Overheard at a (University!) bar. What’s the reply to this?:
Spoken word artists are very good actors. They inject lots of their personality into their performances, and now video, soundtracks, and props...so much that the poems themselves are trivial compared with their repartee, banter and other clutter!
Caller: How’s it going with A, B and C?
Me: It’s good. More A, B and D now. How about you and delivery of X,Y and Z?
Caller: I want to talk about something beyond the alphabet here. The 27th letter if you like – let’s call it Omega. I think it would be a brilliant idea for us to deliver Omega.
Me: Sounds fantastic. And does Omega come attached with any finance to make it happen?
Caller: The finance is aspirational at this point.
Me: I see. Well how about the budget for the X, Y and Z, how’s that cooking?
Caller: A conference only for black writers? That’s racist to white people!
Me: Under the Equality Act 2010 and its provision for Positive Action, the conference is justified because we as an organisation reasonably think that Black writers suffer a disadvantage linked to their race and have a disproportionately low level of participation in the UK writing industry and bestseller lists and the Conference encourages this group to overcome this disadvantage and encourages participation. The event is moreover a proportionate response to the issue... Does that fly for you?
James Brown came onto a stage with that twitching, stiff-legged, electric-kinetic , roaring presence. His songs, including the anthemic ‘Say It Loud’ struck a chord like no-one else’s did. I watched him on stage dancing with Sammy Davies Jr (via youtbe – I aint that old!) and the difference in dancing styles, expressing a difference of attitude to life, was immediately apparent. Nobody did that James Brown stuff like James Brown.
Black Writers Conference? Why not ‘Black & Asian’ Conference? How about ‘Urban’ Writers Conference?
Economics and the BWC 2012
Classical Economics makes no distinction between wants and needs. Wants/needs are considered infinite. The degree of desire can be measured by 'marginal utility'. If I have no car then I get one car, my happiness increases by 100. If I have 1 car and get one more so have 2, my happiness increases by 10. If I have 18 cars and get a 19th, maybe I get a fillip of only 2 or 1! That’s the theory.
Well I have always steered clear from writing too much on blogs as I just saw it as people needing to moan or just talk about themselves a lot.
I would like to apologise for this crude view as I have seen it do so much more, it can be used for fun, to exercise those personal demons and all sorts in fact it is a very useful tool.
Anyway my name is Danni Skerritt and I am a lesser known writer meandering from genre to different medium if it can be written I have tried it or am in the process of making it happen.
Enjoyed an evening with Manchesters literati. Great crowd, great writers no more to be said.