ECHO 11/11/05

London, visited briefly – merely a blur - a different reaction to it, less stressed, detached, no longer wrapped up in its routine, its depletion. To a birthday party in a church hall in Dalston – Catholic - thirteen people sat around in the space looking like all is well whilst the DJ plays music that is trying to be so cool by being so kitsch but in the end results in a distinct lack of party fever. At one point it gets mildly evangelical, with a crucifix up on the wall looking down at us he starts to play tracks like ‘Oh Happy Day.’ For a moment I wonder if we are all about to be converted or recruited into one of those weird marketed religions like the Alpha Course, spiritualism for the busy beginner, the careerists excuse me, whatever you want to call it. But this is simply just bad taste, London ‘cool’ taken to some absurd length where post-modern irony says anything goes without recourse to taste or entertainment needs. Well, with the party finitely doused with good swing, and people putting on polite faces, I wander round ear wigging and observing, taking note of the general tone. First off we are reverting to puberty, dividing ourselves along safe ground and sitting down so we are not on display; absorbed in the low light and most definitely not approaching that arena that is the wooden dance floor, which remains resolutely empty and void of any rhythmic show of expression (not easy I guess unless you feel born again at any moment). Beyond this space the rest of the hall is empty, we are bordered by a kind of exclusion zone, a no-mansland cleared of chairs and tables where the hostess has told us not to go so that the party looks fuller and bigger and brighter than it is. No guards patrolling, but it is funny how people steer clear of it. The crucifix I mentioned earlier is positioned high on the wall above this space – an ivory Christ staring down in nomine Patre – I’m not sure whether his look of pity is saying he died for us (as he most often does) or ‘you poor fuckers, why don’t you dump that DJ, play some decent music and get this party going?’. Either way, what a guest to have at your birthday! I am just perusing this and wondering if the big JC himself would have made a good DJ, when the introductions begin – ‘hello, hello, nice to meet you, heard so much blah blah blah…………’ It is a funny thing how living in a city - full of life, experience, sensory stimuli – seems to contribute to the inability to communicate – small talk fantastic, anything more forget it. Trite but polite. I put it down to the everyday need of these people to guard themselves against their physical environment and their career environments. To be shut up. A few neurotic, self-obsessed actors and directors are paraded out looking and behaving like ferrets, darting here and there, flitting between morsels, unable to settle - some are immensely rude in their nervousness and walk away mid-conversation seeking wine or else they keep looking to their mobile phones whilst talking; these appear glued to their hands so they can’t go anywhere without them. Anything to avoid conversation that might not revolve solely around them? I could name names but I won’t – I didn’t get to know them well enough to give them a name even though I was told them. These ‘creative’ brains and all they could muster was generic. Shame.