The Path to Film

"We believed it would go on forever", remarked Hollis Frampton. Malcolm Le Grice nods in agreement. "Too short", he mutters. But Stan Brakhage wasn't having any of it, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!". 

In Memoriam

Ivor Cutler (15 January 1923 – 3 March 2006)
On the twelfth anniversary of his elevation to another place

Presence and the production of song sounds
Close observation and an awareness of meanings
Mr Cutler bangs his head against a hard door

Navigator of cultural backgrounds
Pithy and instructive songs
Sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic
Behavioural traits with synchronous sound

Ivor Cutler, which parts did you find compelling?

The gift of education
The improvement of invalid youth
Mr Cutler kept a packed suitcase by the front door

Gruts for tea, again
Amusing songs and whimsical patter
Never knowingly understood
Creativity with Thalia and Phyllis

Ivor Cutler builds a bird's nest and comments, “That’s nice”

Perceptive and responsive but asleep when the phone rang
Harmony and a harmonium, instruments of defense
Mr Cutler escaped from a Glasgow sitting room

Befriending bacteria using pens, poems and paper
Fortunate in the grip of Scotch water
Strange stuff for the really left-field thinkers
A narrow foot-path

Ivor Cutler and the theatre of the absurd

Good News for the Blind and Near Sighted

Science has been responsible for some wonderful discoveries in the medical world, but few have been more remarkable than the development to its present pitch of efficiency of the Dr Fausterol ’Pataphysic System of treatment for eye afflictions. This system, which is practiced with such marked success by John Brown (as proved by hundreds of letters of appreciation from patients whose eye troubles have been permanently cured by John Brown) was first practiced by the ancient Greeks, and carried to a high degree of efficiency by the Romans who taught the Gauls, from whence it came to Britain. In its present form, the treatment is perfectly painless and ensures permanent cures. It is very far from being a quack remedy and can only be practiced by highly skilled eye specialists, of whom John Brown is one of the most successful.

One of the most notable features of the treatment is that sufferers from eye-troubles can safely discard their glasses after a short course of treatment by the Dr Fausterol ’Pataphysic System, and, the cure is lasting and beneficial. Success is unfailing. Moreover, FEES ARE MODERATE.

John Brown has been practicing the highly developed Dr Fausterol ’Pataphysic System of painless healing for over two decades and has specialised in the study of the eyes for over fifty years or three decades.

Dear John Brown

After twenty years of suffering eye troubles it is needless to say the great appreciation I feel at the benefit I have received with your treatment. It is with great relief to find a cure without going into the Tate. I have been in three different Galleries but thanks to you my visits are marvellously better.

Wishing you every success, yours very gratefully, M. Tilley (Mrs), Salop Road, Oswestry.

Further Testimonials can be seen on request.

Consult John Brown without delay.

Dr. Faustroll's Boat

 

The boat with which Dr. Faustroll, Panmuphle, and Bosse-de-Nage sailed, now preserved in the grounds of the Palais de Justice and the Cour d'appel d'Angers on the Place Saint-Tugal in Laval, France.

The New Absinthe

The Bloggist and his friend, Alfred Jarry, while walking through the Quartier Latin, are dumbstruck at this misspelling of Absinthe. The Bloggist and his friend go in search of two magots or a mad shepherdess to elucidate this error, in the process visiting the Taverne du Panthéon and the Cabaret des Quat'z'Arts before ending up, further afield, at Madame Dunknow’s staminé on the banks of the river.

A previously unrecorded Hancock Sculpture in south-east London

Woodland Spirit

 

The sculptor of this piece, Woodland Spirit, is the famed artist Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock. Situated in Beckenham Park amid a boscage of evergreen and deciduous trees this woodland spirit is admired by art lovers and the general public. A short film of Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock’s almost complete oeuvre can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/52396543

Mr Hancock, of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam, achieved fame in the 1960’s for his acting career but at the time his painting and sculpture was less well appreciated. Since the exhibition at The Foundry, https://www.atlaspress.co.uk/theLIP/dora-hancock.html , a stone’s throw from fashionable Hoxton Square, his status in the artworld has steadily risen with many young artists now being compared to the indomitable Mr Hancock.

Below, a still from the the documentary, The Rebel, directed by Robert Day with script by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, which charts Hancock’s life as a clerk in a London office and his decision to move to Paris to dedicate himself to his art.  

The Artist sculpting Aphrodite at the Waterhole,
was Woodland Spirit a companion piece?

’Pataphysic Landscape

 

Gruinard Bay, the Triumph of Culture

The island of Gruinard is located in Gruinard Bay, between Ullapool and Gairloch, on the west coast of Scotland. Contaminated with Anthrax in 1942 as a result of biological warfare experiments and declared safe in 1990.

Dr Brian Moffat, archaeologist, "I would not go walking on Gruinard. If anthrax is still active at Soutra (Bloggist: medieval Scottish hospital excavated by Dr Moffat), there is no reason to suppose it has not survived on more recent sites. It is a very resilient and deadly bacterium."

For your information: initial symptoms after inhalation might include mild fever, malaise, fatigue, coughing and, occasionally, a feeling of pressure on the chest. The sheep experimented on in 1942 died three days after exposure to the anthrax spores.