My mate Des sent me a postcard from Pisa with a photo on the front of the top portion of the Tower Of caught floating on the surface of a clear blue sky, all cold hard chewing-gum white like a ludicrously over ornate hand-carved ivory peppermill belonging to one of the fucked-up big-spender popes, and the picture has been taken from behind a statue that partially obscures the leaning tower and which features The Marble Manchilds operating unconvincing bows and arrows while standing threateningly on one leg.
In the photo the tower looks like it is falling slowly down and into the blue, like the lean is the beginning of some long move away, a spaceship departing. Standing in Pisa looking at it straight on, it must look like the first two and a quarter minutes of the very big hand, or seven and a half percent of falling over, just enough to rest the tongue onto the starting blocks to begin the first syllable of ‘timber’.
The obscuring statue is perhaps there to try and slip some other stuff in to an image of Pisa, yet it looks ridiculous and the looming tower stands behind it muscling in, leaning over to make the manchilds nervous.
On the back Des wrote: ‘Yup I flew in right over the beast . . .' I know exactly what this means because I can imagine Des saying it, although it does have a soaring lineage, a huge heritage of sense, a fully traceable pedigree of champion coverage. I mean it relates to the whole idea of the Tower being The Thing, dominating all of Pisa, this huge beast of a thing that devours and rips apart every thought except those that involve The Tower; like a thick thousand eyed serpent beast it is rearing up and out of Pisa itself to say: 'Look at me, people live here and there may be some other cultural stuff around but face it, I am Pisa'.
The Tower is the big cheese in this town and hovers there having covered up everything else in Pisa; it is the ultimate topping, like on a real Pizza all other ingredients are just an exciting foundation to present the cheese to us. It is the melted wonder that is cheese that we really want and we have worked a way of balancing its stretchy texture and flavour with tomato and base so that we can have large amounts of it.
Sometimes pepper comes last onto a Pizza, yet not often is it that welcome without the possibility of a stir. I once allowed too much on a pizza because it was outside at night and the giant pepper pot they were using had a motor and a torch to shine on to the food so the peppering could be evaluated, it
a rut usr 3-10 Aug 2000
IT IS THE l\/IELTED WONDER THAT IS CHEESE THAT WE with any other
needed no throttling because of the engine inside and so it sat there in the same position of hands that would have rotated its head, humming and making its mini air raids with searchlight, a small liberated snowstorm in negative like NASA debris, and triumphed by putting cheese in the spotlight where it belongs.
It rises like the Big Finger unleashed at that angle, exactly that angle of the finger, like it is a finger, like it is a yob tower, wishing to have it fairly large
tower - 'Oi Babel,
London cam on' - It leans at the angle of italics, it is the ultimate ltaliscised 'I', introducing itself over all the rest with its emphasis. Italian Italics, Italy sized. The ltaliscised Tower of Pisa? Is that the biggest discovery about the tower since Galileo Galileo- Fiagaro, this miller no, he will not let me go, dropped some objects of different weight from the penthouse layer back in the experimental Hundreds and found they flew at roughly the same speed.
Anyway Desmond referring to it as 'the
beast' incorporates all these possibilities of beast nature, yet the real power, the whole meaning of this statement, the absolute actual point would far and away simply be the sound of him saying it.
ROISIN McClOSKEY
Famespotting Simon Foy
Who he? Foy is a mainstay of Glasgow clubland, what with his reSidencies at The Tunnel’s Friday night flagship, Ark, and his own monthly extravaganza Inside Out, which attracts the biggest names in the biz to The Arches month in, month out. In fact, the success of the glam house behemoth is such that Foy is preparing a brand new night to better showcase his talents. 'The club runs on the last Saturday of the month at the moment, but in September we’ll be domg the first Saturday as well,’ Foy explains. 'lnside Out has developed into a bit of a monster With the big names on every month, so we deCided to start Freefall to give myself and Alan Belshaw the chance to do something a bit more resident-led With the odd guest from time to time.’ Don't DIs spend as much time in the studio as behind the decks these days? Indeed so, and Foy is no exception. Along with fellow Glaswegian JOCk Trevor Reilly he records as, funnily enough, Trevor and Simon. The pair are behind the infectious anthem ’Put Your Hands Up (In The Air)'. ’The single charted at number twelve,’ says Foy. ’And we got to do Top of the Pops, which is one of those things that everybody wants to do I suppose. All that side of it has been really good, the only problem is that the pressure’s on from the record label to produce another hit.’ What does the future hold? Well, further chart success looks likely, and, in addition to the forthcoming Freefall, Foy is taking Inside Out to Ibiza for a one-off party at superclub Eden. (Jack Ivlottram) Inside Out runs on the last Sat of the month, and Trevor and Simon’s single is out now through Ministry of Sound.
’lT ISN’TA,OURIST ADVERT. ITS ABOUT GLASGOW AS PLAYGROUND.
Robbie Allen on Tinsel Town