will believe me if I tell her with words, and that is a real shame because they are all that I have.

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GREAT RESPONSIBILITY: BEN TURNER

WITH GREA COMES GREAT RE Just an r o f y a d e g a r e av Peter, Clark and Tony

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EAT POWER RESPONSIBILITY By Ben Turner

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SPILLING THE MOONLIGHT

POWER POETRY: LUKE ROE

The patterns of my consciousness Are such as follows: (All appears in a shroud of purple neurons and amniotic fluid) I am amputating my limbs With a silver spoon Coughing up horrible mutilations of words I am folding my spirit into a dream Striking up conversations with the dead Who whisper gently through the door I am molding my palms Into a pale daylight That stretches over my face While spilling drunkenness into a leaking box I am the seraph Asphyxiating with sickness The Orwellian utopia Bent around the stubs that once Were legs, And the mind that I am not so Sure is beautiful But more a shriveled hand Although I am growing monuments To the sun within my belly, And the worry is slipping into the shades Contained within the past, What is to come Is a reality slowly uncurling Through its tapestry of black ice And subtle disorientation It is the corruption of the saint The disagreement of time The divinity of the ventriloquist We should all beware of The betrayal of the resistance; Those who will deceive, Are those among the Bodhisattva oligarchies Celibate in their paradoxical silence Charming in their bastardization And their desecration of the truth.

By Luke Roe

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PHOTO CREDIT: BEN TURNER

FINAL OFFER: JENNY ROSSI

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FINAL OFFER I finger

By Jenny Rossi

the thin, pilled material in my hands, and debate the actual warmth a blue and red vest could give. Then again, real warmth would come from being freed from the humiliation of having to wear it at all. But, damn, it’s cold out. I slide it back on. An officer pulls over to the sidewalk. I am overjoyed. “Everything all right, Miss?” No, I want to tell him, I am going to commit homicide with my Wal-Mart vest. Please stop me now. “Yeah,” I say, “my ride just forgot me.” Which is true. I work at a shitty job. I have a shitty boyfriend, and my mom forgets to pick me up from work every day, except payday. I have just found out that menthols contain fiberglass. It is 1 a.m. I’m trying not to cry, shifting from foot to foot. “Are you sure? It’s a little late to be out walking.” I don’t answer. I know it gets slow for these cops late at night. I have a Wal-Mart vest. This should be explanation enough. We both wait, until I hold up my vest like a white flag. The look of pity in his eyes, the quiet midnight street, I somehow feel like an even bigger loser. He pulls away, and I keep walking. I call mom again. Straight to voicemail. Then even though I don’t want to, because it’s just going to hurt when he says no, I call my boyfriend’s number. It’s a home phone. I’m hoping if I piss someone off enough they’ll pick up just to shut me up. It’s just him and his uncle. I know they’ll be awake. They sell all the weed that everyone smokes at Wal-Mart. “Listen,” he says, “I can’t pick you up right now. My uncle will be pissed if I take the van.” Did I seriously lose my virginity to this guy? “It’s okay,” I say, “I’ll walk.” “Call me when you get home,” he says, “if it’s not too late.” I try to glean something from his tone to let me know he cares. “Cool,” I say, but he’s already hung up. I keep on walking, trying to enjoy the fresh air bright lights of 24-hour gas stations by the freeway. Big trucks pull off, fill up and are gone. No one stays here. When I round the corner, a big red pick-up truck cruises by, nice and slow. There aren’t any streetlamps. Its

headlines fan over me, casting a long, distorted shadow as it pulls alongside me. I’m so cold and tired, at first I’m hoping for a kindly stranger, even though I know it’s bullshit. Most people around here are not offering strangers rides. Drivers are worried about sketchy hitchers mugging them; walkers are worried the people driving might kill them. You have to appreciate the balance. I keep my head down, walk past the rusted tailgate. “You wanna do a porno?” There are three guys, a few years older then I. The driver asking this isn’t raucous. His voice is even and confident. I know I should be offended, but my first thought is, I’m attractive enough to be in a porno. Why am I working at Wal-Mart and reading Dostoevsky on my lunch break? Even though I heard him clearly, I feel the need to ask him to repeat the question. “300.” “Three hundred what?” “300 dollars.” “No.” “350. That’s final.” His passengers are getting antsy. Murmuring. I start to get a bad feeling about this. The cops are gone; they could just rape me for free. I start thinking, three hundred dollars could pay bills. Three hundred and fifty could pay bills and some groceries. “No thanks,” I tell them. The engine revs, and I hear deep laughter as the truck speeds off. I keep walking until I get to Terricina Apartments, where I climb up and over the security gate. By the time I get to the apartment, I am crying. The door is locked and I don’t have a key. With the screwdriver I keep nearby, I pop the screen off a small ground floor bedroom window, jiggle the pane open, and it catches on the lock, leaving just enough space for my bones to scrape by and wiggle in. I walk to the light switch and settle in to write. There will be no sleep for a long time. When it finally comes, it will be filled with masculine laughter and engines revving on their way far from here, the sick click of quarters and dimes.

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THE POWER OF 1: THOMAS MORGAN

THE POWER OF 150

When we think of POWER, words like authority, supremacy, and dominance come to mind and in most situations I feel that is the intent. But By Thomas Morgan I have been fortunate enough to experience a completely different kind of power. This is not the power to gain and dominate but just the opposite, the power to give and give up. It is quite amazing and unbelievably contagious. ISSUE 2 2012

It is

the Power of 1. This is the power that each of us has to go out and leave an undeniable mark on the lives of others through our efforts. I have seen the change that it causes and the effect that it has on individuals, communities, nations, and the world. Sound a little crazy and far-fetched? It is happening and happening every day. Candace Cooper Murray grew up playing soccer. It was not only a tremendous part of her life but also the lives of her family who followed her and her teams through adolescent leagues, high school, and college. When Candace was in college she traveled abroad playing the game that she loved and for the first time realizing the global love of the game. On a trip to South America, Candace also saw poverty she never

experience before in her life. She was approached by many children with nowhere to go and frankly very little hope. Candace said that in many instances the only escape these kids had was playing soccer. They would throw a make shift ball around and suddenly the reality of their dire situation was somehow suspended. They would run, laugh, and play with whoever would play with them. In Candace’s words, “It was a common language that we all spoke, and it was what made us all the same.” The impact of the game and of her travels never left Candace. She graduated college and decided to figure out a way to bring that happiness to as many kids around the world as she could. In 2008, out of a small basement space at her home, Candace, with the help of her brother and a few friends, started Peace Passers. In her vision

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for the organization, Candace states “using soccer as a vessel, we strive to provide positive social change in the communities we serve. The nature of the game inherently creates harmony and unity, serving as a way to spread joy and peace across cultural and economic boundaries.” As I sat with Candace she recounted the times that she had seen neighboring communities brought together through soccer. It provides a common ground for communities that may have never found any other before, and it kept them coming back together as friends as well as competitors. Peace Passers has grown to serve 43 nations around the world, delivering over 20,000 donated jerseys, soccer balls, socks, shin guards, soccer shoes and cleats. What might surprise you is the size of Candace’s staff. It is, well, 1.

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You can find out more about Peace Passers online: www.peacepassers.org

Candace was apprehensive in sharing that information – the results of her organization would make you believe she has a staff of many. She has worried in the past that letting people know that it is just her – cleaning, sorting and coordinating – would make donating organizations uneasy and skeptical of Peace Passers ability to perform. But 4 years and 20,000 uniforms later, she is starting to feel like she has gained their trust and confidence. When I spoke to Candace we met after she came home from work – yes, she has a full-time job as well. She is also pregnant with her first child in May, and is still as passionate about Peace Passers as she was the first day she started. “When I think about the positive impact that soccer had on my life, you just want other kids to have that same experience. But when you see the escape, and in many instances the hope that the game provides for kids all over the world, I simply can’t stop trying to help.”

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in many instances the only escape these kids have is playing soccer Though Candace may be the only true employee, meaning she may pay herself a whopping $300 a month, mostly reimbursing expenses she incurs, Candace is lucky to get volunteers to help, running drives to pick up used equipment from soccer leagues across the country. In some cases, Candace is able to coordinate the distribution of equipment without it ever coming through her basement. In other cases, she is laundering shirts and socks that were dropped on her porch. When I asked what her goal is for the organization, she said she hopes in the near term to raise enough money to be able to make this her

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only full-time job and wastes no time describing how many more she could serve as there is clearly no lack of need. I had to ask, as of course most would, how much would it take to do that. Candace’s answer was quick, as the calculation has been done many times in her head – $60,000. Per year? Candace’s reply was confident, “if I had a year to devote to this I could raise the money from there on out.” In the meantime, Candace and volunteers will continue spreading the joy of the game of soccer around the world and all of the positive social change it can bring with it, 1 soccer ball and jersey at a time.

Manny Ohonme’s experience growing up was vastly different from Candace. Manny grew up poor in Nigeria. As a child one of his heroes was Hakeem Olajuwon, a Nigerian who had made his way to the United States playing basketball. His other hero was his mother. Manny was 9 years old when a missionary from the United States came to Lagos and befriended him. He gave Manny, for the first time, a pair of shoes. Manny recalls receiving the life changing gift

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and message of hope that changed his life. Manny’s story in just getting to the United States is incredible. His eventual triumph over unbelievable obstacles found him playing college basketball at North Dakota State. Upon graduation, Manny joined the work force, always knowing there was a much bigger plan for him. He says, “I always knew I was going to payforward the generosity I had received. “ In

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THE POWER OF 1: THOMAS MORGAN 2003, Manny founded Samaritan’s Feet with the intention of doing just that. Like Candace, Manny started the organization out of his garage. With the help of his wife Tracie and his strong religious faith, Manny reached out to find shoes. They gathered their first 1,000 pair of shoes and left for South Africa with a group of missionaries. The intent was not just to hand out the shoes but rather to wash the feet of the children, engage them in conversation, pray with them and put shoes on their feet. Manny was shocked when he arrived to find 4,000 people waiting. When we spoke, Manny recalled the experience for him and the others. He said humbling yourself to wash the feet of those truly in need brought many to tears and was truly life changing. But what was crushing for Manny was not being able to help all who showed up hoping to get shoes. There are 300 million people in the world who do not have shoes, and 1 million of those will lose their lives or limbs due to infection and disease caused by not having them. There are millions of kids around the world who cannot go to school because they do not own shoes and it is a requirement for the school uniform. These statistics are amazing, but I would say they are not nearly as amazing as what 1 man, out of a garage, has done to change that. Manny’s goal is to put 10 million shoes on ten million feet around the world in ten years. To do so, and to draw attention to his cause, Manny has had college basketball coaches,

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You can find out more about Samaritans Feet online: www.samaritansfeet.org

professional basketball announcers, preachers, teachers, and politicians alike all do their job, many on national television, barefoot. The cause has spread far and wide and now Manny’s organization is delivering some 4 million pairs of shoes and washing feet in 63 countries, with 7 offices around the world working to make the collection and distribution as efficient as possible. Manny is now working directly with the Presidents of several countries to insure that Samaritan’s Feet can help them fill their need for shoes. Ultimately the goal would be will be to open his own

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manufacturing plant to manufacture shoes in developing countries to create jobs and provide opportunities to those forgotten or devoid of hope. His vision is to help re-engage the poor in the economic development process of a nation – truly showing that 1 person can really make a difference. The journey for Manny has been incredible, the results staggering. The power of 1 man, with incredible faith and an undeniable will, has changed lives. Manny’s hope is that the gift of shoes, faith and hope will mark the soul (and soles) of someone he touches and that will encourage him to do the same for someone else.

The last example that I was going to share has changed since I started this article. I watched, or should I say emotionally participated, in a video today. It was crushing, disturbing, heart-wrenching but most of all it was MOVING. This video is about the horrible atrocities in Uganda committed by a man named Joseph Kony. The crimes of Kony against children are too many to mention but in the past twenty years it is estimated that his organization, the LRA, has abducted over 30,000 children – forcing girls to be sex slaves and the boys to fight in his army and in many cases ordering them to kill their own parents. He is the most wanted criminal in the world by the International Criminal Court – yet most of us have no idea who he is. But 1 man, film maker Jason Russell, was in Uganda and met a child named Jacob. Jacob was running for his life from Joseph Kony. He had watched as his brother was killed by Kony’s army. He was living far away from his town with hundreds of other kids who were hiding, trying

to avoid abduction. Russell listened as 7 year old Jacob said he would rather they kill him than leave him for Kony, for even if not caught, without education, without his family, he had no future. Russell made Jacob a promise. He said, “we are going to do everything we can to stop them…we are going to stop them.” Eight years later, Russell has raised awareness about Kony and has shined a light on him that we can no longer avoid. As I write the YouTube video that he produced has over 40 million hits. He has changed the game and has forced the US Government to pay attention, to engage and to act to stop Joseph Kony. The fight is not over for Russell and his organization, Invisible Children. He is organizing a world event on April 20th, to raise the voices of all – to show support for your government – to take action – to find the resources that will lead to the arrest of Joseph Kony. You can see the story at www. invisiblechildren.com and can find out what actions you can take in support of their efforts on April 20th.

Never underestimate the POWER Of 1 to create incredible change. The ripple effect of your actions move through those around you and your action creates waves of life-changing events that you may never know you started. Engage, take action, find your cause and do something. It is time you find your BraveNewYou.

BraveNewYou, an organization that calls all of us to be socially conscious and get involved in making change www.BraveNewYou.org

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FORGOTTEN FUTURES: HANNAH BETTRIDGE

By Hannah Bettridge

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Power

can symbolise and mean very different things to different people; I wanted to look at how man-made power has affected our world. I was very inspired by the New Topographics Exhibition titled â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Man Altered Landscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, which featured artists such as Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Stephen Shore and was curated by William Jenkins. Many different styles have been interpreted, and I wanted to have my own little spin on things. William Egglestone, the king of colour

film, has such amazing work. I believe he made the simplest of things look beautiful, this was something I tried to achieve with my photos. I found many different flat spaces around Stoke-on-Trent and Chichester (West Sussex), where the ground was either about to be built on, or had been built on and had been knocked down or places that have just been abandoned. This has shown the power that man can have on these uninhabited places, and how they can just be left to their own accord or built all over.

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BLUE SPANDEX: JEFF CHANDLER

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BLUE SPANDEX There is

that beautiful scene in Superman where our hero flies right up out of the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s atmosphere and using all his incredible strength and speed, circles our planet to reverse its spin. This turns back the clock and he is able to get to his beloved Lois just in time to save her life. She never finds out what her true love did for her on that sunny afternoon. I have always been captivated by the power of love and what it can force us to do whether we like it or not. It makes mothers lift up cars to save babies and people run into burning buildings to rescue a perfect stranger. Heroes come in many shapes and sizes and even in the absence of blue lycra or a truth lasso, we are amazing. We can use our super-powered

hearing to really listen to someone who desperately needs to be heard, and tune our X-ray vision to look right into the heart of someone who is hurting and needs a hug. Hell, we can even use our super strength to push through limitations and knock them right out of our way. None of us are bulletproof and at various points in our life we feel the impact of emotional shrapnel crashing into us, sometimes unexpectedly. Beneath the scars we are stronger and more heroic than we give ourselves credit for. And sometimes the change from zero to hero can happen faster than you can run into a phone booth and spin around. Now, more than ever, this planet needs superheroes. So what is your special power?

By Jeff Chandler

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MISS REPRESENTATION: WILL CONWAY

By Will Conway

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recently been reading about the lack of representation of women in British public life and it inspired me to write an article about the lack of representation of women in British public life. In an andocentric world where everything seems to be set to meet male requirements and desires, women’s contributions are often ignored. Most public debate and decision seems to be the province of men, and women are treated almost as a token, brought in for something specialist to an all male environment in which they are rarely given the opportunity to find their feet. Many women are justifiably scared to poke their head above the parapet about anything because they fear being shot down. On top of

fluffing their chance there’s the worry that in doing so they might ruin it for all womankind. So often I’ve seen that women are removed from the debate because one woman slips up. You can read lots on the age-old complaint about how unfair it is that women are expected to look attractive, even as they age beyond that being a reasonable request, and regardless of whether they were before or not. It is a deep furrow to try to climb out of to rid ourselves of this discrimination. It would require all women to simultaneously decide not to bitch about each other just as much as it would require the men to adjust their values. The enemy of the modern feminist is no longer just the men. Even if for argument’s sake we say that all ladies over 30 are fat and horrible why should that matter?

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Must someone be sexually attractive for you to learn from them? In many cases the more sexually attracted we are to someone the less we are likely actually remember of what they said. Much worse than making our women feel undervalued, or even unvalued, the biggest crime in the way we treat women as they age is that we do not benefit from their wisdom. Worse still the learning and nurturing many mothers give is taken for granted. The wisdom of maternity, the wisdom of stoicism, of oppression even. That old adage about multi-tasking surely tells us we have a lot to learn from the fairer sex. A remarkable woman, who manages to be a patient and generous mother to four people, dedicated and respected in her workplace as well as managing to find time to keep one step ahead of the mob in two of her passions; fashion and music; my mother, although she’d never feel like this, is a woman who somehow gets it right. Although I’m sure it’s natural to believe that your mum is the greatest, the most intelligent person I know is my mum. That’s not to say that my father isn’t also an extremely canny, quick-witted

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Although I’m sure it’s natural to believe that your mum is the greatest, the most intelligent person I know is my mum and organised man but his realm is more facts and figures, science and geography. This seems to be what is seen as a masculine intelligence. Part of the thinking that says if you can’t take apart a Rolls Royce Merlin engine or name all the current fighter jets in use around the world then you’re not a proper man. Society pins unwieldy expectations on both sexes which are equally presumptive. Don’t get me wrong, this sort ‘practical’ intelligence is of course extremely valid as it is evident that much of the world is founded upon it. Whereas a sensitive, emotional intelligence is always seen as a little unnecessary, a nice little add-on if you can afford it. This attitude is wrong. On top of that, these ideas of masculine and feminine are based on biological determinism – an outdated and simplistic concept – and social conditioning that there is nothing to say we cannot slowly adjust. I have a very close friend who berates herself constantly for changing her mind. I say rather that she is flexible, willing to reevaluate and readjust. There is nothing intelligent about claiming

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to know everything, things change; that is what they do. Intelligence, and indeed survival, is being able to adapt. Learning and intelligence are not simply remembering facts; this is an outdated model of education which appears to be based on a patriarchal mindset. In a pub quiz remembering trivia is great but in the digital age it’s not the be all and end all. We should still be impressed by people’s capacity for memory, especially in this digitalised time where we are taught not to waste our time memorising since a computer will do it for us. However, this is not all the mind can be used for. The point I suppose I’d like to make is that neither approach is better than the other. As with so many things in life, you benefit from both sides of the story. Look at the different ways men and women are designed to have sex. Men always have to impart something whereas women take something on board. I don’t mean to oversimplify but don’t you find that a little symbolic? In sex as in life, fast isn’t always better than slow, and getting there

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first isn’t always the objective. The capitalist model of taking every level of our lives to such an extreme and aggressive level of competition doesn’t improve things for everyone. Business is a part of life but it isn’t life itself. Just like men aren’t the only humans. If a bit more value was placed on the work that women do then perhaps women could gain better economical recognition for their contribution to society. Disparity in how the different sexes are treated in employment is always a topic for discussion. Women ‘going off to have babies’ seems to be the fall-back excuse for this ingrained sexism in our work culture. I am aware of what biological roles and trends do to our society but I think that we might be looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps women aren’t ‘going off’ and having babies. Perhaps producing and nurturing and educating people is the main event, and all that other stuff is ‘going off.’ Perhaps if the bearing and upbringing of human beings was not seen as a distraction from our lives then we might be in a better place.

POWER POETRY: GARETH LILEY

The Power Tool never sleeps It creeps. It roars. The Power Tool never weeps, It plays for keeps. It’s always keeping score. The Power Tool never breaks It forsakes. It Takes. The Power Tool never forgives, It never forgets. It never stands for fakes. The Power Tool is true Pushing through. Brings pain. The Power Tool is every hue, It only lives to screw…. …the Power Tool is you.

Pushing against the grain may still make you the same. Only the brave dare to dream, even the great can still be tame. Wishing will never work; give your desire a voice and name. Even the greatest men should never forget from where they came. Rushing to finish first may only leave you lame. Famed. Unashamed. Leave them wanting more…

By Gareth Liley

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THE ORANGE FENCE: IRA FOX

THE

ORANGE FENCE the reasons I enjoyed this project was because I had a great area to work with and was able to shoot lots of images without drawing a lot of attention to myself, a powerful position to be in. By shooting through the gaps of the perforated orange construction tape on Park Avenue South – often letting it blur the edges in and around my frame – I found I could photograph busy and preoccupied New Yorkers walking across a broken sidewalk while trying to navigate their way to the corner…almost like making it out of a ditch and back to dry land. I enjoyed watching the power struggle that was going on, the walkers wear faces of anxiety while thinking disconnected thoughts. Everyone not quite sure what to do next or which way to go. It is amazing to see how detached everyone is from each other in this brief encounter, whilst being in such close proximity.

By Ira Fox

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PRINT POWER: AMANDA EADES

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By Amanda Eades

Information Revolution(s): A Personal Journey

In March

last year, my cousin celebrated her tenth birthday – that monumental time in one’s life when you suddenly become ‘doublenumbers’ and your life changes forever. Perhaps it was my own ignorance at the changing role of the reader, the book and the concept of ‘print’ in society that provoked my stuttering reaction to her ‘best’ present – a Kindle. Or, perhaps it was a natural reaction from the generations of people who have been brought up on the pure bliss one can only feel from opening the pages of a battered, brown book from the local library, and letting character, narrative and plot pour into your lap as you devour the author’s carefully placed words. “Surely not?!” I guffawed, to which the rest of my family looked slightly puzzled, a tad embarrassed, and perhaps even a little angry at my (characteristically) knee-jerk reaction. After all, this was a child’s birthday party… a slice of cake doesn’t naturally follow a debate on the role of the book in postmodern society. What followed in the next few days was a total re-evaluation, on my part, of the role of ‘print’ in society. I had often felt that there was no longer room for the physical book in literature; I worried about bookshops, independent publishers – not to mention the study of literature and the dwindling importance

of the classics to post-compulsory education (but that’s another article altogether). Would children have snatched from them the joy of discovering dusty paperbacks lurking at the back of shelves in that forgotten building we used to call ‘the library’? Was I right to be worrying about the loss of pencil notes on paper pages, or was I wrong to be limiting my vision of twentyfirst century reading and readers, inadvertently implying that this revolution in delivery of the written word was, somehow, inferior to the paperbacks I have treasured throughout my life? To make sense of it, let me take you back to the first ‘revolution’ that changed the information landscape, and paved the way for the evolution of the ‘reader’, right up to the present day. INK, PRINT AND REVOLUTION In 1493, Johannes Gutenberg, pictured left, a German blacksmith and goldsmith, made one of the most monumental discoveries to come out of Europe in the modern period. Gutenberg’s invention of movable type printing (printing that involves individual, moveable characters that can be rearranged to produce copies of originals) started the ‘Printing Revolution’ which was, undoubtedly, the most important aspect of the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution, making information ‘mobile’ and bringing it to the masses. Gutenberg combined the use of oil-based

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PRINT POWER: AMANDA EADES

ink, a wooden printing press and moveable type in a pivotal move to a practical system which allowed mass production of books in an economically viable way. The Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed with movable type and on a printing press, started the ‘Gutenberg Revolution’; the changes that came after this paved the way for a levelling of power relations that benefited society in innumerable ways. Pre-Gutenberg, Europe was under a ‘knowledge-monopoly’ – literacy levels were low and the concept of a ‘book’ was one as alien as iPads seemed in the 1980s. What one can glean, however, from tracing the historical, social and cultural implications of the spread of easily accessible, affordable and economically viable written word is this corresponding ‘levelling of power’. Literacy levels increase with the availability of text, language spreads and the individual becomes, in many ways, as important as the author – after all, what is a book without an audience? POWER RELATIONS The accessibility of knowledge coupled with the lower levels of text-corruption, a real problem with past ‘hand copying’ of texts, saw literature, science and religion move freely through society, at all levels of power. One of the most interesting ways to contextualise this is through the history of the Bible which, throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, following on from the Protestant Reformers gaining political power in England with the breakoff from the Catholic Church by Henry VIII, went through many changes – both in typography, language and audience. The various Bible translations that followed on from the initial 1537 Matthews Bible, originally printed, bought and sold throughout England with the permission of Henry VIII, are a reflection of the rise and fall of the central power within England at the time, right up to the 1611 King James Version. Sponsored by King James I, who gave the translators instructions intended to guarantee that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology and reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy, the King James Version

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of the Bible gained the loyalty and affection of many English-speaking people, due to the inaccessibility of the past Geneva Bible. Not only did this move between translations of the Bible allow the monarchy to disseminate ideology, it also brought scripture to the general public. The movement of power in this example is, of course, from the monarchy down, and it is very evident that whilst the procurement of printing, books and knowledge was undoubtedly the prime mover in the rising levels of literacy in Europe post-Gutenberg, the written word was still being used by people in power to manipulate the general public en masse and to deliver ideology to the individual. Yet, overall, what we can trace is the overall growth of the role of the ‘reader’ – a role which really came into its own during the nineteenth century. SERIALIZATION AND THE GROWTH OF THE READER For many, the nineteenth century was the century of the novel. One of the most important aspects of the concept of ‘print’ to the nineteenth century writer, and so the growing popularity of the novel and ‘reading for pleasure’, was the serialization of novels. Presented in contiguous instalments, also known as ‘numbers’ or ‘parts’, the popularity and success of serialized fiction in the Nineteenth century was partly a symptom of improving literacy, advancements in the distribution of printed articles, and, of course, significant advancements in printing technology. The success of Charles Dicken’s The Picwick Papers (1836-7), some would argue, was largely down to its serialization, whilst Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859) and its growing popularity was bolstered by appearing in serialized form in All the Year Round (185993), a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, pictured right, himself. The role of the individual becomes pivotal in the relationship between print and author, not just the author themselves and their peers that help to promote their work through serialization, but the importance of the reader as consumer to ensure the serialization of novels

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was ‘economically viable’. Visual artists also took advantage of the advancements in printing and the levelling of print-power that accompanied the widening acceptability of an atmosphere of peerpublication. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the Nineteenth century art movement started by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, developed their own ‘serial’ The P.R.B. Journal in 1848. Although short lived, the journal printed poetry by the PreRaphaelite artists, essays on their method, and justifications for their artistic approach, all of which helped to enhance the brotherhood’s profile, as well as improving the relationship with the wider literary-artistic community. Similarly, the Kelmscott Press, started by William Morris, a friend of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the originator of the Arts and Crafts Movement, is one of the most famous private presses of the late nineteenth century. Established in Hammersmith in January 1891, the Kelmscott Press produced fifty-three books (totalling some 18,000 copies), all with the same aim of producing the high standards of printing that the past had practiced – the highest levels of craftsmanship and respect for the art of printing, viewing the book as a whole, taking painstaking care with all aspects of the production, including the paper, form of type, spacing of letters and the positioning on the page. Beautiful editions of works by many of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as well as John Keats, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Algernon Swinburne were produced with painstaking attention to detail by the Kelmscott Press, whilst the press’ biggest achievement – The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer – still survives today. It is an outstanding tribute to the care and passion William Morris and the Kelmscott Press brought to the printing boom

that the nineteenth century afforded. In many ways, the Kelmscott Press and the presses which followed and emulated Morris’ love of all things of ‘the past’ – namely the Vale Press, Caradoc Press and the Doves Press – was a fight against the mass produced, ‘economically viable’ books printed in response to the growing levels of literary and the growing appreciation for literature in the nineteenth century. Crucially, though, both approaches are important to the widespread availability of books, and the luxury of being able to return to ‘craftsmanship’ that this initial boom in printing eventually led to. With the growth in the availability of good quality, widely produced books, came the emergence of the role – and the importance of –the ‘reader’. Slowly, but surely, the power-monopoly that initially rocked the availability of books after the invention of the printing press slowly waned. The power of print grasped individuals such as magazine owners, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and William Morris, as opposed to institutions, such as the Church and the monarchy, which initially used the power of the printing press to disseminate ideology to the masses. The real power of print, it seems, is the power that it can bring to the individual. TWENTIETH CENTURY PRINT AND BEYOND What has always caught my attention with regards to the concept of print, and the associated notion of writers, readers and publishers, is the slow growth of peer-review and peer-publication. The Beat Generation of 1950s America is one of the most vivid examples of this practice of peer-driven success.

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City Lights, pictured right, an independent bookstore still operational in San Francisco, United States, was founded in 1953 by poet and Beat-heavyweight Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Famed for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s influential poem Howl and Other Poems (City Lights, 1956), City Lights has published work by Gregory Corso, Diane di Prima and Frank O’Hara, as well as pioneering the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, whose unmistakable black and white covers have brought poetry by members of the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance to a wider audience, through the iconic, yet affordable, pocket-sized volumes. What the Beat Generation and City Lights have been so consistently good at is supporting their local literary community. As any lover of American literature will know, the Beat Generation was such a tight-knit ‘family’ of writers whose closeness afforded some of the most well-known relationships in twentieth century literary-history. Crucially, City Lights, a product of the Beat Movement and a purveyor of the movement’s ethos, continues to support its surrounding locale to the present day, by hosting the non-profit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles relating to San Francisco culture. In many ways, one could view the continuing re-invention of print as a ‘rolling renaissance’ – beginning with the birth of accessibility postGutenberg and continuing forward with the constant re-birth of power relations at the hands of printers, publishers and the individual. What I see as the twenty-first century unfolds around my own growing understanding of literature and literary-relations is another renaissance, a re-birth of the very concept of ‘print’, that gestates within the boundary-less landscape of the technological age. For me, the three-fold system of oil-based ink, wooden printing press and moveable type that resulted in the Printing Revolution can be paralleled with tools made available by the internet today. ‘Post’, ‘tweet’ and ‘like’ are the twenty-first century’s three-fold system of modern-day print, and, by harnessing the power that Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook and Twitter (among numerous others) offers, the literary

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community can replicate the enormity of the Gutenberg-effect, and a re-renaissance can take place in which literature once again becomes available, on a wholly new level, to the masses. Just as the breakdown of power relations has been indicative to a re-birth of a new way of printing, publishing and spreading the work of writers, the breakdown of power relations has given rise to a new power – the possibility of everyone becoming their own publisher with the tools to ‘print’ at their fingertips. Consequentially, there is a new distribution of power between writers and publishers: the Holy Grail for any budding writer is to see their work in print, but that is now a luxury that can be met half-way, through harnessing online portals and building up a strong online community of fellow bloggers. Post-Gutenberg, knowledge – and so power – spread across Europe; in this age, all it takes is the click of a mouse to send your own work to any number of small publishers, freelance critics or fellow bloggers for peerreview and appreciation. Opinions become more accessible and that all important audience – once

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spread through the world at a slow space – is now condensed to a mailbox or a list of contacts. As everyone knows, though, history has a habit of repeating itself, and I do feel a growing fear not only in me, but in other critics and writers as the art of printing and book-making seems to be over-shadowed by this unlimited, ultimately accessible world of modern-day print/ post technology. To appreciate the importance of balance in this second-wave information revolution, allow me to bring you all a little closer to my home, in Wales, United Kingdom. A small, independent printing works in Denbigh, North Wales has recently had some media coverage, and the significance of this printing works to the debate of print is undeniable when you delve into the history of the area. Gwasg Gee printing works has a lasting place in Welsh cultural and industrial heritage and, when it closed in 2001, it was the oldest independent printing works in Wales and one of a very small number of historic works surviving in the United Kingdom. In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, Thomas Gee, the founder of the printing works and its namesake, used the advanced printing technology he housed at Gwasg Gee to champion the survival of the Welsh language, publishing Welsh language

The one constant we can glean from the history – and future – of the power of print is the way in which it can change landscapes

newspapers and his own Encyclopaedia. Gee died in 1898, but the printing works survived until its closure in 2001. The building has since been placed on the Buildings at Risk register, despite being a Grade II listed building, and is now under preservation by a local trust set up by Gee’s great grand-daughter. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust has taken the preservation of this historic building into their own hands, and is helping to raise the profile of the project, as well as working to preserve and honour the history of the printing works. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust is aiming to create a museum around the local, cultural and historical significance of Gwasg Gee, and is hoping to repair original printing machinery and open a museum to celebrate the rich history of print in the Denbigh area. The Prince’s Regeneration Trust is a perfect example of the importance to preserve the history of print, as a way of fossilising the power that print had over past landscapes. Without this, we would not be experiencing the current information revolution that affords so many contemporary writers, critics and readers the plethora of original writing that is out there, waiting to be discovered. The one constant I think we can glean from the history – and future – of the power of print is the way in which it can change landscapes, from altering power relations across hundreds of years, to welcoming in a young generation of writers and readers in a present-day, post-modern world. Kindles, iPads, online blogs and independently run e-magazines are a world away from ink and moveable type but not so far removed as one might think from the central message of knowledge dissemination. We are entering what I think is another revolution, both in print and information, that bodes the promise of farreaching knowledge and discovery – and, perhaps the most exciting possibility for the preservation of the importance of ‘books’ – the creation of a new generation of book-worms, even if it is now based on pixels, rather than ink and paper. You can find out more information about The Prince’s Regeneration Trust at their website: http://princes-regeneration.org/

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POWER POETRY: MERCEDES FONSECA

ATOMIC NUMBER OF AN UNDESIRABLE Looking at the floor for hope, pennies, ring pulls, though it seems these days it’s all push, harder, further, push. You have been at the top of the world, high up on the mountain, high up in yourself, or that is the version you’ll tell or the tale you remember. The revised edition may have changed: She left you to date her father’s dope dealer friend; another carved her knee whilst you scrutinized analyzed her, injected her with radioactivity, like a lab mouse. Snapping necks mouse to hell. The little duck would have kept the baby; now you crawl back though you said you’d never. “That’s how they can hurt me,” you said. Loyal, honorable, mother dearest, costume drama, firing squad. You walked away and packed her things, left them outside: saved her life from the marshes, wind in the willows. Sinking, drowning, pretending you know how to get what you want.

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“You’re hell bent on dying alone,” you reproached. “I’m hell bent on not living a lie,” I highlighted. When you asked if I still was in and wrote off my common sense as floating, I knew it was right not to go all in, not with a mediocre hand. When you pursued further, turning decision making ‘my thing’, I failed to understand in what planet, what quadrant, what timeline, what lifetime would it make any sense to step in, to pretend I’ve not seen the monster I’d ignored so many times previously. One thing you tried to teach, the one thing that one can hold onto: the ins and outs of self preservation. I refer to those vetoed notes; you will not make of me a fool. Your empty threat, your case lacking evidence, your brain lacking blood supply, your eggs rotten. All crushed in the same basket you use to carry the dreams, the lies, make-believe and tarnished idols. You can’t play me, you can’t tune in: you wont turn this one back. The dust you raise: a diversion

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a tight corner, black ice: endless number of blind spots. It is lacking in your eyes, it is obvious from the hidden gaze held behind a maroon cap. “I’ll support you, you just see.” ...so I stare, anaesthetized, into the horizon watching sun dial shadows move backwards, but the laws of physics state a + b = impossibilities. Relative solutions; the law of physics will still expect you to fall, heavy trapped by the sharp pain of a barely beating heart, clenching your throat, clouding an already askew judgment; you must have slept on it or begun believing something substantial is in play for you to try again and again, against your creed; over again. Misery loves company, misery loves you. Breeder of nightmares, fitting a straitjacket as comfortably as respectable white coats, allowing the self deprecation. “I am not an enabler,” you proudly muse. No you’re the user King of Ruse.

FIVE STEP LADDER

the paradox that is the shock of a behaviour learnt beak to button electrodes mistakes losing marbles far deep in shoes awkward step / haze cause and effect jolt or pellet woe and foe olde acquaintances / whores food from the bosom of what must / could be a robot sour milk from rented copper rather jump than be pushed sooner discuss the semantics of inconspicuous adverbs than further analyze players or games what has come to be expected will disappear during blinking squinting as opposed to the hardest wishing in riddles girdled passion with eyes shut we sweat to the beat we fear / rage shadowing the errors when subsistence never came the clock ticks on timer of the unknown / conditioned an equation will solve this caged time space obsession

By Mercedes Fonseca

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SOLAR POWER: CINDY BLANEY

SOLAR

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POWER By Cindy Blaney

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SOLAR POWER: CINDY BLANEY

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I still

love the moment when you are capturing just the right light from the sun, on a subject. The first image I solarised that really worked was a bush cricket on a table cloth in the garden. Solarisation brought the detail of the cricket to life, and looked more like an insectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s view of the world; seeing in a different colour spectrum. I tried it on a dragonfly in direct sunlight, and that worked too. Lately, I have found that if I equalised the image, after solarising it, the sun-lit subject is still intensified, but the shaded background detail is restored , in a nicely contrasting, muted way. Why power? When you live amongst the trees, you see the power of the sun in a more indirect way, getting very excited when the first catkin or leaves begin to emerge, and insects hatch. I wanted to capture that excitement in my images. Solar power brings the wood back to life.

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SUN SPOT The sun has come out. There is no cold wind. Good things are happening; Flooded land is drying, Cares are lifting, Brightness is flooding the landscape and mind, A babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cry, a cough All lift and fly away into the warmth. With eyes closed to the sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s warmth, Voices and sounds transcend winter-time And become a summer picnic ground. Skin and eyes come alive again The need to shelter is forgotten The stamina to face the cold is loosening The grip of winter is released for a moment For as long as the sun is strong and the air is calm In this sunny spot I am resting in

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CORRIDOR PLATEUA II: ANNEKA FRENCH

IN REVIEW

CORRIDOR PLATEAU II EASTSIDE PROJECTS, BIRMINGHAM, UK 26TH NOVEMBER 2011 – 25TH FEBRUARY 2012

By Anneka French

Corridor

Plateau II is a small but quietly powerful exhibition tucked away in Eastside Projects’ secondary gallery space. Evoking a creeping sense of the sinister, it comprises work across a range of media by artists including Seb Koberstädt, Peyman Rahimi, Detlef Weinrich, and Markus Karstieß. The exhibition is set up as a somewhat seedy domestic interior and is the second part of a project conceived by and simultaneously shown at, Kunstverein Schwerte, Germany. Buzzing with a repressed energy one cannot quite define, Corridor Plateau II references both the surreal and the cinematic to build a disquieting total environment. The exhibition challenges the viewer to engage with the works on display by offering teasing invitations for closer scrutiny. Works are positioned to face away from the viewer and physically block their path, drawing on notions of the uncanny and the unheimlich. Howard Doe, 2009, a sprawling plant in a sculpted ceramic pot by Markus Karstieß is the most explicit example of this as it obstructs the entrance (and exit) to the gallery. Accordingly, the viewer has to make a conscious decision to enter the space and is forced to react bodily and psychologically to the exhibition from the very first encounter. The discovery

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of a compelling and highly charged exhibition awaits those who cross this threshold. Coloured by a subdued palette of brown, grey and black, the exhibition contains overtly filmic qualities. It is lit by six bare light bulbs suspended low in the space which throw long shadows across the gallery. Operating as a kind of gesamtkunstwerk, Corridor Plateau II integrates several items of furniture that both function as stage props and reinforce the domestic, including a beaten leather sofa and several wicker chairs awkwardly positioned too close to a wall, or facing away from an artwork. These simple acts subtly draw attention to these inanimate objects and introduce the impression of the exhibition being inhabited by or affected by unseen forces. Several key works dominate this unsettling exhibition. The first and most obvious is ZORN, 2011, by Seb Koberstädt, a threatening painting which entirely covers two of the gallery walls with cocoa and beer. Its brown, muddy smears are strangely reminiscent of both Richard Long’s wall paintings and the ‘dirty protest’ of prisoners during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Large white triangles interrupt the surface of Koberstädt’s painting, aggressively slicing through the marks and creating tension within the space. ZORN remains in the corner of the viewer’s eye throughout the duration of the viewing experience, forming a menacing wallpapered background to the exhibition, on top of which other works are hung. The exhibition’s haunting qualities

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are emphasised by a sound work by Detlef Weinrich. Entitled Corridor Plateau, 2011, this music permeates the space and heightens its troubling atmosphere. The artist’s work influences the encounter with every other piece in the exhibition, forming a vinyl soundtrack to accompany the viewer at every turn. Even more disturbing is Wesen, 2011, a series of George Condo-esque lithographs by Peyman Rahimi. These ghostly black and white portraits seem to shift and mutate before one’s eyes and are bizarrely suggestive of mirrors as they are of a similar size to one’s own head. Rahimi’s works bring fleeting impressions of people into the space, a notion echoed by the Doe Family series of ceramics by Karstieß which seem darkly to refer to funereal urns. Corridor Plateau II is so much greater than the sum of its parts. The exhibition is remarkable not only for its individual works, but also for its cohesiveness, and one’s surprising physical and psychological reaction to it. It is a bleak, lonely and powerful exhibition which draws on aspects of the theatrical and the cinematic to imply a narrative and a cast of absent characters. The viewer is compelled to investigate and participate in this brooding tableaux through simple curatorial gestures that build suspense, challenge the visitor’s expectations and carefully manipulate their experience.

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Photpgraphy: Markus KarstieĂ&#x;, courtesy Eastside Projects

LOZENGE POWER: CHRIS PILKINGTON

Your

My best friend, but I am not a fisherman. My pocket nearly always has a packet on the go. My sinuses welcome the impact of putting 3 in my mouth at the same time combined with placing my head in the down draft of the open door of the freezer and breathing in really deeply. Nothing beats it. Since seeing the TV ads for them back in the 1980’s I’ve been intrigued by them and I proudly own a Fisherman’s Friend tin. If you’ve never tried one, read and enjoy the following and take my word for it, nothing beats them...

By Chris Pilkington

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grandad loved them. Grandads do. And Norwegians. And Malaysians. And a 100 or so other nationalities. It’s the power that does it. The most powerful lozenge in the world exerts a strange and strong hold over its consumers. Fisherman’s Friend has done since a Lancastrian chemist, James Lofthouse, mixed up the first batch in 1865. Nearly 150 years later, Lofthouse’s is still a family firm, still in Fleetwood, but now it makes a million packets a day. There’s brand power for you. Not that you’d probably notice. 96% of them are exported. It’s a quiet power at Lofthouse’s. Not the showy shouty shrillness of upstart brands. This is the power of proven success. Make it well. Price it right.

They will sell. And sell. Not that things don’t come over all exotic at times. Who wouldn’t want to be in the Far East? Not for the climate, the food or the culture. No, for the Spicy Mandarin flavour Fisherman’s Friends. Our flavours are kind of conventional by comparison. Original Extra Strong of course. Aniseed (the lozenge of connoisseurs) and then the dizzy sensuality of Cherry, Blackcurrant or Lemon. At least we don’t live in

Scandinavia where – from sheer boredom – the locals are partial to a salty liquorice Salmiak Fisherman’s Friend, the oddest confectionery flavour ever. One way to make life more interesting. The Fisherman’s Friend Strongman Run is more than interesting. It’s psychotic. The toughest distance obstacle race in the world, in Germany, once a year (but then nobody would dare to do it more than once a year).

The good ship FF sails on. And now grandads’ grandkids are in on the act. Students stage Fisherman’s Friend trials of strength. Some of them do unspeakable things with lozenges and vodka. Boys use them to chat up girls (and they never fail). The menthol, the eucalyptus, the power and the glory. The brand grows, the factory grows. Fleetwood feels the power and the world takes a deeper breath.

Some do unspeakable things with lozenges and vodka. Boys use them to chat up girls (and they never fail)

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TEA + TOAST CLUB: ARTIST

WELCOME TO OUR CLUB. THIS ISSUE WE DECIDED INSTEAD OF ASKING OUR CONTRIBUTORS TO TELL US ABOUT WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT POWER WE WOULD ASK JACKSON. HE’S 7. NOW LISTEN UP, YOU MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING

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“Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” Chuck Palahniuk

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NEW WRITING // POETRY // ART // PHOTOGRAPHY ON A COMMON THEME

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