Wondermentalist

If you weren’t there I want to tell you who was and what they were like. If you were there I want to remind you and tell you where you can hear more.

The evening kicked off with me chuntering on by way of warm up, and I admit I had no idea what I was on about or where I was going with any of it, until I remembered to infotain the audience with the backstory of Empath Man and perform a new scene where he is commissioned by the police chief to try and bust a cult. I’m going to blog Empath Man later and ask for feedback. God knows I need it.

Things picked up a bit here, I like to think, and then I introduced Jo Walton and Graham Macy, who are Nomad Shuffle. Nomad Shuffle haven’t been going long enough to have a web presence of any description – their Traydio presence will be their first output and upload – but if you type “Nomad Shuffle” into Google you get a link to a blog called The Inevitable Deterioration of A Good Person which I found diverting for a (short) while.

Next up, Beryl the Feral, most excellent slam winning performance poet, had just arrived back from Whitstable (where she’s been commissioned to make a new interventional poetry-based work for the Whitstable Biennale). Nevertheless she was composed and wonderful. Her set will be up on Traydio very soon, meanwhile sneak a preview here (click on “live recording”). Beryl the Feral has a self-published cd and two small paperback collections: ‘Poims And Other Stuff For Lovely People’ and ‘Got Poims?’ and it was gratifying afterwards to see a small cluster of persons gathered round her making poetic purchases.

[Which reminds me we must get a ‘merchandise’ table for the next wondermentalist cabaret. And someone to ‘mind’ it. Anyone interested please let me know…]

There followed cameo appearances from Stephen Park, Jackie Juno and Nathan Filer. These also went very well indeed.

Stephen Park is an artist as well as a comedian and poet. Visit his website, it’s great. Look at his drawings. Read interesting facts about him. They are, truly, interesting. What intrigued me after the show, when people said nice things (very nice things) about Stephen’s appearance, was that they referred to him as “the man who took things out his bag”, a reference not to his actual performance but to his introduction where I described the first time I saw him, in Exeter. I hope Stephen will not only return to do a longer set at the Wondermentalist Cabaret, but bring his bag, take things out of it, and talk about them with the candour, insight and quirky perspicacity (quirspicacity) that is his trademark.

Jackie Juno spoke to us in different voices. A multi-cultural event in her own right, she blurred the boundaries between nations and peoples till we didn’t know which way was east, west or Abergavenny. Later Jackie was to win the Dead Poets’ Slam on behalf of Kabir, but that’s another blog posting. Jackie is our headline act on January 25th. Come early and get a seat quite near her. You can also catch her online here.

Nathan Filer has been described as a “comic genius of insatiable libido and lyrical elasticity” and I would happily have introduced him as such, only he feels he’s outgrown that persona and anyway was intending to perform a more tender “I’m on my holidays and my girlfriend’s watching” poem, so I described him instead as a “troubled former comic genius with an all too easily satisfied libido and a quality of brittle lyricism, who occasionally shows a poignant glimpse of the talent that once was his.” At least I tried to. I stumbled so much over the intro I may as well not have bothered. Nathan made witty reference to my earlier attempt to sort the audience into dog/cat, optimist/pessimist, optimistic cat/pessimistic dog/pessimistic cat/optimistic dog type people. To be honest it reminded me of my We and My Shadow poem podcasted on Traydio last month, but Nathan wasn’t to know this. He then gave us an all-too-brief glimpse of his lyrical elasticity, but rest assured he’ll be back for an extended set in the New Year. He promised. His website by the way is called www.lyricalelastic.com - it was down for essential maintenance when I went for a look/listen, but meanwhile you can visit his myspace site. Did I mention Nathan is a prize-winning film-maker? No, there’s only so much you can take in one go isn’t there?

The first half ended with Classical Hindustani vocalist Pooja Angra a noted singer trained in classical music and a regular performer for the All India radio and Indian television network. Pooja’s presence at the inaugural Wondermentalist Cabaret was quite a coup for us and I was delighted with the rapturous reception she received. You can hear more of her here on YouTube, performing with tabla player Madan Rana. Pooja was a real hit and we very much hope she can be persuaded to return some time in the New Year.

The first half ended with me saying thank you to everyone and not setting a competition (as I’d originally intended) because we’d overrun by twenty minutes. As has this post. It was meant to be two hundred words, nine of them “marvellous” with four “splendid”s and a “magnificent”.

Welcome to wondermentalist. What is a wondermentalist? I don’t know.
I put the word wondermentalist in Google, it said that thing it says: “Your search - wondermentalist - did not match any documents. Do you mean fundamentalist?” No, I don’t. That’s part of the point.

Does this mean I coined the word myself? It’s possible, although I’m probably not the only one. I want to tell you where the word comes from, of my coining of it, anyway – I’m sure other people have thought of it too, it’s that kind of word. But I coined my version when I was asked to write a piece about the paranormal – which I happily agreed to. I was told there’d be a yes-piece, a no-piece and a don’t-know-piece, and it was assumed I’d write the yes piece – because I’m that kind of guy – but I politely declined and said I’d prefer to be the don’t-know. I’m not sure why.
This is what I wrote. And I stand by it. It’s called…

The Paranormal

I don’t know. To believe or not to believe….is not really the question. In fact the word ‘paranormal’ isn’t in my dictionary. Not because I’m dismissive but, ironically, because I left my dictionary overnight in a crop circle, and next morning the words had mutated in bizarre yet strangely meaningful ways.

The word ‘paranoiamal’ for example – another word that’s not in Google but is worth a 50 point bonus in astral scrabble. ‘Paranoiamal’ admirably conveys the almost sixth sense of persecution often experienced by people discussing the paranormal. Mud seems to sling itself. Goalposts shift position, then dematerialise. The heat generated sets off smoke alarms – yet no fire is found.

Which, let’s face it, it won’t be. Not under laboratory conditions, where paranormal kindling won’t ignite. And no matter what smouldering evidence is found elsewhere, no matter what sincere and eloquent testimony is provided by scorched psyches, proof is elusive. The paranormal is unreliable. Believing in it is embarrassing, investigating it is frustrating but to dismiss it out of hand calls to mind another evocative word in my doctored dictionary ‘smugma’.

‘Smugma’ suggests the satisfying set of assumptions - stopping pleasingly short of dogma – which self-professed rationalists evolve from the received revelations of science. An interpretation of science reminiscent of the Borg in Star Trek, whose motto ‘We will absorb you’ becomes ‘We will explain you’. And what we can’t explain doesn’t happen – you credulous ninny/charlatan/disturbed person. (Tick as appropriate)

But when my friend confides in me about the time his mother appeared in his caravan the night she died on another continent, I don’t have to say to him, Sorry, you’re clearly sad or bad or mad. And likewise when my other friend tells me he dreamt the name of a horse which is running in the 2.30 at Kempton Park, I don’t have to rush out and put a substantial sum on it.

Although I did.

I’m a Don’t Know with ‘wondermentalist’ tendencies. Wondermentalism is the third and last word from my crop circled dictionary – best expressed by the Red Queen (from Through the Looking Glass) telling Alice ‘When I was your age I used to believe six impossible things before breakfast.’

Not to be willing to believe beyond the evidence is defensible but somehow barren. As if our very ability to love were dependent on the qualities of who and what is out there, rather than an inner capacity which can be cultivated.

Not that we can believe whatever we like, construct the world from a DIY David Ikea flat-pack reality kit. I’m not saying that. Not at this point.

But it’s as if we believe beliefs arise solely from the three R’s of reason, reflection, repetition and arithmetic, uninfluenced by the three T’s of taste, temperament and tradition. Some would add tidiness to that list. I am not among them – although as a Virgo I’m partial to tidiness – but I like my fundamentals left open ended and raggedy-edged.

I don’t know much about reality, but I know what I like.

So, I’m a Don’t-Know. Not a hedge-your-bets, hover-politely-over-the-fence Don’t-Know, but a Can’t-Know Won’t-Know Don’t Know. Shine the pure light of my uncertainty through a prism and you get a: No. Yes. Maybe. Sometimes. None of the Above. All of the Above. Leave me alone. And when we go to the polls to vote on what’s ultimately real I’ll wear my Don’t-Know rosette with pride. Spike Milligan said, ‘One day the Don’t-Knows will get in, and then where will we be?’ To which the answer, and I feel passionately about this, is ‘I’m not sure.’