8/6/06
The days bake - elemental - swarms of the upper middle classes arrive alongside the biting June bugs - at Snape the festival is beginning and the hats are out in the heat haze, the river turned to a mercury glut at Iken - the rest of us pass the time with chips and ice cream and long walks out into the marshes or along the beach - I venture up to Thorpeness, plastic tables spread out in front of the 'Italian bistro', the greasy end of the tourist trap - inside the owner keeps an eye on his three immigrant workers, he smokes constantly behind his net-curtained flat at the top while they kick dust in the car-park, smoking too, waiting for custom; very good boys -
A piece of bone marked like part of an Ordnance Survey map - dry white, with measurements and a latitude inscribed - the paler blue square of the sea and a low tide mark, then the contours of a beach and the immediate inland features, faded on the marrow - I attempt to pick it up, but it is rooted into the dry earth there and how far into the ground it goes I do not know -
MP3 player unexpectedly plays Slim Gaillard's 'Slim's Jam' whilst in random mode (the best way to use it really) - that happy track, with your man Slim scatting away and chatting to Diz and Bird who it appears have just walked in on the recording session and decided to join in with a couple of choruses in A Flat; much to the delight of Slim (and us) who scats on vout - I realize a connection - the first person to play this track to me, maybe fifteen or so years ago, was a writer and poet called Neil; I used to work for him in a small but excellent bookshop he owned in Hertfordshire. He was writing a novel at the time, amongst other things - a crime novel - and it was a pretty intense and volatile period in which he would spend hours tapping away at his typewriter in the flat above the shop and then from time to time explode into tantrums, shouting at the work or himself before storming off to the local pub for a pint or two at lunchtime. A couple of times he smashed the shop up right in front of me. Anyway, I don't want to paint a bad picture of the man because he was excellent company and kind hearted. After all the effort, and despairing of the mediocrity of Hertfordshire and its poorly read locals, he chose to sell off the shop and relocate to - this is where the connection comes in - Aldeburgh, where I believe he was living when his novel was published and where he also completed a life of the poet George Crabbe - in fact, I believe I can locate his house on Crabbe Street -
Bongo Sue arrives at DP's Bar with her collection of drums, large masses of dark wood with animal skins stretched taut - Bongo Sue, a Yorkshire woman clad in tight black with slashes along the arms exposing skin, tribal fetters and long hair, who unleashes deep rhythms there in the middle of the bar, her head swaying and the tempo quickening - the evening crowd thins and then thickens again with the newly attracted: all the young and old hippie dreamers of the East Coast gather in that tiny place, the Polish barman smiling magnanimously and doling out San Miguel for the hottest night of the year so far - the chorus go wild and start to dance and pulsate in the middle whilst others look on bemused but smiling - Bongo Sue, joined by anyone who can get close to one of the many drums she's brought, is in her element and with her confidence growing plays on for a good hour, palms reddened with blood, hair cascading and shoulders swinging and rocking like crazy -
The days bake - elemental - swarms of the upper middle classes arrive alongside the biting June bugs - at Snape the festival is beginning and the hats are out in the heat haze, the river turned to a mercury glut at Iken - the rest of us pass the time with chips and ice cream and long walks out into the marshes or along the beach - I venture up to Thorpeness, plastic tables spread out in front of the 'Italian bistro', the greasy end of the tourist trap - inside the owner keeps an eye on his three immigrant workers, he smokes constantly behind his net-curtained flat at the top while they kick dust in the car-park, smoking too, waiting for custom; very good boys -
A piece of bone marked like part of an Ordnance Survey map - dry white, with measurements and a latitude inscribed - the paler blue square of the sea and a low tide mark, then the contours of a beach and the immediate inland features, faded on the marrow - I attempt to pick it up, but it is rooted into the dry earth there and how far into the ground it goes I do not know -
MP3 player unexpectedly plays Slim Gaillard's 'Slim's Jam' whilst in random mode (the best way to use it really) - that happy track, with your man Slim scatting away and chatting to Diz and Bird who it appears have just walked in on the recording session and decided to join in with a couple of choruses in A Flat; much to the delight of Slim (and us) who scats on vout - I realize a connection - the first person to play this track to me, maybe fifteen or so years ago, was a writer and poet called Neil; I used to work for him in a small but excellent bookshop he owned in Hertfordshire. He was writing a novel at the time, amongst other things - a crime novel - and it was a pretty intense and volatile period in which he would spend hours tapping away at his typewriter in the flat above the shop and then from time to time explode into tantrums, shouting at the work or himself before storming off to the local pub for a pint or two at lunchtime. A couple of times he smashed the shop up right in front of me. Anyway, I don't want to paint a bad picture of the man because he was excellent company and kind hearted. After all the effort, and despairing of the mediocrity of Hertfordshire and its poorly read locals, he chose to sell off the shop and relocate to - this is where the connection comes in - Aldeburgh, where I believe he was living when his novel was published and where he also completed a life of the poet George Crabbe - in fact, I believe I can locate his house on Crabbe Street -
Bongo Sue arrives at DP's Bar with her collection of drums, large masses of dark wood with animal skins stretched taut - Bongo Sue, a Yorkshire woman clad in tight black with slashes along the arms exposing skin, tribal fetters and long hair, who unleashes deep rhythms there in the middle of the bar, her head swaying and the tempo quickening - the evening crowd thins and then thickens again with the newly attracted: all the young and old hippie dreamers of the East Coast gather in that tiny place, the Polish barman smiling magnanimously and doling out San Miguel for the hottest night of the year so far - the chorus go wild and start to dance and pulsate in the middle whilst others look on bemused but smiling - Bongo Sue, joined by anyone who can get close to one of the many drums she's brought, is in her element and with her confidence growing plays on for a good hour, palms reddened with blood, hair cascading and shoulders swinging and rocking like crazy -
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