Dancing For the Geeks

17 September 2012 By Leave a Comment

This year’s had something for just about all of us.

The musicians and the boating people dominated the Jubilee celebrations.

The animal lovers celebrated Pudsey’s win on Britains Got Talent.

Everyone who’d ever been into athletics or had even a glimmer of interest in sports has had a fabulous summer with the Olympics.  Actually, most of us who’d never given sport more than a passing glance found ourselves swept up in it all.

And now, at the end of the year, there’s a little glimmer of hope that the geeks might have a win too.

Johnny Ball, the man who made his very best efforts to enthuse us about numbers and dress mathematics up in more jolity than it rightfully deserved, has entered this year’s Strictly Come Dancing.

As soon as he started talking on Saturday, his southern unplaceable accent had me right back at the flickery TV screen of my childhood.

He’s 74. I don’t think he’s ever danced before. I doubt he’ll win on dancefloor prowess.

But it would be great, wouldn’t it, for the mathematicians to have a little bit of mainstream celebration to finish off the year with.

 

Oh, and I so wish I’d been the genius who tweeted “Think of a Rhumba” sometime on Saturday evening.

Filed Under: Arts, Music, Books, Nostalgia

Trees – 16 of 366

6 February 2012 By 7 Comments

This is another from Donna Wilson’s knitted woodland at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Filed Under: Arts, Music, Books, Photo Projects

Monday Mixtape – Birth Dates

16 January 2012 By 6 Comments

I’ve not done much in the way of creativity this past week, but I’ve been keeping entertained with twitter and facebook. One of the things going around on facebook has been the meme about what was number one on the day we were born.

And now it turns out that Clara at I Want My Mummy has set that very topic for this week’s Monday Mixtape.

There’s a great website that finds the number one single and album for any given date during the past 60 years. Click here to access it.

The song that was number one on the day that I was born was Diana Ross singing “I’m Still Waiting”.

I think it’s a lovely song, but it’s not something that’s ever meant anything in particular to me. I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed that it’s not something a bit more interesting.

My sister’s was “Tiger Feet”, which is much more exciting, so I thought I’d include that as well (I love how the singer gets tangled up in his microphone flex at the start!).

What was number one on your birthday? Or on another special birthday or event? You might want to join in with the linky and share.

 

Filed Under: Arts, Music, Books

Monday Mixtape

9 January 2012 By 8 Comments

Over at I Want My Mummy, Clara’s hosting a Monday Mixtape on childhood crushes.

Mine was George Michael.  In his Wham! heyday, I covered my bedroom wall with posters and thought he was the most gorgeous man alive.  I still have a huge soft spot for him now, but less of a crushy thing and more like a very familiar old friend.

The pictures are my bedroom well somewhere in the mid 1980s. All indoor photos seemed to come out with an orange tinge back then.

Here’s a taster of Wham! so you can judge for yourselves…

 

 

Do you remember your first pop-star crush? Why not pop over to Clara and add them to this week’s Mix Tape?

Filed Under: Arts, Music, Books, Nostalgia

Faces (122 of 365)

12 September 2011 By 6 Comments

A few more pictures from the Jaume Plensa exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

 

I love the presentation of the first two faces; I think this shows off the amazing countryside setting of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, right through to the field behind being ploughed just as I was taking the picture.

The heads here, Nuria and Irma, are modelled on two ordinary girls, one of whom is the daughter of a restaurant owner near Jaume Plensa’s home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second set of faces are from the indoor exhibition, set in a very cleverly lit room and quite breathtaking – almost frightening – at first. They’re beautiful. Signs at the entrance warn us not to touch for fear of damaging them. Strangely, that seems to add something to their fragility.

 

This third set of heads, In the Midst of Dreams, is also incredibly stunning and yet very peaceful. They’re lit from inside, with words imprinted on each of the faces; Ignorance, Wrath, Desire, Anxiety. The words add a special dimension. They’re not immediately fitting with the first impression of peace and stillness, but they move us into the inner person instead of just looking at the external.

 

As we were coming out of the exhibition, a mother was talking to her children about what they’d seen, and she was obviously trying to move them towards being better able to articulate their views. One of them became slightly frustrated with her, “I don’t know, Mum; I just loved it.”

The thing that I’m falling for the most about being at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is that I have the feeling that it’s just fine to just love something and not be able to explain why. Or to not like it at all and not know how to explain that either. But it doesn’t seem to require more of us than we’re able to give, and it really does feel that the art’s just there for us to take whatever we want to from it.

These pictures are for the ‘Faces’ theme on my 365 Project, and they’re just a very small part of the exhibition and the whole range of things to see and experience.

The exhibition is at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park until 25th September 2011. Jaume Plensa has upcoming exhibitions in Chicago and Paris this coming autumn and spring.

Filed Under: Arts, Music, Books, Out and About, Photo Projects
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