This is a bit last minute but wanted to mention it on the Sideshow blog anyway…
CAUGHT BY THE RIVER 5th BIRTHDAY, Purcell Room, South Bank Centre Friday 25th May at 7pm (tonight)
Our very own Will Burns will be reading at this exciting event to celebrate the site’s 5th birthday. Alongside performances and readings by Michael Smith, Chris Yates, Chris Watson and Robert Macfarlane. Tickets and details of the full programme can be found here. There’s very few left so get in quick!
Just a quick post to let you all know that tickets are still available for tomorrow night at Selfridges and can be bought here.
Will Burns (our Sideshow Stories poet) is providing some poetic country rock for the evenings’ entertainment, for Faber Social’s closing party of Words, Words, Words event along with Treecreeper guitarist Adam Killip. They’re also sharing the bill with Justine Picardie who will be talking about the extraordinary life and legend of Coco Chanel. She will discuss fashion and identity with Linda Grant, author of ‘The Thoughtful Dresser’ and the Man Booker-shortlisted ‘The Clothes on Their Backs.’ Ali Smith will read from her latest novel, ‘There But For The’ and discuss the art of storytelling with journalist, critic and publisher Alex Clark.
If all that’s not enough to lure you down to the event, The Social will be mixing cocktails at the in-store bar plus I’ve seen various tweets from Faber informing us that Chanel goody bags will be handed out too!
Selfridges kicked off 2012 with a brand new store-wide initiative: Words Words Words.
Touching every aspect of Selfridges from the much-anticipated window displays to the exciting programme of in-store events, the concept celebrates the power of the written word.
From 12th January to 1st March, the UltraLounge space on the Lower Ground floor of Selfridges London has been transformed into a library and become the epicentre of the Words Words Words theme. The 15,000-book library (set up within the 3,500sqft Ultralounge arts and exhibition space) has been curated by Faber & Faber, Taschen, Penguin and Thames and Hudson.
The library will provide a unique interactive space to become fully immersed in the topic of words, from specially curated ranges of inspirational books to fascinating classes and lectures from The Idler Academy and It’s Nice That. Packed floor-to-ceiling with books, it’s the perfect place to get stuck into your favourite read and discover new ones. Take a seat in the story chair to listen to a range of literary classics, have a go on an old-fashioned typewriter or an ipad and enjoy a game of Scrabble on the interactive screens.
The wrap party takes place on Thursday 1st March, with The Faber Social hosting an exclusive event for Selfridges with an all-star cast of writers, including Linda Grant, Justine Picardie, Alex Clark and Ali Smith. Sideshow’s very own Will Burns will also be involved in this event performing an acoustic set of poetic songs as Treecreeper.
For more information on tickets to this event and others going on between now and 1st March click here…
Hello,
Hope everyone has recovered from their Christmas and New Year indulgences.
We’re hoping a few friends might be back on the booze by Monday 24th of January as Will is reading some poems at the first Caught By The River Social Club event of the year at The Stag in Hampstead.
The night is a celebration of the second issue of the CBTR fanzine, An Antidote To Indifference, which features a new poem of Will’s, as well as an article on the poet Edward Thomas and the Caught By The River review, written by the brilliant John Andrews, on our Sideshow exhibition launch at The Social nearly a year ago.
On the night there will be readings from the magazine, and music from Heavenly recording artists Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou. It’d be great to see some of you down there!
Tickets can be purchased here.
Just wanted to take this opportunity to thanks all of those kind folk who helped in various ways with Sideshow this year. You all know who you are, we couldn’t have done it without you.
Merry Christmas from all of us here at Sideshow and I hope we can see you in a bigger gallery space in 2012!
Jason, Will & Nina x
Hello all,
Will is going to be reading some poems at this very special event on Thursday. It’s linked to the brilliant Ghost of Gone Birds exhibition currently running at Rochelle School, which we wholeheartedly recommend you go and see. This event will feature music from Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, an appearance from artist Marcus Coates and Jimi Goodwin from Doves and his Bird Effect Ensemble (a 15-piece orchestra) premiering their Ghosts of Gone Birds theme tune.
The official website can probably explain it all a lot better than we could, so have a read.
We were lucky enough to have had a very kind offer by a friend of ours recently to go and stay up at Culzean Castle for the weekend. It’s such an amazing place in Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland opposite the Isle of Arran. The stay came with visits to walled gardens, deer parks and swan ponds within the castle grounds but the best thing for me was to wake up to views of the sea each morning. We really didn’t want to leave.
Some of you might recognise the castle as Lord Summerisle’s house in the original Wickerman film.
As a thank you to our friend Xanthe, Will wrote this poem entitled ‘Culzean’ which can be read on the Caught By The River website here…
Jason will have some artwork exhibited at the Affordable Art Fair from the Sideshow collection this coming weekend at Fine Grime’s stand (L7) in Battersea, London. The fair is taking place from Thursday 20th October until Sunday 23rd October so go and check it out.
One of Will’s nature poems Current has been included in the inaugural issue of the Caught By The River fanzine… An Antidote To Indifference.
The rest of the magazine is very much worth a read and includes a Bob Stanley interview with Andrew Loog Oldham, Letters from Arcadia, a biography of Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou by Laura Beatty, a poem by Andrew Greig, Tony Wilson remembered by Jeff Barrett and more. A one off print-run, once it’s gone, it’s gone… buy it here.
As it’s National Poetry Day today and the theme for this year is “games”, we thought we’d post a poem from the Sideshow exhibition that is loosely linked. Enjoy!
Strawweight by Will Burns
It’s not a weight you hear of much today
in fighting, since they closed up all the booths.
Gone like a day’s work, or an old folk song.
Once, amid the gaslights, Lonsdale Champions and
mahogany drawers full of dead butterflies
he’d netted and collected as a boy,
he smoked in pubs and learned the local songs.
Now he sits and waits for me to come;
To listen to his stories, make his tea
and hear about the gradual decline
from fast enough his fist blew out the lamps
to faculties eroded by some other folk process.
The morning came, we went to see a football match,
he could not sing, and twice, forgot my name.
