Patti Smith

Happy Happy Birthday Patti Patti Smith born today in 1946!

Marianne Faithfull

Style icon in 1967? Were such terms even used then?
Marianne Faithfull born 29 Dec in 1946. Happy Birthday!
PS The fashion looks identical today 40 years later, talk about recycling!

Benazir Bhutto 1953 - 2007

Confidences trop intimes

Intimate Strangers in the English title of Patrice Leconte's 2004 film starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Fabrice Luchini.
I watched it last night and thoroughly liked it, especially the slow pace of observance and the camera work trying to replicate the act of watching. The premise of the story is also interesting but the performances of the two main characters is what holds the film. Their faces under scrutiny they know understated acting. Much like in real life our faces betray little at times of great inner intensity and upheaval. Of course there are always exceptions in life anyway, but what I am saying is that there was NO OTT acting in this film. To my great relief Patrice Leconte is a master of the slow unfolding pace of visual story telling.
Last time I saw Sandrine Bonnaire in film which she carried was Vagabonde and she was a lot younger then. She has honed her ability very well and matured as an actress greatly and she IS beautiful as well!
Monsieur Hire by Patrice Leconte from 1989 is on eof his very best films and I recommend it highly as I do the above.

St Stephens Day aka

God Jul

Yule, Jul came from Old Norse Hjol meaning wheel. This would denote the wheel of the year, the seasons, and where the wheel was lowest in terms of light was Hjol and then the turning point which was so significant with hopes of spring was the season of celebrating with light and warmth. Jul in Swedish and Yule in English.
Above you see Swedish traditional baked goods pepparkakor och lussekattor = gingersnaps and saffron buns.
Also a traditional Julbord - Yuletide table. The painted image would have been a typical one from my childhood. The Lucia and a small jultomte gazing at the pole star and waiting for Christmas/Jul.

Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice dawn at Newgrange, Eire.

32 years anniversary today!

Thirty-two years ago today I met Paul Martin in London, England.
I treasure this day. Paul is a very good and old friend!
He is family. He has been like an uncle to my son Noah since he was a baby.
We see eachother regularly and if we don't, we speak often on the phone and e mail eachother frequently.
I value the continuum that such a friendship carries within.
I am grateful that we have eachother and witness eachothers lives.
It feels amazing to know that someone out there cares and supports you no matter what.
We met through a common friend who neither of us are in touch with any longer, unfortunately. I should like to be though.
We have shared many holidays, adventures and quiet days and all kinds, birthdays and such! Best of all is when new/old friends like Paul and vice versa and then we can all be friends! Like the Nice's, and the Born's.
Congratulations PRP and PM and may you both last for another 32 years at least!

Compost

Today is the day of the compost bin.
I just set up the new one that I got from Freecycle which is a lot like the above image. Not a beauty, but functional for here where I live now. It is very windy in the valley and this way nothing will fly around and it wont blow over or afar that easily.
The one at the top was the kind I had when I lived in Cambridge, Mass and we had it in the backyard. The weather did not really reach back there!
I love composting!

Paul Klee

Paul Klee, a painter, born today in 1879 near Bern in Switzerland, yet of German nationality. There is a Paul KLee museum just outside Bern designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano.

Winter wonderland

To welcome the Winter Solstice we have had the most beautiful winter wonderland weather of late.
This area is gorgeous covered in white heavy frost and fog in the morning which lifts during the day. The sunset then gives way to icy cold starry nights. This is close to where the santa chap starts out!

Rush Ruscha rusch

Ed Ruscha born today in 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska. He lives and works in LA.

Goodbye Ike Wister Turner

On Dec 12th 2007 Ike died in Southern California. Here on an album cover with Leon Blue. Good bye and thanks for your music.

Happy 50th Steve!

Steve Buscemi was born today in Brooklyn in 1957. I think the world of him as an actor. Remember Ghostworld?

Sankta Lucia 13 Dec

Today Sankta Lucia is celebrated in Sweden. It is a festival of light during the darkest time of the year.
It is a beautiful celebration. Young girls dressed in white holding candles follow the Lucia also in white with a red sash and a crown with candles. They sing and walk in a procession during the early hours of the day as if to ward the darkness away.
Natten gaar tunga fjaet runt gaard och stuga, jorden som sol forgaet, skuggorna ruva.
Daa i vaart moerka hus stiger med taenda ljus Sankta Lucia Sankta Lucia
It feels like such an honour to be Lucia. I was once and loved it!
Lucia also brngs saffron buns and hot coffee-God Morgon med lussekatt!

Marianne Hauser

If Marianne were alive today I would be in NYC visitng her for her birthday! I love her and the times we spent together. She was an inspiration to me of what I can look forward to in ancient age!
To all of her fans out there - celebrate Marianne! Love and example is what we can give and be given!
A really good writer and I can recommend her work completely and totally. Her work kept on getting better.

Mark Tobey

Mark Tobey born in Centerville, Wisconsin 11 December 1890 and died in Basel, Switzerland 24 April 1976. Co-founder of the Northwest school of painting and considered one of the "mystical" painters. He was certainly involved in his evolving spiritual life and expressing it in and through his work, as well as spending time in the Far East and living in a monastery for a time. I see a connection with Gustave Moreau not in the subject matter but the spiritual content.

Snow

December tenth in 1929 in Toronto, Ontario a Michael Snow was born. One of the most interesting creative people in Canada he works in film, art, visual and 3D and whatever else he finds appropriate for his ideas.
His film Wavelength, which I saw in London at the Filmmakers Co-Op in the seventies and then again later when I was a student at St Martins, was a groundbreaking film. If you ever get a chance to see it, you must.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana

In 1941, today, Bruce Nauman was born. His work has always intrigued me.
I saw once a full on one man retrospective at the Basel Kunsthalle and was blown away. He lives in the desert in New Mexico with Susan Rothenberg the painter.
Glass made out of sand and neon which is a gas. Ephemeral. Yet with messages of so called statements in the English language, quasi-truths, mindbogglers in gorgeous colours. How do you respond? Does it make you think or feel or...?
What if you do not know English, then what? Art for the English speaking only?
Jenny Holzer is another word/text/moving light artist.
Barbara Kruger, Lawrence Wiener, Jack Pierson, Ed Ruscha all work with text, words, meanings, political messages...We are surrounded by words and we live in a very oral/aural world as well as a visual one too. I can not help but read practically every word I see, therefore it is wonderful to go on a word vacation/holiday in a foreign country where your ears can rest and your eyes too. No bombardment of concepts or none, no meanings to think about or not.. A cleansing.
Mind you, have you ever tried spotting typos and find that you fill in the blanks?

Happy First Birthday to Aiel!

Aiel is turning ONE today in California and we send her all our love and congratulations and also to her parents Seth and Lena too of course.
She is mega cute!

Happy 60th Gillian!

This is to wish Gillian Mcmullen a very Happy Birthday today!
Hipp hipp hurrah!

Other inspirations

I prefer to use the word inspiration to influence.
One can be inspired by so much in life and work. It is a more inclusive term to me.
Although influence is potent too, but more specific somehow and it is difficult to pinpoint HOW something influences one. Exactly anyway. The question is often asked especially of creative folk "What were or are your influences?". I think it is hard to answer accurately, but what perhaps is understood but not said is the fact that as a creative, one wants to be original and unique! Therefore "influences" are a no-no.
However I want to share my inspirations readily. When in my twenties I was struggling in particular with identity issues and how to become...
these people were beacons to me.
Joseph Beuys
Cora Sandel
Elka Spoerri
James Lee Byars
Meret Oppenheim
Sylvia Plath
Janet Frame

Marina Abramowic

Today is the birthday of Marina Abramowic. She is a very interesting artist who works in performance as well as in film/video and installation.
I look to her work, as well as to the work of Patti Smith, Agnes Varda, Mona Hatoum, Ann Hamilton, Gillian Jagger, Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Rebecca Horn, Tracey Moffat, Annette Messager, Ana Mendieta, Betye Saar and Shirin Neshat. They inspire/d me to be a better artist. Meret Oppenheim and Niki de St Phalle were the first artists I came in contact with as a very young girl and who awoke that desire and calling in the first place. My grandmother had paved the way. She had been an art student in Stockholm during the first years when women were able to go to art school at all. To me she was a pioneer. A beacon.

Up holden

Upholstery comes from two Middle English words, up and holden, which means in effect- to hold up. At the moment I am covering a very long cushion for the seat of my pew! My long, heavy, dark, gothic oak pew from the Old Baptist Church in Cambridge, Mass.
When it ceased to be a church it became a dancing school and they needed the pews to go, so I bought it for a pittance and could have had many more! Getting it home was another matter though, especially without a car. Finally on a little trolley with wheels and the help of a neighbour in white socks and no shoes we pushed it all the way home and then another neighbour helped me carry it up to my apartment on the second floor!
I got off the subject a little however. What I wanted to say was that I love going and learning upholstery! Tonight I made 11 yards of piping! I could have swung it like a lasso! It is so much fun learning a new skill and making something with one's hands. Not to forget the baked goods at break time. I ate mince pies like there was no tomorrow!
It is very satisfying making something which looks difficult but actually is not.
Next I will have to...

Anna Mae Bullock born today in 1939 ...

...aka Tina Turner! Happy Birthday to one of the sexiest 68 year olds I can think of! I just love going to her high energy life-loving life-living concerts. Once in Basel, Switzerland when she played and Joe Cocker was the warm up- Imagine that!, I broke my right arm jumping from one tram to another trying to get to the stadium in time.
Did not feel a thing until I was riding the train back home late that night after the concert!

Today is the day that...

...Betsy Salkind was born. Happy Birthday Babe!
Here she is with Kev the cat. Betsy is a comedian, activist, writer, actor, and in general a very unique and wonderful person!
Hip hip hurrah!

Robert Woof anniversary

Today Dr. Robert Woof was buried in Grasmere, under the mountain and near Wordsworth's Dove Cottage, a few years ago in 2005. Above you see him with his wife Pamela. Incredible people both of them, larger than life as the expression goes.

The November Full Moon

Moon in the water by Pat de Groot

The Adoption Papers

Yesterday we went to see The Adoption Papers by Jackie Kay at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.
It was publishefd as a book of poetry originally and then later adapted to the stage by Jackie Kay herself.
Performed by three actresses in a black box theatre where we sat in the square as it were. The staging was very simple and effective. 3 chairs in a triangle form several paces apart, and three large clear perspex panels suspended from the ceiling in order to create different spaces for the actors.
One was the birth mother, the second the adopted mother and the third was the adopted daughter. A very tight and emotionally honest piece and it was really good.
The only improvement could have been in a clearer ending, some sense of closure or a natuaral point of leaving off. As it was we were left hanging and not knowing if the piece was over or not. It may not have been in the writing per se but rather in the staging or even acting I am not sure which. I would like to see it again very much.
It can be read as The Adoption Papers published by Bloodaxe Books. The three voices are made clear by different typefaces.
A very thought-provoking piece and it also really helped me get into the problematic and issues of adoption and what it can bring up for all the different individuals involved.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I confess I feel nostalgic about this holiday. I used to love it when I lived in the States. A group of friends getting together with great food, conversation, walks and talks and togetherness. Of course each year was different since I did not have "family" as such there. I enjoy looking back over the many Thanksgivings and remembering each one's pros and cons. One year when Greg cooked his first turkey, the turkey was the other red meat!
I especially loved the ones I spent on Cape Cod! Local cranberries picked and used for the cranberry sauce and relish.
In any case this holiday is the least commercial and the most about being. Eating in good company and enjoying it. Hopefully!
However the Native Americans do not celebrate this holiday since it led to a massacre when they so kindly came to share their food with the starving pilgrims.

New arrival

Welcome Thomas Gordon born on Nov 11th 2007 in Devon to Eleanor Gordon!
Armistice Day as well so easy to remember.
Congratulations to Ele and Thomas, as well as Linda and Alex and Edwin, all of the Gordon clan!
I am looking forward to a picture soon!

Night mare

A recent night mare is still haunting me.
I am held hostage by a man in a hotel room on the 30th floor or higher.
He has a gun and holds it to my head. He says that the only way you can escape is by suicide, jumping to your death from the window basically.
I spend a long time looking down from the window in fear.
It is a dream that will not stop, seems to go on and on and I can not get out of it.
Suddenly Joel was there as well as a hostage.
The man, who now is called Udo Breger, has to go to the bathroom at the back of the hotel room and I see my chance. I go to the door but can not for my life open it. My limbs feel like lead.
We hear him in the bathroom and he comes out wearing some kind of sash partly over his head.
There is no escape but suicide or death by bullet.

Happy Birthday Ken and Ben!

Two Scorpios, one a very old friend from Cambridge, Mass. days and the other an old friend of Noah's from NYC days!
We had lost touch with them both but I talked to Ken over the weekend which was lovely! I hope we will reach Ben today!

Meret Oppenheim

Nobody gives you freedom-you have to take it! - MO

Photo by Nanda Lanfranco

Meret Oppenheim died today in 1985 in Basel, Switzerland.
Don't cry-work! - MO

First Snow

We have just had our first snow of the season. Is it early? I think so. We have had frost since October already and some very cold nights.
It is so beautiful when the land we know as one everchanging seasonal thing is suddenly covered by a blanket of snow. It reflects light and the contours are softened. The land looks like reclining bodies all over and the white sheep go in search for grass in all the white.

Desmond Tutu

Today Desmond Tutu has called for a worldwide abolishment of the death penalty!

Norman Mailer

Mailer's last novel.




Mailer's first novel.
The past is the past and besides it's passed.- Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer born 31 Jan 1923 and died 10 Nov 2007 at age 84 in NYC.