Dense murky chutney memory

This is more of a tweet than a blog post, but sometimes it's good not to have to try to eliminate punctuation marks in order to say what you've got to say in 140 characters. I had a conversation yesterday with the woman at the chutney stall in Temple Bar food market, and we were talking about how some chutneys are profoundly intense. I was complimenting them on making a hot sweet fruit chutney that I think is perfectly suited to the Irish palate, the perfect balance of hot and sweet. And how I had tasted some chutneys once from India, kept in the house of some ambassador or other who was away probably being an ambassador, while his teenage son had a few people over for a few days, of whom I was one. It was the summer I was 17 and just out of my first year of college, and I was just drifting around where the wind blew in Dublin.

So I went to Dublin yesterday, and wandered around for a few hours. I was a ghost, haunting the streets, mostly. I saw faces that I knew, it is always thus in Dublin, and this is the single reason I find Dublin an interesting city these days. I like to look at the faces. I suppose if I spent a couple of days wandering around København on my bike I would probably spot a couple of people I knew on the street, but nothing like Dublin. And I have run into people I know on the streets of New York, not just in the neighbourhood (it's not such a devastating experience in the neighbourhood, but when you meet someone you know on the subway or anywhere in Manhattan it feels fucking holy or something).

Yeah, faces I recognise, and some of them I have never even spoken to. There is a strong sense - whether you realise it or not of course is another matter - that the fact that you live in Dublin and walk on the street makes you a visible human being in Dublin. You are part of the Dublin landscape, another of the people that people recognise, whom they never ever actually engage with or speak to in any way. But these people make up the furniture of a small city. Recognisability is an invisible, implicit quality of Dublin life.

Of course it has changed. The woman who used to dance and play accordion on that little triangle at the top of Pearse street by Westmoreland street, she's gone. The woman who wandered around dancing and making ley lines energy gestures, she's gone. And me, I was the one racing through the streets at breakneck speed and making hair-raisingly close calls (but always polite when glancing past someone so close I could smell their perfume) on my little red scooter. And she, she too is gone.

So I was passing through Dublin yesterday and I get to talking with the chutney lady about other chutneys I have tasted, and I always remember these crazy salty off-your-arse-hot mango chutneys I tasted when I rocked in at this guy's house at 17, and stayed for a few days. He had red hair, brown eyes and pale skin and he seemed kind of withdrawn in that smart rich kid kind of way. Anyway I have always remembered his name, and I just googled him and discovered that he lives a few blocks from where I lived in Brooklyn.

And we talked about the quality of such chutneys, the chutney lady and I, yesterday. They are murky, she said. Yes, a kind of mud green, I agreed, generally joining in the friendly business of agreement. But those chutneys weren't murky at all. They were salty. And hot. And sweet. And I had never tasted anything like them ever before. And he, this probably 18 year old kid who was our host, was already weary and over everything. He probably grew out of that.

Tar wonders if there is any chance of A Great Adventure Of Doing Things

Octopus grass

More from the Bill and Lara story

These are again, from their first meeting. The original pic being this, of course, and click on it to see it larger. We need to talk about our feelings about these photographs, folks. Please feel free to share in the comments. I can't stop looking at the photo of these two holding each other. The sheer unmitigated joy. I am so happy they have found each other.

Meet the mandrill family.

16-year-old male mandrill "Pablo", 10-year-old "Zora" and their four-week-old baby play in their enclosure on March 20, 2009 at Munich's zoo Tierpark Hellabrunn.

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Bill and Lara meet for the first time. Lara has been lonely.

Polar bears Bill, right, and Lara react during their first meeting, at the Zoom Erlebniswelt zoo, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Friday, April 17, 2009. Bill came from the zoo in Bruenn, Czech Republic, as a new partner for Lara.

Click on the picture to make it bigger. You can find these and more photographs of zoo animals in springtime over at the wonderful Big Picture.

Pagi and Palu, the sun bears

Pagi, right, a female Bornean sun bear cub whose name means "morning" in a Malayan dialect, licks her brother, Palu, who is named after a valley in Borneo, as they made their public debut at the San Diego Zoo on Monday, March 16, 2009. The twins are only the third Bornean sun bear litter to be born in North America, all of which have occurred at the San Diego Zoo, where researchers are studying reproductive biology and maternal care of the sun bear.

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

Fancy a tabby bengal?

Hep cats, of the four distinct types of Bengal tiger existent in the world. What a photo shoot.

MAKLAK

My favourite thing on the internet right now.

What excellent news

this is.

So there's more to it than that

You know it's true I do more stuff than I said a few days ago in a post about how I don't do much other than stare into space while "working on a song" and tend to the menagerie around here, lately. I mean, mostly I do those things. Those things take up most of my day. But also, I fuck around on the internet for 15 hours a day like everybody else, and that includes looking at some interesting stuff. So at the very least, I could hit you up with some of that stuff. But you know, I suppose I think if I post something here I want to be wholeheartedly enthusiastic about it, rather than, uh, not being wholeheartedly enthusiastic about it. And yet...

Yesterday I discovered Jeffrey Lewis and Janelle Monae and returned again to Jamie Livingstone's daily polaroids. I can't describe what it is that I love about these pictures, so many of which are unremarkable, or badly exposed, polaroids, but the textures of them renew my love for film far more rawly than some gorgeous clean beautiful pictures I've also been looking at elsewhere. There is something so roughly gorgeous about Jamie Livingstone's lifelong daily shot project that takes my breath away.

Jeffrey Lewis? Sidewalk cafe guy, plays that folky sixties style guitar with a kind of maniacally dense lyrical style, ripped off melodies (Suzanne Vega's Luka for one, and a Blind Faith song, "You can all join in" -- though in fairness the BF song goes "Make up your own words up if you want to, any old words that you think will do" -- and somewhere else a paraphrased Leonard Cohen quote that is magnificent in its original), but he does it interestingly and he clearly loves music and it's playful and depending on your mood, listenable stuff. He's on tour right now, seems to spend a lot of time on tour generally. But basically, he's very new york, which is kind of comforting. You know? When what is considered new york these days is so fucking bland, it's nice to hear this and recognise it, to know that this is Typical L train Rider and hear his thoughts. Also makes comics.

The other gal? Kinda fun. Listen for yourself.

So here's a thing that bothers me intermittently, lately. This is the first time in popular music history when vast swathes of the people who are arriving on the scene and making music are largely rehashing-without-reinventing earlier periods of music, whipped entire from 1982 electronica or 1964 Motown, and literally just mimicked to the last detail with cut and pasted new lyrics onto them. This has never happened before in this way, and the entire music firmament from labels to magazines is lapping this shit up wholesale, and encouraging it, calling it genius. This bothers me.

It also bothers me to see people walking around in eighties drag. It's weird shit, man. Why would you want to do that? It's not everybody who is doing this of course, and there is interesting music being made nonetheless, and it isn't as if music has not historically been endlessly appropriated and appropriated again. But the history of pop and rock music has up until very recently, gotten forged by those who reinvent what came before, rather than literally literally mimic the exactly approximated and carefully studied mannerisms and tropes of what came before. This creeps me out. It's like music stalking. It's like identity theft. And it's being done by 20 year olds with talent. And it is what is, if anything, getting hoisted and Grammied™ and lauded and sold sold sold sold sold. And, of course, even more depressingly, bought bought bought bought bought.

I was also looking at some highly improbable, fun stuff yesterday.

Bright, pretty New Orleans-based Swedish one woman band.

We really have a lot of hissy fitters living in the house this week and it is beginning to get on my one remaining nerve.

Oh, and this is a wordcloud of my um, followers, over at twitter. It's clear and kinda nice.

West Side Story Drama in my kitchen

Koko, yes the Rita Hayworth one, has just come into season this past couple of days. Just in time for Monty, the suddenly Aflame and Renewed springer spaniel, who normally spends his days asleep, but now who is frantically in love. We have to keep them apart, so that Koko does not return to her owner having lost her honour. We will NOT be putting purity rings on them or playing Jonas Brothers pukesounds in their ears, but Monty IS pissing all over everything to let Koko know he is coming for her, calling out to his beloved to keep her faith, that he is on his way. They are making their bark-aria as I type.

This is likely to continue for some days. This may be like this for a week. Hey! We need some patience over here. Can whoever gives out the patience bring a truckfull of the stuff over here? Just dump it in the yard, we'll make light work of it.

Thanks.

Tar

A nice hedge

I think this is the lucytakesoff version of intermission muzak. But lush. It is spring!

CD release party tonight, Paranoid Larry's latest record

CD release party at *6 pm* TONIGHT for a fantastic record I did backing vocals on:

Paranoid Larry & his Imaginary Band: The Struggle For Existence

68 Jay St Bar (at Water St.), DUMBO, Brooklyn. No cover, $10 for the CD. Larry's the one with the most serious beard in the room. Say I sentcha.

Paranoid Larry on Myspace (the current record isn't up there yet)
The Roches sing Paranoid Larry's No Shoes
The record on CD Baby

Meet Koko

She is our latest one.

It seems that all I can really write about in the public sphere at the moment is #mousenews, or #catnews, or #dognews. For ye of no twitter, the # is a shorthand way of indicating a topic, within the 140 character space restraint of the tweet form. (Favourite recent hashtag: #whencrackgetsintothecattery).

It also helps with @ replies, when someone responds to a particular tweet on a topic, so you know what the hell it is they're talking about. Some people don't use or get hashtags at all, some use them dilligently and very properly, and some have fun with it.

But just about everything I have to say about anything is getting sucked into my current project, a record I'm writing here in the hut, with only the local fauna spilling out onto the internet afterwards. So I imagine that a lot of internet folks think I am running a menagerie around here (not hugely far from the truth of my current circumstances) or that I am animal-obsessed. Fact is, there are not a lot of people around and the animals are almost always entertaining. And they have stuff to say. And I listen. I tweet for them sometimes. Clean up their pee. We form bonds.

So. Koko. Koko is one of these glamourous, pretty, troubled types. I'm thinking, Rita Hayworth. She's also playful (particular interest in ball games), likes to be given lots of attention and has hissy fits when she is not being attended to at all times. We like her very much and she sleeps in a bedroom at night, spends most of the afternoons in the kitchen.

It is time for my second coffee of the day, and another session assuring Koko that she is loved for her mind.

Mulligan's, Dublin with a guinness, detail

Taliwood: the future of disaster movie epics

Has anyone considered setting up the various Talibans with some 35 mm cameras and a special effects budget, some sound stages and Macbook Pros? The latest from the Pakistan Taliban (is that like Bjorn Again, or something? A tribute Taliban-d?) is that they intend to launch an attack on Washington that would "amaze everyone in the world". Ah, that's what they're after. They just want to amaze us. All too easily done with light and shadow, and the right budget.

Can somebody tweet Barack Obama with the idea?

Kim Deal pedalling.

Happy to be the cat who MEOWed

This is Where, screening at Beefstock Music Festival today

My This is Where project is screening in New York later today during the Beefstock Music Festival in the Catskills. Lots of friendly people and good music.

My Birthday Mouse

Small Deadmouse, and Missus from Lucy Foley on Vimeo.

This is what I got.

#mousenews

Just met the mouse again. We meet every night, around this time. Slight mutual alarm. Though he is deeply cute, I will prob bring the cat.

The cats have disappeared into Mouseland. They are looking around with wonder, inhaling deeply, ecstatically alive and grateful. #mousenews

My plan: the cats will flush the mouse out, and then I jump in at the last minute of batbatbatting to cut a deal with him. #goodcop #mousenews

Plan was to play goodcop with the kitchen mice I have written about previously, once the cats had flushed them out. But now I'm watching Capote. Think I'll just interview the cats afterwards instead. #cruelbutsuccessful

I mean, I will spend time with the cats. I will gain the cats' confidence. I will bring the cat kittenfood when they have, um, starved themselves (albeit HIGHLY unlikely). I will share stories with the cats from my own difficult kittenhood even if it didn't happen. We will share. I will take their litter tray away and scrutinise it. I will write a great book. A great book. All the cats in apartment land will secretly read it, savouring every word, every batbatbat, every crunch. Vicarious.

Liveblogging #mousenews daily at twitter.com/herecomeslucy

Perplexed

God, look at this photograph. It was published in the Guardian last week, another of their series competitions under the theme of 'absorbed'. This is such a complex beauty. It's almost like a Raymond Carver short story. The tomato juice, the mirror frame and the ketchup bottle hold the image of the man with a kind of reassurance that he clearly has no access to. The ashtray keeps the letter pinned to the table, as if it will jump up and eat him otherwise. I get the impression he is probably reading the same sentence over and over and over, trying trying to understand it. This photograph, needless to say, didn't win the competition.

The fact is, of course, that this picture is exactly how I feel today.

Roman water labyrinths through the deserts of the east

If you're keen on ancient architecture and underground waterways, you'll love this. Otherwise, not so much.

An art career is born: toilets and taoiseachs

If they won't hang your paintings, just paint something eye grabbing, topical and political and guerilla hang it in the Royal Hibernian Academy and the National Gallery yourself instead. The hell with it, paint the prime minister naked on the toilet. And make it topical. Toilets and Taoiseachs. Get the media involved.

Get the police involved. Ooooooooh. Delicious. Delicious. The POLICE are hot on the tail of this artist.

Jay Jopling is surely not far behind.

UPDATE: RTE, our national broadcaster, today apologised for covering this topic of power, politics, nudity and alleged crime, in the main evening news, as a result of a complaint from the office of the Taoiseach, who considered the story irrelevant. Yeah, I mean, who could think such a story remotely interesting to the populace (especially in this economic and political climate)? I wonder if the office of the Taoiseach would recognise a newsworthy story if it bit them on the arse on the bog and painted them?

The greatest thing to hit email: Undo Send

Yes folks, gmail now allows you to go up to five seconds backwards in time and delete an email sent in error, regret or neglect. Isn't this just about the finest thing to hit email since, uh, gmail?

If you have a gmail account, just click on the labs tab under settings in the top right side of the page, and scroll down until you find it. Then forever after, you will have a few vital seconds to change your mind when sending an email! Hurrah!

Honey, I'm home

Wild Life in Coole Woods

My Bloke

So. It has been a bit of a gap. My bloke was visiting me here in my exile, and making windows. We have been having a Really Great Time with just about everything. He has just about landed back in Brooklyn now, and things will probably get a little more regular around here again. Note: this does NOT mean that my bloke is bad for my blog. My bloke is bad for my internet habit, entire. And this is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Iraq: the new Croatia

Package deals available now.

Mike Dresser

Mike Dresser: Monkey-Bombing Axe Murderer.

St. Patrick's expose

Stay tuned around st. patrick's day by the way. I'm hoping Lucy Takes Off can bring you some interesting photos from the Limerick festivities.
UPDATE: we stayed at home and played music, and got loved at by the dogs. Sorry.

Wagon train

A collection of Romany gypsy caravans are going up for auction next week. Since I was a kid, I have wanted to live in one of these. At least some of the time. You can take your sleek modern minimalism and shove it up your arse as far as I'm concerned. I'm all for wood, warm textures, swirly patterned soft furnishings and painted details, a horse up front, and the open road.

Bam. Bam. I am. The man.

Hit it.

We will get over this cat thing really soon, I know we will

but until that day, we will look at this.

Life for women in Haiti

This makes me very sad, but I cannot look away.

Interspecies Loving, or, Get-You-In-The-Mood Friday #1: classic cat and dog

This edition of Interspecies Lovin' Friday might just have an anthropological edge for the same money, so hang on in for the ride. Today, we are featuring the classic dog and cat scenario: a volatile and needy situation at the BEST of times.

Here we have a classic moment of edge of interspecies cuteness. The cat finds the chihuahua so godammed cute, he just can't stop himself... these things are so often about subdom issues when it comes down to it.


In the next video, it is clear what is going on is that the siameses had been bored of each other's company for a very very long time, the sheer sameness of it all. And then the puppy arrived... The classic three lover relationship. The love seems to be truly shared around. Note that the dog is not a chihuahua. Only with this species variation could this situation be so harmonious.


The following pair of videos, when viewed in tandem, will help you to learn something. Ok, so look at this first. The picture of interspecies grooming harmony (with a little subdom edge, clearly, if you scrape the vaseline lensed surface away). There is simply no question about it: the chihuahua is this cat's bitch.



Now. Take a look at this. Same cat. Same chihuahua. But realer. More complicated. Also the introduction of cat #2. We are ready for more.



Have you noticed how the cats are ALWAYS the dominant partner?



But can they really get along? I mean, outside of the sofa, the bed, the livingroom floor? Tune in next friday! We might have donkeys. I am not promising anything, Cindy.

Myspace looks different today

They've prettied up the song player. You can see it on some of the links I'm embedding today. And no, I have not forgot that is Cute Friday. I will be getting you hopped up on some small cute servings later this afternoon.

So, today's post is simple. It is What I Am Listening To Right Now.

Started last might with The Bowmans, for the second time. To be honest, I find something a little twee and clicheed about their songs, but godammit the sound of their voices together is just gorgeous. Their tone is not hugely varied, but it is thick and luscious. Lullaby-like.

They will probably not like this appraisal if they come across it. Nobody likes less than total enthusiasm when you've worked your arse and pocket off for months to make a labour of love. I dig that. But I also dig that I can listen to this stuff and it is not the kind of stuff I would normally find interesting, but I can hear the beauty in it. The last three songs of this myspace selection are particularly smokin', actually. The Bowmans are selling their new album now, from their myspace page.

I'm not a fan of earnest/cryptic Americana to be honest, but I can't get enough of Gillian Welch for instance. It's amazing how tiny the degrees are between what leaves you indifferent and what makes you ache with desire.

With Welch and Rawlings, it's again the gorgeous complementarity of their sound together, but it is also the sheer dryness of the tone, this desert-like tone, and their incredibly specific, clear, simple, hip, unclicheed songwriting.

Ok, so I've just watched Pete Doherty being interviewed by Pat Kenny, the most untalented, unsocial man to have a lifelong career in chatshow interviewing.



And then there's part two of this interview. Watch the kid on drugs shine over the man who thinks he's interviewing him for a bank clerk post. Does Pat Kenny not understand the notion of actually trying to get the best out of your guest? Clearly he's done his apprenticeship under the tutelage of Gay Byrne, particularly those interviews where Byrne grilled American mistresses of bishops who bore said bishops sons, like it was the Spanish Inquisition, rather than noting Byrne's natural hammy friendliness at times. Unfortunate choice of influence, but then I guess you can't always choose what you become influenced by, can you Pat Kenny? I'm sure that Pat Kenny has met excellent listeners in his time, but he hasn't noticed, clearly. Because if he was listening to this interviewee bearing his fucking soul for him, he would have noticed that the business of becoming mixed up in drugs was not the coolest thing that Pete Doherty thought he had ever done.

Ireland is an island nation of course, with a certain narrowness of outlook, and perhaps Parkinson's matey and gracious warmth was just a bridge to far to emulate. To be honest, I really put it down to the fact that Pat Kenny is good at numbers, and talking about economics on the radio, and really committed when he is doing that.

But when he's interviewing humans who are Different To Him, he misses every last bit of the good stuff. In this interview he sounds like a moralising tabloid, missing the humanity. He's clearly prepared to interview a half-conscious junkie, and instead gotten a lucid and openhearted junkie, and he can't even recognise this. There is a difference, mister Kenny, between 'asking tough questions' and 'endlessly harping on the same question 15 different times'.

So. The part of this interview that set off a hurrah in my heart was when Doherty tells Kenny that all the questions he has asked him in this interview were about "drugs or Kate. I bet you couldn't mention a single song I've written." And the answer from Kenny is that no, he couldn't. And Doherty responds with " well that is what I would like to do. I would like to put a melody in your heart and your head, and that that would be the first thing you would think of when you think of me". And then he sings his song.



Pete Doherty also has a record out next week. Two of his songs are up on myspace.

Thanks to Paula, who linked to Pete in one of her last posts on her blog.

Closed Zone

This is a very short piece of animated simplicity, made by Yoni Goodman, the animation director of Walz With Bashir. It's a little window of metaphor of life in Gaza.

Sayin it like it is, and spamming twitter with it

This is what a twitter spammer looks like. You can block them, and that is what I do, but you know, I paused at this guy's bio. I mean, he's getting at the core of the human condition in five words there.

Pithy.

Sita sings the blues

I watched this a couple of days ago and it soothed my soul and the world caught fire. It's a full length animated film available in full, for free, here. It has been created from the mind and heart of Nina Paley, and she has woven some profound human archetypes, stories that resonate again and again in our lives, into this fabric of her own story, using the songs of Annette Hanshaw and the classic Hindu story of the Ramayana. It is wonderful, and profound and funny and gorgeous. It made me cry and it made me hot.

Nina moved from San Francisco to India to follow her husband, who had taken a job there. What she found when she went after him was coldness and withdrawal, leading to him dumping her by email while she was in New York for a meeting. Unable to move back to San Francisco, and with her marriage in tatters, she took a flat in Brooklyn and grieved. And five years later, she gave us this.

She has released it openly, on a creative commons license, available for anyone who wants to download it, and it is also streaming freely online. She has written about how important it is to her that stories and music that she found in the public domain be released back to that domain without restriction. And so she is now in a position of having to buy herself 'out of copyright prison', in other words pay the holders of the copyright to the songs used in the movie, $50,000 for their use, even though the songs were written over 80 years ago. If you are moved, this is how you can help her on her way.

This movie tells Sita's story so beautifully and elegantly and with such truth, accuracy and insight. What a gift.

What has happened to Katie Shea?

This post is a special request from my budding flea fanbase in Oahu, Hawaii (hi guys! squeak squeak squeak squeeeeeak!! Hurrah!). They wanted something they could read.

For the humans, this is an excerpt from my lovingly tended, daily fed spam folder, which reassures me: "you will become popular among the hottest women" (phew, eh?) and then proceeds somewhat cryptically, "Show off with your power and star". I guess it's time to finally do something with that Betelgeuse I've had tucked away in storage in my parents garage for a while.

This urging was sent to me by Katie Shea.

Katie used to be such a lovely robust, salt of the earth Irish woman. Now, she has become a soothsayer of sex. I admire her versatility in this celtic rodent economy, and wish her all the best with her future career.

Spam anxiety

I just got a spam letter from a gentleman who tells me 'I wait in internet cafe'.

I did not realise i had such an appointment. It seems I am very late because the flight alone to the philippines is 10 hours. I hope he has a sleeping bag.

Cat Friday

A short expose of the truth of cat.



This seems to me to be a kind of parable about the dangers and responsibilities inherent in getting everything you've ever wanted.



And in every cat friday there's got to be a dash of sheer dog truth. Because they are the other side.



Now stop purring all over me and go clean up your litter tray.

For Reuben

I think you will like this.

It's Bill Hicks, aged 18

He died 15 years ago yesterday.

Feeling groovy/Feeling hoovy

So they've discovered a 'bright side' gene, which, if plentiful, ie. 2 are present, can lead to a life of greater wellbeing. The presence or absence of this gene is being attributed as a key factor in "resilience to general life stress", deciding whether a person is "neurotic and anxious" or able to take things as they come and not worry too much about the future.

Genetic tests on the participants showed that a tendency to ignore negative images and dwell on the positive ones was strongly linked to a variation in a gene that controls serotonin, the brain's main feelgood chemical.

Each of us inherits two versions of the gene, either two short ones, two long ones, or one of each. People who had two longs versions were most likely to focus on the positives, according to the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

I wonder, though, how much other parts of the system aswell as cultural factors, come into play in ultimately deciding behaviour. Is it really that bald? A question of 'ignoring negative images'? I mean, humans are so much more complex than that. An artist, storyteller or forensic detective may, for instance, have a tremendous interest in the 'negative', as a source of wildly interesting human behaviour. Anyone who wants to explore life at all will have to jump into a sea of what in certain company would be called 'negative'. We are not exclusively positive entitites! Sure if we didn't 'dwell on the negative' sometimes, we'd be glossing over images of horror in the world, without a care in the world, wouldn't we? Or would our two optimism genes actually make it easier for us to gaze into those caverns of dark humanity?

Gene stories are the old wives tales of our time. They are stories we are told about our condition, stories that we have no way of verifying objectively, but which can be interesting entry points yet again into exploring this wild human nature. Or they can make you feel very very depressed indeed. And nervous. And anxious.

I wonder if Ireland is a classic example of an entire country of people firing ahead on two full bright side genes. You'd need them, every time you listen to the radio these days.

So. Which one are you, do you think? Two longs, two short genes or one of each? The glass half full, or empty? The glass being fucking addled with poison either way, or grand sure, lovely, delighted to be here?

That time of the night

I believe this is called commenting outside the box. That, or drunk off my arse. Thing is, I wasn't.

Emailing the past

That seems to be part of my job for the next while.

Clusterbook #1

Clusterbook #1 from Lucy Foley on Vimeo.

This is a project I have going on over at my other home, Clusterflock, where I have made a bookclub, and the first book we are discussing is one written by another of our tribe, Daryl Scroggins. A bunch of us have read it, talked about it, and are now opening the floor to anyone who has read it and wants to talk about it, to come and talk about it some more in the comments area.

We're going to make the post a feature on sunday, so if you have read Daryl Scroggins' book This Is Not The Way We Came In, then you might want to come on over and chat on sunday. We'd be delighted to have you.

Boney M, Belfast

This song was roaring through the charts at the brutal height of the troubles in Northern Ireland, by a band originally from Monsterrat and Jamaica, who were then based in West Germany. It would be easy to wonder how this didn't actually end the troubles once and for all in a rainbow coalition of glitter and sequins, but really, the mind boggles at how a 15 year old living on either side of the Peace Line would have processed the information on their tellies, watching this video in Belfast in 1977.

And weird too, because this band came from West Germany, which had its own Wall at the time. I suppose it was easier for them to sing about Belfast than Berlin, but only goes to show that disco and raw politics don't blend incredibly well. I do think they meant well and their outfits - not to mention lipgloss - are fucking incredible.

The song was originally called "Londonderry". I guess they chose "Belfast" because it was less partisan, but you know, Londonderry probably had more of a ring to it, rhyming wise.

Wombat: a journey

I have just heard about a creature in Australia that would appear to be currently extinct (ahem) known as (ahem) the prodigiously girthed mega-wombat.

I am googling the mega wombat and finding 26 year old Seattle men. However, apparently there are models of the mega wombat in Sydney N.H. Museum. Here you can find a picture of the head of a common wombat. This is what the common wombat does when it is cranky, apparently. It would be hard to be aggravated by this, I think.

If you scroll down to the second item on this page, you will find a cute picture of wombat-human love, and also a story of a WOMBAT THE SIZE OF A CAR WHAT LIVED A LONG TIME AGO.

This is an artist's impression of a female mega wombat and her young, which is not cute but truly, awesome.

I don't know what you think about this, but I find it kind of mixed message, frankly. Many layered. Please don't get mixed up and barbecue your wombat.

Alright, it's time for you to meet Jody, the cutest thing that ever lived. Check her out scratching at the end. I try to keep this blog clear of excessive cute, but you know, when you do it, you've got to do it right.

Eamon

There is another reason for turning the volume down on one of your facebook friends. It is because their status updates and comments and links and posts drive you crazy and you don't understand it but they make you feel tired, just to read them.

One such is a man I met in a garden in New York, on my last day in the city in 2003, until I returned almost four years later. He turned out to be my third cousin. Pretty remarkably closely related, his father and my grandmother were first cousins. This kind of detail matters to me, a lot. I have found a long-lost cousin in remarkable circumstances, in every place I have lived in, now.

My cousin in Denmark I had not met since we were both 2, in Limerick. I met him again when I performed at an arts festival in Denmark. As I left the stage, and the venue, he came running after me, shouting, "Lucy come back! It's your cousin, Brian!" He said I hadn't changed much since I was 2. He recognised me. Fucking Nora (Nora was the name of a grandaunt to both of us).

And this one in New York, we met in a garden, as I said, in the east village. He started talking to me, asking about where in Ireland I was from. His surname and my grandmother's were the same, and they came from the same place. That was an epiphany, a kinship made in the city, a sign to return. I have made some overtures toward contact, facebook being one of them. But he doesn't seem able to say hello. It is easier, I suppose, to click 'confirm' on a friend request in your inbox, from the safety of the distance of your familiar computer, than to meet the unknown yet blood related, in another human being.

He is a rocknroll musician and I think he is probably very lonely.

This is a video of a fox who has clearly fallen in love with this trampoline

There's been some talk of animals on trampolines lately over on my other home, clusterflock, which sent me in search of this. I think you will understand it was worth the quest.

We come in peace

Michael Bosanko's light paintings.

Bosanko is a photographer who uses long exposures, coloured torches and deserted landscapes to literally paint with light, on his Canon digital. It's great to see something made with the potential of all those squiggly lined images you invariably get when you shoot flashless at night, especially with digital.

The Facebook Post

I'm up to 15 people I've turned the volume down on, but do not want to unfriend, on facebook. I've muted them for different reasons. Some because I think it's just plain weird to be getting daily feeds about banalities from lives of people I don't know very well/am not hugely interested in, but there are also some I've detuned because they endlessly post soppy/sentimental status messages, and there are a couple of people I have initiated some kind of direct communication with, who haven't responded, so it seems weird to keep hearing about them in an exclusively passive way.

Kind of like that friend you had once with whom you used to have Very Long Phonecalls, where they talked Endlessly about their personal life, family, thoughts, random passing bullshit, and never really thought to ask you how you were, or allow any space between the inhalations to listen. But the cutesy messages probably bother me more. You know? It's like living in a world where people are really really tired all the time, but they think that if they are 'positive' about everything, that some of the bad shit will go away. I can't dig it.

And then there are the people who treat facebook like it is their personal sitcom and everybody is there to be their canned laughter. That's alright though, I mean facebook is not exactly Tolstoy.

I've only ever unfriended one person on facebook, in the 10 months I've had a profile on it. That was a dude who was always acting out his relationship on facebook. You know the sort of thing? Like the whole relationship was this fantasic fantasy of amazingness that had to be validated and posted about in a plethora of ways, daily. Mwa mwa my gorgeous darling girlfriend who I love love love mwa mwa so much every day I see you I think how gorgeous you are and you are the light of my life kind of thing. Nasty. I tried turning the volume down on him, but he still showed up in my feed. It was just a drag. It's also a lot to do with how many people you've friended. The fewer, the more they feature individually. You can also turn volume up on people. I haven't done that yet.

But the main thing about facebook is my vibe with it. I just can't seem to get enthusiastic about their status messages, which is reasonable enough when you get even slightly meta about it, but you know, I seem happy to ramble on on Twitter when the mood takes me. See, the thing is that the mood does take me on Twitter. It's just more of a conversation, an interaction. It's actually moderately interesting, sometimes. Though I'm still in Twitter for the potential rather than the actual yet, and I've been tweeting for a year now. But it's more chilled, more fun, less shouty.

But let's be honest. The whole thing is, of course, a load of bollocks.

Female title options in London

I bought some tickets for various shows in London a couple of weeks ago, and they all had a variety of interesting title options, you know, the mr/mrs/miss genre of name prefixes, but this list from the ENO (the opera) set my imagination on fire a bit.

Tickets for the Very Reverend Lucytakesoff, please.

Mushroom Love

More pics on the theme of kissing. It was a photo competition at the guardian, and as usual they picked the predictable cliche as the winner. I think this one should have won. It's the most fun of the bunch, but these mushrooms made my heart sing.

Falling in love at 76 and 77

A brief story of two people who found love together late in life.

Within a week he made the 245-mile round trip from his home in Perth up to me in the Highlands for our first date. He's such a romantic that he'd arranged for a big bouquet of flowers to arrive before him. When I saw him I felt I'd known him all my life. He had lost an eye and part of his leg in the Korean war, but he's a fine man. Instead, I was worried he wouldn't find me attractive. As soon as I opened the door to him, I said, "If you don't like me, I'd rather you just said so now and turned away", but he didn't. As we talked, we knew we were meant for each other.

Stuart's very different from my first husband - he's half bald, but he reminds me that he once was a young thing with a full head of hair. It's strange looking at pictures of each other when we were younger. We wish we'd met earlier, but at least we've met each other now.

It is Valentine's day

and I have been wombatted. Also, dogloved. Oh. ♥

Tar on a wet path

Kiss The Frog Only If You Really Mean It

An article about the science and alchemy of kissing:

In a recent study, Fisher's team used a medical scanning technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 49 men and women who said they were deeply in love. Of the volunteers, 17 had just fallen in love, 15 had been rejected and 17 said they were still in love after an average of 21 years of marriage. They concluded that romantic love can become long-term "if you kiss the right person", Fisher said.

A London Quintet

Hey baby, let's devolve together

Lucy, half a million years ago. Go on, you'd have wanted to evolve with me, wouldn't you?

This is a variation on the high school prom picture site that was doing the rounds 6 months ago. It's quite fun. You upload a photo of yourself, and watch yourself devolve (using a somewhat primitive reimaging system but it's fun enough for your next five minutes) and find out how you looked up to 3.7 million years ago. Funnily enough, the 500,000 year old species that was used to inspire the above photo was found in Heidelberg, Germany, which is the native home of Oliver, my friend the species historian, whose specialism is the homos throughout time. His facebook profile image features him holding a skull of a pre-homo sapiens human from a Long Time Ago.

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin!

Advice of the day

Lucy and Tar: a selves-portrait

We talk to ourselves in public

I do, do you? I talk to myself much as I talk to a lover or sister or close friend, about the issues of the day. I've always done it, since earliest childhood. I had my first imaginary friend at 2, her name was Ebony and she was black. In fact, I think she was the only black girl in all of Ireland at the time, imaginary or not. I had various imaginary and living human friends throughout my childhood at different times. But through the whole time, and still, I have always talked to myself. I would be talking to myself now if I wasn't writing this. Though I often talk to myself while I am writing. I break off to talk to myself. It is something very deep in me. Like a cup of tea. Deeper. It is an intimacy, a confidence, a trust, a fun thing. I tell myself jokes and jive, and I think over Difficult Subjects, and I consider out loud the ideas and inspirations that come. And when I get a song in the middle of the night, like I did last night, I sing it out loud.

I am aware that I am probably viewed very differently to an older person, when I walk along the street, yapping away. I suppose there is nothing to be done about that, except to enjoy it while I'm young. I love the fact that I don't really care about how I am perceived, though sometimes it feels like a kind of intrusion.

Do you do this too? Does any of this sound familiar to you? I would LOVE to hear from you. I mean, it's not something that would be meaningful really in itself, to have a roomful of people who talk to themselves out loud in public and private and anywhere they feel like it, because we'd most likely get on with talking to each other. But you know, there would be a kind of kinship.

The murder of Timmy Tiptoes so that Squirrel Nutkin can live off the fat of the land.

They're killing grey squirrels in southern Scotland, and they think they can soften the reality of it by changing a vowel and using an alternate consonant. They call it a 'cull'. It is an effort to increase the red squirrel population in the area. The grey squirrels apparently carry some kind of squirrelpox virus, which has no effect on them but kills off red squirrels.

Naturalists and landowners are joining forces today in a drive to effectively wipe out the grey squirrel from northern Scotland. It is believed to be the largest cull of a mammal yet seen in the UK, with many tens of thousands of grey squirrels expected to be trapped and killed under the government-sponsored project and shot on sight, legally, by landowners.

I was followed around Kew Gardens in London for a whole day by a pair of red squirrels. It was my birthday and I spent it jiving with some squirrels, feeding them brazil nuts, until we met a peacock who felt he deserved them better. He didn't get any. His wife snatched my last brazil nut out of my hand and swallowed it down while I learned something about practicality and the distractions of prettiness. I also got a very sore thumb from chipping at the nuts with my thumbnail. Brazil nuts are hard.

I think it is a terrible pity that humans are intervening in the natural wild profligacy of our friend, personally known to me as the Brooklyn Squirrel. I wonder if Tate and Thea have heard about this? They live in London now. They would HAPPILY make the journey north to help in any way they could to save the noble red squirrels from the pestilent grey one. Um, and then they will HAPPILY eat the red one too, because, uh, you never know.

But really, what are they using: baseball bats? Is this like a baby seal thing? I hear there's a shoot on sight policy. Shooting squirrels? Don't they see how this will be hijacked as a license to vent violent energies without fear of chastisement? Is this why they are really doing it?

And what will be done with the meat?

Stoatdancing

This is being framed in a "When Good Stoats Go Bad" kind of way, but to me it looks like a slinky creature having fun in the snow. Pity I can't embed it, BBC also uploaded it to youtube but disabled embedding, even though they put their logo all over the video.

Apparently the chica can go like this for 15 minutes at a time.

I saw a fox behaving in like manner on Tuesday night in Camden town, London, on Mornington Street, by the bridge. She ducked into a garden when she felt herself being looked at. The second fox I saw in London. The first was on Monday night, sniffing around for food and exploring the snow, in the garden of the house I was staying in, also in Camden.

Um, did you get the Simple Minds reference in the title? Now look again.

You ain't my bitch, nigga. Buy yo own damn fries.

This is the finest thing I've seen on the internet in quite a while (at least since this morning) even if our jiving president (did I just say that? Am I becoming American? Or just an inability to recognise Brian Cowan as anything other than a cement truck?) does sound a little unhip with a filthy mouth.

So, to be clear: these are samples from President Barack Obama's audiorecording of his book, Dreams of my Father, which he has read aloud himself. In this recording, he quotes some friend of his from back in the day. You are about to hear your president say nigga, sorry ass muthafucka, and perhaps the sentence of the week: This shit's getting waaay too complicated for me.

For budding Kenneth Starrs everywhere, take heed: that guy ain't shit. Sorry ass muthafucka got nothin on me. Nothin.

This one, sadly, did not show up in a vicepresidential debate, sigh: there are white folks, and then there are ignorant muthafuckas like you.

This, however is by far my favourite.

If you're having problems listening to the audio samples, you can also get them here and here.

Thanks, India!

Amanda Palmer is alive and singing

I've just gotten turned onto the new muxtape and I really think that this chick ROCKS. She sings about having abortions after daterapes but not caring because she's just sent a fanletter off to Oasis and she'll be seeing Blur in September with her ex-best friend Melissa who was molested and so she knew the right clinic to bring her to after the daterape, but who subsequently blabbed about everything to everybody and so they're not talking anymore but it'll probably be alright by September and it's all packed into a 2 minute frenzy and this is feelgood music par excellence.

Really, this is a great selection of songs. There is some wonky 'room atmos' in between songs which might have something to do with David Lynch, I don't know I didn't watch Twin Peaks, but this chick has got guts and energy and her record company has stopped promoting her for having an imperfect figure and singing about difficult female topics and even so she's getting interviewed by the Guardian and I hope she does well.

There's also a great song about it being ok that there isn't love because there's the Dukes of Hazzard and Southern Comfort.

Fun must be recognised in all her forms. Fun must be allowed to make her way uninhibited in the world, regardless of where she chooses to dance. And by fun I do not mean the fun of the murderer or the fun of the rapist or the fun of the mean girl who used to bite me when I was 6 (Jennifer whose brother was Trevor, if I knew their surnames I would write them here but I do not. They were both blonde, that is all the information I have). I mean the fun that makes its way into earnest and dark places and brings light. I feel very strongly about this. This chick was criticised for doing just that, and tv stations said they liked her song but they would not allow it to be played nonetheless. She has written a fantastic blog post about the topic.


Amanda Palmer is my new favourite person.

So that Ross will understand about Jacques Brel

A hymn from Neil Young, aged 25

Spot that pigeon

Camden Lock, London, today.

Camden, today

Christ. London gets some snow. Schools are closed, shops are closed, people take a day off work, buses are cancelled for the day, the tube is in chaos or suspended, planes are sliding off runways, and nobody's heard of Ice Melt. I'm going to bed.

London, tonight

The view around half nine this evening, walking over the Millenium bridge, with St. Paul's Cathedral visible in the background. More snow than they've seen in years.

Rothko transubstantiates in my room

I have come to London to see a Rothko show. While I am here, I will do lots of other things also. It is getting interesting.

This evening, my first full day here, I returned from the loo to see my water bottle on the floor, seeping water, in this peculiar - there's no way around this but through - maroon Rothko like form. The floor here is maroon, it just is. The floor is a Rothko-like maroon, to begin with. Now, with a dark form in the middle of it, reminding me of the purpose of my visit.

I had no previous knowledge of the colour of the carpet in this place, and I bought that water with a full intention to drink it. It's thirsty work spending hours in the tube, circling between King's Cross and Moorgate, trying to find a functioning Metropolitan line on the weekend, and thus missing the Complicite show that is probably a thing of Greatness. You need water for all that.

Universe had other ideas.

Rothko lives! But yes, I am looking forward to reuniting with those paintings (and new ones! ones I have never ever ever seen before! hurrah!) tomorrow evening.

Gosh, this article is very interesting.

Molly needs a home

Molly is an almost three year old yorkshire terrier/jackrussell cross who looks like a yorkie purebred, and who has more puppy in her than sense at this point in her life. She is also one of the most entertaining, endearing pooches I have ever met. Favourite tricks include Her Famous Kangaroo Act and peeing with both back legs in the air. And she needs a new home, as of today.

Molly was saved from drowning by a very kind woman who now feels out of her depth with her. A colleague of Molly's current owner wanted to drown all 9 (9!) puppies in Molly's litter, and so Molly's owner rescued them and found homes for them all. Molly was the runt of the litter. None of the puppies had been weaned properly and Molly's first weeks in her new home were spent being syringe-fed milk. She didn't take to all this upset at all well, and still Molly is a fraught and finicky eater. She will only eat when hand-fed, gets upset around food very easily, and mostly wants to eat the food that the humans around her are eating. She has just learned poor ways. 

Molly likes to hump her favourite blue blanket and LOVES long walks in the countryside, where her kangaroo act can really shine. She is always at the very end of her extendable lead, straining to get somewhere Very Important. When you pick her up, she trembles in your arms and will look very seriously and earnestly, directly into your eyes for as long as you can stand it. She LOVES to play. She needs to be around people a lot, probably because she was half weaned by one and probably doesn't realise that she isn't half-human after all.

Molly has no sense. She will happily approach twin rottweilers and insult them in the bawdiest terms and offer to take them both on and show them a thing or two. She does not understand that she is a mere bean burrito to such creatures, and that really she is reliant on their mercy for her survival in such cases. She will also run directly out into roads without any awareness of traffic at all, so she will need to be rehoused in a home that has good security around it, in terms of walls or strong fence. 

Molly needs a new home because her owner is a single mother who is taking on further education and a fulltime job in this coming year and Molly would be at home alone all the time during the day. Molly really likes human companionship a lot. She considers them kin.

Molly seems to carry the memory of the precariousness of her origins with her, she has a certain troubledness to her, a certain complexity that is unusual in a small dog. 

I am deeply fond of Molly, and we are going to do all we can to find her a suitable home, ie. a fantastic one. Molly has special needs, and it is important that she finds someone who will be a steady presence in her life, aswell as enjoying her special skills.

If you are living in the Clare/Limerick area and you would like to join the list of eager potential Molly kinsfolk, then please, by all means, email me, or leave a comment below. Thanks.

What I learned this evening in the village pub

1. Deer are a pest in the countryside.

2. The curlew is a tasty bird.

3. A man who they said wouldn't last Christmas one year, is still around, 35 years later.

4. There is a stallion who is married to a barren mare, and who refuses to mate with fertile mares unless his love is standing in the field beside him.

5.  An 89 year old man walks two miles on the open road every night in his reflective vest to sit at the bar, and at the end of the night, walks home again. Every night.

6. Garlic bread goes surprisingly well with your first pint of Guinness in three months.

Black Iraqis get on the stoop

I found this remarkably moving today. Something very sweet about the men standing there, the earnestness. Inspiration is an amazing thing, so many different forms.

They seem so... American.

Cor, what the bloomin' 'ell's goin' on, daddy?

So many of the images in this excellent photo story are iconic, beautiful and moving. But this one is the shot as far as I'm concerned. It's an image of tourists in the Canary Island of Tenerife - a hugely popular package holiday destination for Europeans - looking out a window at asylum seekers who have just arrived in a boat from Africa, and are lined up in the carpark below. The window reflects the tourists' reality, but this striking scene has caught their attention. See it large here.

This is how they arrive. Your huddled masses, indeed.

Or has that old idea gone out of style?

Sing hallelujah c'mon get happy. Get ready for the judgment day.

Excellent article, this, about the press corps surrounding Bush for the duration of his presidency, with the photo editors of three news agencies discussing key images from his eight year tenure. Santiago Lyon of AP adds a caveat:

“One thing that’s obvious, but it’s worth bringing out there, is that there are very few casual photographs of the president of the United States. The whole thing is managed. With the exception of the guy hurling the shoe at him, these are all photo opportunities that are organized by the White House Press Department and set up for the members of the traveling pool or media group that accompanies him everywhere. So you have to look at them within that framework, that it’s being orchestrated to send a message.”

Whereas Vincent Amalvy of AFP feels the opposite, wondering at the unprecedented access that the American photo corps has to the presidency. Many of the pictures are images of the same moment, from slightly different perspectives, framed differently. Jim Bourg has some especially interesting ones.

Something I was glad of when I watched Bush's last press conference - despite the depressing reality of his lack of awareness of the depths of what was going on around him - was the frankness of his humanity. The man is a dolt there's no question of it and his lack of regret, at least publicly, of anything other than the bad photo ops, and his profound lack of understanding about apparently anything at all, is a terrible thing to behold, given the gravity of the office he held. But he is also a human being. Contrast his demeanour in the last press conference with the "farewell address" which was so static and so stiffly performed. And then, those last three photos. Reminds me of stage school kids who learn how to stifle all their feelings and go out on the stage and smile smile smile.

Little horrors, aren't they?

Neighbours

in Shanghai.

Molly