My recent reads & am reading(s):
Recently finished reading 'American Psycho' by Bret Easton Ellis - definately not for the fait hearted, makes the film look like a comedy spoof of the book. It's not something I'd normally read, the content isn't my kind of thing, but it's good to try different things every now and then. You can read reviews etc elsewhere - there's probably millions of them and I'm no good at that sort of thing. What I liked about it was the picture it painted of New York, Ellis creates a very vivid image of New York. I also like the repetitive writing style, it gives you a real sense of the character and builds tension, that you can almost feel yourself, the descriptiveness & detail in some of the chapters also adds towards this. Read it if you can handle gore, sex and mediocrity in super fine detail.
After reading that marathon book, I've decided to start reading some short stories with, alot more, pleasant themes. I'm getting through Complete Shorter Fiction by Oscar Widle. I have read this before but it's good to come back to. My personal favourite out of the short stories, and a couple of stories behind where I'm at now, is The Canterville Ghost, it's a really imaginative narrative, quite whimsical - as most Oscar Wilde seems to be. It's about a wealthy American family who move into an English Country Stately Home at cut a cut rate, the Canterville family have departed because of a ghost that haunts the home. It's a scary story to begin with, a satrical look at the Anglo & American cultural differences, a comedy from the perspective of the ghost, a sad tale, a mystical voyage into the unknown, a chase then a love story. Pretty good for just 30 pages of writing. Would recommend a read.
Went to see:
'Welcome (The Atrium)' & 'User Group Disco (The Hall of Sculptures)' by Elisabeth Price at Pavilion. Elisabeth creates work about taxonomy - its relationship with architecture (I guess architecture in an open sense of the term i.e. within a framework) and architectures association with the institution. I thought 'User Group Disco' was a really well rounded piece, I enjoyed this one the most - both were really good. It depicts various objects - shot in black and white - floating in black emptiness - objects are animated, some that would usually be animated in their trivial daily use like whisks and a kitchen utensils alongside others, pottery, miniature statues and curiosities that aren't normally animated - accelerated, spinning & moving. I really liked the pace of the piece, I find moving image quite difficult sometimes, but this was very engaging and entertaining, it is humorous as much as it is sincere, which is always a winning combination for me. The text narrative that contrasts (visually), but compliments (in tonality) works very well, a very direct and assertive dialogue from the perspective of the narrator who is, you are to assume a committee of a nameless institution - occasionally presented in hyper colour referential of contemporary media alongside loud industrial electro music. You can read a proper description of the piece here
Alongside all this she designed and edited some really nice books, about the works. The books are about collections, and I guess this is what her work is generally about. I'm not going to talk too much about the books but they are very nice and the writing is a treat. They compliment the films very well. There's another curious one amongst them, which I though was amazing called 'Chalmers Bequest' which is a just a well put together document about the collection of artworks left to The former Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington, artifacts and artworks collected by Alexander Henry Chalmers in his Will. Elisabeth put the book together on behalf of The former Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington, who don't own the collection anymore - now owned by London Borough of Hackney, this is made explicit, but not in a negative way, it's more celebratory of it's original purpose. What I found truely great about this was the Will itself, which had been published - truly inspirational. Once I get my scanner working I'll scan it and post it here to read. He leaves an accurate description of how much money he wants to leave where and what for, obviously, but the sentiment and posterity of it, the perspective of creating a positive future for his beloved belongings and respect he has for other future associates to the belongings is admirable.
Looking at:
Football kits:
Good: Mexico & England (Suprisingly)
I don't fully understand why I like the Mexico kit, it has what I'd generally consider, (from a design perspective) superfluous embellishment. There's something very new-wave about it in an unassuming way. The colourway I think is great, red and green should be seen. The leafy texture under the front of the garment is nice when contrasted with the badge and solid blocks of shapely reds. The white collar in contrast to this just finishes it nicely.
For once, I actually really like the England kit. It's super simple Red / Badge / White. The Umbro logo looks nice composed with the number, which sits directly underneath the logo when on shirt. It resembles the 1966 shirt which I'm sure is intentional, but has a contemporary feel also. The white kit is nice too.
Bad:
France Kit, This could be a design classic in years to come - maybe it's ahead of it's time, but I really don't like it. The white & red embellishments referencing ribs don't do much for it, are they supposed to reference ribs? Internals! who wants to see internals? The red kind of looks like pressure on the lungs, looks like they're burning, exhausted. The composition with the Adidas logo in the centre counterbalanced by the logo on the right, just doesn't work for me. The V-Neck isn't a great shape also, if it's going to be a 'V' it should be a 'V' not a V trying to turn into a 'U'. Finally, I'm sick and tired on adidas stripes running accross shoulders. Try again! On the other hand their white away Kit is OK! I'll give them that one.
Probably gonna post some more Kit Talk here over coming weeks. I'm fairly fascinated by the variety of typefaces on shirts this World Cup also and the variety between using upper and lower case. I think Italy were using all lower case on their shirts - interesting! There's a few really nice rounded typefaces which I'd like to track down. If I can I'll post examples of ones I like here.
Peace!
JC
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