Treacle, wax, feathers, oil, incense, velvet, silk, fire. Mud. Abandoned industrial sites with plenty weeds. Lightly boned vintage corsetry. Wildness, wilderness, water towers and wind turbines. Squalls, blizzards & flash floods. Dancing on roofracks. Swimming in the rain. And let's see now; ley lines, giant squid. Voyages/expeditions preferably on a train OR with a pack horse (not both - they put their hooves on the seats); the type of trip that involves keeping dry matches in a 35mm film canister. Anything a bit pagan...herbs, a bit of light incantation. Check out me windowboxes, innit. Things that happen in fog or mist. Foghorns are good. And train whistles.
oh, you know, the disenfranchised, the free of spirit, the light of heart (and of furniture), the poor, the lairy, Big Issue sellers with dogs, people whose glasses are at the midway point, Niccolo Machiavelli, Harvey, Naiads, Driads and Nereids, the shadow and the light, a whale, genuine (not fake) hermits, arcadians, adventurers, the Coypu Liberation Army: Hanuman the monkey god and the Crack Squirrels
All of the following (but probably never all at the same time) Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Primal Scream, Nina Simone, Grandaddy, The Prodigy, The Cure, The Cult, Jeff Buckley, The Clash, Backini, Japan, Patti Smith, Eels, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, the Chilis, Gnarls Barkley, Nouvelle Vague, Gossip, King Crimson, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Ella Fitzgerald, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Pixies, Van Morrison, Neil Young, The LAs, Oasis, Michelle Shocked, Placebo, Portishead, The Buzzcocks, The Ramones, Echo & the Bunnymen, Surfjan Stevens and his Uncle Cat, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, The Byrds, Tom Petty, The White Stripes, Etta James, Tom Waits, Julian Cope, P J Harvey, Radiohead, XTC, Them Kleptones, Those Guillemots, Antony and his Johnsons, The Zutons...etc. On very dark nights, something with a bit of steel guitar. On sunny mornings, a bit of 50s lounge, played slightly ironically (ha!). Brightblack Morninglight. Did I say Ladytron? BB KING DISCOVERS HIS GUITAR IS PAST ITS EXPIRY DATE...
The Life of Brian, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Motorcycle Diaries, Bombon el Perro, Don't Look Now, To Have and Have Not, Betty Blue, Perfume, Secretary, City of God, Amores Perros, Some Like it Hot, Brazil, Logan's Run, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lost in Translation, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Belle de Jour, Barbarella, Casablanca, Tarantino, Almodovar
is the opium of the people. Discuss. Ahem. Channel 4 News, Eastenders and cough ... cough Castaway.
Just picked up from the library: Island - Huxley, Steppenwolf - Hesse, Lady Chatterley's Lover - Lawrence, Catch 22 - Heller. Taken back to the library: Ham on Rye - Bukowski. What they didn't have at the library: Hemingway, any, at all. OK so I fixated on the H's. There's nothing wrong with that. Other than my current dealings with the library, sample top picks are L'Etranger - Camus, Gormenghast - Peake, The Monkey Wrench Gang - Edward Abbey. Influential yoof classics include Tove Jansson's Comet in Moominland (I most identify with Sniff) and Dodie Smith's 101 Dalmations before Disney got hold and tortured it.
People who help other people feel the magic.