Barbed Wire Love
Blasted by your booby traps
I felt the blow in both knee-caps
Your eyes did shine
Your lips were fine
And the device in you pants was out of sight
All you give me is barbed wire love
All caught up in barbed wire love
Tangled up in barbed wire love
Throw my leg over barbed wire love
Barbed wire love snags my jeans
Fantastic.
Thirty years a go Stiff Little Fingers released ‘Inflammable Material’, featuring their incendiary paean to teenage lust ‘Barbed Wire Love’: a raw marriage of punk and doo-wop.
Both musical movements share another legacy, that of prolific reproduction. Punk with it’s do-it-yourself aesthetic and a fan base centred around live gigs with direct contact to the groups, spawned for a short while a huge number of record releases. Anyone who saved enough money from their Saturday job could put out a record. And with Geoff Travis deciding to form Rough Trade to wrest control of distribution away from the majors anyone had a chance too.
But independent record production has an unsung birth, in the vocal harmony groups of the 40s and 50s, a genre which became popularised as Doo-Wop. Across America in black neighbourhoods groups of friends would gather and vocal harmonise together. With no musical instruments and need for overdubs or mixing levels these groups found it simple to to pitch up at a recording studio, complete their song in a single take, and purchase a pressing of perhaps a hundred records. It is estimate that over it’s 25 year span Doo-Wop gave birth to 30,000 songs. Shaaa-bop!
The 70s saw a revival in vocal harmonies (Manhattan Transfer anyone?) and Stiff Little Fingers ripped the pastiche apart from the inside and hurled it into present. Their blue print lay dormant for thirty years till Glasvegas picked up the mantle.
Punk was largely posturing and the main players sang of revolution but it was SLF coming up from the streets of belfast who gave anger of revolt it’s true voice. Buy the album from www.slf.com and listen to the righteous paint-blistering anger of Suspect Device. And then there is their finest moment…
People occasionally cover a Bob Marley song, and usually with a ‘why bother’ result. To equal Saint Bob is something, but to better him…? SLF take Rita Marley’s ‘Johnny Was’ and transpose the senseless shooting of the protagonist from the electoral violence of Jamaica’s Kingston to the occupation and civil war in Northern Ireland. Shedding along the way any pretense of authenticity of reggae and playing it out it a white heat of guitar noise. Still, when Jake Burns rasps “a single shot shot rings out in the Belfast night” the hairs on my neck stand on end, thirty years on.
Is it that good? Buy the album and see for yourself.
The Glamour
I have just finished ‘The Glamour’ by Christopher Priest. An author who for me only came to light after becoming curious having seen his novel ‘The Prestige’ adapted as a film.
He is woefully unknown, sharing many similar traits with early to mid period Ballard, perhaps it is use of science fiction motifs that have held back wider fame. Even after a hit film he still languishes in obscurity.
His novels could also been seen as having parallels with the canon of John Fowles, residing as they do in the use of literary devices. Words within words, worlds within worlds.
May I recommend in particular ‘The Affirmation’, a beautifully sculpted work that still resonates with me long after finishing. (Much of his oeuvre remains out of print so with some reluctance I recommend buying second hand from Amazon). If you can, it’s best to buy The Glamour without reading any reviews as knowing what said glamour is may spoil some of your enjoyment.
I have been touched by The Glamour.
Rangefinder
My rangefinder is dead. It was made the same year as me.
In Turkey they still repair objects rather than replace them. But not my camera, it is beyond repair.
This is George. We met at Battersea Arts Centre where in the ballroom they still hold tea dances.
It is the only photo of interest from the test roll I shot. Originally I surmised I had not mastered focusing on a rangefinder, but since the moment when the focal ring fell out on the beach, unattached to the lens, I think differently. I have also missed the morning rays learning much about vintage cameras and bidding for a replacement under eBay’s midnight luminescence. Time for me to say hello to the sun again, and for you to say hello to George, the dancing man.
Book Clubs
Book clubs — not the reading sort, rather the publishing sort…
As the industrialised world turns digital one of the few media realms so far unaffected from the assault of file sharing programs is book publishing. But it is not immune to the vagaries of the recession.
In May Salt Publishing launched it’s JustOneBook campaign with the news that with the curtailment of the Arts Council funding it would close it’s doors unless it could sell enough books in the coming month to pay its debts back. Banks when they fail to make good business decisions get bailed with out tax money, publishers do not. And why should they you may ask? They shouldn’t, however they should be supported with all our heart when they put out consistently great titles, beautifully packaged and most importantly: harbour an adventurous oeuvre.
Book sales may be slowly climbing unlike it’s counterparts in the film and music trades, but with major book shop chains using their weight to batter down profit margins it is leading publishers to a homogeneous critique; best sellers only please. Salt take a gamble, putting out books they think are great, you know this is true when you see the volume of poetry titles they publish (www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/may/27/poetry-salt-publishing) – hardly a genre to bring you riches. Did I buy just one book? No.
And the answer’s not I brought two or similar punch line. (I once ran a record label which in the space of a few releases lost all our profit in producing gorgeous sleeves, distributing CDs for the cost of postage only and giving away tracks by our most famous artist as free mp3s, so I know something of producing things you love against commercial constraints). The reason I didn’t respond to the campaign is that I was already signed up to their book club.
For a flat fee of £40 you can join The Story Bank and receive over the course of the year four short story titles, 30% discount of any other books and a free copy of David Gaffney’s “Sawn-off Tales”. Do it now: www.saltpublishing.com/books/smf/subscribe.php.
I have mentioned before I owe a debt to Gaffney in giving me the faith to send my one paragraph tiny fictions to literary magazines. It isn’t just this reason that I bring up the Just One Book campaign now: Salt have announced that all there titles are now available through The Book Depository.
Most people seem to have forgiven Amazon over their quiet censuring of gay and adult tiles (www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/14/amazon-gay-sex-rankings-apology), I personally still find it a source of some concern, especially in light of the recent spate of other stories relating to Amazon’s heavy handed business negotiations:
The Disappearing Buy It Now Button
www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/business/media/16amazon.html
The BookSurge publishing threat
www.computerworld.com/s/article/9073198/Amazon_changes_rules_for_print_on_demand_publishers
www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6553255.html
Amazon shrinking publisher profits with The Kindle
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aWhjmdVFcC2Q
Amazon deleting content from your Kindle
blogs.computerworld.com/think_you_own_your_kindle_books?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2009-07-20
The last story is perhaps testament to why a physical book may remain impervious to the digital realm a little longer, apart from being a thing of beauty to hold forever. I still buy from Amazon of course, at the end of the day the recession gets to us all and a cheap price is not to be sneered at, but allowing a single corporation to monopolise distribution is not a good idea. So now for the good news…
The Book Depository is as cheap as Amazon if not cheaper and postage is free worldwide. To celebrate I’m buying myself a copy of Nuala Ni Chonchúir’s “Nude”. May I also recommend Richard Bardsley’s “Body Parts”. I want Salt to be around to publish me or the poet Anne Baker so go on, buy one book.
To finish off with some symmetry… waiting for the plane on last year’s holiday I picked up a copy of Route Publishing’s “Ideas above our station” as it featured a short story by Sophie Hannah, who writes poetry alongside chilling tales of psychopaths, and found in the back details of Route’s book club. I joined, and today on the beach a year later I read the copy of “Born in the 1980s” I received via the club, thoroughly enjoyable (vote for it at the People’s Book Prize once you’ve brought your copy), and as a bit of icing featured a story by Chris Kellen whose blog of sardonic ennui I read. No sign of the book club on Route’s site which is a shame, so best join Salt’s before it too disappears. (Did I mention I got a handwritten note with my first arrival, is that not worth joining for alone?)
Reading on the beach means I should be entitled to make some awful pun about salt, sea and sand, but I wont.
How to be an artist
I have been reading Michael Atavar’s ‘How to be an artist’. I consider it brilliant.
Working practice. Like the artist’s studio and it’s promise of naked flesh, cigarettes stubs floating in polystyrene cups, wine bottles half full… scrub the wine bottles comment, writers too have the whiskey bottle in the bottom drawer. (Perhaps the greatest lure is that of the least appreciated sense: scent. The smell of oil paint, turps, resin. The physicality of it.). Anyway working practice, like glimpsing into an artist’s studio there is also something fascinating about seeing how the creative process is run, how procedure and attitude mull with technique and capability. Sometimes not as a blend but a tug of war.
Spending a week as a set builder has been a valuable lesson in attention to detail. The skills I picked up have been used to be build more physical objects as props in the photography. Now the studio smells of saw dust and reverberates with the sound of power tools.
Fail better is a fantastic tenet and standing beneath it’s banner should disallow being governed by rules. Rules bad, guidelines good (this is a guideline, not a rule). Philosophically it is losing the fear of making mistakes, practically it can be feeding back into the working practice all the stop-gaps and short-cuts we take when necessity becomes the mother of invention.
This month I have learnt the lesson of mis en place, and the studio fills with the exotica of dyes, smoke and mirrors. But more valuably I have added something extra to my working practice, a new bow to my quiver.
‘How to be an artist’ is a misleading title, although written partially as a guide to aspiring artists it works magnificently in inspiring artists. In business the only thing better than a new commission is a new client, and like Eno’s Oblique Strategies this manual offers something far more important than a new idea, it spurs new ways in thinking, in generating new ideas.
Order a copy from www.amazon.co.uk/How-be-Artist-Michael-Atavar/dp/0953107310/
My favourite Atavar thought today: “Choose people who aren’t afraid”
Reading and fucking
Ian Dury sang ‘Sex and drugs and rock n roll’ but as one approaches a certain age, it’s best to admit when one’s ability to rock n roll is past it’s prime, and it’s time to pick a new adage. Plus, I’ve really been dying to typeset the phrase ‘Reading and Fucking’.
They are two noble pursuits but aren’t always seen hand in hand with the respect they deserve. Dirty stories I believe is the phrase, rather than erotica. Actually I think I prefer dirty stories, and will leave erotica to label photography, where there is a more of a divide between art and commerce.
Aside from bedtime, or is it bedside stories, what really started my thought juices flowing was actual writing about sex. Too rarely authors delve into this topic, which seems strange given it’s such a huge motivation in our culture. There are plenty of novels analysing greed or jealously as the driving force in a quest for power or glory, but very little on how the need, relief and act of sex can affect the consequences of human intercourse. Or maybe I’m reading the wrong books.
I write about sex and death.
What else is there.
It is very hard to write about the act of sex without lapsing into descriptive prose and there by ending up in different waters. All my life I wanted to write but never did anything about it, in particular putting pen to paper. Events conspired and finally culminated in my starting, and I should give kudos to the three books that gave me the kicks I needed. And fittingly two of them are largely about sex.
Nic Kelman’s ‘Girls’ is rare in that it explores sex from the middle aged male psyche, alongside the lies that are generated in it’s admiration of the female teen. He writes on this subject with a brutal ardour rarely shown in public. Dangerous ground to tread these days where Woolworths can not sell a child’s bed called ‘Lolita’. As if the very word itself could cause a visitor to misbehave even without being aware of the name of the bed. (Lolita being another exception that springs to mind, in that it’s not written from the perspective of a woman in the call girl trade, look at all the other books that Amazon recommends if you follow the previous link).
Kelman’s writing excited me in hopefully the way he intended, making me think there are still things to be written and said on this subject. These short parables speak volumes and he deserves to be much more widely read. Any male starting to lose their hair would be wise to look between it’s sheets. He writes without judgement about his characters, and the second book that inspired me brings sympathy to it’s dissection of life’s fuck ups and losers…
Ewan Morrison’s ‘The last book you read’ adds a twist of addiction here and there to it’s tales of sex and life. His writes with a quiet understanding of people unable to bring their lives under control, without moral overtones. When I read this I knew what I wanted to write about, it unlocked the voice inside me. I would like to call him a hardcore Nick Hornby but I’m worried that doesn’t convey how brilliantly insightful he is.
Both these books contain exceptional writing about fucking.
A little divergence here, for I feel it only fair to pay homage to the eureka book, the one where closing the final page you say to yourself “I’m going to write stories, no more excuses”. My gratitude for this goes to Simon Van Booy’s ‘The secret lives of people in love’, and in particular the story ‘Little birds’. Beautiful writing. It has prostitutes in it too, but no sex.
Luckily for me it seems that I am not the only one with a healthy interest in all of this. Bookkake publish classics of erotica, and I am delighted that they too take great pride in calling them dirty books. Not satisfied with bringing us great writing on fucking, they also ruminate on these two subjects via their blog. The Monday morning dirty poem has brought a hithero unknown joy to the start of my working week. I’m finding myself liking poetry more and more.
Another blog worthy of note is Violet Blue who apart from having an unfeasible name is a technology columnist, podcaster of naughty stories on iTunes and a writer on open source sex at tinynibbles. She’s a busy girl and turns up all over the place, but be warned, her blog can be visually ‘rich’.
I would have liked to give a honourary mention to ‘In bed with’, the compendium of short stories featuring Fay Weldon and Ali Smith amongst others, but the fact that none of them would own up to whose story was whose implies that they see them as smut not literature. Cowards. Mind you I had to stop reading ‘Swung’ by Ewan Morrison while I was sunbathing on the beach. Next on my reading list is ‘Wetlands’, I got a copy as a Valentine’s present from my wife. And who said romance is dead.
I’ve started thinking of taking photographs about sex. Not of sex. About. But I’ll come back to that.
The visual depiction of sex is another area thwart with uneasy public consumption. Fine art has long been bed partners with sex and in particular the nude. As a primer, before I dig myself a hole defining erotica or porn, literature or dirty stories, art or filth, I think most people would agree that National Art Galleries are places of refinement and culture. Have a look at this oil painting done in 1867 by Gustave Courbet, hung in the Musée d’ Orsay.
Mathilde Madden and Kristina Lloyd both write erotica and therefore have a vested interest on what goes on the cover (as well in between). They publish another splendid blog worth reading called Erotica Cover Watch, recently they have started a debate on why, given a large market share are female readers, only women appear on erotic book covers. They also have Man Candy Monday, soon it’s going to be dangerous to start the working week…
Bearing in mind Mr Corbet’s portrait the divide between erotica and porn gets even trickier when art crosses over into photography. I was recently involved in an incident where it was proposed that someone I know sit for a topless portrait in oils, which was deemed alright, while being photographed for a study was not. (As it turned out they were horrified by having a portrait done in general, let alone bare breasted). Photographs being deemed reality I suppose, it raised an interesting question, which would you be more comfortable with; a topless photograph of you hanging on the wall or an intricate and detailed painting of your open crotch?
Males can play this game too, a photo of your arse and balls from behind or a realistic painting of your cock, it works slightly differently for men, and they are prone to cheat here. Oliver Reed and Alan Bates wouldn’t be filmed naked in ‘Women in love’ until they had “warmed up”, not wanting to be seen at their ‘realistic’ size. A friend of mine has a fantastic painting of an enlarged close-up of his anus hanging in the living room. Aesthetically very enjoyable as an abstract painting. Does the subject matter affect ones viewing? Does the oil paint neutralise it?
I have had to rewrite the next paragraphs a few times as I found myself slipping into arguments about erotica versus porn, and from there wether porno is bad or immoral. I want to side step here (but not avoid) and instead name check some photographers who have been an inspiration and caused some enjoyment on a wet Sunday afternoon.
The keyword here is I guess intent, and it is the argument often used in differentiating porn from erotica, especially in the photographic realm. Without the veneer of oil and strokes, sorry, the veneer of oil paint brush strokes, erotic photography is left far more naked to accusations of pornography than fine art. Intent is the defense. But why am I saying defense? I like erotic photography.
What is surprising to a number of people is the amount of women taking erotic photos. Often of themselves. One could talk about women photographers such as Ellen Von Unwerth who publish work in a male market place and therefore could be said to gain financial reward from it. But there are a great many female photographers on Flickr creating imagery solely for their own amusement, pleasure and interest.
To me the really surprising factor is why people, including friends of mine, find it so out of the ordinary that women are taking erotic photos too. Last time I checked half the people fucking were female.
I’ve started thinking of taking photographs about sex. Here are some of the people on Flickr whose work I greatly admire, they are funny, witty, clever pictures, and yes, sometimes sexy too. And if you are reading this at work on a Monday morning just tell everybody it’s art, literature and culture. Because it is.
This one’s a chap but he’s fantastic and fits right in to the general mood
Jan Durina
Broken twigs Winter leaves
My laptop is a giant radio plugged into the sky.
Once upon a time I thought of my computer as a tool, now it’s a conduit bringing to me wonderful things people have made.
[1]
Late night working has meant headphones. A midnight trip to 8tracks.com and a roving finger led to listening to the soupy twist mixtape, amongst which tunes I heard Slow Club for the first time. Like discovering music all over again, remember that feeling when hearing a song just put a big stupid smile on your face; made you feel great; like aural sunshine: Slow Club.
Of course you might hate them. Some people hate blue cheese or the smell of petrol. Or you might love them. The record company site or myspace would be good places to start finding out. I love them.
For a nu-folk related group it’s a playful name with it’s allusions to traditional values, there is of course a real slow movement, expanding now on it’s original theme of self cooked organic food. I was first made aware of slowness and in particular the way technology has encroached in our lives with it’s demands of increasing response time, via the “Speed” Doors of Perception conference. Making time for oneself has been something I’ve been grappling with ever since, and more in earnest during the last year. There is an irony given this post was triggered by working well into the night.
Wikipedia has an article on the slow movement and well worth watching is Carl Honore’s TED talk “Slowing down in a world built for speed“.
Here’s three tips from me for dabbling in slowness:
1. Go out for a weekend without your mobile phone. Experiencing only what is around you.
2. Go on holiday without a camera. Experience the vacation only as now moments, without focusing on representing the past in the future.
3. Walk home one evening instead of using your usual mode of transport.
In spirit of giving something back I’ve added a mixtape that doesn’t stray too far from the nufolk / electrofolk / folktronica path
8tracks.com/juliobesq/broken-twigs-winter-leaves
[2]
One of the songer songwriters I featured is Amy Crawford, I’ve singled her out first of all because I think she too is great – I have a thing about a sort of mythical Warren Beatty, Carol King lives next door, I left my mirror shades in my jean jacket under the palms by the pool Los Angeles – and I think she might too. Have a listen and see if you agree.
And the second reason is to point out that not only can you listen to her at the equally-splendid-for-discovering-new-music site thesixtyone, Amy has very kindly allowed us to download most of her tracks for nothing. Spread the word, share the love. www.thesixtyone.com/amycrawfordmusic
[3]
All this folksy vibe, slowness and making music brings us to etsy.com. A site I’ve been aware of awhile now for it’s great Flash interfaces but recently ‘re-discovered’ in it’s true context – a market place for people who make things, by hand. A great time sink and a fabulous present source, from twee as fuck to trendy than thou.
The level of service you get from buying things direct from those who create them is unprecedented, and I like the connection I get knowing that the objects I buy have been created for me, by someone, not just produce waiting on a shelf for anyone.
So here’s a big shout out to some recent purchases for wedding anniversary presents: Yoko’s “weird” craft knitting (a minnie bow ) from etsy (who shipped abroad by request), and some delightful handmade retro-styled lingerie from emmajaneclothing.com (lace is thirteen years and when Emma Jane became aware of the reason behind the sale she added lace, gratis, to the second pair), see what I mean by service.
And finally, for my present I got brought a ninja bunny hat. OK, it is a mass produced product, slightly against the grain of this post, but it can’t really be that mass produced given it takes a certain sort of person to want to wear one. Luckily for my wife, I am that kind of person. Fantastic for cycling, you can even pop your bike lights into the ears between rides, and get this – they pop a squeaky thing into one of the ears – Bunny Wearz you rock! (This post would have had some photos of the things I brought but I’ve chosen the slow route of wet photography so have to wait to finish the roll and get them developed.)
My laptop is a giant antennae plugged into the sky. Isn’t the internet great?
Mask
My mask arrived today.
Dressing up is very much a part of childhood, but as we become adults the term migrates from fantasy to represent sophistication. We dress to impress the world, showing our internal view of ourselves, not seeing this as “dressing-up” but as an outer skin of our taste and personality.
We don’t dress in adulthood to present a make-believe version of ourselves. Not in the context of pleasure anyway; the suit or office uniform has a large part in role playing – we are assured by the doctor’s white coat, the mechanics overalls. I have friends in the security and legal professions whose workaday appearance will instill immediate confidence but whose after-hours behaviour belies their trade.
I not sure where this mask fetish has crept up from, the first perceivable surfacing was performing in You Me Bum Bum Train where the originators dress as a matador and majorette; even though they don’t actually appear in the show. Then The Incredibles was on television, Soni aged three popped round to show off his Buzz Lightyear costume, and by New Year’s Eve there were actual people wearing masks on the underground – I was jealous.
So I brought a mask. It’s fun. I’ve overheard the phrase ‘mid-life crisis’ in the household, who knows. There is a Kate Moss quote that goes “My mum used to say to me, ‘you can’t have fun all the time,’ and I used to say, ‘why not?’. Why the fuck can’t I have fun all the time?”.
She goes on to spoil it with moral overtones, but yeah… why the fuck can’t you have fun all the time?
Merry Christmas
Finally ticked something on the list that I have been meaning to do for years – took a panetonne round to the ambulance depot two streets away. The medics spend their Christmas sitting there with only the telly for entertainment, waiting to be called out to bandage up someone whose sliced a limb off with their new electric carver while tackling the turkey after a tad too much vino.
Analogue love
Eight hours were spent yesterday polishing and preening a web site that uses an inordinate amount of computer and internet technologies to produce artwork to laser engrave perspex invites. And all the while dreaming of ink and metal.
A few weeks a go a box from the past arrived unexpectedly, among the ephemera where portraits taken of various rock groups during the nineties. I have been wrestling the last year with digital cameras struggling to bring to images a sense of place, drama, mood – leading to an evolutionary upgrade war solution. Literally days away from purchasing a digital single lens reflex when these prints revealed what it was that I saw missing in recent pictures – film.
I have a £20 Holga camera, it’s rubbish. I love it.
The first roll came back from Snappysnaps complete with accidental double exposure, creating a portrait of a family night out no amount of intention would have wrought. A cry of recognition went up when Scarlett Thomas wrote of a character’s hatred of people who instantly review the photographs of a scene they are still standing in front of, camera in hand. A camera is a tool, and at times a camera phone is the best choice, but welcome back the mystery of opening a packet of prints replete with chemical goodness.
The analogue journey has gathered momentum, plans are afoot to fit the studio out as a darkroom so friends can use it, and within hours of admiring the wonderful letter-pressed cards produced by Sycamore Street Press the button was pushed on Ebay to buy a 1940s Adana print press. The bidding continues apace on cold metal type. Now all those Quark terms really mean something – leading, fonts, quads and spaces.
It arrives on Monday, time to get the hands dirty, literary literally.
(* there are sound reasons why most digital cameras can’t reproduce the bokeh of old school SLRs, aside from the distance of the lens to the image plate, very few digital cameras have a sensor as large as the 35mm image area of a neg, which impacts upon the optics.)
Subway Sect
The Gaff, Holloway Road, December 4th 2008
It is often said that Orson Welles lived his life in reverse, but that accolade should rest with Vic Godard. The antithesis of what to expect from someone who must be approaching fifty. Instead of mellowing, edging into easy listening — having spent the eighties actually being a dinner club crooner — here he is thirty years later blasting through a set list last aired in it’s entirety supporting the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club. Totally ignoring his top 30 hits.
spiritual thievery
Bands are like buses.
You wait months for a good one to play live then two come along at once.
Add to the perils of internet shopping buying tickets for concerts on the same night. A likely event if you rush on the heads-up start the excellent www.tourfilter.com gives you with it’s early warning announcement service.
Yes, I have tickets for both The Thievery Corporation and Spiritualized. No, I can’t multiverse to both gigs.
But thanks to the joys of technology you can now witness what hearing both groups playing at once would sound like. An aside to any lawyers, if it offends I’ll remove.
PS What’s with venues stating a curfew time, have we all got ASBOs now?
postcards from the self
Ian Fleming or is it James Bond tells us in “Goldfinger” that “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” (actually as the anorak wearer will point out it was the character Auric Goldfinger who uttered those words).
A similar mental dictum governs my internal zeitgeist barometer. First, something comes to your notice, most often registering in a vague and subconscious way. It’s when it comes around again that the strength of the original impression is felt. Without the second reinforcement the subject could have faded away in the noise of life. But when it occurs for a third time you know something is in the air: that it’s time to pay attention, time to take action.
Hunter David in one of his confessions of a collector illustrated the reverse side of a postcard sent to him by Paul McCartney (pretending to be someone else, in a prankster moment). It got me to thinking about how digital communications don’t have the same resonance; how a romantic text is not the same as a love letter. This ‘lack of physical evidence’ came up in discussion with a client; museums of the future are going to be hard pushed creating exhibits from emails.
During a later conversation regarding good public service and how it should be appreciated and recognised, I mentioned my thoughts on sending a thank you note to my doctor and physiotherapist. Coincidence raised it’s head when I was told of an article they had recently read reporting on the resurgence of sending postcards of thanks. A return to a physical artifact that makes the message more personal, more heartfelt.
Within days an email arrived in my inbox (without irony) advertising that Moo now do postcards from your Flickr stream. Enemy action.
Without delay sets was ordered. Now I can demonstrate a proper level of gratitude by responding on personalised stationery. I’m sure Mr Bond would approve.
Again the thrice rule occurs, for within days of taking ‘the photo of the postcard of the photo of the view from my studio’ to celebrate the arrival of my moo-cards, I stumble upon two more photographers creating recursive imagery.
Michael Hughes “Souvenirs” project
Want a fabulous moo postcard? Invite me to dinner.
Or create your own at www.moo.com
learning to love aversions
[1.] in ‘101 experiments in the philosophy of everyday life’, the author roger-pol droit instructs us, in exercise number 59, to “get used to eating something you don’t like”. often we see our tastes as a badge of personality; stating that you don’t like something is said with a certain hint of pride. implying there is a ‘rightness’ in not enjoying it, where surely it is a restraint in experiencing the whole of the world.
[2.] jeffery steingarten recalls in his introduction to “the man who ate everything” his decision to overcome all food aversions when being appointed restaurant critic for vogue magazine. in particular kimchi. his methodology is based upon upon the notion “most babies will accept nearly anything after eight or ten tries”. there is no scientific research quoted for this assumption, but it offers an in-built limit to learning to love a hated taste, 10 attempts a reachable goal.
[3.] three detested drinks in 1999: gin; campari; martini
[4.] the negroni
equal measures:
campari, a particular brand of a drink known as ‘bitters’
gin, the best should be used here, ‘hendricks’ is recommended
red martini, a type of vermouth (noilly prat could be subsituted)
served in an old fashioned glass, that’s a tumbler not an antique
over ice, garnished with a twist of orange peel
the majority of cocktails resemble a liquid bag of sweets. this is not the case here. alluding sophistication with it’s rich red limpidity. created in 1919 at caffè giacosa, florence, when count camillo negroni requested the barman fosco scarselli add gin to his ‘americano’, a popular cocktail of the time.
[5.] nominate a disliked beverage or food stuff. experience liberation.
parsley is the new glitter
sooooo glad i wore all white to the goldfrapp concert
here’s a link to the black holes, a fantastic unsigned electrofolk group
festival of albion (51/08)
a theme that appears in the music of epic45, infusing pastoral post-rock with an undertones of jg ballard. antony harding also plays in july skies who have a new album out, covering similair ground, perhaps with less field recordings and electronica, the studio’s copy is still in the post.
Lost youth, fractured memories of the 1970’s, The Early Films Of Peter Greenaway ‘H IS FOR HOUSE’, S.P.B.Mais, Charles Chilton, pylons across fields, abandoned airfields, Sir Edward Elgar, 50014, endless childhood summers, dappled sunlight through leaves, forgotten England, the romance of the heavens well after closing time, mornings in May, overgrown ancient ruins that still stand, faded innocence, post-war Britain, skies of all seasons, trudging coastlines, Festival of Britain 1951, memories made with a Polaroid Landcam, abandoned Victorian hospitals, Henry Moore and William Bloye, East Anglia, time spent amongst long summer grasses, exploring RAF Newton, kissing under motorway bridges, grey English rain filled skies, concrete precincts and tower blocks, dreams of 50’s suburbia, better days ahead, the sound of children playing faraway, old Ordnance Survey maps, lost airmen, Orford Ness, John and Paul Nash, playgrounds of the city, Avebury, poppy day, a half remembered smile, York’s City walls, 1960’s artwork by Harry Wingfield, John Berry, Martin Aitchinson, C F Tunnicliffe, Ronald Lampitt, BST, municipal parks at dusk, Martin Andersen, test card music of the 1970’s & 80’s.
