Laurie Anderson on The Weekend Edition

Tomorrow, Saturday the 22^nd of June, I'll host The Weekend Edition on Monocle 24 as usual. It is going to be a really interesting day. Between 8 and 9, London time I'll be flicking through the stories that have made the papers internationally this week, as well as playing a selection from our global playlist.

At 9 Design Editor Hugo MacDonald selects the week's highlights on “The Curator” and at 10, The Stack celebrates print media with our editor in chief Tyler Brule.

At 11, London time, I'll be back live with an hour of new music, showcasing the tracks joining our Monocle 24 playlist. This week those include Canadian Band Austra who played live at Midori House this week, Dutch band Room Eleven, Spanish singer Buika and some chart topping K-Pop.

The Review at midday focuses on film and then I'm very excited by my guests at 14.00.  

A few weeks ago I was in New York and went to what I believe is one of the most inspirational and creative performance spaces in the city, The Kitchen on West 19^th Street.  It has been going since the 1970s, and for decades has provided a platform for artists to experiment and take unusual creative risks. The Executive Director and Chief Curator is the charming Tim Griffin  who says “The Kitchen is important to the cultural life of New York because at some level it is New York’s soul”.

 I visited the venue to hear about its past and its future, both of which contain the artist Laurie Anderson who began her career at The Kitchen and now serves as a board member. Laurie very graciously hosted me at her Canal Street studios and gave me an insight to the unique venue and also into her unique style. She told me that failing, which she alleges she has done many times, is very important and that when creating new work, nothing quite matches “The God like thrill of making something that no one has ever made before”.

I'll be playing a couple of Laurie Anderson tracks as well as a piece from the Kronos Quartet with whom she is sharing the Barbican stage on June the 28^th.

So a packed Weekend Edition, with news every hour. I hope you can join me for some or all of it.

On Saturday the 14th  of June I'll be presenting The Weekend Edition on Monocle 24 as usual, but there will also be around 2000 other people in and out of Midori House during the course of the weekend. That is because it is the Monocle Country Fayre, http://monocle.com/ Monocle's own take on an old English tradition. It will feature Monocle's favourite nations, retailers and delicacies, a petting zoo, summery aperitifs, the Monocle tombola, games and a host of guest musical performers. I'll be on air most of the time, popping out to interview people or inviting them in to the studio to describe what is going on. We'll have our usual new music hour between 11 and 12, playing the latest additions to the playlist and around 1400 I'll be talking to Sophie Hall, the Director of the Flowers Gallery on Cork street about the Artists Of The Day exhibition and one of the featured artists, Pru Kemball. http://www.flowersgallery.com/exhibitions/flowers/2013/artist-of-the-day/#.Ubsar_n6Uxg
On Sunday the 15th of June the Country Fayre continues, and The Weekend Edition will vary slightly in format. Instead of being on air with Gwenan Edwards from 1600-1800, instead I will be in the studio from 1000-1200 and then again from 1400-1500, bringing all the flavour of the Fayre to those who can't physically get there. I hope you can join us then.

First Post

I have been tipped into profound depression today by an email from local supermarket.

I am lucky enough to live near one of central London’s best and biggest sellers of premium largely organic impeccably sourced groceries, and I, along with all the yummy mummies in the area fill a trolley there a couple of times a week, either in person or online. The supermarket knows that I use soy milk and like purple sprouting broccoli. It has logged my preference for Prosecco over Cava and noted that when it is sunny I usually buy Rose. It has clocked that whenever I purchase avocado, I always get mozzarella and basil too. My supermarket, I sometimes feel, knows more about me than my partner. Why then has it just sent me an email offering me an opportunity to WIN in very excited capital letters, tickets to see Cliff Richard? I have nothing against the man personally, but he does represent a demographic that I hope I am not, or at least not yet, a part of. How could the place I trust with my daily dietary needs get my cultural preferences so unutterably wrong? Or, does buying organic mean over the hill? Is wanting ethically farmed poultry synonymous with dad dancing, wooly jumpers and Living Doll? Must my love of a good Rose d’anjou on a sunny day necessarily have to mean I sing along to Summer Holiday?  Sadly, this shop is not alone. I am not averse to sensible suggestions, buy why does my preferred search engine believe that browsing for vintage DVF mean I’d like to meet Muslim singles? Can my occasional foray into online auction catalogues of rare books and antique furniture really indicate a love of pre-fabricated garden sheds? I sincerely hope not, but something in my electronic history must point to it. And come to think of it, I could do with somewhere to store all those old Shadows records.