The Art of Waiting - Part Two

Are you still here? Good.

You may remember that we were sitting on plastic chairs watching two young men demonstrate their art with the aid of a turntable, an Apple laptop, two vinyl records, a cotton cornucopia, some haberdashery, several pincushions, threaded needles and coloured inks.

After several minutes it becomes apparent that the performance has started several minutes ago. Brown trousers has been bending over his laptop, which is connected to the turntable on which there is a vinyl record. Faint electronic sounds have emerged.

Pale blue suit, sitting at his table, has picked up a white cotton square in a round embroidery frame. As the faint electronic sounds have risen up into the cotton cornucopia and winged their way via the ragged cotton tape to his shoulders, he has picked up a threaded needle and started sewing.

He has chosen a coloured scrap of material and a hank of black fur. He has amateurishly sewn them to his sampler. He has picked up a coloured pen, and made several rhythmic marks on the sampler to the faint electronic sounds coming to him through the tape (and by conventional means, to us).

There are six or seven of us in the row of seats, and four people standing to the side. After ten more minutes the standers melt away. The other sitters look suspiciously like friends. Our faces up to now have been inscrutable.

There is an art to waiting, but there is no art in getting away.

The Art of Waiting - Part One

Part one? Yes, I have two stories about the art of waiting. Today I'm going to tell you one.

It was last Saturday. We were at the Queen's Theatre, a dark and empty shell, with crumbling walls, on which were being projected various moving images made by people of varying degrees of artistic talent.

A woman in a black coat came up. Hello, she said. I'm the curator of this grainy mishmash of arty pretentiousness. Feel free to look around.

Actually, she probably didn't say the middle bit.

Then she said, if you are still around at four o'clock, two of our artists are putting on a demonstration of their work over there in the corner.

We looked at our watches; it was half past three.

At four o'clock, having looked at everything for longer than it deserved in order to oblige the woman in the coat, we approached the corner, where a row of plastic chairs was being assembled. Six or seven people had materialised, and the two artists. We sat down.

The artists were two young men. One, in brown trousers and a green jumper, stood behind a desk on which there was a turntable connected to an Apple laptop, and some vinyl records on a stand. Above his desk was suspended the wide end of a roughly handmade white cotton cornucopia or sounding trumpet, on a frame, which gradually diminished to become a long white ragged tape that the second artist, who wore a pale blue suit, wound several times around his neck, before sitting down at a table, on which were several small items of haberdashery, some pincushions containing threaded needles, and some coloured inks.

Now that I have set the scene, may I invite you to practice the art of waiting? Yes, if you are here this time tomorrow, I shall tell you the rest. Sit down, don't go away.

Puisque les Odeurs....

We had tuna subs for lunch. The tuna oozed out of the sides and all over our faces and hands. We carried an odour of tuna with us into the Elder Hall.

No one would have noticed. For the Elder Hall was redolent of fumigants and farts. I'm not saying these could be attributed to any one in particular.

There should have been a scent of roses and violets. Rosalind Martin was to sing some lovely old French songs.

Old French songs are weird though. When you read the words, they aren't as lovely as you think.

The thief of the cheese is not here.... I should like to sew but a magnet attracts all my needles.... My corpse is as limp as a glove....

When your breath is stopped by astonishment there is nowhere for bad odours to go.