Events at London bookshops in November 2010

Books books books books books books books books. Snipe likes them. If Top 5 had its way, every Top 5 would be about books. Alas, this cannot be. Instead, here is a quick pick of five shops hosting enticing events in the coming months. Let us know of any cool things that we’ve missed.

Peckham Literary Festival
Co-hosted by the Review Bookshop and Persepolis, this eclectic series of events runs from 16-25 November. Click through for the full list. Most eye catching to Snipe (for obvious, and deeply shallow, reasons) is the Sheherazade Evening on 19th November, which promises music, dancing, and tales from the 1001 Nights. Ah Sheherazade, what a beguiling literary character you are – as bewitching as you are difficult to spell.

Pages of Hackney
Loads of events, Snipe is particularly taken by the sound of Jonathan Kemp’s talk on his temptingly-titled book London Triptych. To quote from the publicity: “Three men, three lives and three eras sinuously entwine in a dark, startling and unsettling narrative of sex, exploitation and dependence set against London’s strangely constant gay underworld.” Some good words in there. Our interest is piqued.

Big Green Bookshop, Wood Green
Loads of stuff coming up at the link above, check them out. Most exciting by far is the Knitting Club this Sunday, Nov 7th. It’s illustrated on their site with a knitted pink motorbike. Good work guys.

Stoke Newington Bookshop
On the 18th November there’s a talk on a book about a hunt for all 59 species of British butterflies. Could be either a charming account of the changing face of the British landscape, or else a grotesquely disturbing bit of Buffalo Bill style lepidoptery.

Broadway Bookshop, Broadway Market
This is a nice little bookshop, which gets bonus points for being next door to the Dove pub, the candle lit mood of which alone is worth a visit. There’s a talk on Asian travel at the bookshop tomorrow, Nov 3rd. (As an aside, there’s going to be a Top 5 on London pubs with the best ambient lighting pretty soon – Snipe is getting obsessed. All tips gratefully received).

London agenda for Tuesday 2 November

London agenda for Tuesday 2 November
1. Eat Montreal-style meatballs on meatball Tuesday at Pizza East [Le Cool]
2. Gape at astonishing dance company, The Feathernaughts [Run Riot]
3. Explore the Sir John Soane Museum by candlelight [Tired of London]

UK screws over the Chagos Islanders just a little bit more by turning their home into park

The screwing of the people of Chagos Islands has been well documented. *

Now the ocean around the Chagos Islands, except of course, the US base of Diego Garcia, is the largest marine protected area in the world. And what profession did the Chagossians practise to survive? Fishing. What does this new marine park ban? Fishing. Which will really cause a problem if and when their descendants can go home again.

* Here’s the potted notes: In 1970, the UK forcibly removed all the residents of the British Indian Ocean Territory and dropped them off at the port in Mauritius. Just like that. The largest island in the new, empty territory, Diego Garcia, was given over to the US as a military base.

The Flowers Of Hell

A day late for halloween, but todays MPfree is by aptly named “16 piece trans-Atlantic space rock orchestra” The Flowers Of Hell. This track is a short extract from the 45 minute whole, but it should be enough to make you realise that you need to go and buy the whole thing immediately when it comes out on November 15th, via Sonic Cathedral.

The Flowers Of Hell – O (Single edit) by snipelondon

London's coolest art deco buildings

Now that we’re teetering on the precipice of the double dip, what better time to channel the brighter side of the 1930’s? If there’s one thing they knew back then, it was how to spend money they didn’t really have on architecture they didn’t really need. Here are five extant examples from the 1920s and 30s which range from the sublime to the ever so slightly ridiculous.

Southgate Station
One of the most famous of Charles Holden’s hugely influential designs for the tube (more of those here). Looks like nothing so much as an alien spaceship come to land among us, only difference being that instead of taking you to Rigel VII it takes you to Holborn. Ah well.

Highbury Square
The new flats at Highbury will incorporate the art deco facade from the East and West stands of the old football stadium. When the East stand was being built in 1936 it went three times over budget. That was 1936 – wasn’t there a depression going on or something? Mental. Sack the board.

Du Cane Court
Wikipedia offers the tantalising, unsubstantiated and utterly baffling rumour that this Balham apartment block was being lined up as the HQ of Hitler’s government if the Nazis conquered Britain. Did I mention it’s in Balham? He really was rubbish at the detail, wasn’t he? The building also featured in ITV’s Poirot adaptation with David Suchet, the nostalgia-tastic opening credits of which contain a pretty sexy art deco/futurist steam train. Great.

Barker’s Kensington
Just a cracking, manly, thrusting tower like New York has about a gazillion of. Now a whole foods shop rather than an epic department store, which is slightly dull, but that’s just a sign of the times – people would rather buy soy beans than frilly hats. Shame on you.

Carreras Cigarette Factory
Now, this one is a little bit silly. Inspired by the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb and the Egypt-mania which ensued, this building is modelled on an Egyptian temple and guarded by a couple of six foot high statues of black cats. All for a factory making cigarettes. You just don’t get this sort of financial irresponsibility from these companies any more; Snipe blames the smoking ban for squeezing revenues which could have been spent on bizarre architectural gimmickry.

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Email: michael.pollitt@snipelondon.com

The Bloomberg Commission: Claire Barclay, Shadow Spans

Whitechapel Gallery

Free dance performances give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the process of creating a new production. Ben Ash, Henrietta Hale and Rachel Lopez de la Nieta of Dog Kennel Hill Project perform.

12pm-5pm, 1 – 14 November.
Free

Xiu Xiu, Zola Jesus, Former Ghosts at XOYO

When is a supergroup not a supergroup? When its members aren’t that famous of course! Ok, Zola Jesus, Former Ghosts and Xiu Xiu are minor celebrities around these parts (you might have noticed….) but for the majority their names are likely to result in blank expressions and a couple of pronounciation problems. But don’t dismiss them as misfit never-will-be’s just yet. The upcoming join tour is a rare chance to see three experimental stalwarts playing passionate, complicated and beautiful music – switching effortlessly between proto-goth pop, electronica and weirded-out rock – on one stage. You might be surprised by how super they can be.

London agenda for Monday 1 November

London agenda for Monday 1 November

1. Have a bit of the old slap and tickle with God spank the queen [Le Cool]
2. Avoid paper cuts with Rob Ryan: the stars shine all day too [Run Riot]
3. Just super. Xiu Xiu, Zola Jesus, Former Ghosts at XOYO [Snipe]
4. Revisit Portland in 1992 with Alice Cooper, Jim Rose Circus, Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction [London Gigs]

Deadwood on the Thames

The old wild west of North America was finally tamed, trussed up with respectability and at least a seeming adherence to the law. The Bad Men were hung or went into politics, the land and its resources parceled and tucked in corporate pockets. The ambitious spirit of the west’s roaming and hungry adventurers was tapped into capitalism, but its hedonism, lust, eccentricity and taste for violence became more discreet.

As the rules of “decent” society solidified, brothels and gambling houses were shut down. Some moved onto the rivers, in the form of steamboats, where the law was a little more liquid. Casinos and whorehouses bobbed along the Mississippi until Prohibition and gentrification finally left them high and dry as well.

Tonight, local burlesquers The Last Days of Decadence bring back a taste of the Old West with Steamboat Bordello, a lusty, busty cabaret with dinner and bathtub rotgut. Featured acts include Hot Club of Cowtown, Gaz Mayall and Ruby Blues of Trash City. All the colourful characters are promised- cardsharps, the snake oil merchants, the belles and madams, the uncivilised rogues and the fashionable fops and dandies. The Dixie Queen will trundle up and down the Thames from 5pm at Tower Pier, and there may still be tickets (£35, or £65 with dinner) so check their site, steamboatbordello.com.

Eventually the Houses of Ill Repute, even the floating ones, were shut down, too. Or driven into even seedier, more shadowy corners. They probably weren’t quite as jolly and boisterous as they seem in the movies, with a jouncing pianist bashing keys for frilly ladies to sing saucy songs to while hookers with hearts of gold beckoned the boys upstairs. Prostitution had previously been a fairly open business. Many towns had a bordello in the centre of town, as men returning from months of lumberjacking or mining were pretty clear about what they wanted- a bath, a hot meal, and sex. Not necessarily in that order. Maybe hygiene wasn’t so much a part of the equation. “Doc! I got mushrooms growing on my Johnson!” “Here, sonny, splash on some of my patented Whisky and Snake Venom Cock Tonic!”

Obviously Steamboat Bordello are just tapping into the fun of the Old West and not actually creating a working brothel! But would it kill them to put a little rattlesnake juice in the booze, just to spice it up and maybe make the stuff multi-purpose? These mushrooms itch something awful…

Yusuf (Cat Stevens), Ozzy Osbourne, and O'Jays play Peace Train, Crazy Train, and Love Train at the Rally for Sanity

This is an awesome set from the Daily Show/Colbert Report’s Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington DC today.

Jon Stewart introduced Yusuf, once known as Cat Stevens, who proceeded to play his hit, Peace Train. Stephen Colbert interrupts and brings in his musician, Ozzy Osbourne, playing Crazy Train and it’s a battle.

It’s a cacophony—which is sorted out by soul group, The O’Jays, with their 70s disco classic, Love Train.