Z World Drift

Z World Drift From: "Phil Smith" Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 21:23:22 -0000 To: "Sue Palmer" Subject: Re: drifting Dear Sue, Wrights & Sites are planning one of our exploratory walks - or 'drifts' - on Monday 16th of December. We are looking to invite a couple of guests who have some fine art, construction, geography or science interest and skills. Z Microworlds will begin at the High Street in Exeter - taking the 5.46 am Z bus out towards the outskirts of the city. We'll then walk around the edge of the city looking for and making 'little worlds.' This can be making constructions from ruins and rubbish, it can be finding an existing little world and exploring it, it can be the taking of a little world with us and finding a place to build it or place it. The guests must be ready for the 'drift' to continue into the late evening. If you are interested or if you know anyone who might be interested could you please let me know so that I can send them an invitation? all the best, Phil

yes Phil I can!!!!! I think I could make 5.46 bus on the Monday morning - gawd - a bit of a stretch but yes I am very interested and thrilled that that day is free for me and it would be great to spend the day with you lot. Much love Sue

Sue, In the meantime you could be collecting/making a 'little world' to bring with you to 'place' somewhere on the drift, any kit you'd like to record, photo, etc. the drift particularly anything we can instantly pass on to other people so we get an emergent thing going - and any kit you think might be useful in constructing worlds as we go. love Phil

Monday 16th December drift day 3.40am pitch leave red moon very low looks like the sun cold

david’s house at 4.40am his boots outside the house coffee smoking leave ice on the car smooth A38 we have a feeling we’ll miss the bus

down the hill to exeter and there is a sign that says road ahead closed, the main road in is closed, and there is a car with a blue flashing light behind us, and david thinks the police might be pulling us over, but why, we haven’t done anything, but there is a huge plume of dark smoke rising from the middle of the industrial estate and maybe for a confused second, we think the police might pull us in case we started the fire, because its strange that we are here at 5.31am and we don’t know the city or who we are right now, but we know we have to be at 5.48am on the z bus, only we are in z cars right now, but this is z hour between the worlds of sleeping and waking, and the light passes us and we turn around and do exactly the same circuit twice, so we keep coming back to the sign

and we can’t find anyway out of here, and we’ve missed the bus, and phil is on the phone because we are not there, and i find myself singing the fall’s song industrial estate over and over in my head, i have forgotten all the verses but the chorus i will never forget.

delhi call centres satellite the night

we keep ending up at the fire. drive to alphington pull up at a roundabout get out and smoke next to a new showhome with a sign asking people not to knock at the door because people live there study the a-z of exeter wait we drive to steeple road off church street everyone else from the z bus is standing at the bus stop simon builds with small bricks on the pavement damp black we start walking towards the fire

down a street

cul de sac

why do we use that name

down a path to a graveyard

through a beautiful black iron gate

old old graves at the bottom

phil is like a drifting sniffer dog

i watch in the distance a woman in her kitchen, white bath robe, all the lights on, making tea, washing cups, it’s about 6.30am, and everyone is getting up now. if she looked up now and saw me she’d think it weird, me looking at her from a dark graveyard with a coke can house in my bag and four ballerina cake decorations tie boot lace

have a pee

and watch the others

disappearing out of sight and the excitement of being temporarily left behind spooky wasteground for tv news reports of police with bodybag

watch the fire red hose pipes on wet road people doing things for other people salvation army handing out breakfast sparks flying fireworks inside, my nose pressed through wire gate car parts factory on fire huge crane with huge lights like a UFO landing instant arson department inflatable tent news crews in on the scene transport cafe breakfast i like the typeface of the breakfast signs, with a nostalgia, us interrupters of working routine phil give me a tube of mystic smoke by the time we leave the cafe it’s light my skin looks like it did when i went to school we go towards the river and i smell the smell of the dead animal bones glue factory, and when i smell that smell i know exactly where i am

i put a ballerina on a scrap of red plastic by a lamp post

on a scruffy path on the way to the industrial estate she looks beautiful there, gold and light on the oily path

i put my coke can house on phil’s gathering of disgarded objects in the foggy dawn rubbish tip it’s steaming i wish i’d left it there but i was too attached even though the cans were from rubbish that i had collected even though i had made it for exeter my hands couldn’t let go of it the city too unfamiliar for this carefully fashioned craft the city too full for my little house to be squashed by a large unobservant tyre so i put it back into my rucksack and ate a banana like some strange uptight rambler she still looks beautiful there, gold and light on the oily path

talked with david for the whole crossing of the flood plain the flattened reeds and flatness and water recalling our minds to the somerset levels, to school, and the shack dwellers on the moors, and growing up memories so now, when i cross the flood plain again, when i cross the blue bridge - is it blue - i remember the first one as blue i will remember the story he told about accidentally putting the prong of a fork through his friend’s legs, pinning them together. i don’t remember the landscape we walked over, just the landscape we recalled from another place.

walking drifting commemorative plaque of Charles and Diana getting married on the side of a house eating chocolate bars weak coffee in a cafe with pictures of animals a single storey prefab offering tax advice on the busy traffic lighted cross roads waiting chairs faced out at the glass doors old cattle trough by the main road no cows needing water it’s empty we build things there, little things tired, and its only noon

crematorium wreaths lying on the ground as if dropped from the sky

a bus ride across the city the ticket’s expensive cutting across, right through the city houses and houses busier and busier filling with shops, buying and selling everyone has christmas carrier bags full big stores full of everything right across the city and out the other side houses and houses full of all the things that the carrier bags hold second hand shops full of all the things that the houses didn’t want

we come out at the edge of a park and go into a wasteground with no purpose we blow bubbles two ballerinas for the gate i see a van parked outside a bodywork garage it was the same van i saw being towed across the city an hour ago i see the newspaper headlines outside the shops one hundred fight fire it was the fire that happened before dawn

world of leather sainsbury’s for chips i stare at the sign on the photo booth about mental illness take a trolley and fill it with some things for christmas walking walking walking half seeing now a beautiful garage in the evening twilight a small door off the street, but running back deep and wide like a whole other world city centre rush hour dark again the day folded in i leave the city