Friends!

Oh, Frank

HAVING A COKE WITH YOU

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it

Churchill

I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns. 

Breakfast

Little feet

Found this beauty for £3 in the charity shop. Felt so smug carrying it home. Fuck you, ikea.

Off the Grid

Living off the grid is living self-sufficiently, disconnected from public utilities such as electricity and plumbing. As 'Platform' magazine say, "It’s pretty much an extreme version of walking out the room every time X Factor comes on tv because you don’t give a shit about it." Yeahhhhh. Keliy Anderson-Staley was born in this log cabin in an off the grid community in Maine. 

"This is the house I grew up in. It started out as a two story 30×30 log cabin, but has grown over the last 30 years.  The sunroom on the front of the building was made solely with found windows and is the most recent addition. My father spends a good part of the winter in this small room working around a small wood stove. Barely visible in this photograph is the small windmill on the roof of the cabin, which, along with the solar panels just below the tin roof, generates enough energy to power a few small electrical devices including a laptop. We had none of these amenities when I was growing up"

"The Knapps live in a single room cabin, but have managed to carve distinct spaces out of their home. They are raising two young children and have been off the grid for almost a decade."

"This is the Landry’s outhouse, they’ve lived off the grid since the late seventies. This has been the site of a few accidents—a peat moss fire nearly burned it down and a dog once fell into the pit and had to be rescued."


Anderson-Staley has been careful to avoid romanticising living off the grid, but the homes here seem cosy, quirky, and definitely preferable to concrete monopoly houses. They look WARM, and that toilet looks MARVELOUS (really want to put my bum on it). I don't know, maybe its one of those things that seems like a brilliant way to live a full life, to free yourself from modern constraints, but in reality the difficulty surpasses the benefits. Like camping. Or having an allotment. 


There is a link to the rest of the collection here.

Brian Gaberman

"I try to only make pictures when I just can’t resist the urge. I’m very concerned about making photographs just to make them. There are plenty of photographs in the world and I’d rather not add to the pile unless I absolutely can’t help myself." 

(Go to his online portfolio for more)

Blue Pyjamas

Bought this sweet 1920s sleepover bag from an indoor vintage market thing today. Becky said it was silly and that I'll never use it, but I WILL! Although I do understand where she is coming from. It is a very sentimental purchase. I am getting very sentimental.

What I'm reading

I'm trying to be a good student this semester! Notice the clear 40:60 split of things I really need to read and things I really want to read. Remember Milly-Molly-Mandy?

Adrian Mole

"I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down. It is certainly not interesting to actually live my life. It is tedious beyond belief.'

Meowmeow