Billy the Kid

My friend had a baby, and, even though i don't like kids, i have to admit he is pretty adorable. Well done amelia.

Madonna Mia

A lilly-girl, not made for this world's pain,

With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears,

And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears

Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:

Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,

Red underlip drawn in for fear of love,

And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove,

Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.

Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease,

Even to kiss her feet I am not bold,

Being o'ershadowed by the wings of awe,

Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice

Beneath the flaming Lion's breast, and saw

The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.

Oscar Wilde

listen

Man-stuff

I grew up surrounded by boys. My Dad, three brothers, heaps of male cousins (and NO girls). I was always running around with them, getting my clothes dirty (clothes my big cousins handed down to me). I never really thought about being any different and my parents never treated me any different. This meant i learnt to chop down trees and ride motorcycles and couldn't get out of doing something just cos i was a girl. I have lots of lovely male friends and despite the fact that they quite often question their own masulinity, i love having them around and the man-edge they give to conversations and activities. Now that I am in London i hardly spend any time with boys. I mostly work with girls (there are boys down in the kitchen, and there is jake, i guess!), and i realise that that man-edge that my brother and all my guy friends provided for me back home is totally missing. I'm not sure what that all has to do with the Phantom- but gee, isn't he just about the most manly man out there. My Dad used to have phantom comics around the place when i was a kid so i kind of associate the two of them together. Actually, now that i come to think of it, maybe it was my mum who liked the phantom. ewww!

Songs to name your cat after

1. Deanna- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

2. Hazel- Deerhunter

3. Rapture- Blondie

4. Peaches- The Stranglers

5. Bad Romance- Lady Gaga

White Riot: The Clash

Jean Genie: David Bowie

Yoshimi: Flaming Lips

Candy: Iggy Pop

Ghost: Laura Marling

Samson: Regina Spektor

Sweet Jane: Velvet Underground

(PS this is WAY to many cats for one room)

Queen Mum, Hurry up!

There is something so good about east London. Its like all those other decrepit come trendy areas in all cities around the world. The kids might be a bit poorer but they've got some good ideas about the world. Charlie Woolley is one of those kids, an artist who grew up out here, works, makes things and exhibits in the east. His images are startling- diptychs taken from various media sources and put together to create a new intent. They are aesthetically interesting, the colours of your phosphorescent youth and yet somehow sinister. Woolley was also a part of the Copenhagen radio project, where he took up a residency and ran a radio station for a month. I hope he has another exhibition soon so I can see this all in real life.

the day the sky became my ground

More Art: January is the best! all the galleries are starting their new programs for the year and that means openings galore. On thursday the 21st I will be heading over to Wilkinson for their latest offering from the likes of A K Dolven. Join me for some champagne! here is what they say about it:

"In her latest exhibition at Wilkinson Gallery, A K Dolven is showing two major works, ‘the day the sky became my ground’, a 16mm film and a video installation entitled ‘ahead’ with a third ‘Self portrait Berlin February 1989 - Lofoten august 2009’. All are rooted in Dolven’s sensibility formed in the northern reaches of Europe, in the landscape that surrounds the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway above the Arctic Circle. Here in the winter the mountains that run down to the fjords are covered in deep snow, in the summer the sun never sets. This extreme and beautiful environment is used by A K Dolven as the backdrop to her explorations of the poetic relationship between landscape and the human body."

two zero one zero

2010

its such a nice number. that means it will be a nice year, no?

I love how at the start of every year we get to think about the things we have just done in the past year. i think it helps us to attack the new year with more intelligence.

9 things from 2009

1. My BFF and I saved up and travelled around Europe for 3 months

2. I moved from Adelaide to London!

3. bleached my hair platinum blonde (eventually)

4. went back to brown and got AN UNDERCUT!!!

5. bought a fur coat (controversy!)

6. started blogging

7. met some lovely people

8. SNOW- for the first time

9. lunch with Nick Cave

10 things from 2010 thus far

1. Leipzig, Germany where new years means firecrackers!

2. Spending time with my northern hemisphere friends LC, Crampers, Lo and Sean

3. being the sickest i have ever been and vomiting for hours in a youth hostel

4. Snow, Snow and more Snow

5. Working in a great Cafe with lovely people

6. Listening to lots of new music

7. Exploring new parts of London (soho-a-go-go)

8. Getting excited about going to NYC later this year

9. New secret crush (he is danish and totally cute!)

10. committing to doing intellectual activities (reading, writing , art)

collecting

Here are some pretty things that i have been collecting for a while. I can't remember where i found most of them but after all this is a post-modern world and the original has no power. devour (like saturn to his children).

time-lord

big tears; just watched the Doctor Who Christmas special ie David Tennants last time playing the doctor. Very sad, totally bawled. I really hope the next guy does a half decent job.

in the words of the Ood 'this song is over but the story never ends'.

bed

I've been a bit sicky and so have spent quite some time in bed over the past few days. At first i was so sick that all i could do was moan, and sweat and try to sleep but now i'm much better - just a little weak. In an attempt to make this situation a little more interesting i decided to invite a man in to bed with me.....J G Ballard!

Ballard and I have had a thing going on for a few years now. His science fiction is some of the best i have ever read. There have been art projects, struggles with his neuroses and revisitations of old texts. When i was in the library i happened across his autobiography and decided to take him home with me.

Rhys Tranter puts it just right in his review on the blog A Piece of Monologue : Ballard's themes feel more like obsessions, constantly recurring through the body of his work, like the neurotic symptoms of a psychoanalytic patient....Ballard's novels appear to chart the 'inner-space' of protagonists who are undergoing profound mental trauma, defined in the context of post-war Western society: a culture defined by the mass media, celebrity, consumerism and advanced technology.

But thats his novels, and this is his autobiography which, thus far is certainly no less gripping. You can see from Ballards young boy eyes the kinds of atrocities and 'culture gone crazy' that he will later draw on for inspiration in his works of fiction.

I Love how a good book can take you to another world without even having to leave your bed!

like a version

A new year, a new art calendar to fill with exciting dates. Staring off with Version at seventeen gallery next thrusday (14th). Oliver Laric's Versions delves into deconstructing the heirachy of the image, looking in particular at the Icon and its various levels of socially constructed power. Laric uses the multiple- in the form of a silicone cast remake of a religious sculpture, to point out the fissures in the validity of an icon which in fact, is just a version. Accompanied by a video which further explores the notion of the version being of more cultural value than the original. Sounds interesting? SEVENTEEN 17 KINGSLAND ROAD LONDON E2 8AA

x ray spex: Oh Bondage, up yours!

When I was a kid my mum and I would listen to X ray Spex while driving in the car and try to sing along with Poly Styrene's amazing vocals. We both agreed that she probably had the best voice ever, so unusual and boundary pushing. Their lyrics are pretty amazing too "warrior in Woolworths!". When I was wasting time on the internet I came across these beauties on Is Mental which instantly reminded me of x ray spex!

Sandblasted mirrored lenses make these sunnies look like they belong to a sci fi novel! they are from Alexandra Cassaniti's summer #4 collection and are accompanied by some pretty fantastic summer gear- enough to make me jealous of all my friends back home in the southern hemisphere!

Listen to X ray Spex here