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 picking 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

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

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

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? )

adam curtis on debt

Best person to tackle it – should turn out to be a classic Curtis documentary.

\\I am researching this area, and I thought I would put up some of the films from the BBC archive from the time when there was moral disapproval by those in power of the “lower orders” wanting to “live beyond their means”.

And beyond that there is a growing envy and resentment.//

See the films here.

ben okri : a way of being free

//Nations and peoples are largely the stories they feed themselves. If they tell themselves stories that are lies, they will suffer the future consequences of those lies. If they tell themselves stories that face their own truths, they will free their histories for future flowerings//

//Unhappy lands prefer utopian stories.
Happy lands prefer unhappy stories//

//The magician and the politician also have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing//

quotes from Ben Okri’s A Way of Being Free : the joys of storytelling III

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So I have only now found out that Uri Geller bought Lamb island in the Firth of Forth. His enthusiasm for the islands’ alleged central part in the Eqyptian Queen Scota / Arthurian legends, and his belief there’s egyptian treasure under Lamb’s volcanic rock is, as usual with illusionists, infectiously wonderous; yet clownishly false when revealed in all its glittering sham-glam.

And in this instance of course, spoon-bendingly daft too – but it’s a revealing look into what makes stories (myths?) so endearing to those looking for “answers”. What would those answers contain? Like the Queen was actually descended from the same familial line as Mohamed al-Fayed maybe? Actually Uri… that one’s been done already…

For everyone else I can highly recommend Inchcolm Island and the Bass rock if you’re looking for an island trip on the Forth – both islands are remarkable. For the scurvy knave though – put awa’ that bucket an’ spade, laddie, ye dinna ken the difference between allegory an’ simon schama…

my favourite writer

The enigma/bright-worded delight that is Anne Herbert –

acts, ax, backs, blacks, clacks, cracks, facts, fax, hacks, jacks, lacks, lax, max, pacts, pax, plaques, quacks, racks, sacks, sax, slacks, shacks, smacks, stacks, tax, tracts, wax

You can swap Sausalito for a wee holiday in Scotland anytime, dear – you’re invited.

his clyde less bonnie moment

Vanilla sky, Dark city, the Matrix, and now Inception all follow a simple-as-sliced-bread storyline (mixtaped from 30s city-noir) that pits individual against system. Dopplegangers and unreliable narrators make us think fantasy, think escapism, think I am not a number, invincible against the Forces of Control for many, several, seconds, in an airconditioned box.

Raoul wrote The Revolution of Everyday Life, an almost unreadable book that is nonetheless frighteningly incendiary in its own way. Individual less system = freedom (but freedom costs).

Raoul wants to kill cops. I doubt he has read the above. But he’s possibly seen the films – more like a dull rambo fantasist though.

I have a basic experience of the north tyneside area where Raoul Moat grew up. This is the Denton of A Touch of Frost. This is Chris Killip, the Battle of Orgreave, Boys from the Blackstuff (west), Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (east). It is Scando-Saxon territory : cold and rain is not a bother.

In Hollywood, it ends in some anonymous corridor in an urban glass prick. I think he’ll take the country comfort route, like Hoskins and Campbell killing the cruel farmer/adulterer-stoning-caster within themselves in Potter’s Pennies from Heaven.

gold star for mr saxe-coburg-gotha

Well not quite. But I do feel myself drawn to believe Charles’ protestations about the real reasons why he dissed chelsea barracks – “one’s subjects need to be protected from the moneygrabbing slab n’ glass merchants operating in this, um, glorious scept’red islOK enough.

Poor old George VII. Damned if you do (Poundbury) and damned if you don’t (listen to your tenants).

The fact is his protestations on behalf of Clapham omnibus person-of-no-fixed-gender-or-ethnicity-or marital-status (have you been affected by the stereotyping issues raised in this post? Like to talk to someone? Call 0300 123 1212 in confidence and ask for “Knacker”) are decades too late, and far too puny. The whole system of architects and planners and developers and public consultations is rotten to the core (but very safe, and accessible, and ISO accredited and – oh joy – GREEEEEENNNNN – our new supamegaxtra-store may look like a cardboard box with holes punched in it with a blunt stick but did you know, due to our water recycling plant, 5 ducks will not now die in the displaced brackish pond we had to dig because we built on marshy wetland? We are so committed to excellFUCK OFF!!!!).

Some people love post-war brutalist architecture. Some people love a man in a ponytail flourishing a favourite Rotring. Some people think Skodas and Hyundais are quite nice and must buy a brand new one at full cost over all other options… in this company, Vauxhalls are exotic. In this company, white socks and grey plastic shoes are really very practical – and comfy.

So there is a problem here, above and beneath. Above, the articulate Lord Foster gives it away first by his terrible taste in clothing – pink corduroy trousers and yellow shirts are not PoMo, just infantile. Cucumber Charles wears suits that make him look as if he’s about to re-enact the St Valentines day massacre. Beneath – the Primark-clad, american-imperialist-baseball-topped, sink-estate’d baldricks just look traumatised as usual, nipple-surrogate chemical-stick their only pleasure and ultimate pain. Yet they’re the only ones who really know about “modern architecture” – ironic, eh?

Along with Betjeman, one person who foresaw all this complete crap and stupidity and crass commercialism and inhumanity, top to bottom, was Ian Nairn.

a change is coming

With the imminent arrival of the PsyGeoEdinburgh guidebook (with app following shortly after), several facets of fromztoa will change to reflect the direction that’s been planned for a while.

Firstly the adoption of a magazine rather than blog format, with limited edition quarterly (or half-yearly) printed issues too.

Secondly there will be more of an emphasis on urban topography and art interventions; and much more variety in terms of location now Edinburgh’s fending for itself!

Thanks for all those who’ve looked in so far. This is just a beginning amongst the endings.