Can you feel her laboured breath on the back of your neck? Perhaps you have heard her warning call- an open-ended muttered conversation with herself as she asserts her supremacy over the other animals? A classic aggressive warning call is ‘Quien es la ultima?’ (this means ‘Who’s last in the queue?’ and if you don’t own up, or worse, if you are confused enough not to know that it’s you, there’ll be trouble.) One minute she will be behind you, then- how the Hell did she do that? – she will be in front of you. The only thing you will feel is the sharp prod of her elbows as she shoves you out of the way. If she fixes her gimlet eye on you it’s best not to make eye contact, to melt, chameleon-like into the background, in which case you may be able to avoid an altercation. But don’t wind her up, for God’s sake, or you’ll be sorry. If you are unlucky enough to hear the approach of her vicious little hooves as she pounces on you I advise you to run. Like Hell. As potential prey in the urban jungle, this is one of your most dangerous predators and it´s best to avoid an encounter at all costs.

She’s easy to spot: Short and squat, like a matchbox with a sturdy leg attached at each lower corner. Weilding a handbag, monarch-style, at the elbow, and possibly trailing a shopping trolley. Hair is worn bull-dyke short in a ‘one-style-fits-all’ helmet, often sprayed into place with extra-strength hairspray, and it will be tinted a kind of squirrel-shit brown. The walking matchbox effect will be accentuated by the choice of boxy clothing: anything with mean shoulder pads. Her facial markings are usually pronounced- deep lines around a mouth which has been pursed for decades in disapproval and regret. And the eyes are the most terrifying of all. They are what give her away as a predator- roving, accusatory instruments of malice. She is small but lethal, so don’t be fooled by the inoccuous appearance. She has a deadly bite. I am talking about the Evil Old Lady.

First of all, let me point out that by no means are all old spanish ladies evil. Some of them are absolutely charming. Like the lady I queued behind at the checkout in Carrefour recently, whose (one-sided) conversation with the check-out girl went something like this:

‘Oh, thank you, dear, that’s very kind of you. Could you put it in the bag for me? Oh that’s so kind of you, thank you. I can’t do it myself, I’m 90, you know. Look at these wrinkly old hands! Eleven euros fifty-five? One moment, let me just get my purse out… Hard to see these days, you know, I am 90 after all. Here you are, you take the money, pick out the right change would you, my love, I can’t see a thing. I’m 90, you know. Oh that’s lovely, thank you so much. See you next week then, dear. Did I tell you I’m 90?’ She was the sort of old lady who makes you want to adopt her as your own pet grandma. Everything an old lady should be: sweet, fluffy, slightly scatty and delighted to talk to strangers. And believe me, if it was me who was 90, I’d wear it as a badge of honour as well, and would probably tell everyone. Every few minutes.

But I’m not talking about that kind of old lady. I’m talking about the Brothers Grimm kind . I am well aware of how pathetic this sounds, but I no longer shop at the spectacular open markets in Madrid, partly because of the fiendishly complicated queueing system, the immediate onset of The Fear as soon as the grocer/baker/butcher turns to you and asks for your order (it’s like a spotlight on you as you recite as quickly and accurately as possible the name and quantity of everything you want in a foregin language, to a background of sighs and impatient tuts. I never had a stutter, but I develop one in open markets), the collosal amount of time it takes to do the rounds of every stall, but mostly because I’m shit-scared of the Evil Old Ladies. If you dare to challenge them with a self-effacing,

‘Er… excuse me, but I think it was my turn?….’ they’ll have you. I have been pushed aside, growled at, shoved, insulted, and perhaps worse, given the evil eye by many an old lady here in Madrid. They hate me- I’m younger than them, I’m foreign, and a natural blonde. Well, more or less. More than they’ll ever be, anyway. And what really, really winds them up is the fact that I’m easy-going and possibly a happy human being who enjoys her life and is relatively content with the way things have turned out.

I am not devoid of sympathy. You only need to take a look at these women’s faces to see what hard lives they have had. The disappointment and bitterness are evident. But the fact that you are a dethroned matriarchal tyrant whose powers are waning and whose family doesn’t appreciate all the years of hard graft, and you are now forced to watch a generation of (semi) liberated young women rise up and enjoy all the things you never could IS NOT MY FAULT. Maybe the killer instinct is activated by the sickening scent of pheramones wafting from me, or the unbearable knowledge that like Carrie Bradshaw, I know good sex (and you don’t, and probably haven’t been anywhere near a penis for over thirty years, and when you last did you didn’t enjoy it much either), but please, none of this gives you the right to bite my head off. I doubt I will ever stop being a target for these pocket Eva Brauns, so in the meantime I am determined to hone my fight or flight instinct, and to steer well clear whenever possible. And I’d advise you to do the same.

Gisteravond, zeg maar afgelopen nacht, moest ik nog even langs kantoor om m’n laptop op te halen. Het komt wel eens vaker voor dat ik bij Amsterdam Sloterdijk rondloop buiten gewone kantoortijden. Vaak zie ik dan de konijnen rondhuppelen alsof dit niet een bedrijventerrein maar een duingebied is. Als alle mensen weg zijn, dan nemen de dieren dit territorium weer in bezit. En als er heel veel konijnen zijn, dan komen er ook dieren op af die wel een vers konijnenboutje lusten. Een van die dieren heb ik gisteravond geschoten. Dwars door het hek van de Mercedesdealer aan de Donauweg, een weg waar ook het kantoor van Ark Media te vinden is. Ik schoot in het donker en ik schoot met scherp… maar wel met een camera met hoge ISO-snelheid natuurlijk. Zie hier een prooidier en een roofdier in de urban jungle van Amsterdam Sloterdijk. Ik kon het haast niet geloven, maar ik heb het goed gezien. Kijk maar mee!

Ce week-end, j’ai découvert un très bon hôtel à Lyon, recommandé par le guide du routard. Il s’agit de l’hôtel Au patio Morand, 99 rue de Créqui dans le 6e (métro Foch). De l’extérieur, il ne paye vraiment pas de mine mais il ne faut pas toujours se fier aux apparences…

Cet hôtel possède un très belle cour intérieure du 18e siècle très bien rénovée dans le style italien que l’on retrouve par exemple dans le vieux Lyon. Les murs sont de couleur ocre et rose. Ma chambre était en terrasse avec une jolie vue sur Lyon. L’étage était très fleuri et décoré par ci par là de petite statues. L’illusion de se retrouver dans un patio méditerranéen fonctionnait à merveille.

La chambre,quant à, elle était calme et simple. Le petit-déjeuner en buffet était très sympa.

www.hotel-morand.fr

Well I’ve heard of the urban jungle… but the urban desert?

This cheery duo is brought to you today c/o of my Spinningfields Spy. They were out creating some animal magic to promote easyJet’s new flight from Manchester to Marrakech.

Si, comme moi et beaucoup d’autres, vous n’avez pas récupéré le Petit Paumé, LE guide lyonnais par excellence, lors de sa fameuse distribution gratuite il y a quelques jours, vous pouvez le commander sur leur site selon les modalités suivantes :

Tu n’as qu’à nous la demander par courrier en n’oubliant pas de joindre une enveloppe A4 timbrée à 2,97€ avec tes noms et adresses dessus. On fera tout pour te l’envoyer au plus vite.

Le Petit Paumé
23 avenue Guy de Collongue
69134 Ecully cedex
04 78 33 12 12

pour les flemmards, il reste toujours leur site internet :

http://www.petitpaume.com/

A moins que vous ayez l’âme d’un conducteur de rallye ou que vous ayez des idées suicidaires (si tel est le cas, appelez plutôt SOS Amitié ) , rien ne vous incite à prendre une voiture dans Lyon. Le réseau des transports en commun est très bien fait et, si aucun tram/métro/bus ne va de votre point A jusqu’au point B, alors vous pouvez prendre un Vélov pour aller où bon vous semble. Le première demi-heure est gratuite. Si vous êtes malins, vous pouvez rouler des heures gratuitement en changeant régulièrement de destrier !

Toutes les infos sont là :

http://www.velov.grandlyon.com/

http://www.tcl.fr/

Lyon est une grande ville. Elle propose un certain nombre de radios en tout genre. Voici mes petits chouchous, qui sortent des sentiers battus…chose non négligeable pour nos petites oreilles :

Radio Canut : http://radio.canut.free.fr/

Une radio libertaire bien connue des étudiants, des festivaliers et des habitants de la Croix-Rousse.

Sol FM : http://solfm.nerim.net/pages/sol2dfm.html

Une radio Rock, pilier de la célèbre Férarock, alias la Fédération des radios rock.

In the beginning of the year, I posted about Cincinnati editorial and sports cartoon legend Jerry Dowling publishing a book highlighting his Pete Rose cartoons over the years.

Well thanks to info from the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog it looks like Jerry is at it again with his new book, Drawing Super Wars: The Early Years of the Bengals available at Amazon and the publisher Edgecliff Press (Click on the title at Edgecliff and you can see all the pages of the book – but of course you need to buy it).  Local Bengals Fans can meet Jerry tomorrow at the  Books by the Banks event. 

Also there will be another local legend Tom Wilson who does Ziggy and wrote a great book  “Zig-Zagging: Loving Madly, Losing Badly: How Ziggy Saved My Life”

Not going to be there but future Cincinnati cartoon legend David Wilborn also has a book out with collections of his great Urban Jungle web cartoon.  Check him out if you get the chance.

There is a tribe in the Amazon (whose name I forgot) that have a really bizarre rite of passage to becoming a warrior. They would fashion a sort of glove of live bullet ants and force the person wanting to become a warrior to put it on and keep it on for ten minutes. These bullet ants are the cute, cuddly type that invades your picnic, rather they are considered to have the most painful stinger in the animal kingdom. Wearing a glove made out of those bastards? Good times, I say.

From the point of view of someone who isn’t a masochist it’s a little extreme, stupid, annoying. Pick your adjective and alter the ones that are considered politically incorrect.

But really, it’s as good a ritual as any. At least you did something to become a respected warrior. What do we have in Canada for officially becoming an adult, a member of society? Okay, so I would rather not writhe in pain for a couple of days but I’m sitting here on the eve of my 18^th birthday, three hours left before I can be tried for murder as an adult, become a porn star and fall deeply in to debt thanks to credit cards. Not necessarily in that order. Besides managing to avoid being killed or killing myself I really have not done much to “earn” adult privileges.

Not that it should be necessary to jump through a bunch of hoops to become a legal adult, after all, if they make it as annoying as obtaining your driver’s license (it’s not my fault some people shouldn’t be handling vehicles that move faster than a bike) some people may end up deciding to just be kids for the rest of their lives. At the same time – I kind of dig the idea of ceremony. I used to want to be Jewish just so I would get a Bat Mitzvah. I used to want to be Catholic so I could have a first communion. I wish the trains wouldn’t have been overbooked so I could’ve attended my high school commencement. You get the point.

The standard of turning 18 is going out and getting drunk (in the province that isn’t backwards like the one I live in) I suppose but that’s really not any different than any other party. I’m not creative (or crazy) enough to come up with my own version of the ant glove but that’s sort of what I want: something that sets turning 18 and becoming an adult apart.
Sure, I’ve had friends who are already legal adults tell me that it’s not a huge deal to be 18. It’s like any other birthday. You don’t change overnight. Then again, they aren’t the ones that stood outside in the rain in front of a club because they didn’t have a fake and were still 17 with two weeks separating you from that invisible – but, according to the bouncer, incredibly important – line.

today was the death rattle of a fading summer. paul and i spent a bit of the morning up on the roof with coffees. our eyes were squinting, not used to brightness. manhattan looked like tin foil on tv antennas.

it was a rare sunday indeed. i didn’t have work and milled around bushwick; i bought the following things:

grace and i got brunch at northeast kingdom (which impresses me more every time). i don’t know that it can replace roebling tea room in my mind’s eye of ‘brooklyn’s best brunch’ but what spectacular breakfast potatoes, seriously. and being right down the street is lovely, as well is the attractive wait staff.

day continued with some time at urban jungle, finding nothing so impressive.

day ended with a trip to the trader joes in queens, past all the cemeteries, bright red sunset. i found a cockroach in my room and squashed him. i had a bottle of “simpler times” lager and listened to, appropriately, my old music and tried not to laugh out loud (oh my, time goes by).

this day was a parable of my last three months. a meandering, hazy summer where i didn’t accomplish so much but had a lot of quiet thinking.

here are three pretty brooklyn girls walking down bedford singing a song.

au revoir summer.

Une petite page pour un challenge d’Urban, sans conviction…

Just look at the place. How romantic and peaceful. 

Panglao Island Nature Resort in Bohol is a perfect getaway place to escape the hustle and bustle of the urban jungle. It is located in Dauis, one of the two municipalities that politically divides the island of Bohol.

There are two things that make this resort special among the many resorts located in the island of Bohol. First is the green landscape composed of various species of trees and plants and second is the open swimming pool with a magnificent view of the resort’s white sand beach. This made skinny dipping into the warm water of the pool during night time romantic and peaceful. Perfect for honeymooners and couples who are out to relax and enjoy each other’s company.

Another attraction of the resort is a man-made islet located just a few meters away from the beach. This man made islet serves as a diving and snorkeling spot during high tide.

Visual courtesy:  etravelpilipinas

Si vous êtes en quête de beaux panoramas urbains sans pour autant vous payer l’ascension de Fourvière ou vous coltiner les escaliers en colimaçon d’une vieille église …bref, si vous êtes du genre à ne pas trop vous forcer ou si tous simplement, vous aimez découvrir des coins sympas, allez donc monter au 40ème étage du célèbre crayon de la Part-Dieu, aussi connu sous le nom de l‘hôtel Radisson. Pour cela, il vous suffit de monter directement au bar de l’hôtel via l’ascenseur dans le hall. Aucune réservation de chamre ou de siège n’est nécessaire. En plus de ça, vous pouvez en toute tranquillité siroter un cocktail !

Un moment de pur luxe 100 % gratuit ! On n’a pas fini de frimer !

I’ve posted a couple of times about Roa’s amazing, eerie work (see this post). Kriebel has just made a video that conveys just how much fantastic art Roa has created in one warehouse; it’s great to see it in context.  It’s also striking how derelict the warehouse is – meaning the work is destined to be seen in person by very few people.

this is my favorite street art video of the year; thanks Kriebel

artist: Roa

location: ghent, belgium

“The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.”

Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)

I don’t know how most of you do it. I’ve been in the city a week now, and I’m just about cooked.

One thing I’ve noticed out here is how much green has become part of the landscape. It’s everywhere. Seems that the big beast of profit has figured out green sells. This is probably no news to you, but being in an urban environment full-time for the first time in a long time, I can see how remarkably this trend has grown in almost no time.

It’s one thing to label the world green, however, and another thing altogether for it actually to be so. I’m beginning to see more clearly the symbiotic relationship between concrete and ego—ego being that sense of separateness we carry around within us, that I am who I think I am, and that what I do has little to no bearing on you. You know what I’m talking about, it’s the psychological underpinning for war, poverty and destruction of all kinds.

Part of becoming awake, present, returning to god, source, the divine, one, whatever you want to call it, is spacious awareness. It’s a state where everything becomes available, where the light and color, sounds and energy of this world move through us fluidly, effortlessly. The urban world, it seems to me, is an outward projection of the state of mind where this is simply not so, our so-called “normal” state of mind. The concrete jungle is a reflection of our inner compartmentalization; it’s the planet, made rational.

Have you ever been in raw, un-manicured nature? If you have, then you know the way that something within us unlocks, lets go. Nothing is in a rush. Most of it isn’t going anywhere at all. Yet it’s astoundingly here, alive, happening. This is true green. Nature, unchecked.

I remember years ago reading about a campaign to have one square inch of silence protected in each state. It’s a deceptively simple idea, until you realize how much space needs to surround that square inch to make it possible—miles of un-peopled land in every direction.

We used to live in the natural world. Our settlements were pockets in the otherwise vast cloth of unrestrained nature. This reality has been fundamentally reversed. We banded together, in part, to protect ourselves from the forces of nature. Now, nature needs protection from us. One of the milestones on our journey towards balance will surely be the recognition of how essential the natural world is to our own wellbeing, in too many ways to be counted.

If we really want to go green, let’s actually be green, and reintegrate nature back into our lives. I’m not suggesting we all live in our own square inch of silence, but I am suggesting that we move beyond our current stage, where the natural world survives in our midst as lonesome outposts, representatives of a fallen army standing in soldierly, spindly rows on our streets. Rather, let us integrate dense colonies of green into our lives, scenes from another world we move through in order to navigate our own, until we realize that they are one and the same.

Peaceful Sabbath,

Jonathan

These two shots were taken around the corner from each other.  The tall cold hard (but fabulous) Lloyds building with reflection & The Gherkin – then just a few steps away were these wonderfully soft precious and very purple flowers.  Makes for a lovely and always interesting walk around London.

Recently I have taken up shooting in abandoned buildings again. It’s something that I used to do all the time, but it’s pretty hard to get people to come with you if they aren’t photographers. Luckily I have a newfound photo buddy and we have decided to do a series over the next few months on all of the abandoned places around Baltimore, DC and Virginia. We have gone to three locations already and have come back with some great stuff and I have been experimenting with new techniques like panorama and HDR (with varying levels of success).

Here are some of 

my photos from the shoots:

And here are some of Andre’s photos : 

           Be sure to check out the rest of his work on Flickr

The last shoot in particular was amazing. We visited an old rubber factory and besides being one of the most disgusting places I have ever seen (my feet are still stained almost a week later because I was stupid and wore flip flops) there were the strangest thing just lying around. He found a forum that put it perfectly

“Pieces of cars, tons of tires (things to be expected) but then other things like, multiple kiddee pools, there was a swing in one of the rooms, empty unlabeled pill bottles, an artists drying rack, old weird sculptural looking things made out of flattened nails, little kids sandals, thousands of the same christmas ornament, old trick or treat bags a broken cello, a sled, pieces of film developing reels, broken bicycles, a wall full of telephone numbers, as well as things that made it look like someone had moved in, like a whole bunch of couches and armchairs, bottles of really old milk and the like.”

Here is a video that someone did on the building if you would like to see it in real time

He also went back and found some old records of when the factory filed for backrupcy in 1962

“SCHENUIT RUBBER CO. FILES FOR SECONDARY. The Schenult Rubber Company, Railroad and Union Avenues, 

Baltimore, filed a registration statement (File 2-19837) with the SEC on February 26th seeking registration 

of 240,000 outstanding shares of Class A common stock, to be offered for public sale by the holders thereof 

on an all or none basis through underwriters headed by Robert Garrett & Sons, Garrett Building, Baltimore. 

The public offering price (maximum $17 per share*) and underwriting terms are to be supplied by amendment. 

The company (formerly The Frank G. Schenuit Rubber Company) is engaged in the manufacture of tires 

and tubes for military and civilian aircraft use. industrial tires and tubes. and automobile and truck tires. 

It has outstanding, in addition to preferred stock, 293.250 Class A and 282.750 Class B shares, after giving 

effect to a recapitalization in February 1962 whereby (1) 10,500 new Class A shares were issued to the 

holders of the then outstanding $175,000 of 6t notes and (2) 282,750 Class A and 282,750 Class B shares 

were issued to the holders of the then outstanding 19,500 shares. All of such outstanding stock is owned 

in approximately equal amounts by Elizabeth Schenuit Spilman, Nancy Lee Schenuit Thompson and Mary Jean 

Schenuit Travers (daughters of the late Grank G. Schenuit. founder of the company); and they propose to 

sell 80,000 Class A shares each. Roy C. Neely Thompson are vice presidents of the company.“