Frizz

I took part in a performance piece on Saturday at Tate Modern “Did you ever want to be someone else?” and this is me with the face of artist Mathieu Briand… I know, I look hideous and scary and just horrible. It was a laugh though, we did the performance in the turbine hall mingling with the visitors. It was fun with the mask on just going up to complete strangers and doing weird things - the mask gave me a wonderful sense of freedom - so it really was like being someone else. The performance was a bit boys own - with pretending to shoot, die, and be captured high on the list - my best bit was dying dramatically; I slid down the wall at speed. There was one part where my group had to stand facing a wall with our hands on our head and wait for instructions, so just as I’m getting tired I have something pointed at my back and I’m told to move… I hadn’t been expecting that and it was quite powerful to suddenly understand the bigger picture - that we must have all looked like we’d been ‘captured’.

Even though we all had the same mask on, it looked different on each person depending on the size and shape of their face, but it did give everyone an angry face and even though I knew it wasn’t how they were feeling, it was really hard to dismiss what I was seeing and my instinctive emotional reaction was to be afraid, that was very interesting to realize just how powerful an instinctive reaction to someones expression I could have. It was quite a relief at the end to be reacquainted  with peoples real faces when the masks came off.

Madonna’s new Live Earth song, can be downloaded from here for a limited time.

The next Global Day for Darfur is the 29th April - there’s a march in central London organized by Amnesty.  If there’s something going on in your city you could add it to the comments.

If you fancy going to the Live Earth concert in July, don’t forget to register before midday on Monday.

Sorry for the lack of posts again. Have been busy, even my computer remained shut from Tuesday to today – some kind of record. My colleague has been visiting from across the pond, which is always nice and means lots of meetings and this time a conference as well, which happened to take place at my old Uni – I even ended up parking (I know I ended up driving one day) in my first year car park and went on a nostalgia visit to the library. Actually car parks were a thing, because later when I drove into town, I remembered where I used to park and how to get there, I was chuffed that I remembered – small things. Also, amazed that my car made it that far and back again without the need to call out the RAC, which I was half expecting to have to do.

Other things that happened this week: I got attacked. Really. Kicked three times in broad daylight and chased and I have to thank a guy called Aly (not sure about the spelling) who basically saved me from being very scared and possibly being kicked again. My colleague and I were minding our own business, when this guy came up and spat at her and I had to ask why, it was an involuntary reaction. The guy kicked me each time in the same place, behind the knee – I’ve been wondering if there was a reason for it, because it didn’t leave a mark, anywhere else and I’d have had an enormous bruise. My colleague missed a free afternoon and I missed a tea party at C’s, whilst we gave statements to the police. Also, it’s not what you want a visitor to remember of London; I had to reassure both of us that I’d never experienced anything like it before. And then both C and Big R said we were lucky he hadn’t had a knife and at the time I hadn’t even thought about it, but sadly and reluctantly I’ll admit they have a point.

And I met a woman who knew my aunt years ago – one of those situations where I thought, shall I go up and ask her or not? When I asked her what my aunt had been like she said like me, which isn’t news as I’ve grown up being told I look like her – I thought that must have been odd for the woman though, to be accosted by a stranger who looks like someone from her past.

Apart from that I’ve had an ultrasound to try to find a reason for the anaemia. I’ve sat next to a family who didn’t know who Jennifer Aniston was. I ate a whole pack of Rolo’s (not as nice as I remember them) driving home from the conference. I went to bed at 9 O’clock one evening, it was that time of the month, I drank lots of miso soup and I finally pumped up my tires – even if I did deflate one first, because I’d forgotten to “press the button” – that was embarrassing. I got tooted at on the M25 for going 55 mph in the slow lane, it wasn’t busy, but I don’t think they wanted to have to change lanes. I had another cupcake with a purple flower on it. And The Niece refused to come and spend the weekend doing ‘fun’ things in preference to sitting in front of the TV.

I’ve just discovered Dina Rabinovitch’s has written a post about chairing the Neuberger/Segal/Heschel discussion at Jewish Book Week, amusing behind the scenes take and she really did seem incredibly at ease, very Jonathan Freedlandish. Which led me to discover her blog Take Off Your Running Shoes, where she’s documenting life with breast cancer and the in’s and out’s of getting a book published and raising money for cancer research.

Sunday at Jewish Book Week.

A really wonderful session with Julia Neuberger, Lynne Segal and Susannah Heschel discussing the women’s movement and Judaism and so much more. I’d love to be in a classroom with Susannah Heschel even though it would be a challenge and she could (and did) go off into a language that I didn’t understand, a language of tradition that I have never learnt, but it would be expanding.

I was back for the evening sessions. The first was Judith Butler and Udi Aloni - Judith Butler, who D has been raving about since she saw the session was on, lived up to my subsequent high expectations. She’s a theorist and philosopher with a cult following - Bianca Jagger, Helena Kennedy and Lynne Segal were there amongst others.  Her new book Precarious Life deals with US policy since 9/11:

…And though for some, mourning can only be resolved through violence, it seems clear that violence only brings on more loss, and the failure to heed the claim of precarious life only leads, again and again, to the dry grief of an endless political rage…

I missed the beginning of Howard Jacobson and to be honest I found it hard to concentrate with my head still in the previous session, but Peter Florence did a great job and at any other time it would have been fascinating to hear about Jacobson’s childhood and the themes in his new book. And he has that ability to make an audience of 600 feel as if they are part of a small intimate group, a warm and cosy way to end the festival.

Just had an email from Anna whose in the Big Apple and I want to be there too.

Looking forward to seeing Nora Ephron this evening (almost like being in NY). I’ve just discovered that she’s blogging.

Seeing Israeli relatives, here for a week.

Taking lots of iron pills - I think it’s making a difference, but very slowly.

I have managed to get to Jewish Book Week a couple of times. Sunday there was Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens; best friends thinking they were down the pub - it was funny and witty and intelligent. Even made me think I should read one of Amis’s books, which never seem to get beyond my ‘to read list’.

There was George Alagiah talking about English identity; he’d brought along some footage of himself as a kid with such a strong Sri Lankan accent and followed it with a clip of him reading the news, not a trace of that childhood accent left. Even a friend at university hadn’t realized he was Asian until Alagiah showed him some family photos.

I’m disappointed I didn’t get to Julia Kristeva in conversation with Eva Hoffman, maybe I’ll see if they filmed it.

And this evening it was Israeli culture - Avi Pitchon talked about being a European Jew who as an Israeli has been part of a Utopian experiment. Etgar Keret said as the child of Holocaust Survivors he has a running joke with his wife that he always managers to see swastikas wherever he travels. Then there was some Jewish Humour, which I mostly missed due to a rumbling stomach, but I came back in time to listen to Idit Eshel’s beautiful voice and laugh at Sophie Hannah’s very funny poems.

These days I actually know some people who go to Jewish Book Week which is still weird, but in between the people I do know, there are people who I can’t decide if I know, either they just remind me of people I know or they are people I don’t know in person at all I just believe I know them, because I’ve seen them on TV or read their blog or something and it’s all very confusing. I only narrowly avoided the embarrassment of saying hello to someone I definitely don’t know in ‘real’ life.

A reminder that Jewish Book Week starts this weekend.