Streets Ahead

I've been a-listening to a lot of music from Iceland lately. The shitty new one from Bjork (sorry, umlauts cost extra); the ace uber-minimalist dance album Forever by Gus Gus; some Sigur Ros (here for the Melb. Fest); perennial playlist incumbent Emiliana Torrini; Maps, an English dude who recorded his album on the tiny island nation; even Cicada, an slightly cheesy Brit electronic duo whose singer turns out to be Icelandic. Still, music aside:

What the Sam Hill is going on in Iceland?

New Rave fashion has clearly infected the place in a way that suggests the poor little people didn't realise it was meant to be a joke, but who are we to judge? (A: no one).

The images above are from Reykjavik Looks, a street fashion blog. I like looking at street fashion blogs, though I didn't even know they existed twelve months ago. They're a great snapshot of cities across the world, despite the obvious editorial bias of the creators, but that's fashion, isn't it? Nonetheless, they're the kind of thing that have me madly pouting in my want to travel again.

Stil in Berlin indicates why it's the coolest city on Earth.

Copenhagen Street Style is an uneasy mixture of the two. With more bikes.

If street fashion blogs are new-ish to me, I'm even more surprised that street art blogs have been so late hitting my radar. I know, I know, this site needs more art the way John Stamos needs more jetlag, but like J-Sta I keep finding myself ill-advisedly rapping my knuckles at the counter and yelling "another round of jetlag, barkeep". Jetlag here obviously a metaphor for art, as opposed to being a metaphor for alcohol or drugs, which it IS IN NO WAY ALLEGED TO BE IN STAMOS' CASE.

Here's some of my favourite street art. Little People is a project that makes me want to fancy-dance around various important world landmarks, record the results and post them on youtube, since that's the way people express themselves these days. That not being an option, however, I'll just have to refer you to the site. Lovely.

But the best without a doubt is this one - simply, but crushingly titled "No".

Look at the way the light hits his face. It's a bit hard to see at this size, but the Little People site has a much larger version.

It also has links to other street art sites and blogs. Some are good.

I was really hopeful when I first found the Wirebreakers - krumpers who begin dancing for random strangers on the street. Krumping is of course one of the rare forms of street dancing, as exciting a thing as any other kind of street art, and at least the best thing to happen to streets since breaking.

I was disappointed to realise that the Wirebreakers is part of a motorola ad campaign. Nice idea, though, sort of.