Manifesto for a New City

[shewhomust]

To Hexham yesterday evening for the premiere of the stage show, Manifesto for a New City.

It has been fascinating to watch the development of this piece. In the beginning was a poem by Julia Darling, The Manifesto For Tyneside Upon England, sparked by a visit to Barcelona. Here's a taster:

No one should own more than they can carry.

We shall pull down Eldon Square and rebuild it as it was.

I shall rebuild Handyside Arcade.

We shall pull down Swan House Roundabout, and make the Tyne Bridge pedestrian.

Each of us will learn a contemporary dance.

We shall not travel, although we may have pen pals and we are free to imagine travel.

The air of the new city shall smell of pies.

There will be many bicycle repair shops and free bikes.

The city shall be filled with the sounds of making, of sparking metal, of whirring minds, of fresh cheese, of new poetry.

You can no longer read the whole poem on Julia's website, dammit!, but this is enough to give its flavour - warm, personal, generous and utterly biased. It works by provoking the reader to alternate cries of "Yes!" and "Yes, but...". This is the manifesto of a poet, not of "the unacknowledged legislators of the World". Julia Darling's reading of her poem (at an event at the Newcastle Playhouse called Flying Homages, one of a series of events around a production of Homage to Catalonia) was interspersed with postcards from a dispossessed bureaucrat; the current production is operatic in structure, and although the bureaucrats are still present, the voices that bring down the revolution are not theirs, but those of the disgruntled who originally made it happen.

The trick is to draw the audience into the game: do we agree with the confiscation of all luxury flats and offices, so that they can be given rent free to artists and makers? do we want the air to smell of pies? What do we want?

In this spirit of cheerful impracticality, here's the beginning of a list:

• There shall be an annual comics festival (a good one, with murals).


• Music will be encouraged, but not amplified. The use of recorded music in public places will be banned. This includes hold music on telephones.


• Teachers will earn the salaries of professional athletes - and vice-versa.


• Children will not be taught in the language they speak at home. All children.


• McDonald's will only be allowed to sell French Fries.


• Graffiti in chalk will be legalized and encouraged.


• C.E.O.s, C.O.O.s, and C.F.O.s will be live-trapped and released into the wild.


• Adults will be required to read at least one children's book a year and write a 2-3 page report on it.


• Adults wishing to become parents must pass a lengthy examination.


• The river that flows through our city - and how can there be a city without a river flowing through it? - shall be a thoroughfare for such traffic as suits its size: ocean liners, barges, pleasure boats. Pedestrians shall stroll along its banks, be soothed by its constant motion, picnic beside its waters. It will inspire us to build bridges of great beauty and originality. It will not serve as a dividing line.

With thanks to ratmmjess for some excellent suggestions!

Comments

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

- teachers will earn the salaries of professional athletes--and vice-versa.
- children will not be taught in the language they speak at home. *All* children.
- McDonald's will only be allowed to sell French Fries.
- graffiti in chalk will be legalized and encouraged.
- C.E.O.s, C.O.O.s, and C.F.O.s will be live-trapped and released into the wild.
- adults will be required to read at least one children's book a year and write a 2-3 page report on it.

and, of course

- adults wishing to become parents must pass a lengthy examination.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I've edited these into the list, plus another one of my own...

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I like yours, too.