On Saturday I did zine stalls at Brixton Record Fair and Bloody Icecream. I brought a film camera with me, and the film is at the lab still, but I took some (not fantastic) phone pics too.
New zines coming soon
I’ve got two zines I’m working on right now and want to get finished soon. They’re about 75%-80% finished. I wanted to have them done for the weekend, when I did a stall, but I didn’t have time, and didn’t want to rush them. I didn’t want to rush them, and then I ran out of toner anyway. The one made of maps is about Vienna, issue 14 of Fanzine Ynfytyn. I actually started it in 2010 and mislaid the pages. Better late than never. The other one is issue 20 of the zine, it has the usual sort of stuff- this time Jeff Mangum, foxes, and North Korea. They will each be the usual 24 1/4 sized page b&w zines for 80p.
Hello
This is the time of year when you’re thoroughly bored of Winter and want it to be Spring again. I’m currently stuck in Chatham, waiting for various things to happen, and looking after my mum’s cats in the meantime, who come to the front door and meow at me indignantly if I have the cheek to go out, because everyone has abandoned them, and they are poor orphan kittens (aka very spoilt cats).
Songs based on books- a playlist.
Here’s a short playlist I made of songs based on (good, enjoyable) books, with some short descriptions for people who haven’t read the books in question.
Record Fair
On Saturday I’m doing a zine stall with my friend Fliss Collier at the inaugural How Does it Feel to Be Loved Record Fair. As well as our own zines we’re bringing a selection of music zines and stock from Vampire Sushi distro.There will be record stalls from Fortuna POP!, Where It’s At Is Where You Are, Odd Box, Fika, How Does It Feel To Be Loved?, The Great Pop Supplement, Dirty Water Records, Enraptured, Cherry Red, and Lojinx and lots of second hand records. I will have to restrain myself from spending any money, because I’m broke.
70s interior design book
Here are some scans from a 1970s interior design book- House by Terrence Conran. Some of the stuff in it is really really 70s looking, and some is very clean and timeless-looking. The pictures I’ve scanned are a mix of the two categories. I just scanned the pictures that appealed to me, as it’s a massive book. Some of them are a little grainy due to the printing technique. I scanned another 70s interior book I have here.
Maidstone
The other day I had to go to Maidstone. I really can’t think of any other word to describe the place rather than dull. It has the usual chain shops if you want to buy some things, and a pretty town hall and museum, (and a prison with huge stone walls slap bang in the centre) but that’s about it. It’s the sort of place you go to run errands, no other reason. It’s not horrible, but not particularly interesting either.When I was at school I sometimes went to gigs at the student bar there, but it was such a pain to get back in the evenings I didn’t bother too often unless I knew someone who was driving. When I was really little I used to go to see the Sooty Show and pantomimes at the theatre, and that was the high point of Maidstone in my estimations.
Ugh. Disgusting.
Here’s a rough mock up of something I’ve been working on. It’s not quite how I want it yet. When I was younger I had a book called Nature All Around (I scanned it in this post) and it had a picture of a big orange slug that used to disgust and fascinate me. A few years ago I lived across the road from a fish and chip shop with a poster in the window advertising the “new masala cod”. The photo was a lurid orange, and looked a lot like a less frilly version of what I’ve drawn. If you bought a masala cod late at night and forgot to eat it, I always imagined it would creep along the carpet in the night and smother you like a terrible 70s horror film.
Separado! Gruff Rhys ac y gaucho cymraeg
I finally saw this film today. I’d wanted to see it since I’d heard of its existence, but not got round to it, but it was definitely worth the wait. Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals saw a singer on Welsh tv in the 70s who used to go onstage wearing a poncho and riding a horse, and then sing flamenco and samba songs in Welsh with an Argentinian accent, and he was spellbound. His grandmother told him it was René Griffiths, a distant uncle of his from South America. An ancestor of his in the 1800s joined the Welsh colony in Patagonia after accidentally killing his cousin in a rigged horse race.
Surrealistic Pillows
I opened a Society6 shop today to sell my designs. You can get cushions, greetings cards and iphone/ipad/laptop covers. I have the same designs on Spoonflower, available as meters of fabric, but I’m still waiting to get my printing samples to check before they go live. I’ve got lots more patterns I’m working on, but here’s 6 to start with. Society6 have a special offer that ends at midnight Pacific Time (ie early in the morning GMT). If you order today, you get free postage. The link is here.
Off to Brighton
Now I’m off to graduate. I miss Brighton.
Books I read in January
One of my new year’s resolutions was to read an average of 2 books a week, and see an average of 1 new film a week. I’ve managed the books this month, but I haven’t seen any new films. I caught up on about 20 hours of Scandinavian detective shows and watched a lot of tv documentaries though, so it’s not like I didn’t see anything. I just have to see one more film each of the rest of the months this year.
Versailles in the summer of 2005
I’ve been sorting through my things, and found some old negatives. I’ve already scanned the one from Italy in the late 90s, and here’s some more. (There’s a lot more to come). In 2005 I went camping with my mum in Yvelines, just outside Paris. You can get into the city in about 15 mins on the RER, so it’s a good combination of camping and sightseeing. Versailles is just down the road too. I took a lot of photos there, but I can’t find the others right now. These are taken with an Olympus XA2 and some cheap expired Kodak slide film, cross-processed.
Pop 9
I was given a Pop 9 camera for Christmas, and this is my test film (Ilford HP5 400asa). There’s the obligatory cat photos for any test roll, and some of the river/waterways around Canada Water and Rotherhithe. The rest of the roll can be seen here.
And the winner of the golden envelope is . .
I have some golden envelopes full of zines. You get three randomly picked issues of Fanzine Ynfytyn, printed on white paper rather than coloured, for £1.50 + postage. They’re available in my shop.
Last week I had a little competition to win one. I had a few more entries than I was expecting, which was nice. The winner is Jillian from Canada. Thank you to everyone else who took the time to enter as well.
Palma de Mallorca in monochrome
Here’s some black and white photos I took in Palma de Mallorca in the summer, and developed the other day. There’s no real reason for me to return there. I had one lovely trip there, and one horrible one, so that balances out. I can’t say much for the quality of the company, but Mallorca is a beautiful place (minus Magaluf of course). I took these on Ilford HP5 with my Pentax ME Super (my favourite camera). I also had a roll of 50s style Efke film, but something happened to it, either moisture or humidity. When I opened it in the dark bag and tried to load it onto the reel, the cartridge was all full of goo, and the emulsion came off in a big clammy mess onto my hands. The film was unloadable, and unrescuable, so I’ll never know what was on it.
Little Whisper Smoke Signs That You’ll Never Get II
I’ve got a new zine out. The second issue of Little Whisper Smoke Signs That You’ll Never Get. Again, it’s full-colour and focuses more on images than text.
Golden envelope full of zines
I have some golden envelopes full of zines. They’re not quite as good as a ticket to Willy Wonka’s factory, but what is? You get three randomly picked issues of Fanzine Ynfytyn, printed on white paper rather than coloured, for £1.50 + postage. They’re available in my shop. I’ve got one to give away. Just email me the answer to the question below. My favourite answer submitted by Monday the 28th of January wins. Your information won’t be kept or sold, and I’ll only email the winner back. Question: What is your favourite Roald Dahl book, and why?
Lago di Garda in the late 90s
I was tidying up recently and found these photos of Lake Garda. I’m not sure when I took them, because I’ve been there a few times, but it must have been between 1998 and 2001 when I was 13-16.
The world is not my oyster
Here are the other photos from Whistable. I took more of the boats, seashore etc with my wide-angle lens on film, and I haven’t had it developed yet. I much prefer my film SLR to my digital one (70s Pentax cameras just feel so nice to use), but I’m too broke lately to use much film, and I still have 5 rolls sitting around that need developing. I didn’t eat any oysters while I was there, because I’m vegetarian, but I did have a really great mascarpone, truffle and rosemary pizza.
Rooflines
These are from some photos I took in Whitstable a few weeks ago, a pretty oyster fishing town in Kent (and sometimes *too* popular with the daahn from londons for the taste of the locals). The roofline of the school took my fancy.
Books of 2012
I started using Goodreads this year to keep track of my reading. Here’s my list of books. It looks like a lot, but over a year it’s only just over 1 a week, which isn’t that good going, seeing as I’m a fast reader (more visual than auditory).
Sketching
I’ve had the bug that’s been going around over Christmas, albeit not badly, but I haven’t really done as much work/creative stuff as I’d like. Here’s some sketches I did this afternoon. I didn’t really plan what I was drawing, I just started making some lines and went from there. Mostly I just wanted to try out the white marker.
Smooth down the avenue glitters the bicycle
I’ve always had a soft spot for 30s suburbia. These two pictures are a place called Twydall, near where my mum lives. I went along there to buy some wool, and I wasn’t disappointed, the area is full of old ladies. Also, the fact that the wool shop is called World of Woolcraft and is run by what could be the brother of the Comic Book Store Guy made me laugh.
Geffrye Museum
Here are some pictures from the Geffrye Museum in Hoxton. It used to be an almshouse, and is now a museum of furniture and interiors. They have rooms set up showing typical London living rooms in various time periods from the 1600s onwards for families with a medium income, with information about all the objects in the room. They also have a historical garden and restored 18th century almshouse interior, but I didn’t get a chance to see them this time. In the run up to Christmas, they’d arranged each room to show how different winter festivals were celebrated in each era (until the 1800s New Year and Twelfth Night were much bigger than Christmas).
Death and the Penguin
I set myself a project recently of doing mock book covers. First up is Death and the Penguin, by Andrey Kurkov. I did both English and Russian versions of the cover. I’m not sure how successful it is, though. The map I used in the collage is of Kiev.
Fake fur collar
I recently made this fake fur collar from a free pattern on the Colletterie blog. It’s easy enough to draft something like this yourself, but having a pdf to print is far more convenient. I used some fake fur fabric and white satiny coat-lining. I cut out the pom-poms, but they looked scraggy with the wispy fur fabric, so I used a satin ribbon instead, and turned the ends in. When you sew with fake fur, it pays to snip all the hairs off the seams once you’ve sewn them, because it makes the fabric lie flatter than slashing the curves alone. With denser fur you can tease the ends out of the seams, but it made the edges look too messy with this fabric. The collar was very easy and quick to make. If you can’t sew, my friend Kaitlin Kostus often has some very nice ones similar for sale.
Coffee Pot Cafe
Loosely based on a picture I’d clipped out of this place. The photo I have is from a different angle though.
Fanzine Ynfytyn 19
I’ve got a new zine! It’s been a bit of a break since the last one, because I was so busy. I’ve got 2 more that aren’t quite finished, but should be out soon too.
How I Make my Zines
This is how I personally make my zines. There’s no right or wrong way (aside from doing things like accidentally making it unreadable once photocopied or forgetting about your margins and cutting off half the text). If you want a more in-depth guide to all things zine-related, I can recommend Stolen Sharpie Revolution. You can see all the back issues of my zines on my website.
Et tu, pipio?
Last March, I drew these fat pigeons for Moogie Wonderland’s Ides of March event. I did a silhouette projection about Julius Caesar, and made some fortune telling games based on the Roman practices of divining by watching birds or inspecting livers. The birds read “turn me over for your fortune”, and were hung up with strings around the room (you can see that version here).
Airmail fabric
I designed some airmail/penpal themed fabric using some of the same artwork as the patches, and it’s available to buy on Spoonflower. They have various different fabric options, but I recommend the Kona cotton for this design, a smooth, medium-weight cotton. This is a scan of the actual fabric.
Golden Hands Monthly
got this stack of 70s craft magazines in a junk shop in Devizes a few years ago. That place was amazing, a multi-floored cavern of junk. It’s gone now, I think. Here’s some photos.There’s the usual ultra-cheesy raffia work projects and crocheted plant holders and so on, but the clothes patterns are actually mostly pretty nice, which is why I bought the magazines. What I’ve scanned is a mix of nice things and weird stuff though. I also couldn’t scan double page spreads very easily, because the binding on the magazines is dodgy, and I didn’t want to pull them about too much in case they broke. These issues are from 1972 and 1973. I have another issue from 1976, but it’s printed on much cheaper paper (the paper quality wasn’t sterling to begin with) and the contents are pretty dull.
Printable Castle
I drew this castle that you can cut out and fold. There are two pdf versions for A4 paper and US Letter. By the way, it’s deliberately trapeze shaped rather than rectangular, so if you make it, don’t worry about one side being longer.
Endless card
This was something I made as development work on my MA, and never finished. It’s an endless card. Basically you cut four rectangles of card, and fold and glue them in such a way that you create a card that opens to reveal another opening, which then opens to another, and so on. You get four different pictures that open up. There’s a tutorial to make one here. I went to a workshop where they showed you how to make them, and the woman running it had made a very nice card of the story of Dorian Grey.
Visual Diary
As part of my MA, we were required to keep a creative diary keeping track of the professional practice lectures, research, reading, exhibition visits and general inspiration. I finally got around to scanning some of the one from my second year. In the first year I used blog posts for the same purpose, but I felt the need later on for a physical record.
Write more letters
Today I screen-printed some patches. When I’ve done screen-printing before it’s been with proper facilities, not on my dad’s newspaper-covered kitchen table, with a cheap kit I got in the clearance sale, so I was a bit nervous. Preparing the screen and printing is a lot more fiddly when you don’t have a light table, spray washer or anything to rest the print on except a piece of cardboard. I thought that I’d messed up my screen when I was rinsing the emulsion after exposing it, and the water suddenly turned hot.
Effecting my disguise
Last Saturday me & Tukru decided to go to a party on a boat at the last minute. I saw that a friend of mine, Rob Bidder, who I hadn’t seen in person for a looong time, was doing some music at the event, and it would be good to see him, and the party looked like fun anyway. Being on a boat, and near Hallowe’en, the dresscode was aquatic, so I had to come up with something to wear in an afternoon (and Tukru in even less time). Good old Costumes for Plays and Playing came to the rescue. A fish hood/cape with scales for me, and a button-on mermaid tail for Tukru.
Costumes for Plays and Playing
When I was a kid I used to borrow this book again and again from the local library. The first thing I ever sewed myself was from it. A friend of mine at junior school’s older sister was in a school play of Toad of Toad Hall, and we went to watch. When you’re 7, 13 year olds seem incredibly impressive. What impressed me even more were the weasel costumes. I wanted one for myself. Armed with an offcut of brown fabric and a toy sewing machine I’d got at a bootfair, I made a hood with ears like the ones in the book. It was wonky, and I was a bit ashamed of it though, and wished I knew how to sew straight (looking back, I’m not sure the toy sewing machine was actually capable of a straight seam). My opinion of my sewing projects has improved slightly since.
Museum of Childhood (again)
Last week I went to the Museum of Childhood with Melanie and Becca. I’ve been to the place so many times (it’s one of my favourite places in London), and I have a lot of photos on this blog of the various different exhibits (look at the Museum tag), so here’s a few things I noticed for the first time. First up this amazing ride-on ladybird toy.
Amoebas
For the last two weeks, I’ve been doing work experience at an animation studio. I know I don’t want to be an animator (too much minute adjusting of other people’s artwork!), but it’s been good to do anyway. I’d much prefer to design things, and then hand them over to some animating wonder, who would do a much better job than me. I made some minor contributions to an advert for Canadian tv (I’ll probably link it when it’s been on later in the year) and did costing for getting some promotional gifts made, but the most valuable thing has actually been just talking to people. Everyone is very friendly and helpful, and has insightful things to say.
Abandoned school science lab
I was doing some residential teaching for the last 2 weeks. A group of year 9s from Chile came on a school trip, and I gave them lessons about English and British History/Culture and took them to various historical places like Cambridge and Canterbury. I was working in the middle of nowhere, in this old manor house in the middle of a national park. The house had been a boarding school from the 1920s to 2005, and the company I worked for was only using part of the building. We were the last school tour to be there before it was going to be handed over to the new owners, who no-one knew much about, but didn’t seem to be using it as a school. There were lots of locked up rooms that had been used by the boarding school, but weren’t used for the language holidays, like the science lab, and they had piles of school stuff lying everywhere. The attitude was pretty much feel free to explore, just make sure the kids don’t get into anywhere that could be dangerous.
I could be happy (missing images)
I was in London to go to a private view for my friend Mark Pembrey. He does fantastic things with typography and printmaking, and he had an exhibition at Woolfson and Tay, a bookshop in Bermondsey. For some reason, I was expecting it to be in an old quaint building on a market square, but Bermondsey Square turns out to be super modern. In fact they were filming a reality show there, where various famous people had to run a restaurant/hotel. There were quite a few bored looking locals standing around outside the restaurant window to see if they could get a peek of anyone famous. The bookshop’s great anyway (although wonderful bookshops are always painful when I’m broke) and I had a better time at the private view, chatting to Erika, Mark, Zoe and our teacher Graham than I ever would have had standing around outside a tv set.
Things I like
I decided to make a list of things I like. It’s not specific things, like particular bands or directors or food, it’s more a list of general principles of what I enjoy. My life recently has been controlled by people who have nothing to offer, and who have to create drama and pain in their and other people’s lives in order to not be bored.
The world and life aren’t boring. There are 10 million interesting things you can do that don’t hurt a fly. Anyone who is worth knowing, knows this. Actions have consequences, and anything worth doing doesn’t have negative consequences on other people. They say the best revenge is living well.
Radio silence over
Here’s the embroidery I’ve been working on for my MA installation. The whole thing (islands and sea) took me about 70 hours. I am thoroughly sick of embroidery at this point. In a week’s time I’ll be finished with university.
Long time no see
I haven’t posted much in the last few weeks, because I’ve been working all hours to finish my MA project and dissertation (I handed in my dissertation last week). This is the kind of thing I’ve been doing. Yesterday I stuck on the Beatles Anthology, the longest documentary I could think of, and sat and just sewed and sewed until about 70% was done. I was in Spain for two weeks before that. I’ve got lots of photos, but I haven’t had time to develop the film ones and organise and post-process them. It will have to wait until later. The first week was fine, but the second was far more stressful than a holiday should be. There was a 40C heatwave, and the air conditioning broke down, and there were ants, and we both had insomnia and short tempers and it was too difficult to concentrate on the work we’d both been forced to bring with us. Stress. In two and a half weeks I should hopefully be all finished with my MA, and free to find a full-time job, and actually earn steady money again (I hope). I’m really broke right now, and I’m tired of being broke for so long.
Lucky dip
On Wednesday we had a bakesale fundraiser for our graduating exhibition. For some reason university regulations only allowed us to sell home-made food in the foyer if it was packaged up, so we made goodie bags and boxes. Some of the focus in these photos is a little odd, because my lens got jammed onto f.17 without me realising until later that afternoon (the aperture clutch thing is a little unreliable). That’s also why there aren’t any people in the pictures, because everyone ended up with things like an out of focus nose.
Anything and everything a chap can unload
I took these couple of pictures on a visit to Portobello Market a couple of weeks ago. The film was expired slide film anyway, and it went through the airport xray machine twice on my way to and back from Bulgaria, and it ended up with a large red section. Not an attractive red tinge, a muddy red effect that blew out highlights and blurred details. I took more pictures at the market, but they ended up unusable. That’s expired film for you.
How to run a zine event
For 3 years I was part of the group that ran the Brighton Zinefest. We started just with the idea it would be fun to have a zine event in Brighton and managed to build a successful and fun event. Sadly we don’t run it any more because some of the original organisers live in Brighton any more, the others were too busy, and nobody new appeared to take over, and so it just wasn’t practical to hold another.
Cake mistakes
These are a couple of photos from the end of a roll that I forgot to scan. Me & Marcos went down to Brighton for the day in March, and it rained torrentially, so we basically went from cafe to pub to restaurant. We went to meet up with my friend Vicky first at the Mock Turtle, a tea room down by the seafront that looks like a grandmother’s dining room. I’ve been there lots of times, and their food and drink is nice and reasonably priced. Vicky was running late, so I decided to get a cake for her as a surprise. I saw they had added a rainbow cake to the menu, and she loves that kind of thing, and I was curious about what it looked like.
софия, българия
Film photos of Bulgaria
Pick Me Up 2012
Before I went to Bulgaria, I helped out at Pick Me Up, a yearly graphics art fair. My tutor was running a “Drawing Olympics” workshop, and some of us students went along to help.
аз съм английска, от лондон
Last week I was in Bulgaria teaching. I didn’t have too great a time, because all of us teachers got food poisoning, and there was one particular class of kids who were a pain, and due to all round tiredness and illness, I didn’t get to leave the dull suburb we were staying in and venture too much into Sofia. I went twice, and here are some phone pics. I’ve got some 35mm ones too, which I need to scan, and some diana ones, which need developing still. I think if I went again to Bulgaria I’d go somewhere in the mountains or coast. Sofia isn’t their top tourist destination, it’s really more somewhere where people work, and the natural scenery of the country is stunning. I’m in the process of writing about the trip in more detail for my zine.
Pillow rush herds of walruses and whales
I made some whales using this tutorial I found on Pinterest. The big one is a cushion for our sofa, and the small ones are gifts for friends.
Siren song
I made a test animation for one of the puppets from my uni project. The movement’s pretty rough, I’ll refine it later (I also need to clean up the masking). I just wanted to see if it worked. I’ve been rereading James Joyce’s Ulysses, and in the sirens section the barmaids are constantly described as “bronze gold”, so I made my sirens bronze coloured. Might as well.
Little Venice in orange
These are some photos I took in Little Venice with my old Pentax film SLR a few weeks ago. They call it Little Venice, but it’s really just a canal basin out the back of Paddington Station with lots of houseboats, some nice pubs and a cafe and a puppet theatre on boats. I guess “Little Holland” or “Little East Anglia” don’t sound as exciting. The slide film was much more out of date than I realised, but I like the orange and purple impressionist look I ended up with, some of the photos look more like paintings than photos.
Forkbeard Fantasy
I went to see this exhibition at the Festival Hall a little while ago. Forkbeard Fantasy are a group who create stage costumes and props, and make films and peepshow art installations. (I misspelled it as “Folkbeard Fantasy” when I was labelling the Flickr set, which kind of makes sense). There’s a strong theme of fantasy, humour and surrealism in all the work, and most of the things in the exhibition were for touching and using rather than being locked away in glass cabinets.
Hastings Summer of 2006
I got some films developed a little while ago, and it turned out some of them are from quite a while ago, and had been lurking around in drawers for a long time. This one is from 2006. I’m not sure what camera I took these with, some kind of box camera or Diana or something.
70s craft books ahoy
I like buying 70s craft books from charity shops. I’m not sure what it is about them, but maybe it’s the colours and the quite often bizarre project suggestions. Here’s 2 of them scanned in.
Girls Get Birthday
So on Tuesday, me & Tukru went to the Girls Get Busy birthday party at the Alibi in Dalston. Dalston is a bit of a pain in the arse to get to from mine, you have to walk about 20 mins to West Hampstead and then get the Overground (and two night buses back). It’s also full of Nathan Barleys. There was Riot Grrrl karaoke, and cake, and Tukru and some other people I know djed, and overall I had a good time and met some nice people, although it would have been better if the prickish men hanging out round the bar hadn’t been there.
Dip dip dip
My friend Tukru came to stay with me in London. We went to the Girls Get Busy birthday party, and she went to see Wild Flag (I couldn’t get a ticket). While she was here, I dyed her hair, because it was boring her. We went for dip-dyed, as then you don’t have roots to deal with.
Fanzine Ynfytyn 18
I’ve got a new zine out. It’s got:
* 80s video machines
* Giant list of small pleasures
* Really delicious lasagne recipe
Puffin book scans
Here’s some Puffin books I scanned so I could stick the pictures in my art college diary.
Muy delicioso
Marcos’ parents sent us a parcel of Spanish goodies. Mallorcan honey, cheese and hazlenuts. Ferrero Rocher, savoury crackers and chocolate covered almonds (although you can get Ferrero Rocher here too) and Llum de Sal with assorted flavourings, which is Mallorcan fleur de sel. They also sent Marcos some vacuum-packed ham, which has been named the space ham.
Day in My Life- 10th January
10th of January for the Document a Day project. I mostly waited at home for a parcel of birthday presents sent by my dad and did some uni stuff and tidying. Not the most exciting of days.
Oh Vienna
In September I returned to Vienna to teach another English in Action programme. I’ve got photos of galleries and exhibitions I need to sort out still. Here’s some odds and ends of photos of other stuff.
Nature All Around
These are some pictures I scanned from a 1970s kids book at my dad’s house called Nature All Around. My uncle used to work for a non-fiction publisher and we always seemed to have strange free books from his work around the place. It has drawings and photographs of things children can spot around the average british garden/field/beach and information about the lives of the various creatures.
¿Donde esta?
When we were in Mallorca, everyone did their best to ensure that we were stuffed at all times. The big curly pastry is an ensaimada, a Mallorcan speciality.
Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.
We went for a drink at this place. At 11.30 on Fridays they shower you with rose petals from a balcony. The whole place is decorated like some kind of baroque stage set from a Fellini film. In fact the whole place is like a Fellini film. They don’t allow cameras inside, but I took some photos on Marcos’ phone. Instagram photos look amazing on the screen of the iphone 3, but they don’t always look so wonderful on the computer.
These are the cheap seats, not Mount Sinai.
At the end of the summer I went to an exhibition by stage set design students at the National Theatre. It’s strange, I’ve never had much interest in dollshouses, but I love toy theatres and set design models.
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery
I haven’t posted here for a while because life has overtaken me a little, and I’ve been dashing from place to place. I’m in Palma de Mallorca right now visiting Marcos’ family, with a permanent move to London on the cards for the end of the month (it can’t come too soon). I’ve got a backlog of photos to work through.
Patterns in the trees
I snapped some pictures of the patterns in this tree bark a while back. I might do something with them later.
Museum of 51
I went to see the Museum of 51 exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall a while back, which is about the Festival of Britain. Basically it was a festival in 1951 to celebrate 100 years since the Great Exhibition and cheer people up in grey, rationed post-war London. As well as films, shows, fairs and so on, there were shows of housing and interiors, to show people what they could look forward to after rebuilding and the end of rationing (everything available for sale in WWII was simple and utilitarian and rationed). My dad went to pretty much all the events, seeing as they were mostly around the corner from him in Battersea.
Mariposas
(This is my 200th entry here- do I get some kind of prize, or should I just get out more?)
When I was caught outside without an umbrella in torrential rain on my break when I working at the museum over the summer, I took the time to snap some more butterfly photos. My previous efforts are here. I went back with my film SLR just before the exhibition closed too, but I haven’t got round to scanning those yet.
New zine time again
24-page b/w quarter sized zine on pink paper made of marshmellows and happiness
What’s in this one:
* Why Mr Frosty sets are disappointing as an adult
* Your Tears are Cheap: Special holiday centre section of vitriolic negativity
* Lists! Lots of lists.
* Extra J.Mascis and cats
Widdershins
And a shot of Stonehenge looking like there’s no-one there. I took this when I worked as a tour guide for one weekend. I didn’t want to do it again after that. The day out at Stonehenge and Bath was fine. I wandered round Bath for a few hours after doing the brief tour of the town on the schedule, and the staff at Stonehenge made me a cup of tea and gave me biscuits and gave me a free audio guide to listen to. I think it’s funny that the path encourages you to walk round Stonehenge anti-clockwise while listening to a recording about superstitions, magic and myths as it’s traditionally supposed to be highly unlucky. I don’t think I’d pay to go to Stonehenge anyway. Maybe it’s different if you come from another country where they don’t have anything similar.
Mystery film- Friends and Places
This is another ancient film scanned. It’s definitely from 2008, but it skips about all over the place, there’s shots of Medway and ATP and Brighton, but I didn’t move to Brighton until the August of that year, and ATP was in May, and I have no idea when the Medway pics were taken, so it seems to have been hanging about in my camera for quite a while. I don’t even know what camera I used. I think it might be a Lomo LCA, the one I got in an Estonian junk shop for £20. It’s since half fallen apart, so I’m glad I didn’t pay those Austrian rip-off merchants much money for it. Whatever camera I used, it’s some really grainy 400asa cheapo Ferrania marked film, prob from poundland
Films
I went to see two films at the BFI the past few weeks, both well worth seeing at the cinema rather than on dvd.
St Ives 2008
Here’s some photos of St Ives from 2008. They were on the same roll of x-pro’d Sensia as the Lille photos. I think it was the last of my freezerfull of expired slide film I got when I worked at Jessops as a student.
Lille 2008
Here’s some photos I took in Lille in 2008 on a day trip. I only just got them developed.
This & That
I haven’t updated in a while. There’s a backlog running. I’ve just been busy working all hours and doing university work. I’ve seen quite a few films recently tho.
Exploring the World of Robots
I’ve had this book since forever. It was part of a set of educational books that were a hand me down from my cousin. The others in the set were pretty standard, on topics like animal migration or cars, but this one is a bit odd. The others in the set have long gone to the charity shop or another relative, but I’ll always keep this book.
This & That
I haven’t updated here in about a month. Not a great deal has happened. I worked at the museum a fair bit. I got a nasty bout of sinusitis & tonsillitis combined and was walking round with a giant swollen hamster face for about 4 days (bigger on one side too-joy!). I still feel a bit bleurgh, but hopefully that should go away.
Being Editors #1- Diana Wynne Jones
So I’ve got the first issue of my children’s literature zine done. The first issue is devoted to Diana Wynne Jones. There was a lot more I wanted to say on the topic, but it just kept growing and growing, so I cut it short at 60 pages, and I’ll probably do another DWJ zine in the winter. (The next issue of this zine is about Oliver Postgate). Thank you to the contributors.
Bath Monochromes
Here’s some b&w pictures I took in Bath a few winters ago. I finally got the film developed after finding it in a drawer. Pentax ME Super + 28mm lens + Ilford HP5. I’ve been to Bath a lot, both as a Classics student to look at stuff in the Baths, as a tour guide, and visiting my ex’s family, who were from a village not too far away. It’s stopped looking exotic to me.
Eau de bedroom dancing / Typical Grrls
Oh look what’s come around again. All girl tunes played by me & the lovely Ms Tukru. Free zine and cake. Zine stall of lovely stuff. A good time had by all, hopefully.
All the cheesecloth & macrame you can eat
I got this 70stastic book for £1 from a charity shop, mainly because of the pictures. The textual parts are worthy and Blue Peter-ish, with lots of making things out of tea chests and copydex (why doesn’t tea tend to come in chests these days?), guides to home tie-dying, and sentences like “and kitchen foil gives a touch of glamour”.
Someone somewhere somehow feels you should be here
I guest djed at Moogie Wonderland with Tukru last week. It went pretty well, although the students were conspicuous in their absence because it’s exam/assessment time. I didn’t plan what I was going to play, just went with intuition.
As though of hemlock I had drunk
3 colour risograph print based on “Fire & Hemlock” by Diana Wynne Jones (one of my all-time favourite books)
Trip to, heave ho
I’ve got two new zines out, they’re up on my shop along with some risograph prints. (If you don’t use paypal or you want to trade, that’s fine as well, contact me and we can sort it out)
That cat’s something I can’t explain
Charity shop haul (+ “helpful” cat)
Tartan fabric, grey wool skirt, purple dress, floral dress, knitting pattern book, pattern drafting books, Lux the Poet (excellent book btw), 70s girls comics annual for zine purposes, London Review of Books personals collection (“Animal in bed. Possibly a gnu.”)
Blood, oh the blood
I’ve done some risograph prints based on one of my university projects to try to raise some money. The life of a post-graduate student is not a rich one.
Bird has flown
Here’s the rest of the pictures from where I took the panos at the Riverside Country Park. There’s a promontory which goes out to an island in the river, almost at the mouth where the Thames and Medway meet, with narrow beaches with reedbeds and abandoned boats along the edge and woods and pools in the interior. I used to come here a lot. I particularly love it in the winter when there’s practically no-one there except me and some water birds.
Like the librarian said … everyone respects the dead
Yesterday I got the dvd of Kids for £2, and I watched it with Vicky & Tukru. V had somehow never seen it, and the last time T had seen it was about 10 years ago when her down-with-the-kids history teacher had played it at school (yeah, Finland …). When I was about 15 or so it was my all-time favourite film along with Heavenly Creatures. I don’t know what that says about me. If I’d seen the film now as a 26 year old, it wouldn’t amaze me (maybe creep me out instead). I think what made the impact on me at the time was that in the age before cheap DVDs and easy downloading, it was the first really raw film I’d seen, and I was obviously longing for rawness at the time. Glossy Hollywood high school films had absolutely no relevance to my life
The seas will reach and always seep
Today it was sunny and I had the day off, so I went to the Riverside Country Park. It’s where the Medway meets the Thames Estuary. It’s one of my places. I experimented with making some stitched panoramic pictures. I also took some normal pictures. I’ll post them later. I’d love to have one of those turny Russian panoramic film cameras, but I’m too poor.
Butterflies
At my work they’ve got a butterfly garden in a heated tent over the Easter holidays. I popped in to take some pictures in my tea break earlier this week. I don’t know what any of the species are, I don’t know much about butterflies. They had a reference board to compare the live ones to, but I didn’t have time to look closely.
Often Inclined to Borrow Somebody’s Dream Til Tomorrow
I’m a big Syd Barrett fan, but I really can’t stand any of the stuff Pink Floyd did after he left (ironic, considering that my MA project supervisor is the guy who designed the cover for Dark Side of the Moon). Recently I went to an exhibition of his paintings, photos and letters. The gallery wasn’t the most welcoming place, but I enjoyed the exhibition. I particularly liked the way he would just give his paintings to anyone who liked them. There were some pictures I really liked, but they didn’t allow photographs, didn’t sell postcards (only prints costing several hundred pounds) and the pictures on the website are covered in ugly watermarks. It’s the same as when I went to the Hundertwasser museum in Vienna- an exhibition dedicated to an artist who when they were alive lived in an anti-commercial, diy way, is run after their death in the most snobby manner of the commercial art world available. (I’m not a fan of the atmosphere a lot of commercial galleries create, art is for everyone)
Get Out of the Office and Into the Springtime
At last, some sunshine. Today me & Tukru went out for some coffee and drawing. It’s the London Zine Symposium on Sunday, and we have stuff to do. We didn’t actually get much cafe time, because we forgot how early stuff closes round here. I’ve got some new stuff up my sleeve, but I don’t want to show it until it’s done.
For the Loneliness You Foster, I Suggest Paul Auster
I’m not doing the book review thing anymore, I lost track. When I added it up, I realised that I read at least 3 books a week (fast reader + a lot of time on trains), so that’s over 150 book reviews in a year. Writing that many book reviews doesn’t really appeal, so I’ll just mention any books that piqued my interest. Recently I’ve been reading the New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, the sort of thing I like a lot and wondered why I hadn’t got round to reading it before. I think it’s what they were going for in I Heart Huckabees and failed to do. I hate that film. (But I love people messing around with the form of detective stories). I’ve also been re-reading all my Diana Wynne Jones books, for obvious reasons.