krunkFest UK 2005

hey. hey. i am lookin' for a place to live in london from 1 july at least til mid-september. i'm doing a work placement/internship at the barbican and they have reccommended the following areas but at this point am up for living just about anywhere........:

hackney
islington
borough
southwark
and stoke newington

i would love your help if you or anyone you know is lookin' for a new flatmate for the summer, or if you just want to hang out this summer i am really pumped to see all i can!!!

thanks!

the smiles are back in town.........i had a really great nite at work on saturday nite....i think it's because there was a 'new' girl workin' her third shift and man i was workin' like my seventh shift or somethin' ha. so you know i was feelin' like i had really come a long way, i'm so glad i realised that i have learned so much in such a short time.

i also had to do a rotary presentation today (i think i have mentioned these before, but in 'exchange' for my scholarship i give presentations to rotary clubs in leicester, really just about myself and greensboro and clubs back home). i was freakin' out biggTime last nite and this morning, you may have picked up on that i am always freakin' out about somethin' or other!!! but it was only gonna be my third (of 8-10) presentation and at the other two presentations i wasn't able to use my fotos cos of 'technical difficulties' (lovin' and hatin' on technology 24-7...) and today it came close to repeating itself! but everything went great, i had a drink and calmed down a little before, and then i just got up and started babblin' into the mic, feeding off the fotos and i actually got them laughing a few times, so....... it worked so much better than reading off of a paper. so maybe i won't be so nervous next time around, we shall see......

aw. i wanted to post a few things that are really makin' me smile today. and they do that a lot of days, not just today. maybe they will inspire you as well!


my mini spirograph from moderna museet, stockholm, and a jumbo-style spirograph i got a few weeks back here in leicester at one of the discount shops. i got really into spirograph (again!) last year when i was still livin' in greensboro. and i had one of the older 'sets'. the thing i like about these two spirograph-maker-things is that there are no numbers by the tiny circles, so in a way you never know what shape you are going to get. but sometimes that can be annoying. either way, i love both of these, and i have carried the mini one around for weeks on end in my purse along with a pouch of pens! (dork_Alert)


and this spread from MOJO magazine a few months is hanging on my pegboard. Don Hunstein, who took this foto, says...."The thing I like best about the picture is that he's wearing a bow tie and the colour of his guitar case..."
the thing i like best about this foto? HELLOOOOOOOOO! he is wearin' MATCHING bowTie and socks. i'm in love......<3


and this page from british elle, can't remember which month? but oh how i love sonia rykiel.....
she says that "La Demode" means "to know yourself well...to do fashion in accordance with the body, not according to the dictates of the designer." i couldn't have said it better myself. i love the foto from 1973.

i was so nervous on thursday when i headed to london for the big interview at the barbican, well actually she said it was just going to be a 'chat' but hey! i was nervous! esp considering i'd never traveled in london by myself-by myself! but everything went fine, i was *early* shocker_Central...the only other time i'd been to the barbican --- which if you haven't been, is a massive arts centre-complex built in the 1960s-70s, such a dream--- was on a sunday and it was dead. so to be there on a thursday at lunchTime was great, people runnin' around everywhere, everything was open, and the patio was packedOut. just picture this filled with people....and me this summer!



for the 'chat', we just sat down and talked and then she showed me all around the place, it's massive, very labrynth-like.........and she said, "well, looks like you'll be here exactly when we need you..........we have two asst curators out on maternity leave and you would be [............take a deep breath cos i almost passed out at this point] 'filling in' for one of them........." me as assistant curator hello dreamJob! i was just in shock for the rest of my time there, curatorial work is something i've always been interested in, so to be 'filling in' for someone in that area is going to be a dream indeed. everything should be finalised in the next few weeks (i still have to send her a few writing samples, etc...) but at this point i am still pinchin' myself, and i need to stop pinchin' and start lookin' for a place to live. i am going to start on craigslist is suppose. there will be quite a few people from my program in london doing placements this summer, so i think we are going to room together if possible. anybody out there have any tips on accommodation in london? i think it may be difficult considering i'll only need somewhere to live for 2-3 months.....

*Sigh and while i was there i checked out the tomas saraceno exhibition that had opened the nite before. the barbican commissioned him to go to a salt lake in bolivia and he used 32 simultaneous cameras to create a panoramic video of it all. the curved shape of the gallery worked so well for the exhibition, it was nice to just sit and look at the work without any other clutter in the way. if you're in london before mid-july i would definately reccomend checkin' this one out. i am lookin' forward to spending a few lunchbreaks in there this summer! wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.....





these fotos don't do the work justice! but they give you an idea of just how breath-taking it will be in person!

sheeeeeeesh. it has been AGES indeed since i last updated. so much has happened, so i will just stick with the hi-lites.

bullet points can be your best friend sometimes!

*my trip home back to nc was amazing. i am so glad i went, the trip was just long enuf. six months is a long long time to be away from the people you love most in the world. i spent a lot of time eating eating eating as i expected to do. and spent a lot of time just sittin' with soy lattes. yummmmms. there are so many fotos on my flickr of food that i ate over the three weeks. and just being back in greensboro was insane. leicester and everything here seemed like a dream most of the time i was at home, i guess that's normal???

*i saw magnolia electric co. the first week i was at home, at the end of march. i am so glad i was in time for that show, cos i left just before the flying anvil (http://www.theflyinganvil.com) opened. i went and visited it tho, and andrew showed me around and i know it's going to be such a great thing for greensboro. i felt the same inspirations and sense of people really 'doing' things that i felt when i saw the very first show (ida and pedro the lion.....*Sigh) at gatecitynoise. so i'm glad i got to see it, lookin' very forward to goin' to some shows there in the future....but ANYWAY back to magnolia electric co., they were of course incredible. i do however really miss seein' jason play by himself. don't get me wrong, i love the big-band and all, but i really miss hearing more of his vocals live. a man after my own heart he is.....he walked into cat's cradle wearing a red bandana around his neck!

*when i got back to leicester i headed straightaway to manchester and liverpool with my friend paul. we went to see iron &Wine and calexico in manchester at the academy and it was a slam_Packed show. such a huge venue. so many people, the kind of venue where you just can't get rid of that hummmm and the psst psst's from everyone....aw but it was just the best, i'm so glad i came back in time for that show. it was almost three hours straight, and calexico played 'alone again or' that they'd done with nicolai dunger, and then they all did a great cover of 'all tomorrow's parties' (speaking of ATP is anyone going this weekend or next? if so i am madd_Jealous,,,), and iron &Wine played 'the trapeze swinger' which could be my favourite song (for now anyway!). gawd. and liverpool is just as much a dream as manchester. the tate there is a dream and i hope i will get back there next month for the bruce nauman exhibition. and of course POP in manchester will make anyone's day! can i please teleport myself there right now!?!?


(the cafe in POP's basement)

*i started my job at the lansdowne (http://www.orangetree.co.uk/lansdo…) this past week, intense_Central. considering i've never done bar-restaurant work before, i think i'm doin' ok! there is so much to remember, but everyone has been super-nice and patient with me! it gets crazy on the weekends in there, and they told me the only way to learn was just to throw me into it, and they were right! i will try and take some fotos of the place to put up soon. they've got the most amazing lamps and eames-era furniture in there, i'd love to straight_Up live in there! it's pretty crazy bein' the new girl at a job, it's been a while, and i keep reminding myself to stop taking it so seriously. there's so much to remember tho!!!

*what else........i handed in my last essay yesterday for the MA, and now i've got to start my research for the dissertation. how scary is that!!! i told my supervisor last week that i really hate writing. i've been super-worried about it all, but what else is new...i am going on thursday for my internship interview at the barbican (http://www.barbican.org.uk/) in london, fingers-crossed. moving to london in less than two months, crazy crazy indeed! the time until then is gonna whizz on by i'm sure. i hope to spend lots of days in victoria park and get away from my computer more! it is a leech. or am i just leeched on.....? ha.

*and i'm back onto my sewing after too long a hiatus. i have so many ideas for things and have been exposed to so many new inspirations as of late. i just need to get on a schedule for my research so i can be crafty and not neglect too much of my other work!

i will stop now. sleepee time.
here is a foto of one of my favourite things in manchester:

ok. i have been in bed under the covers for three days now........tonsillitis strikes!  i returned from an amazing weekend in london with chills and fever.  i'm hoping it will be over soon.  i didn't know my throat could hurt so bad!!!

a few hi-lites from this past week:
*i got a job at my favourite local bar....i am there so often i might as well be working there right...?  i was supposed to do my training today but there's no way i'm going to be able to make it.  my first shift is supposed to be friday nite, so we'll see if i'm up for it.  i'm a bit nervous about it considering my experience in food service esp bar-work is little to none, but i'm keepin' my fingers crossed that no drinks will be spilled!
*i was in london this past weekend for my friend pamela's birthday.  how nice is it to wake up in london!!!!?!  hi-lites included crazy queuing to get into the irish pubs and having major flashBacks to my st. Paddy's day in galway, ireland, in 2001.  we also ended up at a house party in islington, so much fun!  i can tell you, as an 'international student', house parties are few and far between.  i'm all 'real house?  real party?  wowwwww!'  
*we finally got to the danFlavin retrospective at the hayward gallery on sunday.  all the photographs of the works just don't do them justice.  too bad it's only on til 2 april otherwise i would head back to london just for that.  i don't know where it will be traveling to next tho.  as soon as you walk in the exhibition, you just start smiling, and it doesn't stop, everyone around you is smiling up-a-storm.  the lights are so magnificent.  and they actually re-created some of his first gallery installations, e.g. layout and placement.  i loved everything about it, easily forgot all my learnings from museum studies about accessibility, and just enjoyed the space for once.  i want to get a sleepingBag and just curl up in that gallery for ages!  we spent a bit of time walking around the southBank, if you saw match point a lot of that took place in this area.  when i saw match point i remember thinkin', wow, london really IS romantic.  shocked.  but it IS!!!!

i have had such an inspiring past few weeks..............i love seeing bands for the first time and falling head-over-heels. it happened this week with ambrose tompkins, who i was lucky enough to see twice in one week, once with the go! Team and smoosh, who put on amazing sets to a packed-outt house.

i also fell head-over-heels for nelson leirner at the tropicalia exhibition at the barbican in london.  i love seeing artists and art for the first time in the gallery or anywhere for that matter that's not a *book*!  after taking so many art history classes and sorta being instructed on who i needed to know and which movements, etc....it's always refreshing to feel like i've 'discovered' in a way my own 'list' of who's who in my little art world!  if you're in london before may you gotta check out the tropicalia exhibition.  a few of leirner's pieces that made me grab my chest in awe:

Homage to Fontana II, 1967 (left) and Homage to Fontana III, 1967 (right)
    
i don't think i'd actually learned too much about concrete and neoconcrete art in my previous degree, but now i wanna know all i can!  leirner's works that i saw (there were these and then one other panel with an unzipped portion coming diagonally down the center...) just took my breath away in a way that hasn't happened in a gallery-setting in a long time.  it's hard to see in these little images but they are made of fabric and zippers.  *sigh

hmmm.  yeah so this week was super-crazy-busy with the group project, we turned everything in today so that's another assignment over and done with.  i made some cherry-coke-cupCakes for my group as a 'yay! we're finished' treat, i was really pleased with the way they came out.  you can't really taste the coke, but it definately made the cake and the icing so much more moist and made for a chemistry-class-style reaction when i was adding them in with the other ingredients!  how fun!



does anyone have any tips for cupCake baking?  somehow, i can never get 24 cupCakes out of a mix, i always get 16 or less! what's up with that?  maybe they mean 24 mini-cupCakes?  hmmm.

awwww and i bought my ticket to go home today!  i'm gonna go home for three weeks starting on 27 march, and man i need it considering i didn't go home for christmas and i will be hittin' the six-month mark pretty soon over here.  phew!  i'm really lookin' forward to finishing up this term in the next two weeks and heading home for a little relaxation-time.  i can't wait to eat!  lots and lots!  satisfy all my food cravings, see my friends and family, hitt the thrift stores, see all my kookie knickKnacks i left behind, and just sip on a iced soy latte..............it's gonna be heavenly.

once i get back i'll have something to get me pumped cos i'll probably be a sad-sallie comin' back here...i'm going to see iron & wine and calexico in manchester on the 21st of april.  i've been looking forward to it since december, when i first found out it was gonna happen.

another week is over, thankfully our last official week of classes, filled with PDP (personal development planning aka the biggest joke and waste of our time....) workshops and me missing lectures and meetings because of the insomnia that has been taking over my nites (and thus days).  on monday we'll start our two-week group project at one of the local museums here.  hmmmm i can't even say i understand the purpose of group work, let alone enjoy it, but i have decided to be 'project manager' for my group for one of the weeks to *force* myself to get into and GASP actually enjoy the process.  it's lookin' doubtful, but what i thought was going to be two-weeks of less work and especially less work after 5pm, when the museum closes, is lookin' like the opposite.  work, work, and work.  we are in groups of nine and are going to be coming up with a 24-page design brief for a section of one of their galleries, the World Arts Gallery.  the great thing about it is that i will be able to take lots of fotos (generally not allowed to the public) of their amazing shoes and textiles, yay!  so be on the lookout for those fotos....

a few inspirations and 'loves' as of late...
*my search for an original gameBoy, lotsa late nites (insomnia, anybody got any tips?) lookin' on eBay.  i really want to play tetris again, and did you know they came out with 'wordtris', a game just like tetris but where the blocks are made of letters/words....hottttt.  and my shield-fascination continues.  i want to play zelda as well, even tho my brothers would beat the game every day while i was still stuck on the first level.  it's my 'everest'...
*i've also been drawing up ideas for earrings while not paying attention in the lectures i actually attended this week.  i first wanted to use covered buttons and crewel, and i still might, but now i have focused my thoughts on paper, but i've got a while to go before i actually can make any i suppose.  has anyone done any jewellery-making with paper?  any recommendation?
*i wish i could get some fotos up on here, but i don't know how to get fotos out of flash sites, but TOPSHOP shoes are killin' me over here.  takin' my breath away every.damn.time.  if you want to check out their site, it's a dream, cos you don't have to deal with all the crowds in the actual stores!  and you get to see the items one-by-one, instead of being attacked by twenty of the same top.  i am currently lusting after the 'flat shoes with a patent detail' and 'flat shoes with cross over elastic' (gotta love the names of the shoes on there!).  *sigh* could we get a little sun over here....?
*and tunes......i've been listening to a lot of instrumental trax from the album leaf and the octopus project over the past few weeks, havin' lotsa flashBacks to the two amazing octopus project shows in greensboro last year.  i love that the lovely yvonne makes plushies and sells them at shows, and i've been kickin' myself for not buying one, but at least there's always payPal.  you can see her plushies here.  roodee could be makin' his way to me very soon.  <3  i've also been listenin' to a lot of neil young and tim hardin (thanks j.B.), as well as of montreal...they are so sickeningly happy, i love it!
*and last but not least, a true inspiration.  i posted these fotos of jessica ogden in the new british elle to my flickr, where you can probably see them full-on.  but i will post them below as well.  i mean, really, no offense to any madonna fans, but jessica ogden is doin' a lot more for me inspiration-wise than madonna, who graces this month's cover (and sports more of 'her' leotards inside.....what a joke....).  her house is straight outta one of the vintage treasure-troves in portobello market.  what a dream.  i'm looking forward to seeing her line for fall...but these fotos are gettin' me geared up for spring.  again, where is mister sunshine...?
      



totally worth the US$10 price for the mag.

p.S. sorry for the fotos not bein' under the cut, i can't figure out this new rich-text stuff.....  :-D

i should have just stuck with my essay (thank god for extensions). this is really givin' me the heevie-jeebies. at first i really liked the masks, but then i just got creeped out more and more. and if you click on different contacts it gets *even* more creepy. (no nitemares please)  i loved the mannequin party, but this is a little much.  whaddya think?

yesterday was insanity! i kept thinking 'holy calamity....' because we went to the natural history museum in london. it was insane in there! i mean, the space is huge, the exhibitions are outta-control-massive and just keep.going.on.and.on. on top of that it was 'half-term,' which means all the little english kiddies are off-school this week. crazy. so we went around in groups and analysed various parts of the museum, my group looked at live interpreters. then we had to present our 'findings' to members of the curatorial staff, intense.  i posted a ton of fotos over at my flickr.  i really want to go back and look at more of the stuffed animals, especially all the birds.  i found myself thinking, oh you're so cute....oh wait...you're dead, and stuffed....but you're so cute!

i bought this cup and pen/pencil from the museum shop, we used to have plastic cups like this one (which is now my new pencil cup!) at my nana's house.  i think they are still there, one with a monkey and another with an elephant.  and the pens!  major flashBacks to so many school fieldTrips.


i think the most insane thing of the day was that *hello* london fashion week was taking place right across the street by the v&a, and i was stuck inside the museum for five hours.  bummer.  this is as close as i got:


more v-day fun.

afterwards pamela and whizzed through the science museum, where i took lots of fotos of stuff i found amusing/interesting/inspiring/disturbing/etc.   this is one of the quirkiest text panels i've ever seen in a museum i think.  i hope you can see beyond the blur...


we really wanted to check out the dan flavin retrospective at the hayward gallery, but were totally experiencing museum-fatigue.  i wanna hit that when i am fresh and can fully enjoy the moment, it's sure to be amazing.  so instead we went to harvey nichols and tried out make-ups and perfumes.  we also hit harrod's for some yummy krispy kreme as a v-day treat.  they had these precious heart-shaped doughnuts and some were even raspberry-filled.


and of course i had to get my crueller on. double K is totally a craving-curse


i was actually too sweetened up by the time we got to the 'diner' to get pancakes, bummer.  it was a bust tho.  something was really off.  i don't know if it was the bad service or the lack of grilled cheese that did it for me.  but i was disappointed.  my mom sent me sweethears tho, along with reese cups with caramel.  yummm.  i will have to post a foto of the precious 1960s miss america magazine j.B. sent me in my valentine's package.  i hope cupid found all of you!  <3

p.S. i went to the drs today after suffering from a five-day-and-still-going-strong headache.  omg i already hate going to the drs anyway, but here it seems so weird and not weird-not-good.  the dr sits at a desk, typing everything into a computer database file, and for the second time i went and the dr didn't even touch me or really even do any sort of exam.  hm.  and it was so brief.  but she said i have sinusitis.  i'm hoping it'll be heading out tomorrow, now that i've got some meds.  my essay awaits.  :-D

hm.  the olympics anyone?  i can't believe i missed the opening ceremonies!  i've been known in the past to throwDown on some figure skating and ski-jumping, and now i'm outta tha loop sans t.v.  i will have to seek out a few pubs around town that are showing the games.  you might find this website amusing, hottt mister bode.

this week's gonna be crazy-busy.  we have 4,000 words due in a week from monday, i'm still doing my research!  i think i'm going to focus on censorship in museums and how art museums deal with controversial issues in contrast to other types of museums.  it's really interesting, i've just gotta dive in biggtime!  i'm also leading a seminar this monday on authenticity of artworks, this idea of the replica/copy and the original, particularly in the art museum setting.  it's a really broad and complex topic, one that i'm leaning towards taking on for my dissertation.  there's so much out there, so many different directions i could take, so i know it's going to be a challenge, but it's something i've been thinking a lot about over the past three or four years, just never had the chance to do the extra reading/research.  so leading the seminar on monday will give me a great opportunity to dive in to that topic and also hear what other people have to say about it.  does anyone have any book recommendations on the subject?  any exhibitions you've seen that you think of now?  i've been on the dia art foundation website quite a bit, what a dream it would be to work for them!  their bookshop is amazing, i've been drooling and making notes of all the books i'd love for my little library one day.

on tuesday we're going on our last field trip, to london yay!  it's going to be to the natural history museum and we're supposed to be meeting with a team planning some revisions for the museum, and they actually want our opinions!  go leicester uni.  afterwards a few of us are going to stay on and go to the eagle bar diner, it looks delicious and is supposed to be 'london bar style meets new york street food.'  we shall see.  all i know is i've been cravin hot dogs, and even tho it says they don't have veggie ones, i'm still hoping for them to be there when i get there!

i'll leave you with two more reasons i should stay away from the market, two new dresses from ms dollyMax.  i can't wait for spring and summer now.  they are so far away.  it's still mittenVille around here.   until then i can prance around my room tho, and do some inventive layering.

the one on the right has no zipper, which means me getting into it calls for crazy contortions!  but it's super-cute with jeans and the print and colours are just perfect.  so it's worth all the wiggles.  the one on the left reminds me of so many dresses i left back home, thinking i would never have an opportunity in england for sundresses (i think we had maybe two days with sunshine this week...) and also having to make room for other cuties in my suitcase!