Category: notebooks

The Art of Homage

March 11, 2018March 11, 2018 ~ Jillian Burt ~ Leave a comment

THE ART OF HOMAGE not FAN ART. The David Bowie Instagram account is posting images from the fan art section of the exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Nick Cave has booked “talk to the audience” shows on the East Coast of America. Within the photographs and videos she’s posting from backstage and during soundchecks for … Continue reading The Art of Homage

A NOTEBOOK THAT’S AN HOMAGE TO NELS CLINE’S LOVERS ALBUM : PART 1

February 3, 2018February 4, 2018 ~ Jillian Burt ~ Leave a comment

For 25 years Nels Cline dreamed of making the Lovers Album, an orchestrated portrait of the shadings on love’s spectrum from yearning to euphoria to regret. A mix of jazz standards, film music, rock songs and his own compositions. When it was released on Blue Note in 2016 it concluded with “The Bond”, composed for … Continue reading A NOTEBOOK THAT’S AN HOMAGE TO NELS CLINE’S LOVERS ALBUM : PART 1

Reflections from the intersection of rock music and architecture, particularly within living, evolving cultural buildings.

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NEW ARCHITECTURE BOOKSHOP. Last Saturday I breezed through an exhibition celebrating Brazilian architecture at Tusculum, the home of @architectureNSW. Fascinating though it was as I’m easing into a fine-tune and redesign of my Sydney Opera House book I don’t have much spare brainspace to give to new things, so I made notes for future follow up. ... ———— It’s always sad to see curtains covering the windows of the space where the bookshop used to be. While writing my book I regularly browsed there, grateful for the guidance of Anne, who managed the store, and gave me advice and information, particularly about the independent, brochure-style publications that made me feel my modest endeavour was connected to the wider world. … ———— But yesterday I discovered the newly opened @thearchitectsbookshop on a lively section of Crown Street, in the orbit of the Surry Hills Public Library (and Anne is there)! It has a sparkling atmosphere. Face-out on a ladder-style shelving unit the length of one wall the books seem to float. A long refectory-style table runs down the centre of the space, with stools tucked under it, so the books on display can be browsed as if in a cafe. … ————— Talks and gatherings are planned. I was reminded of my first visits to @storefrontnyc in the late 1980s when I first moved to New York, a place which made architecture seem like the wildest and most vital pursuit imaginable. … —————— At the Architect’s Bookshop I swooned over a 3 volume set of Julius Shulman’s photographs. This photo, reposted from @midcenturychristmas , puts a holiday spin on his famous photograph of Pierre Koenig’s Stahl House. … —————— #latemodernarchitecture #juliusshulman #architecturebooks #independentbookshop #midcenturymodern

ART & COMMERCE. Last Friday I saw what may be the hippest tote bag in the world out in the wild. Someone at my bus stop was wearing the @commedesgarcons Shirt paper shopping sack encased in plastic as a messenger bag. It originally retailed for around $148 and is now selling for upwards of $300 on ebay. It’s a thing of wonder, conceptually ingenious and witty and beautifully manufactured. … ——- The Grinderman tote bag on the right is my favourite of the Tote Bag collection I’ve been building. As a totem … I’m continually inspired, entertained and amused by the Grinderman experiment … and it functions perfectly. It’s sturdier than many canvas tote bags and the internal pocket that flaps free (sewn into the band at the top but not attached to the sides of the bag) is the model for the bookbag / tote bag hybrid I’ve been working on. I don’t remember how much it cost but current Bad Seeds tote bags retail for around ￡10. … —— Having access to unusual materials and construction techniques while manufacturing small batches, and having these be low cost is the conundrum I’ve been working through. Access to the factories of companies that would see these experiments as part of their research and development process is what I’m thinking through right now. And I value my investment in @awesomemerch because they keep adding product lines through being inspired by what their customers want to create and making these objects as economically as possible with low minimum orders. —— #totebag #commedesgarcons #grinderman #merchandise #musicmerchandise #commedesgarconsshirt

PROTOTYPE COMPLETE ... this @animalsofdistinction water resistant microfibre bookbag / large tote is packed to head for @monafoma. It folds down completely flat to securely hold notebooks & pencil case & document wallet in the one large & one segmented internal pockets in place in a suitcase. ———- It also contains a bear shaped wallet with samples of @aesopskincare sun care products & the local Launceston delicacy, @merumiso miso sachets. ———— #moderndance #prototype #merchandise #notebook

PHENOMENALLY CHARMED: I absolutely love Edward Gorey’s book “The Doubtful Guest”. (Swipe right). I wish it were made into a TV series, a warped kind of “Downton Abbey”. (This is a grown up version of my childhood wish that I could run away from home and be adopted by the ADDAMS FAMILY.) … ___________ “The Doubtful Guest” is simplicity itself. Hardly any pages. Hardly any text on the pages. Yet it implies the exhaustive depth of detail of life in a quasi-Victorian household that “Downton Abbey” has. With the abstraction and because of what was left out “Gorey felt, wit had room to flower.” This was remarked upon in a New Yorker review of a new biography of Gorey…. __________ But it made me think of the equally abstract, small and witty book of drawings that I bought from fashion illustrator @fridawannerberger ’s shop. Her drawings are brought wildly alive by goofy captions and suggestions. … __________ Her modest stapled booklet of drawings (now sold out) along with The Doubtful Guest, are always the first things that come to mind when I’m making a case for the existence of independent books. And I wish I were able to attend one of Frida’s illustration and bookmaking workshops. … __________ #bookbinding #edwardgorey #independentbooks

THE CITY DESK: I was reading @henpitt’s book “The House” during the campaign for the Wentworth By-Election. She had access to diaries and newly available archival materials relating to the Sydney Opera House’s creation story, and added new reporting. … ———— The day this personalised attack ad arrived in the mail for me I was thinking about her comment in the acknowledgements about finding two boxes of News Limited clippings and photographs: “I felt like I had won the Sydney Opera House lottery when I opened these treasure chests.” ... ————— I compulsively keep scrapbooks of clippings and ephemera (swipe right) that may be useful. Although I no longer work as a journalist I keep ‘reporting’, researching and observing and creating and binding independent publications. Architecture is slow, my Sydney Opera House book covers 7 years, and even with detailed observations it’s hard to keep a hold of immediacy. Clippings and ephemera are a kind of time travel, that make it slightly possible to recapture a particular moment in time. ... . ———— But so much now in newspapers is shrill opinion, much like this attack ad. With the decline of the newspaper business reporters and critics have been jettisoned, but also editors, and I admire city desk editors who once checked and inter-related views of the culture, society, and governance of the city. …. ——————— Helen Pitt’s book concludes on the beginnings of the growing awareness of the skill and artistry of Peter Hall’s contributions in bringing the Sydney Opera House to life. She acknowledges the value of @annejwatson ’s studies of Peter Hall’s diaries and papers. I do as well. Without an editor to guide my writing her books have become a stand in for City Desk Editors deeply engaged with their cities. (The @saveoursirius book is equally remarkable and valuable.) ... —— I’m now fine-tuning the editing of my own Sydney Opera House book as I’m re-designing the second 100 of the edition of 200, to have them more economically printed, and I’m grateful for any new excellent books covering the same ground that can help me critically evaluate my own writing. … ————— #architecturecriticism #sydneyoperahouse #midcenturymodern

LEONARD COHEN’s TERRIER... A poem celebrating his childhood friend, his Scottish terrier Tinkie, who “protected me from my enemy loneliness”, is included in his recent posthumously published book The Flame .... #terriersofinstagram #leonardcohen #terriermerchandise #scottiesofinstagram

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Architecture Australian music bibliostructures city design Engineering jazz Journalism Manufacturing Materials modern dance movies Music notebooks Paper print on demand publishing Robert Ballard robotics Sydney Opera House

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