Penny Arcade (Hope not Hate)

What a terrible and terrifying few days it's been for the world. And I fear it will get much, much worse.

My heart goes out to my American Blip friends and to everyone across the globe whose lives have just got harder, more fearful and less safe.

But I can't let myself become paralysed by my own fears. Instead, I want to stay focused on hope, love and humanity. All of us who oppose hatred, bigotry, negativity, the blaming of 'others' for the state that we've allowed the world to sink to and the celebration of materialism, militarism and conformity have got to stick together in our glorious diversity and our commonality as human beings.

I take inspiration from Americans/human beings such as Penny Arcade.

I first saw her perform at the Edinburgh Fringe about 25 years ago and it was a joy to see her perform her latest show, 'Longing Lasts Longer', here in Liverpool tonight as part of this year's Homotopia festival.

Penny is a funny, fiercely intelligent, all-singing, all-dancing (even a leg injury couldn't stop her!), poet, performance artist and raconteur who ran away to New York in the '60s after escaping reform school in her native Connecticut, and fell in with Andy Warhol's Factory crowd. Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn - all the names immortalised in Walk On The Wild Side - were her friends. She worked with Patti Smith and Quentin Crisp and she became something of a legend herself.

She really gave my spirits a lift tonight and I was thrilled to get to meet her after the show, give her a hug and tell her what an impact she'd had on my much younger self when I first saw her. (You can see quite a long extract from the show here... https://vimeo.com/117018419 )

The two songs on heavy rotation at Booknerd Towers these last couple of days have been Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbZYRZpNc64 and Billy Bragg's 'Help Save The Youth of America' www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2QOwQdHL8

(News of Leonard Cohen's death broke as I slept. I have a feeling I'll be writing about him further in my next journal entry...)