speech/patter

noyale's house has an unquenchable thirst for communication. when the inhabitants and visitors finally quiet their cacophony of language, the house rests for a second, shuffles uncomfortably in the silence, and finally, unable to cope, starts its own monologue of creaking wood, rattling pipes and drafty whispers.

karma control

this is a customer announcement

london commuters beware: i carry a very heavy bag, filled with very hard, sharp-edged objects, and i will have no compunction in shoving it into your ribs if you stand in my way when i'm trying to get off the effing train.

thankyou

libertine

yesterday i saw a terrible movie by accident. today i saw a not-so-good movie by design. tomorrow i intend to go to the cinema again.

call me a masochist, but you can never say i give up...

things i can't live without

- taste of saltiness in the skin
- smell of just washed hair
- feeling the rough edges around scars
- sound of heartbeat on your cheek
- eyes getting lost in your eyes

cultural takeover

the polish have taken over the sunday market in vauxhall. there are polish foodstuffs, polish films, polish music, polish cigarettes. there are polish men and women, blue eyed, laughing, speaking their wonderful language, tucking into sausages and mustard...

prince charming tube AM

walks up the escalator, clippety-clop, new shoes fly away, keeps running can't stop, commuter catches flying shoe, passes on to other commuter, who puts it on the next step for running foot to seamlessly slide into shoe on her next step up.

all at escalator congratulate themselves.

no pumpkins in sight, but plenty of little mice giggling from the platforms.

the craic

melanie comes in like a breath of fresh air from the southwest. wine in hand, cigarette at the ready, all talk and all action. helena speaks confusingly about this, that and the other. melanie listens and offers points of view.

all input welcome. all voices heard. all wine happily drunk

philosophy

life is divided into "the moments you are not waiting for the plumber" and "the moments you are"

weather report

london's covered by a thin layer of mist. like a horror film set, we walk around, seeing and not seeing. weary of the shadows. and yet, and yet, the moon keeps shining, and the stars keep twinkling. phantasmagoric. faint light glowing. in the distance. a million miles away but always there.

saturday night

read the papers. visited the tate. moped a bit. watched strictly come dancing. cooked a feast. filled my hot-water bottle. thought about dressing up and going clubbing. thought i'm just scared of being boring. thought that's ok, i'm not boring, i'm just having saturday night in. i'll go clubbing another time. the train keeps going. just slowing down a bit.

waterloo bridge, 5.30pm

   

air perfectly still, the sky never so clear
the moon, steady, nitid eye in the centre of the scene
blue spills across the south bank, infecting concrete and trees with indigo shine
the city studs, erect, glitter powerful in the distance
milky gray, st paul dome ready for take-off from surrounding mist
big ben echoes the moon, cuadruple-time, shadow delineated against the house of power
planes criss-cross the nearly perfect black sky, fireflies fleeting round the corner of your eye
a blood red wheel, slowly circles, showing the way home
the moon keeps glaring from its prime position
and alone, to the west, a small cloud reminds you it's borrowed time
time for london to be beautiful, tonight

san antonio

it had taken up residence in our drinks cabinet. right at home, in our home. our kind of bug.
i caught sight of it in the morning sitting there, by the tequila glass, not moving.
(why was i opening the drinks cabinet in the morning? just tidying up frenzy, nothing more)
i reported it dead to the authorities.
evidence was requested, so i took my camera to the cabinet:
san antonio's gone! he's alive!
...or has been replaced by mysterious body snatchers.

forgetfulness

i saw something this morning that made me smile. i can't remember what it was, but i'm still smiling.

charmed city

a street corner, dark. broken windows, strewn beer bottles. hooded characters shadow through you, reserved. urban waste obstacle course.

a baby cries in a corner. a powerful wail. and the mother, laughing, wonders at her noisy, beautiful baby, laughing, picks her up, bouncing her in the air, laughing. until the baby breaks into giggly laughter too.

brixton/stockwell

RSI freak out

arm goes numb, facial expression tightens, pain shoots up hand to shoulder, neck stiffens.
smell the fear...

blasted! primed! (full)filled!

blasted! primed! filled!
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

how things take you over! how a little nothing becomes something...and then, how it becomes nothing back again.

i seem to be going round and round this idea: my uncanny ability (can't speak for all mankind, not right now, but maybe this is the way everybody works?) to put all my passion and energy into something, make it all-important and then abandon it days, weeks, months or years later, languidly, without a second thought.

for the sake of non-ambiguity -- and because lists are fun -- i clarify that i refer here to the following personal interests/timewasting exercises:

-- photography: i want to have an exhibition now!
two years ago: couldn't be arsed to use my camara, two days from now: will probably forget all about it...

-- blogging/writing: right up to 5 months ago: writing's not for me!
no, no, no sir. no writing for ladelentes. then, boom!, huge burst of writing gushes forth. even go as far as getting the blog reviewed (i know, this is shameful!).

-- human rights: wanna save the world, can't be bothered, wanna save the world, can't be bothered, wanna...etc

the current favourite:
-- visual/multimedia arts: currently doing a couple of galleries a week. a month ago: art? what's that!? now it's my all consuming passion. my links reek of art projects, my days revolve around new exhibitions, my nights are spent checking out the guide (but funnily enough this hasn't made its way into the writing, or maybe this is why the writing has become so short of late?)

old all-time favourites:

-- languages: 3 months of french! 1 month of italian! 6 months of arabic! let's learn portuguese!
yeah, right.

-- travelling: ok, this one is still going strong. gotta make sure it keeps happening.

the ones that have never made it even to the enthusiasm stage:
-- singing (although i did look into courses not so long ago...)
-- dress-making/fashion. what was that all about?
-- NGO management MA. this one might come back!

ok, so there you have it. enough of the cryptic, short, arty-farty nonsense.
back to good old self-obsessed nonsense.
hope you like.

silence

two minute silence found me queing at the supermarket. clutching sundried tomatoes and soup, i try to think about conflict as i should.

the thing about silence is all the things that you can hear in it: the baby noises, the beeping till, the planes flying overhead, the sound of a couple of tears rolling down your cheek.

well, well, well...

that's all.

self-hypnosis

first there is a flicker of something.
then, you look at the flicker, from all angles, from the left, from the right, from the top, from the bottom. you keep staring at it, until it becomes a small flame.
the you do it some more.
the flame is now a raging fire, all consuming, impossible to ignore.
but you close your eyes, breathe, and see the flickr once again.
the next step is to blow it away...or start all over again.

simple complexities

when you drop a crystal glass that was full of bubbly champagne, and it smashes on the floor, and the champagne spills on the rug, and the noise frightens your neighbours, you don't look at it and think "what a shame". you look at it and say: installation/performance art!

old london

old london
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

walking around london town, i discovered:

- ancient signs for the prevention of noise
- a local bakery showing work by a local artist
- bargains at spitafields market
- a lot of porno-pirates inhabiting whitechapel art gallery
- that i am as lost as found, on any given day

berlin, china, israel and me

all with their very own, mile-long, sky-high, unpassable, protective/destructive, personal wall.

for heaven's sake!

a friend of mine is told by a man that she's the kind of woman that "understands the death of an idea"

what is wrong with men???

in a hurry

early morning. sitting in bed. clouds slowly drift by. except for one, which accelerates past, trying to catch a sky-bus?

from the street VI (turned up at last!)

a man stands in a corner, asking passing women for a date, despair and madness twisting his face.
children young enough to be mine blow kisses at me from the back of a soon enough to be extinct bus.
people rush past shouting shopping news into their mobiles.
a small man paces to and fro amongst the lff crowd.
a woman walks down the street, tears smearing day-old make-up, unnoticed.
caipirinhas and guiness.
couples kissing on a bridge, a boatful of drunken dancing rich girls flows past.
goths debate the plausibility of the weather.
woman blogs. on the street.
london town.

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thinking time

thinking cubicle
Originally uploaded by ladelentes.

after watching a film, people file out of the cinema, discuss the ending, decide where to go to eat, gossip about other filmgoers.

me, i go to the toilet, hang up my jacket, and spend an eternity sitting there. thinking. daydreaming. blue.