Midwich Cuckoos to a Northern Soul Soundtrack
According to Elvis Costello and Wendy James, ‘London’s brilliant when it’s raining…' Yesterday, it was pissing down in London. After meeting up with Dickon, I found I had four hours to kill before the evening’s action. The usual round of the bookshops on the Charing Cross Road took up two, so I decided to seek shelter in the Odeon in Shaftsbury Avenue. I feared I’d have to endure something bordering on artsy pretension in exchange for protection from the weather given which cinema it was. At best, I was hoping for a good documentary. Instead I got Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence.
I can only describe Innocence to those who have not seen it, as Blade Runner done as an animated buddy-cop movie by Ridley Scott on a magic mushroom bender, re-edited by the studio to have a happy ending and more haiku-based exposition. Seeing it on the big screen, I emerged from the bowels of the building with the decompression that always follows a potent cinema experience.
After the wonderful guilty pleasure of seeing a movie in the afternoon, it was onto Treadwells for the London launch of Generation Hex. Fittingly given the title of the book, despite it being a London occult book launch, it was a younger, less snobby crowd and the usual malicious atmospheres were absent. I’d only come up to town for it because it was Stephen’s night. Despite the distant taint of my blagger and journalist past, it takes more than a few free glasses of red get me to go to a launch, especially if it has any link to the snide, lunatic political world of the London occult scene. Stephen is one of the few people I’d ever brave that cacophony of poisonous prattle for.
However, the launch was refreshingly devoid of cocktail jazz/atonal droning, careerism and pretension Christina Oakley Harrington gave a passionate speech about the book and managed to give the whole thing a celebratory, party attitude - something also helped by Stephen’s choice of a Northern Soul soundtrack.
Good conversations with strangers on Jack Parsons and Ogun, a rum, cigar and Bounty Bar interlude and the fact that other friends apart from Stephen were there, made it a night that despite what is happening in my life, I was almost able to enjoy. Especially as I think Christina said she was smitten with my book. I might have got that wrong. I did also enjoy the free wine.
More than one person could be heard echoing my view that Stephen is the best writer on magic to emerge in the last 20 years. He read his ‘Midwich Cuckoos’ piece that, like the rest of his work, is strong on emotional truth, inspirational clarity and a nice turn of phrase without recourse to poncy language. You can be of a non-mystical persuasion and still get the same pleasure out of his prose that you can from Alan Moore or Susanna Clarke lighting up with the page with their descriptions of the magical.
Hearing that everyone’s Season went so well, the positive reaction to Stephen’s work and the general celebratory ambience gave last night a sense of a New Year party. All dues paid. Clean slates. No auld lang syne, but nods at the Crossroads. The side effect of feeling that I’d been at a New Year party was the 3am heartbreak and loss was more intense and I’m trying to cope with today on an insomnia jag. Even so, London can be brilliant when it is raining.
I can only describe Innocence to those who have not seen it, as Blade Runner done as an animated buddy-cop movie by Ridley Scott on a magic mushroom bender, re-edited by the studio to have a happy ending and more haiku-based exposition. Seeing it on the big screen, I emerged from the bowels of the building with the decompression that always follows a potent cinema experience.
After the wonderful guilty pleasure of seeing a movie in the afternoon, it was onto Treadwells for the London launch of Generation Hex. Fittingly given the title of the book, despite it being a London occult book launch, it was a younger, less snobby crowd and the usual malicious atmospheres were absent. I’d only come up to town for it because it was Stephen’s night. Despite the distant taint of my blagger and journalist past, it takes more than a few free glasses of red get me to go to a launch, especially if it has any link to the snide, lunatic political world of the London occult scene. Stephen is one of the few people I’d ever brave that cacophony of poisonous prattle for.
However, the launch was refreshingly devoid of cocktail jazz/atonal droning, careerism and pretension Christina Oakley Harrington gave a passionate speech about the book and managed to give the whole thing a celebratory, party attitude - something also helped by Stephen’s choice of a Northern Soul soundtrack.
Good conversations with strangers on Jack Parsons and Ogun, a rum, cigar and Bounty Bar interlude and the fact that other friends apart from Stephen were there, made it a night that despite what is happening in my life, I was almost able to enjoy. Especially as I think Christina said she was smitten with my book. I might have got that wrong. I did also enjoy the free wine.
More than one person could be heard echoing my view that Stephen is the best writer on magic to emerge in the last 20 years. He read his ‘Midwich Cuckoos’ piece that, like the rest of his work, is strong on emotional truth, inspirational clarity and a nice turn of phrase without recourse to poncy language. You can be of a non-mystical persuasion and still get the same pleasure out of his prose that you can from Alan Moore or Susanna Clarke lighting up with the page with their descriptions of the magical.
Hearing that everyone’s Season went so well, the positive reaction to Stephen’s work and the general celebratory ambience gave last night a sense of a New Year party. All dues paid. Clean slates. No auld lang syne, but nods at the Crossroads. The side effect of feeling that I’d been at a New Year party was the 3am heartbreak and loss was more intense and I’m trying to cope with today on an insomnia jag. Even so, London can be brilliant when it is raining.
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