Something is Happening!
An uncharacteristically organised post
Dear all,
There are multiple forthcoming London events happening, and people sometimes ask me to mention their own events and projects, so I thought I’d do a round-up for those who enjoy meeting other people—together we will embrace our unsocial sociability (Kant)!
Events at Verdurin. Verdurin is a room near Old Street where my dear friend Pierre D’Alancaisez organises events of a theoretical and artistic/cultural nature. This week sees two events, a discussion with artist Alexander Adams, entitled “Leaving Las Vegas” which takes place tomorrow, Tuesday 28th May, 7pm. This is to mark the launch of Adams’ new book The Naked Spur (Exeter Press). I conducted a short interview with Alexander last Saturday.
Secondly, an event I’ve co-organised on Cults, “Beyond Belief”. Featuring cult expert Suzanne Newcombe, writer Ewan Morrison, artist Karin Ferrari and myself, as well as cult memoir readings from The Base founder, Oliver Bennett (who also has a play of his own, “The Freedom of Ghosts”, being read this Thursday at the Vauxhall Tea House), this will attempt to ponder one of the deepest anthropological questions of all: Are humans fundamentally cultic?
There are many other events coming up at Verdurin, so have a look. You can also order the four-part video lecture series for my Zeitgeist course (to be released in June), the live version of which is going very well. We’ll likely run it again, due to the level of interest. I’ll let you know.
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Other events coming up include Vox Alba’s concert (“Vox Alba’s mission is to repair the world of classical music patronage by revitalising a living concert culture, bringing contemporary composers to a contemporary audience”) on June 24th, details here. Featuring works from Gabriel Williams, Sophie Sparkes and Ng Yu Hng.
Dating apps often seem to bring more confusion and misery than anything. Some bright people are organising events that attempt to “rediscover romance” and charm and all these other things that the machine seems designed to crush. The organisers say:
Meet Your Match – London, July 5th – An Alternative to Dating Apps
We’ve spent years hearing people like Chris Williamson, Louise Perry, Freya India, and others talking about the ‘dating crisis’ and the broader struggles facing young men and women.
Whilst we have found this useful for understanding the contemporary world, we’ve decided it’s time to do something about it.
Meet Your Match is a live matchmaking event in London on the 5th of July for people who believe in real relationships, marriage, and building families.
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There are some fantastic events on art and religion on in London if you know where to look. Religion & Art are organising an event on Christian mysticism and the apophatic in performance art on the afternoon of June 11th (details here).
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And, finally, a request to the writers, musicians and artists of Staffordshire, and beyond,
Whence does inspiration come
to seed on fertile folds of sleep?
To pulse inside a pale blue sun
o'er halyard-rattling shipping fleet?
And who am I, a dreaming child
who never left the potting shed,
to summon forces from the wild,
and sing of meadows past the bed?
To walk an undulating track,
half blinded as I feel the forms
of pilgrims robed in gold and black
who trap the light from distant storms?
Whence does inspiration come?
What if it finds me fast asleep?
I'll spurn the vulgar yellow sun,
and scan the waters of the deep!
The Sunless Scene (TSS)
Text, images and sounds from the bottom of the sea.
The Sunless Scene (TSS) is the name of a proposed periodical and arts collective. It is hoped it will become a tangible and convivial counterpoint to online arts movements and ghostly electronic publications, primarily through the publication of a paper magazine, and also through gatherings, performances and exhibitions, all conducted in an atmosphere of magic, mysticism and curiosity.
The tone: Broadly agnostic, open and curious about theology and religion. Mystically inclined, with an emphasis on the kind of inspiration that sees the artist animated by something otherworldly. Committed materialists will find little to interest them.
Submissions and participants are sought from the Moorlands, the Potteries, and beyond. There will be a conscious editorial aura of wider local identity. Our shared, landlocked heartland is transmogrified by The Sunless Scene. Marrying relics of a sunken post-industrial cityscape and the strange hills to the north issues forth a romantic kingdom of wrecks and swell, as though some great sea churns darkly in our midst.
There will be a meeting at Newcastle-under-Lyme Library on Friday 13th June at 1000 for anyone wishing to learn more or participate in the project's development.
It would be lovely to see you there. Please DM me (Nina) or email ninapower[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll pass on interest to the organiser. And please feel free to forward this invitation to anyone you suspect would be interested in The Sunless Scene.
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That’s all for now, but don’t forget if you need text of any kind (fiction/non-fiction/poetry) edited or constructively criticised, I’m working alongside several great readers for Insensitivity Readers.
Apart from this Substack (which I plan to use much more frequently: if you desire to subscribe, please do so [insert gif of me hacking a limb off]). Otherwise, I’m to be found on The Lack, the regular cinema/philosophy podcast I host with the great Benjamin Studebaker; teaching for Theory Underground, and, for Sublation Media, I’ve interviewed a few contemporary excellent fiction writers recently: Udith Dematagoda, Quentin S. Crisp, Ben Kostival, Emmalea Russo and Thomas Peermohamed Lambert.
My critical writing can periodically be found in Courage Media, The Telegraph, The Spectator, UnHerd and The Critic.
They’ll never stop us!
My best—Nina
Are you sure about that?