December+January+February

So much for catching up… and of course with a backlog I never get around to what I’m actually enjoying currently, because I have to clear my plate first. No more! Enough!

For completion’s sake, and then it’s done, here are two months worth of highlights:

December saw the consumption of Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, Kenneth Branagh’s The Magic Flute, Disney’s Enchanted, the Lee Miller and craft exhibitions at the V&A, an inspiring talk by Jeremy Begbie at the LICC, comedy from Mark Thomas, dinners at Abeno and Canteen, the Barbican’s Jack and the Beanstalk and the Criterion’s 39 Steps, and Christmas atmosphere at Dennis Severs’ House.

January was much quieter, with a new purchase of an old Rufus Wainright album, Rufus Wainright (brilliant); a visit to the new gem gallery at the Natural History Museum (a little disappointing, with too many exhibits ‘temporarily removed’); the Age of Enchantment exhibition at the Dulwich Picture gallery (beautiful); and my first visit of the year to Kew Gardens.

I might as well clear February out of the way too, while I’m at it: two stunning films – both of which have recently won Oscars – No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood; a jaunt to Barcelona, and to go with it George Orwell’s Fighting in Spain (a very poorly edited – unacceptable from Penguin – extract from Homage to Catalonia); a surprisingly arresting read in Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent; a second visit to Kew; and last night, a spoken word performance from the ever-compelling Saul Williams. Absolutely thrilling.

Here’s to fairer blogging weather in 2008! The poetry project has got off to a good start; I’ll have to see if I can replicate my dedication here…

October

I know, I know. I promised and I didn’t deliver. Honestly, writing this regularly, and keeping it vaguely up to date, is one of my new year vows.

Is anyone still interested in the last three months of 2007? I think I am; I did some lovely things. It was young Daniel’s birthday at the beginning of October, so we headed southwest to sample the various delights of Kew: first, michelin-starred French-style restaurant The Glasshouse (sister restaurant of Chez Bruce and La Trompette). I’d never been before, but it’s one of Daniel’s favourite places to eat in London, and it was pretty special. Sadly I can’t remember what I ate, although I do remember that Dan had one of their signature dishes, the truffled, deep-fried egg, as his starter. It was a real treat, and for food that good, very good value. Highly recommended. Maybe we’ll get a return visit for my birthday next month.

Then a quick trot over the road to the Royal Botanic Gardens, to see the wonderful exhibition of twenty-eight of Henry Moore’s outdoor sculptures. It was beautiful to see so many large sculptures, all together, outside and in such beautiful surroundings. The exhibition’s on until the end of March, and I’m definitely planning to go again.

Rob Ryan is an artist who specialises in cutting paper, and I went to see an exhibition of the illustrations that make up his book, This is For You, at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery near Fitzroy Square. I’d never heard of him before, and I was utterly captivated by his work: it’s both exquisite and whimsical, and somehow reminds me of the books I used to read when I was little. The book is a love story, of sorts, and although the illustrations are reproduced beautifully, I think his work is much better viewed up close. If only I’d had a spare couple of grand to buy one of his beautiful pieces… maybe I’ll content myself with one of his tiles. Here’s a lovely article about him and his work from the Telegraph.

October’s one real disappointment was Punchdrunk’s production of The Masque of the Red Death. I first came across Punchdrunk at the Big Chill festival in 2004, where they put on a totally absorbing version of Woyzek. I’d heard that their 2006 production of Faust was excellent, so I was really looking forward to seeing The Masque, which was staged over the whole of the Battersea Arts Centre. But what started eerily atmospheric and menacing never really went anywhere. The idea is that you happen upon various different parts of the story as you wander round the set, and piece it together as it unfolds around you. In fact the production wasn’t just of Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death, but something like ten of his stories (something I only found out afterwards) and there was never a coherent sense of plot – or really anything much happening that you could make sense of at all. I suppose that was meant to be the point, and I know a lot of people loved it, but I found it increasingly frustrating – a bit of a triumph of style over substance, and too little story spread over too large a (mostly empty, even though beautifully realised) set.

Finally, my djing (well, putting one tune on after the other) debut at the Big Chill Bar, off Brick Lane. Definitely the best-paid two hours I’ve ever worked, and lots of fun, if extremely nervewracking. I suppose the best bit about it was the chance to hear my favourite tunes played out, loudly: I started with some Debussy and ended, of course, with the Wee Papa Girl Rappers. Thanks to Jane for helping me prepare and everyone who came along!

pleasure gardens

Apologies for the month in between postings, after only two posts… Things have been rather hectic for me recently, with house moves, holiday and searching for gainful employment all in the mix. Lots to catch up on.

First off, dinner at the Bonnington Café, where my brother took me to cheer me up after a sadder day last month. It’s a community-run, vegetarian café in Vauxhall – local, non-professional types take it in turn to cook. It can be hit and miss foodwise, but it’s a lovely place, set in a really tranquil part of town, good and cheap… After a dinner of noodles Matt and I swung on the swings in Bonnington square, another community-looked-after spot, near the site of the old Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (‘a major feature of London for three centuries; a place of curiosity, promenade and play’). It’s just a small square (the physical space created by bombing in the Second World War), but it’s an unexpectedly beautiful, calm haven in an already surprisingly peaceful part of London. And it has a huge wheel at one end:

 

The wheel at the end of the garden is a classic piece of Industrial Revolution Art dating from the 1860s. It was rescued from a nearby marble factory (under demolition as we were constructing) where it was used to ‘wet cut’ marble. Legend has it that once a year the wheel turns, bringing forth beautiful, crystal clear champagne from the worlds below… a delightful fishing boat that floated above the pergola on a sea of wisteria set sail one midnight eve ne’er to be seen again – but only ever for believers.

There’s something achingly beautiful about gardens at night in summertime, and especially trees. This is a beautiful poem by Elaine Feinstein from her most recent collection of poetry, Talking to the Dead (2007, published by Carcanet) – I heard her and Michael Schmidt read at the launch of their respective books back in March, and have been slowly reading both volumes since.

Moving House

We used to travel light. Grandparents knew
how to pack up and go in a single night,
with house spirits in a shoe.
Three generations on, we’ve lost
the knack.

Watching, from bed, a full moon caught
by nets of leaves in a familiar tree
I thought
while we live here, a planetary fruit
belongs to me.

How can I bear to leave that glow behind?
Walking today, I laugh at the conceit;
the niche we make on earth is all we share.
As for the moon, we’ll find
her everywhere.

If only I could learn to travel light; just tonight I finished bringing up the last of my boxes from the cellar, ready to be moved into my new room on Saturday.

three things

Since this blog is meant to be a record of all the things that I enjoy from day to day, to start off with here are three things that I’m currently loving:

• vignotte. The cheese that brie aspires to be. It’s a triple-cream farmhouse cheese (45% fat content!) with a really beautiful sticky, melting texture. If there were any interesting articles on vignotte on the web anywhere I’d link to them, but all I can find is this rather lovely looking recipe for tartiflette, which I may just have to make. In the meantime, go to your nearest cheesemonger and get some: it’s a truly gorgeous cheese.
• The Fermata, by Nicholson Baker. It’s a sexy, funny and very beautifully written novel, which I first read when I was eighteen and am just re-reading (and having read to me) now. I think in fact it’s even better than I remember it. Here are the first lines:

I am going to call my autobiography The Fermata, even though ‘fermata’ is only one of the many names I have for the Fold. ‘Fold’ is, obviously, another. Every so often, usually in the fall (perhaps mundanely because my hormone-flows are at their highest then), I discover that I have the power to drop into the fold. A Fold-drop is a period of time of variable length during which I am alive and ambulatory and thinking and looking, while the rest of the world is stopped, or paused.

It’s about an office temp who uses his time-stopping powers to undress women, pretty much. But although it sparked some outrage when it was first published, I think it’s really rather tender. What I really like about it is the narrator’s absolute (almost obsessive) attention to and enjoyment of the minutiae of everyday life; I love that quality of wide-eyed appreciation in people.

• Losing stones, collecting bones, by Norwegian piano jazz trio In The Country. They were the support for Hanne Hukkelberg at the gig I saw her play at the Luminaire* a couple of weeks ago, and they had me spellbound from their very first note. Recorded, for me it’s lost some of its magic, and sounds much more straight-up jazz; but it’s still a very beautiful, rather melancholy album. If you get the chance to see them live, do: they’re magical. If you don’t, get their album(s) instead, from the incredibly speedy Cargo Records.

That’s it: three things I’m loving, which I recommend wholeheartedly to you.

*The Luminaire’s a great live music venue: small and intimate, with plenty of signs around telling you that if you’re chatting, you should leave. Take your own felt-tip pen and decorate the toilets while you’re there. It’s just a shame it’s on The Wrong Side Of Town.