44

Jane Wright

Mike Scott Thomson

J.A. McCarroll

Ruth Brandt

Amelia Boldaji

121Magic

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‘A super seductive art world enigma’ The Guardian

Durham University’s Oriental Museum is the only museum in Northern Britain devoted entirely to the art and archaeology of the Ori-ent. Founded in 1960 to support teaching and research at Durham University, it is now open to everyone and welcomes thousands of tourists and local visitors each year. Learn-ing remains central to its role however, and the museum and its collections continue to be used to support research and teaching at uni-versity level, as well as being a hugely popular destination for the region’s schools.

The museum is home to an extraordinary selection of artworks and archaeological arte-facts from Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Near East, the whole continent of Asia and the Islamic cultures of North Africa and the Near and Middle East. The collections contain more than 23,500 objects, including over 6,700 from Ancient Egypt and in excess of 10,000 from China. The date range covered by the museum stretches from prehistory to the present day. Visitors can see finely carved Egyptian stone vessels dating back to the 3rd millennium BC, headhunting swords from Bor-neo and contemporary Japanese graphic art.

The museum is currently part way through a major redevelopment project.

This started in 2009 with the creation of the first of two new Ancient Egypt galleries, designed to provide an appropriate setting for the display of the highlights of the Egyptian collection. In 2011 the second Egyptian gal-lery opened, this time with a strong emphasis on supporting our work with schools and engaging with visiting families. Two new Chi-nese galleries have followed.

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Marvels of China offers visitors an introduc-tion to this amazing culture through thematic displays exploring topics ranging from symbol-ism in Chinese art to festivals, scholarship and agriculture. The newest display space is the Malcolm MacDonald gallery, which focuses on the museum’s internationally important Chinese ceramic and jade collections in more detail, providing detailed information for those with a specialist interest as well as the general visitor.

China has also been the theme chosen by young people working in the museum this year as part of Stories of the World, a Lon-don 2012 Cultural Olympiad project. As their contribution to the Cultural Olympiad these young people, aged 15 to 25, curated the exhibition ‘Made in China: exports and expe-riences’. This exhibition explored relations between Britain and China over the last 500 years, drawing both on historic collections and on the real-life experiences of members of the North East’s vibrant Chinese community.

The young curators chose to use not just the Chinese collections housed at the Oriental Museum, but also the local history archives housed in Durham University’s Palace Green Library and ceramics exported from China in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and subsequently discovered during the course of archaeological excavations conducted in Durham’s historic core. In this way the exhi-bition explored local links to China, the kind of Chinese objects that were owned by local families in the North East of England in the past and how these objects were used.

FEATURE

Litro Magazine Magic

EDITORIALAccording to Arthur C Clarke, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And by that token, these days we’re sur-rounded by the mystical – from particle accelerators underground to the smartphone in your pocket.

That could be why we’re so comfortable with the idea of magic, however inexplicable the situation – we had more submissions that we’ve ever had for any theme. Over the past month, we’ve met elves and changelings and witches and warlocks, experienced spells and potions, listened to myths and fairy tales, had conversations with stones and animals, worshipped gods and goddesses. There’s a lot of magic out there.

But there’s more to its popularity than familiarity. Magic offers chaos and darkness, mystery and fear, discovery and triumph. In a world of tax returns and shopping lists, financial crises and political divisions, reality TV and micro-celebs, perhaps we need magic more than ever. Perhaps magic actu-ally offers us something science can’t.

In this month’s Litro, we bring you Into the Woods, a dark, subtle tale by Amelia Boldaji, at its heart one of the great motifs of European folklore, the forest – a magical place of transformation, danger, and adventure; which is also the setting for J.A. McCaroll’s fantastically fantastical Sniff – featuring the otherwise unlikely meeting between a man and a troll, or possibly, his destiny. Ruth Brandt on the other hand shows us a more scientific, yet no less delightful approach to the magical in Superstitions; while Jane Wright’s The Amazing Rain explores the all too-often hidden cost of magic – and the dangers of getting what you wish for. To round things off, we offer you Mike Scott Thompson’s The Real Miracle – a story of a stage magician learning the difference between magic and trickery.

Perhaps the one thing these, and many of the stories we read this month, have in common is the idea of escape – that magic can somehow take us away from that world of tax returns and shopping lists, financial crises and political divisions, reality TV and micro-celebs – and into a world in which we are surprised, challenged, amazed.

So escape with us. And though any magician worth their salt never reveals the tricks of the trade, we’ll bend the rules this once and tell you how: give yourself a break, find a quiet place, clear your mind. Then turn to page 6, and start reading.

Hey presto.

Andrew Lloyd-JonesEDITOR

December 2012

121

5

Mike Scott Thomson

Jane Wright

J.A. McCarroll

Ruth Brandt

Amelia Boldaji

Events

06

13

19

23

29

37

THE AMAZING RAIN

THE REAL MIRACLE

SNIFF

SUPERSTITIONS

INTO THE WOODS

CONTENTSLitro Magazine Magic

6

Jane WrightI squint up into the sky, shielding my eyes with my hand. There isn’t a cloud to be seen, just acres of cornflower blue stretching in all directions. It’s mid-afternoon, when the sun is at its most furious, so I slip quickly into the shade of the barn to try and escape. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and I stand just inside, breathing the stale, dusty air. When I can see, I take the piece of chalk that is hanging on a string just inside the door and make another mark on the wall. I count them: forty four. Forty four days of endless, searing, mid-western sun. Forty four days without rain.

A noise in the hayloft makes me turn and I see my younger brother, Jon, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. He’s filthy. His sun-bleached denim trousers are ripped crudely off just above his skinny knees and he is covered in dust and flakes of scabby dry earth where he has been kicking at the piles of debris left by last night’s dust storm. These ‘black rollers’ are becoming more frequent now. Jon is swinging his legs back and forth and I move closer, trying to catch even a hint of the breeze he’s making.

“They found another dead cow this morning,” he says, his voice flat and whiney.

The drought is killing our animals like it is killing us. Before the last, brief rainfall we had gone three weeks without. Nothing grows in scorched earth so the cows have no grass left to feed on and haven’t produced any milk in weeks. Our tired, skeletal dogs slope around the yard and slump in whatever shade they can find, their mouths lolling open as they pant heavily. During the long nights, when it’s too stifling to sleep and I lie awake for hours on end, I sometimes wonder how long it will be before it claims one of us too. Many of our neighbours have already packed up and moved out, heading west, but my parents are resolved to stay in Oklahoma and wait it out.

I hear my mother calling me from the porch and reach up, gently touching my brother’s calf.

“It’ll be okay,” I say. “It’ll rain soon. You’ll see”

He calls after me as I leave. “But when, Lena? When?”

Five days later, Crowley’s Travelling Carnival arrives in our town.Excitement is high and a buzzing crowd swarms through the gates

THE AMAZING RAIN

13

Mike Scott ThomsonThe first time Caitlin laid eyes on me, I was swallowing razor blades. She told me afterwards my performance had been so con-vincing, she’d taken out her mobile phone, pressed 9 and 9 again, and in the event I started vomiting scarlet parabolas of blood from an inadvertent but no less lethal hole in my gullet, she would press the third and final 9. Needless to say, that was entirely unnec-essary and the razor blades came out one by one from between my lips, all threaded upon the length of cotton I had also swal-lowed. The audience rose to their feet, I took my bow and Caitlin and I started dating the very next week. I remember the first time I took her home and showed her around. The living room, the kitchen, the bathroom. When I got to the bedroom, I said, ‘This is where the magic happens.’ She laughed and flung her arms around me. Within three months, she’d moved in.

Three years later, I find myself standing outside our house, the one we bought together only a year ago, trying my utmost to open the front door. It won’t budge. It’s clear she’s finally fol-lowed through on her promise to kick me out and change the locks. I wiggle the key this way, that way, even try shoulder barg-ing, but it won’t move. The lock doesn’t look different, but you know what locksmiths can do these days.

So, I think: it’s finally happened. The magic has died. Those bliss-ful first few months when I would wake up with her sleeping peacefully by my side, and the sun would shine brighter through the curtains, and the first coffee of the day would have a deeper, earthier aroma than usual, and food would taste better, and the touch of her skin would send little electric shocks through my body. All of this. Dead.

All it took, it seems, was one late return home too many.

This evening, I swear, it was totally unplanned. For once, I wasn’t going to work overtime at the estate agents or perform another magic show. I was going to make a real effort. ‘Fed up of it only being me in this relationship,’ she’d repeatedly tell me. It was only going to be a very quick drink at Jimmy Bob’s Wine Bar after work with Brian and Gav, and only because it was Gav’s birthday. The last thing I expected was to bump into old Adam Cadabra.

Obviously, this was a stage name. To be quite honest, even as a twelve-year-old when I first met him, I was never convinced of it. Adam Cadabra? For a magician? Really? But I looked up to

THE REAL MIRACLE

19

J.A. McCarrollMyself, a bottle of SoCo, and my flashlight were in the woods, heading towards the trestle. At that point, I was planning on drinking the SoCo, sitting on the trestle, and maybe calling an ex-girlfriend’s voice mail. The flashlight was because it was dark out by the trestle at night. The only light out there is the moon and the train that comes every few hours, and neither of those were useful for walking around. I’m not a big flashlight person, and even less of a drinking by myself in the woods per-son — so I wasn’t exactly using the flashlight in the most effective ways. I’d say about 90% of the time I was using it for scoping out the trail, and about 10% of the time I was pretending it was a lightsaber. It is during that 10% time that I first spotted the troll.

“Zhummmmmm” I said, executing a rather complicated back-wards stab, when I noticed that my flashlight beam was squarely focused on a gnarled grey foot-thing. To my credit, I didn’t really yell; it was more of a grunt. I carefully panned my light up from the foot, raising the bottle in the other hand for bonking pur-poses or whatever. It looked sort of like if a tree, a mountain, and an alligator were all mixed together, giving the impression of mas-sivity, plantishness, and horrifying toothosity. It was wearing a red track suit that didn’t even begin to fit its body, revealing grey and mossy flesh. “Oh.” It said, “You weren’t supposed to see me.”

We had a moment or two of silent detente. It took me about half of that time to place a name to the thing: it just bubbled up into my consciousness, the way deja vu does and the birthdays of friends never do. “Troll?” I said. “Are you a troll?” It scratched its craggy face with one large claw, releasing a stream of sparks like fireflies into the dark night. “Well, yeah,” it said. “Isn’t it obvious?” It had a point. “I didn’t know there were you.” I said.

“There are mes. Not too many.” The troll shifted out of what I realized was an almost comically exaggerated crouch. “I’ve never been caught before,” it said, a little regretfully. Its voice sounded like tectonic plates dancing, and each syllable seemed to reveal more teeth. “Whiskey?” it said, smiling, which was terrifying.

“Unless you were planning on hitting me with it?”

“Sure, I was just heading —“

“To the trestle. So was I. I live there.”

“Under it?”

“Around it. Let’s walk together.”

SNIFF

23

Ruth BrandtFfion raises her head from the pavement, merely as a matter of experiment. The brain is a smart device, Ffion knows that, smart in that whether she lies with her head on the side, parallel with the flagstone, or slightly raised, as it is now, at what might possibly be thirty degrees from the horizontal, she perceives the world to be orientated the same way. The reality of Ffion’s per-ception is that the lamp posts in Fishers Way continue to point straight upwards, as does the step ladder above her and indeed the cat, who remains sitting obediently upright in its box, its black nose resting against the hole she cut for it to look out of.

“Yo,” Ffion says, lying her cheek back on the pavement; the brain certainly is a smart device.

The other thing that Ffion has observed, about life and about nature, as she lies here, is that gravity sure is a major force. Quite how gravity works, Ffion is uncertain. She can describe how any two lumps of matter attract each other with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them, and she can come up with an absolute measure of that force for any two given bundles of particles, including her current attraction to the cat, given that she knows his or her weight. Oh yes, she can provide an objective measure for the gravitational pull between her and that cat, easy peasy. But what exactly is this compelling attraction between two bodies, and how does it work at a distance? Yes, that is the ques-tion she should really be considering; what on earth is gravity? Such a basic question.

Time to ponder. Ffion has time to ponder, and to lie, and to experiment with her visual perception of the street that she normally hurries along on her way to work at the university with-out giving it much of a second glance. All these things Ffion has time for right now.

A car turns the corner, then revs as it approaches the long straight parallel with her position on the pavement outside her house. Unnecessary consumption of fuel, Ffion thinks. Gentle on the gas; carbon footprint and all that. And, as if to obey her, the car slows as it passes, then accelerates away.

Her stars said that she should not venture out today. According to the advice for Leo she should stay in and adopt a more flex-ible attitude, the result of which will be that things will work out magically. Quite how the two actions of staying in and adopting

SUPERSTITIONS

29

Amelia BoldajiThere is a wolf-face in the trees. I can see it when I look up and the branches tangle and sway together in the shape of nar-rowed eyes, bared teeth. Look, I say, but Vida just keeps walking. Maybe she’s heard me, maybe not. She’s usually not one to pass up a chance at something interesting, but then again, she doesn’t like interruptions either. Maybe all interesting things have to be interruptions in order to be really interesting. It’s the kind of thing Vida would say but if I told her now I know she wouldn’t hear me. This time because she doesn’t want to. When I look back up I can’t see the wolf-face anymore anyway, just the bundle that still looks like a leering grin. Can’t catch me, it says. Or maybe, Catch me if you can. I make my jaw wide, baring my long thin wolf-teeth at Vida’s back but she doesn’t notice that either.

We walk a lot in the woods. Most of the time we don’t see any-thing that doesn’t look just like the things we see all the time. But sometimes we do.

You have to show me everything you find, Vida reminds me. But the truth is (and we both know it) that Vida doesn’t care about the things I find. She just wants me Occupied. Occupied is a word Vida uses a lot, mostly when she wants me to do something else, like when she’s talking on the telephone and shooing me off with the back of her hand, or when she tells me stories with bloody axes and chil-dren-sized ovens to make me go to sleep but only do the opposite. Still, Vida likes to keep herself occupied too. Baking cookies with little stiff mounds of chocolate in the center like kisses, dancing on the living room couch before bed, drawing patterns on the knees of her jeans with black magic markers. Sometimes we go outside where there are other people and she makes up stories about their secret lives, changing her tone to fit their body shape or the way they walk. A hurried person will have a squeaky whis-per voice, and a fat boy will sound like a tuba. Not always original, but still. We buy candy bars and hand soap and she points down the aisles at people who look bewildered by all the choices around them.

He just arrived here from Bulgaria, she’ll say, where the stores only carry caged mice and shaving cream. He’s discovering tooth-brushes for the first time, lollipops. One day he will run away to Alaska with a fur trapper and no one will ever see him again.

INTO THE WOODS

MONTHEVENTSTHIS

37

Giorgio Morandi: Lines of PoetryEstorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 16 January to 7 April 2013.

In 2013 the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art celebrates its 15th anniversary. To inaugurate this special year the museum is organising a career-spanning exhibition of around eighty prints, paintings and drawings by Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964). Lines of Poetry focuses on works on paper, including a large sec-tion devoted to the artist’s etchings. Also included in the show are a number of watercolours, works that are rarely seen in the UK, making this exhibition a truly unmissable occasion for any admirer of Morandi.

Manet: Portraying LifeRoyal Academy, 26 Jan - 14 Apr 2013

Including over 50 paintings spanning the career of the enigmatic Edouard Manet (1832-1883), this exhibition examines the relation-ship between Manet’s portrait painting and his scenes of modern life. Thematic groupings will explore Manet’s world and the land-scape of late 19th Century Parisian society through depictions of his family, fellow artists, literary, theatrical and political figures.

Get Into London TheatreBooking opens 11 December 2012 for performances 1 January - 15 February 2013.

Theatres all over the capital will soon be offering cut-price deals as part of Get Into London Theatre, the annual ticket scheme that allows the public to see some of the best shows in London for a fraction of the normal cost. Productions ranging from plays to musicals and opera to ballet will offer tickets from as little as £10 so everyone has the chance to experience the magic of London theatre. There is a host of shows to choose from including Jer-sey Boys, Mamma Mia! and One Man, Two Guvnors, alongside new-comers Loserville, Goodnight Mister Tom and Scrooge The Musical. Fans of opera and dance can enjoy Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty, Midnight Tango and The Mikado, plus there are lots of family-friendly shows taking part such as Room On The Broom, Sooty In Space and The Snowman. It’s not just West End theatres taking part but a range of venues including the National Theatre, Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican.

MONTHEVENTSTHIS

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Cirque du Soleil’s KOOZARoyal Albert Hall, from 5 January 2013

Since its premiere in April of 2007, KOOZA has captivated close to 4 million spectators. Written and directed by David Shiner, KOOZA is a return to the origins of Cirque du Soleil, combin-ing two circus traditions – acrobatic performance and the art of clowning. The show presents an unprecedented approach to the high wire and a breath-taking wheel of death – an act that Cirque du Soleil has never before presented under the big top.

Quatermaine’s TermsWyndham’s Theatre, from 23 January 2013

Rowan Atkinson will star as the well-meaning but hopeless teacher St John Quartermaine in the first major West End revival of Simon Gray’s play ‘Quartermaine’s Terms’. Set in the 1960s in an English language school for foreigners, this tragicomic play is a humorous but ultimately moving account of several years in the lives of seven teachers.

In the Beginning was the EndSomerset House, 28 January – 30 March 2013

Acclaimed site-responsive theatre company dreamthinkspeak return to Somerset House with a new large-scale production, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, The Book of Revelation and the world of Mechatronics. Take a journey through the maze-like underground passages and unseen spaces of Somerset House and King’s College – into a world of calamitous accidents and divine revelations.

The Captain of KöpenickNational Theatre, previews from 29 January, in repertoire until 4 April 2013.

Antony Sher plays the title role in The Captain of Köpenick, directed by Adrian Noble. Released after fifteen years in prison, petty criminal Wilhelm Voight wanders 1910 Berlin in desperate, hazardous pursuit of identity papers. Luck changes when he picks up an abandoned military uniform in a fancy-dress shop and finds the city ready to obey his every command. A nation heads blindly towards war as the misfit takes on the state in Ron Hutchinson’s savagely funny new version of Carl Zuckmayer’s play, first staged in Germany in 1931.

MONTHTHIS

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Flames of DesirePeacock Theatre, 30 January – 24 February 2013

Argentina’s hottest dance company, Tango Fire, returns to the UK with their critically acclaimed show, Flames of Desire, as part of its second international tour. Flames of Desire takes the audience on a journey through the history of tango - tracing its roots in the dance halls of Buenos Aires before moving through the decades to showcase tango’s growing popularity as a contemporary dance form. The show features ten sensational dancers, including five world tango champions, with choreography by lead dancer Ger-man Cornejo, accompanied by the company’s quartet of brilliant musicians. Quarteto Fuego, the company’s resident music group, provides the live music on the traditional instruments of tango

Exclusive Burns Night Supper at Marco25 January 2013

The stylish Marco restaurant in South West London will be host-ing a star-studded Burns Night in January 2013. The first time the restaurant has run a dedicated Burns Night, guests can enjoy a four course fine dining version of a traditional Burns Night feast in luxury surroundings. The menu, which has a Marco twist on the classic Scottish dishes, features smoked salmon, haggis, neeps and tatties, slow braised short rib beef and a whisky trifle des-sert. Burns Night tickets are available for just £49 per person and include a four course dinner, half a bottle of wine per person, whisky toast, entertainment and special guest appearances.

New Winter Club Sandwich901 Restaurant, Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel, 1 January - 31 March 2013

Food designer Linda Monique has collaborated with the Andaz Liverpool Street’s pastry chef, Joseph Wagenaar, to develop the new, seasonal Winter Club Sandwich – available for a limited time only. Designed exclusively for the hotel by Monique, this latest creation is a sweet take on a savoury hotel classic, using seasonal flavours to perfectly complement each other: spiced poached pears, slow roasted apples, caramel curd, Earl Grey tea mayonnaise, lemon ‘fried egg’ and cinnamon fries. Whether guests feel like a sweet afternoon tea pick-me-up with a glass of champagne or a lavish pudding, the Winter Club Sandwich is a new alternative to tradi-tional London afternoon teas.

www.locandaottoemezzo.co.uk

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Litro Magazine is a little lit mag with a big worldview, pocket-sized so you can bring it anywhere. Our mission: to discover new and emerg-ing writers and publish them alongside stalwarts of the literary scene. We also publish regular features on literature, arts and culture online at www.litro.co.uk. Please keep this copy of Litro safe or pass it on to someone else to enjoy—we like to think of Litro as a small, free book.

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43

LITRO | 121Magic

The dust on the ground at Regen’s feet is swirling around his boots. As he continues to chant, the black blizzard starts to spin a little higher, then higher still, traveling up his legs, past his knees, embracing his thighs. The crowd is watching him intently, transfixed by the mini-tornado crawling slowly up his body and enveloping him in a swelling mixture of dust and dirt. He holds his arms aloft like a preacher, imploring the skies to open and rain down on us, to save us.

From The Amazing Rain by Jane Wright page 05

Cover Art: Sylvia Hommert, Hematite,2012 Pigment, beeswax, holographic paper, glitter and resin on birch panel 76.2 z 76.2 cm (30 x 30”)

Image courtesy of Scream & Sylvia Hommertwww.screamlondon.com

www.litro.co.uk

ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7