Back Soon!

This is ridiculous!...I took a detour, I strayed to the dark side and got mired in Facebook...I'm going to put it right...or write, as the case may be...hoping soon to post my carefully hand picked videos and accompanying comments...Please!, I implore you!, stay tuned.

Theo Jansen...genius...

Dutch artist Theo Jansen builds wind powered automata collectively known as StrandBeests; each design has it's own Latin binomial and usually a unique inbuilt survival strategy, e.g. a dangling siphon mechanism that prevents it from wading too deep into the water; or a tail spike with an automated hammer so that the Beest can anchor itself to the ground when the wind picks up...


Via: VideoSift

Jansen's walking mechanism is designed such that the "hip" remains level and at a constant distnce above the ground plane...as would the axel of a wheel



the above video was animated by a Mr. Daniel Wyllie

Here come the Hills of Time...pondering that elusive "state of grace"...

Some years ago it occurred to me that it was wildly hopeful and overly optimistic to speak in terms of the best years of one's life...surely about the most that we can hope for (or humbly expect)is to have accrued a small collection of memories which may have originally lasted only moments...I remember crossing Fore street from the station to the mall at Edmonton Green seeing Zen and our baby son James, in his push chair beaming...so happy to see me...Me of all people!
...I remember one of those perfect London summer afternoons in our new house...sitting on our sofa, (also now long gone), reading the Times; church bells, and even that beautiful English sound of willow on leather...yes the crack of a cricket bat...
Kate knows what I'm talking about...

Dreams Have Gone Out of the World...

As I have said before, there are so many other things I would rather do, should do or have to do.
A couple of days ago I was looking through some of my late father's writing and came across this rather beautiful but rather glum piece of poetry, which was probably written in the late 60s...how much more relevant it is today...I realized that in some sense, it was as if my father and I were born centuries apart...

A long term project which is essentially already finished will be the creation of a Blog from his journals...again; here's something I should have started when I wasn't working...

click on the images to enlarge.

Hey Joe!...the joys of being a Yankee sound-alike.

One of the lesser but still important themes of My Unmade Movie is Anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism is as pervasive as American culture and American influence EVERYWHERE.
Personally, I have to make a conscious effort to keep mine in check...and therein lies the problem. I at least recognize that it is a problem and not an acceptable norm. How often do people in the outside world, i.e., the actual world that isn't America...and there's a lot of it...how often do those people stop and think, "wait a minute, maybe not all Americans think that way". Presently, a Republican politician, Ron Paul, has dared to suggest that perhaps American foreign policy is to blame for the enmity that showers America from off her shores. To use a great Americanism, "Well duh!", the Brits would call this restating the blinding, bleeding obvious; more succinctly one man's retaliation is the CIA's "blowback". Would it be wildly preposterous to suggest further that Hollywood or at the very least Fox news could just possibly, just occasionally, be producing what someone, somewhere else could rightfully describe as "propaganda"?
Personally I marvel when members of the American public ask, "why do they hate us so much?" Just ask your politicians, if their answer is anything other than "America's bullying foreign policy", then they're lying which of course should come as no surprise. In the outside world we have very little good to say about politicians generally, even if we like them! In the outside world we maintain a healthy skepticism.
It was your founding fathers who so perfectly framed all the basic principles of modern democracy; checks and balances, separation of church and state, and the right to a dissenting opinion; what the hell happened?, what's wrong with you (the) people?

Lewis Black one of my many, many favourite Americans addresses some of these issues, and is, as ever, very complimentary toward Canada. LANGUAGE WARNING!



more about all of this later...

My Privilege

I've been meaning to write for such a long time...and it's not as if nothing much has happened...although that wouldn't be unexpected around here; but if I do say so myself I do have something of a knack for having interesting things happen to and around me in the dreariest of times and places...
e.g. a couple of weeks ago I rather impulsively caved in and panic purchased what is certainly the second last multi-system VCR in Hooterville...possibly the entire world...(they ain't makin' em like that anymore!)...a beautiful Samsung machine which does standards conversion on the fly...anyway, the first thing I dubbed to NTSC VHS and then to DVD was an 8mm off air recording I made almost twenty years ago of an incredible film by an amazing director; I shant say more as it is hoped that this masterpiece may at last be released on DVD within a few months time...
I gave a copy to my friend Josh who promptly e-mailed me a link to the director's website; wherein I read that even the director himself had been unable to obtain a copy from the distributor!
I wrote to this director; as it later transpired so did my friend Josh. I offered to send this gentleman a copy/copies in whatever standard he preferred and received the kindest and most gracious reply...he's a major, though not mainstream, director; one of THE GREATS...took time to write me a nice reply...whereas local media "big shots" can't even return a call or even mouse click to acknowledge receipt of an e-mail. Real class shines through.

What all the fuss is about

I started painting about 10 months ago and at present have five or six unfinished canvases to my credit, not the least of which is this portrait of my darling wife...AKA...the heroine of My Unmade Movie...