Three Invitations

Things you can join me for over the next week or so

Friends, this is a last minute message. I was laid low for a week or so with a virus that Alfie brought home from school, but I’m glad to report that I’m sufficiently restored to go ahead with a series of events over the next ten days.

It all starts with the big session at the Stoa tonight when Bayo Akomolafe, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Stephen Jenkinson will be joining me for a conversation. What an honour to get to bring this combination of voices together, let alone to have them gather around At Work in the Ruins. This is a free Zoom event, you can register here – and if you are unable to join us live, I’ll share the recording once it’s up on YouTube.

Should you happen to be in our corner of Sweden tomorrow, you’re warmly welcome to join for an in-person event in the old shoe shop in Östervåla, where Anna and I will be hosting an Icelandic Kvöldvaka or “evening wake” with Sarah Thomas, author of The Raven’s Nest. This is a free event at 5pm local time, we’ll be serving fika and you’re welcome to bring your knitting or mending work, or just come along and listen to Sarah read and share stories from her years in the Westfjords of Iceland. Full details here.

And finally, something completely different… Starting on Monday, I’ll be hosting a free week-long series of YouTube livestreams with my oldest friend and longest-standing collaborator, the singer and composer Billie Bottle, to mark the launch of the eponymous first album from her new band, Billie Bottle’s Temple of Shibboleth. The album is a set of mysteries woven around the structure of the seven-day week, the cosmic significance of this ancient pattern and the ways that it has been used to organise the everyday tasks of household maintenance. So join us for a celebration of friendship, collaboration and care. Full details here.

There’s much else that I want to write to you about – not least, our plans for the next phase of the school. The video of my conversation with Iain McGilchrist will be coming soon. But aside from the daily sessions with Billie, I’ll be spending next week mostly offline and having some holiday at home with the family – so if I don’t see you at one of these events, then look out for new writing and further invitations landing in your inbox on the far side of Easter.

DH