gallery and she said she’d tell the family. It was drizzling and I was grateful for the Barbour.
‘Did you speak to Herve?’ Sherman quacked as soon as I returned.
‘We-ell, I think it was him – my French is, um, rather inadequate. But Sherm, don’t you think you should try to rest?’
‘No, no, I don’t – I’m fucking flat out here as it is.’
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘They say hooray, we’re coining it, then they send in a nurse with another bag of rat poison.’
‘Is that what that stuff is?’
‘Yes, yes, nothing quite like it for thinning the blood.’
Baltie had been sent out to buy petits fours, which was what Sherman most wanted besides his phone back. I sat on the bed – there was plenty of room. My friend’s head moulded thepillows, and for the first time I wondered about the process involved in casting his body forms. I reached out to take his hand but he jerked it away:
‘What the fuck’re you crying for?’ he said.
5.03125
Light Aircraft
It was the smallest check-in desk either of us had ever seen – more like a lectern, with the Loganair logo plastered across the front. ‘Loganair!’ Sherman guffawed. ‘Should be logan
berry
.’ He stumped over to a drinks dispenser and began punching buttons distractedly. I wondered if he was already withdrawing from his phone habit.
Sherman’s doctor had said ambulation was the key to long-term recovery from DVT. ‘He means walking,’ the artist explained to me, ‘so if you’re still game for this northern jaunt let’s go.’
It had been a grim winter in London – I scratched my wrists so much one of them went septic. It was all right now, though, and as the twin-engined plane motored towards the thousand-foot sea cliffs of Foula I felt the unfamiliar turbulence of optimism. Sherman was in the co-pilot’s seat telling the pilot what to do.
5.015625
Paying Guests
An off-white cloud hung above the hills behind Mrs Field’s bungalow; tractor tyres weighted down the roof. She didn’t seem that pleased to see me again – although Sherman soon charmed her.
‘I’ve another chap staying,’ she explained, ‘and to be honest I don’t like the extra work.’
It was the man from the boutique hotel in Brighton, he was amazed by the coincidence – I couldn’t remember his name. Mrs Field grilled mini chicken Kievs for tea.
5.0078125
The Confession
‘Why would I want to hear about—’ His words were snatched away by the wind screeching up over the cliff edge. A giant skua hung above a perfectly round pool in the sward.
5.00390625
Top of the World, Ma
‘You know nothing of what I feel, believe me – you never have.’
5.001953125
La Jetée
I hurt him and there was only this way.
5.0009765625
Left Behind
Some rolled-up plastic trousers.
5.00048828125
The Earth Summit
And a mobile ...
5.000244140625
Global Reach
... phone.
Walking to Hollywood
I’ve been around the world several times and now it’s only banality that interests me - I track it with the relentlessness of a bounty hunter.
–Chris Marker,
Sans soleil
1
The Consultation
In early May of 2008, my treatment with Dr Shiva Mukti having reached a conclusion, with, I think, the feeling on both sides that there had been a measure of success, I decided to take a walking tour of Los Angeles.
Mukti showed me the last of the series of films he had made of me on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the same basement room at St Mungo’s where he had conducted our cognitive behavioural therapy sessions. In addition to using all the standard techniques, Mukti also videoed psychotics during their flamboyant episodes, then showed the films to them when lucid, in order to persuade these patients of the necessity of taking their medication.
‘In your case,’ he told me during our first meeting, ‘the situation is a bit different. Your reality testing seems wholly adequate; rather, your obsessive-compulsive thought
‘Did you speak to Herve?’ Sherman quacked as soon as I returned.
‘We-ell, I think it was him – my French is, um, rather inadequate. But Sherm, don’t you think you should try to rest?’
‘No, no, I don’t – I’m fucking flat out here as it is.’
‘What do the doctors say?’
‘They say hooray, we’re coining it, then they send in a nurse with another bag of rat poison.’
‘Is that what that stuff is?’
‘Yes, yes, nothing quite like it for thinning the blood.’
Baltie had been sent out to buy petits fours, which was what Sherman most wanted besides his phone back. I sat on the bed – there was plenty of room. My friend’s head moulded thepillows, and for the first time I wondered about the process involved in casting his body forms. I reached out to take his hand but he jerked it away:
‘What the fuck’re you crying for?’ he said.
5.03125
Light Aircraft
It was the smallest check-in desk either of us had ever seen – more like a lectern, with the Loganair logo plastered across the front. ‘Loganair!’ Sherman guffawed. ‘Should be logan
berry
.’ He stumped over to a drinks dispenser and began punching buttons distractedly. I wondered if he was already withdrawing from his phone habit.
Sherman’s doctor had said ambulation was the key to long-term recovery from DVT. ‘He means walking,’ the artist explained to me, ‘so if you’re still game for this northern jaunt let’s go.’
It had been a grim winter in London – I scratched my wrists so much one of them went septic. It was all right now, though, and as the twin-engined plane motored towards the thousand-foot sea cliffs of Foula I felt the unfamiliar turbulence of optimism. Sherman was in the co-pilot’s seat telling the pilot what to do.
5.015625
Paying Guests
An off-white cloud hung above the hills behind Mrs Field’s bungalow; tractor tyres weighted down the roof. She didn’t seem that pleased to see me again – although Sherman soon charmed her.
‘I’ve another chap staying,’ she explained, ‘and to be honest I don’t like the extra work.’
It was the man from the boutique hotel in Brighton, he was amazed by the coincidence – I couldn’t remember his name. Mrs Field grilled mini chicken Kievs for tea.
5.0078125
The Confession
‘Why would I want to hear about—’ His words were snatched away by the wind screeching up over the cliff edge. A giant skua hung above a perfectly round pool in the sward.
5.00390625
Top of the World, Ma
‘You know nothing of what I feel, believe me – you never have.’
5.001953125
La Jetée
I hurt him and there was only this way.
5.0009765625
Left Behind
Some rolled-up plastic trousers.
5.00048828125
The Earth Summit
And a mobile ...
5.000244140625
Global Reach
... phone.
Walking to Hollywood
I’ve been around the world several times and now it’s only banality that interests me - I track it with the relentlessness of a bounty hunter.
–Chris Marker,
Sans soleil
1
The Consultation
In early May of 2008, my treatment with Dr Shiva Mukti having reached a conclusion, with, I think, the feeling on both sides that there had been a measure of success, I decided to take a walking tour of Los Angeles.
Mukti showed me the last of the series of films he had made of me on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the same basement room at St Mungo’s where he had conducted our cognitive behavioural therapy sessions. In addition to using all the standard techniques, Mukti also videoed psychotics during their flamboyant episodes, then showed the films to them when lucid, in order to persuade these patients of the necessity of taking their medication.
‘In your case,’ he told me during our first meeting, ‘the situation is a bit different. Your reality testing seems wholly adequate; rather, your obsessive-compulsive thought
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