Wednesday
Killer Machineri
Machineri's debut album has just been launched in South Africa and it's obviously brilliant. This is the first official music video off the self-titled album. How foxy is it?! It's no secret how massive a fan I am - nothing to do with my bias towards being able to call both Sannie and Andre family. Beaming with pride, shouting it from the ether waves, give em' all the support you have, no one deserves it more!
Find out more about the band and follow gig updates at http://www.myspace.com/machineri
and listen to the album at http://soundcloud.com/justmusicsouthafrica/sets/machineri-2011-debut-album/.
Tuesday
Fruits of Hackney
Never have I seen so many apples on a tree. No one picked them (except for the ones that I pinched) and now the street is full of run-over apples and smells like cider.
Friday
Edward Sharpe developed
I finally got seven spools of film developed. Completely overdue and lagging behind in blogposts, these pictures I am the most excited to show. I am constantly surprised by how well my little shit box of a camera performs, these were taken with the flash taped shut on a 400 speed film. Not bad, right?
Tuesday
Monday
Delightfully Monday
I am not a fan of reblogging other people's ideas and thoughts, but this one I could not help. Sent to me by my friend at Nowness, Hannah Cohen's Child Bride aids a gentle ease into the week, another week. This one has started sunny, London's breezy and the skies are blue. I am looking forward as job hunting requires endless planning - lots to be accomplished this week. With this melody in my ear, I will remember to keep things on the lighter side always, even if the thought of laying myself bare to prospective employers can be weighty indeed.
Hannah Cohen: Child Bride on Nowness.com.
Hannah Cohen: Child Bride on Nowness.com.
Friday
Thursday
It's easy to judge from afar
The past few days have been utterly surreal. I spent four serene days isolated from the media on the border of Whales at the Big Chill festival listening to music and sleeping under the stars. The morning that we leave the festival, my friend says to me that the beauty of camping is this exact ignorant bliss – the world could be ending and we would never know. With London being half the world, it’s like he willed his wish.
I read about the riots for the first time in the Metro paper, a daily free handout I pick up at the train station. I figure that, by nature, the tabloid style of the paper sensationalised the series of events that took place in London on Saturday and Sunday night. On first encounter, it’s difficult to make a personal connection to these events – even though I live in the UK, they seem far removed from my reality. Like the xenophobic attacks in South Africa two years ago, I can see the kicked up dust in the distance but I can’t smell the burning tires. Not greatly affected by decisions of the government, I sit comfortably in between the best of both worlds. I have choice.
Arriving back in London, I am still oblivious to the extent of anarchy. It’s only when we walk from the station to our house in Hackney that it is starting to feel too close to home. We joke that the yobs are coming to get us in Hackney as we pass a boxing shop owner boarding up his windows. That night, I struggle to fall asleep as choppers soar above my bedroom and the below of gunshots ricochets through quiet residential streets. I am good at dramatising, but this is real life. Less than a kilometer from the house, Mare Street is being looted by a 500 strong mob of mostly teenagers. Similar scenes are spread all throughout London. The police are powerless, outnumbered, doomed if they act with force, and doomed if they don’t.
The next day there is a post-apocalyptic silence on the streets of Hackney. Most shops don’t even open for the day. On Oxford Street the world seems peaceful as tourists carry shopping bags and business is as usual. Then I notice the one-to-one police civilian ratio, as the Met has increased their numbers from 6000 to 16000 in force. ‘We will fight this sick society with all that it takes’ says David Cameron. Today’s edition of Metro encourages us to stay off the streets as rumours spread of an impending curfew. I cycle down an empty Mare Street in the afternoon to take pictures of the aftermath, but all that’s left are boarded up shop fronts – the efficiency being the reminder that this is the first world. The facade has been put up to cover London’s shame, but the damage runs so deep that no amount of plywood can make it disappear.
Moving to London relieved me of the daily annoyance of hearing Malema’s name in the headlines, South Africa’s political uncertainty, the corruption and devastating divide between rich and poor reinforced every day when rolling up my window to deny that streetkid his plea. Out of sight and out of mind. The riots in London are not dissimilar from the Xenophobia attacks back home bred by anger, frustration, disillusionment, disrespect, neglect, decay and disconnectedness by the decision makers to the one’s directly at their mercy.
In England, frustrated kids are smashing windows and grabbing sneakers, clothes, LCD TV’s - it’s not the struggle to eat, it’s the struggle to keep up with what promise (or lack thereof) has been sold to the next generation. The new university rate policy has tertiary education so elitisised that really only the richest will be able to afford a degree from 2012, with the rest paying off debts for the rest of their working lives.
In South Africa, hungry women and men are channeling their anger into torching immigrants who are supposedly stealing their jobs, led by a government that exploits illiteracy to gain voting power. In my opinion, the ethics are the same.
The riots have reminded me that though I am currently living a life of jet-set hedonism entirely engrossed in my own agenda, evading my responsibility towards my fellow country men and women can only be a temporary solution. I am no politician nor am I particularly patriotic, but assuming an opinion from afar is almost more detrimental than not having an opinion at all.
Wednesday
Friday
Freibad
My current obsession - my £20.00 Fujifilm clear shot camera with drugstore film. All pictures I post here are taken with this camera. the anticipation of waiting for a film to get developed puts the joy back into snapshot photography, that I had lost with my previous digital ones. It's the constant self-assessment of the review button that takes the moment out of the snapshot, as one can always delete and try again.
I have a photopass for Big Chill this weekend, so no doubt I'll be trying to snap Chemical Brothers and co with my little guy, flash taped closed (because it is automatic, non changeable) and a seriously fast speed film from the press pit. Imagine me with my little analog fighting for my snap amongst the super ueber pro lenses ha!
Thursday
Wednesday
GQ City of Pretty Week 14
I am flabbergast by how quickly time is flying, mapped out by the speed at which my column deadline comes around each week. Tirelessly chasing a good time in search of a better story – and with the rub of an eye we are in August. London’s summer is in full swing and city life feels light, and muggy.
The past week is tainted with some sad news – the untimely passing of our favourite Winemouse. Regardless of whether you were a fan or not, Amy Winehouse’s smothering voice was as encapsulating as her melodies are catchy. She was just one year older than me short one day, joining the club of influential musos kicking their own bucketload of excess at 27. It is rumoured that she died from a dodgy ecstasy pill. It’s quite possible she could have consumed a complimentary sample from the same ‘unaccounted for’ batch that three X-enthusiasts fell into a coma from at Fabric on the weekend.
Three stories beneath London’s Smithfield’s meat market, Fabric plays host to 5000 visitors on any given night. With nights like ‘Wet Yourself’, the institute of loud beats encourages a culture of dancefloor hedonism. It’s the sort of club I avoid at any cost: sweat drenched dickheads throwing shapes on a dance-floor mapped out by laser beams allow my flailing curiosity no room for temptation. When I am invited to watch Nicolas Jaar there on Thursday night, I sacrifice my scepticism only for the sake of your vicarious entertainment, obviously.
Bouncers at the pinnacle of their profession funnel us into the club through a wide staircase divided by steel separators. Like animals we are herded down the rabbit hole. With every step the bass jolts my sternum. I beeline for the bar manned by flashy barmaids in hot pants and trucker caps to throw back my claustrophobia, as the awareness kicks in that we are now 80 meters underground. The club is ram-packed, and smells like farty gasses. By now the bass is so loud that the mass unanimously gyrates to and from the speaker, orchestrated by the heaving beat. When Jaar comes on with his three-piece band, we worm our way to the side of the stage. It’s competitive placement, the feet of ephedrine have no mercy on the sober girl in a crowd this dense.
I befriend the tallest guy in the club to be my pillar of solitude in the tumultuous crowd as I anticipate the drop that never comes. I haven’t heard Jaar before and it’s quite a revelation. His music is subdued and bass heavy, melodic and jovial. The crowd, in turn, responds with lively enthusiasm rather than grinding jaws. I manage to throw a few shapes myself before I’m pushed out to the side by a group on 30-something women ogling the tall guy with widened pupils, bringing me back to reality. I fight to the surface in desperate need of a lungful of air, and also to escape the persistent fart smell.
There’ll be plenty of fresh air for me to catch as I head to the Big Chill this weekend. The Chemical Brothers open the festival on Friday eve, and I imagine this time around the crowd won’t be so subdued. I’ll need to find myself another guardian angel I think, or some elbow pads at the very least. Oh boy, the things I do for a juicy read...
Tuesday
CAPITAL Handmade Sunglasses
Handmade in the States from sustainable wood and fitted with Carl Zeiss lenses - aren't these sunglasses beautiful?
I particularly like the fact that every frame is hand cut, sanded and fitted, I wonder if that would be any incentive not to lose them like I usually do with sunglasses that cost more than £5?
I particularly like the fact that every frame is hand cut, sanded and fitted, I wonder if that would be any incentive not to lose them like I usually do with sunglasses that cost more than £5?
You can order these via the CAPITAL site at http://www.wearcapital.com/products.
Monday
Paper Workout - it's totally addictive
On my recent trip to Vienna, I met Richard who
runs Paperworkout. Propelling a piece of paper the size of a Rizzla on the tip of my finger through simple aerodynamics, this is possibly the most beautifully simple activity I have ever tried. I am in awe at how something so primitive can be so fascinating. The movements one does when propelling the paper mimic the art of Tai Chi, which means relaxation and realignment of the body are a pleasant by-factor to an utterly addictive activity.
This is the demo video of Richard spinning a paper, to find out more and how to order this cleverly packaged toy, visit www.paperworkout.com.
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Wednesday
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