Robert Geller’s Spring Summer 2009 collection, smokin’ hot shiet. How sex is that asymmetrical waistcoat? Or the amazing gradient fade jeans? Or the tight shirting? Or the trench? Or the blazer? Or the necktie? Or the shoes? Or the trousers? Or the dope blue leather jacket? Every look is essential and wearable. Our Spot is gonna get raided for this stuff. Pity its going to be mad expensive down under but still. Pics off men.style.com.
Filed under: Music
Brooklyn based Gang Gang Dance are a band with a really unique sound. They’re a sort of experimental, electro noise band, playing a kind of rhythmic percussion with a loose structure to the songs. At some points, every member is smacking something, and it can be anything, to make some noise. Its got a certain raw edginess, brought about by some scathy electronics, which are soothed all at once when lead singer Liz Bougatsos gets going. They’ve released 3 albums since 2004. The one I’m digging at the moment is God’s Money and its exactly that. It’s supposed to be the accessible album after years of super experimental efforts, introducing more melodic elements and recognisable structures but still keeping things interesting.
This interview with identity theory includes details about a former band member getting killed by lightning and also bit and bobs about their creative process. Definitely a conceptual thing that manages to work out quite well. Their 4th album, Saint Dymphna, drops October 21st. Definitely one band to listen to/watch and not read about.
This is Egowar, off God’s Money, which I’d trump as a single of sorts.
I have not posted someone else’s blog here before but this one deserves it. Dessert First (a notion I can easily concur with) is Pastrygirl’s blog about everything sweet. Great writing combines well with some awesome photography as well as some seriously tasty lookin’ treats. Some of the stuff she does herself, as exemplified below.
Black Sesame Panna Cotta with Five Spice Peanut Brittle
One day, a friend asked me to do one of those personality games. It involved expanding on a simple set of pictograms by drawing more of it. You start with a circle, a triangle, an X, a square etc. Each symbol represents something, like the circle is your view of yourself. I drew a football cos I’m sexy and fun. The triangle represented how other people viewed you. For that, I drew a pyramid, which makes me sexy and mysterious.
Anyway, I’m rather fascinated by pyramids. The history and all that is one thing, but the sheer physical, mathematical beauty of it all is another. Here comes the pyramid flood. Pictures stolen from everywhere, and this list is not intended to be complete.
The one at Giza.
The mathematical one.
The I.M Pei masterpiece.
The Toothpick Pyramid in El Topo.
The Chronicles of Never pendant.
The world record 7 meter high champagne pyramid.
Seeing as my future lies in Manly, I took a trip to the beachside town and performed a spot of reconnaissance. Lunch happened to be at Benbry Burgers, which in my mind is basically the best burger under $10 anywhere in town. I think its hard/nigh impossible to find burgers as good for double or triple the price even. They have a simple idea, “well priced gourmet food”. The buns they use are a touch large but fresh and laden with sesame up top. The mince is fine and has a good touch of flavor. The condiments were also fresh and simple, never swamping the basic flavor of the meat too much. I accidentally took out two chomps of my friend’s beef burger and demolished my lamb one with herbs in the mince. The beef is definitely good stuff.
They serve pretty fast and its obviously just a tiny takeaway joint but they do what they do well. Take your pick from a Moroccan style chicken burger or a grilled Barramundi burger if you don’t like red meat. They also have vege options in the form of a tofu burger which I will try and report as well as a falafel one.
Benbry Burgers 5 Sydney Road Manly 2095 NSW 02 99776055I have seen the face of death and he’s a grim motherfucker. Parodied by many a film including Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, it is Death as imagined by Ingmar Bergman that I am talking about. The Swedish auteur’s black and white masterpiece, The Seventh Seal, is something I’m quite glad I watched because it really lives up to the hypemill and manages to feel really substantial even though it was filmed back in 1957. Shit is as dry and as serious as it gets.
The film takes its name from the book of revelations in the Christian bible and it has a knight returning to Sweden after the crusades. He finds the place ravaged by the plague and his own faith in God diminished. Death pays him a visit and the knight tries to buy time by challenging him to play a game of chess, whilst he struggles to accept the idea of life after death, or the lack of it rather. His depressing view on life sees him not living it to the fullest, a concept that his squire seems to embellish, hitting on girls, getting into fights and appreciating life despite all its chaotic nuances. Meanwhile, a travelling actor brings another perspective into light, living vicariously with his simple faith. These 3 different takes on life and death are the driving force behind the film, a poetic look at mortality. Some of the lines in there are simply brimming with a touch of philosophical goodness.
Cinematically speaking, the film is shot beautifully. The opening scenes, in particular, are really stark, precise chunks of black juxtaposed against bright white on some indeterminable shoreline. Not unlike the chessboard, which is a motif that Bergman borrows from a painting he saw of Death playing chess. Its not good versus evil but life versus death. Two sides to a coin maybe, or perhaps they are the same side after all. Bengt Ekerot plays the grim reaper, decked out like Darth Vader’s idol, his full length black robe and cape mask his body in a mystery. Only his extra pale face is visible, as if it were suspended in space. I suppose that’s a pretty apt idea of personifying death, as a face in a cloud of emptiness.
The existentialist element in the film is apparently linked to the director himself, brought up as a Lutheran but growing skeptical with time, Bergman himself also wondered about life, death and god. A scene where the knight confesses to a priest has him wailing out about the intangible nature of the creator. He worries endlessly about life being meaningful when there is unrelenting death nearby. He simply cannot accept the emptiness that comes with death.
Whilst the film appears to be rather gloomy in general, it is not a pessimistic one. It just asks the questions that we all ask at some point in our lives. If anything, it ends on a happy note, what with birds chirping and a young couple with a baby and all. Even if the subject matter might not be your cuppa tea, the depiction of death and the visual treats are definitely worth watching. There’s morbid scenes where a troupe of penitent believers are led by soldiers and monks with incense filled jars, smoke billowing out amidst all the flagellation, crying, moaning, cross carrying and doomsaying.
A particularly annoying priest who calls for nothing but doom doom doom might even be a slight criticism of religion as a whole as well. Another scene has a former priest stealing from the dead, not really deviating from his scavenging ways before the plague struck when he profited through the dissemination of fear. This is probably the one side theme that the show ponders cynically.
The Seventh Seal is an amazing film and a most brilliant introduction to a filmmaker who was and is heralded as one of the greats. I am clearly going to have to watch a few more Bergman pieces.
A rather whimsical collection of baby products is what was birthed when the Dutch stroller manufacturer Quinny collaborated with Henrik Vibskov. The Danish designer’s signature colorful prints are liberally applied across a full range of items including umbrellas, sunnies, towels, a poncho to go with the strollers.
On the product site, you can check out some videos and watch the man himself describe why and how he came up with ideas for the collection.
I just wish I had a penguin suit for a sleeping bag when I was a baby. Any prospective ladies out there who wanna have my babbies, I will buy Vibskov jawns for dem. If we end up not having babbies but just the sexy time, that’s fine too. If you looks like Maggie Cheung in a cheongsam, please post your resume and cover letter below with nekkud pictur included.
As part of a plan to reduce the size of my man boobies, I have decided to watch what I eat, as much as that is possible. Thank Coke for Coke Zero then, because it doesn’t taste as shitty as diet does. Also, I get fooled into thinking it almost tastes like real coke, only its got no sugar and hence, next to no calories. Man boobies beware!
Not the flashy ex Newcastle winger but the Australian chain of bakeries just to clarify. Laurent has got quite a few stores in Melbourne and just 2 in Sydney, one in Bondi and the other in Manly, where I found refuge on a torrid, windy, rainy day that would have killed any and all optimism. The bakery’s lovely little pastries though, did go some way to alleviating the drudgery.
They do classic French pastries and they do it damn well. That’s why you fork out 6-7 dollars for a lovely little Charlotte or 3-4 dollars for a perfectly fried beignet. I managed to sample a few pastries together with some friends and was generally impressed with the offerings. The one thing i distinctly remember though, is the chocolate macaroon, which can be had for a dollar eighty. It just fell apart delightfully in the mouth and smacked a chocolatey goodness that had me swooning.
Their sugar glazed brioche.
Filed under: Film
There’s some things that you cannot describe properly. Not because you don’t know how to or what with but because you wonder if you even need to and if you did, what good/bad that would do anyway. I just watched Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo and that’s probably how I’m feeling at the moment. To speak of the film as sensory overload is an understatement. My brain is still jarring from the echoes left by the images that flashed past my eyes. Still, I surmise that I must have decided to try, or else I would have stopped typing by now.
It is a strange film. Apparently, a favourite of John Lennon’s, so much so he funded Jodorowsky’s next film, The Holy Mountain. Originally released in 1970, it starts out as a mystical spaghetti Western in the first half before becoming a Chaplin meets Buddha biopic in the second. It is chock full of symbolism and allegory. Does any of it make any sense? Perhaps. Probably not. It doesn’t really matter.
I think its kinda funny that Jodorowsky made it a “Western” considering how much Eastern philosophy he throws into the film. I probably haven’t even heard/seen/smelt half the shit that he packed inside. Every line, every object seems to be like a vessel of some indeterminate truth from one exotic religion to another. Not that it’s a deep film. It can be if you want it to, but I found it a hilarious journey that entertained at its core.
Jodorowsky plays the lead role, El Topo, a gunfighter clad in all black, with tight ass leather pants. He stands at the centre of an odyssey that involves guns, tits, sex, murder, slavery, midgets, self immolation, toothpick pyramids, gay town marshals, women with male voices, lesbian love scenes, a pseudo crucification scene, monks getting raped and gallons and gallons of blood.
To me, it feels like a library of religious manuscripts was hastily blended into a 2 hour film and garnished with a side of humor and throwaway allegory. The music is a strange brew of lively classical bits, lots of dark, ominous religious chanting and insects buzzing. There’s something happening at every turn. The landscapes are beautiful vignettes, rock outcroppings and desolate sand dunes interspersed with the typical Western town. It feels like India transplanted into Mexico. Its almost too much at times but almost always beautiful.
In its day, it must surely have been one shocking piece of cinema. It certainly doesn’t bother about ruffling feathers at all. Today, I think it feels perfectly acceptable especially as there seems to be a good dose of humor to go with everything. Check out this interview for some of Jodorowsky’s insight into his masterpiece.
Also check out the trailer.
