AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the Vice-Chancellorian fatwah on Dddwwchllyff leads to global slaughter of Elvis impersonator impersonators. Now, back to Snought-of-fictitious-student-fame..

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 31

‘Snought.’

‘Smithy.’

Those two words was the limit of their exchange, it had been for years now. It was the usual routine. Whenever they failed to avoid each other and accidentally crossed paths, the two academicians would go through this customary custom of each grudgingly acknowledging the existence of the other with an absolute minimum of calorific expenditure.

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the undermining of Cymru and the rise of Samantha Panther’s reportorial star. Next, a Vice-Chancellorian fatwah on Dddwwchllyff leads to global slaughter of Elvis impersonator impersonators …

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 30
One of the problems with faking your own death is doing it convincingly enough to be convincing without making it overly elaborate (or dangerous). As a seasoned mimic mimic, Ddwwchyllff had thought it would be an easy task.

On the face of it there were certain advantages to being dead.

Here I sit on a gloomy day south of Beantown listening to Bessie Smith wailing "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" on Hober Thinking Radio (www.hober.com) and thinking, "What's the next step? How am I to get the magazine off the ground and flying? Where's the money going to come from to pay the bills? Am I insane? What the hell am I doing?"

I know the easy way out: Give up all I own and hop a plane for Asia. I have friends there. I can find work there. I can exist.

But this isn't about merely existing. It's about expressing hopes, dreams, fears, and cheers through writing, drawing, publishing, sharing. It's about being faithful to the creative spirit and serving the muse. It's about not abandoning the fictional characters who clamor inside my noggin. (If only they could pay the rent.) It's about taking the talent and making it earn ten fold -- or else be cast out into the land of weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Has anyone else pondered that parable as much as I have in terms of the symbolic meaning of "talent"?)

ALERT: See blogs excerpts below this on Mohawk Revolt, city beauty, poetry...
For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, The Vice-chancelor orders Peppet around. Next, that sinking feeling…

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 29
The subsidence had already began. It had been going on for some time in fact. The relevant local council departments and government ministries, all the ones with a vested interest, had played down any talk of such talk. While, to the likes of the Vice-chancellor and those around him that he surrounded himself with, corruption wasn’t a dirty word; subsidence certainly was. So much so that the Vice had banned all future mention of it in all the future.

I think cities are intrinsically beautiful because they are formed though contradicting energies that are in both conflict and in harmony with each other. The more chaotic and unplanned a city is, the more beautiful and spontaneous it can be. People have criticized Los Angeles for being soulless and superficial but as a photographer I think Los Angeles has one of the world’s most beautiful and defined skylines - it is a towering homage to glass, steel and money amid a flat sea of dull and dreary suburban housing. When I look out at the city from the Getty Center at night, I am amazed that

Just another day
Waking up at the break of dawn
Getting dressed on autopilot
Drinking the same coffee everyday
I always say to myself to change my daily routine
but I am to stuck in this life
no guts left in me to change
My worn out shoes carry me to the parc on my free sunday
My mind is so empty that for once I forgot to bring my newspaper
Not aware of where my feet are taking me
I suddenly see a view I recognise
The tree we used to play by
The swing we used to climb on
this is what is missing in my life
I miss you
Once a friend
then a lover
The emptyness inside me is gaping in my soul

I am Dharma's hitman today, doling out dividends on spiritual bank accounts. Charlotte, North Carolina. Just outside the Marriott hotel lies a super-modern ghost town , with a crisp cold breeze reminiscent of european winter. What is this strange familiarity? This comforting discomfort? Every so often a pull, a signal...go down this street, make a left here. Vacant brick buildings are the only culture left in this mostly clean-and-replaced downtown. Future wasteland. Their broken windows bring vague images of drunk youth, bottles & rocks, laughter and fights. What am i doing here? The only sound aside from whispering frigid wind is the clank-clank-clank of a loose sign banging on its metal post, and out of the faraway, the blast of a train horn. Go see the train, what it brings...Walk under the rail bridge and circle around under the grey sky, still no train, still off in the distance. But there it is, the greyhound station. A cultural oasis in an otherwise silent city sunday. Go in. This is what I've been looking for all along. Southerners and ex-cons and characters of all shapes and sizes, attitude...pimps and bums, mothers and children, along with a breed of humans you'd never run across west of the midwest: gangster cowboy ravers. Gods plan. Real america. This is stuff you'd never see anywhere but here, now. I fight off the urge to play "San Francisco Rush 2049", one of the best sit-down & drive video games to come out of the 20th century. I continue to absorb. Ride the whims of the great magnet.

Today on the front of this site I saw a message from a member who wants to collect black and white photos to sell to a client. People have often asked me if I've ever considered a career in photography. I think most people think of photographers as people who take photos on top of mountains and live as free and unchained as the wind that rustles though their hair. The reality of it is, people who make a living off of photography spend more time editing their photos, making phone calls and meeitng up with clients than they actually do taking photos. Futhermore, walking around all day carrying heavy and bulky professional equiptment makes taking photos more of a burden than anything else.

ALERT: DON’T MISS LONDONLAURA’S BLOG RE PHOTO CONTEST BELOW THIS LATEST INSTALLMENT OF TCG!!!!!! For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, Samantha Panther, star reporter, meets an aging Bangladeshi – in Luxembourg. Now, Colonel Peppet, the vile Vice-chancelor, and…

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 28

Everyone else in the room was busy trying to reach Colonel Peppet. It hadn’t been easy, he was hard to keep tabs on. Eventually, after an hour, extensive internet searching, several calls to various operator services, a séance and some luck, she managed to make contact.

‘Where are you Colonel?’

‘I’m in XXXXXXXXX, on my way back from XXXXX’, came the cautious reply.

The Registration forms are ready to download and are on http://www.tslo.dk

Still plenty of time left, you've got until May 31st to register.