Michelle Son's exhibition - To Whom It May Concern

There’s a place called the Field Office down on Barrack Str. (between Harrington and Roeland.) It’s a great coffee shop/ working space put together by two designers as a place for creatives to meet, work and get off their faces on caffeine. You will sit on rad buckets which have been made into incredible stools, drink great coffee and be surrounded by Macbooks and interesting ideas. It’s here that Michelle Son has displayed her latest work, an interactive installation called ‘To Whom It May Concern.’


While the installation was being set up in the background, all Microsoft colours and moving parts, we had a chance to ask Michelle what it’s all about. Check out the video below, then make your way down to the Field Office to experience it first hand. It’s awesome.

The Granny Cam is Gammy, Man

So, if you remember, we took some shots at Paul’s Secret Spot with Chris’ pristinely preserved Granny Cam, as Zenith something or other, with takes the type of film you find on a dusty shelf at the back of Orms and costs an arm and a wrinkly leg to develop. We weren’t sure how they’d come out, but we picked them up yesterday and they are really cool. Well, 50% of them.

There seems to be a problem with the Granny Cam. There is an ominous black shape covering half of every photograph. Perhaps the Granny Cam is possessed. Maybe it was the antiquated film. Either way, if you look past the smudgy thing on the left side of every image, you’ll see how awesome the Granny Cam will be when we get it exorcised. But we’ve uploaded the pics anyway, for your viewing pleasure.

Calvin's Supper Club

When you hear the term Supper Club you envision a bunch of grannies sitting around a very well lit dinner table. Flying geese decorating the walls and the pong of bustle sprouts. Not this one. Calvin and his mates meet up once a week and prepare a three-course meal for each other. We were kindly invited to join in, warned that the bouncer will kick us out if you didn’t have to R40 required to pay for the meal, we entered into this unknown realm of supper clubs.

Seeing as these dudes spend their free time beating each other up at Mixed Martial Arts and playing extreme frisbee you’d expect that they would have no finesse around the kitchen. We were seriously wrong! We were served up a delicious butternut soup, which sent Chris spiraling into depression seeing as he was certain his was unbeatable. Followed by a “my plate isn’t big enough” fish curry. All topped off with a cheese platter and peanut brittle.

Dinner conversation was as good as the food. We discussed music, parachuting dogs, Harvest of Hope, Rosetta Roastery, tightrope walking, and Troy’s 300 rendition. Unfortunately the video camera drank too much wine and decided not to record a lot of the evening. So did we. Nevertheless check out Calvin’s Supper club video below.

Fish on The Rocks - Hout Bay - "The Best Place in Africa"

After our mission to Paul's Secret Spot, we were, understandably, very hungry. Nothing works up an appetite more than taking pictures of people's eyeballs. So we went a little further down the road (a clue?) to Hout Bay, all the way round the harbor to the very furtherest place where you'll find the BEST fish and chips at Fish on the Rocks.

You can't miss the place. It's positively psychedelic. They've registered the domain name 'www.africasfavourite.com' which we thought was very funny, but awesome, because if Africa the Continent really dug fish and chips, this probably would be her favorite, and they'd probably have enough hake on the premises to feed her, too. 

The people who work there are extremely nice, the service is great, the vibe is great. The food is  full of nutritious, delicious, tasty greasy goodness. Crack an ice-cold Coke, squirt some All Gold and enjoy. If you really like seagulls, you should definitely go here. R40 gets you a great big portion of fish and chips, which you won't finish, but you can take it down to the rocks and throw it to the birds. If you are really afraid of birds, you should definitely not go here or do this, ever.

And, when you're done with lunch, go a little further through Hout Bay and pay R30 to do Chapman's Peak drive. The views are truly world-class. There's also the thrill of danger you get from the possibility of getting squashed by a falling rock at any second, which makes you appreciate the views even more and think of the mentally unstable people who like to cycle up there. If you don't want to pay R30, the first 2.5km's are free, you just need to turn around halfway and come back, missing the most spectacular theatrical views and seeing the same thing twice.

Check out our lunch video below.

Shooting with Paul at his secret spot.

So, as you may remember, our photographer friend Paul promised to take us shooting at his favourite Cape Town secret spot.  Bright and early Saturday morning we met him in the parking lot of X, caffeinated and ready to go. It really was a gorgeous day.

The point of the exercise was two-fold. Shannon needed to learn how to use Chris' digital camera, so she spent most of the day taking photos of a bottle cap and her watch to try and understand how things are sometimes dark and sometimes light and sometimes blurry and other times not so blurry. Chris wanted to check out the ancient Zenith camera he inherited from his gran (the Grannny Cam) and pick up a few tips from Paul as to how to take photos which melt your face, something Paul happens to be very good at. We spent a good six hours romping on the rocks with our photographer friends Tegan, Matt and Fran, and meeting some cool impromptu portrait models - the most memorable and awesome being Rafeeqa, who had a really cool smurf T-Shirt and patiently sat for us for hours, smiling beatifically. We really enjoyed her. Thanks Rafeeqa!

Because we promised Paul we wouldn't tell anyone where his best kept secret spot was, we can't tell you where Paul's best kept secret spot is. But if you guess, and we, like, don't say your wrong and stuff, then that's not really telling, is it? So log onto the FB page and gives us your best guess, and if we don't say your wrong, then your right and you can win something awesome, which we can't tell you about either. Paul says that, if you follow what he calls 'the chicken bone trail,' you'll find his spot and most of the other best spots in CT. We did, so should you. See where it leads you.

So we're extremely excited to see how the Zenith shots came out. They're being developed today, so we'll post them later. They may be all white and over-exposed, but they better not be because they cost like R20 a shot. Overall, we had an awesome day. Check out the vid below.

Paul Brehem's (SA Photographer) Taxi Drive

We met Paul after he commented on a post about us somewhere in the cyberscape. We offered him a Free Taxi ride, and weren’t sure quite what to expect when we picked him up from the Greenpoint Vida. 


Turns out, Paul is an absolute legend. He is also a pretty famous photographer. His work is incredible. Check it out here. We took him to YoursTruly and had an awesome lunch chatting about, well, everything from aliens to the medium format film in Chris’ granny’s camera.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable couple of hours. Check out Paul’s taxi ride below. 

YoursTruly Deli - 175 Long

Chris has a friend called Danny, who has just opened a cool new deli on Long called YoursTruly. We were keen to check it out, so we headed there for lunch on Tuesday.

We all know that opening a coffee shop is a risky affair. You have to have guts to put all your free-range eggs in such a basket. But the story of YoursTruly is as much a romance as it is a business endeavour. Danny, a graphic designer by trade, is a charismatic guy who had an idea. That idea became an obsession. He quit his job. He scoured the city for a location. He couldn’t find one. Back then you could find him skateboarding up and down Long Street for hours trying to find the perfect place. Eventually, he did – a grimy coffee shop below Neighbourhood. He managed to track down the landlord, but, due to the unfortunate previous tenants, the landlord was convinced that a coffee shop makes premises grimy. Danny sent through his proposal anyway, and asked the landlord to consider him if he were ever to change his mind. Which is exactly what happened when he read Danny’s proposal, and that’s how YoursTruly came to reside at 175 Long, just below Neighbourhood.

Apart from the great location, there are a whole lot of other things just right about the place. Experienced baristas and a great house roast mean the coffee is awesome. They do incredible fresh, wholesome sandwiches which you design yourself and which cost, unbelievably, around R24.00. They also serve pastries and fresh juices. The walls are covered in art for sale, and there’s a great lounge area at the back where you can pick up a magazine and not be disturbed. If you’re in a hurry, you can grab a takeaway from the NY style window that opens onto the street.

Overall, you’re getting that hip inner-city vibe without the overboard prices. We’re sure you’ll find yourself a regular before you know it. Check out our video of the opening below.