All Picks posted by Bob Last
In our globalised world when received wisdom is that few issues can be resolved effectively outwith supra national and macro economic interventions it was startling and uncomfortable to read about the current situation in the Lebanese city of Tripoli where we are told tensions between Sunni and Alawite [more]
….. I would love to have taken “T” 1950 or “Snow” 1960 by Saul Leiter. He died on the 26th November and I had never heard of him until “Snow” caught my eye in an obituary. Even better I discover I like what he said about photography “I [more]
today I am a curator, I have curated 48 words for you cairn chaos comte corrie cumin displayment downbeat dreich eddy edge elegant ephemeral fallacy fire fractal fragile fuck gaze glacier graphite gruyere haecceity jouissance immanence iteration kerning machair malinger meta mescalin money mote mendicant nape parallel [more]
Further to my recent updates on retro-politics in the UK and tales of splittists, Maoists and union vote rigging I have today been reading about Hollywood producer Arnand Milchan spying for Israel,- as Georg Dietz said it is all true and as I suggested a couple of days [more]
A day is a long time in politics. My forlorn program of political optimism proposed on day 43, namely that perhaps the long slow motion car crash of 20th Century politics was coming to an end leaving clear road ahead was proposed too soon. There is great attention [more]
So for the first 43 days I have avoided politics although I may not have avoided the political. Time to catch up. On the 23rd of October Georg Diez said “it is all true”, he had been reading a biography of John Foster and Allen Dulles, respectively Secretary [more]
Increasingly my mind insists that 60pages is an audience not a platform and I am feeling a heavy pressure to say something eloquent insighful and really sparklingly intelligent about something that matters a bit like everyone else seems to do and in saying this I know I’m not [more]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_last/10102768104/lightbox
This week I went to see the film Gravity in 3d. I enjoyed it, thought it was good, before you decide whether to take account of my opinion you should know that since I started producing films and found out just how difficult they are to bring in [more]
Gardening I have a small south facing basement yard which provides some protection from the increasingly common violent winter storms sweeping in off the North Sea and tearing at my house. While replacing 70’s rose coloured cement paving with timeworn granite setts (Scots word for cobblestones) salvaged from [more]
VOICEOVER Words bounce off the walls, echoes of my sins, i raise my voice, the words ricochet. Note to self -don’ talk. Scene 28a Exterior shoreline, day. [jwplayer mediaid=”13981″]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_last/10599897873/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_last/10564566006/lightbox/
I have just been to see the new Louise Bourgeois exhibition at the Fruitmarket Gallery, I am not an established fan of Louise Bourgeois work. I use the term fan to distinguish my engagement from that of connoisseur, collector or critic- my engagement lies beyond the casual but [more]
Aphorisms now being made available to citizens in the streets of London: in order to understand how casually profound this statement is you first have to consider the contrary- a statement that long delays are impossible- what would that mean? at the very least a re writing of [more]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bob_last/9437054953/lightbox/
I had the honour of meeting Lou Reed once very briefly backstage in Edinburgh at the invitation of my good friend drummer Fred Maher who was touring with him, Lou was as baffled to discover that someone who lived in Scotland might not play golf as I was [more]
Ladies and gentlemen the North Missisipi Allstars at Oran Mor in Glasgow a couple of days ago: [jwplayer mediaid=”10315″] a Southern band re inventing the blues, i love them, not least because Luther Dickson is an amazing guitarist whose playing I hear as am intense stream of shapes, [more]
its not because I learnt about how to be a businessman by reading marx and then the dust jackets of althusser no thats not why i am broke i know the difference between an isa as in ideological state apparatus and an isa as in individual savings account [more]
Agra, Ajo, Allentown, Amsterdam, Anzo-Borrego, Auckland, Barcelona, Beirut, Big Bear, Big Sur, Belgrade, Berlin, Bonifacio, Boston, Brussels, Calcutta, Cagliari, Calexico, Cannes, Chennai, Copenhagen, Chicago, Delhi, East Hampton, Geneva, Goteborg, Hamburg, Jerusalem, Haifa, Hong Kong, Houston, Hyderabad, Innsbruck, Jaipur, Johannesburg, Khartoum, Kuala Lumpur, Las Vegas, Lisbon, Lukeville, Los Angeles, [more]
17/10/13 [jwplayer mediaid=”7779″] Today I bought “Words and Buildings” by Adrian Forty firstly because its frontispiece contains a quote from Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less”, secondly because [more]
On day 5 I went to see Prisoners a film by Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve, it is about various individual wars on God and of course it is also about delivering sustained tension for our entertainment. Jake Gylenhall who plays a cop who perhaps thinks he has the [more]
sculpture, seated (wooden chair, cardboard). Edinburgh the chair enjoys gravity, interprets and interpolates it, its probably what brings joy to a chair
Berlin Plastic Classicism Displayed walking past her wall mounted listening device, Edinburgh, Scotland shore based listening device, Glasgow, Scotland
7 a.m. A bench serves as a perch for two boys wrapped up against the cold, a brass plaque indicates that it was discarded in memory of a long forgotten citizen. The boys’ gaze is at once distracted and meticulous. A storm has left debris fluttering across [more]