Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge returns to the St Ives Arts Festival 2013

Madam Miaow's Culture Lounge returns to the St Ives Arts Festival following last year's The Steampunk Opium Wars extravaganza that had a cast of thousands and played to a capacity audience of dozens.

This year, I'll read the first chapters of my novelisation of the The Steampunk Opium Wars: The Camellia and the Poppy which I'm having great fun writing. I'm also reading poetry from my "brilliant and dangerous" book, Reaching for my Gnu, published in Kindle and paperback.

I'm joined by the super-talented Charles Shaar Murray and Marc Jefferies, who'll be providing musical accompaniment and, in the case of CSM, reading his work as well.

In case you can have too much of a good thing, the adorable Bob Devereux, very funny Rob Barratt and the divine Steve Jones will be delighting our lovely audience with their spoken and sung words and music.

Should you find yourself in St Ives with time on your hands and a taste for a bit of kulcher among friends, then come and join us for the evening. Tickets should be avaiable on the door if they haven't sold out (this is the festival and that does happen). Advance tickets from The St Ives Visitor Centre, The Guildhall, Street An Pol, St Ives, Cornwall TR26 2DS

7.30pm Saturday 14 September 2013
St Ives Arts Club
Westcotts Quay
St Ives,
Cornwall TR26 2DY
£8.50 Tickets from The St Ives Visitor Centre: 0905 252 2250 or on the door if there are any left.
BYO drink

Look out for us at the Café Art where Charles Shaar Murray and I will be reading one early evening, exact date to be confirmed.
The Drill Hall,
Chapel Street,
St Ives TR26 2LR

We'll also be reading and playing at Bob Devereux's lunchtime Poetry in the Square sessions in Norway Square.

St Ives Festival Heaven 2011: Artists & Tate Balloons

Martin Creed's balloon installation in the Tate St Ives mezzanine







Denise and Steve Ingamells at Tate St Ives

Jan Jefferies and Charles Shaar Murray



Charles Shaar Murray

Clare Wardman & Anna Chen, Porthmeor Studio 7

View from Porthmeor Studio 7

And not forgetting the visual artists exhibiting in St Ives and a couple of concepts that worked.

Martin Creed's balloon installation was simple but effective. With the balloons filling the Tate's Rotunda mezzanine level higher than head-height, it's like walking into a wall, except the wall is full of air so you experience the instinct to duck, flinch or push the obstacle out of your way, and the conflicting pleasure in the softness. It's a dreamlike feeling. And it makes your hair stand on end with the static.

Tate St Ives got through 165,000 balloons when they'd budgeted for 120,000, but inflatable latex shrinks and pops. There was the time a series of mini-explosions could be heard and, after a search, a small boy was discovered sitting on the floor wielding a sharp pencil ... He's lucky he wasn't in an inner city or some magistrate might have jailed him for months for riotous behaviour. The balloons had the power to transform adults into kids, as well as releasing the child's inner child, such as the 65-year old pensioner who decided to surf the balloons from the window ledge. Alas, the Tate's mezzanine is no mosh-pit and she was carted off with a broken clavicle, bruised face and maximum embarrassment factor.

We caught the last few days of Roman Ondak's Measuring the Universe. Everyone who enters the room is invited to be measured and the wall marked up with height-line, name and date. Those of us who are of average height watch the markings disappear against the black of months-worth of previous measurements. Only the very short and tall survive the black band of the average. The gallery was due to paint over the wall yesterday, but we are now all part of the patina for years to some.

I like Clare Wardman's work so much that I have a small one at home. She works alongside her husband — artist Iain Roberston — who shares Porthmeor Studio seven with her. They made lovely interviewees for the Radio 4 programme.

St Ives Festival 2011: Intro and "Kicking A Dinosaur" video
St Ives Festival 2011: "Big Society: on a conversation in the Foundling Museum" video
St Ives Festival 2011 pix: The Island and St Nicholas Chapel

A big thank you to Jan Jefferies and Charles Shaar Murray for taking many of the pix of me on my Panasonic Lumix TZ20.

St Ives Arts Festival heaven 2011: Porthmeor Beach

Anna with Steve Ingamells on the balcony of the flat he and Denise were renting.





Here, for your pleasure, a selection of pix from my stay in St Ives during the Arts Festival. More to come.

St Ives Festival 2011: Intro and "Kicking A Dinosaur" video
St Ives Festival 2011: "Big Society: on a conversation in the Foundling Museum" video
St Ives Festival 2011 pix: Artists & Tate Balloons
St Ives Festival 2011 pix: The Island and St Nicholas Chapel

Anna May Wong Must Die! and Yellowface acoustic videos: Anna Chen at the St Ives Arts Festival

It's been unbelievably sunny and warm down here in Kernow for the St Ives Arts Festival while London shakes itself out like a drowned rat aprés le deluge.

Here are a couple of videos from the lunchtime sessions in Norway Square. I'm trying out Yellowface, one of the raps from Anna May Wong Must Die!, playing this coming Sunday at the St Ives Arts Club.

And there's also an acoustic version of the Anna May Wong Must Die rap, both accompanied by Charles Shaar Murray on slide guitar and Buffalo Bill Smith on harmonica.

Having a fab time. Wish you were here.

YELLOWFACE

ANNA MAY WONG MUST DIE!