Hurricane Season

For some reason this escaped my attention: three years after Hurricane Katrina, Banksy visits New Orleans. I still remember my friend E. sitting in her Copenhagen flat with the post-Katrina issue of Newsweek/Time. She opened the magazine, looked at the aerial photo of New Orleans and put her finger on a completely devastated area: "That is where I lived until just recently." She had worked in New Orleans during Hurricane Ivan and had decided not to endure another hurricane season.

io9 has an interesting photo feature on Hurricane Gustav: "New Orleans is fast becoming one of the most disaster-prepared cities in the world.."

Life's A Cabaret, Old Chum

Some time ago my partner, David, bought us tickets for the one-year anniversary of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School - a burlesque-meets-art school monthly event. David and a pirate had attended a previous Dr. Sketchy's and loved it.

What happened? A lot, I tell you. I sang along to Cole Porter songs and my partner produced this:

Some of you might know that in my former life as a quasi-academic, I worked and published on Alasdair Gray, the writer and the writer-artist. Who would have thought I'd end up sitting next to him at a burlesque-meets-art school event? Or that David would think it funny to draw Ally Gray and have him sign the drawing? It beats my signed first edition hands down, damn him.

Another boon was that the founder of Dr. Sketchy, the very lovely Molly Crabapple (NSWF, possibly) was present as well. I've long nourished a minor internet crush on her and her illustrations. Sigh. And we absolutely loved Kitten on the Keys (quite NSFW) and David drew yet another fabulous portrait. I'd post it but it'd completely ruin his ego.

Mmm.. I'll be humming Cole Porter songs in my sleep, methinks.

Click

Misquoting Shakespeare is always amusing and frequently apt: "Vanity, thy name is Karie Bookish".

This evening we were invited to the opening of World Press Photo 08 exhibition at The Scottish Parliament. My partner wore a suit and I opted for a little black dress. Sadly I also opted to wear high heels for the first time in three years. If they could speak, my feet would be screaming right now. I'm now limping on my heels and I'm also wobbly. But I looked really good, so there.

And the photos were very good and interesting, of course. I tried to find an online representation of the one photo that really stood out in my eyes: a Kenyan warlord who is depicted in his office with two bodyguards. The photograph is very sparse as is the office, but the guy has a few, selected trappings: two mobile phones, a pair of sunglasses and he is wearing a Stetson. All coolly calculated to give him an air of Western machismo. The guy looks like Hollywood is telling him he is supposed to look. Taking the context into consideration, the photo is absolutely chilling.

It Is Not Entirely My Own Fault

Following on from yesterday's Chomsky snippet, here is an article asking Can You Teach Your Kid To Have Taste? The premise is that a classical music reviewer has been dragging his ten-year-old son along to work and has begun wondering how that influences his son's taste in music/art/literature. The kid likes Tolkien, Russell Crowe westerns and visiting museums - maybe not the most average boy - but has that to do with his parents' (evidently highbrow) taste or is it something inert?

Unsurprisingly the writer does not come up with an answer, but the article made me reflect upon my own taste. I can pinpoint why I like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter. I can also tell you why I enjoy reading Georgette Heyer and watch the Eurovision Song Contest religiously. But I come up short when I reflect upon my weakness for films like Roeg/Cammell's Performance and Todd Haynes' entire oeuvre. And what about my love of modernist poetry and early twentieth century abstract art? Not to mention my love of very, very bad sci-fi films? What has caused this odd pick-and-mix of things I grew up loving and things I have encountered later in life?

Can you trace how your own taste was formed?

Making Conversation

Work: "Hi! How are you? Hope you're feeling better. Just to let you know, we're implementing some new anti-fraud measurements. So, HR needs to know where you were working between October 2006 and February 2007?"

Me: "Er, I was working for you guys.."

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A few completely unrelated and random links:

+ Is this cake scary or awesome? I just cannot decide.
+ I had a long conversation about the Theremin the other day.
+ Renewable clothing by Fernando Brízio. Art or not?
+ This page makes me so, so happy. I'm clearly weird.
+ Doctor Who: I Love the World. Heavy spoilers for Season 4, so beware.

And, yes, Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is up and running.

Fa fa fa fa fashion

I like everything to be clean, and gray is clean. Gray is between black and white, so it’s a noncolor, almost. I feel messy and unclean if I wear other colors. - Five New Yorkers Who Only Wear One Colour.

I bet you can find Copenhageners who only wear beige. Or navy.