aspiration

My friend Alasdair sent me this clip, saying it's genius. Not sure I'd go quite that far, but it is funny.

I hate TV.

evidence 2

Looks as though that's Christmas done for another year, but here are a few photos taken along the way.

transmission

Bit groggy today, just following the football results and enjoying this year's CBS top 100. Bound for Dundee tomorrow, where I'll be quite flush after work has sorted my pay out. Looks as though I'll be getting my hair re-done in time for NYE party season, anyway.

noel

A good haul of presents from Santa, including the Roxy Music DVD that I requested, and from my brother and his girlfriend, an iPod shuffle. It's a tiny little thing that can fit a ridiculous amount of music inside, and I dare say it's all set to convert me into a paid-up member of the portable digital music cult.

Later I'll be heading to a friend's place to revisit the traditional "Christmas Mash-up", which is simply just a few of us gathering together on Christmas day and getting royally mashed-up while listening to techno. I'll be taking it fairly easy this year though, I promise.

back

At home in Leeds, having just been indulging (again) in another wonderful meal, this time lamb roasted with garlic and rosemary, served with roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. The train journey down was much quieter than I expected, allowing for a push forwards with Wuthering Heights (previously left to one side owing to work pressures and the inevitable shortening of my attention span). Now I look forward to a few days of old-school family Christmas contentment, eating and drinking too much and falling asleep on the sofa.

after

Last night's NEON event was a bit underwhelming, as the expected throng of people never showed up. Everything was rather low-key and quiet. The PA was good though, and the laser display was truly spectacular. It's just a shame that the lightshow couldn't be enjoyed by a busier dancefloor.

Woke up today feeling truly horrendous, but I'm coming round. Dinner's being prepared in the kitchen as a newly arrived diskette caresses the senses.

festival

So that's it now, no more work for the best part of a week. Tonight's the big NEON extravaganza, and I'm sat rifling through my records working out what's most likely to rock the discotheque. We've been promised lasers, so that's a good start.

In hospitality circles this date is known as Black Friday because, being the last Friday before Christmas, all the bars are so heavily oversubscribed. Just so long as we're able to skim some of those punters away to our night then we ought to be laughing.

mammon

Payday today, and I calculated earlier in the week that work still owes me a substantial wedge (at least a couple of grand, by my reckoning) in unclaimed overtime payments. Still, at least for now I'm able to satisfy my endless desire for consumer objects such as this and this and this. Oh yes, and this too. Oh joy...

Went shopping today for Saturday's bumper Christmas dinner (six of us in all), gammon with all the trimmings, and lots of booze to go around too. Friday there's still NEON to come, and Sunday I'll be heading down to Leeds for a few days. Looks like being an enjoyable weekend on the cards...

CHRISTMAS EVIL

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:



A weekly display of hidden or neglected facets of the magic lantern. The finest wines and cheeses shall be served.
Don't miss!

3 Springfield, Dundee.
Thursday 20th December, 9pm

COMING SOON! Guest curator Andrew Maclean presents:
The Cine Salon Christmas Special!
CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980, dir. Lewis Jackson)
With John Waters commentary

Wikipedia.org:
Christmas Evil (also known as You Better Watch Out and Terror in Toyland) is a 1980 slasher film directed by Lewis Jackson. It is considered an obscure film but has gained a cult following which includes legendary film director John Waters.

IMDB comments:
Widely recognized as the best of the Christmas horror efforts, Christmas Evil is the story of a boy who loves Christmas. He is scarred as a boy when he learns that Santa is not real. Throughout the rest of his life, the toy-maker tries to make the Christmas spirit a reality. He becomes obsessed with the behavior of children and the quality of the toys he makes. When he is met with hypocrisy and cynicism, the resulting snap causes him to go on a yuletide killing spree to complete this dark comedic horror. This is the film Maniac (1980) should have been! Pretty compelling stuff with convincing performances and a beautifully weird ending.

gongs

Feeling rubbish today, which I don't understand as I only had a couple of beers last night. Been sat around reading various year-end round-ups, and much as I hate to post links to lots of Guardian articles (it's hardly the most esoteric) the Guide's summary of Control is pretty telling:

Most Predictable Ending: Control Anton Corbijn's coffee-table tragedy was apparently the best film of the year, but you could hardly call it a suspense thriller - except in the most literal sense. The world and its mother knew that Ian Curtis was going to hang himself at the end, didn't they? And given Control's dead-straight A-Z structure, by halfway through you were just waiting for Sam Riley to get the rope out. By a process of elimination, it was equally inevitable that Atmosphere would swell up over the end credits. Where's David Lynch when you need him?

For what it's worth, I declare 2007 to be a decidedly non-vintage year. Owing to MDes course pressures my own artistic output totaled one sculpture, produced for the members' show. Still, I hereby pledge a much more prolific 2008, honest.

Tonight I'll be calling in at the noise event over the road for a swift half before Match of the Day starts.

bent

So the Collective gig tomorrow night is now off, the gallery having worked out that the turntables wouldn't be covered by their insurance. Which is doubly annoying given that we'd already cancelled our (paid) engagement with the Art Bar for the same night. All of which just goes to prove: you should never work with artists. Bah!

Still, there's always tonight's Salon, which ought to provide some welcome respite from disembodied voices on the end of a telephone line.

drill

Brain's just a scramble.... working from 9:30am until 8:30pm, and now off to the Function Suite to drop a few posters off. I'll be up early tomorrow to flyer the college, then another 8-hour shift, then hosting the Salon, then Friday it's another early shift at work, then heading to Edinburgh for the Collective Christmas do....

Not able to gather my thoughts together to post anything meaningful, just need to get through it...

SUCCUBUS

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:



A weekly display of hidden or neglected facets of the magic lantern. The finest wines and cheeses shall be served.
Don't miss!

3 Springfield, Dundee.
Thursday 13th December, 9pm

SUCCUBUS (1968, dir. Jess Franco)

IMDB.com plot summary:
Janine Reynaud stars as a nightclub stripper who free-floats through a spectral 60's landscape littered with dream-figures, dancing midgets and bizarre S&M games.

Amazon.co.uk customer review:
Lorna (Janine Raynaud) puts on erotic S & M performances at nightclubs & then starts believing she is performing such acts in strange dreams - or is she acting them out in real life? Is she being manipulated by a mysterious conspiracy?
After the early Goth horror "Orloff" film, this is really where Jess Franco's career starts to get (briefly) interesting. "Succubus" begins like a rather tawdry old fashioned sexploitation movie, but quickly goes completely off the rails into 60s delirium. It has an intensity similar to "Eugenie: Journey Into Perversion". Lots of wild psychedelic fantasy scenes (lots of coloured filters!), freaky jazzy music, avant garde touches & funny sub-Godard "intellectual" dialogue. There's a great 60s party scene where the assorted eccentrics take their LSD sugar cubes and merrily regress into childhood abandon. The best scene is where Lorna makes love to & then murders another woman in a room full of mannequins - the bodies of the women & mannequins interchange in an extended sequence of frenzied editing. It's fairly obvious that Franco only made half a dozen or so movies worth watching - "Succubus" is certainly one of them.
(Johnny Guitar)

source

eBay's been no help, and Google's hardly been much of a friend either. In creating my planned artwork for the forthcoming members' show, it's imperative that I find a 10" by 8" black and white photograph of the supermodel Lily Cole. But where to find such an item?
Need to rack my brains, and tomorrow's another day.

hype

The poster's ready for the printers, and should be covering the west end later on in the week.

sartorialism

By now it's become my custom each Saturday to post a link to something that's piqued my interest in the morning's newspaper supplement. This week there's an article about a fashion blog documenting "real people who look fabulous". Fabulous-looking people are evidently easier to come by on the streets of New York than in Dundee, where it's sadly all too rare to find anyone prepared to make an effort. Still, anyone who does is appreciated all the more. I remember the Edinburgh-based artist Katie Orton having an especially arresting 'look' whenever she appeared in town recently, wearing bright red lipstick with a beret and a leopard-skin vintage overcoat last time.

My own wardrobe would be made up of high-street, vintage, and eBay-designer, the elements combined fairly evenly. Jeans and trousers by Helmut Lang for the shape and the durability, and a couple of tops by Bernhard Willhelm and Raf Simons for when I want to cut a dash. Regrettably there's nothing by Hedi Slimane, the former Dior Homme designer, in there just yet. Give it time, though.

Belgian (Simons, Dries van Noten, Walter van Bierendonck) Scandinavian (Peter Jensen, Siv Stoldal) I keep an eye on eBay for, hoping for a bargain. Knitwear by John Smedley or Pringle, and patterned socks by Paul Smith from a discount clothes shop back home in Crossgates, Leeds. Nothing by way of jewelery other than a silver ring bought for me many years ago that carries a good deal of sentimental value.

Living next door to the art school, I can't help but notice the dominance of a specific silhouette (voluminous hair, skinny jeans or leggings) among this season's crop of students. Which is all very well, but in amongst the herd I find a glimpse of individuality is really the most precious and attractive sight of them all.

solitair

Only me there to see last night's Cine Salon, which hardly matters as the events will continue regardless through whatever fallow periods they may endure, until further notice. And Haxan was a very enjoyable watch indeed, full of striking images and its stories of witch-hunts and witch-trials will always be relevant.

A quiet weekend on the cards, just enjoying a quiet night in to crack on with Wuthering Heights and to plot the next move regarding various creative endeavours.

dawn

Oh dear, I've woken up far too early, and I'm just two days away from my first day off in two weeks. Two solid weeks on the battery hen shift, pecking away at any dreams...

HAXAN

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:

A weekly display of hidden or neglected facets of the magic lantern. The finest wines and cheeses shall be served.
Don't miss!

3 Springfield, Dundee.
Thursday 6th December, 9pm

HAXAN (or Witchcraft Through The Ages)

Wikipedia.org:
Häxan is a 1922 Swedish/Danish black-and-white silent film directed by Benjamin Christensen. It is a documentary about witchcraft, but contains numerous dramatized sequences that are reminiscent of horror films. This film has fallen into public domain as well as all other films released this year. The film is a documentary of witchcraft and a study of how human superstition, coupled with a lack of understanding of the causes of things such as mental illness and disease, may have led to the witchcraft hysteria of the early modern period.

IMDB.com comments:
More commonly known as "Witchcraft Through the Ages", this is definitely one of the most bizarre, visually arresting movies of all time, even nearly 80 years later. It starts out as a rather dry documentary, detailing medieval superstitions and folklore while showing ancient woodcarvings of witches and demons in various forms. Then we move on into the dramatic portion of the film. In one scene we see witches concocting potions using the body parts of corpses from the gallows. One witch walks in carrying a bundle of sticks, and undoes the bundle revealing a decomposed human hand hidden inside. Fans of "The Blair Witch Project" should take notice, especially considering that the Danish title of this film is "Haxan", also the name of the movie company that created "Blair Witch".

Director Benjamin Christensen appears as a leering, tongue-wagging Satan, with very realistic makeup. The witches are shown with the Devil and his minions performing various acts of sacrilege and perversion that must have been extremely shocking at the time the movie originally appeared, and would be offensive to many people still. The film was banned for many years because of the depiction of these acts (not to mention the occasional nudity), as well as sacrileges performed by nuns and monks. There are some stop-motion animation sequences (pre-Harryhousen, no less) that are very good, especially for the time. This is a difficult movie to describe. It really is something that you'd have to see for yourself.

social drawing

To the City Function Suite last night for something called Scribble, organized by someone from the DCA and possibly to become a regular event. Poorly attended, with banal music, but a great idea: a Sunday night drawing club where you can sit down around a table with your friends and just get busy with a biro or marker pen. A few of us had an enjoyable game of Exquisite Corpse, and I'm grateful just for the chance to pick up some paper and create.

There may be a special festive NEON on the cards, more details to follow...

bloodfucking

To help console myself during yet another mind-numbing shift at work, I will try to think happy thoughts.

I've an idea for an artwork to exhibit in January's Generator Members' Show.

This video is wonderful.

I would read through the Whitehouse lyrics on Dennis Cooper's blog:

You'll die, you shit
Blood pumping from your ass
You'll burn by my fuck
I ought to fucking kill you
You'll fall, you whore
As I eat from your guts
I'll fuck the wounds
Spill blood from your cunt
You filth
Bloodfucking
Young clitoris
Young cadaver

beauty

Out last night, lots of people were asking, "so is your night on at the Reading Rooms tonight?", to which the answer would be an emphatic NO. Another club night, whose name is confusingly similar to NEON, started last year. Which is bad enough, but these young scenesters proudly bill themselves as belonging to that sorry fad 'nu-rave'. I had planned a blog post attacking that atrocity of a genre, but thought better of it.

Why engage with mediocrity at all? Why not instead read through some more compelling material...

This lovely article in today's paper for instance.

And on Dennis Cooper's blog, highly recommended reading at anytime anyway, this definitive essay by sypha_69 on the noise band Whitehouse.

toil

Uh, a full day's hungover overtime at the bank today, spent spelling out upteen repetitions to a baying throng of a hundred thousand morons. Now I'm off out to a friend's photography show which ought to be alright and I had kindly offered to DJ, though now I really can't be bothered. Someone else is playing too, and I've found through bitter experience that sharing a bill with unknown quantities will inevitably lead to bruised egos and bitter tears. So no, then.

set

Excitingly enough, on December 14th NEON has a gig playing the Christmas party at Edinburgh's renowned Collective Gallery. Watch out for the contemporary-art/hard-rocking-disco collision...

The complete WILLO THE WISP

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:



A weekly display of hidden or neglected facets of the magic lantern.
The finest wines and cheeses shall be served. Don't miss!

3 Springfield, Dundee
Thursday 29th November, 9pm
THE COMPLETE WILLO THE WISP

Featuring the voice of comedy legend Kenneth Williams.

An exclusive screening of all 26 episodes!

Wikipedia.org:
Willo the Wisp is the name of a British cartoon series produced in 1981. Kenneth Williams provided voices for all of the characters. These included:

* Willo the Wisp, the narrator. A blue floating ghost-like creature, Willo had a long pointed nose which caricatured that of Williams.
* Arthur the caterpillar (as a gruff cockney).
* Mavis Cruet, a plump fairy with erratic magical powers.
* Evil Edna, a witch in the form of a walking, talking television set who could zap people with her aerial.
* Carwash, a snooty bespectacled cat (as Noel Coward).
* The Moog, a brainless dog.
* Twit, a small bird.
* The Beast, who began life as a dim prince before an unfortunate encounter with Edna ended up with his transformation into a hairy shambling creature.

The series was written and directed by Nick Spargo of Nicholas Cartoon Films.
It was produced by Nicholas Cartoon Films in association with the BBC and Tellytales Enterprises.
The stories were set in Doyley Woods, a small beech wood in Oxfordshire near the director's home.
Each of the 26 episodes lasted 5 minutes and was broadcast at 5.35 in the evening on BBC1.

Amazon.co.uk customer review:
In recent years, there has been much discussion as to whether The Sopranos, or perhaps The Wire, can claim to be The Greatest Television Ever Made.
They can't, wonderful as they are. It is a little known fact that the high-point of art on the small screen was reached in 1981, right here in the UK. And this is it.
Nothing, (I find), is quite as sublime as watching The Moog exclaim
"My name is The Moog. And I...Am...An...Elephant!!!"
Kenneth Williams was a genius and this is, oddly enough, probably his finest legacy. Delicious.
5/5

transit

So the poster arrived this morning, and it's really something of a mixed blessing. No cardboard tube, just a flimsy box for protection on a journey all the way from Switzerland, and unsurprisingly it got here a bit creased and dog-eared on its voyage. All annoying, except that the museum never charged any money or sent any invoice, so I'm hardly likely to moan too much.

Hopefully the framers can do a little restoration work, iron out the imperfections, and just maybe it'll leave me with something beautiful. Not that I've much room for another big picture on the wall, but then I really won't be living here forever and an art collection has to be a long-term project...

dark days

Ugh, spending the Sunday working in a call centre is miserable enough, but when you're feeling at death's door thanks to the previous night's misadventures... it's rather a day to forget.

Really do need to get my arse in gear and to start looking for a proper job, rather than sitting here complaining about the one I've already got. Yes I must, I really must.

lazy

Downloaded Audacity software so that we'll shortly be able to post up some NEON DJ mixes online.

Other than that, another lazy Saturday spent lounging round the living room, reading the paper, keeping tabs on the football scores and digging this mix of wavey sounds by
Deutschmark - Twilight Sleep.

"melancholic and psychedelic oldies and new tracks by ADN' Ckrystall, Dr. C. Stein, Bakterielle Infektion, Porn Darsteller and more..."

following orders

I'm sure the vast majority of right-minded people consider viral marketing campaigns to be a particularly insidious form of evil. Nevertheless, all it takes is for something like this to come along and I can't help spreading the infection among my friends and family.

Albion

Yes sorry, a post about football.

Really not doing a right lot today, just sitting around going over the postmortems of last night's disastrous England game. As an ex-pat I often have to endure accusations of gloating, snobbery and big-headedness, which I would dispute. Any England supporter I know would be the first to admit that their national team is shite. The players are a shower of overpaid hyped-up bling merchants incapable of all sitting on the same bus, never mind playing together as a team. I can't remember it ever being any other way, and only a few employees of the BBC sports department would argue any different.

In other non-football-related news, reading Wuthering Heights (for the first time, shamefully enough), sorting out more records to sell on eBay, and still putting off looking for a proper job.

reprieve

I was fairly disappointed not to have been able to work any overtime at the bank this week.

As things stand, it's rather a stroke a good fortune.

THE BEYOND

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:
Thursday 22nd November, 9pm
THE BEYOND (L'aldilà)

Wikipedia.org:
The Beyond (also known as E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilà or Seven Doors of Death) is a 1981 Italian horror movie directed by Lucio Fulci. It is considered by some horror film fans to be one of the best movies made by the Italian director[citation needed]. The second film in Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy (along with City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery), The Beyond has gained a cult following over the decades — in part because of the film’s gore-filled murder sequences, which had been heavily censored when the film was originally released in the United States in 1983.

IMDB comments:
"If you think Dario Argento doesn't give a damn about coherent plots, check out Lucio Fulci! 'The Beyond' does have a (Lovecraftian) plot as such - a woman inherits a hotel in Louisiana that contains one of the doorways to Hell - but that is basically an excuse for Fulci to string together a series of fantastic and frequently gory images. These include zombie attacks, eye gougings, a better dog attack scene than 'Suspiria', the crucifixion of a Satanist, and a sequence involving tarantulas which has to be one of the high points of horror, anywhere, anytime.

'The Beyond' is sensational and a bona fide modern horror classic. Absolutely essential viewing!"

to do

Oh dear, just now is a real nothing sort of a time. No overtime available at work, no money in the bank, not sure if or when my Katie Orton review might be printed... and I must get looking for a proper job, yes really I must. Make some art, maybe see about renting a studio, enquire about design work, get a move on with the magazine, talk to people, get out of Dundee, see the world, achieve great things... how about making some art for a change? Art? Might just be an idea.

Oh, how life is passing us so busily by! What is left for us and where has all of that gone? Surely something has to be done.

But what...?

done

Sat doing a shift of invigilation at the Generator gallery, which is really not so bad as I'm able to keep tabs on the Leeds United score and also listen to the CBS too. Last night's NEON was a successful one, a respectable sized crowd eventually turned up and the dancefloor saw a fair amount of action. Having invested so much time and energy in the whole thing it's just a shame that it all has to be over in the twinkling of an eye. What's there left to look forward to now? Christmas?

I really must have one of these amazing prints, and have emailed the museum to ask about international shipping. I eagerly await their response.

Just waiting

Just waiting to go out, for the clock to strike 8 and I'll be bound for the DCA opening. This is to drum up some support among the art freeloaders to come to NEON. Not that any drumming up will really be needed, only there's not much else worse (I imagine...) than sitting about waiting for the clock to strike.

Bon anniversaire

Ironic that I'm able to keep a plentiful supply of Champagne flowing as host of the Salon, yet still I need to sell used CDs to Groucho's in order to keep the wolf from the door. Just one of the quirks of getting Markys vouchers as bonus payment I suppose.

So the schedule for tomorrow (my birthday, as it happens)...

8.30am - Put the only remaining poster up in the college
9.00am - Sell yet more CDs to Groucho's, probably earning £20 for various iconic Krautrock albums that never get listened to
9.15am - Sign in, late, for overtime at the call centre
12.00pm - Buy a posh packed lunch from Marks & Spencer's
1.00pm - Get the train to Edinburgh, maybe call in at a couple of galleries
5.00pm - Go see William Bennett's lecture at the university
7.00pm - Get the train back to Dundee
9.00pm - Host the Cine Salon, enjoying the finest Champaigne and cheeses

Remainder of the week should be great, promising all sorts of thrills and spills..

ARAKIMENTARI

Listing for Thursday's Cine Salon:
Thursday 15th November, 9pm
ARAKIMENTARI (2004, Dir. Travis Klose)

Documentary looking at the life and work of the acclaimed Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.

IMDB comments:
The life and work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Mostly known for his erotic or perhaps pornographic photos its clear from this film that there is more to the man than just dirty pictures. Coming a cross as a charming rogue its clear that Araki loves what he's doing, which is photographing everyone and everything at all times. There is a comment by one of his fellow photographers to the effect that Araki is more than his erotic pictures and that there is nothing that he doesn't know about photography. Seeing his images whizzing by in the film its clear the statement is true as we see the vast range of his work that stretches from the mundane to flowers to portraits to porn to whatever else you can think of. He's an amazing man that I'm certain will worm his way into the hearts of anyone who sees the film.

Amazon customer review:
Araki is a brilliant and succesful Japanese photographer Unfortunately he has becme obsessed with vaginas and pubic hair. He gets away with it because he is famous, even though there was some problem with the japanese police. He photographs his models with their legs spread. When wearing clothes his camera will finds its way up her skirt or her skirt will be pulled up and her legs spread wide. He goes on to tell us this is art, which it is'nt He submits his works to magazines, obviously the ones bought by voyeurs. Unless you are one give thid DVD a big miss 1/5

correction

After some heated discussion, my hastily written post down there needs to be retracted. The picture's provenance has been called into question, and my claiming it as a Gillian Martin original is written off as being so much eyewash. All there is to say is that I never claimed to be any kind of art expert.

So maybe this won't now see the light of day, but I still maintain that it's a fun image.

sales

The NEON publicity machine clicks into gear, and I've been up early to do the college. Now about 8.30am is really peak flyering time, after the cleaners have gone but before students and rival posters have started to appear. Prime position is top of the stairs by the main entrance, and on a lovely sunny day like today whatever is posted there catches the light and is illuminated beautifully. Really I anticipate Friday's event to be super hard rocking, as there's a DCA show opening, a student art event on down Roseangle gallery who've been offered discounted tickets, and the only other show in town is the Reading Rooms whose drab promo material is put to shame by the luminous NEON owl. I also chanced upon a doodle by Gil on the back of one of our flyers; blown up to A3 it looks brilliant, and provides a cheaper alternative for when the colour material runs out.

The Servant

"I think everyone should have their favourite director tattooed on their arm. Wouldn't that make dating easier? If somebody had Henry Jaglom, I wouldn't date 'em! I'd get Joseph Losey tattooed on mine."
John Waters

So here I sit enjoying some expensive Marks & Spencer's wine, watching The Servant. I really cannot recommend this film highly enough, directed by Joseph Losey and scripted by Harold Pinter. It was recommended to me at college by my tutor Sarah Tripp, who saw in it a number of things of particular interest to me and my 'work'. Power relationships, class, Englishness, camp. It is pitiless in its depiction of all of these. It had been earmarked for the Salon, but it's really too subtle to appreciate in a situation involving alcohol. Oh well.

Internal Affairs

Declaring her interest in "the social and psychological implications of designed spaces", Katie Orton filters this fixation through a look inspired by the heroes of 20th century Modernism. Father figures Picasso and Matisse are slyly domesticated and their motifs lovingly rendered using the materials of handicraft. 'Internal Affairs', her solo show at Dundee's Generator Projects artists' space, presents a substantial display of work created while undertaking the RSA residency at Hospitalfield House. Large scale paintings depict interiors abstracted with touches of bawdily humourous figuration. One such scene of orgiastic coupling is contained within an angular configuration (Analysing the Polyhedron), while sculptures show subservient females emphasising their elegance (Waitress, Proud Cleaner). Elsewhere we see the interiors of a pool hall and a 'Design for Mental Health Centre Floor'. Wandering onto the stage set for a Cocteau play, as enacted by a repertory group populated by the local crafts guild, is one way of putting it. There is however only the most assured of touches on display here.

other people

Just some things I read this morning over breakfast....

Marina Hyde's column in today's paper taking issue with the new generation of young bloggers. I suppose she'll be interested to know that I no longer fancy her since I found out she slept with Piers Morgan.

K-Punk's article about Roisin Murphy. He makes some interesting points about glamour. There's sadly all too little of that about these days I feel.

high society

Lots on tonight, an opening at the Generator, NEON at the Art Bar and also some sort of Generator-related event happening at the Function Suite.

A full account, along with photos, to follow tomorrow.

addendum

Next week's Cine Salon event will be a screening of Arakimentari.

I must have been sleeping when this record by Dream Disco was released. Now it's all sold out and I don't have it. Bah!

William Bennett of Whitehouse will be giving a talk at Edinburgh University on November 15th, my birthday. Might have to go see that one I think.

Hoping that these M&S vouchers arrive tomorrow, so that I might splash out on some quality refreshments for tomorrow night's inaugural Salon.

looking forward

Taking the poster designs to the printers later, and very much looking forward to seeing this covering the whole of the west end. Lots to look forward to coming up, as there'll be Cine Salon events and NEON engagements both this week and the next. There's also talk of a possible trip through to Glasgow for the 23rd, so it's all quite exciting.

Prozac

If ever I'm in need of a quick cheering up, then this clip is guaranteed to put the smile back on my face. Even if it is about Manchester.

at home

So here I find myself, feeling frustration at whatever my lifestyle has settled itself into, but still. This living room is so exquisite, an arrangement of art objects that can be looked at endlessly, always with more meaning to be found in their singular qualities, and also in their juxtapositions. I can't, at this very moment, think of anywhere else that I'd rather be.

in order

Really very little to say, the days slipping into a deadly weekend routine just now. Each time is pretty much the same; go out Friday to the Art Bar or the DCA, head to the Function Suite afterwards, get drunk, spend a hungover Saturday following the football results as they come in, venture out only to buy some pizza and wine to consume on Saturday night, watching Match of the Day. Still, at least now I can watch it on a big telly. Ho hum.

nouvelle cuisine

Learned today exactly how much overtime I've been working these past two months. The bonus is paid in vouchers, redeemable at various high street spots including Marks & Spencer's, the sole food outlet. And how much? Six hundred and twenty pounds' worth, that's how much. Looks like being a diet of posh food for a good long while, and that's certainly the catering for the Cine Salon (the finest cheeses and wines, naturellement) sorted.

PR

Facebook listing for the _Black_Acrylic Cine Salon:

A weekly display of hidden or neglected facets of the magic lantern. The finest wines and cheeses shall be served. Don't miss! Thursdays 9pm, 3 Springfield, Dundee. Any ideas and guest curatorships are most welcome.

The inaugural Cine Salon event will take place 9pm on Thursday 8th November. Presenting a screening of LA PLANETE SAUVAGE

Wikipedia.org:
Fantastic Planet (French: La Planète sauvage, lit. The Savage Planet) an animated 1973 science fiction film directed by René Laloux. The film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and has been distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. It won the special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973. The story is based on the novel, Oms en Série, by the French writer Stefan Wul.

Imdb summary: La Planète sauvage AKA Fantastic Planet is a surrealist story based on the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. Set in a far distant world human beings or "Oms"have been domesticated by the gigantic Draags. Wild Oms however are a problem and are exterminated by the dozen. One domesticated om Terr is able to escape his masters with a headset that puts information directly into the brain. Armed now with the Draags technology he leads the Oms in an attempt to make life better for them...But will the deomizing destroy them?

The club's already got four members, including myself. Not bad going, all told.
(edit: now up to 21 members, far more than the living room's capacity...)

Cine Salon

A very welcome addition to our living room, a great big telly, has kindly been donated to stand by the window and provide what I hope will be many nights of amusement.

The plan is this: to host a regular series of film screenings and cheese-and-wine parties for Dundee's arts community and anybody else who might be interested. These events should be ready to begin next week, and any ideas and guest curatorships will be most welcome. I'll post more details up as and when I've got them. Watch this space!

ceremony

My grandmother's funeral today, which was a really lovely service, and a very enjoyable afternoon spent with various relations. About to head out for a meal, I think at an Italian restaurant called Salvo's, which should be good too.

Not much more to say, but please do stay tuned for whatever may happen soon.

the 12th man

Back to Leeds later today for my grandmother's funeral. Despite being a sad occasion, it'll still be good to get all the family together in one place. Because of that I'm really rather glad to be going home.

Meanwhile this stirring account does some measure of justice to the recent revival of Leeds United's fortunes.

"The fans do not just sing the songs; they are foot soldiers in Leeds' relentless march too."

flying, always searching

Right now I'm really digging this lush disco track from tragic pornstar and aviation superhero Dennis Parker - Like An Eagle

mmmm

Not been fit to do a right lot today, kept busy nursing a hangover from last night's engagement at the Union. Which was quite a good laugh; completely dead, and with an appearance by a live band who were quite monumentally rubbish. Think Limp Bizkit performed by scallies in tracksuits, and you'd be getting there.

So today just been following the football results, and downloading the rather lovely soundtrack for the French animated film Le Planéte Sauvage.

rock

Was supposed to be helping out with a DCA event this afternoon, the Big Draw at DPM park. It had to be called off due to the pissing rain, though.

Instead I went to see Control, the Joy Division biopic. It doesn't really add much to the sorry tale except to write another chapter of rock-star mythology in Ian Curtis' name. A shame, as I did enjoy Deborah Curtis' book, and the scenes of live music are quite exciting. Toby Kebbell steals every scene as Rob Gretton. This review from the Guardian Guide gets it about right, with praise a bit more qualified than in other write-ups. "He's certainly lost control now", indeed.

DJing at the Union later for Freak Scene. Not been darkening those doors in a good long while, and who knows, it might even be fun.

view

To Aberdeen for an installation at the Limousine Bull artists’ space by Miranda Blennerhassett and Kevin McPhee. That these two Dundee-based artists should collaborate together does make a degree of sense. Both had previously made work individually that staged interventions within interior spaces, producing dislocating and unsettling effects. Rooms would be made unhomely through the shadows of marauding plantlife cast against the walls, or by the spilling of reflective black liquid across the floor. The impression was of trinkets being toyed with by poltergeists, and of decorative surfaces doubling up as doppelgangers.

The untitled, very minimal installation here saw the artists deal with spatial relationships, specifically with positive and negative space evoked through two and three-dimensional means. A large angular turquoise shape rested against one wall, while opposite a painting was rendered directly onto the wall and floor in flat, institutional greys. The display saw both artists execute a slick show full of formal élan. Still, I left feeling nostalgia for the discomforts of triffids and ectoplasm.

glamorama

While I'm deeply absorbed in Michael Bracewell's account of the genesis of Roxy Music, I've been compelled to dig up this post from k-punk's blog. Riffing on Bryan Ferry, Grace Jones, Visage and er, Moloko, it's a brilliant text that puts Bracewell's chronology into a wider context.

sick

Please accept my most heartfelt apologies for not having posted much lately. This is due to a number of factors; I've been sat rapt reading the wonderful new Roxy Music biography, I've been drinking far too much booze over the past few days, and I can feel some kind of profound existential crisis creeping up on me... yet again. I'll be here with a much more fulsome post sometime soon, I promise.

for your pleasure

Arrived home to find Michael Bracewell's new Roxy Music biography waiting on my doormat.

"... their constitution of balanced but opposing opposites... of nostalgia and the avant-garde; of heterosexual eroticism and ambiguous sexual identity; of artifice and authenticity; of fast and slow; of warm sensuality and a cold, machine-like perfection."

the drift

Not felt like doing much today, just switching my brain onto stanby and drifting through it. Mostly been sat downloading bits of music on my brother's PC. Lots of minimal composition, Charlemagne Palestine etcetera. Nothing to do with raves in Berlin warehouses.

A return to Dundee tomorrow for a screening at the DCA, then later calling in at the Hot Club.

in peace

By the time I'd arrived back in Leeds yesterday my grandmother was in a very bad way. At that age a major five-hour operation was too much even for her, and she passed away peacefully late last night. I'll be down here another couple of days and the funeral's scheduled for a week on Tuesday.

I'm not really able to write much else without lapsing into Hallmark-card cliches. Rest in peace Nan Clarkson 1914-2007.

hit the north

Met today to discuss future plans for Yuck 'n Yum, Dundee's premier (indeed only) art fanzine. Watch this space for more exciting news once things start to take shape.

Getting the train down to Leeds tomorrow morning in order to visit my grandmother at the LGI. She's been through all sorts these past few days, but happily her condition has now stabilised. Just so long as she manages to pull through, I'm greatly looking forward to the trip.

the eternal

Can it really be the best part of two months since disaster struck? I'm still spending inordinate amounts of time discussing what happened, sometimes with friends, sometimes with strangers.

family ties

Distressed to learn that my grandmother, 93 years old, is in very poor health. She is an amazing woman, the person I admire most in the whole world. It's so frustrating being stuck up here so very far away, but I gather she's insisted I shouldn't travel all the way down to Leeds. I'm also told that despite it all her mind is still characteristically sharp as a tack. Although I'm not keeping vigil by her bedside, she's in my thoughts.

evidence

Spent much of the day in the pub watching the football, so in the absence of any meaningful post here are a few photos.

waiting for-

Sartre's really not a name to conjure with these days, though a few observations made in Nausea still bear up well. My copy's back home in Leeds, but I do remember there being a passage about time that resonates. As I recall, the point is this: that most of life is spent waiting for something to happen, while only a small fraction of it will be spent living the life, the action if you like, that you've invested so much time in waiting for.

So, waiting for the day to pass. Invigilating at the Generator this afternoon, heading out this evening for some sort of charity event at Dexter's that my flatmate's organized before heading on to DJ at the Art Bar later.

Booked an appointment with the careers advisor next Tuesday. Anything so long as the waiting's no longer done in a call centre.

arena

Approaching, smiling and saying "hi" in a voice that thaws whatever was frozen weeks before.
Responding, an exaggeratedly awkward "HI" back, playing the moment for its latent comic potential, elongating the vowel and stretching it out, reaching out and testing, testing, one two, one two.
"I like your hair"
"Thank you"
"So, have you had any more writing published lately?"
An answer is jabbered back, and a smile maintained while eye contact allowed to break off. On my part, that is.
It somehow feels like a reprieve, though from what I couldn't possibly say. At least now there can no longer be any secrets.

scrawl

Just working, mostly. It's in the distant future... but the other day I made a poster for the forthcoming NEON gig that I'm most happy with.

Video Club

Very pleased to have bought a great Italo record for a reasonable price. I'm unsure as to how well it might work on the dancefloor, but those ethereal vocals and washes of synth certainly do it for me somehow.

The eBay listing puts it quite nicely:
MANY CLOWNS NOT SERIOUS PERSON . PLEASE NOT BUY IF NOT INTEREST.THIS NOT IS TO GAME.

grind

I went along to the DCA today for this talk about potential education and social work, only to find about 20 other people had been invited along as well. Still, my name's down for the future should anything come up. In the meantime I'll be stuck in a Kafkaesque routine updated for the new century, sometimes known as the call centre coalface. Doing so much overtime it's hardly possible to think about being creative. Bah!

chuckles

Alongside the Generator's Sarah Tripp and Robert Orchardson exhibition, the DCA will be screening the Jim Jarmusch film Coffee And Cigarettes on the 20th.

I remember the whole thing being a bit uneven, but this scene with the Wu Tang Clan's RZA and Genius/GZA meeting Bill Murray is pure gold.

Hype

I've just been listening to the forthcoming releases from our friends at Mighty Robot Recordings, the essential Scottish electro label.

Junior Rafael - Pump It, Milk It and Gladio - Fighting In The North. How to describe this sound? Dark, intense, raw, jacking, a soundtrack for the leather bars of Ancient Rome in a parallel universe.

the spectacle

Scott brought this article to my attention the other night, tucked away in a corner of the newspaper. Scary and depressing it may well be, but I'd still be interested to know if this would be documented anywhere. I'd very much like to see it with my own eyes.

the signs

Feeling a bit rough today.

Last night's party was fun, full of young people being observed by our coterie of jaded artist types sat in the corner. My friend pointed out one particular young person sat across on the sofa opposite, wearing a Thundercats T-shirt despite being plainly too wet-behind-the-ears to remember the original glorified toy advert.

What would the logo mean? This is a generation brought up before an endless parade of interchangeable signs, emptied out of whatever little meaning they may once have had. Amy Winehouse sang a lamentable pastiche of 60s pop-soul standards in the background. What might the role of the artist be in this ersatz scenario? I'm not sure, but it is disturbing.

dear diary

Flat warming party tonight, and I'm hoping to get all the artwork in the front room configured into a satisfying display. Is it acting like too much of a poseur to have the paperback of Ballard's Crash lying around next to the painting? Yes, probably.

Nothing beyond social functions happening in the coming days. Not doing any more overtime for now. Although I've a meeting at the DCA next week to see about doing some teaching work, I really ought to get started on the hunt for a proper job.

Despite my being near-enough totally brassic just now, there's quite a social calendar in order this week. Party tonight; cooking a meal for friends then a noise event at Drouthy's tomorrow, and Soulstice at the Function Suite on Friday.

geometry

Friday's NEON turned out to be a successful one, with a brutal live set by Savier and a busy dancefloor getting down to some quality disco sounds. This was followed by a lengthy after-party that's left me feeling a bit scrambled.

Tonight there's a live event at the DCA that promises to be interesting, though I may just stick to the fruit juice for it.

I've been compiling an autumnal wardrobe of sorts. This season's look will be heavy on the vintage Pringle jumpers with strange geometric patterns, to be financed by offloading more unwanted vinyl once the internet's back up and running.

transmission

By an stroke of bad fortune my internet is down, so posting may become a bit irregular for the next week until BT deliver a replacement for the Home Hub. It mysteriously packed in last night, and right now I'm sat typing in the college.

Here's the schedule for a night of fun and games:
6pm Tea at the Parlour with the Generator commitee and artists Robert Orchardson and Sarah Tripp.
7pm Pick up the mighty Savier from Dundee station.
7.30pm Me and the mighty Savier attend the gallery opening at Generator Projects.
9.30 pm Get set up at the Function Suite.
10pm NEON starts.
03.30am NEON finishes, and an after-party goes on until who knows when.

All that's left for me to do is head down to Tesco to buy a big haul of refreshments for later. Here's hoping the evening turns out a success.

denied

Spent the past few days covering the art college and the west end with posters for Friday's NEON shebang. Finished work for the weekend too.

That beautiful Dior Homme jacket went for more than I can afford. Really the Scottish Arts Council ought to give me funding to wear it... I would look that debonair. Bah!

narcissism

A simple change of style can make you feel so completely reinvented. I'm feeling that way today. Had my hair cut short, and it's time to drag out clumsy metaphors involving butterflies and swans.

Need to put together a decent wardrobe for the new season too, and there's a fair few eBay auctions I'm currently keeping an eye on. Chief among them is a gorgeous Dior Homme jacket, from Hedi Slimane's final collection, that will surely prove beyond my slender means. Still, a boy can dream...

etcetera

The festival in Arbroath was a welcome change of scene, a little stately home with lots of opulent decor and various performances going on throughout the day. Highlight for me was the performance of Norman Shaw's noise act Nob, who managed to clear half the room with their intense sounds. Very glad to have got a lift back to Dundee, rather than stay there and camp out for Sunday's events. It pissed it down last night.

A busy schedule of flyering up ahead in anticipation of Friday's big event. That and more mind-numbing overtime at the bank.

words mouth smoke

Will be on the bus to sunny Arbroath later today for the Your Words And My Mouth live arts festival. Can't really be bothered sacrificing the only day off work, but then lots of my friends are going and I really should. My brother will be at the Leeds game this afternoon so I can always phone for an update on the score.

Anyone with a smoking fetish ought to enjoy these shots of tragic Eurosleaze starlet Soledad Miranda savouring a deep inhalation.

PR

Press release I'd written for the forthcoming Generator show:

Generator Projects is pleased to present a joint exhibition featuring Robert Orchardson and Sarah Tripp. Using a diverse range of media, each artist has produced work that suggests a form of narrative. They describe events taking place on a scale that ranges from the domestic to the cosmic. These scattered threads may well be woven together to create a form of meta-narrative, an observation of the present developing into a hypothesis for the future.

Sarah Tripp’s practice incorporates film-making, graphic design and story telling. Consistent throughout is a desire to engage with the world and to reinvent it as a system of poetic correspondences. For the exhibition at Generator Projects she has produced a book titled The Best Mistake, a collection of stories and photographs created over the previous six months.

Robert Orchardson’s sculptural installations are located in a state of in-between, both in time and in space. Working from a disparate collection of fragments, these objects aim to reconfigure their raw material into something approaching the extraordinary. Connections are made between modernist design and the supposed futures of science fiction, with new potentials being imagined for received wisdoms. This ambiguity invites us to ask what kind of world it is that we find ourselves in here, now.

doldrum

Back to the grind for yet more overtime. Not very much to report just now, simply because my life is a monotonous parade of call centre shift work. Still, onwards and upwards...

hype

Finished the poster for next week's event, looking forward to it a great deal.

Riccardo Cioni

Wow, just listening to the greatest thing I've heard in a long time. Riccardo Ciano, an Italian DJ who drunkenly sings along to most of the tracks, doing a set recorded sometime in 1982.

You can download it here.

And check out his website, an awesome example of the kind of anti-design that I'm so hot for.

random

Brain is getting frazzled. Sometimes, when a mood is particularly black, there is a funny compulsion to type the word 'dead' into the keyboard. This would just be to see the shape of the black letters illuminated against a bright white screen. Sometimes another funny compulsion will take hold, an urge to cry out the word 'glass' like a Tourette's sufferer, or sometimes other more random words that have no relevance to any coherent train of thought.

sketch

Although I've been keeping this blog for a couple of years now, it does have one function that hasn't really been exploited enough. There is potential for this to act as a kind of online scrapbook, compiling half-formed ideas and putting them out into the ether. Now the course is finished, and the mind can wander while I fulfill trivial obligations for the bank, I'm free to think about things and maybe even create something for the first time in ages. Could it be possible? We'll see...

A few such things: I never watch TV very much, but a couple of Channel 4 documentaries are interesting. One a crudely exploitative programme made in the 90s about celebrity stalkers, with interviewees (obviously suffering mental health problems) fixated on low-rent figures like Mike Read and Sam Fox.

Another documentary was on last year, the best thing I've seen in ages, following London 'cleaners' going about their business. Their grim specialization was in cleaning up after people who had died with no friends or family to recover the body. The corpses had often laid there rotting for weeks. The 'highlight' was the house of one young man who had spent months collecting his faeces, storing it in carefully folded scraps of newspaper piled as high as the ceiling. The smell must have been overwhelming, and even just to see it was quite intense. Like the ultimate surrealist installation.



Another appropriate reference would be the work of American outsider artist Henry Darger, though the monographs are all out of print and command high prices. There's one that can be ordered from the US costing about $100, maybe for when I've done enough overtime. There is an affordable documentary available on DVD I think.

The writing of Peter Sotos, and pornography in general. Susan Sontag's brilliant essay is there to provide intellectual justification, as if any is really needed.

Wasn't there a CD out a while back of letters that lonely perverts had written to page 3 models, explaining in lumpen prose their seedy fantasies? Narrated by actors of course, sadly.


I'd mined a similar seam in the Olympia drawings I did for the Embassy gallery a couple of years back, and also 'The Devil In Miss Broon' piece written for Yuck 'n Yum.

So there's a few things, and they do add up to something or other I'm sure.

treasure

Interesting aesthetic finds.... follow this link, and there's a great database of hundreds of screenshots from the ZX Spectrum home computer.

Another day at the bank awaits. Need to start looking for a proper job. Working too much overtime right now to have a proper crack at it, but maybe next week. MAP magazine is offering an internship, but it's unpaid and my mum advises things like that are for posh kids with rich parents.

brief encounter

Suffering the effects of a ruinous hangover this morning.

"Are you drunk?" says she. "No" says I.

A lie of course, but how else is one meant to approach a fragrant young thing at the bar and try to strike up a conversation?
Beats me, anyway.

schedule

Just time to steal a quick post before I prepare myself for an evening packed with fun and frivolity; once work's done at 7.30 it'll be over to the DCA for the opening of the Johanna Billing show, then heading round to the Art Bar where NEON will bring untold disco pleasure from 9pm.

live!

I'm excited to announce that we've a fantastic guest booked to play the forthcoming NEON event at the City Function Suite on the 28th. Savier recently opened for the legendary noise act Whitehouse in Edinburgh the other week; soon he'll be bringing his own unique sounds to the dancefloors of Dundee.

old rope

Turns out to have been a decent haul from those records I put up for auction. Pick of the bunch was a risible piece of trendy electro-house tat, sold to some hairdresser or other for Italo-esque amounts.

Work's been fairly painless tonight, and there's only two more shifts before a weekend kicks off that glitters with promise.

repeat to fade

Third day in a row of hardcore full-time call centre drudgery. Encouragingly enough, I'm now past the half-way mark. And I did after all pass the MDes course last week. Surely this state of affairs can't go on forever... can it?

When you have to repeat the same small number of words many thousands of times, how do you stop yourself going insane? All you can really do is vary the inflection of the sentence slightly, from one call to the next. Drag the pauses out, then compact the words together, modify the phrasing, vary the pronunciation, almost imperceptively so... all the while admiring the Sam Fox flyer on the desk before me, thinking damn, that's good....

strip poker

Invigilating at the college, and I'm using the time constructively by writing up a press release for the forthcoming Generator show.

Also designed a flyer for Friday's NEON that I'm very pleased with... from the opening screen of Samantha Fox Strip Poker on the ZX Spectrum.

give me a lot of music

Spent another sunny Sunday trapped in the bank, and of course it was crushingly mundane. Mind you, one advantage of this kind of work is that you really don’t take anything home with you. Once a shift is done, it seems to erase itself from the memory like a quick going over with a screen wipe. Some people must surely lose years living this way.

Tonight meanwhile I’m thrilled to have won a record on eBay that I’ve been after for at least a couple of years. B Rose – Hey DJ (Give Me A Lot Of Music) really is the stuff that Italo disco dreams are made of.

champions of Europe

Any readers of this blog in its previous Myspace incarnation will be familiar with my despairing over the endless crisis at Leeds United.

Well, credit where its due. Leeds may have started the season with a 15-point deduction, but that's already been recovered thanks to a 100% run of 5 victories. If this form continues for another three years we'll be back to our rightful place.

the line

There's a great column in today's paper by Charlie Brooker on comics.

I too taught myself to draw by copying the characters, and became a skilled draftsman. The artist I liked best was Tom Paterson, who used to have lots of self-referential gags in his strips; "talented duck brought in to add interest to an extremely dull picture", that kind of thing. In fact he probably just lives round the corner, this being Dundee and all.

Today will be my last day off before an epic six day ordeal of call-centre overtime. Why not join me for a week of posts delivered straight from the front line of 21st century service hell? I can guarantee a feast of anguish, self-loathing and self-pity. Not to be missed!