Psychogeography

Qu’est ce que c’est?

Welcome again, thank you for reading.

My sub-stack archives are starting to form up a nice mosaic of my thoughts and writing. It’s my physic map that’s always in motion.

So humbled when people decide to pay for my writing - thank you!

I should also mention that the audio is different from the more formal written exposition. My daughter says she likes the audio while, ‘she does something creative’.

Last week was more relaxed as all the majority of my pupils at school were on trips in Derbyshire, Greece, Spain (walking the Camino) or Florence. I will write about my trip to the British Museum once I have digested it.

This week I decided to write about Psycho-Geography which, if you are not sure, is the exploration of urban environments that emphasises interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. Trust me this will be interesting, it’s become quite a modern genre that’s started gaining some heat, indeed I will suggest a little practice to you at the end and a competition with a prize.

In 1955, Guy Debord defined psychogeography as, "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals."

This also fits in with my thinking on the art of memory.

I could put together quite a convincing argument that Thomas Hardy, the nineteenth century novelist, invented psychogeography. Hardy has this idea in his novels of a ‘Past Marked Prospect’. All Hardy’s novels take place in a specific locality, a literary version of Dorset (where I am moving to), called Wessex. His characters stayed in these localities all their lives in terms of their backstory and every location became a ‘past marked prospect’; by this Hardy meant every tree, bench or stream possessed a memory or physic charge.

Now this I think is true for all of us, if we visit a place where something significant happened for us in the past it remains ‘marked’ as a ‘prospect’ and the memory floods back. I know if I return to the bench in Beaconsfield where I first kissed my wife this physic flash back certainly happens!

I am also going to throw in those places which occur in fiction, but have a real world correspondence, for example Lyra’s bench in Oxford from Philip Pullman’s,‘Northern Lights’ or that beach where Harry Potter fans go to leave a sock for Dobbie, the House Elf.

I suppose this is all about where we find meaning.

So why not make a list of five places that have this quality for you? Where are your past-marked prospects and put them in the comments. I would love to know.

The book that got me really thinking about this topic is called, ‘Ghost Town: A Liverpool Shadowplay’, by Jeff Young and published by Little Toller Books. Obviously based in Liverpool, which has quite a resonant history being a slave port. Young takes us on a walk through the haunted places of memory and loss, we meet long departed heroes who still half occupy the disappearing nooks and the ruins of the city, where history and the present elide. Here is a taste of his prose:

...a collage of thrilling dissonance — Victorian splendour, a Lancashire Chicago, May Blitz bomb sites next to the collapsing slums and Viennese-style tenements, bang next to the 1960s science-fiction eyesore of the shopping precinct, the banal Futuropolis of some deranged city planner.

Malcolm Lowry still drinks there in derelict salons awaiting a boat to Mexico and his own Day of the Dead.

I am going to digress here as I need to exercise my Malcolm Lowry conundrum. Having bought his book, ‘Under the Volcano’ at least three times and never read the damn thing! I first laid my hands on a copy after Kathleen Raine told me about it and how she knew Lowry at Cambridge. I know it’s based structurally on the Cabalistic Tree of life. I keep buying it and giving it away, which is really odd. I went and purchased another second-hand copy the other. Are there certain books you have this relationship with? Do let me know.

The other Psycho-Geography book I have read is about that rogue Aleister Crowley in London called, ‘City of the Beast’ by Phil Baker. Parts of this were curiously interesting, there were many descriptions of the strange things the Great Beast had eaten, imbibed or had sex with!

To return to more savoury topics, can I suggest that you choose a city or town you don’t know; go there on your own and just spend the day walking round; sitting in cafes and see who and what you encounter. This anonymity will create a freshness to experience and an openness to the moment, especially if you ground yourself in the physical body.

After my cancer diagnosis last year, and before my impending operation, I found myself completely in the ‘moment’. The alternative was fear and the catastrophising of the mind.

We had travelled down to Bristol as my wife was attending a course there. I was present without purpose and spent the day strolling and mooching.

It was the most wonderful and magical day ever. It rained in the morning and I spent an hour in a cafe where I met a poet and musician, we talked of Blake and Yeats. In a crystal shop I bought two obsidian spheres which I was told would aid my healing. In a bookshop I found a battered copy of ‘The Magus of Stravolos’ which offered a Christian meditation that I used every day after my operation. I drank coffee with strangers who quickly became friends, I broke bread with my fellow man and a book shop owner gave me a Dime Bar to eat! I also bought my wife a kimono. It was strange, timeless and true. Indeed, a day out of time where all fear fled.

So that’s your challenge, why not give it a try? Then tell me what happened in the comments section.

We all need opportunities to step out of habit, out of our comfort zones and breath anew. It will fulfil the definition I started this piece with - if you are in an urban situation and the route is arbitrary, and don’t start with intent or purpose, just ‘Be’.

Go for it.

Remember habit can deaden!

I will give a prize for the best Psycho Geography Adventure!

Don’t forget the audio! It’s a variation on a theme and different from the written text. Best listened to whilst eating beans on toast and with a cup of builders tea!

Much love,

David

#thebrazieroftruth

Bibliography:

‘Far From the Madding Crowd’ Thomas Hardy - the perfect book to begin with.

‘The Art of Memory’ Frances Yates

‘His Dark Materials’ Philip Pullman

‘Harry Potter’ JK Rowling

‘Under the Volcano’ Malcom Lowry

‘From Hell’ Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell - Graphic Novel

‘Alice in Sunderland’ Bryan Talbot - Graphic Novel

“City of the Beast’ Phil Baker