lots of stuff and springiness

Dear friends and fellow loiterers

I hope spring is springing up nicely for you. Daffodils always make me smile and I think the first days of sunshine are perfect for loitering.

This is an almost unprecedented extra mid month email but there is so much to say and it can’t all wait until logistics have been sorted for the April first Sunday. I can however confirm, in response to many enquiries THERE WILL BE AN LRM WANDER ON EASTER SUNDAY. We won’t let any festival stop us celebrating our streets, although I understand some of our gang will be otherwise engaged; one of the joys of The LRM is the way folk drift in and out of our orbit; there is never any obligation to turn up and so it is always a delight to welcome new friends and returning wanderers.

That reminds me: special greetings to everyone who joined us with us to explore The Peoples History of Hulme. It was a truly splendid afternoon with an unprecedented turnout (as you may have spotted I was slightly overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of the crowd) Thanks to everyone who made it happen. The crowds were treated to tales of lost trees and sleeping bees, multiple regenerations and time travelling friendships, pop protests, community action, comedy flipcharts and (of course) drunk aliens.

There are lots of pictures of the event here http://www.photoshelter.com/c/muoo/invite/g/U000089RB01WgHl8/G0000GIVdR0yAzfM/ and a review here http://www.brenocallaghan.co.uk/2010/03/peoples-history-of-hulme

As LRM interventions tend to be ephemeral it’s a pleasant change to have so much documentation (although our flker group has some treats at http://www.flickr.com/groups/816115@N22) Aprils shenanigans will be rather more low key; details will be revealed soon, my inspirations this week have been the diggers, Johnny Appleseed and Patti Smith so we’ll see where that leads…

In the meantime many of our friends are doing fine things so there is no excuse for boredom (this is, as ever, an incomplete list of interesting things so please forgive any omissions)

The Peoples History was part of Single Cells Finding Zion Festival which ends on Saturday in fine style with guerrilla busking; I hope to see you dancing in the streets http://www.singlecell.co.uk/findingzion5.html

Madlab has a programme full of interesting stuff and they describe themselves as an autonomous R&D laboratory and a release valve for Manchester's creative communities… how could we not love them? Keep an eye out for collaborations… http://madlab.org.uk/

The always gorgeous and engaging folk at MMS (Manchester Modernist Society) http://www.manchestermodernistsociety.org/news.html have issued a rallying cry to save The Odeon and will be taking part in Manchester Architecture and Design Festival in April http://www.madf.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

April 10thand 11th sees Manchester hosting a weekend of anarcho-feminism http://af-north.org/?q=anarcha-feminist The programme looks really inspiring and I would like to salute everyone who is making it happen. There is still help needed and of course lots of great stuff happening during the weekend so I urge you to give it a look. I am proud to say the LRM will be hosting a session on gender and public space; more on this soon.

The Royal Exchange is hosting Reality TV, an exhibition of David Dunnicos stunning and downright sinister images of CCTV. It finishes on Saturday and is well worth a look. You may have seen his work accompanying Quiet Loner at the CCTV cabaret http://www.royalexchangetheatre.org.uk/event.aspx?id=314

I hope to see you playing out on the streets soon

With love and daffodils
Morag x