Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Why the Tate Modern is Great and Why I Hate It


The Tate Modern... What can you say about it? Its a major international art institution, even if you don't care about art and you visit London you will likely go there. It has great works by great artists and incredibly high paid curators that know what they are doing.


But when it comes down to it all we really care about is what is going on in the Turbine room. The building was originally as a huge power plant on the south bank of River Thames, but converted into art museum following the trend of contemporary art spaces taking over unused industrial spaces. Walking into the Tate modern you enter a vast space that makes for interested exhibitions that are made specifically for the enormous room.


Currently there is a show on by Chinese artist Al Weiwei who hired an entire factory to execute his project. He hired factory manufacture millions of sunflower seeds made out of porcelain and each one hand painted.


These seeds were to take up the entire space and visitors were intended to be able to walk through and interact with this landscape. For a time you were able to however when officials came to the understanding that the seeds were being stolen then quickly put a stop to it and put a rope around the exhibition. This is another example of art spaces doing that they believe to be their duty to protect the work that they are showing actually does more damage to the work than good. Having the Tate Modern stop the public from getting walk around the work destroys it.


What’s the worst that could have happened? If the gallery was completely cleared out of seeds and the floor empty, it would just bring an interesting dialog about how greedy we are and how dependent we are on Chinese factory produced goods.


Also: I WANTED TO STEAL SOME DAMN IT!!!




Francis Picabia

Francis Bacon

Andy Warhol

Joseph Beuys

national dishes


I love the food here (in the "oh my god that is disgusting and hilarious I cant believe people eat that" kind of way not the "this is amazing and delicious kind of way"). Everything is deepfried, chips, veggie burgers, mars bars, toast, ice cream and even... pizza. This one I had to try; it is just so disgusting and I didnt even understand how they could to that. I asked and they explained it to me like I was an idiot. They take a frozen pizza and throw it in a deep fryer and there you go a; Scottish delicacy

Monday, November 15, 2010

tesco french beer. £2.80 for a 8 pack

"Im really excited to travel. I know that's what were doing right now, but I want to travel somewhere... better.

-Emily Power, in glasgow hostel room



Its only the cutesiest of racism for the Scottish. On our last day in Glasgow we went into a discount store in Merchant city close to the east end where we found these lovely little bundles of oppression for only £3.99 for the small and £5.99 for the larger.

A few hours later when we were checking out of our hostel there was a guy at the desk in full black face and no one said a thing about it. We just thought it was something football related. When we asked someone about it later they thought it was just as strange as we did.

Day 6 (well day 6 has come and gone but were still new that this thing kids and we don’t have internet connection everywhere so chill the fuck out)


Day 6 - Emily loses her passport!


We were packing up our things to leave our first couch surfing house which was both chilly physically and figuratively. We were going through everything and Emily calmly informs me that she doesn’t have her passport. Of course I don’t believe that its gone because she daily "loses" something and then finds it. This time however it was real.


She though she know where it was, so we headed down to where we ate lunch the day before contemplating what we were going to do if it wasn’t there. Where is the embassy? How long will it take to get another one? and we were going to London the next morning which we were going to have to cancel. We made it and it was behind the counter. Good thing were in Edinburgh and not Mexico City.

Monday, November 8, 2010

We don’t know why but its cold and damp everywhere. Even when we go inside. Were Canadian so you would think that we would be used to it, but no were very whiney and complainy and cant get used to it. Were beginning to realize traveling to the UK in November may not have been the best idea. Once we get an apartment we should be fine.

best places so far:

Mono

http://www.monocafebar.com/

It’s a veggie/vegan place that makes its own ginger beer. Its a really large space that has tones of space and comfy couches, they have shows at night and local art for sale on the walls. The paintings were softly painted portraits of people in urban spaces. We were really excited because we finally that had a place that had food that was not meat oriented (or so we thought) the soup was great but the spicy chips with "aoli" (which was bland vegan mayo) were not so great and the black bean burger was missing something. They also have veggie haggis and veggie bangers in mash. Were not brave enough to try the veggie version of local dishes quite yet.

Brass Monkey:

http://www.theskinny.co.uk/venue/5617-brass-monkey

I think we found our hangout. Its a really cool looking dark traditional looking bar when you walk in that was playing motown tracks. It has something that makes it a little special. In the back there are a bunch of day beds with pillows where you can lay down relax and have a pint, but for God sakes don't drink the coffee.

They play movies at night. We were tired because we hadn’t slept and were wondering the streets in our homeless goalless way all day and it was the perfect place to go, relax and watch a movie in the dark with strangers.

by far the best place is forest cafe (but I'll write more about that later when my computer battery isn’t dying)

http://forestcafe.tumblr.com/

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Chicken or Beef or Nothing


The angry flight attendant who scolded me for using my knitting needle on the tv screen, smiled when answering "no" to our question "is there a vegetarian option?" She agreed that it was a good idea when we suggested to just eat what did not have meat in the meal but still walked away leaving us with nothing.

She later gave me a cold stare when she discovered me covered in 6 or so empty wine bottles that I had stolen from the cart when the santa claus attendant turned his back for a moment.

Were off to a good, hungry, booze filled start