t h e . b i r d s

Something has been odd with the birds lately. Are there many things for them to settle before spring?

They worry me.

All of a sudden they took off, en masse.

You see the tiny pebbles on the water, like salt and pepper? Those are two giant gangs of seagulls and crows. I don't know for how long they just... sat there, messengers sometimes reporting. And I have no idea what happened after we'd gone.

What I do know is that they got a lot of attention from the surrounding trees and tops. The air was filled with squeeks of excitement.

I can hear them now, the rustle and the squeeks, just outside my window.

BLACK SUFI

 Lately my mind has been preoccupied with the idea of black sufis...

{ A link to this pic, to what it looked like before I mucked it up. }

I saw this little girl in the subway, ready to go. She has the hat, and her coat the width for twirls.

y o u t h

Link.

Do you know this girl? Link.

Link 1 and link 2.

 It's somehow a melancholic fun to google through time and see Angelica Huston's face slowly mature into her familiar sharp angles. Did she know she'd become a "household name"? Or do you say that only about appliances? It sounds like something a vacuum cleaner might like to hear. In these pictures, except for the last two, she looks so... innocent, a baffling demanding word I hesitate to write, I'm not even sure it's flattering. She possesses some of the same androgynous very female qualities as Patti Smith and PJ Harvey. Not that I'd like to compare.

Link 1 and link 2.

These pictures say: I'd kill for that coat. (It's actually the coat that started this off.) Link 1 and link 2.

Since this weekend, I can no longer zoom with my digital camera. Technology is speeding up my wish to shoot analogue, still, it's very annoying. I've returned to Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dazzle, one of my many teenage commuting songs. See, I grew up in the far, far suburbs and had to make my way through the grey to reach the gaudy stuff that I still never can take for granted.

WELCOME TO THE SLAUGHTER HOUSE

It's hard to believe that this place, Slakthuset - The Slaughter House - approximately by the end of this month will be Sthlm's new 999m2 large club, with a big scene, a smaller DJ scene, a restaurant and in the summer a terrace. It's modeled after the club scene in New York's Meatpacking district and set in Sthlm's slaughter house area. The Glenn and I got a sneak peak last week thanks to friends that paint and decorate the place with whole cars and the skeletons of dead children playing musical instruments. This is not the place for a bad trip I tell you.

Tonight! A Colouroïd FlexiWave DJ session, with the eminent Glenn and the faint of heart Ella. Babajan, Katarina Bang 75, Sthlm. It will be great.

n o . z o m b i e s

Pic link.

This week is a week when I wake up every morning after more or less sleepless nights and play the game: No, I don't have a cold. It doesn't actually fool anyone, but it does make me leave bed and try to accomplish something, albeit a sticky slow something. 

This weekend will be a special weekend - well, more upbeat:ly special than last weekend!
Friday is Flexi-abend #27 - boy it was a long time since Glenn and I DJd last!
Colouroïd, Babajan, Katarina Bang 75, 21 - 01. Welcome!
And Saturday Jerome Hill DJs at a massive birthday party for a friend.

Also there will be meetings and it's the last chance to see my sister before her lovely three week vacation.

Zombie style or not, I will do this.

I thought I had nothing to combine the first pic with until I one night (blog, google, drowse, repeat) browsed Anna @ Door 16's Flickr and found her set with her father's list of 21 ways to think about art. I really like the action of putting these thoughts into words, the initiative to Flickr them and the lay out. I brood these things a lot in attempts to better and further myself, and the one posted here especially struck a chord with me in my current unsalaried state. When you have no job security to look forward to, it's so easy to start giving in to actions that are in fact false economies, like for instance: In order to make this I will have to buy that, but I have so little money that I shouldn't... blah blah blah, end result: absolutely nothing. Fear will bring out your worst conveniences. I don't think this is what Anna's dad actually meant, but that's what I (need to) take with me. Though you probably don't read this, thank you Anna.

i o n a s . f l a t

I love her enthusiasm, her wholehearted approach to anything.

I love the colours, the amount of detail, at the same time I think it's gaudily trite, and horrendous.

I would not say no to that Korea print (embroidery?). I had a suede jacket quite like that in my early teens.

The amount of detail, the charged mysticism of detail.

The colours, the kindness of colour.

Greta Garbo eyes, or to me, Siouxsie eyes. Hello.

Prim.

Those slippers make that dress.

This is how I (want to) imagine that Kitty Jutbring's flat looks like. A long time ago I heard it was in black and chrome.

The triangles on the book case, so popular right now in the creative blogosphere.

Hey you guys, I have the worst cold. I can't think or move, I just sneeze my brains out and drink orange juice. Days like this you need some 80's gaudiness to cheer yourself up, like Iona's (Annie Potts) flat in Pretty in Pink. This flat and the record shop that she and Andie (Molly Ringwald) work in is what made the biggest impression on me in this movie.

I'd like to write something clever about the 80's college genre but I can't today, let's just lose ourselves in the fantasy.

w h i t e . d o w n s

In my mind as I looked at my vintage dove cross stitch picture last week, I had this line from Agatha Christie's - I was pretty certain, I'm not anymore - Destination Unknown. The heroine has taken or been slipped sleeping pills, ans as she's getting whoosy she hears this line in her head about soft soft eider downs, soft as clouds... Something like that. Of course I googled this like crazy, but to no avail.

My thoughts went from my picture to eider downs to the soft soft snow that has been falling in abundance the last days. You fooled us good, winter, we'd all started looking for spring. I had saved these black and whites for my goodbye winter blog post, but winter's not leaving. What was meant to be a memory is actually what it kinda looks like these days. (Though in colour.)

This weekend has had a surreal feel to it. It started with the lost passport, the world of white closing us in, the canceled trip. Then followed lots of loving friends. I hit my head hard in the ice, and was myself whoosy all Saturday. The Scotsmen called to let us know they'll book us again in April or June. There was so much backgammon, stouts and wine and the extra day of Glenn loving. And - this:

This is an old DDR stamp - encompassed with a poster? I've dreamt of having this as a poster since I first saw it last summer. I love the colours, the drawings and the general silliness and oddity of it. It's beautiful and humourous and we do love the TV tower plenty. This weekend while at friends Lisa and Kroffe we found it in a book. Hello scanner, hello printing company, hello wall - you're mine now.

p a l l o r

When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

- Revelation 6:7-8

Here are pale faces all around, as we sit in our snowed in 30m2 flat. No trip for us, no Edinburgh live gig, no partying. It began with Glenn not finding his passport (we've tossed this place good, American TV police style), then realizing that what we mistakenly thought was "a bit more snow", actually was a world of white, shutting the airports down. Even if the plane would have been ready to take off, no bus would have taken us to the airport.

The quotation is from Wikipedia and the pictures are of me.

c o l o u r o ï d . g o e s . e d i n b u r g h

.

 Top three photos taken by the Karol, then TTV:d by me.

Hipstamatic by Lisa Ulfves. I like the Christian halo.

Tomorrow we leave for Edinburgh and our second Colouroïd live performance. It's going to be a heartfelt snippet - I feel love, Gang,
A Tribute to Tomorrow and Amor y Neón - since we share spot with old school rave warrioress Cynthia Stern. It's time to get down and nervous.

If any of ye Scotsmen read this, it's:
SUBSTANCE vs I ♥ ACID, Saturday at The Store (formerly The GRV), 37 Guthrie Street, Edinburgh.

Lineup:  
GLOBAL GOON - LIVE (Rephlex / I ♥ Acid / Balkan Vinyl)
POSTHUMAN - LIVE (Seed / I ♥ Acid / Balkan Vinyl)
CYNTHIA STERN - LIVE (Input Output Inc / Stockholm)
COLOUROÏD - LIVE (FlexiWave / Stockholm)
GAVIN RICHARDSON (Substance)

Front room featuring:
CYNTHIA STERN (dj set)
WOLFJAZZ (Stepback)
MONSIEUR DE LARGE (ICA)

I'll be back here Monday, or what's left of me. 

On another note, isn't the poster for the documentary Dear Zachary: A letter to a son about his father (no, I haven't watched it yet) quite fine? I love the colour scheme, the white on grey.