Neuropsychopharmacological cracks in everything: That’s How the Light Gets In #HTLGI18
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
[Leonard Cohen, Anthem]
We loved the How The Light Gets In Festival at the weekend: swearing and equality, womping and psychedelics. Camille O’Sullivan drew all the strands together by singing Cohen’s Anthem, amongst her various poetical balladeer inspirations; and the audience sang along “…a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.”
Seemed apt amongst the showers and lightning; seemed apt amongst the philosophy and politics.
Our other musical highlights were the ethereal Bloom de Wilde and her later wilder incarnation with Sam and the Womp‘s romping Balkan tunes in the Globe Hall, which made our “heart go Bom-Bom”.
Bloom de Wilde, Sam and the Womp (photos: Caroline Sutton)
Camille O’Sullivan‘s wild tour of great songsmiths made a good prelude for my playing bass along to Philip Jeays‘ melancholic malevolence in his pungent poignant set on Sunday eve.
Camille O’Sullivan, Philip Jeays
Talking highlights: Professor David Nutt‘s no-nonsense neuropsychopharmacology was authoritative and persuasive. The suppression of research is shocking, especially given the impressive impact of psychedelics on mental health and addiction treatments.
David Nutt
‘s neuropsychopharmacology
Rebecca Roache on swearing was funny and enlightening. And it’s just a pleasure to walk around the fields and tents, however muddy, seeing Diane Abbott and Jess Phillips attending talks just like the rest of us.
So much on that we couldn’t get to (Noam Chomsky video link, Fyfe Dangerfield, Tankus the Henge, Ana Matronic), not to mention the other festival at the end of town. Yes, the camping was muddy; yes, some of the comedians’ shows are works in progress.
But all these talks and shows shared something bright, a subtle intelligence inclined to entertain and inform. Sufficient to say that, though visiting Hay-on-Wye, I entered no bookshop all weekend.
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