Gauge Symmetries: work in progress

every pattern generated this way will be either periodic
or quasiperiodic asymptotic (un)bound nearby tender
flaws are locations what they know not what they miss

Alan Robbe-Grillet

Another of my heroes has died. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Robbe-Grillet

Robbe-Grillet's Snapshots were a major influence on my early writing. Project for a Revolution in New York and the Voyeur are two of my favourite novels and Last Year in Marienbad is both a great film and a great cine-novel. It's rare I think to find a screenplay that reads as a major literary work over and above its filmic function. Even his autobiography Ghosts in the Mirror is worth the time, being my favourite of the genre after William Carlos Williams' Autobiography.

If p then q

James Davies, formerly of Matchbox, has launched a new journal "if p then q" - which promises interesting things, not least a four-part poem by me in the first issue. You can read part one sample "iff" on the journal's new website: http://www.ifpthenq.co.uk/magazine.html

the site the sound requires

Thursday 7th Feb at 6pm at the Cornerhouse Gallery.
Book launch
Helmut Lemke's new book.

Leeds

A couple of weeks back, I took myself off on a writing break to work on Gauge Symmetries [previously mentioned]. I most like doing this in a continental city, there is something liberating for writing being in a city where the language isn't English. Post-wedding finances dictated that I go nearer to home this time so I ended up in Leeds. Thankfully I didnt go to Leeds for the visitor experience and therefore it didnt disappoint as it wasnt very interesting; but a special mention should go to Leeds City Art Gallery. http://www.leeds.gov.uk/artgallery/ which I advise you to visit if you are passing nearby. I can't remember the last time I went in an English gallery that impressed me, so Leeds Art Gallery deserves to be celebrated. The restored Tiled Hall is a fabulous Victorian interior. The curation of the permanent collection is beautifully balanced and even the temporary show, the Northern Art Prize, was worth seeing.
http://www.northernartprize.org.uk/

Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope won the Prize ultimately, and I have to agree it was a brilliant installation.