THE FLICKR SONG

THE FLICKR SONG

This musical piece of birdw0rks junk appears to have become a bit of a virus over at Flickr. Click on T's nose if you want to listen to the Homage to Flickrees ditty.

JDB: snow pics are under the Gotham & Park sets from my main photopage here.

Ice Breaker

There be storm a-commin'.
Here's the calm...

Snowy Pond

More snow - whoo hooo. Cold as nadgers though.

String fingers are raw, so summat must be happening.

Coffee Shop

Coffee Shop
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

Have to admit to being quite taken with the Juan Valdez coffee shop for reasons such as this image, & even if it's a chain. Really nice/interesting design to the one on 57th St. & Lex. at least, & (while it shouldn't be rare in NYC, but it is thanks in part to the bastidds that are Stafrucks) an acceptable cup of joe.

CheeryChieri

Happy Birthday Chieri!
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

We're a few days late, but happy Chieriday!

T

T
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

This has to be one of my favourite shots of this woman (whoever she is). Taken just this morning in an excellently-interiorally-adjectivericherly coffeshop down from where she works off of Lex (57th?). The place has a large wall projection of cheesy old TV ads and an interestingly shaped side wall that curves and ripples under its smooth plaster exterior. Decent coffee too.

In terms of wall-projection, the latest Bill Viola exhibition at the Whitney, which I finally got my arse in gear to see last night (pay-what-you-want night, Fridays; no price on art, me!), is superb. Five high def. vids about 15 minutes long in super slow-mo feature figures entering water. Each one has a slightly different bent: some run forwards, some backwards, some are inverted, one has a split mirror effect, etc. Each has a violent climax when the body (which could be a real human or a weighted dummy - hard to tell) enters (or exits, depending on how you interpret it and which way the images run in each) the water. The review I read slated it and in general Viola's body of work, citing his desire to make video art like paintings, indicating an inferiority complex. His earlier stuff may have more immediate impact, but I disagree that the current showing is anything but superb. Totally engrossing, moving, and visually poignant.

A long weekend here with MLK day on Monday. A chance to actually spend a few hours laying down a few guitar tracks while T's at work dealing with a manic wedding at Fitzpatrick's.

Night night chowheads.

Usual

foggy
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

I feel usual today.
Must be something I didn't eat.

Damp, grey day in Gotham.
Can't say I don't like that though (with the caveat of not being the norm). Like being wrapped in a large, cool, damp dog blanket outside. Seems to make a few people express their paranoia though. "Are you threttneeng me?". Or could just be coincidence.

Bunhead crawled out of the Seattle mirk to send cyberword, typing of fog.

Online find of the evening is Sara's head. Really made me smile, anyway. Her photo site 's pretty damn impressive too. Nice one awfulsara.

Arran

Isle of Arran
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

Was just pooting around in the image archives and this jumped out at me. Snap taken on the wonderful Isle of Arran in Scotland last year. Up there in June it hardly got dark at nights; this shot being taken at some disgustingly early hour of the morning. Must return to Arran.

chumphead

chumplick
Originally uploaded by birdw0rks.

Testing the flickr bloglink with Mr. Chumplick.

Photo Tub

Julian Opie has a sense of humour at least then:

"glad you liked it - sorry to see what happened to your wife - awful. JULIAN"

Thanks to Liz, I now have an online stop gap while I put a proper photo site together. Nice little resource, Flickr. I don't really know where to start with my fat collection of digisnaps, so I randomly threw the first batch together.

Manhattan wildlife

I keep going on about sculpture here so far, but it's purely by chance really....

The Julian Opie installation at City Hall in Manhattan is well worth the visit. More impressive than I was expecting. Around the park there are e.g. animal signs (I love the hedgehog), a cow, a sheep, a city, a flock, a cool LED animation of walking figures: one male one female, and cars. All good for playing silly buggers with. Artists who persue these installations in public spaces must love that interactive aspect of their work, I assume.

We mixed with the tourists today and took the Staten Island ferry over and back from Battery Park. Great views of Manhattan and Liberty on the way back - a combination of cloud over Staten Island and a frontlit Gotham made the city and Lady Liberty look impressive.

Human Buck-a-Roo

Came across this site a couple of days ago: turns out there are plenty of other folk out there who amuse themselves by taking photos of themselves in reflective surfaces. Like the site a lot already - an excellent idea. Have contributed, of course.

Took a couple of snaps of the Gates in the park as they stand. Total mileage included in the project is becoming aparent as you walk through; god knows what the total cost of the thing is. Turns out the project has been specially timed to open on the saffron-loving Ms. Hartley's birthday :-)

Wedder grey, drizzlie, and cold here in NYC. Had hoped to take a trip out to the extremeties of Montauk this w/e, but have canned it for the time being.

Have to share Dr. Odj's New Year Experience, as emailed this week; lad's still living as he did circa '88:

I spent whole holiday driving or drunk. By the time of the post-footy Boxing Day sesh i couldn't physically force any more booze into my body. NYEve sat in a village pub till one, got back to his place, asleep by 1:00:01am and was then used by rest of crowd as a human buck-a-roo game. various household items where stacked on top of us till i twitched and they fell off. Apparently someone managed an exercise bike! am glad it's all over. the two weeks of debauchery has left me physically and financially ruined, a shadow of the man i was before.

Class.

Had a brain-in-oily-neutral moment this week: was in a meeting in a corporate office in Midtown (fish out of water, me); far too early in the morning. Was directly asked something early on and entered into one of those sentences where you have absolutely no idea what you're going to say, are saying, what your name is, or how you dressed yourself that morning. I found myself staring down at a small cardboard square covered in drawing pins on the table infront of me wondering what on earth they could be used for in an electronically-endowed conference room while my mind drifted fuzzily out of the top of my head to watch five or six meeting participants staring at me with furrowed brows as I wheel-locked mid-syllable with absolutely no idea what I'd just said. Ughh. After what felt like about 35 minutes, I concluded my sentence, totally unable to recall what I'd uttered. Like to make a good impression, me.

Leeds doing well against Brummies then. Ughghghgh.

UKNova has a copy of "Keep in Peel" Radio 1 tribute up, last time I looked (check out the radio section). Haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but 'tis a godsend for those of us that missed it & for whom Peely was so integral to our youth & musical weening.

birdw0rds is born

happy happy joy joy.

strange things are happening in Central Park.
here come the Gates.
passed by a group of brits on forklifts this morning shifting cast iron bases around into pretty patterns and attempting to chat up some manly-looking Yank bint in overalls. must snap photos on my passage through CP periodically (of the construction, not the bint) leading upto the February completion.

the Fleecie sleeps.

the Birdw0rks' Whisky Project has been born. rumblings of a return to the likes of Islay too. Quaz is tweaking the bits. (he also showed me his first run at the Birdw0rks website, which looks like it has tons of potential, should either and/or both of us ever have time & energy for development. kudos to Prof. Pooge, tho'.)

this year, I are mostly got new instruments in the Cheeky Monkey Recording Studio. hence, expect more strings. slowly the finger skin is toughening up again. taking a v. different approach to the next Birdw0rks offering; breaking things down; resisting recording anything concrete yet as I go around in musical circles, simplifying and working out overlays & such. I'm already interested in the product & it's a long way off even proper conception. good sign.

Who Are You was a departure from the Welsh Discs in that it took an eon to record, painful at times, while the ideas were cobbled together often on the fly in the early stages. it probably suffers from a lack of development. once I record the new stuff, I predict it'll be churned out, but the prep. will be the time consuming stage; already is. whether my myriad of technical weaknesses create a limp biscuit overall, only time'll tell, but the process should be fun. have to say that seeing Uncle Bob again after what, five or so years?, has renewed the influence. not in sound or content, but in passion and craft.

just caught Rivers & Tides, art doc on Andy Goldsworthy whose wooden things Teenee & I went to see on the Met roof a while back. ace stuff. must trot up to the Storm King park at some point. there's also some Opie sculptures downtown at the mo'.