The Art of the Arse

Just about everything was different.  It was a different day, at a different time, in a different place.  But for all that was different, we immediately got into the writing groove and set to work on the tricky bit of the big thing. It might be that it doesn't really matter where we write, or at what time, or in whatever language.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as they say somewhere different.  I have absolutely no idea what it means, but it sounds good.



We were meeting on a Thursday because Naomi had gone to an entertainingly odd personal development course on Monday, while I had stayed home to cuddle kittens and watch the US Presidential debate live on a YouTube stream which had a slightly weird picture quality that made Donald Trump look like a bloated orange arse who shouted a lot.  It was perhaps the least aesthetically pleasing sight on the internet, a kind of anti-erotica.

 Come on baby light my fire.

And we were meeting so late because we had met up with friends to attend a preview of highly acclaimed Bristol artist Daphne Wright's powerful Emotional Archeology exhibition at the Arnolfini gallery of modern art.  I strolled confidently through the clean white spaces, pointing knowlegebly at the pieces, nodding thoughtfully at the insightful and informed critiques drifting from room to room, mingling with the intelligent and cultured audience, desperately trying not to say something stupid, or wee myself, or trip over and destroy thousands of pounds worth of contemporary modern art.

After the preview, we went around the corner to The Shakespeare and Naomi told us a terrifiying story about being sick from malaria tablets in Africa and racing on a runaway horse as it thundered past a herd of wildebeest.  This is the kind of thing that always seems to happen to Naomi.  Then we were left alone and at around nine o'clock we finally started writing. The night was warm and mellow, for Bristol has yet to fully surrender to autumn. 

We are writing a play that has as a main character a portrait artist.  Sometime soon we will reveal more details, and we will also ask readers of this blog (should there be any, which is increasingly doubtful) to send us their portraits, self portraits, doodles and scribbles and caricatures of faces and people.

As I walked home I started humming I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), which was a minor hit for Genesis when it reached 21 in the hit parade in April 1974.

I Know What I Like