this is london

And so it begins ...

taken by moms at the airport ... of course


when we got to london, we discovered a terrace-type space attached to our room. it was weird. but not as weird as ann trying to crawl into her armpit. no not really, but it did take a day or so to adjust to all the weirdness.


the ceiling at the charlotte guest house (w. hampstead, what what!) was this cool embossed fake-plaster piece of work.


ah the brits, nothing like a good pillage! (it was just in the papers there that greece REALLY wants these back now. they're leaving space in their new museum for them, despite britain continuing to insist they have the greater claim.)


another one. yawn, right? no....part of the parthenon. oh, all those art history classes came in handy.


headless beauties


ann was pretty excited about these asyrian horses.


keith was pretty excited about these beards.


hall of heads.


moobs!


doing crack @ tate modern


mmm ... crack


doris salcedo did that so hopefully you won't have to ...


ann's crack (so many crack jokes ...)


keith - totally cracked. bad, cold lunch kinda near tate modern. cold veggie patties - yum.


the wobbly bridge.


this is ann getting back to her old job of taking art blog-type photos at Hotel Gallery in east london. the galleries here were, overall, disappointing. or rather, the work was. the galleries were pretty cool and the scene seemed largely vibrant. (ps: ann has new turquoise oxfords...thank you Topshop in london for saving my feet!)


this place was called "ska scooter." the prices were high (double those of the american vintage market) but my love remained.


hey, east london hipster artists like to gangsta lean their canvasses too! cheerio, mofos!


nice brogues.


nice horns ... @ some temporary gallery space (oh wait, just remembered, it's called lime wharf)


same space.


some tony oursler wannabe at vibe gallery, east london


britain loves newspaper art. here's another artist doing it. this one is of some note, we just can't remember his name right now. let's say mayor mccheese for now.


this is part of above. the artist arranges the paper headlines by each letter. so it starts with all the a's...and so on. pretty neat. he/she did a ny times page.

this space was awesome, but the art, as you can see, was boring. keith was rather upset to see that she (the artist) could afford eames chairs (as depicted in one of her drawings) by selling this crap.


the wooden stairs had a rough/cool/unfinished thing happening. ann later referred to this place as "home depot gallery." it was funny.


totem poles of modern plastics and such at another gallery. the whole little district had the recently-completely-and-and-still-mostly-industrial area feel of miami's warehouse gallery district. weird how that works.




this was upstairs.


so was this.


this was at vilma gold.


this was also at vilma gold


a secret little photo snapped despite the hawkish eyes trying to prevent photos at white cube gallery in shoreditch.


1001 cafe/dance club on a Brick Lane side street. this area is now london hipster central, it seems. the club was cool, we had a nice table, some beverages, a burger and some fries. ann also had her very first pain au chocolat and instantly fell in love.


after taking in the turner prize retrospective at tate britain (quite good - but tons of guards, so not photos), we left for paris. this is the kitchen in our 6th floor walk-up studio in the 11e. it's perfect and we want to live here. immediately.

more paris to come ...