Found Home Movie Circa 1989

Roof of Sky - or How To Build a Geodesic Dome

If you've ever wanted to build your very own geodesic dome, this short film should prove instructional:



ASM is an organisation I occasionally do work for as part of my day job and I've actually visited this building twice in the last few years: it's quite an extraordinary piece of architecture. In fact the reason this film has been posted on YouTube is that the building and dome have just completed an 18 month renovation programme. I can imagine it's looking particularly magnificent at the moment. If you happen to be passing Cleveland, Ohio, the grounds and "Metal Garden"(!) below the dome are open to the public. You can find more information about the place on the ASM website.


Robert Baldock

Satan at the World's Fair NYC

Found these pics on the New York Public Library digital archive. Donald Ackerman (after a quick Google search) I believe played for the New York Knicks is seen here dressed as Satan buying a ticket and then entering the fair.

Assembly Line.

"... I've tried to tell you before, scientists will always be pawns of the military!"

More Ghost Signs part 2

Back in February I posted a few Ghost Signs with every intention of posting a few more. I forgot. So at last here are some more Ghost Signs I have found on my travels.

Thanatos Archive

Well, maybe more Goth than hauntological but... well, the hauntology angle on here's been ditched anyway hasn't it?



The Thanatos Archive

Recently Found Postcards.

Doreen Valiente: Witch.

Breakout

The Sixteenth of September

"

Much to their surprise, the curators of the biggest Magritte exhibition mounted in Britain have discovered that one of his works is a cult object to Marc Bolan and T Rex fans, who are expected to make their way to Tate Liverpool in droves to see the painting.

To Magritte admirers, The Sixteenth of September is a deceptively realistic work painted in 1956, one of a series in which the artist plays tricks with light and time of day. It shows a crescent moon impossibly shining through the dark mass of a tree, against a dawn sky.

To Bolan fans, the painting has an entirely different significance: 16 September 1977 was the date the singer was returning home in the small hours from a night out, in a Mini driven by his girlfriend Gloria Jones.

The car span off the road and hit a tree on Barnes Common in west London. She was badly injured and he was killed, two weeks before the 30th birthday he had predicted he would not live to see. A shrine, lovingly tended by fans and never without flowers, now marks the spot.

Fans say the tree in the painting closely resembles the sycamore the car crashed into, and the moon was at the same phase on 16 September 1977.

...The curators were already in discussions with the Kunsthaus in Zurich for The Sixteenth of September when they learned of the Bolan connection – from Martin Barden, Tate's head of ticketing and a lifelong Bolan fan.

He is just as keen on Magritte and bought a postcard of the painting as a child on a family holiday in Paris, and kept it by his bed for years.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing the actual painting that I've known so well for so many years," he said. "Now the word is out, I expect there are going to be a lot of us."

"

-http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jun/21/magritte-tate-liverpool-marc-bolan

Nothing Quite Like Fresh Air

Living in a high rise in NYC is tough. You don't have access to a yard, and when you live five flights up you have to come up with innovative ways to get out and get fresh air.

Coming soon...

Green Knowe

In the Cambridgeshire village of Hemingford Grey sits The Manor, a leafy 12^th century pile of unparalleled gorgeousness. It is said to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited homes in Britain but of more interest here is the life of Green Knowe, its fictional twin.

In a series of 6 children’s books, Lucy M. Boston, then owner of the manor, re-imagined her home as a cabinet of uncanny curiosities. Statues walk, phantom horses gobble sugar cubes and ghosts flit through the corridors. Hauntological themes abound, not least in the presence of a thick, muddy vein of paganism which sees tree spirits, alchemists and stone circles thrown into the mix.

The stories have been adapted twice: the first, ‘The Children of Green Knowe’, was televised by the BBC in 1986, while a version of the second book, ‘The Chimneys of Green Knowe’ (retitled ‘From Time To Time’) was adapted for ITV by ‘professional posh man’ Julian Fellowes in 2009. The first is - to my mind, at least - the more faithful adaptation, capturing the woozy autumnal atmosphere and magical warmth of these beguiling books. While no DVD is available, the whole thing's up on Youtube, stalking ground of the re-forgotten: a perfect way to ease through a rainy sunday afternoon.

Great White Silence

I originally posted this on my own blog but decided this really needed to go on to FO. The Great White Silence is Herbert Ponting's brilliantly restored 1924 documentary, about Captain Scotts ill fated 1910 expedition to the Antarctic. This has now been released by the BFI on DVD and Blu-ray. The film has an amazing new score, composed by Simon Fisher Turner.  Ken Hollings interviewed Simon Fisher Turner about his score for the film in the June edition of The Wire magazine.

“I Can’t Help Thinking That Somewhere In The Universe There Has To Be Something Better Than Man. Has To Be.”

"...and that completes my final report until we reach touchdown. We're now on full automatic, in the hands of the computers. I have tucked my crew in for the long sleep and I'll be joining them soon. In less than an hour, we'll finish our sixth month out of Cape Kennedy. Six months in deep space - by our time, that is. According to Dr. Haslein's theory of time, in a vehicle travelling nearly the speed of light, the Earth has aged nearly 700 years since we left it, while we've aged hardly at all. Maybe so. This much is probably true - the men who sent us on this journey are long since dead and gone. You who are reading me now are a different breed - I hope a better one. I leave the 20th century with no regrets. But one more thing - if anybody's listening, that is. Nothing scientific. It's purely personal. But seen from out here everything seems different. Time bends. Space is boundless. It squashes a man's ego. I feel lonely. That's about it. Tell me, though. Does man, that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars, still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor's children starving? "

Found Visuals

Ekoplekz: Uncanny Riddim from Jade Boyd on Vimeo.

Various sections of films recorded from the TV screen, using real-time controls (>/II/>>/).

Visuals by Jade Boyd

Music by me.

Riding On A Rail.

Early morning on the flight line at Zhukovsky Air Base.

A New You.

The ultimate makeover.

Killer Heels!

A Saturday night on a dancefloor uptown.

1973 City Analysts Dept PCC

I thought it was about time that I posted these photos from the City Analysts Dept. These are all dated from 1973. I found a set of these in the local City Records Office, whilst looking for images to use on my album. I have put the rest of the images on to Flickr. The picture at the top of the Gentleman on the phone was found by a friend of mine, but is part of the same set.

Morning Dew

 

Hi,

Here is a mix-tape intended for children. It contains almost only french (a sublime spanish girl is included) vintage stuffs from nursery rhymes records, soundtracks for tv-shows like "Bonne Nuit Les Petits" or "Colargol" and for films, alternative pedagogy school records, the nun Soeur Sourire...

Enjoy listening !

http://soundcloud.com/charlotte-sampling/mix-for-children-1

or here : 

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=53JK3DH0

"The new vogue in literary theory"

Andrew Gallix writes about 'Hauntology: A not-so-new critical manifestation' in The Guardian.

A Sound Of Thunder.

A family day out in the Dean Village takes a peculiar and unexpected turn...

O.U. Dead Letter Office

Salvation Army charity shop, Portsmouth: several O.U. LPs, packed in the plain cardboard envelopes they were posted in.

Check that organ!  I remember being freaked out as a nipper by the very idea of modern churches / religious bits and bobs.  "Is it allowed?"

Underneath the Water

Macmillan, 1968

Quirky things you discover on Wikipedia :

In 1943, Jimmy Savile launched the world's first DJ dance party by playing jazz records in the upstairs function room of the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds in Otley, England. In 1947, he claims to have become the first DJ to use twin turntables for continuous play.

"A thing like that, it'll have been suckled"

Round these parts we should all be familiar with the work of the late Nigel Kneale. The various incarnations of Professor Quatermass have been the blueprint for most sci-fi TV ever since, and his 1972 play 'The Stone Tape' is a set text of the hauntologically inclined.

My first exposure came via an episode of the 1976 ITV series 'Beasts', titled 'Baby'. I was aware of it as one of those things that seemed to pop up a lot on nostalgia shows, ladled with prominent fan-love by various members of the League of Gentlemen. Each of them attested to its deep-seated creepiness and eventually I tracked down a copy, in order to test it on my hardened modern sensibilities. After all, I'd seen 'Spiceworld' and lived. I was ready for anything.

So, my flatmate and I hunkered down for the night, preparing ourselves for slow disappointment. And sure it was stagy and shot with the harsh light of many a 70s studio, but bit by bit, something about it seemed to worm under the skin, like splinters from an old floorboard.

The plot concerns a young couple who have moved to the countryside and are renovating their new home. During the course of this, they uncover a strange, mummified animal bricked into a wall. A village local - a great, pipe-smoking rube straight from central casting - puts about the theory that what they've found might have been a familiar, that it might have been made for malicious ends. From there, things get progressively strange: shadows move, tempers fray and - a perennial omen in these sorts of things - the family moggy snuffs it.

It's a slow burner with a kicker of an ending. For those of you who like your presents spoiled, the last three minutes pan out below. Needless to say, when the screaming stopped and the credits rolled, both I and my flatmate were left speechless. Our teas were empty and the biscuit tray was bare, but neither of us dared venture into the dark for supplies.

Who knew what could be waiting?

FO-TV: Transmission Two

A day earlier than scheduled, it's 1981 on FO-TV for this special programme with an electrical / electronic theme. Our next show will be a Children's TV Special, but it might be a while. If anyone else is interested in compiling a programme either in terms of sticking it all together or suggesting content, why not get in touch and I can book the FO-TV Boardroom to discuss it.

The Last of Aylesbury

More unsettling imagery from Aylesbury is available for viewing at between channels.

Ant Queen Cephalote

Not quite sure what this is. Witch House?

Nevertheless, I love it.

The Beast of Jersey

A very disturbing cover for a very disturbing book. 'The incredible story of the man who terrorised the island for eleven years'. Told by his wife Joan Paisnel. Would have hated to stumble across this book as a child - the cover is scary enough for an adult. I imagine the fact that it is based on reality adds to the terror.

Ace Science Fiction Special

A few books I picked up on a recent trip to New York. 'The Traveller in Black' (1971) is my favorite and if the cover didn't grab me then the blurb on the back did. It opens with, 'The time was the unguessably remote past - or perhaps the distant future'.

Cover art on all three books by Leo & Diane Dillon.

Pictures of the dilapidated remains of the 1964/65 World's Fair site to follow.

Millenium People.

Platinum Point: our very own Ballardian Dystopia right here in Edinburgh.

Aylesbury Continued ...

More pictures of Friars Square shopping precinct, Aylesbury, courtesy of Sean Hancock. Even more at between channels.

Modern Ghosts: Anstam, "Baldwin"

New Hauntings on the Dancefloor...

80's Hauntology: Moondial (1988)

Brilliant 80's childrens ghost drama....

From the wiki....
The story deals with a young girl staying with her aunt after her mother is injured in a car accident. Minty (Siri Neal) spends much of her time wandering around the grounds of a nearby mansion, and is drawn to a moondial that enables her to travel back in time, where she becomes involved with two children, Tom (Tony Sands), who lives in the Victorian era, and Sarah (Helena Avellano), who seems to live in "the previous century" to that, and must save them from their own unhappy lives.

The west entrance to Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire, the setting for Moondial
Regarded as a nostalgic favourite by followers of 1980s BBC children's drama, Moondial employs extensive location filming (in the grounds of Belton House in Lincolnshire) and fantastical, dreamlike imagery

Aylesbury

Possibly two of my favourite photographs ever. Aylesbury Friars Square, the past, photos courtesy of Sean Hancock. Thanks Sean! The rest of this in-depth look at Aylesbury will be posted at between channels.