Biennial & Sparklehorse

WOW! Liverpool has so much going on at the moment, you have to get over there and have a look at the Biennial! From arriving at the station we must have gone to about 5 galleries before we even got to the Fusebox where some incredibly arty/enthusiastic people gave us a pile of information to digest about the exhibitions. There were official/fringe/squat galleries and everything in between…

First thing we saw there was a crazy video by The Kingpins. Filmed in Port Sunlight on the Wirral (a quiet village built by Lever for his workers). It involved women dressed up as men in shell suits dancing around. Very Funny.

I quite liked the upturned boats in the abandoned church at the top of Bold Street. There was far too much going on. Just go for the day – It’s great. Also there are lots of new bars and buildings popping up everywhere. Quiggins has finally gone which was sad and in it’s place is the biggest construction site I’ve ever seen…. More shops – great.

Then on sunday I dashed back to Sheffield to see Sparklehorse at the Leadmill. Wasn’t very busy but this made the atmosphere very intimate. There were times when all I could hear was the air-conditioning and the fans. Really enjoyed the gig.

Oh going back to Friday night, “went to” Light Night which was supposed to be some festival of light. Was quite unimpressive. I think it’s based on “la nuit blanche” which happens in France (in it’s 5th year I think). There just weren’t many lights (Maybe it’s a good think in the era of peak oil and energy consumption – maybe no light night would be better!). Still caught a crazy Hot-Chip style band donned in white. Part of the Designers Republic I think.

Fast forward to Monday night when I had fun in Photoshop doing these 2 weird things from pictures I’d taken. Look out for more of this it’s reet good fun 😉

Right back to the library and some more reading about how the world is most likely going to self-destruct!…. (ok not self-destuct; we are going to do it to the world)….

[tags]Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool, Sparklehorse, Kingpins, Biennial[/tags]

Friday Yawn

Very bored today. Minutes ticking down to the weekend!

I’ve been sat in the library this week reading through my notes and also trying to think of an essay title for the first module of my course. Still not got one although there are a few things floating around in the (vast?) expanse I call a brain.

Monbiot’s new book, Heat, was read this week in a couple of days and is very closely related to the module I studied last month. Basically he (and many scientists) reckons that we need to cut CO2 emissions by 90% by 2030 or we will pass the tipping point when basically we are screwed! He tries to work out how we are going to do it. Basically we have to act collectively and the government have to stop doing environmental “reviews” and actually do something or we really are going to run out of time. Not quite sure how the plan to double the number of flights passing through the UK links in with this…. His site, turn up the heat, focuses on the greenwash of certain celebrities (Branson, Chris Martin etc). A final good site to look at is exxonsecrets.com. Basically Exxon have funded lots of companies who seem to resemble thinktanks but exist solely to make the public think that Climate Change isn’t proven. Of course watch an Inconvenient Truth like I mentioned recently.

Hmm what else?

I received a Ukulele at Sheffiel train station recently (it was a present and a very nice surprise 😉 ) so I have been learning it and Pineapple Pete’s Uke school has been very useful. I think I can just about play Silent Night. I will be performing around the country nearer to Christmas (In phone boxes probably).

Oh yeah I got some of these cool little flickr cards the other day. Very nice – I will be dishing them out to anyone who doesn’t know where I “live” on the web.

Was out last weekend watching DJ Spinna just playing in a pub by my work(!) and at club Shhhhh last weekend. This weekend its Liverpool and the Biennial….

I will leave you with a picture of an Angel trying to catch an Aeroplane (Maybe that’s the solution to global warming) – SUMMON A HOARD OF ANGELS! (Sorry Mitchell and Web joke…)

[youtube]5NTAAvJIGrs[/youtube]

[tag]ukulele, monbiot, climate change, turn up the heat, george monbiot, spinna, shhhhh, mitchell and webb[/tag]