What he said.

Reading a recent Third Angel post in which Alex talks about the Inspiration Exchange a few sentences struck a cord;

"Performance in as much as we know what’s going to happen and they don’t; or, at least, we know more about what’s going to happen than they do. We don’t know what they’re going to do or say. We hope that they will do or say more than they would have expected, had we told them in advance, what was going to happen.

Their interaction is what makes the work. It cannot even be properly rehearsed without an audience member sitting opposite. Making the performance involves making the space in which the audience member is allowed - encouraged - to be active, be open, be creative. A space in which they feel comfortable enough to think about things, talk about things that at, say, 10 o’clock that morning, they hadn’t thought about for days, weeks, even years."

What struck me is that this is exactly how I feel about The Reservation. Ellie and I were recently asked to discuss our process and the intentions behind the piece for a zine I Stood Up And I Said Yeah and I wish I had been as eloquent as Alex. 

You can read the whole post on the Third Angel blog.

Christmas is a difficult enough time...

... for people who have lost someone. Holidays remind us of those we love and their absence, of happy times shared, and the adverts of all the happy families and adoring couples don't help much (they're not great for single people either but that is an entirely different issue).

I have to admit that the memory of James going into surgery to have a tumor "the size of an orange" removed on Christmas Day the year before he died aside, for me, Christmas is no more painful than any other time of year. At least it wasn't until X-Factor released a version of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah, in a bid for the infamous Christmas number one, couple of years ago.

Because this is the song that played as his coffin rolled into the flames.

And I can't listen to it without tearing up. It's not a conscious thing, if I hear more than a couple of lines it just kind of happens so I have to leave the room or turn the volume off (may never be able to watch Shrek EVER again).

So, this is where my problems start because now this bloody song is a Christmas single which means it gets played EVERY BLOODY YEAR!!! Along with Mad World by Gary Jules which was played as the coffin was carried IN to the funeral... (don't get me started on how much I hate him for ruining two perfectly good songs forever). It is no longer just playing on a loop in every sodding shop but the buskers are at it too. I nearly deafened myself turning my headphones up to full volume while attempting to run past the busker outside Next today, looking like some kind of nutter.

So what is my point? Maybe that we should think about what song we might like played at our funerals and not pick classic tunes that we might forever ruin for those we leave behind...