With Ruins
Li-Young Lee

Choose a quiet place, a ruin,
a house no more a house,
under whose stone archway I stood
one day to duck the rain.

The roofless floor, vertical
studs, eight wood columns
supporting nothing,
two staircases careening to nowhere,
all make it seem

a sketch, notes to a house, a three-
dimensional grid negotiating
absences, an idea
receding into indefinite rain,

or else that idea
emerging, skeletal
against the hammered sky, a
human thing, scoured seen clean
through from here to an iron heaven.

A place where things
were said and done,
there you can remember
what you need to remember.
Melancholy is useful. Bring yours.

There are no neighbors to wonder
who you are,
what you might me doing
walking there,
stopping now and then

to touch a crumbling brick
or stand in a doorway
framed by the day.
No one has to know you
thing of another doorway

that framed the rain or news of war
depending on which way you faced.
You think of sea-roads and earth-roads
you traveled once, and always
in the same direction: away.

You think
of a woman, a favorite
dress, your old father’s breasts
the last time you saw him, his breath,
brief, the leaf

you’ve torn from a vine and which you hold now
to your cheek like a train ticket
or a piece of cloth, a little hand or a blade –
it all depends
on the course of your memory.

It’s a place
for those who own no place
to correspond to ruins in the soul.
It’s mine.
It’s all yours.

___________________

For Toby Butler

Malo Periculosam Libertatem Quam Quietum Servitium
-Rousseau, On The Social Contract

War is just when it is necessary; arms are permissible when there is no hope except in arms
-Machiavelli

Enough is

Enough

I was there on the front lines. I was proud to be there. The protests that took place on Wednesday in Central London were not the pinnacle of a movement but the tip of the iceberg. These protests, which I long predicted would turn violent, were a reasonable reaction from a populace that has been consistently victimised by the current administration. The smashing of public property at the Conservative Party headquarters was a balanced reaction to an administration who would rather cut funding for healthcare and education than for pork-barrel government projects and unjust wars waged abroad in our name.

Government officials who rob the poor to create wealth for the rich deserve to be chased from their workplace and inconvenienced for a few days. For what have been gained through non-violent means? Likely not even a public statement from Boris Johnson or David Cameron, which, insulting as those comments were (basically they told us “fuck you”, we’ll do what we want), at least made it clear we got their attention.

You are lucky we didn’t turn your party headquarters into a new social centre Cameron. Like it or not, this is what democracy looks like. This is not your government, these are not your streets, they are ours.

Articulation

Participation

Organisation

Risk

Comes before

Response

The media responses have been both positive and negative, though mostly sympathetic. One story that stands out in particular is the praise coming from lecturers at Goldsmith University for the protests who signed a statement saying “We the undersigned wish to congratulate staff and students on the magnificent anti-cuts demonstration this afternoon. We wish to condemn and distance ourselves from the from the divisive and, in our view, counterproductive statements issued by NUS and [national] UCU concerning the occupation of the Conservative Party HQ. The real violence in this situation relates not to a smashed window but to the destructive impact of the cuts.” The Millbank House occupation apparently included the particpation of one of the lecturers, Luke Cooper, as an organiser on the front lines. Royal Holloway bows to Luke Cooper and Goldsmiths – thank you for your support.

By the end of the night, I was kettled in the street as I waited for a friend to show up from Manchester to lend his support. I was “stop and searched” under Section 60 of the UK Terrorism Act, a search which was ill-timed and badly carried out, despite the levity with which most officers carried it out.

Kettled by

Reasonable

And unreasonable cops

So what happens now? Well, as I said, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Look forward to walk-outs on November 24th. Unfortunately I will be away at a workshop that week in Dundee, but I trust you all will keep this fire burning.

This isn't over

Tracks and Mineshafts
Peter Riley

Every faint gesture rebounds on us
leaving a vacant hollow in the world:
possible, unfulfilled acts embedded
in the tissue, growth points too late –
the land is riddled with failed promises
and premature returns.

He picks his way among hollows and craters,
earth funnels of abandoned mineshafts,
bracken fields, rose bushes gone wild,
dry voices ringing in the air
exhortations to labour and be patient –
derelict electricity sheds, tram lines
sunk into gravel, overgrassed courts;

he passes rows of empty cottages, hospice inmates,
boarded-up shops and brick scattered streets,
chapels and hermitages in stony wastes
all empty, sites of reflex impact,
inhabitants blasted to non-entity.

_______________________________________________

For Amy Cutler

I am a law only for my kind, I am no law for all.
-Nietzsche

Urban explorers are notorious for taking themselves too seriously, with our posed people shots and braggadocio over daring feats. I am probably more guilty of this than most. To be fair, that mentality is usually a reaction to “authorities” and the media treating the practice with little levity. When we do encounter authorities, we all know that getting them involved by showing them photos and talking about why what we are doing is harmless, and, in a best case scenario, getting them to laugh about it, is our best defence. Despite our appearance of machismo, most explorers are always game for a good laugh.

That is why I love the UE Kingz. You can’t watch this video and not crack a smile, despite the fact that they talk about taking bolt cutters to locks and tag up a drain in the video, blatantly breaching the UE “code of ethics”. And despite the antics depicted, the primary message of the video – the power of choice is, I think, an important one. While social and cultural constraints do exist, it is largely up to us to make life what we want it to be and the UE Kingz encourage us to take responsibility for that decison.  See, I told you I take this to seriously!

Cheers to the UE Kingz for bringing UrbEx a bit of festivity – we can all learn from them. Now get out there and go mad with a bolt cutter!

Nearly two years since the start of production, I am happy to announce that my video article Urban Explorers, Quests for Myth, Mystery and Meaning has just been released in the journal Geography Compass (Volume 4, Issue 10, pages 1448–1461, October 2010). Below is the video article followed by an annotated script and short piece written to support the film. I welcome any feedback you might have on either.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/38748411/Urban-Explorers-Quests-for-Myth-Mystery-and-Meaning