England’s Dreaming

England’s Dreaming, 2012

This was taken near Covent Garden, London, UK.

England’s Dreaming  is a history of the Sex Pistols and punk by Jon Savage. It was published in 1991.

I bought this book when it came out and read it cover to cover. At the time I wasn’t a big Pistols fan (and I still prefer The Damned if I’m honest)*, but I was fascinated by the way Punk blossomed and died within a year, leaving a huge legacy (and a lot of people hanging around precincts accusing each other of selling out). Jon Savage writes in a really engaging and authoritative way and weaves a great narrative while maintaining nitty gritty detail. It made me revisit the Pistols, so I guess it did its job.

Here’s the first paragraph:

It is the early seventies. All the participants of what will be called Punk are alive, but few of them know each other. They will come together in 1976 and 1977 in a network of relationships as complicated as the rabbit-warren London slums of Dickens’ novels. The other beginnings of Punk – the musical texts, vanguard manifestos, pulp fictions – already exist, but first we need the location, the vacant space where, like the buddleia on the still plentiful bombsites, these flowers can bloom.

In our house, this book can be found: dining room, right-hand bookshelves, third shelf down.

* and The Fall, of course, but Mark E. Smith denies they were ever punk. And PiL, who came after the Sex Pistols.

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Thank as always,  John and Deanne and Terry for title shenanigans and Richard at CK Ponderings for being a super-cool collaborator. Check Richard’s blog for our latest!

The Frequency of Souls

The Frequency of Souls, 2012

This was taken outside Covent Garden tube station in London, UK.

The Frequency of Souls is a novel by Mary Kay Zuravleff. It was published in 1996.

I haven’t read this book, but Nikki has and raves about it (and she introduced me to the work of Margaret Atwood, so I trust her judgement). So, without further ado, here’s the skinny on this one:

George is about to be forced to re-evaluate everything in his life from love and family, to science itself. George is about to get a new office mate, Niagara Spence, with whom he will become obsessed. Niagara is on a quest for electrical evidence of life after death.

And here’s the first paragraph:

Ever since he had built his first radio set from glass tubes and a spool of lead, George Mahoney remained convinced that the universe was soldered together with logic. That, in essence, was his philosophy, though there were corollaries, too: all supernatural phenomena, including what passed for miracles, were explicable; the dead were no longer among us; stars contained no truths for our future and so on. This dogma had sustained him through such head trips as the Vietnam era, college during the early seventies, and sixteen years of marriage. Lately, however, in the slow afternoons when he was supposed to be advancing the cause of refrigerator design, George found himself watching his new office mate and reviewing his belief system.

In our house, the book can be found: dining room, left-hand bookshelves, third shelf down.

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Thanks to John and Deanne, who got me titling. Extra thanks to Deanne for  tag ideas. Ta too to Terry for sending me bookshelfwards in search of ideas, and to Richard at CK Ponderings for being a cool collaborator. A round-up of our last 5 collaborations will be published this Sunday on Richard’s blog. Please check it out!

Dogfood

Between 1988 and 1992, I made nineteen book works. The idea was to make sequential works you could experience in a similar way to listening to music, books that had rhythm, and repeated themes – books that you could dip into and out of without losing the sense of what the book was about. In the most part the content comprised  juxtaposed “found” images and text in increasingly complex arrangements. Round about book thirteen, I started introducing blank pages. Looking back I think this marked the beginning of the end for the project. The number of blank pages increased with each book until I found myself facing the possibility I would end up publishing a completely blank book. So I had a rethink.

Dogfood was book nineteen. It was hand-made from photocopies and cardboard, and published it in an edition of 25 in 1992.  The images were all originals and there was no text apart from the title and a copyright notice on the final page. The rhythm was deliberately stripped down: Dog, Food, Dog, Food, Dog etc.

Dogfood was my punk album.