Holes, 1954
Source: Tate Modern (UK)
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Dirty Christmas knitwear
Lucy and I saw Ted (the jumper guy) at the Macbeth tonight, which is sick because I remember reading about him in print and thinking he would be a nice guy to be friends with.
Source: Vice (UK)
Source: Vice (UK)
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Thursday circuits
Art opening at B Store in Saville Row with the model scout, some architecture previews in Brick Lane and a light installation in Old Street with a Portuguese graphic designer.
I love Thursday evenings best of all. As long as you're dressed and sociable, the city seems yours for the taking. All the galleries are open and they're flooded with free drinks, snacks and fashionable people talking about fashionable things and how tiresome being fashionable is and what's going to be fashionable next and how they know the next big thing (and they must introduce you sometime... can they have your number?).
I love Thursday evenings best of all. As long as you're dressed and sociable, the city seems yours for the taking. All the galleries are open and they're flooded with free drinks, snacks and fashionable people talking about fashionable things and how tiresome being fashionable is and what's going to be fashionable next and how they know the next big thing (and they must introduce you sometime... can they have your number?).
Friday, June 13, 2008
Shoreditch House
A night with Carly and the girls at Shoreditch House, drinking wine by the roof top pool, overlooking the city in a sea of sparkling lights.
As amazing as the whole place is, my favourite spot is the Games Room, which is walled on one side with bookshelves of large format hardcover photography books and on another with a pool table. In the middle are Space Invaders tables with chairs facing the inset screens, and at the back, a wall of apothecary jars filled with candy, yours for the taking...
Source: GIS, New York Times (USA)
As amazing as the whole place is, my favourite spot is the Games Room, which is walled on one side with bookshelves of large format hardcover photography books and on another with a pool table. In the middle are Space Invaders tables with chairs facing the inset screens, and at the back, a wall of apothecary jars filled with candy, yours for the taking...
Source: GIS, New York Times (USA)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
A friend of Sacha Distel
Date with the installation artist that I met at Bistroteque after a trendy Hackney art show. We went to Nobu and spent more on mojitos and maki than Jo and I do on a month's rent, listened to The Rolling Stones on his iPod at a seedy member's club in Soho where Damien Hirst pays for his drinks in doodles, and took horrendous shots of butterscotch and liquorice vodka at Ghetto following iced coffee off Greek Street.
We met early at Green Park station, me in t-shirt as a dress, gold chain circlet and four-inch Oxfords, him in white jeans, grey tee, cowboy boots, and a weasel skull on a chain as a necklace. He is part Chinese (from his former Olympian father) and wears his hair long, black and glossy like an Injun chief. We spent most of the night talking about anthropology and primitive religion, and at one point he admitted that he was bummed because his parents had sold their summer home in Edinburgh to be converted into a hotel. I can relate.
We met early at Green Park station, me in t-shirt as a dress, gold chain circlet and four-inch Oxfords, him in white jeans, grey tee, cowboy boots, and a weasel skull on a chain as a necklace. He is part Chinese (from his former Olympian father) and wears his hair long, black and glossy like an Injun chief. We spent most of the night talking about anthropology and primitive religion, and at one point he admitted that he was bummed because his parents had sold their summer home in Edinburgh to be converted into a hotel. I can relate.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
London lite
Adele came in to work today to visit my favourite coworker/her videographer who is leaving on her US tour later this month - all expenses paid, plus a weekly allowance and all access passes to Bonnaroo. She was really chill and carrying the sort of Chanel handbag that's real but looks fake, something that Louis Vuitton has been specializing in since the early 00s.
I love all the celebrity sightings in Portobello. The paparazzi wear suits and carry telephoto lenses the length of my arm to train on Lily Allen and Helena Bonham Carter, Norman Cook and Ian Brown.
Kelly Rowland has come in a few times - on weekdays in sweatpants and a ponytail, on weekends with four inch heels, five inch extensions and two inch nails and lashes (for the cameras). Shaznay from All Saints was in twice last week for some casual clothes and Minnie Driver spilled her pregancy news as I helped her pick out some tunic-lenth tees.
It's easy to keep an eye out for the prime international targets, and the London daily rags are basically a flimsy paper Facebook of who to look out for in the market on weekends.
The market itself is a zoo. All the locals know to come on Fridays since tourists aren't told that it's open any day outside of Saturday. The antique books and prints and bric a brac have gouged a hole in my lunch money and I come back from my breaks with more skeleton keys and crane-shaped sewing scissors than egg-and-cress sandwiches.
As fun as weekends are, the security is also the toughest. We double our staff and the security guards are on high alert for the petty crooks and hustlers working on behalf of local gangs. The worst are the Spice Girls, a ring of 40+ immense black women in fluo spandex and fishnet monstrosities.
They come in pairs, usually with their kids in tow and a pram to stow their gear. They're exceedingly rough and ask obvious questions to distract the sales staff while the other stuffs racks full of clothing into the baby carriage. They favour all things shiny and metallic and use their children and their toothless mugs as deterrents to our protests.
The latest security guard, a tall, scrawny Nigerian who performs magic tricks during the lulls and chases children around the store, has had his pride wounded lately as stacks of clothing have gone missing while his back is turned. He's taken to hiding behind the racks near the side door so it looks like the store is empty, to lure the thieves in, wherein he will leap out from behind the clothes and nab them.
This week he caught the Spice Girls in the act near the back of the store, with some PVC skirts peeking out of their purses. When he confronted them, they lashed out and beat him loudly and roundly to the ground in front of the Saturday crowds. While one ripped at his shirt, another stole his watch and their diversion-tactic spawn kicked him in the shins. They made off before the police could even consider forging a path through the scrum of weekend shoppers.
After filing a report and accepting a shirt from the shop floor, he left and we haven't seen him since. It's sad because lately he's been on an apple kick for lunch - eating two or three at a time - and he left an entire grocery bag full of fruit near the fridge and we don't know what to do with it (or why he brought thirty apples with him that day in the first place).
I love all the celebrity sightings in Portobello. The paparazzi wear suits and carry telephoto lenses the length of my arm to train on Lily Allen and Helena Bonham Carter, Norman Cook and Ian Brown.
Kelly Rowland has come in a few times - on weekdays in sweatpants and a ponytail, on weekends with four inch heels, five inch extensions and two inch nails and lashes (for the cameras). Shaznay from All Saints was in twice last week for some casual clothes and Minnie Driver spilled her pregancy news as I helped her pick out some tunic-lenth tees.
It's easy to keep an eye out for the prime international targets, and the London daily rags are basically a flimsy paper Facebook of who to look out for in the market on weekends.
The market itself is a zoo. All the locals know to come on Fridays since tourists aren't told that it's open any day outside of Saturday. The antique books and prints and bric a brac have gouged a hole in my lunch money and I come back from my breaks with more skeleton keys and crane-shaped sewing scissors than egg-and-cress sandwiches.
As fun as weekends are, the security is also the toughest. We double our staff and the security guards are on high alert for the petty crooks and hustlers working on behalf of local gangs. The worst are the Spice Girls, a ring of 40+ immense black women in fluo spandex and fishnet monstrosities.
They come in pairs, usually with their kids in tow and a pram to stow their gear. They're exceedingly rough and ask obvious questions to distract the sales staff while the other stuffs racks full of clothing into the baby carriage. They favour all things shiny and metallic and use their children and their toothless mugs as deterrents to our protests.
The latest security guard, a tall, scrawny Nigerian who performs magic tricks during the lulls and chases children around the store, has had his pride wounded lately as stacks of clothing have gone missing while his back is turned. He's taken to hiding behind the racks near the side door so it looks like the store is empty, to lure the thieves in, wherein he will leap out from behind the clothes and nab them.
This week he caught the Spice Girls in the act near the back of the store, with some PVC skirts peeking out of their purses. When he confronted them, they lashed out and beat him loudly and roundly to the ground in front of the Saturday crowds. While one ripped at his shirt, another stole his watch and their diversion-tactic spawn kicked him in the shins. They made off before the police could even consider forging a path through the scrum of weekend shoppers.
After filing a report and accepting a shirt from the shop floor, he left and we haven't seen him since. It's sad because lately he's been on an apple kick for lunch - eating two or three at a time - and he left an entire grocery bag full of fruit near the fridge and we don't know what to do with it (or why he brought thirty apples with him that day in the first place).
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Six degrees
Slow days at work can be measured in how many movie connections we make. There is a game that goes around the store where two seemingly unrelated actors are linked by the tenuous connection of costars in former feature films.
Today's surprise stumpers were "Former boy band members Mark Wahlberg and Justin Timberlake" and "Knighted actors Ian McKellen and Ben Kingsley." Inexplicably, almost every pairing this week crossed through a film starring Liv Tyler or Tom Cruise.
After the unforseeably arduous process of renting a place in East London, our lease was accepted today, which was some cause for celebration. Everything was finally coming together with Jo's finances sorted out and my payday coinciding with the afternoon that we needed to put down one-month upfront and six-weeks deposit.
Or would have coincided had I lived in Canada where pay is doled out every two weeks, rather than once a month. So the pittance that I have dutifully earned is not mine for the spending for another three weeks, including the minimum wage that I worked for to pay the rent and deposit so we could pick up the keys.
Today's surprise stumpers were "Former boy band members Mark Wahlberg and Justin Timberlake" and "Knighted actors Ian McKellen and Ben Kingsley." Inexplicably, almost every pairing this week crossed through a film starring Liv Tyler or Tom Cruise.
After the unforseeably arduous process of renting a place in East London, our lease was accepted today, which was some cause for celebration. Everything was finally coming together with Jo's finances sorted out and my payday coinciding with the afternoon that we needed to put down one-month upfront and six-weeks deposit.
Or would have coincided had I lived in Canada where pay is doled out every two weeks, rather than once a month. So the pittance that I have dutifully earned is not mine for the spending for another three weeks, including the minimum wage that I worked for to pay the rent and deposit so we could pick up the keys.
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