Letterpress printing block: “Save safe with Northern Rock” (link)
“Probably worth more than your shares“
The Vapours
Internet Finds
We’ve both given up smoking so whose matches are those?
“Hi, my name’s Martin, I’m 39, and I live in a small town in central England. I’m not a very heavy smoker but I do enjoy my Marlboro Lights (sometimes filterless), and I do get a kick out of smoking. Enjoy the occasional cigar too. There is much more to me than this though - drop me a line if you want to know more! Hello Everyone…”
Dumkopf! They saved Hitler’s brain again!
Item not won: Adolf Hitler’s head shaped candle.
A man was arrested yesterday for decapitating an wax effigy of Hitler in Berlin’s Madame Tussauds.
Possible motive:
World War II is over, and Nazi officials remove Adolf Hitler’s living head and hide it in the fictional South American country of Mandoras, so that they can resurrect the Third Reich for the future. It fast forwards into the 1960s, and the surviving officials kidnap a scientist in an attempt to keep Hitler alive. Various intelligence agencies, aware of the evil plot, recruit secret agents to bust the Nazi officials.
-They Saved Hitler’s Brain (synopsis), 1963. Dir. David Bradley.
Comment:
This is a rare reactionary attitude to German history in the capital (of all places) as Germany is internationally recognised as a nation which has confronted its past ‘head-on’ and benefited as a result. You only have to walk around Berlin to see that the remenants of the Reich have not been concealed or glossed over.
Consider the term: Trauerarbeit - Ger. meaning: mourning or grieving, literally translates as ‘healing work,’ (which importantly denotes an active process) used by seminal artist Joseph Beuys during postwar period to describe his modus operandi which included didactic lectures, social sculpture and founding the Green Party in Germany. He is said to have been a Luftwaffe pilot, shot down over the Crimea and nursed back to health by Tartar nomads, hence his autobiographical output. Beuys saw himself as shamanic figure who sought to put a plaster on every wound that he found, no matter what the size. More…
Remember: Two (W)Wrongs do not make a (Third)Reich.
Story
Morpeth Jerky tour is WiFi hotspot!
Finally, the taste of roadside Texas comes to the UK courtesy of Mr. BBQ. This is not to be confused with the usual Texan staple of roasted gopher and medallions of wildcat, but premium British beef jerky prepared in Morpeth, Northumberland. (NB: not available as pants with added beef-taste) Here’s what’s on offer:
Award winning Peppered Beef Jerky, Cajun Hot Beef Jerky, Barbecue Beef Jerky, Lemon Peppered Beef Jerky, Teriyaki Beef Jerky and Garlic Biltong.
“Over the years I’ve tried all sorts of beef jerky from all different sources but found most of them too sweet. Sweetness and beef are not a good combination on my tongue. I recently found your site and bought a bulk pack of your Original Beef Jerky and what a revelation: Snap a bit off, slowly chew and soak in mouth, and out comes that true, unadulterated, pure beef taste. BEEF, BEEF, and nothing but the BEEF! I’ll be back…” Testimonial By: William Joicey, UK
Source: Mr. BBQ Ltd.
The Center for Vampire Research
Dr. Steven Kaplan, appearing on the AP Radio network program “Calling
Ed Bush” last week, discussed his studies, partially funded by the US
Government, of more than three hundred self-admitted vampires. Dr. Kaplan, director
of the Vampire Research Center in Elmhurst, has published some of the
results of his studies in a book entitled “Vampires Are…”, and claims
that there are “at least” three hundred vampires in the continental US, most of them
in California, although some he interviewed worked
as hookers in Baltimore, exchanging sexual favours for blood.
According to Dr.Kaplan, vampires live exceedingly long lives, some he
interviewed claiming to be more than 125 years old, while appearing to be
about fifty. Because of this, they tend not to develop long term
relationships, and rarely marry or stay in one place very long. They tend,
he said, to work at many different trades in the course of their lives.
“When you give blood for blood tests,” said Dr.Kaplan, “you never know
whether someone is drinking it in the next room… you know, they always
take more than is needed for the tests.”
If you would like more information, or—if you are a vampire—help with your condition, write (as I plan to) Dr.Steven Kaplan at:
The Vampire Research Center
PO Box 252
Elmhurst, NY 11373 USA
Enclose a self-addressed stamped evelope with your letter and Dr. Kaplan
will return literature he has prepared for those interested in vampirism.
Further reading: David Reed’s Vampire Study Centre
Stanislawski’s Acting Method and Control Theory: Commonalities Across Time, Place, Field and Dooley’s
There are two central themes to television drama ‘The Wire’.
i. The struggle between individual desires and subordination to the group’s goals.
ii. The struggle between good drunk acting and bad drunk acting.
The Benchmark
1:02mins-1:25mins
Convincing comedy. Bunk consistently plays the drunk detective who, at the moment of total intoxication, is more convinced than at any other point in his life that what he believes is right. Note the way he juxtaposes the indignity of his predicament with arrogant mumbling, the lax grip on his cigar and his self-assured eye squinting.
The Low Ebb
0:06 mins-0:13 mins.
McNulty’s elaborate jaw movements seek to exemplify loss of bodily control, but in fact are a good indicator of a man who is unauthentically drunk.
0:35 mins-0:43mins
More undisciplined face twisting from McNulty. A terrible 8 seconds of television.
The Struggle
0:01mins-0:38mins
Bunk drawling “Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy” while rolling about on the pavement like an egg is a moment of beauty. His 20 second monologue on the meaningless of life has no beginning, middle or end. His inexplicable stress of the words “What” and “Like that” confuses this mangled sermon even more. Effective television.
0:28mins-0:38mins
Despite intially showing promise at the start of the scene while stood doubled up in the road, McNulty’s repetition of the phrase “Like that” is just garbage. He makes a hammy hand and arm gesture, which he repeats twice. The actor’s logic being that the drunk detective is so drunk he has no memory of motioning the first gesture; so feels the need to perform it twice more. This is the 10 seconds that robbed The Wire of being commissioned for prime time Channel 4.
Coltrane’s Digital Hymn Unmasked
“At John Coltrane’s funeral service in 1967, Donald Ayler stood on a balcony beside his saxophonist brother and played a spine-chilling lament. Wildly flagging his trumpet valves and swaying backwards and forwards, he seemed to scream through the instrument. Forty years later, that music still has the power to stun and dismay.” - Val Wilmer, 2006.
Until now, the legendary performance of the brothers Ayler at John Coltrane’s funeral in 1967 has eclipsed what conspiracy theorists are now labelling “a cover up” and “an audio sham”.
The following recording is believed to have been made during the opening 15 minutes of Coltrane’s service. Until now, there has been no evidence to suggest that this hymn was ever part of the proceedings.
It was discovered last week by a European jazz academic researching analogue hard drives.
The hymn is entitled “Sermon en Croute”. The identity of its performer remains unknown.
Romford Slim invites a Vander-pump onto off-world colony
French avant-prog rock eco-warriors Magma’s Christian Vander sings about his love for Otis Redding in the made-up language of Kobaïan. I most definitely “caught the vapours” from these guys. I’ll never look at tv music performances in the same way again…
One afternoon when I was 11, my dad took me out of a maths lesson to watch late 80’s snooker giant Steve ‘The Nugget’ Davis, ‘cut the red ribbon’ at a new (pre Superdrug) chemist in my town called ‘Tip-Top’. Little did I know that this ball clacking ‘ginger magician’ was also a vinyl junkie iconoclast masquerading as a soup sniffing square.
At the zenith of his career, Davis arranged and personally funded UK tour dates in London for Magma just for his own amusement. He was astonished to find that other (fuck Japan, save the whales) Kobaïan/alien shagging weirdos turned up too:
“In the late Eighties, I thought it would be nice if they came over to London to do a gig, so I set up Interesting Promotions to promote it. Well, I paid the bill is what I really mean. I never realised that there were 14 of them in the band, which raised the overheads slightly. They did three nights at the Bloomsbury theatre; the last night was a sell-out. I’d done my nuts [spent too much money] too, so it was great. Then I went back to [whispers] playing snooker.”
Proof positive that there’s more to ‘Mr. Interesting’ than meets the cue ball.
Quote: My obsession, Lee Honeyball, Sunday March 7, 2004, The Observer
