We thought it'd be fun because it couldn't possibly be what it said it was. It's a cautionary to scare the kids with now. Just recalling out loud the number and shape of the balloons terrifies them. And the music: I still have the Roger Bingbing live album, and I only have to threaten to show them the front cover to get them to obey. Their healthy aversion to niceness somewhat makes up for their lack of actual interest in anything. Any tips?
The last thing I built for them was the Neckhorn. It wasn't much of a hit. I think I gave it too many necks. A bit Medusa-like, but you could get inside it and each one made a different noise. Getting out without a scrape or scratch was hard though, and once Optical got stuck in there for half an hour and was rescued by the man in the tent across the field, who'd heard this whooshing mournful S.O.S call and wanted to know where it was coming from. He'd've got there sooner except he spent a while spellbound, "unable to believe morse code could be so beautiful". I sold it to him, after Optical was out of hospital, and he installed wheels on it and trundles it into the woods now to practise. Since then I've had no new ideas and not really looked for any material. I miss our hammering collaborations, really, I feel we had more to do.
Good to hear about Shuttlecock. He sounds more coherent than usual. Did his shoes match? There was a time when he refused to wear a matching pair, said it stopped him going stale and "makes hopping easier". This was before his wife stopped talking, and I rode to his place with some shoes I'd found in the rubble of a house and all the doors and windows were open, "to let the rain in", though it wasn't raining, "yet", and he'd just started collecting incomplete sets of things. The best was a little jigsaw-postcard of a cat, complete except for the eyes, and he'd taken two photos of his bad eye and stuck them in the space. "Cats", he used to say, "are fucking twats". And "a goat is a hairy dustbin". You won't regret getting to know him, which may well happen now his life's taken a turn for the better and worse.
Good to know you're good. Come round sometime and we'll make something. The Bald Mutineers are playing next month and they've asked me to help out. I'd have to shave, again, but it's an option...let me know.
