In my university days I discovered the writings of Carlos Castaneda. Inspired by him (and though I don't think his writings are "true") I bought the bookGift und Arzneipflanzen in Mitteleuropa (Poisonous and medicinal plants of Middle-Europe) for a more scientific insight into this fascinating subject. Since then I've been actively looking for edible, medicinal and poisonous plants. And especially for Datura Stramonium, the thorn-apple, because it is beautiful and uncanny.
Datura Stramonium along a parking lot in Wachendorf, Germany
It took years before I saw my first datura. This was a tiny plant in the Rotterdam harbour growing along a deserted warehouse. Nowadays this place has been gentrified and the ecology has been erased.
I collected the seeds and later planted them on my balcony and along the railway embankment on my way to work. Both plantings prospered but neither had staying power. No plant returned the next season. Now I suspect that the soil was too rich and the ecology too friendly. This fiendish plant likes fiendish surroundings.
An egde-land area reminiscent of the Amsterdam Datura sighting.
The following years I had a few rare sightings of Datura. In Germany I saw many plants in bloom at the edge of a parking lot, but it was too early for seedpods. On the outskirts of Amsterdam I saw a beautiful ripe plant, but I was on a business trip and couldn't visit managers while carrying a dry poisonous bush.
Datura in bloom in the dunes of Hoek van Holland.
Recently I discovered many vigorous datura plants in Hoek van Holland. The first time was frustrating because the plants were in bloom and the seedpods were green and closed. But in December I revisited this area and collected many ripe seedpods. This is not easy, the stems of the plant are extremely tough and the seedpods are hard and very prickly.
I hope that the many families with children that visit the dunes stay away from these plants, they are surprisingly abundant here.
I will never try this and neither should you! - I think you should never experiment with Datura. It is highly poisonous and the margin between a deadly dose and a hallucinogenic dose is very thin. And the concentration of active ingredients is highly variable. So you never know how much you ingest. Finally Datura is a deliriant drug and many Datura trips are highly unpleasant.
Just looking at this plant and reading about its scary properties is sufficiently mind-bending for me.
I intend to plant the seeds somewhere out of reach of humans and especially children. I now have a better idea of the ecology this plant likes: highly disturbed and recently disturbed sandy soil. I know a few places where it could feel at home. We will see what happens next.
Background - I'm thinking about making a one-page zine. And I'm looking for ideas.
I also need more room in my home, so I'm sorting my ephemera to see what I don't want to keep. Just like in my previous experiment. This time I'll keep almost 90% and I had hoped for less.
Which ephemera will not be kept? - You can click the picture for a bigger view.
What kind of ephemera will not be kept? These are the first raw data. The numbers in square quotes refer to my previous experiment:
Events and exhibits I didn't visit - these were picked up just in case. [3,4] And events that I did visit, but that I'm unlikely to forget, so I don't need no souvenirs.
Picpus magazine - A very nice free zine that I see in random places. These will not be kept in their entirety, but the most interesting pictures and texts will be cut out and pasted in my personal scrapbook. There they will be more alive than in my archive.
Mini posters - These PrintRoom posters are beautifully designed and (riso) printed but I have no place to exhibit them nor to store them. Some details will go into my scrapbook.
Killer magazine - A very nice free A4-zine from Amsterdam. Interesting articles on fashion, airport life, liberal arts, gender and much more. I read it with pleasure. I'll take care to put it somewhere where it will be read by more people.
Tubelight magazine - A free art magazine mostly found in galleries. The most interesting pictures and texts will go in my scrapbook.
Religious brochures - I picked these up in churches I visited. But I know most of the theology already.
The Third Rail - A wonderful free art magazine. But the format is too big for me to store anywhere. I'll re-distribute it in the city.
Zines - A few zines, hand-made in the classic (copy and staple) manner. But these are too cryptic for my enjoyment. - And a few nicely produced zines (print and bind) they don't fit my criteria, these are mostly purely informational or purely artistic. I'll take care to put them somewhere where they will be read by more people.
Exhibition catalogs from Tent and Witte de With - Great galleries but these exhibitions inspired me less than others. [7]
Fashion catalogs - I collect these for the glamorous realities, pictures and stories they create. A wonderful fictional world that tells a lot about how we see ourselves. But these do not tell this story very well.
Which ephemera will be kept? - A personal hypothesis:
I'm not collecting zines for the information content nor for their souvenir value. Also not for their artistic value (but artistic value is a bonus).
I'm collecting zines mostly for their "high strangeness" value. I collect booklets and brochures that are "far out" and evoke feelings of wonder, mystery or puzzlement.
But they should not be so "far out" that they become totally incomprehensible. They should hover on the edge between sense and chaos. Those are rare.
The silent pictures of Scandinavian traffic-webcams have a strange fascination for me. My previous outpourings of webcam obsession are here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8 and part 9. I've used video, fiction, literary criticism, art, topography and surveillance technologies to think through this window on far-away places.
Hypothesis
These webcam images are a modern equivalent of romantic landscape painting. And it's good to study the details. The key to the meaning is in the details.
Details and events
Sometimes (rarely) things happen in these far-away places. The images are so static and devoid of human action that anything is enhanced, however small it is. Noticing even minor events is strangely satisfying. See also part 7 for more events.
Especially if it's something exotic like reindeer, and more reindeer. Far away and close by.
Or foxes (probably) or cats?
But also when it's relatively banal like buzzards and crows.
Or even broken road-sign flapping in the wind.
And a garbage bin, waiting for the garbage-truck at the side of the road.
And more garbage bins and luggage (this sounds like an Ed Ruscha book-title).
The silent pictures of Scandinavian traffic-webcams have a strange fascination for me. My previous outpourings of webcam obsession are here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8. I've used video, fiction, literary criticism, art, forensic science and surveillance technologies to think through this window on far-away places.
Long term changes - longitudinal analysis
Because I've followed the webcams since 2013 I'm able to compare before- and after images and I'm able to notice both sudden and gradual changes. This time-wasting activity is strangely relaxing and satisfying. Maybe other people feel this when solving Sudoku puzzles.
Privacy enhancements
Some camera views have been obscured. I cannot look into some gardens anymore and cannot watch people stepping into the bus. Instead I see a nice Malewich-like abstract landscape intervention. This has its own charm.
And just for fun I searched the camera on StreetView, to get another view of the scene. Would I recognize the scene if I saw it from the non-camera viewpoint?
Who did it - not me!
I wonder if this privacy enhancement was a spontaneous action of the Norwegian road authority (Vegvesen) or if someone complained about invasion of privacy. Maybe they saw my weblog? (Wish I was so popular!)
And again a view of the camera for this scene, with the camera and a much more primitive shelter. And a Google camera that photographed it's own shadow while photographing a camera:
Tree cutting
And sometimes trees are cleared, revealing a deeper and wider view of the (non-) landscape. It was this tree that first drew my attention to this place. Now it's gone. And tire-tracks disappear spontaneously without human intervention.
And again I found the camera. Looking on Streetview I saw that this road runs along a fjord, I've been loking at this scene a whole year long and I never suspected it. And the box on the right is not for selling stuff, it's just a garbage bin.
Three minor changes. Otherwise nothing much changes in these far-away places.
Hello world!
Is there anyone reading this blog who lives near these places? Then we could do a live performance. (But I fear no one from Norway reads this blog. If you do ... contact me at urbanadventure at xs4all dot nl.)
Note: I (uair01) only have one CD of this artist (45 minutes from underneath the beds) so I have no idea how his other works sound. But the descriptions are exciting to read, even without the sounds. They stimulate the imagination. It would be a pity to let them evaporate on Facebook. That's why I saved a private list of the descriptions on this weblog (with permission of the author). My favorite is nr.41, the most recent one, because there are so many complex layers in this artwork: performance, urban exploration, etching, recording, object-making etc.
For the past few weeks I've written a piece a day on a work by King Leif. So far 25 works... have been detailed. And there's much more on the way. You ain't seen nothing yet as the Museum Elggren Collection is massive.
26 - Part Twenty-Six: The New Immortality #2 https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/973763282664836
27 - Part Twenty-Seven: In Sleep the Knives are Sharpened https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/974259545948543
28 - Part Twenty-Eight: If Other People Exist (they are totally sealed secrets https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/975472185827279
29 - Part Twenty-Nine: The Internationale https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/975900125784485
30 - Part Thirty: Jean-Philippe Antoine / Marcel Broodthaers & King Leif's 'Objet Métal Esprit' https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/976415599066271
Part Thirty: Jean-Philippe Antoine / Marcel Broodthaers & King Leif's 'Objet Métal Esprit' https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/976415599066271
31 - Part Thirty-One: Physiological Frequencies, Drawings from 2004 – 2009 at Gallery Niklas Belenius, 03.12.2009 - 07.01.2010 https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/976890889018742
32 - Part Thirty-Two: Experiment with Dreams by King Leif and Thomas Liljenberg https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/977318418975989
34 - Part Thirty-Four: The Codfish Suit by King Leif and Thomas Liljenberg https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/979266388781192
35 - Part Thirty-Five: 9.11 by King Leif and Thomas Liljenberg https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/979757802065384
36 - Part Thirty-Six: Ebola & Swedish Dreamers by King Leif and Thomas Liljenberg https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/980128972028267
37 - Part Thirty-Seven: Two Thin Eating One Fat by King Leif and Thomas Liljenberg https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/981933585181139
38 - Part Thirty-Eight: UGN / MAT by King Leif, Per Jonsson & Kent Tankred https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/982384418469389
39 - Part Thirty-Nine: The Sudarium of St Veronica by King Leif & Claude Mellan https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/982817078426123
40 - Part Forty: Tre Verksamma på 27 Plan [Three at Work on 27 Areas] https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/983271461714018
41 - Part Forty-One: Cu (Framförande XIX) – The light room / The dark room; can you hear it? https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/983825591658605
52 - 53 - 54 - Isola de San Michele (including Table of the Dead), The North is Protected II (Death in Venice) and Toteninsel (works by King Leif and King Carl-Michael with (a.o.) Jan Håfström, Marja-Leena Sillanpää, Tommi Grönlund, Petteri Nisunen, Anders Tomrén) https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/993677677340063
70 - 71 - 72 - 73 - Un Peu Comme Voir dans la Nuit // Movements in the Dust exhibition // LUFF Live Performance (w/ Emanuel Swedenborg) // RTS Emission Spéciale Radio show (all October 2013, Lausanne, Switzerland) https://www.facebook.com/sven.schlijper/posts/1006884662686031
This summer I visited the Zine Camp at Worm in Rotterdam. I met many interesting people and bought several nice zines. I will review some of them as a preparation for (possibly) making my own zine.
Jes (growing distro)
Three very personal zines from Berlin.
Two zines from the "growth" series. Small (A6) format in color. Professionally hand made, with different paper qualities. They combine personal and intimate details with notes about travel, nature and the care of plants. Authentic texts about overcoming personal crises and finding confidence.
... Last year I fell in love and it felt like the world became brighter and more exciting than before. It seemed like every leaf that fell before me must have been a symbol of this awakening inside me ... I decided while away that I needed to stay in touch with earth and nature and began researching the types of seeds I could plant on my shady windowsill ...
And the zines contain the random, noisy photographs of nature that I like very much. And it's combined with a text reminiscent of Beethoven's Pastoral symphony:
... I've left the city and am enjoying a short visit to Brandenburg in order to leave my routine and find something new ... how great it feels to be outside of the city ... I am so appreciative of the space I have found to return to myself. I am thankful of the barking dogs outside my room ... I'm thankful for the trees and garden my room looks onto. I'm thankful for the large wooden desk that is clear of my own clutter, to-do lists, empty glasses, and notes reminding me that i'm not doing what I want to be doing in this life ...
And finally there's this guide to using sex toys. In the classic cut, paste and copy style. Still intimate and personal, but in a different key. I admire the courage to connect your own identity with such explicit content. The concept arouses curiosity (pun intended) and the punk look-and-feel gives it a nice underground touch.
... cleaning toys: keep them fresh and handy for the next time you play with them ... non-battery operated toys, silicone and glass, can be boiled in water or put in a dishwasher ...
Lessons learned
Personally I prefer the neat binding and graphic design of the "growth" zines over the "fuck" zine. Also their small format is more sympathetic. The photographs and background patterns add a lot of value. I could never write so openly about my feelings and still feel authentic. In these zines it is totally natural and appropriate. But I could write about places and seasons and their effect on me.
The autumn colours are amazing this year. Many people have noticed and mentioned this. My barber speculated that the leaves stay on the trees longer, because there has been no wind nor rain. Whatever the reason, the colours of the October leaf of our calendars are echoed in nature outside. And are echoed in the wonderful stories of Thomas Ligotti:
Before there occurred anything of a truly prodigious nature, the season had manifestly erupted with some feverish intent. This, at least, was how it appeared to us, whether we happened to live in town or somewhere outside its limits.
On the calendars which hung in so many of our homes, the monthly photograph illustrated the spirit of the numbered days below it: sheaves of cornstalks standing brownish and brittle in a newly harvested field, a narrow house and wide barn in the background, a sky of empty light above, and fiery leafage frolicking about the edges of the scene.
But something dark, something abysmal always finds its way into the bland beauty of such pictures, something that usually holds itself in abeyance, some entwining presence that we always know is there.
