Blog
In the end, despite the perpetually volatile Middle-East situation which could spill over here if things kicked off in say, Gaza, it’s the fatigue rather than the danger that gets to you. Shatila wears you out. I get up around 4.30am for several reasons; firstly this is the only time of day free of power cuts or when the internet’s guaranteed not to disconnect, so I’m assured a trouble-free time.
After which comes my two hours daily writing; 1500 words a day, adding up to around 60,000 now. All this in beautiful peace before the camp wakes to create its non-stop cacophony.
The cramped conditions in narrow alleyways with buildings up to seven storeys each side bring an echo chamber effect. The eternally rasping hornets that are the young males’ scooters, the huddled homes of thin walls that mean every domestic row is public property, the kids eternally out on the street yelling and screaming, the bawling babies, the general volatility and loudness of the camp population all combine to make the noise virtually seamless from around 8am to midnight. And there is nowhere to go to escape, inside or out. Many of Shatila’s inhabitants spend much of their lives out in these alleyways, including a generation of young males bursting with testosterone and looking for an outlet. Slowly the noise grinds you down.
The sense of chaos that is often Lebanon transferred itself to early rehearsal sessions with the play, where almost every comfortable assumption I had about producing drama was put to the test. At the read-through, the cast were unable to pronounce or understand the text, which can present minor problems. Hardly anyone turned up on time for the first sessions, while other kids from the school banged on the metal door and jumped up at the windows screeching.
For the first two sessions most of the 18 young cast members, when they did arrive were convulsed in uncontrollable self-conscious giggles. Their main interest appeared to be the giant cold sore I’d developed. Bet the RSC directors never experienced this.
On the plus side, the kids are fantastically keen, and Samiha the head teacher is pulling out all the stops. And I’ve just found an ingenious and cheap way to create fog, having already cracked snow and ice. There’s simply no way the show won’t go on, 10am, Monday Dec 1. A friend emailed me to say he’d sent an invite to Tony Blair, who alas, has declined.
Haunted Edinburgh
Wandering around some old haunts in Edinburgh I realised that my natural path took me round where the old indie bookshops used to be. We cannot escape our pasts, and since you are reading this you are stuck with mine for the next couple of minutes…
I was trying to work whether Deadhead Comics on Candlemaker Row occupies the same space as the old 1st May Bookshop, of blessed memory. I can only hope that they have less shoplifting as 1st May was plagued by it, occupying two or three floors with never enough staff to stop the idiots and the desperate (the site is near a number of hostels for homeless and backpackers). They did some good work in their day, but these days the City has another great radical bookshop, Wordpower, of which more next time.
The Smiling Sun bookshop has so vanished from history that it cannot be found by google. I did dabble in some interesting substances decades back but it is not a figment of my imagination. The Smiling Son – a short walk from the still extant (and much enlarged Hendersons’ salad table – once about the only veggie place in Scotland) was the HQ for assorted anti-nuclear campaigns including the Torness Alliance of the late 70s.
Surprisingly West and Wilde, once just round the corner from Hendersons seems to have been vanished from google memory too. W & W was Scotland’s gay bookshop, called after Rebecca West and Oscar Wilde. I can remember that many people used to ask if the owners were in… it was a good shop, ironically it damaged 1st May, as did a short lived women’s bookshop, as it took customers away from a precarious business.
The only indie that remains from the past is Helios Fountain in the Grassmarket. Helios is a Rudolf Steiner outfit. It used to contain a small café, a gift shop – the wooden toys were terrific – and a mystical/green bookshop which often turned up surprising titles I’d never seen before. The café has gone, the book stock has shrunk to a couple of bays of Steiner books, but the march of the wooden toys cannot be stopped. They have been joined by woolly ones and an overpowering small of pot pourri.
Big Green Issues
Almost two weeks ago I went to the launch of Modern Poetry in Translation no. 10 The Big Green Issue. The launch was held at Daunts Books in Holland Park - a beautiful bookshop. It's the sort of bookshop where one can be seduced very quickly into spending lots of money, as my debit card can attest.
David and Helen Constantine have written a thought-provoking and worrying editorial in this issue on how the harm we do to our planet increases with our ability to do it.
Pascale Petit read several of the poems she contributed, all of which were written by Du Fu (712-70) who is claimed by many Chinese as their greatest poet. One of these was To an Ancient Cypress. She went on to say that the original verse was 'intricately formal Tang Dynasty chinese', whilst her aim was to capture the expansive spirit of the poem. Apparently, Du Fu wrote this poem whilst staying near the Yangtze Three Gorges - an exquisite area changed irrevocably by the march of progress, in this case the construction of the mighty Yangtze Dam at Maoping which has raised the river levels to astonishing heights and removed at a stroke one of the ancient beauties of China.
You stand in Front of Kongming's shrine,
with branches of green bronze, roots of rock.
Your hoary, rain-soaked bark spans forty metres,
Your black crown pierces heaven.
The shrine is long forgotten
But you still draw worshippers who come to gaze as clouds cling to you from the ghostly depths of Wu Gorge...
It's tempting to say 'not any more they don't'. However, Wu Gorge now has depths probably unimaginable in Du Fu's time. The destruction of our planet continues unabated as Du Fu's shade gazes down from the unearthly delights of Tang Dynasty heaven in unmitigated horror.
PETER MORTIMER sends his fifth article from Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut.
The date 11/11 has as much resonance for Palestinians as 9/11 does for the rest of us. It was that date four years ago that Yasser Arafat died, (poisoned by the Israelis, according to some). Many experts on Middle-East politics reckon Arafat screwed up on several matters, was head of a PLO rife with corruption, and generally got outsmarted by his political opponents.
To Palestinians his reputation is almost Messianic, the little man (literally) who devoted his life battling for the poor David against the powerful and wealthy Goliaths – Israel and their paymasters the USA, attempting to right what he (and fellow Palestinians) saw as the biggest political theft of the 20th century - that of their very nation state.
The date’s a public holiday for Palestinian schools, and in the evening, in the only place in Shatila that could remotely be described as open space (though surrounded on four sides by unimaginably ugly blocks of flats), hundreds gathered for a stirring al fresco film of the man’s life.The audience applauded,chanted and sang. The next day, a raggedy procession of flags, drums bagpipes and Kalashnikov guns made its way through Shatila’s narrow alleyways to mark the anniversary, the percussive power threatening to shake down the camp’s tall, unstable-looking buildings.
Riding or walking through the camp, every day literally dozens of people shout “what your name?” Replying can get wearisome after the 250th time, but I try. Yesterday, feeling antisocial, I ignored the young caller, I heard padding feet behind my bike, then a stone hit me in the small of the back – a mini intafada. It was an isolated incident – I hope.
Gunshot broke out on the camp two nights ago. Celebrations of some sort, I was assured though the place is stuffed full of guns, and there are no police. The guns are understandable when you realize the atrocities inflicted on this camp, and the need for its inhabitants to defend it.
My local corner shop keeper, a Syrian called Abd Hariri, opens at 5am and closes at 2am and sells everything from Dettol to cream cakes (actually they’re next to one another). He tells me “Shatila always dangerous – Palestinians and Lebanese so close to one another – who knows?”
No-one probably. I’m just hoping they don’t start any funny business in the next three weeks. I’ve got 18 eleven year old Palestinian girls to direct in a short theatre piece, to be performed in English. Present state of play? Total chaos.
Pies
From time to time this blog may have given the impression that the major chains of this country were less than supportive of the output of small presses. This is quite the opposite of the case and we would like to use this posting to say that the chains are great in every respect. I am referring specifically to Dundee, which can be taken to represent the rest of the country (and England and Wales too).
Last night Dundee Waterstone's sold 130 copies of our The Good Son by Russel McLean at the launch event. The shop had a poster for the event in its window, a dumpbin on display, press coverage of the book pinned up and did everything they could to make the event a success. Not a lot should be read into the author working there as over at Dundee Borders the book is a “staff pick” saying that even if McLean works for the opposition they want to recommend the book. And even Smiths (Smiths!) have bought a bundle of copies.
This is not a novel about pies (anyone with knowledge of Dundee will understand) but the long awaited Dundee crime novel. Dundee can now look forward to joining Glasgow (Taggart), Edinburgh (Ian Rankin, Allan Guthrie), Aberdeen (Stuart MacBride) as a scene of crime for murder most foul, with bodies lying in every close and pend.
I am certain that the chains will now do this for every book published by Inpress. Trust me.
But thanks to Gordon and his staff at Dundee Waterstones!
Exiled writers
The new Exiled Ink! is out. This mag is the journal of the group of writers organised under the banner of Exiled Writers Ink. The group is from all over the world – Angola, Argentina, Bosnia, Iran, just to grab a few examples from the author biogs in the current issue.
This is the tenth issue and every time the magazine gets more professional, becomes a better read.
This issue’s theme is love – love in conflict, forbidden love. There are also small sections on the exiled poetry of the Western Sahara and Iranian Azerbaijani literature.
The organisation itself has a mentoring and translation scheme for exiled writers and has published a number of chapbooks now. It is good to see the mentoring scheme is continuing. Finally there is a review section of work by exiled writers.
All in all a good, lively production. £5 by post (£15 for a three issue sub) from 31 Hallswelle Road, London NW11 0DH, cheques payable to Exiled Writers Ink.
Inpress Launches a new loyalty scheme for Website purchasers
Today we've gone 'live' with a new discount scheme for every one of those loyal people who buy books regularly from our site.
From today onwards, anyone who places more than two orders receives an automatic discount on the value of the order (excluding any postage and packing charges) and the size of the discount increases with the number of orders placed.
Since the Inpress website was launched in 2004 we've received extraordinary levels of support from people who are interested in literature, enjoy reading poetry, love quirky books and appear to be less keen to choose their reading matter from the piles of 3-for-2s in chain bookshops. Offering our regular purchasers a discount for multiple orders and free books when they recommend a friend, is our way of saying a big thank you to our buyers.
Some of you will have received an email from us today, announcing the news and explaining how you can log-in and view your account.
Sadly, we cannot extend this offer to magazines - single copies or subscriptions - as it isn't possible for our magazine publishers, who work on very small margins - to fund discounts without increasing cover prices - which rather defeats the object!
PETER MORTIMER sends his fourth report from Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut.
I do get access to the internet here, but the connection is likely to go at any time, as is the electricity supply – a recent power cut led to an interesting moment in my windowless toilet where the loo is one of those appalling stand-up affairs the French inflicted on the world. The phrase night-time bombing comes to mind.
Finally seeing my blog entry at the Inpress site was quite a lift, especially people’s response. The sense of isolation here can be great despite the teeming kids who besiege me the moment I open the door, so thanks for the uplifting messages to all.
The camp’s football team Al Karmel made it through to the cup final and I’ve ordered my celebratory cake for them.
Half way through my stay, and the 3000 miles distance to England could be 20 million. I arranged a meeting with a Hezbollah man but he chickened out, apparently scared I might misquote him. You never think of Hezbollah being scared really.
No matter, I’m in the school now, two sessions completed in creating a short play with eighteen 11 year old Palestinian girls. The cultural gap is huge, and not just the language , but the enthusiasm is amazing and that’s what gets you through. The rest of the school, curious as to these strange goings-on, seem to spend most of the time banging on the classroom door and bellowing. I hope they turn up for the performance.
Yesterday, Rommel, (father’s name Castro) a young man from the camp gave me a lift into central Beirut on his clapped out scooter. He ignored every One-Way sign, often driving contra to two fast-flowing lines of traffic. No-one seemed to think it unacceptable behaviour. On the return journey his petrol tank sprang a leak and dripped generous amounts onto the hot exhaust. It was only with great difficulty I managed to persuade him of the combustible dangers, and to push the rusty hulk back to camp, where it was in good company. It took a tenner to fix. Motoring Lebanese style.
Should you have the inclination, I can now be contacted direct here on peter-mortimer@live.com.
Paddling up the Amazon # 2
Iain Sincair’s book, mentioned in the last post, retails at £20. I ordered it from Amazon in advance for £11.89, post free. That’s slightly more than 40% discount, or to put it another way, supplied at slightly more discount than many independent bookshops can buy the book direct from the publisher.
Discounting at this level is madness. Discounting reached the height of absurdity over the last Harry Potter book, when people competed to discount the one book for which hundreds of thousands of people would happily have paid full price. They might as well have burnt money (or some other suitable cliché).
But it goes back to volume, keeping the customer coming back, keeping them out of the bookshops.
Now, underneath the Amazon canopy you will often find other suppliers. Does anyone know how this works? Often they too will discount further, but add £2.75 for mail, just making their price cheaper than the Amazon price. Easy to do if you can organise quick supply. The Book Depository does it big time but it seems there are a load of Joe Soap’s operating from back bedrooms. What’s in it for Amazon? More on (the excellent Book Depository another time).
But some of them are barking. Our latest publication, The Good Son (the book not the DVD) is £7.99 in bookshops (or free if you do it as 3 for 2 in Waterstones in Scotland (another story…) but you can buy it post free from Amazon at £5.99. Alternatively go under the canopy and you can buy it for various prices, including £11.26 plus £2.75 from one supplier. I suspect it must be a privatised mutual to be so adrift on finance.
Hackney Downs
One of the minor features of the current US elections was the report of the awful Republican Palin veep candidate trying to beat up her local library. Again and again in America and elsewhere local libraries defend freedom of expression. Not so in Hackney.
The Stoke Newington library has withdrawn an invitation to Iain Sinclair, due to launch his book on “HACKNEY: THE RED ROSE EMPIRE” (Hamish Hamilton) because he is known to be critical of the London Olympics. Well, that is a pretty controversial view I guess, and no doubt Hackney Libraries will soon find themselves short of speakers since most literary types probably share that view.
The good news is that the new Pages of Hackney is organising the launch instead. So, at one fell swoop Hackney Council has made itself look stupid, given Sinclair loads of great publicity for its book and provided the rather brave Pages of Hackney with something of a coup. The shop is not brave for hosting Sinclair, but for opening in Lower Clapton among the tanning studios and betting shops. I’ve just ordered the book, which I might not previously have done. Iain Sinclair must have been rubbing his hands with glee at going on the Hackney Council Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
The professinal body representing librarians has publicly come out against Hackney Council, as it should.
Paddling up the Amazon #1
Timing has never been my strongest point. I organised a huge party complete with some celebratory books for the press’s tenth birthday some time ago, only for some party poopers from the platform to point out that the press was something between eleven and twelve years old. Details. Be that as it may, Amazon has now been going for ten years (or thereabouts).
When Amazon started terrestrial booksellers and critics – including this writer – chortled as loss followed loss. Some of the public delighted in the notion that they could order discounted books in the middle of the night and have a reasonable chance of getting them delivered before breakfast, or so it seemed. Others argued it would never catch on. Now it is hard to imagine life without Amazon. Someone remarked that Amazon is now the world’s biggest distributor of anarchist books, and ever other sector. You can see the damage in shops that formerly prided themselves on holding stock in great depth. Heffers in Cambridge, Blackwells in Oxford for example are no longer the two places in the UK you could find anything.
I called in on one fantastic English language bookshop a year or two back in Jerusalem, and they said they were struggling because of Amazon, so the effect is international.
Not that Amazon wants to sell everything. Many Inpress members will have found that some of their slower selling items are marked up with a £1.99 sourcing fee for being hard to secure. Nonsense. It is as hard for them to get these books as any other – they simply want to discourage orders of obscure books which are more labour intensive to deal with. They want volume.
Next entry I’ll look at some other aspects of Amazon.