12 January 2012
I aspire to take photos that have not been taken
I aspire to take photographs that belie this quote from Geoff Dyer’s unique & inspiring book on photography, The Ongoing Moment:
- That’s what this book is trying to do also: to find out what certain things look like when they’ve been photographed and how having been photographed changes them. Often it turns out that when things have been photographed they look like other photographs, either ones that have already been taken or ones that are waiting to be taken.
I aspire to take photos that have never been photographed before. For the most part, I don’t think the images hit the mark; rather I just end end up having fun with my cell phone… (Not a bad thing!)
But rather than mull on that, let’s linger a second on Dyer. Perhaps “unique” does a disservice to his talents. Many creative people are praised as being unique, but he actually deserves the adjective. See, too, his book But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz. I find myself purchasing it (or almost purchasing it) as a spontaneous gift for various friends & associates & new acquaintances at least once a year.
Dyer writes books that have never been written before. My hallowed view of the people who make photographs that have never been photographed before extends to people who are able to write books that have never been written before. More snaps after the jump…
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: But Beautiful, Geoff Dyer, Photographs, The Ongoing Moment, The Problem With Nostalgia, The Problem with Originality
Leave a Comment
15 December 2011
Talking secrets
In the secret history of the Talking Heads & the founding generation of New York punk rock — whenever that was — one of the biggest ones may have been that David Byrne was actually a crooner, always was. Check out this video from the first show of theirs attended by Seymour Stein, the founder of the label that made them famous.
And read more about it at NPR. Or don’t.
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: David Byrne, Punk Rock, Seymour Stein, Talking Heads, The Problem With Nostalgia
Leave a Comment
17 November 2011
Alternate life :: after life :: back to the land
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric mov’d:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
Such characters in colour dim I mark’d
Over a portal’s lofty arch inscrib’d:
Whereat I thus: Master, these words import.
(via Phrases.org.uk)
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: New York City, The Problem With Glamour, The Problem With Nostalgia
Leave a Comment
7 November 2011
Brassland’s Song-A-Day Giveaway
Above a video whose inspiration lay, in part, in Marxist economic theory. Which is not to say the thing which it advertises is either Marxist or economical.
Starting last week on November 1st, my label Brassland has been giving away a song-a-day as part of a month long celebration of our 10th anniversary. You can participate by either liking the label on Facebook or Tweeting about it from our site. To those of you who do not partake of social media, our apologies and sympathies — and I assure you we’re putting our thinking caps on to figure out how to get you some of this music.
Anyway, a lot of people have been talking about this effort including Pitchfork and Spin and last but note least Sequenza 21.
Yay internet!
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Brassland, Computers, Pitchfork, Sequenza 21, Spin Magazine, The Problem with Capitalism, The Problem With Nostalgia, The Problem with Technology
Leave a Comment
24 October 2011
Some thoughts about politics, music and Rough Trade
UPDATED NOVEMBER 7, 2011: Soon after posting this I discovered a great full-length BBC documentary about Rough Trade posted on Vimeo. I’ve replaced the Raincoats video that led this post with said documentary. (The Raincoats song is now at the end of this post.) I’d recommend watching the doc even before checking out the book on RT if only because music only really lives & breaths when seen & heard. Contrary to reports, I have not been watching the documentary on repeat since the original posting date of the first BLOG. I’ve just been occupied.
***
Kim Gordon & Thurston Moore separate. There’s protest in the streets again. Everything is born again & everyone dies. And sometimes people blog about it.
Anyway, here’s an excerpt from a book I’m reading about Rough Trade which somehow has everything to do with this.
GINA BIRCH: Before moving to London, I’d been at Trent Poly doing a Foundation Course and while I was there I got involved with what you might call a conceptual art tribe, people involved in Art & Language. It was very political because there were always lots of factions, but it was also very exciting. When I moved to London, though, and started studying at Hornsey Art College, although the course I was on was interesting, and it had some interesting fellow students — like Elizabeth Taylor’s daughter, who painted horses, and Anish Kapoor — there was no core to it, no tribe like there had been in Nottingham, so I became lonely. I was living with a bunch of drug dealers in Islington when Neil from the Tesco Bombers said I could move into his squat in West London. This was a squat within a group of squats and this became my new tribe. Richard Dudanski, who played drums in The 101ers, was there with his partner Esperanta, whose sister Palmolive played in The Slits.
There was this great community of punks and hippies and everyone joined in. We all used the Tea Room, which was kind of a local café and food co-op in a squat where for 20p you could get brown rice and vegetables, a pudding and a glass of sarsaparilla. The punks the hippies really joined at this point and in some ways the DIY ethic chimed with many of the hippie ideals. I supposed that’s what we were, really — middle-class punk hippies.
It’s good to realize who you are. It’s good to realize how you do. It’s good to show no shame in it. Another excerpt after the jump. Read more »
Posted by Alec Hanley Bemis
Tags: Anish Kapoor, Chic, Gina Birch, Hippies, Ivor Cutler, Kim Gordon, Political Art, Robert Wyatt, Rough Trade, Sonic Youth, The Community Function, The Problem With Nostalgia, Thurston Moore