SECRETS OF ESCAPOLOGY

 

Wanting to escape is important, of course.

Surprising how many overlook this point.

Better still to stack the odds.

The rest depends how long

you can keep the audience in your corner.

 

Houdini couldn’t walk through walls.

He almost always had a key

and once out of the box

he would read a while,

let the tension build before crashing

breathless through the screen.

 

When he died suddenly,

there was no time to prepare;

no chance to hide the key.

Still he kept them waiting.

Kept everyone waiting

long after the lights went up.

 

Wanting to escape is important, of course.

 

 

Tony Noon

Curating The Clean Age

Curating The Clean Age

Plato would have got it.

How whole lives can be lived

inside four walls while shadows

dance uncontrollably outside.

Out here dark and peopleless

streets are full of noise. Drains

gush and the tyres of boy racers

squeal unchallenged by the good .

We are between something.

Our rich past holds us down. 

A half ship,torn in two, the stern 

safe and full of air. The bow,broken. 

Thrust forward empty,it frightens .

Dreams scattered like luggage

along deep canyons to lie

unsalvaged in the aftershock.

We must either refloat this hulk

and anchor it or leave it.

Let the tides wash indiscretions

and curate the clean age .

Tony Noon

THE NIGHT CLASS

The above photo was taken in Southport on 11th March 2020. I pointed my Alcatel Pixi 4 and pressed a button … then for artistic effect I pressed another button and made it black and white.

It was PLB, of course … thats Pre Lockdown Britain . If you are reading this after 2020 , look it up on hashtagsomethingorother for context.

The absence of people isn't unusual. Lots of my photos are of empty streets and rundown buildings.
Dystopia is sort of my thing. In my part of the world there are areas which appear to have been in lockdown since the last Tory landslide revised the North in the eighties .

No, none of this is remarkable so far , except for the ease of the operation. To understand this we need to go back . Back to when photography was a mysterious art. Back to a time when you had to know about light meters and exposure times.

In the late seventies , I was between lots of things. Education and Employment  , adolescence and obsolescence , past and future. I had time on my hands and a capacity to learn. Night Classes were a great way to bridge knowledge gaps.

I had already tried my hand at Learn To Drive and Ballroom Dancing … and failed irrevocably at both.

Photography offered a new direction , particularly as I had , for no good reason , given twenty quid to a mate for a share of his dark room equipment.

I learnt a lot from my first lesson. The tutor was a full time teacher of something else during the day , and had ex pupils queueing up ( he told us ) to pose , tastefully , for class members. Mostly it would be composition work... bits of wood and flowers , and close ups of stamps and other things.

Most important of all , I learnt that you needed a camera. Not the cheap instamatic type of thing I was used to , but a proper , Single Lens Reflex camera.  

The next thing I learned was that these weren't cheap. So after paying in advance for thirteen hours of teaching , I ended up paying something like a hundred pounds on an instalment plan for a Russian Zenith SLR camera , with integral light meter and leather case...Unfortunately , it was out of stock and I would have to wait a further two weeks before I could get hands on experience.

For the next couple of lessons,therefore, I wandered between groups of enthusiastic snappers , nodding thoughtfully and dropping encouraging comments on their twig arrangements. Both of these skills have served me well in other areas of my life ever since.

When I finally got my camera , I learnt another great life lesson. You have to be early to get the best shots particularly when there was a live model … especially as the prime position was already taken by the tutor ...

I only did one term . After that I felt able to let myself loose on the world with my black and white 35mm viewpoint.

Somewhere I have a photograph of rusting colliery railway lines converging eerily on an empty road to nowhere. It is a landmark , not only of social reportage , but because I developed the film and printed the photograph in my own (shared) darkroom.

The railway lines themselves are long gone.  

Castle View At Easter

The Space Between

                                         Image by Jan Marco Gessinger  Pixabay

The Space Between

There is a space

between moments

where we slip to hide;

where we do not touch.

There is a space

between frames

where plots are lost;

where heroes cannot fly.

There is a space

between moving pictures

where we pause;

where leaps are not made.

Between the socket and the plug

we are powerless and words fail.

Breathe deep now. Make next happen.

Tony Noon

PLAIN SIGHT

PLAIN SIGHT

“ I have a name , but I can’t tell you”. 

The man was at the next table , chair at forty five degrees to his latte.

His red jacket draped possessively around the next chair.

The girl did not look up. She was writing in a small notebook . 

“ Not allowed , you see” . No response. “ It breaks the rules.”

“ The rules ?” the girl said without looking up.

“ I’ve already said too much.” he continued. The smile she gave was sarcastic.

“ More than your life’s worth , I suppose? ”

 He chuckled.“ Not quite… it wouldn’t matter anyway”

“What wouldn’t ?”

“ Giving you my name...you’d never find me...couldn’t google me.” he said , now staring out of the window.

“ I wouldn’t anyway. Couldn’t ,anyway…” she went on. “ I don’t have a phone.”

“ I’m not there , see” he continued as if he hadn’t heard “ I’ve been removed.”

“ I’m not into all that digital stuff” she said “ I keep myself to myself. 

The only place I share my thoughts is right here” . She tapped the notebook emphatically with her cheap pen.

“ You’re in there,alright  ” he said. “ Every appointment you ever made , every holiday you’ve been on...there’s a record”.

“ Well yes , but …”. He stopped her. “ I’m not there” he reminded her. “ I’ve been removed. 

 I can go anywhere , be anybody”.

“ Be... nobody ? ”

“ If I like” he went on.

 There was a short pause, then she asked him outright “ Is this some kind of a wind up?”. 

She  peered into the dark depths of the cafe, looking for cameras,but all she could see were tables full of ordinary people engrossed, as ever, in their mobile devices.

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?” he asked.

With an ironic flutter of eyelashes,which he totally ignored, she told him she led a very sheltered life”.

“ All these people do” he said, nodding towards the rest of the cafe “ they’re busy claiming their points for spotting Red Jacket ”.

“ Some sort of a game,then ” she deduced “ You travel about and people get prizes for spotting you”

“Points...” he said “ There’s only one prize”

“...and your reward is to become the invisible man” she laughed.

“ That’s the gist .” he said “ It wouldn’t suit everyone,of course. Mostly people want to be someone. A digital profile can be some sort of comfort… a testament,maybe…”

“ Not for me ” she said “ I’d be happy on a desert island”

He chuckled and rose from his seat to leave.

“ Don’t forget your jacket .” she said.

“It belongs to you” he said. As he made for the door he told her “ You won it ”.

Tony Noon

Highly Commended in Writers Forum Magazine's February 2020 Flash Fiction Competition

THE WALK

THE WALK

So. I clipped the dog back on the lead and set off up the hill towards home. It had been a long night.
My 21st birthday party. Just family and friends in a small upstairs room at the British Legion.
I don’t remember what we did for music , but there were sandwiches and drinks...lots of them.

When the bar closed we moved the party across the way , to our terraced house on Victoria Street.
Most of the crowd had already said goodnight , but my closest mate Steve , who lived next door ,
came in for a nightcap , and so we had another hour or so revelling into the small hours.
It might have been about 1am , when I shakily said I would take the dog out and get some air.

It was mid March . The night air was cold , but at least it was dry. I tripped down the step but the dog
knew the routine and gently guided me. Down the street , around the corner, turn right at the funeral
director’s bungalow , then down the hill , past the dairy and the unmanned telephone exchange. 

At the bottom of the hill , the road ran out. The high tech of the telephone exchange looked out over
redundant allotments , long overgrown and beyond that, the pit railway which carried coal from a huge
metal bunker to nearby power stations. The rumour was that twenty large wagons of coal were burnt
in seconds … but there was always plenty more.There seemed to be plenty of most things. It was 1977.

Anyway, at this time on a Sunday morning , everything was quiet. I unclipped the lead and let Lassie
have a wander around in the undergrowth. I would just have a sit down on the edge of the pavement.
Just for a minute or two to let the cool air clear my head.  

The dog was sitting beside me when I looked around . I clipped the lead on , stumbled to my feet and
we set off . Up the hill , round the corner and up Victoria Street. There seemed to be a mist forming ,
but as I got nearer home , I could see a light from our open front door. My Dad was on the doorstep .

“ Where the bloody hell have you been ? ” he said “ You’ve been gone four hours…”

Ah well … at least I was a grown up now...