Barnacled Warship

    

 Currently enjoying the scratchy fiddling & monochromatic 

animation of Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit:

  

 

Also intrigued by the unlikely tale of the dashing
young folkster's first brush with the limelight.

   

    

About A Girl

  

  

Where Did The Night Go?

R.I.P. The Talented & Troubled Gil Scott-Heron

Poet, Singer, Author & Teller of Uncomfortable Truths

Who Passed Away Last Friday, Aged 62.

  

Often typecast as a rap progenitor - a label he steadfastly rejected - he more accurately suggested a mix of Richard Pryor’s darkly comical oratory, beat poetry & blues-inflected ballad-singing. The music embodied many of the values of ‘70s jazz fusion, for better or worse. There were elastic time signatures & flowing keyboard melodies, but there were also plenty of meandering flute solos.

Even amid the pastel arrangements, Scott-Heron’s rich, mahogany voice commanded attention. He made poetry of confrontation, & art out of everyday life.

Chicagotribune.com
   

  

  

Sunday Kind Of Love

 
A pictorial follow-up on the antics of 

the We Hate Sundays folks:

Discos & Chica 

Windie

  Red Spring
 
 

My previous post about the duo's weekly blog

has since been included on their mentions page.

 

 

  

Silver Threads And Golden Needles

     

  

Based on 'save vs. splurge' shopping tactics,

Recent purchases have included the following:

  

 
Topshop Feather Drop Earrings:

Similar to Alex Monroe's creations
   

  
A|wear Print Scarf:

An affordable alternative to
prototypical chain styles by Chanel et al.
 

  
Accessorize* Box Clutch with Puma Clasp:

An infinitely more reasonable take on the
aforementioned Mulberry Lily
 
 

*The Accessorize approach to currency conversion seems to be premised on an irksome 'double the sterling' policy, so prospective purchasers would be well advised to buy from their website rather than in-store. 

  

  

 

Pretty In Pink

An homage to the eponymous hue 

of my favourite eighties Brat Pack movie
by the late John Hughes:

     

  

 

  

      

  

 

 

  

 

  

   

       

This particular colour played a significant role during my formative years, maybe owing to my having assimilated some manner of gender-stereotyped marketing, or the fact that the first full sentence of la langue française I managed to commit to memory was: 'Je porte une robe rose'.  

    

In any case, time it was when it was the only shade I would willingly wear, and when my entire bedroom was a hideous, chintzy pink shrine.

    

Consequently, I now approach the colour with perhaps undue caution.
     

 

Better Git It In Your Soul

 

   

Given my current line of work, it frequently occurs to me 

that teaching is the art of calculated simplification.

       

 

The Grand Illusion

 

What you're looking at isn't a painting. It's not a photoshop job, or an artist's rendering. It's a National Geographic photograph that captures Namib-Naukluft Park at the most perfect moment imaginable. Click the image to larger size for the full effect.

Tinted orange by the morning sun, a soaring dune is the backdrop for the hulks of Namibian camel thorn trees and, while the trees themselves look like etchings from a dream, they're a very real part of one of the country's largest national parks.

Still, it's almost impossible to believe that the only paintbrush used was nature's.

From gizmodo.com.
 

Beatles For Sale

 

 

 Beatlemania by Martworks
 

Beatlejuice by Marc Valega
   

  
And, from my Current Wishlist:

40's Coloured Glass Beetle Brooch

  

Human Behaviour

  

There's defintely, definitely, definitely no logic

 

 

To human behaviour - There's no map

 

 

And a compass wouldn't help at all.

    

#9 Dream

  

   

Take My Breath Away

  Portable mp3  'Ampoids' 

 

 

 Brought to you by the original 

'curiously strong' breath mint that 

dates back to the reign of George III.

  

  

Pepperminty ♫
 

Tangled Up In Blue

Happy 70th Birthday to The Great Bobby D.
 

 
It seems as though his resemblance to Salvador Dali
grows ever more striking with the passing of years.
 

 
All he now lacks is a curly moustache 

& a penchant for the absurd.   
      

    

...Or perhaps he's a modern-day Vincent Price,

minus the villainous streak?

     

Mirador

Much looking forward to The Reich Effect this July:
 

'A musical feast to mark
the 75th year of Steve Reich.'

   
One of the event's featured acts is
Copenhagen based alt. folk group, Efterklang.
 

  
 
Mirador is a video from their colourful collection,
taken from the 2007 album, Parades,
and featuring an illustrated narrative by
Jens Christian Høgni Larsen & Nan Na Hvass.

 

Heartwork

There has always been a little green 

behind the red, white & blue.

Earlier this evening, Obama addressed a crowd of nearly 60,000 in Dublin's College Green, thereby culminating his one-day visit to Irish shores:

This little country...it inspires the biggest things.

As well as coming home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way, he also managed to down a pint o' the black stuff, before making a public address that confirmed his mettle as an inspirational leader, a storyteller, and a gent, through and through.
   
 

       

Blue Cassette

Friendly Fires's second album, Pala, was released this month, its name being inspired by Aldous Huxley's final novel, Island, in which a journalist is shipwrecked on a utopian island of the same name. 

I've not had a proper listen to the dance-punk outfit's latest offering as yet, but the cover alone inspires confidence in the content - the plumage pictured being representative of the parrots of Pala, who whisper words of encouragement to those in need. 

The image also brings to mind one of the pieces spotted at the Pompidou Centre, during last January's sojourn in Paris:

  

   

   

Here's the first single from the album:

 

  

It's The End Of The World As We Know It?

Apocalypse Not Now:

The Rapture Fails to Materialise

  

Christian doomsday prophet, Harold Camping, looks likely to be less than rapturous after his 2011 End Times Prediction did not, in fact, come to pass. The 89-year old Californian preacher had prophesied that the Rapture would begin at 6pm Saturday in each of the world's time zones, with those 'saved by Jesus' ascending to heaven and the non-believers being wiped out by an earthquake rolling from city to city across the planet.

As the deadline for the Apocalypse passed, it became apparent that his prediction was to end not with a bang but with a whimper. Only on Twitter did the supposed Armageddon sweep the world, with users planning doomsday parties and expressing mock disappointment at the absence of dead people rising from their graves.

...Better luck next time, then.
  

The Duck Song

It's weather for these fellers:

Hey, got any grapes?

    

Ain't She Sweet?

 
Repeated visits to the Catalonian metropolis of Barcelona have revealed a multitude of colourful graffiti to be one of its most impressive and memorable features.

In recent years, Vanessa Castex, better known as Miss Van, has become a staple on the street art scene there, and is perhaps the most prominent female graffiti artist of contemporary times. She is best known for her distinctively sloe-eyed Poupes (based on the Russian for 'doll'): a series of coquettish and sometimes disturbing characters, suggested as being possible self-portraits of their creator:

 

 

The erotic nature of these petulant little Poupes has incited anger amongst some feminists, though, given their openly provocative appearance, I suspect that the caricaturesque creations are a form of social commentary in their own right.

www.missvan.com