Biophilia

Isaac and I went to Bjork's Biophilia on Saturday which was as predicted absolutely amazing it was her last show in Manchester so the encore was slightly more 'hooligan' than all the other nights (which was a lot of fun). Biophilia is about the extremities of nature; from the cellular and microscopic to the galactic and planetary, I have always found these aspects of biology a lot more interesting than the organismal and ecological. But I think this is because I find comfort in the fact that we are insignificant; that life in both the tiny and massive scale is much more advanced and complicated than humanity. Because while we will eventually fade and disappear, life will exist in some tiny molecule and there will still be some habitat in space for it to survive in. In the words of Rick Blaine "it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world" I think that my childhood love of Casablanca has led to my bleak view of the world.

Anyway back to Bjork (I will need to do stuff to my mushroom ragout soon so tangents will be at a minimum), so many of the songs in biophilia were about my favourite things such as the moon, DNA, solstices and cells there was of course a song on plate tectonics. If only she had done a song on photosynthesis it would have been perfect. Every song had some video to accompany it which are all going to be iPad apps and I think the idea is that you can alter the song by playing with the app (which is pretty cool). The plate tectonics one showed magma moving around under the earth's surface and the breaks in continental plates; this was very useful for me as volcanoes tend to be formed around the spaces between these plates. The volcanic ring of fire marks the edge of a tectonic plate; I say it was useful for me as I find it very interesting but don't really know where the plates are and the video showed this. The song didn't have an eruption and seemed to be constantly building up to one but never quite reaching it and was more about the events leading up to it. There was a female Icelandic choir who were fantastic, the other best new songs were the moon one, crystalline and the virus one. However some slight critisms would be that it was half way between a concert and an art installation but not quite either therefore the delivery wasn't quite right so you couldn't really see the stage. Also pretty much all of her old songs sounded better than the new ones, Isaac was particularly happy as she did Mouth's Cradle which is his fav but I loved the time lapse fungi growth to Isobel. But it was absolutely amazing and I might have to buy an iPad so I can play with the Bjork apps.

Sorry this has been very rambling; maybe Casablanca isn't really that relevant so in the words of Bjork 'thank you' (really its funny when she says it as she has a great accent)

I'm sorry

For the lack of activity, it's not because I've lost my love for volcanoes or I've got nothing to say. But I have just moved and have no internet, plus everything is in boxes. Here are two lovely volcanic links while I don't have time to do a decent post.
I really need to go to this exhibition.

Ash pictures.

I'll write something amazing and inspiring soon plus I'm gonna make some blog changes so that's something to look forward to (if you are looking forward to it, I pity you)

Stamps

My Daddy sent me a picture of a volcano stamp which lead me to search for more images of volcano stamps. Which obviously there are countless of as so many countries have volcanoes and are such big features of their landscapes. I love the Lesotho stamp which has a lovely scientific diagram, Iceland and Japan being so great have countless volcano stamps.

 Sadly there doesn't seem to be enough to warrant having a volcano stamp album but maybe I can make some.

Tenuous Volcanoes

This is going to be one of those everything that I have seen recently that slightly reminds me of a volcano posts. So it could be crap, rambling and boring or really amazing and insightful. Firstly this blog is about a year old (it's useful when you have a similar birthday to your blog) so that's possibly good and worth celebrating.

Firstly I've got another track for the upcoming and coming volcano club CD, still waiting for Alice's specially commissioned piece (see interview in Love, Lust and Lava) this video was actually sent to me by her brother. That family are very into volcano music. If anyone has more suggestions for the compliation please let me know.

I saw the film Le Quatrro Volte over the weekend which was fantastic. The opening and closing scenes consisted off an earthy smoking mound, which was very reminiscent of a volcano with lots of lovely little fumeroles. This is how charcoal is made, I suppose volcanoes can also make charcoal . The film has no other volcano references just a lot of lovely goats, a nice old man and a great tree. But it did give me an idea of how to make a volcano like structure and some good winter fuel.

Finally the newly opened Turner Margate gallery actually only has one Turner painting, which is of a volcano, the same painting that inspired the Turner to Warhol exhibition. It's of the Caribbean volcano Soufriere Hills which erupts fairly frequently. I think they were probably planning on having more Turners there but then they saw the volcano and thought that nothing else would stand up in comparison (which is how I frequently feel).

As I predicted the ash cloud was fine and I'm definitely flying to Sweden, YAY!

Obama's gone down in my opinion polls.

I love Barack Obama as much as the next person(more than many), this video of him buying Guinness is probably the best thing I've seen all day; Obama is cool (it's been a bad day, I almost saw a Manchester City parade). I just think it's a bit wuss of him to leave Ireland just because a volcano is erupting in Iceland, despite there only being one letter change it's not the same country, Obama is so stupid. I'm so sorry Barack, I love you, I really really do. But due to last years madness of the Eyjafjallajoekull eruption (which is interestingly your favourite volcano) every time a little volcano erupts people go mental and think they will never be able to fly anywhere again.

It was Grimsvotn that erupted and it is thought to be the most powerful eruption in Iceland in fifty years, it the fact that this eruption was so powerful that it is likely to be less disruptive than Eyja. The eruption is thought to be short and powerful meaning there will be no prolonged danger to air travel. Grimsvotn is also home to sub-glacial lakes and most of it's eruptions are thought to have been sub-glacial. The volcano has the same fissure system as Laki (Iceland's biggest volcano) and was erupting during Laki's massive 1783 eruption. Another link volcano and extraterrestrial link here- bacteria found in the sub-glacial lake are thought to be keys to life on Mars. These bacteria were the first to be found surviving in low oxygen conditions which are kept slightly heated by the volcanic warmth, as there are volcanoes and lakes on Mars (which is pretty cold) this is possibly of how life could survive there.

to be fair there was quite a lot of ash

Things I have seen about volcanoes today.

There have been a couple of things I've seen today related to volcanoes, non of them very exciting. Maybe due to my sheer disappointment that there were NO volcano related songs in the eurovision I'm looking for volcanoes more than ever. I do not count Jedwards hair as volcanic, just ridiculous. The first thing is the current volvic advert, which to be honest is pretty crap and just has a grassy volcano erupting water. A youtube search discovered this gem which I vaguely remember from a couple of years ago and is firm proof that volvic should stick to adverts about volcanoes, not dancing babies as that was just weird. This volcano is called George by the way, which I think is a nice name for a volcano. 

My dad text me about the second volcanic event which was Alberto Contador winning a Giro d'Italia stage at Mount Etna. Ever since seeing Contador winning the tour de France I've been a big fan of his cycling so I'm delighted he won this volcanic stage. It looks pretty great too.

Volcano of the Week #16- Paricutin

I have been looking at Mexican volcanoes recently mainly because my Daddy told about the artist Dr Atl who was a revolutionary in both the political and artistic sense. I'll write more on the subject soon, I'm sure, but I thought I'd first write about the volcano that has made them a prominent feature in Mexican culture. There is also literature on the subject such as Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, which is on my volcano reading list (I do have one). Paricutin is amazing as it emerged in 1941 as the farmer was plowing his fields and reached five stories high in a week. For the first year of it's life it grew rapidly in a pyroclastic phase (high speed gaseous eruptions). The volcano continued growing and erupting then stopped in 1952 at 424m high and has been dormant since; most cinder cones tend to only erupt once (mongenetic). As the trans-mexican belt is large there is frequent volcanism in the area, however it is the rapid growth of this volcano that is so iconic.

 Erupting

 Not erupting

Paricutin is one of the seven natural wonders of the world. (Wikipedia fact of the day is that there are also Seven Wonders of Wales which are all in North Wales so its not very comprehensive.) The Volcano buried nearby villages in ash and they had to be evacuated. While the volcano erupted without warning the relatively small size gave people warning to sort themselves out.  Despite the rapid growth of the volcano it caused few fatalities, the biggest loses were to crops and subsequently livestock but this effect was reduced due to the rich nature of volcanic soils. 

This website is devoted to Paricutin

Dr Atl painting

News Relating to Love, Lust and Lava, I have 20 copies left, let me know if you want one and I'm currently in the process of setting Thera aka Kolumbo with a very hot date!

Volcano of the Week #15 - Vesuvius

As stated before I will try and cover all the volcanoes you can vote for. Amazingly although I have written about Vesuvius before it has never been volcano of the week so I though I would rectify that. Vesuvius has also been on my mind this week as I have received a copy of the exhibition catalogue for the Volcano exhibition that I went to at Compton Verney last year in which Vesuvius was the most widely featured volcano. The catalogue was very kindly sent to me by the exhibition's curator for which I am very thankful.

Andy Warhol- Vesuvius

Vesuvius is such a well documented volcano that it is quite hard to write about, The chapter in the exhibition catalogue is called 'The Romance of Vesuvius' which is very apt and shows how the volcano (the 79AD eruption anyway) is swathed in stories and such a common reference. I'd say about 80% of references to volcanoes are to Vesuvius and the destructive event of 79AD is probably the one that most people of think of when they hear the word volcano. And it's hard to say why as many eruptions, Krakatoa, Laki, have been more powerful and others have been just as dramatic, Santorini which produced the same utter destruction to a civilisation as Vesuvius. It was thought that absolutely no life survived on the island of Krakatoa after the 1883 eruption. I suppose it's partly due to Italy being an important centre for artists which firstly gave it a reputation and the volcanoes popularity has grown. Which is why you find it in paintings by Warhol and in songs by Flaming Lips and Sufjan Stevens (I should probably make a volcano compilation CD) and in novels by Susan Sontang and Robert Harris. I think that for me Vesuvius is almost an embodiment of everything I love about volcanoes, the amount of myth and legend relating to it, the references in popular culture and art, and the geological features of the eruption. I do however think that the fascination with Vesuvius is a very Western thing, as Mount Fuji is an equally well documented and referenced, although doesn't have the same destructive history.

Some people hanging out by Vesuvius 

What I should probably say about Vesuvius is that in 79AD it produced a Plinian eruption (the term Plinian comes from Pliny the Elder and Pliny the Younger who died in and witnessed the eruption retrospectively) and buried the towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii which were discovered in 1599. The eruption preserved the towns remarkably well has given the town a ghostly and eerie feeling.

Modern Vesuvius

This has been quite a strange Volcano of the Week for which I apologise. In other volcano news I have done lots for the new zine and there will be a volcano round at my pub quiz on Tuesday, I'll let you know how it goes. 

Volcano Flag

As I am now unemployed I thought that learning all the flags of the world would be a good use of time, so far I've got Europe, South America and North America down. Think Africa will be the hardest although the rise of African football teams should make this a bit better, sporcle is obviously the main facilitator of this quest. So I began thinking that it would be great if a flag had a volcano on as picture flags (Lebanon, Sri Lanka) are often the best. I did find a great flag, it is the unofficial flag for Reunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, which I have written about before.

 The official Reunion flag also has a volcano on but its shit. This flag was created through a competition run by the French Society of Vexillology (flag study) so they obviously agree the official one is shit.

 Also Etna's erupting again, following many conversations at the pub over the weekend, I've realised I don't know much about Etna, which I'll rectify soon.

Please vote for your favourite volcano at the right of the page.

Volcano of the Week #9- Mount Fuji

It has been a while since I've done this feature some would say too long, some would say not long enough and most were probably blissfully unaware that it ever was a feature. I thought I'd write about what (for reasons that I am about to describe) is fast becoming my favourite volcano, you can vote for your favouritcano at the link at the side. My love of Mount Fuji has started partly because I got two Christmas presents relating to it (boxcano and diarycano, see the post a couple down) and is probably after Vesuvius the most common volcano in popular culture. The most famous representations of Mount Fuji are two series both called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai (boxcano) and Hiroshige (diarycano), if this is making sense to anyone I'll be impressed. Below is an image from each of those series. 

 Hokusai- The Great Wave. Which is apparently the best painting ever, obviously after Rolf Harris' portrait of The Queen

Twilight Hill- Hiroshige (the other chap)

Fuji is a stratovolcano which is 60 miles outside Tokyo so overlooks the city, making it such a prominent feature in Japanese culture. At 3,776m it's Japan's highest point, it's last eruption was in 1707. The Aokigahara forest at the base of Fuji is surrounded by myths of supernatural beings and in recent times it's gained a reputation as the world's second most popular suicide site after Golden Gate Bridge. The forest is incredibly dense, the floor consists of hard volcanic rock and has signs urging potential suicidees to reconsider. The trees are mainly white cedar, pine and boxwood. I guess there are pro and cons to the volcanic soil and amazing flora there but all I can find out about is suicides so if anyone who has like a degree in Plant Science wants to tell me about the flora that'd be great. The younger Fuji was formed mainly between 11,000 to 8,000 years ago, flank vents were formed between 2000 and 3000 years ago, the 1707 eruption created a new crater. 

Aokigahara Forest

 Massively Japanese

Terry's Plagiarent Orange

Now if there's one thing in life that I have a natural talent for then it's making volcano based wordsearches and if there's another thing in life that I'm good at then it's making ridiculous volcano based food. So how do you think it feels to have these two talents being used (and not used very well) to market popular Christmas confectionery products? Not very good, I can tell you.

 So Terry's you stick to what you're good at (making chocolate that looks like fruit) and I'll stick to my more volcanic talents, yeah? Also putting popping candy in something does not make it volcanic, you have to construct something that actually looks like a volcano not just shove in gimmicky sweets. And if volcanoes erupted popping candy and lava was made from chocolate, then I don't think they'd be the amazing natural disaster that they are.

Thanks to my mummy for sending me this, although it would have been nice to get some actual chocolate not just the packet.

Voliconos

Following on from the most recent issue, here are pictures of people who look like volcanoes. Let me know if you have any more.

Cyndi Lauper- I'll try and stop going on about much I love her- but look how cool she is!

Little My- should also probably stop going on about how much I love Moomins, her temper adds to her volcanicity and apparently I look like her, may also be due to grumpiness. 

Sideshow Bob- hair is the main way in which a person can resemble a volcano

Amy Winehouse- many reasons for this one

James Dean- smoking enhances a volcano likeness (see above), a personal style icon and the reason why I carry a comb in my pocket.

Brian Blessed- looks and acts like a volcano

Louis Saha- people say this hairstyle was a mistake but the poor boy was just trying to look like a volcano.

Bjork- like many on this list, I just really love her

Steve Bruce- pre eruption

Gerard Depardieu- crater nose

Regan McNeil- is her name, vomit is a bit like lava I suppose. 

So in conclusion most people don't look that much like volcanoes but this has been a very welcome opportunity to tell people how great Cyndi, Little My, James Dean and Bjork are.

And of Clay We Are Created

When this is the second paragraph in a story,

First a subterranean sob rocked the cotton fields, curling them like waves of foam. Geologists had set their seismographs weeks before, and they knew that the mountain had awakened again. For some time they had predicted that the heat of the eruption could detach the the eternal from the slopes of the volcano, but no one headed their; warnings; they sounded like the tales of frightened old women. 

you know it's going to be good.  It's pretty much guaranteed that everything good in life will somehow (however tenuously) be linked to volcanoes, the theory has now been proven for Isabel Allende. This is an extract from The Stories of Eva Luna, which is a follow up to the novel 'Eva Luna'. It's a book of short stories told by Eva so it's stories within stories which is always nice. Many of the stories contain the same characters as Eva Luna, this one concerns Rolf Carle who ends up as Eva's lover (don't worry this isn't a spoiler). Rolf is reporting on the volcano erpution and encounters a girl, Azucena, trapped in the rubble as they both struggle for her survival and suffering he is reminded of the forgotten suffering of his childhood.

This was probably my favourite story in the book, but I am slightly volcano biased so the others are all also probably worth reading.

Songs of the Volcano

This is quite a lazy post for which I apologise, but basically I have been listening to some volcano related music recently. And when I say related I really just mean songs or bands with the word volcano in. If it was actually music made by volcanoes then that would be far more impressive and worth blogging about. Firstly we have Volcano Choir, who are very Bon Ivery (probably due to the fact that they have one of Bon Iver's members in) so great if you like that sort of thing.

The second piece of volcano music is from Islands, they are Canadian; if that fact doesn't make you want to listen to them, then nothing will. (thanks to Chris for pointing them out)


Hopefully I will do a less lazy post soon. Fashion issue is coming along nicely, so soon you should all be dressing like lovely volcanoes.

The Volcano People

This film looks amazing it's set in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia which I have written about before but what I didn't know is that it's home to the moat active volcanoes in the world and therefore incredibly beautiful. The indigenous who live there are called the Eveny people, they are of Mongolian descent and are practised in the ancient art of throat singing which is obviously great. Like the rest of the former Soviet Union the area was totally shaken up by its break up, however being so vast and far away we tend to forget about Siberia especially as it is as much a part of Asia as Europe. The film is about them and their relationship to nature particularly volcanoes (obviously). From this trailer it seems that they believe in living in tune with nature and not going against its grain. Which is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, I think we'd all probably be a lot happier if we did it more; I heard a good interview with Antony Hegarty and Bjork in which she was saying that she feels happy and energised in Iceland because it still has links to nature unlike cities like New York. I'm getting off topic now, but this is definitely a post for another time. In the meantime here's the trailer

"The Volcano People" Trailer from Webmaster on Vimeo.
 This is my favourite quote

disaster happens but opportunity often lies at its wake.

It's a very beautiful way of looking at the world and I'm really excited about seeing the film.

Green Volcano Man

I went to Green Man festival at the weekend and it was so awesome, that I decided to make some volcano links (as all awesome things are somehow linked to volcanoes). I have four (maybe slightly tenuous) links, I'll start with the least linked and work upwards to an amazing volcanic climax.

1. Beirut (New-Mexican Balkan folk band) who played on Friday and are pretty great have an E.P called Pompeii which was a town destroyed by a volcano.
2. Pompeii am Götterdämmerung is song by Flaming Lips, which I think was the penultimate one (it's all a bit of a glorious blur) and involved Wayne running around and hitting a big light up gong which was amazing. Götterdämmerung (twilight of the gods) is the last opera of Wagner's ring cycle and therefore pretty mental.

3. Ingrid Bergman a song originally by Woody Guthrie (I think) and covered by Billy Bragg on Saturday Night. It's about when Ingrid Bergman made the film Stromboli directed by Roberto Rossellini (which therefore produced Isabella- brilliant). The song uses the volcano as a symbol to metaphorically show their love. While she is one of the most beautiful women that ever lived, I'm not sure I could ever see her as volcanic (but I've never seen the film so what do I know?)

4 Last one, before I said this is the best links but actually it's probably the worst. Apparently the landscape around Abergavenny and Crickhowell, the site of the festival was crafted by a volcano in a prehistoric times. I can believe it as it was amazingly beautiful but I was told this by a boy who thinks a stoke is an animal.

Basically a pretty perfect weekend

Choose Your Own Adventure

I don't think I've ever been this excited when getting a book from Amazon but this book may well change my life



It's a Gamebook so you make decisions about how best to win the book! There was a similar goosebumps series (but I don't they ever had any that included volcanoes). The series was produced mainly in the 80s and other amazing titles include The Abominable Snowman, Hyperspace, Prisoner of the Ant People, The Phantom Submarine and Inside UFO 54-40; which has some pages about a utopia to which none of the books options reach (maybe its a bit dangerous encouraging kids not to play by the rules though). This one is about getting some magic sword from a volcano in Hawaii so hopefully I win first time, I'll let you know how I get on!

CYNDI!

I been trying to work out why I love Cyndi Lauper quite so much and I think that apart from the fact that she's absolutely amazing it's in no small part because her hair resembles an erupting volcano. You can also do the brilliant patented whip off of your hat to recreate an actual eruption, seen in this iconic video for Time After Time and also the equally excellent When You Were Mine. So for the ultimate volcano fancy dress look to Cyndi (and for many other style and life lessons).





Cyndi- I love you

Tintin and Volcanoes

Tintin has always been a massive influence in my life (for example my best friends are a small white dog, a violent drunken sailor and an eccentric professor) and I have recently realised that this spreads to my love of volcanoes. Flight 714, the penultimate tintin book involves not only volcanoes but also aliens. I know; volcanoes, tintin and aliens is an absolute winning combination. It's probably one of the strangest adventures but I still love it.




As well the excellent Tintin series Herge also wrote the adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko. Which I suppose is a bit like a dumbed down version of Tintin. My older brother had all the Tintin books so Jo, Zette and Jocko were my thing. The second half of The Secret Ray (eruption of karamako) was all about a volcanic eruption and some cannibals so pretty great really (also Jocko is a pet monkey)