I LEGO NY

Christ, this is beautiful.

During the cold and dark Berlin winter days, I spend a lot of time with my boys in their room. And as I look at the toys scattered on the floor, my mind inevitably wanders back to New York. Christoph Niemann models symbols and snapshots of New York in Lego. [via archinect] His previous illustrations are great, simple and witty and smart and well-executed, and the Bathroom Art makes me want to go crazy tiling or just grin myself to death thinking about it.






IMAGES: CHRISTOPH NIEMANN

richard nicholson

I like typological photos a lot and am knee-deep in a small project with them. The mundane gets more interesting when aggregated, for me, and I like the mundane a lot to begin with. Finding a aggregated collection is like a year's supply of hand-flappingly, stutteringly exciting treats.

Richard Nicholson's Last One Out, Please Turn On The Light is a survey of London's remaining professional darkrooms [via MeFi]. I think this might be at least a month's supply of awesome, and the text is great too.

What really got me excited was the East End Lock-Ups and Pram Sheds on his main page, after the series of vibrant portraits. I think flat-on, elevation-style photographs are firmly on my list of Favourite Things by now.


Image: Richard Nicholson

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Meanwhile back with the thoroughly mundane, I'm really enjoying my Instax [Mini] project. I'm not doing anything too stunning, but there's been one or two where I felt like I almost nailed it. So far, it's meeting its brief to combat joylessness.

astray

A mix cd for a swap on MeFi. There are times when I wonder whether I find mix swaps more anxious-making than fun, because I worry about being super-obvious and then I decide I'd rather make a mix of what I like, and then I wonder if things mesh only because I have a web of micro-associations between the songs, and maybe nobody will listen to it once they see it has _____ on it, and on... But I've found new things I like through them, and received beautiful post, so I join in like a sucker again and again.

This is heavy on my Westport staples, and as my music-listening's been a split nearly straight between melancholy and country-tinged on one hand and rap 101 on the other, a narrative of heavily-played songs pulling others in between them fell together...I think.

(I made Michael a rap cd for Christmas, because I didn't get it together for his birthday. I'm still exploring and figuring out what I really like, so I wouldn't inflict it on anyone who'd be shy to tell me it was shit. Or, you know, anyone I would hesitate to get coordinating tattoos with.)

The track list:

1. to go home - m. ward
2. leavin' on your mind - patsy cline
3. whiskey you're the devil - the clancy brothers, tommy makem + jack keenan
4. you will never see morning - the pine hill haints
5. home from the blues - coming soon
6. southern girl - your heart breaks
7. that summer feeling - jonathan richman + the modern lovers
8. here comes my baby - yo la tengo
9. brilliant grey - the waxwings
10. texas to ohio - damien jurado
11. bobby malone moves home - casiotone for the painfully alone
12. lonely weekends - jerry lee lewis
13. no fun - cap pas cap
14. so. central rain - r.e.m.
15. a minor place - bonnie 'prince' billy
16. born to run - paul baribeau + ginger alford
17. underground - kimya dawson

It's deffo less melancholy and more playful than the not entirely dissimilar one I made in June, which I still like but find it slightly difficult to hear without wanting to travel back in time and give my seven-months-ago self a hug. They're sort of a set, hence the map covers, although maybe I'm also a one-crap-trick-pony.

While it's a mark of great restraint that I kept poor, played-to-death June Carter Cash and Roy Orbison out of it, the repetition of Paul Baribeau and Ginger Alford covering Bruce Springsteen is because I still get a thrill every time I hear it. And I've heard the whole of Darkness on the Edge of Your Town a shocking number of times.

Oh, and the solipsism? I'm ready to shake it off any day now.

instax project - 1

I started a new project today, to take an Instax Mini photograph every day for about a month. (Longer might be fun but the film is expensive, so I'll start small.) Lately, I've been feeling like I come across as joyless, and that the things I find interesting are either a bit joyless or are utterly joyful but not that interesting to other people. This ain't right, and I'm trying to do something about it - this project is one tiny part of it.

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The Carrowbeg river this morning on my way to work. It's been stormy and raining heavily all weekend, and after seeing the river at a slow, flat trickle over Christmas, I've really noticed the gushing and often peat-coloured water in the past few days.