A Major Retrospective: Caledonian Kim

A few months ago I started taking pictures of the Caledonian Road Underground Station service information board.  These are lovingly created around twice a week and usually turn even the most wizened winter sneer into a bow of burning glee.

This work above is the latest in the collection - "Untitled" - mixed media (washed board markers and taffeta on white board).  Below you can find a selection of other such works.

  

"Untitled"                                                                                              "Untitled"

                             

"Untitled"                                                                                     "Untitled"

"Untitled"                                                                         "Untitled"


As I took the most recent photo last Friday, I felt a light tap on my back, I looked down to where a couple of items were being pressed hurriedly into my hand.  Placed into my hand were the card and coin you can see below addressed to 'My Lovely'. I spun round in an instant to catch a glimpse of this artisan sprite and only managed to witness blurred figure scurrying back into the Station Master's office.  Perplexed, I opened the card and carried on my journey.

You can see that I have interacted directly with these merry-makers. A little light research shows the artist as Kim, although from the card below you can see that she has an accomplice.   I will continue to document these works - until then, my lovelies.

Certainly the the artists at King's Cross Station come from more of a Pop-Minimalist school:

Well deserved.

At a trip to a crematorium recently I came across this award on the wall. It left me asking a few questions.

1) What have you been during the last 6/7 years since?
3) When you say 'special award' do you actually mean 'wooden spoon'?
3) How did you manage just to get the children's play area so right?
4) Who exactly is on the Judges Panel?
5) The awards ceremony sounds like it could be an absolute hoot.  Where does one get tickets?
6)I thought the children's area was rather under-whelming. Was a children's poll conducted as part of the process?

I then had a look into what these awards were really all about and this press release explains the reasons for them -  this is the brain child of Michael Dewar no less - the esteemed campaign director of the MAB (Memorial Awareness Board)


"Obviously death is not a positive media hook, so Michael, Dewar Associates came up with the idea of the Cemetery of the Year Awards"

 No, not a positive media hook at all - unless you tie in an awards ceremony - I think you'll all agree that's a great idea; giving this whole scene a bit of the celebrity treatment.  clever.

The release goes on to say that unfortunately the press ended up focussing on some of the negative results including their own 'RIP Ratings'.  This rather canny idea took on more of a morosely moronic look. shame.


I've also just due to the awards site they state that the awards never even took place  in 2010 which might go some way in explaining Guildford Crematorium's stagnant progress over the last six years; perhaps this sort of on/off approach to standards-appraisal breeds apathy? Perhaps it breeds the sitting around and quaffing of champagne at exclusive and sporadic awards ceremonies, encouraging  participants to rest of their wreaths and boast about their lack lustre achievements.  I'd still love to go though.

super-slow-mo dogs + cars

Dogs in Cars from keith on Vimeo.

Iceland

What with it being unusually cold, the Jarðböð thermal pools in Mývatn are a good place to warm up.   The whole zone is alive with geo-thermal activity, sulphurous vents pumping out hot gases everywhere.  This photo was taken at around 14.30 and the Sun has pretty much had enough of today already.

You must remember to continually sumerge your head to melt the ice crystals that have grown on your head. Real-time frosted tips inside the ride.

After spending a night in Egilsstaðir we took the Embulance over the high pass and down to Seyðisfjörður where we are waiting for the boat to arrive and take us to the Faroe Islands.

 Due to bad weather it has been delayed, we expect to leave at some point on Friday.

Luckily Seyðisfjörður is a beautiful small fishing port and a nice place to hold tight until our ride arrives. There is a chance we will be grounded in the Faroe Islands if the the weather plays up, I can think of worse places to be stranded...

Icelandic Teaser

Currently in Mývatn on the North-east coast of Iceland with my sister  - spent the day driving from Reykjavík to these parts over the last 24 hours. Tempreature has hit -15 but we managed to warm up in a thermal spring.

More upon my return...

Christmas is Bach.

As it's the first day of December I thought that it would't go amiss to lay down Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

It's big time and I'm sure the lyrics say  'the holiday's are coming! the holiday's are coming!'  


No, really.

why not.

Big Time

Thanks to @djBlakey for showing me this tool which will help you understand how big or small you are.

VERY COOL WAY OF SEEING SCALE (MICRO-MACRO)   ← click link

Arvo Pärty

It's always a good time for Arvo Pärt but particularly nice when it is colder outside. Some of the most beautiful music ever written.

The Calming Peace of a Cloudless Sky (via drugs).

Bizarre to think that a solution to stress in the 50's was so chemcially brazen. Amazing promo video for an anxiety drug produced by Pfizer.

Steam Engine made of Glass...

Is this actually interesting?

It's interesting.

How to Record Drums

Brand New blog where Todd Terje asks stupid questions to top producers. First up is James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

http://letsnerd.com/

Augmented Reality future according to Microsoft

Witch's Spell

Last weekend myself and a few others headed to the Oxfordshire village of Little Tew for a Cotswold caper.

We walked round Chastleton House - a Jacobean mansion.   This place was also popular with this charming Neo-Nazi family all dressed in black - the father had this really cute SS belt buckle on.   There were terrifying and aggressive but you can't fault their cultural taste; their idea of a Saturday afternoon jaunt is right up meine strasse.  Neo-nazis and I don't agree on many things but I think we may have just about found something in common here.  Which is great.

After this we headed to the Rollright Stones, a neolithic stone circle a few miles away. In the centre of the stones a fireplace and evidence of offerings and sacrifice piqued our interest and we happened upon a fold of paper stuck in a nook in one of the stones.   Here is a snap of us on the stones.

 When we tentatively unravelled it we found it was covered in drops of dried blood and some herbs.  The blood and herbs were the trimmings of what can only (and realistically) be understood as a pagan's spell.

Spell reads - and after some research understand this to be a 3by3 spell (apparently).

Goddess of Love

Fairy Apsara

Bring my love Karl

To visit and contact me

my love i see (?)

is so deep

I need to see

if he wanted me

one visit I know

will show and tell

Please bring to me

by the clock strike 12

by the power of 3x3

as i will it so shall be

blessed be

Let's not forget - it was covered in drops of real blood and sprinkled with magic herbs (mistletoe/rosemary {presumably}).  I'm 99% certain that this is  exactly the sort of behavior that gets you sectioned, or worse.  I can safely add that it would really rattle my cage to know that someone was creeping around, letting blood, sprinkling magic and hiding spells in preshistoric stones so that I would appear at midnight; if I did magically appear, I'd really wish I hadn't.

We are all reasonably worried for Matt and Dan.  Dan found the note and therefore presumably broke the current spell which means terrible will happen.  Likewise, a gust of wind blew the magic herbs up and all over Matt - again - this doesn't bode well.    I wish them both luck.

Isolated Sounds

Thanks to Andy Eschaskech for showing me this absolute wondrous site...

A Strangely Isolated Place -  the site features ambient mixes from many different electronic artists.  Brilliant resource for those who like this type of mesmeric audio Rothko - amazing stuff.


Czech aus ist ambient perfection from Marsen Jules - absolutely beautiful sequence of beatless perfection.


isolatedmix 18 - Marsen Jules - Drifting in the Liquid Air by astrangelyisolatedplace

Cyrano's Space Race

Cyrano de Bergerac was famed for his duelling skills as well as his prose.  It appears that his scientific theories deserve equal praise.

Writing in 1657, we see him devising several methods that would hopefully enable a human to reach the moon - something that was not actually managed until 1969.   Clearly a progressive thinker with big ideas, let's have a look at his seven potential methods:

BONE MARROW METHOD

0/10

 VIALS OF DEW METHOD

  0/10

 IRON PLATE & MAGNET METHOD

 0/10

HOT AIR CONTAINER METHOD

 1/10

 SMOKE FILLED GLOBE METHOD

0/10

 MECHANICAL STEEL GRASSHOPPER METHOD



0/10

10/10

Some of Cyrano's ideas are so preposterous that 0/10 is being too generous (practically every occasion).    However the overall mark has to be 10/10.  He worked hard on his ideas and wasn't afraid to think laterally. Getting to the moon isn't easy at the best of times and he fully deserves it. Ultimately got there in the end.

 

2001 theme v Elephant nursery

care share

super nice minimal file sharing app... https://www.wetransfer.com/
(via @jackbmurphy )
All web apps should be this clean.

A film about my sister's current work...

Memories Of Old Awake from Cambridge University on Vimeo.

My sister has a blog - Saga-Steads an account of her year long trip around Iceland.

This is a short film about some of her time there.

Calm down dears, it's just a Tudor Pop Song.

Sometimes Youtube comments are more entertaining than the clip itself.  Not in this case because the sheer brilliance of this clip is brighter than a million suns.  However some of these comments need to be shared nonetheless... 

These comments belong to an old post  from 2009 which features a medieval piece of music written by Henry VIII.  I revisited this post recently to discover that the comments were getting a touch out of hand in some instances.

 

Seriously?  You do remember that before you started acting all tough on youtube.com

you were getting down to a  Tudor smash-hit right?

 

:Le Rave:

Sometimes you are forced to dance in order to get alchohol.  In a recent roadside night-spot/club in Dijon we had to participate to precipitate wine and beer...  All those nights dancing in London, Berlin and Ibiza actually paid off in the end - we were sold three crates and 12 bottles of Rose...

SVEN the TERRIBLE

This is for anyone that has queued up to get turned away by the most iconic bouncer the world has ever seen. Berghain's  Sven 'the Terrible' Marquardt
New York Times interview  <------

He owns the door to the best club in the world and probably won't let you in. Unless you're with me.

He is also famous fetish photographer. I don't know that much about fetish photogpraphy but something tells me he's got the hang of it...

                                                                   

ϟϟ THE CROW ϟϟ

next level vibes here from @slugtownzboys ...

Abbey Road studio 3 desk.

Heavenly Creatures

A Some of photographs of good looking things found in the Spiti Valley - Himachal, India. Bigger images can be found if the pictures are clicked on.

This girl and grandmother were on the way up to their home, the village of Ki, 4,200m above sea level in the Spiti Valley.

This mewling sprog was milling around in a roadside dhaba with her brother.

The 1000+ year old Dhankar Monastary is home to some very lovely animals and humans.

This lost lamb found a temporary mother got very attached to Jess

This little kid didn't know anything apart from bleating a lot and looking totally pathetic.

Hitching from village to village and often sharing cars with whole families who seemed to quite enjoy having us there. This mute girl had fairly frost bitten cheeks from the harsh winter just passed.