kilometer zero running eye blog

This is #Pianodrome. It is one of the most exciting projects I have had the pleasure of taking part in to date and it’s so KMZ. I am very fortunate to have a talented and passionate team of wonderful folk dreaming its wild possibilities with me. The chances of the very solid, sonic reality of our 100 seater amphitheatre made entirely out of junked pianos – five of which will still be playable and tuned – manifesting in the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh this August are looking good! I am writing to ask for your support in our bid to fund the project by public donation at crowdfunder.co.uk/pianodrome. Contributions small and large are critical to the success of the project and will be most gratefully received. I sincerely hope to see you there either for the premier this summer or in a future incarnation in a botanical garden or festival near you.

Tim Vincent-Smith
Creative Director Pianodrome CIC

‘I used to play this with my Dad …’

… so opens the pianologue — a masterful interweaving of stories, music and the stuff of life from acclaimed pianist Will Pickvance. From late night piano sessions with his father, Will conjures a rich array of characters, blending humour with heartbreaking melody, and exploring what it is to be a son, a father, a dreamer, and how music touches us all.

pianologue noun a dramatic composition for solo performer with piano, see pianoliloquy Continue reading →

chalk, light
piano from Música Callada by Federico Mompou

Washing Hands Campaign by Emmanuel Bakary Daou. © Emmanuel Bakery Daou, 2014. All rights reserved. Courtesy Rencontres de Bamako.

I had just finished reading a review copy of George Plimpton’s oral biography of Truman Capote at the time I wrote my first true crime book, so I had flexible notions of just how objective and “true” true crime had to be. When my book was published, one of the more sincere journalists in the newsroom was aghast at the narrative liberties I had taken. I remember cooly responding, “Relax, it’s faction.”

A decade or so later, Viken Berberian gave me an early draft of his book Das Kapital, A Novel. I was alarmed by the factual liberties he had taken: the novel was set in the early 21st century yet the terrorist group blew up the Crystal Palace exhibition centre, which in fact had burned to the ground in 1936. When I mentioned this, he said, quite cooly if I recall, “Relax, it’s magical realism.” Continue reading →

Jonny Diamond is at the heart of an enthralling and hopeful new project. He explains it best in his own words:

I lived in a bookstore in Paris for six months. It was a romantic and terrible experience: a Turkish toilet, cheap wine by the Seine, all the books I could ever read, cockroaches at the bottom of syrupy cocktails, freezing nights on a short cot in the art section. Wonderful and terrible.

While there, I met the man who would introduce me to my wife, the man who would give the speech at my wedding, and the man who would—years later, in New York—kick-start my professional life. Three different men, one bookstore.

The wife in question (the only, the wonderful wife) owned a bookstore in Brooklyn. It was there I went after Paris, for my first job in New York, cash-in-hand at the end of a shift. I loved that job, loved more what it led to. My wife, Amanda, now runs a different bookstore, in a different town. Happily, it has both bar and children’s section—my four-year-old and I can be found there often.

Bookstores have always been central to my life, and remain so: for the pleasures they afford, the opportunities they provide. Bookstores, at least for my young family, are both escape and livelihood.

To read the rest – and we urge you to do so – click here to visit the Literary Hub website.