C is for Candlestick

Here's another extract from my A-Z of aerial skills magazine, C is for......Candlestick,maybe B should be from the bruises that you get from being in this position......
If I was going to do a trapeze routine today my music choice would probably be...

The Lovin Spoonful-Daydream

P is for Parisian

Here is a page from a magazine I'm working on, an illustrated A-Z of trapeze and silks and ropes and anything else you can hang from, pose on, climb up or potentially fall off...
I have finally made peace with the trapeze for the first time since my back crunching fall in July, my favorite pose is the Parisian which is why I've drawn it first, it is mostly like how I have drawn except you tilt your head up as if you are looking at the ceiling to look like a proper poser, but I cant draw profiles yet. I would love to do a routine dressed like this with this music playing (Nick Cave-I'm your man) sometimes when I'm bored at the gym I just imagine doing a routine to this song and off I go into a daydream....

Snow Black laid bare

For a while now, sites like facebook have been driving me mad with all my contacts updating their "walls" telling everyone how great life is, how they've just bought a new car, baked a cake or ran 5 miles in 5 minutes all before 9am, when i've not even managed to change out of my nightdress and my biggest achievement has been making a cup of tea. It really doesn't make for a good start for the day. Then again blogging also means you can edit your life through a website, if you're having a bad day/ week/ (even month) no one needs to know because you can just choose to hide it by writing about something else.
It would be nice if the blogging and social networking world changed for a little while, and people would just tell the truth, no matter how embarrassing or boring, everyone should confess to what they are really doing.
I am going to start this trend which will start on this very small blog and then will become so popular that everyone will copy me and the world of blogging and of facebook will change forever, and you can all thank me when your contacts stop saying how great their lives are and start saying the really mundane things they are doing and you will start feeling so much better about your own non eventful lives.
My confession is about the music that I run to, I am a bit of a music snob, oh alright, i'm a lot of a music snob. Not that I am a musician, or have the best ever taste in music (although i'd say it was quite good) but there is just some music that I hate. Top of the list is indie music that isn't really indie music, like people who think Kasabian or Snow patrol is indie, its not,and thats all i really have to say about that. I also cant stand clubs that play dance music, I hate dance music and refuse to dance to it, and in a category all by himself, Colin Hay, I will never take him seriously for rhyming sea with tea, or marie with company,or car with far (the list goes on...) enough said.
However, there are times when your usual song choices just aren't right, and for me, thats when I run. I went through a phase of listening to 1970s punk rock and nothing else at the start of the year when i was training, before that there was an entire year of running to ABBA,and this year, in preparation for, and during, the Great North run, I'm afraid things just got worse..you see, I am not a very good runner, I just enjoy doing it because I like to really push my body until it feels like i've got no energy left sometimes, and, not being a serious runner, I dont follow training plans or timings or techniques, I just run as if I am in a musical. Its quite basic really, I love dancing and always wanted to dance on stage, so when i run I try to zone out, focus really hard on the songs and pretend I am dancing to them; it can be embarrassing because your legs have to run, but your arms are free to dance and you need a lot of self control to not flail around and knock out other runners during your imaginary dance routine.
So, with that in mind, this years music playlist has included...
Bon Jovi - Lay your hands on me
Hot Chocolate-You Sexy Thing
Placebo-Pure Morning
(I almost feel sick admitting to this one...) Shania Twain-Man! I feel like a woman
Tom Jones-Help Yourself
During this years run, at about the 10k point when the rain started to come down and I needed an extra push, the perfect song came on at just the right time, and I have to say, It is the BEST song to run to....
Cher-Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
So, maybe i have Cher to thank for getting me through the half way point, and In a sort of weird tribute, i have drawn myself warming up to my next run (Edinburgh's 10k this sunday-what am I thinking?!) wearing an outfit inspired by a 1980s Cher aerobics outfit, now, maybe i should look up some of her other songs to get me through the run, shoop shoop song anyone?....




Right, I feel so much better about my Cher confession, who's next?.........

Snow Black and Rae's Diner

I don't know why anyone bothers to spend hours deciding on what colour of paint to use in their decoration plans, stop buying sample pots and buying magazines for ideas, everyone should paint every room in their flat/house/office in the colours of Rae's diner in L.A, because it is possibly the best diner in the world, and definitely one of the best interiors in the world, bright blue, turquoise, orange and timber paneling, it is all any interior could ever need, surely...

Snow Black in the evening light

Following on from last weeks post, here is, as promised, Snow Black in the evening light. Sometimes on an evening, especially at weekends, I like to make a make-shift bed on the floor infront of my portable television, I get my bedcovers and pillows and lie under the skylight with the evening sun streaming down at me, with a DVD on and sometimes a gin and lemonade too. There's something comforting about falling asleep with the television on when you're home alone, the blue light making the room glow. I'd put my favorite animal print eye mask on, cuddle the cat (who loves sleeping on my chest) and listen to some music, maybe the Smiths, because Morrissey has a lovely voice to dream to....

Snow Black goes Ruby Red

Nick Cave-Black Hair

New season = New hair and a new dress

Snow Black in the morning light

Ever since I can remember I have been obsessed with the layout of interior spaces. When I was little someone (probably santa) bought me sylvanian family figures and a house to match. For anyone who doesn't remember them, sylvanian families were figures of animals a couple of inches tall, most people got a family of say 4 rabbits, but I somehow ended up with something like a mum and dad rabbit who'd given birth to a mole and a cat (way to mess me up santa), anyway, back to my point...I wasn't really sold on the house and used to instead get out all the video tapes (sorry mam and dad) and lay them out on the living room floor, building rooms out of them for my strange little animal family. I also repeated this video-house making for my hamster years later who didn't seem to appreciate it as much as i'd hoped...
A totally normal/conventional Sylvanian family..

I then progressed to studying plans of houses whenever we got a leaflet about a new estate being built, and used to re arrange the furniture in my bedroom on a regular basis. Years later I went on to study Interior Architecture, now why didn't I make models for projects from video tapes? I'm sure with some good lighting I could have passed it off as installation art and fooled everyone into thinking i was an interior genious.
I haven't designed an interior for quite some time but I am still fascinated by housing and space layouts so for the past week I've been reading Bill Bryson's book-A short history of private life I like Bill Bryson because he's a massive research geek. In this book he looks at the history of the place we call home, one of the things i read was that during the Italian Renaissance period, rooms didn't have specific functions as they do today, such as bedroom, living room etc, they simply moved their furniture and belongings according to where the light was coming into the house at that time, therefore during "mattina" (or morning) they would move furniture and set themselves up in a room with morning light streaming in and during "sera" (the evening) they would again move their furniture into a space with evening sun. This fascinated me, although interiorists now consider sunlight when laying out their interiors, there is a beautiful simplicity about how things were set out during this time.
Although I am a massive hoarder of just about everything, I sometimes wish I had one flat for storage and one for living, in the flat I lived in I would love to simply move my furniture around according to the sun. On a morning I would move my (totally imaginary) chaise lounge (i have always wanted one) into a room with sunlight streaming in, and sit there feeling the warmth on my skin; I would set up my drawing pens and paper and listen to music, I'd draw fuelled by amaretto coffee and have everything (including the cat) nearby so i didnt have to move all morning, i'd wear my really old nightdress thats so old it only fits as a top now because the 20 years of wear have made the fabric silky soft, i'd team it up with some shorts and a pair of long socks to keep warm..




check back next week to find out where i'll be during the evening!!