Lastnightstony

 A quick walk across the Tower Bridge to the Docklands area to the Design Museum. Sure enough, there was a bunch of the nerdy design crowd. Black rimmed glasses and turtle necks.  Prouve made interesting industrial spaces that were easy to produce and build. He would eliminate unnecessary parts that were expensive and slowed down production. He made entire homes out of twelve pieces that would allow a multitude of home styles. Keep it simple. Prouve’s approach to design was systemactic. Both the design process and the look of his design were of equal interest to him. He brought his own experience and his belief that industrial creation does not unfold in great leaps but through gradual modification and careful adaptations.DieselMax A Mathew Williamson fashion display and pattern designs.

Made a visit to one of the World Heritage sites and the oldest parts of this historical city, the Tower of London.So this delightful gentleman is one of the Tower guides. There have been Tower guides for centuries and they still live on the site with their families. You could even see their laundry airing on the back side of the armory. This fellow explained several tales of history that all included death, murder and beheadings. Including the one about James Scott who required not one or two, but five chops to the neck to get that head off. James Scott (I think that was his name) was the son of a king. He did something to earn a beheading, could not have been much because everyone was getting the chop in those days (1650’s).

The poor guy was royalty, but the admin folks at the tower had no portrait of him on record. When they figured it out they tried to stop the whole thing after three chops. After the off’d him they tried to make ammends by putting the body in a nice chair. They reattached the head and got some one in there to give him a proper portrait. His body resides to this day, in a chair at the National Gallery apparently.After a few more tales of woe, they set us off to explore the grounds. There are no photos allowed to be taken of the Crown Jewels. They are pretty amazing. Septors and swords made of gold and jewels. Crowns with all the goods and incredible detail and craftsmanship. Extremely ornate bowls and plates all of gold. This stuff is guarded 24/7 and is locked behind a steal door that is at least three feet thick.  All the kings horses.  Old timey head chopper.  

Londoners work hard to get to Friday. At noon the pubs were already full with people getting an early drink. By quitting time the pubs were a buzz with folks getting together and enjoying themselves. The Golden Heart is around the corner from WK. Even a poster of St. Wayne has made it on to the wall in here.

The area I am living in is Famous for several things. There are contemporary art celebrities Gilbert & George who live down the way. Of course Banksy has bombed the hell out of the place. But probably the most famous artist created a body of work in September of 1888 that has transcended famous and has whose legend has made him notorious. Of course, I am talking about Jack the Ripper, or so that is what he called himself in his letters to the press.

I took the time tonight to learn some history, freeze my ass off, and walk around East London with a bunch of tourists. First off I walked down to the Tower of London again and met the group at the Tower Hill station.I have been walking around when ever I have a chance and this whole area is actually quite small. Central London is actually only a square mile. At the station I met up with Donald Rumbelow of Walk London. Apparently, he is the worlds foremost authority on the Ripper case. All I know is that if he said “Sliced her open from the vagina to the breast plate” one more time I was going to puke on some german tourists.We made our way to Aldgate and the Church he refered to as the Church of the Prostitute, Mitre square and some small alleys. To his credit, Donald can tell a story quite well even if he does do it all year round.The aptly named Happy Days Chinese Take-Out is where Jack left a message on the wall that said “This General Chow’s chicken is rubbish”. This place is down the street from me and I was hoping we would go by my place so I could grab another layer and some gloves. Sure enough, Old Jack claimed someone next door.

The area of Spitalfields used to be Hospitalfields. Where the market is across the street from here, is where they would throw out the bodies from the nearby Hospital that had to deal with the bodies that resulted from the plague. When it was excavated in the 90’s, they found huge pits that were 30 bodies deep.

This white building on the corner is the Ten Bells pub and the frequent drinking grounds of all of The Ripper’s victims. According to my buddy Oliver it is also home to the nastiest toilets in all of London. I’ll have pictures of that soon.

So basically, London has been founded on death and crime for centuries. The Jack the Ripper case probably could have been solved if it were not egos of the City police Chief and the East End Police Chief. And by the amount of people in attendance on a Tuesday night, murder is still as popular as ever.

Since I have poached Donald Rumbelow’s tour here, the least I can do is get a link to his book on here. The Complete Jack The Ripper.

It’s Sunday afternoon. The sun is out and so is London. The streets in front of the office are a total buzz. Spitalfields pulse.

Wandering around Liverpool tube station looking for a post office and there in the middle of the plaza is Richard Serra’s Fulcrum. I took a trip to Seattle for a weekend to see one of his pieces at the Olympic Sculpture Park. Here was this one just hidden behind a train station.

Today was the first day that my head was actually in London even though my carcass has been here for two days. So I went for a walk.The area of Spitalfields has all kinds of street art. Banksy kills it when it comes to street art. Across the street from WK is this car that he hit a while ago. It is now preserved in a glass box. Apparently there was a Shepard Fairey show around here recently too.As I made my way through town to the river, things start to get older. The Tower Bridge and the London Tower which is this intense old castle. The queue for the London Tower was insane. it is a world Heritage site. Gonna try that another time. The view from the Tower Bridge below.Above is the steam engine that lifts the bridge. Incredible engineering feet unto itself.Along the Southwark was a Sports Century exhibit.I hedged at going to this Prison Museum. It was a bit campy and had a bunch of corny displays of things from prison life several hundreds of years ago. This town must have been so intense way back when. Fucked up teeth would be the least of your worries.This is one of Louise Bourgeois’s spiders. The scale alone is impressive. The fact that she made this when she was almost 90 years old is hard to imagine. The true beauty of this piece is the vulnerability you feel when you walk between the legs of it. Now you’re high.Her exhibit was basically a retrospective and it was really great. To the development of her work that spans 7 decades.With that my head was full, the legs were stiff and I dragged my bones back over to Spitalfield. Not bad for one day.

I read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris in one sitting. Granted it was on the flight from Portland to Frankfurt so I had to sit, but this book is brilliant even if David is not. There is a section where he takes an IQ test for the society of Mensa and the results are staggering and hilarious.

Here is a different bit:
“The tank refilled, and I made a silent promise. The deal was that if this thing would go away, I’d repay the world by performing some unexpected act of kindness. I flushed the toilet a second time, and the big turd spun in a lazy circle. “Go on,” I whispered. “Scoot! Shoo!” I turned away, ready to perform my good dead, but when I looked back down, there it was, bobbing to the surface in a fresh pool of water.

Just then someone knocked on the door, and I started to panic. ” ~ Big Boy

If that does not sell it for you nothing will. I got my 15 bucks worth out of this and would like to pass it on. If you want it I can inter-office mail it to you. Or I can give it to someone here in London. Raise your hand if you are into this sort of thing.

Ok , this is probably not going to make any sense. It is 5 AM in London and I am wide awake. I was in the Tesco (local Übermarket) last night and they had these tv’s in the isles pumping news while londoners shopped for dinner. That is when I had some Deja Vu. I heard a reporters voice. Not just any voice with a British accent, it was that of Jeremy Thompson, the London news reporter who was also in Shaun of the Dead. In that movie he reports that the best way to protect yourselves from zombies is to “remove the head or destroy the brain, I repeat, removing the head or destroying the brain.”If there was ever a time that I feel like a zombie it is right now.

Here are some shots of WK london.This is Noe Kuremoto. She is an AD or CD (I am not sure) on Nokia. She contacted me before I came over and took the time yesterday to introduce me to the whole office. She has mad flava! Flava flav kind of flava.This is a shot of my place. Totally comfortable and a mere two blocks or so from work. This weekend I look forward exploring the neighborhood of White Chapel.

I am proud that I work for a place that does good things. Cognitive choices of what we do as an organization are imperative. Much respect to Ginger Robinson, Christin Spagnoli, Christian Laniosz, Shari Eiesland, Shelly Stevens, Joani Wardwell, Chemin Reed and Chris Larson.

http://wkilab.com/wkholiday