I am very glad I went to see Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You by Molly Naylor (http://mollynaylor.com/). Any squeamishness I had about treatments of collective national victimhood - like 7/7 - was adequately allayed by Naylor's fantastically subtle, Generation X-like spoken word about a particular moment on the Aldgate tube in London, the way it temporarily patterned a single life, and the web of postmodernish City subjectivity the 2005 terrorist bombing de-stabilised.
Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You is a line that makes sense of Molly's strained, waning relationship with her then partner, a man she lovingly dubbed 'Laptop Boy' when he tried to bang his way out of the semi-exploded tube carriage. It is a jarring, memorable title for a sentimental and/but very intelligent piece.
Naylor explores the deterritorialised, glamour-hungry, uncertainly individualistic, and networked Zeitgeist embodied by thousands her age (and the Aldgate bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, was exactly her age). She explores it through a precise introspection upon her Cornwall self's expectations of London, via the 7/7 attack, her and her partner's traumatised escape across land by car, and finally, returning to her understanding that "things happen in small towns" [after all].
The only weak structural point in my view is Molly's decision to affix an extra end-section discussing endings and the 'space' beyond the rolling credits at the end of the metaphorical 'film' - in a meta kind of way. It isn't necessary. But there is so much to like throughout this poetic, semi 'slammed' prose. A deer gets dissected viscerally in words before our eyes. A waitressing job at a soulless City cocktail bar is brought smokily to life. Her orchestration of narration in the seconds prior to the bomb going off is extremely strong.
Naylor's website divulges how the beautiful (perhaps stencilled?) landscape images projected up at the back of her performance belong to her "ridiculously talented" brother, Max (who is, similarly, showcased at maxnaylor.com). Whether you would personally have preferred more directly topical imagery, Googled from 7/7 and its inquests and memorial services, is, I suppose, moot. I was curious about Molly Naylor's refusal to indulge in most of the trauma-toting and mediatisation one might expect, and found her choice of visual counterpart to her text, progressing from the urban jungle - dominated by the Gherkin - to the placid shores of a sleepy fudge-making Cornwall village, thought-provoking.
Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You is a line that makes sense of Molly's strained, waning relationship with her then partner, a man she lovingly dubbed 'Laptop Boy' when he tried to bang his way out of the semi-exploded tube carriage. It is a jarring, memorable title for a sentimental and/but very intelligent piece.
Naylor explores the deterritorialised, glamour-hungry, uncertainly individualistic, and networked Zeitgeist embodied by thousands her age (and the Aldgate bomber, Shehzad Tanweer, was exactly her age). She explores it through a precise introspection upon her Cornwall self's expectations of London, via the 7/7 attack, her and her partner's traumatised escape across land by car, and finally, returning to her understanding that "things happen in small towns" [after all].
The only weak structural point in my view is Molly's decision to affix an extra end-section discussing endings and the 'space' beyond the rolling credits at the end of the metaphorical 'film' - in a meta kind of way. It isn't necessary. But there is so much to like throughout this poetic, semi 'slammed' prose. A deer gets dissected viscerally in words before our eyes. A waitressing job at a soulless City cocktail bar is brought smokily to life. Her orchestration of narration in the seconds prior to the bomb going off is extremely strong.
Naylor's website divulges how the beautiful (perhaps stencilled?) landscape images projected up at the back of her performance belong to her "ridiculously talented" brother, Max (who is, similarly, showcased at maxnaylor.com). Whether you would personally have preferred more directly topical imagery, Googled from 7/7 and its inquests and memorial services, is, I suppose, moot. I was curious about Molly Naylor's refusal to indulge in most of the trauma-toting and mediatisation one might expect, and found her choice of visual counterpart to her text, progressing from the urban jungle - dominated by the Gherkin - to the placid shores of a sleepy fudge-making Cornwall village, thought-provoking.