Okay, I admit it - I've got a thing about shoes.  And I've REALLY got a thing about stilettos.  Something about those impossibly tall heels and those extremely pointy toes - but, there are other websites that you can go to for that sort of thing...

Regardless, for the last fifty odd years, stilettos have been THE shoe.  There have been little blips in the radar of bad taste along the way - clunky heels, clogs, Earth shoes - but stilettos are just so hot, they will never leave us.  Timeless, elegant, powerful,feminine and more than a little bit wicked  - I don't know of any other shoe that can give all that, and do it so well for fifty years.

During the war years, shoes were both heavy and practical.  However, in the optimism and consumerism that swept the world in the '50s, shoes became lighter in appearance.  Many tried to create a stiletto-type shoe, but it wasn't until 1955 when a number of fashion designers (Roger Vivier for Dior, Ferragamo and Charles Jourdan) teamed up with some Italian engineers that the mechanics of heels were worked out.  Previously, heels would snap, but a thin metal insert in the heel core rectified the problem.  Heels just kept getting taller and narrower until 3-4" became the standard, and the weight of a woman could be borne on a heel diameter smaller than a dime.

Stilettos immediately became the fashion rage, and Hollywood stars helped to further popularize them.  This shoe enhanced and beautified both the leg and foot, and stilettos became synonymous with sex appeal.  In 1957, stilletto heels were paired with pointed toes for the look we continue to love today.  Now, designers like Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik keep stilettos in the public eye.

Stilettos have come closer to attaining the status of art form than any other form of outerwear.  Well worth the bunions, if you ask me.

Legendary BBC broadcaster John Peel died of a heart attack Monday while on a working holiday in Peru.  He was 65 years old.

Peel transformed the face of music through his late night BBC Radio 1 show, which aired three nights a week for over thirty years.  An inspired presenter, he encouraged new talent, promoted new acts, provided unknown and upcoming bands with studio time, and popularized and gave big breaks to more new bands than anyone else in the British music industry.  Peel championed all forms of alternative music, and was one of the first UK DJs to give exposure to world music, rap, punk, reggae, techno, and hiphop before they crossed over to the mainstream. He was both a music pioneer and a maverick; his broad tastes and curiosity always kept him relevent, and the music he discovered was always cutting edge.

Through his 'Peel Sessions,' he  introduced hundreds of bands and acts such as David Bowie, U2, Nirvana, The Vevet Underground, T-Rex, Neko Case, The Pixies, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Fall, and The Sex Pistols.

His all-time favourite single was The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks", which he was known to play twice, back-to-back, on his show, stating, 'it doesn't get any better than this'. Glastonbury Music Festival founder Michael Eavis said Peel, "was the lad that always knew which band was going to make the grade."

Tributes to Peel have been pouring in from around the world.  The Glastonbury Festival's new bands tent will be renamed the John Peel Stage; at the Liverpool Empire, Johnny Marr joined Neil and Tim Finn to play 'Tennage Kicks' in Peel's honour.  Peel's contribution to new music has been immeasurable and he himself will be irreplaceable.       

The Kaufmann House, the Richard Neutra designed desert house located in Palm Springs, Ca., is an architecutal treasure that hails from an era of unprecedented architectural freedom and experimentation.  Done in what has since become known as the 'Contemporary' style, the Kaufmann House (1946) achieves Neutra's goals of environmental harmony and functional efficiency through its frictionless integration of urban home with desert site. Architecturally, the Kaufmann House sits at the apex of the century's high point in domestic style and provides an elegant vision of how man might live.

Neutra (1892-1970), an Austrian who immigrated to the US in 1923, became a world famous modernist architect after he established himself in California.  His buildings, mostly residential, had a light and effortless appearance.  He specialized in extending architectural spaces into a carefully arranged landscape, and by melding the interior and exterior, provided a place for man in relationship with nature.

In the Kaufmann House, a series of horizontal planes resting on more horizontal planes hover magically over transparent walls.  Neutra's trademark reflecting pool is present, doing double duty as both a swimming pool and landscape mirror.  This cool, linear structure is flawlessly situated, and is considered one of the finest examples of modern architecture today.  Recently restored to the original by its new owners, the Kaufmann House, unlike many recently demolished modernist homes in the Palm Springs area, will be with us for years to come.     

News Flash!

It has been confirmed that the elusive Jandek (subject of the recent documentary Jandek on Corwood) recently played a live set on October 17 at the Instal.04 Festival in Glasgow.  Barry Esson, organizer of the festival, states that Corwood did indeed send a 'representative' to perform.  He further states that "Out of respect to both those assurances and the individuals involved, we will not be commenting further, not confirming or denying any of the purely speculative assumptions about the event currently circulating."  However, David Tibet of Current 93, who also played the festival, confirms that Jandek did play unannounced at 5 pm Sunday evening for approximately an hour. He was introduced as a 'mystery guest'.  Tibet further reports that Jandek did not stay at the same hotel as the rest of the bands, nor did he attend the festival except briefly to see Six Organs of Admittance.

Are You Experienced?

 Dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, Seattle's unique participatory museum of music celebrates and explores musical diversity and showcases the musicians of the Pacific Northwest.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen commissioned Toronto native Frank Gehry to design this newest Seattle landmark.  Allen's vision was for the interactive museum to "create something highly innovative, to utilize the power of technology, to push the limits of architectural design.  But mostly, ... to involve people's creativity in a way that had never been done before."

 Gehry has managed to reflect the energy and fluidity of music in his organically undulating design - cutting edge contextual architecture at its finest.  The fabricated steel frame clad with sheet metal panels also pays homage to Boeing, Seattle's biggest employer.

Allen has collected 80,000 artifacts, 1,200 of which are on display.  Roots and Branches is a two storey high sculpture comprised of over 600 different guitars and other instruments, some of which play songs.  The Sky Church houses the largest indoor video screen in the world, and in the Sound Lab, one can learn to play a variety of instruments and experiment with mixers and mikes.  There are poster art exhibits, the Hendrix gallery, and the Northwest Passage Display, dedicated to the music and musicians of the Pacific Northwest.  The whole museum, as you might expect, is very high tech:  you can use a device called a MEG to point at guitar pick icons for further narration as you proceed around the museum.

The day that I visited the museum, it was pretty quiet.  Even so, it took a while to navigate the entrance way, pay and find our way to the main exhibits.  It was pretty pricey ($19.95 per adult), but it did take a while to get around - there's lots to see and do.  I especially enjoyed the Sound Lab, and for some reason missed the ride that they have - other than that, though, it was kind of dark and quiet for a music museum.

Overall, I'd give it an 8/10.  

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The above quote captures not only the essence of the fashion of Chanel, but the essence of the woman herself.  Born a peasant, the words genius, independence, and quality are all synonymous with her work, while  she single-handedly set the tone of fashion for the twentieth century.

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They Might Be Giants

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Surreal, or what?

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Now, in case you haven't figured it out:  the Love and Rockets I'm talking about here is not the band, but the graphic novel (read:  comic book) collection of issues five to eight.  Now any graphic novel is, quite naturally, a marriage of art and writing, and Love and Rockets excels in both arenas. 

Love and Rockets is written and drawn by the Hernandez brothers, Jamie and Gilbert.  Rather than being the standard collaboration that one would expect to see when there are two names on the masthead, Love and Rockets is an anomaly:  each brother creates his own work independent of the other.  The stories are completely different, each with its own strengths.

Jamie's art style and characters are the ones I love the best.  If I tell you that his characters live in a world populated by stereotypical comic characters - superheroes, robots, monsters - you'll think, uh huh.  If I tell you that his characters, Maggie and Hopie, are Betty and Veronica look-alikes, you'll probably be hitting the 'Home' page on our website tout de suite.  If I tell you that these Betty and Veronica look-alikes are a couple of punked-out chicks, one who works as a mechanic and one who is of questionable sexual orientation - now, does that capture your attention?  These two hang out at punk concerts and attend crazy house parties, or spend their time adding to the already grafittied walls in East L.A.

At first glance, the art of both Hernandez brothers appears to be your typical male-objecti fied art - lots of T and A.  Taking a closer look, however, you'll notice that it's the characters of the women who are rounded, who are individualized, while those of the men are that of your stereotypical dorks, little more than single-minded neanderthals. It's the women in these stories who are multi-faceted, intelligent and interesting. 

The look of the pages Gilbert does, while not as appealing to me personally, offer the most powerful stories.  There are no heroes and no villains in his tales.  All his characters are victims of one type or other; the setting is reflective of the dispair the characters feel.  Tension is apparent in every aspect of the pages. 

The genius of the Hernandez brothers is apparent in the pages of L&R, and when when one looks at a partial list of their influences, there is no surprise as to why.  Gilbert includes Fellini, Dan DeCarlo's Betty and Veronica, Sophia Loren's early cartoonish film roles, and Elvis (to name but a few) as his influences, while Jamie has Jack Kirby, The Sex Pistols, the 60's TV Batman, Paul Klee, the young Bardot, and Johnny Cash as some of his influences (again, a greatly abbreviated list).  

So, if you're looking for reading material with some corny Sci-Fi elements, written in a non-standard expository style sans narrative captions, or you'd just like a taste of Betty and Veronica doing 80's punk, then Love and Rockets might just be the thing for you.    & nbsp;

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Oct. 13, Vancouver International Writer's Festival, Christ Church Cathedral

Authors Ian Rankin and Mark Billingham

Mystery writers Ian Rankin and Mark Billingham were both over from Britain doing North American book tours, and stopped briefly in Vancouver to do readings.  The evening was moderated by Vancouver mayor and 'Da Vinci's Inquest" script writer Larry Campbell.
Edinburgh based Rankin, a former music journalist, was the headliner of the evening.  However, Billingham, a former London-based stand-up comedian, held his own on stage against the well-known Rankin.
Billingham started off the evening with reminiscences of his last reading, which took place in Somerset, England -"a place where the people all have flat foreheads and one name."  He continued with a number of great anecdotes, including the top three heckles that he had witnesses while performing as a comedian.  From there he talked about the genesis of his series, and read to us from the first chapter of his latest novel, The Burning Girl, which deals with the topic of organized crime in London.  He suggests that a commonality between fiction writing and comedy is that you don't 'build up to it' - you start off good, and stay there.  The selection he read from The Burning Girl was graphic in its violence - perhaps a good choice for the Halloween season?
Ian Rankin was amusing, interesting and articulate - not hilarious in a stand-up comic sort of way, but he kept the crowd laughing. He talked about the issues of depopulation and immigration in Britain; about his neighbourhood, (nicknamed 'Writer's Block' by the locals) where he lives on the same street as two other extremely well-known Edinburgh-based authors (J. K. Rowling being one of them); about the origins of his character Rebus, and how he has evolved from there.  He talked of the pressures of writing about a character who is living in 'real time', who works at a 'real' police station in Edinburgh (you can take tours of all the Rebus sites in Edinburgh, the police station where he works being one of them) and who only has four years left until retirement.  Finally, he did a reading from the most recent Rebus novel, in which Rebus is dealing with being transferred as a result of his station losing its DCI (something that has happened at this police station in real life, so Rankin had to write it into the novel).
Finally, there was a short Q and A session followed by a book signing.  One of the audience members pointed out that the first episode of CSI New York bore uncanny similarities to Billingham's first novel about a serial killer who keeps is victims alive in comas.  Hmm.  Turns out their lawyers are talking as we speak.  The plot thickens...

The Killers, September 3, The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC – sold out.
An alternative band from Las Vegas – does that qualify as an oxymoron? I don’t know myself, but the fans that turned up to see The Killers weren’t disappointed. After braving the long, long line-up (which stretched all the way down Granville Street, around the corner and down Smythe, and then up the alley) we enjoyed a great show. The crowd had its share of rugby-lovin’, beer drinkin’ misogynists. Other than that, quite frankly, I don’t remember much...

Scissorsisters, September 24, Richard’s on Richards, Vancouver, BC – sold out.
Who’d uv thunk it? An Elton John sound-alike making it big in 2004. Currently getting lots of airtime in England, the Scissorsisters is a New York based band with roots in the Pacific Northwest – the two lead singers are both from Washington State originally (Seattle and Vancouver, Washington, to be precise). With a mix of Elton, glam, and dance grooves, Annamatronic kept the crowd moving throughout the show, urging Vancouver to ‘lose it inhibitions’. Hope our town fathers don’t hear about it – they’ll be shutting every club in a 30 mile radius down… We started the evening with a great DJ and things progressed from there. The crowd was mixed – a bunch of 70s disco-style wearing kids at the front, a smattering of trannies, and the rest of us. Definitely the feel-good show of the year.

Franz Ferdinand, September 26, The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC – sold out.
I’ve gotta say two things before I start raving about FF – their opening acts were better than I’ve ever seen (as opening acts, I mean) and the whole crew was just SO professional – never kept us waiting, but at the end of the show left us wanting more.
At 9 precisely (and I mean that – they marched on stage like a troop of soldiers coming in for roll call) The Futureheads hit us with a full-frontal assault. Bright, quick (apparently none of their songs are longer than 2 minutes) and energetic, these guys from Northern England gave us everything they had – and more. Next up (exactly at 10) was Delays, a band from the South of England. A different style altogether, and the most notable thing about this act was their keyboard player – wearing a polka-dot top with a big stripe down the centre, he pranced around like HE was the lead singer. He’d stand at the brink of the stage and peer out over the audience, and at one time even stood face-to-face with the lead singer in the middle of a song, obscuring everyone’s view of said singer. What was it all about? No idea… but memorable. Finally, Franz Ferdinand was up at 11, and they did not disappoint. It seemed like their set could have been a bit longer, but other than that, they were fantastic. This Glasgow-based group has a whole truck-load of songs like their hit ‘Take Me Out’ which really take me back. Overall, a 10/10.

An evening with Siouxsie, September 27, The Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, BC
Well, after four late nights in a row seeing a bunch of great bands, I was getting a bit tired – and this wasn’t helped at all by the fact that Siouxsie had no opening act, and then did not appear until between 11:30 and midnight. Three and a half hours of so-so Djing just didn’t cut it, unfortunately. The crowd was a mix of trannies, the PVC set, old 80s fans as well as a few new recruits. Rumours were running rampant, especially after an especially nervous-sounding staffer appeared and assured us that Siouxsie WOULD be out momentarily, that she WAS in the building. I don’t think he had anything to worry about – I estimate that the average age of the crowd was somewhere in the vicinity of 35-40, so it wasn’t as though a riot was about to break out. Siouxsie came on in a long silk kimono, and played very few ‘old’ songs, but still gave an energetic performance. Unfortunately, quite a few of the crowd was leaving prior to the end of the show, something we did not see on the other nights. I especially loved her back-up singers, a set of very slim (can I say anorexic?) Persian-looking twins, who danced like something out of one of those ‘60s music shows. Overall, a good show, and it’s great to see Siouxsie still lookin’ and soundin’ great after all these years.