TCO

One

Down the Rabbit Hole

June 2009

It was just after 4:30 on a warm and sunny June afternoon in the London borough of Hackney district known as Hoxton. There, on a shady sidewalk at the edge of a green space called Hoxton Square, a handbill distributor dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a light-grey hoodie emblazoned with a Moloko logo was chatting up passers-by. He’d approach the ones who looked to be young and hip and, if things went well, they’d be handed a hot-off-the-press, full-colour, graffiti-inspired handout that he’d proudly tell them was his own creation. Hi, he’d say. My name’s Len. Are you from around here?

Len was well positioned to intercept stragglers coming down from New City College on the north side and the local workers, some of which always somehow managed to end their days at 4:30 p.m. There are usually a few unicyclers and wildly arty types that head this way from the Circus school, too, he was explaining to the girls who stayed to listen to his patter. It’s just over that way about a hundred paces or so, he said with a west-directed nod. You know the place—the old electric station? It’s a big red thing… he added with a wink.

Oh, you wish, grinned the mark.

Len moved back to the pitch. Everything in the London art scene converges here, y’ see? he enthused. "These are our people, our audience. The 18-to-28 crowd. The alive ones. Like you lovely ladies. So, you gonna come to this thing tonight?"

The girls smiled and shrugged. The mark wrinkled her nose a little.

You don’ wanna miss this one, luvs. It’ll be a real banger. Live music, crazy art pieces—and I mean really crazy, fantastic stuff. He shouted after them as they shrugged and headed off. It’s gonna be brilliant! A nearby pedestrian looked at him with mild alarm. He held out a handbill like a peace offering. Sorry, Miss. Didn’t mean to shout. Party at a big art event tonight. Interested? She shook her head and hurried past him without a word.

He could weed out the corpos and the tourists immediately. Some of them were headed southwest to the buses on Old Street; others were trekking to the overground station northeast of here. This time of year, many of the art school types had their final project portfolios with them, so they were instantly identifiable as they crossed the square.

He did get hassled for soliciting now and then. But that was rare and he had never been issued a ticket. He’d never even seen a police officer on foot in this area. They would just drive by from time to time, barking mostly incomprehensible warnings over their loudspeaker.

You there. Mooffleon! Yanadalod tabedehr!

They were too fat and lazy to get out for anything but a serious crime. On the rare occasion he might not notice them approaching, the coppers would just tell him to move along and, if they did, he’d just cross the square and continue on the other side. No problem. But the east side was by far the best for street traffic, and this shady spot near the black iron fence gate was his preferred position.

Len was introducing himself as ‘Lucky Len’ to his latest mark and explaining how he had come to be a regular fixture at this spot. In fact, his story was considerably more elaborate than the truth. In actuality, he’d simply moved around the corner to this location from his old haunt on the south side of the square, in front of the glass-topped building that formerly housed the White Cube art gallery in Hoxton. It was iconic, but it was also empty and available for rent, on what had become a decidedly dead side of the square.

But Len was telling a tale as lively as the park was today. Moving out of that old dump, y’see, had been the biggest change since I’d left Bristol ‘bout five years ago. Yeah, five and a bit actually. I was new to London, of course, and hadn’t realised what a naff neighborhood I was getting into. So bad. And trapped in a two-year lease! I know, it was terrible. It was finally up, and I was able to move out of the old trash heap and step up a bit, y’know? Found a new flat, yeah. Funny thing was, I was pissed about the whole moving thing at the time. I’d finally got a job at the print shop and started to get a decent crew of mates and poof, it all went up in smoke, y’know? But now I’ve got a proper studio set up. Yeah, I make all these cards and posters and things, like that one. So you gonna come tonight? Great, see you there then. Cheers.

Len never mentioned it, but his ‘proper studio’ was really just his bedroom. His desk was reasonably well equipped with a computer, printer and a suite of not-quite-up-to-date graphics software, but it was still just a bedroom. He still lived with his dad and mum just a few blocks from here, in an almost respectable brownstone tenement building up on Fanshaw. The new flat was at least in a neighborhood where he could chain his bike up outside for a few hours without having it nicked or pulled to bits. That was a welcome change from their old place by the tracks, where things were so bad that the city finally installed bike bunkers to cut down on the appalling levels of thievery. He was glad to leave that—and his old nickname—behind. He was no longer the slippery, wishy-washy one they called Liquid Len. He was above that now. That was the thing about Hackney—well, all of London, really. The neighborhoods had such distinct character, they made you a different character. Hoxton and Shoreditch were the heart. The art at the centre of it all.

When Len’s parents had first moved to Fanshaw, the gallery on the square was already closed, so he had it in his mind that his location was due for a change. He’d tried out a few locations without much success. The area just south of the station seemed like it should have been perfect—lots of foot traffic, of course—but it just wasn’t good. The closer you got to Hoxton Station, the more ethnic it got. Nothin’ wrong with that but they generally weren’t interested in his particular wicket. Fortunately, the hot young Indian girls were usually good for a chat—and they did love to dance. And there was that fine-as-wine black girl that lived in that neighborhood. It was a shame to leave her behind.

Len didn’t think too much about moving out. Life at home was not all that bad, and he had enough money from this ‘studio’ business to have a little fun now and then. Maybe if he really got a steady relationship happening with someone….

Here on the east side of the square, the late afternoon crowd manifested in amusing ways. This time of day, there were usually a few old Pearly Queens heading home from church, always smiling. And this week, for some reason, there were quite a few upscale types in their Sloanie designer apparel and luxury handbags, wandering around. Probably took a wrong turn somewhere. Hopefully this was not another sign of the gentrification that was already out of control in the south end of Hoxton. The designer brand types were not his target audience.

He imagined himself explaining to the crowd how it worked.

Well, you see, every time a couture designer brand outlet shows up in this neighbourhood, a bell rings. And every time that bell rings, a street artist gets his or her wings—and they just fly away. Forever.

Fact of the matter was that Len didn’t really understand the crowd that the Moloko club/event space/art show was targeting for this event. This was a decidedly upscale event, with an admission price and well-heeled clientele to match. And, as much as Len might disapprove, they came with their designer labels, Italian shoes, and the usual range of high-priced vices.

The good news was that they also bought art. Expensive art—the kind where you get to sit with the art in a well-lit private room to imagine how it will look when it’s hanging on your wall. The kind a gallery account executive will take you out to a fancy restaurant to close a deal over.

Len was more of a street art connoisseur. Beautiful graffiti wall art, building-scale supergraphics, stencil art, and those sorts of things—those were the Shoreditch landmarks that identified it as Ground Zero of the London street art scene. And the people that made this art and loved this art—they were Len’s people. Specifically, Len looked for any of the telltale signs of the arty types: well-worn vintage clothes or perhaps a themed T-shirt or hoodie. Arty girls were easy to spot.

Coloured hair, ponytail, beads, or a cool tattoo was always a good sign. A guy with a hipster beard used to be a good indicator but now…? The girl with the buttons all over her backpack and that guy carrying the guitar? For sure. The targets were generally in their twenties, although he didn’t miss a chance to chat up attractive women well outside that range.

Most of the freaks and geeks in the Hoxton area knew Len, at least by sight. He was often here in the afternoons, always with a pack full of hot-off-the-press handouts to give away. Len did the designs and colour seps himself and worked with a couple of local print shops to produce the final products. In less than three years, he had gone from a part-time designer of one-off showcards and single-colour offset handbills to a proper poster business with a sponsored advertising model that actually made money. Not enough to afford a car or anything too crazy, but enough to keep going, producing and handing out A5-size minis and those big, beautiful bluebacks.

In the early evenings, he was usually on the move with his pack full of rolled-up posters, and his can of spray-glue. The posters, printed on special water-resistant outdoor paper called blueback, would end up wherever the client needed them, usually in a 12-block radius around whichever club or gallery was paying the bill.

Moloko was invested enough to pay for proper poster paper and full colour. They sometimes went for silk-screened posters or simple two-colour jobs, but in this case, they paid for four-colour process on really nice blueback stock for the larger outdoor posters, and decent card stock for these handouts. Len had used fluorescent cyan, magenta and yellow inks so the colours really popped this time. And these cards are good enough, thought Len, that I might be able to persuade a few other clubs or galleries to pay the piddlin’ extra amount it cost to run in day-glo colours like these. It was so worth it for a night like tonight.

Tonight, though, the required minimum of 50 posters had already been put up. And there were just two dozen more handouts to distribute. Tonight was The Big Show.

Hey guys, lookin’ for something good this weekend? Big thing at the Moloko club, see? He held out three handbills and had two takers. You know the place, yeah?

The tallest of a trio of art-school guys nodded. Yeah, thanks. His friend, who was not quite as tall, studied it for a moment, shrugged and stuffed it in his pocket.

All right, any time after 9 pm. Cheers, said Len as the trio walked away. Cool, thanks.

Let’s ‘ave a look, said the shortest one of the three as the tall one looked at the handbill and then flipped it over. It was blank on the backside. He handed it to shorty. You can have it. He elbowed the other fellow. It’s a bit much, don’cha think?

What, the design? said his buddy.

No, you git. The price. A bit fucking much money.

Shorty was still studying the text on the other handbill. 150 quid at the door? Jeez, that’s pricey, all right. He ran down the feature list: three bands, laser lights, neon art, and complimentary champagne. Looks like it might be pretty good, though. Light show, live music, psychedelia-type stuff by the look of it. Quite an event.

I s’pose, said tall guy. What’s that they’re callin’ it—a hallucidelia happening?"Whatever the fock that is," said the middle one.

"It’s a ‘lucid dream,’ says here. Lu-cid in the sky…" he sang.

It’s a pretentious load of bollocks, you mean.

You’ve just not ingested the right amount of illicit substances, that’s all that means.

Not yet, mate, not yet.

Middle guy pulled a £20 note from his pocket. "This note’s got ‘pub fund’ written on it. My pub fund."

Well I might go, later, y’ know? said shorty.

But you’re coming to pub with us?

Y’of course! He folded the handbill and attempted to insert it into his back pocket. But it flew away in the breeze. Aw, bugger. By now it was a dozen paces away.

Oh fock that, said the middle one, looking at his watch. C’mon, we don’t wanna be late for that meeting...

Hey, look, said tall guy, looking at his phone as they walked away. Change in plans. Look at this….

A few seconds later, the fluttering handbill ended up under the foot of a young man with a wispy beard and a backpack with a Canadian flag logo on it. He picked it up, unfolded it and showed it to the young woman accompanying him. A few metres away, Len watched them with interest as the two of them stopped in their tracks to examine the handbill. She looked at the artwork his design appreciatively. "Very nice. Kind of an Alphonse Mucha thing going on there," she said in a mild French-Canadian accent.

Ooh, I like the way you pronounce that, Len heard her companion say. "Mu sha. I always thought it was pronounced ‘Mookka’," the young man observed.

Len had learned what he had been told was the correct pronunciation of the name, the way it was spoken in the artist’s native Czech dialect, pronounced as Muh-ha, but he didn’t intervene, as he had heard other French people pronounce it this way, too. She was right on the money about the art nouveau design inspiration, though.

"In Quebec, and I think in Paris, too, we say Mu sha, mon cher, she said. But I think it might be pronounced differently in English."

Well, it really sounds better your way, I must admit, conceded her companion.

She smiled wanly. He always wants to be agreeable.

‘Should I say something?’ wondered Len, but he thought better of it and kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t help but feel that his eyes were flashing like a Wrong way! sign as he looked at her, though.

"Looks like it might be kinda cool," Len overheard her say as she read the smaller print.

Her companion gasped when he saw the price. Whoa, 150 pounds at the door? That’s too rich for my blood.

The pair started walking again and as they moved closer to Len, they noticed he had a handful of the handbills. The young woman passed the one in her hand back to him. Nice design, she said. It’s too good to throw away. Len nodded appreciatively and held the handbills over his head. Big event at the Moloko club tonight. Read all about it."

Sorry, thanks anyway, her partner said, sounding very Canadian indeed.

It didn’t matter much to Len. He only had about twenty more flyers to get rid of anyway. He straightened a dog-eared corner on the one that had been returned and handed it off to a closest one of a pair of tidy looking young