I learned about the doldrums a few years ago after a few friends completed a transatlantic yacht race. An area is known as the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone, a belt around the equator where sailing boats can get stuck. They told me of days spent sitting a the rail looking out across flat seas without even so much a breath of wind, the sails occasionally flapping once or twice with life before hanging lifeless. You don’t get anywhere, only the current eventually takes you somewhere, and when the trade winds finally pick you up, you’re exhausted from all the waiting, the boredom has eaten your insides.
It’s not quite that bad, but waiting for spring to the surface is as frustrating and painful as it can be. Almost every evening there is rain to wash out soccer practice, there are occasional sunny spells, but nothing long enough to get going put the bike in the car, and head out onto the trails. I’m sorry to say that I’ve put the weight back on that I lost last summer and feel a bit down on my appearance when I look into the bathroom mirror. I need a jump start definitely.
Work though is lurching ahead, so rapidly at times that my calendar keeps throwing things at me that I thought were weeks ahead, where did the time go?
I’m going to make this a short one today…
Stephan
Spaces to Connect
We had a bit of fun yarnbombing the big concrete pillar in our room. It all came from a wonderful group at work who knit and crochet, I think it was their first experience of doing this, but I thought why not and once explained, a commission was underway. It only took them a few months to create this work, think of knitting forty or more scarfs and you’re almost there. It’s a fun piece of work and brings color to the room.
It occurred to me that yarnbombing usually takes place outdoors, often as a response to anti-architecture, the sort of alienating and sterile spaces that might be hostile, spikes so that homeless people can’t sleep in corners or metal brackets to deter skateboards from grinding along with benches and steps. There’s a great episode of 99% invisible that talks about hostile architecture, what an awful thing.
Yarnbombing has a softening effect, some say that it feminizes space, which sounds rather like sexist drivel, but I think it’s more about the power of craft, the contrast of something beautiful and handmade against industrial or machine-made. That said, Yarnbombing can turn up anywhere, on trees, garden fences, in schools, hospitals, bus stops, anywhere really. I suppose I’m thinking about our own use, covering our big concrete pillar.
I’m wondering if the students will respond, already I can’t resist feeling it and giving the pillar a hug. Looking through some of the literature on yarnbombing I came across Magda Sayeg its earliest proponents (it seems to appropriate to use the word architect here), who said “no-one knits for hate, you knit for love most of the time […] my work brings this human quality to an otherwise sort of unhuman environment”.
Répétez après moi
Lost and Found
Years ago, when war raged in the former Yugoslavia, I bought a record from compilation tape from the charity War Child featuring some of the bands at that time recording new tracks or special versions of well-known songs. Some of these bands have come together again to raise money in support of refugees and victims of the war in Ukraine. You can visit the War Child Records site to purchase different versions of the record.
Could VR help people with agoraphobia? I think there are so many similar simulations and scenario-based experiences that tackle anxieties, conditions, and phobias. This is a space where VR seems to have purchase.
A fascinating museum of preserved sounds, these are specific, but soon these machines and devices might not be around anymore and we will lose the sound they make forever. There’s another one here.
Totally nuts hearing about the proposed privatization of Channel 4, there’s nothing there, it funds, develops, and screens content. It doesn’t cost any money, runs itself..it’s just that the news part of it doesn’t always share flattering news about the government, so they are taking a swing at it. They might as well just grant another broadcast license to some company, completely pointless, ideological nonsense.
I’m becoming obsessed with those little videos of people playing with tape, just stretching and looping sounds, creating soundscapes that sound a bit like a Whale stuck in a watery cave. Just press play below.
Thank you
Okay, it’s just a couple of us this weekend, half the family is away at a soccer tournament so just me and my kid. We won’t have a car, but maybe we can hop on the trolley and head into town. It’s okay, the schedule has been agreed upon, it includes lego building, takeaway food, and watching the new Ice Age movie. I’m good with that.
I hope that you’re okay and not too tired too. Take it easy.