bluntie

is clearly not for me. crowds, crazy sunglasses, jerk chicken and pissing in the streets. But it is amazing and next year I will be better prepared. Street after boarded-up street full of crowds, crazy sunglasses, jerk chicken and pissing. Smoke-filled from the barbecues. Shrill with whistles and heavy with the bass of a hundred speakers which made my lungs contract. At times we thought we were walking away from it, but it continued, and as we made our way through from one side to the other the crowd became more and more waste. Or, that was the passing of time. Empty red-stripes and polystyrene chicken containers floated in drifts in the gutters, and somehow i stepped on a cheeky rat. I say on, but I mean in. It was well dead.

this is a local topical blog by the youngest tasmanian hamilton in london, ricky. the daily entries are a study on the transrotational nature of the streets of east london; eternally shifting but never really changing.
chicken bones and their packaging are the product of a tide of inhabitation which sweeps twice daily and three times a night through east london’s streets, houses, pubs and buses. london fried chicken is the base unit of waste in the area, the lowest cost protein in the world and a great social leveller because everyone loves fried chicken, not least the communities of local cats.
also, in a head-spinning interconnectedness if you click on his links he gets cash from google.

visually related: bones, of the prolific and notorious 70k crew. which reminded me of the awestruck discovery early one morning in deserted melbourne (chicken bones yet to be swept from the gutter) of an empty office block whose windows had been filled with tags. beautiful and noble as the sun rose, and, as either public art or filigree sunshading (nouvel…) unrivalled in scale or value engineering.

it is embarrassing for me that i write and suddenly realise that i have created in my mind a vivid and direct connection between jean nouvel and chicken bones.

a little bit of spring in almond blossoming. softness to the wintery spanish hills of Porrera, home to some famed wine. here the grapes are planted in taut stretches wrapping up the mountainous slopes. apparently the wine made here is so good (and rare) because the plants have to try so hard to squeeze out the mineralised moisture from the slate-y soil. vines that work harder make better wine.
this is not my photo; didnt have a camera but it was winter and not a speck of green. so much like parched australia in summer that the icy wind outside was shocking.

Seaside spain in winter: empty bars, quiet streets, tiny rain, empty insitu, graf without youths, no cats or salty after-swin rinses.

oh xaloquel.
romesco sauce:
bittersweet spanish paprika, garlic, almonds (blanched and peeled), bread, olive oil, salt, vinegar
eaten with potato crisps to dip

quite good views over old street, constructed this past summer and weathered stormy conditions well.

maybe in the regeneration of crappy places a slice of deprivation should be protected. Don’t re-pave and street-plant the whole site, maintain a river of nostalgia and allow it to continue in its decay in parallel to the re-designed and cheery; allow the most terrible bits to become romantic modern ruin and  passing of time.
keep some gutter, intensify the new and clean next to it, protect a vein of low-rent within an area of new and clean, and ensure detritus-filled alleys and dark corners for continued use by happy cats.

1 and 2. hackney street
3. callum morton’s 1:50 model of
4. moshe safdie’s Habitat 67 development

Mmmm transfixed experiencing Callum Morton’s installation 5 years ago, and saw it again last night on my way home. Habitat is 1:50 in scale and also in time, so a day lasts 28.8 minutes (think), during which the lights turn on at dawn to the sounds of people, hairdryers, toasters, kettles, showers, babies waking, cars starting, people leaving for work. As the sky lightens; daytime tv, lawnmowers, children playing, afternoon snoring. Then, the return from work; lights turn on, the blue light of telly, sounds of cooking, talking; slowly fading.
And again.
Repetitive and small.

spent a day in the countryside, villages, early christmases, suburbs, abandoned High Streets and the best building to be scheduled for demolition in Gateshead, and stepped over the bridge to beautiful sweet Newcastle at 3:00 just as it was starting to get dark and realised the strangeness of it. Probably a lot of world examples of the existence of the bad side of the river. wonder which, on average,  is the right side of the river and whether this follows geographical conditions, aka the sun.
i wish one could preserve some of the rubbish in the regeneration without being accused of romanticising the british struggle.

yet.
not today.
but even with bare legs and only mildly biting air there was some christmas in exmouth market tonight; lights, peace, and people eating dinner in their scarves.

white cat promotes his restaurant Campania Gastronomica on Columbia Road, sitting on the tables in a dark clean room, calm during the day before orders begin for his mortadella, neapolitan salami, capocollo and prosciutto tosacano. I have been thinking about meat a lot lately. wake up with darkened thoughts of clandestine cutlets and secret steak. early in islington actors dress in aprons at M&R Meats and begin the rehearsal for their scene, in which they play butchers at a traditional london meat shop. another scene probably takes place in barcelona, where a more bookish window display belies the jamon sandwiches, and the acorn-eating pigs before them.

just up the road in stoke newington, with the backs of terrace houses bordering it, tucked away, i never knew it was so beautiful and so close: a sudden world of old-ness, green-ness and overgrown disrepair just off the high street.
un-crowded for a green space on a sunny saturday in london. everyone there today was either taking photos for their blogs, emerging suspiciously from the blackberry ivy and stinging nettles, or passed out in the sunshine, a quarter of a bottle of white with the cork floating in it and a mobile phone at his feet. nice that the phone was still there.

(also the setting for amy winehouse’s back to black video)