Consequences

I wonder if any of you have played consequences. You probably have. There is also written way of playing, but this is the illustrated version. A group of people plays, and each player is given a pen and paper. At the top of the paper they draw a head. They then fold down the paper, to conceal the head, but to leave two lines (denoting the neck) showing. They then pass their sheet of paper on to the next player, who draws the torso, and so on. When the paper is unfolded, the most hilarious drawings often appear.

Jake and Dinos Chapman used a variation on this game to create their Exquisite Corpse Series. There work takes the humour of the game in a darker direction, with results like the image below.

Bottom image courtesy of http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/chapman-chapman-exquisite-corpse-p78457

Decorative dates

I brought back these deliciously decorative dates from the souks in Morocco. I chose them because of their striking colour palette; the near black of the dates contrasted with the whites and bold orange of the sweet decorations. I thought you might like to have a look before they're all eaten.

          

              Typewriter

Morocco

Whilst in France, I found this postcard at a flea-market. I bought it because I was about to spend the next two weeks in Morocco, and the image on the postcard is that of a Moroccan Souk. Staying in a small, isolated Berber village made me feel both very far from and very near to the basic elements of human society, whilst Marrakech was a typical -exciting- bustling city. In fact it was almost overwhelming; the crowds, the smells, the orange juice and snakes. I tried some haggling in the Souks, but wasn't very good- although one man did offer to buy me for 49,000 camels.

Crucifixes

I've just got back from France, which I will write about more in the near future. But as I am going away again tomorrow I thought I'd share three of the crucifixes which I saw on holiday. They were dotted over the landscape where I stayed in such quantity that I decided to document them. These are three of my favourites, with the one on the right being my absolute favourite.

Swimming man

Sparse wet hairs age his foetal form,
Suspended in liquid
A metamorphic man-baby.
Swimming.

Words

I paint a picture with words,
The colours stir and splash.
A thick line and a thin one,
A dot, a ragged dash
Syllables, blue consonants,
Come pouring from my pen,
A textured vowel, an open 'o',
Sibilance, and then,
The poem seems to peter out.
The flow of words has ebbed.
As we will meet our maker soon,
Each 'a' will meet its 'z'.