The recently deceased have been most decently released
from the pachydermic weight, the frantic exothermic state,
the pelvic phallocentric drive that urge
to spill and sprout and thrive
from countless collected human groins
we drip
and stick
coagulated, invigorated and soon we drop, contaminated;
post-last gasp, post-corporeal, post-haste,
post bleed and shit into
the fresh dug funeral pit,
which is where I make my grisly business:
Samuel Skerret, at your service.
With monogrammed silk hanky dabs your eyes,
With breathless tuts and polite surprise
Hears how your loved ones sadly died
And will with due discretion confide
That our coffins, bespoke, fit every size.
Circumspectly I might enquire,
After a rough estimate of your attire-

• Boots. Two inch heel.  Leather. Gucci. Black.
• Tights. Sheer. Black. Chic seam runs up the calf past the knees' interior to the
• Skirt. Chiffon. Black. Stops at the thigh. Black.
• Top. Lace. Tight waisted. Generous bust. Black.
• Brassiere. Not black... Absent.
• Necklace. Silver chain. Small crystalline pendant. Well cut. Diamond? Quartz.

Opaque...
Which take -sme back to my previous devious line of inquiry;
"Did daddy leave behind much cash?"
Sounds like he had quite the crash- Oh-
On a purely incidental tangential-
Self-inflicted or accidental?
What?
OH! No-no-no-no-NO, these questions are routine, the norm!
(Found on every life insurance form.)
Oh yes? He took out one of the more generous plans?
Crushed beneath an ambulance?
How droll- I said-
What a toll! the modern world takes on man-
Paramedic drunk at the wheel?
Out of court settlement, a hushed up deal?
Fear not, madam. Discretion is what we do
Do come, step into my office, Miss, that's
Samuel Skerret, at your service
Step right in, and let's do business.

Justin Blanchard

Slightly different from the average blog post, I'd like to share a documentary I recently discovered whislt researching 'action' research (which is actually as exciting as it sounds). Action research is usually participant led, and is implemented in hard-to-access areas. Born into Brothels is a documentary about London-born, Cambridge-educated photographer Zana Briski, who after living in the red light district of Kolkata, India and being moved my the women and children who lived there, started teaching the children photography. This documentary shows the harsh conditions these kids live in and the hope that creative expression and a workable trade gives them, at the same time as showing the limits that intervention can provide.

Georgina Phillips

Halloween Jack O'Lanterns carved out of pumpkins by Ray Villafane and Andy Bergholtz. 

The Smashing Pumkins.

Former art teacher Ray began carving without any training and only discovered his talent after offering to carve a pumpkin for one of his pupils. After discovering his talent, Ray went on to work as a commercial sculptor for D.C and Marvel Comics where he honed his pumpkin carving skills.

One of the Villafane studios' latest sculptures is of Johnny Depp in character as Barnabas Collins in Dark Shadows. 

It's high time we all got carving.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/9609781/Halloween-Jack-OLanterns-carved-out-of-pumpkins-by-Ray-Villafane-and-Andy-Bergholtz.html?frame=2368927

Anyone familiar with the site Reddit will be familiar with how quickly internet sensations can take off. The site, for those who aren't aware, is a platform from which people can post content from around the internet which is then upvoted or downvoted by the community. Much of the time it's a meme or a cat doing something cute but on occasion you can discover something brilliant and something brilliant gets discovered.

The photography of Kyle Thompson is a case in point. Earlier in the year, he posted some of his work onto the site and it instantly took off. Within hours it had received over 4 000 000 views and, according to an update this week, within months Kyle Thompson was receiving interest from big publications and seeing his work in magazines. He now works full time as a photographer I believe, and is doing phenomenally well.

 I'm no art critic so I'll let his work speak for itself. I was blown away.

Original reddit post.
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/vr1uq/i_take_surreal_self_portrait/

His reddit update this week.
http://imgur.com/a/BGOLf

His official site.
http://kylethompsonphotography.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2012/oct/23/nikon-small-world-photomicrography-competition-pictures

The blood-brain barrier in a live zebrafish embryo

Myrmica sp. (ant) carrying its larva

Section of a Coccinella (ladybird) leg

'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,'

Sound familiar? Was that latest essay the straw that broke your sanity?

Well dear reader, I heartily recommend that y0u breathe, get out of the foetal position and take a couple of hours to watch Howl (2010) currently on BBC iPlayer.

Written and directed by Rob Epstein and Jefferey Friedman, the film focuses on Allen Ginsberg's infamous poem Howl and its equally infamous 1957 obscenity trial. James Franco is excellent as Ginsberg, chain smoking during a laid back interview in his apartment and filled with fire at the pulpit of the first performance of the poem in 1955.  Franco aside, some of the most interesting moments of the film come from Eric Drooker's animated sections, where he transfers Ginsberg's ranging, yelping poem into a beautifully disturbing cartoon that looks like it came out of Tim Burton's nightmares. It's worth a look for these scenes alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01jqcfm/Howl/

With an hour to kill and a technicolour-coded map of treasures to discover, I headed to a small wing of the V&A to see the exhibited works from the museum's annual illustration awards.

Laëtitia Devernay picked up the Book Illustration Award and was later nominated the overall winner off the competition, for her series of illustrations titled 'The Conductor'.

In ‘The Conductor’, her first book, Devernay weaves a wordless story of a fantastical conductor who summons leaves from the trees, directing them to take flight as a flock of birds that swoops in formation above his head. In explaining how she created it she says,

‘I wanted to make the Conductor a silent hero. What does he do when he is away from his musicians? How does he find inspiration? Like me, he looks to nature. To create a living forest I thought about the imagery of music; the strings, the scrolls, the bow tie and swallow tailed suit. The horizontality of the score became the verticality of the trees, sheets turned into feathers, birds into notes. I used pure imagery to tell my story so that it is open to the interpretation of the reader. I also think it's nice to represent music with a totally wordless illustrated book.

'I haven’t represented a piece in particular but an air in general. A swarm of birds announces the moves of violins, a unique row in a desert sky represents an oboe soloist…an entire symphony…then, silence, while the small conductor takes a bow. It’s a story that can be read over and over, as in nature, everything changes, but the cycle continues.’

To me anyway, these images speak right to a feeling so familiar in orchestral playing. It's that moment when you know what's coming, what you're building up to. You can feel the music inside you, and everything around you is locked into the conductor's baton, which will in a few moments turn your internal anticipation into an audible reality. The expectation is all-consuming and thrilling; like riding a wave. (I imagine. I've never ridden a wave in my life.) But it's that feeling, not the sounds themselves, that Devernay gets so right in this series: you don't need to know what exactly she's drawing about because you can feel it in the swooping leaves, the soaring lines, their pitter patter fall.

And if you don't know what on earth I'm talking about, have a little listen to this, the finale from Sibelius 2, from 5.30...