Yes Boss, There Is Magic In The Night

Early evening yesterday Maud sent me a message: I'm going out for a walk, do you want to come along? I did.

It was one awesome walk...
We got to Ashburton Grove and were approached by a combat trousered gentleman who took a reasonable amount of pity on us. He sold us a pair of tickets for a very low price and then we continued our walk by entering the Emirates Stadium for the first ever concert to be held in that venue: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band!

with out a doubt, the best Boss in town

Steven Van Zandt

the E Street Band
(..ain't that the bestest bootleg ever?)

I have been a fan since I was 8 years old but this was the first time I've had the chance to see him live. It was unreal, that is how good it was. A whole stadium full of love and joy thanks to one man and his band and their incredible set.



Ah, if I ever get that licence, I would very much like a car to go with it.


p.s go check out Benhästen for acres of great stuff and links!

It's Your Little Red Wagon & You've Got To Pull It

The Late Shift From The Brassiere Factory

Shirley MacLaine, set still

Tonight I have renewed my Sinatra crush once again thanks to a screening of
Some Came Running at the BFI. Such a lovely cinematic experience but then again, how could you go wrong with a couple of hours of Frank, Dean and Shirley, on a very big screen with great photography and clever laid back direction by Vincente Minelli? No, not very likely.

Frank, Dean and a sore loser soon to knock off Dean's hat. It doesn't go down well...

The characters are complex and well written. Each and everyone have their own little struggles with them all too common issues of coping with family, love and loneliness; also known as life.

old skool trailer here

But Try To Make It New Before You Go

Photo: SVT Bild

Somewhere in Marie Nyreröd's Ingmar Bergman documentary, Bergman describes his daily routine and how he goes for a morning walk to clear his head "because the Demons don't like fresh air". It's a very short little description but I think of it often. Especially those mornings when my head is spinning and it feels like I'm having a mad hatters tea party of emo and goth kids in my brains. And yes, the day before yesterday was a bit like that.

The powers that be of Saturday mornings had chosen to torment me with the Avril Lavigne's Complicated playing on repeat in my head as I awoke. Outside some builders were trying to finish something they obviously were v e r y late with. -Why else would they have signed up with to the un-considerate builders union and start drilling at 7.45 am on a Saturday? My earlier trick with switching on Itunes to play nice soothing Chet Baker tracks and crawl back into bed to try and get an hour or two sleep had produced this demon disguised as a Canadian teenage pop star. I shared my angst with Maud over breakfast and said I need to go for a long walk. Maud agreed to come with and also had the excellent plan that our promenade would be somewhere we never usually go. Yes, and so away we went in a NW direction.

walking upwards Crouch Hill we saw this alluring portal and we of course couldn't stay away but walked right into some place totally unusual

a large run-down and defunct, strange play and activities centre owned by the council

below the main buildings and lawns there was a path and we carried on walking further under the green lush arches with a birds singing happy tunes


Yes, them powers that be seemed to be sorry for this morning and I wasn't one to hold grudges. When we reached the end of the path, we climbed some steps to find ourselves in Highgate. While searching for good coffee we found a few more nice things.

I know how you feel Johnny, I do

Externalize the Internals

tired? you bet

I have tried do an update with pictures of yesterday but that so ain't happening. Photoshop keeps crashing on me so I'm calling it a day and so are the birds.

this film rules

I Know How You Feel But I've Been On a Business Deal...

I've Had More Chances To Fly & More Places To Fall

Yes, the mono-printing keeps happening. I am still working out what works and what doesn't. So far I've gathered I need to stay inside the edges of the paper, keep it pretty simple and practise my backwards lettering a little bit :)

Invitation

and yes, just a small click above on the card will take you there ..

Friday Archives/ Moray Eels

Another dig down in the vaults today for LoobyLu's Friday Archives has unearthed these Moray Eels that I made back after visiting the London Aquarium back in 99. This is one of the scariest species I know: Moray Eels... Them evil sharp teeth, their mouths that continuously opens and closes. The wrinkled little prehistoric faces that show no remorse, yikes!
Give me a catfish any day, I say.

Ole Buttermilk Sky

do you have to use so many cusswords?

Yesterday we had a little rain and gorgeous grey skies all day, I had been waiting for this all week since I had planned to do some mono printing on my kitchen table a long time but it's been too darn hot and sunny with them south facing windows.

These prints are all just very rough little sketches. I used to do lots of this type of printmaking during my foundation year in college. There is something magic about the slightly feathery marks and that each print is unique and impossible to recreate.


Even if my fingers turned very blue afterwards cleaning the plates I had a very entertaining afternoon...I did a few tests with different types of pens and other sharp objects :) to see what type of character they give the lines created on the front.


Today my nails still have blue lines under the edges (in Swedish it's called sorgkanter - direct translation is sorrow edges, like Victorian mourning stationary) But that ain't happening again, I've gone and purchased a pair of kitchen gloves to protect my innocent hands from the white spirits and that old devil called oil based ink.

no question mark, no dolphins and the emphasis is on the sometimes

Happy Four Years Zorro!

Today we celebrate Zorro, a very fine member of the Larsson family.
I wish I could take a leap over the North Sea to be there and give him a hug, some bones or a few crabs to frighten... Many more happy years to you Z!

Zorro & little sis Maja listening to the waves

Sun, Sea and Booth's

Yes, our little day trip to Brighton was really worth a great roar :)
We went to a car boot sales and found did find some glourious things, we went to the beach and we also went to the wonderful Booth Museum of Natural History!


Their collection of specimens, skeletons, butterflies and of course hundreds of birds was blew our minds. We all walked around the galleries in amazement and stayed for a good while but I definitely think a second visit is on the cards...


The museum was very quiet and we were the only visitors but the museum attendants entertained themselves through whistling children's musical tunes. My favorite was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang :)


We got back home around midnight, happy, tired and glad to have had the chance to breath a little sea air. It's sure had been a while since last.

still life on the train journey home (Cara's car boot bargains)

more photos here

Stickers

Hope you all enjoyed your weekends muchly. I went to Brighton with Cara & Maud yesterday. It was very lovely and soo sunny indeed but more about that later... Meanwhile here are my first sticker books from Moo.

Suddenly Summer

It feels like there's been been quite a lot this week and it's gone really quick.
Add to that extremely sunny and warm days that make it very hard to stay in front of the computer without melting away. Anyways, here is an attempt of a shortish update.
Thursday evening Tai Shani's performance Empire and Daughter Isotope took place. I played a part called the Snow Queen Apparition... There was a large cast full of interesting and cool people which made the taking part very fun.
Actually, I found the whole "treading the boards" experience very enjoyable, I haven't really done that type of performance before, so that was pretty cool. A lovely after show party followed: Rosie from Tatty Divine and Pil & Galia Kollectiv took turns in the DJ booth. It was all good :) Tired and happy I returned home only to find a bouquet of gorgeous tulips on my desk. Thank you again!
(big thanks also to Lill-Larsson for all them encouraging/support along the week.)
Anyways, next day I ran on very slow batteries. We recharged them through a lovely walk, coffees and sitting on the grass under blossoming chestnut trees. I brought the camera along so I could do a little sharing. Here it goes:

red poppy

yellow poppy

lilac and yellow, it's such a happy colour combo

one little rascal took it fairly easy on his way down to a swim

this bird came straight over to have a chat with her neighbour after been released from the nest...and below are few snapshots from the changing of the guards

the library marble cooled us down a little after the park


they all are quite young, Robert Alfred Angellis is the best poser of the gang
upturned collar and a shiny pomade mid parting...
he knows how to take a good photograph, yes?

Old St Mary's Church yard in Stoke Newington.Lush green grass, flowers, bird song and a slight eerier Stimmung than usual due to a Polaroid picture Maud took of one of the graves. Mysterious white blurs appeared on around the resting tomb....
Very strange but very true. Check for yourself here.

Maud pondering the Sixth Sense and otherworldly shenanigans whilst holding that picture

yes, it's summertime in Sylvania too

And there we are... We finish with a detail of vintage dress, a perfect summer dress in cool cotton that I found along Stokie Church Street. Tomorrow we are off for a day out at the seaside and it will make a perfect travel suit in this weather. Happy weekend to you all!

Someone's Gonna Make You Pay Your Fare

Ah...them old indie boys sure rocked it tonight!
Thank you for a lovely evening, sweet little horse of bone :)

Here's some vintage footage :



and here is a little more recent material:

When I Goose-Step

Yee ha, I managed to finish my new shopper bag last night! It's weird how long it took to complete, though. I usually embroider things for friends birthdays etc. When there's a deadline you just have to do it with no dilly dallying. But because this was my personal use it's taken so much longer. Anyways, after when the first initial feeling of happiness has subsided I now am suffering a little anti-climax & emptiness when a project is done. Hm. The only way to get over it is to start something new fairly soon, I guess :)


Not tonight though... I'm off to rehearse a new performance piece my friend Tai Shani is directing and producing for a one off show at the grand olde Shoreditch Town Hall.

The Friday Archives - Sidney

Via the ever lovely Kimberley, I too have joined the ranks of Loobylu's Friday Archives. For my first contribution I've dug quite far back in my London archives...It's dated Christmas Day -96, a drawing of Sidney, the best lurcher that ever ran around and looked a little like a rat when he curled up in front of the wood burning stove. He lived with Maud and I when we were boat sitting, long term, the narrow boat "Smith's Lady" on the river Lee. The drawing isn't particularly good and not too alike the great dog himself but I kind of like it anyways. It reminds me of Sidney, that period of my life and that is also when I started to take up sketching again. The living arrangements were slightly different on the river, we didn't have a huge amount of electricity so we relayed mostly on candles for light and wood/coal for heat. It felt a little like you were living in the turn of the previous century although we in fact were very near the 21st Century :)