wandering architects
Her maj has granted me leave to remain so I’m back at work on Monday – it’s been a nice little interlude but I didn’t expect it to wrap up this quickly! I managed to get to a few museums and galleries we hadn’t seen yet as well as exploring a few random areas of Glasgow when the weather permitted – grand plans of travel to islands and London will have to be put on hold, although it will be two four day weeks to ease back into it as we have All Tomorrow’s Parties in Somerset next weekend.
We had an enchanted evening wandering around the east end & Merchant City last night taking in the Radiance festival of light. Unusually for this time of year it was clear night and some of the installations looked magnificent. The cathedral(above) had an evocative coating of light adding another layer to its creepiness and at times resembling a blue ringed octopus or and particularly dedicated supporter of the Brisbane Lions covered in tattoos.
My personal favourite was a small doorway with images of fireflies protected onto the glazing accompanied by distant shortwave radio transmissions and voices from another room – it was particularly evocative. The most interesting aspect of the evening was discovering small lanes and courtyards in the east end that we didn’t know existed, combined with the energy generated by thousands of people milling about streets that would normally be deserted – there was a real sense of Glaswegians realising how interesting their city could be with more a more animated and activated street life.
Just back from a great set by Flying Lotus at Glasgow’s finest dirty electro evening, Numbers and killing time while Chhay whips up some late night noodles to satisfy her savoury cravings. Well worth checking him out if you like scratchy bleepy stuff with a hint of dubstep.
We are back home so I’ll catch up and post a few photos of the trip both here & on our flickr page of the next week or so. Had to mention this rebel first however, who seems to be stirring up a media storm back home – at least his technique is good in the photo. Not to mention that I share his sentiments (and genes) exactly.
We had a great time in San Francisco although things didn’t always go according to plan – at times it seemed like everything we wanted to do was canceled or closed. Still days were spent exploring the various neighbourhoods and by night we visited a cross spectrum of San Fran’s ‘dive bars’ – it seems no bar is complete without a neon cocktail sign outside in this city.
We divided most of our time between the Haight (above) – the nexus of of the flower generation and the summer of love, now somewhat resembling the hippes from that era – a bit burnt out, still clinging to old values despite having sold out to the man and the rest in the Mission (below) – the more down at heel latino district now home to hipsters, cool graphic design shops and groovy bars as the gentrification begins.
Still San Fran still contains good sized chunks of seediness often squeezed in between the posher areas so that one minute you are swishing past Barney’s and the swanky Apple Store before only a block or two away hotel rooms are rented by the hour and the crack dealers are out in force. It was quite refreshing after the santised streets of NY.
We did attempt a couple of touristy things – drinking coffee in North Beach (above), riding a cable car and catching the ferry to Alcatraz – although our attempt to cross the Golden Gate bridge on a 50’s era fire truck was sadly thwarted by their schedule. We also visited the new Herzog & de Meuron – De Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park – an intriguing gallery which I’ll devote a separate post to with an excellent though esoteric collection (below).
Oakland was our decompression chamber – a relaxed couple of days before we headed into San Fran. Our friend James gave us a tour of the East bay including an awesome breakfast at a Thai temple in Berkeley and some stunning views from the Oakland Hills (below).
We then spent the afternoon cruising the various districts of San Fran to get our bearings (and cover hilly areas by car rather than by foot!). Highlight (for me at least) was the new Federal Building by Thom Mayne (below)
although closely followed by the authentic Raider Nation cups that Jame’s girlfriend Jess brought back from the NFL game she was at. Following that we barely moved from the apartment apart from a brief wander out for brunch and a walk around Lake Merritt (below).
just finished 10 whirlwind days in the big apple, summary below more detail and photos once I get back to Glasgow;
our general routine, wake.. breakfast: mmm bagels & cream cheese, museum: whitney, met, moma, moving image, PS1, lunch: uighar, dim sum, greek, venuzuelan, neighbourhood: lower east side, brooklyn, east village, SoHO, chinatown, brooklyn, midtown – no!, queens, west village, brooklyn (again!?!) dinner: italian, japanese, vietnamese, mexican (in a grocery store), korean; band: band of horses, too dead catholics, casiitone for the painfully alone, dr dog (sold out oops) then out somewhere (often brooklyn), sleep, repeat…
some architecture too in there – new new museum by sanaa, store front for art and architecture which is looking tired, cocktails and diller + scorfidio’s brasserie.
now in Oakland for a few days before crossing the bay to San Francisco – a little more relaxed for the next week I think…
Haven’t been up to much recently as we are heading off for a couple of weeks in New York and San Fran – should be fun. We had a couple of friends up from Glasgow over the last weekend and turned out as the Adams Family at a southside Halloween do but otherwise had a quiet weekend.
On our return it looks like I’ll be house husband par excellence for a few weeks until my visa clears!
Looks as though the Home Office has decided that we are worthwhile hanging on to… Still a few admin steps to go but received approval of our Highly Skilled migrant visa this morning!
Expecting a gentle dose of jangly electro folk last Tuesday we rolled up for Voice of the Seven Woods. One of our favourite haunts Mono (whose vegan tentacles are spreading relentlessly through Glasgow as we speak – 1,2,and Stereo to come) was the scene further adding to the expectations of general hippiness and good cheer. However if ever there was an example of not judging a band by it’s myspace this was it.
The second support were quite interesting – a wavery vocal based noise like the soundtrack to a brutal chinese soap opera and they set the scene for what was to come.
The extent of chin stroking males in the audience may have been an early indication but once Voice of the Seven Woods cranked up their set we realized it was less jangly electro folk and more feedback tinged noise from a psychedelic mod band. It was actually excellent – gaining synchronized nods of appreciation and scratches of chins from bald headed men around the room. A kind of analogue, math rock it had strong parallels to Battles, however it was less angular, and with less evidence of performance enhancing drugs. We left the gig entertained if a little bemused.