Recreative

I've decided to grasp the devil by the horns or whatever the expression being fit is (I am not sure, I am not an eloquent soul) and start blogging a little more about art and what not in the virtual realm. Find the time to explore Recreative, a freshly launched platform for any young 'uns intrigued in the arts world and you will discover many trinkets and teasers from aspiring artists, critics, curators and yours truly. Alas, the internet is a cruel world and you have been denied the chance to read Maggie Kuzan's review of Tacita Dean's Film at the Turbine Hall, Tate Modern (Serota's latest commision). Unless of course you are a fellow creative and are registered...log on and let your eyes feast on the web of words I have spun.

Greatest apologies.

This blog entry is sort of an ode to my childhood diary entries where I would sob over how sorry I am to my diary that I had neglected it and hadn't wrote in it for a while. And it seems my childhood habits have survived to this day... Three months is pushing it, non?

To Let

There lived once a married couple
but then their children grew old.
Everything was falling apart in the house.
Their hinges grew rusty and weary
and fell off like doorknobs.
The sky was falling through like
Shattering sockets.
And rotten cement caked the air.
I was once fond of running about
the clean cut grass and making a playground of the four walls.
Now mummy doesn't take out the splinters anymore
Hi and Bye is elementary.

Farewell summertime.

Now comes the dreaded melancholia of the summer that just went by. Yesterday I returned to the English mainland after five days on the quaint Isle of Wight, far from the picturesque postcard associations of the island, the weekend consisted for blustery winds that almost howled and taunted us, reminding us of the coming autumn. It's been a strange experience stewarding on behalf of a charity twice this summer, don't get me wrong, the experience has been somewhat enriching or rewarding but missing twenty four hours, a whole days worth of festival-ing and only gaining ethic satisfaction for it seems a little... disheartening. 

However Bestival was an exquisite showcase of colour and spectacle and if dare I say it an "aesthetically pleasing"festival. I shan't ruin this post trying to conjure up the correct sounds and language to narrate the story each day brought, the exhaustion and delirium of our tired feet but instead the fingerprints will remain raw and unkempt, expect some photography to accompany this post in a wee while.

Feed your brain tasteful food.

The heaven's have surely opened for me because I've got that stomach curling feeling one gets upon discovering a new artist. Cat's Eyes evoke wistful and breezy melodies with a hint of musky nostalgia - don't ask me what I'm talking about because I do not know - but Faris Badwan and Rachel Zeffira sure have hit the nail on the head.

Wishlist (continued)

I believe this dress deserves a worthy post just for itself.
What a masterpiece of wearable Renaissance.

Anglomania Twister Print Elephant Dress

£296.00

Wilderness.

Ginger bubbles they are sweet are heady,
As maternal callings summon our discomforts.
We are our only element sunken from the roots we came from,
Birthed in Aztec drums and raw howls.

We spent the weekend not counting time but dew drops
As they kissed our synthetic cocoons.
Greeting us from our sweltered slumber,
some plum bruises some just blue.

Bathed in sticky shields our armour was our clothing
Stripping bare the nettle lips stung us numb,
As we wavered like fickle fools midst the conscious realm
And wore out our fingers and our thumbs.

My quaint stream of conscious unconsciousness

27th July - 1st August 2011 (Camp Bestival)

Flouro fuck. Stained satin. Drunken elation. Bed day bruises lick the wounds. Uneasy mist cradles the unstable ones. Giddy chimes. False doorbells. Burglar pillows. Domesticated kids play. Pots and pans/doctors and nurses. Condensation is our vapour and nausea is our poison. Heads ache and dew drops christen our breath. Drunken fatigue. Chipped knees on china girldolls. Swamped in isolation we're the modern day sergeants. Useless static and fuzz on Earth's last axis. Ricketing tip toes as we sink into the green skin. The scent of sweet sweats wets our calm brains. Elementary thoughts as counting backwards into purity. One, two, three. Leave me here, let the woods eat me.

<3

You're no god as long as you promise that you will never leave, I need only worry about you and me. We will never leave this place. We need never feel alone. We will learn to feel quite clean in this new skin that we have grown because our young and healthy bones would never lead us astray.


You're no god, Laura Marling

21st July 2011.

I'm slightly lagging behind with the current course of my blog however I blame this on my spontaneous schedule and summer lethargy so here is the first account of the last number of weeks.

Thursday night was the most romantic night of my week beginning the eighteenth. Having been partially sighted to Carmen and my girlfriend being an fan of the opera comique, I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see the ballet adaptation, which I cherish as much the superstitious marvel of a lonely eyelash glued to one's cheek. However before the English National Ballet were to give their boisterous version of Bizet's opera, my better half and I scoured the all too familiar tourist ridden streets searching for Thursday night was the most romantic night of my week. Having been partially sighted to Carmen and my girlfriend being an fan of the opera comique, I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see the ballet adaptation, which I cherish as much the superstitious marvel of a lonely eyelash glued to one's cheek. However before the English National Ballet were to give their boisterous version of Bizet's opera, my better half and I scoured the all too familiar tourist ridden streets searching for dinner. We succumbed to a nestled spot of al fresco Italian and stuffed ourselves silly. Then it was a swift exit to the theatre where our feet soared accelerando and the vertigo inducing summits of the colossal victorian mass where enough to send me spiralling into my unconscious off my velvet nurturing seat. The curtain went up and the instruments were raised to their right angles but not before a contemplative pardon for the recently deceased Roland Petit, who choreographed the night's spectacle. The sad news somewhat added solitude and depth to the performance, as the twee ballerinas skidded across the slated cold stage from cue to cue it was an ode to a maestro. My overwhelming delight upon measuring the precision and control in the dancers' stance could be compared to that of licking the leftover honey treacle in a jam jar or mummy's cooking mixture (I may be completely wrong. I'm no dance critic and I am renowned for having two left feet.)dinner. We succumbed to a nestled spot of al fresco Italian and stuffed ourselves silly. Then it was a swift exit to the theatre where our feet soared accelerando and the vertigo inducing summits of the colossal victorian mass where enough to send me spiralling into my unconscious off my velvet nurturing seat. The curtain went up and the instruments were raised to their right angles but not before a contemplative pardon for the recently deceased Roland Petit, who choreographed the night's spectacle. The sad news somewhat added solitude and depth to the performance, as the twee ballerinas skidded across the slated cold stage from cue to cue it was an ode to a maestro. My overwhelming delight upon measuring the precision and control in the dancers' stance could be compared to that of licking the leftover honey treacle in a jam jar or mummy's cooking mixture (I may be completely wrong. I'm no dance critic and I am renowned for having two left feet.)

The evening according to lazily taken digital media:

Missing in the moist.

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred   

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear   

without saying hello. In the restaurant   

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,   

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.   

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,   

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line   

and listen to each other breathe.

Jeffrey McDaniel, The Quiet World

Wanderlust.

Two nights ago I watched The Dreamers at some ungodly hour of the night but it was worth the ordeal I put my stinging eyelids through. Once the credits began rolling, I couldn't help but covet the bohemian way of living... Once I do finish my uni course I so desperately want to take off and meander, meander anywhere and everywhere. Of course, I do need to set up a permanent address with my betrothed, but once our contract has reached its end, where do we go?! I'm trying to pinpoint whether its from my mountaineering pursuits as a pre adolescent or my European heritage but I have an indisputable itch to travel. So I did some brainstorming musing...

Above: stills from The Dreamers; anonymous bohemian style balcony; still from A Perfect Man; Egon Schiele/Toulouse Lautrec studies and paintings (I do believe...); Sasha Pivovarova in romantic and bohemian styling; still from Persepolis; hand embroidery.
(My sources are a bit vague but I blame it on the anonymity of the internet)

However there are a few factors that hinder my idyllic challenge. For a start, we do not live in the correct political climate in the United Kingdom. We are told we're too advanced as a country. There is no real strive for revolution; sure we're complaining at the complacency of our disordered government but instead most of the population are soulless, manipulated digital vacuums absorbing advertising and television as the true cultural force, who couldn't care less as long as they got to watch reruns of their favourite soap, god forbid miss an episode. (I am verging on sounding a bit hypocritical here I know, there are a few television masterpieces out there but I do understand the difference between control and excess.) The only real hint of revolutionary spirit can be interpreted through student bodies but their marches and demonstrations seem too contrived and fake to deem them as true noble and gallant revolutionaries. I am clueless on politics and can't say I've ever taken the greatest interest in it, but I suppose they go hand in hand with art and culture so I will go on. Anyway, I'm dwindling a tad yet I find myself writing with full force and gusto so I guess what I really want to pour out in this post is my nostalgia for times I have not known; for something that has not existed to me. What a worn out, sloppy cliche to use... But my ears are not tuned to the shit we get fed as loyal taxpayers of this first world society and I cannot fathom a computer game or console game or whatever they are called as I have not even mastered the correct terminology for it in my nineteen blissful years on this dummy soil. Having only myself to blame, my eyes rot at the duality of the mastered mechanisms of the best century yet. Despite all my immature strops, I do admit to the thought of worsening hours in the future. I suppose it's what one would call the calm before the storm. I guess I shouldn't be revelling in the prospect of a revolution or a chaotic disablement of government but at least that sort of storm would wake some of us up, and perhaps some of our bones do need to rattle and some blood needs to be spilled. I want to be able to fight for what I believe is right, just like I did at Pride a few weeks back. It's one of the only times you ever feel more alive; a fine line of a spider's web between life and death, which you are only ever blessed with snippets of through the mortal trudge like the casual risk tingling all across your frame as you stand ever too close to the edge of the train platform. It is then you feel the vigour of the purest form of existence. I'd hate to read over this and blush but I cannot stop my fingers rattling at the keys. I rarely ever do publish a hardly tweaked stream of consciousness so I guess I should see it fit to do so now.
I need to stop dreaming and getting off topic. What I really wish to say is that I long for a bohemian way of living.

My lazy eyes have finally soaked in the last pages of The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Post reading, I probably committed the most unthinkable literary crime and mocked the sacrilegious written word by watching the film adaptation. Juliette Binoche is so young and plays the most numpty, clumsy and naive character that it's nothing but endearing to the viewer. As I watched the lothario Tomas scour the streets of post war Prague I couldn't help but think of my childhood spent in Poland, obviously I'm making a ridiculous leap in the historical timeline here but visually, aesthetically, Poland does still mirror something of its former communist past. To be a bohemian in those times! It would be utterly impossible and convenient if on the foul side of the border but if in France, in Western Europe... I found myself lusting over the Beat generation; they were only just discovering the freedom of speech; prohibited, mind altering, moreish substances and political ideologies!

Returning to the post war communist block... I admired the vitality of Tereza documenting and taking photographs of a fast pacing sixties Prague, full of Beatniks and free loving dandies. Though the same cannot be said for her reluctant depiction of a pathetic feast for the communist vultures on the torn and damaged streets of Prague. The film is a weeping eulogy for the past but it is so captivating to watch. One of my favourite moments of the film are the final scenes of the couple's slow paced lives in the country with the grazing cattle and sheep, homemade produce and village drunk and rusty tractor. Once again I was left yearning for a different time. Here are the final scenes from the film:




Perhaps one day after my bohemian revelry I too shall elope and begin a romance with the fields and grass, betrothed by my side.

Though both films deal with a different way of living - the former with Noveau Bohemians gorging in excess and hedonism and the latter living a more humble way of life; both films are set in shaky political climates and the characters in both films are striving for some sort of purity amongst their troubled existence. Now, even more so, do I feel heavier than air.

There is a fragment in Milan Kundera's novel that I believe sums up my wanderlust and urge for upmost existence beautifully:

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”

I chose weight a long time ago and I will always chose weight.

Oh that Monday morning feeling.

From left (clockwise): coffee in an authentic mug from beloved Łódź; an array of the Sunday papers (now mostly worthless because their sole purpose is yesterday's news); two cakes- one store bought (tasty salted caramel, pear and nut Whole Foods cake) and one homemade carrot cake with the stickiest walnut icing.
Background (not visible): Berceuse in D Flat Major. Op. 57. Andante Frederic Chopin

melancholia

Prelude in E Minor (Op. 28, No. 4) by Frédéric Chopin

An ode to my nerdy alto, flute playing alter ego!

Year after year I still voluntarily return to St Angelas Ursuline School and its a rare moment for me to put my vocal chords to good use and own the stage like some cabaret starlet drunk on narcissism, even if it was for a brief moment. We decided to be a little ludicrous and on top of performing a Puppini Sister's rendition of Blondie's Heart of Glass we slipped in a Soko classic straight after a Primary School gave a butter wouldn't melt repertoire on loving friends and happiness and sunshine and all things imaginable... We flaunted our performance seasoned with plenty of bravado and explicit language and as, well, ex-students of preen and poise, it was either going to be a hit or miss.

There was a hubbub of unexpected laughter mid song but apart from the odd slip up, everything was just, well, dandy.

;-)

EXPECTATIONS:

REALITY:

After all that razzle dazzle we headed to our local for a cheeky pint or two all in good intention for dear Ernesta's nineteenth; smiles all round!

[insert regular evening conversation]

Were so heavy were like Kundera's poor Tereza ;-)


"The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return." 

Wishlist.

If I was a rich gurl ...

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Vivienne Westwood platform sandals 59,900 円 (is that about £470???)


$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Yohji Yamamoto's asymmetric punk dress from S/S 2011 collection in red

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

These leather Rick Owen's shoes from the S/S 2011 collection

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

My brain feels frazzled and my cat just ate a daddy long legs so I'll continue this lusting later...

The weekend of the ninth and tenth in the words of a poet.

In the immense silence

I am dissolving

I cannot keep the gauze

from my eyes

I take the charged sun

into my stomach

for anybody

and the generations

the generations

and the generations

will have to do it

for themselves

I am unwed

completely surrendered

to inertia

lolling lethargy

aware of the integrity

in each drop of whiskey

not interested

in pretending

that I am not drunk

intensely hunkered down

within slabs of indecency

quietly becoming brimstone

blurring

guilt ridden funk

I surrender completely

to incapacity

I am leaving

I am going

I am gone

Miriam Halliday Borkowski The Drunk's Wife Leaving the City

...and the living is easy

Wanstead Flats 04/07/11

Gay Pride 2011

Last Saturday was magical. We were all subdued in a mass high, the shrills of Born this Way echoed a radius covering many miles of Central London and the whole of Trafalgar Square was baptised in a pool of drags, divas, flamboyant mavericks and performers and specks of the most ordinary individuals waving their flags like a precious medallion embellishing their necks. There was a sense of unity amongst us all that didn't seem fake or contrived. Daylight drunk means only one thing, crashing the parade. Ironically, the skinniest one didn't make it through the barriers. But never fear, we marched on, breaking smiles with Z lists and various charities.
After the parade we did what the youth does best and stocked up on stomach inducing copious amounts of various poisons and designated a spot-on spot in nearby St James's Park. I made friends with a few new faces! Buried in my drunken vertigo, we prowled the Strand like a runaway circus and headed on our merry way to Rory's birthday party at his house, fashionably late.
(The night ended with a ridiculous pig out back home with the missus and my sister).

Yohji Yamamoto at the V&A

I was fortunate enough to snap up three tickets to a dinky little catwalk of Yohji Yamamoto's spring summer 2011 collection at one of my fondest London museums. The runway was set in the Raphael gallery, adorned by hanging Renaissance paintings which contrasted beautifully with the futuristic air of the Japanese designer's clothing. I overheard a small group of Japanese behind me, who muttered some comments on how us Britons need to be educated on their nation's fashion, but in all honesty I was much to occupied oogling the luxe clothing, where sinuous fabrics and fluidity play an important role to the motion and rhythm of the outfit - once again proof that Yamamoto's clothes are extremely wearable and current to the hectic lifestyle of our times.
The clothes were modelled by real life couples, how adorable     (and I suppose it brushed over the superficiality of the fashion industry, making the entire experience some what a whole lot more meaningful?)

 

(The intricate detail of the paisley print was very clever! How refreshing to juxtapose gentlemanly dapper dressing with a sharp cut and asymmetric silhouette.)

(Loved the skirt in person, but the top read a different slogan along the lines of being superficial, which I definitely preferred... if speaking as a potential client...)

All in all a worthwhile visit! And I'd urge all to visit the V&A shop (the Christian Lacroix papier collection is divine!!!!! That is all.) 

Last day of June

wowowowoww time is flying and I don't blog half as much as I want to on here so instead I'm going to make a fully fledged commitment to maggiekuzan.blogspot.com , at least for a little while, after all it is my own little Eden hidden away in one of the infinite corners of the viral realm! So expect less flowery odes from this fantasist and more documentation, after all who can predict the timeline of this web disaster, when I'm old and grey and they're injecting us with all sorts of wonder drugs and "improving" the fabric of our chromosomes and all sorts of bizarre fleeting thoughts that cross my mind from time to time, will I come back to this site or will it be censored....? hmmm.. should I just consider making a time capsule and burying it in my back garden? But then where will I put the dead body?  ;-)
(A sense of humour this bad should be illegal)

Since the title of this post is an update of the date, here's an update of my face:

So now I happen to be naturally cross eyed and my locks are the colour of chunder. 

Quantum Genesis Elijah Amadeus RattyTatty.

Hey guise :-) The name's Quantum, it's a pleasure to meet you, though lets not shake hands because I'll probably scratch you. (I'm a klumsy kitty.) My favourite pastimes are being retarded and eating cat litter. I also like to play with Mr Fishy and feet. I'm scared of the hoover and my reflection, it makes me arch my back like Quasimodo and my tail are fuzzy wuzzy. My favourite spot in this house is the chair I like to fall asleep on, I think it's my throne. meow.

Fried my little brains !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two Fridays ago; Friday 3rd June to be precise. I haven't committed myself to internet scribbles in a fortnight or so and my withdrawal symptoms have become irritating so this would not be a more suitable time to spew all the highs and hysteria of gawping at the Kills at the good ol' Roundhouse. Alison pranced around the stage like a deranged marionette and Mr Hince rattled away on guitar, ever so often exerting orgasmic vowels and joining in on the odd verse.

I often detest those brain dead robots who flash their iPhones and Blackberries gigs but this is the 21st century we live in and I could not resist ensnaring my personal precious picture and possessing my very own universal reproduction of my two sweethearts so I too could get on the bandwagon.

How original ;-)

 

Alison !!! (yes I know the quality is awful)

Mr Kate Moss (the spitting image of my girlfriend's father...)

Forgot to mention that they had the most "aesthetically pleasing" leopard print background to their set, which kept erratically switching colours by the decibel. There was also a mega French crowd and hipsters every square metre, but that was excepted.

Cat Eyes supported. They're nice.

(new additions to Miss Maggie's iPod family)