#Rachel Coventry

[scripta21]

Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, revue de poésie, N°12, avril 2024

« Sing Song », Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, N°12, avril 2024, édition papier et kindle, URL : https://feversofthemind.com/2024/04/24/now-out-fevers-of-the-mind-issue-12-national-poetry-month-2024

Le numéro 12 de Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Art & Music célèbre plusieurs grands morceaux de poésie de Fevers of the Mind au cours des dernières années ainsi que de nouvelles contributions : David L O'Nan, HillLesha O'Nan, MS Evans, Scott Thomas Outlar, Anne Paulet (Scripta 21), Angela Kosta, Rachel Coventry, Jimmy Webb, Lorna Wood, Pasithea Chan, Anushna Biswas, Owen Bullock, Robin McNamara. , David Hay, Nina Parmenter, Steve Denehan, Cat Dixon, Victoria Leigh Bennett, Maxine Rose Munro, Petar Penda, Kevin Hibshman, Shobana Gomes, Gayle J. Greenlea, Oz Hardwick, Stephen Kingsnorth, Vicky Allen, Matthew Freeman, Barney Ashton- Bullock, Kathryn Anna Marshall, Tuur Verheyde, Anna Rozwadowska, Hiram Larew, Marie Little, Rickey Rivers Jr, Gordon Lewis, Colin Dardis, Karlo Sevilla, Michael Igoe, Sarika Jaswani, Kushal Poddar, Christina Strigas, Adrian Ernesto Cepeda, John Grey, Renee Williams, Peach Delphine, Stephen Watt, Jennifer Patino, Katrina Kaye, Paula Hayes, Ryan Quinn Flanagan, Tianna Godsey, Elizabeth Cusack, Khadeja Ali, Charlotte Oliver et Samantha Terrell

[poem-today]

A poem by Rachel Coventry

On the Death of an Absent Father

It is a very different thing to remember a place while it still stands, even as a ramshackle ruin, than to remember it once it has been torn down.

The long corridor from the toilets to the dancefloor, where we sat for hours surreptitiously pouring vodka from the naggins in our handbags into our glasses, is gone.

The Warwick Hotel, broken and dilapidated, invisible for an age as we drove past it, forgetting how little hope we had as we attempted to launch ourselves from the dirty carpet, how little hope as we adorned the pitiful world with laughter.

The Warwick Hotel is gone. It is an empty plot that someone will force a future on.

Rachel Coventry

Watch and listen to Rachel Coventry read her poem (at 4:20).

Read Carol Rumens commentary on the poem which she chose as poem of the week in The Guardian.

Image: The start of the demolition of the Warwick Hotel in Salthil, Galway. Photograph: Joe O’Shaughnessy.

[quotespile]

After a while, people stopped bothering to try to put the record straight: on the contrary, they became, in a curious way, dependent on the teller of this tale, in which they featured as central characters. The sheer energy and wilful, self-constructing logic of narrative, which at first made one cringe and protest every time the truth was dented, came over time to seem preferable to elusive, chaotic reality.

Rachel Cusk, Coventry

[aguavida]

“I have never felt myself to be ageing: on the contrary, I have always had the strange sensation as time passes that I am getting not older but younger. My body feels as though it has innocence as its destination. This is not, of course, a physical reality – I view the proof in the mirror with increasing puzzlement – but it is perhaps a psychological one that conscripts the body into its workings. It is as though I was born imprisoned in a block of stone from which it has been both a necessity and an obligation to free myself. The feeling of incarceration in what was pre-existing and inflexible works well enough, I suppose, as a paradigm for the contemporary woman’s struggle towards personal liberty. She might feel it politically, socially, linguistically, emotionally; I happen to have felt it physically. I am not free yet, by any means. It is laborious and slow, chipping away at that block. There would be a temptation to give up, were the feelings of claustrophobia and confinement less intense.”

Coventy - Rachel Cusk

[martinfreemanspotter]

Oh, what a month!

January 1st

We're starting the year with a bang! Rachel posted a few pic of Martin and herself on her Instagram.

January 7th

Martin was spotted with his son Joseph yesterday in London.

January 9th

We got some vague news about the 2nd season of The Responder.

January 11th

Miller's Girl premiered at the 35th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. Martin was in attendance.

January 17th

Martin and Rachel attend a special screening of "The Holdovers".

January 18th

The trailer for Queen of Bones surprisingly dropped last night.

January 21st

Martin and his son Joe were spotted today at Martin's favourite tailor.

January 23rd

Surprise sneak peek of Miller's Girl.

January 25th

Miller's Girl has been offcially released.

January 26th

Martin was spotted today at the Caribbean To Coventry Exhibition Gala Night at the Barbican.

January 28th

Martin and Rachel attended the gala performance of "Plaza Suite".

January 30th

Queen of Bones has found a distributor.

[jovenshires]

what are the other smosh cast members doing in the chosen band au? are they musicians as well? 👀👀 -blandview

oh BOY im so glad you've asked.

SO most of the smosh cast are in bands!! i won't spoil whos in what (maybe i will who knows) BUT the bands are the chosen (obviously), an alternative rock band on the way up; ftc, an indie trio making severe sad girl music; koalition, a hip-hop group and longtime friends of the chosen; coventry, a girl group making some excellent punk music; a thus unnamed band (i just dk what to name it yet ill take suggestions), a brand new pop group entering the competition last minute; and, of course, smosh, a punk-pop duo thats pretty self explanatory 🤪

there are also other smosh crew members featuring as managers, publicists, groupies, etc!! for instance, the chosen's manager is kiana bc of course ❤️❤️❤️ and their publicist is lisa. ftc is managed by rachel, and coventry is managed by zoe. i currently do not have jackie in any of these bands BUT. i think ya girls gonna be on the judges panel as a solo artist ‼️

[joemuggs]

Albums of 2023 part 2

And so, on from part 1, we continue. This is more dreamy synth-dub that sits perfectly next to the Harrow album: Richard Norris is another artist with an extraordinarily long and illustrious career but who also has never lost the exploratory urge and total delight in sonic finesse.

Honestly Uruguayan-in-Ireland Lila Tirando a Violeta is right up there with the very best of the "deconstructed club" generation - dark, gothic, complex, VERY WEIRD - and this collab with Berliner Sin Maldita is up there with her best. It's really, REALLY intense!

Just impossibly beautiful elegies from ambient harpist Mary Lattimore which builds towards the final track collaboration with Slowdive's Rachel Goswell that is so lovely it will single handedly bring back swooning as a popular pastime.

Officially an EP but there's enough here to cement Nia Archives's place as a heavyweight - add "Off Wiv Ya Headz" and that Jorja Smith remix, and she's had a humdinger of a 2023....

Saw some discourse suggesting that Burna Boy is resting on his laurels here, but I don't hear it. Maybe it's the fact that the cover looks dashed-off? But musically, this bangs: it expertly joins so many dots but keeps his voice and personality right at the heart of it.

I mean come on there was no way a collab between Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist was going to be anything but good, right? Just purest essence of deep and dreamy stoner hip hop. Yet another small (27min) but beautifully formed album - definitely a trend there.

Feels kind of (literally) sacrilegious to say I prefer Cleo Sol's more personal, less scriptural records (e.g. Rose in the Dark) - and this is, top to bottom, a gospel album - but the conviction to her performance and the whole realisation of it here is still really magical.

From Coventry via Skopje, man like NOT_MDK's first album in 23 years, and he's zooming into the deep flows that join grime and dubstep into the longer, deeper electronic funk continuum... These tracks are so crisp and crunchy!

She's from Turkey but Ahu's been plugged into the London Plastic People / NTS / etc scene for years - file this with Yazmin Lacey and similar LDN soul-jazz, also it's very Boho and vibesy and incensey, definitely one to light your best candles for.

Can't remember who put me on to this, possibly Radio 3? Anyway if cold wet misty Scottish hillsides are your jam Claire M Singer has you covered - these slower-than-slowly unfolding organ-led pieces practically smell of wet moss, and are extremely beautiful.

He's lent vocals to a who's who of electronic music, but it turns out Paul St Hilaire's own studio craft is the equal of just about any of them - this is just a stunning, ocean-deep album of dub abstraction and subtly potent lyricism.

Icelander Eva Jóhannsdóttir aka EVA808 has already made a name in the dubstep/grime world but this is her really spreading her creative wings. Mad psychedelia, elemental abstraction, movie-theme composition - there's not much she can't do. Big things beckon!

There's still SO much to say about amapiano, and so much incredible UK, SA and wider world stuff last year (this isn't even the only great DJ Maphorisa album - he had THREE out in 2023, including a mini album with Shino Kikai and a 25-track one with fellow originator Kabza De Small!!). Suffice to say this has gorgeous songs, primal grooves, endlessly sophisticated mixdowns and bass that'll take your breath away.

Just gonna link to my review for this one (it's got the music embedded) - but TL;DR Darren J Cunningham aka Actress is the holy prophet of the era of enshittification, yet for all that his music is constantly "off" and made for a world that is "off", he alchemises it into real gold.

Yeah I'm going to be THAT space-jazz hipster and say this is the record I wish Andre3000 (who is on it, and Carlos Niño co-produced his album) had made. It's just a more lavish, free, FUN way to cavort with the five-dimensional fractal machine elves.

Zoning in on the platonic breakbeat mathematics that underly Jersey / B'more club Chicago hip house, UK rave, trip hop etc, Bored Lord could seem arch or retro if her beats weren't so gloriously functional and bumping.

Fed up of generic records? You will never EVER find another one that sounds like IFS MA. Polish abstract slightly Autechre-y footwork / drum'n'bass with Japanese rapper MA sounding like a cyborg beat poet Taliban Trim and I.... 🤯

Every man jack and their dog are doing high bpm retro rave lately but you can trust Meemo Comma to put a fresh and uneasy twist on it. These tracks will get you proper buzzing up loud! I got to DJ for her live performance of this at Spiritland earlier in the year, hearing them on that system was a real treat.

You get a twofer with this one. Phil Kieran's ode to Belfast is gorgeous in studio form here, but he also recorded and released a version with the Ulster Orchestra that single handedly revivifies the idea of electronic music done classical style!

Two true underground troupers teaming up here - Jordan GCZ from Juju & Jordash and David "Move D" Moufang with some otherworldly good-dream ambient, deep house and space-soul jams heavy on the Fender Rhodes, fuzzy reverberation and sensually sweeping portamento.

My musical safe place for so much of this year. Brooklyn "electronic jam band" Purelink somehow burrowed into electronic music history and found the softest, happiest, warmest fur lined chamber and then invited us in. I cannot emphasise enough how LOVELY this record is.

More modular synth grooves from E Ruscha aka Secret Circuits, but no over-indulgence here and the grooves REALLY DO GROOVE. Trippy as a weasel circus and twice as funky.

Talking of trippy, here's Optimo Music's second acid-drenched entry, from the man formerly known as TB Arthur and the mighty Magda trading as Blotter Trax, it's a kind of parallel universe early 80s alt disco where everything gurgles and melts.

More from South Africa - King Mzaiza Sound via the reliably tough Parisian PSSNGR label - not 100% sure what you'd call this though it definitely has some gqom sonics, some trap drums, and some strident rap vocals... It's HARD AS NAILS is what it is.

EVEN HARDER - Nyege Nyege brought us a sampler of this (and I don't use mental health language lightly) FUCKING MENTAL shrieking, raging, solvent-huffing sound from São Paulo stewarded by the young DJ K, and it's extremely funky and scarily thrilling.

OK there we go, part three is here.....

[embossross]

2022 in Books: Non-Fiction Edition

memoirs

in the dream house by carmen maria machado (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

priestdaddy by patricia lockwood (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

night by elie wiesel (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

negroland by margo jefferson (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

fun home: a family tragicomic by alison bechdel (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

black box by shiori ito (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

waste: one woman's fight against america's dirty secret by catherine coleman flowers (⭐⭐⭐)

a history of my brief body by billy-ray belcourt (⭐⭐⭐)

essays

the best american essays 2021 (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

how to slowly kill yourself and others by kiese laymon (not the new edition unfortunately 😭) (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

coventry: essays by rachel cusk (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion by jia tolentino (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

the curtain: an essay in seven parts by milan kundera (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

upstream: selected essays by mary oliver (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

the best american essays 2019 (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

languages of truth: essays 2003-2020 by salman rushdie (⭐⭐⭐)

tacky: love letters to the worst culture we have to offer by rax king (⭐⭐⭐)

the 2000s made me gay: essays on pop culture by grace perry (⭐)

poetry - no ratings because i am a poetry novice lol

an american sunrise by joy harjo

golden ax by rio cortez

time is a mother by ocean vuong

other

being mortal: medicine and what matters in the end by atul gawande (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

red famine: stalin's war on ukraine, 1921-1933 by anne applebaum (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

dopesick: dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted america by beth macy (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

fuzz: when nature breaks the law by mary roach (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

a beginner's guide to japan: observations and provocations by pico iyer (⭐⭐⭐⭐)

the best american science and nature writing 2021 (⭐⭐⭐)

how the irish saved civilization: the untold story of ireland's heroic role from the fall of rome to the rise of medieval europe by thomas cahill (⭐⭐⭐)

the neanderthals rediscovered: how modern science is rewriting their story by dimitra papagianni (⭐⭐⭐)

[worldofauctions]

Kier Kick - How Prime Minister Starmer and his new team are striving to provide a winning kick to the housing market in Euro 2024 semi-finals week

As the Euro 2024 semi-finals week unfolds, there's another game being played off the pitch - the game of housing. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his new team are striving to provide a winning kick to the UK's housing market. The Labour government, under the leadership of Starmer and new Chancellor Rachel Reeves, has outlined an ambitious housing strategy that promises to construct 1.5 million homes over the next five years.

The strategy is a comprehensive one, aiming to address the housing crisis in the country by ramping up the supply of new social homes. This aligns with the goal of increasing the availability of affordable housing for the population. The Labour government is also planning to end the divisive Thatcher-era right to buy rules, indicating a focus on reforming existing housing policies to create a more equitable housing landscape.

The new government is not shying away from taking decisive action. Starmer emphasizes the importance of utilizing intervention powers to build the necessary houses strategically, even if it means overriding local objections. This suggests a willingness to take decisive action to address housing shortages in specific areas.

The Labour Party has also pledged to review the increased Right to Buy discounts introduced in 2012 and increase protections on newly-built social housing. This reflects a commitment to reassess existing housing policies and strengthen protections for social housing.

As part of the "big build" initiative, Starmer has proposed loosening restrictions on building houses on greenbelt scrubland and car parks, with a focus on creating townhouse communities with baked-in walkability. This indicates a willingness to explore innovative approaches to housing development and urban planning.

The new government's commitment to reform the planning system and accelerate growth has been welcomed by property industry stakeholders. Jonathan Stinton, head of intermediary relationships at Coventry Building Society, said the housebuilding targets are a strong start, but there’s a huge amount of work to be done. David Thomas, chief executive of Barratt Developments, emphasized the need for more new homes of all types and tenures.

However, amidst the cheers, there are concerns about whether any targets for the energy efficiency of new homes will be announced, given that the UK’s housing stock is some of the worst in Europe when it comes to energy efficiency.

As the Euro 2024 semi-finals week continues, the nation watches with bated breath - not just for the outcome of the games, but also for the success of this ambitious housing strategy. Will Prime Minister Starmer and his team score a winning goal in the housing market? Only time will tell.

Stay tuned to "World of Auctions" for more updates on the UK's housing market and the government's strategies.

[mindinganother]

Rachel Cusk, 'I Am Nothing, I Am Everything', Coventry

[botchedandecstatic]

Books Read/Reread, March/April 2023

Polina Barskova, Living Pictures Martin McDonagh, The Pillow Man Allison C. Meier, Grave Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Borealis Susan Howe, Concordance Rachel Cusk, Coventry Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: Or, a Life of Montaigne Nona Fernández, Voyager: Constellations of Memory Dorothe Nors, A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast Malcolm Harris, Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Rosemarie Garland Thomson (ed.), Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body* Catherine Prendergast, The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women and the Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America Vincent Brown, Tacky's Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War Kenzaburo Oē, A Personal Matter* Kenazburo Oē, The Silent Cry* Joseph Osmundson, Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead and the Small Things in Between Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer and Other Endings Jonathan Kennedy, Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues Erik R. Seeman, Speaking with the Dead in Early America Susan Sontag (ed.), The Best American Essays, 1992 * = reread

[bookshed-books]

Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk

Outline, Transit and Kudos are the three books that comprise the Outline trilogy, written by Rachel Cusk. From the perspective of Faye, a writer based in London, the books document interactions and in-depth (bordering philosophical) conversations with friends, relatives, strangers, colleagues, and lovers. In the books, Rachel Cusk depicts the textures of reality with intense precision and care. Because her writing is so close to real life (often described as auto-fiction) it is incredibly ‘real’, by which I essentially mean the opposite of fantasy. For me, realism can sometimes fall flat, especially when it is selective documentation without a kind of argument or core, but Rachel Cusk’s work never fails in this way. And when all is said and done, I think this is because she knows the mechanics of story telling. Shortly after reading the books I also read Coventry, which is a collection of essays, and I felt there was a distinct difference in Cusk’s tone - in how she addresses the reader through the essay vs. the novel. However, one thing that strikes me in all her work is a true sensitivity to the world around her and a strong commitment to putting that into words.

While reading the trilogy I trawled through articles about it and interviews with Cusk. One comment from a reader that I came across claimed that characters spoke to the protagonist, Faye, in an unusual way, and that in real life, this is not how people talk. I was surprised by this comment, because it went against what I was thinking, which was that Faye was a quiet and passive character, and in the right circumstances, around a woman with such qualities, other characters might be inclined to expose themselves. In fact, in all of Cusk’s work, I’m often thinking about exposure, and the ways in which people expose themselves, consciously or otherwise, and how writers (do/can/should) collect and translate this. Linked to this, and more specifically, I think about how women expose themselves. A chapter from the final book in the trilogy, Kudos, comes to mind. Faye is talking openly to a friend/interviewer (off the record) about how their lives have landed in motherhood, marriage and stable careers, and when they thought of each other over the years:

‘I admit,’ she said finally, ‘that I took pleasure in telling you about my life and in making you feel envious of me. I was proud of it. I remember thinking, yes, I’ve avoided making a mess of things, and it seemed to me that it was through hard work and self-control that I had, rather than luck. But it was important not to look as if I was boasting. It always felt then as if I had a secret,’ she said, ‘and it would have ruined things if I had let it out. When I used to look at my husband I would never tell it either because it was something we shared, like actors secretly share the knowledge that they’re acting, which if they openly admitted it would ruin the scene. Actors need an audience,’ she said, ‘and so did we, because part of the pleasure was showing out secret without telling it.’

When I read this, I felt a kind of pain and I think this is because it’s hard to express upset when it appears in a situation that is unresolved and still unfolding. I suppose it is rare to expose things ‘for-the-sake-of-it’, without expecting a resolution or something in return. But we’re forced to expose things, particularly as women; mothers must expose things to their children, and this is a form of intimacy. This kind of exposure can involve choice, or it can be an accident. In Transit, Faye is visiting her cousin’s country home and encounters a group of middle-class women while there. Cusk describes their clothes, which are incongruous with Faye’s, and the clash seems to escalate:

Eloise was elegantly dressed and her face was carefully made up; her two friends also wore dresses and high heels. They looked like they were all waiting to go out to some grand party rather than remaining here for the evening in the dark, fog-bound countryside. It seemed a waste that there was no one to admire them. Eloise drew close and plucked at my clothes, tutting.

‘Always so dark,’ she said. I could smell her perfume. She herself was wearing a soft knitted dress made of cream-coloured yarn. She drew still closer, scrutinising my face. She brushed her fingertips over my cheek and then stood back to examine them. ‘I just wondered what you were wearing on your skin,’ she said. ‘You’re very pale. These –’ she plucked at my clothes again – ‘are draining you.’

Cusk describes characters in ways that give us insight into their choices. I read the trilogy as a series of people exposing themselves, like they are at confession while interacting with Faye, and Cusk’s writing is scattered and alive with indications as to why they do so. Her writing is a carefully constructed force and none of her sentences sink because there is so much intention behind each one.

[aguavida]

“The truth often appears in the guise of a threat to the social code. It has this in common with rudeness. When people tell the truth, they can experience a feeling of release from pretence that is perhaps similar to the release of rudeness. It might follow that people can mistake truth for rudeness, and rudeness for truth. It may only be by examining the aftermath of each that it becomes possible to prove which was which.” 

Coventry - Rachel Cusk

[sbgraphic]

COLOSSUS by Stephanie Lake from Stephanie Lake Company on Vimeo.

"Thrilling, frightening and entirely unforgettable. Every technical aspect is pitch perfect. Mind boggling…a monumental talent.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Tim Byrne, Time Out (2018)

“When I walked out of Colossus, my blood was singing with sheer exhilaration. ...epic ambition fully realised." Alison Croggon, Witness Performance (2018)

Arts Centre Melbourne in association with Melbourne Fringe presents Colossus By Stephanie Lake Company 26 - 30 September 2018 | Fairfax Studio

Choreographer - Stephanie Lake Composer - Robin Fox Lighting Designer - Bosco Shaw Costume Designer - Harriet Oxley Production Manager - Emily O’Brien Assistant Producer - Zela Papageorgiou Producer - Michaela Coventry

Dancers - Rowan Jobling (Intern), Lachlan Hall (Intern) and Nikki Tarling (Intern), Larissa Anthony, Rebecca Berry, Hannah Billingham, Tamara Bouman, Sarah Bourne, Eloise Brodie, Phaedra Brown, Grace Buchanan, Jazmyn Carter, Dominique Cowden, Molly Davies, Alexandra Dobson, Kayla Douglas, Nicholas Eva, Cheryl Friedrich, Annaleise Gaffney, Sophie Gould, Marni Green, Samuel Hammat, Tiffany Hislop, Surekha Krishnan, Thalia Livingstone, Gabrielle Loveridge, Jennifer Ma, Rachel Mackie, Kaitlin Malone, Kady Mansour, Sarah McCrorie, Nikky Muscat, Vanessa Northcott, Kyle Ramboyong, Hayley Roe, Aimee Schollum, Gabriel Sinclair, Lauren Stanley, Emily Sterry, Michaela Tancheff, Adrien Tucker, Georgia Tuckett , Sophia van Gent, Sophia Rose Walker, Olivia Yeo

[covdiggingdeep]

Lou and Akeel, Lakeview Allotments, Coventry. Plot taken on January 2021 with Lucy and Rach. Akeel: She’s stuck a cover on it to create a bit of shade… Lou: It’s a pagoda! It’s very posh. Akeel: We had loads of wood and we thought we’d build something on the shed. It took me about five days to complete, on and off, with various help from various friends who came along to help and hold hammers. It’s nice to get people down here. In total I probably spent about £20 on building it, on the screws and plastic sheets. Lou: A lot was salvaged. Akeel: Rachel’s added some guttering on to it for the water butt, it’s beautiful! Lou: We’ve got another water butt to put in place actually, a massive container. Akeel: I don’t know what’s happened here… oh no. Looks like they may have been runners. They’re dried out. Maybe they could be used in a soup once they’ve been boiled for about three days. I’ve really struggled to get to the allotment, loads of issues have been in the way of me getting here - health and work - the allotment was supposed to be somewhere to come to get away from all of that but unfortunately I’ve not been able to. Luckily Rachel has been coming, she’s still proper on it. At the moment I don’t feel like I’m part of a team and I think we’re all going to have to sit down together and say ‘come on, whip us into action Rach’ - we should talk to each other and communicate over what needs doing. It seems like for her to have done all of this is a bit unfair, maybe. I think she enjoys it but there are going to be jobs like watering, simple things that do require all of us to be on board, and the weeding. Lou: Yeah, I think so. Get a little schedule together. We have got pumpkins over there, and there’s figs on your tree again. They’re coming up, and looking really beautiful. Asparagus is coming on but that takes a few years. Look at these beans, they’re looking pretty bad ass. I’m not sure how often Rach comes to water. That’s what I mean, we do need to communicate a bit more in our allotment collective group. She gets on with what she wants to do but I think we should have an allotment meeting. Akeel: Rachel and Lucy do the majority of the planting and weeding. We have a WhatsApp group but I lost my phone so I’ve not been able to see what’s been going on. I might miss out on the produce but in some ways I’m not entitled to take any. Lou: We all do the hedge strimming and the weeding prep. Akeel: It’s just personally, the way I feel about it is that it’s not enough, what I’ve done. Coming here and seeing it it’s like ‘wow’, it makes me want to make a plan. It’s good guilt. Lou: I’m really chuffed about the pumpkins, though. They’re amazing. Last year we did the three sisters but this year we’ve moved everything around - there’s been crop rotation. So we did the pumpkins slightly differently and they’ve done really well. Akeel: Lucy built these bricks around the beans, maybe to sit on and admire the stalks! Lou: It’s so nice to come down here and pick things. It makes you want to get stuff done - it’s Virgo season now so it’s the action of doing, it’s very earthy. This is beetroot, and chard. Some beetroot has gone to seed. We’ve got loads of figs. We have a glut of onions and garlic which is awesome. Try an apple, Akeel. Akeel: Will we get into trouble? Lou: I’m going to have a cull on brambles very soon. It’s Godiva Festival and I’m working all weekend but next week I’ll come and do a war on brambles. I quite like it when you’ve had a really good day of physical activity and know you’ve done some good work. Akeel: I’d love to fertilise the ground somehow for next season. I was recently in Pembroke and kept seeing loads of seaweed everywhere on the beaches so I was thinking maybe it would be nice to do a trip to the beach and bring back loads of seaweed. It’s full of iron so would be good for the ground. Lou: If you do the nettle thing, tomatoes love that for the nitrogen. Carrageen moss is really good, very gelatinous. It’s good for your throat and if you’ve got a cold, I know that. It looks like a seaweed but it’s a moss. You boil it in milk and you drink it but if you leave it to settle, it’s like panna cotta. It’s a really good setting agent. Akeel: There’s a place out by Brinklow that has some stables and they’ve got a giant mountain of horse shit that I reckon we could help ourselves to if we ask. I don’t know enough about it but I know you have to wait quite a while for the manure to rot down. Lou: Next door has a no-dig bit on the go and I’m really interested to see how that works. They put the mulch and the cardboard and layer it up, so it’s high, and you never dig it. Our neighbour is really knowledgable about that. That’s the nice thing about allotments, people will tell you things and share knowledge about what’s good. If you were going to produce enough for a family you’d need to be here, tending to the vegetables, all the time. Akeel: It depends how far away your plot is on some occasions. To walk here sometimes makes you knackered and when you get here you want to rest. Lou: We always walk here. Once we walked on a really hot day and I just got here and lay down. I put a few plants in then walked home, I couldn’t do anything. I was just like a shell! Rach has put some plants in the pond that are really good for the wildlife and attracting frogs. Akeel: We’ve seen a few frogs in there. Lou: I just like being with the cycles and seeing it all change. Things evolve. When you’re here, I know you can hear the road, maybe there is nowhere in Cov you can’t hear roads but it’s just so peaceful you know? There’s loads of birds. Sometimes you see buzzards. Things you don’t see if you’re just plodding around town. Because we’re by Lakeview you can see all that wildlife. That’s what I like about it. Akeel: It’s nice seeing everyone’s plots around you evolve as well. The ideas people have that, over the years, have slowly taken shape. It’s a great place to come and see lots of veg and nice things! Lou: There’s a dude over there in his 80s doing everything by hand. It’s beautiful. He really tends to the earth and land. He gets here really early everyday, it’s a massive big plot. We often go have a look to see what he’s been up to.

[eunoiareview]

Abyss

In 1654, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal’s coach was almost thrown off the bridge at Neuilly-sur-Seine. Afterwards, he became convinced that an abyss had formed on his left-hand side. Every night I sleep alone on the left. A lover once pushed me to the edge. When I told him, he laughed and said we all have our quirks. I’ve learned to stop saying it to friends I am accustomed to their walking…