http://www.culturecolony.com/news?id=7927
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities...just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape." OK I nicked this off Wikipedia but I thought it's a good place to start.
There is an argument of sorts right at the start of the book - the question is whether it's possible to apply psychogeography to the rural landscape as opposed to the Situationist urban utopia of streets, grids, towerblocks, shopping malls and concrete consumerist structures. The series editor Peter Finch was originally sceptical. The book author Mike Parker was definitely convinced.
As one who has applied, borrowed, nicked, adopted, adapted many a Situationist concept, slogan and image and transposed those cultural handgrenades into the Welsh landscape - political, cultural and Welsh Language - I was with Parker and needed no convincing.
I've read Parker's "other books" of course. "Neighbours from Hell ? English Attitudes to the Welsh" made for interesting reading for a Cymro Cymraeg and I still use the Wales Rough Guide as reference on my travels but this book, Real Powys is of greater interest in many ways. One, I'm in the book. Two, I'm from Maldwyn and thirdly I just love this idea that there is no copyright on Welshness - Real Powys spits out some uncompromising truths, some hilarious judgements and some detailed observations that only a radical non-conformist situationist could come out with - and they are so damned accurate.
It's brilliant (un-intended comedy), but then the best comedy is always based on the half truths of reality. It's a brilliant read and to the point, direct, no nonsense in ways that Jan Morris in her matters of Wales has yet to master. It's a modern day Wild Wales with Borrow like obsessions and literary O.C.D's. And it tackles the part of Wales, the real Powys, that most people choose not to reach. Just off the A470. Most don't get off. Take a detour(nment) !
Parker manages to squeeze in the C-word, that most uncomfortable word unless you live in Caernarfon where it's pronounced with an o, in the same chapter as the beacon of Non-Conformist purity, Ann Griffiths, or was she? was she indeed as erotically charged as Gwerful Mechain who is so eloquently captured in Parker's Plygain detour.
The deconstruction of Welsh / Cymraeg copyright is dealt several handgrenades. The classic is the very suggestion that the Royal Welsh is probably more representative than the National Eisteddfod. Representative of what of course - that's the very subject matter of said copyright issues.
And it takes a trader, a car booter to sum it up neatly, that those Eisteddfodwyr grown fat on the public purse have yet to do a proper day's graft - this is pure heresey - this is Darwin visiting Cefn Meiriadog caves and Cwm Idwal, on the origins of evolution trip and our close, close and personal thing with monkeys that the Right, the Creationists, fear most. This is a new theory, on the origins of Powys, that those holding on to Welsh Copyright should rightly fear.
The real pubs get a mention, the parlour pubs, run by defiant old ladies who hang their washing on the dartboards - this is a real Powys that our children may never see - I still remember my one and only visit as a teenager to the Goat in Llanfihangel yng Ngfwynfa for ale from a jug - that was late 70's and it felt like an anachronism even then.
We are encouraged to take trains from the hardest to find stations and platforms, always obscure, always down an overgrown lane that is in worse than poor condition and that only an OS Map obsessive will find anyway. We are given tantalising glimpses of old buildings that will soon disappear - raising more questions than answers. Are not the associated well buildings of the Well towns not as valid in terms of archaeology as our Industrial buildings ? Big question that one and a need for urgency if they are not to dissappear.#
Ther is no such thing as a "Situationist", therefore there can be no such thing as a "situationist book". Can psychogeography work without the towerblocks ? Has Parker managed to deconstruct the copyright on Welshness ? Who cares - take the next left off the A470 and follow your nose.
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