Art Attack

This is Shawn. Shawn has a scar on his forehead, but he’s no boy wizard. Shawn recently visited Paris and Brussels with his Japanese wife and her parents. While strolling around a Parisian square his wife’s attention was caught by the work of a street artist. She pulled out her camera and took a photo [...]

Buybuybuy

From a book I just read, in a chapter on advertising: “The spectator-buyer is meant to envy herself as she will become if she buys the product. She is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, and envy which will then justify her loving herself. One could [...]

It’s bigger on the inside

Yesterday I had a day off work, and inbetween watching a couple of movies I popped out to a shop. Not to buy anything, you understand, but to take photographs. I first discovered this shop shortly after moving to Brussels, while wandering around the Rue Haute-Rue Blaes-Place du Jeu de Balle area, known for its [...]

Worth a thousand words

I’ve mailed this link to a few of you already, but for those who haven’t seen it, there’s a great collection of vintage amateur photography here. Check out the dreamy images in the “On the limits of memory” gallery, or the bacchanalian decadence of The Party…

Shelf life

For a while the appeal of box sets of tv shows escaped me entirely. My attitude was that it was only worth buying something if you were confident that you’d get your money’s worth by watching it several times over, exploring all the special features, and so forth. Even then, I found it hard to [...]

Maison et Confort

Not that this blog is going to turn into an endless series of posts mocking catalogue tat, but I found this one lying around, inexplicably abandoned in a bookshop the other day, so I had to pick it up. Pictures can be clicked to view large on flickr. Erik and sgazzetti – you’ll both be receiving [...]

The point of art

From a book I’m currently reading: “But art, if it means awareness of our own life, means also awareness of the lives of other people – for style for the writer, no less than colour for the painter, is a question not of technique but of vision: it is the revelation, which by direct and conscious [...]

SkyMall

During our recent flight to New York, having exhausted all other entertainment possibilities, I took to browsing the SkyMall catalogue which was to be found in our seat-back pockets. Imagine my surprise to find such a cornucopia of delights, a small selection of which can be seen below. I don’t feel the need to comment [...]

The beautiful people

Believe it or not, beautiful people make terrible models. I just got back from my last life drawing session (next week I move to a new job in a new building in a different part of town, so I’ll no longer be able to participate). The model was gorgeous. A perfect set of classical curves (of [...]

Halfway to seventy

My wife bought me food porn for my birthday. Ask and you shall receive.