Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
Episode image is a detail from the cover of Dark Matter: Poems Of Space edited by Maurice Riordan and Jocelyn Bell Burnell, published in 2008 by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
Holidays in Time, science as an art-form and upping sticks to move away from home are all themes covered in this, the 42nd Second Hand Book Factory, in which Charles Adrian talks to writer, performer, comedian, zinester, enthusiast and public engager Chella Quint. The first track, incidentally, was written in response to Chella's Zine Adventures In Menstruating, which you can find out all about here.
You can watch the video to Terminally Ambivalent Over You by The Real Tuesday Weld on YouTube here.
You can listen to Jocelyn Bell Burnell and others discuss Black Holes with Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time here.
Tales Of The City by Armistead Maupin is also discussed in Page One 29 and Page One 171.
This episode has been edited to remove music that is no longer covered by licence for this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode released: 3rd December, 2013.
Book listing:
A Tale Of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones
Preface and Tinily A Star Goes Down by Iain Crichton Smith from Dark Matter: Poems Of Space ed. Maurice Riordan and Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Tales Of The City by Armistead Maupin
Links:
Terminally Ambivalent Over You by The Real Tuesday Weld on YouTube
Episode transcript:
Charles Adrian
Hello and welcome to the 61st Page One. This is the 42nd Second Hand Book Factory. I'm Charles Adrian and my guest today over Skype all the way from Sheffield is Chella Quint. Hello Chella.
Chella Quint
Hello. Hi.
Charles Adrian
You're still there?
Chella Quint
Yeah. Hello.
Charles Adrian
Good. I'm looking at the chocolate cake that you made with the amazing [indistinct].
Chella Quint
[laughs] I made it from a mix.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, well, you caused it to happen.
Chella Quint
I handcrafted the rose on top out of marzipan.
Charles Adrian
Very impressively.
Chella Quint
Thank you.
Charles Adrian
Now, I'm going to start the podcast with one of your music choices, which I think is a good introduction to at least one fragment of the entity that is Cella Quint.
Chella Quint
[laughs] Okay, right.
Charles Adrian
This... I think you probably know what I'm going to choose.
Chella Quint
I can tell now, yeah.
Charles Adrian
This is Chart Your Cycle by Party Weirdo.
Chella Quint
[laughs]
Music
[Chart Your Cycle by Party Weirdo]
Charles Adrian
So that was Chart Your Cycle by Party Weirdo – which, yeah, covers a little bit of what you do, Chella, but I think there's quite a lot of other stuff. How would you describe yourself?
Chella Quint
I find it really hard to describe myself. So I just use a lot of words and just put plus signs between them. Like it's like a big long addition problem and I'm hoping to get to the “equals something” at some point. Like, the “equals Chella Quint”. But. So I do comedy writing and performing, public engagement, art and design, I illustrate and write and edit fanzines and... but they all end up being parts of, like, a big thing. So I'll write a show, perform it, write a fanzine that goes with it that I can hand out or sort of gift people later. And I'll do maybe a podcast like an education resource if it's a science communication project. So it's... I kind of... I don't... I'm looking for the word that describes all of that. But like, kind of, being really enthusiastic about stuff and telling people about it is probably the best way to describe what I do.
Charles Adrian
Which is a nice way of describing it.
Chella Quint
Like, it's just not a... there's not a word you can put “er” on the end of [very easily] or “ist”. So.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. I think that's all to the good.
Chella Quint
Oh! Thank you.
Charles Adrian
Now, what's the book that you brought that you like, Chella?
Chella Quint
I've brought A Tale Of Time City by Diana Wynne Jones.
Charles Adrian
Okay. Oh, I've heard of Diana Wynne Jones.
Chella Quint
She's very cool. She died a couple years ago but she's written a lot of sci fi fantasy children's books and – which I haven't... to be honest, I actually don't like her other books. This is the only book of hers that I absolutely love. But I know a lot of people who love all of her books and this isn't their favourite. So I think there's kind of a... like, I may be missing the point of Diana Wynne Jones but I absolutely love this book.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Do you want to read the first page for us?
Chella Quint
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, the first chapter is called Kidnapped.
The train journey was horrible. There was a heatwave that September in 1939, and the railway authorities had fastened all the windows shut so that none of the children packed on to the train could fall out. There were several hundred of them and nearly all of them screamed when they saw a cow. They were all being sent away from London from the bombing and most of them had no idea where milk came from. Each child carried a square brown gas mask box. All of them had a label with their name and address on it, and the littlest ones (who cried and wet themselves rather often) had the label tied around their necks with string.
Vivian, being one of the bigger ones, had her label tied to the string bag Mum had found to take the things that refused to fit into her suitcase. This [sic] meant that Vivian did not dare let go of the string bag. When your surname is Smith, you need to make very sure everyone knows just which Smith you are.
Charles Adrian
That's great.
Chella Quint
The first page doesn't have a whole lot to do with the rest of the book. But there are two clues about what's going to happen next. One of them is that, you know, it takes place in a different time. And the other is that there might be some issues around mistaken identity.
Charles Adrian
Okay, right. Right.
Chella Quint
So what happens in the rest of the book is she is immediately kidnapped due to a case of mistaken identity...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Chella Quint
... by people from another time and she's taken out of time. So this whole story exists in a universe where all of time progresses as we know it and there are fixed points and changeable points in the timeline of the history of time. And all of the people in the changeable points are living in volatile times and so they don't know that there are these fixed points. But the people that live in all fixed points can enjoy holidays to the other times. They can just have these great trips to other points in history that are stable, where changes in them won't cause, like, some butterfly effect [to alter the future]. And the place where all of these travellers have to pass through to go on their trips to other times, it's called Time City, which is where this girl Vivian Smith gets kidnapped to. And Time City looks just like... well, the bit where you travel from looks like St Pancras station, so that as you pass through the barriers you can actually go into different times in history and in the future. So every time I'm in St Pancras I just think of A Tale Of Time City and it's quite cool. And it's a really fun book. I absolutely love it.
Charles Adrian
Nice. Oh, it sounds great. So maybe I'll look out for it.
Chella Quint
I think you should.
Charles Adrian
Okay, I'm going to play a track now. So this is my choice of music for the podcast and it's kind of obvious given what it is that I particularly love about your work. And I could have made this point in a whole variety ways but I've chosen Julie London singing Fly Me To The Moon.
Chella Quint
[gasps] Oh, I love this song. Thank you. I'm wearing my fly me to the moon bracelet right now as well.
Charles Adrian
Yay!
Chella and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Chella Quint
Oh!
Charles Adrian
Here it is.
Music
[Fly Me To The Moon by Julie London]
Charles Adrian
So that was Julie London's version of Fly Me To The Moon, which seems to have received a good reception from you, Chella.
Chella Quint
Absolutely. It's like... I love that song. I'm so excited that you chose it. I love anything to do with space so that's... like, that wins.
Charles Adrian
I think... Well, I'm hoping you're going to like the book that I've chosen for you. So, again, it's kind of an obvious choice. It combines space and poetry. It's kind of like your marriage.
Chella Quint
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
In a way.
Chella Quint
Yeah, you're right. Because my wife's a poet and I'm into space.
Charles Adrian
[laughs] it's called Dark Matter: Poems Of Space.
Chella Quint
Oh!
Charles Adrian
Do you know it?
Chella Quint
No.
Charles Adrian
It's a whole collection of poems about space, essentially. And it's edited by Maurice Riordan, who I don't know anything about, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell. And quite by coincidence, on Friday... I've been listening to lots of In Our Time podcasts, which I downloaded...
Chella Quint
[speaking over] Oh wonderful.
Charles Adrian
... and on Friday I was listening to a black... one about black holes from the science In Our Times, which went out in April 2001. And Jocelyn Bell Burnell was one of the guests. And I totally recommend that you look for it, Chella, because it's really cool...
Chella Quint
[speaking over] I will. I love that show. Okay, I like... I really like...
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It turns out that she is the co-discoverer of neutron stars...
Chella Quint
Oh, my gosh, okay. I did not know that. That's great.
Charles Adrian
... which makes her pretty awesome, I think.
Chella Quint
That's amazing.
Charles Adrian
So yeah. And it's a really... I mean, this black holes podcast is really... it's one of the really good ones. I mean, black holes are so cool.
Chella Quint
I think they're great. I mean, they're terrifying but awesome.
Charles Adrian
Yeah. Exactly. So I'm going to read you the preface here, which just kind of introduces the project. I mean...
Chella Quint
I'm so excited about this. You're really going to send this to me, right? Or no?
Charles Adrian
Yes. I'm going to send this to you.
Chella Quint
This is the... I can't wait. This is the coolest... Thank you!
Charles Adrian
[laughs] Okay:
Preface
Dark Matter is the third of what has turned out to be a trilogy of anthologies of poems with scientific associations. Wild Reckoning – an anthology provoked by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, edited by poets John Burnside and Maurice Riordan – was the result of a project in which poets were asked to address that most poetic of themes, nature, but in the light of growing concerns about climate change. The poets were paired with various environmental scientists, the poems written and placed within the context of a hundred poems old and new, prescient in their regard for nature's fragility. Wild Reckoning met with such acclaim – Sir David King, then the government's chief scientific adviser even picked it as his Desert Island Discs choice – it was followed by Signs And Humours: The Poetry Of Medicine, edited by poet Lavinia Greenlaw, which used the same formula – new commissions set amongst a selection of ageless other poems – and was also well received. The decision to produce a third anthology came when I happened to hear Jocelyn Bell Burnell on the radio admit to the fact that she collected poems about space in her spare time. An essay on Astronomy and Poetry in Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science (OUP, 2006) confirmed her impeccable taste and we approached her to work with Maurice Riordan on this anthology. Dark Matter was almost an inevitable title and the collection is perhaps the most surreal and beguiling of the three, addressing as it does things beyond human worry. As in the two other cases, space scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, cosmologists – their areas of study bafflingly specific to the outsider – were approached to impart a little of their knowledge to the poets. Somewhere during this process, I caught sight of some rather irritable correspondence kicked off by a physicist who expressed scepticism about the possibility of any artist learning anything at all on a skimming visit to a boffin in a research facility.
Chella Quint
[gasps] That's outrageous. And [totally] untrue.
Charles Adrian
[speaks over] Totally outrageous, no? And then the last two words:
Instead he [...]
So that's the end of the first page.
Chella Quint
Instead he what!?
Charles Adrian
Well, you're going to have to wait and find out.
Chella Quint
I'm... But I... But even just going for a few minutes somewhere is, like... Any... Like, if you can talk to a scientist for a few minutes rather than never do it, it's...
Charles Adrian
I agree. I agree. I think that's absolutely right.
Chella Quint
And even if you can go to a museum for, like, half an hour rather than never. Just slip in and go.
Charles Adrian
It just opens your... I mean, this is why I think In Our Time is so amazing. It gives you half an hour or forty minutes of experts talking about something and even if not all of it lodges in your brain or you don't understand all of it, I think it's important. I think it's... Well, it certainly [indistinct].
Chella Quint
[speaking over] It inspires the way [indistinct]... I don't know, I think science is an art form but some people think it's a religion, some people think it's... you know... I mean, but it's a discipline, right, but like so are all the other things that we do. Oh my goodness. No, that's outrageous.
Charles Adrian
Now, and I also... I want to cheat a little bit. I want to read you one of the poems from the middle of the collection. It's a really short one by Iain Crichton Smith.
Chella Quint
You can break the rules, you know. This is your podcast.
Charles Adrian
I know. I know. But I'd like to explain when I'm doing that. [laughs]
Chella Quint
I understand.
Charles Adrian
It's called Tinily A Star Goes Down
Tinily a star goes down
behind a black cloud.
Odd that your wristwatch still should lie
on the shiny dressing-table.
Its tick so faint I cannot hear
the universe at its centre.
That's it.
Chella Quint
Oh my goodness. Oh, that's amazing.
Charles Adrian
I think it's super beautiful. I'm just trying to see if I can find out... It's not one of the commissioned poems so I don't think they have any info about who he is but... So he must be a poet who's written that at some point. Anyway, so there are loads of exciting poems in there.
Chella Quint
[speaking over] Oh, I feel a bit teary, actually. That one's so sweet.
Charles Adrian
Isn't it gorgeous?
Chella Quint
Yeah.
Charles Adrian
And there's a special extra, like, exciting gift for you in with it because I found this postcard – which is... which I'm giving to you as the bookmark – which is a kind of holographic postcard. It's called Venus With And Without Atmosphere and as you tilt it you see Venus with atmosphere...
Chella Quint
[speaking over] Oh, that's really cool. [laughs]
Charles Adrian
... and Venus [laughing] without atmosphere. That's special for you.
Chella Quint
[speaking over] I'm such a stationery dork too because...
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Chella Quint
Oh, I love that. I go... Like, I went to the Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory last month and I just... like, I spent so much time in the gift shop – like far too much. It was it was ridiculous. But they have these holographic cards that I... Oh, I love those. They're so, like, ’70s. But that like... When I was was really little that was like the height of like... like, you know, card and sticker technology.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Chella Quint
So, like, holographic stickers... Oh, that's made me... Thank you! Oh, I shall find you an awesome bookmark as well. Or make you one. Maybe I'll give you, like, a mini-zine. I kind of want to send them my space zine. I think they'd like it. Maybe I'll send that lady from In Our Time one.
Charles Adrian
That sounds a good idea. I think she would like it.
Chella Quint
Well, she likes space poems.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I think she would really like it.
Chella Quint
Oh, she sounds like a cool lady. I can't wait to hear the [podcast].
Charles Adrian
Yeah, listen to it. She sounds really... I liked her a lot.
Chella Quint
I will. Thank you. Thank you. That's wonderful.
Charles Adrian
Well, my pleasure.
Chella Quint
You win! This was amazing. This was...
Charles Adrian
Well, let's see. Let's see. What is your book for me?
Chella Quint
Okay. So this is a book that I read when I was in high school and I made my best friend read it. And then I made him read the other five books in the series. And since then – many, many years later – there have been two more books in the series, which seems kind of impossible because this was originally a column in the San Francisco Chronicle – and you might know what I'm talking about now – because the newer books weren't, they were written as novels. But this is the first book in the series and it's called Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. Have you heard of it before?
Charles Adrian
Yeah, I have it. But I love it.
Chella Quint
[speaking over] You do?
Charles Adrian
Yeah.
Chella Quint
Oh, no!
Charles Adrian
That's okay.
Chella Quint
Are you sure?
Charles Adrian
Yeah, that's totally legit.
Chella Quint
Well, you don't have this copy.
Charles Adrian
I don't have this [copy]. Exactly. [indistinct] That's the point.
Chella Quint
This copy is a copy that belonged to my wife, which she had read when she was growing up. And when I met her she already owned this copy and I had my own copy. And we don't need two copies...
Charles Adrian
Oh, wow!
Chella Quint
... so we thought we would send this copy to you.
Charles Adrian
That's so nice!
Chella Quint
So this is like the Big Gay Yay relationship.
Charles Adrian
Yeah, totally. Well, I will... This is so exciting because I will read that and think of you guys and your now merged libraries.
Chella Quint
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's cool because it... I think this must be the British edition as well and it's a great one. Yeah, it's got pounds on the back. Oh, and you can also find out how much it costs in New Zealand and Australia. But it's got a very cool collage cover picture which is kind of... it's kind of a bit Art Deco-ey looking, which is really neat. It's very cool. Mine's just got, kind of, I think, pictures from the film version, which I absolutely loved watching. It was on the American public television channel PBS and my best friend and I were glued to it. Absolutely glued. But in our own houses because we couldn't hang out together late at night because we were young and it was, like, school nights and stuff. So, yeah, it's one of my absolutely favourite books because it's about a girl, kind of, upping sticks and moving someplace else far away and leaving her family. And I did that so I can really relate to Mary Ann Singleton in the story.
Charles Adrian
Nice. Yeah. Read me the first page.
Chella Quint
I will
Taking the plunge
Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time.
She came to the city alone for an eight-day vacation. On the fifth night, she drank three Irish coffees at the Buena Vista, realized that her mood ring was blue, and decided to phone her mother in Cleveland.
‘Hi, Mom. It's me.’
‘Oh, darling. Your daddy and I were just talking about you. There was this crazy man on McMillan and Wife who was strangling all these secretaries, and I just couldn't help thinking...’
‘Mom...’
‘I know. Just crazy ol’ Mom worrying herself sick over nothing. But you never can tell about these [sic] things. Look at that poor Patty Hearst, locked up in her [sic] closet with all of [sic] those awful...
‘Mom... long distance.’
‘Oh... yes. You must be having a grand time.’
‘God... you wouldn't believe it! The people here are so friendly I feel like I've...’
‘Have you been on [sic] the top of the Mark like I told you?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, don't you dare miss that! You know, your Daddy took me there when he got back from the South Pacific. I remember he slipped the bandleader five dollars, so we could dance to “Moonlight Serenade”, and I spilled Tom Collins all over his beautiful white Navy...’
‘Mom, I want you to do me a favor.’
‘Of course, darling. Just listen to me. Oh... before I forget it, I ran into Mr Lassiter yesterday at the Ridgemont Mall, and he said the office is just falling apart with you gone. They don't get many good secretaries at Lassiter Fertilizers.’
‘Mom, that's sort of why I called.’
Charles Adrian
Hoo hoo! Is that the end of the first page?
Chella Quint
That is the end of the first page.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Great. I love it.
Chella Quint
She quits her job, like, over the phone and moves to San Francisco that day.
Charles Adrian
Superb.
Chella Quint
It's incredible. It's so great. And then just everything else is just stuff that happens to her and the people in San Francisco but from her perspective. And it's cool. It's like... It's really queer. It's very dated. It's very ’70s, as you know, but it's, like, such a cool queer book.
Charles Adrian
I love it. Thank you very much. That's a great choice.
Chella Quint
You're welcome. I can't wait to wrap it. I love posting and wrapping things. I have a gift wrapping section of, like, ribbon and stuff. So I shall gift wrap it.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] Cool. I can't wait to see that. That's going to be super exciting. But we have to finish now. It's the end of the podcast. Thank you so much, Chella.
Chella Quint
Thank you for having me. This is great.
Charles Adrian
[speaking over] It's such a pleasure. And this is going to go out on the third of December.
Chella Quint
Cool. Okay. I will listen out for it.
Charles Adrian
Listen out for it. I will probably tell you when it's going out to remind you to listen.
Chella Quint
I will definitely listen.
Charles Adrian
And I'm going to play us out with the last... so your second choice, which is by The Real Tuesday Weeks.
Chella Quint
Nope. Tuesday Weld.
Charles Adrian
Tuesday Weld.
Chella Quint
[laughing] Yeah.
Charles Adrian
Why have I got that wrong? [laughs]
Chella Quint
Well, because it's not the real Tuesday Weld, it's the fake Tuesday Weld. So, you know, they didn't fool you.
Chella and Charles Adrian
[laughter]
Charles Adrian
Cool. I don't know where I got Tuesday Weeks from. That was obviously something that happened in my brain.
Chella Quint
If they ever get like a cease-and-desist order maybe that's what they'll have to [indistinct]
Charles Adrian
[laughs]
Chella Quint
You should let them know.
Charles Adrian
So this is by The Real Tuesday Weld.
Chella Quint
Yes.
Charles Adrian
And this is (Still) Terminally Ambivalent Over You, which is a great title.
Chella Quint
It is. And they've got an amazing animated video if you look it up on YouTube. It's fantastic. I recommend it.
Charles Adrian
I'll put the link somewhere...
Chella Quint
Oh lovely.
Charles Adrian
... for people to find.
Music
[Terminally Ambivalent Over You by The Real Tuesday Weld]
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]