Saturday 13 December 2014

hello

The LRM (Loiterers Resistance Movement) is a Manchester based collective of artists and activists interested in psychogeography, public space and the hidden stories of the city.


We can’t agree on what psychogeography means but we all like plants growing out of the side of buildings, looking at things from new angles, radical history, drinking tea and getting lost; having fun and feeling like a tourist in your home town. Gentrification, advertising and blandness make us sad. We believe there is magick in the mancunian rain.


Our city is wonderful and made for more than shopping. We want to reclaim it for play and revolutionary fun….


The LRM embark on psychogeographical drifts to decode the palimpsest of the streets, uncover hidden histories and discover the extraordinary in the mundane. We aim to nurture an awareness of everday space, (re)engaging with and (re)enchanting the city.


On the first Sunday of every month we go for a wander of some sort and we also organise occasional festivals, exhibitions, shows, spectacles, silliness and other random shenanigans. Please come and join us; everyone is welcome.


Please accept our apologies for the rather shabby nature of the blog at the moment; I am in the process of making it lovelier but I keep getting distracted, I'd so much rather be on the street than staring at a screen. I promise it will be sorted soon. In the meantime if you fancy a blether or a beer or just want to find out about what loitering can do for you please get in touch:

Email loiter@hepzombie.co.uk
Twitter @thelrm
Facebook group the loiterers resistance movement

We hope to see you playing out with us soon xx

5 comments:

Steve Starlord said...

PART 1 of 2 comments, due to 4,096 character limit.
Hi Morag,

Just arrived here on your LOITERERS RESISTANCE MOVEMENT (LRM)'Loitering With Intent To Make Manchester Wonderful' blogpage via your Facebook Page via Jonathan Atkinson's Facebook Page via my own Facebook Page.

I wanted to see if this was the same Morag that used to work at T3SC before sending a Facebook 'Friends Request', but the picture of your back on Facebook doesn't make it easy, but still I think it's you. The pink hair and 'Capitalism is an organized crime' gave me the clue that it was. Not that we know one another much!

You seem to be alive and kicking on this blog but no entries on your twangorama blog since 2008, where I read 'Get Lost in Manchester with the LRM this Summer' March 1st 2008, having just read this blog entry first. Thought best therefore to add comment here!

My eye was caught by the word 'psychogeography' which I only 'discovered' myself in 2011 and found was a word in vogue. I purchased Psychogeography by Merlin Coverley in April 2011 but have not read yet read it, though I have perused! Perhaps I wandered lonely as a cloud through the pages?

The title name captured my interest and so I bought the book, in part, because I find maps/geography interesting but especially the contents include areas of interest to me dealing with the 'Visionary Tradition' Urban Gothic/Arthur Machen, thus linking to my interest in Horror and SF, and also Alfred Watkins and Leylines is mentioned.

I am very interested in the Occult and it seems he has also written a book called 'Occult London', but so too has Colin Wilson written a populist history of the Occult.

Extract from Occult London Product Description: "London, more than any other city, has a secret history concealed from view. Behind the official façade promoted by the heritage industry, lies a city of esoteric traditions and obscure institutions, of lost knowledge and hidden locations. Occult London rediscovers this hidden history, unearthing the secret city and its forgotten inhabitants.
Encompassing a historical panorama from the Elizabethan age to the present day, we are introduced to the magic of Dr Dee and Simon Forman, the rise of the Kabbalah and the occult designs of Wren and Hawksmoor. Elsewhere we meet figures such as Spring-Heeled Jack and the Highgate Vampyre, and occult organizations from the Invisible College to the Golden Dawn.
Today a concern for such hidden traditions has returned and Merlin Coverley explores this revival of interest in the occult tradition, one that accords well with emerging New Age philosophies, the interest in London's Ley Lines, in alternative histories and psychogeography.
Also included is an Occult Gazetteer: An A-Z of London's most resonant Occult Locations, from Abney Park cemetery to Wellclose Square, with a series of short descriptive entries including postcode, nearest tube, and map."


Continued in next comment due to 4,096 character limit.

Love, Light & Laughter
Starlord

Steve Starlord said...

Continued.
PART 2 of 2 comments, due to 4,096 character limit.
Hi again Morag,

Anyway Chapter 2 of Psychogeography is titled 'Paris and the Rise of the Flaneur'! The word 'Flaneur', which I first read in early issues of the Idler Magazine 10 years or more ago. Idleness and the Nature of Work interest me very much too! Idling and laziness, and 'so-called' unemployed scrounging from a positive side.

Conservative Cabinet MP, Peter Lilley, during a Conservative Party Conference in the 1980's bellowed that he was bringing to an end those unemployed living an alternative life-style divorced from [paid] work." He failed, but this current bunch of ConDem thugs are trying to carry-on from where Thatcher left off, due in large part to the Blue Blair failure to repeal the JobSeeker's Act!

About 1996 I and some unemployed friends formed Tameside Unemployed Worker's Alliance (TUWA) in opposition to the draconian JobSeeker's Act. We campaigned outside and inside Jobcentre's (occupations) in the Manchester area and up to Bolton. These were the days before they employed security guards which jobs we helped create! And before so much political activism was effectively 'suppressed' after the Trades Unions were crushed in the 1980's by Thatcher followed by the introduction of the Anti-Terrorism Act into the UK from Northern Ireland and followed soon after by much else of a Big Brother nature!

Members of TUWA were named PANSES which I strongly suspect was meant to be an insult, but I liked it as an example of Flower Power! It fitted nicely one possible expression for the Pluto in Virgo generation! I am also an astrologer! PANSES stands for: Political Activist Not Seeking Employment Satisfactorily!

So the flaneur links to idleness to Psychogeography to Surrealism to Decadence. Fin de Siecle! I have an interest in this period circa 1890's.

The book then goes on to the Situationist movements and then to the final chapter ' Psychogeography Today where he deals with JG Ballard and others who I do not know.

Still, to end, I doubt I will be joining you. Socialising is not really my thing.

I'd so much rather be staring at a screen than on the street.
I prefer peace and quiet, solitude, silence, meditation, and nature, but I do like people!

I don't drink alcohol or socialise at all these days. I much prefer mental roaming, sitting/loitering in cafe's and contemplating the universe, or sitting on a park bench watching the trees. Suits my more mystical leanings!

Still, I frequent cafe's far less these days for many reasons, one being the demise of so many of my favourite greasy spoons in Tameside and especially Manchester.

Still, I am not just an esoteric-metaphysical naval gazer. I very much enjoy causing trouble and turning the world upside down!

I have attempted to develop my own brand of Spiritual Politics incorporating pneumatocracy, shamanarchy, green politics, paganism, theosophy, Alice Bailey, Kabbalah, and much else.

Thus I am a STARLORD, for every man, woman, and child, is a star! A Starlord is far broader than just a mere astrologer!

Still, I was sufficiently inspired to write this comment!

Love, Light & Laughter
Starlord

AB Cordellion said...

Good to see there are others like me!

greenstreeter said...

Save these Alexandra Park Trees http://bit.ly/V6TRMW #Whalley Range#manchester 50 planned 2b felled soon! Signpetition@parkcentre sat 11-4 Dec 1 st 2012

greenstreeter said...

Save these Alexandra Park Trees http://bit.ly/V6TRMW #Whalley Range#manchester 50 planned 2b felled soon! Signpetition@parkcentre sat 11-4 dec 1st 2012