Matt Hobbs

Sunshine on the N line

Did my first trip on the N/W line in Queens today on the way to Seth’s brunch party. Very nice indeed. After Queensboro plaza the line is all above ground about 20m above the road, and with today’s beautiful spring sunshine the effect was stunning. This has made me realise I need to go travelling round some more random New York public transport routes, such as the Manhattan ferry, to experience more sights at a human level.

After brunch I decided to walk back along the bridge to McGuinness boulevard, taking some photos with my ‘new’ second hand Nikon ME Super. This new purchase is the result of a three year enfatuation with the camera ever since I first played with Ann’s – it has great weight and is perfect for the black and white class I’m taking at SVA. Have to say it’s been very strange going back from digital again and especially learning to do proper printing. Overall the course has been great and I’m learning loads which is helping all aspects of my photography. Wish I’d done it sooner!

There’s a mouse, loose about dis house

Very strange alarm call this morning… A cute little mouse had decided to get into bed with me by my feet which I guess woke me up. The poor little thing was resting at the end of my bed, so I took a photo in case it ran away. It didn’t. So I took another. Still not moved. So I put a box over it, and then moved it into a bucket. Still not much movement apart from breathing and whisker twitching.

At this point I started getting flashbacks to my childhood and trying to rescue half eaten mice from our cats. No cats to blame this time, but my gifts of lovely leicester cheese ($9.99 per lb) and water were rejected. In fact when I came out of the shower, involving not a little contemplation of a suitable name for my new pet, the mouse had obviously decided it was dirty and had had it’s own bath.

Sadly by the time I’d finished dressing the mouse was not looking at all well. My experience as pet minister kicked in as I administered the last rites and gave it a full state burial in my trash. Sniff sniff.

Sweet words of spam

The mighty Yahoo spam filter, knight errant to protect the sweet chastity of my inbox, has turned into somewhat of a poet today. Witness the beauty:

Such pharmaceuticals — small monetary value!
Rolex in $150 ? [visitor]
Fresh magnify your phallus solution!
Re [21]:
sent C1ALL1S, C10NAZEPAM; V1C00D1N, V1AAGRRA. C0DE1NNE, MER1DI1A, CI0NAZEEPAM
Equivalent drugs — dinky cost!
up-in 20-minutes
up-in 20-minutes
We must afford the delight of holding the superfine

Wow. I can almost hear William Shatner reciting this beat style.

Infinite Blue*

Just came across a great quote from Blake that I wanted to share:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thru’ chinks of his cavern.”

* With thanks to Mark for that

Alphabet vs. the goddess – leonard shlain. Well it’s only taken me three years to finish this book… Shlain proposes that alphabetic, left brain/logic dominate societies have constantly subjugated more feminine, visual religious practices – causing years of oppression and war. There are some interesting examples in here, especially talking about how Jesus preached using a lot of water based, more feminine doctrines which then got turned around once written down. In the end he holds out hope for our future as television and especially computers open up our right brains again. The book is basically flawed in that a lot of it is written ‘in my opinion’ with minimal backing evidence. He also rushes through the last century as if nothing happened of interest! Like most schlock science you can put any ‘theory’ over the facts if you ignore certain things. So an interesting read, but not highly recommended.

Kingdom of fear – hunter s thompson. A lovely Christmas present from Oliver – thanks! This is a more biographical account than usual of Hunter’s life and times as gonzo journalist, attempted sheriff and sampler of extreme lifestyles. Great reading in his usual style that really makes you wonder where all his ‘novels’ blur from fact to fiction and back again. It’s also good commute reading due to nice short chapters that you can easily dip into.

Fear and loathing in heaven or hell

Wow. Just saw that Hunter S Thompson shot himself the other day. A sad loss to extreme writing everywhere.

Recently I’d just finished reading Kingdom of Fear, an autobiographical review of his life, although many would argue all of his writing is biographical anyway.

Chocoholic

When I came back from my Christmas break in England I ‘smuggled’ about four Tesco’s bags full of chocolate back with me. Most of it survived, with some heroic chocolate bars sacrificing their lives for their fellows – they will be remembered with honour.

This full set of bounty consisted of Kit Kats, Twirls, Curly Wurlys, Aeros and Cadbury’s chocolate bars in all sorts and varieties. Mint, dark and filled with Seville orange – whatever will those geniuses think of next? Personally I have some favourites: mint Kit Kats are great, that slight sharpness taking the humble Kit Kat to another level, Twirls are always just best plain as the chocolate used is rich and pasty on your tongue and Aeros also seem to fare best in their original chocolate flavour. Stay away from the filled Kit Kats!

What is the point of this chocolate rant? Well amazingly, after a stressful two months of hard work and not much time to buy healthy food, I still seem to have a large fridge vegetable contained full of chocolate… go figure. I am however working to rectify this horrific situation as we speak.

Techno, Techno, Techno

A lovely fun bouncey night out at Substance last night reliving my old uni clubbing days. Surgeon, one of the original stalwarts of Third Eye back in Brum, was headlining and played a great set full of old school trance techno. Just like House of God all over again – except without the epic grandeur of the Que Club as a backdrop. Plus American dancers have a whole different approach to these kind of events – lots of break dancing and over-zealous self expression, as opposed to the usual drug fuelled Brit style of ‘stare at the DJ, gurn and wave hands at varying levels’.

The start of the night was also fun, after a brief nap and one of my episodes of suspected narcolepsy (I ‘wake’ up while asleep unable to move), went to join Paula at her friend Maria’s art opening. Fun little gallery in Billyburg that is also an artists house. The show was based around Maria’s five coldest nights – represented by a sequence of slightly larger than postcard size drawings lined up across the wall, and related lumps of ice each containing items pertaining to the story melting outside. Fun stuff. Then off to the after party where we warmed our chilled butts against one of the few open fires I’ve found in New York – bliss.

JTEXT, MAURY & ROGER

A very exciting day yesterday – all three of our Universal campaigns went live with great success! There’s definately a thrill associated with seeing Jerry Springer talk about something you’ve helped set up. Plus it’s great to have finally gotten a proper night’s sleep – almost.

All the hard work has paid off though and everyone on the team has pulled together really well to get it all done. Congratulations everyone!

Now hopefully I can find some time to catch up on my homework for my photography course. I somehow managed last week to find time to run off two 36 films and buy a pile of developing kit in amongst the madness – and even got to the class on Thursday where I finally learnt how to develop black & white film (in summary: a pain in the butt – not tricky, just messy). This week our lesson is to use two light sources to take ‘portraits’ of a head shaped vegetable, and then to repeat the same with a person shaped person. The theory is that when you ask the vegetable to do something it’ll be easier than with the person = so you’ll be thinking more about lighting and so on. Bought my veggies.. now just need to find a willing human victim!