William Sutton's Blog, page 11

Portsmouth Bookfest 2019 #1

My top bits of Portsmouth Bookfest 2019 #1:
Typewriter Tales

Thanks to the T’Articulation usual suspects for setting such a vibrant tone. Thanks to Southsea Coffee staff who do such an amazing job of serving beautiful coffee while people are tapping and typing and scribbling and scratching, without spilling a drop.

Thanks too to many newcomers, some taken aback to find themselves part of an event unintentionally, others coming along sheepishly with notes in notebooks or dreams in their fingers and finding a way to scratch out those thoughts bravely on to A4.

Photos by Amanda Garrie – thanks

“Great afternoon making the typewriters sing at Southsea Coffee today. William George Sutton headed up another vibrant Typewriter Tales encouraging local writers aged ten to seventy to draw, use ink pens, type and illustrate their poems and stories from their imagination or using prompts conjured from a black hat.

We didn’t see any white rabbits but were treated to some creative work performed and retold by the authors at the end of the session. The cafe was buzzing with excitement, conversations and much creativity. Another great event from Portsmouth Bookfest,” wrote Jackie Green.

“Why do you do it?” asked one of the participants.

I looked at him blankly. I don’t know. We just do it, and people come, and people write, and make, and get inky; and that to me seems enough. I particularly loved, in the readings, Gareth Toms’ tale of realising the power of poetry through John Cooper Clarke, and Alison Habens’ account of winning a typewriter aged 10.

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Typewriter Tales, Portsmouth Bookfest

Typewriter Tales #4

Wednesday 6 March, 3:30-5:30pm, Southsea Coffee, 63 Osborne Road, PO5 3LS

FREE- No ticket required

 

Drop in event: FREE creative typewriter session by Southsea Coffee, with the best coffee in town, and delicious snacks.

Try out a typewriter (instant printer) and see where the muse takes you. We’ll offer prompts, or you can write a story that’s been eating at your creative brain. Dip pens, inks, rubber stamps and other artistic materials also available.

All ages and abilities welcome.

Make a postcard sized story, poem or drawing. Readings at 5ish with our creative friends T’Articulation.

It’s also a chance to be included in Southsea Coffee’s ‘zine project. Here’s my write-up of the first time’s mayhem & here

        

  

A trailer for our previous outing:

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What I’ve gained from Portsmouth Writers’ Hub

What I’ve got from the Hub

When I moved here, I thought I was the only writer in town. So wrong – thank goodness.

The Hub has provided an invaluable network, to discover opportunities in Portsmouth and to get a view on the wider writing community beyond. 

Through it, I’ve had the chance to perform in Victorious Festival, New Theatre Royal, Groundlings Theatre, Gunwharf Quays, Portsmouth City Museum.

I’ve compered shows at Square Tower, Old Portsmouth, The Wave Maiden, Southsea Coffee and Hunter Gatherer Coffee; I’ve given workshops at New Theatre Royal, The Teatray, Southsea Library & other Official Portsmouth libraries, and taught at University of Portsmouth CCI.

I’ve shared writing critiques, helping and being helped at vulnerable stages of editing.

I got my agent through an event at New Writing South; I’ve met up with friends at Crimefest Bristol, Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Harrogate, The Subaquatic Steampunk Weekend; I’ve been published in The News, Portsmouth, Southsea Lifestyle, and Historia Magazine – The Historical Writers’ Association.

I’ve helped with @PompeyBookfest, Portsmouth Darkfest and been in Portsmouth Festivities, Hayling Literary Festival, Holmes Fest 2018, Writing Edward King, Ferry Tales, and Darkside Portside; I’ve had stories published in Tessa Ditner‘s Portsmouth Fairy Tales, Karl Bell‘s Dark Cities, and our own #DayoftheDead.

And I’ve made friends, locally and beyond.

That’s why I’m hoping, through Thursday’s meeting and funding application beyond, to keep it going.

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A Mudlark’s Tale (a film for Darkside Portside app)

A Mudlark’s Tale – it’s a wrap

    

Amazed and humbled by creativity of my collaborators on our film for the forthcoming Darkside Portside app (which can hear more about on That’s Solent newsclip here), based on Prof Brad Beaven’s Sailortown app.


It’s been an unusual process. At the launch party, I stood at the back, thinking, This is for poets, and film-makers; it isn’t for me. But, as a neo-Victorian novelist, with special interest in Spice Island of the 1860s (viz my Pompey Piglets story in Star & Crescent), I couldn’t stop mulling it over. And, when the tattoo shop location was put to me, I managed to interweave it with a story I’d heard while giving a writing workshop in the Portsmouth 60+ festival. A fellow used to mudlark at the Hard, flipping and twirling for the gentry walking down to the ferry; a girl used to throw him a sixpence, in return for a somersault; many years later, they married.



Mudlark Tale Storyboard


I sat down to write a poem. As always, before I’d reached the middle-8, I could hear the melody in my head. For number of words per second, this rivals my recent efforts Owl & Pussycat Revisited (for Emily Priest’s You’re Welcome at Aspex) and Hertha Ayrton (for T’Articulation’s Strong Women).

Mudlark’s Tale: hot off press

I then had to squeeze it into two minutes. Thanks to Jamie West for recording my song, advising me on cuts and vocals and making it sound good.

Thanks to director-producer Tanisha Ali, for everything from lugging the camera around to ordering the tattoos, and all the artsy bits in between.

Thanks to actors Katie Watson and Mike Bailey. What larks, from mudlarking to tattooing to Naval gazing. Rarely, when given the direction “Be funny” have I seen actors make it look easier than this. We gave them next to no direction – they just about know the story – but they entered into the spirit of the age with such gusto that passersby stopped and gawked.

“Are you filming the town’s Cluedo?” we were asked by the Arches.

“Sadly, no.”

Thanks too to costume genies Matt Wingett, Christine Lawrence (of Titchfield Festival Theatre),and Head Case Curios‘ Anthony J Duke.

Thanks to King’s Ship‘s Aaron, Genevieve and Sikes, with whom we filmed our lad’s sixpence tattoo scene.

  

though the film is set down at the Arches.

And thanks to Johnny Sackett and Roy Hanney for dreaming it all up. Looking forward to seeing the first edits soon.

 

 

 

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CAPTAIN VOSTERLOCH AND THE LONG PLAYING SPONGE

by William Sutton
and John Sutton

            Do you sing to your sponge?  Beware. 
If a mysterious Parisian pamphlet of 1632 [see panel] can be credited,
your warblings may be played back the next time it is squeezed.

            “A certain Captain Vosterloch has discovered a sponge
used by natives of the southern seas to communicate across long distances.  Simply squeeze and the message spoken into it
is be replayed exactly.” [1]

            Can a sponge really record sound?  Where the legend lies on the scale between
bald fact and pure fiction requires debate: 
the source material seems as obscure as the science. 

            But if Vosterloch did not exist, it seems a tremendous
lark to have invented him.  For, as myth,
this fantastic portrayal of sound and porosity forces us to re-examine not only
the humble sponge, but also the history of sound recording, and our notion of
memory itself.

            The phonographic poriferum, regarded as myth, takes its
place in a venerable tapestry of historical science fiction. 

            Ancient China, Greece and Egypt all produced magical
devices to duplicate sound or make statues speak, involving bellows, for
instance, or simply a hidden person. [2] 
The 1589 speaking tube of Giovanni Battista Porta prefigures the thousand
mile speaker, a sealed wooden tube invented by Chian Shun-hsin in the
seventeenth century. [3]

            Most grotesque is Rabelais’s idea [4]:  the death throes of soldiers who died in
freezing icefields are gruesomely replayed when spring thaw the ice.  Cyrano [5] convincingly describes talking
books with watch-like gears instead of pages. 
A needle placed on the desired chapter produces a quasi-human voice –
speaking the lunar language, of course. 
Whereupon we remember that Cyrano also claimed to have visited the moon.

            Our South Sea setting raises familiar questions about the
colonial fascination with wonders.  Why
do we project such fantasies on to the exotic other?  To aggrandise our exploration,
certainly.  To claim conquest of things
beyond our ken, perhaps. 

            What places our myth beyond the stock mythological topoi
is its pseudo-technological status.  What
other myth of the exotic is so civilised? 
So communicative?  So modern?

            Neither terrifying like dragons nor awe-inspiring like
the world’s edge, the recording sponge makes its (one and only?) appearance
just as Shakespeare’s Folio is starting to sell like hot cakes across the
channel.  If printing techniques could
preserve and disseminate written words and pictures too (in the form of
engravings), why should speech – the most immediate form of communication –
prove recalcitrant?

            We know that people were already fantasising about
recording sound. [6]  What other
suggestions, besides our sponge, were being made?  Let’s remember how easily technologies can be
invented and forgotten.  Leonardo’s
helicopter is famed;  but who remembers
Valdemar Poulsen?  The Dane’s answering
machine, presented at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, was lauded by the press for
a quality of sound reproduction far outstripping the phonograph. [7]

            Besides its value as myth and technological barometer,
our supersponge is also a historical metaphor for memory.  As we strive to account for the vagaries of
remembering, our metaphors relate intriguingly to prevalent technologies.  Nowadays, we tend to draw comparisons with
hard drives and their crashes, websites and their glitches.  Not so long ago, we talked of filing things
away in the mind, like index cards and folders into boxes and cabinets. 

            But memory has been likened to such diverse containers as
the rooms of a house and the stomach of a cow. [8]  If a sponge seemed a credible way to record
sound, what light does that cast on seventeenth century neurology and
psychology? 

            These primitive metazoa provide a familiar folk image for
forgetfulness [9], rather than retaining information.  But Porifera – a group successful
since pre-Cambrian times via reproduction both sexual and asexual, viviparous
and oviparous – are valued and studied by biologists for clues as to how more
complex systems have evolved. [10]  They
also provide, with their extraordinary cellular structure, fruitful comparison
with current models of the brain.  Just
as our neural pathways form and reform in a fluid evolution, so their mobile
cellular systems carry out all vital functions, without developed tissue
organisation.

            Perhaps we should hesitate, however, before writing off
the spongiform ansaphone as myth or metaphor. 
Consider, behind fantastical sightings of sea monsters, the core
phenomena of whales and giant squid.  And
how fanciful dragons sound … until you arrive on Komodo.

            Can any spongologists help us uncover the grain of truth
in this pearl of a story? Or is it to historians of sound we should turn?  Such a porous tape-recording requires sound
to be liquid:  Vosterloch saw voices
soaked up, just as Rabelais described them freezing and thawing.  What is the nature of porosity?  Solid matter with holes like Swiss
cheese?  Or must the stuff itself be
permeable?

            Have we been too busy scrubbing ourselves down to
remember the more abstruse qualities of the spongiform?  Think twice next time you catch yourself
singing in the bath.  Perhaps one day
I’ll buy the White Album again, but on long-playing sponge.

__________________________________________________________ Fortean Times 2004

SIDE-PANELS,
ILLUSTRATION, AUTHOR INFORMATION

ENGRAVING

Draaisma’s book lifts a
wonderful engraving from Marty’s article. 
This is footnoted as “A nineteenth century engraving from Le Courrier
Véritable of 1632,” so I can only assume there is no copyright.

SIDE PANEL 1                      Le Courrier Véritable,
April 1632

            “In this land, reports Captain Vosterloch, nature has
furnished men with certain sponges which retain sound and articulated speech,
just as our sponges do with liquid.  So
that when they want to ask something, or confer at a distance, they just speak
near some of these sponges, then, on receiving them, they make the words which
were inside come out by pressing them quite softly and by this admirable means
they know everything that their friends want.” 
[11]   

            “En ce pays, rapporte le capitaine Vosterloch, la nature
a fourni aux hommes de certains esponges qui retiennent le son et la voix
articulée comme les nostres font les les liqueurs.  De sorte que quand ils veulent mander quelque chose, ou conférer de
loin, ils parlent seulement de près à quelqu’unes de ces esponges, puis les
ayant reçues, en les pressant tout doucement font sortir ce qu’il y avait
dedans de paroles et scavent par cet admirable moyen tout ce que leurs amis
désirent.”]

SIDE PANEL 2                      Le Courrier Not So
Véritable?

            Our sources on this proto-dictaphone quibble over every
detail.  For instance, de Filippis
locates Vosterloch’s voyage “dans les terres australes au large du détroit de
Magellan,” but others suggest the South Seas, Australia, Antarctica, or South
America.

            What is this pamphlet, lurking in the Bibliothèque
Nationale Francaise?  One-off broadsheet
or regular newspaper?  Is it anonymous or
by the famous Charles Sorel?  Draaisma
says Sorel in 1632, Marty goes for 1633, but Levin states that neither author
nor publisher is marked.  Calling it “une
gazette satirique” de Filippis applauds the story as appealing but unscientific,
while Levin describes “a thin little book” telling of this “land of people with
bluish-black skin which has no art and no science nor any written exchange.”

            Most mysterious of all, who (if anyone) was Captain
Vosterloch?  The only scrap of information
– that he was a Dutch sea-captain – comes from Wojciech Waglewski, former
singer of Polish band, Voo Voo. [12]

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Writer/musician, William Sutton, appeared in Ken
Campbell’s fortean epic, ‘The Warp,’ and has just moved to Brazil.    wgq42@hotmail.com  John Sutton, author of ‘Philosophy and Memory Traces,’
teaches at Macquarie University, Sydney, and presents ‘Ghost in the Machine’ on
East Side Radio.   http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staff/jsutton/

___________________________________________________________(150
words)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Le Courrier Véritable, April 1632/1633.

Daniel Marty (trans Douglas
Tubbs): The Illustrated History of Phonographs, (Dorset Press, NY, 1981).

D. Draaisma:  Metaphors of Memory, a history of ideas about
the mind (Cambridge, 2000).

Thomas Y. Levin: ‘Before the
Beep: A Short History of Voice Mail’ at http://autonomous.org

Alain de Filippis:  ‘Les Aventuriers du Son: sur l’emploi du son
et du bruit au fil des siècles et des civilisations …’ at
http://granuvox.free.fr./

Francois Rabelais (trans J.M.
Cohen): The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel (Harmondsworth, Penguin,
1955)

Giovanni Battista Porta:  Magia Naturalis, 1589.

Cyrano de Bergerac: L’Histoire Comique des Etats de la
Lune (1650).

FOOTNOTES

1 Le Courrier Véritable

2 Marty

3 Levin

4 Rabelais, Book IV, Chapter LVI

5 Cyrano de Bergerac

6 Draaisma

7 Levin

8 Draaisma

9 See for example Bob Williams:
‘Please don’t squeeze the brain sponge’ at 
http://www.courier-tribune.com/nws/sq...

10 Patricia R Bergquist:  ‘Porifera’ at www.els.net.

11 Our translation from de
Filippis’ excerpt

12
http://www.voovoo.art.pl/media/max/ma...

OTHER POSSIBLE
TITLES

Is there a spongologist in the house?High
Fidelity SpongeSpongiform
Audio TapeDictaspongeListen very carefully, I will squeeze this only once
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JEAYS XMAS XTRAVAGANZA

MONDAY 17th DECEMBER 2018
The Horse and Stables
122-124 Westminster Bridge Road
London SE1 7RW
Show: 8.00pm
Tickets

After a year off the King of British Chanson is back with his ever-popular Christmas Extravaganza – the show where you, the audience, get to chose the set list.

For the uninitiated, this is how it works: at the door you will be given a raffle ticket. During Philip’s two hour gig he will be pulling numbers from out of a hat and if you have that number, you chose the next song. And don’t worry if you are not familiar with Philip’s oeuvre (for it must be one of own songs), you can still join in by selecting a song from a list by simply shouting out a number. The atmosphere is always warm and friendly and fun so why not join us to help celebrate a very atheist Christmas. 

Phil will be backed by his full band with support from John Peacock and Radio KWG.

Food and drinks available from the bar.

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Girl-Who-Reads reviews Lawless Series

As the US edition of Lawless and the House of Electricity is pushed back, I’ve been revisiting my blog tour to celebrate a year since the trilogy was out. Here is Girl Who Reads’ review of the series.

Review: Lawless Series by William Sutton
by MK French

A couple of months ago, we featured an excerpt from William Sutton’s latest book in the Lawless series. Today, I review all three books in his Victoria crime: www.girl-who-reads.com/2017/10/review-lawless-series-by-william-sutton.html 

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Portsmouth Darkfest is here

(via Eilís Phillips)
In this post, Dr Karl Bell – our fearless leader of festivities – discusses the project’s origins, and what ghoulish delights we have in store for all you Darkfiends this year.

Karl says: “This year’s programme will include creative writing and art workshops, public talks on subjects ranging from horror cinema to Spiritualism, theatrical plays and immersive zombie experiences, live music and storytelling, and open mic poetry performances. There is also a call for artists (of all types) to get involved in a future collaboration called Dark Side, Port Side.

Following the popularity of last year’s promotional videos on the festival’s Facebook page, this summer we ran a public workshop to create new videos for DarkFest 2018. (For more details see Eilis Phillips’ report). Everyone had lots of fun creating stories and videos from scratch, most of which feature DarkFest’s mysterious plague doctor character. These videos are now being rolled out as part of the festival promotion and the first can be seen here.

Supernatural Cities and Portsmouth Darkfest seek to develop and explore the interconnections between academic and creative practices, and to encourage collaborations between the university, the city’s cultural organisations, and its local creatives. In coming together, we aim to enrich the local community and to enhance the city’s cultural self-esteem.

Portsmouth Darkfest provides an exciting opportunity for students to explore their creative sides. If you are a creative writer, filmmaker, musician, poet or performer, we can introduce you to the many like-minded creatives in the city, and perhaps even provide a way of showcasing your talents at a future DarkFest event.

This year DarkFest runs from 19th October – 11th November. All events are open to the public and many are free. For the full Portsmouth Darkfest 2018 programme click here. For regular updates on events you can follow the Supernatural Cities project on Twitter @imaginetheurban.”

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Typewriter Tales

Ttpo
Typewro
Typewriter Tales

Portsmouth DarkFest
24 October 3.30-5.30
Southsea Coffee, 63 Osborne Road PO5 3LS

Drop in event: FREE creative typewriter session by Southsea Coffee with Portsmouth DarkFest.
All ages and abilities welcome. Best coffee in town, and delicious snacks.

Dip pens, inks, rubber stamps, also available. We will offer guidance on use, but the creativity is your own.
Make a postcard sized story, poem or drawing. Readings @ 5.15 with our creative friends T’Articulation.

Facebook event with DarkFest and T’Articulation.

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AM BIG YOU US Launch

Jamie and the Jets would like to thank all for making our AM BIG YOU US launch such a wonderful night.

Infamous double recorder solo

Jamie says:
Thank you to Mick O’Farrell at Revolver Creative for these wonderful photos.

Jamie & the Jets

Thanks to Clare Campbell-Collins for her insightful, intelligent and bloody funny compering: “Jamie and the Jets don’t do easy. The Commodores were easy like Sunday morning. Phil Collins had an easy lover…”

Thank you to Fred Duncannon for welcoming us to his fabulous Stansted Park Farm Shop; and to his staff for their warmth and energy transforming the shop into a venue and back again.

Thank you to Mat Lake for this sound engineering prowess. 

Philip Jeays & for the first time on double bass William George Q

Thank you to Philip Jeays for his wonderful songs.
Thank you to Geoff Allnutt, Kylie Earl, Will B of Radio KWG for a stunning live performance.
Thank you to THE JETS Sarah, Rosie and William.

Radio KWG

Thank to everyone who came and made it a special night. Have a look at the
Jamie and the Jets page to see more. 

I shall add my thanks to Lucy Prosser for dealing with the door. To the audience of whom so many spoke to us warmly of the night. Thanks to Rich Stringer of That’s Solent News. 

And to Mr Jamie West without whom none of this would happen, whose songs we love performing, and who creates all this magic in the burning, reeking subterranean magma of his creative soul.

Please don't let me be the one who has to tell you

Jamie and the Jets performing at their album launch

Posted by Jamie and the Jets on Saturday, 13 October 2018

“Truly a wonderful evening. of intelligent music delivered with such grace and passion. I loved it from beginning to end. I can’t remember being affected by music so much since listening to Kevin Ayres so long ago so thanks to all who made it such a special event. I am listening to AM BIG YOU US right now – rocking my living room peace and love.”
Audi Maserati“

“GREAT show” Mick O’Farrell
“Fabulous night, amazing band” Anne Burrill 
“Thoroughly loved seeing the bands last night. Jamie and the Jets, your album is brilliant – it’s with me in my car for the foreseeable, thank you. A class night of music. Blessed to have been a part of it.” 
Clare Campbell-Collins   
Great night!! Thank you it was wonderful to be part of it x Kylie Earl 

More about Jamie’s music here.
Come and join us at the Harting Roundhouse open nights every other month.
My interview with Jamie about AMBIGYOUUS here and previous Jetlike ramblings.

Poster by Revolver Creative Services

Gary Boller, of Gouty Foot, excellent poster
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