http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/Story, spoken word, strange arm gestures.Copyright Gavin Inglis 2012Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:30:02 GMTPyRSS2Gen-1.0.0http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rsshttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/180812.htmlLately I have been running around parks and hidden lanes in Edinburgh’s South Side. This is the first bit of running I have done since leaving high school. It wasn’t inspired by the Olympics; I wanted to play a game. I aspire to stay fit, but like a large percentage of the population I have trouble keeping up a exercise […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/180812.htmlSat, 18 Aug 2012 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/090312.htmlI remembered reading an article on sounds made from star vibrations. This endeavour combined music, astronomy, and maths, and conveniently, stars also lit up the Earth. It was a perfect fit for the enLIGHTen project. I Googled carefully and tracked down a page of sonifications from the Kepler satellite. Listening to them, I thought some could fit behind spoken word […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/090312.htmlFri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/290212.htmlToday would have been the 100th birthday of my granny, Mary Fraser Anderson Young (1912–1995). She liked to be called Molly. Because of the leap year, technically it would have been her 25th birthday. She was a fun granny. I remember little details about her. When I was very small, she would make a swing by hanging a bit of […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/290212.htmlWed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/251011.htmlI often wish that my Edinburgh flat had a door which led to London. I suppose it might lead to complications with the Council Tax, but I would like to be able to drop into the city’s cultural schedule at will without that messy business of travel and accommodation. I used to live in a plasterboard half-room in Clapham and […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/251011.htmlTue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/290811.htmlI am jealous of musicians. There. I said it. As a writer you spend hours staring at blank pages, trying to manipulate your unconscious to come up with something startling and insightful which will touch people on a deep level. Then you crank out the first draft against psychological resistance. Then you hate it. Eventually you go back to it […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/290811.htmlMon, 29 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/210711.htmlFestival time in Edinburgh can be strange for the writer who performs their own work. You walk around a city choked with shows, operating from every conceivable venue, and many, many of them are absolutely dire. Yet unless you got organised six months earlier and paid the almighty price of entry to the Fringe programme, you probably won’t get a […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/210711.htmlThu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/260511.htmlSpoken word nights come and go. The earliest one I remember was Rodney Relax's Yellow Café in what is now Medina. Being a producer and avid consumer of stories, I’ve never been very interested in exclusive poetry nights like Big Word or Is This Poetry? and somehow I've never become a regular at the Forest’s lit/music/poetry institution The Golden Hour. […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/260511.htmlThu, 26 May 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/160311.htmlSo I had a secret plan to try stand-up comedy in 2011. I feel comfortable MCing and lots of my stories are funny, so I thought it would be a natural progression. I thought I'd book into a beginners’ night and while I was waiting for my name to come up — these things have an eight-month queue — I […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/160311.htmlWed, 16 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/010311.htmlI visited Blackpool recently for my first magic convention. I saw some amazing things: guys reading cards held behind their back, mental transmission of a date between two strangers from the audience, dancers producing seemingly endless packs of cards, and even a dodgy levitating couch. But the most amazing thing was entirely spontaneous. Having registered very late, my seat for […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/010311.htmlTue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/090111.htmlThis week was good for TV magic with the debut of The Magicians on BBC and Penn and Teller: Fool Us on ITV. There could hardly have been more of a contrast. I’ve never been a great fan of Penn & Teller because of the shock value in their act — I like my magic with more elegant mystery and […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/090111.htmlSun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/291010.htmlThis post contains spoilers about the plot of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. That might not seem like a big deal but some people take musicals very seriously. Last night Andrew C Ferguson and I went to see a mutual friend perform in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Although I hate gingham I do quite like musicals and […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/291010.htmlFri, 29 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/031010.htmlYesterday I had my first experience of psychogeography, going on a dérive with the rather more experienced Barbara Melville. The subject has been tapping on my consciousness for a while. It appeals on a number of levels: a fascination with odd maps; normal writer’s nosiness; a tendency to perceive the environment and communicate in a spatial way; and a general […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/031010.htmlSun, 03 Oct 2010 00:00:00 GMThttp://www.gavininglis.com/blog/210810.htmlJust had the pleasure of bumping into Sean Martin at the Book Festival, a fellow contributor to the new Mutation Press anthology Music For Another World. There’s a lot to like about this anthology. The concept — speculative fiction on the theme of music — has prompted a lot of gnashing teeth online from people who wished they’d thought of […]http://www.gavininglis.com/blog/210810.htmlSat, 21 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT