Global warming effects us all. Climate change expedition to Disko Bay, Greenland with Cape Farewell, Jarvis Cocker, KT Tunstall and others
Listen to Shlomo’s new Podcast, recorded during the expedition. It features exclusive new material from Martha Wainwright, music from Feist, Jarvis Cocker and interviews with Marcus Brigstocke, Vanessa Carlton and Laurie Anderson.
Listen at: shlo.co.uk/podcast ›
Snapshots as of 10:35 pm (boat time)
In the open sea west of Greenland, 71 degrees latitude
In each town there are wooden houses painted Bahamas hot pink, primary blue, creamsicle orange, cherry red, canary yellow, fluorescent green… scattered across rock hills climbing up from the black sea. A local boy who, seeing all the cameras (there are people taking pictures of people taking pictures of people taking pictures of the ice, all being filmed by people taking film of the people taking pictures of people) took off his shoes on the beach and ran into a long thin creek reaching out the sea, breaking the thin film of ice with his bare feet. All of a sudden pretending not to see the cameras, kicking up water at his little brother, they ambled off down the beach. A little speaker around his neck playing tin-y distorted rap, staccato syllables whipped away by the wind coming off the meringue topped icebergs standing silent just off the shore. Black meat hanging on nails outside wooden shacks. Dogs are chained up on the rocky hills between the houses howling together from every edge of town like the call to prayer, and outnumber the people behind the coloured doors. We walk around like time travelers in our winter space suits while the locals skid by in runners and t-shirts.
Continue reading
Leslie Feist, Lemn Sissay and Ruth Little performing Paradise Lost.
We’ve spent the morning popping in and out of the restaurant for a read through of Paradise Lost – everyone read a few lines. Not looked at the text for more than a decade but feels the natural thing to do here and now as we sail south back to port. A couple of my posts have referred to people’s anxieties about the Baffin Boot sized carbon footprint that coming on this trip entails. Sin and redemption are so woven into western culture that we shouldn’t be surprised that we frame these questions about individual responsibility in terms of sin and the pursuit of redemption. A few years ago Patriarch Bartholemew (leader of the orthodox church) announced that environmental harm was a sin (the Pope followed suit soon after). Of course they have a natural advantage over science and policy people when it comes to finding a language that seems to have the right kind of scale: they’ve been phrasemaking on the big questions for centuries.
Continue reading
Leslie Feist and Dr Simon Boxall feature on the Q Show CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) this Friday 3 October, 10 am (note: Toronto is 5 hours behind UK time). Listen to the podcast on the CBC website.
Hail, hail, the gang’s all here:
Vanessa Carlton is suffering from the same cold I am.
Feist checked her guitar (Robyn Hitchcock requested that everybody who has one bring it for a little Arctic jam).
History of Love author Nicole Krauss is here at the gate, looking absolutely adorable with her five-month-old baby bump.
Academy Award winning filmmaker Peter Gilbert is saying good-bye to his kids via cell-phone.
Continue reading
Follow the Cape Farewell expedition to the Arctic, the frontline of climate change, with over 40 artists, scientists and musicians including Jarvis Cocker & Ryuichi Sakamoto. 25 Sept to 6 Oct 2008.
