These flew all the way from London to be with me on my birthday - sweet little fairies, so pastel, so girly. My hand feels huge as I pick one up to convey it safely to my mouth. Mmm - it tastes like a real sponge cake, substantial but not heavy: the supreme mix of butter, sugar, egg and flour. The artistry of the decoration, as if each one had been handmade with a different recipient in mind: a flock of little girls all in their party dresses and each cake will match. I want to wear the cake and eat it. They came from here. I still have two left. Thank you, lovely Bea.
Some of the best contemporary writers from the UK (e.g. Anthony Joseph pictured here) and abroad are published by Salt Publishing. Chris and Jen Hamilton-Emery have a remarkable knack of finding excellent writers of prose, poetry and criticism from across the globe and producing beautiful books. But times are hard and they need our help to keep going - if we all buy a book, just one book, this could make the crucial difference to whether or not they survive. Go to their website and browse - you'll be spoilt for choice - so buy two. A world without Salt would be a poorer, duller world all round.
St George's Day - as I walk through Newcastle City Centre I come across a flag waving crowd under Grey's Monument - the part of the city where people gather to make a point. The flag wavers were men, close cropped hair, levis, cherry doc martins. Ah just like the old days: the cherry red bovver boys of yore, the same old uniform of the nationalist. Surely they could be dressed as Morris Dancers for a change? The red and white, the chanting, the sound of male voices united in rage - they are like low end football supporters - and give most football supporters a bad name by association. They were singing "Here we go" for goodness sake. Did St George sing this? They do not represent me as a statement of Englishness. They only represent themselves - and it's hard to see how they could ever attract people other than those who look and behave exactly like them. The small group of people in opposition were young, women and men. different skin colours. Not uniform, except in a not conforming to conventional fashion sense. They looked frail but brave and steady as they tried to persuade the on-lookers that racism and fascism was not a good response to an economic downturn. Their arguments too subtle for a Thursday morning crowd on their way to TK Maxx. But as the police removed a young woman, curled up like a hedgehog on the pavement, I sensed an unease. People (myself included) have believed we can do without politics, don't need to stand up and be counted, use our work to make the points we want to make. I don't know. It has made me feel worried about what might be coming. Will the lights go out in ways that I haven't even thought of yet? On a slightly brighter notes, I saw Stackridge at the Cluny last night. Wasn't expecting to enjoy but did - apart from that whimsical stuff (which I think has some relationship to the flag wavers and the audience was mainly men). I prefer it when they play harder and don't mention dragons.
This film - which we watched a week or so ago - was the last of the Hitch movies under discussion. I have always been fascinated by this film - not allowed to see it as a child - watched many times since - and written about in poetic form. I love birds, and don't find them at all scary except in majestic sense when it comes to the great birds of prey - eagles, buzzards, ospreys, owls. I've been swooped on by them in the Farne Islands during breeding and it seemed quite easy to politely step aside. So it isn't the birds attacking that I find frightening about this movie but what happens to Melanie - how she is given her comeuppance in a cruel and what seems personal way. I hadn't read anything about the making of the movie until quite recently and am not at all surprised to read (in Donald Spoto's Spellbound by Beauty) that Hitch was totally obssessed by Tipi Hedren and made her life hell during the making of this film, in a way which we assume just could not happen today. The absolute power of the director and his manipulation of the actors, especially the women. Hitch kept TH isolated from other members of the crew and exploited her lack of experience in horrible ways. Something of that sadism comes through in the attic scene, where Melanie is attacked repeatedly by the birds which were tied to her. I'm not sure I'll be able to watch this film again, even though I am also reading Camille Paglia's take on the movie, which is brilliantly perverse (to me anyway). But then she's a woman for whom no means yes - I'm sure she and Hitch would have got on great.
Vertigo last night - a dreamy, surreal movie with surprisingly modern touches, including the swirling vortex used to denote mental collapse in poor old Scottie. James Stewart plays another broken man - this time with a terrible obsession for a woman who never really existed. Although it is a great film in many ways, it's a disturbing one to watch and hard not to cringe (and feel implicated) at the humiliation of both Midge and Judy as they are subjected to an unforgiving male gaze. The Midge type characters in Hitchcock never get their man - but on the other hand, they are unlikely to end up dead. I was thinking about this film when I wrote this poem:
Hitchcock Blonde
Ice cool. A frosted Barbie hard and cold to the touch her hour glass figure infinitely breakable.
Examine her carefully. The painted blue eyes with built in tears (press button A) the immaculate underwear uneasily prised from her brittle carapace.
Shoe her in black lay a tailored suit on a firm foundation restrain the breasts (remove nipples first) contain the ample derriere.
But still she will run shackled for our entertainment hobble to the nearest lake the highest tower fling herself in or off.
Drama queen.
Torture her against a backdrop of nuns an op art chorus line. She will raise a tiny hand gloved in pearl grey. Listen. “Scotty,” she will murmur. “Don’t let me go.”
Last night's class was The Lady Vanishes - a movie I've never seen before and which I enjoyed very much, but more in the way you would enjoy a Marx Brothers movie than a typical Hitch. The opening sequence in the Tyrolean style hotel is very funny and saucy - lots of girls getting dressed and undressed, the Morecambe and Wise duo of Caldicott and Charters (they sound like a pair of dodgy accountants), the lovely Iris (Margaret Lockwood) getting ready to return to England for her wedding and Gilbert the musicologist (played by the deliciously louche Michael Redgrave) getting hotel staff to perform (very badly) local folk dances. It's frankly daft. Peter Ustinov should have been in this part. Most of the action takes place on the train itself with lots of claustrophobic squeezings past people in the corridor and several people vanishing. There's a very untypical shoot out with krypto nazis and everything comes right in the end - if you ignore quite a high random body count. The class divided along gender lines - the women mostly enjoyed it very much - the men were in doubt as to its true Hitchcockian nature (the heroine is a brunette for God's sake!). Sometimes I think I couldn't be happier than I am on Thursday nights at the Tyneside. Check out this video made by a real fan.
I'm having a wonderful time attending a class about the films of Hitchcock, held at the Tyneside Cinema. Last night we watched Young and Innocent, which, although not the best film ever, introduced me to a young actress called Nova Pilbeam. Helluva moniker for a film star. But ah she was lovely! Only 17 when she made the movie. All luminous and big eyed with a very slim figure in typical Hitch tailoring. Her character is the only woman in a family of men - the five brothers and the police chief father - she is like a rural English Snow White surrounded by public school dwarves. She is very practical and can start her old Morris with a handle and a piece of string. Why she would want to get mixed up with such a boring hero is beyond me, even though he has some of the right credentials - wrongly accused of murder, floppy hair, the knack of stealing clothes. This movie is like a Famous Five adventure, although with great moments like the car chase and crane shot at the Grand Hotel at the end (but the blacked up band - outrageous!) It's lovely talking about movies.
