Monday 5 September 2011

Photography & 'Pulping the past'


"It gets on my nerves when people seem to be so intent on filming everything [ouch] on their mobile phones. I just wish people would experience it and be in that moment," the former Pulp  key player Jarvis Cocker says.

"It used tobe when you went on holiday you'd see families where the father couldn't interact with anyone, so he'd stand there with the video camera filming the whole holiday and you'd think: "What a sad character." Now young people are doing it - its bad. They're becoming middle-aged before their time." The idea of a performance being a one-off appeals to Cocker [Pulping the past by Kylie Northover, SMH 13-14 June 2009].

"Cocker says having something that lingers only as a memory is better, as it changes over time.

"It gets altered in your brain, by your perception, whereas if you've just got a crappy, hand-held phone footage version of it, it brings it all crashing down to earth, [I guess, without the benefit of rose-tinted memory - fading and in the moment of how you experience & remember the event.] you know what I mean?"

Hot in the saddle: Bangkok on cycle, boat, etc.

"Mount up as Russell Gould [mX 24 Feb 2009] risks life, limb and noodle on two wheels through the streets of Bangkok.

"It's a five-hour exercise with lunch thrown in and that's no ordinary sandwich shop. You dine at a canal-side[Bangkok afterall is the "Venice of the East"!] restaurant that would seat less than 20 where the cooks are also the waiters and a chat with them, while they cook, is just good manners.

"A bike tour of Bangkok is an expedition through the nooks and crannies Indiana Jones would struggle to locate, far away from the digi-brigade. Don't try to work out where you've come from, where you've been or where you could possibly be going next.

"That's a mystery not worth solving. Just keep your eyes on the road, and your balance, and enjoy a different Bangkok."

http://www.covankessel.com/  Co van Kessel Bangkok Tours.