This is part two of an indepth account of the Shabby Doll House Conference that took place last week in Lisbon. To read part one, click here.
Day 4, Tuesday: Events meeting in Sintra
On Tuesday morning I had to run because Monday had been a rest day. Lisbon is a notoriously hilly city, but once you get down to the river, there’s a long, flat path that’s perfect for running, unless it’s windy. I had time to do 9km before my classes started. I had time to read Molly by Blake Butler for half an hour before my run. I figured out that I’d need to wake up earlier than everyone else if I was going to have time to do everything I wanted to do. But regardless I knew it was going to be very difficult to fit in all the kilometres required five weeks before my first marathon alongside everything else.
Tuesday’s plan was to take the train to Sintra in the afternoon to see some castles. And we were going to have our events meeting on the train ride there.
When we were actually onboard the train, it was a lot busier than I had anticipated, and it felt a little obnoxious to be holding a meeting, well really it was just a conversation, in English, surrounded by Portuguese people sitting quietly. But we were all excited to talk about events, because events are when, after all the years of writing and months of planning, you get to see a few people you know and have awkward and uplifting conversations with a few people you don’t know yet. We talked about the different kinds of events we could have. Did we want to do group readings as usual or something more sophisticated, like conversations? Did we have any other ideas? Every year we float this idea about a reading dinner party, but it always feels too complicated. Who’s the chef? Where do we want to go? They both (the authors) want to do Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York... Definitely Rochester, Buffalo, maybe Syracuse again? I want to go to Toronto. We’d love to do Montreal. We’re thinking about the west coast. LA because we’re going for a wedding anyway, and then we might aswell go to Portland and Seattle, like that makes sense. We make a list of all the people we know who might be able to help us. We talk about European options in the autumn, like maybe Paris, London, Madrid, Amsterdam. All of these things are possible, we just have to want them to happen.
This is the poster I made for our closing ceremony reading. As you can see it was kind of perfect because between our two burgeoning Shabby Doll authors and our friend, the esteemed poet, Francisca Matos, we had an incredible lineup. Add to that, an animation installation by Pete Wagner, and a special guest appearance by the infamous avant-garde musician Beef Gordon, and then all I had to do was show up and introduce everybody to the nonexistent guests.
I posted the image on the Shabby Doll House instagram account as we got off the train and smiled to myself as I saw the likes begin to roll in. It felt funny to remember you can just make things up. And now Lisboa was ours.
Sintra is a resort town close to Lisbon, in the foothills of the mountains of the same name. It’s full of random seeming castles. Some of them are very old, like the Moorish castle we would hike uphill for an hour to visit, and some of them are a bit more 19th century. It’s pleasant. I had been there once before in November of 2016 and returning brought back memories of disbelief at the election of you remember who.
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We walked up and up through fairytale gardens and it quickly became obvious, on seeing the abundance of towers, that we had inadvertently wandered directly into the aesthetic or sensibility of THE ISLAND.
When we reached the hill’s peak, we entered the Moorish castle, climbed to the top of the top of the world, looked out at the other castles and it suddenly became extremely windy and we wanted to walk back down.
When I regained phone service, I checked my messages on Instagram and noticed, to my total surprise, that two people had already contacted me to ask for the address to the fake reading we were having on Friday.
It was going to be a real reading!
Although, we didn’t actually have an address to give them.
Amazing. We took the train back to Lisbon and entered a bar frequented by local, glamourous, elderly women who ate whole fish in fur coats and lots of makeup, young hip boys who drank beers outside, and some dour German tourists who sat very close to us, seemed extremely bored of each other, and listened closely to every word we said. We ordered a vat of vinho verde, some cheese, bread, olives etc and planned for the reading which was now real.
As we left the bar a while later, to go to Francisca and Pete’s to have dinner and ‘assess the space’, I turned back at the last moment to witness one of the German tourists reaching across to our table and taking our remaining olives!
Guten appetit I guess.
We took a taxi across town as they’re inexpensive and we were pressed for time. The driver had an accent in English that I couldn’t place. I couldn’t tell if he was Portuguese or from somewhere else entirely. I asked him if he had lived in New Zealand or Australia maybe. He said he had lived in South Africa for a long time, which made sense as soon as he said it. He said that he had previously been in the police force in Johannesburg but unfortunately had been shot seven times. He said South Africa is very dangerous but that’s not why he left. He said he’d come back to Lisbon because he couldn’t leave his mother alone in her old age, especially after his father passed away in 2016. He said there’s a lot of corruption. I forget where. He said he takes people on illegal tours for 250 or 350 Euros a day. (They’re only illegal because he isn’t officially certified yet.) He said people are willing to pay it! He said he can’t move his shoulder much since he got shot and, somewhat alarmingly from my vantage point in the backseat, demonstrated how he had to lower his entire body in order to change gear. He said there’s an election coming up. He said there are a lot of elections coming up. He said you can’t trust any politicians. He said you can’t trust any government. He turned quickly around a tight corner on a narrow street and said let’s just enjoy it!
We got out of the taxi and I said, facing away and too quietly for him to hear, good luck with your life…
We enjoyed a delicious meal at Francisca and Pete’s apartment, assessed the space, counted the growing list of attendees to Friday’s reading, and planned for Wednesday’s important activity: The Author Photoshoot.
Day 5, Wednesday: All day photoshoot around town.
I woke up on Wednesday with aching calf muscles. My phone indicated that we had climbed 118 flights of stairs the day before. I was tired and didn’t have time to run.
I taught a class at 10am and then prepared for another meeting on the Upper Terrace at 11. Francisca was coming over with her digital camera from 2006. Kristen and Phil had brought their real film cameras. And of course we had a selection of iPhones between us. Today we planned to capture some ~official looking Author Photos as well as some interesting/artistic/iconic photos of us all just… generally looking cool, the purpose of which we imagined would become apparent later.
After a brief discussion about outfit choices, entirely dictated by the contents of our small suitcases, we set out towards a nearby park, Jardim da Estrela, which Francisca recommended. I don’t know how many of the photos I should share here, because the true purpose of the photoshoot is yet to reveal itself. I will say that I enjoyed seeing Kristen and Oscar sporting almost matching outfits:
And that moments after this photo was taken, Oscar had scrambled up a giant banyan tree. Our pack of paparazzi clicking away behind him.
If you write for some kind of culture magazine, (if such a thing still exists), and you want to write a feature about a group of friends publishing books together, (it seems like a good story), we have a lot of interesting photographs to accompany your piece.
I feel like I’m going into too much detail. I’ve only written as far as Wednesday morning so far and I’m already deep into part two of my recollections of the Lisbon conference. It was unnecessary to share so much about the taxi driver, I know, but I thought he was entertaining.
We spent the whole day walking around Lisbon, taking photos, having a drink, sitting in the grass, talking about books and presses and magazines and people we know or don’t know, making plans.
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I was impressed by Kristen and Oscar’s willingness to be photographed, by multiple people, for hours on end, in bright sunlight, in different outfits, for the good of the cause. I was impressed by Francisca and Phil’s ability and enthusiasm to get so many great photographs. It felt fulfilling to see the team working together, having fun. It felt sweet to think that one day we’ll look back on those photos and think about how young we were, even if we don’t feel that way at all now.
Later that night, back at the apartment, Phil fired up the grill on the Lower Terrace, and in collaboration with Chef d’Artois, created a huge feast for the whole group to enjoy. Halloumi, seitan, grilled vegetables, rice, salad, bread, cheese, more wine. After we’d eaten dinner, Phil cracked into the easter bunny we’d given him as part of the welcome shrine and everyone indulged in a little chocolate. The boys started taking it in turns to share their various musical projects through the bluetooth speakers, and I took the opportunity to play everyone the new Clementine Was Right song that Mike Young had invited me to sing on with him: Meet Me In The Dark.
It just came out a few days ago, and it has a really wholesome music video that I recommend too.
Okay I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to have to make this a three part series. I simply have too much to write about the final days of the conference, including of course, my report on Friday’s event…
Sebastian Castillo, author of SALMON (Shabby Doll House, 2023) is featured on the Otherppl Podcast today! It’s a flashback episode. He’s a legend in the field. Happy Friday! Hope you enjoy.