Category: Stories

May 22

Some posts what I wrote

Right so you’ve probably spotted I’ve not updated Applejackson much lately.

That’s partly because I have a large number of old posts in draft form which I managed to rescue when the site died a while back. Rebooting them is satisfying but also frustrating, as they need all new links and the original pictures are gone.

The other reason is because I’ve been bloggin’ elsewhere on the interweb. I thought it might be good to sling up a post linking to some of the things I’ve been doing elsewhere. Just to prove I’ve not just been twiddling my thumbs since xmas.

Women’s History Month

Where are women in the history of art?

An article commissioned by WHM following a massive rant of mine on Twitter about women and art (prompted by a stupid comment in a documentary from Howard Jacobson) It turned out to be a great excuse to revisit a load of essays I had to read on the hop during my degree.

Bad Reputation

I’m part of the Bad Rep team so trying to turn in posts for them regularly. These are some of my favourites, but you should really go and read everyone else’s posts too.

Womankind Worldwide

Where are women’s voices in the land rush debate?

My first proper blog post in my new job, it’s so fascinating learning about the global women’s movement, and about time I broadened my perspective out from the UK.

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Posted in Activism, Feminism, Random, Reading, robots

Jun 18

The Milk of Sorrow

This sad and strange Peruvian film is showing at the Stratford Picturehouse on Thursday. I’m miffed that I can’t go so I am sharing it with you, my tiny reading public.

The protagonist, a young woman called Fausta,  is ill with a disease contracted from her mother’s breast milk known as “the milk of sorrow”,  a condition that only affects those women in Peru who were abused or raped during the years of terrorist struggle.  This Grauniad review says “This Peruvian lament examining how distress passes down the generations is subtle and wonderfully moving.”

Here’s the trailer. Please go and support the screening of weird films at Stratford Picturehouse!*

* ‘Weird’ is intended to be entirely complimentary, btw

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Posted in Art, Feminism, Film, Folklore, Stories, Stratford

Feb 23

The Southwark Mysteries

Ten years since these modern mystery plays were first performed, John Constable’s raucous mystical caravan will be returning to Southwark Cathedral this April. Website sez:

Inspired by the medieval mystery plays, this modern drama is rooted in the history of Bankside – London’s “outlaw borough” – mixing Bible stories with local folklore and contemporary humour.

Crossbones Graveyard Gates

Crossbones Graveyard Gates

It’s not Shakespeare (although he is in it, and Chaucer too – both had strong ties to the area) but it should be an entertaining performance.

The play stitches together symbols from across the centuries, from high art and street scurf, and it’s full of church spires and rags, goddesses, whores, history and magic.

It was inspired by the discovery of the Crossbones Graveyard in Borough. The play was written partly to restore a voice and a memory to the 15,000 nameless people buried there outside consecrated ground – prostitutes and criminals, the sick and the mad.

The whole project is an amazing example of modern myth-making, of a community of misfits and an urban space reclaimed for the non-specific spiritual. One day I’m going to tie a ribbon to the gate and commemorate one of the thousands of born-forgotten women who are buried there.

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Posted in Art, Drama, Folklore, History, London, Magic n that, Myths, Southwark, Stories

Feb 07

Google books: embeddable fairytales

Today I learnt a new thing: Google books allows you to embed a entire book into a webpage, so that your visitors can read it online. So taken am I with this new toy, I’ve tracked down one of my favourite fairytale books from when I was a nipper to share with you in this very blog post. Enjoy!

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Posted in Fairytales, Reading, Stories

Sep 26

Fantastical furniture at V&A Telling Tales exhibition

Supposedly taking its inspiration from “the spirit of story-telling” the free Telling Tales design exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum is well worth a visit before it’s packed up on 18 October.

Taking up a small space near the main entrance of the museum, the exhibition is divided into three sections – ‘The Forest Glade’, ‘The Enchanted Castle’, and ‘Heaven and Hell’, featuring intriguing, appealing, appalling and entertaining objects from a range of designers. Each apparently “tells a tale through their use of decorative devices, historical allusions or choice of materials, sharing common themes such as fantasy, parody and a concern with mortality.”

It’s difficult to pin down the thread running through the collection, but I loved it. It was gorgeous and grim and quite otherwordly, and UNCANNY in huge neon flashing letters, so right up my street. Perhaps the best I can do is link to a few of my favourite pieces to give you a flavour:

Linen Cupboard-House – I just wanted to climb inside!

‘Smoke’ Mirror – A mirror with a deliberately charred and blackened frame, which is surprisingly evocative.

‘Moulded Mole’ Slippers – I think the artistic merit / craft credentials of these are less clear, but I’m a sucker for taxidermy.

I’d also recommend taking a peek at the Princess Chair, the pig’s skull teapot, and the ‘Lover’s Rug’, which still makes me feel a bit queasy. There was a good mix of highly desirable objects, and thought-provoking items which were closer to art in the way it is normally understood, and clever things had been done with a very small exhibition space.

The themes seemed to break down a bit towards the end, but there was plenty to mull over. Here’s a video by the curator and others explaining some of the ideas behind the exhibition, and if you want to find out more about fairytales (and what sort of empty-souled person doesn’t?) you can hand over £45 for a study day linked to the exhibition on Sat 3 October.

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Posted in Art, Craft, London, Magic n that, Museum, Stories

Sep 03

In the alley

Just had one of those strange moments when you see something perfectly normal in a way which makes it seem a little alien, and you have a feeling that it belongs to somewhere else, and you are just peering through at it. Do you know what I mean? I think it happens a lot in cities, I guess because of all the lives running around each other, and over and through and under each other in the same small spaces. It’s something a lot of people have explored, from mad Gustav Meyrink in The Golem to lovely Neil Gaiman in Neverwhere.

But anyway – I was walking up Leytonstone High Road, past the church, and the Matalan and Shoeworld and the Petch Sayam thai restaurant. At night the whole street and all the buildings are sodium orange coloured because of the streetlights, and there are always people around. Tonight there were some people smoking outside the pub, and a woman on the phone at the bus stop, all lit up and noisy and busy. As I walked past the restaurant I turned and looked down the alley beside it, and it was as if I had casually glanced into some parallel world.

The noise faded suddenly as I turned my head away from the street, and the shadows in the alley looked dark inky blue, with moonlight pouring into the courtyard at the end of it. There was a black man standing with his back to me, in a pale t-shirt, obviously quite muscular, and he was holding a wooden broom and slowly twirling it around himself, around his back and over his head. Effortlessly, “like a ninja!” I thought, but it occurs to me now I have no idea if ninjas actually do this.

Anyhow, the moment left me with a strong impression of one of the lives running close beside mine, entirely different, and invisible to me. As soon as I was past the alley the shouting orange street came back to me with a rush and for a second I wondered if I should step back to see whether he had vanished.

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Posted in London, Random, Stories

Apr 29

London lore

Bishopsgate InstituteLast week  I left the sunny, comfy, biscuit-and-teaness of a normal Saturday morning behind to head down to the London Lore conference at the beautiful Bishopsgate Institute near Liverpool St.

Organised by the Folklore Society and the South East London Folklore Society (SELFS), it sold out weeks beforehand, so there were about 200 of us there in the Institute’s modestly ornate pale green great hall. The amateur enthusiasts, middle-aged men with thick glasses and shirts tucked into their jeans were out in force, as were a number of wild-eyed men sporting exciting hairstyles of both scalp and face. However, I was pleased to discover the audience also contained large numbers of pale bookish girls (that’s me), elderly women in strange purple garments, and goth couples, one half of whom sitting behind me was sporting a fantastic skeletal hand hairclip (like this one).

I won’t write up the whole event, as Bad Witch has already done a good summary of the speakers and topics, but overall I was very very impressed with the quality of talks and speakers. Everyone was clear, engaging, entertaining and kept to time. There was a good variety of topics, my favourites being a talk by Noel Rooney about the way the traditional character of the fox has been adapted for an urban setting and John Constable’s introduction to the Southwark Mysteries although the Chair pressed him into singing a song which I’m not sure the quiet audience really wanted.

There were also intriguing glimpses of two London museums from a folklore perspective – one, the Wellcome Collection, is already on my list of badass places, but the other – the Cuming Museum – was new to me.  Everyone seemed good-natured and lightly eccentric and the whole event had a lovely atmosphere.

The Newham Bookshop were running a stall at the back where all the speaker’s books were available and I very nearly spent a fortune. I did get quite a few copies of 21st century ‘penny dreadful’ One Eye Grey, but haven’t read many of the stories yet.

SELFS hold monthly talks at the King’s Head pub on Borough High Street, which is very near my office, so I shall go along and see what they’re like. Encouraged by the quality of the conference, less so by the fact that the second message I received after joining their email list was a lame sexist joke. Sigh.

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Posted in Folklore, History, London, Stories