Timothy Mark R.'s Journal

9:00pm: The Story Forge
Let's face it, Ben Haggerty is one of the most influential people in British Storytelling, and when you look at what he's done he deserves that accolade.

He's also performing at The Story Forge on Saturday, The Blacksmith at the Bridge of Bones.

The official blurb says this:

This ancient ‘guild tale of the blacksmiths’ is a dark and full-blooded story of power, alchemy and the quest for knowledge, exploring the enduring relationship between those who teach and those who learn. Evocative, unflinching and beautiful by turn, this is a performance to lure you into the rich and provocative world of fairytales for grown-ups.

“ I was spellbound’
The Times

“... and what a story this one was - not a simple one of unwitting, but a playful one that unravelled itself mischievously in Haggarty’s quietly skilful telling.”
The New Statesman

“Haggarty tells his stories with enormous relish and gusto,”
The Independent

So, that's what the press has to say. I say this: I've heard this story retold, late at night in a kitchen in a castle in Belgium, from Eric Boreas. It was amazing. I'm really looking forward to hearing it from the man who put it together. It's going to be a good night. (Tuesday, The Fat Cat, 8.00pm with stories from the floor, £3 in a hat.)

7:30am: For my UK friends looking for extra work
This is being passed around at the moment. Might be of interest to some of you?

"Do you know of anyone looking to earn a bit of extra cash in the New Year? Capita Resourcing is undertaking a major recruitment drive for the 2011 Census, on behalf of the Office for National Statistics.

The census will take place on 27 March 2011 – it takes place once every 10 years and provides a snapshot of the nation, this is an opportunity to be part of that and support the local community.

There are over 29,000 Census Collector roles available in 2,000 locations across England and Wales, so there is a great chance of finding work close to home. Census Collectors contact householders to collect completed census questionnaires and assist where required. There is the choice of hours - 15, 25 or 37 hours a week, depending on availability, and work will last from 6 to 8 weeks.

Help us spread the word - please tell your friends, families and colleagues and direct people to apply at www.censusjobs.co.uk

Kind regards
Census Recruitment Team
0845 3040960"

7:27am: and I woke up giggling
 Last night I dreamed that we went to the Shaolin monk tea party, but it was all chi and biscuits.

6:59pm: Amazing offers! Buy now now now!
I have, basically, two artists over whose work I obsess like a big squeeing fanboy. (Well, outside of my storytelling friends.) They are Vincent Baker and Jenna Moran. Now Jenna I can't really recommend, she's not for everyone. But Vincent! Well, if you like roleplay even a little bit, or if you want to see some really elegant game design, or if you used to like roleplay games but then you grew up and went sensible and don't have time anymore...

Look, you want to own the works of Vincent Baker. You do. And now, for a short while, you can own all the good stuff for a truly bargainous price.

Here.

I can't recommend it hard enough.

7:59pm: And then he went and studied metaphysics!
"If you want a red rose," said the Tree, "you must build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood. You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your life-blood must flow into my veins, and become mine."

See, now I would pay good money to watch Oscar Wilde and Hans Christian Anderson engage in some gentleman's fisticuffs. Poetry and spitting teeth!

8:52pm: Experiments in Gnostic Culinary Wisdom
Early experiments in gnocchi have yielded something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike gnocchi. The following conclusions have been reached:

1) It doesn't matter how surreptitious you are with putting the flour in. The gnocchi knows if you used plain or self raising.

2) No recipe should sensible involve plunging something in boiling water, only to plunge it in ice water, only to eventually plunge it into boiling water. This is cooking, not an initiation into the Mithras cult.

3) 'Two cups' probably doesn't mean 'some handfuls until it looks right', especially if you have no idea what it's meant to look like when it's right.

4) Cayenne pepper is the most awesome thing ever and absolves a multitude of other sins.

In conclusion, further experiments are required.

8:11pm: there is no needle without piercing point
there is no razor without trenchant blade

with our hands we touch god's sky
with our feet we walk goat's earth
some future day in the heat of noon
I shall be carried shoulder high
through the village of the dead

when I die, dont bury me under forest trees
I fear their thorns
when I die, dont bury me under forest trees
I fear their dripping water
when I die
bury me under the great shade trees of the market
I want to feel the drums beating
I want to feel the dancers feet

9:41pm: Plea?
I don't suppose anyone has an old style nokia charger do they? You know, the ones with the slightly fatter end bits?

I seem to have lost my charger somewhere in Edinburgh.

11:15pm: Story Forge
Evening all,

Sophie Snell is telling the Seven Deadly Sins at The Fat Cat tomorrow, from 8.00pm, three squid, tales from the floor to start.

Actually, she's only telling three and a half deadly sins, but she promises they'll be the juiciest.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned..." Do you have anything to confess?
A young girl hiding in the confessional overhears her neighbours' confessions - lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride - whispered revelations of sinning and secret desires. As she listens with growing unease, stories unfold that should never be told...

At turns dark and comic, this performance offers you twisting tales from the stones and bones of the British Isles - where the Devil watches in delight, and Angels weep... Told with a wicked sense of humour, be prepared for thrills and spills on this rollicking ride through the Seven Deadly Sins!
Sophie Snell

Helen wants me to mention that she is making chocolate crispy cake. So there.

10:40pm: Quick poll
Is it unreasonable of me not to let Helen draw on my face in permanent green marker?

Your answers may decide whether I get fired. Do not take this lightly.

10:59pm: Parkin
Parkin's in the oven.

Flapjack's on the side.

The Story Forge is tomorrow at The Fat Cat from 8.00pm, £2, tales from the floor.

Today I got up. Spent a few hours working on audio drama scripts via skype, then another few hours working on Gilgamesh in the real world, then I baked, then I won at Magic (albeit in an annoying way), then I posted Diplomacy moves.

Good sort of day, all things considered.

9:04am: Red Deer Tomorrow
Just a quick reminder, because a lot of folks here expressed an interest. Rachel Rose Reid is our guest at The Story Forge on Pitt Street, off Mappin Street, from eight o'clock tomorrow!

11:23am: Nationals People
I'm writing about the Heriot Watt Nationals next year. Helen and I were thinking about one of the two travel lodges on the bus route, as it works out cheaper than getting single rooms in student halls.
( Read more... )
Anyone got any preference? It would be nice if we mostly ended up in the same place!

5:18pm: Diplomacy
Would anyone like to play a game of Play by E-mail Diplomacy?

7:23am: In which Tim doesn't give a definition of the La Li Lu Le Lo
Evening all. There's been an ongoing dialogue about feminism, and a lot of it hinges around the meaning of "The Patriarchy." If you've been a part of that dialogue then this is me trying to grok The Patriarchy with you. If you've not been a part of that dialogue then this might be weird reading. (But hey, if weird reading puts you off then you're on the wrong blog.) It's drier than Wonderland cake I'm afraid, but I tackle my cliches consequentially.( Stick it to the man! )

*EDIT* loads of stuff here, and I don't have time to reply to it all soon. I'll come back to you when I get back from the London, okay?

**EDIT 2** All you folk having conversations at each other or across each other, (or in one beautiful case, with each other.) I'm not going to participate in them. I don't have the intellectual stamina to peel back the subtext, and I happen to think dialectic reasoning is the worst way to conduct this conversation.

I am not here to debate. I truly believe that if we are reasonable people, then we should reach the same conclusions from the same information, and that if we do not then it suggests that our previous experience colours our perception of that information. I want to know how that experience contributes to our understanding, and I want to move to consensus. We're arguing in a language of human-created intellectual models. Who is right about what here is not interesting.

6:28pm: The Story Forge, first guest night, somewhat odd choice of performer
So. Every piece I compose, every story I structure, every show I perform I'm stretching myself, trying to be better than the time before. But I'm terrified about The Kaleidoscope. Really I am. It previews next Tuesday at The Story Forge. I have no idea if I'll have an audience. I have no idea if I'll have the tale thrashed out and ready to tell.

But by gods, it makes me feel alive.

( Read more... )

6:01pm: Seven gifts
Maybe not everyone's choice, but check out the gifts.

Something for us all to aspire to.

7:25pm: I am Off the Shelf
Last night I dreamt I was a baby sea otter. The ocean was a very large place.

I dreamt that Helen and I became a sort of pair of boy-Helens.

I do not normally dream, and consider it a sign of my buzzing mind. I am dusty with lists. I am falling, shaking, like corn at the flail's kiss in the early autumn wind. I am busy. Like a fallow field viewed by an earthworm. This is all healthy.

~ ~ ~

Gigging like all hell. On Thursday 1st at A pod in the Hubs, Speak Easy, open mic, could be studenty.

20th October, The Story Forge presents me, telling The Kaleidoscope, something that I've been stewing over for years. I am terrified about this.

24th October, I am the Ring Master at a cursed circus as part of the Beacons Project. There will be fire and dancers and foxes and riddles hanging from trees and I am very excited. I need tailoring.

26th October, The Sheffield Young Writers are doing some storytelling, I am crashing or a guest or something.

30 October, The Barbican Pit. London. Brilliant line up. I'm going to play around a bit.

Then something in a yurt for Grimm up North. And all sorts of other adventures.

~ ~ ~

I have booked Rachel Rose Reid to be the first guest at The Story Forge. January 2010. It's going to be amazing.

3:59pm: Back from Whitby
Back in the city. Did we miss much?

9:23pm: The Story Forge, 18 August 2009
The Story Forge is on the 18 August in the upstairs room of the Fat Cat. From 8.00pm. Asking for £2 in a hat.

It was really good in June. Any takers for this month?

6:31pm: Smug
For those of you who follow my attempts to be a career storyteller, my memories of Festival at the Edge are here.

I may stop being so smug at some point.

8:13am: The internet has come back
So, the internet has come back, and I can now talk to all the people I've missed over the past fortnight.

But!

There is an orange cat that lives in our garden and keeps eating our strawberry plant. He doesn't like it, it makes him pull a face, but he keeps on coming back for more.

Life is full of distractions. I'm off to a festival. I'll be home on Tuesday. So, erm, I won't be on the internet for a bit, again.

His sister is a little grey thing that beats up on other cats. She took great delight in tipping one of her rivals off the wall and into the pile of empty moving boxes.

5:39pm: Posting on the fly with one thousand small, red paper men.
Thanks to all who helped us move last weekend. Stuff is in. Old house clean, keys and deposit exchanged, all things move toward settled.

Except the internet, which is still up in the air instead of running through tubes into our house. I don't know, maybe Virgin Media will decide to come and plug us in at some point, but it's anybodies guess.

So, yeah, if I'm not about, it's because of that. Be well.

5:02pm: Tim and Helen's move 2009. Like 2007, only no snow. Sorry.
Moving!

We are moving house. We like people to lift things for us. We like this anyway, as it makes us feel like your overlord masters, but we like it especially when we're moving house because then we don't die from getting bureaux up Sheffield Attic stairs.

Seriously, have you seen the stats on this? Last year there were twelve severe death cases from carrying furniture upstairs in the Hilsborough area. And the common factor in each death? Insufficient friends came to help them move.

Not turning up is as good as murder.

So, see you Saturday the 4th of July, from 12.00 ish. At 39 Minto Road, S6 4GJ. Moving about two streets away. There will be a van. There may be refreshments. There will be our undying* gratitude.

Thanks!

*gratitude only undying at depths of 5 metres or less.

1:00am: 19 June 2009
Poem from the roof tops of Iran.

I can not imagine what this is like.