Enter... The Water Age

The Citadel: Europe's First Floating Apartment Complex Gallery

It looks like a floating Iskon Building. Read more about it here:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/07/29/the-citadel-europes-first-floating-apartment-complex/#more-45996

Stuff I want... PT.3

Barbour Wax Jacket

Barbour Chelsea Button Thru Cardigan

JCrew Tweed Jacket

Church's Burwood brogues

Slacks do remain a concern.

http://defenseimagery.mil

I've seen this blogged a couple of times, but I may as well add my tuppence worth as well. Terrible, terrible site in terms of easy navigation but some of the imagery (in amongst the tons of rubbish) is very striking.

http://defenseimagery.mil

The Walker Brothers - Nite Flights

Shutout
The Electrician
Death Of Romance

I sat down the other week to watch Bronson.

And the rather excellent soundtrack threw up a Walker Brothers song I sort of knew but hadn't actually listened to - The Electrician. And as I have plenty of time on my hands, I sat down, listened to the whole album and totally loved it.



From memory, this was the last gasp of The Walker Brothers. 3 non-commercially successful albums had been a blow after reforming and this was seemingly the 'well, fuck it, let's do the best we can do because no one seems to like us anyway' album. The best thing for me is that the Scott Engel tracks sound like the Scott Walker of Scott's 1 - 4 and not the Scott Walker of Climate The Hunter, Tilt and The Drift. Records which, try as I might, I just can't seem to like.
Don't hate me Jarvis!

"Have we, erm, certified the body dead yet?"

5:15 to find out. Don't worry, it's not wrong'en vid.

The Tube & Its Maps

FINALLY, I finished reading Christian Wolmars book about the history of the underground.

I have a deeply ingrained love of the underground.

My earliest regular journey from Belsize Park to Hampstead for primary school.
My sister getting into near hysterics when the tube didn't stop at Hampstead and trundled to the unknown world of Golders Green, where a woman gave us 50p for a phone call.
The lifts at Hampstead, which would cause your stomach to turn at they slowed at the top. And occasionally taking the stairs - Hampstead is the deepest station in London.
Taking the tube to Waterloo to catch the train to Winchester.
Belsize Park to Hendon.
Hendon to Belsize Park.
The strange feeling of emerging from the dark or plunging into the gloom at Golders Green.
Seeing that weird little bit in the tunnel, for fleeting moments, between Hampstead & Golders Green.
Darting onto the tube through the guards door, if the tube was delayed at the station with the doors closed.
Swiss Cottage to Stanmore, sometimes using the Jubilee line all the way or taking the Met Line from Finchley Road to Wembley Park and then changing back to the Jubilee.
Stanmore to Marble Arch and knowing EXACTLY where to stand on the Central line to get to the exit before anyone else.
Marble Arch to Belsize Park.
Belsize Park to Shepards Bush.
Shepards Bush to Finchley Road.

These were my journeys.

I missed it when I moved away to the 24 bus or when I was forced to climb aboard the London Overground (nee The Silverlink). I felt like I betrayed something of myself in using these other modes of transport. Like I had done something cowardly in using these 'lesser' conveyances. Where is the inherent danger on the 24? The Overground, well yeah. That's a little different, but it wasn't the tube. It was a suburban route.

I am deeply romantic about my underground, my Misery Line.

Some alternative underground maps... (click on all to enbiggen)

Rude Map

Geographically Accurate Map

Music Map

How London could have looked in 2025

Check out this site for lots and lots of Underground map fun: http://owen.massey.net/tubemaps.html

Ice Cube - It Was Good Day (Remix)

Photo credit: I made this!

Another torpid, languid day in Vancouver. Sticky and hot, which is good if you're with a woman but not if your stuck inside, looking for a job (to corrupt a line from Good Morning Vietnam).

Those moments inbetween furtive searches on Craigslist for jobs -and reading the truly terrifying Rants & Raves section- I get to pootle around the internet and after wasting three hours reading this article on the AV Club and investigating the people mentioned on Wikipedia, I came across this little summer ditty and was pleasantly surprised.

It Was a Good Day

Atlas Sound feat. Noah Lennox - Walkabout

Walkabout

Loathed as I am to blog 'new music', I am always excited about anything which has Noah Lennox aka Panada Bear attached to it. And so here is the new track from Atlas Sound with him involved someway. Somehow.

Pitchfork bell ends have a little more info.

Fallen Princesses by Diana Goldstein

Jasmine at war

Cinder 3

Rapunzel II

http://www.dinagoldstein.com/

Beastie Boys - Benny and the Jets

Englishland

John Inman - Are you being served, sir?

Another musing on the nature of being a foreign. I should appreciate that I am currently 4500 miles away from the British Isles, or more importantly that I am 4700 miles from London, and figure this in my understanding of being here. I cannot say though, that when I hear someone say 'Oh, I've never been to London (let alone the UK)' that I am not genuinely surprised.

I would truly hope that in my soul I am not some imperial loony, but why would people not having visited London surprise me so?

I was as full of Canadian stereotypes as anyone else would be; syrup, mounties, bacon, pancakes, politeness. Four of these are true and one is not.
Politeness.
I am not suggesting that Canadians are overtly impolite but I would suggest that this stereotype has proliferated from the US. I have met people from the US and they weren't dreadful, quite the opposite in fact. We all know that they make horrendous tourists though and the Northern Mob probably get a bit of an ear bashing as they pour over the border looking for quaintness and have consequently learned to smile and be accepting as they attempt to pay in cash with US dollars.
Why would a Canadian not want to visit London? England, it's part of their culture innit? WRONG. So wrong. Yeah the Queen is on the money (all coins, one note) but that doesn't count a jot anymore. They've gone and got all patriotic. They stormed a beach as well you know.

I always think of myself as Londoner first. British second. And this is likely the shock I feel when someone says they haven't been. Why? WHY! Is my first reaction and then I need address that feeling and tell myself 'well, you've never been to Paris and that's more or less that same as going from Amersham to Aldgate on the Met line'. Yeah, London is truly one of the great cities of the world. Doesn't mean everyone wants to visit it or can afford it.

All this doesn't explain why Coronation Street is on every week day at 7pm on CBC and nowhere but nowhere is The 'Oaks available in Upper or Lower Canada.

MADNESS!

Where I be?

Good News - Australia (Tom Mix Edit)
Baby's Gang - America
The Kinks - Mr Churchill Says

Hmmm, I was listening to a Jens Lekman Summer Mix earlier on and a couple of records about nations popped up in the mix and I suddenly began to consider my current position. I am, not for the first time in my life, a 'bleedin' foreigner'. But this time I've come over here with the full intention of taking their jobs. HA!

Manhattanhenge

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanstuart/

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zokuga/

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/keviej421/

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/janekrat/

Manhattanhenge (sometimes referred to as Manhattan Solstice) is a biannual occurrence in which the setting sun aligns with the east-west streets of Manhattan's main street grid. The term is derived from Stonehenge, at which the sun aligns with the stones on the solstices. It was coined in 2002 by Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History. It applies to those streets that follow the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out a grid offset 28.9 degrees from true east-west.

At sunset, a traveler along one of the north-south avenues on the West Side looking east can observe the phenomenon indirectly, being struck by the reflected light of the many windows which are aligned with the grid. An observer on the East Side can look west and see the Sun shining down a canyon-like street.

The dates of Manhattanhenge are usually May 28 and July 12 or July 13 (spaced evenly around Summer Solstice). The two corresponding mornings of sunrise right on the center lines of the Manhattan grid are approximately December 5 and January 8 (spaced evenly around Winter Solstice).^[1] As with the solstices and equinoxes, the dates vary somewhat from year to year.

Text from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattanhenge

Our Lips Are Sealed

Gursky. Gursky. Gursky.
Kamiokande, 2007

The Go-Go's version
Fun Boy Three version

I didn't realise there were two versions of this song. 3 really, but I'm not counting the Duff version.

Disco Rocks!

There has been considerable social comment on the infamous 'Disco Demolition Night', was it, infact an overt homophobic and racist display by that notorious rabble-rouser, Whitey?
Was it part of the catalyst for Whitey to create the punk scene he was so desperately craving? Was punk just Whitey's cash cow?
Was Whitey infact working for the CIA aka The MAN?

Someone needs to investigate the activities of the agitator Whitey, before his antics get out of hand!

Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band - A Fifth of Beethoven (Soulwax Remix)

Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Transit Series

We saw an exhibit of Anthony Hernandez photography the other weekend, at the Vancouver Artgallery. And I must I was quite taken with it.

And when taking a few pictures the other weekend I, for the first time I can recall, consciously decided to use his photography as an influence.

It's a not great picture however.

"Got A Camera, Int I"

Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Blanchard

Alright Dreampop Pop Pickers, Hope Sandoval & The Warm Beef Injections are back with a new single after eternity away from the pop scene. Excited? Not 'alf!

Pitchfork have an mpthrice!

For one day only...

I am internets famous, for this pic.

Da Rude - Sandstorm

Sandstorm

God, whenever I hear Da Rude (not often), I always think of TV's Darren Osbourne. Weird.

Wham! - The Edge of Heaven

The Edge of Heaven

When was the last time you listened to this song? It's good. Really, really good. So good, I do hope it's sung at a friends wedding as threatened recently.

Tim Curry - Working On My Tan

Working On My Tan

I'm just really enjoying listening to Tim Curry

Tim Curry - I Do The Rock

I Do The Rock

On telly here, well on Shaw Comms cable anyway, there are loads and loads of continuous radio stations. You know the sort of thing. Just plays 70's, 90's, jazz and rave, inexplicably. The one we always tune into is the 80's. And it keeps throwing up little oddities that could have easily passed me by or never really made it into the British consciousness. And this is one of those little oddities.

I never realised Tim Curry has knocked out a couple of albums. I always thought he was that hammy bloke from Congo.

Happy Birthday America

Stolen from: Baseball, Apple Pie and Kicking Your Fucking Ass

Due South

It was Canada day yesterday, here in Canada. And I briefly became an hysterical, Mountie Hunter. And like the RCMP motto (no, not 'don't taze me, dude') I got my man.

This being Canada of course, I got my man AND woman. Fairs fair.

So here's to you, the fighting, court battle scared men and woman of the Great White North. Take off!

Jay Semko - Due South

The Vacations of National Lampoon

I guess, in this hideous way us children of the 80's do, we all remember the Griswald's vacations with fondness and don't really remember that they were, in fact, a bit shit. I have watched both films in quick succession over the last couple of days.

Conclusions: Amy Heckerling was a far better director of her Griswalds than Harold Ramis was.

The posters on the other hand, ROCK!


Lindsay Buckingham - Holiday Road
Plastic Betrand - Ça plane pour moi