The Lwow Masterpiece

Born in Lwow in 1921, the photographer Jorge Lewinski survived Russian forced labour in Siberia, and was sent by the Polish army to Britain in 1942 to join the RAF. He settled in England and developed a name for himself as a photographer of writers and artists in Britain (including Bacon, Lowry and Hockney). In Palmers Green his portrait of Stevie Smith is considered a masterpiece. Stevie Smith (who was born in Hull) wrote the poem 'In my dreams' which Prigentia now recites to young Kimrock as (truanting from school) they walk across the Downs to Telscombe in the footsteps of Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Lewinski was married to Mayotte Magnus, and was not related to any White House interns.

The Unseason

The Seven Dials Emergency Flood Committee meets to discuss the problem of McGonagal's drains which, having been blocked by unseasonal leaf deposits, are draining into Zangwill’s Bazaar of Curiosities. The owners (Ferabdurus Lotus and Cortally Bakewell) are in conference with the local authorities who offer to slap a closure notice on McGonagal's Writers Cafe. Frab is wary, as he is fears that it will generate a wide-spread epidemic of hysterical writer's cramp. A compromise is reached when Rev. Lanzarotte's branch of the Toy Sprouts are called in to pump out the water, and unblock the drains. Unfortunately, Prigentia (for whom Frab is a Transcipient Rain God) now develops an emotional attachment to young Kimrock, the leader of the pack.  

Fin de Ciecle

According to Tom Purdue (who is widely known to be obsessed with Memory) our earliest experiences are locked deep within our hard drives (he is also a technology geek), and are mapped closely to their contemporary emotions. So encountering a close childhood friend activates both memory and emotion.  Underground strikes and other traumatic events can prove disruptive to memory and emotion and whatever is was that Tom was thinking about. As he stands watching the swollen breakers crashing down on the seashore, Tom suddenly remembers the strange conversation he was having with Prigentia who explained to him the crucial involvement of the Amygdala and the Hippocampus in memory functions. Turns out that despite her outrageous behaviour Prigentia is quite bright.

La Calinda

Yevgeny Huxtable is giving his annual Seven Dials Music Talk at the Old Chapel Arts Centre. He reads extracts from the Syntagma Musicum by Michael Praetorius. In this work, the composer described the claviorganum (also known as the claviorgan, or organised piano) which is a combination of harpsichord and organ (and has nothing to do with the French surreal writer Boris Vian). Its origin is uncertain, though a number of "virgynalls with regals" are mentioned in the inventories of Henry VIII. However in the middle of the talk, a hurricane wind sweeps away the rear extension roof of the Centre, and the audience takes shelter in McGonagall’s Writer’s Café where Huxtable performs a piano arrangement of La Calinda by Delius.

Thigmatropism or The Adaptability of Washing Lines

Was it thigmatropism or just lack or will-power, who knows? But when Prigentia stood glaring at Sister Veracitude , the ex-nun just gave up and turned away, defeated. So Grapella drags her daughter to Frab Lotus who has suggested a three-week course of Cognitive Reikarial Synthesis.  Prigentia (who is moonstruck with Frab) eagerly trots along to her initial session. Meanwhile, Kugarita Zinfandel is making good progress at the local thalassoclinic where she is now arranging a line dance marathon in which her fellow patients wear soft shoes in order to ensure that the ward floor is scrupulously clean as they dance around a maypole of oxygen tubes.

(Thigmatropism: The turning of an organism when in contact with a solid object)

Groundhog Day

Kugarita Zinfandel has returned from her wanderings around South America, having picked up an obscure rainforest respiratory infection. Today she is visiting Felix Karlosoroff to give him some rare silk-screen prints of the Codex Magliabechiano, the 16th Century glossary of Aztec cosmological and religious elements. These depict the 20 tonalpohualli  day-names, the 18 monthly feasts, and the 52-year cycle. Felix’s other half, Frab Lotus, is a trained  Reikarial Therapist so offers Kugarita a quick course of treatment.  As Felix later drives her off for an emergency admission to the local thalassoclinic, he  notices in his reverse mirror that the car behind is a Porsche being driven by Ecna Lubma, the omnipresent writer of the encyclopedic volume ‘Reflections on Health’ .

Groundhog Day

Kugarita Zinfandel has returned from her wanderings around South America, having picked up an obscure rainforest respiratory infection. Today she is visiting Felix Karlosoroff to give him some rare silk-screen prints of the Codex Magliabechiano, the 16th Century glossary of Aztec cosmological and religious elements. These depict the 20 tonalpohualli  day-names, the 18 monthly feasts, and the 52-year cycle. Felix’s other half, Frab Lotus, is a trained  Reikarial Therapist so offers Kugarita a quick course of treatment.  As Felix later drives her off for an emergency admission to the local thalassoclinic, he  notices in his reverse mirror that the car behind is a Porsche being driven by Ecna Lubma, the omnipresent writer of the encyclopedic volume ‘Reflections on Health’ .