August Dispatch

It is cold and September.
Remember though, the Hot August Nights?

Bonnie Tyler is brought home to Wales.
We had talked about getting tickets to see her on tour
before she cancelled.
It is hard to believe she is no longer in the world.

I spend the first evenings of the month
Folding hundreds of spells into zines and binding them with lavender.
Sequential Scotland is wild and overwhelming day.
There’s something about sitting in a conference room
in the belly of a hotel that
makes you feel and little bit like
You have been swallowed.
The folk I met though who had also been swallowed
were an absolute delight.

The beginning of August feels like forever ago.
I keep drawing Gaza.
I read an interview with Sliman Mansour in Savoir Flair
from October 7th, 2024.
He painted a portrait of his friend,
artist Fathi Ghaben, for the cover.
Ghaben died in Gaza on February 5th, 2024.
He was in need of urgent medical treatment
but Israel repeatedly denied him
permission to travel.

Both Mansour and Ghaben were born in 1947,
the year before the Nakba.
When the journalist asks Sliman if
’he feels his art has evolved since he first began painting.’
He replies:

“The problem is that nothing has changed since I started painting,” [...] “The occupation is still the same. Sometimes it's more vicious, sometimes less, but it's always there—the same weapons, the same restrictions, the same fragmentation of people, geography, and feelings.”[…]“Nothing changed,” he repeats, “so I don't think my art has developed much in that sense. It started with identity and love of the land, and now, decades later, it still revolves around identity and love of the land.”

Dolly Parton…
Our house rings with her voice.
We are devastated.

I have still never seen
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Lucy Cook taught me The Time Warp
in the playground circa 1991.
Richard O’Brien is a beloved childhood hero.
And yet, here we are.

Instead, I grieve the Devil from Legend and smile over this bad drawing.
My Mum had this hair in the late ‘70s.

I spend much of this month writing a funding application.
It takes so much time
But I want to get it right.
A very nice person from Creative Scotland
emails me to fix some initial errors.

I take a little strength and solace
From the interaction.
That it’s someone’s job to make sure
I don’t fall at the first hurdle.

I can be so clumsy.

As for
Our Lady of the Pumpkins
Yayoi Kusama
(The spelling mistake in her name
a poorly pencilled and robotically traced ‘Y’
I apologise)
These two Hyperallergic articles are where I ended up:
https://hyperallergic.com/yayoi-kusama-artist-of-infinities-dies-at-97/?ref=weekly-newsletter
And here
https://hyperallergic.com/what-the-art-world-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-yayoi-kusama/

The month began with an eclipse.
Bon Jovi played under a full moon.
The Edinburgh Festival roared on somewhere
And sometimes we were able to steal
A few hours basking in her
Chaos.

Perhaps you thought I might come back around
to my Neil Diamond reference at the top.
Sorry to disappoint you.
I saw his name on the spine of a different cassette
While a very tall man made sure I felt like
I was taking up unnecessary space in Vinyl Villains the other day.
I remembered the album,
how it was one of my parents’ favourites
but couldn’t remember
whose.

And for some reason
I’m still thinking about it.