Think positive, or J. Edgar Hoover will appear and destroy your city - November 1st, 2008

It's a Saturday morning here in London, the weather is darkening and worsening as the hours tick by, and the pale of gathering cold threatens to confine me to my linens for the day. A decent time for irreverent and unsubstantial thoughts, so I hope your days are looking the same.

At the end of this week I've finally found employment, that pub job I'd mentioned earlier turned into some sort of really sleazy promotional gig, and so I have instead crawled into the job-sphere of our flatmate, Vera, and work in a theatre. Cool? Not really, but it's a little bit of change in my pocket at the end of a long search.

Life here has been reportedly quiet. While the slow cruising pace of our time in London means I've been developing myself into lots of new areas, it does leave relatively little to prattle about online. I've been getting heavily into some stenciling and jamming around town, and will put up some photos soon. There is the usual litany of protests and parkour, but passions chill with the weather, and the urge to save the world becomes more just an urge to save the heating.

Trips to the Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery, and numerous other free institutions of culture remain awesome, but albeit with less photographic opportunities, so I apologize for being unable to convey the experiences digitally.

To be frank, nothing quite so enthralling. A Halloween night out at the pub, and table of quickly drafted graffiti ideas, a new package of socks. For this I leave such breaths between posts, which I'm not sure is healthy or not. Flights to most places in Europe are fifty cents right now, tax included, so next week I should manage to sneak off to somewhere for a couple days, and endeavor to communicate something of interest.

Until then, let's hope we learn more about the DRC then voting machines in Virginia.

-n

Europe - October 22nd, 2008

In case I forgot to mention...



Yes, I do live in Europe.

He Giveth, He Taketh Away, He No Existeth - October 22nd, 2008

Got a phone call from my about-to-start bar job, apparently it's gotten weird, and now they want me to do some pretty gross promotion stuff. And if gross sounds too soft, I mean, desperate sleaze.

As I panic and run around trying to find another job, and I mean it's tough (I was told that the London equivalent of Safeway would be hiring sometime in January), there is always a ray of light:

Here

Hah! So good.

-n

1.21 Gigawatts - October 20th, 2008

Hello Hello,

Just a quick word on a rainy London night about something I forgot to mention this weekend.

Popped in to the British Museum on Friday for a few spare hours, which, because all museums and galleries in London are free, makes the pleasure a little cheap and whoreish, like using a coupon for a lap dance.

Anyways, visiting the Royal Collection of Pillaged, Stolen, and Looted Priceless Artifacts From Countries Who Developed Gunpowder Too Late was more or less unbelievable.

Turn left past the coat check, and...

Oh look! Priceless Assyrian monuments! And more of the same...

A more or less massive hall of Egyptian and Assyrian treasures, assembled in a sort of "God's Garage Sale" manner.

In fact, after assuming my usual jaw-on-the-floor routine perfected in Chicago, I said aloud: "Man, and to think that after they found the Rosetta Stone, they could actually read these hieroglyphics... Wait! Jess, do you think the Rosetta Stone is here?!?"

And lo and behold, not fifteen feet away:

So basically an orgy of history. There is no end to the anthropological beauty they have at the museum, there is nothing like reading the info tag to see you are actually standing in front of Cleopatra.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll talk about taking a walk in town, and more on the museum as the days go by. I'll post all the photos in the album with time.

Thanks,

Nick.

p.s. Oh! I'm employed, unsurprisingly, at an English pub. Sigh. There goes all the arts and crafts.

A Walk Through London - October 21st, 2008

Well here we are in my gloomy little London flat, the kitchen view is a little soul-crushing.

Quick, while the leaves still stand brave on the thinning elms... Let's off for a little stroll about town.

Out the door and the world looks just like you would imagine...

Happy! No no no, it's not so off, the fog will lift, as always, and give us a chance to dodge falling chestnuts and enjoy the Ye Olde streets.

Forgive the bright glare of flourescent safety apparel, but it's as universal here as in Australia. Somewhere buried in the Magna Carta is a blurb like: He That Weareth The Neon, Cupeth The Power, I'm sure of it. Right, most streets that were not blown to bits by the nazis look like this. So the city boasts some snazzy stone.

The photo above is of Regent Street, just curling off of Picadilly Circus, and it's one of the very Baron Von Munchausen structures around. This next one being the most so:

Finally, since the night is drawing dark and the post long, we see some turrets in the downtown, and let the lights come on outside the Waldorf.

That's not a big walk through London, no visiting the tower, or Big Ben, or the really crazy stuff, just an idea of what is always on your shoulder, when you stroll through this city.

Tell me a tory - October 16th, 2008

You can almost hear the collective sigh of relief across the ocean.

Like a besmirched Christmas morning, eagerly hunched over a blue-lit laptop awaiting trepidatious results, like Schrodinger's Election, the future waiting outside our London door neither concrete nor ethereal, non-existent without our consent.

I would have consented for a little less blue, I suppose, but this was sure all I could have hoped for. As well, my home riding in Edmonton made a stupendous splash of orange amongst the sinister sea of conservatives. (That's right pop, downright sinister. Grrrr.) Linda Duncan, the formentioned ndp victor, spoke with me on the phone when I was at home, about fighting the man and making the world a better place, so she had my vote.

Sad of course when we accept a darker world instead of an absolutely blackened one, like kitchen products called I Can't Believe It's Not Better. Jess said it best though, if it wasn't for our specific anti-conservative politics, one glance at the Canadian political landscape and you can't blame a single person for voting Tory, they seem the only party with an idea of what is going on. I mean, their idea is namely to kill foreigners, reduce the Canadian quality of living, and make having a general societal conscience illegal, but hey, it's a plan.

The job hunt, so deliriously dismal it has often become comic, has been reduced to begging for warehouse and call center jobs. And in this endevour I somehow am considering myself lucky, should I manage to obtain a fairly lackluster job to which I can assign my waking hours unfruitfully.

Oh! In a note of amazing, I am without even a single drag of a cigarette since the day I left Chicago, three weeks ago. I know for Team Smoke, (for whom I am a proud founder), this betrayal stings as much as breathing oxygen through our tattered lungs, but I promise it won't be permanent.

Right-0, got some culture jamming, alternative-cross stitching, and parkour to get up to. Life is just so damn Prolific when you're unemployed.

-nick

Old and older - October14th, 2008

Oh, went for a nice quick jaunt to Tower Bridge and around the Tower of London. Only one thing to make a point on about the whole affair, and that is this:

THERE IS A CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY.

Okay, that's really the only point. The rest is just old buildings.

The gate there is the Traitor's Gate, and it's awesome since it's only for boats. Kind of a cool "three-musketeers" sneaky river entrance kind of thing. Awesome.

And it's nice to be able to bike past these things on the way to home. I won't hide that.

N

Making plans for Nigel - October 14th, 2008

Looks like no global meltdown. Now I have to return this giant Apocalypse cake I ordered. I should not have gone with ice cream.

I heard this song playing in a restaurant in Coroico, Bolivia. No one knew what it was, but there was a chance it was Bruni, which, as you can tell from the ridiculous video, is embarassing. But very nice.

not much to report, i mean on an easily available, daily, basis. i can't even spell right now. look at me, i'm in a no-capitals phase. that's not good. next comes the dreaded usage of u as a pronoun. u know.

At a dead stop in life right now. Cannot for the life of me find work in this city, and yet to be seized by the magic somehow associated with it. I keep lowering and lowering my standards for work, soullessly, and expect tomorrow is going to be call center day, I mean it's that rough.

My foot is injured from stepping on, and fully inserting, a sewing needle into it, which Jess, in a moment of snake-bite fury, pulled out with her teeth. Crazy. Why a sewing needle? Hmmm, maybe because I've become addicted to Cross-Stitching, a hallmark of decent into Hipsterism, and it's endless avant garde of the Ironic. Frankly, I'm two-weeks unemployed, and it's hobby time. Next comes yelling at day-time tv cooking shows.

"Honey! Come quick! He's gonna sautee the duck! Yaaaahh!" (I am, of course, and perhaps most disturbingly, also home alone at these times.)

While I'm more than eager and willing to bloat my schedule with classes of every nature for a vast multitude of tasks, whatever job schedule might impose itself upon me would in fact trump those classes, so they must wait until things have solidified. I have a deep relationship with the fridge.

Okay, time to head out again into the World of Employment-Seeking, which is a lot like a planet run by a master race of Brain Slugs, I would imagine.

Love,

Nick.

p.s.

Contact

Ohho, it appears I have begun my domestic life, and have plugged myself into the grid in the following ways:

Home Phone: International dial 011-44-2089862664
Address: 43 Primrose Square, London, E9 7TS

N.

Jump - October 9th, 2008

Blast! I was constructing such a lovely rant about the End Of the World (tm), and the clever minds of Big Brother have managed to whisp it away on the ethereal internet tides. So, bereft of lengthier thought, here was the gist of it:

The UK government has announced a "plan" to bail-out the crumbling, self-devouring edifice of of the unrestrained financial markets, to the tune of 500 billion pounds, or 1 trillion dollars. This is enough money to remove starvation, cholera, malaria, and every immunizable disease from the planet Earth for decades, and the minister who has proposed such a Bold and Historic mindless idea has already admitted: "It may not be enough".

This sign seen on Wall Street, brought to attention by Ian:

Also found on the sidewalks in my borough: "All Banks Are Fuckers".

This also from British Government: All Emails and Phone Calls to Be Monitored

Not any outrage, but not any surprise either.

In the last rundown, sorry for not writing much, but my writing, as my life, is not at it's best right now. Also, can barely move my legs from finally getting into Parkour, this a video of the guys who I take classes with, I think they have a personal vendetta against every one of my muscles.

Have to run, think the cafe is about to get to robbed, dddooooodddgy.

Nick

Coming up for air - October 6th, 2008

Sorry for the rude silence all, I guess I could say I'm getting a little bit of sanity, and now seems a good time to get the wind back.

I did my first day of parkour today, and I don't think my limbs will actually carry me home for my long, (and probably eternal) night of sleep.

I will elaborate more and more tomorrow, with photos, and nonsense, and all the good stuff one good expect.

All my best all, until the morrow.

Nicholas.

My plan for global domination - October 1st, 2008

1) Buy phone.

2)Call friends and family whom have probably disowned me during the last days, weeks, and months of non-contact.

3)Maybe eat some toast or something.

4)GOLBAL DOMINATION



Working on 1), we'll see about the rest.

-N