The ancient word of the day is Uncanny. This is the feeling of encountering a landscape, person or object that is both frightening and unsettlingly dissonant. Freud coined a similar word for this “unheimlich”— which is to say, eerie and both homely and unhomely. I'm sure you would be able to recall some uncanny encounters,…
Like a dodgy acid trip or a Oompa Loompa village, this broken down theme park in New Jersey is enough to give you the shivers. Modelled on a Germanic Village, the candy coloured houses look like something out of a Grimm Fairytale. Fairytale Forest was built built by German Immigrant Paul Woehle in 1957 in…
Continue reading ➞ Creepy Theme Park Will Linger in Your Dreams
At least 7 years ago now, I WWOOFED in Andalucia, helping out with cleaning and cooking at an Andalucian B&B villa just outside of Vejer De La Frontera.The work was far from easy although I did happen to live in a mountainside cabin (cheap fibro, but yet still my own for a wee while). I loved the location and the cabin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3jXQys7QY In November last year (and in June this year) I spent a lot of time going from place to place on the Shinkansens in Japan. I found the landscape really hypnotic. The whole experience of being in a swiftly moving and sleek metal worm as it snakes its way through the bowels of the…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A sonic and visual journey into techno on the Tokyo to Kyoto Shinkansen
It's funny to consider power plants and sewerage plants as beautiful, but these old buildings certainly trump any industrial building built in the last few decades. Relics from the dawn of the industrial age, they were designed with immaculate attention to detail and a timeless aesthetic. Nowadays they either accumulate weeds and cobwebs in obscurity,…
Continue reading ➞ The Most Beautiful Relics From The Industrial Dawn
Waiting in transit, Tokyo Copyright © Content Catnip 2018 www.contentcatnip.com Everyone is always in transit and a great metaphor for life is that we can only ever trust in the constant flux of change. Forget about the serenity of temples, impermanence is ever-present in JR stations, subway stations and airports. There is something magnetic about…
Continue reading ➞ Every picture tells a story: In transit in the JR station
I filmed our recent road trip. The track you are hearing is Halcyon&On&On by Orbital, a rave-era classic I love and it always makes me feel uplifted and happy and ready to embrace life with an open heart and open hands. I superimposed some of my interesting oil, glitter and water experimentations over the top…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: The Eastern Cape by Content Catnip
If you ever consider moving to Auckland or going there for a visit – don’t. It’s a place lacking any sort of personality or vibe, a wasteland of sorts. As the most populated city in New Zealand, it is the engine room in terms of tax revenue for the government. Yet the city lacks all…
Ueno markets are tucked into a unique pocket of Tokyo filled with interesting characters selling unusual goods. It's a world within a world. The funky music you are hearing is by 70's British funk band Cymande, the track is called Dove. It gives the video a lovely vintage feel. I don't own copyright to the…
People seldom visit the Eastern Cape of the North Island because of its complete isolation from the rest of the country’s bustling travel routes. It’s quiet in terms of other cars – there are none, except for the occasional local farmer and logging truck ferrying wood from forests to the port in Gisborne. It’s an…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A roadtrip through the remote Eastern Cape of New Zealand
Nara has had sacred significance long into the ancient mists of time in Japan. Long before Tokyo and Kyoto became the capital of Japan, Nara reigned as the most important city in Japan, its capital from 710-784 AD, before this mantle was passed on to Kyoto. By decree of the emperor of Japan in 724AD,…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A curious history of Nara’s holy deer
Oeskiki is an annual buddhist festival held on the 13th of October that commemorates the death of Nichiren in 1282. He was a revered buddhist teacher who lived during the Kamakura period, about 700 years ago. Although celebrated throughout Japan, the main Oeshiki festival is held at Ikegami Honmonji Temple located in the Ota ward…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: Oeshiki Festival of Light, Ikegami Tokyo
Ryōan-ji (meaning the Temple of the Dragon at Peace) is a Zen temple located in Kyoto, Japan. The Ryōan-ji garden is considered one of the finest surviving examples of Japanese Zen temple garden design generally featuring distinctive larger rock formations arranged amidst a sweep of smooth pebbles arranged in immaculate linear patterns, designed to facilitate…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: Magnificent Ryoan-ji temple and gardens, Kyoto
The odd and wonderful bibliomat book vending machine
Although it’s very easy and possible to typecast people from specific countries as being (in general) bad tourists. I have neatly avoided that here. It’s a cultural thing though, for sure.
Netsuke are uniquely Japanese and sublime in their beauty. They are tiny objects carved of ivory, ceramic, wood, tortoise-shell, gold or many other materials. They tell the story of the culture of Japan during the old Edo period and before. Netsuke featured fishermen and farmers, who rubbed shoulders with scholars, samurai warriors, royalty and even…
Continue reading ➞ Netsuke & Gashapon toys Ancient Japanese treasures and modern collectibles
https://goo.gl/maps/aVRoYzgf55E2
People seldom visit the Eastern Cape of the North Island because of its complete isolation from the rest of the country’s bustling travel routes. It’s quiet in terms of other cars – there are none, except for the occasional local farmer and logging truck ferrying wood from forests to the port in Gisborne. It’s an…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: A roadtrip through the remote Eastern Cape, New Zealand
I visited my family in Melbourne over the new year's period and tried to take some hyperlapse footage of some of St Kilda's landmarks such as the pier, Palais Theatre and the creepy, omniscient clown smile of Luna Park. The results were a bit shaky but, I think, still managed to be compelling in a…
Continue reading ➞ Atmospheric hyperlapses of St Kilda landmarks
Our new camera got a big work out on our night walks through the eastern suburbs. This looks towards the city centre and with a huge zoom on the camera we were able to capture the night-time hustle and bustle of the Ports of Auckland. A constant fixture of background activity is always going on…
Continue reading ➞ Every Picture Tells A Story: Auckland by Night Part 2
