wind

January 18th, 2007: Waiting for a friend outside the Serpentine Gallery, in quite strong winds.

renga roundup

Wow. Has it really been 7 months since I first agreed to go and sit under a tent in a housing estate and write poetry with strangers?

Yesterday we gathered in Keith’s house and penned the final batch of the 100 Verses for 3 Estates (Alec Finlay, Gavin Wade and Paul Connolly Paul Conneally Little Onion).

You already *know* there was a good bunch of people there and the atmosphere was great, but the food was delicious and deserves a special mention – thanks guys!

Does it sound like we didn’t work very hard?
There was some serious thinking going on too…

panpipe moods

A recently rediscovered gift from the man in the toyshop.

I’m not sure if this is a character from popular mythology, or indeed whether the pipe is a musical instrument or a flame-thrower…

your guide to pasty markings and flavours

• Traditional (large and small) – one knife hole
• Bacon, leek and cheese – two fork holes
• Cheese and onion – Three fork holes
• Vegetable – V and herbs on pasty
• Indian chicken – one knife hole and two fork holes
• Spicy chickpea ad potato – one knife hole and one fork hole…

the fight for free space…

The fight for free space-for wilderness and public space-must be accompanied by a fight for free time to spend wandering in that space…Wanderlust-A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit, Verso, 2001 in Occasional Sights-a London guidebook of missed opportunities and things that aren’t always there, Anna Best

absurdity and the art of seduction

…Either people are truly gullible (fascinating hypothesis, but not too appealing), or else one must think that it is by soliciting them in the strangest, the most preposterous way, that they are seduced most easily. Indeed they want to be seduced, that is to say not solicited within their raison d’etre, and the same people who most obstinately resist justifiable, reasonable, explicit requests (requests for help, requests for opinion, affective a psychological requests) are prepared to play the arbitrary and absurd game of seduction. We are, in the end, secretly flattered that something is asked or even demanded of us for no reason, or contrary to reason: It spares us the commonplace and honors us in a more profound complicity. It is on this level that the seduction is played out, and rightfully so: There are few people in whom this basic reflex, this spontaneous response to the challenge of irrationality, has been destroyed by the habits of reason.

Please Follow Me, Jean Baudrillard

analogy for current levels of productivity

Suite vénitienne

Saturday. February 16, 1980

I must not think about it. I must stop pondering possible outcomes, wondering where this story is leading me. I will follow it to the end.

Sophie Calle

because we are interested in, y’know, in the BullRing

Pub Conversations: Miles Thurlow & Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz

The second of the Self Service Pub Conversations has been uploaded, giving me a good opportunity to try out the podcasting doobry for this website.

Since I missed the event itself ‘cos I was in Japan, I suppose I could also listen to it too!

Miles Thurlow is an artist based in Gateshead and co-director of Workplace Gallery (with Paul Moss). Recent exhibitions include Legacies of Dissolution, Colony, Birmingham, Formal Dining, Hales Gallery, London, Blue Star Red Wedge, Glasgow International 2006 and You Shall Know Our Velocity, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.

His guest, Carmen Cebreros Urzaiz (Mexico City, 1977) graduated in Visual Arts at the National School of Fine Arts-UNAM (Mexico), and the MA in Curating at Goldsmiths College. She has curated the exhibitions The Taming Power of the Small’ (Mexico City, 2003), Stages and Transfers (Mexico City, 2005), and recently an Audioguide for Sir John Soane’s Museum (London, 2006) constituted by the commentaries of international sound, performance and visual artists, architects, historians, and philosophers.

Pub Conversations is an ongoing series of events. If you want to subscribe directly to the Pub Conversations feed, paste the link below into your feed reader (eg Bloglines or iTunes)