evil thoughts and schadenfreude darkened blacky’s sunday morning, having trouble deciding between gardens. idleness is not shady, idleness is light and transparent, can you do any wrong if you are outdoors and idle? on the other side of victoria park is the daylight robbery of car motors; pro-active but ultimately sin-filled.
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.
as evidenced by happy cats and captain woofie.
in switzerland plants grow so ferociously. a warm explosion of lush leaves and flowers of almost every colour. i am not exaggerating; blue, yellow, orange, pink, white, purple. all represented in any random handful of wildflowers grabbed from the meadow. suburban cats have long grass and high smells to roll in. the joggers, the children, the german-walking-sticks all rustling through plants.
the abundance is guilt-ridden, as if none but switzerland can afford to have plants that grow in the ground, and not in planters. (although, i am writing this now sitting on my bed, neck against the fresh night air of a london sky that has not yet darkened at 10, and the air feels full and generous; the cold and the sunshine and the moon, the moist soil, a garden full of cats and trees. is it any surprise that i dont want to leave this spot by the window.)
it might also be her slice of life; while her neighbours in switzerand and in spain trim the lawn and sweep the concrete respectively, my grandmother’s houses are entwined and overgrown:
on sunday morning i strapped on my dalston sandals and walked to the east london line.
(on the way stopping at a car boot sale to buy a brooch in the shape of a golden mouse holding a golden cat one 20th its size among other delights)
the east london line is a revelation: moving at speed but quietly through the knotted part of london which is usually slow moving and loud. sudden moments of orientation up in the roof tops of buildings and streets which are so familiar at ground. the gherkin moving in an orbit detached from the foreground.
then another moment; the grey brown shadowy patchwork of dense grainy buildings is cut by the heavy colour of brick lane sunday, on axis, like some grand boulevard. which, given brick lane, is a thought to make one smile.
traveling the cross-section of east london is restorative, look, i can exist simultaneously in a village and a city, part of life and deeply anonymous. i can ride my bike through overgrown cemetery at the northern extent of my line, through the puddles of spilled meat-juice leaking onto the street from Ridley Road’s tripe and trotters market, through tree-lined streets, on cobbles, alongside canals. gardens move from behind houses to rooftops, from wide to narrow and wide again. is there any food i cannot taste? i wouldnt need anything more.
Whitechapel Road, where I “alight”! It’s another space entirely; uninhabitable by the shops on each side. their storefronts spilling only so far into the wide wide highway. what must this look like from the sky; the last straight road before the muddy river?
The Whitechapel Gallery is room into other room and at each point it feels as though the doors lead to somewhere private rather than to another gallery space. often i love the gallery bookshop more than the works and i feel that this is wrong. most relevant today in the gallery was the delicate drawing of Jim Hodge’s piece: Everything so Alive Lively Living,without online representation, but approximated here:
and in the card shop; Christopher Wool’s Cats in Bag. always. i am sentimental about the very slightest of things and susceptible to the hit-over-head text. cats in bag, mouse catching cats, everything so alive, lively, living.
australian hillside as english village
rainbow chard seedling re-using his seed as a crash helmet
cat with face, either very angry or stoned
i made olive and spring onion bread but this is not the time or the place
the cats try to help. batting at the delicate sprouts, headbutting my arm, trying to get into my crack as i bend over.
they weren’t there for the humiliation of carrying dirt around the streets though. just in it for the garden dance-off.
the cats are licorice and sherbet. and on the window ledge are nasturtium, sunflowers, sweet pea, rainbow chard, rocket.
bit cold out so i just brought them in for the night.
karol lasia / khomatech is the best cat photographer
today i thought the streets would be deserted and the shops shut, but it was mostly public transport that was closed. plenty of ambulance, police and minicab.
spar and costcutter open, dixy chicken and best kebab open, cat&mutton shut, the dolphin probably was open.
loads of people in the park, on the streets, becoming less cheery as day passed; higher number of ‘merry christmas’s in the morning. or maybe that was because i was wearing a bright hat and people talk to me when i wear a bright hat.
calm and beautiful london christmas for manx cat, very old and large, with no tail and a huge face eating a plastic bag and wishing for some eternal sunshine.
dalston square deserted, and lit more by fairylights than by the moon.
The solstice sun set at 15:53, studio already darkened by the snow-fall on the sky lights. I went out on the roof and came back with a damp white head.
And the gas pipes for 345 hackney road have been illegally piggy-backed from 349, where a gas leak there has put a stop to heat and hot water and cooking. It’s snowing and it’s Christmas and a very angry cat has cold home paws. I hope he lasts the night. x
