Things to do at Night

Temporarily out of stock

A Dark Masterpiece
The Ultimate Guide for the Wakeful

View the Moon: The sun is a dog, the moon a cat. The sun has his regular walks in the day, the moon her irregular prowls in the night. Everyone knows through which windows and curtains the sun will cock a leg. But the moon: where and when will she arch her gleaming back? Only she and astronomers know.

Drink: I begin around nine. I ease myself into my night of debauch with a simple gin and tonic. I have some music playing: something energizing, like a Brandenburg Concerto. I toss off some postcards... Next, a pint of traditional cider, tasting of wasps and mud.

Traverse a City: At night, slide unobtrusively from your home and follow your own footsteps. Traverse your city’s boulevards, avenues, sidestreets and alleyways. Penetrate those areas that you would not normally penetrate: housing estates, railway embankments, waterworks, cemeteries, cathedral cloisters, bus stations, light industrial parks, quays, heaths, woods, golf clubs, parks, farms, airports, towpaths, hospitals – yes, go into the very hospitals and wander around them. A white coat helps.

Go into the forest and burn your poems: If you don't have a forest nearby, try a golf course. Place the poems in the centre of one of its expensively-manicured greens and set them ablaze. There are few more prosaic venues than a golf course – the haunt by day of solicitors and car salesmen – and burning poetry is very much in the spirit of the place.

Write down your nightmares: Simone de Beauvoir had a recurring nightmare. She dreamed that she went to bed at twenty and woke up an old woman of fifty, all her youth and beauty gone. When she did finally wake she found she was twenty again, with her life still before her, and experienced such relief that she almost wept. However, this was still part of the dream. On actually waking, she found she was fifty. Imagine the final and irrevocable horror of that.

AUTHOR:
Very little is known about 'AQ'. He is nocturnal – that much is clear – but, like those of the blue whale and the yeti, his feeding and mating habits remain obscure.

ISBN: 9781908699848
Author: AQ
Format: Hardcover
Publication date: 01/12/2014
RRP: $29.99
Pages: 256
Dimension: 240mm X 165mm
Imprint: Old Street Publishing