Annabel Lee
The Little Village
New York City, April 2018 – The Whitney moved from the upper East side to the charmingly-named meat-packing district, swelling the capacity to display its great stock of American art, but it left behind, over the road, a little piece of pixie masterpiece. The elegant building on 940 Madison Avenue is now an ‘Apple’ store, and nestled in the top right office ledge is a tiny village… This is one of several created by Charles Simonds. “Since 1970 Simonds has created Dwelling places for an imaginary civilization of “Little People” who are migrating through the streets of neighborhoods in cities throughout…
Continue Reading →Gold Dust Woman : The Biography of Stevie Nicks
(by Stephen Davis) That “The” in the title is pretty rich. This is not a definitive biography of Stevie Nicks. This is a pedestrian grab for cash. Davis didn’t interview Nicks – he’s taken his material from published interviews, the music, quotes, interviews with friends and colleagues. He may have spoken to Nicks when working with Mick Fleetwood on the latter’s 1990 memoirs, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac (which Davis says was “an international best seller (and the foundation text for almost every book written since about this band).” Gold Dust Woman isn’t a bad book, it’s just that…
Continue Reading →Embroidered Garden Flowers by Kazuo Aoki
Roost Books (to be published in January 2018). In the twenty-first century, while the traditional embroidery styles sashiko (“little stabs”) and nihon shishu (ornate symbolic stitchery), have continued to enchant and engross stitchers, there has also developed a less-stylised kind of Japanese decorative stitching. This popular kind of embellishment is more varied than the darning-style stitching of sashiko and less painstaking than the fine satin-stitch of nihon shishu. One category of modern Japanese embroidery often features ‘kawaii’ figures in stem and outline stitch – animals, people, household implements – and is popularly used on children’s clothing. Another school focuses on the botanical – landscapes, plants,…
Continue Reading →The Fireside Book (of David Hope)
We're missing a deer. The Fireside Book of David Hope 1975.
The first Fireside Book of David Hope (“A picture and a poem for every mood, chosen by David Hope”) was printed and published by D C Thomson & Co Ltd (Dundee and London). The copy which L owns and treasures has “Christmas 1967” hand-written inside the front cover, although the book itself is not dated. This copy (below) came into the TVC household decades after its birth, when P found it in a second-hand bookshop. Our very first Fireside Book was given to L for Christmas 1972. The dust jacket of this 1973 edition tells how well-loved it has been. It has been…
Continue Reading →Eurovision 2017
The Boy with the Ice Cream Face...Isaiah Firebrace - A Song for Australia and Europe
Kiev, May 14, 2017 The Varnished Culture can’t reveal the results of our unique Eurovision drinking games, but we can report upon our patented ‘Euro-Points’ results. You’ll recall that Euro points are given for: 1. Dry ice 2. Contortionists 3. Bad Dancing 4. Any item of Clothing being Torn Away 5. Dwarves 6. Angel Wings or Mock Flying 7. Clowns 8. Piano as Furniture 9. Bearded Ladies 10. Puffs of Smoke This year was marked by really bad dancing (Norway even had a cavorting gimp), poor retro fashions, the odd dopey prop (Belarus perched on a fake hovercraft; a chap from Moldova pretended…
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