Avant-Garde

A brief history of AG: "The avant-garde are people or works that are experimental, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society. It may be characterized by nontraditional, aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability, and it may offer a critique of the relationship between producer and consumer."

AG is also a security and facilities management company currently working in Central Scotland. I wonder how unorthodox and unconventional you're able to be in this type of business these days. Perhaps they only recruit seekers of the truth, pilgrims and existentialists for employment in their key company positions. Goals are vague and esoteric but they can still erect fences quite well. Even their signage might be said to be a proper AG piece, being weathered and interacting in it's free-form, outside exhibition space.

I first heard of "avant-garde" when I was about sixteen, it might have been used in some Monty Python episode or late night BBC2 doc. My sources were confused and random in those days and often mispronounced and badly used. I never really understood the term or liked the label but I would drop it into wavering conversations to try to look smart. It was often used to describe the music of Soft Machine or early Pink Floyd, creative dance and Hunter S Thompson books.

Just I was exploring what it might mean the name already had some serious cultural baggage and distortion added to it and although people use it to label genres it really is a much broader term ... in French it just translates as "advanced guard" in the military sense. It's meaningless really without being set in a clear context. For most people it's also understood to point to pretentious and confusing crappy art efforts that can only be described as avant-garde as a means of justifying or concealing the quality of the final work. Anyway nobody really uses the term anymore.

Fish box

Posh Nosh: Available now at a supermarket near you.

Octopus Dreams

Octopus triptych: There is of course a proper video if you can be bothered to find it.  I know that the colour changing octopus is old news now but it wasn't really the colour changing that impressed me. It was that colour changing is somehow attached to dream activity (?). I always knew dogs and cats had "dreams" or at least exhibited dreamy type behaviour in sleep but octopus dreams with external tonal variations? Their dreams must be the most far out, trippiest and unhinged dreams of all. Who wouldn't want to be wired up to an octopus to peek into that sub-sea alien dream world ... well maybe not. As Sir Bobness said many years ago, "and if I thought dreams could be seen, they'd probably put my head in a guillotine" etc.

All just numbers

Oh brother/sister, where art thou? The handy index of wealth numbers allows you to check at a glance where you rank in the hierarchy of the world's wealthiest people. A few reasonably well known names are added for reference. No actual surprises there.

Black Metal Cat

Here's our 2020 entry for the Black Metal Cats calendar competition. Quite an evil wee, "why so serious?" look she's rockin' there.

A thousand broadsheet obituaries

This is nothing to do with the John Peel related tweet (above), a person I always liked but have kind of forgotten in recent years as my radio listening and sense of music appreciation dwindled. I just liked the "broadsheet obituary" phrase. Ahem. 

When you're gone, the only way you'll know (ignoring the fact that you're gone) you made it in life is by somehow earning that accolade of champions, politicians, clergymen, medal winners and celebs that is the "broadsheet obituary". Maybe including a photograph. They tend to be personality and family light, these aspects of the life celebrated being more of a footnote. The author (it is a piece of fiction) lends weight to colourful rumour, associations, embellishes the facts, rattles skeletons lurking in closets and depending on the political persuasions of the paper's owners lines up a few bits of tittle-tattle in his firing line and polishes them off. 

So though I quite like the thought of earning a broadsheet obituary I do think that me receiving one is highly unlikely and the very fact that I'll be gone by the time (often a few weeks after the main event) it's published means I don't really need to care. It remains however some kind of a measure of a life but often an untrue representation, if measuring lives and being a fictional character is your sort of thing. Until you get there ... you never really know.

Money v Sense

View from the lunchtime cafe table (not a Tesco cafe either). 

Bulk buys for Brexit is a short (very short, very clunky) propaganda film that I created in a branch of the local Tesco. A special area has been created where you can act out all your suppressed desires to go into a state of wild panic and just buy huge quantities of random groceries that you can't possibly fit into your car. This act will immediately be followed by a strong and stable period of buyers remorse, then, as time passes a feeling of well being and ultimate smugness and then a further period of remorse as you realize you can no longer live comfortably in an average sized house crammed full of "essential" items. These predictions are of course only valid until 31st October, after that it's anyone's guess.

P.S. The film above may not actually do anything when play is pressed. So I stuck it on TubeYou as below ... Sundance beckons!

Twitter Challenge

Twitter Challenge: Share the first picture that comes up when opening Twitter then write something about it and today it's the cast of C4's Spaced. Turns out the Spaced is 20 earth years old today. I probably missed it at the time, 20 years is a long time ago and my viewing habits are a blur looking back. I have certainly watched a few episodes as reruns or on DVD but maybe not them all. I'm sure I laughed quite a few times at their antics. It seems that the world was a simpler place then. 

Of course the cast and writers have gone on and done lots of other things since that first episode, made various films, realised potential and perhaps not realised potential. That is typical of career paths in the modern entertainment industry, they can be patchy because sometimes funny people fail to produce funny stuff. I am also unable to whistle the theme tune but then again I am not a skilled whistler. Game over.

Wisdom of the Sphinx

Number 1 in a very occasional series: "Measure twice, cut once". There you have it, now live the rest of your life in relative peace and numerical accuracy.

Your own, personal, Eton

Out in the sticks for lunch today I enjoyed "posh beans on toast" in a roadside cafe. A variety of kinds of beans, vegetables and spices served up on a doorstep of toasted brown bread. Posh but not pricey. Simple things etc. The news of the (now infamous) judgement against our blithering idiot of a PM washed over and for a brief moment the world seemed less mad than it actually is. Of course the great man considers that the 11 - 0 verdict by our High Court Judges was wrong. Seriously Prime Minister?  How stupid a man are you?

Perhaps we outsiders fail to understand the inner workings of young minds trained up and fueled up at Eton. Perhaps along with all the ritualistic abuse, the jingoism, the serial brainwashing and messages of superiority that go deep within them there is some actual real damage done. Perhaps as the leave to study the classics (small c) at Oxbridge they are all struck heavily upon the back of the head with a cricket bat, just to set them up on their way and thereby ensuring clear and cohesive thought processes are denied to them for the rest of their lives along with any meaningful sense of self. Pity the poor boys of Eton. Too posh for beans, too narrow minded, isolated and remote to exist in the real world, it's criminal really.

Happy in the Haze

And heaven knows I'm suffering from some severe graphical distortion of the vertical and horizontal type right now - along with added swirls. Younger readers will be unaware of the once essential TV controls known as Horizontal Hold and Vertical Hold. The deft turning of these tiny and often hidden knobs at critical times ensured a steady picture on the flickering TV screen during broadcasting's halcyon days. They did produce strange effects and ongoing family arguments, now all lost to a steady set of screens in a digital world.

Oktoberfest in September

Garden apples.

This may well be a heresy (and I'm maybe not 100% guilty) but I feel that this image is a reasonably accurate representation of a version of the Flying Spaghetti Monster from the modern belief system known as Pastafarianism. I know enough to know I'm rendering the image in discarded apple cores and peelings, not actual pasta. It's not all that accurate. As I said it may be a heresy, it may not. I'm not clear as to how sensitive the Pastafarians are regards their deity or their diet these days. No offence intended, "none taken", says an imaginary voice somewhere inside my head. After all it's simply wasted fruit particles that will eventually become useful compost.

Still life with fruit, vegetables and surroundings.

No country for small biscuits

The empire backs strikes: Once upon a time there was a British Empire. Half the world was rendered red in the pre-war Mercator Projected maps that graced the class room wall, blood stained and magnificent and a little misleading. Even then (it's 1962 and I'm trapped in Primary 3 by time travelling nazi pirates) the impression given was quite inaccurate but up to date maps were expensive and for some teachers a depressing reality. Finally after years of denial and avoidance the biscuit industry has caught up with current affairs and Google Earth has destroyed the physical map. The once great fuck-off, Dambusting, Spitfire and Churchill tank of a biscuit has downsized as a respectful reminder of Britian's ugly colonial past and shattered former empire. No doubt in time these biscuits will further downsize and be renamed as the (even smaller) Brexit Biscuit.

Dumb-ass

Red Sky at Night: Generally this means that some Google Bot has been hyper-overactive with the filter juice and some other non-robotic dumb-ass has taken that bait and downloaded the result and displayed it here.

The truth about the Gelflings

Ladies and gentlemen, the truth (about the truth about things) is that the Neanderthals were actually created by Jim Henson during a long and ancient dream which was eventually turned into the past as a direct result of some quite good science. Other types of science are also available. 

A team of reputable scientists is currently building an accurate version of the past using raw data and raw DNA, cooked DNA is unacceptable for use. Due to unforeseen developments this past world is now situated somewhere in the future. It will be along in a regular minute or possibly a millennial minute subject to timetable changes and seasonal fluctuations. At the moment it's too early to tell so please keep to your own seats and remain at peace with yourselves. Thank you.

Possible Gelfling image sculpted from solid historical evidence.

A flash from the archives

This turned up in my Twitter feed this afternoon, a photo I took over eight years ago at the football in Greenock. Somehow it surfaced today for no obvious reason (unless to torment the confused people of internet land and a few Pars fans). A sunny afternoon, a football match and a good humoured pitch invasion from the Dunfermline support, an event we're not likely to see this season.

So last century.

Another WTF moment over the Pacific Ocean.

I know you've heard it all before but the god of Moses, Abraham and Isaac is dead. The fatal blow was dealt some time ago by a mysterious (alien of course) race who may have seen him as a rival, they hid his remains and decided to look over his creation by simply paying "occasional" visits. So as more man-made shit hits a greater number of earthly fans the visits are getting a bit more frequent or perhaps our primitive technology is gaining just enough power to identify and track their comings and goings. 

We now live in the age of the UPA (Unidentified Ariel Phenomena), UFOs are so last century. Having said that the little black shape seen here that can outrun (and possibly out gun) fighter jets looks a tad familiar. I presume that their vehicles don't morph into stranger, curvier or more angular shapes with more cup holders every 24 months in the way that ours do. The UPA industry on whatever planet they originate from could maybe learn a thing or two from Earth's motor industry in terms of beguiling consumers with superficiality and design gimmicks. 

Hardly any surprise either that in the current climate none of them are asking to be "taken to our leaders".

Keep it for later

I was intent on using the image above for today and I had hoped to keep the other two for later. "For later" is I now think, not a good way to think. It means nothing, "later" is in the future, always. A point in time we can quite measure or understand. We may never get there, I may never get there. There is no later, only now. Later is abstract even though there is strong evidence that it might exist. So here are the other two. (I'm reluctant to apply this to frozen foods, presents purchased earlier before the required date and diary entries, I hope you'll understand; it's a slightly wonky philosophical point.).

This badly photographed and badly edited piece is entitled "touch not the cat" for some reason. Art in brickwork.

Reasonably sized pockets

Satisfying little things: The door pockets on Volkswagens are generally found to be of a size sufficient to safely hold a half litre of milk, a carton of soup and still have space for other similarly sized items. They are of course not perfect vehicles, that's something that doesn't exist yet and the actual definition of perfect is moving around all the time thanks to expectations and technology. So whatever else may stun us with it's beauty and performance on that long and winding road to perfection let's not lose sight of the importance of substantial and useful door pockets.

Breakfast of Champions

This is not my beautiful breakfast: No, I simply stood by it for a short period of time as it crackled nearby in the pan. I would not dream of starting the day this way, well not today. As I'm temporarily vegetarian (and this varies minute by minute) I chose toast and PB&J and have since suffered from breakfast remorse and toaster's regret and various other undocumented and unresearched psychiatric conditions once common in the 19th century, otherwise I'm fine.