Dazzled

Meta

Increasing abstraction

White garden

Through a watery window

Somewhere else

Even though I'm too tired, too fat, too scruffy to leave home. Even though I lack clean clothes and need a hair-cut. Even though I'm not really here enough to have a clear idea of being elsewhere. Even though I seem to have lost touch with wanting anything. Throwing an insufficiently thought-out and probably just plain insufficient selection of clothes and books and techie bits and pieces required for work into a small back-pack. Leaving tomorrow for a week (not very far) away, escaping the migraine-inducing paint fumes that the otherwise pleasant and considerate decorator is about to start creating in the confined hall-and-staircase space outside my front door. Perhaps a small detour to somewhere else will be... something else.

Meanwhile, Happy Thanksgiving!

Waiting for winter

Ernest Cole

In the current Barbican exhibition of photographs from the 1960s and 70s (too big, too much, too disparate, but some wonderful stuff), I saw for the first time the beautiful light and form of humane, often angry, often unforgettable photos by black South African photographer Ernest Cole. I'd never heard of him and watched with difficulty the old and clunky US documentary on show in an adjoining room - with difficulty because the film included an interview with Cole and I thought perhaps I'd never such seen a personable, articulate, determined man so nervous and unable to look at the camera. What a hard story to contemplate: superb work done against all odds all over Apartheid South Africa; his banning and exile; the publication of his book, The House of Bondage; the acclaim, the grants, the commission not completed; the too-early death of that haunted man in the old film and the disappearance of his negatives, found and shown and admired only in recent years. I hope his work will continue to be exhibited and published and appreciated.

This is yesterday

Reason for no blogpost yesterday: computer mouse died. Died attached to netbook at house of friend. Friend lives close to large computer chainstore. Went there on way home and bought new mouse. Small, sweet, wireless mouse. Home with mouse, spent half an hour with various knives and scissors fighting way into seamless, super-resilient, moulded-plastic packaging. Further half an hour opening battery cover. Same again to close it. Instruction leaflet shredded in course of battling way into packaging. Reassembled leaflect with sticky tape and read. Plugged minuscule thingy into USB drive. First three attempts to install driver software 'not successful'. Computer says fourth, and identical, attempt successful. Mouse, however, not working. Tried things suggested in leaflet - not easy to read due to being lots of small pieces stuck together with tape. Mouse still not working. Went online with difficulty using netbook touchpad - hate touchpads. Read several help forums on reasons wireless mouse may not work. Decided rather buy another mouse - not wireless - than start uninstalling and reinstalling possibly clashing software. Picked up mouse one last time and prayed for inspiration. Noticed very small 'connect' button on base of mouse looking battered
after increasingly violent attempts to open battery cover. Poked connect button with end of scissors. Mouse now working. Very late by now. Very bad mood. Disinclined to blog. Sigh.

The Art of Sleep

Preoccupied as I am with getting enough sleep, how could I resist Zarina Liew's small book, The Art of Sleep, when browsing the stalls at the Comics Festival? The heroines go to bed to brood, read, eat, web-surf, love, bicker and dream their own fantastic tales and tableaux - a painted dreamworld for grown-ups that I felt very drawn to. She's a commercial fashion artist, as well as producing her own online strips,comic books, postcards and prints. Her work - often stylised, elongated drawings painted in wonderful colours - is polished, technically accomplished and almost in the commercial mainstream, but with a spark of eccentricity and moodiness that make it something more touching and provocative than most. I'll be keeping an eye on Zarina's work via her website, blog and online strip, Le Mime.