Five views of interiors of the Meiji-era Tokyo Imperial Palace, before it was destroyed in the fire-bombing raid by the Allied forces on 25th May, 1945.
This time last week I was about to start playing a few choice morsels of music in a small, rather unnecessary effort to assist Kris with djing at the Ganglions gig at Debaser here in Malmö. Kris was playing until around 3am and so had a playlist reaching over 100 songs. I struggled to find 29 songs that I thought complimented each other well enough to be played, and always seem to end up making djing out to be more stressful than it actually is. In the end, I felt my 29 songs were just the right amount for my brief cameo behind the decks between the bands, and a little thereafter.
The songs I played, in no particular order:
The Band - He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart)
Love - Can't Explain
The Longboatmen - Take Her Anytime
Lee Hazlewood & Suzi Jane Hokom - Califia (Stone Rider)
David Bowie - And I Say To Myself
The Miracles - Way Over There
The Rooks - Bound to Lose
The Shags - Don't Press Your Luck
The Malibus - Leave Me Alone
Neil Diamond - Girl You'll Be a Woman Soon
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun
Tommy James & The Shondells - Crystal Blue Persuasion
The Trolls - Are You the One
The Four Tops - Baby I Need Your Loving
Veronica Falls - Bad Feeling
Normie Rowe - Tell Him I'm Not Home
Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
Look Blue Go Purple - Safety In Crosswords
The Rolling Stones - Under My Thumb
Paul Messis - What Am I Going to Do
Sonny & Cher - You Don't Love Me
The Rare Breed - Beg, Borrow, And Steal
Blondie - Pretty Baby
Duane Eddy & The Rebelettes - My Baby Plays The Same Old Song On His Guitar All Night Long
Designer Tokujin Yashioka created this window display for Maison Hermès for the winter of 2009. A black and white video of a closely cropped woman's face as she gently exhales - while a hanging Hermès scarf billows in sync with the imaginary air, due to a stealthily concealed fan.
A wonderful illsion of life and movement which shifts the focus from the fabricated nature commonly associated with the silver screen, into a new semblance of reality; perhaps a literal, physical manifestation of the idea of 'breathing new life' into something.
in fact, according to the man himself:
"on designing a window-display of Maison Hermès, I intended to express people’s daily 'movements'
with a suspicion of humor. there are moments when I perceive a hidden presence of a person in
the movements born naturally in daily life. I created a design where one can perceive someone
behind the scarves as if life were being breathed into them.
the window is designed with an image of woman projected on to a monitor. the scarf softly sways
in the air in response to the woman’s blow."
I am always impressed by how as colloquialism, pun or play on words can, instead of just being a one-trick pony, manifest itself into a multi-faceted, layered work. This idea is something I aspire to achieve with my own work and my own incorporation of wordplay therein.
Three photographs taken by Robert F. Scott on his ultimately fatal expedition to Antarctica, racing the Norwegian Roald Amundson to the South Pole across the desolate and uncompromising, yet epic and sublime landscape.
Scott was an amateur photographer taught the technical basics by the expeditions professional, Herbert Ponting, so Scott could document the final trudge to the Pole for scientific (and now, historic) purposes. A collection of Scott's photographs have recently been rediscovered and compiled into a book 'The Lose Photographs of Captain Scott' by David M. Wilson, incidentally the great-nephew of Dr Edward Wilson, member of the Terra Nova Expedition.
They make me feel an astonishing sense of loneliness and isolation that I have grown to associate with rocks, ice, islands and the colour white.
some brief descriptions of the above photographs, via The Guardian
1. Dr Edward Wilson sketching on the Beardmore Glacier, lunch camp, 13 December 1911
Wilson is seen here sitting quietly, sketching. He was one of the last artists in the great expedition tradition in which the pencil was the main method of making records. He produced many yards of accurate geographical drawings, as well as extensive notes and sketches of anything of scientific interest. Here he is drawing the mountain ranges along the Beardmore Glacier, from Mount Elizabeth (left) to the Socks Glacier and Mount Fox (right).
This panorama is the finest example of Scott's mastery of his camera, gained on the march in extreme conditions. The combination of action and repose – illustrative of Scott's unique pictorial understanding – encapsulates the contrast between the Antarctic's majesty and man's diminutive presence
2. Ponies on the march, 2 December 1911
As the pony column disappears into the distance, the "sledgeometer" on the final sledge clicking the mileage as it goes, the straggle of ponies becomes veiled in the icy wilderness. Many of the men in this image would return, but not all. None of the ponies would: within a few days they would be shot.
3. Camp under the Wild Mountains, 20 December 1911
Scott took this impressive image to capture the interesting geological features around Mount Wild. On the sledge in the camp, two figures can be seen sketching. On the left, Apsley Cherry Garrard is drawing the view towards Mount Buckley; on the right, Edward Wilson is making detailed sketches and notes of the geological features so clearly visible in Scott's photograph. The other figure that can be seen is probably Birdie Bowers, who died with Scott on their return from the polar expedition, just months later. Scott returned his camera to base with the First Supporting Party as they departed from the top of Beardmore Glacier towards Cape Evans. Critically, this lightened the sledge loads for the push across the Polar Plateau to the South Pole. Bowers, with his lighter camera, was chosen by Scott to become the photographer for the final pole party.
