Deep In The Earth Or Way Up In The Sky

Okay, it's almost 11:30 on a Saturday night, I really should be over on the main blog adding the next chapter (and I'll get there before twelve, don't panic), but first, my thoughts on Dream.
Basically, I think it's fantastic. I like my art to have an element of sheer insanity to it, and a giant white slightly elongated face has it in spades. I like the fact that it's meant to symbolise the poor miners' longing for freedom (obviously) and I love that it's only visible for about two minutes as you drive past, leaving slightly sleep deprived travelling businessmen to wonder if they really saw a giant head on a hillside or whether they're starting to lose it. I love the way that it will only look like a real face from a certain angle, the elongated nature meaning that if you're at the bottom of the hill looking up then the foreshortening will give it the proper proportions. Try to see it from any other angle and it becomes less and less human the nearer you get.
Best of all, I like the fact that it reminds me so much of Don Brown's cover to Let It Come Down by Spiritualized:

Based on his wife Yoko, the cover is actualy a 3D plastic case with the face pressed into it, but because of the way the brain compensates for things like that, it automatically flips it so it looks like it's coming out towards you. I hadn't played the CD for about two years, but when I saw Phil's post on Dream I had to dig it out. Cause and effect indeed.

In other news, The Guardian has JG Ballard's final short story online for all to read here:

The Dying Fall

While Mr Karl A Russell continues to thrill the world with his deeply unpleasant SF epic Hurt here:

Worlds Of Hurt.

Right, off to the main blog to introduce the world to Lieutenant Dietar Schnitzler...

This Weeks Consumption

What pop music tells us about JG Ballard

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8008277.stm



Aristotle on Causality

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/



Red Army Faction Letters

http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/pdf/pdf76_03_19_meinhof.pdf

In Dreams Your Mine All Of The Time....

I was travelling into work this morning and noticed, what appeared to be, a large white obelisk structure on a hillside. My first thoughts were 'It's an NSA listening post. They're trying to intercept communications between Warrington and Widnes and finally track us down!' I carried on driving and made it my priority to Google it using Boolean logic 'obelisk hill AND warrington OR widnes AND nsa'. By the time I made it through city centre rush hour traffic and dawdled through the Queensway tunnel, I had forgotten all about the mysterious structure.

The mystery was finally resolved earlier on this evening, when Gordon Burns presented a news article on the 'Face of Sutton Manor' or 'The Dream' on BBC's North West Tonight. Apparently, the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA not the NSA...) commissioned Spanish artist Jaume Plensa to create the sculpture, which stands 20 metres high, to represent the iconic north and St Helens? It has already caused controversy for St Helens Borough Council, due to the communities reaction. The locals would have been more appreciative of a cash injection in St Helens ailing economy, which is currently suffering, due to the recession.

I'm still of the opinion that there's some kind of NSA listening post hidden inside, monitoring this blog and tracking our conversations.

Beware of 'The Dream'.

Phil

This Is The Way, Step Inside. This Is The Way, Step Inside.

Today we lost JG Ballard.

Beyond the obvious debt we owe - and lets face it, he pretty much perfected the patchwork novel with The Atrocity Exhibition and Vermillion Sands, without either of which it's doubtful that Doubtless Wonder would ever have took the turns it has - he gave us so much more.

As a wee slip of a lad reading old New Worlds paperbacks, I found this strange brand of SF which seemed to really speak to me. None of the red-hating rocket-shippery of the yanks' sci-fi, this was English through and through; Cold, clear and brutal as ice. What few happy endings there were came as a real surprise, and you felt almost cheated when someone made it past the final paragraph in one piece. Moorcock and Aldiss created worlds and characters that will stay with me forever, but in The Drowned World, Ballard gave me the most beautiful vision of the apocalypse I've ever encountered. Even now, with every newspaper mention of melting ice caps and rising sea levels, my inner 12-year-old flashes back to The Drowned World and remembers that actually, that sounds pretty damn cool...

The apocalypse, Ballard style, is an extremely attractive proposition, like a bizarre collision between Heart Of Darness and The Kraken Wakes. The Crystal World adds in crystallization and leprosy, while the smaller-scale endings of Empire Of The Sun and Crash (World War II and fatal car crashes, respectively) are if anything even more exciting, liberating and arousing. Possibly too arousing, but what the hell... The man gave us President Charles Manson for christ's sake! Even if it wasn't the real Manson and we had to go through complete economic meltdown and ecological disaster to get there (I'm pretty sure it was fiction...), it would be worth it to see that.

On top of all that (and Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes, Concrete Island and the rest), Ballard lent titles to Joy Division, Klaxons, Hawkwind and, erm, Buggles. He inspired Video Killed The Radio Star.

Video. Killed. The. Radio. Star.

Oh yes.

And finally, in a one-two Ballard/Cronenberg titanic tag team match, he sent your favourite authors all the way to Wigan. There was no other option as there were no other cinemas willing to show the film adaptation of Crash. We've got Liverpool at one end of the road, Manchester at the other, and we had to go all the way to Wigan to see James Spader dry humping a leg wound. Last time I saw the film, it was on Channel 4, not long after the watershed and not one newspaper took the time to denounce it on the front page. Oh brave new world...

So anyway, today we lost JG Ballard. The apocalypse is a step closer, but it won't be half as attractive without him there.

Karl

Notes from 'Kenny'

I'm currently sat in a porta-cabin, in the middle of a builder's yard, in the middle of Kensington - central Liverpool. It's one of Liverpool's 'forgotten developments' from the European Capital of Culture festivities. Everywhere you look, there are promises of future development. Billboards are adorned with catchphrases like Deliverington, Developington, Enhancington; and the Kensington Regeneration fund has generated job opportunities, along with, new educational and social infrastructures that assist the local community. However, this development was rarely mentioned during the cultural activities of 2008. Emphasis was placed on artistic and media friendly events that promoted and encouraged development of city business rather than the many communities within Liverpool. Don't get me wrong, the Capital of Culture was an event to be proud of and, I'm sure, heightened Liverpool's cultural and economic profile. But did it alleviate the social and economic burdens within Liverpool's poorer districts?

I can't answer that question, as I live on the periphery, and only look in on Liverpool during my working week. It is people like me, who commute in and out of the city and conduct business therein, that have gained the most from 2008. More concentrated effort needs to be focused on the social rather than the cultural. Once local communities have been lifted from depravity, then it is the time to re-focus and celebrate Liverpool's achievements and vast cultural wealth. Maybe Kensington is the start? Let's hope so..

Phil (2nd generation scouser or what is colloquially known as a 'woolly back'.)


For more info:
http://www.kensingtonregeneration.com/

Note From A Flower To A Garden...

....Or How I Learned To Get Along And Love Beards

The beardiest, weirdiest genius-level event of the modern age is in lengthy conversation over at CBR. Focussing mostly on the upcoming League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, Mr Alan Moore has some important and intriguing things to say about the relationship between fiction and reality, cultural imperialism and the downside of immortality. He also says this : "David Beckham had plastic surgery that would make him into a centaur."
Now you'll have to read it, won't you?

Alan Moore Interview Part 1

Alan Moore Interview Part 2

Goodnight England,

Karl

Popcorn

I managed to find the original 1969 Gershon Kingsley version of Popcorn from the classic moog era. This would fit nicely over the closing credits of a Doubtless Wonder movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu0i9_ajlAE

This week's consumption

Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g

David Byrne interviews David Byrne
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-mxVxFXLg

Introduction to String Theory
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/lectures/stringnotes.pdf

Douglas Rushkoff Blog
http://www.realitysandwich.com/blog/douglas_rushkoff

Art of Liam Sharp
http://www.liam-sharp.ch.vu/

MGMT - This Must be the Place
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTiFNQBRwwU

I'm sure Karl will add more.......

What's This All About Then?

Here's a few links to things we are listening, reading, consuming and viewing at the minute. Maybe it'll give you some clues, maybe it'll point you in the right direction, maybe it won't........

Cheers

Phil