Scorzonera

Corner

2008-11-02T13:59:23Z

corner
Originally uploaded by scorzonera

Dark, dull, rainy day. I'd been looking forward to spending my first Sunday off in several weeks out with the cameras - waste of time in weather like this. So I had a mooch around the house and quite like the light in this corner.

Filth

2008-11-02T10:24:13Z

Fun filth - cool creativity.

Berlusconi's Italy

2008-11-01T18:59:31Z

direct link

More Quentin Crisp

2008-10-31T13:52:19Z

In addition to the forthcoming documentary I now hear that a film - a "biopic" - is about to be released with John Hurt again taking the role of Quentin 30 years on.
Great news but I can't for the life of me remember where I heard or read this.
So it may be a dream, albeit a good one for a change.

Tower Project and the whole earth

2008-09-19T21:17:16Z

The nine haiku created by wordsmith for the tower project are online here .

Technoccult is running posts linked to an oral history of The Whole Earth Catalog which would link nicely with my project to make every page of The Whole Earth Catalog available as a .torrent if I got my finger out and got on with the mammoth, tedious task.

So far I've managed about half of the relatively tiny "Last Supplement". I'll finish...soon...

Quentin Crisp

2008-09-17T18:39:50Z

KEN CAMPBELL

2008-09-12T15:24:03Z

Passing a free half hour browsing for Ken Campbell books or DVDs this morning, I came across his obituary which I certainly didn't expect.

Campbell was a great man of the 20th century - intelligent, creative and entertaining. Within the last ten years Quentin Crisp, Spalding Gray and now Campbell have died, and I turned to thinking, who are the great raconteurs now that these three masters have gone?

Stephen Fry, Alan Bennett, Gore Vidal, Jonathan Miller and Brian Sewell sprang to mind, and I'm sure Holly Johnson and Marianne Faithfull could do more than hold my attention for a couple of hours if she put her mind to it and once he had begun "living his third act", as Campbell put it in his 2004 interview for Theatre Voice".

But there was something about the quality, delivery and honesty of Crisp, Gray and Campbell's material that set them apart from the above mentioned. Perhaps they were part of a dying breed? More likely a new generation has yet to find its feet, or voice.

I was fortunate enough to be in the audience for "An Evening With Quentin Crisp" at Sheffield City Hall around twenty years ago, but never saw Gray or Campbell in performance.

It may be a while before I have the opportunity to see their like in performance again.

THE WEB SITE

2008-09-08T08:21:35Z

The new web site is online at scorzonera.co.uk

ANOTHER CARD DECK

2007-06-08T07:30:59Z

An addition to the "playing cards" run of posts - The Housewives Tarot ! Although tarot cards aren't "playing cards" but these are great fun.

Click on the tag for more.

NUMBER TWOS

2007-04-20T14:08:49Z

Back when I spent a year living on the English canals, my narrowboat ended up grounded in rural Northamptonshire for 2 or 3 weeks owing to low winter water levels. Inconvenient but not a disaster. Until my onboard toilet tank filled up. Whenever I needed a crap I had to line the toilet bowl with clingfilm, carefully wrap the product and fling it across the canal to the wasteland on the far side, away from the waterway and the towpath. Not something I'm proud of, but it turns out that such 'flying toilets' are common practice in some of the poorly serviced shanty towns of Kenya.

This post at islamonline.net discusses the problem and the use of biogas latrines as an appropriate, low-tech solution. The latrines are easy to build and maintain and convert human waste to compost for agricultural land and methane gas for fuel. As the need to conserve water becomes more acute, I can see these installations spreading across industrialised countries.

In Canada, the City Farmers have posted, among many other instructional videos and articles, information on how to compost pet waste, or 'doggy doo', which must be a boon for all pet owners.

JOHARI OR NOHARI?

2007-04-13T07:29:40Z

I found this on the always interesting plasticbag blog.

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

Defenestrate yourself in a Johari style here .

Made of sterner stuff? Then try the the Nohari window -

By describing your failings from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of perceived and unrecognised weaknesses can be explored.

IMPORTANT - read the FAQ before completing the online window.

Use at your own risk.

scorzonera is not responsible for any diminution of self respect, termination of lifelong friendships or general mardiness which may arise from following these links.

Furthermore, scorzonera refuses to enter into a Johari/Nohari exchange himself.

Do you want to see something lovely?

2007-04-03T13:55:00Z

I was flicking through Christie's catalogue for the April 5th contemporary/post-war auction during a fag break the other day when a lot caught my eye - "Wrapped Couch" by Christo (1973). Estimate £30,000 to £50,000. Cheap for a piece by Christo, I thought. A closer look told me why - not a sofa wrapped by Christo, but a multi media piece on card (roughly 3 feet by 2) created by Christo of a proposed project entitled "Wrapped Couch". I didn't check the provenance but later, back at my dull employment which requires no brain power, I had a vision. Picture the scene:-

Christo's office. A slow day. Probably Friday afternoon. Christo sat at a desk with his feet up, texting his mates. An assistant idly rummaging through a map chest.

ASST: Christ, you haven't half got some old tat in here.

CHR: Tat? What do you mean tat?

ASST: Well this for a start. (He holds up a large, dog-eared sheet of card) Are we ever going to make this fucking wrapped sofa or what?

CHR: Nah. Scrapped the idea. Not monumental enough.

ASST: That's my point. Why've you still got the old sketch cluttering up the place? Any use or not?

CHR: Not any more. Sling it. No, hang on...send it to Christie's. Some fool's bound to cough up for it.

ASST: OK. Any estimate? Reserve?

CHR: Let's have a look...$80,000?

ASST: Thank you and good riddance. Now what other crap we got in here?

CHR: (Suddenly alert) Hold on, hold on! Don't pack any more off for auction, you'll fuck up me market!

ASST: Keep your hair on, I wasn't born yesterday.

Or how about this? (I do have a LOT of time for daydreaming some days))

Damien Hirst saunters into a workshop in the grounds of his manor. A bit grumpy. A bit hungover. He cracks his shin against a low lying lump of art by the door.

DH: Ow! Shit! Kev? I'm fed up tripping over this fucking thing.

K: Well don't look at me - you made it.

DH: Fair comment. But can't we get rid? When did we last ship out to Christie's?

K: Ooh, now you're asking. Six months ago? Eight months tops?

DH: That's no good then. How about...got it. A charity auction. Set up some kind of...celebrity...charity...fucking...auction thing. Bung it in that. And those pictures under the window. And that ugly great thing propped up behind the compressor.

K: Righto. What charity do you fancy?

DH: Fuck knows. Use your initiative. Autistic kids? Orphaned hedgehogs? Summat with no politics in it.

K: AIDS in Africa?

DH: Are you deaf or daft?!

That's the art market sorted. I'm more interested in the forthcoming photography auction in New York, to be honest. Robert Doisneau prints are dirt cheap right now and he's been one of my favourites since childhood. So if you're one of those people who can't decide what to give me for my birthday and you've got $10,000 to spare, you might be in luck.

SEX, DEATH, SHRUNKEN HEADS AND PETER COOK

2007-03-21T20:48:17Z

Playing Around
Originally uploaded by scorzonera.

Hey sexy man! With your sexy hairdo, sexy moustache, sexy open shirt and medallion and sexy Terylene trousers! No surprise you wow all the chicks! And that sexy pipe! You having a Condor moment there? Just be careful you don't strike a match too near the sexy chicks' nighties, y'dig?!

Cemetery under snow
Originally uploaded by scorzonera.

It happens to us all if we're lucky enough to live that long - people we know start dying, then keep on dying until it's our turn. No getting away from that.

MyDeath.net offers the illusion, at least, of having some control of events after The Event. You can store your preference of obituary, flowers, funeral venue, music, even your suicide note (they often, apparently, go astray) and much more in the hope that family and/or loved ones take some notice.

Most intriguing of all, you can browse other people's stored desires but be prepared to spend several hours once you get in there. It becomes addictive.

Wisconsin Death Trip is a unique documentary-plus-drama, its starting point being photographs and stories of everyday death and despair taken from the Black River Falls newspaper in the 1890s and the work of Charles Van Schaick, the town portrait photographer. There is an excellent article by Michael Lesy, creator of the book which gave rise to the film, here . The film is available on DVD . I found a .torrent on secret-cinema.com a few months back but the site seems to have been hijacked, which is a shame.

The excellent musarium.com has the deeply affecting Flash movie Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography In America , with a commentary by James Allen, who created the book of the same name. Chilling thought - many of these photographs were printed up and sold as postcards, a reminder that not all deaths are seen as equal.

Bertrand Flornoy
Originally uploaded by scorzonera.

Seeing the post referring to replica shrunken heads for sale on ebay in the excellent Kircher Society blog a year ago reminded me of a quote from a Maori tattooist in Skin and Ink magazine several years ago.

"How you would you feel if you were a Maori visiting Seattle and you saw some punk kid walking down the street with your grandmother's Moko on his chin?"

Given the ongoing, global campaign to return looted body parts currently housed in museums to their homelands, there must be quite a few people who find this kind of novelty item offensive.

If I had the urge to have a novelty item based on the human head in the house, at least I'd want it to be something useful.

Enjoy your meringue.

Great website at http://stabbers.org/, home of the Peter Cook Appreciation Society. Masses of mp3s including the entire "Misty Mr Wisty" LP (that'll get the women's vote) plus a few rare divX files and loads more stuff.

Click on "discography" for the mp3s.

I was bored at work - and I thought.......

2007-03-21T19:46:22Z

Is the word 'sesquipedalian' onomatapoeic, in a metaphysical sense? Perhaps I'm misusing the word 'metaphysical'. Or onomatapoeic. Or both.

MID WINTER BLUES?

2006-12-21T11:50:47Z

Try this new method to lift depression.

(Found via the excellent Technoccult )

MORE KNITTING

2006-12-17T11:21:35Z

Raunchy knitting - Knitting for Adults Only

scorzonera @ 2006-12-15T00:43:00

2006-12-15T00:43:37Z

I had this dream.

Kay and I were in a pub, having a meal. As we sat, Simon appeared and began reciting a poem to me, so close that his lips were brushing my face. Now Simon, in the Waking World, was a classmate at grammar school who had worked for years at becoming a professional writer and poet. To my knowledge he had never had what I would call regular employment.

Back in the dream, as his lips brushed my lips and cheek, I signed to Kay (Kay being deaf), "Oh it's ok, he's an old friend who someone's paid to surprise me".

Meanwhile Jane, who was at table with Kay and I, sat watching and giggling, for it was she who had commissioned Simon to perform for me.

In the Waking World, Jane was my first "real girlfriend", that is to say the first person I had sex with, and in later years became both a friend to my daughter's mother and our daughter's babysitter. More recently, at my daughter's 21st birthday party, she told me that Simon had died suddenly in Bath in 2003.

After Simon's performance, it became clear that the pub, which was recognisably the Waking World Dog and Duck, a country pub with pretensions to "gastropub" status 3 miles from here, was owned and run by Bob Hope (not the dead, American, right wing comedian - but the Bob Hope from Emmerdale) and his wife. On the menu, patrons were recommended to walk around the surrounding Kentuckian countryside, where they might see locals working away at their hedge-laying and welding.

Then I woke up.

I think working as a "Christmas temp" on the checkout at Tesco's is doing things to my head, waking or sleeping.

For instance, a couple of days ago I found myself unwisely drawn into a discussion with a customer on the cultural merits and demerits of Katie Price, the author, chanteuse and glamour model, which brought to mind a haiku I composed following a brief encounter with that young lady on the edge of the South Downs, one morning several years ago.

Intimidated
By a couple of bouncers
Obsessed? Me?
No way.

This fairly trite verse has been stuck in my head for two days now.

Nurse - the screens.

Animation

2006-12-14T23:49:44Z

My mate Dave sent me a link for a lovely animation - it's worth exploring the whole site.

PLAYING CARDS

2006-12-10T11:52:18Z

Yet more interesting playing cards - although I'm not sure how practical these are they look lovely.

ODD

2006-11-24T06:56:28Z

Very odd - glancing back through my recent posts I've just noticed a tag for "who borrowed my huelsenbeck" when I meant to type "heuvelmans" (which actually makes sense in context). Perhaps a little odder, on Sunday I spotted my Huelsenbeck on a friend's bookshelf, more than a week after I'd made the error. Hmmm......

scorzonera @ 2006-11-16T19:07:00

2006-11-16T19:07:35Z

I may have been a little hasty in writing off charity shops the other day. My partner had this afternoon off work and asked me to pop around to a local charity shop with her - and I found an apparently unread copy of Joseph Moncure March's "The Wild Party" for 50p! The 1994 edition with the Art Spiegelman drawings!

Question is - is this a one off, or am I about to become a compulsive charity shop trawler again? The last time I found something wonderful was the "Clackers" album back in '04, and even then I didn't buy it, just took a shot of it in the shop.

Perhaps the ebay mudlarks have tired of scuttling round the charity shops and car boot sales, grabbing any old rubbish, chucking it on ebay ("it's dead easy! And like free money!!") and finding no-one wants most of it anyway.

Here's hoping.

scorzonera @ 2006-11-15T22:21:00

2006-11-15T22:21:19Z

This story on the Fortean Times site complements the time back in the '80s when it was discovered that otters had returned to a river (or possibly the Chesterfield Canal) in North Nottinghamshire for the first time in over a century, about 15 miles from here - after a dead otter was found in the gutter of the A60.

I'm not one to engender or condone animal suffering, but there is definitely something Pythonesque about these events.

BOOKS

2006-11-14T17:00:48Z

LibraryThing turns out to be yet another thoroughly enjoyable way to lose several hours on the web.

Once I'd input my depleted collection this morning (which is dead easy - quite often I add with one click if another user has already added the same title and edition), I tootled around the site a bit more....ok, a lot more, finding out who else has books that I have, who has the most books in common with me, how many other users have tagged their books the same as mine - it just goes on.

I found that I was thrilled when I saw that only one or two other users had a copy of one of my books, and near ecstatic when I had input a unique book. Unique to LibraryThing , that is. It's easy to get carried away.

A pity LiveJournal users cannot yet use the online 'widgets' to connect directly between blog and LT, soon I expect.

Now I have to photograph and upload all the missing book covers. Another day down the drain. But what a way to go.

BOOKS

2006-11-13T11:57:10Z

In the autumn of '02 I sold or gave away almost all of my 1,000 plus books. I miss very few of them (I did miss frequent re-readings of tens of Philip K Dick sci-fi novels, every reading revealing to me more repeated patterns and arcs of plot and character, but I got over it) and treasure what I have left.

I rediscovered LibraryThing this morning and tomorrow, when I have to wait in for a plumber who will definitely be here "between 8.30 and 4" without fail I will immerse myself in listing my books.

Another fine example of Web 2.0 culture.

MUSIC

2006-11-13T08:49:10Z

I'm filling my time and hard drive over at The Avant Garde Project - hours of music lovingly digitised from archived LPs including 20 years of work by Ilhan Mimaroglu, who I first discovered - a recording made up entirely of the treated twangs of a rubber band - on an LP found in a charity shop. This was back in pre ebay days, when interesting stuff could be found weekly in charity shops.

Fucking ebay.

Come to think of it, it's not ebay I'm angry with - it's all the people who go around snapping up anything vaguely 'collectible' in order to make easy money, not because they have any interest in obscure LPs from the '60s and '70s, or a biography of Ang and Chang, or a Bagpuss video.

Bastards.