A Guest Post Written by Gordon Anderson
(in the form of some musings and a plug for a rather unusual creative event)
That thing. You know the one. You found it and it wasn’t yours but you kept it. You didn’t know why, it was just there and… well, it’s kind of a funny story. Isn’t it?
CHEAP DIALOGUE: PLZ RETURN IF FOUND
A writing and performance event for spoken word / visual artists / everybody-people…
Peeling back the curtain for a moment and having a good old nosey around: aren’t we’re all just making everything up as we go along? We are largely composites of the things we learned from others, feeding into studied, artificial selves which we present to others like a lukewarm meal on a tarnished tray. Our true forms are ghosts, briefly glimpsed, our furtive little feelings burning like tiny flames in a vast, darkened house.
Which is why sometimes you just want to have half a Viennetta to yourself, close the drapes and dream of that tiny flame crawling its way up them, becoming a blaze, setting off the fire alarms and allowing you to, finally, while shivering outside in the late evening air, make eye contact with that cute guy from the flat next door. Who had been having a nice bubble bath and now truly, genuinely hates you.
Bearing all this in mind, when someone tells you they’ve organised an unusual spoken word event in a shopping centre on a Sunday, you might think – so what? I’m alone in an uncaring universe, the ex-girlfriend has custody of the cat, and Sundays are my day of rest. But that would be too easy, and I know you’re not like that. Maybe we can talk about it. C’mon champ, grab your baseball glove, we’ll play catch and then go get some ice-cream. Hey…. remember that thing you found?
Bring your found items. One or maybe more. Take it down off the shelf, dig it out of that box of junk, blow the dust off and remember… where did you find it? Why did you pick it up? Why have you kept it all this time? And who might have been looking for it all this time?
PLZ RETURN / PLZ RETURN IF / PLZ RETURN IF FOUND.
This is a CHEAP DIALOGUE event. Bring an object, select one brought by someone else, hear its FOUND story, write its LOST story. Poem / flash fiction / story / whatever form you wish. Then get up and perform it. Lose ownership of one story / write another.
You know you’ll feel better if you talk about it.
CHEAP DIALOGUE: PLZ RETURN IF FOUND takes place on Sunday 20th August from 2pm at Three Doors Up, a new temporary art space from Arcade Cardiff. Located inside the Queens Arcade shopping centre (downstairs from Argos, near the Post Office). There is no Facebook event. Please bring a found item and writing materials.
Twitter: @LibraryGordon and @ArcadeCardiff
Facebook: ThreeDoorsUpCardiff
Website: arcadecardiff.co.uk
Click here for more regular creative writing groups / events in Cardiff
Or here for regular spoken word / open mic / poetry / performance events
