LATE NIGHT SCRAWLING ON THE WALL

what is on my mind? WRITING. What kind of thing? Something like this- word counts be damned, a unrerestriction, the pleasure of the friction of pen on paper or the tap of fingers raindrops tear drops penny drops- if you don't want to loose it you should use it- less saving it for the proverbial day- i guess it is already now, and how it gets used is any body's guess- here's mine:

i don't have a space or a place for my writing? - the crazy creation / the critical rendition / the poetical exploration- words are failing to lead anywhere at the moment, but that may also be just because i keep getting distracted by smaller concerns like spelling, and the adimant demand to make some kind of sense of this nonsensical civilisation is easily back-boilered by cooking the dinner and sorting out washing.... There is something- the washing of laundry in public :

its pants that there is no opportunity (English people are always complaining, so i was told yesterday by a Norwegian- i guess with all that endless day and never ending night they have a different perspective on the highs and lows and what we could do with our hours...)

no opportunity to write in public- to publicly critique - no speakers corner - (radio? hmmmmmmm) no public billboard less you want to graffiti, and that causes all sorts of concerns for the defacement of our beautiful and historic town -or ones beautiful and historic reputation if your graf is lame or you are caught red handed (with a lipstick to a SHDC parking notice) by the WRITING AUTHORITIES  the police or the custodians of the community- that's us lot by the way:

by the way, it just came to my attention, writing is by proxy admittance: admittance that you waffle, that you daydream, that although you aim for communication, its only as much as you can do sometimes, in the middle of the night, to share some thoughts, lay down a gambit and kinda hope they might by pretty- a pleasing shape if not a definitive direction. Maybe i could drop words and go abstract, collage, inverted, use, er, the 'deeper magic' - punctuate :  

‎, comma, to pause, take breath, reflect on what has passed before before moving swiftly on

‎. full stop . But then always, something comes next : 

My friend told me there was to be a international 'OCCUPY' event 'chalkupy' on Thursday last week - a peaceful and fun community activism invitation for the exercise of free speech in the public arena (although in America they was arrests and violence at several events!)

Roybern Bros news agents do a lovely chunky chalk pack- 5 colours x 3 for a sweet £1.80 - the weather was fine, so it all came together very beautifully. 

Within 2 minutes others joined in- children of course, bringing the parents along. Nothing to do with Occupy, everything to do with friendliness and play. There is nothing so much fun as answering the question "Why?" with "You can too!". The idea that the pavements in our town are a place for community and communications- that they really belong to us, rather than the council (hey, that is us actually isn't it?!) - is nothing new.     I am thinking of Reclaim the Streets-  and street parties in general- chances for people that have not met before to say hi, enjoy the space, have a conversation or share some creative action.

The wider context of Occupy being a global human rights movement dedicated to challenging social and economic inequality and the abuse of power was not the prime focus of the chalking-   it was more important to share the space than to claim it for one or another movement. So, an action embodying Occupy and promoting it through practise rather than advertisement?

Using the wider human environment as a gallery for social comment is nothing new. Every building and man-made environment is in many ways comment of the culture that spawned it. The proliferation of billboards and advertising  and the encroachment of 'official notices' into the community is dealt with succinctly by graffiti artists (not in Totnes so much, we are protected by the Area Of Natural Outstanding Beauty status). The public foot path is used often only as the right-of-way to 'ligitimate business', and public play like this chalking highlights something communities do to rarely- participate in free and friendly behaviour together, making room for play, and spontaneity, and non-commercial use of our public space.