WWS and the I Ching: 32

Wine Woman Song is hexagram 32 in the I Ching, Duration:

Thunder rolls, and the wind blows; both are examples of extreme mobility and so are seemingly the very opposite of duration, but the laws governing their appearance and subsidence, their coming and going, endure. In the same way the independence of the superior woman is not based on rigidity and immobility of character. She always keeps abreast of the time and changes with it. What endures is the unswerving directive, the inner law of her being, which determines all her actions.

Link: Steven Meisel for Vogue Italia, May 2008

sweet stripper drink

Everytime I drink Vouvray, I remember a scene in the film, Nathalie.

Ardent believes her husband, Depardieu, is having an affair. She orders him a glass of Vouvray as a test: she knows how much he hates Vouvray but Emmanuelle Béart (who plays the stripper Ardent pays to secretly pursue her husband) has told her that they drank Vouvray together in a hotel.

After 20 years of marriage, she wonders if she knows her husband at all…the sudden change in his tastes feels like a betrayal. But after she orders him the Vouvray, Depardieu protests how much he hates it… who is lying to her?

If Depardieu’s character had what I had the other day, Vouvray La Couronne des Plantagenets, then I can see why he vehemently hates it. This stuff is sweet, cheap and tarty. It proves you have to pay more than £5-6 for a good Vouvray, that is, if you really care about sauvignon blanc (which I don't, at that price). But if Depardieu’s character doesn’t like stripper drinks… then, who is telling the truth?

This is a psychologically complex film, you’ll have to watch it to find out who is telling the truth… but take a tip from Depardieu and skip the cheap Vouvray. Unless, of course, cheap and tarty is what you're after, then who I am to tell you what to drink? Go for it gf.

Link: Nathalie (2003) in IMDb

waiting

Link: Anna Karina in Godard's Vivre Sa Vie (My life to live)

you really are beautiful

Today

Oh! Kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas:
You really are beautiful! Pearls,
harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! All
the stuff they’ve always talked about

still makes a poem a surprise!
These things are with us every day
even on beach heads and biers. They
do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks.

Link: Frank O'Hara website

The Strokes, someday

In Washington Square Park, NYC.

I'm not a stalker, really.


Well, okay, maybe I am.


For dachshunds.


If I see one, I will follow it for a few blocks until I come close enough to give them a pat.


They're so weird and cool.


Kinda also why I like The Strokes, someday when they bring out a new album.


Glamdammit.


It's been over 2 years since their last.


NME says, "they are gearing up for work." So no official date set... Is this it? Yes, it is apparently.


Hang in there.


Link: Dachshund Parade Spring 2008 in Village Voice gallery

Johnny Flynn at Vibe Bar, Stag & Dagger Festival

There's a homeless man on Brick Lane who always comes up to me on the street.


"Excuse me, you wouldn't have a spare £850 for a return ticket to Barbados?"


Our usual transaction paused when Johnny Flynn played his set outside the Vibe Bar courtyard on Thursday night.


We listened to songs about riding on trains, living in a box and eating with rats after dark...


I don't believe a word of it.


Are you kidding?


With his mop of blonde hair and good looks...


Yet, I do.


Flynn has found his own authentic sound, somewhere between blue-grass advice and a Pogues ballad.


If I had to sit by a fire all night to keep warm, I'd want Johnny Flynn there with his guitar to tell stories until sunrise.


The homeless rasta gave it a thumbs up, too.


We like. More please.


Want to buy album - "A Larum" (which I see, is signed to Johnny Cash's US label Lost Highway).


Link: Johnny Flynn myspace
Link: Guardian Music Weekly podcast: Spiritualized and Johnny Flynn

another love letter

For more love letters on WWS, go to the Valentine poem that out-does every Valentine's poem: Valentine by John Fuller

Link: gapingvoid - cartoons drawn on the back of business cards

Micachu at Hoxton Bar, Stag & Dagger festival

Micachu are a hard act to follow. So it didn't make sense to have them on first at the Stag & Dagger Festival around Shoreditch (London). After the newness of these guys, the rest of the bands I saw got lost in a sea of same-same lager, but hey.

Listening to Micachu is the same joy as being let loose in a musical instrument shop; it's a, "Can I really play this, really? Cool!" Then rampaging through the shop to play everything just for the fun of it. Hooray! One minute you're playing the keyboard as piano, the next it sounds like trumpets.

The great thing about watching Micachu live was they seemed genuinely surprised by these colliding sounds they came up with on stage. And so, yeah, in turn, the audience were happily surprised too (& it was a particularly good audience. Micachu innocently joked, "Thanks for being so, erm, attentive").

Then there was the rest of the Stag & Dagger Festival. Can't say it was as fun as Micachu. You may say I'm a dreamer. But, you know, I'm not the only one. To be fair though, I did miss seeing the band, Lovvers.... dammit. Will write more about the rest of the festival very soon.


Link: Music Weekly: The Zutons and Micachu podcast from The Guardian, Sunday 18 May

Habit Rouge (1965) by Guerlain

John Paul and Talitha Getty, Marrakesh 1969 by Patrick Lichfield

So I loitered around Duty Free at Marrakesh airport to pass the time before my flight back to London. Like the Guerlain groupie I am, I hung around the counter and without much thought, I spritzed myself with their old-school men's fragrance, Habit Rouge...

From now on, it's going to be near impossible not to think of Morocco when I next smell Habit Rouge. It is Marrakesh: the lemon top notes with middle notes of woods – all found in Moroccco – such as Sandal and Cedar, with a good dose of 60s patchouli. Then the deeper notes are leather. I felt like I had just left a souk.

Which I literally had, that morning. I had been in the main square, Djemma-El-Fna, standing at the orange juice stall with a glass of fresh grapefruit juice and a bag filled with a pair of babouches (Moroccan leather shoes) and a bottle of Moroccan Rose oil.

While the plane dived back into the milky-tea sky of London, the smell conjured images of the Gettys on the rooftop of their home, the Pleasure Palace, in Marrakesh in 1969.

Thudding down at Gatwick airport, and all smells, in general, become sanitised and anodyne - in other words, Western. By the time I'm outside the airport and on the train home, the only thing that has an intense smell is my wrist where I sprayed this perfume. It's then I realised this Oriental, the first Oriental fragrance for men, might be a little too dramatic for some "modern" noses, peut-être. However, I'd be very interested to meet the man who can wear this well.

Link: Habit Rouge - the new Habit Rouge limited edition metallic

l'Air du désert marocain

“When I created (the perfume) l'Air du désert marocain, which still is my personal favourite, I had a picture in mind, a hotel bed in Marakkesh, in the early evening, the sun gone. The moon would rise soon and I imagined myself being in this room, lying on the bed, exhausted from the heat of the day, with the window open, letting the cool air in. A soft and dry wind coming in, carrying the scents from the near desert, and the spices of the busy streets below. Lying on the bed, dreaming of a moon raising over the sandy hills of the Saharan desert, I dreamt the fragrance of a Moroccan night.”

– Andy Taeur, creator of the cult perfume, l'Air du désert marocain


Hello dears!

I am slipping off to Marakkesh today to revive the senses.

Love, J x


Link: Andy Taeur's blog: a perfumer's blog on perfumery

Luis Buñuel's discrete charm of the dry martini

Buñuel's Belle de Jour

In 'Earthly delights', a chapter in Luis Buñuel's autobiography, My Last Sigh, the consummate surrealist describes his perfect dry martini:

"The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients — glasses, gin, and shaker — in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don't take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice. Shake it, then pour it out, keeping only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice, shake it again, and serve...

Connoisseurs who like their martinis very dry suggest simply allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin."

P.S. I like my martini dirty with gin, olives, olive juice and darkly (ie. no sunlight!) Let's bring back Cocktail Hour (snap!)



Link: A lesson in the fine art of mixology, as seen in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise.

Benga + Coki = Night

Where the hell am I?? This is the 16th time I have looped Benga's "Night": it is dub-step lubed up and slipping down my mind till I don't know where I am anymore: running to the top of a tall, twisty waterslide just to get back down again for the hard splash: in a brain-scan room watching my thought-rhythms on some crazy MRI monitor: jumping off buildings after too many drinks. Wherever it is you'll have to come catch me first, motherfuckers, cause I'm listening to something dark and slippery. Gone.

Link: "my name is benga, how do you do?" Benga Myspace

My favourite wine is Champagne

"I have an old-fashioned, chorus-girl kind of taste in Champagne. Not Moët - I always get heartburn. My favourite is Taittinger."

– Thomas Adès, Composer in Time Out London, May 1 - 7, 2008

It's little wonder Moët gives Adès heartburn.


The wine writer, Peter Bourne, once told me - there's nothing wrong with Moët, but it's only really good at the racecourse.


A vintage Champagne from Taittinger is released ten years after bottling.


Suitable for a composer that has been described as if "the piano is waiting to make these sounds - for 200 years - to come out".


I'd recommend the Taittinger Comtes de Champagne Blanc des Blancs 1998 - the latest available vintage blanc des blancs Taittinger Champagne. When I tried the 1986 vintage a year ago it danced for hours after tasting it.


The 1998 is still comparatively young.


But I'm sure it would make the most magnificent of chorus girls happy.


*wink*


Link: Roll over Beethoven: Thomas Adès by Alex Ross, NY Times music critic

Further tremors after Loris Greaud exhibition yesterday

It's just after 3am. I can hear night birds singing here in London (always the most shocking sound) and I can't go back to sleep. Had a bad dream about doors. It must be those doors at Greaud's exhibition I saw yesterday - Cellar Door (once is only twice).

Those heavy doors rolling down from the roof - nightmarish - painted in industrial-strength black matte paint. Locked in each room, if you go close to the doors to leave they won't open but step away and it suddenly does. Maddening! Also slightly claustrophobic; I felt like I was stuck in a sumptuous hotel foyer in William Burroughs' Dead City Radio, Scandal at the Jungle Hiltons... "Quite a scene it was!"

I've spent a lot of time at cellar doors - vineyard cellar doors - around the world. It's strange I've never really thought about the actual words, cellar door. The guide to the ICA Exhibition explains:

"The title of Cellar Door is inspired by JRR Tolkien's essay English and Welsh (1955), in which the author and linguist remarked on the beauty of the words "cellar door" - they have become a famous example of euphonious phrasing."

Now I'm very awake. It doesn't surprise me Greaud showed "Tremors were forever" in Tokyo last year. Talking about tremors, is there a connection with Miles Davis' 1970 album, also called the Cellar Door Sessions? I am kept awake by questions and reverberations. It's too late to go back to sleep. And I keep thinking of one of the first exhibitions I saw in London at the Hayward Gallery in 1995, a retrospective of Yves Klein (left).

There are echoes of Yves Klein ideas in Greaud. The sweet melodic-sounding celador lollies loll around the mind as much as the mouth (lollies with no sweetness, or taste). Go ahead and repeat the word, cellar door - over and over - and you feel like a child repeating a new word endlessly just for the joy of hearing it.

Advertising and repetition, anyone, anyone? Take a look at the "marketing website" set up for these non-taste lollies. It's the words cellar door, to celador, the brand - similar to International Yves Klein Blue.

Greaud's sense of delight and ideas are a new tremor of Yves Klein. Illusion Is A Revolutionary Weapon, M46 paintball gun with IKB (International Klein Blue - paintballs), 2007 is a M46 paint ball gun with IKB paint balls - a cool tribute to the cool artist. And it also looks fun!

I had to wake up and tell you all this.

Greaud succeeded in waking me up this morning with dreams as vivid as naked women writhing in International Yves Klein blue-coloured paint. The bluest of blue.

Those doors got into my dreams. I hope this 29-year-old artist keeps up and is not taken from the world too early as Yves Klein (at age 34). I might not enjoy these dreams of doors; but I do like meandering through Greaud's imagination and dreams.

Link: This post follows yesterday's post, Loris Greaud: Cellar Door (Once is Always Twice)

Loris Greaud: Cellar Door (Once is Always Twice)

I took the artist Loris Greaud’s sweets called Celador: A Taste of Illusion from the vending machine at the ICA bar. With absolutely no taste, you could find this pack of brightly-coloured lollies slightly depressing...

But while I swirled the tasteless sweets on my tongue – I still searched for a taste, instinctively refusing to believe they had no taste at all - it was like lolling an actual idea in my mouth.

His three dark but strangely glamorous rooms released my imagination. While soaking in the dark atmosphere, I imagined my own flavours for these zero-taste lollies. Instead of the usual green means lime etc. I decided on cloudberries for green, why not? And I have a whole packet left of strange delights. It made me think what I automatically put in my mouth and consume, consume, consume.

Then there is the black Champagne... yes, black.

“What about black champagne bubbles on moon rocks as an aperitif? Don’t be afraid of them – the champagne bubbles are speechless, it’s you who will do the talking. Just be careful to drink them at room temperature, otherwise the room will start multiplying!”

The 29-year-old French artist continues from last year's Illusion is a Revolutionary Weapon to create more of his brilliant unattainable experiences. He delights, disturbs and makes you imagine. & want to imagine more.

NB: For Part Two of this post see Further tremors after Loris Greaud exhibition


Link: Loris Greaud at ICA, London 25 Apr - 22 Jun 2008