Nam June Paik died.
I never met Nam June, there was no reason why I should have I suppose, but Emily used to talk very warmly of him. When I spent time working in New York Emily would point out places of particular Fluxinterest in and around SoHo - the loft that John and Yoko almost bought (!), the boiler that Yoko Ono broke and Yoshi Wada fixed. (There are some fantastic photos of Yoshi Wada rebuilding the furnace in 537 Broadway - Fluxplumbing! I think it's the one that's still in use.) The site of this performance and that, Ay-O's Black Hole - the gallery is in George Maciunas' last loft, under the floorboards there's a piece by Jean Dupuy, actually it's part of the floor. You unscrew two panels, one at either side of the gallery and look into the dark hole, and you see the ceiling! It's all done by mirrors you know! I always wanted to add another mirror so that when you looked into the hole, you'd be looking up your own backside. I got to look under the floor but there was nothing hidden there, just plaster and remnants of old performances, I left it all where it was. I got to hang out with Ay-O, he and his wife cooked us dinner, I helped Emmett Williams and Larry Miller, had tea with Alison Knowles. I spent a fortnight working with Henry Flynt, scanning photos for him, by the second week he began to relax and trust me, he gave me a CD. Emily introduced me to Jeff Perkins, I like Jeff but my drinks bills seemed to double.
I went to Alain Arias Misson's post 9/11 house-reopening party in Battery Park with Jean and Olga, we walked home past the World Trade Centre site two weeks after the attack. Emily made us keep the windows closed for the smoke. Larry and I were allowed to smoke in the airshaft, for a while anyway. Emily didn't like cigarettes around the place, but you could smoke a joint ok. Emily showed me a photo of Ay-O's Rainbow Washing, hung between the Twin Towers for Charlotte Moorman's Avante Garde Festival sometime wayback when. I went to help Larry in his studio (in the middle of which I went to the Port Authority Bus Depot to meet Melissa McCarthy), I helped him pack up for a show. Larry's studio contains the Bob Watts Memorial Archive and I didn't dare ask to look around. We talked and smoked a lot of cigarettes and recited Eddie Izzard sketches- 'Do you have a flag?' Emily and Davidson took me to an opening at a gallery half way up the Empire State Building, we were in jeans and no-one else was, I remember that the wine was awful. On the way to Ay-O's or to visit Alison Knowles or to go to the post office or to go to Canal Jeans or The Pearl River Trading Co. (I think) or to have a mooch along Canal Street or to go and watch RAI 1 through the window of a restaurant on Mulberry St, I'd pass a cafè on the corner of Spring St and Broadway. Some fancy Italian style cafè with overpriced coffee and pastries. I liked walking past as the seating area was raised up from street level. Knee height in the bar was about eye-level on the street, there are some lovely knees and surrounding areas amongst the office and shop girls of SoHo!
Emily told me that Nam June Paik used to sit on the bench outside this cafè on regular basis and just watch the word go by. Perhaps he liked a well-turned leg too. She showed me a nice photo of him with Geoff Hendricks and Dick Higgins (if my memory serves me correctly) on that bench. I never saw him there.
Now I never will, so nothing will change there.
Emily has gone too, I have a lot to thank her for.
Now where did all that come from then...? And that didn't include the Fluxlist meetings.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
sratgne ubt erut?
itns ti sratneg taht spedite het caft taht siht si lal mexid pu, oyu anc slilt ekam snese of ti!?
goodness gracious great balls of stuffing....
my word! an obstinate little bugger that merlot still, i think i got the better of it. a 'vino dell'amicizia' from the piave region it accompanied quite nicely some roasted pork loin with potatoes, stuffing, cabbage and some really quite sweet roasted carrots. very nice indeed and quite, quite un-italian. an english style sunday lunch, only served at 8.30 in the evening in italy.
got the keyboard to work, after a lot of stress and emails to roland, fluxlist, anybody i could think of. but, dear reader, if you can get past this excess of commas you may be amazed to find that i fixed the problem myself!
yes i did!
really!
i learned to recognise the difference between 'in' and 'out'. i knew something was up and it seemed that one seemed to have more letters than the other... i took the most letters out of the back of the keyboard and put the one with less in, and "hey tesco!" music!
of a sort anyway.
Now i just have to learn to play and to use the software.
got the keyboard to work, after a lot of stress and emails to roland, fluxlist, anybody i could think of. but, dear reader, if you can get past this excess of commas you may be amazed to find that i fixed the problem myself!
yes i did!
really!
i learned to recognise the difference between 'in' and 'out'. i knew something was up and it seemed that one seemed to have more letters than the other... i took the most letters out of the back of the keyboard and put the one with less in, and "hey tesco!" music!
of a sort anyway.
Now i just have to learn to play and to use the software.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
tinkle tinkle...the quincy jones of the avante-garde...
just bought a roland midi-controller keyboard. i found a little bit of unused space in the apartment hat had nothing interesting to gather dust on in it!
actually i'm very excited. i don't really play keyboards but to begin with i aim to elaborate on some 'soundsdcape' stuff and then who knows i might even try and learn to play.
the moby of mestre....
may the great gods of valhalla help us all!
actually i'm very excited. i don't really play keyboards but to begin with i aim to elaborate on some 'soundsdcape' stuff and then who knows i might even try and learn to play.
the moby of mestre....
may the great gods of valhalla help us all!
"dum, dum,dum,dum,dummy,dummy, dum, dum"
aha....
a rather impertinent sangiovese di romagna to accompany my lack of dinner this evening.
i say old chums it's all rather a bit of a rum do if you ask me. oh rum, now there's an idea.
the truth is that there's just not really anything to eat in the house, well there is, it's just that we can't be bothered to cook it and last night's split pea and wheat soup (which was delicious even if i say so myself), well it just doesn't seem that appealing this evening. even the boys wolfed it down, mind you daniel was up at 3a.m. screaming and didn't go back to sleep until the middle of his breakfast at 7.45!
i remember the days before babies when 3 hours sleep wasn't that bad on a weekday, in the days of la tavernetta on via ca' rossa. fabio was supposed to close at 7.30p.m. but many an evening we've rolled out of there after 11 and on to the 'irish' about 200 yards away for some rather potent little gin and tonics.
ah, the bad old, good old bad old days - never quite sure how to look at them really - enjoyable at the time, horrible the day after, workin 8 hours on pure adrenalin, being unable to face food and whan glasses of water tasted like last night's booze and cigarettes.
actually, they were pretty good times it's just that i don't feel that bad that they're over. perhaps i'm growing up!
naaaa!
it's funny though, well not funny ha ha but funny / uncomfortable sometimes when people associate you with the quantity you can/could drink, how 'hard' they think you are, how off the wall. i am a pretty ordinary bloke, certainly in my eyes anyway. i'm not hard, or even violent (although if i do go off i know that i've scared a few people here - but it's only hot air) and i certainly have never classed myself as 'odd', 'wierd', 'crazy', 'wild' or any other of those vile little tags people like to stick on those who conform differently to themselves.
i remember coming to play in a band here in italy and the lads being stunned by that fact that i plugged wolf's semi-acoustic (orange crate!) bass into distortion and chorus pedals, didn't want to write down the verse/chorus structure of 'anarchy in the uk' on a sheet of squared paper just so we'd know how it went, and that i jumped around in the rehearsal room and on stage (when there was space). i was labelled then and have been by others as that 'english' style musician, the one with the wierd stlye! I am a belove average talent guitarist and an inept bassist but i like to jam and play around, and jumping around helps me keep time and disguises the fact that i'm only really playing "dum, dum,dum,dum,dummy,dummy, dum, dum" on the bass!
now where did all that come from then ( a dinner the other night actually..zz.zzzzz.zz, thank god for diego and jelena i'd say)
i was only going to write about having nothing to say.
well i suppose i didn't really have anything to say really, so i wrote it.
a rather impertinent sangiovese di romagna to accompany my lack of dinner this evening.
i say old chums it's all rather a bit of a rum do if you ask me. oh rum, now there's an idea.
the truth is that there's just not really anything to eat in the house, well there is, it's just that we can't be bothered to cook it and last night's split pea and wheat soup (which was delicious even if i say so myself), well it just doesn't seem that appealing this evening. even the boys wolfed it down, mind you daniel was up at 3a.m. screaming and didn't go back to sleep until the middle of his breakfast at 7.45!
i remember the days before babies when 3 hours sleep wasn't that bad on a weekday, in the days of la tavernetta on via ca' rossa. fabio was supposed to close at 7.30p.m. but many an evening we've rolled out of there after 11 and on to the 'irish' about 200 yards away for some rather potent little gin and tonics.
ah, the bad old, good old bad old days - never quite sure how to look at them really - enjoyable at the time, horrible the day after, workin 8 hours on pure adrenalin, being unable to face food and whan glasses of water tasted like last night's booze and cigarettes.
actually, they were pretty good times it's just that i don't feel that bad that they're over. perhaps i'm growing up!
naaaa!
it's funny though, well not funny ha ha but funny / uncomfortable sometimes when people associate you with the quantity you can/could drink, how 'hard' they think you are, how off the wall. i am a pretty ordinary bloke, certainly in my eyes anyway. i'm not hard, or even violent (although if i do go off i know that i've scared a few people here - but it's only hot air) and i certainly have never classed myself as 'odd', 'wierd', 'crazy', 'wild' or any other of those vile little tags people like to stick on those who conform differently to themselves.
i remember coming to play in a band here in italy and the lads being stunned by that fact that i plugged wolf's semi-acoustic (orange crate!) bass into distortion and chorus pedals, didn't want to write down the verse/chorus structure of 'anarchy in the uk' on a sheet of squared paper just so we'd know how it went, and that i jumped around in the rehearsal room and on stage (when there was space). i was labelled then and have been by others as that 'english' style musician, the one with the wierd stlye! I am a belove average talent guitarist and an inept bassist but i like to jam and play around, and jumping around helps me keep time and disguises the fact that i'm only really playing "dum, dum,dum,dum,dummy,dummy, dum, dum" on the bass!
now where did all that come from then ( a dinner the other night actually..zz.zzzzz.zz, thank god for diego and jelena i'd say)
i was only going to write about having nothing to say.
well i suppose i didn't really have anything to say really, so i wrote it.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Sunday, January 01, 2006
aitch enn why
happy new year!
we've been very busy of late, hence the complete lack of anything on this blog.
let's hope i can find some time this year!
we've been very busy of late, hence the complete lack of anything on this blog.
let's hope i can find some time this year!
Friday, December 09, 2005
nowt in particular
It's been a long time since I've written anything here. I just don't have the time, what with work, children, odds and sods to do in the house. Oh and the simple lack of inspiration - I'd forgotten the word itself there for a moment!
Been trying to write to Freeformfreakout biography of Sol Nte (No I did spell that correctly!), Stoke on Trent's greatest living anagram of a river, been averaging about 5 to 10 minutes a day - hardly good for the creative flow and all that, still it's coming along.
hopefully things'll pick up over the christmas break.
jingle hell, jingle hell.....
Been trying to write to Freeformfreakout biography of Sol Nte (No I did spell that correctly!), Stoke on Trent's greatest living anagram of a river, been averaging about 5 to 10 minutes a day - hardly good for the creative flow and all that, still it's coming along.
hopefully things'll pick up over the christmas break.
jingle hell, jingle hell.....
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
blogger plug in for firefox
i found a plugin for firefox that, with a simple click of the old right mouse button, lets you add stuff to you blog, directly from the webpage.
just how nerdy am i?!?!?
just how nerdy am i?!?!?
dull news
things have all gone a bit flat here. i've been fairly productive in my absence from work, apart from looking after sick babies i've been working on some
series of digital prints. some sets are colour photos altered to resemble b&w photocopies, others are photo-collages and others tracings of texts.
disinterred and old project '100 surface music events' and am working on 'surface music event #s 101-107', which are tracings.
but i still don't feel as if my brain's working properly - it feels like it's been removed and replaced with a wet towel covered in mashed potato.
series of digital prints. some sets are colour photos altered to resemble b&w photocopies, others are photo-collages and others tracings of texts.
disinterred and old project '100 surface music events' and am working on 'surface music event #s 101-107', which are tracings.
but i still don't feel as if my brain's working properly - it feels like it's been removed and replaced with a wet towel covered in mashed potato.
squashing sleepiness
had some friends here from the UK at the weekend. i felt like it was the first time i'd had a proper conversation with someone apart from nic for a loooong time. at times i felt as if i must have been talking like a machine gun, trying to get out everything i wanted to say. yet when i sit down here to write, be it this blog or a biography i want to write for a fluxlist project, my concentration goes, i get confused, someone swaps the keys around on the computer
i'm sure, and i'm hit with crushing tiredness.
so that's it.
i'm sure, and i'm hit with crushing tiredness.
so that's it.
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