Back in Hoodoo City
After almost a month away, I am back in London. This is a grand and glorious thing.
London’s complexity, its tidal flux of people in constant motion, its density of both historical and constantly fresh information… Moorcock was right: ‘London is still the best and worst place for a poet or a novelist to live.’
One of the reasons for this is that there are two Londons. The one you see easy and the one beyond. This latter London lies under the skin of the other. It is hidden, secret and wrapped in shadow. The fire of mythological energy runs through its circuits. With every street, you get the chance to walk between worlds.
Being back in hoodoo city, I have the best of both those worlds. I can turn the key and snuggle in the comfort of my home or go outside and be part of the endless unrest. Stay in this room and create novel worlds with my words or walk the city, let it draw new maps in my imagination. London can burn my eyes with fresh information, make me see in a changed light or I can reach out and dislodge its ghosts from their brick and stone haunts.
Whatever else it may be, there is no denying London is a zone of increased potential and right now, right here is where I belong.
London’s complexity, its tidal flux of people in constant motion, its density of both historical and constantly fresh information… Moorcock was right: ‘London is still the best and worst place for a poet or a novelist to live.’
One of the reasons for this is that there are two Londons. The one you see easy and the one beyond. This latter London lies under the skin of the other. It is hidden, secret and wrapped in shadow. The fire of mythological energy runs through its circuits. With every street, you get the chance to walk between worlds.
Being back in hoodoo city, I have the best of both those worlds. I can turn the key and snuggle in the comfort of my home or go outside and be part of the endless unrest. Stay in this room and create novel worlds with my words or walk the city, let it draw new maps in my imagination. London can burn my eyes with fresh information, make me see in a changed light or I can reach out and dislodge its ghosts from their brick and stone haunts.
Whatever else it may be, there is no denying London is a zone of increased potential and right now, right here is where I belong.
7 Comments:
It is so nice to be somewhere where you know you belong. I love that feeling when it happens. Not that it happens too often but often enough that I don't feel too out of place.
Enjoy it.
You always sound energized when you return. I like your description of your two London worlds--your imagination shines through, as well as your feeling of "home".
I am very happy to read you feel at home in this city. I have never felt 'home' anywhere, but I've lived in London for 16 years so this is where my things are -but it is not my home.
I will be moving back to Italy, to the mountains that I love so much, and over there I hope to be able to feel the same way as you feel in London.
As usual, you make me yearn for the place.
Last night there was a show on history channel about underground london, from the 2,000 year old roman bathhouse ruins and bones from plague victims to the tunnels built during the blitz for the citizens to hide out and churchill's bunker. Great stuff. As if there wasn't enough interesting stuff above ground.
The visionary fire is certainly burning strong in this one, mate.
May I ask what you've been consuming? ;)
Ben
Whatever it is that you're consuming, make mine a double.
In less than a month I'll be spending 4 glorious days in London with my family. I haven't walked its streets in something like 22 years. To say that I'm excited would be a very pedestrian understatement. I simply can't wait to see the city again, and this time through my family's fresh eyes.
Until then, I remain here in the other London - reading your lovely words.
Crazy Legs - I know the other London well. I've spent many weeks there in the company of my good-for-nothing former co-author Sean Twist. The other London always struck me as an urban Twin Peaks with its own secrets in the stone and below the steaming sewer covers.
As for what I am consuming, I am merely high on the city itself.
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