Oh hai! Things have been looking a little thin on the blog front lately, partly because I have been schlepping around the world and have no idea who I am anymore or what time it is. It isn’t even Sunday where you are. Sheesh. I said goodbye to my dad today and am now in New York! I did not intend to take this crazy route (completely crossed wires with airline booking system) and am really quite embarassed about it :s but here I am. So let’s do a Super Sunday.
1. Check out this INCREDIBLE collaboration between cellist Yo-yo Ma and crunk dancer Lil Buck. Crunk is like proper magic.
“What starts as personal choice born out of self-esteem – a bit of self-pampering because you’re worth it – can grow into a terrifying network of conventions which is bigger than any of us. Luxuries can morph into necessities; choices, however initially eccentric, can become rules.”
5. I booked a long weekend in Paris in June! I’m going with my sister the day after she finishes her A-Levels and it should be uh-may-zing. So excited.
1. Yesterday I went along to 6 Billion Ways at Rich Mix in East London. Listened to a fantastic talk about Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in regards to the Palestinian struggle, which I was really inspired by and found very informative, since I have to admit I didn’t know that much about it before. There were also speakers there from N. Ireland and South Africa who gave some brilliant insight – did you know that Nelson Mandela was originally the leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress? And that he was described as a terrorist by Margaret Thatcher in the late 80s? Fascinating.
2. Thought this was brilliant. Elsie and Emma from A Beautiful Mess make chocolate bars out of Fight Club soap moulds. So cool.
3. Had such a yummy brunch made for me this morning by my friend Laura and her boyfriend Dave. Baked eggs, courtesy of Ottolenghi. It was delicious.
4. LOVE THIS. You have to click on it to make it flashy, because I just can’t work out how to do it in this page. Sorry, but it’s worth it. Operators Are Standing By by Jean Bevier.
5. Went to a cosy house cafe this afternoon, hosted by Sarah Corbett from Craftivist Collective. There was cake (so much cake), tea, acoustic acts and generally much fun and pleasantness to be had on a Sunday, all in aid of raising money for Oxfam and celebrating International Women’s Day. Sarah had made this beautiful banner for the occasion, it says “Become Who You Are”. I want to make one myself.
6. A tattoo of Mary Wollstonecraft! So hardcore!
7. I shared a super article by Molly Lambert last Sunday… have got a little obsessed with her. Here’s her latest, Speak Now.
1. The Craftivist Collective have come up with a nifty idea for Valentine’s Day. For the third year running, the collective are hiding alternative Valentine’s letters and gifts across the UK, waiting to be found by unsuspecting members of the public and provoking them to think about the effects of climate change. Cult jewellery brand Tatty Devine have donated a design to Craftivist Collective, which the group have crafted into keyrings – each hidden letter will contain a keyring featuring the design. Check out the video where Josie Long demonstrates how to make your very own!
2. My hairdryer broke this week (for the second time), so in despair I exchanged it for an all-in-one-hairdryer-and-styling-brush-thing and managed to blowdry my hair all swishy! I was quite pleased. Like I just stepped out of a saaloooooon.
3. I gave a presentation this week to my Low Carbon Development class about the impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples. It went really well I think, and we had an interesting discussion afterwards. I showed this video as part of my presentation – a chief of the Achuar tribe in the Amazon, Peru, talks about the effects of oil drilling on his land.
4. We already know from last week how much I like cakes. And Valentine’s Day is just another excuse for some cake goodness in my book. Check out this video – it’s soooo cute.
5. Paul Price is a pretty super graphic designer who has been leaving signs like this all over Leeds. Please come to Brighton Paul!
6. We may have already established through this blog that, as well as cakes, I am also a fan of muppets. I love this picture! So real. I wish my doctor was a muppet. Sigh.
ANYWAY, the great muppet-related news, if you can believe it, is that the new muppet movie being released in November is about OIL! It’s going to be AMAZING. Here’s the synopsis:
On vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds.
To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino house band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate.
It’s like they went into my dreams and made my ideal film.
7. I bought a book of poems by Mary Oliver this week, and I just love them. Here’s one of my favourites:
The Swan
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
1. Love these pictures from the Ballerina Project – sooo pretty. It just makes me wish ballet wasn’t confined to the theatres and could come out on to the streets like hip hop.
2. And speaking of dance, I started street dance lessons this week (and breakdancing next week! oh god..) which are hosted at Brighton Youth Centre. The centre is covered in amazing graffitti, like this one. I had an idea a while back to make bags and tshirts that said “How to be a domestic extremist” and I think this image would be perfect for such a venture! I shall have to try and get in touch with them.
3. Saw the Kids Are Alright on Tuesday – so good. Julianne Moore is such a dreamy actress and Mark Ruffalo is just dreamy.
5. Loving this girl’s style from The Sartorialist. It’s all about mahoosive eyebrows.
6. I’m reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X at the moment for book club – completely fascinating. I have to say I only had a vague awareness of who he was and had absolutely no idea he was assassinated by his fellow Black Muslims, so it’s a real history lesson.
7. Last weekend I went on stage with Josie Long and the Craftivist Collective to sew patches for the Bed In project (more to come on that). Because it was nearly Halloween, we wore “the scariest costumes ever” – masks of Mugabe, George Osborne and Rupert Murdoch. Mwahahaha.
2. I went to go visit my grandparents this weekend and my grandpa dug up some hilarious photos from when I was little. Here I am rocking out to a boombox (you can tell it was the 80s) looking like a little grumpy old man. I still look exactly the same.
3. I came across this photography project called Switcheroo by Sincerely Hana where she asked couples to switch outfits. Cute cute cute.
4. Loving these old-timey adverts for social media! Found on bumbumbum, lovely art and design blog.
5. London Fashion Week finished a week ago but these are my personal style swoons. The Orla Kiely show didn’t use models but cardboard cut-outs, very pretty. And this Giles Deacon dress… if I was a princess/willing to mire myself in debt… sigh.
6. This comic from Emily’s Blog made me laugh out loud because I too have had this conversation about a gajillion times. It is especially poignant since I am supposed to be making curtains today. I am not.
7. One of the first things I do when I move to a new area is find a Japanese restaurant! E-Kagen on Sydney Street in Brighton is one of the best Japanese restaurants I have ever been to in the UK, no jokes.
As promised, here are the photos from the Craftivist Collective meeting from last Thursday, hosted at the lovely Paper Dress Vintage. Proof that I have been crafting! We were embroidering the names of women who have gone missing in Mexico, presumed dead. The authorities won’t investigate the disappearances of these women, so we were taking part in an art project designed to remember them and raise awareness.
Hallooo. I set myself 4 Simple Goals to complete before the end of 2011 over a month ago, so I thought now would be a good time to chart my progress!
No. 1 was to learn how to use my camera properly. I have been trying! You can see my photos of Climate Camp here, of Notting Hill Carnival here and of the ArtCrank bike poster party here. I know there is much, much room for improvement though so any tips would be much appreciated! Reading the manual will only get me so far.
No. 2 was to make a nice nest. Ooh and I have been busy. I am nearly done, just want to tack up a few postcards and then I’ll take some pics and put them up. I don’t why I’m nervous to show you, you don’t actually have to live here, I do!
No. 3 was to craft more. I must confess, I haven’t done anything on this front yet. I have so many plans. I also have fabric for curtains and I can’t bear to look at the current chintzy ones anymore so hopefully I will be taking action sooner rather than later. I also have an exciting art/craft/climate change project in the works which will hopefully be coming together over the next couple of months. Wait, WAIT!!! I forgot. I totally went to the Craftivist Collective meeting last week and joined in with their project. I’ll upload my photos tomorrow. TICK!!
No. 4 was to wear lipstick. That is me above, pouting my lipsticky lips at you all. Except you can’t really see it all that well. It was technically more of a “tint” today, but baby steps, my friends, baby steps. I will look like a clown soon enough, don’t you worry about that.
1. I bought this reeaaally pretty 70s dress from my new favourite shop – Wolf & Gypsy Vintage in Brighton. And it was only 25 squids, bargainous. I want somewhere nice to go now.
2. My dad is in town with work so I’ve just been to dinner with him and his colleague. I had a flick through his colleague’s guidebook to London which I found hilarious. Growing up in the UK, I’ve always been aware that I have a very “western” perspective on Japan. So I enjoyed flicking through this book and imagining how Britain would have appeared to me, had I grown up in Japan. Judging from this, marmite, teapots and smarties would have loomed large in my mind.
3. I spent yesterday afternoon filming Josie Long and Sarah from Craftivist Collective for part two of our Josie Long & Otesha meet… series. Here they are putting up a cross-stitched mini protest banner outside RBS in Liverpool St. I kind of love and dread the editing bit since I like learning new things but not when I have no idea what I’m doing.
4. I have an addiction. It’s magazines. I love them, I can’t explain it, I can’t justify it. Although I am trying to wean myself off of slebrity gossip ones so I was overjoyed (and I’m not exaggerating) to find a new magazine called Oh Comely today. It describes itself as “a magazine that inspires people to be creative, talk to their neighbours and explore new things, rather than buy stuff or lose weight.” So I can even feel virtuous while reading it.
5. One amazing blog I have discovered via Oh Comely is Missed Connections. Sophie Blackall is a Brooklyn-based illustrator who reads the Missed Connections bit on NY Craigslist and makes pictures of them. She says “Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I’m trying to pin a few of them down.”
6. I like Kimya Dawson. I like Peggy Sue. So this makes sense. I wish all of them would be my friends.
7. One last video that’s been doing the rounds. It’s BRILLIANT. I am definitely guilty of taking iphone pictures of “new age fun with a vintage feel”! God. Apart from that I hope I escape relatively unscathed. Although of course I’m always up for a vegan crunk night.
Woo. I am tired. Got a call yesterday to take part in a v. cool Climate Rush action this morning at 6am at Nick Clegg’s house! Was worth it though as I got to wear a pretty dress, and let me tell you, that is not your average climate activist attire (no offence to any activists out there). Watch the video!
If you are in London this week then let me point you in the direction of these two wicked events. Laura from Otesha is helping organise Art Crank, “a poster party for bike people” at super cool bike cafe Look Mum No Hands in Old Street. Um, yes please. Posters are all limited edition and priced from £20. Take a sneaky peek at one below, although I’m not sure if personally I could deal with seeing a bloody knee on my wall every day, but that’s just me.
Next up, we’ve got ‘Craft for justice with the Craftivist Collective‘ at Paper Dress Boutique, 114-116 Curtain Road, Shoreditch on Thursday. It’s from 6.30-8.00pm, entry is free but a donation of £3 is encouraged! You’ve already met Sarah from the Collective in the Girl Swoon series where she laid out her plans for craftivist world domination, and she’s at it again with this event…
“As part of our ongoing commitment to exposing social injustice, the Collective will be contributing to Norwegian artist Lise Bjørne Linnert’s current project, entitled DESCONOCIDA UNKNOWN UKJENT. The project uses the art of embroidery to highlight and protest against human trafficking and femicide, specifically in the city of Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican border. Since 1993, 800 women have been brutally murdered in Ciudad Juarez and hundreds more have gone missing, while the Mexican government turns a blind eye. Prostitution in the region has increased 400% in the same time period.
We will be embroidering the name of one murdered woman on each label alongside the word “unknown”, in remembrance of the hundreds of unidentified victims of similar crimes worldwide. The project is a mass act of solidarity. So far, 2100 individuals in 27 countries have embroidered more than 4000 labels. The Craftivist Collective will add to that figure and help to spread awareness of these atrocities.
The venue is a lovely vintage clothes shop/cafe called Paper Dress Boutique. So come and support a local business by crafting in her cafe with a cup of tea or coffee.”
RT @OteshaUK: Branch Out 2 info and sign up session TOMORROW 10am at Workshop 44- plus our very own pedal powered smoothie machine! http://…13 hours ago
4. Hilarious (and true) blog – Advice From A Rapper.
Check out what the Craftivist Collective, Climate Rush and UK Tar Sands Network have been up to.
