Your Humble Scribe Had Plans
Involving baskets, thanks to a bus ride into Babylon-Lite (Oldham if we're being formal) this morning, where I stared out of the window, cogitating. I had a theme, involving reference to my 'Brewer's', a couple of films, then economic mention of Mordorvia and a couple of other nations not doing terribly well financially at present.
Well, that all went out of the window, faster than a Ruffian general falling foul of Putinpot, for Lo! I read the entry in my notebook dating from last night. Art!
I know what you're thinking - why has Conrad dragged out illos from his favouritest sci-fi film evah?
In the final decade of the 21st century, men and women in rocket ships landed on the moon. By 2200 AD, they had reached the other planets of our solar system. Almost at once, there followed the discovery of hyperdrive, through which the speed of light was first attained, and later greatly surpassed.
That's why. This is the opening soliloquy for 'Forbidden Planet', made in 1956 before Sputnik had even been launched. Note the gender-equality present, which is howlingly rare for films of this era, and one wonders why the United Planets Cruiser C-57D sports an all-male crew, be
ANYWAY the key word above is 'Hyperdrive', which concept has been a staple of sci-fi since the Thirties, permitting Hom. Sap. to visit exotic alien worlds full of green-skinned females with a hankering for and view the wildlife. Art!
Actually a species of intelligent plant?
Her name is Clora Fill, one assumes.
ANYWAY ANYWAY back to Pink Floyd in their earliest iteration, where they were regulars at the 'U.F.O.' club in London, when their line-up was Syd Barrett (guitar, vocals, songwriting), Roger Waters (bass), Nick Mason (drums) and Rick Wright (keyboards). Art!
Their regular performances had created a cult following, as thanks to Syd's idiosyncratic tastes and interests, they were seen as being part of the 'space-rock' genre. Conrad offers as evidence tracks such as 'Astronomy Dominé', 'Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun', 'Cirrus Minor' and the corker of them all, 'Interstellar Overdrive'.
Selling your car for more, made easy
That's a link to the album track, which is unfortunately prefaced by an advert about buying or selling A Metal Box On Wheels. Be warned, it's an instrumental over 9 minutes long, as psychedelic as Sixties music gets, so not to be taken lightly. Art!
Rather to Conrad's surprise, it has been extensively covered by other bands and musicians. Yes, that is indeed Frank Zappa jamming with the Floyd live, doing a version of it at the Amougies music festival in Belgium, dateline 1969.
So, Syd was implicitly referencing that corpus of sci-fi work going back thirty years, as described in FP's opening speech. The beauty of it being an instrumental track is that you, the listener, make up the images in your own mind, meaning Syd didn't need to be limited by words. Quite crafty, and one of the reasons why radio can be so successful when well done. Art!
Doing TKW as a film or, more likely, a television series, would be horribly expensive, requiring location shoots in the Caribbean and at sea in both Atlantic and Pacific. Not so on radio!
We seem to have gotten off-track somewhat. Back we go to 'Interstellar Overdrive' and those who have covered it.
"Interstellar Overdrive" has been covered by many artists, including Teenage Fanclub[55] and Kylesa.[56]
- Camper Van Beethoven covered the song[57] on their studio album Camper Van Beethoven.[58]
The piece has been covered by acts such as Tyrannosaurus Rex (jammed on bass by Steve Peregrin Took live in 1969), Pearl Jam, Camper Van Beethoven, Hawkwind, the Melvins, The Mars Volta, moe., and Simon House.
Soooooo - bonkers prog-metal mathcore musos TMV did a cover? I wasn't aware of this as it seems to be a song they only play live and which isn't on any of their studio albums. A visit to Youtube is called for, I feel. Art!
I couldn't leave without putting up this illo, clearly making a case that Syd's estate should get royalties from their sales.
Okay, Mister Brock, all ahead Wart Factor five! Art?
The unusual juxtaposition of 'Hawkwind' and 'high'
Reasons To Be Chi-ful
Conrad is unsure if the blog is read at all in The Populous Dictatorship, and after comparing Xi Jin Ping to a panda, we're probably banned across all platforms, and anyone living there reading this will get 10 years in a 're-education' camp.
ANYWAY AGAIN, I read another factoid that makes me like Ailuropoda Melanoleuca Man even less. Art!
For those of you wanting a sequel that sticks more closely to the episodic nature of the novel, tough. Such a sequel would have involved a big budget, meaning it needed big box office returns, and guess what? The Chinese market won't accept films centred around zombies or ghosts. So WWZ2 was a non-starter thanks to that.
"A Chinese Ghost Story"
Aren't I naughty, putting up this title and making Chi-Chi seethe in quiet rage, Art!
This actually came out of the Hong Kong film industry in 1987, so it predates the grouchy fat killjoy. It was a whopping big success in Asia, especially South Korea and Japan, and gained underground cult status in The Populous Dictatorship. Conrad has seen it several times, and it's a winning blend of comedy, drama and horror, with a very poignant ending. The plot centres on the nerdy tax-collector Ning, who is a variety of 'Holy Fool'; that is to say, he is naive, but has a sound moral compass and spotless soul. He falls for the ghost Nip, played by the very delicious Leslie Cheung - Art!
Les busy being not ugly
Because these are Chinese ghosts, they appear to have a very solid and corporeal presence, Nip managing to save Ning's life on several occasions by physically intervening.
It began a trend in Asian cinema for ghost films, and was successful enough to spawn a sequel, an animated version and a 2011 remake. Go look it up on Youtube and make Pandaman froth with inchoate rage.
"The War Illustrated Edition 209 22nd June 1945"
Let us continue with the central pages montage, which is a collection of photographs from the beginning of the Second Unpleasantness, in chronological order. Art!
That ought to be 'Battle of the RIVER Plate' as otherwise it sounds like a skirmish throwing crockery at each other. The 'Graf Spee' was a Teuton commerce raider, whose mission was to sink British merchant vessels, and to avoid combat wherever possible. She was involved in an action at sea with three British cruisers, and retired hurt to the port of Montevideo. Her captain feared that half the Royal Navy was due to arrive and turn 'hurt' into 'sunk', so the ship was scuttled. Not the Kriegsmarine's finest moment.
Today's Haul
I WEAKENED. Yes, during my visit to Bablyon-Lite, Your Humble Scribe ventured forth to the Oxfam bookshop, which I have taken pains to avoid over the past couple of months. Art!
I have Edition 1 of "Wargames Illustrated", simply because it was the first edition and may be worth a pound or two over the next fifty years. The 'Biggles' book is one I may have read as a much smaller version of myself, I will only know once we get into the pages. Illustrated, too. "The Hundred Years War" will hopefully cover the Crecy campaign and that bridge the French tried to render unusable, because I still harbour hopes of bringing back an Intro on burning bridges. Or at least vandalising them heavily.
Conrad already has two other books to send to the charity shops, so the net total hasn't gone up by anything, and there are still 2 Jeff Carlson perused novels I want to palm off to Darling Daughter.
Finally -
Two things I got at Sainsbo's that I didn't anticipate were 'Kefir', which is a dairy product Ukrainian baking needs, and a Polish curd cheese, which the Ukes describe as 'Farmer's cheese' in their recipes. Recipe attempts tomorrow!
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