Some people in Barcelona attract your attention by calling “Éo” There’s a French example of this in Margueritte’s La garçonne (1922). 14yo Monique is being seduced into lesbian shenanigans by her freethinking friend, Elisabeth. Aunt Sylvestre comes looking for them. “Hého!” cries Monique, and the storm passes. The activities of Monique and Elisabeth are wholly…
I wonder whether they automatically cheapen moveable objects: … and add value to stationary ones: Following an exposition on a walk the other week of the various types of arch, a small girl enquired, “So are eyebrows to stop your head caving in?”
Low, horizontal view into a shop window just up from Mokkabon, with a serendipitous reflection of the façade of the building opposite and some Martian doodling top left. It reminded me of a Russian neo-folk piece from the 1920s I saw ages ago featuring Caucasian horsemen chasing across a rug of brightly coloured, irregular horizontal…
Any kind of reader would be nice, but this is special: I’m trying to get hold of a book by Miguel Villanueva, El carnaval de Cádiz durante la Segunda República (1931-1936). Ensayo sobre un carnaval atrevido. I’ve tried without success to contact the publishers, Fundación Viprén, as well as Viprén itself, and, although the book…
Such was the worldwide stir caused by my revelation that the Sweeney Todd story is at least a century older than previously thought that I know many of you will be impatient to read this new story of sinister stylists across the water. It’s from a French tutor, Méthode rationnelle suivant pas à pas la…
The rotten greens and browns and the fetid flesh lighting at Mokkabon, Ghent have something of a Zola drowning about them. Tutors at the local bad drawing school are doubtless deluged with impressions of its decaying woodwork and mirrors. The coffee is good, and to the delight of exactly half the party the rather lovely…
The university tower: The convent church over at the Spanish castle district: A rather superior old folks’ home: I’m a bit ambivalent about straight lines. Flying into Amsterdam the order below makes me want to weep, but I wouldn’t mind living in the third of these.
The vaguely freaky New York Press is dropping massage parlours and foreign language specialists and taking a $1M revenue hit. Barcelona’s conservative daily, La Vanguardia, shows no signs of so doing.
Manuel Fraga goes into a bar, walks up to a man eating tripe, punches him in the face, and starts eating the tripe himself. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” cries the man. “I paid for that!” “Fuck off,” snarls Fraga, “los callos son míos.” (The Salvador Dalí version of this has a…
Neither man nor beast, was this what Kafka had in mind? This cartoon by the great James Ensor of the once great resort of Oostende is in the Gent Fine Arts Museum, which I most enjoyed. Dutch art is generally speaking familiar, but cross the border and there’s a whole new collective of ne’er-do-wells requiring…
Shop deliveries free on foot in Leeds LS1-8 & LS13. Dismiss