Frimaire, Nivose & Pluvi­ose

I haven’t updated here in a while. I worked long hours through­out Janu­ary and also moved house. I’ve also now offi­cially deferred my course until next year. I missed too much of the school year when I was ill. I’ll have a little while off, and then look for some work to tide me over. In between all that I turned 31. Ancient, really. I’ll have a bit more time on my hands over the next couple of weeks, so I’d better make use of it. Here’s some links of inter­est­ing bits and bobs to tide you over.

• • Here’s a great BBC docu­ment­ary about 80s synthpop, now avail­able in its entirety on YouTube. There’s a full playl­ist of all the songs used in the show here.
  • Laura from Behind the Hedgerow blog makes some beau­ti­ful clothes for her chil­dren.
  • Atlas Obscura is one of my favour­ite websites both for find­ing inter­est­ing places to visit, and just for casu­al brows­ing. It’s full of photos and descrip­tions of unusu­al places like this town in Alaska that’s one giant build­ing, or closer to home, the Embassy of the Repub­lic of Texas in London.
  • The BFI presents their selec­tion of top Iceland­ic films. For a coun­try with such a small popu­la­tion (around 250,000- about the same as my not so excit­ing homet­own), Iceland certainly punches above its weight in the creat­ive fields. Noí Albinoí is one of my favour­ite films. I haven’t seen all of the others, so I should check them out.
  • The Salvage Project discusses sexu­al viol­ence in activ­ist communit­ies in the UK. Communit­ies which need fewer of these guys.
  • Links to watch a large selec­tion of films by Andrei Tarkovsky, my favour­ite direct­or for free online.
  • My favour­ite Wednes­day treat- Rhik Samad­der writ­ing about kitchen gadgets. Start with the shiv­er­ing horrors of the Egg Master.
  • My friend Alex Wrekk has made her zine about being in an abus­ive rela­tion­ship and getting out of it free to read online. I’ve got the paper edition from when she offi­cially released it, and it’s well worth the read. In her own words “What if your private life in your rela­tion­ship is vastly differ­ent than what other people see? When do you know you are in an emotion­ally abus­ive rela­tion­ship? How to you gain the strength to get out of it? What do you do when you know you can’t handle the burden alone? What do you do when you feel so alone and terri­fied of the consequences of leav­ing, when if it means losing friends, a home, a job and a way life that you love? These are just some of the ideas explored in this zine through a three year person­al narrat­ive that also chal­lenges you to exam­ine your rela­tion­ships with power, to identi­fy how you express the power you have, and also how you relate to the power that of others possess”

• Angelyne is a pop-culture fixture in Holly­wood, known for the huge bill­boards she hires with just her photo and name and for driv­ing her pink sports car around town. I never real­ised she made a try at a pop music career in the 80s. It’s pretty good, as a trashy new wave song with slightly disturb­ing lyrics goes. I found it because there were two articles recently about what an all-round unpleas­ant person she is to spend time with, and I wondered what the irrit­at­ing Barbie speak­ing voice the writers described soun­ded like, so I went hunt­ing on YouTube.
• Mallory Ortberg on the poetry of the Beaufort Scale.