lives of others

i was sent a link which got me clicking around and then it became a new "place i like to visit"

christoph niemann in abstract city thinking about coffee & bagels

rising

a while ago i was watching overnight telly and saw and heard this song by bill callaghan/smog
i saw it because i found the graphics really inspirational. sometimes ugly, sometimes lovely, but altogether moving. they reminded me of art and creativity.

images like this, instances like this are the reason i'm putting this information online. i'm pulling together images and thoughts and information, because life has become so scattered it's hard to know where to save things. there is in your head, and in your diary or journal, or in a few. this is another useful collecting space.

taking a punt

it's funny how an idea takes hold in your head.
so i have happened upon a longing to visit herring island, a brief triangle of an island in the yarra.

i was lying in bed early one sunday morning and the radio was telling me what was happening that day: a festival at the environmental sculpture park on herring island.
suddenly, all i wanted to do was go on the punt (at the bottom of the William St hill near Como Park) and cross the river and wander around on the island.
i didn't go that sunday, but the festival is on until march or april

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there are works by andy goldsworthy, who can do such beautiful work.

works by goldsworthy on flickr and a beautiful photoessay

i watched a documentary recently about a self-taught artist in california who does very similar works, with rocks and on the beach

i wish i could remember his name. who knew google was so crap if you don't know what you're looking for?

yes, good luck!

my friend has an elephant figurine, uber-detailed by Schleich

there is also a rhino and a giraffe - they sit on top of the tv or the dvd player or the stereo

i remembered that an indian woman i worked with had a collection of elephants all with raised trunks, for luck. she also said it was vital that they faced the window. or perhaps the door. i can't remember. but it was about bringing happiness and wealth into the home.

this in turn reminded me of the raised paw cats in asian grocers - sometimes the paw waves - to bring wealth inside. apparently it is called maneki neko - the lucky beckoning cat - recalling a cat who, according to legend, seemed to beckon a nobleman (or perhaps the emperor) into a temple thereby preventing him from being ambushed.

evil eye, or mal occhio, or nazar boncugu. not quite sure how it works but i think if you wear it or display it, it prevents others from cursing you.

i saw some amulets in a turkish carpet shop. i think you hang them from your rearview mirror. but having the symbol painted on a tail-fin is cooler. maybe i'll paint one on my car.

and then there is ancestor worship. my mum has been practising something like this for years. she "talks to" her father (who died when she was three) or her grandmother or various aunts and cousins. she asks them for help. she asked st anthony to help her find things. and help often arrives. and now that her husband and mother have died, my dad and grandmother, she's talking to them. and i think i will too. it seems utterly natural.

image sourced from wikipedia

she doesn't see ghosts or anything and nor do i (i think i'd faint from fear) but talking to the dead seems normal. the same as talking to them when they were alive.
i would love to be in mexico for the day of the dead. Day of the Dead mosaic by British artist Martin Cheek

the wisdom of desk calendars

i don't think it's important to follow up on all your thoughts and ideas and actions. sometimes one impulse will open up a panorama of new ideas or feelings. or even one, which pulls you along.
i just like following a meandering thought.
i like when thoughts take you off on unexpected tangents. or lead you down a rabbit hole. sometimes the tumbling and the darkness isn't that comfortable, but it gives you another perspective.

why am i ranting?
well i read something today.
you know those stupid desk calendars you get in offices?
this is the offering for wednesday, 14 january:

Middle age is when you realise that you'll never live long enough to try all the recipes you spent 30 years clipping out of newspapers and magazines. - Bill Vaughan.

life isn't about using everything you clip out of a magazine. sometimes clipping things out is enough. fancy measuring out your life in magazine recipes?

anyway, some nice things:


reminds me of a lovely window display i saw of pompoms - different sizes, including huge, different colours.

edward gorey's doubtful guest who reminds me of zak.

and an orange sings the aria from carmen. sesame street c.1973 or 1974, I think. this was an absolute favourite of mine.

the love of a good elephant

elephants swim. and some elephants are known to swim great distances in the open sea. such as between islands in the Bay of Bengal.
i'm fairly sure i read or heard about a bull elephant who swam to a nearby island to join his girlfriend. even if it's apocryphal, it's a lovely thought.
there is a special joy in elephants swimming. i think it's the four-knee elephant paddle.

i almost travelled to sri lanka a few years ago. we would have been in kandy for the Esala Pearahara, the festival of the buddhist 'sacred tooth relic'. it's a religious pageant (pearahara) that goes over 11 days in july/august (esala), with a street parade of percussionists, torchbearers, dancers and significantly, elephants. all elaborately costumed and all very noisy. and as the festival progresses, there are more and more elephants.
somehow the thought of ever increasing numbers of elephants makes it particularly exciting.
in 1998, ex-blur guitarist graham coxon released a solo album. i didn't buy it or listen to it, but the name, the sky is too high, stuck with me as did the album cover which had a simple drawing of a pink elephant. i clipped it out of a magazine which had reviewed it. the clipping is still around in my stack of images somewhere
a winsome elephant by illustrator
mo willems
elephant head by georgia hayes
© 2007 Oil on Canvas 50 x 50cm

there's a gentleness and sensitivity to elephants. their vulnerability even though they're such enormous creatures.
the fact that they are such social animals.
like recent research which has found that elephants (unlike most other animals) acknowledge their dead, "gently touching the skulls and tusks with their trunks and feet".
personally, i like them more than dolphins.

measuring life in elephants

a friend once gave a eulogy for an elderly woman who was an inveterate traveller. she had seen, met and/or ridden several elephants in her travels, and my friend suggested that encounters with elephants was a laudable measure of a human life.

there is something about elephants.

they convey both magnifence and melancholy, wisdom and whimsey.

similar to certain gum trees.

which i like because the trunks and boughs of some gums dimple and wrinkle so that they resemble the sagginess of elephant skin.

i like the way elephants can command respect even while they look a bit goofy.

i started thinking about elephants because i saw a guy strolling down the street wearing a tee-shirt with a small elephant scarpering off towards his right armpit.

it reminded me of a 60s illustration. and also a dozen documentaries and images of baby elephants trotting along, sometimes trunk to tail, sometimes independently. including the rather gorgeous scene in Hatari! with Henry Mancini's Baby Elephant Walk
the thing with elephants is that once you start thinking about them, all these associations and ideas come flooding in.

like elephant painting - i visited the MCA in Sydney in 2001 and was introduced to the world of elephant painting. the work on show was fairly abstract expressionist. it was beautiful! i watched a documentary in wonder, and heard how the Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project was helping elephants adjust to a post-work life (they used to haul logs) and that painting, and the continuing companionship and encouragement of their mahouts was really important to them. it transpires that elephants have individual styles and one in particular was a temperamental artist, and would choose her colours and some days would refuse to paint because she didn't feel like it. although abstract expressionism isn't innate to elephants, some are incredibly good! Nanchok, for example, does a pretty fine cy twombly.

actually is it just me, or is there an elephant in this "abstract"?

do you want tatts with that?

a friend of mine has some very cool tatts. she wears them well, and for a while i considered getting a tatt.
my problem was i couldn't find a design i liked.
i hunted through all sorts of sources - graphics, ethnography, art, and finally found something i liked in a book called Club Life of London. it was such a cool image. it was a drawn image.
it wasn't till later that i checked the name of the club it was associated with - The Sublime Society of Beef-Steaks.
so yep, i wanted a grid-iron. although originally i'd wanted it on my shoulder, i thought, given its origins it might sit better on my rump. surprisingly, i didn't go ahead with this idea.
my next thought was to have a series of mayan (or aztec) glyphs down my arm. one two three.
the problem with this notion is that i'm superstitious and thought it likely that i'd end up getting some human sacrifice-related insignia, or a special call to the jaguar god to come and savage me.
however, it didn't stop me from investigating a few sites which help you create mayan words

i remember telling my grandmother about getting a tattoo. she asked why i (or anyone) would get one. "because i like the image" i said.
so she very reasonably pointed out that i could have the image on a piece of paper and carry it with me. i could take it out and look at it whenever i wanted to .
funny lady.

on david shrigley's site he has a link showing tattoos people have done of his work.

one of the best tatts i've seen though is a dot-to-dot. so very ace!

like rabbits

i love the sony bunny ad.
i know that the ad company [allegedly] references someone else's work in using the New York rabbits, and then compounds the reference with the breaking tsunami wave at the end, but i still love it.
what i really love is that it was all "real". no computer cyberbunnies, but real stop-motion bunnies moved around and photographed. i can't decide if i liked the making of more than the ad itself.

one of the things i love about it is it reminds me of a story i read when i was a kid, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
about a poor bunny whose spent most of her life (let's face it, rabbits start young) with her baby bunnies but becomes one of the easter bunnies.
amazon has copies ...
i also had bunnikins plates, with the cheeky bunnies going for it underneath.


i wonder if i would be as giddy if it was puppies, or birds?
i don't think so, but maybe if it was foxes.

shiny

Because I am a big chicken, it's only recently that I watched The Shining.
And I'm glad I did for a number of reasons.
1. i understand more cultural references.
2. i see it on the streets!
I recently saw a very cool REDRUM tee-shirt being worn with style in Chapel Street, Windsor. I almost want one.
3. i see it in the papers!
I read today in the Guardian that some bloke has published the novel that Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is writing in the film.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Stupid and yet kinda cool - you can flip through the book online, or even buy a copy.
4. but mostly, because it's good.
My favourite scene is the kid going around on his tricycle. I love the sound of the tricycle rumbling over the wooden floorboards drrrrrrrrr, muffled over the carpet and then drrrrrrrrrrrrr over the wooden floorboards again. All with ace camerawork.

caro diario

I like that blogs haven't taken over from physical diaries and sketchbooks. I think as much as the visual we need texture in our lives, and sometimes collected scraps of images or writing or tickets and the crinkle of gluestick gives it to us.
To make a physical mark, and have the ink seep through onto the next page. Spilt water, pencil shavings, the grit collected just by hurtling through your life in your bag.

Moleskine have a wonderful slideshow site on Flikr, with people sharing their sketchbook images. It changes constantly I love it. Good to visit.

the year my universe changed

Looking at it objectively, 2008 was not a good year for me.
My dad died on Monday 21 July, 6 pm.
And then my grandmother died, Monday 15 December, 12.30 am.

But good things happened too.
I met my love, on an autumn evening in May, at the Paperback Bookshop accompanied by Russians.


(Title borrowed from the 1986 science teleseries, The Day the Universe Changed, by James Burke. I used to watch this instead of doing my physics homework in VCE)