Hey Suzan! Last week I went to check out the new Anton Corbijn exhibit at Fotografiska, the photography museum in Stockholm. It's the perfect place to take the little monkey on a weekday afternoon.... quiet and spacious (therefore good for prams), and very importantly, has a cafe with a lovely panoramic view of the city. Anyway, the Corbijn show was alright – sure, a lot of nicely done black and white portraits of famous people, but nothing I felt I hadn't seen before. On the other hand, I was much more excited about one of the other non-headlining shows happening there, Spanish photographer Aitor Ortiz. He photographs monumental architectural structures in a stunning abstract way.... quiet, powerful, meditative. I left thinking it was interesting how these images of stark, empty, uninhabited spaces felt more impactful and engaging than the distinctly human Corbijn portraits...I guess the image of a face is not always the thing that speaks the most...

 

Happy 2012 my friend! 2012 is gonna be a good year! (Yes I will be repeating all the time until the end of summer).

A few weeks ago, I went to the Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 exhibition at the V&A. In one room, on a huge screen, this was found:

Laurie Anderson O Superman

It echoed over and over throughout the exhibition and it wouldn't leave my head for hours until after I left.

I never really liked Laurie Anderson's Big Science album when I gave it a try ages ago, but maybe I didn't give it enough of a chance. This song is gorgeous. It unexpectedly rose to #2 on the UK Singles Charts UK Singles Charts in 1981, making a name for Anderson, who was little known outside the art world at the time.

The clip above is Laurie Anderson performing from her home in Soho New York 1982.

There are only two alternating chords in the background.

The lines "Cause when love is gone, there's always justice / And when justice is gone, there's always force / And when force is gone, there's always Mom" derive from the fourth sentence of Chapter 38 of the Tao Te Ching: "When Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is kindness. When kindness is lost, there is justice. When justice is lost, there is ritual. Now ritual is the husk of faith and loyalty, the beginning of confusion."

xx

 

 

Happy Birthday Suzan!! It would be sooo lovely to be able to celebrate with you today, but alas, here I am and there you are. So, what's better than being able to run around the streets together eating cake and laughing like mad women? Some virtual presents, of course, courtesy of the world wide web and especially the AnotherMag blog, which always posts pretty things.

So, my dream bday wishes for you go something like this: a trip to the recently opened Margiela flagship store in Beijing, where we'd take a swoosh down the "Slippery Dip" slide .... polishing off a big box of La Duree macarons ...then gossiping the day away in this fantastic japanese cherry blossom treehouse – which actually exists, somewhere in Milan! Or rather –  it will exist in 60 years time, when the 10 trees have grown sufficiently and are bent and pruned into shape –  hence its name, The Patient Gardener. Finally, let's not forget a cuff or two from Pamela Love, because hey, every birthday is nicer with just a little bit of bling.

xx