I've finished the #ArtOfAsking and gifted it to a living statue

Today I've got a version of Kurt Weill/Bertold Brecht's Pirate Jenny running as a background soundtrack.

I've recently finished Amanda Palmer's book called 'The Art of Asking' and it has reminded me of the need for an occasional Dresden Dolls binge.

I've followed Amanda Palmer (even in a pre-twitter sense) for long enough to recognise quite a few of the stories that she uses in her recent book. It is sometimes described as self-help, but is more a sort of abbreviated and quite heartfelt autobiography, with advice and tips as well as examples of what can go wrong.

Amanda can be a bit full on (in a good way), so there's some great and inspirational sections but occasionally I'd go 'Oww, not sure about that!' And I'm sure she knows that in the way she's written it.

More than about 'the art of asking', it seems to me it's about the power of networks and connecting with people, and I think that is where it really shines.

There's sections describing her adventures as a living statue mainly around Boston Square, before she started to gig with Brian Viglione in what became the Dresden Dolls. Then the various stories of people in her life, around her home town and much further afield.

The Dresden Dolls and her later guises have travelled the world on tour, involving their fans and friends in just about every aspect of the gigs, from where to sleep, what to eat, how to get around and where to play additional ninja gigs.

There's the story of a bad record contract (actually I liked the Leeds United video just the way it was), the eventual split allowing her to become indie and her later Kickstarter project. Along the way she has relied upon the fans, building the base almost one person/connection at a time. For me it'd include seeing impromptu gigs around Camden, or seeing Amanda personally selling the CDs at the end of shows. I was there for the one-off post-Icelandic volcano dust Evelyn-(Evelyn) show too, where she linked to the other half of Evelyn-Evelyn for a duet by video link.

It's that giving/gifting as much as any asking that the book is really about. Amanda gifted flowers to passers by when being 'The Bride' in the square. One can see how she learnt and nowadays passes on how the connection made and the impressions created have persisted.

Amanda's viewpoint presents an opposite to some of today's corporations who inertia sell bad deal renewals (loyal customer? sting them when they renew). She references her old record company who didn't appear to care about the loyal 'followers' and saw everything as purely transactional. Today's UK story illustrates how far this can go, with regular suppliers to big organisations like supermarkets and food providers being expected to 'buy' their continued place on the procurement list. They call it 'Investment' although bribery and extortion spring to my mind when I see this.

Amanda's married now, to Neil Gaiman, the author. He's someone else I've sort of tracked across the years. The first book I bought of his was American Gods, which I picked up when it was new from a small cafe and bookstore in Stone Mountain, Georgia, whilst I was on some kind of road trip. It seemed to fit perfectly with my travels at the time.

I gifted my finished copy of Amanda's book to a living statue in London. He looked surprised, but it somehow seemed like the right thing to do.

just enough sprocket time remaining to hit my annual target

It looks as if I'll make it to my personal 'Gold' target for cycling this year, after all.

I'm at 3,939 miles at the moment, so I have another 61 miles to do, to get to my self-defined target of 4,000 miles.

Back in January, I set Bronze, Silver and Gold at 2000, 3000 and 4000 miles respectively.

Last year was higher mileage, but I was working away from home for several months this year, which severely limited my practical biking time. A few years ago, when I first set a target, it was 1,600 miles for the year, (based on 10 months at 160 miles) so I reckon I've moved along somewhat.

I seem to remember that the DfT calculate average UK cycle miles PER YEAR is 53 miles, presumably based upon some huge number of theoretical cyclists. There's bound to be a big split between casual and 3 times or more per week cyclists, which would skew this number dramatically.

As an example, according to my Garmin, this week I've clicked up 65.87 miles so far. Today is a non-bike day because of my other questionable activities, although I still might hit my target by the end of the week, before the slide into mince pies and other festive distractions.

more from that time that is no longer called 'winter sales'

A few comedy moments when I was travelling from the seasonal tractor-beam pull of Fopp, back towards Sloane Square.

The nearest tube was Piccadilly Circus.

Neep. Brrpp. Bad decision. The tube was so full of people that no-one could get onto the platforms. Shopper overload from the 'Black Friday and extended Black Long Weekend' (previously known as 'Winter Sales Week').

I was about to retrace my steps towards the exit when I noticed a lone deserted escalator. I'd use a zig-zag route instead, which got me effortlessly to Sloane Square.

But, yikes, here was another collection of shoppers this time intent on reaching Peter Jones, the penguins and the Kings Road.

At least the refuelling reindeer seem to take it all in their stride.

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy

Along to the Royal Academy for the vast Anselm Kiefer exhibition. This has been on my list for a while and even before entering the main exhibition, there's a couple of Kiefer pieces in the courtyard.

The first, a glass tank, containing large U-Boot submarines, suspended at different heights. Then a second tank, with smaller similar vessels, this time laying on their sides at the bottom. Along the side of the second vitrine is a list, with dates of major sea-based conflicts through history.

Kiefer was born in Germany at the very end of the Second World War. His huge catalogue of work has the history of Germany as a repeating theme, varied from smaller pictures to huge canvases and installations that fill a whole room. The Morgenthau Plan is one of his well-known works, based upon the stifled U.S. Treasury plan after WW II to make Germany into a garden nation, much like the salad bowl area of California. History shows the subsequent Marshall Plan prevailed.

The Royal Academy somehow manages to contain Kiefer's exhibits, but only because the Academy rooms become like the individual picture frames of his work. It's obvious from some that they belong in a wilder context, such that this walk through Kiefer's landscape is a carefully curated version of an altogether larger vision.

Recurrent themes include the context of Germany, a rural woodland heritage, three chairs of a religion, and a fourth upside down chair of its antithesis. Look closely and there's serpents slithering through exhibits, another metaphor.

Some parts of the show are quite chilling, and there's a great power to the way that Kiefer's work paints at a sculptural level. Sure, there's some delicate watercolours amongst the collection, but many large canvases are thick with paint, clay, ash and corn from the fields.

Kiefer knows he is playing with time too, and a single new exhibit for this show is of a tectonic layering of canvases, interspersed with dried flowers and more ash. A representation of time, and the layers of the history of the planet.

And that's the difficult truth of the work too. That Kiefer has brought a harsh and cruel past into so much of his work.

a short example of tunnel vision

Another blogger commented a few days ago about me wandering across the High-Level Bridge well after midnight, on the way back from a bit of a do.

So I thought I'd illustrate a brief London walk this time. After dark of course, and starting with a tunnel.

Tunnels can lead to dark places.

Although there could be people busy at work. Even in the darkest night-time.

And that's not to say there won't be a few friendly faces along the way. Even people we might recognise.

As well as the usual hustle and bustle of people going about their regular business.

I had a target destination in mind, which was, inevitably, right in the middle of the tunnel. In a place which led to even more tunnels and arches.

So into a vault (Arch 236D, next to the Gas Bottle Room) for a rewarding drink, whilst waiting for the others to arrive before we headed to Lucy's.

Marion Déprez is Gorgeous @mimeticfest

Through Karen's co-ordination, we'd arranged to meet up at the Vault at 8pm. That's the place along the well graffitied Leake Street, which tunnels under Waterloo Station.

We were there to see the gorgeous Marion Déprez, part way through her series of performances in Lucy's Room.

Great applause as Marion slowly appeared from behind a black curtain, progressively filling the stage with her gorgeous Frenchness.

Marion's delightfully quirky show examines the objectification of women, 'see I can just stand here and look gorgeous' as she flits through a range of sketches from her off-kilter world.

We heard about (but didn't quite meet) her boyfriend, had hints on telling jokes, a tempestuous run through woods, past gorgeous ponies, to a mysterious ivory tower. There were drink-me bottles, a prince and a butterfly which we helped fluff to the stage.

Oh, and a frog. Of course.

Zany and gorgeous. Ideal for a Friday evening.

And plenty to talk about in the pub afterwards.

Did I mention she was gorgeous?

an evening with William Gibson at #guardianlive

An entertaining evening with William Gibson, who developed the original cyberspace through his novel Neuromancer.

Fascinating 30 years after its original appearance to hear him talk of his lack of knowledge of technology back in the days of the earliest Personal Computers. He spotted an advert for the Apple IIc, which looked like a briefcase and needed a separate television plugged into it. Add that idea to him watching people gaming with early Segas and appearing to look into the space behind the TV set and the idea of a connected alternate reality began to appear.

Gibson also assumed that everyone nerdy had already thought of the idea of cyberspace, but for him it provided the arena to present his commissioned novel.

Fast forward to now (I won't say in real time - we've learned its a legacy term) and it was like being able to splice into thought lines thirty years along the novel's trajectory.

Although, some of the ideas of (e.g.) the cellphone interruptertron might have been too advanced for the sensibilities of the early 80s, when people were still getting used to four television channels and the idea of satellite broadcasting.

Gibson explained the necessity of some of his novel's devices 'I wasn't very good at getting people in and out of rooms' and referred to others who had inspired - E.M. Forster's Aspects of a Novel, the literary effects pedals of William Burroughs.

He's just published 'The Peripheral' although I'm only a (virtual) few pages in. Set, I believe, in a future London, which he says is his non-American reference city. A city he knows pretty well but one that also changes enough between his enjoyed visits.

Don't be a stranger, Mr Gibson.

The Imitation Game

Time to see 'The Imitation Game' today, which is a movie dramatising the life of Alan Turing, who led a team which cracked the German Enigma machine encryption in World War II.

An enjoyable and engrossing movie, although there were some parts that made me think '-er- I'm not sure it would have been like that'. Some adaptations would certainly have been in the interests of dramatisation and in some cases to simplify the storyline.

Some people have taken exception to the way this version gets told and the historical inaccuracies. I'll regard it as an accessible way to show at least a couple major intertwined themes, in an acceptable movie length format.

There was a simple code example included in the trailer:

uvsjoh
etcemgf
wkh
irmkqe
htij

It's fairly easy to crack the above using a certain technique, which is similarly adopted in the movie. There's a movie moment quite early on where something gets said which is like the planted line for the later plot point. I won't reveal it, but it made me think 'a-hah' when it was first mentioned.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays an autistic Turing, and there's a great surrounding cast keeping the two time lines in the story-telling moving along.

Afterwards we headed to a Spanish restaurant where the chatter rolled forward to today's spying implications with cloud data. With the suspected state-developed multi-stage Regin viral payload resurfacing, maybe it's time to break out the InfoSec Taylor Swift Security Starter Pack.

a warmup for seasonal overpacking?

With the festive season fast approaching, I realise that I don't always understand the logic of packing goods for postal delivery.

I can understand that there could be an outer shell carton to help prevent handling damage, and from time to time I marvel at goods delivered in those customised double layer boxes.

This time I'm slightly confounded by the packaging approach to what was a 330cm by 4 cm box containing a tube.

The box which was packed inside a roughly 400cm by 30cm by 25cm carton. The amount of bubble wrap to prevent rattling around was truly wondrous. The box could have easily contained 40 of the tubes. Even the chap delivering commented that the box seemed very light for something so large.

I guess it stopped them posting it through the letterbox.

penguined out

The television adverts for Christmas are in full swing now and the one with the penguins has been on for about week.

Judging by the local store, it seems to be working, because just about everyone seems to be walking around carrying the penguin bags.

Bizarrely, they are also being advertised on ebay for several quid each.

This shopper has done particularly well, managing to clutch four of the rarer Sloane variety simultaneously.


Although it could get tricky when he gets to the tube station.

finding Vivian Maier

I finally watched that movie/documentary about photographer Vivian Maier during the week. She's the one whose pictures were only discovered fairly recently by John Maloof, who has since been promoting the fine body of work.

The area that gets the most attention are the street photographs, often from around Chicago, where Maier was working as a nanny. Often shot on a Rolleiflex TLR from chest height, many embody the idea of getting in close.

What struck me when I saw her pictures originally was their consistently high quality captures of people in scenes from around the city. She seems to have been able to find ideal moments to tell stories with her film.

I knew there were more pictures, but didn't know the sheer scale of the photographs she had taken. There's tens of thousands, including many that had not been developed, including New York, a world tour and some from Europe. There's a high strike rate of good shots in the ones I have seen, although it's difficult to know whether some were destined for cropping because so many were originally unprocessed.

The documentary shows the unfolding of her story. Born in Chicago she presented herself to employers as if from a small town in France. In the audio recordings she speaks with a hybrid American accent shaded with what to me sounds more German than French. There's footage and recollections from her visits to the family village in rural France.

Maloof is, himself, something of a fastidious person, who meticulously adds to the materials he first acquired from an auction. He has progressively assembled more from Maier's life. There's her still photography both monochrome and colour, some 8mm and 16mm cine films, audio cassette diaries and paper journals. Maier was also a hoarder and there's thousands of receipts and other pieces of documentary evidence around.

At one level the documentary provides answers, at another it doesn't. Why so many pictures undeveloped? How was the continuous photography funded? Why did she choose to show herself with so many different names/spellings/identities? Why nothing ever shown? She appears to also have flipped from mild mannered to sometimes vicious, including with the children she nannied.

One of the people interviewed said something about Vivian becoming too crazy and having to be let go from that specific nannying role.

The documentary was partly about the photography, partly about her curious life and it couldn't help but also show the quirks of Maloof now trying to ensure there's decent recognition for Maier's work.

Almost Wordless Wednesday - #vehicle

or maybe:

Yes, a few of the fancy cars in the nearby car park are being wrapped up for the winter season. Others parked here are more hardy: