televisena

'Out of the Past' (1947)

2009-08-23T15:41:00.000-07:00

'Pick Up on South Street' (1953)

2009-08-23T04:59:00.000-07:00

'Public Enemies' (2009)

2009-08-23T03:56:00.001-07:00

'I Am Cuba' (1964)

2009-08-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

'Meshes of the Afternoon' (1943)

2009-08-23T03:47:00.001-07:00

'In A Lonely Place' (1950)

2009-08-23T03:44:00.000-07:00

'The Parrallax View' (1974)

2009-08-23T03:41:00.001-07:00

Parallax View: The Incredible Montage

The Man of Aran (1934)

2009-07-22T06:06:00.000-07:00

Lady Hamilton

2009-06-03T04:14:00.000-07:00

- in a letter to Nelson, shortly after the news of victory at the battle of the Nile, send from her house in Naples:

"My dress from head to foot is alla Nelson. Ask Hoste. Even my shawl is in Blue with gold anchors all over. My earrings are Nelson's anchors; in in short, we are be-Nelsoned all over."

Nuke Them All

2009-06-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

"Formed by Buster Bennett, the man behind Antisocial and Fonteyn the man behind Computer Blue, London's first future-disco night!"

'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning'

2009-06-01T02:47:00.000-07:00

"I'm out for a good time. All the rest is propaganda."

Pierrot Le Fou

2009-05-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Ferdinand: Why do you look so sad?

Marianne: Because you speak to me in words and I look at you with feelings

In the Nude

2009-05-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

"The animal [can] be looked at, no doubt, but also - something that philosophy perhaps forgets, perhaps this being calculated forgetting itself - it can look at me. It has a point of view regarding me. The point of view of the absolute other. And nothing will have ever done more to make me think through this absolute alterity of the neighbor than those moments where I see myself naked under the gaze of my cat."

- Derrida, 2002: 280, (in the bathroom with his cat)

"Sad Panda"

2009-05-19T04:32:00.001-07:00

"Reader Claire Jackson took this picture of the Sad Panda last Saturday, standing near the bull at Bowling Green. "He was taking pictures with tourists," she told us. "He seemed sad because the tourists were more interested in having their picture taken with the bull's testicles than with him." Reader Jen Kipley saw him in the same spot at about 11:30 this morning, and he was feeling no better. She reports he was "dejectedly covering his ears, as if to push out the sounds of the world around him." Existential. Apparently, this is his usual spot. Could it be that Sad Panda is thephysical manifestation of the bear market?"

New York Times

Dirty Roman Blonds

2009-05-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

aPoppaea, second wife of Emperor Nero, kept 500 lactating she-asses to bathe in. Allegedly persuaded Nero into murdering his mother and his wife in order to make her his legit second wife.

Messalina, wife of Emperor Claudius, wore her blond wig to the brothel.

"Lola, 1961, by Jacques Demy"

2009-05-16T01:34:00.001-07:00

Lola, 1961, by Jacques Demy Opening credits: Beautiful, spooky, epic and fun.
© 2009 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Lily Allen - Not Fair (HD)

2009-05-16T01:26:00.001-07:00

Lily Allen - Not Fair (HD)
Mar 20, 2009 - 03:51

As much as I've tried to resist her press tet offensive, this song, and it's video, are terrific.

MOMA article on director Agnes Varda

2009-05-16T01:15:00.001-07:00

INFLUENTIAL FRENCH FILMMAKER AGNES VARDA RECEIVES FIRST MAJOR NEW YORK

RETROSPECTIVE

A Visit by the Filmmaker and Several New York Premieres- Including a Number of Rare Short Films-Highlight Program of Thirty-One Works

Agnès Varda

October 3-31, 1997

The exhilarating work of French filmmaker Agnès Varda is the subject of a major retrospective to be held from October 3 to October 31 at The Museum of Modern Art. Varda, now in her fifth decade as a filmmaker, will introduce the opening night screenings, launching a thirty-one-film program that includes all her feature-length and short works. The series opens with the world premiere of a newly struck print of Le bonheur (1964), Varda's exploration of the complexities beneath the surface of domestic life that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; and Vagabond (1985), one of the director's most powerful films, which stars Sandrine Bonnaire and which won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Born in Brussels in 1928, Varda was the official photographer for Paris's Théâtre National Populaire before her Left Bank colleagues persuaded the then twenty-six-year-old, who had seen relatively few films, to make her first feature, La pointe courte (1954). The work was a financial failure but a critical success, and is today considered by many to be one of the authentic ancestors of the Nouvelle Vague. Following La pointe courte, Varda made three visually arresting short films about places in France that held special meaning for her: the French Riviera, Chambord, and

Paris's Left Bank. But it was her next feature, Cleo from Five to Seven (1961), that brought her international acclaim. In the film, which follows the life of a young woman who is anxiously awaiting reports from her doctor, Varda's signature elements can be clearly discerned: namely, a tendency to inflect narrative with documentary reality, a photographer's keen and practiced eye, and a deep interest in the everyday life of women.

A critical feminist, Varda regards her filmmaking as artisanal work, equivalent to cloth weaving and hand sewing, and has established her own atelier, ciné-tamaris, to make her films. She has traveled widely in her professional work, blending social and personal histories and documentary with more or less fictional narratives to create intriguing films in France, Iran, and Cuba.Varda has also made several films in the United States. In the 1960s she made a short work about a relative in San Francisco, Uncle Yanco (1967); a political documentary, Black Panthers (1968), shot in Oakland; and a lively riff on Hollywood "un"-reality, Lion's Love (1969), starring, among others, Warhol superstar Viva and the

writers of Hair, Jim Raddo and Jerome Ragni. Varda returned to Los

Angeles a decade later to make Mur Murs (1980), about the city's street murals, and Documenteur (1981), a tale of a single mother looking for work and adequate housing.

Page 1of 2MoMA | press | Releases | 1997 | Influential French Filmmaker Agnes Varda Receives Fir...

2/25/2009http://www.moma.org/about_moma/press/1997/varda_retro_09_15_97.html

The director's other acclaimed features include The Creatures (1965), starring Catherine Deneuve and Michel Piccoli; One Sings, the Other Doesn't (1976), chronicling the friendship of two women over the course of fifteen years; Jane B. by Agnes V. (1987), a portrait of the actress Jane Birkin; and Kung Fu Master (1987), a love story about an older woman, played by Jane Birkin, and an adolescent, played by Varda's son, Mathieu Demy.

In the early nineties Varda made three films about her husband, the

celebrated French filmmaker Jacques Demy, to whom she was married in 1962. The first, Jacquot de Nantes (1990), explores Demy's childhood. After his death in 1990, Varda completed two documentaries, The Young Girls of Rochefort-25 Years Later (1992) and The World of Jacques Demy (1993), both loving and exuberant portraits.

Her most recent film, A Hundred and One Nights, made for the centennial of cinema in 1996, is enlivened by cameos by numerous European film stars, including the late Marcello Mastroianni.

Agnès Varda is organized by Larry Kardish, Curator and Coordinator of Film Exhibitions, Department of Film and Video, and presented in

cooperation with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

No. 57

Page 2of 2MoMA | press | Releases | 1997 | Influential French Filmmaker Agnes Varda Receives Fir...

Great Girl Flats

2009-05-16T01:08:00.001-07:00

directed by Agney Varda. This clip from "Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) Part 4/9 (HD)" features the ultimate in beautiful girl's apartments. Followed swiftly by Lola's in Jaques Demy's 1961 film, 'Lola'. Number three is Emma Peel's of The Avengers fame. I would love a life size dummy pinned against my front door to practice fencing with, and a red grand piano...
© 2009 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

Observer's book of...

2009-05-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Current Playlist

2009-05-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

(on shuffle)

1. I'm Loving Nothing - The Impressions

2. I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson

3. The Cutter - Echo & The Bunnymen

4. True True - U-Roy

5. Blue Flower - Mazzy Star

6. April Skies - The Jesus & Mary Chain

7. I Found You - Gene Clark

8. The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

9. Older Guys - The Flying Burrito Brothers

10. Old Shoes and Leggins - Uncle Eck Dunford

11. A Pair of Brown Eyes - The Pogues

12. Dear Miss Lonely Hearts - Phil Lynott

John Muir living

2009-05-13T01:28:00.001-07:00

"Early one morning in the middle of Indian Summer, while the glacier meadows were still crisp with frost crystals, I set out from the foot of the Mount Lyell on my down to Yosemite Vally to replenish my exhausted store of bread and tea."

John Muir, 'The Mountains of California'.

PS1, NYC

2009-05-11T02:50:00.001-07:00

Thomas Paine

2009-05-11T02:47:00.000-07:00

from The Crisis, 1776

"Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man."

Bedside table

2009-05-11T02:45:00.001-07:00

: "Performance (1970)" & "The Servant (1963)" clips

2009-05-08T02:26:00.001-07:00

Performance (1970) Nic Roeg & Donald Cammell A diametrically opposed act from Tony of 'The Servant', James Fox delivers a terrifying, but equally confused London gangster.
Joseph Losey superbly directs Pinter's restrained script, and Douglas Solcombe's cinematography is formidably good. It's exquisitely sexy without every being explicit (except for the shot of the tap, perhaps). © 2009 YouTube, LLC 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066

The Servant

2009-05-07T17:30:00.001-07:00

Friedrich Engels

2009-04-29T04:42:00.000-07:00

from The Guardian, G2, 29.04.09., p. 16.

"It is absolutely essential that you get out of boring Brussels for once and come to Paris, and I for my part have a great desire to go carousing with you." Friedrich Engles wrote to Karl Marx in 1846. "If I had an income of 5000 francs I would do nothing but work and amuse myself with women until I went to pieces. If there were no Frenchwomen, life wouldn't be worth living. But so long as there are grisettes [prostitutes], well and good!"

Chelsea vs Barcelona

2009-04-28T17:14:00.000-07:00

how can he jump into the air like that, having fractured his skull in a football game...I can't decide if it's heroic madness or vicea versa.

Hercules Costume

2009-04-27T04:08:00.000-07:00

Costume design for Hercules in the opera Atys by Jean-Baptiste Lully

International Baroque

2009-04-27T04:04:00.001-07:00

'View of a European Pavilion at the Garden of Perfect Clarity', by Yuanming Yuan, from Beijing and created in 1781-6.

BEAUTY

2009-04-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Sigmund Freud's Dora: A Case of Missing Identity

2009-04-27T03:57:00.000-07:00

GP again

2009-04-27T03:55:00.001-07:00

Gram Parsons

2009-04-27T03:53:00.002-07:00

Flying Burrito Brothers

2009-04-27T03:53:00.001-07:00

'Be Your Dog' by Jordan Baseman

2009-04-17T14:01:00.000-07:00

contemporary rabbit

2009-04-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

Dan Fox on 'A Serious Business'

2009-04-15T02:46:00.001-07:00

Dan Fox's article 'A Serious Business', is a witty and believable plunge at the awkward question 'what does it mean to be a professional artist?' It's a question worth writing about again, because of the current pandemonium surrounding the credit crunch. Fox identifies the misconception that national bankruptcy will allow for a new, and naïve arcadia of artistic practice, free from the fetid world of media frenzied, consumer friendly art elite.

Young artists, i.e. my pals, who have and haven't been to art school, I think, are faced with a difficult choice. To survive as a practicing artist, you either have to align yourself with the uber rich patron, or the trust fund of a public art gallery. Neither is wrong, only both methods of upkeep perpetuate the museum establishment, and the non-threatening consumer radicalism that I think has over dominated the contemporary art market of late. The choice isn't even a new one, but I think the current economic climate has shoved it back in the limelight.

Brands such as 'authenticity' have become awkward, and I would argue invalid. But it still holds a fascination for artists and critics alike. It's no big secret that many artists, that produce important works, come from bourgeois backgrounds which allow them to survive. Although YBA's broke the barrier on this front, they are now the middle aged British artists, with no iconic and outspoken group having risen above the white noise of the media frenzy to take their place.

Unfortunately the price of a garret is only on the up, and it makes you wonder how this will change not only the type of artwork produced, but also accessed on a mass scale by the art viewing public. Will Gilbert and George's 'professionalism' or the more uncouth tradition of hustling for patronage by Windam Lewis dominate the way artists remain artists in the next few years.

Ann Peebles

2009-04-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

AESOP IN THE CITY by Yoni Brenner

2009-04-09T03:36:00.001-07:00

(from the New Yorker, shouts & murmurs, 2007)

The Fox and the Goat

A fox is offered free tickets from Cindy in P.R. She drops them off after lunch, and the fox is dismayed to find that they are for an experimental Swedish dance company called Leøtåård. He takes the tickets to the goat in the next cubicle. "Leøtåård?" says the goat. "I've never heard of them." "I saw them last week," coos the fox. "The Scandinavian Alvin Ailey. I'll give them to you for ten bucks." And so, while the goat spends the evening in a dank underground space off Avenue C, the fox goes to Ollie's and spends the ten dollars on lo mein. Sure enough, the performance is awful and the goat gets a massive strobe-light headache. Still, inexplicably, he puts his name on the e-mail list.

Moral: Always check the Web site.

Tom Wolf on Radical Chic

2009-04-08T11:05:00.000-07:00

Booka Shade "Movements"

2009-04-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Just missed seeing them live in London, owing to the fact I arrived at the venue too late.I caught the final 10 minuets. Can't say I'm not a little dissapointed - but at least there was still great music on afterwards. And vibrating speakers in the floor, which I think is a terrific boon.

Protests, Twitter and Eastern Europe

2009-04-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

"MOSCOW - A crowd of more than 10, 000 young Moldovans materialized seemingly out of nowhere on Tuesday to protest against Moldova's Communist leadership, ransacking government buildings and clashing with the police...

The protesters created their own searchable tag on Twitter, rallying Moldovans to join and propelling events in this small former Soviet state onto a Twitter list of newly popular topics, so people around the world could keep track.''

Paris Commune

2009-03-10T06:50:00.001-07:00

Manifesto of the Paris Commune

"It it our obligation to fight and to win."

coffee and cake

2009-03-10T06:36:00.001-07:00

"Brown's spending plans like 'addict returning to the drug', says archbishop

2009-03-10T05:44:00.001-07:00

Brown's spending plans like 'addict returning to the drug', says archbishop
Rowan Williams condemns prime minister's response to 'reality check' of recession
Jo Adetunji and agencies
Thursday December 18 2008
guardian.co.uk

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, today condemned the prime minister's response to the economic crisis, describing his efforts to boost spending in a downturn as like "the addict returning to the drug".
Williams said the credit crunch had been a "reality check" in a climate of unsustainable greed, and it should be used to provoke a fundamental rethink of the pursuit of wealth. It demonstrated that the country had been "going in the wrong direction" by relying on financial speculation rather than "making things", he said.
It was "a reminder that what I think some people have called fairy gold is just that ? that sooner or later you have to ask: 'What are we making or what are we assembling or accumulating wealth for?'."
The criticism is wounding because Gordon Brown has prided himself on the consensus he believes he has gathered worldwide for a "fiscal stimulus" to prop up the economy and boost confidence in the downturn, including a temporary cut of 2.5% in VAT. Downing Street made clear its irritation over the remarks while trying to avoid a slanging match with the archbishop.
Asked in an interview with Radio 4's Today programme whether spending was the right way to tackle the downturn, the archbishop said: "It seems a little bit like the addict returning to the drug. When the Bible uses the word 'repentance', it doesn't just mean beating your breast, it means getting a new perspective, and that is perhaps what we are shrinking away from."
He added: "It is about what is sustainable in the long term and if this is going to drive us back into the same spin, I do not think that is going to help us."
People should not "spend to save the economy", but instead spend for "human reasons", for their own needs, Williams said.
The credit crunch showed that British society had "accepted the message that it's possible to have an endless spiral of accumulating wealth that has nothing to do with producing anything", Wiliams said. Instead there should be "some very tough questions internationally about what sort of regulation is feasible internationally at a time when, clearly, an unregulated financial world doesn't make sense".
And he added: "I think there are some huge moral lessons to be learnt about the nature of accumulating wealth ? a lot of people are waiting to hear an acknowledgement of some responsibility for irresponsible behaviour."
Williams acknowledged it was "suicidally silly" for him to get involved in the debate. "I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination. But I want to ask where these moral questions are in the economic discourse."
The prime minister, responding to the remarks, said that as the son of a church minister he always listened to senior church figures. He said he backed the archbishop's call for action against reckless bankers, but it would be irresponsible of him not to intervene when Britons were suffering.
"I think the archbishop would also agree with me that every time someone becomes unemployed or loses their home or a small business fails it is our duty to act and we should not walk by on the other side when people are facing problems," he said.
"That's the reason why our fiscal policy is designed to give real help to families and businesses and to give them that help now."
The Conservatives refused to be drawn into the row. "We're just not getting involved with it," said a party spokesman.
The comments came after Williams had used an interview with the New Statesman to say he would be relaxed about the disestablishment of the church. Today, he said he did not support it at the moment. But he added: "I see the case for it, and I certainly don't think that the church would be destroyed by disestablishment, I believe the church exists because of God, not because of the state."
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited 2009
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Say Yes

2009-03-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

Tokyo photo found!

2009-02-23T12:30:00.000-08:00

"Hot Lips Trimble"

2009-02-23T12:18:00.000-08:00

The nation is in a lather over captain for this year's Corpus Christi, Oxford, finalists Gail Trimble. What a phenomenon!

'If form is any guide, when Corpus Christi take on Manchester University in the final, Trimble, 26, will wipe the floor with them, ruthlessly amassing starters-for-ten and cowing the competition with what contestant described as a form of "intellectual blitzkrieg". '

Men have labeled her 'hot lips Trimble', women have dismissed her performance as a 'cocky smirk'. The 'female Stephen Fry', believes 'I don't think I would have been treated in the same way were I were a man. Part of it has to do with the fact that I am the captain, who is always giving the answers.'

'The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant'

2009-02-23T06:52:00.001-08:00

'Celine and Julie go boating'

2009-02-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

This is a terrible film. Having looked forward for many months to watching this film, which makes so many top ten lists and has stills reproduced everywhere, I am disappointed. It is self-indulgent and then some not just from the revoltingly flaccid direction but also the performance of the women themselves. Constantly giggling and self-consciously gawping in cute wonder at the camera they prance and preen through the film with fay and unendearing mannerisms that are enough to make you want to wash your hands of the seventies for good.

Asta Nielsen

2009-02-18T05:28:00.000-08:00

is my new favourite actress. Famous for her performance in the silent film of Hamlet (1921), directed by Svend Gade. She has style and talent, a combination that is still as refreshing as it is rare.

Car Drag Horror

2009-02-12T12:14:00.001-08:00

This 'bizarre event' is the stuff of nightmares. I can't imagine it making a Bourn film it's so horrible. I chose the New York Post article about it, not because I'm a fan of the paper, but the way they write is terrifying.

"...dragged by the unwitting driver of a second vehicle along three highways in Queens and Brooklyn, leaving a 20-mile trail of gore."

Berlin 7th - 10th February

2009-02-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

8th February

1. Neue National Galerie: Mies van der Roher building, Paul Klee exhibition

2. Alte National Galerie: German Romantics, Caspar David Fridrich

3. Pergamon Museum: Pergamon alter piece, Ishtar gate, Market gate of Miletus, Babylonian processional street

4. Altes Museum: bust of Nefertiti

5. Berliner Dom (Cathedral)

6.Unter den Linden: long street between Brandenburg Gate and the Museumsinsel

7. Film by Dante Lam, part of the Berlinale, screened at Cubix near Alexanderplatz

8. Visit the Reichstag, go up the Dome by Norman Foster, have dinner at the Reichstag restaurant

9th February

1. Bauhaus Museum

2. Cafe Einstein for lunch

3. Jewish Museum: Daniel Libeskind building, and the Holocaust tower

4. Check Point Charlie

5. Gestapo HQ 'topographia des terrors'

6. Missing Building by Christian Boltanski, opposite the Jewish School

7. Walk around Alackaescher Hofe

8. Alexanderplatz

9. Kino International on Karl Marx Allee. Saw Michael Winterbottom's documentary of Naomi Klein's book 'The Shock Doctrine'

10. Afterparty for Revolution FIlms at the Newton Bar

11. Lutter & Wenger for supper

12. 'Barbe Bleu' by Catherine Breillat at Potsdammer Platz, Sony Centre

10th February

1. Brecht's House

2. Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art museum

3. Hitler's Bunker, near Wilheln Straise

4. Fragments of the Berlin wall

Women in Weimar Fashion

2009-02-12T02:26:00.000-08:00

I should like to read this book:

Vanbrugh tour, Pt. 1: Castle Howard, Mausoleum

2009-02-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

Castle Howard's Mausoleum was actually designed by Hawksmoor. Although it is closed to visitors, we managed to get a look around. The gate opened using an enormous rusty key. Only About about three members of the family are buried 'downstairs'. As a result, most of the catacoomb looks like alcoves full of baker's ovens. Upstairs, inside was the most exquisite chaple. Again it was too dark to take photographs, but I shall try and find an etching of what it looks like. The whole place is in a fantastic state of decay. The outside battered nearly black by the winds, and all of the balerstraids falling apart. It was very tempting to take one home, but then you've got to remember about looters bad luck! I just took pictures instead.

Vanbrugh tour, Pt. 1: Castle Howard, Temple of the Four Winds

2009-02-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of one of the winds. We went inside as well, although it was a little dark to take clear pictures. There was a table in the center and above, the decoration on the cealing was extraordinary. The walls were painted to have the effect of marbled veins.

Vanbrugh tour, Pt. 1: Castle Howard

2009-02-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

Here are a few photographs from my trip. This is the detail from one of the pediments leading to the Temple of the Four Winds.

Ma Rainey

2009-02-02T11:52:00.001-08:00

Seriously fantastic lady. Although her music doesn't feature on either the American Anthology of Folk Music or the People Take Warning box sets. I guess this is because she doesn't fit in either, being the first lady of blues. "Prove it on me" is probably her coolest song. It's a coded ode to being gay. Perhaps one of the first on record ever. But the phrase makes an interesting pun when you put it next to that other phrase - "Put it on you", which is also the name of a song (but from the 1990s).

crunchie

2009-02-02T11:43:00.001-08:00

the noble crunchie bar, a chocolate and golden honey comb sweetie for our times! brought to the uk newsagent market by Cadbury's, the nation's provider of 'vegolate' and other such sacerin wonders of the confectionary world. Crunched. Have a snack on a crunchie.

crunch sounds

2009-02-02T11:35:00.001-08:00

It's a little worrying being 'generation crunch', as the Guardian newspaper dubbed the 'class of 08'. For one thing, my taste in music has taken an abrupt turnabout. Yesterday I found myself not simply hearing, but actually enjoying the noise of Girlicious, and the Alan Parson's Project together in an unholy compilation. This either means my tastebuds are flailing in the current (economic) climate, or being tasteful just doesn't mean anything anymore. I think that might be a positive thing. Or is that the crunchtism (opermisim for these times) talking. Whatever the reason, the fact is I'm enjoying my pops that way!

Hiroshima Mon Amour

2009-02-01T12:31:00.001-08:00

Barry Lyndon

2009-02-01T12:22:00.001-08:00

exercise ball

2009-01-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

Havelock the Dane, 8th Century England

2009-01-15T05:41:00.000-08:00

Hwan he havede him so shamed,

His hand ofplat and ivele lamed,

He took him sone by the necke

Als a traitour - datheit who recke! -

And dide him binde and fettere well

With gode feteres all of steel

(lines 2754-9)

'Imitation of Life' directed by Douglas Sirk, 1959.

2009-01-15T02:36:00.000-08:00

might be one of the best films of all time.

Eleen Agar

2009-01-14T00:34:00.001-08:00

Current exhibition at Pallent House Gallery, Chichester, UK. Eleen Agar (1899-1991). Thus far she's been overlooked or 'pigeon-holed as a surrealist' which gives a limited, even misleading perspective on the work in this exhibition.

Peau d'Ane directed by Jaques Demy

2009-01-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

hard drive hard times

2009-01-13T03:26:00.000-08:00

- can't get to the japan photos saved on my hard drive. horrible feeling I've just deleted four years of photographs. no!

expensive fruit.

2009-01-10T01:21:00.001-08:00

In perhaps the most expensive shopping complex I've ever experienced, Tokyo's 'Midtown', situated in the roppongi district had Marni, muzac, Dean&Deluca, two museums, and the most extraordinarily glam toilets. To give you a taste, the above photo shows how they package strawberries in the 'supermarket'. Although it was more like couture nutrition.

return from Tokyo!

2009-01-10T01:16:00.000-08:00

Hello Blighty again. Woke up at 4 am today in my bed at home. Outside the garden is crisp with a heavy frost and the clear days of J-sun in Tokyo are thousands of miles away. An exciting time. The fact that most things were shut on and over New Years Day didn't detract from the urban adventure. Photographs to follow suit.

'daddy cool'

2008-12-24T07:31:00.001-08:00

Boney M - Daddy Cool

1976

ra ra rasputin!

2008-12-24T07:30:00.001-08:00

boney m-rasputin

music video of boney m's "rasputin"

my year:

2008-12-24T04:03:00.001-08:00

January- February: Finish thesis for degree, finish new research

March:turning 21: big birthday party

April-June: revision

June: terrifying exams

June:summer balls

July:Provance, France

July: New York, New York , and Martha's Vineyard

August:Hydra Island, Greece

August:Provance, France

September-November:New York, New York

December:Paris, France

December-January:Tokyo, Japan

Shopping in Tokyo

2008-12-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

This is a link to all the architectural wonders that build designer shopping in Japan's capital. Hot stuff.

'On The Town'

2008-12-17T10:58:00.000-08:00

On The Town, Stanley Donen, (1949).

'Judex'

2008-12-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

Judex, Georges Franju, (1963).

'The Man from Laramie'

2008-12-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

The Man from Laramie, Anthony Mann, (1955).

'The Man with the Movie Camera'

2008-12-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

The Man with the Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, (1929).

'Sunrise'

2008-12-17T09:58:00.001-08:00

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, F.W.Murnau, (1927).

Ah! England.

2008-12-03T05:01:00.000-08:00

Now I'm back in the UK, this blog will take a different (geographical) lilt.

"I close the iron door on you!"

2008-11-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

a still from one of the final scenes in '20th Century', which captures the style of the film perfectly:

'We must rescue the word pedestrian!'

2008-11-22T18:35:00.001-08:00

'Potsdamer Platz' by Kirchner, 1914.

I have been walking considerable distances almost every day in New York, which leads me to think how wonderful wondering around a city can be, but also confused because I can't seem to find an accurate way to describe the activity. My transformation has been from someone who frequently uses a car to pretty much exclusively a pedestrian. No sooner do I type that word it seems technically accurate but remains lacking. Somehow 'pedestrian' is a misrepresentation of the pleasure in the activity. Why has 'pedestrian' come to to be synonymous with the mundane - it's a great activity. Since when did the noun for a person travelling on foot become such a dirty word.

By contrast, the flanur, who technically does exactly the same thing, conjours images of walter benjamin stravaging around, parisian gentlemen...

very different images - it's an outrage!

the respective wikipedia entries are pretty good at establishing the differences

as are the google image search results

urban dictionary suggestion for pedestrian: 'common place, everyone doing it, conformity', but there isn't an urban dictionary entry for flaneur.

By and large it appears in a 'boys only' context, or suggested activity. I think this is quite unfair. Walter Benjamin wannabies arn't the only people who wander the urban jungle in a medative state, entranced by their environment. Yet the only women known to wonder the streets in our culture are prostitutes. Why is this so!

"She came at me in sections..."

2008-11-22T09:52:00.001-08:00

Band Wagon - Dancing In The Dark

Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire

NYC Art Shop Suggestions

2008-11-17T10:53:00.001-08:00

Lee's Art Supply
(This is a really old art store that has everything. Things are
spread over many floors so don't be shy about asking people to help you.)
220 W 57th St # 2
New York, NY 10019
(212) 247-0110

New York Central Art Supply
(This is a tiny art supply store that many serious New York artist
use. It's overcrowded and squished. Upstairs they have an interesting
paper department.)
62 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 473-7705

Utrecht Art Supply
(This is a cheaper place that caters mainly to young art
students. )
111 4th Ave # 1
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-5353

Kate's Paperie
(This is not really a classic art supply store but has paper, journals, desk accessories, photo albums, frames, ribbon,
giftwrap, and planners, and pens - some kitsch, some nice.
Here are three locations:

Midtown
140 West 57th Street

(between 6th and 7th Avenues)
New York, NY 10019
212.459.0700

Hours : Mon-Fri. 10:00AM - 8:00PM, Sat. 10:00AM - 7:00PM
Sun. 11:00AM to 6:00PM

Soho
72 Spring Street
(between Crosby and Lafayette Streets)
New York, NY 10012

212.941.9816
Hours : Mon-Sat. 10:00AM to 8:00PM, Sun. 11:00AM to 7:00PM

West Village
8 West 13th Street

(between 5th and 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10011
212.633.0570 Hours : Mon-Fri. 10:00AM to 7:30PM, Sat. : 10:00PM to 6:00PM Sun. : 12:00PM to 6:00PM

Serge Gainsbourg - New York USA (1964)

2008-11-17T06:39:00.001-08:00

Serge Gainsbourg - New York USA (1964)

Album: Gainsbourg Percussions J'ai vu New York New York USA J'ai vu New York New York USA Je n'avais rien vu d'au Je n'avais rien vu d'auss...

small cafes in NYC

2008-11-16T20:00:00.001-08:00

Point Knitting Cafe

37a Bedford Street, NY, NY 10014 (Greenwich Village)

The Grey Dog's Coffee

90 University Place at 12th street

The Pink Teacup

42 Grove Street, NY, NY, 10014

tentative draft of places to eat in NYC

2008-11-16T19:57:00.001-08:00

*The Spotted Pig: 314 W IIth St, at Greenwich St, 10014, (212) 620-0393, right by the Soho House and does seriously yummy meaty things

Cafe Grumpy: 224 West 20th Street, (between 7th and 8th Ave), 10011, (212) 255.5511 good for coffee and right by all the chelsea art galleries

*La Esquina: 106 Kenmare St, 10012, (646) 613-1700 very cheep 24hr Mexican diner, good margaritas and burritoes,

Cafe Gitane: 242 Mott St, 10012, (212) 334-9552 NoHo hipsters, retro, delicious

Gimme! Coffee: 228 Mott St, 10012, (212) 226-4011 a place to refuel in NoHo

*Bubby's Pie Co: 120 Hudson St, (212) 219-0666 incredible pie, serious brunch, not too many screaming babies, opposite the Tribecca Issey Miyaki store, the interior of which was designed by Frank Gehry

Sarabeth's Kitchen: 423 Amsterdam Ave, at 80th St., 10024, (212) 496-6280 really good brunch right by 72nd street, wholesome American fine food

Il Cantinori: 32 E 10th St., 10003, (212) 673-6044 smart but unfloral italian, really good, fave haunt of Patch W and Sara Marks

Cheapo Korean that prob doesn't have a name, which is just by the Empire State Building, at 33rd and 5th. right by my work, fresh tasty and seriously cheep

E.A.T: 1064 Madison Ave., 10128, (212) 772-0022 upper east side deli, superb sandwiches, near The Whitney, The Gug, The Met etc. so good for post\pre museum nourishment

Freemans: End of Freemans Alley, off of Rivington St., bt. the Bowery and Chrystie, 10002, (212) 420-0012 hip and low key, looks like Get Stuffed inside, and serves all American grub

---

Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Cheim & Read in Chelsea, 547 West 25th Street, 10001, (212) 242-7727

Good street of galleries in Chelsea (where Mar's gallery and the super stylish Comme des Garcons and Balenciaga shops are: around W26th Street, bt. 6th and 7th Ave.,

Japan: January: Flights Booked!

2008-11-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

Scandal, 1989

2008-11-16T11:54:00.001-08:00

This clip is taken from Scandal, the 1989 film on the Profumo affair. Oddly enough, it made me think of home! Click on it to watch it play. I'm now terribly pleased I've worked out how to post videos directly onto this site.

if I dreamed of the New Yorker as a piece of furniture, this is exactly what it would look like:

2008-11-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

this is the New Yorker 'bench' at BookExpo America 2008. Location? LA. Of course.

"Bushenfreude" - what a word!

2008-11-16T10:06:00.001-08:00

"Democrats who were big beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts were suffering from a weird mix of confusion, annoyance, exhilaration, and anger. They were enjoying their extra income while loathing its source - a Republican in the While house and Republican-controlled Congress."

Daniel Gross, "Bushenfreude Revisited", Slate Magazine, Friday, August 6, 2004.

The urbandictionary.com cites this as a phenomenon specific to POY's, (that's Pissed Off Yuppies).

Oh no!

2008-11-16T09:54:00.000-08:00

The publishing industry's ever escalating failure is one problem Obama can't fix. Selling books, maybe even reading in general seems to be headed for a big disaster. Such news comes as even more of a shock since "American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual." (Nicholas D. Kristof, 'Obama and the War on Brains', The New York Times, Sunday, November 9, 2008.) But the president elect, just like the UK's Jordan, or America's Comic giants. It's celebrity, celebrity women's fiction, celebrity confessions, celebrity advice or ...bust as far as I can work out for the adult book market. You're on a 2 billion doller contract with Random House, or you're using the faculty photocopier to send out slush pile submissions. There is a nice and dismal Gawker article "Publishers Hope Americas Tire of Blogs, Among Other Christmas Wishes", which sums up the mood.

Obama on the first dog for his daughters

2008-11-16T09:52:00.000-08:00

In his acceptance speech, Obama mentioned he'd get his daughters the puppy he'd promised them if he got elected. Naturally the press went bizurk. In this video clip, Obama goes into the specifics: he'd like the dog to be "a mutt, like me". It's a whitty quib against the mad reporter who asked him about what sort of puppie he'd get for his daughters in Obama's first press confrence (I think) as President-elect.

Quotation from Newsweek's special spill the beans edition

2008-11-16T09:31:00.000-08:00

"I remember going home that night, and my boyfriend saying, 'What is that purple bruise on your back?' I had bruises on my back from people pushing and shoving, trying to get to [Obama]...I remember grabbing women's hands because they were trying to pull his shirt from his pants. I couldn't believe it."

- Eureka Gilkey, on of Obama's aids, about a speech in 2004, featured in this week's Newsweek.

Dizzy Rascal for PM

2008-11-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

Here is a wonderful video of Dizzy and Paxman is terrific wishful thinking. It also shows raises the problem of whether an European Obama is possible, or if back home is still more conservative than we'd like to think.

telly really does rule the world

2008-11-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

"I would like to say one thing to John McCain."

"Listen, Senator: you don't show up for me, America doesn't show up for you."

David Letterman, on The Late Show, November 6th, 2008.

"Obama victory renders hipster 'movement' obsolete"

2008-11-16T09:17:00.000-08:00

is the title of a stupid article on the streetbonersandtvcarnage blog. Loosely connected with renegades from Vice magazine, or something. Although it's fairly obnoxious, it does have an amusing poke at the (my) cynicism generation in America, and where on earth they're going to go from this [historic] point.

'It Still Felt Good the Morning After'

2008-11-16T09:10:00.001-08:00

- was the title of a hilarious New York Times cartoon published a few days afterwards. The morning after certainly had an overpowering atmosphere. Manhattan was very quiet 'with hungover bliss'. There wasn't a newspaper left in the city by 9am when I prowled the streets to find one. Obama makes dreams come true and has single handedly rescued the printed newspaper industry. Everyone was very proud of themselves. Of one another. "Yes we did" rather than "Yes we can" was on lips all over the city. The odd phrase echos grammar quirks more akin to the Republicans. But who cares. Obama is an unabashed intellectual, and the majority of the country will be slightly 'worse for wear' in the best possible way, so if that's the buzz that stumbles onto our lips - so be it, and thank you young America that no one has to muster the strength to face a headline that screams "You betcha: gosh darnit".