A Day of Art

more book destroying, originally uploaded by supafly.

Friday started out as a day of art. I first went to the "Gorilla in the Roses" event at the Camberwell Library. David and Davina, a pair of artists, led us in an afternoon of destroying books by ripping them up, typing, stenciling, and sewing on them, and making collages. They were inspired by Joe Orton who, in 1967, inserted a picture of a gorilla into a book about roses at the Islington Public Library. The act of destroying books is entirely against my nature, and it was difficulty to begin. After reading a bit of Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery, I reminded myself there were many more copies of that out there and started ripping out favorite lines. I spent most of my time destroying a London guide book which was fitting and also easier because it was out of date. It was a small group, but we enjoyed ourselves and the artists shares their experience with another event they had done for the Camberwell Arts Festival yesterday where they shared stories with people using the laundromat across the street and asked them to share a story about experiences at the Tumble Wash in return.

After working on my book for a few hours, I left to go to another art event going on across the street, Sweet Obscenities. At Seymour Brothers bakery, Lucille powers was collecting people's swear words on a large sheet of paper and was also piping them onto cupcakes. What a great idea - to take insults that you had experienced and eat it up!

Next, I took the bus downtown and went to see Black Snake Moan at the Prince Charles Cinema. The PCC is just off of Leicester Square, where there are several expensive movie houses, and it is a bargain in comparison. I paid £3.50 and thoroughly enjoyed the intensity between Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson.

Afterwards, I walked around Leicester Square, where they were previewing theatre performances by invitation only for West End Live, which started the next day and was open to the public. Then I walked down Regents street and got some bath bombs at Lush. When Marshall got off of work, I met him at the Apple store (which is bigger than the one in Chicago, there's a glass elevator that reminds me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the middle). We walked down to Brewer street in the rain and had falafel sandwiches at Maoz. Afterwards ,we got on a crowded #12 bus and headed home.