Category: General Blogging

[Book And Album Reviews] Week 1

Posted on by Alasdair

The week’s book: The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster by Bobby Henderson

The Question: Will Bobby Henderson’s ID spoof sustain a whole book?

The Answer: Just about, but it’s a good thing it’s not any longer – the new material is indeed as funny as the site, but it’s essentially just playing on the same theme, rather than anything new. This was a gift, so it’s a little hard to assess if it was worth the money, but honestly, I’ve got enough entertainment out of pastafarianism as a whole to think that Henderson deserves some financial recompense for it. If you like venganza.org, you’ll be entertained by the book.

This week’s music: The Power of Pussy by Bongwater

I got one of the tracks off this from a friend in a compliation CD a year or two back, and loved it, since it sounded like very little else I’d ever heard, so when Emusic recommended them at me, I thought I’d grab an album’s worth. On the strength of it, I’ll be getting more.

I suppose you’d have to call this psychedelia, but I don’t like the term. This is bitter, sleazy, nasty stuff, collaging together spoken word, laid back guitars, samples and more normal singing, as they talk about porn and sexuality and exploitation. You might have heard their classic “Folk Song” before, a long bitter rant about well, almost everything. Like I say, they sound like very little else that I can think of, and they’re fairly clever. This is more than enough recommendation for me.

See You Next Year

Posted on by Alasdair

Heading out the door shortly for New Years. Happy New Year to those of you I won’t see this evening, which is probably quite a number. May each of you have the 2007 you hope for.

13 Resolutions

Posted on by Alasdair

I don’t usually do New Year’s Resolutions – if I want to change something, I’ll do it whenever, but this year, I’ve let a few things slide, and I really ought to make more of an effort, so I’ll use the same arbitrary day that everyone else does to make the start of my attempted changes.

  1. Go to the gym three or four times a week. (I’m aiming for four in the hope of achieving three. Two is bare minimum acceptable, in a really busy week.)
  2. Put at least 104 photos on-line. (2 a week, but I’m now used to the idea that I go through periods of one-a-day versus extended stretches of nothing.)
  3. Make a serious effort to sell some prints.
  4. Read one new book a week, and write a short review of it.
  5. Listen to one new album a week, and write a short review of it. (The emusic subscription should come in handy.)
  6. See at least two films a month in the cinema. Reviews optional.
  7. Go to at least one art exhibition a month. Reviews optional.
  8. Drink less alcohol. (Scheduled parties/special occaisions aside, when the rules are suspended, I won’t be drinking at all in Jan and Feb, and will be cutting back to a limit of three single whiskies or equivalent, while out for the rest of the year.)
  9. Eat more healthily. I have been extremely rubbish at this, this year.
  10. More socialising. I have not seen enough of many of my friends this year.
  11. Clear my debts.
  12. Make a serious attempt to organise an exhibition, preferably to include other people’s work as well as my own. (May be for 2008, but I should have at least have a date and location for one by the end of the year.)
  13. Develop and release at least one useful website-related tool to the public. (I think this is least likely, purely on the basis of time constraints, but I’d like to have a go.)

What I Did On My Holidays

Posted on by Alasdair

Mostly, I took pictures of small children.

I recall seeing Grumpy Old Men do a christmas special a few years back (back before John Peel died, anyway) in which someone lamented the way that what you ask someone how their Christmas was, they always answer, at best, “alright”. Those that have had miserable chirstmases may be more downbeat still, but that, for such a hotly anticpated season, everyone always seems to have had a Christmas that fell slightly flat. Well, not me.

I had a bloody marvellous Christmas. I honestly don’t know when I’ve enjoyed one as much. No internet, no TV (although we did play on a Wii for a bit on Boxing Day evening), no eating till I burst or drinking myself into a stupor. Just a few days away with my family, the whole time spent enjoying each other’s company. All those cliches of what Christmas should be about: that’s exactly what we had. And it was fantastic.

My sympathies to those of you who have spent your christmas in the arena of the unwell, of which their seem to be rather a number of you.

And so to the next big thing: Lacking anything better to do, I’m going to Slimeshite for New Year. Am I likely to see anyone there?

Bleurgh.

Posted on by Alasdair

My goodness, I feel rubbish. That’ll be the drink, then. Two months off it come January, though.

In other news: I have done the slides at the Tate Modern. I am now convinced that yes, they absolutely are Art, and that really anyone talking about how modern art is rubbish, and not really art at all, is just in dire need of a really big slap. Importantly, they are also a lot of Fun.

The Tate Modern’s bookshop proved the terrible trap I knew it would be, but in the end, I got out only spending a tenner, even if there are a few new new books of photography on my Amazon wishlist. Also, the Proud Galleries “Best Of” exhibition is marvellous as well, and I would like credit for not spending several thousand pounds on two or three prints.

Now, I must have food, and possibly some more sleep.

Today’s achievements:

Posted on by Alasdair

1) A Trip To London In Maps. Highly recommended. You can see what it did to my head here.

2) Dead Air and Digitalia now fire a notification of to my Twitter stream whenever they are updated. This sort of thing is irrelevant bollocks to most of you, but I feel a certain professional obligation to play with web services like this, just to see how I wind up using them, so that I can point clients/employers at them when relevant.

3) In a similar vein, I have updated my aggregator site, so that it pulls in my myspace blog, althought naturally mpsacks don’t do anything so considerate as provide a full content feed, despite the fact that the content is mine…. I’ve also added some what we are apparently now pleased to call a “lifestream” to the site. It seems like a logical fit with the general purpose of having that site, and again, it may have possible professional uses.

4) I’ve made a start on the first serious post for my myspacks account, and will get on with more on Wednesday. In case any of you are wondering what I’m suddenly doing with all this myspacks nonsense, I’m over there for purely self-promotional purposes. I’ve got some plans for next year that will mean I want to try to build an audience for some work, and I think myspace may be useful in doing it. The blog there is going to be a load of waffle about Art, at least to start with.

5) I’ve gone through the few shots I’ve taken recently, and generally sodded about with photos.

This holiday business is all quite tiring, really.

I’m out all day tomorrow, so if you could all try not to do anything interesting that I’ll need to know about until Wednesday, that’d be ace.

Testing

Posted on by Alasdair

Sorry, just test an rss-related device, and I need to cause an RSS feed to update. Move along, nothing to see here.