Lights

Morag and I went along to a studio thing at the weekend, which frankly turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. However, I liked this shot of the model, Lauren, who was doing a great job in the face of general adversity.

Buchanan St. Blues

 appropriately situated advert...

Walking on Broken Glass

Spindrift at Michaelmas

Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition 2011

I was back through in Edinburgh last week for this year's Edwin Morgan Poetry Competition prizegiving ceremony at the Book Festival, where the ceremony started and finished with clips from a film Donny O'Rourke had made of Edwin Morgan some years ago.

David Kinloch introducing the proceedings.

Kona Macphee talking about the judging process.

 Jane McKie, who won first prize.

 Jane Yeh, who won second prize.

 Vicki Feaver, also judging this year

 Gill Andrews, runner up

Helen Mort, whose poem had been commmended.

(You can read all the winning and commended poems over on the competition website.)

Rain Tower

Slow Shutter

Trying out the "SlowShutter" app - I've not quite got the hang of it, but I liked the white car zooming into the bottom corner and the circles of rain on the window.  I'd just been to the CCA to an event organised by Polly Clark as part of Cove Park's summer residency programme:  a reading by Anne Carson and Robin Robertson.

I'm a big fan of Robertson's poetry and had heard him read before, but didn't know much about Anne Carson, although I had managed to get hold of a copy of "If not, winter: Fragments of Sappho" which has translations of Sappho's poems, but kept in the fragmentary form they were found in on scraps of papyrus.  Anyway, I really enjoyed hearing her read a variety of pieces (she has a very droll style of delivery).  One in particular featured "The Library of Water" in Iceland, with Polly reading some lines and Carson's  husband walking round the room doing a kind of large scale cat's cradle with a reel of pink string.  I'll be hitting the University Library in search of some more of her books...

Threads of Sound - The Last Machete

A few shots from the Threads gig last Saturday, featuring

Muscles of Joy

North American War

and F.O. Machete.

More pics on the Threads Flickr page.

Green Vinyl

Last night's Thread's Gig (photos to follow) was the last gig for F.O. Machete and the launch of their E.P.  "My Last Machete".  

This is the biggest cover photo I've had so far...

...and it contains an actual see-through green record. Here's my favourite song (along with "Teenage Spaceship") filmed as it was recorded...

Dinosaur on Wheels

Spotted it trying to sneak in the back door of the library...