winter blues (via mobile)

Bookshop window, Charing Cross Road.


Debit machine, Hoxton Street.


Plaid stained glass window in our bedroom.


Jamie's bum in our bedroom.


Mysterious shop, Hoxton Street.


Doorknocker, near Brick Lane.


Locked lock, Regent's Canal.


Building under construction. (It says, "This is a canvas" along the top.)


Fixer-upper, near Victoria Park.


Pink winter blossom and a grey wall, near Columbia Road.

missing the moon, ost

The soundtrack to an imaginary teen movie, featuring songs and additional score by The Field Mice. Here, interspersed with images from the films that inspired it.



Canada by The Field Mice.
So Bored by Wavves.
Catch by The Cure.
And Before the First Kiss by The Field Mice.
Holiday by The Other Ones.



Porno by Clinic.
Come On Shake It by MC Shy D.
Triangle by The Field Mice.
Somewhere by Barbra Streisand.



The Happening by The Supremes.
Bust a Move by Young MC.
OCD Go Go Girls by Lovvers.
This Love is Not Wrong by The Field Mice.



Rise Above by Dirty Projectors.
Little April Showers by Funny Bunny Easter Gang.
Souvenir by Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark.
Missing the Moon by The Field Mice.
Waitin' for a Superman by The Flaming Lips.

Images from Son of Rambow; One Crazy Summer; Playing For Keeps; Rita, Sue and Bob Too.

quit the day

Wednesday here was a winter wonderland. The snow sat on the top of branches calmly and gleaming white. Out our window, the trees looked like the ones we were drawing a couple years ago: Branches skimmed in bright white like a glowing outline.

Everything went neatly that day. Some re-design ideas of ours were quite easy to put into reality; a little tinkering here and there, of course, but finishable. The results were printed out and appeared substantial.

The next morning, everything turned to slush. Our alarm didn't go off. We got a letter stamped "pre-court notice." Turns out the year we never got any phone bills suddenly evolved into a letter from a collection agency claiming hundreds of pounds in back payments.

Sometimes the best thing to do is give up. When a day is starting off all wrong, change it. Quit the day. And so we drank a double Jarvie at four in the afternoon and set out to the free Vampire Weekend gig at Somerset House after all.



Somerset House: The view from the front balcony; grand entrance.

Context was everything; the audience watched the band play on a balcony above the Tiffany-sponsored ice skating rink. The columns were lit up blues and purples. We were invited to skate but despite the romance of it all, we declined. It all looked appropriate for the band: Very waspy, very F. Scott Fitzgerald.


My Tiffany's-themed cupcake and a pint of bitter.

A trio of American students stood in front of us. They were rather like the three young geeks from Freaks and Geeks, grown up and studying abroad. "Are they British?" asked The Jewish One regarding the band. (He kept talking about "Jewish" this and that, so I take the liberty of presuming.) "No, they went to Columbia, like me," replied The Almost Cool One. (His hair was just a bit too frizzy.) "They have a song about the bus route I used to take!" he added proudly. "Cross-town?" asked The Goofy One. (He seemed enamored of Almost Cool and quite pleased with his urbane speculation.) "Yep." A little while later, The Jewish One said, "I didn't realize Columbia has a good music program." It was a pretty great line, as if he'd only ever hung out with his dad.


Vampire Weekend.

As we waited for the band to start, we began designing London Las Vegas. "The highest paying guests can have tea with The Queen," said Jamie. "A drag queen," I added. "Trafalgar Square will be the main gambling floor," said Jamie. "And you can just see a bit of Picadilly Circus." "The slot machines," I added.

We left a little early. Vampire Weekend were fine. That wasn't really the point. It was good to be out. We both had to pee, though, and Jamie had to go so badly that he marched us right into Walkabout, the Australian-themed restaurant. "What are we doing? What are we doing?" I whispered as we walked quickly, stiffly, through the vast terrain, past picnic-bench tables of big guys watching sport on big screens against the backdrop of a big grill. I felt distinctly like we were Brett and Jemaine, the New Zealanders from Flight of the Conchords, and that everyone would find out we weren't from Australia and mock our accents. Jamie was experiencing sweet relief, however, peeing at the urinal in front of a video advertisement of a happy family in a park or something like that. "Go go go!" I whispered as we made a swift exit past a pair of hamburgers that, if this was Flight of the Conchords, would break out into song.

We walked along the Thames just a bit, past some hotels and up one of the alleys, peeking through a stage door, getting a bit of a thrill from the ropes and rigs and grease paint. We walked past a traditional pub, illuminated, and through Covent Garden at closing time and took the tube home. Sometimes you just need to go to town.

The next day, I felt determined not to lose another day, slush or no slush. These things are helpful, I find, to the person who works from home: Wake up early. Shower. Get out of the house before noon so that some fresh air hits your skin. Listen to "productive" music. (NO SHOUTS NO CALLS by Electrelane and the WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE soundtrack have been working for me.) To-do lists. Quick meetings. Jeremy? Present. Jamie? Present. Have we got a gig yet, Murray?

radio diaries

You enter with the ring of a sturdy-sounding bell at Jones Dairy on Ezra Street, and as you close the sturdy-feeling door behind you, it seems like you've gone back in time. We were tempted by the unpasturised cheese. But we're trying not to take in too much dairy as we're getting over our colds. Instead we splashed out on some brown eggs and two loaves of bread, including the soda bread below, which elicited noises (like "mmmm! mmmm!") as we ate it with butter while preparing to make a spaghetti omelet.

Oh, a spaghetti omelet is something that Jamie does with last night's leftover spaghetti. Suppose it is more of a frittata, really; whatever it is, if you can get it to hold together, as Jamie can, even with chick peas, it is very tasty. That's how we cook. Oh, and spicy is good.



Jarvis Cocker's BBC Six show, which I promised to update you about, was a success, I think. With only a bit of fumbling and a genuine sense for banter, he railed against America's marketing of Coca Cola (in a tangent related to the new film version of The Road) and baited listeners to convert him to the charms of the Grateful Dead. I say railed and baited, but he was quite diplomatic about it all, really. The Grateful Dead bit introduced a segment during which listeners suggest a song by a band that Jarvis "doesn't get," and the tune with the most votes is then played towards the end of the show. "The jury's still out," said Jarvis after listening to "Box of Rain." We were equally ambivalent.

Jarvis opened his show with a song called "Snowed In" by Tim Rose, who recorded the album of the same name during the last year of his life. (Producer Colin Winston-Fletcher has compared the process to "trying to tame a lion with a rubber chair.") With that slow, dark entry point, the silky Silk Cut voice of Jarvis led us through a rather contemplative program, with an almost theatrical flourish, nicely complimenting a rather grim but cosy Sunday afternoon. He even read a short story about abandoned Christmas trees by Richard Brautigan. He's got a good reading voice and you hear every word.



Above, our two new cacti, picked up at the flower market for a pound each, saying hello to that little monolithic trooper that's somehow managed to stay alive a few years now despite a constant slight-withering. Jamie thinks they're doomed, can you see the chill on the windowsill alone, but we'll do our best. We try to act like it's California in the kitchen. Kyle, do you remember our winter "summer parties"?

We had gone to the flower market to "collect calls," as I put it, from the vendors for use in one of our London postcard designs. "Three hellaborous for a fiver!" was my favourite; Jamie liked, "Four lupins for a fiver!"



It's nearly seven in the evening here now. The Sunday paper is scattered, the crossword half done. The Speedy one, mind you. We're working on it. BBC 6 Music is still on; we're listening to Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone and C.O.B.'s Spirit of Love is the "featured album" of the show. I think the radio is the centre of our home, don't you? You must have noticed that by now. Oh, and the Marmite jar in the photos says "Marmite is horrid," a bit of British marketing for you, with an irony I suppose you wouldn't find in America with Coke. Eh, Jarvis?

I wish we had a cat. The broken lucky Chinese cat waves gently when it gets strangled by the vacuum cleaner cord. It's not the same, though, as watching a real live furball slowly inhale and exhale as it sleeps.

the cold spell

A beautiful book, given to us by Jamie's dad, is helping us get through the post-Christmas blues. We haven't even cooked any of the recipes from Tender yet. (For one thing, we're waiting for a replacement refrigerator to be delivered, and in the meantime the milk chills on the windowsill and we can't shop for anything perishable.) But Nigel Slater's thoughtful ruminations on vegetables, paired with images that look more like high art than food photography, lead us into a world of comfort and nourishment, and are getting us prepared for a lot of cooking. Well, I'm sous.




Speaking of tenderness, we've noticed that the gentle work of master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu is the subject of a two month retrospective at the British Film Institute. I am remembering the Ozu season at the Pacific Film Arhive back when we lived in California. We went to a few of the screenings, and at the last the curator shed a tear.



After the Christmas decorations come down, winter looks bleak. Something about this year's prolonged snowfall is making us turn to the internal meanderings of psychedelic sound. In particular: Wooden Shjips and Stormcock by Roy Harper.



Hibiscus, liquorice root, nettle, echinacea purpurea root, natural raspberry flavour, natural lemon flavour, aloe vera extract. Ahhhhhh...



Sundays in the summer are all about long walks and BBQ, but now we're looking for any excuse to stay inside, and here is a GREAT one: Starting this afternoon at 3:30pm, Jarvis Cocker has his own radio show on BBC 6 Music! Writes The Guardian Guide, "His melodious Yorkshire cadence and endless supply of dry one-liners are tailor-made for radio anyway, so perhaps it was only a matter of time. Plus he's got good taste in music, so we have high hopes for his first regular outing on 6 Music."

SO excited. We'll keep you posted on that program. In the meantime, a quick brisk jaunt to the flower market... This morning there was a boy across the street doing exercises in the snow wearing just shorts and t-shirt. It motivated us to buck up and at least get some fresh air.

january mix tape

Enter Laughing by Electrelane.
The title makes for a good opener, and anyway this song is just so cool. The octave jumps in the middle make me feel like I'm flying. I miss these girls a lot actually. But they left us wanting more, didn't they.

String Quartet No. 4 by Béla Bartók.
Sister by Sufjan Stevens.
Somewhere between intimate and epic, both of these songs make me think of the next decade. Like a pencil drawing of the apocalypse. "What the water wants is hurricanes, and sailboats to ride on its back."



We Want War by These New Puritans.
If you really were to include this avant-garde 10 inch on a mix for a friend, you'd probably make that friend angry with you. But in our theoretical January mix tape, it is a must: Super intense start to 2010. Released on Monday in the UK.

By Tomorrow by Black Tambourine.
The New Year's hangover lingers: Aren't all of your thoughts still about "tomorrow"?

Accidents on Purpose by Unwound.
I don't know, it just makes sense.



Norway by Beach House.
Totally lush. Actually, sounds a lot like early '90s band Lush. Stands on its own, though, don't get me wrong: The song grows and grows on you, I'd say, until the melody sounds like it was always there. And that's the biggest compliment. Let it get under your skin.

London, London by Caetano Veloso.
Included because we are working on a series of London postcard designs. And for the line, "While my eyes go looking for flying saucers in the sky," a theme which will appear again with the last song on this list.

The First Big Weekend by Arab Strap.
Wishful thinking: A song about summer that sounds like it was written in winter. "So that was the first big weekend of the summer... Starts thursday as usual with the canteen quiz and again no-one wins the big cash prize... Then on friday night we went through to the arches..." And so begins a rambling journal entry of a pop song about getting drunk with friends. And it's quite beautiful, by the way.



Die Slow by Health.
The mix needed something nihilistic-but-danceable, and I can tell that Jamie doesn't like "Bad Romance" by Lady GaGa, even though I (Jeremy) find myself humming it in the shower. This is a better nihilistic dance song anyway.

One Life Stand by Hot Chip.
After all this doom and gloom, the new Hot Chip single offers a bit of hope: Let's get married and move to north London.

Brother Sport by Animal Collective.
I have a cold. I'm confused about my goals. My mind feels like the middle of this song. In other words, CRAZY.

Love is Overtaking Me by Arthur Russell.
Message of the millennium.



Memory of a Free Festival by David Bowie.
I had completely forgotten about this song. Jamie got frustrated with me for not remembering. But what more could you want than to be able to hear a song this good for the first time all over again. It is perhaps another song about summer written in winter. Plus, aliens.

january grit

January is gritty. Like the sore throat you've got from New Year's Eve cigarettes and the icy air when you've forgotten your scarf. Grit, it's what you put on the pavement so that people don't slip.



We've been using bars of Imperial Leather soap. I keep thinking, this would have been the soap used by Jimmy from Quadrophenia. It's a grandad's soap and I imagine it was once a son's and grandson's, too.



On the way back from the Perigord Noir (a 13 hour journey and five of us in a Skoda), Pete saved our lives by DJing from his iPod. When night fell, he played "The Lady With The Braid" by Dory Previn. The lyrics are sublime. Here, Jarvis Cocker agrees.



Lapsang Souchong, pots of it. It's cold out. Bill Fay: "the frost to awaken my soul."

The scratch of wool and pull of clothes with a slightly odd fit. Jamie's peacoat is a children's size 16; my peacoat is a women's size 14. The feeling of things being slightly off. Complicated by the guilt of not being able to catch up, or get started. Bob Lind, "pursuing something I'm not sure of."



Revisiting These New Puritans' 2007 album Beat Pyramid.

It seems like The Pretenders are always on the radio these days.

The snows fall down, so many big fat flakes. Outside, bobble hats and some people walking careful and slow, others sliding on purpose. John Martyn, "Bless The Weather."

Getting tangled up in fairy lights in the kitchen while the speakers play Beach House's "Norway," almost transcendental! I took them down as Christmas lights but restrung them elsewhere; I couldn't just turn the lights off.