Hallowecano

It's that fucking time of year again when the impossible task of Halloween costumes is upon us. Obviously you don't want to wear one of those costumes that involves as few items of clothing as possible but you don't to want to wear a costume where no one knows who the fuck you are, the perfect example of this dilemma can be seen in mean girls. My personal examples of misjudged halloween costumes are Maggie Thatch and Pussy Riot member. However if you want a nice scary costume that is easy to do then why not dress up as a volcano? The best and easiest way to do this is have massive orange hair, then you can wear some kinda grey capey thing and you're an instant fucking volcano. The bonus is that any erratic or volatile behaviour can just be part of your volcanic act. Here are two of my fave singers who have got the eruptive hair thing down.

I've written about my love for both Cyndi Lauper and Bjork lots and lots before so I won't do it any more but all I will say is that Cyndi is massively underrated. Anyway happy Halloween especially if you're a volcano. 

Exciting Present from Etna

Absolutely ages ago, I got sent a really nice present from my friend Emma (a long term supporter of the Volcano Club) who had just been to Sicily. Like the good friend and volcano supporter she is she bought me a lovely postcard and present.

As you can see from the postcard the post got slightly damaged on the trip from Italy to Sweden via England and possibly France? This is because the aforementioned lovely present got broken, probably due to Italy's corrupt infrastructure. IT WAS A BRACELET MADE FROM ETNA ROCK! This is written in capitals because it combines two of my favourite things ever - jewellery and volcanoes. I know that on this blog I do say quite a lot of things are my favourite things ever but fuck off I'm just an enthusiastic person.

This is all that's left of the lovely bracelet but I do have rocks from Etna which is amazingly great. As I have moved since receiving the letter I'll probably keep finding bits of Etna in my stuff, which will be really exciting if I don't mistake it for gravel. Finding gravel isn't fun. But anyway it's quite funny because I made up some volcano jewellery in one the zines (which I made when I lived with Emma, freaky shit). 

It's becoming quite common that stuff I make up for Volcano Club are actually real things like cooking with volcanoes. This is a bit disappointing  but it's how Armando Iannucci must feel soon after every episode of the thick of it is aired. 

But anyway thanks Emma, it was a lovely present and I'm very pleased to have Etna fragments in my life- who wouldn't be. 

Celebrity Volcanoes

So apparently Katy Perry has climbed a volcano which in itself is quite dull news, mainly as it's about K Pezza, who lets face it is pretty dull. Also a moron as she doesn't even say which volcano she has climbed thinking that she is more interesting than volcanoes. Very few people are more interesting than volcanoes, actually I can't think of a single person but interest is quite hard to quantify so maybe some people don't find volcanoes interesting, but they would be mental. But this fact about Katy got me wondering if there were any other celebrities who were into volcanoes. The first thing I found was an article about throwing Chris Brown into a volcano which would obviously ruin an otherwise good volcano. So far I'm really not enjoying the mix of douches and volcanoes, imagine douching a volcano that would be really gross. But have actually found the celebrity volcano post that I have been looking for which is about a celebrity volcano poetry slam which in my mind definitely happened. I think it was an Eyjafjallajoekull response thing, the poems are about the same quality as my volcano poetry, maybe I'll write some more soon. Sting is a massive twat.

It's really hard to find good celebrity volcano pictures

I'll write a better post soon, maybe some volcano poetry or maybe about the volcano in Guatemala that has erupted as that would actually be volcano news. Or maybe I'll find something volcanic in Sweden but that seems quite unlikely it's a pretty unvolcanic place. 

Joga

This is going to be another Bjork post so I'm sorry, actually I'm not cos if you're not a Bjork fan THEN WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU READING MY BLOG? Right now that's out of the way let me get to the crux of the post which is that yesterday I watched a Bjork DVD and planned the next VCZ (I'm unemployed so I can do fun stuff like that). She was going on about Iceland and nature and volcanoes and all that cool shit and the song Joga uses volcanic beats which is pretty great. I'm struggling to find out exactly what that means, I think it means she did something very complicated involving recording volcanic beats. The album Homogenic which Joga is from is supposed to be sort of a return to Iceland so it's full of references to all that amazing landscape and Bjork wanted it to sound like "rough volcanoes with soft moss growing all over it..." Which you can see in the Michel Gondry directed vid. 

Also as I said I'm said I'm planning the next zine which is going to about the differences between eruption and dormancy but also how they are linked, how you need one for the other to exist so let me know if you've got any examples, Volcanic or otherwise. So I've got Melanie Hamilton Wilkes and Scarlett O'Hara, guess which is which?

If anything will ever make you want to go anywhere

I've just watched this programme Julia Bradbury's Icelandic Walk where she walks up to Eyjafjallajokull and sees lots of beautiful volcanic landscape, hot springs, sulphur vents, nice huts and lovely Icelandic people with jumpers. I really enjoyed the simple explanations of geology which are made easier to understand by seeing the stunning effects they have on the landscape. Another thing that was significant was the recentness of the landscape which means it is quite barren so this not only fascinating from a geological point of view but also a biological one as you will actually be able to see the vegetation and life forming. I just think I'm going to have live in Iceland, be a hut warden and paint volcanoes every day, going to Sweden should bring me a step closer. The lunar like landscape slightly reminded me of the Outer Hebrides which have a similar barren bleakness, geographically they are fairly close too I suppose. I also watched this video which has a nice culinary slant on the guardian website. It's really great for me to see so much about Eyjafjallokull as its eruption was really what restarted the Volcano Club and while I do love all volcanoes, there is something really magical about Iceland; maybe it is the new landscape, the contrast of fire and ice or just the fact that it's like no where else in the world. If you're not an Icelandophile (it's a real term) then here are some more pretty pictures of volcanoes, having said this if you're not an Icelandophile you really need to look at your life. I just did a Google image search for Iceland and literally every picture was amazing so I just picked the first one.

Now I have to find a costume for Fake Christmas- which is tomorrow incase you were unaware, I can dress up as anyone from history, ever. Which is a harder theme than you may think. 

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)

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.

Issue Three

Two days later than hoped but here it is- Issue Three. A lovely late Christmas present copies available from all good retailers.

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