December 2013 – Captain Pigheart

This week, Monday 2nd December 2013

Posted on 3 December 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Do They Know It’s December?

Holy frikkin’ tinsel everyone, it has become December. I haven’t done any Christmas shopping yet… surely people just want to be thought of fondly and receive a manly nod across a pint? We were in Meadowhall last week and I’ve been into Nottingham and my god, the hordes of stumbling shoppers were horrifying. And those were on relatively quiet weekdays. I think I’d better retreat to the internet for thing acquisition.

Meadowhall’s food court was particularly awful. I think it’s partly the use of the term ‘court’ an not ‘parade of restaurants’ or something similar which makes people think it’s either a sport, hence the scrums of fat children having chicken juiced into their mouths by their greasy-faced parents, or a judgement, which would explain the evil eyes and hatred directed towards those of us who successfully attain tablehood.

People are possibly even more frightening than birds. I’m thinking mostly of their button eyes and weird limblessness when their wings are folded and they’re walking around like demonic clockwork toys. Evil I tell ya. They’re clearly still wondering how to eat us since they got all small and feathery and we got big and naked, then un-naked. That said, I do like pied wagtails. Thems’re dinky little birds who really do jig about like they’re wound up. I haven’t seen any this year though.

♥ Last Week’s Scribbles

Poem – Apricot Shades – I’m trying to make words pretty.

Writing

I blame work, other people and me. In that order. Work for making me stressed (though it’s my response to the work that produces stress), other people for wanting to do cool and interesting things (which I want to do as well) and me for saying yes and / or no to things people and myself. Sadly very little of that has been oriented around getting writing done… Bastardfish.

I did enjoy m’little poem last week though. I have a few little bits like that which don’t fit the Shankanalia requirements because there’s more melancholy than hate in them.

I am at least making notes and adding words to a pile of other words when they occur to me. So that’s something. I plan to write about our amazing pilgrimage to the Lego Store last week and the musical improv weekend just gone by.

Improv

A slightly slower early week for improv (thank the good lord Monkey Feet for that), but it accelerated dramatically towards the end. I met up with my one to one client for our first proper session. Planning for it is proving thought-provoking and interesting since there are only two of us (yes Nick, that is what one to one means) and that wipes out a whole bunch of games that you can do insanely with three but don’t make sense with two. Nonetheless we focussed on agreement, because that seems truly foundational for any creative endeavour, and also listening to oneself. We had fun and I am booked in for further sessions, so that must have been successful!

I ran our weekly jam on narrative. Nothing too heavy, just pushing us into thinking about cause and effect and scenes that follow each other. Because of playing around with the Armando structure a lot we’ve become used to seeing scenes that are thematically linked or at least share inspiration but aren’t really part of a story. I like stories, I like writing them and I like watching them. Very often we don’t see what happens to characters and it makes me sad inside. So we told some really weird stories. Many thanks to Mr Steve Roe (of London’s Hoopla Impro) for inspiration.

I’m going to have to deal with the Friday show and the weekend later because they were immense.

Media Intake

Goddamn it, I finally finished that Gozeul’s Dark World Toy Box which took forever to get through because of the insanely irritating typos only to find that it’s not even the whole bloody story. I liked it in parts, but I’m not going back for the sequel.

Whispers on the Underground

In need of mind refreshment I dived into the third of Ben Aaronovitch‘s supernatural detective series Whispers on the Underground. That’s the one I tried to read first before clicking (in my dopey way) that I didn’t understand what was happening. It’s just great – natural, funny, a bit scary with characters who pop off the page and wander round your bedroom. I very much enjoy the magic and Peter Grant’s attempts to rationalise and explore it as well as the splendid villains. I’m really hoping he’s going to keep knocking them out – the main character is barely into magic and there’s surely ten to twenty books in the story. These are superb and remarkably readable.

Boardwalk Empire

We just finished season one over the weekend and were fairly blown away by its overall awesomeness. The set design and costumes are astonishingly beautiful. Mrs Schroeder’s hats are a thing of wonder and the suits worn by Nucky and Jimmy make me want to wear nice clothes. So yeah, it looks pretty, but it’s got a killer script, magnetic cast and a simmering tension that makes it feel like a glossy Deadwood.

It is a joy to watch Steve Buscemi finally given a chance to shine – I love him in any film, but I’ve never had the opportunity to witness his range and the terrifying flat silver eyes he can turn on and off at will. Kelly Macdonald is equally gripping as domestic abuse victim turned I-don’t-know-what: enigmatic and stunning. The cast really deserves individual praise but I’m sure they’ve got that elsewhere. I just want to mention Stephen Graham‘s frighteningly psychopathic young Al Capone and Michael Shannon‘s prohibition agent – they both glue your eyes to the screen whenever they’re on it. A fantastic show and I can’t wait to start season 2.

Events and Excitement

Saturday 7th December 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

A sweet layered stack of free live Entertainment, an abundance of Acoustic Music, a generous measure of Performing Arts. Topped off with a liberal sprinkling of family friendly Comedy. I’m compering!

The Fountain
Derby Market Square
Cathedral Quarter
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE
https://www.facebook.com/events/360132110789127/

Thursday 12th December 2013

Gorilla Burger: improv comedy carnage

Jam show – a chance for anyone to get on stage, plus MissImp annual awards ceremony.
The Corner
8 Stoney Street
(off Broad Street)
Nottingham
7.30pm – £4

Saturday 21st December 2013

Knickerbocker Glorious

The Fountain
Derby Market Square
Cathedral Quarter
Derby
11am-3pm – FREE

It’s Getting Damned Christmassy In Here

Posted on 4 December 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Christmas Begins

I adore Christmas. I like the presents, the decorations, the two weeks of hardly seeing anybody… It’s all rather lovely. The first important step is acquiring a tree. Last year we were really late doing this because our kitchen was being refitted and it cut the whole sense of Christmassiness rather short. No such delays this year I’m happy to report

I took off at lunchtime today to find us the perfect wood lump to die in our living room over the next month. Beeston is cheerily packed with folk flogging firs so it only took me twenty minutes of cycling up and down the High Road humming and hawing to make up my mind. We only have a little house so we can’t get a giant beast of a Triffid, but nor do we want something incapable of carrying the weight of lights and tat we intend to drown it in.

Victory Over The Forest

There is a further restriction – it must be possible to strap it onto my bicycle. I cannot be bothered to drag the thing, and frankly it amuses me to tie it to my bike and then cycle home.

It’s a slightly risky prospect and draws both horrified and admiring looks from passersby. I can assure they and you that we did indeed get home safely and intact. She is now happily installed in our living room. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tTHn2tHhcI&w=420&h=315]

This week, Monday 9th December 2013

Posted on 10 December 2013 By Captain Pigheart

Christmas Time, Whiskey and Rhymes

Despite my previous fears about not having seen any pied wagtails, my tree-acquiring shenanigans caused me to almost run one of the tiny clockwork creatures over. I’m now seeing them as a precursor of Christmas cheer. It surprises some friends and acquaintances that I’m so enthused about the season. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the myths of Jesus, and far more to do with rather liking the dark wintry weather and having an excuse to batten the hatches and avoid almost all human contact for a fortnight. We will see some family folkses, but Christmas is about personal space, peace and freedom for me these days. And opening presents. Oh, and giving some too.

The whole of last week turned into a blur of activity, or late nights, or drinking – or something that stopped me getting anything done. I’ve finally reclaimed Monday evenings now that the MissImp Level 1 course is over, though I’m rather missing my Parky time. Instead I figured I’d get stuff done… nope.

Film: Free Birds

On Tuesday I “allowed” myself to be dragged to the cinema for Free Birds – a film which should have been awful but instead beat our expectations to a pulp and had us laughing all the way through. Good work potential-disaster-flick. It’s basically a remake of the excellent Chicken Run, but with time travel – and turkeys. I’m pleased to say I now finally know what American Thanksgiving is about. There’s a particularly good run of psychological assessment gags from the President’s daughter and I found the muscular buttock rivalry between the two big tough turkeys to be very entertaining. I am easily pleased.

On The Flipside

Wednesday evening took me and Martin out for David’s birthday – a trip to the Flipside brewery for a tour and some drinks. They make truly excellent beer and I can’t believe they’re only three years old! Drinks like Dusty Penny will always beat the other beers at the bar if available. It’s a great shame more pubs don’t stock ’em. The tour was fun and highly informative and very open to a wide range of questions from those about tax and the genetic variance of their proprietary yeast to who gets to test out the beers. We had a good time. Much of the tour reminded me of Dad’s cellar and the endless hours spent filling bottles and stamping the caps on before I was even able to drink the stuff. I’ve previously acquired one of their amazing mini-casks (8.8 pints) of ale and may seek to do so again…

Knickerbocker Glorious

I delight in compering this event – sure, I have to get up as if I were going to work but go to Derby instead and spent from 10-3 in the cold outdoors, but the people are ace and I’m allowed to say pretty much whatever I feel like. It’s very freeing turning up and doing the bits between the musical and spoken word acts. Plus it’s nearly Christmas and there are hundreds of weird things to point at like the zimmer frames on the ice rink and the terrifying Dark Crystal people (it must have a name – the folk in costumes where it looks like they’re about half the height of a human with their real face hidden in the massive pack on the back. These ones had monkey faces and curly leather shoes).

I got to enjoy The Tremeloux’s (Scott Thomas & Carl North), 1/3 of Karl & The Marx Brothers (Matt & Adam), Harriet and highly animated punk-poet Dwane Reads. We had a bit of extra time, so Dwane and I had several bouts of improvised beat poetry – grabbing a word from the audience and word-duking it out. We also told some stories, and I spun a nice tale about a man who used a leprechaun to plug a hole in his boat, then stole the little fellow’s gold. It was another brilliant day in Derby. I talked about super-exciting future activity with Matt and went off with my head in a spin.

Both The Tremeloux’s and Karl and The Marx Brothers have tracks on Furthest From The Sea‘s compilation album:

https://soundcloud.com/furthestfromthesearecords/sets/acoustic-nights-at-the

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/121021846″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/120450690″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

And Dwane’s got a poetry book out at the mo’ The Annoying Megaphone Pigeon – you may need to contact him to get a copy though:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKVwUJOhANc&w=560&h=315]

Harriet’s got a whole bunch of great songs on Souncloud and horrifyingly is about half my age:

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/60862120″ params=”color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]