where art collides philosoperontap

March 9, 2013

K²day: Flying a Sane Kite

Filed under: thoughts — kory @ 12:34 am

2013-03-06 11.26.17

22h53-23h57, 08-March-2013

So no excuses. I knew that carving out time to write each day while on holiday in Iceland with My Missus and The Boy was going to be a challenge, what with our typically frenetic mornings, the fact that we are driving everywhere (and I am the wheelman), long days packed chock-full with take-a-picture-here-take-a-souvenir (followed at night by three sessions of upload/edit/admire), and blissful unwinding at the end of it all. So no excuses.

Even with the near-religious importance I have long put on food/feating/eeding I still find myself surprised at the sheer might that a good meal can brandish. And I’m not talking about a pizza salve following the loss of the Little League championship in the 10th inning on a walk-off-homer, nor am I referring to a big bowl of chips-n-salsa applied liberally by a pal to help shake off the fact that she wants nothing at all to do with you. There, there? No. NO. Not cross-over grub, but a meal capable of changing the conversation, able to take you from whinging about everything awful that made your awful day the awful day that it was to reveling in the splendor of flavor, the magic of taste combinations, to “Forget about whatever it was I was bellyaching over, you have to taste this bisque, what goes into that coulis, and, no, I hardly ever order dessert but considering how good everything else has been so far, who would’ve ever thought we’d eat like this out here in Wherevertheheck?” The power of love? No, Huey, that’s the power of food.

Talk of “getting away from it all”? Cacophonous. Taking time enough from toil to truly leave it behind? Cliché Cops in hot pursuit. Need a long break? Break this, buddy. So what, then? This: Book a holiday (that’s “vacation” for you ‘Mericans out there) to start at mid-week. Weekend-to-weekend holidays all come complete with a “Next Monday”, as in “I go back to work next Monday.” You cannot get away when you know precisely when you need to get back. “It’s Tuesday. Damn, I have to go back to work in less than a week.” “It’s already Thursday? Where did this week go? Man, that was fast. Tomorrow is the weekend, and next Monday…back to work.” But a holiday that kicks off on a Thursday and ends the following Wednesday? Not only is there reapable benefit to be had in the not-full weeks on the front and back end of your holiday, but the cracking of the norm is sure to levy confusion of the very best type. Take for example La Famille Kessel, which began its happening-now Iceland holiday two days ago (Wednesday, for those of you out there not paying close enough attention)…today My Missus must have asked me what day it was no less than three times, and no less than three times I had to stop and ponder and do a few nano-seconds of actual work to figure out the correct answer.

Next Monday has no hope of finding my ragged ass!

March 8, 2013

3rd Law Part 19 – lowlife, postmen and Winking Owls

Filed under: 3rd law — Tags: , , , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 5:33 pm

Sat in reception of Auto Windscreens listening to some funky music. At first I thought hmm, can they turn this loud stuff off but now I’ve changed my mind. It’s quite uplifting.

I’m here because some lowlife smashed one of the rear windows of the Jeep. The lowlife didn’t get in because they hadn’t bargained for the fact that the knob you use to unlock the door from the inside was broken on that door. I’ve never bothered getting it replaced because it doesn’t stop us from locking and unlocking the car. Hah.

We called the cops who came out straight away fair play.  Apparently there has been a spate of such break-ins in town. They know who is doing it. A bunch of junkies looking for something to steal and sell for peanuts to buy themselves a couple of fixes. Been in and out of prison. There was no evidence onsite at our house to say who it was so I guess the forces of law and order will have to wait until the next incident to try and nab em.

We have beefed up our perimeter defences. I won’t tell you what we’ve done – need to know basis. I’d have to kill you. You can be assured however that it doesn’t involve razorwire or vicious killer dogs patrolling between the fences and trained to attack silently and ask questions after. The mind races away here. Picture the scene.

Dog pounces, forces you to the ground by clamping its huge teeth round your throat, shakes its head to rough you up a little and when it thinks it’s broken your resistance, lets go. It then proceeds to interrogate you in a very business-like manner, enquiring as to the purpose of your intrusion into the Davies estates.

Upon hearing that you are the postman and checking out your ID it licks the blood that has started to flow from the wounds in your neck, backs off and lets you know you are ok to proceed.

No that isn’t what we have done.

We interrupt the flow of this story to say btw it’s Radio 1 playing. Not my thing. I’m not in the right demographic.

Coming back to the security stuff, had the postman had his black and white cat with him in the van it would have scared it witless (words modified to preserve the Universal Classification of this work should it ever get to being assessed by the British Board Of Film or whoever does these things these days.

I assume the postman must have been on foot and without cat. It isn’t practical to take your cat with you on a round if you are on foot as they tend to wander off in search of mice or butterflies (other insects are available).

I’m not a cat person. Not a dog person really either. I like the concept of owning a dog. The faithful retainer trotting alongside you obediently, sitting at your feet in the pub gratefully catching the odd cheese and onion crisp thrown for its benefit. I like all that. What I don’t like is the fact that you have to look after it.

Also what do you do with the dog when you go on holiday?

Puts the mockers on that skiing trip or the villa in Mustique doesn’t it? I guess one could leave it with the gardener or the estate manager, or the mother in law though she wouldn’t be much use. Complains too much. Would drive the dog up the wall. It would attempt to escape and try and find you which is going to be difficult if you are in Mustique though marginally easier if skiing, as long as it isn’t in Canada or somewhere like that.

In fact I haven’t been skiing for many years. Not since Bob Madge suggested we popped up to Aviemore in 1984 or 1985. This was a Thursday and after work on Friday afternoon we were headed northbound with someone else whose name temporarily escapes me but which I will let you know if I remember. George it was I think. So we set off on Friday afternoon for the mobile home we had rented in Aviemore. It is a long way from Lincoln and we got there quite late and were starving.

We had been recommended to go to the Winking Owl to eat but we couldn’t find it so ended up having some poxy pub meal which was ok but not as good as we would have had had it been the Winking Owl, apparently. The ironic thing was that as soon as we had eaten and moved on to the next pub the next pub turned out to be, the Winking Owl of course!!

The next day we spent skiing. The one thing I have refrained from mentioning is that I broke my leg skiing at the age of 13 on a school trip to Sapada in the Italian Dolomites. The consequence of this breakage is that my right leg has never quite been as strong as the left. Normally it doesn’t matter but on that day skiing in Aviemore I found that it was weakening and I was beginning to fall even more than normal. I figured that the safest thing to do was get on the drag lift to the top of the mountain and take the chairlift to the bottom. On the way up someone had to sit next to me because I kept drifting off to the right, my left leg now being muscularly dominant.

When we got to the top we found that the chairlift had been closed due to high winds! Nightmare! The only thing I could do was ski down to the bottom. At this point we must remember from my experience on the drag lift that I could easily go to the right but not to the left! So in attempting to ski down the mountain I found that I could zig but not zag. I ended up having to zig, fall over, turn around on my backside (being ever mindful of that “U”), stand up and zig again. This took me ages and was my last skiing experience apart from a short afternoon on holiday in the French Alps.

Radio 1 is getting a bit irritating btw. I don’t mind the music but the mindless inane rubbish between songs is hard going. Bring back Radio2 or Radio4, though not The Archers. I can’t stand The Archers.

At this point I’m going to change the direction of the conversation because it is in danger of getting too negative. I’m going to take us back in time again to another restaurant we were looking for. This one, whose name is definitely lost in the mists of time, was on the seafront in Haifa. We were in Tel Aviv on business, staying at the Intercontinental Hotel on the beach. Very nice.

The concierge had recommended the restaurant and said it was just outside on the promenade. Getting there all we could find was a closed kiosk. Definitely not the posh restaurant. Looking around us there was nothing in sight. Hmm.

Next thing we know is that an ice cream van comes along, music blaring. I flagged him down and the guy inside, thinking he had a sale, eagerly hopped up to serve us. Unfortunately for him I only wanted to ask where the eatery was.

He was a helpful enough chap and pointed to a spot a couple of miles along the promenade. I then cheekily asked if he wouldn’t mind giving us a lift. Glint in eye etc. No problem.

We piled in and had the surreal experience of riding along the Tel Aviv seafront in the back of an ice cream van. It wasn’t a particularly posh one but hey…

After a short while a kid ran out for an ice cream and we pulled over – right in front of the restaurant. Out we got, thanked him and went in only to find it was fully booked! You lose some you draw some 🙂

How about this – the car is ready. I’m off. Ciao.

3rd Law part 18 here

3rd Law part 20 here

bread in Durham Market during the food festival

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:00 am

Bread in Durham Market during the food festival. It was a good day out with lots of interesting epicurean treats to sample.

K²day: Ain’t Nobody Else Gonna Know The Way She Feels

Filed under: thoughts — kory @ 12:21 am

HelenWheels

17h39-18h08, 07-March-2013

Settled into our Efsti-Dalur accommodation and biding time until we head over to Geysir for dinner, trying to shut out The Boy’s relentless repetition of a poem he has to have memorized by the time his Vacance d’Hiver ends…in 11 days. And the Airmail beta releases are getting out of hand (not rendering that as a link this time, oh no…not taking bad karma for anyone jumping in who doesn’t want to reinstall their email application 1-2 times a day). And The Missus needs her iPad charged, and this can only happen via AppleKory because she didn’t bring her charger to Iceland. And there I go again, Command+Tab back to Chrome to see if the latest-greatest Airmail beta .zip has finished downloading. And now My Missus has set her Mac up on the desk alongside mine, uploaded her photos from the day, and invited The Boy to scootch in to look the pics over (which I also want to do)… Sod it. Will pick up again after dinner/evening entertainment/family turns in/chaos no longer reigns.

22h00-23h34, 07-March-2013

I’ve always enjoyed driving. Not in a “Man, I feel so alive with the windows down, Def Leppard’s Photograph blaring, and the speedometer topped out with my foot on the floor and my hair on fire.” way (image ROCKS, though), but as a means/manner/venue for feeling good in the world…feeling right. A worthy destination, a reliable car, a full tank, an open road — four lanes good, two lanes better! — and the sun nowhere in sight. Now depending on circumstance, a true companion “riding shotgun” doesn’t hurt, nor does the right mixtape (plural, if the drive is of the interstate variety), however solo-in-silence is the pure sweet stuff, the top-shelf añejo.

I was well into 11 before I ever spent more than 3 hours in a car heading towards a Point B from a Point A (Chicago to Dallas, a ripping out of roots and an attempted transplantation) or crossed more than one state line in the same day’s drive (El Paso to Los Angeles, family holiday fun). Since 1976, though, I have had my wings…uh, fins…uh, well, been significantly more mobile. To recount the more substantial roadtrips to which I have been participant would only be long and boring, and this you can believe because before I performed a monster edit such a recounting was splashed right here, and it was…tragic. Let’s just leave it with “Since I was 11 I have taken many roadtrips across the USA and enjoyed driving holidays in Europe.” and call it a paragraph, OK?

Today La Famille Kessel visited Þingvellir, the Iceland location where the continental drift between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates can be seen and sometimes experienced (earthquakes). In describing the location to The Boy as we made our way there today, he said “Can you tell me when Europe ends and North America begins?” and all I could think, both hands on the wheel staring down Iceland Road 36 was “If only.”

March 7, 2013

Natural Bridge, Qld, Australia

Filed under: the art gallery — tavernau @ 10:39 pm

I figured my first post should be something from the heart. So here it is, my favourite image of my homeland.

Where rock has given way to water over thousands of years forming a natural bridge over the water. Hence the location gets it’s name.

A beautiful location, Especially if you like hiking as it’s quite a trek to get in.

_igp2141

the band eats during a break at the trefor.net xmas party at the PhoenixArtistClub inSoHo

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:00 am

The band eats during a break at the trefor.net xmas party at the PhoenixArtistClub in SoHo.

Pic by Nick Pickles

March 6, 2013

K²day: Thin Air

Filed under: thoughts — kory @ 10:42 pm

Photo Mar 06, 13 00 04

12h40-13h32, 06-March-2013

Flight delayed, word of “extremely slippery” conditions on the road from Keflavik to Reykjavik, and My Missus just received a call from her bank asking if she is in the U.S. racking up charges on her credit card (she is not). All things considered, though, we could be in Bucharest…or Detroit.

Airports. Photo opportunities are to be had with just about every eye-blink at the airport. Building infrastructure that is not applied (or appropriate) anywhere else, a virtual gumbo of different peoples caring for a seemingly inexhaustible array of luggage styles and sizes, this gadget that gadget the other gadget and a gadget I never thought I’d see, the shoes!, strange vehicles purposefully darting here and there (Or to and fro? I am growing ever more certain that it is the closing in of the Cliché Cops that is causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.), baggage carrousels…? And, of course, I could go on. Everywhere I look I see pictures that deserve and demand to be taken by someone with far more photography skill than I wield, and — By gum! — it pisses me off.

Today my Eljay (everone should have one) is also in transit, heading for Austin from Londontown for another go at SxSW Interactive. Via social media this morning she reported seeing a Heathrow shop selling “freshly ground coffee & pastries” and quipped that she had “decided to pass on liquidised-coffee-flavoured pastry sludge for breakfast”. As entertained and thought-provoked as I was by Elj’s bon mot, though (and her spellings, though my faith is strong that the day wiill come when the Brits learn to properly speak and write English), I cannot shake the thought that there might be a business opportunity in it all.

Weather reports from Iceland continue to come across, with conditions worsening and a weather warning being issued for parts of the south and west (Keflavik, Reykjavik…). Heavy snowfall, strong gale winds of more than 20 m/s and blizzards…m/s? Into the icy maw of Scandinavian HELL we go (if IcelandAir actually opts to put 543 in the air today, that is)!

I spy with my little eye…a black leather-clad tallish blondish thinnish woman applying far too much lip gloss, a twentysomething student-type guy with his headphones askew (left ear in, right ear out) who is tapping his iPhone against his thigh like a drumstick (wooden, not chicken), a faux beige cowboy hat sitting atop an extensible luggage handle, a lost mouse who is considering making a break for safer harbor…a mouse? Heh no, I made that up. No mice in evidence today at CDG. None of the mammal variety, anyway.

When did Boeing start making planes with tip-up wings? Are new Airbus planes employing the same feature? Is it a design affectation or does it truly add to the flying/flight experience? If free wifi was in the offing I am sure I could find the question’s answer, thus proving yet again that instant information access does not always enable a sense of wonder.

And the Airmail beta? Those crazy kooky tinkerers just refuse to sleep! Build 143 turned up a short time ago, this following yesterday’s release of both Build 141 and Build 142. Feature me once, shame on you. Feature me twice…?

Flight 543 IcelandAir is now boarding. <Cue omininous violin music behind slow fade to white>

4 pints of Timothy Taylors Landlord poured at the Strugglers Inn in Lincoln

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:00 pm

4 pints of Timothy Taylors Landlord poured at the Strugglers Inn in Lincoln. Landlord is the king of beers and the Strugglers a perfect palace in which to reside. A great place to go for a beer in front of the fire on a winter’s evening. Look out for more pictures from the Strugglers in the Art Gallery.

March 5, 2013

Fish at Borough Market

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:00 pm

Fish – smell the sea, feel the wind blowing your hair across your face, peel the spuds and get the chip pan on. A sensory wall hanging in the Art Gallery.

K²day: The Rumble, Overheard

Filed under: thoughts — kory @ 3:07 pm

Photo Mar 05, 8 59 38

11h16-12h48, 05-March-2013

On the way back from walking My Missus to the Metro this morning I realized yet again (re-realized? re-re-re-re-re-realized?) that “walking-asleep” is when I am most open to abstract free-flowing creative thought. That said, I cannot offer a reasonable rationale for why I waited 2.5 hours before disconnecting AppleKory from the home net hive in search of today’s perch. Hmm…well, there was the just-released latest-greatest update to the Airmail beta that absolutely demanded installation…and then I just couldn’t fail to finish Steven Brill’s extraordinary article on the U.S. healthcare system in last week’s Time (Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us)…Twitter this, Twitter that, and no small amount of while-I-slept Facebooking to catch up on…

The other side of my table today features a guest star in the form of The Boy, whose two week Vacance d’Hiver (Winter Holiday) began yesterday. I won’t spend time or pixels here attempting to describe how passing time is vastly improved by the kid’s presence, but I could, I really could, and the words would flow like water from a busted East 100th Street fire hydrant in a Bruce Davidson photo…

Bouncing in my seat to what has to be a Two-for-Tuesday playlist…Jefferson Airplane’s “Go Ask Alice” led (and had to have been preceded by “Somebody to Love” as there aren’t any others by the band that are worth a spit), followed down the rabbithole by a fantastic 1-2-3-4 Leonard Cohen two-fer/Neil Young two-fer. Now enduring some 2000s-ish acoustic-sticky happy-in-my-angst half-song thing with a two-clicks-past-too-earnest voicing (you know, that RomCom/”Grey’s Anatomy” montage-ready sludge).

Spent some time with The Boy in the neighborhood Virgin Megastore yesterday afternoon. The store opened nearly 10 years ago, bringing with it a gulletful of hope and expectation for dramatic improvement on the oh-so-dilapidated Boulevard Barbes, however it is now in its death throes as evidenced by the diminishing inventory (oh, and by the announcement in January that the chain was filing for bankruptcy). Walking amongst the lightly-populated shop’s sad shelves and tables — and they are sad, helped to that state by far too many “Soldes!” signs and stickers and nicked-up product spread too thin — I found my thoughts settling into nostalgia for a time not-long-enough-ago-to-warrant-nostalgia when music and book stores were my best and favorite places of refuge. Barenaked Ladies captured the heart of my Single Guy existence best in song with Brian Wilson, singing:

“Drove downtown in the rain,
9:30 on a Tuesday night,
just to check out the late-night..record shop.
Call it impulsive.
Call it compulsive.
Call it insane.”

Of course, late-night bookstores sufficed just as well (way way back then?!) and they had the added enticement of coffee on site, though I never did manage to pin down whether there was a specific day each week when the new tomes were let loose upon the thirsty public.

OH. Must stop typing. John Lennon is here, singing about how a working class hero and how they are something to be, and attention must be paid. And now a band has magically appeared, helping John to convey power to the people (right on!).

At this point I might look up and stare a bit — out the window, at someone interesting-looking (or someone doing the same take-a-break stare), deep into and through some tchochke or kinda-neglected piece of hanging art whatnot — in pursuit of an ending, however today when I look up I see The Boy with his headphones earmuffing his head and realize (re-re-realize) that the priority has shifted definitively into procuring lunch feed.

Citroen 2CV at Borough Market

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 6:45 am

Inedible horse – topical wall hanging

March 4, 2013

AA van

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , — Trefor Davies @ 10:42 pm

Latest in a series of real life wall hangings in the Art Gallery.

K²day: Stone Soup

Filed under: thoughts — kory @ 5:56 pm

Photo Mar 04, 16 20 15

16h42-17h50, 04-March-2013

Color me surprised this afternoon to discover that both of the newish modernish hip-coolish wifi-ready coffee houses in my neighborhood conform to the oh-so-dusty-European custom of being closed for business on Monday. Always learning in this life, we are…and always walking further than we intended as a result.

Less than three hours ago, right at the tail-end of a lunch best not recounted here, I had a truly great idea for a topic on which to write about today. I did, I really did. The thought made me smile, it made me laugh, it lifted my spirit and filled me with anticipation, and then it took a partner and danced straight out of my mind with nary a backward glance. Not that I am spending much time aching over subjects, mind you, but when you’ve got a good one by the tail (never by the nose) there is no escaping a slicing sense of loss when it breaks free and skips away.

Metaphors. I see I am not lacking for those today, oh no. Of course, me without metaphors is like a laundry basket without socks, or or or a bulletin board without thumbtacks. Uh, a money-showered celebrity without an entourage? Nope, it’s true…the good ones really won’t come when you call.

The chocolat chaud that was meant to share the ride today is already gone, and that is because it was not hot, not marginally so, and thus it was no more in three easy glugs. And that is especially bothersome, considering Le clair de lune, the neighborhood bar/café I tap-tap-tap from today, is part of an affiliation of like establishments called HotCafe. Ironic? Nah. The point isn’t nearly important enough to be considered so and should be released on its own recognizance.

At this point it is evident that the loss of my afformentioned certain-world-beating topic has left me in a place of riffing (read: scrambling, reaching, clutching, grasping, flailing…). Hmm. Should I write about Airmail, the rollickin’ new email program I started beta-testing over the weekend? Uh, no. Or maybe go on a bit about the dreamy handmade camera half-case my eyeballs and fingertips have been tingling over (for Leyna the Leica…avid readers will surely recall my naming psychosis) and that I am thisclose to ordering, as a 48th Birthday gift to myself from My Missus? Uh, no. My ongoing effort to integrate the complete recordings of both Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis into the TOK Tunes digital music library? No no no, heavens no. My surprise over CuzJ being a tad jealous over my imminent Iceland holiday, this despite his leaving days from now for Hawaii? Huh? Of course, I could just share a cat story…

And there it is again, that utterly brilliant topic, rearing its ghastly head as expected and just in time to miss the whole of today’s session of Fill-the-Cruelly-Oppressive-Blank-Space. Caged that slippery beast in a note-to-self this time, though, thus finally subscribing to the notion that writing is at least as much organization as inspiration (perspiration, preparation, presentation, elucidation, and mental masturbation aside).

The giant electrical plug

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , , — Trefor Davies @ 5:55 pm

This is one helluva plug. I didn’t have time to look around the corner to see what it was connected to. Probably a giant vacuum cleaner or huge electric fire. It should be possible to find out but perhaps I’ll leave it to you to go and see. Let me know won’t you? 🙂

March 3, 2013

spices at Borough Market

Filed under: the art gallery — Tags: , , — Trefor Davies @ 8:31 pm
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