David Doust

Hi Everyone, I’m David. I’m a Co-Founder and Creative Producer of Pests. I’ve been self-isolating/working remotely for the past 5 days now and I’ve been making zines. Here, I’m going to be posting my series QuaranZine. I started making QuaranZine as I am separated from my partner. I wanted to document each day that I am not with them in its own way. To remind me of them, to give them crucial information about my day, to show them I’m still here.

I’ve also added some creative writing that I’ve been doing, you can find that if you go to the bottom of this page. Underneath the gallery options of the zines that I’ve been making.

Lockdown Bike Rides to Hengistbury Head

I bet the seagulls are fuming about this. Red Top Outraging.

Poor things. spent a lifetime, multiple, conditioning them too scraps and now what?

What’s a Seagull supposed to eat? What should its diet be? Hard to find chips in the world. The kebab leftover tree isn’t native to these parts.

Their call. That screechy abrasive noise, feels like home.

They’re a hard bird to love.

Home is a hard place to love.

I pity them, my concern is with them. My ignorance about them, what they should be and what they are. A reflection of me, as a chip thrower.

Do Seagulls even like chips?

They’re quiet now. Maybe they sense the food on my mind. It’s a beautiful morning.

Someone paddleboards past, that doesn’t feel like essential exercise.

The shoreline is so quiet that a ripple startles me with its abrupt, soothing sound.

The energy of the paddle board rolling the water in. Those energetic efforts.

Now boats return their engine noise to the water. The ripples increase to waves.

The gulls excited, upstart. Everywhere ripples.

To be selfish, I’ll miss this place after lockdown. Its continuous calling becoming a thing of the past. As the menagerie of humanity returns.

I know I’ll tell the tales of the empty head. Of times on roman land. When sea and sun brought peace.

People only pass, their sounds light up the world for the briefest of periods, before they’re never to be seen again.

The gulls and their calls.

Gosh I’m hungry for chips now.

Writing is essential exercise right? I sit here, notebook in hand. I somehow feel less in the wrong than if I sit here and enjoy the beauty of the area.

Do seagulls think the boats they stand on are theirs? They probably spend more time on them than their human owners.

The gulls of our town, our time, pull our memories to home. Home is a seagulls screech.

One of them has a fish, if only we had chips to go with it mate.

The Poster

There’s a poster in my area of Bournemouth. A waypoint. Relic. I know how it got there. I know its context, it’s origin story. Yet what I marvel at, any time I see it, is it’s present. It’s presence. 

It’s a show poster for a performance we programmed. Diary of an Expat. Even that. The wanderer, stationed, domiciled, in another land, another world. It’s seen a lot. It must have been there well, coming up to a year now. On a busy high street, faded, looking on from the outside of a now abandoned shop.

It’s presence, every time I see it, makes me smile. Its in a place I walk past, not regularly enough to consider it a location milestone and not so irregularly that I’m unaware of its existence. It’s like those friendships, months of separation, locations distant, yet at Christmas you see each other like it’s everyday. That intimacy and closeness immediate. 

It’s seen days. I don’t know if they were better ones. Maybe it likes the peace. Marvels at those that do venture out. I don’t think it misses people. But if its job is to tell people about itself, even though its event has passed, maybe it does? Maybe it likes reminding people “I happened! Don’t forget”. How many people look at it and think the same. 

That’s why I like it. Or the first part at least. The other part is slightly unconventional. You see, on the poster, Cecilia (pronounced Che-Chee-lee-a) is wearing a crown. She’s pondering, lips pursed, brow furrowed. What could this monarch be thinking?

Well, someone, I’d love to know who, took it upon themselves to tell us, making additions to the original artwork. Now a new piece of text floats above Cecilia’s questioning face, reading ‘4.20’. Her eyes colored in black, she exclaims “Smoke weed” from a speech bubble.

I love this. I think of Cecilia, encouraging blazers everywhere to indulge. Not because I approve of the message, though, you know, legalize it already. But because she was there. It was there. In the world. To be vandalized. Not that the vandalism was its purpose. But that it was there and therefore, could be vandalized.

Our poster, in the world, its reality emphasized by its defaced nature. To me, that poster, calling to pedestrians to kick back, put on some trance and, just really vibe it, is a symbol of my existence. A Symbol that my work is real. A totem. A toke-tem.

Be there. Be real. Be graffitied