Uncanny Valley of the Dolls

From 'The Golden Age of Toys', 1967.

Would the Victorian / Edwardian period have been the Golden Age of Hauntology for people of a certain age in the 1960s?

Planet Sized Ego

Another Jack Kirby creation, Ego The Living Planet. Seen here in a frame from a 1974 edition of the mighty 'Thor'.

The Face on Mars 1958

From 1958 The incredible retro-futurist comic artist Jack Kirby brings you...



...How did he know?

Paraboloid

Bollops' concrete pictures reminded me of Sam Scorer's paraboloid structure on the M1 at Markham Moor.

Built in the late 1950's as a service station, it became a Little Chef about fifteen years ago and has recently escaped demolition in the name of progress. It's not listed, but they are looking into it. I'll pass it on Saturday as I travel down from Yorkshire to Essex so look out for a blurred photograph taken at speed in the next few days.

Modern Concrete Construction, Vol. IV

Published by Caxton, 1950.

That arched building HAS to be Newbury Park underground station, built in 1949 (according to some bloke on the internet). See recent pic here.

Slicing Open the Eyeball: Surrealism and the Visual Unconscious

 

Great article here, which should interest many of you.

de Bonio

The Terpsichorean Muse

Royal with Cheese Sandwich

Chris Killip
Royal Wedding Celebrations, North Shields, 1981

Primitive Modernist Lumps

More HERE

Unknown Worlds part 2 The Adverts

Interference

I came across this on YouTube whilst searching for something completely different. I watched this at school and, ironically, the Betamax tape was of rather poor quality so to us the programme was in black and white with horizontal lines throughout. Even at a young age I wondered if that was all part of the show. I have looked for this before but to no avail. Judging by how long this has been uploaded to YouTube I think I had misspelled 'Interference' in my search.

Mrs P
x

William Shatner: Microworld

via Dangerous Minds

Radiophonic Bump

This has already been posted by another contributor, but hey - it's not every day of the year you get a whole weekend of Radiophonic goodness. I'll be there because (a) I live in Bristol and (b) I'm performing at the event, but also because (c) Dick Mills will be there, yes that Dick Mills, the one who did all those farty laser gun noises on those old Dr. Who episodes you used to watch and (d) so will David Cain (yes, that David Cain, the one who made this record). Delia will be with us in spirit, natch. This is the hauntological audio event of the year (oh shit, did I just say the 'H' word? - sorry) and attendance is mandatory. And that includes you, King Modulator. And you, Dolly Dolly. And no, there's no room left on my sofa for you to sleep over. See you in the bar. Mine's a pint.

For more details, go here.

Badgers

The Quiet Sun

Russian publication looking at the International Quiet Sun Year (01-Jan-1964 to 31-Dec-1965), when boffins took advantage of the lowest point in the solar cycle to measure... stuff.

Goodbat Nightman by Roger McGough

Many thanks (again) to af harrold for the scan. He's kind like that.

Oramics - a short film about Daphne Oram's synthesizer

Oramics from Nick Street on Vimeo.

Daphne Oram's started her Oramics project after she left the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1957, a project that focused on pure sound produced by visual images. There's also a Wire Salon event at Cafe Oto on 7 April about Daphne Oram (apologies if either have already featured on here). Thanks to John Cavanagh for the heads up.

Newgrange Passage Tomb, Ireland

From the outside, a giant curved mound of grass-topped earth encased in a modernist "Stalinist brutalist" exterior, as Neil Oliver recently put it on his telly programme. On the inside, claustraphobic and yet apparently similarly sharply-designed, and intact, apart from the stone-carved graffiti by 18th and 19th century tourists. Strangely, it's far from cosy, organic or earthy though. The look and feel is geometric - like the pyramids (Newgrange is only 500 years older). Built by hand, without concrete, by balancing carefully selected rocks to create a passage that was specifically angled to only receive sunlight over winter solstice, a corbelled roof, and three small recesses around a circular centre, it was pretty unexpected to feel like I was in a spaceship pod as much as a sacred space. Maybe a little too much reading about ancient astronauts and looking at the neolithic spiral art, but I like the idea that we go there to look back and connect, but it was built as much looking forward as for the ancestors.

(The UNESCO World Heritage sites of Newgrange, Knowth & Dowth contain a third of Europe's neolithic art, including lunar maps at Knowth. Save Newgrange are campaigning against the proposed Slane bypass road, which will run 500 metres from Newgrange.)

Unknown Worlds

Originally purchased from Dark they Were and Golden Eyed in 1979.

Within Unknown Worlds there were some amazing adverts 

which I hope to post at later date.

Suit You, Sir

"All done quite by coincidence of course, but the two things (Soviet TV ads and Destination) just sort of forged together like a dream" - Lost in Music blog.

Where are you now, Batman? A poem by Brian Patten

Thanks to af harrold for the scan.