o lugar do silêncio | odurzeni światłem

Sitting on a grass for a while today. It felt like being embraced by summer and autumn at the same time. New places. Old friendships. Sun and Moon. And a music package waiting for me in the evening. The beauty of August. Time of contradictions. Silent place. Bossa velha.



For more videos from Videoteca videos please click here.

"Wertowaliśmy odurzeni światłem, w tej wielkiej księdze wakacji, której wszystkie karty pałały od blasku i miały na dnie słodki od omdlenia miąższ złotych gruszek." Bruno Schulz, Sierpień

simple | beautiful | truth

"... something clear as the space which the clouds at last uncover - the little space of sky which sleeps beside the moon. Was it wisdom? Was it knowledge? (...) she imagined how in the chambers of the mind and heart of the woman (...) were stood, like the treasures in the tombs of kings, tablets bearing sacred inscriptions, which if one could spell them out would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public." V. Woolf



Please meet the directors of the video Klaus Thymann & Mike Hughes. For more on the video production please click here.

his private code | his secret language

Beware of Allan Kingdom's private code, his secret language. He's the one to be followed.



Please meet the director of the video Erika Ochoa. 

" (...) all these were so coloured and distingushed in his mind that he had already his private code, his secret language." V. Wolf To The Lighthouse

traffic lights

The superb sound of Friday night: Soweto Kinch, Karl Rasheed-Abel & Shaney Forbes.



"At a junction they stop talking all at once, and the silence sticks for a while, as if someone spat it at the windscreen and they're watching it slide down." Z. Smith The Autograph Man

patron saint of their neighbourhoods

The lovely voice came through the speakers in the part café. Natalie Blake and her friend Leah Hanwell had long ago agreed that this voice sounded like London - especially its northern and north-western zones - as if its owner were patron saint of their neighbourhoods. Is a voice something you can own?  Zadie Smith, N-W

The Brain goes home

"One night The Brain is walking me up and down Broadway in front of Mindy's Restaurant, and speaking of this and that, when along comes a red-headed raggedy doll selling apples at five cents per copy , and The Brain, being very fond of apples, grabs one out of her basket and hands her a five-dollar bill." Damon Runyon, The Brain goes home



The video was directed by Mixtape Club.

Bourne has a ghost

                      "If any man has a ghost
                       Bourne has a ghost,
                       a tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak
                       hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York (...)"  J. Dos Passos, Nineteen Nineteen



Please meet the director of the video Ninian Doff.

the air | the soul

Well, it shouldn't come as a surprise but I'm in a soul mood. Michael Kiwanuka is the air. Not only for today. True. Spirit. What is soul? Hear yourself.

Please meet the director of the video Tom Henze.

Tell me a story that I can read,
Tell me a story that I believe.

Paint me a picture that I can see,
Give me a touch that I can feel,
Turn me around so I can be,
Everything I was meant to be.

friday line | skyline

To sum up the International Jazz Day let's tune into Portico Quartet's world. Just like Friday. Line. Abbey Road. Skyline.



The absence of snow was sensational. To hold a cigarette without wearing gloves, to reveal one's whole face to the air! Howard rarely felt moved by an English skyline, but today just to see an oak and an office block, outlined by a bluish sky with no interpolation of white on either, seemed to him a landscape of rare splendour and refinement. Zadie Smith, On Beauty

the divine ones

Thursdays are by their very nature always quite special. Especially in April I guess. 


             I looked up from my reading. The first number on the record was done. The phonograph needle was now scratching its slow way across the void to the second. The second number, I learned from the jacket, was "Dragon Blues."
            Meade Lux Lewis played four bars alone-and then Angela Hoenikker joined in. 
            Her eyes were closed. 
            I was flabbergasted. 
            She was great. 
            She improvised around the music of the Pullman porter's son; went from liquid lyricism to rasping lechery to the shrill skittishness of a frightened child, to a heroin nightmare.
           Her glissandi spoke of heaven and hell and all that lay between.
           Such music from such a woman could only be a case of schizophrenia or demonic possession.
           My hair stood on end, as though Angela were rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth, and babbling fluent Babylonian.  Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

a good (night) song from Woman's Hour

Soothing the effects of Tuesday with Woman's Hour. Unmistakable. Good.



I wasn't certain what had happened to me. My experience most closely mirrored the "eat me, drink me" scene in Alice in Wonderland. I tried to access her restrained and curious reaction to her own psychedelic trials. Patti Smith, Just Kids

going from A to B | going home

Sweet stink of the hookah, couscous, kebab, exhaust fumes of a bus deadlock. 98, 16, 32, standing room only - quicker to walk! Escapees from St Mary's, Paddington: expectant father smoking, old lady wheeling herself in a wheelchair smoking, die-hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking. Everybody loves fags. Everybody. Polish paper, Turkish paper, Arabic, Irish, French, Russian, Spanish, News of the World. Unlock your (stolen) phone, buy a battery pack, a lighter pack, a perfume pack, sunglasses, three for a fiver, a life-size porcelain tiger, gold taps. Casino! Everybody believes in destiny. Everybody. It was meant to be. It was just not meant to be. Deal or no deal? (...) Leaflets, call abroad 4 less, learn English, eyebrow wax, Falun Gong, have you accepted Jesus as your personal plan? Everybody loves fried chicken. Everybody. Zadie Smith, N-W

surreal

A pretty surreal and great weekend out of town is now behind me. Felt like travelling in some time machine with a bit of a windy touch of the opening scene from Almodovar's Volver. And with a few good souls around. Good. Night.



Była to jednocześnie gra starości i młodości, wspomnień i rzeczywistości, życia i śmierci (...). J. Iwaszkiewicz

some people like their oysters raw

It was a typical wet and windy London Winter's day made for staying indoors but Darius and Oshan, with Matt and Joe, were eager to busk for the crowds at Columbia Road Flower Market. Escaping the rain, after some cheeky negotiating with the owner, the guys performed in a tiny nook of a market stall Oyster Bar for customers and passers by. Read more on the The Turbans' session here. 



Some people like their oysters raw; and for them your job is easiest, for you have merely to pick out a dozen natives from the barrel, swill the brine from them, and place them, with a piece of parsley or cress, upon a plate. But for those who took their oysters stewed, or fried - or baked, or scalloped, or put in a pie - my labours were more delicate. Then I must open each oyster, and beard it, and transfer it to Mother's cooking-pot with all of its savoury flesh intact, and none of its liquor spilled or tainted. Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet

when I see paintings...

When I hear music I see images and when I see paintings I hear music. Anna Calvi.



Olin aina uskonut, että merihätä oli joku kaukaisten, parempien ihmisten huoli. Nyt se tuli minun kohdalleni enkä osannut tarttua siihen yhtä väkevästi kuin se näytti tarttuneen minuun. Vaikka märssykori olikin lempisanani, en ollut sellaiseen koskaan kiivennyt.  Hannu Väisänen, Toiset kengät

into blessed nothingness

Dizzy with light, we dipped into that enormous book of holidays, its pages blazing with sunshine and scented with the sweet melting pulp of golden pears. Bruno Schulz


Please meet the director of the video Maxime Loisel. Montag's Phares is out now.

Tak wędrowaliśmy z matką przez dwie słoneczne strony rynku, wodząc nasze załamane cienie po wszystkich domach, jak po klawiszach. Kwadraty bruku mijały powoli pod naszymi miękkimi i plaskimi krokami - jedne bladoróżowe, jak skóra ludzka, inne złote i sine, wszystkie płaskie, ciepłe, aksamitne na słońcu, jak jakieś twarze słoneczne, zadeptane stopami aż do niepoznaki, do błogiej nicości. Bruno Schulz, August

Thus my mother and I ambled along the two sunny sides of Market Square, guiding our broken shadows along the houses as over a keyboard. Under our soft steps the squares of the paving stones slowly filed past - some the pale pink of human skin, some golden, some blue-grey, all flat, warm and velvety in the sun, like sun-dials, trodden to the point of obliteration, into blessed nothingness. (for the translation of the whole chapter click here)

o que c'est beau schön prittie prittie

"Zoe Keating playing her cello in the middle of San Francisco International Airport. On her way to play, Zoe opens up about the places she's been fortunate enough to visit and play, because of her music. A cello festival in Beauvais, the opera house in Sydney, Zurich, the New Mexico desert for the gasoline-laden simulation of a nuclear bomb, the list goes on." Read more on the story here. 



under the counter it's dark and the lady the nice Dutch lady who loves Americans and has relations in Trenton shows you postcards that shine in the dark pretty hotels and palaces    O que c'est beau schön prittie prittie and the mooonlight ripple ripple under the bridge and the little reverbères are alight in the dark under the counter and little windows of hotels around the harbour    O que c'est beau la lune
     and the big moon (...)
   we hurry wallowing like in a boat  (...) J.D. Passos The 42nd Parallel

no flagman ahead

From the depth of my player I dug out old tunes of Tab Two. Overwhelmed by the sultry surroundings. Now with these trumpet and bass sounds things feel crystal clear.



The video through the courtesy of Tab Two. To be updated later with better quality official version. (A/N)

when you walk along the street you have to step carefully always on the cobbles so as not to step on the bright anxious grassblades      easier if you hold Mother's hand and hang on it that way you can kick up your toes but walking fast you have to tread on too many grassblades (...)      maybe that's why those people are so angry and follow us shaking their fits      they're throwing stones grownup people throwing stones
J.D. Passos, The 42nd Parallel

blueprints and plans

I've been sketching the whole evening plans for ideas that were cocooned in my head for quite a while. They look much more vivid when written on the paper. I like this blueprint. To London I also went with a plan. Or more a list. It was a list of concerts I wanted to see. The one that stayed in my mind, as I happened to mention already, was Clock Opera's show in Rough Trade East store located in Brick Lane in the East End. On my way there I was wondering about the identity of certain parts and streets of London. I was probably brought into such thinking thanks to Zadie Smith's book I was reading during my stay there and also upon seeing photographs of Don McCullin. Therefore I was tuned into a detective mode of sensing distinctive features of certain London places.

"East End  (...) was full of filthy people. Now, apparently, it was sort of place where perfectly normal people lived. A blonde in a long powder-blue overcoat holding a portable computer and a pot plant, an Asian boy dressed in a cheap, shiny suit that reflected light like beaten metal - it was impossible to imagine these  people populating the East London of his earlier memory." And his earlier memory would be from around 40 years ago. I myself found Brick Lane a perfect place to be and it was the only place I went twice during my short stay in London.

So anyway, the concert was great and I don't even have to mention that it felt like heaven being in Rough Trade Store that has also a small cafeteria inside (sic!). After the concert I talked briefly with Guy Connelly (vocals, guitars) and Andy West (THE bass). Andy mentioned that the wildest and warmest audience the band has met so far was in Island and also Sweden. Promising. So Finland: are you ready for Clock Opera to come? :) I am. And I will make it happen.

Meet the director of the Man Made video Ben Reed and listen to Opera Clock's remix of Metronomy's  The Bay. Brilliant.

see the colours of another sky

I actually went to London to see another sky even though it does not differ much from the one I am used to. I went to detach myself and to make a new place mine. On my first day in London last Tuesday I embraced the city wholeheartedly. Or so the city embraced me in that way at once. It was this strangely familiar feeling of being home in a place that I haven't been to before. I strolled lazily through many places heading in the evening to Nothing Hill to see The Staves, a band I discovered in January this year. There was a bit of drama at the beginning as the show was sold out and I didn't know weather or not I will get a ticket. I was luckily advised by a lovely staff of Tabernacle (a fantastic place where the concert was held) to wait as there would surely be someone who would not pick up their ticket. There was. One ticket left. And I got it! :) And so the London gig of The Staves started. It was superb. Warm, full of harmony and witty, supported by a charming set delivered by Christof (he deserves a separate post later on :)). I couldn't have imagined better start of my first trip to England. It was a bit chilly on my way back from Nothing Hill. Well, "it is never really very cold in England (...), but still a decent jumper and a waxen jacket lined with wool is sufficient for every weather England's got to give." as Zadie Smith writes in her book On Beauty that accompanied me during this trip. A decent jumper I left in Finland. But it really didn't matter that evening.



Meet the director of the video Myles O'Reilly.

counting the winters | numb to the cold