A Tale of Two Cities
Okay,so this is only really going to be of interest if you live or have lived in either Sydney or Melbourne. But if you thought the Melbourne/Sydney rivalry was a myth, here’s proof that it’s very much alive and well and as spikey as it’s ever been [melbournesucks.com.au]. Apparently Melbourne is “a rip off drug infested hole” where “everything costs money” and “in Melbourne we do like to spell correctly” (grammar seems to be less important though), whereas Sydney has “nice weather”… a lot. I read somewhere (sorry, being lazy) that Melbourne’s population was set to outrun Sydney’s by 2020 so here’s hoping this one runs and runs. (Where’s our London Sucks website, surely that’s a site that would be immensely popular).
I couldn’t find any images of the ‘Melbourne Sucks’ posters that have provoked this recent furore (furore-ish) — if you have pics of said posters please let us know — so here’s an ace piece of artwork for one of Melbourne’s many hip shopfronts dotted around town [forepaw.org] instead. Oh, yeah and guess which city I’m from?
An Ace Shop With a Slightly Dodgy Name
There’s a new record store in London which, with a little help from No Days Off [nodaysoff.com], is single handedly helping reinvigorate a sad and bedraggled little corner of the formerly hip Clerkenwell district [wikipedia]. If you drop by you can pick up a handy and handsome guide to the local area including quiet little parks to go sit in or a warm summer evening and rowdy yet respectful pubs to loiter in. The store is called Pure Groove [puregroove.co.uk] and they have enrolled the insurmountable talents of Kate Moross [katemoross.com] to scrawl on their freshly painted walls. Look out for loads of events, instore and out-of-store too.
LeCool Go Euro
Four years ago, a Barcelona based publishing house released a quirky and intimate guide to their city with a rather long name. ‘Le cool changed my life — a weird and wonderful guide to Barcelona’ created a unique voice amongst the usual travel guide fodder. The design was a visual feast featuring artful photography and some crazy typography. Any city would have been jealous of such an ode. Well, it’s taken a while but finally Le Cool’s book series has branched out. They have just released brand spanking new guide books for Amsterdam, London, Lisbon, Madrid and a revised edition for Barcelona. [lecoolbook.com]. The London edition is designed by Jeremy Leslie of MagCulture fame [magculture.com].
Review 2007: Andrew Losowsky
When Mr Losowsky [losowsky.com] tells you something is worth reading then you better be paying attention. This man know his magazines. Editorial Director for Le Cool [lecool.com] (and international jetsetter), Andrew also played a major role in setting up Colophon2007 [welovemags.com] early last year, curating the exhibits alongside Jeremy Leslie [magculture.com] as well as acting as editor on the book to accompany the event entitled We Love Magazines [die-gestalten.de]. So without further a-do here’s is Andrew’s stuff of the year 2007…
Publications
Cut me this year and I bled ink (Pantone 032). Among the paper delights I fell in love with are Omagiu (Romania) [omagiu.com], Etiqueta Negra (Peru) [etiquetanegra.com.pe], Carl*s Cars (Norway) [carls-cars.com], the printing of IGN (Hong Kong), the protest edition of Flaunt (USA) [flaunt.com], Good (also USA) [goodmagazine.com], Dumbo Feather, Pass it on (Australia) [dumbofeather.com], B East (Various Eastern European places via Stockport) [beastnation.com/beast], Kasino A4 (Finland) [wearekasino.com], the online edition of T magazine from the New York Times [nytimes.com/t], S Publication (Denmark) [spublication.com], Coupe (Canada) [coupe-mag.com], the GQ 50th Anniversary Edition [gqat50.com]. But my favourite? Lemon (USA) [lemonland.net]. I’ve only seen the Kubrick edition, but it’s so bloody fantastic, from idea to execution, that I can’t wait for more. And neither can any of the people who work in my office. Everyone loved it, even those who don’t speak English. Lemon is this year’s winner. May their crown be swiftly stolen by something even better. /
Music
This year I seemed to fluctuate between three classic crooners: Bill Withers, Paul Simon and Lou Reed. My favourite new discovery was Tok Tok Tok [toktoktok.eu]. Thanks to the barman in Begin the Beguine in Madrid for that one. Mellow. /
Film
For a cinema buff, I’ve seen surprisingly little this year. Those that were memorable and worth your time (if you can track them down): El Orfanato [IMDb], El Labarinto del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth to you) [IMDb] and the marvellous Czech Dream [IMDb], a documentary about creating a non-existant supermarket in the Czech Republic. A triumph of substance about style. /
Art & Design
The Riverstones bowl from the MoMA Store made me gasp [momastore.org]. I own it now. Lovely. The huge wall of scribbles at MoMA made me laugh, a lot (can’t remember who did it, sorry Mr Artist). Also the newish terminal at Zurich Airport [zurich-airport.com] — not new this year, but a new discovery for me, a slick wooden object of beauty with a hilarious spoof Tiroler Hut upstairs [tirolerhut.co.uk]. If you look out of the window, you can see the outdoor kids rooftop playground on the other side. Bouncy! /
Events & Exhibitions
Leaving aside the obvious Colophon2007 plug (it was such fun!), the fog box in the Antony Gormley exhibition made me feel like I was in a weird filmic dream [southbankcentre.co.uk/gormley]. Loved it. The Alan Fletcher retrospective, if that was indeed this year, made me smile, which is as it should be [designmuseum.org]. The new De La Guarda show FuerzaBruta send my jaw spiralling to the floor [fuerzabruta.net]. And the Revealing Histories displays at Manchester Museum was a brilliant, brilliant way of re-examining a museum and what’s in its collection [revealinghistories.org.uk]. Controversial, eye-catching and rather clever. Well done, everyone. More please. /
Purchases
My Monster iPod Shuffle headphones. Changed my commute and occasional jogging forever. I then lost them (boo) but my girlfriend gave me another pair for Christmas (hurray!). No more annoying wires and accidentally changing tracks mid-podcast. My weekly Radiolab [wnyc.org/radiolab] moments are safe again. /
Places to Visit
I’ve been a very bad carbon boy this year. Top places: Melbourne (would love to live there), Angelos Pizza in New York on a Monday (try the garlic bread, tip your singing waiter). Bestest of all: Lake Atitlán. Google it and gasp [wikipedia]. /
Worst Place to Visit
Miami fucking Airport. I’d explain why, but then I’d have to kill you, me and everyone you know. We shall never speak of this again.
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Tomorrow Comes Today
Perky Pop Practitioners, Saint Etienne [saintetienne.com] have been collaborating with film maker Paul Kelly ever since they released the film to accompany the album, Finisterre [plexifilm.com]. Together they are helping us hold onto the fragments of London’s recent past including many of the old style cafés that are disappearing under an avalanche of Starbucks and Pret a Mangers. They have put a bunch of their films up on YouTube too including this one about the New Piccadilly Café which closed only a couple of months ago, along with snippets from their latest feature, This is Tomorrow.
Ideas for London, Part 1
I’ve been a bit grumpy today, it being a rainy Monday in olde London town so what better time to get a few things of my chest in regards to this crusty old city. This has also been inspired by a recent trip to the currently Tate Modern exhibition on ‘Global Cities’ [tate.org.uk]. There also seems to be a general consensus that London needs a lot of work at the moment on a number of levels. London has always had a problem with planning. It is a city that prefers to react to events rather than sit down and sketch out any plans on what it might become. So here are a few humble suggestions for paving the way to a better capital…
Extract National Politics from Local Councils
This may sound a like a bit of a lunatic notion to many Londoners but there are many places around the world where local government and the national political parties are two distinctly different things. Take Australia for instance, where Mayors are elected based on their own personal record and that of their immediate, hand-selected team of councillors from a particular area. Allegiances to major political parties are expressed but rarely discussed at any length. The focus being on the organisation, supply and promotion of local services for the local population. With local councils in London and U.K. having to take sides on a regular basis, the result tends to be a lot on infighting, unnecessary expenditure and, ultimately, a mess. The smaller the section of the community the more visible the local government needs to be. Many councils in London can seem invisible to their citizens on a day-to-day basis.
Create a cohesive ‘umbrella’ identity for the whole of London
England has visual identity systems that are renown throughout the modern world. Just look at loving care and attention to detail lavished on maintaining the identity for London Underground over the years. So why is the current state of London’s various visual identities in such a mess? This is a topic that I’ve discussed on boicozine before. There many factors contributing to the visual pollution we see today, although much of the blame has to be laid at the feet of lazy councillors and businesses who prefer to use marketing and branding led agencies who speak the language of business much more fluently than most of the more traditional yet often more appropriate, Graphic Design agencies based in London. They are simply not up for a challenge and happy to be pandered to by the wrong sort of companies. This could be overcome by creating a centralised Graphic Design lab for the various London councils. This would also reduce the over-reliance on outsourcing work to a variety of agencies and flakey consultants.
On a more intimate note, here a few less ambitious ideas that could help make things just a bit better…
Create a National Centre for Design at the Barbican
The Barbican is a unique place for a city to call it’s own, and although a lot of good work has been done recently to elevate it’s status, it could still be made to work harder at helping reinstate the confidence in modern design and architecture that this city is sadly lacking. There is currently an opportunity to create a National Centre for Design that could occupy an annex of the Barbican called Milton Court (Update: Sadly now demolished). A Design Lab and Workshop could be set up as an Education centre and an annex of the Design Museum could be created in the, now empty, fire station.
[Google Maps]
Create a new centre for London in the Truman Brewery
The area around Brick Lane and Spitalfields in London’s East is becoming busier and busier every day. Many businesses are starting to move over here from traditionally hip areas such as Soho in the West End. Much of the activity centres around the Truman Brewery [trumanbrewery.com] in between the two. Here lies an opportunity to create a second heart for the city. A mixed use development including reasonably priced and experimental housing (to prevent the site becoming a city boy ghetto like much of the Old Street area has become) and a central shopping area could be developed around the various event venues that live there now. A cohesive visual identity encompassing the massive brewey site would tie the various activities on site together.
[Google Maps]
Add a bit of Tokyo to the West End
London’s West End needs a bit of a boost. The area around Piccadilly and Leicester Square has to be one of the busiest city centres in the world and yet it look tired and unloved. A slice of Tokyo retail action could reinvigorate this part of town and starve off the blatant Americanisation of the lower end of Regent Street. Any visitors to Tokyo will know how amazing the retail experience is. London’s high streets do not compare. A Tokyo style shopping centre (abet on a much smaller scale) could be developed on the former Regent Palace Hotel site [regentpalacehotel.co.uk] and incorporate ‘proper’ Japanese versions of popular London stores such as Uniqlo and Muji alongside unqiuely Japanese ‘retail experiences’.
[Google Maps]
So there you have my London brain dump. Some of it may chime in with your own thoughts on the matter. Some of it may irk you. Either way, why not add your thoughts to the issue and leave a comment. In a city this big there is always room for change.
Pulp Theatre
The term ‘Grand Guignol’ has come to refer to “any dramatic entertainment that deals with macabre subject matter and features over-the-top graphic violence” according to the unofficial but comprehensive Grand Guignol website [grandguignol.com].
The term comes directly from a theatre set up in Paris called Le Theatre du Grand-Guignol that ran from 1897 to 1962. The theatre specialised in a type of ‘pulp theatre’. This consisted of short, sharp plays (usually about 5 or 6 packed into one seating) often of a ribald and saucy or grisly and gory nature. Their little horror shows became particularly when known, largely due to the luridly authentic special effects employed. Often spare parts from butcher shops were used to achieve effects such as live amputations and decapitations. The Grand Guignol even came to London during the roaring 20s but was considered too sordid an affair to stay in town for too long.
A theatre group calling themselves the Thrillpeddlers [thrillpeddlers.com] seek to keep the genre alive and wacky funster, Angie Reed [angiereed.com] has written a little ditty about the ‘Old Mistress of the Grand Guignol’. Let’s hope there some sort of revival in time for next All Hallow’s Eve.
Vents No Dummy
Looking for a chilling experience to bother your brain. Then Vent Haven is the place for you (the Museum not the event although both look equally as eerie). Two words: Ventriloquist Dummies… loads of them. Almost 700 of the fuckers at the last count. And you don’t have to go all the way to Kentucky to experience the icy chill of a room full of retired ‘vent figures’ just pop along to the Vent Haven Museum website. You can nominate the ‘Figure of the Month’, visit the convention website and make sure you don’t miss the ‘Tour Tape’ in the Multimedia section. It makes the whole thing worthwhile. Final Word before you scurry off to check it out (go on, you know you want to), appartently at night, in the dark, when all the visitors have left and the staff have gone home, you hear the sound of the dummie’s joints shifting and even the occasional mouth snapping shut… bbrrrrr! Visit the [venthavenmuseum.net] online for more information.
