Thursday 2 December 2010

Travel


trav·el/ˈtrævhttp://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngəl/ http://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif [trav-uhhttp://sp.dictionary.com/dictstatic/dictionary/graphics/luna/thinsp.pngl]
–verb (used without object)
1.to go from one place to another, as by car, train, plane, or ship; take a trip; journey: to travel for pleasure.

I love travelling. Just the idea of travelling tomorrow excites me beyond and beyond anything else today. When I say travelling I mean it in the literal sense of the word travel. I’m not referring to reaching that travel destination and ‘checking it out’ – I’m talking journeying between exit and entry points. Whether by bus, train or car (never plane), I find spending time onboard my travel medium more enjoyable than getting there.

The space between X and Y is in itself insurmountable to any co-ordinates on Google maps. It’s that unhyped space BBC Travel writers forget to mention. It’s not a place – if so, then it’s a placeless place with infinite possibility attached to its name. That very space, filled with limbo and sometimes (un)comfort and predictability,  provides a pleasant feeling enough to curl my toes. I’ll be in motion this weekend first by foot, then bus, then train and finally with tram– and back again, juggling portmanteaus, cameras, snow and old friends.

Where I  go to is not really interesting today but instead how I go, and most importantly – my time spent going.

Wednesday 1 December 2010

The Hague

Happy December, happy birthday Tre-tre Heard.

Dapper dandyism
The best pumkin soup was served to me here, at Cafe Eet Cloos - but unfortunately so was the hand-served bun by a unfazed waitron. 


Saturday 27 November 2010

Jo'bugged

Memoirs of spring... with the help of a lomo

  

Western ways


 Picture by Leila Berney

Woke up to sleet this morning – facing this weather totting an omelette and a cup of English tea blend with no real desire to join my partners fight the bloody drunken battles, but I do. Watching modern westerns would do me just fine instead.

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Saturday 20 November 2010

Analogue love

Thirza Schaap

Amsterdam's first photography museum, Huis Marseille will be hosting Digital? Analogue! - a group exhibition aimed at paying homage to renowned photographic printer Peter Svensson.

Digital? Analogue! will take place from 27 Nov - 27 Dec 2010.

Thursday 18 November 2010

Flavours of India

Naan bread and lamb accompaniment
Connecting reserving a table to dining at the then three star Eastern Boulevard Holiday Inn restaurant in Cape Town in the late 80s was second nature until watching Date Night earlier this year. 

Seeing that this was my first restaurant reservation – I wanted to do it just right. So after practicing my lines, I picked up my receiver  and without  any hesitation dialled the number and made a reservation for two people, at exactly 6.30pm that very evening. 

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Romance

"Romance is about the possibility of things. You see, it's about the time between when you first meet some fine ass woman and when you first make love to her. And when you first ask a woman to marry you, and when she says, "I do". When people that have been together for a long time say the romance is gone... hmmhmm. What they're really saying is that they've exhausted the possibility."    -- Darius Lovehall, Love Jones

Monday 15 November 2010

Friday 12 November 2010

Friday's fascination

Obsessing over:

Olivia Bee photographs, again;


wrap variations;


 and, Quadron's simple version of a favourite Michael Jackson track.

Sally the Serial Sorry Sayer

For the very first time in such a long time Sally-the-serial-sorry-sayer found insincerity in her routine saying: “sorry”. During the seven years shared with Steve in the suburb of Saxonwold, sentences usually started with her uttering her winning slogan: “I’m sorry”, and sometimes, “I’m so so sorry Stevie.”

As per usual, saying sorry typically slipped out of Sally’s hung-over face the next morning she and her faithful Steve had a squabble which lead to her smoking a spliff on the street corner then storming off to the pub –with Steve seven minutes in tow. When at the bar, in full view of spectators, Sally would cause a scene while an embarrassed Steve stared at Sally in disappointment. Unashamedly and just to stir up anger inside Steve, Sally seductively swayed her hips, flirted and stroked the side, stomach and groin of any single or taken man who showed interest in Sally. After all their years of marriage, Sally’s habitual stunts didn’t make Steve envious, or even sad – instead, this was generally Steve’s cue to climb back into his silver sedan and drive up Jan Smuts, right back to Saxonwold.

For the last seven years, both Steven and Sally knew that her uttering a meagre apology in that annoying soprano voice of hers, accompanied by her very best soft sorrowful eyes, would be satisfactory enough for Steve to feel sorry for his little Sally; and sympathetically respond with giving her a squeeze so hard it made her think he was trying to suffocate her.

Slithering back into their sunlit garden, subconsciously Sally-the-serial-sorry-sayer knew that on this particular Sunday morning, saying sorry to her forgiving spouse would not suffice for her spiteful actions last night. Guilt-stricken with vague memories of Saturday evening, Sally softly closed the front door behind her, stumbled in the hallway and shouted for Steve to come down from his study for a serious sit-down. Swollen in the face from last night’s endeavours, Sally felt ashamed that she let things slip out of hand the way in which they did. The words “I am sorry” could hardly justify spreading her legs for a complete stranger while Steve lay fast asleep in the master bedroom.

As Steve stepped downstairs with a serious expression on his face, Sally felt a surreal bout of sadness overwhelm her body. Tears slowly seeped from her hideous face as her sober spouse stared down at her from the spiral staircase. Surprised to see his wife sob for the first time since the suicide of her sister six years prior, Steve could only but spread his arms and smother Sally. As she rested in his warm soft embrace, a strange sensation had sporadically come over her body which forced her – this time – to squeeze the life out of Steve. As Steve squealed and searched for air, Sally continued to suffocate and strangle him until he lay spiritless on the hard floor surface.

Like a serpent out of shallow still waters, Sally looked down at her lifeless spouse, and just like that – without any control over what came out of her mouth – stuttered her favourite saying, “I’m sorry.”

Wednesday 10 November 2010

I'm here

Spike Jones' short film I'm Here about robot love, sticker art and more...

WARNING: The movie music can be a bit much in this (and his other) film(s).

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Movie T's I




School Daze (Spike Lee) and Storytelling (Todd Solondz)

Rome

Level*

You wrote our names down on the sidewalk. The rain came and washed 'em off. So we should write 'em again on wet cement, so maybe people a long time from now will know what we meant. - The Raconteurs


*

Monday 8 November 2010

Thrift stores II

There's nothing more satisfying  than getting lost in a good old dusty squalid thrift store in the unsavoury part of town. The part of town known to be shopping heaven to only the dirt poor or those brave enough to venture in search of diamonds in the rough. Places so rough and mingy that imaging the garment on you will suffice because trying it on is, well, very fucking risky.

I haven't found that in the Netherlands (yet) but Joburg is a beautiful mine for such treasures.

Nonetheless, meet Lodekka...

Lisa

Foodish behaviour II


Melvin.


A great analogue invention and a pretty video from design duo HEYHEYHEY which I saw at Dutch Design Week 2010

Garbish garbage II

Fashion/textile design from DDW 2010:


More pictures after the break

Dutch Design Week 2010

Sprookjes NV Leo Coolen, Sprookjes NV
Elly and I casually approached the same old central station to wait for a friend travelling into the city at the usual waiting spot. Naturally of course, out of routine, we expected to see a sea of regulars, as not too many people in Eindhoven care to break the appearance a.k.a monoculture mould and venture into what some like to term: freak mode. However, this rainy Friday afternoon brought a whiff of difference to the city’s air.

As the two of us anxiously walked into the building, a sudden rush of  ‘arty’, ‘hipster’ or even ‘indie-like’ people – who ironically created a homogenous-like mould strong enough to distinguish them from the locals –  streamed out of different trains, paced in our direction,  marched straight pass us and then magically disappeared into the city, leaving a stench of wonder all over our clothes. 
 
The peculiarity of that grey day in the station went as far as witnessing an assorted bunch of people, squeezed into a 20 by 20 metre demarcated area, gyrating to the sound of, well, nothing really – until we realised they had white headphones shoved into their ears and were having a private silent disco, without inviting. Ah but alas, there is nothing more comforting than having a go at a group of people making asses out of themselves. I was envious. Elly was too. We wanted to be in the know and most importantly, we wanted in on the silent disco.

Thursday 4 November 2010

Poem

Rules and Regulations - Lewis Carrol


A short direction 
To avoid dejection, 
By variations 
In occupations, 
And prolongation 
Of relaxation, 
And combinations 
Of recreations, 
And disputation 
On the state of the nation 
In adaptation
To your station, 
By invitations 
To friends and relations, 
By evitation 
Of amputation, 
By permutation 
In conversation, 
And deep reflection 
You'll avoid dejection. 

Learn well your grammar, 
And never stammer, 
Write well and neatly, 
And sing most sweetly, 
Be enterprising, 
Love early rising, 
Go walk of six miles, 
Have ready quick smiles, 
With lightsome laughter, 
Soft flowing after. 
Drink tea, not coffee;
Never eat toffy. 
Eat bread with butter. 
Once more, don't stutter. 

Garbish garbage I


From duo Amy M. Philips and Fairlight Hubbard