Big Apples
A quick newsletter featuring a new vlog, a short film update and a poem.
Hello! Are you well? Are people dropping coins deep into you and hearing them echo up your hollow stone sides? No? Then great!
Crunch* this apple**!
*Watch **vlog
Last year my Mum and I ventured into the big, bright, loud, mad apple. We got lost. Snakes were seen on shoulders. I had a big pile of cream. It’s basically a classic bit of vlogging.
A Mayfly Update
Mayflies are commonly seen in these summer months, often near bodies of water, as they emerge from their larval stage and engage in their brief adult life. They can also be seen in the Vue cinema in Leicester Square this Friday 27th June. (I recently made a short film called ‘hi from a mayfly’ by the way, just to explain all the mayfly stuff in previous sentence).
This is a picture from the film, I didn’t just accidentally include this one. I play a mayfly.
There’s an event being held at the Vue cinema called The Creativity Conference, and as well as the film being screened there I’ll be talking on a panel about storytelling. I think there’s tickets still available if it sounds like your kinda thing, though I also have a few free tickets if anyone wants to snap those up.
Also!! In my previous newsletter I mentioned that ‘hi from a mayfly’ recently played at a short film competition at Picturehouse Central, and in a mad turn of events - the film won! It took home the jury award, which consisted of Nowness Managing Director Gavin Humphries, script editor Kate Leys, and presenter, actor and writer-director Reggie Yates. When they announced the winner I said “What?” about three thousand times.
Guy who’s never taken a photo before with the films lead actor Charlotte Capitelli
And now: a poem
“Without Weather (what would we say?)”
I'm bench sat in a church graveyard,
just me (and the dead) and the gardener,
walking past me to fetch tools from his van:
"Enjoying the sun?", he sparks
"Exactly!", I crackle back
"Bit better than last night's rain!"
"Oh don't!",
We laugh, (electric rapport.)
The leaves chuckle.
The dead rest.
(Though could be smiling, softly, maybe, beneath their newly hydrated land)
“I should have put sun cream on!”, the gardener says, returning from his van now with a spade, not breaking his stride as he beelines for the horizon.
“It’ll be rain again tonight though!” I say to his back, wryly shaking my head.
“Mad!”, he laughs, becoming the distance now.
“Ha!”
“Ha!”
“Ha!”
repeating “HA!”, even when clearly now we’ve left each others ear shot. “HA!” sustaining, like a child on a school morning waving goodbye to Mum, not letting their little wave falter until she’s left the playground, turned the corner, gone to work, returned later in the day for pick up.
(The gardener is a speck, still laughing, pruning and planting
and watering a flower fresh from last nights rain,
soon to be hugging the graves
hugging the graves
hugging the graves
Closing Note
Please cream up now the sun is shining down on us. You just must. I applied my sun cream yesterday and left the house without rubbing it in. On the train platform I clocked a pale, creamy man pull up in the approaching window and thought a Ghoul made entirely of cream had stolen my reflection. So please apply the sun cream and then please rub it in. Do not shock yourself. Do not think your reflection has been replaced by a man made entirely of cream. Please. For gods sake. Do not go creamless into this warm night.
If you received this email in your inbox twice, I can only apologies. I did not realise that would happen if I needed to make a change. I promise there won't be a third email of this post. But a fourth? A fifth? At this point, who can say?