Postcards






photos all from wikipedia

Jamestown, Saint Helena / postage stamp from the South Georgia and The South Sandwich Islands / Naadam ceremony, Mongolia / the world's largest wine cellars in Moldova / Manx Loaghtan Sheep from the Isle of Man.

sometimes it is nice to read about places you are most likely never going to visit, I am especially fascinated by islands, and places only accessible by boat. postcards are the one thing i forget to send people when I visit different cities.

A whiteness of swans





Suddenly found myself surrounded by feathered fellows on my first Swedish/winter christmas.
Metal Swedish bird decoration circa 1970's / drawing of a Tui by my father / coloured paper peacock decoration.

different names for groups of different birds:

A raft, flock, colony, covey, dissimulation, fleet, flight, parcel, pod, volery, sedge, chain, bellowing, wake, tok, mews, peep, brood, cletch clutch, clattering, chattering, cover, commotion, covert, rasp, swarm, gulp, hover, murder, muster, parcel, storytelling, head, herd, trip, dole, dule, piteousness, pitying, prettying, dopping, plump, padding, team, fling, convocation, mob, cast, charm, trembing, stand, wedge, gaggle, nide, skein, drum, troubling, lek, pack, bazaar, confusion, screech, aerie, kettle, moulting, screw, stream, seige, hedge, rookery, train, band, party scold, deceit, desert, exaltation, ascension, bevy, tiding, tittering, tribe, congregation, lute, flush, puddling, sute, sord, richness, watch, parliament, stare, company, pandemonium, psittacosis, bew, warren, muster, pride, ostentation, creche, huddle, bouquet, Nye, pheasants, kit, loft, bunch, rush, knob, run, conspiracy, unkindness, crowd, building, clamour, hill, sea, cloud, squabble, doading, exultation, walk, wisp, host, quarrel, ubiquity, numeration, scourge, phalanx, eyrar, bank, drift, game, lamentation, sownder, squadron, whiteness, whiting, diving, spring, mutation, raffle, rafter, coil, trip, fall, descent.

BELLE epoch

Last night at BELLE epoque:
after sitting down to a delicious meal of trout, rooster and pork, followed up with a blood orange sorbet, I serenaded the winers and diners with a handful of my favourite wintery songs about such weighty topics as blues, hearts, paris, girls, mornings, nights and moons.

This was for the inaugural night of RECORD TURNOVER, the new moniker of my dj partner in crime. He is sort of like the conjurer and I his able bodied assistant, who is willing to be sawed in half.

A list of the tunes I selected lies below, and if you weren't able to make it and the tracklisting tickles your fancy and piques your interest, or if you would just like to re-live the experience one more time, you can even add 'blah blah' to your own music collection by following this LINK.

BAROQUE CLOAK

Something On Your Mind - Karen Dalton
Blues In the Night - Ann Shelton
Dreamin' - The Distant Sounds
Blue is the Night - The Deverons
This Boy - The Beatles
Sunday Morning - Margo Guryan
Be-Bop-A-Lula - Gene Vincent
You've Really Got A Hold On Me - The Miracles
Rolling Moon - The Chills
Are You The One - The Trolls
Rockin' Back Inside My Heart - Julee Cruise
And I Say To Myself - David Bowie with The Lower Third
All These Blues - The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
Great Balls of Fire - The Librettos
Looking For Me - The Walker Brothers
Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon - Neil Diamond
Paris Summer - Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood
Tell Me Now So I'll Know - The Kinks
Got Nothin' to Say - The Limiñanas
How Can I Stop Loving You - The Eighth Day
Time of the Season - The Zombies
Sally I Do - Abdullahs' Regime
Just A Little - The Beau Brummels
Superstar - Carpenters
That Lonely Feeling - Dean Ford & the Gaylords
I'll Keep It With Mine - Nico


songs for prancing to.

I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE

I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE - NICO
I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE - DEAN & BRITTA
I'LL KEEP IT WITH MINE - RAINY DAY








I think I could spend a whole dj set playing multiple versions of the same songs, and no one would even notice.

3 versions of the song I have been listening to most this week, obsessively. I think I spent an afternoon repeatedly playing 5 different versions of this song (including a bootleg version by the author, Bob Dylan, and another by The Resonars), until I had listened to the song about 20 times.
I still keep changing my mind about which I prefer the most. At the moment I think it is Nico's and that is the one I plan on playing when I am djing next Wednesday in the bar under my apartment.
I am really enjoying listening to different versions of the same songs at the moment - 'I'll Keep It With Mine' aside: covers of the Kink's 'Stop Your Sobbin'' has had heavy rotation; I just heard Tracey Thorn doing a cover of Lee Hazlewood's 'Come On Home With Me'; a brilliant cover of Jerry Lee Lewis' 'Great Balls of Fire' by an obscure 60's New Zealand band, The Librettos, all slowed-down and moaning; The Miracles/Beatles/Zombies respective versions of 'You Really Got A Hold On Me'.

Perhaps I should start a collection of different versions of the same songs.
Then I could have an 'I'll Keep It With Mine' for every occasion.
I still think repetitive actions, such as listening to the same song multiple times, give me good ideas.

Cover to Cover







all images via Abracadabra Department

Images from the fascinating collection of ephemera and thoughts found on Abracadabra Department, with pictures ranging from Marisol and Niki de Saint Phalle to Mad Max film stills, thoughts on Orange Juice's Rip It Up, ideal interiors, and more.
I read it cover to cover.

Changes are a-foot in my life, I even wrote myself a manifesto, and I have been plotting and devising things. Fingers crossed these things will come to light in the New Year which is now not so very far away.
I resolved to carry my camera and my journal around with me everywhere, and to try and collect more tangible things. Perhaps one day these posts will manifest in some physical format, I was thinking an accordion book.

Bright mirage



via

December 13th is marked in Sweden as Santa Lucia, a day when girls are dressed in white robes with red sashes and one is selected to lead the Lucia procession bearing a candleabra with lit candles on top of her long, flowing locks.
Boys also dress in white and wear tall conical hats cover in large gold stars and are known as 'stjärn-gossar' - star boys.

Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring / Santa Lucia, bright mirage


Natten går tunga fjät / The night walks with heavy steps


Swedish lyrics of the traditional Neopolitan song Santa Lucia.

Good Omen




I remember an anecdote my father told me about how he was listening in with great anticipation to a local radio show which was going to play the new Fleetwood Mac single on air for the first time in New Zealand in 1969. Fleetwood Mac was founded by Peter Green and then known as a blues-rock outfit. So it was with chagrin and confusion as to what had happened to Fleetwood Mac when he heard their latest single. The dj felt guilty and duly apologised for such a great anti-climax.

It was Albatross.

Mystery Train


image: krister bladh

feeling about as dense as this foliage. photo from another excursion underground in Malmö. seems like the scenery will be changing daily, in the form of a series of projections simulating watching the world go by while sitting in a train. actually, that is a little how i feel right now also.

Serious / Curious




via here, here

recent items of interest and areas of inquiry.
detailed floor /photograph by Matthieu Lavanchy
bust pash / photograph by Jerry Hsu
P F Sloan eating a hotdog

i like looking at bright colours but never really find myself doing anything with them. recently i was told that i am both serious and curious. i thought it was an interesting combination, sort of personality trait clashing - like how some people like to wear tartan with polka dots together, or odd coloured socks. i think they were right about me in both instances, in any case.

Untitled (press)






[click images to enlarge]

images of a recent and unfinished 'work on paper' I have been focusing on, drawing over a photograph of a tray of letter press type on newsprint. rather interested in the incorporation of printing methods in the process, and newsprint was important as the material used, as was the current state this particular piece of newsprint is in - quite dishevelled. would be interested in any feedback - without my usual critique cronies around it is difficult to get any constructive criticism on my work.