Dillard and Wodehouse

don't appear, at first glance, to have much in common as writers.

Annie Dillard has been described as a "twentieth-century anchorite" and an "ecotheologist". Won a Pulitzer at twenty-nine for her nonfiction narrative, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek. I turn to her when I want to be jolted awake and launched off a cliff.

P.G. Wodehouse, born sixty-four years before Dillard, was an incredibly prolific novelist who wrote brilliant comedy about the pre-war English upper classes.

Why do I bring them up together? They are the two writers I never read on buses, trains, in public places. Because each of them can reduce me to a helpless mass of uncontrollable, impossible-to-muffle, snorts-and-gasps laughter with a single sentence.

Dillard:
Few sights are so absurd as that of an inchworm leading its dimwit life.

- The Writing Life (1989)

Wodehouse:
"What a curse these social distinctions are. They ought to be abolished. I remmeber saying that to Karl Marx once, and he thought there might be an idea for a book in it."

- Quick Service (1940)

night-blooming cereus

North Berkeley, California, 9pm Monday August 24th to 9am Tuesday August 25th. (Photo: Andrea Hurd)

No metaphors for this.
Only awe.
All the words:

goddess, miracle, leyla kadir
reina de la noche
rise in the chill of dawn, dissolve.

Only the quickening of heart
electric flutter of belly
ache in the roof of my mouth
back of hand to lips.

Waves of wonder
part laughter part sob
part intoxication
this is the scent of raw moon magic.

Pearly sheaf of stamen heads
unabashed pistil seduction
edges of calyx already
bruised in the instant
of fullness. Translucent.
Sepals a crown
for an archangel.

Twelve hours to open
to impossible largeness
gamble everything
fling tiny particles of life
towards more life

and die.

Copyright Shailja Patel, 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Living Ancestors in London

Art in public urban spaces is vital to the mental health of cities. Art that channels the power of women elders is vital to our collective mental health.

Especially when it's made by my friends :-)

From August 26th to 29th (four nights only!) you can see the powerful Living Ancestors collection, by South African artist Gabrielle Le Roux, projected in large scale on the ancient walls under London Bridge station.

Living Ancestors is a tribute in portraits and stories to the world’s oldest woman, Ma Pampo, who lived to 128, and nine other women over the age of 100. It was created and first exhibited in the island of Dominica, and has since travelled to museums and universities in South Africa, Uganda, the Netherlands and most recently Museum of London Docklands.

Gabrielle did a portrait of me in Capetown last year, for her Defending Our Futures Series. I have this notion that I'm going to die at either sixty-four (eight squared), or eighty-eight. But if Gabrielle's still making art at 100, I might be tempted to stick around to be in that collection :-)

Details:
Shunt Lounge and Theatre
Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th, 6pm - midnight, £5
Friday 28th, 6pm - 3am, £10
Saturday 29th, 8pm - 3am, £10

Directions:
London Bridge Underground Station. Take London Bridge, Tooley St exit
Don't leave the station. The door to Shunt is in the wall on your right as you turn out of the station. Ask any train official in the station, they will direct you.

NB: Bring a photo ID or they won't let you in. Doesn't matter what as long as it has your name and a photo of you.