The feisty fosters the fusty
Jun. 23rd, 2006 08:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusLondon is a city of "toxic vitality". Let me for-example you. Breakfast yesterday took place at Konstam on the King's Cross Road. Suzy and I sat down to enjoy a greasy fry-up reconceptualized for the chattering classes (de-greased, in other words, and served in a cafe with a corkboard wall decorated with a drawing pin deer) when in walked Matthew Collings, the art critic. Being a bit of a Collings fan, I looked forward to some juicy eavesdropping, but traffic so overwhelmed human-scaled sounds that all I could catch were a few snatches here and there. Example: "I used to get my hair cut regularly by a lovely girl called Joanne. But when I went bald I stopped going. I went instead for a £4 shave. But [to artist friend with full head of hair] you've got a wonderful head of hair, like the Bay City Rollers!"
Okay, I just shoe-horned that in because I wanted to namedrop Collings and his 70s reference points. But let me tell you that I will be contrasting, in this entry, London's "toxic vitality" with the "benign sobriety" of graphic designers Åbäke and James Goggin, with whom I lunched. Shooting the sleeve for my Ocky Milk album at his Shacklewell Lane studio (the area itself surges with a vitality so dangerous the police have had to launch a local initiative called "Operation Minotaur", which seems to consist of rather sinister LED panels flashing words like "security" and "anti-social behaviour"), James put into my hands some examples of his work:
* One playfully restrained book of Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane's "Folk Archive", which, like John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" (its design inspiration), launches into a text-and-image exegesis right from the front cover. "Folk Archive" has an "educational materials from a more sober British age" look to it which I love; a conspicuous
anti-vitalism.
* Alison Turnbull's "The Family Beds", a book detailing the classification of orders and families of flowering plants. James bound this book in a durable dark olive rubberised cover, like a guide book or a diary. Inside he gave it an introvert's rich interior: page-groups (following plant groups) printed in bright bands of colour.
* Alison Turnbull's "translation" of Mishima's Spring Snow, printed in the pleasingly restrained style of a Japanese bunko paperback. (Turnbull has arranged over six hundred colour references in Mishima's novel into a colour palette.)
These works bespeak the poetry in desurgency, vivid colours hidden within the shell of an introvert. As such, they're actually indicative of one possible reason London's "toxic vitality" actually helps rather than hinders the "benign sobriety" of which I'm speaking. Many people in big cities, overwhelmed by stimulus, turn to quiet and measured activities. At an artist's talk given by Karl Holmqvist (my fellow artist in the Blow de la Barra show) on Vyner Street last night, Karl spoke about his surprise, on arriving in New York, to discover many poetry events listed in the Village Voice. It shouldn't be surprising: to listen to something quiet and intense at the end of a mad big city day is deeply pleasing. London too had a strong poetry scene when I arrived in the city, and I used to frequent clubs like Terrible Beauty at the Troubadour in Earl's Court. They were deeply, refreshingly, quiet.
It's ironic that I've escaped a sober city in the grip of an anomalous vitality (Berlin during the World Cup) and come to a vital city, only to find the pleasures of sobriety here, scattered in secret enclaves amongst the ferocious money fever so well-described by this panel spotted at Smithfield House (it's a part of the Big London Brainstorm, an event in the London Architecture Biennale going on just now):
On Sunday I will again be battling, with my whispery efflorescence, the city's imperturbable commercial effervescence: I will insult London's mercantile ethos by performing a free show at 7pm at the George and Dragon, a pub located at 2 Hackney Road (near the junction with Shoreditch High Street). Pablo de la Barra, who's organized this, tells me that Sunday evening is a gay night in every possible sense, and that things get really wild after 9pm. I, though, will perform just before the watershed. To pindrop silence, no doubt, and oceans of deeply lovely sobriety.
Oh, and whisperings continue at Blow de la Barra, where my spoken word art installation is being held. I can now reveal the first two phrases, whispered to gallery visitors on Wednesday and Thursday:
Wednesday June 21st
"The encounter with the new person continues, after having suffered hardship with lighting."
Thursday June 22nd
"Smell of the source of the callous burning and the Japanese pancake."
Okay, I just shoe-horned that in because I wanted to namedrop Collings and his 70s reference points. But let me tell you that I will be contrasting, in this entry, London's "toxic vitality" with the "benign sobriety" of graphic designers Åbäke and James Goggin, with whom I lunched. Shooting the sleeve for my Ocky Milk album at his Shacklewell Lane studio (the area itself surges with a vitality so dangerous the police have had to launch a local initiative called "Operation Minotaur", which seems to consist of rather sinister LED panels flashing words like "security" and "anti-social behaviour"), James put into my hands some examples of his work:
* One playfully restrained book of Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane's "Folk Archive", which, like John Berger's "Ways of Seeing" (its design inspiration), launches into a text-and-image exegesis right from the front cover. "Folk Archive" has an "educational materials from a more sober British age" look to it which I love; a conspicuous
anti-vitalism.* Alison Turnbull's "The Family Beds", a book detailing the classification of orders and families of flowering plants. James bound this book in a durable dark olive rubberised cover, like a guide book or a diary. Inside he gave it an introvert's rich interior: page-groups (following plant groups) printed in bright bands of colour.
* Alison Turnbull's "translation" of Mishima's Spring Snow, printed in the pleasingly restrained style of a Japanese bunko paperback. (Turnbull has arranged over six hundred colour references in Mishima's novel into a colour palette.)
These works bespeak the poetry in desurgency, vivid colours hidden within the shell of an introvert. As such, they're actually indicative of one possible reason London's "toxic vitality" actually helps rather than hinders the "benign sobriety" of which I'm speaking. Many people in big cities, overwhelmed by stimulus, turn to quiet and measured activities. At an artist's talk given by Karl Holmqvist (my fellow artist in the Blow de la Barra show) on Vyner Street last night, Karl spoke about his surprise, on arriving in New York, to discover many poetry events listed in the Village Voice. It shouldn't be surprising: to listen to something quiet and intense at the end of a mad big city day is deeply pleasing. London too had a strong poetry scene when I arrived in the city, and I used to frequent clubs like Terrible Beauty at the Troubadour in Earl's Court. They were deeply, refreshingly, quiet.
It's ironic that I've escaped a sober city in the grip of an anomalous vitality (Berlin during the World Cup) and come to a vital city, only to find the pleasures of sobriety here, scattered in secret enclaves amongst the ferocious money fever so well-described by this panel spotted at Smithfield House (it's a part of the Big London Brainstorm, an event in the London Architecture Biennale going on just now):
On Sunday I will again be battling, with my whispery efflorescence, the city's imperturbable commercial effervescence: I will insult London's mercantile ethos by performing a free show at 7pm at the George and Dragon, a pub located at 2 Hackney Road (near the junction with Shoreditch High Street). Pablo de la Barra, who's organized this, tells me that Sunday evening is a gay night in every possible sense, and that things get really wild after 9pm. I, though, will perform just before the watershed. To pindrop silence, no doubt, and oceans of deeply lovely sobriety.
Oh, and whisperings continue at Blow de la Barra, where my spoken word art installation is being held. I can now reveal the first two phrases, whispered to gallery visitors on Wednesday and Thursday:
Wednesday June 21st
"The encounter with the new person continues, after having suffered hardship with lighting."
Thursday June 22nd
"Smell of the source of the callous burning and the Japanese pancake."
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 08:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 08:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 08:52 am (UTC)afterthought: I also experienced a moment of exquisite calm in London yesterday: went to HELD, an installation by Graeme Miller about stowaways who fall from the wheel-bays of commecial aircraft. It's in a beautiful, decrepid former church on the side of Southwark Park. There are ten glass bowls gently glowing in the dark with images inside each of them of sky - around the edge you can make out small details of the horizon [the images are vertically projected from above]. Miller travelled around the world to places where the migrants 'arrived'... one of them is a Sainsbury's car park in Richmond. When you pick them up, they vibrate and you hear sounds - birds, talking, the clattering of shopping trolleys. Standing there in the dark holding these beautiful, delicate glass bowls with sight, sound and touch senses all engaged... your words exactly: deeply, refreshingly, quiet.
bottom of the page - http://www.cafegalleryprojects.com/html/Whatson.html
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 06:23 pm (UTC)Not pictured: bulge
where am i?
Date: 2006-06-23 04:09 pm (UTC)what do you want?
information
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 09:00 am (UTC)I'd actually be interested to hear you and Green engaged in a heated exchange about the merits / demerits of Dalston. "My beloved Hackney", he was quoted as saying in some interview recently.
Hilariously, some people (estate agents in fact) have started referring to that particular part of town as "Shacklewell Village" in an attempt to push up house prices.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 09:06 am (UTC)JimRhodri?(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 10:49 am (UTC)Do you know if there is something similar in Paris? Since the riots seem to have no end there, or have they?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 10:50 am (UTC)"The sign he photographs is indeed quite ugly, but it doesn't tell the whole story. When I moved there five years ago, Shacklewell Lane was a red-light district, especially around Shacklewell Green. The prostitution problem was one of two reasons (the other being complaints from local cyclists about the traffic layout) that the Hackney authorities decided to reroute the road directly outside my house in a bid to reduce the number of kerb-crawlers; until recently, there were two turnarounds at opposite ends of the road, which enabled drivers simply to cruise back and forth along it looking for trade.
The rerouting, along with an increased police presence and the well-publicised closure of several crack houses on the street, has helped "solve" the prostitution "problem". Although the wording may have changed since I first clocked it a few weeks ago, the sign was originally meant as another deterrent to hooker-hunters, who tend to come out at night, when the lights on the sign are far more legible (and which is why the police used a lit-up sign in the first place)."
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 10:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 11:46 am (UTC)You should try their new place a few doors away - Konstam at the Prince Albert - it's been causing something of a stir as all (most) of the ingredients are sourced from within the boundaries laid out by the M25. An interesting take on city eating.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 02:30 pm (UTC)Konstam Kravings
Date: 2006-06-23 02:58 pm (UTC)In addition to the "within the M25" ethos of Konstam, which
led to the saga of the toxically vital mushrooms and the
necessity of an allotment plot in, um, Highgate, there are
also the Guerilla Gardeners defying the merchant drive and
ploughing up the odd roundabout or other underused spot:
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/
Re: Konstam Kravings
Date: 2006-06-23 04:00 pm (UTC)Been tending the overgrown footpaths and walkways in my local cedar bog (http://lord-whimsy.livejournal.com/130370.html) of late. Have to watch for frog (http://lord-whimsy.livejournal.com/127644.html) egg masses when you cut the blueberry and leatherleaf boughs. No bears yet, thankfully.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 05:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-23 05:37 pm (UTC)hey i only just discovered you
Date: 2006-06-23 05:38 pm (UTC)x
Re: hey i only just discovered you
Date: 2006-06-23 06:58 pm (UTC)Wilkommen, etc!
Blow de la Barra whispers
Date: 2006-07-03 09:58 am (UTC)