sow the thought seeds

Spirals 2

Not more spirals, surely.

According to John Michell, there are certain recurring patterns in nature, which manifest basic designs that encode the secret of creation.   The spiral, he says, is not only one of the universal types, it combines 'both linear and centralizing tendencies ... travelling infinitely towards and away from a never attained, never evaded centre' (Michell, 1979: 35). 

First Junji Ito, now this.

Michell is trying to reassure those who see faces and figures, in natural objects, of their sanity, as well as their spectrality (is there such a word -- who cares?) I guess.  The reassurance I need is a pattern to help me stop dreaming these patterns.

If it doesn't sell first time around, I might just have to keep this book.  I might just offer it as a swap to my neighbour ... for that silver snail (see previous entry), with its linear and centralising swirl.

John Michell, Faces and Figures in Nature, 1979, New York: Dutton. 1st edition.

This photo -- taken in a restaurant rest room today -- speaks for itself.  I just wish they'd lower the sink -- it was quite painful to sit on.

Sign in restaurant toilet

There’s nothing new in adverts stressing the imperative of body management -- or those using body-as-machine clichés, of course. And I guess most blokes would envy the guy in this ad for his well-oiled body, all slick and modern. But what about that gaping hole? I know, I know … it’s only the logical extension of the car metaphor, simply a convenient nook for implying where he’s going to stick his imaginary petrol pump. But a hole is a hole, and even if it is the doorway to the restoration of health, it’s also a breach in masculine decorum.

I think the man on the platform agrees … and clearly the train is the way forward.

--see shop for Fashion & Body books

Vittel Water poster: Elephant & Castle, Platform 4

'Shops like this give some people the shakes. You could always hang around outside of course, ogling one of Jessica Ogden's destroyed jackets'.

Or so I wrote about The Pineal Eye of Broadwick Street, Soho, London, back in February 1999 for PiL magazine. But if the grand, vaccuous flight of stairs leading into the basement store put you off going in ... or was it the imperious sales staff, or the ultra-mega-hard European fashion(?) ... it just got a helluva lot harder. 

This photo should go some way to proving many of the 'end-of-an-era' speculations currently circulating on the web.  Then again, it could just be the best anti-fashion shop window ever.   Fashion is delusory, beauty is in the pineal eye of the beholder (I think that's what Georges Bataille meant). 

Winking, mooning ... or plain dead to the world? -  I'll let you interpret the image yourself.  And talking of fashion (weren't we?) .... a bumper fashion auction on its way this September including academic titles, photo-books and knitting patterns.  Knitting patterns ... yes, the hardest fashion of all (for only a true knit bothers to spend hours and a fortune creating socks they could have bought at a fraction of the price - like I said, mega-hard these knitters).

To Let sign, Broadwick Street / Jap Pack article / PiL Magazine cover, February 1999

This post has nothing to do with selling books (and isn’t likely to drive profit to my site).  The subject is just something I saw today and thought worth memorialising.  Not a fashion boutique window, this is/was a Chinese Restaurant, now closed due to ‘Refurbishment Thanks’ – as the faded sign declares.  I wish I could say I intended to gather so many reflections in the shot.  Then I could argue it’s after Eugene Atget – or something cute like that.  Atget, the French painter-turned-photographer, observed Paris as a project of modernity at the turn of the twentieth century.  This included documenting the spectacle of shop windows and the -- human-simulacrum -- mannequins within.  I guess my shot is a reverse theme: the disintegration of the modern city (but that’s easy for me to say from the luxury of my virtual ivory tower).  Come to think of it, Atget was also revolutionary in trusting he could make an income from his modern hobby … so maybe I really am taking after him.

Closed Chinese Restaurant, 2007 / Eugene Atget, Avenue des Gobelins, 1927

One of the items currently at auction is a box-set by Squeeze, Six of One.  I got this as a review copy back in 1997.  I haven't kept all the reviews I wrote - somewhere along the line, I misplaced my fees too -  but I did find this particularly embarrassing example of how to fudge a review without really thinking too much.

STARTS

Squeeze - Cool For Cats (A&M)

Tracklist: Slap And Tickle - Revue Touching Me Touching You - It's Not Cricket - It's So Dirty - The Knack - Hop Skip And Jump - Up The Junction -Hard To Find - Slightly Drunk - Goodbye Girls - Cool For Cats

Originally released: March 1979 Re-released: with bonus tracks (I Must Go and Ain't It Sad) as part of the box set Six Of One.

Top chart position: 45

Best track: Cool For Cats and Up The Junction - oddly, both singles spent one week at number two and 11 weeks total in the U K singles chart.

Vinyl Goldmine: The single Cool For Cats came in a variety of coloured editions, the red vinyl (a thousand pressings) being the rarest: expect to pay upwards of 15 pounds.

Best line: `Never chew a pickle with a little slap and tickle!'

Who are they? The band was formed in 1973 by Glen Tilbrook and Chris Difford. Joined later by Harry Kakoulli (bass), Gilson Lavis (drums) and Julian (Jools) Holland.

Flashback: The apparent chauvinism in their lyrics and the cartoon irony of the early muscle-man cover illustrations led to the charge of sexism.

Acclaimed for... kitchen sink songs: real life full of ordinary details.

Criticised for... being ‘awfully ordinary’.

Press cutting: ‘Sounds about as glamorous as a suburban estate agent.’ (Anne Nightingale, April 23rd 1982)

Most likely to say: ‘Our records are the kind you can eat your fish and chips to.’

Musical offspring: Britpop

ENDS ...

© Skirt magazine, 1997

Squeeze: Six of One (box set) ... A&M, 1997

Been dreaming a lot about these recently.  My own fault for reading cult manga artist, Junji Ito, Uzumaki, before bedtime.  Bedtime reading is wind down time - nothing heavy, no academic reading, and definately no fashion stuff (hem).  But these spirals have been winding me up.  Keep dreaming classic film-set spiral staircases (like the one in The Haunting).  And, yesterday, was around a friend's house, boring her with my fascination for the silver snail she had on her mantle ... with its strangely compelling spiral pattern.

Maybe it's the graphics ... I'm so used to the idea that 'real' books have pictures only on the cover (and if you're a true reader, you'll rip the cover off too, and beat yourself with it, reciting Hail Marys).  Maybe it's a midnight descent into madness (I'm so mad, me).  Or maybe Junji Ito isn't such light reading after all.

By the way, I'm looking out for more of the same (looking out = euphimism for spending money). Here's to spirals!

Junji Ito: Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror, Viz SF, 1st printing, 2001