Complexity and paradox in Israel
Where to begin? Coming here, I thought I knew something…and I guess it’s possible to get information from books and news articles but after four days here and after having spoken to dozens of people, everything seems so much bigger.
My only worry is that I can successfully communicate what I’ve learned by the end.
From a conversation yesterday:
“Most Israeli artists are left but what can you do? The economy is set up to make the Israeli people weak. You’re too busy worrying about paying your rent to think of going against the government.”
Skateboarding and copyright in Tel Aviv.
Vice Mag tried skating with the Hezbollah. I managed to skate the month-old concrete park in Tel Aviv.
The park was built by Gridline who did a seriously amazing job. People here are really stoked about it. I wouldn’t have thought that skate culture was so big here but it is – which is really rad because essentially no one is thinking about getting sponsored or anything. Instead, people are just into skating to skate.
The kids are rad too. Everyone reminds me of someone in North America. This one guy that looked like Tony Alva called his friend emo and asked if I knew what that meant.
Before the skatepark, I spent some time in a t-shirt shop off one of the main streets here. The operation is pretty intense. You can imagine that importing stuff is pretty costly so instead, a lot of things in Israel are made in Israel. Not only does this place print their own shirts but they make them too.
The most hilarious thing was that the owner would see some graphics on gigposters or threadless and simply download and print them. I suppose that licensing doesn’t really matter in this part of the world but seeing a MURPHY’S LAW design on a pink shirt is pretty funny.
No one really cares what’s on a shirt as long as it looks cool. The only has been doing this for 15 or so years. He also sells his own designs for dress shirts, jeans and other types of clothing.
Welcome to Tel Aviv.
Tel Aviv welcomed me two days ago. I am here working on a project on Nightlife and counterculture in this city. There are some details I hope that will come out in the final product but I’ll leave it at that for now.
If you’re from Israel and reading this, feel free to e-mail me!
Getting here was pretty straight forward. I left Denmark Thursday morning on a train to Prague that dropped me off in Berlin. The few hours I spent in Berlin let me finally able to have cheap takeout (eating at a restaurant in Denmark can normally cost from $15-20). Besides getting my carry on bag searched in a SPEZIAL KONTROL room at Berlin-Tegel airport, Security at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv was easier for me than going to the United States too but I will only truly know for sure when I try to exit the country if the horror stories I’ve heard are true or false.
Leaving Århus.
From the S-Bahn to the U-Bahn at Alexanderplatz to meet my host.
“I åm in yür komputer testing für ze bømbz”
Germans are a lot worse than Danes at English which actually is kind of nice. You learn languages a lot faster when you are forced into it. And with a population of 80 million, it’s easy for Germans to get on fine without English. Denmark only has 5 million so I suppose that it isn’t too surprising that they must appeal to a more common language. It’s pretty wild to consider the population density that we find in so many countries. I had never thought of it this way but my host in Berlin told me that he often felt that Canada was kind of the Australia of the north: a few people in some places and then total emptiness everywhere else.
So far, things in Tel Aviv are very sababa. Shortly after getting in on Friday, I found myself sitting in on a band practice for a group called Got No Shame and later was at a packed party where Metalheadz First Lady of Drum and Bass, DJ Storm, was headlining. It’s also nice that after months of not being able to use my Visa in Denmark, Israel is all about it. I don’t really know why I can’t use it in Denmark but North American cards, even a lot of other EU cards don’t seem to work.
My Tel Avivi room (drapes on the ceiling are meant to catch crumbling cement and plaster)
A street view at 7am with the sound of bass still blasting from neighbouring venues.
A few more photos on Flickr. More to come. This country is amazingly complex. My hope is that by the end of my stay, I understand it a little better and feel confident in sharing this understanding with other North Americans.
African skinhead fashion
Using a roundup of mostly Ben Sherman, Fred Perry, Lonsdale and African accessories, Clayton Cubitt, a photographer from New York City, by way of New Orleans, created a series called Lagos Calling drawing from a number of influences in order to create a sort of alternate universe where Nigeria was a Mecca for black skinheads in the 70s.
I don’t know Clayton and tonnes of people are already talking about this series but I was drawn to the concept as it is both somewhat simple but also quite heavy. Also cool that, as indicated in Metro.pop magazine #31, where a partial set of the photos are printed, there were about 14 people involved in the whole project. Definite respect goes to the retouching work done by Gloss for the series. It’s rare that I buy magazines but when I saw Lagos Calling on the cover, I decided to treat myself. In the end, even if the overall writing, while serving a function, isn’t very interesting, the photos in the magazine kept me busy during my travel to Tel Aviv, where I currently find myself.
Printing photos on a skateboard.
I have no idea how to do this but my friend Brian Garson got it done through Ottawa’s On Deck skateshop. Brian’s been traveling and shooting with On Deck’s current team for a while now so it made sense for them to approach him when they decided to print photos on their 20th anniversary deck.
It’s pretty cool that a city like Ottawa has been able to sustain a single skateshop for two decades. Also cool that Brian got to be part of it all.
Sweet earphone hack.
En route to Denmark in August, which seems like such a short time ago, my trusty two-year-old Sony earbuds broke on the airplane. Unsure how to function without earphones but without funds to buy a quality pair, I got what seemed to be an affordable version similar to what I had before.
Besides the expected problem that the silicone buds would never perfectly fit my ears, these $15 Skullcandy headphone I got from a UK-based eBay seller were going pretty well..until yesterday – two days before leaving Denmark for Israel. Now I have to find another replacement. Four months is probably a new record for earphone lifespan with me.
So my Skullcandy headphones are only half-working and should be replaced but as for the problem of poor fitting, Hack-a-day gave me a good idea. Check it out.
I took some pretty standard foam ear plugs and cut a hole in the centre to fit them in the same way. They fit so much better now! If only the sound in the right ear would stop cutting in and out…
Videos about a Latvian and a Greenlandic
My friend Kalvis.
A while ago, I posted about Soundslides, linking to one I made about my Latvian friend. Since making it, he’s become a bit of an international celebrity and girls around the world are fawning over this baltic boy.
With another person from my school, I’ve since made another one about a Greenlandic woman living in Århus that you might want to watch.
As I have spent decent amounts of time in the Canadian arctic, it was interesting for me to compare the general opinion on Canadian Inuit with public perceptions about Greenlandic people living in Denmark. Likewise, it was a nice opportunity to listen to someone openly share her experiences.
Both are online for your viewing pleasure.
Kalvis from Latvia (one minute, nine seconds long)
Ane Marie from Greenland (three minutes long)
Photos from the west coast
Rune.
In my previous post, I wrote about foods I made during my week in Hvide Sande, on the west coast of Denmark. We didn’t leave Århus to cook in a nice kitchen though. We were there working on a magazine assignment and everyone was going after different stories. I started doing one about trawling in Denmark but switched to the local surf scene when a few contacts pulled through.
Running against 25m/s wind.
After staying up until 4:30 am working on layout and printing, the final product was finally complete. A 68 page magazine produced in a week a half by eight students. It is something that we created essentially for one teacher to see, I thought it would be nice to share it with others as well.
Download it here! (PDF, 9mb)
I didn’t use the trawl story but I still like some of the images that came out of it.
Flemming.
Palle.
Tjeck out some more photos on Flickr.
Foods I made this week.
Spending a week on the west coast with eight friends from six different countries is pretty fun and I guess cooking makes for a good way to procrastinate when you don’t know you have an Internet connection. The kitchen in the boathouse we rented was equipped with some of the most easily broken glass and dishware but throw in some hella sharp Fiskars knives and some solid cutting boards and I was ready for action. Here are some things I made:
- Chocolate chip cookies of varying chewiness
- Chocolate pie with an improvised coconut & oatmeal crust
- Roasted roots
- Basil and green onion potato salad (oil dressing, not creamy)
- Red peppers and vegetarian mock duck in black bean sauce (big ups to the local AZN grocery)
Basil is your new best friend.
Now I am back in Århus with a sleeping bag that smells like beer and forced to use dull knives and the most pathetic cutting boards you’ll ever see.
A photo editor’s blog
A Photo Editor is a blog that started in August by a photo editor for an unnamed magazine in NYC. The articles on the site are pretty diverse and offer insight on industry and business stuff to links to some awesome photos to ethical discussions…
Solid reading for people playing all kinds of roles in the photography world.
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