London agenda for Friday 15 April
1. Hear a read of David Foster Wallace’s last work The Pale Horse by the New Statesman’s literary editor, Jonathan Derbyshire, Wallace’s agent Bonnie Nadell, his American editor, Michael Pietsch, authors Paul Murray and Catherine O’Flynn at Foyles [Le Cool]
2. See 30 of the most exciting artists working across visual art, film, music, dance and theatre each give a two-minute performance followed by a light dinner of soup and tart [Run Riot]
3. Bowl back to the 50s at Rock a Hula [Flavorpill]
4. Watch some sort of dystopian future-past at Secret Cinema [Time Out]
5. Reanimate HP Lovecraft Which is probably a very bad idea. [Ian Visits]
6. Reflect on the remains of St George’s Chapel [Tired of London]
15 Apr 2011
Purity Ring - Lofticries
Back in January we introduced you to Purity Ring’s ‘Ungirthed’, a perky little electro-ballad doing the blog rounds. This coming Monday, April 18th, Transparent will release the track as a 7”, with a similarly ambitious slice of melodic synth-pop from the mysterious Canadian duo on the b-side. Stream ‘Lofticries’ below.
14 Apr 2011
London agenda for Thursday 14 April
1. Visit The Aldous Huxley Fine Wine and Chit Chat Party at an active squat [Le Cool]
2. Taste and experience the finest wonders of enchanted cusine in an authentic bustling goblin mess hall at the Goblin King’s Banquet [Run Riot]
3. Visit the pioneers of the 1970s New York Downtown Scene [Flavorpill]
4. Walk in York House Gardens [Tired of London]
5. Discover the momentous constitutional changes required for the Coalition’s plans [Ian Visits]
14 Apr 2011
Trogons
Trogons are the first band on new London flexidisc label X-Ray Recordings, run by diminutive journalist, PR, babe, and all round good egg Kate Price with her friend Scott Walker from Kasms. If you’d like to catch their atmospheric voodoo garage-pop live, they play with Moon Duo at Corsica Studios on May 17th.
13 Apr 2011
Pinocchio Review
The first of many beautiful but shocking scenes in Winshluss’s Pinocchio comes when Svetlana Geppetto, the dissolute, beehive bombshell who probably married the greasy little inventor to get out of Soviet Russia, discovers her husband’s new electric toy can have uses of her own. That nose, it’s just the right shape and size… Unfortunately for the bored wife, unlike the original Pinocchio, whose nose grew when he told a lie, this one, as Geppetto enthusiastically pitches to his military clients, is actually a flamethrower. The mechanical boy leaves his smoke-filled home to head out on the road of adventure, where he meets tyrants, perverts, sea monsters and doomed children. Most of whom, as in all the best kids books, come to horrific ends. Some might argue this isn’t a kids book, but those people have never read the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales and were probably never children themselves. They just popped up in a pumpkin patch somewhere, already wagging their fingers and looking for stuff to scold.
An epic graphic novel following very, very loosely the original story of Carlo Collodi’s little wooden boy, Winshluss’s pen hacks and chops inky images out of the paper as though his deadline was Doomsday, and that right soon. At first glance the sloppy dynamism seems a little crude, but painstaking attention to detail and a flawless sense of composition gives his scrawls a scruffy elegance that builds to a richer finish than clean perfection ever could. Every panel is drenched in dark, forbidding atmosphere- assisted by colourist Cizo’s moody palette of mostly blues and greens. Winshluss expands the Pinocchio myth, shovelling other fairy tales and cultural myths into the fire, everything from Snow White to Superman and Christianity, Easter Island and Mussolini.
Reading a bit about the artist Winshluss, I found several references online to his supposed lack of morals. But this is a very moral tale. This Pinocchio may be a devastating war machine, but he’s an innocent. His only dark side is that he exists. He was built to be ultimate killing machine, but it is the schemes and deceits, the abuses and corruptions of those who use him that are evil. Pinocchio is content just to be around folks and observe. In fact, the only thoughts in his head belong to Jiminy Cockroach, the lazy drunken bug that lives rent-free in his steel head.
The use of vignettes, short little interludes employing a variety of styles, mostly to tell mini-tales of Jiminy, start to proliferate about two-thirds of the way through. To the point that they threaten to derail the previous, solid storytelling. It sort of suggests the artist was losing steam and needed ways to keep his own interest going. However, as said before, this is an epic work, and whatever it took to complete the story is justified to me. Since these these breaks are all beautifully done and hilarious, tackling various themes, interlacing storylines, introducing characters, it seems a rather petty observation. Even if it was my own.
A gorgeous and inventive piece of storytelling genius, Pinocchio takes on a life of its own and becomes considerably more than the sum of the fairy tales Winshluss pilfers and scribbles. Easily one of the best graphic novels I’ve read in fifteen years.
Originally from French publishers Les Requins Marteaux, Pinocchio is published in English (not that there’s much translation needed, the book is almost entirely wordless) by Knockabout Comics on 25 April, but advance copies may be found at several comic stores in London, including Forbidden Planet and Gosh!
13 Apr 2011
Austra - Lose It
Toronto’s Austra have managed the near impossible – inserting operatic vocals into an electro track without making it sound like a Macedonian Eurovision entry. Like Berlin-based Planningtorock, who worked with The Knife on last year’s fully fledged electro-opera “Tomorrow, In A Year”, they fuse the two elements together deftly into dark, dramatic variation on pop music. Recent single Lose It has been on the blogs for a while already, and can be downloaded for free from the band’s website. It’s taken from debut album Feel It Break, released May 17th on Paper Bag Records. As an aside, check out possibly the finest use of operatic vocals in a pop song ever – Klaus Nomi’s Lightnin’ Strikes, from 1982.
13 Apr 2011
London agenda for Wednesday 13 April
1. View tribute in paint to the ultimate in the golden era of the American cinematograph by Dave White [Le Cool]
2. Enter the esoteric worlds of 7 of London’s top emerging artists at Zoe’s Place [Run Riot]
3. Listen to the Story of the London Tradecard [Ian Visits]
4. Tour the Golden Hinde [Tired of London]
13 Apr 2011
Rökkurró in London
The wonderful Rökkurró hit UK shores this week for two dates. The first is at the Windmill on April 13th, the second at the Queen Of Hoxton on April 14th. They are touring to support a download EP gleaned from the debut album Í Annan Heim (In Another World), which you might be able to forage for on import. But on the strength of their barnstorming live show, perhaps it’ll be available in the UK sooner rather than later.
Rökkurró – Sjónarspil (The Line of Best Fit Session) from The Line Of Best Fit on Vimeo.
12 Apr 2011
Let's look at some young artists from Russia: Calvert 22 “Practice for Everyday Life”
The new exhibition of Young Artists From Russia- “Practice for Everyday Life”- at East London gallery Calvert 22, takes its title from the book of the same name written by Michel de Certeau in 1980. De Certeau’s book explores the way in which people individualise mass culture, and critiques the presentations of individuals as passive receivers of culture and ‘non-artists’.
12 Apr 2011
Mayor mourns his right-hand man
Boris Johnson has led tributes to his chief of staff Sir Simon Milton, who died in hospital yesterday aged 49.
A former leader of Westminster City Council, Sir Simon joined the mayor’s team in September 2008 and took charge of City Hall’s planning policies as well as running his backroom team.
He was widely credited with helping Boris Johnson’s administration settle into City Hall, after the mayor’s early months in charge were rocked by resignations of senior aides.
Sir Simon was “one of the nicest and cleverest men in politics,” the mayor said.
“We in City Hall have lost a wonderful colleague and friend. It is hard to think of anyone in politics who commanded such universal respect and admiration from people of all parties.
“He was instrumental in drawing up the new London Plan and in securing the budgets for Crossrail, the Tube upgrades, and many other projects for the benefit of the city he loved.
“It feels very hard and strange to be saying all this now about someone who was so young, and who still had so much to offer.”
Former mayor Ken Livingstone said: “This is a very sad loss. Although of course Sir Simon came from a different political background to me I always enjoyed working with him because he was interested in what was best for Westminster and London.”
The London Assembly’s chair, Liberal Democrat Dee Doocey, said he would be “sorely missed by colleagues across the political spectrum both at City Hall and throughout London”.
Green mayoral candidate Jenny Jones said: “Although Sir Simon didn’t agree with most of our manifesto, he was ready to acknowledge a good idea and could be persuaded to include a green policy in the strategies if he felt it made sense. His early death leaves a huge gap in skills and ability in the Mayor’s office.”
Mayorwatch has a round up of tributes from across London.
12 Apr 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- Hope and despair in Woolwich town centre
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Peter Bayley has worked for 50 years as a cinema projectionist in East Finchley
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