likes, loves and lusts

gloomy bear

Posted by on | | 1 comments

Gloomy Bear is unlike any character to come out of Japan you may have seen before. He's cute, he's pink, and he's attacked and maimed his owner :ol
He's so bizarre. He's so cute and cuddly, and yet dangerous and crazy-like. In this cartoon, Pity (the little boy) dreams of all the things he's going to do with his new favourite pet, Gloomy. But Gloomy's reaction is anything but cute and cuddly - he knees Pity and sinks his teeth into the back of his head!
Robin brought me a vinyl Gloomy from London, and he's brilliant - he's got blood splashes all over him, and red plastic blood dripping from his mouth.
Gloomy is designed by Mori Chack, and has become a major franchise in Japan, much like Hello Kitty - but darker. He's the Hello Kitty for a generation that can now see the world clearly as a pretty dark place, where not everything works out the way you planned it. He's sitting next to my bed at the moment :o)

jose gonzalez

Posted by on | | 5 comments

We went to go see Jose Gonzalez performing live at Wits Unitversity last week (the guy who did the music they use for the sony bravia bouncing balls ad).
While I like his music, I admit I didn't know too much about him. Turns out his parents are Argentinian, but he's Swedish. He doesn't speak too much english. And he plays guitar like he was born with one in his hands. It's amazing to watch - I've never seen anyone re-tune their guitar between songs to change the key. Simply amazing.
It was a little disappointing that he didn't have more original music, but his covers are really cool too. Besides "Heartbeat", the track that made him famous, actually being from The Knife (who you HAVE to try get a hold of), he did a pretty cool version of Kylie's "Hand on your Heart".
All in all, I'm really pleased we went - add to the list of things done in 2007: "see live international acts " - TICK!


Did I mention we went to meet him and get our CDs signed?

my blog, my old friend

Posted by on | | 0 comments
So it turns out 2007 is even more intense than 2006 - and it's only February. So much has happened to us this year already - funerals, road trips, overseas travelling, renovations - it's crazy. I haven't been on my little blog for a while. There was a particular post I was waiting to write, but I think I'll write that one when I find the right space. Until then, I'm not going to let it stop me from blogging - synchronicity be damned! I miss my blog, my old friend :)