Harp and Saxaphone music

Thursday night saw me venturing into the wastes of Tottenham at an
old sewing machine factory. I was supposed to turn up at 5.30 to
rehearse, but got there at about 6.15. I found the address and there
was a banner up announcing the love and sex event but no clear way in,
apart from the obvious front doors which were worryingly locked.

I wandered around walked down an alley way which led to workshops,
heard music, but couldn't see anyone. Eventually I went back to the
front of the building and there were people in the foyer, they told me
they were there for the gig, and a French woman offered to show me
where it was all happening, but did I want to see the exhibition first?
Why not I thought, and followed her into the lift. We got out on the
3rd floor of the building and she led me into a room with a load of
nude pictures, of, I soon realised ,her, "are these of you?" I asked,
yes, she replied, and we spoke for several minutes with my eyes
slightly distracted by an image of her pubic hair which was level with
her real face. She said she was a multi media artist (there was also a
video playing of nudes) and she was also performing tonight, she had
brought some pieces on child abuse, as she wasn't sure what the host
exactly wanted.

We then went back to the ground floor where people had started to
arrive, as had our host, a French guy who sometimes wasn't quite sure
what was going on, it was slightly chaotic as a result.

He started with a game of truth or dare (but god love him, he didn't
understand the game, didn't realise if they said dare, you had to give
them a dare, and anyway, he was playing it with one guy, who was
allowed to answer the questions in the form of music, this was followed
by a saxophone player accompanied by harp (made by her mum in about 3
weeks, a chunky harp, not the graceful ones you usually see) there was
a guy doing scenes from plays (he was pretty good) about 4 of us then
read from other's poetry, which was enjoyable for me, I found it
strange speaking other people's words, in this section, other poets
were reading poetry in French,Spanish or Italian (it was an
international event !)

we ended up with the "carousel of lust" where 5 of us stood in a
circle, around the host, with our backs to him. There was me, the
French woman from earlier, the Italian DJ from truth or dare, a rather
camp Spanish guy and an African woman. We all had to wear something red
and black, I chose a black "stokey cokey" tea shirt and a shirt with
some red stripes in it, not a combo I would usually go for.

We all sat down, music started, he asked us to stand, then he asked us
to move, so we walked clock-wise around him, he would then read French
poetry, he would then say one of our names and that person would read,
the others would sit down, the cycle would then be repeated until we
had all read, people would drop out of the carousel when they had
finished.

I particularly enjoyed the African woman, she handed out mangoes before
one of her poems, and asked people to smell them, then announced that
the smell was what earth's vagina smelt like. The Italian DJ read his
in Italian, the Spanish guy read some graphic sexual stuff and I
thought the most erotic pieces, I ended up as one of the last two, with
a French woman, who hadn't quite understood the theme of the evening
which was "Love and sex" and I guess was more about eroticism, and had
chosen to read one long piece about child abuse when on the carousel of
lust (?) I read the second to last piece, and then the French woman had
to walk around the carousel on her own while the French host read
French poetry (it had been the same poem for all the musical
interludes!)

I spent most of the evening, not quite believing what was going on,
starving because I had come directly from work and didn't have anything
to eat, and a little pissed off as a guy was selling those small
bottles of French beer for ?2 when you can get 20 bottles for about
?10.

But this morning, thinking about the evening, you just couldn't make it
up, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. The French host has asked me
to perform in 3 weeks in Hackney, I can't wait?