So turns out London has a pretty sweet Hackerspace right down in Shoreditch, near where Henrique spends his days writing javascript and his nights bending Live over his knee and giving it a firm spanking. The somewhat disappointing name of this hackerspace in London is the London Hack Space, but though they weren't able to come up with a snappy name for themselves they were at least able to find a great place to set up shop.
Unfortunately there wasn't much going on at the space while I was there, owing to it being quite early in the morning and to the fanatical devotion to Europe's one true god: Vacation. It's too bad really, especially since if I'd managed to stay a day or two later I could have made it to the Music Hack Space, which boasts a strong Max presence. Oh well, I guess at the end of the day it might be good for me to meet a different subset of the human population, sampled from those who neither write Max patches nor bake traditional pastries.
One thing I did learn from my trip to the Hack Space: European coders love Club Mate. Apparently this is the drink par excellence among people who want to have energy but hate eating right or engaging in physical activity besides eye-focusing or stomach-scratching. As far as I can taste it's a nasty drink, with a flavor somewhere between dirty sugar water and dirty regular water. They tell me that I'm full of dirty water myself, and that Club Mate has a pleasant bitterness with a long tail and satisfying finish. My genetic inability to taste tonic water (just tastes like Sprite to me, dawg) makes me think that they could be right, but whatever, it's no skin off my my face.
Whatever dude, I'm not here to start a flame war about crummy energy drinks, I'm here to take pictures, find music and to try to eat vegetables in countries that have about as much respect for animal life as they do Americans. I left the Hacker Space with a full day's hard work under my belt (not easy to do while traveling abroad, let me tell you), hopped on a bus and made my way back to the restaurant where I'd met Marta yesterday.
I arrived half an hour late. Marta had already gone. I leave early tomorrow morning on a train back to Paris. Well, fuck.jpg. It's okay, though. Hours later, having eaten dinner with Henrique and spent some more time in the studio, I find myself wandering the streets of London looking for a good beer. (You would be amazed how hard this is. Am I just going to entirely the wrong place? How do I so consistently end up sitting at a wooden bench, gazing into the oozy sheen of an old plate of meat-beans, contemplating the warm watery taste of an unsatisfying beer?) Walking through Soho, I end up outside a street full of bars all playing the closing ceremonies to the Olympic Games. Before long the air was filled with a very special song as the whole of London stood forward as a single, drunken choir, unified in their desire to remind about England's favorite life lesson.
Thanks, London. I'll remember that.
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| From nearby Shoreditch |
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| The view from the Hacker Space |
Unfortunately there wasn't much going on at the space while I was there, owing to it being quite early in the morning and to the fanatical devotion to Europe's one true god: Vacation. It's too bad really, especially since if I'd managed to stay a day or two later I could have made it to the Music Hack Space, which boasts a strong Max presence. Oh well, I guess at the end of the day it might be good for me to meet a different subset of the human population, sampled from those who neither write Max patches nor bake traditional pastries.
One thing I did learn from my trip to the Hack Space: European coders love Club Mate. Apparently this is the drink par excellence among people who want to have energy but hate eating right or engaging in physical activity besides eye-focusing or stomach-scratching. As far as I can taste it's a nasty drink, with a flavor somewhere between dirty sugar water and dirty regular water. They tell me that I'm full of dirty water myself, and that Club Mate has a pleasant bitterness with a long tail and satisfying finish. My genetic inability to taste tonic water (just tastes like Sprite to me, dawg) makes me think that they could be right, but whatever, it's no skin off my my face.
Whatever dude, I'm not here to start a flame war about crummy energy drinks, I'm here to take pictures, find music and to try to eat vegetables in countries that have about as much respect for animal life as they do Americans. I left the Hacker Space with a full day's hard work under my belt (not easy to do while traveling abroad, let me tell you), hopped on a bus and made my way back to the restaurant where I'd met Marta yesterday.
I arrived half an hour late. Marta had already gone. I leave early tomorrow morning on a train back to Paris. Well, fuck.jpg. It's okay, though. Hours later, having eaten dinner with Henrique and spent some more time in the studio, I find myself wandering the streets of London looking for a good beer. (You would be amazed how hard this is. Am I just going to entirely the wrong place? How do I so consistently end up sitting at a wooden bench, gazing into the oozy sheen of an old plate of meat-beans, contemplating the warm watery taste of an unsatisfying beer?) Walking through Soho, I end up outside a street full of bars all playing the closing ceremonies to the Olympic Games. Before long the air was filled with a very special song as the whole of London stood forward as a single, drunken choir, unified in their desire to remind about England's favorite life lesson.
Thanks, London. I'll remember that.
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