Alexander Stuart

Some of my favorite sounds at the moment - not least the stunning Blue Sunday  (with its totally seductive opening) from Truths - are by a British DJ duo with the highly evocative name, Maribou State. Signed to Norman Cook's (aka Fatboy Slim) Southern Fried Records, Liam Ivory and Chris Davids create distinctive, mellow, drum and bass influenced music that mixes ambient sounds, often-fragmented vocals and haunting beats to startling effect. This video of Maribou State  (above) spinning at Brighton's Boiler Room is a perfect window on two fast-rising DJs displaying their very considerable talent and creating a solid, beautiful and very chill set that flows with an intriguing rhythmic narrative and some expert and seemingly effortless mood and beat shifts. It also shows two guys clearly enjoying what they're doing.  Be sure to watch all the way through to catch the tasty swing into Throwing Snow's fabulously bassy and hypnotic Lingerwell. Check out Maribo

P hotograph Copyright  ©  2013 A lexander Chow-Stuart. A Christmas tradition in our house: our lovebird Miso in our Christmas tree! This will be Miso's sixth Christmas with us. He's firmly in control of all celebrations.

The crew from Oscar's Oasis. My children and their best friend have just introduced me to a cartoon show they all adore, Oscar's Oasis (available to stream on Netflix ) - a French-South Korean series of very distinctive shorts that riff on the frenetic pace, ambience and non-verbal humor of Chuck Jones' classic Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons , but bring a whole new energy and contemporary rhythm to the always-chaotic and hilarious proceedings. Oscar from Oscar's Oasis. As in the Roadrunner cartoons, food (and water or other refreshment) is the focus here.  The setting is a desert - drawn, as Wikipedia points out, from elements of the Sahara, Kalahari and North American deserts . As Oscar the lizard struggles to find and consume desperately-needed vittles, he is thwarted - and very occasionally assisted for a brief time - by a chaotic, equally determined trio consisting of Popy, a fennec fox, Buck, a vulture, and Harchi, a hyena, whose com

Sir Jony Ive, Bono and Marc Newson. Photograph courtesy (RED). According to SFGate  and Business Insider , Jony Ive and Marc Newson's first major Sotheby's auction for Bono's charity, Product (RED) - see my post below - last night raised over $26 million (I earlier reported over $12 million, based on an early post from  Forbes.com ) to help fight HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. Ive's stunning (RED) Mac Pro. Photograph courtesy Gizmodo.com Among the major highlights, Jony's beautifully-designed new generation (RED) Mac Pro sold for $977,000 (estimate $40,000-60,000; price includes buyer's premium), while the one-off Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera designed by Ive and Newson, and estimated to sell for $500,000-700,000, fetched an astonishing $1,805,000. Jony and Marc's very fine (RED) Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera. Marc Newson, Bono and Sir Jony Ive on the (RED) carpet. Photograph courtesy of (RED)/Getty and Busines

Marc Newson, Bono and Sir Jonathan Ive. Photograph courtesy of Bono's (RED). In a few hours at Sotheby's in New York, Apple's design genius, Sir Jonathan Ive (better known as Jony), and his longtime designer pal, Marc Newson , will present an incredible selection of extremely beautiful objects that they have curated and/or designed for Bono's Product (RED) , the charity Bono established in 2006 with Bobby Shriver to raise awareness of and to work to eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa. Check out the Sotheby's online catalog here. Among the goodies up for grabs are an exquisite one-off Leica Digital Rangefinder Camera that Ive and Newson have collaborated on - estimated to be worth at least half a million dollars (I wish I were bidding for that!) - a truly elegant Steinway Grand Piano (estimate $150-200,000) and, one of Jony's own groundbreaking creations, the new Mac Pro in red (estimate $40-60,000)! The one-off (RED) Leica Digital Rangefinder