(what a contrasting range of websites, can I just say: whoever you are your presence online is everything you stand for, it really is that important! over.)
anyway that meant a trip to the smoke, and first stop was moot for what was described as a christmas party... it was good to get a feel for the place, but I didn't fancy the party too much, anyway my pal theo from orijin was playing a gig round the corner at the 100 club, so I hit that instead for a couple of hours... On my way back to moot to catch my train team home, I realised how busy that part of the city is with bankers drinking the friday night away, it looked liked the place to be after an honest days hard work...
after a nice sofa-bed kip over in ealing thanks to Jonny's kind hospitality we headed over to grace community to find out all about their thing... It was a particularly informative session on their history and a good look back through the kind of things they had done in terms of the alternative... my favourite thing they had done was this decontamination service...
...where they stripped everyone who came of their worldly possessions, including items of Rock and Roll, before they entered the church building. I love this tongue in cheek approach to what seems to be a hidden approach in the way contemporary church tries to strip us of our culture before we can get to meet with God, as if we are not worthy in ourselves to meet with our loving father, or as Charlie Mackasy said the other day, 'its as if God is some kind of super policeman, interested in contracts...'
In the evening the grace service was neatly built around some of si's images and based upon the advent theme of waiting... ... ... there was a 15 min period of silence in the service ... ... ...
... and then a mad scramble for the mulled wine...
I was join at grace by the lovely Lloydy and after we headed back out of the leafy suburbs towards hackney somewhere, I remember getting off the overground and seeing around 20 youfs milling about on the darkened street corners, london suddenly changed again.
After a wee dram, sofa-bed#2, pancakes/bacon/maplesyrup, #108 to bethnall green, and a tuberide, I popped up for air at the occupy london protests at st pauls. I don't know why, and can't quite work out why it moved me to tears to be there on that frezing sunday morning, but whatever it was I had to linger and try and take it in somehow... I was therefore late for the tate!
Part of the weekend had been given over to spending some time taking in the current exhibitions on at the Tate Modern. I could take or leave the tacita dean 35mm film installation in the main turbine hall, but I certainley enjoyed it's 13m scale in a blackened room...
I jumped onto a free guided tour to help crack open the surrealists...
...so this comprehensive chap explained that this picasso had recently gone for $106 million...
...staying in the high numbers, this pile of handmade seeds is all that remains of the past Ai Wei Wei exhibition of some 100 million seeds spread out over the turbine hall floor back in 2010. the sun flower seeds represents the condition of the hundreds of Jingdezhen specialists who crafted them, each identical, each remarkably individual. I felt outnumbered by the scale of the economies the seeds represented, perhaps this was the same feeling I had been experiencing at the occupy london protests at st pauls a few hours earlier...
after as spot of star spotting in the bookshop...
...we had a very nice pork dish at leon round the back of the tate, it was back over to moot, but not before a much needed revisit to the protest...
I got chatting to a guy my age, who was busy newspapermacheing his tent/house for a bit of extra insulation. He told me how he had left everything, given his house away, and sold all his possessions to come down to london and bed into the protest. He'd been there since october. regardless of your viewpoint on the protests I found it profoundly inspiring that in this day and age he was willing to go 'all out' to stand up for what he believed in. I had to take his intentions seriously, and thanked him for his efforts,perhaps on my behalf...
the afternoon session led by Ian mobsby at Moot was of great interest. We again learned the history of moot and its intentions now that community has found itself with a new home at st Mary's, aldermary. One particular point of interest was the idea of the exterior land around the church hosting coffee stalls to finance the workings of the community; a simple but neat entrepreneurial move to pay one's way through their existence.
I couldn't hang around for the evening service as I had a train home to north wales to catch... It had been a very full weekend and a really great way to hang out with like-minded souls... thanks to all...
