peripathetic: September 2008

Friday, September 26, 2008

Stockwell Shooting

Stockwell Shooting, originally uploaded by coconinoco.

Oh my.

Oh my goodness.

I'd really like it if this was deliberate.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Summer and Autumn

Autumn and Summer, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Today has been both in Belfast. So here goes.

The cover of the book underneath shows part of the large Autumn canvas that Cy Twombly painted for one of his Four Seasons cycles. The cover of the book on top shows a house torn apart by Hurricane Katrina.

Reading both of these at the same time, my mind mixes them up. There are little boats in the other Four Seasons paintings, blurred, primeval and dreamlike - setting out on the water to make an offering, perhaps? To the gods of wind and water? To keep us all safe as each season passes?

Too bad.

Twombly's seasons paintings say: we are small beside all this. It is neverending and has nothing to do with us. It is beautiful and dangerous somehow; bountiful, also.

In a certain mood, your mind too may play at chinese whispers, and suggest much the same about hurricanes. And old cities.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Now move away from my nigiri unagi, you tramp

Feng sushi, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

...a good deal of the progressives’ attitudes, preferences, and sense of identity are ingrained in an unlovely disdain for those outside their charmed circle. In Lander’s analysis, much of their self-satisfaction derives from consumption (the slack-sounding “stuff” in the title is deceptively apt)—and much of that consumption is motivated by a desire to differentiate themselves from the benighted.

Sushi, for instance, is “everything [White People] want: foreign culture, expensive, healthy, and hated by the ‘uneducated.’”

White People [like being protected] “from having to look at things they don’t like. At the top of this list is anything that has to do with Christianity”—an aversion, Lander discerns, rooted not in religious enmity but in taste (Christianity is “a little trashy”), formed largely by class and education.”

The other week in London, after spending a small amount on trainers and trackies, and a small fortune on a trendily branded item of sports clothing — which I’ll probably never use for sport and nobody else will either — I ambled along to the cultural enclave of the South Bank, took a few arty photos with my expensive new camera, and then met my atheist friend and some other white people from his writers’ group. We all drank, and talked about how normal and hard-up we are for a while, and discussed creative writing, and agents, and getting published.

And then went for sushi. Oooops. Cough.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Warmth

Little brown leaves on the pavement outside the office, but only in patches. The sort of air that makes your skin feel all-over cold, but you don't feel cold. A short night's sleep. Darker outside than you remember for the morning. A strange clarity of mind and vision.

If things keep on like this, I'll start imagining some radiant, crisp autumn.

London, this time, was marvellous. Nearly two whole weeks there, packed with things to do, but nothing was rushed. The Prom at the Royal Albert Hall held electrifying music, played slightly slower than the CD, and an interval that glowed with Victorian warmth and a wonderful friend. Then he was gone with his other half for a few days. The house was very empty but full of the rich, slight sadness when you miss people.

When they got back, the world shifted, London became cushioned again but absolutely not any worse for that. The cats moved around the house more, there were little warm social calls to make, there was a wonderful 10-minute stretch of morning at a market by a cathedral. Warmth above the table over dinner, breakfast, lunch. Warmth on the Bakerloo line. Warmth in a cold mojito. Warmth in a cushioned space around which floated a vanishing room. Warmth, even, in the morning alarm bleeps.

It can't last forever, though. Really, it can't. There's a reason these times are so special. They are unusual. And until the usual next dose of the unusual in November, I suppose I'll find my warmth in bed, in the slow turn to autumn... and hopefully in a few other things too.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Inhabitants

American Folk Art Museum, originally uploaded by ekainj.

To make a break with the London posts but still stick with architecture for a while, because I’m still in the ‘larger architecture than my home town’ phase that comes after London:

I always like before-and-after photos of sites that have had new buildings built — or spaces where buildings were. So it’s fascinating and infuriating and encouraging to see this lengthy and hearty set of just such photos about new buildings in New York City. In a city that size, it’s unsurprising, I suppose, that so many striking (and sometimes strikingly ugly) buildings have appeared recently. But even London has a proportional paucity of such character in its brick and stone and metal people. Anyhow, do a bit of google searching on the addresses given in the article, because you will turn up far better photos of the new creations than the article is able to provide.

This New Orleans post mentions architecture too — new stuff before the storm, evacuation, stuff after the storm, and now old stuff being stolen. Or is everything old stuff now?

Finally, things magazine has an excellent entry on material spaces.

Now I need a little space inside my head. So if you’ll excuse me...

Cheese sandwiches, Borough Market, Step 3

Grilled Cheese at the Borough Market, originally uploaded by nadi0.

Mmmmm. These are made with cheddar (the stall also do a separate dish with potatoes and raclette cheese, by the way), leeks, onions and garlic, on sourdough Poilane bread.

Note to self. Repeat this step many, many times.

Cheese sandwiches, Borough Market, Step 2

Grilled Cheese Sandwich stall at Borough Market, originally uploaded by Tom Coates.

Cheese sandwiches, Borough Market, Step 1

Cheese sandwiches, Borough Market, London, UK.JPG, originally uploaded by gruntzooki.

Memories of last Saturday. Part one. More to follow.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Attention

Attention, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Feline concentration on something somewhere else, courtesy of Sissie, Greenwich, London

Muse

Muse, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Sissie, musing on the table in the study, Greenwich, London

Leer, lick

Leer, lick, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Guru, being uncharacteristically demonic, Greenwich

Lines

Lines, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

This is David Adjaye's Sclerae, apparently part of the London Design Festival 2008. But Jonathan and I found it while escaping the massive crowds of the Thames Festival. Lucky we did.

Wooden pavilion, South Bank

Wooden pavilion, South Bank, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

This is David Adjaye's Sclerae, apparently part of the London Design Festival 2008. But Jonathan and I found it while escaping the massive crowds of the Thames Festival. Lucky we did.

Wooden pavilion, South Bank

Wooden pavilion, South Bank, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

This is David Adjaye's Sclerae, apparently part of the London Design Festival 2008. But Jonathan and I found it while escaping the massive crowds of the Thames Festival. Lucky we did.

Toilet, after Cy Twombly

Toilet, after Cy Twombly, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Well, during, actually. Or even inbetween. Tate Modern's insistence that you can't take photos in the galleries annoys me, so I took the chance to walk through an almost invisible, perfectly white toilet door in the perfectly white wall between two huge Twombly canvases in the current retrospective, and snap this.

In the Troubadour

In the Troubadour, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Looking towards the front from the back, Earl's Court, London.

Glass and light bench

Glass and light bench, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Again, this is certainly by someone and probably called something, but I don't have the resources right now. In the V&A Museum contemporary glass gallery, London.

Silver cover for a bible

Silver cover for a bible, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

In the silver galleries, V&A Museum, London. See here for further info - collections.vam.ac.uk/objectid/O117930

Amazing

Amazing, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Now you know how many Swarovski crystals there are in the previous photos. Astounding. The entrance hall of the V&A Museum, London.

Unknown

Unknown, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Three panels, name currently forgotten (ooops), artist currently forgotten (ooops again).

Arcus 1

Arcus 1, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

Arcus 1, by Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova, in the V&A Museum, London. Apparently it's called mould-melted glass, very characteristic of the Czech school of glass.

Swarm

Swarm, originally uploaded by peripathetic.

The Swarm chandelier by Zaha Hadid, made of lots and lots of black Swarovski crystals. In the entrance hall of the V&A Museum, London. See here www.vam.ac.uk/collections/contemporary/swarm/index.html for more details.