Dirty Projectors

Yes, I Thought I Was Right

Conrad remembers this South Canadian rock band being mentioned a geological age ago on the BBC's website, possibly as being a band to watch as they were going places.  I don't have anything by them, not even on a compilation album, so I'm going to have to tackle Youtube and see if it can provide.  Art!

     Hmmmmm possibly a bit lightweight, but then not everybody can be bonkers prog-metal mathcore (The Mars Volta I'm looking at you).  They are a passion project of founder David Longstreth and have been around since 2002, only really hitting the big(ish) time in 2009.

     ANYWAY none of that is what I wanted to talk about in this Intro, since I have come across mention in my notes taken from "Seeking Victory" about the LIVENS PROJECTOR!

     No, Vulnavia.  Nothing to do with films or film reels.  I think we need to get Art's attention with a steel ball-bearing fired from a catapult.

     O go rub an ice cube on it, Art.  The LP was a simple large bore mortar, fired electrically by the hundred or thousand by the Special Brigade or Royal Engineers of Perfidious Albion in the First Unpleasantness.  They were intensely disliked by the Teuton infantry because a single LP cylinder contained thirty pounds of gas, and the Special Brigade could prep over a thousand of them per day.  They could deliver an enormous amount of gas very quickly and with nil warning, meaning that the Teutons had to have special 'Luki-luki' sentries posted to watch for the tell-tale sign of a thousand-plus Projectors being fired.  Art!

     

     Thus Perfidious Albion - the clue is in the title - learned to put their Projectors in dead ground, where they couldn't be seen.  And to fire them at night, just to be even more hateful.  They could create a concentration of gas so heavy that it overwhelmed the Teuton gas masks, in which case their trenches would be manned by the dead (not very sporting and not at all cricket).

     The LP could also be charged with other harmful fillings, like oil or thermite, which were great at setting anything flammable ablaze.  Like woods.  on 04/06/1917 the Special Brigade fired 1,200 oil drums at Grande Bois and Wytschaete woods, which caught fire.  The Teuton defenders, the 33rd Fusilier Regiment, reported utter panic breaking out thanks to their locale becoming a bonfire and they in the middle of it.  Art!

Captain Livens

     In another demonstration that the British in war can be as un-gentlemanly as the next chap, the Special Brigade used their incendiary Livens shell upon the hapless Teutons another 23 times over the next six months.  You can bet your supple leather boots that by September the Teuton stubble-hoppers were calling the Livens a Dirty Projector, and probably harsher words than that, too.

     Which is where this evening's title comes from.  What, is Art still whinging?  Put a bit of Sudofed on it, you whining piker.

     Chin chin!

Let's Have A Little Culture

Charles Marion Russell, to be exact.  You know, the South Canadian artist who portrayed the Old West on canvas.  We've not had one of his prints up for a while, so here we go.  Art!

"Trail Of The Iron Horse" circa 1924

     I can tell you exactly what the chap with the spear is saying to his mates.

     "We are living in the future," with a puzzled expression, because he's go no idea what railway tracks are for.  Better not still be in that place when the 3:10 to Yuma goes by, Dancing Weasel.  It's quite an evocative scene, two cultures clashing without realising.

"On The Water"

Our second example of this theme from the BBC's photography exhibition, which is great for Conrad as it takes a bit of the heavy creative lifting from his shoulders, and one assumes the Beeb has already carried out due diligence and quality control.  Art!

Courtesy Alex Ashby

     This is from Sai Kau harbour in Hong Kong, where that gentlemen was making an unsteady way to shore over a collection of small boats.  We hope he made it without getting a ducking.  And I'm adding this last sentence in to hit the 700 words mark.

"The Spider"

You will recall, if you know what's good for you, that Conrad graced an earlier BOOJUM! with a cover from the pulp magazine "The Spider", despite not knowing anything whatsoever about it.  Art!

     I don't give matey good odds here - that's two men with guns, another with a dagger and mister upstairs with a cleaver.  And if Spider - for I presume it is he - is reduced to clubbing a villain with the butt of his gun, then he's out of ammunition.

     ANYWAY It transpires that TS was big news in the Thirties, and the magazine remains verrrrry collectible.  The Spider is actually Richard Wentworth, an independently wealthy man of means, who decides to take the law and justice into his own hands and fight crime.  The operative word here is 'fight', because Ol' Rick wasn't about to chicken out or pansy around.  No, he intended to stamp out crime, and if this meant stamping criminals into a sticky red smear - he was fine with that.  The criminals were also extremely violent with absolutely no regard for human life, frequently killing or murdering thousands of innocent people.  You can understand Rick's reluctance to let them keep on living. Art!

Master of men.  Women?  That remains to be seen.

     Conrad wonders if any of these are available in the public domain.  One to check on after publishing this blog ...

"The Sea Of Sand"

Where were we?  Sorry, it's just that I've read far ahead of where we are in what's been published online.  Hang on -

He stood, alongside the others, at the rim of a vast, shallow bowl in the desert fully a mile across, in the middle of which lay the buildings excavated so far, and giant rolling billows of sand that hinted at other constructions hidden under the yellow drifts.  Makan Al-Jinni.  The enormous rectangular black building dubbed “The Temple” was the only one completely uncovered, standing fifty feet tall atop a podium that was itself thirty feet high.  Massive pillars held up the roof, and equally massive steps led up each face of the podium.  Further into the bowl lay the partially un-covered circular construction, which Templeman and Bartolomei dubbed “The Dais”.    Standing erect from the multi-hundred ton mass of The Dais was the feature that had originally attracted attention in this desolate spot, the tapering black pylon.  Much of the overburden had been removed from this part of the structure, leaving a mass of sand still lying around the base.  Fifty yards away another pylon, identical to it’s more apparent brother, showed less than half its height through the layers of sand. 

          Wheelbarrows creaking and squeaking, the group made their way down the slope to the planked walkway and into the bottom of the shallow depression, Fulgoni casting a last longing look at the sky behind.  Every member of the troupe seemed to bow their shoulders once they lost sight of the dune sea.  A stillness and silence hung over the abandoned buildings, made heavier by the passing of countless centuries since people had walked or worked here.  Only Professor Templeman seemed entirely ignorant of the atmosphere, stoutly proclaiming that work today ought to begin on further removing overburden from the second pylon.  Doctor Bartolomei disagreed urbanely and a discussion took place whilst others took tools from the barrows and waited for a decision.  

     There you go, a bit more mise en scene established.  Hopefully the creepy nature of this site comes through.

Finally -

We've hit the Adjusted Compositional Ton already, so I shall keep this brief.

     There you go, promise kept.