Jack on the French

Loney Dear haunts young hearts

He has done a Ukelele session for a Belgian newspaper and toured with Andrew Bird and self-released albums and another one is here... This one is from Hall Music and it is beautiful without meaning to be.

London, please sort it out...

Tom Waits - Strange Weather by melomaniac_

the real inside

I don't know what my innards want
Exploding here and sinking there
they seem to want me to pretend
that before the pain was nothing there
and so they sit inside a cage
built around the story I know
Their tubes entwine with a mortal loss
of what was once imperious fun
they bend around my other mind
eager for its peace and void
filled with the weekend's perilous junk
that hides the truth that got annoyed
they simply want to flow with me
but don't have time or energy
so sluggishly they move in the rhythm
of a london tube stuck on it's own line
hoping that their green light comes
amidst the reds of bodily strife
and speedily make way to light
just as I will bring them rest.

The only thing I am liking about Christmas is AB FAB

Funny how bad Spanish makes me laugh

Here comes Community

The Chocolate Festival on the Southbank this weekend

Josh Rouse asks what the sun did

Ice-skating- past and present

This Henry Raeburn painting of a minister ice-skating at ease in 1795 leaves me pining for the past as I try to find a patch of ice all to myself in central London. It seems that the grace and control of the minister would be difficult to achieve in any London venue. He would have been knocked down by ungrateful little health hazards in the shape of teenagers. The pumping music aired at ludicrous volumes would ruin his clearly tranquil state of mind and he would be obliged to wear the one size fits all bright blue skates ressembling plastic lunch boxes with a blade stuck to the outside. If he wasn't wincing from the pain of it all, he would probably be unconscious in a corner having been rammed into the side by people claiming "ice attendant" status. Natural History museum , here we come... 

An Enlightened mid life crisis on HBO

A sunnier kind of earth

Las Acacias

 Set in Paraguay through to Argentina, I have a feeling that a film that is practically dialogue-free might just make up for it in visuals... The denoument is in Buenos Aires- could there be a better place to end up in?

Las Acacias at the ICA

Pre Christmas Perkins

Teneme En Tu Corazon (Keep Me In Your Heart) - Elvis Perkins by Sean O'Brien

l'art d'aimer

Born to listen to Lana

Other Voices need other sponsors

Other Voices is a music festival dubbed as the " musical winter camp" held in the most western point of Europe in Dingle, the above Irish village... It is unfortunately heading in the same direction as world banks as it comes to a close, with serious funding problems set for next year. Any sponsors out there reading this, strip your fat bulging wallets, forget the oversized christmas presents, forget flying Beyonce out for your private christmas gig and save this little village's claim to fame.

"Little folks become their little fate"

Horace

My red boots

Red boots laced in warmth
polished in tradition
brought to life
by a pair of other wordly feet
that know their place
in the sphere of their nation
in the rhythm of their elders
and the march of their past
and the waltzes of their present
and the krakowiak of tomorrow

A stunning show of world air traffic. Africa isn't moving

Underground film club

Click the link to see what films are playing this month

Fatoumata Diawara warms those 'ol cold bones

For you, pour toi, dla ciebie, para ti.

Wim Wenders cuts it short

 In contrast to his film style, Wim Wenders has entered a competition, in which all the film entries can last no longer than a second. "The Beauty of a Second" is run by the pen and watch manufacturer Mont Blanc and has seen entries from smiles, kisses and animals. The one I like most is of a man opening the door of his empty car park only to step back in shock as coloured balls fall out.

http://www.montblanconesecond.com/#/en/

This is where I want to drink my noisette today

 "The man who must fear his own memory is the one who has been ambitious in his greed, arrogant in his contempt, uncontrolled in his victories, treacherous in his deceptions, rapacious in his plundering, and wasteful in his squandering"

Zambia on the language map

In a western province of Zambia, where, until now, they only spoke their language, "ciSHANJO", a team of budding linguists, including farmers, are putting words where their mouths are and writing down their language for the first time. Zambia, whose official language is English, has over 70 different languages.

This is not just Marks & Spencer – this is French Marks & Spencer

Store crosses Channel for first time in a decade to open flagship outlet on the Champs-Élysées
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/this-is-not-just-marks--spencer--this-is-french-marks--spencer-6267112.html

"Lo peor de la Navidad es noviembre".

Good Leonard Cohen cover of Show me the Place

Let it bleed (money)

Artwork for the 1969 Rolling Stones album is selling for £40,000 next month....

I saw the book upon the shelf
I saw you who was myself
I saw the empty sack at last
I saw the branch your shadow cast

Patti Smith

Camera Obscura: Careless Love

Tim Wheeler and Emmy the Great on their new christmas album

"Christmas is a deadline that you can't move."

Kate Bush: 50 words for snow

I am stunned by the whole album's worth of songs about snow. She is completely right about the following:

"Even a single snowflake, when you look at it under a microscope, is such an incredibly beautiful thing. And apparently they are all different."

whatever defines

what defines your world
what defines your love
what defines the innocuous pace of your breath?
what defines your moments in between others
what defines the stillness of your  dawdling heart?
What defines your tragic sense of self
what defines the lack of that sometimes?

the new flappers....

Charlotte on fashion

“People have real problems.”

The Rich Mix

Photography as Language

Sun 20 November 7pm
Free

OSLO AUGUST 31st

This Norwegian film is a portrait of both Oslo and a thirty something now rehab-free ex junkie going for a job interview.

Wednesday 30th November

Artists from Tel Aviv show their work and their origins by any means, including videos.

When are you coming home

SLOW JOE

The Revenant

Sean Penn and Leonardo Dicaprio might be heading up Inarritu's new project about a man left for dead after a bear attack.

"Run right back to her"

THE BLACK KEYS

Beautiful Alisa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2qph_66beY&ob=av2n

A real Oxbridge question

Are you cool? (Philosophy, politics and economics, Oxford)

Dans les trucs horribles, il faut trouver du positif

Kimmi in a Rice Field

TWIN SISTER

Love and Bruises

Chinese auteur Lou Ye takes a alternative romantic tour of Paris minus the cliches and plus the actor from The Prophet.

stunning

Monday's Charlotte

where Johnny smokes

    'Come on, give me a bang.' Bruce and I were in the plane, and I just said: 'Oh come on.' You know, we'd had a bit to drink – and …" He mimes taking a drag. On the plane? "On the plane, mmmm." I look puzzled. He looks momentarily bashful. "Well, it was a private plane. On a private plane you can smoke. It makes it an incredibly expensive habit, of course," he shrugs, "cos you can only smoke on a private plane."

Not "bloody" folk

Beth Jeans Houghton......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWeE_u28myo

Mississippi Mermaid

Truffaut's film about passion (1969) is haunting me today.

Iwonicz: probably the best cinema in the world

The Three dancers, Picasso

Lucy Rose

Middle of The Bed

A very She and Him Christmas

A treasure in an oil spill

You shine beneath a gloopy surface

It hides the parallel world you store

Oil and water don’t mix well,

And I can’t see in between

Fernando Pessoa

I am tired, that is clear,
Because, at a certain stage, people have to be tired.
Of what I am tired, I don't know:
It would not serve me at all to know
Since the tiredness stays just the same.
The wound hurts as it hurts
And not in function of the cause that produced it.
Yes, I am tired,
And ever so slightly smiling
At the tiredness being only this -
In the body a wish for sleep,
In the soul a desire for not thinking
And, to crown all, a luminous transparency
Of the retrospective understanding…
And the one luxury of not now having hopes?
I am intelligent: that's all.
I have seen much and understood much of what I
have seen.
And there is a certain pleasure even in tiredness
this brings us,
That in the end the head does still serve for
something.

Dose de Charlotte

360 Fernando Mireilles

http://uk.filmtrailer.com/trailer/8348/55th+BFI+LFF+Opening+Night+Gala+360+clip+video.html

This is a film about intertwining love stories spread across the world.

Academie Francaise online

It has taken the Academie Francaise 75 years to create a new dictionary but in the meantime, they have also finally gone interactive. Its 40 members, also known as "the immortals" ( soooo french) have decided it's high time they taught cyberspace proper french.... 
Here is the Indy's take on it:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/language-watchdog-goes-interactive-to-teach-french-to-the-french-2369176.html

Here is the website...

http://www.academie-francaise.fr/

Pedro Almodovar in September

http://paulwilloughby.com/

ONEDOTZERO

http://www.onedotzero.com/onedotzero-adventures-in-motion-festival-2011/event/

A festival celebrating the very latest in the moving image and interactive arts.
23rd November- BFI.

"Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise."

Shakespeare and Company, Paris

drilling 3km below ice level

Still Corners

"it's about confusion," explains hughes. "it's about being confused. am i going crazy? does this person like me? what's happening? that's the vibe of the whole record really."


Cuckoo

The test

You learnt the hard way
looked covered and learnt
you peered at words
splitting the hairs that cram your head

You learnt that life
takes more than sitting
to work your way up to your top
and hardly question why

The test is trust and
you do that so well
with all your form and all your depth
you're moving through and testing time
and never looking back.

Tomboy

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/interviews/celine-sciamma-16540

Celine Sciamma's Tomboy looks like it may have taken years to hone but the director admits she only had three weeks to find the cast.

Rosamund Pike cuts the ribbon for the annual Bird's Eye View festival..

“If we really want to change the game, we have to set aside our notions that ambition and competitiveness are unseemly, and allay our indignation when confronted with it. We can convert sexism into competition. We compete healthily, show our feminine sides while being gloriously, attractively, sexily ambitious – can you see the way forward?  I think I can…”

A poem by Tomas Transtromer, Nobel prized Swedish poet...

THE COUPLE


They turn the light off, and its white globe glows
an instant and then dissolves, like a tablet
in a glass of darkness. Then a rising.
The hotel walls shoot up into heaven's darkness.

Their movements have grown softer, and they sleep,
but their most secret thoughts begin to meet
like two colors that meet and run together
on the wet paper in a schoolboy's painting.

It is dark and silent. The city however has come nearer
tonight. With its windows turned off. Houses have come.
They stand packed and waiting very near,
a mob of people with blank faces.

The Sex Pistols take on a cafe in Luxembourg

Rock Seen, the new book by Bob Gruen, shows rock stars on downtime.

Feist

The Circle married the line



This is gorgeous. In Feist's words,  'It's as much what it is as what it's not.'

Monsieur on the human mind

I am considering a lobotomy

Youth Lagoon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEDPdybOeU4&feature=related

This video feels like I'm spying...

Composition No.1 By Marc Saporta

http://www.visual-editions.com/our-books/book/composition-no1

A book in a box (published in the 60s, it was the first of it's kind) is being republished. Every page is loose and stands alone. You can read it in any order. No need to put your kindle on shuffle. The author does it for you.

Rekjavik Film festival

As part of a tradition, Rekjavik hosts an annual film festival, in which famous icelanders invite people over to their houses to screen films from their DVD collections, followed by a screening in an obscure location surrounded by volcanoes and lava... then back to Rekjavik where the closest you get to a red carpet is a Berghaus jacket.

Tuvalu Island needs water please...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/water-water-everywhere-ndash-but-this-island-has-barely-a-drop-to-drink-2365184.html

The Rockandys

Monday 10th
Basement: “The Blue Throat Swallows The Light” Party Ft. The RocKandys (FR-D) Live, Vile Imbeciles (UK-Brighton) Live, The Light Shines (UK-London) live.
French Psych rock band The Rockandys have just finished their debut album this summer, recorded in Berlin upon an invitation by Anton Newcombe (Brian Jonestown Massacre). This collaboration also follows that of Tibo & Rike helping Anton Newcombe to make some tunes for his new album especially the song sung in French “Iluminomi.” The Rockandys have supported The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels and The Warlocks over the past year and tonight they hit london’s east end for a special event alongside two fantastic supporting acts. Do not miss this.
8pm – 12am / £5 Entry Email: therockandys@gmail.com for guestlist requests.

Mexican Spanish night at The Book Club.

http://www.wearetbc.com/2011/09/monday-3rd-october/

Silent you

silent, silent, silent days,
stick the heart in it's home- made maze
silent, silent, silent hours
trick the heart and wilt all flowers

silent, silent, silent time
without which there would be no grime
silent, silent, silent air
circles the depths of my own despair.

silent, silent, silent rush
to help the muck and the mush
silent, silent, silent voices
remind me of the only choices.

Jonas Trueba, Je t'adore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGFL7zSW6fg

An interview with Jonas Trueba, director of Todas las Canciones Hablan de mi ...

two

under and over you
you're the the catch 22
to make my heart go blue
you forgot the meaning of two

Lanterns on the Lake

If you feel like cinematic pop and dreamy melodies, this band tells of misfortunes and minor victories.

'You need Better' is a particular favourite.....


http://www.myspace.com/lanternsonthelake

Regular dose of Gael .....

two friends shoot a film in Bolivia and one of them happens to be GAEL ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaiuQX1epts

Poland's forests from above

Kacper  (that's Casper to the rest of you) Kowalski reaches high above the forest trails and damp forest beds, teeming with mushrooms, to give us a skewed but arrestingly gorgeous perspective of Poland's forests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2011/sep/23/kacper-kowalski-photographs-forests-aerial#/?picture=379290967&index=0

My four poster

The grated windows of my palace
remind me of the place I'm in
I reach for autumn and it's bitter end
whilst clinging to summer's manor.

If you love Comic Sans....

read this:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole

Monsieur in the country

Nice pleasant passer-by:

"So where are you from, then?"

" Nowhere. To you, I'm from nowhere"

yule mwanamke- That woman

 

Wangari Maathai dies at 71

DRIVE through Monday

Two great tracks from DRIVE



Under your spell
A real hero- College

I refuse to listen to "skull crushing"

Wild Beasts

 thankless thing

Friday with Charlotte and The Tree

For you

Lana Del Rey

The meanings of words aren’t discreet entities, like dictionary definitions. They’re concepts.

A stunning article about the art of writing.....


http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/the-fine-art-of-writing-small-2358073.html

Haiku Varsovie

La vieille ville clignote
pour decrire sa belle epoque
avant la chute rouge

On fete le football
parmi les vrais ukrainiens
une victoire de races

Tournez le futur
en tartes aux pommes polonaises
douces et invitantes.

Heart of my own

Basia Bulat



Under that bird
Beneath that falls
Down on these walls
Burnin my arms
I've been alone
When I sat by you

For every word I could undo
I've been uncrossed
and I've been untrue
I've been the thorn
I've been the hunt

With a heart of my own
Burn it down low
The light in your verse
And the shadow between
The way that I was when I used to roam

Back home
What do I hold?
For the maid or the mother I'll be
If only the loom and a thread will hold.
It is work too but as that I hear it
Tomorrow I'll mend it
The empty bones.

There are the roses that come without seekin'
They are the ones that I have to sow.
In your verses that I have repeated
The way that I was when I used to know.

I wrote on these walls
A simple charm
To keep the wounds at bay
Gave of a heart
The strength of my arms
To hold you close and safe

But I kept my eyes closed
I'll never know
Where the shadows are these days
I stood in the room of a house divided

Ah, and it washed away from me.
It washed away from me, oh,
And It washed away from me.
It washed away to take my own
Burn it down low

The light in your verse
And the shadow between
The way that I was when I used to roam

Back home
What do I hold?
For the maid or the mother I'll be
If only the loom and a thread will hold.
It is work too but as that I hear it

Tomorrow I meant it
The empty bones
There are the roses that come without sinkin
They are the ones that I have to sow
In your verses that I have repeated
The way that I was when I used to know.

Wild Horses a different way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCpCmt0OXNc&feature=youtu.be

France chooses film for the Oscars

La guerre est declaree ( War is declared )

Paris and I

There's a part of Paris
that knows not what to do
and another one that is
just unaware of you

Chez Jeanette I sit
and sip invisible tea
to help me disappear
in Place d'Italie

An area of the city
knows exactly what I want
As goat's cheese melts into
my recently revived font

The right bank of my soul
leaks out water from the Seine
As the tears turn to laughter
the left bank holds it in.

Lea Seydoux

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris would not be the same without her. Elle joue bien la vraie parisienne

languages lost

This article claims that we are losing one of our 6900 languages every fortnight.

http://www.economist.com/node/21528592

The rise of British method acting

Steve Mcqueen's Shame sees Fassbender playing a sex-addicted corporate drone.

I love my Radio France Internationale app

http://www.english.rfi.fr/

News in the morning can be a little bit of a headache but not anymore. Since I discovered RFI, it has become music to my ears and I am now totally 'au courant' when it comes to French anything at all.... trop exciting

Latin America Through Eleanor Marriott's lens

Her exhibition is on at Canning House this month
http://www.eleanormarriottphotography.co.uk/

All you need is a blanket

Last night, a waitress gave me a blanket. It was navy blue and felty and covered the kidneys. The food was excellent, the atmosphere charming and the company thrilling but what I liked most about it was the blanket and a waitress who thought  a blanket might be beneficial to a girl whose shoulders always hunch from the cold and who is clearly nostalgic for her summer holidays and whose head can't get around the idea that soon she'll be wearing blankets just to get to work and whose hot water bottle is frequently used even in mid-summer and whose blankets are stored at the end of the bed in case of a slight descent in farenheit. And she is sitting here getting chilly just thinking about the prospect of not finding a blanket quite like that one.

The restaurant's motto is " A taste of summer all year round".  Blankets included.

The Summerhouse

A time

A time to laugh, a time to die
what is now will be no more
a time to turn away from you
and through a very different door

A time to cry, a time to live
what is now will forever be
a time to come closer to you
and through the same eyes we see

A time to stare , a time to breathe
what is now is exhaled in one
a time to stay in the same place
and through stillness thy will be done

Twenty cigarettes

##


James Benning asks twenty people to smoke a cigarette and then films them. Each shot takes as long as it takes to smoke one. An exercise in coming face-to face with our own self consciousness..

I believe in Atavism...

God of Carnage

Polanski's new film sees Kate Winslet actually projectile vomiting, a stunt which even her kids witnessed on set and can't stop talking about since... With the Venice Film Festival underway, it's definitely time for European cinema to projectile vomit it's wonderful new material.

My head and my heart are crying out for......

THE HEAD AND THE HEART

Listen to:

lost in my mind

If you're always hungry like me and the rest of London.....

Then

URBANSPOON

might help you get your fill....

For those who can't sleep sometimes

CITY AND COLOUR SLEEPING SICKNESS

The Museum of Broken Relationships

Originating in Croatia, this exhibition holds the trinkets and treasures of the international break-up scene. The objects that people have decided to keep are, at times, comical (this dishevelled looking gnome, par exemple) and at others, tragic (the wedding dress.Ouch)  Such is life.

For more info click here