knit one street purl one city

robinson in ruins

Soon to be released by the BFI is Patrick Keiller’s new film, Robinson in Ruins, which has new narrator Vanessa Redgrave pick up the story of Robinson’s investigations after London / Robinson in Space.

Synopsis from the BFI site :

Patrick Keiller’s latest sees his shadowy, somewhat eccentric titular researcher embark on another tour of ‘sites of scientific and historical interest’ in and around Oxford.

A decade after his earlier trips around London and England, film cans and writings are discovered suggesting that Robinson – though is that his real name? – resumed his investigations upon release from prison. Keen to cure the world of ‘a great malady’ (symptoms include the banking crisis, global warming, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the transfer of British land to obscure owners), Robinson sought – or so we’re told by an ex-lover (Vanessa Redgrave) of the now deceased narrator of the first two films – to communicate with ‘non-human intelligences’ determined to preserve life on Earth… Keiller’s witty, revealing script weaves together philosophy, the arts, history, politics, economics, science, agriculture, architecture and much else, even as surreal, mysterious and beautiful images, imbued with a deep love of the natural world, remind us of what’s at risk. Timely indeed.
- Geoff Andrew

Read an excellent interview with Patrick Keiller at 3AM magazine

edinburgh trams + tescotown linwood

This is a tale of two present-day powers in so-called Scotland – one political and one commercial.

Edinburgh’s other Disgrace – The Trams
Enter stage left Councillor Jenny Dawes and “The Right Honourable” George Grubb, “Lord Lieutenant” and “Lord Provost” of Edinburgh. If you are not a resident of Edinburgh, of course you’ll never have heard of them. Let’s just say… they’re not exactly the most scintillating of characters, full of intelligent ideas and nous, the world leaders in urban renewal, right up there arguing coherently with Norman Foster, we might have wished for. Did I mention they’re dull?

They’re sockpuppets. You’ll know who your city’s ones are too. Edinburghs’ have presided over an ill-conceived and wholly unnecessary Tram project that has been an utter logistical disaster (um… familiar… how quickly they’ve all forgotten the parliament messups) and will result in the city remaining in yet more serious debt for decades. The contractors Bilfinger Berger are not to blame – they’re the only professionals here – and must be appalled at the mess this over-politicised and underperforming world heritage site has got them into.

TescoTown Linwood*
In the west the rules are broken by Wendy Alexander; mouthy and well-educated MSP to the beyond-rundown Paisley North constituency. I have to grudgingly say that she is one of the very few political individuals in Scotland (Margo Macdonald is the other) who seem to have a care… and so from trams to tesco.

Tesco Linwood, in Paisley North, is a proposed tescotown, close to Paisley (a once-proud victorian powerhouse south-west of Glasgow). Let’s set the parameters right from the start – there is a large Morrisons at Johnstone and a large Asda at Phoenix park both less than 5 mins away from Linwood – Tesco desperately want a piece of their competitors, not being content with their own supersized Tesco Extra at Port Glasgow, 15 minutes away, or their Paisley Love St fiasco 2 mins away, or their midsize at Kilbirnie 15 mins away (which has completely devastated the local retail community in that small town).

So, what’s a poor megaopoly to do…

Stage One: set up an untransparent Tesco front company – in this case, Balmore Properties – who act as mafia-style landlord to the dwindling retail businesses in the nasty mall you want to flatten and re-develop. Balmore act sluggardly and earn the ire of the business community as well as concerned locals.

Bingo – you have your fall guy.

Stage Two: Oh that’s terrible, we’ll utterly renew the crumbling graffiti-and-crime-infested-nastiness that is Linwood’s centre (Balmore – boo!) and make it all nice and cuddly again. Here’s a really naff website that has been designed to make us seem part of the solution… www.lovelinwood.com – yay, see those hillman imps, makes yer proud dun’t'it.

Stage Three: the public beg you to save them from, er, Balmore. You accept that challenge. Another crap store, a sprinkling of architecturally substandard “affordable flats” and a couple of football pitches should shut them up. Much more importantly – a black eye for asda and morrisons.

HEROES! GO TESCO!! — GO TESCO!!

And now for the bill (stupidity and corruption always costs)

1 Removal of local business economy (re-instatement of some like hairdressers – as Tesco tenants, naturally – trebles all round)
2 Wage-slave economy – x number of part-time shelfstacker jobs at minimum wage – woo hoo.
3 Planning acceptance must-haves – schools, houses, all to LCD standards and with zero morals – this is not a benevolent, semi-intelligent Bournville Village exercise.
4 Another peg down the national self-respect indicator board.
5 Several pegs down the distinctive local flavour indicator board.
6 More proof that Scotland PLC is run by aesthetics-and-morals-free politicos with big mouths and small brains.
7 Oh and the profits? They fly south.

Is this what you want? Because that’s what you’ll get.

*Source: Marcus Leroux : retail correspondent : The Times : 31 August 2010

Photo below taken from a bus on west maitland street Edinburgh – Copymade printshop. I think John H might approve of the paraphrase, subject to changing the colour of the additions and the font… not quite right but we get the emotion

polaroid sx-70 promo : ray + charles eames

The Apple iPad may be a magical device from Jon Ives but the Polaroid SX-70 slr had Land and Eames’ on the case – no contest. This is a delightful promo film (11 minutes) full of intelligence, imagination and gentle humanity – no hard sell, it is self-evidently useful.

The two cameras I feel most comfortable with are the rolleiflex 3.5F and hasselblad 500c/m. The SX-70, like the braunschweig and gothenburg inventions, is I think grokkable (silly word but useful signifier), as described by berg.

Thanks to product designer Saikat Biswas for the find.

Also, there may (or may not) be a polaroid-phoenix’d announcement at Photokina 2010 from the impossible project… there is a lot of interest in the format worldwide – there was a photographer who took large format colour images in the polaroid netherlands factory after they closed it down a couple of years back but having trouble tracing – will update.

Noise and smoky breath

The title above is the title of a poetry anthology on Glasgow published by the third eye centre in the late 80s. Naturally Edwin Morgan featured, and this well mindmapped book has become close to me again in the past month. So it is fitting that the deid poet in word and deed is good-worded and reminisced fondly along with UCS frontman and vocalist (he was a rock star to many) Jimmy Reid this week, well above and beyond the foolishly lame-minded diversionary tactics of the scottish government regarding the very-likely-innocent “bomber” chemo’d up to the gills in the very-likely-not-so-innocent green-flag Maghreb republic.

What be may – it doesn’t do to take things too seriously and Edwin Morgan was an individual I have always looked up to at the back of my mind both in words and in graphics; allowing the death of working class ecosse to soften into the imagination. As a poet of the urban experience in this northern land he always did the right thing by shifting the perspective playfully but truthfully to other worlds and languages.

60s concrete poetry was a sort of banksy-meets-the-ancestors kind of movement and one I’m very fond of. Find out more here.

Hello. I’m Mr Cutler. Nice to meet you Mr Morgan. Shall we sing? You go first as you’re new to all this. I’ll show you around later. You can take your glasses off now.

image from the edwin morgan archive at the scottish poetry library

top tales

Top tales : series one are poster and card sets by fromztoa.

They’re cutups of fictitious dialogues imagined from overheard street conversations, long-forgotten books or tv episodes; in the manner of a scriptwriter reducing a story to one sentence (Roald Dahl comes to mind : see Ode to J. Smith post). Aphorisms that perhaps unsettle; unheimliche.

Archival giclee A1 + A2 artprints and A5 cardsets available to purchase now via Paypal – view Series One in the Shop here

the prime of miss jean brodie

I’m not, as usual for these occasions, going to repeat the life and times of a well-known creative personality – in this case Scotland’s most influential 20c writer (yes, no pre-qualification) Muriel Spark. The DVD of TPMJB, directed by Ronald Neame, is now finally available in the UK (august 2010) via your local retailer of films – not that Maggie Smith needs the royalties now I imagine! What follows is more alliteration-in-homage, than analysis.

Edinburgh is engine to the film. It is the social serenity of the middle classes that begets Marcia Blaine’s USP. Jean is poppy amongst the educational taliban – necessary but wrong. She is the teacher who creates the female financial director of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Waverley Steps, who essentially tells her boss his time and thinking is over.

This dichotomy of upright bruntsfield and morningside social values remixed with fascist dictatorship is convincing. We believe Jean’s love of both Giotto and Mussolini, as we are part-romanised ourselves. And that is the bomb that Spark throws the reader/viewer, leading to Sandy’s revelation to Jean of Mary MacGregor’s false Cider with Rosie moment.

As with many films of this period, Elstree / Shepperton form the backdrops to much of the drama. But Edinburgh is always properly rendered in spirit – Spark/Smith’s reality and Neame’s visual aplomb bring the 1930s – an era that seems so long ago now, but actually mirrors our own parents’ experiences – in very close.

And that is what is unsettling, and timeless – the issues remain the same, only the geopolitics (and guardian editors) shift.

ATYP in glasgow

A bit late, this : part of The Glasgow International Festival in May 2010, A Typical Route is a public art trail along the clyde walkway and central glasgow.

View Atypical Root – Public Art Trail (X) in a larger map

Ode to J. Smith : travis, dahl + birdsall

Taken last week on Wellington at West Regent in Glasgow, Travis’ Omnific eye billsticker is revealed again; probably first posted (and then covered over many times since) in summer 2008.

The eye design was taken off a 1980s Roald Dahl book cover. It’s classic late-old-school (i.e., just before macs came) graphic design, from the master of late-old-school british graphic design, Derek Birdsall.

If you’re interested in street typography, pop over to the excellent Letterpool who are preparing a new book on London.

Ginsberg : Moloch

Another snippet from Daisysaint – from the BBC4 docu Selling the Sixties – Ginsberg on top form (abridged version of the poem from Howl)

Borealis by Héctor Serrano Studio

No borealis in Scotland this weeknight but this is nice from last year.

…and Burns’ bit on the lights, from Tam O’Shanter…

Or like the snow falls in the river;
A moment white – then melts for ever

Or like the Borealis race
That flit before you can point their place

And a clip from Daisysaint’s superb YT channel – Tam Lin with Stephanie Beacham and Ian McShane (lovejoy).

The opening sequence here is lovely if you like fresh-minted brutalism seen from quiet motorway via Jensen, Aston and Corniche… (not too sure what the gold droptop is – Wolseley? )