Out In The Street

Things we saw today:

 

 

     

 

 

      

Dr. Pressure

 

The pressure is good for you!

 

Won't Back Down

  

 

  

Watch My Shoes

  

   

Christian Louboutin's Autumn/Winter 2011 Lookbook features Peter Lippmann's cleverly reinvented versions of iconic portraits from yesteryear, including Jean-Marc Nattier’s Marquise de Pompadour, pictured above. The theme of the collaboration is 'The Power of Femininity', as represented by historically significant women.

   

 Artist’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler

  

Francois Clouet’s Elizabeth of Austria

  

 Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait d’une Negresse

 

Francisco de Zurbaran’s Santa Dorotea

   

Flash

      

Koto Song

Sticking with the Orient, a piece from
Dave Brubeck's Jazz Impressions of Japan:

The video for Fujiyama features images by ukiyo-e painter and printer, Katsushika Hokusai, whom I first came across in a material way on purchasing a calendar of his collected works a few years back in Barcelona (surely the obvious destination for all things Eastern...)

I've since learned, from my more worldly other half, that Hokusai is commonly associated with the e'er so slightly bizarre 'tentacle porn', which muddied the waters somewhat. Personally, I prefer his pastoral prints:

 
My favourite 'Japanese impression' of them all
is Brubeck's Koto Song:
   

       

China Girl

Given the ever-expanding nature of my trinket collection, storage poses something of a challenge ... or so I told myself, as I purchased yet another 'practical' jewellery box recently:

 

 

Butterfly by Matthew Williamson

Chinoise Jewel-Pendant Box

... The picture does it no justice :)

  

   

 

All Too Soon

Amy Winehouse's death has sparked a resurgence of interest in the '27 Club', the original members of which were Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, all of whom died within two years of each other between 1969 and 1971. To this list is usually added Kurt Cobain (1994).

   
 

Jim Morrison (1943-1971)

Singer, poet, songwriter, writer & film director. Died in the bathtub of his Paris apartment. The cause of death was officially listed as heart failure, but heroin use was most likely involved, possibly inhaled because he thought it was cocaine. His girlfriend, Pamela Courson, gave numerous contradictory versions of his death. She died of a heroin overdose three years later, at the age of twenty-seven.

 

 

Janis Joplin (1943-1970)

  

Singer, songwriter & music arranger. Died in a L.A. motel room of a heroin overdose, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. She had recently become engaged, & was involved in recording the album 'Pearl'. The song 'Mercedes Benz' on this album was the last thing she recorded.

          

    

Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970)

  

Guitarist, singer, songwriter & record producer. Died in a London hotel room under circumstances which have never been fully explained. According to the doctor who attended to him, Hendrix asphyxiated (literally drowned) in his own vomit. His girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, claimed that he had taken her prescribed sleeping pills, but her comments were contradictory. In 1996, in the face of legal action, she committed suicide.

 

 

Brian Jones (1942-1969)

    

Guitarist with The Rolling Stones. Drowned in the swimming pool of his home in Hartfield, Sussex. After a second arrest for marijuana possession, substance abuse & mood swings, Jones was informed by the other band members that a replacement guitarist would be found, & that a U.S. tour would go ahead without him. The circumstances of his death are unknown, but the coroner’s report stated 'Death by Misadventure', spurring theories of suicide & murder. Shortly afterwards, Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to Jones, & Jim Morrison wrote a commemorative poem entitled 'Ode To L.A. While Thinking Of Brian Jones, Deceased'.

 

 

Kurt Cobain (1967-1994)

  

Singer, guitarist & songwriter. Committed suicide by gunshot in his home in Seattle. In the last years of his life, he struggled with drug addiction & media pressures.On April 8th, Cobain’s body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system, & who reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, initially believing that Cobain was asleep, before seeing the shotgun pointing at his chin. A suicide note was found at the scene, 'I haven’t felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music for too many years now'. A high concentration of heroin & traces of Valium were also found in his body. Cobain’s body had been lying there for days - the coroner’s report estimated Cobain to have died on April 5th.

       

 

Back To Black

 

  

'We have to expiate for this cursed talent handed out 

to us in the black mystery of genetics' - May Sarton

  

 

Electric Feel

Arizona artist, Joe Dragt recycles obsolete technology with a

novel twist, making the circuit board his medium of choice:

His ongoing circuit board series started just this year, when his work required that he send more than thirty old computers to a local company for recycling: 

'Seeing the stack of old computers, the idea struck me: the motherboards would make a really neat canvas; the complexity and patterns of all the circuits could make for stunning backgrounds.'
 

He recycles 100% of the computers, meticulously taking out every screw and separating pieces into categories accordingly, saving the motherboards to make such pieces as those viewable on his website: 

    

tomorrowandbeyond.com

  

The Devil Is In The Details

This was included in Hanna, released a few
months back, which featured an impressive
soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers:

 

You Don't Own Me

Urban Outfitters was recently involved in a copyright kerfuffle with a Chicago-based jewellery designer, regarding the now infamous I Heart Destination necklace. It later emerged that allegations of concept snatching were not all they appeared to be, but the incident highlighted once more, that ownership of ideas is a nebulous minefield of an issue.

 

Product pinching notwithstanding, I admit to having a weak spot for the 'hipster in a can' retailer, having procured the following in recent months:

 Polaroid Notes
  

Sass & Belle Wall Art Swallows

   

 Trusty Hipflask!
  

Mini Floral Clutch 

  

Their browseworthy summer sale eases the buyer's remorse somewhat: Urbanoutfitters.co.uk

      

Mellow Yellow

   

Sticky Sweet

   

    

Not so long ago, Haribo's gelatinous Maoam 

confectionary caused quite the stir, owing to such 

questionable packaging choices as the following:

     

 

S-candy-lous!

A company spokesman reportedly responded to 

objections voiced, explaining that this 'jovial Maoam 

man is very popular with fans, both young and old'.

    
   

Hand In Glove

With in excess of a hundred million (!) youtube views, 

Puppet Pals may well the catchiest creatures to emerge 

from the Harry Potter phenomenon, as the end draws near:

 

'Snape-Snape-Sev-er-us-Snape'

    

Today

 

This Too Shall Pass

  

Not just words to live by, but also a 

track by Chicagoan band, OK Go:

  

 

Using the Rube Goldberg Machine as a 

model, it took two days and eighty-nine 

separate takes to get it just so.

     

The Remedy

                                                                               

   

Oops, I Did It Again

   

MTV's newest series of safe sex awareness ads:

   

     

Acts Of Man

 

Midlake's 'Acts of Man', set to

'Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans',

Directed by F.W. Murnau (1927)

   

  

All Night Long

 

Image: Happy Chinchilla

  

Whispering Wind

Last weekend, we watched Horton Hears A Who, which boasted more than a light sprinkling of Dr. Seuss's creative genius dust. Coupled with an unpatronising allegory, an observatory turned magical music workshop and this criminally cute creature, I concluded that the movie is nothing short of a masterpiece.

  

A Cappella

Kelis is the living embodiment one of fashion's favourite muses of the moment, that of the feral warrior woman, though it should be said that she was working tribal prints & paraphernalia long before the highstreet got in on the act:

  

 

Those of us with Celtic complexions & colouring are a bit out of our depth when it comes to emulating glorious gettups like these. Still, there's no harm in looking.

  

  

Bitching & Junkfood Inca Headdress ↑
  

 

    

And selected accoutrements from Topshop ↑