Music, books and films.

Would I ever stop buying things?

.......Maybe not. Maybe never...........

*Beneath The Surface Vol4 - A Bella Union Sampler

Especially Black Ice by Ohbijou (such a beautiful website!) and Keep you eyes on the road by Paul Marshall are so so beautiful that I find myself listening to them again and again....

"staring at your innocent skin wondering how I fucked this up but I surely did"

.... Mr Paul Marshall, could you be my best friend please??

*South of the Border, West of the Sun , Haruki Murakami

Another Murakami book.... addition to my Murakami collection...

*The Flaming Green Tree Trilogy, Kenzaburo Oe

I've just started reading this and already liking it. This is the second book I read by this author (the first was The Changelling which was also good). I normally don't like award-winning types of writings but am finding his work really personal and fascinating... makes me want to visit Shikoku next time I go back to Japan....hmmmm maybe not. Maybe it's better to leave it in my imagination...hmmmm...

*Confession, Ko Machida

This is the most entertaining book out of all my recent purchases but my least favourite too. Maybe because I like to live in metaphors and this is a bit too straight-forward directly into your face... maybe I like "reading between lines" too much. Maybe a few too many maybes when I talk about my love of things haha. But when I like something, I can't even explain why I like it sometimes... just like everyone else I hope?

*Innocence directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic

Beautiful film. Girls of that age are so sharp and fragile...

I think the director is the wife of Gasper Noe. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. His earlier films such as canon and carne are also amazing... Irreversible is a bit too strong for me. I went to see it by myself and cried in a cinema in the middle of the film. How naive.

*A box set of 3 films by Leos Carax, which doesn't include my favourite Les amants du Pont-Nuef!! eeeeee!!! But still, I like his other films too.

Sigh..... I will go bankrupt soon.....I really shouldn't have gone to Fopp. London trapppppppppp......

Amelia's magazine

God. I haven't updated my blog for a month! This is badddddd........ I've been busy with Graduation etc etc for a month. Yes it's an excuse, isn't it? Well well well...

I got interviewed by Amelia's magazine the other day (thanks to lovely Alice) and it's online now!

http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/amelias_blog/2009/08/yuko_michishita_a_new_traditio.php

See? I wasn't just doing nothing...!!!

Love from nice and sunny Brighton. Big boo to all those leaving Brighton too!!

Post Degree Show Personal Reward

First of all, big thanks to those who came to our London show!

Everything went well in the end and we had a big fun time.

Again, I was too busy having fun and looking after the bar (aka apologising to all the people there that we only have water or orange juice with a sad look on my face... sorry everyone who came. We really didn't think the drinks would go that quickly..), I forgot to take photos...

Some lovely people said nice things about my work and also we got blogged about quite a bit which makes me happy.

Anyway, I thought it should be time to give myself a reward.

Books books books!!!

Classic reward to myself. My family (especially my dear mummy) was very strict about everything from not leaving food on the plate served to you to never wear clothes with cute characters embroidered but was so generous about books purchases that I never considered the prospect of not buying books I wanted until I was about 20, which is probably a bit too late.

Well it's a reward to myself! so I went on amazon.co.jp and spent about proper 3 hours browsing on and on and on...

Eventually I bought 7 Japanese books I read when I was little and am getting all of them sent here to Brighton! Hooray to the world of international shipping!

This is the first one arrived about a week ago. One of my favourite books of my childhood, "Never Ending Story".

I must have read it when I was about 10 because I remember the thickness of the book was quite challenging when I first read it. But I conquered it within a week and really REALLY loved it. This is exactly the same version (the cover and illustration inside) as the one I read as well which makes things sooooo special. I remember being careful not to damage the beautiful red cover!

I finished reading it last week and it was as good as I remembered, which is very, very good. I'm kind of thankful that I had to go to London every day for a week for the Degree Show preparation so that I could read it every day on the train even though I was very busy.

By the way I've got a mixed feeling about the film Never Ending Story... As a film, it's not bad. But the thing is that I read the book first and the book was soooo good that I was expecting so much from the film. But! the film didn't live up to my expectations... The film is like a badly Photoshopped version of the book even though I have to admit that I had a massive crush on Atreyu. (Also I thought Moon Child was so pretty.)

I've just received another one of the books today. I've just started reading it and again, it's as good as I remembered so far. It's quite a dark story about British origined "Little People" (they're like fairies about the size of a thumb.) living in War-time Japan and a Japanese family who's looking after them. The father of the family gets imprisoned for being anti-war and the older brother of the family becoming militaristic.. wow I'm realising how dark and deep this story is. It's meant to be a children's book though!

I'll probably write about it sometime soon!

Degree Show

I went up to London to see Central Saint Martins MA/Graphic Design, Illustration, Digital Media show and also CSM BA Graphic Design show. I took so many photos of the work I liked and also took their business cards too. I was looking through them all yesterday only to find out that there were soooo many people in these shows that I didn't remember which student did which work...etc. How embarrassing.

Here are some of the photos I took. If you happen to find your own work here and are upset about me putting the photos without your permission, please do let me know! But just to let you know, your work is up here because your work is amazing!! (so please don't get upset too much ;)

By the way Brighton Uni Graphic Design/Illustration are having a London show!

The schedule is as follows.

2nd/July : Private View from 6pm til late

3rd/July : Open from 10am - 8pm

4th/July : Open from 10am - 8pm

5th/July : Open from 10am - 8pm

6th/July : Open from 10am - 8pm

It is at Rag Factory off Brick Lane. It's near Truman's Brewery where Free Range is.

There's going to be workshop by

3rd/July : Alex Bec and Will Hadson of AlexBec / It's nice that

6th/July : Jim Stoten

and also Peggy Sue are playing in the evening of the 6th (final night).

Wooooo yesss I know it sounds worth a visit, doesn't it?

Wooooo if you don't come, trust me you're missing out a big time!!

Creative Review

Faceless Women Trilogy 1: Harvest is on Creative Review Magazine website now!

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/feed/june-2009/08/faceless-women-trilogy-1-harvest

Also University of Brighton BA Graphic Design/Illustration 09 Graduates website is up, too. Lots of nice work promised to be found there!

http://gdi09.co.uk/

The private view

I was at the Brighton Uni Degree Show private view last night. It went superbly well and I got to talk to very nice people who could possibly give me some commissions (always welcome, ALWAYS!) and lots of mums and dads of my dear friends. It was a bit weird and sensational seeing the parents of my fellow students I've known for almost 3 years for the first time though. Seriously, some of the parents/siblings looked like different gendered/aged versions of them. (Yes I'm talking about you, Josh!) I repeated "wow they're like crones..." quite a lot in my head, but of course I had enough self-control and politeness not to say it in front of them even though I'm one of those people who can't hide what they're thinking. Apparently my face shows a lot about what I'm thinking according to my dear friends. So well done me.

Unfortunately I was too busy running around having a good time and forgot to take photos... But I'm thinking of asking people if they've got any photos from last night and if they do, I'll post them here soon. Fingers crossed.

Thanks to all those who came to the private view. Hope you had a fun time!

*****Brighton Uni Degree Show*****

is finally going to start on the Friday, 5th of June (private view starts in the evening open only to ticket holders) but is going to be open to public from the Sat, 6th of June until Thur, 11th of June.

It's going to be open from 10am to 8pm, with an exception of the final day the 11th, opening at 10am closing at 4pm.

Time to head off to Brighton everyone! The weather's nice here and you can lay on the beach too...