The Lowry Lounge 2024. I wasn’t looking forward to it, too many other things (readings) going on, but felt enthusiastic once Patricia and I were on our traditional way to the Bluecoat in Liverpool. (I’d also decided I would read ‘Malcolm Lowry’s Land’ at/on my online reading on Wednesday; see Pages: Details of Readings this Autumn.) And I was justified because Helen Tookey and Bryan Biggs (the central Firminists) had spent a lot of time and energy to compensate for limited funding this year. Since it was The Day of the Dead, this year focused on that, and upon its appearance (a weak word for its omnipresence) in Under the Volcano.
The Mexican altar from 2009 (the first Lowry Lounge: Pages: Malcolm Lowry: From the Mersey to the World) was re-envisaged (we brought a Hell Bunker golf ball, the Lowry beer bottle from 2009 and other bits and bobs; but I didn’t want to take leave of the notebook from my 1979 visit to Lowry’s grave!).
[Helen Tookey's photo of the altar upon which she spent much time]
Then in honour of the late John Hyatt (punk musician, visual artist and educator), who I liked very much, we watched his ‘backwards’ version, ‘resurrection’ he’d say, of the final chapter of Under the Volcano. (I’d embedded it on this blog, in my account of the 2018 Lounge: Pages: The 2018 Lowry Lounge in Liverpool and on the Wirral (including the Open Malc) (set list)). It occurred to me that my recent plan to narrate Dante’s Divine Comedy ‘backwards’ might have been unconsciously influenced by it. Might as well make it conscious. We saw some other of John’s contributions to the Lounge. What impressed me was the way he was able to re-imagine Lowry; I’ve long thought I’ve nothing more to say (or do), that the Lowry section of Doubly Stolen Fire was my final word. John Hyatt’s example suggests that that is not necessarily so. (See an account of last year, when I launched the book: Pages: Launch of Doubly Stolen Fire at the Lowry Lounge 2023, Liverpool (set list).)
'The Resurrection of Geoffrey Firmin' 2018. Oddly we watched a different video to this one, but it was the same performance!
Colin Dilnot talked about the Day of the Dead and found a solitary reference to Eisenstein’s epic filming in Mexico. Which we watched an edited version of. He also informed us that the novel sets Day of the Dead 1938 on a Sunday: it was a Wednesday! And Lowry and Jan didn’t arrive in Mexico for the first time on the Day itself (as we would be briskly informed in the Powell documentary we saw later). But a day or two before. (It strikes me now, perhaps on the Sunday before the Wednesday?) Death Day follows:
Lunch in the thriving Bluecoat with fellow-Firminist Ailsa, and Tim, catching up a little, before the afternoon session was called.
Bryan and Catherine Marcangeli talked about Adrian Henri’s early ‘The Entry of Christ into Liverpool’ (poem – painting (on hessian!) – performance) and the late ‘Day of the Dead in Hope St.’ (poem – paintings and studies – performance only planned), 1998. So, I thought, we were here in Liverpool when Henri raised the dead (with Lowry coming out of the Phil: I hope he wasn’t too disappointed with the beer). It was good to chat with Catherine who is only intermittently in Liverpool. (But she was here for Mersey Poets events in 2017: Pages: Celebration of 50 Years of The Mersey Sound (readings and pop up reading by Roger McGough) (set list).) Here's the Liverpool Scene with Henri, performing the poem.
An Open Malc with Alan Peters blowing harp and singing a bit of Adrian’s ‘Day of the Dead’ poem, which he’d scribbled down as it was displayed (thus giving it the scratch performance that Adrian never achieved). Now I appreciate the inter-art aspects of Henri’s work, I’m I much bigger fan than I’ve been, seeing, as I did, the Mersy poets’ fame as a bit of a blanket over the rest of The British Poetry Revival – but I see now that that was never their intention, though it was an unintended consequence of that fame and notoriety. I know I’m rattling away from the theme, but it’s worth to add that Alan performed and toured with Henri at some point.
Helen Tookey read some more beautiful passages from her forthcoming book on/about/out of/round and about Lowry. More about that when it’s out, I think. In the meantime, here's the New Brighton plaque for Lowry, with the quote selected by Helen.
A showing of Tristram Powell’s 1960s documentary on Lowry followed. (Meeting the film maker himself a few years ago was a privilege. He died earlier this year, after a legendary career in film and TV. Rough Passage was his first feature in 1967: it's worth it to hear the dreadful John Davenport, who elsewhere accuses Lowry of being an onanist, here calls him 'a little tipsy Delilah'!) I can't the video or Tristram's website.
The traditional toast to Lowry and (this year) to John: mescal, of course!
A final photo of me at the Lyceum Day of the Dead crazy golf bid accompanied a farewell to us all until next year.
An image of Messers Lowry and Sheppard...
