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Hello hello, It's a brick. Diverge from Naked

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It Beauty join me each week

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for. Unfiltered discussion about beauty trends, self

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love this podcast as well. Because we

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go so much deeper than beauty, I

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talked to incredible and inspiring people from

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across industries about their relationship with beauty.

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You also hear from skin care experts.

1:11

we break down lots of myths in

1:13

the beauty. Industry it this sounds like

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your thing. Search for Naked Beauty on

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your podcast app and listen along. I

1:19

hope. You'll join us. A.

1:22

Cast helps creators launch, grow

1:25

and monetize their podcast. Everywhere

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a cast.com. I

1:30

heard all fascists are bad kissers. I'm

1:32

Russell Tovey. And I'm Robert Diamant. And this is

1:34

Talk Heart. Welcome to Talk Heart. This is a Talk Heart

1:36

live, Rob. Where are we? Talk Heart

1:39

live. Where are we? We are today in Margate.

1:42

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

1:45

Woo! Woo! Woo!

1:48

Woo! Woo! Woo!

1:51

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

1:55

Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo!

1:59

What a surprise! How

2:01

are you feeling today, Robert? Well, today,

2:03

Russell, I am feeling like I'm on

2:06

literary drugs. Oh, OK. Because...

2:10

Because last night, a globally renowned

2:12

artist said to me, are you

2:15

on literary drugs? Because I was

2:17

so excited about today's talk. Because

2:19

today, we are interviewing and

2:21

discussing the new poetry collection by

2:23

a poet and writer, and actually

2:25

a multidisciplinary writer, so it's a

2:27

very complicated, multihyphenated word there. But

2:29

I'm just feeling like I'm on

2:32

literary drugs. Do you know why?

2:34

Because Margate is not only a

2:36

location now for art, it's also

2:38

a location for great writers. There

2:40

are so many amazing political

2:42

thinkers here and incredible writers. I

2:44

could list them all off if you want. Liv

2:47

Little, Emma Dabary. Mendez. Mendez

2:50

is our newest... Mendez,

2:52

who wrote Rainbow Milk, one of my favourite

2:54

books, has moved here. And we're

2:56

also... We're in the presence

2:58

of greatness. We have Chante here today,

3:00

who wrote one of my favourite books.

3:03

She's a model. So,

3:05

I'm basically... I'm feeling like I'm in

3:07

literary heaven. Yes. I might

3:09

seem like I'm on drugs. Anyway, so today we

3:11

are here to celebrate the launch of

3:13

a beautiful new collection of poetry called

3:15

Unutterable Visions, Perishable Breath, and it has

3:17

a beautiful artwork on the front cover

3:19

which we'll be exploring. And I know

3:21

that art has played a really important

3:23

role in our guest's life to this

3:25

point, this very point here in Margate.

3:27

So, we would like to welcome to

3:29

Talk Art... Otamare

3:32

Gubadia! Thank

3:38

you for having me. I feel great. What's

3:41

it like to be here? What's it like being in Margate, Otam?

3:43

What's it like being in Margate? Have you seen the film, Glut

3:45

Out? No,

3:53

it's amazing. It

3:58

is amazing. Beatrix

4:03

A Motor. Id

4:06

it on his is amazing to

4:08

be her eyes. It's way to

4:11

be in a place among the

4:13

because everyone is the enthusiastic to

4:15

the make. Another isn't one simple

4:17

relief sire.it's great everyone. Everyone wants

4:20

everyone's cards from in Somalia to

4:22

be by the sea or imagine

4:24

are you or your senses mayfair.

4:28

Ff, Ff. I feel like. Our.

4:31

House of His and and to for nerves

4:33

as in London now I have an avid

4:35

summer melee to my kids. I mean it's

4:37

about why off the roof. Of

4:43

the I have I am concerned as

4:45

it does if an important you to

4:47

be surrounded by creatives in your life.

4:49

I use Rent a Bike races in

4:52

London yes my guess would have my

4:54

friends. Pretty. Much most of them are a

4:56

cases I think. I think it's important I think. It's

4:59

guides and major I would would make isn't

5:01

really on him since the how about to

5:03

be when he was the new producers but

5:05

it's I think it's interesting because I could

5:07

Things like with any suited like to means

5:09

your booth. You know when people like move

5:11

to place to to pursue like or as

5:14

person. I think that like peace with incomes

5:16

in this community humor comes from being surrounded

5:18

by artists and inspiration comes from being surrounded

5:20

by artists and also use I think is.

5:22

Being. Surrounded by crazy people who have so

5:24

much more successful dummies I think inevitably pushes

5:26

you to to try and do better and

5:28

trying to lose of it you lack more.

5:31

Yeah, a dozen is with me. So

5:33

you just have launched and last month

5:35

in January one month it and let

5:38

them on today since Happy Bass- S

5:41

he just wants your first party collections I'm

5:43

is your daily This is my de vivre

5:45

hey assessment and I so if he were

5:48

to be for wait to start up to

5:50

talk about the four sections because it's actually

5:52

in for very distinct a kind of sections

5:54

and tons of voice. and they the titles

5:56

are Eichel which is a kind of like

5:59

the The Blood. gods essentially. In sort

6:01

of gregomerium mythology, I-cor is the blood

6:03

of the blood of gods. Yes.

6:05

And apparently if humans touched

6:07

that liquid, they would actually die. Yes.

6:10

Which I never knew. I learnt that

6:12

today. So yeah, so

6:14

the four sections, it's, if

6:17

I'm correct, it's I-cor, which

6:19

replaces blood. But

6:21

it's, I split the book into four parts

6:24

based on the humours and

6:26

humourism, which is just like a, it's

6:28

an ancient set of beliefs that kind of persist to

6:30

today. But it's the idea that like your

6:32

temperament, your mood, perhaps what you are, what

6:35

you do and what you're destined for, your

6:37

inclinations are all dictated by the various balances

6:39

or imbalances in the body.

6:41

You know, like melancholy is

6:44

from, I believe it's

6:46

yellow bile. Black bile.

6:48

Black bile. Yeah. Melancholy's black bile. And then you

6:50

have like, you know, being phragmatic, which is, but

6:52

yeah, it's, it's, I chose that because

6:55

I often feel, I was trying to

6:57

capture the kind of

6:59

tides that almost feel like

7:01

they moved me and

7:03

others, but I tried to capture

7:05

the sort of ineffable, uncontrollable

7:08

quality of what it is to live

7:10

and to love and to be this,

7:13

this like creature, like pulled in

7:15

several different directions. And

7:17

to feel like you have absolutely zero

7:19

control over what

7:21

it is you desire and what it is that

7:24

moves you. And I wanted to like reflect

7:27

that. I actually did get read down in

7:29

quite a positive review, but they mentioned that

7:32

the, it was, it was meant to represent this

7:34

sort of like chaos, the chaos

7:36

of being the chaos of being a

7:38

person. But I realized that also

7:41

the structure in itself is kind of like

7:43

a fiction because, you know, in trying to

7:45

create this work, it was like unbound to,

7:47

you know, categories and reflected like the chaos

7:49

of my mind and because of the views

7:51

of mine, the sections are all pretty

7:54

much evenly split. The reviewer

7:56

could not detect what the difference between them

7:58

was. And I might have that's because you

8:00

know it's deliberate. I

8:03

like the fact that you described

8:05

like the mind just being, you described

8:08

it as the uncurated mind. Whereas the

8:10

body you feel has been heavily curated.

8:12

Absolutely and I think that's often

8:14

the only thing I can control is

8:17

what I wear

8:19

and how I look and

8:22

it's interesting because I used

8:25

to think when I felt ugly and I talk about this

8:27

in book, I used to think when I felt ugly that

8:29

like being beautiful and feeling beautiful

8:31

would be a thing that like

8:34

saved me and the thing that made me

8:36

feel better and you know but

8:38

then I got beautiful.

8:45

Well no, no you were always beautiful. I was always

8:47

beautiful, I just you know I just didn't realize I

8:50

took off my glasses and

8:52

I had my Hollywood transformation moment. But then no, there's

8:54

this Lupita Nyong'o says that her mother used to tell

8:56

her even when she was younger and Lupita Nyong'o being

8:58

one of the most beautiful women in the world. It's

9:00

interesting that she was a woman who didn't feel beautiful

9:02

for a variety of reasons. But

9:05

you can't eat beauty is what Lupita Nyong'o's

9:07

mother used to say to her and like

9:10

the older I get the more I realized

9:12

that it is so true. I

9:14

had a poem in there called, A Man Lies

9:17

Here Still Unmade and there's a line

9:19

about I've had the clothes and the manners and I've

9:22

fought wars, attrition, shock and all. And it

9:24

doesn't, I realized that

9:26

the curation of my body, the

9:29

curation of myself, the desire to be

9:31

this perfect thing which no

9:33

one can ever be this perfect thing but

9:35

the striving to be some sort of like

9:37

perfect thing by some sort of weird perfect

9:39

standard was I mean it's my mind was

9:42

is crumbling you know under

9:44

the weight of like that expectation. And

9:47

it's a standard that I don't think anyone

9:49

else holds to me. That's one I hold

9:51

for myself but like aesthetics are often the only

9:53

thing that you feel like you have control over and

9:56

even then sometimes you don't. The qualities, you know, what's

9:58

interesting is that you're not just a woman. going

10:00

on inside the internal aspects,

10:02

even the external aspects are things that you

10:04

cannot control. But the way I looked was

10:06

always for the last decade,

10:08

15 years, was something I could control and

10:11

so something I dedicated my mind to. But

10:13

it hasn't closed our armour, but

10:15

they haven't satisfied

10:17

the yearning at the core of

10:20

my soul. You can look good and you can look as

10:22

good as you want. But if

10:24

things are missing from your life, then they will be

10:26

missing, no matter how well-dressed you are. Some

10:29

of these poems are a decade old. So you've

10:32

been on this journey through your

10:34

creativity, through writing. I really have.

10:36

It's so interesting. There are

10:39

things I wrote in this, perhaps last

10:41

summer, there were even things I wrote

10:43

in this perhaps eight years ago and

10:45

I read them now and I'm like,

10:47

I don't believe that anymore. It's constantly

10:49

in flux, which is the interesting thing

10:51

about having to... Do you still like

10:54

them though, as poems? Yes, I

10:56

like them. I like some of the... Also, there

10:58

are things in this that... Not that I hate,

11:00

but there are things in this that weren't consummate,

11:02

that didn't quite say what

11:05

I wanted to say. But that's also the nature of... Again, the nature

11:08

of living is there

11:10

is some ineffable quality to

11:12

what we feel that the moment we try and

11:14

speak into words, it

11:17

already... There's been a failure at

11:19

that point because I think that so much of

11:22

our experiences as people,

11:24

they are ineffable. It's hard to speak what we truly

11:26

feel. Words fail at the moment we begin to use

11:29

them. And so eight years

11:31

ago, I wrote some

11:33

of these things and I still feel very

11:35

moved by. But then

11:38

there are things in it that I just... I'm

11:40

not sure that I'm convinced by that, by the

11:42

logic of it, by the politic of it, by

11:45

what's in the lines. But then I think

11:47

to myself, that's perhaps evidence of growth, but

11:49

also nothing's ever finished

11:51

or perfect. I think that the big struggle

11:53

with this debut is just sending

11:56

off the final manuscript and being like,

11:58

whatever is in this. It's.

12:01

It's done and it has to be done. And

12:03

I think why I'm grateful for and why I'm

12:05

excited about is just. You. Can

12:07

like mole advocating Deposits work nonstop your

12:09

entire life, but you will never be

12:12

a part of the conversation unless you

12:14

finish something and you. Put. It into

12:16

the canyon and into the conversation that this is

12:18

my humble offering into the can buy me some

12:20

of these things I wrote in my. I've

12:22

read when I was past twenty or even

12:25

nineteen I do. Some of the phrases are

12:27

published from like Teenagers, but something's arrived last

12:29

summer. It's been a real long journey and

12:31

I can almost see how it shots, But

12:33

I'm I'm I'm got it's done. And of

12:35

God's I'm looking forward to. What

12:39

comes next? Feel proud of it. You can

12:41

stand by and say this is Samantha Proud

12:43

of anything I'm yes I am. I am

12:45

proud of the I can start by insights

12:47

I've I've my friend is. As for a

12:49

copyright. Some. Governor and he.

12:52

I was doing this closing in the beginning when

12:54

the book has been cubs as having the scientists

12:57

some be sleepless nights wireless You would like to

12:59

wake up the middle of night be like oh

13:01

my god I've written a total time to Sit

13:03

This is awful and everyone's going to like. Everyone's.

13:06

Been Psychology Three Tomatoes Am, et cetera

13:08

And and then I spoke to him

13:10

about it and he just said. There.

13:13

Is he can do. Is. Ask yourself.

13:16

Was. The Walk Honest and Was is an

13:18

honest reflection of that period in my life

13:20

and I can. I can say with certainty

13:22

it is is as honest as I I

13:24

could have been, but one of the words

13:27

that keeps being repeated and I'm writing around

13:29

your work when people respond to a or

13:31

even discuss it like friends of my dimension

13:33

to to is where lyrical and also I

13:35

think there's a real intense romance within the

13:37

way but you did. I usually put words

13:40

together and energy described it as like sentimentality

13:42

spits a me, it's more mm thick and

13:44

but can you speak about about this lyrical.

13:46

so as go to that you have when

13:49

you pick up the pen or employees sentiments

13:51

house is seen as something negative my favorite

13:53

actor is robin williams ah ok you ask

13:56

as a great to it's clear that code

13:58

is always since mental if it's I

14:00

don't understand why sentimentality is negative. Do you

14:02

know what I think is, I think that

14:05

sentimentality is negative because I think that fundamentally

14:07

earnestness is a very difficult position to occupy

14:10

and poetry can be so difficult because

14:12

poetry is fundamentally an earnest exercise. And

14:14

I think that we are so

14:16

used to living our lives through layers and

14:19

layers of irony. And I think that like

14:21

so much of like our modern society and

14:23

even our modern socials, but even the comedy

14:25

that like exists so much of it is

14:27

about a world reflected through

14:30

layers and layers of irony. Everyone's afraid to

14:32

be caught feeling or to be caught saying

14:34

things that could demonstrate that they have a

14:36

heart and there's vulnerability in that. It's all

14:38

very, I think it's

14:40

sad. And I think that like it's even

14:43

my friends who like, my friends,

14:45

people who have perhaps made fun

14:47

of the nature of my writing, the

14:49

perhaps the cloyingness or the saccharine

14:52

quality to it, I think are

14:54

often embarrassed of how those

14:56

feelings make how, how Tracy,

14:59

Tracy Evans

15:01

trying to get into the venue and she literally

15:03

like, knocking against the window, trying

15:09

to get in someone. Come in,

15:11

come in, come in. The Queen

15:13

Larget. We love you Tracy. And

15:16

Lorcan O'Neill. We love him. There we

15:19

go. Anyway. Yes. I

15:22

think that people are in our modern age

15:24

are deeply ashamed of earnestness

15:26

because it reflects, it reflects feeling and feeling

15:29

reflects vulnerability. And I think it's, it's

15:31

easier to not be. And

15:34

poetry, no one ever,

15:36

people very rarely feel entitled to call

15:38

themselves like poets. I never really considered

15:40

myself a poet for years. And

15:42

I think that I, I never

15:44

had problems with the medium. I've always loved

15:46

the medium, but I think I had, there

15:49

was definitely self-consciousness about it because other people

15:51

like, yes, there are bad

15:53

poets, but poetry is, is perhaps one of

15:55

the, perhaps the literary form that is mocked

15:57

most, I would say it's easy to because

16:00

these are people saying, I

16:02

feel all of these things and I'm going to write

16:04

them down and I'm going to try and create some

16:06

sort of vast and significant imagery.

16:08

And yes, obviously it strays into the

16:10

pretentious, but I feel like that's still

16:13

meaningful and wonderful. And I also think if you,

16:16

the kind of people who really

16:18

despise poetry and

16:21

the sentimental in cheesy films or

16:23

even films that have highly

16:26

emotional subject matter are

16:28

afraid of something within themselves. I think they're afraid

16:30

of vulnerability within themselves. And I think that that's

16:32

what is reflected in there, that

16:34

terror of other people being vulnerable. And

16:36

what about the lyrical? The lyrical part,

16:38

yes. I often

16:41

think that a lot of the poems I wrote

16:43

in the piece were meant to be read out. And

16:46

I often, when I write, I'm thinking about like

16:49

sort of like orally in both

16:51

senses, how something sounds and comes across.

16:53

But I also think it's

16:56

fun. It's playful. It's the

16:58

part of writing that excites me most is

17:01

trying to create something that is lyrical.

17:05

And I love a pun that no one

17:07

else recognizes but me. I

17:10

love a double entendre. I love

17:12

all of the, if I

17:15

say literal, it's all about the word, but I

17:17

love the actual playing

17:20

with the lexicon and exploring it and

17:22

like exploring words. And sometimes, I

17:24

love to make up a word and to say that it's an eulogism, a

17:28

couple of made up words in that book. No

17:30

one notices when you make up words. It's

17:32

actually incredible. What are some

17:34

of your made up words? Some of my

17:37

made up words. Oh, microcosmology. That is not

17:39

a phrase. Microcosmology is not a phrase that

17:41

I could find anywhere else. But it reflects

17:43

things like, in my opinion, that

17:45

reflected a need within language. And

17:49

I was here today. You're feeling that, yeah. I'm

17:51

feeling the gaps in English lexicon. Like, I

17:53

am. In

17:57

your humble mouth, yeah. This is my humble...

18:00

into the canon, which has made it ten times better.

18:02

So when it comes to themes, as

18:05

many themes in your work, it's all

18:07

autobiographical, but the queer experience, especially the

18:09

queer black experience, is central to your

18:12

practice. It is. Like,

18:15

it's interesting, because I think

18:18

that both experiences, both queer

18:20

and black experiences, are definitely

18:22

represented in here. But actually thinking about

18:24

it now, I'm not sure how much

18:26

they overlap. But perhaps they overlap within

18:28

me. And

18:31

yeah, thematically, I started

18:33

off, there is a lot

18:35

about love and lovelessness. And

18:37

I think I

18:39

was thinking a lot about what often

18:43

felt like inalienable character flaws

18:45

within me. I often

18:47

wondered how much of this is, because

18:50

a star danced above the hospital I was

18:53

born in, and that's why I'm mental. I

18:56

always wondered, like, if you're what? So

18:59

in, like, I believe it's much ado about

19:01

nothing. Yes, in much ado about nothing, Beatrice

19:03

says, a

19:05

star danced under that I

19:07

was born. And she blames her wild

19:11

temperament on precisely this. And

19:14

I sometimes joke being like, how much of this

19:16

is because of the arrangerous guys. I mean, like,

19:18

horoscopes and zadacs. People are very interested in them.

19:21

I'm deeply agnostic about

19:23

them. I think that they're a very interesting

19:26

and exciting exercise. They're

19:29

good when you're dating. Oh. I

19:31

was so sorry to you. You

19:35

googled it. You're like, we're so compatible. It's not

19:37

of an antidote. Let's go. Let's go for a

19:39

drink. I

19:42

mean, I have seen people make very

19:44

major decisions based on horoscopes. And

19:46

to each their own, like, why not? But

19:51

yeah, it was love and lovelessness. And that

19:53

kind of agency, trying to figure out, how

19:55

much power do I actually have within my own

19:58

life? How much of this is dictated by violence?

20:00

biology, how much of even what seems like an

20:02

original thought in my mind is just the ones

20:04

and the zeros and little gray cells. I was

20:06

trying to figure out if I could have any

20:09

real ownership of my life, if I was in

20:11

the driving seat. And I feel like that, domestically,

20:13

is one of the things that really, really

20:16

like pours through. But like love

20:18

and family, and occasionally

20:21

like, you know, just like funny,

20:23

slightly humorous observations. But yeah, that's

20:27

the mass, I think that what I was, and it's also, look,

20:30

if there are themes that run through it, but also

20:32

at the same time, it's just

20:34

this swiling,

20:37

and sometimes disconnected, sometimes

20:40

slightly like, mad and incoherent thing. Because something

20:42

I'd say in the introduction is I

20:44

don't believe that our bodies are sites of

20:46

coherence. I think that like, in one way

20:48

or another, we are all mad, and we're

20:51

all bending and contorting ourselves to fit into

20:54

these boxes that make us seem

20:56

legible to other people. And I

20:58

honestly, I haven't written this book

21:00

to make myself legible to other people. Did

21:03

it help you know yourself better? Yes, precisely

21:05

that. I think that it's made me more

21:07

legible to myself. And whatever other people

21:09

take from that, that's peaceful,

21:12

and I hope that people can relate. But that's

21:14

really why I wrote this. You know, when I

21:16

told you, initially it was called The Working Tender

21:18

was actually thoughts in a body too long curated.

21:20

And I thought about all of the, I

21:23

don't know, I think often about public life and

21:25

all of the bullshit that public life entails and

21:27

like trying to and just

21:31

dealing with such

21:34

a complicated social, social scene

21:36

and social world. And I just, you

21:38

know, I'm tired of curating myself

21:40

and my body. I say, I say, looking

21:44

fabulous. But

21:47

yeah, this is this is just

21:49

natural. But I'm

21:51

tired of curating. I'm tired

21:53

of worrying so desperately about what every single

21:55

person thinks. I used to, you know,

21:58

there's the phrase, you can't be all things to all people. I had

22:00

a version of that which was, if

22:02

you can be all things to all people, then why not be?

22:07

And I tried for a long time to be all

22:09

things. That's exhausting. Oh my God, you don't understand the

22:11

heart of it. I'm so exhausted and I used to

22:14

think that I could, I used to think there was

22:16

some magical realm where there were perfect words and perfect

22:18

actions in which I could please everyone.

22:21

Obviously that's not true and it took me

22:23

longer than I'd like to admit to realize it's not true. I

22:25

still struggle with it right now, but I

22:28

wanted to give up the charade, I

22:30

want to give up sort of the

22:32

facade and be something really more honest

22:34

and speak, like really more honestly about

22:36

all of it. And

22:38

I hope that

22:40

I've accomplished that. And if I haven't, you can buy a

22:42

book too. In your

22:45

poem, Fragment 99, number 99, you

22:48

say queerness is evidence of more as

22:50

the opening. As the image of the likeness. Yeah, can you

22:52

talk about that as an idea? Because I found

22:55

that. Can you read it out then? Can you read it out

22:57

actually? It's only a short one as well. Fragment

23:00

99, queerness is evidence

23:02

of more. Evidence of

23:04

the image and its likeness to peek into the

23:06

cauldron at the beginning of all things. It

23:09

is evidence that we, in acting

23:12

against nature, might usurp it.

23:15

Queerness is evidence of the divine. Proof

23:17

that all equations may be endlessly rewritten. Queerness

23:21

is water from the stone, Lazarus

23:23

from the depths, something from nothing.

23:26

Love. Thank you. Thank you. That,

23:31

what I was thinking about when I was trying to, when

23:34

I wrote Fragment, I was like 99, queerness

23:37

is evidence more. I

23:39

think that when you, like for example, I went

23:41

to a Catholic all boys school in Lagos. Like

23:44

you can imagine how that went. I actually loved it more

23:46

than you think, but. Wow,

23:52

like all of you, all shameless.

23:55

Can you like behave, please? I

23:58

Then went to an all boys school. In Buckinghamshire

24:01

with says. Oh,

24:03

but it's got a bus Sydney's But

24:05

what we're saying is that I like

24:08

like I'm assailed Catholic of the. The

24:10

most traditional variety and I think that's

24:12

why I was thinking of when I

24:15

read. Quinn is of into more is

24:17

Utah It's from a very young age

24:19

and also In In loads in all

24:21

media. In this in the Bible, In

24:23

In in all sorts of like text

24:25

meter you taught did queerness is a

24:27

a kind of negation. You know it's

24:29

an unnatural negation. It's It's something that

24:31

I'm. The. Acts against life

24:34

itself, you know, and. Any

24:36

queer person and their out from

24:38

under too many of them and

24:40

union businesses I'm would tell you

24:43

set up. A

24:45

degree of added would tell you. Is

24:48

that if you've experienced I'm.

24:51

using. Since the the divinity of

24:53

of loves an attraction and romance

24:56

no matter how badly ended, but

24:58

if he's if you've ever been

25:01

in like. In. The

25:03

thick of it, I seem to you. You.

25:05

Realize that that idea of queen as

25:07

as negation cannot be far from like

25:09

by the from the tree. Like like

25:11

there is. Something.

25:14

Beautiful. An unspeakable. that.

25:17

Erupts. You know when to when people are

25:19

in laws? And it's It's

25:21

indistinguishable. you know from from any.

25:25

Has her sexual relations that you might, you know,

25:27

Consider indistinguishable. At the

25:30

core of it, I'm. And at

25:32

night and I truly believe that and

25:34

I think the issues due to experience

25:36

the experience, desire to experience You know?

25:39

Ceci. Decide that is reciprocated. You

25:41

realize that. This. Is. This

25:44

is the most beautiful thing and on then the was and

25:46

and there's no amount as. If

25:49

anything, did that and sing because. Out

25:51

of nothing to have nothing out of

25:53

a place that we're told is is

25:55

not fertile ground on the most beautiful.

25:58

Flowers. Bring up now. the

26:00

idea behind it. I

26:04

love that. That's totally beautiful. Did you

26:06

grow up with art? I know your

26:08

parents were academics, right? No, they're lawyers.

26:13

I also was very nearly a lawyer. The

26:15

only reason that I did, I

26:17

have a law degree, which is very fine. No,

26:19

everyone's always like, what? Yeah, I

26:21

have a law degree. Or he says

26:23

on your website, jurisprudence. Is that

26:26

like? It's a very pretentious way of saying law. I

26:30

didn't come up with it. I

26:34

did not come up with that. So how

26:36

did you find writing then? You studied law

26:38

because that's very different, right?

26:42

Transferable skills. Dumbest

26:45

transferable skills in the world. How

26:47

did I find law? I think that in the beginning,

26:49

I was really excited because I was like, oh my

26:51

god, this is a chance to prove how smart I

26:53

am. And then I very quickly realized that I possess

26:57

no passion for the law beyond

26:59

proving how smart I am. So that

27:01

wasn't going to be like, that

27:04

wasn't going to be a viable career. And

27:07

I almost, I will say, we're

27:09

going deep into the law, but I almost changed

27:11

courses after my first year, but then I got

27:13

my results and I did really well and the

27:15

arrogance. The arrogance in me was like,

27:18

oh my god, I could do this. Reader, I could

27:20

not. And

27:22

it was not fun. I

27:25

think, I mean, right up

27:27

until my final year of university, I was, I

27:29

interviewed at like, fresh fields in

27:31

like, like, regulators. So how

27:34

awful, can you imagine me swanning around some

27:36

like, London off, I would have jumped out

27:38

of a high window very quickly. But

27:43

I very, writing was always the thing that I loved

27:46

and always the thing that I felt like I was good at and wanted

27:48

to do. And so, the moment

27:50

I, I, something,

27:53

I mean, something I was going to say,

27:55

something clicked. My, like, doing nine hours, doing

27:57

nine, three hour exams. No,

28:00

10 three hours, nine three hours in the state of 10

28:02

days was not, I think that

28:04

was, I was done by that point. And

28:07

I realised that there was just a world, there was

28:09

a world in literature, there was a

28:11

world in expressing yourself in literature and I,

28:14

you know, if this is the, if this is

28:16

the only thing that I ever get to write,

28:18

if I get hit by a train tomorrow, then

28:20

I, you know, I will

28:22

still be thoroughly satisfied in the, in the,

28:24

you know, when I'm fading out of consciousness.

28:29

His writing is, is

28:31

exciting and it's, it's beautiful and it's

28:33

sexy and it's, I

28:36

don't think that anything has given me an opportunity

28:38

to understand myself more than actually putting pen to

28:40

paper. Do you write every day? No,

28:43

I don't have that kind of discipline. How often do you

28:45

write? When

28:48

the spirit moved me. When you have a

28:50

book. When I have a book. No, no, how often do

28:52

I write? Honestly, I,

28:54

I, I think I struggle

28:56

with deadlines for this very reason in that I, I

28:59

don't know, not to be like, you know, I

29:02

don't sit down like, Virgil singing me muse. I'm not,

29:04

it's not, it's not that, but I mean, maybe it

29:06

was a bit that, but I, I don't,

29:09

I actually don't have any sort of like

29:11

devoted practice of writing. Literally when the spirit

29:13

moves me, I have a million notebooks. And

29:17

the notes app is very useful, not just for

29:19

apologies. I

29:22

yeah, I use that and

29:24

I'd say I look, I write, I write

29:26

more than once, one time a week, but

29:28

like I don't have the discipline of some

29:30

of my much, much

29:33

more disciplined and more focused like writer

29:35

friends who, who, who will go and

29:37

sit down for several hours and produce

29:39

many, many reams of very good quality

29:41

work. I have

29:43

to wait for inspiration.

29:47

Do you have recollections of art growing up in Lagos? I

29:50

do have recollections of art. It's

29:52

so interesting. I remember, and I'm trying

29:54

to remember what specific, that we have

29:56

a couple of national museums and

29:59

there's, I remember. seeing there was a

30:01

car that one of our

30:03

military leaders was assassinating in.

30:06

And I remember going to the museum as a child and

30:08

running my hand over like the bullet

30:10

holes because I mean, it was like this

30:12

Lagos you were finally allowed to touch the

30:14

art in my head anyway.

30:17

But my parents had my father

30:19

is like a huge, huge art

30:21

enthusiast. And so our house in

30:23

Lagos was filled with primarily like

30:25

art, like primarily like Nigerian and

30:27

African art, like for

30:30

all of my childhood. And I yeah, I that is

30:32

something I remember so vividly. What's the most vivid work

30:34

then that you remember living with? Is there something you

30:36

pass on the way to school or something you'd look

30:38

at while you're eating breakfast, for example? There

30:41

were a couple of pieces. There was one and

30:43

I'm like, as you might tell

30:46

from the reference to I'm obsessed with with galleys,

30:48

which are galleys are kind of like traditional Nigerian

30:50

head tie and I actually say funny that you

30:52

meant like, right on the spot I remember there

30:55

was, I think past my father

30:57

was also kind of obsessed with them because

30:59

there were these beautiful I

31:03

wouldn't call it piecemeal, but it was I'm trying to think

31:05

of the good stuff. It was there was

31:08

there was actually there's a trend within

31:10

I would say within Nigerian art or like a

31:12

sort of quality of creating paintings

31:14

had a lot a lot of

31:16

texture, but not just like textures,

31:18

but like raised more raised elements

31:20

using like paint and other things.

31:22

I just remember from my childhood,

31:24

different iterations of that of women

31:26

in in galleys, which is like

31:28

a like a spiraling your

31:31

about head tie. I remember

31:33

distinctly that like kind of like composite

31:36

portrait walking past that every day. Yeah, that's

31:40

that's what those are some of my earliest memories of

31:43

art is just the art that my father creates

31:45

around the house, a man of great

31:47

taste. And art inspires your work

31:49

like you go to museums and there's certain artists

31:51

I think earlier on I asked you who

31:53

you like and you said you like Yves Klein

31:56

as you described him as a bullshitter. He is

31:58

such a bullshitter. How do you

32:00

relate? Eve Klein, Eve Klein and IKB. Like

32:05

just... Eve Klein Blue. Eve Klein Blue, yeah,

32:07

yeah. Which you call International Klein Blue. And

32:09

it's very interesting because first of

32:11

all, you didn't make up the fucking colour. But

32:13

I will say, the branding is... I'm

32:17

obsessed with him. I'm obsessed with, you know, with

32:19

the things he would say about blue has no dimensions,

32:21

you know. His kind of

32:24

practice was this kind of like pseudo-spiritual,

32:27

very like French, very like...

32:30

He was a bit impotipo-charlatan. But

32:33

I love that. I

32:35

love that quality. I love the charlatan

32:38

that's like actually a talented artist. But

32:40

also like you can tell that some

32:42

people are... Like he was

32:44

so high from his Eve Klein Blue Kool-Aid

32:47

and he really bought into everything that he

32:49

said. And I say all of this... Oh

32:51

my God, I'm going to get cancelled. I say all

32:53

of this to say, but I love

32:55

Eve Klein. There

32:57

are two versions of the same painting which is

32:59

just like a giant, it's just a giant effectively

33:02

blue canvas. So I'm not going into my comment.

33:04

It's a giant blue canvas which is

33:06

just painted in his, you know, trademark shade.

33:08

And he also does beautiful things with like

33:10

figures of Venus. But it's not work

33:13

that is complex.

33:16

And I like that. I liked

33:18

it, but he's still managed to create

33:20

this deep lore and this deep mysticism

33:22

behind his obsession with the

33:25

color blue. But Eve is just

33:27

like, if I could steal a painting. Oh,

33:31

that's the final question. Don't

33:33

go there yet. Oh,

33:35

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34:34

and conditions apply. I

34:40

think we should go to the kiss. So the

34:42

front cover of the book has a kiss with

34:44

flames, and it's an artwork by Mel Odom, who

34:46

we'll talk about in a second. But there's also

34:48

a poem in the center of the book, which

34:50

you can equally read before we talk about Mel's

34:53

work on the cover, and why you chose that

34:55

painting. Fragment number two, kiss is a unit of

34:57

measurement, how we count the courage it

34:59

takes to close the gaps between people. Um,

35:01

I have it back to you. Oh, I

35:04

love the bit about we

35:06

count the courage it takes to close the gap

35:08

between people. And the idea of a kiss and

35:10

how it's actually a kiss is just two bodies

35:12

coming together. It's not even material. No, it's something

35:15

that can actually change the world in a way.

35:17

Yeah, I think I think that's the spawn. I

35:19

think it's, it's something that's not

35:22

it's not material. And it's fleeting. But also,

35:25

I think, you know, I don't think that we'd

35:27

have any any of our

35:29

literature without the kiss. I think the kissing is

35:31

actually a recurring theme in this book, because I'm

35:33

such a lover boy of taking

35:36

proposals at the end. And

35:38

it was Yeah,

35:41

and so kissing was a

35:43

recurring theme. Actually, it's almost I wouldn't call

35:45

it coincidental that ended up with that

35:47

cover, which is in many ways, perfectly

35:49

thematic, because I think, you know, why I chose

35:51

I call why I chose all these things. There

35:53

was there was there was a sudden feeling that

35:56

like, love gives you and sometimes

35:59

that feeling is firmly rooted in

36:01

delusion. But there is like a, there

36:03

is a, the reason I chose I Corps is because there are

36:05

the ways in which love

36:08

feels like inhaling godhood. And

36:10

it feels like, you know, becoming something

36:14

powerful and far greater than you were on

36:17

your own. And I think that like, you

36:19

know, that that tempo is very much about

36:21

that, about the feeling of, of

36:23

living like gods, you

36:25

know. But

36:27

if you're in love, you feel like you can live like a god.

36:29

Yeah. If you're in love, and I think sometimes when you're in love,

36:32

you feel, you feel like you are a

36:34

god. It certainly feels, it certainly

36:36

feels divine. And

36:38

when you're not in love then? I'm

36:41

not in love. Melancholic. Well,

36:44

if you're a god in love and you're, when you're

36:46

not in love, what do you think you are? The

36:48

devil. I don't know. No, I wouldn't even say that.

36:50

I would say, I would say I'm every,

36:54

every lowly and ordinary man. You

36:56

know, I think that, when

37:00

I, like actually it's in, I think, fragment two

37:02

when I talk about the courage it takes to

37:04

close the gaps between people. The thing I guess

37:06

I was thinking about is, is we

37:09

are all born with so much distance between us. And

37:12

I certainly know that that's something that I felt. And

37:14

what I love about a kiss, and

37:16

I love writing our kisses because, so

37:19

this, this brief moment, it's like a,

37:23

you're, you're investing in each other

37:25

as like the site of miracles. And

37:27

I think that that's, I think

37:30

that's beautiful and special and unique. And also

37:32

there are so many interesting things when you

37:34

think about, we actually don't know. There is

37:36

no consensus about whether or not kisses are,

37:38

are learned or evolutionary behavior. Like we don't,

37:40

we don't know. We've just been kissing for

37:42

so long that we actually cannot tell. And

37:45

so I, in one of the poems I get to

37:47

play around with that, play around with the, the origin,

37:50

I put my own sort of like origin

37:52

mythos about, you know, about

37:54

kissing. Yeah. I'm meandering. So

37:57

what about Mel's work? Cause I know that Mel was not,

37:59

is that you. had already been a

38:01

big fan of. I have been obsessed

38:03

with Mel for years. Mel

38:05

is this veteran New York illustrator. He still

38:08

lives in New York, he's been working for the last

38:10

40 years and I

38:12

wanted him actually to do a bespoke illustration.

38:14

I had this whole idea and he told

38:16

me he was like, the

38:19

older guess is harder for him to like,

38:21

you know, he's working through pain and he

38:23

was like, you can go through my archive

38:25

and choose anything and use it for free.

38:28

Which I was just like overwhelmed by and

38:30

like, I'm entirely grateful because I see

38:33

the book now and I think to myself, I can't

38:36

imagine what else could be on this

38:38

cover. I really don't. I think it's so

38:41

perfect. I think what it says about

38:43

love and passion and destruction and

38:46

temptation, I think it's a

38:48

beautiful image and I'm very grateful to Mel for

38:50

letting me use it. How did you discover Mel's

38:53

work? Almost certainly Tumblr, like

38:55

a decade ago. I think it probably

38:57

was Tumblr like a decade ago and

38:59

then I like, listened

39:02

to him and I followed him

39:04

and engaged with all his work for years

39:06

and years and years and he didn't notice me.

39:12

Then I emailed him

39:14

a while back about another

39:16

project I was working on. We kind of in

39:19

touch. Has he allowed you to use another image

39:21

or have you got paid for this one? No,

39:23

no, no. That was a project many ages ago.

39:25

I kind of now I've

39:28

done this, I'm like maybe every single book needs

39:30

to have an image by Mel but I'm sure at

39:33

some point he'll... So like to create like a nice,

39:35

you know, create my own

39:37

parcel. He's got an exhibition coming up in America

39:40

and yeah and I think we're gonna hopefully talk to

39:42

him and interview him soon. We've been in touch ourselves

39:44

because I just, I'd never even heard of him since

39:46

I've been until I met you and it's incredible his

39:48

body of work. His body of work? Which was mainly

39:50

in magazine. Yeah so magazine, he did

39:52

but then the reason I got in touch with

39:55

him was he did also do illustrations for books

39:57

but mainly magazines like he... Advertise. Advertising, playable, he

39:59

did like... back when Playboy would

40:01

commission like a bespoke illustration for

40:03

like one article in it

40:05

like, you know, that sort of like, that

40:08

sort of thing that doesn't happen very much,

40:11

but commission from like a really high profile,

40:13

like working illustrator. But I think there's like

40:15

a sensibility and equality to his work that

40:17

like is just, I

40:19

don't know, it's, and he called, he refers to

40:22

his like pencil work is like slightly maniacal because

40:24

I think that like if you zoom in the

40:26

amount of detail and all of it's, all of

40:28

it's obviously hand drawn, he's old school, but

40:31

it's just, it's some

40:33

of my, some of my favorite images

40:35

of all time really. And it feels

40:37

like the honor of a lifetime to

40:39

have his his beautiful image that's burning

40:42

kiss from, I believe 1989 is the

40:45

image that he let me use for the cover. And

40:47

I, I'm really grateful. I know that you

40:49

also love Warhol and Warhol started out his life as

40:51

an illustrator and was doing a lot of illustrations in

40:54

magazines and vogue and things like that. So can you

40:56

speak a bit about your relationship with Warhol? Do

40:59

you know what? A couple of years

41:01

back, the tape flew us to New

41:03

York in Pittsburgh to like kind of

41:05

recap Warhol's life. Me and a group

41:07

of other journalists, barely journalists, but me

41:09

and a group of writers effectively, art

41:11

writers. And

41:20

it was, it was a press

41:22

trip unlike any other. I will say that we went

41:24

to his family home. We met his family. We met

41:26

like his family. We all say interesting.

41:29

There are so many interesting things about Warhol, for example, both.

41:32

There are two halves of his family. He

41:34

has two nephews that don't speak to their

41:36

warring, they're basically warring factions of family. One

41:38

part of the family is, is in Pittsburgh

41:40

and they're in charge of the Warhol Museum.

41:42

The other part is in New York and

41:45

he writes about, like he has like this beautiful book

41:47

of me and my uncle Andy and about like, you

41:49

know, his situation, but they don't. There's literally like a

41:51

schism within the Warhol family. I never knew

41:54

that. Yeah, it's really, it's so interesting.

41:56

And I like Warhol. Like, I'm not,

41:58

it's not true. is

42:00

iconic, it's really iconic iconography. But I

42:02

like Warhol more for the fact that,

42:05

speaking to people who knew him, there

42:08

is no, that's the rule, he

42:10

was obviously mental. But there was no, he

42:13

used to do this thing, whereas obviously Warhol's, and

42:15

you could see, in the museum you could see

42:17

his wigs, but he

42:19

would wear a wig, you

42:22

know, like being like, this is my hair, I don't wear wigs. He'd

42:25

go to the hairdresser, get his wig cut, and

42:27

then he would go

42:29

away for a couple of weeks by

42:32

a longer wig, and go back to the

42:34

salon and pretend that his hair had grown

42:36

out. And obviously they all knew it was

42:38

a wig, but I'm obsessed, I'm

42:40

obsessed with that, like, that level of like,

42:42

delusion, and it's something I truly aspire to.

42:47

I feel like, or just all the accounts of,

42:49

all the accounts of Andy Warhol are, of

42:52

a man who did not live very long ago, all the accounts

42:54

of him are borderline apocryphal.

42:57

Even speaking to people who knew him, some people are

42:59

like, oh, he was shy and retiring, and

43:02

then I speak to someone like Corey, who

43:05

worked in the factory, and he was just like,

43:07

no, he was like a horny, like, massive parvert.

43:12

And no one has any of these, there was, for

43:15

a character that did not live 2000 years

43:17

ago, it's very interesting that people cannot agree

43:19

on the kind of man Warhol was. And

43:23

that I find quite thrilling. Do

43:25

you feel like there's anything like Warhol now, contemporary?

43:28

Contemporary. Or

43:31

that kind of feeling at that time,

43:33

the factory, or then people sort of

43:35

descending on one individual. Descending

43:38

one individual. Within,

43:40

I do know if I see it within art, I

43:43

think that that kind of like, deification

43:45

is so much more evident within fashion.

43:47

Like, I could point to several contemporary

43:49

like, people within fashion who, I don't

43:51

know, I think of like, Ib Kamara, for example,

43:54

who has such like, a distinct visual

43:56

language that everyone in like, the last like, seven

43:58

years has attempted to jack it. Like you

44:00

can see the progress within fashion

44:04

of people who are just trying to replicate something

44:06

that he's basically been doing since he was at

44:08

university. And I think that his

44:10

impact, I guess he's the creative director

44:12

of Off-White now and he's also the

44:14

editor of Daze. And

44:17

I think he's a singular voice really

44:20

bringing the art into fashion in a beautiful way

44:23

that I

44:26

ever felt like it was elements of

44:28

Afrofuturism. I

44:31

think that people who have a kind

44:33

of and will have a kind of lasting cultural impact

44:35

I definitely think of someone like him.

44:37

You were an intern at a fashion magazine

44:39

for a while. I read this amazing story that

44:42

you some way try to present. Can I

44:44

say what magazine I'm in? The magazine's now in

44:46

style. I worked in style in the in

44:48

style, God, it was my, the stories I could

44:50

tell about in style. Well, there's an

44:52

amazing story you tell about how you were having

44:54

your appraisal and it was

44:57

a great appraisal, but you'd really offended someone about

44:59

a mirror. Okay. And this is

45:01

why everyone like I like to think that I'm crazy, but

45:03

everyone in fashion like genuinely unhinged.

45:06

Okay. So I had, I

45:09

used to work in the fashion in the

45:11

fashion style fashion cupboard. I was the fashion

45:13

cupboard manager, which involved being very lowly paid

45:15

and also fashion cupboard manager. Have

45:18

you ever seen, have you ever seen

45:21

ugly Betty? You might remember Christina who

45:23

like ran the fashion cupboard. I was Christina and

45:26

I was trying to change the intents. We once

45:28

lost a pair of Celine earrings, which was basically

45:30

an international incident because French Vogue wanted them right

45:32

after us. I couldn't find

45:34

them. And so we had to be like, this one, this

45:36

like pair of Celine earrings of which it's a new collection.

45:40

There's only one pair. We've lost them in

45:42

style magazine. That was

45:44

a hellish day. But I was having

45:46

my, I was having an appraisal at

45:48

this lovely fashion magazine and

45:50

my boss at the time, we'd

45:53

been in the fashion cupboard a couple of weeks earlier and

45:55

she came in like, you know, calmest woman saying, well, it's

45:57

just telling the story about how, you know, when she was

45:59

at home. a mirror had fallen and

46:01

broken, but she was like, you know what, she's like,

46:04

I'm glad that no one, I'm glad that no one

46:06

like knocked it over and broke it because you know,

46:08

70 is bad luck. And I, being like the consummate

46:10

know it all I was, I was like, actually the

46:13

correct superstition is that if a mirror falls and breaks on

46:15

its own, someone will die within a month in

46:17

your house. This

46:20

did not go down well. I

46:22

was just trying to give everyone

46:24

the correct information. Did

46:27

I ever believe that? No, but that was, that

46:29

was, I think perhaps the only, one of the

46:32

only negative points in my appraisal was she

46:34

brought up the fact that I told her that

46:36

and it freaked her out. And apparently that was

46:38

like a legitimate thing to bring up

46:40

in my formal appraisal. Because

46:43

she was thinking about her family. Because she was thinking about

46:45

someone in someone, I'm so sorry. That's your fault. It's my

46:47

fault. It's not my fault. First of all, she was incorrect

46:49

about the superstition. And second of

46:52

all, fucking like, like, God, love

46:54

fashion. Can fashion

46:56

be art? Yes, like absolutely,

46:58

without a doubt. Like, I

47:01

think conclusively. Is all fashion art? No,

47:04

because like, Philip, fucking Philip Prime. Like,

47:07

no, but can fashion be art? Absolutely.

47:10

If you think of performance and like Warhol and

47:12

the legacy of that, like, if you think of

47:14

someone who's from a very different history, but Marina

47:17

Abramovich, I know you've become friends with her. And

47:19

we actually went together to the opening of the

47:21

Royal Academy and Lindsay as well. We all went

47:23

to see her in London. And can you speak

47:25

a bit about her work and also the friendship

47:27

that has now grown? I look,

47:29

I was afraid. No, because

47:32

she told me she liked you. Yeah, I mean, no,

47:34

we got, we got, me and

47:36

my bestie, Marina Abramovich, got on like a

47:38

house on fire. No, she's just like, she,

47:41

I think that people think that Marina Abramovich, like,

47:43

I certainly thought that she would be one kind

47:45

of, like, one kind of person. And then you

47:47

meet her and you realize that she's really fucking

47:49

funny. Like, she's so funny. Like, like

47:52

cracking like really like, hilarious jokes constantly.

47:54

And I remember actually one of the,

47:57

I think maybe it was the third time I met her, we were

47:59

at some like dinner. and she came over

48:01

to huddle us and she's like, this is

48:03

so boring. She's like, I want to talk

48:05

to the kids. It's just everything. Yeah, I

48:07

just, she's like a woman who's like, I'm

48:10

not sure everyone has seen the clip where they

48:12

ask her if she'd like to have dinner with

48:14

Greta Gerwig or Kim Kardashian. She

48:17

doesn't either. And what

48:19

I really appreciated about that because she

48:21

said, I grew up in,

48:23

you know, so we didn't have these toys. I

48:25

played with the invisible beings and shadows. And I

48:27

actually, funnily enough, really relate to that not

48:30

because we didn't have toys growing up, but

48:32

I, we're getting deeper into the, I have,

48:36

I've had sleep paralysis since I

48:38

was about seven and I've had

48:41

really long, about to sleep paralysis

48:43

and hypno sleep time hallucinations. And

48:47

some of the earliest memories I have of my

48:49

childhood are seeing these figures,

48:51

these terrifying figures on the walls

48:53

of my childhood bedroom and being

48:55

half asleep, half awake. I've seen

48:57

all sorts of things, and

49:00

I think then that also does actually very

49:02

much flood into the book because I was

49:04

trying to contend with the fact that my,

49:07

in some very tangible

49:09

sense, there's something about my nervous

49:12

system, about my brain. Also there's the

49:14

whole pain empathy thing, which I

49:16

can't get into, but yeah, I

49:19

really identify with the whole, you know, I

49:21

only played with invisible figures and beings. I'm like, oh my

49:24

God, me too, during my childhood. That's all I saw was

49:26

invisible figures and beings. Maybe

49:28

I should talk to a doctor after this. But

49:31

I find her to be

49:33

the most thrilling and fascinating and

49:36

funny, like, and also like even something

49:38

about even the macabre jokes that she

49:41

made when she was talking about nearly

49:43

dying, I deeply identify with,

49:45

because I'm constantly making jokes about. Anyway,

49:50

but I think that there aren't, I

49:54

think that Marina is a singular figure within culture. I

49:57

think that there aren't many people that endure.

50:00

that many people that get to, that

50:02

throughout their lives get to so determinedly,

50:05

determinedly make the kind of work they want, work

50:07

that is, but also

50:09

it's thrilling partly because it was so

50:12

dangerous and but she did get hurt.

50:14

People actually did hurt her, people pitched

50:16

up, you know, the lady that pointed

50:18

them at her, people cut her. I

50:21

think that you have to be mad

50:24

and also to have some really

50:28

divine quality within you to

50:30

throw yourself into that kind of work and to throw

50:32

yourself to it for a lifetime. I want

50:36

to be the Marina Babbage when

50:38

I grow up, I very much want to be an artist

50:40

that is that present. You

50:42

dedicate the book to the women in your family and

50:44

you said that I am not often the best version of myself but

50:47

on the days that I am it is because of you and there's

50:49

this beautiful poem which is one of my favorites

50:51

which is for your sister. Can

50:54

you read that actually because it's another short one but

50:56

also can you speak a bit about like

50:59

the women in your family and how important women are

51:01

to you? I love how I keep on picking up

51:03

the book. I know my psychology, it's a nicer image

51:05

for me to read from the book. For

51:10

my sister I keep a

51:12

photograph of you and I when we were young

51:15

on my bedside table. It

51:18

is a kind of contagion magic, a

51:20

ritual by which I hope to overwhelm the worst

51:22

parts of me with your goodness and

51:24

wed the shame from my very bones. I

51:27

love, I like, where's

51:30

my wow Rob? Wow, thank

51:32

you. Otan

51:35

was trying to outdo my well because I

51:37

would be my favorite catch flavor. Wow, wow.

51:41

I'm talking. Wow. And extraordinary, also extraordinary.

51:43

I love, I love, I love the

51:45

reviews. I love them. They're just so,

51:47

it's a key from one, one big.

51:49

Oh yeah, my troll. Yeah, I have

51:51

a troll who basically slacked me off

51:53

for saying wow too much. I

51:56

need to get off the show. The Rob was great. Yeah, the

51:58

Rob was great. I

52:01

hate Robert, but I love Russell. Yeah,

52:03

I'm sorry about that. Yeah, it's okay,

52:05

I forgive you. Is that your uncle?

52:07

Anyway, talk about the women in your

52:09

life. Women in my family. So that

52:12

poem, if we were to think about

52:14

the archetypes, I often thought that I

52:16

was like grown with my family, I was kind of like

52:18

the ingenue and my sister was the genius.

52:21

Like I wouldn't, I

52:23

say growing up, it's so

52:26

interesting, growing up in her shadow, which

52:28

is I was the negotian middle-child. Growing

52:30

up in her shadow because she was just

52:32

so, her sister's assuming me brilliant

52:34

and she's good at everything that she's ever

52:36

tried. And that pushed me

52:39

to try and be better because

52:41

I often feel like I wonder what sort

52:43

of, this proto-queer, this child that sometimes people

52:45

are mean to for reasons that are not

52:47

discernible to you at that moment, I think

52:49

you internalize all of it. And

52:52

I just always, and I still think this now actually,

52:54

I think sometimes it's hard for me to, when I'm

52:56

not with this, hard for me, even

52:58

when I am with them, I think

53:00

that I'm sometimes as

53:02

a wolf right, or I guess as

53:05

Sasha in Orlando, I have this discussion in Orlando, being like,

53:07

why are you sad? And I often find myself like on

53:10

sometimes on the verge of tears when I am with my

53:12

sisters, because I

53:15

am so, something

53:17

about that company is so good

53:20

that I often think to myself, what if this is the

53:22

last time? And

53:24

that is, that's an intense thing to feel every

53:27

time I see them, but they are

53:29

shining paragon beacons

53:31

of kindness and of selflessness

53:33

and of restraint and containment.

53:35

And they are in many

53:38

ways everything that I

53:40

will never be. And I think

53:42

that's not a bad thing, but I

53:45

often, the days when

53:48

I'm around them, I'm a better

53:50

person. And I think that thinking

53:52

about them makes me want to be better. It

53:54

makes me want to be a better man. It

53:56

makes me want to show people the kindness. that

54:00

I've seen them experience, the integrity that

54:02

even my little sister like she just

54:04

has so much integrity and I

54:06

just and I think to myself I want

54:09

to I want to be like you to possess it.

54:11

I feel like in many ways I'm too worldly a

54:13

person I'm too you know too

54:15

wedded to like pleasures

54:17

of the flesh and you know and

54:20

I think that both of my sisters are just you

54:23

know they're the antithesis of me and

54:26

that is both terrifying and beautiful

54:28

because I don't I I

54:30

in any universe in

54:33

any circumstance if I could

54:35

do this all I cannot I would choose them

54:37

every single time and

54:40

so yeah I think that the

54:43

women in my family are wonderful. I

54:45

have something that my mother my mother

54:49

is the kindest person I know

54:51

without without any doubt she doesn't seem to have

54:53

the capacity to

54:56

wickedness that me and my

54:58

father do. I'm kidding. She

55:01

listens to this, it's going to be a great

55:03

conversation. But no it doesn't have that capacity for

55:07

meanness or she doesn't have

55:09

that capacity for selfishness that drives other people that

55:12

sometimes drives me even though I like to think I'm

55:14

you know I'm a very selfish person and

55:17

yeah and so just these qualities like

55:19

I sometimes will that

55:21

goodness into me by osmosis or

55:24

just you know it's hard

55:26

to be sometimes hard to be around them

55:28

because I think because I'm thinking

55:30

of having one of leaving and

55:32

how hard leaving is. Have some

55:35

red wine. Well before we get onto our

55:37

final questions can I take this opportunity to

55:39

read from another poet one

55:43

that means a lot to you Mary Oliver.

55:45

Mary Oliver. Mary's work because that's you told

55:47

me about her and I've now gone into

55:49

a bit of a Mary Oliver rabbit hole.

55:51

Okay right isn't isn't she fantastic. Like so

55:54

I think there are some poets that

55:56

people often again make

55:58

fun of because earnestness is something to be

56:00

punished, and it's just embarrassing. Oh my God, you have feelings.

56:04

But Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver, her

56:07

adoration of the natural world, of

56:10

letting go of finding healing in the natural

56:12

world of living in the

56:14

moment, I think, and these seem like

56:16

nebulous and trite things I'm saying, but you

56:19

pick up a Mary Oliver poem, you

56:21

read Wild Geese, or the

56:24

Summer Day, and this

56:26

quality of accepting the world as it

56:28

is, and seeing the minutiae, the beauty

56:30

of it, is something I

56:34

think that Mary Oliver is, if ever

56:36

there was a poet as a guide to life,

56:39

I believe that it's Mary Oliver. I

56:41

really believe that. Can I read two poems that are

56:43

quite quick? First one is

56:45

titled Don't Hesitate. If

56:48

you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

56:50

don't hesitate, give into it.

56:53

There are plenty of lives and whole towns

56:56

destroyed, or about to be. We

56:58

are not wise, and not very often

57:00

kind, and much can never

57:02

be redeemed. Still, life

57:05

has some possibility left. Perhaps

57:08

this is its way of fighting back, that

57:10

sometimes something happens better than all

57:13

the riches or power in the

57:15

world. It could be anything, but

57:18

very likely you notice it in

57:20

the instant when love begins. Anyway,

57:24

that's often the case. Anyway,

57:26

whatever it is, don't be

57:28

afraid of its plenty. Joy

57:31

is not made to be a crumb. Amazing.

57:35

It's incredible. And then this other

57:37

one, which is quite poignant, is

57:39

called The Uses of Sorrow. And

57:41

she says, In my sleep I dream this poem.

57:45

Someone I loved once gave me a

57:47

box full of... I'm gonna cry. That's

57:50

annoying. It's only one more line though. You've

57:52

got two sentences. You're my... you

57:55

can do it. once

58:00

gave me a box full of

58:03

darkness it

58:06

took me years to understand that this

58:09

too was a gift thank

58:12

you for introducing

58:14

me to work that's a bit

58:16

dramatic isn't it sorry no it's

58:18

heartfelt no it's like I

58:21

cry often which I would

58:23

you like audience do I seem like a

58:25

person who cries a lot no yeah I

58:27

cry a lot I know that I might

58:29

not seem like it I'm

58:41

very very very moved and Mary

58:43

Oliver is a poet that

58:45

moves me yeah and amazing that poetry can

58:48

do that there's like four lines and it's

58:50

not just go straight to the heart doesn't

58:52

it yeah and that's what your work does

58:54

for people I hope so that's and I

58:57

hope also people feel empowered to

59:00

to write poems and you know

59:03

I think they like like like Corbin got really

59:06

yeah he got really really

59:09

really like I guess pilloried for this specific opinion

59:11

which is the idea that there is a poet

59:13

you know a painter in all of us which is

59:15

kind of devastating to

59:17

think of that as like a

59:20

legitimate criticism but I think that like I hope

59:22

that people feel empowered to go and write

59:24

a poem I hope that someone picks

59:26

us up off the shelf and says

59:28

to himself I can do this like if he can do

59:30

this I can and yeah

59:33

I just think about emotions of poems like I

59:35

actually there's a poem in here which I could

59:37

not you're bearing my eye right here but I could

59:39

not get through it without crying the

59:41

first time I got through without crying was maybe

59:44

a couple of actually at my launch

59:46

because I couldn't cry I couldn't cry because it was

59:48

also my eye if I started crying I think that

59:50

my sister would have started crying or Winnie would have

59:52

started crying so

59:54

I didn't I didn't but I managed to get through it

59:56

but yeah even even the words that

59:58

you write yourself to to speak something can

1:00:01

really pull something out of you. And I

1:00:03

think that that's wonderful. Right,

1:00:05

final questions then. You can do an art heist,

1:00:08

you were about to say earlier, but if you could steal any

1:00:10

artwork in the world for yourself, what would it be and why?

1:00:13

It would be, I'd say one of the Eve Klein blue

1:00:16

editions. Even though he's a bullshitter.

1:00:19

But because he's a bullshitter. Yeah,

1:00:23

absolutely. Like blue is my

1:00:25

favorite color. That's the next question. Dave,

1:00:28

you're so poetic. Just get

1:00:30

ahead of yourself. Well, can I ask

1:00:32

you the next question? What is your favorite

1:00:34

color? Eve Klein blue, money.

1:00:37

Money is my favorite. Green. Green,

1:00:39

money is green. I would be feeling green.

1:00:42

No, but I would steal that. And I steal it from, honestly,

1:00:45

not to be like the Tate Modern doesn't have

1:00:47

a lot of security. But the Tate Modern does

1:00:49

not have a lot of security. And

1:00:52

I really feel like if I were to really plan a heist,

1:00:54

I feel like this is something I used to think about all

1:00:56

the time when I was younger, being like, because

1:00:59

art high seemed so fun. I

1:01:02

would love to be an art thief. I'm

1:01:04

saying all this. It's all gone. I can't. I

1:01:06

love it. I have a legitimate job. Yeah. I

1:01:09

mean, I don't know if you ever read about

1:01:11

this, but really high profile works of art that

1:01:14

were in foreign museums that

1:01:16

were ancient, like Chinese works, were suddenly

1:01:18

going missing, stolen by what seemed to

1:01:20

be highly professional teams of

1:01:23

people who were leaving behind no

1:01:25

trace. And effectively what

1:01:27

the implication was. The Chinese government was

1:01:29

putting together these heist teams to go

1:01:31

and steal works of art that had

1:01:33

been stolen feminishly, which is fab. I

1:01:36

think. So

1:01:39

fab. I'm a big fan of that. I don't know.

1:01:41

When I was younger, I used to, the careers I

1:01:43

dreamed about, maybe it's cheerleaders fault because I dreamed about

1:01:46

being an archeologist

1:01:48

because I thought that

1:01:50

I would be on my Lara Croftis. Like

1:01:54

a little hot pound, a little dual

1:01:56

pistol. Like

1:01:59

very cunt. But

1:02:03

I also wanted to be, I

1:02:06

used to think that like heist films

1:02:08

were some of my favourite films. And

1:02:10

I just, the idea of heist, it's a thing

1:02:12

that I like to think of as, there's like a

1:02:15

phrase I came up with to describe

1:02:17

when people... It's just a made up word. It's

1:02:19

not a made up, it's a phrase. Phrases can't be, it's not

1:02:21

made up in the same way. It's just

1:02:24

a tactical grace. I don't know, when

1:02:26

you watch, I don't

1:02:28

know, Catherine Zeta-Jones cartwheeling,

1:02:31

like contorting herself over like

1:02:33

red laser beams. I mean,

1:02:35

that's an example of tactical

1:02:37

grace. But it's often, I

1:02:40

think it's quality that happens in real life, but often

1:02:42

more represented in art when someone is

1:02:45

such a rarefied level of skill and charm

1:02:47

that they're able to pull off

1:02:49

effortlessly something within the world of the show

1:02:51

that feels quite like special to observe in

1:02:53

magical and I call it, called a tactical

1:02:55

grace. A bit like Diana in The Traitors,

1:02:58

isn't it? I thought you were such a

1:03:00

fag. What

1:03:02

is the best advice you've ever received in terms of

1:03:04

your writing? Don't,

1:03:06

no. What

1:03:09

is the best advice? I

1:03:11

think maybe it is Sam, but

1:03:13

that's not necessarily about writing.

1:03:16

I've received so much encouragement from

1:03:18

so many people, I cannot listen

1:03:20

more. I do love Sam's advice,

1:03:22

which is you can make a

1:03:24

thing and you will spend all of your time

1:03:27

wondering whether or not the thing was good. And

1:03:31

instead of worrying about whether or not it was good, worry about whether

1:03:33

or not it was honest. And

1:03:35

I think that that is

1:03:37

why I've made peace with, is that I do not think that

1:03:39

this is perfect. Is

1:03:42

it the greatest contribution to the count in the last 20

1:03:44

years? The jury's out on that. Maybe.

1:03:50

I don't think that it's perfect by any stretch of

1:03:52

the imagination, but is it honest? Yes.

1:03:55

And that's all I could hope for. Thank you

1:03:57

for your honesty. Yeah, thank you. This has been

1:03:59

amazing. Thank you everybody for being here. Thank

1:04:01

you for having me. I love you so

1:04:03

much. Thank you. Of course. And

1:04:06

also, everyone who's going to get this book, either listening

1:04:08

or in the audience, the thing I love about it

1:04:10

as well is as an object. It really works so

1:04:12

beautifully as an artwork because the typography

1:04:14

and the layout and the rhythm of

1:04:16

the actual visual of the words is

1:04:18

so impressive as a

1:04:20

book. And it's really fresh to me and it's

1:04:22

really exciting. And my favorite page is where

1:04:25

it just says, love me, love me, love me, love me, love

1:04:27

me, love me, love me, love me. Over and over again. Because

1:04:30

I just need to be... because I'm acting

1:04:33

as if I'm Russell Tovey. Who

1:04:35

wants to be loved? Who wants to be

1:04:37

loved? That's a burn. Yeah, it is. Does

1:04:39

it have to be honest? Yeah,

1:04:41

thank you. Well, we want

1:04:43

to thank the Fort Road Hotel for allowing

1:04:45

us to be here today for this. We'd

1:04:48

like to thank Quench Gallery

1:04:50

in Margate. Lindsay. Lindsay and

1:04:52

Guy. Thank you very much. Gemma.

1:04:54

We love Gemma. And everyone for

1:04:56

coming on a Sunday to come

1:05:00

see me talk absolute shit.

1:05:02

Also, you're very fresh-faced. You're all

1:05:04

looking really happy. There's no Hanover

1:05:06

faceless. It's my fucking Diggly Lid.

1:05:08

No, you are. You are. And

1:05:10

everyone listening, please go to our talk art and

1:05:13

we'll be posting images of what we're talking today.

1:05:15

And are you at Otamre? I'm at Otamre on

1:05:17

everything. Perfect. And we'll

1:05:19

be looking... We'll have our branding, baby. Only fans

1:05:21

and everything. Exactly. Brilliant. We'll be

1:05:23

back very soon. Thanks for listening. Thanks everyone. Bye.

1:05:27

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1:05:56

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