Meeting Interesting People
7 February 1990, Wednesday, Glasgow
In the morning I tried phoning John Smith & Son1 and The Third Eye2. Didn’t get through to the right people. Walked to the Ibis Bookshop and handed in my CV. I think if I appear enthusiastic/desperate enough I might have a chance of persuading them to take me on part- and then full-time. Lunch in my room. Listened to Record Review on the radio. Wrote out three more job applications with CV. Posted them and walked indirectly to the Glasgow Print Studios. I looked around the exhibition — the Mummies of Palermo, which was gruesome enough for me to enjoy and then went into the studios which were open to the public.
I was looking round when Glenn Moss3 hallooed me. I had met him at the Glasgow Art School Environmental Art Department, situated in an old Girl’s School, whilst seeing Nancy Bolland4 about a room she had advertised. The room was taken. After I had spoken to Glenn for about half an hour N came and gave him a kiss. They are therefore going out. I politely left them but will probably see them at the opening of an exhibition at Transmission this Saturday at 7pm5.
Bought a non-stick frying pan, a fuse for the kettle and some lightbulbs. In the shop opposite I bought some tinned spaghetti, eggs, etc. Had a small fry-up. Am currently writing this whilst taping Shostakovich’s 2nd Violin Concerto from the radio. I am praying that there are no bursts of white noise to interfere with the music. It was this piece that most struck me in the recent TV biopic starring Ben Kingsley.
I currently have shortish hair, soon to be shorter, and a bit of a beard.
According to my sources, it is ‘the oldest bookselling company in the English-speaking world’.
Contemporary arts centre. World renowned.
I didn’t realise until now that Glenn (not his real name) was a member of a fairly successful indie band, although I had worked out — at the time — that he was an artist and probably musician (as artists in Glasgow often are). He was a great person to have met. He’s done many amazing things since.
Nancy (nhrn) was studying at the School of Art, and is a now an artist and maker who has exhibited widely. She was another great person to have met.
I will be honest. In my authorised version of living in Glasgow, I had excised this. I thought I met and spoke to almost no-one — that I had no way in to any scene. My memory was mainly of the walking drizzly streets, of writing, of shopping for kettles. I did remember a couple of nights at the Art School bar where I met nice people who were leaving for London or to go back onto a nuclear submarine (these encounters are coming soon). But this meeting with two significantly connected artists (although I didn’t know anything at the time), I had forgotten it completely. Another alternative life flickers into and out of existence. I believed I hadn’t found a way to join in with Glasgow, but perhaps I had.