A Bound Art Book Fair Experience
A short piece of prose documenting Joshua Hester’s (and Well Books) first experience of Manchester and The Bound Art Book Fair, with no place to stay.
FRIDAY
Stepped out in the brisk and cold into this newborn landscape. Red brick, new spots. Walking across the river damns. Creative studios. Old faces with young smiles that fly by in open window ciggie cars. Woke up to the sound of a Filipino night terror. I’m on the floor trying not to rustle to wake Jonny. A brown rug, two pillars, and a broken phone charger. Creaking into their two-way bathroom. Partners in separate beds, with two locks on the bathroom door. Brush teeth, brush teeth. I got the taste of Negronis and beautiful bartenders in my gums. I come back into his showroom. Empty bed. I hear scuttles. “Do you want to have a shower?”. He must have spoken to his Mr, who had no idea this nutter was in the buildingggggg. “Grab any towel you want, also there’s coffee in the kitchen ready” Ahah, what YES OF COURSE I DO, thank you. The twists and turns are magical aren’t they. Mate how many times do I need to tell YOU and the blank walls in my room. TRUST DAO. The way appears right in front of your crusty ten toes, only when you start to walk on it. So step on the dust my friends
“Excuse me mate thats my seat” Well I’ve already sewn my sweaty pits into it from that locus swarm of people. Delayed. Delayed. Cancelled. Piles of panic. I love the shoulders. “Check your ticket, they’ll be a reserved seat”. Coach E. Coach E. Do you know which way E is? “I no English”. Oh its right here. 41. 42. 43.. 47. I think youre in my seat. “I got the same one, we’re two trains in one right now” Damn. We locked eyes before I’d asked the dude in 48. A sparkle. A brown deserted glaze in round eyes. Moon face. Do you mind if I sit here? “Not at all go ahead”. What accent is that? “I’m so hot! I can’t breathe in here so stuffy” Did you run? She lets out a sigh and shuffles her bag on her knees. I hear her thoughts through the feelings in my body. TOO MANY NOISES. TOO MANY PEOPLE. Talking talking. More than one can’t hear none. How you blasting your vocal chords down a phone right now theres no single. Signal. Head phones on breath…okay so we’ve met another.
I slip it out from the side of my bag. Flop it open to where we left off. Venus-Uranus aspects. I catch her sneeking a glance at the back of the cover from my eye corners. I turn and smile. Lose concentration. Can’t read. ‘Do you feel confident enough to tell your partner you need time off sometimes?’. Dogear. Close. Back in bag. “What you reading, looks like something to do with Wildlife?” I point to The Inner Planets.
Ten thousand feet
Public stains
Persian seats
Where, when
Research assitant
DNA
Save dolphins
what’s your dream?
Nice place.
“The Shahnama Ferdosi, you should read it” Are you Sufi? “Well its hard to be one so I can’t say but I know the lightness is needed. These past two years have been so lonely. I miss my family. I miss my cat peanut. I’ve got to job hunt, won’t have one in a month”
Damn its 9pm already. I shuffle and rustle my temples against the head rests to find a comfy positon to listen. Truly listen with full eyes. But my beautifully shaped nose is making me feel nautious in my pariferel. I wonder if I’m cross eyes right now. I glance down and see thick black moorish hair that reaches to the caverns of the underworld. “He left me two weeks ago with no good reason, ‘Oh I think you dont like me, I think youre just with me for my passport, and youre a witch’ that hurt. On my birthday as well”. She said it with such gentle cadence but I could feel the heart wrench. A guard a shield, an auric wall shes handcrafted around her soft heart. Flip a coin. Dark side of the moon. Dreams that wake. Sigils and spells. Energy arms. My sister does that too. I could see peoples thoughts. Ajna training eight years. Reiki palms. Aching arms, shoulders. Same
Take risks and prosper.
SATURDAY
It’s raining. So lightly under the sun. Tears are rolling down my cheeks. Two solid pours. I wipe them with my sleeve and let the soft jazz playing from hidden speakers carry my breath. The sun breaks free from the clouds and sends cascading bars of light through the window panes. Full body glass sculptures, flattened. I’m loving doing this alone. My silent mind adores it. But the warmth of next year already fills my imagination. I can see Liv in the chair next to me. We’re cracking jokes and saying something stoopid about some weird interaction we had with that dude at the bar last night that wanted to fly to space. Both and both. Place and place. I clock the metal sculpture outside. Again it holds the stance as strong as the trees its attempting to be. The space. The walkway between the tables. The Mancunian meddling happy go getter serving me cheap great coffee. You got a great spirit mate. “I try”. Yo is that Garamond. “Caslon I think” look at the &, it swoops different. Black on black nice man. “You guys geeking out”. The best place to.
Crossed arm nepo babies. What is everyones fixation on love. Catastrophic work nights. Belly dancing. Rub it for me and watch three wishes become yours. Make a mini book of all your prototypes. See how the narrative flows.
I didn’t even realise there wasn’t music until they started playing. Now we groovin, and moovin, head snoozin no more, feet tap tap gatatat. Move your hat to the side, flirt with your bride. And buy her a sweet ride home. Music is the only thing that can defeat me.
I look up. Ayo Muj tha fuck how you doin. Chillin. Greezin. Selling more. Sipping water. Ciggies outside in the cold. Manu won 4-2. The Courtyard. Ujebien. Where you at? “I’m in Madrid, been workin here for a month, visa running out thou”. Freezing cold cheeks on a stone bench. Yamin Dahl and pita. How you doin’, fine wine? I got the real tour of Manneh. The left alone gates to the fishing market. The old skate shop. Archies. The Pakistanis beaten black and blue by feds. Eyes comin out sockets. Court cases won. Old boys. Covid. Running through back alleys and parks. Home town. “What you want, lemme get you a pint”. This city holds you, and it wants to. “See ya tomorrow”. Boom bap. The sound of late 50s hats. Pints, skats. Vinyls. Records. Chat. Legs touch and scrape. Feel it's too late. My throat is now a 1700s chimney with no kid to clean it. “Aye I grew up in Kingston”. Photobooks. “There should be a spare room for you if you got nowhere else” Fulfilling all my desires, I don’t need dreams no more. Jonny Jonny. Piss street. Boozy boozers. Buses and charters. Taken the way down. Old town, new town. Places where jazz used to be. Another night walking on the precipice and I found a bed better than my own at home. Stilts. Car batteries. Amps on the floor. Circuit boards and more. More. Carpet beetles and love. Making its way through me.
SUNDAY
Cheers lad. Coffee and a crack at half past dawn. Mourning my old ways of falling in love with every looker. Back to grey clouds and rain. All the same. Timothy Horton heard who wanted NUMBER 3032.
Indigina
borboleta
a musica
alma
caneta
arvore
guerra
diablo
branco.
Snippet of a life snippet. Sat in the ergonomic chair watching a short doc in the gallery of the book fair. Ancestral wisdom drips from the walls—textures of long left hair and the language of the great mother's tongue. The family in the film say the word casava and I start crying. I’m lying. I’m balling my eyes out. Not even sure why at this point. Rage, anger, love, pain, fire-fuelled. Muitos saudades. Contact bones. The oogly spirits that wear masks at the end of my bed. Dreams with too much going on to remember. Whispers from the neverend. Can I pretend much longer? The mission I was given to cut through the minds with precision. The caucas clueless fog waiting for a mental joggin from the sword laced with Claritin. m.e.n. and the pill poppin palace fiends. Labrynth stone circles. Returning to the craft of drawing my own shape around the people. Come down the walls and bring in the spirit from you, the tree line.
Fly by. Half an hour til done. Rules slipping. Coffee under tables. Couscous, chickpeas and bread underarm. Busy bees. Brushing shoulders. “You got any toothpaste?” Back to zone 6 I go. Cel cel cellulite. One last lighter.
No sufis on this train home. Apart from everyone. The dad with his 110s and iPad kid. The girl with the flowerpuff phone case, who's annoyed she has to ask me to piss. Picture in mind. A new book, as always, wallpapered and plastered in my head. Cat cat cat titty tap. New layouts, blue and cream, simple stream and block of text. Page numbers. “Next stop Euston”. Wicked, already.
And it's back.
The dry heavy faces.
The silence on trains full of people.
The pissed off mean mugging from your neighbour’s gran.
Like how you get like that.
It’s colder up north, and your souls in competition.
Feels like home though. Sleepy, tired. My throat is scratching like jumper wool. The good tired. The one that’s worth it. The two-step hop to platform 8. Driving drivin. This is nothing, mate. Your legs will be in the soil tomorrow. And though I am home, something has found itself deeply bound.
