notes on becoming fearless

succulent

I've been overwatering my succulents... I hope they don't die, they are so beautiful.

Care instructions here.

MACHINES of loving grace

I've recommended Adam Curtis's documentaries on here a few times and I'm about to do so again! His recent series All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace was brilliant. The three episodes explore the power of the machine and the computer as a model of the world around us. Sadly they take these off the BBC website very quickly, I hate that the BBC produce so many interesting documentaries and programmes and don't allow people permanent access to them on the web. Luckily plenty of people have uploaded them to YouTube so you can watch them there.

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace - Episode 1, 2 & 3.

 

SLUTWALK

 

SlutWalk London, more information here and on their Facebook page.

beatific

Photos from the Angelheaded Hipsters exhibition of Beat Generation photos on at the National Theatre until 20th March. It's free! 

 

Photos taken from here.

FUTURISM

I finally made it to the Barbican to see Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion which is only on for a few more weeks - it ends on the 6th of February. If you haven't seen it yet and you're in London I would definitely recommend it - it's the best fashion exhibit I've been to. Often I find that looking at clothes in a gallery feels slightly boring and completely out of context but these clothes work perfectly as museum pieces - they are interesting enough to want to spend a decent amount of time looking at them, they look great on the mannequins and they are spectacular in an often unassuming way and are actually quite wearable. I wanted to snatch most of them off the mannequins and make away with them! Pictures just don't really do them justice.

As well as showing the Yamamoto film I unsuccessfully tried to watch a few weeks ago there are 3 short films on Yamamoto, Miyake and Kawakubo which all feature some incredible show footage. I've tried to find a video of the Yamamoto AW 1998 giant wedding dress but sadly this doesn't seem to be online. Anyway here is the dress. It requires four attendants to hold up the hat with bamboo poles...

The picture came from here which was a lucky find - apparently later on in the year there will be a Yohji Yamamoto retrospective at the V&A there will also be a chance to see the man himself in conversation with Frances Corner, Principal of the London College of Fashion. It's not until June but tickets are available now for only £8. Done!

microtones

 

 

 
   
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images of instruments made by Harry Partch.

Composer and musician Harry Partch adapted and built his own instruments in order to utilise microtonal scales in his compositions rather than the traditional octave which he thought was restrictive and too approximate. He attempted to create music that emulated the subtle rise and fall of the human voice using his microtonal just intonation instruments. Partch's octave contains 43 microtones. This documentary  (in 6 parts on YouTube) on his life and work is fascinating. And the fact that he shunned the struggles of normal life when the great depression hit and spent the next 10 years on the road as a hobo only makes me love him more. In this time he made notes of the speech intonations of his hobo friends and later turned them into music. Partch was greatly inspired by 17th Century Taoist Chinese poet Li Po who spent his years as a hermit wandering through the mountains writing poetry.

The Letter is a muscial version of a letter of a depression message sent to him from one of his friends from the road.

RESOURCE

  
I discovered UbuWeb after Jennie tweeted about them a while ago and I thought I should share it here as it's an amazing free avant-garde art and literature resource with all kinds of books, videos and recordings available to download. They are breaching copyrights but are happy to remove any items if artists or copyright owners request they do so - they aim to provide acess to materials that otherwise may not be available to the general public. Read more about UbuWeb and what they do here.

I'm going to be watching Ways of Seeing the television series based on John Berger's book.

 

 Burroughs The Movie about poet, writer, artist and visionary William Burroughs.

 

Merce Cunningham's Points in Space (1986) with music by John Cage. There is more Merce Cunningham here and I have posted my personal favourite, Beach Birds, before. If you like dance and you've never seen it then you should definetly have a look!

 

And I'm so happy to find Conical Intersect by Gordon Matta-Clark who is probably one of my favourite artists as well. I've posted about him before here.

 

An interview with filmmaker/artist/ethnomusicologist/alchemist Harry Smith. 

 
Oh and just had to add this - a documentary about occult mystic Aleister Crowley.

 

 

mr. HARE

Lewis had an excellent Christmas - he got his ultimate gift. Totally by chance at the beginning of December I spotted an advert in the Metro, which I never normally pick up, for a sample sale the next day featuring amongst others Mr. Hare. Lewis has long wanted a pair of his shoes (and has noted this fact out loud almost everyday for the past year) and I can't blame him because they are beautiful. So, because I'm awesome, I bought him a pair. They were half price so I felt almost obliged as there's no way he'd get a pair otherwise. I also got to meet Mr. Hare himself in person and I can report that he is, as one would expect, a pretty cool dude - it was really nice to be able to buy something so beautiful from the designer himself.

I'm actually pretty jealous because I'd love a pair for myself but sadly Mr. Hare only makes shoes for men. I did ask if he'd be producing a version of the range for women but he said not at the moment. He also said that he thought the men who bought his shoes might not be too impressed if lots of women started wearing the same designs, which is how Lewis feels about it. But still here's hoping!

Mr. Hare I hope you're listening - I want some of your shoes! Please?! I don't think anyone is making shoes as beautiful as these for women at the moment. I've moaned before about how hard it is to find good flat shoes - I think you have answer!

 

 

  
 

 

 

Lewis has the Orwell Stingrays that are shown in the second picture.

Steve from Style Salvage has a little preview of next season's collection here. I have a feeling that Lewis's Mr. Hare shoe lust will now transfer to these amazing King Tubby's with ostrich skin panels.

 
 
 

hollywood BABYLON

Jennie gave me both of the Kenneth Anger Hollywood Babylon books for my birthday - I've been wanting to get them for ages but hadn't got round to it. They are definitely compulsive reading - sometimes shocking, supremely trashy but still gossipy and funny all at the same time. Thanks Jen! x

I was planning on scanning a few of the stories to post here but it turned out to be a logistical nightmare I just didn't have the patience for. You should just buy the books! 

a little SECRET

So one of the things I really wanted as a souvenir from my trip to Tokyo was a vintage kimono... after the first few days of wandering round the city I had pretty much given up hope of finding anything even vaguely authentic. Everything was made from cheap nasty polyester material in hideous prints and was basically just seriously overpriced tourist tat. But the gods must have been smiling on us - in our last couple of days we stumbled across this lovely little shop whilst we were wandering around the back streets of Omotesando and went in to have a quick look even though we were certain it would all be far too expensive.

 First look... lets go inside!

Ohhh pretty!

The lovely ladies who owned the shop insisted we try one on. It's a complicated process with a beautiful silk undergarment kimono underneath. They are actually quite bulky and heavy, especially around the waist where the kimono is folded up to lift it up from the floor. The long sleeves of the kimono get tied in with the obi and so arm movement is also quite restricted. You definitely need someone handy to dress you if you plan in wearing this sort of clothing!

This was a very antique kimono and cost over £300. Hmmm maybe I'll have a look at some others!

Adele being dressed. I think she bought this one, or one very similar.

So I think we ended up with two kimonos each, a haori jacket each, a kimono for a friend and a cotton men's kimono for Lewis. The prices weren't just reasonable but actually incredibly cheap considering what we were buying, some of the kimonos started at around £30!

So for next time you are in Tokyo looking for vintage kimonos check out Gallery Kawano, Flats Omotesando 102, 4-4-9 Jingumae, Sibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0001 Japan. Their website is here.

Here are the kimonos I bought - I will try and take some proper pictures of them soon. They are so beautiful!