Belgian Vertigo

Been a bit quiet lately due to being struck down by the dreaded lurgy - this is one sorry coughing, sneezing, sore throaty, headachy, blurry visioned shambles of a chap here. I'll also blame this for my decision to go with "Belgium" as a theme for the above flyer...

Anyway, aside from coming to the gig, y'all should certainly be heading here to watch a video about the inestimable and ineffable Susan Burnstine. Proof that bedroom scenes can be creatively justified in Hollywood! (Sorry Susan!)

I'm also interested to see that David Byrne and Brian Eno have a new collaboration coming out - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - their first since My Life in the Bush of Ghosts nearly 30 years ago... Since Bush of Ghosts is quite possibly my favourite record ever I'm quite intrigued, but I think I'll wait for my head to return to normal equilibrium before sampling it...

Blogging 1665

I know that I periodically go on about this, but I have to once again recommend the blog version of Samuel Pepys' 17th century diary, just because today's entry is - as they often are - so wonderful.

(You'll notice that I say "today" - reading the diary an entry a day does give a sense that the events are happening in real-time...)

At this point in the diary the plague is sweeping through London, well on its way to killing about a fifth of London's population, and indeed Pepys reports finding "a dead corps of the plague" on the street on his way home. However, it's his description of his recent dream - "the best that ever was dreamt" - that I loved so much:

"...and then dreamt that this could not be awake, but that it was only a dream; but that since it was a dream, and that I took so much real pleasure in it, what a happy thing it would be if when we are in our graves (as Shakespeere resembles it) we could dream, and dream but such dreams as this, that then we should not need to be so fearful of death, as we are this plague time."

While I'm getting all historical, I might also mention that today is the anniversary of the Peterloo massacre here in Manchester. Worth remembering the price paid for freedoms and rights that we're too often blasé about today.

(Back to things at least tangentially related to photography soon.)

Strange Echoes

I just got the new book of Josef Koudelka's pictures from the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 - "Invasion 68" - and found myself reading about Russian tanks rolling over borders in an Olympic year... No parallels with 2008 then...

There are some sample pages from the book here. Reading it is actually something like watching a really good documentary - the photos are chronological and interspersed with eyewitness reports, government communiques, extracts from the ad hoc anti-invasion press, and timelines. You really do get a sense of the momentum of those few days, like a fevered dream. A lot of the images are extraordinary too. I also liked the collections of anti-Soviet graffiti: mostly clever, pointed and bitterly funny, somewhat reminiscent of the Paris commune. It must be said that, whatever you might think of their various causes, 1968 was a golden year for rapid, witty sloganising.

One gripe though - a few images are ruined by having key details disappear into the book's gutter. Something that inexplicably often happens in photo books... Highly recommended though, both for the photographs and the reminded of how often history eats its own tail.

One Second Away

I was at the Rhubarb International Festival and Review on Saturday - a very intense and generally very positive experience. I highly recommend it to anyone serious about this photography thing.

Big thanks to the Rhubarb team, reviewers, portfolio promenade attendees, and all the photographers I talked to for making it a really pleasant and supportive event. My anxiety dreams were entirely in vain!