Saturday, December 26, 2009

Knitting

Every time someone visits my flat I get them to knit a row and I note down their name, it passes the time.   The list is getting rather long.  Even the gas man and plumber contribute.   I regularly get people to quote for some work so that the knitting is done and it's even better when they come in pairs.  It started with just a scarf: knit one, pearl one but the rows got into a bit of a jumble with all these different people's differing ability.   The knitting got too knotted, the scarf unwearable.  

Mum loaned me her knitted nativity so that I could photograph it for the annual Christmas card and it got me to thinking.



I needed to get serious and get people to work to a pattern, patterns of people.  Creating a knitted people world, like a 3D Henry Darger. Everyone adds to my knitting and it's quickly becoming extensive.  Sometimes people surprise me, returning on the same day to knit some more under the guise of having left something behind. 




Visitors are now beginning to knit the surroundings for these creations:



Trees are next on the list, followed by the ocean and I need a sun to be done, the electrician might be best for that one.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Friday, December 18, 2009

No Zero


I wonder if Yves Klein made a habit of counting everything when he collaborated with Zero or while he was designing the above layout for their magazine Zero 3?  15 sweeps of limited lines should do for that page (7 for the first paragraph)?  Around 1961 he wrote 15 letters to Otto Piene who, with Heinz Mack and Gunter Uecker, was at the core of Zero.

Recently I've noticed an odd habit some part of my brain has developed.  Counting within actions without thinking: e.g.  watering can needs 10, plants need 6 each,  the kettle 7 or 9,  a hot water bottle takes 8.  Gargling 30.  Teeth 180.  From my last home to my present 422.  15 stairs followed by 6. 
A normal walking in-breath 4.  A swig of tea 3.  While the counting is happening everything else seems to be perceived as normal, the numbers are parallel.  I can't even blame my numbered days - they finished after only 4, although perhaps aspects of all my days are numbered (separately from the obvious).  And why count such banal tasks anyway?  Clearly these activities don't take very long, and I am left wondering if the counting would continue during a marathon, what a horrible thought.  Worse is the possibility that should a mistake be made I'd have to go back to the beginning. 

It might be because most of the time I choose to live without extra noise permeating my space.  Am I filling it with these paltry numbers rumbling along in my head instead?  If the inside of my mind is scraped will everything be perched on a background, a wallpaper, of low numbers?  A resonance of Bachelard's walls of sound, echoes of time repeating endless counting.

It reminds me of John Cage in 1952 with his 3 movements that made 'Four, thirty-three', counting certain moments while actively engaged in something else - in that instance listening.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

They weren't Edible Panties at all

I spend my life being conned by what I thought I saw and being reminded what a poor thing memory can be.

Getting back to the place where edible panties were spotted, I was horrified to find that they weren't panties at all but PANTS.  As in: mens. 



Clearly I'm still very naive (stupid) because on first seeing the machine I imagined them to be something a woman might wear (if she'd had a skinful).  No.  They appear to be boxer shorts, I definitely didn't buy them - the whole thing seems much worse if you have to eat another person's pants.  In fact every item, with the possible exception of one, was for man.  It's terribly odd.  Does the men's loo sell equivalent stuff for ladies, spare hands for example - I shall investigate next time.  

There were two teenage girls (were they as old as 15?) peering at the items on offer, I would guess the machine inadvertently and dubiously has some kind of severely limited role in sex eduction.  They lost interest pretty quickly and used the top of the machine to balance their camera phone while they climbed up onto the basins to pose for self-timer self-portraits - so the machine has yet another use.  The images of them in the sink were probably whizzing around the airwaves before I got home.

What with discovering the purpose of the pants and the weather being foul it was a fairly dismal weekend.   To avoid boredom it seemed preferable to stay in and devise different ways of looking out.

 

But the sky turned black and the moon came out which signalled my need to return north to work.