remote cards

“YOU” the makeshift envelopes say. Every time. I’ve found 3 so far. I wonder how many I’ve missed. The last couple have been little brown paper bags, kind you’d maybe get with buying a postcard. The lip folded over, stapled shut. A stamp over it “YOU”, and this latest one the picture of a bird, a swallow or something. I think the last one had something, but can’t remember what. Each time I’ve found them its been in Mono – the vegan café bar, along the shelf with flyers and booklets, along that front edge between the Mono bar part and the Monorail record shop part. I had to push by the table football table, with its glass top, and its cigarette burns from years before. We sit at the table all night, the brown paper envelope sitting under the book I was reading before A arrived, with the others after him. When I get home, I tear it open, and it starts like all the other “Dear You”. It’s a letter, hand written, with scribbles, and scores, and spelling mistakes, just as it was intended, an A4 lined sheet of paper, torn out, and photocopied once done. Folded, a pile of them, and slipped into the bag. She talks about various things, though they are never signed, I am sure it is a she, just from the context. Before she talked about hitting a certain age, and where she and her friends were with their lives. Then about her zine, and how someone ripped off one of her texts without credit, and how upset she was by this. This one talks about how she does her zine, how important it is to her, even if it isn’t to anyone else. I wonder about her zine, since there is no evidence of a physical magazine, or a link to an electronic one. But then, it does offer the answer, this is the zine, these pieces of paper released into the world for random people to read, unsigned and uncredited. At one point, as I go back and forth to the bar, there is a girl at a table, sitting by herself, long light brown hair, writing, little bits of paper, piles of bits and pieces. I wonder, is that her? Writing her latest? But without a photocopier to mass produce them right now? I check for more after she has gone, but only that first one I already picked up still sits there. Its that kind of place though, people in corners, with laptops, with art pads, with books, people coming in alone, or in groups. The acoustics are funny in here, so you get fragments of conversations – the girl that has to take photos for her scrap book, and then explain beside them why she took the picture. Two guys talk about unsigned bands and demos, about a gig here and there, the grizzled words of veterans who have been there done that, on the small scale you understand. How are You? Where are You? I wonder.

Labels: bar, cafe, envelope, glasgow, mono, monorail, vegan, writing, you, zine

We are sitting in a bar when a girl comes in, a friend of a friend, so she comes over and chats to us. How are you liking Austria? She asks me. I’ve only been here a day, it’s rained most of that time, we spent the afternoon in a museum. What can I say? She has come in with two shady looking guys, who don’t come over to join us. They sit at the bar, watching everyone, talking to each other. We leave about then, so she goes back to join them. Later, we are in a packed club, a crush of bodies, and I see her in the crowd, amongst the cloud of smoke and flashing lights, the pounding music. We don’t stay long, having wandered in long enough to get a flavour of the place, before wandering on to the next place. We manage to get a table in Cubus, in the corner, with the lights of the AEC’s façade still going through their colour spectrum beside us. We’ve been there a few minutes when the two shady guys appear at the next table, no sign of the girl this time, just the two of them at a table, looking shifty. A waitress appears almost immediately. I swear I hear her say – so this is the bag? To which they nod. And she grabs a bag from the floor by their feet, where I hadn’t seen it. And she is off with it, returning a minute later with a beer for each of them. Five minutes later a waiter comes along, stands and chats to them, he is grinning, pleased about something. The two guys sit a while, the beers barely touched, instead nursing soft drinks, smoking, looking shiftily around.

Labels: ars electronica, bar, girl, guys, linz

We’ve gone round to a bar, wear a friend of the people I am with works. Winding through streets which are unfamiliar to me, and teeming with people. The wine festival coincides with Ars Electronica, so every bar has a stand outside, people are wandering from place to place carrying large glasses, and we wove our way through this mass. While we wait for the friend to appear we are served by a plain looking girl with long dark hair tied back, wearing the shirt with the bar’s name like the other staff. When she is done serving us she goes back to the bar, where she is tearing mint. She has bushels of the stuff, and is tearing it into manageable chunks for cocktails. She pops a bit in her mouth and chews, the air full of the smell of fresh mint. Beside her one of the other waitresses is on pineapple – she approaches it with a knife, trying to decide the best way to get it to do what she wants it to do. Whatever she does, it doesn’t work, and is soon taking a cloth to her shirt to soak up the spray of juice. Beside her there is a guy, making pink cocktails for the couple at the end of the bar. The girl has very short hair, bright and blonde, wearing a striking shoulderless dress, while he looks much plainer in his basic smart shirt and jumper. The bar man slices a strawberry just so, and perches it on the rim of the glass, smiling content with his work.. Before taking the two pink drinks and delivering them to the couple. The friend arrives, we chatter, we get more drinks, and laugh, then we leave, heading to the AEC once again.

Labels: ars electronica, bar, cocktail, drinks, linz, waiter, waiting

I am in the photograph that she takes, writing this I guess. Perhaps, depending on her focus. Sitting in the cinema bar. Two guys came in and got themselves drinks. They chatter away – foreign – but I’m not sure from where, some where Mediterranean? One is tubby, his hair straggly and thinning, his belly pronounced, a tufty goatee. The other is younger, more handsome, dressed more smartly, though they could still be brothers. They’ve been here a little while before she arrives. And she is eye catching. Carefully styled hair, shoulder length, wavy, dark, with her fringe a blonde tint. She wears a short, tight, zebra print dress. It shows off her nicely shaped rear and props up and compliments her cleavage. The dress leaves her shoulders bare, it has a back slit that shows a bra strap and bare flesh, it is short enough (and rides up when she sits) to show her nice legs (wearing black tights). She wears gold rings, one with chains across the back of her hand, connecting to a bracelet around her wrist. As soon as she sits down the produces the camera and they take turns snapping each other. The tubby guy get the camera and tells the two to get together. So she clambers into his lap and they snuggle together. Staying that way even when they stop taking pictures. The younger guy running his hand up and down her bare back, his hand through her hair, and they kiss, wetly. At times they switch to English as though they are not quite all from the same place, or they can easily express certain things in a different language. The dress is thin, it clings to her flesh, his hand through that slit, grasps her pink bra, and undoes the clasp. Holding the ends in his fist. She looks at him, a stare, until he does it back up again. Then she moves off his lap, back to her own chair. About ten minutes pass and words are exchanged. The tubby guy stands up and leaves, there almost seems to be an element of hostility in the air. The couple exchange glances after he has gone, before a moment later and she is back in his lap, kissing and having her hair stroked. He fiddles with her bra again, this time she slaps him, enough to get his attention focussed. After a while the pair get up and leave, looking at their watches, time for the film to start. Heads turn all around to watch her leave, to watch that dress cling to her body. She really is something, and totally over done for a Sunday afternoon in the cinema, but she doesn’t care. That’s that then? But five minutes later, the tubby guy reappears, coming round the corner to return to that table. He stops, looks confused. Presumably he popped out for something, but took longer than expected – they aren’t there, so he turns again, and goes off to find them.

Labels: bar, cinema, dress, girl, glasgow, guys, zebra

It is funny to see them afterwards. Recognising them with their clothes on. The girl, with the short hair, now in a black top, with a plunging neckline and jeans. Beside her, the girl with the shoulder length hair, the one that had been fully topless at one point, rather than just transparent, the one that had played the drums – she wears a yellow t-shirt, a brown long sleeved beneath that. They pass below us, as we sit on the mezzanine floor, on their way to the bar post-show. One of the pony tailed girls appears from the passage leading to back stage, in one hand a bulging luggage bag, in the other a fat polythene bag fit for bursting. They open the door to Tramway 1 for her, and she puts them just inside, and skips off to find the other girls. As she goes by, I can see she has her lip pierced, and I know that it was her mouth, amongst all those mouths, that we had seen on the screen with the lip ring. The guy that did the first version of the show’s monologue wanders about - masturbation, suicide, orgasm, murder, enjoyment – as broad shouldered and muscled as he had been, the t-shirt he wears now equally snug against his torso. Then there is the guy with the Mohawk, who is more obvious, a turquoise blue v-neck t-shirt, a chain around his neck. The first time we saw him he was in heels and a dress, Mohawk and lipstick. When asked which dancer I thought had the best legs I said it was him, absolutely, no doubt. He stands by himself, leaning against a pillar, tired, a little lost perhaps, cradling a glass of white whine. Though, soon, he has three girls around him engaging him in conversation. Its not long before the place starts to empty. The drummer girl is retrieving her bags, pulling on her jacket. The Mohawk bloke is peeling one of the event posters from the wall, rolling it up, I’ll donate it to the company he calls out to a member of staff. We put our jackets on, and leave, the drummer girl is talking to a taxi driver, walks back in, passing us, a woollen hat on her head, earthy coloured, with a flower stitched on to it. We leave, she chases up the rest of her group.

Labels: audience, bar, dance, glasgow, theatre