Fri 15 Sept 06

Usual struggle getting up, feeding kids, no-one's teeth got cleaned, just about got to school on time, with Son 2 dragging on my arm all the way. It's quite hard to keep things moving forward both physicallly and mentally when you have a little person literally pulling you backwards all the way. Hmm. 7 emails in my in box when I got home. All the artists and writers I have been contacting to get involved with the project all say YES. Hurray. This is very good news. I have many ideas, and they are constantly evolving. I hope to do a mass street corner poetry slam. I can't decide whether we should stick to one street corner, the one Doreen showed me with the steps up to it that need to be removed, or go for as many street corners as possible? I hope to involve as many street-corner hanger-outers as possible. The plan is to host a day of poetry workshops - don't know where yet, maybe in the Adult Education College - then have the live performances that night and hope that some of the locals feel brave enough, with their newly learned skills, to take part. Practical logistics - weather/cold - it will be winter. Lighting? Refreshments? Unfortunately this is a project to regenerate open spaces taking place through the depths of winter. Also, would have to hope that residents near the street corner will view the activity positively and come and get involved too. I also have an idea of re-mapping the Northlands Park: re-naming key spots to create a virtual map, and adding in a level of fantasy. I'm not yet sure how this will work. It's a big park. I also would very much like artist Fiona Banner to do a live landscape portrait in words which could then become a Pull Out section of the publication? I want to do a Speaker's Corner event on the spot just to the left of the road that has a Teenage Village in place. I don't yet know all the names of the places. This will be an opportunity for local fanatacists (fanatical about anything: dogs, lentils...?) to have their shout. There will be surreptitious art drops, gueriila gigs, maybe a mass frisbee event. It's amazing once you start looking who is out there and what they are doing. There are lots of people doing this stuff. I look forward to tapping into them all.
Woke up of course to all the usual fears- my house is a tip, I don't want to get up, what if I can't make all this stuff happen, what if no-one comes? Etc etc.