My best laid plans for blogging this week seem to have all ganged aft agley. It's been the penultimate week of term and so I've been putting reports to bed and eating glorious Indian food. More on that anon. As my compatriot the former governor of California used to say, 'I'll be back'. In the meantime, to tide us all over, here's some more Bohemian Hackney mdf art to feast your eyes on. This little piece resides on Clapton passage and I just can't decide, but I think it's probably beautifully interacting with its environment. There are implications though that the subjects are trapped in their own depiction, non? It is covering up a house under construction in a dank area behind a shop and near a dumpster, if that aids interpretation.
When does street art become less edgy and more trendy? It could be when graffiti artists get commissioned, but I still think there are probably immense benefits to publicly funding a street artist and then celebrating his work, as happened last month with American artist Frank Shephard Fairey. Read about it here.
Photo: Teri Pengilley, Copyright The Guardian
I've also started a new page on this blog entitled other writing and hopefully will be writing more frequently for sites like The Hackney Hive and other assorted publications, so I guess, quite literally, watch this space. In the meantime, here is the review I did of Sheba on Brick Lane for Hackney Hive. I have to admit, I was surprised. These days, the Asian end of Brick Lane can seem a little tired, so I was glad to find a delightful pearl among the... other places around the area.
Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are. Many thanks for reading.
Weekend post! Weekend roundup? Something for the weekend? It's been a bit of an eventful week, so thank you for reading. I do feel like this thing has finally got some momentum going. Many thanks for all the tweets and for having a look and commenting. Whatever it's supposed to be called, here are a few things to tide us all over and chew on for the next couple days.
We Americans also celebrated our 236th birthday as a country. I think we're looking pretty good for it. To celebrate, I went out to the launch night of Islington's newest chic bar, Rattlesnake, designed and owned by Paul Daly, who also did Zigfrid Von Underbelly in Hoxton Square. Rattlesnake is an American style bar with a difference. Check out my review of the place here at The Hackney Hive. Let me know what you think of the place if you happen to check it out.
Congratulations to Madame Fromage, doyenne of the Philadelphian Artisan cheese scene, on completing her manuscript for The Di Bruno Bros. Cheese Guide based on the delightful Di Bruno Bros. Cheese Cave, at which my brother, Paul Lawler, the former local cheese impressario of Philly, worked for quite a while. I can't wait to read it. Makes me hungry for good-quality cheese. Time to hit Hackney Home-made or Chatsworth Road this weekend, me thinks.
Photo copyright of Todd Stregiel 2012
Finally, a bit of London Street art. On my road. Clarence Road if you must know. Home of the 2011 London Riots. Yes, Hackney is that edgy and Bohemian. Every bit of MDF covering a building is a canvas for our locals. I really like the way a gaze is turned outwards. It subtly implies that there is something behind this face, which there is (a building being renovated, probably end up a chic flat at the end of it all) and turns its gaze on the passerby in the street.
If you do happen to pass through Clapton in Hackney on Saturday, check out Millfields Community School Summer Fete, where you can see and buy children's art and where my beautiful and talented wife, who runs the Artbash blog, will be presiding over the display of student creations from Arts Week. Check out Artbash for the results. Really astounding what you can do with kids and creativity sometimes.
Whatever you are doing, have an inspiring couple days and do stop by and let me know if you get up to anything wonderful.
I used to be ashamed to be American. Used to hide my native colo(u)rs like a dirty secret, ape accents around me (a habit I think I still have a tendency to do) in order to blend in. Used to avoid my compatriots like the plague anywhere and everywhere they were to be found.
When I first emigrated overeas, eleven years ago, then to Dublin, I used to duck and run at the sound of the Southern twang, beat a steady retreat at the waddle of the Bermuda shorts, carefully conceal myself from conspicuous Californians, and make mild noises of disapproval at Midwesterners.
Sometimes with good reason.
'EX SCUSE ME, CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO TRIN-IT-TEE COLLEGE?' I'd often overhear, cringing on the DART line. 'YOUR LAST NAME IS O'BRIEN? DO YOU KNOW THE O'BRIENS OF CORK?' As if there's only one or even as if it could ever matter. 'WHERE ARE THE THATCHED COTTAGES? THEY MUST BE HERE SOMEWHERE!' Overheard walking down O'Connell Street, one of the busiest streets in Dublin.
The best example though of wonderfully embarassingly American behaviour was in the elevator (lift) coming down from the top of The Eiffel Tower. Having just experienced the majesty of the greatest of French cities from the zenith of that monumental edificial tribute to high modernism, I was still lost in the reverential afterglow of the moment when the over-sized t-shirt, aforementioned Bermuda short, baseball cap-clad retiree sharing the elevator with us pontificated to his similarly telltale dressed wife, 'WELL. BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. GOT THE T-SHIRT.' Which wasn't even true. He hadn't bought the t-shirt yet. Yes, for a nation of mostly passportless citizens, we sure do seem to get around.
However, just as the French Postcolonial Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon writes about the phases of development of the native intellectual, so I have seen my feelings towards my homeland evolve in different ways to reflect a sort of reconciliation. Oddly enough, it took an exchange with a couple of Irish colleagues, one of whom had said to me, 'Yeah, but there's no such thing as American culture is there? Just Disney and pop music.'
And just as I was shrugging my shoulders in shame and accepting resignation, it was another Irish colleague who sprang to my defens(c)e. 'Rubbish! The best novelists and poets are American. Jazz, The Beat Generation, The Hudson River School. Don't let Irish bedgrudgery cloud your vision of a country rich in culture.' I started not to after that. We do come from a rich and diverse cultural background that I declined to acknowledge for a large part of my life. Sometimes it just takes an outsider to help you see what has been hidden from you for a very long time.
I have since tried to correct this remission on my part, with some success. I'll never go around blindly celebrating the stars and stripes, chanting, 'U!S!A! U!S!A!' but my nuanced appreciation of America has helped me to reconcile myself to my national cultural identity. I've come around to helping confused Americans now instead of avoiding them and slipping them a few local survival tips while I'm at it (Don't say 'freakin' out loud, Avoid the black pudding if you know what's good for you, 'Mind The Gap' is a safety warning, not a sale announcement, that sort of thing).
So, to celebrate the fourth this year, here are five things (in reverse order) about/from our nation of which we can all be very proud.
5. We mind our bloody manners. Having taught in English schools now for eight years, I think I have some authority to say that Americans' politeness, our pleases, our thankyous, our general respect for decorum and for human decency is ingrained in us from the get-go. It may be puritanical and protestant of us, but common decency is important and shouldn't be underrated by our dismissive cross-Atlantic cousins. When was the last time a Londoner asked you where you were trying to get to and then gave you specific, step-by-step, diagram-aided directions? Yet, if you so much as stop on a street corner in Manhattan, your likely to start a competition between locals and soon have a plethora of directions to choose from guiding you to Starbucks on 103rd and Broad.
4. Optimism. As Henry Rollins once remarked, you wouldn't get Morrissey in America. We believe in the fact that things can always get better and that we can change, improve and be anything we want to be (all part of the American dream). It might not be true, but it keeps some people going and gives millions hope. Actually, Russell Kane sums it up pretty well in the latter half of this clip.
That's right, it's the blind confidence that enables us to keep copulating. The rest of the world might think it's sacchariney, but America is the home of that undying belief in the potential of tomorrow.
3. Mark Twain -- And the never-ending attempt to write the great American novel, or rather top the great American novel, The Adventures of Huck Finn. But let's face it, from the tall tales of Washington Irving to the intense psychological explorations of Donna Tartt, we are a nation that produces a rich belles lettres and are spoilt for choice when it comes to book club material. Let us continue to bust this myth that just because the English language came from England that English literature is innately superior to American. Some might argue we innovated on and improved it. Come back to Twain for instance. He invented a Mississippian character and took him seriously enough to painstakingly research and give him his own distinct voice and then used him to rewrite Paradise Lost set against the backdrop of the American South and issues of slavery, law and morality.
2. Woody Allen -- And David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, and Jerry Seinfeld and the much derided American sense of humour. It is a great pity that Friends became one of our most successful exports because it brought with it the idea that we are all cosy, coffee-swilling morons who can only do sarcasm through histrionic gestures and tones. Oh, Chandler Bing, what a lot you have to answer for. Go out and look up Bill Hicks or Sarah Silverman or read some Bill Bryson and then tell me we don't do understatement, self-deprecation, irony or funny with adeptness and ease.
1. Everyone wants to be us -- It's true! I've been teaching in England and Ireland for over a decade and sooner or later someone in every single one of my classes always comes around to the same question, 'Sir, (yes they say sir) why did you leave a brilliant place like America for a rubbish country like England?' Problems though I may have with the assumptions in the question, the fact remains that we have a huge influence on the rest of the world. Ordinary Britons and Irish people see Sex and The City, Entourage, 30 Rock and they want that glamour, they want that optimism, the want that American je ne sais quoi. It may be the Chinese and Indian Century, but it's the American influence that remains over both those countries and the rest of the world. It's the American sense of optimism that reigns in New China, it's American simplicity, speed, and power that fuels the drive behind 20/20 Cricket, it is American R & B that makes Leona Lewis' sound so popular and so familiar and it is American hip hop that influences so many British acts and unfortunately has provided Tim Westwood with a career. It is the culture of American college radio that enabled bands like Radiohead and Blur to break across the pond and catch on. Love it or loathe it, the influence of our country on the world is ubiquitous. When Europe disparages it, does it reveal more about the disparager than the disparagee?
I leave you with a poem that emphasises our connections to the Old World and to Britannia, Robert Burns, 'Ode For General Washingon on the Occasion of his Birthday, 1787'
No Spartan tube, no Attic shell,
No lyre Aeolian I awake; 'Tis liberty's bold note I swell, Thy harp, Columbia, let me take! See gathering thousands, while I sing, A broken chain exulting bring, And dash it in a tyrant's face, And dare him to his very beard, And tell him he no more is feared- No more the despot of Columbia's race! A tyrant's proudest insults brav'd, They shout-a People freed! They hailan Empire saved. Where is man's god-like form? Where is that brow erect and bold- That eye that can unmov'd behold The wildest rage, the loudest storm That e'er created fury dared to raise? Avaunt! thou caitiff, servile, base, That tremblest at a despot's nod, Yet, crouching under the iron rod, Canst laud the hand that struck th' insulting blow! Art thou of man's Imperial line? Dost boast that countenance divine? Each skulking feature answers, No! But come, ye sons of Liberty, Columbia's offspring, brave as free, In danger's hour still flaming in the van, Ye know, and dare maintain, the Royalty of Man!
Alfred! on thy starry throne, Surrounded by the tuneful choir, The bards that erst have struck the patriot lyre, And rous'd the freeborn Briton's soul of fire, No more thy England own! Dare injured nations form the great design, To make detested tyrants bleed? Thy England execrates the glorious deed! Beneath her hostile banners waving, Every pang of honour braving, England in thunder calls, "The tyrant's cause is mine!" That hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice And hell, thro' all her confines, raise the exulting voice, That hour which saw the generous English name Linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame!
Thee, Caledonia! thy wild heaths among, Fam'd for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song, To thee I turn with swimming eyes; Where is that soul of Freedom fled? Immingled with the mighty dead, Beneath that hallow'd turf where Wallace lies Hear it not, Wallace! in thy bed of death. Ye babbling winds! in silence sweep, Disturb not ye the hero's sleep, Nor give the coward secret breath! Is this the ancient Caledonian form, Firm as the rock, resistless as the storm? Show me that eye which shot immortal hate, Blasting the despot's proudest bearing; Show me that arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate, Crush'd Usurpation's boldest daring!- Dark-quench'd as yonder sinking star, No more that glance lightens afar; That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.
And some advice on some cool stuff going on to celebrate Independence Day here in London.
The Ben Franklin House are having a fourth of July party. Were I not working during the day, I'd definitely check it out. Worth checking out this building dedicated to the most inventive of Americans anyway.
And in the evening, The Old Red Cow, which I have blogged about before, is celebrating with a host of American handcrafted beers. For more check out the Red Cow's website.
I'll admit, I was surprised when Pacific Social Club opened its doors for business. Not much of the gentrification process in Hackney surprises me any more. I expect street markets to pop up out of sewer grates nowadays, but not on Clarence Road. Not my Clarence Road.
Community-oriented, friendly, dirty and noisy, Clarence Road always felt when I first moved here just a bit edgier than Lower Clapton Road, probably because it's emptier most of the time and it's not a street with a lot going on. There are businesses, newsagents, convenience stores, bric-a-brac, Merry-go-round, but posh coffee shops? Not here. Until June of last year when Liam Casey and Nico Atwater opened up Pacific after overhauling the space formerly occupied by Lokat's motor spares.
Since its opening, Pacific Social Club has created an inviting space that has rapidly established itself as a feature of the area and is going some way towards making Clarence Road a destination for more than just riot tourism.
The coffee is superb and unmatched anywhere in Hackney. Machiattos are flawlessly executed, flat whites are the subtlest, smoothest blend of coffee and milk, as only the bona fide Antipodean baristas (my last flat white there was made to precise perfection by an amiably chatty Kiwi called Matt) can do.The atmosphere is vintage with wall to wall vinyl covers behind the front counter, pastels and gentle, breezy dashes of turquoise and whites whimsically reminiscent of, appropriately, the South Pacific in the 1950s.
We're taking the boy to Legoland this weekend, but if I were sticking around, I know where I'd be getting my Saturday and Sunday morning coffee. Pacific Social Club will soon go a long way towards making this humble thoroughfare quite a desirable destination.
Years of disillusioning experiences have made me suspicious of pubs with city postcodes, even ones that are in Hackney but also within close proximity to The City of London. Too many bankers, having just spent 12 deregulated hours ravishing the economy showing up in their jeans and t-shirts, their 'casual' clothes and well, just stinking up the place with testosterone and bleeding all the atmosphere out of a room.
The Old Red Cow is a breath of fresh air. Wide variety of beers from all over the world and to satisfy any and every thirst. I decided to stay local and try The Kernel Pale Ale, an uplifting bevvy from a brewery based formerly around London Bridge, notes of grapefruit and sunshine sprinkle down the palate with not a wisp of unpleasant after taste. Sprightly ale with a hoppy sense of fun. Also on show were Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale on tap and a Red Cow Belgian Pilsner. It's nice to see high quality American beers on tap so close to the 4th. Puts me in mind of home.
So, if you do happen to find yourself in The City of London this weekend and you are hankering after a drink to slake your thirst should the sun shine down on London in the next 48 hours, angle yourself towards Barbican and The Old Red Cow. Lovely atmosphere, lovely beer.
The nearest tube stations to The Old Red Cow are Barbican or Farringdon.
I'll admit, I was sceptical. I, along with many other local community members (that's what I'll call the rumour mill) had heard that the old Clapton Hart building, that crumbling boarded up edifice standing up until recently undecorously at the mouth of the Lea Bridge Roundabout, was going to be taken over by a pub franchise. And when you say pub franchise, I think 'Wetherspoons' and there is no quicker way to restore the rock-solid reputation of Murder Mile circa 2002 than to plop a chain pub like Wetherspoons right at the roundabout. I lived across the street from the Wetherspoons on Roman Road Market in Bow when I first moved to London. Looking out the window was better entertainment than any reality TV show any night. And on Saturday nights, it was like that old American fly-in-the-wall, or corner of the squad car as it were proto-reality TV show, Cops, complete with drunken brawling, police vans with vested officers spilling out, pinning down drunken disorderly offenders on their stomachs, knees pressed to their backs, pressing a promise to be good out of each of the inebriated, cider-filled customers to frequent the establishment. Sans guns of course. This was the East End of London. The local gendarme are nothing if not a little civilized.
I digress.
It is this term 'franchise' and my wife's lukewarm review of the place on its opening night what made me apprehensive before my own visit with a couple of friends last Tuesday. Luckily, the new Clapton Hart could not be further from that cookie cutter chain pub that we have become accustomed to seeing on British high streets. Antic Ltd, who also run the Stokey favourite The White Hart, have taken over the decrepit building that used to house the pub of the same name with a notoriously dodgy past. They seem to have set out to restore the interior of the pub as sensitively as possible, bringing it right back to as close to vintage as possible, having taken the retro looking block capital sign from the outside of the building and brought it in.
The Hart has created a spacious and inviting atmosphere that manages to feel welcoming and contemporary while at the same time kindling a sense of old Hackney circa 1891.
Somerset-based Blindman's Buff was a lighter, more seasonal beverage, 'a proper bitter' remarked my friend Dom upon tasting, but I was most impressed by the Jamboree ale, with hints of citrus and summer washing all the way down the palate. I was as impressed by its provenance as by its taste though. It seems very easy nowadays for a pub to put Meantime or St. Peter's on tap and call themselves local and organic. I very much like Meantime and St. Peter's, but the beer buyer at The Clapton Hart has clearly worked hard to find beers that we haven't seen in all the other organic gastropubs popping up in Stokey or Islington or Hackney-Wick-Upon-The-Marsh. Jamboree Ale comes from the East London Brewery in Leyton just down a shot on the dastardly, daren't-traverse-it-on-a-dark night, Lea Bridge Road and they're producing sensational beer. Fair play to them and to the Clapton Hart on a great sourcing job. I am a bit surprised and frankly a bit disappointed in The Hackney Citizen with finding fault for just this aspect of our new watering hole.
Clapton is a very different place even from what it was in 2008, when last this place shut its doors for business. We're seeing more and more signs that we are closer and closer to that affluent and civilised merchants' village of the 18th Century here where we can trust our neighbours and our neighbourhoods for our children to grow up in. May The Clapton Hart be a further sign of that restoration.
The Clapton Hart is just at the top of Lower Clapton Road and can be reached via the 48, 55, 38, 254 or 106 and is well worth making time for.
It was always a bit disappointing to me to find when I ventured abroad that the American Cheese that I had grown up on was known in England and Ireland as 'processed cheese slices'. It makes sense when you consider how diabolically poisonous Kraft American Cheese tastes, but it's also made me want a little more out of my cheese.
Thankfully, I've recently found the saviours to any and all cheese crises: The Dark Knights of Cholesterol. I first discovered 'Ian and Gian' of Fratelli Formaggio a couple weeks ago at Hackney Homemade Market and was overcome by their selection, their general amiability and their willingness to serve you up as many tastes of as wide a variety of their cheeses as possible. On that visit, I picked up a mild, creamy honeyish cheese from the Emmental Valley near Bern, called Aarewasser and spent several mini-eternities savouring the beautiful flavour.
The only difference with yesterday's visit was the location, the Chatsworth Road Sunday Market, and my choice of cheese. Again, John, one half of the Dark Knights, was only too eager to provide me and the patron next to me with taste upon taste of cheeses ranging from sensationally loud to subtly beautiful and one that was creamy, ripe, and apparently illegal in several countries. I was most impressed this time though with an 18 month old pecorino from Southern Sardinia, with a lovely texture and hints of smoke and nuttiness that kept hitting the tastebuds minutes after savouring. These guys have a knack for sourcing magnificent cheese and bringing it to the markets of Hackney. Long may they continue to do so.
You can find these guys and their delicious dairy merch behind St. John's Church and beside The Narrow Way at Hackney Homemade all day on Saturday and on Chatsworth Road Market all day Sunday.
