I just wanted to share a picture of my tomato harvest.

The little ones are Moneymakers, the yellow ones are Golden Sunrise, the stripey ones are Tigerella, the normal looking ones are Gardener’s Delight. I also have giant pumpkin looking ones which are called Marmande, but they weren’t ready yet when I took the photo. They are all delicious and taste subtly different. If you post me a self-addressed box, I will post you a sample. Teehee.

My potatoes are also pretty much ready. I just need a sunny day to harvest them. They are Desiree (normal, red skinned), Pink Fir Apple (bobbly, a bit like ginger in shape) and Salad Blue (purple on the outside and inside!). I like to remember that potatoes come in all shapes and colours too.

I was also sent a list of 17 beans for 17 bean soup the other day. I had never even thought of all the different kinds of beans there must be in the world!

Musing on the idea that there is an incredible diversity of species for most things, I thought this quote,

“The biologist JBS Haldane was supposedly asked once if he could say anything about God from his study of nature. Haldane replied He must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

And the website where I found that quote also had another mini cosmos of diverse beings on it - the Science Tattoo Emporium. A place where scientists who have got tattoos to do with science can send in photos and explainations. You’ve gotta see this. I’ve never really liked tattoes very much as most modern, western designs I’ve come across seemed very whimiscal to me, the lack of content seemingly unsuitable for such a permanent medium. But these have made me change my mind. Some are the best tattoos I’ve ever seen. “Fitting the Foundations of Mathematics On One Arm.” Now that’s a tattoo you could think about for a while.

There are two half-handed cloud posts you may be interested to open in a new tab, as it were:

Sounds Familyre is the blog of the Danielson’s record label, who also host some of John’s CDs.

Magnetic Magpie is in a language we can’t download. We now have reviews in Russian and Japanese we’ve never read, which is fun. I’m hoping for one in a creole or patois I can half understand. I think that would be the best of both worlds.

and another blog has just opened run by friend of the family Darryl Chen. Half the men in my family are architects, so it’s no surprise I’m interested in this new architecture blog. The other reason I mention it is that I helped come up with the name in a pub:

Tommorow’s Thoughts Today 

We just recieved these shots from the show in Indianapolis. Looks like a great space and it’s great that people were given gloves to handle the books.

Hello Everyone,

I’ve been making a lot of lists lately, mostly just for fun. One of my favourite ongoing lists is celebrities who function as sort of cheaper versions of other celebrities. That doesn’t mean they’re less talented, or less wonderful, just that if you wanted to cast, say, Darth Vader for a movie, but you couldn’t afford him (after all he is a stellar A-lister), you might settle for Judge Dredd instead.

Here is what I’ve got so far - feel free to contribute!

(”We’d like to cast” on the left…….. “but we’ll settle for” on the right!)

Denzel Washington …….. Eriq La Salle

(I actually thought he WAS Denzel Washington in one hour photo. He was playing FBI after all!)

Morgan Freeman ………… Danny Glover
 
(they actually make a joke about this in “Be Kind Rewind”, Actually Mos Def and Jack Black are probably good substitutes for Eddie Murphy and Jim Carey I guess!)

Tommy Lee Jones ………. Harvey Keitel

Vladimir Putin…………….. Daniel Craig

Pierce Brosnan ………….. Rob Lowe

Pamela Anderson ………. Jordan

Al Pacino ………………….. Dustin Hoffman

The Harrison Center for the Arts in Indianapolis have put some of our work on show during their current month-long exhibition, and it is receiving praise and interest. And we’ve been informed of a strange co-incidence in that John Ringhofer, our latest collaboratee, has also played a show there in the past. The Center sounds very astutely run, and what we’ve heard about Indianapolis paints it as a very interesting place, a proper post-industrial playground. Big flats, big studios, faded grandeur…  

The show has been a huge success, we’re told, with over 600 visitors on Friday and 250 on Sunday, and we’re looking forward to seeing some images of the show.

Ping* and I just popped to Edinburgh with our friend Kenny to see Tom Waits play. Definitely one of the most extravagant things we’ve done in ages, but it felt GREAT! It was an amazing gig; he roar-sang with the whole of his body for more than two hours, stamping on a weird circus-surplus platform covered with imported dust. By the end he was soaked through with sweat and lightly coated with said dust. I got the feeling he was definitely where he wanted to be in his career. He looks and sounds the way he’s always wanted to. I was especially pleased to hear the cemetry polka, and on another song he kept repeating the refrain “I know, you know, I know” we’re going to be laid down in the ground. He was a street preacher. The Saxophonist was playing two saxophones at once! And two of his kids were there too; it’s a family business, and to us an inspiration.

Eddie Farrell spent the day at the workshop attempting to reduce his to-do list. We had a fun time of it printing and talking through our hats.

It’s a good thing to take new people down to the workshop; they often avail themselves of opportunites that have been staring me in the face. Today we bought coffee in a stratford kiosk I’d never have expected to serve espresso, the kind that’s a tiny window framing a man’s face surrounded by snickers and a couple of dirty mags for earrings. Later we went to the new cafe I’d not thought of popping into. Here’s a print we knocked up on a flattened cornflakes box:

Thanks to everyone who came along and joined us for our evening at the Foundry. We’d been making this print all week with John Ringhofer of Half-handed Cloud {above}, and it culminated in this music and live-print show {below}, featuring the 12 foot wide vinyl {or LLLP!} spinning stage. Special thanks to John and also to Annette, Ariel, Bruce, Evan, Kerry, Mike and Murray who helped bring it to fruition. The print is now available to buy here for £15. It is silkscreened white, red and silver on textured bordeaux paper, manufactured using wind-power, with three linocuts in the windows at the bottom.  

We’ll be on the radio again tomorrow, I’ve pasted in the info from John Ringhofer’s bulletin: 

Hello!Thanks to those that came-out to tonight’s live printmaking/sing-a-long peformance in London on the giant 12-foot turntable. Really fun. We’ll try to post pictures before too long.

For those who couldn’t make it, we’re going to play on London radio on Friday, June 27th on the local, avant-garde(?) radio station. We’ll be on the “Late Late Breakfast” show (at The Foundry) from 12noon-1pm (London Time).

For more information, listen here:

We’ll be streaming live, and you can text-in messages to us. It’s very informal, and the Henningham Family Press and I will just be one of the guests there.

It’s mostly discussion, but I think we’ll be playing one or two of the new songs, also? Feel free to listen in!john

You may have often heard us praising the gifts of John Ringhofer, the man behind Half-handed Cloud. Now you can hear him for yourselves! John is coming to do a print with us, and to celebrate that print, we’re putting on an event with him at the Foundry bringing together the pressing of prints that we do, and the pressing of vinyl records; one of John’s preferred formats…

We’ll be bringing back the live printing in a set that will include HhC songs never heard before and a ‘vinyl’ record 12 feet wide {rather than inches}.

Come and join in!